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Barack and Bibi, &c. -- By: Jay Nordlinger

You may remember that President Obama had some advice for Israelis last summer. He said they needed to ?engage in serious self-reflection.? Well, I had a serious cow when he said that. May I quote from the relevant Impromptus?

Of all the things Obama has said in his half-year in office, I think the most offensive was his assertion that Israel must ?engage in serious self-reflection.? The Israelis are experts in ?serious self-reflection.? The Jewish people is expert in ?serious self-reflection.? They have been seriously self-reflecting for several thousand years -- they practically invented the practice. Israelis, since the founding -- refounding -- of that state, have had to do some urgent self-reflecting, and other reflecting. They live in a tinderbox; their existence and survival are threatened all the time. Barack Obama knows nothing about serious self-reflection compared with the average Israeli -- compared even with a relatively unreflective Israeli. It?s their lives that are on the line, not Obama?s. It is they who have gone through war after war, not Obama. And those were wars of attempted annihilation: the annihilation of you-know-who.

People always speak condescendingly, ignorantly, and offensively about and to the Israelis. It?s kind of a world specialty. But I think our new American president may have taken the cake. . . .

At about the same time, I was reading, and reviewing, The Israel Test, by George Gilder. For my review of that book, in the August 24, 2009, National Review, go here. When I read a particular passage, I thought hard -- hard and unhappily -- about Obama and ?serious self-reflection.? The passage concerns Benjamin Netanyahu:

In May 1969, he nearly lost his life in an action against Egyptian forces that had been laying traps for the Israelis near the Suez Canal. The team succeeded in destroying an Egyptian truck loaded with weapons, but two days later Egyptian troops opened fire on Netanyahu?s inflated rubber boat operating in the canal. Laden with ammunition for his machine gun, Bibi discovered that he could neither swim nor disengage himself from his sling full of ammo. He had virtually drowned by the time he was rescued by a naval commando named Israel Assaf, who happened to notice bubbles of foam on the surface, felt for a head under the water, and extracted Bibi by his hair under intense Egyptian fire.

Think of Obama?s life experiences; think of Netanyahu?s. It is Netanyahu who should undergo serious self-reflection?

In his book, Gilder writes that Netanyahu ?is the obverse of Obama in nearly every way.? He elaborates,

While the youthful Obama was a community-action organizer and lawyer, Netanyahu was an anti-terrorist warrior. While Obama imagines that taxes in general are too low and inadequately progressive, Netanyahu is a sophisticated supply-side economist who believes that lower rates bring higher revenues and who opened his administration by advocating tax cuts. While in the past the United States has long offered a haven for frustrated Israeli entrepreneurs and other Jewish capitalists, Israel under Netanyahu will beckon as a land of hope and hospitality to frustrated American venture capitalists and entrepreneurs. While Obama believes that foreign aid is the answer to Palestinian poverty, Netanyahu knows that new opportunities opened up by Israeli enterprise are the only solution to the regional crisis.

 

While Obama believes that the United States has overreacted to the threat of terrorism, Netanyahu for nearly thirty years has championed and explained the war on terror in both the United States and Israel, in books, international meetings, and through the Jonathan Institute (named for his late older brother who died in the stunning Entebbe hostage rescue in Uganda). Netanyahu sees jihad as the single greatest threat to the West, and no other politician is so learned or so determined in combating it. While Obama thinks Churchill is a man whose time has passed, Netanyahu has read and pondered all of Churchill?s works and admires the British titan ?above all other gentiles.? The time for Churchillian leadership, according to Netanyahu, is now.

Given that Obama has decided to declare the Israeli prime minister his bête noire in the world, I thought these words were pertinent.

Ed Koch, the former mayor of New York and a lifelong liberal Democrat, did something notable in 2004: He endorsed President Bush over John Kerry. Koch said that he disagreed with Bush on every domestic issue -- but that security was all-important in this age of terror. Therefore, he would vote for Bush. He spoke at the Republican convention in New York. Do you remember?

I?m Ed Koch. I know what you?re thinking: ?What?s Ed Koch doing at the Republican convention?? Me, a Democratic district leader in Greenwich Village, Democratic City Council member, a Democratic member of Congress, a Democratic mayor. Why am I here? I?m here to convert you! But that?s for the next election. This year I?m voting for the reelection of President George W. Bush!?

Huge applause from the assembled GOP-ers.

