I’m gonna base my evaluation of Israeli politics on their elections… in which the right wing solidly won.

That’s a fatal mistake. Israeli coalition politics is like making sausage: it’s ugly, messy & pretty disgusting. Determining the views of Israelis based on whose in power is totally false. BTW, Kadima won more seats than Likud & was the largest single party.

People vote in elections for parties or candidates for all sorts of reasons many of which might have little or nothing to do w. what their most heartfelt political views might be. Look at me, I voted for Barack Obama, who I genuinely did support, beginning with the primaries though other candidates might’ve reflected my views more closely.

I wasn’t just talking about a 2 state solution. I was also referring to Israeli polls showing support for negotiations with Hamas (yup, but you won’t see that reflected in any Israeli gov’t). Polls showing Israeli support for sharing Jerusalem & E. Jerusalem being ruled by Palestinians. Polls showing support for W. Bank settlement withdrawal. Polls show strong opposition to the settlement movement. I could go on.

Avigdor Lieberman supports a 2-state solution, doesn’t he?

That’s like saying the pope is Jewish because he wears a yarmulke. I don’t know how I would describe what he supports. Maybe a more subtle version of population transfer w. a dollop of Palestinian sovereignty thrown in there somewhere? I’d call it Kahane lite.

where the vast majority of Labor Zionists (or any Zionists of the non-Magnes variety, which is quite uncommon) differ from you, is that they WILL.NOT.COUNTENANCE a “one state nightmare”

ONce again (is this the 5th or 8th or 100th time?) you’ve got my views wrong. I actually support a 2 state solution. It’s written in my About page & about 500 other times throughout this blog. But you missed it. Where I differ from most Israeli liberals is that I’m in favor of full & complete equality for ethnic minorities in the current Israeli state. And for constitutional protection for their rights. Most Israeli liberals are liberal when it comes to the rights of Jewish citizens, but rightist when it comes to the rights of all others. I remain true & consistent to my convictions & they abandon theirs when it comes to their fellow citizens they’d rather forget exist.

Poll Israelis about whether they feel unfairly singled out by international bodies.

That’s not a political position. I was referring to my views on specific political issues affecting the IP conflict. You’re being sloppy once again.

The overwhelming majority of Israelis, from left to right, supported Operation Cast Lead

Once again, a war is not a political position. It doesn’t deal with how to resolve a conflict, which are the pts. with which I claim agreement w. many/most Israelis.

As for the war, yes the majority supported it. But on this particular issue it doesn’t matter to me whether that’s the case. I & millions around the world (including many Israelis & Jews) knew this war to be not just morally despicable, but pragmatically useless in terms of advancing whatever Israel’s claimed objectives were. Besides, wars are not the best way of judging whether you’re in the mainstream of a society’s views. When a war happens in Israel everyone rallies round for atavistic political & historical reasons having to do w. the Holocaust & other national identity issues. It takes a very strong Israeli soul to run against this consensus & express views that are despised by so many regardless of whether your views turn out to be correct.

Books are not any way of indicating whether my views about resolving the Israeli Palestinian conflict are supported by most Israelis. Opinion polls are the best way of doing this.

it is you who, at least in Israel, holds views that will not sustain any mass movement

Again, I’m not a mass movement & never claimed I could sustain one or wanted to. I merely claimed that many of my views on specific issues related to resolving the conflict are in agreement with Israelis as reflected in numerous polls. Don’t make a straw man. Argue fr. what I actually wrote, not what you prefer I would’ve said for yr own convenience.

you would vote along Kucinich lines

Except that I didn’t vote for Kucinich & did vote for the man who won the presidency & still support his work on the IP issue (though that support is wearing might thin I admit).

“On the major issues” sounds to me like a clever way of mainstreaming yourself. Yes, it’s true. After all, you, me, Mahmoud Abbas and Bibi Netanyahu, if polled, all would support a 2-state solution. Hell, Avigdor Lieberman supports a 2-state solution, doesn’t he? Population transfer included, sure, but at the end of it there are two states. But where the vast majority of Labor Zionists (or any Zionists of the non-Magnes variety, which is quite uncommon) differ from you, is that they WILL.NOT.COUNTENANCE a “one state nightmare”, as the saying goes. Whereas you express a “preference”, not unequivocal, for the 2-state solution.

There are other examples that clarify why I said “general attitude” rather than referring to your views on “the major issues”. Poll Israelis about whether they feel unfairly singled out by international bodies. Poll them, in fact, on all sorts of opinions that you assign to Hasbara-niks. Poll them on whether Mearshimer and Walt are nice guys, for crying out loud, or Jimmy Carter. Do you not see the divide between yourself and the bulk of Israelis, including those who identify as left-wing?

