Trump Is The Worst President This Country Has Ever Seen-- But You Already Knew That, Right?

 

Frank Luntz is probably the best-known Republican Party pollster in the country. At a briefing he gave to for Global Counsel, a British strategic advising company he consults, he said he's "never seen a campaign more mis-calibrated than the Trump campaign. Frankly, his staff ought to be brought up on charges of political malpractice. It is the worst campaign I’ve ever seen and I’ve been watching them since 1980. They’re on the wrong issues. They’re on the wrong message. They’ve got their heads up their assess… Your damn job is to get your candidate to talk about things that are relevant to the people you need to reach. And if you can’t do your damn job then get out... Nobody cares about Hunter Biden… why is [Trump] spending all his time on him? Hunter Biden does not help put food on the table. Hunter Biden does not help anyone get a job. Hunter Biden does not provide health care or solve COVID. And Donald Trump spends all of his time focused on that and nobody cares."

Yesterday, the editors of The Atlantic, in their endorsement against Trump, were not as concerned about the campaign as they were about the man and his policies. In The Case Against Donald Trump, they note that he "poses a threat to our collective existence" and conclude that the choice voters face is spectacularly obvious... [T]he national defense strategy of the United States is built on the unstated assumption that the American people will not allow a lunatic to become president. If that assumption is wrong, then no procedural, legal, or technological mechanisms exist that are able to fully protect the human race from such a lunatic." The Atlantic editors see that-- any least at this moment-- as "a catastrophic flaw in U.S. nuclear doctrine."

In most matters related to the governance and defense of the United States, the president is constrained by competing branches of government and by an intricate web of laws and customs. Only in one crucial area does the president resemble, in the words of the former missile officer and scholar Bruce Blair, an absolute monarch-- his control of nuclear weapons. Richard Nixon... was reported to have told members of Congress at a White House dinner party, “I could leave this room and in 25 minutes, 70 million people would be dead.” This was an alarming but accurate statement.

When contemplating their ballots, Americans should ask which candidate in a presidential contest is better equipped to guide the United States through a national-security crisis without triggering a nuclear exchange, and which candidate is better equipped to interpret-- within five or seven minutes-- the ambiguous, complicated, and contradictory signals that could suggest an imminent nuclear attack. These are certainly not questions that large numbers of voters asked themselves in 2016, when a transparently unqualified candidate for president won the support of 63 million Americans.

At the time, Donald Trump had not yet served in public office, so concerns about his ability to protect the United States from harm were hypothetical, though grounded in his long and terrible record as a human being. As The Atlantic stated in its October 2016 endorsement of his opponent, Hillary Clinton, Trump “traffics in conspiracy theories and racist invective; he is appallingly sexist; he is erratic, secretive, and xenophobic; he expresses admiration for authoritarian rulers, and evinces authoritarian tendencies himself … He is an enemy of fact-based discourse; he is ignorant of, and indifferent to, the Constitution; he appears not to read.”

What we have learned since we published that editorial is that we understated our case. Donald Trump is the worst president this country has seen since Andrew Johnson, or perhaps James Buchanan, or perhaps ever. Trump has brought our country low; he has divided our people; he has pitted race against race; he has corrupted our democracy; he has shown contempt for American ideals; he has made cruelty a sacrament; he has provided comfort to propagators of hate; he has abandoned America’s allies; he has aligned himself with dictators; he has encouraged terrorism and mob violence; he has undermined the agencies and departments of government; he has despoiled the environment; he has opposed free speech; he has lied frenetically and evangelized for conspiracism; he has stolen children from their parents; he has made himself an advocate of a hostile foreign power; and he has failed to protect America from a ravaging virus. Trump is not responsible for all of the 220,000 COVID-19-related deaths in America. But through his avarice and ignorance and negligence and titanic incompetence, he has allowed tens of thousands of Americans to suffer and die, many alone, all needlessly. With each passing day, his presidency reaps more death.

But let us lay all of this aside for the moment. Let us even lay aside the extraordinary fact that Donald Trump has been credibly accused of rape. Compelling evidence suggests that his countless sins and defects are rooted in mental instability, pathological narcissism, and profound moral and cognitive impairment...

Trump’s opponent, Joe Biden, is in many ways a typically imperfect candidate, but if we judge these men on two questions alone-- Who is a more trustworthy steward of America’s nuclear arsenal? Which man poses less of a threat to our collective existence?-- the answer is spectacularly obvious.

The Atlantic has endorsed only three candidates in its 163-year history: Abraham Lincoln, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Hillary Clinton. The latter two endorsements had more to do with the qualities of Barry Goldwater and Donald Trump than with those of Johnson and Clinton. The same holds true in the case of Joe Biden. Biden is a man of experience, maturity, and obvious humanity, but had the Republican Party put forward a credible candidate for president, we would have felt no compulsion to state a preference. Donald Trump, however, is a clear and continuing danger to the United States, and it does not seem likely that our country would be able to emerge whole from four more years of his misrule. Two men are running for president. One is a terrible man; the other is a decent man. Vote for the decent man.

No comment on Biden's decency but he is certainly the lesser evil. And two groups have made up their minds that-- no matter if they agree with the editors of The Atlantic that's he's decent or with me that he's the lesser evil-- they will cast their ballots for Biden: Jews and young people. Trump, a neo-fascist with outright Nazis int the heart of his regime, has consistently made overtures to Jews, some extremely substantial. Jewish voters are not convinced. A J Street survey of likely Jewish voters in two key battleground states, Pennsylvania and Florida, shows overwhelming majorities against him and against his agenda. Among Jews, only crackpot religionist fanatics, primarily Hasidics who are not permitted to use the internet and who regard non-Jews as taboo, support Trump.

Jews for Trump? Less than in 2016

In an e-mail yesterday, J Street vice president Ben Shnider noted that last year Señor Trumpanzee tweeted "'Jewish people are fleeing the Democratic Party.' He-- and the hawkish right-wing groups that back him-- predicted 2020 would be the year of a major 'jexodus,' leading to a surge in Jewish support for Trump and the GOP. Our new polls of Jewish likely voters in Florida and Pennsylvania show there is, indeed, a movement of voters since 2016. But it’s in the opposite direction.

In both states, Biden leads Trump by a 50+ point margin. The 73-22 spread in Florida marks a five-point drop in Trump’s Jewish support since he faced off against Hillary Clinton.

Trump and his allies on the right have long claimed that the administration’s giveaways to the Israeli settlement movement and symbolic gestures like moving the US embassy would be keys to wooing Jewish support.

But as J Street polling has shown year after year (and as some pundits still fail to grasp) American Jews simply do not vote based on Israel. Like other Americans, we prioritize health care, the economy and in 2020, pandemic response. Our new survey shows that only six percent of Jewish likely voters in Florida include Israel in their top two voting issues.

And guess what? Even if we did vote based on Israel, our surveys show Jewish voters in these swing states prefer Biden to Trump on the issue (56%-35% in Florida).

In fact, our polls show a striking rejection of Trump’s foreign policy by Jewish voters and a strong preference for Biden’s leadership and policies. In Florida:

• 63% place greater trust in Biden to handle Iran and 64% agree with Biden that the US should reenter the Iran deal;
• 64% support a two-state agreement with Israeli and Palestinian capitals in Jerusalem.

