Christians telling Jews what to do, 2010 version: A synod of Middle East bishops met, and decided that a) Israel shouldn’t be occupying “Palestinian lands,” b) Israeli Christians shouldn’t sell their homes no matter what, and b) There is no such thing as a Chosen People anymore, so Israelis should stop calling the West Bank Judea and Samarea (even though those are the historical names of the region).
“We Christians cannot speak about the promised land for the Jewish people. There is no longer a chosen people. All men and women of all countries have become the chosen people.
(I think they’re just jealous that they weren’t chosen. Dudes, you can convert into the Chosen People. We won’t mind.)
Meryl says: The days when Christians could tell Jews what to do are long over. So eff off with your supercessionist twaddle, anti-Israel bishops. Gee. I am so surprised that bishops from the Middle East are anti-Israel. Shocked. Shocked, I tell you.
There are Wikileaks and then there are Wikileaks: The AP is focusing on the fact that the Iraqi civilian death toll is 15,000 deaths higher than before (and this is treated as a horribly shocking secret). You know what they’re not focusing on? The fact that Iran and Hezbollah trained Iraqi terrorists to kill U.S. soldiers. This is the second administration in a row to downplay the Iranian role in Iraq and Afghanistan. We’re at war with Iran. Admit it once and for all, and take some kind of action over it instead of these namby-pamby sanctions.
Do not plan on getting any support against the synod’s newest libel against their age old hatred of Jews by our conservative “friends.” Remember, when it comes to the Catholic Church a line in the sand is drawn even from our friends.
When Mel Gibson portrayed Jews as Christ killers in his epic, “Passion of the Christ” our conservative friends were for the most part, silent. Remember, this lie against Jews is what is responsible for Antisemitism to begin with, yet as conservatives most conservatives look the other way.
To close, when lamenting any question on what our beloved Jerusalem means, our President, George Bush made a campaign promise that in his first week of office he would sign the embassy act. When he left office he had betrayed Jerusalem and betrayed his very own promise. Who said a word about it? When he failed to send even a low level representative of his administration to the ceremonies of the Anniversary of the Reunification of Jerusalem, my conservative partners were again for the most part, silent.
When we understand we can trust no one, we will win the fight against the oldest hatred on earth. When we smarten up and see for ourselves promises mean nothing (especially during election season) we will use that as leverage against those who wish to deceive us.
excuse me for submitting previous post without the above information.
It isn’t conservatives that are the problem.
One thing struck me about this synod insisting that the Jews are no longer the Chosen People. You know, God is the one who chose us, not the other way around—so unless these bishops can speak for God, I think we’re still chosen to spread His word.
The Jewish people are Guardians of God’s Covenant and unless those who seek to destroy the Guardians back the
F-off, God is going to send in his shock troops to deliver a lesson or two.
Anon, or Noam, or whomever,
Americans, conservatives and independents in particular, are just about the only people on Earth who support Israel and the Jews any more. Most of the liberals and the left support Israel’s enemies, because Third-worldism and “brownness” trump any other consideration. The difference is something like 2-1 in a recent poll. As for the leftists, they have been moving more and more against the Jews since the old USSR decided that Israel was the enemy in 1967. Even lefties who claimed to dislike the USSR turned against Israel (like Jean-Paul Sartre), including many Jews among them. Those leftists who have resisted the tide have become isolated. In Europe and Britain both conservatives and leftists dislike Israel (and often America too; these two dislikes/hatreds have become two sides of the same coin). All those African countries Israel spent so much effort trying to help in the 1950s and 1960s turned against Israel the minute the Soviets told them to. It was they who provided the votes to make the infamous “Zionism equals Racism” resolution in the UN win with an overwhelming favorable vote. Some of the delegates danced in the aisles with joy at the time, delighted with putting one over on Israel, the Jews, and America, as Pat Moynihan (then Ambassador to the UN) noted in his memoir “A Dangerous Place.”
Sneering at conservatives, particularly the religious ones, will lose Jews our last friends on Earth.
As for President Bush, a comparison between his policies towards Israel and President Obama’s should disabuse anyone that conservatives are not preferable, to those of us who support Israel, to left-wing liberals.
It’s simply a fact that there are more spokesmen for Christianity than there are Christians. I would point out that (by definition) a Christian is one who believes the Bible — thus, true Christians believe that God meant what He said about His Covenant with Israel being irrevocable.
