Thursday, May 15, 2008

Obama and the Constant Sore

There's a moderate amount of furore going around the pundisphere over Barrack Obama's recent comments from an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg, in which there is discussion of the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict. This is quoted by rightish (and presumably Hillaroid) commentators thusly:



JG: Do you think that Israel is a drag on America’s reputation overseas?

BO: No, no, no. But what I think is that this constant wound, that this constant sore, does infect all of our foreign policy.


Alarming stuff, no?



Commenting at TownHall.com, Tom "Tom & Gerrymander" DeLay found this to be a clear demonstration of Obama's unfitness to lead.



On one level, this is traffic-stoppingly stupid. What’s wrong with this guy? We’re told ad nauseum he’s the greatest political communicator of his generation, and his idea of a balanced and nuanced position is to compare a threatened ally in a crucial region to a festering, open sore?




Rightospheric JV attack dog Doug Ross starts off with a comparison to Ahmadinejad, and quickly goes Godwin on himself.



Obama's remarks seem to parallel those of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "In yet another verbal attack against Israel, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called the Jewish state a 'filthy bacteria' whose sole purpose was to oppress the other nations of the region"...

Come to think of it, a Mr. A. Hitler had some remarks along these lines. "Against the infection of materialism, against the Jewish pestilence we must hold aloft a flaming ideal."


The GOP House Minority Leader Jim Boehner and Deputy Minority Whip Eric Cantor quickly jumped on the Obama-vs-Israel bandwagon.



"Israel is a critical American ally and a beacon of democracy in the Middle East, not a ‘constant sore’ as Barack Obama claims," Boehner said. "Obama’s latest remark, and his commitment to ‘opening a dialogue’ with sponsors of terrorism, echoes past statements by Jimmy Carter who once called Israel an ‘apartheid state.’"


"It is truly disappointing that Senator Obama called Israel a ‘constant wound,’ ‘constant sore,’ and that it ‘infect[s] all of our foreign policy.’ These sorts of words and characterizations are the words of a politician with a deep misunderstanding of the Middle East and an innate distrust of Israel," Cantor said.


Journalists at The Atlantic and WaPo (along with the bulk of the leftosphere) have of course jumped upon this like White Person on a gramatical error. They point out that the GOP is quoting Barrack out of context, and that he's clearly talking about The Arab-Israeli Conflict, not Israel herself. When you look at the original text, they appear at first glance to be right.



JG: What do you make of Jimmy Carter’s suggestion that Israel resembles an apartheid state?

BO: I strongly reject the characterization. Israel is a vibrant democracy, the only one in the Middle East, and there’s no doubt that Israel and the Palestinians have tough issues to work out to get to the goal of two states living side by side in peace and security, but injecting a term like apartheid into the discussion doesn’t advance that goal. It’s emotionally loaded, historically inaccurate, and it’s not what I believe.
JG: If you become President, will you denounce settlements publicly?
BO: What I will say is what I’ve said previously. Settlements at this juncture are not helpful. Look, my interest is in solving this problem not only for Israel but for the United States.

JG: Do you think that Israel is a drag on America’s reputation overseas?

BO: No, no, no. But what I think is that this constant wound, that this constant sore, does infect all of our foreign policy. The lack of a resolution to this problem provides an excuse for anti-American militant jihadists to engage in inexcusable actions, and so we have a national-security interest in solving this, and I also believe that Israel has a security interest in solving this because I believe that the status quo is unsustainable. I am absolutely convinced of that, and some of the tensions that might arise between me and some of the more hawkish elements in the Jewish community in the United States might stem from the fact that I’m not going to blindly adhere to whatever the most hawkish position is just because that’s the safest ground politically.

I want to solve the problem, and so my job in being a friend to Israel is partly to hold up a mirror and tell the truth and say if Israel is building settlements without any regard to the effects that this has on the peace process, then we’re going to be stuck in the same status quo that we’ve been stuck in for decades now, and that won’t lift that existential dread that David Grossman described in your article.


But, I would like to take this opportunity to call all of the blogosphere wrong. The whole question, of course, is what does he mean when he says 'this problem'? Go back and look at some of Obama's words. "Settlements at this juncture are not helpful. Look, my interest is in solving this problem not only for Israel but for the United States."



I think it's clear that Obama is calling the continuing Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which do provide political cover for those who want to derail the peace process by their continuing acts of inexcusable violence. It might be sloppy rhetoric, but it's clear from my reading.



That Obama is speaking up on this, and not just toeing the Arabs-bad-Israel-good line is heartening. The only hope for peace is for the West Bank to become a Palestinian homeland. This cannot happen if Israel continues to allow new settlements to be built within the occupied territories.

1 comment:

SerenitySprings said...

The "shared homeland" idea was a failed solution from the beginning. It's going to take a lot more than just making everything "one big state" to make it better. Arbitrary boundaries only seek to make matters worse, not better.

Besides, the country would be Holly-World. Duh.