Not Just to Hide Concern about Israel

Some good information with a lot of excuse making in this article about the "Jewish" push for war with Iran.

First some plain talk about the pending war with Iran:

Jess Hordes, Washington director of the Anti-Defamation League, said that the strategy of broadening the case against Iran was not an attempt to divert attention from the threats to Israel. “It is a fact that Iran is a danger to the whole world,” Hordes said. “We are not just saying it to hide our concerns about
Israel.”

Yet many advocacy efforts, even when not linked to Israel, carry indelibly Jewish fingerprints.

Well, I am glad they are not exaggerating concerns about US security "just" to hide concerns about Israel. I can rest well knowing there are other reasons for saying it as well.

Now, however, Jewish groups are indeed playing a lead role in pressing for a hard line on Iran. The campaign comes at a time when President Bush’s popularity has reached record lows and members of both parties are cautioning against a rush toward war.

[...]

Hoenlein dated the trend to the 2005 arrest of two former employees of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, on charges of passing classified national security information. Hoenlein argued that the Jewish community made a major mistake by not forcefully criticizing the arrests. Speaking via video, Hoenlein listed several events that had occurred since then: the release of the essay criticizing the “Israel Lobby” by two distinguished professors, Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer; the publication of former president Jimmy Carter’s best-selling book, “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid”; the suggestion by former NATO supreme commander and Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark that “New York money people” were pushing America into war, and claims by former U.S. weapons inspector Scott Ritter that Israel is pushing the United States to attack Iran.

Also, Colin Powell was known to talk of the JINSA folks.

Another instance of casting blame, less widely reported, was attributed to former secretary of state Colin Powell. In a new biography, by Washington Post writer Karen De Young, Powell is said to have put at least some of the blame for the Iraq war on Jewish groups. The book, “Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell,” claims that Powell used to refer to the pro-war advisers surrounding former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld as the “Jinsa crowd.” Jinsa is the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, a hawkish think tank that supported the Iraq war.

I would not say "Jewish" people are doing x, y or z, but apparently The Forward is fine with it.

The Forward

Edwards Joins the Club

No matter how hard you try, the truth is sometimes hard to suppress.

There are other emerging fissures, as well. The aggressively photogenic John Edwards was cruising along, detailing his litany of liberal causes last week until, during question time, he invoked the "I" word -- Israel. Perhaps the greatest short-term threat to world peace, Edwards remarked, was the possibility that Israel would bomb Iran's nuclear facilities. As a chill descended on the gathering, the Edwards event was brought to a polite close.

This is essentially a factual statement. Notice the term "short-term."

The only other country that is a greater threat to "short-term" world peace is the United States. That is just the way it is. Deal with it.

Variety

Senate-Knesset Committee

This article is self-explanatory.

A delegation of American senators is scheduled to arrive in Israel on Sunday. The senators are members of a joint Senate-Knesset committee headed by Senator Jon Kyl, who is close to President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

Member of Knesset Yuval Steinitz (Likud) is hosting the delegation. Together with Senator Kyl, he established the committee four years ago to strengthen defense cooperation between the two countries. Steinitz reported that it is the only joint committee between Congress and another country.

"We think that it is important that the members of the delegation feel the connection and understand Israel better. They are mostly non-Jewish and we want them to feel some obligation to the country," Steinitz said.

II

How about visiting more of America?

The Reality of Munich

We all know that Neocons use middle school historical analysis with extremely misplaced analogies and comparisons to come to conclusions that are often not in the interests of the United States or its citizens. One historical event used particularly often in this manner is the negotiation with Hitler at "Munich".

Leaving aside the huge and obvious differences between WWII Germany and the countries we now try to compare it with, there are other problems with the Munich analogy.

Munich is valuable as a meme [for the Neocons] because it crunches down historical complexity into the preferred binary narrative of forward or back, victory or defeat. In this simplification, Neville Chamberlain naively caved into to the evil dictator in September 1938 and let loose WW II.

[...]

Neocons trotted out the Munich thing in 2002 to accuse Hans Blix and the UN of appeasement. Since then, Bibi, Frum and others accuse the U.S. and particularly Bush regime skeptics of 'another Munich' for their refusal to embrace strikes on Iran. It seems that someone at NRO drops the M-bomb at least once every two weeks.

