“Change,” which has been Obama’s mantra since the inception of his presidential campaign, we are told, in this report from Jews sans frontiers, is making the Israel Lobby nervous. If it were not already the case that Obama’s positions are often contrary to AIPAC’s, like withdrawal from Iraq (for which Pelosi was booed at AIPAC’s convention last year) or talking directly to the Iranians (bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities, not negotiation, is preferred), the notion of “change” goes on to suggest that America under an Obama presidency will not do business as usual in the Middle East. It will change. No more Cheney-Bush Neocon ventures. Change might even entail pushing Israel toward a fair and just peace with the Palestinians, something Israel has avoided for decades.
Barak Obama’s reassurances (above) notwithstanding, he is just not trusted by the Israel Lobby.
The original article reported on appeared in Ha’aretz, Israel’s most liberal newspaper, with the title, U.S. Jewish leader worried by thrust of White House campaigns:
A major component of America’s Israel lobby is starting to worry about what Barack Obama might mean when he speaks of “change”. Now I thought it was the obligatory vacuous nonsense that all US presidential hopefuls spout at election time but the head of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Malcolm Hoenlein, is a worried man
“All the talk about change, but without defining what that change should be is an opening for all kind of mischief,” Hoenlein said at a press conference in Jerusalem. Obama has made change a central theme in his campaign.
Central theme? He certainly uses the word “change” ever such a lot but he has said nothing else to suggest that he actually means anything other than a change of window dressing.
But with or without an Obama presidency, Honlein indicated that change is happening anyway and see this for the breathtaking arrogance of the man:
Hoenlein said that Israel’s supporters should be worried by “the heightening of the bar and the greater tolerance of anti-Israel statements, that wouldn’t have been allowed in the past.”
He singled out the Walt-Mearschimer book on the Israel lobby, that “has become a bestseller and a college textbook” and said that there “is a steady poisoning of the elites, mainly on campuses that could trickle down.”
Wouldn’t have been allowed in the past? Who wouldn’t have allowed it and who has allowed it now?
Strange days indeed in the land of the free, most peculiarly Obama.
One obvious implication of this fear of Obama’s “change” rhetoric is the likelihood that the Israel Lobby prefers sameness, which means a preference for Hillary, whose hawkish positions are distinctly more compatible with the Israel Lobby’s right wing support for continuing conflict and Israeli colonialism over peace.
This photo of dinner with Edward Said, the late Palestinian-American professor, haunts the Obama campaign.
By clicking on the Ha’aretz article, one is also struck by the antiObama ads that appear just below it, including the Obamanation video and another video about Obama’s college days, where he is seen advocating for the legalization of the “reefer.” And this is Israel.