Just as I said they should do, Hillary’s people have attacked Obama’s position re Israel, reports Newsweek. Alas it is a whispering campaign, with sly hints about the fact that Brzezinski, who is on Obama’s team, endorsed the Walt-Mearsheimer paper on the Israel Lobby. I want it all out in the open. Well that is coming, I assure you. We shall have a robust debate.
A few points worth noting:
–Newsweek cannot bring itself to mention Walt and Mearsheimer by name. That’s not cricket.
–The surrogate who is raising the issue is Ann Lewis. The sister to Barney Frank. Ann Lewis used to be a big liberal. Probably still thinks she is. I associate her with anti-Vietnam-war protest in Boston, with gay rights, with the civil rights movement even. (Let’s see if I’m right; going to Wikipedia….well some of it: feminism). See what the Jewish meritocracy has been reduced to, blackmailing the issue of Palestinian human rights from the political discourse…
–Note that the talking points for the Hillary whispering campaign include stuff from Matt Brooks of the Republican Jewish Coalition and conservative blogger Ed Lasky. Matt Brooks is also a leader of Freedom’s Watch, the pro-Iraq moneybags group. This is not an old coalition; and it reminds us that a vote for the Iraq war and supporting Israel as a great democracy meld seamlessly as themes in our political landscape.
Lieberman was the first to leave the Democratic Party for McCain. Soon there will be many others, once Hillary departs the stage. Well let’s have it out–and let the young Jews stand up for a more progressive view of the Middle East.
(Note that Richard Silverstein has tracked the Obama whispering in the Israeli press. He speaks Hebrew, and translates a Maariv headline: "Israel Awaits Bush, Fears Obama. Worry in Jerusalem: Obama Nears Presidency.")
Related posts:
- Hillary Uses the Israel Wedge, and So Will McCain. Can Obama Transcend It?
- A Desperate Hillary Should Call Obama on His Tilt Toward Evenhandedness Re Israel/Palestine
- Russert, Obama and Hillary All Flub the Israel Question
- Hillary on Her Foreign Policy Experience
- How Matt Drudge Runs the Political Conversation ‘Tween Hillary and Obama
{ 15 comments }
Let's see, the authors of this sleazy article are named … Michael Hirsh and Dan Ephron. Nope, no ethnic conflict of interest there — none at all!
In the Times article about financial mismanagement in Hillary's campaign (linked by Phil a couple of days ago), Joe Trippi described Hillary's top-down organization as a "core group" of donors who had all contributed the maximum amount. Presumably the list is posted somewhere. But I'm going to guess that at least half are Jewish.
Unable to provide any more financial support, Hillary's core group apparently have implemented a "dirty tricks" email campaign to salvage their failing investment in the Hillary bandwagon. Of course, all the key figures deny any involvement. But we all receive these kind of forwarded emails, and know how quickly they circulate.
What's nauseating in the Hirsh/Ephron article is the smug assumption that unquestioning loyalty to Israel is right up there with saluting the U.S. flag as a mark of patriotism, and the obligation of a candidate is to prove that he's more committed to Israel than his opponent. For this campaign season, they may sadly be right. But such presumptuous chauvinism by our biased emigre press isn't going to last much longer.
The open admission by the Lobby that they will try to shoot down Obama's candidacy for insufficient fidelity to Israel may actually backfire on them.
It's a matter of record that Obama, as an Illinois state senator, spoke at anti-Iraq War rallies in Oct. 2002 and March 2003. VERY few politicians were willing to publicly oppose the war then. At a rally on the Capitol Mall in March 2003, Rep. John Conyers was the ONLY one who addressed us. It appeared to me that African-Americans were clearly opposed to the war early on, perhaps sensing that their community would bear much of the burden, while having nothing to gain.
The Lobby claims that it didn't agitate for the Iraq War. But I'm going to assert that they interpret Obama's early and public opposition to the Iraq war as inherently and patently contrary to Israel's interests. If you're not FOR more war in the Middle East — if you're not FOR a permanent U.S. buffer in Iraq to protect Israel — then you're AGAINST the Israel Lobby. As Phil says, let's put this debate out of the table in the bright light of day, and let the chips fall where they may. The time for hiding behind euphemisms and code words and planted articles is over.
Well, I must be confusing case in point.
I opposed the US involvement in the war. I support Obama for president. (I initially supported Edwards.)
I support the US defense of Israel, and even that the US provides direct military aid.
I'm confident in Obama's statements that he regards the relationship with Israel as special, committed, intimate, necessary.
I regard him as so committed, that he can be trusted to assist Israel in forming and keeping agreements that result in Palestinian sovereignty during his tenure, and in a manner that results in genuine peace, for its confidence and fairness.
Its not "THE" Israel Lobby that is undertaking whispering campaigns, its an opportunist element of it. As much of the "Israel Lobby" supports Obama as opposes him.
