Obama's Veiled Threats

Michael L.


When Obama adminisitration officials started making veiled threats, while questioning Jewish yearnings for peace, I was not at first sure what to make of it.  When, last August, 2013, former US Secretary of State John Kerry suggested that unless Israel comply with Obama's insistence on telling Jewish people where we may be allowed to live on our homeland otherwise Israel would face "delegitimization on steroids," it was hard to know if he was speaking as a friend or making a veiled threat.

I think that with the current round of veiled threats we can probably conclude that these veiled threats are, in fact, meant as threats.

After all, when the administration starts coordinating the threatening language among themselves, and thus repeating the same threatening talking point as the same time, as is happening now, then you know this is not coincidental.

Adiv Sterman, writing in the Times of Israel, tells us:

Using uncharacteristically harsh language, Washington officials launched a coordinated attack on Israeli plans to push forward new housing in East Jerusalem on Wednesday, saying the move would distance Israel from “even its closest allies” and raise questions about its commitment to seeking peace with Palestinians.

The nearly identical comments from State Department Spokesperson Jen Psaki and White House spokesman Josh Earnest came hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrapped up a meeting with US President Barack Obama during which he pitched for the US and Israel to work together to boost other Arab states’ involvement in the Palestinian peace process.

Psaki said the US was “deeply concerned” over Israel’s approval last week to advance the construction of some 2,500 housing units in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Givat Hamatos.

“This step is contrary to Israel’s stated goal and it would send a very troubling message if they proceed with tenders or construction,” Psaki said, adding the move would “call into question Israel’s ultimate commitment to a peaceful negotiated settlement.”

The Obama administration just keeps doubling-down, again and again, on precisely the very same mistake that it failed to learn out of the gate in 2008.  He still thinks that peace is dependent upon making sure that Mahmoud Abbas gets a veto over where we may be allowed to live on the very land where our ancestors come from.  Not only is Obama's policy racist toward Jews, and not only does it justify Abbas' insistence upon ethnically cleansing Jewish people from Judea and Samaria, but it also plays directly into Arab settler intransigence.

If Jews insist on living in Judea, and if Obama agrees with Abbas that they should not be allowed to do so, then naturally Abbas can refuse a negotiated conclusion of hostilities and blame it on those Jews with Obama's blessing.

From a strategic standpoint, the Obama administration's obsession concerning where Jews live in Israel was a monkey-wrench in the works from the very beginning and is partly responsible for the failure of the peace process during his tenure.

For him to continue to throw the very same monkey-wrench into the very same gears year upon year is beyond foolish.

What do you suppose accounts for it?  While I do not believe that Barack Obama is half so intelligent as they kept telling us he is, he certainly not dumb.  He is at least of average intelligence, and probably above-average, so how could he not comprehend that trying the same thing over and over again, and failing each time, might indicate counterproductive policy?

This is what Harvard law professor and pro-Israel advocate Alan Dershowitz, an Obama supporter, has to say on the matter:

“To focus on these events at a time when ISIS is beheading, when Iran is developing nuclear weapons, and when Hamas is preparing rocket attacks, is such a perversion of reality and such a false prioritization,” Dershowitz said in an interview with The Algemeiner. 

Asked whether the White House’s criticism implicitly discriminated against Jewish residency rights on the basis of ethnicity, Dershowitz responded: “I see a failure to point the finger where it belongs, at Palestinian leaders who say, ‘no Jew will ever live on the West Bank.’ For the White House to object to Jews purchasing property, it reminds me of those who protested when Jews bought property in pre-Israel Palestine. 

This isn’t the old days when Jews have to live behind a ghetto wall.”

Indeed.

{With appreciation for Yaakov Kirschen for creating the image above and for his Dry Bones cartoonage, more generally.}