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Joan Swirsky
The Obama Voter – Not This Jew
August 2, 2008
For
the most part, American Jews are politically liberal. For decades they
have supported leftwing politicians who are antagonists if not outright
enemies of Israel.
Why does
this matter?
It matters to me because the Holocaust in which
the Nazis wantonly murdered six million Jews in the 1930s and ‘40s has
been the defining event of my life – the event against which I measure
the political philosophies and actions of both individuals and nations.
I was a baby when that blight on human history
took place, but I fully appreciate that if my twin brother and I had
been born in Germany during the ghastly Nazi reign, we
would have been victims of the unspeakable "experiments” of
Dr. Mengele.
It matters to me because
the wretched
survivors of the Holocaust, against all odds – including
ships of refugees that were turned back from our own shores by FDR, only
to be returned to the death camps – somehow managed to arrive in their
ancient homeland and create one of the most vibrant democracies in the
world, whose advanced scientific institutions contribute to research and
development of medicines, therapies, technology and cures for the
world’s devastating horrors
It matters because Israel,
the locus of Jewish
prayer and survival, is but a sliver of land, not much
larger than 8,000 square miles, which is comparable to New Jersey, our
5th-smallest state. This tiny country is populated by six million Jews
and one-million Arabs and surrounded by 22 Arab Muslim states with a
population of over 300-million – most of them dedicated to Israel’s
annihilation, the rest sly participants in the charade of a "peace
process.”
While Israel’s Arab
minority is accorded full citizenship and education, freedom of speech,
congregation, religious autonomy and even participation in Israel’s
parliament, the Arab nations that surround it – including Jordan and
Egypt, which are ostensibly at peace with Israel – afford Jews
absolutely no rights and no protection.
Again, why does this matter? It matters to me because, for
millennia, "wandering” Jews were deprived of living in their homeland
and destined to travel the earth looking for safety and freedom, only to
be subjected to – where to begin? – the Crusades, the Inquisition,
European pogroms, and the Holocaust. Only America, from its inception a
mere 232 years ago, welcomed the Jews, until the State of Israel was
born in 1948, becoming the last best hope of a people whose manifest
destiny was spelled out to them in the Bible.
Today,
there is a worldwide renaissance of anti-Semitism, including on the
campuses of our own country, in the ranting of various "religious”
leaders, in the literature of some of America’s so-called
intelligentsia, and, yes, even in the Congress of the United States.
Yet again, why does this matter? It matters to me because
unlike the purveyors of Islamic jihad and their brothers and sisters in
suicide-bombing, death-adoring ideology, I love life and don’t want to
see our country succumb to the encroaching horrors of Sharia law
(including
"honor killings"),
Sharia finance (in which money must be
donated to Islamic charities, including those that promote Jihad and
suicide bombing), or any of
the other Islamic-dictated demands that are utterly anathema to and in
egregious violation of both U.S. law and the freedoms cherished by all
Americans.
It matters to me
because while Obama makes the perfunctory and requisite statements of
support for America and Israel, his policies – and those who formulate
them – would
do irreparable harm to both nations.
Let Me
Count the Ways
It would
have been enough for me not to vote for Obama, knowing that he is
the
most liberal politician in the U.S. Congress, as judged by the
non-partisan National Journal and based on the cold hard facts of his
far-left voting record.
It would have been enough for me not to
vote for Obama, knowing that he has zero experience in foreign policy
and has never managed or run anything of substance that requires
executive experience – not a company, not an agency, not even a senate
committee!
It would have been enough to know that Obama
makes John Kerry’s acrobatic flip-flopping look like child’s play.
▪ He’ll pull the troops out of Iraq in 16 months,
now he’ll "refine” that policy.
▪ He’ll filibuster the FISA bill, but he voted
for it.
▪ He’ll
campaign with public financing, but he rejected that option.
▪ He’ll
renegotiate Nafta, but now he won’t.
▪ He’s
against gun rights but supported the Supreme Court’s
Heller decision for gun rights.
▪ He’ll
debate Sen. John McCain anywhere, anytime, but he has refused to.
▪ Iran
poses no serious threat, but oops, Iran poses a grave threat.
▪ He
supports an undivided Jerusalem, but 24-hours later said he "misspoke.”
It would
have been enough to appreciate Obama’s sponsorship of the "global
poverty” act, which lays the groundwork for the United Nation’s
draconian tax on America, and also that he fervently supports that
cesspool on 2nd Avenue, which for decades has been a
consistent purveyor of virulent anti-Semitic bias.
