Latest Piece for Vocal International

Michael L.

Vocal International is a news magazine out Brussels, Belgium, that I have joined as an analyst, writer, and a member of the Academic Board of Trustees.

My latest piece is entitled, Donald Trump: Israel, Iran and the Jihad Bomb?

Here is a tid-bit:

At the beginning of this political season, however, we are seeing Hillary Clinton challenged from her Left by socialist Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, while former Republican Florida governor, Jeb Bush, is challenged somewhere from his Right by famous, billionaire real estate developer and entertainer, Donald Trump.

While the American mainstream media gives Sanders some credence as a sitting Senator, almost the entire media landscape – left, right, and center – denigrates Trump.  This is not true for everyone writing on American politics, however, because Trump is now driving the clown-car of sixteen potential Republican nominees.  According to a recent FOX News poll Trump is actually leading among likely Republican primary voters.

Check out the rest from the link above.

Acknowledging Jerusalem

Michael L.

People often say that the "Israel lobby" has far too much control over American foreign policy.

What I often wonder is that if Israel has so much control over the United States government, how is it possible that the U.S. refuses to acknowledge the city of Jerusalem as the capital of that country?

If Israeli interests are as powerful as we are often told then surely Washington D.C. would have recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel decades ago, but it has not.

Furthermore, is their any other UN recognized country on the planet that the U.S. refuses to acknowledge the capital thereof?  Not that I am aware of, so perhaps someone can enlighten me.

Today in the Jerusalem Post we read:

House of Representatives submitted a bill Monday that would enable Congress to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel on American documents.

The bill calls for moving the American embassy to Jerusalem. It also challenges the recent Supreme Court decision that prevents Jerusalem, Israel from being written on the passport of a child born in the city.

I will be very pleasantly surprised if this bill becomes law, but it represents yet another bet that I would not take.  Certainly there will be no support for this measure from the current President of the United States who will quietly work behind the scenes to kill it.

From the comments:

jboom

This is just a publicity stunt to the American people. This will NEVER happen this is being done just so Obama can smack it down and people say hey he doesn't like israel. Israel need to go to their OWN government and work something out. Get the F out of my congress leeches

Well, you have to love this guy.

The comment is entirely incoherent, yet repeats a classic anti-Semitic theme that Jews, as "leeches," suck the blood of host nations.

This is old, old, old stuff.  This is quite literally Medieval thinking.

lightharry • a day ago

This just shows the average American how much influence the Israeli AIPAC has through it's bribing of the Congressmen. We have a congress that no lölonger represents the American tax payer but jumps every time Israel calls

jboom seems to have a like-minded friend in lightharry.

How these individuals fail to see the obvious contradiction between the actual news story and their world-view is pretty remarkable.

This is essentially a story on how friends of Israel, including friends in Congress, are requesting that the U.S. government recognize Israel's capital, Jerusalem, which it refuses to do.  Yet, somehow, against all reason, for the geniuses above it means that the Jews have too much power.

guest123 • a day ago

Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, the recognition of that fact does not alter the fact.

I could not agree more.

David Schugar • a day ago

This is a cause worth fighting for. It would be better received if Israel accompanied this effort with a program for building new & modern Palestinian cities in the West Bank. Cities that they could require background checks for residency to illustrate that those who want to lead normal productive lives (normalization) and foreswear "struggle and resistance" are welcome to participate in the land of milk and honey. Prosperous Palestinian Principalities - each with their own soccer team too. 

This is the kind of sentiment that I was raised within, so to speak.

David has the modern, contemporary, liberal, Enlightenment world-view, but it has a fatal flaw.  It requires the like-minded cooperation of other people.  If there is one thing that we have learned in recent decades it is that the Palestinian-Arabs, as a group, tend not to yearn for "new & modern Palestinian cities in the West Bank."

If they wanted modernity, autonomy, and peace, they could have had that in 1948.

Instead they chose Jihadism, dependency, and war... as they perpetually whine to the international community that the Jews are being mean to them.

What we should look for in the next president (in general)

Sar Shalom

In previous posts about what to look for in the next president, I have examined issues of particular interest to us as supporters of Israel. In this post I'd like to suggest two traits to look for in the next president that are not particular to any political leanings. The first one is that the next president should be modest enough to recognize that he or she can never know more about a particular policy area than a specialist in that topic. The second trait is how he or she would evaluate whose advice is sound and whose is not.

To illustrate these two points, or the absence of them, I refer to a recent post by Abu Yehuda about Mideast policy by the two most recent administrations. What I would suggest is that the problems in the Middle East are not due to decisions of recent administrations to intervene or not, rather the problem is either one of immodesty or an inability to evaluate competing advice soundly.