And the margins were even higher when it came to issues of domestic security:

• 75% to 20% say Biden would do a better job tackling white nationalism and antisemitism;
• 67% to 25% trust Biden over Trump to keep American Jews safe.

As for young voters, a new survey for Axios shows that there are only 5 states, all backward and kind of sad, where most voters under 35 are going with Trump: Arkansas, Idaho, South Dakota, West Virginia and Wyoming. I'm shocked North Dakota, which is an even worse red hell than South Dakota, is missing from that list! Oh, wait... North Dakota either has no voters under 46, or voters under 46 weren't polled. (Same goes for Alabama and Kentucky and Oklahoma). Still, Axios concluded that "Trump's path to re-election depends heavily on younger adults staying home... Among 640,328 likely voters surveyed nationally in multiple waves from June through this week, younger voters strongly supported Biden over Trump in most states-- including Texas (59%-40%), Georgia (60%-39%) and even deep-red South Carolina (56%-43%)."

If Bibi Netanyahu speaks to Congress, it should be (a) at a better time and (b) by presidential invite

I'm not big on e-petitions, but I signed this one urging my congressman to make a fuss about the GOP scumnuts' invitation to Bibi Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress.

"We're committed to Israel's future. Making Israel a partisan issue weakens the US-Israel relationship and undermines vital American diplomatic leadership."

-- J Street president Jeremy Ben-Ami,
in a letter to potential petition signers

by Ken

Until proper banners can be printed up for display in both houses of Congress, I think the leadership in each should arrange with artisic members of their caucus to provide a supply of bedsheets to be hung in their chambers emblazoned with the increasingly well-earned call to arms:

"THE CRACKPOT 114TH --
AMERICA'S THUG CONGRESS
(estab. 2015)"

While the nutters bask in the glow of attention rarely paid to the criminally insane, it would be easy just to take each new manifestation of their psychosis and scumbaggery in stride. But I don't think we can automatically let go of the concept of "going too far," and there's a case to be made that the invitation by House Speaker "Sunny John" Boehner to Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress is a case in point.

Of course the GOP congressional scumnuts are thrilled with the opportunity to simultaneously bash the president while glorifying their own stinking selves, throw a monkey wrench into our foreign-policy-making apparatus, make our difficult relations with Iran even more difficult, and exalt -- and help reelect -- a despicable homocidal thug. However, while these may all be beautiful outcomes for the scumnuts, there may be other, more important considerations.

J Street is kinder than I would be to the idea of a thug like Bibi addressing Congress.

Israel's leader addressing America's legislators is great. As a pro-Israel organization which works to strengthen the deep ties of friendship and strategic alliance between the United States and Israel, we're grateful for the high honor of seeing an Israeli Prime Minister invited to address the US Congress.

The man is a disgrace -- a disgrace to Israel, to Jews everywhere, a disgrace to the human genome. Of course I don't suppose the J Street folks can say that. What they do say, though, is that "the timing here couldn't be worse." Per J Street founder-president Jeremy Ben-Ami's letter:

Here's what's wrong with Bibi coming to Congress on March 1:

* Traditionally, the executive branch -- President Obama -- leads on foreign policy. Boehner inviting a foreign leader, even a close ally, without even a simple "heads-up" to the president or his Democratic counterparts is a serious breach of standards.

* This invitation looks like a thinly-veiled attempt to scuttle the critical negotiations taking place right now aimed at ensuring that Iran never acquires a nuclear weapon. Bibi and Obama disagree on how to deal with Iran, and that's fair. But a foreign leader lobbying Congress (from the same spot where the President delivered his State of the Union address just days ago!) is inappropriate.

* This also looks like an attempt by some Republican power players to influence Israel's upcoming election, and that's just not something that democratic allies should ever do. Political leaders and pundits in Israel are already in an uproar.

"This is not the time," the J Streeters sum up, "for this politically motivated speech."

So J Street has gotten up a petition for us to sign and send to our Democratic members of Congress.

DEAR MEMBER,

Speaker Boehner's decision to invite Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to address Congress--weeks before Israeli elections and without consulting the President--is a serious breach of protocol.

The leaders of any American ally should be welcomed by Congress--but the timing of this invitation is unnacceptable.

I'm urging you to express your disapproval of this shocking stunt to Speaker Boehner and demand that he postpone the invitation, in consultation with the White House, until after Israeli elections.

There seems little chance of getting through to the GOP scumnuts, who think that every time is the best time for (their kind of) politically motivated speech. The chance that any number of Democratic members of Congress could influence the scumnuts' "thinking" seems pretty remote. More likely they would add "Make Democrats madder than heck" to their list of goals to be achieved.

Still, while I'm not, as some readers know, an e-petition signer, I signed this one, which seemed to me not just to concern an important question but to serve a possibly educational function to Democratic recipients. It's possible that some of them haven't figured out that this is a really bad idea and some objection needs to be raised. I realize that the poor dears are spending a lot of time thinking about which fights are really worth picking, especially among so many fights that can't be won or even materially influenced. Still, sometimes you have to stand up.

I was tempted to say "or else," the "or else" being that the GOP scumnuts will get even crazier and less uninhibited. But that's going to happen regardless. Still, like I was saying, maybe there ought to be limits.

#

J Street speaks up for American Jews who aren't bloodthirsty idiot scumbags but don't want to take abuse from the ones who are

"The truth is that like many liberal American Jews -- and most American Jews are still liberal -- I basically avoid thinking about where Israel is going. It seems obvious from here that the narrow-minded policies of the current government are basically a gradual, long-run form of national suicide -- and that’s bad for Jews everywhere, not to mention the world."

-- Paul Krugman, in a Tuesday NYT blogpost,
"The Crisis of Zionism"

by Ken

Howie and I are both in the position of being American Jews who are horrified by what comes out of the mouths of most of the official mouthpieces of American Jewry, especially with regard to Israel, providing unstinting, unquestioning support for every psychotically, fascistically delusional perfidy perpetrated by the country's increasingly scummy right-wing governments.

I've been enormously relieved and cheered by the advent and endurance of J Street, providing a voice of sanity in opposition to the demons of American Jewry. It's preposterous to have to defend my belief in the founding ideals of the Israeli state, but the mad-dog cretins of the "Israel Can Do No Wrong" lobby are as loud and vicious as they are satanically determined to see Israel destroyed by their insanity. Let me just say, though, that my parents were ardent Zionists going back to the years before I was born and before the creation of the state of Israel, when they were already housing visiting Palestinian Zionist activists drumming up support in the U.S.

My mother was a lifelong pillar of Hadassah. Even she was stunned -- shaken to her roots, in fact -- by the murder of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and his wife (both of whom she knew) by a Jew, inspired by the murderous ravings of satanic ultra-Orthodox rabbis. Of course the Labor Zionists who were the dominant force in the creation of Israel are long gone, their place taken by pathetically wishy-woshy Laborites and a savage Right at the beck and call of ultra-Orthodox partisans who not only played no role in the creating and saving of Israel but actively opposed it, and still don't serve in the Israeli military, the gutless sociopathic garbage.

