Obama Administration’s Serial Betrayals of Israel
Obama’s twelve step program for putting daylight between the U.S. and Israel … and still not making peace
David Horovitz, the editor of the Times of Israel has written a scathing critique of the Obama administration’s treatment of Israel.
In the aftermath of the administration’s acceptance of the Fatah/Hamas unity government in defiance of the letter of American law, Horovitz wrote yesterday, 12 ways the US administration has failed its ally Israel.
Horovitz’s criticisms can be broken down into three categories: mistakes in proceeding with the peace process, primarily blaming Israel for the failure of the peace process and other breaches of faith with Israel regarding Israel’s enemies in the Middle East.
In that last category (the last three of Horovitz’s examples) he observes that rather than keeping quiet about reported Israeli air strikes against Syrian arm shipments to Hezbollah, the administration attributed the strikes to Israel risking possible Syrian retaliation against Israel and blasts the administration for “rushing to support Islamic extremists … when they come to power in a neighboring state,” referring to the Muslim Brotherhood’s brief stint as rulers of Egypt.
But he’s harshest in his criticism of the Obama administration for its handling of Iran arguing that “[t]he central goal of US policy in this regard should not be merely denying Iran nuclear weapons but denying Iran the capacity to build nuclear weapons.”
Regarding the peace process Horovitz faults the administration for looking to solve the conflict in just nine months instead of just working on trying to build a climate of trust:
Rather than setting an impossible nine-month timeframe for negotiating a permanent accord, when all reasonable evidence and past experience showed that this would fail, it would have been better for the US and its international allies to start working systematically, investing time, money and leverage in, among other spheres, education and media, in order to create a climate conducive to progress.
Two specific criticisms of Horovitz show how the administration did just the opposite. For one “You’d think an ally would have made plain to the Palestinians that their demand, as a precondition for renewing peace talks, that Israel set free terrorists who have killed large numbers of its innocent citizens was outrageous and unacceptable…” Another was “By lumping all ‘settlements’ together, and relentlessly criticizing all building, you alienate the Israeli middle ground, which supports the retention of Jewish neighborhoods built over the pre-1967 lines in Jerusalem, on the one hand, and would relinquish most West Bank settlements in the cause of a viable peace treaty, on the other.”
So on one hand the administration allowed the Palestinians to celebrate terrorists as heroes, on the other, it took a position that is opposed by a vast majority of Israelis.
Then as the peace process crashed and burned, top administration officials placed “distorted blame for the collapse of the process on the prime minister.” First there was Obama’s interview with Jeffrey Goldberg, which as Horovitz puts it “such withering public comments are hardly likely to bolster the prime minister’s faith in your judgment and solidarity — and thus are likely to undermine your own efforts to build his trust.”
Then after the process was over there was an administration official, likely Martin Indyk, who solely blamed Israel for the failure of the talks to Israeli columnist Nachum Barnea. Then there was Kerry’s careless use of the word ‘apartheid’ in describing Israel which which Horovitz describes as “publicly invoking the spectacularly loaded term “apartheid” in critiquing Israel is the lowest of blows — a gift to enemies who can be counted on to seize upon such comments to distort Israel’s reality and delegtimize its very existence.”
Horovitz, it should be noted, is hardly a right winger. He’s a centrist, maybe even slightly to the left of center and not at all reticent to criticize Netanyahu. It is noteworthy that he concludes:
You might think the above list is the least that Israel might reasonably expect from the US administration. But no. The peace process has collapsed and Israel is getting the blame. Hamas, committed under its own charter to the obliteration of Israel, is now part of an internationally recognized Palestinian government. And the P5+1 nations, led by the US, are working toward a deal that will enshrine Iran’s uranium enrichment capabilities. Israel may not be a perfect ally, but we deserve better than this.
Obama has lost “middle Israel,” I don’t expect he will win it back in the next two years.
[Photo: Pete Souza / WikiCommons ]
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Comments
Obama is the worst Presidential enemy of Israel and George Bush was their best friend.
Who do American Jews love and who do they hate?
American Jews better wake up – Because if they keep heading in the same direction, evetually they will get where they are headed!
I must take excepetion to a paert of your headline. In order for there to be a betrayal, there must be some show of trust. When has the Obama administration ever done that.
Somebody explain to me while all the Jewish Americans voted for this moron. Anyone with a functioning brain, and most Jews I’ve met have functioning brains, could see through this idiot’s bullshit, especially the second time around.
