If Israel has voted for change today it is not for change of the political map – it’s for a change of the political system. Whatever one might think about the outcome of this election, it is clear to most observers that this can’t continue: political parties should not rule with less than one quarter of the mandates. A Prime Minister can’t seriously make policy when he (or she) has to compromise with so many parties over so many issues just to maintain his coalition.

Israel has not voted for any of the parties. It did not vote for any of the ideologies. It did not vote for something – but rather against: those voting for Livni voted against Likud’s Binyamin Netanyahu. Those voting for Israel Beiteinu and Avigdor Lieberman voted against the ruling elites.

But they also voted against the political system. Lieberman made a name for himself as the scary candidate promising to change the relations between Jews and Arabs in Israel. However, Lieberman has many other important items on his agenda and one of them is the need to change the system and give the Prime Minister more power (those fearing him tremble when they think of the prospect of a more powerful Prime Minister Lieberman). This longstanding desire for system change is the tempting promise Kadima is now dangling in the hope that Lieberman might grab the achievement he can get – the achievement he’ll be able to take credit for.

The speakers of Kadima have a simple message to Lieberman: with Kadima and Labor you can have this success – with Netanyahu you can’t. Netanyahu, they say, is committed to other parties, namely, the religious parties, and will not be able to implement such change. One Kadima Minister went even further, suggesting that Lieberman join the coalition until this change is completed, and promised that another election round will be scheduled when this is done.

Labor’s Ehud Barak also dedicated a significant portion of his election night speech to the need to better the system. Of course, that’s a more understandable position when it comes from a losing party. Yet again, Kadima and Lieberman, both on the winning side of this day also sing the same tune – and I think they will have another important supporter: the public.

 

Although it’s generally agreed that Obama’s inauguration speech was “not much”’ as Commentary’s editor John Podhoretz wrote, I still want to delve into one of the main theses of this speech:

 

To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds.  And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.

 

I don’t think many serious people will argue that doing good for the world is, well, good. That feeding the hungry, if possible, is desirable. It is also not a novelty to espouse the Wilsonian message of the need not to be indifferent “to suffering outside our borders” (it’s called “Wilsonian” for a reason).

But I’d like to take issue with the last sentence of this paragraph, because I think that at the end of the day it all comes down to this: has the world really changed? And if it did, how?

Obama didn’t elaborate on this “change” assertions – he similarly avoided explaining his message of “change” during the campaign. It is essential to understand what kind of change Obama sees in the world, since he builds around it his call for America “to change with it”. How can one adapt oneself to changes around the world, when one doesn’t understand how the world has changed?

Like many leaders before him, Obama crafted a message to the crowds, and like many before him he tends to see the world as if everything has started afresh when he was elected. The world has changed when the first Bush was in office (end of the Soviet Empire). It has changed under Clinton (the internet), it has changed under the second Bush (9/11) – and going backwards we can easily find changes in every term of every president. Some bigger changes, some smaller changes. We see them as they happen, and we try to figure out what impact they will have in the future, and we try to adapt accordingly, sometimes successfully, sometimes less so.

The problem I have with Obama’s message is that I don’t know what change in the world he talks about. It must be something new – otherwise, why would Obama bother talking about things that we already know. And it must be something related to changes in other countries that also require change in American behavior – that’s the whole point of mentioning it.

I can try and guess what he means: maybe it’s really the war on terror, and his assumption that making the world safer will only be possible if other nations are more prosperous and less hungry. This is also an idea as old as the American republic – almost a cliché - and it’s also a matter for debate: it is not really clear whether prosperous countries are inherently less dangerous to the world than poor ones. Case in point: Iran. Case in point: Saudi Arabia. Of course, one can also find less well to do environments serving as fertile ground for despair and terror: Somalia, Afghanistan, Gaza, Egypt.

But since both prosperous areas and not-so-prosperous areas serve as launching pad to terrorists and agents of instability, one has to ask oneself if it’s really the hunger, or something else that makes the world dangerous. A reasonable conclusion – also not new – is that the real reason for such diseases is lack of democracy and corrupt leadership or chaotic atmosphere. Gaza – leadership which doesn’t care about the people. Somalia – no leadership. Afghanistan – same. Egypt – autocratic regime. Etc Etc.

