I’m hopeful about President Obama’s Middle East policy. Yesterday he even referred obliquely to Palestinian suffering. Call me naive, but I think he has the unique ability to triangulate the pro-Israel crowd with the pro-Palestinian crowd, and end that bloody dialectic in the world’s story.
That said, the pool report on Obama’s visit to Ramallah to meet for an our with the Palestinian prime minister and his foreign minister suggested that he is surrounded by a wall of Jewish flesh: Obama was accompanied by advisers Dennis Ross, Jim Steinberg, Dan Shapiro. Susan Rice, Dan Kurtzer. Rice is black. Ross and Kurtzer are Jewish, I’m betting Steinberg and Shapiro are too. Ross, Kurtzer and Steinberg all served Clinton. This looks like further evidence of the ways that the Israel lobby–in htis case, Obama’s fears about losing Jewish financial support if he seeks to be evenhanded–has crippled policymaking in the Middle East.
Ambassador Kurtzer agrees with me. In his recent book Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace, he said what I am saying in diplomatic terms: “The Clinton team could have benefited from greater regional and cross-cultural expertise….the absence of Arab expertise was handicapping U.S. diplomacy…’There was no expert on our team on Islam or on Muslim perspectives,’ said a former Clinton Administration official.”
Then later: “both Clinton and Bush 43 failed to argue strongly against Israeli policies that… contradicted U.S. policies or interest, such as settlement expansion and certain occupation practices.”
I’m not talking about color-bars here,and I’m sure one or two of these guys is enlightened. I’m talking about a little cultural diversity. As I argue to Dan Fleshler below, having both feet in the Jewish community is a recipe for nonaction. We won’t get out of this swamp till non-Jews are encouraged to play a real role in these overtures.
Related posts:
- Arguing about whether Dan Kurtzer should get the nod from Obama
- Was I establishing a Jewish quota for ‘Meet the Press’?
- Potential Obama Envoy Dan Kurtzer Had a Brother Living in a Settlement
- Kurtzer, Obama’s Surrogate, Issues Coded Assault on Israel Lobby
- Dennis Ross could be ‘Elliott Abrams of Obama administration’
{ 13 comments }
It's obvious Obama knows the play script. Is he the ultimate fox, or just another hen? Time will tell, but only if he actually gets into the White House. Will he make a trip to Mexico too?
The Jewish community wants to be sure that Israel will be safe.
Its not a force for evil, as implied.
It's not fear of losing Jewish financial support. He's proven he can raise what he wants and needs from little guys on the internet. It's fear of offending "Jewish sensibilities" in the media and academic thought police. If a public figure crosses that line, say by highlighting crimes against humanity by the settler/occupying forces, he is smeared as anti-Semitic, and all his work is either ignored or characterized as "sloppy," "derivative," "second rate," with much "tut-tutting," and there doesn't seem to be anyone to stand up and say, "pshaw," or, "if you're rich and powerful and people notice, don't whine about it." Obama needs cover, not money, and will as long offending "jewish sensibilities" is verboten.
Fine, Witty. But why don't the Palestinians get similar access to make sure that the Palestinians are safe? Don't they have the same fears and aspirations as Israelis? Why does the bottom line on every U.S. policy decision involve satisfying (often irrational and counterproductive) fears on the part of Israelis and their U.S. allies? How come it never works that way for Palestinians.
And Phil, I know you rarely read comments, but I hope you'll see this one: I used to share your hope about Obama and Israel/the Middle East. He'd be the next Carter, a man with an actual sense of the history of the area and a conscience to match it. And for a while, I thought he was mostly saying and doing what he had to do to get elected; that we'd see the real Obama come 1/20/09. But I've given up. I assume that, in his heart, he does understand and sympathize with the true nature of the Palestinian plight. But I think this campaign has showed us how badly his hands are tied. Part of it is his fault and part of it isn't. Maybe he'll make a few nice gestures as President — a speech in the West Bank? — but when it comes to hoping for a real friend for the Palestinians, I've given up. What we've seen is what we'll get. The suffering will go on.
And by the way, Doppler is right. Phil should stop saying Obama's moves are about Jewish money. He's going to have $300 million, whether the Israel-firsters pony up or not. It's a simpler calculation (and a correct one, I think): Most Americans don't know a damn thing about the Israel/Palestine situation. But they are instinctively and emotionally "pro-Israel," even though they aren't sure what this means specifically. But the Israelis look more like "us" and all that is ever found in the media are reports of "barbaric" Palestinian militants. Israel is the home of the victimized Jews; the rest of the Middle East is filled with Jew-hating terrorists. That's what most Americans think when they think of this issue at all. Obama knows that he can't change that, certianly not in a campaign. So if he stirs up any kind of a fight with any of the "pro-Israel" groups, the ignorant masses, who otherwise ignore Israel, will suddenly pay attention. And all they will hear are pro-Israel groups invoking the Holocaust and accusing Obama of siding with those that would destroy Israel. It would be political suicide for Obama. Money isn't the issue here.
The American community just wants to be sure America will be safe.
Its all about the means, not the ends. Every community wants to be safe.
