From the Democratic Party before they leave it? The issue is raised in this article at Politico which examines Hillary Clinton’s motivation for continuing her run – namely the fear that the Democrats are running off a cliff by embracing Barak Obama.
The party is preparing to nominate a candidate whose spiritual leader is anti-semitic, and whose own views are ambivalent towards Jews at best, anti-semitic at worst. This week former president Jimmy Carter will be meeting with the leader of Hamas in Damascus, an organization that kills Jews almost daily through rocket attacks. Carter himself has characterized Israel as the primary impediment to peace in the region, calling it an “aparteid state,” and stated that the American Jewish lobby is too powerful. Spring must bring out the dictator-love for Democrats, since Nance Pelosi traveled to Syria last years around this time to declare that the “road to peace begins in Damascus.” And lets not forget the appalling treatment of Sen. Joseph Lieberman at the hands of his own party.
Meanwhile the Republican Party has picked up the pro-Israel torch dropped by the Democrats sometime after Clinton left office in Jan. 2001. The Religious Right is a tenacious supporter of Israel, as are the neo-cons and supporters of a strong US military. As the Left has drifted towards Islam and the Arab view of the Israeli-Arab conflict, the Right has found common cause with Jews and Israel.
So when are the Jews going to wake up and leave the party? Significant gaps between the Republicans and Jewish voters remain on social and economic policies as well as a deep distrust by many Jews of the Religious Right. But if and when the Jews give up on the party, it will mark an important shift in power between the two political parties.
Update: David Bernstein at Volokh on the subject of Obama and the Jews with link to a NYT piece on the subject:
“His record is relatively sparse, so I want to look at the totality of influences that might bear on Senator Obama,†said Ed Lasky, news editor of the online magazine, American Thinker, whose criticisms of Mr. Obama for aligning himself with allegedly anti-Israel advocates have been widely circulated among Jewish voters.
One of those “anti-Israel advocates”, Zbignew Brezinsky’s, was discovered in Syria after Imad Mughniyeh got whacked back in February. Brezinsky is viewed as being biased against Israel by Alan Dershowitz among others, yet is on Obama’s foreign policy team. We’ll be hearing from another this week as former president Jimmy Carter meets with Hamas.
{ 23 comments }
Debbie Schlussel. “Barack Hussein”. good grief. That was so February.
If this is the best the Obamaphobes can come up with, not only is an Obama victory assured, but an Obama landslide. The average American is sick to death of this nonsensical tripe.
If there’s an American jew here at Dean’s World who genuinely thinks Obama is anti-semitic, I hope they make their case. Its a lot more credible from them than from you, Scott, no offense.
(If you are a Jewish reader and you believe Obama is an anti-Semite, email me your case and I will post it without comment as a frontpage post here at DW).
Aziz Poonawalla’s last blog post..I am converting to Scientology
A leader, or an aspiring leader, must be judged in part by the people with whom he chooses to surround himself.
Some pretty disturbing comments by Obama’s national campaign co-chair.
Aziz
Put down your Kool-aid for a second, and read what I actually wrote:
I don’t know if Obama is anti-semitic or not. However if you had actually clicked on the link to the Politico story you would have read:
The point of the post was not Obama: it was the Democratic Party’s shift away from the Jewish part of its base. This piece was inspired by the statement “An undecided Democratic superdelegate told us many Jewish voters are itching for a reason to break with the party and side with Republicans.” If you want to ignore such a comment as “Obamaphobia,” please do. And be sure to tell your friends.
Sorry, Aziz, but saying “no offense” at the end doesn’t make a statement unoffensive. If you’re going to insult someone, don’t be a weasel about it. Prove that you’ve got the stones and just do it.
When are you gonna get off Obama’s dick, Aziz? I hear his wife is getting jealous.
What is this, junior high?
RyanR’s last blog post..Faces of Math
I think American Jews– at least the ones in my family(and my GF’s family)– are more impressed with the Democrat’s commitment to civil and human rights than they are with ensuring that Israel is the front line of the Armageddon that the Fundamentalist Christians are so hot to bring about.
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Punning,
If those Jews you know actually cared so much about civil and human rights as you claim you’d think they’d be firmly on Israel side seeing as how she’s pretty much called the worst human rights abuser on the planet by the U.N. and just about every nation in the world.
Unless, of course, they also think those accusations are true.
And Israel never had a closer friend than the Fundamentalist Christian. Any Jew… any person… with their head screwed on right sees that. Apocalyptic scenarios not withstanding, there are millions of Christians worldwide willing to shed their blood for Israel and that love that land as much as, if not more than, their own homeland. That’s not something you can just pooh-pooh.
So, if your Jewish friend and family really cared so much about civil and human rights they’d be firmly on Israel’s side as she’s getting all the press while real abusers and monsters are ignored.
But, then, it’s those Democrats they’re so enamored with that put all that negative focus on Israel.