I was chagrined that he endorsed Obama over McCain in the 2008 election. It seemed reasonable for a ?security hawk? to back McCain, just as it seemed reasonable for such a person to back President Bush: The same conditions applied. What Koch said was this:

I have concluded that the country is safer in the hands of Barack Obama, leader of the Democratic Party and protector of the philosophy of that party. Protecting and defending the U.S. means more than defending us from foreign attacks. It includes defending the public with respect to their civil rights, civil liberties and other needs, e.g., national health insurance, the right of abortion, the continuation of Social Security, gay rights, other rights of privacy, fair progressive taxation and a host of other needs and rights.

 

If the vice president were ever called on to lead the country, there is no question in my mind that the experience and demonstrated judgment of Joe Biden is superior to that of Sarah Palin. Sarah Palin is a plucky, exciting candidate, but when her record is examined, she fails miserably with respect to her views on the domestic issues that are so important to the people of the U.S., and to me. Frankly, it would scare me if she were to succeed John McCain in the presidency.

Amazing, what scares people, and what does not. In any case, I wonder how Koch is feeling about the ?08 candidates -- all four of them -- now. Earlier in the week, he published a column entitled ?Never Again Should We Be Silent.? It began, ?President Obama?s abysmal attitude toward the State of Israel and his humiliating treatment of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is shocking.? Oh, gee, you don?t say? Shocking to whom? Certainly not to anybody who was paying attention during the ?08 campaign. Koch also said, ?It is unimaginable that the President would treat any of our NATO allies, large or small, in such a degrading fashion. That there are policy differences between the U.S. and the Netanyahu government is no excuse. Allies often disagree, but remain respectful.?

More from his column:

President George W. Bush made . . . a point of protecting Israel at the United Nations and the Security Council . . . Now, in my opinion, based on the actions and statements by President Obama and members of his administration, there is grave doubt among supporters of Israel that President Obama can be counted on to do what presidents before him did -- protect our ally, Israel. The Arabs can lose countless wars and still come back because of their numbers. If Israel were to lose one, it would cease to exist.

One more paragraph:

In the 1930s, the Jewish community and its leadership, with few exceptions, were silent when their coreligionists were being attacked, hunted down, incarcerated and slaughtered. Ultimately 6 million Jews were exterminated in the Holocaust. The feeling in the U.S. apparently was that Jews who criticized our country?s actions and inactions that endangered the lives of other Jews would be considered disloyal, unpatriotic and displaying dual loyalty, so many Jews stayed mute. Never again should we allow that to occur. We have every right to be concerned about the fate of the only Jewish nation in the world . . . We who have learned the lessons of silence, Jews and Christians alike, must speak up now before it is too late.

I have a feeling Koch, and those like him, will be voting Republican in ?12. But there was never any reason to believe that Obama would be anything but alarming on, and to, Israel. He had Rashid Khalidi, Reverend Wright, and the entire grad-school mindset (to use a shorthand). Palin had -- what? An Israeli flag in her office. Maybe Koch et al. could have gotten over the accent and the degree from Idaho?

Belgium has done something that seizes our attention: It has banned the burqa. Or rather, it is on track to do so. I?ll quote from a New York Times report:

In a reflection of growing anxiety in Europe over the use of Islamic symbols, a committee of Belgian lawmakers voted Wednesday to ban the wearing of burqas in public, paving the way for the first clampdown of its kind on the Continent.

The proposal, which will be put to the full Parliament after the Easter break, highlights the political sensitivity of Islamic dress for European politicians grappling with the challenges of integrating its expanding Muslim population.

It came in the midst of debates in France and the Netherlands over the wearing of head scarves or veils, and followed a referendum vote in Switzerland against building minarets.

Analysts noted that in Belgium, where the sight of women wearing burqas is relatively rare, the measure would have a limited practical impact, though it could prove politically symbolic.

?This is a very strong signal that is being sent to Islamists,? the French-speaking liberal deputy Denis Ducarme said, adding that he was ?proud that Belgium would be the first country in Europe which dares to legislate on this sensitive matter.?

These issues are terribly difficult -- the burqa, the veil, minarets, and so on. They can tie you up in knots. On the one hand, there?s freedom of expression; on the other hand, a desire for social cohesion and the maintenance of the West. What do you do about burqas? Some women wear them voluntarily; they would feel naked without them. Other women are forced to wear them by their families; they resent their imprisonment keenly. Does an anti-burqa law protect the freedom of women or take it away? In all likelihood, it does both, to different people.

More later . . .

Do you want a little language? You may have noticed a problematic sentence in that New York Times report, above. I?m thinking of, ?The proposal . . . highlights the political sensitivity of Islamic dress for European politicians grappling with the challenges of integrating its expanding Muslim population.? What?s the ?its?? Europe?s, presumably: Europe?s expanding Muslim population. But the author has not said ?Europe?; he has said ?European politicians?; and yet, when he says ?its,? what?s implied is ?Europe?s.?

