RT Did Obama edit History?

Even four weeks later, President Barak Obama’s Cairo speech is still reverberating in Washington, D.C. To his credit, the president used the speech to shatter an ugly myth when he confronted Holocaust denial.

But unfortunately, President Obama’s speech actually reinforced other dangerous myths about Israel’s history and the true obstacles to peace in the Middle East.

Last Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu stepped up to set the record straight. And last week, two Democratic senators—Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada and Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey—added their voices to the chorus of correction. Taking on a popular president from your own party is never easy. It is therefore of great significance that these two Democrats felt the need to clarify that when it comes to the specifics of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the president does not speak for the party.

Nearly two weeks ago, Democratic Majority Leader Sen. Reid, sent a letter to President Obama. Reid politely reminded the president of the real threats to peace in the Middle East. In Cairo, President Obama glossed over the long history of Palestinian rejection of Israel’s right to exist. Sen. Reid wrote, “I believe that negotiations will be successful only with a renewed commitment from the Palestinians to be a true partner for peace.”

In Cairo, President Obama largely ignored the leading role of Iran in fueling the conflict with Israel. Sen. Reid wrote that the peace process must not “take away from your commitment to deal with the ongoing threat from Iran. Iran has continued to call for Israel’s destruction while repeatedly defying the international community with its nuclear program.”

The following day, Sen. Menendez went to the floor of the Senate to deliver a 13-minute speech on Israel. While not mentioning President Obama by name, he issued a powerful rebuttal of the myths that the president seemed to embrace. In Cairo, the president suggested that Israel’s right to exist is based upon Jewish suffering in the Holocaust.

In response, Sen. Menendez walked through the over 3,500-year-old connection between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel. “Let’s be very clear,” Menendez stated, “the Holocaust is not the main justification for Israel’s existence.”

While in Cairo, President Obama stated that Palestinian “dislocation” was a result of “Israel’s founding.” Sen. Menendez noted that, “the more than 700,000 Palestinians who left Israel were refugees of a war instigated by Arab governments bent on seizing more land for themselves. ” Sen. Menendez also mentioned that 750,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries were absorbed by Israel, a fact absent from the president’s speech.

While the president downplayed the threat from Iran, Menendez highlighted it. Iran, he stressed, is not a just a “potential threat” to Israel’s existence—it is a present threat to Israel’s existence though its arming and funding of Hamas and Hezbollah. Sen. Menendez was clear that “under no circumstances whatsoever can we allow that conventional threat to become a nuclear one.”

We live in a time when Israel’s enemies are aggressively seeking to delegitimize her by rewriting both the history of the Jewish people and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. In such a climate, even people sympathetic to Israel are sometimes swayed. It is thus good indeed to see Israel’s friends on both sides of the aisle step up and correct the record. Thank you, Sen. Reid and Sen. Menendez, for your leadership and your friendship on this issue. Your services to the truth and to Israel are deeply appreciated.

To watch the video of Sen. Menendez’s compelling speech on Capitol Hill, click below.

Resources:
David Brog
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2012 is coming; its time for a “new” Republican Party

MadMikesAmerica says that if the Republicans can’t change their policy then maybe they should change their logo.  (See above).

But what about rebranding?  Lessons learned from the Obama campaign show that the Republicans have got to get into social marketing.

Dollars in conventional advertising alone did not create the massive gulf in why people felt  a part of where Obama was going, Ads and TV are necessary too. Although I know a lot of SMM guru’s will come back and say its all about inbound marketing or online marketing.
A  percentage – yes thats true.  Hillary Clinton ran a conventional ad campaign and ran hard against Barak Obama to the end.
To reach all generations will demand a new skill set in marketing and advertising. There is a massive paradigm shift taking place where the age of information is no longer limited to the networks, to television and certainly not to radio or newspaper. The age of txt, IM, SMS is not new, it has been used for years, but now politicians are seeing that there is a way to reach out to grassroots, millions of people, especially the internet generation. These are not just young adults in college but many businessmen and women have accepted the 24/7 approach to receiving news, email, messages, even paperwork via pda’s blackberry’s and iphone’s are the norm.

The next Republican candidate that wants to be taken seriously by the people of the United States is going to have to implement a few things.

* Money: Obama raised so much money online that he did not have to use Federal Matched funds. Money drives the ability to generate unique marketing opportunities. Despite what people say that its all about the message – if you can not afford to get the message out to the masses you have already lost. Raising money offline and online is going to be a make or break situation. The DMC already have this skill set and know exactly how to turn this on.

* Social Awareness: it goes without saying that the new Republicans will need facebook, twitter, friendfeed, and  websites that look as though they were designed in 2012 not 2000 and most of all they need content! Listen to what people are saying and reply, become part of the conversation in society. Become part of the viral movement. Remember in 2012 you may be the underdog!  This is not the place to write anti-government speeches, but an opportunity to be positive and speak the truth.

* Website: content, content, update. And update often, use landing pages so that people can be followed up. Plus it gives the opportunity to get ground support in areas where candidates will be campaigning. Learn from the marketing gurus that use landing pages to point people to the next level.
Check out; David Meerman Scott – World Wide Rave or Seth Godwin – Tribes to see where the next level of communication is going. (If your reading this later than 2009 then input what the new books are!)

* Email: The Obama campaign used email blasts to reach out to followers in every city and state, selectively, not just blasted nationwide. This way when the tour pulls into a city or state, everyone knows what is happening for them alone.

* RSS: blogs/feeds updates daily on where the campaign is going, interaction with local people, interviews from the road, etc.

* Video: You Tube is easy to upload up to. Create professional videos that are both personal and informative.  people want to see what you have to say as much as listen to what you are saying. If the video message is a unique message then the opportunity for these to go viral and become more than a campaign message.

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