‘I Am Not a Muslim’: Obama Woos the Jews
Barack Obama laid it on the line to Israel's most popular newspaper -- Yediot Aharonot -- Wednesday: "I am not a Muslim and I never have been. I never studied at a Madrassa and I have never sworn on the Koran. I am committed to Christianity." Allison Kaplan Sommer looks at Obama's recent crusade to allay the concerns of American Jews worried about Israel's position in an Obama administration.
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When it comes to Israel, Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama has been letting his Jewish supporters and his staff do most of the talking for him.
But this week, all that changed.
Finally, the Illinois senator has stepped up to the front lines and started speaking for himself both in Tuesday night’s debate, speeches before Jewish audiences and interviews with Israeli publications.
Why now? Hillary Clinton a New York senator married to a former president who was a strong supporter of Israel, has been the undisguised favorite of the organized Jewish community with a strong commitment to Israel. At this stage in the campaign, in his final assault Obama is chipping away at Clinton’s core support — particularly in Ohio, where the Jewish vote is key.
And with his nomination beginning to appear a certainty, the Republicans are already starting to take aim at him in the foreign policy arena.
New third-party candidate Ralph Nader handed the GOP ammunition, stating on Meet the Press that Obama’s “better instincts and his knowledge have been censored by himself.” Nader claimed Sen. Obama was “pro-Palestinian when he was in Illinois before he ran for the state Senate” and “during the state Senate” - but had changed his tune once he set his sights on Washington - remarks that Republicans immediately seized on as revealing Obama’s true sentiments on Israel.
Moreover, Obama knew he needed to take a forceful stand to counteract the impact of the photograph of Obama in Muslim garb, and perhaps most troubling for his campaign, the unwelcome endorsement of National of Islam Leader Louis Farrakhan, a friend of the controversial pastor of Obama’s church, Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
The results of his decision to personally work to win over the Jewish community has thus far met with only mixed success. A closed-door meeting with 100 Jewish leaders in Cleveland, Ohio on Sunday to address some of the concerns of the Jewish community had been designed to reinforce his commitment to Israel.
Instead, some of his statements in the forum raised concerns, notably when he was quoted as saying
“I think there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt an unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel, then you’re anti-Israel, and that can’t be the measure of our friendship with Israel… If we cannot have an honest dialogue about how do we achieve these goals, then we’re not going to make progress.”
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34 Comments
Ephraim:Well, there goes the Arab vote, the moonbat vote and the anti-Semite vote.
The nutroots support Obama partially because they expect and want him to repudiate the “special relationship” between the US and Israel and to suck up to the Palestinians and the other “oppressed” Arabs. This puts paid to that.
That giant sucking sound you hear is all of the loonies staying home on election day or stampeding to vote for Nader.
Not sure if it will work, though. I never thought I’d live to see the day, but the Democrats have become the anti-Semitic party of record.
Feb 27, 2008 - 3:06 am David Thomson:“It is possible that my level of understanding will allow me to conduct better diplomacy in the Arab world.”
Obama’s “level of understanding? We are supposed to be impressed because he attended school in Indonesia for four years during his childhood. Did Obama actually say this with a straight face? There is little evidence whatsoever that he has a clear understanding of Islamic nihilism. Instead, he seems committed to the notion popularized by Edward Said that the predominantly dark skin Muslims are victims of Western imperialism.
Feb 27, 2008 - 5:14 am Harvey Levy:Why should Jews believe Obama! From the beginning of his tenure as junior Senator from Illinois Obama’s public stance against Iran has been at odds with his actions. Take, for example, Obama’s introduction of a Senate resolution back in Nov, 2007 which declared that “President Bush does not have authority to use military force against Iran”. This resolution was introduced to counter a Kyl/Lieberman amendment which named Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization.
Feb 27, 2008 - 7:57 am Linda Frank:I am one Jew who will never vote for Obama after he referred to the racist Farrakhan as “Minister” Farrakhan in Tuesday’s debate. He needed Clinton’s pressure to “reject” Farrakhan’s endorsement. Shame on Obama.
