Archive | July, 2012

AIPAC Sends Clear Signal: ROMNEY!

29 Jul

Eli Lake, as faithful a transcriber for AIPAC as any in the media (he has plenty of competition) reports that Dennis Ross is staying neutral in the presidential election. 

This is pretty significant because nothing Dennis Ross does (including every action he took at the Obama White House) happens without AIPAC signing off.

Remember who he is.  Both prior to his White House “service” and subsequent to it, he led AIPAC’s think-tank,  the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. (Here is my piece on the Washington Institute’s creation by AIPAC. I was there).  He runs it now.

Ross says  he cannot support the president for whom he (tragically for America) served as main Middle East policy guy because that would conflict with his duties at WINEP:

I am the Counselor at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy,” Ross said in an email on Friday. “The Washington Institute is a non-profit organization and I cannot do political work from here. When I acted for the campaign in 2008, I had to take a leave of absence to do so. Having only recently returned to the Institute, I cannot now again take a leave of absence.

That is bull. If AIPAC told him to stick with Obama he would.  WINEP IS AIPAC.

Josh Block, AIPAC’s long-time press spokesman, who is widely believed to still receive a stipend from  AIPAC (AIPAC uses him as “informal” spokesman) is clearly speaking for the lobby when he says this:

Ambassador Ross was obviously the No. 1 pro-Israel surrogate for the Obama campaign in 2008,” said Josh Block, a former press aide for the Clinton administration and former top spokesman for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. “The fact that after three years of working on Mideast policy side-by-side with the president, Ambassador Ross has decided to sit out this campaign, unlike other former top officials now at nonpartisan think tanks, will certainly be understood as a message of its own, intentionally or unintentionally.

It certainly does. AIPAC is going to privately pull out all the stops for Romney while publicly maintaining neutrality. It wants the U.S. to fight Israel’s war with Iran. It wants the neocons back in power. It wants to fight “Islamists” everywhere. And Romney’s top Middle East guy, Dan Senor, is related to AIPAC; his sister runs its whole operation in Israel!

Ross’s move is, as Josh Block says, a clear signal. The lobby wants Romney because the lobby wants war. (This is not about Jewish voters who the latest polls show are overwhelmingly for Obama and don’t consider Israel when they vote.) This is about the money and the few dozen billionaires and multimillionaires who take their cues from AIPAC).

Also note the quote from Aaron Miller, Ross’s long-time sidekick, equally close to AIPAC, also dissing Obama.

Dennis is about doing things,” said Aaron Miller, who was Ross’s deputy on the peace process during the Clinton years and is now a scholar at the Wilson Center, a public-policy think tank in Washington, D.C. “The peace process is stuck and is likely to remain stuck. The fact is no amount of hand-holding is going to assuage the concerns and suspicions of a pro-Israel community which has now seen some of its fears realized. It may well be that this is the other piece of this. I wouldn’t want to try to sell Obama to the Jewish community in this environment.

This is the line.  The lobby is with Romney.

Tags: ,

If Romney Wins By Suppressing Black Vote, We Must Resist By Any Means Necessary

26 Jul

Writing in the Washington Post, columnist Harold Meyerson says that it is entirely possible that Mitt Romney will win in November as a result of the Republican party’s voter suppression efforts — directed at reducing the number of African-Americans, Latinos and others who cast ballots.

Suppose Mitt Romney ekes out a victory in November by a margin smaller than the number of young and minority voters who couldn’t cast ballots because the photo-identification laws enacted by Republican governors and legislators kept them from the polls. What should Democrats do then? What would Republicans do? And how would other nations respond?

As suppositions go, this one isn’t actually far-fetched. No one in the Romney camp expects a blowout; if he does prevail, every poll suggests it will be by the skin of his teeth. Numerous states under Republican control have passed strict voter identification laws. Pennsylvania, Texas, Indiana, Kansas, Tennessee and Georgia require specific kinds of ID; the laws in Michigan, Florida, South Dakota, Idaho and Louisiana are only slightly more flexible. Wisconsin’s law was struck down by a state court.

