It’s ironic that the Arabist viewpoint, long associated with the Republican Party, is resurfacing through Kerry Campaign porte parole Richard Holbrooke. Appearing on the O’Reilly Show, Holbrooke lumped Israel together with Syria and Saudi Arabia as countries on which a Kerry Administration would put pressure. Considering what we have learned in the last few years of the Palestinian disinterest (particularly its leadership) in a two-state solution, this is Arabist realpolitik with a vengeance. Two birds are killed here with one stone – the Israelis (obviously) and possibly democratic Arabs (ironically). The superficial argument is that increased pressure on the Israelis will somehow bring forth democracy or democratic behavior among the Palestinians and their allies. But the reverse has almost always been true. It encourages irredentist dreams of a Palestinian State all the way to the Mediterranean. What the Palestinians (and by extension the Syrians and the Saudis) need is a heavy dose of reality, not fantasy. There is an innate cynicism in all this about the Arab mentality (that they can never have a democracy) that borders on the racist. Friends of Israel who think the Kerry Administration (wink, wink) will treat our ally the same as the Bush Administration has ought to reread Krauthammer. (via Michael Totten)
Holbrooke is really not advocating a two state solution. Kosovo is his paradigm for a solution to the Israel problem. He would create the same kind of multi-cultural state that you see in Balkans execpt it would be Jews who would be killed not Serbs. At least the Serbs have a place to go but who is going to take the Jews? Certainly not Europe and I doubt a Kerry administration would find a place for them either. His behavior toward Vietnamese boat people shows that.
I agree…it borders on racist to claim the Arab world is incapable of embracing Democracy. I guess it would have bordered on racist to expect the same from the west during the dark ages. The real question is not Democracy but can the Arab world embrace the idea of individual rights. The anti-war crowd is sure as hell bent on making sure they can’t.
It seems to me that Clinton tried this same approach and all we have to show for it is the second intifada. Holbrook may be prepared to give up Israel, but it does not seem to me that we have so many friends that we can afford feeding the few we have to likes of Arafat.
Remind me why the significant majority of my fellow Jews are voting for Kerry. Amazing that most of us are going to vote for the candidate of Yasser Arafat over the candidate of Ed Koch.
As I’ve said often before, one of the problems with the liberal/leftist mindset is that it doggedly sees conflicts around the world in terms of oppressor/oppressed relationships. When you view the Israelis & Palestinians through those glasses, it’s not too surprising that the Israelis are seen as the oppressor.
For most of the campaign, Kerry has been at great pains not to allow any gap between himself and President Bush on the topic of Israel. Holbrooke’s comments reveal that Kerry’s campaign is based on lying because he knows he cannot win with his real positions (which are mostly default leftist).
The only prospect more loathsome than a Kerry presidency is the cabinet and culture he would bring with him.
Once upon a time I thought Holbrooke was a sophisticated thinker. Boy, have I seen the light. As Terrye said, “It seems to me that Clinton tried this same approach and all we have to show for it is the second intifada.” It’s fascinating how this fantasy exists that by putting pressure on Israel, all of the Middle East’s problems will be solved. Well Ehud Barak tried it Clinton’s & Allbright’s way and found his country suffering a wave of suicide bombs and found himself out of a job. What can one say to Hollbrooke’s silliness, but “hey, Israel, build that fence as fast as you can in case Kerry gets elected. Because Hollbrooke will do for you what’s been done for the Balkans”
TmjUtah – You nailed it!
Kerry is basically an empty-suit opportunist with basically lefty tendencies, but no real values. He’s a Dem Senator from Mass, so he’s a hard-core liberal, but if he happened to be from Georgia then he’s sound like Zell Miller (but no nearly as cool). I can actually believe that Kerry would take a strong position on the war if he beleived it necessary to win and retain the office of President (though I still think he’d muff it up even worse then Bush), BUT the people he surronds himself with are, as Sten so aptly but it, the B team of the Clinton years. “losing Bin Laden” amply demostrates why we do not want Berger, Beers, Susan Rice and Holbrooke running the war on terror. Kerry actually seems to know very little about foreign and defence policy, so these would be the hands on the tiller. This is where folks like Sully and Drezner are just totally deluding themselves. Even if, underneath all that Botox and hateur, there is the heart of an anti-terror warrior (and not just a 4 month swifty) his staff will never let him run this war the way it needs to be run. Hell, Bush’s staff won’t let him run it right, but it’s a lot closer to right than the Clintonistas will run it. Couldn’t Kerry find a few Dem hawks to put on his team, to at least avoid insulting our intelligence?