No, it’s the Republican party now that is the defender of civil and human rights as evidenced by its commitment to cut through the lies and stand by Israel no matter the cost.
Scott, I honestly didnt mean offense – I think that Schlussel’s post in Obamaphobia pof the worst kind. If you had written the post omitting it and focusing only on the politico story, that would have been one thing. You yourself brought the Obamaphobic angle to bear by including that tripe.
If you’re going to pout and insist that you are offended, I will be happpy ot refrain from disagreeing with you in the future.
all this talk of stones and dicks is distasteful. I expected a lot better from Kevin, especially.
Aziz Poonawalla’s last blog post..I am converting to Scientology
“are more impressed with the Democrat’s commitment to civil and human rights”
It’s not. It’s charity to the poor — social services. The rest is smoke and mirrors.
And Israel never had a closer friend than the Fundamentalist Christian. Any Jew… any person… with their head screwed on right sees that.
Mmmm, yes and no. It depends on which fundamentalists. Historically there have been two kinds of fundamentalist Christian on this, those with a huge interest in promoting Israel for a wide variety of reasons (mostly a belief that Jews can easily be argued into accepting Jesus by just reading the Bible to them), and those with a steaming contempt for Jews. If someone really wants me to I’ll provide copious links to the Jew-hating fundamentalists, but all you have to do is research it for yourself to find out it’s true; white supremacist types are overwhelmingly fundamentalist (although in the last 30 years or so they’ve started accepting some Asatruar into their midst, they’ve always been anti-semitic and anti-catholic), and they’re *not* the only ones; I’ve seen fundamentalists who go into spasms just seeing a picture of George W. Bush wearing a yarmulke and praying at the wall in Israel, and I have personally known a number of fundamentalist types who use “Jew” as an epithet.
So, yes, there are many fundamentalists who are very very good friends to Israel, and at least for now seem willing to just get over the fact that the Jews still overwhelmingly reject Jesus as Messiah. But the Jews have every reason to wonder how long that’ll stay the way it is; as a people they have a long memory, and it’s not always been pleasant with Christians of any stripe.
I don’t think Obama is anti-semitic. I do think that he hangs around with some virulently anti-Israel people, though, and that this is definitely likely to hurt him in the general election, as it’s already hurting him in the Democratic primaries.
I don’t think this is impossible for him to overcome, but it is going to be an issue.
By the way, it occurs to me that Jeremiah Wright *is* a fundamentalist Christian, and his church is part of a fairly large fundamentalist denomination. Which, once again, should explain why it’s not *quite* true to say that fundamentalists are Israel’s best friends; some are, and some are amongst its worst enemies.
It’s often assumed that fundamentalist support for Israel is based on theological consierations, as suggested by the “apocalypse” remark. But I think there’s another, probably more important factor.
In our society, hostility to Israel eminates primarily from the university, where it is part of the broader “progressive” attack on western civilization and on civilization itself. Most fundamentalists are in social groups which are outside the force field centered on academia and the transmitters of its worldview (PBS, NYT, etc)…hence, they are relatively insulated from the influence of these attacks, and react instead with a natural American sympathy toward a beleagured fellow democracy.
My last post is Ships and the Global Economy.
Sorry, Aziz, I’m not letting you off the hook so easily.
First you completely missed the point of my post by focusing solely on Schlussel’s post. That’s intellectual sloppiness coming from someone whose opinion I’ve valued in the past even when I disagreed with it – before Obama entered the picture. Why the ad hominem on me over the issue of Obama when the point of the piece was the greater issue of the Democratic Party abandoning its Jewish base? Obama may or may not be gone in 7 months, but the Party will remain and continue its slide away from its pro-Israel roots.
Second this led you into an ad hominem attack. Its a lot more credible from them than from you, Scott. Just because I link to something doesn’t mean that I agree with it. I’ve linked to Hamas communiques in the past; it doesn’t mean that I support them.
The implied “dig” though is that I’m just a blogger; I’m not a “credible source.”
I’ve never claimed to be a “credible source.” To me a “credible source” is a Michael Yon, Bill Roggio or Michael Totten reporting on the ground from Iraq – not a NYT reporter using stringers as he downs gin blossoms in the Green Zone.
Bloggers are analysts; we don’t source stories, we analyze them. Some are better than others and most are better than me. But using the credibility issue against me is a bit much, don’t you think?
Finally we’ve disagreed in the past without being disagreeable; evidently you’ve decided to ignore Ford’s dictum evidently for the greater good of protecting Obama. It’s a shame because I thought that given our history here we were beyond such shenanigans.
You’ve become just another example of the continuing decline in public discourse. Oh well…
well, i agree about Yon etc being credible sources, as far as Iraq reporting goes, which is totally irrelevant to this discussion.
