the following is an article appearing on the jewish world review, by a virulently islamophobic editor of the Jerusalem Post newspaper, Caroline Glick. i have put up a few points after each of her paragrapsh. her article is present in its entirety within quote tags.
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US President Barack Obama claims to be a big fan of telling the truth. In media interviews ahead of his trip to Saudi Arabia and Egypt and during his big speech in Cairo on Thursday, he claimed that the centerpiece of his Middle East policy is his willingness to tell people hard truths. Indeed, Obama made three references to the need to tell the truth in his so-called address to the Muslim world.
Unfortunately, for a speech billed as an exercise in truth telling, Obama's address fell short. Far from reflecting hard truths, Obama's speech reflected political convenience.
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this is just her intro.
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Obama's so-called hard truths for the Islamic world included statements about the need to fight so-called extremists; give equal rights to women; provide freedom of religion; and foster democracy. Unfortunately, all of his statements on these issues were nothing more than abstract, theoretical declarations devoid of policy prescriptions.
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1) what is Glick's point here? are these not truths? does she argue that we don't need to fight extremists?
2) obama, in his speech, has mentioned that it is impossible for a speech to change things immediately. he can only mention a few abstracts in a 55-minute speech covering nearly 14 centuries of history. one can be sure that those 55 minutes from Obama have done more good for more people than 60+ years of governing by Israeli prime ministers.
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He spoke of the need to fight Islamic terrorists without mentioning that their intellectual, political and monetary foundations and support come from the very mosques, politicians and regimes in Saudi Arabia and Egypt that Obama extols as moderate and responsible.
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true, but Glick forgot the other half of the truth. just because this is true, doesn't render the other, less favorable half any less truer. Glick forgets that whilst the intellecutal, spiritual, political, and monetary basis of terror comes from within the muslim world, the motivation and anger comes from outside, with a substantial part coming from her country (some might say nearly all of it originates in Israel).
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He spoke of the need to grant equality to women without making mention of common Islamic practices like so-called honor killings, and female genital mutilation. He ignored the fact that throughout the lands of Islam women are denied basic legal and human rights. And then he qualified his statement by mendaciously claiming that women in the US similarly suffer from an equality deficit. In so discussing this issue, Obama sent the message that he couldn't care less about the plight of women in the Islamic world.
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Glick would do well to study the Quran as well as take a lesson on the english language.
honor killings and FGM are not "islamic" practices, and a better term might be "muslim" practices, although FGM is practiced by non-muslim groups in africa, and honor killings occur amongst other non-islamic groups, such as the zaidis.
Glick would be fine if she was genuinely interested in muslim women's rights, but her support for the killings of innoncent palestinian women somehow lead one to believe she is not. i guess muslim women have the right to be blown to bits by a Merkava tank shell, even though they should not have the right to wear a hijab.
she would do well to battle the demons in her society who till recently didn't allow women to pray at the western wall.
the point being, is that societal norms differ, and what might be considered a lack of rights for women in the west, may not necessarily be the case in Islamic countries. moral relativism is very much in play here, and thats not even considering that many muslim women will defend the codes and stipulations which the Quran has dictated for them. how can you willingly repress yourself?
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So too, Obama spoke about the need for religious freedom but ignored Saudi Arabian religious apartheid. He talked about the blessings of democracy but ignored the problems of tyranny.
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the first totally valid point she makes, and you only had to sift through several paragraphs of garbage to get to it.
again, it must be reiterated that none of this is supported by the words of the Quran, no matter how many contradictory hadiths are cited as proof.
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In short, Obama's "straight talk" to the Arab world, which began with his disingenuous claim that like America, Islam is committed to "justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings," was consciously and fundamentally fraudulent. And this fraud was advanced to facilitate his goal of placing the Islamic world on equal moral footing with the free world.
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again, Glick has no Quranic backing to support her claims, hence by default, Obama's claim is correct.
Glick makes an all too familiar logical mistake of associating "morality" by identity rather than by action. in other words, when her people kill innocent children - knowingly, i must add - its OK, because its her people. but if the other side does the same, then its morally depraved and must be dealt with appropriately. she is a master of half-sided justice and truth.
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In a like manner, Obama's tough "truths" about Israel were marked by factual and moral dishonesty in the service of political ends.
On the surface Obama seemed to scold the Muslim world for its all-pervasive Holocaust denial and craven Jew hatred. By asserting that Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism are wrong, he seemed to be upholding his earlier claim that America's ties to Israel are "unbreakable."
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seemed to scold? a scolding is a scolding. why would Obama even bother to "fake" scold if he didn't mean it? who is he attempting to please here? obviously not the muslims, right? that answer would provide Glick with a dilemma of explaining the control her ilk has over any political speech or policy move, even those that don't directly concern them.
