Glenn Greenwald: Finding Obama guilty of insufficient devotion to Israel

[Crunchy Frog]

Tuesday May 13, 2008 07:48 EDT


The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg conducted what he's calling an "interview" with Barack Obama regarding Israel, but it sounded much more like an inquisition. Goldberg repeatedly demanded that Obama swear his devotion to Israel and affirm prevailing orthodoxies ("I'm curious to hear you talk about the Zionist idea. Do you believe that it has justice on its side?"; "Go to the kishke question, the gut question: the idea that if Jews know that you love them, then you can say whatever you want about Israel, but if we don't know you –- Jim Baker, Zbigniew Brzezinski –- then everything is suspect. There seems to be in some quarters, in Florida and other places, a sense that you don’t feel Jewish worry the way a senator from New York would feel it"; "Do you think that Israel is a drag on America's reputation overseas?"; "If you become President, will you denounce settlements publicly?"). Afterwards, Goldberg pronounced himself satisfied: "Obama expressed -- in twelve different ways -- his support for Israel to me."

-snip-

But beyond the outright lying, right-wing condemnation of Obama's desperately pro-Israel remarks is highly revealing. David Frum complained yesterday that while Obama embraced the notion that "the Zionist idea has justice on its side," he followed that up with a "disclaimer." What was the "disclaimer" that so upset Frum? This: OBAMA: That does not mean that I would agree with every action of the state of Israel, because it's a government and it has politicians, and as a politician myself I am deeply mindful that we are imperfect creatures and don’t always act with justice uppermost on our minds.

Hideous! We can't have an American President who reserves the right to do something other than "agree with every action of the state of Israel." Frum generously declares that Obama is not anti-semitic, but finds him guilty of being "cavalier with Israel's security" (this blogger pronounces Frum correct and adds this "condemnation" of Obama: "I do not believe that the man hates Israel, but he doesn't love it either").


All of this is grounded in the unexamined premise that failure to love Israel with sufficient passion or to be sufficiently devoted to its interests ought to be disqualifying by itself -- presumably since, as everyone knows, the Founders intended the first obligation of the U.S. President to be to preserve Israel's security, just as George Washington said in his farewell address: In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave.

-continues-

(Bolding is Greenwald's.)

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/05/13/obama/index.html

[ProgressiveMuslim]

1. The interesting thing is that, in spite of Obama's incessant fealty to Israel, it's not enough.

Why is that?

Why are his statements of support not sufficient?