Mark S. Devenow http://www.jta.org/user/profile/11111 en-us zsilberman@washingtonjewishweek.com Copyright 2012 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 The heroes of the founding should not be forgotten. Sydney Cohen remains, within yizkor, a worthy icon and emblem for them. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 This is absolutely amazing. Republicans could end up nominating Jewish Senate candidates in both Florida and Ohio to run against two Democrat incumbent liberals (one of whom - Sherrod Brown - absolutely HATES Israel) and Ron Kampeas chooses to alight upon a couple of substantively insignificant matters in order to rain on Adam Hasner's parade. The consequences of this playing up nothing are, of course, real: This nonsense from Kampeas might just cost Hasner a place on the ballot where having a Jewish Republican on the Republican Senate ballot line might decisively contribute to retiring Barack Obama. But leave it to Jewish liberals to cavil over something that doesn't amount a hill of beans in circumstances where vital stakes impend. This piece alone will keep me, forever, from contributing to the JTA. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 It's hard to chart the depths of stupidity which Jane Eisner arrives at in the piece referenced; and what literal idiocy Samuel Prince and Moishgil have descended to in their comments here. Specifically, it comes as news that the Cameron Conservative Party government can be fairly characterized as Israel's "ally." Second, the phrase "a corporate culture that privileged power and aggression over respect for privacy and common decency" (the word 'privileged' being the operative verb in the tangled web) shows off the moral confusion - cum didactic overload, cum sententious and ill-conceived self-righteousness - which is veritably emblematic of the overwrought left; the left of rhetoric in the key of the morally grandiose and accompanying reasoning which is, always and invariably, diaphanous. Finally, the whole business of characterizing the News of the World as a "flagship" of the Murdoch empire serves to prove only the likelihood that Ms. Eisner doesn't read (and maybe hasn't even heard of) either the Wall Street Journal or the Times of London. That such a woman has acolytes like Prince and Moishgil also proves something: that left wing idiots run in packs! 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 Steve - After December 3d we will have/claim multiple champions again. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 Huckabee has it exactly right. The (largely) unspoken truth worth repeating is that American Jews, given the luxury of geographic remove and the degree of affluence attained by Jews in the United States, have, by and large, bought into every imaginable kind of illusion concerning our enemies and their intentions. Christian evangelicals, on the other hand, have a much more grounded/sane view of what it will take for Jewish sovereignty to perpetuate. In this condition, the notion that Christian evangelicals are Israel's best friends here is not only plausible, but also all but ineluctable. And don't anyone give me that nonsense impugning the motives of Christians who support the extension/perpetuation of a Jewish sovereign national existence for the fact that (a part of) this support springs from an eschatology which ought to be "alien" to Jews. When American Jewish liberals depart from the mentality whereof , say, abortion rights is more important than Israel, then these self-hating knaves might gain some standing in the contention as to whom (and what) is good for the Jews. Until then, these Jewish liberals should just shut up. And from the mere fact that 76-78% of us found a way to vote for a President who is, beyond peradventure, outright pro-Arab, hostile to the security interests of Israel and named "Hussein" to boot, this silence ought to last for a good long time. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 I don't think that Gates can be accused of being an antisemite, only of throwing his weight around when his bigger than warranted ego got in a snare. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 I listened to these tapes (thanks to JTA for the link) - all twenty minutes, six seconds and I must say that there exists nothing in them which even remotely makes Nixon out as an anti-semite. The person calling the tune over the course of this recorded phone conversation - utzing, if you will - is the Reverend Graham who is playing to Nixon's insecurities and paranoia to the point of eliciting certain comments which look very bad as a matter of historical record (and may even be revealing as to certain deep seated prejudices which Nixon harbored). However, it pays to remember that when the chips were down, some nine or ten months later, Nixon put his foot down directly against the grain of the Pentagon and ordered a massive resupply of munitions to Israel in a manner which allowed her to turn the tide against our enemies. As for the description of the Reverend Graham as "an uneducated street tent preacher", I think that amounts to a pitch perfect description - except for leaving out, or eliding his dangerous talent for demagoguery. Thankfully, that latter element seems to have passed even before the right Reverend has met his physical demise.. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 I'm glad these statements are appearing at this time as counter to what will be the Obama Administration's attempt to wring unwarranted concessions from Israel in favor of the Palestineans. More such testimony needs to be taken in Knesset committees. