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On the one hand ...

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Opinion
Written by The Jewish Chronicle   
Friday, 17 July 2009 11:00

We feel like Teyve in “Fiddler”: One the one hand, it’s bad that President Obama felt he had to meet this week with American Jewish leaders for some hand-holding after grumbling over his Middle East diplomacy grew loud. On the other hand, it’s good that the president has enough sensitivity to Jewish concerns to call the meeting.

On the one hand, it’s bad that Obama makes Jewish settlements in the disputed West Bank the whipping boy for lack of progress toward peace between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs. On the other hand, the worst of the settlers are violent fanatics, and those outside the main blocs must leave in any case to achieve the two-state solution that seems essential to Israeli survival, certainly as a democracy.

We can only discern the “pressure” on us, and it’s uncomfortable. We don’t know what Obama is saying to the Arabs and Iranians behind the scenes, but we know they’ve been uncompromising in the past, and we fear the same in the future.

But Obama is not Jimmy Carter. He still has the support of most Americans, and most American Jews, in his new, “soft power” approach to the Middle East.  He’s already done more to shake the foundations beneath the Iranian mullahs than Bush-Cheney managed.

President Obama may be wrong about the ultimate cause of that failure, but he’s correct that the previous eight years of staunch U.S. support for Israel didn’t bring peace. And he’s earned the right to try a new approach.

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written by Fred Melcher, July 18, 2009
You feel like Tevye? After reading this editorial, I feel like Garry Coleman! "What you talkin bout Willis?!" Obama didn't call a meeting because he was sensitive to Jewish leaders' concerns; he needed to shut them up because their concerns were getting recognition, and he hadn't given them any recognition of his own. As for the foundations he's shaken beneath the Iranian mullahs, is this statement at all serious? Five days of silent tacit support for Ahmadinejad's stolen election while protestors are slain in the streets, they're still tear gassing them in the street as of yesterday, the losing candidate is attacked in the street on his way to prayers. Their nuclear program is in full force and nearing an atom bomb. Here's Ahmadinejad's quote from Thursday, saying Iran would "enter the global scene and will bring down the global arrogance". Bush-Cheney? All they did was bring two democracies to the region. Sorry to say, but this editorial's opinion doesn't simply draw the wrong conclusion- it is blind to the facts and to the news. And it is becoming obvious that this is a willful ignorance with more regard for what you wish would happen to benefit Obama, than for what will obviously happen to Israel. Shame.
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written by Fred Melcher, July 21, 2009
"The only free country in the Middle East no longer has a friend in the leader of the free world. Obama is the most hostile sitting American president in the history of the state of Israel." This, according to the Jerusalem Post's editorial on Obama's meeting with American Jewish leaders. )http://tinyurl.com/jpost-on-obama) I'll trust its view on this matter over the Chronicle's. Will the Chronicle revisit the topic more honestly this week?
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written by Caballero Andante, July 22, 2009
Does the readership actually swallow this stuff? How can anyone in his right mind accept the notion that "the two-state solution...seems essential to Israel's survival"? Is Fred Melcher the only person who sees the editorial policy of this paper for the drek it is, and has the courage to speak out about it? I already know what kind of people write this paper, but now I'm really starting to wonder about the mental acuity (and the grip on reality) of those who read it!
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