The Atlantic online & Antiwar.com: Obama and Israel
Wed May 14, 2008 at 06:44:48 AM PDT
Justin Raimondo has a column at antiwar.com about Barack Obama's relationship with the Israel lobby. He says "grovel" which may be unnecessarily inflammatory so I'll edit the diary title to include the Atlantic interview which was the point of the review.
I find this a bit perturbing. I am eager for an actual peace process, not a fig leaf. But is this fringe hackery?
Poor Obama. No matter how much he tries to placate the Israel lobby, they just won't take yes for an answer. The Lobby has been after him for months, trying to dig up "evidence" that someone with the middle name of "Hussein" is necessarily an enemy of Israel. The best they could come up with so far were the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's jeremiads, which didn't have much of an effect at the polls, as the North Carolina and Indiana primary results – and subsequent national polls – attest.
Now I think, as a supporter of Obama, that he needs to address Israel and Palestine. More after the jump...and a chance to discuss whether this is beyond the pale and a link to Jeffrey Goldberg's Atlantic online article after the jump, which is what Raimondo is talking about.
Though Raimondo's arresting first paragraph does rivet one's attention, you wonder if he has destroyed his own credibility. But Raimondo's link in the first paragraph (under "for months") leads to a Haaretz article about Obama advisors and I don't find anything about the "Lobby" trying to discuss his middle name.
Because there's a serious allegation that follows:
Yet Obama still keeps trying to appease the Lobby. He's purged staff members who so much as looked cross-eyed at the Israelis, such as one poor adviser who meekly suggested that talking to Hamas might not be such a bad idea. He was out faster than you can say Mearsheimer and Walt.
Speaking of which: the Obama-oids have gone out of their way to distance themselves – i.e., "reject and denounce" – those two hate-criminals, even though, as Philip Weiss trenchantly avers, a book by Obama's point man on the Middle East says pretty much the same thing. In response to all this, Scott McConnell, editor of The American Conservative, dryly remarked: "At this point one wonders whether the people who deny the dramatic influence of the Israel lobby on American politics feel a little bit silly."
Here is the Jeffrey Goldberg article in The Atlantic where his first question to Obama is whether Zionism has justice on its side.
Fascinating stuff, and Raimondo salutes Obama for his nuance. But he asserts that won't be enough. He observes:
Goldberg has got him. The man who would talk to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chavez, and Raúl Castro won't deal with the elected government of Palestine. Why single them out for special disfavor? After all, the Cuban commies, for one example, have imprisoned and killed their internal critics, as have the Iranians. Chavez is no angel, either. Why a different standard for the Palestinians? He's acknowledged their suffering; why won't he recognize their legitimacy?
Obama cites his support of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in response. Is this how one establishes a middle ground of new politics?
Obama is here engaging the Lobby, challenging its claim to set the terms of the debate – and refusing to grovel. Good for him. The very idea that American and Israeli interests are in any way separable – and even, at times, in opposition to each other – is the Lobby's worst nightmare. For that would mean the end of our policy of unconditional public support – although, in private, recriminations abound....
Existential dread – that's what Obama evokes in the Lobby. They've had it easy during the Bush II era, with the American Netanyahu ensconced in the White House. Settlements? Go right ahead. The Wall of Separation? Higher, please. Assassinations timed to derail the "peace process"? Fire away! Those days will be over if Obama makes it to the Oval Office, and the Lobby knows it.
The great problem for Obama is that no matter what he does or says, the Lobby will fight him every inch of the way, and the smears will get more outrageous. The "he's-a-secret-Muslim" meme is just the beginning. The guilt-by-association strategy is by no means exhausted. How many penny-ante anti-Semites who spent two minutes with him shaking his hand, and would enjoy the publicity of being the focus of media attention, can be dug up between now and November? We'll soon find out.
Now is this the fault line of the American foreign policy debate? Will Obama address Israel and Palestine as intelligently as he did race?
If Iraq simmers, will talk of Israel and Palestine boil?
Discuss.
