I was starting to get depressed.
It seems that everyone I speak to in the Jewish community is worried. Obama is pressuring Israel, but not the Palestinians, they say. He’s naïve about Iran. And why did he go to Cairo and say that Israel’s founding was rooted in the tragic history of the Holocaust?
These, by the way, are the folks who voted for him in the last election.
I had breakfast in the Senate dining room this morning. After, in an ornate hallway, I picked up copies of three of the best newspapers covering DC politics.
The Hill newspaper had this four column lead: “Dems reel on healthcare.”
Congressional Democrats and the White House are scrambling to regain their footing after a series of setbacks has stalled political momentum to reform the nation’s healthcare system … The Democratic roll-out on health care has encountered significant bumps in the road.
Roll Call blared: “Health Care Bipartisanship Fades.”
As Senate health care negotiations enter the final phase at the committee level, Democrats are emphasizing their own policy preferences and conceding the unlikelihood of attracting significant Republican support for the legislation.
Obama’s top domestic priority, down the chutes, before anyone’s even seen a bill.
But, wait. There’s more.
Politico decreed: “Obama Draws Rural Dem Ire.”
Angered by White House decisions on everything from greenhouse gases to car dealerships, congressional Democrats from rural districts are threatening to revolt against parts of President Barack Obama’s ambitious first-year agenda.
The gay community is angry at him. Pesticide manufacturers are upset about the organic garden on the White House lawn. Doctors booed him this week for refusing to cap malpractice law suits. On Israel, my best friend’s mother feels personally betrayed.
And then I did something that everyone inside the Beltway, and everyone active in the Jewish subset of that world, should do – at least once.
On the way from the Capitol to my hotel, I stopped off at the Newseum on Pennsylvania Ave. I didn’t go inside. I just perused the exhibit they have along the sidewalk: morning front pages from around the country and the world. More than 50 in all, posted, neatly, in handsome window boxes.
Are you sitting? Brace yourself.
Exactly three front pages had stories on health care. One of those was the USA Today, and the other two — The Alabama Gadsen Times and the Mississippi Hattiesburg American – actually ran an AP article with favorable headlines, about how the Dems were trimming the cost of the health care bill.
The Wyoming Star Tribune had a story about health care, too – Medicaid, focusing on cuts in the Wyoming department of health.
Only nine of fifty newspapers had front page articles about the uprising in Iran – and that includes the NY Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal. The Anchorage Daily news had the story, but it gave more prominence to a story about Gov. Palin’s pick for attorney general.
The Kentucky Enquirer did run a piece about concerns over nuclear power – but not in Tehran. A new facility is planned for Piketon, Ohio.
In Montana, the Billings Gazette gave huge play to an animal cruelty case. The Morgantown, West Virginia Dominion Post had unsettling pictures of emergency workers trying to extricate a teenager from his overturned car. The news in Kenosha, Wisconsin, was about a bus that nearly tumbled down a city staircase. The Home News Tribune – my former hometown paper in Central Jersey – trumpeted: “Jeweler’s Death Still a Mystery.”
The stories about Iraq had a local angle. (The Telegraph, in Nashua, N.H., gave prominent play to a 23-year-old Salem High grad killed in Iraq over the weekend.) The scandals had a local flavor. (The Detroit News had a story about Conyers – not Michigan Congressman John – but city councilwoman Monica, facing bribery charges.) “’Magical Season’ ends for Cinderella Team” had nothing to do with the Magic of Orlando, and everything to do with the Southern Mississippi Golden Eagles, whose baseball team lost in the College World Series.
There were front page stories about swine flu and fires, gas leaks and calorie counting, floods, misbehaving teachers, and great hamburgers.
Sure, you could sit down and google all of these local papers, and view them one at a time. But walking along the row of windows, looking at one after another, had a downright cathartic effect, all its own. It was as if, all at once, the inside-the-Beltway-Jewish-world bubble I’m living in burst, and a burden lifted. Not a single story about how President Obama is dragging the country over a cliff while simultaneously destroying the special relationship between the United States and Israel!
Here’s the thing: Obama knows what’s on the front pages of all those newspapers. He has a long view. He knows that even people who disagree with him are giving him a lot of leeway right now. (The Times has his approval rating at 63 percent today.)
He understands that most people – including most Jews – aren’t paying that close attention to Israel at this point; they are not parsing every word of his Cairo speech or waiting to hear Bibi Netanyahu’s response. They are, first and foremost, worried about their jobs and their health and their communities; they want their kids to come home safe from prom.
Yet at the same time, Obama knows Israel is critically important, not only to the United States, but to a broad swath of American Jews. That’s why he goes so far to affirm and reaffirm the special relationship between the U.S. and Israel; he knows full well that the Jewish claim to Israel is first and foremost about the land; he has filled his White House with pro-Israel Jews who send their kids to Jewish day school, like Dan Shapiro and Rahm Emanuel. Dennis Ross, the Middle East negotiator and staunch friend of Israel, just moved from the State Department to the White House, where he will have the president’s ear.
