Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Paul Krugman explains his political coward

"Something I’ve been meaning to do — and still don’t have the time to do properly — is say something about Peter Beinart’s brave book The Crisis of Zionism.  The truth is that like many liberal American Jews — and most American Jews are still liberal — I basically avoid thinking about where Israel is going. It seems obvious from here that the narrow-minded policies of the current government are basically a gradual, long-run form of national suicide — and that’s bad for Jews everywhere, not to mention the world. But I have other battles to fight, and to say anything to that effect is to bring yourself under intense attack from organized groups that try to make any criticism of Israeli policies tantamount to anti-Semitism.  But it’s only right to say something on behalf of Beinart, who has predictably run into that buzzsaw. As I said, a brave man, and he deserves better." (thanks Toby)


PS I remember that the late Edward Said in the 1990s told me the same thing about Ralph Nader: that Nader used to refuse to sign his name to any statement or petition on Palestine giving a similar answer that Krugman gave above.