Kosovo is a disaster. Scores of Orthodox churches have been destroyed by the Albanians, and there are a lot of prostitution and slavery rings operating in the area. Islamic fundamentalism is on the rise in the Muslim population. Am I angry? Yes, as an Orthodox Christian, I’m angry about the destruction of religious sites, and angry that the West ignores this.
I suppose they’re counting on friendly media to suppress this news among the Jewish population while highlighting it among those who agree.
News has a way of leaking out these days, though…
Holbrooke embodies the arabist side of the state department–this is the type of “expert” JFK lite is apparently comfortable with as an advisor and potential secstate. and he (Holbrooke) did such a great job with the Balkans)
Kerry + European antisemitism = sanctions against Israel.
There are folks who voted against Clinton in ’92, believe it or not, mostly because they were familiar with the lightweights and hacks who were likely to be raised into the national security apparatus if the Dems won. The two Clinton terms provided tragic over-confirmation of their instincts. The war that escalated on 9/11 left even types like Brent Scowcroft, a reliable and sensible realist in the Cold War context, behind. They couldn’t “make the turn” from status quo marginalism to all-out global slugfest and test of wills. One of the many depressing wonders of this season is how the dominant Dem national security figures and ideas — who enjoy the rare dubious distinction of having been dramatically refuted by real-world developments within not just their careers but within their incumbency — can dare to show their faces, much less to offer themselves as replacements for the second Truman.
Holbrooke is far from the worst in the group. Yes, that is harsh faint praise. Fortunately it’s most unlikely we’ll get to see how badly this group could fumble the ball that has been brought so far, so fast (by any reasonable historical standard). We can only hope that the next 4 years will see some seriousness return to the Dems.
I’m routinely vilified on other blogs as a Neocon. This is fine with me. I’m not Jewish, but it doesn’t take long to smoke most of the idiots out on this matter. Anti-Semitism is being transferred like plague fleas in contaminated blankets, even among those who wouldn’t otherwise act this way. Israel is the departure point. Victimization, as someone said earlier, is the substitution on the menu for anti-Semitism.
My knowledge is incomplete on this issue, but I do recall the merger of Palestinian issues in the 1960′s with the various manias of the radical left then, and cries of “Al Fatah” on more than one occasion, even when I didn’t quite understand the connection. I do now that I am old and awake.
Kerry, today, and the various foreign policy knaves and clowns he assembles around himself seem to be the debased heirs to these old Dem Rad urges and relexes. Among them all, Jimmy Carter was and is the most vile and disgraceful of the lot.
Holbrooke is no better. It seems to me to be Anti-Jew (more blunt) by intellectual inheritance, and concealed from consciousness by outright stupidity and vanity. Except in Carter’s case. He’s the genuine article.
I’ll vote for Bush for lots of reasons, but the issue of Israel would be enough.
One of the problems with electing any Democrat is the poor quality of the national security appointments. Another is the poor quality of the appointees to internal posts – such as Bruce Babbitt, known well in Arizona, who was Clinton’s Minister of Putting Forests Off Limits to citizens.
Democrat appointees tend to have internationalist views, and avoidance of the use of force for the national interest (about which they feel guilty) but not for feel-good actions like Kosovo. They behave like Europeans – talk, talk instead of doing what has to be done. Clinton was terribly fearful of US casualties, hence his strange approach to war: avoid anything tough, bomb Serbia but don’t let anyone low enough to good target selection and assessment (this lead to a significantly worse damage to Serbia than a proper campaign, and also cost more Serbian lives). Because of his unwillingness to take risk, both Saddam and Bin Laden concluded that the US was a paper tiger.
Democrats also love to sign treaties, which are lovingly negotiated so that the United States gets screwed.
Clinton was not stupid, but on foreign affairs he hurt us badly. Carter was even worse, and continues to be an idiot.
Clinton’s approach was to push internation problems into the future, except for problems where he might get a Nobel Peace prize. That’s the price of a narcissist backed by idiots like Strobe Talbot.