How loose are we willing to be, grammatically? In my view, the sentence is incorrect but comprehensible.

So, they?ve killed another Falun Gonger. I know, same old, same old, yawn, yawn, yawn. ?A 60-year-old woman died on March 18 in a northeast China prison camp where authorities had sent her after finding her distributing information about the persecution against Falun Gong.? Yup: Notify people about persecution, and you will be persecuted yourself. ?This was the fourth time Ms. Shi Yingchun . . . had been wrongfully incarcerated, suffering repeated torture sessions of beatings, electric baton shocks, forced-feedings and sleep deprivation.? Yup, yup.

For the rest of that report, go here. A Falun Gong spokeswoman said, ?Despite the horrific torture she had already suffered for her faith . . . she went out and tried to inform the public of the atrocities being committed against her and her fellow citizens. For that act of compassion and courage, she was jailed again, but this time did not survive the torture. Her case is tragically common . . .?

Oh, is it.

After our brief interlude for torture and killing, let?s return to some language: The other day, I pulled a real boner. In something I was writing, I said ?pedaling,? instead of ?peddling.? Someone was ?pedaling a worldview.? My man Mike Potemra noticed this and said, ?There was a joke when I was a kid: A salesman who would bicycle around with his dirty pictures was a ?smut pedaler.??

I blamed my mistake on all the music criticism I do -- writing about pianists and their pedaling . . . (Seriously.)

My man Fred Schwarz, another NR editor, caught a mistake in the New York Times. A sportswriter wrote, ?Every serious, or even casual, golf fan knows the story of Hogan?s near-fatal automobile accident on Feb. 2, 1949. Eleven months later, Hogan, with his damaged legs wrapped in bandages, won the 1950 United States Open at the Merion Golf Club outside Philadelphia.? Fred e-mailed me, ?So the 1950 U.S. Open was played in January? Seems unlikely.? Oh, yeah. The Times later corrected the mistake. (The Open was played, as usual, in June.)

When you begin a sentence, ?Every serious, or even casual, golf fan knows . . . ,? you had better be sure that what follows is accurate. Because if you are inaccurate -- that makes you what, sub-casual?

A regular reader wrote me to say that he was waiting for me to deliver an assessment of Tiger Woods. I must say, I don?t think I can improve on what I said early on -- early on in the Tiger drama, or Tiger scandal. That was on December 9, in this Impromptus. About a month later, in this column, I had a little note:

Was walking through an airport the other day, and saw one of those Accenture posters -- one of those Accenture ads. As you may know, Accenture has dropped Tiger Woods as a spokesman, or endorser, or model, or whatever he has been. But the ads are still around. This particular one showed Tiger in a predicament, on the golf course. His ball was in a very difficult spot. And the words were, ?It?s what you do next that counts.? That is so very true.

And I had a little note about Tiger and Augusta the other day: ?Anything can happen at this year?s Masters with him -- anything. He can miss the cut. By a lot. And he can win. And everything in between.?

But as for the biggish picture: I?m not sure I can say much of value beyond what I wrote back in early December (if that was of value). Everything else would be variations on a theme (which, granted, is the bulk of my work, and the bulk of many people?s work).

Was talking with a friend about 9/11, and the stigmatization of that day -- what I mean is, the stigmatization of all September the Elevenths. My friend is getting married on September 11 this year. I said, ?Great! It?ll help redeem the day.? Just think what glorious and good and heart-lifting things have happened on December the Sevenths.

I had an additional thought: You know the convenience-store chain 7-Eleven? What if the terror attacks had occurred on 7/11/01 instead of 9/11/01? Would the company have had to consider a name change -- done it? Remember that there was a diet device -- little chocolates -- called ?Aids??

A friend sent me a picture, here. It shows the outside of a bookstore. Where are you if you?re not in the right such establishment? In the Wong Fook Hing Book Store, of course.

I thought I?d end with a little family news -- NR-family news, I mean. Some readers like it. Our web developer, Nathan Goulding, is a man of many parts: computer expert, musician, student of languages . . . He has now done an Ironman 70.3, in Oceanside, Calif. What?s an Ironman 70.3? It?s when you swim 1.2 miles, bike 56 miles, and run 13.1 miles (a half-marathon, basically). Nathan did that in nothing flat, by my lights, this past weekend. In the annals of NR studliness, this achievement will live long. I think I?m an ironman when I shove my desk a bit to get at an electrical outlet or something.

In any case -- see you!

 

 

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Full post as published by Bench Memos - National Review Online on April 02, 2010 (boomark / email).