The Conference of Presidents leader, Malcolm Hoenlein got a little more than he bargained for when, after securing Hillary Clinton for his anti-Iran rally, timed to coincide with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech to the UN General Assembly, he also invited Sarah Palin. He began the day with New York’s senior senator as a star of his event. He ended the day Clintonless:
“Her attendance was news to us, and this was never billed to us as a partisan political event,” a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton, Philippe Reines, said on Wednesday. “Senator Clinton will therefore not be attending.”
Clinton’s “replacement” opposes almost every domestic priority of the American Jewish community. Hoenlein went from a rally that had no partisan political tension, to one that showcased Hoenlein’s allegiance to the Republican Party.
[Irony Alert] I do understand there may be one small glitch in Palin’s acceptance of the invitation to speak. She’s requested that she be introduced by David Brickner, the director of Jews for Jesus, who spoke before her at her Alaska church less than a month ago. I don’t think this will cause Abe Foxman any trouble though, since he claims he has no problem with Palin lapping up a Jews for Jesus exhortation to convert us.
And since Hoenlein came to the U.S. as a young Soviet Jewish émigré (which explains a good deal of his political hawkishness), he should be able to give Sarah a quick tutorial on Russia to fill in any weak spots in her knowledge.
This rally debacle also illustrates how politically out of touch the Israel lobby’s leadership is with the views of mainstream Jews. At best, 30% of them will vote for McCain-Palin in November. 70% will vote for the other guy. But Hoenlein is content to showcase his fealty to the 30% at an event that should showcase a united Jewish community.
Let there be no doubt, the Jewish leadership has hitched itself to the Bush-McCain bandwagon. It is in lockstep with the most bellicose approach to the Iranian nuclear impasse. Sarah Palin says there would be nothing wrong with Israel attacking Iran. That’s what Malcolm Hoenlein wants to hear. He wants to say: “Jump” and hear a candidate say: “How high.” The Republicans are willing to give Israel a blank check. The Israel lobby knows that Barack Obama, while a friend to Israel and the Jewish people, is no fool and will not give Israel a blank check.
Keep in mind that yesterday, five past secretaries of state INCLUDING Henry Kissinger and James Baker called for unconditional negotiations between Iran and the U.S. “at the highest level.” That’s the two deans of the Republican foreign policy establishment rejecting the McCain-Palin approach to Iran out of hand. Yet, Malcolm Hoenlein knows something Kissinger doesn’t about those mad mullahs.
The Conference of President’s anti-Iran event has become a pep rally for “Jews for McCain-Palin.” It’s a shande. If you want to voice your displeasure, join J Street’s protest by demanding that Hoenlein and the Conference disinvite Palin.
One thing does reassure me though. After the rally, Sarah will get some quality time with all those foreign leaders gathering at the UN, who she’s never met before in her life. She’ll even get an autographed map of the Bering Straits from Ban Ki Moon showing the border between Russia and Alaska. If she’s very good, Secretary General Ban might shake her hand and tell her he comes from South Korea and show her it on a world map.
Then Sarah can tell him that the only map that matters for her is the map of heaven. All the rest is sin and deviltry.
Ordinarily, reading the first paragraph of this post should have made Hillary’s star rise to its apogee in my fermament. I wonder, however, if the real reason for her declining was to avoid a direct confrontation with Palin. After all, Hillary has not been too far out of touch with the Lobby all these years.
Envisioning Hoenlein’s reaction when he found out Palin wanted Brickner to introduce her gave me my best laugh of the week. I can’t tell from the “Irony Alert” if you’re saying this actually happened or if you meant it as a joke, but either way it’s pretty damn funny.
“Let there be no doubt, the Jewish leadership has hitched itself to the Bush-McCain bandwagon.”
“The Israel lobby knows that Barack Obama, while a friend to Israel and the Jewish people, is no fool and will not give Israel a blank check.”
LOL at “The Jewish Leadership” and “The Israel Lobby”.
