Andrew Adler, now that’s a name that should live in Jewish infamy. He’s the publisher of the Atlanta Jewish Times who actually published a column in his paper saying that one of three options Israel should consider on the day the Prime Minister hears that Iran has a nuclear weapon is for Mossad agents in the U.S. to assassinate Barack Obama. Just in case you think I’m making this lunacy up here’s a screenshot of the column itself. Here’s the money–or should I say, “kill shot.” Adler writes that Option 3 is:
…Give the go-ahead for U.S.-based Mossad agents to take out a president deemed unfriendly to Israel in order for the current vice president to take his place, and forcefully dictate that the United States’ policy includes its helping the Jewish state obliterate its enemies.
Yes, you read option three correctly. Order a hit on a president in order to preserve Israel’s existence. Think about it. If I have thought of this Tom Clancy-type scenario, don’t you think that this almost unfathomable idea has been discussed in Israel’s most inner circles?
Another way of putting “three” in perspective goes something like this: How far would you go to save a nation comprised of seven million lives…Jews, Christians and Arabs alike?
You have got to believe, like I do, that all options are on the table.
No, actually I’ve got to believe that Andrew Adler is a class A asshole and an idiot to boot. I could rail about the fact that the editor of a Jewish paper in one of America’s largest Jewish communities would pen such disgusting tripe. But what disturbs me even more is that the tens of thousands of Jews living in Atlanta read not just this, but all the garbage this jerk writes. Imagine the impact that this has on the tone and substance of political debate in that town.
Apparently, Israel has such a sterling reputation lately for political assassinations that Adler and others have come to believe that the best way of pursuing a political objective is to murder whoever stands in the way. That’s one of the legacies that Israel’s far right government has bestowed to the world, both Jewish and non-Jewish.
Don’t think that Atlanta is alone. The Jewish paper in the Five Towns published a similarly disturbing column a few years ago calling for the murder of Muslims. Jews, even rabbis, dream up the most vile, disgusting scenarios for their fellow Jews. In Israel, rabbis call for putting uppity Arabs in concentration camps. We have much to ashamed of, just as we have much to be proud of: from our prophetic ethical tradition and inheritors of its mantle like Martin Buber, Judah Magnes and those who founded Brit Shalom; and their latter-day followers in NGOs like Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity, the Popular Committee Against Torture, Breaking the Silence, Peace Now and so many others.
He’s been playing FPS games on the Xbox while sniffing glue.
Hey, don’t insult gamers
The current right-wing government in Israel doesn’t have the monopoly on the use of politically motivated murder. It’s been Israel’s policy since 1948 to kill whomever they deem to be a danger or an obstacle.
What is shocking is that this guy hasn’t been tossed into a federal detention center. You can bet your buttocks that were this article to have been published in a Muslim newspaper, the writer would “disappear.”
How true
Even earlier than 1948 if you count Jakob Israel de Haan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Isra%C3%ABl_de_Haan
Strange, I just happened to come accross the memorial for the deported Jewish population of Smilde today, as I was in the north of the country this weekend, and now I read in the Wikipedia article that he was born in that village.
I wrote an essay for London Review of Books which they never published which deals with the de Haan assassination & the general use of violence & assassination for political ends in Zioninst history. I’ll publish it here one day.
Please do.
The Israeli Lobby has finally jumped the shark, right? Please say no because I think the wheels are coming off this thing
What’s next, Lindsey Grahman is selected as an honorary Knesset member and starts working out of his office in Tel Aviv, Teleconferencing in his votes in the Senate?
Zionists like Adler are just carrying Zionism thru to it’s logical ends
The truly ironic part is this is what Israel has been doing for years – to the Palestinians and others instead of Obama.
Adler IS Likud, Adler is modern Zionism of the Israeli state- it’s just shocking to hear Likud bray so loud clear. In a way it’s almost refreshing
You can dress these Israeli Lobbyists up but you certainly can’t take them out of the closet because look what happens..
If he is a Zionist, why doesn’t he live in Israel?
