The Jewish Delusion (Part I).

I found it curious that after the November election so many liberal Jews rationalized their vote for Barack Obama by touting his selection of the Jewish congressman from Illinois, Rahm Emanuel, as his chief of staff. We were told that Emanuel’s pro-Israel credentials are impeccable. "Rep. Emanuel is…a good friend of Israel, coming from good Irgun stock, davening [praying] at an Orthodox synagogue, and sending his children to Jewish day schools," said a top Jewish community spokesman, William Daroff, when Emanuel’s appointment was announced. (The Irgun was the right-wing military faction headed by the late Prime Minister Menachem Begin during Israel’s War of Independence). The clear implication was that Rahm Emanuel’s elevation to Obama’s chief aide proved that Jews had no reason to fear the new president’s policies towards Israel.

It seems rather odd to justify a vote for a political candidate based on an action taken by him after the vote is taken. No voter had the slightest idea who Obama would pick as his chief aide before pulling the lever for him, and frankly could care less. But obviously some Jews felt a wee bit defensive about suggestions that Obama would be hard on Israel and soft on its enemies, and thus played the “Rahmbo” card to convince others and perhaps themselves that the chief of staff would stand athwart any attempt by Obama to sell Israel to the Arab wolves. They and we had reason for nervousness well before the election, in light of the surfacing of audio recordings of the all-time greatest hits of Jew-hatred spewed from the pulpit of Obama’s (former) pastor the Rev. Jeremiah Wright as well as revelations of Obama’s associations with radical Arabs like Rashid Khalidi, the anti-Israel professor and acolyte of the late Edward Said, the polemicist/apologist for Palestinian terror against Jews. None of this prevented liberal Jews from voting for Obama, but they must have had some qualms nonetheless. Emanuel’s rise to chief of staff no doubt settled them.

That a well-placed Jew in the White House could or would be able to change the policy of a determined president is laughable. History is replete with examples of well-positioned Jews who succumbed to the blandishments of title, honor and position and willingly did the bidding of their rulers regardless of the consequences to their co-religionists. As a result of this, Jews may be the only people on earth with mixed feelings when one of their own seeks and/or obtains high government position. (During the 2000 presidential contest even Jews who admired Joe Lieberman fretted over whether having him as the first Jewish vice president would be “good for the Jews.”)

On Sunday Mr. Emanuel, the putative guardian of Jewish interests in the Administration, weighed in on the Israel-Palestinian conflict and the Iranian nuclear threat. The occasion is the AIPAC policy conference taking place this week in Washington, where thousands of pro-Israel activists are gathered to hear speeches by U.S. and Israeli leaders, lobby Congress to support efforts to stop Iran from going nuclear, and network with their fellow activists. According to The Jerusalem Post, Emanuel said in a closed-door meeting of 300 top AIPAC donors and board members that “it will be easier” to recruit Arab nations to oppose Iranian nukes if “progress” is made on the Israel-Palestinian track, meaning that Israel ought to first make concessions to the Palestinians before Arab countries will support sanctions against Iran. This echoed Hillary Clinton, who in April “warned Israel that it risks losing Arab support for combating threats from Iran if it rejects peace negotiations with the Palestinians.”

Mr. Emanuel’s defenders in the press point out that some who attended the meeting with Emanuel said he didn’t actually “link” the two issues—i.e., Israeli concessions to Palestinians and American efforts to stop Iran-- as had been reported on Israeli TV. Perhaps he didn’t, but that’s not the point. Taken together with President Obama’s stated belief that the creation of a Palestinian state is the key to addressing Arab and Muslim grievances in the Middle East, Afghanistan, Pakistan and south Asia, Emanuel’s remarks and Clinton’s warnings can be seen as a blunt threat to Israel: concede to the Palestinian Arabs’ demands for the West Bank, the Golan and Jerusalem first, then we’ll see if we can cajole the “moderate” Arabs to support sanctions against Iran.

This is obviously a dangerous and dastardly game for several reasons. First, it flies in the face of logic and history to suggest that Israel retreat to borders that are known to be indefensible. The so-called 1967 borders, in place for 19 years following the War of Independence, were unstable and constantly probed and breached by the Arabs. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s Jordanian and Egyptian gangs from the West Bank and Gaza plotted and staged terror attacks inside Israel proper, killing dozens of Jews. Syrian troops regularly rained rockets and artillery down on Israel from their perch on the Golan Heights. Jewish access to the Jewish holy sites like the Western Wall and the Temple Mount in Jerusalem or Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem was denied. And this was before the so-called "occupation;" before Palestinians had been fully radicalized by the likes of Yasser Arafat; and before they had access to sophisticated weapons like Kassam or Katyusha rockets.

Only a fantasist could believe that a retreat by Israel to the old borders would lead to a better result.

