Israelis live in the real world, and they get Obama's hostility to them
I think my friend, Professor Jacobson is
too kind to President Obama.
Yet there is little if any trust in Obama in Israel, even among those
who self-identify as center-left or left. That’s my observation after
traveling for two weeks in Israel in late May and early June.
My wife and I traveled from the Lebanese to Gaza borders,
and much of what was in between. We visited with a survivor of a school
bus bombing, the families of terror victims, Israeli Bedouins, faculty
and staff at Israeli universities, physicians treating Syrian war
wounded, the security manager in Sderot along the Gaza border, and
everyday people.
For whatever the reason, almost all of the people with whom we
interacted self-identified as center-left or left. In Israeli terms,
that means these are people who did not support Benjamin Netanyahu’s
Likud party, or any of the religious-based parties, in last March’s
election.
There was no shortage of criticism of Netanyahu from this crowd: He’s
egotistical, he doesn’t keep his tough promises, he is only interested
in his own political survival, he’s a liar, his pre-election comment
about Arab voting was shameful, and so on.
Yet with only a couple of exceptions, the negative comments always were followed with a big BUT.
But Netanyahu is the only Israeli politician who has the stature to
handle the world pressure; but I don’t envy the position he is in with
so many forces against us; but opposition leader Yitzhak “Bougie” Herzog
is weak and no one will fear him; and so on.
These big BUTS were consistent with the polling and the election
results in March. A majority of Israelis voted for a political party
other than Netanyahu’s Likud, but as a whole the electorate viewed
Netanyahu as the only Israeli politician capable of standing up for
Israel in a hostile world.
Dislike of Netanyahu, however, did not seem to translate into support for Obama on the Iran deal.
I met with Professor Jacobson (and not for the first time). I am not Center-Left. I didn't vote in the last election because I was traveling on business (no absentee ballots in Israel), but if I had, I would have voted for Likud or a religious party. His depiction of Israelis' views of Obama is accurate... to a point.
What Professor Jacobson left out is that many of us feel that it's not just that Obama is a delusional optimist. Shimon Peres is a delusional optimist. But no Israeli (or very few Israelis) would accuse Shimon Peres of deliberately setting out to destroy the State of Israel. Many Israelis - yours truly included - believe that President Obama's goal is to destroy the State of Israel or to leave it so emasculated at the end of his term that it will remain for the Islamists to pick up the pieces.
Yes, I believe that President Obama would like to see the State of Israel destroyed (so does
Michael Oren). I believe that he's an anti-Semite - as simple as that. And I believe that once he is out of office, his hostility to Jews and to Israel will come out into the open, just like Jimmy Carter's did nearly 40 years ago. As Victor Davis Hanson said in a
Foreign Policy interview:
(2) Israel--democratic, capitalist, Western, pro-American--is emblematic
of all the things that Obama in the past has been skeptical about,
since Israel appreciates our values, history, and what we stand for.
Again, this is passé for Obama--as if one in a Columbia University
seminar on post-imperialism were to raise his hand and declare, "Isn't
it great that Israel is a beacon of democracy and Western values in the
region?"
Imagine the reaction of the professor and students to
that poor fellow, and, presto, there is what bothers Obama about Israel.
In domestic policy terms, Israel is like the present health care
system, Wall Street, the 5% who need their taxes raised, "they" who
raised the bar, the insurance companies, etc., the Palestinians more
like the victimized, poor American middle and under classes.
We Israelis got Obama's hostility to Israel in
2008, we got it as soon as he came into office in
2009, and we
continue to
get it. I know that I told Professor Jacobson this outright. I wonder whether others did.
More
here.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Iranian nuclear threat, Legal Insurrection, Obama's obsession with Israel, Professor William Jacobson
Keep your eyes open - UPDATED
I actually had a cup of coffee today with
Professor Bill Jacobson. The picture above is from two years ago. We met up at the same coffee shop today, and although I am dreaming of going to sleep soon, Bill is going to post a side-by-side comparison at his blog later this evening.
Looking forward....
UPDATE 11:13 PM
And
the pictures are up. Here's today's:
Labels: Legal Insurrection, Professor William Jacobson
Professor Jacobson's apology tour to Israel
Last night, I got an email from Professor Jacobson telling me that he's coming to Israel and asking whether I would like to get together with him (yes, of course I would). Today, I see on his blog that he's coming here to
apologize for the United States' behavior to Israel.
I just booked my plane tickets to visit Israel in May.
Maybe I’ll call it an Apology Tour.
I’ll let Israelis know that the current administration, with its
childish chickens**t taunting treatment of Israel, does not represent
the American people, who overwhelmingly support Israel. (Will this violate the Logan Act?)
Fortunately, I have the speech already written for me:
Read the speech.
The funny thing is that when I read the post, I skipped over the line that has the link to the original speech. So I read the speech without knowing that it was actually written by... you'll figure it out. And all I could think about as I was reading the speech was 'wow, this sounds just like Obama except that Obama apologized to enemies and to countries with whom the United States shares nothing in common, while Bill is proposing to apologize to a country that was deservedly called the United States' best friend until Obama took office.'
Hmmm.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, outrageous apologies, Professor William Jacobson
Why I probably couldn't be at a big law firm and write this blog
This is way off topic.
It's with sadness and empathy that I read Professor Jacobson's post about
Paul Mirengoff's departure from the blogosphere (Hat Tip:
Memeorandum). Sadness because Paul has been one of the most intelligent and articulate pro-Israel voices out there. And empathy because I know that if I were still in the big law firm world - yes, even here in Israel - I would have to be much more anonymous than is currently the case if I wished to continue writing this blog.
The beginning of the end of my last big law firm position was when a senior partner at my firm got into my car one night in February 1998, to make a conference call to the US on my car's speaker phone while the firm was having a function at a local restaurant. The partner saw a sticker with the wayfarer's prayer (the prayer is pictured above) on my car's glove compartment, with a logo indicating that it had come from Arutz Sheva (which was then a radio station, but is now Israel National News and is limited to broadcasting on the web - a story I have discussed several times). Arutz Sheva was known as the 'settlers' radio station.' He looked at me in horror and said "those are the people who incited to murder Rabin." And I responded, "no, they weren't. There was no incitement to murder him." My relationship with this partner was never the same, and I was gone from the firm within the next year.
The fact is that the big law firm world - in Israel, the US and probably elsewhere - is full of political correctness. People like William Jacobson (whose picture reminds me very much of someone by the same last name with whom I worked at a big firm in New York) and
Glenn Reynolds can write what they do because they are in academia at schools that aren't know for extreme liberalism. Unfortunately, people in big law firms don't always have that freedom.
Best of luck Paul. And if you decide to distribute your opinions privately, please put me on your mailing list. I won't use your name unless you want me to use it.
Labels: blogosphere, Glenn Reynolds, Paul Mirengoff, political correctness, Professor William Jacobson
Liveblog of US election results
No, I am not staying up to liveblog the US election results. The polls close starting at Midnight Israel time, and I'm okay with getting the results in the morning here. I'll get to watch the close races live anyway :-)
But for those of you who want a liveblog of the US midterm election results, you probably won't do much better than Professor Jacobson who is liveblogging
here.
Labels: Legal Insurrection, Liveblog, midterm elections, Professor William Jacobson