But what if it happens, as the Majority Leader of the Pennsylvania Senate says it will. Author of a photo ID law that passed and was signed by the Republican governor, he says his law “is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the State of Pennsylvania.”  Here’s Meyerson:

If voter suppression goes forward and Romney narrowly prevails, consider the consequences. An overwhelmingly and increasingly white Republican Party, based in the South, will owe its power to discrimination against black and Latino voters, much like the old segregationist Dixiecrats. It’s not that Republicans haven’t run voter suppression operations before, but they’ve been under-the-table dirty tricks, such as calling minority voters with misinformation about polling-place locations and hours.

By contrast, this year’s suppression would be the intended outcome of laws that Republicans publicly supported, just as the denial of the franchise to Southern blacks before 1965 was the intended result of laws such as poll taxes. More ominous still, by further estranging minority voters, even as minorities constitute a steadily larger share of the electorate, Republicans will be putting themselves in a position where they increasingly rely on only white voters and where their only path to victory will be the continued suppression of minority votes. A cycle more vicious is hard to imagine.

Imagine what the day after Election Day will feel like if the first African-American president is robbed of re-election because racist Republicans kept African-Americans from voting for him. What would happen?

Certainly, President Obama could not concede defeat after what essentially would be an unconstitutional coup (voting rights are enshrined in the constitution). It was bad enough when Al Gore conceded the stolen election of 2000 but this would be worse, because of its purely racial elements both in terms of who the president is and who his robbed voters would be.

Meyerson suggests that we must not accept the results:

And what should Democrats do if Romney comes to power on the strength of racially suppressed votes? Such an outcome and such a presidency, I’d hope they contend, would be illegitimate — a betrayal of our laws and traditions, of our very essence as a democratic republic. Mass demonstrations would be in order. So would a congressional refusal to confirm any of Romney’s appointments. A presidency premised on a racist restriction of the franchise creates a political and constitutional crisis, and responding to it with resigned acceptance or inaction would negate America’s hard-won commitment to democracy and equality.

The course on which Republicans have embarked isn’t politics as usual. We don’t rig elections by race in America, not anymore, and anyone who does should not be rewarded with uncontested power.

The problem is that I do not trust the Democratic party to do anything but surrender. Politicians are politicians, part of the establishment, as was evidenced when not one Senate Democrat (not one) joined the House Black Caucus when it asked if one senator would cast a nay vote against the formal ratification of the stolen election of George W. Bush in 2000.

I would think President Obama would use all the authority he commands to ensure that a Romney victory by illegal means would not be sustained, but who knows?

The bottom line is this: Meyerson’s scenario is not likely to occur. But, if it does, we will be on our own. And we need to be ready to shut the country down, if necessary, to ensure that democracy prevails. If Romney wins fair and square, he is our President. If not, he must not be.

 

Tags: , , , ,

Israel Better Cut A Peace Deal Now

20 Jul

Cross-posted from Huffington Post 

I wonder if the Israeli government now regrets that it didn’t consider the Arab League peace offer that was first issued in 2002 and then again in 2007. Every Arab state signed it and it was strongly backed by the Saudis who, in fact, drafted it.

Under its terms, in exchange for Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories and resolution of the Palestinian refugee problem:

The Arab countries affirm the following:

(I) Consider the Arab-Israeli conflict ended, and enter into a peace agreement wih Israel, and provide security for all the states of the region; (II) Establish normal relations with Israel in the context of this comprehensive peace.

The Arab League Initiative is not a full-blown peace treaty. It is rather a framework under which Israel would conduct negotiations with the goal of reaching agreements on all the critical points. Nothing would be dictated to either side; nothing could take effect without full agreement by both sides.

In essence, the Arab League Initiative was a golden offer to Israel by every single Arab state (the end of conflict and isolation in return for giving up the lands won in the 1967 war. The Palestinian Authority also signed it and Hamas said that if a deal was reached, it would not “contradict the Arab consensus.”

But Israel flat-out refused to consider it and, at Israel’s request, neither did the United States. That pretty much killed it although the offer is still out there, ready for Israel to seize the opportunity at any time.

