THE SPINE NOVEMBER 11, 2010
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There is no mystery as to why President Obama went half away around the globe shortly after the election. Actually, I suspect that he and his folks scheduled the trip precisely to free him from the inevitable (and certainly annoying) queries about his responsibility for the Democratic disaster. There is another reason, however, why he leapt into the arms of foreign leaders (even those who don’t especially like him). And this is that international affairs is his fail-safe bailiwick; and since his only structurally contingent competitor is the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and it is in Democratic hands (though barely after mid-January) he is likely not to receive much rivalry—”advice and consent”—let alone opposition, from its members.
One has to look back to LBJ’s presidency to find a Senate in the recent past which took its constitutionally sanctioned responsibilities seriously. Even Lyndon Johnson’s vanity couldn’t stop his Vietnam opponents who quickly became his antagonists on virtually everything: J. William Fulbright, who looks uglier in retrospect than his academic pretense then, was more than his match, as were Gene McCarthy, Wayne Morse, even aging Ernest Gruening from Alaska. And they beat him to a pulp in 1968. Until Richard Nixon beat all of them that same year. (Then, they beat him up in return in 1973, after he had won his second term in the biggest trashing of a Democratic candidate in history. Poor George McGovern, an old Stalinoid and still one, so far as I can tell, captured only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia. Not bad, actually, for someone sympathetic to “progressive” dictatorships.)
No one, however, is more haughty than Obama in his made-up history, in his Saidist attitudes to facts, in his disdain for true and tested allies, in his ignorance of economics, in his indifference to the West (and to Christianity, for that matter) as an ideal and a reality, and finally, in his allergy to the thought that lui-même might be limited in wisdom, experience, instinct, even—as we have seen—in the power to persuade. Yes, we can? No, we can’t.
On the other hand, at least until the day before yesterday, he seemed ready to genuflect not only to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia but to Putin and Medvedev, to the Chinese, to the Turks, to the Syrians, to the Venezuelans and Brazilians (and Hillary to the Argentine, the most corrupt regime in Latin America.) As for Africa and the Africans (and their near-universal agonies), he couldn’t care less. (Although Mrs. Clinton gives speeches about rape in Congo, and please understand that these are urgent speeches, very urgent.)
Indonesia is a place of memory for the president, and from reading Dreams From My Father, I gather that his bank of imagery and retrospection must be a troubling one. For him, to be sure. It was for me too, in fact. But that’s another matter. My guess, then, is that for this cool, oh, so cool president, Indonesia must be a storehouse of contradiction. And that his confidence in addressing its people is much based on fancy.
The fact is that Obama did not do especially well in addressing the Indonesians as Muslims. “Jakarta sees no breakthrough in Obama’s speech,” read the headline in the New York Times report by Norimitsu Onishi. But here is more:
"Many people had been expecting that he would address one of the stumbling blocks to the peace process, like Israel’s construction of new housing,” Mr. Azra added.
Mixing the personal, political and religious, Mr. Obama spoke of Indonesia’s history of religious tolerance and its commitment to democracy and diversity before a receptive audience of 6,500 mostly young people at the University of Indonesia. In a 30-minute speech, the president underscored the shared values between the United States and Indonesia, which is known for its tradition of moderate Islam.
Mr. Obama spoke about hearing the “call to prayer across Jakarta,” where he lived for four years as a boy. He referred several times to his Indonesian stepfather, Lolo Soetoro, who, he said, “was raised a Muslim” but “firmly believed that all religions were worthy of respect.”
But he quickly remedied this omission. And, as almost everyone knows by now, he immediately criticized Israel for making plans to build additional housing in East Jerusalem. Obama actually is fixated on this matter although everybody knows—yes, American diplomats know and European Community functionaries know and any and all realistic Arab public persons also know—that Jerusalem will not be re-divided according to Palestinian dreams. The princely line of Jordan, which has a certain religious authority over the Haram al-Sharif because of its descent from the Prophet, implicitly acknowledged this when Amman made peace with Israel. And so did Egypt.
I believe there will be awkward but porous lines drawn when (and if) Jerusalem is finally discussed at the conference table. But the Israeli stamp on the future of the city cannot be erased. Nor should it: this is the price the Arabs are paying for their long decades of rejectionism. Still, do not think that the Palestinians fail to exploit opportunities as they have in changing Jerusalem realities.
An ironic one is that Arabs from the West Bank are continually making themselves residents of Jerusalem. This is a part of the demographic pressure on the city. But the irony is that they are leaving territories that will soon be Palestine to live in a city they expect (and truly hope) will be Israeli. Of course, the Palestinian Arabs want a Palestine to be established. But if they have a choice they’d rather live in Israel. You might think that given the national Palestinian upsurge among Israeli Arabs that they would crave to live in Palestine. In fact, some Zionists want to surrender the land on which these Arabs live precisely to Palestine. They are no takers.
A different form of sub rosa Palestinian change in the demography of Jerusalem is the influx of Arabs from Hebron, a result of bitter struggles among clans and political groupings. (This is something, thank God, which we cannot blame on Hebron’s fanatic Jews.) Most of these Arabs moved to the Silwan neighborhood of Jerusalem where they build housing for which no plans have been made, and they build them without electricity or running water or, for that matter, toilet facilities. It is mostly these Arabs for whom the mayor of the city, my friend Nir Barkat, has helped develop a scheme, designed by Palestinian city planners and architects, that would settle them in new and modern housing. They prefer to stay in fetid Silwan.
(The other day I walked down the almost miraculous water shaft from the City of David to the Siloam Pool where Jesus performed his miracles of making the blind see. It is a moving site even if you don’t quite believe the tales. But I and my companions were not permitted to walk at the edge of the valley abutting the pool; no one is. You might be targeted from Silwan.)
A more modest president than Obama might realize that he cannot impose his simple moralistic rhetoric on the intricate history of Jerusalem. There may be something in its complexity that appeals to his delusion of being able by sweeping judgment to set things aright.
This is the trap Obama has set himself, and he set it in Cairo 17 months ago.
Mr. Obama talked about the “issues that have caused tensions for many years,” mentioning the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. He said that the United States had made “some progress” in those areas since Mr. Obama gave his first speech on the United States and Islam 17 months in Cairo.
But Din Syamsuddin, the head of Muhammadiyah, one of Indonesia’s biggest Islamic organizations, said the president offered nothing fresh here.
“His speech in Cairo raised a lot of hopes, but his speech today was repetitive and redundant,” Mr. Din said.
Anis Matta, the secretary general of the Prosperous Justice Party, Indonesia’s biggest Islamist political party, said that Mr. Obama’s outreach to Muslims here and elsewhere would be influenced by a single issue.
“What will Obama do in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?” Mr. Matta said. “If we don’t see any progress, what he says is just a speech.”
Some experts said Mr. Obama’s premise of reaching out to the wider Muslim world by showing that the United States and Indonesia share values was flawed. Despite the big population of Muslims here, Indonesia’s influence has never extended beyond Southeast Asia.