Of course I don't dare say these things within the hearing of the craven minions of the Israeli Likud-and-worse fascist. Apparently Paul Krugman is inclined to bite his tongue as well. Yesterday J Street president Jeremy Ben-Ami sent the organization's mailing list a copy of this open letter he sent to Paul Krugman, accompanied by this explanatory note:

This morning I sent the following letter to Mr. Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winning economist and New York Times columnist in response to his short commentary this week. As we recommit ourselves on this Yom Ha'atzmaut, Israel's Independence Day, to advocating for a secure and peaceful Israel, we hope you will find this especially timely and encourage you to read and forward to friends and family.

Here's the open letter:

An Open Letter to Paul Krugman

Dear Mr. Krugman,

On Tuesday around 3.30pm, my inbox began filling up with subject headings such as, “Did you see this from Krugman???” and, “From my favorite economist… on Beinart?!” Your three short paragraphs, which began as a heads-up that you intend to write something at some point about Peter Beinart and his new book, The Crisis of Zionism, created quite a stir.

What was so striking to so many was not, of course, what you actually said about Peter (although I agree with you that he is a “brave man who deserves better”), but what you said about what you wouldn’t say. What struck a chord was that despite your belief that current Israel’s policies are leading it down a suicidal path, you choose to stay silent on the topic – not because you don’t care, but because of the attacks and accusations of anti-semitism and the like that would follow.

Israel not being your bailiwick, why would you, like Peter, walk into the “buzzsaw,” you tell us.

Mr. Krugman, I understand this sentiment. As the President of J Street, the pro-Israel, pro-peace lobby, I am followed closely by my own personal buzzsaw. I know that the cost of speaking up about Israel can be so dear that many hundreds of thousands of Jews choose instead to stay silent or disengage from Israel entirely.

But as you rightly point out, Israel’s present path affects not only Israel, but all Americans and Jews everywhere.

Which is why I would like to invite you to reconsider your decision. I invite you to not let a vocal minority silence your voice. You are a Nobel prize-winning economist and leading American thinker whose contribution to the marketplace of ideas on so many issues is such an asset to this country’s democracy. I invite you not to let their smears cause you to sit this one out.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not asking you to drop your day job and take up the cause. I’m not even asking you to devote extensive column inches to this topic. All I’m asking is that you not silence yourself because someone else has decided that if you do, you’ll have to pay a price.

I like to think that the three short paragraphs that you wrote on Tuesday were a hint of more to come and not a vow of silence. So, on behalf of the many Jewish Americans to whom you can give voice, I invite you to say more.

Because only when everyone – especially those who already have a megaphone – stands up, will the smears and attacks lose their power. Only then will brave men like Peter Beinart receive the fair treatment you so clearly think they deserve.

Many thanks,

Jeremy Ben-Ami

Click here to tweet, facebook, and share this with your friends and make sure Paul Krugman sees this open letter!

I USED ONE OF MY PRECIOUS NYTIMES.COM FREE
CLICKS TO CALL UP THE KRUGMAN BLOGPOST

April 24, 2012, 2:54 PM
The Crisis of Zionism

Something I’ve been meaning to do — and still don’t have the time to do properly — is say something about Peter Beinart’s brave book The Crisis of Zionism.

The truth is that like many liberal American Jews -- and most American Jews are still liberal -- I basically avoid thinking about where Israel is going. It seems obvious from here that the narrow-minded policies of the current government are basically a gradual, long-run form of national suicide -- and that’s bad for Jews everywhere, not to mention the world. But I have other battles to fight, and to say anything to that effect is to bring yourself under intense attack from organized groups that try to make any criticism of Israeli policies tantamount to anti-Semitism.

But it’s only right to say something on behalf of Beinart, who has predictably run into that buzzsaw. As I said, a brave man, and he deserves better.

I just thought I'd pass all this on for your consideration.

#

If all it did was drive the "Israel can do no wrong" nuts batty, J Street's 2nd annual national conference would be worth the wait

by Ken

I don't know how many conference-going types we have among our readers, but this is one they might want to put on their schedules, and while the conference itself isn't till February, until October 10 there's a $100 early-bird registration discount.

We're talking about the Second Annual National Conference, February 26-March 1, in Washington, of J Street, the breath-of-fresh-air lobbying organization that has made it possible for American Jews to support Israel without associating themselves with the raging sociopathic thugs and cretins of the traditional Jewish lobbying groups. The measure of the success of last year's First National Conference was the way it caused the Thug Jewish lobby to freak out.

Here's J Street president Jeremy Ben-Ami:

When J Street held its first national conference last October, right-wing political operatives launched a coordinated campaign to scare members of Congress out of attending.

Their campaign backfired as more than 1500 people turned out at the conference, 20 organizations participated, 148 members of Congress served on our Host Committee, and over 150 media from over 19 countries covered the event. [1]

Our movement made a powerful statement that the voice of pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans would be silent no more and that neoconservative smear campaigns would not win the day.

Now, with Israeli-Palestinian talks on a knife's edge, the same cast of characters is at it again. Far-right publications, Tea Party political candidates, and even the #2 Republican in the U.S. House Eric Cantor are attacking J Street in a concerted effort to silence our voice and undermine serious efforts to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through a two-state solution. [2]

With your help, their campaign will backfire again - and our second conference this coming February will be an even bigger success. . . .

We stand at a real crossroads of history in the effort to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Within the reach of the leaders of Israel, the Palestinians and the United States is a negotiated solution to the decades-old conflict and a real chance of achieving two states for two peoples and peace and security for the broader region.

The far-right is desperately afraid of the talks and the concessions necessary to achieve peace - and they're really worried that we're creating the political space that will make it possible.

A huge turn-out at our second national conference in February of 2011 will demonstrate the depth of support that exists across America for strong leadership to end this conflict now. With your support, we can turn back the neoconservative attacks and pave the way for real leadership to end this conflict now. . . .

We're calling this year's conference "Giving Voice to Your Values" and if there were ever a time to stand up for your values on this issue, this is it.

Together with hundreds and thousands of activists and in partnership with dozens of organizations, we'll take a strong stand for diversity and tolerance, peace and compromise, compassion and justice for Israel and the Palestinians.

Join us as we strategize, learn, challenge, question, advocate and mobilize. Learn how to connect what you're doing in your community with what is going on in the halls of power here and the streets of the region.

Turning out in force and demonstrating that we will not be silenced is the perfect answer to those who attack us. Together, we will make it clear that the dynamics of American politics on Israel are changing.

"COMEDY TONIGHT" COMING UP AT 9PM PT:
CAN'T SOMETHING BE DONE ABOUT BOB WOODWARD?

Villagers who ought to have something better to do with their time spent much of their day today buzzing about a rumor, traced back to none other than that Village yenta Bob Woodward, that plans are afoot to nudge Vice President Joe Biden off the ticket in 2008 in favor of . . . Secretary of State Hillary Clinton! Naturally the White House is jumping up and down screaming that there's nothing to it.

The question that pops into my head is the one I've already posed: Can't something, you know, be done about Bob Woodward? Hasn't he long since outlived his usefulness?

(Actually I wonder about another question: Isn't Bob Woodward embarrassed to be, well, Bob Woodward? But that gets kind of metaphysical, and probably beyond the purview of this space. Still, I wonder.)

Meanwhile we'll have breaking news at 9 PT regarding remarkable breaking news involving the vice president, the secretary of state, and Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai.