It would
have been enough for me to consider Obama’s oft-repeated promises to
raise taxes to unprecedented heights, open our borders further to the
flood of illegal aliens, appoint his socialist cronies to the Supreme
Court, reinforce his death-wish for America’s unborn babies,
institutionalize socialized medicine, and support the anti-free-speech
return of the so-called
Fairness Doctrine.
In what Investor’s Business Daily calls Obama’s
"stealth socialism,” the Democrat candidate also promises:
▪ Free
college tuition.
▪
Universal” 401 ks.
▪ Free job
training (even for criminals).
▪ Wage
insurance (to supplement dislocated union workers' old income levels).
▪ Free
childcare and universal preschool.
▪ More
subsidized public housing.
▪ A fatter
earned income tax credit for "working poor."
▪ And
[again] the Global Poverty Act that amounts to a Marshall Plan for the
Third World, first and foremost Africa.
It would have been enough for me to witness –
with revulsion, I might add – Obama apologizing to a throng of Germans
for America’s "mistakes.”
It would have been enough to
learn that Obama’s recent, $500,000 overhaul of his 757 included the
removal of the American flag and its replacement with a symbol of his
own campaign.
All of this, and much more, would have been
enough for me not to vote for Obama. But it is not only his
florid narcissism and Marxist policies that offend me.
It is his judgment, particularly when it comes to
the people he admires, associates with, looks to for mentoring, and
especially listens to.
I happen
not to inhabit the politically correct world of liberals who believe
that a person cannot be judged by his associations. It is precisely
Barack Obama’s longtime, continuing, and newfound associations that
strike fear into my heart – as they should in the hearts of all
Americans, Jews and non-Jews alike.
Lie Down with Dogs, Wake Up with Fleas
But who are those associations that, as an
American and especially as a Jew, I am so worried about? Obama’s
300-plus foreign policy
advisors include high-ranking people who are known for their
undisguised contempt of Jews, in general, and their loathing of Israel,
in particular:
General Merrill "Tony" McPeak,
who Sen. Obama once considered a potential V.P., was his campaign
co-chairman and top military adviser. When asked by The Oregonian
to name the problem preventing peace in the Middle East, McPeak said:
"New York City. Miami” – code-names for Jews. Obama refused to remove
him from his campaign, but he slunk out anyway.
Samantha Power, a former senior policy advisor to Obama (before she
resigned for insulting Hillary Clinton) has advocated ending all U.S.
military aid to Israel. She has written of her willingness to "alienate
a domestic constituency of tremendous political and financial import
[American Jews]…it may more crucially mean sacrificing…billions of
dollars, not in servicing Israel’s military, but actually investing in
the state of Palestine.”
Robert Malley, a top foreign policy advisor to Obama,
left the Obama campaign when it was revealed that he'd been conducting
meetings with Hamas. Two years ago, after the terror group won a
majority in the Palestinian parliament, Malley advocated international
aid to their newly formed government. He stated that the election of
Hamas expressed Palestinian "anger at years of humiliation and loss of
self-respect because of Israeli settlement expansion, Arafat's
imprisonment, [and] Israel's incursions…”
Rashid Khalidi, a longtime friend of and fundraiser for
Obama, is a former spokesman for the Palestine Liberation Organization.
According to WorldNetDaily, at a 2003 farewell party for Mr. Khalidi,
Obama sat in attendance as a young Palestinian-American recited a poem
accusing the Israeli government of terrorism…and sharply criticizing
U.S. support of Israel. Obama has credited Mr. Khalidi with uncovering
"my own blind spots and my own biases" regarding the plight of the
Palestinians. Obama funneled $75,000 in grants to the Arab American
Action Network (run by Mr. Khalidi's wife, Mona), a group that calls
Israel's independence Al-Nakba (the catastrophe).
Anthony
"Tony” Lake, Obama’s top foreign policy advisor,
served in the Carter ("Israel practices apartheid") administration,
notorious for its animus toward Israel. As national security advisor to
President Clinton, Lake shaped the policy that treated Islamic terrorism
as a law-enforcement matter, which paved the way for the first World
Trade Center bombing, the bombing of our embassies in Africa, the
bombing of the USS Cole, and the disaster of September 11, 2001.
Susan Rice, another of Obama’s senior foreign policy
advisors, was John Kerry's chief foreign policy adviser when he ran for
President. Kerry’s idea for dealing with the Middle East was to appoint
not one but two diehard enemies of Israel – James Baker and Jimmy Carter
– as negotiators. Faced with a firestorm of criticism, Kerry backed down
and blamed his staff, which consisted of Susan Rice.
