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Go Home Obama Loves Gandhi: Another Mendacious Delusion

THE SPINE NOVEMBER 7, 2010

Obama Loves Gandhi: Another Mendacious Delusion

BY MARTIN PERETZ

I am no Gandhian. And neither is Barack Obama. But he is the president of the United States, and he can get his speechwriters to put into speeches any nonsense he wants. As Jim Yardley indicates in his New York Times dispatch from New Delhi, already in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance address Obama set Gandhi as "the North Star that sets us on our journey." Yardley also reminds us that the president once said that Gandhi was the person he most would have liked to have "dined" with, although his reason was perhaps a bit incoherent. No, it was more than incoherent. On the other hand, he realized that the meal would have been pretty small. Still, on signing the guest book at the Gandhi museum in Mumbai, he uttered the classic superlative of his generation: "pretty cool."

Pretty cool, indeed. But the world is very hot. Especially the Third World with which Obama fancies himself to have special bonds and towards which he seems to believe he has a special vocation. The truth is, of course, that even India has about as much Gandhian essence as the United States does the spirit of, say, Roger Williams. Which is very little, indeed.

Except that, as an eminent Indian journalist put it to Yardley, "...the impression on the Indian side is every time you meet him, he talks about Gandhi." But, as Sheryl Stolberg also of the Times, points out this morning, all that students questioning him wanted to discuss was "jihad." And he was ready with that bull-shitty quarter truth that "Well, the phrase jihad has a lot of meanings within Islam and is subject to a a lot of different interpretations." (This was the trope that that Harvard senior also deceitfully put forward in his 2002 commencement speech, which I wrote about at the time).

Obama continued: All of us recognize that this great religion in the hands of a few extremists has been distorted to justify violence towards innocent people that is never justified. So, I think, one of the challenges that we face is how do we isolate those who have distorted notions of religious war.

This does not sit well with the billion Indians, especially Hindu Indians, who are sitting ducks for jihadist terror. and it certainly did not sit well with the president's listeners. (Not that the Hindus -or the Israelis- are completely free of their own fanatics.) But, believe me, what defines Islam these days is not the Sufis.

Doubtless, there are tens of millions, maybe even hundreds of millions of Muslims whose faith binds their souls to peace. But we are not discussing the Muslims of southeast Asia. We are discussing the Islamic stretch, east to west, from Pakistan to Algeria and, north to south, from Turkey to Yemen and Somalia. This includes the Arab heart of Islam. 

And in that heart there seems to be no sympathy for the victims of practical jihad, concrete jihad. In Iraq, during a several day outcropping of siege and bombings starting on October 31, perhaps 150 Christians and a lesser number of Shi'a were murdered. Yes, murdered in their innocence and at prayer. One can not count the injured and maimed. And there was neither protest nor outrage.

Even among our "allies" in the Yemeni government, among our "fighting comrades" in Afghanistan, among our friends in the Pakistani sort-of state, there appears to be no anger at the debauchery of random liquidation. And not in the Sudan either. These are the countries of the salient jihad: Al-Qaeda plus the indifference of the rest. If the Israelis were to permit it they, too, would be the victims.

So, please, Mr. President, be honest with us on this matter. For once, at least.

The fact is that Obama is in a Muslim trap of his own making. During the campaign, he eluded Islamic tropes, so much so that his problem became distinguishing himself from his nut-case Christian but anti-American and anti-Jewish preacher of twenty years, Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Then, upon inauguration and after, he played up Muslim themes. Still, as he took the oath of office, I was thrilled when he rang out "I, Barack Hussein Obama..." This is, after all, America.

Hey, on the other hand, everybody to his own pretensions. When it turned out, during the recent campaign, that perhaps a quarter of the American populace believed him to be faithful to Islam he took it out on the Sikhs of the Punjab in India. He would not go to their temple in Amritsar. If he did, he'd have to cover his head with a ritual skull cap. Those are the rules of the Sikhs. Oops, that might make him look like a Muslim even though the Sikhs are not that. Won't go, can't go. Is this man's identity so unsure, so slippery?

The truth is that, if he went to Israel (and there are all kinds of reasons why he won't) he might on occasion have also to wear a kippah, another type of skull cap. Going to the Wall, for example. And standing at the memorial flame of Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial (whose architect is my friend Moshe Safdie and about which I wrote when it opened.) After all, in his little yarmulke, someone might still mistake the president for a Muslim. This is pathetic.

And so back to Gandhi. Unlike my friend, once my student, and the former editor of TNR Rick Hertzberg (who wrote about Gandhi in its pages) I have no feelings for Gandhi. In fact, I suppose I should say that "unlike Obama" I have no feelings for Gandhi at all. I react to him the way George Orwell did. You can read Orwell's essay here. And Andrew Sullivan and Christopher Hitchens with both of whom I have many weighty differences.

Like Gandhi Obama wants to pass himself off as a transcendent human being. But, unlike Gandhi and since he commands official power, he can't. After all, Obama is cool, very cool. So he commands when he needs to the persona of the frustrated innocent. If I only I could be Gandhi...

Orwell paraphrases Gandhi on the Jewish problem during the Nazi era, that "the German Jews ought to commit collective suicide" so that they "would have aroused the world and the people of Germany to Hitler's violence."

Orwell goes on: After the war Gandhi justified himself: the Jews had been killed anyway, and might as well have died significantly.

Just like that. A gruesome calculation. Gandhi was not so transcendent, after all. Why the hell would anyone aspire to be Gandhi?

This is by no means the president's view. And I suppose that he should not have been burdened with the obligation to have called attention to Gandhi's venom towards the Jews, although there would have been a very different accounting had this venom been fixed on any other group.

 As it happens, alas, it took Obama a very long time to recognize explicitly the historic right of the Jewish people to live in a Jewish state of their own. Here is the first truly coherent nation in history. And it had to wait for a year and a half for Barack Obama to be squeezed by political necessity into recognizing its historicity. 

P.S.:  Just as I put this SPINE to bed I cam across another horrendous article, this one by Salman Masood in the International Herald Tribune. "Scores killed as bomber hits mosque in Pakistan," read the headline. Here are the details: "At least 60 people were killed. At least 70 people are injured." There will be no protest anywhere. If there were signs of protest it would be a different story.

