President Obama spoke to the annual meeting of the Union for Reform Judaism last week, and he gave them that ol’-time religion: liberalism. Not surprisingly, since Reform Judaism is, in Richard Brookhiser’s timeless phrase, “the Democratic party with holidays,” it was well-received.
While the audience in the hall purred appreciatively at the president’s invocation of the usual liberal bromides, Mr. Obama’s claims on the subject of his administration’s support of Israel — at least to those not blinkered by partisanship — are nothing short of jaw-dropping. “I am proud to say,” he told the group, “that no U.S. administration has done more in support of Israel’s security than ours. None. Don’t let anybody else tell you otherwise. It is a fact.”
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No, it’s an assertion, and it scarcely passes the laugh test.
Under his leadership, the president said, “We helped Israel develop a missile-defense system that’s already protecting civilians from rocket attacks.” That’s misleading. The U.S. has been cooperating with Israel on missile-defense technology since the Reagan administration. That President Obama continued the working relationship established and nurtured under his four predecessors is not noteworthy. It would have been extremely odd (not to say impossible in light of congressional views) if he had withdrawn from the partnership. Going with the flow is fine, but it hardly qualifies as an Obama initiative.
The president lauded his administration’s efforts to ensure that Israeli diplomats were “able to get out safely” when a mob attacked the Israeli embassy in Cairo. That the president made a phone call on behalf of Israel is very nice. But, really, it’s the very least an ally can do, isn’t it? Wouldn’t the president have made such a call for anyone, even for a nation with which we had no special bond? Is he suggesting that if Thai diplomats were menaced by a mob in a third country, he wouldn’t pick up the phone? Mark this one as trivial.
Then came the whopper. The president claimed that the U.S. has done everything possible to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Preposterous. Following a protracted attempt to court the Iranian mullahs, the administration settled for weak sanctions approved by the United Nations. The Obama Treasury department has undermined even those minimal sanctions by granting thousands of exemptions to companies doing business with Iran. And, as Jonathan Tobin of Commentary reminds us, the administration has vigorously opposed congressional efforts to impose serious sanctions, such as blackballing any entity that does business with Iran’s central bank.
Once again, as he and his representatives have done for three years, the president gave lip service to the idea that “all options are on the table” regarding Iran’s nuclear program. All empty clichés are on the table, obviously. But just a couple of weeks ago, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta made it very clear that the U.S. has no intention of using anything other than “diplomatic” pressure to prevent Iran from going nuclear. Panetta went further and emphasized that the U.S. would be heartily displeased if Israel were to attack Iran’s nuclear sites.
From the start of his presidency, Obama has attempted to distance the U.S. from Israel. It began with a unilateral demand that Israel halt all settlement activity before talks with the Palestinians could resume. It escalated with a U.N. speech in which the president drew equivalence between the Holocaust and the statelessness of the Palestinian people. It continued with the president’s enraged response to the decision by the Israeli government to build homes for Jews in the Jewish capital city. And it reached a new point of crisis when the president suggested that Israel should withdraw to the pre-1967 borders.
Under this administration, in a departure from decades of settled diplomacy, the U.S. has demanded that Israel sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. With the exception of a perfunctory condemnation of a gruesome Palestinian terror attack on a Jewish family, this administration has reserved all of its anger for Israel.
Above all, the Obama administration has failed to provide the kind of moral support that Israel needs now more than ever. Behind the scenes, military-to-military cooperation is fine. But the greatest threats to Israel are strategic (Iran’s nuclear ambitions) and political. From the U.N. to an increasingly anti-Israel Europe to the university campuses in this country, Israel’s very legitimacy is under relentless attack. The U.S. has traditionally been the bulwark against such delegitimization. Under Obama, the U.S. has, in Jeane Kirkpatrick’s phrase, “joined the jackals.”
The Liar in Chief thinks he can fool all the Jews all the time. His Jewish coterie are just show ponies to meet PC requirements and cover for what is, I'm sure -like Carter's-, Obama's loathing for Jews from an ideological and philosophical standpoint if not also from a cosmological one.
Obama can say whatever he likes and light as many Chanukah candles as he wants, to AIPAC or a hundred other Jewish organisations, but if he gets in 2012, we all know he will try to really crucify Israel.
Many have tried. They are on the dustheap of history. America will not profit from anti-Semitism. Nor will Obama succeed in breaking Israel. It will blow up in his face.