I really wish I could see cause for optimism; but all I see the indelible hand of the Judeo-American lobby all over Obama.
To be honest, I am so close to giving up hope .. but still have to acknowledge that he is probably still the best of a pretty unappealing bunch.
Too bad our mainstream media doesn't allow as much free speech as they have in Israel. And we are the one with the written constitution, including its First Amendment. We even have actual borders–or at least we once did.
Important observations, Philip. I have seen Arab voices dismissed outright over the presumption of an inability to report/mediate in an unbiased fashion, yet little or nothing is made of Jewish participant's agenda (if we even *are* aware of their cultural identity as many Jewish names are more readily mistaken for 'anglo' ones than most Arabic names would be).
This double-standard has persisted for far too long. Thank you for your efforts in helping to change this.
obama made his peace with the holy of holies in the land of holies.
six million mentioned many times.
im curious about that number. yad vashem reduced auschwitz from 4mil to less than 1mill maybe to less than 300 thous. the other camps also reduced. so how come still 6mill? all the excess deads were catholics and gypsies and homos and mental retards?
a generous fellow replied to me one time that the number doesnt matter. that one is monstrous. ok. actions say differently.
contrarian should find this interesting. To not be pro or con Israel would not be political suicide with the majrioty of the public voters as he suggest. Phil is right the pro Israel meme of politicans is for the money not for American voters.
Most Americans are pro Israel? I think not.
Most Americans are "Pro Fairness".
How many times in how many polls does that have to be proved?
The "politicans" are pro Israel. The "American Public" is not.
That is the Big difference.
"Rendering Public Opinion Irrelevant"
Glen Greenwald
One of the most striking aspects of our political discourse, particularly during election time, is how efficiently certain views that deviate from the elite consensus are banished from sight — simply prohibited — even when those views are held by the vast majority of citizens.
The University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes — the premiere organization for surveying international public opinion — released a new survey a couple of weeks ago regarding public opinion on the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
Including opinion among American citizens, and this is what it found:
A new WorldPublicOpinion.org poll of 18 countries finds that in 14 of them people mostly say their government should not take sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Three countries favor taking the Palestinian side (Egypt, Iran, and Turkey) and one is divided (India).
No country favors taking Israel's side, including the United States, where 71 percent favor taking neither side.
The worldwide consensus is crystal clear — citizens want their Governments to be neutral and even-handed in the Israel-Palestinian conflict, not tilted towards either side. And that consensus is shared not just by a majority of American citizens, but by the overwhelming majority.
Few political views, particularly on controversial issues, attract more than 70% support among American citizens. But the proposition that the U.S. Government should be even-handed — rather than tilting towards Israel — attracts that much support.
Similarly, when asked "How well do you think Israel is doing its part in the effort to resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict," citizens around the world, by a large margin, believe that Israel is doing either "not very well" or "not well at all" (54% — compared to 23% that say it's doing "very well" or "somewhat well"). And there, too, that worldwide view corresponds to American public opinion as well. 59% of Americans say Israel is doing either "not very well" or "not well at all" — compared to only 30% that say it's doing "very well" or "somewhat well." And Palestinians don't fare much better worldwide (38-49%) and fare worse in the U.S. (15-75%).
Yet not only is the view of "even-handedness" completely unrepresented among mainstream political figures in the U.S., it's deemed political death to go anywhere near expressing that view. Back in 2003, then-presidential-candidate Howard Dean expressed the exact position favored by an overwhelming majority of Americans, yet triggered an intense and even ugly controversy by doing so:
Dean's Israel troubles began at a Sept. 3 campaign event in Santa Fe, N.M. When it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he said that day, "It's not our place to take sides." Then, on Sept. 9, he told the Washington Post that America should be "evenhanded" in its approach to the region.
That's all Dean said. It's a view held by more than 70% of Americans. It ought to be completely uncontroversial — if anything, it ought to be that view that is deemed a political piety. But what happened? This, according to an excellent account of that "controversy" in Salon by Michelle Goldberg:
The media and the Democratic establishment reacted as if Dean had called Yasser Arafat a man of peace. On Sept. 10, 34 Democratic members of Congress, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, wrote Dean an open letter. "American foreign policy has been — and must continue to be — based on unequivocal support for Israel's right to exist and to be free from terror . . ." they wrote. "It is unacceptable for the U.S. to be 'evenhanded' on these fundamental issues . . . This is not a time to be sending mixed messages; on the contrary, in these difficult times we must reaffirm our unyielding commitment to Israel's survival and raise our voices against all forms of terrorism and incitement."
The Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reported that Dean had badly damaged his own campaign. "Sources in the Jewish community say that Dean has wrecked his chances of getting significant contributions from Jews . . ." the paper wrote. "Many believe Dean's statement will drive more Jews toward Lieberman and Kerry, enabling Kerry to take the lead again."
Dean was roundly attacked by the political elite for uttering "anti-Israel" comments, notwithstanding the fact that Dean is married to a Jewish woman, raised his children as Jews, and, most amazingly of all, had a campaign that was managed by Steve Grossman, a former President of AIPAC. But no matter: Dean had uttered a Forbidden Thought — forbidden even though it is embraced by the vast majority of Americans.
