American president - job prerequisite #1

Source: politico.com, dateline March 2007:

Barack Obama’s presidential campaign is moving to tamp down concerns among Democratic supporters of Israel with an e-mail from a Florida congressman to Jewish leaders singing the senator’s praises.

“What has always struck me about Senator Obama - and this is one of the reasons that I have endorsed his candidacy for president - is that a love for Israel and a desire to keep the Jewish people secure is evident not just in his work, but also in his heart,” wrote Rep. Robert Wexler (D) in the e-mail, which was sent to a list of Jewish community leaders.

Wait.

Lets re-read this last paragraph.

Apparently, a Democratic Representative in Florida, Mr. Robert Wexler, sent an email explaining why AMERICAN jews should support and vote for Obama:

"What has always struck me about Senator Obama - and this is one of the reasons that I have endorsed his candidacy for president - is that a love for Israel and a desire to keep the Jewish people secure is evident not just in his work, but also in his heart."


Obviously, an American president's FIRST priority is "keep the Jewish people secure" and more importantly, have a "love for Israel" in his heart.

Those Katrina victims - they are just niggers, let them starve and die off in their shoddy trailers.

And those Americans who just have had their homes foreclosed, who lost their jobs, who have had a sickness in their family and now their credit card debt approaches the level of the blackest despair - well, those white crackers, they can fuck off and die for all that matters.


But what matters is:
Love of Israel - in his heart!
Screw Americans - we are not that important.

Let the $3 billion annual gravy train "aid" to Israel keep going... and going and going... Those Katrina refugees can wait...

Can you imaging a Mexican American writing to his constituents: "I recommend you vote for Obama because he loves Mexico and wants to protect Mexicans"?

How about other minorities?

Of course not - it is absurd!

How about this - can an American president have a deep love for the United States of America in his heart, and his priority be the safety of ALL American Citizens!

Bonus Material:
I have watched parts of the presidential debate today.

Did anybody else catch the question to Obama from the "respectable, serious man in glasses falling off his nose", this question:

"Would you treat an attack on Israel as an attack on the United States?"

Why, this is the United States of America, and truth be told we have NO DEFENSE TREATY with Israel (unlike, say, with NATO members like Germany, Poland, etc).

And that was of course Obama's answer right?

RIGHT?

Extra Special Bonus:
If you must, read the article in the link.
Basically, it quotes ONLY right wing, extreme Zionist, pro-Likud American Jews who, in so many words, are telling Obama to know his place... or else.

Like everything written in a mainstream publication about the pro-Israel lobby and AIPAC (its most extreme form), the article writes in code.

Still, some snippets:

Obama “fails to understand the totalitarian politics and sensibilities of the folks over there, who are not well meaning,” said E.J. Kessler, a New York Post editor who’s a longtime observer of American-Jewish politics. “His approach will appeal to a lot of lefty Jews, but it won’t appeal to the serious players,” she said, referring to the better-organized and better funded groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Council, AIPAC

Yes, the Jews who are for the peace process and dare to question the self destructing Israeli policies are just "lefty Jews", and the serious players, with the big money, are the ONLY ones that count.

Got it!

I am glad that I live in this wonderful democracy, where all citizens are equal, one man one vote, and all that shit...

Obama’s substantively hard line on Israel has cost him friends among Chicago’s Palestinian activists. But his rhetoric has given the pro-Israel side pause. As Israel’s most vocal American allies see it, the divisions there aren’t about partisan name-calling: they’re about murder and the survival of a Jewish state.

"As Israel’s most vocal American allies see it, the divisions there aren’t about partisan name-calling: they’re about murder and the survival of a Jewish state."?

Who is murdering whom, exactly?
Last I checked, somehow the ratio is about 3 Palestinian deaths to 1 Israeli.

“It was mystifying to me when [Obama] said that one of the reasons there isn’t peace in the Middle East is because of ‘cynicism.’ Cynicism? That’s the reason?” asked Morton Klein, the president of the Zionist Organization of America, a hard-liner who often gives voice to sentiments other Jewish leaders are more comfortable whispering “It makes me think that Barack Obama doesn’t understand the continuing Arab war against Israel.”

There is an Arab war against Israel?
Exactly who is making war on Israel now?
Syria? Lebanon? Hamas?

Are these existential dangers to Israel, ones capable of defeating that country?

Hell no!

They are barely capable of defending Lebanon, and cannot prevent the Israeli Air Force from bombing the shit out of bridges, clean water generators, hospitals, residential buildings...

So what makes those super Zionists (who fight for Israel with American money and to the last drop of an Israeli Sderot civilian):

In those remarks, Obama worked his domestic assault on cynicism and hopelessness into an address on the Middle East. His attack on cynicism, and another line about the “cycle of violence” struck hard-line supporters of Israel as suggesting that the Israeli and Palestinian sides are equally to blame – something Obama himself has rejected in other, prepared remarks.

"His attack on cynicism, and another line about the “cycle of violence” struck hard-line supporters of Israel as suggesting that the Israeli and Palestinian sides are equally to blame "

Of course - Israel is blameless, and is just defending itself - by building more settlements, by evicting more and more Arabs from their homes so that more and more settlers can move in, by having endless checkpoints...

The violence is all the Arabs fault.

