GAZA PALIS ARE BARAK OBAMA'S BIGGEST FANS

EGYPTIAN HATE SINGER TO RELEASE PRO-OBAMA SONG

Egyptian Hate Singer to Release Pro-Obama Song

(LGF)

Barack Obama has picked up another celebrity endorsement—Shaban AbdelRaheem, the Egyptian pop singer whose best-known hit song is titled, “I Hate Israel:” Anti-Israel egyptian singer makes Obama song.

EVEN IF OBAMA IS NOT AN ANTI-SEMITE, IT MUST GIVE YOU PAUSE THAT ANTI-SEMITES ARE DRAWN TO HIM.

SEE ALSO: If Obama Can't Influence his Pastor, How is He Going to Influence Ahmadinejad? (Political Mavens)

OBAMA'S CHURCH PUBLISHED LETTER ALLEGING ISRAELI "ETHNIC BOMB"

Obama's Church Published Letter Alleging Israeli 'Ethnic Bomb'

(LGF)

Following the discovery of a Hamas manifesto published under Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s “Pastor’s Notes,” Bob Owens has another example of a deranged anti-Israel article appearing in the bulletin of Barack Obama’s church, the Trinity United Church of Christ: Confederate Yankee: It Never Stops: Obama’s Church Published Letter Alleging Israeli ‘Ethnic Bomb.’

UPDATED: ANOTHER ANTI-ISRAEL OBAMA SUPPORTER

RJC Calls on Sen. Obama to Remove Key Advisor (RJC)
Washington, D.C. (March 25, 2008) -- The Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) today called on Sen. Barack Obama to remove Gen. Merrill "Tony" McPeak as his military advisor and national campaign co-chairman.

"By choosing to have a military advisor and national campaign co-chairman like General McPeak, serious questions and doubts are once again being raised about Senator Obama's positions and judgment on Middle East issues," said RJC Executive Director Matt Brooks.

In a 2003 interview with the Oregonian, Gen. McPeak resorted to old stereotypes and unfortunate language by blaming the lack of progress with the Israeli-Palestinian peace process on the undue political influence of American Jewry. The problem, said McPeak is "New York City. Miami. We have a large vote -- vote, here in favor of Israel. And no politician wants to run against it."

"Rather than putting the blame where it belongs -- on the Palestinian leadership and their continued reliance on terror, General McPeak finds it more convenient to blame American Jewry and their perceived influence," said Brooks. "This is the same dangerous and disturbing canard being promoted by the likes of Jimmy Carter and authors Mearsheimer and Walt in their book, The Israel Lobby."

In addition, Gen. McPeak has a long history of criticizing Israel for not returning to the 1967 borders or returning the Golan Heights to Syria, as he wrote in Foreign Affairs in April 1976.

"Senator Obama continues to surround himself with advisors holding troubling and disturbing anti-Israel bias. General McPeak's views are alarming. We call on Senator Obama to immediately remove General McPeak from his campaign leadership role and as a key advisor," said Brooks.

SEE ALSO: OBAMA'S MILITARY ADVISOR HATES ISRAEL (China Confidential)

UPDATE: Obama 'disagrees' with ex-general adviser (JTA)

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) "disagrees" with a top adviser who appeared to blame Jewish voters for U.S. Mideast policy failures.

In a 2003 interview with the Oregonian, Gen. Merrill "Tony" McPeak, now the co-chairman of Obama's presidential campaign, critiqued the Bush administration for its handling of the Iraq war.

In part, he said, the Bush administration lacked a broader Middle East strategy, particularly in the area of Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking. The reporters asked him whether the State Department or the White House was to blame.

McPeak answered, "New York City. Miami. We have a large vote -- vote, here in favor of Israel. And no politician wants to run against it."

The reporters pressed him again to assess whether the State Department or the White House was responsible, but he persisted: "I think that everybody understands that a settlement of the Arab-Israeli problem would require the Israelis to stop settling the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and maybe even withdraw some of the settlements that've already been put there. And nobody wants to take on that problem. It's just too tough politically."

In a statement to JTA, the Obama campaign noted the senator's pro-Israel record and added, "Neither Senator Clinton nor Senator Obama agrees with every position their advisors take, and in this case Senator Obama disagrees with General McPeak's comments."