Feb 27, 2008 - 8:30 am Bob Miller:Neither of these Democrats cares in the slightest about Jews or Israel except as a means to an end (getting elected).
Feb 27, 2008 - 8:54 am Lem:I want my jewish friends to ask themselves a few questions.
If Al Qaeda contributes to a presidential campaign who would Osama contribute to?
Would candidate Obama promise to return Al Qaeda’s campaign contributions? Or would he ‘donate’ it to his madrassa


Feb 27, 2008 - 9:04 am BMOON:Would Obama install a ‘red phone’ to his Iman in the white house
What capacity will Obama’s Iman have in the White House
(not baking cookies)
Barry,
I know that Messiahs have to sometimes hide their true identity for a time, but before you save the world, will the real Obama please stand up and reveal yourself? I know that you feel you are about to win the big lottery, and the temptation to say anything to get there is strong, but remember, messiahs have to resist temptations before they are anointed. The whole world lies at your feet.
Oh, and please remember while you equivocate between your ambition and your conviction, in deciding the fate of the Jews, that the real Messiah was a Jew.
Feb 27, 2008 - 9:06 am Jill:Allison, I live in Ohio, my rabbi attended that meeting, I am Jewish and I have to tell you, the Jewish vote isn’t key to Ohio per se, most likely it’s weighty only in NEOhio and then, only in Cuyahoga County.
Even then, the county’s population is 1.3 million, and there are about 80,000 Jews in the same area, all of whom are not of voting age.
I value the posts that work to elucidate all the ways in which Jews along the political spectrum review the kind of information that Sen. Obama has reviewed. I figured you might appreciate having someone on the ground in NEOhio, who is also a Jew, keep things clear.
FYI - the JTA published the transcript a couple of days ago. See more here.
Feb 27, 2008 - 10:19 am dantana:Mr. Obama should be pressed on his lukewarm attempts to distance himself from the racist group Nation Of Islam and it’s anti-Jew leader Louis Farrakahn.
If Obama does not unequivocally denounce the Minister and his group, he is not worthy of my vote.
Feb 27, 2008 - 10:59 am lukas:I am being sincere when I ask someone in the press to provide information on Obama’s spiritual advisor in the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago as well as Obama’s relationship with Farrakhan. I also want to know about Obama’s spiritual advisor’s relationship with Farrakhan and if Obama’s spiritual advisor hold racist views or anti-jewish attitudes.
I never knew about Obama’s church and his spiritual advisor until it was brought up in the MSNBC Ohio debate. I need to have information so that I can make a decision on who to vote for. This is an important issue.
I don’t know why the press didn’t inform us this before - all of a sudden it is brought up in a last minute debate. I need more information to sort this stuff out. Please make sure that the press do their jobs and get this information to us. I don’t care if the news is good or bad - I just want to have the research done so I can make a decision on who I will support.
Feb 27, 2008 - 11:24 am Tim:lukas, here is a link to information about Obama’s church:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/church.asp
And here is information about Obama’s minister, Jeremiah Wright:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremiah_Wright
Finally, here is a link to a partial transcript of Obama’s meeting with Jewish leaders in which these questions were raised:
http://www.nysun.com/article/71813
Feb 27, 2008 - 12:04 pm Michael English:Speaking as a Jew, I find it refreshing to hear a politician refusing to blindly support the Israeli government policies which have so effectively handed control over the Palestinian Territories to Hamas and have all but resurrected Hezbollah from the dead in Lebanon.
The last thing we need now is another politician who is incapable of telling the difference between the pro-negotiation opinions held by the majority of Jews and the right-wing policies of a minority of neoconservative Jews.
Obama got my vote.
Feb 27, 2008 - 12:34 pm Lem:…the difference between the pro-negotiation opinions held by the majority of Jews.
Negotiations as to whether Jews will be driven knee deep or neck deep into the sea?
I wonder where the rockets fit in the “negotiations”?
