Obama's Trip to Israel, McCain Supporters Seek Mystical Sign

Senator Barack Obama's trip to Israel today marks a good time for American Jews to sit back and perform a thorough and objective analysis of how a President Obama would treat the U.S.-Israel relationship. Unfortunately, what we are seeing from the right-wing is not objective analysis, but rather a frantic search for some mystical sign that proves the right's wish that Obama secretly hates Israel and the Jews. However, nothing could be further from the truth.

For fifty years, the pro-Israel community has worked to make Israel a bipartisan issue. Long ago, our community leadership concluded that strong bipartisan consensus for the U.S.-Israel relationship must exist whether Republicans or Democrats are in power.

Voting records and public statements have always been the objective measure for the pro-Israel community to use to accurately judge a candidate on Middle East issues. By these parameters Obama proves to be an outstanding pro-Israel candidate. Obama is a strong believer in foreign aid, has a perfect pro-Israel voting record, and makes only the most supportive public statements. Never has Obama cast a vote against Israel, and he remains an outspoken critic of Iran. In fact, Obama wrote legislation to make it easier for states to divest from Iranian holdings. The legislation is currently being blocked by a Republican Senator.

Despite Obama's sterling pro-Israel record, McCain's supporters are undermining this fifty year tradition by carrying out a fear and smear campaign. For example, the Republicans have falsely claimed that Obama is against designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) as a terrorist organization because he came out against the Kyl-Lieberman Amendment. This simply does not hold water. Obama did not support the amendment because he, like foreign policy experts such as Senator Joe Biden and Republican Senator Richard Lugar, could not support giving President Bush so much discretion in attacking Iran. Obama showed his support for the proper labeling of IRGC when he co-sponsored the Iran Counter-Proliferation Act which named IRGC a terrorist organization. This kind of tactic is emblematic of the attacks Republicans regularly wage against Obama.

This fear campaign often relies on the tactic of "guilt by association." Since literally thousands of people associate themselves with each campaign, to choose an individual and attribute him or her to a candidate is tremendously simplistic and subjective. Furthermore, this standard is unreliable, and its reckless implementation does not give us an accurate assessment of how a candidate would behave once in office.

However, if Republicans insist on using "guilt by association" as their pro-Israel measure, they must answer for McCain's potential future appointments and key campaign advisers. McCain has declared he would appoint the former secretary of state James Baker as his Middle East envoy and would use Zbigniew Brzezinski as one of his foreign policy advisers. McCain's national finance co-chair, Fred Malek, is the operative Nixon tasked with seeking out the Jews in the Bureau of Labor Statistics so they could be fired. In addition to these individuals, there are "guilt by association" implications of the numerous McCain campaign personalities who have Iranian business and lobbying connections, including some of McCain's top advisers.

The mudslinging campaign from conservative hit men has included many misleading and false attacks. This appeal to fear consists of lies about Obama's religion, lies about Obama swearing in on a Koran, and lies about Obama not declaring IRGC as a terrorist organization. What is next? Obama's trip to Israel certainly will bring other lies and a continuation of the smear campaign being perpetrated by the Republicans. The right's strained efforts to imply that Obama is evil incarnate when it comes to Israel and the Jews is ridiculous. We should all take this opportunity to regain our composure and make a sober judgment of what kind of leader we want. Take another listen to what Obama says during his time in Israel -- you might like what you hear.

Follow Marc R. Stanley on Twitter: www.twitter.com/NJDC

Comments

[lthuedk 1]

Actually, it is the i4i hoard backing McCain who have rationalized their hatred of Jews by pushing a conversion-or-hell ultimatum. These are the right wing's most vociferous supporters of McCain, whose credentials literally scream religious manipulation.

http://www.light-to-dark.com/McBush.html

[lexnekst]

It's funny to see the right lok for some "rift" that exists between jews and blacks.

Understand, us blacks don't have a problem with jews and vice verse. We relate better than most other races. Only a Jew can truly understand a Black man's history- both have had slavery, been oppressed, and had inhumane acts done to them because of race.

I don't know who thought this was clever, but blacks and whites may have some probs- not Jews.