So in responding to those fools, who (though claiming to be Christian) deny the plain statements of their own Scripture, you have two options — both equally good:
Proverbs 26:4 Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you also be like him. (I.e., Ignore the idiots.) — or —
Proverbs 26:5 Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit.
(I.e., Cite the Apostle Paul’s words to Church at Rome: Romans 11:1-2 “I say then, God has not rejected His people, has He? May it never be! For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew.”)
And sadly you’re right about the Bush II and the current Carter II Administrations’ denial that Iran is at war with us. (For my wife and me that’s particularly sad — our son is currently deployed to Afghanistan. How we wish he and his comrades had a free hand to take the fight to the enemy wherever those Islamic reptiles hide.)
Anonymous#1, your friendship standards are pretty strict. The exact actions by Jewish community leaders in Jerusalem during Jesus’ final days can never be known in detail, but I think most all thoughtful Christians believe it was more inaction by leaders of the day (even THAT being divinely ordained and thus unavoidable, in our view) than some blanket “Jews as Christ killers”.
I think it’s possible to adhere to a faith without insisting that one’s leaders have always been infallible. I can easily be a committed Christian while still loathing Spanish Inquisition.
I really doubt you want to completely jettison the friendship of all Christians unless we essentially modify our religion to become Jewish…
To number 5 if what you say is true than find me 10 Conservative weblogs openly condemning the the recent libel from the Catholic Church against guess who, their oldest living recipient of hate. This libel by the way was one of the more vicious in a litany of vicious attacks from the Church. However, my conservative friends will not say barely a peep about it for there are large numbers of conservative roman Catholics. (Ka-ching Ka-ching)….no tips in the tip jar. Furthermore, the very prominent conservative weblogs like the Daily Caller did not even make a single mention of that. I should not be furious?
Seriously, I have scoured the web today to find the same conservative weblogs who go bonkers when a liberal hate group mounts a tirade against Israel yet they have completely unequivocally ignored the latest from the Catholic Church who I am sorry to say speaking as a Jew, have been the recipient of the hell that said Church has bequeathed upon my people. .
You stated:
“Sneering at conservatives, particularly the religious ones, will lose Jews our last friends on Earth.” As a Jew I have the right to sneer at any group who undauntedly continues the innate obsession to which my people have suffered long enough.
The real litmus test of support for Israel was Jerusalem in the 8 years President Bush was in office. The litmus test failed not only from Bush but his supporters.
You wrote:
“As for President Bush, a comparison between his policies towards Israel and President Obama’s should disabuse anyone that conservatives are not preferable, to those of us who support Israel, to left-wing liberals.”
Hold your horses, sir. President Bush lied to me about my beloved Jerusalem. Plain and simple, Obama or no Obama. This is unforgivable. Furthermore, he called a Holocaust denier a MAN OF PEACE whose U.S trained security forces marched to the Nazi Goosestep all following one of the worst intifada’s of all time. As a Jew and a Republican I can be plenty mad. I can also be plenty mad that those who called themselves friends during those 8 years could have gone very far to remind President Bush he was breaking a very sacred promise not to mention forsaking Jerusalem and the people of Israel. The hierarchy of the Republican party and the very base of who elevated him to that office did nothing and said nothing.
So yes, Obama is the absolute worst in a million and one ways but I will not be blinded to the scrounge of empty promises and cheap words of love and friendship ever again. There are thousands now just like myself who will no longer be wooed by mere promises. I know my enemies. Obama is one of them. So was George Bush.
What Catholic libel? Show me what it is. I’ve heard of none recently, but maybe I missed it.
When Obama is putting pressure on Israel to turn East Jerusalem over to the Palis as a “confidence building measure” you’ll see what the difference between him and Dubya is.
As for the Middle Eastern bishops, they live in countries where the Muslims will kill Christians at the drop of a Qur’an, literally. Radical Muslims are in the process of driving Christians out of the region, Copts from Egypt, Maronites from Lebanon, Assyrians from Iraq, various denominations from the Palestinian Authority, plus forcing conversions by threats of violence, especially of young women (as in Gaza not long ago). If the bishops don’t suck up to their Muslim overlords their flocks are at risk from pogroms. And their Muslim overlords demand antisemitism. So I don’t like their antisemitism, but I understand their precarious position, too. I don’t doubt that the Christian bishops share this prejudice, but I also realize that for their own safety, when the Muslims say “frog,” they must jump.
‘When Mel Gibson portrayed Jews as Christ killers in his epic, “Passion of the Christ†our conservative friends were for the most part, silent. Remember, this lie against Jews is what is responsible for Antisemitism to begin with, yet as conservatives most conservatives look the other way.’
