I feel better now!
Posted on 09/19/2011 1:14:17 PM PDT by libertarian neocon
The New Yorker has a quote from one of the articles in the current issue on its cover that refers to Obama as "the first Jewish President" (he actual title of the article is The Tsuris, which is Yiddish for trouble or aggravation). I guess after the 9th NY District loss at the hands of the Jews, Obama's Jewish minions are really going over the top in saying that he is not only Pro-Israel but should be considered "the first Jewish President". How a Jew could possibly sit in front of anti-semitic sermons for 20 years is beyond me. Or visit just about every Arab country in the region during his Presidency but skip the only Jewish one? Anyway, to the article itself. Of course, it starts by attempting to vilify Netanyahu:
The last time Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu shared each other's company, you could say that the encounter did not go well—if by "not well" you mean abysmally. This was on May 20, the day after Obama gave his big speech on the Arab Spring, in which he unleashed a tsunami of tsuris by endorsing the use of Israel's 1967 borders "with mutually agreed [land] swaps" as the basis for a two-state solution with the Palestinians. Obama and Netanyahu were seated in the Oval Office for what was supposed to be one of those photo ops devoted to roasting rhetorical chestnuts about the solidity of the U.S.-Israel alliance. Instead, while Obama watched silently, looking poleaxed, Netanyahu lectured him—for seven and a half minutes, on live television—about the folly, the sheer absurdity, of suggesting Israel ever return to what he called the "indefensible" 1967 lines.
Obama was furious with Netanyahu, who in choosing to ignore the crucial qualifier about land swaps had twisted Obama's words beyond recognition—the kind of mendacious misinterpretation that makes the presidential mental. The seniormost members of Obama's team felt much the same. Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Bob Gates, Bill Daley, the former Mideast-peace envoy George Mitchell: All were apoplectic with the prime minister, whose behavior over the past two years had already tried their patience. "The collective view here is that he is a small-minded, fairly craven politician," says an administration source deeply involved in its efforts to push the parties to the negotiating table. "And one who simply isn't serious about making peace."
For both Israel and the U.S., the timing could hardly be more miserable. With the Middle East apparently hurtling headlong into crisis, Israel finds itself increasingly isolated, beleaguered, and besieged: its embassy in Cairo invaded by Egyptian protesters, its relations with Turkey in tatters, its continued occupation of (and expansion of settlements within) the Palestinian territories the subject of wide international scorn. How wide? Wide enough that Abbas could credibly claim that 126 of the 193 U.N. member states support his statehood initiative.
Again and again, when Israel has been embroiled in international dustups—over its attack last year on a flotilla filled with activists headed from Turkey to Gaza, to cite but one example—the White House has had Israel's back. The security relationship between the countries, on everything from intelligence sharing to missile-defense development to access to top-shelf weapons, has never been more robust. And when the Cairo embassy was seized and Netanyahu called to ask for Obama's help with rescuing the last six Israelis trapped inside the building, the president not only picked up the phone but leaned hard on the Egyptians to free those within. "It was a decisive moment," Netanyahu recalled after the six had been freed. "Fateful, I would even say."
And many Jewish voters, like those Wall Street financiers (and, to be sure, the overlap between those groups isn't trivial) who flocked to Obama and were then chagrined when he called them out as "fat cats," have all too often focused more on the president's words than his deeds—and come away with the impression that he doesn't seem to "feel Israel" in his bones.
In attempting to apply tough love to Israel, Obama is trying to make a stalwart ally see that undertaking the painful and risky compromises necessary for peace with the Palestinians is the only way to preserve the Zionist dream—which is to say a future as a state both Jewish and democratic. His role here is not that of the callous assailant but of the caring and sober brother slapping his drunken sibling: The point is not to hurt the guy but to get him to sober up.
The suspicions regarding the bone-deepness of Obama's bond with Israel were present from the start, and always rooted in a reading of his background that was as superficial as it was misguided. Yes, he was black. Yes, his middle name was Hussein. And yes, in his time in Hyde Park, his friends included Palestinian scholars and activists, notably the historian Rashid Khalidi. But far more crucial to Obama's makeup and rise to prominence were his ties to Chicago's Jewish milieu, whose players, from real-estate powerhouse Penny Pritzker to billionaire investor Lester Crown, were among his chief supporters and financial patrons.
Equally important, Obama's advisers argue, is that the idea that the administration demanded little of the Palestinians is simply false. "I called it synchronized swimming," recalls Prince. "The Israelis would do settlements, the Palestinians would do some stuff on incitement [of violence against Israel] and security, and other Arab states would undertake a variety of measures that would be steps to normalization. It could be reopening trade offices. It could be allowing overflights. It could be opening direct cell-phone connections. All stuff the Israelis said they really wanted. We spent many more hours in meetings with Arabs about Arab steps than we did with the Israelis. We had equally tough conversations with Arabs; the president had some hard meetings. But that didn't get reported."
Another blunder, and not a minor one, made by the administration revolved around Obama's vaunted speech to the Muslim world in Cairo that June—which more than a few Jews perceived as coming at the expense of Israel, especially when Obama failed to visit Jerusalem on the same trip (or at any time thereafter). "We made a mistake," admits one senior administration foreign-policy adviser. "Nobody thought of it as a big deal at the time, but, I mean, you're in the neighborhood, you're right down the street, and you don't stop by for coffee?"
And then there was Netanyahu's surpassingly volatile governing coalition, which was held together by far-right nationalist, fundamentalist, and even proto-fascistic elements (cf. Avigdor Lieberman).
