| Author | Message | | Alpha | | Posted: Fri Nov 07, 2008 6:15 pm Post subject: |
| http://www.forward.com/articles/14525/
Advocacy Groups Ready for Domestic Push
They Hope a Jewish Chief of Staff Will Give Weight to Their Capitol Agenda
By Nathan Guttman and Anthony Weiss
Thu. Nov 06, 2008
Barack Obama will move forward with his domestic agenda with the son of a former Israeli resistance fighter as his first appointment and second-in-command.
Rahm Emanuel, a Jewish congressman from Chicago and former Clinton White House staffer, accepted the post, which will put him in charge of implementing Obama’s policies. That will make him the point person for the many Jewish groups gearing up to push their domestic agenda in what they expect will be a far more hospitable political environment.
Though the Jewish community is, at times, seen as more hawkish on foreign policy, its communal agenda puts it squarely in line with the mainstream Democratic philosophy that the recent election has brought to power, in the form of president-elect Barack Obama and larger Democratic majorities in both Houses of Congress.
As a result, based on a combination of campaign positions, party philosophy and early rumors of Cabinet appointments, Jewish groups are ready to promote an expanded agenda focused on social issues. But they will do so in an environment shaped by a deepening economic crisis, and with a president whom they expect will pick and choose his battles in the early days of his administration.
“The fact that they’ll all be from the same party should help our issues,” said William Daroff, United Jewish Communities’ representative in Washington, referring to the Democratic leadership in both Houses and in the White House. But an expanded social agenda “is not a slam dunk,” he added, pointing to the shrinking economy and growing needs that may limit the funding available for such issues as health care, public housing and welfare.
All of those issues will go through Emanuel, the son of a former member of the Irgun, Menachem Begin’s underground militia who volunteered in Israel during the first Gulf War. He is a familiar face to Jewish groups from his years as a senior policy adviser under President Bill Clinton, as well as from his stint in Congress. He is known both for his political talent — he engineered the Democrats’ takeover of the House in 2006 — and his intense, bristly personality.
He also comes from a notable family. His brother, Ari, a Hollywood agent, is the basis for the main character on HBO’s Entourage, while older brother Ezekiel is a prominent bioethicist.
Emanuel is Jewishly active — his children attend a day school in Chicago, and during the most tense days of the financial crisis, he asked his Orthodox rabbi if he could take a conference call about the bailout package during Rosh Hashana. (His rabbi said he could.) Emanuel’s moderate Democratic views on domestic policy also put him in sync with much of the organized Jewish community.
“He’s extraordinarily smart and disciplined, very focused, knows what needs to get done, and very organized in moving it forward,” said David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. “There’s not a lot of shmoozing, but a lot of extremely good work.”
Based on the Washington rumor mill, the Obama administration is expected to prominently feature several other Jewish names, as well.
While there is much overlap between the Jewish agenda and Obama’s declared ambitions on health care, assistance to poor and middle-income families, and renewable energy, the issue of immigration may face a tougher hurdle. In one sense, the Democratic sweep in this election strengthens the chances that comprehensive immigration reform — a failure during the Bush administration, mainly because of opposition by conservative Republicans — will be a higher priority in the next Congress.
But Jewish activists who back immigration reform are cautious, predicting that action may be delayed in favor of issues that are seen as more pressing and less controversial. “While we’re going to be pushing for an immediate return to the comprehensive immigration debate, there is a lot of competition at present, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it took somewhat longer than we wish,” said Gideon Aronoff, president and CEO of the Hebrew Immigration Aid Society, a group that led the lobbying effort for a more welcoming immigration policy.
One place where the Jewish community may split is on Obama’s declared intention to continue and even expand the Bush administration’s controversial program of funding social services through faith-based organizations. One restriction that the president-elect has already suggested is to limit the ability of groups that receive government funds to discriminate in hiring workers based solely on their faith.
“This is something we’re concerned about,” said Nathan Diament, the Orthodox Union’s public policy director, who opposes such restrictions. He added that Obama “was not clear enough” regarding his intentions on this issue.
But other Jewish groups have come out strongly in favor of such restrictions. Saperstein said he hoped that the Obama administration would clarify its views on the issue. “We agree strongly with the concept, but there is a wide range of views on how to implement that concept,” Saperstein told the Forward. “We hope it’s implemented in a way that both prevents discrimination and preserves religious freedom and autonomy.”