Starting where one of the character flaws is at work, Obama acts as a know-it-all when it comes to the Middle East. This should not be surprising given that he previously stated, "I think that I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors." With regards to Iran, the source for Obama's policy can be described as Obama knowing, just knowing, that underneath the facade of Iran's revolutionary regime there is a responsible regional actor that will come out if only the right coddling incentives were provided. The result is that when his Director of Central Intelligence, Defense Secretary, Secretary of State and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff all called for arming and training the Syrian rebels in Jordan, Obama felt confident in his possession of "The Truth" about Iran and how such an action would undermine the coaxing of the hidden responsible actor out from the revolutionary facade.

While there were know-it-alls involved in Bush's Iraq War policy, Bush was not one of them. (Disclosure: I supported the Iraq War from the beginning, albeit with reservations about Bush's commitment to the establishment of a democratic order in Iraq after Saddam fell. From the time the statue of Saddam fell until the announcement of the "surge," there was little if anything that I supported in the way of decisions made in Washington and then I completely supported the nationalization of the Anbar Awakening embodied in the "surge.") Instead, Bush's problem was that he trusted two know-it-alls, Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, and mistook their confidence and calls for decisive action for sage advice. Notwithstanding that I think Bush should have followed the script that a team from the Army War College drafted for the Phase IV reconstruction in Iraq, and the fact that events have supported my view, Bush's decision to follow Cheney and Rumsfeld could have been defended at the start. However, as events transpired in Iraq, a principle enunciated by a restaurant chain manager to Atul Gawande about what he would do if running a neurology unit should affected Bush's approach going forward:

This is pretty obvious. I’m sure you already do it. But I’d study what the best people are doing, figure out how to standardize it, and then bring it to everyone to execute.

In Iraq, this would have meant looking at the record of MAJ James Gavrilis in Ar-Rutbah, MG David Petraeus in Ninewah Province, MG Peter Chiarelli in Sadr City, and COL H. R. McMaster in Tal Afar. In each of those cases, the Bush administration was happy to pocket the results of those operations, even citing McMaster's success in Tal Afar as reason to believe that the Iraq War was not hopeless. However, for Cheney and Rumsfeld, those officers committed the unpardonable sin of straying from The Truth about how wars are to fought and Bush trusted Cheney's and Rumsfeld's assurances about The Truth about how to fight wars rather than the experiences of the aforementioned officers.

Bush eventually did turn around on his approach to Iraq, after receiving a "thumping" at the polls in 2006, in part due to the situation in Iraq. At that time, there were two proposals for how to proceed. One was the Baker-Hamilton report, also known as the Iraq Study Group. The competing proposal was from Fred Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute and retired Army Vice Chief of Staff Jack Keane, what later became known as the surge. While the Kagan-Keane report did incorporate the lessons from what did and did not work in Iraq to that point, I cannot rule out the possibility that Bush selected because it was the only one of the two options in front of him that was not an effective surrender in Iraq. Whatever his motives, Bush's selection of the Kagan-Keane report, the leadership of GEN David Petraeus in Baghdad, and Bush's support for GEN Petraeus built on the progress being made at that time in Ramadi by COL Sean MacFarland and brought those successes to the rest of Iraq.

Unfortunately, by the time Bush came to realize that the approach of Cheney and Rumsfeld was not working, Iran had embedded itself in Iraq's political structure. While the Kagan-Keane plan did address the security threats plaguing Iraq at the end of 2006, it did not address the political structure in Iraq. It is Iran's continued control over Iraqi politics that plagues us today, control which evolved over four years of Bush refusing to address the security situation in Iraq in any manner that challenged Cheney's and Rumsfeld's "Truth."

Returning to the issue of evaluating the candidates, Abu Yehuda wrote, "Bush did not understand the complexity of the situation or the intentions of the various players." In actuality, we should not expect the president to understand the complexity of the situation. However, there is something we should expect from the president that would prevent situations both like what arose from Bush's waging of war in Iraq and Obama's withdrawal from that war. The first expectation should be for president to have the humility to recognize the limits of his or her understanding. The second expectation should be for the president to have some means of weighing competing offers of advice other than simply favoring what jives with his or her pre-existing views. While it would be ideal to be able to do so a priori, at a minimum this should mean being able to follow the consequences of natural experiments with an eye towards evaluating competing theories on how they performed rather than by their conformance to preconceived notions.

