What Role for Dennis Ross in the Obama Administration

Just got an email from an Israeli American friend telling me that he voted, much to my surprise, for Obama. It seems that my friend, an old-fashioned centrist Zionist, the sort who thinks that Ehud Barak made the Palestinians a generous offer at Camp David, decided to bite the bullet. The main reason (aside from the fact that he is a Democrat and scared to death of Sarah Palin)? Well, he is comfortable with Dennis Ross, and Dennis Ross has emerged as Obama's Middle East Advisor.

Is this so?

There is some evidence supporting the claim. Over the course of this campaign, Rob Malley was the first to leave the public eye, followed by Dan Kurtzer, with only Ross left. Obama has touted Ross to Jewish leaders as his middle east advisor. Ross gave an interview to Haaretz last week (with the extraordinary speculation that he may be Secretary of State. I heard him on DC radio twice introduced twice as Obama's "Foreign Policy advisor." Say, it ain't so, 'O'!)

Is Dennis Ross out there just to get votes from Jews like my Israeli American friend? Or does Obama have a central role for him in the new administration.

I don't know whether even Obama knows the answer to that last question for sure. He is totally focused on winning now. Last night, there was a very revealing exchange in Rachel Maddow's interview with Obama:

MADDOW: And so, you have the opportunity to say John McCain, George Bush, you're wrong. You also have the opportunity to say, conservatism has been bad for America. But, you haven't gone there either.

OBAMA: I tell you what though, Rachel. You notice, I think we're winning right now so

Maddow, the leftwing liberal, wanted to get an ideological criticism of Republicanism and Conservatism out of Obama's mouth. She wanted the guy with the most liberal voting record in Congress to stand up and say, "I am a proud liberal." But Obama won't do it. He says that he wants to transcend ideologies and partisanship. But he also says that the American people don't like that sort of politics. And that he is winning with this strategy.

Is it just a strategy? Who knows? But I, for one, will be very surprised if Dennis Ross returns to the Israel-Palestinian negotiations. For all I know, Ross isn't himself interested. But let's face it -- he has burned himself with his post-Camp David behavior and writing. Ross is a very proud liberal Zionist -- the last person one wants to negotiate an Israel-Palestinian deal. He was a mistake from the beginning, but the mistake got worse and worse. I have blogged here before about how the only person who could represent the Palestinian point of view at Camp David was the Arabic interpreter. Obama -- and his advisors -- are too smart, I hope, to repeat that mistake.

So does Akiva Eldar, who wrote in Haaretz a few days ago:

The change also must be seen in the makeup of the American team helping to formulate the peace agreements and in an assertive enforcement of old commitments. The recycling of advisers like Dennis Ross is more of the same. His deputy, Aaron Miller, wrote in his most recent book that Ross (recently the president of the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute) complained that the Israelis see him as the Palestinians' defense attorney. According to Miller, none of the high-ranking American officials who dealt with negotiations has been willing or able to present the Palestinian perspective, much less fight for it

So I think that Ross will have a role in the Obama administration. But if I were Obama, I wouldn't put him anywhere near Israel, or even Iran. Ross has a top-notch mind, and his grasp of details is extraordinary. How can Obama fail to be impressed with him? I sure as heck am.

But keep Ross away from Israel. We don't need any more fashlas like Camp David. And we don't need any more liberal Zionists representing the United States of America in Middle East peace talks.

And Now, Something Nice for a Change

I just received this email from a friend who is an associate of Obama. It's a small, but very powerful story, and I plan to share it with my 95-year old father, who just sent in his absentee ballot for Obama.

Please send it around. I have omitted the sender's last name for obvious reasons.

Jerry

From: Judy Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2008 6:53 AM Subject: This is a good story

Upon arriving at the Hamilton County Board of Elections in Cincinnati to vote early today I happened upon some friends of my mother's - three small, elderly Jewish women. They were quite upset as they were being refused admitance to the polling location due to their Obama T-Shirts, hats and buttons. Apparently you cannot wear Obama/McCain gear into polling locations here in Ohio .... They were practically on the verge of tears.

After a minute or two of this a huge man (6'5", 300 lbs easy) wearing a Dale Earnhardt jacket and Bengals cap left the voting line, came up to us and introduced himself as Mike. He told us he had overheard our conversation and asked if the ladies would like to borrow his jacket to put over their t-shirts so they could go in and vote. The ladies quickly agreed. As long as I live I will never forget the image of these 80-plus-year-old Jewish ladies walking into the polling location wearing a huge Dale Earnhardt racing jacket that came over their hands and down to their knees!

Mike patiently waited for each woman to cast their vote, accepted their many thanks and then got back in line (I saved him a place while he was helping out the ladies). When Mike got back in line I asked him if he was an Obama supporter. He said that he was not, but that he couldn't stand to see those ladies so upset. I thanked him for being a gentleman in a time of bitter partisanship and wished him well.

After I voted I walked out to the street to find my mother's friends surrouding our new friend Mike - they were laughing and having a great time. I joined them and soon learned that Mike had changed his mind in the polling booth and ended up voting for Obama. When I asked him why he changed his mind at the last minute, he explained that while he was waiting for his jacket he got into a conversation with one of the ladies who had explained how the Jewish community, and she, had worked side by side with the black community during the civil rights movements of the '60s, and that this vote was the culmination of those personal and community efforts so many years ago. That this election for her was more than just a vote ... but a chance at history.

Mike looked at me and said, "Obama's going to win, and I didn't want to tell my grandchildren some day that I had an opportunity to vote for the first black president, but I missed my chance at history and voted for the other guy."

The Israeli Government’s Secret War Against Barack Obama

Leave it to Barak Ravid, the Haaretz reporter whose job it is to publish anti-American gripes from unnamed Israeli government officials, to muddy the waters a week before the US elections. His latest article cites a "senior Israeli government source" who reports on leaks from "closed forums in France" in which rightwing President Nicolas Sarkozy, after meeting Obama in July (!) , criticized his position on Iran as "utterly immature." Read the gossip here.

Update: In the meantime, the French Embassy denied the report. See about it here

OK, so this is how it works. The Israeli government wants to get the word out: Obama is dangerous because he is soft on Iran. Of course, it doesn't want to go public because that would look as if it is interfering in the US elections. So it finds a friendly reporter – usually, Ravid – to publish a leak. This way of criticizing America has been going on for some time, and I have blogged about it before.

Of course, there is something truly comical in thinking that a comment by Sarkozy in a closed forum last summer (if his comments were accurately reported) will have any impact on anybody – especially since Sarkozy's disapproval rating is now 56%. But any port in a storm.

Last week the Israeli government did the same thing. Getting nervous about the Obama lead, a "senior government source" told Ravid that if Obama is elected, he will initiate direct talks with Tehran, and "a critical Israeli interest would be to condition any talks between the West and Iran on halting uranium enrichment." The timing of this announcement, two weeks before the elections, was not conincidental. It implied that Barak Obama constituted a danger to Israel, and that his election will provoke a concerted Israeli diplomatic response (as if anybody could care about that).

In one week Barack Obama, according to the polls, will be elected president by a resounding majority, and with him a Democratic congress with an even more resounding majority. True, the congress will be predictably "pro-Israel," as will be Obama, but there will be a difference.

And, as Sarkozy was heard to say in a closed forum (according to senior officials), "Vive la différence."

Gideon Levy: “No One Who Chooses to Live in Occupied Land is a Moderate.”

