"The appropriate response was a shake of the head - not a temper tantrum," Weiner said in a statement to be released shortly.  "Israel is a sovereign nation and an ally, not a punching bag. Enough already."

I could be very wrong here, but there was a little snippet from the presidents speech on health care in Philadelphia yesterday that sounded vaguely familiar. 

Here's the breakdown:

"My question to them is: When is the right time? If not now, when? If not us, who?"

-Barack Obama: smart black guy, low poll ratings

 "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And when I am for myself, what am 'I'? And if not now, when?"

-Hillel the Elder: smart Jew, maybe created the sandwich 

Rabbi Capers C. Funnye, Jr. The news this week has been saturated with issues of race, otherness, and problems of identity in a society that's most comfortable drawing boundaries and lines. On Sunday, the New York Times ran a story on Rabbi Capers C. Funnye, Jr., the first African-American member of the Chicago Board of Rabbis. On Tuesday, Senator Barack Obama gave a landmark speech on race relations that took the country by storm. We asked documentary filmmaker Lacey Schwartz to weigh in on these two stories by sharing her own parallel experiences as a Black, Jewish woman who is working to incorporate and make sense of her dual identities. Here's what she had to say:

Like any typical upper-middle class Jewish girl growing up in the Eighties, my life revolved around the Bar Mitzvah party circuit, Gap clothing stores, second base, and Madonna. Something was off, though: From a young age, I encountered people who pointed out that I looked different from my white parents because of my darker skin, tightly curled hair and thicker features. From a little boy in nursery school who made me show him my gums because he claimed they determined my race, to my classmates in high school who would verbally accost me in the halls with “What are you?”—an inquiry that they demanded more than asked—questions about my identity were abundant. “Jewish?” I would tentatively respond, afraid of how they might react to my denial of what they saw as my obvious blackness.

My family never seemed to notice or acknowledge the fact that I looked different from them. One overt example of this came at the age of sixteen, when my grandfather strongly encouraged me to break up with my bi-racial boyfriend. Without irony or malice, Grandpa expressed his fear of how people might treat me for being in an interracial relationship. Because of experiences like these, I deeply related when Barack Obama described in a speech earlier this week how he would cringe when his white grandmother uttered racial stereotypes, and yet he could not disown her.

Lacey Schwartz: black, white, jewish? yes, yes, and yes. When I applied to college I left the race/ethnicity box blank and attached a photograph instead. Based on that, I was admitted as a student who was of “Black/Not of Hispanic Origin.” It wasn't until the end of my freshman year that I learned the truth: My biological father was an African-American man who my mother had had an affair with while married to my father. It was quite a shock, but I cherish my university experience as the time and place where my identification with being African-American and my connection to the Black community first began.

Years later, in an attempt to merge my Black identity with my Jewish upbringing, I attended Yom Kippur services at a Black synagogue in Brooklyn. I was skeptical at first: “A group of Black Jews worshipping together?” I thought. On entering the small brownstone converted into a synagogue, I was amazed to find that the entire congregation was Black! I was even more surprised to find the songs, prayers, and Shofar blasts were identical to what I learned growing up. I couldn't help but wonder how someone with two Black parents could possibly be Jewish, but after years of being questioned by strangers about my own identity, I hid my ignorance and didn't ask the questions I so desperately wanted answered.

As featured in last weekend’s NY Times, Rabbi Capers Funnye Jr. embodies both the heart and soul of this community of people. He was one of the first Black rabbis who I came upon in researching other Black Jews, and he has been one of the most inspiring people I have met along the journey. His work, along with others like him, is making the Jewish community more accepting of all Jews and changing the way we all expect Jewish people to look.

For much of my adult life, I have maintained separate cultural identities. Only in the last couple of years, as part of a personal documentary, have I set out to learn what it means to be both Black and Jewish. In recognizing the uniqueness of my situation, I have come to discover that Black Jews are members of a small, but significant minority within a minority: A group of people whose roots are as diverse and dynamic as any other ethnic group or subculture, and who represent the immense complexity of America itself.

This article first appeared on March 21, 2008 and has been republished as part of the series JEWCYEST WEEK EVER.

“Jobs must be our focus in 2010,” President Obama said last night to thunderous applause during his State of the Union address. “We can put Americans to work today to build the America of tomorrow.”

Hope oozed out of his eloquent speech. But I had spent my morning at the local Unemployment Office in the office of a pasty Career Counselor whose doughy hands gripped my resume. “So what do you do?” With ten years' worth of work experience, I’ve run successful political campaigns, helped get innocent people out of prison, helped stop gun traffickers and written scathing white papers on the pharmaceutical industry. Yet right before Rosh Hashanah, after winning a successful campaign helping people who were injured by defective products, I came into work to find my office cleaned out and a “I’m sorry, we have no more money to pay you” speech. My office had been near Wall Street so after all the months of seeing the six-figure investment bankers doing the walk of shame with their boxes filled with their personal items after being handed their walking papers, I was the one going home at 10:00am with a tiny severance package and my personal effects in a box of my own.

“People are out of work and they are hurting. I want a jobs bill on my desk right away.”

I spent the afternoon job hunting. I sent out my resume to job postings, emailed friends and acquaintances asking them for their help. And then I waited. Waited for the phone call, that interview, that job offer. But the later did not come, and still I waited. I networked. I hoped.

At least I try. But looking for a job is a vicious cycle. You have to constantly be at your best, but you get rejection at every turn. That job you would be perfect for, that you’ve labored over the cover letter, contacted everyone you know who knows people who can help you get that job, and maybe you even had an interview. But the job goes to someone else. I am one of 25 interviewees out of a pool of 250 candidates, but someone else will start working and I will be back to sending out resumes. It starts to wear you down, all that rejection, the overwhelming feeling of hopelessness.

When you are job-hunting people ask you, “What do you want to do? What are your dreams?” I don’t know. My dream job would be to cook for people. Shop at the farmer’s market, bring home the freshest and best produce and cook up healthy and delicious meals for someone who will pay me a living wage and give me health care. But who is going to hire me as their personal chef? I may love cooking, but I never went to culinary school and people with the money to hire chefs probably want more credentials. And my credentials say that I should be a community organizer, an advocate for good causes, someone fighting for tikkun olam.

A couple of years ago when I was employed, I had decided I wanted to advance my career (the organization I was working for did not have any room for advancement). I decided that I wanted to be a Jewish professional, in part because I saw some really great organizations doing amazing social justice work. But I didn’t grow up Jewish, so I didn’t have the summer camp connections or the Hillel friends to network with. So I started getting involved, volunteering and through grit and determination my resume began to fill up with things that said, “she’s really involved with the Jewish community.” But the economy tanked, and the non-profit world didn’t have a lot of room for career moves. I would get interviews, but the people they were hiring had a lot more experience than I did. Then my job disappeared and the hope I was feeling that I was making my career going somewhere faded.

The civil servant assigned by the Department of Labor to give me career advice continued to be baffled by my resume. “How did you get these jobs before?” I smiled. Dumb luck really. A friend of mine ran into an old friend of his on a subway platform. While catching up the old acquaintance talked about his new job and my friend said, “I’ve got the perfect girl for you, she just finished winning a campaign and is looking for work.” Another time a friend of mine asked me, “Have you ever considered being a private investigator?” Yes, I know how I got those jobs, being at the right place at the right time. It wasn’t a great epiphany that I needed to network myself into the right situation.

That is where job hunting is so much like dating. You might be the prettiest girl with the most charming stories, but the guy sitting across the table from you is looking to settle down with a girl who reminds him of his mother and have a lot of babies. You might both be terrific people, but just looking for different things. I had a phone interview for a job I was completely perfect for the other day. But the Executive Director on the other side of the line, who clearly didn’t have the time to be doing interviews asked me, “so what is organizing exactly?” I tried my best to explain what I do and how great I would be for his organization, but I didn’t get a call back. I didn’t give him the answers he was looking for, even though I know I would have done a really kick-ass job at their organization.

So I wait for my phone to ring. I jump on every opportunity I can find even when it annoys friends and acquaintances. On Martin Luther King Day I was in the bodega near my house. I overheard a delivery guy saying to the clerk, "MLK? Only people that get today off are white. I've still got to work." Looking around the tiny shop at who was shopping and who was working he might have had a point, but I wanted to turn to him and say, "but at least you have a job!" Some days I don’t want to get out of bed and spend the day in duckie pajamas watching Hulu overcome with depression and embarrassment that I still don’t have a job. Obama’s speech last night didn’t give me a lot of hope. It might be said to a room full of applause that jobs are a high priority, but my email box is still empty, my phone isn’t ringing and my only hope from Congress is that they will extend my Unemployment benefits to give me more time to keep looking, keep hoping someone will realize that out of the pool of candidates they have in front of them, I am the best and that they should hire me.

