Michael Shaik (VIC) on Jeffrey Goldberg’s “The Case for a Sunni-Jewish Alliance” AFR 3 July 2009 July 3, 2009
[As one has to be a subscriber to the Australian Financial Review (AFR), the link given is to The Atlantic - the original source.]
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200907/israel-sunni
In arguing the case for a Sunni-Jewish alliance, Jeffrey Goldberg makes number of errors in his reading of Arab opinion.
Firstly, he is wrong to describe Ramallah is “the capital of the rump state of Palestine”. No Palestinian would describe the patchwork of enclaves currently administered by the Palestinian Authority as a “rump state” and none are willing to forego their claim to a capital in Palestinian East Jerusalem.
Goldberg also overstates Sunni hostility to the Shia, while downplaying Arab sympathy for the Palestinians. Last year Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah (a Shia Muslim) was voted the most popular leader in the Arab world.
Finally, Goldberg is mistaken in arguing that “the road to peace runs not through Jerusalem but Karbala”. The ongoing dispossession of the Palestinians was at the heart of the conflict in the Middle East long before the Iranian Revolution and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future.
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