This is well-worth printing in full. Read it here   Yes, hate
by Gideon Levy
My settler colleague, Israel Harel, his community's champion at rolling his eyes, playing innocent and speaking with a honeyed tongue, is once again grieving and playing the victim. In a column published here last week ("Have we become Sodom?" October 23), he complained that the reason for what he termed destructive criticism of the settlers is hatred. And indeed, Mr. Harel, this time, you're right: Large segments of Israeli society do indeed hate. But this is not baseless hatred, not hatred for the sake of hatred, to use your words. It is hatred for your enterprise. You have earned this hatred honestly - the only honest thing about your enterprise. Yes, there are Israelis who do not want to see their countrymen despoiling the vineyards and burning the fields of poor farmers. Yes, there are Israelis who do not want to see troops of masked settlers beating elderly shepherds with clubs. Yes, there are Israelis who do not want to see other Israelis sicking their dogs on and puncturing the tires of the soldiers who protect them. Yes, there are Israelis who are embarrassed by the fact that tens of thousands of their fellow Israelis live on privately owned lands that were robbed, stolen and extorted, both in broad daylight and under cover of darkness. And yes, there are Israelis who think that you have brought disaster upon us, a tragedy that will last for generations. That via your actions, you have brought wars and bloodshed and the brutalization of society upon us. That if you were not there, none of us would be there any longer, in a land that is not ours. That just as we withdrew from occupied South Lebanon - solely because, fortunately, you were not there - we would also long since have been able to withdraw from the areas you have occupied. Yes, there are Israelis who hate all this.   Harel complains about the fact that Israeli society is angry at the settlers as a collective. Unfortunately, it isn't angry enough. Every class and institution of Israeli society defends the settlements, finances them from its own pockets, and is a full partner in the theft, even if some of them are disgusted by it. The collective guilt is justified: Every settler and every settlement is equal. There are no illegal outposts and legal settlements - they are all illegal, according to both international law and universal justice, which have no need of legal sophistries. There are also no moderate and extremist settlements: No one who chooses to live in occupied land is a moderate. And now for the playing innocent part: There are "some young men," Harel writes, just "a few dozen youths," who attack Arabs. Harel says that he, like most of his colleagues, "cannot understand" this. He has already told them, during a "heated discussion," that "this is not my halakha." And he goes on to say that his fists clench when he sees violence against the elderly in Haifa and Tel Aviv or gang rapes in Ramat Hasharon. But in Ramat Aviv Gimmel people do not ask what values were instilled in these youth, Harel writes; there, it is just juvenile delinquency. Yet when the same thing happens among settlers, the guilt is collective. So here is the real difference: Secular society denounces and rejects those who rob the elderly and rape young girls. The perpetrators are given a fair trial, they receive lengthy sentences, and both the media and secular society ostracize them totally. But what happens in your community? Have you ever heard, Israel, of a single settler who filed a complaint with the police against another settler over a rampage against Arabs? After all, you, too, see the rioters every day, on the road from Ofra - much of whose land, incidentally, is private land that was stolen. And what do you do when you see those rioters? Have another "heated discussion"? When we see people who assault the elderly, we call the police. Do you? And if such a thing were to happen, how would your aggressive society treat the "informers"? After all, people who have dared to voice even a hint of "moderation" in their positions - and we are not even talking about anything as drastic as a complaint to the police - have been forced to abandon the settlements where they lived for fear of vengeance. It is not the lawbreakers who are ostracized in your community, but those who try to denounce them. Look at what happened to Rabbi Yoel Bin Nun - with no ostracism and no denunciation, other than laughable lip service. Only on the day when the settlement leadership starts cooperating with the law enforcement agencies will I believe you that those "few dozen youths," who are in fact a large and violent army of thousands, are indeed loathed by you. You must admit the truth: To you, they are the pioneers who go before the camp, the ones who stand at the forefront. They are the ones who are realizing what your generation tried and failed to do in its day. In the deepest recesses of your souls, your hearts go out to them. You spoke with Benny Katzover and Elyakim Ha'etzni, and they told you that the main opposition to the olive harvest stemmed from "security worries"? Had you not stolen the harvesters' lands, there would be no security risk. And after you have taken over their lands, you dare to justify the theft of what little remains to them on the grounds of security - your security only, of course? Evidently, chutzpah also has no limits. And finally, the punch line: Harel writes that people like him will soon be hunkering down in bunkers due to the "unbridled" events in commemoration of Yitzhak Rabin's assassination. It is not the murder or the events leading up to it that were unbridled, but the commemorations? It is not we who have all been in bunkers for 40 years because of you, but you, the robbed Cossacks? That is already one sentence too many - perhaps even for your too numerous fans

 

Jews Plan to Vote for Obama in Droves

According to the latest Gallup poll, Obama is winning over the Jewish vote. The percentage of Jews planning to vote for Obama is now 74%, for McCain, only 22%. For historical comparisons, that's the percentage of Jews that voted for Kerry/Edwards. It is still lower than the percentage for Gore/Lieberman, but we have 10 days until the election. Read about it here.

All is not bright, however. It seems that Obama attracts more older Jewish voters than younger Jewish voters (67%). And 29% of the voters from 18-34 describe themselves as politically conservative, as opposed to 16-17% of Jewish voters older than that.

But – and here's the kicker – when it comes to party affiliation, there is no significant difference among age groups. Did you think that the younger generation of Jews are flocking to the Republicans? Not according to the Gallup Daily Tracking Poll. Could it be that the nasty Republican Jewish Committee ads backfired? Or is the phrase "Jewish Republican" still an oxymoron? Nah – a whopping 13-17% of American Jews are Republican.

10 Days to Go

Some medium takes at the conclusion of Shabbat. I wanted to write them yesterday, but I ran out of time.

1. Sarah Palin -- The Gift that Keeps on Giving.

A Washington Post/ABC Poll last week reported that perceptions of Sarah Palin are increasingly negative. Read about the poll here. The Post writes

Thursday evenings, after the disclosure that the Republican National Committee used political funds to help Palin assemble a wardrobe for the campaign, 51 percent said they have a negative impression of her. Fewer, 46 percent, said they have a favorable view. That marks a stark turnaround from early September, when 59 percent of likely voters held positive opinions.

The declines in Palin's ratings have been even more substantial among the very voters Republicans aimed to woo. The percentage of white women viewing her favorably dropped 21 points since early September; among independent women, it fell 24 points.

It is too early to say whether the choice of Palin won the election for Obama – I think that it will probably increase his win by a percentage point or so, but that it will not be the critical factor.

But the real question is, will Palin have any national aspirations in the future? And will her supporters continue to be enthusiastic?

My hope is that she continues to be a national player, and that she and her supporters see her as the presumptive leader of the Republicans. For then we will have a lovely culture war in the Republican party, and among the conservative movement, for some time.

2. Charles Krauthammer -- Going Down with the Ship.

As one-by-one the conservative pundits jumped the McCain-Palin sinking ship (with the notable exception of Palin admirer, William Kristol), I started to get nervous about the pundit I love to hate, Charles Krauthammer. I can't think of a writer who has been so consistently wrong over the last decade as Krauthammer. He has cheerleaded excessive militarism, war in the Middle East, Islamaphobia, anti-Europeanism, the surge in Iraq, right wing Zionism, etc., that I thought to myself, "My God, if Krauthammer defects to Obama, maybe I should consider voting for McCain." I especially got nervous when I saw him get it right for once, about Sarah Palin.

Barukh ha-Shem, Krauthammer has remained true-to-form by endorsing McCain. Read it, if you can stomach it, here. I can now sleep at night knowing that he is not supporting Obama. As prepared as I am to be disappointed by Obama, I am not prepared to vote for somebody favored by Krauthammer.

3. Leon Wieselthier's Endorsement – Better Late than Never

The Torah teaches that even if a person repents an hour before his death, his repentance is accepted. I happen to know that it took a long time for Leon Wieselthier to come around to endorse Obama. Read about it here. This delay may seem surprising, given that his boss at the New Republic, Marty Peretz, jumped on the Obama bandwagon during the Democratic primaries (more for hatred of the Clintons than love of Obama.) But Wieselthier genuinely liked McCain (so did I), and he was – and is – apprehensive about Obama's learning curve with respect to foreign policy.

What brought him to Obama? His personal impression of Obama's character. And, that, my friends, is the real story of Obama's success. He has simply impressed a lot of people with his calm, thoughtful, and unflappable presence, while McCain, especially since he has been behind in the polls, has struck many people as angry and erratic. If you are following the election from Israel, you miss this dimension.

Wieselthier is a self-described "liberal hawk". Those of us on the left wing of the Democratic party like to dis "Scoop-Jackson-Democrats," who are practical indistinguishable from neocons when it comes to foreign policy. In Israel, they are often called, "disappointed leftists." Folks like that usually start their sentences with disclaimers, "Jerry, I also believe in a two-state solution," or "Hey, I am against the Occupation." And then comes the "but" comes… "But the Palestinians are not ready," or "But we don't have a credible partner," or, in the case of the liberal hawks over here, "But Islamic fundamentalism is an existential threat," or, "But the Geneva Convention rules shouldn't apply in a War of Terror because it is a nasty world out there."

Still, I am all for building coalitions, and if a liberal hawk like Leon wants to vote for Obama over McCain, I say, God bless him.

4. "Ma'am, We're Voting for the N-gger" in Virginia

The assumption among pundits is that white racists won't vote for Obama because he is black. That may be true for some racists, but not for all. Just like anti-semites can support Jewish candidates (not to mention Jew lawyers and Jew doctors), there is nothing unusual in a racist voting for a black man, especially if they are both Democrat.

The story below, reported by Sean Quinn of FiveThirtyEight.com here, relates the experiences of a Obama campaign worker in Big Stone, Virginia:

Last week, Julie Hensley made one of her thousands of phone calls on behalf of Barack Obama. A woman answered. As Hensley ran through her short script, the husband impatiently broke in.

"Ma'am, we're voting for the n-gger." And hung up.

Hensley wasn't having it. "I went and made a couple other calls but chafed over this absurdity," she told us, "so I called them back, as I still had a couple questions for the wife." This time the man answered, asked pointedly who she was, and when she replied he hung up again.

