Yes, the cliché of the over-the-top, \”Keeping Up with the Steins\”-style bar mitzvah exists, simply because many of us won\’t let it die. But this year, among my sons\’ classmates, I\’ve found excess to be the exception.
\”The Israel Lobby,\” a paper by Stephen Walt of Harvard University\’s Kennedy Center and John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago charged supporters of Israel with undue influence on American policy. At an Aug. 28 Washington forum hosted by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the two accused Israel of working in concert with the U.S. government to find a pretext for war with Hezbollah. Reports of the forum prompted Los Angeles City Councilman Jack Weiss, a former student of Walt\’s, to pen this letter to his one-time mentor.
The issuance of a U.S. visa to Mohammad Khatami, former president of the Islamic Republic of Iran until he was succeeded by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Khatami\’s presence this week on
U.S. soil, is an insult to the American people, a slap in the face to Iran\’s pro-democracy movement, a mockery of the immigration and anti-terrorism laws and a continuation of the schizophrenic nonpolicy of the U.S. State Department.
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