[lbo-talk] Obama and Israel

[Michael McIntyre]

I agree that Obama has an uncanny ability to say what people want to  
hear.  But:
(1) During the period in question, he was State Senator for the 13th  
District in Illinois.  He had no significant Arab American  
constituency in that district, Left or otherwise, so there was no  
reason for him to pander to them.  (There is, by the way, a  
significant Jewish population in the district).
(2) Ali Abunimah is awfully damned smart, and had reasonably good  
access to Obama during the period in question.  (Both Abunimah and  
Obama were affiliated with the University of Chicago at the time,  
which is no doubt how Abunimah got Obama to the event he  
photographed).  It's possible he was taken in, but I wouldn't want to  
rush to that conclusion.
(3) As for, "why don't Arab-Americans simply organize a more powerful  
lobby."  Well, why don't we lbo-sters and our ilk simply organize the  
antiwar masses?  Why has Solidarity's once promising "rank and file  
strategy" fallen on such hard times?  I think successful political  
organization for collective action is the exception, not the rule,  
and I don't think there's any general theoretical explanation for  
success (pluralist or otherwise).

Michael McIntyre
mcintyremichael at mac.com

http://morbidsymptoms.blogspot.com

On Mar 4, 2007, at 5:02 PM, lbo-talk-request at lbo-talk.org wrote:


>
> On 3/4/07, Michael McIntyre <mcintyremichael at mac.com> wrote:
>> Ali Abunimah at electronic intifada has a valuable take on Barack
>> Obama's speech to AIPAC on Friday at http://electronicintifada.net/ 
>> v2/
>> article6619.shtml, including photos of Barack and Michelle chowing
>> down with Edward and Mariam Said.  After reading this piece, I don't
>> see how anyone can reasonably understand Obama's speech to AIPAC as
>> anything other than a bow to the Israel lobby's political power.  It
>> will be interesting to see if the Clinton campaign latches onto this
>> article.
>
> I'm afraid Obama has an uncanny ability to say what people want to
> hear, saying different things to different constituencies, and no
> doubt he told even Arab Americans of the Left what they wanted to
> hear.  At Harvard, "Mr. Obama cast himself as an eager listener,
> sometimes giving warring classmates the impression that he agreed with
> all of them at once" (Jodi Kantor, "In Law School, Obama Found
> Political Voice," 28 January 2007,
> <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/us/politics/28obama.html>).
>
> That's before Obama took the national stage, though, and he no longer
> can afford to pretend to listen to Arab Americans of the Left.  And
> the structural reason why that is the case needs to be explained.  If
> the problem were only or even mainly the Israel lobby, why couldn't
> Arab Americans create their own lobby that would top that?  The Arab
> states, most of which are as pro-Washington as Israel, nevertheless
> have a different interest than Israel when it comes to the
> Palestinians (for they, unlike the Israeli power elite, fear the wrath
> of their pro-Palestinian masses), and their power elites are
> collectively wealthier than the Israeli power elite -- why do they
> fail to sway Washington as internationalized liberal interest-group
> theory might predict?
>
> Yoshie
> <http://montages.blogspot.com/>
> <http://mrzine.org>
> <http://monthlyreview.org/>