JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

Huh?

By Eric Fingerhut · November 3, 2008

With just hours before Election Day begins, the Israel Insider Web site has probably has won the award for strangest and most ridiculous allegation about Barack Obama.

In a lengthy post, the site's publisher, Reuven Koret, argues that Barack Obama may be the "secret son" of Malcolm X. There's no actual evidence in the article for the claim, just some talk about how they resemble each other physically and have a similar speaking style.

Koret also is the founder of Koret Communications, which runs the Websites of Israel 21c and Birthright Israel, among other clients.

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An Election Day prayer

By Eric Fingerhut · November 3, 2008

A Massachusetts rabbi has written a prayer to say before voting.

The prayer is nonpartisan, says Rabbi David Seidenberg, a Conservative and Renewal rabbi in Northhampton, and based in part on the custom of pledging tzedakah when called to the Torah.

The prayer also includes a promise to engage in "tikkun olam."

"Just as I participated in elections today, so may I merit to do good deeds and repair the world with all my actions," reads the prayer, which then asks the reciter of the prayer to fill in a specific pledge to undertake "on behalf of all living creatures, and in remembrance of the covenant of Noah’s waters to protect and to not destroy the earth and her plenitude."

"The voting booth felt like a sacred space to me," said Seidenberg, and thus he hopes the prayer will put those who recite it "in a different frame of mind" when voting.

Seidenberg said he plans to say the prayer in the voting booth, but that others might want to say it while waiting in line to cast their ballot or when they wake up the morning of Election Day.

Here's the full prayer (with a link to printable Hebrew and English versions here:

With my vote today I am prepared and intending
 to seek peace for this country, as it is written:

"Seek out the peace of the city where I cause you to roam
and pray for her sake to God YHVH, for in her peace you all will
have peace." (Jer. 29:7)

May it be Your will that votes will be counted faithfully
 and may You account my vote as if I had fulfilled this verse
 with all my power.

May it be good in Your eyes to give a wise heart
 to whomever we elect today
 and may You raise for us a government whose rule is for good and blessing
 to bring justice and peace to all the inhabitants of the world
 and to Jerusalem,
 for rulership is Yours!

Just as I participated in elections today
 so may I merit to do good deeds and repair the world with all my actions,
 and with the act of...[fill in your pledge] which I pledge to do today
 on behalf of all living creatures
 and in remembrance of the covenant of Noah's waters
 to protect and to not destroy the earth and her plenitude.

May You give to all the peoples of this country, the strength and will
 to pursue righteousness and to seek peace as unified force
 in order to cause to flourish, throughout the world, good life and peace
 and may You fulfill for us the verse:

"May the pleasure of Adonai our God be upon us,
 and establish the work of our hands for us,
 may the work of our hands endure." (Ps. 90:17)

 

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So busted!

By Ron Kampeas · November 3, 2008

So it's Sunday evening, I'm with the family, settling into a booth at our favorite diner.

The wife's ordered the onion rings - she loves the onion rings! - and I'm trying to get "Journey" off the jukebox (who listens to "Journey" anymore, anyway?) and I look up and isn't that Martin Kramer at the counter? No wait, isn't that him going to the restroom, toting the "Wit and Wisdom of Jeane Kirkpatick"? What about that guy outside, pulling up in the Prius with the "Osama bin Laden hates my car" bumper sticker?

And then-

Okay, it's not that dramatic, it was Sunday morning, I was checking my email before going off to hike in the Shenandoah (blessedly immune to Blackberry reception), and Martin, my Facebook Friend, had notified me that I should "give it up" because "you lose."

Not my typical Facebook message, but "friendly" I guess in the sense that WWF types go out for a beer after trash talking each other in the ring. But I was off to the Shenandoah, and then, returning, I was recovering from the Shenandoah, plus we're having website transition issues.

Kidding aside, Martin is right - the evidence of Rashid Khalidi's PLO past is now irrefutable. Shahmat to him.

