via memeorandum
Joe Klein is upset that “neo-cons” are daring to question the President.
Now, many of these neocons have been gunning for Obama from the start…and have been just twitching in anticipation of the chance to paint him anti-Israel or worse. Their tendency to slime their detractors with overwrought epithets–anti-semite is the old standby–has diminished whatever power that term once held. In this case, once again, they are standing athwart America’s best interests–and Israel’s: it’s about time that the U.S. starting calling Israel on its excesses. Clinton is right, for example: Israel’s strangle-hold on the Gaza crossings gave Hamas a rationale for its rocketing of innocent Israeli civilians. And furthermore, Israel’s steady accretion of settlements on Palestinian lands gives credibility to Palestinian extremists who believe that Israel has no interest in a truly viable two-state solution.
Of course most of this is typical anti-Israel boilerplate. The Israeli siege leads to the rocket attacks. Settlements give credibility to terrorists. If Klein were right, the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza would have undermined Hamas and the withdrawal from southern Lebanon would have done the same to Hezbollah. Contrary to Klein’s beliefs, Hamas and Hezbollah were strengthened by those Israeli actions.
And does he really think that Israel’s siege is what leads to the rockets he ought to read Dan Gordon’s analysis. (h/t Elder of Ziyon.)
But if you notice, the post he links to in “twitching” is Jennifer Rubin’s Had they known. Rubin writes:
And as for those friends of Israel on the left who looked Obama in the eye and got a sense of his soul, do they join in on Marty Peretz’s mea culpa? Well, it does appear that Obama appointed someone â€who is quintessentially an insult to the patriotism of some [sic] many of his supporters.†Moreover, we have placed someone in a key national security role whose analysis was purchased by the House of Saud and whose contribution to Middle East discourse includes such gems as: “For its part, Israel no longer even pretends to seek peace with the Palestinians; it strives instead to pacify them. Palestinian retaliation against this policy is as likely to be directed against Israel’s American backers as against Israel itself.†(Remarks to the Washington Institute of Foreign Affairs, May 24, 2007)
The main focus of Rubin’s post, though, is Chas Freeman, former Saudi ambassador and recipient of Saudi largess who has been appointed to a top intelligence post. This isn’t sliming the President, it’s asking a serious question about one of his appointees. Rubin presses the point further with her conclusion:
Some enterprising White House reporter might start asking whether the president had any qualms about Freeman’s views and why his financial relationship with a foreign power shouldn’t raise grave concerns about Freeman’s independence and, in turn, the president’s judgment in selecting him.
So instead of whining about sliming, maybe Klein should be doing actual reporting.
There are a few other points of Klein’s that ought to be addressed.
I’d also ask you to go back to the beginning of Klein’s screed.
Over the past few weeks, the Obama Administration has been engaged in truly shocking behavior. It is letting Israel know when the U.S. disapproves of its actions, and appointing people to the government who have not been slavish devotees of the right-wing Likud line in the past. George W. Bush never did that!
So the problem he sees is when an American administration sees itself aligned too closely to Israel. If an administration is closely aligned with Saudi Arabia, that doesn’t bother Klein at all.
Later on he addresses the administration’s shameful pandering at Durban II.
And as for conferences on racism, Israel’s supporters will have less credibility to complain about international forums where slogans like “zionism is racism” are bruted about if the anti-Arab bigot Avigdor Lieberman is included in the new Israeli government.
That anti-Israel Arab bigot, happens to believe that Palestinians ought to have a state, is willing to cede parts of pre-1967 Israel towards that end and that those Arabs who serve in the Israeli government ought to swear an oath of loyalty. (This is in response to those Arab Israel members of Knesset who quite openly sympathize with Israel’s enemies.)
The “zionism is racism” trope means that Israel is not a legitimate state. There’s no equivalence between the Arab attempts to rewrite history and delegitimize Israel and Avigdor Lieberman’s ascendancy. Unless, of course, Klein wishes to give credence to the charge.
I would even go so far as to argue that Lieberman’s approach towards the Palestinians is a lot more liberal than is the view of the “moderate” Mahmoud Abbas’s view is towards Israel. It would require a modicum of critical thinking to reach that conclusion. Klein is more interested in hurling invective – or sliming – those he disagrees with than actually dealing with the issue at hand.
In the past two weeks the Obama administration has acquiesced to anti-Israel, Holocaust denying resolutions at the Durban II planning session, pushed for $900 million in aid to go to Gaza with no way of assuring that it doesn’t go to Hamas and has now appointed an anti-Israel former diplomat who has strong ties to Saudi Arabia to a sensitive intelligence position. These are all serious breaches of American-Israeli alliance. Unless, one believes, as apparently Klein does, that most of the problems in the Middle East stem from Israel’s existence rather than from its enemies who are still denying the right to that existence.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
