The significance of this piece isn't so much in what it says (an anti-imperialist analysis claiming that the U.S. Israeli lobby isn't as powerful as Israel's importance as a bastion of U.S. power in the Middle East) as the fact that it is being published by NewsTrust. For whatever reasons, in the U.S. the range of tolerated expressed positions on relationships between the U.S., Israel, Palestinians and the surrounding states, has been very narrow (much more so than in Israel, for example). The range of allowable debate is widening rapidly, thank goodness. A few years ago a story like this would not have been featured on NewsTrust because it dares to speak against the simpleminded narrative that Israel is continually fighting for ... More »

A theoretical framework of American self-interest under girds this coolly rational analysis of Middle East politics. Let's stop scapegoating the Israeli lobby for policies that ultimately protect the flow of oil to the US.