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Everwhere But There
By Joel Schalit / June 8, 2009
Far be it for Caroline Glick to oversimplify Barack Obama. From the very outset of her televised debate with fellow Jerusalem Post columnist Gershon Baskin, the American-born pundit made it clear exactly what she thought of the new US President’s recent trip to the Middle East, and his subsequent stop in Germany. Obama had massively rebuked Israel, and had done so in four different ways: First, he visited Saudi Arabia and Egypt, but did not come to the Jewish state. Second, following his speech in Cairo, Obama visited a German concentration camp instead of Israel. Third, he chose to unveil his Mideast policy on June 4th, not June 5th, the 42nd anniversary of the Six Day War. Finally, Obama asserted moral equivalence between Jews and Nazis by visiting the city of Dresden, as well as Buchenwald. For those familiar with Glick’s brand of Jewish conservatism, her criticisms of the American leader check out. Obama was not only demonstrating overt deference to the Muslim world. He’d gone out of his way to placate it as well by carefully running roughshod over the deepest of Jewish sensitivities: inferring his desire to restore the pre-1967 territorial order in the Mideast and relativizing the Nazi genocide. Of all of Glick’s objections, the President’s visit to Dresden is the only one that merits additional comment, if only because it is the most ideologically complex of his gestures. Over a two day period, in February 1945, US and British aircraft dropped 3900 hundred tons of ordinance on Dresden, killing upwards of 25,000 civilians, triggering a firestorm that literally incinerated 34 square kilometers of the city. For over 60 years, the brutality of the bombing has inspired debate about whether the Allies were justified in carrying it out. Not everyone agrees Dresden was a legitimate military target, with a reasonable number of analysts arguing that the campaign constituted a war crime, that Dresden was in fact Germany’s own Hiroshima, albeit one triggered by conventional weaponry. Needless to say, 12 weeks after the raids, the Nazis surrendered. This is why its important to understand the subtext behind Glick’s concern about the rhetoric of equivalency. Beneath it lies the fear that the President’s decision to acknowledge the possibility of US war crimes might lead to a willingness to give in to "today’s Nazis," the Arabs, and eventually acknowledge claims about Israeli culpability for ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. If Obama could apologize for the 1953 overthrow of the Iranian government by the CIA, call the US invasion of Iraq a "war of choice," and acknowledge, however carefully, the undeniability of Palestinian suffering, as he did during his speech in Cairo, it would be hard to argue otherwise, at least theoretically. In practice, its another story. The point is what this says about Glick’s anxiety, and how we might see it as an example of that being experienced by the larger Jewish right. Despite frightened reactions to Obama like this, it has been more common than not for Diaspora progressives to condemn Obama’s recent positioning on Israel as having been insufficient. At precisely the time when the President could have elaborated a more radical agenda for the Middle East, instead he chose to still defend Israel, prosecute America’s war in Afghanistan, and continue US support for distinctly non-democratic allies such as Egypt. At no point was any such threat to Israel perceived. Again, it was being sheltered by the US, albeit disengenuously, through a new deployment of liberal rhetoric.
One participant in a discussion list I subscribe to offered perhaps the hardest hitting leftist critique I encountered when he stated that Obama wasn’t trying to destroy Israel, as critics like Glick fear. Rather, he was attempting to revive the notion of a ‘liberal Israel,’ albeit one that could more rationally serve American interests if it were not engaged in a military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and antagonizing Iran. Obama wasn’t trying to solve the problem of Israel itself. He was simply trying to use the country differently than it had been by previous US governments.
With certain exceptions, very few likeminded progressive critics chose to emphasize what Obama did say about Mossadegh, about Iran’s right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy, but especially concerning those things which undoubtedly were heard as threatening by Jewish rightists. It was as though conservatives and progressives were listening to two very different Obamas, each of which was equally disappointing, albeit for entirely different reasons. The reason why its important to pay attention to the differences between the way right and left speak about Obama’s approach to the Middle East is that its impossible to get a sense of the President’s actual impact without assessing such disparate responses. Considering that American policy has historically followed a conservative agenda in the region makes it that much more important to hear conservative complaints during such times of policy change, not to mention progressive concerns that he isn’t going far enough in his reforms.
This is where Dresden rears its head again, and why its example so clearly matters. Glick and many like her seem to voice anxieties about Obama’s rhetoric of equivalency because–at least symbolically–he’s trying to revive the two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. However problematic, such a settlement would mean righting Israeli wrongs, regardless of any Arab responsibility for the plight of the Palestinians.
It would also mean that the Israeli government would have to acknowledge that it was wrong to settle the territories and embark on a program of nation-building that depended on making the Palestinians disappear. Allowing Palestinians to build their own state, however imperfect, means recognizing their right to national liberation as equivalent to that of the Jews. The Israeli right fears that any attempt to portray the Germans as victims leads to a similar appreciation of their Arab other, the Palestinians.
Hence the fear of acknowledging German suffering, in Europe of all places, and of tying all concepts of equivalency to Germany’s example. It highlights the instability of portraying the Palestinians, albeit the Arabs, as Nazi stand-ins, while at the same time alluding to the surplus stereotypes that progressives frequently apply to Israelis. That we actually are the real Nazis, insofar as like them, our concept of a Jewish state by necessity does not allow for the existence of someone else. This is why I welcome President Obama’s recent positioning on the Middle East, and regard it as being constructive. Because it is so deeply upsetting to those who would prefer to maintain the present status quo, because it is a catalyst for reflection on the profoundly complex knots we’ve used to bind ourselves to the situation, which blind us to the distinctions between German and Palestinian, let alone Nazi and Jew, anything that helps tear down these walls, to quote Ronald Reagan, will do.
