Catching up on news after a few days in Southern California, I noticed this article about Barack Obama visiting a mosque in Jakarta then”criticizing Israel”, a tiny country 5400 miles away from his audience. Had he not said anything about the Jewish state, it seems that reporters would have had to look hard for something newsworthy to say about our president.
It reminded me of Jimmy Carter. After people concluded that he didn’t have any wisdom to offer on the subject of how to support economic growth, Carter mostly faded into obscurity until he began complaining about Israel (see Wikipedia).
Unless we Americans manage to rebuild our economy, the remaining years of the Obama Administration could be rather rough on Israel (which is itself in remarkably good economic shape, with a growth forecast of 4 percent for 2010 and an unemployment rate of about 6 percent; the U.S. economy is growing about 2 percent (source) annually, with unemployment between 9 and 17 percent depending on the counting of discouraged workers).
I guess Jews can be grateful that George W. Bush, presumably also discredited as a source of advice to governments looking to foster sustainable economic growth, has apparently refrained in his recent memoir (excerpts) from blaming Israel for the world’s ills.
Obama did not complain about Jews. He did complain about Israel, one is a religious group, the other is a state, there is a huge difference. I think it is extremely counter productive to mix the two up. Would you say that Christians caused the killing of millions of Jews during WWII? no, you would say it were Germans … despite at that time Germany being more or less a Christian state.
Especially when fighting against anti-semitism it is important to make the distinction between the two. because Israel like any other country is making its fair share of mistake and it should be possible to discuss these. by mixing the religion with the state every reasonable complaint about Israeli action becomes an anti-semitic slur making it impossible to have a reasonable discussion about the middle east.
Carsten: Had Obama been in Israel when he was talking about Israel, I wouldn’t have been surprised. But to go visit Indonesia, a country of 240 million people, and talk about the action of Jewish Israelis (I think we can assume he was not complaining about the 17 percent of Israeli citizens who are Muslim), struck me as odd.
I would take issue with your assertion that Israel is “making its fair share of mistakes”. There are only about six million Jews in Israel and there is a limit to how many mistakes 6 million people can make, no matter how misguided. Here in the U.S. we have more than 2.3 million people incarcerated for criminal offenses (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States ), which is more than the number of working-age Jewish males in Israel. I hope that those 2.3 million people made a lot of mistakes, otherwise there is little justification for keeping them in prison. I’m not an expert on Indonesia, but with 240 million residents I have to believe that they make more mistakes than the Jews of Israel.
I can’t see why it is productive for a politician from Country X on an official state visit to Country Y to spend time talking about Country Z, unless perhaps Country Z is at war with Country Y or is a critical trading partner.
“… to go visit Indonesia, a country of 240 million people, and talk about the action of Jewish Israelis (I think we can assume he was not complaining about the 17 percent of Israeli citizens who are Muslim), struck me as odd.”
According to the article, someone at the news conference asked him about it:
Why would an Indonesian reporter bring up the Israeli-Palestinian dispute? The obvious reason is that Indonesia is the largest Muslim-majority country in the world (about 85% Muslim).
Any time someone tries to tell you that US foreign policy is based on a cold-blooded calculation of its selfish interests, ask them why the US would back a country of six million people in a conflict that’s a major grievance for 300 million Arabs and one billion Muslims.
Perhaps this was connected with Netanyahu’s meeting with Biden that same day?
jstreet has some former DNC staffers in its ranks source. according to their survey 54% of respondents polled (Q.30) support, “United States playing an
active role in helping the parties to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict if it meant the United States publicly stating its disagreements with Israel…”
and, maybe his target audience was closer to home?