"Committed zionism"? Mr. Peretz, come on. You can say he is committed to Israel (however misguided and misinformed he and his policies are), but a Zionist?

The fact is that Obama might have actually been caught here in a really embarrassing situation, where his true colors are not what they might seem. However, you are defending the LA Times in their abdication of their journalistic responsibility. If this is newsworthy (and clearly it is) - then it is up to the public to decide the merits of the this issue, not the LA Times.

Another thing, a non-Jew can be a Zionist and maintain his life outside of Israel. A Jew cannot. If you are Jewish and you claim that "Zionist credentials are not in dispute" then you would be living in Israel.

Lastly, I would expect that someone who proudly declares that you have "written more appreciative words about Khalidi than Obama" and "even invited Khalidi to speak for a Jewish organization with which [he] work[s]" would know that the man's name is RASHID Khalidi, not WALID Khalidi (though by the time this is posted, that will probably be corrected already).

Marty, why are you up so late?

leeorb writes:

-- Another thing, a non-Jew can be a Zionist and maintain his life outside of Israel. A Jew cannot. If you are Jewish and you claim that "Zionist credentials are not in dispute" then you would be living in Israel.

leeorb hates freedom.

I do hate ridiculous hyperbole masked as an actual argument.I don't hate freedom. Nor do I understand what that even means in this context. I didn't tell anyone where to live or why to live in a certain place, but I do like when people use terms appropriately. Part of Zionism is the belief that Jews, all Jews, ought to live in Israel. Ergo, Peretz might be support many Zionism's goals and ideals, and be very ardently pro-Israel. However, that does not make him a Zionist.

Great post. Hope this gets shared.

Marty: "Walid Khalidi."

Didn't you mean 'Rashid Khalidi"?

I  watched CNN last night trying to lower Khalidi's anti-Israel radicalism by quoting him as saying that he spoke to journalists about the PLO, not for the PLO. That gives a completely wrong impression of the depth of his rejectionism. I saw him a few times speaking on Canadian TV, where he feels the audience is more receptive to his POV, claiming at the height of the intifada that Palestinians should not curb their terrorists. The reason he gave was that Palestinians would be doing Israel's policing work. Remember that was the time when suicide bombings in coffee houses, public markets and hotels were a daily and sometimes hourly occurrence. In other words, this "scholar" saw no moral harm in Jews being bombed and did see moral harm in their murderers being caught and punished.

He's not saying either of those things, though.  That statement only implies that he saw it as morally better for Israel to do the policing than Palestine.  That has no implication about whether it's wrong to bomb Jews and actually implies the opposite of your claim- Israel's justice system is much, much better at capturing and punishing terrorists so giving them the responsibility leads to more of that not less.

peretz,

shazaam, who'd have ever thunk that this election would find me admiring the wisdom, insight, and temperament of one Martin H. Peretz....

Great post. How come Obama isn't pushing you on stage to say these things?

On Tuesday, I will drink a toast to you peretz. You declared and called this one in January. You Rock.

Excuse me. But why not release the tape? What's wrong with truth?  

bugger off leeorb,

Part of Zionism is believing that all Jews have the right to live in Israel, in peace, to constitute the overwhelming majority of its citizens (hence to live in a "Jewish state"), and to enjoy all of the same rights and privileges as a state and as a people that the rest on the people of the earth claim for themselves,

Your version of Zionism is part of the fanatic strain that insists on telling other people what they ought to do.  God told me you are a bum and don't know what you are talking about.

A-propo roidubouloi 's comment,

Norm Geras had a pertinent thought about the following quote:

"[M]any left-leaning, liberal intellectuals seem to think that anti-Israel rhetoric is one of the more reasonable bits of the jihadi agenda - that on Zionism, at least, the terrorists have a point. Except that, by Zionists, al-Qaeda means Jews and its reason for hating them is that they are conspiring to control the world. Any complicity with that notion was anti-semitic in the Thirties and it still is."

