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Jewish Leaders in the White House: Take Two

Tuesday, July 14th, 2009

President Barack Obama spoke directly and powerfully to the concerns of the Jewish community today.

Obama invited 16 Jewish leaders from 14 organizations into the White House for a wide-ranging discussion focused on Israel, Middle East policy, and Iran. There’s no transcript, but what comes through in press reports — based on interviews with those in attendance — is President Obama’s iron-clad support for Israel as a safe, secure Jewish state.

Most fundamentally, he addressed head-on community concerns that by calling on Israel to freeze settlements, he is applying more pressure on Israel than he is on the Palestinians.

The National Jewish Democratic Council’s executive director Ira Forman, one of the 16 invitees, told Politico’s Ben Smith that Obama ”said we have been very specific with the Arab world on incitement, violence, commitments on accepting the reality of Israel and conveying that to their street as well.”

According to The Forward, the president said that “forceful” pressure is being applied to the Palestinians to move forward on the peace process — flatly contradicting claims by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that all Palestinians have to do is sit and wait for Israel to make concessions. The president told the group that among other things, he has sent letters to all the Arab states, urging them to join the peace process.

As the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports:

One participant quoted the president as saying that “There’s not a lot of courage among the Arab states; not a lot of leadership among the Palestinians.” …

“The view was expressed among the organizations at a minimum there was concern about an imbalance in pressures placed on Israel as opposed to on the Palestinians and Arab states,” Alan Solow, the chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, told JTA. “The president indicated he had a sensitivity to the perception of that imbalance and had to work harder to correct that perception.”

Moreover, Obama specifically said, according to the Jerusalem Post, there’s a “likelihood that Israel would retain the major settlement blocs in any final peace deal with the Palestinians, but said it was an issue that needed to be resolved between the parties.”

And yet again — and this always strikes me about Obama — he didn’t kowtow to his audience by telling them only what they wanted to hear. This, for example, is from the AP report:

Some participants in the meeting flatly told Obama that only when the United States are Israel are in lockstep support is any progress made. Obama replied that there was no distance between the U.S. and Israeli positions for the last eight years, and that no progress was made under President George W. Bush.

“Where people pushed back, the president stood firm,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, executive director of J Street, a pro-Israel and pro-peace political action committee and lobby.

“I don’t think the peace process will be advanced by hiding natural disagreements, disagreements within the family,” Obama was quoted in The Forward as saying. 

Which, ultimately, gives him infinite credibility when his White House puts out statements like this, as it did after the meeting today: “The President reiterated his unshakeable commitment to Israel’s security and reiterated his commitment to working to achieve Middle East peace.” 

“[Obama] talked about Israel as a Jewish state with no hesitancy,” Forman told ABC News.  “He also reiterated what he has said before about the fundamental bond between Israel and the United States and the fundamental commitment the U.S. has, no matter what disagreements there are, to Israel’s peace and security.”

It’s high time for the skeptics in the Jewish community to take him at his word.

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Jewish Leaders in the White House: Take One

Monday, July 13th, 2009

The message reached the president.

The other day, I blogged that the time is right for President Obama to visit Israel, noting that his support in Israel is slipping. If he makes his case directly to the Israeli public, I wrote, he would likely win crucial Jewish support for his Middle East agenda.

Today, during a meeting at the White House with American Jewish leaders, Obama was pressed on this point, directly. This is from the Jerusalem Post’s coverage: 

At the end of the meeting, Americans for Peace Now President Debra DeLee suggested that Obama visit Israel to deliver his message directly to Israelis as a way of emphasizing his commitment to Israel and reassuring Israelis that he is concerned about their well-being.

While Obama did not respond to the request at the time, according to those in the room, there has been discussion that the president might make such a trip as part of his policy of active engagement in the Middle East.

In addition to the 16 Jewish leaders from  14 organizations, “those in the room” included, according to The Forward, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, senior advisor David Axelrod, and Daniel Shapiro, who heads the Middle East division of the National Security Council.

That an Obama trip to Israel is under consideration is very good news.

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The Time is Right for Obama to Visit Israel

Thursday, July 9th, 2009

Reading the Akron Beacon Journal today, I came across this headline: “Obama tries to win over skeptical Russians.”

After reaching out to the Islamic world in speeches in Turkey and Egypt, President Barack Obama sought once more to speak directly to the hearts and minds of another audience that has been hostile to the United States: the Russian public. …

Just as the president sprinkled his speeches in the Middle East with references to the Quran and partnership with the Muslim world, Obama spoke knowledgeably to Russians about issues close to their hearts.

It was vintage Obama, reaching out directly to the people, speaking honestly — “he quietly criticized Russia’s increasingly authoritarian politics and aggressive foreign policy — without lecturing or accusing the Kremlin” — and earning their trust.

Several times, Obama made references that might sound like platitudes anywhere else — but which struck a powerful chord with Russians.

It’s time that Obama went to Israel, and made the same kind of appeal to skeptical Jews.

I understand why he didn’t start with Israel. Obama has reached out first to those — in Iran, the Arab world, and Russia — who are most suspicious of the United States and its foreign policy, after eight years of tough talk and sabre-rattling by George Bush. That makes sense.