#

Mosque Madness-- Republicans With No Brains And No Souls vs Democrats With No Spines

Pamela Geller, drummin' up the hatred on the GOP's Fair & Balanced campaign donor station

J Street has been a leader in trying to get cowardly political leaders to take decent stands on one great big third-rail issue, an equitable two-state solution between Israel and Palestine. They do outstanding work. And I was proud to see them working with Joe Sestak, for example, and helping to make sure he was aware of all the basic arguments in the Republican/Fox manufactured controversy over the Muslim community center a few blocks away from the World Trade Center. Like Alexi Giannoulias, the Democrat running for the Illinois open Senate seat, Sestak came out for freedom of religion and ignored the deranged and hysterical Newt Gingrich Nazi analogies. J Street's statement on the ginned up controversy came out almost three weeks ago and still makes a lot more sense than the banshee cries of Republicans hoping they can squeeze one more victory out of the dead bodies of Bush's 9/11 catastrophe:

The principle at stake in the Cordoba House controversy goes to the heart of American democracy and the value we place on freedom of religion. Should one religious group in this country be treated differently than another? We believe the answer is no.

As Mayor Bloomberg has said, proposing a church or a synagogue for that site would raise no questions. The Muslim community has an equal right to build a community center wherever it is legal to do so. We would hope the American Jewish community would be at the forefront of standing up for the freedom and equality of a religious minority looking to exercise its legal rights in the United States, rather than casting aspersions on its funders and giving in to the fear-mongerers and pandering politicians urging it to relocate.

What better ammunition to feed the Osama bin Ladens of the world and their claim of anti-Muslim bias in the United States as they seek to whip up global jihad than to hold this proposal for a Muslim religious center to a different and tougher standard than other religious institutions would be.

It's sweet; it's simple; it's inherently American. And it's what every Democrat should be saying. But they're not. And needless to say, Blue Dogs are leading the way into fear and loathing. Just the way Arizona Blue Dog Gabrielle Giffords has decided to campaign against Latinos in her desperate, undeserved bid for reelection, upstate New York Blue Dog, Mike Arcuri, is trying out the Islamophobia:

Richard Hanna, the Republican congressional candidate in NY-24, was the rare Republican who supported the proposed Cordoba House plans. That is, until his Democratic opponent, incumbent Rep. Michael Arcuri, announced his own opposition to the "Ground Zero mosque."

Now, Hanna says that "building a mosque near Ground Zero is insensitive."

Originally, the Utica Observer-Dispatch reports, Hanna said on August 9 that "it's extremely easy to understand why people are upset by this, but this country was founded by people who were running away from religious persecution. So how can we become what we have beheld and found contemptible other places?"

Yesterday, Arcuri released the following statement:

As district attorney, I spent my career protecting victims' rights, and to me, this is no different. The pain felt by many Americans from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks is still very real, and I can understand how the thought of building a mosque near Ground Zero could reopen those wounds. For the sake of the victims and their families, I think another location should be chosen.

If ever a district needed a third party candidate with a spine, it's got to be NY-24!

Yesterday Glenn Greenwald waved a red cape in front of me. It had Chris Carney's name on it, an old nemisis of both of ours. What Glenn was pointing out is that Carney is looking like a loser this year with a new poll showing Tom Marino beating the deceitful Blue Dog 52-37%. But going down Greenwald's list of endangered Democrats, all the ones trailing Republicans are Democrats who have turned off the base by voting with the GOP on crucial issues: Suzanne Kosmas (FL), Kathy Dahlkemper (Blue Dog-PA), Mark Critz (PA) and Tom Perriello (VA)-- or by being too corrupt even for Congress: Paul Kanjorski (PA) and Kosmas (again). There are so many bad candidates running-- and they'll not all Republicans... even if all Republicans are bad candidates (and they are).

I was happy to see a coalition of Ohio labor groups campaigning against Blue Dog Zack Space (OH) after his anti-Choice and anti-healthcare votes. In a few hours we'll explain some more about why we're opposing Blue Dog Gabrielle Giffords' reelection. And even the wonderful guys at J Street don't always get it right. Their endorsement list includes some wonderful and courageous candidates like John Conyers (D-MI), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Jared Polis (D-CO), Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), Donna Edwards (D-MD), Carol Shea Porter (D-NH), Mike Honda (D-CA), Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), Bob Filner (D-CA), Chellie Pingree (D-ME), Dave Loebsack (D-IA), Keith Ellison (D-MN), Mary Jo Kilroy (D-OH), and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) but they not only include a bunch of Blue Dogs like Scott Murphy (NY), Betsy Markey (CO), Jim Cooper (TN) and Kathy Dahlkemper (PA), but they even decided to endorse... Lord Boustany (R-LA)! Yes, Lord Boustany, a notorious corporate whore who is also one of the creators of the birther movement! And... even Blue America once endorsed Chris Carney and Mike Arcuri (but never Gabby Giffords); we're more careful and discerning because of that. And we're watching how politicians answer the so-called mosque question. Remember, you can build a Catholic Church next to a playground. Should you? Or is it a little too soon for that?

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About Cordoba House: Either we believe in tolerance and diversity or we don't (Hint: Religious bigots don't)

by Ken

I'm having trouble forcing myself to perform the necessary thought-gathering and source-dismembering to give you the now long-promised second part of my post on the Washington Post's "Top Secret America" series. In Part 1, you'll recall, I tried to explain why you absolutely have to read the WaPo series, but with it was promised the explanation of why you'd be absolutely nuts to read the WaPo series. Since it's giving me trouble, and since I find it hard to imagine anyone whose life is being put on hold during the delay, and especially at these pay rates, I've decided that rather than make myself crazy . . . okay, crazier, I'm just going to wait till it's ready to be written.

Meanwhile, as long as we're dealing with stuff that's obviously true but that an awful lot of people don't/won't want to deal with or acknowledge in any way, I'm grateful (once again!) to J Street for staking out an obviously correct position that is nevertheless not only not widely acknowledged in the American Jewish community but is often denounced. There are many regrettable things about the way so much of the American Jewish community, especially the traditional official organs, has taken on the role of lockstep defender of the increasingly vile and hateful Israeli far right, but perhaps the saddest is the delusion those people have taken on that they are somehow vindicated or bolstered by the support of the loathsome crackpots of the American far right, the political bloc I like to think of as Anti-Semites for Israel. Man, are they kidding themselves.

J Street has done a lot to relieve the discomfort of being Jewish in America, and being "spoken for" by those professional bigots and haters. No matter how they and their supporters on the anti-Semitic right try to obfuscate the issue of the Muslim cultural center (apparently not even including an actual place of worship) planned near the World Trade Center site, they are once again lying with every cell of their poisoned souls.

Just by way of reminder, the Cordoba Initiative website offers this description of the project:

Why the Cordoba House?

Cordoba House is a Muslim-led project which will build a world-class facility that promotes tolerance, reflecting the rich diversity of New York City. The center will be community-driven, serving as a platform for inter-community gatherings and cooperation at all levels, providing a space for all New Yorkers to enjoy.

This proposed project is about promoting integration, tolerance of difference and community cohesion through arts and culture. Cordoba House will provide a place where individuals, regardless of their backgrounds, will find a center of learning, art and culture; and most importantly, a center guided by Islamic values in their truest form - compassion, generosity, and respect for all.