A couple of things:

1) It's still not clear to me what the significance is of Khalidi's PLO past and how it refracts on his friendship with Barack Obama when Israel and the United States are dealing with the current leader of the PLO, Mahmoud Abbas, who was making decisions at a time Khalidi was something between a hack and a flack. McCain, notably, believes Abbas is now seeking a "peaceful settlement with the government of Israel." (Martin, I should note, appears to be irked more by Khalidi's apparent attempt to bury his past than its current significance, which is fair enough.)

2) Martin talks about "due diligence," but the point is, proving a negative was always - and must always be - the burden of the accuser. It's why  "Have you stopped beating your wife" has become a cliche as the question not to ask. It's why I blasted the Democrats for asking Sarah Palin to prove she didn't campaign for Pat Buchanan.

My original point was that in 1991 Khalidi earned the equivalent of a "Never beat his wife" certificate. Until Martin started digging - doing due diligence -  there was a single Tom Friedman citation. (And I like Martin's rosy idea of media giants racing to acknowledge error, but I worked for one, and it just ain't so. One of the liberating things about JTA is the freedom to actually admit when you're wrong.)

3) Why has Mona Khalidi's acknowledged past with Wafa, the PLO news agency, never been as important as her husband's? She is as much a friend to Obama.

4) This is less directed at the accusers and more at the reporters stationed in Lebanon in the late 1970s and early 1980s - I'm just curious, now that Khalidi's employment has been resolved: What was Wafa's role in the PLO apparatus? Khalidi is referred to as a spokesman for the PLO by virtue of his employment by the agency. Wafa was a mouthpiece, to be sure, but my experience is that news agencies in non-democracies generally parrot party lines, whereas spokesmen help shape it because of their proximity to the leadership. Interestingly, Khalidi's quoted statements aren't exactly spokesman-like (but then the PLO never really had its act entirely together): Spokesmen don't often proffer strategies to the enemy for "splitting us" nor do they suggest that their side kills for "no reason."

5) The longer we live, the more we're likely to forget and regret. I've had a hasbara flacking past and in that capacity I've written stuff that had what was, let's say, a flirtatious relationship with the truth. It's not flacking for the PLO, though.

But here's the thing: My point in my Palin-Buchanan post was that more significant than attending a Buchanan (or pro-Buchanan) fundraiser was that Sarah Palin chose thereafter not to contribute to his campaign, and chose not to maintain the relationship. We can't read her mind, but I would say that it's not insignificant that she is now an admirer of Israel and an advocate of isolating Iran.

Similarly, I don't know what drove Khalidi to distance himself from the PLO and even to deny any past association. I think it's regrettable that he does. But I would say that his subsequent advocacy of a two-state solution and his calling attacks on civilians "war crimes," his denunciations of anti-Semitism - all of these are not insignificant in understanding why he has denied his distant past associations with the PLO.

None of this renders his current arguments infallible or immune from deconstruction* - but it raises the question of what, exactly, is the sin of a friendship with the man.

*Khalidi, for instance, repeatedly invokes the "civilians are killed on both sides" argument. This is what I call the "Law and Order" fallacy (or maybe the "Doesn't this guy watch 'Law and Order'? fallacy): If a highly rated TV show can easily communicate to tens of millions of viewers the idea, through its plot twists, that intentional murder is much more serious than, say, manslaughter, why should the same public not be able to distinguish between deliberately blowing to smithereens a bus packed with children and an attempt to assassinate a bomber gone awry? Is such moral clarity truly the fault of media coverage? In his book, "The Iron Cage," Khalidi also chides Israelis for perceiving the seminal Palestinian nationalist, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, strictly through the lens of his eventual alliance with the Nazis. Khalidi has a sure grip on narratives and how they function: How could such an Israeli (and Jewish) perception be humanly otherwise? Finally, at least in 2003, Khalidi also bought into the specious "Invade Iraq to protect Israel" thinking.

