Pajamas Media

In Focus: Obama’s Jewish Problem?

Top Obama adviser Gen. Tony McPeak decided to blame American Jews for the failures of the Arab-Israeli peace process, and U.S. policy in Iraq. Not a good day for the campaign.

March 26, 2008 - by Michael Weiss

Support Pajamas Media; Visit Our Advertisers

Who said this? “We’ll be [in Iraq] a century, hopefully. If it works right.

“That’d be Gen. Merrill A. “Tony” McPeak, in a 2003 interview with the Oregonian. A former chief of staff of the US Air Force and now co-chair of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, McPeak was against the war but not, you’ll have noticed, the kind of sustained military occupation that every glib pundit and blogger has arraigned John McCain for advocating in 2008, when things in Iraq are beginning finally to “work right” and when his necessary precondition for a century-long garrison was that American soldiers were not being killed.

McPeak made headlines last week for accusing Bill Clinton of “McCarthyite” tactics. On any other day, this might have some legitimacy to it, but what did Clinton do to incur such a conversation-stopping epithet? He had referred to a potential match-up between his wife and McCain by saying: “[I]t would be a great thing if we had an election year where you had two people who loved this country and were devoted to the interest of this country,” which of course carried the clear implication that Obama doesn’t love his country and isn’t devoted to its interest. This may be low and disingenuous, but the word for it, as ever, is “Clintonian” not “McCarthyite.

“At all events, what really seems to have unhorsed McPeak is this interview, conducted again with the Oregonian in 2003, and recently excavated by the American Spectator, in which he blames the stalled Arab-Israeli peace process on American Jewry:

We don’t have a playbook for the Middle East. You know, for instance, obviously, a part of that long-term strategy would be getting the Israelis and the Palestinians together at . . . something other than a peace process. Process is not a substitute for achievement or settlement. And even so the process has gone off the tracks, but the process isn’t enough. . . . We need to get it fixed and only we have the authority with both sides to move them towards that. Everybody knows that.

So where’s the problem? State? White House?

New York City. Miami. We have a large vote - vote, here in favor of Israel. And no politician wants to run against it.

McPeak says he’d like a reversion to the 1967 map of the holy land, a recommendation that puts him squarely in sympathy with “New York City and Miami.” Also, one would think that Israel and the Palestinian Authority have had some say in the matter of their own border disputes. Had he left it at that, McPeak might have avoided the suspicion of sinister motive given how naive and semi-informed he appears (not that naivete and semi-information are encouraging prospects in a military adviser to a would-be president). But McPeak didn’t leave it at that:

“I’ve spent a lot of time in Israel, worked at one time very closely with the Israeli Air Force as a junior officer,” he said, “but that’s maybe the more cosmopolitan, liberal version of the Israeli population.”

McPeak also charged that Jews and Christian Zionists manipulated American foreign policy in Iraq. “Let’s say that one of your abiding concerns is the security of Israel as opposed to a purely American self-interest, then it would make sense to build a dozen or so bases in Iraq,” he said.

As to the first dunderhead observation, it perhaps owes to a sense of professional courtesy. But the “more cosmopolitan, liberal version of the Israeli population” is too laughable to be insulting.

McPeak’s second remark is not so easily pardoned. It reeks of the Mearsheimer/Walt interpretation of history, which has raised eyebrows and been judged sloppy in every serious foreign policy quarter, left and right. If the U.S. went to war as a favor to Ariel Sharon, then why haven’t our domestic Zionists yet managed to get George Bush to neutralize Iran — the far greater security threat to Israel? And why, since most Israelis and their government began to weary of our war in their neighborhood before we did, do all those American garrisons still remain?

First Jeremiah Wright, now this. Does Obama have a “Jewish problem?”

Michael Goldfarb at the Weekly Standard thinks so: “[W]hether or not it’s merely guilt by association is irrelevant. Politics is about perception, and the perception is that Obama’s one step removed from the Nation of Islam. If he wants to get the anti-Semitic stench of Trinity United off his campaign, it’s going to take more than the all-clear from Marc Ambinder and Marty Peretz.”

Marc Ambinder’s all-clear looked like this: “As one keen observer pointed out to me, if advocating the pre ‘67 border map makes one an anti-Semite, just about every iteration of the U.S. government since 1967 would qualify. Tony McPeak’s verbal gymnastics do not make a “Jewish problem” for Obama.”

Noam Scheiber at TNR wants Obama to jettison McPeak: “I don’t think McPeak tells us much about what kind of president Barack Obama would make. And I certainly don’t think Obama endorses his views on McCarthy-ism and the outsized influence of some South Florida condo commandos. (I doubt the Obama campaign even knew about the latter before yesterday.) But I do think he’s become a liability for the campaign, and that he should be canned.”

