Justin Elliot does a nice run-down of the candidate's efforts to render himself kosher. At the end of the day, I think the more bigthink-oriented Israel hawk activists are never going to like Obama because his ideas about Iraq and Iran don't jibe with their broader regional vision. But he's shown know indication of being the sort of person who's interested in risking his political career over the Palestinian issue one way or another.
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Obama and Israel
06 Mar 2008 11:13 am
Comments (40)
shown know indication
I wish we had a breakdown of this stuff by category: homonyms, misspellings, dropped words, etc.
shown know indication
Jiminy Christmas. I hope you're not paying your book's proofreaders by the correction.
Are the spelling mistakes, "know" instead of "no" in this case, on purpose? I really don't care about the errors, by the way. But I'm genuinely curious if they're inserted on purpose, the way Bush has dumbed down his rhetoric since 2000. Are Matt's misspellings a populist ploy, in other words?
I think the more bigthink-oriented Israel hawk activists are never going to like Obama because his ideas about Iraq and Iran don't jibe with their broader regional vision.
Yeah, but whose and what agenda is that "broader regional vision"? Too many Jews, and not just bigthink-oriented Israel hawks, are convinced that this broader regional vision is practically the sine qua non of a kosher foreign policy, so no matter what Obama's foreign policy ain't gonna be kosher so far as they are concerned.
OTOH, how is that agenda in any way good for Israel? It's an agenda designed to sell arms and make arms manufacturers money. It's an agenda designed to bring on the battle of armeggeden. Even if you believe that pre-millenialist eschatology is bunk, how can you trust an agenda designed to cause the eventual destruction of Israel as we know it even if you don't think it'll work out the way the agenda's planned to work out?
Some would say the armeggedon-promoting aspect of that broader agenda is an allowed contaminant, which maintains the kashruth of the agenda. AFAIK, it's the pro-Zionist aspect of the agenda that is a contaminant and calling that agenda kosher under the rules of an allowed contaminant is like calling bacon kosher if a bit of glatt kosher pastrami happened to be mixed in.
So it seems to me that Obama's foreign policy is more kosher than that of those bigthink-oriented Israel hawk activists and that large number of Jews they've convinced "you have to adopt 'our' agenda to be a good Jew and friend of Israel".
Are Matt's misspellings a populist ploy, in other words?
Interesting. I go the other way on this. In order to boost his cred with the neocons--still a force in soft-institutional FP--he has to embed secret messages in his posts that only the learned and worthy will understand. The misspellings are doorways for the elites to that hidden truth. Unfortunately, I haven't yet cracked the code.
The Likudniks will never like him not because his statements are not pro-Israel enough but because they are not anti-Palestinian/anti-Arab enough. Only when you proclaim the cockroach status of the "subhuman" Arabs are the Likud lovers happy. Obama has not done that, ergo "Obama cannot be trusted on Israel."
Seriously, how the hell did you get a job writing?
At the end of the day, I think the more bigthink-oriented Israel hawk activists are never going to like Obama because his ideas about Iraq and Iran don't jibe with their broader regional vision.
Wow, you mean Obama probably won't capture the highly coveted Mark Steyn Ilk vote? Shocking.
Re "Justin Elliot does a nice run-down of the candidate's efforts to render himself kosher"
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1) What's hilarious is that many American Jews are not considered "kosher" by the Orthodox apparatus that controls marriage in Israel.