We continue to hear stories like these in Appalachia. Big Stone Gap, where Barack Obama's southwesternmost field office in Virginia sits, gave us our latest version.

Quinn comes back to the story at the end of his report:

As for Hensley, her story ended with a twist. A couple hours later during a pause in her dials, her phone rang. She recognized the number. "This is going to be good," she remembers thinking, getting ready to scrap.

It was the husband. He was calling for the woman on whom he'd hung up. She then got something she didn't expect -- an apology. Calmly, Hensley told the man she'd accept his apology on one condition -- he had to tell her who he was voting for.

"Oh, I don't normally talk about it but I feel like I owe you," the man said. "I am voting for Senator Obama." He asked if Hensley would like to speak to his wife, as he'd interrupted the original call. Hensley mentioned that she had been surprised when he'd called to apologize. Apparently the husband and wife had been talking the entire couple hours since the original call. "Did she get upset with you?" Hensley asked.

"What do you think?" the man replied

Back from the Holidays

Some of you have noticed the dearth of Magnes Zionist posts lately. Between the Jewish holidays, the semester, and the election, and research, I haven't had much time. I hope I will be able to get back to 2-3 a week soon.

Thanks for the encouragement. It's been a long holiday season, and in the US it is over tomorrow night.

Kristol and the Shikse

After Barack Obama wins the election in two weeks (assuming that planned attempts to prevent Democrats from voting aren't successful), credit will be due several people.

But a special thanks will be due to William Kristol, who, according to a must-read article by Jane Mayer in the current New Yorker, fell under Palin's spell during a cruise to Alaska last year, and lobbied mightily for her inclusion on the McCain ticket. Let's face it: the choice of Palin will be long remembered as the single most significant move that sunk McCain's boat. Palin's total ignorance of anything outside of the state of Alaska vitiated the "national security" argument against Obama, raised serious questions about McCain's judgment, and caused the most serious defection of conservative writers from the Republic ticket in years. Just read the devastating criticisms of Palin made by Peggy Noonan, David Brooks, Chris Buckley, Matthew Dowd, George F. Will, and even Charles Krauthammer. Polls show that Palin is now a liability to the ticket. What was McCain thinking? The base Palin energized would have turned out to vote against Obama even if the Anti-Christ (or Bill Clinton) were the Republican presidential nominee.

In a recent op-ed, Kristol sneered at Peggy Noonan's remark that "the Palin candidacy is a symptom and expression of a new vulgarization in American politics." According to Kristol,

Politics in a democracy are always "vulgar" — since democracy is rule by the "vulgus," the common people, the crowd.

Excuse me, Bill? Read the Constitution lately? Since when has democracy in this country meant rule by the mob? Apparently, Kristol is not content to strike against the liberal media elites; he also doesn't like conservatives with brains.

Joe Wurzelbacher, aka Joe the Plumber…[is] the latest ordinary American to do a star turn in our vulgar democratic circus. He seems like a sensible man to me.

In the match between the intelligent conservatives listed above, and Samuel Wurzelbacher, an unlicensed plumber who owes back taxes and hasn't yet figured out that he would get a tax credit under Obama's economic plan, Kristol goes with the latter.

I wouldn't spend so much time on Kristol if I didn't think that his writing is indicative of a wider phenomenon. Call it the Jewish intellectual's "Fanfare for the Common Man." Ever since Russian intellectuals glorified the serfs as the true Russians, their Russia Jewish imitators glorified the simply laborers and farmers. Labor Zionism, of course, was built on this form of intellectual self-hate. In embracing the mythical "Joe the Plumber" Kristol shows that he stands with the redneck, the common man, the Real American. Kristol may not look like Rush Limbaugh, but the message is the same: Those guys are real.

Kristol wasn't the only conservative pundit smitten by Governor Palin. After the Weekly Standard's cruise set sail from Juneau, the National Review's cruise dropped its anchor. Rich Lowry, the editor, Jack Fowler, the publisher, Jay Nordlinger, a senior editor, the historian Victor Davis Hanson, and a bunch of others fell under Palin's spell. In the New Yorker article, several made remarks about Palin's good looks. (Has anybody heard of a female conservative pundit praise Palin's looks?)

In short, what we had here was a bunch of middle-aged white males going gah-gah for Sarah. And Kristol, apparently, fell for her the hardest:

The most ardent promoter, however, was Kristol, and his enthusiasm became the talk of Alaska's political circles. According to [Paulette] Simpson, Senator [Ted] Stevens told her that "Kristol was really pushing Palin" in Washington before McCain picked her. Indeed, as early as June 29th, two months before McCain chose her, Kristol predicted on "Fox News Sunday" that "McCain's going to put Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska, on the ticket." He described her as "fantastic," saying that she could go one-on-one against Obama in basketball, and possibly siphon off Hillary Clinton's supporters. He pointed out that she was a "mother of five" and a reformer. "Go for the gold here with Sarah Palin," he said. The moderator, Chris Wallace, finally had to ask Kristol, "Can we please get off Sarah Palin?"

Of course, the short Jew with the statuesque shikse on his arms is a familiar image: Irving Berlin had his Ellen McKay; Henry Kissinger had his Nancy Maginnes; Woody Allen had his Diane Keaton. In his fawning over Sarah Palin, Kristol has managed combine the glorification of the real American with something akin to shikse worship.

Which just goes to show you that you can take a Jew out of Russia, but you can't take Russia out of the Jew – especially a "tough Jew" like Kristol.

Why I Didn’t Sign the Jewish Studies Scholars’ Petition in Support of Obama

Recently, I was asked to sign a petition of Jewish Studies scholars supporting of Obama. Since I am a Jewish Studies scholar, since I sign petitions, and since I support Obama, I should have agreed, right? Especially when I had just co-hosted a fundraiser for Obama (featuring Michael Chabon, Nathan Englander, and Ayelet Waldman), and I had solicited and received money from the person who asked me to sign the petition.

For those of you are interested in this petition – and the signatories -- you can read about it here.

I have signed petitions in the past calling for international intervention in Israel/Palestine, for Israel to recognize its responsibility of the Nakbah, and in support of IDF refuseniks – all using my real name and academic affiliation. But, frankly, I don't think that my being a Jewish Studies professor, or my scholarly expertise, bears much on my support of Obama. I am a liberal Democrat; ergo I support Obama. Lots of folks in the Academy are liberal Democrats. My Judaism and Jewish identity is also involved – but not qua Jewish Studies professor. So I was curious to see what all this had to do with the Jewish Studies guild.

And here is the line"

As scholars of Jewish Studies, we are concerned that distortions of Senator Obama's record and biography have caused undue anxiety among American Jews about what an Obama presidency would mean for Israel and the Jewish community.

What does the reisha (beginning) have to do with the seifa (end)? I don't feel especially concerned about this matter "as a scholar of Jewish Studies." Any decent person should be concerned about distortions. But there are quite a few rightwing Jewish Studies scholars who may be unhappy about Obama for what they consider to be good reasons. And, I know that some of the signatories – Danny Boyarin, for example – will share my real concerns about President Obama's policies towards the Israelis and Palestinians. It will be harder to oppose the policies of a misguided American liberal Democratic president than a Republican one.

Look, this is not big deal, and if I weren't so busy with other matters, I would blog about something more important. If liberal Jews in my guild want to publish a petition in support of their candidate, they can go ahead and do it. But I do not see the connection between that guild and that support. And call me old fashioned, but I would prefer that the Jewish Studies business be left out. When I say on my blog that I am a Jewish Studies professor, that is for identification purposes only.

The Barak Effect. Vs. the Bradley Effect

At the moment of this writing I believe that Obama will win by a landslide four weeks from today. Anybody following developments in the last week can see that the economy has taken over the election. Despite the many advice-to-McCain columns written by scared conservative pundits (mirroring the advice-to-Obama columns written by scared liberal pundits two weeks earlier), there is little the McCain-Palin ticket can do. Don't expect major gaffes from any of the candidates. It's now October 7. The game is over.

Fair enough, you say. But "by a landslide"? Isn't that a bit silly?

Not if you take into account the Barak Effect.

No, I didn't misspell Obama's first name. I am referring to Ehud Barak, and the 1999 prime ministerial elections in Israel.

I arrived in Israel three days before that election. The polls showed Barak and Netanyahu neck-in-neck. Our cabdriver from the airport was a Moroccan Jew and a long-time Likud supporter. "So," I ventured gingerly, "it looks like it will be a close election." He paused and said, "A lot of people are going to be surprised with this election." "Why," I said, "you believe that Barak will get elected?" And he said, "A lot of Sefardim who voted for Likud all their life are going to be voting for Labor -- not because of ideology, or because they think Barak will bring peace, but because they are sick of the economy."

And he was right -- Barak won big, with a lot of Likud supporters from oriental communities voting for him. But they lied to the pollsters because their folks never voted Labor.