The juiciest part of the McPeak scandal is that it has been taken up by the Clinton camp, which has circulated the American Spectator piece. This comes in the wake of Hillary’s extraordinary Q&A about Jeremiah Wright for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review; both publications are owned by conservative press baron Richard Mellon Scaife, who once accused Bill Clinton of murdering Vince Foster. (Photo of Hillary and Scaife seated next to each other available here.)

Well, who would be shocked by Clinton’s embrace of the vast right-wing conspiracy, now setting its sights on her immediate opponent?

James Fallows, that’s who: “I can easily believe that the Spectator would publish such an article. That the Clinton team would circulate it I’m still trying to deal with.”

Michael Weiss is the New York Editor of Pajamas Media. His blog is Snarksmith.

22 Comments

Increase Mather:

Is it not remarkable how the media have looked the other way whenever evidence of anti-semitism turns up in the Democrat Party?

I like to hear/read the particulars of Mr. McPeak’s charges. Which Jews? Where? How do they have so much control?

Haven’t heard nonsense like this since the days of Henry Ford and the Dearborn Independent.

How can Obama leave this stuff laying out there?

Mar 26, 2008 - 1:30 pm Assistant Village Idiot:

All sides of this argument seem to slide too easily between the concepts of Jewish, Israeli, Zionist, pro- or anti- this or that, especially when we get down to who is talking to/advising/quoting whom. These slides occur because so many bigots attempt to use respectable points of view to hide behind. It becomes difficult to unravel who are the loyal opposition and who are wolves in sheep’s clothing. We are not entirely deprived of evidence to go by, however. What people actually do is the best measure; what they gratuitously add in that was unnecessary to making their point is a lesser, but also illuminating measure. McPeak: New York…Miami…cosmopolitan…politicians won’t run against them… Sorry Tony. Dead giveaway.

Dr. Wright: Using “Italian” instead of Roman - Italy is a new country, after all…and that garlic reference…plus avoiding saying that Jesus was Jewish by using “Galilean.” Sorry Jeremiah. Dead giveaway. The question is not whether Obama is himself anti-semitic, but that he can’t read the obvious tells of the people around him.

Mar 26, 2008 - 1:32 pm David Thomson:

I am amazed that it’s taking so long to realize that a very high percentage of the Democratic Party “elites” are somewhat hostile toward Israel. This was quite obvious to me by mid 2003. The only thing that I can conclude is that many Jewish liberals did not wish to face the truth and preferred to continue deluding themselves. The late Edward Said and his ilk have been incredibly successful in encouraging white guilt. If the mostly white Israeli Jews are in a conflict with the darker skin Palestinians—then obviously the Jews must be the aggressors. The Palestinians can only be victims of imperialism.

Mar 26, 2008 - 4:28 pm Ted Lawrence:

This is clearly a problem. Israel is a key issue because some lefties since Viet Nam have advocated pro Palestinian positions. As far as the pre 1967 borders, Obama has defended Israel’s current borders in the past and at least implied that he would support moving the embassy to Jerusalem. So far as I know, most American Presidents have at least paid lip service to the idea that if a Palestinian homeland was to be created (beyond the Kingdom of Jordan) then there would probably have to be some land given up by both sides of the fight (That means some land coming from Arabs who confiscated so much Jewish Property when the State of Israel was formed)

Mar 26, 2008 - 5:50 pm Jeremy:

You can disagree with McPeak but he is hardly an anti-semite. I’m sure half the people ready to call him an anti-semite are the same ones ready to give Ann Coulter and Mel Gibson the Victim of the Jewish Liberal Conspiracy card. There is no doubt Jews have a lot of influence in this country for such small numbers, due to organization, literacy and activism. And as a Jew I am proud of that. It’s only anti-semitic when you claim that the jews are running the country.
As far as labeling this comment goes:
““[I]t would be a great thing if we had an election year where you had two people who loved this country and were devoted to the interest of this country,” which of course carried the clear implication that Obama doesn’t love his country and isn’t devoted to its interest. This may be low and disingenuous, but the word for it, as ever, is “Clintonian” not “McCarthyite.”

I would phrase it this way:
“This may be low and disingenuous, but the word for it, as ever, is “AM talk show neocon style” not “McCarthyite.”

Mar 26, 2008 - 7:48 pm ddc:

Interesting how Obama seems to have surrounded himself by racists. Oh my bad, it’s not his fault that they say his advisers say the darndest things.

“show me your friends…”

Mar 26, 2008 - 8:51 pm Texan:

Obama just needs some guy in a uniform to prove to the idiot wing of the electorate that he isn’t against the military. So in waddles McPeak, who’ll evidently say just anything that pops into his head.
If McCain doesn’t wax these dopes in the general election, he isn’t the politician I thought he was.

Mar 26, 2008 - 10:11 pm davod:

“Obama just needs some guy in a uniform to prove to the idiot wing of the electorate that he isn’t against the military.”