[...]

The problem, of course, is that [Neocon] May has no idea what he is talking about. The truth, long obscured by Neocon and wingnut AgitProp, of course is that Hitler saw Munich as a defeat. The historical German record is clear about Hitler's outrage and anger that Chamberlain saddled him with diplomacy.

Hitler wanted and needed war in 1938. He knew that his military modernization program gave him a significant but diminishing advantage. By 1940 he knew the gap would for all intents and purposes close. ... A war beginning in 1938 would have favored the Germans even more than that in September 1939. Had the Mays of the world had their say in 1938, the Western democracies would have been even more unprepared (if one can imagine such a thing).

So even the comparison of current events with “Munich” is faulty. The delay created by Munich helped the allies. The allies could not have acted in 1938 even if they wanted to.

Now, what that has to say about the present situation is probably not a lot. But that is the point. The situations are so completely different that looking to WWII for insight on the Middle East or a variety of other matters is bound to lead you into situations ... like Iraq.

StiftungLeoStraus

New of the Week.

If Brandies can't host Jimmy carter with fear of doner defunding, who can, asks Juan Cole.

Steve Clemons is forced to move a photo in a discussino of Hillary's problem with the Foriegn Policy Establishment.

Mark Elf is on fire with posts about the worlds 58 Holocaust Museums, the effort to change war crimes to no crimes if those crimes are committed by Israelis and Israel does do petty apartheid. Also, Israel razes Bedouin huts close to Jewish settlements here.


An Jewish expert on Islam tells other countries to limit Muslim immigration, becuase Muslims don't get along with other people. I wonder what a Muslim expert on Judiasm would tell us?

And the US is not going to recognize the unity government of Palestine becuase that might improve their situtation.

The Don't Like Matt

Matt continues to get heavy heat from The Lobby crowd. He must be doing something right.

matthewyglesias

matthewyglesias

Dual Loyalty Redux

Matthew Yglasias has more discussion on Dual Loyalty.

Oh, man. As part of The New Republic continuing campaign to demonstrate that there's no Israel Lobby and if there is it would never try to silence anyone, today's website features a second rebuttal to John Judis's article defending Israel critics against charges of anti-semitism:

MY

Agreed with less that 50%

I love it when you here people say that "everybody" thought Iraq had WMD, the French, the British, etc. I love it because our own CIA did not think Iraq had WMD, or at least there was not enough evidence to come to that conclusion.

WASHINGTON — As the Bush administration began assembling its case for war, analysts across the U.S. intelligence community were disturbed by the report of a secretive Pentagon team that concluded Iraq had significant ties to Al Qaeda.

Analysts from the CIA and other agencies "disagreed with more than 50%" of 26 findings the Pentagon team laid out in a controversial paper, according to testimony Friday from Thomas F. Gimble, acting inspector general of the Pentagon.

The dueling groups sat down at CIA headquarters in late August 2002 to try to work out their differences. But while the CIA agreed to minor modifications in some of its own reports, Gimble said, the Pentagon unit was utterly unbowed.

"They didn't make the changes that were talked about in that August 20th meeting," Gimble said, and instead went on to present their deeply flawed findings to senior officials at the White House.

The work of that special Pentagon unit — which was run by former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith — is one of the lingering symbols of the intelligence failures leading up to the war in Iraq.

There is little evidence that the office of special plans used information from foreign sources. Even assuming that these other countries had such an opinion, why would we trust that more than our own CIA.

And finally, why did CIA Director George J. Tenet have to apologize for anything? His office was in the right.

LAT

Office of Special Plans Investigation

Raw Story has some early insight into the Inspector General's report on the Office of Special Plans.

Not in my wildest dreams do I think the investigation will properly expose the harm done by Feith et al., including their dual loyalty. However, it is looking like it may not be quite the whitewash I expected.

According to a statement released by Armed Services Committee chairman Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) Thursday night to RAW STORY, the IG's report is a "devastating condemnation of the activities of the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy." In a separate statement, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, states that whether the intelligence activities "were authorized or not, it appears that they were not in compliance with the law."