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55 comments

"But we are not discussing the Muslims of southeast Asia." We could, given that no part of the Muslim world is safe from terrorism, and you are always quick to point out that Muslims die in large numbers because of terrorism. Still, discussing the diversity of the Muslim world would conflict with your pre-cooked views of Muslims. "Especially the Third World with which Obama fancies himself to have special bonds and towards which he seems to believe he has a special vocation." How is this view any different from the one that recently got Dinesh D'Souza laughed off the stage? Maybe you should reprint his Forbes piece in The New Republic. "The truth is that, if he went to Israel (and there are all kinds of reasons why he won't)..." Please, o wise one! Tell us why the President of The United States hates Israelis and Jews (that the President has been to Israel and remains committed to helping Israel fulfill its military and foreign aid obligations, in the face of new congressional clowns like Pat Toomey, eludes Peretz). "During the campaign, he eluded Islamic tropes, so much so that his problem became distinguishing himself from his nut-case Christian but anti-American and anti-Jewish preacher of twenty years, Reverend Jeremiah Wright." At the time, you defended Obama's relationship with Wright, (http://bit.ly/90WfQS), but you appear to have turned only after Wright's anti-Semitic rant at the National Press Club. Wright was guilty of the only bigotry you seem to care about. "And he was ready with that bull-shitty quarter truth that 'Well, the phrase jihad has a lot of meanings within Islam...' " Here, I'm not bothered by the fact that you hold the view that the idea Jihad has many meanings is a "bull-shitty quarter truth." What's problematic is that your words drip with contempt for those who might disagree with it, including the President. So really, Mr. Peretz, you're trapped in your own kind of fudamentalism: "My view of Islam is right, dammit. I'm not changing my mind, and to hell with those who think I should budge even a bit." "Like Gandhi Obama wants to pass himself off as a transcendent human being." What on Earth is this, save slang for "I resent the fact that the leader of the free world speaks in complete sentences, and actually expects others to do the same." Funny stuff coming from the owner of a major news and opinion magazine.

- TJ814

November 7, 2010 at 5:48pm

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"Here is the first truly coherent nation in history. " Here you go again. Taking a decent argument and ending it with a nonsensical exclamation point. I submit that any state that is about to excommunicate everyone converted in its Army in the last 20 years because... maybe because you see the coherence you can explain why anyone in Israel gives a rat's ass what Shlomo Amar thinks. I assure you it is not because it is coherent. I can think of one or two countries that predate 1948 and were and still are more coherent. On Obama, the NYTimes reported yesterday that he at least took the advice of aids not to take the idiotic advice offered by Mike Mullen and David Petraeus and try to talk India out of punishing Pakistan for sending another terror attack its way. "Gandhi" is how you protest unjust policies imposed and maintained by people with limits on their behavior. He has nothing, absolutely nothing, to say how countries should and can behave when faced with aggression. What the hell do they teach at Harvard anyway? (By the way, Eliot Cohen, in "Supreme Command," writes that Ben Gurion kept an image of Gadhi in his office. Explain that, please. Maybe he didn't read Orwell.)

- Stuart Wilder

November 7, 2010 at 6:29pm

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Under Mahatma Gandhi's picture it is reported that there is a plaque with Ben Gurion's words: "The moral strength of the East is perhaps embodied most of all in the great Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi, the outstanding man who is heading the war for independence and the weapon of this commander is non-violence." Ben Gurion was an ideological opponent of Martin Buber. And it was Martin Buber who wrote a letter to Gandhi: "What do you mean by saying a land belongs to a population? Evidently you do not intend only to describe a state of affairs by your formula, but to declare a certain right. You obviously mean to say that a people, being settled on the land, has so absolute a claim to that land that whoever settles on it without the permission of this people has committed a robbery. But by what means did the Arabs attain the right of ownership in Palestine? Surely by conquest, and in fact a conquest with intent to settle. You therefore admit that as a result their settlement gives them exclusive right of possession; whereas the subsequent conquests of the Mamelukes and the Turks, which were conquests with a view to domination, not to settlement, do not constitute such a right in your opinion, but leave the earlier conquerors in rightful ownership. Thus settlement by conquest justifies for you, a right of ownership of Palestine; whereas a settlement such as the Jewish — the methods of which, it is true, though not always doing full justice to Arab ways of life, were even in the most objectionable cases far removed from those of conquest — does not justify in your opinion any participation in this right of possession" So how to reconcile Ben Gurion's admiration for Gandhi with the fact it was his ideological rival who disagreed with him about how Zionism was to be concluded, who had written a scathing letter in response to Gandhi's criticism of Zionism? Complicated, isn't it? Maybe Ben Gurion's words expressed a certain envy for Gandhi's achievement, that of fighting a war for independence with the weapons of non-violence. Maybe he wished HE could have fought similarly against the Arab mobs. Maybe he was aware that Gandhi's British enemy could be brought down with non-violence but not Israel's enemies. Maybe he was saying what his disciple, Shimon Peres, repeatedly reminds us, that Israelis are not going to wake up one morning and find that their enemies were all Brits, or Swedes, or Finns (against whom Gandhi's ways could be deployed with every expectation of success). Gandhi's words about the way Jews were to behave during their Holocaust are on the record. His hostility to the Zionist project is on the record. Obama declares himself as wanting to follow in the footsteps of Gandhi. Obama, famously, returned Churchill's bust to Britain. Obama presumably thinks he understands Indians and that they understand him. I have met a few Indians in my life. I have yet to meet one Indian who has much respect for Gandhi. What I note is an obvious reluctance to praise him.

- noga1

November 7, 2010 at 7:35pm

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Pretty wild post, Stuart.

