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Jewish World Review Nov. 3, 2008 / 5 Mar-Cheshvan 5769 Who says Jews are Smart?
By
Jonathan Rosenblum
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Arab-Americans overwhelmingly support Senator Barack Obama for president. So
do Jewish-Americans. One of these two groups either does not care much about
the Arab-Israeli conflict and/or is stupid. My money is on the Jews.
American Jews care less and less about Israel. Over 50% of non-Orthodox Jews
under 35 say they would not view the destruction of the State of Israel as a
personal tragedy. Israel is not a popular cause on college campuses. Many
Jewish students struggle against being identified with Israel, lest it
complicate their social lives. In the under 35 cohort, only 54% profess to
be comfortable with the idea of a Jewish state.
Other Jews who still find it uncomfortable to disavow concern with Israel
have convinced nevertheless themselves that it is in Israel's best interests
to be forced back to the 1949 armistice lines. A talkback to a recent
column of mine that appeared here nicely captures the mindset.
Nathan Berkowicz writes: "What do you expect us Jews to do, hold the
Palestinians hostage forever? Get your head out of the sand and wake up to
the fact that we are going to have to hammer out a peace deal, a real peace
deal, if for no other reason but to show ourselves that we are willing to
humanely and fairly deal with a problem we created for ourselves."
Berkowicz places the exclusive onus on Israel for the creation of the
Palestinian problem - either by virtue of its creation or for having the
effrontery to win in 1967. In addition, he blames Israel for the failure to
achieve a "real peace deal." The infamous "three No's" of the Arab League in
response to the Israeli offer to withdraw from the West Bank after the Six
Day War played no role; ditto Arafat's decision to return to open warfare
and reject Prime Minister Ehud Barak's offer of well over 90% of the West
Bank at Camp David. Finally, Berkowicz wants the Jews of Israel to
demonstrate their humanity. He never mentions ensuring their own survival as
a desideratum. So goes the "pro-Israel" case for Obama.
THOSE WHO SEE ISRAEL'S SALVATION in its being pushed back to its 1967
borders have good reason to eagerly anticipate an Obama presidency. Obama
has described the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as a "sore, . . . infect[ing]
all our foreign policy," and placed return to the "peacemaking" of the
Clinton years is at the top of his foreign policy agenda.
The express goal of that "peacemaking" will be an Israeli withdrawal to its
1967 "Auschwitz borders." In a June interview with Jerusalem Post editor
David Horowitz, Obama said he can understand Israel's desire for "'67 plus"
in terms of security buffers, but Israel should consider whether it would be
worth the cost in Palestinian antagonism.
The overwhelming majority of Israel's Jews dread a return to the Oslo
process, which claimed 1,471 Israeli lives in terrorist attacks, without
bringing peace any closer. Oslo made a fetish of process over actual peace,
as a pattern of concrete Israeli concessions in return for recycled
Palestinian promises took shape. Obama offers more of the same: "Israel's
government must make difficult concessions for the peace process to
restart," he says.
On security grounds alone, the vast majority of Israelis oppose further
territorial withdrawal from the West Bank at present. Earlier withdrawals
from southern Lebanon and Gaza resulted in the creation of heavily armed
Iranian proxies on Israel's southern and northern borders. Israeli
intelligence predicts that Hamas would quickly take over the West Bank as
well in the event of an Israeli withdrawal. The near elimination of
successful terror attacks from the West Bank since 2002 demonstrates that
only Israeli troops and on the ground intelligence gathering capabilities
can deter terrorism.
Oslo taught that peace cannot be imposed from the outside and has nothing to
do with signed agreements. Only a bottom-up transformation of Palestian
society would make peace possible, argues Natan Sharansky, and that
transformation has never seemed so far away after the Hamas takeover of
Gaza.
Even the "moderate" Mahmoud Abbas recently declared a festive celebration in
honor of the leader of the Coastal Road Massacre in which 37 Israelis were
murdered. Demonization of Israel and Jews continues unabated in the official
Palestinian media. No wonder three-quarters of Palestinians say that
reconciliation with Israel is impossible in this generation, even after the
signing of a peace agreement and creation of a Palestinian state.
The greatest threat to Israel's existence is a nuclear Iran. By calling for
direct American-Iranian negotiations, without offering anything new to the
Europeans' approach over the last five years of unconditional negotiations,
Obama only grants Ahmadinejad more time and increased internal legitimacy.
And by linking any sanctions to Chinese and Russian cooperation, he dooms
those efforts from the start. Bottom line: an Obama presidency guarantees a
nuclear Iran.
And all this leaves aside dozens of troubling Obama associations. For twenty
years, he sat complacently in the church of a pastor - "my spiritual mentor"
- who spewed contempt for whites, America, and Israel.
Virtually his whole public career has been closely intertwined with the
unrepentant former Weatherman William Ayers.
Another member of Ayers' Hyde Park circle was former PLO official and the
current Edward Said Professor at Columbia University, Rashid Khalidi, whom
Obama credits with opening his eyes to the plight of Palestinians. He has
been heavily funded by the virulently anti-Israel George Soros.
Obama has numerous ties to the Nation of Islam, in particular through Tony
Rezko, the convicted, Syrian-born racketeer, who partly paid for Obama's
home.
Obama's foreign policy advisors have included: Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy
Carter's national security advisor and thirty-year critic of Israel;
Samantha Powers, who has called for an end to aid to Israel and the
introduction of American forces to protect the Palestinians; and Robert
Malley, who has made a career of advancing, together with a former Arafat
advisor, a revisionist account in which Israel was responsible for the
breakdown of Camp David.
Even the Republicans touted for an Obama cabinet - Chuck Hagel and Richard
Lugar - have been among the handful of senators, sometimes the only ones, to
consistently oppose sanctions against Iran, Syria, and Saddam Hussein's
Iraq. Hagel laments the intimidation on Capitol Hill by the "Jewish lobby."
No doubt the "pro-Israel" Obama supporters have good explanations of why
none of these relationships are of concern. After all, why did G-d make Jews
so smart if not to prove the emperor is fully-clothed.
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JWR contributor Jonathan Rosenblum is founder of Jewish Media Resources and a widely-read columnist for the Jerusalem Post's domestic and international editions and for the Hebrew daily Maariv. He is also a respected commentator on Israeli politics, society, culture and the Israeli legal system, who speaks frequently on these topics in the United States, Europe, and Israel. His articles appear regularly in numerous Jewish periodicals in the United States and Israel. Rosenblum is the author of seven biographies of major modern Jewish figures. He is a graduate of the University of Chicago and Yale Law School. Rosenblum lives in Jerusalem with his wife and eight children.
© 2008, Jonathan Rosenblum | ||||||||||
