Last night Chris Matthews, a political genius, said that Hillary Clinton was crazy not to try her damnedest to be Obama's Sec'y of State because she would be dealing with tremendous historical challenges in the Middle East: the end of the war in Iraq and the confrontation with Iran. These are not easy questions, they will require great statecraft.
It was an inspiring statement, which nonetheless left out the shadow issue in both Iraq and Iran: Israel– and the Israeli interest in the Iraq war, the Israeli interest vis-a-vis Iran, and the extent to which the Iran threat might be neutralized tomorrow, or put in the Pakistan category, with a resolution of the Palestinian issue. Israel/Palestine is a central piece in the puzzle. And always will be. Matthews knows it, and his non-mentioning of it leaves me desolated. Come on, Chris, forget about running for Pennsylvania Senate, step up to the plate as a journalist, like you're telling Hillary to do.
Hours pass. I'm on the couch, reading Avraham Burg's fine book about the Holocaust, which calls for reimagining the Jewish place in the world, when I come to this statement:
Huh. I love this book, I love Burg's clarity about Jewish power in the U.S. and the destruction of Palestinian society. But he's an Israeli Jew. I'm an American quasi-assimilationist in the era of the noble mutt Obama. Burg valorizes the idea of international Jewry; I find that idea highly problematic. Especially when American Jewry is compromised by the calamitous treatment of Palestinians in Israel and Palestine and its leadership's complicity in the Iraq war.
I'm not sure where to take this idea, it's more of a germ than a blog entry. Though I don't think Burg's statement can be separated from what Chris Matthews was talking about, the American challenges in the Middle East. And it would be helpful if we began to identify the separate interests at work here. If Jewry is a world superpower, then does American Jewry ever conflict with the American interest? Is this a recipe for confusion (Iraq) or moral force (Obama in the Middle East)? I'm being agnostic because I have good faith in Obama, notwithstanding everything. Though I'd add:
Joe Lieberman praises the hell out of Hillary for Sec'y of State… If there is a Jewish world superpower, who is speaking here? Is the tail wagging the mutt?
