PLANK JULY 30, 2012
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During their trip to Israel this past Sunday, Mitt Romney and his wife Ann, made an unscheduled stop at one of Judaism’s holiest sights, the Western Wall. As is customary, Romney, donning a black yarmulke and bowing his head, spent several solemn minutes at the wall—the largest remnant of the Second Temple, which Roman armies destroyed around 70 CE. Later at a speech in Jerusalem’s Old City, Romney collapsed America’s security interests with those of Israel. Quoting at length from the late Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Romney declared, “[We] now have the responsibility to make sure that never again will our independence be destroyed, and never again will the Jew become homeless and or defenseless.”
Many see Romney’s staunchly pro-Israel stance as a political play for the Jewish vote, both in America, and in Israel (there are some 250,000 American citizens living in Israel and the vast majority of those voted for John McCain in 2008). Romney was also clearly after some Israeli campaign cash; the candidate raked in $1 million dollars from just 45 donors at his fundraiser on Monday.
But, we don’t need to read between the lines of Romney’s remarks in Israel to also locate a theological dimension to his support of Israel. Along with American evangelicals, Mormons like Romney have long been hawkish on the Jewish state, as well as frequent visitors to the Holy Land, making pilgrimages to sites like the Western Wall, Mount of Olives, and the Garden of Gethsemane. Mormons share with many Christians and Jews a belief that Israel is an integral part of their own biblical-era past and humanity’s inevitable apocalyptic future. But it’s precisely their theological and social differences from other religions that require Mormons, including Romney, to negotiate a number of pitfalls whenever they are in Israel.
JOSEPH SMITH JR., the founder of Mormonism, declared in 1831 that the “New Jerusalem,” the holy city from which Christ would rule after his second coming, would be located in Independence, Missouri. Yet this new world location of Zion didn’t mean Mormons turned their back on ancient Jerusalem. In 1841, Smith sent one of his apostles, Orson Hyde, on a mission through Europe and the Middle East. Hyde made this voyage with a letter of introduction in his pocket, which fellow church leaders had composed on his behalf. The letter read in part, “The Jewish nations have been scattered abroad among the Gentiles for a long period; and in our estimation, the time of the commencement of their return to the Holy Land has already arrived.”
It was part of Hyde’s duty to dedicate the Holy Land to the Jews, allowing them to gather “again [in] the land of their fathers,” a prerequisite for Christ’s return. On October 24, 1841, Hyde left the city of Jerusalem, then a city of some 20,000, mostly inhabited by Turks and Arabs, (whom Hyde derisively referred to as “land pirates”), and climbed Mount of Olives. There, Hyde prayed “for the building up of Jerusalem again after it has been trodden down by the Gentiles so long, and for rearing a Temple in honor of Thy name.”
It was a view of Israel that Mormons shared with many evangelical Christians. Matthew Bowman, author of The Mormon People, explains that church historian and Mormon president “Joseph Fielding Smith adopt[ed] a somewhat Scofield-esque interpretation—the restoration of the state of Israel is a necessary predicate for the Second Coming.” But more recently, says Bowman, Mormon end-times rhetoric has become less explicit, “largely reduced to moralism… [that] the world is growing increasingly sinful.”
Yet, as Israel’s import in Mormons’ vision of the future has decreased, Mormons have taken a greater interest in connecting with the Holy Land’s past. Beginning in the 1970s, the LDS Church worked to create a permanent a home of its own in Jerusalem. In 1979, Mormon President Spencer W. Kimball made his own pilgrimage to Israel and dedicated the Orson Hyde Memorial Garden on the land, overlooking the Garden of Gethsemane, where the Mormon apostle had prayed for the Jews to return to Israel 138 years earlier. And in 1984, Brigham Young University began constructing a satellite campus in Jerusalem, which would allow young Mormon college students to study scriptures in the land where they believed the ancient events actually took place.
