[Swiftwater Gazette] Medal of Freedom

[Brad Haslett]

Minister Herschkowitz: Some of Obama's policies are 'borderline anti-Semitic'
Aug. 16, 2009
Gil Hoffman , THE JERUSALEM POST

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will reject US President Barack
Obama's request for a freeze on natural growth in Judea and Samaria,
Habayit Hayehudi head Daniel Herschkowitz said Sunday, based on
conversations with Netanyahu.

In an interview with the science and technology minister at his
Jerusalem office, Herschkowitz told The Jerusalem Post that he did not
believe Netanyahu would cross any red lines of Habayit Hayehudi, the
most right-wing party in his coalition.

"From my own talks with the prime minister, I can say confidently that
I don't think he will freeze natural growth in the settlements,"
Herschkowitz said. "I am sure he is in favor of allowing natural
growth, but he must navigate smartly and walk between the rain drops
to ensure that he will get along with the American administration."

Herschkowitz suggested that an arrangement could be found that could
allow construction in the settlements to continue without public
acknowledgment.

He said this would be preferable to the opposite scenario of press
reports of settlement construction when in fact there is none.

A former resident of Madison, Wisconsin, where he was a mathematics
professor at the University of Wisconsin, Herschkowitz did not hold
back criticism for Obama, especially his decision to grant the
Presidential Medal of Freedom to former UN human rights commissioner
and longtime Israel basher Mary Robinson.

"I am disappointed in Obama's policies," Herschkowitz said. "Some of
the steps he has taken, like giving a medal to Mary Robinson, are
borderline anti-Semitic. Israel is an independent state. Relations
with the US are important, but relations must go both ways. I don't
know if Obama understands it, but most Americans believe that Israel
is their only anchor in the Middle East."

Herschkowitz has been criticized by the Right for praising Netanyahu's
June 14 policy address at Bar-Ilan University's Begin-Sadat Center in
which he conditionally endorsed the creation of a Palestinian state.

He said he himself opposed a Palestinian state, but a prime minister
had to speak differently than the average politician.

"It was a good speech, because he shifted the ball to the other side
by setting important conditions," Herschkowitz said. "If they can't
accept recognizing a Jewish state and the end of the conflict, it
shows their real face. But if they would have, there would have been
something to talk about. A leader must say yes, and not just no, so
it's ideal to say yes while shifting the ball back to the other side."

The Habayit Hayehudi leader said there was a consensus that Israel did
not want to control the Palestinians. He said a demilitarized
Palestinian state as Netanyahu outlined it would not be that different
from the autonomy the overwhelming majority of the Palestinians
already had.

But Herschkowitz said he did not think a peace agreement could be reached.

"It is clear that there is no partner," Herschkowitz said. "Every
diplomatic plan, even the most conservative one, is wishful thinking,
because there is no plan that both sides would accept."

Regarding the tensions inside Habayit Hayehudi, Herschkowitz denied
charges he had made a political deal with Netanyahu to vote for his
Israel Lands Authority bill, a vote that enraged the other two MKs in
his party, Zevulun Orlev and Uri Orbach. His opponents in the party
accused him of receiving a commitment in return from Netanyahu that he
would no longer advance the mini-Norwegian bill that would have forced
Herschkowitz to quit the Knesset in favor of former MK Nisan
Slomiansky.

While Herschkowitz said he had a long talk with Orbach, he admitted he
had not yet discussed the matter with Orlev nearly two weeks after the
August 5 clash in which Orlev called Herschkowitz's behavior shameful.

Netanyahu had threatened to fire Herschkowitz had he voted against the
bill. Herschkowitz's associates mocked Orlev for urging him to take a
step that would have resulted in him leaving the cabinet after Orlev
himself hesitated to resign from his ministerial post ahead of the
Gaza Strip withdrawal.

Asked whether he believed he would still be Habayit Hayehudi's leader
in the next election, he said he did not know. He noted that to obtain
his present positions, he turned down two plum jobs: president of the
Technion and chief rabbi of Haifa.

"Politics is very dynamic," he said. "If you would have asked me nine
months ago if I would ever be an MK or a minister, I would have said
no. Anything, really anything can happen."