- jdyer

November 7, 2010 at 7:38pm

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“Ben Gurion was an ideological opponent of Martin Buber.” One would have to know what Ben Gurion had in mind when he wrote those words. Here is a recent new biography of one of Israel founding heroes. http://www.amazon.com/Ben-Gurion-Jewish-Renaissance-Shlomo-Aronson/dp/0521197481/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1289183878&sr=8-1 This is not the first time you have criticized Ben Gurion. Are you an ideological opponent of Ben Gurion, Noga? In any case, I can’t see you endorsing Martin Buber’s ideas either. Buber was more of a dreamer and pacifist. As for Gandhi the critic’s Marty linked are pretty mild. The guy was a poseur and mountebank who had been taking in by his charlatanry. He was also a bigot who objected to being treated like a “Black” (his term) in South Africa before he discovered the confidence game of aggressive passivity.

- jdyer

November 7, 2010 at 9:46pm

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When the Hindu Nationalists were in power, they had India's history textbooks re-written. Gandhi was edited down to one paragraph. Probably why so many today have "an obvious reluctance to praise him". During the 2008 primaries, someone wrote an analysis of Obama using the Myers-Briggs personality matrix, and put Obama in the small group of visionaries with Gandhi and MLK,Jr, whose bust sits in the Oval Office in place of the bronze of Winston Churchill. (I think Hillary was in the same M-B cluster with Eisenhower) In India, Obama should have praised Ramayana instead :) I think the Sikhs in America vote GOP, so why bother to visit the Golden Temple in Amritsar? Dinesh D'Souza must have been "laughed off the stage" for being brave enough to make the case that Obama really does want to undo the sins of western colonialism, a concept that is so politically incorrect in the liberal caverns of NYC. Too bad his mom did not marry a Chechen or a Circassian because then maybe Obama would be trying to undo the sins of Russian imperialism. Or a Kurd - then Obama would have to tackle the Turks... Too many narratives at war with each other. Maybe Mount Merapi will again spew enough ash tomorrow to keep Obama's Indonesia visit down to a video conference.

- K2K

November 8, 2010 at 12:28am

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Gandhi is more of a world figure, and it doesn't surprise me that Indians feel that he doesn't quite belong to them, and that his name can even be invoked against them. This tends to happen -- white Americans incline to wrinkle their nose at the resonance of Martin Luther King Jr.'s name abroad, and Austrians regard the belief on the part of foreigners that "Edelweiss" is the Austrian national anthem with a mixture of bafflement and horror.

- ironyroad

November 8, 2010 at 1:27am

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"This is not the first time you have criticized Ben Gurion. Are you an ideological opponent of Ben Gurion, Noga?" It was Ben Gurion who defined himself as Buber's opponent: "The two men had not always agreed, so that Ben-Gurion could characterize himself as Buber's "friend, admirer, and opponent." Buber replied with a characteristic bit of pomposity that alluded to the complexity of "so-called interpersonal relationships." http://www.leaderu.com/ftissues/ft9403/reviews/dann.html

- noga1

November 8, 2010 at 6:41am

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Yes ironyroad. It's somewhat like the name of Yitzhak Rabin which has become in the jargon of mostly anti Israel Leftist almost a synonym with Gandhi as a "peace maker", not realizing that Rabin was a political hawk much closer to Sharon than to Peres or Beilin. It's being assassinated what makes a person a saint for the Left I suppose. No higher praise than being murdered by some nationalistic nut. When I try to set them right I'm being accused of criticizing Rabin, a blasphemy.

- noga1

November 8, 2010 at 6:48am

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I was reading a NYT Book Review a month or two ago regarding Winston Churchill. Churchill despised Gandhi. In that same review, they point out that President Obama removed the Churchill Bust from the Oval Office, because of the Kenyan campaigns of Churchill. Gandhi has a lot that speaks well of the man. Gandhi would probably renounce his anti-violence in the face of this Muslim Extremism.

- CRS9TNR

November 8, 2010 at 7:01am

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"it doesn't surprise me that Indians feel that he doesn't quite belong to them, and that his name can even be invoked against them. This tends to happen -- white Americans incline to wrinkle their nose at the resonance of Martin Luther King Jr.'s name abroad" Indians blame Gandhi for the 1947 partition, for the bloodbath that followed upon independence, for the Kashmir problem. His declaration about Jews and Zionism do not indicate a peace loving mindset. What was Martin Luther King's legacy? The successful rectification of the evils done to the black community in the US. How are the two legacies be comparable I cannot understand.

- noga1

November 8, 2010 at 7:42am

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Ghandi was also opposed to Zionism. See http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0110/king_ghandi.php3. He said, "They [the Jews] can settle in Palestine only by the goodwill of the Arabs…They can offer … themselves to be shot or thrown into the Dead Sea without raising a little finger against them." I don't think that, as cruel as partition was, an India containing the Muslim populations of Pakistan and Bangladesh would have been a sustainable and successful state. It still faces major challenges due to still-widespread poverty and social injustice and Pakistani irredentism. I agree with Marty that "Obama is in a Muslim trap of his own making." It will cause him to alienate allies such as Israel and India, lose the election in 2012 and graduate to Jimmy Carterhood.

- amidut

November 8, 2010 at 8:29am

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CRS9TNR "Gandhi has a lot that speaks well of the man." What is it that speaks well of "the man?" How can you divide his easy pacifism in the face of a benign enemy from his willingness to scrifice the Jewish nation in Europe for the sake of that same "pacifism?" "Gandhi would probably renounce his anti-violence in the face of this Muslim Extremism."" It's hard to know what a 19th century person would make of Jihadists in the 21st c. My guess is that a British person would fight them without guilt while a Gandhi would try to make them his allies and failing that would try to ignore them at his own peril. Gandhi without his pacifism would have been just another failed third world leader.

- jdyer

November 8, 2010 at 9:28am

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Noga, why should I care what Werner J. Dannhauser says about Ben Gurion and Buber? Moreover, are you aware that First Things is a Christian Theological site that publishes articles such as the following? http://www.leaderu.com/theology/remnanttheo.html "Remnant Theology: A Different Perspective on the Church and Israel" by John Gay

- jdyer

November 8, 2010 at 9:37am

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Why doesn't Marty just boil his argument down to its essence: Since Gandhi was opposed to Zionism, there really is no reason to admire the man, correct?

