The most striking thing about the Obama campaign video "Jewish Americans for Obama" is how unabashedly it plays to Barack Obama's connections - not his competence, not his commitment to serious Jewish concerns, but his Jewish friends. (Almost as an afterthought, we're presented with some excerpts from Obama's speech at AIPAC - significantly, the only evidence the Obama campaign could find to back its claim of the junior Illinois senator's supposed staunch support for Israel.)
After a voice-over by Shimon Peres (accompanied by stills of Obama in the now-familiar "inspiration" pose with his nose in the air - 0:23), we're given a string of highly indignant responses by prominent Chicago Jews to the supposed "smears" against Obama. There's the red herring of "rumor-mongering about whether or not he's a Muslim" (John Levi at 1:05) and "whether he'll sit down with terrorists". Continuing the straw-man arguments, Rabbi Sam Gordon (1:15) gets huffy about certain people "making Barack Obama seem 'other' ... how do we counter that?"
Well, they could try offering a substantive rebuttal to the specific allegations against Obama; but that's not the Obama campaign's style. Instead, we get blurred images of a few articles critical of the Senator (1:10 and 1:15), which disappear quickly before we can be contaminated by their ideas. That's a lot easier than answering, say, John Bolton's op-ed:
Barack Obama's willingness to meet with the leaders of rogue states such as Iran and North Korea "without preconditions" is a naive and dangerous approach to dealing with the hard men who run pariah states. It will be an important and legitimate issue for policy debate during the remainder of the presidential campaign. ...Consider the following statement, which was lost in the controversy over his comments about negotiations: "Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don't pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us. ... Iran, they spend 1/100th of what we spend on the military. If Iran ever tried to pose a serious threat to us, they wouldn't stand a chance."
Let's dissect this comment. Obama is correct that the rogue states he names do not present the same magnitude of threat as that posed by the Soviet Union through the possibility of nuclear war. Fortunately for us all, general nuclear war never took place. Nonetheless, serious surrogate struggles between the superpowers abounded because the Soviet Union's threat to the West was broader and more complex than simply the risk of nuclear war. Subversion, guerrilla warfare, sabotage and propaganda were several of the means by which this struggle was waged, and the stakes were high, even, or perhaps especially, in "tiny" countries. ...
What is implicit in Obama's reference to "tiny" threats is that they are sufficiently insignificant that negotiations alone can resolve them. Indeed, he has gone even further, arguing that the lack of negotiations with Iran caused the threats: "And the fact that we have not talked to them means that they have been developing nuclear weapons, funding Hamas, funding Hezbollah."
This is perhaps the most breathtakingly naive statement of all, implying as it does that it is actually U.S. policy that motivates Iran rather than Iran's own perceived ambitions and interests. That would be news to the mullahs in Tehran, not to mention the leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah.
If the speech at AIPAC were really representative of Obama's foreign policy platform, I would call it a pretty strong pro-Israel platform. Read it yourself - it's good. And it was written expressly for the AIPAC audience, and it told them exactly what they wanted to hear. The problem is, we can't be sure this is the real Obama.
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As I noted at the time, Obama quickly backed down on one of the key features of his AIPAC speech (remember, the only source of Obama's foreign policy we're given in the video):
Facing criticism from Palestinians, Sen. Barack Obama acknowledged yesterday that the status of Jerusalem will need to be negotiated in future peace talks, amending a statement earlier in the week that the city "must remain undivided."Obama's statement, made during a speech Wednesday to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel lobbying group, drew a swift rebuke from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. ...
Obama quickly backtracked yesterday in an interview with CNN.
"Well, obviously, it's going to be up to the parties to negotiate a range of these issues. And Jerusalem will be part of those negotiations," Obama said when asked whether Palestinians had no future claim to the city.
Obama said "as a practical matter, it would be very difficult to execute" a division of the city. "And I think that it is smart for us to -- to work through a system in which everybody has access to the extraordinary religious sites in Old Jerusalem but that Israel has a legitimate claim on that city."
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So who are the Jewish Americans for Obama? Here's the cast, in order of appearance:
Shimon Peres (cameo)
John Levi - Chicago Civic Leader
Rabbi Sam Gordon - Rabbis for Obama
Jeff Schoenberg - Illinois State Senate (D)
Cindy Moelis - Family Friend & Civic Leader
Ab Mikva - Former Congressman, Federal Judge, and White House Counsel
Penny Pritzker - Philanthropic & Civic Leader (and Obama's finance chair)
Lester Crown - Business & Philanthropic Leader
Lee Rosenberg - Jewish Community Leader
Well, all those Civic Leaders can't be wrong. (They should probably call themselves "Jewish Chicagoans for Obama", but no matter.) Of course, the "Jewish Americans for Obama" video didn't mention some of Barack Obama's other friends - like, say Bill Ayers.
