Mona Charen, writing in The Corner, reposts this piece she wrote in December 2011: "It’s a summary of this administration’s treatment of Israel. I cannot
discuss the Jewish vote without getting an ulcer, but I’d simply ask
that you forward to anyone you know who is sympathetic to Israel."
The
Obama Administration has tirelessly — one might even say tiresomely —
proclaimed its rock solid commitment to Israel. The message has been
delivered by the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the
National Security Advisor, and most flamboyantly, by the president
himself. At a recent fundraiser attended by Jewish donors, President
Obama boasted, “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.” Both clauses of that sentence are
risible.
In
fact, the Obama administration’s approach to Israel has been decidedly
cool when it has not been openly irate. It began in the early weeks of
the new administration. Traveling to the region, the president visited
American allies Egypt and Saudi Arabia. He skipped Israel.
Rather
than consult with Israel about the delicate state of relations with the
Palestinians, President Obama jumped directly into the process with a
peremptory demand: Israel should cease all settlement activity. Mahmoud
Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority, had made no such demand
regarding renewing negotiations. But once the president of the United
States had essentially declared the opening position of the Palestinian
Authority, he could hardly demand less. Accordingly, while Netanyahu had
agreed to a settlement freeze and no preconditions for resuming
negotiations, talks stalled as Abbas refused to participate.
That
the administration blamed Israel, and not the Palestinians or itself
for the impasse became clear when Vice President Biden was visiting the
Jewish state in 2010. During the Vice President’s trip, a municipal
authority in Jerusalem announced a building permit for a block of
apartments in Jerusalem. The usually phlegmatic President Obama went
ballistic. Though Netanyahu apologized to Biden, and Biden accepted the
apology on the spot, President Obama insisted that Secretary of State
Clinton call Netanyahu and chew him out for 40 minutes. Details of the
dressing down were immediately released to the press.
Not
satisfied with this, a few days later presidential advisor David
Axelrod appeared on a Sunday chat show to reiterate that the White House
regarded building apartments for Jews in the capital of the Jewish
state as “an affront.” Later, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu visited the White House, President Obama delivered the final
slaps – declining to pose for pictures or take press questions with the
prime minister; delivering a list of steps Israel would have to take to
restore trust; and then pointedly walking out on the prime minister with
the parting words “Let me know if there is anything new.”
Contrast
that treatment with the administration’s passivity in the face of
Palestinian conduct. In March of 2010, Palestinian terrorists entered
the home of Udi and Ruth Fogel in the town of Itamar on the West Bank.
The terrorists first slit the throats of Udi and his 3-month old
daughter Hadas. Ruth was in the bathroom but was attacked and killed as
she emerged. Two more sons, Yoav, 11, and Elad, 4, were also killed by
knives to the heart. Their throats were slit as well. There were three
more Fogel children. Two other boys, ages 8 and 2, asleep on the sofa,
were apparently missed by the murderers. Twelve-year-old Tamar, who had
been spending Shabbat with friends, returned home to discover 2-year-old
Yishai standing over the bodies of his parents and begging them to wake
up.
In Rafah, Palestinians celebrated the news of the massacre by dancing, singing, and handing around sweets.
The
Obama Administration issued a pro-forma condemnation. “There is no
possible justification for the killing of parents and children in their
home” it read. Secretary Clinton called the murders “inhuman” and
reportedly coaxed a more robust denunciation of the atrocity from
Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas than he had at first
offered.
But
there has been little else – no ongoing campaign to shame or humiliate
the Palestinians; no list of actions they must undertake to show their
good faith – not even a particularly strong expression of revulsion.
The
administration has let it be known, again and again, that it regards
Israel as the obstacle to peace. This, at a time when Israel’s neighbors
have given the world abundant reasons for worry. The Palestinian
Authority has formally allied with the terrorist organization Hamas.
Mahmoud Abbas announced just last week that “there are now no
differences between us.” Does that include Hamas’s implacable
determination to destroy the Jewish state and to exterminate Jews all
over the world “no matter how long that should take”?
Meanwhile,
in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood won 40 percent of the vote in
parliamentary elections, while another 25 percent went to Salafi forces.
The Salafis regard the Muslim Brotherhood as squishes. Sheik Abdel
Moneim el-Shahat, leader of the Salafis, is scornful of the Muslim
Brotherhood for talking about citizenship and freedom outside the
strictures of Islamic law. El-Shahat is not so broad-minded. “I want to
say: citizenship restricted by Islamic sharia, freedom restricted by
Islamic Sharia, equality restricted by Islamic Sharia.” So two-thirds
the Egyptian electorate supports candidates who will find Hamas utterly
congenial.
The
regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria is engaged in a bloody repression of
his restive people that has claimed the lives of more than 5000 brave
protesters.