Thu. Nov 06, 2008 | |  | | Alpha | | Posted: Sat Nov 08, 2008 4:18 am Post subject: |
| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Obama, Emanuel and Israel
http://www.presstv.com/Detail.aspx?id=74658§ionid=3510304
Fri, 07 Nov 2008 23:17:59 GMT
By John V. Whitbeck
In the first major appointment of his administration, President-elect Barack Obama has named as his chief of staff Congressman Rahm Emanuel.
Emanuel is an Israeli citizen and Israeli army veteran whose father, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, was a member of Menachem Begin's Irgun forces during the Nakba and named his son after "a Lehi combatant who was killed" - i.e., a member of Yitzhak Shamir's terrorist Stern Gang, responsible for, in addition to other atrocities against Palestinians, the more famous bombing of the King David Hotel and assassination of the UN peace envoy Count Folke Bernadotte.
In rapid response to this news, the editorial in the next day's Arab News (Jeddah) was entitled "Don't pin much hope on Obama - Emanuel is his chief of staff and that sends a message". This editorial referred to the Irgun as a "terror organization" and concluded: "Far from challenging Israel, the new team may turn out to be as pro-Israel as the one it is replacing."
That was always likely. Obama repeatedly pledged unconditional allegiance to Israel during his campaign, most memorably in an address to the AIPAC national convention which Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery characterized as "a speech that broke all records for obsequiousness and fawning", and America's electing a black president has always been more easily imagined than any American president's declaring his country's independence from Israeli domination.
Still, one of the greatest advantages for the United States in electing Barack Hussein Obama was the prospect that the world's billion-plus Muslims, who now view the United States with almost universal loathing and hatred, would be dazzled by the new president's eloquence, life story, skin color and middle name, would think again with open minds and would give America a chance to redeem itself in their eyes and hearts - not incidentally, drastically shortening the long lines of aspiring jihadis eager to sacrifice their lives while striking a blow against the evil empire.
The profound loathing and hatred of the Muslim world toward the United States, which has always had its roots for America's unconditional support for the injustices inflicted and still being inflicted on the Palestinians, can fairly be considered the core of the primary foreign policy and "national security" problems confronting the United States in recent years. Why would Obama, a man of unquested brilliance, have chosen to send such a contemptuous message to the Muslim world with his first major appointment? Why would he wish to disabuse the Muslim world of its hopes (however modest) and slap it across the face at the ealiest opportunity?
A further contemptuous message is widely rumored to be forthcoming -- the naming as "Special Envoy for Middle East Peace" of Dennis Ross, the notorious Israel-Firster who, throughout the 12 years of the Bush the First and Clinton administrations, ensured that American policy toward the Palestinians did not deviate one millimeter from Israeli policy and that no progress toward peace could be made and who has since headed the AIPAC spin-off "think tank", the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Neverthess, since it is almost always constructive to seek a silver lining in the darkest clouds, a silver lining can be found and cited. For decades, the Palestinian leadership has been "waiting for Godot" - waiting for the US Government to finally do the right thing (if only in its own obvious self-interest) and to force Israel to comply with international law and UN Resolutions and permit them to have a decent mini-state on a tiny portion of the land that once was theirs.
This was never a realistic hope. It has not happened, and it will never happen. So it may well be salutary not to waste eight more days (let alone eight more years) playing along and playing the fool while more Palestinian lands are confiscated and more Jewish colonies and Jews-only bypass roads are built on them, clinging to the delusion that the charming Mr. Obama, admirable though he may be in so many other respects, will eventually (if only in a second term, when he no longer has to worry about reelection) see the light and do the right thing. It is long overdue for the Palestinians themselves to seize the initiative, to reset the agenda and to declare a new "only game in town".
Furthermore, in February, Israel will elect a new Knesset. Bibi Netanyahu, who, most polls and coalition-building calculations suggest, is most likely to emerge as the next prime minister, has one (if only one) great virtue. He is absolutely honest in not professing any desire (however insincere) to see the creation of any Palestinian "state" (whether decent or less-than-a-Bantustan in nature) or to engage in any talks (even never-ending and fraudulent ones) ostensibly about that possibility. His return to power would definitively slam the door on the illusion of a "two-state solution" somewhere over an ever-receding horizon.