Norm says:

" Two things that are more or less well known amongst those who take an interest in these things are: (a) that it is common for there to be code words for racist and other types of prejudice, since the prejudiced don't always want to say what they think right out loud and yet do want to be understood by others who share their particular prejudice or hatred; and (b) that amongst a certain class of anti-Semite 'Zionists' is just such a code word for referring disparagingly to Jews. Therefore, critics of Israel who aren't anti-Semitic could refrain from using the word 'Zionist' in their arguments with others, and for labelling Jewish supporters of Israel. They could, especially, refrain from using the word in a way that seems to signal their scorn.

Here it might be said that many Jewish supporters of Israel are happy to call themselves Zionists, so demonstrating that the word is not necessarily tied to any anti-Semitic connotation or intent. No, it isn't. But context makes a difference. Those identifying themselves as Zionists obviously don't use the word pejoratively. Others do, some of them in an odious way. And it is not as if there aren't alternatives. A critic of Israel could refer to his or her opponents as 'supporters of Israel' or even, if it comes to that, 'apologists for Israel'. The boycotters could say 'opponents of the academic boycott'. And so on. Just a thought."

normblog.typepad.com/.../a-thought-about-zionists.html

Today on Uncommon Knowledge, Thomas Sowell applies the argument in his classic work, A Conflict of Visions, to the candidates' and the economy.  Sowell finds McCain infuriatingly inconsistent.  But Obama?  "Even FDR," he says

pulled back on some things.  But Obama really doe have the unconstrained vision, which is really an elitist vision.  It says, "I know what is best...and I will do it."  When he says, "I will change the world," you realize this is a man who has actually accomplished nothing other than advancing his career through rhetoric.

corner.nationalreview.com/post

BTW, simon greenwood, I wrote a very  specified comment with links to quotes from and about Khalidi which show that clearly you don't have a clue about him and his rabid anti-Israel record. But it must have been banned by the moderator. And I don’t feel like doing it all over again. If you are really interested in learning about him, try finding his pre-2006 articles and interviews on Al-Jazeera, Al-Ahram, The Nation, Democracy Now.

roidubouloi - yes "Part of Zionism is believing that all Jews have the right to live in Israel" is part of zionism, but you're wrong on the other count. zionism is the belief that only israel is where jews can truly live and thrive in freedom. period. anything else that seems similar might be related to zionism - but not strictly that ideology. i DO know what i'm talking about, if i didn't, i might tempted to insult my interlocutor and not actually discuss content based on real knowledge and understanding.

why is it that everyone here who decides to disagree with what someone else says uses such hyperbole and in such a self-righteous, "i don't care about anything you think" sort of way?

For example, Obama, in an interview and in his spring AIPAC speech, recalled conversations with a Jewish-American camp counselor he encountered-when he was all of eleven years old ......

It’s true. In Obama lore, camp counselors shape your politics, while terrorists are just guys in the neighborhood, and terrorist mouthpieces are babysitters. As Kramer points out, the Obamas’ babysitter said the following about the start of the Iraq War:

This war will be fought because these neoconservatives desire to make the Middle East safe not for democracy, but for Israeli hegemony. They are convinced that the Middle East is irremediably hostile to both the United States and Israel; and they firmly hold the racist view that Middle Easterners understand only force. For these American Likudniks and their Israeli counterparts, sad to say, the tragedy of September 11 was a godsend: It enabled them to draft the United States to help fight Israel’s enemies.

Which, Kramer notes, sounds a lot like Obama’s own October 2002 antiwar speech:

“What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other arm-chair, weekend warriors in this Administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.” No mention of Cheney or Rumsfeld-and no need to mention them, to a constituency that knew who was really behind the push for war, and why. (Later, the same argument would figure prominently in The Israel Lobby, co-authored by another Chicago professor, John Mearsheimer.)

Funny–none of the sage words of Obama’s camp counselor seemed to make it into that speech.

www.commentarymagazine.com/.../40702

It's obvious, that Marty would call anti-Semite  anybody who uses such coded language  as "Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz "

It seems, leeorb, that you are a bit out of date:

"According to Sternhell the Zionist views underlying the negation of the Diaspora, e.g. the view of the Jews as a parasitic people, were often quite similar to the views underlying modern European anti-Semitism.[12]

*  *  *  *

According to Schweid since about 1970 the idea of the negation of the Diaspora was removed from the basic premises guiding national education in Israel. One reason for this was the need of the state to "reconcile" itself with Jews in the Diaspora. Schweid advocates a reintroduction of the idea in education, along the lines of the more moderate views of Ahad Ha'am and A.D. Gordon.[15]"

Your dogmatism about what Jews must believe and what they must do invites just the response that you object to.  In your insistence upon ideological purity in conformity with your own views, you don't even realize that you are being parodied, and then you object to the tenor of the parody.  You are hoist.

