We did, but confronting the horrors of Jewish helplessness also forced us to face the harrowing truth that America did nothing to save the Jews. Worse, America sent thousands back to be murdered and closed its doors to millions.

story was the vehicle for our values: family, universal morality, social justice, and loyalty to our land. Half of humanity believed in the one God we introduced to the world nearly four thousand years ago and refused to relinquish, even under unspeakable tortures. God owed us an explanation for the Holocaust, I insisted. But Zionism offered a way

As someone who had spent several years on American campuses, all of these ideas rang familiar to me. They echoed the sixties’ revulsion to military strength, the romance with developing societies, and the questioning of American primacy. Regarding the Middle East, in particular, one could discern the reverberations of Edward Said’s Orientalism, whi

Israel is the Jewish State because it, alone, is situated in our ancestral homeland, provided refuge to Jews from more than seventy countries, revived the ancient Jewish language, and observes a national Jewish calendar. It is the Jewish State because it will aid you and your family…because you are Jews. When I relinquished my U.S. citizenship, an

Said’s book became canonical in many Middle East Studies departments, pressuring students and professors to prove they were not Orientalists. Israel’s history was subjected to withering revisionism.

Under the administration’s policy, a Jew could only build his home in certain Jerusalem neighborhoods but an Arab could build anywhere—even illegally—without limit.

But the talks produced no progress. Abbas once again wanted to discuss borders first while Netanyahu responded that Israel could not discuss borders without knowing how those lines could be defended.

Rather, he held that the talks begin immediately, without preconditions. “I’m ready to meet President Abbas, today and tomorrow and the next day, in any place,” he declared. “I’m prepared to go to Ramallah.”

They also advocated a new approach to the Muslim world based on economic development and democratization, but also on “improved relations with more moderate elements of political Islam” and a “narrative of pride in the achievements of Islam.”