{"id":223,"date":"2009-03-20T14:15:18","date_gmt":"2009-03-20T14:15:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/windowsanddoors\/2009\/03\/obamas-nowruz-message-panderin.html"},"modified":"2009-03-20T14:15:18","modified_gmt":"2009-03-20T14:15:18","slug":"obamas-nowruz-message-panderin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/2009\/03\/obamas-nowruz-message-panderin.html","title":{"rendered":"Obama&#8217;s Nowruz Message: Pandering or Great Leadership?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>President Obama&#8217;s Nowruz message, broadcast directly to the Iranian people, complete with Farsi subtitles, is brilliant. <\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<embed src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/A9uaIkH30rY&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1&amp;rel=0&amp;border=1\" width=\"500\" height=\"315\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\"><\/embed><\/p>\n<p>Whether one agrees with everything he has to say, can anyone seriously question the wisdom of his actions or the sophistication of his approach?&nbsp; Sadly, some are doing just that, but they are wrong.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not that I don&#8217;t appreciate their concerns.&nbsp; Iran is a complicated place lead by troubling people.&nbsp; But whenever we conflate the citizens of a nation with&nbsp;their leadership, especially when the nation is a whole lot less free than is our own, we do so at our own peril. In fact, those who are most concerned about Iran, should be applauding the President&#8217;s broadcast the most loudly &#8212; he has leaped past the government of Iran and taken his message directly to the Iranian people.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>And to those who question even this level of engagement, I would point to the results of US involvement with the committee planning the Durban&nbsp;II Conference.&nbsp; After the administration was&nbsp;heckeled for&nbsp;getting involved with the same people who sponsored Durban I, which was little more than an anti-American, Israel-bashing hate-fest, they proved that they made the right decision.&nbsp; <a href=\"http:\/\/jta.org\/news\/article\/2009\/03\/17\/1003787\/durban-ii-draft-drops-israel-criticism\">The Draft document for Durban II has dropped all such objectionable language<\/a>.&nbsp; I guess engagement pays off!<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>Without imagining that one broadcast will change the world,&nbsp;we can acknowledge that this has&nbsp;been a good week for those&nbsp;who believe that&nbsp;we must talk the most with those&nbsp;of whom we agree with&nbsp;least.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Obama&#8217;s Nowruz message, broadcast directly to the Iranian people, complete with Farsi subtitles, is brilliant. &nbsp; Whether one agrees with everything he has to say, can anyone seriously question the wisdom of his actions or the sophistication of his approach?&nbsp; Sadly, some are doing just that, but they are wrong. It&#8217;s not that I&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,2,1,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-israel","category-news","category-politics","category-religion"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Obama&#039;s Nowruz Message: Pandering or Great Leadership? - Windows and Doors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/2009\/03\/obamas-nowruz-message-panderin.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Obama&#039;s Nowruz Message: Pandering or Great Leadership? - Windows and Doors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"President Obama&#8217;s Nowruz message, broadcast directly to the Iranian people, complete with Farsi subtitles, is brilliant. &nbsp; Whether one agrees with everything he has to say, can anyone seriously question the wisdom of his actions or the sophistication of his approach?&nbsp; Sadly, some are doing just that, but they are wrong. It&#8217;s not that I&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/2009\/03\/obamas-nowruz-message-panderin.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Windows and Doors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-03-20T14:15:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Brad Hirschfield\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Obama's Nowruz Message: Pandering or Great Leadership? - Windows and Doors","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/2009\/03\/obamas-nowruz-message-panderin.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Obama's Nowruz Message: Pandering or Great Leadership? - Windows and Doors","og_description":"President Obama&#8217;s Nowruz message, broadcast directly to the Iranian people, complete with Farsi subtitles, is brilliant. &nbsp; Whether one agrees with everything he has to say, can anyone seriously question the wisdom of his actions or the sophistication of his approach?&nbsp; Sadly, some are doing just that, but they are wrong. It&#8217;s not that I&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/2009\/03\/obamas-nowruz-message-panderin.html","og_site_name":"Windows and Doors","article_published_time":"2009-03-20T14:15:18+00:00","author":"Brad Hirschfield","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/2009\/03\/obamas-nowruz-message-panderin.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/2009\/03\/obamas-nowruz-message-panderin.html","name":"Obama's Nowruz Message: Pandering or Great Leadership? - Windows and Doors","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-03-20T14:15:18+00:00","dateModified":"2009-03-20T14:15:18+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/#\/schema\/person\/dec8532a46bb6f29d8866269e398424d"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/2009\/03\/obamas-nowruz-message-panderin.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/2009\/03\/obamas-nowruz-message-panderin.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/2009\/03\/obamas-nowruz-message-panderin.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Obama&#8217;s Nowruz Message: Pandering or Great Leadership?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/","name":"Windows and Doors","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Rabbi Brad Hirschfield","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/#\/schema\/person\/dec8532a46bb6f29d8866269e398424d","name":"Brad Hirschfield","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/612\/612c840fab7383fcd474af006f999c1fx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/612\/612c840fab7383fcd474af006f999c1fx96.jpg","caption":"Brad Hirschfield"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/author\/brad_hirschfield"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/133"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}