Thanks Marty. I was hoping you'd weigh in here.

..".zionism is the belief that only israel is where jews can truly live and thrive in freedom. period."

not really. No.

Norm Geras has another one on the same subject:

" Second, and worse, the remark suggests that a Zionist is a bad thing for a Jew to be. But why so? A Zionist is someone who supports the existence of an autonomous Jewish homeland in Israel - so a Jewish nationalist if you like. We do not know why Hanson thinks that it's bad for Jews to be nationalists; it's just an offhand remark of hers without explanation or elaboration. Yet it indicates how, far beyond the ranks of the out-and-out Jew-haters, comfortably esconced now within any average assembly of well-meaning liberals, there are expectations on Jews that aren't placed upon others - who may, for their part, legitimately be nationalists and attached to the self-determination of their peoples. And it also indicates how 'Zionist', even when not deployed with clear anti-Semitic intent, has come to hold a pejorative connotation, as if the very existence of the Jewish state - not the occupation, not the settlements, not Israeli policies towards the West Bank and Gaza, but the Jewish state itself - was a rank illegitimacy.

That it should be the Guardian that serves as the site for Hanson's casual ignorance and expression of lightminded prejudice is, of course, no surprise at all."

normblog.typepad.com/.../another-thought-about-zionists.html

Let's repeat:

"We do not know why ... it's bad for Jews to be nationalists; ... Yet it indicates how, far beyond the ranks of the out-and-out Jew-haters, comfortably esconced now within any average assembly of well-meaning liberals, there are expectations on Jews that aren't placed upon others - who may, for their part, legitimately be nationalists and attached to the self-determination of their peoples."

Whatever dude.  You used to be one of the last bastions of sanity in this liberal echo chamber.  If you're content with Obama and his many meetings with terrorists and Palestinian supporters, his many connections with irreverent anti-semitic reverends, the many questions about his willingness to coddle Almondjeans, and his willingness to leave Iraq to a cesspool of violence that would undoubtedly affect Israel later on then the hell with you.  That there are questions about Obama and none re: McCain's willingness to stand up for Israel already speaks volumes.

jwl,

McCain can barely stand up, period.  He is thoroughly corrupt and that makes him a profoundly unreliable "friend" to anyone.  His patriotic bluster means nothing at this point.  Completely empty, as is he.

leeorb writes:

-- zionism is the belief that only israel is where jews can truly live and thrive in freedom. period.

The Jewish population of the United States is almost identical to that of Israel. The idea that Jews can "truly live and thrive in freedom" in Israel and not the United States is utter nonsense. It would, for example, be racist to suggest that African-Americans can only "truly live and thrive in freedom" somewhere else. It is certainly anti-American and, arguably, anti-Semitic to suggest the same for (American) Jews.

roidubouloi said: "McCain can barely stand up, period.  He is thoroughly corrupt "

McCain is not  as nearly corrupt as Obama

I'm not even going to respond to those who would quote Sternhell as an authority on Zionism, or those who think that Israeli government policy is what determines the ideology of movement that gives justification to its existence (and not the other way around).

But ndmackenzie - you are saying that I am arguable an anti-Semite? Are you kidding? First of all, the US is far from the first place in history where Jews felt comfortable only to be proven wrong. However, that is not the point. I am not saying anything against America - but the Jewish population in the US is shrinking. In fact, the only place the Jewish population is growing (in natural growth terms - not sure what's going on in Germany these days) is Israel. Intermarriage is at a rate of about 50% and assimilation at a rate much higher than that. Within a generation or two, the Jewish community in America will have significantly shrunk. Diaspora Judaism is dying - and yes, the Jewish community in the US is part of that.

Here's an old post from TNR that had sold me on Obama, but I'm a biased Roth fan.