Madeleine K. Albright,
Clinton’s Secretary of State, lobbied Congress for increased foreign aid
to the terrorist Arafat and arranged for him to become the White House’s
most frequent guest. She consistently touted negotiations, rather than
confrontation, with terror regimes.
Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter’s National Security Advisor, has been
one of Israel’s most consistently hostile critics and Hamas’s most
ardent supporters, as well as a staunch admirer (both in writing and
verbally) of Stephen Walt’s and John Mearsheimer’s virulently
anti-Israel book, "The Israel Lobby,” which, among other things,
contends that Jewish pressure, and not shared values, binds America and
Israel together. Brzezinski's son, Mark, is also among Obama's foreign
policy advisors.
Lee Hamilton, a former congressman who served as the Chairman of the
House Subcommittee on the Middle East, waxed adoringly of Arafat,
calling him a "moderate” leader.
James {"F… the Jews”) Baker, Reagan’s former Chief of Staff and the first
President Bush’s Secretary of State (a department whose Arabist tilt is
well-known), is among the harshest detractors of Israel, has often
engaged in raw anti-Semitic remarks, is known for coddling Middle East
dictators (including Syria’s Assad), and has been heavily invested
(through the Carlyle Group) in the Israel-hating country of Saudi
Arabia. In fact, Baker’s law firm defended the Saudi Defense Minister
who was sued for alleged complicity by the families of the World Trade
Center victims.
Daniel Kurtzer, a former U.S. Ambassador to Israel, was one of James
Baker’s "Jew Boys,” which included, among others who militated against
Israel, Dennis Ross (of the Clinton administration). Kurtzer recently
said: "It will be impossible to make progress on serious peace talks
without putting the future of Jerusalem on the table."
And this is
the short list!
More Dogs, More
Fleas
I haven’t
even mentioned the terrorists William Ayers and his wife Bernadette
Dohrn, his indicted Chicago crony Tony Rezko, his first and most
influential mentor, the Communist Frank Marshall Davis; or Father
Michael
Pfleger, the liberal Chicago priest and longtime
friend of Obama, who delivered an explosive, racially charged sermon at
Obama’s church, which forced the Democrat candidate to – what else? –
dispense with him! You can Google these enemies of America!
Among the
other people Obama has chosen to affiliate himself with are:
George Soros, the multibillionaire, self-hating Jew
who has devoted a good part of his life to vilifying Israel and funding
groups that work unstintingly to destroy the tiny state. With his 527
groups, he has funded people – like Obama – to shatter the bonds between
Israel and America.
Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s pastor for over 20 years, has shrieked
his Black Theology anti-American and anti-Semitic "sermons,” to which
the current candidate for president had not a word of objection! Until,
that is, Wright’s venom came to light and Obama had to dispense with him
in the same way he dispensed with the "typical white woman” – his
grandmother – who raised him. Wright, remember, is an ardent supporter
of Louis Farrakhan, who called Judaism a "gutter religion" and said Jews
are "bloodsuckers".
These are
only a smattering of people who, in Obama’s "judgment,” are worthy of
being his mentors and political advisors.
As Ed Lasky of the American Thinker – to whom I
am indebted for much of this material – has written: "One seemingly
consistent theme running throughout Barack Obama's career is his comfort
with aligning himself with people who are anti-Israel advocates.” And, I
would add, anti-American advocates!
I ask: Does Obama have any friends, associates,
mentors or advisors who don’t hate America and Israel? If so, e-mail me.
I haven’t found one yet!
Any voter – whether Democrat, Republican or
Independent – should find Obama’s far-left voting record and silly-putty
changes-of mind on crucial policy issues reason enough not to vote for
him in November.
Certainly, every American Jew should consider his
ascension to the presidency a virtual death knell for Israel.
If the corrupt
ACORN group he so heartily supported in the Chicago machine – where
he "made his bones” – doesn’t rig the election with the votes of
millions of dead people and convicts, as they have so many times in the
past. I trust the electorate will do the right thing.
The right thing, of course, would be vote against Obama, a
candidate who has been infested with far more odious things than fleas,
specifically the treacherous anti-American, anti-Israel advice that has
clearly shaped his worldview.
Obama would make
America less safe, and an unsafe America – which is the last, best hope
for the survival of the Jews and Israel – would destroy the twin pillars
of steadfast Judeo-Christian values. Destroying both nations is the goal
of the Jihadists that Obama would sooner chat with than confront.