As the pro-peace, pro-Israel lobby J Street's first annual conference approaches, neoconservatives are leading an effort to undermine the group and diminish its support on Capitol Hill.

Initially dismissed by more hawkish pro-Israel groups as irrelevant, J Street has become an increasingly powerful force over the last year, outspending all other pro-Israel PACs individually and winning the ear of the Obama administration on foreign policy matters. The consensus on the right has thus shifted from J Street being irrelevant to posing a strategic threat.

Last week, Israeli ambassador Michel Oren — an appointee of the right-wing government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — declined J Street's invitation to its convention, writing in an open letter in the Jerusalem Post that J Street's policy positions "impair the interests of Israel." Those vilified positions include J Street's endorsement of the Obama administration's call for greater diplomacy towards Iran and a freeze on settlement construction in the West Bank, issues on which, polling indicates, the American Jewish community largely agrees with J Street.

Following J Street's announcement of its conference's congressional co-sponsors later in the week, the Weekly Standard's Michael Goldfarb, who has been leading the charge against J Street online, proceeded to contact each of the 160 representatives on J Street's roster inquiring as to why they were supporting the group's allegedly anti-Israel activities.

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This video is nice and all, but it's no "The Office" Diwali episode. If only Hulu hadn't taken down the clip of Michael singing the Diwali song.

Since taking office this past January, President Obama has pressed for renewed peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. While he has exhorted both sides to make concessions, the bulk of his effort, at least publicly, has been to pressure Israel to respect his demand to immediately freeze all construction in its settlements. The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, rejected the demand saying that freezing construction in Israeli settlements when new apartments, schools, roads, etc. were needed, was tantamount to "freezing life" in those settlements, and therefore "unreasonable."

Ask average, albeit somewhat informed, Americans what feelings or images they associate with Israel, and you're likely to receive responses that range from the extreme positive to the extreme negative but are mostly somewhere in between. Ask the same group about Israeli settlers, however, and you're likely to elicit an overwhelmingly negative response. The word "settler" has become a pejorative term. It is, for many people, including those who are not anti-Israel, synonymous with violent fanatic.

One would have to write a book to adequately address the issue of Israeli settlements, which is much more complicated than most news sources would have us believe. Suffice it to say, we should be troubled that the media use the same word, "settler," to describe, on the one hand, an ideologue committed to a "Greater Israel" and, on the other, a regular citizen of any political persuasion who is motivated by economic concerns. I'd venture to guess that when most people hear the word "settler," they think of the former. But in reality, as David Makovsky, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy notes in his article Beyond Settlements: US Policy Options Going Forward, "80% of [the 285,000] Israeli settlers live in less than 5% of the West Bank -- largely, but not completely, adjacent to the pre-1967 boundaries." Thus, one could argue that 57,000 settlers, the other 20%, stand in the way of a future Palestinian state. But, Makovsky continues, "an equal amount of land within Israel could be swapped in exchange [for the 5% of the West Bank where 80% of settlers currently live], allowing [both Israeli and Palestinian leadership] to claim victory." In other words, 228,000 settlers, the 80% majority, can be absorbed into Israel without any sacrifice by the Palestinians, and therefore cannot be considered an obstacle to the peace process.

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Dear Mr. President,

Over the past few months we are ever more frequently hearing about the US State Department's objections toward Israeli building in existing settlements (even those that have been established three to four decades ago) in general and in Jerusalem as well. In particular the negative commentary given in regards to building of a new house in East Jerusalem on private land owned by a private citizen who has received all the necessary municipal permits because of strange explanations to the effect that it would "upset the demographic character of the area."

Was it not just over one year ago on June 4, 2008 that you (at the time a senator and presidential candidate) delivered an inspiring speech before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in which you declared to all present that "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided"?

What has happened in that short time since? In addition you and your staff from the State Department are continuously speaking about Israelis settlements as the main obstacle to peace.... as if they did not exist then peace would instantly reign in this area. In your speech to AIPAC the word "settlements" is mentioned only once with your advice to Israel "to refrain from building new settlements - as agreed with the Bush administration at Annapolis."

Personally, I can attest to have been captivated by you during your presidential campaign. Your speeches were deeply inspiring, and gave a message of hope to many throughout the USA and indeed the world. "Yes we can" is a simple statement, a hope and a belief in a better world, and our individual and collective ability as nations to bring about much needed change to the good. But implicit in "Yes we can" is also the promise that "Yes we will do what we promised to do". Now is the time to convert those presidential campaign promises into action, in recognition to the words of Benjamin Franklin, "Well done is better than well said."

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The world media is in a bizarre race these days. Everyone wants to get as many details as possible on President Obama's new plan to end the conflict in the Middle East. But let's face it - we all know the drill by heart. We shall experience an optimistic vibe all around, then a summit conference full of nice photo ops of smiling leaders. A week later, they will come out of the summit with a short statement of goodwill, and a long list of excuses to explain why, once again, the conflict cannot be solved.

Maybe it's time to think outside the box. Maybe it's about time to stop counting on our leaders, and end this fiasco in a different way. Here are six easy ways to end the conflict in the Middle East:  

The Judgment of Solomon - Obama sits with the Israelis, the Palestinians and a map. Suddenly he gets up and shouts to Rahm Emanuel, "Bring me my biggest sword, and I shall hew this country in half. Each of you shall receive a half." The first side to cry out and give up will win the land, as they have proven they love it more. The problem with this idea is that the Jews will have an unfair advantage -- after all, they already know the story, and besides, I'm not sure Obama owns a sword.

Heads or Tails - Of course, the matter is much too serious to solve with a simple coin toss. We will have to use real heads and tails. All we need is a suicide bomber on a horse . The problem with this method is that Jordan will object. They know that if the Palestinians lose, they might suggest "Double or Nothing".

Reality Show - Harness the ancient wisdom of American TV. Produce the biggest reality show ever. Even if it sucks, it will be better than NBC's  fall schedule.  We can make it "Big Brother" style, but with 10 million participants. Each week, viewers from around the world will eliminate one resident. Granted, the show will end in 2099, but at least that way we know for sure it actually will end.

The Basketball System - Just like in basketball the land will go to whoever catches it first. All we need is one Iranian A-bomb to lift it up.

I Never - Trust our leaders to negotiate, but make them do it in a bar. Everyone sits around the table. One leader goes first, making a true statement that starts with "I never..." For example, "I never agreed to joint sovereignty  in Jerusalem". Then, any leader who agrees with what has just been said -- drinks. After nine or ten rounds, everyone will at least have a much better attitude. An additional a twist could be to not allow anybody to go to the rest room before there is a signed agreement. This is going to be the first peace treaty sponsored by Budweiser. The heading will read: I love you, dude!

Had Obama not lent so much currency to the notion of a kind of equality of racial bitterness, enacted on a field that everyone thinks favors the other team, the case of Geraldine Ferraro might not have played out as it did: as a spectacular example of racist action forgiven because racist ‘feeling' is not found, and an abject, to-the-political-death refusal to acknowledge the difference between structural racism and white resentment.

The former Congresswoman and vice-presidential nominee forfeited her place in the Clinton campaign when she told reporters that "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position," just as she would not have been tapped for the vice presidency by Walter Mondale had she not been a woman. The difference between being appointed to a ticket and winning a record number of primary votes across the entire nation seemingly escaped Ferraro, who elaborated on her remarks a few weeks later in a stunning Boston Globe op-ed:

"Since March, when I was accused of being racist for a statement I made about the influence of blacks on Obama's historic campaign, people have been stopping me to express a common sentiment: If you're white you can't open your mouth without being accused of being racist. They see Obama's playing the race card throughout the campaign and no one calling him for it as frightening. They're not upset with Obama because he's black; they're upset because they don't expect to be treated fairly because they're white."

Contrary to Ferraro's recollection, the most striking aspect of the media's response to her initial comments was the consistency with which pundits and commentators across the ideological spectrum fell all over themselves to avoid accusing her of racism. Seldom, in political life, has the sinner been granted such immediate distance from her sin.

But this has become the blueprint for public figures who make inflammatory remarks about race ­­- as long as they're white. First comes the claim that their words do not reflect their hearts. This puts the ball in the commentariat‘s court. The commentariat duly concurs that the figure is not racist, despite all evidence to the contrary. Then, after a probationary period of a few months, the figure quietly resumes his or her role in public life.

"I am not a racist." So said Bill Clinton on ABC News shortly after the conclusion of his wife's presidential bid, defending himself against accusations of race-baiting.

