Comments on: Shalem Center’s Michael Oren Likely Bibi’s New Ambassador to U.S.

By: Richard Silverstein

Richard Silverstein — Mon, 04 May 2009 20:50:30 +0000

I haven’t read much Nietszche & I don’t believe there’s anything noble or redeeming about neocons, Likudniks, etc.

By: David Pomona

David Pomona — Sun, 03 May 2009 17:49:42 +0000

Mr. Silverstein,

It makes me sad when you use such conspiratorial language to describe everything and everyone involved with the “American-Israel machine.”

“Wheedling”
“Calculating”
“conceits”

You are a Jew. As a Jew, and an intellectual Jew, you have read Friedrich Nietzsche. I imagine you now have a desire to go “beyond good and evil.” You seem to believe the Zionists machine vilifies Muslims, and you have a respectable belief that the Zionist demonizations of all enemies reflects poorly on the Jews.

Yet– let me say something. You have forgotten that Nietzsche himself in GS did not want to “accuse the accusers.” He wanted to see what is beautiful in things. Is there nothing beautiful about neoconservatives, Likudniks, the Shalem Center, AIPAC, and Dennis Ross? Isn’t there something moral about them as well?

Your message is that these entities are evil and that you are good. You have not yet gone beyond good and evil.

You are a leader and a respectable Jewish intellectual with the highest degrees. I think you can do better. I think you can be nobler.

By: Richard Silverstein

Richard Silverstein — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 05:09:28 +0000

The hasbara brigade speaks.

That’s ridiculous. Oren was not a rifleman or tankist. He was a PR flack. He knew what his role would be even before there was a war. I’m sure he’s done this before & will likely do it again. But you haven’t bothered to explain why, even if what you claim is true (which it isn’t), neither the newspaper nor Oren noted his military role promoting the Israeli war in Gaza even after this became evident.

This makes Oren an IDF propagandist without even the decency to notify his audience of his compromised position.

By: Leah

Leah — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 11:11:55 +0000

Were you ever called up for reserve duty in Israel on Tsav 8 that you know how this works? Because I have, and you get called up and expected to be at the base within two hours. No warning, and you better get there on time, or you’ll be holding your whole unit behind.
If Dr. Oren didn’t write the article during his military service, the paper doesn’t have to mention it in the byline.

By: Richard Silverstein

Richard Silverstein — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 07:30:52 +0000

Nice to have the extremist settler point of view incorporated here. I can understand why you hate Sharon so much that you can’t even bear to utter his name in the comment above. He must really enrage you. So what type of Israeli governement or party WOULD you support? One of those theocratic states governed by your “rabbis” Dov Wolpe & Baruch Marzel?

By: Ben Temalion

Ben Temalion — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 20:47:46 +0000

Oren didn’t just don the uniform and participate mechanically after receiving the order. He volunteered to implement the Mitzna plan that the people voted against by voting for Likud whose leader then disenfranchised and implemented it against also the Likud charter and referendum that he swore to uphold. Why the Likud didn’t espel him I will never understand. And also, I will never understand how he was able to take the PMO with him, as if it were a desk accessory, when he moved his desk from Likud to Kadima when Kadima had never even been in an election. Oren is also morally bankrupt as he has been arguing for years that the Sinai withdrawal was a precedent for justifying not just the Katif keroush but also Yehudim from Yehuda. May Oren repent and work towards enforcing the right of return of those that come to kill you back to the homicidal, Hamite, peninsular homeland of their own name instead of the Jews from the land of their own name.

By: Richard Silverstein

Richard Silverstein — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 03:21:43 +0000

Oren knew he’d be serving in Gaza before he announced it in print. So there goes yr argument.

You read the copy at the LA TImes site. Does it even now mention his compromised position as an IDF spokesperson? I bet it doesn’t. So why hasn’t he added that info since?

By: Leah

Leah — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 22:14:31 +0000

Any child knows that op-eds are written at least a few hours before they’re published. Dr. Oren wrote on the 4th that he’s getting called up to the army, and on the same day the LA Times article appeared. There is a very good chance that the LA Times article, which also appeared in print (unlike the TNR piece), needed to be ready before the TNR piece was written, meaning, before Dr. Oren began his reserve duty. To claim that this makes him dishonest is stupid and wrong.