The 1980s, the American Left, and Rubik's Bomb

Michael L.

{Cross-posted at the Elder of Ziyon, Jews Down Under, and The Jewish Press.}

When I was a college student in the 1980s the American Left opposed nuclear proliferation.

Mainstream, regular Democrats often furrowed their brows at the American nuclear program during the Cold War and many called for a scaling back of the arsenal.

A popular book at the time, among idealistic, politically-inclined peace-loving Jewish left-dwelling Americans, and others, was something called The Hundredth Monkey, by Ken Keyes, Jr.

{Not to be confused with countercultural icon and author Ken Kesey of One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest fame.}

The book's thesis was that in order to avoid a nuclear catastrophe the West needed to move beyond a zero-sum paradigm of political confrontation to a paradigm of cooperation, if not friendship, with international rivals.

It was as much a broad psychological analysis of the West, politically, as it was a specific criticism of U.S. nuclear policies.  In the 1980s, during the Reagan years, the American Left was down, but it was not out and it was motivated.  The kinds of students who embraced The Hundredth Monkey were also, just beneath the surface of Reagan's America, embracing feminism and the counterculture.  There was a sense of possibility in the air and nascent conservatives, such as Tucker Carlson - well before he put on his bow tie and got decked by Jon Stewart on Crossfire in 2004 - were still following the Grateful Dead around the country.

Although college students increasingly looked rightward at the time, feminism seemed to be on the rise and young women throughout the country were Taking Back the Night.  Feminists were also starting, in a significant way, to oppose Islamic oppression of women; a trend that reached a height in opposition to the Taliban in the 1990s but that crashed with the Two Towers in 2001.  There was also an interesting debate within American feminism between feminist countercultural libertarians, like Camille Paglia - who would now be considered a right-leaning figure - versus more traditional second-wave feminists, like Gloria Steinem.

There was something of a renaissance of counterculture literature at the time, as well.  Even as conservatism and the Evangelical movement and the Moral Majority were gaining within the mainstream American political landscape, many college students rediscovered Kerouac and the Beats, Richard Brautigan and the hippies.  Writers, and crazy people, like William S. Burroughs, Alan Ginsberg, Alan Watts, John Lilly, Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert, Charles Bukowski, Hunter S. Thompson, and many other alternative figures, largely from the 1960s, came to the attention of many young people in my generation... including, yes, Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters.

In the 1980s there was a saying within certain dope-smoking, poker-playing quarters that "the 90s are going to make the 80s look like the 50s."  The idea, of course, was that we were going back to something that more closely resembled the 1960s.  The hope - at least among young, Left, radically-inclined white kids - was that after the business-oriented, closed-down, shut-up, Reagan 80s we would see a 1960s-style re-awakening of freedom and fun in the 90s.

{It did not happen.}

When William Jefferson Clinton defeated George H.W. Bush in the general election of 1992 many of us breathed a sigh of relief.  From a cultural standpoint the Clinton presidency seemed to promise considerably more elbow-room than did the previous twelve years of conservative Reagan-Bush.  And although, of course, the 1990s were nothing like the 1960s, there was at least a sense among many on the Left that the country was taking steps in a direction that suggested cultural openness and international cooperation under Bill Clinton.

80s conservatism was over.  The economy was booming.  The computer revolution was taking hold and new technologies, such as cell phone technology, were introduced to the general population.  Computers were everywhere and people were yammering at one another on email, prior to text messaging and twitter.  Pat Buchanan called for a "Culture War," Clinton had illicit sex in the Oval Office, and Jerry Falwell thought that the world was coming to an end because of Gay people.

However, if in the 1980s and 1990s the American Left opposed nuclear proliferation and zero-sum political stances, today it has embraced both.

The American Left, and the Obama administration, support an Iranian Jihadi bomb and a zero-sum effort against the Jews of the Middle East.

They may have opposed nuclear proliferation in the United States during the middle-end of the twentieth-century, but they definitely favor Iranian nuclear proliferation under the Ayatollahs in the beginning of the twenty-first-century.  They opposed a zero-sum resolution in the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, but often favor a zero-sum resolution in the Long Arab War Against the Jews.

Phases of the Long Arab War Against the Jews in the Middle East: 

Phase 1, 1920 - 1947: Riots and Massacres

Phase 2, November 1947 - April 1948: The Civil War in Palestine

Phase 3, 1948 - 1973: Conventional Warfare

Phase 4, 1964 - Present: The Terror War

Phase 5, 1975 - Present: The Delegitimization Effort

The Arab war in the Middle East against the Jewish minority is a zero-sum conflict.