But the Obama Administration is dismayed by Israel.
Every
previous US administration has tacitly accepted that Israel has nuclear
weapons and has chosen not to make an issue of it. And for good
reasons. Every fair-minded analyst understands that Israel is a tiny
nation surrounded by enemies dedicated to her destruction. Israel’s
possession of nuclear weapons is understood to be a purely defensive
measure. But the Obama Administration, in the person of Rose
Gottemoeller, Assistant Secretary of State and America’s chief nuclear
arms negotiator, has called on Israel (along with Pakistan, India, and
North Korea) to sign the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty. It is hard to
interpret this as anything less than a hostile act by the United
States.
When
Turkey and a consortium of Islamist and leftist groups (including Obama
friends Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn) organized the so-called
“Freedom Flotilla” to run the legal blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza,
President Obama failed to condemn the Turks. Yet when Israel was forced
to confront the ships at sea, the U.S. declared that the blockade (also
imposed, incidentally, by Egypt) was “unsustainable and unacceptable”.
Rather than defend Israel at the United Nations when the inevitable
resolution condemning Israel was presented to the Security Council, the
U.S. voted with Israel’s enemies. It was a move that Elliott Abrams
called “joining the jackals.”
The
president telegraphed his intention to distance the United States from
Israel in his first address to the United Nations. “The United States
does Israel no favors,” he said, “when we fail to couple an unwavering
commitment to its security with an insistence that Israel respect the
legitimate claims and rights of the Palestinians.” The clear implication
is that Israel is not, in fact, respecting the legitimate claims and
rights of the Palestinians.
In
his second address to the UN, the president went further — demanding
that Israel withdraw to the 1967 borders (with land swaps). After
enduring bitter criticism from Republicans and even some Democrats in
Congress, the administration attempted to justify its recommendation of
what Abba Eban called “Auschwitz borders” by suggesting that “everyone
knows” that a future Palestinian state will be on the West Bank and
Gaza. But once again, rather than insist that the Palestinians accept
Israel as a Jewish state, or that the Palestinians purge the terrorists
from their midst, the president placed all of the onus on Israel.
Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, repairing to the language of those
with nothing on the line, encouraged Israel to “take risks for peace.”
In his less serene moments, he has barked that Israel should “get back
to the damn table” — an extraordinary example of anti-Israel bias by the
Obama administration since it is the Palestinians, not the Israelis,
who have refused to talk.
Incredibly,
even Iran’s march toward a nuclear bomb — arguably the greatest foreign
policy challenge of this decade — has been blamed on Israel by the
Obama administration. Former National Security Advisor James Jones
offered that “We understand Israel’s preoccupation with Iran as an
existential threat. We agree with that. . . . By the same token, there
are a lot of things that you can do to diminish that existential threat
by working hard towards achieving a two-state solution.”
This
was no stray remark. A few weeks later, Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton, made the same point: “For Israel to get the kind of strong
support it’s looking for vis-à-vis Iran it can’t stay on the sideline
with respect to the Palestinian and the peace efforts . . . they go
hand-in-hand.” In other words, any effort to prevent Iran from gaining
nuclear weapons is perceived by this administration not as a national
security priority for the United States, but as a favor to Israel.
Even
assuming that the U.S. were going to “reward” Israel with, say, tough
sanctions on Iran in exchange for “progress” on a Palestinian state,
what world are living in when you imagine that a two-state solution
would have any bearing whatsoever on Iran’s nuclear ambitions? Does
President Obama believe that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons in order to
achieve a Palestinian state?
President
Obama brought to relations with Israel the leftist views he’d imbibed
from academia, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Prof. Rashid Khalidi, and from
the left wing of the Democratic Party (Jimmy Carter supported the
Palestinian’s bid for statehood at the UN). Yes, he’s sold the Israelis
bunker buster bombs, and engaged in military to military cooperation.
But the most important support America provides to Israel is public. The
most damaging attacks on Israel in the 21st century (so far) have not
been military but moral and psychological. Israel’s enemies have sought
to delegitimize and defame the Jewish state — with some success.
So-called “Israel Apartheid” protests have proliferated on university
campuses. UN conferences at Durban have trafficked in anti-Israeli and
anti-Semitic slanders. It is becoming acceptable in Europe to say that
Israel’s birth was a mistake. Even a liberal columnist for the
Washington Post, Richard Cohen, has expressed this view.
The
nations of the world, never a sentimental lot, have the capacity to
descend to a lynch mob where Israel is concerned. Only the military,
political, diplomatic, and moral support of the United States prevents
that. President Obama, whatever behind-the-scenes aid he has provided to
the Jewish state, has failed in the far more important public support
for one of America’s closest allies.
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