The Guardian, Friday 16 January 2009
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/jan/16/gaza-first-person-israel
I had to hold my 17-year-old son down on the bed after he heard the news. His strength really shocked me. I was gripping his upper arms as tightly as I could to hold him flat on the bed, but he was spitting with rage, tears streaming down his face. I was shouting, "Stop! Please stop!" but he was pushing up at me hard, his face twisting like his body underneath me. He was fighting with everything he had in order to be able to get up, run down the stairs and get out of the house. All I knew at that moment was that I couldn't let him leave. We were in his bedroom in London and I had just given him the news that his grandmother had been blown to pieces by a rocket in Israel. Jordy had lost his other grandmother five months earlier to cancer. This time there was someone to blame.
Our pain and his rage opened a window up for me on to what is happening in Gaza. There are thousands and thousands of young men who have experienced - or are experiencing - that rage in Gaza and the West Bank, and their fathers and grandfathers have no doubt experienced it too. When I heard in the days that followed Shuli's death that they handed out sweets in Gaza to celebrate the fact that the rocket had hit a target, I was appalled. Now with all I have seen over the last two weeks in Gaza, part of me feels: why wouldn't they celebrate?
Shuli, my wife's mother, lived on Kibbutz Gvar-am, which lies 5km to the north of Gaza and 10km to the south of Ashkelon. She had been the kibbutz nurse until she retired and lately had worked part-time in the kibbutz factory making envelopes for the Salvation Army and Asda. In May last year she had been expecting a visit from a cousin who was over from America. The cousin had phoned to say that she was too frightened to come to Shuli's kibbutz on account of a rocket landing in Ashkelon the previous day. "Don't worry," Shuli told her, "every missile has its own address. We'll come to you instead."
An hour later she arrived at the house where her cousin was staying. Her son, Yariv, rang the doorbell and while they waited for someone to answer, Shuli stepped away in order to get some shade next to a wall. The rocket came out of nowhere and she died instantly. None had landed in that area before. Only later did we find out that Shuli had rung her sister the night before her death and made her promise to look after her children if anything were to happen to her. It was beshert - meant to be.
That was six months ago and now, sat at home in north London with the Israeli bombardment of Gaza well into its third week, and with news of fresh horrors arriving daily, our house is filled with a despair of a different kind. It has felt like a house in mourning again. A dark fog which I can't really describe has enveloped us. Maybe it's shame. I don't know. I know we all felt relief that Israel didn't retaliate after Shuli was killed. But it's happening now. I keep looking at Shuli's birth certificate which my wife now has. Shuli's mother had left Germany by boat for Palestine after Hitler came to power and she helped form a radical socialist community on land partitioned to the Jews by the British. Shuli's birth certificate states her nationality as Palestinian. Her death certificate said Israeli.
My wife says she feels scared and lost and full of guilt. "It's my country and I see myself as Israeli not Jewish," she keeps shouting at me. Does that make you feel better or worse about what's going on, I ask? "That's worse!" she says, "because Israel is nothing to do with God." I digest this, but don't even know where to begin to start unravelling that statement.
I'm trying to think back to Christmas when I was staying on the kibbutz. I'm struggling to remember what I felt as the Hamas rockets were flying in every day during the week before the Israeli F16s screamed over our heads and began pounding the Gaza Strip and those condemned to live within it. My five-year-old son, Geffen, was constantly asking me if he was going to die like his Grandma. People on the kibbutz rallied around as you would expect; it was no time for questions or politics. We didn't see the bigger picture. But on returning home, I saw it all too clearly, and it sent me into meltdown.
I feel guilty about abandoning my friends on the kibbutz - not physically but mentally. A good friend of mine over there called Mirav, whom I've known for 25 years, has a 12-year- old daughter, Omer, who just stays in her room and cries. She's been doing it for three months now and this all began after the fourth Kasam rocket hit her school. I try to think about her, but shockingly she doesn't seem to matter so much any more. Not at the moment anyway. Not from here in England with what we're seeing on television every day. Everything is dwarfed by the horrors in Gaza.
I'd seen the ground troops massing up the road from the kibbutz towards the border with Gaza in the days before I left Israel, but I never believed for one second that they would go in. They did. In the last few days, I've stopped watching television and buying newspapers. For the first time in my adult life I don't want to know what is going on outside my own front door.