Now we know that a whole bunch of people lie to polls, even to exit polls. They do it for the obvious reason that they don't want their vote known. Analysts have focused on the "Bradley" effect, named for Mayor Tom Bradley, who was favored by the polls to win in an unsuccessful gubernatorial bid in 1982. Bradley was black, and there were white folks who said they voted for him when they did not, since they did not want to appear racist. But this time I think we are going to see the "Barak" effect -- people who live among McCain supporters who don't want to go public with their decision to back Obama -- not because they have turned liberal, or because they have no problem with a Black man in the White House, but because they are voting for the guy who has come to throw out the bums.

Of course, there is a big difference in the elections: Bibi was the incumbent and McCain is not. So I think Obama will win by a landslide only if Obama continues to pursuade that McCain's policies are those of Bush.

And One Sobering Thought…

Liberals should be prepared to be disappointed with Obama, if he gets elected president. I have it on the best of authority that even with a democratic majority in Congress he is going to stay centrist and even, gasp, conservative on some fiscal issues. I mean the best of authority. The ideologues think that, a la George W., he is sounding centrist now, but will turn ideologue later….Ain't gonna happen.

And let me tell you what the difference is – George W. came into town with some ideological principles and very little brain. He let ideologues, and his Vice-President, run the show. Obama is much more his own man, and he is a pragmatist. And for liberal ideologues, that is bad news.

As for Israel -- I have said time and time again that Obama's views are garden-variety American-liberal-Zionist. The tone will be better; the reality, however, will remain the same. I only hope that he and his advisors learn from the mistakes of the Clinton and Bush administrations. The so-called "Peace Process" serves the interest of the Israeli government, the PA, and nobody else. Let's hope that the message gets through to the Obama administration early in the game

Small Blessings

Round-up of the good news of the week.

1. Obama's Lead Continues to Widen. In the US, one is hard-pressed to think of a genuine left-wing national politician, with the exception of a non-politician like Ralph Nader. Liberals don't get elected president in America, or haven't for a while. Jimmy Carter may now seem like a flaming liberal, but when he was president he was considered liberal-centrist. As for Bill Clinton…well, no need to go there. Was L.B.J. the last liberal president? Do I hear Vietnam, anyone?

So when the presidential candidate with the most liberal voting record in the Senate finds himself, a month before election-day, with an average 6-7 point lead in the polls, that's got to be sweet, right?

Poor William Kristol, the pointy-headed, effete Jewish neocon who envies "real Americans" like Sarah Six-Pack-Moose-Hunter-Red-Meat-Eater-Hocky-Mom Palin. Kristol has so far written three or four columns fantasizing how McCain and Palin can still win this thing. In his latest effort, he offers up two suggestions – attack Obama-Biden on ideology and go negative on character. As for ideology,

One shouldn't underestimate the ideological issue, and the potency of the fact that Obama and Biden are orthodox liberals. They're for raising taxes, federally funding abortions, naming activist judges, and losing wars. The American people may think--they do think--the country's on the wrong track, that the Bush administration has made too many mistakes and that the Republican party's no great shakes. But they haven't suddenly become liberals. And they probably aren't crazy about the prospect of a liberal administration governing unchecked, hand in hand with a liberal Congress. During the next four weeks, the McCain-Palin campaign should make this risky prospect vivid.

Uh, excuse me, but it seems to me that McCain and Palin have been shouting from the rooftops that Obama and Biden are "orthodox liberals," and that the "tax-and-spend-wave-the-white-flag" charge has failed abysmally in this election. So why does Kristol think that this strategy will suddenly work? Because he simply can't believe that real Americans are liberals. He's right; they aren't. They aren't conservatives, either. Americans didn't elect George W. because they were conservative, and they won't elect Obama because they have turned liberal. The fact is that most people are not Kristol-style ideologues. Sure, there are a bunch of those on both sides, but you can't get elected only with them. Folks believe that the country is in a mess, and that the Republicans are mostly responsible. They are willing to give the other side the chance to do better. That's what this election is about.

As for the attacks on character, that's hilarious, or should I say, Hillary-esque. Kristol writes:

Character is a legitimate issue. Obama hasn't shown much in the way of leadership or political courage, and he's consorted with dubious figures. It's fair to ask whether Barack Obama is personally trustworthy enough to be president, and the McCain campaign shouldn't be intimidated from going there.

Do I hear Mark Penn? Reprising Ayers, Wright and Co. will work for the McCain Republicans even less than it worked for Hillary Democrats. Man, that is totally old news! If the Republicans have a really good new scandal, that may be different. (Have you heard that Obama and Bin Laden have been spotted together on the same planet?)

Look, the campaign is far from over. But neither is the bad news about the economy. Where I think the Obama campaign has to hit back is over the stupid McCain-Palin claim that victory is in sight in Iraq. Sure, the levels of casualties are down; massive troop deployment does that. But as Peter Galbraith writes in the latest issue of the New York Review of Books,

Less violence, however, is not the same thing as success. The United States did not go to war in Iraq for the purpose of ending violence between contending sectarian forces. Success has to be measured against US objectives. John McCain proclaims his goal to be victory and says we are now winning in Iraq (a victory that will, of course, be lost if his allegedly pro-surrender opponent wins). He considers victory to be an Iraq that is "a democratic ally." George W. Bush has defined victory as a unified, democratic, and stable Iraq. Neither man has explained how he will transform Iraq's ruling theocrats into democrats, diminish Iran's vast influence in Baghdad, or reconcile Kurds and Sunnis to Iraq's new order. Remarkably, neither the Democrats nor the press has challenged them to do so.

(Galbraith's piece is a must-read for those who claim that the surge is working.)

2. New York Sun goes belly up. One of the nastier rightwing Jewish news rags, the New York Sun, folded last week. Barukh Dayyan Emes. Just more proof that God's special providence is at work. Read about it here.

3. Eckstein soaks the rightwing goyim for $824,000 a year. Haaretz reported that Rabbi Yehiel Eckstein, President of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, received an annual salary of $824,000 last year. Ah, plus ça change…another clever Jew knows how to make money off of the goyim. Can't wait till it hits the blogs and general media.

May We All Have a Good Year

Before I say "Happy New Year" and "May You be Inscribed in the Book of Life for the Coming Year", I would like to make confession of a few of my blogging sins.

So here goes…

For the sin of promising posts on topics and not following through….

For the sin of dissing my critics in the posts (I cut myself a little more slack in the Comments section – sorry I am not on a higher madregah/level yet)…

For the sin of making stupid editorial errors….

For the sin of using inflammatory and provocative language when I don't need to (but, ribono shel olam, these things really hurt me )….

For the sin of not reading my fellow-traveler bloggers enough so that I end up unwittingly repeating what they write…

For the sin of repeating myself ad nauseum….

For the sin of repeating myself ad nauseum….

For the sin of too frequent posting and not frequent enough posting….

For the sin of boring posts….

For all these sins, and many more, Dear Reader, forgive me, pardon me, and atone for me.

And now on a more serious note….

The greatest sin that we as Israeli Jews have committed, and continue to commit is depriving our Palestinian brethren of their dignity, their freedom, their human rights, and their rights to national self-expression.

But another great sin – one obviously connected to the first – is our trespassing against them in the most literal sense of "encroaching on their boundaries" (hasagat gvul, in Hebrew).

We continue to steal their land by moving our markers onto it and claiming it as ours.

After the holiday, God willing, and bli neder/without making a vow, I plan to write a post about the sin of trespassing – arguably one of the most serious sins we transgress. What is the Jewish understanding of "trespassing?" What do the sources say? And how can we read those sources so that we, as human beings, and as Israeli Jews, take the words of our tradition to heart – and extend them to include our non-Jewish brothers and sisters in the basic mitzvot of all humanity?

Well, there I go again…promising posts….

I will try to keep this one.

"Happy New Year" and "May You be Inscribed in the Book of Life for the Coming Year"

The Attempted Assassination of Professor Sternhell – So Why am I Not Surprised?

The pipe-bomb that was set to kill Prof. Zeev Sternhell, Israel prize winner and authority on fascism in Europe and in Israel, was most likely set by a rightwing terrorist. That is simply because in Israel there are no leftwing terrorists. Not only does all the Jewish terrorism come from the right, so too all the hate mail, the threatening letters, the physical violence. When was the last time one of the Hebron settlers was awaken in the middle of the night by an angry leftwinger? When was the last time a rightwinger was struck or harrassed by a leftwinger?

Of course, not all rightwingers advocate violence against Jews or support terrorism. But all the Jewish terrorists come from the right side of the political spectrum.

Why is that?

Well, rightwingers will say that the leftwing does not have to engage in violence or terrorism; they support the Palestinians who do. This, of course, is a Big Lie. When the leftwingers – strictly speaking, the human rights activists, since there are very few leftwing Marxists around – condemn violations of human rights on both sides, the rightwingers reply that wittingly or unwittingly their protests encourage Arab terrorism.

