Spot the oxymoron
"Every citizen must respect the Declaration of Independence and the State of Israel’s Jewish and democratic character."
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I posted this at Stephen Walt's page at FP

For the rest of the world the fact that Israel was founded on racist principles is accepted as simple truth. But American liberals have defended Jewish "National Front" politics out of the logic of exceptionalism, cold calculation and guilt.

A good part of the anger of Arabs now comes not from the fact of Israel or the fact of the expulsion but from the blithe response of westerners to their plight. The selling of Israel as the moral actor in the conflict has added endless insult to injury. Likudniks are honest with themselves if not with others, but liberals have been unwilling to admit what it is they've defended. Why should I offer support to any movement that puts race before representation? And we're supposed to see J Street as representing something like ourselves? In our multi-ethnic democracy? That's like seeing the lobby for a moderate version of Saudi bigotry as somehow a standard bearer for civil society.

Palestinians have been either reviled or pitied, but not treated with respect. This failure, of liberals more than the right -who've never cared at all- has given Israel as false sense of confidence in its own morality and modernity. The defensiveness hasn't faded over time as it should have been allowed to do, it's gotten stronger The Israeli radicals have grown stronger.
The hypocrisy of liberal Zionists is responsible for the present situation, more than the settlers and the Israeli right.

Another statement of the fucking obvious.