2) The New York Times had a comical article on the problems American Jews encounter if they emigrate to Israel and then try to marry. They evidently have problems convincing the Orthodox rabbis that they are really Jewish --even though they've assumed Israeli citizenship and have served in the IDF. See http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/02/magazine/02jewishness-t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Some excerpts:
"In recent years, the state’s Chief Rabbinate and its branches in each Israeli city have adopted an institutional attitude of skepticism toward the Jewish identity of those who enter its doors. And the type of proof that the rabbinate prefers is peculiarly unsuited to Jewish life in the United States. The Israeli government seeks the political and financial support of American Jewry. It welcomes American Jewish immigrants. Yet the rabbinate, one arm of the state, increasingly treats American Jews as doubtful cases: not Jewish until proved so. "
"Seth Farber is an American-born Orthodox rabbi whose organization — Itim, the Jewish Life Information Center — helps Israelis navigate the rabbinic bureaucracy. He explained to me recently that the rabbinate’s standards of proof are now stricter than ever, and stricter than most American Jews realize. Referring to the Jewish federations, the central communal and philanthropic organizations of American Jewry, he said, “Eighty percent of federation leaders probably wouldn’t be able to reach the bar.” "
"At the court, Sharon told me, the clerk who opened her file told her to bring her mother’s birth certificate and her parents’ marriage certificate. “I said: ‘But my mother’s birth certificate doesn’t say “Jewish.” It’s from the United States. They don’t write that. And the marriage license — they had a civil wedding.’ ” After she waited hours to see a judge, he told Sharon to return with “any document that would testify to her mother’s Jewishness.” She asked a court official if a letter from a Conservative rabbi would solve the problem. Her mother has a cousin in Florida who is a rabbi, son of the uncle who originally sent Suzie to Israel. No, the official said, “that won’t help. It has to be someone Orthodox.”
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ha ha ha
Is this any kind of a way to run an all-powerful international conspiracy??
He seems to be raising money fine, and --outside of New York perhaps--it's pro-Israel fundraisers that count more than pro-Israel voters. The power of the lobby may have been shifted down a gear.
Because, DDP, spelling well and writing well aren't the same thing. And I'd say that he's quite a good writer, especially in a short-form venue like a blog. He's able to distill incredibly complicated policy options into digestible -- but still complex and smart -- prose. That's a real skill, one that not many people have. But he can't spell. Or, if my earlier question was onto something, maybe he can...
Some more info in the New York Times article indicates our Matthew himself might not pass as Jewish in Israel:
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"In the United States, the Reform movement responded to rising intermarriage by deciding in 1983 to accept children of a Jewish father and non-Jewish mother as Jews if they were raised within the faith. The denominations also diverge on how to accept a convert into Judaism. Orthodox Jews generally do not regard conversions by non-Orthodox rabbis as valid — either because the rabbis do not strictly follow religious law or because they do not require the converts to do so. The number of people in America “recognized by some movements as Jewish but not by others” is “certainly in six figures,” according to Jonathan D. Sarna, a Brandeis University professor and the author of “American Judaism: A History.”
"Friedman, the reigning academic expert on ultra-Orthodox society in Israel, suggests that the deeper reasons for doubt are difficult for the rabbis to articulate. In contrast to Orthodox Jews like Farber, the ultra-Orthodox have little sense of risk that by raising doubts they might exclude a person who is really Jewish. “If you don’t keep the Torah and the commandments, O.K., so I excluded you. In any case you weren’t a complete Jew,” is how Friedman explains the attitude.
The policy of suspicion is applied to all immigrants. Rabbi Rasson Arussi, chairman of the Chief Rabbinate’s committee on marriage, told me that “populations where there is doubt about Jewishness” include those from Western countries, specifically “the sectors connected to Reform Jews.” The rabbinate’s expectations, however, are a poor fit with the United States. American Jews generally don’t have government papers testifying to their Jewishness. While a British Jew might turn to his country’s chief rabbinate for certification that he is Jewish, the very idea of a chief rabbi sounds outlandish in the United States. "
"And as Farber points out, the reign of doubt at the Israeli rabbinate began as it was becoming steadily less likely that an American Jew would be able to dig an Orthodox marriage contract out of her mother’s drawer. In the generation after World War II, most American Jews moved away from even a nominal connection to Orthodoxy. Today, young American-born Jews are likely to be two or three generations removed from any tie with Orthodoxy.
