This week an influential think tank in the US invited the leader of Israel to address it in Washington DC. Nothing unusual in that you may think. True; except the group was the Center for American Progress, an organisation with close ties to the Democratic party.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, of course, is head of the right-wing Likud party and can in no way be described as a “progressive”. CAP, under pressure from some liberal critics, justified the move claiming that they would ask Netanyahu tough questions and that they have a policy of engaging with people they may disagree with.
In the event, neither of these things was true. The “moderated conversation” totally pandered to Netanyahu. The host was CAP’s president, Neera Tandem (a Hilary Clinton loyalist). She let him lie though his teeth about all sorts of important issues while he was free to launch his charm offensive to win back liberals in the US, some of whom have been growing increasingly critical of Israel in recent years.
Read the rest over at MEMO.