This would constitute a blessing and a liberation for Palestinian minds and Palestinian aspirations. Their leadership(s) could then return, after a long, costly and painful diversion, to fundamental principles, to pursuing the goal of a democratic, nonracist and nonsectarian state in all of Israel/Palestine with equal rights for all who live there.
This just goal could and should be pursued by strictly nonviolent means. If the goal is to convince a determined and powerful settler-colonial movement which wishes to seize your land, settle it and keep it (eventually cleansing it of you and your fellow natives) that it should cease, desist and leave, nonviolent forms of resistance are suicidal. If, however, the goal were to be to obtain the full rights of citizenship in a democratic, nonracist state (as was the case in the American civil rights movement and the South African anti-apartheid movement), then nonviolence would be the only viable approach. Violence would be totally inappropriate and counterproductive. The morally impeccable approach would also be the tactically effective approach. The high road would be the only road.
No American president - least of all Barack Obama - could easily support racism and apartheid and oppose democracy and equal rights, particularly if democracy and equal rights were being pursued by nonviolent means. No one anywhere could easily do so. The writing would be on the wall, and the clock would be running out on the tired game of using a perpetual "peace process" as an excuse to delay decisions (while building more "facts on the ground") forever.
Democracy and equal rights would not come quickly or easily. Forty years passed between when, on the night before his assassination, Dr. Martin Luther King cried out that he had been to the mountaintop and had seen the promised land and when Barack Obama was elected as president of the United States. (The Bible suggests a similar waiting period in the wilderness for Moses.) Forty-six years passed between the installation of a formal apartheid regime in South Africa and the election of Nelson Mandela as president of a fully democratic and nonracist "rainbow nation".
While it may be hoped that the transformation would be significantly quicker in Israel/Palestine, it is clear that many who already qualify as "senior citizens" will not live to see the promised land. However, if the promised land of a democratic state with equal rights for all is correctly and clearly perceived and persistently and peacefully pursued, there is ample reason for confidence that Israel/Palestine will one day experience the tearful exaltation of a "Mandela Moment" or an "Obama Moment", restoring hope in the moral potential both of a nation and of mankind, and that the Jews, Muslims and Christians who live there will finally reach their promised land.
John V. Whitbeck, an international lawyer who has advised the Palestinian negotiating team in negotiations with Israel, is author of "The World According to Whitbeck".
Courtesy: www.Counterpunch.org | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Sat Nov 08, 2008 10:43 am Post subject: |
| Obama betraying us already?
Friday, 7 November 2008
Change I can't quite believe in
http://londonbanker.blogspot.com/
I wanted Obama to win. I really, really, really wanted Obama to win. McCain/Palin gave me nightmares. Just about the whole world held it’s collective breath willing Obama to win on Tuesday.
Obama’s election is powerful confirmation that America remains a land of opportunity, a democracy where power is allocated at the ballot box. It reassured the world that despite the lawlessness and arrogance of the past eight years, Americans are capable of enlightened, rational self-determination. It restores hope in much of the world that America can reorient itself toward tolerance and dialogue.
For all of that, I haven’t been happy since watching Obama’s acceptance speech live Wednesday morning on the BBC.
I have a bad feeling that America has just elected its Tony Blair. The package of Change the voters ordered isn’t what is being delivered to the White House.
The appointment of Rahm Emanuel as White House chief of staff didn’t ease my mind. Like Mr Blair’s close advisors Lord Goldsmith and Baron Levy, Mr Emanuel may inflame the suspicions in the Middle East that the agenda for the region under Obama will be no different than under Bush. The credibility of the United States as an honest broker and agent for peace will be further eroded if Obama’s gatekeeper is viewed as pre-disposed to more of the same policies which have fuelled hostilities. I hope it is not anti-Semitic to make the point that objectivity and fair dealing will be suspect with a chief of staff who is the son of an Irgun terrorist, who served as a civilian volunteer for the Israeli Army, and who has used his public positions in American politics – except for a brief stint at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein – to promote Israel’s interests.
