The Anti-Zionist Left Versus Barack Obama

I've read numerous articles and blog posts about Barack Obama's "Jewish problem." But, comparatively scant attention has been paid to Obama's declining popularity among the "Zionism-is-Racism" crowd due to his statements on Israel. As I've previously noted, since 2006, self-declared "progressives" have been accusing Obama of selling out to the all-powerful "Israel Lobby" because he has embraced such controversial positions as denouncing terrorism and urging Arab countries to implement democratic reforms instead of blaming all their problems on Israel.

The latest chapter in this saga concerns Obama's recent speech on racism, delivered in the wake of the controversy surrounding his pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Reflecting on Wright's fiery rhetoric, Obama declared:

“The remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country—a view that sees white racism as endemic and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America. A view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.”

That didn't go down so well with Counterpunch writer John V. Walsh, who not only denounced Obama's "bigotry," but decided to make his point with the help of a Merchant of Venice-inspired "blood libel" metaphor:

Clearly one of the aims of Obama was to show the Israel Lobby--once more--that he is on its side. There has been concern in certain corners of the Lobby about Obama although in others he is welcomed with open arms. Here Obama shows he can denounce the "perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam" with the best of them. So how did it work? Not too well, it seems. A week later, Bill Kristol, a reliable voice for the Neocon men and the Lobby, was having none of it....So Obama has rendered up his first ounces of flesh to the Lobby, but he has farther, much farther, to go before it will be enough. From his performance so far, it is quite clear that the ambitious Obama will get there eventually--no matter how much blood will have to flow, albeit from others, as the full pound is extracted.

Nice. Meanwhile, over at the far-left rag, Dissident Voice, we have this commentary by Steven Salaita, assistant professor of English at Virginia Tech:

Far from being a marginal item in the life of the United States, American support for Israeli colonization has serious moral and geopolitical consequences. It, more than any other action, generates justifiable anger toward the United States in much of Europe and almost uniformly throughout the Southern Hemisphere. It extends the bloody tradition of settler colonization in the American polity and in its imagination, a state of mind that helps facilitate so many of today’s imperialist adventures.

I won’t vote for Barack Obama. His liberal supporters claim that as a complete package Obama is superior to any other candidate, despite whatever flaws may exist in his platform (if flaws are even acknowledged). To me, though, his revivalist Zionism is a flaw that I cannot overlook and that liberal pragmatists should not ignore. Obama made a choice to court the AIPAC bloc, and we fail in our duty as citizens of a democracy if we do not hold him accountable for his immorality.

Well, Ralph Nader can count on at least one vote...