Sunday, March 28, 2010

Cynicism and Reality

I realize this news item is 100% spin, from the carefully crafted insider's message through the editorial decision to run it so as to bolster The Man, to the appreciation it will garner with the folks of a particular ethnic group who loved him last year and may or may not been having minor pangs of doubt recently. I wasn't born yesterday, as they say in French.

Having said all that, the facts of the matter really are positive. As I've said in the past and will probably say again, it's a unique country in the annals of history, and everyone ought to appreciate it. The Man is a product of it, even though he's got lots yet to learn.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Schmalz from chicken fat?
sounds like a tough one to me ;-)))

but what about this tradition going back to 1996?
Silke

http://muslimvoices.org/obama-host-ramadan-dinner/

Sulzman said...

Yaacov,

What exactly don't you think Obama doesn't get about Israelis? I think he gets Israelis exactly right, which is that they've become complacent about the peace process, and perhaps understandably so, given developments over the last 10 years. But for the U.S. that's a big problem. I thought this article by Tom Friedman today pretty much got it right.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/opinion/28friedman.html?hp

Anonymous said...

Sulzman
Obama is said to have written in one of his books that he didn't get the romance of Europe
- I went romance? Europe? a politician is looking for romance of all things in Europe? honey mooners may look at the castle as romance, politicians should see the slaughter they were built for.
- as I happen to consider all of the Mediterranean coast being part of or a major player in Europe's blood soaked history, maybe this explains to you what I think Obama isn't getting about Israel.

I am way too stupid to be able to follow Friedman's twisted and convoluted trains of thought but one thing I got:
the US needs/wants help and so he thinks Israel needs to do that (the US as the poor left alone victim?) - but how about asking the US-NATO-partners first - I mean really asking them, Clinton on the phone for 43 minutes each with the evasive heads of state who are so sorry but our electorate won't buy it and mostly get away with it?
If the whole of NATO would not only talk but actually stand with the US that would send a signal to the Muslim world, instead Friedman et al are asking Israelis to do still a bit more of the dying because that will make the US look good with Muslims. And don't you tell me that that there isn't going to be more deaths once "they" can rightfully tell themselves that the US has made Israel cave in.
Silke

NormanF said...

Israel has tried everything to get the talks restarted... but its impossible to have them if your partner insists on finding excuses to avoid talking to you.

The truth of the matter is Israel cannot put the life of its people on indefinite hold while the Palestinians have all the time in the world to decide what to do next. And the freeze in Yesha has amply demonstrated that goodwill gestures are wasted on them.

4infidels said...

Sulzman,

Memo to Tom Friedman: the world isn't flat, globalization isn't going to bring peace, the next six months won't necessarily be make or break (insert topic of your choice) and the man on the Arab street who told him_____doesn't necessarily speak for the masses and may not be giving him the truth. 30 years of being wrong hasn't stopped Friedman from writing the same nonsense nor prevented him from raking it in on the corporate speaking tour.

Now to address this column:

1) Israel can make pursing peace (meaning a piece of paper signed by various parties and a Palestinians state on its border) a full-time job, to the exclusion of everything else that a healthy society needs to do, and still find that it has no partner for peace. That doesn't even get into the issue that a Palestinian state could bring more not less conflict, as most Palestinians are far more interested in destroying Israel than they are in building their own country.

2) Islam divides the world into believers and infidels. Even if a peace-treaty is achieved between Israel and Arabs, it won't diminish the hatred that the Muslim in the street or the mosque or the government has for what he sees an an American infidel, occupying soldier on his land. Israeli concessions will be celebrated as gifts from Allah, not a favor by infidel Americans. Inshallah, Israel will be destroyed and Islam will conquer Europe and America.

3) Those Muslims most enthusiastic about attacking Americans are the ones least likely to be appeased by a "two-state solution." They view all peace-processing, negotiations and compromise as a sell-out of their Muslim values, a betrayal of Muslim land and a trick or scheme by the West to SECURE Israel's future by buying off its enemies.

Now where is my $40,000 per speech!

Backseat Blogger said...

yeach :(

the very thought of being at a seder with Obama, let alone him leading one is enough to make my skin crawl.

i need to go take a shower now.

Joe in Australia said...

I'm pretty used to press-releases-as-news, but this bit was too much:
Suddenly they heard a familiar voice. “Hey, is this the Seder?” Barack Obama asked, entering the room.

Oh, come on. Shame on the NYT for prostituting itself this way.

Anonymous said...

Joe
it is not only the NYT prostituting itself it is a sneering condescension to us the oh so stupid and gullible public and that condescension comes straight either from the press-office of the White House or the assigned to it adulating/adoring/ululating commentariat.
But come to think of it if I remember that border soft-porno cover of Obama nibbling? at his wife's ear on the cover of a US-magazine during the campaign then it might even stem from "the One" himself. I think it is time that statesmen/women with some gravitas instead of all that laid-backness become the fashion again.

Silke