Today We Were All Jewish-- Obama At Buchenwald

A couple of days ago, primitive and barbaric jihadi Ayman al-Zawahiri sought to denigrate President Obama by calling him a Jew. "Obama's message to the Muslim World was delivered when he visited the Wailing Wall, with the Jewish skullcap on his head, when he performed the Jewish prayers despite claiming that he is Christian." Today, standing with Buchenwald survivor and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Elie Weisel, Obama was a Jew-- more so than any American president before him.

“To this day there are those who insist that the Holocaust never happened, a denial of fact and truth that is baseless and ignorant and hateful,” the President said, echoing his words in Cairo in an address that reached for what he called a “new beginning” in the relationship between the United States and the Muslim world.

By visiting Buchenwald on Friday, he also underscored what he termed in Cairo America’s “unbreakable” bond with Israel. Mr. Obama has been pushing hard during this trip for a two-state solution in the Middle East, and the administration has angered some in Israel by taking a tough stand against Israel’s expanding existing settlements.

In his visit to the former concentration camp, Mr. Obama said the site was the “ultimate rebuke” to those who deny or seek to minimize the Holocaust.

“These sights have not lost their horror with the passage of time.”

“More than half a century later, our grief and our outrage over what happened have not diminished. I will not forget what I have seen here today.”

As I watched Obama at Buchenwald with Weisel this morning-- and heard them each speak-- many emotions coursed through me and I couldn't help but weep, well-knowing that had my great-grandparents not decided to leave Europe for America I would certainly have not been born. I felt great pride in my country's president standing there and speaking with such utter and unapologetic moral clarity.

I cried yesterday too-- but those were very different tears. I linked to a video that infuriated me. I didn't want to put it up at DWT then and I'm still reluctant to do so. But watching Obama and Weisel today, hearing their powerful and unmistakable words, decided the matter for me. Like me, most Israelis-- if not the right-wing Likud fanatics-- favor not just a freeze on settlements in Arab lands, but an evacuation of these illegal and immoral settlements. Even more so than the banal partisan hatred expressed so very, very characteristically by Karl Rove and so very, very appropriately on Fox News-- a latter day vision of Joseph Goebbels on the pages of the Völkischer Beobachter-- this video illustrates what Obama meant when he said, rather startlingly, "And just as we identify with the victims, it's also important for us I think to remember that the perpetrators of such evil were human, as well, and that we have to guard against cruelty in ourselves." That was the moment I decided to embed this repulsive and disgusting and embarrassingly infuriating video:



Rather than say good night with that as the last thought of the day, here are a few more uplifting thoughts from President Obama today that, no doubt, will be twisted and vilified by America-hating scum like Rove and al-Zawahiri tomorrow:

[T]o this day, there are those who perpetuate every form of intolerance -- racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, xenophobia, sexism, and more -- hatred that degrades its victims and diminishes us all. In this century, we've seen genocide. We've seen mass graves and the ashes of villages burned to the ground; children used as soldiers and rape used as a weapon of war. This places teaches us that we must be ever vigilant about the spread of evil in our own time, that we must reject the false comfort that others' suffering is not our problem and commit ourselves to resisting those who would subjugate others to serve their own interests.

Obama In Afghanistan-- Reconnecting With His Jewish Roots?

Did they take off their yarmulkas for the photo?

If you follow my travel blog, you've probably noted that in the past couple decades I travel a lot with my pal Roland. And, although he aggressively has no religion at all, he's always fascinated by going to see Jewish temples in places you might never expect to see them, like in Turkey, Singapore, Mexico and Myanmar. Last night I woke up in the middle of the night and put on the TV, not something I've done in years. It was tuned to History International and the show that was in progress was about a search for the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. It was fascinating, especially the parts about Jews in China, India and, of all places, Afghanistan. The Pathans-- which is the group that makes up the Taliban-- may be the descendants of the Lost Tribes.

Hopefully Roland isn't going to try dragging me to Ghazni, Herat and Kandihar any time soon. And the show didn't say anything about Timbuktu, our next planned destination. But this morning my pal David e-mailed me that among certain groups on the fringes of the far, far right (ie- dead center Republican Party), there is a rumor circulating that Obama is... a Jew! Funny, the first time I ever heard of Illinois' brash young state Senator, Barack O'Bama, I figured he was half Israeli and half Irish. David told me that 1% of Americans think Obama is Jewish. I don't think many of that 1% are Jews.

Today Obama is in Afghanistan meeting with Hamid Karzai, the Pathan president. They talked for two hours and there is no indication if they ever discussed their mutual heritage. Instead they talked about the so-called "war on terror." (And I imagine Karzai must have asked Obama to have the U.S. military stop slaughtering random Afghan civilians [Jews] after he becomes president.) They ate chicken and lamb-- not traif-- for lunch with two non-Jews, Jack Reed and Chuck Hagel and afterwards Obama told CBS that “We have to understand that the situation is precarious and urgent here in Afghanistan. And I believe this has to be our central focus, the central front on our battle against terrorism." That's a big difference with McBush who thinks Afghanistan is a sideshow and not worth too much effort (no oil). McCain tried undercutting Obama's trip on his pathetic radio show yesterday but he just came off sounding like a sad old man angry that no one takes his crusty warmongering seriously.

Good morning. I'm John McCain, and this week, debate in the presidential campaign turned to the war in Afghanistan. My opponent, Senator Obama, announced his strategy for Afghanistan and Iraq before departing on a fact-finding mission that will include visits to both those countries. Apparently, he's confident enough that he won't find any facts that might change his opinion or alter his strategy. Remarkable.