Sure, but then most Jews were entirely silent when Ovadia Yosef, former chief Sephardic rabbi of Israeli, went off the rails and declared that “goyim were born only to serve [Jews]” just a few days ago. I didn’t see any real coverage of his pronouncement outside the Israeli media. (Congratulations to the Israeli media for being more frank than its American counterpart, BTW.) There was little said in the Jewish or pro-Israeli blogosphere. The few sites that chose to cover the story were those angry at the ADL for denouncing Yosef’s comments: matzav.com and theyeshivaworld.com. Many of the comments left suggested that many of the posters on these sites agreed with Yosef.
I can say I saw more condemnation of Gibson, a man of little influence, in conservative circles than I saw of Yosef in Jewish and Israeli ones.
To #10. You wrote the following:
“Sure, but then most Jews were entirely silent when Ovadia Yosef, former chief Sephardic rabbi of Israeli, went off the rails and declared that “goyim were born only to serve [Jews]†just a few days ago.”
First of all I would like to say very clearly, Ovadia Yosef was wrong to say such things and many like myself on the right spoke out against it. For sure the left in Israel was all over that story. (As for the matzav.com, that is an ultra right blog, period.) Most importantly Jews fight moral equations day in and day out, yours included. Jews have paid dearly for the vicious libels and lies bestowed upon them by the Catholic Church. We paid a price no other people ever paid. Tell me how many millions died from the verbal diarrhea of Rabbi Yosef?
Today is Monday. Still I search for the smallest amount of condemnation from the right in weblogs and print media of the libel from the Catholic Synod. this absence is moral hypocrisy at it’s very best. Fruthermore to the person who made some excuse why they did it, I don’t care. As a Jew I am tired of the Catholic Church.
#9. You ask what libel. Did you not read the title story on this weblog “Christians telling Jews what to do” which prompted my replies?
To respond to the final statement by #9 who said:”When Obama is putting pressure on Israel to turn East Jerusalem over to the Palis as a “confidence building measure†you’ll see what the difference between him and Dubya is.” Are you serious?? Bush promised in his first campaign for President that in his first week of office he would sign the embassy act. Do you know what the embassy act is? Do you know what that pen to paper would have meant to Israel? Do you know that would have removed the U.S embassy from East Jerusalem to Jerusalem proper giving Israel what every other country has, an American embassy in their capital city. Bush squandered that promise which told the world, Jerusalem ‘is not’ the undivided capital of Israel!! That is why he did not sign the embassy act! He had 8 chances to do it, sir. He lied. Then to rub salt into the wound of Jerusalem he refused to send even a low level representative of his administration to the all important ceremonies of the Anniversary of the Reunification of Jerusalem. So who paved the road to pressure who to give up what? Worse, every time Bush axed the embassy act he signed the renewal of the lease for the PLO office in the U.S. Each time he axed the embassy act the Saudi government praised it, along with the EU, UN and Russia who btw, Bush placed on his administration formulated, quartet for peace who have been nothing but a royal pain in the neck for Israel ever since.
The legacy George Bush left on Israel was that upon leaving he told the Kenneset, “Take good care of Olmert.” He left statements which you can find all over the internet that while on speaking tours admonished Israel time and time again for the “daily humiliation of the Palestinian people.” You can find statement after statement from Bush telling Israel that Palestine had to be “contiguous,viable and not resemble swiss cheese.” He ripped Israel every chance he had concerning settlements. And no, that moral hypocrisy then is no different than the moral hypocracy being blasted toward Israel now. ZOA begged Bush to not call a holocaust denier a man of peace, for he was not a man of peace. They begged Bush to reign in Abbas who santioned a poster which showed all of Israel, Palestine. For that Bush brought Abbas to the rose garden and lavished false praise upon him not to mention billions of tax payer dollars. (you might look up the number of dollars for yourself and you will be ashamed this came from a friend.) This sir was all done, post 9-11 and after Israel suffered one of the worst most bloody intifada’s of all time.
Obama is openly hostile to Israel. Bush purported to be a friend who was no friend. Nor were many of our supposed friends who during that time barely made a squeak.
First of all I would like to say very clearly, Ovadia Yosef was wrong to say such things and many like myself on the right spoke out against it.
Thank you. Few had anything to say.
For sure the left in Israel was all over that story.
Irrelevant.
Tell me how many millions died from the verbal diarrhea of Rabbi Yosef?
