Professor Cole Pretty Much Sums up My Feelings on Likud

From Informed Consent:

Note that over 80% of American Jews vote Democrat, that the majority of American Jews opposed the Iraq war (more were against it than in the general population), and that American Jews have been enormously important in securing civil liberties for all Americans. Moreover, Israel has been a faithful ally of the US and deserves our support in ensuring its security. The Likudniks like to pretend that they represent American Jewry, but they do not. And they like to suggest that objecting to their policies is tantamount to anti-Semitism, which is sort of like suggesting that if you don't like Chile's former dictator Pinochet, you are bigotted against Latinos.

As can be seen by Lobe's list, WINEP supplies rightwing intellectuals to Republican administrations, who employ their positions to support Likud policies from within the US government. They have the advantage over long-time civil servants in units like the State Department's Intelligence and Research division, insofar as they are politically connected and so have the ear of the top officials.

...

AIPAC currently has a project to shut up academics such as myself, the same way it has shut up Congress, through congressional legislation mandating "balance" (i.e. pro-Likud stances) in Middle East programs at American Universities. How long the US public will allow itself to be spied on and pushed around like this is a big question. And, with the rise of international terrorism targeting the US in part over these issues, the fate of the country hangs in the balance.

If al-Qaeda succeeds in another big attack, it could well tip the country over into military rule, as Gen. Tommy Franks has suggested. That is, the fate of the Republic is in danger. And the danger comes from two directions, not just one. It comes from radical extremists in the Muslim world, who must be fought. But it also comes from radical extremists in Israel, who have key allies in the US and whom the US government actively supports and against whom influential Americans are afraid to speak out.

If I had been in power on September 11, I'd have called up Sharon and told him he was just going to have to withdraw to 1967 borders, ore face the full fury of the United States. Israel would be much better off inside those borders, anyway. It can't absorb 3 million Palestinians and retain its character, and it can't continue to hold 3 million Palestinians as stateless hostages without making itself inhumane and therefore un-Jewish. And then I'd have thrown everything the US had at al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, and frog-marched Bin Laden off to justice, and rebuilt Afghanistan to ensure that al-Qaeda was permanently denied a base there. Iraq, well, Iraq was contained.

Even on discussion boards the latter is true. I am a strong supporter of Israel, but make no mistake, I am a stronger supporter of Labour over Likud, the latter is controlled by a wing that makes Neo-Cons seem like moderates. Supporting Israel is, decidedly not a blank check, but too often the discourse in our country at present makes it so. To criticize Israel in America is too often portrayed as Anti-Semitism, it is a poisonous as any topic in American politics, and inappropriately so.