Strikingly, the rabbinate’s doubts extend even to Orthodox rabbis in America. “They’re not familiar with them,” Friedman told me. “They say: ‘The rabbis in the United States, in England, aren’t the kind we know. Someone can define himself as an Orthodox rabbi, but really he’s Reform.’ ” A marriage registrar given a letter from an Orthodox rabbi abroad certifying that a person is Jewish is now expected to check with the office of Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar, which maintains a list of diaspora clergy whose letters are to be trusted. The list is not publicly available. If the rabbi who wrote the letter is not on the list, the applicant is asked for other proof or referred to the rabbinic courts.
Converts, even the children of converts, potentially face greater difficulties, because the rabbinate has also become more skeptical about Orthodox conversions performed abroad. What’s more, under pressure from Chief Rabbi Amar, the main association of Orthodox clergy in the United States, the Rabbinical Council of America, is establishing its own regional rabbinic courts for conversion. A recent council position paper warns that the group makes no commitment to stand behind conversions performed by other rabbis. The paper also stresses that converts are expected to accept Orthodox religious law, or Halakhah.
The policy has divided the American group. Advocates say that standardization will ensure that converts are accepted by all religious Jews. A former council president, Marc Angel, a sharp critic, told me the group “decided to capitulate” to Amar and robbed individual rabbis of their prerogative to measure the needs and commitment of prospective converts. “The rabbinate in Israel has put the Orthodox rabbinate” — meaning Orthodox rabbis in the United States — “on the same level as Reform rabbis,” Angel said. He now advocates a position once unthinkable among R.C.A. rabbis: Israel would be better off if it instituted civil marriage and cut the state’s ties with the rabbinate.
Not surprisingly, leaders of non-Orthodox denominations in the United States sound both pained and vindicated when discussing the rabbinate’s policies. “There is quite an irony in this,” Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, told me. In the past, “Orthodox authorities in America have basically defended the system, and they’ve embraced this religious monopoly as being important and necessary, thinking all the while that it was directed primarily against us, us meaning the non-Orthodox community.” Now their own bona fides are in doubt.
Arnold M. Eisen, chancellor of the American Conservative movement’s Jewish Theological Seminary, stresses the damage to Israel-diaspora relations: “All the data shows a growing rift between American Jews and Israeli Jews, and the younger you are as an American Jew, the less that you care about the state of Israel. This is just terrible. And one of the reasons for it — not the only reason, but one of the reasons for it — is this kind of insulting treatment of the majority of American Jews by the Israeli rabbinate.”
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However, they will still accept our $3 Billion/year in aid and our F16 fighter jets.
How do you dunk a F16 in a Mikvah, by the way?
Re Nate
Mr. Nate, the newest Israel basher on this blog is entirely inaccurate and unreliable. The reason why the US Jewish community is uncertain about Senator Obama is because of his ties to Israel bashers like Robert Malley and Zbig Brzezinski. Neither Senator Clinton or Senator McCain has proclaimed that the Palestinians are sub-human so this canard by Mr. Nate is a crock of shit.
In that the Jewish population represents about 1.7% of the total US population, how did the right wing of this tiny group amass so much political power?
The answer of course is $$$ upon which the campaign of any US politician is absolutely dependent.
At some point it is going to become obvious that the blind US concurrence with all of AIPAC's policies is at the root of most of the problems the US faces in the ME.
The next person who talks about "the US Jewish community" as though it's some kind of monolith gets, um, told that it's not. Really, SLC, try to remember that there are many American Jews who are just fine with Senator Obama. Also, ignoring the e-mail smears that have circulated as a cause for the anxiety about Obama -- where it exists -- among Jews is either silly or disingenuous. Many, many more Jews have seen those e-mails than know who Malley or Brzezinski are. And oh wait, an even greater number got to watch Tim Russert paint Obama as a black Muslim on live tv. I suspect that might have deepened some people's discomfort.
Nate,
Your views square with my experiences talking to people self-identify as FP "conservatives" re: Obama and Israel. Nothing he says in Israel's favor will matter unless he matches them equally with anti-Arab denunciations.
