I have been reading through the various analyses of the President’s speech on Thursday and have found most to miss quite a bit while picking out one or two things either to highlight as wonderful or to criticize as awful. My own analysis which is published here tends to agree with Barry Rubin’s. Rubin believes, as do I, that the President did not mean to “bash” Israel at all. In fact, he said a number of things that were quite pro-Israel and should be appreciated by supporters of Israel. That does not mean that there were not a number of things in the speech that could cause concern and has, in most cases, because they could easily be interpreted to imply that the President is taking an anti-Israel stance on issues.
In the meantime, by tomorrow morning, we’ll be talking about the President’s speech at the AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington, D.C. and a whole new set of issues. I foresee that the President’s AIPAC speech will be strongly pro-Israel and very supportive of the US-Israel relationship.
“I foresee that the President’s AIPAC speech will be strongly pro-Israel and very supportive of the US-Israel relationship.”
Of course it will, because he doesn’t want to lose Jewish support and money for his forthcoming re-election campaign. If it weren’t for that he’d make Jimmy Carter look like Menachem Begin.
Regardless of that he completely failed with his reference to the 1967 borders. Whether it was by design or because he was just too stupid to realize the Arabs would seize on it as a baseline concession doesn’t matter. He is a frightening disaster for American foreign policy and I’m saying that more as an American citizen than as a supporter of Israel.
[quote]Rubin believes, as do I, that the President did not mean to “bash” Israel at all.
That was my take. I read blog responses to Obama’s speech before I read the speech itself and before I watched the video of Obama and Netanyahu. I was scratching my head at the overreactions from both Zionists and anti-Zionists. Churning up outrage does not serve our interests.
If you are against “churning up outrage”, Violet, I don’t think Rubin’s your man. Here is the final sentence of the article you link:
” Obama’s policy is disastrous but not because he is attacking Israel directly or abandoning the traditional relationship. It’s a catastrophe because his policy hurts all of America’s allies, strengthens revolutionary Islamists, and throws away basic U.S. interests in the region.”
… and this follows numerous other pointed criticisms of the speech and Obama such as, “… he has zero warm feelings toward the country [Israel]. Thus, he is callously indifferent to its problems, needs, and interests. Obama has given Israel ample reason to mistrust him …”
If you didn’t read the article your post is merely fatuous. If you *did* read the article, it is extremely misleading.
“If you didn’t read the article your post is merely fatuous.”
I read Rabbi Kaufman’s post and responded to that. That seems fairly obvious since I’m posting here and not at Rubin’s site. As for your comment, I’ve been called worse things by better people.
Likewise.
Gary, you are breaking the no-flames rule. Kindly stop insulting my commenters and co-bloggers. Violet, although I have forgotten that phrase and admire it greatly, let’s not use it to refer to other commenters. And I am totally stealing that next time I get into a blogwar with someone.
Ultimately, it is a question of trust, and frankly, I do not trust Obama, or, his advisors on Israel, especially one Samantha Powers who has both of his foreign policy ears to shout into.
The reality is, if you believe that Obama has an ax to grind with Israel now, just think what his actions will be if he is re-elected! The only thing tempering his attitude towards Israel is the coming 2012 election, once that is done, and he is either reelected, or lame duck for two and a half months, watch out!
Meryl, I don’t believe I flamed violet as much as she flamed me. I did, apparently, misinterpret her post as trying to cite Rubin as a supporter of her views. I do not retract or regret anything I said about Obama.
It’s not a matter of degree, Gary. Both you and Violet need to communicate without insulting one another. I prefer to leave the insults for the subjects of my posts.