Smearing people as anti-Semites for cheap political gain is repellent in its own right and merits a response.

Glenn Greenwald

Wednesday July 2, 2008 05:49 EDT

The right's game-playing with "dual loyalty" and "anti-Semitism" accusations

(updated below - Update II)

As our political establishment takes new and disturbing steps towards a more confrontational approach with Iran, the effort to stomp out any discussion of the role Israel plays in that policy has once again intensified. Last week, Joe Klein -- basically out of the blue -- observed that while many advocates of an attack on Iraq (which once included Klein) were motivated by "neocolonial" fantasies or ensuring access to Iraq's oil, many other war proponents were motivated by their allegiance to Israel:

The fact that a great many Jewish neoconservatives -- people like Joe Lieberman and the crowd over at Commentary -- plumped for this war, and now for an even more foolish assault on Iran, raised the question of divided loyalties: using U.S. military power, U.S. lives and money, to make the world safe for Israel.