The hostile Arab majority outnumber the beseiged Jews by a factor of 60 to 70 to 1.  The extent to which the western-left accepts anti-Semitic anti-Zionism as part of its larger coalition is the extent to which it accepts zero-sum resolutions to problems.  There is no amicable compromise between the anti-Zionist Left and the Jewish people.  Anti-Zionism represents the Arab-Muslim effort to undermine and eliminate Israel and BDS is its western-left outpost.

So long as "liberals" and Democrats provide venues for anti-Semitic anti-Zionists of the type that promote BDS, then they are engaging in a zero-sum aggression against the Jewish people as a whole.  So long as "liberals" and Democrats enable an Iranian nuclear weapons program, then they are twisting a Rubik's Bomb that quite possibly will go off in their faces... and ours, as well.

Calvin and Hobbes, by Bill Watterson

I love popular culture and I absolutely love Calvin and Hobbes.

Bill Watterson is one of the great artists in his field and if his lawyers come upon this and order me to cease-and-desist, I will do so with alacrity and sadness.

But I have been wondering what I want to do with my weekly acknowledgment of the Sabbath.

For the moment, at least, I want to thank Bill Watterson for creating something beautiful.

A Re-Alignment of American Jewish Organizations Is Needed

Emmett

A re-alignment of organizations whose stated objectives include, strengthening support for Israel and combating anti-Semitism, is needed.

They have failed to achieve these objectives.

This article concentrates, but is not limited to, AIPAC, ADL, AJC (American Jewish Committee), the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations (CPMJO) and the ZOA..

I attempt, in a most respectful manner, to point out, in some specific instances, where these organizations have failed. The second portion of this article contains suggestions, but also the difficulties, of achieving these objectives.

I must confess, short of a revolution in the thinking of American Jews, I don't believe there is a high probability of these organizations changing in the near future.

Our dealings with Iran have shown the weakness of AIPAC, ADL, AJC, ZOA and CPMJO. They failed to stop the bad nuclear negotiating stance with Iran.

When both Israel and Saudi Arabia publicly condemn the negotiations, any American administration and European government should have heeded their recommendation. These organizations failed to expose (or may not even have known) the previous year long, illegal “back door” negotiations between N. Burns (State Dept.) and the terrorist sponsoring Iranians. The same organizations could not minimize the damage caused by General Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff , when he said “we would not want to be complicit in any Israeli attack against Iran.”

It remains to be seen how effective the organizations will be in getting the Senate to override the expected Obama veto.

These organizations failed to convince the administration to combine the “nuclear” talks with Iran’s support for Syria’s Assad, Hizballah, (second only to Al Qaeda in number of Americans killed) and Hamas. Their continued denial of the Holocaust, continuous chants of “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” (just last weekend on Al Quds Day) and development of long range missiles capable of reaching the U.S., seems to show their mal-intent towards the United States.

Even if Congress overrides President Obama's veto, the organizations are still at fault for letting this Iran deal advance this far provoking enmity between America and it's Middle East allies..

AIPAC, AJC and CPMJO acceded to President Obama’s request to “hold off” on further sanctions. (Senator Menendez proposal.)

They had years to convince Senator and now Secretary Kerry, of the legitimate needs of Israel. Yet, his “apartheid” comments reveal an anti-Israel bias, at a minimum, and possibly anti-Semitism, at it’s most dangerous. I believe only the ZOA has publicly called for his resignation.

These same organizations failed to convince President Obama that the re-establishment of the modern state of Israel is not just a reaction to the Holocaust. He hinted that in his statements in Turkey and Egypt.

President Obama’s public call to remove President Mubarak and his insistence on seating the Muslim Brotherhood in the front row, at his Cairo speech, were instrumental in endangering the already fragile Egyptian/Israeli peace treaty.

These organizations were apparently ignorant of the views of Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan. From his term as mayor of Istanbul, he was known as an anti-American, anti-Semitic , Islamist. In fact, the previous Turkish government had banned him, for five years, from public life for his Islamist views. Yet, it has been reported, that President Obama, in his first two years, spoke to Erdogan more than any other world leader.

These same organization have failed to convince CIA Director Brennan to stop calling Jerusalem, “Al Quds”, to stop flattering Hizballah to Lebanese audiences, and to stop lauding “religious freedom” in Saudi Arabia.

AIPAC failed to support Senator Rand Paul’s bill which would cut off U.S. aid to the PA and it’s security forces. The bill states that they must fulfill essentially, what they were responsible to do in the Oslo Accords, and in the negotiation with Israel the last eight years,. For example, recognize Israel as a Jewish State, renounce terrorism and terminate anti American and anti-Israel incitement.