Of course, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his right-wing government have never indicated any interest in a deal that requires giving up the occupied territories, which, of course, rules out any deal at all. However, given the changes in Israel’s regional standing since 2007, even Israeli right-wingers might be willing to rethink now. (The center and left have always favored considering the initiative).

Just look at the changes since 2007.

In 2007, when the Arab League Initiative was last issued, Israel’s most important ally President Hosni Mubarak was firmly in power. For 30 years, Mubarak was the guarantee that Israel would not have to worry about war with its powerful neighbor to the west. That was because Mubarak scrupulously adhered to its terms. Egypt’s new Muslim Brotherhood government has not indicated that it will back away from the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty but, no doubt about it, its future is up in the a

The moderate Palestinian Authority is weaker than ever before. Due largely to the fact that it has not been able to achieve the return of any Palestinian land from Israel, and the failure of its attempt to declare statehood, it appears feckless and weak. Palestinians increasingly view it as a tool of Israel. Meanwhile, Hamas has become thoroughly entrenched in Gaza and its Muslim Brotherhood allies are now in power in Egypt.

Hezbollah, formerly a Shiite terrorist group formed in response to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, now plays a dominant role in the Lebanese government. It is believed to possess 20,000 rockets which could reach Israel. In 2006, it launched some 4,000 of those rockets, causing the evacuation of northern Israel.

Turkey, since 1948 Israel’s staunch Muslim ally, turned against the Israeli government as a result of Israel’s blockade of Gaza and an Israeli attack on a Turkish ship that was sailing there with relief supplies for its population. The two countries are now barely on speaking terms.

And now the Assad government is on the verge of collapse. The Assad regime, although rhetorically hostile to Israel, has maintained peace with it since the 1973 war. Israelis view the Syrian regime, much as they viewed Mubarak’s, as totalitarians who maintained stability and the status quo. Revolutionary instability in Syria or the replacement of Assad by a more militantly pan-Arab regime will mean more trouble for Israel

And then there is Iran, which — whether it is developing nuclear weapons or not — successfully uses the 45-year occupation as a pretext to assert leadership among Arabs. As supposed champions of Muslim interests (including the Palestinians) the Iranians are achieving ascendancy in the Arab world. This is ironic, to say the least, because Arabs and Persians have traditionally been hostile to each other; the Israeli occupation has helped create a new unnatural (and utterly cynical) alliance.

Israel is more isolated than ever before. And, if it attacks Iran, it is likely to lose any chance for ever achieving peace with the Muslim world. That might, however, be the least of its losses,

The bottom line is that the status quo no longer works to Israel’s advantage. Every day its position grows weaker as the region it is located in becomes more and more unstable, and forces militantly opposed to Israel replace those who seemed more than willing to live with it.

It is hard to know if Israel’s situation is salvageable. It just may be too late to recover from the mistakes it made when opportunities like the Arab Initiative presented themselves. The same may be true of the Palestinians who, going back to the 1930s, have repeatedly said “no” to offers that could have saved them from the true horrors of their current situation.

The change now is that events are moving the situation if not necessarily in the Palestinians’ favor, then definitely in opposition to Israel’s. After all, the new forces that are taking over the region have one thing in common: hate for the Israeli occupation and a determination to end it. And, on that score, they have an ally in Iran which cares nothing for the Palestinians but are quite good at using their plight to build support among all Muslims.

It’s time Israel read the handwriting on the wall. It should stop any expansion of settlements and fully end the blockade of Gaza, as first step towards acknowledging its new situation. Those actions alone would restore its friendship with Turkey. And it should acknowledge through words and deed that it is ready for negotiations based on the Arab League Initiative.

Negotiations won’t start now, in the midst of the current turbulence in Syria and elsewhere. But Israel needs to be ready as soon as the dust settles and before the drums of war against Israel start beating again. Additionally, it should end its threats toward Iran and let the Obama administration know that it favors lifting sanctions in return for tangible steps by Iran toward ensuring that its nuclear program is a civilian program and will remain one. Currently it supports”crippling sanctions” until Iran give up its right to any form of nuclear development. That simply won’t fly.