Feb 27, 2008 - 1:26 pm Django:The Jews will keep voting Democrat right up to and beyond the point where the camps are re-opened. They just don’t get it. Their vote has reached the point of a ritualized obessession.
Feb 27, 2008 - 1:36 pm Brian H:If Iran is absolutely intransigent, Oblahblah will pull out the big guns: “continue to intensify the sanctions.”
Somebody get this boy a lollipop and send him home. He’s getting in the way.
Feb 27, 2008 - 2:03 pm jf34566:The jews should get inline and work with this guy. I am sure the neocons view is not the only view in the Jews community. You either wotk with hime or fight him as president for the next 8 years if he wins.
Feb 27, 2008 - 2:58 pm Jennifer Gail:For those who want an eye-opener about the church Obama has attended for 20 years, and with nary a word of criticism of it, and who want to know what his actions regarding Israel as a (God forbid!) president Obama would be, please read the following American Thinker article. Obama says words count. I say actions speak louder than words: what has he actually been doing heretofore with respect to the Jews and Israel?
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/01/barack_obama_and_israel.html
Feb 27, 2008 - 3:35 pm Luke Lea:I share Obama’s stated committment to the survival of Israel as a Jewish state, and have consistently done so ever since the Zionism-is-racism controversy at the UN. I can document that if anybody cares.
That said, Obama’s remark that he might have a better appreciation of the Muslim sense of grievance and humiliation bears consideration.
I doubt that there is a single individual reading this comment, Jew or Gentile, who, if he were born a Palestinian, would not be angry about the current situation.
The problem — and perhaps this is something Obama might grasp — is that the Palestinain anger is badly misdirected. Israel and Jews are not responsible for his situation; on the contrary, given the impossible situation in which they find themselves, I doubt that any other people in the world would have acted nearly so well.
Neither is it the failure of the Palestinians to sieze the opportunities for peace that have been presented to them which is ultimately to blame, in my opinion.
Rather, the failure — shared by Israeli’s, Palestinians, and American’s alike — is to put the finger on Europe where it rationally belongs.
It was European anti-Semitism after all — a widespread phenomenon culminating in, but by no means limited to, the Holocaust — that drove the Jews out of Europe in the first place; and it was European statesmen — acting in concert, I might add — who decided to solve their Jewish problem by giving someone else’s land away (for all the juicy details see Friedman’s “The Question of Palestine, 1914-1918″). Everything else follows from there.
Where am I heading? Well, I am heading towards the principle of compensation, which is deeply established in Arab culture and civilization. In fact it is the only religiously sanctioned way to end a blood feud unless I am mistaken.
Let me suggest therefore that if the European community were willing to acknowledge its guilt and moral responsibility in this case, and were to commit itself to a program of real restitution over the course of the next two generations, that just might do the trick.
Ask the Palestinians themselves if you don’t believe me.
How much would it take? Something in the neighborhood of what the U.S. has spent in Iraq to date I would guess: not in the form of a lump sum payment, to be sure, but as an ongoing program of investment in social and economic development, whose aim would be to establish a Western standard of living (on a par with Israel’s) among the Palestinians who choose to live in the West Bank, or in Jordan, or whereever so long as it is outside Israel — the continuance of such a program to be conditional upon Palestinain adherence to the terms of any final agreement they make with Israel.
“Israel shall be redeemed by judgment.” — I believe this was the motto on the front page of Weizman’s memoirs.
Isn’t it about time we three peoples started to put pressure on the people of Europe to carry their share of the burden of peace in the Middle East, upon which the welfare of the entire planet now depends?
I think so. And I know that if I were a Palestinian I would settle for nothing less. Neither would you if you are honest with yourself.
Feb 27, 2008 - 7:34 pm Yehudit:Luke, you make a very well-reasoned argument except that you have no idea what you are talking about.
I was cheering you on until you said the culprit was Europe. I was expecting you to say the Arab world, and then we would be in agreement. Odd that they are nowhere to be seen in your suggestions, especially since they have used the Palestinians as the tip of their spear to destroy Israel.
