Tough love! Talking tough?

Obama has left Israel for his beachead into Europe in Berlin! Needless to say what Obama has told the Israelis has been deemed critically important to the Jewish folks home and the rest of world Jewry. Never mind that whatever Jews consider good for Israel might not be so for the rest of the world.

Nicholas Kristof in his column in the NY Times returns to a theme he took up some weeks back:

"On his visit to the Middle East, Barack Obama gave ritual affirmations of his support for Israeli policy, but what Israel needs from America isn’t more love, but tougher love.

Particularly at a time when Israel seems to be contemplating military strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, the United States would be a better friend if it said: “That’s crazy” — while also insisting on a 100 percent freeze on settlements in the West Bank and greater Jerusalem.

Granted, not everybody sees things this way, and discussions of the Middle East usually involve each side offering up its strongest arguments to wrestle with the straw men of the other side. So let me try something different."

Read on, here, for a most interesting column a la "attack and response" following on from Kristof's previous columns.

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Mahler's Prodigal Son

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