The Rest Is Details

In 1967, two days before the beginning of the Six Day War between Arabs and Israelis, French president General Charles de Gaulle decreed an arms embargo that disrupted what had been strong military cooperation between France and Israel since the Jewish state was created. Five months later, in a televised news conference, De Gaulle described the Jews as "this elite people, sure of themselves and domineering".

That was one turning point in Israel’s history of alliances. We may now be witnessing a new one.

In case anyone needed a clear indication that this administration is hostile to the Zionist project [which is ALWAYS ongoing], the events surrounding the recent Israel visit of the Vice-President and the resulting “insult” should remove all doubt. The rest is just details.

Now for some of the details. These include:

…the only reason to possibly be critical of Israel in this event at all: contrary to the conventional wisdom, the issue is not really a question of the timing of the housing announcement more than whether Netanyahu was truly “blindsided” by the announcement. If the housing minister “pre-empted” Netanyahu—either for reasons of pandering to a political constituency or for a misperceived “religious obligation” to further cement the Jewish claim to Jerusalem—one hopes that Netnayahu gets onto that page, presents a unified front to the US, and deals with the local political fallout later.

…that the real “apartheid” state in the region would be a newly created “Palestine” [to go with the other 21—or 22—non-Jewish states in the Fertile and Golden Crescents], due to their insistence on a state that is “Judenrein”, or that this [or any] US administration cares about this. With the State Department in the lead—as it always has been—the Administration has increasingly seized upon an outmoded, but persistent, combination of “self-determination” and pan-Arabism to inform its position. These are the positions that need to be attacked before questions of antisemitism are addressed, no matter how plausible those claims are.

…whether this Administration is truly going out of its way to present itself as pro-Arab and/or –Muslim. If Obama’s Cairo speech wasn’t enough, Biden’s blunt claim that the a Jewish presence in [East] Jerusalem “undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan” is a further indication of whose side the Administration would like to be on, even if it isn’t quite there yet. The last time something like this happened was during Gulf War I, when Israel was forced to restrain itself from responding to Iraq’s Scud attacks. Twenty years later, Israel’s enemies are much more equipped to commit genocide, and this Administration seeks any excuse to sideline itself [and Israel] from a legitimate defense.

…whether one even needs to raise the question of antisemitism, especially as increasing numbers of Israel’s enemies turn out to be Jewish [e.g., Tony Judt, Naomi Klein, et al]. Rather, one should raise issues of inconsistencies in the purported ideologies of these critics, especially as they bend over backward to support polities and belief systems that run the gamut between theocratic and totalitarian, if not both. Not that one should ever expect to win conversions from those in that camp, who are as ideologically rigid and fundamentalist as the worst Islamists [even if they don’t kill anyone directly]; however, some “independents”—if there are any left—might be enlightened.

…whether or not this President is “foreign”, or “Muslim”, or otherwise “unfit” for his office. For reasons of credibility, use of that notion should be avoided as a political tactic by Israel and her allies. There are enough plausible lines of attack on policy issues to not have to resort to ad hominem attacks [although it might actually not be that bad an idea to remain “neutrally silent” when such attacks emanate from the further reaches of the Right, analogous to the “neutral silence” on the left when Islamist atrocities are perpetrated.]

…and, finally, whether there would be any truth to the notion that the only real obvious black mark against this Administration is its now undoubted hostility toward Zionism. There might have been a two-day window when there was some truth to that sentiment [though it would be hard to ascertain exactly when that might have been]. At this point, however, it no longer matters. Even “liberal” supporters of Israel who were loath to ask questions about this Administration should start now.

“The Politics Will Catch Up”—Part I

Is the President so dissatisified with his guaranteed historical electoral legacy? Could he be trying to cash in on an instant political legacy at the expense of his party, and even his reelection prospects?

Conventional historical wisdom holds that the passage of the Civil Rights Bill of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 turned the American South into permanent republican territory. Legend has it that he put down his pen after singing the 1964 Act, Lyndon Johnson told an aide ''We have lost the South for a generation." Similarly, the political price of forcing the legislation of a federally mandated system of health care has become increasingly clear to anyone with any political sensibility. However, a modicum of foresight might indicate the inevitablity of some kind of electoral “correction” to the current Democratic supermajority, as may or may have not been heralded by the special election of Scott Brown.

When White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs hopes that “that the politics will catch up”, he seems to have an eye on the above analog, if he is not praying that health care legislation ends up with the historical import of civil rights. However, a more directly relevant and/or accurate analog might be embodied in Senator Mitch McConnell’s claim that the Democrats “want to pass this anyway just to basically ignore the opinion of the American population and go ahead with this bill.”

In that vein, it might be more useful to employ another historical analogy. In the past century, there have been three instances of Democrats seizing control of Congress, and then the White House, in direct reaction to Republican crises: the 1930 midterms and 1932 general elections—in response to the Wall Street Crash and Great Depression; the 1974 midterms and 1976 general elections—in response to Watergate; and the 2006 midterms and 1980 general elections—in response to Katrina, Foleygate, Abramoff/Neygate, and finally, the housing crash. The question would seem to be: would one find that the contemporary situation mirrors 1930-2 or 1974-6 more closely?

One would obviously hope that the Great Recession “stays” a recession, which is actually mostly likely; as related in Liaquat Ahamed’s “Lords of Finance”, one of the reasons for the Depression’s severity was that the Federal Government of the 1920’s and 1930’s simply wasn’t equipped—read: big enough [!]—to handle the consequences of out-of-control economic indicators. Similarly, no one would compare any of the aforementioned “-gates” to the original, other than doctrinaire “W. Was The Worst President Ever” types [and, in that case, the politics will almost certainly catch up, eventually.]

To answer the questions I posed at the top of this post, this incessant drive to pass any type of “health-care reform” may simply be a case of the President’s personal inability to delay legacy gratification. This might be a direct side effect of the undeniable historical moment of his election and his possibly suffering a sort of withdrawal from the “high” of that moment; he needs to recapture that moment as fast as he possibly can with the least amount of effort and cement it forever.

Ironic, then, that it’s going to take health care for him to get his fix. [I'm sure someone came up with that before, but still...]