The Rev. Jesse Jackson is known for his careless mouth - remember that recent remark about what he’d do to a certain part of Barack Obama’s anatomy? Such free association has often landed him in fights with the Jewish community. These tend to follow a pattern. He says something outrageous (for example, back in 1984, he referred to New York as “hymietown” in a conversation with a journalist,) a furore follows, he eventually apologizes, there is both hope and expectation that it won’t happen again, and then…it happens again.
Yesterday, Amir Taheri reported the following in the New York Post: “Jackson believes that, although ‘Zionists who have controlled American policy for decades’ remain strong, they’ll lose a great deal of their clout when Barack Obama enters the White House.”
The Obama campaign was quick to distance itself. “Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. is not an adviser to the Obama campaign and is therefore in no position to interpret or share Barack Obama’s views on Israel and foreign policy,” Obama national security spokeswoman Wendy Morigi said in a statement. “As he has made clear throughout his career and throughout this campaign, Barack Obama has a fundamental commitment to a strong U.S.-Israel relationship … As president, he will ensure that Israel can defend itself from every threat it faces, stand with Israel in its quest for a secure peace with its neighbors, and use all elements of American power to end Iran’s illicit nuclear program.”
Given that we are less than a month from the Presidential election, it’s not surprising that much of the media coverage of Jackson’s statement has focused on why he apparently thinks speaking out like this is a help to the Obama campaign. For those of us taking a longer view, what stands out is the persistence of the theme - common on the left, but pushed most aggressively by conservative academics like John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt - that, in Jackson’s words, “Zionists control” US policy, or, as Pat Buchanan put it in 1990, that “Capitol Hill is Israeli-occupied territory.”
It’s a position that reeks of antisemitism (the old “Jewish power” theme) and of the emotion which frequently accompanies it - bitterness, because advocates of a US strategic shift away from Israel have consistently failed to make their case. What the “Zionist lobby” obsessives refuse to understand is well-put by the American Jewish Committee statement condemning Jackson: “It is this commonality of shared values and shared interests, and not Jackson’s conspiratorial notions of power, that unite Israel and America.”
Here is what Marty Peretz editor of the pro-Israel The New Republic, and strong supporter of Barack Obama who was his student at Harvard, had to say about Jackson’s insane comment (insane because for any one to stop a group from lobbying would require wholesale disenfranchisement of that group):
“Jesse Jackson is Doing His Darndest to Defeat Barack Obama”
http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_spine/archive/2008/10/14/jesse-jackson-is-doing-his-darndest-to-defeat-barack-obama.aspx
This is not the first time Jackson made unsavory comments about Jews. Some twenty years ago in 1984 he called NY City “Hymie Town.”
“Jackson’s 1984 presidential campaign”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Jackson#1984_presidential_campaign
Lucky for Obama that Jackson doesn’t speak for him or is even associated with him. Still since Obama has had to answer about his association with Bill Ayers a former terrorist this comment will not do him any good.
In any case the deceitful and rabble rouser Jackson has also said some nasty things about Obama too.
2008 presidential election
In March 2007, Jackson declared his support for Senator Barack Obama in the 2008 democratic primaries.[44] Jackson later criticized Barack Obama in 2007 for “acting like he’s white,” in response to the Jena 6 beating case.[45]
“On July 6, 2008, during an interview with Fox News, a microphone picked up Jackson whispering to a fellow guest: “See, Barack’s been, ahh, talking down to black people on this faith-based… I want to cut his nuts out…”[46] Only a portion of Jackson’s comments were released on video. A spokesman for Fox News stated that Jackson had “referred to blacks with the N-word” in his comments about Obama; Fox News did not release the entire video or a complete transcript of his comments.[47] Subsequent to his Fox News interview, Jackson apologized and reiterated his support for Obama.[46]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Jackson#2008_presidential_election
Hopefully the election of Obama will diminish the authority and power of Jackson and other race-demagogues.
[cross posted at Engage]
I wonder if Amir Taheri actually reported Jackson’s words correctly. He is the journalist who reported incorrectly that the Iranian government was going to force Jews to wear yellow badges. After that story (which snookered me too), I’m very wary of anything that Taheri says.
“He is the journalist who reported incorrectly that the Iranian government was going to force Jews to wear yellow badges. After that story (which snookered me too), I’m very wary of anything that Taheri says.”
Yes, Taheri has a way of interpreting rather than reporting what people say.
Still, Jackson has a history of making anti-Jewish comments.
Historically, Iran had forced Jews to wear clothes of certain colors to identify them as Jews:
“In the early Islamic period, non-Muslims were required to wear distinctive marks in public, such as metal seals fixed around their necks. Tattooing and branding of slaves and captives were widespread in the ancient world. However, Islam, like Judaism, forbids permanent skin markings. In consequence, lead or copper seals were used to mark non-Muslims and slaves in the Islamic world. [3] Likewise, they were not allowed to wear colors associated with Islam, particularly green. [4] The practice of physically branding Jews and Christians appears to have been begun in early medieval Baghdad and was considered highly degrading. [5] According to Bernard Lewis, Christians and Jews were forced to wear special emblems on their clothes. The yellow badge was first introduced by a caliph in Baghdad in the ninth century, and spread to the West in medieval times. Even in public baths, non-Muslims wore medallions suspended from cords around their necks so no one would mistake them for Muslims. Belts, headgear, shoes, armbands and/or cloth patches were also used. Under Shi’a rules, they were not even allowed to use the same baths [6] In 1005 the Jews of Egypt were ordered to wear bells on their garments.[7]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_badge#Muslim_countries
It was only after the British and the French entered the scene that the condition of Jews begone to improve slowly in the Middle East.
It has been suggested that Christian Europe introduced similar measures after observing them in Muslims countries.
In any case, it is possible that the Mullahs changed their minds about this after learning of the negative reaction to such a plan in the West.
I am not convinced that the statues of Jews in Iran today will stay the same if the Mullahs achieve their objectives of an Iran dominated Middle East and or are succesful in elminating the Jewish State.
In such a case the lot of Jews will be closer to that of the Bahais or the Jews of past centuries.
A new member in a long list of “distortion” victims list. Challenge people like Jackson and Escoto Brockmann and they will cry that their comments were distorted and that they are being slandered.
TJP:
“The head of the UN General Assembly claims he was slandered by “irresponsible” suggestions that he hates Israel.
President Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, an ordained Catholic priest, told The Jerusalem Post in an exclusive interview Tuesday that he loves Israel and believes the Jewish people “have suffered more perhaps in time than any other people.”
I don’t hate any country, but Israel I happen to love,” d’Escoto said.
The 75-year-old Nicaraguan, a former diplomat for the Sandinista government, has been sharply criticized in the past weeks for hugging Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad moments after he gave a speech to the UN in which he described Israel as a “cesspool.”
D’Escoto has also refused to condemn Ahmadinejad’s comments that Israel be “wiped off the map.” (…)
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1222017545701&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
—————-
Ynet News:
‘Why did he embrace Ahmadinejad?’
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3602358,00.html
“What is certain is that Obama was never in Jackson’s shadow and never under his tent. Obama is too savvy for that… and too careful with the meaning of words to allow himself to be submerged in Jackson’s demagoguery. When he said that he was a Zionist he meant it. So what do we make of Jesse trying the gambit of the putting on of hands? In his heart of hearts, and maybe not even so far down, I think he wants to destroy the candidate. Do not punish a good Christian Zionist for the workings of Jesse Jackson’s demented mind.”
“An articulate faker” by marty peretz
Read the rest here:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1222017548997&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter