US President Obama is reaching out to Muslims again. Ynet News:
President Barack Obama on Monday renewed his commitment to a “new beginning” with the Muslim world, vowing no let-up in US efforts to promote Middle East peace, curb militant violence and boost economic development. Seeking to build on his outreach to Muslims in a speech in Cairo last June, Obama used a US-hosted Muslim business conference to underscore what his administration has done so far and to pledge further work to overcome mistrust. While Obama has made progress toward mending America’s image in the Islamic world, he still faces stiff challenges in his handling of the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process, the nuclear standoff with Iran and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“I knew that this vision would not be fulfilled in a single year, or even several. But I knew we had to begin and that all of us have responsibilities to fulfill,” Obama told the Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship…..”There’s so much more we can do together, in partnership, to foster opportunity and prosperity in all our countries,” Obama said as he sought to focus more on talking about doing business together.
Like tell anti-Jew jokes. Ynet News:
VIDEO – National Security Adviser James Jones opened his remarks at the 25-year anniversary gala of the Washington Institute For Near East Policy last weekend with a joke in which a Jewish merchant fleeces a thirsty Taliban fighter. CBS reported that the joke, which many claimed was in bad taste, was conspicuously absent from the version of the remarks distributed to the media.
Here is how it went: “A Taliban militant gets lost and is wandering around the desert looking for water. He finally arrives at a store run by a Jew and asks for water. The Jewish vendor tells him he doesn’t have any water but can gladly sell him a tie. The Taliban begins to curse and yell at the Jewish storeowner. The Jew, unmoved, offers the rude militant an idea: Beyond the hill, there is a restaurant; they can sell you water. The Taliban keeps cursing and finally leaves toward the hill. An hour later he’s back at the tie store. He walks in and tells the merchant: “Your brother tells me I need a tie to get into the restaurant.”
Foreign Policy reported that the participants, many of whom were Jewish, laughed heartily, but conservative blogs and some Jewish community leaders pounced on the remark.
How Foreign Policy knew the ‘Jewish’ participants laughed is beyond me but maybe they polled the room after and as far as ‘conservative blogs and ’some’ Jewish community leaders pouncing on the remark replace ‘Jew’ with ‘Muslim’ and see if you understand the offence and perhaps spark a riot and a near-death experience for ’some’.Foreign Policy reported that the participants, many of whom were Jewish, laughed heartily, but conservative blogs and some Jewish community leaders pounced on the remark. Ethnic jokes are always a massive fail in the public political arena unless your poking yourself.
If the Democratic plan is to diverst themselves from Jewish Americans and their contribution to the political process on side of the Democrats; I’d say the plan was one of the few policies of the Obama Administration which is performing well.
J-Street, the Obama Administration’s pet nominal ‘Jewish’ advocacy group has decided to go on the attack and publish ads in various “Jewish” journals criticizing Elie Wiesel for speaking out against the Obama Administration’s tempter tantrum against Jerusalem. Again, I have to issue a massive F for the public relations failure on three levels.
J-Street published ads in ‘Jewish’ journals while Wiesel made his case in the Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, the International Herald Tribune and he pitched his plea not just to a Jewish audience but the wider public. Secondly, publicly criticizing Wiesel for exercising his free speech rights and opinion on the significance of Jerusalem for Jews is the equivalent of beating up a holocaust survivor in a elevator for being a Jew. Thirdly, using hard leftist Yossi Sarid, the disposed head of Meretz (who doesn’t even live in Jerusalem) as your counterweight to the credibility of Elie Wiesel is like using the Pope as your posterboy for the anti-MAMBLA campaign.
You can do it but its just really bad form.
I agree with Indyk that Netanyahu has a choice and he has framed the choice reasonably per say except what he fully does not appreciate is the full implications of who Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition partners represent. Israelis vote on a mandate system of proportionate representation which means a good 65-69% of the Israeli public is now effectively represented in Netanyahu’s government and the choice the Americans are asking is; choose us over the very people and country you represent. This might work in some third world totalitarian country but this is Israel – a democracy. Furthermore, contrary to the view many of the Obamni try to spin, Netanyahu’s coalition is one of the stablest Israel has seen for some time. 