"I'm not a racist, that's what's so insane about this." So said Seinfeld's Michael Richards in 2006, explaining himself on The David Letterman Show after a video surfaced of him dropping multiple n-bombs on a black heckler at a comedy club. Mel Gibson, who disgraced himself with an anti-Semitic rant the same year, put forth the same argument: I'm not a racist, merely a guy who said something racist. It came out of nowhere, for no reason, and it doesn't reflect who I am. Ditto Don Imus, after his 2007 "nappy-headed hoes" remark. And Senator Trent Lott, whose pro-segregation comments cost him his role as Majority Leader in 2002, though not his job.

It is a dramatic reversal of the standard criteria for judgment. Usually, we seek to be judged by our actions, not our thoughts, and we accept that the former is a manifestation of the latter. The success of this strategy, it would seem, hinges on the fact that it has become more acceptable to spout racism in the public arena than to accuse someone else of spouting racism.

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Largely because of hip-hop, American coolness is coded and commodified more than ever as American blackness. White kids all over the country believe, based on the signifiers flashing on their TV screens, that blackness equals flashy wealth, supreme masculinity, and ultra-sexualized femininity - interrupted occasionally by bursts of glamorous violence, and situated in a thrilling ghetto that is both dangerous and host to a constant party. They feel locked out of the possibility of attaining that lifestyle, because of the color of their skin. They don't know where to find a workable identity, unless they embrace the "I'm a fucking redneck" ethos of Levi Johnston, Sarah Palin's ex-future son-in-law. All this strikes them as oppressive, and their resentment is compounded by the fact that they possess no language with which to discuss it.

Were any of this utterable, one could present them with reams of evidence demonstrating that in all the important ways, white people in America are anything but marginal. Traditional markers of prosperity - the inheritance of wealth, the rates of home-ownership, the comparative levels of education and income and incarceration - reveal just how privileged whites remain relative to blacks. A recent study conducted at Princeton University revealed that a white felon stands an equal chance of being granted a job interview as a black applicant with no criminal record, and there are dozens of other studies that each speak volumes.

Nonetheless, confusion persists even among the kind of coast-dwelling, liberally-raised, relatively well-educated white kid I once was about the basic facts of racism today - to say nothing of everyone to their ideological right. They want to know if the playing field is level; they can't tell, and they've got their fingers crossed that it is because if it's not they've got to confront things no one has prepared them to face. Many of them would rather believe, and in fact suspect, that it is slanted in black people's favor.

At the very least, they're eager for a kind of moral compromise, one with an air of the fairness so appealing to young minds: racism cuts in both directions. Anyone can be its victim, just as anyone can refuse to perpetrate it.

This is what Barack Obama provided on March 20th in Philadelphia. After a succinct but powerful summary of institutional racism's history and its practical and psychic effects on black people, he added that:

"A similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race... as far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything.... So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African-American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time... to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns - this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding."

Obama's insights about white anger are salient, but to characterize ire at affirmative action and at the thought that others might think them prejudiced as ‘similar' to the frustration felt by the victims of entrenched structural racism is disingenuous, and even irresponsible. I don't dispute that white resentments should be addressed, if only because white people will refuse to grapple with race unless they are allowed to centralize themselves. But to begin such a discussion - the mythic National Dialogue on Race - without acknowledging that structural racism ­is a cancer metastasizing through every aspect of American life is impossible. Call it, to borrow a catchphrase from the foreign policy side of the election, a precondition.

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I watched Barack Obama's "Toward A More Perfect Union" in my living room, on a laptop computer with tinny speakers. Like millions of other Americans, I felt a surge of amazement, a sense of expanding possibility, at the sheer fact that a black man with a good chance of becoming president was speaking about race and racism on national television for half an hour. Such an eloquent and thoughtful discourse on any topic far exceeds what we have come to accept of American politics; to hold forth on an issue so pernicious and so seldom approached with honesty is remarkable.

My enthusiasm held until Obama let white people off the hook. Though I grasped the political necessity of the move, my expectations of this man were sufficiently high that it was disheartening to hear him fudge the difference between institutional racism and white bitterness. Three weeks earlier, I'd felt a similar sense of letdown when, challenged at a debate in Ohio to further denounce Minister Louis Farrakhan, Obama responded by articulating the need to mend black-Jewish relations, then proceeded to reinscribe the very paradigm that has served to rend them.

I say this as a white person, a Jew, and an enthusiastic Obama supporter. My reaction, it also bears mentioning, was colored by the fact that when the Ohio debate aired I had just published a novel entitled The End of the Jews, which chronicled three generations of a Jewish-American family and also took as its subject the evolving relations between black and Jewish artists throughout the 20th century. "Toward A More Perfect Union" marked the first time I'd sat on my couch in weeks; I had just returned from a book tour speckled with dates at Jewish Community Centers and synagogues, in addition to the standard bookstores and universities.

This level of interaction with Jewish communities was utterly new to me. No one had ever considered me a Jewish writer before, except the white supremacists who'd protested the speaking gigs for my previous novel, Angry Black White Boy, and accused me of "masquerading as white." I was raised by secular parents raised by secular parents, and at the age of twelve I was expelled from the Sunday School And Half-Price Car Wash For The Children Of Agnostic Cultural Jews after getting into a fight with my teacher about whether Satch Sanders of the 1940s Boston Celtics was the only black person in history not to abandon his community after achieving success. It was the culmination of a lesson devoted to the great Jewish Exodus - from Roxbury, Massachusetts in the 1950s, when the blacks moved in.

I won't blame the encounter for souring me on Judaism; more accurate would be to say that as a kid growing up in a largely Jewish suburb, I simply conflated Jewish with white, and thus my frustration with the complacency and hypocrisy of white liberals (I didn't know any conservatives) extended automatically to Jews.

The pervasiveness of injustice was something I had always intuited; obsessing over fairness on a personal level is a childhood instinct that can remain personal and fade, or broaden into an analysis of the world and grow stronger. But my absorption in the still-underground culture of hip-hop was what allowed me to confirm that things were not well, very close by and yet in another world altogether.

I believe the music to which one is exposed at twelve is the most important one will ever hear; I was that age in 1988, when Public Enemy, Boogie Down Productions, Stetsasonic, The Jungle Brothers and N.W.A. were articulating the insidious realities of police brutality, a Eurocentric school system, American collusion in South African apartheid, and ghettos ravaged by crack and guns - all over unbelievably dope beats. Thanks to METCO, a busing program that constituted Boston's uni-directional form of school integration, these tapes made their way to the suburbs and to me.

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The only consolation about Benjamin Netanyahu's second government is that two months into office it appears to be the most universally disliked in Israel's 61-year history. Whether at home or abroad, no one, it seems, has anything good to say about it. Following Bibi's predecessor Ehud Olmert, that's an impressive achievement. On the eve of the Prime Minister's long-awaited speech about his approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, US President Barack Obama was already hotly rumored to disapprove of Israel's new policy, the European Union was busy meeting with Hezbollah, and 80% of Israelis polled were reported to have said they could live with a nuclear Iran--even, as the Tel Aviv University study stated, a nuclear-armed Iran.

It's not like this situation appeared out of the blue. During Bibi's first month in office, another poll showed that over fifty percent of Israelis already disapproved of his coalition. So what would compel the Likud leader to continue to emphasize links between Iranian weapons of mass destruction and the Palestinians? Maybe the Americans? Not likely, judging from Senator John Kerry's statement last week to the Financial Times that America could live with a nuclear Iran. Reiterating Obama's debut of this opinion in Cairo, the American position couldn't be any clearer. How about the newly rightist Europeans? They didn't poll well enough to make a difference, and even if they did, these conservatives are purported to hate Israel even more than Europe's left.

Indeed, its a nightmare scenario for Israel's most fluent English-speaking head of state. How did Bibi get himself into such a mess? Was it his inability to do anything besides assert leadership over the country's right-wing parties? Was it Tzipi Livni's refusal to enter a coalition government? What about Netanyahu's deep ties to Jewish power-brokers in the Diaspora? Couldn't they have tipped him off better? Why did his aides not serve him with better information on the Americans? None of this was hard to predict, especially Europe’s continuing ambivalence and the seemingly new American attitude.

Throughout the presidential campaign, rightist activists and pundits across the Jewish world warned repeatedly of the dangers of an Obama-led US government. It would be friendlier to Muslim states and seek diplomatic over military solutions to problems. And it would be led by a mixed-race black politician with a far more troubling intellectual pedigree than any previous president—a pedigree that would insist, for example, on the difference between “Likud” and “Israeli.” Contrast that to a predecessor who when first asked couldn’t say where Afghanistan was located. Much to the right’s chagrin, everything that Obama has done since entering office has affirmed their predictions.