Those who know Mr Emanuel suggest that because his devotion to Israel is unquestionable, he will be able to push Israelis toward moderation. But many in Israel, the Middle East and Washington will expect that future acts of aggression by Israel against Iran or other neighbours will be defended – if not promoted – by the man at Obama’s elbow.
The rumours that either Larry Summers or Tim Geithner will be made Treasury Secretary made me even queasier. The appointment of either of these architects of the current global financial disaster, these arch-deregulators and serial-forbearance artists, would be a great middle-finger to America’s foreign creditors and the global investors suffering asset deflation. Both men have been instrumental in, first, the Fed’s exported inflation via massive monetary bubble-blowing and, now, the Fed/FDIC/SIPC exported deflation through Chapter 11 and margin call orchestrations ensuring more pain abroad than at home.
Summers would be particularly egregious. Not only did Summers promote the Friedmanite export of toxic debt to the rest of the world at the Clinton Treasury, at the World Bank he promoted the export of toxic pollution to underdeveloped nations to add poison to poverty. To quote from his 1991 memo, "I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that."
The much bandied idea that Robert Gates, former deputy director of the CIA under President G.H.W. Bush, architect and financier of Saddam’s military machine and Bin Laden’s Al Qaida, might be kept as Secretary of Defense under Obama “for continuity’s sake” after six years of failed and callous military adventurism in Iraq and Afghanistan, with occasional illegal forays into Pakistan, Georgia, Syria and Iran, makes me frankly nauseous. If America is ever to restore its fiscal balance, cuts in the bloated military/security/ intelligence apparatus will have to be implemented. A career insider central to the creation and export of the bloat is the wrong man for the job.
Maybe the problem in America is not a struggle between rich and poor. Overtaxed and undertaxed. Empowered and disenfranchised. Educated and illiterate. Insured and uninsured. Law abiding and lawless. Godless and God-fearing. Republican and Democrat. Red and Blue.
Maybe the problem in America is there is no struggle about the fundamental mechanisms of American oppression and aggression: debt and threat.
American policies promote debt and force as the hammer and anvil for shaping the economy and the political dialogue. What cannot be financed into penury must be crushed into submission. The bulk of the economy is designed to prosper either the bankers or the police/ prison/military/intelligence industries at everyone else’s expense. Propped up on these twin pillars of debt and threat, America remains staunchly and irrevocably American whoever wins the elections.
The restoration of fiscal prudence has been swiftly repudiated post- election in favour of more debt-financed “stimulus” and “stabilisation”.
The restoration of the rule of law and holding those who committed crimes accountable – both within America and internationally – has received no post-election endorsement from Obama.
I asked the asylum Iraqis at the local kebab shop last night what they made of the American election. They follow the news, and I’ve always found them knowledgeable and articulate. The kebab chef (a former civil engineer from northern Iraq) looked glum. “It makes no difference. They are all the same.” I fear his well-informed cynicism is sound.
Our unglamorous and unelected British prime minister, Gordon Brown, called for more international cooperation “with American leadership central to its success” – as he toured the Arab Gulf with his begging bowl. He was physically following American “leadership” as he trailed Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Robert Kimmet’s pilgrimage to the Gulf last week. American leadership got us successfully into this debt crisis, and Brown appears determined to follow it even deeper.
The central banks in the UK, EU and Switzerland obliged yesterday by following the Fed toward negative real interest rates, discouraging savers and lenders alike by cutting 150bps, 50bps and 50bps respectively. Jean-Claude Trichet spoke of the cooperation of the central banks as a “brotherhood”. He made me think of the mafia or the Freemasons. Perhaps he meant to.
Obama’s election still inspires me. I still hope for change.
Obama demonstrated good judgement throughout the campaign, and good management of the people working for him. That in itself will bring major change to the White House.
Better managed American debt and threat policies under Obama will be an improvement over the horribly managed debt and threat policies under Bush. Some hope.
Posted by London Banker at 01:08 0 | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Mon Nov 10, 2008 7:12 am Post subject: |
| Conned Again
By Paul Craig Roberts
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21177.htm
November 09, 2008 "Information Clearinghouse" -- If the change President-elect Obama has promised includes a halt to America’s wars of aggression and an end to the rip-off of taxpayers by powerful financial interests, what explains Obama’s choice of foreign and economic policy advisors? Indeed, Obama’s selection of Rahm Israel Emanuel as White House chief of staff is a signal that change ended with Obama’s election. The only thing different about the new administration will be the faces.