Tell me about the catastrophe caused by Mel Gibson? (And since when have Jews only denounced antisemites when millions of lives, or even a single life, were at stake? Antisemitism is bad in theory and practice. Anti-gentile sentiments are only bad when acted upon.) Still, this is a very common argument in Jewish circles: our history of numerical and political inferiority spells our moral superiority. Andaman Islanders have not been responsible for any major atrocities in modern times either, but this doesn’t necessarily imply that Andaman culture is superior to any other. Jews have faced only minor challenges in the United States and they now have a country to call their own, but you’d never know it by the way many Jews talk. It seems the glass is always half empty.
The problem is that Rabbi Yosef is a harbinger of Haredi attitudes toward non-Jews, whether those gentiles are hostile or friendly. Nothing he’s said about the goyim is anything I haven’t encountered among the Haredim and Hasidim on previous occasions. Demographic changes in both Israel and the United States mean we are facing a curious situation whereby a considerably softened Western opinion of Jews is being met by an increasingly inflexible, anti-gentile attitude in the Jewish world. Go figure.
But thank you for your response, Noam.
tommy wrote:
“Jews have faced only minor challenges in the United States….”
Well we were not gunned down or gassed but we lived through our share of antisemitism that is for sure. Not being able to go to many of the resorts in the 40’s – 50’s and even early 60’s because signs told us, “NO JEWS OR DOGS ALLOWED” was no picnic. Living through university quota system against Jews was not fun either. Nor was the quota system fun which barred many Jews from entering the U.S post Shoah. Having difficulties borrowing money from banks because certain people looked too Jewish was no walk in the park. As for those country club dances, forget it. And in some cities across America, no Jew was wanted in the Republican party. This is just a taste of what Jews had to endure in America, excuse me! As for this country not bombing the rail lines to Auschwitz, I will never forgive it. They didn’t do it, thank you because a Jew is not worth it. They didn’t stop the Shoah because of an innate hate within them. Thank you Mel Gibson.
Look, you can meld every moral equation you choose together but nothing not even the ill spoken words of the haughty ill tempered, ill mannered Rabbi Yossef can compare to what Jews to this very day have had to endure. To argue about this with me proves my point. And no, I will not forgive nor will I forget and yes, I remain ever diligent to respond to those who tell me, “forget it already, you are making way too much of it.” (which in your own way that is what you are saying) I mean look at the suffering of poor Christians at the hands of ruthless Jews. Get my point?
In closing even conservative Jews are afraid to stand up to Catholic antisemitism. To them the worst hypocrites are liberals because they say nothing. What about a very conservative Israeli ultra orthodox run web blog who when reporting on the Synod libel,begs the following question to his readers”I leave it to my Christian readers to figure out whether the Catholic Church is just doctrinally unable to accept the concept of a Jewish state in Israel.” If a liberal framed a question like that he or she would be slammed for not having the guts to call a spade a spade, meaning accuse the synod of far more than being politically anti Israel. The owner of that said weblog just like many liberals did not want to upset his base. (ka-ching ka-ching) Well thank you very much Yourish.com for not being politically correct about a subject that has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with the oldest hate for mankind ever. May G-d bless you and keep you. (and your precious cats as well)
The largest most influential Conservative “Jewish Organization speaks truly and honestly like Jews should speak both conservative and liberal.
From ZOA:
ZOA Criticizes Vatican Synod For Dismissing Jewish Claim To Israel, Supporting ‘Right Of Return’, Alleging Jews Stole Arab Land”
http://www.zoa.org/sitedocuments/pressrelease_view.asp?pressreleaseID=1952
Yesterday I extensively addressed this issue and not to my surprise it was not published.
We must take the ‘political’ out of the question of what Jews must do when attacked. As a conservative I never fail to be astonished how my conservative Jewish writers and publishers of weblogs along with the very cream of Jewish movers and shakers of the Republican party are as silent as those liberals we so love to bash. Worse, political correctness amongst ‘webloggers’ is tantamount in my party when it might affect their conservative Christian base. I thought this was just a sickness of liberals but I see there are only a few and I mean a few conservative blogs who take antisemitism serious no matter whose feet they step on.
a few quotes from the ZOA communique:
“ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “We strongly and unequivocally criticize this outrageous and anti-Semitic, anti-Israel statement issued by Archbishop Bustros, which shows contempt for the Hebrew Bible and revives the anti-Semitism of the Church which we thought had been finally rescinded decades ago. This has not been the view expressed by Pope Benedict XVI, or his predecessor, John Paul II, or of the Second Vatican Council.”
