donderdag 21 februari 2008

Barack Obama en het ware geloof

Is Barack Obama goed of slecht voor Israël? Na verschillende valse geruchten over zijn zogenaamd extremistisch-islamitische verleden en dat hij bij de 'pledge of allegiance' op de Koran in plaats van de Bijbel zou hebben gezworen, hebben de meeste Joodse organisaties hem omarmd en schijnt hij ook hun harten te hebben gewonnen. Op een bijeenkomst van AIPAC zei hij mooie dingen over de band van de VS met Israël, maar er zijn wel degelijk een paar zaken om je zorgen over te maken: hij is lid van de United Church of Christ, een kerk die kritisch staat tegenover Israël, en zijn eigen pastoor waarmee hij goed bevriend is, is een paar jaar geleden naar Libië gereisd met de moslim extremist Louis Farakhan, bekend van antisemitische uitspraken als: "You say I hate Jews. I don't hate the Jewish people, I never have. But there [are] some things I don't like. 'What is it you don't like, Farrakhan?' I don't like the way you leech on us. See a leech is somebody that sucks your blood, takes from you and don't give you a damn thing. See, I don't like that kind of arrangement."
 
Farakhan schrijft geregeld voor het lokale blaadje van de kerk. Obama heeft zich van hem gedistiantiëerd, maar pas nadat dit soort zaken naar buiten waren gebracht en hem dus mogelijk schade konden berokkenen.
 
Bovendien heeft Obama twee adviseurs die te denken geven: Robert Malley en Zbigniew Brzezinski. Malley verdedigde de tweede intifada en Arafats weigering om Barak's en Clinton's voorstellen te accepteren. Zowel hij als zijn vader zijn altijd sympathisanten van de PLO geweest, zijn vader was persoonlijk bevriend met Arafat. Brzezeinski sprak publiekelijk zijn waardering uit voor Mearsheimer en Walts boek The Israel Lobby, waarin werd beweerd dat de Lobby de buitenlandse politiek van de VN bepaalt en de VS ertoe zet tegen haar eigen belang in te handelen. En passant wordt de Israëllobby ook voor de oorlog in Irak verantwoordelijk gehouden. Het boek is widely bekritiseerd, niet alleen vanwege de inhoud maar ook vanwege het onderzoek en talloze grotere en kleinere feitelijke onjuistheden. Brzezinski, adviseur van oud-president Jimmy Carter, wordt op antizionistische sites instemmend geciteerd.
 
In onderstaand artikel gaat Ami Isseroff uitgebreid in op deze zaken en op het vele gedraai en gespin van journalisten en bloggers wat dit betreft.
 
Dit alles neemt niet weg dat Obama op andere punten een goede president zou kunnen zijn, die de VS nieuwe hoop, energie en spirit kan geven na acht lange jaren onder George W. Bush.
 
 
Ratna
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Barack Obama is a phenomenon of popular culture as egregious and overpowering as the Beatles. I wrote previously that I was surprised by the unquestioning and naive allegiance that some pro-Israel commentators offer Obama. I am no longer surprised. I understand. Obama is not an ordinary politician. He is a unique personality with a special gift.

Barack Obama is in the politician business, and he is very good at what he does. That is an understatement. People faint at Obama rallies. He is more than a superstar. He is a megastar. He has even entranced relatively staid Israeli commentators like Shmuel Rosner and Yossi Sarid. It would not be surprising, indeed, if there were not soon rumors that he cures lepers by laying on of hands. We may hear that at a support dinner, he fed a multitude from a single tuna sandwich when the caterers failed to show up.

Who can withstand this overpowering presence? Who is so tone deaf to human emotion, who is such a pedantic nerd, that they would quibble with one who is inspired, who is, in Biblical language, possessed of the Holy Ghost? If only we believe, then "Yes We Can!"

To deny the wonders of Obama is to risk hellfire and damnation on earth. Among Jews, this has been reinforced by the spate of attacks on Barack Obama by the wrong sort of Jews. A man is known by his enemies. People who are pure of heart do not doubt Obama. Barack Obama's enemies, some of whom I described previously, include a flock of neoconservative and paleoconservative bloggers who put up a picture of Obama with his hand on the shoulder of demagogue Al Sharpton, and implied falsely that Obama was involved in the Tawana Brawley riots.

But when I last wrote about Obama, there were serious charges to be considered, and they had not been answered. Ed Lasky and others had charged that Obama has two advisers: Zbigniew Brzezinski and Robert Malley, both of whom are inimical to Israel. Their records are fairly clear. Malley may not be everything that Lasky charges, but he is certainly not a friend of Israel, and he and his father have been consistent friends of the PLO. The first answer to these charges was given by Martin Peretz in the New Republic:

There are all kinds of spooky rumors that a man named Robert Malley is one of Obama's advisers, specifically his Middle East adviser. His name comes up mysteriously and intrusively on the web, like the ads for Viagra. Malley, who has written several deceitful articles in The New York Review of Books, is a rabid hater of Israel. No question about it. But Malley is not and has never been a Middle East adviser to Barack Obama.

Zbigniew Brzezinski endorsed Mearsheimer and Walt's Israel Lobby book and is featured favorably on anti-"Zionist" Web sites of the same level as Stormfront. Brzezinski, we are told, like Obama, is not an adviser on Middle East policy.

Shmuel Rosner, in Ha'aretz, spins a bit more, and spins the whole show into trouble. Ha'aretz or Rosner headlined the story, The row over Obama's stance on Israel is a dispute between Jews. And Rosner writes, "This specific showdon [sic] over Obama's candidacy is a dispute between Jews."

It is not a dispute between Jews. The religion or ethnic origin of the disputants is not relevant. It is a dispute about facts. Is Malley an adviser of Obama, is Brzezinski? Yes or No. It is a matter of truth. Did Malley write malicious fiction about Israel and the peace negotiations in the New York Review of Books? Did Malley write a book glorifying "national liberation movements"? Yes or No. (Lasky, for some reason, cited a relatively harmless article by Malley in the New York Times, rather than the New York Review of Books articles).

Rosner spins and spins and spins until we are all dizzy, and have forgotten what it is all about hopefully. Yes, Malley is an Obama adviser about Israel, he tells us, but Obama isn't listening to Malley. OK, but he IS an adviser. One fact in the dispute between Jews is decided apparently. Why take on an adviser, whose only field of expertise is the Middle East, if you aren't going to listen to him??

Not surprisingly, Obama is not listening to Malley in the campaign. He does want the Jewish vote. But he will obviously be listening to him if elected, otherwise, why is he an adviser? Rosner notes that ex-Clinton aides say Lasky was "unfair" to Malley. Why unfair? Malley's views are a matter of record. Does he stand by those views? There is no indication that he has changed them. He didn't worry about being "fair' when he wrote articles falsifying history and justifying the murder of Israelis and of the peace process, so who really cares if Lasky aimed his shots a bit broadly? As for Brzezinski, Rosner spins away merrily on both sides, revealing in the process that it is not just a dispute between Jews.

 

Lees verder: Barack Obama and the true faith

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