Sticks and Stones

Michael Bloomberg gets it.

Attacks against Barack Obama as anti-Israel and anti-Jewish have become the right-wing's 9/11 demagoguery of 2008. Glenn Greenwald in particular has been on top of this issue for some time. It's a vulgar issue that, among other things, appears to threaten Obama's chances of winning in Florida.

In a sense, this is not as discouraging as it appears at first blush. Attempts to tag the Democratic presidential candidate with an anti-Israel characterization are nothing new. The consistently dishonest Republican Jewish Coalition spent 2004 distorting the words of Howard Dean, John Kerry and other Democrats to make them appear anti-Israel and "bad for the Jews," most prominently in a series of national advertisements prior to the 2004 elections.

The RJC twisted John Kerry’s record on Israel (which garnered him a perfect rating by AIPAC throughout his entire Senate career), among other things claiming that Kerry "questioned Israel’s right to defend herself," taking out of context comments by Kerry on the construction of the security fence. The RJC claimed that Kerry’s concerns about building a security fence too deep inside the occupied territory amounted to a condemnation of Israel – despite his clear support of a security wall – while conveniently ignoring the Bush Administration’s clear and unequivocal opposition to the security fence in any form as late as January of 2004, as well as the Administration's threat to withhold loan guarantees to Israel because the fence veered over the green line. The RJC maliciously accused Kerry of "pandering to anti-Israel audiences" in his speeches to Arab groups, at the Arab American Institute on October 17, 2003 and before an Arab audience at the World Economic Forum meeting on Arab-US relations, where he just so happened speak of the daily struggle of Israelis "living in fear of another terrorist attack, not sure whether to get on a bus or [eat] in a restaurant," informed his audience that "Palestinian leaders must bring an end to the violence against Israelis, and find a way, with the help of others, to rein in militant groups," and told an Arab audience at the World Economic Forum that Arab funding for certain Palestinian extremist groups needed to be stopped. Pandering, indeed. Despite the fact that Kerry referred to Yasser Arafat as "an outlaw" and "an impediment to the peace process," his support of Israel’s right to target Hamas leaders for assassination, and his commitment to never compromise Israel’s security, the RJC never hesitated to paint John Kerry as a danger to Israel.

The RJC’s dishonest scare tactics applied to Howard Dean, too. During the 2004 primary campaign, Howard Dean was asked if he would oppose the Israeli policy of selectively killing leaders of Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups. Dean replied that "there is a war going on in the Middle East, and members of Hamas are soldiers in that war, and, therefore, it seems to me that they are going to be casualties if they are going to make war." Although in context it is undeniable that Governor Dean was saying that Hamas leaders were legitimate targets by the Israelis, the RJC ignored the second half of that statement, sending press releases and buying ad space to say "No Gov. Dean, they aren’t soldiers; they are terrorists." They charged Dean with a policy of moral equivalency between Israel and the terrorists, based on his calls for a balanced negotiating position, because he said "When you're at the negotiating table, you don't sit down and blame people when you're negotiating," and "There's a difference between our policy in Israel -- which has always been supportive, including the willingness to defend Israel -- and what you do at the negotiating table, which clearly has to have the trust of both sides." The RJC intentionally warps a call for objectivity (looking at positions in a fair and impartial manner and giving proper weight to the stronger arguments) into a charge of "moral equivalency," that each side has an equal claim.

And so in that sense, the by now well documented Jewish-targeted smear campaign against Senator Obama, is not unexpected or extraordinary.

But there is something much more sinister with the way that the current campaign from the right is targeting religious, racial and social fears, and making the Jewish voters the specific target of scare tactics coming from the highest levels. John McCain makes claims that Barack Obama is the candidate of Hamas. George Bush uses the occasion of Israel's 60th birthday to stand in front of the Knesset and charge Obama with appeasement. Joe Lieberman is dispatched to scare elderly Jews in Palm Beach and Broward counties. And on and on it goes.

But more than anything, the underground slime campaign gathers momentum because Barack Obama is different, and Jews are being targeted because we make up a core demogaphic that can tip the balance in a key swing state and are easy marks for the types of fears that Obama's background inspire in those who don't know enough about Obama to rebut those fears. He's not one of us. How do we know we can trust him?

Unlike John Kerry, Barack Obama cannot point to his Jewish brother living on a Kibbutz. Unlike Howard Dean, Barack Obama cannot point to his Jewish wife and Jewish children.

The right is banking heavily on the idea that they can inspire sufficient fear, and that Barack Obama doesn't get the benefit of the doubt. And they do this because they have nothing else to run on other than fear.

And so it goes.