If Dean's Israel position really puts him far out on the left, it proves that not showing unequivocal support for the Jewish state remains a political poison pill — for members of either political party. . . .
More troubling is the condemnation by Pelosi and other party leaders of even a hint of "evenhandedness."
It's pretty extraordinary that in a democracy, the political elite is able to render completely off-limits a view that the vast majority of Americans support.
They actually render majority-held views unspeakable and then remove the issue entirely from what is debated. No matter what one's views are, there is no denying that our policy towards Israel is immensely consequential for our country.
Yet, by virtue of the fact that presidential candidates are required to affirm essentially the same orthodoxies, there's very little difference in their positions towards Israel and therefore our current policy approach towards Israel will simply not be part of anything that is debated, even though most Americans overwhelmingly oppose that course.
Again, the point has nothing to do with one's views of the best policy towards Israel. The point is that a position which the vast majority of Americans embrace is one that, simultaneously, is forbidden to be expressed, and the election consequently will involve no debate over that issue.
That profoundly anti-democratic dynamic is by no means confined to Israel. That's just an example.
Remarkably, this desire for cooperation rather than confrontation is the view of most Americans despite the Iraq-level misinformation and propaganda which our political elite has disseminated about Iran:
While Iranian President Ahmadinejad is depicted by our political class as the Equivalent of Adolf Hitler, savagely oppressing Iranians as some sort of insane, vicious tyrant, that isn't how they see it:
Iranian public opinion distinguishes between the U.S. Government and the American people — holding favorable views towards the latter and unfavorable views towards the former ("some portrayed the American people, like the Muslim people, as victims of the American government") — and to the extent there is "anti-Americanism" in Iran, it is based on this widespread assessment.
That, too, is a belief widely held in many places in the world, yet is one that no mainstream politician in the U.S. could express.
There are all sorts of reasons why our presidential elections center on personality-based sideshows.
But one principal reason is that so many of the Government's most consequential actions are concealed behind a wall of secrecy and thus not subject to public debate.
Meanwhile, those policies which are publicly disclosed are kept off-limits from any real debate and, even when they are debated, public opinion is almost completely marginalized in favor of the minority elite consensus (see, for instance, the endless Iraq war even in the face of long-standing, overwhelming support for its end).
That remarkable dynamic of debate-suppression is most conspicuous — and most urgent — when the policies favored by the political establishment are ones that are vigorously rejected by the citizenry.
Thus we have the extraordinary fact that a policy that has long been favored by the vast majority of Americans — even-handedness in the Israel-Palestinian conflict — is one that no mainstream American politician of any national significance can espouse without triggering an immediate end to their political career. That discrepancy is a rather potent commentary on how our democracy functions.
– Glenn Greenwald
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
There you have it..71% of Americans- 2, 310,000,000 of us vr. 500 politicans in the house and senate and the Israeli lobby and their orgs. It is past way time for us to take them down.
American — it is interesting, and I wish I could agree completely. But I think it's most semantics. In my view, about 95% of Americans no shit about Israel/Palestine/the Middle East, so mass opinion on the subject isn't always coherent and is mostly based on emotions and knee-jerk impulses. So the word "even-handed" polls very well. Most voters don't grasp the connotation — that this word represents a slap in the face to the Israel-firsters.
But when an actual fight erupts and the lines are drawn, the Israel side wins out in public opinion. A fight over the Iran "threat," for instance, would be unwinnable for Obama, I'm convinced. The emotional power of the "Iran is evil-they say they want to destroy Israel-how can we possibly let another Holocaust happen again?" is too strong. All of the reasons why it's BS don't register on a mass scale.
And Obama has to be particularly sensitive to this, because voters are unsure about him. He is doing everything he can to make them think he's "mainstream." If the lobby were to wage a concerted campaign to brand Obama a naive extremist who wants to appease Iran while it arms itself to wipe out Israel, the average voter would respond to the media noise by becoming uneasy and uncomfortable with Obama. It's not just the issue of Israel they'd be responding to; it would be the perception that this newcomer with the Muslim name seems to hold extreme foreign policy views. That would undermine him thoroughly.
But This hasn't happened because Obama has kept the lobby at bay. There are some who call him naive and a threat to Israel, but most voters — correctly — chalk this up to the voices of a few on the fringes. It would be a different story if the full force of the lobby came down on him.
RE: "American — it is interesting, and I wish I could agree completely. But I think it's most semantics. In my view, about 95% of Americans no shit about Israel/Palestine/the Middle East, so mass opinion on the subject isn't always coherent and is mostly based on emotions and knee-jerk impulses."
Precisely. But it's not semantics at all. Look at foreign aid, look at
the USA's memorandums of understanding, look at the Iraq, and hopefully Iran War, PNAC etc…. nothing semantic about it at all when it comes down to American dollars and GIs…
Not to worry–unless you are an American taxpayer with a family to support, or a family with GIs in the military service…
Just semantics…
Right.
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