"Nathan Zuckerman as Presidential Adviser

Among the many fascinating details in Barack Obama's discussion of Israel with Jeffrey Goldberg, this one stood out for me:

I always joke that my intellectual formation was through Jewish scholars and writers, even though I didn’t know it at the time. Whether it was theologians or Philip Roth who helped shape my sensibility, or some of the more popular writers like Leon Uris. ...

Philip Roth shaped Obama's sensibility? Really? If ever there were a response in need of a follow-up, this seems like it...

--Noam Scheiber"

Within the last hour, the first exit poll of 817 Americans in Israel, who attended U.S. election voting events in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv on Tuesday evening to vote by absentee ballot, has been released. A startling 76 percent of those polled said that they had voted for John McCain. This contrasts sharply with pre-election polls of American Jews in the U.S., which indicate a strong preference for Obama. The exit poll findings of American voters in Israel are all the more surprising because less than one in four were registered Republicans, and 46% of registered Democrats living in Israel said they had crossed party lines to vote McCain. By contrast, the Republican crossover to Obama was minimal – just 2%.

media.nationalreview.com/post

www.thejewishweek.com/.../New_York.html

The poll, carried out by the New York-based Research Institute for New Americans (RINA), found that 56 percent of the 479 Russian speakers surveyed nationwide favored McCain, while only 10 percent supported Obama.

On his blog at The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg poses this thought experiment:

Imagine — and it doesn’t take much imagining — but imagine Dick Cheney showed up at a party for Ahmed Chalabi, and made a videotaped toast? Don’t you think the L.A. Times would try like hell to get that video posted on its website? Of course it would, and it would be performing a valuable service for its readers.

This follows up on an earlier post, in which he (rightly) refers to the Times as a “pro-censorship organization.” He uses this sobriquet because the Times has refused to release a videotape it obtained of a 2003 banquet, at which then-state Senator Barack Obama spoke of his friendship with Rashid Khalidi, a leading Palestinian activist.

www.commentarymagazine.com/.../40731

I don't know if I'm missing something or not, but I don't understand why I'm not finding very many articles explaining that during the 1990s, while McCain was serving as the chairman of the International Republican Institute, McCain distributed several grants to the Palestinian research center co-founded by Khalidi, including one worth almost $500,000.  ?

A 1998 tax filing for the McCain-led group shows a $448,873 grant to Khalidi's Center for Palestine Research and Studies for work in the West Bank.

Why is there no focus on that?  Or why is that somehow justified, but Obama's association is not?

It's just like the G. Gordon Liddy association - McCain is absolved of consorting with criminals, but Obama is surrounded by a firing squad.  McCain even said that he thinks Liddy is a good guy, while Obama barely had any contact with Ayers and denounces his crimes.

Such a blatant double standard.  And leave it to the rightwingers to express faux indignation and outrage when their own candidate has his own explaining to do.  It's really depressing.

What I don't understand iswhy the Times went to the (probable expense) and trouble of obtaining the video if they had no intention of publishing it.

I find it extraordinary that the anti-Obama crowd here is focused on supposed anti-Semitic leanings of one of Obama's associates. But not a word about McCain's vice presidential pick and her quoting Westbrook Pegler in her convention speech, about her church's strong affiliation with Jews for Jesus including comments that she sat through within the last six months saying that the Holocaust and other sufferings of the Jews were "judgement" for their rejection of Jesus, and about the known anti-Semites who are quoted by McCain and Palin, such as Tony Martin.

Even more pertinent: Palin and McCain have demonized urban dwellers, the educated and especially university professors and scientists, the media, etc. They are playing a sharp game of "Us-and-Them." Historically everytime a country's leaders start playing this divisive game, the Jews somehow either at the start or at the end end up being "them."

Palin scares the Bejezus out of me!

"I find it extraordinary that the anti-Obama crowd here is focused on supposed anti-Semitic leanings of one of Obama's associates"

Why "extraordinary "?

You can level the exact same kind of indictment to the pro-obama crowds here, whose favourite line of defending their adored candidate is the "you too" argument. Which is a rhetorical fallacy, aiming at mitigating for the   "anti-Semitic leanings of one of Obama's associates" by redistributing and re-apportioning of the blame all around.