Most American Jews are more closely connected to liberalism than Judaism.
The man is right. Israel may not be a perfect ally – and I still view Netanyahu as having the instincts of an abrasive jerk, like when he tried to dictate to the Pope what language Jesus of Nazareth spoke in his daily life – but Israel deserves better than this. A lot better.
Come at that interaction of Netanyahu and the Bishop of Rome from another angle: Bibi wasn’t being a jerk; instead, he was reminding the Bishop of what many Christians either willfully dismiss or tend to ignore, because we are called “Christians”, you know: Jesus is a Jew.
No doubt that Netanyahu, if he knows his history of Israel around the time of Christ, knows Jesus spoke Aramaic, and likely Latin, and maybe Greek. For him to read anything in the synagogue or temple, Jesus also had to speak Hebrew. So, both men were right. The more important thing is that Netanyahu very cleverly pinned the Bishop of Rome down on the point of the Jewishness of Jesus.
In sum, so you worship a Jew who spoke Hebrew and Aramaic (the Aramaic looks remarkably like Hebrew in script and grammatical forms). Remember the Bishop of Rome had just come from Jordan, where he foolishly stuck his oar in by praying at some wall or other. Remember also that the Arab Christians, willing to lie as ever in a futile endeavor, claimed that Jerusalem was Arabic or some nonsense. What does Netanyahu pin th Bishop on—the Hebraic nature of the language Jesus spoke. Jerusalem is not Arabic; it is Hebraic. If you worship a Jew, how can you join in persecution of Jews? How can you join in the folly of claiming Jerusalem is not the historical Jewish city?
Game, set, and match to Netanyahu.
You are correct. But remember, this is a man who has lived in a Marxist/authoritarian state in south America his entire life. He has seen a belly full of poverty while the corrupt elites practice cronyism, grab, grab, grab, and do not encourage the the country’s ordinary people to flourish in robust economic activity.
What is the implied point? That the Marxists and corrupt cronies in the Bishop’s home country are Jewish? If he thinks that, he is following in the footsteps of Hitler who conflated Marxism with Judaism. If he is sympathetic to the Arabs who occupy Judea and Samaria, then he should remember that Israel is not the stumbling block to their increased economic activity; rather, it is the corrupt thugs in their “government”.
Don’t know if you’ve seen this article by Melanie Phillips,
” ‘Jesus Was a Palestinian’: …”
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/jesus-was-a-palestinian-the-return-of-christian-anti-semitism/
It’s worth the read to become aquainted with some of the Protestant clergy involved.
Back around 2006 the Sabeel group with their head Naim Ateek and arch anti-semite Desmond Tutu did a tour of the US, and Dexter van Zile had a lot to say about them and what they were peddling.
It’s really annoying when people try to prey on the ignorance of the general public. It also takes a pretty pathetic people to try to steal the history of another.
The Churches of Rome and Germany, aka the Lutheran Church, have much to answer for with regard to anti-Semitism. Both have fostered it, and Martin Luther in his writings expressed it out of frustration that Jews would not convert to Christianity.
That is why Netanyahu’s statement about the language Jesus spoke was so significant, especially in terms of the Bishop of Rome’s response. Forget all the blather by those lying Arab “Christians” who, in trying to be liked by Arab Muslims, blame Jews for the decimation of the Christian community in the Arab-occupied areas of Judea and Samaria.
Christians from the various Churches need to remember this:
1. Jesus was born to die, Jo 3.15.
2. WE ALL killed Christ. Jesus died for the sins of all mankind.
3. To be anti-Semitic is to be suicidal; Christians have no identity, theology, or Scripture without Judaism.
4. We are only grafted in to the branch of David; what if God were to reject us for our anti-Semitism? Where would we go? To the barbaric paganism that is Islam? We might as well take up residence in hell cuz the end result is the same.
5. Jesus is a Jew.
Many American Jews need their heads examined, and some Jews in Israel aren’t far behind them either. In the run up to the Final Solution, many German Jews told themselves that because they were well educated and of the professional or elite classes, they had nothing to fear from Hitler. Today, many Jews seem to think if they are reliably Democrat, they have nothing to worry about or fear, even as the Democrat party becomes increasingly anti-Semitic. Obama is in their face anti-Israel, and Democrat Jews say nothing falsely secure that they vote Democrat and support Democrats no matter how anti-Semitic or -Israel.