While Alan Dershowitz focuses on those American Jews who are critical of President Obama’s forays into Middle East peacemaking, he fails to acknowledge a different group that’s also unimpressed with his efforts so far: Israeli Jews. As Aluf Benn writes:
Obama did not try to communicate with the Israeli public and convince them that freezing settlements will be an important and positive step to contribute to peace and a better future. Obama addressed the Arabs and Muslims, but not the Israelis. His neglect increased concerns among Israelis that they do not have a friend in the White House. When the president is “Hussein,” he is perceived as being pro-Arab and picking on Netanyahu. The administration’s pathetic attempt to deny the existence of understandings with Israel on construction in the settlements only bolstered this impression. It was possible to blame Israel for violating its promises, or to say that the policy had changed and to explain why, but not to lie.
Bottom line: We have to assume one of two things.
1. The Obama administration doesn’t understand Israeli politics, and doesn’t recognize that its public policies – while possibly helpful with the Arab world – can hardly make Israelis feel secure and ready to cooperate with the President, no matter how often he says that his commitment to Israel’s security is unshakable.
2. The Obama administration doesn’t care about Israeli politics and Israeli public opinion, and is ready to sacrifice the good will of Israelis in exchange for (presumed) better relations with the Arab world.
My feeling is that it’s the second, which probably explains PM Netanyahu’s (reported) frustration with Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod. (via memeorandum)
If President Obama cared, he wouldn’t have alienated the moderate Left in Israel as Barry Rubin observes.
Many Israelis on the moderate left–which are the overwhelming majority of those in the “left” category–support a two-state solution with some border shifts. In this concept, which is what Labor party leader and then prime minister Ehud Barak took to Camp David in 2000, Israel would retain some small areas with high Jewish (settlement) populations like Maale Adumim and Gush Etzion.
This concept was called the idea of the “settlement blocs.” Israel believed that the last two U.S. presidents accepted this idea and thus agreed that Israel could continue building in these specific places. The Obama administration says that never happened.
So many Israelis on the left not only doubt the prospect of peace and blame the Palestinians for the situation and also favor the settlement blocs approach and are also made very nervous about a U.S. government that forgets past pledges to Israel and doubt Obama’s willingness to be tough in opposing Iranian nuclear weapons.
It’s one thing – and it wasn’t good – for a candidate to say that he opposes a particular political party, like when candidate Obama expressed his disagreement with the Likud party. However since becoming President he has taken positions and actions that put him at odds with the general Israeli electorate. It’s safe to say that President Obama doesn’t much care about Israeli politics – or Israelis.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
I woud say that instead of “Israelis” you should say “Zionists” where “Zionist” is defined in the same way that the rest of the hard left defines it. In spite of the fact that Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod work for him, I would say that he regards them as useful tools but would lump them in with the rest of us “Zionists”.
http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1098853.html
This reminds me of the statement “It is not paranoia when they are really out to get you”. Of the three attitudes that Haaretz uses to claim that he is “suffering from confusion and paranoia”, two are definitely true (and obvious even from the United States) and the middle one is probable. If I were Israeli and actively following the details, it would probably be obviously true as well.
Barack Obama doesn’t care about Jewish people!
I don’t think you’re being quite fair, Eric. It reminds me of something a knowledgeable friend from Chicago once wrote about Jesse Jackson. He said Jackson would be sincerely and genuinely pained at being called an anti-Semite, because he probably knew a lot of Jews but they were almost all radical and/or deracinated Jews. His famous remark about Zionism being “a poisonous weed” in Judaism was undoubtedly based on what he’d heard from Jews. Jackson surely knew a lot of Jews socially, said the friend, but it was unlikely that he had as a genuine social friend any Jew who, for example, was actived in a synagogue.
His associations for twenty years are well-known although it’s considered racist to bring some of those up.
By the way, Obama does buy into that “just anti-Lukud” line. You see it a lot and it’s mostly balderdash. It’s used to show that by golly you are certainly pro-Israel, you just don’t approve of those bloodthirsty, landgrabbing right wingers who are the obstacle to peace. If the expression actually meant anything it wouldn’t not have been used during the years that Likud wasn’t in the government, but of course it was.
A parenthetical note: The pre-1967 borders at one point stopped being merely cease-fire lines and became sacrosanct because it’s unacceptable to acquire territory by violence. Everyone reading this blog knows that statement comes under the Bensky Corollary to Everything, which Meryl persists in calling “the Exception Clause,” namely that every statement and principle carries with it the tacit proviso “except Jews.”
But prior to 1948 the Etzion bloc was Jewish owned and occupied and fell to the Arabs through military operations. Gosh and golly, I wonder why no one seems to think that it’s only fair to restore it to Israel.
With a reported 78% of Jews knee jerk voting for democrats, Obama feels very little concern that his harsh Israel policy will make a difference in his reelection in 2012. I believe he is in for a rude awakening!
First, I really do not believe that 78% of Jews voting for him is an accurate percentage, and most importantly, I am hearing more and more concern that will translate into additional voter shifts.