Phil,
Quotes, and in context, would be more useful, containing more integrity, than whispering that there is a whispering campaign.
I distrust the motivation of candidates to win. Clinton's, Obama's, McCain's. I distrust the structure of campaigns in the US, requiring loyal soldiers in the role of campaign consultants and advocates (on all sides, including any that you would call yours).
I live with the distrust. Its a current natural tension of living in America. Absence of that tension would be a symptom of bigger worry.
What's nauseating in the Hirsh/Ephron article is the smug assumption that unquestioning loyalty to Israel is right up there with saluting the U.S. flag as a mark of patriotism, and the obligation of a candidate is to prove that he's more committed to Israel than his opponent.
Thank you, Jim, for such a cogently expressed observation. It's dead on.
I am getting the eerie sense that this whole election is really about Israel and the Jewish lobby. ( I am using the name that apparently is used in Israel itself for the lobby)
Everything that is discussed publicly, in the media, is cover for what is really going on. There is a war between the lobby and those who have caught on to it. Our country's survival is at stake but the real battle can't be spoken about. Have I gone off the deep end? It surely seems this way to me.
The stakes are about the mid-east and our committment to destroying ourselves. One thing that the media and the electorate is truly in denial about is the economic ramifications of our investment there. It is killing the US economy. No one ever mentions this, yet they talk about fiscal responsibility. All the social programs the dems want to instigate will not happen. There is no money for them . That is going to be clear in a year or two when the economic ramifications of our suicide mission in the mid-east become more obvious.
Why doesn't anyone care about this?
"There is a war between the lobby and those who have caught on to it. Our country's survival is at stake but the real battle can't be spoken about. Have I gone off the deep end?"
Probably, just like myself :-)
However, that probably means you are closest to truth for the first time in your life…
Anyway, just researched the Fed Reserve Board – all 5 members of it are Jewish.
Make of that what you will…
"Lieberman was the first to leave the Democratic Party for McCain. Soon there will be many others, once Hillary departs the stage."
That's really the last hope for the Democratic Party: kick all the Jewish Zionists and their dirty money out. Let them join the Christian Zionists, the money-worshipping globalization advocates, the open-borders McCainiacs and other anti-American types in the WWIII-advocating fever swamp that is the new GOP.
The Republicans had their chance to appeal to true-blue Americans concerned about the loss of blue collar jobs, mass illegal immigration displacing American workers and driving down wages, the plundering of the middle class by Washington, and the destruction of America's founding principles by warped minds that hate Christian and gentile morality. They instead chose the new religion of money-worship, Zionism, globalization and statist warfare/welfare: Let's call it mystical materialism.
The Democrats have lately prospered from the new GOP's stupidity and mental derangement. Do they have the brains to close the deal, or have they already been infected by the fatal virus of mystical materialism as well?
If the Democrats reject the true-blue American constituency (yet again), the rising paleocon/libertarian/populist movement will gladly take it in. Obama’s common sense may well be the last hope before a radical realignment sweeps the country — and sweeps out the elitist trash.
Mystical materialism–nice capsule, coated-well.
Instead of Uncle Sam, we may well have that Misty Mat.
RW wrote: "I opposed the US involvement in the war."
I hate to be crude, but in the new spirit of frank speaking I have to say, Richard, that I just don't believe this. I will donate $100 to the charity of your choosing if you can provide a link to something you wrote in 2002 — anything, even a comment in one of the blogs you frequent — that unequivocably argues against the coming invasion of Iraq.
You know how to post links, don't you?
I saw the C-SPAN broadcast of the "Breaking the Silence" talk. It was amazing the revelation of just how much harassment and abuse is commonplace.
In commenting on something at the Huffington Post, I tried three times to include a link to the "Breaking the Silence" campaign. It was filtered out each and every time.
Part of the Lobby's effectiveness is from the amount of gatekeeping it does.
Sorry, that previous comment belonged in another thread.
"Part of the Lobby's effectiveness is from the amount of gatekeeping it does."
The next time you call your congressman's office to leave him or her a comment on our Middle East policy, consider the likelihood that the person on the other end is one of the many interns provided by AIPAC.
"I hate to be crude, but in the new spirit of frank speaking I have to say, Richard, that I just don't believe this. "
I don't have the means to search back in the site that I've commented that far back.
Why don't you take my word and donate $100 to Britzedek v-shalom, in my name (one of the sponsors of the tour that Phil referred to).
Next thing you know, you'll be claiming you were opposing the efforts to start a war with Iran.
From the bloody pidgeon
September 25th, 2007 at 11:19 pm
Richard Witty Says:
Who knows if Iran is building nuclear weapons or not?
It scares me more though, that leftists… rationalize that Iran is somehow victim or benign.
That failure on the part of the left, mirrors the apologetic approach towards dealing with pre-WW2 Germany.
Brrrr……..
Thank you, Anonymous.
Any comment, Richard?
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