The Israeli Lobby Strikes Again, Knocking Down Charles Freeman

Israel is capable of debating sensitive national security issues dealing with a variety of Israeli-Arab issues, but this does not appear to be possible in the United States.  During the presidential campaign last fall, Barack Obama told a Jewish gathering in Cleveland that he was “struck” while visiting Israel by “how much more open the debate was around these issues in Israel than they are sometimes here in the United States.”

And now that he is president, Obama has learned that the Israeli lobby in the United States can successfully block a distinguished appointee. Retired Ambassador Charles W. Freeman Jr., who had been selected to fill an important position in the intelligence community, was forced to withdraw from consideration after a storm of criticism organized by the Israel lobby.  Freeman was a regular lecturer at the National War College between 1986 and 2004, when I served on the faculty there.