All those who care about the survival and security of Israel should encourage it to take these steps. It is no act of friendship to encourage Israel to dig in when the tides of history are running against it. Israel is too important to be lost because its leaders refused to accept “yes” as an answer. That is what the Arab League initiative is: a big yes. I just hope that the offer is still there because, if it isn’t, it is hard to imagine another way for Israel to break out of its current predicament.

If the United States is truly Israel’s ally, and not just its enabler, that is the message it will deliver to Israel loud and clear. Supporting Israel’s current course may be politically advantageous as the election looms, but it is no act of friendship. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Besides, the campaign is over in just over a hundred days. After that, there is no excuse for America not to help Israel avoid looming catastrophe, none at all.

 

 

Tags:

Israel’s History Using Terrorism As Fake Pretext For War

18 Jul

The horrific bombing of a bus in Bulgaria killing at least 7 Israelis is terrible no matter how you look at it. All terrorism against civilians whether perpetrated by non-state actors or governments is criminal and indefensible. That refers both to this attack in Bulgaria and Israel’s attacks on Iranian scientists. Although at this point no one knows if there is a connection between the two, the point remains. Violence breeds violence and terror breeds terror. Of course, that is obvious.

One has to wonder if Prime Minister Netanyahu will use the killing of Israeli innocents as a pretext for war with Iran, whether Iran was behind the attack or not. Netanyahu and his cutouts here are hungry for war and this horrific act might serve their purposes fine.

In 1982, Israel was as eager for war with the PLO, then based in Lebanon, as it is for war with Iran now.

But it needed a pretext, something PLO leader Yasir Arafat had no intention of providing. But then fortune intervened. The PLO’s enemy, the crazy violent Abu Nidal group, attempted to kill Israel’s ambassador to the United Kingdom. He was shot in the head by an assassin.

The Israelis knew the act was the work of Abu Nidal, not the PLO. But, figuring the world would not know the difference between one Palestinian group and another, it invaded Lebanon. The monstrous aftermath included the Sabra and Shatila massacres, the occupation of Lebanon until 2000, thousands of dead, the creation of Hizbullah, and essentially the destruction of a country (now finally rebuilt, more or less).

Here is how all this is described in the obituary of the ambassador who passed away in 2003.

Shlomo Argov, Israel’s former ambassador to Britain, has died from wounds he received nearly 21 years ago in the London terrorist attack that triggered Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. He was 73.

On June 3 1982, Argov was getting into his car after a banquet at the Dorchester hotel in Park lane when three gunmen from the Abu Nidal group appeared from nowhere; one of them, Hussein Ghassan Said, fired a single bullet straight through his head. The ambassador fell into a three-month coma, and somehow survived, but was paralysed and required constant medical attention for the rest of his life.

Not since the slaying of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914 has a hit team made war such a likely outcome. At last, the then Israeli defence minister Ariel Sharon had a pretext for his long-planned campaign to eliminate the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and its headquarters in the Lebanese capital, Beirut. In his memoirs, Sharon admits that the Dorchester ambush was “merely the spark that lit the fuse”.

The next day, Israeli forces bombed PLO arms depots in Lebanon, Palestinian forces retaliated with cross-border Katyusha rocket salvos, and, barely 48 hours later, Israel launched its ill-fated Operation Peace For Galilee. At first, the invasion routed the enemy. But before long, Israelis were fighting in the streets of Beirut itself; and, as civilian casualties mounted, international opprobrium grew.

To make matters worse, within a year Israel faced an additional new foe on its northern border, the indigenous Shi’ite militia Hizbollah. Ultimately, Israeli troops found themselves mired in a foreign country for 18 years.

Precisely what motivated the Dorchester shooting remains a mystery. Far from being PLO agents, it appears that the Palestinian gunmen, eventually convicted, were next planning to kill Nabil Ramlawi, the PLO representative in London.

The terrorist organiser Abu Nidal (obituary, August 20 2002) was clearly behind the attack – one of the assailants still incarcerated in Britain was his cousin, Marwan al-Banna. By targeting Argov, wrote the author Samuel Katz, Abu Nidal wanted to “provoke an Israeli assault on Arafat’s fortress, and thereby weaken his two most bitter enemies”. But the terrorists’ Iraqi paymasters – the third of Argov’s would-be assassins, Nawaf al-Rosan, was a Baghdad intelligence colonel – also sought to embroil Israel in a war with Syria that would divert attention from their own reversals in the Iran-Iraq conflict.