McPeak, a former Air Force chief of staff, has lent Obama's campaign substantial defense credibility and has appeared frequently as its surrogate on military matters.

The American Spectator, a conservative magazine, uncovered the Oregonian interview this week.

SUPER JEWISH DELEGATES

Super Jewish delegates (JTA)
The Forward’s Jennifer Siegel takes a look at how the 70 or so Jewish super delegates are breaking in the Democratic presidential race:

According to a new survey conducted by the Forward, a disproportionately large share of the Democratic party’s super-delegates are Jewish. Many of them have declared their support for Hillary Clinton, accounting for more than 15% of her current backers.

Like the general population of super-delegates, whose support remains fluid, several Jewish supporters of the New York senator said in interviews that their votes still remain up for grabs. All told, more than 70 Jewish super-delegates will make the trip to Denver this summer for the Democrats’ nominating convention. …

If the Democratic presidential primary comes down to a photo finish, these Jewish insiders could play an outsized role in anointing a nominee at the party’s August convention. And it would be a history-making experience: Although Jews have long been considered a formidable voting bloc and have been overrepresented among the country’s cadre of liberal activists and thinkers, they have only more recently become common as Democratic establishment insiders, with unprecedented numbers of both Jewish elected officials and party leaders.

THOSE SUPER DELEGATES MAY WANT TO TAKE A LOOK AT THIS: Barack Obama and Israel (American Thinker) (Hat tip: Uncle Sticky)

SHHHH! OBAMA'S REAL VIEWS ON ISRAEL

Electronic Intifada: How Barack Obama Learned to Love Israel

(LGF)

There’s yet another Barack Obama story that’s been out there for a while, but is only starting to get noticed this week in the context of the Rev. Wright meltdown—Obama’s connections to the radical Palestinian propaganda web site Electronic Intifada and its co-founder Ali Abunimah.

Joel Pollak at Guide to the Perplexed points out an article posted at Electronic Intifada March 4, 2008: ei: How Barack Obama learned to love Israel.

Over the years since I first saw Obama speak I met him about half a dozen times, often at Palestinian and Arab-American community events in Chicago including a May 1998 community fundraiser at which Edward Said was the keynote speaker. In 2000, when Obama unsuccessfully ran for Congress I heard him speak at a campaign fundraiser hosted by a University of Chicago professor. On that occasion and others Obama was forthright in his criticism of US policy and his call for an even-handed approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

The last time I spoke to Obama was in the winter of 2004 at a gathering in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood. He was in the midst of a primary campaign to secure the Democratic nomination for the United States Senate seat he now occupies. But at that time polls showed him trailing.

As he came in from the cold and took off his coat, I went up to greet him. He responded warmly, and volunteered, “Hey, I’m sorry I haven’t said more about Palestine right now, but we are in a tough primary race. I’m hoping when things calm down I can be more up front.” He referred to my activism, including columns I was contributing to the The Chicago Tribune critical of Israeli and US policy, “Keep up the good work!”

MCCAIN'S PRO-ISRAEL AGENDA

McCain Speaks 
John McCain outlines a staunchly pro-Israel agenda in an interview with the Jerusalem Post. 

OBAMA'S REVEREND ADMITS HE COULD COST JEWISH VOTES

Wright’s Stance on Israel Could Cost Obama Jewish Votes (Patterico via LGF).
Did Wright discuss these issues consistently enough that he believed it might be a problem for Obama? Yes. Wright seemed to think so when asked about it in a February 2007 interview (though, to be fair, he said he had not talked to Obama about it):

I just shared with, I was trying to remember who it is, somebody in public life was asking me about Barack, and I said listen, Barack might be forced by the media and/or by supporters to be very absent from this church and to put distance between our church and himself. As a politician, he might be forced into that. I have not talked to him about that at all. It’s just that my read just of the blogs and what the right-Christian-wing leaders have said about him being a part of our church over past three months says this is — you think it’s ugly now, it’s going to get worse, it’s going to get much worse. For survival’s sake, as a politician he just might have to not — not that I love you less, I love me more. I’ll never get elected as long as they keep harping on this. And that’s — again, I haven’t talked to him about that at all.

Q: How do you feel about that?