Ah yes. How lovely to see the anti-semites emerge from their dens.
Don’t be an idiot. Questioning why a Jew who advocates killing a U.S. president doesn’t live in Israel isn’t anti Semitic. If that’s anti Semitic, then you’re living in an alternate universe of yr own paranoid construction.
No, but making vague accusations against the “Israel Lobby” and Zionism is a whole based on the ramblings of one crazy Jew – certainly is anti-semitic. These people see conspiracies where there are none.
You see, you can’t raise any question, open any discussion, make any point without some of these guys rolling their eyes and muttering about your anti-Semitism. Jackie Mason used to make a joke of it in his spiel calling everyone who irritates him in the narrative an “anti-Semite!” or a “Nazi!”. It was a joke, but here it is for real.
I think the comment was in response to the statement that implied that all Zionists should move to Israel, not just this one particular idiot.
Why is a view commonly held by classical Zionists considered “anti Semitic” when offered by a non Jew??
I dunno. Speaking Hebrew fluently and, clearly by the standards of this website, I must be a red-hot zionist. I decided not to make my life there partly because my profession is clearly subordinated to parts of the enterprise that I strongly disagree with–confiscating Arab land and sticking awful trailers on it–and partly because I don’t want to live in a self-immolating state. I currently live in California, so I am wide open to the internal consistency complaint on that issue.
For arm-chair irgunists, or kahanists, like Adler and his ilk, I don’t know why they don’t make aliya. I am glad they don’t.
In either case, I don’t want to be grouped with them anymore than David wants to be grouped with anti-semites, even as he provokes the label by grouping all zionists together, in the way you would clearly recognize if Newt were saying it.
“Zionism as a whole..” I have repeatedly been corrected that I am “wild” and “anti-Semitic” in seeing Zionism as a doctrinal whole and attributing the policies of Israel currently (and mostly historically) to this doctrine. I ask “quip” and others — what is wrong with this conflation? What part of Israeli policy and practice is not consistent with Zionism in theory?
I ask any respondent to bear in mind an important distinction — the past may represent but one of a multitude of possible outcomes but it has the virtue, in our affairs, of existing as one actual set of events and thereby shaping future periods. Actual history presents a Zionism that has a certain consistency and certain features and these are the Zionism of now. If there are historically dead end forms of Zionism for which some are pining that is all very interesting but it should not affect my ability to broadly assault the group that owns the ideology today, even at the risk of the libel of “anti-Semitism.”
David,
I will suggest this, based on my impressions being left of center on Israel issues in the American Jewish community–the very term ‘zionist’ is a tad moldy, partly because the term suggests a doctrine when there is no real, coherent, doctrine and partly because the challenge to zionism as a movement has a certain existential flavor–that in its absence there would be no Israel, something most American Jews cannot stomach. If you want to address the broad constituency of Israel supporters and condemn Israeli policies choosing another term, such as pro-Israel (pick your slur) might focus your comments on the particular policy you wish to discuss and not make every statement seem like you are passing judgment on Israel’s very right to exist by using language favored by the Soviet bloc. If you want to do that, of course, you will continue to get that label you don’t like.
Randy — thanks for the tip and your effort. I don’t think that “pro-Israel” will help much because it also has the “existential” question embedded, but maybe I’ll try.
I still do think there is a doctrinal whole, however morphed in time, that is Zionism and that the use of the word segregates out its Judaism, as such, a fact I observed long ago in Soviet rhetoric.
Yes, I will get labelled an “anti-Semite” in any event. But one grows crusty.
I agree it is an idiotic, outrageous and intolerable statement. However, you write: “… what disturbs me even more is that the tens of thousands of Jews living in Atlanta read not just this, but all the garbage this jerk writes …” A very distinct possibility is that most people read the local Jewish paper for information and gossip and not for the deep geopolitical analysis by a hack. One who is busy selling ad space most of the time yet feels compelled to share his drivel with the rest of the world.
I believe that his newspaper has a circulation of about 3000.
Also, the piece was not made available online – only via print.
Very few people ever read any of the garbage this jerk writes.