Will Netanyahu use the Bulgarian horror the way Ariel Sharon used the shooting of Ambassador Argov? Would anyone be surprised?

Tags: ,

To Bibi With Love: Centrist Jews Mildly Dissent Very Mildly

17 Jul

The following letter was written by advocates of the two-state solution to Prime Minister Netanyahu in reference to the Levy Committee report that declares that there is no such thing as occupation and that all settlements are legal and permanent.

I “bold” some of the phrases  that illustrate what is behind these words and why this approach  is utterly ineffectual and demonstrates that the “moderates” will ultimately stand with Israel’s government no matter what it does.

More important than what is in the letter is what isn’t. There is not one word expressing opposition to the occupation, settlements, home demolitions. land seizures, the abuse of an occupied people, imprisoning thousands of people including children. There is no reference to international law, morality or Jewish ethics.

The letter, in short, demonstrates that Bibi can count on the “mainstream” community no matter what he does. He has the moderates. He has AIPAC which has Congress. He is absolutely under no pressure of any kind. This letter proves it.

July 13, 2012

The Honorable Benjamin Netanyahu
Prime Minister of the State of Israel

Dear Mr. Prime Minister:

As strong advocates for Israel’s security and well-being as a Jewish and democratic state, we are deeply concerned about the recent findings of the government commission led by Supreme Court Jurist (Ret.) Edmund Levy. We fear that if approved, this report will place the two-state solution, and the prestige of Israel as a democratic member of the international community, in peril.

As you boldly stated in your address to the United States Congress last May, “I recognize that in a genuine peace, we’ll be required to give up parts of the ancestral Jewish homeland.” As you said clearly, doing so is not easy. While the Jewish people indeed share a biblical connection to the lands of Judea and Samaria, you told Congress, “there is another truth: The Palestinians share this small land with us. We seek a peace in which they’ll be neither Israel’s subjects nor its citizens. They should enjoy a national life of dignity as a free, viable and independent people living in their own state.”

Securing Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state requires diplomatic and political leadership, not legal maneuverings. We recognize and regret that the Palestinian Authority has abdicated leadership by not returning to the negotiating table. [The Palestinians, joined by the Obama administration, demanded that Israel freeze settlements during negotiations. Netanyahu refused; the Palestinians correctly asserted that they could not negotiate the future of land while it was being gobbled up]. Nonetheless, our great fear is that the Levy Report will not strengthen Israel’s position in this conflict, [so the goal of these moderates is to strengthen Israel's position IN THE CONFLICT, not peace] but rather add fuel to those who seek to delegitimize Israel’s right to exist. [The old chestnut, deligitimization which means nothing but Bibi likes it]  At this moment, it is more critical than ever that Israel strengthen its claim in the international community that it is committed to a two-state vision, which is, in turn, central to Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state.

We are confident that with your deep understanding of the gravity of this situation, (which has never been demonstrated) and your unprecedented political strength, you will ensure that adoption of this report does not take place.

Sincerely,

Karen R. Adler
Jack C. Bendheim
Michael Berenbaum
Howard M. Bernstein
Charles R. Bronfman
Steven M. Cohen
Rabbi Marion Lev Cohen
Lester Crown
Thomas A. Dine
Rabbi David Ellenson
Edith Everett
Susie Gelman
E. Robert Goodkind
Stanley P. Gold
Rabbi Daniel Gordis
David A. Halperin
Harold R. Handler
Alan S. Jaffe
Peter A. Joseph
Rabbi Jeremy Kalmanofsky
Peter S. Kolevzon
Steven C. Koppel
Burton Lehman
Marvin Lender
Geoffrey H. Lewis
Deborah Lipstadt
Rabbi J. Rolando Matalon
Harriet Mouchly-Weiss
Burt Neuborne
Bernard Nussbaum
Richard Pearlstone
Marcia Riklis
Rabbi Jennie Rosenn
David Sable
Rabbi David Saperstein
Jeffrey R. Solomon
Joel D. Tauber
Melvyn I. Weiss
Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie
Michael D. Young
Lawrence Zicklin
Affiliations provided below for identification purposes only
Karen R. Adler (New York, NY) – Chair, Executive Committee of the Jewish Communal Fund

