As I’ve said elsewhere, “realist doves” have a golden opportunity if they’d just address Israelis’ concerns. Israelis are very realistic, if not realist; their position is based on a calculation of national interest (security), not on ideology or whatever. Stephen Walt consistently refuses to do address Israeli concerns; he won’t even think about those things. This Fleshler guy is at least willing to address the other side.

Aaron, you probably already know of the many good American liberal pundits on Israel, but I’ll give you and others a less well-known answer. Dan Fleshler has a blog, Realistic Dove, and has written a book, Transforming America’s Israel Lobby. He’s an advisor to J Street.

I haven’t seen much sane liberal or left commentary on Israel at all, except coming out of Israel itself. Who are the good American liberal pundits to read? As I’ve said before, in North America I think Michael Neumann (who does describe himself as anti-Israel) is among the best there is on the left, but he’s a moral philosopher and his commentary is more philosophical than current eventish.

Other than Neumann, the only place I can think of off-hand for sane, informed, and honest North American commentary on Israel, from any political perspective at all, is…the writings of Paul Gottfried. He understands Israel better than any other American pundit I’ve read. Hey, I wonder if anyone at The American Conservative has ever heard of this Gottfried fellow? Nah, apparently not, because they haven’t bothered to respond to his critiques of their positions.