I like the way that sounds, but I am still skeptical that anyone will pay a real price for what they have done.

RawStory

UPDATE:

Alternatively, the Washington Post takes a very light tone on the report here.

The NYT notes that the reports says nothing illegal was done, but repeats the statements that a technicality may have been violated.

According to Congressional officials, Mr. Feith’s statement and the policy office’s rebuttal, the report concluded that none of the Pentagon’s activities were illegal and that they did not violate Defense Department directives.

But the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, said in a statement that because the inspector general considered the work of Mr. Feith’s group to be “intelligence activities,” the committee would investigate whether the Pentagon violated the National Security Act of 1947 by failing to notify Congress about the group’s work.

NYT (login may be required)

Consternation Over Consensual Democracy

If the Palestinians want to prevent Israel from taking more of their land and to eventually live prosperously in peace in the middle east, they would do well to make arguments like those below, rather than try to kill Israelis.

Obviously, Israelis would be a lot better off if Palestinians stopped tring to kill them, so it is a win-win.

A group of prominent Israeli Arabs has called on Israel to stop defining itself as a Jewish state and become a “consensual democracy for both Arabs and Jews,” prompting consternation and debate across the country. [Consensual democracy causing consternation?!!]

[...]

They call on the state to recognize Israeli Arab citizens as an indigenous group with collective rights, saying Israel inherently discriminates against non-Jewish citizens in its symbols of state, some core laws, and budget and land allocations.

Actions like this are far more scary to the hard core Zionist than any suicide bomb or home made missile. It goes to the core of the moral conflict that is the religious state of Israel. They also are less scary to the Israeli on the street, as they won't fear death.

Palestinians would obtain far better results for themselves, while also making true peace more likely for everyone, if they use Gandhi like techniques for their protests. They could ever pursue the one state solution, which sends shivers down the spine of the Foxman-Dershowitz types.

It might also take the pressure off US foreign policy in the Middle East, leaving us time to take care of our own internal problems, of which we have many.

Global Paradigms

IHT

The New Not Anti-Semitism

Matthew Yglesias sums it up well.

But, according to the essay [on Progressive Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism], the distinguishing characteristic of the "new anti-semitism" seems to be that, unlike the old anti-semitism, it doesn't necessarily involve a bigoted view of Jewish religion, Jewish people, Jewish culture, or Jewish anything else. [...] It's not, in short, anti-semitism.

Sounds like what I have been saying on this blog for a long time.

Comment is Free

TNR on the New Anti-Semites

In an article that looks somewhat reasonable in the New Republic they discuss the new [non] anti-semtitism.

Is there a growing trend among American intellectuals (and former presidents) toward anti-Semitism? That is what a number of recent articles, essays, and speeches--the latest on "The Poisoning of America" from Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive director of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations at the Herzilya conference--would suggest. Some of these statements stop short of saying that Tony Judt, Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, Tony Kushner, and Jimmy Carter (to name some of the best know targets) are anti-Semites. Instead, they say that what they have written is anti-Semitic or encourages anti-Semitism.

Mathew Yglesias highlights this part of the piece:

There is a paradox that haunts these charges of anti-Semitism. On the one hand, Rosenfeld, Harris, and others want to deny that American Jews and American Jewish organizations like AIPAC suffer from dual loyalty in trying to influence U.S. foreign policy. It's anti-Semitic or contributes to anti-Semitism, they say, to make that charge. On the other hand, they want to demand of American Jewish intellectuals a certain loyalty to Israel, Israeli policies, and to Zionism as part of their being Jewish. They make dual loyalty an inescapable part of being Jewish in a world in which a Jewish state exists. And that's probably the case. Many Jews now suffer from dual loyalty--the same way that Cuban-Americans or Mexican-Americans do. By ignoring this dilemma--and, worse still, by charging those who acknowledge its existence with anti-Semitism--the critics of the new anti-Semitism are engaged in a flight from their own political selves. They are guilty of a certain kind of bad faith.

MY

TNR

Power under Pressure

This article is another discussion of the Israel Lobby and the conflict it creates with the Jewish community. One statement of note is the clear conflict between the position of leading Jewish Organizations on citizenship in the US (and much of the rest of the world) and Israel.