The issue is a simple one for any fair-minded Jew, and of course for any fair-minded American. Of course, there are people who genuinely don't believe in either "tolerance" or "diversity." They believe in rigid orthodoxy -- their own poisonous orthodoxy, of course -- with no tolerance for any deviation therefrom. It's no wonder that they get the heebie-jeebies at the very idea of "promoting integration, tolerance of difference and community cohesion through arts and culture."

Statement on Cordoba House Controversy
Posted by: Amy Spitalnick | July 30th, 2010 1:40 pm

Today, J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami released the following statement:

The principle at stake in the Cordoba House controversy goes to the heart of American democracy and the value we place on freedom of religion. Should one religious group in this country be treated differently than another? We believe the answer is no.

As Mayor Bloomberg has said, proposing a church or a synagogue for that site would raise no questions. The Muslim community has an equal right to build a community center wherever it is legal to do so. We would hope the American Jewish community would be at the forefront of standing up for the freedom and equality of a religious minority looking to exercise its legal rights in the United States, rather than casting aspersions on its funders and giving in to the fear-mongerers and pandering politicians urging it to relocate.

What better ammunition to feed the Osama bin Ladens of the world and their claim of anti-Muslim bias in the United States as they seek to whip up global jihad than to hold this proposal for a Muslim religious center to a different and tougher standard than other religious institutions would be.

Thank you, J Street!

Interesting observation from a colleague: "Shameful that not a single House or Sen Dem from NY has spoken up against this kind of bigotry." I hadn't thought of that, but I agree absolutely.

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At least in NYRB it's possible to discuss seriously what it means to be Jewish in America (and how that relates to Israel)

From the NYU website: The Remarque Institute was created at New York University in 1995 under the direction of Professor Tony Judt to support and promote the study and discussion of Europe and its near neighbors; to encourage greater mutual understanding between Americans and Europeans; and to host talks and debates on subjects of common concern and topical significance. The Institute was named after Erich Maria Remarque, whose widow, Paulette Goddard, made a generous bequest to New York University.

"I reject the authority of the rabbis -- all of them (and for this I have rabbinical authority on my side). I participate in no Jewish community life, nor do I practice Jewish rituals. I don't make a point of socializing with Jews in particular -- and for the most part I haven't married them. I am not a 'lapsed' Jew, having never conformed to requirements in the first place. I don't 'love Israel' (either in the modern sense or in the original generic meaning of loving the Jewish people), and I don't care if the sentiment is reciprocated. But whenever anyone asks me whether or not I am Jewish, I unhesitatingly respond in the affirmative and would be ashamed to do otherwise."

-- Tony Judt, in the "memoir piece" "Toni,"
in the May 13 New York Review of Books

by Ken

As I mentioned Sunday, the British-American historian Tony Judt has been publishing an extraordinary series of "memoir pieces" in the NYRB. On Sunday I wrote about the first of two that appeared in the May 13 issue, called "Austerity," where he recalled the conditions of deprivation, and consquent austerity, in the postwar decade in Britain into which he was born, and in which "the greatest age of reform in modern British history" took place.

He worked his way to a proposition that I find remarkable -- boldface emphasis added:

Sixty years after Churchill could offer only “blood, toil, tears and sweat,” our very own war president—notwithstanding the hyperventilated moralism of his rhetoric—could think of nothing more to ask of us in the wake of September 11, 2001, than to continue shopping. This impoverished view of community—the “togetherness” of consumption—is all we deserve from those who now govern us.Sixty years after Churchill could offer only “blood, toil, tears and sweat,” our very own war president—notwithstanding the hyperventilated moralism of his rhetoric—could think of nothing more to ask of us in the wake of September 11, 2001, than to continue shopping. This impoverished view of community—the “togetherness” of consumption—is all we deserve from those who now govern us. If we want better rulers, we must learn to ask more from them and less for ourselves. A little austerity might be in order.

Our subject today is quite different. In the other May 13 piece, "Toni" (the link is above, but unfortunately only the start of the piece is available free on the website). Judt explores "the curiosities of Jewish identity," which he has found even more curious since coming to the U.S. "Most American Jews of my acquaintance," he writes, "are not particularly well informed about Jewish culture or history; they are blithely ignorant of Yiddish or Hebrew and rarely attend religious ceremonies. When they do, they behave in ways that strike me as curious." In fact, he finds much of the way in which American Jews express our Jewishness curious, not least the slavish devotion to Israel, and particularly the increasingly right-wing and increasingly appalling government.

In "Toni," Judt recalls this tableau:

Some years ago I attended a gala benefit dinner in Manhattan for prominent celebrities in the arts and journalism. Halfway through the ceremonies, a middle-aged man leaned across the table and glared at me: "Are you Tony Judt? You really must stop writing these terrible things about Israel!" Primed for such interrogations, I asked him what was so terrible about what I had written. "I don't know. You may be right -- I've never been to Israel. But we Jews must stick together: we may need Israel one day."

Again looking back through his personal history, Judt notes that for the generation of his parents, immigrants from the shtetls of Eastern Europe, the sense of Jewishness might have died out if not for the rise of Hitler.

A generation of emancipated young Jews, many of whom had fondly imagined themselves fully integrated into a post-communitarian world, was forcibly re-introduced to Judaism as civic identity: one that they were no longer free to decline. Religion -- once the foundation of Jewish experience -- was pushed ever further to the margin. In Hitler's wake, Zionism (hitherto a sectarian minority preference) became a realistic option. Jewishness became a secular attribute, externally attributed.

And in this country, he says, the after-effect has been "a sensitivity to past suffering that can appear disproportionate even to fellow Jews."

Shortly after publishing an essay on Israel's future, I was invited to London for an interview with The Jewish Chronicle -- the local Jewish paper of record. I went with trepidation, anticipating further aspersions upon my imperfect identification with the Chosen People. To my surprise, the editor turned off the microphone: "Before we start," she began, "I'd like to ask you something. How can you stand to live among those awful American Jews?"

"And yet," he continues, "maybe those 'awful American Jews' are onto something despite themselves."

For what can it mean -- following the decline of faith, the abatement of persecution, and the fragmentation of community -- to insist upon one's Jewishness? A "Jewish" state where one has no intention of living and whose intolerant clerisy excludes ever more Jews from official recognition? An "ethnic" membership criterion that one would be embarrassed to invoke for any other purpose?

The "Holocaust obsession" of American Jews, he suggests, "provides reference, liturgy, example, and moral instruction -- as well as historical proximity." And yet, he asks, "Are we really Jews for no better reason than that Hitler sought to exterminate our grandparents? If we fail to rise above this consideration, our grandchildren will have little cause to identify with us."

Remembering is important, he insists, but as "part of a broader social obligation by no means confined to Jews."

I choose to invoke a Jewish past that is impervious to orthodoxy: that opens conversations rather than closes them. Judaism for me is a sensibility of collective self-questioning and uncomfortable truth-telling: the dafka[contrarian]-like quality of awkwardness and dissent for which we were once known. It is not enough to stand at a tangent to other peoples' conventions; we should also be the most unforgiving critics of our own. I feel a debt of responsibility to this past. It is why I am Jewish.

