{"id":2649,"date":"2015-06-10T08:20:06","date_gmt":"2015-06-10T13:20:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/?p=2649"},"modified":"2015-07-05T11:32:35","modified_gmt":"2015-07-05T16:32:35","slug":"how-to-lose-friends-and-alienate-allies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2015\/06\/how-to-lose-friends-and-alienate-allies.html","title":{"rendered":"How to Lose Friends and Alienate Allies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"By<\/a>
By Pete Souza (White House (P032013PS-0320)) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

President Obama gave a pretty important interview last week to a major news channel. You probably didn\u2019t hear about it because the interview was with Israel\u2019s Channel 2 News<\/a>. More on this below.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, this week the Treasury Secretary of the United State, an Orthodox Jew named Jack Lew, was booed and jeered and heckled by attendees at the annual Jerusalem Post Conference in New York. This happened when he told the audience that the president remains enormously committed to the security of Israel and that \u201cno administration has done more for Israel\u2019s security than this one.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Jerusalem Post Conference is a notorious magnet for right-wingers. From Haaretz<\/a> (itself an attractive source for the left):<\/p>\n

It was one of the surliest receptions ever accorded to such a high-ranking administration official by a Jewish audience in the United States. Jerusalem Post editor Steve Linde tried to calm the audience and apologized to Lew. Israeli Minister Yuval Steinitz, who spoke after Lew, said that he was a \u201ctrue friend of Israel\u201d and that without his help, Israel would never have been accepted to the OECD.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Writing in the Forward, J.J. Golberg reported that Steinitz elaborated on this<\/a> after the incident:<\/p>\n

Speaking later to reporters at a press briefing, Steinitz went further and said, \u201cI do agree that security cooperation between our security apparatuses and our intelligence is better than ever, and there were important upgradings, especially in intelligence, from President Obama.\u201d He said he \u201cfelt embarrassed\u201d at the heckling of Lew, \u201cbecause Jacob Lew is a true friend of Israel. Without him we could not have made it into the OECD,\u201d the alliance of industrialized nations that admitted Israel last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to appreciate our friends,\u201d Steinitz continued, \u201cand to hear the reactions in the audience \u2013 it was embarrassing.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Other Israeli officials also told reporters how embarrassing it was. But this is the environment that too many Jewish leaders and their Republican allies have created over the past several years.<\/p>\n

So which is it? Is this president a \u201ctrue friend of Israel\u201d or is he an abominable Jew-hater, determined to destroy the Jewish state? Goldberg points a finger at the Post:<\/p>\n

\u2026it might want to consider its role in helping to generate that sort of hostility in the first place, through its publication of a constant stream of vitriolic, over-the-top, ad-hominem attacks on Obama, liberals, peace talks and even Israel\u2019s generals in its regular lineup of incendiary hard-right columnists. There\u2019s only so many times that a newspaper can publish accusations of self-hate, treason and anti-Semitism against fellow Jews, Israelis and Israel\u2019s essential allies before the witches\u2019 brew blows up in our collective face.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He was talking about the Post, but he might as well have been talking to the (so-called) mainstream American Jewish leadership. Back in 2011 I attended a large Jewish Federation event\u00a0to discuss Israel. Alan Dershowitz was there alongside a whole bunch of congressional reps and senators. When the Dems got up to speak about Obama\u2019s support for Israel, almost the entire room erupted in shouts and insults. Dershowitz made an impassioned plea for civility and bi-partisan love. But like the Jerusalem Post, Dershowitz is part of the problem with his starring role alongside the odious Caroline Glick<\/a> in the hatchet job documentary, The J Street Challenge<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Now back to the president, spewing his Jew-hating Israel-bashing all over Israeli television:<\/p>\n

\u2026if, in fact, we want a Jewish homeland and a Jewish democracy, then this issue of the Palestinian people has to be resolved.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And this is why they abhor him. Jewish democracy? Hah! We don\u2019t need no stinkin\u2019 democracy!<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t hear them say that out loud too often, but not too long ago Sheldon Adelson let that little truth slip<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With millions of Palestinians living for almost a half-century as inferior\u00a0subjects on the other side of the Green Line \u2013 while hundreds of thousands of Jews enjoy the rights and privileges of citizenship in that same territory \u2013 Israel\u2019s democratic ideals are already fading to black. And all this happens while Israel\u2019s most vocal and obnoxious defenders view the Jewish state through the eyes of Holocaust survivors, demonstrating\u00a0little consideration for the responsibilities that come with Jewish power and\u00a0few signs that they internalized the lessons borne on the backs of Jews who suffered through\u00a0thousands of years of powerlessness.<\/p>\n

