Part two of a five part series. Previously.
The current Jewish problem with Obama can be traced back to his first full day on the job. On January 21, 2009, he summoned his national security team to the Oval Office and laid out a tough new policy toward Israel. According to our sources, Obama said that in order to make good on his campaign promise to extricate 200,000 American troops from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. had to create a grand coalition of "moderate" Muslim states and Israel to isolate Iran, which has made no secret of its ambition to become the nuclear hegemon in the Middle East.
The only way to accomplish that goal, the president stated, was to eliminate the poisonous effect of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which provides Iran with an excuse to stir up trouble. Thus it was "a vital national interest of the United States" to stop Israel from building settlements in the occupied West Bank and housing in East Jerusalem, and force the Jewish state to resolve the Palestinian problem.
Previous White Houses had made similar noises about bringing peace to the Middle East, and at first Jewish leaders didn't pay much attention to leaks emanating from the new administration about a fundamental change in American policy. However, a clue to the president's true intentions came in March 2009, when Abe Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, met with the president's then chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel.
"This is Israel's moment of truth," Emanuel told Foxman. "This President is determined to make peace between Israel and the Arabs."
To many Jews, it seemed highly improbable that a brand new president would choose to alienate Israel, America's oldest and most loyal ally in the Middle East. But then, in July 2009, when President Obama made his first overseas trip, he chose to visit three Muslim countries--Turkey, Saudi Arabia (where he bowed to King Abdullah) and Egypt. During a landmark speech in Cairo, he announced his intention to seek "a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world."
Understandably enough, American Jews were annoyed that the president had failed to include Israel in his Mideast swing. But what rankled them even more was that Obama seemed to adopt the Arab narrative to explain the existence of Israel -- namely, that Israel deserved to exist because of past Jewish suffering in Europe, particularly during the Holocaust. Nowhere in his Cairo speech did Obama mention the fact that Jews had a 3,000-year history in the Promised Land.
Things went from bad to worse when the president called a meeting of Jewish leaders in July. Fourteen major Jewish organizations were represented at this meeting, including J Street, the newly formed left-of-center Jewish lobby. J Street is on the same wavelength as the Peace Now movement in Israel, which believes that continued occupation of the West Bank harms Israel both economically and politically and damages the values and fabric of the Jewish state.
"I agree with your goal to bring peace to the Middle East," the ADL's Abe Foxman told the president. "But the perception is that you're beating up only on Israel, and not on the Arabs. If you want Israel to take risks for peace, the best way is to make Israel feel that its staunch friend America is behind it."
"You are absolutely wrong," the president replied. "For the past eight years [under the Bush administration], Israel had a friend in the United States and it didn't make peace."
"I came away from the meeting convinced that Obama has introduced a new and dangerous strategy and that it's revealing itself in steps," Foxman told Edward Klein. "Unlike other administrations, this one is applying linkage in the Middle East. It's saying that if you resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the messiah will come and the lions will lie down with the lambs. All the president's advisers on the Middle East, starting with George Mitchell, believe in linkage, and they're telling the president you have to prove to the Arab Muslim world that you are different than previous presidents and you can separate yourself from Israel, distance yourself from the settlements issue. After all, settlements are something that American Jews don't like anyway, so it's a win-win proposition."
The Anti-Defamation League was the first mainstream Jewish organization to openly criticize the president on the issue of the Middle East. Soon, other groups began to join the chorus. However, the great majority of Jews remained steadfast behind Obama and his administration's liberal agenda. They simply were not ready to criticize their country's first African-American president, a man in whom they had invested so many of their own hopes and dreams.
Continue to part three here. For part one of this series, click here.
The Chicago Council on Global Affairs' September 2008 polling data showed 65% of Americans on both sides of the aisle endorse talking to leaders of Iran. In an April 2009 poll by NY Times and CBS News, 59% of those who gave a yes/no response said yes to the deliberately yes-depressing question:
“Do you think the United States should or should not establish diplomatic relations with Iran while Iran has a nuclear program?” (Robert Naiman)
Again, in 2010, the Chicago Council reports “62 percent [of 2,500 Americans polled] favor U.S. leaders meeting and talking with Iran’s leaders.” And, that a majority of Americans do not support the U.S. intervening in case Iran whoops Israel after being attacked by her. Also, "While Americans have strongly negative feelings toward the Palestinian Authority... a strong majority of Americans (66%) prefer to 'not take either side' in the conflict."
