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April 8, 2008 | 6:43 am
The latest effort to hold Barack Obama responsible for what other people say is this story from IsraelNationalNews.com:
United States Presidential candidate Barak Obama is hosting leftist blogger Tony Wicher on his official website. Wicherâs blog is promoted as âA forum for a new foreign policy based on peace, democracy, and human rights instead of hegemony and war, with particular attention to the Israel/Palestine conflict as the key to a new Middle East policy.â
Wicher repeatedly refers to Israel as an apartheid state, and in fact claims that Israelâs treatment of Palestinian Authority Arabs is âworse than apartheid.â He also refers to the Likud party as âright-wing jingoists,â and insists that âZionism means ethnic cleansing.â
Israelâs current government, Wicher says, âis faithfully carrying out the Zionist policy, by relentlessly persecuting the Arabs until they give up and go to Jordan or whatever.â He dismisses any who call his claims of Israeli âapartheidâ anti-Semitic as members of the âZionist thought police.â
These words, however, were not uttered by Obama’s pastor (not that we know of). And Wicher does not appear to be a contributor to the official Obama blog. He’s a registered user of the social networking service at Obama ‘08, and that is where he promotes “Zionism without a Jewish state.“
Posted by Brad A. Greenberg in 3 Comments — Leave your comment
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“The latest effort to hold Barack Obama responsible for what other people say is this story from IsraelNationalNews.com”
That’s a foolish interpretation. The question isn’t what Obama said but how much he would or would not be influenced by his unsavoury friends once in office.
We have already seen a disastrous example of how a nice guy can be influenced by his political base or crowd. Specifically, New York mayor Dinkins was a decent guy who was too concerned about alienating his base/friends to do his official duty to proetct Crown Heights Jews from a pogrom. So instead he failed to take action to stop the pogrom, and so was complicit in a crime of humanity against the Jews.
Obama is the same in that, though likely a moral and decent guy himself, he cannot afford to alienate his base, which like perhaps one half of the left wing of the Democratic Party shows itself consistently and viciously anti-Semitic.
I have outrightly socialist Jewish friends intending to vote McCain. They’re right.
You keep comapring Dinkins, this Tamany Hall backroom putz, to Barack Obama. Nothing could be less analagous. One guy spent his entire career as a bagman, keeping Harlem quiet, for the big boys and the party machine downtown. The other, a harvard law school graduate, civic organizer, U.S. Senator. Oh I get it, they’re both black. How could’ve I had missed that?
No folks, what we have here is another provincial NY Jew trying to once again to attempt to portray his petty, internecine turfwar with the African American community as:
a. an issue of national interest
and
b. an issue of interest to Jews outside of NYC.
Wrong on both counts. The African American community in NYC has long been a convenient target of right wing Jews in NYC. Ever since Kahane and the JDL championed the cause of Jewish teachers during the 1968 NYC teachers strike. A strike which came about because parents in Black communities wished to see more qualified Black teachers in schools that were in communities that were largely African American at the time and still are. The chutzpah and gall of these people to demand anything that might come at he expenese of some, or any jews for that matter. Isn’t that right Mr. Manhattan?
As for the American Jewish community, it doesn’t take much to convince them that Jews are being peresecuted 24/7. Unfortunately the Crown Heights pogrom was not such an instance. Instead it was an instance of attempted hit & run by a haredi driver which resulted in the death of an African American boy. I say attempted, because the driver attempted to flee the scene and was assaulted and killed in the process of doing so. An unpardonable act of violence? Definitely. A sponataneous act of revenge who had killed a young boy in their community and then attempted to eveade justice? But a pogrom, a pent up burst of anti-semitism? No, I’m afarid not.
Unfortunately cynical and deliberate mischarcaterizations such as this are becoming more common place all the time amongst the tribe, especailly the Haredi and orthodox community. By means of spurious halachic interpretations they manage to rationalize there criminal behaviour as well as their xenophobia. They then attempt to project these attitudes as being of a mainstream variety within the Jewish community. Why take responsibility for your criminal behaviour when you can deflect attention away from your money laundering, spousal abuse, and child rape and focus it on the petty crimes of the local black community?
About shoded’s rant:
1. Does the community really want anti-Semites like shoded on a Jewish blog. I’m not Jewish, yet he assumed me so simply because I think Obama’s crowd unsavoury. I’m not Jewish and not even American, yet shoded makes an ad hominem anti-Semitic attack (“another provincial NY Jew”). *** For these reasons - both the ad hominem attack and the inherent anti-Semitism - I call for shoded’s rant to be removed from the blog in its entirety. ***
2. Both Dinkins and Obama are “moderate” black politicians who, despite their moderation, pose a threat to Jewish well-being by virtue of the loony-left anti-Semitic crowd they hang with. Or do you want to see a re-run of the Crown Heights pogrom under Obama?
3. “Wrong on both counts.“ Shoded makes his own two claims, then answers them. Is that to be called logical thought?
4. Shoded is lying, of course. Dinkins’ failure to protect Crown Heights Jews from a black pogrom had nothing to do with teachers and everything to do with Dinkins’ political base - identical to Obama’s problem. Both of these politicians built a political base of a wide range of the black community (as expected and normal) as well as a number of loony-left whites.
Their black base unfortunately included the anti-Semitic element which predominates in radical black theology, with Wright as an example.