Now, lest SLC accuse me of being a self-hating Jew, let me say that I love Israel and think she is a liberal beacon in an otherwise despotic neighborhood. If I were a member of any minority group, but especially as a gay man, there's no other country in the middle east where it would be better to live.
And Ari's right. American Jews are about as monolithic as world Jewry is!
As Walt and Mearsheimer point out, the Israel Lobby has a stranglehold on the politicians and the media. Lobby-generated campaign funding is important, but media control is more important. For instance, Obama through public campaign donations could outspend Hillary but the media overcompensated for this by running her 3AM ad over and over, no charge to her, as well as her "Shame on you Barack Obama" harangue. The Jewish media will destroy Obama first, then make sure McCain beats Hillary.
Thank you, DSG. SLC seems to miss the point. The point is not about Sens. Clinton or McCain. It's about the view that, as Rabbi Michael Lerner lamented, "You cannot be seen as pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian in some circles."
To me, being pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian are not mutually exclusive. And, indeed, the most pro-Israel policy we could have is a stable policy that guarantees the security of Israel and the autonomy of Palestinians (particularly since you cannot have one without the other).
But I remember the SLC-types who went ballistic when Senator Obama said that "no one is suffering more than the Palestinians." If you note that statement, Obama did not finish the quote by saying, "...so to hell with Israel." He just noted suffering by the Palestinians. That alone was enough to cause an outcry from the Likud bloc - further showing that it is not enough to be pro-Israel for these people, one has to be anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab as well. It's bigotry pure and simple.
Obama also has Marty Peretz in his corner. Shouldn't that be enough to appease you?
It sure makes me feel all warm and fuzzy to know that in order to get to the Presidency in the US, you have to basically swear an oath of fealty to a tiny militant fundamentalist welfare state on the other side of the planet.
a tiny militant fundamentalist welfare state
This is the sort of rhetoric that always escalates even reasonably civil, dare I say englightened, discussions into flame wars. Well done, mullingitover: choose heat over light.
a tiny militant fundamentalist welfare state
This is the sort of rhetoric that always escalates even reasonably civil, dare I say englightened, discussions into flame wars. Well done, mullingitover: choose heat over light.
I'm really sorry that happened. The comment wasn't so good that it needed to be said twice. Or perhaps even once.
"I think the more bigthink-oriented Israel hawk activists are never going to like Obama because his ideas about Iraq and Iran don't jibe with their broader regional vision."
I suppose that is why Matthew projects a HIllary win.
In speaking to a Jewish group in Cleveland, Obama said it was unfortunate that if one was not pro-Likud, one was considered anti-Israel (or words to that effect). For that he's received much negative Israeli publicity, and certainly the pro-Likud US Israel Lobby is following suit. Hence Hillary is projected to win the Florida Jewish vote in any do-over election, for instance. This is too bad considering that fact that the bloodthirsty war-mongering Likud policy is the worst thing for both the US and Israel.
Re Ari
Mr. Ari raises a good point. I should have worded my comment to say that many in the American Jewish community. By the way, Mr. Ari should be aware that antisemitic cocksuckers like Mr. mullingitover are in plentiful supply on this blog. For instance, Mr. Sabine Wales, Mr. Don Williams and Mr. Chet who have already posted their crap on this thread.
Re nate
Unfortunately, the Palestinians are suffering in great part because of the actions of many of their countrymen who insist on the right to send homicide bombers to blow up pizza parlors in Israel cities and fire off qassem rockets from the Gaza Strip into Sderot. For the information of Mr. Nate, the unfortunate inhabitants of Sderot are just as miserable as the unfortunate inhabitants of the Gaza Strip. By the way, would Mr. nate care to point out where Senator Clinton or Senator McCain have made bigoted anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab statements. It is my understanding that both of these senators, like Senator Obama, support a two state solution.