- wildboy

November 8, 2010 at 10:32am

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Does Wildboy ever read articles that are linked to by Marty Peretz? If he did, does he agree with Gandhi's view of how Jews should respond to the Nazi threat? Here is Orwell in the article linked to above: "In relation to the late war, one question that every pacifist had a clear obligation to answer was: "What about the Jews? Are you prepared to see them exterminated? If not, how do you propose to save them without resorting to war?" I must say that I have never heard, from any Western pacifist, an honest answer to this question, though I have heard plenty of evasions, usually of the "you're another" type. But it so happens that Gandhi was asked a somewhat similar question in 1938 and that his answer is on record in Mr. Louis Fischer's Gandhi and Stalin. According to Mr. Fischer, Gandhi's view was that the German Jews ought to commit collective suicide, which "would have aroused the world and the people of Germany to Hitler's violence." After the war he justified himself: the Jews had been killed anyway, and might as well have died significantly. One has the impression that this attitude staggered even so warm an admirer as Mr. Fischer, but Gandhi was merely being honest. If you are not prepared to take life, you must often be prepared for lives to be lost in some other way. When, in 1942, he urged non-violent resistance against a Japanese invasion, he was ready to admit that it might cost several million deaths." We know that wildboy is an anti-Zionist. Is he also an antisemite?

- jdyer

November 8, 2010 at 10:52am

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"Since Gandhi was opposed to Zionism, there really is no reason to admire the man, correct?" There is no reason to admire a world leader who was active and widely known in the world at the time that Hitler was preparing the gas chambers for the Jews and Britain, concurrently, closed off Jewish immigration to mandatory Palestine. His advice to the Jews of Germany to agree with joy to their annihilation and his opposition to Zionism are of a piece and point exactly to what kind of moral universe he inhabited. Damn right there is no reason to admire such a man. The only admirable aspect of it all is his complete honesty about it. He must have known that between his two positions, Jews were bound for one fate only. Yet he did not hesitate to voice them with all the vigor of a saint who can think or do no wrong. When all is said and done, like Desmond Tutu, his sympathies did not transcend beyond skin colours. ________ jackson: I don't understand your answers to my comments and frankly I'm not interested. You don't even make the effort to understand my points.

- noga1

November 8, 2010 at 12:09pm

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Noga, you didn't answer my question. Are you ideologically opposed to Ben Gurion? What's the point of offering me a link to a website that believes that Christian believers have "the truth."

- jdyer

November 8, 2010 at 12:19pm

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My parallel, Noga, was just a superficial one in that they both used non-violence and civil disobedience as their primary tools of political struggle (and that's how I came to know their names when I was a schoolkid). My other parallel, between MLK and "Edelweiss," was clearly more provocative. After all, Austrian folksongs did not get refused service at lunch counters.

- ironyroad

November 8, 2010 at 12:40pm

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"Noga, you didn't answer my question. Are you ideologically opposed to Ben Gurion?" You'll have to explain what, in my comment, gave rise to this question. If you give me a convincing explanation, I'll answer your question. Deal? Here is a hint: Ben Gurion is responsible for my being called Noga.

- noga1

November 8, 2010 at 1:47pm

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"What's the point of offering me a link to a website that believes that Christian believers have "the truth." I wasn't interested in the website. I only wished to provide a source for Ben Gurion's definition of his attitude to Buber: "Ben-Gurion could characterize himself as Buber's "friend, admirer, and opponent." It was my way of letting you know that to criticize a leader like Ben Gurion does not mean I am an "ideological opponent" of his but rather I criticize as befits the occasion. If you read my comment carefully you would have noticed that I tried to understand Ben Gurion's admiration for the mahatma within an Israeli context. And my initial motivation for the comment was Stuart Wilder's sneering comment to Marty in which he produced Gandhi's picture on Ben Gurion's wall like a magician produces a rabbit from a hat. He did not provide the quote that goes with the portrait and I'm not surprised. It would have spoiled the affect. And anyway, is there some sanctity attached to Ben Gurion that he should not be criticized for failures he is well known for? Like his authoritarian rule over the Labour party and Israel in general during his leadership years? Like his indifference to the social discrimination that tainted Israel's first decades against Mizrahi Jews?

- noga1

November 8, 2010 at 2:14pm

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noga1 “I wasn't interested in the website. I only wished to provide a source for Ben Gurion's definition of his attitude to Buber: "Ben-Gurion could characterize himself as Buber's "friend, admirer, and opponent." It was my way of letting you know that to criticize a leader like Ben Gurion does not mean I am an "ideological opponent" of his but rather I criticize as befits the occasion. If you read my comment carefully you would have noticed that I tried to understand Ben Gurion's admiration for the mahatma within an Israeli context.” I read your comments about Ben Gurion very carefully and it does seem to me that you are an opponent of his. Or are you saying that you too are a "friend, admirer, and opponent?” In any case your subsequent post explains the source of your anger: you accuse him of discriminating against Mizrahi Jews and of having been an “authoritarian leader of the Labor party. That’s fine I don’t agree that he was “authoritarian leader” (he did step down in 1954, I believe, he also resigned from his party in 1963. This isn’t the behavior of an “authoritarian leader.” He was also accused of discriminating against the Mizrahi by Begin who was courting their vote. This isn’t the place to answer fully these criticisms but I don’t agree with them. Ben Gurion can and has been criticized on all sides. I have no problem with that. I just wanted to know on what your own criticism was based, thanks.

- jdyer

November 8, 2010 at 3:29pm

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Interestingly, the latest news out of India is that Obama has given India favored nation status. The Indians present for that announcement gave standing ovation. According to the reporter, the other member nations will have to approve it, and it could take years. However he sent the message that India is very much an American ally, also according the Times.

