Does Obama hate Israel?

Here are some quotes from Obama's speech that pertain to Israel.
------------------------------------------
"Antagonism towards Israel became the only acceptable outlet for political expression [in repressive Middle Eastern nations]."

This is implicitly a defense of Israel. There is no doubt that in general the people in the Middle East don't like Israel. The question is why. Pro-Israeli people believe that is because Israel has been used relentlessly as a scapegoat by autocratic dictators to focus their peoples' anger elsewhere. Anti-Israeli people believe it is Israeli policies that create the resentment among its neighbors. Obviously there is an element of truth to both, but extremists tend to believe one or the other. I believe it is primarily the former, and apparently so does Obama, which is implicitly a pro-Israeli stance.

"Standing up for Israel's security...we will continue to do these things."

That doesn't sound very anti-Semitic to me.

"Efforts to delegitimize Israel will end in failure."

Opponents of Israel are pursuing a strategy that results in the destruction of Israel not by military means, but by political and economic means. This is what Obama means by "delegitimize". The strategy in a nutshell is to isolate Israel in the same way that South Africa was isolated because of apartheid. Obama is aware of this strategy, which means he no doubt thinks like I do: that Israel shouldn't play right into the hands of the people who are using it. This means striking a balance between deterrence and use of force, and it means not deliberately provoking Muslims for no reason (IE expanding settlements).

"Symbolic actions in September won't create an independent state."

In September, the PA is going to submit to the UN assembly a vote that would create a Palestinian state. I'm not sure how the rules of the UN work so I'm not sure if they can legally do this or not. I'm not sure if the US can even veto this. We couldn't stop the PRC from taking the ROC's seat in the security council in the 1970's so we may not be able to stop this. It would be a major blow to Israel if it happens. It is a part of the delegitimization strategy that anti-Israeli activists have been pursuing.

"Palestinian leaders will not achieve peace or prosperity if Hamas insists on a path of violence and rejection...Palestinians will never realize their independence by denying Israel's right to exist."

Obama reaffirms that Hamas must renounce violence, recognize Israel's right to exist, and honor previous agreements. This is all very standard stuff.

"Our committment to Israel's security is unshakable, and we will stand against attempts to single it out for criticism in international forums."

In other words, the US has and will veto UN resolutions that condemn Israel for this or that while allowing other nations to perpetrate far worse crimes with no mention.

"Israel must be able to defend itself, by itself, against any threat."

IE the US will continue to support the Israeli military.

"[Palestine should be a] sovereign, non-militarized state."

One of the sticky parts of establishing a Palestinian state is whether or not it gets to develop a military. Obviously the Israelis might be uncomfortable with that. Obama here is coming down squarely on Israel's side of the issue.

-------------------------------------------

There is lots of room for criticism over how Obama approached the Israeli-Palestinian question. The speech was decidedly unambitious and did not budge the status quo even a single iota. Everything in the speech was very standard, widely accepted stuff. Everyone* agrees that peace will come with a two-state solution. Everyone* agrees that the 1967 boundaries are the basis for the future borders. Everyone* agrees that Israel isn't going to take down their West Bank settlements, and so land-swaps are necessary. On the issues that people aren't sure about, such as over the status of Jerusalem or right-of-return for Palestinians, Obama just punted.

What there isn't any room for is criticism that Obama is anti-Israeli. And yet, the only thing I see plastered all over the front page of Fox News is precisely that. This is being echoed all over the conservative blogosphere. And you know what? I get it. I get why the Republicans are jumping all over this big lie. Their attempt at following through to the promises they made in the 2010 elections have been absolutely pathetic. They have been outfoxed by Obama and the Democrats at every turn. Boehner's 38 billion in "cuts" actually ended up increasing the deficit by 3 billion. Paul Ryan has been thrown under the bus by half of his party. The GOP will vote for the debt ceiling increase, but they will only get token cuts for it IF Obama is feeling generous. The GOP presidential candidates are all awful, save one or two who probably can't win a primary.

So like I said, I get it. We're going to hear over the next few weeks how Obama is a vicious anti-Semite, which fits in perfectly with accusation that Obama is also a secret anti-colonialist Muslim America-hater. Netanyahu is of course going to play along, just as a spoiled child will manipulate their divorced parents, and will cement himself in history as one of the most short-sighted Israeli leaders ever. But yea, anything to distract from the train wreck that has been the GOP agenda; I can't say I blame them for wanting something else to talk about. Whether or not there is any truth to what they are saying is irrelevant.

