Category Archives: War Commentary

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

Israelis Have Figured It Out

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Of course, they have a lot more on the line. The question is, when will the American Jews get the memo?

…the poll results from Israel have got to be worrying to the Obama team. Liberal Jews are a critically important fundraising group and voter bloc for Democrats. With the economy remaining very weak and Obama’s national approval ratings sagging, the 2010 midterm elections and the presidential race in 2012 could be more competitive than were the Democratic sweeps in 2006 and 2008.

Will some liberal Jews step back, uncomfortable with the perception that Obama is hostile to Israel? Has Obama crossed a threshold among Jewish voters, much as Jimmy Carter did in 1979-1980, leading to a greatly diminished level of Jewish support in his run for re-election (Carter won but 45% of the Jewish vote in 1980).

To counter this perception, the lapdogs of the Jewish left — in particular, J-Street (a group whose real mission seems to be to reduce the power and influence of AIPAC) and the NJDC — are furiously spinning how Obama is still fond of Israel and the right choice for peace (which presumably is just around the corner if only Israel caved on the settlements issue).

I’ve got spinners like that right here in my comments section, even though the notion is certifiably insane.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

Barack Obama…

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…meet reality:

Whew! What happened? Well, that, no doubt, is what the Obama team must be wondering. It is not merely the president’s poll numbers which are crumbling; it is the premises which formed his world view and domestic agenda which are disintegrating. The world is a dangerous place with despots immune to even “smart diplomacy.” Governments really can’t spend their way to prosperity. And even in an economic recession America remains a right-of-center country.

Obama, it seems, never confronted a critical media or a viable political opponent who could effectively quiz him on his assumptions and policy prescriptions. He waltzed through an election on essentially a “not Bush” campaign and a cloud of feel-good messages ungrounded in the real world. But once in office he finds the world — filled with rogue states, recalcitrant laws of economics, squirrely citizens, and cold, hard budget numbers — is not so easily charmed. Facts are stubborn things, after all.

I always find hilarious the lack of irony with which these people presume to call themselves the “reality based community.”

Business, Political Commentary, War Commentary

Support Trader Joe’s

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I haven’t been able to shop at Trader Joe’s since we left California, because for some reason they have never opened up any in Florida (I’m guessing it has something to do with state laws — perhaps the restriction on hard liquor sales in groceries?). Anyway, here’s one more reason that I wish I could:

Very sadly, the tactic employed against Israeli products in Europe has now made its way to our own country, taking root in our own backyard and focusing its attention upon a grocery retailer that many of us patronize, Trader Joe’s. Only the difference is that in the United States there is a significantly larger Jewish population than there is in Europe and we now find ourselves in a position to make an immediate and very positive impact on Israel’s behalf.

I hope that this anti-semitic (and yes, sorry, that’s what it is) boycott helps them more than hurts.

Political Commentary, War Commentary

A Harrowing Account

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…from an Iranian protester:

5:30 pm, the battle zone

“Ely………….., Hooman,….. bodoeen, Omid…” screamed Jaleh. The police and plain clothed militia had cornered Omid and were beating him. We ran towards him and attacked the dogs. Hooman charged towards the guards in the street, opened his arms wide and with his operatic bas voice screamed “Bezan, Bezan,..(hit me, hit me), maadar gh.. bezan (mother xxx hit me). The guard raised the club but his hands were shaking and then brought his club down. I arched over Omid as Jaleh was screaming “bee gheirat” (a man without virtue) and people started chanting “bee gheirat” to the guards and the police. I felt the burning on my back as I tried to shield Omid, he was crying “man faghat mikhaam beram khooneh (I just wanna go home). They were hitting me hard, my hands, and my legs and suddenly there was darkness as I felt a terrible pain on the back of my head and the sounds and vision blurred into oblivion.

All we can do is hope for the best.

Political Commentary, War Commentary

He Wants Our Help?

6 Comments

Some interesting statements from Mousavi’s “external spokesman.” Jonah Goldberg has some thoughts:

It seems to me that this is at minimum a hint that Mousavi would be willing to put the nuke program on the table for negotiation — the complete opposite position of Ahmadinejad. Moreover, it hints or at least suggests that the way Iran meddles in other countries — i.e. financing terrorism, sponsoring terrorist groups etc — would not be locked in stone either. Now, of course, this could all be a ruse. Mousavi is no angel. But, again, these are not things the opposition would want to say if they wanted America to stay out of it. And yes, even if the opposition wants support, that doesn’t mean they’ve made the right calculation. The law of unintended consequences is universal as is the rule of thumb, “Be careful what you wish for.” But Obama supporters and others who think America should do nothing to help the opposition need to at least wonder whether they have a better grasp of the situation than the opposition itself does.

I’m sure they think they do, based on foolish statements by some of their supporters here.

[Update a few minutes later]

More thoughts from Pejman Yousefzdadeh:

Totten believes that it is possible that Mousavi has grown into less of a Khomeini-ist than he was in the past. One certainly hopes so, and I would pick him over Ahmadinejad as the lesser of two evils any day. But that is because Ahmadinejad is truly vile, while Mousavi’s past-at-least-semi-vileness may have been put in abeyance by events. Mousavi’s problem is that he remains wedded to a brutal and vicious regime. The protests he leads only have value and relevance insofar as they demonstrate that at long last, the regime must be swept aside. It’s nice if Mousavi wants to act as one of many vehicles and vessels for the revolutionary change that is so needed in Iran, and Obama was dead wrong to suggest that there is no real difference between him and Ahmadinejad. At the same time, however, it is equally ridiculous to think that Mousavi is the transformational figure that Kleiman thinks Obama is. Indeed, if Mousavi is Iran’s version of HopeAndChange, then the country of my ancestors is in more trouble than I thought.

Yes, let’s hope for their sake that they’ll be luckier than we have been in new leadership.

[Update a few minutes later]

Cracks showing in the regime? Let’s hope so.

I think that the next couple days will tell the tale, whether the Iranian people free themselves of these theocratic monsters, or their power is further entrenched.

Political Commentary, War Commentary

Thoughts On Ivy-League Elites

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…and victimology:

One aspect of the speech that hasn’t received sufficient attention is the focus on victimology: Israelis were victims of the Holocaust, Palestinians victims of dislocation after the founding of Israel, Americans the victim of the 9/11 terrorists, Arabs the victims of Western imperialism, and so forth.

That this appeals to Obama is not surprising. He and I attended law school at the same time, Obama at Harvard and me at Yale. Victimology was all the rage. It gave one not only moral standing, but, oddly enough (like Sotomayor’s “wise Latina”) a certain level of intellectual standing.

During our first year in law school, there was a one-day nationwide “student strike for diversity” at elite law schools, including Harvard and Yale. (I don’t know for sure whether Obama was involved in this “strike,” but he gave a speech on behalf of uber-diversity advocate, and Harvard lawprof, Derrick Bell.) At Yale, students gave speeches throughout the day. What struck me at the time was how eager, almost desperate, the various student speech-givers were to be perceived as victims.

As he notes, Obama ignores, or seems unaware of or indifferent to, the real reasons that we support Israel, relative to its despotic neighbors. But I guess western liberal democracies just aren’t worth defending any more. After all, it’s all culturally relative.

Oh, and speaking of Marty Peretz (about whom we’d still like to know who he voted for), he’s wondering if Dennis Ross was removed from his planned position of envoy to Iran because he’s too hawkish, or too Jewish.