But let’s think of some major issues. The overwhelming majority of Israelis, from left to right, supported Operation Cast Lead (and no, they didn’t support it as some sort of police operation in which terrorists would be arrested one at a time, at great risk to soldiers but at minimal risk to civilians). They support targeted assassinations of leaders like Saleh Shahadeh. THEY SUPPORT THE WALL (which most will refer to as a fence, as for me, I don’t particularly care to be a pawn in a propaganda war. The parts that are wall are wall, the parts that are fence are fence, and I don’t give a rat’s ass what someone calls it). Ask what the majority of Israelis feel about Iran sanctions?

Ask what they think about the “Iranophobia” thesis? I mean, this could go on forever if I actually take a good look at your favorite books list. I see “The Truth about Camp David” is up there, there’s a nice example. Do you think anyone but an echo chamber of leftists feels that the Agha/Malley analysis of Camp David is the correct one? Do you doubt that the vast majority feel that Ehud Barak was rebuffed on a remarkably generous offer? I know my own opinion on the matter, I’m perhaps more familiar with the nuances of the negotiations than the average member of their electorate, as you surely are as well. But do you think our likely shared opinion on this matter is remotely mainstream between the Mediterranean and the Jordan? Hell no.

So I submit that, right or wrong, it is you who, at least in Israel, holds views that will not sustain any mass movement, least of all as demographics continue to shift the electorate to the right.

I apologize for aligning you with politicians you dislike. I meant to say that you would vote along Kucinich lines (your other numerous differences notwithstanding) only regarding matters concerning Israel and Palestine. For example, would you have joined Congress in nearly unanimously condemning the Goldstone Report? I know President Obama, whom we both voted for and supported, would have. I believe that motion passed by about 350 to about 30, give or take no more than five from either side. Who is in the majority, and who is “alternative”, here?

your corner of Israeli politics (Meretz, by my estimation) is rather miniscule and shrinking.

No, I’m not at all referring to party politics which I find bankrupt & no I do not support Meretz regarding issues around the IP conflict. I’ve gone over this time & again w others & it’s tiresome to tell you that polls show that approx. 80% of my views on the IP conflict find agreement among a majority of American Jews. If you do through a checklist of my views on major issues they’re largely in accord w what polls show of Amer. Jewish opinion. Likewise, with Israeli opinion (esp. when you include Palestinian Israeli citizens as well in the polling). Yes, there are some differences. But the views of someone like him are on the far extreme of opinion here & in Israel.

I supported Barack Obama, not Dennis Kucinich & I’d appreciate you not telling me who I supported when you don’t have a clue. Esp. when you attempt to associate me w. figures I despise in order to disparage me. It’s really snarky & annoying so stop doing it.

My views ARE more widely held than his & my blog is much more widely read. It’s the simple truth. Methodologies have nothing to do w. the measurement of such things.

In America, of course, it is represented by Kucinich, and I have to think hard to add to the list (Ron Paul? Not at all the same even if you’d vote along similar lines. McKinney? I suspect her of actual anti-Semitism, so that doesn’t work very well).

And do you actually claim that because your blog gets far more hits than Lozowick’s your views are more widely held? I mean, you’re likely right in your conclusion (outside Israel, that is, where I think you’ll find your way of thinking is a lot less popular off Schenkin Street and outside a few universities) but the methodology is, shall we say, flawed.

He referred to Hussein Ibish, a respectable character interested in basing a lasting peace on compromise– imperfect as compromise inevitably is, and it’s certainly understandable to disagree with his terms– and you trashed Ibish as a guy “too small to build a sustainable movement”.

Hussein Ibish is a very smart man with a very large ego who does not speak to a very large circle of supporters or have much traction for his ideas because he so easily takes offense when criticized by others even in respectful ways. Not to mention that Ibish is an intolerant 2 state supporter, rabidly pro Fatah and anti-Hamas. Anyone among Palestinians or others who sees things differently than Ibish gets trashed by him. This is NOT the way you build a movement.

I happen to support a 2 state solution as well. But I’m broad enough to realize that no one has the perfect solution & that all reasonable solutions have a place in the debate.

I found your citation of blog statistics immature

Non sequitur. He accused me of not having an audience. I referred him to the actual statistics which prove otherwise. If you had yr own blog you would realize that one’s blog stats are actually very important & have nothing to do w. teenage locker rm jocularity.

your general attitude towards Israel, regardless of whether it is or is not laudable, is not something that will “catch” in American politics, to say nothing of Israeli politics.

My “general attitude towards Israel” is actually one held by hundreds of thousands of Israelis. So it appears to have “caught” there as well as in America, where I have a sizable blog audience. My views are even more moderate in the context of Israeli politics than American Jewish politics.

