What happened to the fierce urgency of now?
Suppose the scenes now unfolding in Gaza were happening in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. President-elect Obama would not have his chief national security spokesperson Brooke Anderson telling the press that he was “monitoring” the situation, mindful that “there is one president at a time.” Obama himself would be speaking in person about the unthinkable horror of what was being inflicted on Israel.
But the dead and wounded are not Israelis — they’re Palestinians. And so today is a day for international handwringing mixed in with the occasional absolving from guilt for those who can do no wrong.
Once Obama takes office, is he going to find the political courage that he clearly lacks right now? His current willingness to duck for cover suggests that when it comes to Israel, the prevailing view across the Middle East — that it makes little difference who occupies the White House — is well-founded.
I remember way back when Obama first started courting the Jewish lobby that there was a good debate on this website. The outcome was, if I am not mistaken, that he had to do what he had to do to get elected.
He has made the claim that he is not beholden to any pressure group for his victory, but, he forgot about the Jewish lobby. He is beholden to them.
It is time for the Jewish-American constituency to get involved in the problem in a new way. Perhaps Debbie Wasserman Schultz would be the ideal spokesperson for some new ideas.