Once in higher office representing a larger spectrum - both black and white, conservative and liberal, even (gasp ) Hasidim - a “moderate” black leader confronts a dilemma: To be fair to conservative whites or Crown Heights Hasidic Jews or middle America, he must sometimes do things which would alienate the radical, anti-Semitic elements of hsi originalo base; for example, Dinkins should have stopped the Crown Heights pogrom, and Obama should have unequivocally broken with Wright years ago. But to do so in either case would have meant the poltician would lose the base which brought him to office, and have to rely for his survival on an unaccustomed base - mostly white, not always liberal, not necessarily reliable. So the “moderate” black politician is afraid to break with the anti-Semitic black radicals.
This put limits on Dinkins’ career, and it will put limits on Obama’s, regardless of their other virtues or vices.
4. Shoded lies, over and over, about the Crown Heights pogrom. “Unfortunately the Crown Heights pogrom was not such an instance. Instead it was an instance of attempted hit & run by a haredi driver which resulted in the death of an African American boy. I say attempted, because the driver attempted to flee the scene and was assaulted and killed in the process of doing so.“
Shoded lie #1: The driver did not attempt to flee the scene. He attempted to help extricate the boy, but police who arrived directed the Hasidic ambulance to remove the driver from the scene, rather than the boy. The driver and ambulance obeyed the police.
Shoded lie #2: The driver was not killed. He sat before a grand jury which exculpated him of any wrong-doing.
Shoded lie #3: The motorist killed in the subsequent riots was not the Jewish one who hit the boy. The motorist killed, in the later riots, was an unrelated Italian pulled from his car and murdered by a mob simply because he was mistaken for a Jew due to his beard and dark suit.
Shoded lie #4: The driver did not even commit the “hit” part of “hit and run”. He was side-swiped by another car and lost control of his own. THat is not the same as hitting a pedestrian due to one’s own recklessness. That’s why the grand jury refused to indict him. They made the right decision, legally and morally.
Shoded lie #5: “ A sponataneous act of revenge who had killed a young boy in their community and then attempted to eveade justice? But a pogrom, a pent up burst of anti-semitism? No, I’m afarid not.“
All pogroms were imagined revenge. So, too, was the Holocaust. The reasons that the violence qualifies as an anti-Semitic pogrom are clear:
- an incident unrelated to race was used as an excuse to perpetrate violence against the entire Jewish community
- innocent Jews were targeted for violence because they were Jews
- Jews were not protected by police, because they were Jews
- the governmental powers-that-be - Dinkins - failed to protect Jews because normal governmental duties were perverted due to genuflection to the mob hatred of Jews, exactly as in Russia and Poland
- the governmental purpose was (as in pogroms) to let one group violently “blow off steam” usng innocent Jews as a scapegoat
- neither the government nor the black community made any restitution to the innocent Jews attacked.
5. Shoded writes, “Unfortunately cynical and deliberate mischarcaterizations such as this are becoming more common place all the time amongst the tribe, especailly the Haredi and orthodox community. By means of spurious halachic interpretations they manage to rationalize there criminal behaviour as well as their xenophobia. They then attempt to project these attitudes as being of a mainstream variety within the Jewish community. Why take responsibility for your criminal behaviour when you can deflect attention away from your money laundering, spousal abuse, and child rape and focus it on the petty crimes of the local black community?“
This is yet more virulent anti-Semitism on a Jewish blog.
Shoded’s bigoted anti-Semitism #1: Shoded assumes me not only Jewish but Hasidic. But I am neither. I simply defend the civil rights of Jews (including Hasidim). Shoded’s assumption is as bigoted as would be calling those who like Obama “n—r lovers”.
Shoded’s bigoted anti-Semitism #2: Shoded is quick to jump to demonisation and hatred of a whole community (Haredi) on the basis of individuals. That is bigoted. All Haredi are NOT guilty of the crimes of a few, just as all blacks are not guilty of the crimes of OJ or a few gang members. IT IS AN OUTRAGE for the blog to publish Shoded’s anti-Semitism. Would it have allowed to stand a post blaming all blacks for drug crimes, as shoded’s has blamed all Haredi for child rape?
Shoded’s bigoted anti-Semitism #3: Not all Jews are Haredi. Shoded focuses on the most visible and non-conformist of Jews to try to defend Obama’s poor choice of friends, because shoded knows Haredi are the most different from mainstream America. In other words, shoded is posting anti-Semitic xenophobia on a Jewish blog. FOR SHAME!
6. The fact remains that most citizens of democratic countries are well aware most politicians cannot be taken at their word.
Thus, Obama’s own words are less relevant than the company he keeps, and that company is anti-Semitic. Further, Obama himself has already spoken against the Likud. That’s foolish, un-presidential, and un-diplmatic behaviour, since
a. The Israeli public is dis-enchanted both with Labour - which bungled Oslo - and with Kadima - which bungled the Lebanon war. Thus, there is a good chance the next Israeli government will be Likud, with which the US administration will have to work. Obama’s denouncing Likud in advance is a way to alienate the very foreign government he’d have to work with, to establish peace.
b. Obama’s denouncing Likud in advance is also foreign interference in Israel’s democracy, just as objectionable as Bush’s interference in foreign democracy.
The Jewish Republican vote has been increasing as the loony-left wing of the Democratic Party has become more and more openly Israel-hating and anti-Semitic. Anti-Semitism (not Iraq stance) forced Lieberman out of the party but voters in the general election didn’t follow suit. Cindy Sheehan runs off to support Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. Dhimmi Carter slanders Jews and Israel in print, then runs off to embrace genocidal Jew-hater Meshaal.
In Germany, a few foolish Jews took adverts early on, proclaiming loyalty to Germany and the Reich; they foolishly thought loyalty would save them. The same is true for Jews who foolishly continue to vote Democratic or support Obama.