Obama lär sig

Ah, det här måste bara läsas: Ali Abunimah skriver under rubriken How Barack Obama learned to love Israel. Det är en artikel som dels säger väldigt mycket om den närmast ogreppbara orättvisa som palestinierna är utsatta för, dels ger en glimt av just hur djupt korrupt det amerikanska politiska systemet är.

On Friday Obama gave a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in Chicago. It had been much anticipated in American Jewish political circles which buzzed about his intensive efforts to woo wealthy pro-Israel campaign donors who up to now have generally leaned towards his main rival Senator Hillary Clinton.

Reviewing the speech, Ha'aretz Washington correspondent Shmuel Rosner concluded that Obama “sounded as strong as Clinton, as supportive as Bush, as friendly as Giuliani. At least rhetorically, Obama passed any test anyone might have wanted him to pass. So, he is pro-Israel. Period.”

[…]

The last time I spoke to Obama was in the winter of 2004 at a gathering in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. He was in the midst of a primary campaign to secure the Democratic nomination for the United States Senate seat he now occupies. But at that time polls showed him trailing.

As he came in from the cold and took off his coat, I went up to greet him. He responded warmly, and volunteered, “Hey, I'm sorry I haven't said more about Palestine right now, but we are in a tough primary race. I'm hoping when things calm down I can be more up front.” He referred to my activism, including columns I was contributing to the The Chicago Tribune critical of Israeli and US policy, “Keep up the good work!”

Via Muzzle Watch, som drivs av progressiva judar för fred och rättvisa. De citerar också en artikel i the Nation, skriven av Henry Siegman, tidigare National director för American Jewish Congress:

The panic aroused by Carter’s book title was based on the belief of these mavens that American Jews share the hard-line right-wing views of organizations like the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and AIPAC, organizations that would go out of business if Israelis elected a government committed to a political solution rather than a military one. Indeed, when former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin came into office in 1992 and concluded that Israel’s security would be far better served by a peace agreement that recognizes Palestinian rights than by beating the Palestinians into submission, both the Conference of Presidents and AIPAC went into institutional eclipse, from which they did not emerge until Benjamin Netanyahu came to power in 1996.

The uncritical pro-Israel advocacy of these organizations has never been an accurate barometer of the political thinking or behavior of American Jews. Surely there is something Republican and Democratic leaders can learn from the fact that after six years of the presidency of the man believed by Israelis and by the pro-Israel lobby in the United States to be “the best American president Israel ever had,” 87 percent of American Jews voted for the Democratic Party, whose chair is seen by the pro-Israel lobby as untrustworthy at best.

Men det är alltså AIPAC som sitter på de stora pengarna, och då är det dem, med sin ytterst extrema uppfattning om Israel, som Obama måste ”pledge allegiance” till för att ha en chans att bli vald, liksom varje kandidat som vill bli vald nödvändigtvis måste gå hem hos feta kapitalintressen och därmed omöjligen kan stå för en i grunden progressiv ekonomisk politik. Demokrati, alltså. Så bra att den måste spridas med bomber och stöveltramp till motsträviga nationer.


PS. En stor majoritet av de amerikanska judarna är även motståndare till krigspolitiken i Irak. [Tipstack till Laban]