*When I say "everyone", what I mean is "reasonable people who we might listen to". There are lots of people who don't agree on a two-state solution, 1967 boundaries as a basis for that, and land swaps. These people are unreasonable, and should all be ignored. This includes, but is not limited to: Hamas and Islamic extremists, the international far-left extremists, ultra-right wing orthodox Jewish settlers in Israel, ultra-right wing evangelical Christians in the US. To name a few. None of these groups think there should be a compromise, just endless war until their side wins and the other side is dead.

A republic, if we can keep it.

It was really only a matter of when this sort of thing would happen rather than if, but Fox News was caught lying about the protests in Wisconsin. In this video, which Fox attributes to the pro-union protests in Madison, we see some violent protesters. Also notice there are palm trees in the background: there is no way this footage was from winter in Wisconsin.

Fox News makes "mistakes" like this all of the time. They may accidentally use the wrong footage to make a Tea Party protest look larger than it is, or they may misquote people, or take things out of context. And this is just when they are reporting, don't even get me started about when their pundits come on and start talking. It is hard to believe Fox is just innocently erring when these mistakes happen, because the change always happens to benefit a right-wing narrative. At any rate, the purpose of this post wasn't to point out a lie that Fox News is trying to sell. Thats old news.

An interesting fact that came up when I was reading about this latest lie was that Fox was recently denied access to Canadian television. Canada has a law in place that prohibits misleading or false information from being propagated from television news stations. A lot of people apparently wish we had a similar sort of law here in the states, but I don't. The most indispensable legal right we have in America is the 1st Amendment. That includes the freedom to lie, if that is the agenda of a person or organization. I want no affronts to the freedom of speech, and furthermore I would not want the government to spend effort deciding what is true and what is not (if that was even possible).

Ben Franklin told us after the constitutional convention that we have been given a Republic, if we can keep it. I am confident that when it comes to lies and propaganda, Americans as a group will see through it and will ultimately marginalize the source. I have written before: Fox News undermines conservatism. The phony debates they have on their network cheapens our discourse. The influence conservatives grant to Fox means that they, not we, decide who our party leaders are. Every time the network lies and gets caught, they hand a recruiting tool to the left.

The onus is on conservatives to demand better from Fox News.

Worse than CCTV?

A year ago, I had the opportunity to live in China for 5 weeks or so.  I had intended to make a comment about CCTV (China Central Television) and its influence on the people...and how those lessons are relevant for the United States.  I basically left China with the impression that CCTV was less harmful to the Chinese than Fox News is to the United States.  And yes, I am being completely serious.

 

To be clear:  the argument I am making is NOT that CCTV lies or propagandizes less than Fox News.  My argument is that CCTV is in net less damaging.  In China, everyone knows that CCTV is state run, is biased, and is propaganda.  Therefore, it seems like most people there take everything they see on CCTV with a great big grain of salt.  Many people might be prone to flat out disbelieve anything the broadcaster says purely because it is on CCTV.

 

Contrast that to Fox News.  While there was a recent poll that demonstrated that Fox was the least trusted name in news, that was mainly by virtue of their large negatives.  There is still a huge segment of this nation that actually thinks Fox News is "fair and balanced".  Fox is very divisive:  the people who watch Fox only trust Fox, and the people who don't watch Fox really tend to distrust it.

 

Some might argue that Fox is no worse than MSNBC, which is obviously baised to the left.  But Fox goes beyond bias.  MSNBC is biased to democrats because they will focus on the stupid things republicans do and not focus on the stupid things democrats do.  Or they will make arguments to support Democrat ideas and ones critical of Republicans ideas.  But the crucial difference between bias and propaganda is that MSNBC rarely is actually dishonest about what they are presenting.

 

Fox News is different.  They do have a routine habit of distorting, of manufacturing and propagating lies, of spreading misinformation generally.  In fact, they've done far worse in my eyes:  in the 2008 presidential primaries, Ron Paul won the straw poll from the first GOP presidential primary debate.  Fox News pundits after sat around and all agreed that Ron Paul actually didn't win the debate, and then later Fox News tried to exclude Ron Paul from the next presidential debate that they were hosting.  It was the single most reprehensible display of utter contempt for the American people that I have ever seen from any person, group, or organization.