Nevertheless, the Netanyahu government has gone about its business assuming that the status quo would somehow stand, and that Israel and America would share the same policy goals and the same general approach. This US government was supposed to support Israel like other administrations had, if not perhaps as much as the Bush administration. And Israel would continue to perform itself as it always had, paying lip-service to the peace process, disciplining the Palestinians, and dealing with its neighbors as it so chooses. No wonder Bibi's aides have been so surprised at the lack of cooperation from the Americans.

Blame it on the differences that inevitably characterize the clash of two distinct governments. Pin responsibility on Ehud Olmert's inexpert handling of the Lebanon war, his corruption, or Tzipi Livni's inability to successfully negotiate a coalition agreement with Labour, let alone all of the other parties with whom she could have signed deals. Lots of players can take the blame. The point is that even without these variables, we’d be facing the same conflicts between Bibi and the rest of the world due to the pathology that the Prime Minister represents—not to mention his already problematic relations with the Clinton administration during the 1990s.

To put it bluntly, Netanyahu was the worst conceivable contender for the job. He’s displayed a stunning obliviousness to the changes in US strategic thinking, let alone American society, as a consequence of the Bush years. To borrow from the language of psychoanalysis, denial comes to mind. What else could one infer from Bibi's words of frustration—"What do they want from me?"—following his first meeting with Obama? It’s indeed unprecedented that his negotiating team wouldn’t be prepared for the Americans to insist on a total freeze to settlement building, and that Israel's leader would choose to persist in differing with the US so far as allowing ministers and military leaders to continually criticize the Americans.

Did Netanyahu ever count on the US Jewish community backing President Obama's approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict? Did the Prime Minister ever imagine that Congress might endorse the new administration taking such an initiative? No-one of any consequence in the US—not even AIPAC—has been able to extend Netanyahu an effective helping hand. The situation is that bleak. This represents enough of a massive miscalculation that it could almost be seen as the diplomatic equivalent to being snookered by a surprise attack. Netanyahu's failure to work with prior intelligence and adequately prepare makes this episode comparable to the 1973 War, albeit with the Americans.

Bibi's memory of his relations with the Democrats has similarly failed. Even the faintest overview of the Clinton era would make it impossible to conjecture that the present administration would want to work with an Israeli leader who caused them so many problems—including legitimizing the incitement that led to the murder of Yitzhak Rabin, on whom the White House was counting on to deliver a peace agreement. What about the Bibi who befriended Newt Gingrich when he was leader of the congressional opposition to then-President Clinton and seeking his impeachment? Wouldn’t that inspire a sense of mistrust in a government largely made up of officials from that era?

By now most of the Jewish world has seen the infamous video of Max Blumenthal interviewing kids on Ben Yehuda Street about their feelings towards Obama. The video is disgusting, shocking and a terrible shonda - unless you find yourself hanging around the ultra-Orthodox community where these feelings are the norm, regardless of whether you are drunk or sober. 

The kids were drunk and stupid, but the vile filth that is coming from their mouths cannot be excused. Drunken kids do stupid things, but calling for the shooting of the president and then saying that he hates America and is a terrorist is completely ridiculous. It is understandable if you dislike the man, but to call for his death, is not only wrong it's goes against everything you and your publicly displayed yarmulkes and tzitzit stand for.

There have been a lot of complaints about the video, specifically that he used drunk kids for his interview, but anyone who has spent any period of time in the frum community realizes that these views on Obama (and African-Americans in general) resonate throughout ultra-Orthodoxy and I am sick of it.

So I figured I would write about this on my Blog (for the purpose of having a wide range of people discuss the issue), Facebook and Twitter and I was attacked. Recovery Rabbi had the gall to reply on Twitter that he thought the video was comedy (it was obviously not) and that he ROFL. On Facebook I was told by multiple people to remove the video, which I certainly would never do and I had to tell one person who called me a disgrace to G-d to go fuck himself.

I don't believe in any way that this video represents the Jewish community, but I can guarantee you that if this was a bunch of drunken Muslims or White Supremacists (the kids on the video would be mistaken as such if not for their yarmulkes) there would be a completely different reaction.

Just because you are drunk doesn't mean you have excuse to disgrace the Jews and pour forth your racist filth. I'm pissed and ashamed of my community!  

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.

Today, Holocaust survivor, "Night" author and Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel joined President Barack Obama at the site of Buchenwald, one of Nazi Germany's terrible concentration camps, to speak out against indifference and humanity's inability to learn from its own worst moments. "Memory has become a sacred duty of goodwill," said Wiesel, but he worried that "the world hasn't learned."

Wiesel went back to his time in Buchenwald as a prisoner, described watching his father die there, and wondered what he would say to him now: "What can I tell him? That the world has learned? I am not sure."

Said Wiesel: "Had the world learned, there would be no Cambodia, no Rwanda, no Darfur, no Bosnia. Will the world ever learn?"

Seeing Elie Wiesel there at Buchenwald, returning as one of the world's great moral leaders to the place that forced him down that path, flanked on one side by Angela Merkel, the leader of the country that once put him there, and on the other by Obama, the first black U.S. President in a place representing the absolute worst evils of racism; that was an amazing moment. But moments must be followed up by more moments, and action.

"Mr. President, we have such high hopes for you... because you, with your moral vision of history, will be able and compelled to change this world into a better place." For his part, Obama said: "I will not forget what I have seen here."

Great. Awesome. Done. But now what? The Wiesel speech was all over the cable nets, and is burning up Twitter. The image of the kindly-faced elderly man with snowy-white hair blowing in the wind beside the solemn-faced U.S. President and German Chancellor was a great TV moment. But moments must be followed up by more moments, and action.

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Long before the promotional campaign for the new Star Trek film started in earnest, commentators had already discerned an uncanny similarity between the personalities of Spock and Barack Obama. Calm in the face of anger, collected when others are scattered, the President-to-be struck many as the ideal to which anger management aspires. Far from taking offense at the analogy, Obama was happy to declare his love for the original television series. Leonard Nimoy reported with obvious delight that, upon meeting the actor, the junior Senator from Illinois forsook the usual pleasantries for their Vulcan equivalent, saying “Live long and prosper” while making the shape of a V with his fingers. Anecdotes of our new President engaging in other Trekkie behavior, such as pretending that his wife’s new belt buckle concealed a teleportation device, added more fuel to the fire. By the time the film was released, the link between Obama’s White House and the USS Enterprise was being insisted upon with a vigor usually reserved for official marketing campaigns.

Part of that, surely, had to do with the curious circumstance that, at a time of unprecedented crisis in the print media, pictures of the Commander-in-Chief were blanketing newsstands to an unprecedented degree. At times, it was easier to pick out the magazines that didn’t feature Obama on the cover, like Hot Rod and Needlepoint Now than the ones that did. Not only was the man struggling to rescue free enterprise from the aftermath of a grave systemic failure, his public image was serving as a substantial source of economic thrust in its own right. From this perspective, connecting his Presidency to Star Trek made as much sense as tying in other commercial ventures like the NCAA men’s basketball tournament to it.

Don’t Believe the Hype

No matter how much one admires Barack Obama or wants him to succeed, it is more important than ever to obey Public Enemy’s injunction: “Don’t believe the hype.” Whether positive or negative, the media attention devoted to him is both excessive and deceptive. If asked, I’m sure he’d say so himself. Caution is especally crucial for the Left, whose membership is divided between acolytes who see every decision the President makes another confirmation of his strategic brilliance and detractors who complain that the new boss looks an awful lot like the old one. There has to be middle ground for progressives, a position from which they can give Obama the respect he deserves without giving up the right to call him on his shit.

That’s why our initial reaction to comparisons of Spock and Obama should involve raising an eyebrow to heights worthy of Mr. Nimoy. Clearly, this coupling has been backed by the rich and powerful, which provides reason enough to be suspicious. Whoever floated the rumor that the President had requested a special screening of the new film at the White House made it painfully clear that the analogy was breathtakingly safe.

Political Allegory and Popular Culture

Once upon a time, the move to interpret popular culture allegorically was fraught with risk. Even when artists intended to spur such reflections, the social pressure to regard their work as disposable entertainment, with no function other than to bring temporary and limited pleasure to the masses, was often too strong to overcome. But things have changed. During the 2008 Presidential campaign, a number of mainstream pieces pondered whether Americans had been prepared to have an African-American President by seeing one represented in fictional texts like 24 and Armageddon. Whatever their conclusions, they took it for granted that the entertainment world has a profound effect on our perception of the real world. Instead of being dismissed as the work of out-of-touch academics or amateur conspiracy theorists, this exercise in connecting the dots between fantasy and reality was presented as a legitimate form of political analysis.