A: I would understand. I really would. I would understand. For instance ... he can’t afford the Jewish support to wane or start questioning his allegiance to the state of Israel because I’m saying the position we’ve taken in terms of Palestinians is wrong, and I think we need to revisit that. Just that kind of statement would cause negative repercussions in some quarters in terms of some supporters, in terms of some people he needs to support his election campaign.

OBAMA'S REVEREND AND HAMAS

Rev. Wright and Hamas

(LGF)

Tom Blumer at BizzyBlog has a very eye-opening look at the many public statements and writings of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright—including reprinting on his “Pastor’s Page” an infamous op-ed by Hamas kingpin Mousa Abu Marzook: TUCC’s Church Bulletins from July 2007 Probably Make Whether Obama Was Present on July 22 Irrelevant.

Previously at LGF: 
What the Hell is Wrong with the Los Angeles Times?

THE AUDACITY OF (OBAMA'S) CHUTZPAH

The Audacity of Chutzpah (Wash. Post)

A group of Jewish leaders announced that it was having a public meeting yesterday to discuss the 2008 presidential election. Representing John McCain: former secretary of stateLawrence Eagleburger. Representing Hillary Clinton: former White House official Ann Lewis. Representing Barack Obama: "a high-level representative of Barack Obama's presidential campaign (TBA)."

TBA? Obama's Jewish problem must be getting worse.

Finally, TBA was ID'd: Princeton professor Dan Kurtzer, a former ambassador to Israel. And when the victim, er, high-level representative, took the stage at the Washington Hilton yesterday for the United Jewish Communities debate, he went quickly on defense.

"There's a question in the community that's unfortunately been stimulated and stirred about and played with in e-mails and innuendos and newspaper articles," he said, "that suggests that there's something wrong with Senator Obama's views about Jews, about Israel." He then suggested that Jews could relate to Obama's persecution. "There are nagging doubts, there are e-mails, there are innuendos: These are the kinds of things which we as a community have suffered over the years at the hands of anti-Semites."

It took a bit of chutzpah to play the anti-Semite for Obama -- but these are tense times for the senator from Audacity....

Kurtzer, granted his turn to speak, attempted to argue that "on issues relating to Israel, frankly, there aren't any differences among the three candidates." Eagleburger looked at him incredulously; the audience laughed.

MCCAIN SHOWS PRO-ISRAEL CREDENTIALS

In Israel visit, McCain shows his pro-Israel credentials
By Dina Kraft

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Wearing a white knitted kipah, U.S. Sen. John McCain stood at the Western Wall, tucked a note inside one of its crevices and pressed his hand on the ancient stone, striking an image meant to speak to American Jewish voters across the sea that he is indeed their man

McCain, the Arizona senator who is the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, spoke Wednesday of his "deep and abiding commitment to Israel" -- a theme he stressed throughout his meetings this week with Israeli leaders.

Sounding a note of commonality and understanding with his Israeli hosts, McCain said that Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah were threats not only to Israel, but to America as well.

SEE ALSO: McCain tours Sderot with Barak (JPost)
US presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain says he understands Israel's tough response to Palestinian rocket fire.

"To live with an advance notice of 15 seconds is not the way for children to celebrate Purim", said Senator John McCain Wednesday afternoon during a tour of Sderot with Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

"No nation can afford not to respond when attacked or when its citizens are attacked," added the Republican presidential candidate.

SEE ALSO: McCain Backs Israeli Reprisals in Gaza (MSNBC)
SDEROT, Israel - Touring a war-battered town, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said Wednesday he understands Israel's tough response to Palestinian rocket fire, adding that there is no point in negotiating with the Gaza Strip's Islamic Hamas regime.

MCCAIN GETS WARM WELCOME IN ISRAEL

McCain gets celebrity welcome in J'lem (JPost)
US presidential hopeful John McCain received a celebrity welcome in Jerusalem Tuesday, with American tourists scrambling to shake his hand and get a souvenir snapshot.

McCain began a two-day visit with a stop at Israel's national Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem. As his motorcade pulled up, dozens of tourists greeted him and chanted "Mac is back," while he shook their hands and posed for photographs.

McCain is on a weeklong trip to Israel, Iraq, Jordan, Britain and France. He has said the tour is a fact-finding, mission, not a campaign photo opportunity.