“Of course, Indonesia does have a seat in the Muslim world, but to what extent it can influence political processes in the Muslim world’s heartland is a big question,” said Rizal Sukma, executive director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, an independent policy-oriented group in Jakarta. “Basically, we are not perceived as sitting at the main table in the Muslim world.”
Becoming the United States’ model Muslim democracy also made some Indonesians uneasy.
“The U.S. is trying to use Indonesia as an arena from where it could rebuild its relations with the Muslim world, but that’s dangerous,” said Bantarto Bandoro, a political scientist at the University of Indonesia. “Indonesia might be seen as being co-opted by the United States.”
In his speech, Mr. Obama won fans with stories about growing up in a Jakarta that existed before most of the audience members were born. “Indonesia is a part of me,” he said, doubling the effect by delivering the line in Indonesian.
Harish Muhammad, 18, a computer science major, said he had always believed that the United States was “anti-Islam” but that Mr. Obama had made him rethink his assumptions.
Others remained skeptical, however.
“Obama talked about how Indonesia is part of him,” said Agustina Retnaningsih, 37, a graduate student in pharmacology. “But it makes me wonder: Which part? Where do you put Indonesia and Islam in you and your policy?”
Obama’s mind speaks in a few iconic words. But they are simple words. Alas, the world—and especially the Muslim world—demands something more: it is struggle. Obama does not struggle with thought.
69 comments
This post wanders around a great deal, but I especially object to characterizing George McGovern as a "Stalinoid" and honor him for his early and outspoken opposition to the Vietnam war.
- JackR
November 11, 2010 at 7:56pm
"To be fair to Obama: The timing of the announcement again seemed calculated to provoke and to assert Netanyahu’s (new?) upper hand; East Jerusalem lies on the far side of the 1967 Green Line; and Israel also just announced the construction of more than 1000 homes in Ariel, an unequivocal West Bank settlement. But to be fair to Netanyahu: It is nigh impossible to imagine a final deal that does not include some sort of Israeli sovereignty in all of Jerusalem; East Jerusalem was never included in any freeze deal; and even the freeze deal that was reached a year ago has since expired. “Building in Jerusalem was never considered off-limits by either the government of Israel or frankly—with respect to the Obama administration, they basically acquiesed in it,” Miller noted. He also pointed out that the neighborhood the announcement concerns is one that Netanyahu himself made a move on when he was prime minister in the late 1990s. (Miller opined that the recent Republican surge is the least important factor here, though it does mean that Obama will have enough to worry about over the next two years without also pushing the Israelis on East Jerusalem as well. Certainly this is, as Ben Smith noted, the first post-midterms test of Obama’s stomach for foreign confrontation.) To put it another way: Neither opposition leader Tzipi Livni, of Kadima, whose GA speech yesterday was fairly well received by the left, nor any other plausible leader of Israel is going to be any more willing to cede Israeli claims to all of Jerusalem. On top of all that, some others have complained that Obama made his remarks while drumming up support in Indonesia—the world’s largest Muslim country, which does not permit Israelis to enter." http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/50036/settlement-kerfuffle-follows-the-script/ ' Let's look again: "On top of all that, some others have complained that Obama made his remarks while drumming up support in Indonesia—the world’s largest Muslim country, which does not permit Israelis to enter." Such friendliness. Almost like HRWatch using anti-Israeli sentiment to elicit support while fund-raising in Saudi Arabia.
- noga1
November 11, 2010 at 9:04pm
Islam mean "submission". The Israelis haven't completely submitted yet, so the Muslims remain unappeased. They will not be satisfied with piece of this or a piece of that.
- amidut
November 11, 2010 at 10:56pm
I'm not particularly a fan of Obama's middle east policy, and still less of McGovern, but this piece, particularly the first third, shocks me--it's a surprisingly venal, distortion-filled rant (McGovern a "Stalinoid?"--please).
- Curran1
November 11, 2010 at 11:30pm
"No one, however, is more haughty than Obama..." "Haughty?" I suppose "uppity" was taken.
- TJ814
November 12, 2010 at 12:19am
Beyond the execrable “Stalinoid” here’s this: ...No one, however, is more haughty than Obama in his made-up history, in his Saidist attitudes to facts, in his disdain for true and tested allies, in his ignorance of economics, in his indifference to the West (and to Christianity, for that matter) as an ideal and a reality, and finally, in his allergy to the thought that lui-même might be limited in wisdom, experience, instinct, even—as we have seen—in the power to persuade. Yes, we can? No, we can’t.... Hey, congratulations on your retainer with The American Spectator. “ his made-up history”: do you mean his made up history of the world or do you mean he has constructed his own biography or do you mean Obama has more than constructed his biography, he has faked it, “made-up” in the sense of lying. After explaining what you mean, as Alan Dershowitz once askd of one of his interlocutors, “evidence please”? “Saidist attitudes to facts”: evidence please? “Disdain for true and tested allies”: what species of superficiality is this. For example, quoting Chait: ....In fact, it is the policy of “the most anti-Israel administration in the history of the United States” to provide Israel with $3 billion in annual foreign aid along with diplomatic support, deployed most recently when the United States declined to condemn Israel’s response to the Gaza flotilla. This would seem to make Obama more pro-Israel than, at the very least, Lyndon Johnson, who took a neutral stance when Israel faced potential annihilation in 1967, and Dwight Eisenhower, who condemned Israel’s 1956 joint raid with Britain and France on the Suez Canal. ...Obama, meanwhile, has actually increased military aid to, and cooperation with, Israel, including an anti-missile defense system. On this matter, Obama has actually taken a more pro-Israel position than George W. Bush. A senior Israeli official recently told The Washington Post, “in many ways the cooperation has been extended and perhaps enhanced in different areas.”... “in his ignorance of economics”: and what ignorance is that, coming from you who self admittedly ignorant of economics? Do you remember what Paulson said about Obama’s grasp of the issues during the melt down before nd after the election and before the Inauguration? Evidence please? “in his indifference to the West (and to Christianity, for that matter) as an ideal and a reality,” Evidence please? What a gauzy, crapulous, unsupported litany of insults. Unbacked up, without a supporting argument, the litany is nothing less than a smear, a smear job, a virtual defamation with impunity, intellectually disreputable, accountable to no one, bad faith, cowardly attack made by someone who has, in these words, lost touch with fair minded, reasonable, good faith journalism/blogging whatever. Peretz, these are the words of yellow journalism by a chicken shit, yellow journalist. That’s what you are in saying them as you have—a yellow journalist. Peretz, really, what the fuck !
- basman
November 12, 2010 at 1:32am
“Saidist attitudes to facts” ________________ Hamas [hearts] Obama: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/why_hamas_bam_yqozHuWdPRiNHdi4aY365L ""Abu Hussain! Palestine loves you!!!" This slogan, in English, appears on a poster and other products produced by the Palestinian Hamas movement and put on sale in Gaza. Yesterday, it adorned the front pages of several leading Arab dailies. The "Abu Hussain" is President Obama. The poster pictures him wearing the signature Arab headgear, the kaffiyeh. That the most radical Palestinian faction has declared its love for the president may be bad news for the stalled Middle East peace talks, which Obama has promised to help restart before the end of the year."
