Over at the Atlantic, my colleague Daniel Levy responds to my boycott op-ed, offering both great, substantive analysis and a serious debunking of common criticisms. Here's a taste:
[A]s a recently naturalized Israeli citizen, [I attended] a Labor Party gathering at which Israel's then-health minister, Haim Ramon, compared his fellow party members to beached whales, refusing to be assisted back out to sea. He was talking about trade union reform, but I was reminded of his speech when watching how American Zionists received the idea of taking a firmer stand against settlements. Beinart tries (himself kicking and screaming: "as I write this, I cringe") to convince Israel's supporters to help drag the country to safety. "Leviathanim sh'mitabdim," suicidal whales, to use Ramon's phrase.
Go read the rest.
