Swans

There is much in this commentary [Christisons'] that I agree with, but there is a serious failing as well.

There are really three positions among American peace folk, not two:

(a) Ignore the Israeli-Palestinian conflict when addressing the US Empire;

(b) Take a strident, sometimes pro-violence, anti-Israel view that calls for imposition of a one-state solution and refuses to criticize Palestinian suicide bombings of Israeli civilians;

(c) Integrate an Israeli-Palestinian peace position into the wider peace and anti-imperial activism.

The article acts as if only the first, or maybe the first and third, exist; it ignores the second and the effect the second has on hobbling those, like The Shalom Center, who try to advance the third view.

It is hard to organize among Jews or others who view Israel as a legitimate state with a very bad foreign policy when the anti-war movement is contaminated with assertions that Israel is illegitimate and its civilians a reasonable target -- just as it would be to organize among most Americans if the peace movement were calling the USA an illegitimate state and its civilians, let alone its soldiers, as legitimate to kill.

Almost all the peace movement has been careful to fly US flags and peace flags, not Iraqi flags (unlike the anti-Vietnam war movement), and to "Support the troops but not the war." When it comes to Israel, there is a lot less caring, and a lot less care.