Reasonable assumption. However, just as Wright was in a powerfull position as his mentor and friend,McPeak is co-chairman of his campaign, not some part time hanger-on who stepped off the campaign platform for a second.

By the way, did anyone else notice that McPeak need to read from cliff notes to get out his McCarthy sppech the other day.

Mar 27, 2008 - 4:05 am Assistant Village Idiot:

Jeremy is “sure” and has “no doubt” when mind-reading. Must be nice.

Mar 27, 2008 - 5:44 am DD:

I find it hilarious when the tinfoil hats accuse Jews (or any other convenient minority) of ‘running the country’. Show me any evidence that anyone is running the country. It seems to me that both government and big business are, if anything, totally out of control.

Mar 27, 2008 - 6:40 am Larry J:

I was in the Air Force when McPeak was the Chief of Staff. I don’t know if he’s anti-semetic or not but he was a flaming idiot as a general and much hated. It says a lot that he’s Obama’s military advisor.

Mar 27, 2008 - 6:48 am Andrew Ian Dodge:

What is most amusing is that some in the press are reporting that Jewish Democrats are skewing towards Clinton. Gee, I wonder why? Hopefully anyone sane is going to drift away from Obama. You judge a man by the company he keeps…

Mar 27, 2008 - 8:52 am Anonymous:

When McPeak says “cosmopolitan” here, he means: “non-religious Jews”, Agnostics or Aethists…

When he tells us he’d like “reversion to the 1967″ borders, we learn that he’s an incompetent general, as well as a bigot. mariana

Mar 27, 2008 - 9:39 pm mariana:

When McPeak says “cosmopolitan” here, he means: “non-religious Jews”, Agnostics or Aethists…

When he tells us he’d like “reversion to the 1967″ borders, we learn that he’s an incompetent general, as well as a bigot. mariana

Mar 27, 2008 - 9:41 pm mariana:

To Jeremy.

I agree with most of what you say, particularly the “Clintonian” vs “McCarthyite” comment.

As a former college instructor, I can assure you that better than 70% of those using the term “McCarthyite”, generally have only the indoctrination by their left wing teachers and one clip in their minds…. the one about “…have you no decency, sir..??!!” It has never reached them that the specific items which elicited this wonderful sound bite, were later proven to be correct and true. Alas.

I find your comments “as a jew” to be very interesting. As a non-jew, I disagree.

While I hate the seeing epithets like “racist”, “anti-semite” being thrown around loosely, McPeak and, unfortunately, a large portion of our permanent foreign policy establishment, are against Israel, pro-Palestinian Arabs [maybe oil, maybe just envy - after all, Israelis turned the useless rocky soil and desert into a garden].

I haven’t a clue why Ann Coulter’s name got raised here. I doubt she ever ascribed any criticism of herself to “a vast Jewish conspiracy. Gibson’s smarmy, drunken rant is mentioned here, only because he’s conservative and I certainly won’t defend it. A drunk is a drunk.

McPeak was in a position of power; he had a serious bias which deleteriously affected his observations, judgments, and reportage back up the chain.

Democrat Candidates have been whipping out these “wannabe appointed to something” former generals and admirals. It does them no good and besmirches any reputation they may have previously earned in the military.

In this case, I do not understand a competent “general” who can look at a map and walk the ground to conclude that “pre-67 borders” leave Israel defensible.

Oh yes, they could “carpet bomb”, “napalm” or do other massive retaliations which could create a wide cordon of protection; unfortunately, perhaps, Israel is a Democracy and its people would never tolerate such indiscriminate slaughter of innocents to get at the animals deliberately fighting and hiding in their midst.

Since Israel is therefore enjoined from the kind of actions which would readily increase their defensibility, the 67 borders are obviously indefensible. mariana

Mar 28, 2008 - 9:58 am mariana:

To Jeremy.

I agree with most of what you say, particularly the “Clintonian” vs “McCarthyite” comment.

I find your comments “as a Jew” to be very interesting. As a non-Jew, I disagree.

McPeak was in a position of power; he had a serious bias which deleteriously affected his observations, judgments, and reportage back up the chain.

In this case, I do not understand a competent “general” who can look at a map and walk the ground concluding that “pre-67 borders” leave Israel defensible.

Since Israel is therefore enjoined from the kind of actions which would readily increase their defensibility, the 67 borders are obviously indefensible. mariana

Mar 28, 2008 - 10:07 am mariana:

Re: “ANONYMOUS”
Posted:
Mar 27, 2008 - 9:39 pm

I don’t understand why this posting is ascribed to “anonymous” when I’ve clearly signed it. mariana

Mar 28, 2008 - 11:38 am David P.:

McPeak was chosen because he’s on par with Obama’s entire platform which is to “change” America’s foreign policy towards Israel. He doesn’t have to say this out loud, vague & broad action words are enough to fool most Americans. What is scary is that at least 1/3 of America thinks this way as well, and those that do are voting Obama.

Apr 1, 2008 - 8:50 am