And of course, this doesn’t mean that feeding the hungry can’t be an end of itself for many other reasons. Reasons mainly categorized as “idealistic” rather than “pragmatic”. That’s why I always thought that Obama’s message of pragmatic government – Hillary Clinton called it – has limits. As I wrote here:

 

[A]t the end of January, when the Obama administration has to start making decisions, its pragmatism will only help if there’s a framework of ideas and beliefs guiding it toward the right decisions. It is the pragmatic means that Obama hopes to be able to use–but there also has to be an end.

 

If Obama’s idealism is one that’s guiding him toward feeding the hungry around the world – I’m all for it. However, the world hasn’t changed in that respect, and if it did, it’s probably for the better: less hungry today than it was yesterday. But if Obama is trying to tell us that feeding the hungry will be the way with which he intends to fight dangerous, bad people – there’s reason to doubt the receipt, and even in these days of justified but rather mind-numbing celebration -- also worry about the future.

Israelis have become so accustomed to the idiotic reaction by world leaders whenever Israel goes to war, that we now get a sense of satisfaction from the mere fact that such reaction is not totally one-sided. One Israeli paper has had a headline today saying: "Europe refrains from one-sided condemnation of Israel." Hurray!

Israel's Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni explained today that "[t]he international community understands that Hamas is an extreme Islamist organization that spreads its hatred in the entire region, which is being supported by Iran. And the international community needs to understand that this is the translation of the right of Israel to defend itself, that there is no other alternative and we are doing what we need to do in order to defend our citizens."

But does it really understand?

The much admired President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy - no doubt a better friend to Israel than his predecessors, and someone who does understand the need to fight against terror - has called today for "an immediate stop to the firing of rockets on Israel and to the Israeli bombings in Gaza and calls for all parties to use restraint." The not-as-much admired British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has said: "I am deeply concerned by continuing missile strikes from Gaza on Israel and by Israel's response today."

To be fair, these statements do show a predisposition by European leaders to "understand" that deterioration was caused by Hamas' decision to allow - or more accurately orchestrate - rocket fire into Israel. Thus, they preach first for "stop to the firing of rockets" and only then to "Israeli bombings." But one has to wonder: why the mention of Israel? Why the concern about Israel's legitimate response to the daily rocketing of its civilians? Why only the reviled US administration has the courage and the clarity to respond to the Gaza operation without feeling the need to engage in linguistic acrobatics?

"The United States strongly condemns the repeated rocket and mortar attacks against Israel and holds Hamas responsible for breaking the ceasefire and for the renewal of violence in Gaza," [State Secretary Condoleezza] Rice said.

Middle East complications aside, it is, sometimes, as simple as that.

 

 

 

Teaching this semester in the battle-tested Sapir College, near the town of Sderot, I had an interesting experience last week. It is a course in journalism, and Monday morning I have to groups to deal with -- one is a larger group of students I need to familiarize with "journalism's basics" (in college they still believe there's such thing), the other one is the smaller group learning the more advanced "news editing" course.

I have warned them all in advance that there's going to be a lot of America-oriented material in this course, because these are the topics I'm dealing with on a daily basis. They weren't quite happy with it -- American means reading material in English -- but agreed to play along. That is -- until they realized that by "America" I often mean "American Jews."

We had a show of hands this past Monday. About 80% of my young, eager to please, enthusiastic, curious, fun-loving Israeli students think American Jews are, well, boring. Not personally boring, just generally so. If they were to decide what to do with them, journalistically speaking, they'd ignore them. And these, mind you, are the journalism students: so, in a short while, some of them will get to decide.

One of them, not long ago, had to write an assignment on some Americans visiting Israel. "It is the most boring piece I've ever written," he complained. These visitors were so happy to be in Israel, impressed with its achievement and with its people, so positive. There was nothing to talk about, no questions to ask, no issues to debate. How can one write a piece about such good people?

I asked him to give me the outline of his questioning. It was almost anti-Semitic in nature. All he wants to know -- meeting Jews -- is about money. How much do they have, how much will they give to Israel, and to what causes, will the financial crisis make them give less, did they give a lot in the past.