The Jews have been here for 4000yrs. We can wait out another 4 if we have to.
America will become very weak after the re-election of Obama in 2012 and the new neo-leftist congress takes office.
Israel will have to learn to go its own way because America will be finished by 2016, no later than 2020 if America turn real insane and elects Joe Biden to office to continue the policies of Barrack Hussein Obama.
The quicker Israel can go it alone the better it will be for them. America is doomed. Accept the fact.
It is astonishing to witness the devotion the majority of Jews pay to liberalism. The support they lend to Democrats is unwavering even with the evidence of so many liberal individuals and institutions that positively loathe Israel. Meanwhile, within Jewish circles, conservatives devoted to the protection of Israel are regarded with fear and suspicion. It bespeaks a type of mental disorder when a group of people can be so uniformly unable to distinguish friend from foe.
Your comments about liberalism are mostly true, but there is a change going on in this country. While many (most?) Jews do not support the social conservatism of the right, they do support the political and financial conservatism. Unfortunately, like many others I feel that we have been set adrift by a two party system that does not correspond to my views. But Judaism does not have a political stance, and if you read the Bible, you will find that there are laws that support both "sides of the aisle", i.e. liberal - support of the disadvantaged, and conservative - family issues.
It is a conundrum that we face on a daily basis, but to me survival is first and unlike many others out there some of us do see the danger to Israel, the United States, and to our way of life.
The ONLY support the US needs to provide Israel is military for the plain reason that Israel is an ally, a small nation, has hostile neighbours, and of course due to recent history (the Holocaust). However, as a friend and ally, it also needs to verbalize sometimes painful truths. What conservatives like Charen and other posters here refuse to acknowledge is that enabling activities like settlement building and using Scripture to justify an "Israel: right or wrong" policy will guarantee that the US is the sole friend of Israel. We need to have the entire international community be concerned about Israel's security, and that's ONLY going to happen when the US stops turning a blind eye to Israel's snubbing of international law (regardless of what the Bible says!).
Yes, I know what many of you will say: a good conservative President should come in and let Israel expand from Spain to China if they so wish. I say, good on Obama (and even Bush Sr, Clinton and Dubya before him) for trying to tell Israel what's what with common sense while still trying to appease Americans politically (fundamentalist Christian Republicans and Jewish Democrats).
Congratulations, yours is the stupidest comment of the day.
International Law.... what a joke. Without an enforcement mechanism, what we really have is international etiquette. And exactly how has Israel disregarded international etiquette? By not returning land taken in war? This argument is so niave that if that is really what you think, there is nothing more to be said to you. In "international law", you keep what you can keep. As for expanding from Spain to China, what are you on, and did you bring enough for everybody? Israel is not expanding. They are securing their territory militarily because that is the only "law" that matters in the international arena. They've given back most of what they occupied in an effort to buy peace. If the Arabs hadn't tried to destroy Israel in 48, 56, and 73, not to mention being preempted from it in 67, and ignoring all the other critical crises that didn't quite make it to a shooting war, then maybe the occupation of the West Bank of the Jordan, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights could be legitimately termed as territorial aggrandizement. But reality is different from your fantasy, and the Arabs, despite quantitative superiority, have brought the current situation upon themselves. And now, like the bully who's gotten his a s s handed to him, they now whine to the teacher? Trouble is, there is no international law enforcement agency, which is why the Israelis had to take the territory from them in the first place.
And as for the hoplesssly deluded concept that President Obama even knows what common sense is, let alone knows how to "say what's what", well, that made me laugh so loud my colleagues had to come and see what was so funny.
"Under this administration, in a departure from decades of settled diplomacy, the U.S. has demanded that Israel sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty".
Did you say Settled Diplomacy? It is a Diplomatic Statusquo not a settled diplomatic policy!!!
At what cost do we stop being the watch dogs for Israel??
You are mistaken. He as weakened the relationship between the U.S. and Israel. It is not a bogus right wing claim; it is quite arguable with fact.
Also, nothing I know of will split the Jewish vote in 2012. Modern American Jews will overwhelmingly side with the ideology most dedicated to their demise and destruction, and that is Statism/Leftism.
To so many American Jews, Leftism is their religion.
