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Monday, May 19, 2008

Would You Buy An ObamaMobile From Tom Friedman?


Barack Hussein Obama's support among Jews must be hemorrhaging like a river.

The Chosen One has gone all out to try and stem the flow, resorting to well trained shills in the media to try and reassure the Jews that it's perfectly okie-dokie to swallow the Kool-ade and go for Obama, even if Hamas, Hezbollah, Jimmy Carter, Al Sharpton and Louis Farakhan do the same.

The latest one to be enlisted is the New York Times' official designated dhimmi Tom Friedman, who wrote a piece last Sunday called 'Obama And the Jews' where he puts forth the proposition that being pro-Israel means buying Obama - at least in his mind:

...America today has — rightly — a bipartisan approach to Arab-Israeli peace that is not going to change no matter who becomes our next president. America, whether under a Republican or Democratic administration, is now committed to a two-state solution in which the Palestinians get back the West Bank, Gaza and Arab parts of East Jerusalem, and Israel gives back most of the settlements in the West Bank, offsetting those it does not evacuate with land from Israel.


Now that's interesting, and extremely revealing of the kind of mindset that continues to believe that, deep down, it's all the fault of those crazy, stiff-necked Jews and if they would just bend over, peace is assured.

This is exactly the same as the Saudi 'peace' ultimatum that lickspittles like Friedman, The Israel Policy Forum and Peace Now have been pushing for years, except that Friedman intentionally leaves out the part of the 'peace proposal' that involves swamping what's left of Israel with genocidal 'refugees', which both the Palestinians and the Saudis insist on as part of the deal...and it's non-negotiable.

For that matter, I'm certain that Friedman and Obama pretty much agree on this version of what 'peace' looks like, although I would hardly call that a bi-partisan consensus.

So let's look at this paragraph a little more closely.

"..the Palestinians get back the West Bank, Gaza and Arab parts of East Jerusalem, and Israel gives back most of the settlements in the West Bank, offsetting those it does not evacuate with land from Israel."

Does anyone at the Times fact check these people? For one thing, East Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria (AKA The West Bank) were not 'owned' by the Palestinians, or even by the Arabs for that matter. They belonged to the British as part of the Palestine Mandate and were illegally occupied by the Jordanian Arab Legion under British officers in the 1948 war, and every Jew living there was ethnically cleansed, including removal from a fairly decent amount of land legally purchased and owned by Jews, including Ariel and Gush Etzion. And the Arab inhabitants of this area now known as Palestinians were and are citizens of Jordan, the other Palestinian state created by the British in 1923 from 80% of the Palestine mandate. So there's no question of the Palestinians 'getting back' something they never owned in the first place.

And for that matter, just why should the Israelis give any more land? The refugee problem, after all, was caused by the Arab attempts at genocide and their subsequent refusal to resettle their Arab brethren in their own countries. Yet, with roughly over 1000 times more land than the Israelis have even with all of Judea and Samaria, no one is expecting the Arabs to contribute so much as a square dunam of land for the Palestinians.

And then, of course, there's the question of the 400,000 or so Jewish refugees from the self-imposed ethnic cleansing Friedman expects the Israelis to embrace, since the Arabs insist on making any areas they control Jew-free. Just a point of order, Mr. Friedman...if it's okay with you and people of your ilk to evict Jews from their homes inside the borders of this new Palestinian state you and your pals envision 'for peace and security', are you equally okay with the Israelis evicting Arabs from Israel for the same reason?

Didn't think so.

Let's move on, as Friedman continues to try to make the case for The Chosen one:

I don’t want a president who is just going to lean on Israel and not get in the Arabs’ face too, or one who, as the former Mideast negotiator Aaron D. Miller puts it, “loves Israel to death” — by not drawing red lines when Israel does reckless things that are also not in America’s interest, like building settlements all over the West Bank."


Now, I admit to being puzzled about this one, especially since the supposedly pro-Israel Barack Obama also said substantially the same thing, that the so-called 'settlements' were not helpful."

Not helpful to whom?

Israel is one of the most densely populated countries in the world, and housing is at a premium. So obviously building homes for Israel is is helpful for the people of Israel.And just why would building homes for Israelis be 'unhelpful' to the Palestinians? Even if the area where these new homes are built eventually becomes part of 'Palestine', don't they and their population represent a boost to the Palestinian economy and infrastructure that can be taxed? After all, Arabs who live in Israel pay taxes to the Israeli government and contribute to the Israeli economy, don't they? And doesn't that kind of mutual, neighborly tolerance jibe with America's interests in the region?

Or - could it just be, just maybe - that since the Palestinians insist that not a single Jew be allowed to live in the areas they want for their lil' reichlet, that what Tom Friedman, Barack Obama and those who ascribe to these views are really promoting is an apartheid state in the Middle East? Yet another restricted neighborhood with No Jews Allowed?

