Today's Run: http://bit.ly/6QYvu5
I've heard close to a dozen talks by Dr. David Luchins, and they are always fascinating. Asside from being a religious Jew, he's a Washington insider, serving as senior advisor to US senator Pat Moynihan for 20 years. He combines Torah wisdom with behind the scene stories of the political process.
This talk was given this past summer, addressing Obama's stance on Israel. He told lots of great stories, and made lots in interesting points. Here's my favourite story (which I've heard from him before). Golda Meir was traveling to the States during Nixon's term, after the Yom Kippur War. Nixon is about to unveil his peace initiative, so he send the head of the State Department to meet Meir's plane and deliver a message. Nixon wanted Meir to call a press conference and denounce the peace plan in the strongest possible terms. He wanted her to cry, to say Nixon is selling Israel down the river... make a big show of it. The State Department head said he won't do it, you can't ask that of a foreign leader. Nixon whispers something into his ear, and he says, "of course, sir, I'll do it right away."
He flys to meet Meir and makes the request, and Meir is as outraged as he was. But he whispers into Meir's ear, the same thing Nixon whispered into his, and Meir agrees immediately.
What did Nixon whisper? He said "The Arabs will never go for any plan they they think Israel likes."
Remembering this, puts a lot of what we read about US/Israel relations in perspective. Luchins admits that some of the current tension is certainly real, as the 2 leaders have very different world views, but much of is it certainly contrived. Israel wants to make concessions, but if they offer them they will look weak. If their hand is forced by the US, then "save face".
Luchins points to Obama's threats about settlement freezes. He demanded a complete freeze and if Israel refused, he would stop US involvement int he peace process. Not exactly a heavy consequence seeing how the process is halted anyway.
One final story. Luchins helped draft 5 legislations demanding the US move their embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. During debate on the last one, a senior diplomat was being grilled on why the US won't move. He did 2 things a diplomat should never do in public. He lost his temper and told the truth. He said:
The US has 2 sets of friends in the Middle East. Tiny Israel, to whom we give NATO grade weapons, shared intelligence in real time, and billions of dollars in aid. Then their the Arab world, who controls to oil supply and his it's fingers around the throat of the US economy. All we need to give them are occasional symbolic reassurances that the US is not in Israel's back pocket. Would you prefer it were the other way?
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