.
Outspoken
Israeli-born critic of Israel Gilad Atzmon put
it bluntly in the title of his March 25 Internet
essay: “Judea
Declares War on Obama.” Atzmon —
whose candor is unswerving — was referring
to the recent avalanche of bitter commentary unleashed
at Barack Obama by powerful international Jewish
organizations that perceive the president’s
Middle East policies to be less than supportive
of the demands of Israel and the Jewish lobby
in America.
While
Israeli immigrant Orly Taitz — a hardline
Arab and Muslim-basher — beats the bushes
in public forums all across America, questioning
the legitimacy of Obama’s citizenship and
thus the very constitutional legitimacy of Obama’s
occupation of the White House itself, her ideological
allies, at the higher levels — an amazing
array of big-name Jewish leaders and organizations
— have been openly damning the president
in unprecedented terms.
Leading
the pack, predictably, was the American Israel
Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which conjured
up a letter, signed by 76 members of the Senate
and 333 members of the House, ordering the president
and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to be more
accommodating to Israel. AIPAC — like other
Jewish lobby voices — believes the president
and Clinton are doing damage to the so-called
“special relationship” between the
United States and Israel.
Among
other things — and at the focus of controversy
between the Obama administration and Israel —
the Jewish lobby groups uniformly condemn the
Obama administration’s open criticisms of
Israel for working to expand the Jewish population
of Jerusalem, which is a Holy City not only to
Jews but to Christians and Muslims. In general,
however, the Jewish lobby perceives Obama as the
grand wizard behind a concerted reassessment (even
redirection) of long-standing U.S. favoritism
for Israel.
Not
missing a beat, on April 15 — the very day
that American taxpayers are annually asked to
“ante up” for billions of dollars
in U.S. giveaways to Israel — theAnti- Defamation
League (ADL) of B’nai B’rith issued
a no holds-barred broadside aimed at the president,
proclaiming that “[The] Administration’s
Shift in Policy Toward Israel is a Faulty Strategy.”
|
"It is not simply
a geopolitical critique; it is an indictment
of Obama’s ignorance of and lack
of sympathy with the Jewish people. It
cannot be ignored." -- Jennifer
Rubin
|
The
ADL’s national director, Abe Foxman, charged
that Obama’s policy was “dangerous
thinking.” He declared that the administration
has issued a “blatantly disproportionate”
number of statements in which the president and
his advisors have allegedly asked too much from
Israel in the effort to reach a settlement of
the Arab-Israeli conflict, particularly the crisis
surrounding the beleaguered Palestinians in the
West Bank and Gaza. Foxman asserted:
The
significant shift in U.S. policy toward Israel
and the peace process, which has been evident
in comments from various members of the Obama
administration and has now been confirmed by
the president himself in his press conference
at the Nuclear Security Summit, is deeply distressing.
Saying
that the absence of a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict undermines U.S. interests in the broader
Middle East and the larger issue of resolving
other conflicts is a faulty strategy. It is
an incorrect approach on which to base America’s
foreign policy in the Middle East and its relationship
with its longtime friend and ally, Israel.
ADL
has long expressed its concern from the very
beginning of the Obama administration about
advisers to the president who see the ongoing
Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a major impediment
to achieving the administration’s foreign
policy and military goals in the wider region.
In
tandem with the ADL, Ronald Lauder, billionaire
president of the World Jewish Congress, issued
an open letter to the U.S. president that was
published in full page advertisements in The
Washington Post and other major media outlets.
Declaring that “Jews around the world are
concerned” about Iran and complaining that
“the Jewish state is being isolated and
delegitimized,” Lauder excused the actions
of what he described as “the Israeli housing
bureaucracy” having made “a poorly
timed announcement” (regarding the expansion
of Jewish housing in Jerusalem) and expressed
anger that the Obama administration had called
the announcement an “insult” that
reflected “the dramatic deterioration”
of the relationship between the U.S. and Israel.