You argue that the Dems are “sliding away from Israel” and this is nonsense. I know the GOPs wet dream is to entice American Jews en masse to their side but the simple truths are 1. israel is not the be-all, end-all of American jewish identity, and 2. american jews are not unified as a bloc on their opinion about the israeli conflict. Couple that with the very, very thin reed about Obama’s supposed anti-semitic confidantes and you have no case whatesoever.
You come across as a Republican – which is fine – arguing that a political group should accept your spin and join your team. Also fine.
But you arent an american jew and so you cant argue that your position is the natural one. You arent credible as an opinion within the jewish community about whether the Dems are good for American jews. You are credible as a Republicna partisan, who makes a case for american jews to switch loyalties, but thats not the tone I thought you wrte your post in. If that was your intended tone, then I apologize for misreading you. But the vibe you gave off was “duh wtf yo american jews join the GOP already” as if it were a slam dunk. Its not.
argiung that obama or clinton are less proisrael thanm mccain is nonsense. All three are identical. If anything, the american jews I talk to and read regularly argue that obama and clinton are better, because they will reengage the peace process, whereas the GOP has largely let it drift unattended during Bush’s administration.
Aziz Poonawalla’s last blog post..I am converting to Scientology
and, uh, dicks and stones may break my bones, or whatever.
Aziz Poonawalla’s last blog post..I am converting to Scientology
Hey, what?
Ron Coleman’s last blog post..Facing addiction
“But you arent an american jew and so you cant argue that your position is the natural one.”
One day this line of argument will go to where it belongs: The trash.
Either one speaks the truth, or not, or a combination.
And I will let you all in on a little secret: No one knows exactly why American Jews vote the way they do, even, not surprisingly, American Jews. All have a logical right to form an opinion on the matter, and all are subject to being wrong.
There are people who say “Never Again.” Call ‘em Group One.
There are people who say “Let’s Try It Again.” Call ‘em Group Two.
Between those two camps are a whole bunch of people (call ‘em Group Three) who aren’t interested in signing up for “Let’s Try It Again,” but who aren’t sure that some of the things Israel does contribute positively to advancing the cause of “Never Again”…
…or who (call ‘em Group Four) believe that “Never Again” is really no longer relevant, given the Enlightened and Civilitized Times, post-Revolution in Human Nature (picture old Ken rolling his eyes clean out of his head) in Which We Live.
I have no truck at all with Group Two. I have some sympathy for Group Three, because I’m no expert in these matters and it is nearly always possible to be wrong. I pray that Group Four’s wake-up call isn’t traumatic…
…but I make my stand with Group One.
Never Again.
Ken Hall’s last blog post..Not a whole lot like a tundish, it turns out…
And neither are you. Besides, what makes arguments “natural” anyway? Do you have to be gay to support gay rights? Do you have to be Tibetan to have an opinion on human rights there? You aren’t a woman; so I guess you have to remain silent on abortion, breast cancer and other gender issues, huh? That’s pretty lame considering what you say next…
Excuse me but you are an American Muslim; yet you claim to know how Jews think? Wow… So… What exactly makes your opinion more credible than mine?
Those are your words; not mine.
It’s clear that you have some sort of chip on your shoulder that you felt you needed to jump into action and defend Obama and attack my credibility first, by attributing a position that I didn’t take (Obama as anti-semite), then by stating that I can’t be credible because I’m not a Jew, and finally because I’m a “partisan Republican.”
Well gee, you finally got one right – although I’m not sure how partisan I can be considering I’ve written on this site that I could live with a Clinton back in office.
WTF has happened to you?
Hmm. Then there’s group five, who say “Never Again” is empty rhetoric given all the genocide that’s happened since World War II.
Hey Kirwin,
Good post — don’t get too bogged down with silliness from Aziz.
Back to your central point:
Q1. Is is a good idea for Democrat President Jimmy Carter to meet with Hamas?
A1: Hell No. Hamas is a terrorist organization
Q2: Will Jews who support Israel and recognize the folly and presumptiousness of meeting with Hamas frown upon this meeting?
A2: Hell yes. Jimmy Carter should butt out. The guy’s a menace.
Q3: Will this act of private, meddling, foreign policy cause Jews to move from the Dem camp to the GOP camp?
A3: It might. Joe Lieberman has kinda moved that way (at least on the Iraq issues.)
Within the Jewish community, I have anecdotally found that the more observant, the more likely to vote GOP, the less observant the less likely. The latter group seems much more plentiful than the former group.
HankB
So we’ve gone from Aziz oppressing anyone who even thinks a bad thing about Muslims or Islam by calling them an “Islamophobe”to anyone who doesn’t line up and Goose-step like Aziz for Obama an “Obamaphobe”.
You know, we used to have freedom of thought in this country.
Why _empty_ rhetoric? We do what we can with the tools that we have. It doesn’t always do any good.
Ken Hall’s last blog post..Not a whole lot like a tundish, it turns out…
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