Rahm Israel Emanuel is a supporter of Bush’s invasion of Iraq. Emanuel rose to prominence in the Democratic Party as a result of his fundraising connections to AIPAC. A strong supporter of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, he comes from a terrorist family. His father was a member of Irgun, a Jewish terrorist organization that used violence to drive the British and Palestinians out of Palestine in order to create the Jewish state. During the 1991 Gulf War, Rahm Israel Emanuel volunteered to serve in the Israel Defense Forces. He was a member of the Freddie Mac board of directors and received $231,655 in directors fees in 2001. According to Wikipedia, “during the time Emanuel spent on the board, Freddie Mac was plagued with scandals involving campaign contributions and accounting irregularities.”
In “Hail to the Chief of Staff,” Alexander Cockburn describes Emanuel as “a super-Likudnik hawk,” who as chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2006 “made great efforts to knock out antiwar Democratic candidates.”
My despondent friends in the Israeli peace movement ask, “What is this man doing in Obama’s administration?”
Obama’s election was necessary as the only means Americans had to hold the Republicans accountable for their crimes against the Constitution and human rights, for their violations of US and international laws, for their lies and deceptions, and for their financial chicanery. As an editorial in Pravda put it, “Only Satan would have been worse than the Bush regime. Therefore it could be argued that the new administration in the USA could never be worse than the one which divorced the hearts and minds of Americans from their brothers in the international community, which appalled the rest of the world with shock and awe tactics that included concentration camps, torture, mass murder and utter disrespect for international law.”
But Obama’s advisers are drawn from the same gang of Washington thugs and Wall Street banksters as Bush’s. Richard Holbrooke, son of Russian and German Jews, was an assistant secretary of state and ambassador in the Clinton administration. He implemented the policy to enlarge NATO and to place the military alliance on Russia’s border in contravention of Reagan’s promise to Gorbachev. Holbrooke is also associated with the Clinton administration’s illegal bombing of Serbia, a war crime that killed civilians and Chinese diplomats. If not a neocon himself, Holbrooke is closely allied with them.
According to Wikipedia, Madeline Albright was born Marie Jana Korbelova in Prague to Jewish parents who had converted to Catholicism in order to escape persecution. She is the Clinton era secretary of state who told Leslie Stahl (60 Minutes) that the US policy of Iraq sanctions, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children, had goals important enough to justify the children’s deaths. Albright’s infamous words: “we think the price is worth it.” Wikipedia reports that this immoralist served on the board of directors of the New York Stock Exchange at the time of Dick Grasso’s $187.5 million compensation scandal.
Dennis Ross has long associations with the Israeli-Palestinian “peace negotiations.” A member of his Clinton era team, Aaron David Miller, wrote that during 1999-2000 the US negotiating team led by Ross acted as Israel’s lawyer: “we had to run everything by Israel first.” This “stripped our policy of the independence and flexibility required for serious peacemaking. If we couldn't put proposals on the table without checking with the Israelis first, and refused to push back when they said no, how effective could our mediation be?” According to Wikipedia, Ross is “chairman of a new Jerusalem-based think tank, the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute, funded and founded by the Jewish Agency.”
Clearly, this is not a group of advisors that is going to halt America’s wars against Israel’s enemies or force the Israeli government to accept the necessary conditions for a real peace in the Middle East.
Ralph Nader predicted as much. In his “Open Letter to Barack Obama (November 3, 2008), Nader pointed out to Obama that his “transformation from an articulate defender of Palestinian rights . . . to a dittoman for the hard-line AIPAC lobby” puts Obama at odds with “a majority of Jewish-Americans” and “64% of Israelis.” Nader quotes the Israeli writer and peace advocate Uri Avnery’s description of Obama’s appearance before AIPAC as an appearance that “broke all records for obsequiousness and fawning.” Nader damns Obama for his “utter lack of political courage [for] surrendering to demands of the hard-liners to prohibit former president Jimmy Carter from speaking at the Democratic National Convention.” Carter, who achieved the only meaningful peace agreement between Israel and the Arabs, has been demonized by the powerful AIPAC lobby for criticizing Israel’s policy of apartheid toward the Palestinians whose territory Israel forcibly occupies.
