Politico and Ha’aretz are reporting that Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren is saying that President Obama’s policies on Israel are a “tectonic shift” in U.S.-Israel relations. (Laura Rozen mentions Yedioth Ahronoth as the source, but I can’t find a Ynet link.) In the Ha’aretz article, Oren denies that he ever said such a thing.
“There is no crisis in Israel-US relations because in a crisis there are ups and downs,†Oren told a a closed briefing to senior officials in the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s North America Branch and research division, Yedioth Ahronoth’s Itamar Eichner reports.
If this is true, twenty years of listening to Reverend Wright absolutely made their mark.
Oren noted that contrary to Obama’s predecessors – George W. Bush and Bill Clinton – the current president is not motivated by historical-ideological sentiments toward Israel but by cold interests and considerations. He added that his access as Israel’s ambassador to senior administration officials and close advisers of the president is good. But Obama has very tight control over his immediate environment, and it is hard to influence him.
“This is a one-man show,” Oren is quoted as saying.
Even worse:
Obama met with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Toronto Saturday.
“The two leaders had a wide-ranging and candid discussion between allies that addressed Iran’s nuclear program, Middle East peace, the flotilla incident, Afghanistan, the PKK and terrorism,†according to the White House readout of the conversation.
Why do I get the feeling that the meeting wasn’t a lot of Obama telling Erdogan to stop the anti-Israel incitement and own up to the fact that his people instigated the attack? By the way, could Israel-Turkish relations get any worse? Yes, yes they could.
Seventy-eight percent of American Jews voted for the most anti-Israel president in decades. Will American Jewish leaders wake up and realize that Obama is not their friend?
Will the battered spouse of the Left let go at last?
“the current president is not motivated by historical-ideological sentiments toward Israel but by cold interests and considerations. ”
Not even America’s interests and considerations, but rather the personal and narrow, selfish political interests and considerations of Barack Obama and his reactioanry cronies. If these reactionaries are selling Israel down the river, they are doing the same to the USA.
Meh. Obama’s a flash in the pan. I don’t think the American people support Israel any less.
John,
That doesn’t matter. The American public is not in charge of policy, Obama is. Even if 100% of the American public supports Israel, it doesn’t matter when Obama is propping up her enemies and pushing her away.
78% of American Jews voted for Obama? Well, at the time of the Exodus, just over 78% of the Jews died during the plague of darkness because they were so steeped in the false gods of Egypt that they could not bring themselves to seek freedom. Cf Rashi to Shmos 38:18.
Coincidence? Maybe. But then again, Le plus ce change, etc. — or as the French say, masseh avos, siman l’bonim. It’s just that the false gods change names every now and then. (And yes, the same holds of anyone who thinks that any political party is our salvation. But that’s not the same as overlooking where and how it makes sense to form alliances.)
I don’t want to disparage anyone, but many American Jews I know outside of Israel couldn’t give a crap about what happens to her. Israel just doesn’t matter to them. I don’t find the 78% figure hard to believe at all. I’m always a bit surprised so many pro-Israel people do.
As I’ve said before, when this President launches an attack on Iran, he will insist he did it on behalf of our “Saudi allies” .. and MEAN it. Small surprise that his Supreme Court nominee successfully argued (as Solicitor General) that the 9/11 families have no right to sue Saudi Arabia, as it would damage relations with an ally. Eh, G-d forbid we offend such people. Some “ally,” eh?
Our fiends, the Saudis. Ironically Obama’s weakness, on Iran especially but on other things too, is going to convince the Saudis (and many other US allies) to distance themselves from the USA and adopt appeasement strategies towards our enemies. Meet the new boss, much different from the old boss. There is an old Russian peasant proverb that goes “We are right who are with the strong.” It’s not just Russian peasants who follow that rule.
Obama does not understand the way the world works, in international affairs, in diplomacy, in military affairs, in economics, or in almost every other area of interest you could name. Nor does he care about what he does not know or understand; unlike Dubya, Obama really is uncurious about the world. He’s not even curious about the contents of “his” bills Congress debates. He was quite ignorant about the “stimulus” bill and the Obamacare bill, for example. It is like he did not care what the actual provisions were, just so long as he got some bill through that bureaucrats could then “interpret” to say anything he wanted it to say. Obama has his ideology, absorbed at universities and law school, and that is good enough for him.
This Jew did not vote for Obama. For a smart people we can be awfully dumb.