Summary
The “expert on the Israel lobby in the United States” whom Barghouti quotes twice in the Introduction on the divergence of United States and Israeli interests and on the lobby’s coming difficulty defending an apartheid state (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights, PDF p.16-17, p.23).
Details
- “The combination of Israel’s strategic incompetence and its gradual transformation into an apartheid state creates significant problems for the United States.” Growing recognition in both countries that their interests are diverging is “even garnering attention inside the American Jewish community”; Vice President Biden and Gen. David Petraeus both said Israeli policy toward the Palestinians is undermining United States security, and Mossad head Meir Dagan told the Knesset “Israel is gradually turning from an asset to the United States to a burden” (PDF p.16).
- “The lobby’s unstinting commitment to defending Israel, which sometimes means shortchanging U.S. interests, is likely to become more apparent to more Americans in the future, and that could lead to a wicked backlash against Israel’s supporters as well as Israel.” (PDF p.23)
- “defending an apartheid state in the liberal West is not going to be easy. Once it is widely recognized that the two-state solution is dead and Israel has become like white-ruled South Africa—and that day is not far off—support for Israel inside the American Jewish community is likely to diminish significantly.” (PDF p.23)
Related pages
Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights, BDS movement, Apartheid