From a longtime liberal reader:
His very first appointment? Rahm Emmanuel. Modern Orthodox, spoke Hebrew in his household growing up, wife converted before marriage, volunteered as a civilian for the IDF during the 1991 Gulf War. This guy has every bit the Jewish chops of a Joe Lieberman, an Alan Dershowitz, a Debbie Wasserman Schultz. He is Jewish and pro-Israel through and through and wears it on the outside for everyone to see.
I am hopeful that if, as and when Obama sends out conciliatory feelers to Fatah and even perhaps Hamas, they will get the point that they have in Obama no patsy.
The Jewish angle completely escaped me, and I have to wonder whether it escaped Obama as well. I certainly think that if Emmanuel were an Epsicopalian but in all other ways the same guy, Obama would still want him. But, it’s an interesting point.