This is a rather big reason I'm supporting Obama. I wish he would be willing to address these issues head-on, but that would be political suicide. I just don't see Clinton amassing a circle of advisers who would be willing to pressure Israel into making the necessary concessions, while with Obama there is still a chance greater than 1%.
"This is the sort of rhetoric that always escalates even reasonably civil, dare I say englightened, discussions into flame wars."
Sorry, I just call 'em like I see 'em, and I'm not exaggerating or throwing out hyperbole.
Tiny: smaller than New Jersey
Militant: in the guns vs butter debate, guns overwhelmingly win
Fundamentalist: there is no separation of church and state, and the orthodoxy controls a significant portion of the knesset.
Welfare state: Vast array of government services (free health care, education, free military protection of settlers in occupied territories) at the expense of a very high income tax rate (~50% for the middle class).
I left out the issue of the huge prison camps located in the West Bank and Gaza, but the handling of that issue is also nothing to be proud of.
I'm not anti-jewish, in fact many of my best friends are jewish. If I'm to be accused of discrimination it would be for being biased in favor of the jewish people I meet. That being said, I think it's crazy that politicians pander to a tiny demographic in order to prop up a state that has openly attacked the US (USS Liberty) and spied on us (Jonathan Pollard et al). Shouldn't the US tie its support to the degree to which our allies represent our own values? Or are we just using Israel as a pawn in the middle east chess game?
How do you dunk a F16 in a Mikvah, by the way?
Very carefully.
re Mullingitover's comment "Welfare state: Vast array of government services "
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My mistake.
By "welfare state" I thought you were referring to the fact that Israel's economy would have crashed long ago if not for the injection of $BILLIONS in US aid EVERY year for the past several decades.
SLC:"By the way, Mr. Ari should be aware that antisemitic cocksuckers like Mr. mullingitover are in plentiful supply on this blog."
In reality, I'm probably one of the least antisemtic people you will ever meet. My opinion of the actions of the US and Israeli governments have nothing to do with my views of Jews as an ethnic group. As I stated above, if I'm to be accused of anything it should be of being biased in favor.
It's unfortunate that some people equate the actions of Israel with the mindset or character of Jewish people, but I'm not one of those people. I forgive you for your misunderstanding.
Re SLC's comment "Mr. Ari should be aware that antisemitic cocksuckers like Mr. mullingitover are in plentiful supply on this blog. For instance, Mr. Sabine Wales, Mr. Don Williams ..."
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Just out of curiosity, what's SLC's definition of his much-used phrase "antisemitic cocksucker"???
Someone who objects to oral sex if a foreskin is not attached?
Re mullingitover
1. Gee, Mr. mullingitover says that some of his best friends are Jews. The siren song of the antisemite.
2. Mr. mullingitover asks whether Isreal is a pawn in the Middle East chess game. He should be aware that the US involvement in the Middle East is about oil, not Israel, or democracy, or freedom. That's what the Iraq adventure is all about. Does Mr. mullingitover seriously think that the US would have invaded Iraq if it had no oil? In fact, the Arab/Israel issue would have been solved long ago if it were not for the oil in the region.
3. Mr. mullingitover is not surprisingly, uninformed about the Liberty incident. Unsurprisingly because the US and Israel have been covering up what really happened there. This was a case of the CIA telling its counterparts in Israeli intelligence one thing (namely that the Liberty was leaving the area) and neglecting to tell the Navy to sail its ship out of the area. Thus, when the Liberty, which was not flying the American flag, was spotted the next day, and Israeli fighter pilots informed their command of its presence, they were ordered to attack the ship which the latter thought was a Russian spy ship, having be informed that the Liberty had left the night before. The reason for the cover up was that the Liberty was actually intercepting Egyptian communications, which information was then being passed on to Israeli intelligence. Quite obviously, we wanted plausible deniability that the ship was actually spying for Israel and the Israelis were quite willing to go along.