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Unfortunately, a careful study of his statements shows that Obama was actually accepting the Arab view that Israel is a foreign — and therefore unjustifiable — intruder in the Arab world. Indeed, far from attacking their rejection of Israel, Obama legitimized it.
The basic Arab argument against Israel is that the only reason Israel was established was to sooth the guilty consciences of Europeans who were embarrassed about the Holocaust. By their telling, the Jews have no legal, historic or moral rights to the Land of Israel.
This argument is completely false. The international community recognized the legal, historic and moral rights of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel long before anyone had ever heard of Adolf Hitler. In 1922, the League of Nations mandated the "reconstitution" — not the creation -- of the Jewish commonwealth in the Land of Israel in its historic borders on both sides of the Jordan River.
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thats all fine and well, but a few points need to be made here. the palestinians have every right to be on that piece of land as anyone else. this does not in any way dimish the right of jews to be there, but Glick is sorely lacking a history of her own people.
1) according to the Old Testement, the Hebrews were not the first people to live in Canaan. the Canaanites, whether or not they were first, preceeded the jews, and it was these (and other groups) whom the Old Testement author tells the Israelites to purge to the last living creature in the Books of Joshua, chapter 6 and Dueteronomy, chapter 7.
2) the hebrews count their descent from Abraham, whose hometown, according the Old Testement was Ur of the Chaldees in present day Iraq. They would be just as historically bound to claim that as their land of origin as any modern day Iraqi.
3) the jews adopted Israel as their homeland, and initially did not do this willingly, as the book of Exodus makes clear.
the bottom line is that, the israelites were not the first people in this land, and the palestinians did not force them out, it was the Babylonians and later the Romans.
the only difference between the israelites and the palestinians is that the palestinians arrival in the land was not perpetrated by a genocide of the prior inhabitants.
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But in his self-described exercise in truth telling, Obama ignored this basic truth in favor of the Arab lie. He gave credence to this lie by stating wrongly that "the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history." He then explicitly tied Israel's establishment to the Holocaust by moving to a self-serving history lesson about the genocide of European Jewry.
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yes, Obama made this mistake. nonetheless, for many jews, the importance of Israel lies in continual persecution, mainly at the hands of Europeans. how else can Glick explain why the jewish popluation of New York state rivals that of all of Israel? if it really is about returning to your roots, rather than convenience of living, than all or the vast majority would have made alia and flocked to israel.
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Even worse than his willful blindness to the historic, legal, and moral justifications for Israel's rebirth, was Obama's characterization of Israel itself. Obama blithely, falsely and obnoxiously compared Israel's treatment of Palestinians to white American slave owners' treatment of their black slaves. He similarly cast Palestinian terrorists in the same morally pure category as slaves. Perhaps most repulsively, Obama elevated Palestinian terrorism to the moral heights of slave rebellions and the civil rights movement by referring to it by its Arab euphemism, "resistance."
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if Glick wants to claim that palestinians face no discrimination at all, then she has a perfect point.
otherwise, she should keep quiet, despite the fact that it is true that the palestinians have made grave moral mistakes.
But as disappointing and frankly obscene as Obama's rhetoric was, the policies he outlined were much worse. While prattling about how Islam and America are two sides of the same coin, Obama managed to spell out two clear policies. First he announced that he will compel Israel to completely end all building for Jews in Judea, Samaria, and eastern, northern and southern Jerusalem. Second he said that he will strive to convince Iran to substitute its nuclear weapons program with a nuclear energy program.
Obama argued that the first policy will facilitate peace and the second policy will prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Upon reflection however, it is clear that neither of his policies can possibly achieve his stated aims. Indeed, their inability to accomplish the ends he claims he has adopted them to advance is so obvious, that it is worth considering what his actual rationale for adopting them may be.
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The administration's policy towards Jewish building in Israel's heartland and capital city expose a massive level of hostility towards Israel. Not only does it fly in the face of explicit US commitments to Israel undertaken by the Bush administration, it contradicts a longstanding agreement between successive Israeli and American governments not to embarrass each other.
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i'm actually surprised at the childishness of her criticism. with all the supposed moral advantage, the first reason she comes up with is an agreement made to avoid public "embarrassment?"
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Moreover, the fact that the administration cannot stop attacking Israel about Jewish construction in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, but has nothing to say about Hizbullah's projected democratic takeover of Lebanon next week, Hamas's genocidal political platform, Fatah's involvement in terrorism, or North Korean ties to Iran and Syria, has egregious consequences for the prospects for peace in the region.
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a morally valid point, but that moral wrong does not justify israel's one of internationally illegal construction work.
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As Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas made clear in his interview last week with the Washington Post, in light of the administration's hostility towards Israel, the Palestinian Authority no longer feels it is necessary to make any concessions whatsoever to Israel. It needn't accept Israel's identity as a Jewish state. It needn't minimize in any way its demand that Israel commit demographic suicide by accepting millions of foreign, hostile Arabs as full citizens. And it needn't curtail its territorial demand that Israel contract to within indefensible borders.