Certainly not tens of thousands of Jews living in Atlanta.
Good to hear, but as you know, Jews are news, and this column will far outgrow the size of its writer.
Sure – small circulation, except for right now.
I think this affair is information. It says something about the state of mind of true believers and their hierarchy of choices. It is hysterical and shrill but then so is Zionism in America nowadays. And it is cooly insane, rational and crazy, another reflection of a state of mind more widespread than Atlanta. I do not doubt that Israelis have thought about such an “option” as there are no limits, legal, civil or humanitarian to the scope of Israeli activities. And whither Israel so goest the Lobby and its minions.
This should be a huge embarrassment for the American Zionist community. How will they play it? Throw Adler to the dogs, of course. But, beyond that, how will they ingratiate themselves to Americans hereafter.
I recall the hubbub alleging Iranian plans to assassinate a Saudi official. Washington was livid with indignation! Any indignation now in the capital?
So American zionism is hysterical and shrill and it is coolly insane too? And how they “ingratiate” themselves to “Americans” hearafter says more about you than about American zionists. In a post below you denigrate the loyalty of American JEWS in general, stop hiding behind the “zionist” label–who gets the comeuppance? Jews? That’s how you conclude below.
I wonder what our moderator has to say about this.
I don’t denigrate American Jews in general, that is nonsense. And, yes, I would think that the Lobby would have to do some tap dancing to take the sting out of this incident, however much you trivialize it. It is the Lobby that could use a little discipline having pushed around the President and brought Congress to its knees with a loyalty oath. These activities are inflammatory, not me.
“American Jews should take take careful note of how wrong this whole support Israel thing has become…It is time for some comeuppance.” Opening statement, closing summary statement.
Comeuppance for whom? If it is the “lobby” it is not clear from your statement. In the end, Adler will get a richly deserved visit from the authorities, and, who knows, may fold his paper. I don’t know, I don’t care. I am unfamiliar with any loyalty oath the “lobby” has required of Congress.
There are two aspects of your response to Adler and to my remarks that I don’t buy. The first is the attempt to play the anti-Semitism card (again!) and the second is the evident intent to trivialize and wash away this Adler business, despite some evident sympathy with the universal opprobrium.
In the first instance, it takes some doing to find an anti-Semite at work in my remarks, but ok maybe I wasn’t clear enough for you. The Lobby deserves some opprobrium as well. It is interesting, however, that I suggest how wrong-headed American Zionism is and, right away, I am interpreted as favoring a good old-fashioned progrom to make things right. I certainly did not intend any such meaning so you can put the anti-Semitic genie back in the lamp.
But Adler doesn’t wash away so easily despite the limited circulation, Chabadist beliefs, a possible “visit” from authorities (not jail, eh?) and your urging that everyone deplore this and then move on. History demonstrates many instances in which the unlikeliest people and incidents have far reaching impacts. The Adler column was possibly a threshold event, the passing of a certain limit in the political rhetoric of Zionism in America. Americans, Jews and others, should – and will – reconsider the horrendous policies of Israel and the right wing politics there and here in the US and the face of such extremity captured in Adler’s addle-brained writing. We may look back someday and identify Adler as one of the reasons pro-right wing Israel sentiment in the US tempered considerably over the years. Netanyhu’s rejection of peace and a two state solution may be seen as another good reason. I can only hope so.
On the anti-semitism issue–you make several sweeping assessments of American zionists, and that is my issue with you in particular. Not all American zionists are Adlers or ultra-orthodox or any thing else. I can support Israel’s right to prosper and defend herself (or for that matter, get the F out of the territories) and I shouldn’t have to worry about my loyalty to the United States being questioned. Given the very broad support for Israel in the American Jewish community various characters–such as David Duke and his amen corner on the left use the term zionism to wink wink refer to all Jews. I have seen enough vile hatred on this website and others to no longer give credit when somebody questions my loyalty or of American zionists in general because of some connection to Adler or some other Jewish imbecile.
