Jesse Jackson is back, and that may not be good news for Barack Obama. The Chicago-based civil rights leader made the front pages of Israeli newspapers today after he told an interviewer that Obama’s presidency will remove the clout of “Zionists who have controlled American policy for decades.” The comments, contained in a New York Post column Tuesday, drew immediate rebuke from some Jewish groups and the Obama campaign. Appearing at an event hosted by the World Policy Forum in Evian, France, Jackson said that an Obama administration will shake things up in the Middle East. “Decades of putting Israel's interests first” would end, said Jackson, who stressed he was only speaking as a supporter of Obama, not the campaign. “Obama is about change. And the change that Obama promises is not limited to what we do in America itself. It is a change of the way America looks at the world and its place in it.” That apparently didn’t sit well with the candidate, who right now is worried a bit more about his place in the upcoming election. Obama’s supporters are mobilizing to reassure elderly Jews, who are concerned about his Muslim ties and his previous statements supporting Palestinian rights, that the Democrat will remain a strong supporter of Israel. American Jews, an overwhelmingly Democratic constituency, are a key demographic in Florida, a battleground state. “Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. is not an adviser to the Obama campaign and is therefore in no position to interpret or share Barack Obama's views on Israel and foreign policy,” Obama national security spokeswoman Wendy Morigi said in a statement dismissing Jackson’s “false charges.” “As he has made clear throughout his career and throughout this campaign, Barack Obama has a fundamental commitment to a strong U.S.-Israel relationship,’’ the statement said. “As president, he will ensure that Israel can defend itself from every threat it faces, stand with Israel in its quest for a secure peace with its neighbors and use all elements of American power to end Iran's illicit nuclear program." Regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Jackson said that President George W. Bush “was so afraid of a snafu and of upsetting Israel that he gave the whole thing a miss. Barack will change that," because, as long as the Palestinians haven't seen justice, the Middle East will “remain a source of danger to us all.” The American Jewish Committee (AJC) immediately condemned Jackson's remarks. “Rev. Jackson's remarks, which appeared in an interview with the journalist Amir Taheri in today's New York Post, echo classic anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about Jewish power,” AJC Executive Director David A. Harris told The Jerusalem Post. “This statement, regrettably, is not the first troubling comment by Rev. Jackson regarding Israel, Zionism and the Jewish people.” “As poll after poll has revealed, over a span of decades, the United States is deeply committed to Israel because the vast majority of Americans, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, identify with Israel as a proven friend and ally,” said Harris. “It is this commonality of shared values and shared interests, and not Jackson's conspiratorial notions of power, that unite Israel and America,” Harris said. This isn’t the first time Jackson has embarrassed Obama. Last summer he made news when he criticized the candidate for talking down to his black supporters in front of a live mike as he awaited a television interview. The minister said that he was so mad that he wanted to castrate Obama. By: Tim Collie© 2008 Newsmax. |
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Jesse Jackson: Obama Will 'Ignore Zionists'
The Jewish Case Against Obama
Barack Obama is the most dangerous candidate for the State of Israel since its creation in 1948. He is not, as Professor Alan Dershowitz recently put it, a "true friend of Israel" any more than Jimmy Carter was. He is certainly not "better for Israel" than John McCain, as potty-mouthed comic dunce Sarah Silverman put it.
Any American Jew who votes for Obama ought to be ashamed of him or herself. He is not in line with a single authentic Jewish principle. (Authentic Judaism, by the way, believes the veracity of the Torah, Oral Torah and Talmud, not bagels, lox, Woody Allen and a copy of the Sunday New York Times.) On abortion, Obama is radically pro-choice. He is radically pro-gay rights, celebrating court-ordered gay marriage in states like California. Authentic Judaism is against abortion unless the mother's life is in danger, and against homosexual activity altogether.
And then there's Israel. Professor Dershowitz believes that American Jews should not vote based on "which party or which candidates support Israel more enthusiastically. They should vote based on more general considerations about what is best for America, the world and the values that they hold dear." I largely agree. I believe, however, that any candidate who does not support Israel demonstrates a disturbing lack of allegiance to our only democratic ally in the Middle East and a perverse moral relativism that will hurt America, not merely Israel.
I do feel, however, that American Jews have a special stake in the State of Israel. Israel does not just represent a family connection for Jews. It represents the ultimate protection for Jews the world over. When Arab nations expelled over 800,000 Jews in the aftermath of the birth of the State of Israel, Israel took the vast majority of them in -- as opposed to the Arab nations, which keep Palestinian Arabs in refugee camps to this day. Israel has saved Jews from South America to Russia to Ethiopia. Israel remains the last refuge for all Jews, and a guarantor of their safety, even abroad.
The future of Israel, then, matters to all Jews. By all indicators, it does not matter to Barack Obama, as detailed in a YouTube video counterpart to this column, "The Jewish Case Against Barack Obama".
Obama's foreign policy advisors have been almost uniformly anti-Israel. Samantha Power, one of Obama's earliest supporters, has suggested that American troops be placed on the ground in Israel to protect Palestinian Arabs against "human rights abuses." Power was a senior foreign policy advisor to Obama until she was forced to resign after calling Senator Hillary Clinton "a monster" in March 2008.
Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor, serves as a foreign policy advisor to Obama. He believes that the Jewish lobby forces America into pro-Israel policy, and he defends Carter's anti-Semitic book, "Peace, Not Apartheid."
General Merrill McPeak, Obama's campaign co-chair, agrees with Brzezinski that the Jewish lobby, based in "New York City, Miami," controls America's Middle East policy.
Robert Malley, who served on President Clinton's National Security Council, has stated that America ought to simply impose its Middle East solution on Israel. He served as an advisor to Obama until the media discovered that he was holding regular meetings with Hamas.
Obama's friends, too, are far too anti-Israel for comfort. Jeremiah Wright, Obama's pastor of 20 years, has blamed America's pro-Israel policy for 9/11. Wright is close with notorious anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan, who has proclaimed Obama "the Messiah."
Obama is also friends with former Palestine Liberation Organization spokesman Rashid Khalidi, an ardent foe of the Jewish State. Khalidi held a fundraiser for Obama in 2000. In 2003, he told a Palestinian Arab crowd, "You will not have a better Senator under any circumstances."
Obama himself has demonstrated his ambivalence about Israel. Before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in July 2008, he stated that he supported an undivided Jerusalem. After pressure from Palestinians, he backtracked within 24 hours. He also declares that he will meet the leaders of Iran without preconditions, despite the fact that Iran wishes to turn Israel into radioactive wasteland.
Barack Obama is no friend to American Jews. I challenge Professor Dershowitz to a debate, any time, any place, on that question. I would challenge Sarah Silverman as well, but she will undoubtedly ignore the challenge.
Most of all, I challenge American Jews to hear the true facts about Obama before voting. In Barack Obama, they find a Democrat in the mold of Jimmy Carter, not Harry Truman. Jews -- and Americans more broadly -- cannot afford another Jimmy Carter.
Ben Shapiro: The Jewish Case Against Barack Obama
The Jewish Case Against Barack Obama -- Part I
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The Jewish Case Against Barack Obama -- Part II
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The Jewish Case Against Barack Obama -- Part III
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