I think you’re deliberately avoiding his point. He referred to Hussein Ibish, a respectable character interested in basing a lasting peace on compromise– imperfect as compromise inevitably is, and it’s certainly understandable to disagree with his terms– and you trashed Ibish as a guy “too small to build a sustainable movement”.

He questioned whether that’s a good reason to be dismissive, citing you as an example of people who know the difference between “what lots of people think” and “what I believe to be true”. Not that lots of people don’t think like you, or like him, or like Ibish, or like me– that is not the point. The point is that you can get behind someone on the basis of things other than the belief that they are at the helm of a mass movement.

I found your citation of blog statistics immature, but then, I also found it immature when guys compared anatomy in the locker room in high school and they were in the majority. So maybe I’m a bad judge of immaturity.

I submit that Lozowick was in fact correct, that your general attitude towards Israel, regardless of whether it is or is not laudable, is not something that will “catch” in American politics, to say nothing of Israeli politics.

The other thing I wanted to comment on wasn’t particularly important, but here we go.

“it’s one of the most exhilarating times to be a Jew in, oh, 2000 years”
“Wow, that rules out the Exodus, revelation of the Torah on Mt. Sinai, the medieval Spanish era. This is what I mean about you being just plain dumb to make such vacuous claims.”

By my count, and I realize I’m questioning a true master of Jewish History here, neither the revelation on Mt. Sinai (supposing it happened) nor the Exodus (supposing that happened) happened in the Common Era. Using the Jewish date, the Exodus began in the “First Month” (Nissan, if you like Babylonian months) of 2448. I’m willing to acknowledge that the dating system might be off a few hundred years, but you’re not gonna find a way for it to have happened under Roman Occupation in the Year of Our Lord 9 AD.

Unless by “Exodus” you meant the boat? Or an Otto Preminger film you no doubt dislike as an example of American Hasbara?

You’re an ideological fanatic preaching to likewise-minded people, living in a small echo chamber.

Golly, my Alexa ranking is 150,000 and I attract nearly 1,500 unique visitors each & every day. Your blog’s ranking is 1.3 million. I’d say my views & my blog are a lot more popular than you & yours. And isn’t it funny how someone whose views are opposed to yours can become an “ideological fanatic” about as fast as you can snap yr fingers??

Quite a number of people warned me, before I started posting comments on your blog, that it would be but a short time before you inevitably banned me

This may disappoint you but if you don’t violate my comment rules you don’t get banned. You haven’t done so yet. But if you would like to be banned you can review the comment rules & do something that violates them. But I won’t give you the satisfaction of banning you for no reason and certainly not because I disagree w. yr views. That’s not why I ban people.

it’s one of the most exhilarating times to be a Jew in, oh, 2000 years

Wow, that rules out the Exodus, revelation of the Torah on Mt. Sinai, the medieval Spanish era. This is what I mean about you being just plain dumb to make such vacuous claims. I’m glad you’re having such a fine old time being a Jew and enjoying the fruits of Israeli Occupation. As for me, it’s not such a fun time being a Jew and knowing there are Israelis like you oblivious to the suffering of others and violating Jewish moral precepts in doing so.

you quite miss out on the fundamentals.

Your condescension is quite evident. I’d venture to say that my Jewish upbringing, background & education is equal to anything you can muster. So don’t condescend to me.

I’ll be able to probe, of course, whether you ban my comments or not. Banning will merely underline how intolerant of ideas you really are – which is also part of the mindset Im trying to identify.

This will be the 3rd time I’ve asked you politely to stop whining about comments. It makes you look pathetic & petty. But hey, feel free. YOu’re only making yrself look like an ass.

I’m not looking to convince you of anything – that would be futile – though I do enjoy the experience of intellectually playing fox in a yard of hens. Rather, I read your blog so as to decipher your mindset -to see what makes you tick. Unlike you, I don’t need blogging to prove my worth to myself, to generate an income, or to position myself in a community. I draw all those things from more valuable sources. I do it -on my own blog, and on other peoples’ blogs – as a way of creating an index of interesting things, which I may someday incorporate into a book. (I’ve been published in five languages, three of countries where there are effectively no Jews, so it wasn’t the local Elders of Zion who foisted the decision – now that’s snark for you).

As for Israel: we’re not perfect. No one is, or ever will be. But we’re here, we’re definitely thriving, and it’s one of the most exhilarating times to be a Jew in, oh, 2000 years, I’m comfortable in saying. One of the things that interest me about you – in contrast, say, to the ignoramusi at Mondoweiss – is that you may actually have a reasonable awareness of Jewish matters. Yet you quite miss out on the fundamentals. So I’m probing a bit.

I’ll be able to probe, of course, whether you ban my comments or not. Banning will merely underline how intolerant of ideas you really are – which is also part of the mindset Im trying to identify.