Thursday, August 12, 2010

Netanyahu, The Anti-Obama

Columnist George Will has an interesting piece that compares Barack Obama and Bibi Netanyahu and finds them to be almost total opposites:

No two leaders of democracies are less alike -- in life experiences, temperaments and political philosophies -- than Netanyahu, the former commando and fierce nationalist, and Barack Obama, the former professor and post-nationalist. {...}

Winston Churchill, who considered himself "one of the authors" of Britain's embrace of Zionism. The Balfour Declaration of 1917 stated: "His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." Beginning in 1923, Britain would govern Palestine under a League of Nations mandate.

Netanyahu, his focus firmly on Iran, honors Churchill because he did not flinch from facts about gathering storms. Obama returned to the British Embassy in Washington the bust of Churchill that was in the Oval Office when he got there. {...}

Arguably the most left-wing administration in American history is trying to knead and soften the most right-wing coalition in Israel's history. The former shows no understanding of the latter, which thinks it understands the former all too well.

The prime minister honors Churchill, who spoke of "the confirmed unteachability of mankind." Nevertheless, a display case in Netanyahu's office could teach the Obama administration something about this leader. It contains a small signet stone that was part of a ring found near the Western Wall. It is about 2,800 years old -- 200 years younger than Jerusalem's role as the Jewish people's capital. The ring was the seal of a Jewish official, whose name is inscribed on it: Netanyahu.

No one is less a transnational progressive, less a post-nationalist, than Binyamin Netanyahu, whose first name is that of a son of Jacob, who lived perhaps 4,000 years ago. Netanyahu, whom no one ever called cuddly, once said to a U.S. diplomat 10 words that should warn U.S. policymakers who hope to make Netanyahu malleable: "You live in Chevy Chase. Don't play with our future."


Another important difference - While Netanyahu is hardly a stranger to academia as an MIT graduate, he has actually accomplished things in real life outside that cocoon beyond the mere playing of political games. Barack Obama never has. His entire life has been spent either in academia or at the trough of public office, manipulating the system to get himself elected.

What Will is saying ( but doesn't quite bring himself to say) is that in Netanyahu's case, Israel has a leader with strong roots and a true love and appreciation of his country, deeply committed to its interests and well-being. In Obama, the United States has almost exactly the opposite - someone who, deep down, simply does not like the country of his birth and sees it as his place to see to it that America makes 'reparations' and 'apologies' for what he sees as its perceived evil.

Not to make a psychograph out of this, but one wonders if the two men's past has anything to do with these attitudes.Netanyahu came from a close knit family with a father, Ben-Zion, who was a committed patriot and deeply moral man whom Netanyahu adores and who still influences him.

Barack Hussein Obama was essentially abandoned by both parents, and the closest things he had to a father were his leftist grandfather who was frequently absent and communist and child molester Frank Marshall Davis, whom Obama's grandparents put a very young Obama together with as a mentor.

In any case, Will has it right - the men are polar opposites in history, mentality and character.

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5 comments:

B.Poster said...

I wish we had a leader like Mr. netanyahu!! Do you see anyone in a position of influence right now who could be a leader in the mold of Mr. Netanyahu?

Btw, I especially like the line "You live in Chevy Chase. Don't play with our future." Also, he might have pointed out to this diplomat that Israel has the best led and best trained Air Forces and Armies in the world. These IDF forces would make quick and destructive work of any military forces this diplomat might throw at it.

louielouie said...

In Obama, the United States has almost exactly the opposite - someone who, deep down, simply does not like the country of his birth

i disagree. hussein loves kenya. he has increased US taxpayer funding to kenya.

Freedom Fighter said...

LOL!

Kaleokualoha said...

Why are you spreading the nasty rumour that Frank Marshall Davis was a "child molester"? Are you trying to railroad Davis with just the trumped-up evidence that his porn novel included sex with an underage teenager, or is there any empirical evidence, such as court records or confirmatory statements from Davis himself?

A novel is fiction, and is fraudulent evidence for such accusations! Do you also consider the author of "Lolita" to be a child molester, or just Davis? Perhaps it's time for MythBusters to take a closer look at this unsubstantiated claim.

Davis wrote a semi-autobiographical NOVEL. You may not be aware of this, but a novel is a work of FICTION! In this regard, Davis's book is like Samuel Clemens "Roughing It," in that they were both written under pseudonyms that were also fictional characters in their stories:

"Samuel Clemens wrote autobiographical novels under the pseudonym "Mark Twain," including "Roughing It," which "follows the travels of young Mark Twain through the Wild West during the years 1861–1867. After a brief stint as a Confederate cavalry militiaman, he joined his brother Orion Clemens, who had been appointed Secretary of the Nevada Territory, on a stagecoach journey west. Twain consulted his brother's diary to refresh his memory and borrowed heavily from his active imagination for many stories in the novel." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roughing_It)

In both cases authors used pseudonyms to publish autobiographical novels that were "fictionalized but still based upon actual occurrences." In both cases these novels presented fictionalized adventures of their pseudonymous characters. Does anyone claim that the adventures of "Mark Twain" literally occurred in the life of Samuel Clemens, because "Mark Twain" said they happened? If not, then why should anyone claim that the adventures of Bob Greene literally occurred in the life of Frank Marshall Davis, because "Bob Greene" said they happened? Fair weather principles indicate bias.

"Truth is generally the best vindication against slander." - Abraham Lincoln

Freedom Fighter said...

Hello Kaleokualoha...or whatever your name really is, Mistah Astroturfer. Tell David Axelrod I said hello.

'Nasty rumours',hmmm?

The Telegraph UK reported that "Sex Rebel:Black," a book Marshall admitted writing under the pseudonym "Bob Greene" was hardly just 'a work of fiction'. And that came from Davis himself.

Marshall not only admitted to having written the book, but he said it described factual sexual encounters that he and his wife had with minors and other couples. "I could not then truthfully deny that this book, which came out in 1968 as a Greenleaf Classic, was mine," said Davis.

In the introduction to Sex Rebel, Davis explains that although he has "changed names and identities...all incidents I have described have been taken from actual experiences."

One of the kids involved was a 13 year old girl. Here's Davis on the subject:

"I'm not one to go in for Lolitas. Usually I'd rather not bed a babe under 20. But there are exceptions. I didn't want to disappoint the trusting child. At her still-impressionistic age, a rejection might be traumatic, could even cripple her sexually for life."

"Anne came up many times the next several weeks, her aunt thinking she was in good hands. Actually she was. She obtained a course in practical sex from experienced and considerate practitioners rather than from ignorant insensitive neophytes....I think we did her a favor, although the pleasure was mutual."

Yeah, a child molester.

Davis also admitted that "under certain circumstances I am bisexual" and that he was "a voyeur and an exhibitionist" who was "occasionally mildly interested in sado-masochism".

Remember something else too.Davis was a pothead and an alchoholic who smoked dope with Obama’s grandfather,Stanley Dunham, who introduced Davis
to Obama when Obama was only nine years of age.

Obama, as you know admits doing drugs in his youth, and inDreams of my Father' Obama talks about sharing alcohol with Davis as an underage child.

One wonders if Obama shared drugs with him too.

Understand, I don't blame Obama for this. He was just an innocent child.

You, on the other hand decided that you were going to deliberately mislead in order to defend a particularly noxious communist and Stalin apologist with rather disgusting personal predilections merely to make a political point.

I find that inexcusable.

Regards,
Rob