Sulayman’s Stories

I’m seeing a lot of sudden disappointment in Obama, because he picked Rahm Emmanuel as his Chief of Staff, as his first act of office. Rahm Israel Emmanuel, a high-ranking democrat, will be Barack Hussein Obama’s Chief of Staff in the White House.

People are grumbling to me that Obama is picking a Zionist to the position, and that Obama will disappoint them on Middle East policy. Well, he may disappoint many on the policy, but that’s due to other things like his AIPAC speech where he talked about giving all of Jerusalem to Israel and moving the US embassy there and made other promises that made his Arab and Muslim supporters feel let down a bit.

“Let down” was an understatement; there were threats by Arabs and Muslims to vote for Nader or stay home on election day. The Muslim blogosphere was not happy. Ok, even I was disappointed that a candidate who broke with the Party Line and said he would talk to Iran and North Korea suddenly snapped to the Orthodoxy and kowtowed to AIPAC again. (Before someone scolds me, how often has pro-Palestine stuff in Congress passed over AIPAC’s objections? Why does AIPAC outspend all Arab organizations by 50-1?) More rational people said Obama has to please constituents, he can’t get elected without AIPAC’s blessing, etc. and may lead the country on a saner course once elected. However, that attitude seemed to dissolve among some supporters once Rahm Emmanuel got picked.

Rahm Emmanuel is drawing anger because his father was a member of Irgun, a Jewish terrorist group. He’s being portrayed as a Zionist, due to his father’s ties and also because he volunteered with the IDF during the first Gulf War. As Chief of Staff, he will be the Gatekeeper to Obama himself, meaning that he can choose what advisors can speak to him or not, and set the agenda for the President’s meetings. It’s a powerful job, and Bush’s Chief of Staff got in trouble for keeping Bush in the dark about some of the seedier things done in the administration, and Cheney’s chief of staff was indicted on perjury pursuant to an investigation over the violation of federal laws.

That being said, be reasonable people! While I’m concerned about Emmanuel’s views on the peace process (I can’t easily find them as of yet), some of the accusations are just silly. Here are the facts:

1. It’s Chief of Staff, not Secretary of State or any position where he’d have direct control over the Middle East peace process or the ability to ram an agenda through.

2. Rahm Emmanuel is going to, have to, follow along with Obama’s already-announced policies, strengthened by the fact that a landslide voted him in. If he didn’t agree with Obama’s plans on Iran or Iraq, then he would not have taken the job, or even voted for McCain, or pulled a Lieberman on everyone. He didn’t, so we can relax a bit.

3. Ali Abunimah, of ElectronicIntifada.net pointed out that Emanuel’s middle name is “Israel.” Do you really want to go there? 20 months of people bashing Barack Hussein Obama over his irrelevant middle name, and I thought maybe you of all people would know better.

4. In Hebrew, Rahm (רעם) means “thunder” and Barack (ברק) means “lightning.” (OK, maybe not quite) (source)

5. Enough about people’s fathers, already. Obama got almost nothing from his father. Tariq Ramadan is barred from America because his father and grandfather helped create the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, something he’s repudiated. Enough with the double standard. So far, I didn’t see anything about Emmanuel repudiating Irgun or extremism or his father, which does cause me concern. However, if Rahm Emmanuel repudiates Irgun and extremism, then I’ll be somewhat satisfied. if he does not, then we do have cause for alarm.

6. Israel-loving Right-wingnuts are going berzerk with rage (and a tinge of racism), claiming “he left his own Jewishness” and are referring to him as a “House Jew.” His crime?

One of his proudest moments during the Clinton Administration “was an event that touched his political sensibilities and his personal ties to Israel: the 1993 Rose Garden signing ceremony after the Oslo accord between Israel and the Palestinians. Rahm directed the details of the ceremony, down to the choreography of the famous handshake between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat.”

They’re saying that Obama will destroy Israel, and this is a “Machiavellian” attempt to “surround yourself with ‘jews’ as you destroy Israel.” To be fair, this is the same wingnut blog that claimed Obama’s father is Malcolm X.

Pretty laughable, the pro-Israel crowd is starting to agitate that Obama will destroy Israel, while the pro-Obama crowd worries that he’ll wipe out Palestine. Sounds like a normal presidency.

7. So what if he’s Jewish. Most American Jewish people are more likely to support Peace Now than the Likud party. So no knee-jerk reactions from you. Clinton picked Richard Ben Cramer to be in charge of negotiating peace between Israel and the PLO, and he apparently was a fair broker. He bent Israel’s arm to get them to compromise at the table with Arafat, and took a heck of a lot of criticism from Jewish commentators as a result, but did his job despite being called a ‘disloyal Jew.’

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Back to reality, people had insanely high expectations of Obama. The reality of the future is setting in, and its not as good as those expectations. How can people be disappointed already? He hasn’t been President yet. I’m not seething as some of my friends are, because I didn’t see Obama as some perfect figure (though God it felt good to indulge that fantasy a lot these last few days). I think Umar Lee said it best:

Muslims looking for Obama to change everything will be disappointed. Muslims looking for him to make some gradual changes that will benefit all of society and change the direction of government will probably be fulfilled. There are even subtle ways Obama will benefit Muslims. For example just having someone with his name can open the minds of many Americans that this is not just a nation of Smiths and Robinsons anymore. It will also open the worlds eyes to the fact America is a lot more racially and ethnically complex than we often get credit for.

If you were looking for a Muslim-compatible candidate, then I think you should have been looking for Ron Paul.

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~ by Sulayman on November 8, 2008.