Rabbi Jack Moline, who organized the spin-a-thon for the White House attended by a group of rabbis, has circulated an e-mail summarizing the meeting. It is, to be blunt, embarrassing.
As to the build-up, Moline lets on that no one predisposed to say nasty things about Obama was invited, nor was anyone who didn’t vote for him. (“We also wanted people who had not engaged in the kinds of behaviors I mentioned in my introduction, which is to say people who had been positively predisposed to President Obama once the election was over, but found themselves troubled by what had transpired over the subsequent year.”) How comfy for the White House to be assured of a hand-selected group of those Jews who ignored all signs of Obama’s antipathy toward Israel (20 years in Rev. Wright’s church isn’t nothing) and who voted for Rashid Khalidi’s pal. In other words, these are Jews prone to disregard evidence of Obama’s hostility toward the Jewish state.
As to the substance, Moline got this response to a query as to why a Jerusalem housing permit was more important than stopping an Iranian nuclear program:
I can tell you that our hosts bristled, and they objected mightily to the comparison. Amb. Ross, who is the person in charge of Iran policy, made it clear that nothing is off the table when it comes to the objective of preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power. The goal, however, is not to secure a short-term delay, but to remove possibility that efforts at creating a nuclear arsenal will resurface. That requires isolating Iran in the world community. Two years ago, Mr. Emanuel said, the United States was virtually isolated in the Middle East and Iran enjoyed the sympathy of much of the world. Today that situation is reversed, but both Russia and China are dragging their feet, hoping that the US will relieve them of the need to participate in sanctions and other isolating activities. (I might add here that yesterday afternoon, the announcement was made that Russia and China have signed onto sanctions.) The President spends a huge amount of time every day working on the problem of Iran, and is making progress. Ultimately, the goal is to see the fissures in Iranian society open to create a climate for systemic change.
Let’s count the inanities in that one. First, Dennis Ross is in charge of Iran policy but hasn’t apparently been able to stop multiple officials from clearly signaling that military force is off the table. Second, it’s false that Iran enjoyed the sympathy of the world (there were multiple sanctions passed for Iran’s violations of UN agreements) or that the U.S. was isolated in the Middle East. For starters, we had a warm and robust relationship with Israel. And we had useful dealings with many of the moderate states, including Jordan, which was not induced by the president to issue provocative statements about Israel. Third, Moline certainly got the sanctions wrong — Russia has been exempted and the sanctions are of minimal value. The administration — of course — concealed Russia’s carve-outs from the assembled group. (Swell to hide the ball from the rabbis, nu?) And lastly, Obama may be working hard but there’s no credible plan to thwart the Iranian nuclear program, as Robert Gates pointed out earlier in the year when he sent up a warning flag.
Next up was the building issue, in which Ross, now the facilitator in chief who has chosen to disregard past lessons learned about Palestinian intransigence, tries to snow the rabbis with this howler:
As for building in Jerusalem, Amb. Ross very calmly pointed out that US policy on building in any territory captured in 1967 has not changed since the Johnson administration. The US has objected officially to all such activity which is defined by policy as settlements. He also noted that the last four high-level US officials to visit Israel were greeted by announcements of new settlement activity, going back to Sec’y of State Condoleeza Rice during the Bush administration. He emphasized that he understood that there were reasons in Israeli domestic politics that may have influenced those decisions, but it was no way to treat an ally out to make a point of support. Amb. Ross said that the matter of settlements and the matter of Palestinian provocations are avoidable distractions. A simple code of conduct that would move talks forward could prevent both, and the administration has been pressing both sides to adopt one.
Ross chose not to mention the Sharon-Bush agreements, on which the Obama team reneged, or to acknowledge that no other administration has made an international incident out of Jerusalem building. And it’s pure gall to chastise Israel that their conduct is “no way to treat an ally.” Apparently Ross was so desperate to return to one final round in government that he is now willing not only to join an administration hostile to Israel but also to join in the Israel-bashing.
Moline then reports on the list of forehead-slappers. There was this: “The Obama administration has been consistent in its support of Israel.” Oh really? Condemning the Jewish state is consistent support? Leaking the potential for an imposed peace deal is consistent support? Repeatedly snubbing Bibi is consistent support? And holding up the Cairo speech as evidence of their support, as Moline reports, is bizarre. It is this speech in which Obama cast the Palestinians in the role of enslaved African Americans, posited that Israel’s legitimacy rests on the Holocaust, soft-pedaled Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and chose to largely ignore 60 years of wars and rejectionism by the Palestinians and by Israel’s neighbors.
Then there is this one: “There has been no change in US policy toward Israel in the United Nations.” Whoa! We failed to veto an anti-Israel resolution. We joined the Israel-bashing Human Rights Council and let Israel’s prime antagonist onto the Commission on the Status of Women. And we apparently told the Palestinians that we wouldn’t veto a future resolution of condemnation if Israel continued to build in its eternal capital.
Moline reports that the administration’s representatives explained the order of their priorities: stopping Iran’s nuclear program, getting out of Iraq, and the Israel-Palestinian “peace process.” Unclear then, why every administration figure who speaks in public, including the president in Cairo, emphasizes the latter and gives short-shrift to Iran. Unclear then why the president has voiced a que sera, sera view of sanctions, carved out Russia from UN sanctions, and spent the last 17 months not promoting regime change, not adhering to deadlines, and not imposing crippling sanctions on the Iranian regime.
Moline said the major responses from the rabbis were to urge Obama to visit Israel, to express some concern of there being a double standard for Israel and to tell Obama that they were not ”confident from the President himself that he feels Israel in his kishkes.” Not confident? Well, when you handpick the audience and don’t have knowledgeable representatives willing to take on the administration’s fabrications, that’s what you get. And finally, Moline gets very upset — more upset than at the president — for critics questioning the motives and actions of Rahm Emanuel.
This is what passes for “leadership” in American Jewry. A kabuki dance is orchestrated by an Obama fan to gather other Obama fans to air the mildest criticism and to avoid challenging the factual representations of an administration that is the most hostile to the Jewish state in history. As one Israeli hand who definitely isn’t going to be invited to any meetings with this president put it: “They may be fine rabbis, but they are out of their league here.” And by not directly and strongly taking on the president, they are, in fact, enabling the president’s anti-Israel stance. It is, come to think of it, more than an embarrassment; it is an egregious misuse of their status and it is every bit as dangerous as the quietude of American Jews in the 1930s.
