As the Israel Policy Forum stated in its recent newsletter (below), enough is enough. Atlanta Jewish Times owner Andew Adler’s call for PM Netanyahu to allow for Mossad agents to take out the US president and replace him with someone more friendly towards Israel is shocking and appalling. His point of view is extreme and will not aid Israel in the ways that he may imagine.
Spotted by Daniel Lubetzky, by Adeena Schlussel
This woman is so courageous, principled & inspiring. I hope she will come back and help lead our nation.
I’ve been engaged in a debate with my cousin from Mexico, who loves how GOP candidates fight over who is a better friend of Israel and who was insisting that they were superior friends of Israel over the current US Administration.
I had tried to explain the following:
That is because you don’t see how Gingrich’s and Romney’s pandering to us (American Jews) ends up hurting the US and Israel. For one, Arabs then feel the US will not be balanced and they stop trusting the US and don’t want anything to do with it. A weak US is bad for Israel. Gingrich denying the Palestinians’ identity is harmful to Israel. For Israel’s sake, it needs to separate from the Palestinians and have them have their State and Israel its State. If Gingrich insists there are no Palestinians, where are all the Arabs living in the West Bank going to go? They are not going anywhere. If Israel annexes that land along with millions of Palestinians, not only will we have a demographic challenge where Palestinians will eventually make up the majority, but also we’ll end up with a balkanized divided country as a permanent condition, as in Lebanon.
Shimon Peres once said something very wise to a group of us: when you negotiate, you need to be careful not to weaken your counterpart on the other side so much that they can’t then do their job. We have a Palestinian government willing to achieve a lasting two state solution. If we keep undermining Fayyad and Abbas, we’ll end up with Hamas alone. Not a good idea.
Even Elliot Abrams, one of the most right wing pro-Israel supporters EVER, mocked Gingrich’s position.
And Romney is just a panderer who will just say what he thinks the particular audience wants to hear. He has no moral compass.
Israel is not well-served by people trying to say they are our friends and making extremist pronouncements.
An analogy is how Iran always says they are friends of the Palestinians and they try to hijack the Palestinian cause, with their extremist positions. They are not helping the Palestinian people, and the moderate Palestinians eventually start calling them on it. But in national conflicts, it is very hard for moderates to call the extremists out, for fear of not appearing as nationalistic. That is why when foreigners try to appear as friends of either side with extremist positions, they harm the process.
I don’t think I was sufficiently persuasive.
Tom Friedman fortunately came to the rescue with this column, which quite painfully highlights the challenges Israel is facing from within and from outside, from extremist ideologues and pandering politicians who’d sell out Israeli democracy and freedom for political or extremist ideological purposes.
Howard Schultz’s campaign to divest from all political campaigns as a sign of disgust for Washington’s political feuds, has caught President Obama’s attention. President Obama recently called the Starbucks CEO to discuss the campaign, and while Schultz emphasized that his campaign is not directed against the President, it is clear that his rally has made an impression on our nation’s leaders.
This article takes a look at that story, as well as others that demonstrate Schultz’s renowned leadership and personality traits.
Spotted by Daniel Lubetzky, by Adeena Schlussel
“Can Anyone Really Create Jobs,” this New York Times article asks. Adam Davidson’s answer is no, and that presidential candidates especially don’t possess this magical power.
This fact doesn’t cork the flow of candidate jobs plans, and more importantly there are other problems that our country will face at the end of the job crisis; it would be good to hear candidates address these issues as well.
Spotted by Daniel Lubetzky, by Adeena Schlussel
This Thomas Friedman article delineates the ways in which CITIGROUP has functioned immorally. Of greater concern, this example is representative of a larger problem of expanding of injustice and corruption in the inseparable financial and political arenas.
Spotted by Daniel Lubetzky, by Adeena Schlussel
With the lack of leadership in Washington, it is comforting to know there is creativity and bold leadership coming from business entrepreneurs who want to contribute towards improving society. Take a look at this article about Howard Schultz’s efforts to generate jobs for America. This is a harbinger for the increasing role that enlightened capitalists will play in the future to address social challenges we face. As business pervades more and more in our daily lives, market forces and good corporate brands will be able to play increasing leadership roles – even as politicians get co-opted by special interests and petty extremist politics.
The word flip-flopper has been so overused that it is actually harmful to obsess on whether political candidates have changed their views on a particular occasion. It is fine for people to evolve in their views. That said, Mitt Romney’s approach to politics seems to be a true example of what we should criticize: pure pandering and change of the deepest positions just to say what he thinks the audience of the day may want to hear. Read this article from Maureen Dowd to get some examples…
The following article in the Washington Jewish Week illustrates the work of two OneVoice Youth Leaders in DC, and the overall goal that they and OneVoice strive to achieve.
Spotted by Daniel Lubetzky, by Adeena Schlussel
It is worthwhile to read the speeches given by President Obama, PM Netanyahu, and President Abbas at the UN. These speeches are a window into how each leader perceives his nation’s position and narrative, and are crucial in understanding the varying sides of the debate over statehood.
Spotted by Daniel Lubetzky, by Adeena Schlussel