america the blindfolded

It has always amazed me that in Israel it is possible to criticize Israeli policy in the occupied territories, but in America you are considered an anti-semite or terrorist if you do. This column

by Gideon Levy in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz is further proof of this strange phnomenon.  It is worth quoting at length.

This was a routine year, another year of the occupation of which no end is in sight. From Rosh Hashana 5768 to Rosh Hashana 5769 our forces killed 584 Palestinians, 95 of them minors. Many fewer than in 2002, when 989 were killed; many more than in 2005, with 190 killed. Eighteen Israelis were also killed in the past year, many more than in the previous year, when just five were killed, and much less than in 2002, when 184 Israelis were killed. All in all, an average year for bloodshed. 

All of this was observed by Israeli society with eyes covered. Even the nearly 60 Palestinians who were killed on one black summer day in Gaza barely earned a mention in the newspapers. With eyes covered, Israeli society continued to look at the routine of the occupation, the mothers in labor who lost their babies at checkpoints, the farmers victimized by lawless settlers, the night raids, the unemployment, the poverty and the hope that died long ago. 

This could never be published in America outside the most lefty publication.  The suggestion that the United States and Israel have different interests is met with approbation and accusations of Jew hating.