I was trying to figure out what in my above posts upset SLC and then it occurred to me: The NY Times article I cited must have told SLC that ,in some quarters in Israel, SLC himself would not be ..er.. kosher.
Especially if he can't find out who his mother was.
Re Don Williams
It appears that Mr. Williams has again missed his daily blow job from Eric Prince. Maybe he should move Richard Steven Hack to Philadelphia and give him a tryout. I'm sure he got plenty of practice during his 9 year sojourn in Leavenworth.
Re SLC'c comment "Gee, Mr. mullingitover says that some of his best friends are Jews. The siren song of the antisemite."
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Yes. We all know how Adolf Hitler said "Some of my best friends are Jews". And how Stormfront
frequently proclaims its affection for ADL.
If Goys who claim Jews for friends are anti-semitic --and goys who claim Jews are enemies are anti-semitic -- then I don't see any room left on the Venn Diagram. Ergo, all goys are anti-Semites. We just don't acknowledge it --like alcoholics.
Ah --I see a third possibility on the Venn Diagram. Which is that SLC's claim is false and SLC is ..er.. "anti-goyim".
Damm. Where is Ludwig Wittgenstein when you need him?
SLC: "1. Gee, Mr. mullingitover says that some of his best friends are Jews. The siren song of the antisemite."
I forgave you for the misunderstanding in the first case. However, if you're going to continue to debate in bad faith with ad hominem, I will retract my forgiveness. I don't think esteem matters to you, since you're trolling a random comment thread on the internet, but c'est la vie. I'll have to break the news to my wonderful girlfriend that someone one the internet thinks I hate her.
2. If it's really all about oil, then you're saying that Israel doesn't actually have a right to exist, it's all a machiavellian tactic to destabilize the region. Personally I think that's a little extreme.
3. How many survivors of the USS Liberty attack do you think will back up your explanation of the story? Got any cites? Wikipedia has a pile of them.
Gah, I just won the special olympics. Ok, I'm out. Have fun hatin, SLC.
1) Re SLC's comment "The reason for the cover up was that the Liberty was actually intercepting Egyptian communications, which information was then being passed on to Israeli intelligence."
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So --let me get this straight -- the Liberty was spying for Israel's benefit and Israel repaid the favor by shooting the Liberty to pieces???
Yep, allies like that are certainly ..uh..rare. Not even the UK-USA "special relationship" gets that surreal (well, not USUALLY, heh heh heh).
2) Re SLC's comment "Quite obviously, we wanted plausible deniability that the ship was actually spying for Israel and the Israelis were quite willing to go along. "
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Gee, that was nice of them.
If our Middle East policy were all about oil, we would have dissociated ourselves from Israel a long time ago. It is much more in the US interest to be on friendly terms with the oil-rich Arab states. SLC (does this stand for Settlers' Likud Cabal?) says we invaded Iraq so that oil could go up to $100 a barrel but we actually invaded to make the world safer for Israel's occupation.
As usual, everything SLC says here is a lie:
"Thus, when the Liberty, which was not flying the American flag,"
Completely false - there was a nice big flag, and radio intercepts of the Israeli pilots show that they very clearly KNEW it was an American ship.
"was spotted the next day, and Israeli fighter pilots informed their command of its presence, they were ordered to attack the ship which the latter thought was a Russian spy ship, having be informed that the Liberty had left the night before."
Bullshit.
"The reason for the cover up was that the Liberty was actually intercepting Egyptian communications, which information was then being passed on to Israeli intelligence. Quite obviously, we wanted plausible deniability that the ship was actually spying for Israel and the Israelis were quite willing to go along.""
Bullshit - in fact, the Israelis were concerned that the Liberty was intercepting THEIR communications.
SLC is, to quote one of his favorite phrases, a "cocksucker" (which, BTW, is an insult to all decent male and female cocksuckers to be compared to this scumbag.)
Comments closed March 20, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
their broader regional vision
Nuclear war, you mean?
Posted by goethean | March 6, 2008 11:19 AM