I hate to make the sort of prediction that either becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy or that gets in the way of the unfolding of a natural phenomenon thereby deny its fulfillment. But this case has the potential to yield so much insight for just discussing it that I am willing to take a chance and discuss it here and now. What I see as being in the realm of probability in the future is that the Wall Street Journal columnist, Bret Stephens, will experience a reversal in his views with regard to the Middle Eastern issues. It may not be a total reversal but it should be significant enough to bring the man close to seeing the light in the way that many good people have done before him.
You can see signs of this in his latest column: “The 'Jewish' President” which also bears the subtitle: “Don't believe Obama when he says he has Israel's back,” published in the Journal on March 6, 2012. Both the title and the subtitle are somewhat misleading in the sense that the article is not really about Obama but about Peter Beinart who is one of the good people that saw the light and understood that the salvation of Jews will come not by the sword of biblical fantasies but by the acceptance of Jews that they are normal people who must learn to behave normally because they live in a normal world.
Stephens uses as jumping pad a happening that had President Obama address AIPAC a couple of days earlier at which time he discussed the standoff between an Iran that has embarked on a nuclear program and an Israel that feels threatened by it. It was then that the President assured his audience: “I have Israel's back”. Stephens asks if the President should be believed and he answers with a resounding no. To explain that answer, he takes a paragraph in which he lists four examples that involve the President, his defense secretary and his top national security adviser, all of which demonstrate that the President does not mean what he says according to the columnist.
He also cites a fifth example -- this one outside the realm of the standoff between Iran and Israel -- to commit what looks like an elaborate Freudian slip. He tells of the secretary of state who was visiting Tunisia recently and had a meeting with a number of students there. When asked a question on the subject of the American politicians who court the Zionist lobbies, she replied that “a lot of things are said in political campaigns that should not bear a lot of attention,” to which he comments: “It seems it didn't occur to her to challenge the premise of the question.”
Whoa! several times over. What we have here is something so flabbergasting, it rivals the Zeno paradox which asks if you would believe someone that says he is a liar. Here is a guy -- apparently an intelligent one – who says you should not believe a President who makes promises during an election campaign, now chiding the secretary of state for saying don't believe politicians who make promises during election campaigns, then suggesting that she should have lied by challenging the very premise of the question. Would you now believe this guy saying that you must not believe the President?
Having so betrayed himself, the author now advises that Peter Beinart would be a source you can look at to find evidence that Mr. Obama is disingenuous. He tells us that Beinart used to advocate the war against Iraq but that he reinvented himself as a scourge of Israel and the Jewish causes. He has a book coming out soon under the title: “The Crisis of Zionism” whose chapter five, which is titled: “The Jewish President”, discusses President Obama's education on matters related to the Middle East.
Stephens discusses a few passages from that chapter to show that contrary to the common wisdom which has it that Obama was educated on such matters at the hands of his friends Rashid Khalidi and pastor Jeremiah Wright, it was a coterie of Chicago Jews who bred in the future President a vision of Israel and of American Jewry.
He goes on to say that in Beinart's point of view, this intellectual journey of Mr. Obama is evidence that he is in tune with the authentic views of ordinary Jews but not their leaders. He then surprises you by giving his own opinion. Get this now; Stephens says “maybe” to that same point of view. He has one small reservation though, which is this: “Still, one wonders why organizations more in tune with those 'real' views rarely seem to find much of a base.”
Frankly, I am puzzled as to why he would say this in the face of polls conducted in America and in Israel showing that the base is there, that it is growing and that it is supporting a peaceful resolution of all the problems relating to Israel and to its neighbors. As to why the columnist brought up this point, it could be that he is revealing a deep seated desire to start an organization that will rally a base around these ideas. I would say he will do a good job leading a movement like this. Go for it, Bret.
In the meantime though, he still is who he is, and so he writes the following to end his column: “...the important question ... [is] about the president's honesty … On the evidence … Mr. Obama's speech at Aipac was one long exercise in political cynicism.”
I just hope that these words will not so affect Bret Stephens as to prompt him to do things differently from what he would have done ordinarily. If he was about to reinvent himself, he should continue on that path at his own pace. If he were not, he will spend the rest of his life trying to explain how he can tell people to trust what he says at the same time as he tells them not to trust the people who say what he says.