This reminded me of an article published last week in the Jerusalem Post -- a story detailing the extent to which Israeli media has ignored the General Assembly of the United Jewish Communities, even though it was taking place in Jerusalem this year:

 

Coverage in the Hebrew media of the General Assembly of the United Jewish Communities, the umbrella body that represents billions of dollars of annual charity donations from hundreds of thousands of North American Jewish households, was generally limited to policy speeches given at the conference by Israeli politicians.

 

See the problem here?

I think my students, instinctively, do.

This was not a slip of the tongue. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, speaking at the GA (that is the boring annual gathering of the Jewish Federations no reader of Jewcy’s cares about), chose her words carefully, and got the cheers she expected:

"Israel is not a monopoly of rabbis," the Kadima chairwoman noted. "Israel is a Jewish state, but a Jewish state is not a religious state but mainly a nation-state."

The crowd was quite happy, quite impressed. Is this the beginning of a new era? Look at recent developments concerning conversion:

Cabinet Secretary Ovad Yehezkel, Diaspora Affairs Minister Isaac Herzog and Jewish Agency chairman Ze'ev Bielski, all outgoing as the country goes to elections and Bielski takes a leave of absence to compete in the Kadima primary, said the conversion process was too inflexible and harmed aliya and society.

And this happens as the Jewish Agency has passed a somewhat revolutionary resolution calling on the Israeli government to establish “an independent conversion authority which will facilitate and assist in the conversion process”. No, it will not be an institution free of Orthodox influence. But it will be much more tolerant than its predecessors. And it will be one lead by people who understand the urgent need to reform (even if not Reform) the conversion process.

Why is all this happening now?

Here’s the cynic’s explanation: Livni, for one, is angry with the Haredi Shas Party for refusing to join her coalition and forcing new elections. “Not a monopoly of rabbis” is her way of saying: if I’m Prime Minister, you’re going to lose influence. It’s also her way of telling Israelis: vote for me if you want Haredi influence reduced (implying that a vote for Netanyahu will have the opposite outcome).

But here’s the more profound explanation: Israeli leaders have heard many times that Israel’s conversion process is unacceptable and intolerable as far as the US community is concerned. Heard – and ignored. As often happens, a crisis was needed for the attention to be drawn to the broken conversion system, and this came last May when “High Rabbinical Court of Israel severely censured the head of the country's Conversion Authority for performing” what they thought was “conversion in a non-kosher way”:

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert wasn’t happy with the court’s decision: “Conversion in Israel is a national priority”, he said. “I am determined to resolve the current conversion crisis and improve the process of conversion in Israel.” This was a moment in which the truth about conversion crystallized: it’s not the rabbis, but rather the politicians, who make the important decisions. Olmert can’t hide behind a rabbi’s back. Livni can’t. Netanyahu – the leading candidate (by far) to be the next Prime Minister – can’t.

[Note: This post is part of an ongoing dialogue between Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic and Shmuel Rosner of Slate on the need for U.S. national candidates to stop invoking the Jewish state every chance they get. Rosner's first letter can be read here; Goldberg's reply to it, here. Rosner's second letter is here.]

Dear Shmuel,

Happy End-of-the-Holidays. I don't know what I'm looking forward to less -- two more weeks of this campaign, or taking down my sukkah. I have to get a better sukkah next year.

Before I get to McCain, let me acknowledge your perspicacity, as Bill O'Reilly would say: One of the things that's been missing from the debate over which candidate is better for Israel is the question, Which candidate will make America stronger? Because a strong America is a necessity for Israel. I think that the Israeli officials you speak with who suggest that Obama might actually strengthen America's standing in the world are on to something.

Your analysis of McCain's weaknesses, from an Israeli perspective, is spot-on, as well. It's abundantly clear that Israelis of all political denominations become quite frightened when their neo-conservative cousins (not that you have to be Jewish to be a neo-conservative, by the way) talk about exporting democracy to the Muslim world. If you don't mind me quoting myself, I'll repeat a story I told in the Atlantic earlier this year. In December of 2006, Natan Sharansky received the Medal of Freedom from President Bush, and the Israeli embassy held a celebration afterward. As Sharansky extolled the virtues of democracy to the assembled crowd, a senior Israeli security official whispered to me, "What a child." He explained: "It's not smart … He wants Jordan to be more democratic. Do you know what that would mean for Israel and America? If you were me, would you rather have a stable monarch who is secular and who has a good intelligence service on your eastern border, or would you rather have a state run by Hamas? That's what he would get if there were no more monarchy in Jordan." Afterward, I spoke with Sharansky, and in his charmingly self-deprecating way, he told me the following: "After I came back from Washington once," he said, "I saw [Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon in the Knesset, and he said, 'Mazel tov, Natan. You've convinced President Bush of something that doesn't exist.'"

