Quotes of the Day

Two quotes from Freddie deBoer's must-read post  "Because Policing The Discourse is Punk Rock"  and  Mairav Zonszein's refreshing article "The Downside of Unbridled Support for Israel" respectively.    The quotes are in relation to the heated discussion regarding the use of the controversial term "Israel-Firster" (someone who puts Israeli right-wing agenda above America's interests) by some liberals in the American media. 

• "Note to some of my fellow progressives: If we can’t argue about Israel without using anti-Semitic tropes, then the debate is lost before it even begins." 

• "Despite this being U.S. foreign policy for quite a while, GOP candidates and mainstream American Jewish groups - bolstered by what is arguably the most rigid right-wing government Israel has ever had - have attacked Obama regularly for what they deem to be his deficient "pro-Israel" record, simply because he has condemned settlement construction. Obama has capitulated under the pressure and reasserted his strong "pro-Israel" (read: Israel right or wrong ) stance, for fear of losing the political and economic support he needs to win another term. Indeed, it is no secret that "pro-Israel" money (albeit, not all of it from Jews) comprises a substantial percentage of all donations to political parties in the United States. Talking about "Jewish" - or more accurately, "pro-Israel" - money in American politics is therefore not inherently anti-Semitic: It is a given, and the effort to silence such debate is the problem."