Obama’s economic team is just as bad. Its star is Robert Rubin, the bankster who was secretary of the treasury in the Clinton administration. Rubin has responsibility for the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act and, thereby, responsibility for the current financial crisis. In his letter to Obama, Nader points out that Obama received unprecedented campaign contributions from corporate and Wall Street interests. “Never before has a Democratic nominee for President achieved this supremacy over his Republican counterpart.”
Obama’s victory speech was magnificent. The TV cameras scanning faces in the audience showed the hope and belief that propelled Obama into the presidency. But Obama cannot bring change to Washington. There is no one in the Washington crowd that he can appoint who is capable of bringing change. If Obama were to reach outside the usual crowd, anyone suspected of being a bringer of change could not get confirmed by the Senate. Powerful interest groups--AIPAC, the military-security complex, Wall Street--use their political influence to block unacceptable appointments.
As Alexander Cockburn put it in his column, “Obama, the first-rate Republican,” “never has the dead hand of the past had a ‘reform’ candidate so firmly by the windpipe.” Obama confirmed Cockburn’s verdict in his first press conference as president-elect. Disregarding the unanimous US National Intelligence Estimate, which concluded that Iran stopped working on nuclear weapons five years ago, and ignoring the continued certification by the International Atomic Energy Agency that none of the nuclear material for Iran’s civilian nuclear reactor has been diverted to weapons use, Obama sallied forth with the Israel Lobby’s propaganda and accused Iran of “development of a nuclear weapon” and vowing “to prevent that from happening.” http://news.antiwar.com/2008/11/07/obama-hits-out-at-iran-closemouthed-on-tactics/
The change that is coming to America has nothing to do with Obama. Change is coming from the financial crisis brought on by Wall Street greed and irresponsibility, from the eroding role of the US dollar as reserve currency, from countless mortgage foreclosures, from the offshoring of millions of America’s best jobs, from a deepening recession, from pillars of American manufacturing--Ford and GM--begging the government for taxpayers’ money to stay alive, and from budget and trade deficits that are too large to be closed by normal means.
Traditionally, the government relies on monetary and fiscal policy to lift the economy out of recession. But easy money is not working. Interest rates are already low and monetary growth is already high, yet unemployment is rising. The budget deficit is already huge--a world record--and the red ink is not stimulating the economy. Can even lower interest rates and even higher budget deficits help an economy that has moved offshore, leaving behind jobless consumers overburdened with debt?
How much more can the government borrow? America’s foreign creditors are asking this question. An official organ of the Chinese ruling party recently called for Asian and European countries to “banish the US dollar from their direct trade relations, relying only on their own currencies.”
“Why,” asks another Chinese publication, “should China help the US to issue debt without end in the belief that the national credit of the US can expand without limit?”
The world has tired of American hegemony and had its fill of American arrogance. America’s reputation is in tatters: the financial debacle, endless red ink, Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, rendition, torture, illegal wars based on lies and deception, disrespect for the sovereignty of other countries, war crimes, disregard for international law and the Geneva Conventions, the assault on habeas corpus and the separation of powers, a domestic police state, constant interference in the internal affairs of other countries, boundless hypocrisy.
The change that is coming is the end of American empire. The hegemon has run out of money and influence. Obama as “America’s First Black President” will lift hopes and, thus, allow the act to be carried on a little longer. But the New American Century is already over.
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http://NEOCONZIONISTTHREAT.COM
http://NOMOREWARFORISRAEL.BLOGSPOT.COM | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 10:38 am Post subject: |
| http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1034855.html
Obama's first pick: Israeli Rahm Emanuel as chief of staff
By Haaretz Correspondents and AP , By Anshel Pfeffer and Shlomo Shamir
A day after his historic election to become the first black American president, Barack Obama stepped into the role of president-elect yesterday, inviting Rahm Emanuel to join his administration as White House chief of staff, Democratic officials said.
