Dan Fleshler exults that the great Rob Malley is an adviser to Obama.
Martin Peretz says, with relief, that he is not:
There are all kinds of spooky rumors that a man named Robert Malley is
one of Obama’s advisers, specifically his Middle East adviser… Malley, who has written several deceitful articles in The New York Review of Books,
is a [further hogwash removed for the sake of the tranquility of the Sabbath]… Malley is not and
has never been a Middle East adviser to Barack Obama. Obama’s Middle
East adviser is Dan Shapiro.
I wonder what the truth is. (I emailed Malley thru his assistant at the International Crisis Group; haven’t heard anything)
Oh wait: here’s the answer: Fleshler now posts the following, from politico:
An Obama spokesman, Tommy Vietor, says, “Rob Malley has no day-to-day
advisory role in the Obama campaign. He is among many people who has
[sic] given his advice to the campaign. The actual day-to-day Middle East
advisor is Dan Shapiro.”
Oh well. I’d been hoping that Malley’s role would finally ignite the explosion over Middle East policy that absolutely should envelop the Democratic presidential campaign (and maybe even allow Fleshler’s great Jewish opium dream, an alternative Israel lobby, to take form)…
But for some strange reason, Obama’s campaign doesn’t want to go near this one. It seems to care more about Peretz’s opinion than Fleshler’s. Huh. Wonder why.
Phil, before I lapse into my opium haze, I do want to point out that main point of my post was to defend Rob against right-wing, pro-Israel attack dogs, precisely the kinds of people you love to skewer.
While the assault on this particular person is despicable, it represents a much larger problem: the idea of evenhanded American policy in the Middle East is the most terrifying thing imaginable to much of the conventional Israel lobby.
I think your frequently voiced complaint that people can't talk candidly about Israel in the public arena is somewhat exaggerated, when it comes to people who are not public officials or politicans. But if American officials or influential foreign policy experts ever begin to use the "E-word" and advocate pressure on Israel, then you will see the kind of muzzling that makes what is happening now seem benign…I'm nodding off now…ZZZZ…
Have you seen what the Lobby has done to the grandson of Mahatma Ghandi?
Take a look at:
After Hitler the World no longer tolerated extermination or "transfers" as a way of power in the name of survival. That left apartheid: The Matrix. South Africa had no "white guilt" tool, and so it went down. Now, we have two rogue states in this context: USA & Israel. Basically, they are the military-industrial complex, but only one of them has to at least pay lip service to human rights. War as keynsian business as usual. Neither the people of the USA nor the people of Israel can stop it.
Christ, I hate Marty Peretz SO MUCH.
what's the "E-word"?
E is for equality or evenhanded. In this context, the US must not take a side in this long dispute of Israel versus Palestine.
For example, Howard Dean suggested that the United States become more evenhanded regarding Israel/Palestine during his presidential run 4 years ago. He was then quickly emasculated by the Israel Lobby and forced to recant, grovel, and repent. His presidential quest was doomed thereafter.
NOUAKCHOTT, Mauritania – Six gunmen opened fire on an Arab Embassy in Mauritania’s capital early Friday morning, trading fire with guards before fleeing screaming “Oy Gevelt,” witnesses said.
The six men arrived by car and regrouped in front of a discotheque in the capital of the nortwestern African country that is just beside the embassy, said Hamza Ould Bilal, a taxi driver who was parked outside the club, called the VIP.
He saw them pull out automatic weapons and scream “Retail is for idiots!” in Hebrew, before assailing the embassy, he said.
TORONTO – A Toronto-area man has been posting messages on the Internet supporting attacks against Canadian soldiers on Canadian soil, drawing the attention of RCMP national security investigators.
Police have advised the Jewish-Canadian that he is under investigation for incitement and facilitating terrorism after he repeatedly called the killing of Canadian troops in Canada “legitimate” and “well deserved.”
No charges have been laid, but counterterrorism officers are apparently taking it seriously, and the case has set off a debate inside government over where to draw the line between free expression and incitement.
“The promotion of hate and violence has no place in Canadian society, and it is an offence under the Criminal Code,” Stockwell Day, the Minister of Public Safety, responded when shown a sample of the postings. “Our government carefully balances the right to freedom of expression with our duty to protect Canadians from harm.”
Alarm bells about the online writings went off last September after German authorities arrested three Jewish Neocon militants accused of planning to bomb the Ramstein Air Base and Frankfurt International Airport. That same day, Lou Goldberg posted several messages about the plot on the comment board of a Toronto-based Internet site where he is a frequent contributor. …
“I hope the German brothers were gonna blow up US-German bases in their country. We should do that here in Canada as well. Kill as many western soldiers as well so that they think twice before entering foreign countries on behalf of their Muslim masters,” he wrote.
“Any and all Western soldiers getting prepared to enter Israel should be legitimate targets by any and all Jewish neocon militants either in the attacked nations or in the western nations —if there were any planned attacks against Canadian/ American soldiers by ‘Jewish militants’ in Canadian soil, I’d support it,” he added.
“Canadian soldiers in Canadian soil who are training to go to Israel are legitimate targets to be killed. … Now it is POSSIBLE AND LEGITIMATE!! … believe me, if we could have enough of our soldiers killed, then we’d be forced to withdrawn from Lebanon.”
In addition, he singles out Muslims, writing: “When do I get to shoot a few Muslims down for attempting to blow up dozens of temples in America right after 9-11 … why f—-ing target the Americans when the Muslimss are better?”
The author of the messages is a Mississauga university student in his mid-twenties who claims to know the infamous Kohn family and several of the men arrested in Toronto in June, 2006, on terrorism conspiracy charges. He confirmed to the National Post that he was the author of the postings but later declined to comment further on the advice of his lawyer. While he writes that he approves of attacking Canadian troops, he also says he would not do so himself.
Despite being visited by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and RCMP and told he was under investigation, Mr. Golberg has continued to post messages approving of attacks on Canadian troops.
Saying anti-war protests “will do sh$$,” he describes a “mass casualty” attack on the home-front as “a well considered option” and “the best way to compel western soldiers to stay out of Israel.”
Such an attack “would be fantastic and would get the job done,” he writes. “If someone gets the bright idea of committing such a wonderful act, it’s NOT my responsibility in any way, shape or form.”
There's more at work here than the usual, nearly boring, attempts to slime a liberal candidate as anti-Israel for the "sin" of supporting what Israel needs most — determined diplomatic efforts to achieve peace. Lurking in the background is another of the battles over how Israel-Palestinian history is told. In that fight, the original furious critic of Barack Obama's adviser is former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak. There's also a lesson about Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy: Besides settling the practical questions, it requires resolving the conflicting narratives about the past. To approach this task, the next president will need not just hard work but a gift with rhetoric, with words.
The Malley story actually goes back to 2001, when the former Clinton foreign-policy staffer began writing about what went wrong at the Camp David summit the summer before. First in The New York Times, then in a joint article with Hussein Agha in The New York Review of Books, Malley described mistakes made by Israel and the United States, not just by the Palestinians, that led to the collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
As special assistant to President Clinton for Arab-Israeli affairs, Malley was part of the American negotiating team at Camp David. Today he is the Middle East director for the International Crisis Group and one of many informal advisers to the Obama campaign. Though it should not be necessary to mention this, he is Jewish. Agha, his frequent co-author, is an expert on Palestinian affairs, today at Oxford.