This is a long way of saying that Israelis, in the main, will be relieved when America stops talking about Arab democracy. That said, I don't think John McCain is quite the neoconservative democracy warrior his enemies make him out to be. He is a more practical man, I think, than George W. Bush. But so, for that matter, is Barack Obama. I've looked for signs of incipient Carterism -- defined here as an overarching belief in the power of the talking cure when it comes to evil dictators -- in Obama's actions and statements and so far, I haven't found them. Which is not to say that might not overvalue negotiations when it comes to Iran; we just don't know. I could go on about McCain's views of the Middle East -- where's he strong and where he's not (I do think that, unlike Obama -- thank you, Joe Biden -- America's enemies might not be so eager to test McCain, in part because they might be under the impression that he's crazy) but, today at least, the McCain campaign has a posthumous feel to it, and so I'm thinking more about Obama.

And so, to address your final point: Is it good for Obama to talk about Israel all the time? Yes. I agree with you, but for a slightly different reason. When I interviewed Obama on this subject, he said that one of the jobs of an American president is to hold up a mirror to Israel to show it where it might do better. This was his very polite way of suggesting that he wants to help Israel find a way out of the territories. The key, of course, is for Israelis to feel that a friend is holding up that mirror, not an enemy. Obama is trying very hard to show himself to be that friend.

To read Shmuel Rosner's first letter, click here; Goldberg's reply to it, here. Rosner's second letter is here.

RELATED: Rosner's original piece, "Enough About Israel, Already," for Slate, and Goldberg's post at the Atlantic.

Shmuel Rosner's blog is here.

[Note: This post is part of an ongoing dialogue between Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic and Shmuel Rosner of Slate on the need for U.S. national candidates to stop invoking the Jewish state every chance they get. Rosner's first letter can be read here; Goldberg's reply to it, here.]

Dear Jeffrey,

Since I'm on my way back to the east coast, where I'll spend the next two and a half weeks -- watching election returns somewhere in Ohio or Florida -- I'll soon also have an opportunity to de-sharpen those re-sharpened edges. Or maybe the sharper the better?

I guess our discussion can only move forward if we somewhat abandon our initial topic (why Israel should not be mentioned as mach) and try different angles with which to entertain our Jewcy readers. You asked about Israeli government officials, so I'll start with them, and generally speaking, I think these can be divided into three main groups.

A. Those supporting Obama for a while now. They include Democratic-leaning Israeli officials -- most supporting the candidacy of Hillary Clinton's and switching to Obama, few supporting Obama from the start. These officials generally believe that a Democrat will make America stronger - hence, will benefit Israel. Some also believe that Obama will get involved in the Israel-Arab peace process and help advance it in ways that Bush could or would not. The more realistic among them think this is mostly true for the Syria-track. There's a fair number of Israelis unhappy with Bush's tendency to oppose -- or not to encourage -- an Israeli Syrian dialogue. Anyway - these pro-Obama supporters consist the smallest of the three groups I was mentioning.

B. The second group will be the one of late-comers to the Obama cause. These people, I suspect, will grow in number as long as the polls show an apparent Obama victory (if they do). It is the international manifestation of the band-wagon effect: essentially, Israelis understand that Obama is going to win, so they might as well try to see the benefits and advantages of such candidate. Talking to the members of this group is pretty funny because one can easily detect the ways with which they try to rationalize an argument they aren't comfortable with. If polls, or atmosphere somehow changes -- these people will rush back to the group where they originally belong: McCain supporters.

C. This is basically the B group without the pretense, and its rapidly shrinking (Israelis, to they credit, were always very practical in nature). It consists of people who rather have McCain as the American president and are still willing to say it.