The ADL and the AJC have adopted a universalist rather than a particularist (pro Israel, pro-Jewish) world view. That attitude explains why only half of the ADL blogs for 2011 and 2012 are advocating for Israel or Jewish causes. The AJC invests time, effort and money developing an “amicus” brief opposing the Swiss law that restricts the height of Mosques.

Meanwhile, global ant-Semitism has risen!

The AJC proudly announces that, for a fourth time, Secretary Clinton has participated at their general meeting. This is the same Secretary Clinton who berated Prime Minister Netanyahu, and who stated that the settlements were “illegitimate. I don’t believe she expressed that sentiment when she was running for Senator from New York State.

The AJC brags about the numerous Seders they conducted with foreign diplomats in attendance. I ask: Did the countries represented by these diplomats vote for, against or abstain from the PA joining UN treaties and organizations?

Even the Republican Jewish Coalition, at their general meeting, failed to convince Governor Christie that the term “occupied territory” expresses an anti-Israel perspective. After meeting with Mr. Adelson, one of the prime sponsors, all Governor Christie could say is, “I misspoke.” His true views can be ascertained from the brusque and dismissive manner he treated Morton Klein of the ZOA, when they met after the speech.

By the way, the accounting problems that the ZOA have experienced the last few years, have destroyed the sentiment (expressed by numerous comedians) that a Jewish accountant can protect your money.

Both the Wiesenthal Center and J Street merit a mention in this article.Dean Rabbi Hier of the Wiesenthal Center was reported, in The Forward, to be the most highly paid executive of any Jewish organization. His organization is most effective in attracting money from members of the entertainment industry. But they (the Center and members of the entertainment industry) also have failed to increase support for Israel or minimize the level of global antiSemitism.

The relatively new J Street group has views that are inconsistent with a 2011 AJC poll of American Jews. For example, J Street advocates that the U.S. should include HAMAS in negotiations with the PA and that Jerusalem should be divided. They also oppose any military action against Iran.

On a personal note: Five years ago when I was still active as a university professor, I noticed the dire straits that pro-Israel and Jewish students were having on campus. I asked the AJC, ZOA , ADL and The Flame, if they could, perhaps, combine their efforts so this problem could be nipped in the bud. Only Mr. Joffee from The Flame acknowledged my letter!

Unfortunately, many of the Jewish organizations have accepted, even relish, their role as “court” Jews.

Therefore, I don’t believe a re-alignment is possible.

The energy of these organizations comes from money that is contributed. Not from the $50 or $100 that individuals contribute, but from the “fat cats” in the “accolade” list. (the individuals listed on the left of the organizations stationery.) Since these individuals may be among the 70% of American Jews who voted for the Obama administration (sorry, partisan), it will be difficult to change their minds.

The hundreds of Jewish organizations (synagogues, community centers, federations, etc.) are another misguided group. Their interpretation of Tikkun Olam means “Charity Does Not Begin At Home”. It is rare to find a “Save Sderot” sign next to their old, tattered, yellowed “Save Darfur” sign.

Rabbi Eric Yoffie, former President of the Union for Reform Judaism, recently stated that former Israeli Ambassador Oren “doesn't much like American Jews. In fact, he appears to view them with conisiderable disdain.” This comment results from Oren faulting Jewish reporters and some intellectuals for not supporting Israel strongly enough.

I don't expect significant public actions from those political “luminaries” who are always looking for their next position. Senator Schumer, who calls himself the “shomer” (guardian) of Israel, recently stated to a group, “The worst situation is a military strike against Iran. It will trigger a war with Hizballah in Lebanon.” Was he ahead of the findings of the Luntz poll of Democrat “opinion elites”? The poll found that almost half of them consider Israel to be a racist country? Or, fewer than half believe that Israel wants peace with it's neighbors. Or, of particular relevance to the Iran agreement debate, that three quarters of these Democrats believe that Israel has too much influence on U.S. Foreign policy. Will he attempt to overide a most probable veto from President Obama to remove sanctions? His potential position as the leading Democrat in the Senate (Senator Reid is retiring.) is in play.

Even former Mayor Bloomberg, who courageously visited Israel during the Gaza conflict, appeared to bristle at the remark by CNN Wolf Blitzer that, the closing of flights from the U.S. to Israel was prompted by the administration.

I hope the readers who comment on this article can state some optimistic strategies to relieve the dire situation I have described.