There is one brief paragraph left in the piece, but in order to quote it I have to go back to Judt's opening invocation of the Toni of the title: his father's first cousin Toni Avegael, whom Tony never knew, though he knew her older sister Lily, "a tall, sad lady whom my parents and I used to visit in a little house somewhere in northwest London." Toni Avegael "was born in Antwerp and lived there most of her life." Judt thinks of the Avegael sisters "whenever I ask myself -- or am asked -- what it means to be Jewish."

Here's that final paragraph of the piece:

Toni Avegael was transported to Auschwitz in 1942 and gassed to death there as a Jew. I am named after her.

SPEAKING OF AMERICAN JEWS AND ISRAEL: PETER
BEINART TAKES ON THE AMERICAN JEWISH ESTABLISHMENT

There has been a lot of chatter about a piece in the current NYRB by Peter Beinart, former editor of The New Republic (and now a political commentator on The Daily Beast), called "The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment." It's a sound piece, and worth reading, but I doubt that there's much that will be new to anyone who's been paying attention to the evolution of attitudes among American Jews toward both their religion and the state of Israel. I suspect that the only reason the piece has caused such a furor is the identity of the writer.

Beinart starts from the perplexity of the powerful American Jewish infrastructure, as represented by groups like the muscular pro-Israel lobby AIPAC and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, at the frightening (to them) loss of concern for Israel among younger American Jews. As Tony Judt points out in "Toni" -- and Beinart makes essentially the same point -- they have no personal recollection of persecution, whether by Cossacks or Nazis.

Beinart makes what I think is an unexceptionable connection between this state of affairs and the Israel-can-do-no-wrong attitude of those masters of the American Jewish agenda, who have made Zionism incompatible with the traditional liberalism of American Jews.

[T]he leading institutions of American Jewry have refused to foster—indeed, have actively opposed—a Zionism that challenges Israel’s behavior in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and toward its own Arab citizens. For several decades, the Jewish establishment has asked American Jews to check their liberalism at Zionism’s door, and now, to their horror, they are finding that many young Jews have checked their Zionism instead.

Morally, American Zionism is in a downward spiral. If the leaders of groups like AIPAC and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations do not change course, they will wake up one day to find a younger, Orthodox-dominated, Zionist leadership whose naked hostility to Arabs and Palestinians scares even them, and a mass of secular American Jews who range from apathetic to appalled. Saving liberal Zionism in the United States -- so that American Jews can help save liberal Zionism in Israel -- is the great American Jewish challenge of our age. And it starts where {the students polled by the dean of Republican pollsters, Frank Luntz, at the instigation of a group of Jewish philanthropists] wanted it to start: by talking frankly about Israel’s current government, by no longer averting our eyes.

As Beinart notes, and American Jews are never allowed by that Israel-can-do-no-wrong leadership to acknowledge, a debate about appropriate Israeli attitudes and behavior toward its Arab citizens and neighbors has raged for decades in Israel.

The forces of bigotry, reaction, and hatred have long since had the upper hand, but still haven't silenced the voices of those who understand that the hardliners' way is a guarantee of the destruction of Israel, except possibly as an apartheid state. Of course American Jewish leaders and the people who follow them go berserk when you talk about Israel as an apartheid state, but to deny that that's where Israel is headed, if it isn't already there, is possible only if you're either a groaning imbecile or a thuggish liar.

Beinart doesn't put it quite that bluntly, but he comes remarkably close, and he is unflinching in examining the terrifying attitudes of the people who drive policymaking in present-day Israel. Some of what he reports -- namely a widely held attitude that is openly eliminationist -- is new to me, and is awfuler than what I already knew or even suspected. Much of the rest is sound but hardly unfamiliar or surprising to American Jews who have found, at last, a sane public voice in the thinking person's pro-Israel lobby, J Street.

As I say, I really have no major complaint with Beinart's piece, except that so little of it is new. It may be that coming from him the case will reach bastions of American illiberal Zionism -- a phrase he uses which I quite like. Which brings us back to that basic fact of who Beinart is: for more than decade a top editor, and for some seven years the editor, of what we might call the house organ of American illiberal Zionism, The New Republic. And as some commentators have pointed out, even now this piece appears in the NYRB, to whose readers the basic argument is old hat, and not in The New Republic.

To put it another way, if Beinart is now taking on the American Jewish establishment, what about those years in which he was, if not part of that establishment, then a highly outspoken tool of it? There is the vaguest reference to possible past error (looking through the piece again quickly I can't even find it), but that really doesn't add up to acknowledgment. It would have been nice if he had chosen to come clean in that regard.

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Israel Is Not America, America Is Not Israel-- Tell Chuck Schumer And Jane Harman

Ken, Bernie Sanders, Chuck Schumer and I all went to the same high school, James Madison. There were some Italians in the neighborhood too but this was the Jewishest-- in a non-Hassidic sense-- part of Brooklyn back then. We were inculcated with the idea that Israel's security came first and foremost and America was as great as the amount of security (and cash) it provided Israel. In those days the Democratic Party was 100% pro-Israel and the Republican Party had a whiff of unsavory typically right-wing anti-Semitism around it. Just yesterday I was reading about how Nixon dealt with his collapsing economy in Rick Perlstein's stupendous history book, Nixonland and came across a transcript of him blaming "the Jews" for his woes, as he often did.

It was meat prices driving inflation, Nixon decided, big supermarkets who refused to pass lower cattle prices on to consumers. "Kick the chain stores," he said in early February... I think you will find that chain stores who generally control these prices nationwide are primarily dominated by Jewish interests. These boys, of course, have every right to make all the money they want, but they have a notorious reputation in the trade for conspiracy."

Yes, he was stark raving mad; but because he was a president surrounded by sycophants... well whatever he said became a kind of "truth," especially in the Republican Party. Jews in Brooklyn were wary of right-wing parties to begin with-- that whole kerfuffle in Germany was still fresh in everyone's mind-- and the Republicans were just a few degrees away from everyone's greatest fears.

But things have changed dramatically since then. The Party of the Robber Barons has had to degrade itself by cobbling together a Grand Know Nothing coalition that includes southern religious fanatics whose sad, miserable lives revolve around waiting on Jesus' return, something that will be triggered when Israeli tanks roll into Damascus or some such interpretation of the screaming voices in their heads. Zionism somehow coexists with anti-Semitism as tenets of American right-wing orthodoxy. And on the Democratic side, there is a growing awareness that Palestinians are human beings too. I think the last time I counted there were around half a dozen Democratic members of Congress who had come to that conclusion. None are from Brooklyn-- and that includes one Brooklyn congressman who went on to the Senate and is casting longing eyes at Harry Reid's job as Democratic Senate Leader.