What’s next? Protocols of the Elders of Zion? A few Jews are involved in this or that and suddenly they are my (I’m Jewish) leadership, and that makes them part of the vaunted and mysterious “Jewish Lobby”?
This is hysterical nonsense. It’s as bad as presuming that a few arabs or muslims working against the world’s best interests are part of or speak for Arab or Muslim “Leadership” and that they are part of some mysterious Arab or Muslim “Lobby”.
rundmc, it is clear from your reply that you either don’t really understand what’s going on in the American politics or are trying to mislead. Israel Lobby is not a fakery like the Protocols – it is absolutely real. I also thought it wasn’t the case before starting exploring the subject. It is not just “a few Jews”, it is big, powerful, rich Jewish organizations like AIPAC, ADL, Conference of Presidents etc. You might want to start with Mondoweiss blog for more info and pointers.
Why couldnt both Hillary and Palin both appear at the event?
Why couldnt both Hillary and Palin both appear at the event?
Since that would be a PR coup that could be much too well exploited by the Obama campaign.
Peter D,
Are Walt and Mearsheimer part of the Oil Lobby controlled by influential Muslim leadership, CAIR, etc. that have great influence on UN policy against Israel and false media reports like al-Dura, Jenin, etc.? Or are Walt and Mearsheimer just individuals who have their own opinions?
If Hillary Clinton shows up it’s non-partisan, but if Palin shows up its partisan? What gives?
rundmc, read their article/book, check the easily verifiable facts and draw your own conclusions. Read Mondoweiss and check the facts and draw conclusions. Otherwise, open your mind and connect the obvious dots. Do you have a shred of evidence re the Oil Lobby? Of course not, it’s just inconsequential innuendo…
At the mere mention of the name of Sarah Palin, every lefty
gets in a state of hysteria, and that’s hysterical!! The fact of the matter is the rally isn’t about Hillary(Yesterday’s Woman) It is about protesting the visit of the Nut from Iran. Not every Jew is liberal, or spends all day espousing the garbage and lies of the left. Some of us don’t have trust funds and actually work for a living. Someone like Obama and much of the left WILL NEVER support Israel when push comes to shove. They vaccilate, and always opt for the politically correct thing to do.
Peter D,
I own the book. You should read the critiques about it, which prove the work is an amateurish, factually inaccurate one-sided screed that wouldn’t get past any Professor’s desk if submitted by an ordinary grad. student.
IS THE BRICKNER THING TRUE OR JUST A JOKE? HELLO?
@William Burns:
It was meant as a joke, but a serious one. I meant to point out through reference to Jews for Jesus how preposterous it was for any Jewish leader to throw out the welcome mat to someone like Palin, whose views of Jews as informed by evangelical theology, if you scratched slightly beneath the surface, would be deeply objectionable.
@Acai Berri: Hillary was entirely right to pull out. Why should she allow Palin to bask in her reflected light? It would only allow Palin to fawn over Hillary & try to curry favor w. her supporters.
I read a lot of critques of W&M (I read their original article, btw, not the book) and found most simple knee-jerk reactions. None featured real serious rebttals of the main thesis. A good critique is here. If you can point to me a good review refuting concrete and major points instead of abstract talking about how the authors “exaggerate”, “don’t understand” etc., I’ll read it. To deny that there is a power Israel Lobby in the US is stupid. Parts of the lobby never concealed their existence and bragged about their power like that AIPAC operative that bragged about getting signatures of 70 senators on a napkin in several hours, or something to that effect. Parts of this lobby are much more amorphous and not really centrally organized, but rather come from associations and alliances that are concealed, like those of many American Jewish journalists and columnists. Read Mondoweiss, really.
@rundmc: You have naturally twisted & distorted what I wrote. I wrote “the Jewish leadership” and the “Israel lobby.” I did not turn them into archetypal anti-Jewish phrases as you did. And I certainly never referred to a “Jewish Lobby.” That is all the product of yr hyper-sensitive imagination.