- noga1
November 12, 2010 at 10:43am
Indonesia may have been the high point of Obama's Asia trip - today's news indicate a rather dismal G-20 reception for Obama's call for more government spending, more U.S. exports, la la la la, and that is from the NYT. I wonder why (not really, the NYT is more obsessed than Obama with apartments in North (Ramot) and South (Har Homa) Jerusalem; both neighborhoods are only 'East' of that mythical boundary known as the Green line) the NYT sought out Indonesian quotes about the I-P impasse when most Indonesians fixate more on the Kashmir conflict, so much closer to home with no Arabs involved. reposting here because only the Indonesian media noticed Obama had Imam Rauf as his advance man in Jakarta: "... After meeting with Yudhoyono on Friday [November 5, 2010], Rauf delivered a lecture on “Promoting Moderate Islam and Striving for Harmony Among Civilizations in the 21st Century” at the Presidential Palace in Jakarta. The lecture was attended by several Cabinet ministers and religious leaders. Rauf addressed several issues, including the relationship between Islam and the US, growing Islamophobia, the nature of moderation in Islam and how to promote it, and his experiences in trying to realize the plan to build the Park51 Islamic center and mosque close to Ground Zero. Rauf said Muslims needed to “expose” people to the best quality of Islam, including kindness, compassion and tolerance, to address Islamophobia. ..." http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/11/06/ny-muslim-leader-talks-moderate-islam.html I guess the good, completely under-reported news is that there are now three aircraft carrier groups off the coast of Iran, just in case. Two from the U.S. and one from France. One has to assume someone mentioned this to the CinC - cycnicism aside, there does seem to be a seepage of reality into the bubble of the Oval Office.
- K2K
November 12, 2010 at 11:08am
The logic in post 11/12/2010 - 10:43am EDT is, in the words of the inimitable Mordecai Richler, strictly from hunger. H reveres O for such and such. Ipso facto, O takes a Saidist attitudes to facts. ...while the worst Are full of passionate intensity...
- basman
November 12, 2010 at 11:24am
I'm not sure how to judge Indonesia, as I know too little about the country, but Obama did well in India, and the general vibe of this whole trip -- which Marty fails to mention -- is to reconnect the U.S. with Asian countries worried about China's strategic direction. But on Indonesia, one thing I do know is that random quotes from academics and pols do not amount to much, but what they do amount to is something that Marty seems not to grasp: that Obama is the American president, not a goodwill ambassador to the Muslim world. The fact that there are these ostensibly dissatisfied voices in Indonesia (or as Tom Waits does it in that song ". . . in In-do-NEEEZSH-a") says to me that Obama's message was and is getting through: that the U.S. wants to reconfigure its relationship to the Muslim world, but that it can't be a one-way street. Muslim conspiracy fantasies of America, 9-11 etc will have to give way to reality. If that doesn't happen, we'll still have done our best.
- ironyroad
November 12, 2010 at 1:01pm
Hey, apparently Glen Beck now things that George Soros was responsible for the Holocaust in Hungary! That pretty much goes along with his theory that the U.S. federal government was responsible for making slavery a bad experience.
- ironyroad
November 12, 2010 at 1:04pm
"the best quality of Islam, including kindness, compassion and tolerance," This kind of declaration proves to me that the imam does not yet fully understand the meaning of tolerance. He thinks that just because a religion preaches to its adherents to be kind and compassionate it is proof that that religion is compatible with the tenets of democracy. However, tolerance is not about being kind or compassionate. It is about people's basic rights to live free of inequality and persecution. It's about people conducting their life free of fear and inflicted indignities, even when they know that others may not like them very much. I read somewhere something that Slavoj Zizek said: "Regarding Islam, we should look at history. In fact, I think it is very interesting in this regard to look at ex-Yugoslavia. Why was Sarajevo and Bosnia the place of violent conflict? Because it was ethnically the most mixed republic of ex-Yugoslavia. Why? Because it was Muslim-dominated, and historically they were definitely the most tolerant. We Slovenes, on the other hand, and the Croats, both Catholics, threw them out several hundred years ago. This proves that there is nothing inherently intolerant about Islam. We must rather ask why this terrorist aspect of Islam arises now. The tension between tolerance and fundamentalist violence is within a civilisation. " And it seems to me he shares Rauf's idea of what tolerance is. If we take into consideration what we know about Islamic regulations concerning minorities, this observation that "historically [Muslin rulers] were definitely the most tolerant" makes some sense. There was not an ongoing state of perpetual agitation and attrition of minorities and therefore violent confrontations and pogroms were relatively less common than in Christendom. Which led to a sense of harmony. But what kind of harmony and at what cost? Minority members knew who they were, in relation to the dominant majority, that they were legally bound by a set of laws and rules which dictated to them every nuance of their obligations, conduct and rights relative to the Muslim owners of the land. When your own inferiority is inscribed into law, and when you know that any breach of it may entail painful judgments, and maybe death, you are not likely to walk with your head held high when you pass your Muslim neighbour in the street. Nor are you likely to pursue justice in court when your Muslim partner cheated you, since by law, your testimony counted for half the value of your adversary's. When a system is slated against you, legally, you adjust your ways and expectations and forgive a multitude of insults, slurs and crimes committed against you. It is an excellently efficient way to maintain the "tolerance" of a bellicose majority. And then someone like Rauf can come along and claim that Islam is a religion of kindness and compassion. Because it urges its believers to be kind to the other among them. The other does not have the right to expect kindness and compassion. He can only be grateful when he receives kindness and compassion.
- noga1
November 12, 2010 at 1:12pm
I posted this on Peretz's just before post thread: _______________________________________________________________________ In Indonesia, our stilted professor was replaced with a man at ease who charmed his audience by speaking the local language. Tunku Varadarajan only wishes this could have been Obama’s first major speech to the Muslim world—and that his visit weren’t so short. _________________________________________ ....It’s a colossal shame that presidential life has no magic rewind button, for if it did—and we could whirr ourselves back to June 2009—we’d have had Barack Hussein Obama skip Pharaonic old Cairo, city of the ghastly Hosni Mubarak and a tightly coiled hatred of the West, and deliver his first major speech to a Muslim nation in Indonesia......which is where, on Tuesday night, he delivered his second major speech to a Muslim audience, a speech that was sure-footed, unpretentious, sweetly personal (Obama lived in Jakarta when he was a boy), and actually very constructive. It was the speech of a man at home: Gone was the formalized stiltedness of the president before the Indian parliament, as seen only 24 hours ago; and absent entirely was the longwinded, professorial president of our own domestic experience. Instead, we had a man at ease with the air of the archipelago—I loved the way he invoked the names of Java, Aceh, Bali, Papua—and secure in the adulation of a hospitable audience eager to embrace him as one of their own. Why, oh why, did he not come here in June ’09, forgoing the sterility of the Arab world for the tolerant, syncretic Islam of Indonesia? Whoever advised him then should be shot, or fed to crocodiles; for it is in places like Indonesia, where Islam is worn lightly, where Islam is not a bludgeon deployed against the rest of the world, that Obama’s repeated references to Islam as a “great world religion” seem plausible. I Indonesia has the world’s largest Muslim population, as the president pointed out to his Jakarta audience—an audience that can scarcely have been unaware of the fact, and yet one that resides in a country constantly aware of its second-class status in the Arab-centric Muslim world. Not only that: Indonesia also has the world’s largest population of tolerant, cosmopolitan Muslims, Muslims we can partner with, relate to, and, frankly, not be frightened of....
