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Philip Weiss is an investigative journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Esquire, and Harper's. A controversial 2008 article, "The Affairs of Men," published in New[…]

Hopefully, Obama will hold the olive branch.

Question: What will the Israel situation be like under the next president?

Philip Weiss: Well, I think it’s going to be a landslide for Obama so that I wouldn’t-- I think McCain would be more of the same. I think-- Or I think actually McCain even he would have to shift some. Israel’s in crisis right now so- and they’re pushing the two state solution so there’s a real urgency about that, but I guess I think the great thing- the wonderful powers that I ascribe to Barack Obama-- I’m one of these people who’s gaga on Obama so I’m just one of the- and I’ve noticed there are cultists. I’m a cultist for Obama but one of the things that I believe about Obama is that he has this unique ability to take me and Alan Dershowitz and sort of triangulate our point of view. I really am hoping that that’s true because Alan Dershowitz and I- not that he pays much attention to my point of view. I’ve engaged him a couple of times. He and I really dislike our respective positions. We don’t get along and Larry Summers is someone who was very concerned about people like me at Harvard and this has been a lot-- I guess what I’m trying to get at is within the Jewish intellectual family, and the larger American family, but within that family there’s just been enormous rancor and division and a lot of pain. And it upsets me just to think about that people don’t speak to each other and that’s the power that-- I’m-- As I say, I’m a little gaga but I do have this hope that Barack Obama can sort of bring these people together and say, “You know what. You’re right and so are you,” and that’s a really- that would be a tremendous thing because I think one of the problems here is that each side has its narrative and that it sticks to and that those narratives have to be folded together for us to make progress.

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