The Israel lobby exists as does a Jewish leadership with a particular set of right-wing priorities & values, whether you admit it or not. I also did not refer to anti-Semitic literature as you did. I don’t need to do that (nor would I) to make a legitimate pt.
@what?: See my other comment. It’s a joke.
@rundmc: More histrionics. Could you point out to us proof that Walt & Mearsheimer’s views are informed by anything other than their own considered & expert opinions based on decades of academic investigation and deliberation??
@amir: No, if Hillary shows up it’s non-partisan since she’s no longer running for president. Once a vice presidential candidate shows up then clearly both her campaign & the rally organizers are making a partisan political statement & allowing her to score points in favor or the Republican campaign & ticket.
@Norm:
No, that’s true. Only about 50% of them acc. to polls if I remember the figures accurately. Only about 25% or so share yr right wing views. So that would put you in a distinct minority.
The idea that people of the left have the views they do because they’re wealthy is not only preposterous, it’s actual hysterically funny.
Regarding Obama, you lie, but what else is new. That’s what right wing pro Israel militants tend to do. Provide a single shred of evidence to bolster yr claim that Obama will abandon Israel.
@rundmc: You “own” the book. But did you read it? You’ve read only the critiques sympathetic to yr own partisan views. And you’re just passing on smears you’ve read at right-wing Jewish sites. I’ve read most of the reviews pro & con & the negative views uniformly twist, distort, or misunderstand the book. There are points to criticize in this book & I have done so here. But reviews like that of Jeffrey Goldberg & others are hysterical, overblown & just plain smears not based on legitimate analysis of what’s written on the page.
By the way, rundmc, all the critiques I read of the W&M book were written by Jews. This taints their objectivity (besides the low quality I mentioned). Point me to a good critique by a person of whom we can be sure that he or she has no hidden agenda, alliance or knee-jerk defensive reaction. Re: defensive reactions, see this and this, for example, on how Jeffrey Goldberg first trashed W&M and then wrote an NYT op-ed confirming their main point.
@Peter D: It’s not so much that they were written by Jews. It’s that they were written by Jewish pro-Israel partisans who had an axe to grind.
Richard, true, besides those good ones that, as I said, reacted defensively and not objectively. A lot of Jews understand that the lobby exists and even disapprove of its activities, but are afraid that talk of Israel Lobby will bring about a wave of anti-Semitism. This is a valid concern, but I think the alternative is worse. Phil Weiss also addressed these concerns more than once, herefor example.
Hillary Clinton is partisan. To suggest otherwise is preposterous.
@amir:
If you don’t know the diff. bet. a politician who is NOT running for office and one who is & why having the one speak is not partisan & having the 2nd speak is–then far be it fr. me to enlighten you.
BTW, the Conference has just canceled Palin’s appearance. I guess they understood my pt. better than you did.
There were 900 rabbis on a call with Obama the other morning. That’s 900 “influentials” who certainly aren’t in the pocket of a neocon cabal. Isn’t that “Jewish leadership”?
@rebmoti: I’m glad there were 900 rabbis listening to Obama by phone. But not all support Obama & besides there are many thousands of rabbis in this country.
But I’m not really talking about rabbis since they’re more spiritual leaders. I’m talking about leaders of Israel lobby groups: David Harris, Abe Foxman, Mort Klein, Malcolm Hoenlein, Howard Kohr, etc. These are the guys along with their board chairs who wield real political clout in the Jewish community & they are almost w/o exception right wing.
There are many differences between a politician running for office and not running for. There are also similarities. One of the similarities is that BOTH Clinton and Palin are partisan. Lets see what Hillary has been up to from her own website.
What do you know? H. Clinton is campaigning on behalf of Obama. So much for her being non-partisan.
The organizers invited Biden as well. Had either Clinton or Biden appeared with Palin then it would have been BALANCED. But they didn’t want to share a stage with Palin for their PARTISAN reasons, as you pointed out. The Democrats are the ones being partisan and shame on Hoenlein for caving in to pressure from the Democratic mob. This just proves to me that the Democrats put petty politics ahead of principle and making a statement against Iran’s president and makes me less likely to vote for Democrats this year.
