Obama adviser Samantha Power has been trying to distance herself from her recommendation in a 2002 interview about an American military invasion of Israel meant to protect the “Palestinians” from Israel. She has claimed since then that she doesn’t remember why she said this. The comments seem “weird” to her now, or so she says.
Martin Kramer reconstructed the context of her remarks in a post on his website in March 2008 and it’s worth looking at it again now. The context of her remarks is every bit as worrisome as her comments are when they stand alone.
Martin Kramer in March 2008:
It isn’t too difficult to see all the red flags in this answer. Having placed Israel’s leader on par with Yasser Arafat, she called for massive military intervention on behalf of the Palestinians, to impose a solution in defiance of Israel and its American supporters. Billions of dollars would be shifted from Israel’s security to the upkeep of a “mammoth protection force” and a Palestinian state—all in the name of our “principles.”
Samantha Power has since explained that it’s hard for her to reconstruct what she meant when she said this, but Martin Kramer knows:
It must be awful, at such a young age, to lose track of why you recommended the massive deployment of military force, and not that long ago. So let me help Samantha Power: I can reconstruct exactly what she meant.
Power gave the interview on April 29, 2002. This was the tail end of Israel’s Operation Defensive Shield, Israel’s offensive into the West Bank in reaction to a relentless campaign of Palestinian suicide bombings that had killed Israeli civilians in the hundreds. The military operation included the clearing of terrorists from the West Bank city of Jenin (April 3-19). At the time, Palestinian spokespersons had duped much of the international media and human rights community into believing that a massacre of innocent Palestinians had taken place in Jenin. It had not, but the name of Israel had been smeared, particularly in academe. At Harvard, pro-Palestinian activists canvassed the faculty for support of a petition calling on Harvard to divest from Israel. (It was published on May 6.)
Power at the time was executive director of Harvard’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, which she founded in 1999. In 2001, she had recruited a celebrity director for the Carr Center: Michael Ignatieff, a Canadian intellectual and journalist who, like herself, had come to prominence writing about atrocities in the Balkans and Africa.
…The Carr Center under this management team generally steered clear of the Middle East. But in that spring of 2002, the pressure to come up with something was very great. Ignatieff, who had been to the Middle East a few times, took the lead. On April 19, 2002, only ten days before Power emitted her “weird” quote, Ignatieff published an op-ed in the London Guardian, under this headline: “Why Bush Must Send in His Troops.”
...More relevant now are Ignatieff’s policy conclusions. “Neither side is capable of making peace,” he determined, “or even sitting in the same room to discuss it.” The United States should therefore move “to impose a two-state solution now.”
…So Ignatieff’s op-ed was exactly what Power meant. That she should claim no recollection of any of this context seems… weird. Or perhaps not. Remember, Ignatieff wasn’t talking about deploying “international peacekeepers,” the context Power now suggests for her words. He specifically proposed United States troops, followed by anyone else who was ”willing.” Their job wouldn’t be to keep the peace, but to “enforce the solution.” Far better today for Power to have some kind of blackout, than to tell the truth about the “dramatic exercise” she and Ignatieff envisioned.
Martin Kramer’s full article: Speaking truth to Power
On late March 2002, a suicide bomber murdered 30 Jews on the first evening of Passover at the Seder dinner. Most of the victims were elderly. Some of them were Holocaust survivors.
After this attack, Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon started an operation against the terrorists who were organizing and perpetrating suicide attacks in Israel. This operation (combined with the effects of the security fence) reduced suicide bombings down to almost zero over the next two years.
Samantha Power and her colleagues responded to the murders of 30 elderly Jews on Passover and the subsequent military operation that worked to end (almost 100%) suicide bombings in Israel with the decision that the American military should invade Israel to protect the “Palestinians.”
Samantha Power knew what she was doing at the time no matter how much she denies it now. Her views are pro-terrorism. They’re also pro-genocide when it comes to Israel and the Jewish people.
We need to get the word out more about her.
Tags: Samantha Power
