Norah O'Donnell Questions the Israel Lobby
Norah O'Donnell on MSNBC just now did a very aggressive job of interviewing Steve Berman, one of the Jews who resigned from the Carter Center advisory board in protest of Carter's book. O'Donnell asked whether he had been "lobbied" by Jewish groups to do so. Berman said he hadn't. She didn't seem to believe him, virtually repeating the question, and then bridled at the fact that these good friends of Carter did all this without even talking to their former hero ahead of time. Didn't you owe the former President that? she asked.
O'Donnell made her own point of view clear when she showed footage of Carter, on Hardball, saying that the United States has been deprived (by the lobby) of the vigorous debate about the Occupied Territories that goes on every day in Israel itself. I applaud her for being a tough journalist who knows what a smokescreen is.
O'Donnell's stance is significant. It demonstrates that, 10 months on, and notwithstanding the cowardice of the New York Times and Washington Post, Walt & Mearsheimer have mainstreamed the "lobby" as an issue. And American attitudes on Israel are changing: more and more Americans recognize that the hateful Israeli occupation has undermined our image across the Arab world.
FILE UNDER: Journalism, U.S. Policy in the Mideast
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