Frankly, I am not sure if Adler should go to jail–because his remark isn’t a direct threat. There is a line where we have to protect free speech, and I would say the same if a similar statement came out on CAIR.
Did Pollard change policy or the right’s view on Israel? Did the Liberty incident in 1967 do that? Did other espionage cases that came to light in recent years change anything? You are dreaming if you think this will be anything but a flash in a pan. Only the corner of American politics that is always hair-trigger with Israel remember this episode because it is one idiot, one column in a very limited circulation rag, not representing anybody but himself and whatever ghosts animate him.There is plenty of incitement in the country over Obama. It is disgusting wherever the origin.
So, just to be on the record, all around, and why I am pissy about all of this is that it is too late for the two state solution and that Israel’s friends in the US didn’t realize that stepping in and taking away the toys could have averted this disaster in the making. Too busy fighting the haters, Israel’s most ardent supporters didnt realize the country was destroying itself.
I will accept that I tend to put all American Zionists in one box. This is a sore point with others on this blog as well. Historically, there may have been a kinder, gentler Zionism, but I never saw it. My consciousness starts really with the dubious claims and propaganda about ’67 and proceeds from there to the point that Oslo was a thin compromise and was quickly undone by assassination anyway. I have never seen a genuine accomodation for peace from Israel at all and therefore the supporters of Israel have no reason to expect any meaningful accomodation. Their support, then, is the underwriting of history as it is, and projects more of the same into the future. There is no basis for change in Israeli policies, so why support the enterprise? I am also annoyed that fervent American Zionists don’t simply move to Israel, a state prepared just for them, resolve thereby their loyalty dilemma (created by Zionism) and leave America to its melting pot. Israel needs Jews to overcome its demographic (note “demographic” not political) problem. It seems to me that American Jews are happy to send “support” but not themselves and there’s the rub.
All things considered, I don’t think we have such a big divide here. I could be more tolerant and you could sympathize more with my good intentions. I think the Liberty and Pollard did change some hearts and minds and I think Adler will as well.
I entirely agree on the incitement about Obama: It is truly chilling and distressing for me as well. And I am also outraged that the two state solution will never see the light of day again, surely not in our time. So there.
Thanks for your thoughtful response. We may differ a great deal in purposes and intents, but as you say there is still not such a big gulf in seeing that the future isnt looking especially bright. Cheers.
Until proven otherwise, Adler is a fool writing idiotic columns in a paper nobody reads. It is very different from a state launching an operation to kill someone and recruiting people to do so.
I don’t know if you live in Atlanta, Bob, but from what I saw there during Cynthia McKinney’s election campaign, Adler’s column will have more than a few of that city’s Jewish population nodding their heads in approval.
Not only did the Jewish community leaders engage in a vicious campaign against her, when the black woman that AIPAC brought into defeat her in 2006, Denise Majette, decided to run in the next election for the Senate (she lost), a number of Atlanta’s Jews who had contributed to her campaign against McKinney, demanded their money back.
I suspect that if one were to examine the subject, the majority of Atlanta’s Jews during the decades of Jim Crow were just as accepting of anti-black racism in the South as were their counterparts in apartheid South Africa, with a handful of notable exceptions.
During the early 50s, one of Atlanta’s prominent rabbis came to dinner with his wife and daughter at our home in Los Angeles and when the dinner table talk turned to life in the South, the racist garbage that spewed from this man’s mouth would have brought a standing ovation had his audience been the KKK. My dad, appropriately, called him a racist and told him to shut up or he would throw him bodily from the house. That’s a message that needs to be delivered to Mr. Ader and I am no fan of Obama.
I don’t live in Atlanta so I can’t really speak to any of the details that you talk about here. Thanks for the insights though!
Adler’s column reflects the growing hubris of mighty little Israel and its ability to knock off its opponenets almost without world reaction. Israel simply gets away with murder on the international scene and I don’t mean just the targeted assassinations but everything other illegality as well.
Adler buys into the solution of assassination and apparently feels no loyalty to the US President. He is the troubled American Zionist…aggressive, without boundaries, and without measure or maturity. And without loyalty.
