Soros Speaks

The New York Review of Books has posted an article by George Soros entitled “On Israel, America and AIPAC.”  He has identified the organization that has “endangered” Israel’s existence:  AIPAC. 

He blames AIPAC for Israel’s “insistence on treating Hamas only as a terrorist organization.”  He thinks accepting Hamas’s election victory might have strengthened “the more moderate political wing” [sic] of Hamas.  He blames the last six-years of violence not on Arafat’s rejection of a state, but on Ariel Sharon’s walk on the Temple Mount.  He criticizes Alvin Rosenfeld’s argument that to call Israel “a Nazi state” goes well beyond legitimate criticism.  He blames AIPAC for “Israel’s heavy-handed response to Hezbollah last summer.” He goes on.

The New York Sun editorializes in part as follows:

Given Mr. Soros’ significance as the moneybags of the activist core of the Democratic Party, it is going to be illuminating to see how the party reacts to the billionaire’s call for the party to "liberate itself from AIPAC’s influence."  In his New York Review of Books piece Mr. Soros comes awfully close to buying into the whole paranoia of Professors Mearsheimer and Walt.

There is a long string of comments on Soros’s piece at Marty Peretz’s blog.

UPDATE (3/21):  The New York Sun reports that Barak Obama, Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla), and Eliot Engel (D-NY), among others, have announced their disagreement with Soros’s position. Susan Turnbull, vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said “I don’t necessarily agree with [Soros]” about AIPAC.  (H/T Ed Lasky).