Obama and Brzezinski—Ill-Suited and Sending a Mixed Message to Jews
If Sen. Barack Obama wants to make nice-nice with the Jewish community, the last person he should be allowing to make public proclamations about Jews, no matter how tenuous that person's connection to the Obama presidential campaign, is Zbigniew Brzezinski. Brzezinski, who was President Jimmy Carter's national security adviser, has long been viewed suspiciously by American Jews.
And yet the week after Obama flew to Florida to woo a Jewish audience by extolling Israel's 60th anniversary, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who has endorsed Obama and advised him on foreign policy, accused members of the American Jewish establishment of "McCarthyism" in their attitude toward critics of Israel. Why go nuclear when Brzezinski could have blazed with less destructive weapons?
Does the Obama campaign control every word that comes out of Brzezinski's mouth? Of course not. But as long as he's a prominent foreign policy consultant to the campaign, Obama's staff does at the very least wield the power to apply the occasional duct tape where necessary concerning issues of great importance to the Jewish community.
"Zbig" might as well have warned Obama not to make any appeal to Jews at all last week, as the damage caused by Brzezinski's comments was greater than the good achieved by Obama's. Brzezinski went on to say, instead, that the pro-Israel lobby in the United States is too powerful, while the slur of anti-Semitism is too readily used whenever its power is called into question.
Is Brzezinski working for Sen. Hillary Clinton on the sly?
Tags: presidential election 2008 | Barack Obama | religion | Judaism | Zbigniew Brzezinski
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Reader Comments
what
Cindy of VA.....why is he a brown shirt for saying our government should work for us and not Israel?
That country is lead by war mongering imperialists. There are a lot of jewish people who have this same opinion, do some research they agree!! Does that make them anti semetic self hating jewish people? Of course not. Thats such a weak minded knee jerk response to an actual issue.
please
The israeli government is committing genocide on people and we're supposed to be worried that Obama puppets friend old Ziggy boy is a danger to jews?
How about we be worried about Obama and his selection of Rahm "war criminal zionist" Emanuel and Obama's support of Israel which is committing murder by the thousands every day.
Dear Jaqson, The reason Egypt gets money is to bribe them into being co-operative (a cold peace) with Israel and as an encouragement to sign the peace treaty they signed under Carter's administration. The Saudi arms deals are about oil and making money for the military-industrial complex. Generally, the US has tried to get the Sunni regimes (Jordon, Saudi, Egypt) to quietly support Israel and has used arms sales as an encouragement. There is more of a difference of opinion about Israeli policy in Israel than in the US. It seems the Israelis have a vibrant discussion but we are afraid to say anything in the country of alleged freedoms because of the Dershowitzes (my law professor) who will call anyone who does not support Likud and "settlers" anit-semites.
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