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Monday, February 05, 2007

Wesley Clark at the DNC Winter Meeting
Posted by Jill | 6:44 AM
Here's Wesley Clark at the DNC's winter meeting last Thursday:





Clark is somewhat charisma-challenged, but I would hope that Americans have gotten past the "have a beer with the president" phase and realize that a certain amount of gravitas is going to be necessary to extricate this country from the multiple messes into which the Bush Administration has embroiled them.

In the aftermath of Clark's remark to Arianna Huffington in January, in response to a UPI report that Bibi Netanyahu is urging the Bush Administration to take out Iran's nuclear facilities, that "the Jewish community is divided but there is so much pressure being channeled from the New York money people to the office seekers"; Clark as a candidate is likely to be dogged by accusations of anti-Semitism, for all that his father was Jewish.

The remark drew the expected attention of the ADL's Abe Foxman, who described the remarks as "unfortunate." But given that the Bush Administration will in all likelihood have embroiled us in a wider war in the Middle east by attacking Iran by the time the 2008 campaign is in full swing, is Israel going to be the elephant in the corner that everyone is trying to ignore?

Whether an Iran invasion is about the safety of Israel or the safety of the U.S. is a legitimate discussion. And the extent to which Israel's interests drive American foreign policy is also a legitimate point for discussion. If any American Jews think that a knee-jerk defense of Israel is somehow a magic talisman against anti-Semitism, just wait till there's a military draft of American kids to fight in a wider war that makes the world a more dangerous place "because Israel told us to do it."

The Bush Administration is clearly driven by two forces: the influence of Dick Cheney's affiliation with the Project for the New American Century combined with George W. Bush's psychotic delusions that God chose him to bring about the Rapture. The organized Jewish community in this country has allowed itself during the Bush years to enter into an unholy and opportunistic alliance with the Christian Right because of the latter's "support for Israel." That this "support" is driven by the evangelical doctrine of the Rapture, which involves something along the lines of True Believers enjoying nachos and beer at the right hand of Jesus as they all watch those unconverted Jews undergo fiery torment doesn't seem to bother them all that much, as long as Israel is "supported."

Americans are quite rightly wary of this expanded war, not because they regard an expansion of the war into Iran as "blood for Jews", but because they understand that a) the Bush administration has lied to them about Iraq and they quite correctly don't trust them not to lie to them on the danger of Iran either; b) because the Administration has proven itself to be so completely inept in its conduct of the war they have; and c) because we've seen the level of war profiteering that this Administration has allowed or even encouraged.

But there is a far more real danger to American Jews in the prospect of an expanded war. Wes Clark isn't feeding those flames, he's simply pointing out the embers that stand to explode into flames if mainstream American Jews get lumped together with ardent Zionists and the PNAC crew when the Bush Administration enters into and botches another so-called pre-emptive war. And perhaps he's better equipped to do that if he DOESN'T run.

UPDATE: As evidence that great minds think alike (or perhaps simply that writers of lesser-known blogs are prone to hubris and self-aggrandizement by association), Glenn Greenwald, whom I believe is also protected from shrieks of anti-Semitism by the "It's OK to knock your own team" rule, has more on this topic.
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