“Palestine!” is the rallying cry of jihadis and rioting mobs, but they treat their “brothers” like shit. Jordan and Israel are the only two countries in the Middle East where Palestinians can be citizens. If i were a Palestinian and had my nose rubbed in that hypocrisy year after year, I would be steaming mad.
Now. “…European statesmen — acting in concert, I might add — who decided to solve their Jewish problem by giving someone else’s land away…”
Ok Luke. You really gotta answer these questions: whose land was given away? why was it their land? and what are its borders? And how far back do you want to go? Because the last time a self-identified nation was there, with all the attributes of a nation - common values, laws, language, citizenship rules, religion (because back then every country had a state religion) - it was Judah, the nation of the Jews. Its boundaries were roughly what they are now. Its capital was Jerusalem. And it was destroyed by the Romans, who renamed it Palestina as some kind of obscure dig at the Jews.
So at the end of this comment I put some history, but now let me attend to the rest of your suggestions, most of which are already in action. Compensation has been on the table at every negotiation, and I hope you think it’s fair to include compensation to the 800,000 Jews from Arab lands who were forced to leave homes they had lived in for centuries. For example, there was a Jewish community in Alexandria since Roman times, and the Arabs didn’t show up till around 700 AD.
As for compensation from Europe - Europe has poured billions of dollars into the West Bank and Gaza, where it turned into weapons and Swiss bank accounts for thugs. the US and Israel have also given the PLO and its various permutations millions of dollars.
As for “an ongoing program of investment in social and economic development, whose aim would be to establish a Western standard of living (on a par with Israel’s) among the Palestinians who choose to live in the West Bank,..”
Israel started doing this when it became clear she would be stuck with the Territories. Israel built roads, hospitals, universities, apartments …. right before Arafat was installed, Palestinians had a higher standard of living than any other Arabs, and it was because of Israel. Then Arafat and his mafia gradually ruined it. But the money kept pouring in! There is still half a billion dollars in Arafat’s Swiss bank account! Only Suha has the key! And as far as I know she is not spending it on her Palestinian people.
“the continuance of such a program to be conditional upon Palestinain adherence to the terms of any final agreement they make with Israel.”
in fact, the Palestinians have gotten all that and more, without having to agree to anything, and without having to take responsibility for anything. They get to go on being terrorists, and they keep getting a free pass.
And Europe has been compensating Jews since soon after the end of the war. My mother was getting checks from Austria until she died.
So. Luke, Palestinians are as diverse in opinions as anyone else, and you can’t read minds. So you don’t know what they think.
So - the land. After the Romans, Jews stll lived in the Gallilee until the Arab Muslim invasion. Jews lived in Jerusalem whenever the current ruler would let them in. There was the influential kabbalist community in Tsfat in the 16th c. The majority of jeruslaem was Jewish from 1850 on. many groups lived in Palestine at different times, but until the 20th c. the only inhabitants who thought of it as a whole, as a nation, were the Jews. The Arabs certainly didn’t.
Everyone who lived there was called Palestinians, kind of like how you would say “New Englanders.” Jews were Palestinians to Europeans. As antisemitism rose in Europe in the 30s, there would be graffiti: “Jews go back to Palestine!”
Are you talking about land owned or worked individually by Arabs which Jews bought over many years, or took after the war of independence? Which the Arabs started instead of accepting the UNs partition, which offered the local Arabs a country? Compensation comes into play here, and of course the Christians and Jews and everyone else whose property was taken should be compensated too.
maybe some of those oil-rich Arab countries can put a little in the kitty. And I think they should also pay to restore all the Jewish holy sites they’ve destroyed like Joseph’s tomb and the Jericho synagogue with the beautiful mosaic floor, and huge chunks of the Temple Mount.
Are you talking about land Israel captured in the 67 war? Israel tried to give Gaza and the West Bank back to Egypt and Jordan, they wouldn’t take them. They wanted the restive locals to be Israel’s problem, as Egypt is now trying to do with Gaza. Great “brothers” those Palestinians have, yes?