- basman
November 12, 2010 at 1:15pm
"Hey, apparently Glen Beck now things that George Soros was responsible for the Holocaust in "Hungary!" That proves that Glenn Beck suffers from the same ignorance that characterizes so many public voices from the left, like Helen Thomas, for example. The only difference being that Beck, I suspect, is teachable. Anyway, Soros has to live with a great deal of unreconstructed guilt which cannot be good for his moral compass. This might account for his virulent anti-Israeli efforts.
- noga1
November 12, 2010 at 1:36pm
So that explains McGovern's ideas about the kulaks! This is one long smear and pretty low, even for you, Peretz. I won't be surprised when you question Obama's citizenship.
- Sancho
November 12, 2010 at 2:18pm
"Rauf said Muslims need to "expose" people to the best quality of Islam, including kindness, compassion, and tolerance..." Meanwhile, that message seems to be lost on some Muslims in Iraq "Iraqi Christians put to the sword. Worship in Iraq is now more dangerous than under Saddam's dictatorship as Islamists bomb churches in a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Adrian Blomfield reports. ... A group calling itself the Islamic State of Iraq, a self-acknowledged front for al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility and issued a chilling warning, telling Christians it would "open upon them the doors of destruction and rivers of blood". Delivering on their promise, 11 car bombs aimed at Christian shops and homes in Baghdad exploded on Wednesday, killing another five members of the minority. ... Earlier this week, Athanasius Dawood, the exiled archbishop of the Syriac Orthodox Church, one of the smaller Christian communities, gave a warning that the minority was facing extinction at the hands of a campaign of "pre-meditated ethnic cleansing". He said that the only hope of salvation for Iraq's Christians was if countries such as Britain gave them blanket political asylum. Although most of the extremists attacking them are thought to be Sunni Arab, Christians are as fearful of the Shia-dominated government and the kind of rule they believe it will one day institute. Tellingly, Archbishop Dawood laid much of the blame for the Christians' plight on Mr Maliki's administration, calling it "weak, biased, if not extremist". ..."" http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/8128161/Iraqi-Christians-put-to-the-sword.html Of course, what I really want to know is how Imam Rauf came to be scheduled at the Indonesian President's Palace the day before President Obama was due in Jakarta...and why no one in the western media has noticed this strange coincidence. Looking forward to the next chair of the House Foreign Relations Committee, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen scrutinizing the State Department budget, for the Rauf and Daisy budget line... On one more Indonesia note, a country I have visited (1997) and loved - the people were so kind and gracious - the constitution of Indonesia officially recognizes six religions. Judaism is noticeably absent. Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism are the six officially recognized religions. At least the Jews can take solace with the Mormons and Eastern Orthodox Christians... Banning those with Israeli passports is a very suprising fact. the influence of Matathir of Malaysia?
- K2K
November 12, 2010 at 2:22pm
"Banning those with Israeli passports is a very suprising fact." Why surprising?
- noga1
November 12, 2010 at 2:35pm
Basman: come on. You should approach Peretz in the same spirit that Bloom approaches the Old Testament: one of irony. Peretz is a less-interesting version of Yahweh: cantankerous, imperious, judgemental, prone to fits of fire and brimstone, largely indifferent to the suffering he causes, and fundamentally incoherent. I read him the way I crane my neck to look at an accident on the highway - and speed away as soon as I can get away from the usual pile up in the Comments section. There is, I find, no reward in trying to deconstruct or respond to an admitted drunk and confessed bigot.
- icarusr
November 12, 2010 at 4:31pm
K2K:"Banning those with Israeli passports is a very suprising fact." noga: Why surprising? Because I think of Indonesia as being outside the Saudi orbit; because it is such a diverse country - thousands of islands, thousands of languages; because Indonesia's Islam really WAS spread through trade, not conquest, and it is moderate because it is syncretic, with elements of Hinduism, Buddhism, and animism, especially the animism. (The exception was always Aceh, which used to try to split away in order to be more Islamist) Also, the ethnic Chinese dominate the business sector, and why would they not want access to Israeli technology? Maybe Indonesia has changed a LOT since 1997 - I was on assignment and had to explain the country and it's economy to a client who initially thought transport was by rickshaw and oxcart - when it was actually way beyond third world imagery. The first billboard I saw when leaving the Jakarta airport was for the local beer. Everyone thought I was from India since tall ex-pats living there tend to be overwhelmingly blonde :) Also, Indonesia has quite a rivalry with Malaysia - still some border disputes. I guess I should find the list of all the countries that refuse entry to anyone with an Israeli passport. Just in case I ever travel anywhere again; do not want to tempt fate, even with a U.S. passport. Here is hoping the Obamas get some really great sushi now that they are in Japan. The G-20 in Korea was a tough meeting...they deserve a treat, assuming they like raw fish.
- K2K
November 12, 2010 at 5:37pm
Icarus: I don't think Harold bloom approaches the "Old testament" ironically. I believe his theory is that parts of it were written by an ironic author (and possible a woman, which makes perfect sense) . But I'm curious as to what you mean that Marty "Peretz is a less-interesting version of Yahweh: cantankerous, imperious, judgemental, prone to fits of fire and brimstone, largely indifferent to the suffering he causes, and fundamentally incoheren". What less-interesting suffering has Marty caused? And how?
- noga1
November 12, 2010 at 5:50pm
Icarus I still, barely, give Peretz the benefit of some intellectual doubt and still think there is some there there, which is to say, I'm still willing to try and take him seriously. That's why, clinging to that last thread of some respect him, thread almost frayed to spitting, I still get so pissed off by his shamless, contemptible forays into utter deleteriousness. When I finally reach your understandable level of cynicsm about him, totally give up any hope for him, then I guess I'll treat him with the irony and detachment, of which you keenly speak, that comes from complete, amused indifference.
- basman
November 12, 2010 at 5:52pm
icarusr "You should approach Peretz in the same spirit that Bloom approaches the Old Testament: one of irony. Peretz is a less-interesting version of Yahweh: cantankerous, imperious, judgemental, prone to fits of fire and brimstone, largely indifferent to the suffering he causes, and fundamentally incoherent." As opposed to whom? Muhammad who is all coherence and allah’s slayer and slave? "I read him the way I crane my neck to look at an accident on the highway - and speed away as soon as I can get away from the usual pile up in the Comments section. There is, I find, no reward in trying to deconstruct or respond to an admitted drunk and confessed bigot." And yet he can't stay away the confessed masochist.
