Obama's Middle East Advisers

What about Rashid Khalidi?

Seriously, though(although, seriously, Khalidi is hardly the terrorist loving nut the wingers would have you believe he is and his input and insight would probably be quite helpful valuable), I'm with Joe on Vali Nasr. Gerges would be a good choice also. Nasr has the added bonus of being a both a Shi'ite and Iranian...and I think there's where our foreign policy establishment needs the most help these days. (even though the Arab-Israeli conflict involves mostly Sunni Arabs)

I'm wondering whether in this as in other areas Obama is establishing his centrist bona fides before branching out.
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How much of Obama's mid-east policy is going to be shaped by Rahm Emanuel?

And to bolster the point that Obama's been choosing centrist (or center-right) people and then adding people on the left, Gene Robinson is going to give the invocation at the kick-off inaugural event at the Lincoln memorial. (Robinson is an openly gay Episcopal bishop from NH)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/12/gene-robinson-gay-bishop_n_157076.html

Hmmm. So you're saying that it's difficult for anyone to mention such things without being accused of anti-semitism. Interesting thing to note.
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So it's almost as if there is some sort of institutional structure which enforces the status quo.... Hmmm. Almost a "lobby" one might say, which seems to value the interests of "Israel" very highly.
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Hmmm. What would one call such a lobby, I wonder? What would be the proper name?
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I can think of one, but as I'm not a Jewish male, I'd better keep it to myself.

I suppose that it falls to Jewish males like Cohen (and me) to point out this discrepancy since anyone else making the observation would immediately be accused of anti-semitism by the usual suspects.
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"The usual suspects" Good God, Klein! Why don't you just call them the "money changers"?
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Must I point out the obvious? Obama has a muslim middle name!!!! A negotiation team of Jewish males IS the balance.

um sqr1 - so you're saying all those Republican emails were right, and Obama's a muslim???
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I don't really think you are, but although Obama's name will garner him some sympathy and interest on the street, now that he's elected no one in the Middle East is seriously going to think that a "muslim name" is the same as a pro-palestinian position.

How about a 4 year moratorium on Jewish males in Middle East policy?

kathy: But Hannity would stroke out. Also McCain would have to take back all the nice things he said about Obama.

Art Pepper: "But Hannity would stroke out."
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You say that like it would be a bad thing.

Sqr1: "Must I point out the obvious? Obama has a muslim middle name!!!! A negotiation team of Jewish males IS the balance."
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Um... yikes.

Joe Klein:
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Please provide links or quotes that substantiate your claim:
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...anyone else making the observation would immediately be accused of anti-semitism by the usual suspects...
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Who are "usual suspects"?
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Do they have jobs writing high-profile commentary for (supposedly) editorially "liberal" national newspapers bearing the names of important Eastern cities?
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Really, honestly, Joe Klein, to whom exactly are you referring?

Imagine if Obama's middle-name was Saul...

"I suppose that it falls to Jewish males like Cohen (and me) to point out this discrepancy since anyone else making the observation would immediately be accused of anti-semitism by the usual suspects."
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Being a Jewish male doesn't make one immune to the accusation of anti-semitism, as I'm sure you know quite well. It was pitiful to watch the scorn and abuse being heaped on John Mearsheimer after "The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy" was published.

bbpdx Says:

"Hmmm. What would one call such a lobby, I wonder? What would be the proper name?
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I can think of one, but as I'm not a Jewish male, I'd better keep it to myself."
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shhhhhh.....don't talk about the elephant in the room.

The important thing is not that they are Jewish. It is that they have tried and failed. Time to move forward with new thinking!

