Statements

 Targeted Boycott: What about the Golan?

On February 2, Meretz USA President Lawrence Lerner and Chair Theodore Bikel issued the following statement to the press:

This is an ominous hour for Israeli democracy. The recent attack on the New Israel Fund and its President, Prof. Naomi Chazan, by the Im Tirtzu organization - base and reprehensible as it is - is just the most recent in a frighteningly consistent series of events in Israel that evokes the McCarthy period in America, and worse.

I arose early yesterday to watch Barack Obama's much-awaited speech in Cairo. Unsurprisingly, I was impressed by the dexterity of the writing and the superb quality of the oratory. And, by and large, I found myself in agreement with everything the President had to say.

And yet, I came away feeling a vague sense of discomfort as well, a slight queasiness that at first defied explanation. After all, wasn't Barack Obama's clear enunciation of the illegitimacy of West Bank settlements and the non-negotiability of the two-state principle the best news since penicillin?