Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

“We’ve got to remember what the desire is in this nation at this time. It is for no more politics as usual and somebody’s big fat résumé that maybe shows decades and decades in that Washington establishment, where, yes, they’ve had opportunities to meet heads of state.”

If I didn’t say otherwise, wouldn’t you guess this statement would fit the description of John McCain’s political career?  A consummate Washington establishment figure–even if slightly iconoclastic–with decades of foreign travel meeting oodles of foreign leaders.  So isn’t it odd that this is how Sarah Palin chose to attack Joe Biden?  Wouldn’t you say it’s a bit of the pot calling the kettle?

Not to mention that it’s terribly convenient for someone who’s never heard of the Bush doctrine and never met a foreign leader to argue that her ignorance is actually a political plus for her ticket.  But will Americans buy this pig in a poke?  Oops, there I’ve said it–that nasty word “pig.”  She’s not one–at least not literally.

For the Jewish community, one of the small revelations of Sarah Palin’s ABC interview was her stance on an Israeli attack on Iran:

Mr. Gibson…asked Ms. Palin whether she would back Israel if it were to seek to eliminate Iran’s facilities militarily.

“We are friends with Israel,” Ms. Palin said, “and I don’t think that we should second-guess the measures that Israel has to take to defend themselves and for their security.” Pressed, she twice more said she would not “second-guess” Israel.

One should add that her position is a flat-out contradiction of current Bush policy, which has clearly discouraged Israel from attacking Iran. We’ve sent both State Department diplomats and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to make clear our view that Israel should not attack.

There has been much scuttlebutt, a good deal of it generated by the neocons, that John McCain feels otherwise; and that Israel would take advantage of this by attacking Iran after the presidential elections but before the next president takes office. If that person is McCain, they will have acted as he tacitly would’ve wished them too. At least that’s the argument I’ve heard.

Now, one can argue that Palin’s bellicose position is a political one that doesn’t reflect real policy deliberations. Or one can argue that John McCain wouldn’t allow her to say something like this unless he actually believed it. I’m inclined to believe the latter is the case. Which further reinforces the likelihood that Israel will indeed attack Iran.

The American electorate should know this and factor it into their deliberation about whom they vote for. Vote McCain if you want a new front in the war on terror. If you haven’t had enough of quagmire in Iraq and Afghanistan, McCain-Palin have a new war to sell you. And make no mistake–an Israeli attack will not be a single discrete military action. It will be responded to by Iran, who may attack not only Israeli targets but American as well. So I say to Americans, if you want to stick your hand in a hornet’s nest, then by all means vote McCain. Just make sure you have the antidote to wasp venom near at hand. Otherwise, you’re in for a nasty time of it.

Aipac must be rejoicing at this new development.  They couldn’t have articulated her position any better if they’d written it themselves.  And come to think of it with Joe “Mr. Aipac” Lieberman coaching her–they DID.  Does anyone need further evidence of the noxious influence of this organization on U.S. Mideast policy?