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Well, Bill Ayers isn't Jewish, so perhaps the oversight is understandable. Here's John Murtagh on the night the Weathermen tried to kill my family:
In February 1970, my father, a New York State Supreme Court justice, was presiding over the trial of the so-called “Panther 21,” members of the Black Panther Party indicted in a plot to bomb New York landmarks and department stores. Early on the morning of February 21, as my family slept, three gasoline-filled firebombs exploded at our home on the northern tip of Manhattan, two at the front door and the third tucked neatly under the gas tank of the family car. (Today, of course, we’d call that a car bomb.) A neighbor heard the first two blasts and, with the remains of a snowman I had built a few days earlier, managed to douse the flames beneath the car. That was an act whose courage I fully appreciated only as an adult, an act that doubtless saved multiple lives that night.I still recall, as though it were a dream, thinking that someone was lifting and dropping my bed as the explosions jolted me awake, and I remember my mother’s pulling me from the tangle of sheets and running to the kitchen where my father stood. Through the large windows overlooking the yard, all we could see was the bright glow of flames below. We didn’t leave our burning house for fear of who might be waiting outside. The same night, bombs were thrown at a police car in Manhattan and two military recruiting stations in Brooklyn. Sunlight, the next morning, revealed three sentences of blood-red graffiti on our sidewalk: FREE THE PANTHER 21; THE VIET CONG HAVE WON; KILL THE PIGS.
Via Baldilocks on Obama's friends. Now CNN's Drew Griffin is reporting that
the relationship between Obama and Ayers went much deeper, ran much longer, and was much more political than Obama said.
CNN's review of meeting minutes reveals Obama's continuing association with Ayers on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge and Woods Fund projects.
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Why am I, as a Jew, concerned about Obama?
10 concerns about Obama by William J. Bennett & Seth Leibsohn
Barack Obama has sent mixed, confusing, and inconsistent messages on his policy toward Israel. Earlier this month, Barack Obama told an audience at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, “Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided.” The next day, Obama backtracked, stating: “Obviously, it’s [Jerusalem] going to be up to the parties to negotiate a range of these issues…And Jerusalem will be part of the negotiations.” Later, Obama’s Middle East adviser tried to explain the flipping of positions on Jerusalem by stating Obama did not understand what he was saying to AIPAC: “[h]e used a word to represent what he did not want to see again, and then realized afterwards that that word is a code word in the Middle East.”Such quick switches of policy may stem from mere inexperience or they may stem from a general tone-deafness on the meaning of words and policy when it comes to the Middle East. After all, earlier this year, a leading Hamas official endorsed Barack Obama stating, “I do believe [Obama] is like John Kennedy, a great man with a great principle. And he has a vision to change America to make it in a position to lead the world community, but not with humiliation and arrogance.” Rather than immediately renouncing such an endorsement, Obama’s chief political strategist, David Axelrod, embraced the endorsement, saying “We all agree that John Kennedy was a great president, and it’s flattering when anybody says that Barack Obama would follow in his footsteps.” Given Barack Obama’s long-standing ties to Palestinian activists in the U.S., one has good cause to wonder.
Washington Post: Europe fears Obama pledge to talk with Iran regime.
European officials are increasingly concerned that Sen. Barack Obama's campaign pledge to begin direct talks with Iran on its nuclear program without preconditions could potentially rupture U.S. relations with key European allies early in a potential Obama administration.The U.N. Security Council has passed four resolutions demanding that Iran stop enriching uranium, each time highlighting the offer of financial and diplomatic incentives from a European-led coalition if Tehran suspends enrichment, a route to producing fuel for nuclear weapons. But Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, has said he would make such suspension a topic for discussion with Iran, rather than a precondition for any negotiations to take place.
European officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said they are wary of giving up a demand that has been so enshrined in U.N. resolutions, particularly without any corresponding concessions by Iran. Although European officials are eager to welcome a U.S. president promising renewed diplomacy and multilateralism after years of tensions with the Bush administration, they feel strongly about continuing on the current path.
Of course, not everybody is worried about Barack Obama as president.
Louis Farrakhan thinks Obama is the Messiah. But haven't we Jews had enough messiahs?
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