Since not a single Arab terrorist has ever said that he was motivated to perpetuate acts of terror because of the incitement of leftwing Israelis and human right activists, we can only say that the claim that the leftwing plays into the hands of the terrorist is – at best – wishful thinking on the part of the right. Something to try to level a very slanted playing field.

Now, that is not to say that there are not leftwing Israelis who offer varying degrees of support to Palestinian resistance. And there are certainly people on the left (though not a whole lot – Fanon and Hondereich come to mind) who justify acts of violence against civilians by a dispossed, occupied, colonized people.

But all this is irrelevant to the point on hand, which is why actual acts of terrorism, not to mention harrassment, threatening letters, eggs thrown, etc., is virtually the exclusive territory of the rightwingers.

I think there are a few reasons for that well-known phenomenon, some obvious, some not so.

For one thing, many rightwingers are ultra-nationalists who celebrate Jewish power and the tough guy image, a la Maccabees, Betar, Kahane, etc. For them, violence and zealotry are mitzvot (see under Shimon and Levi). Anybody who doesn't agree with them, who doesn't buy into their idea of what is good for the tribe, is a traitor, a moyser/malshin/informant, a malshin, blah-blah-blah. And of course, according to Jewish law, it is a mitzvah to kill informants, to lynch them without any judicial procedure. So that takes care of one group of rightwingers.

A more interesting group – generally orthodox rabbis – feel that while, theoretically, folks like Peace Now, Breaking the Silence, Yesh Din, etc., may deserve death, it would be imprudent and impractical to take the law in one's own hand. These are the folks who called Rabin a moyser before he died, and then professed shock and dismay when somebody took them literally. Some of them are more explicit than others, and some of them are profoundly sincere in their expressions of dismay.

The attempted assasination of Zev Sternhell is the latest in a string of attacks by rightwing elements against the left, ranging from personal harrassment (obscene phone calls, vicious talkbalks) to organizational harrassment (the Hebron settler thugs who harrass the tours of Breaking the Silence), to threats and physical attacks.

But your garden-variety ultra-nationalist celebration of power, typical of fascist movements, combined with the few scattered Jewish motifs in this direction, explains only some of the phenomenon.

For when you get down to it, the rightwing in Israel is not exactly a threatened minority; on the contrary, it ahs the upper hand. The settlers were moved from Gaza, but that was in order for Israel tighten its grip on the West Bank, or so thought Ariel Sharon. The settlements thrive; the outposts multiply; barukh ha-shem, things are going well, the settler leaders say. So why now, all of a sudden, do presumably rightwing terrorists try to blow up a professor who said – over five years ago -- that the Palestinians were unwise to attack over the Green Line?

I think the answer is twofold: a) the settler-extremists feel threatened by the negative media exposure and the minor judicial setbacks they have received; and b) they feel that their greater aspirations have been slown down by the exposure. While they really have no reason to feel threatened – the government will never move them – the settlers and their supporters don't like negative press, and certainly don't like criticism. Rabbi Israel Rosen, a prominent leader of the settlers, already said that Peace Now's Settlement Watch are made up of moyserim. So even though Peace Now's Settlement Watch is almost entirely ineffectual, and the settlers know that, the extremists feel…offended by it. And they are used to getting their way.

Similarly in Hebron. The settlers don't understand why the State allows a leftwing group like Breaking the Silence anywhere near Hebron – I mean, shouldn't the settlers call the shots? So their verbal and physical harrassment of the group is not so much because they feel genuinely threatened, as because they feel offended. If anything has been threatened, it is their masculinity.

When you are used to getting your own way, even minor things seem to be threats.

After all, the groups that lash out against the left are almost always pampered by the government. So for them, losing even minor publicity or legal battles is a terrible blow to their ego.

Kinda like the bully Biff in the Back to the Future movies. He may terrorize the school, but he is sensitive to even the slightest challenge to his authority.

As for the pious exclamations of the Defense Minister Ehud Barak that such things will not be tolerated – the best take on this is by Breaking the Silence's Mikhael Manekin, writing in Ynet here.

To save you from double-clicking, you can read it below.

Barak, just do your job

Barak knows far-right violence isn't new; he just needs to do something about it
Michael Manekin

To the honorable Defense Minister, Ehud Barak:

I was surprised to hear your response to the pipe bomb placed outside the home of Professor Ze'ev Sternhell. You said you would not allow any element within Israeli society to harass people who express their opinions.

Your position is clear, and I assume that most members of Israeli society, both on the Right and Left, would agree with you. Yet in your capacity as defense minister, who has been serving for two years now, you are not merely another concerned citizen. The incident that took place is under your direct responsibility; and it is most certainly not a unique or new act.

As defense minister, you're not supposed to be surprised. The organization I'm active in, Breaking the Silence, has been holding tours in Hebron for years, and we have been harassed by settlers for a long time now.

Hebron, as you know, is the lab where far rightists test the limits of the Israeli government's tolerance. The Jewish terrorism originating in the town, terror that is directed mostly at Palestinians, is known to all. We too, Israelis calling for the law to be enforced, have suffered the abuse of this group. The hurling of eggs and stones, shouts, swearwords, threats, and even physical violence have become a part of our tour routine. The police do not arrest the rioters. It is easier for them to remove us from town.

Recently the police canceled yet another planned tour. The reason: Police officials claim that they are concerned for our safety and fear that radical settlers are coming to the city from all across the territories. The police fear these settlers because they do not have the tools to deal with them. You, Mr. Barak, are not providing them with those tools.

Hebron is not the only focal point, as you know. In the past year we have witnessed many incidents in the south Mount Hebron area, in the Yitzhar region, and elsewhere. Violence is no longer directed only at Palestinians, or even leftists, but rather, also at soldiers and police officers.

In recent weeks we saw soldiers and a military outpost being attacked. Soldiers and police officers are scared to approach some Jewish communities. All the talk about the deterioration of the rule of law in the territories has become banal.

 "We won't let any element within Israeli society to harass others," you say resolutely, Defense Minister Barak. Yet you've let those things happen from your first day on the job. Instead of making declarations, you should face the public and say: "On this front, I failed."

Yet more importantly, you must act. After all, any Israeli who has been following the events of the recent year knows that the deterioration has merely started. The explosive device directed at Professor Sternhell is not a new incident; it's merely closer to your home.

No need to be shocked; just do your job.

Michael Mankin is a Breaking the Silence activist

They Let Babies Die, Don't They?

Naheel Abu Rideh, 21

Philosophers will argue whether there is a significant ethical difference between killing and letting die. Apparently, there is a significant difference for Israelis between killing a Jewish baby and letting a Palestinian baby die. The penalty for the former is life imprisonment (if the killer manages to get a trial) and blowing up the home of the family. The penalty for the latter is a two week prison sentence.

That's the way it is in Sodom -- I mean, the West Bank -- today.

B'Tselem is reporting that yet another Palestinian baby was born dead at a checkpoint because the mother was not allowed to go through by the soldiers. I have lost count of the dead babies; you can find the number somewhere on the B'Tselem website here.

I remember when this sort of thing was big news. Now, it doesn't even make the Israeli papers. I reproduce here the testimony of the mother, Naheel Abu Rideh, from the B'Tselem website.

I married Muaiad Abu-Rideh two years ago, and had a baby girl, Shadah, a year ago. She was born in my seventh month of pregnancy but is fine now.

Seven months ago, I became pregnant again. Last Thursday [4 September], I had sharp stomach pains and I started to bleed badly. Around 7:00 P.M. I went to Dr. Fathi ‘Odeh in Jawarish, because our village doesn’t have any specialist physicians. He gave me medication and told me I’d be all right, but I didn't feel any improvement and the pains even got worse.

Around midnight, I couldn’t bear the pain any more. I woke my husband and asked him to take me to the hospital. When he saw how much I was suffering, he called to get his brother ‘Udai, who lives in the center of the village, to drive us in his car. ‘Udai arrived, with my mother-in-law, in a couple of minutes. My husband picked me up and carried me to the car. I was in so much pain, I couldn’t walk.

We started on our way to the hospital in Nablus at about 12:50 A.M. At the Za’tara checkpoint, we told the soldiers I was pregnant and had to get to the hospital, and they let us cross without a problem. When we got to the Huwara checkpoint, the soldiers didn’t let us pass. They said we didn't have a permit to cross by car. We told them my brother has a permit to cross the Ma’ale Efraim checkpoint because he works at settlements in the Jordan Valley, but that didn’t help.

The pain got worse. I felt as if I was going to give birth any moment. Now and then, the soldiers came over to the car and looked at me lying in the back seat. I was really worried about the fetus, and couldn’t stop thinking that I’d have to give birth in the car while the soldiers watched.

