Michael Freund, Jerusalem Post:
What do Iran’s ayatollahs, Hamas terrorists, Louis Farrakhan, Jesse Jackson and Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi have in common? They are all pulling for Barack Obama to win the US presidential election.
When Israel’s disparate foes manage to rally behind a single candidate, it should set off alarm bells for anyone who cares about the Jewish state.
If you think this is just Republican scaremongering, consider the following.
Last week, Ali Larijani, the hard-line speaker of the Iranian parliament, told a press conference in Bahrain that “we are leaning more in favor of Barack Obama because he is more flexible and rational” (Agence France Presse, October 22).
And then there is the October 19 endorsement that Obama received from Hamas spokesman Ahmed Yousef, who told WABC radio host John Batchelor and World Net Daily’s Aaron Klein that “we as Palestinians are thinking that we might have better luck with a new administration, maybe, if Obama wins the election… I do believe he will change the American foreign policy in the way they are handling the Middle East.”
There you have it. Two clear expressions of preference for Obama from two of the leading anti-Israel and anti-Western forces in the Middle East. Both the Iranian regime and the Hamas terrorist organization view Obama in a positive light and hope he will be elected.
Well, sure. But what does that prove, exactly? Because what Obama will tell you (well, were he forced to address any of this, which he won’t be so long as Sarah Palin presumes to wear designer clothes and fancy specs) is that such “support,” as Mr Freund so inartfully puts it, is really no more than a desire on the part of Iran and Hamas to deal with a US President who isn’t interested in oil, US hegemony, and a continued project to control the entire planet through its hyperpower arrogance and notable bellicosity.
Or, in other words, all Iran and Hamas are saying is that a vote for Obama is a vote for peace, stability, and a new Eden in the Levant.
Ahem.
Their enthusiasm for the senator from Illinois is shared by a number of other long-time enemies of the Jewish state on both sides of the Atlantic.
On June 11, Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi, in a speech broadcast on Al-Jazeera, spoke glowingly of the Democratic nominee. According to a translation provided by MEMRI, Gaddafi said, “His name is Obama. All the people in the Arab and Islamic world and in Africa applauded this man. They welcomed him and prayed for him and for his success, and they may have even been involved in legitimate contribution campaigns to enable him to win the American presidency.”
Back in the US, anti-Semitic firebrand Louis Farrakhan earlier this year labeled Obama “the hope of the entire world” and compared him to the founder of the Nation of Islam, the group Farrakhan heads (Associated Press, February 25).
Normally, one would expect that such a motley collection of rogues would be enough to send shivers down the spine of even the most spineless of voters. In the end, who wants to be cheering for the same outcome as Gaddafi and Farrakhan? Nonetheless, if two recent polls are to be believed, Obama seems poised to capture a significant majority of the Jewish vote.
A SURVEY released last week by Quinnipiac University found that Jews in the battleground state of Florida are backing Obama by a margin of 77 percent to 20%, while a Gallup survey revealed that nationwide, Jews favor him over Sen. John McCain by 74% to 22%.
While that is less than the 80% that Democrats Al Gore and Joe Lieberman garnered in the 2000 election, it is similar to the 75% that John Kerry captured four years ago.
One can only shake one’s head in bewilderment at such a predilection, particularly in light of Obama’s flip-flop on Jerusalem back in June, when he told the annual AIPAC policy conference that he supports the city remaining Israel’s united capital, only to back-track from that position the following day.
If Obama can’t stand firm on the campaign trail on such a basic issue of fundamental importance to Israel and its supporters, how can he be counted on to do so if given the keys to the White House? Any pro-Israel Jews and Christians still sitting on the fence, wondering how to cast their ballot on November 4, would therefore do well to bear in mind the revealing comments made recently by Jesse Jackson.
Speaking at the World Policy Forum in Evian, France two weeks ago, Jackson promised that the “Zionists who have controlled American policy for decades” will lose influence once Obama is in charge, as he will stop “putting Israel’s interests first.”
