Comments on: What’s J-Street’s Position Toward Marcy Winograd?

By: Steph

Steph — Mon, 31 May 2010 23:49:12 +0000

I know Jane Harman’s congressional district well. Palos Verdes is very affluent and filled with political moderates, both Democrats and Republicans. They usually vote Republican, but they like Harman and have returned her to office many times. Winograd hasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of winning against Harman.

By: Charles Lenchner

Charles Lenchner — Mon, 31 May 2010 17:31:11 +0000

Guilt by association - a proud tradition for supporters of Joe McCarthy. Go after J Street because a board member is also a supporter of a candidate with views more to the left? This in no way links J Street with Winograd.

I’ll be waiting for the next post asking Jeremy Ben-Ami to name names.

By: Steve

Steve — Sat, 29 May 2010 18:10:38 +0000

Using Ben Cohen’s reasoning, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) also believe that ‘the US brought 9/11 on itself’. They report,

“Indeed, according to documents cited by experts on Al Qaeda, such as Rohan Gunaratna, the group attacked the United States on 9/11 (and before) not primarily because of our support for Israel, but because of our support for Saudi Arabia and other “moderate” Arab countries…Al Qaeda’s aim is to restore the caliphate (the unitary Arab Islamic state that existed in the days of Muhammed and his followers), but they understand that as long as the United States props up Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait and Egypt and Jordan, with weapons and soldiers and financial support, and the promise of military intervention if necessary, these regimes are unlikely to fall…Thus the earlier Al Qaeda attacks against the Unites States, in Saudi Arabia, in Kenya and Tanzania, in Yemen, and finally on the U.S. homeland on 9/11. These attacks had nothing to do with Israel and everything to do with U.S. support for Arab regimes”.

In fact, they seem to think that the US brought a whole range of attacks on itself.

What’s Ben Cohen’s position towards CAMERA? After all, both the AJC and CAMERA are part of the Israel on Campus Coalition (ICC).

By: Noga

Noga — Sat, 29 May 2010 16:45:57 +0000

Winograd’s “I’ve labeled myself as a Jewish woman of conscience who is compelled to speak out because of the suffering in the world.” is the poorman’s (or idiot’s) trice-removed version of Rosa Luxembourg’s famous quote, though without the special pleading for ignorance which Luxembourg might have merited when she uttered these words in 1916:

“Why do you come with your particular Jewish sorrows? I feel equally close to the wretched victims of the rubber plantations in Putumayo, or to the Negroes in Africa with whose bodies the Europeans are playing catch-ball… I have not a separate corner in my heart for the ghetto: I feel at home in the entire world wherever there are cloud and birds and human tears.”

History as shown, as Gustavo Perednik noted: “With hindsight, those Jews of the 1916 ghetto would have been happy to exchange their fate with the Putumayo workmen and Black Africans in Africa.” (H/T: Bob from Brockley)

See one possible explanation for the Winogradic self-sublimation:

http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/news/the-jew-flu-the-strange-illness-of-jewish-anti-semitism-1.267172

By: Donald Scharoff

Donald Scharoff — Sat, 29 May 2010 03:22:59 +0000

Frightening that anyone with Marcy Winograd’s lack of any sensitivity towards the Jewish people, purportedly her “own” people, would be seeking an elective office. She needs to be stopped in her tracks. You listening my Jewish brethren?

By: David Schraub

David Schraub — Sat, 29 May 2010 01:16:30 +0000

A J Street spokeswoman said the following in an email to Politico: “J Street does not share Marcy Winograd’s view of the Middle East. We favor a two-state solution and believe that it’s the only way to secure Israel’s future as the democratic homeland of the Jewish people; Winograd favors a binational state.”

By: Ben Cohen

Ben Cohen — Fri, 28 May 2010 23:37:05 +0000

You have to laugh. I quote Winograd’s on-the-record statements and Walter accuses me of smearing her. He then invokes Benedict Arnold in attacking Harman, producing absolutely no evidence to justify his smear.
Ganselmi is right that this is a standard antisemitic “dual loyalty” ploy. All I’d add is that it’s monumentally stupid and historically illiterate as well. So thank you, Walter, for reminding me that most of our adversaries are really not that bright to begin with.

By: ganselmi

ganselmi — Fri, 28 May 2010 10:52:52 +0000

“Jane sounds like a right-wing Benedict Arnold to me.”

There it is. Ye old far right and far left strategy of questioning the national loyalties of pro-Israel Jewish Americans.

By: Lhipenwhe

Lhipenwhe — Fri, 28 May 2010 05:14:24 +0000

Doesn’t seem like he’s doing much ’stretching’, or a hit piece to me.

If anyone’s naive about foreign affairs, it’s Marcy; she’s a complete amateur to think that ’strengthening NGO’s’ will be able enough to stop the Taliban from plunging the women into a dark abyss.

And the freedom the Soviet Union gave to the people of Afghanistan? She seems to be forgetting the hundreds of thousands killed and the millions forced into exile.

And to top it off, she accuses others of dual-loyalty.

Questioning the politics of the US isn’t the problem here; it’s her odd, detached views that give more pause for concern.

By: Walter Gropius

Walter Gropius — Fri, 28 May 2010 00:24:06 +0000

Nice edit, typical of a hit piece.
At least try not to lie about the questions from an interview you link to.
“What are the root causes?” not, “Why the US brought 9/11 on itself:”
That’s really pathetic–if you going to smear someone, at least do it competently.

And concern trolling for ngos while we support the corruption of the Karzai govt., much less the brutality of regimes to which we ’special rendition’ is as sad as it gets.

And after a decade of military posturing, two American occupation forces on foreign lands, close to one trillion spent on two wars, record unemployment at home, a depressed manufacturing sector, record numbers of Americans dying for lack of access to health care and no discernible military victory to be had in Afghanistan, I question who is truly naive here about American foreign policy.

Quick, quick, tell us about the ‘evil-doers’ that lurk and hate our freedom.
And why we should never question Israeli policy or they win.
That’s what Jane Harman does, in addition to trying to get foreign espionage agents off while being wiretapped.
Jane sounds like a right-wing Benedict Arnold to me.

So very sad.