So tell me whose land and where it is and then we can talk about what to do with it. I do think Jews should get Hevron, because that was a Jewish town from unrecorded times until 1929, when the local Jews were massacred and driven out.
Feb 28, 2008 - 4:22 am dave:I think Obama believes in the support, survival and well-being of Israel. I hope he isn’t being punished because he happens to live in the same city as Farakhan. This is a pragmatic man who is in the business of solving problems. Just because he doesn’t go ranting and raving against Farakhan when asked about him doesn’t mean he holds any regard for him. This has been his nature throughout the campaign…never too hot and never too cold. He has been the polar opposite of his opponent, who can’t seem to figure out which demeanor will present herself most favorably to the voters.
People need to look at the course of this campaign. Look at the people who have staked their reputation on Obama by supporting/endorsing him. Of all the people who have come out to support him (and I know it seems silly) the one that helped convinced me of this man’s beliefs was Oprah Winfrey. Yes, Oprah Winfrey. Not because she is any smarter than anyone else who endorsed him. It’s because she was willing to stake her multi-billion dollar industry on her endorsement. If you know anything about Oprah you know that she cares first and foremost about her brand and her multi-billion dollar brand. She has never campaigned for a candidate like this before.
I am willing to bet that she sat down with Obama and asked him if there was anything that might cause her to regret her support of him. She vetted him more thoroughly than anyone ever could, i imagine. She does lives there in Chicago with Obama and might know of any funny business between Obama and the haters that support Farakhan.
Yeah, i know, it’s Oprah freakin’ Winfrey, but give it a thought.
Also, consider this…maybe the radical veins of Palestine will not assume, right off the bat, that the American prez is a lap dog of the ‘Zionist” cause. Maybe they will be more willing to come to the table and commit to peace. Maybe their constituents won’t admonish their leaders for doing this because they too suspect Obama will come to the table with an earnest concern for the well-being of both states. This is probably true of recent presidents, but that doesn’t mean they necessarily believed it.
So, all i ask is that you don’t fall for the swift-boating of the candidate. The far right will look for anything they can pry into and misrepresent to the public. It’s how they operate. The have nothing else to offer people. They did it in ‘00 & ‘04 and they will continue to do it, until they realize that it doesn’t work.
Feb 28, 2008 - 7:52 am Jewish Democrat:Ralph Nader is your source that Obama is anti-Israel? Obama is supported by the Chicago Jewish community. American Jews are not stupid; 80% of us are Democrats, we aren’t fooled by the evangelicals in the GOP.
Feb 28, 2008 - 11:16 am LibsNoMore911:What about the freedomsenemies.com site, which appears to be painstakingly compiled & totally contradicts everything the Jr. Senator from Illinois is saying? Either freedomsenemies.com or Senator Obama has some ’splainin’ to do.
Feb 28, 2008 - 11:16 am Bob:Poor Obama has been put into a sticky situation,you see, he really knows what is going on behind the scenes with Israel, AIPAC, the GOP and all that crap, so now he must do a dance before the election to try and please all sides,dodge the critics, and try and make the Jews like him enough to vote for him? (those who don’t like him)
I as a Born American, am so fed up with the way things are going I almost vomit each day after reading the mainstream’s slanted, and twisted articles about the candidates and we are only thru FEB!! I’m waiting for the meteor to hit anyday now. DOG BLESS AMERICA
Feb 28, 2008 - 11:42 am Sara Freedman:i am an Israeli and proud to be one. I don’t intend to write everything i belive in but sum it in afew sentences. nobody that lives outside of Israel is aloud in my opinion to critisize israel (even the Jews.). All the pro peace and the “rightious” people that are against Israel policy regarding to the Palestinians(this word is not even real to me), please,read some history, go back100 and more years and learn the facts. Jews! all you have to understand is: if there is even a smallest douth about any candidate and his pro arab or not so pro-Israel view– it is very simple: you don’t vote for him. after reading some of your comments not so pro israel or that support candidate that might be not good to Israel-I have one thing left to say: with jews like you we don’t need ennemies!
