ISRAEL WAS OPPOSED TO IRAQ WAR

The “Israel Lobby” Strikes Again by Emanuele Ottolenghi (Contentions)
It’s hardly a secret that Israel was always skeptical about the war in Iraq, as this commentary from the eminent scholar Martin Kramer shows.

Now, for those tempted to dismiss Kramer as a tool of the Zionist conspiracy, there’s this recent, widely circulated report. It repeats the points Kramer made: Israel warned the U.S. against an Iraq invasion in 2002, and Israelis were adamant in their objections to the war. This time, however, the news comes from an unimpeachable source: Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s former chief of staff. (I’d like to see people paint him as a lackey of the neocons.)

And all this time, I thought the war in Iraq was launched at the behest of the Lobby, to serve Israel’s interests.

COLIN POWELL: LET'S TALK TO HAMAS

Colin Powell: Quartet should find way to talk to Hamas (JPost) Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell said Thursday the international diplomatic Quartet on the Middle East should find some way to talk to Hamas. “I don’t think you can just cast them into outer darkness and try to find a solution to the problems of the region without taking to account the standing that Hamas has in the Palestinian community,” Powell said in a radio interview. He said Hamas, which controls Gaza, is not going away and enjoys considerable support among the Palestinian people. “They won an election that we insisted upon having,” Powell said. “And so, as unpleasant a group they may be and as distasteful as I find some of their positions, I think through some means, the Middle East Quartet ... or through some means Hamas has to be engaged.”