I don't know if Schumer still believes the Israel uber alles crap we were taught as children but I do know he isn't taking any chances with his hometown base. He blasted Obama yesterday for not being suitably Zionist enough. Playing to an indoctrinated Jewish-American and Israeli-American listening audience on a fanatic religious radio show hosted by Nachum Segal, Schumer was all about poutrage for how tough the Obama Administration has been towards Israeli rightist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. How dare they look out for America's interests! Schumer:

"I told the President, I told Rahm Emanuel and others in the administration that I thought the policy they took to try to bring about negotiations is counter-productive, because when you give the Palestinians hope that the United States will do its negotiating for them, they are not going to sit down and talk. Palestinians don’t really believe in a state of Israel, they, unlike a majority of Israelis, who have come to the conclusion that they can live with a 2-state solution to be determined by the parties, the majority of Palestinians are still very reluctant, and they need to be pushed to get there. If the U.S. says certain things and takes certain stands the Palestinians say, “Why should we negotiate?” So that’s bad and that should change and we are working on changing it. But the other two are very good, according to both the Israeli government and the Israeli military and the U.S. government. But we should make that known, why don’t they? I asked them to do just that, I said we should make it public because it will, at least, give people, who are supportive of Israel, Jew and non-Jew alike, a little bit of solace... Hillary Clinton called up Netanyahu and talked very tough to him, and worse they made it pubic through this spokesperson, a guy named Crowley.

And Crowley said something I have never heard before, which is, the relationship of Israel and the United States depends on the pace of the negotiations. That is terrible. That is the dagger because the relationship is much deeper than the disagreements on negotiations, and most Americans-- Democrat, Republican, Jew, non-Jew-- would feel that. So I called up Rahm Emanuel and I called up the White House and I said, 'If you don’t retract that statement you are going to hear me publicly blast you on this.'”

Is Schumer an American Senator or an Israeli Knesset member-- or an Evangelical lunatic from South Carolina?

This is the 2nd time I know of that Schumer has publicly crossed the line when it came to zealously blaming his own government and colleagues in delicate matters of US-Israel-Palestine policy.

During the third of three major efforts of the George W. Bush administration to get the recess appointed US Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton confirmed in the US Senate, Senator Schumer launched a passionate personal campaign to help Bolton succeed.

Schumer called many Democratic Senate colleagues and bluntly said, "A vote against John Bolton is a vote against Israel." ... Note to Senator Schumer: you have certainly unloaded a lot of blame on the White House today. I have done a quick lexis and Thomas search and have been unable to find a single instance in which you criticized the behavior of the Israeli government at any time on any issue.

I guess Schumer has chosen to lie down with some mighty strange dogs, but, like I said, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders also went to James Madison High. He has a far more equitable approach to how to achieve peace in the Middle East, one in the best interests of the U.S., as well as taking in the legitimate concerns of Israelis and Palestinians-- if not AIPAC and the Likud. Well, at least Schumer isn't spying for any foreign powers and stepping over the treason line, the way Jane Harman did.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Your Government Not at Work - Jane Harman Scandal
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

If you watched that video, you might be looking for a way to help replace Jane Harman with mainstream pro-America progressive Marcy Winograd. By all means-- be our guest!

Along similar lines, I got a letter this morning from J Street, an organization of American Jews not dedicated to expansionism and aggression.

A moving article in Haaretz this week by Carlo Strenger, entitled "Israel's leaders have forgotten Herzl's dream," challenged the "silent majority of liberal U.S. Jewry not to be afraid any longer to speak its mind."

Amen. We are not afraid.

And we won't be afraid even when enforcers like Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz try to intimidate our movement by attacking J Street in an article brimming with distortions and name-calling.

Dershowitz's article is a perfect example of what is wrong with the conversation in our community on Israel. Far too often J Street's opponents spend more time manufacturing what they wish J Street has said, rather than checking the facts and actually challenging the merits of our arguments.

Jeremy Ben-Ami, J Street's Executive Director, fired back yesterday in the Huffington Post, calling out Dershowitz for his inability to mount any serious fact-based case to challenge J Street's assertions that resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is in the interests of Israel, the Palestinians, and the United States.

TPM took up the story as well-- and like DWT gets the Schumer connection. They point out the good news that almost no one takes Dershowitz seriously any more as another other than a raving propagandist.

The bad news is that the people who do take him seriously are filling my inbox (and maybe yours) with anonymous screeds about President Obama, the "selling out" of Israel, Iranians who would happily die in order to kill Jews, and the imminent loss of Jerusalem to Hamas.

...My guess is that [Dershowitz] despises J Street for precisely the reason younger Jews, members of Congress, frustrated Israelis, and the Obama administration welcome it. It represents a new kind of pro-Israel activism-- activism built on the premise that the best way Americans can help Israel achieve security is by using our influence to encourage our government to push hard for negotiations.

Dershowitz is old school (not in a good way). He thinks that Israel advocacy should be left to the organizations which, although nominally supportive of the two-state solution, would prefer the United States to advocate peace rhetorically but not do much of anything to make it happen.

He also would prefer that the White House, the media, and the Israeli government not engage with upstarts like J Street but rather stick with the tried-and-not-so-true leadership of the "American Israel..." this, and the "American Jewish..." that. The last thing he wants to see is a whole new generation of pro-Israel activists moving on up, especially if it is dedicated to ending a status quo that it considers bad for Israelis, Palestinians, and American interests.

Bibi Netanyahu, in Washington, wows the stooges of AIPAC and the Anti-Semites for Israel

The odious Bibi's House photo op today with Minority Leader "Sunny John" Boehner (in a rare moment of non-weeping), Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Majority Whip Jim Clyburn

"Does there exist a Netanyahu 2.0, a Nixon Goes to China figure who will act with an awareness that demographic realities—the growth not only of the Palestinian population in the territories but also of the Arab and right-wing Jewish populations in Israel proper—make the status quo untenable as well as unjust?"

-- New Yorker editor David Remnick, in his "Comment"

piece this week, "Special Relationships"

by Ken

Don't tell me we've reached the point where anyone would pay the slightest attention to anything Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) has to say about foreign policy. You could fit everything he knows about the subject on a Popsicle stick -- in big block-letter printing. (Of course you would then need a Hazmat team to convey the Popsicle stick to a toxic-waste disposal facility.)

"I never thought I'd live to see the day that an American administration would denounce the state of Israel for rebuilding Jerusalem," Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana said on the House floor Tuesday after meeting Netanyahu. "I urge the president to stop all this talk about settlements in Jerusalem and start focusing on isolating a threatening and menacing and rising nuclear Iran," he said.

-- from an AP report today

Consarn it, I thought I told you not to tell me! It could be worse, though. We could be listening to House Minority Leader "Sunny John" Boehner (R-OH).

"We have no stronger ally anywhere in the world than Israel," said House Republican Leader John Boehner. "We all know we're in a difficult moment. I'm glad the prime minister is here so we can have an open dialogue."

Oh, for cripes' sake. Didn't "Weeping John" have a tanning-salon appointment to get to?

Of course, it wasn't all crack-brained Republicans. AP reporters Matti Friedman and Matthew Lee did begin their account of Israeli Prime Minster Binyamin "Bibi" Netanyahu's triumphant congressional photo op by devoting two grafs to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's "all-smiles" appearance, which included the declaration, "We in Congress stand by Israel. In Congress we speak with one voice on the subject of Israel."

At least by graf three the AP scribes have the sense to refer to Bibi's "awkwardly timed visit." True, our Bibi dpesn't really have any kind of timing except awkward? Still, not many people in his position would have the chutzpah to show up uninvited right after the stunt of waiting for Vice President Biden's recent visit to Israel to announce the building of yet more of those settlements guaranteed to derail any prospects for Middle East peace in East Jerusalem.

