A Response to Eric Alterman | The Nation: After Alterman published the first of his attacks, I attempted to engage him in a public forum. I not only wanted to debate him on the facts contained in my book, I wanted to ask him how he squares his self-professed liberalism with his defense of disproportionate lethal violence against Palestinian civilians, including children (“So tough luck, fella. War is hell.”); with his insistence that the United States must pressure the Palestinians to accept “their historic position”; or with his extraordinary declaration that Americans must be willing to endure more 9/11-style terror attacks “if that’s the price we have to pay” to maintain the US-Israeli special relationship.
I had wanted to discuss these issues and many more raised in Goliath—and still do, and will. Unfortunately, when Robert Wright of The Atlantic and editor of Bloggingheads, the pre-eminent online political debating forum, invited Alterman to engage with me, Alterman declined without explanation.