Obama is pressing a peace process that most Jews support, because he believes it is ultimately in Israel’s best interest, the only way for the Jewish state to achieve true security. My sense is that by and large, Jews — from Nashua to Hattiesburg to Kenosha — understand this, and hope fervently that he succeeds.
Tags: Front Pages
ND,
If you’d like a guest blog on health care, let me know. I have something I’ve been outlining and it’s near ready to write.
I truly am ashamed by the Jewish communities’ fear/disdain of acknowledging the reality of Israel’s origins. It is about one part legitimacy (historical>religious), two parts historical anti-semitism (those three parts contribute to the Balfour dec), and seven parts post-holocaust. That is the reality, the realpolitik. It is not why Israel should have been founde, but it is why Israel was founded. Our community needs to feel safe acknowledging that difference.
Loyal
But you don’t need to go beyond the Balfour Declaration to disprove what you are saying. If establishing the state was “about” the Holocaust, then what’s the purpose of the Balfour Declaration?
But in any case, Jews were well into their fourth “chapter” when Islam was founded. Chapter 1: receiving of the Torah and entering the land, about 1000 BCE. Chapter 2: First kingdoms and destruction by Babylonians, about 586 BCE. Chapter 3: Return to Zion and building of second temple. Chapter 4: Destruction by Romans, 70 CE. Rebuilding of Judaism at Yavneh, around 200 CE.
And you are saying what about Israel and the Holocaust?
Gerald,
I’m not saying that the reason “why” is the Holocaust, I’m saying it is the reason “How”. And a failure to understand and to acknowledge that is a dangerous thing in the broader world that is as it is, rather than as it should be. The how is often much more challenging than the why.
I stand by what I said.
Loyal
L,
Sure, the Holocaust is a big part of the how. But simplifying the narrative to say that Israel was born out of the Holocaust is dangerous for another reason, because it plays perfectly into stories of Palestinian victimization. It even plays perfectly into some of the things Ahmadinejad has said, including this:
“The West claims that more than six million Jews were killed in World War II and to compensate for that they established and support Israel. If it is true that the Jews were killed in Europe, why should Israel be established in the East, in Palestine?”
“If you have burned the Jews, why don’t you give a piece of Europe, the United States, Canada or Alaska to Israel. Our question is, if you have committed this huge crime, why should the innocent nation of Palestine pay for this crime?”
… Why is this important? Palestinians — and many across the Arab world — essentially make the case that because Israel was born out of the Holocaust, the state is in fact illegitimate; the wrong perpetrated against the Jews does not mean a wrong can be perpetrated against the Palestinians. It furthers a narrative of Palestinian victimization and despair.
In fact, there were many Jews already living there — many had legally purchased land from Palestinians — and because of the Jews’ historic claims to the land, the British government, in carving up its empire, looked to Palestine as the Jewish national home. Saying the nation was rooted in the Holocaust, while on one level true, misses all the nuance that is so critical, and that will ultimately have to be understood for two states to exist side by side.
-ND
ND,
I am troubled by the fear of the “Palestinian narrative.” Both that narrative and the Jewish community reaction to it are overly simple, inaccurate, and ultimately cartoonish.
The rationale for a Jewish state is myriad. It includes historical roots, religious roots, political roots, and real power policitcs. It was the last of these that actaully led to the establishment and recognition of Israel and it was the Holocaust that put that over the top.
Why are we afraid as a community to acknowledge that as a fact? My posting is in response to the reflexive reaction to Obama’s language of Israel’s founding being rooted in a history of anti-semitism and the Holocaust. These were necessary factors to get the UN, US, and USSR to recognize and establish Israel. I don’t think there is any doubt about that. All the hsitorical and religious reasons maay have been necessary conditions but were not sufficient conditions for Israel to be established and recognized.
Just because someone can twist and subvert your more nuanced thinking doesn’t mean that it is ok to revert to a simplistic and fundamentally incomplete mode of thinking.
L
L,
Here is my point: If Obama had said, “Israel’s founding is rooted not only in the tragic history of the Holocaust, but also in a historic, religious, and cultural claim to the land, and in international law,” two important things would have happened: 1) Palestinians would have had to confront, and begin to come to terms with, that as truth — which will ultimately be essential to their recognizing of Israel as a Jewish state next to theirs; it takes a long time for trust to be built, and the language used to describe the situation will be a big part of that over time, and 2) Jews would have breathed a sigh of relief that Obama gets the important nuance of their connection to Israel, and would have been much more likely to support him as he goes down this road. That’s a political goal — he wants and needs that community’s support — it will make it so much easier for him to succeed in the Middle East and everywhere else.
-ND
ND,
I hear you. Still. my feeling is that sometimes the art of even a good compromise is to let everyone feel a bit uncomfortable on your way there. And sometimes reactions to things are too reflexive.
The Jewish community could have said “yes and”, going on to your points, rather than “no, but” and their points and the nuance would have been heard and a part of the discussion.
Sometimes it’s smart and more productive to act as if you have some power and are secure even when you don’t feel that way.
Opportunity missed.
L