You are incorrect - their religion has a component dedicated to civil rights, social justice and regard for all (despite the evil inflicted upon them over many centuries). Those values are certainly not present in the Republican Party of TODAY. Likewise, many Catholics are anti-abortion but also staunchly pro-life (meaning they ALSO oppose the death penalty and unjustified war). Hence, many Catholics (though not as high a proportion as Jews) will not vote Republican in order to stay true to their faith.
If the President has not managed to damage our relationship with Israel, it is simply because the Israelis understand that, like hemorrhoids, this, too, shall pass. Americans and Israelis still like each other. Their respective governments? Well, not so much.
I am less pessimistic than many posting on this and other sites. The latest poll shows Jewish approval of Obama at 53%. That is certainly higher thean the national average among all voters but way below the pro Obama percentage amaong Jewish voters in 2008. Those who say that the administration must force Israel to return to the Holocaust borders do not understand, or perhaps care, that Israel is surrounded by homicidal neighbors whose hatred and contempt for Israel and ALL JEWS EVRYWHERE is an article of religious faith which long pre dates the modern state of Israel and, for that matter the establishment of the United States.
Yes, this president has continued miitary cooperation with Israel-which by the way benefits this country tremendously-as attested by many of our top military. However, he has also ramped up the danger to Israel and all our erstwhile allies in the Middle East, not to mention the increased danger to our own country by his foreign policy and weakening of our national defense.
Obama has written in that in a conflict with Muslims he will stand with the Muslims. His policies have demonstrated this again and again.
Obama has a direct deleterious effect on the safety, security, welfare and prospects for peace of Israel, in favor of the Arabs:
1) Obama changed years of US policy by requiring that Israel return to pre-1967 borders. This violates UN Resolution 212, which requires Arabs to end terrorism, renounce force and recognize Israel in return for land. Within a week, Palestinian leader Abbas made a return to pre-1967 borders a precondition for negotiations with Israel, thanks to Obama.
2) Obama has placed inordinate pressure on Israel not to build or even remodel anything in East Jerusalem or the West Bank. His priorities are clearly biased against Israel, in that he has people monitoring Israel’s every move, while thousands of Arabs, including women and children, are being slaughtered in Syria, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen. This has only emboldened Abbas, who has made a “settlement freeze” still another precondition to negotiations with Israel, thanks to Obama.
3) Obama’s hostility to Israel has emboldened Abbas in other ways. Abbas, for example, has stated outright that under no circumstances will he recognize a Jewish state. Thank you once again, Obama.
I find it striking how the discussion always focuses on Obama's actions towards Israel, but never includes Netanyahu's behavior.
So many hard core 'conservatives' say that we should support Israel no matter what they do -- but this is not a conservative position. We need to always consider what is in our national interest first, and sometimes this will diverge with Israel's national interest. This fact should be the most obvious truth, yet so many Israel gung-hoers' refuse to entertain the notion that we don't have to support Israel no matter what they do.
First, America should not pay with American treasure and blood for all Israel's wars and conflicts. The neocons conned us to take first Iraq, now Iran, then whatever else the neocons feel threatening to Israel. Second, in order to be any peace in the Middle East, it has to made clear to all parties is that there will be no Palestinian refugees to Israel and that the borders will be the 1967 ones (with shared Jerusalem) - no negotiations necessary on any of these point. If the Serbian lobby was as strong as the Israelly lobby, there still would be no Kosovo borders, there would be Kosovo refugees in all surrounding countries and Serbia would still be occupying Kosovo. Think Kosovo, when you think Palestine - and you know what the solution is.
Kosovo equals Palestine? Israelis are exterminating whole villages in their ethnic cleansing operations?
Neocons conned us into war with Iraq because of the threat to Israel? Wait, I thought it was for oil. You guys really need to coordinate your whining rants a little better.
In 2009, the U.S. gave $2.4 billion to Israel in economic and military aid. We gave more aid per person to Israel than any other country.
In 2010, the aid to Israel was increased to $3 billion.
Urging (not demanding) Israel to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is apparently an act of anger and cause for your outrage. But applying diplomatic pressure to curb Iran's nuclear advancement is not going far enough.
What exactly would be far enough? War? Great idea. With our economy barely on the brink of recovery, why don't we just dig our own grave?
The US does not give Israel aid. It gives Israel LOAN GUARANTEES. In other words, the US backs the credit of Israel in buying weapons, some of which are purchased from the US.
Israel shares invaluable intelligence with the US, which is impossible to put a price tag on.
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