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JEWS BEWARE: MUSLIM OBAMA IS PRO-ARAB AND ANTI-ISRAEL

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More Obama PR will not a successful Mideast policy make

Aug. 10, 2009
Jonathan Tobin , THE JERUSALEM POST

After running into a dead end in its efforts to jump-start Middle East peace talks, the Obama administration has signaled that it has evaluated the situation and understands that not all is well. But instead of a course correction, senior administration officials have decided that what they need to do is to deploy their most effective weapon - the rhetorical brilliance of President Barack Obama - on a recalcitrant state of Israel.

They say that in the next few weeks the White House will begin a public relations program in Israel and Arab countries to better explain the president's intention to broker a comprehensive peace agreement. The highlight would be interviews with Obama on Israeli television as well as appearances broadcast in Arab countries. In particular, the officials say they hope to convince the majority of Israelis, who have been shown in polls to view Obama and his policies with distrust, to support his stand on freezing building in Jewish settlements in the West Bank as well as in Jerusalem, rather than the policies of Binyamin Netanyahu, their own prime minister.

THE IDEA here seems to be that if the Israeli people are sufficiently exposed to the charms of the American president, they will force Netanyahu to do as he has been told by Washington. However, the administration misunderstands the nature of its problem. Contrary to its belief, the Israeli people already understand Obama very well. His problem is that they don't buy what he's selling. Indeed, this decision to launch a PR campaign reminds one of stereotypically "ugly American" tourists who believe the proper response to foreigners who don't understand English is to merely speak English louder. The administration needs to win the trust of Israelis through more realistic policies, not a bigger megaphone.

The reason many Israelis think they have been singled out for rough treatment by Obama is not because they don't understand that his intentions are good and that his motives are pure; it's because he has unfairly singled them out. The dispute about settlements between the two governments was a calculated decision on the part of Washington to pick a fight with its smaller ally and raise the stakes until Netanyahu gave in. That would have handed Obama an easy triumph and a way to show the Arab world that American friends of Israel no longer have a decisive say in American foreign policy.

But that's not what happened and the administration appears to be baffled by the reaction inside Israel to the ginned-up settlements squabble. Instead of behaving as most liberal American Jews have done and blindly backing Obama's pressure because of partisan loyalties and support for the administration's domestic agenda, ordinary Israelis are supporting their prime minister and viewing Obama with suspicion.

Why? It is true that part of the problem has to do with perceptions. Obama's Cairo speech in June was offensive because of the way he equated the Holocaust with the predicament of Palestinian refugees and the fact that he snubbed the Jewish state by avoiding it during his Middle East tour. But the problem is bigger than either the president's penchant for false moral equivalencies or his itinerary.

OBAMA'S POLICY seems to be based on the notion that Israel's refusal to make new concessions on security and land is the primary obstacle to a peace breakthrough. Though most Israelis would actually be willing to give up most settlements, they know that neither the Fatah-ruled Palestinian Authority in the West Bank nor the Hamas mini-state in Gaza are interested in a peace that would recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state, no matter where the borders were drawn. The failure of the Oslo Accords, the July 2000 Camp David summit, the withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 and last year's desperate effort by former prime minister Ehud Olmert to hand the PA a state on a silver platter all illustrate the Palestinians' lack of interest in signing such a deal.

In the clear absence of a credible peace partner, what point is there, they are entitled to ask, in bullying Israel to make concessions? Nor has anyone been impressed by the administration's half-hearted attempt to get the Saudis and other Arab states to act as if they mean it when they claim to want peace.

President Obama has not turned out to be a conventional liberal Democrat who is also willing to be a faithful friend of Israel as many, if not most Jewish Democrats expected when they pulled the lever for him last year. Though Republican talking points that asserted that Obama's associations with anti-Israel extremists such as Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Palestinian scholar Rashid Khalidi would color his judgment in office were dismissed by the vast majority of Jewish voters, it turns out there was more to this line of argument than mere partisanship. As his decision last week to honor former Irish president Mary Robinson, best remembered for presiding over the orgy of anti-Semitism that characterized the 2001 UN Durban conference, with the presidential Medal of Freedom again shows, Obama is not a man who understands or respects mainstream Jewish sensibilities.

Obama's eloquence is a formidable diplomatic tool, but the idea that it can be used to convince Israelis to "reflect" on their policies and change their tune is not only astoundingly arrogant, it's frankly wrong. Israelis already want peace, and have shown time and again they are ready to make sacrifices to achieve it. What is lacking is a similar commitment from the Palestinians. No amount of presidential eloquence or American PR ought to convince Israelis that further concessions will bring peace until Palestinian leaders match Obama's words with deeds.

The writer is executive editor of Commentary magazine and a contributor to its blog Contentions at
www.commentarymagazine.com.

 

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Right of Reply: Barack Obama is no friend of Israel

Aug. 9, 2009
RICHARD BAEHR and ED LASKY , THE JERUSALEM POST

The National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC) recently criticized the Web site American Thinker in a Jerusalem Post op-ed entitled The chutzpah of Obama's Jewish critics for having a "fictional understanding" of Barack Obama's approach toward Israel. This kind of attack is typical of the NJDC which maintains a "see no evil, hear no evil" approach toward the president on this and every other issue. This willful blindness is both wrongheaded and a disservice to Jews who care about the fate of Israel.

