This is sick.
The Emergency Committee for Israel released a video yesterday calling for Obama to bomb Iran. “Talking isn’t working,” the ad says (and as Rob’t Wright points out, the ad lies in stating that Iran has enriched enough uranium to make five bombs, it doesn’t have that uranium). It’s pure election-year politics, trying to bring Jews to Romney’s side on the issue of supporting Israel.
Now J Street has struck back with the ad above, quoting Bill Kristol from a colloquy with J Street’s leader, Jeremy Ben-Ami, last month on the Upper West Side: “I’m happy to sit here and agree with President Obama to a considerable degree [on Iran]”.
Kudos to J Street for trying to stop a war on Iran. Dershowitz is attacking J Street for just this stance; and Dershowitz gets a meeting in the White House, not Jeremy Ben-Ami.
(Though I would note that the ultimate problem here is America’s support for Israel, at the urging of American Zionists; and J Street is part of that problem. The J Street ad concludes, “Don’t play politics with America and Israel’s security.” But this isn’t actually about America’s security, it’s about Israel’s perception of its security. Israel is not our country. The correct response to Kristol’s efforts to play politics with this issue is to actually politicize the issue, Should we be so supportive of Israel?)
In a crisis, everyone thinks their side can “win” if they come out ahead in the crisis. AIPAC thinks it will “win” something if it can press Obama to enter a war no-one other than AIPAC wants. Even if the USA loses big. The_Dersh seems to agree. He too wants to “win”.
Obama wants to “win” by winning the next election. I suppose he has some idea for turning such a “win” to good account, but unless he show us and the world what that turning is, his “win” (if it occur) will be nearly valueless.
J-Street must think it can “win” here by opposing AIPAC. Glad to see it. It is surely high time J-Street stood up for something generally beneficial. I suppose J-Street thinks it can “win” in the long run if it seems to win this fight in the short term.
If J Street were serious they’d run the following ad:
[images of Iraq war and modern Iran] Announcer (VO)
Remember how were told Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Well, it wasn’t true and America spent hundreds of billions of dollars and lost over four thousand soldiers and saw tens of thousands of soldiers injured for life – not to mention the hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians who died. All based on lies.
Who lied us into that war? The same neocons attempting to lie us into another war – this time in Iran. Iran is no threat, just as Iraq was no threat. Iran is completely contained – surrounded by countless U.S. military bases. The Iranian regime is suffering under crippling economic sanctions that mostly hurt their people – and the Iranian people want their government to change.
The quest for war is a proxy effort by israel, to use the United States to achieve israel’s regional superpower goals. Don’t be lied to again by the Neocon Thirty
[ad concludes showing the faces of all the arch-zionist Fifth Columnist types: Kristol, Krauthammer, Adelson, Joe Lieberman, Dershowitz, Saban, etc etc]
The Emergency Committee for Israel video is really sick, but I could see Obama using an equally warmongering video to glorify his drone war or his assassination list (maybe this one could have a Godfather theme). Possibly, Obama prefers leaking to the press as opposed to ads in order to save the media costs.
Also, defending Obama’s record on his Iran policy is a bit tacky. He is sold out to AIPAC/Israel and his only (bad) excuse is I have to do it to get re-elected. See the Robert Wright article in Phil’s first post today.
J Street loves easy targets that help the Democrats and Obama. Especially now that the occupation is off the Obama (and J Street) agenda.
As you noted in the parathesis, the issue here isn’t America but the PR handling of Israel. J Street isn’t slamming ECI for warmongering. It’s slamming it because it believes the group can do better hasbara.
RE: “Kudos to J Street for trying to stop a war on Iran. Dershowitz is attacking J Street for just this stance; and Dershowitz gets a meeting in the White House, not Jeremy Ben-Ami.” ~ Weiss
MY COMMENT: I have decided that come hell or high water I will not be voting for Obama this November. I’m tired of being a battered
wifevoter!Jill Stein for President – http://www.jillstein.org/
P.S. RE: “But this isn’t actually about America’s security, it’s about Israel’s perception of its security.” ~ Weiss
MY COMMENT: It is not about Israel’s perception of its “security”; it is about Iran being a threat to Israel’s regional dominance!