OBAMA'S CONSTANT SORE: THE JEWS

The Republican Jewish Coalition on notorious leftard tool Jeffrey Goldberg's Obama "interview" in the Atlantic which, btw, was pure crap.

RJC: Obama Excuses the Inexcusable

Washington, D.C. (May 12, 2008) -- In response to Sen. Barack Obama's interview in the most recent issue of The Atlantic, the Republican Jewish Coalition released the following statement today:

"Once again, Senator Obama demonstrates his questionable grasp of America's foreign policy.  Senator Obama manages to excuse the inexcusable actions of anti-American militant jihadists by putting the blame for their actions on America's foreign policy.  America stands with Israel because it is one of our strongest allies and the only democracy in the Middle East.  Senator Obama naively believes that solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will solve the global scourge of radical Islamic extremism.  Yet Senator Obama never says how he will reign in Hamas' daily onslaught on Israel or Iran's scurrilous condemnations of Israel.  Is it any wonder Hamas has endorsed him for president?"

In his interview with Jeffrey Goldberg, Sen. Obama described the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as 'this constant wound.'  Sen. Obama said 'that this constant sore, does infect all of [America's] foreign policy.  The lack of a resolution to this problem provides an excuse for anti-American militant jihadists to engage in inexcusable actions.'

UPDATE: Larwyn sent me this astute observation from Doug:

Obama's remarks seem to parallel those of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

In yet another verbal attack against Israel, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called the Jewish state a "filthy bacteria" whose sole purpose was to oppress the other nations of the region.

"The world powers established this filthy bacteria, the Zionist regime, which is lashing out at the nations in the region like a wild beast," the Iranian president told supporters at a rally in southern Iran.

Come to think of it, a Mr. A. Hitler had some remarks along these lines.

Against the infection of materialism, against the Jewish pestilence we must hold aloft a flaming ideal. And if others speak of the World and Humanity we say the Fatherland - and only the Fatherland!

UPDATE: Michael Goldfarb makes an salient point on an 11 year old Obama's anecdote:

“You know, when I think about the Zionist idea, I think about how my feelings about Israel were shaped as a young man -- as a child, in fact. I had a camp counselor when I was in sixth grade who was Jewish-American but who had spent time in Israel, and during the course of this two-week camp he shared with me the idea of returning to a homeland and what that meant for people who had suffered from the Holocaust, and he talked about the idea of preserving a culture when a people had been uprooted with the view of eventually returning home.”

[...]

Now, to be a mite serious for a moment, I spent 14 years teaching "gifted and talented" sixth graders on Saturdays at a Boston area prep school (that I won’t embarrass by naming). There’s something about this anecdote that doesn’t ring true – namely everything. Even the most precocious 6th grader would have trouble absorbing complex ideas like culture preservation in the Diaspora. Quite frankly, it’s also difficult to imagine a teenage counselor even considering such an idea let alone holding forth on it to an 11 year-old unless of course it was one of those specialty camps that existed for just such a purpose.

As with the likely apocryphal reminisces about Obama’s drug use in “Dreams from My Father,” there’s something a little too convenient about this story. Obama often uses the writer’s technique of making larger points via anecdote. Think of “Betty No-Health-Insurance came up to be at a rally in Des Moines…”

In our era, all politicians speak this way. Still, it’s a fundamentally disingenuous way to argue. It elevates anecdotes over analysis, and seeks to manipulate the listener’s emotions rather than to persuade the listener with logic. Sure, it’s swell to imagine 11 year-old Barack Obama having his “feelings about Israel shaped as a child” by a “Jewish-American” camp counselor “who had spent time in Israel.” But really now – who cares? As the Kennedys often say, it’s not where you come from but where you stand.

In other words, as a supporter of Israel, I’d much rather know the candidate’s concrete plans for dealing with Israel’s hostile neighborhood than hear misty-water colored memories from his youth.

UPDATE: And Caroline Glick kicks Goldberg's ass here.