During his 90-minute visit at the memorial and museum, McCain was visibly moved, his eyes welling with tears as he viewed photographs from Nazi death camps.

OBAMA'S PASTOR ON ISRAEL

UPDATED: Rev. Wright on Israel

(LGF)

Ace dug up another interesting video clip of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, making some (try not be shocked) anti-Israel remarks: Wright: ‘Israel’ a Dirty Word; Blacks Get all Quiet at the Mention of Israel.

UPDATE: Rev. Wright's 'War on Iraq IQ Test'

(LGF)

[A] link to yet another disturbing rant by Jeremiah Wright, this time in writing: The War on Iraq IQ Test.

After a series of viciously slanted pro-Saddam questions, the Reverend’s IQ test suddenly veers into Israel-hatred straight out of the Muammar Gaddafi playbook:

41. Q: How many UN resolutions did Israel violate by 1992? 
A: Over 65

42. Q: How many UN resolutions on Israel did America veto between 1972 and 1990? 
A: 30+

43. Q: How much does the U.S. fund Israel a year? 
A:$5 billion

44. Q: How many countries are known to have nuclear weapons? 
A: 8

45. Q: How many nuclear warheads has Iraq got? 
A: 0

46. Q: How many nuclear warheads has US got? 
A: over 10,000

47. Q: Which is the only country to use nuclear weapons? 
A: the US

48. Q: How many nuclear warheads does Israel have? 
A: Over 400

49. Q: Has Israel every allowed UN weapon inspections? 
A: No

50. Q: What percentage of the Palestinian territories are controlled by Israeli settlements? 
A: 42%

51. Q: Is Israel illegally occupying Palestinian land? 
A: Yes

And concluding with this:

52. Q: Which country do you think poses the greatest threat to global peace: Iraq or the U.S.? 
A: ????

OBAMA'S PASTOR

Obama’s Pastor: God Damn America, U.S. to Blame for 9/11 (ABC NEWS)
Sen. Barack Obama's pastor says blacks should not sing "God Bless America" but "God damn America."

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama's pastor for the last 20 years at the Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago's south side, has a long history of what even Obama's campaign aides concede is "inflammatory rhetoric," including the assertion that the United States brought on the 9/11 attacks with its own "terrorism."

In a campaign appearance earlier this month, Sen. Obama said, "I don't think my church is actually particularly controversial." He said Rev. Wright "is like an old uncle who says things I don't always agree with," telling a Jewish group that everyone has someone like that in their family.

Rev. Wright married Obama and his wife Michelle, baptized their two daughters and is credited by Obama for the title of his book, "The Audacity of Hope."

An ABC News review of dozens of Rev. Wright’s sermons, offered for sale by the church, found repeated denunciations of the U.S. based on what he described as his reading of the Gospels and the treatment of black Americans.

“The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no, no, God damn America, that’s in the Bible for killing innocent people,” he said in a 2003 sermon. “God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.”

In addition to damning America, he told his congregation on the Sunday after Sept. 11, 2001 that the United States had brought on al Qaeda’s attacks because of its own terrorism.

“We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye,” Rev. Wright said in a sermon on Sept. 16, 2001.

“We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost,” he told his congregation.

ANOTHER ANTI-ISRAEL OBAMA SUPPORTER

“Paranoid” about Malley?

ERIC TRAGER - (CONTENTIONS)

Now that Samantha Power has left Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, attention should perhaps turn to Obama foreign policy adviser Robert Malley. Perhaps best known for his gushing over Yasser Arafat and Camp David revisionism, Malley’s true danger lies in the extent to which he has called key events in the Palestinian arena–his supposed area of expertise–blatantly wrong. As I noted a few weeks ago, Malley supported allowing Hamas’ participation in the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections, and welcomed last year’s brief period of Hamas-Fatah “unity governance,” predicting that a “wholesale breakdown of relations between the two groups” was unlikely. In short, Malley has a consistent record of supporting policies that ultimately strengthened Hamas and undermined Israeli-Palestinian peace prospects, thus warranting the scrutiny he has received as Obama’s adviser.