Their arguments -- and the argument of most knowledgeable Israelis supporting the experienced battle-tested McCain over Obama -- are quite clear: they want a president who understands the need to use power, and does not entertain the illusion that with charismatic personality one can change the Middle East (related to this topic, I really recommend that people will read your Atlantic piece on McCain and the use of power). In some ways, what they fear in Obama is the repetition of Bush the democracy-promoter. It's true that most Israelis think Bush was a friendly president, but readers should realise that very few of them really bought into the lets-democratize-the-region notion. Too realistic to believe, or too racist (Ariel Sharon famously said "after all, it is Arabs we are talking about here"), or too experienced -- Israelis liked the part of Bush that was supportive of security concerns, and vehement in fighting terror, but didn't as much appreciate his desire to transform the Mideast. Not that they don't want it -- they just don't think it's possible. Not now, not this way.

Surprisingly, what some of them see in Obama is a different kind of the same naivete. How's that for a surprisingly refreshing point of view?

Now back to the original topic of this exchange: does mentioning Israel helps Obama with Israelis? it really does. If one tries to find the positive aspects to this constant attention the country is getting, it is the fact that Israelis do feel now much more comfortable with Obama than they did a year or half a year ago.

I'll leave you the benefit of starting the discussion of McCain and Israel.

Best,
Rosner

To read Shmuel Rosner's first letter, click here; Goldberg's reply to it, here.

RELATED: Rosner's original piece, "Enough About Israel, Already," for Slate, and Goldberg's post at the Atlantic.

Shmuel Rosner's blog is here.

[Note: This post is part of an ongoing dialogue between Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic and Shmuel Rosner of Slate on the need for U.S. national candidates to stop invoking the Jewish state every chance they get. Rosner's first letter, to which the following is a reply, can be read here.]

Dear Shmuel,

Happy New Year, first of all. It's nice to read you again; the Ha'aretz site is a barren place without you. And you seem even more blunt than usual; I suppose this has to do with your return to Israel. Your re-aliyah will inevitably re-sharpen your edges.
I'm of two minds about even having this dialogue, because I do tend to think, as you do, that Israel is mentioned far too often in presidential debates. On the other hand, who doesn't like to be the center of attention? We Jews have gotten used to this over the past 3,000 years or so.

Let me wrestle with two of your points. You write of Israelis, "The constant need for the husband to say how much he loves the bride does not mean the bride is lovable but rather that she lacks self-confidence." I think you're a bit too harsh on your countrymen. It's natural, and inevitable, that Israelis would worry about the possibly-shifting feelings of their great benefactor. Jewish history, if nothing else, makes this natural, though I don't think this behavior is unusual at all for any country that is essentially a client state. This insecurity does have unpleasant manifestations, of course – loyalty tests, for one thing, and a weakness for victimology.

The Yad Vashem-to-Sderot Express, which all foreign dignitaries are forced to ride upon their arrival in Israel – "Look what they did to us!" meets "Look what they're doing to us!" – is a particularly unpleasant manifestation of this. Just ask Barack Obama, who would have probably enjoyed a visit to brash, positive modern Israel.
But to your main question: I think that most Jews who oppose the rise of Obama are opposing him for reasons other than Israel.

Yes, there are actual, ideologically-Republican Jews out there; and yes, I suppose there are Jews, primarily in Flatbush, who believe that John McCain will defend the Jewish claim to Greater Jerusalem (which is a terribly important cause when you live in Brooklyn, apparently) with greater fervor than would Barack Obama. But in my own experience, I would have to say that simple racism motivates much of the anti-Obama anxiety in corners of the Jewish community. I don't know what else explains it.

His positions on most matters related to Israel are indistinguishable from those of AIPAC. This anti-Obama feeling is, of course, disappointing, but not altogether astonishing. A black president with a strange name elicits the same fears among Jews in New York and Florida that it does among Protestants in West Virginia. That said, I assume there are fence-sitters out there who are comforted to learn that Obama doesn't actually hate Jews (and is, in fact, very nearly surrounded by Jews) so it does seem useful for Obama, and his surrogates, to remind Jews that he is a something of a Zionist fellow-traveler. In fact, this latest Jesse Jackson episode provides a good opening for the delivery of just such a message.

We'll get to McCain later, I hope. For now, I'm curious to hear you on what Israeli government officials actually think of Obama. Do they really believe that he is in some way hostile to their interests?