Yet many Israelis, in particular, the country’s Jewish Orthodox population, objected to the LDS Church constructing a permanent center in what they consider their divinely established capital, seeing it as an effort by the Mormons to gain a foothold in Jerusalem—already the world’s most contested religious real estate. The LDS Church promised the Israeli officials that none of its students or faculty would proselytize in Israel, even requiring the students to sign a “non-proselytizing agreement.” Nevertheless, when the BYU Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies opened in 1987, thousands of Orthodox protested outside.
Despite these tense beginnings, Jesse Fox, who studied at the BYU Center in Jerusalem in 1995, recalls that the Center’s faculty and staff made sure that the Mormons’ presence would come to be seen as an acceptable, if not welcome, addition to Jerusalem. Fox explains, “We were really well trained on what to say, and more importantly, what not to say.” Fox says they he and his fellow students understood that their main task while in Jerusalem to study “the word of God… not preaching the Gospel.”
Fox, who like Romney, also placed a prayer note in the Western Wall during his time in Jerusalem, says the Center’s curriculum and overall approach to Jerusalem was about history and faith, not about the “Second Coming” or the politics of Americans’ relationship with Israel.
Some in Israel continue to be wary of the LDS Church’s intentions toward the Jews. These fears have repeatedly been exacerbated by the fact that a handful of Mormons have continued to perform proxy baptisms for dead Holocaust victims, despite a promise made by Church leaders in 1995 to cease such activities.
Despite all the potential theological and social tensions, Mormons visiting Jerusalem recently have managed to integrate themselves as well. As Hillary Kaell, an expoert on Modern American pilgrimages to the Holy Land, explains, “Because they dress like other Americans and speak English with an American accent… Mormons blend with the other Americans visiting the holy land sites,” which Kaell says hundreds of thousands of Americans undertake each year (of which perhaps some 5 percent are LDS). “The groups, whether they’re Mormon or evangelical or Catholic, don’t really interact with each other or with the locals. So there’s really not a lot of debates about Jerusalem’s place in the apocalypse,” explains Kaell.
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Still, even if Mormons and evangelicals don’t talk to each other when visiting the Jewish state, many Mormons and evangelicals increasingly speak the same language about the Holy Land. There is less talk about Christ’s return, and more talk about the secular apocalypse they believe a nuclear Iran represents.
At his speech on Sunday in Jerusalem’s Old City, Romney borrowed from the Gospels when he claimed that Americans who “recognize Israel’s right to defend itself” truly embody the peacemaking legacy of Jesus. “Those who are the most committed to stopping the Iranian regime from securing nuclear weapons… are the true peacemakers. History teaches with force and clarity that when the world’s most despotic regimes secure the world’s most destructive weapons, peace often gives way to oppression, to violence, or to devastating war.”
Romney’s Jerusalem audience rewarded such talk with a standing ovation. But perhaps more importantly for Romney’s presidential aspirations, so did the evangelical voters he’s courting back home.
Max Perry Mueller is a Ph.D. candidate in the Study of Religion at Harvard and associate editor of the online journal Religion & Politics.
36 comments
“Those who are the most committed to stopping the Iranian regime from securing nuclear weapons… are the true peacemakers. History teaches with force and clarity that when the world’s most despotic regimes secure the world’s most destructive weapons, peace often gives way to oppression, to violence, or to devastating war.” Nothing is stopping Obama from uttering similar words if he believes them; if he doesn't than he better tell us now.
- arnon1
July 30, 2012 at 9:44pm
I am delighted with the deft and elegant grasp of international relations Mitt has demonstrated at each stop on his international tour. While he has quite a few more financial resources than I do, I would contribute a few dollars to keep him abroad and pontificating as long and in as many places as possible. If given enough opportunities to stick his foot in his mouth, I am sure he could give a whole new meaning to the tired old phrase, "Deep Throat." To polish a rude old phrase, "Mitt, please swallow."