And that gives rise to another interesting question.What kind of 'peace' is being promoted here if the Israelis are going to make dangerous strategic concessions to people that openly hate them so much that they're unable to even tolerate having Jews live amongst them?

Is supporting that kind of racism somehow in America's best interests? Tom Friedman, it seems, would have you think so, and it appears Obama largely agrees with him. And by the way, before I sign on the dotted line and buy that shiny ObamaMobile, could you explain to me how critically damaging the security of one of our closest allies to create another radical Islamist state is in America's best interest?

And finally, there's this bit:

,...ask the right questions about Mr. Obama. Knock off the churlish whispering campaign about what’s in his heart on Israel (what was in Richard Nixon’s heart?) and focus first on what kind of America you think he’d build and second on whether you believe that as president he’d have the smarts, steel and cunning to seize a historic opportunity if it arises.


Well, I'd kind of like to get some straight answers to the questions I've posed above from Obama before I even think about buying the merchandise. But I agree...you can't judge with any certainty what's in a person's heart, so you have to go by performance.

But as any real salesman could have told us, you never denigrate a competitor's product..and if you do, you better really know what you're talking about.

On the one hand, we have this tricked out ObamaMobile people like Friedman are pushing, with a track record of long time close associations with some of the most racist, anti-American and anti-Semitic folks on the planet, and no discernible voting record or accomplishments. As far as what kind of America he'd build, the only real clue we have is the kind of people he associates with and embraces.

On the other, we have the old Nixon coupe. Short on flash, but it accomplished quite a bit. To return to the topic at hand, let's remember that it was the first model to actually make the US a real ally of Israel and supply them with significant military aid, to the lasting benefit of both countries. And no one who was around in 1973 and remembers how Nixon personally intervened to airlift the supplies to Israel that saved the Jews there from another Holocaust is going to complain too much about a couple of inconvenient noises that came out from under the hood in private from time to time.

Tom Friedman should be embarrassed at trying to peddle this kind of garbage to his fellow Americans, let alone Jews. But I doubt he has the capacity to feel shame at this point.

hat tip to Soccer Dad, who found this first.

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous6:03 AM

    'They belonged to the British as part of the Palestinian Mandate'

    That isn't true. The word 'Mandate' is the key.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Fine, Anonymous.They controlled and ruled it,however.

    The Mandate they controlled Palestine under was from the League of nations and it was SPECIFICALLY to create a Jewish Homeland...it was one of Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points.The Brits themselves agreed to do that...remember the Balfour Declaration?

    If we're going by that, ALL of the Mandate,including what's now Jordan should have been part of the Jewish State.

    As you know,the Brits lopped off 80% of it in 1923, forbade Jews to settle east of the Jordan and removed any who were there, creating Trans-Jordan as the original Palestinian state and putting the Hashemites in charge.

    They mollified the Jews by telling them that everything west of the Jordan, including Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria (the west bank)would be the Jewish state,and Jews bought land and settled on that assurance.

    As you also know, the Brits were
    lying through their teeth, as subsequent events proved.

    Thanks for dropping by.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous7:32 AM

    I don't know whether you've read any of my several posts on the Ottoman land law, FF, but under the Ottoman most land was owned by the state and much of the remainder was owned by Christians.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi Dave..nice to see you, and welcome.

    Since the Ottomans lost their empire due to the fortunes of war, I think we can safely say that they forfeited any claim to ownership of Palestine.

    I haven't had the pleasure of reading the above mentioned, but I am aware that while the state was the ultimate owner of most land, deals were made all the time, especially when money was involved ( i.e. tax farms, etc.)since the Empire was badly in debt.

    That likewise applied to the Jews, who were willing to buy land in Palestine at grossly inflated prices through the Rothschilds, the Jewish National Fund and other entities, and what's more were actually capable of making the land into something productive, that could be taxed...which is why the Ottomans not only allowed Jewish immigration but actually encouraged it.

    You might find it interesting to check the archives of the Jewish National Fund (which still exist)to see the surprising amount of land legally purchased by the Jews in pre-Israel Palestine.

    I would also mention that any real final accounting of who owns what might include what I'd call 'sweat n' blood' equity.

    It should also include compensation for the 850,000 Jewish refugees who were ethnically cleansed from the Arab world after 1948 and had the equivalent of several billion dollars in property and assets outright stolen from them.

    As you may or may not know, almost all of these people were resettled in Israel at Israel's expense.

    Some useful background on this subject can be found in Joan Peter's book `From Time Immemorial', which I recommend.

    All Best,
    ff

    ReplyDelete