The White House War Against Israel-In the administration’s rage, an anti-Semitic trope emerges

Frontpagemagazine ^ | 3-23-10 | Edward Alexander

[SJackson]

The decision of the Obama White House to pick a public fight with Israel over its interior ministry’s fairly routine announcement of progress towards approval of the construction (some years from now) of apartments in northeast Jerusalem has by now been subjected to sharp and justified criticism for its disproportionality; its bad faith in reneging on signed agreements with Israel; its mean-spirited spitefulness; its dogged attachment to the exploded assumption that “settlements” are the cause of Arab intransigence; its desire to keep intact the possibility of an apartheid state of Palestine that would not accommodate a single Jew; and its entire indifference to the violence that its reckless statements could (and did) incite in Jerusalem.

But there is a more sinister aspect to the relentless expressions of “insult” and “offense” coming from Vice-President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and White House advisor David Axelrod. It is the invocation, undoubtedly originating in the Oval Office itself, of a long-recognized trope of anti-Semitism, a lethal mixture of the ancient blood libel and the modern conspiracy libel.

Already in July 2009, long before the current ruckus, President Obama told Jewish leaders at a White House meeting that he wanted to “change the way the Arabs see us” by putting “space” between the U. S. and Israel. More recently Biden, according to several reports, told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that

“What you’re doing here [i.e., building houses for Jews in “settlements”] undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That endangers us and it endangers regional peace.”

In other words, Biden was accusing Israel of being responsible for the shedding of American blood, the loss of American lives. And as recently as March 16, General Petraeus testified that

“The conflict [between Israel and the Palestinians] foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U. S. favoritism for Israel. Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of U. S. partnerships with regimes in the Arab world….The conflict also gives Iran influence in the Arab world through its clients, Lebanese Hizbollah and Hamas.”

Stripped of its euphemistic diplomatic language Petraeus’s statement, too, echoes the White House’s bold new offensive against Israel and its supporters: American diplomacy is crippled, the religion of perpetual outrage is being outraged, and American soldiers are at greater risk, mortal risk, because Israel is making Arabs angry. The language of Walt and Mearsheimer and the Anti-Israel Lobby now comes from Obama and his diplomats and generals.

Among the critiques of Obama’s new strategy, only that of Martin Peretz in The New Republic has suggested its unsavory provenance: “Someone at breakfast this morning suggested to me that Obama is like Colonel Lindbergh.” But this is far too vague, and Peretz does not amplify it. Lindbergh made very few public statements against Jews, and even his diaries say little more than that “We must limit…the Jewish influence.” Peretz’s breakfast companion would have provided this once ardent Obama supporter a far better precedent for Obama’s view of Israel and American Jewry in Lindbergh’s good friend Henry Ford, who never tired of arguing that Jews manipulate diplomacy to cause wars in which Christians die to enrich Jews. Or perhaps Patrick Buchanan, who in September 1990 began to argue that “there are only two groups…beating the drums for war in the Middle East: the Israeli defense ministry and its amen corner in the U. W.”

Better yet, given the passionate Europhilia of President Obama, might have been to liken the White House’s unsavory new strategy against Israel to that of English anti-Semites who during the Boer War always asked why the British government was fighting a “war of gold” against the Boers on behalf of Jewish magnates, and during World War I declared (in 1916) that “If Lord Kitchener is dead, the Unseen Hand [then shorthand for the Jewish Conspiracy] killed him,” and in 1939 insisted that “the Jews” (in Germany and England) were to blame for the anticipated war.

Those 1939 accusers of the Jews were, of course, the most ardent supporters of Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement towards Adolf Hitler. That policy could not have been far from the minds of Israelis who heard Biden’s ludicrous March 11 boast (as little believed in Jerusalem as in New York) that “The United States is determined to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, period.” Now that the umbrellas are again going up, this time in Washington, the expedient of blaming Jews for the violence that has been and will be unleashed against them has moved from the streets of London into the Oval office.