- skahn
July 30, 2012 at 11:24pm
I'm usually too indifferent to respond to your self righteous inanities, in which typically you say nothing of substance or interest, and in which more than anything you preen with delighted self satisfaction, the irony residing therein bearing precise measure to the absolute nothing you have to say. And I'm too indifferent to do it now. To be sure, this note refers to the second comment on this thread, the first commenter being serious and substantive to a fault, agree with him or not.
- basman
July 31, 2012 at 12:01am
Well, seeing as how Mittens most likely believes he is fufilling some sort of prophecy then I wouldn't be suprised at all if he decided on another holy...errr...strategic war against a middle east country.
- ARealHero
July 31, 2012 at 12:21am
Romney in Israel acknowledged Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. He also said Iran can't be left to enrich nuclear material and that that's a high priority of the U.S. and for him America would stand with Israel’s right to defend herself. It can be argued Obama is willing to live with a nuclear or a nuclear capable Iran. Romney is at least rhetorically committed to no such thing including being against Iran continuing to refine uranium, unlike Obama. At least rhetorically too, Romney would not obstruct an Israeli preventive attack on Iran, should things come to that, different in that as well, arguably, from Obama. Romney's tone, emphasis and obvious feeling for Israel, icontrast with Obama's, who, Aaron David Miller recently said, doesn't "get" or feel Israel, which is to the point of Meuller's noting the Mormon, and Romney's emotional affinity for her.
- basman
July 31, 2012 at 12:51am
I am quite sure that Obama "gets" Israel, without any of the evangelical baggage attached to her inevitable destruction according to certain apocalyptic visions involving Jesus, which I personally could live without. Meanwhile, Mitt The Diplomat has managed to insult the Palestinians and also, Mexico, in both cases apparently claiming Cultural Superiority as the reason the US and Israel are relatively wealthy. Need I add this isn't helpful, especially not in the Middle East, where such rhetorical flourishes can start wars? PS associating Jews with the ability to make money, oy.
- Sophia
July 31, 2012 at 1:12am
Strongly religious people are not good at politics, no matter what religion they belong to. There's way too much wishful thinking involved in their assessments and way too little study of the actual situation they're hyperventilating about. When I hear highly religious Jews and Mormons and Evangelicals blither on about Iran, all I can think of is Nikita Khrushchev when he was in power and in possession of a couple thousand nuclear warheads and a 50-megaton H-bomb (courtesy of Sakharov, who refused to design the 100-megaton weapon Khrushchev wanted, because, he said, the bigger bomb would damage the earth's atmosphere, even after a single test). Khrushchev was happily informing powerful Americans he came in contact with that he could turn everyone in the U.S. into nuclear dust. But he never came close to purposely doing so, because he knew that his empire would be atomized in retaliation, and there would go his power. Dictators need people to exercise power over. Iran is rotting from within due to the international sanctions. Even the power of the Revolutionary Guard is dissipating. Iran may actually build a working nuclear bomb someday, but the odds are minuscule that they're ever use it. Everyone in Iran would be atomized in retaliation. What good would that do the power-mad people in control of the country? Khrushchev backed down during both the Berlin and the Cuban Missile Crises, even though he hated the West and he had enough nuclear power to kill every human on the planet. He wanted living humans whose necks he could step on, not their ashes. Yes, nuclear war can start accidentally under great international stress, but even that is very much against the odds. In 1983 the Soviets were so paranoid during a NATO computer exercise feigning nuclear retaliation that they believed a cloud formation above their territory was a U.S. nuclear missile headed their way. Fortunately, the officer in charge of their own "retaliation" reasoned that a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union would entail hundreds of "cloud formations," not one. And World War III was averted. Calm down, religious folks. You know very little about foreign relations. You're too apocalyptic. Of course, there are exceptions like the Christian Science Monitor, one of the finest publications about international relations in world history. Maybe religious Republicans like Romney should subscribe to it, instead of traveling around the world engaging in apocalyptic rhetoric in order to get elected president.
