Gidon Ben-Zvi
Debunked: The myth of a caring Obama White House
The best that can be said about the current administration is that it is sending mixed signals to the Islamic Republic
Sep 3, 2012, 9:00 AM
US President Barack Obama (illustration: Arie Katz/The Times of Israel
The administration of US President Barack Obama reacted sharply to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's recent comment that Obama had "thrown allies like Israel under the bus" regarding Iran's nuclear weapons program. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters that assistance "… provided to Israel by the United States has never been greater than it has been under President Obama. We have an extremely close relationship with Israel, which is appropriate given our unshakable commitment to Israel's security."
Barack Obama an erstwhile supporter of the Zionist enterprise? Such drivel may stick with Hollywood's glitterati, but outside of Tinseltown, the cold, hard facts indicate an administration policy that's fueled by a deep-rooted animus toward the Jewish state.
Because, while the White House claims that cooperation with Israel "between our military and intelligence communities has never been closer," it turns out that that the Obama administration has decided to drastically reduce US involvement in planned joint military exercises with Israel scheduled for October. Furthermore, long-promised missile interception systems will not be delivered by the US to Israel at that time.
And this is just the latest example of Obama shamefully tripping up Israel for the entire world to see. In May 2011, the American president called on Israel to make territorial concessions to some approximation of the '67 lines before an agreement is reached on the existential issues of refugees and Jerusalem. Essentially doing the bidding of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Obama chose to become the first US president to openly endorse the '67 lines as the basis for negotiating a final border — during Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to the Oval Office.
With friends like these…
Regarding Iran, the best that can be said about the Obama administration is that it is sending mixed signals to the Islamic Republic. Indeed, the White House's idea of taking a stand on Iran's pursuit of a nuclear bomb is to periodically mouth that the administration is "keeping all options on the table."
(illustration: Arie Katz/The Times of Israel)
Evidently, Iranian President Ahmadinejad and the mullahs have been less than intimidated by the vague threat of military action. In fact, the latest report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said that Iran had installed 1,000 more centrifuges — the devices that enrich uranium — at a fortified bunker in its second major enrichment site at Fordo, near Qom. The IAEA also said that Iran had increased its stockpiles of higher-grade enriched uranium from 145 kg. to 190 kg. in the past three months. Finally, the IAEA asserted that Iran was frustrating attempts to inspect a site feared to have been used to test methods for exploding a nuclear weapon.
So is Israel simply dealing with the naiveté of a former University of Chicago Law School senior lecturer, or is Barack Obama's reluctance to support an Israeli military strike against Iran an indication of a deeper, more sinister, malevolence?
Fear not, gentle reader. Hysterical accusations of anti-Semitism have no oxygen here. Yet, a possible indicator as to Obama's instinctive appeasement of Israel's enemies can be gleaned from the newly minted "Rabbis for Obama" campaign initiative, formed to engage and mobilize grassroots supporters.
This attempt at outreach includes many leaders of the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction (BDS) Movement, a movement inimical to Israel's well-being. Among Obama's rabbis are founders of the pro-Hamas "Fast for Gaza" initiative. It even includes one person who spent an evening in 2008 dining with Ahmadinejad and another who says that the United States and Israel bring terrorism on themselves. Several members of Rabbis for Obama are officials of Jewish Voice for Peace, a radical group that the Anti-Defamation League featured in its list of the "Top 10 Anti-Israel Groups in America."
The lingering debate among American Jews as to whether Barack Obama is a bona fide anti-Semite is irrelevant, and frankly distracts attention from the commander-in-chief's nefarious tendency to appease and embolden radical Islamists. Continually whitewashing the Muslim Brotherhood, Obama's White House sold the movement — whose primary goal was, has been and remains the destruction of the Jewish state — as being largely secular.
And this reflexive courting of Israel's enemies can be seen in Obama's very different approach to two Middle East tyrants. For while the 44th president of the United States supported the ouster of Egyptian autocrat Hosni Mubarak, Mr. Obama refuses to demand that the Persian strongman step aside.
So, while the White House repeatedly asserts that its commitment to the security of Israel is rock solid, Obama simultaneously contends that if Israel uses military force against Iranian nuclear sites, then the timeline for any negative consequences will start with Israel — not Iran. Obama has repeatedly urged Prime Minister Netanyahu to think about "the profound costs of any military action," placing the focus on "potential unintended consequences" of Israel's actions and describing the move as liable to be a "distraction in which Iran suddenly can portray itself as the victim."
Barack Obama brought with him to 1,600 Pennsylvania Avenue the academic left's values and prejudices. Israel as the epitome of Western subjugation of Third World peoples is but one facet of this cracked worldview. This most-favored narrative of anti-colonial intellectuals weaves the compelling yarn of a quasi-fascist Israel, whose continued existence is based on a combination of oppression and expansionism.
With such intellectual underpinnings, how can it be argued that Israel has a friend in the White House?
Gidon Ben-Zvi, former Jerusalem Correspondent for the Algemeiner newspaper, is an accomplished writer who left behind Hollywood starlight for Jerusalem stone in 2009. After serving in an Israel Defense Forces infantry unit from 1994-1997, Ben-Zvi returned to the United States before settling in Israel, where he and his wife are raising their four children to speak fluent English – with an Israeli accent. Ben-Zvi's work has appeared in The Jerusalem Post, The Times of Israel, the Algemeiner, American Thinker, the Jewish Journal, Israel Hayom, and United with Israel. Ben-Zvi blogs at Jerusalem State of Mind (jsmstateofmind.com).