>In his July 18, 2006 column[11] he stated: "The greatest mistake Israel could make at the moment is to forget >that Israel itself is a mistake. It is an honest mistake, a well-intentioned mistake, a mistake for which no one is >culpable, but the idea of creating a nation of European Jews in an area of Arab Muslims (and some Christians) >has produced a century of warfare and terrorism of the sort we are seeing now". For this statement Cohen was >criticized in an essay released by the American Jewish Committee entitled 'Progressive' Jewish Thought and the >New Anti-Semitism. He clarified his statements in the next week's column,[12] saying, "Readers of my recent >column on the Middle East can accuse me of many things, but not a lack of realism. I know Israel's imperfections, >but I also exalt and admire its achievements. Lacking religious conviction, I fear for its future and note the ominous >spread of European-style anti-Semitism throughout the Muslim world―and its boomerang return to Europe as a >mindless form of anti-Zionism. Israel is, as I have often said, unfortunately located, gentrifying a pretty bad neighbor- >hood. But the world is full of dislocated peoples, and we ourselves live in a country where the Indians were pushed >out of the way so that―oh, what irony! -- the owners of slaves could spread liberty and democracy from sea to shining >sea. As for Europe, who today cries for the Greeks of Anatolia or the Germans of Bohemia?" In the same column, he >defended Israel's military campaign in its 2006 war with Hezbollah in Lebanon.