Carry your water

Jeffrey Goldberg, discussing the ongoing controversies over the right's desire to delegitimize J Street and narrowly define in political terms what is required to be "pro-Israel," again today (despite often frustrating me) showing that he gets it:

I have very serious doubts about the willingness of Arabs to make peace with the Jewish state, but I also know that certain Israeli policies make the cause of compromise even more difficult. It's not self-hatred to acknowledge the obvious: That the settlement movement, and its supporters, overemphasize the sanctity of land in Jewish theology, and neglect other aspects of Judaism. Land, love, social justice, an intolerance of idolatry, the law as a whole, abhorrence of cruelty -- all these things together make up Judaism. (This is why a balanced Jewish life is so hard to master.) It is unfair to call a Jew a self-hater simply because he'd rather see Hebron under Arab rule than an Israel that, in keeping Hebron under Jewish rule, betrays other Jewish values.

Separately, Goldberg also points out something that I have long believed but never had the great saying to back up, until now: "Philo-Semites are anti-Semites who like Jews."