I would expect a Kerry administration to have a pretty lousy foreign policy team, and I suspect Kerry would manage them poorly also, arbitrarily overrulling them. It’s in his nature. Because of the various special interest groups that own the Democratic party, Kerry would have less operating leeway than Bush.
Basically, a Democrat president would scare me no matter who it was (if I had to choose a democrat, I’d take Joe Lieberman), becaues of the party imperatives that have to be met, and because of the terrible choices available for cabinet.
How the Democratic party got into the position it did where it has no decent foreign policy types is another issue. Basically, it is because it draws from the hard left, and the hard left has terrible instincts even when partly recovered.
It also simply amazes me that so many people are going to vote for a guy as dishonorable as Kerry. I can only conclude that the MSM’s incredible campaign this year(and entertainment media also) has mislead many, many people. People simply end up with facts wrong and believe them right up to the election. How many know that Kerry is a confessed war criminal? How many know that his anti-war activities far exceeded the normal (and acceptible) dissent? How many even know what he did? How many know he is the farthest left Senator?
It’s damned scary.
And it’s about to get more scary, John, the jockeying begins via Lucianne:
https://registration.philly.com/reg/login.do?url=http://www.philly.com%2Fmld%2Fphilly%2Fnews%2Fnation%2F10008223.htm
John Moore:
And speaking of the press… how many voters know about the UN Oil for Palaces scandal–which both explains Bush’s inability to sway France and undermines Kerry’s foreign policy notions?
Saw an old pal of mine this weekend, an LLL-type, and I asked her about it. She’d heard of it in an offhand, distant way. It hadn’t made much of an impression.
I’d bet that if it had received the same coverage as the Bush-TANG story, she’d be thinking about it a little harder right now.
*****
And anyone who could lump in a modern democracy with a couple of nasty dictatorships is just not to be taken seriously. Pah!
If the Palestinians think their Arab “brothers” are going to let them have a state all the way to the Med they are truly out of their minds.
Get rid of the Jews and the Pals are next.
Kerry and his potential cabinet are a scary thought.
Roger:
President Bush walked into office and surveyed the wreckage of previous Republican,Democratic, Likud and Labor Middle East peace plans and noticed the one thing they all had in common, Arafat. The supposedly stupid Bush came to the one conclusion that the self annointed brilliant Holbrooke and Albright and Carter’s of the Democratic Party never could figure out. That Arafat was not an honest partner in peace and no matter how many summits and special envoys were appointed he would sabatoge any possible agreement. He did it to Clinton, Ross and Barak and Bush was not going to repeat their mistake.
Bush told the Palestinians that the deserve a state of their own.He didn’t ,as many critics claim, try to pick their leader for them he just stated that he wasn’t going to deal with a liar and a crook.The Holbrooks of the world wailed that Bush wasn’t doing enough because he didn’t copy their failed strategy. These arrogant failures confuse envoys and summits, regardless of whether they produce results or not, with diplomacy. They think that Oslo was a success because an agreement was signed and they ignore that it went down in flames and led to the second intifada.
Holbrook is a garden variety bully. He knows that he has no leverage against the Palestinians so in his lust for a Nobel Peace prize he decides he can jam a “peace” agreement down Israel’s throat by threatening the one democratic and loyal friend we have in the Middle East by withholding aid from Israel.Arafat is rewarded for sabatoging countless agreements and allowed to exploit his Palestian brothers once again with holbrookes aid and comfort.
Holbrooke’s view on Israel is not surprising. He is married to Kati Marton of NPR Fame.
Ms. Marton is the author of “A Death in Jerusalem.” The cover of the book states; “Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in 1995 … Jewish terrorism beagn more than fifty years earlier.” She asserts that in 1948 Yitzak Shamir murdered UN Rep Count Folke Bernadotte.
The book is nothing more than a thinly veiled justification for Palstinian terrorism.
This is my first post. My nickname is derived from my baseball days and not my politics.
It completely boggles my mind that a vast majority of American Jews are apparently going to vote for Kerry. Kerry is backed by Muslim extremist groups in this country, by Arafat, and by Muathir Muhammed, the unspeakable anti-Semite. Bush is backed by Ed Koch, and numerous Jewish intellectuals like Roger L. Simon, Dennis Prager, etc. Holbrooke tips Kerry’s hand, and you would think that American Jews would come to their senses.