Most Israelis I know think Hamas wants to annihilate Israel. A lot of Jews over here think that too. I don't know if that's what Hamas wants: it depends what you read. I was over there when they blew up buses on Dissenghof Street in Tel Aviv in 1996. That act seemed to turn Israel right wing just at the moment the country was mourning the death of Rabin and was, I believe, genuinely committed to peace. But Hamas is now part of the political process whether Israel, Britain and America likes it or not and dialogue is the only way forward. Would hatred for Israel stop if it were to return to its 1967 borders? Of course not, but Israel has to do it anyway. It has to do the right thing, to help build a strong Palestinian state where people can live normal lives, work, feed their kids, be happy, safe, have dignity. That's what most people want in life isn't it?
At Shuli's funeral last May, her son Jonathon, my brother-in-law, gave a speech. "Where are the doves?" he asked. "What is this land worth without someone with a vision? Nothing. Without doves it wasn't worth the struggle." Jonny is 34. He's an army reservist who is studying to be a neurologist and has a two-year-old son called Boaz. He didn't scream for blood at his mother's graveside, he screamed for peace.
In our house we have our own thinking to do. My eldest son, Jordy, has Israeli citizenship and in two years he will have to choose either to relinquish that citizenship or to fight in the Israeli army. It can be only his choice. But, unlike the Palestinians in Gaza, at least he has one.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Friday, January 16, 2009
Grieving Over Gaza
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090126/biletzki
I write as an Israeli.
In the past two-and-a-half weeks Israeli forces have killed over 900 people in Gaza; Palestinian rockets have killed four Israelis and Palestinian fighters have killed six soldiers. As the assault began, Bibi Netanyahu, the leader of Israel's definitive right-wing party, Likud, said that talk of comparative numbers is not pertinent to the validity of Operation Cast Lead. That might be true, but the grotesque proportions of one to one hundred in counting the dead should give us pause, should make us reflect on the mantras of the conventional wisdom.
We are told by the mainstream media that Hamas broke the half-year truce agreed upon in June and refused to extend it past the December expiration date. Whether or not the truce was adhered to in its first four months is a question of interpretation rather than fact. Israelis will tell you that the Palestinians did, in fact, launch some Qassam missiles into Israel. True. Palestinians will tell you that Israel did not, in fact, live up to its side of the bargain and continued, even intensified, the siege of Gaza, stopping the electricity, water, fuel, food and medicines crucial for decent survival. True again. But no one denies that on November 4 Israel carried out an incursion into Gaza, killing seven Palestinians and setting off the renewal of violence--Qassam launchings into Israel by Hamas and Israeli killings of Palestinians in Gaza--that was in full swing by the time the truce expired.
We are also led to believe that Hamas refused to extend the half-year cease-fire. But even the mainstream news in the ten days before the attack started clearly reported that Hamas's positions just before the expiration date were vague and divided; and that starting on December 21 it made several overtures to Israel, via Egypt and Turkey, to discuss and consider continuing the truce. Israel refused.
Then we are urged by most conventional media, buttressed by "experts" on Israel, that no nation on earth would tolerate the rocketing of its civilians. That might be true. But such legal posturing, deriving from supposed expertise in the laws of war, seems to forget that the option of going to war, not to mention bombing indiscriminately from on high, is prescribed as a last resort after all other alternatives have been tried and exhausted. Refusing to engage with Hamas, Israel has, instead, put Gaza under blockade. To quote Michael Walzer, who taught us long ago about just and unjust wars--siege is the oldest form of total war.
As to indiscriminate bombing and shelling, we are fed the constant diet of "collateral damage," as if killing of civilians (now estimated as most of the dead, with over half being women and children) can be so effortlessly explained or excused. So, on the one hand, Israel is touted as having amazingly sophisticated methods of targeting while, on the other, it is facilely pardoned for missing the targets. The adage of collateral damage goes a long way--as long as sixteen people, most of them women and children, dying when one Hamas leader is targeted and killed; or forty people seeking shelter in a UN school. And note: in order to count as a bona fide civilian, in order not to be a legitimate target, a person living in Gaza mustn't be in the police force, in a university, in a mosque, or in a hospital run by the Gazan authorities. So indiscriminate is Operation Cast Lead that several Israeli human rights groups and organizations have mounted a wide campaign, crying "Civilians Are Not Cannon Fodder." Neither in Gaza nor in Israel. But that impartiality between Gaza and Israel brings us back to comparing the numbers. Over 900 people, out of a population of 1.5 million, have been killed in Gaza. That is equivalent to 180,000 Americans being killed--in two weeks.
