The New Republic

Marty you should stop posting on Hillary. If you are going to claim that Hillary isn't sensible nor honest you need to back up the claim. I assumed that she did something stupid on the campaign trail and you were going to blog about it. Furthermore you should get an editor. "Democratic democracy" is a horrible construction.

- bsdespain

February 3, 2008 at 5:49pm

Actually, "Democratic democracy" is a pretty good description of the process and the people who got the party to the point of choosing between the 2 candidates who have the least likely chances of winning in November.

- LISAH

February 3, 2008 at 6:59pm

Bear with me while I repeat my comments on Peretz's badly reasoned editorial on Obama and Israel:

I write this here because Talking Back to the online essays is a virtual dead end. If this promotes any discussion well and good. I not, no big megillah. If another entry in this blog makes it more apposite than here, maybe I'll paste it there. But your editorial on why Obama is good for Israel--which well he may be--is so shoddily reasoned that I felt the urge to try to expose that shoddiness and explode the faux certainty of its tone.

Three questions

1.  “‘I'm confident,’ Obama said, ‘that Israel is ready and willing to make some of these concessions if they have the confidence that the Palestinians can enforce an agreement.’ This is exactly right. And it is a sign that President Obama would not pressure only one side (Israel) because the other side (the Palestinians) are immune to American pressure. On his way out the door in 2000, President Clinton actually had a map color-coding the old city of Jerusalem: Israeli sovereignty on this street, Palestinian sovereignty in that, like the delerious maps drawn in London and Paris back in the early 20th century that burden the Middle East and Africa to this day. Clinton coerced Ehud Barak, then prime minister of Israel, to accept his map and make other concessions. He got nothing out of the Palestinians. Yet even the most moderate Palestinians now assume that future discussions will start where Clinton left off. It is good to know that Obama understands why that won't work.”

Me: How poorly reasoned your comments are here! Do you really think that Hillary Clinton does not think that Israel will make concessions if they are confident that the Palestinians can enforce an agreement? Do you really think that any reasonable analyst of the Middle East does not think so? The first answer is so general and so safe a comment as to be nothing more than a bromide that you fill with content solely to rationalize your own political preferences. The fault here, by the way, lies with you and not with Obama. So the bromide is “exactly right”: so what? The give away is that in your words “it is a sign…”etc. In other words you without basis speculate on what can be inferred from the bromide without being able to cite specific evidence to support your assertion that Obama would not “pressure only one side…” Again that may be so. But the issue is not Obama on Israel, but, rather, your weak reasoning. Same criticism on your glib implicit assertion that Obama would not Bill Clintonize Jerusalem: how do you get from the bromide to that conclusion? It may be the case, but not from any case you have here made.

2. “The second question is whether any agreement negotiated with Palestinian leaders can be enforced on the Palestinian people. Most Israelis are ready to make a deal and abide by it. There is no such disposition among Palestinians. Hamas, the party that won the most recent Palestinian elections and that already rules in Gaza, explicitly rejects any deal with Israel. So what do you do? Obama's answer, and the right one: You deal with the official Palestinian leadership, which is willing to deal, but you pressure them to take action on other fronts that will bring the people back from Hamas. We ‘have to make sure that Abbas and Fayad and those that are controlling the West Bank still actually start delivering something tangible that is benefiting the lives of Palestinians in the West Bank, that they are ridding [their party] Fatah of the corruption that has been endemic and are put in a stronger position politically so Hamas is not dictating the terms of Palestinian negotiations but the moderates in the Palestinian camp are dictating what the Palestinian people are willing to go along with.’”

Me: This is somewhat—but not much— better argued than your comments on the first question. And I take your representation that Obama said what you say he said at face value (though it might have been nice to have the source for the quote cited.) But your case is still a poor one. Your first problem, common to your comments on the first question, is that your argument is that Obama is the only candidate speaking this way on this issue. That is patent nonsense. Show me where Hillary Clinton has said that Israel will need to make a deal that is mindless of popular support. Show me where she has said that the Palestinian leadership need not dislodge Hamas, need not deliver on political realities that may facilitate that dislodging. Your second problem here is legislative reality. Where was Obama on the Sense of the Senate declaration of the Revolutionary Guard as terrorist organization? What’s that you say, “He wasn’t there that day to cast a vote?” And who was the only Democratic candidate to assent to that proposition as a matter of public record? What’s that you say, “Hillary”?  And who left standing in the nomination race for the Democrats was loud and clear in his denunciation of the Senator from New York’s ballsy vote, but who himself ducked the vote? What’s that you say, “Obama”?