I remember way back when asked a question along these lines Abe Foxman basically said "but the Jews have suffered throughout history so they deserve their own country." Which is to imply that others don't deserve their own country.

A problem here is that American Jewry has allowed itself to be represented by persons who in manner and personality resemble not the Nobel prizewinners, writers and thinkers of whom it has every reason to be proud, but an earlier generation's formidable gangsters, who are not above descending to vulgar ethnocentrism for the sake of defending Israel.

This can be manifest in the tension between the claim of full rights in the (majority-Christian) United States by virtue of the universal principles of citizenship, and the insistence that nothing be done to alter the Jewish character of Israel. It is also apparent in the acceptance of an alliance with fundamentalist Protestants, whose Biblical literalism translates into uncritical support for Israel. Such contradictions can only be explained by a visceral identification with Israel.

opendemocracy

Global Paradigms

Frenzy in France

Profound article in Counterpunch by Diana Jonstone about the political realignment of the Jewish community.

[T]here is another factor, less material and more psychological, that increasingly invades political life in Europe and the United States: a certain spreading pathology of persecution in what is called "the Jewish community", meaning a part of the Jewish population, and in particular the organizations that claim to represent it. The Jewish population of France, which has played an important role in the country's intellectual, economic and political life for centuries, has been shifting politically from the left to the right, mainly because of its attachment to Israel. [...]

The hysteria over Iran, which may lead to a disastrous war that will be lost by everyone, reminiscent of the First World War of 1914-1918, is visibly fed by the dominance within the Jewish community, and indeed beyond it in the West as a whole, of the "duty of memory", meaning, to be precise, a constant, repetitive recollection of the holocaust as the defining moment of the twentieth century, and perhaps even of human history.

Conservative is not even the right term, but she has the right idea. Israel is distorting all debate about the Middle East. And the politicalization of the Holocaust makes debate about Israel difficult, which is probably what some want.

She closes with these powerful words:

For a long time, there has been an unwritten law that only Jews (at risk of being called "self-hating") may criticize Zionism. But things have gone too far. This aggressive paranoia of Israel is not just a "Jewish question", it is dragging the whole world into disaster. Those of us who are not Jewish also have to speak up and say to our Jewish friends:

"We don't want to kill you, but we don't want to die for your Jewish State either. We are all human beings, and we refuse to plunge the world into war to preserve distinctions of identity that may mean a lot to you, but don't mean much of anything to us."

counterpunch

Hysteria at Herzliya

Posted in full as nothing should be removed from this:

When Congress finally decides on just the right language for its "non-binding resolution" deploring Bush's leadership in this war, it might consider a resolution to keep us out of the next one.

For America is on a collision course with an Iran of 70 million, and the folks who stampeded us into Iraq are firing pistols in the air again.

At the annual Herzliya Conference, U.S. presidential aspirants, neoconservatives and Israeli hawks were all invoking the Holocaust and warning of the annihilation of the Jews.

Israel's "Bibi" Netanyahu, who compares Iran's Ahmadinejad to Hitler, said: "The world that didn't stop the Holocaust last time can stop it this time. ... Who will lead the effort against genocide if not us? The world will not stand up on behalf of the Jews if the Jews do not stand up on behalf of the world."

Said former Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz: "Iran is the heart of the problem in the Middle East. It is the most urgent threat facing the world, and needs to be dealt with before it's too late." After meeting with the Department of State's Nicholas Burns, Mofaz called 2007 "a year of decision."

Richard Perle assured the conference that Bush will attack Iran rather than see it acquire nuclear weapons capabilities. Newt Gingrich also brought his soothing touch to the proceedings: "(C)itizens who do not wake up every morning and think about possible catastrophic civilian casualties are deluding themselves.

"Three nuclear weapons are a second holocaust. ... I'll repeat it. Three nuclear weapons are a second holocaust. ... Our enemies are fully as determined as Nazi Germany and more determined than the Soviets. Our enemies will kill us the first chance they get.

"If we knew that tomorrow morning we would lose Haifa, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, what would we do to stop it? If we knew that we would tomorrow lose Boston, San Francisco or Atlanta, what would we do?"