IF it is true that after witnessing all the miracles associated with the Exodus, a substantial number of Jews revolted, not happy with all the miracles they witnessed, THEN it is easy to understand how so may Jews would worship the false messiah B. Hussein Obama. It is also easy to understand how so many Jews would reject and insult a true friend and supporter – Sarah Palin.
This Jew is ashamed and embarrassed by the weak, naive, self hating, foolish, cowardly, victimhood – loving, and traitorous Jews that this “magazine” and its supporters represent. Cure yourselves of this disease before it kills you.
The Israel Lobby failed. Covergirl Palin is “uninvited”. What will “Jewish Leadership” do now? What a dark day. The Elders of Zion have been defeated by the Sons of Light (J-Street and the good Yids). No more evil Jewish stranglehold on all that is Holy. Happy days are here again!
I agree with Amir completely, but I think we are wasting our time on this site where the agenda is to put partisan points ahead of Israel’s interests. Israel has too many friends in the world anyway, so we should continue to spit in the face of elected government officials who are trying to be helpful (because, as we know, supporting unrestricted abortion rights is important than the risk of a nuked Israel). Besides, we WANT to push the Republicans back into the arms of James Baker, Brent Scowcroft and Zbig. They know what’s best! But, I’m sure I’ll be lectured to by the people here who, of course, know what’s in Israel’s interest better than people who actually live there. BTW, did anyone else catch Bernard Henri-Levy on WNYC earlier this week come right out and accuse W&M of pushing Nazi ideology, akin to Celine? He said their book would never have been published in France b/c people there would have immediately understood the anti-semitic innuendo.
@amir: You’ve been away from the U.S. for too long & have forgotten a distinction that every American understands (even Republicans usually) bet. a pol running for election & one who isn’t. It’s a huge distinction apparently lost on you.
Hillary Clinton is raising money for Barack Obama. She’s not out on the stump making partisan public pitches every day like Obama is. She knows the diff. bet. delivering a non partisan speech at a Jewish rally & making a stump speech during a campaign. Again apparently you don’t.
She would never see such a rally as an opportunity to score partisan political pts.
Sarah Palin, on the other hand, is in the middle of a hard fought national election & ANYTHING she says will be seen as partisan. It has to be. If Hillary were running for Pres. instead of Obama then she’d be in the same position & likely wouldn’t address such a rally just as neither Obama nor McCain are.
As if you were ever considering voting for the Democrats! Shame on you for being so disingenuous as to have us think you would support Obama over McCain.
@Martin H. Leaf: Some right wingers are so obtuse they can’t tell the diff. bet. Tikkun Magazine and this blog, Tikun Olam. Can’t teach an old right-winger new tricks I guess.
Sarah Palin a true friend of the Jews???!!! If you admire Jews for Jesus & their attempts to turn us all into Christians, then I guess she’s a swell friend of our kind.
I do so love being called a “traitor” and “diseased” by faux Jews like this one.
@rundmc: That pretty much sums up my feelings though w/o the snarkiness.
@DRW:
Quel surprise! A former French Jewish liberal (now verging on neocon) detests Mearsheimer’s book! I’m shocked, I say, shocked.
Go ahead & charge Mearsheimer with “pushing Nazi ideology.” It only shows you for the propagandist wingnut you are.
I’ve voted for Democrats before, and I like and respect Barack Obama. Why would you assume otherwise?
@amir: A. because you threatened to vote for the Republicans for what I thought was a petty reason. B. because your politics regarding the I-P conflict are clearly much diff. than Obama’s
Those are pretty good reasons to believe that you are either a Republican or an independent with right-leaning tendencies & highly unlikely to vote Democratic. But I’d love for you to prove me wrong.
I like & respect Obama. It’s hard for me to see how both of us could vote for him given the wild differences in our politics. But maybe that’s a good sign for Obama.
There are other issues other than I-P conflict. Frankly, I don’t think American Jews should decide who to vote for based on that one issue.