Eric Alterman: (Some) Jews Against Obama

[marmar]

from The Nation:



the liberal media | posted March 6, 2008 (March 24, 2008 issue)
(Some) Jews Against Obama
Eric Alterman



During the past few months a small group of neoconservative Jews, many of whom hold key positions in the world of official Jewish institutions, have been working to undermine the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama with a series of carefully planted character assassinations and deliberately misleading innuendo. I noticed this trend when Debra Feuer, a counsel for the American Jewish Committee, sent a confidential memo to her counterparts at other organizations criticizing Obama's views on the Middle East, Iran and Syria and attacking him for having once appeared at a fundraiser headlined by the late Edward Said. The memo, reported by the Forward, was immediately disowned, but not denied, by AJC executive director David Harris.

Also throwing his hatchet into the ring was Morton Klein, who heads up the Likud-loving Zionist Organization of America, complaining that "Barack Obama doesn't understand the continuing Arab war against Israel" and terming the notion of an Obama presidency "frightening." He was joined by Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice president of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the umbrella group that professes to speak for all American Jews. Hoenlein told the Israeli daily Ha'aretz that Obama's talk of "change" could prove "an opening for all kinds of mischief" and gave voice to what he termed "a legitimate concern over the zeitgeist around the campaign." The Tennessee Republican Party issued a news release noting what it claimed was "a growing chorus of Americans concerned about the future of the nation of Israel, the only stable democracy in the Middle East, if Sen. Barack Hussein Obama is elected president of the United States."

Let us note first of all that, like every American politician for the past half-century or so with nondelusional presidential aspirations, Obama views the crisis of Israel/Palestine largely through an Israeli lens. He asserts that he would not even be in politics at all were it not for the support he has enjoyed from his local Jewish community. He called Israel one of "our most important allies" and added, "I think that its security is sacrosanct and that the United States has a special relationship with Israel, as I myself do with the Jewish community."

...(snip)...

What is it that these neocons and their media mouthpieces really fear about an Obama presidency? Perhaps it is honesty about the issue. Speaking to a largely Jewish audience in Cleveland, Obama explained, "There is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt an unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel, you're anti-Israel and that can't be the measure of our friendship with Israel." Then came his kicker: "One of the things that struck me when I went to Israel was how much more open the debate was around these issues in Israel than they are sometimes here in the United States." No wonder he scares them so... ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080324/alterman

[LisaM]

1. I wish we could just leave religion out of it. Period.

I wish we were at a place where we didn't even KNOW what religion a candidate was. Unless someone's religion requires them to participate in some illegal activity, I think it should be a non-starter.

I'm not trying to be consciously naive. I know religious tensions run high, and that unfortunately it matters to some people, worse, it steers whole societies down dangerous paths. I am just saying, from my POV, I wish it didn't matter.

[bluestateguy]

2. Likud Neocons have a very small constituency in the US

They may be powerfully placed, but their numbers are miniscule.

American Jews oppose this war in Iraq, and they have progressive positions on social and cultural issues.