Why Liberals Gave Samantha Power the Cold Shoulder — and the Point They Missed
Keynote plenary speakers included the former Israeli foreign minister-turned-opposition firebrand Tzipi Livni, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat and the charismatic new Israeli Arab political leader, Ayman Odeh. All three delivered fiery denunciations of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies and urgent appeals for a two-state Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. All three were received with repeated cheers and standing ovations.
And then there was the reception given during the day’s closing session to keynoter Samantha Power, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and renowned human rights campaigner. Speaking for the Obama administration, she delivered a grim survey of the ongoing threat of global anti-Semitism. She segued from that to the persistence of Arab-led mistreatment of Israel at the U.N. and the U.S. battle against it. She described Israel’s key contributions to the fight against Ebola and earthquake relief in Haiti. She reviewed the Obama administration’s “unparalleled” security aid to Israel. And she recalled America’s continued support for the two-state solution and opposition to Israeli settlements.
The audience response: utter, stony silence. Except for polite applause when she began and finished, you could have heard a pin drop in the vast hall. She might as well have been talking to an empty room.
Delegates I questioned afterward were variously defensive, indignant or sheepish about the silence. “That’s not what I came here for,” said one, who (like everyone else I questioned about Power) asked not to be quoted by name. “I get enough of that everywhere else,” said another. “She didn’t know her audience,” said a third.
Read more: http://forward.com/opinion/israel/327162/how-liberal-zionists-ignored-samantha-power/#ixzz3ug693uU4
Another take on that Haaretz gathering. I noticed they said 1000 liberal were there. Not how many actual Jews. Their pathetic response to Powers was really all anyone needed to see.
