Obama and Israel

[Vesayen]

Originally posted by Slaughtermeyer

Come to think of it, some of the best anti-Zionists are Jews.

http://www.nkusa.org/

http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/

These people are insane, frankly. Their views are far, far from the mainstream of Judaism or what Americans or Israelis believe. They don't believe the state of Israel should exist because the Meschiach("messiah") has not come/happened, and Jews should not have Israel till that happens.

Their beliefs have nothing to do with human rights, national sovreignty, international politics etc. Their view is a religious one. No one takes them seriously.

[Slaughtermeyer]

Originally posted by Vesayen


These people are insane, frankly. Their views are far, far from the mainstream of Judaism or what Americans or Israelis believe.

According to the 2007 National Survey of American Jews, less than half of American Jews under the age of 35 believe that Israel's destruction would be a personal tragedy, and 46 percent of this group is "not comfortable with the idea of a Jewish state."

http://www.jewishjournal.com/world/article/american_jewish_youth_alienated_from_israel_study_finds_20070914/

[Darius871]

Originally posted by Vesayen


These people are insane, frankly. Their views are far, far from the mainstream of Judaism or what Americans or Israelis believe. They don't believe the state of Israel should exist because the Meschiach("messiah") has not come/happened, and Jews should not have Israel till that happens.

Their beliefs have nothing to do with human rights, national sovreignty, international politics etc. Their view is a religious one. No one takes them seriously.

Says the j00...

[Darius871]

Originally posted by Slaughtermeyer
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz has published reasonable cause to hope that Obama won't be a 'friend of Israel.'

Originally posted by Slaughtermeyer
Obama also told AIPAC that he was in favor of an undivided Jerusalem, a statement that he retracted shortly thereafter. Therefore, it's quite possible that everything he told AIPAC is subject to retraction or "clarification" at some point in the future.

Ok slaughtermeyer, this is a serious question. If you truly believe that Obama is so likely to take U.S. policy out of lockstep with Zionist interests, then how do you reconcile that with the fact that his first appointment within a mere week of the election - for Chief of Staff at that - is a man who was raised by a Jerusalem-born Irgun member (who recently said in a Maariv interview that his son would unquestionably "influence the president to be pro-Israel"), was named after a Stern Gang member, pushed his fiance into converting to Judaism to have a valid ketubah, had dual US-Israeli citizenship for much of his life, was a civilian volunteer for the IDF in 1991, has had an active FBI counter-intelligence file against him for alleged ties to IDF intelligence after he came back (a file interestingly headed by John O'Neill, who you probably know as the counter-terrorism agent who was later pushed out of the FBI in a suspicious "smear campaign" and was coincidentally killed in the 9/11 attacks just two days after starting his new job at the WTC, and a file which was also reportedly nicknamed the "Mega file" which you probably know is in reference to Jonathan Pollard's Mossad superior code-named "Mega"), was the top House recipient in the 2008 election cycle of contributions from hedge funds & private equity firms, supported the invasion of Iraq, is a strong supporter of AIPAC, oversaw Obama's first introduction to AIPAC's directors, has been a committed Zionist his entire life, and has been unabashedly lauded in the Israeli press (including Haaretz, which you'd cited) as "our man in the White House"? Seriously, none of this gives you pause?

[Slaughtermeyer]

I realistically don't expect too much from Obama. I think the most I can reasonably hope for is that he won't start any wars for the benefit of Israel.

[Lancer]

Related to what was being discussed in the thread early on, Bush has stationed US forces in Israel with a very powerful radar able to see all the way to Iran.

[Darius871]

Originally posted by Slaughtermeyer I think the most I can reasonably hope for is that he won't start any wars for the benefit of Israel.

Fat chance. Just because the guy was against the run-up to war before he was even in the Senate, at a time when it was not politically damaging for him to do so, and when he didn't actually have access to the same faux intelligence that had persuaded so many fellow Democrats to go along, that doesn't mean he's necessarily "dovish" in general principle. He could just as easily be a hardcore hawk who just found Iraq to be the "wrong battleground" whilst having no problem with the wider war in itself. In short, what he said about Iraq narrowly doesn't extrapolate to war as a concept.

