Hillary to Pounce on Obama's Comments to 100 Cleveland Jews (Hallelujah!)

The great editor Gene Roberts used to say that big stories don't break, they ooze. Certainly this is the case with Obama's meeting with 100 Cleveland Jews a week back, which I believe was merely monumental. The New York Jewish Week now echoes my view, saying 1, that Obama made some important shifts--

... “there was a sense that this is not business as usual,” said Seymour Reich, president of the Israel Policy Forum (IPF), a group that advocates a stronger U.S. peacemaking role. “There was a new awareness of the issues, of the fact that the Bush administration came into the conflict very late and that a possible new approach may be necessary in 2009.”

Dan Fleshler said... Obama “showed that.... he will not pander to Jews who are only comfortable with confrontational stances."

and 2, that Hillary may now jump on Obama's statements to ramp up her campaign in Pennsylvania.

 

A revived Clinton campaign is “not going to be afraid to press very hard on the issues the Jewish community cares about,” said a top Democratic strategist.  “They have seven weeks to work the big Jewish communities in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. That’s a lot of time.”

I can't wait for all this to bust loose! This is a big reason I'm for Obama. He says he wants to "end the mindset" that got us into war. To me that means we are finally going to have a discussion of the Israel lobby and the ways that Israel's brutalized relationship with its neighbors has infected our relationship with the Arab world...

Comments

[Madrid]

Richard:

Israel may win by fighting in the short term, but Arabs and Iran have the resource, oil, on which the entire Western economy depends. Now, Israel may ultimately nuke one Arab or Iranian city, but what happens afterwards? At that point, there will be no oil for anyone, let alone for the US military and Israel.

The US contemplate forcing the Arabs and Iran to pump oil, but can the US occupy all of the Arab countries and Iran at the same time, in such a situation, and also keep the oil infrastructure going? I doubt it, and in the aftermath of such an event, we will finally see how important oil is to the geopolitical situation.

[Richard Witty]

Shortly, there will also be no oil.

Israel, like the Arab world, has sunlight.
Israel, unlike the Arab world, HAS a photovoltaic industry, a hydrolization industry, and a water desalinization industry.

The US is dependant on Arab, Venzezuelan, Nigerian, Indonesian, Russian, Mexican, British/Norway oil.

The Arab world is dependant on US, European, Jewish money.

You may propose an anti-Zionist end-game. I don't see it.

[MM]

But Richard, the cost of your organic blooming technological technocratic Jewish utopian fortress imposed on the people already living there, has been genocide.

The definition of genocide according to Raphael Lemkin (1900–1959), a Polish-Jewish legal scholar, who coined the term in 1943:

"Generally speaking, genocide does NOT NECESSARILY MEAN THE IMMEDIATE DESTRUCTION of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify A COORDINATED PLAN OF DIFFERENT ACTIONS AIMING AT THE DESTRUCTION OF ESSENTIAL FOUNDATIONS OF THE LIFE OF NATIONAL GROUPS, WITH THE AIM OF ANNIHILATING THE GROUPS THEMSELVES. The objectives of such a plan would be the DISINTEGRATION OF THE SOCIAL AND POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS, of culture, language, NATIONAL FEELINGS, religion, and the ECONOMIC EXISTANCE of national groups, and the DESTRUCTION OF THE PERSONAL SECURITY, LIBERTY, HEALTH, DIGNITY, and even THE LIVES OF THE INDIVIDUALS belonging to such groups."

So, can I cue the Valkyries or is there something a little, umm, IMMORAL about the Zionist endgame here?

You want to psychoanalyze Phil, guilt and shame him--have you examined yourself? Your position here is one of providing cover for genocide. Never again ey? Powerful words.

[Charles Keating]

In the end it will come to troops on the ground, hence Vietnam all over again. Wurmser needs goy troops.

[MM]

About supporting Hamas, I get so confused how I am supposed to answer, tell me, Richard, since you're an historian on this subject:

What was the nature of Israeli PM Golda Meir's relationship with Hamas founder Shiek Yassin and his organization?

[cogit8]

Teddy:
Your reply would not be the first time I have been accused of seeing in terms of black and white (Star Wars? oh I get it), but I think the times require strong opinions. Especially now that most of the powerful Jews are pushing for even more war in the Middle east. Bear in mind that the word 'most' covers 51-99%.

We'll have to disagree about what happened during the fog of war in late '47 and '48, but the history I witnessed firdthand since 2001 convinces me that the Jewish community aided and abetted the fracturing of Iraq. And I believe that Israel knew full well what the outcome would be in Iraq (I refer you to Oded Yinon's seminal 1980 paper calling for the fracturing of adjacent Arab countries. Pretty black and white stuff wouldn't you say?)

As to your "high percentage of American Jews who opposed the invasion and the higher percentage that turned agains the war", I classify this statement as 'spin', a revisionist look back in sorrow at what might have been. When the Jewish community has strong feelings it gets out in the street and demonstrates. I only observed isolated examples of this, certainly ineffectual to the outcome we now have. Move-on.org was a particular example of sophism with repect to Iraqi blood flowing in the streets: led by Jews who channel anti-war anger for their own political ends.

Now an organization like Brit Tzedek v'Shalom is a good sign, however, they have far to go to reach the truths of old Uri Avnery and Gush-Shalom. And frankly, it looks to me like the war-mongers against Iran are winning the media tug of war.

"where does that put me in your cartography of the Jewish people?": that makes you #5 of the good guys, after Amy, Seymour, Uri, and Phil of course.

[Richard Witty]

"I classify this statement as 'spin', a revisionist look back in sorrow at what might have been. "

There is YOUR spin, your attempt to revise reality to fit your presumption.

[Richard Witty]

"About supporting Hamas, I get so confused how I am supposed to answer, tell me, Richard, since you're an historian on this subject:

What was the nature of Israeli PM Golda Meir's relationship with Hamas founder Shiek Yassin and his organization?"

I don't know. I'm sure that it changed over time.

I've heard that early, Yassin promoted self-help and cooperation with Israel. That obviously changed.

Sometimes you seem gullible, MM, taking in and digesting propaganda without questioning or further research.

I don't "know" much. Frankly its impossible to know what Golda Meir was thinking, or David Ben Gurion, or anyone as much as the left/right assert certainty of their motives and range of actions. I've read histories from Palestinian perspectives, leftist Israeli, middle Zionist, less right-wing Zionist.

I know enough to add some bull-shit detection, and to identify when strong "certain" assertions are more repititions, than study.

Study of history IS important. The consequences of repeating falsehood unquestioned, is a willingness to harm others. A willingness to mislead. A willingness to neglect responsibility.

All in the name of "justice", "humanity", "responsibility".

[Charles Keating]

Clean Break: The means: So 20 or so American Jewish soldiers have died over there? what % of nearing 4,000 is that? That's great odds; I guess only Congress and the neocons in BushCo
can beat it.