Walzer himself has recently, in The New Republic, accused those using the proportionality argument of incautious lack of judgment. Yet some of those using that argument are Israelis demonstrating, arm in arm with Palestinians, against the carnage. Contrary to what one hears in the mainstream media, which adopts the conventional wisdom pitting all critiques of Israel as venomously pro-Palestinian--in Israel even as a fifth column--these are Israelis (and Jews) who know the unconventional facts. They are marginalized in the current Israeli ecstasy of battle; and ignored by the mainstream media.
I write as an Israeli. Some of us, as Israelis, are grieving over what we have become. Blaming the other side with a roster of rehearsed clichés cannot mitigate the grief.
I write as an Israeli.
In the past two-and-a-half weeks Israeli forces have killed over 900 people in Gaza; Palestinian rockets have killed four Israelis and Palestinian fighters have killed six soldiers. As the assault began, Bibi Netanyahu, the leader of Israel's definitive right-wing party, Likud, said that talk of comparative numbers is not pertinent to the validity of Operation Cast Lead. That might be true, but the grotesque proportions of one to one hundred in counting the dead should give us pause, should make us reflect on the mantras of the conventional wisdom.
We are told by the mainstream media that Hamas broke the half-year truce agreed upon in June and refused to extend it past the December expiration date. Whether or not the truce was adhered to in its first four months is a question of interpretation rather than fact. Israelis will tell you that the Palestinians did, in fact, launch some Qassam missiles into Israel. True. Palestinians will tell you that Israel did not, in fact, live up to its side of the bargain and continued, even intensified, the siege of Gaza, stopping the electricity, water, fuel, food and medicines crucial for decent survival. True again. But no one denies that on November 4 Israel carried out an incursion into Gaza, killing seven Palestinians and setting off the renewal of violence--Qassam launchings into Israel by Hamas and Israeli killings of Palestinians in Gaza--that was in full swing by the time the truce expired.
We are also led to believe that Hamas refused to extend the half-year cease-fire. But even the mainstream news in the ten days before the attack started clearly reported that Hamas's positions just before the expiration date were vague and divided; and that starting on December 21 it made several overtures to Israel, via Egypt and Turkey, to discuss and consider continuing the truce. Israel refused.
Then we are urged by most conventional media, buttressed by "experts" on Israel, that no nation on earth would tolerate the rocketing of its civilians. That might be true. But such legal posturing, deriving from supposed expertise in the laws of war, seems to forget that the option of going to war, not to mention bombing indiscriminately from on high, is prescribed as a last resort after all other alternatives have been tried and exhausted. Refusing to engage with Hamas, Israel has, instead, put Gaza under blockade. To quote Michael Walzer, who taught us long ago about just and unjust wars--siege is the oldest form of total war.
As to indiscriminate bombing and shelling, we are fed the constant diet of "collateral damage," as if killing of civilians (now estimated as most of the dead, with over half being women and children) can be so effortlessly explained or excused. So, on the one hand, Israel is touted as having amazingly sophisticated methods of targeting while, on the other, it is facilely pardoned for missing the targets. The adage of collateral damage goes a long way--as long as sixteen people, most of them women and children, dying when one Hamas leader is targeted and killed; or forty people seeking shelter in a UN school. And note: in order to count as a bona fide civilian, in order not to be a legitimate target, a person living in Gaza mustn't be in the police force, in a university, in a mosque, or in a hospital run by the Gazan authorities. So indiscriminate is Operation Cast Lead that several Israeli human rights groups and organizations have mounted a wide campaign, crying "Civilians Are Not Cannon Fodder." Neither in Gaza nor in Israel. But that impartiality between Gaza and Israel brings us back to comparing the numbers. Over 900 people, out of a population of 1.5 million, have been killed in Gaza. That is equivalent to 180,000 Americans being killed--in two weeks.
Walzer himself has recently, in The New Republic, accused those using the proportionality argument of incautious lack of judgment. Yet some of those using that argument are Israelis demonstrating, arm in arm with Palestinians, against the carnage. Contrary to what one hears in the mainstream media, which adopts the conventional wisdom pitting all critiques of Israel as venomously pro-Palestinian--in Israel even as a fifth column--these are Israelis (and Jews) who know the unconventional facts. They are marginalized in the current Israeli ecstasy of battle; and ignored by the mainstream media.