I kept screaming and crying and calling for help. I don’t know how much time passed, but suddenly I felt the fetus coming out. I shouted to my mother-in-law and to ‘UdaI, who were outside the car: “I think he’s coming out!” I took off my clothes. I was afraid they’d see me naked and that something would happen to the fetus. My mother-in-law shouted: “Yes, here’s his head, he’s coming out.” I asked her to pull him, and she said, “Breathe! Push!” I felt as the baby move, as if he was calling for help and asking us to help him come out. My mother-in-law covered me with my clothes. I shouted to my husband, ”The baby is out!” He shouted to the soldiers something in Hebrew that I didn't understand.

I don’t remember exactly what happened then, but when the medics arrived, they picked me up with the car seat and put me in the ambulance. I didn’t feel the baby moving any more and realized he was dead. The medics took away the dead baby and took me to the hospital. My husband and mother-in-law came with me in the ambulance. At the hospital, the doctors operated on me to clean my uterus. They discharged me the next day.

It hurts me a lot when I remember how the baby moved inside me and what happened to him. What did he do wrong? I also gave birth to my daughter in my seventh month, and now she is healthy. This poor baby died because there wasn’t anybody to help me deliver him.

Naheel 'Awni 'Abd a-Rahim Abu Rideh, 21, married with one child, is a homemaker and a resident of Qusra in Nablus District. Her testimony was given to Salma a-Deba'i on 8 September 2008 at the witness's home.

A Note on Neturei Karta and Secular Jews at Demonstrations

Several readers have pointed out to me that the ultraorthodox, anti-Zionist Neturei Karta have taken part in demonstrations with non-orthodox Jews. That is apparently true in the US, but, as far as I know, and as far as I can tell from the Neturei Karta US website, I don't believe that this has been true in Israel/Palestine -- until the Ni'alin protest yesterday. Thus, it is a significant event. The protests against the Wall have been going on for months, but this was the first time Neturei Karta joined in.

From the Ynet story, it appears that the Palestinian villagers invited the Neturei Karta; there is no mention of coordination or cooperation between the foreign human rights activists, the Anarchists Against the Wall, and Neturei Karta. I am trying to ascertain whether such coordination or cooperation exist, or whether the groups just showed up at the same demonstration.

It has been very important for the Israeli protesters, including Yonatan Pollak's group, Anarchists Against the Wall, to let the Palestinians run the protests, and invite who they wish to invite. These are Palestinian protests in which Israelis and foreign nationals play a part.

Still, it would be an interesting development to see if there are prospects for cocrdination or cooperation between Neturei Karta and the Anarchists.

Strange bedfellows?

Men in Black -- Welcome to Ni'alin!

YNET is reporting that, for the first time, a group of the ultraorthodox, anti-Zionist Neturei Karta, joined Palestinian and Jewish protestors at Ni'alin. Read about it here.

Welcome! Every little bit helps!

Of course, cynics will say that this is just a ploy to advance an anti-Zionist agenda and that ultraorthodox Jews are not known as champions of human rights. Well, there's truth in that. But the anti-Zionist ultraorthodox have often used arguments that speak of justice and peace with the Palestininians -- if not always for love of Jacob, then for hatred of Esau, i.e., the Zionists. And the respect has been reciprocated.

What is new, as far as I know, is that the Neturei Karta have generally avoided participating in demonstrations organized by secular leftists. Of course, here they were invited by the Palestinians. But I certainly wish I had been in Ni'alin to stand shoulder to shoulder with the men in black!

Soldiers fired tear-gas and rubber bullets, no stink bombs.Seven protestors were arrested

In a related story, Neturei Karta have criticized the IDF for conducting ethnic cleansing in Gaza. According to YNET's Neta Sela,Neturei Karta, "Anti-Zionist Orthodox faction denounces military operations in Strip as 'ferocious, bloodthirsty acts of ethnic cleansing', say they fail to understand why world powers 'allow Zionists to commit such crimes against Palestinians'" This is printed on the web in a box with the heading "Propaganda". Good to know that there is an independent press in Israel.

Sarah Palin and the "Experience" Issue

Leave it to David Brooks, the only conservative commentator worth reading, to lambast his fellow conservatives for jumping on the Palin bandwageon, and betraying thereby classic conservative principles. I know it is lazy for me to reproduce this post, but I thought it so timely and well-written that it bears reproducing

Brooks's piece is about the sort of "experience" needed to be a President, and which Palin clearly lacks. What Brooks doesn't explicitly say, but what he clearly implies, is that the issue is not one of job experience, or even administrative experience. Palin's defenders like to say that as mayor and and as governor, Palin has had more administrative experience than Obama. That's true, but that's not the point. In order to be a good president, one needs intellectual virtues of wisdom and prudence, and those virtues require experience of a certain sort, one born of knowledge and intellectual acumen. And from what we have seen and heard of Palin, she simply lacks these. So, by the way, did George W. Bush, especially during his first term.

Of course, if a liberal college professor says something like that, she is condemned for being elitist and out-of-touch with hockey-and-moose-burger America. There is a strange idea in this country that any average Joe should be able to come to Washington and be president. That is a very dangerous idea. Democracy means allowing the people to vote for somebody who is qualified to lead the country. It doesn't mean dumbing down the qualifications.

Brooks has to put in the obligatory rider at the end of his article dissociating his critique from the liberal condescension and smugness about Palin. But he is no less elitist than they are.

Here is Brooks's piece:

Why Experience Matters

By DAVID BROOKS

Philosophical debates arise at the oddest times, and in the heat of this election season, one is now rising in Republican ranks. The narrow question is this: Is Sarah Palin qualified to be vice president? Most conservatives say yes, on the grounds that something that feels so good could not possibly be wrong. But a few commentators, like George Will, Charles Krauthammer, David Frum and Ross Douthat demur, suggesting in different ways that she is unready.

The issue starts with an evaluation of Palin, but does not end there. This argument also is over what qualities the country needs in a leader and what are the ultimate sources of wisdom.

There was a time when conservatives did not argue about this. Conservatism was once a frankly elitist movement. Conservatives stood against radical egalitarianism and the destruction of rigorous standards. They stood up for classical education, hard-earned knowledge, experience and prudence. Wisdom was acquired through immersion in the best that has been thought and said.

But, especially in America, there has always been a separate, populist, strain. For those in this school, book knowledge is suspect but practical knowledge is respected. The city is corrupting and the universities are kindergartens for overeducated fools.

The elitists favor sophistication, but the common-sense folk favor simplicity. The elitists favor deliberation, but the populists favor instinct.

This populist tendency produced the term-limits movement based on the belief that time in government destroys character but contact with grass-roots America gives one grounding in real life. And now it has produced Sarah Palin.

Palin is the ultimate small-town renegade rising from the frontier to do battle with the corrupt establishment. Her followers take pride in the way she has aroused fear, hatred and panic in the minds of the liberal elite. The feminists declare that she’s not a real woman because she doesn’t hew to their rigid categories. People who’ve never been in a Wal-Mart think she is parochial because she has never summered in Tuscany.

Look at the condescension and snobbery oozing from elite quarters, her backers say. Look at the endless string of vicious, one-sided attacks in the news media. This is what elites produce. This is why regular people need to take control.

And there’s a serious argument here. In the current Weekly Standard, Steven Hayward argues that the nation’s founders wanted uncertified citizens to hold the highest offices in the land. They did not believe in a separate class of professional executives. They wanted rough and rooted people like Palin.

I would have more sympathy for this view if I hadn’t just lived through the last eight years. For if the Bush administration was anything, it was the anti-establishment attitude put into executive practice.

And the problem with this attitude is that, especially in his first term, it made Bush inept at governance. It turns out that governance, the creation and execution of policy, is hard. It requires acquired skills. Most of all, it requires prudence.

What is prudence? It is the ability to grasp the unique pattern of a specific situation. It is the ability to absorb the vast flow of information and still discern the essential current of events — the things that go together and the things that will never go together. It is the ability to engage in complex deliberations and feel which arguments have the most weight.

How is prudence acquired? Through experience. The prudent leader possesses a repertoire of events, through personal involvement or the study of history, and can apply those models to current circumstances to judge what is important and what is not, who can be persuaded and who can’t, what has worked and what hasn’t.

Experienced leaders can certainly blunder if their minds have rigidified (see: Rumsfeld, Donald), but the records of leaders without long experience and prudence is not good. As George Will pointed out, the founders used the word “experience” 91 times in the Federalist Papers. Democracy is not average people selecting average leaders. It is average people with the wisdom to select the best prepared.

Sarah Palin has many virtues. If you wanted someone to destroy a corrupt establishment, she’d be your woman. But the constructive act of governance is another matter. She has not been engaged in national issues, does not have a repertoire of historic patterns and, like President Bush, she seems to compensate for her lack of experience with brashness and excessive decisiveness.