By now presumably Bibi's first meeting with the president has taken place. While there are bound to be efforts at spin from the various interested parties, I don't imagine we'll find out anytime soon -- probably not till "insider" diplomats and aides write their tell-all retrospectives -- what actually transpired. Nobody seemed to think any good was apt to come of it. Bibi, whose instincts are mostly thuggish and who now seems scared to death to offend the rightwardmost thugs in Israel, on whose support his fragile government depends, has hardened his position about yet more settlements, which do so much to ensure that there won't be peace in the Middle East, and nobody hardens a position harder than Bibi.

THE J STREET FACTOR

But one thing has changed conspicuously from the days when an Israeli leader could simply whisk into Washington and be greeted as a conquering hero by the combined Stooges of AIPAC (the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee) and the American right-wing coalition of Anti-Semites for Israel (whose primary interest, beyond the old-fashioned wisdom that far-right-wingers of a feather flock together, is having the Holy Land ready for enactment of their Rapture fairy tale). Those old-line Likud locksteppers now have to contend with J Street, a lobbying group for thinking American Jews.

As a colleague with long and wide experience of the nitty-gritty of U.S. politics notes, J Street not only speaks strongly and sensibly on the issues of Israel and the Israeli-American relationship but is politically extremely savvy, something that's essential considering how sophisticated AIPAC's penetration of Congress has become over the years. An awful lot of American Jews are sick and tired of having the strident, Likud-lockstep views of the hard-core American Jewish organizations passed off as "the voice" of American Jewry.

All didn't go according to script at yesterday's session of the AIPAC convention, according to a report in Haaretz. For one thing, there was the hoax report, actually passed on by NPR, that AIPAC was calling for an immediate freeze on settlement. (Ha ha!)

Then there was this scene, which I'm guessing is unprecedented in AIPAC convention history:

Later, conference-goers were surprised to find two representatives of the dovish lobby J Street in the hallway. J Street strategy chief Hadar Susskind told Haaretz that while his presence had raised a few eyebrows, "we're all on the same side."

However, combative pro-Israel commentator Alan Dershowitz interrupted the conversation and said that J Street was "splitting the Jewish community."

"It's a shame that J Street has set itself up as an independent lobby," Dershowitz said. "They should join AIPAC. I reject J Street because it spends more time criticizing Israel than supporting it. They shouldn't call themselves pro-Israel," he said, adding that he too opposed settlements. "But I spend 80 percent of my time supporting Israel," he said.

The more the hard-liners of the Likud-abiding major American Jewish organizations yell and scream about J Street, the more you know it's changing the face of the American relationship with Israel. As a prime example of the political savvy the colleague referenced above points to, J Street makes it clear -- to everyone who's really listening, unlike Alan Dershowitz, who hears what he wants to hear -- that it is forthrightly pro-Israel.

But to the relief and delight of more and more American Jews, being "pro-Israel" no longer means having to grin and bear every outrage perpetrated by the Israeli Hard Right, now so beholden to the crackpots of the Israeli religious right, notably the ultra-Orthodox, who played no role whatsoever in the founding or early survival of the state of Israel, not only sitting on their hands but in many cases actively opposing it, only to take the state hostage decades later to its agenda of insanity and criminality.

Just today J Street released the results of a new poll it has taken of American Jews' views on Israel, and found widespread support for its position "that peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a core Israeli and American interest and that the United States should take an active leadership role in achieving peace." You can find a breakdown of the interesting results here.

CAN BIBI RISE ABOVE WHAT HE IS?

The notion that the U.S. should have just grinned and bore the calculated provocation of the East Jerusalem settlement announcement clearly timed to the Biden visit is simply ridiculous. The blithering of right-wing U.S. pols that all Israel is doing is "rebuilding Jerusalem" reflects such gross and willful ignorance of the actual issues that if they had any shame they would never open their mouths again.

I don't see any possibility that the timing of the settlement announcement relative to the Biden visit was coincidental. If so, then the Netanyahu government should resign immediately on grounds of terminal ineptitude. As far as I can see, the "convergence" can only have been designed to make Bibi seem like a big man to his wavering radical right supporters, to show that he has American wrapped around his little finger, that the Israeli Right can do whatever it damned pleases.

I encourage everyone interested in the subject to read New Yorker editor David Remnick's interesting "Comment" piece in the March 23 issue, "Special Relationships," which begins:

For decades, mainstream Israeli politicians have taken pride in their fingertip feel for the subtleties of American life and politics. Israeli diplomats know the meeting halls of the Midwest almost as well as they do the breakfast room at the Regency Hotel. So it has been disturbing to see, during the 2008 Presidential race and after, that some right-wing members of the Israeli political élite, along with some ordinary Israelis, often seem to derive their most acute sense of Barack Obama from Fox News and the creepier nooks of the blogosphere.

Polls and conversations with right-leaning Israelis have long reflected a distrust of Obama and a free-floating anxiety about what they imagine to be his view of the world—specifically, his indifference to Israel. At the margins, and sometimes within them, one even hears the familiar aspersions about the President’s middle name, his childhood interlude in Indonesia, and his marination in a South Side milieu supposedly composed of incendiary preachers, black nationalists, fading Weathermen, and (Oy! Vey ist mir!) Palestinian intellectuals.

And it concludes:

In Israel, however, Netanyahu’s Likud-led government strangely misperceives the currents of American opinion. Netanyahu and his ministers are in the habit of speaking directly to adoring audiences at AIPAC and other groups led by older, conservative philanthropists; they largely overlook younger, more liberal constituencies, which for years have been more questioning of Israel policy. They have shown distinctly less affection for J Street, the newly formed lobbying group intended as a counterweight to AIPAC.

In fairness, many Americans see Israeli politics in atavistic terms, too, yearning for a Labor Party that shattered long ago. Even as they rightly deplore the injustice of the occupation and last year’s war in Gaza, they fail to recognize the complexity of trying to reach a final resolution when the Palestinians are so deeply and ruinously divided and when so many Israeli supporters of a two-state solution have, after Oslo, Camp David, and Taba, despaired of getting a workable deal.

The essential question for Israel is not whether it has the friendship of the White House—it does—but whether Netanyahu remains the arrogant rejectionist that he was in the nineteen-nineties, the loyal son of a radical believer in Greater Israel, forever settling scores with the old Labor élites and making minimal concessions to ward off criticism from Washington and retain the affections of his far-right coalition partners. Is he capable of engaging with the moderate and constructive West Bank leadership of Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad, and making history? Does there exist a Netanyahu 2.0, a Nixon Goes to China figure who will act with an awareness that demographic realities—the growth not only of the Palestinian population in the territories but also of the Arab and right-wing Jewish populations in Israel proper—make the status quo untenable as well as unjust?

Without the creation of a viable contiguous Palestinian state, comprised of a land area equivalent to all of the West Bank and Gaza (allowing for land swaps), and with East Jerusalem as its capital, it is impossible to imagine a Jewish and democratic future for Israel. There is nothing the Israeli leadership could do to make the current fantasy of an indifferent American leadership become a reality faster than to get lost in the stubborn fantasy of sustaining the status quo.

That's smart enough that we can overlook the misuse of "comprised." (Hey, New Yorker, dontcha have copy editors? Or does the editor get to overrule them?)

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