There is much to applaud in this development. Paying to attention to how and why people identify politicians – classifying them as members of some categories and not others – and, just as importantly, identify with politicians is a critical step in transcending the debilitating belief that they choose leaders by simply making a rational assessment of their own self-interest. Because identification is a fundamentally cultural process, shaped by textual influences from preschool onward, paying attention to the ways in which fiction interwines with fact enables insights that would be difficult or impossible to achieve with an approach that focuses narrowly on the domain of electoral politics.

Proceeding on the assumption that “throwaway” popular culture can have profound politicial significance also directs scrutiny to the relationship between money and power. Success in the cultural marketplace is not merely the result of a neutral competition in which innate quality prevails. On the contrary, a work’s popularity more often than not reflects the force of its financial backing. While this support sometimes converges with critical acclamation, there is no guarantee that it will. In the case of the new Star Trek film, for example, the extensive advance promotional campaign – posters started showing up in multiplexes last year – and wide range of product tie-ins emphatically demonstrate that a lot of time and money was spent trying to make it a hit.

The danger, though, in embracing this conception of popular culture is that we will let the mainstream media dictate how we interpret particular texts. To put this another way, just as the promotional give-aways at fast food restaurants are carefully orchestrated to increase a film’s profile without inspiring potentially counter-productive reflection on its deeper implications, so might analyses of the sort that equate fictional and real-world characters. Everyone knows that Barack Obama isn’t really Spock. But repeatedly emphasizing the similarities between them can have the effect of naturalizing the analogy, exempting it from critical scrutiny.

We need to let this metaphor shape our perspective on the new President without forgetting that the invitation to see Spock in Obama serves the interests of powers that stand to benefit from the analogy. One way of doing that would be to compile a list of points where the analogy breaks down. We could, for instance, focus on moments in which the President has appeared to place passion before reason. A more interesting approach, though, might be to follow through on the comparison, constructing a series of if-then scenarios.

Was Spock a Jew?

To give an example of how this latter strategy might play out with particular resonance for readers of Zeek, we can start by considering the origins of Spock’s character. The greeting Obama mimicked, making the sign of a V with one’s fingers, supposedly derives from one that actor Leonard Nimoy witnessed as a child. In his autobiography I Am Not Spock – tellingly followed by a sequel titled I Am Spock – Nimoy wrote that the idea for the hand gesture came from the childhood experience of being taken to an Orthodox temple, where he saw the Kohanim make the sign for the Hebrew letter Shin. In effect, this codes Spock’s otherness vis-à-vis the Enterprise’s multicultural human crew as analogous to the status of Jews held in the postwar American society of the original television show, a “model minority” imagined to be superior to other marked ethnicities, occupying a privileged position – Spock is First Mate on the Enterprise – but one that is in some ways further removed from the WASP norm than that of other characters.

It’s important to note that Spock is only half-Vulcan, however. As the new film repeatedly reminds us, his decision to exemplify characteristically Vulcan traits is the result of hard work, performed on him by others and by himself alike, to restrain his human tendencies. His upbringing has conditioned him to identify with his Vulcan side without entirely repressing the knowledge that he could have turned out quite differently. Within the context of the mid-1960s, the trajectory of his character combined with Nimoy’s background to imply that, in attaining the status of “model minority,” Jews were forced to suppress traits incompatible with that image. This was the price of assimilation.

Half and Half

The most compelling argument for seeing Spock in Obama derives from the President’s biracial identity. The product of a short-lived union between a dark-skinned African father and a light-skinned American mother, his life story provides an interesting comparison to Spock’s. On the one hand, his education at a mostly Caucasian prep school, Columbia University and Harvard Law suggests that he followed a characteristically “white” path. On the other, however, Obama's subsequent political career, based in the predominantly African-American areas of Chicago’s South Side, indicates that he eventually chose to embrace his minority heritage. In other words, the President's biography comprises a tale of both assimilation – suppressing his otherness – and self-conscious identity politics – celebrating his otherness.

Crucially, while Leonard Nimoy’s Spock distanced himself from the passion-ruled irrationality associated with dominant WASP culture, Obama’s rise was predicated on a careful negotiation of the relationship between a dominant WASP culture identified with being calm, cool and collected and an African-American heritage that has been historically aligned, often with gravely pernicious consequences, with an excess of passion and a concomitant dearth of reason.

We must remember, however that the coupling of Spock’s non-human side with a worldview in which the rule of logic was paramount reflected a major shift in the perception of Jewish ethnicity in the postwar United States. There was a time, during the waves of immigration from Eastern Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when the stereotyping of Jews borrowed heavily on long-standing anti-Semitic traditions. Far from being considered a “model minority,” they were identified with a series of negative character traits – untrustworthy, rapacious, lustful – that were also applied, though with more force and political malice, to Americans of African descent. This is what gave both Jews and African Americans a common experience of racism, but also distanced them from one another as well. 

The Passion of Dispassion

To the extent that commentators have pushed the Spock = Obama equation, then, they have implied, however unwittingly, that our new President has ushered in a new era for African-Americans, in which they have the potential, finally, to wriggle free of the negative stereotypes that have limited their advancement. Indeed, his stunning ascent from the Illinois State Legislature to the U.S. Senate to the White House has been heralded by both African-Americans and members of the Caucuasian majority as a fundamental turning point in the country’s attitude towards race.

But what about the Jews? Here is where following through on the analogy pays particularly interesting dividends. The new Star Trek film seeks to reanimate a rather morbiund franchise by fleshing out an origin story for the special relationship between Spock and James T. Kirk, the Captain of the Enterprise. While the familiar tension between Spock’s devotion to reason and Kirk’s willingness to act first and think later is retained from the original television series, we also get new insight into Spock’s human heritage.

To make a long story short, the film shows us how the appearance of disinterestedness can be a cover for self-interest. The new film’s twist on the original Star Trek narrative is to have Spock, not Kirk, assume command of the Enerprise. After First Mate Kirk questions Spock’s ability to make the right decisions after witnessing the destruction of his home planet Vulcan, Spock sends him into exile. With the assistance of a much older Spock, played by Leonard Nimoy, Kirk finds a way to return to the Enterprise and convince the younger Spock that he is unfit for command, thereby securing the post of Captain that he held on the original television series. The point, ultimately, is that Kirk’s impulsiveness is not necessarily less rational than the dispassionate façade Spock works so hard to maintain.

Teacher/Student

This point is reinforced by a scene from early in the film. As the new cadets of Star Fleet are being mustered to respond to an unexpected threat, Spock, who has served as one of their instructors, is confronted by Uhura. She demands to know why, despite her superb marks, she is not being assigned to the Enterprise, the most sought-after post. Spock responds, rather cryptically, that he did not want to give the impression of favoritism. But he quickly relents and lets her transfer to the Enterprise. Only later does it become clear that he and Uhura have been having a teacher-student love affair that continues to smoulder on the mission. What this deviation from the original Star Trek confirms, in short, is that the appearance of disinterestedness can just as easily indicate that one is overwhelmed by unruly passions as that one is ruled by logic.

The fact that Uhura is the Enterprise’s only featured African-American woman crew member further complicates matters. We see Spock, who was already being identified with Barack Obama before the new film was finished, getting to occupy the position that Kirk famously assumed on the original series, when he and Uhura shared one of television’s first interracial kisses. In light of the previously mentioned ethnic coding to Spock’s character, the amorous relationship between him and Uhura encourages us to scrutinize the new film for insight into the current state of the often fraught relationship between Jews and African-Americans in the United States.

One of the most interesting developments to which the original television series led was the popularity of so-called “slash fiction,” in which sexual relationships between well-known characters of the same gender are narrated. These days, the Harry Potter books are probably the most fertile source for such copyright-flaunting tales. But the original coupling, the one that started it all, in a sense, was Kirk and Spock. Interestingly, most of the people responsible for getting that romance off the ground were female fans of Star Trek who identified themselves as heterosexual. Even today, that demographic plays a significant role in the communities that have developed around slash fiction.

Because copyright issues ensure that slash fiction based on franchises like Star Trek can only exist outside of the conventional marketplace, it has managed to retain a resolutely anti-commercial aura. That hasn’t stopped copyright holders from trying to stop its production and distribution. George Lucas, for example, is reported to have strenuously opposed the “queering” of Star Wars characters. With Star Trek, however, the situation is more complicated. Although series creator Gene Roddenberry obviously could not endorse tales in which Kirk and Spock make love, his openly stated intention of promoting diversity of all sorts made many fans feel more welcome to repurpose the show’s characters.