And there, folks, is the crux of the matter, which I will hereafter call the Portnoy Principle: Americanized Jews, the Jews of the diaspora, want nothing more than to assimilate, to assure the gentiles who have long persecuted them in various ways that they are just like them — given to social justice, Democrats, Americans first who wish never to be seen, with the Papists of old, as dividing their allegiance between two states, be it Vatican City and the US or Israel and the US.
In short, they, like Alexander Portnoy of Roth’s brilliant novel, wish to create an identity separate from the identity of “Jew” that has been thrust upon them. They don’t wish to play the victim, or be seen as using the Holocaust as an either an excuse for failure or a crutch that precipitated their successes.
They just want to blend. And the best way to do that is to show what they believe is a liberal, independent spirit — a willingness to vote against what they perceive others believe they perceive as being in their best interest as Jews.
It is, to many, a form of overcompensation for their history of being a worldwide bother.
Add to this the rote Democrat Jews who still equate liberalism with the Democratic party, and the recipe for overwhelming Jewish support of the Democrat ticket is complete.
Then, should you require a garnish, try this on for size: the Jews were some of the staunchest supporters of the civil rights movement, active in Dr King’s marches and protests. Still, this didn’t stop several newspapers from traveling to Florida (“old Jew land,” in the minds of many) to search out those Jews who, the suggestion was, couldn’t bring themselves to vote for a schwartze.
This was a despicable and unfair depiction of the Jewish community — but it was one that served the purpose of the Portnoy Principle: rather than risk being seen as racists with divided national loyalties (with Zionist often coming first), the Jews in Florida reacted predictably. “Not us!” the polling seems to suggest them saying. “We are Americans, first and foremost – and to prove it, we will vote for the American least likely to protect Israel, throwing ourselves in league with Farrakhan and the man who once referred to NY as “hymietown”.
This is, at base, a defense mechanism, one that carries with it a kind of internal gamble that “never again” is already so ingrained in worldwide consciousness that Israel will be safe in the hands of even the most anti-Israeli progressive administration.
Me, I don’t think it’s a smart bet — not because I’m Jewish, but because I don’t much like socialists, progressives, and race-baiters who would move the US toward totalitarianism.
Because if they can countenance that for the Greater Good, how much thought would they give to Israel, whom they believe to be the belligerent nation in a part of the world filled with poor oppressed Arabs, Persians, and Turks…?
I scanned the JPost this morning, saw the headline of the article you cite, but ended up reading instead this article about the Israel Museum and in particular, about the unpublished 1,000 page Eichmann memoir created as the “so-called ordinary man” awaited his distinction as the first and only person executed in the State of Israel. Damn, the things you’ve got to do to get yourself a death sentence in a modern liberal democracy these days, you wouldn’t want to know!
I have several people in my office who are staunch Obama supporters and I sent this article to them. None of them would answer a direct question such as “Do you have any problem voting for a candidate who’s been endorsed by half the world’s terrorist leaders”. The one comeback I got was “well they hate us because of the (say it with me now) ‘failed policies of George W. Bush” and Obama will usher in a new era of diplomacy. I asked another she thought Obama would side with the Palestinians over the Jews in Israel – she said “I hope so. The palestians are oppressed, just like Obama was”.
/slackjaw
What greatly frustrates me is that Jewish voters will still be heavy majority Obama voters. What, exactly, does it take to break this idiot hold the Democratic Party has on Jews? They could run Josef Mengele’s bones on a straight Nazi party platform and still get the Jewish vote.
Baracky will be tested and it will look like he doesn’t know what he’s doing but it’s on purpose. Ok. Fine. He can just explain in a fucking infomercial later.
Matt, send them Caroline Glick’s musings on Biden’s [shut up Joe!] comments on the coming test of Obama should he be elected. Have them note in particular the Iranian behavior cited in the piece and see if they can square that with their Booosh handwaving.