Feb 28, 2008 - 2:00 pm Ben:If Obama was never Muslim, what special inside understanding does he have?
In fact, he was born Muslim, under Sharia, having a Muslim father makes him Muslim by default. One born to Muslim parents must be taught a certain minimum of Islamic tenets and rituals before reaching puberty. Look it up in Reliance of the Traveler.
Muslims are not allowed to leave Islam, under penalty of death. Islamic law says that If Obama is now a Christian, he must be given three chances to revert before being killed. Why then does he have organized Islamic support?
Clinton a supporter of Israel? What can be more ludicrous? He sold Israel down the Wye River.
Obama a supporter of Israel? One who supported Falestinian terror fund raisers? One who said that nobody suffers more than the Falestinians? Yeah, right.
Until you hear him explicitly abjure the Qur’anic verses which sanctify and mandate conquest, genocide & terrorism [2:216, 8:39, 8:12, 8:67, 9:29, 9:111 47:4, 61:9-13] you know that he is a Muslim. Until you hear him explicitly say that Jesus is the son of Jehovah, not Allah’s slave; crucified, dead and resurrected you know that he is a Muslim. See my blog post: “Specifically Senator”.
Feb 28, 2008 - 5:55 pm pt bridgeport:“In fact, he was born Muslim, under Sharia”?
The slightest bit of due diligence would inform you that Obama was born in Hawaii. In your crazy conspiracy-dominated world, no doubt Hawaii has been under Sharia law for the last forty odd years. But in the real world, it hasn’t. In the real world, Obama was never a Muslim. In the real world, for that matter, his father was not a practicing Muslim.
And he was brought up by his secular American mother and his American grandparents. He never had any contact with his father during which your fantasized teaching of “Islamic tenets and rituals” could have taken place.
He doesn’t claim special “inside” understanding. He claims a familiarity with Islamic culture, from having spent a number of his formative years in Indonesia, a secular (read, no Sharia law) society which is majority Muslim. Perhaps you could call that a special “alongside” understanding.
This is all widely available in the public record. You could educate yourself if you cared to. But you obviously prefer feeling superior because you have “educated” yourself from spammed anonymous emails.
Feb 28, 2008 - 9:00 pm Noga:This review of the available documentation and history depicts a picture slightly different to the one presented in pt bridgeport’s dismissive tone:
http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5286
However, his religious affilliations as a child seem less onerous than his Christian avowal as a mature adult. And he brings up his daughters as Christians, which, if anyone is interested in such things, should clarify the matter once and for all.
It is possible to look at his Muslim roots in the same way we assess Sarkozy’s Jewish roots. Was he compromised by those blood connections? No. What bothered the Muslim voters in France about him was his declared friendship with Israel and the US.
Obama’s willingness to speak to Israel’s enemies disturbs some Jewish-American voters. That’s an issue that should concern not only Jewish voters. In my opinion, he was beginning to backtrack a little in the last debate with Clinton, when he agreed that any talks with any hostile party should be preceded by proper preparation. So he is eschewing the more explicit “no pre-conditions” in favour of less aggressive formulation, but the denouement is not much different than what is happening today.
He tries not to be too explicit in his condemnations and embraces (as exemplified in the little kerfuffle about Farrakhan). This might be a hint as to how he will conduct himself as a president. Perhaps he subscribes to the dictum: Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. Who knows, he might yet turn out to be of Machiavellian genius and really bring a change in the way things are done in Washington…
Feb 29, 2008 - 5:55 am Jay:“Somebody get this boy a lollipop and send him home. He’s getting in the way.”
It’s a special kind of bigot that calls a black man a “boy.”
I’m not worried, though. I’m sure many of your best friends are black, right, Brian?
Feb 29, 2008 - 6:18 am Mike Nargizian:First, the “Likud/Likudnick” comment is not something “he needs to modify” but is a LOUD AND CLEAR sentiment he is expressing freudian slip or not.