They oppose the president and defy the world because they\u2019ve made their choice. They want a Jewish homeland. And to hell with\u00a0democracy.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Obama gave a pretty important interview last week to a major news channel. You probably didn\u2019t hear about it because the interview was with Israel\u2019s Channel 2 News. More on this below. Meanwhile, this week the Treasury Secretary of the United State, an Orthodox Jew named Jack Lew, was booed and jeered and heckled […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2281,"featured_media":2650,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[4,20,21,33],"class_list":["post-2649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogentries","tag-american-jews","tag-israel","tag-israeli-palestinian-conflict","tag-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nHow to Lose Friends and Alienate Allies<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"President Obama gave a pretty important interview last week to a major news channel. You probably didn\u2019t hear about it because the interview was with\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2015\/06\/how-to-lose-friends-and-alienate-allies.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How to Lose Friends and Alienate Allies\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"President Obama gave a pretty important interview last week to a major news channel. You probably didn\u2019t hear about it because the interview was with\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2015\/06\/how-to-lose-friends-and-alienate-allies.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Atheist Rabbi\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-06-10T13:20:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-07-05T16:32:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/554\/2015\/06\/Shimon_Peres_observes_Binyamin_Nitanyahu_greeting_Barack_Obama.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"976\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"360\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jeffrey L. Falick\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jeffrey L. Falick\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2015\/06\/how-to-lose-friends-and-alienate-allies.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2015\/06\/how-to-lose-friends-and-alienate-allies.html\",\"name\":\"How to Lose Friends and Alienate Allies\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2015-06-10T13:20:06+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-07-05T16:32:35+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/#\/schema\/person\/fc95554b64c99ed45146c32bf5cd2372\"},\"description\":\"President Obama gave a pretty important interview last week to a major news channel. You probably didn\u2019t hear about it because the interview was with\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2015\/06\/how-to-lose-friends-and-alienate-allies.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2015\/06\/how-to-lose-friends-and-alienate-allies.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2015\/06\/how-to-lose-friends-and-alienate-allies.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"How to Lose Friends and Alienate Allies\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/\",\"name\":\"The Atheist Rabbi\",\"description\":\"The blog of Jeffrey L. Falick, Secular Humanistic Rabbi.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/#\/schema\/person\/fc95554b64c99ed45146c32bf5cd2372\",\"name\":\"Jeffrey L. Falick\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f4f93646f1bdd3c145883cb358ed21b6?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f4f93646f1bdd3c145883cb358ed21b6?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Jeffrey L. Falick\"},\"description\":\"Jeffrey L. Falick is the Secular Humanistic Rabbi of The Birmingham Temple Congregation for Humanistic Judaism in Michigan. He is also certified as a Senior Humanist Celebrant by the American Humanist Association and is president and founder of Humanists of Southeast Michigan.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/author\/jfalick\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"How to Lose Friends and Alienate Allies","description":"President Obama gave a pretty important interview last week to a major news channel. You probably didn\u2019t hear about it because the interview was with","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2015\/06\/how-to-lose-friends-and-alienate-allies.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"How to Lose Friends and Alienate Allies","og_description":"President Obama gave a pretty important interview last week to a major news channel. You probably didn\u2019t hear about it because the interview was with","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2015\/06\/how-to-lose-friends-and-alienate-allies.html","og_site_name":"The Atheist Rabbi","article_published_time":"2015-06-10T13:20:06+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-07-05T16:32:35+00:00","og_image":[{"width":976,"height":360,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/554\/2015\/06\/Shimon_Peres_observes_Binyamin_Nitanyahu_greeting_Barack_Obama.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Jeffrey L. Falick","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Jeffrey L. Falick","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2015\/06\/how-to-lose-friends-and-alienate-allies.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2015\/06\/how-to-lose-friends-and-alienate-allies.html","name":"How to Lose Friends and Alienate Allies","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/#website"},"datePublished":"2015-06-10T13:20:06+00:00","dateModified":"2015-07-05T16:32:35+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/#\/schema\/person\/fc95554b64c99ed45146c32bf5cd2372"},"description":"President Obama gave a pretty important interview last week to a major news channel. You probably didn\u2019t hear about it because the interview was with","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2015\/06\/how-to-lose-friends-and-alienate-allies.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2015\/06\/how-to-lose-friends-and-alienate-allies.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2015\/06\/how-to-lose-friends-and-alienate-allies.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"How to Lose Friends and Alienate Allies"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/","name":"The Atheist Rabbi","description":"The blog of Jeffrey L. Falick, Secular Humanistic Rabbi.","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/#\/schema\/person\/fc95554b64c99ed45146c32bf5cd2372","name":"Jeffrey L. Falick","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f4f93646f1bdd3c145883cb358ed21b6?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f4f93646f1bdd3c145883cb358ed21b6?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Jeffrey L. Falick"},"description":"Jeffrey L. Falick is the Secular Humanistic Rabbi of The Birmingham Temple Congregation for Humanistic Judaism in Michigan. He is also certified as a Senior Humanist Celebrant by the American Humanist Association and is president and founder of Humanists of Southeast Michigan.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/author\/jfalick"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2281"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}