Lauder’s open letter laid bare the concerns
of the global Jewish community:
Our
concern grows to alarm as we consider some disturbing
questions. Why does the thrust of this administration’s
Middle East rhetoric seem to blame Israel for
the lack of movement on peace talks? . . . Another
important question is this: What is the administration’s
position on Israel’s borders in any final
status agreement? Ambiguity on this matter has
provoked a wave of rumors and anxiety. Can it
be true that America is no longer committed
to a final status agreement that provides defensible
borders for Israel? Is a new course being charted
that would leave Israel with the indefensible
borders that invited invasion prior to 1967?
. . .
And
what are America’s strategic ambitions
in the broader Middle East? The administration’s
desire to improve relations with the Muslim
world is well known. But is friction with Israel
part of this new strategy? Is it assumed worsening
relations with Israel can improve relations
with Muslims? History is clear on the matter:
appeasement does not work. It can achieve the
opposite of what is intended.
And
what about the most dangerous player in the
region? Shouldn’t the United States remain
focused on the single biggest threat that confronts
the world today?
That
threat is a nuclear-armed Iran. Israel is not
only America’s closest ally in the Middle
East, it is the one most committed to this administration’s
declared aim of ensuring Iran does not get nuclear
weapons.
Lauder
closed his challenge to the president by saying
that “it is time to end our public feud
with Israel,” but on the web site of the
WJC publicly expressed opinions of the president
were openly displayed with one WJC member saying
that Obama “does not value the U.S. relationship
with Israel and will willingly sacrifice [Israel]”
in order to achieve its goals. Another Jewish
leader declared that “There was ample evidence
of this president’s animosity toward the
Jewish people before the election. He is an anti-Jewish
bigot.”And yet another charged that Obama
and his administration are “friendly with
Israel’s enemies.”
Holocaust
industry professional Elie Wiesel took out his
own full-page advertisements in The Washington
Post and The Wall Street Journal
to blast the administration for its concerns about
Israel’s expansion of Jewish housing in
Jerusalem.
Referring
to Wiesel’s commentary, Erick Stakelbeck
who writes on “terror” for Christian
Zionist fanatic Pat Robertson’s Christian
Broadcasting Network, proclaimed:
“When
famous Holocaust survivor, human rights activist,
humanitarian and Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel
drops the hammer on you over your Israel policy,
you know you are doing something horribly wrong.”
And
Jennifer Rubin of the American Jewish Committee-associated
Commentary magazine chimed in, noting
that while Wiesel didn’t mention Obama by
name “his point could not be clearer: ‘Forget
it, Mr. President’.”
Ms.
Rubin concluded in threatening AJC style:
It
is significant that it isWiesel — a Jewish
figure without peer and the embodiment of Holocaust
memory — who writes this. It is as powerful
a rebuke to an American president as any he
can receive. It is not simply a geopolitical
critique; it is an indictment of Obama’s
ignorance of and lack of sympathy with the Jewish
people. It cannot be ignored.
Rough
times may well lie ahead for Barack Obama, who
just recently was described as an “anti-Semite”
by the brother-in-law of Israel’s prime
minister. As AFP readers will recall, these trends
point toward what AMERICAN
FREE PRESS
— alone among the media — reported
on Dec. 1, 2008, just a month after Obama’s
election: the possibility that Obama could “pull
a JFK” once in office and dare to challenge
Israel.
Although
many still are unable to comprehend why all of
this is happening, considering the fact that two
key members of his inner circle — Rahm Emanuel
and DavidAxelrod — are Jewish (with Emanuel
having held U.S.-Israeli dual citizenship and
being the son of a former Jewish terrorist), even
Emanuel and Axelrod have been attacked in Israel
as “self-hating Jews.”
Those
familiar with the JFK administration will recall
that although JFK had a number of Jewish advisors
he still stood up to Israel on numerous fronts
including Israel’s effort to build nuclear
weapons. Obama’s fate remains to be seen.
* * * * * * *
