Of course there are Israelis who despise what their government is doing to the Palestinians; there always have been. We don't hear about them in the US, because, yes, Israel is a sacred cow; it's my understanding that it's far less a sacred cow -in Israel-, and you'll find major newspapers in Tel Aviv printing articles that in the US would be banished to, at best, The Nation or other fringe publications.

or its editorial board? or did only the US federal administration change?
I wonder why the NYT seems to be taking a different tack? With its promotion of Cohen as a regular contributing editor there definitely seem to be changes afoot.
have you checked Cohen's bio? the dude has chops unexpected in an establishment mouthpiece. Could it be possible that the NYT is looking for more than just mouthpieces? how shocking!
..... and highly improbable :)

ps-dude, where are my Hampi pics? I'm starting to suffer India withdrawal while you're suffering India overdose..... ;>

...America's Iranian/Middle-East policy is Syriana. That along with "Munich" pretty well sums up our twisted machinations we call diplomacy, LOL. Pathetic IMO.

http://www.iauthorbooks.com
http://iauthorbooks.blogspot.com/

...make sure you get your visits to syria, lebanon, the gulf states, sudan, libya, etc. out of the way first. you can ask the israelis not to stamp your passport, but the countries that participate in the boycott know what the allenby exit stamp by jordan or the egyptian entry stamp at rafah means.

Jewish writer raises a storm in America with his report from a 'tolerant' Iran

* Paul Harris in New York
* The Observer, Sunday 29 March 2009
* Article history

A row has broken out over allegations of antisemitism at the New York Times, America's most vaunted name in journalism and a newspaper with a large Jewish readership.

The storm centres on a column about Jews in Iran written by New York Times journalist Roger Cohen and a cartoon attacking the recent war in Gaza.

The newspaper, and Cohen in particular, has been accused of being too critical of Israel and an apologist for Iran and its leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Cohen's column was written from Iran about the country's small Jewish minority. His piece acknowledged the difficulties the group experienced and portrayed them as part of an Iranian society that he said was more tolerant, democratic and sophisticated than many American critics allowed.

Such sentiments might seem uncontroversial, but in America no one touching on issues around Israel or antisemitism escapes close scrutiny. Cohen was attacked by Jewish writers and bloggers. The Jerusalem Post dubbed him "misled", while the Atlantic Monthly called him "credulous". Others went much further. "The Nazis had Theresienstadt, their 'model' concentration camp used to 'persuade' the gullible that Jews and others who aroused the ire of the Nazis were being treated well. Would Roger Cohen have had no problem portraying that favourably as well?" fumed writer Ed Lasky on the American Thinker website.

Cohen said he was stunned by the vehemence of the response, an impression exacerbated when he visited exiled Iranian Jews in California and was abusively heckled. "I was surprised at the anger and intensity of the reaction ... I expected a reaction but did not expect it to blow up into a whole furore," Cohen said.

Perhaps part of the reason for the intensity of the attack is the fact that he is Jewish himself. "I think it's partly my name. The 'self-hating Jew' things can come to the surface in some of the responses," he said. Another reason is that the column appeared in the Times, which many media experts hardly see as a fierce critic of Israel, given its home audience. "As soon as I read the column I thought a lot of people would be unhappy," said Jack Lule, a journalism professor at Lehigh University.

The debate over Cohen's piece came as the Times published Pat Oliphant's cartoon, which shows a headless figure goose-stepping and pushing a snarling Star of David in front of it. The figure is herding a woman carrying a child labelled Gaza to the edge of a cliff. The cartoon also appeared in the Washington Post, Slate and other publications. It caused instant outrage among Jewish groups. "It is cartoons like this that inspired millions of people to hate in the 1930s and help set the stage for the Nazi genocide," said a statement from the Simon Wiesenthal Centre.