Yes, and now Freeman is loudly blaming the "Israel lobby" for his withdrawal (naturally) -

Of course his position in life had nothing to do with the power of the anti-Israel lobby which is the great big invisible elephant in the room - which is what everybody's apparently afraid to mention - the oil industry and the recipients of all our petro-dollars apparently have no "lobby" in the US and neither do antisemites, right?

And since when are American interests best served by nations and other organizations which oppress human rights and systematically squash religious, political or artistic dissent?

This is the strangest view of American interests I've ever seen - the so-called "realist" point of view is actually the opposite. It is blind and it is hopelessly corrupt - anything but realistic. It posits that America the Free is actually best served by despots who oppress their people.

The degree to which even music is controlled by some of our "allies" - let alone the way women are permitted to dress and behave - or gays - or free-thinking individuals - writers - artists - musicians - trade unionists - isn't fully understood especially by so-called progressives who for some unknown reason are aligning themselves with outright fascism.

Yet, if one mentions this, or the catastrophe in Darfur, or oppression in Tibet, one is a "neo-con" and/or a member of the dread "Israel lobby" which is according to these paranoids "un-American" by definition.

Well I stand with all the other people who were shocked and angry about this ill-considered appointment: a person who honestly believes supporters of Israel - which in fact DOES support America and our values - anybody who seriously believes we are disloyal to America had no business being appointed to a sensitive intelligence position in the first place.

Similarly this person apparently described Tibetan unrest against Chinese oppression as a "race riot".

Furthermore, anybody who can see the complex web of troubles in the Middle East as being primarily Israel's fault has a problem, period.

This is totally ahistorical since the violence there long predates Israel's creation as do our wars there; and it's also completely illogical.

It's such a one-sided, short-sighted view of history that one is shocked to see a supposedly well-educated American spouting such nonsense.

Unfortunately, rather than intelligent discussion about REAL special interests and conflicts of interest with wealthy and powerful nationstates which do NOT support human rights - we'll be now seeing even more Jewish conspiracy theories.

It seems that once the genie is out of the bottle it's hard to get it back in. People start blaming Jews for this and that and when we, along with unbiased, fair-minded people fight back, it's evidence of a conspiracy. People attack Israel constantly, Jews have been getting killed en masse for centuries in the Middle East and Europe - yet Israeli violence toward the attackers is blamed for the "poison" of terror in and from the Middle East. Does this make ANY sense?

Meanwhile, a recent Guardian article about the odious Gilad Atzmon defines his antisemitic tirades as "provocative".

Right. Bigotry as edginess now, as style.

What's next?

Yes, and now Freeman is loudly blaming the "Israel lobby"

Yes, and that lobby couldn't stop Billary from wasting $900 million on Gaza, or getting Foggy Bottom to force Egypt to implement its peace treaty with Israel in full and stop the smuggling of arms to Hamas.