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again Glick makes morally valid points, and this is precisely why her nation needs to engage in serious negotiations. abbas is in no position to actually enforce any of these, and is talking up hot air because he has no options either within palestine or israel.
Glick needs to realize that Israel is NOT increasing their leverage by refusing to negotiate for decades at a time. partly because their leverage is maxed out, but even if it weren't, thats not how you convince human beings of giving you something more. of course, this is based on the assumption that Glick consideres palestinians human beings, which i am sure she claims she does.
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In short, by attacking Israel and claiming that Israel is responsible for the absence of peace, the administration is encouraging the Palestinians and the Arab world as a whole to continue to reject Israel and to refuse to make peace with the Jewish state.
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Obama has not done so, and even he if thats what he felt, he is not able to do so because of the political control AIPAC plays.
Glick cannot back up this statement and provide a single official quote of Obama or any other US president, who has blamed Israel for lack of peace.
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The Netanyahu government reportedly fears that Obama and his advisors have made such an issue of settlements because they seek to overthrow Israel's government and replace it with the more pliable Kadima party. Government sources note that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel played a central role in destabilizing Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's first government in 1999, when he served as an advisor to then president Bill Clinton. They also note that Emmanuel is currently working with leftist Israelis and American Jews associated with Kadima and the Democratic Party to discredit the government.
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this has nothing to do with muslims...and is actually a consipiracy theory believe by Glick. it may be true, but most probably isn't.
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While there is little reason to doubt that the Obama administration would prefer a leftist government in Jerusalem, it is unlikely that the White House is attacking Israel primarily to advance this aim. This is first of all the case because today there is little danger that Netanyahu's coalition partners will abandon him.
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and Glick answers my point in this paragraph.
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Moreover, the Americans have no reason to believe that prospects for a peace deal would improve with a leftist government at the helm in Jerusalem. After all, despite its best efforts, the Kadima government was unable to make peace with the Palestinians as was the Labor government before it. What the Palestinians have shown consistently since the failed 2000 Camp David summit is that there is no deal that Israel can offer them that they are willing to accept.
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thats true. but the same goes with the israelis. thats kind of what a conflict is, when 2 sides can't agree to the other...duh!
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So if the aim of the administration in attacking Israel is neither to foster peace nor to bring down the Netanyahu government, what can explain its behavior?
The only reasonable explanation is that the administration is baiting Israel because it wishes to abandon the Jewish state as an ally in favor of warmer ties with the Arabs. It has chosen to attack Israel on the issue of Jewish construction because it believes that by concentrating on this issue, it will minimize the political price it will be forced to pay at home for jettisoning America's alliance with Israel. By claiming that he is only pressuring Israel in order to enable a peaceful "two-state solution," Obama assumes that he will be able to maintain his support base among American Jews who will overlook the underlying hostility his "pro-peace" stance papers over.
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Obama is not the first president to make an issue of the illegal settlements. even Bush made token statements against them.
Obama is the first president to make a serious statement about them.
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Obama's policy towards Iran is a logical complement of his policy towards Israel. Just as there is no chance that he will bring Middle East peace closer by attacking Israel, so he will not prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons by offering the mullahs nuclear energy. The deal Obama is now proposing has been on the table since 2003 when Iran's nuclear program was first exposed. Over the past six years, the Iranians have repeatedly rejected it. Indeed, just last week they again announced that they reject it.
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i don't know the details, but i have a hard time believing Obama would give the Iranians a deal authored by Bush admistration, given how different their stances on the issue are.
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Here too, to understand the President's actual goal it is necessary to search for the answers closer to home. Since Obama's policy has no chance of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, it is apparent that he has come to terms with the prospect of a nuclear armed Iran. In light of this, the most rational explanation for his policy of engaging Iran is that he wishes to avoid being blamed when Iran emerges as a nuclear power in the coming months.
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1) does Glick really believe that slapping people around is the necessity of life? if she does, i think this proves how intolerant, violent, senseless, and depraved she and her ilk are. surely there must be limits?
2) we've been hearing for almost a decade now that iran is just "months" away from the point of no return. these have been some of the longest months in the history of time.
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In reckoning with the Obama administration, it is imperative that the Netanyahu government and the public alike understand what the true goals of its current policies are. Happily, consistent polling data show that the overwhelming majority of Israelis realize that the White House is deeply hostile towards Israel. The data also show that the public approves of Netanyahu's handling of our relations with Washington.
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no comments.
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Moving forward, the government must sustain this public awareness and support. By his words as well as by his deeds, not only has Obama shown that he is not a friend of Israel. He has shown that there is nothing that Israel can do to make him change his mind.
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is that last sentence an inadvertant acknowledgement of the puppeteering job AIPAC has done so well for so long?