- jdyer
November 12, 2010 at 6:02pm
K2K “K2K:"Banning those with Israeli passports is a very suprising fact." noga: Why surprising? Because I think of Indonesia as being outside the Saudi orbit;…” Indonesia is the place where a naïve friend of mine did her Peace Corp work. When some of the people in the village she was helping discovered a chain with a Star of David among her belongings she was subjected to curses and her life was threatened. She had to resign from the Corp and was very bitter about it. This was in the early 70’s. I don’t suppose Indonesia has gotten any more liberal since then. A few years back, Indonesia was the site of an anti-Chinese pogrom a few years back when Chinese businesses were attacked and women were raped. Obama can declaim all he wants to about the multicultural paradise the islands are but it’s no paradise for most non Muslims. For such folk the islands are purgatory with a nice view. The periodic volcano eruptions there are a perfect symbol of a paradise prone to fiery eruptions.
- jdyer
November 12, 2010 at 6:12pm
thanks jackson - I just read "The Settlement Fixation" by Michael Weiss at FP. Would you, or noga, care to comment as to the general accuracy of his history? http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/11/10/the_settlement_fixation?page=full Back to your comments on Indonesia - good thing they thought I was from India! still, there is a huge difference between the Javanese and the other cultures - was your friend posted on Java? The anti-Chinese riots come at times of economic distress because they do control most economic activity. Javanese language has nine levels of formality and they never seem able to decide anything, hence the need for the overseas Chinese ("Lords of the Rim" by Sterling Seagrave was a good start on understanding the Chinese trader diaspora) Mt. Merapi erupted when I was there in 1997. This time it looks like it could be another Krakatoa, which would certainly give everyone in the world something to talk about for the next year. I find it difficult to be wary of any culture that has bathtubs big enough for the family to bathe together. I thought it was just in my 5-star hotel until one of my colleagues stopped by her VERY small flat and I saw she had the same long bathtub. She explained the Javanese bathing together - everyone was so petite that it made sense they could all fit in such a long tub. Ok, I do still find it yucky that, as my taxi on another day was travelling through an upper-middle-class neighborhood, there were street vendors with stacks of individual crates with look-alike puppies on every other corner. The taxi driver said they were for pets, but I knew that was just his Yankee storyline.
- K2K
November 12, 2010 at 7:42pm
The Weiss article looks interesting, K2K. I just downloaded it and will read it later. I need to ask her where my friend was in Indonesia. All I remember her saying is that it was in a Muslim area.
- jdyer
November 12, 2010 at 8:20pm
It does make one wonder why folks go for monotheistic religions in the first place (not just Islam). There seems to be a kind of human tendency, when the foreigner arrives on the beach or in the village and starts talking about one big, mean SOB who runs the show instead of lots of different characters who have to share power, to say, oh, ok, well that must be right, I guess!
- ironyroad
November 12, 2010 at 8:48pm
ironyroad "It does make one wonder why folks go for monotheistic religions in the first place (not just Islam)." Too often the foreigner comes with superior weapons and merchandise as well as fairy tales.
- jdyer
November 12, 2010 at 9:05pm
Just finished reading Michael Weiss' article and it seems historically accurate. I hope he is right that the settler movement has been "marginalized" within Israeli society since I find the idea of a one State solution completely unworkable for reasons stated in the article.
- jdyer
November 12, 2010 at 9:30pm
thanks jackson. all the more reason to wonder why Obama made Ramat Shlomo in March, and now Ramot and Har Homa such a big deal. Could be kabuki magic, for the public show. irony: a lot of Indonesians still combine animism with Islam. when you live on Mount Merapi, I guess it makes sense to leave an offering to the firegassmokelavagod, in between praying five times a day to Allah :) I have a fondness for the oaktreegods ever since I spent one day in 1998 digging small oak seedlings from an old rock garden in my back yard, and then stopped because I felt weird 'killing' so many tiny baby trees just because they were in the wrong place. The next day a 100-year old oak tree in the front yard fell on my house. I have planted two native white oaks at my current house, to honor all those dead. yes, am trying to focus on nature instead of whereisthecenterordoesitreallymatterpolitics, the bond market (it was a brutal WTF day for bonds), or moderatetoradicalislam, or the saintlywomanwhobelieveswithtruefaiththatgodwillmaketheBoardapproveherridiculouslylowpriceformyapt. cheers!
- K2K
November 12, 2010 at 10:05pm
Likewise, K2K! [it sounded like you were raising a glass, so I did the same]
- ironyroad
November 12, 2010 at 10:18pm
Basman: he, Marty, did atone for the harm he has caused as a result of his intemperate and borderline racist rants. I took him at his word then, for one ought to when a man claims to atone on the day of atonement ... and then this. I am not cynical at all - just have the measure of the man, I think. You're right about Bloom's approach - that is how I should have characterised it.
- icarusr
November 12, 2010 at 11:51pm
icarusr "I am not cynical at all - just have the measure of the man,..." He's got the wrong measure, but no sense in telling the bigoted UN apologist that.
- jdyer
November 13, 2010 at 12:37am
Maybe Obama should stick to Muslim outreach. from today's NYT: "...During a news conference on Friday afternoon in Seoul, Mr. Obama attributed the conflict to his administration’s efforts to even out global trade imbalances, by pressing other nations to accept numerical targets for limiting trade surpluses or deficits. ..." NUMERICAL TARGETS? Whose idea was that? Is this a joke? The War on Trade Surpluses of Other Countries Because America has None? now even I believe he is a statist who believes in central control of the economy in pursuit of academic theory divorced from reality.
- K2K
November 13, 2010 at 5:53am
"What would Jesus do?" At worst one might get a feet to the fire scolding. At best one might be forgiven for being a dolt and offered up a promise of heaven. "What would Muhammad do?" At worst you might get executed on the spot. At best you will have joined the executioners mission and become a subject of Islam. There is a tweener that might find one fortunate enough to live at the whim under certain conditions.
- jacko
November 13, 2010 at 7:20am
"Harish Muhammad, 18, a computer science major, said he had always believed that the United States was “anti-Islam” but that Mr. Obama had made him rethink his assumptions." One would have expected from a computer science major to have been a little more sceptical about such beliefs and check them out for himself. It can't have been such a strongly-sustained belief in the first place if all it took was one Obama speech to knock it off. So one wonders what kind of "belief" it was, how it got there, what exactly Obama said that his predecessor hadn't, that was so detrimental to the ongoing validity of that belief. And more importantly, how long will this re-thought new belief is going to persist and what it will take to keep it this way. Obama's honeyed words to the Israelis and American Jews certainly had their desired effect, until he began to single Israel out for public floggings. But maybe Indonesia is in a better place. because Indonesians can always separate their darling Obama from the United States: It's not him, it's them.