Mitt Romney agreed. Ahmadinejad's Iran is more dangerous than Khrushchev's Soviet Union, which put missiles in Cuba. For the Soviets "were never suicidal. Soviet commitment to national survival was never in question. That assumption cannot be made to an irrational regime (Iran) that celebrates martyrdom."

Ehud Olmert, mired in scandal, his popularity in the tank after the Lebanon fiasco, was as hawkish as Bibi: "The Jewish people, with the scars of the Holocaust fresh on its body, cannot afford to let itself face the threat of annihilation once again. ... We will stand up against nuclear threats and even prevent them."

Came then U.S. peace candidate John Edwards. Keeping Iran from nuclear weapons "is the greatest challenge of our generation. ... To ensure that Iran never gets nuclear weapons, we need to keep all options on the table. ... Let me reiterate – all options."

Wrote the Financial Times' Philip Stephens of Herzliya, "I gave up counting the times I heard the words 'existential threat' to describe Iran's nuclear program capability."

A few weeks back, according to UPI's Arnaud De Borchgrave, Netanyahu declared that Israel "must immediately launch an intense, international public relations front first and foremost on the United States – the goal being to encourage President Bush to live up to specific pledges he would not allow Iran to arm itself with nuclear weapons. We must make clear to the (U.S.) government, the Congress and the American public that a nuclear Iran is a threat to the U.S. and the entire world, not only Israel."

Israel's war is to be sold as America's war.

The project is under way. According to Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editor of the Guardian, Israeli media are reporting that the assignment to convince the world of the need for tough action on Iran has been given to Meir Dagan, head of Mossad.

Listening to the war talk, Gen. Wesley Clark exploded to Arianna Huffington: "You just have to read what's in the Israeli press. The Jewish community is divided, but there is so much pressure being channeled from the New York money people to the office-seekers."

The former supreme allied commander in Europe was ordered out of ranks and dressed down by Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League. But Matt Yglesias of American Prospect, himself Jewish, says Clark spoke truth: "(I)t's true that major Jewish organizations are pushing this country into war with Iran."

Yet is the hysteria at Herzliya justified? Consider:

Not once since its 1979 revolution has Iran started a war. In any war with America, or Israel with its hundreds of nuclear weapons, Iran would not be annihilating anyone. Iran would be risking annihilation.

Not only has Iran no nukes, the Guardian reported yesterday, "Iran's efforts to produce highly enriched uranium ... are in chaos." That centrifuge facility at Natanz is "archaic, prone to breakdown and lacks the materials for industrial-scale production."

There is no need for war. Yet, Israelis, neocons and their agents of influence are trying to whip us into one. Senators who are seeking absolution for having voted to take us into Iraq ought to be confronted and asked just what they are doing to keep us out of a war in Iran.

WND

Not Falling in Line

More signs of hope:

A group of prominent British Jews will today declare independence from the country's Jewish establishment, arguing that it puts support for Israel above the human rights of Palestinians.

Independent Jewish Voices will publish an open letter on the Guardian's Comment is Free website calling for a freer debate about the Middle East within the Jewish community. Among the more than 130 signatories are Stephen Fry, Harold Pinter, Mike Leigh, Jenny Diski and Nicole Farhi, as well as leading academics such as Eric Hobsbawm and Susie Orbach.

"We come together in the belief that the broad spectrum of opinion among the Jewish population of this country is not reflected by those institutions which claim authority to represent the Jewish community as a whole," the letter says. Jewish leaders in Britain, it argues "put support for the policies of an occupying power above the human rights of an occupied people" in conflict with Jewish principles of justice and compassion.

The statement does not name the institutions it is criticising. But one signatory, Brian Klug, an Oxford philosopher, writing an accompanying article on Comment is Free, singles out the Board of Deputies of British Jews for calling itself "the voice of British Jewry" while devoting "much of the time and resources of its international division to the defence of Israel".

Mr Klug also criticises Britain's chief rabbi, Sir Jonathan Sacks, for telling a pro-Israeli rally in London last year: "Israel, you make us proud."

"Others felt roughly the opposite emotion," Mr Klug writes.