“The ZOA has written to Pope Benedict a letter stating, ‘How are we to take the Vatican’s word when it can casually revert to past anti-Semitism and discard the laudable effort of recent years to rescind its anti-Jewish theological problems?”
Like the liberals we so love to bash you see ZOA unafraid to say what is on their minds…unlike many conservative bloggers:
“The ZOA has criticized the statement as a return to past anti-Semitic Catholic positions denying Jewish chosenness as recorded in the Hebrew Bible and condemning Israel with the falsehood that it is an occupier that displaced Palestinians, rather than the victim of a seven Arab nation 1948 attack designed to destroy the fledging Jewish state on its first day of sovereign existence, without which no Palestinian refugees would have been created and without which there would exist a Palestinian Arab state today. It has also criticized the statement for its anti-Semitic focus on alleged Israeli wrong-doing, despite the Synod’s purpose having been ostensibly to discuss the problems faced by dwindling Catholic communities in the Middle East. ”
Who said these were a bunch of ME synod members? “In yesterday’s communiqué from the Synod, Monsignor Cyril Salim Bustros, Greek Melkite Archbishop of Our Lady of the Annunciation in Boston, MA, and president of the ‘Commission for the Message,’ said that, “The Holy Scriptures cannot be used to justify the return of Jews to Israel and the displacement of the Palestinians, to justify the occupation by Israel of Palestinian lands … We Christians cannot speak of the ‘promised land’ as an exclusive right for a privileged Jewish people. ”
Please I beg to have my post from yesterday printed along with this one. If we are truly conservatives we must act like it even if it makes “others” feel bad. This is Antisemitism (with a capital ‘A’) we are talking about, after all.
Noam, I don’t know why, but your posts are getting false positives from my spam detection software, and require my personally approving them. I was busy yesterday and Sunday, which is why your comments did not get approved.
Thank you most kindly for this news. Not sure why you are getting false positives because I write from an ultra secure network but just the same it is good news to me even if it takes a bit of navigating on your part to have my opinions posted. I am greatly appreciative for it.
“Having difficulties borrowing money from banks because certain people looked too Jewish was no walk in the park. As for those country club dances, forget it. And in some cities across America, no Jew was wanted in the Republican party. This is just a taste of what Jews had to endure in America, excuse me!”
It’s not much worse than what the Irish endured. Most immigrant groups can tell similar tales of woe. If a few decades of limited access to country clubs and Ivy Leagues along with a little personal discrimination is as bad as it got, then I would say Jews didn’t endure too much.
“Nor was the quota system fun which barred many Jews from entering the U.S post Shoah.”
America had let millions of Jews into the United States prior to the 1920s and millions upon millions of other immigrants into the US before this time. The fact is that in the 1920s, Americans wanted a break and needed time to assimilate huge numbers of newcomers into America. The pause worked. (That’s why there is little in the way of Yiddish or Italian theater these days.) The quota system did not specifically target Jews. If America let everyone in the world who is suffering today, our population would explode past a billion overnight and most of our citizenry wouldn’t speak a lick of English. Nations have a right to restrict entrance. Israel doesn’t let every refugee or impoverished Third World into its nation and neither should we.
“no Jew was wanted in the Republican party.”
Few Jews wanted to be in the Republican Party. In the Catskills resorts back in the 30s, you would have found many more Jewish Communists–not to speak of mainstream Democrats–than Jewish conservatives. Republicans knew that Jews weren’t their constituency, just as wiser Republicans today understand that Hispanics aren’t likely to lean conservative.
“And no, I will not forgive nor will I forget and yes”
Forgive what? Forget what? What have you personally endured? It reminds me a little of Jewish habit of demanding collective credit for certain things while avoiding blame for others.
Jew: You know we Jews gave the world Einstein.
Me: That’s true, Einstein was a great physicist. Are you also prepared to take the blame for Karl Marx?
Jew: No! He may have been an ethnic Jew, but he wasn’t behaving in a Jewish manner.
Me: Neither was Einstein. He came from a secular household. So do you take the blame for Marx? Do you still want collective credit for Einstein?
Jew: Well…
We can assign credit and blame to individuals. Alternatively, we can assign them to groups. We can’t mix and match without descending into hypocrisy. I prefer to assign credit and blame to individuals. My grandfather accomplished some fine things during WWII. Those are his achievements, not mine. Likewise, the suffering your ancestors endured is their suffering, not yours. The victim mentality may be comfortable, but its not coherent unless you’re also willing to take the blame for the wrong of any and all Jews throughout history and accept than any non-Jew or his ancestor ever wronged by a Jew is right to never forget or forgive the Jewish people.