American Jews should take careful note of how wrong this whole support Israel thing has become. Adler fits right in there with Bibi and Barak, men who gloat on their power in the US such that they can defy the President with impunity. It is time for some comeuppance.
It doesn’t reflect anything on Israel. At best, it reflects that Adler is a fool, a violent fool. To make a sweeping judgement on Zionism or Jews based on the ramblings of a lunatic writer in a newspaper that hardly sees any circulation is simply racism.
Even lunacy has a context. Adler’s remarks capture much of that context and there is nothing racist in suggesting that much of the background can be found in Zionist discourse which is increasingly self-justifying and strident. I don’t apologize for having, as Lewis Black might say with urgency, “thoughts!”
Or is this the anti-Semitism canard yet again?
It doesn’t reflect on Israel? Where have you been? Israel has been openly assassinating people who it considers to be its enemies and getting away with it going back to the days of the struggle for statehood in which UN envoy Count Folk Bernadotte, who assisted Raoul Wallenberg in the rescuing of Jews from Europe, was murdered in 1948 by the Stern Gang who had among its leading members, Yitzhak Shamir. Ben-Gurion and Mapai knew who the killers were but there were no arrests or prosecutions. Same with the murder of Lord Moyne.
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/scandalous-new-campaign-video-obama-takes-israel-pandering-dangerous-levels
The premise that the Israeli ruling elite isn’t satisfied with Obama is absurd.
Oy Vey!!
1) I am confident that our alert Secret Service folks have read this and are planning to interview Mr. Adler. The comment is probably too conjectural to bring charges as it is not a direct threat but some kind of demented wish fufilment. If nothing else, the column speaks somewhat of the relations between Atlanta’s Jews and Blacks.
2) The column is grist for the mill of conspiracy theorists–some Arab, some American–who claim that Ben Gurion ordered the hit on JFK because of JFK’s interest in the nascent Israeli nuclear program. Now, a Jewish media outlet openly fantasizes about killing a president for not stopping someone else’s program.
3) Consequences? IF his fantasy came true, whither Israel? Not any place good–forget dealing with Iran, baby, Israel would be lost right at that moment.
4) The real take away is that this paper is little more than a vanity outlet, representing a small sect, yes, sect, of the American Jewish community that lives too many macho fantasies through the IDF.
There were a couple of other red lines for Israel that JFK presented besides his very real opposition to Israel developing nuclear weapons.
One, he supported Res. 194, the Palestinian “right of return.” Two, he had his Justice Dept. under brother RFK make a determined effort to force the American Zionist Council, which later morphed into AIPAC, register as a foreign agent which would have seriously crippled its activities not only on Capitol Hill but across the country.
AZC’s lawyers kept stalling and doing everything they could to block those efforts which quickly wound down after JFK’s assassination.
Does that mean that Israel did it or that it was carried out by some pro-Israel mobsters like Meyer Lansky who was also pissed off at JFK for not supporting the gusanos at the Bay of Pigs? Not at all, but they certainly had the motive and, as we saw with the killing of Count Folke Bernadotte by the Stern Gang in 1948 and with the many assassinations across the world that have followed, Israel has not hesitated to take out those it considers it enemies.
Interesting. So I went googling for where these claims might be substantiated. The first on BG’s supposed assasination for JFK comes from a book Final Judgment: The Missing Link in the JFK Assassination Conspiracy by Michael Collins Piper, available on Amazon, and published by American Free Press, a front for Willis Carto fans (http://shop.americanfreepress.net/). According to the same people Israel is of course responsible for 911. Somebody named Grant Smith wrote a book AMERICA’S DEFENSE LINE: The Justice Department’s Battle to Register the Israel Lobby as Agents of a Foreign Government, and published by something called “Institute for Research for Middle East Policy,inc”–looking at their website, I wouldn’t believe them if they said it was raining outside. In either case, both books are cited by a blog called Uprooted Palestinians (http://uprootedpalestinians.blogspot.com/2011/11/jfk-life-in-sixties-and-decline-of.html) in the same breath–did you write that entry? I am not sure I would rely on them for credible information on Israel.