Jack C. Bendheim (New York, NY) – President & Chairman, Phibro Animal Health Corp.; former Chairman, IPF

Michael Berenbaum (Los Angeles, CA) – Director of the Sigi Ziering Institute: Exploring the Ethical and Religious Implications of the Holocaust at the American Jewish University; former Project Director of the US Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC

Howard M. Bernstein (Los Angeles, CA) – Emeritus Member of Board of Governors of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion; Honorary Board Member, Wilshire Boulevard Temple

Charles R. Bronfman (New York, NY; Montreal) – Chairman, Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies

Rabbi Marion Lev Cohen (New York, NY) – Board Member, Israel Policy Forum; Director of Adult Engagement, Central Synagogue

Steven M. Cohen (New York, NY) – Director of the Berman Jewish Policy Archive at New York University

Lester Crown (Chicago, IL) – Chairman of Henry Crown & Co.; Crown Family Philanthropies

Thomas A. Dine (Washington, DC) – Former Executive Director of AIPAC

Rabbi David Ellenson (New York, NY) – President, Hebrew Union College –Jewish Institute of Religion

Edith Everett (New York, NY) Co-founder and President, Everett Family Foundation

Susie Gelman (Washington, DC) – Immediate Past President, Jewish Federation of Greater Washington

Stanley P. Gold (Los Angeles, CA) – Chairman Emeritus, Jewish Federation of LA; President and CEO, Shamrock Holdings

E. Robert Goodkind (New York, NY) – Partner, Pryor Cashman LLP; former President, American Jewish Committee (’04-’07)

Rabbi Daniel Gordis (Jerusalem) – Senior Vice President and the Koret Distinguished Fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem

David A. Halperin (New York, NY) – Executive Director, Israel Policy Forum

Harold R. Handler (New York, NY) – Former President, JCC in Manhattan; Former Chairman, Jewish Communal Fund; Board Member, Israel Policy Forum

Alan S. Jaffe (New York, NY) – President, Jewish Community Relations Council-NY; former President, UJA-Federation-NY; former Chairman, Proskauer

Peter A. Joseph (New York, NY) – Chairman, Israel Policy Forum

Rabbi Jeremy Kalmanofsky (New York, NY) – Temple Ansche Chesed

Peter S. Kolevzon (New York, NY) – Founding Chair and Past President, JCC in Manhattan

Steven C. Koppel (New York, NY) – Partner, JonesDay; Member, International Board of Governors, The Peres Center for Peace

Burton Lehman (New York, NY) – Former Chair and Member of the Board of Governors of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute Religion

Marvin Lender (Connecticut) – Former National Chairman, UJA

Geoffrey H. Lewis (Boston, MA) – Board Member, Israel Policy Forum

Deborah Lipstadt (Atlanta, GA) – Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies at Emory University

Rabbi J. Rolando Matalon (New York, NY) – Congregation Bnai Jeshurun

Harriet Mouchly-Weiss (New York, NY) – Board Member, Israel Policy Forum

Burt Neuborne (New York, NY) – Professor of Law, NYU

Bernard Nussbaum (New York, NY) – Former White House Counsel (’94); Partner, Wachtell Lipton, Rosen & Katz

Richard Pearlstone (Aspen, CO) – Former Chairman, Jewish Agency

Marcia Riklis (New York, NY) – Board member, Israel Policy Forum; General Campaign Co-Chair, UJA Federation-NY

Rabbi Jennie Rosenn (New York, NY) – Program Director, Jewish Life and Values, Nathan Cummings Foundation

David Sable (New York, NY) – Former Executive Board Member, UJA Federation-NY

Rabbi David Saperstein (Washington, DC) – Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism

Jeffrey R. Solomon (New York, NY) – President, Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies

Joel D. Tauber (Southfield, MI) – Former Chairman, National UJA; former National Chairman of Tel Aviv University: American Council

Melvyn I. Weiss (New York, NY) – Board Member, Israel Policy Forum

Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie (New York, NY) – President Emeritus, Union for Reform Judaism

Michael D. Young (New York, NY) – Board Member, Israel Policy Forum

Lawrence Zicklin (New York, NY) – Former President, UJA Federation-NY

Tags:

Democrats Play Dirty!

