by Mark Tapson
When you’re the most anti-Israel president in the history of America’s relationship with that staunch Middle Eastern ally, self-delusion would seem to be a useful defense mechanism. Speaking recently to prominent Jewish supporters at a New York City fundraiser, President Obama said:
I try not to pat myself too much on the back, but this administration has done more for the security of the state of Israel than any previous administration.
It’s difficult to decide which claim in this statement is more arrogant and laughable: that Obama’s accomplishments are so laudable and numerous that he must refrain from patting himself on the back too much, or that his administration has been the most supportive of Israel’s security. As argued in the Horowitz Freedom Center’s new video, “Obama: The Anti-Israel President,” the reality is that no administration has done less to secure Israel from Muslim aggression.
“Obviously, no ally is more important than the state of Israel,” Obama added at the fundraiser. Actually, it’s not so obvious. From Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who told Israel to “mend fences” with saber-rattling Turkey, try harder with new Islamist state Egypt, and “just get to the damned table” with the Palestinians; to Howard Gutman, our ambassador to Belgium, who actually blamed Islamic anti-Semitism on Israel’s resistance to Palestinian terrorism, the Obama administration doesn’t even bother to conceal its frustration with Israel’s refusal to roll over and die. If only the intransigent occupier Israel would make even more concessions for peace, the theory goes, then apparently all Middle East conflict and anti-Semitism itself would vanish forever in a burst of rainbows and unicorns.
This attitude flows down from the very top – Obama himself. From his first day in office, Obama distinguished himself by his hostility towards the Jewish state. He told Jews they can’t build homes in Jerusalem, the spiritual center of Judaism for thousands of years. He forced Israel to negotiate with Hamas, who has sworn to obliterate Israel. He demanded that Israel surrender its right to negotiate defensible borders by reverting to the untenable lines that existed before 1967.
Since their first meeting in May, 2009, Obama has treated Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to a series of humiliating snubs, including presenting him with a list of demands and then leaving him to mull them over while he went to dinner with his family. Last month Obama was caught disparaging him on a live microphone with French President Nicolas Sarkozy: “You’re fed up with him, but I have to deal with him every day.”
Meanwhile Obama literally throws his arms around Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan, whose rhetoric toward Israel is increasingly threatening. After Israel intercepted a terrorist flotilla trying to break the Gaza arms blockade, Erdogan called it “cause for war” and said Israel had to “pay a price for its aggression and crimes.” The Obama administration then pressured Israel to apologize to Turkey over the incident.
At the fundraiser, Obama also insisted that the U.S. stands firmly “on the side of democracy” and with Israel. And yet he refused to help the democratic opposition forces of Iran and Syria, and his intervention in Libya and Egypt led to both countries being delivered into the hands of Israel’s enemies. Democracy is only as good as the values brought to it by the parties involved; when “democratic” elections lead to the ascendance of the Hitler-worshipping Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, for example, then merely “standing on the side of democracy” isn’t supportive enough. With President Mubarak gone, the new Egyptian regime has restored the relations with Iran that had been severed for 35 years, ended the arms blockade of Gaza, and merely looked on while the Israeli embassy in Cairo was stormed and overrun by agents of the Brotherhood.Middle East analyst Barry Rubin sums it up:
[T]the Obama Administration encourages and supports the coming to power of fanatically anti-Israel groups, then have the nerve to say Israel is becoming isolated because it isn’t making enough concessions! They encourage and support the rise of regimes that are totally against any peace with Israel or any two-state solution, then have the nerve to say that Israel can defuse the situation by making peace.
Obama explained the reasoning behind his boast:
Whether it’s making sure that our intelligence cooperation is effective, to making sure that we’re able to construct something like an iron dome so that we don’t have missiles raining down on Tel Aviv, we have been consistent in insisting that we don’t compromise when it comes to Israel’s security.
Apart from the fact that “something like an iron dome” over Tel Aviv sounds terribly unworkable for all sorts of reasons, it wouldn’t be necessary at all if Obama 1) had not paved the way for the rise of the Brotherhood in Egypt and al Qaeda in Libya, 2) had supported Iran’s 2009 Green Revolution and helped bring down that fundamentalist state’s threatening theocratic regime; and 3) had put the screws to Hamas rather than Israel for peace process concessions.
Obama and his people are not the only ones in the grip of delusion regarding Israel’s security. American Jewish Congress chairman Jack Rosen, who hosted the fundraiser at his home, seconded Obama’s vote of self-confidence. While acknowledging that “there are many in the Jewish community who are concerned” about the strained relationship between Israel and the United States, Rosen said
America has never been as supportive of the state of Israel as President Obama and his administration.
With suicidally clueless Jews like this and an American president like Obama claiming to be Israel’s best friends, she hardly needs enemies. And yet this tiny sliver of a pro-American democracy is surrounded by a swelling tide of genocidal hostility. You would never know it, however, from listening to Obama’s smug self-congratulation.
Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/12/07/obama-i%E2%80%99ve-done-more-for-israel%E2%80%99s-security-than-any-president/
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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