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Obama's Remarks About Israel Are Wilfully Misinterpreted Again |
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| A critic construes any criticism of the Likud as anti-Israel | |
 by Daniel Koffler, March 4, 2008 |
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Reporting on the innuendo and attacks-by-proxy on Barack Obama's support for Israel yesterday, I highlighted this remark from an Obama speech to Jewish leaders in Cleveland:
I think there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt a unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel that you’re anti-Israel and that can’t be the measure of our friendship with Israel. If we cannot have a honest dialogue about how do we achieve these goals, then we’re not going to make progress.
This is obvious wisdom to a true friend of Israel. The only relevant choices for Israel and the Palestinians are between a two-state solution along roughly the 1967 borders that ensures security for Israel and self-determination for the Palestinians, or else continued low-level violence with occasional flareups and prolonged mutual enmity to the benefit of no one, forever. Support for a peace process is the only objectively pro-Israel position, to borrow a favorite neoconservative locution. Yet the Likud charter calls for total annexation of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights. As such, it is an obstacle to the peace and prosperity of the Israeli people.
At TNR's blog "The Plank," Jamie Kirchick seizes on the same remark to claim that
The Pro-Israel position Obama is "channeling Jim Moran," the Virginia Democratic congressman who covered himself in ignominy in 2003 when he blamed the American invasion of Iraq on "the Jewish community." Never mind that the chain of association between Moran and Obama is somewhere between tenuous and non-existent. Kirchick hears echoes in Obama of this attempt by Moran to cover his tracks:
I'm never going to satisfy people who think we should be giving unequivocal support to the Likud Party.
Thus Kirchick takes Obama to be expressing the same sentiment as Moran. The problem here is that Moran's invocation of "the Likud Party" was a transparently implausible means of suggesting that the unreasonable thing he had said about the Jewish community was really just a reasonable point about the diversity of views within Israel. Of course Moran tried to make the controversy about the Likud, because criticism of the Likud is reasonable, while blaming American Jews for provoking the invasion of Iraq is not.
Kirchick further interprets Obama's remarks as an "attempt to intervene in the domestic politics of our most important ally in the Middle East." He then asks:
Given that Likud will probably form the next Israeli government, why would Obama go out of his way to ridicule the party and declare that its sympathizers in America have a nefarious influence on our politics?
Which might be a good question if it bore any relationship to what Obama said. Far from declaring American Likudniks "nefarious," however, Obama was denying the claim that supporting any vision of Israeli policy other than the one favored by the Likud is automatically anti-Israel. In so doing, he was attempting to carve out a space for a foreign policy that is both pro-Israel and congenial to a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
To Obama's point that there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that construes any criticism of the Likud as anti-Israel, witness only Kirchick's suggestion that Obama's criticism of the Likud constitutes an outrageous intervention in Israeli politics, rather than the sound advice that it is.
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Kiku
"Obama's point that there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that construes any criticism of the Likud as anti-Israel"
Just like how any criticism of Bush or the Republican party is/certainly was called 'unpatriotic' and/or 'partisan-ness'?
David N. Friedman
Obama lacks wisdom and is no friend of Israel. He is pushing the Arab plan for Israel to withdraw to the pre-1967 borders and that includes relinquishing the Golan Heights (annexed by Israel) and dividing the capital of the Jewish people, Jerusalem.
Sorry, Dan, the pro-Israel plan is not the same as the Arab plan to dismantle and eventually destroy Israel. Obama is being honest that he supports the Arabs in the conflict. As Jews, we can be honest and say we will NEVER support such a character. Unless he makes some real fast corrections, Obama is on a pace to get Jewish Dems to leave the Party in droves in the Presidential race. Just one anecdote, my pal in Brooklyn who knows a lot of people who voted for Clinton expects, with seriousness, not one Jew in his neighborhood to vote for Barack Obama.
In supporting the Arab plan, he is pushing war on Israel. Little wonder the Jews are balking since we would rather survive.
When will Israel abandon the Golan--hopefully never. When will Israel divide our capital, surely never. When will Israel dismantle more Jewish homes--this time in Judea and Samaria- so violent Arabs can use the area to launch attacks against Jews--this time, a bit more cautiously.