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That wasn’t me in the last post. Anyway, I’m familiar with the book and it’s specific qualities aside what I was talking about was not a collection of excuses and grievances but what is going on today. I think the fact that Hamas could declare today that they are renouncing violence and want to actually build a Palestinan state, but hasn’t done it, speaks more than 500 books.
Hey Hunter 14 -
That’s actually not true. The McCain campaign did more to publicize Khalidi in mainstream US media circles than anyone could have imagined. It may have been difficult to see that from Israel, but that’s exactly what happened in America.
The reason why you want me to answer your question is because you’d like another opportunity to discuss why a Palestinian state will not work. I don’t really need to say anything of interest. Neither do you. You’ve said it already.
The repetitiveness of this routine is a bit numbing, and never goes anywhere. Like you said earlier, we’re in fundamental disagreement.
Joel
The fact is that Rashid Khalidi wasn’t deployed much in 2008 considering            The Los Angeles Times exposed themselves as a partisan rag that would not publish photos or accounts of his association with Obama.Â
I am sure the "Iron Cage" holds all the solutions to the conflict considering the last several years of Middle-East turmol has shown, a "surprising number of analysts within the defense establishment" cannot ever be wrong about anything. How about sharing some of the Khalidi brillance instead of just throwing out a book title.
Hunter 14,
The best account of why the Palestinians have not been able to succesfully establish a state is Rashid Khalidi’s 2006 book The Iron Cage.
I say that knowing all too well that you may not take too kindly to Khalidi, especially considering how his figure was deployed in the 2008 elections.Â
Regardless, its the best study of its kind. I’m sure you’d find a surprising number of analysts within the defense establishment who’d agree with that assessment.
Joel
I’m honestly interested in what makes you think that they do. I also wish that they would be interested in building a peaceful state next to Israel, but their actions speak otherwise. Have you seen any real actions (not words) they have taken to set up a country as the Zionist leaders did in the runup to 1948?
Hi Hunter 14,
What you mean to say, if I am correct, (in your first sentence) is actually the reverse – that I personally believe that the Palestinians want a state, not the destruction of Israel, and that I have this in common with Obama. I can’t obviously speak for the president, but you’re probably right about that.
Thanks, Joel
Joel–I think where I and others like me differ fro m you (and Obama) is believing that what the Palestinians want is a state and not the destruction of Israel. Hamas clearly states that it is not interested in state but rather that the whole middle east should be under Moslem rule. Fatah says that it wants a state but it’s actions say otherwise. It has done little or no nation building and when speaking to Arabic-speaking audiences many high fatah officials openly say that the founding of a Palestinian state is just the first step in the destruction of Israel. Their actions, where land ceded by Israel has turned into a launching pad for terror, has backed up theses statements.
I think that your opinions, though well meaning, are based on what you wish the Palestinians would think rather than what they actually think and do.
I am familar with the leftist argument of "occupation by other means" where Israel protects its nation by patroling the air, sea and land routes into Gaza. To do less would be criminally negligent of the Israeli government since if these measures were abandoned, Gaza would be armed to the teeth by Iran and highly lethal weaponary would be attached to those "crude" rockets that fall on Israel by the hundreds.
After Israel made the Gaza "Jew Free" as the Germans used to say, they watched how functioning green houses and entact structures that used to be houses of worship were burned to the ground by the Arabs because they were touched by Jews. Millions of dollars of aid money from Israel, the EU, and the US were stolen and used for weapons and vile propaganda while leftists around the world gave their fascist allies of Hamas political cover.
As for Reagan, President Obama likes to play a heroic statesman by fighting conflicts that have long since been won; that’s easy. When it comes to challenges today with uncertain outcomes, he takes full advantage of the ignorance of his fawning followers with a sophist reworking of history and spellbinding empty words that have no substance or commitments that can be relied upon.Â
Israel is once again on her own when it comes to confronting fascist terror and the world will once again benefit from her efforts with hateful derision as her reward.
Hi Alcove-One,
How familiar are you with liberal criticisms of the Israeli government’s policies towards Gaza? One of the recurring themes is the notion that the present blockade is an occupation by other means. That’s the position the person I was citing adheres to, and its an extremely common one within the greater left.
You’re more than entitled to disagree with such a position. However, that’s different than criticizing a journalist for reporting someone taking such a position. Nevertheless, I’d caution you to read these texts a little more closely, and qualify your disagreements a little more carefully.
The same goes for your dismissal of the Reagan quotation. To reiterate for those who are not familiar, in 1987, the late US President said in a Berlin address, "Mr Gorbachev, tear down these walls."Â You can see the video of the speech right here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjWDrTXMgF8
Best, Joel
"…he was attempting to revive the notion of a ‘liberal Israel,’ albeit one that could more rationally serve American interests if it were not engaged in a military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and antagonizing Iran.
"Antagonizing Iran"? How? By existing? Also Israel no longer occupies Gaza and several times attempted to trade the West Bank for peace and was given terrorism in return.
And if it is "liberal Israel" your after, it was liberal governments in Israel that were in office when the occupation happened and it was conservative governments that gave the Sini and Gaza away.
In addition, Ronald Reagan did not tear down walls by praising Communist governments but by arming Europe and the heavens in order to defeat the "Evil Empire" and millions in Eastern Europe are the better for it.
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