- magboy47.
July 31, 2012 at 1:18am
"It can be argued Obama is willing to live with a nuclear or a nuclear capable Iran. Romney is at least rhetorically committed to no such thing including being against Iran continuing to refine uranium, unlike Obama." It can also be argued, with actual evidence, that Obama has done more focused work from various angles (covert ops, economic, diplomatic) to pressure Iran to abandon their nuclear ambitions than any president in recent times, including the previous one. It can in addition be argued that rhetorical positions are largely meaningless as there is no conceivable way that Israel can prevent Iran being "nuclear-capable" (as opposed to being a military nuclear power), unless one imagines a destructive pre-emptive attack by U.S. forces with unforeseeable consequences, which neither a President Obama or a President Romney is likely to approve. It can most definitely be argued that Obama (building on the latter-period Bush, to some extent) has done a great deal to show that Iran that he's serious about this issue and they shouldn't make any errors of judgement.
- ironyroad
July 31, 2012 at 1:46am
ironyroad beat me to it. Yeah will you please find a more succesful President than Obama when it comes to dealing with Iran just short of another god forsaken war that people would just comlain about? Do a little research baseman.
- ARealHero
July 31, 2012 at 6:11am
Itz. I want to quibble a bit. Inane lends more dignity than deserved. It's an achievement of sorts to accomplish selling insipid short. All of that with degrees of consistency is its own unique virtue. Oh I don't know Hero. Unambiguity DOES have its rightful place in collective conversations.
- jacko
July 31, 2012 at 6:37am
"It can also be argued, with actual evidence, that Obama has done more focused work from various angles (covert ops, economic, diplomatic) to pressure Iran to abandon their nuclear ambitions than any president in recent times, including the previous one." I agree, Irony. Wasn't saying that Obama is comfortable with Iran's nuclear game. Still, it's also true that Obama has never been to Israel and that he hasn't expressed himself with the passion that other members of his administration have ( I am thinking of Hillary) and Romney just did.
- arnon1
July 31, 2012 at 9:24am
Oh, Arnon and Basman, again with the "Obama doesn't feel Israel in his kishkes" argument. If only he emoted more! If only he visited Israel while in office (he did visit as a candidate, in case you forgot)! In that case, you would surely love him as much as you love Bill Clinton, who hated Benjamin Netenyahu so much he seconded his campaign operatives to work for Ehud Barak and then pressured the Israelis to sign peace deals with the Palestinians that would have re-divided Jerusalem not once, not twice, but three or more times (including after the Second Intifadah started). I will affirm, with Aaron David Miller, that Obama doesn't "get" Israel in the sense that he thinks Israel is a nation that is more special and more important than other nations in the world. In that regard, I suppose, he is on the same level as Theodor Herzl, who also wanted the Jews to have a nation like other peoples but without any theological or social mission to the rest of humanity. Obama is also light on the constant and florid rhetoric that some defenders of Israel seem to think is a pre-requisite for showing support for the Jewish state. Maybe, like with Bill Clinton's peacemaking adventures, this helps the medicine of a two-state solution with a divided Jerusalem go down for them. If that's the case, they are the ones being played for fools. At least the American defenders of Likud are honest when they assert that nothing Obama says or does, short of losing re-election, would be enough for them.
- wildboy
July 31, 2012 at 9:38am
Obama most certainly has been to Israel arnon. http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0708/Obamas_note.html
- Sophia
July 31, 2012 at 12:40pm
Incidentally where I have heard this, "The worst are full of passionate intensity," hmmmm.... Oh right, "The Second Coming," by WB Yeats, written before the apocalypse of WWII. The last thing we need is more passionate intensity. We need calm, wisdom and thoughtfulness. Sounds a lot like Obama doesn't it.