You might want to consider the fact that Jeremiah Wright traveled to Libya with the famous antisemite Louis Farrakhan to meet Muammar Khadafi, when Khadafi was one of the most important rogue-state leaders and terror-supporters in the world.  Obama was a friend and follower of the crazy pastor for twenty years.

All Palin  did is sit for six months listening to irrational religious theories about why the Holocaust happened. Was there any preaching or tacit approval for another Holocaust to take place? Was there an adulation of Hitler?

Perhaps antisemitism is not so bad when it comes from a black person? Perhaps it is an "understandable" part of the black church battle for social justice? Is that what's really at the root of your complaint here? That Jewish sceptics are not willing to look away from the these obscenities, even if they find the candidate himself so much more decent, lucid and self-critical  than his supporters?

"...even if they find the candidate himself so much more decent, lucid and self-critical  than his supporters.."

From TNR today:

"Obama managed to hold onto the Jewish vote in part because of choices he made early on in the election, namely his struggle to prove himself tough on Jewish issues and to combat the viral smear campaigns with information campaigns of his own. When his Middle East policy adviser Robert Malley admitted to having met regularly with Hamas, Obama fired him from the campaign. He also distanced himself from President Carter under similar circumstances."

www.tnr.com/.../story.html

He, Obama, understands.  You, his supporters who try to "help" him by citing false analogies and diluting the venom of his part associates,  do not.

I am not as bothered by Obama’s association with Khalidi as I am by his twenty years association with the Reverend Wright and his church.

Above all I am bother by his inexperience. I am also bothered by Sarah Palin’s inexperience though she is running only as a VP candidate.

ndmackenzie said:  "The Jewish population of the United States is almost identical to that of Israel. The idea that Jews can "truly live and thrive in freedom" in Israel and not the United States is utter nonsense."

What a piece of antisemitic nonesense.

The Jews of Israel and the US are not identical either demographically, culturally, l and above all  linguistically.

Only a committed anti-Zionist and antisemite like mackenzie could come up with such nonsense.

 "The Jewish population of the United States is almost identical to that of Israel. The idea that Jews can "truly live and thrive in freedom" in Israel and not the United States is utter nonsense."

  "The Anglo  population of the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia  is almost identical to that of Grerat Britain. The idea that Anglos can "truly live and thrive in freedom" in Great Britain  and not the United States is utter nonsense."

:  "The Arab population of the Jordan Syria, etc is almost identical to that of the West Bank ......"

Since there is no freedom either in Jordan or Syria you can guess the rest.

Mackenzie is a real ignorant Jew hater.

I continue to be fascinated by the small minority of Jews so fixated on their own navels, that they can not see who our true friends are and where our Jewish community's interests really stand.

It is one thing to have a difference of opinion.  But when every individual who has the slightest variance from the ultra-right party line becomes an anti-Semite, traitor or self loathing Jew, we know that the sociopathic mentality has taken over.

Never mind that informed and decent individuals such as Edgar Bronfman, Alan Dershowitz and Dennis Ross support Obama.  Never mind that thousands of rabbis, Jewish educators and communal workers support Obama.  No matter that almost three-quarters of our voting Jewish population will cast their ballots for Obama.

The day will come when Israel makes peace with its Arab neighbors.  I have no doubt that when it happens, the same fanatics who spew their hate filled venom toward Obama, will turn on their fellow Jews in Israel who forge the peace, and incite the next would-be Yigal Amir.

"..their hate filled venom toward Obama,"

Isn't this a highly irresponsible, indefensible defamation of Jewish voters who choose not to vote for Obama? Who is spewing " hate filled venom " ? Why can't Jews feel free to vote for whomever they want to, without being villified into would-be murderers? Where is the outrage at such anti-Jewish invective from commenters on this blog?

Jacob something has been ruthlessly excoriated for claiming Jews were morons and snobs. Why so silent over someone like jellisdga, claiming that Jews who resist Obamawill become accomplices to murderers? Is it because the latter is an Obama voters, and those get an automatic pass around here for whatever antisemitic venom they choose to spew forth?

I will repeat this: the rhetoric of some of Obama's supporters is enough to put off any lingering sceptics out there.