Second, the Administration makes no reference to the realities of Palestinian polity. George Bush wanted a Palestinian State, to be sure, but not at the expense of Israeli security needs and certainly not without reform of Palestinian institutions. Bush’s talk of two states “living side by side in peace” always implied the establishment of democratic institutions in Palestine as a prerequisite to peace. Bush may have been naïve in his belief that the Palestinians were capable of accomplishing this, but at least he understood that it was a sine qua non of Palestinian statehood. That’s why once the radical Hamas took over in Gaza Bush more or less turned his back on the whole enterprise.

Not so Obama. There is almost no talk by him or his emissaries of Palestinian institution-building as a predicate for peace. In fact it is quite the opposite. On her first visit to the region as State secretary, Hillary Clinton pledged $900 million dollars for Gaza reconstruction virtually without conditions, assuring that the money will be controlled by the Islamist terror group in charge of Gaza, Hamas. She then travelled to Jerusalem where she took Jerusalem’s mayor to task for demolishing illegal Arab buildings. She “urged” Israel to ease up on border closings and allow humanitarian aid to Gaza, as though Israel and not the Palestinians were responsible for the human crisis inside that fetid strip.

Clinton and special envoy George Mitchell have placed almost unrelenting pressure on Israel to curry favor with the Arabs on the Iran issue by caving in to their demands for an immediate commitment to give the Palestinians a state, no matter its character. Meanwhile the Administration and Europe hints at opening a “dialogue” with the Hamas, which rules Gaza with an iron fist and threatens Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas’ hold on the West Bank.

Third, Obama gives every indication of backing away from the bipartisan “special relationship” with Israel. According to unconfirmed reports, Israeli intelligence has warned Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu that Obama wishes to “incrementally diminish U.S. strategic cooperation” with Israel. Even if this report is unfounded, Obama has given every indication that he favors closer relations with Syria and Iran. He has made no secret of his desire to engage Iran, and he has sent emissaries to Syria to feel them out about improved ties. In fact, Jimmy Carter proudly boasted to the Israeli daily Haaretz that he expects full ties between Syria and Washington to be established this year. Who can doubt that Syria’s price for full diplomatic relations with the U.S. is a total repudiation by Obama of the “special relationship” with Israel?

None of this is a surprise to staunch supporters of Israel who opposed Obama. They understood Obama’s world view because they understood those of the radicals he hung around with. What is surprising (and dismaying) is the continuing refusal of liberal Jews to see the danger posed to the Jewish State and therefore to worldwide Jewry by the reckless and frankly depraved anti-Israel policy being pursued by Obama, Clinton, and Mitchell (with the apparent full support of their guard-dog, Rahm Emanuel). Undoubtedly many well-intentioned Jews believe a “two-state” solution is in Israel’s ultimate best interests. But even they must have gotten the lesson from the Lebanon war of 2006 and the Gaza war of 2008-09, to wit: territory surrendered by Israel to its enemies is soon converted into staging areas for rockets and missiles fired against its citizens.

The Jews who offered Rahm Emanuel’s elevation to Chief of Staff as proof that Barack Obama is committed to Israel’s security ought to take a second look at Obama’s Israel policy. In his first media interview after his inauguration (to Arab television), Barack Obama lauded the so-called “Saudi Peace Plan,” the terms of which demand that Israel retreat to borders cynically called the “Auschwitz” borders precisely because they are indefensible. Israel is now being pressured by the U.S. into accepting this “plan,” with some changes from the original, as the basis for negotiations with the Arabs, while the ticking time bomb of Iran’s nuclear program is held over its head like a sword of Damocles. Taking advantage of an ally’s existential fears in order to extract deadly concessions to an unrepentant enemy is not only audacious, it is immoral.

American Jews need to snap out of their Obama-induced delusion and see the world as it really is. Their lives depend on it.

Dershowitz: U.N. Denies Holocaust

Anne Bayefsky, the noted scholar and Senior Fellow of the Hudson Institute and a chronicler of U.N. history and the Holocaust, moderated a panel Tuesday in honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day at the same U.N. hall in Geneva that is home to the Durban II "anti-racism"conference. The panel included law professor and Jimmy Carter antagonist Alan Dershowitz, actor/activist Jon Voight, human rights icons Elie Wiesel and Natan Sharansky and author Shelby Steele.

According to writer Roger L. Simon, founder of Pajamas Media, the panel was "electric," not surprising given the brain power and eloquence of the assembled panelists and Ms. Bayefsky. PJTV will have video of the panel in the days ahead.

In the meantime PJTV has some fascinating video of a conversation moderated by Mr. Simon today in which Professors Bayefsky and Dershowitz skewer the U.N. over its hypocritical and cynical obsession with Palestinian rights and Israeli "oppression." Click here--the video gets interesting at 4 minutes in.