- Sophia
July 31, 2012 at 12:42pm
Obama has a great many failings in his foreign policy, but containing Iran is not one of them. Nuclear non-proliferation has to be America's primary goal in foreign affairs, but that doesn't mean that our first response should be military action. If we're asking who is actually a "friend" of Israel, I think we need to look at actions, rather than words. Romney takes a more bellicose tone when talking about Iran, but when we look at Obama's record we see a president who has done more to ensure Israel's security in the region than any US president since Carter helped to put an end to the constant threat of invasion from Israel's neighbors. Right now, Iran is politically and economically isolated. The time the president has spent on negotiations over Iran's nuclear program has pulled international opinion firmly into the American camp and made the rest of the world willing to accept such harsh sanctions on Iran. If the current sanctions fail and Iran fails to give up its nuclear weapons program, then the rest of the world will be much more open to American or Israeli military action. Beyond the diplomatic realm, we have pretty good evidence that the United States has been covertly sabotaging Iran's nuclear efforts via electronic attacks (most seem to blame the assassinations of Iranian scientists on Israel). The Iranian centrifuges keep getting destroyed by information attacks, and that will probably continue for as long as is possible. If that isn't evidence of friendship with Israel, then what is? All the fundraising dinners in the world don't mean anything in comparison to actual effort.
- zuludown
July 31, 2012 at 12:52pm
Thank you, basman, for demonstrating that you are not guilty of what you accuse me of. I confess, however, that the first sentence of this comment is the most syntactically awful and incoherent phraseI have ever read.
- skahn
July 31, 2012 at 12:59pm
Thanks Sophia, I should have said he hasn't gone while President.
- arnon1
July 31, 2012 at 1:53pm
No, Sophia I am not talking about "passionate intensity" in the sense of a non rational desire. I am talking about an empathetic feeling towards someone with whom you share certain values such as independence, individual liberty, and toleration of differences.
- arnon1
July 31, 2012 at 2:08pm
Comparing Obama to Herzl is funny if you consider that Herzl was more of an egalitarian in socio-economic matters (without being a socialist) than Obama is.
- arnon1
July 31, 2012 at 2:10pm
So Obama won't show an empathetic feeling towards Israel though the US and Israel "share certain values such as independence, individual liberty, and toleration of differences." Doesn't the US share those values with lots of other countries in the world, some of them in regions of equal geo-strategic importance? Poland, Germany, South Korea, Japan, Thailand, India, South Africa, Australia, Canada and Brazil just off the top of one's head. Where are the complaints that Obama doesn't love and cherish those countries and their values enough? That he won't stand up for them? That he doesn't "get" them in his gut? I daresay the problem with those who still complain about Obama's lack of love for Israel is more with the complainers than with the complainee.
- wildboy
July 31, 2012 at 2:35pm
"Doesn't the US share those values with lots of other countries in the world, some of them in regions of equal geo-strategic importance? Poland, Germany, South Korea, Japan, Thailand, India, South Africa, Australia, Canada and Brazil just off the top of one's head." Leaving out Australia and Canada the rest of the countries on your list don't have long history of sharing our values. (Israel from its beginnings did.) In any case none of these countries face actual threats to its existence. I am not surprised by wildboy's reply given that he is full of "passionate intensity" towards Obama.
- arnon1
July 31, 2012 at 2:43pm
Oh for heaven's sake. Arnon do you seriously believe that Obama doesn't "share certain values such as independence, individual liberty, and toleration of differences?" Why? PS it's the Republicans, not the Democrats, who've been trying to suppress the vote, gay rights, attacking women's rights, attacking people's right to healthcare, etc. Not Obama and not the Democrats. Honestly, I don't understand where you get this prejudice against him. On the "values" you've cited it's the Right which is weak not the Left and certainly not President Obama. I'm baffled, seriously. So???????
- Sophia
July 31, 2012 at 2:46pm
Oh ps I forgot. Attacks on black folks in general, Muslims, immigrants, Mexicans, Huma Abedin, etc etc etc, not coming from Obama. Am I right? Of course I am right. Also, White Supremacists, neonazis and other antisemites, real serious Jew haters, are also not Democrats and also, not Obama.