- MOLLYSIMON

November 8, 2010 at 3:55pm

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"He was also accused of discriminating against the Mizrahi by Begin who was courting their vote. " You must go back and read what I actually wrote. Here, I'll help you: "Like his indifference to the social discrimination that tainted Israel's first decades against Mizrahi Jews?" Don't be ridiculous. Where do you see anger in me against Ben Gurion? What else are you going to dream up? You cannot have read my comments at all if this is what you get from them. BG's relationship with Begin was very interesting, btw. "Years later, on the eve of the Six-Day War, in June 1967 (after Ben-Gurion had retired from political activity and Levi Eshkol was Prime Minister), Menachem Begin joined a delegation which visited Sde Boker to ask David Ben-Gurion to return and accept the premiership again. After that meeting, Ben-Gurion said that if he had then known Begin as he did now, the face of history would have been different. " http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Altalena.html

- noga1

November 8, 2010 at 4:40pm

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The quote Noga, from the Jewish virtual library is amazing. “"Years later, on the eve of the Six-Day War, in June 1967 (after Ben-Gurion had retired from political activity and Levi Eshkol was Prime Minister), Menachem Begin joined a delegation which visited Sde Boker to ask David Ben-Gurion to return and accept the premiership again. After that meeting, Ben-Gurion said that if he had then known Begin as he did now, the face of history would have been different. " Ben Gurion and Begin spent years fighting each other politically and at times militarily as in the famous Altalena affair. Moreover, during the German reparations treaty Begin opposed Ben Gurion all the way accusing him of sanctioning the Holocaust. Here is another quote: “As head of the Zionist executive, Ben Gurion led the struggle to establish the State of Israel in May 1948, When Israel became independent, he became Prime Minister and Defense Minister. He led the Mapai party to electoral victory as a matter of course in successive elections. As Prime Minister, he oversaw the establishment of the state's institutions and gave them the stamp of his personality. A crucial and controversial decision made by Ben Gurion in 1948 was the unification of all armed factions into the IDF(Tzahal) - the single Israeli army. There would be no private militias in the new state. This angered the heads of the Haganah and Palmach , the underground of the Jewish agency and Kibbutz movement. However they had no choice but to go along. The dissident underground, the Irgun, was not however under the control of the Zionist executive directly. It was under the political leadership of Menachem Begin.of the Revisionist Herut movement. Begin tried to bring a large shipment of arms into Israel. His plan was to distribute those arms to the Irgun and to maintain it as a separate military faction. Some historians insist that Begin or elements in the Irgun were planning a coup. On Ben Gurion's orders, the ship, the Altalena, was sunk off the coast of Tel Aviv, creating a cause of bitterness for partisans of the Revisionist moment, but guaranteeing the democratic and orderly future of the new state.” http://www.zionism-israel.com/bio/biography_david_bengurion.htm

- jdyer

November 8, 2010 at 6:46pm

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Also, I turned on the radio this morning to hear Obama's voice roundly denounce the Mumbai terrorist attack and to underline that he has told the Pakistani government in clear terms that they need to do all they can to bring the planners/masterminds to justice.

- ironyroad

November 8, 2010 at 8:17pm

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"... to hear Obama's voice roundly denounce the Mumbai terrorist attack and to underline that he has told the Pakistani government in clear terms that they need to do all they can to bring the planners/masterminds to justice." And if they don't?

- jdyer

November 8, 2010 at 8:42pm

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"Also, I turned on the radio this morning to hear Obama's voice roundly denounce the Mumbai terrorist attack and to underline that he has told the Pakistani government in clear terms that they need to do all they can to bring the planners/masterminds to justice." Obama is prone to getting carried away with the moment from time to time. It's not the first time he says what he believes his audience wants to hear: "Israelis must not suffer a threat to their lives, to their schools," he said, adding that "if missiles were falling where my two daughters sleep, I would do everything in order to stop that." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFoj-PKJhck As we know, Obama kept his promise to tell the story of Sderot to Americans and the world.

- noga1

November 8, 2010 at 9:07pm

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MOLLYSIMON “Interestingly, the latest news out of India is that Obama has given India favored nation status. The Indians present for that announcement gave standing ovation. According to the reporter, the other member nations will have to approve it, and it could take years. However he sent the message that India is very much an American ally, also according the Times.” Molly, are you sure it was most “favored nation status” and not a permanent seat at the UN Security Council? MFN status is done through bilateral treaty, joining the UN Security Council takes the votes of other permanent member States of the UNSC. http://www.france24.com/en/20101108-india-usa-barack-obama-visit-parliament-diplomacy

- jdyer

November 8, 2010 at 9:18pm

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You're right Jackson. I have no idea how I managed to bungle that up.

- MOLLYSIMON

November 8, 2010 at 9:31pm

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PS--I can't get past the view full comment. It takes me to an unrelated site.

- MOLLYSIMON

November 8, 2010 at 9:32pm

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Gimme a break! I was just pointing out that Marty's accusation that Obama wasn't saying the right things was countered after a day by Obama saying (I presume) the right things. As far as I gather from your comment, Noga, if he doesn't say what you think he should, he's at fault, and if he says what you think he should, he's at fault. JD: That's a difficult question to answer -- and also accounts for any American president's difficulties in India these days. Officially, and in certain currently unavoidable ways, Pakistan is also our ally. You know that I regard that with as much skepticism as you, but Obama isn't some all-powerful magician. He has to work with what we have, and we have both Pakistan and India. One is tactically crucial, the other is strategically indispensable.

- ironyroad

November 8, 2010 at 9:55pm

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JD: "That's a difficult question to answer --" I was being facetious. "Pakistan is also our ally." Officially, yes. Note to out troops there: “watch your backs.”

- jdyer

November 8, 2010 at 11:07pm

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If it is Tuesday, Obama is now in Indonesia. awaiting the mosque speech...

- K2K

November 9, 2010 at 6:04am

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"Noga, if he doesn't say what you think he should, he's at fault, and if he says what you think he should, he's at fault." My point was that either he is not to be trusted, because his words are empty of any real significance, or that he is suffering from a "Zelig" syndrome. I worry about you ironyroad; you get into such a fine dudgeon every time your president is criticized.

- noga1

November 9, 2010 at 6:16am

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I do quite a bit of criticism myself, but I think he's handled the Indian trip very well.