3.  “Third, is this an opportunity to watch democracy flower in the Middle East as George W. Bush has dreamed? Well maybe, in a thousand years or so. Meanwhile, Obama grasps that any accord will require strong leadership and even some "dictating" from the moderates. This is not callous. It is realistic. But only if the Palestinian leadership realizes that "now is the time for them to step out of the ideological blind alley that they've been in for so long." The Israelis have stepped out of their own blind alley of small settlements and lonely outposts planted in densely populated Palestinian areas. Everyone knows how very much actual land Israel will give up so that Palestine can be Palestine. No one yet knows whether the Palestinians are ready to let Israel be Israel.”

Me: You have got to agree by now that you are failing this assignment. You have here left your thesis behind. You make no effort to show Obama’s sole voice on this question. And the question itself is so poorly framed and imprecise. You are asking, as if it were somthing that really divides Obama and Hillary, in effect: who rejects the neo-conservative principle of imposing democracy now in the Middle East as a guiding condition of specific and practical policies there. Is there any question but that every candidate who was on the original Democratic campaign stage—including Mike Gravel—rejected this notion? So what, in your loaded language, does Obama “grasp” that no of the others, or now just Hillary does not “grasp”? What’s that you say, “Nohing”? What, to remind you of your own argument, vouches for Obama’s exclusivity on the notion that the Palestinian leadership must realize that "now is the time for them to step out of the ideological blind alley that they've been in for so long." What’s that you say, “Nothing”?

Even polemics have to be held to the standards of well made, persuasive, accurate and logical argument.

By these criteria your piece is an example of terrible polemics. I like Obama a lot and have grown to like him more as time has gone by over the last year or so. I prefer Hillary still and one reason is foreign policy considerations. I am open-minded about my thinking on these things and am open to being persuaded by a better argument. But your paper thin offering here, poorly disguised as argument and analysis, cannot withstand even a modicum of scrutiny and does Obama no service.

- basman

February 3, 2008 at 7:59pm

"Of course, if she wins the nomination, and John McCain has the Republican designation, many Democrats will defect."

Is this a hint as to your leanings in such a matchup? Please say not.

- rozenson

February 3, 2008 at 10:38pm

Bas:  

1.  You can go to Obama's website to see his stance on Israel.

2.  "your argument is that Obama is the only candidate speaking this way on this issue. That is patent nonsense. Show me where Hillary Clinton has said that Israel will need to make a deal that is mindless of popular support. Show me where she has said that the Palestinian leadership need not dislodge Hamas, need not deliver on political realities that may facilitate that dislodging." But that's not the point.  Marty is trying to reassure Jews who fear a Black Man that Obama would in fact be supportive of Israel.  People like, say, my elderly parents who spend the winter--and election day--in Florida.

3.  Same as above.  Marty's is not making the argument you set forth.  Again, Mr. Super Jew (Marty) is pointing out Obama's reassurances to those who might waver--like my parents--on voting for a Black Man.  And if you think these people don't need reassuring, then you haven't seen the hateful e-mails these older people have been getting.  My dad forwarded one to me--in response to my support for Obama.  You see, the old man really thought that crap was true.  Dad's note to me:  "How do you like them apples?"  

- MOLLYSIMON

February 3, 2008 at 11:06pm

Molly I offer you this in support of my view that Peretz's argument is what I said it is. It is taken from  his first paragraph:

"He raised three questions and answered them in a way that no other Democratic aspirant for the nomination has done."

- basman

February 4, 2008 at 9:56am

Yes, you're right.  I can't read Marty's mind, but I still read this as an endorsement of Obama's policy.  He's trying to reassure because, like I said, there are a lot of confused old Jews living in Florida.

- MOLLYSIMON

February 4, 2008 at 12:13pm

I don't know about sensible, but she ain't honest. Just last night she said there have been 6 contests and she has won 4, never mind the fact that 2, Florida and Michigan, were ostensibly being boycotted by the Presidential candidates, a pledge Hillary signed in NH, so in which case you have a contest, no one shows up, and she declares victory? That is dishonest, and more, it is shameless.

- blackton

February 4, 2008 at 2:39pm

That's our girl!!  Oh, sorry, woman!

- butchie b

February 5, 2008 at 1:34pm