Last week’s Jerusalem Post op-ed piece by Marc Stanley, chairman of the National Jewish Democratic Council, gave American Jews some interesting advice: even if President Obama is screwing Israel, we should just lie down and enjoy it.
The Democratic chair’s myopic “no matter what” support of President Obama’s policy toward Israel is wrong for the United States, the future of Jewry in America, and Israel.
Stanley tries to take on Jews disappointed with the president’s performance using name-calling and quotes without context. He bashes any Jew who has the nerve to criticize the president:
The small anti-Obama wing of the Jewish community has long found refuge in Web sites like American Thinker, where their fictional understanding of the presidency is confirmed (a representative title: “Obama’s hostility to Israel is clear”). But there are some times when elements of their argument spill into more respectable platforms, such as the New York Times and the Washington Post.
Maybe Mr. Stanley’s problem is that he gets all his news from the Times and Post, because he proceeds to tell half-truths about Obama’s actions regarding Israel:
U.S. President Barack Obama and his administration are making an unprecedented effort to reach out to the Jewish community. The president has made moving the Middle East toward peace a priority and has spoken of the “unbreakable” bond we share with Israel. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons “futile,” and last week Obama had some of his most senior foreign policy figures meet with top Israeli officials — in Israel.
Let’s take a look at that paragraph. True, the president has spoken of the unbreakable bond we share with Israel — so did most U.S. presidents since 1948, including Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush.
What Stanley ignores is that it’s the actions that matter. After expressing his “love,” Obama proceeded to make Israel a pariah of nations, breaking a preexisting agreement with Israel over settlements and publicly bashing Israel for sticking to the agreement regarding natural growth of settlements. Clinton did call Iran’s pursuit of nukes “futile,” but then she went on to say that America would protect its allies with its defense umbrella, indicating that the U.S. would accept a nuclear Iran. And last week’s visit from his senior advisors was not a friendly meet and greet, but an arm twisting session. The four horsemen of the “Obamalypse” visited with two purposes in mind: to prevent Israel from defending herself against Iran and to strong-arm Israel into not adding to existing settlements and to stay out of Jerusalem.
Stanley also takes issue with a Times op-ed:
One can’t get past the title of Benn’s op-ed in the Times without being struck by the question he poses: “Why won’t Obama talk to Israel?” Benn asserts that “neither the president nor any senior administration official has given a speech or an interview aimed at an Israeli audience.” He then dramatically writes, “The Arabs got the Cairo speech; we [Israel] got silence.”… If Benn did not hear that Obama aimed elements of his Cairo speech at Israelis, he was not listening.
Here I agree with Stanley — Obama was talking to Israel from Cairo. He flipped them the bird and threw them under the bus.
He discussed anti-Semitism, without mentioning the fact that the Muslim Middle East is the primary supplier of anti-Semitic fervor in the world. He talked about the 60-plus years of Palestinian suffering, taking the Palestinian view that the very creation of Israel was bad. He discussed Gaza as an occupied territory.
Maybe the president didn’t read the newspapers in August 2005, but Israel pulled out of Gaza almost four years ago.
Probably the worst part of the president’s speech was that he took the Arab propaganda position of linking the Holocaust to the creation of Israel.
Stanley chalks it up to “typical Jewish paranoia,” as if Jews are not allowed the same First Amendment rights as the rest of the country:
I understand that we in the Jewish community can be a bit paranoid at times, but to say that this administration does not support and communicate with one of our closest allies is to disregard reality. Obama, his pro-Israel policies and the president’s pro-Israel advisers continue to receive strong support in the Jewish community. This administration has made an unprecedented effort to engage this community and has placed Middle East peace high on the agenda.
Let’s look at Obama’s “outreach” to the Jewish community. Is Stanley talking about his reluctance to fill the position of special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism? Giving the Medal of Honor to Mary Robinson, who presided over the anti-Semitic Durban conference? The fact that Obama does not want any Jews to move to Jerusalem, even if the land has been owned by Jews for decades?
Are the “pro-Israel” advisers Stanley is speaking about people like Hilary Clinton, who was the first person associated with any administration to call for a Palestinian state, which she did during her husband’s administration? Except for her short stint as New York senator, when she needed the Jewish vote, Clinton has usually taken an anti-Israel stance.
Maybe Marc was talking about Samantha Power — who once called on the United States to send in the Army to impose a solution on Israel.
Peace for Israel will only be fully ensured if Israel’s security is maintained. Israel is negotiating with a party that is still calling for her destruction. Yet Obama is publicly blasting Israel, while leaving his buddies in the PA and Arab nations alone despite the fact that they are not playing along with his “peace” plans.
Obama has made clear that Israel is a second-class citizen compared to the Arab countries.
Most interesting was Mr. Stanley’s choice of venue — he tried to talk to American Jews through an Israeli newspaper. His piece was not meant as a message to the American Jewish community, as he could have published it in the Times or Post. No, the purpose of Marc Stanley’s article was nothing more than to gain “street-cred” with the Obama administration and the Democratic Party. He did not even approach a reasonably partisan analysis.
And that is the problem — Obama’s Jewish defenders, including J Street, Americans for Peace Now, NJDC, and others, are interested not in Israel but in their personal career advantage, their funding from George Soros, or their own vision of “peace.”
Despite what their vision would mean to the security of Israeli Jewish families.
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