As for the merit of being allegedly even-handed, this is another way of saying one is pro-violence and pro-Arab. Any American government that cannot side positively towards Israel and Israel's security needs cannot, by definition, be pro-peace since the VIOLENCE is from the Arab side.
The position of the Jewish left is very old and very familiar. Please be tough on Israel for the "good" of Israel. This is more mindless chatter. It is one thing for the Jewish left in Israel to seek ways to commit national suicide. It is quite another for an American government to be complicit in that effort. America wants Israel to survive in peace and America will therefore protest loudly if Obama becomes President and forces policies which lead immediately to war on Israel. The trouble is that as President, this man could do a whole lot of damage.
Anonymous
For the last few weeks you have been pushing hard for Obama, discounting any substantive arguments against the man and making him sound like he is as Pro-Israel as any republican. You do this as you denigrate a truly pro-Israel man like John Hagee. You and Jewcy come off as run of the mill Jewish leftists, hating your friend will giving cover to someone whose support you may just not be able to count on. Hagee may have problems with Catholics - many protestants do. You may love Obama, but there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical of Obama. A President appoints others to implement his plans or their plans if he agrees with them, which is why it is important to see who he respects and who he has as advisers. You may think that it is wrong to judge a person by the company he keeps, but with someone who has NO achievements and very little details when pressed, all we have to go on is the people around him. These people are troubling to most Jews. Now you may not agree, but the constant shilling should be tempered a little. It makes yourself and Jewcy look damned silly.
Phantom
Anon 11:12am,
Is this the Israeli election or the American one? Why should an American, any American whether Arab-American, Jewish-American, Mexican-American, etc., vote based exclusively on the impact of their vote on their country of origin or ethnic homeland? There are only like a 1000 other issues that are pressing for the sustenance and welfare of the vast majority of Americans: healthcare, economy, education, environment, crime, inflation . . . Don't these things impact Jewish-Americans too, or is it your belief that they are all planning to pack their bags and move to Israel next year?
Anonymous
Maybe Daniel's actually interested in honesty and accuracy re-asserting itself into our political discourse, so that when any view is voiced, whether pro-Israel or anti-Israel, it can actually be addressed or dismissed on its merits.
Perhaps such an approach would worry those who can't reject or persuade others to reject an anti-Israel agenda on its merits. Others, apparently, lack that disability and the fear that accompanies it.
David N. Friedman
Maybe Daniel's actually interested in honesty and accuracy re-asserting
itself into our political discourse, so that when any view is voiced,
whether pro-Israel or anti-Israel, it can actually be addressed or
dismissed on its merits.
My first point is that Daniel is not capable of such an assessment since he is drenched in ideological fervor. Your point here might be applicable regarding the whole of the Western world (Europe in particlular) and this standard would be a huge improvement since Israel is chronically put in the position of doing no right, no matter what.
I believe that perfect objectivity should not be sought in this conflict and this is what should be part of the "honest" part. To be honest, America tends to correctly and even somewhat reflexively support Israel in its struggle for survival and war with the Arabs. This kind of support is what cost Bobby Kennedy his life. Honest discourse cannot see Israel and the Arabs as equivalent concerning our support and we have every right as Americans to not only choose sides in this conflict but in many hot spots throughout the world. In fact, it is over failing as a world leader to abstain from choosing sides in many conflicts historically which has hurt our foreign policy subsequently--as we did in Bosnia and in many other conflicts.
We can still be brokers and not simple cheer leaders for Israel. Indeed, Israel makes mistakes and America's interests are not identical to Israel's--however--these interests are close.
The fact of the matter is that Obama is cheered by Arabs and feared by Israelis. His policy preferences are therefore not at all even-handed and as I suggest, even-handedness should not rightly be a legitimate US foreign policy goal in the first place. That is one good honest place to begin the discussion--don't you agree, anonymous?
Phantom
As much as it pains me to agree with you on something, I agree that we need not be even-handed when approaching different conflicts. And in the case of the Arab-Israeli conflict, it would not be in our interest to be even-handed, and so I agree with you about that. This, however, does not mean that we need to agree with everything Israel wants to do. Sometimes, you have to confront your brother and try to stop him from making a mistake. And this you do for his welfare and the welfare of your family in general.