Israel is godly, saintly, while the Palestinians are demonic, satanic, evil.

Got it.

Lets take a peek at the web M J Rosenberg's Opinion Column from 2005:

In 1967, following the Six Day War -- with Israel now in control of the West Bank, including Hebron -- ultra-religious Jewish nationalists pressured the Israeli government to permit Jewish settlers to reclaim, and move into, properties that had belonged to the Jewish community prior to 1929.

The government refused. It arranged for Jewish worship inside the tomb but not for civilian settlement inside the city, which it considered to be both impractical and provocative. Only a tiny group of extremists (many from outside Israel) had any interest in living inside Hebron and – in the midst of a city of 160,000 Palestinians – they would need to be defended by hundreds, if not thousands, of soldiers.

Some 400 settlers live in H-2 in the midst of 30,000 Palestinians.

Last month, I visited H-2 despite being told by an Israeli friend that it is “the worst place in the West Bank.” How so? “The settlers there are religious fanatics and dedicate their lives to terrorizing the Palestinians with the goal of driving them all out. The Palestinians can’t fight back because the army won’t let them. On top of all that, the settlers hate the soldiers almost as much as they hate the Palestinians because the soldiers try to curb their activities. These soldiers are in a situation where they have to defend fanatics who routinely refer to them as Nazis.”

But, he added, “so long as the settlers are there, the soldiers must remain as well. Snipers, shooting from the hills, have killed Jews [including a two year old, Shalhevet Pass] and, so the soldiers need to be there, no matter how much they hate it.”

Arab snipers have killed a 2 year old...

But the most striking thing is the steel mesh screens (see photo) that the Arabs have installed just above the heads of pedestrians to protect them from the garbage and excrement routinely dumped by the settlers from their second floor windows. The screens catch all sorts of disgusting stuff and lethal objects like cinder blocks, although liquid debris does make its way to the ground or on the heads of anyone below.

"...the steel mesh screens (see photo) that the Arabs have installed just above the heads of pedestrians to protect them from the garbage and excrement routinely dumped by the settlers from their second floor windows."

What hate.

From both sides.

Some soldiers' experiences from the article:

One soldier spoke of being frightened by the “rush” he felt from giving Arabs orders. "I was ashamed of myself the day I realized that I simply enjoy the feeling of power…Forget for a moment that I think that all these Jews are nuts and that I believe we should leave the territories. But how dare [a Palestinian] say ‘no’ to me? I am the Law! I am the Law here!

“Once I was at a checkpoint, a so-called strangulation checkpoint, blocking the entrance to a village. On one side a line of cars wanting to get out, and on the other side a line of cars wanting to get in. I stood there, gesturing ‘you to do this,’ ‘you do that.’ You start playing with them, like a computer game. ‘You come here, you go there.’ You barely move, you make them obey the tip of your finger. It's a mighty feeling.”

A second soldier wrote: “The thing that…affected me emotionally…was when we had just arrived in Hebron. I was on guard duty, when suddenly, from one of the small streets, a settler girl shows up and shouts at me very urgently: ‘Soldier, soldier, come quickly, there's an Arab here who's attacking a girl.’ I got very alarmed and advanced with my weapon cocked. The scene that unfolded was of an Arab with his two children. He’s trying to protect them from another settler girl who's throwing stones at them. I blow my fuse and start screaming at her….She’s screaming back that they are Arabs and should be killed…and the father, poor guy, says, with helpless eyes, ‘We're used to it, we've been here a long time now, it's alright.’ "

I was on guard duty, when suddenly, from one of the small streets, a settler girl shows up and shouts at me very urgently: ‘Soldier, soldier, come quickly, there's an Arab here who's attacking a girl.’

The scene that unfolded was of an Arab with his two children. He’s trying to protect them from another settler girl who's throwing stones at them. I blow my fuse and start screaming at her….She’s screaming back that they are Arabs and should be killed.

The father, poor guy, says, with helpless eyes, ‘We're used to it, we've been here a long time now, it's alright.

Yes, Israelis are saintly and it is always the Arabs to blame.

Those IDF soldiers seem like decent blokes, stuck in an impossible situation.

Reminds me of... Americans in Iraq...

A third soldier spoke of the day a group from abroad came to visit Hebron for the Jewish holidays. "One morning, a fairly big group arrived, around 15 Jews from France. They were all religious Jews. They were in a good mood, really having a great time, and I spent my entire shift following this gang of Jews around and trying to keep them from destroying the town. They just wandered around, picked up every stone they saw, and started throwing them at Arabs' windows, and overturning whatever they came across.

Lovely.


So, "His (Obama's) attack on cynicism, and another line about the “cycle of violence” struck hard-line supporters of Israel as suggesting that the Israeli and Palestinian sides are equally to blame – something Obama himself has rejected in other, prepared remarks."

Of course, got it.

Israelis are never to blame - for anything.

It is always the Arabs fault.

There is no cycle of violence, where two sides hate each other so much that it results in a senseless, unstoppable, soul crushing, daily violence.

Newsflash - in this conflict, there are no good guys.

Both sides use vile, disgusting, sometimes terrorist actions to further their political goals.

It's just that in America, for some reason (harrumph), a presidential candidate is supposed to love one side in this conflict, and hate the other.

Even if he happens to be a black christian, who grew up in Indonesia...