But Aaron David Miller, Malley’s former peace-processing colleague during the Clinton administration, won’t have any of this. In yesterday’s LA Times, Miller ignored these substantive criticisms, attributing the backlash against Malley to Jewish paranoia. Miller argues that the charges against Malley stem from “the tendency of many American Jews active in pro-Israeli causes to worry about everything”; he continues:

I’ve lost count of the number of times Jewish activists or friends have said to me that this official or that journalist or this academic must be anti-Semitic. On other occasions, I have been told that I myself should not be so publicly critical of Israel, lest we give our enemies grist for their propaganda mills.

Yet Miller’s charge that Jewish identity politics–rather than Malley’s own faulty ideas–have informed public scrutiny of Malley is profoundly ironic. After all, insofar as Miller depicts criticisms of Malley in “us versus them” terms, he is guiltiest of playing identity politics.

Still, if Miller’s utter misrepresentation of the case against Malley in a major U.S. newspaper requires further proof of its substance, examples of Malley’s dubious policy analysis abound. So, here’s another one. While addressing the Council on Foreign Relations in the aftermath of Hamas’ Gaza coup last June, Malley argued that the United Nations had erred in not engaging Hamas:

The UN, of all entities, has made the biggest mistake, because they had no restrictions on talking to anyone-their role is to speak to everyone. To talk to Hamas and to give them more realistic things that they should be doing: imposing a ceasefire and empowering Abbas to talk to Israel.

Of course, the notion that Hamas would empower Abbas to talk to Israel is delusional. But perhaps more disturbing is Malley’s belief that the UN should talk to terrorist organizations. And, to correct Miller, one need not be Jewish or paranoid to say so.

CLINTON NO LONGER TAKING $ FROM PRODUCER OF ANTI-SEMITIC FILM

Clinton campaign drops Celebi (JTA)
The Clinton campaign is no longer taking contributions from a Turkish American who financed a film that depicted an American Jew trading in Iraqi body parts.

Mehmet Celebi had been listed on the presidential campaign website of U.S. Sen. Hilalry Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) as a "Hill-raiser," someone who had raised more than $100,000 for her presidential bid. Celebi had co-produced "Valley of the Wolves: Iraq," a 2006 film based on a popular Turkish TV series about a crack Turkish combat unit.

The film depicts a Jewish American doctor harvesting organs from prisoners.

"We were unaware of Mr. Celebi's involvement in this film and we obviously do not agree with it," Ann Lewis, a senior adviser to the campaign said Friday in response to a query from JTA. Lewis, who plays a lead role for the campaign in dealing with the Jewish community, added: "He is no longer raising money for this campaign."

TWO BIG ISRAEL-HATERS RESIGN!

AFTER CALLING HILLARY CLINTON A MONSTER, OBAMA'S SENIOR FOREIGN POLICY ADVISOR (AND ISRAEL-HATER) SAMANTHA POWERS HAS RESIGNED FROM HIS CAMPAIGN.

ALSO TODAY, LOUISE ARBOUR, THE ISRAEL-HATING U.N. HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS HAS ANNOUNCED SHE WILL BE STEPPING DOWN IN JUNE.

OBAMA NOW RULES OUT TALKS WITH HAMAS

Obama Rules Out Talk with Hamas

ABE GREENWALD - Contentions

The ever-diplomatic Barack Obama seems to have just backpedaled slightly on diplomacy. Ynet reports that Obama now shares George W. Bush’s policy of rejecting talks with Hamas. At a campaign stop in San Antonio, the senator said, “You can’t negotiate with somebody who does not recognize the right of a country to exist so I understand why Israel doesn’t meet with Hamas.”

Did he flip through a foreign policy folder, put his finger down at random and decide to look tough on whatever issue was there? That’s the only explanation for his Hamas stance. After all, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has exhausted his thesaurus finding words for “destruction” in regard to Israel, yet Obama remains eager to chat with the man who is, as one analyst put it, trying to “hotwire” the apocalypse. Maybe Ahmadinejad’s feel for inclusiveannihilation appeals to Obama’s multicultural sensibilities.

