NY Democrat Congressman Rebukes Obama on Israel

President Barack Obama's unrelenting pressure on Israel's rightist government to agree with a settlement "freeze" may be starting to cause cracks in the Democratic party. The administration has made ending settlement expansion a top priority both in an effort to move forward the decades-long peace process - settlements encroach on land Palestinians aspire to encompass in their country in a two-state solution thus undermining the prospect of a viable Palestinian state - and Washington may also be seeking to win credibility in the Arab-Muslim world by showing them that the United States can be critical of Israel and even distance itself from the country.

This demand and approach has not been met with fanfare, to put it lightly, within America's pro-Israel community. President Obama has held meeting with American-Jewish leaders to assuage their concerns and his reiterated his support for a secure and Jewish Israel, nonetheless some very pro-Israel members of his party are getting impatient.

Career-ambitious New York Congressman Anthony Weiner is one of those people. Rep. Weiner is one of the most vocal pro-Israel members in Congress. Weiner goes beyond the rhetoric one may expect from a U.S. politician ("We should support Israel always, the Palestinians don't want peace, Israel is the only democracy..."), Weiner has called for the firing of a Palestinian professor at Columbia for, in essence, his criticism of Israel, he has worked to block a billions-worth military hardware sale to Saudi Arabia and in May 2006 tired to bar Palestinian leader and current President Mahmoud Abass, whom is a negotiating partner supported by Israel and the United States, from visiting the United Nations on the grounds that the PLO is listed by the State Department as a "terrorist organization" (In reality, the PLO was removed from the list in 1988). Weiner then dismissively attacked the Palestinian delegation by stated that they "should start packing their little Palestinian terrorist bags" and added, later on, that the New York Times, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are all biased, nay "hate", Israel. At times, like many of his fellow American Zionists, Wiener is more "Catholic" than the Israeli "Pope."

This is what makes his recent criticism of Obama not surprising at an event held purposefully for his worried constituents that Obama is not pro-Israel. I could not attend, but bloggers Philip Weiss and Adam Horowitz did and wrote this review of the night:

On Monday night Congressman Anthony Weiner held one of three town halls he is staging in his Brooklyn district to discuss Jewish concerns over the Obama administration’s policy on Israel/Palestine. This one was at an 88-year-old orthodox shul called the Avenue N Jewish Center. Beautiful old shul, without fanciness. The real deal. Separation wall for the women. And Weiner was introduced by a rabbi who quoted biblical passages to highlight his fears regarding Obama’s talk about settlements. "This is not just another ethnic concern."

Weiner promptly echoed the rabbi and distanced himself from his president. He began by invoking “Eretz Israel” and trashing Jimmy Carter and said that he didn’t understand what Obama’s goal was. Israel has no partners in Palestinians, who vote for terrorists. Some of Obama’s statements have “tiptoed right up to the line of not being respectful” of a democracy. Maybe even crossed over the line! We don’t tell a fellow democracy what to do. We don’t tell the French how to run their agricultural subsidies.

Weiner bragged that he had confronted an unnamed member of the administration. (I’m guessing Rahm.) “What’s the endgame?” Because if the settlements issue is resolved, it wouldn’t bring us a yard closer to peace. That’s not really part of the conflict. Weiner said the answer he got was that the settlements are an easy way to show we can be tough with our friends. So Weiner thinks that some of Obama’s statements are mere positioning, trying to signal to the rest of the world that it’s a new ballgame. Well I get that, he said.

But Weiner wants Obama to start being tough with the Palestinians, impose conditions on the $900 million we give them.

Red meat. Lots o red meat. Jonathan Pollard referred to as “Jonathan.” And Weiner said he was thinking of circulating a letter among the many nonpartisan friends of Israel (party’s got nuthin to do with it, he said) to get Obama to “take your foot off the gas.” Red meat. “I’m with the ZOA (Zionist Organization of America; as anti-Palestinian as they come) wing of the Democratic party.” But even these guys told him they weren’t ready to sandbag the president publicly yet, they wanted to wait and see.

The Israel lobby crouches like a fat housecat, ready to pounce.

The questions were all from even further right. One man, Reuben Margolis, said he had just been with Mike Huckabee in Jerusalem. (Where’s the barf bag on this pew?) One woman said that the bible gives the land to the Jews, and the Arabs are the interlopers. "Esau sold his birthright." (Oh no, that’s for the phyllacteries!) Weiner was very clever, saying he was a politician, that the religious issue was above his paygrade. He’s a politician not a religious leader.

This was the one time Weiner distanced himself from Israel. Some of the stuff the Israeli governments do has made me “cringe” in my Washington office, spake the congressman. But I don’t tell them what to do.

So Wiener admits that some Israeli actions make him "cringe" but that it is simply uncalled for a nation that gives Israel $3 billion annually to make a simple demand that Israel stop violating international law. Settling one's citizens on occupied land is illegal under international law that Israel has itself signed to abide by.

Wiener recently made news; after years of being a bachelor on Capital Hill he announced his engagement with Hillary Clinton's top aide Huma Abedin whom is a very elegant . . . Muslim:

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Weiner is Jewish, though not known to be observant. How religious is Abedin is not known but she has been described as "conservative." Traditionally when a Muslim woman takes a non-Muslim finance he must convert before the wedding; many non-Jewish women taking a Jewish husband usually convert to Judaism. Both Muslims and Jews value intra-faith marriages and usually require conversion. Who will convert to suit whom? Unknown. Maybe no one will. Wiener and Abedin may just reflect the post-religious, secular America which is not to say what America is now (it isn't) but such New York/Washington America. That is the world Wiener-Abedin live in.

Abedin was raised in Saudi Arabia and this is familiar with the Palestinian struggle. Will she influence Wiener to be a little less hawkish or even, gosh!, pro-Palestinian in his views? After all, Wiener found some Israeli policies "cringe"worthy. Wiener may not be as pro-Israel as he used to be since he started dating Abedin in 2007. But even if his views change, he is an American politician, and in New York no less, and he has ambitions to be mayor so there will most likely be no public change.