The idea that “the people” will take on and destroy “the establishment” is a utopian fantasy that corrupted the left before it corrupted the right. Surely the response to the current crisis of authority is not to throw away standards of experience and prudence, but to select leaders who have those qualities but not the smug condescension that has so marked the reaction to the Palin nomination in the first place.

Sex Ed, Lies, and the McCain Campaign

I never had much reason to dislike John McCain; on the contrary, his character seemed admirable in many respects (especially in comparison to the current president).

But the Obama sex-ed ad that he approved is pure slime. Through its lies and innuendoes, the McCain campaign has done something I didn't think possible; it has sunk lower than Karl Rove.

I don't really want to talk about the ad itself. What is more interesting to me is that the conservatives who are defending the ad – such as the National Review's Jim Garaghty -- do so in violation of their own conservative principles. Garaghty picks up the bill and interprets it in such a way as to make the McCain campaign's reading plausible. In other words, he interprets the text to suit his purpose.

What's wrong with that? Well, conservatives tell us that we are not supposed to do that when we look interpret a law. What we are supposed to do is try to determine the original intent of the legislators by appealing to the circumstances of the legislation, and what the framers intended. And when you do that, it is simply outrageous to suggest that any of the legislators intended to teach about sexually transmitted diseases to kindergarten, where there is not a scrap of evidence to suggest that this was their intent, and the law itself speaks about "age and developmental appropriateness".

A bill can be worded poorly, and those who support the bill on the floor of a legislature (but not those who support it in committee) bear responsibility for that. But given the circumstances of the bill, it is most reasonable to interpret it as saying that wherever there is a comprehensive sex ed program, attention must be paid to the question of sexually-transmitted diseases. It does not mandate teaching sex ed to anybody grade, much less kindergarten. "K-12" is mentioned as a synonym of "any grade" or "without exception".

But conservatives like Garaghty apparently like to play fast and loose with principle.

Bill Buckley would have wept.

Sarah Palin – Hamas With Lipstick?

God bless Juan Cole, who pointed out the similarities between Sarah Palin and Islamic fundamentalists when it comes to their religious views. I may add, to Jewish fundamentalists as well. There is very little difference between fundamentalists of the three religions, and I should know, since I am a moderate fundamentalist, myself.

John McCain never had my vote, but he did have my respect , until this week, when he lost it. The repackaging of John McCain as the agent of change in Washington, the outsider who will take on the special interests, would be amusing if more people could see it for what it is: a Big Lie that is intended to pull the wool over the electorate's eye. Will McCain change the policies of the last eight years? Will McCain changes his own policies? He has already said that he won't. The issue is not whether he will take on Republicans; the issue is whether he will take on the Republican philosophy and ideology that has failed.

The power of teshuvah is great – provided that one recognizes one's sin, makes public confession, and resolves not to do it again. Instead, McCain is throwing dust in the electorate's eyes by talking "change" but meaning something else. And so far, enough of the American public is buying it.

Anyway, here is Juan Cole's post from Salon

Sept. 9, 2008 | John McCain announced that he was running for president to confront the "transcendent challenge" of the 21st century, "radical Islamic extremism," contrasting it with "stability, tolerance and democracy." But the values of his handpicked running mate, Sarah Palin, more resemble those of Muslim fundamentalists than they do those of the Founding Fathers. On censorship, the teaching of creationism in schools, reproductive rights, attributing government policy to God's will and climate change, Palin agrees with Hamas and Saudi Arabia rather than supporting tolerance and democratic precepts. What is the difference between Palin and a Muslim fundamentalist? Lipstick.

McCain pledged to work for peace based on "the transformative ideals on which we were founded." Tolerance and democracy require freedom of speech and the press, but while mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, Palin inquired of the local librarian how to go about banning books that some of her constituents thought contained inappropriate language. She tried to fire the librarian for defying her. Book banning is common to fundamentalisms around the world, and the mind-set Palin displayed did not differ from that of the Hamas minister of education in the Palestinian government who banned a book of Palestinian folk tales for its sexually explicit language. In contrast, Thomas Jefferson wrote, "Our liberty cannot be guarded but by the freedom of the press, nor that be limited without danger of losing it."

Palin argued when running for governor that creationism should be taught in public schools, at taxpayers' expense, alongside real science. Antipathy to Darwin for providing an alternative to the creation stories of the Bible and the Quran has also become a feature of Muslim fundamentalism. Saudi Arabia prohibits the study, even in universities, of evolution, Freud and Marx. Malaysia has banned a translation of "The Origin of the Species." Likewise, fundamentalists in Turkey have pressured the government to teach creationism in the public schools. McCain has praised Turkey as an anchor of democracy in the region, but Turkey's secular traditions are under severe pressure from fundamentalists in that country. McCain does them no favors by choosing a running mate who wishes to destroy the First Amendment's establishment clause, which forbids the state to give official support to any particular theology. Turkish religious activists would thereby be enabled to cite an American precedent for their own quest to put religion back at the center of Ankara's public and foreign policies.

The GOP vice-presidential pick holds that abortion should be illegal, even in cases of rape, incest or severe birth defects, making an exception only if the life of the mother is in danger. She calls abortion an "atrocity" and pledges to reshape the judiciary to fight it. Ironically, Palin's views on the matter are to the right of those in the Muslim country of Tunisia, which allows abortion in the first trimester for a wide range of reasons. Classical Muslim jurisprudents differed among one another on the issue of abortion, but many permitted it before the "quickening" of the fetus, i.e. until the end of the fourth month. Contemporary Muslim fundamentalists, however, generally oppose abortion.

Palin's stance is even stricter than that of the Parliament of the Islamic Republic of Iran. In 2005, the legislature in Tehran attempted to amend the country's antiabortion statute to permit an abortion up to four months in case of a birth defect. The conservative clerical Guardianship Council, which functions as a sort of theocratic senate, however, rejected the change. Iran's law on abortion is therefore virtually identical to the one that Palin would like to see imposed on American women, and the rationale in both cases is the same, a literalist religious impulse that resists any compromise with the realities of biology and of women's lives. Saudi Arabia's restrictive law on abortion likewise disallows it in the case or rape or incest, or of fetal impairment, which is also Gov. Palin's position.

Theocrats confuse God's will with their own mortal policies. Just as Muslim fundamentalists believe that God has given them the vast oil and gas resources in their regions, so Palin asks church workers in Alaska to pray for a $30 billion pipeline in the state because "God's will has to get done." Likewise, Palin maintained that her task as governor would be impeded "if the people of Alaska's heart isn't right with God." Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei of Iran expresses much the same sentiment when he says "the only way to attain prosperity and progress is to rely on Islam."

Not only does Palin not believe global warming is "man-made," she favors massive new drilling to spew more carbon into the atmosphere. Both as a fatalist who has surrendered to God's inscrutable will and as a politician from an oil-rich region, she thereby echoes Saudi Arabia. Riyadh has been found to have exercised inappropriate influence in watering down a report in 2007 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Neither Christians nor Muslims necessarily share the beliefs detailed above. Many believers in both traditions uphold freedom of speech and the press. Indeed, in a recent poll, over 90 percent of Egyptians and Iranians said that they would build freedom of expression into any constitution they designed. Many believers find ways of reconciling the scientific theory of evolution with faith in God, not finding it necessary to believe that the world was created suddenly only 6,000 ago. Some medieval Muslim thinkers asserted that the world had existed from eternity, and others spoke of cycles of hundreds of thousands or millions of years. Mystical Muslim poets spoke of humankind traversing the stages of mineral, plant and animal. Modern Islamic fundamentalists have attempted to narrow this great, diverse tradition.

The classical Islamic legal tradition generally permitted, while frowning on, contraception and abortion, and complete opposition to them is mostly a feature of modern fundamentalist thinking. Many believers in both Islam and Christianity would see it as hubris to tie God to specific government policies or to a particular political party. As for global warming, green theology, in which Christians and Muslims appeal to Scripture in fighting global warming, is an increasing tendency in both traditions.

Palin has a right to her religious beliefs, as do fundamentalist Muslims who agree with her on so many issues of social policy. None of them has a right, however, to impose their beliefs on others by capturing and deploying the executive power of the state. The most noxious belief that Palin shares with Muslim fundamentalists is her conviction that faith is not a private affair of individuals but rather a moral imperative that believers should import into statecraft wherever they have the opportunity to do so. That is the point of her pledge to shape the judiciary. Such a theocratic impulse is incompatible with the Founding Fathers' commitment to tolerance and democracy, which is why they forbade the government to "establish" or officially support any particular religion or denomination.

McCain once excoriated the Rev. Jerry Falwell and his ilk as "agents of intolerance." That he took such a position gave his opposition to similar intolerance in Islam credibility. In light of his more recent disgraceful kowtowing to the Christian right, McCain's animus against fundamentalist Muslims no longer looks consistent. It looks bigoted and invidious. You can't say you are waging a war on religious extremism if you are trying to put a religious extremist a heartbeat away from the presidency.