Whether the team responsible for the new Star Trek film was self-consciously responing to the history of slash fiction associated with the franchise is unclear, though it seems likely that at least some of the people involved were thinking of it when they concocted the forbidden love subplot between Spock the instructor and his student Uhura. Given the vast quantity of Kirk/Spock fan fiction out there, though, the invocation of such transgressive behavior and the emphasis on Spock’s passionate nature provides plenty of fuel for reanimating that subculture.

Who Is Obama’s Kirk?

Less obviously, it also provides the raw material to radicalize the comparison of Spock and Obama in intriguing ways. The invitation to see the Spock in our new President typically seems to proceed from the assumption that fictional characters can be pried loose from the narratives in which they originally appeared and treated as self-sufficient entities. But what if this analogy were returned to its place of origin, the tale of the Startship Enterprise?

Latent within the Spock = Obama equation is the notion that he must work in tandem with a figure equivalent to Captain Kirk. Shortly after Inauguration Day, The New York Times ran an interesting piece on Obama’s Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel that described the former Congressman from Illinois as a “fierce partisan” with a partially justifiable reputation as a “relentless hothead” who was trying hard to “rein himself in.” Those are all traits identified with James T. Kirk. But the similarities don’t stop there. Consider this sentence. “How will the feisty, bombastic and at times impulsive former congressman blend with the cool, collegial and deliberate culture of Obama World?” Substitute “Iowa farm boy” for “congressman” and “Vulcan” for “Obama World” and you have the perfect tag line for a campaing to promote the new Start Trek film.

But it’s not just the adjectives associated with Emanuel and Obama here and those used to describe Kirk and Spock that make the current White House sound eerily like the Enterprise. Again and again stories on Obama have emphasized the crucial role that Jewish advisers like Emanuel and campaign strategist David Axelrod have played in his political life. Frequently, the implication is that the President needs the passion, fight and basic willingness to get dirty identified with these advisers in order to be successful. In a reversal of longstanding stereotypes in the entertainment industry, where performers were typically depicted as passionate and lacking in self-discipline, we are being sold a storyline in which an excessively cool and calm African-American requires the heated frenzy of Jews working behing the scenes to get things done.

More subtly, we are also being encouraged to conceive of post-WASP leadership as a hybrid of superficially opposed ethnic legacies. In an era when the notion of the “model minority” has been turned on its head, the only truth that seems to persist is that cultural self-sufficiency is an illusion. Without intimate relationships that are by definition transgressive in nature, like the coupling of Kirk and Spock in slash fiction, attempts to take command of the political situation will always fall short of their goals.

I rarely have religious experiences.

But yesterday I attended a truly remarkable strategy meeting including a briefing and discussion at the White House. The program was co-facilitated by Jumpstart and JStreet (check em out) and attended by a couple dozen other participants from around the country who are engaged in social entrepreneurship. Roughly speaking, the entire sampling (myself on behalf of JDub included) represented Jewish initiatives that reach over 500,000 participants via about $500 million dollars worth of non-profit investment. Cooler stat: almost none of our organizations existed 10 years ago.

We met with Obama's newly created/rebranded/reshaped Office of Public Engagement and Office of Faith-Based & Neighborhood Partnerships all within the Executive Office of the President. (P.S. They have a new first cousin too - the Office of Social Innovation. Read that again.)

But here's why my eyes are still teary: after we listened to the core issues Obama has asked these Offices to focus on, they not only took our questions, but also listened intently. They brainstormed with us, took notes, talked about next steps and where the White House fits in, and then encouraged us to communicate with them.
I have never felt so immediately empowered - not even the time I told the then Chairman and CEO of Sony Music that Matisyahu was not " the rapping rabbi" and to please stop calling him that. Sure, there's a bit of campaign hangover in my bloodstream (as an individual of course and NOT on behalf of JDub), but this is follow-through I can believe in.

I have now seen with my own teary eyes that there are A LOT of actual people working incredibly hard and efficiently to make sure that the next generation will not have to deal with the same set of issues we currently face. Bluntly put, the White House has a conscience.

We were of course only there for a couple hours, but I walked away with the genuine feeling that the administration understands the complexities of Jewish social issues, the need to broaden the discussion about Israel to actually achieve peace during this Presidency (like I said - rarely have optimistic experiences - I mean religious), and how deeply leadership dynamics play a part in our communities and beyond. Moreover, they are thinking past the band-aids. They are seeking out resources to resolutions on a well-written laundry list of issues and they want our help. As I often say around the Office of JDub: "Let's do it!"

Concern. Apprehension. Suspicion. Mistrust.  Five years ago, it would have been an anathema to associate such words with an Israeli government’s attitude towards its closest ally, the United States. But, as the momentum has built towards Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s first meeting with US President Barack Obama, so have the keywords associated with the Israeli leadership’s criticisms of the Obama Administration’s policies in the Middle East.

Things didn’t used to be this way. While Israel and the US have certainly sparred over the years, sometimes quite fiercely, the level of skepticism displayed towards the present US administration and its diplomatic initiatives by the current Israeli government has at times exhibited signs of contempt. Unfortunately, this makes sense.  The two governments could not be more ideologically distinct from one another.

Rather than belabor the obvious differences between the respective leaderships – for example, their disagreements over how to deal with Iran’s nuclear program – it would be far more productive to pick apart the significance of Israel’s official posturing, and what it might mean. Why? Because the Israeli side of this story is the real story here. Not that of the Obama Administration and its breaks, thus far, with the policies of its predecessors.

Irrespective of how things actually turn out, Israel’s repeated indications of its displeasure with the Americans gives voice to a desire to be far more independent from the United States than Israel actually is. That Israel has become more beholden to American interests and support in recent years, particularly during the Bush era, goes without question. One of the ironies of President Bush’s much criticized ‘hands off’ approach towards the peace process was his government’s simultaneous subordination of Israeli to American strategic interests.

Whatever was good for America in the Middle East was also good for Israel, and vice versa. Two democracies, yet one purpose, as the logic went. That Israel found itself able to justify consistently lining up behind Bush, even when the results were disastrous – such as during the Second Lebanon War – is one of the sad ironies of the situation that evolved at this time. That’s why present Israeli protestations against the Obama Administration seem both so understandable, and also so deeply misplaced.

On the one hand, they exhibit justifiable, if wrongly purposed, expressions of Israeli anxiety about having to rely so strongly on the United States for its security. Considering how badly Washington managed its own affairs in the Middle East since the Second World War, let alone between 9/11 and 2009, and one can understand why. The Americans have consistently shown either a remarkable lack of local savoir-faire, or a frustratingly self-serving and destructive regional policy.

Yet, for Israel to use its differences with this administration’s initiatives in the Mideast as an excuse to vent forty plus years of its frustration with American policy in the region is a non-starter. Not just because it does not seem to have any effect on the Americans. As the US has repeatedly shown, it can be highly independent of foreign opinion. Even that of Israel. Rather, because what the Americans have said to date about what they want to do in the region is the exact opposite of what they’ve always done, that has led to so many disasters, including those that have impacted Israel.

Israel has many reasons to feel ambivalent about Iran. Since the end of the Cold War, the Iranians have backed and supported Israel’s two primary enemies, Hezbollah and Hamas, as well as positioned themselves as their own military adversary, albeit one located much further away. There is no question about it: Iran is indeed an antagonist. But to use the continued threat that Iran poses in such a calculating way, as both a means to fight American policy initiatives aimed at containing Iran, and as a way of de-prioritizing resolving the Palestinian question is wrong.

Not only does it tie too many enormous foreign policy objects together incorrectly. By turning the Iranian nuclear threat, peace with the Palestinians, and the Obama's Middle East policy into a single problem, Israel runs the risk of transforming the American government into a synonymous negative. Or, to be precise, to make indistinguishable Obama from Ahmadinejad from Meshal. They all become reduced, or so the excesses of the rhetoric suggest, into different instances of the same threat to Israel.

If there is something seriously troubling about the Israeli government’s disagreements with the Obama Administration’s Mideast policy, this is it. What makes it so loud, so to speak, so much a part of the debate about what to do about peace in the Middle East, is the nagging sense this imparts that there will never be any peace for Israel. That, no matter what we say or do, we will always find ways to help isolate ourselves above and beyond what the rest of the world has done to us already.

The day before the start to the Durban II conference (aka the let's-bash-Israel party), a number of nations backed out, including Germany and Australia. This is welcome news, particularly as word quietly leaked out last week that President Obama and State Department officials were reportedly thinking of reneging on Obama's previous decision not to join in on the "fun." As of April 19, the U.S.'s official decline of the invitation held strong, though Monday is still a day away. As of Sunday, other nations which had declined to attend included Holland, Canada, the Netherland, New Zealand, Israel and Italy.