While I don't share Prof. Dershowitz's generally liberal politics, I am forever grateful for his unflinching advocacy on behalf of Israel and the Jewish people and his willingness to take on those who would wish to do them harm. In a world of puny and shallow figures he is a giant.

A Truly Appalling Day at the U.N.

Today marked the opening of the U.N.'s Durban Review Conference in Geneva, whose ostensible purpose is to "evaluate progress toward the goals" enunciated at the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance in 2001. As any sentient being knows, that was the famous U.N.-sponsored hatefest in which Israel was vilified as a racist and criminal regime, after which the U.S. delegation left the conference at the behest of then State Secretary Colin Powell. This time around the U.S. toyed with the idea of attending if it only could get the conference to tamp down its anti-Israel rhetoric. But the conference organizers couldn't produce an agenda which met even the low standards set by the Obama administration, and so the U.S. finally withdrew, along with Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Italy, Poland, Germany and the Netherlands. There is intelligent life in Europe after all.

On its best days the U.N. is an extravagant, inefficient and ineffective disgrace. But today its reputation and prestige hit its nadir. For the U.N. gave center stage at this human rights conference to one of the world's biggest human rights abusers, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, and predictably he used the occasion to rip the Holocaust and delegitimize the Jewish State:

“Following the World War Two, they [the West? Security Council members?] resorted to military aggression to make an entire nation homeless, on the pretext of Jewish sufferings and the ambiguous and the dubious question of holocaust. [sic] They sent migrants from Europe, the United States and from other parts of the world to establish a totally racist government in the occupied Palestine…”

This was immediately followed by the dramatic departure from the assembly hall of the representatives of those Western nations who failed to boycott the conference in the first place
(France, Belgium, the Czech Republic, the UK, etc.), and who apparently have their "redlines" even when it comes to bashing Israel. It remains to be seen whether they will return to the conference tomorrow, now that the Iranians are gone.

All this caused the U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights to issue a statement expressing shock and disgust at Ahmadinejad's speech. Said Navi Pillay:"I utterly deplore the speech of the President of Iran delivered this afternoon at the Durban Review Conference against racism...I find this totally objectionable. Much of his speech was clearly beyond the scope of the Conference. It also clearly went against the long-standing UN position adopted by the General Assembly with respect to equating Zionism with racism."

This fake outrage is all rather confusing on a few levels. First, Israel-bashing is not beyond the scope of the Durban II conference, it is its heart and soul. Second, the U.N. General Assembly practically accused Israel of perpetrating war crimes during the Gaza defensive operation a few months ago, which certainly is akin to equating Zionism with racism. Finally, it was the U.N. who invited Ahmadinejad to speak to the conference on its opening day; if they wanted contrition they should have invited Barack Obama.

The U.N. is now completely discredited as a force for good in the world. In fact it can safely be said that the institution has become a safe haven for killers, thugs and despots who get from the U.N. legitimacy and a chance to strut their stuff in front of a world that should shun them instead. If there would be no U.N. there is a good chance that these two-bit
tinhorns wouldn't be given the time of day outside of their rotten little countries and failed states.

For a blow-by-blow of the Durban II conference, visit Roger L. Simon's blog and check out the video at PJTV. Note the heroic efforts of Alan Dershowitz, Shelby Steele and Jon Voight in Geneva to call attention to the freakshow that the U.N. has become.

America and Israel: Rupert Murdoch Gets It

Media titan Rupert Murdoch was awarded the National Human Relations Award by the American Jewish Committee on March 4th. In his acceptance speech he laid out a cogent and forceful case for a continuing special relationship between the U.S. and Israel. This quote struck me as the heart and soul of his remarks:

IN THE WEST, we are used to thinking that Israel cannot survive without the help of Europe and the United States...[m]aybe we should start
wondering whether we in Europe and the United States can survive if we allow the terrorists to succeed in Israel.

Murdoch nails the dilemma Israel finds itself in vis-a-vis Hamas: while its conventional military forces can flatten Gaza, Israel is constrained by the fact that it is accountable to its citizens for every life lost, including Palestinian lives. By contrast Hamas is accountable to no one, and the death of "innocent" Palestinians by Israeli fire is nothing more than grist for its propaganda mill.

Murdoch notes that Israel is further handicapped by the global media, which is decidedly tilted towards the terrorist entity. The media willingly serves as agents for Hamas in spreading lies about Israel in the form of edited (or in some cases fabricated) images and soundbites. The narrative is always the same--Israel the brutal occupier and oppressor rains death and destruction on the victims of Gaza.

When Hamas lobs missiles at Israeli towns the media shrugs. Yet Israel's measured response is cause for a war crimes tribunal.

Good for Mr. Murdoch. Kudos to the American Jewish Committee for recognizing him.

Read the speech here.