Melanie Phillips is nothing if not prolific and fast. Even before Spectator readers could access my reply to her earlier criticism of me, she had written and posted her own reply, “He Still Doesn’t Get It.”
In it, she selectively quotes from my article. The quotes do not do justice to the thrust of my argument. Accordingly, my article is being published in full here.
American Support For Israel Must Remain Bipartisan: A Reply to Melanie Phillips
Melanie Phillips has written a critique of me because I remain a Democrat and continue to support President Barack Obama, despite his recent statements regarding expansion of Israeli settlements and other matters relating to the Middle East conflict. See here. Other conservative supporters of Israel have joined her in attacking me as well. See e.g., Jonathan Tobin. This is how she put it:
“But just like the majority of American Jews, getting on for 80 per cent of whom voted for Obama, he is a Democrat supporter who is incapable of acknowledging the truth about this President. For most American Jews, the horror of even entertaining the hypothetical possibility that they might ever in a million years have to vote for a Republican is so great they simply cannot see what is staring them in the face — that this Democratic President is lethal for both Israel and the free world.”
She accuses me of being “blind” and says “he doesn’t get it.”
Oh I get it alright. I just fundamentally disagree with her approach, especially when it comes to the United States.
Phillips, for all her good work in Great Britain on behalf of Israel, has absolutely no understanding of American politics. She would turn Israel into a wedge issue, in which Republicans were seen as the supporters of Israel and Democrats as its enemy.
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