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 These criminals in our midst need to be hounded to their graves and, if need be, to hell thereafter. I hope this animal dies a slow excruciated death after findings/verdicts constituting justice are rendered. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 It's almost amusing (if not entirely funny) to watch this little weasel preaching to his rump caucus of third and fourth world flunkies and satraps for various despotisms and arrantly corrupt, expensively clothed UN bureaucrats. Of this menagerie of anti-semites much might be said, but the word "hypocrisy" hasn't fulfilled its meaning until the video appears as caption to it in the dictionary. The spectacle of representatives for countries whose denizens appear to be about two weeks away from swinging from trees is, if not merely appalling, something to behold with a sense of humor. Watching this little moron rant to the fulsome cheers and applause offered reminds me that what passes for civilization is indeed only skin deep. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 Bob Elliot is right: Obama has definitely landed in a position which is "no job for a 'community organizer' from Chicago." He might have added that the Vice Presidency is no place for a blowhard who likes nothing so much as the sound of his own voice pontificating in the currency of mindless nostrums and cliches. This is dangerous. Not less so for the fact that these two idiots seem, in different ways, possessed of an insouciant confidence concerning their respective abilities to handle things when, in fact, they're in so far over their heads it would be laughable if they were merely posing as leaders of the free world in some kind of comic opera as opposed to reality. Say what one might about George W. Bush, he understood, fully and instinctively, that we live in a dangerous world; a realm where the survival of liberty is not amenable to the voicing of platitudes in lieu of facing up to difficult and serious challenges. When terrorists strike our shores again and Iran has acquired nuclear weapons, Biden's blithe and glib dismissal of reality will be revealed for what it is. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 I fear that the David Ignatius piece quoted above is prolepsis for, and/or harbinger of, a bacchanal of leftist media "investigative reporting" targeting organizations that are both worthy and important to the US-Israel alliance. Certainly there are those placed in high appointive foreign policy positions who will be cheering this effort to delegitimize the good work of these organizations . This tells me that these kinds of attacks have to be answered. Without arrogating anything to myself in the vein of this necessity, it might be useful for starters to point out that, the Obama Administration, insofar as it is or might become interested in alighting upon tax exempt organizations in the name of curtailing deductions in favor of entities which violate or affront American public policy in one way or another, ought to begin with the Arab "charities" that actively raise funds (via various shams, artifices and ruses) that go to the paymasters of the murderers of Americans. If this order of priority is followed, Americans who support various projects of which David Ignatius (and his cohort in the liberal media) presumably disapproves, have little to worry about where it comes to their tax deductions for worthy cause. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 The "risk(s)" that Robert Kagan claim do not exist in relation to Obama's departure from the American policy toward Iran existing up until the point Obama took office (and effectively reversed its course) are two: 1) that the assumption among the ruling mullahs in Iran that Iran may amass nuclear weapons sans any serious effort on the part of the civilized world will be now impossible to disabuse; and, worse still, 2) that an Obama administration already steeped in either extreme and arrant naivete and illusion where it comes to the motivations of America's declared enemies, may, in its own right, be impossible to disabuse of its illusions/delusions before it is too late. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 This interview should be circulated widely as the most revealing piece concerning Freeman's anti-Israel bias. Given a chance to buy out of the insinuation whereof Israel becomes, somehow, responsible for 9-11, Freeman goes on to reiterate the libel. Good riddance to this antisemite. Shame on Obama and his DNI, Dennis Blair, for attempting to place this quack in charge of compiling National Intelligence Estimates. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 What an incredibly unseemly threat to be delivered by this front man cum flunky (Solana) for the feckless Europeans. Bibi should tell this idiot - or signal to him if need be - that Israel doesn't need Europe to approbate its security policies and isn't about to be obliged to create a twenty third Arab state (out of an artifice, no less) in order to please Eurocrats. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 "[t]ALKS COULD BE NUDGED ALONG BY LOOSENING SANCTIONS AGAINST SYRIA ... AND BY NOT EXPECTING AN IMMEDIATE TRANSFORMATION IN DAMASCUS." Nu? Very much in keeping with the Obama administration's tilt toward a pro-Arab, pro-Muslim foreign policy at Israel's expense. The 74% of the Jewish vote that this idiot managed to take (against George W Bush, Israel's stalwart friend) needs to be recalled in order to orient us to reality. The next time a Democrat running for president pretends to be in favor of Israel's security we ALL ought to, at long last, know better. Sadly, from all available evidence, we probably will not. How much collective cognitive dissonance must pass before the dam breaks? 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 Both Steve and Jonathan Levy have it exactly right. The scale and scope of Vatican undertakings in the course of helping and/or endeavoring to assist the very worst of Nazi war criminals (viz. Eichmann) in escaping justice in relation to what entirely meager archival evidence is offered in support of the fanciful notion that Pius XII "quietly" or "behind the scenes" helped save Jews makes an absolute mockery of the latter assertion. Whether or not Hitler remained a Catholic (practicing or otherwise) is all but beside the point: the real historic guilt to be shouldered, and not elided or washed away by rites of jesuitical casuistry, rests with the Catholic Church as a surviving institution - Hitler being long since gone and consigned to ignominy. And I say this as a graduate of a Jesuit law school. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 Funny that the UAE found a way to pay the way of this ignorant, insouciant minor league politician cum apologist. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 Hooray for Senator Kyle. Who else in the Senate has his courage? 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 The most shocking aspect of this appointment is that it appears to proceed on the basis of a like-mindedness between this outlier and Dennis Blair, Obama's Director of National Intelligence who appears to be Freeman's main backer - else the Administration would not buy into the kind of political fight Freeman's appointment is likely to entail perforce. Obama appeared to distance himself - or appeared to have attempted to distance himself - from his presence at various pro-Palestinean terror events while a State Senator in Illinois. This appointment and Obama's willingness to take what heat will follow from it, establish that the President's interest in separating himself from this taint evaporated with the results of the election. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 A very well turned analysis here. The fact that Obama would even think of appointing such a rabid anti-Israel partisan to head his National Intelligence Council (the body responsible for preparing the President's daily intelligence briefing) ought to be alarming to EVERY JEW who voted for this callow and insouciant person in whom the leadership of the free world is now vested. 76% of us having voted for Obama: Would be literally unbelievable were it not evocative of the old aphorism about Jews living like Episcopalians and voting like Puerto Ricans. Shame on us for bringing, or helping to bring, this (President) on ourselves. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 The problem of anti-Israel bias goes beyond Slackman. The real problem rests with the fact that The New York Times, in what passes for its "coverage" of the conflict as well as in its commentary and predictable editorial rants, has abandoned all pretense of being anything other than a house organ for Arab terrorist partisans. Slackman being merely the latest dolt the paper has picked up to run its spin; the other side of this being that the "Gray Lady" is only playing to form with its selection of correspondents. ENTIRELY PREDICTABLE. This abandonment of all claim to objectivity where it comes to the Times coverage of Israel might be taken for a serious problem. But there exist two saving graces still associated with the Times as it has come to be known and used: 1) the fact that its entire editorial content is continuously available for free (meaning that it's priced for exactly what it is worth); and 2) the fact that the Times is all but certainly headed for bankruptcy court - and, thereafter oblivion - in any case. All of which is not to say that the Times retains NO VALUE as a publication - surely William Kristol and Andrew Ross Sorkin are more than worth reading -, but merely to affirm the fact that the valuable "franchise" fixtures associated with the Times are, inevitably, perforce, and, most importantly, SOON going to be liberated from a publication which has become, on balance, a complete and total waste of its readers' time. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 Tamar poses an excellent question. I have one of my own: What does anyone think the odds are that the US will walk out on Durban II (as the Bush administration did with respect to its predecessor) when it descends as the prolepsis indicates into an orgy of antisemitism? 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 What is this IDIOT Franklin doing on the JTA??? Forget about getting any contributions from ME so long as this kind of moronic drivel is approbated in the form of passing for editorial comment. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 This prosecution has always amounted to attempting to erect a temple to original sin based on a house of cards. Now it's starting to look like a comic opera. The judge sitting in the matter has throughout done an extremely good job of managing legal issues preliminary to trial. The motives of the attorneys for the government now seem revealed for what they are: viz. to impose costs on defendants they know they won't convict purely to establish that foreign policy institutional bureaucracies generally hostile to the State of Israel will be served in the manner a law firm might serve its clients to preserve a relationship which has to endure beyond the loser case. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 The logical answer to this development is for Israel to announce that, in light of these contacts, the status of the EU grouping to participate in the formulation of any proposals to achieve peace in the region is lifted and henceforth the government of Israel will explicitly disregard all emanation from quarters maintaining sub rosa contacts with organizations banned from participation in peacemaking. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 Coincidentally, this revelation proceeds on a day where it is confirmed that larger than expected traces of uranium and graphite have been recovered by inspectors in the area of the Syrian nuclear facility Israel was virtually forced to bomb in the fall of 2007. Thus, in this stark juxtaposition of reports we have further evidence (as if further evidence were required) of the Obama administration's tilt toward placating-propitiating terrorists and terrorist regimes that George W. Bush would have nothing to do with. The old saying about Jews "living like Episcopalians and voting like Puerto Ricans" is also, ineluctably and perforce, coming into uncomfortable-glaring relief. Will we EVER LEARN to vote our interests like other participants in the American electoral system do? 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 This is astounding. Obama did all he could during the election campaign to distance himself from our idiot former president and the very week following his inauguration does a volte face to the point of admitting the discredited/disgraced presence into the inner councils of foreign policy making. Too bad that Jewish liberals couldn't have seen this coming when it mattered. This is unmistakeably nothing short of awful in its portent for US-Israeli relations and worse still in its implication for Israel's security going forward. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 If it is true, to paraphrase Dante, that the hottest place in hell is reserved for those who, either in times of moral crises and/or in relation to the claims of history, sought to have remained "neutral", then Benedict XVI will have, by this action alone, richly earned his supremely uncomfortable place in eternity. As for the Catholic Church as an institution, there is enough shame already on its shoulders to empty it of any moral authority, standing or influence. That the exquisite casuistry of absolution has now reached new heights of moral absurdity should come as a surprise to no sentient, reasonably educated being. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 zyskandar has it exactly right: How 76% of American Jews found a way to vote for Obama will be a question that admits no answer for history. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 Re: "Marking the Jewish Holocaust while a Palestinian Holocaust is taking place is not right" Nu? 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 Conceding that I'm not an expert in Israeli election law, and that I'm not conversant with the record in the matter, I still find it hard to believe that any legal consideration or principle should weigh so impellingly in favor of the right of political parties openly-avowedly attached to the declared enemies of any country which holds open, fair and free elections to participate in governance of the state. This smacks of a fetish. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 Arkady has it right, but the problem of mounting an operation to retake Gaza on even a temporary basis for the purpose of rooting out terrorists and their infrastructures entails perforce a (perhaps unending) series of horrendously difficult tactical decisions which will have to be made once the order is given to go in. Personally, I would prefer that air operations be utilized to make the whole of Gaza leveled; lock, stock and barrel. But the reality is that this is not how Israel operates: Israel, being too exquisitely attuned to humanitarian considerations will place ground forces at extreme risk to save these Palestinean cockroaches that terrorists use as willing shields for their depravities. Only when Israel comes to realize that this dilemma is not solvable by measures that might run the risk of inflaming "world opinion" will it arrive at the right and condign response to the problem. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 This marks an important milestone in preserving essential and critical benchmarks in Holocaust historicism. The legal record compiled relative to Nazis who escaped justice (for a time, if not always permanently) is more important than commonly recognized and much more important than interpretive work which has become increasingly fanciful and/or frivolous. The human cogs in the Nazi crimes were multifarious and discovered/expurgated in most unlikely places and circumstances. Making public documents relative to the OSI ;prosecutions ought to be recognized for the monumental accomplishment it represents. Hopefully, many people will dig into this material and learn. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00