NOVANEWS
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Kristol accuses Obama of wanting the Jewish state to disappear
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Panetta’s last words to Israel: ‘Get to the damn table… Get to the damn table’
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Roll over Ben-Gurion and tell Jabotinsky the news (even Tablet’s had enough)
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‘Commentary’ suggests Ron Paul’s heresy on Israel support is anti-Semitic
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Israel’s true fear re Iran is… balance of power
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Settlers are excluded (sort of) from hasbara campaign on college campuses
Kristol accuses Obama of wanting the Jewish state to disappear
Dec 03, 2011
Philip Weiss
Bill Kristol
Right after sundown this evening, the neoconservative Emergency Committee for Israel issued a strident attack on DefSec Leon Panetta for his statement at the Saban Forum yesterday that Israel has to “get to the damn table.” Bill Kristol said that Obama blames Israel for all the problems of the Middle East:
“The Obama message is loud and clear: the world would be a safer, simpler, and more peaceful place if not for the troublesome Jewish state.”
The attack was also aimed at Howard Gutman, the U.S. ambassador to Belgium, for comments he made this week that Muslim hatred of Jews stems from the Palestinian situation.
Kristol’s statement is remarkable for its brittle petulance and is another sign that the ground is shifting and the neocons are under assault. They’re flailing. This feels like it’s aimed at conservative Jewish donors. Kristol strikes a poor-little-Israel tone when it comes to the Arab spring and Turkey; and he is unconsciously grandiose when he says that Gutman’s comments will prompt his recall as ambassador. Do you really think the lobby has that kind of power? Maybe it does…
Below are Ynet’s very imprecise report of Gutman’s statement and then an excerpt of Kristol’s attack. Ynet:
A distinction should be made between traditional anti-Semitism, which should be condemned and Muslim hatred for Jews, which stems from the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, Gutman said. He also argued that an Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty will significantly diminish Muslim anti-Semitism.
The American envoy, a lawyer by training, is Jewish and played a major role in fundraising for the Democratic Party. He was appointed to the post by President Barack Obama.
Now here is Kristol, partial:
Nobody believes President Obama when he claims, as he did last week, that he “has done more for the security of the state of Israel than any previous administration.” That’s because he hasn’t — and because President Obama and his administration keeps acting to weaken the security of the state of Israel.
For example: as reported in the Israeli press, the U.S. ambassador to Belgium, Howard Gutman — a top Obama fundraiser in 2008 — told a conference in Brussels this week that Muslim anti-Semitism “stems from the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.” Pardon us for retaining our belief that Muslim anti-Semitism in the Middle East predates 1967, and even 1948 — and in any case is the fault of the anti-Semites, not of the Jews.
At another conference, this one in Washington, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta surveyed the Middle East and discovered that at every turn, the Jewish state is to blame for problems in the Muslim world. Are there Arab uprisings that are bringing Islamists to power and endangering peace with Israel? Israel must placate the radicals. Are there constant provocations and taunts from Turkey’s Islamist government? Israel must beg for better treatment. Do Palestinians refuse to negotiate? “Get to the damn table,” Panettathundered twice — as if Israel was refusing to talk, instead of the reverse.
Just about the only thing in the Middle East that President Obama hasn’t blamed Israel for is the Iranian nuclear program. But when it comes to this, too, instead of supporting crippling sanctions or preparing military strikes, the White House seems to spend more time deterring Israel from acting than deterring Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons in the first place. And the administration’s energy seems more focused on undermining Israel and those members of Congress pushing for a tougher approach to Iran, than in undermining the Iranian regime.
The Obama message is loud and clear: the world would be a safer, simpler, and more peaceful place if not for the troublesome Jewish state.
Ambassador Gutman’s comments were not way out of line with Obama’s worldview. Nonetheless, we expect he will be recalled because the Obama administration won’t want to expend political capital defending him. He should be recalled, of course. But what the events of recent days emphasize is that the problem is not with one ambassador or with one cabinet secretary. The problem is President Obama.”
Panetta’s last words to Israel: ‘Get to the damn table… Get to the damn table’
Dec 03, 2011
Philip Weiss
Panetta yesterday at Saban Forum
New mood on campus. In the same spirit as David Remnick saying, I’m sick of the occupation. I’m not sure this will mean anything in the end. But it reflects the fact that realists have actually pushed out the neocons in Washington, except that is in the presidential fundraising arena. Because they know the situation is unsustainable. Notice that Panetta made his comments at the heart and soul of the Israel lobby, in an exchange at Brookings’s Saban Forum– in Hebrew above for those of you who don’t speak English– with Ken Pollack, the man who did as much as anyone to start the Iraq war.