[SJackson]

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[jersey117]

I can’t believe petraeus is in lock step wit Hussein on this.

[gogogodzilla]

Just because someone is a good military strategist doesn’t exempt them from anti-semitism.

[MsLady]

Obama is overreacting at the very least, it makes no sense. And at the very worst he’s a closet muslim. It’s as if he’s itching for a fight with Israel. Bibi isn’t doing anything wrong at all. The land that’s being built on belongs to Israel. It’s none of Obama’s business and I’m really sick to death of the Israeli bashing, not only by the whole world but, by this administration. And that speech hillary gave yesterday, was all a lot of hot air, no substance.

[greeneyes]

The moussad may get tired of this nonsense. I think O should be a little more respectful of our allies.

[popdonnelly]

Oh, please. It’s ridiculous to suggest that the Mossad would target the President.

[popdonnelly]

I put trying to placate the “Palestinians” in the same category with making nicey with the Iranian regime. In both cases, the ultimate result is that they win and the U.S. loses.

[SJackson]

I’m not sure he’s anywhere on this, he answered a question in a Congressional hearing based on his request to include the West Bank and Gaza in his command rather than EUCOM. It’s the political sphere, which is out of his realm anyway. BTW, I know it’s a given that since he commanded the surge, he must a political conservative, he works for a liberal now, as he should.

[Bahbah]

I can’t believe petraeus is in lock step wit Hussein on this.

It is shocking and very disappointing. There was no need for him to have included any such remarks, so it is obvious that he did so quite willingly. I have tried for years to figure out anti-Semitism and I have failed. I have come to see it simply as a great and dangerous moral void in those who subscribe to it.

[jersey117]

I would love to see Bibi wipe the floor with the cowardly, diaboloical, pathetic POS the ignorant people of this country saddled us with.

[CaptainAmiigaf]

Remember that 78% of the Jews of this country voted FOR and celebrated the election of this (self censored). Very shortly, they will gather in our annual remembrance of our original deliverance from the bondage in Egypt.
If I may, with respect, borrow the words of another man,
these 78% should intone, “Father, forgive us, we knew not what we were doing.”
Sincerely, one of the 22%.

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

Every dictator needs one or more scapegoats. Jews and Israel nicely fit the bill, as history has shown us.

[Jewbacca]

Petraeus is not thinking beyond his theatre of operations.

Militarily, he is correct that anything that riles up the savages makes his job harder.

He could be talking about a cartoon or a full moon.

[Bahbah]

Same here, jersey.

[The Comedian]

I have tried for years to figure out anti-Semitism and I have failed.

It's rather straight-forward. There is an intelligence who strives against humankind. It prefers we all die, but if we must live, then we should live in fear, agony, slavery, ignorance, and despair. It broadcasts this idea like a subconscious radio transmitter.

Every living Jew represents bondage replaced by freedom, fear replaced by joy, ignorance replaced by knowledge, and despair replaced by triumph.

And in the ultimate insult to this intelligence, through the Jews, death was replaced by Life.

They must be repressed, harassed, silenced, and if possible, exterminated, lest humanity realize its true place in the order of things through the example and history of the Jews.

You can always tell an agency of this intelligence by its attitude toward Israel and the Jews. It's quite a dichotomous alliance too, since you will never find anyone who is indifferent to Israel and the Jews.

Everyone's subconscious radio is either tuned to KYWH ("The Voice of Love on Your Dial"), or it picks up the "default" anti-Semitic transmission.

[Quix]

EXCELLENT. ONE OF YOUR ABSOLUTE BEST.

It’s the only way satan can get back at God for not allowing satan to be God and for kicking him out of Heaven . . . . to trash God’s favorites as much as possible.

[Bahbah]

What a thoughtful and excellent post. I am so glad that my radio dial is properly tuned.

[Quix]

Wiping the floor would be fitting . . .

Wiping a camel’s arse with him would be more fitting.

[The Comedian]

You are both too kind.

May all His listeners be blessed at home, in the car, and at the office! :-)

Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.