Best,
Jeff

To read Shmuel Rosner's first letter, click here.

RELATED: Rosner's original piece, "Enough About Israel, Already," for Slate, and Goldberg's post at the Atlantic.

Shmuel Rosner's blog is here.

Rosner's response to this letter will follow shortly.

Both Shmuel Rosner and Jeffrey Goldberg have written recently of the need for American national candidates to stop gibbering on about Israel. "The goal of Zionism is normalcy, Jewish normalcy," Goldberg noted last week on his Atlantic blog. "This, of course, is an oxymoron, but we can still hope. The cause is not helped when presidential candidates, well-meaning though they might be, constantly invoke the existential dangers to Israel when arguing for a) getting out of Iraq; b) staying in Iraq; c) talking to Iran; or d) bombing Iran." For his part, Rosner pointed out in a long-form essay for Slate that in the Palin-Biden debate, Israel was mentioned a total of 17 times, outstripping by far references to more pressing foreign policy concerns for the U.S. (China, Russia, Europe). It's not in either country's interest to overemphasize a relationship that, however "sacrosanct" (to borrow Barack Obama's word for it), is by no means exclusive.

Jewcy invited Goldberg and Rosner to discuss their mutual fantasy of minimal Israel chatter in an ongoing email dialogue. Below is Rosner's opening salvo; Goldberg's reply will be posted later today.

Dear Jeffrey,

I'll start by repeating the core argument I was making in Slate. It was not about the importance of the U.S.-Israel alliance, or the reasons such alliance is desirable (for both countries). My complaint was about the frequency with which presidential candidates mention Israel. I think this hurts Israel because it presents is as a country that is more trouble than an asset to America. I also think that it distorts the voters' perception of American foreign policy. Israel is important, and is located in an important region. But mentioning Israel more than Chine, Russia, the European Union and its leaders (Germany, France, Britain) gives the wrong impression about the real interests and the real motives for numerous US policy decisions.

The question for this email exchange, though, is how do we make it interesting for readers. If we both agree that Israel's name should come up in the election with less frequency, the only way for us to have a debate is if we have some disagreements regarding the reasons for which we want it off the radar screen. My argument is fairly straight forward: it hurts Israel. It's not about "normalcy" (as you briefly argue in the blog item you wrote about this topic) -- it's about interests. I don't think the candidates really serve Israel's interest when they talk about it. And since both of they claim -- and I believe it to be right -- to be staunch supporters of Israel, their actions contradict their intentions. As we both know, this is probably happening mainly because of politics. The candidates think that they need to keep saying how much they love Israel in order for people --mostly Jewish -- to feel comfortable with them and to support them.

I find it to be both ignorant and insulting: most American Jews care for Israel but are not one-issue voters. They might not vote for a candidate that is openly hostile to Israel, but will hardly make the nuances of Israel-related policies the definite reason for which to vote or not vote for specific candidates. If there's a litmus test, both McCain and Obama have passed it a very long time ago. This does not mean that their different approaches to Middle East policies have no significance as far as Israel is concerned. It does mean that they can stop using Israel by way of explaining why staying/leaving Iraq is the right way to go, or why talking/bombing Iran will be the appropriate policy for the U.S. to pursue.

As I wrote in my Slate piece, I think Israelis should also grow up and stop drooling whenever a debate is moving in Israel's direction. The constant need for the husband to say how much he loves the bride does not mean the bride is lovable but rather that she lacks self-confidence. In the case of Israel, self-confidence in not just a quality that's more appealing, it is also a matter of national security. If Israelis need this constant approval, it means that they aren't sure about the US' support. If they aren't sure, their enemies might be convinced that it's really something they can further erode by pursuing more aggressive policies.

But let me ask you this Jeffrey: Is it Israel that makes Jewish voters uncomfortable about Barack Obama? you've written a lot about Obama and the Jews (as I did too), and you seem to think that something else is at play here - dare we say racism? and if that's the case, can Obama overcome such weariness by talking more about Israel? And what about McCain: can he really convince Jewish voters to vote for him by convincing them that Obama's policies will endanger Israel - or is he really going to scare Americans voters who might think that he is going to war with Iran because of Israel?