Now, though, he has an Israel problem. According to a recent Jerusalem Post Poll – much discussed and emailed in the Jewish community — only 6 percent of Jewish Israelis consider Obama pro-Israel. A whopping 50 percent believe he is pro-Palestinian — up from only 14 percent in May.

This, about a president who went to Cairo – the heart of the Muslim world – and declared that America’s bond with Israel “is unbreakable.”

Clearly, there is a growing credibility gap.

There’s an article in Haaretz today by Aluf Benn, who I’m not prone to agree with, but who makes a good point. Benn notes that while many Israelis might actually support a settlement freeze, when Obama called for exactly that, absolutely no one on the political left in Israel sided with him over Netanyahu. One reason, Benn writes, is that:

Obama did not try to communicate with the Israeli public and convince them that freezing settlements will be an important and positive step to contribute to peace and a better future. Obama addressed the Arabs and Muslims, but not the Israelis.

For the Obama administration, it’s not just an issue of assuaging the Israeli public, and thus making American Jews feel better. If the Israeli public understood they had a true friend in the White House, a large segment might line up behind Obama, increasing pressure on their prime minister to compromise on settlements and other tough, intractable issues coming down the pike.

The other day, a U.S. Congressman with unassailable pro-Israel and pro-Obama credentials put it this way: “[The Israeli] public needs to be predisposed to follow” the United States’ lead on peace talks.

The best way for that to happen is for Obama to go to the Jewish homeland and speak to Israelis directly, honestly, and from the heart.

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Obama Persuades Russia on Iran

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

The first day of President Barack Obama’s trip to Russia yielded an important agreement between Cold War foes to cut their strategic nuclear arsenals by at least a quarter.

That’s important — not only because, as The New York Times reported, it’s “a first step in a broader effort intended to reduce the threat of such weapons drastically and to prevent their further spread to unstable regions.” It’s also important for the security of Israel.

Prior to leaving for Moscow, Obama reiterated that Iran has a short window of opportunity — the “coming weeks and months” — to show it is serious about responding to his overtures for talks, or else face sanctions. Sanctions, though, have little teeth if Russia and China are not on board. As Zvi Bar-el wrote in Haaretz last September: “Iran assumes Russia and China will continue to protect it from embargoes.”

President Obama also said, as the Times reported, “the United States now has more leverage to pressure Iran because he had succeeded in getting ‘countries like Russia and China to take these issues seriously.’”

Flash-forward a day, and we already see tangible evidence of that success.

“After hours of meetings at the Kremlin,” the Times writes, ”the presidents agreed to conduct a joint assessment of any Iranian threat and presented a united front against the spread of nuclear weapons.”

The paper continues:

Mr. Obama hailed the arms agreement as an example for the world as he pursued a broader agenda aimed at countering — and eventually eliminating — the spread of nuclear weapons, a goal he hopes to make a defining legacy of his presidency.

While the United States and Russia together have 95 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons, Mr. Obama also views Russia as an influential player in deterring nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea.

“This is an urgent issue, and one in which the United States and Russia have to take leadership,” Mr. Obama said. “It is very difficult for us to exert that leadership unless we are showing ourselves willing to deal with our own nuclear stockpiles in a more rational way.”

Mr. Medvedev expressed willingness to help fight the proliferation of nuclear weapons in places like Iran and North Korea. “It’s our common, joint responsibility, and we should do our utmost to prevent any negative trends there, and we are ready to do that,” Mr. Medvedev said.

And the U.S. president is giving the Russians every incentive to follow through. As Haaretz reports:

Obama, on a visit to Moscow on Tuesday, called for the United States and Russia to overcome Cold War mistrust and forge a true global partnership, saying that the U.S. wouldn’t need to deploy a missile defense system in Europe, a move Russia opposes, if Russia helped to bring the Iranian nuclear threat to an end. 

“If the threat from Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile program is eliminated, the driving force for missile defense in Europe will be eliminated,” Obama said in remarks prepared for delivery to graduates from Moscow’s New Economic School. 

If President Obama didn’t look into Medvedev’s eyes and see his soul, it may be because he’s more focused on a geopolitical strategy for regional stability — with Israel as a prime beneficiary.

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Why Obama Waited

Thursday, June 25th, 2009

“What took you so long?” Fox News correspondent Major Garrett heckled the president of the United States at his news conference this week, after the president condemned the Iranian government’s bloody crackdown on protestors.

And, as I predicted in my post the other day (you hardly needed a crystal ball), President Barack Obama’s critics have pushed each other out of the way to pile on this point.

“I’m glad the president finally did rise to the occasion here,” former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney told CBS, in one of the more muted statements, adding: “The president should have spoken from the very beginning expressing the fact that we will always stand with the forces of freedom throughout the world and we will oppose tyranny.”

It’s been well documented from the start that, before the Iranian revolution turned bloody, President Obama was trying to walk a fine line so as not to be seen as meddling. He didn’t want to give Iranian hardliners material that they could use as propaganda against peaceful protestors in the street.

