Obama gave a good speech at the U.N. last week, I credited him with that.
But his Israel policy still encourages Palestinian intransigence, as evidenced by his demands that Israel cease building new housing units in the Jewish neighborhood of Gilo. Gilo occupies a strategic hilltop in Jersusalem from which Arabs used to fire upon Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem prior to the 1967 war.
As explained by Jonathan Tobin:
Those who believed the Obama administration’s attitude toward Israel has changed for the better got a rude wakeup call today when Washington condemned the start of a housing project in Jerusalem….
The first thing that needs to be understood is Gilo is no settlement. Built on the southern border of the city, it was established more than 40 years ago and is the home of approximately 40,000 residents of Israel’s capital. Up until Barack Obama took office, it was not the subject of much, if any comment, by any previous administration. By seeking to force Israel to cease building houses in existing Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem, Obama has legitimized Palestinian demands for not only a re-division of the city but also their desire to evict the more than 200,000 Jews who live in those parts that were illegally occupied by Jordan between 1948 and 1967….
It should also be pointed out that far from being an obstacle to a putative peace deal, building in Gilo — or any other part of Jerusalem — would have no effect on the creation of a Palestinian state if a peace deal should ever be signed. It is generally understood that even according to President Obama’s idea of a border being created along the 1967 lines with land swaps that Jewish Jerusalem would remain under Israeli sovereignty. The only way homes in Gilo could be construed as an obstacle to peace is if the vision of peace being pursued is one in which every Jew is thrown out of much of the city.
Indeed, people in Israel were surprised when, in November 2009, Obama referred to Gilo as a settlement:
Gilo is home to 40,000 people and seems so indistinguishable from the rest of the city that residents and officials were surprised to hear US President Barack Obama refer to it as a “settlement” during an interview he gave to Fox News in China on Wednesday.
Nothing has changed. Obama still feeds the dead-end Palestinian dream of evicting Jews from all land occupied by Jordan prior to the 1967 war, as part of their desire (which they express openly among themselves) to destroying Israel as a Jewish state.
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Obama represents the superior mindset of the majority who dwell in mighty American Ivy Towers of Higher Intellectual-Inbred Indoctrination; his misguided ways are an expectation, not a surprise.
Nothing will change until America’s Ivy Towers burst their financial bubble; faster please.
To simplify the above comment, Obama is a pro-Muslim (or even a Muslim) anti-Semite … as long as the Semite he’s anti is a Jew. Th man is disgusting. He makes common cause with the Jew genocide fantasies of the Arabs and then sticks his hands in Jewish pockets to be reelected to screw over Israel. If folks think they’ve seen the full extent of Obama’s Jew hatred, they ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Give him a second term and watch the fires flame.
If Obama were to make use of his reputed Muslim training, he could put an end to this mess. He could call for the repudiation of the Hamas Covenant on the grounds that it is a contract for Hirabah, is slander against both Islam and Allah, and has resulted in far more harm to Muslims that Jews or anyone else.
He could cite the Pope’s Regensberg address, and the authoritative reply, A Common Word, for the principle that 3 of the world’s major religions are Abrahamic and founded on two principles: Love God, and Love your neighbor.
Unfortunately, all that is required is for a red-diaper baby to take religion seriously.
Even if the Israeli government wanted to stop construction in Gilo, it would have no more authority to do so than Obama would have to interfere with a building permit application in Philadelphia.
He tells car companies what kinds of cars they need to make, chides police when he immediately determines they’ve acted stupidly, lectures Europe on its debt problems, demands Israelis not build in Jewish neighborhoods ….
Is there any human endeavor where he does not consider himself an expert? Anything he thinks will not improve with his magic touch?
I’ll bet you he thought those Greek columns in that stadium were too small.
More and more I’d like to see Herman Cain debating this supremely arrogant fool one-on-one. I think it would be devastating to the left.
In calling Gilo a settlement, obama shows his lack of knowledge about just one more thing. He only knows the propaganda he has been taught throughout his life and “settlements” no matter how large a city is natural to him.
I cannot understand why buildng apartment buildings in Jerusalem is a subject for such controversy. Really, what right does any other country have in interfering with this? Does Canada have the right to tell us not to build anything in our country? Of course, Canada is not trying to take over the US like the Palestinians are Israel. This is catering to the Palestinian idiotism as usual. It is as if the Palestinians regard Jerusalem as their city now not as they hope it to be in the future. Obama has insinuated himself in matters that should not concern him or the US. As far as I can see it, obama regards any city the Palestinians desire as settlements because that is how his mind works.
Why is obama concerning himself with this subject when other muslim countries are shooting their citizens in the streets? His priorities are realy skewed. He realy should take some time off from campaigning and read up on what is happening in the real world.
Exactly, where do ex-State Department employees go after being let go ? The Logan Act precludes them from continuing in the “private sector” so I guess lobbying for foreign governments is all that is left for them domestically. Perhaps, they forgot that they haven’t had their ass thrown out yet.