Well I’m shocked.

Obama @StateDept hires Israel lobbyist David Makovsky to join other AIPACers running its “peace process” http://t.co/A5uSLfWz64 — Ali Abunimah (@AliAbunimah) November 18, 2013

Laura Rozen broke the story.

Veteran Middle East scholar David Makovsky has joined the team of US Middle East peace envoy Martin Indyk as a strategist and senior advisor.

Makovsky is a keynoter at AIPAC and a senior fellow at the Washington Institute, AIPAC’s thinktank spawn in the 80s. A “central player” in the lobby, according to Walt and Mearsheimer’s book, Makovsky is Dennis Ross’s co-author on several occasions. He has proposed landswaps that allow Israel to keep almost all settlements in the West Bank, and encircle Jerusalem– and in exchange Palestinians get land at the margins. A Palestinian mayor stated on our site that Makovsky had misrepresented him to Congress, saying that he would accept the presence of the wall running through his community in exchange for compensation. Makovsky also told Congress that Israel should ease checkpoints through the use of “appropriate biometrics” — for Palestinians, of course:

“Another idea would be to upgrade Israeli crossing points with appropriate biometrics, in order to shorten the line for visitors.”

This is mind boggling. I have to believe that the Israelis are being intransigent and that Makovsky is the Obama team’s way of saying, We’re on your side, we love you, our team is just about all Jewish and Israel lobbyists, now please give a little, in order to save Israel (Dennis Ross and Makovsky understood that the Jewish state was at risk years ago, in calling for the two-state solution to preserve Israel’s “Jewish character”).

Israel lawyers up: David Makovsky joins Martin Indyk’s negotiating team http://t.co/sbkvLvZ8OV — Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) November 18, 2013



Makovsky’s hire also suggests to me that the Israel lobby is reconstituted, and there is no such thing as a liberal Zionist anymore. You are either a mainstream member of the Israel lobby or a rightwinger. J Street has effected that shift. Dennis Ross and Makovsky and Indyk and J Street are on one side, and the people who support the settlers no matter what are on the right, and the outside of this administration. But both “sides” are variations of the lobby, and the liberal side is incapable of applying real pressure on Israel, and Indyk and Makovsky will accept what Ari Shavit told Terry Gross today: we can’t just end the occupation because that won’t end the conflict, because the Palestinians are stuck on that right of return. But we must manage the conflict indefinitely by making Palestinians’ lives better bit by bit. Economic peace. Appropriate biometrics to make checkpoints run smoothly. Taxation without representation. A deeply cynical idea of freedom for another people.