- noga1
November 13, 2010 at 11:50am
But why give more weight to 18-year old Harish Muhammad than to Din Syamsuddin who had the opposite reaction? Bearing in mind, also, that Indonesia has a population of 238 million people and a range of opinion might be expected.
- ironyroad
November 13, 2010 at 12:46pm
Obama is to be commended for his stance on trade and monetary issues: "President Barack Obama attacked China’s policy of undervaluing its currency minutes after he and other Group of 20 leaders ended a summit that failed to agree on a remedy for trade and investment distortions. “It is undervalued,” Obama said of the yuan, speaking to reporters in Seoul after the meeting concluded. “And China spends enormous amounts of money intervening in the market to keep it undervalued.” The G-20 leaders agreed to develop early warning indicators to head off economic turmoil as emergency talks on Ireland’s debt reminded them the recovery from the global financial crisis remains fragile. Obama and his South Korean counterpart, Lee Myung Bak, failed to complete a free-trade agreement. The two-day gathering was marked by clashes over whether Chinese or U.S. policies were more to blame for economic imbalances that endanger the global recovery. China took aim at the Federal Reserve’s monetary easing, highlighting dangers it said the move posed to financial stability and rejecting policy prescriptions that fault its exchange-rate regime." http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-12/obama-sharpens-yuan-criticism-after-g-20-nations-let-china-off-the-hook.html
- jdyer
November 13, 2010 at 1:28pm
I'm not sure I understand which of my arguments offended ironyroad's sense of balance: my scepticism about the consideration given to the computer engineering hopeful's words or "it's not him. it's them"? Earlier on ironyroad expressed his satisfaction that it is sufficient that attempts to mollify the Islamic world are made: "he fact that there are these ostensibly dissatisfied voices in Indonesia (or as Tom Waits does it in that song ". . . in In-do-NEEEZSH-a") says to me that Obama's message was and is getting through: that the U.S. wants to reconfigure its relationship to the Muslim world, but that it can't be a one-way street. Muslim conspiracy fantasies of America, 9-11 etc will have to give way to reality. If that doesn't happen, we'll still have done our best." But I ask ironyroad to explain to me why Obama is trying to purchase Muslim goodwill by using Israel-bashing as his most popular currency? What were 1000 housing units in Jerusalem doing in Jakarta, where Israelis are not even allowed to visit? Imagine, ironyroad, that you are trying to curry favour with one of the posters here and your means of doing that is by addressing him lovingly, pointing out how many shared interests and hobbies you have with him (so far so good), and then, in a separate paragraph, you express your sympathy for his loathing of Noga. Would you consider that a gentlemanly (as in, decent) conduct? Especially as you purport to have a friendly and cordial relationship with aforementioned noga? Is there an explanation that can actually cleanse that craven resorts to medieval whipping boy tactics?
- noga1
November 13, 2010 at 1:55pm
Noga, it seemed to be somewhat of a repetition of Marty's habit in the column (and others) of picking a single sound-bite and assigning great significance to it, almost as if an Indonesian blogger were to select a quote from e.g. John Podesta, David Brooks, and some random student at Georgetown U, and then evaluate the full meaning of Indonesia's relationship to the U.S. from that slim basis of evidence. Indeed, I think Marty often then misunderstands the actual significance of the quotes he cherry-picks, in his rush to find something to sneer at. My sense of the remarks is that Obama has made it clear he wants a new relationship between the U.S. and Muslim nations, but that this doesn't mean that we have no crucial national interests that we are going to defend nor does it mean that it's a one-way street. Muslim conspiracy theories about America have no place in a new relationship. Hence the somewhat confused responses which show people still working it out. I support Obama's efforts in this (and it's certainly not "currying favor" -- note his strong response to the news from Burma this morning). With regard to your other point, I think the administration has made its position fairly clear over time on the Jerusalem housing construction (whether rightly or wrongly) and it doesn't change anything to repeat it. It's also a useful way of indicating that we're not just embracing the Israeli position on everything, without the actual issue being terribly important in and of itself. Finally, I think China was the big shadow on the wall for this trip, not Indonesia itself, or the Middle East.
- ironyroad
November 13, 2010 at 3:19pm
" My sense of the remarks is that Obama has made it clear he wants a new relationship between the U.S. and Muslim nations, but that this doesn't mean that we have no crucial national interests that we are going to defend nor does it mean that it's a one-way street. Muslim conspiracy theories about America have no place in a new relationship." What about Muslim antisemitic theorizing. Do they have place? If not, why doesn't Obama speak out against Muslim sponsored antisemitism at the UN and elsewhere in their media?
- jdyer
November 13, 2010 at 3:26pm
ironyroad: You are not really responding to my main beef. I suppose you wish to inform me with your "big picture" that there are bigger issues at stake, like Obama's much vaunted rapprochement with the Islamic world which is an American interest, in which he has to make it clear that he takes the same view as the Islamic world on settlements (or whatever). Fine. But then, what about the second half of your contention? namely, "doesn't mean that we have no crucial national interests that we are going to defend nor does it mean that it's a one-way street. Muslim conspiracy theories about America have no place in a new relationship."? As jackson said, why isn't he speaking out against the unbelievably nazi-style antisemitism against Israel that flows from the Islamic world? Maybe that is not included in America's "crucial national interests"? In your ignoring the gist of my criticism you are signaling to me that you approve of such silence. I'll refer you back to my hypothetical analogy: In your attempt to befriend this poster here who loathes noga, you are willing to confirm to him that you agree with the motivation for his loathing and you keep silent about noga's demonization by that hypothetical poster. Obama is free to follow in this single minded way his own interests no doubt just don't expect people not to notice that Obama is indulging a world from which Jew-hatred bears all the marks of eliminationist aspirations. Why do you think these guys love him? http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/why_hamas_bam_yqozHuWdPRiNHdi4aY365L Aren't you bothered by it?
- noga1
November 13, 2010 at 5:53pm
BTW, it seems to me ironyroad that we have a problem of communication: you want to talk about Peretz and have fun (icarus-style) showing how he tediously pursues Obama's ethical mistakes with hawklike concentration. I couldn't care less about it. I agree with his anxiety over the price that Obama is willing to pay with Israel's crucial interests currency. And I salute Marty's unflinching resolve to highlight these shortcomings. There is something very vulgar about criticizing a country like Israel, the only Jewish state in the world, in a capital of a Muslim country that does not allow Israelis to enter, by denigrating Jewish settlements in Jerusalem.
- noga1
November 13, 2010 at 6:08pm
He wasn't criticizing Israel, he was criticizing an element of Israeli government policy.
