Obama's tough audience

200,000 people may have turned up in Berlin to hear and see Obama, but The Nation, in a piece from Israel, says that the Israelis were not easily swept off their feet. In fact he was confronted with a tough audience:

"The possible election of Senator Barack Obama as the next President of the United States could have tremendous implications for Israelis, so why has there been no evidence of Obamamania in Israel during his intense, thirty-six hour visit to the country?

For one thing, Israel is one of the few countries in the world where George W. Bush would still win over 50 percent in the public opinion polls. So there is no yearning for change in the American leadership, as there is among many Americans, and with most of the people around the world.

Israeli leaders have their own tzures (problems, in Yiddish). Prime Minister Olmert is competing with Bush in America when it comes to plummeting in the polls, and the latest news about investigations into his behavior, together with the latest tractor-terror attack in Jerusalem, pushed Obama onto the side columns of the day of his visit"

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Mahler's Prodigal Son

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