As for your claim that because Israel has assasinated foes in the past they are suspects in this case is pretty weak, considering 1) other countries, such as the Soviet Union, ahem, the US, and ahem, the UK, also have histories of disposing of people they don’t like. 2) I am sorry, but Oswald killed Kennedy. He did it himself. Maybe because he viewed himself as a hero of Marxism-Leninism, maybe bc of Cuba, or maybe because he was a narcissist. I don’t think he was upset with Kennedy for reasons related to Israel. 3) Unlike previous administrations, JFK sold new weapons to Israel and was more sympathetic in general to both Israel and the Jewish community.
All these conspiracy theories leave me cold.
BTW, Grant Smith is not a credible source in my book. The general direction of his research is decent. But his methods & evidence are suspect.
Richard, I find your comment somewhat mystifying. What do you find suspect about Smith’s methods and evidence?
As for rejecting conspiracies, when a crime of such a significant nature as the assassination of a president has been committed and there are so many holes in the government’s story as there were in JFK’s case, even though I was not a fan of JFK, I became what was called, an “assassination buff.”
At this point in time I don’t believe we will ever know the answer and even if someone actually di discover it, she or he would be rejected as a “conspiracy theorist.”
I should also mention to Randy that JFK sold Hawk defensive missiles to Israel with the hope that Ben-Gurion would not go ahead with Israel’s nuclear weapons program. Ben-Gurion deceived him. It is not a headline breaker to note than the two men did not get along well. See Sy Hersh’s “The Samson Option.”
Perhaps, Randy, before you exercise what I suspect is a knee-jerk reaction to anything that conflicts with your world view, you check out what Smith has written and the documentation he reproduces just in case potential readers such as yourself don’t trust his footnotes.
I would also recommend you and others on this list check out his Israel Lobby Archives at irmep.org/ila/
There you’ll find relatively recently declassified documents from Sen. JW Fulbright’s 1963 Senate hearings during which officials of the American Zionist Council were grilled about the Jewish Agency in Israel having used tax-exempt funds donated by American Jews to pay for pro-Israel propaganda in the US with the AZC acting as its American agent which is what prompted JFK’s Justice Dept. to get the AZC to register as a foreign agent. You’ll also find those documents in another book by Smith, “Foreign Agents” which I also recommend.
Smith, BTW, has never written anything, to my knowledge, connecting Israel with the JFK assassination, or even suggesting such a link.
I am aware of Michael Collins Piper’s book. I looked into it, found it, as I expected, poorly sourced, and put it down Knowing where he was coming from it didn’t surprise me
Jeff,
Not to sound too much like Newt, but my world contains multitudes. I read widely, and I like to think, deeply as well. So you can suspect what you like about me as the same charge can clearly be leveled at you as well. In any case, who publishes the book, who writes the backflap blurbs are often enough clues to tell you what the book will say given the incredibly entrenched, politicized and mobilized research and “research” rhetoric around this conflict.
I was dealing with the claims in order–check out the links I gave, one of them definitely tries to pin BG for JFK. It’s even on the cover of the book.
Thank you for alerting me to Fullbright’s hearings. As a lifelong critic of Israel, that he conducted those hearings are hardly a surprise. Having watched modern day hearings, I am not surprised that findings are predetermined. That RFK had anything to do with them underscores how opportunistic the Kennedy’s were–as RFK was quite supportive of Israel until Sirhan Sirhan (and not the Mossad, and not Ehud Barak) killed him.
After reading many books, of many persuasions, I am left with the conclusion that AIPAC wags the dog in many respects for Israel–making the Israeli leadership believe that they are politically invincible. While other people disagree, I think that organizations like JStreet are worth supporting–even though, as I continue to rant, it doesn’t matter anyway since it is too late for a 2 state solution.