Defense Department transcript:
MR. POLLACK: And this will have to be your last question. Mr. Secretary, you made a strong statement about Israel’s responsibility towards peace. What steps should it take now? Withdraw the Israeli army from the Palestinian territories? It’s a suggestion and a question. It’s a suggestion in the form of a question.
SEC. PANETTA: Just get to the damn table. Just get to the table. (Applause.) The problem right now is we can’t get them to the damn table to at least sit down and begin to discuss their differences – you know, we all know what the pieces are here for a potential agreement. We’ve talked it out, worked through, we understand the concerns, we understand the concerns of Israel, understand the concerns of the Palestinians. If they sit at a table and work through those concerns, and the United States can be of assistance in that process, then I think you have the beginning of what could be a process that would lead to a peace agreement.
But if they aren’t there – if they aren’t at the table, this will never happen. So first and foremost, get to the damn table. (Applause.)
I picked this up from David Ignatius’s report at the Washington Post:
Obama administration officials often seem to be walking on eggshells when they talk about issues involving Israel. So it was interesting Friday night to hear Defense Secretary Leon Panetta forcefully caution a U.S.-Israeli audience about the dangers of bombing Iran and tell Israel to “just get to the damn table” in peace negotiations with the Palestinians.
Panetta was speaking to a gathering of the Saban Forum, an annual U.S.-Israeli dialogue about issues affecting the two countries. He made the comments in a unrehearsed question-and-answer session following what was a fairly cautious and predictable speech. He liked the “just get to the damn table” line so much that he repeated it, for good measure.
The most revealing answer came when Panetta was asked how long an Israel bombing attack on Iran would retard that country’s nuclear program. He argued that because targets are dispersed and hard to destroy, such an attack would likely delay Iran’s ability to make a nuclear weapon by only one to two years….
The audience included senior Israeli officials attending the forum. They gave Panetta a standing ovation at the end of his remarks,
Roll over Ben-Gurion and tell Jabotinsky the news (even Tablet’s had enough)
Dec 03, 2011
Philip Weiss
That stupid television ad campaign Israel just cancelled that went after Christmas and Israelis marrying Americans is huge news. Huge. For it seems to have struck a grievous blow to Diaspora support for Israel, and given American Jews a respectable exit on their blind support for Israel. They did what? Tablet runs a surprising piece by New York-based wife-n-husband team Lisa Ann Sandell and Liel Leibowitz (him a former spokesperson for the Israeli gov’t) that, while smug in its Upper-West-Side-Rehavia world (Mom, this is why I married out), breaks shocking news to Israel: In so many words, Zionism is over, you’ve done it in, we see our Jewish lives in America, not in rightwing exclusivism.
Not a word of course about the treatment of Palestinians, but this is the way that American Jews are checking out, over Netanyahuism. Yes, it should have been the slaughter of nearly 400 chidren over 3 weeks 3 years back, but: Our Jewish identities are based on inclusion. That in the end is an acknowledgment of Palestinian humanity. (Thanks to Mark Wauck)
Once upon a time, we used to believe that Israel could be our family’s part-time home. But this advertising campaign is just the most recent indication that Israel has no intention of making us feel welcome. From the Rotem Bill, which seeks to make a small group of ultra-Orthodox Israeli rabbis the final arbiters over all Jewish rites, to the recent spate of anti-democratic legislation in the Knesset, over the past few years we’ve felt as if Israel is moving further and further away from the values—tolerance, plurality, and civility—that we believe are integral to Judaism as well as to our own lives. The videos are a painful reminder of this shift….
we still believed that we could build a bridge between Israel and the Diaspora, and we dreamed of raising children who would be as at home in the Rehavia neighborhood of Jerusalem as they would on Manhattan’s Upper West Side….
Often, we feel real remorse for abandoning this struggle we believe is so important, the struggle for Israel’s soul. Often, we feel as if we should brave the hurdles and the insults and jump back into the fray. But time, parenthood, and an Israeli government that seems dedicated to dismissing families like ours and driving American and Israeli Jews apart have all weakened our resolve. We cherish our family’s Jewish identity and our community, as do most American Jews we know. But our Jewish identities, and our sense of peoplehood, are based on inclusion—not exclusion and condescension. As long as Israel refuses to acknowledge this basic premise about the nature of Jewish peoplehood, we can’t call the Jewish state home.
