Objection, your Honor. Nonresponsive *UPDATED*
Bookworm on May 12 2008 at 11:50 am | Filed under: Anti-Semitism, Barack Obama, Israel
In an interview for Atlantic Monthly, Obama got hit with two direct questions about Israel, both requiring a yes or no answer. Obama couldn’t do that. Instead, he blathered on and on and on, leaving discerning viewers to parse his bloviating and conclude that, perhaps, he thinks that maybe Israel was a good idea back in 1948, but it’s no longer a good idea now:
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: I’m curious to hear you talk about the Zionist idea. Do you believe that it has justice on its side?
BARACK OBAMA: You know, when I think about the Zionist idea, I think about how my feelings about Israel were shaped as a young man — as a child, in fact. I had a camp counselor when I was in sixth grade who was Jewish-American but who had spent time in Israel, and during the course of this two-week camp he shared with me the idea of returning to a homeland and what that meant for people who had suffered from the Holocaust, and he talked about the idea of preserving a culture when a people had been uprooted with the view of eventually returning home. There was something so powerful and compelling for me, maybe because I was a kid who never entirely felt like he was rooted. That was part of my upbringing, to be traveling and always having a sense of values and culture but wanting a place. So that is my first memory of thinking about Israel.
And then that mixed with a great affinity for the idea of social justice that was embodied in the early Zionist movement and the kibbutz, and the notion that not only do you find a place but you also have this opportunity to start over and to repair the breaches of the past. I found this very appealing.
[…]
JG: Do you think that justice is still on Israel’s side?
BO: I think that the idea of a secure Jewish state is a fundamentally just idea, and a necessary idea, given not only world history but the active existence of anti-Semitism, the potential vulnerability that the Jewish people could still experience. I know that that there are those who would argue that in some ways America has become a safe refuge for the Jewish people, but if you’ve gone through the Holocaust, then that does not offer the same sense of confidence and security as the idea that the Jewish people can take care of themselves no matter what happens. That makes it a fundamentally just idea.
That does not mean that I would agree with every action of the state of Israel, because it’s a government and it has politicians, and as a politician myself I am deeply mindful that we are imperfect creatures and don’t always act with justice uppermost on our minds. But the fundamental premise of Israel and the need to preserve a Jewish state that is secure is, I think, a just idea and one that should be supported here in the United States and around the world.
And Jews want to vote for Obama because….?
Hat tip: Commentary’s Contentions.
UPDATE: In the same Atlantic Monthly interview you get the sense that Obama just has a way with words — a bad way:
JG: Do you think that Israel is a drag on America’s reputation overseas?
BO: No, no, no. But what I think is that this constant wound, that this constant sore, does infect all of our foreign policy.
And he wonders why Jews can’t seem to find it in themselves to trust him….
Hat tip: LGF and Protein Wisdom
UPDATE II: More here on the not so deeply hidden subtext in Obama’s comments during the interview.
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14 Responses to “Objection, your Honor. Nonresponsive *UPDATED*”
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Bookworm, Why did you flag this post under the subject keyword “anti-semitism”? How is giving a non-one-word answer to these two questions somehow anti-semitic? What definition of justice and definition of zionism was to be assumed in giving a one-word answer to the first question? What definition of justice and specific policies of Israel were to be assumed for the second question?
While I will move to Canada before I vote for Obama, seems to me that here Obama is more following the dicta of many articulate and well-educated persons to express a thought in 100 words when ten would do. Obama, repeat after me: brief, concise, and to the point.
OTOH, he has associated in the past with many who would follow DinnerJacket on Israel.
Good question, e. DQ, in a separate email, pointed out to me that Obama’s answer isn’t that bad. It’s wordy and discursive, true, but not that offensive. What offended me was the fact that he just couldn’t bring himself to say yes. When someone deluges you with personal reminiscences and all sorts of words in response to a simple yes or no question, that person is usually hiding something. And in this case, I know the back story, which is that, one after the other, Obama’s Middle Eastern advisors are being shown as being hostile to Israel or even actively antisemitic. So, my response to Obama’s bloviation was probably over the top given his mere words, but I was reacting not only to his muddled answer, but also to the people with whom he routinely surrounds himself.
Bookworm, Why did you flag this post under the subject keyword “anti-semitism”?
Cause the interview questions are probing for Obama’s views towards Semitic people.
Bookworm, isn’t Obama’s campaign manager, David Axelrod, Jewish? When you say he surrounds himself routinely with people that concern you on this issue, who specifically do you mean? I would doubt that Axelrod would tolerate anti-semitic people in the Obama campaign, even in the unlikely event that Obama would. Thoughts?
Echeccone, some of the people most invested in Israel’s destruction are Jews — Chomsky, for example. Further, some of the most fanatic antisemites in history — say, Karl Marx, for example — were originally Jewish. It’s not whether they’re Jewish; it’s what they believe.
Bookworm, isn’t Obama’s campaign manager, David Axelrod, Jewish?
That argument is similar to the line about “wasn’t Benedict Arnold an American” when people are wondering about anti-Americanism and threats to America.
