The foolish coming war on David Friedman (Amb to Israel)

commentarymagazine.com ^ | John Podhoretz

[RoosterRedux]

Personnel is policy.” That’s one of the great cliches of Washington staffing, and we have an example of its truth in Donald Trump’s nomination of the New York bankruptcy lawyer David Friedman to be his ambassador to Israel.

Much will be made of the blunt Friedman’s very harsh words about left-wing Jewish groups and about President Obama, and these will be used in an effort to derail his nomination. Friedman wrote an op-ed earlier this year likening JStreet to the kapos—the Jews who worked for the Nazis policing their own people. It was wrong of him to do so, but it’s something in the heat of a rhetorical moment I myself have done in relation to a disgusting Jewish cartoonist who uses images out of Der Sturmer to portray Israelis he doesn’t like, so I can appreciate Friedman’s emotional impulse. That impulse comes from a deep sense of anger at Jews who use their Jewishness as a shield and weapon simultaneously to delegitimize the democratic actions of a democratic Jewish state. It is about defending your people against those who you believe are siding with your people’s enemies. In the case of JStreet, Friedman’s feelings are merited even if his analogy was wrong. (And just as I apologized for my use of the term “kapo,” he’d probably do himself some good if he said he’d gone too far in that case—which would, by the way, give him a second shot at explaining why JStreet is egregious in front of a far larger audience.)

[RoosterRedux]

Ping

[DoodleDawg]

For one thing, blocking or derailing Friedman is a vastly more difficult thing to do now than it would have been otherwise because Senate Democrats, living in a fantasy world in which his party would always hold the presidency, stupidly invoked the nuclear option on executive appointments in July 2013 and have now made the passage of such appointments a matter of a simple majority vote in the Senate.

Not that difficult. Tom Cotton placed a hold on one of Obama's ambassador appointments for over two years until the woman actually died. The Democrats could do the same...and likely will on at least some of Trump's appointments.

[wetgundog]

“Friedman wrote an op-ed earlier this year likening JStreet to the kapos—the Jews who worked for the Nazis policing their own people. It was wrong of him to do so...”

Really???, Sounds like the Truth to me.

[Lisbon1940]

People should listen to Podhoretz on this one. Any Jews who cooperated did so under duress.

[Lion Den Dan]

People should listen to Podhoretz on this one. Any Jews who cooperated did so under duress.============

Soros???

[Lisbon1940]

What exactly do you know about Soros’s actions? In Wikipedia, I read that he delivered some messages for the Judenrat. I don’t know a lot about Budapest, but have studied Judenraten elsewhere. Most of these people were honorable community elders who were placed in an impossible situation. To blame them for the anhilation of our people is not becoming, even if an adolescent from that time grows up to be a rich liberal.

[Montaignes Cat]

Surprisingly good article from this author, containing a link to another unsurprisingly good article by Daniel Pipes.

[arthurus]

How is it “wrong for him to have done so?” It is an apt comparison. The leftist Jews suck up to the totalitarian Democrats hoping, I guess, that when they get total power they will remember their Jewish friends who supported them. Well, the fact of it is that totalitarians of whatever derivation, even when they are composed in part of born Jews, are anti -Jewish. Jews are a separate people and will always be a separate people so long as they are identifiable as Jews. They will obey the laws and will improve and enhance the society they are in but their ultimate loyalty is to G-d. Totalitarians can never trust them and act accordingly. Jews who become part of the ruling class in such system become more fanatic than others because they must always prove they are not members of the Jewish community and prove that they hate the Jews more than anyone else.

[Lion Den Dan]

I have read, but can not cite the source, that Soros had some Nazi mentor with whom he traveled and assisted in the identification and confiscation of Jewish properties. As far as being put in an impossible situation, there is right and there is wrong. It is wrong for me to murder or assist in your murder even if I do it under threat of my own death. The situation is not impossible.