Jeffrey Goldberg: Juan Cole's Anti-Israel Propaganda Campaign
[Jeffrey Goldberg is a national correspondent for The Atlantic. Author of the book Prisoners: A Story of Friendship and Terror, he has reported from the Middle East and Africa.]
Juan Cole writes of me:
People like Goldberg never tell us what they expect to happen to the Palestinians in the near and medium future. They don't seem to understand that the status quo is untenable. They are like militant ostriches, hiding their heads in the sand while lashing out with their hind talons at anyone who stares clear-eyed at the problem, characterizing us as bigots.
I can't speak for people like Goldberg, but Goldberg himself has stated publicly for years what he expects to happen to the Palestinians in the near and medium future. If Juan Cole has ever read anything I've written, in The Atlantic and elsewhere, he would know that:
I'm for the creation of a Palestinian state on one hundred percent of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (or a Palestinian state that equals one hundred percent of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, through land swaps); a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem that mirrors the Israeli capital in West Jerusalem; an immediate end to all settlements; Israeli negotiations with Syria that would bring about peace and an end to Israel's occupation of the Golan Heights....
And yes, I've stared clear-eyed the problem, and the problem is people like Juan Cole, who want to deny to the Jewish people a state in their ancestral homeland.