ìIt completely boggles my mind that a vast majority of American Jews are apparently going to vote for Kerry.î
Youíre not the only one. I just found this article on The Weekly Standard:
ìFOR NEARLY SIXTY YEARS, since the birth of Israel, American Jews have faced accusations that they care more about the well-being of their ancient homeland than of their home. Well, barring some unforeseen circumstance, the canard of dual loyalty should be retired forever on November 2, 2004. On that Tuesday, Election Day, up to 80 percent of American Jews will pull the lever for John Kerry, thereby proving that they not only do not care about Israel’s well-being, but that they don’t mind making common cause with people who wish them ill. Or worse.î
http://www.theweeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/833ifcua.asp
John Moore writes that he’s simply amazed that so many people are going to vote for a man as dishonorable as Kerry.
There are two reasons. The first and easy one is that Kerry is their comfort blanket. They can go back to chattering like magpies about all their superficial and idiotic concerns. This is the downside to the meritocracy.
The second and more ominous reason is that most Kerry voters couldn’t read and understand a post as complicated and informed as John Moore’s. This is the downside to the NEA.
I am not Jewish, Christian fundamentalist nor a Christian Zionist. I support a two state solution, removal of the settlements from the West Bank and GAza, and a border that is rational (i.e., not necessarily based on the 1949 cease fire line).
To me, Israel is a lot like Czechoslovakia in 1938. It is a small, imperfect state, with a significant minority and border problem, trying to be a democracy when the states around it are mostly brutal dictatorsips. I think that Araft is part of the problem, in that he is concerned that if peace is made, the energies of Hamas, the PFLP, etc, will be directed against him.
John:
The typical [by percentage, not stereotype] has a remarkable ability to compartmentalize his/her Jewishness. The Jewish support for David Dinkins in his run against Giulliani ran at 50%. While this is well down from the usual Jewish vote, it still is remarkably high given that every investigation into the Crown Heights “pogrom” showed that Dinkins took actions to restrain the police response so “the people could work out their anger.” The issues that are important to an overwhelming majority of Jews are abortion rights and Homosexual exceptionalism not the safety and security of Israel [or Western culture for that matter]. Almost all the Jews who will vote for Kerry think that any anti-Jewish actions will be limited to forcing Israel to give the Palestinians there “rights” and not the elimination of Israel. Those who believe that Kerry will be pro-Israel are like those ardent German Jews in the early thirties who thought Hitler would get over the anti-Semitism thing.. However, even if Israel [and its people] go away these voters will shrug it off and say it was their own fault because the late Israelis would not treat the Palestinians correctly. This is exactly the attitude shown by Jewish Dinkins voters in the New York mayoral election.
These Jews for Kerry believe that the Democratic Party’s anti-Semitism is limited solely to Israel. In their view as long as Jews keep the party line there will be no spillover to the domestic scene.
Roger and all the shocked:
The Jewish community is no different then many other groups in this country. As the memory of Hitler and the 6 million dead becomes more of a matter of history rather then a wound that still burns the need to deny the evil that still roams the world overwhelms their common sense.
I still think that for at least half of the American Jews in this country the state of Israel is still a major concern. But the natural human need to sometimes avoid the harsh realities of the human condition lead people to wishfull thinking ans delusion. When Holbrooke sets the bullseye with his Saudi Arabia-Syria-Israel line it should set off major alarm bells. But the fact that for many Jews(and other relgions also) their traditional faith has been replaced with the Democratic Party and the rabbi’s have been replaced by the high priests of the party.They think that yes, by putting pressure on our democratic friends in Israel and pandering to the terrorist thugs in Palestine we can reach a true and lasting peace. The drug of denial can create powerfull halucinations.The overwhelming horror of the death camps are so terrible to contemplate that to think there are still humans who share those goals is too painfull to take so many in the American Jewish Community takes refuge in the fantasy of summitry and special envoys.
From this side of the pond and then the puddle:-) we have watched State reverse the impact of Bush’s statements about the region.
From June 2002 we watched them time after time breathe life into Arafat after a right to the chin from Bush.
A lot of us are of the opinion that State has acted in concert with Moratinos and his ilk.
The Europeans forced Arafat on Israel in the 80′s and State through Baker gave him even more force.
Seems everybody has forgotten Madrid.
As for American Jews voting for Kerry they are lucky they are living in the States.