Soft Power, Part Five
Max Boot says he has known Samantha Power (a key Barack Obama adviser) for six years and has "never heard her say anything that I would construe as anti-Israel." Because I respect Boot so much, I reviewed my posts on Ms. Power to see whether I should re-evaluate my assessment that she is, in fact, anti-Israel.
Here are the pieces of information on which I based my claim:
In a 2002 interview, Power advocated investing billions of dollars to impose a Palestinian state. That investment would include the insertion of “a mammoth" and explicitly "military" force into the disputed territory. In her present capacity as an adviser to a presidential candidate, Power describes this approach as "weird."Along the same "weird" lines, Power appears to support slashing, if not eliminating, military aid to Israel (an ally surrounded by 300 million people who wish to destroy her) and giving it to the Palestinians, whose charters (whether the Hamas or Fatah version) advocate the destruction of Israel. Thus, Power has spoken sympathetically about the notion of "alienating a domestic constituency of tremendous political and financial import [American Jews] and sacrificing...billions of dollars, not in servicing Israel's military, but actually investing in the state of Palestine."
Power has blamed deference to Israel and the "special interests" that support Israel for the U.S. intervention in Iraq. She does so in the face of evidence that Israel had no particular desire that we overthrow Saddam Hussein, and actually viewed that enterprise as a distraction from the more serious threat posed by Iran.
In the same interview, Power also blamed Israel for the tactics the U.S. has used in Iraq. She stated that our alleged "deference" to Israel has caused us "to replicate Israeli tactics, which, as the war in Lebanon last summer demonstrated, can turn out to be counter-productive." Power did not state what she thinks these tactics were, but she seems to have had in mind the bombing of civilians which caused an international outcry. In any case, Power provided no evidence that Israel is to blame for whatever U.S. tactics she finds objectionable.
Still on the subject of Lebanon, Power has expressed outrage at the way Israel has treated the U.N.'s faux peacekeepers in South Lebanon, the ones who stood by while Hezbollah gained a dominant position and used it to commit aggression against Israel. In this connection, Power quotes (with no disapproval) the statement of Sergio Vieira De Mello, the subject of her hagiography, that the Israelis are "bastards." Power also attributes Israel's incursion into South Lebanon not to the terrorism launched against it from that area, but to the existence of dispossessed Palestinians and Israeli "insecurity."
Power criticized the New York Times, which had promoted the bogus Jenin "massacre" story, for attempting to set the record straight through a headline that said "Human Rights Reports Finds Massacre Did Not Occur in Jenin.” Power thought the headline should have been about alleged "Israeli war crimes."
To me, it seems clear that, collectively, these positions overwhelmingly show Power to be anti-Israel. But the label is less important than the positions. Pro-Israel readers should ask themselves whether they are comfortable with these views, and with a presidential candidate who has as a key adviser someone who peddles them.