Castrating the Israeli Supreme Court

How many times have you heard this line: Look, I admit that there are problems with Israeli democracy, e.g., its treatment of its Arab citizens, and the Occupation. But the country is still at war with the Arabs, and in time, things will improve. After all, once the Arab citizens were under a military government. Now, at least de jure, they are equal citizens. Any restriction of civil liberties are temporary measures. As for the Occupation, when peace comes, it will cease to exist. And in the meantime, the Israeli judiciary is there to protect civil liberties.

That sentiment, of course, forms an essential part of the faith of the Zionist liberal. For thirty years, I never questioned it.

But what if the reverse is true -- what if there is a slow deterioration of civil liberties and the rule of law, both within Israel proper and in the Occupied Territories? And what if these civil liberties are being curtailed, not during a period of relative stress, but during a period of relative calm, like the present?

What does the Zionist liberal then say about the prospects for Israel's future?

On Sunday, the Israeli government approved Justice Minister Daniel Friemann's proposal to amend the Basic Law on the Judiciary in order to curtail the Supreme Court's power. Read about it here. Specifically, the Supreme Court would not be able to strike down any law that does not violate two Basic Laws (human dignity and freedom, and freedom of occupation) and when those two laws are violated, the court's decision could be overridden by a simple majority in Knesset. For example, if a majority of Knesset members voted on legislation banning Arabs from public beaches in Israel, the court could strike that law down -- only to see it overrruled by a simple majority of the Knesset. And if the Knesset passed a law barring Palestinians from seeking monetary compensation for damages done by the IDF, the High Court could not even intervene, as it does now.

In other words, the Israel government's decision, if it becomes law, will castrate the Israeli judiciary system and remove the only bulwark of civil and human rights in Israel.

Note that this decision was made at the calmest time in Israel in recent memory. The Second Intifada is dead, and no rocket falls on Sederot. By this decision the Israeli government says that in order to survive as a Jewish state, it cannot be a real democracy, but rather a banana republic, where the judiciary has little teeth and no independence.

Of course, Daniel Friedmann also wants to politicize the process of the selection of judges. He hasn't been able to do that yet, but he will. The independent judiciary that Alan Dershowitz praised so highly in his Case for Israel (and with little justification, as Norman Finkelstein pointed out) will be a thing of the past.

I don't believe in historical inevitability. But we are witnessing the continuing evolution of Israel away from whatever democratic roots it had, and, in my view, the seeds of this evolution are right there in the state founded in 1948. Note that this decision was not made by a rightwing government, but by a centrist government.

And that is the silver lining. For in decisions like these Israel unmasks itself. It cannot appear as a virtual democracy, with a court upholding the virtual rights of West Bank Palestinians, a court that always opts for the security of the occupier over that of the occupied. Better that the sham so admired by Dershowitz, and so trumpeted by the Israeli foreign ministry, be exposed for what it really is.

Yet for those, like the present writer, who care about Israel and who still find it painful when the truth of Zionism is exposed, the government's decision hurts.

Illusions die hard.

Sarah Palin and the Hypocrisy of the Republican Social Conservatives

Richard Silverstein gets it right (as usual) when he writes that the issue of Bristol Palin's pregnancy is a personal one and not politically relevant. But he also adds that Palin's cavalier dismissal of it is jarring, given her religious values. Is premarital sex right or wrong? It is wrong, according to the religious conservatives, and so it has to be condemned. You don't have to throw stones, but you have to get across the message that it is unacceptable, that such behavior is inexcusable.

Instead, what we hear from the Palin apologists is that "all families have problems," and that Americans can relate to Sarah Palin's problems.

Well, guess what, Palinites: most American families – certainly most religiously conservative American families – don't have pregnant daughters, or sons who have fathered children out of wedlock. To condemn the phenomenon in others, while excusing it in yourself, or in somebody you support politically, is hypocritical. I have yet to hear a single Palin supporter say that what Bristol Palin did was wrong. They are quick to forgive because they are on this particular's hockey mom's team.

So should it surprise anybody that Palin's boy friend – the "presumptive fiance," (are they engaged?) -- is right out there in front waving to the crowd and greeting John McCain. Even the teenage father from the movie Juno acted with greater tact.

Look, not everybody has to be a social conservative, but if you are, then at least practice what you preach. The fact that mainstream orthodox Jews, including haredi Jews, are supporting Palin without a murmer about her daughter's pritzus (loose behavior) shows their deep hypocrisy (or religious bigotry, if they think that this is what goyim do)

And, while we are on the subject, I must say that I was heartened by the consistency of conservative radio-show host, Dr. Laura Schlessinger, who expressed her "extreme disappointment" in the choice of Palin as the VP. Why? Because, as a mother of small children, Palin should be home with the kids, or if she has to work, she should pick a job which allows her maximum time with the kids. This is especially true when one of the children has Down syndrome, and the other one is pregnant. Is that sexist? You bet! But sexism is part of the social conservative gig, is it not? As Schlessinger says,

I'm stunned - couldn't the Republican Party find one competent female with adult children to run for Vice President with McCain?   I realize his advisors probably didn't want a "mature" woman, as the Democrats keep harping on his age.  But really, what kind of role model is a woman whose fifth child was recently born with a serious issue, Down Syndrome, and then goes back to the job of Governor within days of the birth?

I am haunted by the family pictures of the Palins during political photo-ops, showing the eldest daughter, now pregnant with her own child, cuddling the family's newborn.  When Mom and Dad both work full-time (no matter how many folks get involved with the children), it becomes a somewhat chaotic situation.  Certainly, if a child becomes ill and is rushed to the hospital, and you're on the hotline with both Israel and Iran as nuclear tempers are flaring, where's your attention going to be?  Where should your attention be?  Well, once you put your hand on the Bible and make that oath, your attention has to be with the government of the United States of America.

Parents should be available first and foremost for their children. In many cases, the most available parent will be the mother, but it could be the father; that depends on the situation. What Dr. Laura does not get its that women today, like men, often need to have fulfilling careers for their own well-being.. For many people, not pursuing a career is not an option; it's a necessity, and not just for economic reasons, but for reasons of personal happiness. It may be that Sarah Palin would be a miserable meanie were she to leave her day job and be a stay-at-home mom. But let her articulate a justification for staying away from her children.

"Country First" is not that justification.

 

 

Palin, Lieberman, and the Israel Lobby

Sarah Palin is very busy. Tuesday she cancelled all her appointments to get prepped by the McCain staff, and to prepare for her big speech Wednesday night. Well, almost all her appoinments. She found time to meet with the most powerful lobby in America, apparently .

I am referring to AIPAC, of course.

This item caught my eye from Bloomberg:

"Palin, who has been criticized by Democrats for her lack of foreign policy experience, yesterday skipped a scheduled appearance with an anti-abortion group, meeting instead with leaders of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee at her Minneapolis hotel."

So that is where she starts her foreign policy tutelage? With the Israel Lobby? What does meeting with AIPAC, a domestic lobby, have to do with foreign policy experience?

You know the answer. It has everything to do with domestic politics. I could just hear Joe Lieberman saying to her, "Sarah, you have the anti-abortion vote sewn up; it's more important for you to go for the Jews."

Amazing. So many people working so hard to love Israel…to death

The way things stand now – and I am writing this before her speech – the Palin choice has damaged McCain. Sure, it has "energized the base" but their energy can't match the Democratic energy. The true believers are not what McCain needs; he needs the moderates and the independents. And they are not wowed – yet – by Palin. Trudy Rubin last week in Commentary wrote a piece entitled, "Where's the Obama Bounce." Well, the last three polls have been giving him a nice bounce – as much as 8 points lead, in the daily Gallup poll, the first time he hit 50. OK, that will probably change after the convention. But the short-term Palin effect has been negative. We will see how things play out in the days and weeks ahead.

And speaking of speeches, Lieberman's convention speech was horrible – a disconnected, rambling affair delivered without much enthusiasm. After all, who is Joe Lieberman? The consummate Washington insider who had his moment of glory when he criticized Bill Clinton, then was tapped by Gore in order to add balance to the ticket. If Obama wins, he is a toasted bagel. But even if he loses, it's hard to see what Lieberman can do in a McCain administration. Secretary of Defence? Leon Wieselthier noted drily that this may not be such a good idea if we are going to get involved in the Middle East. Secretary of State? Somewhat of a demotion for a powerful senator. Even if Obama loses, the Democrats are going to win big in Congress. So that makes him a toasted bagel again.

Having said that, it's hard not to like Joe Lieberman. I can't forgive him for betraying his party, and for letting a unsophisticated view of the world cloud his judgment. But on a personal level, he is a likeable guy.

As for Sarah Palin, I will let you know when she shows up in shul with Lieberman and Mukasey.