16 Jul

I have been so loving watching Democrats do to Republicans what Republicans have been doing to Democrats for decades: smearing them, bashing their heads against the ground, sitting on their chests and then laughing when Republicans demand an apology.

The only difference is that we are telling the truth about them and they always lied about us. We didn’t invent Romney’s problem. He is refusing to release his taxes and to explain what his role was at Bain Capital during the “missing years.” All Obama is doing is asking what he’s hiding.

On the other hand, Dukakis did not free rapists and murderers. Gore did not say he invented the internet. Clinton didn’t steal anything at Whitewater. Kerry was a war hero not a draft dodger. Obama is neither a socialist, a Muslim, or foreign-born.

The bottom line is exactly as Harry Truman put it in 1948. “If they stop lying about us, we’ll stop telling the truth about them.”

Happily Obama appears to have no intention to stop telling the truth about Mitt Romney. We have him between a rock and a hard place and we will keep him there.

I have one worry though, that the GOP will see that Romney is so tainted by financial shenanigans that they drop him from the ticket and nominate, say, Jeb Bush.

We don’t want that to happen. Mitt Romney is the best GOP nominee since Goldwater. We need to keep him on that ticket.

In the meantime, I am loving it. I didn’t know Obama had it in him.

Tags:

What Is Anti-Semitism: Hint, It’s Not About Israel

15 Jul

It used to be easy to know who an anti-Semite was.

He or she was someone who did not like Jews, wouldn’t hire Jews, wouldn’t socialize with Jews, and, at worst, would inflict physical harm against Jews because they were Jews.

That has all changed. Today an anti-Semite is someone who doesn’t like the State of Israel and sometimes merely someone who disagrees with the policies of the State of Israel.

These people can have friends who are Jews, have Jewish spouses and children and may never have entertained a negative thought about Jews, as Jews, in their lives.

On the other hand, there are people like Glenn Beck who openly dislike Jews, say awful things about Jews but are not deemed anti-Semites because they support the policies of Israel.

A Jewish Holocaust survivor who sailed to Gaza on a Turkish relief ship is an anti-Semite but a rightwing preacher like John Hagee who believes that all Jews must die to bring on a messianic age is not an anti-semite because he likes Israel and/or Netanyahu.

To put it simply, anti-Semitism today seems to mean nothing.

Of course, to real victims of anti-Semitism like those French kids in France who were killed because they are Jewish, it has meaning. To a child in the Midwest who is ridiculed for being Jewish it has meaning. To any Jews, anywhere, who face discrimination or ostracism because they are Jews, anti-Semitism has all too much meaning.

Unfortunately real anti-Semitism is of little interest to the “pro-Israel” organizations which give very little attention to it. They are only interested in what they call “the New Anti-Semitism” by which they mean contempt for the State of Israel.

Meanwhile one of the two major political parties in the United States has been taken over by Christian Rightists who would implement policies that would make us strangers in our own country.

Any Jew who lived 40 or 50 years ago wouldn’t think twice before understanding the threat the Christian Right poses to Jews, nor would they hesitate before understanding exactly who and what the Rush Limbaughs and Glenn Becks of the world are and the threat they pose.

But, hey, Rush and Beck and the others are okay because they “love Israel.” Who are they kidding? Not Jews. Just the Jewish organizations that since 1967 have decided that the well-being of Jews here is of little concern compared to Israel’s freedom to occupy the West Bank and Gaza, and threaten Iran.

They are wrong. Anti-Semitism is about disliking Jews. It is not about Israel. Even at its worst, hating Israel is not anti-Semitic, it is simply wrong and ugly. And it can be dealt with.

Just stop calling it something it isn’t and stop using the charge of anti-Semitism to prevent opposition to Israel”s policies. That is bullshit.