# 3 . I would not call your comments anti-semitic or racist, even though you imply that majority of Jews are an idiots and will vote for Joseph Mengele.
But some people who does not know you might call you that.
No, we will not vote for Mengele, and most of us hate what republican party has become- the conglomerate of mostly ignorant , brainwashed warmongering utopists.
I fully expect the rebirth of the renovated and hopefully cleansed party with the defined and pursued conservative goals after the electoral landslide for the democrats.
Time to learn from you fuck ups, don’t you think?
How about Ali Abunimah, operator of the Electronic Intifada, who still supports Obama, despite his “disappointment”?:
In other words, his supporters know Obama’s lying, but it’s all for the Greater Good.
Jeez, didn’t Jeff write something once or twice about such chicanery?
Still, this didn’t stop several newspapers from traveling to Florida (â€Âold Jew land,†in the minds of many) to search out those Jews who, the suggestion was, couldn’t bring themselves to vote for a schwartze.
They want to blame it on the “old Jews,” Jeff — the lazy, ignorant media hasn’t caught up with the fact that the Jewish retiree here is dying out, and it’s a damn shame. They brought hard-earned wealth, stability and a sense of community with them — something we’ve lost here. If the elderly Jewish population still existed at the pre-2000 level, Obama would not get their vote, and it has nothing to do with the color of his skin. As someone (a non-Jewish ex-NY’r) who worked with elderly Jews for years, I’d bet they wouldn’t vote for O. It would have been tough as hell to pull the lever for a Republican, but Obama is a bridge too far — heck, they weren’t comfortable with Clinton in his first run for the roses.
There’s been a demographic tsunami in Florida that the media has largely ignored. It reads like this from the Florida Quick Facts from the US Census Bureau: “White persons not Hispanic, percent, 2006 — 61.3%”
“throwing ourselves in league with Farrakhan and the man who once referred to NY as “hymietownâ€Â.”
Sir,
Jesse Jackson’s ‘Hymietown’ Remark – 1984
I would not call your comments anti-semitic or racist, even though you imply that majority of Jews are an idiots and will vote for Joseph Mengele.
Sure, I was exaggerating, but you and I both know most Jews still will pull the lever for Democrats regardless of the candidate or the positions they take on any issue. They just pick the party and hate/fear the GOP because of old, old lies. Blacks follow the same pattern, no GOP, never, no matter what. An 11% turnout of blacks for President Bush was considered a landmark.
McCain will win and all this dirty socialism stuff this will just be gone this time next week I think. We should be sure to remember what a close call it was though. It makes me uncomfortable knowing how many people will sell themselves so cheap and I don’t know what I can do to help them.
I’m not voting for Bambi. Call me whatever you want. I don’t care.
All and sundry:
I mean, it’s not like you care about my opinion and the reasons for it, is it? So why should I give a crap about yours?
It makes me uncomfortable knowing how many people will sell themselves so cheap and I don’t know what I can do to help them.
Buy them and then exploit them with hard labor. It’s the only cure.
I don’t know. I’m preparing myself for the worst.
No, for real. My sense is that Baracky has just blown it with the whole socialism in your face thing and people what are rational and are glad they’re still hanging in there aren’t saying oh bring on the change please. What we’ll get next week is a report card on how many peoples we have that don’t have a winning attitude I think and we can figure out how to help them understand why we really don’t want to become like Venezuela. There are very good reasons for this and we just have to figure out how to get them into PowerPoint format.
But anyway the point is that anti-Semites sure have a hardon for this Baracky. Carter was super anti-Semitic too but even him they didn’t love as much as they love Baracky. I’m sort of contrarian in that I always vote for the people the anti-Semites don’t want me to vote for. I’m just spiteful like that I guess.
Old Jews are Obama’s second most solid demographic. He’s not winning the younger ones by the same percentage, if he is at all (which, maybe not).
