Bush's Jewish Guest List to Israel Bash Feels a Little Throw-Backy

Here's Bush's guest list at the 60th birthday party in Israel. I'm still learning my way around the politics of the Israel question, but here are my scores in the free-skating competition:

Sheldon Adelson, the biggest Republican donor, a Netanyahu guy, Iran/Iraq guy, very scary, now quizzed in the Olmert investigation. Kenneth Bialkin--his firm, Skadden, Arps hosted Ambassador Gillerman when the ambassador said Jimmy Carter had blood on his hands, an establishment CFR and ADL guy, I believe, and don't you ever dare impose a solution, while the settlements continue. Matthew Brooks of Freedom's Watch, neocon. Tony Gelbart of Nefesh b'nefesh and Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Jewish nationalist, make sure the kids don't marry non-Jews. Rabbi Marvin Hier. Scary. Believes Jews to be "endangered," as Elie Wiesel does, who's here too. Michael Oren, military intellectual (by which I mean, military justice is to justice as military music is to music). Mort Zuckerman, Conference of Presidents, along with Malcolm Hoenlein. Abe Foxman, say no more. Leslie Wexner of the Limited, giving fellowships to build Israel's leaders and Jewish leaders here, too. Ethnocentric. Dan Senor, a neocon, allied with the Republican Jewish Coalition crowd, but also a little unfriendly to the Iraq bitter-enders. Leonard Sands and Matthew Brooks, more RJC people. Sands has moolah. Bill Safire, former Times columnist.

There are a lot of names, and maybe I'm reading this wrong, tell me who I'm missing, but it seems like the Iraq bitter-ender Zionists aren't here. No Richard Perle or Dore Gold. What we have are mostly donor base and ethnocentric Jews like Gelbart, along with the U.S. and Israel are joined at the hip Jews, the Michael Oren types. Neocons by another name. I wish there'd been a few progressives. Why not a surprise or two, a Dem, an Ambassador Kurtzer. A Nakba Jew, just to shake things up. Guess I gotta wait for President Obama. Have fun, guys.

Comments

[peters]

http://www.newdemocracyworld.org/Einstein.htm

here is a letter Einstein and other Jews sent to the NYTimes in 1948 protesting the visit of Menachim Begin to the US. It cites the example of the massacre of Deir Yassin as Begin's party's handiwork and it's character as a fascist organization. Einstein apparently decried the establishment of a Jewish nationalist state. Maybe most Jews already knows this. To me, it was amazing that everything was known from the beginning. How the truth has been buried, distorted into the heroic,moral narrative that it has is beyond imagination. What I still don't get is how decent Jews claim that historically it was otherwise. Surely the truth is burning in their conscience. My nice decent friends, those alive in 1948, are offended in the extreme that Carter used the word, apartheid. Is the word massacre easier to go down? I guess I have assumed that they didn't know the truth about Israel, that they wanted to believe so much that they didn't bother to find out the truth. But this letter shows me that could not be the case. They knew and didn't care and went along with lies if not perpetrating them. What does this do to a soul? What about Phil's nice uncles? How nice are they really?
Someone, please explain this to me.

[neocognitism]

If ever there was a Rumsfeldian "good target" in the Middle East, this "party" has to be it. Somebody punch these coordinates into a properly timed cruise missile, please.

Just a jest.

Instead, lets use our allies and try some extraordinary rendition on all these fine folks, with their final destination post-waterboarding for six months to be sunny oceanside Guantanamo. It may take six to twelve years to determine their innocence, but sometimes lady justice needs to take her time, am I right?

Remember, whatever plane we rendition Bush in is officially Air Brig One.

[Richard Silverstein]

You missed a few standouts:

Howard Friedman, AIPAC
CHeryl Halpern, PBS (who got Bill Moyers canned & went on the warpath about anti-Israel bias at PBS/NPR)
Ronald Lauder, World Jewish Congress, NY bigwig
Henry Kissinger
Richard Land, Christian Zionist evangelical
Ron Silver, shlemiel actor
Mort Zuckerman, shlemiel publisher

[Glenn Condell]

'What does this do to a soul?'

Ask Richard Witty.

On second thoughts, don't ask him; you'll get nonsense. Just read what he writes. The stench of moral evasion is palpable.

[LeaNder]

"CHeryl Halpern, PBS (who got Bill Moyers canned & went on the warpath about anti-Israel bias at PBS/NPR)"

Hmmm? I didn't know about that. He is back anyway?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Moyers#Journalism

Moyers hosted the TV news journal, NOW with Bill Moyers, on PBS for three years. He retired from the program on December 17, 2004 but returned to PBS soon after to host Wide Angle in 2005. When he left NOW, he announced that he wished to finish writing a memoir of Lyndon Johnson.[16]

Hmmm? You are suggesting this wasn't such a free decision?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheryl_Halpern

Sorry, good man.

[LeaNder]

Charyl L. Halpern, give it a little time to load.

Map view:

http://mapper.nndb.com/start/?id=166896

List view:

http://www.nndb.com/people/397/000166896/

Well connected lady

The question is how could Richard Silverstein's info be integrated here? Sources?

Thanks to my net-teacher on US politics and net-research. :-)

[Charles Keating]

LeaNder, just so you know, in case you don't already, 96-97% of all Americans do not anything at all about any of the people on Bush's Israel's birthday party list. Bush knows this. So do the presidential wannabees.

[Todd]

Charles, you are probably right that most Americans know nothing about the people on Bush's Israel birthday list, but I don't believe that most Americans are unaware of the impact that similar people have on their lives. Maybe most Americans just don't realize that Bush's friends make up only a small portion of the population?