Worried about Hillary as president #1

Hillary Clinton is worrying me.   What I didn't like in her 2008 campaign -- too scripted, too cautious, hewing too close to the centrist position on issues where I wish she were more progressive and passionate -- seems to be showing up again, more and more.

What I really want is a blend of Hillary's experience and Elizabeth Warren progressive populism and her ability to simply "tell it like it is."    Hillary is too worried about offending the powers that be and the status quo.

I'm still willing to champion her as the 2016 nominee, because (1) she can win and (2) no one has ever before been better prepared to be president.   In addition, she is very smart and she has a good heart on a personal level.   I'm just not sure she translates it into policy when there are competing groups to appease.

My worry increased another notche a couple of days ago when she openly broke with President Obama's position on Syria, saying she felt we should have intervened.   But then I reasoned:   she needs to make a break with him for political reasons, lest she be painted as running for Obama's 3rd term.    So, ok on that one.

But I got a real chill yesterday when I read that she is spouting Benjamin Netanyahu's propaganda.    I'm fine with her declaring her support for Israel.   I thought it was going a little far to call it a "vociferous defense of Natanyahu," and then she re-iterated what I know to be wrong.   Here's what she told the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg:

"What you see on TV is so effectively stage-managed by Hamas, and always has been. . . What you see is largely what Hamas invites and permits Western journalists to report on from Gaza.  It’s the old PR problem that Israel has. Yes, there are substantive, deep levels of antagonism or anti-Semitism towards Israel, because it’s a powerful state, a really effective military. And Hamas paints itself as the defender of the rights of the Palestinians to have their own state. So the PR battle is one that is historically tilted against Israel.”

From what I've heard and read, this is just not true.   Israel is the one winning the PR battle, by far.   All you need do is listen for 2 minutes to Netanyahu's spokesman Mark Regev (see ShrinkRap on Aug 4th).  Michael Calderone wrote in the Washington Post:

"Some commentators recently suggested Israel was losing the media war . . . .  The reasons they pinpointed weren't anti-Semitism or historical antagonism toward Israel, but that journalists' real-time coverage of devastation and civilian deaths -- including those of hundreds of Palestinian children -- offered a new perspective on the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  

"The Israeli foreign ministry recently highlighted some journalists' allegations of Hamas intimidation, but those journalists appear to be in the minority. Haaretz, a left-leaning Israel paper, reported Friday that there have been "only a handful" of such allegations, despite 710 foreign journalists recently reporting inside Gaza.

"Several journalists, many of whom spoke anonymously to Haaretz, flatly rejected the claim that Hamas intimidated them into not reporting events they witnessed.  One reporter who spent three weeks in Gaza told Haaretz “it’s a phony controversy” and an attempt by Israel to claim media bias. . ."

While it is true that we do not see Hamas fighters firing the rockets into Israel, the international journalists themselves explain that rockets are always fired from secret locations, and its true they do not have access.   But the tv news has been full of rockets being blown up in the air over Israel by their Iron Dome system.   There was no secret that Hamas fired the rockets.   

Yes, we've seen endless films of Israeli missiles and shells destroying Palestinian buildings and homes.  Even Netanyahu doesn't claim that there is comparable footage of Hamas rockets destroying Israeli buildings and homes that are being suppressed -- because most of the rockets are destroyed before they cause destruction.   So what does he claim is being censored?

Perhaps the truth is somewhere between the two.   But I certainly don't believe that Hamas is controlling what we see on TV -- nearly as much as Israel is trying to.   The New York Times reported recently that their access to Israeli news sources is dependent on an agreement to withhold what Israel does not want them to publish.

Here's what I think has happened to news coverage.   Journalists have not been denied access by Hamas;  on the contrary they have had unprecedented access to cover the story of Palestinian deprivation and suffering.  

We have seen -- in stark, real-time graphic reality --the effects of Israel's self-defense.  These images, as opposed to Israel's stated intentions is seeking to defend itself -- are what has shocked the world.

Netanyahu -- repeated by Clinton -- has it backwards.  It's more access, not less, that has changed the world opinion of what's happening.  What has become so starkly clear is that Israel's fight is with Hamas -- but the Palestinian people are the ones suffering.  I find little sympathy for Mark Regev's (Netanyahu's spokesman) assertion that, because they put Hamas in power through an open election, the Palestinian people are therefore responsible for their own deaths when Israel defends itself against Hamas.

Again, I want to emphasize that I am not siding with Hamas.   They do some pretty bad things.   But I am strongly in support of the Palestinian people in their extreme deprivation and suffering, as I also strongly support the Israeli people's right to a peaceful existence.   For Hillary to ignore that difference between Hamas and the Palestinian people, in her vociferous defense of Netanyahu's talking points, worries me . . . a lot.

Ralph