Like I said, we're in web-transition and so some of the links to earlier posts may not work or be available - I will update as this works itself out.

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Nadler turns up in RJC robo-call (UPDATED)

By Eric Fingerhut · November 3, 2008

Rep. Jerrold Nadler was caught on tape saying something critical of Barack Obama, and the Republican Jewish Coalition didn't hesitate to tell Jewish voters about it.

The RJC sponsored a minute-long robo-call (which can be heard here)  to 300,000 Jewish households in Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Nevada on Monday featuring Nadler's statement that  Obama "didn't have the political courage to want to make the statement of walking out" Trinity United Church of Christ when he realized that Rev. Jeremiah Wright was "a nut" and "lunatic," because "you don't walk out of a church with 8,000 members in your district."

Calling Wright's church "anti-Semitic" and "anti-American," the call plays a portion of Nadler's comments and then asks, "If Obama doesn't have the courage to do the right thing here at home, can he stand up to dictators and tyrants who seek to do us harm?"

Nadler made the remarks after an appearance at a Boca Raton synagogue on behalf of Obama, in response to a group of questioners who were peppering him with questions about Obama's relationship with Wright.

The conversation was captured on video by Pamela Geller, who blogs as "Atlas Shrugs," and posted on Youtube Sunday. On the video, Nadler does preface his remarks about "political courage" by saying he has "no personal knowledge" of the matter and his statement is merely "my guess."
 
Nadler said in a statement Monday afternoon that "I made a thoughtless comment yesterday which does not reflect the way I feel about Barack Obama."

"I strongly support Barack Obama for president, because he he has the values and political leadership to bring the change our country needs," Nadler said.

UPDATE: The RJC also has put out a Web ad, which includes the same exact audio as the robo-call but, of course, adds photos and the Nadler video.

Here's the text of the RJC call and Web ad:

Concerned about Barack Obama? You should be. This weekend, Democrat Congressman Jerold Nadler confided that Obama stayed a member of
anti-Semitic, anti-American Rev. Jeremiah Wright's church for 20 years for "political" gain. And that Obama "didn’t have the political courage" to leave.

Listen to Congressman Nadler on Barack Obama and Rev. Wright:
 
“The guy's a nut, the guy's a lunatic, but you don't walk out on a church with 8,000 members in your district.”
"He didn't have the political courage to want to make the statement of walking out."
 
If Obama doesn't have the courage to do the right thing here at home, can he stand up to dictators and tyrants who seek to do us harm? We should all be
concerned about Barack Obama.
 
Paid for by the Republican Jewish Coalition and not authorized by any
candidate or candidate’s Committee.

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Political tidbits: New Jewish numbers in Florida, Rahm Emanuel floated for Obama chief of staff

By Eric Fingerhut · November 3, 2008

• Rahm Emanuel as White House chief of staff in an Obama administration? Foxnews.com reports on the rumor.
• Did Sarah Silverman swing Florida to Obama? Zack O'Malley Greenburg at Forbes has some polling data to support his "Silverman Hypothesis."
• A new Qunnipiac University Florida poll has Obama up 69-26 among Jews. That's down from his 77-20 margin a week and a half ago.This poll had 120 Jewish respondents and a margin of error of plus or minus 9 points.
• The Dallas Morning News profiles National Jewish Democratic Council chairman Marc Stanley.
• Ambassador Marc Ginsburg says the whole Middle East is "rooting" for an Obama victory, in the Huffington Post.
• The McCain campaign apologizes for mixing up their e-mail lists and sending out campaign fliers to some leaders of Jewish non-profit groups.
• Al Franken and Norm Coleman get personal in the last debate of the Minnesota Senate race.
• The Supreme Court hasn't received much attention in this campaign, but Menachem Rosensaft writes in the Huffington Post that voters should pay attention because the election could have a huge impact on the court's future.
• The Republican Jewish Coalition has made its newspaper advertisements into fliers and is mailing them to voters in Ohio and Pennsylvania, reports Talking Points Memo.

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