Outside the Beltway

Mondoweiss: A Profile in Courage

By James G. Abourezk

If you’re looking for evidence of a crumbling of what most believe is an unassailable, monolithic pro-Israel Lobby, you need to read the acclaimed blog Mondoweiss (<http://mondoweiss.net>).

Writing and posting on a daily basis, the blog’s author, Philip Weiss, along with his partner, Adam Horowitz, hits Israel’s illegal occupation where it hurts—in the center of the American Jewish community. Mondoweiss is evidence that more and more American Jews are thinking twice about giving Israel their wholehearted, unquestioning support for the crimes it is committing in the territories it illegally occupies.

Coming from a background as a journalist, Weiss writes with a clarity that most of us, as writers, read with jealousy. He has the writing skills to tweak the pompous Israeli leadership as hard as he jabs pro-Zionist Jews here in America.

Weiss was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1955 to an academic family—his father was a college professor who taught microbiology at Johns Hopkins and Penn Universities. His parents were more concerned with making it in America than with supporting every action that Israel took—which meant that, although Weiss was exposed to Zionist thought by relatives and family friends, he was not brainwashed.

Weiss received a Bachelor’s degree from Harvard College, then worked as a journalist for a couple of small alternative weekly newspapers in the Minneapolis, MN area. He also worked as a reporter in Philadelphia at the Daily News. For the next 25 years he was a free-lance magazine writer, writing for such magazines as the New York Times Sunday Magazine, Harpers, Esquire, Spy and others. He also has written two books: a political novel, and a true story about a murder in the Peace Corps that was covered up by the Peace Corps so as to avoid bad publicity.

When asked what brought him to an anti-Zionist state of mind, Weiss said three events came together, resulting in a shift of his thinking. The first was the 2003 death of Rachel Corrie, who was crushed to death by an Israel Defense Forces (IDF)-driven Caterpillar bulldozer as she tried to prevent the razing of a Palestinian home in Gaza. What brought home to Weiss the unfairness of the Israeli occupation was the cancellation of the play about Rachel Corrie in New York, and as well, the first article on the Israeli Lobby published by Professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt.

The third event that solidified his thinking was the beginning of the Iraq war, when he was told by his brother that a Jewish newspaper had said that the war would be good for Israel. He was so staggered by that statement that he felt compelled to begin writing about the issue of Israel and the Palestinians.

“As a progressive American, I could no longer ignore the issue,” Weiss told me. He believed that the Israel-Palestine issue was a factor in the 9/11 horror, as well as in the Iraq war. He began writing the Mondoweiss blog at the New York Observer newspaper, where he then worked, but when he began expressing his views about Israel he found he was no longer welcome at the newspaper. He then took the blog out on his own, covering developments both in Israel and here at home. (Weiss has attended and reported on AIPAC’s last two annual conferences in Washington, DC, for example.)

Because Weiss neither charges for his blog nor brings in revenue with advertising, I asked how he supports himself as he publishes his blog. He explained that his free-lance magazine articles used to bring in some income—until that source dried up as well. While he does get some contributions, they are not enough to pay for his living expenses. At one point Weiss derived some income from Google Ads, but they dropped him, giving him no reason for the termination.

Weiss believes that until the American Jewish community turns around on the issue of Israel, not much will change so far as domestic politics is concerned. He also believes that Walt and Mearsheimer’s book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (available from the AET Book Club), has made great strides in changing Jewish opinion; the book has made American Jews feel guilty about Israel’s occupation and the treatment of Palestinians. It is, in Weiss’s view, a life-changing education on the issue of the politics of the Middle East.

James G. Abourezk is a former U.S. senator (D-SD) and founder of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. He currently practices law in Sioux Falls, SD.

SIDEBAR

Visit <http://mondoweiss.net> to read daily postings, make a contribution, sign up for breaking Middle East news, or join Mondoweiss on Facebook and Twitter. Contributions may be mailed to Mondoweiss, P.O. Box 4939, Philadelphia, PA 19119.