- ironyroad
November 13, 2010 at 7:02pm
OK. So why didn't he criticize an element of Palestinian Authority policy, such as this practice? http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=3582
- noga1
November 13, 2010 at 7:32pm
Incidentally, I meant to say earlier that I can't understand why Peretz titled his piece: "Peretz: Obama Flees the Post-Election Chaos for Indonesia". It doesn't compute on several levels. First, Obama couldn't have organized his mission in a couple of days after the midterm elections. You don't get 300 people among whom are busy CEO's, senior journalists and other financial experts to "flee" with you within a two day notice. The security arrangements alone would have taken weeks, if not months, to get together in advance. Secondly, Obama's first stop was India, not Indonesia. When you "flee" a place to another place you take the shortest cut possible to get there. Thirdly, "fleeing' suggests a hasty response to an unexpected surprise. Obama was not surprised by the results, only the extent of the damage. So "flight" is not even a hyperbole for what he did; it's plainly a distortion. It's false and it smacks of schadenfreudish sentiment. You see, Marty, this is the sort of shenanigans that makes it hard to defend you at times, no matter how sympathetic one is to your position.
- noga1
November 13, 2010 at 8:06pm
irony: " It's also a useful way of indicating that we're not just embracing the Israeli position on everything, without the actual issue being terribly important in and of itself." If you truly believe building apartments for Jews in JERUSALEM is NOT an IMPORTANT, BASIC, CORE issue for Israelis, well, invoking Mrs. Lanahan from the "West Wing": "then Jed [irony], I don't even want to know you." repeating what noga wrote: "There is something very vulgar about criticizing a country like Israel, the only Jewish state in the world, in a capital of a Muslim country that does not allow Israelis to enter, by denigrating Jewish settlements in Jerusalem." My letter to my congressman was far more scathing. The new begging being reported tonight from the Obami for a ninety-day construction freeze does NOT include Jerusalem, east of the Green Line. Yeah, Peretz should get an award for worst hyperbole in blogpost titles although it seems to be a TNR trademark. I wonder if the Dem losses would have been reduced had Obama been overseas BEFORE the election, instead of all those partisan campaign stops. Does he get his paycheck when he is campaigning? Bad enough we have to pay for all the security to hear him be Attack Dog in Chief.
- K2K
November 14, 2010 at 12:23am
K2K, I don't want you to not know me, but -- forgive my bluntness on this -- isn't it one of the central ideas for a peace deal that East Jerusalem will be the capital of a Palestinian state? And to be honest, if an IMPORTANT BASIC CORE issue involves embarassing the U.S. vice-president when he's on an official trip to Israel, then perhaps someone should be re-thinking basic issues.
- ironyroad
November 14, 2010 at 1:29am
"isn't it one of the central ideas for a peace deal that East Jerusalem will be the capital of a Palestinian state?" What peace deal? The one the Palestinians rejected, twice? "And to be honest, if an IMPORTANT BASIC CORE issue involves embarassing the U.S. vice-president when he's on an official trip to Israel, then perhaps someone should be re-thinking basic issues." Looks to me like ironyroad has run out of pertinent arguments to make.
- noga1
November 14, 2010 at 8:41am
"If you truly believe building apartments for Jews in JERUSALEM is NOT an IMPORTANT, BASIC, CORE issue for Israelis, " Really, k2k, where is your sense of proportionality and return of dividends? The feelings of 6 million Israeli Jews are hurt. Big deal. Compare that with the mollified feelings of 202.9 million Indonesian Muslims (and possibly the attendant grace emanating from 1.2 billion other Muslims) and you will realize that the numbers speak for themselves. It's ethical utilitarianism - the aggregate good of the many outweighs the good of the few, favoring the majority over the minority, even if doing so seems to contradict basic ethical principles. What bothers me, though, is this attempt to reverse the roles in this dialectic, by manufacturing blame upon the few in order to justify siding with the many. Since right cannot be done, then right becomes wrong.
- noga1
November 14, 2010 at 9:18am
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/american-narcissus_516686.html?nopager=1 "American Narcissus: The vanity of Barack Obama" Nov 13, 2010, Vol. 16, No. 10 • By JONATHAN V. LAST must be a virus of "The World Revolves Around Obama And His Acolytes" to think a sovereign nation must change domestic policy to avoid "embarassing the U.S. vice-president when he's on an official trip". noga: I think the 'feelings' of two billion Christians also impact Jerusalem. They like being able to visit without being stoned by angry Muslims. Not that the Obami notice how many Christians make pilgrimage to THEIR holy sites in Jerusalem and the West Bank. Only the Palestinians and their devotees think they have a right to a capital in a part of Jerusalem that is east of the Green Line. Looks like all the functions of government are in Ramallah. really nauseating to keep seeing this photo of Obama with chin in the air. does the man have no other posture?
- K2K
November 14, 2010 at 9:43am
"really nauseating to keep seeing this photo of Obama with chin in the air. does the man have no other posture?" And I'm supposed to be the one who has run out of pertinent arguments . . .
- ironyroad
November 14, 2010 at 1:52pm
Every time I read about Obama's supposed vanity or arrogance, I hear, " uppity nigger". And now we have someone nauseated by the picture of a bemused president squinting as he is looking at something his host is describing. This is what we are going to read next:
- icarusr
November 14, 2010 at 2:46pm
Er . . . yes . . . but moving right along, I forgot to mention that I read the NY Post piece on Hamas. Apart from the sense of a generalized smear piece that doesn't take a geiger counter to discover, the article is puzzling. If something appears in Gaza like the Obama illustration, then imo it emanates presumably from a Hamas propaganda outfit of some kind, and therefore should be regarded as some kind of tactical gesture (look, we're not anti-American!) rather than as having any independent content. No doubt it suits the Hamas leadership to make people believe that their campaign is bearing fruit. However, as the American desire for a ME peace agreement involves security for Israel as much as the establishment of a viable Palestinian nation, it's difficult to see anything except a propaganda fantasy here. The article's use of guilt-by-association is strikingly inept, in fact.
- ironyroad
November 14, 2010 at 3:34pm
"Every time I read about Obama's supposed vanity or arrogance, I hear, " uppity nigger"." Hmm. And when you read people refer to YOUR vanity and arrogance, icarusr, what do you hear?
- noga1
November 14, 2010 at 4:01pm
"The article's use of guilt-by-association is strikingly inept," Maybe it's inept because it is not a "guilt by association" argument. It's an alerting to the fact that Obama's public denunciations of Israel are understood by Palestinians in a very different way to what is intended. It's particularly puzzling since Obama has already been through that play and should have learned to curb his need to use Israel as his favourite whipping boy on the way to buying the hearts and minds of the Muslim world. I remember that my criticism of Tony Judt was interpreted as "guilt by association" when I pointed out that his writings about Jews and Israel are quoted approvingly by David Duke. As if there is no conceivable reason to find fault with his ideas, therefore it is natural that I would resort to maligning him through "guilt by association". Obama does not need any help from associates to provoke strong criticism about his chosen conduct. And there is every reason to highlight what consequences his public proclamations are yielding. ironyroad, your comment is not different from icarusr. For him, any attempt to characterize your president as arrogant and vain is a racist attack. For you, any attempt to criticize your president's words as being too well received by terrorists who have no interest whatsoever in the peace he tries to choreograph is a logical fallacy. BTW, ironyroad, just so as we are clear about it. Next time to refer to me as "her nibs" I will hear you say: That fucking uppity Jewess.