- ironyroad

November 9, 2010 at 1:17pm

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The portriat of M. Gandhi is on every denomination of Indian paper currency. I would suggest that Gandhi's portriat on all Indian paper currency suggests that M. Gandhi is considered the "founder" of the Republic of India. Generation X, Y and Z in India may have different ambitions, politics, personal goals and so forth. This is to expected. To suggest that the Indians are embarrassed by Gandhi is an exaggeration and a distortion. Gandhi was the pre-eminant anti-colonial leader of his time. The United States of America was and is an anti-colonial country. Ben Gurian was also an anti-colonial leader and faught the same colonialist power as Gandhi. You think there might be a reason why Ben Gurian kept a Gandhian quote/or photograph in his office? I've seen a picture or stature of Gandhi in the executive offices of a few American CEOs. Go figure. It is not a coincidence that Martin Luther King, Jr. and his mentor, Bayard Rustin, considered themselves followers of Gandhi. Gandhi was the leader of the non-violent and anti-colonialist movement, internationally. The USA was very fortunate that its heroic civil rights leadership read and followed the example of Gandhi. As an American supporter of Israel, I don't care about the internal hatreds within Zionism. The Zionist Revisionists had some odd symbolism themselves. Wearing blackshits and brownshirts. Marching around Tel Aviv in military formation. Some people (Ben Gurian, in fact) believe that the Revisionists were responsible for the assassination of Arlosoroff, while walking on a beach in Tel Aviv in 1933. Many people considered Jabotinski, the founder of Revisionism, a Jewish version of Mussolini. Why this whole internal Zionist feud is carrried onto the pages of this magazine is beyond me. I think President Obama's interest in Gandhi, possibly derived from the Gandhian influence in the civil right movement, is a refreshing departure from Churchill, Churchill, Churchill!!! The unspeakable, absolute evil of the Holocaust remains a curse on the consciousness of man. Ask the Rooseveltians and Churchillians why their leaders did not do more to save European Jewery. They had the power and the resources to make a difference. Gandhi's position can only be judged from this perspective. Why didn't the West save its Jews?

- LawrenceGulotta

November 9, 2010 at 5:26pm

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The portrait of M. Gandhi is on every denomination of Indian paper currency. I would suggest that Gandhi's portrait on all Indian paper currency suggests that M. Gandhi is considered the "founder" of the Republic of India. Generation X, Y and Z in India may have different ambitions, politics, personal goals and so forth. This is to be expected. To suggest that the Indians are embarrassed by Gandhi is an exaggeration and a distortion. Gandhi was the pre-eminent anti-colonial leader of his time. The United States of America was and is an anti-colonial country. Ben Gurian was also an anti-colonial leader and fought the same colonialist power as Gandhi. You think there might be a reason why Ben Gurian kept a Gandhi quote/or photograph in his office? I've seen a picture or stature of Gandhi in the executive offices of a few American CEOs. Go figure. It is not a coincidence that Martin Luther King, Jr. and his mentor, Bayard Rustin, considered themselves followers of Gandhi. Gandhi was the leader of the non-violent and anti-colonialist movement, internationally. The USA was very fortunate that its heroic civil rights leadership read and followed the example of Gandhi. As an American supporter of Israel, I don't care about the internal hatreds within Zionism. The Zionist Revisionists had some odd symbolism themselves. Wearing blackshits and brownshirts. Marching around Tel Aviv in military formation. Some people (Ben Gurian, in fact) believe that the Revisionists were responsible for the assassination of Arlosoroff, while walking on a beach in Tel Aviv in 1933. Many people considered Jabotinski, the founder of Revisionism, a Jewish version of Mussolini. Why this whole internal Zionist feud is carried onto the pages of this magazine is beyond me. I think President Obama's interest in Gandhi, possibly derived from the Gandhian influence in the civil right movement, is a refreshing departure from Churchill, Churchill, and Churchill!!! The unspeakable, absolute evil of the Holocaust remains a curse on the consciousness of man. Ask the Rooseveltians and Churchillians why their leaders did not do more to save European Jewry. They had the power and the resources to make a difference. Gandhi's position can only be judged from this perspective. Why didn't the West save its Jews?

- LawrenceGulotta

November 9, 2010 at 6:38pm

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I wasn't surprised that Pakistan reacted with anger at the suggestion that India should become a member of the UN security. http://edition.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/11/08/obama.india.address/?hpt=T2 Obama will have to choose sides between India and Pakistan. If he chooses to pretend neutrality, he will lose credibility in India also.

- jdyer

November 9, 2010 at 7:52pm

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LawrenceGulotta “Gandhi was the pre-eminent anti-colonial leader of his time.” Was he? I thought Trotsky and his ilk could also make that claim. Still, what is so great about being an anti-Colonialist? Bin Laden is also an “anti-Colonialist” and so were Stalin and people of his ilk. I would further suggest that Gandhi was incredibly lucky in having the English as his enemies and the brutal fact that that colonial power was exhausted by fighting and even nastier bunch of colonialists also helped the Indian mystic immensely. No wonder Gandhi did not want to admit that Nazi Germany under National Socialism or the Soviet Union were different kinds of regimes; regimes in which his methods of resistance would have been powerless. Gandhi went to his death under the grand illusion that his passive resistance was more powerful than a totalitarian regime.

- jdyer

November 9, 2010 at 8:49pm

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jdyer: If you are under the illusion that Trotsky was the pre-eminent anti-colonialist of his time, I can't help you. What a wise-ass comment.

- LawrenceGulotta

November 9, 2010 at 9:42pm

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I am also puzzled. Communism was one thing, anti-colonialism another. Trotsky and Gandhi are in two very different stories. And think about relentlessly anti-communist and anti-colonialist forces like the South African Boers. Their fight for the independence of the RSA was posited upon a theory of racial supremacy vis-a-vis black Africans and a kind of class hostility vis-a-vis the Anglos.