Tags:

Peter Beinart Is Dead Wrong About J Street

15 Jul

In a column last week, Peter Beinart criticizes Mitchell Plitnick and me for attacking J Street and Americans For Peace Now’s strong opposition to a motion voted on by the Presbyterian church. The motion called for divestment from three companies which help sustain the occupation of the West Bank: Motorola, Hewlett-Packard and Caterpillar.

First, let me separate Americans From Peace Now from my argument here.

It did issue a horrible statement against divestment but, in general, it does not cleave to the center the way J Street does. J Street takes tremendous care, far more than APN ever has, not to offend the so-called mainstream pro-Israel community. Of course, because the mainstream community will accept nothing less than 100% support for 100% of the Israeli government’s policies. it still despises J Street.  It is considered anti-Israel in the same ugly spirit that it considers life-long Zionist Peter Beinart anti-Israel (he opposes the occupation).

Beinart’s piece is called “You Gotta Do What You Gotta Do.”

It is the perfect title. What he means that in order to remain credible within the Jewish community you cannot stray farther from the “pro-Israel” line than such progressives (on everything but Israel) as the Reform movement, the Jewish Council on Public Affairs and a host of other timid progressives allow you to.

“Doing what you gotta do” means not supporting divestment from the occupation even if your raison d’etre is opposing the occupation. It means not ever calling for aid cuts to Israel no matter what the provocation. It means keeping your mouth shut about the slaughter of civilians in Gaza and pretending that an Israeli onslaught is a “war.” It means supporting sanctions on Iran and not ruling out bombing Iran as an option. It means never doing anything that suggests that, in your heart of hearts, you do not ultimately stand with the mainstream although you believe that the views of that mainstream could well lead to the destruction of Israel and endless suffering for Palestinians.

I understand “doing what you gotta do.” It even included for several major Jewish leaders walking behind terrorist Meir Kahane’s coffin as it was carried to the grave. (I was told that by a former head of Israel Policy Forum who proudly marched and wanted me to understand that ultimately we are “One People.”)

But here’s my question to Beinart and J Street. Are Palestinians and Muslim Americans allowed to do what they gotta do? It seems we are always calling on them to denounce acts perpetrated by their “chevra” (tribe) no matter how hard it might be for them to do it. We won’t deal with them unless they condemn terrorism but we won’t condemn  Israel’s actions in Gaza or Lebanon or — if it happens, I’ll bet — the bombing of Iran.

The J Street strategy will not work. One does not oppose colossal evil (like the occupation, or segregation, or the war in Vietnam) by only using tactics the other side finds acceptable. Nor can one ever succeed until he realizes that the other side is the other side, not just people you have some temporary differences with. 

I didn’t expect J Street (or APN, for that matter) to join Jewish Voice For Peace in supporting divestment. However, I also did not expect them to undermine the work JVP did in promoting divestment (from three multinational companies, for heaven’s sake!) by openly opposing and ultimately sinking a resolution that, from all accounts, had terrified the lobby and the Netanyahu government.

Bottom line, the two organizations could just have stayed silent. Instead, their pressure led to the resolution’s defeat by two votes.

Ethnic solidarity over morality. In other words, doing what you gotta do.

Tags: , ,

My Summation of 3000 Word Washington Post Article On How Obama Blew Israeli-Palestinian Peace

15 Jul

Here is the article.

Here is my summation:

Obama was naive. Too insensitive to Israel, Netanyahu and the Holocaust. Plus, he ignored sage advice of Dennis Ross, Abe Foxman & other Jewish organizational wise men. And he used word “occupation.” 

Tags: ,

Iranian-Israel Singer Huge in Israel, Huge in Iran: Meanwhile AIPAC Law Helps Crash Iranian Planes

14 Jul

Today’s Guardian reports how love for this Iranian-Israeli, Israeli-Iranian singer unites fans in both countries.

Meanwhile, the New York Times reports on how AIPAC-written Iran sanctions laws are affecting Iranian air safety. And a despicable California Congressman cheers Iranian plane crashes. 

 

Tags: , , , , ,

← Older Entries

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 15,331 other followers