Guardian

Liberal Jews and Anti-Semitism

With the number of liberal Jews showing concern about The Lobby's influence over US policy in the mid-east, and the Iraq/Iran war in particular, the gun has been moved, ever so slowly, towards them. That is, the gun of anti-Semitism:

In an introduction to the essay, David A. Harris, the executive director of the committee, writes, “Perhaps the most surprising — and distressing — feature of this new trend is the very public participation of some Jews in the verbal onslaught against Zionism and the Jewish State.” Those who oppose Israel’s basic right to exist, he continues, “whether Jew or gentile, must be confronted.”

This really is an interesting position. I don't oppose Israel's right to exist - I oppose the use of the US as the insurance policy for that right. I frankly didn't care about Israel very much until I saw its supporters drag the US into an ill considered war.

But, even those who do think Israel should not exist cannot be labeled as anti-semitic. The idea of of "religious state" or an "ethnic state" is no longer a mainstream western idea. Sure there are vestiges of state religions in various western states, but policies like those pursued by Israel would be considered out of bounds by today’s western standards. These policies including immigration based on religion, or demands that countries take steps to preserve their "religious" identity. (Interestingly, such resolutions are often opposed by Jewish groups).

Such hostility to a truly sectarian state may not always be mainstream, but for now it is. Thus, someone could easily be oppossed to Israel's existence as a Jewish state without being anti-Semitic. In fact many Jews hold such an opinion.

The anti-Semitic slur is, again, just to short-cut debate.

From Tony Judt:

A historian at New York University, Mr. Judt said in a telephone interview that he believed the real purpose of outspoken denunciations of him and others was to stifle harsh criticism of Israel. “The link between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism is newly created,” he said, adding that he fears “the two will have become so conflated in the minds of the world” that references to anti-Semitism and the Holocaust will come to be seen as “just a political defense of Israeli policy.”

And here is the money shot from the other side:

Others have praised Mr. Rosenfeld’s indictment and joined the fray. Shulamit Reinharz, a sociologist who is also the wife of Jehuda Reinharz, the president of Brandeis University, wrote in a column for The Jewish Advocate in Boston: “Most would say that they are simply anti-Zionists, not anti-Semites. But I disagree, because in a world where there is only one Jewish state, to oppose it vehemently is to endanger Jews.”

You can say it is anti-Semitism, but that does not make it so. You are trying to redefine the term, and in particular broaden it to something that fundamentally changes its meaning. Using it in this way is misleading, which is exactly what the accusers want.

NYT

Not the Way to Peace

It does seem like more and more Jews are speaking out against "The Lobby," but maybe it is my imagination. Joel Beinin is the latest to speak out.

Last Sunday in San Francisco, the Anti-Defamation League sponsored "Finding Our Voice," a conference designed to help Jews recognize and confront the "new anti-Semitism." For me, it was ironic. Ten days before, my own voice was silenced by fellow Jews.

[...]

Why discredit, defame and silence those with opposing viewpoints? I believe it is because the Zionist lobby knows it cannot win based on facts. An honest discussion can only lead to one conclusion: The status quo in which Israel declares it alone has rights and intends to impose its will on the weaker Palestinians, stripping them permanently of their land, resources and rights, cannot lead to a lasting peace. We need an open debate and the freedom to discuss uncomfortable facts and explore the full range of policy options. Only then can we adopt a foreign policy that serves American interests and one that could actually bring a just peace to Palestinians and Israelis.

SFGate

What are They Up To?

The Bush crazies are invoking policies that border on coup. Read about them here and why they may be implementing them. More in the American Prospect.

Failure to Learn

Ex-Neocon Francis Fukuyama (who was hit with the anti-semite slur at one point) talks about the failure of Neocon's to learn.

What I find remarkable about the neoconservative line of argument on Iran, however, is how little changed it is in its basic assumptions and tonalities from that taken on Iraq in 2002, despite the momentous events of the past five years and the manifest failure of policies that neoconservatives themselves advocated. What may change is the American public's willingness to listen to them.

If we assume the Neocons are smart people, the failure to learn needs to be explained some other way. Perhaps emotional bias is a factor? Emotional bias arising from an attachment to Israel and its well being combined with a romantic view of the danger Israel faces. A view that is often more paranoid than that held by the Israelis' themselves.

Guardian