- noga1
November 14, 2010 at 4:28pm
icarusr “Every time I read about Obama's supposed vanity or arrogance, I hear, " uppity nigger". Every time I read the Iranian Icarus ineptly attacking the pro Israel Peretz I think Muslim bigot.
- jdyer
November 14, 2010 at 4:33pm
As a general rule, being thick-skinned in the face of criticism is a useful character trait for anyone in politics. One wonders why Obama chose this career path since he is so sensitive. I believe the two year warranty on claiming "racism" on the part of ANY criticism of Obama is about to expire on January 20, 2011. Otherwise, no one will ever want another minority of any kind in the Oval Office. So much easier to criticize white Protestant males.
- K2K
November 14, 2010 at 4:41pm
noga: I believe the correct stereotype is "f$$$ing stiffnecked smarty-pants Jewess who controls the world whilst counting her piles of gold stolen from everyone else" :) It appears the Obami have finally gotten the message, and the map, about Jerusalem: "...A new freeze would also be critically facilitated by Washington’s specific caveat that it not extend to construction in Jewish neighborhoods of east Jerusalem, the unnecessary focus of such much US-Israel friction these past few months. ...True, Netanyahu got nowhere adhering to the previous, unprecedented 10-month freeze, while placing immense strain on his right-wing coalition. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was self-evidently content to squander the first nine of those 10 months, while the US bickered with Israel over the government’s refusal to extend the freeze to consensus neighborhoods like Ramat Shlomo. ..." from the just posted editorial "Over to you, Mr. Abbas" By JPOST EDITORIAL 11/14/2010 22:33 URL at the break: http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Editorials/Article.aspx?id=195315
- K2K
November 14, 2010 at 4:51pm
"One wonders why Obama chose this career path since he is so sensitive. " I don't know that he is so sensitive. But his admirers certainly are.
- noga1
November 14, 2010 at 5:10pm
Hm. I haven't used that term in some time. However, "her nibs" is a bit less highly-charged than I think you imagine -- it's usually inhabited by a hybrid of exasperation and affection. It could be stronger, but rarely is. If it's a more negative surge of feeling, it would probably be "that smug know-it-all Noga." Generally without the f-word, unless I had been personally insulted or something like that. Or maybe more like: "I don't fucking believe it! She's gone and picked two words out of my six-paragraph post and completely ignored my main argument!" Incidentally, in contrast to domestic politics, I don't think the racial thing is really relevant in connection to the Middle East, except perhaps that people assume things about Obama that have little to no basis.
- ironyroad
November 14, 2010 at 5:14pm
"However, "her nibs" is a bit less highly-charged than I think you imagine" Thank you for the English lesson. Noga meekly accepts that she is a feeble-minded ignorant thing and is always happy to be improved by her betters. However, the same logic holds for K2K's description of Obama's favourite posture as vain and arrogant. Except that no affection was intended there but then, so what? Is it absolutely mandatory to have affection for Obama? "He with the ice in his veins" as Larry David described him, does not exactly exude amiability. Bill Clinton did, just to serve as a sort of criterion.
- noga1
November 14, 2010 at 5:44pm
Q.28 Is the phrase "Noga meekly" (a) a palindrome (b) a tautology, or (c) a perverse yoking together of terms which are each other's polar opposite? No of course it's not mandatory to have affection for Obama, and indeed amiability is one of the things he doesn't exactly exude. But are affection and amiability the only things in politics worth having? Several major figures seem to survive, or have survived, without them.
- ironyroad
November 14, 2010 at 6:07pm
I do not think Obama is vain or arrogant. He does seem to hold his chin up in the air. I believe Jon Stewart even poked fun at that pose. Upon reflection of THIS photo, I think Obama was either 1) enjoying the sun on his face although I thought there was volcanic ash clouds, or 2) thinking of how tall he is compared to everyone in Indonesia. Just because I post a link to an article that uses his own words to prove he is a narcissist does not mean I am endorsing the concept, although it is persuasive because he does use "I" A LOT. My criticisms tend to be about Obama's absence of leadership, and his obsession with apartments in Jerusalem, and absence of anyone with private non-financial industry experience in his inner circle. Not that I can remember a president who had strong leadership qualities since JFK. And he does join a long list of Democrats who talk down to the people, something Bill Clinton did NOT do. There is no one leading the Democratic Party, and maybe too many trying to lead the Republican Party. just have to wait for the bi-partisan dinner reviews...and whether Obama and Boehner start playing golf somewhere that still allows smoking cigarettes :)
- K2K
November 14, 2010 at 6:53pm
As sidebar to the conversation, here is a pertinent article by Stephen Pinker on the proper place of "fu**ing" in our language: http://www.newlinetheatre.com/tnr-curse.html (I believe this was the first time I took a second, interested, look at The New Republic as a possible source of regular reading for me. The next was Berman's article about Tariq Ramadan.)
- noga1
November 15, 2010 at 7:01am
That's a good piece of writing!
- ironyroad
November 15, 2010 at 1:28pm
You have to admit that it takes an extraordinary degree of obtuseness for Obama to hold up Indonesia as a model of Muslim pluralism when it excludes Judaism from its officially approved religions and forbids Israelis to enter the country. It would almost be funny if it weren't so pathetic. Meanwhile, Pinker's construction, "the gynecological-flagellative term for uxorial dominance", was surely worth the price of admission. Lastly, I'm wondering if the Turks have a smashing box office success with Valley of the Wolves: Part 2 whether they can get James Cameron to do a 3-D version of the final installment...
- willjames77
November 15, 2010 at 6:18pm
Will, I'm not sure TNR readers are quite up to snuff with the latest imaginative creations that emanate from the Muslim world. "Valley of the wolves: Palestine" http://pajamasmedia.com/michaeltotten/2010/11/11/blood-libel-the-sequel/ And this is the latest from the Palestinian Authority official media. Having exhausted the valuable caricature resource known as Der Sturmer, they have now gone further back in time to explore the torture methods in archives of the Spanish Inquisition: http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=3488 I wonder why Israel does not come out with a definite condition: no negotiations until Palestinians stop this incitement.
- noga1
November 15, 2010 at 7:28pm
once again: http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=3488 I wonder why the Israeli government does not making its continued interest in the peace process conditional upon cessation of this kind of Nazi-style incitement.
- noga1
November 15, 2010 at 7:31pm
I asked Itamar Marcus this very question. For reasons about which one can only speculate, he said that there are political constraints on the government in fully publicizing the utter vileness and viciousness of the PA's propaganda. One must assume that if the PA were suddenly revealed as a zealous promoter of genocide, the fiction of moderation would have to be discarded. Then, who would be left as a viable peace partner for Obama to work with? How would he be able to bring peace to the Middle East? Fortunately the NGOs are not under these same constraints. And I think we all need to help folks like Palestinian Media Watch get the truth out.
- willjames77
November 16, 2010 at 12:23pm