- Sophia
July 31, 2012 at 2:48pm
what does scofield-esque imply/mean?
- zwedon
July 31, 2012 at 3:02pm
I think every American President would consider peace or steps toward peace in the Middle East to be a triumph and I expect President Obama to facilitate peace in the Middle East more than I expect Romney to do so because I don't think it will come from our bullying. I am guided by what an Israeli once explained to me was the reason Israel would give up land for peace; that his grandfather sat in a foxhole so that his children could have peace, as did his father and as did he.
- Nusholtz
July 31, 2012 at 3:11pm
Cyrus Scofield, author of a reference Bible and a promoter of "dispensational premillenialism", the significance of which here you can find: "Christian dispensationalists sometimes embrace what some critics have pejoratively called Judeophilia—ranging from support of the state of Israel, to observing traditional Jewish holidays and practicing traditionally Jewish religious rituals. (See also Christian Zionism, Jewish Christians, Judaizers, and Messianic Judaism). Dispensationalists typically support the modern state of Israel, recognize its existence as God revealing His Will for the Last Days, and reject anti-Semitism." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispensationalism (heading is "Judaism")
- mldarby
July 31, 2012 at 3:16pm
"In any case none of these countries face actual threats to its existence." Arnon, are you kidding me? Unlike Israel, South Korea is actually targeted (and occasionally attacked) by a nuclear-armed regime led by people who are generally acknowledged to be total maniacs. Oh, and those maniacs talk about destroying South Korea pretty much 24/7. India also faces "actual threats to its existence" from Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, although it is a given that India can wipe Pakistan off the map in reprisal. As for countries that share America's values "from their beginnings", Israel's beginnings only go back to 1948. That's one year less than India, which has also shared America's values as a pluralistic democracy since its founding in 1947. And Japan has been a pluralistic democracy since 1947-48, first under American tutelage and then as a fully sovereign nation since 1952. Same goes for Germany (at least the former West Germany). This argument about Obama being a bad friend of Israel because he doesn't emote enough is so intellectually fraudulent and flabby that it is really beneath intelligent people like you and Basman. If you feel that Obama is not a good friend of Israel, go ahead and try to make an argument about how his substantive policies have harmed Israel or prevented it from achieving its security and foreign policy goals (by allowing Israel's dictatorial Arab friends to be replaced by Islamists, not green-lighting an Israeli attack on Iran, not embracing Israel's right to permanently control the Palestinian Territories, what have you). If you don't think those arguments hold water, maybe you should admit that you don't really have a substantive problem with Obama's policy toward Israel.
- wildboy
July 31, 2012 at 3:18pm
It's not the job of the American president to emote over another nation, no matter how close an ally that country is. It is the responsibility of the president to conduct foreign policy in such a way as to reflect American goals and values, including showing solidarity with allies and supporting measures that will strengthen peaceful developments and protect both American and international security. Anything else would be irresponsible.
- ironyroad
July 31, 2012 at 3:30pm
As Zuludown referenced previously, it was Obama, working in concert with the Israelis, who launched the Stuxnet cyber attacks against Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities. May not be as visually appealing as stealth bombers dropping their payloads on these facilities, but I'd say fairly effective nonetheless. Constitutes *empathy* in my book. www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/world/middleeast/obama-ordered-wave-of-cyberattacks-against-iran.html?pagewanted=all
- OkiSaru
July 31, 2012 at 4:28pm
Sophia "Oh for heaven's sake. Arnon do you seriously believe that Obama doesn't "share certain values such as independence, individual liberty, and toleration of differences?"" Where did I say that he didn't, Sophia? Do you know how to read?