A lot to talk about, and so little time.

Best,
Shmuel

Jeffrey Goldberg's reply can be read here.

Shmuel Rosner's blog is here.

RELATED: Rosner's original piece, "Enough About Israel, Already," for Slate, and Goldberg's post at the Atlantic.

Reason's Michael Young explains why the NIE is almost besides the point in the ongoing U.S.-Iran conflict:  

For example, what is the U.S. doing about Iran's alliance with Syria, and their joint patronage of Hamas and Hizbullah? Hamas is dead set on wrecking American efforts to bring about a settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and several months ago the movement mounted a successful coup against the Fatah movement in Gaza. Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal lives in Damascus, is a frequent visitor to Tehran, and although Syria will send sporadic signals that it is displeased with the Islamist group, this is chaff designed to keep alive the illusion that Syria and Iran are on different wavelengths. Nothing will divide Syria from Iran when the relationship brings so many foreign supplicants to Damascus with offers of concessions to President Bashar Assad, if only he would consider abandoning Iran. Assad takes the concessions, offers none of his own, and yet the visitors still keep coming.

We don't hear much about the U.N. investigation into Rafiq Hariri's assassination anymore. And now that Syria has -- in all likelihood -- expanded its 'wet work' in Lebanon to include murdering apolitical military generals, it seems nothing will stop the Alawite regime from attempting a full-scale reconquest of its war-weary neighbor.  Iran's hand in all this is clear: Surround Iraq with terror proxies, and nestle right up to Israel with same.

Moreover, there is no guarantee that the Israelis will not undercut their role as junior intelligence partner to the U.S. and simply go ahead with a preemptive strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. As Shmuel Rosner reported earlier in the week in Slate, Israel was completely demoralized by the NIE and, as the headline of his piece phrased it, "anxious nations don't compromise." Rosner concludes, however, that the Jewish state will be unable to act on its own without the not-so-tacit approval of the Pentagon:

With U.S. forces deployed all over the region, there are tens of thousands of American soldiers who would be at risk from an Iranian response, were Israel to attack the nuclear installations at Natanz and Arak. And anyway, the Israeli air force would need the U.S. codes that would open the flight path and prevent a collision between friendly forces.

All true. But confronted with the choice between "existential threat" and making things more difficult for overseas American servicemen, I wonder if Tel Aviv wouldn't to jeopardize, at least temporarily, its strongest alliance, even if the consequences turn out to be far worse than those of Suez in 1956. 

Jewcy contributor Aaron Hamburger stares down the chauvinism at Shmuel Rosner's Ha'aretz blog, wherein writers far and wide mail in their questions. Aaron and Shmuel had a bit of a sparring match, too:

There are a few things in your column that I think should be cleared up. Your sentence "Hamburger himself evinced enough interest in Israel to stay in the country a few weeks and then write a book set there," is misleading because it implies that my background on issues relating to Israel is that of a first-time novice. I have been to Israel more than a dozen times in my life. My family and I rented a house there one summer. I have cousins there. My brother married an Israeli woman and we visited her family several times as well. In writing Faith for Beginners, however, I did not rely solely on my own experience of Israel. I also did copious research and cited a few of my sources in the back of my book.

I don't know what you mean by "Hamburger has said in the past that he is interested only in Americans." (Maybe it would help if you quoted my words directly.) However, if that statement were literally true, why would I write two books set outside of America, first in Prague, then in Israel? Yes, my focus is on America and Americans and the way we deal with the world in an age when American decisions have such profound ripple effects, but certainly not to the exclusion of all others. Anyway, isn't it natural for me to focus on Americans since I am American myself?

What might be the state of affairs today in the West Bank and Gaza and East Jerusalem had the United Nations warned Nasser that continuance of his blockade of the Straits of Tiran was an international crime to be met with force? Shmuel Rosner says any revisionist study of the Six Day War, its origins and aftermath, is incomplete without accounting for the many foul-ups of non-Israeli actors:

What would have happened if the world had acted more decisively to prevent Nasser from violating his commitments? What would he have done if the United Nations had made it clear that such acts and statements would be met with a show of resilience and even force? In short: What would have happened if the world had been more attentive to Sen. Morse's wisdom and advice? Could the miseries of both the war and the occupation have been avoided?