By its loyalty to a president who has gone out of his way to distance his administration from Israel, and who has singled it out for harsh criticism while emboldening its adversaries, the NJDC has served as an enabler of Obama's Mideast mischief.

Increasingly, Obama is being referred to as the least friendly president toward Israel since its founding. In recent weeks, even liberal media organs, such as The New York Times, The Washington Post and The New Republic, have criticized the president's approach to Israel in articles, columns and editorials. The assistant editor of The New Republic, James Kirchick, wrote an op-ed in June saying Obama has betrayed Israel and blames him for the decline in American support for Israel. Somehow all this has escaped the attention of the NJDC, a group that has the gumption to call Obama a great friend of Israel's.

We disagree.

THE AMERICAN Thinker was prescient in being wary of Obama's views toward Israel early on. We published our first article on this topic in March 2007, based on Obama's own words before a pro-Israel advocacy group which revealed very little empathy for the Israeli people. We wondered how he came to have his views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Did they come from Jeremiah Wright - a man who he credited with calibrating his "moral compass"? Or was it from Palestinian activists and friends such as Ali Abunimah, founder of the Electronic Intifada, or Rashid Khalidi, former PLO spokesman and fierce opponent of Israel, whom Obama credits with informing his views of the Middle East? Or perhaps from Samantha Power, his closest foreign policy adviser, who has a long history of anti-Israel views - including cutting off foreign aid and imposing a peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians, which might require an invasion by foreign troops?

Even The Los Angeles Times perceived the reality behind the façade when it published an article "Allies of Palestinians have a friend in Obama." Indeed they do.

Given his words and actions in just six months in office, it should come as no surprise that only six percent of Israelis now regard Obama as pro-Israel. Campaign promises have become "just words" as Obama himself might describe them. Israelis, as the Jerusalem Post-hosted blogger Shmuel Rosner put it, understand what Obama's Change agenda means for them.

What changes have we seen over the last few months? Obama has shown a coolness toward Israel that has warmed the hearts of its enemies around the world and has hardenened the resolve of its adversaries. Mahmoud Abbas and the supposed 'moderate' Palestinian Authority have refused to make any overtures toward Israel, and the current Fatah Convention is keeping alive the armed struggle. Jordan and Saudi Arabia have also refused to offer any conciliatory gestures. Israel's enemies may now feel secure in thinking that Israel will be delivered to them on the proverbial silver platter.

OBAMA IS the one who should be charged with having a fictionalized understanding of the conflict and Israel's history. During his speech in Cairo, Obama made clear that he thinks Israel was founded as an act of atonement by the Western world for the Holocaust, a narrative that is both an insult to the 3,000-year history of the Jewish people and one that reflects the ideology of Arab and Persian rejectionists - that guilty Europeans stole the land to create the state of Israel. Did President Obama not learn anything during that widely publicized photo-op Seder?

During that speech, Obama also equated the Holocaust to the Palestinian predicament, which to a large extent has been caused by the Palestinians' self-destructive behavior. This was not only wrong but an insult to the memory of the 6 million people who were murdered by the Nazis.

While Obama seems to have an infinite degree of patience regarding the Iranian nuclear program, his administration has been on an obsessive quest to halt Israeli settlements, demanding a complete freeze, a policy that ignores prior agreements between president George W. Bush and prime minister Ariel Sharon.

Further, the State Department has called in Israel's ambassador twice in recent weeks to harangue him over the building of 20 apartments in Jerusalem, and challenging an Israeli Supreme Court decision ordering the removal of Palestinian squatters from two apartments in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. This level of interference brings into question whether the Obama administration considers Israel a sovereign nation or an American vassal. His approach to peacemaking makes clear that he believes the Israelis are the obstacle to peace in the region, ignoring a long history of Arab rejectionism.

Is this a way to create trust with a nation which has already shown the willingness to make sacrifices (and suffered for doing so) such as the withdrawal from southern Lebanon and from Gaza?

While meeting with a group of Jewish leaders, Obama made clear that he intended to create "daylight" between Israel and America, arguing that the two countries had been too close for eight years, during which no progress toward peace had occurred.

Again, Obama fictionalizes history: Israel has taken many steps for peace with very little to show for it other than rocket attacks and suicide bombings. During the same meeting, Obama had the audacity to lecture the Israelis to be more self-reflective - a condescending, contemptuous statement given the nature of Israeli society. After 60 years of near total rejection of Israel's existence or permanence in the region, perhaps the president might have counseled some self-reflection by the Arabs and Palestinians.

WHILE OBAMA focuses his ire on Israel, Teheran gets a pass, and continues to spin its centrifuges. Here in America, the NJDC continues spinning too - for its man in the White House. Israelis are not buying the spin. Even some Jewish Democrats seem to have become a bit concerned by the bait and switch on Obama's policies toward Israel. As independent unpaid writers who support a strong US-Israel relationship, we will continue to report the facts in American Thinker, not the spin required of paid propagandists.

Richard Baehr is the chief political correspondent for the American Thinker. Ed Lasky is the news editor.

This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1249418563126&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull
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