Randy — you are not fair-minded here. It is unreasonable to dismiss apparent genuine criticism of Israel as some other thing, e.g. RFK as “opportunistic” and Fulbright as a “lifelong critic..”. By offering such tangential defenses you are doing the same sort of thing that conspiracy theorists do, that is, saying that something is not what it appears. The best solution is usually the simplest and, in the case of JFK and RFK, the simple solution is that they were genuinely opposed to Israeli policies and practices in some respects in some respects, just as it seems.
Fulbright was considered a beacon of liberal light in his day and I think rightly so. It is encouraging to find that he was indeed a “lifelong critic of Israel.” Nothing wrong I say in that.
David,
The best solution is not the simplest solution. The best solution, or interpretation, is one that takes in the spectrum of what these people were. So am I bad for pointing out that Fullbright criticized Israel or am I good? Looks like I score on both sides.
The Kennedys were as much Camelot as John Belushi was. They were politicians. They were cynical and at times unethical. Both JFK and RFK supported Israel, but not all the way up to the hilt. Before we lose track of what this thread is about (we are getting there) it was that Israel didn’t kill them. Sometimes conspiracy is a tonic for the bored and not to be believed just because the official investigation has holes in it.
I think we’ve beaten this dead now.
Randy — Jeff gets the points for the Fulbright information. You get points for pointing out that this horse isn’t breathing.
This statement was posted by a practicing attorney who said this about Adler’s situation….
“It’s a class D felony to threaten the President. In most cases people who make threats get a visit by the FBI/Secret Service. Prosecutions happen, but circumstances vary. It will be informative to learn what if anything is done.”
Yes, a thousand times over.
RE: “Andrew Adler, now that’s a name that should live in Jewish infamy.” ~ R.S.
ALSO SEE: U.S. publisher who called for Obama assassination proves ‘Israel-firsters’ exist ~ by Yossi Gurvitz, +972 Magazine, 1/21/12
ENTIRE ARTICLE – http://972mag.com/u-s-publisher-who-called-for-obama-assassination-proves-israel-firsters-exist/33484/
I agree to an extent, but if Gurvitz thinks that some Israelis don’t live in a political fantasy world just as skewed at times as Adler’s, he’s mistaken.
You are probably right about some Israelis living in a political fantasy world just as skewed at times as Adler’s. The same might well be true of a lot of Republicans (in a general political sense) in this country. It might be true for some others as well.
If a person gets his news solely from the mainstream media in the U.S., then he/she is undoubtedly living in a political fantasy world to a significant degree.
ALSO SEE: Inciting to kill Obama: Another Judeofascist from Chabad, by Larry Derfner, +972 Magazine, 1/21/12
ENTIRE ARTICLE – http://972mag.com/inciting-to-kill-obama-another-judeofascist-from-chabad/33492/
P.S. I wonder if it ever crossed Mr. Adler’s addled mind that a disturbed individual might see his column; and acting pursuant to Adler’s premise try to do to Obama what Jared Loughner did to Rep. Gabrielle Giffords?
The word jackass comes to mind.
P.S. RE: “The same [living in a political fantasy world] might well be true of a lot of Republicans (in a general political sense) in this country.” – me, above
FROM ANDREW LEVINE, 01/20/12:
SOURCE – http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/01/20/ron-paul%E2%80%99s-anti-imperialism/
It’s going too far to blame Dispensationalism on the Israeli Right. D’ism has been around since the early 19th century and started becoming big in the US late 19th century.
You mean attempted to do to Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, and DID to Judge John Roll.
Yes, Andrew Adler is a lunatic, but his raving is a window into some dark and important corners of the U.S.-Israeli “special relationship.” For example, we now know thanks to the FOREIGN POLICY investigative report, that Mossad operatives posing as CIA men have recruited an al-Qaeda-type group Jundullah to carry out assassinations inside Iran. The recent murder of the Iranian nuclear scientist bears all the marks of this. I suspect (although can’t prove) that an underlying motive of such Israeli operations is to provoke an Iranian retaliation that would force the U.S. into a military confrontation that the Obama administration does not want. What might happen if, for example, the Iranian regime goes ahead with the execution of the U.S. citizen Amir Hekmati for “espionage”?