Thanks again for your response, Noam.
#17. I do not have a victim mentality. History proves my people have suffered the longest living hate on earth. You can line up all the bad Jews for the past 50 years and all the off color remarks they might have made and all the nasty things they might have done to their fellow man and still nothing can morally compare to the viciousness of Antisemitism which is still alive this very day. Furthermore, the whole of Israel could go far left and still not deserve to be singled out as pariahs while continuing to endure the unending obsession known as Antisemitism.
You are wrong, there were thousands of conservative Jews. Your idea only Jews are liberal is a myth at best. Back in the 40’s -60’s those Jews that could not break in because they were Jews often disguised their religious affiliation. Many in my family were closet republicans. My uncle even belonged to a Jewish republican club. They met under the guise of poker night. I am here to tell you it was near impossible in many states for a Jew to openly be embraced by republicans. One would think post Shoah this country would have embarrassed Jews when in actuality Antisemitism became even stronger.
The idea every Jew was liberal is outright wrong.But then the crap they took from Christian Republicans in the early days,it is no wonder many continued to stay democrats. Why do you think this topic was not discussed so widely in the book, “Why are Jews Liberal?” To the author who is sponsored by many wealthy Christians, it would be a liability to actually write the entire truth.
I wish you well.
“You ask what libel. Did you not read the title story on this weblog “Christians telling Jews what to do†which prompted my replies?”
Note these paragraphs from the JPost article.
“The bishops issued the statement at the close of their two-week meeting, called by Pope Benedict XVI to discuss the plight of Christians in the Middle East amid a major exodus of the faithful from the region.
“The Catholic Church has long been a minority in the largely Muslim region but its presence is shrinking further as a result of war, conflict, discrimination and economic problems.”
That pretty much confirms what I wrote about it above. I will repost that here.
“As for the Middle Eastern bishops, they live in countries where the Muslims will kill Christians at the drop of a Qur’an, literally. Radical Muslims are in the process of driving Christians out of the region, Copts from Egypt, Maronites from Lebanon, Assyrians from Iraq, various denominations from the Palestinian Authority, plus forcing conversions by threats of violence, especially of young women (as in Gaza not long ago). If the bishops don’t suck up to their Muslim overlords their flocks are at risk from pogroms. And their Muslim overlords demand antisemitism. So I don’t like their antisemitism, but I understand their precarious position, too. I don’t doubt that the Christian bishops share this prejudice, but I also realize that for their own safety, when the Muslims say “frog,†they must jump.”
Interesting that the Israel ambassador to the Vatican notes the statement contradicts the decisions of the Vatican II Council, which are authoritative for Catholic doctrine, while the doings of a temporary meeting of some bishops are not. I suspect you are blowing this event way out of proportion, just like with Dubya’s failure to move the embassy to Jerusalem.
Now I don’t know why Dubya failed to have the embassy moved. I could guess that some of the Arabists in the State Department or the Pentagon convinced him that US national interests might be harmed by doing so, provoking hostility unnecessarily among the populations of Muslim countries. I don’t like that, but it might well be the case that he was so convinced. As I say, it is a guess. But here is another fact which I don’t necessarily like but which is, nevertheless, true. Israel is not the summum and end of United States national interests. It is the duty of the President to safeguard the USA. It is my belief that safeguarding Israel will help do that, but a US President cannot subordinate US interests, under any and all circumstances, to satisfaction of Israel or even American Jewish aspriations. My hope is tha when Israel is in danger the US will come to her aid and, if necessary, rescue; that the US will support Israel diplomatically when Israel takes necessary measures to defend herself, measures that meet with widespread condemnation by those who are driven hysterical by the thought of armed Jews defending themselves against genocide. If that long range goal is made easier by keeping the embassy in Tel Aviv, by making it plain that the President is not beholden to Israel or to American Jews as a narrow special interest, then that is OK by me. And Dubya did come to Israel’s aid diplomatically, over negotiations with Arafat, over Israel’s anti-terrorism actions, and over the 2006 War with Hezbollah.
Finally I’d speculate that the real reason conservatives did not comment on this conference of bishops is that almost none of them knew about it. Just as I did not know about that idiotic statement by the Sephardic Chief Rabbi, so that I was unable to denounce it before now, and comment that he appears to be suffering from cranial rectal impaction.