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Dec. 1, 2008

Max Freidlander, as told to Jacklyn C. Wadler: India Inkings

Mark Steyn: Whodunit!?

Nov. 28, 2008

Rabbi Ahron Rapps: An evil seed that didn't have to be

Melanie Phillips: Carpe diem --- or can we all relax now?

Nov. 26, 2008

Michael Feldberg: Meet the Orthodox Jew who laid groundwork for scientific development of ordnance that undergirds America's current world leadership

Andrea Simantov: Shades of life

Nov. 25, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Getting Emotional For Influence

The Kosher Gourmet by Ethel G. Hofman : Thanksiving feast!

Nov. 24, 2008

Rabbi S. Binyomin Ginsberg: 'I just Became a grandchild!'

Barry Rubin: Don't flatter your enemies, protect your friends

Nov. 21, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: Money matters?

Caroline B. Glick: Civilization walks the plank

Nov. 20, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: Bronfman's blindness

The Kosher Gourmet By Linda Gassenheimer: Portobellos add a hearty flavor to pasta with pesto

Nov, 19, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Spread the wealth? Jewish tradition and income equality

Elliot B. Gertel: 'Mad Men': Tackling prejudices or reinforcing them?

Nov, 18, 2008

Dr. Debby Schwarz Hirschhorn: The End of the Age of Reason

Jonathan Tobin: Does Barack + Bibi = Disaster?

Nov, 17, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The End of the Age of Reason

Diana West: Gulling Americans into making terror legit?

Nov, 14, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: The Power of Spiritual Inertia

Caroline B. Glick: The perils ahead

Nov, 13, 2008

Stratfor Intelligence Briefing: How Bush and Obama together could change the Middle East dynamic

The Kosher Gourmet by JeanMarie Brownson: Sweet and savory, crispy and meltingly tender bestilla

Nov, 12, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Tyrannical Co-Workers

Michael Doyle: High Court to consider today donated monuments that may have religious messages in public parks

Nov, 11, 2008

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Will Obama stop government officials considering institutionalizing financial jihad?

Jonathan Tobin: They Will Decide Their Own Fate

Nov, 10, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: $8 billion, modern-day Tower of Babel being built?

Barry Rubin: A letter to the president-elect from a Middle East realist

Nov, 7, 2008

Rabbi Francis Nataf: Of Children and Immortality

Caroline B. Glick: Livni's Obama strategy

Nov, 6, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: How I tricked a classroom of apathetic students into grasping the fallacy of moral relativism

The Kosher Gourmet By Gina Kim: Tips for making the perfect soup --- includes recipes

Nov, 5, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Destitute Debtors

Bruce Weinstein: 'Religulos': Bad title,even worse movie

Nov, 4, 2008

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Treasury Dept. submits to Shariah law

Frida Ghitis: A surprise for Obama in the Middle East

Nov, 3, 2008

Jonathan Rosenblum: Who says Jews are Smart?

Jonathan Tobin: Was He Wrong About Everything?

March 22, 2007

J-Rhythms with Avraham Rosenblum: JWR's cutting-edge music program showcasing performers -- singers, song writers, musicians, and bands -- who learn and live the Torah lifestyle (OUR NEWEST IGODCAST !)

Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review June 6, 2008 / 3 Sivan 5768

Who Do They Love?

By Mona Charen


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Do American Jews really love Israel, or just Democrats?


Last week, 7,000 members of the storied AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) rose to their feet to honor Barack Obama a total of 13 times. The first standing O, lasting more than a minute, greeted the senator as he took the stage — before he had even begun to count all the ways he plans to become a "true friend of Israel." They gushed. They cooed. They were carried away.


Someone needs a cold shower. It is difficult to think of any recent major figure on the American scene who should invite disquiet among supporters of Israel more than Barack Obama. (And certainly among Israel's many Christian supporters, he doubtless does.) Yet 61 percent of American Jews, according to a recent Gallup poll, prefer Obama to McCain. True, this is a drop from the 78 percent who voted for John Kerry in 2004, but it still qualifies as slightly deranged, under the circumstances.


Displaying the skill for framing (and distorting) matters for which he should be renowned by now, Obama began by suggesting to the mostly Jewish crowd that they had been hoodwinked by political dirty tricks — by anonymous e-mails alleging that Obama was a Muslim Manchurian candidate. "Let me know if you see this guy named Barack Obama, because he sounds pretty scary," he reassured them.


But the members of AIPAC are very sophisticated types, not the sort to be deceived by such e-mails, and not so simplistic as to assume that Obama was a secret Muslim. They have quite substantial reasons to worry about Obama's views.


Worry begins with Obama's membership in the Trinity United Church of Christ. As everyone now knows, Rev. Wright issued vitriolic denunciations of Israel from the pulpit ("unjust" and "racist"), praised Louis Farrakhan, and provided space in the church bulletin to Hamas. The "true friend of Israel" did not protest.


For a true friend, Obama also chose peculiar associates. He was quite friendly with Rashid Khalidi, a former director of the official press agency for the Palestine Liberation Organization (and now a professor at Columbia). Khalidi, who has called Israel an "apartheid" state and who defends the right of Palestinians to use violence against Israel, founded a group called the Arab American Action Network. When Obama served as a director of the Woods Fund in 2001 and 2002, the foundation donated $75,000 to the AAAN, for projects like an "oral history" project on the "Nakbah," which translates as "catastrophe," and is the name Palestinians use for the birth of Israel. Khalidi held a fundraiser for Obama when the latter ran for Congress in 2000, and according to a recent LA Times story, Obama has fond memories of time spent with Khalidi and his wife. Those conversations, he said, served as "consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases. ... It's for that reason that I'm hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation — a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid's dinner table," but around "this entire world."


Speaking to AIPAC, Obama reframed his position on Iran. Whereas he had been one of only 22 senators to say he would vote against a 2007 resolution declaring Iran's Revolutionary Guards to be a terrorist force, he allowed in his speech that the guards "have rightly been labeled a terrorist organization." But of course, it would be much trickier for Obama to back away from his better known declaration that he would meet with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad without preconditions. Obama's protestations of friendship for Israel notwithstanding, it just might make Israel's supporters a tad uncomfortable to reflect that Obama believes that the reason Iran is a threat (and he once called it a "tiny" threat) is because we have failed to be nice enough to them. "And the fact that we have not talked to them means that they have been developing nuclear weapons, funding Hamas, funding Hezbollah."


At the AIPAC conference, Obama was a veritable Curtis LeMay, promising huge amounts of military hardware for Israel. Will the AIPAC members really not see through to the heart of the problem? Without a strong United States, Israel cannot hope to survive. And Obama's record as the most left-wing American senator strongly suggests that he believes in weakness.

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