Here is what happens when the Right Wing gets
desperate. As we see from the train wreck that is the Romney/Ryan
campaign, when the situation gets tough, all Republicans can seem to do
is both lie in the extreme, and turn on each other through casting blame
every which way for their own failures. In the case of the Lunatic
Fringe Rightist element of the American Jewish Polity,
the failure of their effort to turn Jewish voters
has lead to the fringe freaking out completely and doing both - lying
AND blaming their own community for the fact that we simply aren't
stupid enough or crazy enough to vote for Mitt Romney.
In a piece at the
Times of Israel
Hard Core Right Wing Activist Mike Lumish (formerly a Kossak) goes over
the edge combining a series of lies and simple ignorance to guide his
arguments. Arguments he then turns back on the Jewish community to show
in some way that he far more the "Good Jew" than they are.
Lumish names gives five categories where he thinks that Liberal /
Progressive Jews have "betrayed" their own kind. Now all five topics are
chock full of hyperbole, exaggerations, paranoid ravings and of course,
outright lies. More than that they are plainly based on ignorance and a
complete lack of any coherent analysis of political problem solving.
The first one of these categories that Lumish cites states that Jews
who support President Obama, ignore "inconvenient truths". And what pray
tell are these "inconvenient truths"... Well let's just let Lumish
speak for himself:
Obama wrecked whatever potential there may have been in the
peace process and then blamed the Israelis for his own failure. He
ushered the Muslim Brotherhood into power in Egypt and then said, in
effect, “Oh, well. Egypt is no longer an ally. Not an enemy, really, but
not an ally.” Obama is perfectly fine with the idea of a Judenrein
state of Palestine and feels that he has the right to tell Jewish people
where we may, or may not, be allowed to live, and thus build, in both
Jerusalem and Judea.
NOW... let's see how many lies one person can fit into a single paragraph. I count five lies.
Lie # 1 and # 2 - Obama wrecked whatever potential there may have been in the Peace Process and then blamed the Israelis.
No... the Peace Process fell apart because both sides were not
particularly serious about making it work. During this time the
Americans got the Israelis to agree to a 10 month moratorium on all
building in the West Bank, something that the Israelis agreed too and
enacted to a degree.
BUT, for the Israelis, they were determined to continue building and
adding on to settlements in Jerusalem in a move to consolidate their
position in a City that has been annexed (though this annexation has
never been recognized by anyone in the International community including
the U.S.). Even though, the Palestinians see Eastern Jerusalem as their
capital and take any continued settlement process in and around the
borders of the City as defining terms and boundaries (which the Israelis
will not declare), the Israeli government felt it necessary to continue
their consolidation of this territory. Why, they could not stop
building during this time is baffling to me.
The Palestinians for their part felt that the continued building in
Jerusalem was a "slap in the face" (so to speak) and showed that the
Israeli building process was meant to grab more territory and "create
facts on the ground". With that presentation by the Palestinian
leadership and community, continuing talks while construction was going
on was seen as fruitless and humiliating. However, the Palestinians
jumped into negotiations nine months into the process rather than
starting out right away. Had they truly been serious here they would
have started on day one.
So in my opinion both sides screwed this up. BUT... to say that
Barack Obama did this is nonsense. This process was going nowhere before
the President got involved. By requesting a settlement moratorium the
President was articulating a position held by Palestinian President
Abbas. Here:
On July 12, 2009, Mahmoud Abbas told Egyptian media that he
would not cede any part of the West Bank to Israel, that he would demand
territorial contiguity between the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and that
he would never waive the Palestinian right of return. In a letter to
U.S. President Barack Obama, Abbas demanded that any peace deal be based
strictly on the 1967 borders and the Arab Peace Initiative. Palestinian
negotiator Saeb Erekat rejected any "middle ground solutions", saying
that the Palestinians would reject any deal between the U.S. and Israel
that would allow any construction to continue in Israeli
settlements.[14]
On 23 August 2009, Netanyahu announced in his weekly cabinet meeting
that negotiations with the Palestinians will begin in September 2009 and
will be officially launched on his visit to New York, after he had
accepted an invitation from President Barack Obama for a "Triple Summit"
there.[15] He added that there is progress with special envoy George
Mitchell, though there is no full agreement on everything,[16] and there
will be more rounds of meetings until September.[17] On the
same day, a spokesman for PA President Mahmoud Abbas said there would be
no negotiations so long as Israel continued West Bank settlement
construction.[18]
On 20 September 2009, the White House announced that it will host a
three-way meeting between President Obama, Prime Minister Netanyahu and
PA President Mahmoud Abbas, within the framework of the United Nations
General Assembly, "in an effort to lay the groundwork for renewed
negotiations on Mideast peace."[19][20] The meeting took place on 22
September, in New York. Afterwards, Netanyahu said that he agreed with
Abbas during the meeting that peace talks should be relaunched as soon
as possible.[21]
A further reading of the timeline shows that BOTH sides were unwilling
to compromise on major points (Israelis on building in J'slem and
Palestinians on recognizing Israel as a Jewish State). It was NOT
President Obama that torpedoed these talks.