Emanuel, a former Bill Clinton adviser, is the son of a Jerusalem-born pediatrician who was a member of the Irgun (Etzel or IZL), a militant Zionist group that operated in Palestine between 1931 and 1948.
Obama intends to announce key cabinet and staff staff members in the next few days to ensure a swift transition to the White House in January, which would allow him to deal with the global economic crisis as quickly as possible.
If Emanuel accepts, he will return to the White House, where he served as a political and policy adviser to Clinton. Emanuel is the fourth-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives as the Democratic Caucus chairman.
Emanuel knows Obama from his hometown Chicago and headed the special team that planned the midterm elections in 2006, in which the Democrats recaptured a Congressional majority.
Emanuel also served as inspiration for the fictional character Joshua "Josh" Lyman, the deputy White House chief of staff, played by Bradley Whitford on the television drama "The West Wing."
Obama is expected to appoint loyal advisers and aides to central cabinet and staff positions, as well as experienced officials from the Clinton administration and a few prominent Republicans to enhance his intention to bridge political gaps.
Several Democrats said Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, the party's 2004 presidential nominee, was actively seeking appointment as secretary of state in the new administration.
They said Obama would issue a written statement announcing that his transition team would be headed by John Podesta, who served as chief of staff under Clinton; Pete Rouse, who has been Obama's chief of staff in the Senate; and Valerie Jarrett, a friend of the president-elect and campaign adviser.
One of the most talked-about appointments is the Treasury Department secretary. The names most mentioned for this post are former Clinton administration Treasury bosses Lawrence Summers and Robert Rubin. Or Obama might keep Secretary Henry Paulson.
Other candidates include a former Summers deputy, Timothy Geithner, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and billionaires Warren Buffett and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
The president-elect had breakfast yesterday with his wife and daughters, then left his house for a workout at a nearby gym. Aides said he intended to visit his campaign headquarters later in the day to thank his staff.
Obama has 10 weeks to build a new administration. But his status as an incumbent member of Congress presents issues unseen since 1960, when Democrat John F. Kennedy moved from the Senate to the White House.
Rahm Emanuel's father, Benjamin, yesterday refused to comment on the report that his son was appointed White House chief of staff. He told Haaretz that he would only comment after speaking to his son.
"Obama is a pro-Israeli leader and will be a friend to Israel," he said, adding that he was pleased with Obama's election. He also said his son is the namesake of Rahamim, a Lehi combatant who was killed.
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http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3616306,00.html
Obama's Israeli adviser: Next White House chief of staff?
US Congressman Rahm Emanuel, who served as Clinton's adviser after volunteering for IDF service during Gulf War, may be appointed chief of staff if Democratic presidential candidate wins elections
Orly Azoulay
Israel may earn more White House representation than it bargained for, in the event that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama emerges victorious from the November 4 elections.
Congressman Rahm Emanuel, who has served in the Israel Defense Forces and even speaks a little Hebrew, could be appointed the White House's next chief of staff.
Chicago-born Emanuel, 49, is currently representing the state of Illinois in the House of Representatives. He is also one of Obama's most trusted advisors, and the presidential candidate has called him a friend as well as a political associate.
Emanuel's father, Benjamin, is an Israeli-born doctor. His mother, Martha, is an American Jew who works for a Chicago civil rights organization. As a child, Emanuel received a Jewish education at a conservative school and spoke Hebrew with his father at home.
When Bill Clinton began his campaign for presidency, he appointed Rahm Emanuel to direct the campaign's finance committee. But Emanuel left when the Gulf War broke out, in order to volunteer in the IDF.
He served in one of Israel's northern bases until the war ended, and upon his return to the US became Clinton's advisor in the White House for almost eight years.
In 2003 Emanuel decided to embark on his own political career, and was elected representative of the state of Illinois. In 2006 he was elected chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and assisted the party in gaining a majority in the House of Representatives.
Emanuel joined the Obama campaign during its dawning stages, after turning down an offer from Bill Clinton asking him to join his wife Hillary's campaign for the Democratic nomination to presidential candidacy.
The congressman's wife, Amy, converted to Judaism a short time before they were married. They have two children, both of whom study at a Jewish school in Chicago.
Obama has already announced that if he becomes the next US president, he would take Emanuel with him to the White House, possibly to serve as chief of staff. | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