In any event, it is clear that Obama felt the need to appear strong. Perhaps the above-it-all, heaven-on-earth love-in has actually started to go stale. This little shift could be a response to Hillary’s recent efforts to prove she’s more of a force to be reckoned with than is Obama. Maybe he thinks he didn’t excel in Hillary’s Farrakhan challenge. It also may have to do with larger trends: the continued progress in Iraq makes talk of troop withdrawal look more transparently political by the day and reminds Americans that the military option remains a viable one. Obama’s campaign experiment in hardball is ultimately meaningless. As easily as he’s adopted this stance, he could reverse it with the flimsiest of justifications. There’s no reason to take this as evidence that he’s ceased to romanticize “talk.”

SEE: RJC: Sen. Obama's Middle East Policies Confusing and Inconsistent

Washington, D.C. (March 4, 2008) -- Republican Jewish Coalition Executive Director Matt Brooks today called Sen. Barack Obama's most recent Middle East policy pronouncement confusing and inconsistent.

While campaigning in Texas yesterday for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama said his willingness to meet with foes like Iran and Syria "does not include Hamas," reported Reuters.

"This most recent declaration by Senator Barack Obama demonstrates his fundamental lack of understanding of the dynamics of the Middle East. Iran and Syria have been designated by the United States as state-sponsors of terrorism; Hamas has been designated a terrorist organization. None recognize Israel's right to exist or its basic need for safe and secure borders," said RJC Executive Director Matt Brooks. "To declare that he would meet with Iran and Syria, but not Hamas, is another clear example of Senator Obama's shaky grasp of Middle East realities. His proposed policies are not only confusing and inconsistent, but above all, they are naïve and dangerous."

OBAMA ADVISER SAMANTHA POWER WANTED TO INVADE....ISRAEL

Speaking truth to Power (SandBox)

Samantha Power is the author of a Pulitzer Prize-winning book on genocide, and she has a professorship at Harvard (in something called "Global Leadership and Public Policy"). She is also a senior foreign policy adviser to Barack Obama. This isn't an honorific: she has worked for Obama in Washington, she has campaigned for him around the country, and she doesn't hesitate to speak for him. This morning, the Washington Post has a piece on Obama's foreign policy team, identifying her (and retired Maj. Gen. Scott Garion) as "closest to Obama, part of a group-within-the-group that he regularly turns to for advice." Power and Garion "retain unlimited access to Obama." This morning's New York Times announces that Power has an "irresistable profile" and "she could very well end up in [Obama's] cabinet."  

She also has a problem: a corpus of critical statements about Israel. These have been parsed by Noah Pollak atCommentary's blog Contentions, by Ed Lasky and Richard Baehr at American Thinker, and by Paul Mirengoff at Power Line.

Power made her most problematic statement in 2002, in an interview she gave at Berkeley. The interviewer asked her this question:

Let me give you a thought experiment here, and it is the following: without addressing the Palestine-Israel problem, let’s say you were an advisor to the President of the United States, how would you respond to current events there? Would you advise him to put a structure in place to monitor that situation, at least if one party or another [starts] looking like they might be moving toward genocide?

Power gave an astonishing answer:

What we don’t need is some kind of early warning mechanism there, what we need is a willingness to put something on the line in helping the situation. Putting something on the line might mean alienating a domestic constituency of tremendous political and financial import; it may more crucially mean sacrificing—or investing, I think, more than sacrificing—billions of dollars, not in servicing Israel’s military, but actually investing in the new state of Palestine, in investing the billions of dollars it would probably take, also, to support what will have to be a mammoth protection force, not of the old Rwanda kind, but a meaningful military presence. Because it seems to me at this stage (and this is true of actual genocides as well, and not just major human rights abuses, which were seen there), you have to go in as if you’re serious, you have to put something on the line. 

Unfortunately, imposition of a solution on unwilling parties is dreadful. It’s a terrible thing to do, it’s fundamentally undemocratic. But, sadly, we don’t just have a democracy here either, we have a liberal democracy. There are certain sets of principles that guide our policy, or that are meant to, anyway. It’s essential that some set of principles becomes the benchmark, rather than a deference to [leaders] who are fundamentally politically destined to destroy the lives of their own people. And by that I mean what Tom Friedman has called “Sharafat” [Sharon-Arafat]. I do think in that sense, both political leaders have been dreadfully irresponsible. And, unfortunately, it does require external intervention.... Any intervention is going to come under fierce criticism. But we have to think about lesser evils, especially when the human stakes are becoming ever more pronounced.