The vice-president arrived in Israel that March to promote the "proximity" peace talks that the sides had just agreed to undertake. There he was ambushed with a surprise announcement by the Interior Ministry, which is controlled by the fundamentalist Shas Party, of the building of new settlement blocs in contested East Jerusalem. Netanyahu was apparently as blindsided as Biden was.
The next day came his speech to Congress, in which he spelled out demands that were maximal by any measure: recognition by the Palestinians of Israel as a Jewish state as a precondition for negotiations, a refusal to talk if Hamas is part of the Palestinian side, an undivided Jerusalem as Israel's capital, and absolutely no right of return for Palestinian refugees. Taken as a whole, his whirlwind Washington visit provided a strong dose of clarity: With Barak having moved his newly formed Independence Party into Netanyahu's governing coalition, its new stability has reduced to near zero the incentives for him to take the risks required for peace.
The irony is that Obama—along with countless Israelis, members of the Jewish diaspora, and friends of Israel around the world—seems to grasp these realities and this choice more readily than Netanyahu does. "The first Jewish president?" Maybe not. But certainly a president every bit as pro-Israel as the country's own prime minister—and, if you look from the proper angle, maybe even more so.
I feel better now!
Wow! The whole enemedia and other leftist libtards are in complete meltdown/denial mode...Yeah that’s the trick call the most Anti-Semitic man to ever sit in the WH the first jewish president...Look if its not fooling us goyim, its probably not going to fool those jews that are pro-Israel!!
Really now, just because he’s such a putz he should have been scalped when he was eight days old...
In my opinion, Zero is as Jewish as Hitler with the same motivations.
Mark
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
..................
Obama is about as Jewish as Jesse Jackson. That much he absorbed from the black culture.
“are any of the people listed above known for being particularly pro-Israel? Maybe Hillary, but only when she was Senator from New York (she also found Jewish relatives during that campaign, how convenient).”
Wish I could locate it now, but awhile back I read an article relating a story where Hil and Bill were in college - he drove her over to visit a close buddy and introduce her to him and his family. When she found out they were Jewish, she wouldn’t get out of the car and an embarrassed Bill had to apologetically explain to his buddy that she was “just very pro-Palestinian” and “had a problem with Israel”.
Now, HC is a self-serving, political animal and hides her antisemiticism better than BHO these days, but if she’s been pro-Palestine/anti-Israel since college days (or before), that’s not good as SOS (and it’d be really bad were she to be POTUS).
“Egypt would still probably be in the secure hands of Mubarak if Obama didn’t betray him and we know that Mubarak wouldn’t have let the Israeli embassy be attacked in that way. And Turkey has been downgrading relations with Israel since the Islamists took control of the government and eventually the military.”
Of course.
I remember Glenn Beck used to say that we need to start thinking outside the box, to “think the unthinkable”. I wish at least some of the pundits (particularly on FNC) would do that - i.e., that there’s a very predictable pattern to BHO’s “policy” in the Middle East. He strong-arms any leader who’s peacefully co-existed with Israel to step down (encouraging and often aiding the “freedom-seeking, oppressed” rebelling mobs), facilitating - or orchestrating - their replacement with radical Islamist/Muslim Brotherhood leaders whose mission is the eradication of Israel. Likewise, any such leaders already in power (like Ahmedinejad in Iran) he supports and provides no aid (or even verbal encouragement) to any groups who are REALLY fighting for freedom from them, as in the bloody protests after the rigged election of ‘09 in Tehran.
“”The first Jewish president?” Maybe not. But certainly a president every bit as pro-Israel as the country’s own prime minister”
BHO’s Jewish like Judas Iscariot.
It was laughable when BJ Clinton called himself the first black president, but this piece of “literary” garbage about BHO and Israel is sickening and I got angry reading it.
It’s also beyond ironic to me that all these libs are up in arms about Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, etc., voicing their evangelical Christian beliefs, yet those same libs have been quick to say that BHO’s “a Christian” when any of us question his pro-Islamic actions and policies (i.e., when we dare say we believe he’s a Muslim).
“Does he realize what would happen to Jewish access to Jewish religious shrines if the Palestinians take control of them? It would be non-existent.”
And guess what? Christian access to religious shrines and sites in the Holy Land would immediately be non-existent as well.
We’d be lucky if the Muslims don’t tear them down and replace ALL of them with Islamic structures.
“Now, HC is a self-serving, political animal and hides her antisemiticism better than BHO these days, but if she’s been pro-Palestine/anti-Israel since college days (or before), that’s not good as SOS (and it’d be really bad were she to be POTUS).”
Yup, I still won’t forget when Hillary hugged Arafat’s wife after she claimed Israelis were poisoning Palestinians.
“As an example of the widespread bias against Israel, even supporters usually get this wrong... When they talk about the “1967 borders,” they actually mean the PRE-1967 war borders, which is more accurately reported as the 1948 borders!”
What really upsets me is that people say pre-1967 or 1967 borders without really understanding what that means from a negotiation point of view. Israel is being asked to give up 100% of the disputed territory before negotiations even begin. What incentive is there for the Palestinians to give up anything?
Something that people have conveniently managed to forget is that while the British were in charge in Israel, there was extremely limited access to the Kotel, the Western Wall of the Old Temple, and after Israel was established and Jordon illegally annexed the West Bank (something else that is conveniently forgotten) all access to the Kotel was cut off until Jerusalem was retaken by its rightful owners.
Something else that's been forgotten was that when the British were in charge, a Jew blowing the "Shofar" (a ram's horn) on the High Holy Days, a religious obligation, would bring about that Jew's death.
There is NO religious freedom under islamic rule. Actually, there's no freedom of any sort under islamic rule.
Mark
This spaceship will take you there.
-PJ
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