I write as an Israeli. Some of us, as Israelis, are grieving over what we have become. Blaming the other side with a roster of rehearsed clichés cannot mitigate the grief.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
解讀美國政治血統中的猶太基因
http://chinareviewnews.net/doc/1008/5/9/0/100859058.html?coluid=70&kindid=1850&docid=100859058&mdate=0116104559
中評社北京1月16日電／從伊拉克到馬來西亞，大規模的反美示威遊行正在不少國家轟轟烈烈地進行著。
據國際先驅導報報道，聯合國安理會8日通過呼籲巴以立即在加沙地帶停火的決議。表決中，美國投了唯一的棄權票。加沙衝突不斷升級，美國卻遲遲不表態，它一向縱容以色列的曖昧態度引發了全球性的抗議。
法國《世界報》評論道，美國最關鍵的錯誤在於給人以“無條件支持以色列”的感覺。這種“錯誤”與美國猶太人過高的政治地位有關，他們左右著政府對待以色列的態度。
幕後“遙控”政客及輿論
美國猶太裔人口總數在600萬左右，只占人口比例的3%。然而，據統計，最近幾屆政府中，猶太人在參議院一般會有10至15個席位，衆議院中也有10％左右的席位。可見，猶太人在政壇有著與其人口數不成比例的巨大影響力。美國政府的要職上常見到猶太人的身影，如前國務卿基辛格、奧爾布賴特，以及布什父子政府中著名的鷹派人物、有著“伊戰教父”之稱的沃爾福維茨，奧巴馬的新一任白宮辦公廳主任伊曼紐爾也是猶太人。
猶太人擁有穩固的政治根基與他們強大的經濟背景密切相關。前總統羅斯福曾感嘆：“影響美國經濟的只有二百多家企業，而操縱這些企業的只有六七個猶太人”。
在美國《福布斯》雜志公布的富豪榜上，前40位中有16人是猶太人。華爾街的金融精英中也有半數是猶太人，衆所周之，“股神”巴菲特、“金融大鰐”索羅斯，高盛、雷曼兄弟、GOOGLE、英特爾等公司的創建人也都是猶太人。
這些富豪並不直接參與美國政治，而是通過捐款“遙控”。美國有超過80個專門協調捐款的猶太“政治行動委員會”。此外還有上百個猶太人組織，較知名的是“美以公共事務委員會”（AIPAC）、“美國主要猶太人組織主席會議”（JCPA），他們的中心政治意圖就是游說美國維護以色列的利益。在歷次總統選舉中，他們都積極參與，尤其在這次奧巴馬的競選中，AIPAC表現得格外活躍。
“與之相比，更讓人關注的是猶太人對好萊塢娛樂業和媒體的控制，他們潛移默化地改變著美國普通民衆對猶太人的看法。”中國現代國際關係研究院研究員錢立偉告訴《國際先驅導報》。
在好萊塢，猶太老板掌控之下的時代華納、夢工廠、米高梅等公司，不斷出品反思二戰、追憶猶太人歷史的作品。另一個猶太人默多克控制著主流新聞媒體。而《紐約時報》、《華爾街日報》以及美國三大電視網中很多記者都是猶太裔，他們直接操控著美國的新聞輿論，不允許出現對猶太人不利的報道。
有一個突出的例子是“米爾斯海默報告”事件。2007年，芝加哥大學著名政治學教授米爾斯海默和哈佛大學的沃爾特教授合作撰寫了《以色列游說集團與美國外交政策》的報告，指出美國外交因為受到猶太集團的控制，常常有損自身利益。美國主流期刊拒絕刊登，他們不得不尋求海外出版。報告傳到美國後一石激起千層浪，引起了猶太組織的大規模抗議，而媒體也對兩位作者口誅筆伐。
奧巴馬拉攏的“香餑餑”
一方面猶太人通過鈔票和選票影響美國政府，另一方面，由於他們的巨大影響力，在歷次美國大選中，猶太人都是兩黨競相討好的“香餑餑”。
這次美國大選中，78%的猶太人都投票給了奧巴馬，作為黑人參選的奧巴馬，能得到猶太社團的強大支持，可以說歷史罕見。