Add to that the facts that 1) he'll be under all sorts of pressure to allay apprehensions about his being "soft" on foreign policy (which has the tendency to ultimately make one more hardline than the hardliners accusing him of softness, as we saw with JFK's continuing the Bay of Pigs plan and his conniption over the missiles in Cuba, both compounded by the perception that he was too "soft on communism"), 2) he's unequivocally repeated that an Iranian nuclear weapon is an "unacceptable game changer" to the point that military force is never off the table, 3) he's unequivocally repeated that he would approve airstrikes (or perhaps even special forces incursions) into Pakistan the moment the location of Bin Laden or other top AQ leaders is confirmed, 4) the presence of numerous people in his administration who voted for the Iraq war, 5) Rahm Emossadnuel whispering in his ear at all times, and 6) Joe Biden's cryptic remarks about how he'll quickly be tested with a manufactured crisis and respond with "steel in his spine," and you've got a pretty good recipe for one or two more wars.

Quite frankly, the fact that you of all people paint such a blindly optimistic picture staggers me. This isn't a Bush thing, or even a false left-right paradigm thing. It's a Washington thing, or more broadly a money thing. Shut out the mainstream media brainwashing and wake up.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Just because the guy was against the run-up to war before he was even in the Senate, at a time when it was not politically damaging for him to do so, and when he didn't actually have access to the same faux intelligence that had persuaded so many fellow Democrats to go along, that doesn't mean he's necessarily "dovish" in general principle.

The funny thing is when I point out to some Obama supporters I know about Biden voting for the war (when they try to explain to me that Hillary lost because she voted for the war), I get these mumbling explanations. And lets not forget that Rahm Emmanuel also voted for the war. These people will be shocked in the upcoming term.

[Darius871]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
The funny thing is when I point out to some Obama supporters I know about Biden voting for the war (when they try to explain to me that Hillary lost because she voted for the war), I get these mumbling explanations. And lets not forget that Rahm Emmanuel also voted for the war. These people will be shocked in the upcoming term.

I get the same thing too, and just as interesting is how shocked people are to hear how truly hawkish Gore was about Iraq even pre-9/11, so we probably would have had the same result there also, though perhaps handled better. One of the reasons I wanted Obama to win was the fun of watching his pie-eyed sycophants have a rude awakening when he ends up being Bush III.

[Zevico]

It was a two party effort, that war. People seem to forget that.

[Bosh]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

Just because the guy was against the run-up to war before he was even in the Senate, at a time when it was not politically damaging for him to do so, and when he didn't actually have access to the same faux intelligence that had persuaded so many fellow Democrats to go along, that doesn't mean he's necessarily "dovish" in general principle.

The funny thing is when I point out to some Obama supporters I know about Biden voting for the war (when they try to explain to me that Hillary lost because she voted for the war), I get these mumbling explanations. And lets not forget that Rahm Emmanuel also voted for the war. These people will be shocked in the upcoming term.

It wasn't voting for the war that hurt Hillary (Biden, Edwards, etc. etc. also voted for it and nobody much cared), it was that she refused to admit that doing so was a mistake during the primary. This means that either she is:

A. Incredibly stupid.

B. Unwilling to admit that she made a mistake, even when it is blatantly obvious that she had done so, not an especially endearing characteristic.

Or at least that is how she appeared to many of the people who were opposed to her primary run What a lot of people forget is how many people on the Democratic side were always fairly leery about him but rallied to him because he was the best shot at keeping the nomination away from Hillary.

[Kidlicious]

I think what killed Hillary is her remembering bullets flying over her head when she was smiling and shaking hands.

[Bosh]

Originally posted by Kidicious
I think what killed Hillary is her remembering bullets flying over her head when she was smiling and shaking hands.

That didn't help either

[Zevico]

Originally posted by Slaughtermeyer

According to the 2007 National Survey of American Jews, less than half of American Jews under the age of 35 believe that Israel's destruction would be a personal tragedy, and 46 percent of this group is "not comfortable with the idea of a Jewish state."

http://www.jewishjournal.com/world/a...inds_20070914/

Wow...layer upon layer of blindness.
It's one thing to be uncomfortable with an idea, it's another to oppose the existence of the state or, I don't know, posit that it's part of a grand conspiracy to take over the world. Or tolerate (or deny) the denial of the holocaust, or allege that 'zionists' took part in it.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Zevico
It was a two party effort, that war. People seem to forget that.

It wasn't a two party management of the war, which is what went truly wrong. That lays wholly with Bush and the Repugs in Congress that never carried out their oversight duties.

Obama won't be Bush III if only because Obama's people will probably be far FAR more competent.