Published 00:43 25.04.12

Latest update 00:43 25.04.12

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Paul Krugman: ‘Israeli government policies are a form of national suicide’
New York Times columnist and Nobel prize winner: criticism of Israel silenced by accusations of anti-Semitism.

By
Haaretz


New York Times columnist and
Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman believes that the policies of the
current “narrow minded” Israeli government “are basically a gradual
long-run form of national suicide.”




Writing in his New York Times blog “Conscience of a Liberal” about Peter Beinart’s
controversial book “The Crisis of Zionism”, Krugman writes, “Like many
liberal American Jews I basically avoid thinking about where Israel is
going. It seems obvious from here that the narrow-minded policies of the
current government are basically a gradual, long-run form of national
suicide – and that’s bad for Jews everywhere, not to mention the world.”





Krugman’s unusually harsh critique of Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu’s government is sure to elicit howls of protest from Israeli
spokespersons and American Jewish organizations – more so, perhaps, as
they come on the eve of Israel’s Independence Day. It is also sure to
further inflame the continuously deteriorating relationship between the
Israeli government and the New York Times, considered by many to be the
most important newspaper in the world. Last December, Netanyahu declined
an offer by the Times’ to pen an article for the paper’s opinion pages,
citing the newspaper’s alleged anti-Israel bias.




Krugman, probably the world’s
leading economic columnist, won the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic
Sciences (informally the Nobel Prize in Economics) in 2008 for his
contributions to the theories of free trade. Born to Jewish immigrants
from Eastern Europe, Krugman, 59,has written only rarely about Israel.
At an economic conference in Tel Aviv in 2009 he had only high praise
for Israel’s economic performance.




In another controversial comment
in his blog, Krugman noted that he has refrained from commenting on
Israel out of fear of the potential Jewish reaction. “I have other
battles to fight,” he wrote, “and to say anything to that effect [that
the Israeli government is leading to national suicide] is to bring
yourself under intense attack from organized groups that make any
criticism of Israeli policies tantamount to anti-Semitism.”




Writing of Peter Beinart, Krugman
adds: “It’s only right to say something on behalf of Beinart, who has
predictably run into that buzzsaw. As I said, a brave man, and he
deserves better.”

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