It isn't too difficult to see all the red flags in this answer. Having placed Israel's leader on par with Yasser Arafat, she called for massive military intervention on behalf of the Palestinians, to impose a solution in defiance of Israel and its American supporters. Billions of dollars would be shifted from Israel's security to the upkeep of a "mammoth protection force" and a Palestinian state—all in the name of our "principles." 

NADER RAISES OBAMA'S ISRAEL ISSUE

Nader Raises Obama’s Israel Issue

JENNIFER RUBIN - (CONTENTIONS)

Ralph Nader finagled airtime on Meet the Press to announce he is mounting another presidential run, which certainly will garner even less attention than last time. He also contributed this analysis of Barack Obama:

But his better instincts and his knowledge have been censored by himself. And I give you the example, the Palestinian-Israeli issue, which is a real off the table issue for the candidates. So don’t touch that, even though it’s central to our security and to, to the situation in the Middle East. He was pro-Palestinian when he was in Illinois before he ran for the state Senate, during he ran–during the state Senate. Now he’s, he’s supporting the Israeli destruction of the tiny section called Gaza with a million and a half people. He doesn’t have any sympathy for a civilian death ratio of about 300-to-1; 300 Palestinians to one Israeli. He’s not taking a leadership position in supporting the Israeli peace movement, which represents former Cabinet ministers, people in the Knesset, former generals, former security officials, in addition to mayors and leading intellectuals. One would think he would at least say, “Let’s have a hearing for the Israeli peace movement in the Congress,” so we don’t just have a monotone support of the Israeli government’s attitude toward the Palestinians and their illegal occupation of Palestine.

The Republican Jewish Coalition responded with a press release which read, in part:

“People should be very skeptical of Barack Obama’s shaky Middle East policies. When a long-time political activist like Ralph Nader, with a well-documented, anti-Israel bias, claims that Senator Obama shares this anti-Israel bias, that is alarming,” said RJC Executive Director Matt Brooks. “If Senator Obama supports Ralph Nader’s policies, which consistently condemn Israel’s right to defend itself against terrorism, and if Sen. Obama has only reversed his positions to run for president, it once again raises serious questions about his grasp of the geo-political realities of the Middle East and puts into doubt his commitment to the safety and security of Israel. These are important questions we in the Jewish community will be asking.”

Now Ralph Nader is not exactly a keen or accurate political observer, but the problematic issue of Obama’s views and advisors on Israel, explored at length here,here and here, is not something the Obama camp can ignore. He recently had this to say in Cleveland:

“Well here’s my starting orientation is A – Israel’s security is sacrosanct, is non negotiable. That’s point number one. Point number two is that the status quo I believe is unsustainable over time. So we’re going to have to make a shift from the current deadlock that we’re in. Number three that Israel has to remain a Jewish state and what I believe that means is that any negotiated peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians is going to have to involve the Palestinians relinquishing the right of return as it has been understood in the past. And that doesn’t mean that there may not be conversations about compensation issues. It also means the Israelis will have to figure out how do we work with a legitimate Palestinian government to create a Palestinian state that is sustainable. It’s going to have to be contiguous, its going to have to work its going to have to function in some way. That’s in Israel’s interest by the way. If you have a balkanized unsustainable state, it will break down and we will be back in the same boat. So those are the starting points of my orientation. My goal then would be to solicit as many practical opinions as possible in terms of how we’re going to move forward on a improvement of relations and a sustainable peace.”

He also sought to distance himself from association with Zbigniew Brzezinski:

“I do not share his views with respect to Israel. I have said so clearly and unequivocally,” Obama said. “He’s not one of my key advisers. I’ve had lunch with him once. I’ve exchanged e-mails with him maybe three times. He came to Iowa to introduce . . . for a speech on Iraq.”

No word as yet on whether he is having second thoughts about advice from Samantha Power or whether his “talking to our enemies” mantra includes Hamas and Hezbollah. This certainly will be a general election issue. It remains to be seen whether Hillary Clinton will raise this as an example of the risk of getting an “unknown quantity” with an Obama presidency (perhaps it would be a more effective argument for her than desperation moves like this).

MAYBE LOUIS FARRAKHAN'S ENDORSEMENT WILL HELP OBAMA.