Perhaps Obama Needs to Burn an Israeli Flag on National Television

 

 Mike L.

I sometimes wonder just what it will take to convince Obama's Jewish supporters of the president's unfriendliness toward the Jewish state of Israel.  So far nothing has worked.  No matter how hard Obama tries to distance himself from Israel and downgrade that country's standing in the United States, Jewish progressives (pretending to be liberals*) remain firmly committed to the most anti-Israel American president in history.  Whether its wrecking the "peace process" and then blaming it on Israel or telling Jewish people where they may be allowed to live, and thus build, in Jerusalem or comparing the rise of an anti-Semitic genocidal movement in the Middle East to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s or allowing Iran to get nuclear weaponry, nothing that Obama says or does can convince these Jewish supporters that Obama simply does not much like the Jewish state of Israel.

Why none of this fazes Jewish progressives... pretending to be liberals... is hard to fathom.  We often cite Jewish Stockholm Syndrome as a possible explanation, but slapping a label on the phenomenon only means so much.  In truth, I do not have an answer for just why it is that so many Jewish progressives refuse to acknowledge obvious truths, but that they do so is plain to see.  In fact, as of yesterday, we have even more evidence of Obama's disdain for the Jewish state of Israel and it's all over the news.  In an interview with 60 Minutes Obama said the following:

When it comes to our national security decisions, any pressure that I feel is simply to do what’s right for the American people. And I am going to block out any noise that’s out there. Now I feel an obligation, not pressure but obligation, to make sure that we’re in close consultation with the Israelis on these issues because it affects them deeply. They’re one of our closest allies in the region. And we’ve got an Iranian regime that has said horrible things that directly threaten Israel’s existence.

Not only did Obama refer to Jewish-Israeli concerns about the coming Iranian nuclear stockpile as mere "noise" to be dismissed, he also downgraded Israel from our number one ally in the region to merely "one of our closest allies in the region." While the "noise" comment is both disdainful of Jewish safety concerns and spiteful to the state of Israel, what I am more interested in, I think, is Obama's notion that Israel is not necessarily our best ally in that part of the world.

Just who does Obama consider to be a better ally?  Saudi Arabia?  Obama did, after all, famously bow to the Saudi monarch, but Saudi Arabia also spends millions of dollars on a yearly basis (or whatever the actual figure might be) spreading hatred toward both Israel and toward the United States.  Are they a better friend to the United States than Israel?  I certainly wouldn't think so, but that doesn't mean that Obama doesn't think so.

Or, perhaps what is more likely is that Obama had Turkey in mind.  Obama has claimed that Erdogan (unlike Bibi) is one of his favorite partners in the region, so maybe it is that country that Obama considers a better ally to the United State than Israel.  Of course, under Erdogan Turkey has joined the rising regional trend toward political Islam and now faces more toward Iran than it does toward the west, so it becomes difficult to see just how Turkey could possibly be a better ally to the United States than Israel but, again, just because I wouldn't think so, that doesn't mean that Obama doesn't think so.

Are there other possibilities?

It was under Obama's stewardship that Egypt went from the ally column to the not-ally column, as Obama himself has admitted.  Of course, that represents another very important Obama foreign policy failure that progressives (pretending to be liberals) just sweep under the rug in the hopes that people won't notice.  Those of us who participate on Israel Thrives do notice such things and tend not to appreciate it, but obviously Obama does not care what anyone thinks outside of the narrow American plurality he needs to win reelection.

So, what I am thinking now is that if Obama wishes to convince his Jewish supporters of that which couldn't be more obvious what he should do is simply burn an Israeli flag on the front lawn of the White House.  Wouldn't that be something!  He could call a press conference, burn the Israeli flag, smile for the cameras, and say something like, "Israel has no greater friend in the world than this president of the United States" as he stomps on the flames.

But, you know, I am convinced that even if Obama were to do such a thing, it wouldn't matter.

He'd still get the Jewish vote.

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* Barack Obama supported the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.  The Brotherhood is the granddaddy of political Islam, a movement that subjugates women, is genocidal toward Jews, and that kills Gay people outright.  It is difficult to see how any actual liberal would support a president who supports such a movement.