 

Anyway, watching this recent clip of routine Fox News BS made me think to write this.

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/video/video_2324.html?1271360625

 

The last point I will make is that it is my belief that Fox News hurts America not because they hurt the Democratic Party, but because they hurt the Republican Party.  Fox News almost is doing Democrats a favor at this point:  the young internet-saavy Jon Stewart generation is very aware of the blatant lies and distortion that Fox pulls on a regular basis, even if elderly voters aren't.  Anti-Fox sentiment is a rallying cry for the left.

 

Its the damage that Fox News does to conservative discourse that really hurts America, because we cannot operate as a nation without two viable political parties, and right now we really only have one.  Fox News hurts Republicans because they are essentially the king makers.  Sarah Palin is a force in American politics right now *because* of Fox News' promotion of her. In fact, the only reason she ever was named VP was because John McCain was stupid enough to let the establishment, of which Fox is a part, hand pick her for him.  All of the intellectual hacks that Fox News promotes among the rest of the Republicans who have been named the leadership of the GOP have contributed to the rot of conservatism as a movement, a movement which I predict will prove utterly incapable of capitalizing on the electoral gains yielded by the inevitable backlash to overwhelming Democratic legislative gains seen in Obama's first two years (and a terrible economy).

 

Conservatives in the past used to be unafraid of taking on the left because they were confident in their principles and understood the ideas behind them with an unashamed intellect.  Now they only go in front of friendly journalists like Sean Hannity and hit scripted soft-ball questions.  Many conservatives have read "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand.  For anyone who doubts if what I am saying here is true, ask yourself this question:  who among today's Fox-anointed Republican leadership would John Galt not be contemptuous of? I can think of only one: Ron Paul. But as Donald Trump said tonight, Paul can't win a general election.

Quick update: I wanted to add some clarification. There are a lot of Republicans who I have a high opinion of. In fact, we have a few of them in Indiana; Mitch Daniels and Richard Lugar in particular have done a great job for our state. Mitch Daniels has a ton of smart ideas, but he has no megaphone with which to talk about them, because Fox is too busy promoting Republicans who obsess over culture war issues, or who are fond of suggesting that Obama is a Muslim. Perfect example: Mitch Daniels wrote an Op-Ed proposing a VAT, and he got crucified for it by the Fox-dominated GOP establishment. Meanwhile, Dick Lugar is facing a major challenge by the Tea Party in the 2012 election. They despise Lugar, and I'll tell you why: he is way too reasonable. He is willing to work with Obama on issues that advance the national interest (securing nuclear materials, START, etc), and that is a crime to many GOP primary voters.

Ron Paul on Wikileaks

Ron Paul speaks on the house floor about Wikileaks.

During the video, Paul mentions that some are calling for Julian Assange's assassination. I'd like to add that those "some" are pundits at Fox News. Here is a video if you don't believe it. Just stop and think about that for a second. Julian Assange did not hack into or steal anything from the US government. He simply published documents that were leaked to him by someone inside the US government. Doesn't that sound like something a journalist would do?

Fox News is calling for the assassination of someone for committing what is in essence a journalistic act. And everyone is OK with this. Did I miss something?

The Bible and the Constitution

The Gospel According to Matthew: "And when you pray, do not be like
the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and
on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they
have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your
room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your
Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you."

The Constitution of the United States of America: "Congress shall
make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting
the free exercise thereof."

I'm not sure if she was directly heeding the words of Jesus Christ, or
simply interpreting the constitution with respect to the intentions of
the Founding Fathers. Either way, District Court Judge Barbara B.
Crabb has just ruled that the National Day of Prayer Proclamation,
instituted by Ronald Reagan in 1988, is unconstitutional. In doing
so, she has thrown out a law that was both an affront to the Bible and
the intentions of Jesus Christ, and an affront to the Constitution.

No doubt, Jesus Christ and the Founding Fathers would be proud of
Judge Crabb's ruling.
No doubt, Fox News and the rest of the people who systematically
exploit the Christian religion as a political tool will feign outrage.