北京大學國際關係學院餘萬裡教授對《國際先驅導報》介紹說：“小布什的政策促進了全球伊斯蘭世界的反猶高潮，外交政策的失敗同任用沃爾福維茨為代表的一小批猶太裔的‘新保守主義’分子有一定關係，而猶太人中占大多數的自由派團體對新保守主義極為不滿，因而轉向支持奧巴馬。”在公開支持奧巴馬的猶太自由派中，尤以斯皮爾伯格、卡森博格、索羅斯等好萊塢和華爾街的精英為甚。
不過，奧巴馬與穆斯林的“舊情”也曾經讓猶太裔對他產生過懷疑。為了討好猶太人，奧巴馬急欲擺脫與穆斯林糾纏不清的關係。競選期間其助手在一次集會上要求兩位戴頭巾的穆斯林支持者不要在奧巴馬背後出現，以免被記者拍照。在去年的中東之旅時，奧巴馬親自登上了以軍的軍用飛機，前往經常被巴勒斯坦激進分子襲擊的以色列小鎮視察。奧巴馬的這些舉動獲得了猶太人的好感。
當然，奧巴馬對猶太集團的安撫最突出的表現還是在他當選後的人事安排上。他的第一項人事任命就是選擇猶太人伊曼紐爾出任“大內主管”——白宮辦公廳主任的職位。有媒體評論道，伊曼紐爾在競選資金募集上的出色表現為他贏得了這個職位，並且暗示他背後的猶太“金主”為奧巴馬捐助了大量的資金。此外，奧巴馬任命的另一關鍵職位——白宮國家經濟委員會主席薩默斯也是猶太人。
美國利益永遠排在第一位
那麼，無處不在的猶太人的影子，究竟會如何影響奧巴馬的外交政策呢。
餘萬裡認為，“在分析美國巴以政策時，我們不應把種族因素看得過高，雖然猶太勢力很大，但大部分美國猶太政客還是更注重維護美國在中東的利益。”在克林頓時期，出於巴以和談的需要，猶太裔國務卿奧爾布賴特就與巴勒斯坦保持了良好的關係。
“奧巴馬對待中東問題肯定會一改小布什放任的態度。”錢立偉對《國際先驅導報》說，“奧巴馬很可能會主張回到克林頓後期的政策，恢復巴以和談的局面。”事實上，伊曼紐爾對中東和平進程貢獻頗多，以色列和巴勒斯坦簽署的《奧斯陸和平協議》就是他一手策劃的。
錢立偉也認為：“美國對於以色列的不同時期的不同態度是出於中東制衡考慮的，美國猶太政客雖然會起到一定作用，但無論如何，他們首先是美國人，其次才是猶太人，美國在中東整體的戰略利益永遠是排在第一位的。”
中評社北京1月16日電／從伊拉克到馬來西亞，大規模的反美示威遊行正在不少國家轟轟烈烈地進行著。
據國際先驅導報報道，聯合國安理會8日通過呼籲巴以立即在加沙地帶停火的決議。表決中，美國投了唯一的棄權票。加沙衝突不斷升級，美國卻遲遲不表態，它一向縱容以色列的曖昧態度引發了全球性的抗議。
法國《世界報》評論道，美國最關鍵的錯誤在於給人以“無條件支持以色列”的感覺。這種“錯誤”與美國猶太人過高的政治地位有關，他們左右著政府對待以色列的態度。
幕後“遙控”政客及輿論
美國猶太裔人口總數在600萬左右，只占人口比例的3%。然而，據統計，最近幾屆政府中，猶太人在參議院一般會有10至15個席位，衆議院中也有10％左右的席位。可見，猶太人在政壇有著與其人口數不成比例的巨大影響力。美國政府的要職上常見到猶太人的身影，如前國務卿基辛格、奧爾布賴特，以及布什父子政府中著名的鷹派人物、有著“伊戰教父”之稱的沃爾福維茨，奧巴馬的新一任白宮辦公廳主任伊曼紐爾也是猶太人。
猶太人擁有穩固的政治根基與他們強大的經濟背景密切相關。前總統羅斯福曾感嘆：“影響美國經濟的只有二百多家企業，而操縱這些企業的只有六七個猶太人”。
在美國《福布斯》雜志公布的富豪榜上，前40位中有16人是猶太人。華爾街的金融精英中也有半數是猶太人，衆所周之，“股神”巴菲特、“金融大鰐”索羅斯，高盛、雷曼兄弟、GOOGLE、英特爾等公司的創建人也都是猶太人。
這些富豪並不直接參與美國政治，而是通過捐款“遙控”。美國有超過80個專門協調捐款的猶太“政治行動委員會”。此外還有上百個猶太人組織，較知名的是“美以公共事務委員會”（AIPAC）、“美國主要猶太人組織主席會議”（JCPA），他們的中心政治意圖就是游說美國維護以色列的利益。在歷次總統選舉中，他們都積極參與，尤其在這次奧巴馬的競選中，AIPAC表現得格外活躍。
