I hope this doesn’t bother his mother. But you have no particular reason to know who M.J. Rosenberg is. He is in the Jewish “peace camp,” as if there were much of a Jewish “war camp.” And he is has been in the Jewish peace camp for a long time. These are the people who commune with the Arab “war camp” or the Palestinian “war camp,” even if they actually call themselves what they are. Cover is usually given by the “mainstream” Protestant churches, still quite rich from when Theodore Roosevelt called the Episcopals “the Republican Party assembled for prayer.” But mainstream none of them are any longer. They are now the “tricklebrook” churches issuing dicta to the city and to the world direct from upper Riverside Drive.
Still, there are still Jews who are thrilled, positively thrilled to be in their presence. And M.J. Rosenberg is one of them. These Jewish peaceniks used to love Barack Obama. Now, just overnight, they hate him. Read Mr. Rosenberg’s missive below.
And me? I marvel at his dexterity.
Posted: July 8, 2010 11:13 AM
Netanyahu & AIPAC: Still Reigning Champs!
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Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said it best at his joint press conference with President Barack Obama on Tuesday. Speaking of the urgency of beginning talks with the Palestinians, he said "we need to begin negotiations in order to end them."
One has to wonder if it will even get that far. After Tuesday's meeting of the Obama-Netanyahu Mutual Admiration Society, it does not appear that the Israeli leader is under any pressure to begin serious negotiations anytime soon. Or freeze settlements. Or do much of anything except express dedication to the concept of peace.
Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank summed it up:A blue-and-white Israeli flag hung from Blair House. Across Pennsylvania Avenue, the Stars and Stripes was in its usual place atop the White House. But to capture the real significance of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's visit with President Obama, White House officials might have instead flown the white flag of surrender.
In fact, Netanyahu may have gotten more from Obama than he had even hoped for.
In the joint statement issued by the two governments after the meeting, the United States agreed that anything Israel does in the name of its own security (as it sees it) is fine with us:
The President told the Prime Minister he recognizes that Israel must always have the ability to defend itself, by itself, against any threat or possible combination of threats, and that only Israel can determine its security needs. [Emphasis mine]
The point here is that the United States is conceding that it has no right to tell Israel what to do on security issues which, for Netanyahu, of course, include maintaining the occupation, blockading Gaza, and "preempting" any adversary by attacking whenever and whomever. Most troubling, the United States agreed that Israel will continue to be exempted from the requirements of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).