Soccer Dad

Puncturing peretz's balloon x 3

First it was about Durban II:
The main reason I do this is that I gave the benefit of the doubt to the administration's motives in sending a delegation to the preparatory sessions in Geneva where some interventions proved just how weak we are and where also on other matters on which we should have intervened we skulked into the woodwork. And was I wrong!

Then it was about the pledge of $900 million for Hamas:

But the promise that putting our donation through the Palestinian Authority--which is to say, Fatah--will guarantee that it will arrive where it is addressed may be even a bigger joke. It's hard to judge these matters in the Arab world. Who can tell which ruling group is more corrupt than another? Still, Fatah is widely held to be the most depraved and debauched among its fraternity. That's one of the reason's that Fatah lost the last parliamentary elections. It's another reason that Hamas won the bloody civil war with Fatah in Gaza.

An unnamed State Department official said that other "existing, trusted mechanisms" would be used to distribute American help. This certainly means United Nations Relief and Works Agency which has done more to keep the refugee problem alive for six decades than any agency or government in the area. And that's what U.N.R.W.A will want to do deep into eternity.

The administration's announcement that it's going to add nearly $1 billion to the country's deficit will have to be approved by the Congress. Since this money can't be wisely spent, I hope the House and Senate keep it at home

(Apparently President Obama's promise to hold accountable those who receive government funds doesn't extend overseas.)

Most recently it's been about Chas Freeman.

But Freeman's real offense (and the president's if he were to appoint him) is that he has questioned the loyalty and patriotism of not only Zionists and other friends of Israel, the great swath of American Jews and their Christian countrymen, who believed that the protection of Zion is at the core of our religious and secular history, from the Pilgrim fathers through Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy. And how has he offended this tradition? By publishing and peddling the unabridged John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, with panegyric and hysteria. If Freeman believes that this book is the truth he can't be trusted by anyone, least of all Barack Obama. I can't believe that Obama wants to appoint someone who is quintessentially an insult to the patriotism of some many of his supporters, me included.

Martin Peretz who gave his word that Barack Obama's eloquence about Israel was sincere is now questioning that. He's stunned. I hope that he will apologize for accusing those of us who were skeptical of President Obama's commitment to Israel of bad faith or ignorance.

The NJDC that has praised the appointment of Dennis Ross as a Middle East coordinator focusing on Iran remains untroubled by these developments. If they're not going to question these actions of the Obama administration, perhaps they, too, could at least apologize to those of us who doubted.

Finally I can't understand why the media hasn't even reported on the appointment of Freeman. This is an important post and he is close to two nations that don't necessarily have America's best interests at heart. I suppose over the weekend there will be an article in the Washington Post or New York Times reporting on the appointment of an accomplished diplomat to become the National Intelligence Coordinator and how pro-Israel groups are concerned because Freeman is viewed as being critical of Israel.

The lack of concern about Freeman from the media and from the Left shows how much they value critics of Israel. In any other circumstance an appointment of someone with Freeman's conflicts of interest would be the subject of scrutiny. I guess his anti-Israel stands trump all else.

UPDATE: After I wrote this the United States decided to withdraw from the Durban II conference. It's a good decision, though I suspect some damage has been done.

Crossposted on Yourish.