- ironyroad

November 9, 2010 at 11:01pm

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ironyroad "I am also puzzled. Communism was one thing, anti-colonialism another." This from a quick search: http://www.anti-caste.org/leon-trotsky-on-india-and-permanent-revolution.html Trotsky in VietNam: http://home.earthlink.net/~lrgoldner/vietnam.html Had the Marxists succeeded in India they would have used Gandhi in the same way they used Tolstoy or Maxim Gorky. It was the Marxist ideology of the period that made Gandhi look more formidable than he was. Then there was Rosalia Luxemburg. http://books.google.com/books?id=XbdTNrI_xX0C&pg=PA125&lpg=PA125&dq=rosa+luxemburg,+anti+colonialism&source=bl&ots=IA8DRQOjtv&sig=c3Z6pD70CbPPdDGI0z3Ab6FpgD0&hl=en&ei=zR7aTLTOBYK8lQehwJ2tCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&sqi=2&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=rosa%20luxemburg%2C%20anti%20colonialism&f=false http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-imperialism In any case, anti-Colonialism is overrated. Some countries became better off with independence (like India, China, etc. ) many didn't (Burma, Pakistan, etc.) To praise Gandhi as a primarily and anticolonalist isn't saying much.

- jdyer

November 9, 2010 at 11:31pm

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As I said, anti-colonialism was one thing, communism another.

- ironyroad

November 10, 2010 at 12:35am

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From the vantage point of 2010 JDryer looks back on Gandhi-tut,tut. Here are a few famous quotes from Sir Winston and Lloyd George. The first is from Sir Winston, quoted in the Illustrated Sunday Herald - 8th February 1920: “The part played in the creation of Bolshevism and in the actual bringing about of the Russian Revolution by these international and for the most part atheistic Jews ... is certainly a very great one; it probably outweighs all others. With the notable exception of Lenin, the majority of the leading figures are Jews. Moreover, the principal inspiration and driving power comes from Jewish leaders ... The same evil prominence was obtained by Jews in (Hungary and Germany, especially Bavaria). Although in all these countries there are many non-Jews every whit as bad as the worst of the Jewish revolutionaries, the part played by the latter in proportion to their numbers in the population is astonishing. The fact that in many cases Jewish interests and Jewish places of worship are excepted by the Bolsheviks from their universal hostility has tended more and more to associate the Jewish race in Russia with the villainies which are now being perpetrated”. Below is part of what Lloyd George said about Hitler at a much later date (Daily Express, 17.9.1936): “I have now seen the famous German leader and also something of the great change he has effected. “Whatever one may think of his methods - and they are certainly not those of a parliamentary country, there can be no doubt that he has achieved a marvelous transformation in the spirit of the people, in their attitude towards each other, and in their social and economic outlook… It is not the Germany of the first decade that followed the war - broken, dejected and bowed down with a sense of apprehension and impotence. It is now full of hope and confidence, and of a renewed sense of determination to lead its own life without interference from any influence outside its own frontiers. There is for the first time since the war a general sense of security. The people are more cheerful. There is a greater sense of general gaiety of spirit throughout the land. It is a happier Germany. I saw it everywhere, and Englishmen I met during my trip and who knew Germany well were very impressed with the change. One man has accomplished this miracle. He is a born leader of men. A magnetic and dynamic personality with a single-minded purpose, as resolute will and a dauntless heart.” An admiration that Churchill echoed: “While all those formidable transformations were occurring in Europe, Corporal Hitler was fighting his long, wearing battle for the German heart. The story of that struggle cannot be read without admiration for the courage, the perseverance, and the vital force which enabled him to challenge, defy, conciliate, or overcome, all the authorities or resistance’s which barred his path. He, and the ever increasing legions who worked with him, certainly showed at this time, in their patriotic ardour and love of country, that there was nothing that they would not dare, no sacrifice of life, limb or liberty that they would not make themselves or inflict upon their opponents.” And speaking in Rome on 20 January, 1927, Churchill praised Mussolini: “I could not help being charmed, like so many other people have been, by Signor Mussolini’s gentle and simple bearing and by his calm, detached poise in spite of so many burdens and dangers. Secondly, anyone could see that he thought of nothing but the lasting good, as he understood it, of the Italian people, and that no lesser interest was of the slightest consequence to him. If I had been an Italian I am sure that I should have been whole-heartedly with you from the start to finish in your triumphant struggle against the bestial appetites and passions of Leninism. I will, however, say a word on an international aspect of fascism. Externally, your movement has rendered service to the whole world. The great fear which has always beset every democratic leader or a working class leader has been that of being undermined by someone more extreme than he. Italy has shown that there is a way of fighting the subversive forces which can rally the masses of the people, properly led, to value and wish to defend the honour and stability of civilised society. She has provided the necessary antidote to the Russian poison. Hereafter no great nation will be unprovided with an ultimate means of protection against the cancerous growth of Bolshevism.” Of course, Lloyd George, Winston Churchill and Gandhi didn't have their advanced copies of Hanna Arendt's "The Origins of Totalitarianism" to consult during 1927 and 1936, but I know you have your copy, right JDryer?

- LawrenceGulotta

November 10, 2010 at 2:33am

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LawrenceGulotta “From the vantage point of 2010 JDryer looks back on Gandhi-tut,tut.” It’s called learning from history, Lawrence. If Gandhi had been a scientist his claims for passive resistance would have been subjected to rigorous tests and pronounced useless. De-colonization led to some horrific genocides and killing fields in human history. ironyroad “As I said, anti-colonialism was one thing, communism another.” Not entirely, Irony. The two ideologies re-enforced each other. Many if not most communists were anti-Colonialists and after WW2 justified communist ideology in the langauge of anti colonialism: Sartre, Franz Fanon they were not unusual. Then there was the Rousseauian Communist Pol Pot another de-colonialist murderer.

- jdyer

November 10, 2010 at 6:34pm

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So people shouldn't have fought to liberate their nations from their colonial overlords? Not in Ireland, not in Algeria, not in India, not in Malaysia, not in . . . well, where? Should the Filipinos not have fought the U.S. in 1900-3 and also not the Japanese in WW2? And earlier, should the Serbs not have fought the Ottoman Empire. Should the Finns not have struggled against the Russians? Should the Spanish not have battled Napoleon, creating the term guerilla? We should all just sit down under foreign domination?

- ironyroad

November 10, 2010 at 9:05pm

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So people shouldn't have fought to liberate their nations from their colonial overlords? Not in Ireland, not in Algeria, not in India, not in Malaysia, not in . . . well, where? Should the Filipinos not have fought the U.S. in 1900-3 and also not the Japanese in WW2? And earlier, should the Serbs not have fought the Ottoman Empire. Should the Finns not have struggled against the Russians? Should the Spanish not have battled Napoleon, creating the term guerilla? We should all just sit down under foreign domination?