But there is another, broader strategic reason he waited, as well. As Helene Cooper reports in The New York Times today:

“The White House and the West are calculating that … Mr. Obama’s measured stance will put the United States in a far better position to get Russia and China to agree to tough sanctions against Iran than if Mr. Obama had struck a strident note early on.”

As President Obama indicated to Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, he doesn’t intend to negotiate with Iran over its nuclear program beyond the end of the year. One form of pressure the United States can exert is the threat of economic sanctions — but that’s a paper tiger without the participation of Russia and China. If President Obama had come out hurling fire and brimstone the first day, as his detractors wanted him to do, he could have severely undermined the likelihood of assembling a broad international coalition, including Russia and China, to impose meaningful sanctions.

(Which, by the way, is exactly what Netanyahu is pressing for this week in Europe.)

In other words, despite what Major Garrett and the fulminating critics on the right apparently wanted to hear, President Obama’s measured response was not only thoughtful, it was strategic, and in the best long term national security interests of both the United States and Israel.

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Nixon and the Jews

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009

I’ve always been uncomfortable with efforts to resuscitate Richard Nixon’s image.

They’ve been ongoing for some time.

“Mr. Nixon’s speech today seemed to mark a rite of passage in the rehabilitation of the former President,” the New York Times wrote in 1992, at a foreign policy conference, attended by dignitaries of both parties, at the Richard M. Nixon Library and Birthplace. “There was no direct mention of Watergate … Some of the luminaries and bit players who figured in the pain and successes of the Nixon Administration seemed convinced of his comeback today, and gave him a standing ovation after his speech.”

The story of Nixon’s failings, though, continue to trickle out, and they’re not limited to Watergate.

This morning’s New York Times has a story about newly released tapes and documents from the Nixon library, raising unsettling questions about how the president viewed Jews.

In a February 21, 1973 phone conversation with evangelist Billy Graham, the two discussed Jewish opposition to evangelical outreach efforts. (The Times writes: “Graham complained that Jewish-American leaders were opposing efforts to promote evangelical Christianity, like Campus Crusade.”) According to an excerpt, Nixon told Graham:

“Anti-Semitism is stronger than we think. You know, it’s unfortunate. But this has happened to the Jews. It happened in Spain, it happened in Germany, it’s happening — and now it’s going to happen in America if these people don’t start behaving. … It may be they have a death wish. You know that’s been the problem with our Jewish friends for centuries.”

Nixon was the first U.S. President to visit Israel, sitting down with Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1974, and pledging U.S. support to help Israel build a nuclear power station.

But at the same time, in his private conversations, he readily blamed anti-Semitism on Jews behaving badly, perpetuating dangerous stereotypes. And — shockingly, just 27 years after the Holocaust — he suggested to a leading Christian evangelist that the community had a “death wish.”

History must reflect this side of Nixon’s intellectual legacy, as well.

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‘A Nation of People’

Friday, June 19th, 2009

How does the uprising in Iran look from my perspective, as a Jewish American?

Hundreds of thousands — by some estimates millions – of people protesting against a fraudulent election and a repressive regime? Thousands streaming through the streets in silent protest? A revolution facilitated by a Web site that gives users only 140 characters to make their point?

For nearly a week now, I’ve been contemplating how to respond, and I can’t get past one fundamental thing: The ire of the Iranian people is directed squarely at President Ahmadinejad, a madman with well-known and often articulated anti-Semitic and anti-Israel views.

Here are some of the Ahmadinejad quotes that are seared into the collective conscience of my Jewish community:

  • “The skirmishes in the occupied land are part of a war of destiny. The outcome of hundreds of years of war will be defined in Palestinian land. As the Imam said, Israel must be wiped off the map.”
  • “Israel is a tyrannical regime that will one day will be destroyed.”
  • “The real Holocaust is what is happening in Palestine where the Zionists avail themselves of the fairy tale of Holocaust as blackmail and justification for killing children and women and making innocent people homeless.”

This, and so much more.

I’m not naive enough to think that those people out on the street are somehow now embracing Israel. I doubt most of them have ever met a Jew — there aren’t many left in the country. This is clearly an Iranian uprising, with uniquely Iranian origins. But part of what the people are protesting against is Ahmadinejad’s totalitarian, anti-Democratic excesses, including his anti-Western sabre-rattling. It may not be linked, but they are risking their lives to stand against one of the world’s most notorious anti-Semites.

Before the election, it was so easy to imagine Ahmadinejad represented a monolithic Iranian viewpoint. When he said Israel would be erased, his was the voice of Iran.

Now, we see that Iran has another voice. And like everyone else, the Israelis are moved by what they hear.

“We are all revolutionaries here,” Bradley Burston writes in today’s Haaretz:

The people in Tehran’s streets have made it possible to begin to see past Ahmadinejad. I have to get used to Iran not as a cartoon bully, but as my neighbor. Not because they will go nuclear … though nuclear they may well go. But because it is a nation of people, as we are, not pawns in an increasingly obsolete revolution.

A nation of people. People who use cell phones and send tweets.

As much as we knew this before, if we stopped and thought about it, we see it now — we feel it — and that changes everything.

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