A Google search of “Andrew Adler Atlanta” for its first ten pages showed that only CNN and the British Guardian newspaper among the MSM devoted any coverage to this story – for my part, the issue is not that the MSM has ignored the story, but HOW it has been compelled to do so.
Have you seen the latest?
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/151965#.TxxVBnruwVB
Andrew Adler has resigned, according to Jpost.com.
As of this sentence, the news is 11 hours old.
Couldn’t have happened to anyone more deserving. Now he’ll be hired to work in Bibi’s PMO!
The JTA asks this question:
Is Adler an outlier for even contemplating such a scenario? Or is this the natural extension of some of the tougher anti-Obama rhetoric?
What do you think?
Frankly, I think this is a tempest in a teapot. I live in Israel and the Adler idiocy did not make the press. For Natanyahu, Iran is a useful boogy man to use to distract public attention from social issues such as housing and unemployment and to justify the anti-democratic legislation being cranked out by the Knesset. Everyone knows that a strong second strike capability will deter a nuclear Iran and we will live with MAD as the Americans and Soviets did for decades and the Indians and Pakistanis do now. Everyone who is rational here also knows that ending the Occupation should be the first priority and that it will defuse Iran as well. Unfortunately the settler-messianic tail here wags the dog. Our American hawks who talk the talk but do not walk the walk are important only to the extent that they can buy Congress and prevent Obama from leading an effective peace effort. Our grandsons are in the Army, theirs are in college–it costs them nothing to be armchair heroes. Adler is an idiot and not worth the silicon spent on him here and elsewhere.
Alhamdulillah, someone from israel who makes sense.
Thanks most of all for your comment on Iran. I’m fed up of people who don’t see the reality of the situation, and especially of critics of Israel who have gravitated to Iran and Ahmadinejhad, perceiving them as so heroic, so caring about the Palestinians and the rest of the world. Phooey. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” is the worst thing here.
Adler has made a public performance since the publication of this rubbish, but interestingly, has not made an apology. Perhaps this is Freudian on his part.
Chabadniks hate Obama and Israeli progressives as well (not to mention Arabs). Fr his pt of view what does he have to apologize for? That he spoke what tens of thousands of fellow Chabadniks believe?
In fact, it was widely featured in Haaretz. The fact that it may not have been featured in other papers may indicate how poor their coverage is of American Jewish life. But I agree with everything else you’ve written.
Somehow the coverage in Haaretz to which I subscribe got past me. I must have selective reading syndrome…
FYI, on Tuesday evening there was a launching event for Zahava Galon’s candidacy for the position of head of Meretz. She made a speech you would have loved, in particular about the need to make a rational left wing party relevant. She also made it clear that social justice in Israel cannot come about as long as the occupation lasts. The leaders of the tent protest of last summer and fall shied away from the occupation issue and the movement fizzled and rightly so. She has what Tip O’Neil called the fire in the belly and I hope she is elected and takes off.
Aharon — I have some trouble with the term “ending the occupation.” At one stroke the use of the term “occupation” both legitimizes Israel’s presence in the West Bank (a valid result of a valid war) and de-legitimizes Israel’s creeping slow annexation of the land, as “occupation” implies temporary stewardship of other peoples land. But there are a number of entirely different ways for this occupation to end and one would be the formal annexation of the land into Israel! The phrase “ending the occupation” is therefore very ambiguous. How did you mean it?
Exactly. The term contains multiple ambiguities. The Israeli left seems committed to finally putting an end to the Six Day War, while the Palestinians and the Israeli right want to re-fight 1948, with absolute losses for the other side. The Palestinians waffle too much about the Right of Return for me to believe that occupation means the same thing to them as it does to the Israeli left. They want a state next to Israel and a state inside Israel, if not instead of Israel.
Yes, it is so ambiguous as to be little rhetorical value to the Israeli left and peaceniks. There is an organization “End the Occupation” and I know how the words are intended here, but really it so weak and I even wonder if this phrase reflects the relative impotence of the left in Israel, a sort of disposable concept not intended to fire the imagination.
This is all so sad!