Israel is getting lots of support inside the U.S. But I don’t know if this is the company most folks would want to have. The graphic above was screen-grabbed from Fox News (thanks to Reem Kelani and Tom Suarez).
Next, this photo of NY elected officials jumping over each other to rally to Israel’s side outside City Hall today was just tweeted by the Jerusalem Post’s Maya Shwayder.
I see Charlie Rangel, Eliot Engel, Nita Lowey, and Sheldon Silver. Shwayder offers these startling quotations from the gathering, including from liberal Democrats. There was a demonstration going on during the speeches:
“Much of what
#Hamas says — much of what you hear out there — is a new face on an old hatred,” Jerrold Nadler, pointing 2#Gaza protestors“We will not apologize for defending ourselves, or for the generous help of the United States.” — Ido Aharoni, Israeli consul-general.
“No money from our cmmt will go to a quote-unity gov’t that
#Hamas is in.” –@NitaLoweyNY State Senator
@bradhoylman says this is personal: he has family in#Israel
Hoylman is a state senator in Manhattan.
And here’s New Jersey Governor Chris Christie on the campaign trail, speaking in Nashville at the National Governors’ Association. From Haaretz:
“Israel is not sure that they have America’s full support like they used to,” Christie said. “And that’s a real failure of this presidency, in my view. And I think the unrest you see in the Middle East is caused in some measure — not completely, but in some measure — by the fact that this president has not acted in a decisive, consistent way.”..
Christie said Obama should be focused on trying to bring stability to the region “by having America be a forceful voice in favor of a democracy like Israel, and be condemning in the strongest terms and with actions the things that are being done by Hamas against Israel.”
Christie refused to endorse “U.S. military action if necessary,” according to AP. Is that even in play? Gosh.
NJ.com has more:
“[Obama] draws red lines then doesn’t enforce them; he doesn’t stand up for our friends in a vocal and forceful way,” he said. “Those are things that he should be focused on…”
And here’s a story from ten days ago in the Washington Post. It’s about Jewish teens headed to Israel, some to volunteer in the Israeli army. The piece features a loving portrait of Isaac Cohen and his parents. “It’s been a dream of mine to join the Israeli army.”
These are strongly-identified Jewish kids, i.e., they are in mainstream institutions. But imagine if these children were Palestinian or Muslim and going off to aid a foreign country/group that was under attack and to which they felt loyal?
many Jewish teenagers from Washington and elsewhere in the United States are preparing to go to Israel for a gap year after high school.
You’d think some would be reconsidering after those Jewish teens were kidnapped and killed. No. Reporter Carol Morello says few parents are thought to be
balking after an incident that struck the [Israeli] teenagers at the end of a school day, circumstances so commonplace they could easily imagine their own sons in their stead.
So they imagine their own children as part of an illegal colonization project. More blurring of national identities:
The determination to carry on reflects the deep affinity many American Jews feel with Israel, particularly when it is under attack. Theirs is an American example of a commonly held belief among Israelis: that they will not let their lives be dictated by the fear fostered by violent militants.
Palestinian resistance– it just gets these American Jewish kids going:
Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld of the National Synagogue, the oldest Orthodox synagogue in the District. “But people don’t say they’re not going to Israel anymore. If anything, it’s just the opposite. When these types of horrible attacks happen, many people in our community express their love for Israel by going there, showing solidarity.”
As a side note, this morning I heard Israeli ambassador Ron Dermer interviewed by Steve Inskeep on National Public Radio. The usual horse feathers about how Israel does everything to protect Palestinian civilians for several minutes, and operates “surgically,” an Orwellian term if I ever heard one. But I noticed Inskeep ask with growing impatience about conditions in Gaza, and what Israel was doing to make things better for Palestinians. Yes I know I’m grasping at straws, but it’s becoming more and more plain to Americans that Israel has just one answer to its foundational issues… slaughter the brown people.
The browser tab title for this story is broken (unless it is subliminal messaging)
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how many witnesses will it take to stop Israel
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G-d Bless
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Today Steve Inskeep also did an interview with Palestinian author-teacher Adania Shibli about her perspective (http://www.npr.org/2014/07/14/331298940/palestinian-authority-bears-the-brunt-of-west-bank-outrage). The title is “Palestinian Authority Bears Brunt Of West Bank Outrage.” She is able to give the essence of the Palestinian perspective. I think that NPR is finally starting to do real reporting.
Jodi Rudoren at the NY Times had an article yesterday that I thought was another good attempt to tell the Palestinian story although the focus was on a rail line (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/14/world/middleeast/in-divided-jerusalem-rail-line-for-arabs-and-jews-is-among-the-fractures.html).
In contrast, PM Netanyahu was on Fox News yesterday defending Israel in an awkward way. He got his air time, but it seemed that Brit Hume sat back and let him ramble. It was as if we were listening to someone peddling an eight track player.
Great article Philip. It is interesting that Christie is suddenly proclaiming his devotion and concern for Israel. My, my, someone is desperate to get the Israel lobbies to support him, perhaps with 2016 in mind. He unfortunately, is the Governor of my State, and has been an abysmal failure, but looking at how Bush ran, it seem people are not concerned if they were failed governors or not. So they may make him their President.
Interesting that Jewish American kids are interested in joining the Israeli armed forces, I don’t know how many do that, but according to this article it seems not many are eager to join the armed forces in their own country, the US.
http://www.vosizneias.com/43746/2009/11/25/new-yor,-should-more-Jews-join-the-u-s-military/
It is hard for the Israelis to talk their way out of the facts – despite crying victim, blaming Hamas for their plight, it seems it is hard for their spokespeople, to rationalize the death toll, injuries, homes being bombed, on the other side, and have no deaths to speak of on theirs. CNN had Wolf Blitzer stand in front of broken parts of what may be rockets, as if trying to show the suffering Israelis have to go through.
It was laughable and Blitzer looked quite ridiculous making his points.
>> “Israel is not sure that they have America’s full support like they used to,” Christie said. “And that’s a real failure of this presidency, in my view.”
If I were president of this great land, I would fellate the Zio-supremacist donkey until it damn near killed me, and then I’d fellate it some more. THAT, my fellow Americans, is what an American president should – no, MUST! – do.