As for Blame nowhere did he solely blame the Israelis. That is simply
made up. He was disappointed that the Israelis would not stop building
in the negotiation phase. That is reasonable. In the end the President
blamed himself and both sides for "not really wanting it". That is a far
more accurate assessment.
The WaPo has an interesting piece on what really happened. SO...what we have here are two lies in one sentence and BOTH are based on ignorance.
Follow me under the squiggle for lies 3, 4 and 5.....
Lie # 3: President Obama "ushered" the Muslim Brotherhood into power and then waffled.
This is sheer nonsense. Of course, in other places Lumish has gone on
and on about how the President supported the M.B. from the beginning
and wants Iran to have nuclear weapons, so really how seriously can we
take this clown?
The truth of the matter is that the President stayed neutral in the
transition of the Egyptian people from dictatorship under Hosni Mubarak
to a democratically elected Brotherhood government. The President acted
appropriately but certainly took no partisan stand one way or the other
regarding the Egyptian transition. To think that had the U.S. supported
Mubarak (as Lumish and others have said we should) that there would have
been no change shows a distinct lack of understanding of Egyptian
politics, and really a distinct lack of knowledge regarding the region
in general.
The President was very clear about it's priorities in this. He wanted
a transition to Democracy with a government that would act in concert
with our interests in the region. He wanted the Peace Treaty with Israel
upheld, he wanted an Egypt that would stand with the U.S. against
Iranian hegemonistic aspirations. When he saw that this might not happen
the President spoke against the Brotherhoods plans. There was no
"waffling" the President supported the rise of democracy in a country
that has never really known democracy. He then dealt with it
accordingly, and in a reasonable manner.
Lies # 4 the President is perfectly fine with a "Judenrein" (Jewish Free) State in Palestine.
This is what happens when you A. Learn politics and history from the
Michelle Bachmann school of Foreign Policy AND B. Simply pull stuff out
of your ass to try to make a point.
The President diplomatically follows traditional American policy
which does not see the Occupied West Bank as part of Israel. The
President has never said that "Jews cannot live in the West Bank". Not
once. What he has done is stated that Israelis should not settle on land
that is not internationally (or recognized by Israel itself) as its
own. Israel has not annexed the West Bank. BUT yet it sends people in
who are Israeli citizens to live there.
Now it is true that the Palestinian Government does NOT want any Jews
living there. Selling property to a Jewish person (not Israeli - the
law says Jewish) is punishable by death (though this has not been
carried out). And it is true that PLO Representative Ariekat had this to
say:
"Answering questions on minority rights in a future state,
Areikat was quoted by USA Today as saying on the possibility of a Jewish
minority: "After the experience of the last 44 years of military
occupation and all the conflict and friction, I think it would be in the
best interest of the two people to be separated."
However, the White House never supported that (Lumish is simply lying here) and accordingly quoting the
Obama Administrations official position:
The Obama administration has repeatedly condemned instances
of Palestinian incitement against Jews and Israel: “We have repeatedly
raised with the Palestinian Authority leadership the need to
consistently combat all forms of de-legitimization of Israel, including
denying historic Jewish connections to the land.”18
Finally we have Lie # 5: President Obama feels that he has the right to
tell Jewish people where we may, or may not, be allowed to live, and
thus build, in both Jerusalem and Judea.
NO... The President is simply echoing U.S. policy since 1967 which
states that the territories taken in the 1967 War are NOT Israel's
territory and are currently under Occupation. As mentioned previously,
even the Israelis won't officially claim that the Occupied Territories
are Israeli National territory. Therefore the President does not support
the building and expansion of Israeli settlements on land that is not
officially their land. He is not telling Jews where they may or may not
live, he is telling Israelis that they should not build anywhere outside
of their declared and recognized borders. How that gets translated to
telling Jews where they can and can't live is simply mind-boggling (and
false).
But even funnier (using Lumish' twisted logic) you know who else says
that "Jews can't live wherever they want"?? The Israeli government
itself by declaring most of the West Bank off limits to Jewish / Israeli
settlement.
So in the end YES most Progressive, Liberal and Moderate Jews ignore
Lumish' "Obvious Truths" because simply put they are neither obvious nor
true. AND rather than focus on the candidate that he supports, rather
than showing what he thinks Mitt Romney will do that would be positive
he demonizes his own group. Of course, the fact that Mitt Romney offers
no alternatives, solutions or leadership on this issue is an
embarrassment to Lumish and other Right Wingers leaves them high and
dry. They have nothing and so have to resort to lies and demonization to
make their points.
Too bad for them that most of us (the Jewish American Polity) can see
through this and are not as ignorant or as easily led as Lumish and his
supporters.