On 8/13/09, Ed Kroposki <ekroposki at charter.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> By Ruth McCann and Anne E. Kornblut
> Washington Post Staff Writers
> Thursday, August 13, 2009
>
> At his first Medal of Freedom conferral, President Obama ran a tight ship of
> a ceremony, which began slightly after 3 p.m. and clocked in at about 40
> minutes' worth of speechifying and medal-bestowing in the glittering East
> Room, the largest room in the White House. This year, actor Sidney Poitier,
> Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Broadway star Chita Rivera, Sen. Ted Kennedy
> (D-Mass.) and former Irish president Mary Robinson were among the 16 who
> received the nation's highest civilian honor.
>
> Although the president spoke to the recipients and their enthused crowd of
> guests for about 20 minutes before breaking out the medals, his comments
> betrayed very little about his personal feelings toward (or relationships
> with) any of the honorees he'd selected. The silence signaled humility, and,
> of course, diplomacy: Robinson, for example, was the object of enmity
> outside the building, as supporters of Israel had deemed her undeserving
> after a particular rough career moment when a human-rights conference she
> helmed in 2001 was dominated by attacks on Jews and Israel.
>
> In the afternoon ceremony, Obama praised Robinson as "a crusader for women
> and those without a voice in Ireland," saying she "shone a light on human
> suffering" during her work on human rights and hunger. A military aide read
> her citation, which praised her for "urging citizens and nations to make
> common cause for justice."
>
> The president did get personal on a few occasions, his own subtly conveyed
> intimacy never upstaging, say, the exuberance of tennis star Billie Jean
> King, who entered the East Room with a victorious pump of her fist and a
> mouthed "Yessssss!" In the president's estimation, King gave "everyone,
> regardless of gender and sexual orientation, including my two daughters, a
> chance to compete both on the court and in life." Upon receiving her medal,
> she gave it a kiss and flashed the audience a grin.
>
> The president's introductory remarks (smoothly delivered, apparently without
> written notes) continued in this manner, bowing more to the medal
> recipients' achievements than to his own experiences with them. After
> pronouncements were pronounced, Obama clasped medals around 16 necks,
> engaging in a great deal of hugging, cheek-kissing, whispering and
> back-patting -- a prolonged bout of physical affection that the recipients
> happily returned.
>
> Guests mingled festively beforehand in the surreal grandeur of the White
> House foyer, where a clutch of musicians in red uniforms with brass buttons
> provided background sounds ("I Could Have Danced All Night" and "Night and
> Day"). At an open bar in the corner, a bartender presided over various
> liquors, glasses of champagne and a few beer bottles.
>
> The recipients' guests were ushered in from the foyer and seated on
> delicate, gold-painted chairs. The Kennedy women looked polished, the
> Poitier guests chatted happily with photographers and Tutu's friends turned
> out in a fabulous array of colorful, voluminous hats rivaled only by the
> feather headdresses worn by guests of Joseph Medicine Crow, the only
> surviving Plains Indian war chief, whom Obama met on the campaign trail.
>
> As the honorees entered, the audience greeted each with whoops and cheers
> (Sidney Poitier got a round of applause that nearly rivaled the
> president's). Fuchsia-salmony clothing, apparently the order of the day,
> appeared on Robinson, Tutu, breast cancer activist Nancy Brinker and former
> Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
>
> With Michelle Obama (in a sleeveless bright red dress) looking on from the
> front row, the president declared the honorees to be "agents of change" who,
> in his words, embody the conviction that "our lives are what we make of
> them; that no barriers of race, gender or physical infirmity can restrain
> the human spirit; and that the truest test of a person's life is what we do
> for one another."
>
> The assembled crowd was clearly eager to find merriment wherever possible.
> Hearty laughter followed the president's opener for Chita Rivera: "Dolores
> Conchita Figueroa del Rivero knows that adversity comes with a difficult
> name." Another giggly moment: Medicine Crow commandeered the podium -- an
> initiative only he seized -- and launched into a joyous acceptance speech,
> only to be gracefully ushered back to his seat by the president. Acceptance
> speeches, one notes, were a part of Bill Clinton's medal rites, but in the
> Obama era have been ushered out.
>
> But merriment often gave way to reflective silence when the president spoke
> of honorees who were sick or deceased, including the ailing Sen. Kennedy,
> whose oldest daughter, Kara, accepted the medal on her father's behalf.
> Stuart Milk attended the ceremony in the place of his uncle, Harvey Milk, a
> prominent California gay rights activist who was shot and killed by former
> city supervisor Dan White in 1978. And Joanne Kemp, widow of Rep. Jack Kemp,
> appeared in her husband's stead.
>
> Obama stood behind each medal recipient (many of them teary) and clasped the
> gold, circular, star-emblazoned medal (on a blue ribbon) around their necks.
> He handed medals in demure boxes to those who were accepting them on
> another's behalf.
>
> Other honorees included Pedro José Greer, a Miami doctor who has
> orchestrated medical treatment for many of the city's homeless; British
> physicist Stephen Hawking; the Rev. Joseph Lowery, the civil rights leader;
> cancer researcher Janet Davidson Rowley; and micro-loan pioneer Muhammad
> Yunus.
>
> At no point did the external rumblings about Robinson's controversial
> stewardship of a human-rights conference invade the room. Among the critics
> of Robinson's award was the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which
> described Robinson's time on the United Nations Human Rights Commission as
> "deeply flawed, and her conduct marred by extreme, one-sided anti-Israel
> sentiment." AIPAC called on the Obama administration to "firmly, fully and
> publicly repudiate her views on Israel and her long public record of
> hostility and one-sided bias against the Jewish state."
>
> Criticism mounted over the past few weeks as bipartisan critics, including
> Reps. Eliot L. Engel (D-N.Y.) and Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.), added volume.
> Asked on Wednesday whether the president, after the outpouring of criticism,
> had any second thoughts about giving Robinson the highest civilian medal,
> White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said no.
>
> "I think the president is recognizing her for her leadership on women's
> rights and equal rights. And as I've said before, he doesn't agree with each
> of her statements, but she's certainly somebody who should be honored,"
> Gibbs said.
>
> In the East Room, Robinson showed only hints of stress; even as the Irish
> leader tripped slightly when entering, she managed a shy smile as Poitier
> clasped her hand to steady her. Tears and cheers made the afternoon an
> emotionally lively one that concluded with the president's exiting as
> suddenly as he had arrived, taking the 16 with him. As the president swept
> out, the band struck up again, and partying resumed, a guest of Sidney
> Poitier remained slightly stunned. "Oh my God," she said of the president.
> "Gorgeous."
>
> Comment by sender of this to me:
>
> Check out some of the names of the President's Medal of Freedom.  Most are
> far left and Sidney Poitier is a huge supporter of Socialist and Communist
> leaders in Latin America, and he gets a medal of freedom award??  Robinson
> has real issues with how she ran the UN commission on racism which
> degenerated into a bash Isreal and the US session.  Wow what a group to give
> this award to.