The Durban Conference will take place from April 20 - 25, which also happens to fall during the week of Yom HaShoah, or the day of remembrance for those slain in the Holocaust. The symbolism of picking this particular week in which to hold the conference has not been lost on many. The day of remembrance also reminds us of why the state of Israel was created. By trying to get the world to forget about the Holocaust, those who hate Israel (and deny the Holocaust) hope to make the world forget the rationale behind a Jewish state (the one nation in the world created to provide an entirely save haven to those survivors of the wholesale attempted slaughter of an entire people) and attempt to slander and defame the nation of Israel. The people behind this are, shall we say, not the most savory, or historically knowledgeable/honest, people.

Durban II will begin today, purportedly to tackle issues of racism and prejudice.  If only that was the true rationale behind the United Nations conference, then there would be no major bones to the United States's participation. However, if history can be our guide, and Durban II is anything like its (shameful) predecessor, than the tiny nation of Israel wil once again become the awful enemy of human rights, peace, love, puppy dogs and rainbows, rather than the real abusers, such as tyrant-dominated countries and countries known more for thei horrendous track records with human rights, than for any goods and services. (Libya's place on the Human Rights Council: anyone remember that gem?) Even off-his-rocker Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be attending, so to assume this meeting will be based on any form of reality, is to be terribly naive. Sadly, the only thing which can be expected from this conference are just more meaningless condemnations of Israel. The only racism to be discussed in this conference will be the rampant racism vollied against Israelis and Jews. Way to go, United Nations!

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Nothing that the Obama administration has discussed thus far - not TARP or the purchase of a trillion dollars in government bonds, not a regional approach to peace negotiations in the Middle East, nor the idea of posting all future budgets on the Internet - has remotely the kind of transformative possibilities or the potential for total disaster of their service learning plan. That sounds incongruous, I know - "service learning" is not the kind of phrase that makes one thinks of tsunami-style social transformation - but in fact the scale of the administration's proposal in this area is absolutely mind-blowing.

Here are the basic terms of the proposal, as reported on the Obama-Biden web site. "Obama and Biden will set a goal that all middle and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year. They will develop national guidelines for service- learning ... Obama and Biden will establish a new American Opportunity Tax Credit that is worth $4,000 a year in exchange for 100 hours of public service a year... Obama and Biden will ensure that at least 25 percent of College Work-Study funds are used to support public service opportunities instead of jobs in dining halls and libraries."

So every American child starting at around age 11 or so will be required to participate in a national service program for the seven years of middle and high school.  And then comes college.  In college, every student who finds the prospecte of a $4,000 per year grant to his or her family irresistable -- that's $16,000 over four years, $20,000 over five, toward the cost of college -- every student in that position will be putting in 100 hours of service work per year, defined (apparently) as work outside of the operations of the college itself. Let's just focus on that college part for now.  100 hours per year is the equivalent of 3.3 hours per week in a 30-week school year; in other words, it is the equivalent of requiring every college student to add another course (with no homework) to their schedule.  What are the likely effects of such a requirement, spread over 12 million or more college students?

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President Obama has a unique talent: He is able to inspire people all over the world to deliberate and dialogue about burning issues. At the top of the agenda for such a global give and take is what makes for a good life. At first, it may seem preposterous for a nation deep in an economic crisis and mired in wars to pay mind to what at first blush seems like a philosophical subject. Actually, there is a profound connection between our multiple crises -- add that of the climate to the mix -- and the characterization of what makes a life good.

As long as those whose basic needs have been well-sated, whose creature comforts have been secured, keep defining the purpose of life as making more and more dough in order to purchase more and more consumer goods, we will not rein in wild capitalism, protect the environment (climate included), advance social justice, or, arguably, stop killing one another. Only after we come to see that additional goods add precious little to our happiness; that pursuing them is Sisyphean -- the more we gain, the more we seek; and that deep contentment and human flourishing rise out of spiritual projects and bonding with and caring for others, shall we be able to come to terms with much that bedevils us.

These are hardly new thoughts. What is current -- and provides the reason the new President is well advised to keep this topic in mind and in the public eye -- is that the incessant quest for ever more material goods is at the heart of the economic crisis. President Obama correctly mocked President Bush for calling on people to go shopping after the September 11, 2001 attacks on America. However, today Americans and the citizens of many other nations are again urged to go shopping to dig us out of the current economic crisis. (This is what a stimulus package is all about.) Moreover, there is no doubt that given the way the economic system is set up, if people do not buy stuff, there will be more unemployment and more people will lose their homes and empty their retirement funds.

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In an interview with Press TV on January 24 , Noam Chomsky gave voice to the cynicism of the hardcore left, predicting that the Obama administration would show little substantive difference with past American governments in its dealings with Israel.

"The US is not going to join the world in seeking to implement a diplomatic settlement," Chomsky told his Iranian interlocutor. "and if that is the case, (George) Mitchell's mission is vacuous."

In theory, one can debate all sorts of things. However, the proof is in the actions oft he new president. Already we are seeing signs that Chomsky's pessimism is misplaced. In fact, early indications show a distinct change in American policy, with the possibility of more to come.

Durban 2

One small examplewas Obama's reversal of the Bush administration'sdecision to boycott the planning of the so-called Durban2 conference. This gathering, which will be held in Geneva in April, is a follow up to the much criticized first World Conference Against Racism that took place in 2001 in Durban, SouthAfrica.

That conference was largely diverted by pro-Palestinian groups and governments pushing anextremist agenda. The US and Israel both walked out. Some of those same NGOs and governmental delegations are pushing a similar agenda this time. But there are also strong forces working to ensure that this WCAR addresses broader issues of racism, and avoids the descenti nto anti-Semitism that characterized the first conference.

Israel has already announced its boycott, as has Canada. The United States has now decided, however, that the best way to prevent the conference from descending into an anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic frenzy is to engage in the event's planning. If that fails, the Americans can always decide not to participate, as the U.S. and Israeli delegations did in 2001.

Barack Obama should be applauded for taking this course of action. He is working to prevent another demonstration of anti-Jewish racism, while demonstrating that failed strategies for combating it are being abandoned. Sadly, the Israeli government, and a number of prominent U.S. Jewish leaders would rather continue to use claims of anti-Semitism as a political hammer than try to eradicate the phenomenon.

The Settlements

The Durban 2 decision is nothing in comparison to the stance that is emerging regarding settlement expansion in the West Bank. Ha'aretz reported on February 15 that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Special Mideast Envoy George Mitchell are expected to take a firm stance with Israel on settlement expansion, including threatening to reduce the remaining $1.3 billion in loan guarantees the US has promised to Israel by the amount spent on settlement expansion.

This expectation was bolstered by statements in the House of Representatives Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia. On February 12, opening a hearing on the Gaza War, the chairman of the subcommittee, Gary Ackerman, one of the House's key pro-Israel leaders, issued a scathing indictment of Israel's settlement enterprise. Coming from a source like Ackerman, blame for the stalled peace process being laid at the doorstep of settlements alongside (though not, Ackerman was quick to point out, on an equal footing with) Palestinian violence was surprising, to say the least.

Ackerman's bold statement indicates that the direction Obama intends to head in is being mapped out not only with his own team of advisors, but with key pro-Israel figures in Congress. Unlike Jimmy Carter or George H.W. Bush, whose maverick policy making endeavors eschewed such collaboration, Obama is crafting an approach that he hopes will be executed without opposition from legislators and AIPAC-allied forces.

Indeed, at that very hearing (which I attended) we saw how things may split amongst Israel's supporters in Congress. While Shelly Berkley and ranking Republican Dan Burton sang the same old tune, other notable figures like Robert Wexler appeared very much in line with Ackerman, as did some of the House's newer lawmakers, such asrepresentatives Gerald Connolly and Michael McMahon. This indicates that the Obama team has marshaled reasonable Democrats behind it, and is ready to brave the attacks of the old guard.

Border Crossings

It is no coincidence that Israel has suddenly shown a willingness to discuss ways to openGaza's border crossings as part of a long-term truce and reconstruction arrangement. The idea was never hinted at during the Bush administration's tenure, right through its very last day. Suddenly, under Obama, it has become a cornerstone of every proposed arrangement.

In my discussions with officials at the State Department, it has been very clear that, while they always felt this was a necessary condition, Israel's responsiveness to the idea changed dramatically once they knew the President agreed with that direction.