So let’s set aside Jeff’s diagnosis for a minute — not that it’s wrong, and not for the whole minute — and ask a couple obvious questions:
Knowing that it’s so — and they did — that old Jews didn’t need the young ones to give them the stern lefty setting-to that the Obamanites demanded that they give them, what was the real message for the young ones?
And at whom was all that superfluous “Go browbeat your racist Granny ____feld for the cause” business really directed?
And what was that message, for the such-a-Granny-less, really?
The answers are ugly.
i could [maybe] survive the Oodles prez gig
but what i fear is his building houses/monitoring elections/spouting off at funerals/travelling da globe in an american ‘hate-a-palooza’/
trix are 4 kids
sham-wow
It’s ok, buttons. Baracky won’t win I promise. His infomercial will be way too inescapably 1984ish I think. Just the idea of him blacking out the media like that so all can Hear. Too too Chavez. Nobody likes a dirty megalomaniac socialist, Baracky. Go away.
Of COURSE these douchebags are rooting for O! They want SOMETHING for all the money they sent in…
The word needs to be spread widely that it’s okay to lie to exit pollers about who you voted for. And hot girls. They’ll never know, and everyone gets what they want.
It’s definitely ok to lie to any part of Baracky’s apparatus I think. For real the sooner you start practicing the better off you’ll be.
They just want to blend. And the best way to do that is to show what they believe is a liberal, independent spirit  a willingness to vote against what they perceive others believe they perceive as being in their best interest as Jews.
In other words, they have to continue letting their enemies define them, rather than defining themselves. Funny how no one asks that of Episcopalians or Presbyterians. On the other hand, it would be useless to ask those denominations to deny themselves as they already have – they have just the veneer of religion and are otherwise merely a socio-political pressure group for ‘social-justice’, whatever that may be.
#17 Haps:
…I always vote for the people the anti-Semites don’t want me to vote for. I’m just spiteful like that I guess.
It isn’t spiteful to be aware of the canary in the coal mine. Anit-semitism* is just a warning that should make any person say ‘And who is next after that?’.
*Anti-anything based on blood or ethnicity or anything that is not a free choice. Anti-semitism just seems to be the default choice for demagogues and wanna-be tyrants.
Mention should be made in all this of the role played by the more liberal denominations of Judaism (
Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, and a few kookier ones). These comprise over 75% of “active” Jews, setting aside those who do not participate entirely.
Having essentially given up the idea of the Torah as a binding covenant with God, they instead emphasize the “universalist,” “humanist” messages that are found in the Torah and the prophetic writingsâ€â€neglecting or disparaging those messages which they find distasteful, such as enforcing Sabbath observance with capital punishment or the use of indentured servitude (NOT “slavery” in the American sense), or, more to the point, opposition to abortion or homosexuality.
Essentially, these movements have been coopted by the Progressive ideology. This is made explicit when you consider the programs of study which produce rabbis in these movements.
Orthodox Jews tend to be conservativeâ€â€typically in the social-con sense (sometimes alarmingly so), but not always.
guess who’s coming to dinner..
natty dread
i and i and i i i i…
oh yeah/btw/vice prez-is a crazy baldhead
post=-racial-when every dark toned persona has a trombone
not just in a military marching parade or in a
ska band..
then the country shall heal
guess who’s coming to dinner..
731 ?
731-elaborate?
i’m joe the strummer
‘cept he’s dead
but he votes
and robo-calls
imagine theres no heaven….
oh. For real the quickest way to bury Israel I think is to kill oil drilling here with your tax tax tax on oil companies. You gots to make your anti-Semite friends too big to fail and Baracky is just the man for the job.
731-diabolical.
diabooty call/
french movie…w/sig-sig and sharon stoney
wtf is 731?
step away from the keyboard[me]
wtf is 731?
Koi?
english /por favor
So, you’re saying the p in your name stands for “pot?”
i’m saying i don’t know what 731 means..
i’m feeling vulnerable..
[hugs]
I would think with “buttons” in the handle the “p” would stand for “peyote.”