If Obama loses FFL, it will be becuase of the retreatin rebels, and old people NOT JEWISH VOTERS.

Let it go.

[jeanrenoir]

I want to hug you. Now is the time for American and Israeli Jews of good will to drive the neocons and Netanyahu (as opposed to Israel itself!!) into the sea, so to speak. Since Reagan turned control of American foreign policy over to the the neocons, the most conservative and bellicose elements of the Jewish Community in America and Israel have been, with few exceptions, running American foreign policy as a proxy for their vision of Israel's "interests." The neocons created the Iraq War not for anything it could do against Al Qaeda, but as a war for Israel whose central goal was to create a huge, permanent American military presence in Iraq to intimidate Syria and Iran for the duration for America's client Israel. (Hence the crazy neocon McCain position that even though Maliki and the American public want us out of Iraq, we have to stay.) Now that Iraq has turned into the most widely and uniformly unpopular fiasco in the history of American foreign policy, and threatens to take the Republican Party down with it, the incompetent and disgraced neocons have given the liberal Jewish community here and in Israel a golden opportunity to cleanse the Temple of the neocon gang which can't shoot straight, joining with Obama to create a new Middle East policy based on the pursuit of justice and peace for all, as opposed to the neocon-Likud fantasy of bludgeoning all opponents into bloody (and soon possibly irradiated) submission.

[Okieborn]

America has watched George W. Bush sowly but surely ruin our standing around the globe.
I have questioned his mental state many times,and still believe Bush is a psycho.
The Mccain campaign would be laughable if it weren't so sad.
Sen. Mccain seems to be slip sliding away and the press is doing there very best to cover it up as they have with Bush for 7.5 yrs. "SHAME ON YOU" !!!

[LetMeUnderstandThis]

Hey Okieborn, did you see the video when he said "I don't care who agrees with me, If Barb and Barney do that is all that matters" i'm paraphasing but accurate. SMH

[lboucher]

Obama has a problem: What do you do when you're a lightly accomplished one-term senator, a former state legislator from Illinois, a Harvard law graduate who has no substantive record of accomplishments, and you are running against a war hero whom polls show that Americans overwhelmingly view as far more fit to be commander in chief?

Pose, of course.

What else can a guy like Obama do?

[BARRISTER]

And, what, apart from carpetbagging in Arizona, leaving his disabled wife for an adulterous affair with a millionaire , being a member of the Keating 5, and cursing Cindy and everyone who does not agree with his Don Quixote style, has McCain done in the last 40 years?? Pray, tell!!

[speakeasy]

In your third sentence at the end, place "a few" in between "that" and "Americans". Now you're on the right path.

Pose??? Thats a stretch. Obama went there to listen and see for himself the progress and the work that is needed to wrap this thing up so we can start going after Bin Laden. You remember him right???

[Researchguy66]

Engineered rock-concert-esque appearances work better for him. Without hand-picked ("more white people") audiences, prepared speeches and a teleprompter, he's a disaster.

[Jalenth]

One correction... Obama didn't vote on the Kyl-Lieberman Amendment because he was at a campaign event during the vote. However, he did issue a statement against the amendment. So in essence he didn't support it.

It was a major discussion during the Dem primaries as Clinton voted FOR it and the other senators (not Obama) didn't.

[karela]

You would think that anyone who had a close association for 18 years with Chalabi ,and helped him bilk the U.S. of $349,000 per month in exchange for lies that were used to take this country to war, would keep quiet about guilt by association. Then there's his long time top financial officer, Grahmm who was greatly responsible for deregulating the lending industry and thus led to enormous market down turns in this country and all over the world and millions of people losing their homes. Two of McCain's long time friends and associates who between them nearly brought this country to it's knees. And don't forget all his special interest lobbyist advisors who make a ton of money by accepting money from clients who understand that these people they hire are in close association with McCain and have his ear. Bad laws, bad economy, bad war. One can only hope that McCain doesn't have any close friends or trusted advisors who stand to gain by nuclear proliferation or some other, as yet, unseen risk to the nation and man kind.