Not so long ago, and repeatedly, Jeffrey Goldberg relayed the desperate seriousness of Binyamin Netanyahu's threat to strike Iran unilaterally, and the intensity with which the Israelis viewed Iran's nuclear development as an existential threat like the Holocaust. I took his reporting very seriously, just as I absorbed his dire warnings about the existential threat the West Bank occupation posed to the Jewish state itself.

Now he tells us he has begun to suspect (but doesn't yet quite believe) that it might all have been be a big Israeli bluff to pressure the Iranians via spooking the Americans. And if it was a bluff, it was one that cynically used the memory of the Holocaust and was obviously intended to persuade the Obama administration (unsuccessfully as it turned out) to move their own red lines to the Likud's, and go to war sooner rather than later. Well, isn't that something: a government prepared to lie to its ally, risk escalation of what would be a global war, cynically exploit the Holocaust in a bluff, and do so via a journalist at the Atlantic.

But what's striking to me is how Jeffrey reacted to the rumors that he could have been lied to by the Israeli prime minister in order to promote the bluff:

"If [Netanyahu] has been bluffing the whole time (even in concert with good-cop Obama), it's been a bluff that has so far worked magnificently well."

Three cheers for being used! Maybe at the end of this, we'll get the full scale US-led war against Iran that so many neocons want. I'm not saying Jeffrey was in on the bluff. I am saying that his reaction to the idea of being misled is not exactly outrage, which troubles me. And Goldberg's detailed deadly serious description of the possible bluff was not just an aside. It was a cover-story for the Atlantic two years ago (see left), when Goldberg predicted a unilateral Israeli strike in the Spring of 2011. The piece was called "The Point of No Return." Geddit? As you can see, the cover was not hedged. Netanyahu's message was loud and clear on the cover of one of America's great magazines as a fact – and a warning.

And it's from this Olympian height that Goldblog will not even deign to review the content of Peter Beinart's new book challenging the internal contradictions of Goldberg et al:

And to be completely blunt, I'm not that interested in debating Peter's new book, which I've just finished reading, because I find his recounting of recent Middle East history one-sided and filled with errors and omissions. The Middle East crisis is complicated, except in Peter's telling. It's hard to argue with Peter's work precisely because there's so much missing.

This is the classic, condescending "You Don't Get The Complexity" bullshit he has used on countless others when he is ever faced with actually taking a stand on the relentless settlement and de facto annexation of the West Bank, with all its hideous moral and human consequences – not least to Israel's soul and existence as a Jewish state. Notice the de haut en bas smear: "filled with errors and omissions" which he will not produce or cite so they can be aired and debated. He is above that. Presidents and prime ministers call him on the phone. And the headline is another swipe at Peter of a purely political, rather than intellectual, nature:

J Street Big Takes a Serious Shot at Peter Beinart's Call for Boycott

See! Even those lefties don't actually think this will work. Repeat after me what the Greater Israel Lobby and its acolytes will be chanting for the next few weeks:

Ignore. Peter. Beinart.

What would work to stop and reverse the settlements and forcibly remove the religious fanatics now upping the ante in a global religious war into which the US would inevitably be dragged? Nothing Israel or AIPAC is prepared to do, of course, as everyone who is aware of the profound "complexities" already knows. Even though Goldberg has argued that staying the current course could mean the end of the Jewish state, it's all far too complicated to tackle or undo now. Always later. Always too complex. Until – bingo – the occupation cannot be undone, and the only options for Israel are ethnic cleansing or an apartheid state. At which point we'll have another round of sighs, jibes and public hand-wringing. We may, in fact, already be there.

But Goldberg's latest formulation on the settlements is such a beaut it's worth unpacking:

I don't have much good to say about Beinart's call for a boycott, because I find economic warfare targeting Jews so distasteful, for obvious historical reasons. (As readers of Goldblog know, I would like to see the settlers out of the West Bank as well, but this is a very bad way to go about achieving the goal.)

First the intimation (but not outright accusation) of anti-Semitism by summarizing Peter's views as "economic warfare targeting Jews" and referring back to the 1930s. And then in the parentheses the sentence deserves, he again retiterates his opposition to the settlements and – surprise! – finds Peter's proposal to change things insufficient.

I repeat: What would be a very good way to remove those settlements? We await Goldberg's next high-profile missive from the prime minister's office – but shouldn't hold our breath. A boycott of settler goods would not work, Goldberg avers, because they are fanatics and fanatics resort to doubling down when pressured. So Goldberg thinks these maniacs or state-subsidized settlers will leave eventually because … of what, exactly? A seminar with Deepak Chopra? A visit from the Pope? If pressure cannot work, and persuasion is impossible, and a settler fanatic is Israel's actual foreign minister … then we are left with continued support (and aid!) for a demographically doomed Greater Israel, permanently dragging the US down in global power and credibility – and possibly a world war of unknowable consequences.

Finally, the veiled personal threat at anyone questioning the AIPAC line:

Here's David Frum, by the way, on the call for a boycott. He thinks Peter is being destructive. And here's Ami Eden on how Peter's call for a boycott targeting Jews will inevitably lead to Jewish boycotts of Peter Beinart.

To threaten an honest writer in this fashion – without even addressing his book in any detail – is, sadly, unsurprising. It remains an act of a bully.