Rahm's Dad is Anti-Semitic and Anti-Arab

And he is also a terrorist.

Here is the view from some in Isarel:

For those who believe that Rahm Emanuel, in his position at gatekeeper to the president, will not further skew US foreign policy because of his strong ties to Israel, I would offer the following, which appeared in The Guardian on Saturday. “Emanuel’s position has raised concerns among those looking for an even-handed approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In an interview with the Israeli daily Ma’ariv, Emanuel’s father was quoted as saying: ‘Obviously he will influence the president to be pro-Israel. Why wouldn’t he be? What is he, an Arab? He’s not going to clean the floors of the White House.’”

Emanuel’s dad is reported to be a former Irgun terrorist who blew up the King David Hotel and massacred Arab villagers, so he knows how handle Arabs, one presumes. What he knows about cleaning floors is not clear.

Pretty racist. Will Rahm be questioned on this? Does he agree with his father's assessment of his priorities or the job prospects of Arabs?

Rahm's dad must be an anti-Semite to say Rahm might use his power to influence the US government for the benefit of Israel.

Or maybe Rahm's dad is just telling the truth, something that others are too afraid to say.

Link

That Sinking Feeling

Other are starting to get worried about the direction of the Obama administration as well:

I am starting to get the queasy acid-reflux feeling that I used to get when Bill Clinton was president, knowing that America’s foreign policy was being controlled by the likes of Madeline “starve the Iraqis” Albright, Sandy “don’t know how those papers got down my trousers” Berger, and Dennis “we’ll have to check with Israel first” Ross. And then there is Richard “bomb the hell out of Serbia” Holbrooke. Well, it looks like we’ll be getting a number of that jolly crew back, Holbrooke possibly as secretary of state, supplemented by Rahm “volunteer for the Israeli Army” Emanuel as chief of staff and Jane “investigated by the FBI” Harman as Director of CIA.

I am still hopeful.

Link.

Strike Two for Obama

Well, I am now starting to get nervous. But, what else did I really expect?

A mere 12 hours after claiming the Democratic presidential nomination, Barack Obama appeared before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee yesterday -- and changed himself into an Israel hard-liner.

He promised $30 billion in military assistance for Israel. He declared that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force has "rightly been labeled a terrorist organization." He used terms such as "false prophets of extremism" and "corrupt" while discussing Palestinians. And he promised that "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided."

Vowing to stop Tehran from getting a nuclear weapon, the newly minted nominee apparent added: "I will always keep the threat of military action on the table to defend our security and our ally, Israel. Do not be confused."

Amazing.

A Moment of Clarity

While I could never say times of changed, it does seem like a moment or two of clarity has entered the American debate on our foreign policy and the smears that are used to try and silence any debate US policy towards Israel.

It all started with the pathetic performance of xx to paint Professor Rashid Khalidi as an anit-Semite and then associate him with Obama, both of which are false claims. The attempt was exposed in an especially graphic way in this short interview of Michael Goldfarb, McCain Campaign manager on loan from uber-neocon Bill Kristol's The Weekly Standard.



Gleen Greenwald does an amazing job documenting the negiative response from including heavy weights such as Andrew Sullivan of The Atlantic and this great quote from Joe Klein of Time.

Here we have the McCain campaign's execrable Michael Goldfarb slinging around accusations of anti-semitism--a favorite pastime, as we've seen this year, among Jewish neoconservatives. . . . I'd say that if we have a bigot here, it's Mr. Goldfarb who, if he's intent on calling people antisemitic--or any other epithet--should be required to provide chapter and verse, which he does not do on CNN. (I'd also like to know on what basis CNN's Rick Sanchez can stipulate that Khalidi is antisemitic.)

Joel Klein has take heat for calling out the Neocon bias towards Israel in the past. His specific calling out of "Jewish neconservatives" is extremely impressive.

Greenwald comments on this by saying:

Had it been 2003, [Klein probably would have been out of a job]. But it didn't end "badly" or "sadly" for Klein. Quite the contrary, he continued criticizing neocons at least as aggressively and unapologetically -- actually, even more so -- and not only was he undeterred by the standard neocon "anti-semitism" rants, he became increasingly defiant in his refusal to suppress his critiques.

I find his final comments heartening:

But this episode illustrates what neocons have been doing for years and, more significantly, signals that the efficacy of this tactic is finally coming to an end. Open debates about U.S. policy towards Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are vital, and people should be able to engage in those debates and be able to take legitimate positions, as Professor Khalidi has plainly done, without hordes of right-wing manipulators swarming on them with anti-semitism accusations.

We are far away from this, but at least now we can see occasional victories and glimmers of hope.

Salon