“與之相比，更讓人關注的是猶太人對好萊塢娛樂業和媒體的控制，他們潛移默化地改變著美國普通民衆對猶太人的看法。”中國現代國際關係研究院研究員錢立偉告訴《國際先驅導報》。
在好萊塢，猶太老板掌控之下的時代華納、夢工廠、米高梅等公司，不斷出品反思二戰、追憶猶太人歷史的作品。另一個猶太人默多克控制著主流新聞媒體。而《紐約時報》、《華爾街日報》以及美國三大電視網中很多記者都是猶太裔，他們直接操控著美國的新聞輿論，不允許出現對猶太人不利的報道。
有一個突出的例子是“米爾斯海默報告”事件。2007年，芝加哥大學著名政治學教授米爾斯海默和哈佛大學的沃爾特教授合作撰寫了《以色列游說集團與美國外交政策》的報告，指出美國外交因為受到猶太集團的控制，常常有損自身利益。美國主流期刊拒絕刊登，他們不得不尋求海外出版。報告傳到美國後一石激起千層浪，引起了猶太組織的大規模抗議，而媒體也對兩位作者口誅筆伐。
奧巴馬拉攏的“香餑餑”
一方面猶太人通過鈔票和選票影響美國政府，另一方面，由於他們的巨大影響力，在歷次美國大選中，猶太人都是兩黨競相討好的“香餑餑”。
這次美國大選中，78%的猶太人都投票給了奧巴馬，作為黑人參選的奧巴馬，能得到猶太社團的強大支持，可以說歷史罕見。
北京大學國際關係學院餘萬裡教授對《國際先驅導報》介紹說：“小布什的政策促進了全球伊斯蘭世界的反猶高潮，外交政策的失敗同任用沃爾福維茨為代表的一小批猶太裔的‘新保守主義’分子有一定關係，而猶太人中占大多數的自由派團體對新保守主義極為不滿，因而轉向支持奧巴馬。”在公開支持奧巴馬的猶太自由派中，尤以斯皮爾伯格、卡森博格、索羅斯等好萊塢和華爾街的精英為甚。
不過，奧巴馬與穆斯林的“舊情”也曾經讓猶太裔對他產生過懷疑。為了討好猶太人，奧巴馬急欲擺脫與穆斯林糾纏不清的關係。競選期間其助手在一次集會上要求兩位戴頭巾的穆斯林支持者不要在奧巴馬背後出現，以免被記者拍照。在去年的中東之旅時，奧巴馬親自登上了以軍的軍用飛機，前往經常被巴勒斯坦激進分子襲擊的以色列小鎮視察。奧巴馬的這些舉動獲得了猶太人的好感。
當然，奧巴馬對猶太集團的安撫最突出的表現還是在他當選後的人事安排上。他的第一項人事任命就是選擇猶太人伊曼紐爾出任“大內主管”——白宮辦公廳主任的職位。有媒體評論道，伊曼紐爾在競選資金募集上的出色表現為他贏得了這個職位，並且暗示他背後的猶太“金主”為奧巴馬捐助了大量的資金。此外，奧巴馬任命的另一關鍵職位——白宮國家經濟委員會主席薩默斯也是猶太人。
美國利益永遠排在第一位
那麼，無處不在的猶太人的影子，究竟會如何影響奧巴馬的外交政策呢。
餘萬裡認為，“在分析美國巴以政策時，我們不應把種族因素看得過高，雖然猶太勢力很大，但大部分美國猶太政客還是更注重維護美國在中東的利益。”在克林頓時期，出於巴以和談的需要，猶太裔國務卿奧爾布賴特就與巴勒斯坦保持了良好的關係。
“奧巴馬對待中東問題肯定會一改小布什放任的態度。”錢立偉對《國際先驅導報》說，“奧巴馬很可能會主張回到克林頓後期的政策，恢復巴以和談的局面。”事實上，伊曼紐爾對中東和平進程貢獻頗多，以色列和巴勒斯坦簽署的《奧斯陸和平協議》就是他一手策劃的。
錢立偉也認為：“美國對於以色列的不同時期的不同態度是出於中東制衡考慮的，美國猶太政客雖然會起到一定作用，但無論如何，他們首先是美國人，其次才是猶太人，美國在中東整體的戰略利益永遠是排在第一位的。”
Back after a long break
It was the final season and then the winter vacation. I seemed to have stopped reading and thinking for myself. Now it is time to resume. At the same time, the new semester starts...
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