‘Commentary’ suggests Ron Paul’s heresy on Israel support is anti-Semitic
Dec 03, 2011
Philip Weiss
Ron Paul on CNN’s Situation Room yesterday
Wow. Wolf Blitzer had Ron Paul on for nearly 10 minutes yesterday and abstemiously juridically idiotically avoided the foreign policy issue/Israel/Iran. Meantime, Jonathan Tobin lays down the law at Commentary. The law of the lobby. Notice the emotional baseline at the end: Never again, the Holocaust. This is the neoconservative emotional baseline, and the ultraZionist baseline too, a sincere belief that we are threatened with extermination. I say it is a self-centered delusion, at this time in history, and indeed that Zionism is the greatest threat to the Jewish role in the human family. For as Tobin’s rant reveals, Zionism’s endurance requires a belief in a clash of civilizations with Islam. Tobin:
But Paul’s extremism goes farther than his opting out of the bipartisan pro-Israel consensus on aid. His view of America’s place in the world and of its Islamist adversaries — who also desire Israel’s destruction — is so skewed as to make his views indistinguishable from those voiced on the extreme left.
Paul’s isolationism is so hard-core that he sees America as a force for evil in the world and its adversaries, such as al-Qaeda, as being justified in their determination to fight us. Paul’s perspective is that of someone who has no quarrel with Islamists who are waging war against both the U.S. and Israel. Even in the GOP’s presidential debates, Paul has rationalized the Islamist regime in Iran and voiced opposition to any effort to stop their drive for nuclear weapons that pose an existential threat to Israel.
People like Ron Paul have taken the valuable libertarian creed of opposition to intrusive government and support for individual freedom and twisted it into a belief system that doesn’t view U.S. security abroad or the life of a besieged democratic Jewish state as something Americans should care about. Far from respecting Israel’s sovereignty, Paul is willing to watch with complacence as its very existence is called into question without the U.S. feeling obligated to lift a finger. His “respect” for Israel is little different from the sentiments voiced by an earlier generation of isolationists — the “America First” group — whose admiration of Nazi Germany and indifference to the fate of the Jews restrained the country’s initial response to both Hitler and the Holocaust.
…I’m sure there are gatherings of Islamists and anti-Semites where he would be welcomed with open arms.
Israel’s true fear re Iran is… balance of power
Dec 03, 2011
annie
Danielle Pletka Vice President, Foreign and Defense Policy Studies, American Enterprise Institute
Yesterday we learned the EU was slapping new sanctions on Iran, today U.S. Senate Passes Iran Oil Sanctions. But perhaps the most astonishing info I’ve read lately about Iran is revealed in MJ Rosenberg’s article American Enterprise Institute Admits: Iran Threat Isn’t That It Will Launch Nuclear Attack. It.is.a.must.read!
After a decade of scare-mongering about the second coming of Nazi Germany, the Iran hawks are admitting that they have other reasons for wanting to take out Iran, and saving Israeli lives may not be one of them. Suddenly the neoconservatives have discovered the concept of truth-telling, although, no doubt, the change will be ephemeral.
The shift in the rationale for war was kicked off this week when Danielle Pletka, head of the American Enterprise Institute’s foreign policy shop and one of the most prominent neoconservatives in Washington explained what the current obsession with Iran’s nuclear program is all about.
The biggest problem for the United States is not Iran getting a nuclear weapon and testing it, it’s Iran getting a nuclear weapon and not using it. Because the second that they have one and they don’t do anything bad, all of the naysayers are going to come back and say, “See, we told you Iran is a responsible power. We told you that Iran wasn’t getting nuclear weapons in order to use them immediately…” And they will eventually define Iran with nuclear weapons as not a problem.
Hold on. The “biggest problem” with Iran getting a nuclear weapon is not that Iranians will use it but that they won’t use it and might behave like a “responsible power.” But what about the hysteria about a second Holocaust? What about Prime Minister Netanyahu’s assertion that this is 1938 and Hitler is on the march? What about all of these pronouncements that Iran must be prevented from developing a nuclear weapons because the apocalyptic mullahs would happily commit national suicide in order to destroy Israel. And what about AIPAC and its satellites which produce one sanctions bill after another (all dutifully passed by Congress) because of the “existential threat” that Iran poses to Israel? Did Pletka lose her talking points?