Obama Appeases Israel & American Zionists
Barack Obama knows which side his bread is buttered.
He runs around proclaiming his devotion to Israel,
virtually wrapping himself in its flag
He vows to shun its enemies and ritualistically
expresses his support for the Zionist project
Barack Obama knows which side his bread is buttered.He runs around proclaiming his devotion to Israel, virtually wrapping himself in its flag.
He vows to shun its enemies and ritualistically expresses his support for the Zionist project.
He tells Palestinians: "if you're waiting for America to distance itself from Israel, you are delusional."
Here's how he crawls to Jeffrey Goldberg [guess his ethnicity]:
You know, when I think about the Zionist idea, I think about how my feelings about Israel were shaped as a young man -- as a child, in fact.I had a camp counselor when I was in sixth grade who was Jewish-American but who had spent time in Israel, and during the course of this two-week camp he shared with me the idea of returning to a homeland.
He talked about what that meant for people who had suffered from the Holocaust, and he talked about the idea of preserving a culture when a people had been uprooted with the view of eventually returning home.
There was something so powerful and compelling for me, maybe because I was a kid who never entirely felt like he was rooted.
That was part of my upbringing, to be traveling and always having a sense of values and culture but wanting a place. So that is my first memory of thinking about Israel. [link is Number One below]
Obama Expected to Kiss Israeli/Zionist Ass
One: Obama on Zionism and Hamas
The Hamas leader Ahmed Yousef did Barack Obama no favor recently when he said: “We like Mr. Obama and we hope that he will win the election.”
John McCain jumped on this statement, calling it a “legitimate point of discussion,” and tied it to Obama’s putative softness on Iran, whose ever-charming president last week called Israel a “stinking corpse” and predicted its “annihilation.”
The Hamas episode won’t help Obama’s attempts to win over Jewish voters, particularly those in such places as –- to pull an example from the air –- Palm Beach County, Florida, whose Jewish residents tend to appreciate robust American support for Israel, and worry about whether presidential candidates feel the importance of Israel in their kishkes, or guts.
Obama and I spoke over the weekend about Hamas, about Jimmy Carter, and about the future of Jewish settlements on the West Bank.
He seemed eager to talk about his ties to the Jewish community, and about the influence Jews have had on his life. Among other things, he told me that he learned the art of moral anguish from Jews. More...
Two: Speaking With Obama About Israel
Last on our agenda--but longest--was Israel. He knew my historic concerns. I said that I was pessimistic about the possibilities of peace. He said he was "skeptical."
That is exactly the right frame of mind for a president to bring to the 100-year dispute that has eluded the most ingenuous formulas for resolution.
It is certainly better than being too optimistic. That was the trap into which Bill Clinton fell. (This was not Obama's observation but mine.)
You hit a snag. You put pressure on the party over which you have the most leverage--Israel, in this case--and yet the Palestinians remain recalcitrant, feeling that their real concession was to sit down at a conference table in the first place.
Nothing happens. You squeeze a little more out of the Israelis, only to encourage the Arabs to demand more, which they do.
Ahmed Yousef was the Hamas leader who confessed to liking Obama: "We hope he will win the election."
Yousef's illusory hopes clash with some of Obama's putative friends. Rashid Khalidi, for example, heir to Edward Said's intellectually run down turf at Columbia University and a Palestinian moderate, whatever that means, has told The New York Times that he is "unhappy about the positions [Obama] has taken, but I can't say I'm terribly disappointed."
Of course not. He knew that Obama's own personal history and his political convictions predisposed him towards Israel.
But Obama has disappointed Hyde Park Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf, one of those remaining nudnik Reform clergy who is always pained that, given the distress of the Palestinians, life is too good for the Israelis.
He, too, complained to the Times about Obama "play[ing] all those notes right for the Israel lobby."
As if there were no differences among Israel's fervent supporters. Take settlements. There are as many positions on settlements in America as there are in Israel.
Obama does not think new settlements are "helpful" to the negotiating process and, by the way, neither does George Bush or Condoleezza Rice, who has been huffing and puffing about this inside Israel and out.
I myself think they are very much a side-issue. But the Palestinians must shoulder responsibility for much of the settlement reality:
For more than 35 years they rejected all kinds of proposals that would, actually at any point, have put an end to settlement activity, period. The present is the result of their posturing.
This is not, however, the core problem, as Obama clearly grasps. He said to me on Thursday (as he said in Des Moines and in Ohio earlier this year) that there is no question but that there is a strong will to peace in Israel and among the Israelis.
What is yet to be proven, Obama believes, is that there is a will, deep and wide, among the Palestinians and in the political class.
I repeat myself: I do not believe there is this will. Obama is somewhat skeptical about it but is willing, no, eager to test the proposition. I am glad that he will be in power and not I.
Jeffrey Goldberg has made a big contribution to our understanding of Obama's thoughts and feelings about Israel by publishing the text of his interview with the Democratic nominee on his Atlantic blog [link one above].
There is something special to this conversation in that Obama talks about his exhilarating experience with American Jews and with their bonds to the dream and realities of Israel.
I have experienced some of this myself from Obama, in conversation and in e-mails. This is not just nostalgia, and it is also not about reciprocal fault-finding between African Americans and Jews.
It is about a vision of America that stands with its democratic friends abroad without neglecting, as it has so tragically done during these last years, the promises of democracy at home. More...
Three: Obama Condemns Hamas, Hizbollah...
Hezbollah is one of the world’s most radical terrorist organizations. Over the last week or so, it has staged an armed assault on the democratic government of Lebanon.
Barack Obama issued a statement in response. He called on “all those who have influence with Hezbollah” to “press them to stand down.”
Then he declared, “It’s time to engage in diplomatic efforts to help build a new Lebanese consensus that focuses on electoral reform, an end to the current corrupt patronage system, and the development of the economy that provides for a fair distribution of services, opportunities and employment.”
That sentence has the whiff of what President Bush described yesterday as appeasement.
Is Obama naïve enough to think that an extremist ideological organization like Hezbollah can be mollified with a less corrupt patronage system and some electoral reform?
Does he really believe that Hezbollah is a normal social welfare agency seeking more government services for its followers?
Does Obama believe that even the most intractable enemies can be pacified with diplomacy? What “Lebanese consensus” can Hezbollah possibly be a part of?
If Obama believes all this, he’s not just a Jimmy Carter-style liberal. He’s off in Noam Chomskyland.
That didn’t strike me as right, so I spoke with Obama Tuesday to ask him what he meant by all this.
Right off the bat he reaffirmed that Hezbollah is “not a legitimate political party.” Instead, “It’s a destabilizing organization by any common-sense standard. This wouldn’t happen without the support of Iran and Syria.”
I asked him what he meant with all this emphasis on electoral and patronage reform.
He said the U.S. should help the Lebanese government deliver better services to the Shiites “to peel support away from Hezbollah” and encourage the local populace to “view them as an oppressive force.”
The U.S. should “find a mechanism whereby the disaffected have an effective outlet for their grievances, which assures them they are getting social services.”
The U.S. needs a foreign policy that “looks at the root causes of problems and dangers.” Obama compared Hezbollah to Hamas. Both need to be compelled to understand that “they’re going down a blind alley with violence that weakens their legitimate claims.” More...