One can imagine the howls if Obama named an all-Arab team to negotiate a middle east peace.
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Joe Klein:
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Ummm...that actually sounds pretty reasonable to me.
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I've noticed that there are a heck of a lot of Arab people in the middle east.
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The only big problem with the all-Arab formula would be that there wouldn't be any Persians to help deal with the specific context of Iranian politics. You are talking about the broader middle east, right? Syria and Lebanon? Iran and Iraq? Saudi Arabia exporting jihadi movement? Kurdistan? The potential issues if the repressive secular regimes in Egypt or Jordan fall to popular Islamic revolutionaries? You're talking about "negotiating" in terms of a diplomatic process that allows the actors in that region to know the US position on issues, correct?
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By "negotiate a middle east peace", you aren't referring to us, the United States of America negotiating a peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians, right? That would be crazy! What could possibly be the intelligent rationale for our involvement in that cauldron of violence?
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I mean, that would be like us trying to negotiate peace between the Pakistanis and the Indians during a hot conflict over Kashmir! We would be certain to acquire almost perpetual antagonism from one or the other (or both), that would undoubtedly come back to haunt us, probably in the form of commercial airliners flying into tall buildings.
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What Serious, reasonable foreign policy team would even attempt such a foolish, unproductive, lose-lose shot-in-the-dark? The best we can do is to just leave these people alone, and not be the enemy of either side. It's not like we're supplying billions of dollars in cash for arms to either side, right Joe? It's not like when we gave all that money to the "revolutionaries" fighting the government of Angola (and terrorizing the countryside) back in the eighties, is it?
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Why is it in the interests of the United States to be involved in this intractable foreign conflict at all?

Good article Joe,

But I think you miss a big point made by Cohen when he points out that too many in Congress and in the U.S. government in general see the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the prism of the "War on Terror". Where is the concern about Palestinian citizems? Why is congress more concerned about Israeli soldiers than Palestinian children?

It is going to take more than a few token Arab-Americans to help with this crisis. It is going to take a whole new way of thinking.

Thinking is lacking in the Israeli government. While it is taking shots at the Hamas military, it is actually killing Palestinian moderates. Every child killed only breeds more hatred. When is Israel going to acknowledge the suffering of the Palestinians as much more than collateral damage to their invasion?

No one outside the Muslim world thinks Israel should not defend itself. However, telling Palestinians to leave their homes, only to go to be blown up elsewhere is not humane treatment. Where are the Palestinians to go? They live in a 25 by 7 mile prison effectively controlled by Israel and reliant on the international community for survival.

Well, if you're really going to go with a multi-ethnic middle east negotiating team, you'll need more than just Jews and Arabs. You'll need to get the right mix of Sunni's and Shia's and also include some Persians. And the Kurds should really get a rep too, there are significant Kurdish populations in Iran, Iraq, Turkey,and Afghanistan.
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Also, some Palestinians would need to be appointed because let's face it, the rest of the Arab world only really cares about the Palestinians when they need slave labor in Saudi and Kuwait or when it's a useful way to distract their populations from how awful their government is.

@JK: "...It seems to me that some, er, balance is in order."
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Recall that John Kerry suggested in 2004 that the US should be more "evenhanded" in our approach to the mideast peace process. Kerry was even handed his @ss on a plate for that comment. By the usual suspects.

[...] include any Arabs or persians, it is made amost exclusively of American Jews. This fact was also highlighted by Joe Klein of Time [...]

[...] Joe Klein post where he points out that there is a lack of ethnic balance in Obama’s rumored Middle [...]

[...] Joe Klein post where he points out that there is a lack of ethnic balance in Obama’s rumored Middle [...]

[...] Swampland - TIME.com » Blog Archive Obama's Middle East Advisers « Obama’s Middle East Advisers #arkayne { clear: both; }_title_font = 'arial';_title_color = '000000';_title_background = '';_title_underline = '1';_title_size = '14';_title = 'true';_title_text = '';_title_internal = 'false';_title_internal_text = '';_title_external = 'false';_title_external_text = '';_body_font = 'arial';_body_color = '333333';_body_background = '';_body_size = '12';_body_width = '100%';_body_height = 'auto';_link_threshold = '100';_link_limit = '5';_link_limit_internal = '0';_link_limit_external = '0';_type = 'wordpress'; widget(); Send to Facebook [...]

Fawaz Gerges? Really? You don't see that as a controversial pick? Gergez repeatedly minimized the threat of Osama bin Laden before 9/11. He's had some pretty negative things to say about U.S. foreign policy in the last 10 years or so and seems to filter incoming news stories through the what-makes-Israel-look-terrible filter. And you think that Gerges would be a rational pick?

I agree, there should definitely be some Arab voices on Obama's team but I think they should be more mainstream than Fawas Gerges. I've interviewed him before and to insinuate that he's even-handed would be wrong.

Pete Mansoor, however, would be an excellent choice.

So problem is that the proposed advisers are pretty much exclusively Jews? And the supposed solution is to appoint Muslims?

How about NOT appointing so many people who have conflicts of interests in representing AMERICA'S interest.

Even better, why are we in the middle of their squabbles in the first place?