I have read President Obama’s speech to the Adas Israel Congregation in Washington, D.C. and would like to offer the following five observations.
1. Consider what I wrote about Obama and Israel almost exactly four years ago today:
If you hear President Obama speak about the “unbreakable bonds” between the United States and Israel then chances are he has probably just said or done something to fritter away at those bonds.
We heard this when he hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last July at the White House after the row he started on settlements in East Jerusalem. Of course, we heard it again last Sunday during his speech in Washington before the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) following his declaration days earlier that any peace between Israeli and the Palestinians would be based on 1967 borders prior to the Six Day War. Somehow I don’t think it will be the last time those words will traverse his lips during the course of his presidency. In which case, we can look forward to more trouble between the Obama Administration and Israel.
Well, nearly four years later, Obama does not disappoint:
It’s particularly important to remember now, given the tumult that is taking place in so many corners of the globe, in one of the world’s most dangerous neighborhoods, those shared values compel us to reaffirm that our enduring friendship with the people of Israel and our unbreakable bonds with the state of Israel — that those bonds, that friendship cannot be broken. (Applause.) Those values compel us to say that our commitment to Israel’s security — and my commitment to Israel’s security — is and always will be unshakeable. (Applause.)
If Obama is so concerned about Israel’s security then why did he halt shipment of Hellfire missiles at the height of the troubles with Gaza? Needless to say, I am looking for the other shoe to drop once again very soon.
2. With regard to the framework deal reached with Iran, Obama states, “The deal that we already reached with Iran has already halted or rolled back parts of Iran’s nuclear program.”
Balderdash. As Jennifer Rubin of The Washington Post put it so eloquently back in March:
Recall where this administration started: No Iranian enrichment. No sanctions lifted until Iran complies with its responsibilities. Iran must fully disclose its past illegal activities and allow unrestricted inspections. Iran must dismantle the Arak heavy-water reactor. Now look where we are heading: Iran gets thousands of centrifuges and has gotten recognition of its right to enrich. Sanctions will go away “swiftly.” Iran does not reveal past activities. It keeps intact the Arak reactor. After a 10-year period, it is treated like all other NPT signatory countries.
If this is Obama’s idea of halting or rolling back Iran’s nuclear program, I hate to think what he’ll see once they reach a final agreement.
3. President Obama made the understatement of the century when he declared, “The Palestinians are not the easiest of partners.”
You don’t say. Yet what pressure has the Obama Administration brought upon Mahmoud Abbas. He is happy to criticize Netanyahu during the Israeli elections. Meanwhile, the Palestinians last had an election 10 years ago.
Not only are the Palestinians not the easiest of partners, they can hardly be called partners at all. No Palestinian leader will ever accept a Jewish state. The Palestinian raison d’être is to end the State of Israel.
4. President Obama declared, “And that same sense of shared values also compel me to speak out — compel all of us to speak out — against the scourge of anti-Semitism wherever it exists.”
Except for Paris. It was scarcely 100 days ago when President Obama declared that the attack in January on the Hyper Cacher grocery store win Paris which claimed the lives of four Jews was “random” and White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest and then State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki fell all over themselves insisting the attack wasn’t motivated by anti-Semitism even though the killer told the French media he came to kill Jews.
Anyone can say he speaks out against anti-Semitism. But when Obama was confronted by it, he didn’t want to have anything to do with it until his administration was shamed into doing so. All Obama is doing is rehash old lip service, making false claims,
5. Finally, I was struck by this sentence, “And the rights of the Jewish people then compel me to think about a Palestinian child in Ramallah that feels trapped without opportunity.”
Well, there’s a good chance that Palestinian child in Ramallah has been taught to hate Jews from the day he or she was born. This child from Ramallah looks upon those who have committed suicide bombings against Israeli Jews as martyrs and has very likely received candies during the parades that are held glorifying these heinous killings such as when five members of the Fogel family were stabbed to death in their home in February 2011 including an infant girl. The only opportunity many Palestinians want is the opportunity to kill Jews and become martyrs.
President Obama’s speech to the Adas Israel Congregation must be seen for what it is. A cynical means by which to make nice with the American Jewish community which although still solidly Democratic has become increasingly alienated from the Obama Administration due to its anti-Israel posture. Obama is recycling old rhetoric to make false claims about Iran, anti-Semitism, draw false equivalencies and, above all else, is unwilling to recognize the genocidal aims and objectives of the Palestinian body politic against Israel and Jews around the world.
