Daniel Greenfield article: It's
Not the Messaging, It's the Message

It's Not the Messaging, It's the Message

Posted: 17 May 2010 08:23 PM PDT

Two weeks ago I was asked what role Rahm Emanuel is meant to
play in the Obama Administration's campaign against Israel. That question
has now been answered. Emanuel has been selected for the unlikely role of
the "Good Cop" in an administration full of "Bad Cops". After
seemingly steering clear of Israeli policy, Rahm Emanuel surfaced in a
meeting with several moderate liberal "Rabbis" to explain that the Obama
Administration was actually extremely pro-Israel, only their "messaging"
was screwed up.

The "messaging" tactic is one that the Obama Administration has
repeatedly used to reassert its position while arguing that critics simply
didn't understand what was being said to them. Think of Cool Hand Luke.
"What we've got here is a failure to communicate." What that really means
is a failure to obey. Run that through PRese and mix it up with a handful
of buzzwords, and it's another attempt at pushing the "Reset button" while
really saying, "We're not wrong, you're stupid." Hoping that the people
they're talking to are too stupid to realize what's really being said and
done to them.

The idea that Rahm Emanuel is the Obama
Administration's top Jewish asset is already surreal. Despite his
background, in his actual job Emanuel has shown about as much interest in
Jews and Israel, as Biden has shown in the Irish and Ireland. But
Emanuel's own political ambitions doubtlessly played a major part in
allowing him to select this role for himself. The real Rahm Emanuel has no
loyalties except to himself, which is why he isn't about to let himself be
used as a "Bad Cop" and then thrown under the bus. It's safer to be the
"Good Cop" and then walk away claiming you were misled by people you
trusted, once the wheel turns.

But Rahm's soiree shows a dose of
worry by the Obama Administration when it comes to their Jewish support.
The full list of Rabbis he met with hasn't been released, but those who
have are younger, moderate liberal and pro-Israel. This marks a retreat
from the unofficially official position of the Obama Administration that
its hostility to Israel is actually representative of a "new generation"
of Jews who hate Israel. And anyone who disagrees is just a "Likudnik". Of
course they don't say "hate". They have nicer terms than that, which is
helpful when what you're really talking about is collaborating in
genocide.

All along J Street and left wing anti-Israel groups have
been promoting a youthful self-image, which is a tough sell considering
that its president, Jeremy Ben Ami is pushing 50, and its moneyman, creaky
Nazi collaborator George Soros, is pushing 80. But the left's
progressivism requires casting their struggle as that of the caring and
passionate youth against the uncaring old men. Even if the old men are the
ones who are actually running the show from behind the scenes. Especially
then. And so after picking over the rhetorical bones of Peace Now, they
emerged with "Dor Shalem Doresh Shalom" or "A Whole Generation Demands
Peace".

If you believe the Obama Administration, the Beinarts and
the J Streets, they already control the youth, and only the aging
organization leaders stand in their way, only because they haven't caught
up with reality yet. This is classic leftist cant, that confuses their own
propaganda with reality. And Obama's falling poll numbers have forced him
to backtrack from the lie that his position on Israel is that of a
majority of Jews in America. And after a year of extremely slimy tactics
that ranged from accusing Jewish pro-Israel leaders of being out of touch
with their own communities to using media proxies to hurl accusations of
Dual Loyalty at anyone critical of the Obama Administration's mangling of
Israel-- Rahm appears to throw a few crumbs to the people who need it
most. Liberal Pro-Israel Jews who are genuinely worried about the crisis
in relations between the two countries.

The meeting marks no retreat, only
a bone thrown to a starving dog. Many liberal Jews who do care about
Israel and nevertheless voted for Obama need a reason not to turn on their
master. And if a pat on the head was all it took to make Elie Wiesel lick
the administration's hand, the idea is all it will take is a few sit downs
with Rabbis from Florida to keep the Jewish vote from spinning too far out
of control. A few doses of the old campaign spin. A little less James L
Jones cracking jokes about greedy Jews, and a little more Dennis Ross,
Baker's ole Jewboy, on set to calm frayed nerves and assure everyone that
Obama is doing everything it can to protect Israel. When of course Israel
would much rather that Obama go "protect" someone else out of
existence.

If you listen to Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod and Dennis
Ross then there's nothing wrong here. Just another "failure to
communicate." The reality however is that it's not the messaging, it's the
message. Politicians and PR spinners love to blame the messaging, because
it lets them go on thinking that they can sell any lie, so long as it's
gift wrapped in a pretty enough package. But it's not the messaging, it's
the message.

And the message is that Israel is the problem and that
Palestine is the solution. That Israel's refusal to surrender 100 percent
to terrorists is what is killing American troops. That Jews have no right
to live in Jerusalem. That Israeli concessions are a prerequisite for any
form of negotiations with terrorists. That the Obama Administration will
wink at terrorism against Jews, but shriek furiously at a Jewish house in
Jerusalem. All this is not messaging. It is the message. And the message
is the same one delivered by Obama in Cairo. A copy of which he gave
Netanyahu as a "gift". A newly Muslim friendly America that will use its
leverage to finally bring Israel to its knees and destroy it, and by doing
so build a new relationship with the Muslim world.

This
intersection of Liberal realpolitik and Muslim diplomacy is where the
Obama Administration meets its real foreign policy goals. As it uses the
threat of Iran and its nuclear arsenal as leverage against Israel and on
behalf of Fatah and Hamas terrorists. But the collection of brain damaged
brats were too gleeful at taking the White House to control their real
sentiments. And their open expression of hostility to Israel has been
filed under the folder of, "Too much, too soon". That doesn't mean it's
going anywhere, just that its grand entrance needs more
work.

The Obama Administration had spent too much time believing that
its J Street affiliates represented American Jews. They belatedly
discovered what Emanuel had probably already told them, that this wasn't
the case. But Emanuel's outreach to a handful of liberal Rabbis shows the
political limitations of his own echo chamber. If Peter Beinart is at
least willing to menace liberals with the specter of a conservative
Orthodox monopoly on Zionism, the Obama Administration doesn't even speak
that language. Its understanding of the Jewish community is as narrow as
its knowledge of American Christianity, with encyclopedic familiarity of
its liberal allies, and ignorance and contempt of the conservatives in the
shadows.

In line with the left, the Obama Administration has
adopted a Muslim-centric view of the Middle East conflict. But much of the
Jewish community may have made concessions to that view, but has never
adopted it. Yet this Nakba defined concept of Israel is uppermost not only
for the Beinarts and the J Streets, but is the beating heart of Obama's
Cairo speech. And when the Obama Administration tries to speak to
pro-Israel audiences, it cannot even do so nearly as well as Clinton or
Kerry, because it does not share a common language with them anymore.
Where they celebrate Israel's independence, it mourns a tragic Muslim
defeat. Where they appreciate a great country, it believes that Israel was
a mistake. The gap in these two versions of history is as unbridgeable and
profound as a Unionist talking to an IRA member.

Obama shares no
common history with Americans, and his Jewish associates do not share one
with the Jewish people. And thus they think the problem is the messaging,
when in reality it's their message. And their message has been
received.