Monday, September 15, 2008

Dan is Barack's Man. Oy Vey.


I try to keep this blog free of presidential election fodder, but this one is the exception.
To those in the orthodox community who even had a little itty bitty thought of voting for Barack Obama (and I'm betting there are very few of you), this may be the clincher for John McCain.
Barack Obama's "Senior Middle East Advisor" is none other than our former ambassador to Egypt and Israel, Daniel Kurtzer.
This is the same Daniel Kurtzer who graduated Yeshiva University and then in his PhD dissertation at Columbia proceeded to rip Israel.
As a State Department official, Kurtzer helped formulate the decision by the US to recognize the PLO and Yasser Arafat (may he rot in hell). Kurtzer is of the belief that both sides are equally to blame for the Middle East conflict.
Kurtzer was the author of George Schultz' 1988 speech which recognized "the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, including political rights."
Kurtzer coined the term "land for peace" in a speech he wrote for James Baker. Yitzhak Shamir referred to Kurtzer as "Baker's little Jew."
In a recent book, Kurtzer blames Israel for the failure of the Camp David II summit with Bill Clinton, Ehud Barak and Arafat: "During the Camp David II summit in July, there was much more back and forth between the United States and Israel than was the case in Geneva, but in the end Clinton acceded to Barak's request to blame Arafat publicly for the summit's failure."
Just this summer, Kurtzer traveled to Syria and gave "advice" to Syria's Foreign Minister, Walid al-Moallem.
"Jews like Kurtzer chose to ignore the Zionist revolution and the opportunity it offers to serve your people first," said Efraim Zuroff. "And one of the tenets of Orthodoxy is that the interest of your people always takes priority."
His anti-Israel policies caused the late Rabbi Pinchas Teitz to ban Kurtzer from the shuls in his hometown of Elizabeth, New Jersey. When Kurtzer lived in Silver Spring, Maryland, his shul, The Kemp Mill Synagogue, suddenly had to stop raising money for charities which helped people who lived in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. [One of his fellow congregants at KMS was 'Rabbi' Dov Zakheim, the former US official who helped kill Israel's Lavi jet fighter program].
(Not to mention Kurtzer's dismal failure as commissioner of the doomed Israel Baseball League last summer).
This man is now Barack Obama's "senior Middle East advisor." And there are orthodox jews who might still vote Democrat. Oy.

24 comments:

Anonymous said...

WOW! Such hatred, against a fellow Jew no less!

Anonymous said...

Karin,
Don't be surprised. The previous post glorified and legitimized the Jewish Voice & Opinion which is one of the most hate filled rags I ever read! It works for bathroom reading and I read the ads so I will make sure not to patronize any new advertisers that advertise there. I think that there is a lot of hate in the heart of this blog.

I keep looking at it though because I have the eternal hope that they might say one nice thing that is not insulting to other members of the Teaneck community or starting a fight.

Anonymous said...

ROTFL

As opposed to your post which was full of love.....????

I happen to agree with you regarding JV&O, but it is kind of funny to hear you rip the blog owner for not saying one nice thing, insulting members of the Teaneck community and starting fights, and then posting a not nice, insulting, fight provoking post...

LOL

Anonymous said...

anonymous 9:39 - have you ever READ this blog before? All it spews is hate and tries to incite one group against another - but as I said, I'm hoping that some nice things might get said. Whenever I say anything nice on this blog its ignored.

Anonymous said...

sorry, tried for levity

guess you didn't appreciate it.

quite frankly, I think the term constructive blogging is an oxymoron.

esther said...

I don't view this post as hateful as much as informstive. It helped me understand why a one issue voter would be predisposed not to support Barack Obama.

Anonymous said...

Interesting that the party that has a corner on the bigot vote including the anti-jewish vote successfully campaigns for the orthodox vote.

esther said...

Just an innocent question: Are there people who think that that Bush Administration policies have been good for Israel?

Anonymous said...

Esther,

Most Orthodox Jews in Teaneck see Bush as a savior of Israel.

Personally, I don't see it.

esther said...