On the contrary it shows his sentiments and feelings come directly out of the far left and Pat Buchanan playbook on the so-called “Israeli” influence in American politics and media.. You konw the canard that most Jews and powerful Jewish organizations at the least are stubborn Likudnicks and are thus responsible for preventing so-called “progress” in the situation that could likely otherwise be achieved.
It’s a prejudicial or at the least simplistic way of explaining the situation at Finkelstein/Chomsky events as to the “reason” why the “American public isn’t hearing the **real** story”….
As Nader correctly pointed out his gut instinct is to be Pro Palestinian or at the least very far left wing in his sentiment towards the situaiton.
Note, an article at EIntifidah by none other than the irritating Ali Abumninah noted that Obama told him the same thing in Illinois when he was running for Senator… that he had to appease the Jewish community for the time being. Abuminah noted dissappointedly that he had ‘apparently’ made statements that contradicted his sentiments expressed to him in private and in public at various Arab and Muslim public events.
That would mean he is in agreement with many of his already chosen foreign policy advisers who are lockstep far left Jimmy Carter people.
Feb 29, 2008 - 3:14 pm Mike Nargizian:Robert Malley, a Clinton holdover, as well who wrote the revisionist Camp David screed which said that “poor” Arafat was pushed around and “rushed” by Clinton and Barak… (ahem do I really need to comment on that last statement?)
Let me state though that I like Obama and he is a great speaker with a very strong presence.
He has a commanding, measured and likeable presence and style. He answers questions in a measured strong way and isn’t afraid to agree to a correction when someone makes it. Thus, he comes off as intelligent, likeable and real. And people are nauseous of the same old robotic phony politicians.
Thus, I disagree with his foreign policy outlook, and at the least - think it would be dangerous to put a UN/French styled multi-lateralist (as Chesler coined him) neophyte in the White House in light of world events.
I am even more bathered by the fact that Jimmy Carter would actually have influence in the White House.
However, he will be tough to beat.
Mike
Feb 29, 2008 - 4:55 pm Pro-Zionist:Ephraim said, “I never thought I’d live to see the day, but the Democrats have become the anti-Semitic party of record.”
Amen.
Michael English, you are trying to impose your distinctly American political analysis on Israel, where it does not apply. In other words, you are ignorant.
Django wrote, “Their vote has reached the point of a ritualized obessession.”
Django, you are correct. I’m a socialist telling my Jewish friends to vote for McCain.
Luke Lea, any compensation to the Palestinians should be off-set against the amount the Arab League owes to the Sephardim - an amount far greater than the Palestinians’.
About Obama:
Allow me to point out that (crudely) the African-American community tends to split into 3 groups:
1. The conservative Christians, who like their evangelical analogues are pro-Jewish and pro-Israeli. MLK might be an example.
2. The liberal Christians, who like wrong Wright & Jackson & so on are anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli.
3. The black Muslims, who are anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli.
Leaders like David Dinkins and Barack Obama fall in between 1 and 2. They are smart and nice guys (and not anti-Semitic) but they have a problem. They cannot denounce groups 2 and 3 yet survive politically. Or, so they think. If they denounce groups 2 and 3 then they would alienate much of their black base and so have to exist on white support, which may be sufficient but scares them.
That’s why Dinkins didn’t stop the Crown Heights pogrom. He’s a nice guy who like Jews, but he was scared of his base to the point of paralysis.
Obama is trying to re-assure Jews without alienating his base. He may or may not be sincere in his statements about Israel, but unfortunately after election he would be like Dinkins - beholden to his base.
Jews should vote for McCain, who like his brother Joe has a conservative Christian’s respect for the Jews and Israel.
History is odd - the Jews are better-off with conservative, believing Christians than with secular liberals and blacks.
Mar 29, 2008 - 11:08 pm kari aaltonen:you are grazyy. obamam is muslim…
Apr 3, 2008 - 4:50 pm kari aaltonen:obama is muslim are y grasy?
Apr 3, 2008 - 4:52 pm kari aaltonen:you terrorist sympahtisaiser. get off.
Apr 3, 2008 - 4:57 pm