The reaction to Obama’s treatment of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin (“Bibi”) Netanyahu was as strong if not stronger than I have seen in the comments here and elsewhere in the blogosphere on any other issue. (I didn’t let through a number of over-the-top comments.)
Why this reaction? I bet a lot of the people having this reaction only had heard of Bibi Netanyahu in passing on the news.
Who would care if our President left a foreign leader to wait in the White House while the President supposedly went to have dinner with his family? Who would care if our President broke protocol by refusing to be photographed and hold a press conference with a foreign leader? Who would care if that foreign leader left tail tucked between his legs, humiliated at home at the treatment by the leader of the free world?
Part of it certainly is that the foreign leader in question was the leader of Israel, which is tremendously popular with Americans. In Israel the clear majority of Americans see a democratic nation surrounded by implacable enemies who also are our enemies, doing what it takes to survive and thrive. In so many historical, religious and political ways Israel is our kindred spirit, more than just one among many nations.
But that cannot explain the intensity of the reaction. Obama has shown disrespect for our British friends, with whom we share an even more intense historical relationship. There are very, very few countries in the world whose soldiers would die for us, and Britain is one of those countries. Yet the reaction to Obama’s treatment of Britain has been muted.
I think the reaction to Obama’s treatment of Bibi Netanyahu hits home because it was so personal in nature, and because it epitomized how the American people have been treated by Obama and the Democrats, with arrogance and disdain.
We have seen this attitude since the Inauguration, when Obama and the crowd treated George W. Bush with disrespect, in the smears by Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and other leading Democrats against health care protesters, in the daily attacks by the left-wing blogs and mainstream media against the Tea Party members, in the treatment of Sarah Palin and Trig Palin, in the bribes and budgetary chicanery used to pass a health care bill opposed by a significant majority of the population, and in the disgusting use of the race card to stifle legitimate political dissent.
In Bibi Netanyahu we see something we have lost in our leader, an unflinching sense of national destiny, an unapologetic pride in who we are and why we are, and a willingness to stand up to tyrants and neighborhood bullies regardless of the price.
To see a leader like Bibi Netanyahu treated so shabbily by someone who treats us the same way was too much to bear.
The story of how Obama treated Bibi Netanyahu at the White House was a familiar story, which is why it has caused such a strong reaction.
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