From Rabbi Amy Weiss, the founder and executive director of The Initiative for Jewish Women, via Houston Chronicle:

We Jews like the rest of the world to think we get along with each other, never embarrass ourselves as a people and generally behave like upstanding citizens. Jews are great at rallying together for a cause. Which is why when we are targeted by political groups, whether it is about policy on Israel or opinions about public vs. private schools, I get nervous that our reactions as individuals quickly translates into mass overreaction that quickly slides into the “hysteria” from which we suffer, so poignantly pointed in the 1927 Jewish Encyclopedia’s article entitled “Nervous Disorders”.

When the political campaigns of Barack Obama’s opponents started disseminating “information” about Obama’s positions on the Middle East, the emails started to fly. Retired Jewish men and women who love to hit the “forward” button on jokes, tributes, cute pictures and assorted warnings sprang into action, as did the bar/bat mitzvah moms who send around “how hard it is to be a mom” missives (as if we needed reminding).Only after the cyber onslaught did a few people start to ask questions and come to find out that our folks had been had as part of a plan to gain support for other candidates. (more…)

Perhaps you’ve seen or heard about the advertisement by the Republican Jewish Coalition recently published in three major South Florida newspapers in advance of an appearance by Barack Obama at a synagogue there. The RJC ad attempts to spread FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) by “asking” three questions designed, once again, to scurrilously imply that Senator Barack Obama is anti-Israel or anti-Semitic.

The National Jewish Democratic Council released the following statement in response to the RJC ad:

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Barack’s oft-stated position is that you cannot negotiate with Hamas until they renounce violence and accept the treaties signed by the PA. He is being attacked by Bush/McCain as an “appeaser.” Yet, when Hamas won the democratic election sponsored and pushed entirely by George Bush, Senator John McCain was happy to explain why they won the election and why the US should consider engaging with them:

This interview by Rubin for SkyTV was recently described in the Washington Post

Rubin: “Do you think that American diplomats should be operating the way they have in the past, working with the Palestinian government if Hamas is now in charge?”

McCain: “They’re the government; sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them, one way or another, and I understand why this administration and previous administrations had such antipathy towards Hamas because of their dedication to violence and the things that they not only espouse but practice, so . . . but it’s a new reality in the Middle East. I think the lesson is people want security and a decent life and decent future, THEN they want democracy. Fatah was not giving them that.”

We at JewsForObama have been fighting the “Schvitz Boating” of Obama since the the Muslim slander started in 2007. Today some heavy artillery rolled in, in the form of Pulitzer-Prize NYTimes Columnist Thomas Friedman!

Obama and the Jews

Pssst. Have you heard? I have. I heard that Barack Obama once said there has to be “an end” to the Israeli “occupation” of the West Bank “that began in 1967.” Yikes!

Pssst. Have you heard? I have. I heard that Barack Obama said that not only must Israel be secure, but that any peace agreement “must establish Palestine as a homeland for the Palestinian people.” Yikes!

Pssst. Have you heard? I have. I heard that Barack Obama once said “the establishment of the state of Palestine is long overdue. The Palestinian people deserve it.” Yikes! Yikes! Yikes!

Those are the kind of rumors one can hear circulating among American Jews these days about whether Barack Obama harbors secret pro-Palestinian leanings. I confess: All of the above phrases are accurate. I did not make them up.

There’s just one thing: None of them were uttered by Barack Obama. (more…)

Pro-Israel Republicans have latched upon an out-of-context quote from Senator Barack Obama’s interview with The Atlantic and used it as proof for these absurd accusations:

• Obama blames American policy for Islamic terrorism.
• Obama believes that resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would eliminate radical Islamci extremism.
• Obama believes that Israel is a “constant sore” that “infects all of our foreign policy”.

None of these are true.  They’re yet another example of the lies and distortions perpetuated by the pro-Israel Right in their effort to smear and discredit a man of integrity who is a true friend of Israel.

Read the whole interview and judge for yourself, or you can read Ami Eden’s debunking of the attacks, or what Jeffrey Goldberg (the writer at The Atlantic who interviewed Obama) had to say about them, or perhaps you’ll prefer to hear it from Jack Tapper of ABC News.  This smear has also been condemned by John Kerry and ridiculed by The Washington Post.  It’s looking a lot like it’s going to backfire on its creators even worse than the bone-headed “gas tax holiday” idea backfired on McCain and Clinton.

If you’ve read the “50 Obama Lies and Counting” smear that’s been circulating around the Internet, or one of its variants, then you’re probably wondering whether there’s any truth to it. The fact is, it’s not 50 lies by Obama, it’s 50 lies about him. Read on to find out the truth.

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Right-wing pro-Israel blogger Ted Belman has recently embarrassed himself by joining the stampede of conservative Republicans so desperate to keep Senator Barack Obama out of the White House that they’ll say just about anything to scare people out of voting for him.

Make no mistake, Belman and his ilk are scared.  The smear tactics which worked so well against John Kerry in 2004 just don’t seem to be working on Obama.  So, what’s an ideologue to do?  The answer, apparently, is to take a gaggle of absurd accusations against Obama, combine them into a hastily written hodgepodge of rumor and innuendo, and throw them out into the blogosphere in the hope that “a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”

Here’s what the smear-mongers want you to believe:

Read more…