- arnon1
July 31, 2012 at 5:03pm
wildboy "Arnon, are you kidding me? Unlike Israel, South Korea is actually targeted (and occasionally attacked) by a nuclear-armed regime led by people who are generally acknowledged to be total maniacs. Oh, and those maniacs talk about destroying South Korea pretty much 24/7. India also faces "actual threats to its existence" from Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, although it is a given that India can wipe Pakistan off the map in reprisal." No, I am not kidding you. Neither South Korea, nor India are the targets of de- legitimization by other nations as well as many groups in the West. The threat to Israel isn't merely militarily although it's that too.
- arnon1
July 31, 2012 at 5:08pm
Arnon, if you don't think South Korea isn't the target of "de-legitimization" by its neighbor North Korea, I'm not sure what planet you are living on. For that matter, democratic Taiwan is a target of "de-legitimization" by its decidedely non-democratic neighbor China, to take one more example. One could go on, but why bother? Invidious comparisons of Israel to other countries are a problem because the facts in Israel's case are different than those of other countries. On the other hand, inviduously claiming that Israel is so very unique because its neighbors hate it so much is another sort of problem, especially where there are obvious similarities between Israel's case and other similarly situated countries. Let's not lose sight of the central argument here -- that Obama doesn't need to emote over Israel to demonstrate his commitment to its security and his understanding that America's and Israel's interests converge in some basic aspects of regional policy (even as they diverge in others). Just like he doesn't need to sing paeans to Korean, Taiwanese, Indian or South African democracy in order to demonstrate America's commitment to those countries' security and its understanding of how its interests converge with America's. If you concede the point that the convergence of American with Israeli interests exists even if the US is not interested in joining Israel in a pre-emptive strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, propping up Mubarak by force and accepting perpetual Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the argument about the lack of emotional attachment loses just about all meaning.
- wildboy
July 31, 2012 at 5:39pm
arnon, I can read and this is what you said, verbatim, in re Obama's supposed lack of love for Israel: "No, Sophia I am not talking about "passionate intensity" in the sense of a non rational desire. I am talking about an empathetic feeling towards someone with whom you share certain values such as independence, individual liberty, and toleration of differences."
- Sophia
July 31, 2012 at 6:52pm
wildboy "Arnon, if you don't think South Korea isn't the target of "de-legitimization" by its neighbor North Korea, I'm not sure what planet you are living on." If you think that South Korea is as much a target of deligitmation worl wide as is Israel than you don't know what you are talking about. In fact, in the West it's North Korea that is viewed as an illegitimate tyranny. You didn't mention Taiwan before, wildboy. I can see that you are going to bring up one argument after another in what you think is support of Obama. You are actually making him look worse when you bring these up.
- arnon1
July 31, 2012 at 6:54pm
ironyroad "It's not the job of the American president to emote over another nation, no matter how close an ally that country is.' It wasn't the job of Bill Clinton either to say "I feel your pain." However some Presidents know how to reach out and connect emotionally with public, and some don't and didn't. Obama is as emotionally cold as Nixon, though, they have nothing else in common.
- arnon1
July 31, 2012 at 6:57pm
Sophia "arnon, I can read and this is what you said, verbatim, in re Obama's supposed lack of love for Israel: "No, Sophia I am not talking about "passionate intensity" in the sense of a non rational desire. I am talking about an empathetic feeling towards someone with whom you share certain values such as independence, individual liberty, and toleration of differences." Goodness, Sophia, I said the opposite of what you think I said: "I am talking about an empathetic feeling towards someone with whom you share certain values such as independence, individual liberty, and toleration of differences." The subject here is still Obama who does share those and values but can't show them openly. Your own "passionate intensity" towards Obama is clouding your brain, Sophia. Take a deep breath and relax. I never vote Republican. Still, Obama is pretty much of a cold fish when it comes to empathy. I read somewhere that even many Black people don't feel a deep connection to the President. I doubt that they would vote for anyone else, but still the subject was empathy and not support for Obama.
- arnon1
July 31, 2012 at 7:05pm