Editorial: A view of America, bent at the waist
Mordechai refused to bow to Haman, setting the Purim story into motion. We remember being taught in yeshiva to not bend to tie a shoelace in the direction of a church so as to not inadvertently bow to a foreign god. G-d demands much of us, but regular bowing and scraping is not on the list.
Perhaps it is a Jewish sensibility then, even more than an American one, that makes news images of President Obama bowing deeply, even obsequiously, before the king of Saudi Arabia last spring, and the emperor of Japan last week, so viscerally upsetting.
It’s true that Richard Nixon once bowed to the Japanese emperor — truly in another time and place, we would argue, when America held a very different place in the world.
It’s also true that former President Bush’s our-way-or-the-highway foreign policy was less than appealing to Europeans and others (whether or not this was necessarily a cause for concern is another matter entirely).
And it’s true that this president is committed to showing the world a more friendly American face. But too much so, we would argue, since Mr. Obama has on several occasions all but apologized for American strength and leadership.
We’ve expended too much blood and treasure in foreign wars for that to ever be necessary or appropriate. It’s truly disturbing that 10 months into his term, Mr. Obama still fails to grasp this essential fact.
Ultimately, he is the President of the United States and the United States does not — should not — bow to any mortal leader, friend or foe.
We know the President fully understands the strength that can be contained in and conveyed by an image. His winning presidential campaign was arguably all about image at the expense of substance, after all.
On a more positive note, the President recently did something that impressed us deeply: late last month he visited Dover Air Force Base in the middle of the night to honor the returning remains of 18 service members killed in Afghanistan. The President did these slain soldiers and their families great honor and in the process upended a decades-old Pentagon ban on allowing journalists access to such images. War has a terrible cost — even just and necessary wars — and through his actions the President acknowledged that all of us should be able to see that cost for ourselves.
For this reason we find his decision to bow to the Saudi king — who tolerates Islamic terrorists for fear of his own hold on power — and Japan’s emperor — still considered by some Japanese to be a divine being — so intolerable. We would very much like to not see it repeated.
Correction
Regarding “Open letter to Rudolph Kasztner’s daughter” by Edith Polak (In My View; Nov. 20, 2009), Polak failed to mention the essential contribution of Michael Ezra to the piece, in the form of historical citations quoted therein. Mr. Ezra had previously published these in a blog comment on the subject of the recent film “Killing Kasztner.” The Jewish Star thanks Mr. Ezra for pointing out the omission and regrets the error.