Yeah, he’s an America. And no, he’s not for America.
George Soros was a Jew that saw the Holocaust close up, except he didn’t get grabbed cause he worked on paperwork and stayed secret, the former which the Germans really liked and still do.
Book, I wish that I could be as optimistic as you about Jewish voting trend shifts.
That Obama interview was positively Kerry-esque. It took work to figure out his positions. So many subtleties and “on the other hand” sentiments, vaguely expressed!
But he seems consistently to come out in favor of Israel’s right to exist, so he’s no friend to Hamas. Then again, I don’t think there’s a single national politician who thinks Israel should cease to exist.
Having finally waded through all of his words, trying to figure out what the man behind the politician really thought, I was reminded of the quote by Robert Frost:
“A liberal is a man so broad-minded he refuses to take his own side in argument.”
And Thank You Book, for not obsessively focusing on the one quoted line:
“But what I think is that this constant wound, that this constant sore, does infect all of our foreign policy.”
When you read the entire paragraph, let alone the whole article, it is absolutely clear that he is talking about the entire Palestine/Israel issue and the U.N. two-state quagmire. He’s not talking about Israel. And yet I see sober-minded conservative bloggers, including some very top of the line ones, gleefully pouncing on this as a major faux pas. When did conservatives become as shallow and manipulative as liberals?
You on the other hand, Book, simply called it a “bad way with words”, which is the perfect description.
I’m also reminded of the brouhaha over Obama’s “57 States” comments. Some conservatives are running with it and simply having a lot of fun at his expense… but too, too many others are taking it as a sign of bobble-headed stupidity. It’s clear to me that Obama was focused on primaries and caucuses to an obsessive degree, and he was just jumbling “states” with “contests” as he was trying to piece together a response. (Though I tried counting by hand and kept coming up with 56 contests - I’m missing one somewhere.)
Liberals will take a single event like a Pacific cyclone/hurricane and turn it into absolute proof of global warming. Conservatives haven’t tended to do this, but I’m seeing more and more of it popping up lately, and it is distressing. It’s shallow and evidences either blatant manipulation of their audience or a frightening lack of belief in bedrock conservative values.
Thanks again, Book, for not being as shallow as many of the more-popular bloggers are becoming!
Bookworm, I hate to admit it, but I’ve read most of Marx’s writings and I don’t think he was anti-semitic, based upon his writings. He was anti-religious, but not a racist. This is why Jews could be accorded prestigious positions under the Marxist Soviet Union (e.g., Sakalov), which was of course impossible under the Third Reich. I take your point that many Jews are not religious and are not pro-Israel, but are they really racist? I mean, does Chomsky want to see all Jews pushed into the sea? Isn’t there a distinction between anti-semitism (which I thought was a form of racism) and atheism/anti-religious sentiment?
Clearly, echeccone, you missed these Marxian statements:
“It is the circumvention of law that makes the religious Jew a religious Jew.” (Die Deutsche Ideologie, MEGA V, 162)
“The Jews of Poland are the smeariest of all races.” (Neue Rheinische Zeitung, April 29, 1849)
He called Ferdinand Lassalle, “Judel Itzig-Jewish Nigger.” (Der Judische Nigger, MEKOR III, 82, July 30, 1862)
“Ramsgate is full of Jews and fleas.” (MEKOR IV, 490, August 25, 1879)
“Let us look at the real Jew of our time; not the Jew of the Sabbath, whom Bauer considers, but the Jew of everyday life.
“What is the Jew’s foundation in our world? Material necessity, private advantage.
“What is the object of the Jew’s worship in this world? Usury. What is his worldly god? Money.
“Very well then; emancipation from usury and money, that is, from practical, real Judaism, would constitute the emancipation of our time.” (”A World Without Jews,” p. 37)
“What was the essential foundation of the Jewish religion? Practical needs, egotism.” (Ibid, p. 40)
“Money is the zealous one God of Israel, beside which no other God may stand. Money degrades all the gods of mankind and turns them into commodities. Money is the universal and self-constituted value set upon all things. It has therefore robbed the whole world, of both nature and man, of its original value. Money is the essence of man’s life and work, which have become alienated from him. This alien monster rules him and he worships it.
“The God of the Jews has become secularized and is now a worldly God. The bill of exchange is the Jew’s real God. His God is the illusory bill of exchange.” (”A World Without Jews,” p. 41)
The only thing missing is the blood libel.
Bookworm,
It was also Marx who said that he invented Communism (which cooked the books on all the facts and figures he used to support his “theory”) as an overt attack on the God of the Jews…
I am not familiar with the World Without Jews work that you cite (I thought Marx’ work was entitled On the Jewish Question), nor the quotes from the newspapers at the time. Thanks for those citations. I will have to read more on the subject.
I am no apologist for Marx, and I am clearly less knowledgeable than you on the topic. And some heavy weight scholars (e.g., Bernard Lewis) agree with you on this subject. However, a Jewish (and libertarian) professor of mine at college offered a different view. The following article, by a former colleague of that professor, comes close to articulating it:
http://www.engageonline.org.uk/journal/index.php?journal_id=10&article_id=33