- ironyroad

November 10, 2010 at 9:05pm

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Jdyer: I'd call it judgmental, with 20/20 hind sight. It is your business if you find a symmetry between anti-colonialism and communism. Suffice to say, even Jay Lovestone of the AFL-CIO Free Trade Union Institute, the arch-anti-Salinist and labor spymaster of the Cold War, understood the difference. That is why he and the apparatus he ran with CIA money, in the name of the American working class, supported the Algerian independence struggle and other independence struggles around the world. Obviously, there is more than one style of anti-colonialism. You insist on lumping all anti-colonialists into one category: totalitarian. I think you are deeply confused on the issue. As my long ago professor Sidney Hook used to say: "Educated beyond your means and courageous in your confusion."

- LawrenceGulotta

November 10, 2010 at 9:37pm

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ironyroad “So people shouldn't have fought to liberate their nations from their colonial overlords? Not in Ireland, not in Algeria, not in India, not in Malaysia, not in . . . well, where? Should the Filipinos not have fought the U.S. in 1900-3 and also not the Japanese in WW2? And earlier, should the Serbs not have fought the Ottoman Empire. Should the Finns not have struggled against the Russians? Should the Spanish not have battled Napoleon, creating the term guerilla? We should all just sit down under foreign domination?” Not at all, Irony. The Greek struggle for independence from the Ottoman’s (one of the first wars of liberation or Garibaldi’s struggle to unify Italy or the age old Irish desire for independence from England or the American one were driven by an internal dynamic which gave these struggles a legitimacy that many later struggles lacked. The Indian drive for independence while in long run very successful lacked a similar internal dynamic. India was already a very old Empire rather than a single nation. What emerged from this conflict was not one but a number of nations, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and who knows how many other nations are still to emerge from this former Empire? My point is the opposite of what you claim. There is an imperative on the part of many nations who have been subjugated which driven by its own history and sense of wholeness aspire to sovereign rule, to determine its own destiny. What I am arguing is that it’s impossible and harmful to world peace to claim a priori that anti-colonialism is an evil and that all nation ought to rebel against foreign dominations even if most subject of that particular nation within the Empire prefer to remain attacked to it. This was the ideology of 20th c Marxism (tough not of Marx) and later was taken up in sentimental way by Gandhi. It was this ideology that led to the myriad of mini genocides we experienced since WW2, from Nigeria to Cambodia and Rwanda, to the Sudan and many other places.

- jdyer

November 10, 2010 at 10:10pm

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“Obviously, there is more than one style of anti-colonialism. You insist on lumping all anti-colonialists into one category: totalitarian.” LawrenceGulotta I am glad you can quote Sidney Hook. Does that mean that you are not confused? I didn’t lump all anti-colonialism under the one category as I made clear in my reply to Irony. Still, of all anti-colonialist struggles the most pernicious was the one led by Gandhi. Even in his own backyard he was unable to stop the brutal massacres that were the results of his “peaceful non violent struggles.” Millions of Hindus and Muslims perished in the aftermath of partitions. That horrendous catastrophe has hardly been discussed while the much lesser struggle (in terms of casualties) of the Arab Israeli wars has taken center stage. This is a general comment and not meant to suggest that either you, or Irony, are ignorant of the struggle and consequent massacres that accompanied the break up of India. In general when people mention Gandhi they never mentions what he helped bring about. Had he been more realistic about the limits of his passive struggle fewer people might have been killed after independence.

- jdyer

November 10, 2010 at 10:23pm

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I think that the argument is valid in a few cases, JD, but it's difficult to get a genie back in the bottle. Once sovereign nationhood becomes the badge of arrival in the world, as it were, the truth is that even nations than aren't want it. I do agree with you to the extent that certain kinds of nations (e.g. constitutional democracies, ethnic communities, older national hybrids) appear to have a better chance of long-term existence and vitality than others (think: national vs. tribal borders in parts of Africa, for example), but the idea of independence is a heady drug. There is also something peculiar about hyper-nationalist folks like the English lecturing down their noses at others on the dangers of nationalism. Benedict Anderson's "Imagined Communities" is one of my favorite books on this topic.

- ironyroad

November 11, 2010 at 3:35pm

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Agree about the English. I also don’t think that history can be reversed since that has its own dangers. However, I was merely arguing that Gandhi was not a saint he was a man who made lots of mistakes and the hagiographic treatment of that figure does more harm than good. We should examine his life in terms of what he actually accomplished based on his principles; how his principles actually caused a lot of harm.

- jdyer

November 11, 2010 at 5:10pm

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film recommendation on the horrific partition of India: Earth‎: Directed by Deepa Mehta, (1998) one other unintended consequence was that the Pashtun nationalists were allied with Congress and wanted to be part of India, but the Brits shoved their Pashtuns into Pakistan, that ongoing experiment in an artificial Islamic state. Maybe Obama should retire to an ashram and spin cotton if he aspires to Gandhi, who rejected the mantle of political leader.

- K2K

November 11, 2010 at 7:25pm

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In his 11/7/2010 piece on Obama's "mendacious delusion" about Gandhi, Martin Peretz references George Orwell's 1949 essay on Gandhi and says "...I have no feelings for Gandhi. I react to him the way George Orwell did." In reality, however, Orwell's perspective is a good deal more complex and even deeply felt. From what Peretz has to say, one would not expect him to have ended his essay with the following sentences: And if, as may happen, India and Britain finally settle down into a decent and friendly relationship, will this be partly because Gandhi, by keeping up his struggle obstinately and without hatred, disinfected the political air? That one even thinks of asking such questions indicates his stature. One may feel, as I do, a sort of aesthetic distaste for Gandhi, one may reject the claims of sainthood made on his behalf (he never made any such claim himself, by the way), one may also reject sainthood as an ideal and therefore feel that Gandhi's basic aims were anti-human and reactionary: but regarded simply as a politician, and compared with the other leading political figures of our time, how clean a smell he has managed to leave behind!

- johpet

February 16, 2011 at 10:29am

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