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 The usual explanation is that in order to prevail in a man's world, a woman politician has to prove that she is at least as tough as the men are. When she comes to power, she wants to show that she, too, can make war and command armies. Hillary has already acted tough by voting for the disastrous Iraq war.
(Years ago, when she came out for a Palestinian state, Gush Shalom demonstrated in her honor in front of the US embassy in Tel Aviv. We wanted to present her with a bunch of flowers. The embassy people treated us as enemies and refused to accept the flowers. Since then, Hillary has not uttered another word in favor of the Palestinians.)
I don't know how much she was a partner to her husband's decisions in the White House. The President's wife may be closest to his ear - and the President's husband will probably be closest to her ear. Anyhow, in the eight years of Bill Clinton nothing good for Israeli-Palestinian peace happened. In his "peace team" there were a lot of American Jews, but not a single American Arab. He was totally subservient to the Israel lobby, and on his watch the number of Israeli settlers in the Palestinian territories more than doubled.
Israel doesn't really need another term of Billary.
Hillary is a run of the mill politician. If McCain is a continuation of Bush, Hillary is an extension of the entire present American political system, the present policy and the present routine. But the world needs another America.
THE NAME of another America is Obama. Full name: Barack Hussein Obama.
The very fact that this person can be a serious contender for the presidency at all restores my faith in the possibilities inherent in America. After the excesses of Senator Joe McCarthy there was President John Kennedy. After Bush there can be Obama. Only in America.
The great message of Obama is Obama himself. A person who has roots in three continents (and another half: Hawaii). A person whose education spans the wide world. A person who can see reality from the viewpoints of America, Africa and Asia. A person who is both black and white. A new kind of American, an American of the 21st Century.
I am not as naïve as I sound. I realize that in his speeches there is more enthusiasm than content. We can't know what he will do once elected president. President Obama may disappoint us. But I prefer to take a risk with a man like this than to know in advance what the two routine politicians, his competitors, will do.
I am not overly impressed by election speeches. I have conducted four election campaigns myself and I know that there are things one has to say and things one must not say. It's all with limited liability. But beyond all the speechifying, one fact is more important than a million words: Obama opposed the Iraq invasion from the start, when this took integrity and a lot of courage. Hillary voted for the war and changed her position only when public opinion had changed. McCain supports the war even now.
We in Israel know the huge difference between opposing a war in its first, decisive hour, and opposing it after a month, a year or five years.
On the other hand, perhaps this very fact - more even than the color of his skin, his middle name and his "lack of experience" - will work against him. The voters do not like a person who was right when they were wrong. It's like admitting: he was wise and we were stupid. When a politician wants to be elected, he would be well advised to hide the fact that he was right.
A personal note: as an optimist from birth, I like Obama's optimism. I prefer a candidate who brings hope over one destroying hope. Optimism spurs to action, pessimism produces nothing but despair.
America needs a complete overhaul. Not just a wash, not just a wax job, not just a new coat of paint. It needs a new motor, a change of the entire leadership, a reappraisal of its position in the world, a change of values.
Can Obama do this? I hope so. I am not sure. But I am quite sure that the other two will not.
HERE A JEW will pop the classic question: Is it good for the Jews?
The people who claim to speak for the American Jews, the "leaders" who were not elected by anyone, the chiefs of the fetid "organizations", are conducting a dirty campaign of defamation and sly hints against him. If his middle name is Hussein and he is black, he must be an "Arab-lover". Also, he did not distance himself enough from the anti-Semite Louis Farakhan.
The same "leaders" are in bed with the most loathsome racists in the US, obscurantist fundamentalists and blood-stained neo-cons. But most American Jews know that their place is not there. The unholy alliance with those types will inevitably come home to roost. The Jews have to be where they have always been: in the progressive camp, striving for equality and the separation between state and religion.
IT MUST be asked: Is it good for Israel?
All three candidates have groveled at the feet of AIPAC. The fawning of all three before the Israeli leadership is disgusting. They all show a lack of integrity. But I know that they have no choice. That's how it is in the USA.
In spite of this, Obama succeeded in getting out one courageous sentence. Speaking before a mainly Jewish audience in Cleveland, he said: "There is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt an unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel, you're anti-Israel and that can't be the measure of our friendship with Israel."
I hope that the American Barack (blessed, in Arabic), if elected, will not turn into a replica of the Israeli Barak (lightning, in Hebrew).
Real friendship means: when you see that your friend is drunk, you don't encourage him to drive. You offer to take him home. I am longing for an American president who will have the courage and the honesty to tell our leaders: Dear friends, you are drunk with power! You are speeding along a highway that leads to an abyss!
Perhaps Barack Obama will be such a friend. This would be a blessing for us, too.
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