MJ Rosenberg

The Israel Firster Brouhaha & Why I Left Media Matters
A day after leaving Media Matters For America, I feel a need for an explanation beyond what I posted at the MMFA site. It was provoked by all the right-wing "pro-Israel" types who don't believe I quit and insist I was fired because I attacked the dual holy...
Freedom of Speech Except When It Comes to Israel
It would be funny if it wasn't so creepy. An author or journalist can write anything he wants about the United States -- or, in fact, about any foreign country -- without causing legions of critics to question the propriety of his doing so. That is, unless the subject of...

Why Peter Beinart's Book Is Driving the "Pro-Israel" Establishment Crazy
Almost all the criticism (and controversy surrounding) Peter Beinart's The Crisis of Zionism comes down to two major complaints. The first is that he is a "liberal Zionist" which, by some definitions, means he is just as indifferent to Palestinian rights as a rightwing Zionist. He...

 

Neocons Do Not Speak for Iranian-Americans
The schedule for the American Jewish Committee conference in Washington coming up in May highlights that Sohrab Ahmari, an Iranian-American, will be addressing the question: "Can Iran's nuclear program be stopped?" Ahmari has been popping up more and more these days, especially at neoconservative organizations like the AJC. 

 

Case For Bombing Iran Collapses
One critical element leads me to the conclusion that the United States will not go to war with Iran, nor allow Israel to do so. It is this: common sense. It is true, of course, that common sense dictated against invading Iraq. But the very fact that we did invade...

 

The Right Plays Politics With the Holocaust
A couple of years ago my wife and I made the first of three trips to Poland to visit her family's ancestral home. As far as anyone knows, the Gruenbaum/Ellenbogen family had been living in the Galicia area of Poland for centuries. That long sojourn ended with the German invasion...

 

Abandoning "Israel Firster" to Fight a Battle to Win
Writing in the Jewish Daily Forward, JJ Goldberg reminded me of words I wrote 43 years ago in the Village Voice:

I shall always choose the Jewish cause. Not blindly, not arbitrarily, but with full knowledge of who I am and where I must be.

Romney Destroys Netanyahu's Big Week
We have one person to thank for the fact that President Barack Obama successfully let Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu know 'who's the boss' both at the AIPAC conference and at a meeting between the two at the White House on Monday. Thank you, Mitt Romney. Imagine if things had worked...

 

 NY Times: Attack on Iran Could Blow Back Here at Home
The New York Times reports today that, "American officials who have assessed the likely Iranian responses to any attack by Israel on its nuclear program believe that Iran would retaliate by launching missiles on Israel and terrorist-style attacks on United States civilian and military personnel overseas."

 

Boycott the Occupation, Not Israel
The movement to boycott Israeli products seems to be growing, albeit primarily on college campuses and food co-ops -- two venues where one might expect this tactic to pick up traction. After all, it is at universities and among progressives (do non-progressives even shop at food co-ops?) that sympathy for...

 

Senators Forcing Obama to War With Iran
No one knows if President Obama intends to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities, give Israel the go-ahead to do it, continue to rely on sanctions, or turn to comprehensive negotiations to resolve the escalating conflict. The decision to go to war is the most difficult one a president can make because...

 

Don't Bomb Iran, Contain It (Like the USSR)
It's hard to imagine anyone would come up with a worse idea for dealing with the Iranian nuclear issue than this. Senators Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), Bob Casey (D-PA), and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) are pushing a Senate resolution that can be best described by words emblazoned on Lieberman's website: "All...

 

Iran War: What Is AIPAC Planning?
These are strange times for those of us who follow the debate about a possible war with Iran. It is clear that the Israeli government and its neoconservative camp followers here in the United States are increasing pressure on President Obama to either attack Iran or let Israel do it...

 

Obama Says U.S. and Israel March As One
In his pre-Super Bowl interview on Sunday night, President Obama went farther than ever before in stating his view that U.S. and Israeli interests are identical. Obama even topped Vice President Joe Biden who has repeatedly said that there must be "no daylight, no daylight" between U.S. and Israeli policies....

 

Why the Term "Israel First" Matters
I certainly set off a firestorm with my use of the term "Israel Firster." Other people use it too but I was the guy who popularized it recently and who used it hundreds of times. The others who utilize the term did so occasionally, often citing me.  So...

 

New Book: Iran Sanctions, But Only Alongside Diplomacy
News on the Iran front gets more and more complicated. I am not referring to the situation on the ground, but in Washington where Congress, deep into election year fundraising with the March AIPAC conference looming, is about to pass another sanctions bill. There is no reason to go into...

 

After Iraq Success, Neocons Push Iran War
Talk about déjà vu all over again. In September 2010 The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg wrote, in a much ballyhooed article, that "there is a better than 50 percent chance that Israel will launch a strike [against Iran] by next July," meaning the summer of 2011. This coming Sunday,...

 

Lobby Has Obama's Back to Wall on Iran
An article in Tuesday's New York Times suggests that there is a method to the madness of the Republican presidential candidates' hawkish rhetoric on Iran. I had thought that the reason all the Republican candidates (with the exception of Ron Paul) are such noisy warmongers is because that is...

 

Is Israel Suicidal?
A man wrote me the other day to complain about something I had written about my belief that Israel has every right to exist in peace and security. He responded that Israel should not exist at all. He asserted that Israel is simply a western colony implanted in the Middle...

 

Assassination in Tehran: An Act Of War?
I rarely learn anything meaningful from reading the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg. In my opinion, his tight relationship with the Israeli government and its lobby here greatly influence his take on both foreign and domestic events. Although he occasionally deviates from the Israeli line, he not only appears very uncomfortable doing...