People who see Bush as the "savior" of Israel should, by all means, vote for McCain.

Anonymous said...

Is anybody worried about the US of A anymore or does Israel take precedence over your own country?

Out Of Rightfield said...

America will go on no matter who the president is. Israel, maybe not, G-D forbid

Anonymous said...

Oh I am sure that Israel can take care of itself. Gosh you all have nuclear weapons even, so if there is such a big threat than drop a bomb or two.

Anonymous said...

Karin,

Using that logic, America, which has thousands of Nukes should be able to take care of itself no matter who is President also....

but something tells me that you'll still vote how YOU would like to this fall....

Anonymous said...

Anon-

Israel is not one of my top concerns, sorry.
I just find it amusing that people will not vote for someone because of how it may or may not effect Israel.
I would think that this country would be there foremost concern.

Anonymous said...

Karin,

From what you post, I certainly wouldn't expect Israel to be a top concern.

Of course, then again, it is pretty much our only Democratic ally in the mideast and provides the U.S. with top-notch intelligence about many of the not so friendly Arab countries there.

So, while you may not care about the daily goings on, I would think that caring about Israel would be caring about U.S. too.

BTW, are you suggesting that a childless couple in their 60's or 70's shouldn't care much about the environment because after all by the time we've destroyed it they'll probably be long gone?

Anonymous said...

What does the old people caring about the environment have to do with Israel?

What if something is good for Israel but bad for the US of A, what then?

Out Of Rightfield said...

From all the polls I've seen on the news, it looks like New Jersey is actually up for grabs in this year's election.
Wow, for the first time in my adult life, my vote in the presidential election might actually make a difference.
Looks like we need some community organizers to get the vote out.

Anonymous said...

it is all subjective, Karin.

Your frame of reference is that Israel has one value. For many others, especially in this town, where people have children, brothers, sisters, parents, etc... all living in Israel, surrounded by 22 hostile Arab nations, it has quite a different value.

No one necessarily expects you to share this value. But, the fact that you cannot see the value it has to others, and appear to have great disdain for those that put more value on Israel than you do, speaks volumes about yourself.

The analogy regarding the old folks was that since Israel matters little to your day to day life, you don't care much about it (or for that matter, think negatively of it). If everyone only thought about what matters to themselves, we would have a rather selfish society. Oh wait, we DO have a selfish society - DOH!

esther said...

Leaving aside Karin's unsurprising hostility towards Israel, what I'd like to know is whether the MO population in Teaneck is as fearful of an Obama presidency as Out of Rightfield would suggest. My sense is that there is a wider diversity of opinions in than Out of Rightfield would want to admit.

Out Of Rightfield said...

Esther,
In addition to being more hawkish on Israel, terrorism, national security and foreign policy, Orthodox Jews are more comfortable with Republican positions on abortion and gay marriage than Conservative, Reform and unaffiliated Jews. They are sympathetic to Republican programs like faith-based initiatives and school choice. Vouchers could significantly benefit Orthodox Jews who send their children to yeshivas and day schools.

Anonymous said...

sorry Esther,

In this case I agree with RF as far as where the MO stand politically.

I was quite surprised when I got here because I grew up believing that Jews were mostly Democrats...Apparently that doesn't apply to Orthodox Jews.

Unknown said...

Let's turn the focus on McCain for a minute. I hear all of this talk about Obama, but no one talks about McCain's extremist Middle East advisers.

RANDY SCHEUNEMANN
MAX BOOT
JAMES WOOLSEY
BILL KRISTOL
ROBERT KAGAN
MARK SALTER
JOHN BOLTON
GARY SCHMITT
RALPH PETERS
JOE LIEBERMAN
DANIEL MCKIVERGAN

If the though of more Project for a New American Century PNAC doesn't scare the living hummus out of you, McCain's stolen message of "change" is laughable.

Anonymous said...

Just for the record, and regardless of one's politics: the failure of the Israel Baseball League had nothing whatsover to do with Kurtzer, and had everything to do with the lying thieves running the league.