From http://www.worldbulletin.net/news_detail.php?id=64277
Part 2, follows
Which one of the following would be most likely to CAUSE YOU TO SUPPORT a U.S. war with Iran?
Only if Iran attacks U.S. soil ......25%
If Iran attacks the U.S. fleet .......25 %
If Iran tests a nuclear bomb .......11%
If Iran attacks Israel ..................10%
Suggestion for Klein and Chesnoff, either plan on interviewing Foxman, and writing nonstop , or read this and see if it helps. http://www.lobelog.com/speaking-of-humiliation/
http://www.lobelog.com/speaking-of-humiliation/
I may just have to start writing my Xmas Special "twelve Israeli myths debunked" in protest. It doesn't end with "a partridge in a pear tree," but I'll give you a hint: there are no "doves" sitting on any olive branches.
Emotive speech - its "The promised Land" not: the Promised Land. Unless you have actual proof of God's existence and his various Realty contracts.
"America's oldest and most loyal ally in the Middle East": says you. Its certainly not america's oldest ally in the middle east and as for loyalty - how loyal would Israel be without being paid billions of dollars ? shouldnt they be loyal for free? What about all the Israeli spying in America? the ungesitred foreign agents? the attack on the USS Liberty? the current demonisation of the president? The various pronouncements by Israeli presidents to the general effect that the american people can be easily swayed into supporting Israel no matter what? This is poor 'loyalty'.
“When it is asked what is meant by the development of the Jewish National Home in Palestine, it may be answered that it is not the imposition of a Jewish nationality upon the inhabitants of Palestine as a whole, but the further development of the existing Jewish community, with the assistance of Jews in other parts of the world, in order that it may become a centre in which the Jewish people as a whole may take, on grounds of religion and race, an interest and a pride. But in order that this community should have the best prospect of free development and provide a full opportunity for the Jewish people to display its capacities, it is essential that it should know that it is in Palestine as of right and not on sufferance.”
Winston Churchill British Secretary of State for the Colonies June 1922
“In Palestine as of Right and Not on Sufferance ...”
“When it is asked what is meant by the development of the Jewish National Home in Palestine, it may be answered that it is not the imposition of a Jewish nationality upon the inhabitants of Palestine as a whole, but the further development of the existing Jewish community, with the assistance of Jews in other parts of the world, in order that it may become a centre in which the Jewish people as a whole may take, on grounds of religion and race, an interest and a pride. But in order that this community should have the best prospect of free development and provide a full opportunity for the Jewish people to display its capacities, it is essential that it should know that it is in Palestine as of right and not on sufferance.”
Winston Churchill British Secretary of State for the Colonies June 1922
Is this mentallity for real? Even the wording is accusatory, "the Jewish problem with Obama" insinuating that Obama is in the wrong for expecting Israel to live within the law by living up to the Forth Geneva Convention of which Israel is a signator to. Throughout the piece the wording is saying that Israel should get some special accomadation, and for what reason should Israel be fovored in a conflict, in which the US is supposed to be acting as a neutral party negotiator? We all know this is bunk of course and the US is not a neutral party. I just have to wonder how Huffpo can put this kind of bias opinion out here for people to comment on?Tough policy? Israel does not know what tough policy is, they are like a spoiled child and the US is very disgustingly the Graet Enabler. Israel has no legitimate complaint with the US. But complaining is in part, how Israel came into existence and we never should have rewarded her for it then.
This is the same thing that the American Right does. Which is, create a nonsensical paranoid narrative devoid of reality - This is the zionist version of Obama is Marxist Manchurian candidate. When in reality, it's, "meet the new boss same as the old boss"
You might need to provide some backup for this claim, I've read fairly widely on the topic and have no reason to believe this. Besides, the role of regional nuclear hegemon is already taken as you well know.
Magicians have known for over a century that the best way to hide what you ar doing is to blow a lot of smoke, and fake up something else for people to look at.
This article is annoying.
i was upset with obama regarding economy but after reading this article have reserved my vote for him...nothing will change this...