Obama's team has demonstrated its interest in building stability in Gaza. It has also been absolutely clear (as was Ackerman) that anything that legitimized Hamas was a red line it was not willing to cross. But  instead of leaving the people of Gaza to starve, they have insisted on exploring alternatives that would allow the territory's civilian population to pursue their businesses and access needed services while bypassing its Islamist government

This strategy might well fail. The hope is to find a way to re-establish the Palestinian Authority in Gaza. Hamas is both determined and well-positioned enough to prevent that. The Obama administration will not legitimize Hamas, and sees that as too high a price to pay to open up access to the devastated territory.

Hamas stands accused of very serious breaches of Gazans' trust. It appears to have wantonly deployed its forces in civilian areas during the fighting with Israel (to a greater degree than the considerable extent that the physical terrain and crowded conditions of Gaza made inevitable), and it has carried out beatings and executions of political enemies during and after the war. Hamas' well-documented attempts to steal aid from UNRWA nearly cut off the one lifeline for humanitarian assistance that the people of Gaza have left.

Hamas' position is not strong, and recent polls indicate that, while its profile remains high in the Arab world at large, in Gaza, support is at a low point. There may indeed be a way to administer the crossings without benefiting the Palestinian organization.

However, even if there is not, the fact that the US has chosen to vigorously pursue this approach is further evidence of real change from the Obama administration. Its stated eagerness to open a dialogue with Syria, and its slow pace in appointing an envoy to Iran further underline the depth of this change.

The Blank Cheque Has Bounced

Despite this change in policy direction, it is important to recognize that Israel isstill the American government's most valued ally in the Middle East. It is seen by the Obama administration as the closest friend the US has in the region, and it will remain that way on the President's final day in office.

What has taken hold in Washington is the clarity that only a party outside of a conflict can have. It is the view of what is truly in the best interest of both Israel and America. It is an understanding that giving Israel a blank cheque to decide its own course is unwise, especially when that course is subject to the volatile emotions of a populace in long-term conflict and a political system that is fractured and broken.

Martin Indyk, former US ambassador to Israel and founder ofthe pro-Israel think tank the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, stated after Obama's electoral victory that the "era of the blank cheque is over." This change is not due to decreased sympathy for Israel. On the contrary, it is precisely because of such sentiments, combined with a sober analysis of Israeli needs, that the Obama administration is embarking on this course. And it's also why it may very well succeed.

The rightward shift in Israel is a major obstacle. But Israel -- even Benjamin Netanyahu-- has already demonstrated that it understands that this is a new America it's dealing with. The question of how effective this strategy will be will come down to how well the Obama administration can deal with the backlash from so-called "pro-Israel" forces, who do not understand how much harm they are doing to the Jewish state, with their focus on protecting the settlements and defending other Israeli policy excesses.

Part of that equation will be measured by Obama's willingness to stay the course. But part will also come from the efforts of pro-Israel, pro-peace groups whose task it will be to counter two opposing forces. One is the supporters of the status quo, such as AIPAC, and more radical US organizations, such as the Zionist Organization of America. The other is the radical left who will follow Chomsky's lead and insist that until the US adopts an unrealistic and ineffective posture of withdrawing its support (particularly military aid) for Israel, nothing will change.

Moderate US peace organizations must demonstrate that a clear American stance that supports Israel's ability to defend itself, insists on an end to the settlement enterprise, and that gives Palestinians a real chance to build their society is a politically viable and effective position. Though liberal activists and pundits alike have been making this point for years, this is the first time since the beginning of the Oslo era where there has been such a serious chance to actually follow through. If they are effective, Obama's diplomacy stands a serious chance of succeeding.

Asked at a major press conference earlier this week about the prospects for talks with Iran, President Obama highlighted two issues which could likely derail any meaningful exchange. First, Iran's nuclear program, and specifically the fear that it could trigger a regional nuclear arms race. Second, Iran's funding of terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah.

Obama's emphasis on the regional consequences of Iran's nuclear ambitions was a pertinent reminder that Israel is not the only factor here. The authoritarian, western-oriented Arab regimes, along with Turkey, are terrified by the vision of Tehran's mullahs attaching nuclear warheads to their long-range missiles, or sharing their newly-discovered knowledge with eager jihadis.

Back in December, Tariq Alhomayed, the editor-in-chief of the Arabic daily Asharq Alawsat, captured the gnawing fears of Arab conservatives perfectly. "Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons is a serious threat to our region, not Israel," he wrote. "Amid the Israeli threats against Iran, Tehran always responds threatening the security of the Gulf. If the West fears the missiles that Iran claims it is developing, then we fear the Iranian bombs that are planted among us!"

If that wasn't enough, another Arab commentator, Emile Hokayem, asserted that a dialogue between the US and Iran could potentially damage the "political and strategic interests" of the Arab states - a carbon copy of an argument that more routinely invokes Israel. And this week, the thirtieth anniversary of Iran's Islamic revolution was an occasion for more fear - and scorn - in the Arab press. "We wish that Iran would export something other than this Revolution which is ridiculed by everyone except for some in southern Lebanon, Gaza and Iraq," grumbled Abdullah al Awadi in the conservative Al Ittihad newspaper.

Despite all this, the notion that the Arab states, when it comes to Iran and its nukes, have their own set of interests independent of Israeli imperatives, is barely acknowledged by western observers. Sure, there will always be those, like Helen Thomas, unable to resist a swipe at Israel whenever the issue comes up. And you can faithfully rely on Jimmy Carter and Stephen Walt to force the linkage between the nuclear question and the lack of progress on the Israeli-Palestinian track ("The best way to constrain Iran's potential movement towards nuclear capability is to have peace in the Middle East, peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians," says Carter; "Engaging in a serious and non-confrontational effort to reach a modus vivendi with Iran would reduce Tehran's incentive to play spoiler on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, which will in turn encourage Hamas and other radical groups to rethink their own positions," agrees Walt.) Fact is, they are not alone in saying so.

Part of the reason for this resides with the Israeli elections. Sift through the reportage of Obama's comments and the consensus is clear: the powerful electoral showing of Israel's so-called national bloc is the main obstacle to, as the AP puts it, "Barack Obama's conciliatory overtures to Iran." David Sanger deftly summarizes the Obama Administration's dilemma ("It's almost inconceivable, some of Mr. Obama's aides acknowledge, that the Iranians will be willing to give up everything needed to produce a weapon, "he writes, "and it is hard to imagine that the Israelis will settle for anything less,") but even he neglects to mention that the Arab states won't settle for anything less either.

In that sense, both Israel and the conservative Arab regimes have grasped a basic truth about Iran which eludes those who do what Obama, in my opinion, has not done: namely, equate talking with reconciling. To be sure, given the long tradition of dissent against the Islamist regime among the Iranian people, particularly its intellectuals, as well as the frictions within the regime itself and the pressing economic crisis engulfing the country, it is somewhat crude to portray Iran as a unified actor with a single, relentless purpose - in essence, as a state become suicide bomber. But it's equally true that Iran's raison d'etat is that of a confrontation state; if it didn't challenge American hegemony, if it didn't engage in what Obama called "bellicose" rhetoric against Israel, it would quite simply stop being Iran.

This is why the prospect of an Iran made kinder and gentler by the act of talking with the US is hard to take seriously. For instance:

- Despite outward enthusiasm for Obama's overtures, it's business as usual inside Iran. When it comes to the Palestinians, the regime's passion for fusing theological quackery with naked aggression is in full swing; meeting with the leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei hailed the Palestinian "victory" in Gaza as a "miracle." And Israeli spies are everywhere: seven adherents of the brutally persecuted Baha'i faith are the most recently exposed.

- That man Khamenei is the principle reason to avoid getting overly excited about the reforms which might follow the upcoming Presidential elections. As the Iranian dissident Akbar Ganji pointed out in a recent essay, Khamenei's "Sultanist" hold on power as Supreme Leader is near absolute: "he is the head of state, the commander in chief, and the top ideologue." And anyway, Mohammad Khatami, the reformist challenger to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was not much of a reformer when he was President from 1997-2005.

- Nothing has really changed in the substance of the US position. Obama made it clear before his overture to Iran that the attainment of nuclear weapons by the regime is not an acceptable outcome, which earned him a rebuke from the mullahs. He has said nothing to suggest that his position has altered.

"What would it be," the French philosopher Michel Foucault once ruminated about the Iranian revolution and its potential impact upon the Palestinians and the Arabs more generally, "if this cause encompassed the dynamism of an Islamic movement, something much stronger than those with a Marxist, Leninist, or Maoist character?" Written in 1979, there is a remarkable prescience about that question. In thinking through the answer, we should think about the US and Israel, certainly; but let's not forget the frayed nerves among the Arab rulers while doing so.