What Has Obama Done About Anti-Semitism?

Forget About Israel -What Has Obama Done About Anti-Semitism?

The focus of the Jewish community has naturally been on Obama's Middle East policies and his relationship with and pressure on Netanyahu. Chicago attorney Pejman Yousefzadeh writes about another issue, one that has not received much attention: Obama And Anti-Semitism:

The inability or unwillingness of the Obama Administration to forcefully speak out against instances of anti-Semitism in the Democratic Party should also be a cause for concern. The demagoguery of Democrats like Rep. James Moran, who has stated that an “extraordinarily powerful” pro-Israel lobby—with “the strong support of the Jewish community”—was responsible for causing the United States to go to war with Iraq, is well known, but the Obama Administration has not decided to challenge him, or other Democrats like him, for seeking to profit politically from the popularization of anti-Semitic tropes. Nor has the administration taken on members of the liberal blogosphere for engaging in reflexive anti-Israel hatred and general anti-Semitism and for potentially causing a serious rift between liberals and American Jews, a rift that would harm the president’s political prospects and the Democratic Party’s electoral future.

Some might say that a lone Congressman or a handful of lefty bloggers are beneath the attention of the president of the United States. But while no American president wants to engage in rhetorical overkill, there are disturbing trends developing within the base of the Democratic Party that ought to concern the president and certainly concern the American Jewish community. A shocking 2009 poll revealed that 18.4 percent of Republicans blamed Jews for the recent financial crisis. That’s appalling enough, but even worse, the poll revealed that nearly a third of Democrats also blamed Jews for the near-collapse of the American economy. As the administrators of the poll wrote, this statistically significant difference was surprising “given the presumed higher degree of racial tolerance among liberals and the fact that Jews are a central part of the Democratic Party’s electoral coalition.” It would be in the president’s interests to fight against anti-Semitism in the liberal community, if only to prevent the defection of American Jews from the Democratic Party. But he seems to be unwilling to do so. If American Jews are not alarmed by this lack of action on the president’s part, they should be.

Yousefzadeh concludes that the policies of the Obama administration in general could have a negative affect on Jewish support for the Democratic party. Of course, the threat of Jewish disillusionment with the Democratic party is an idea that is periodically brought out--often by Republicans. This 'threat' has never materialized.

Then again, we are seeing a level of disillusionment with an unusually popular candidate-cum-president the likes of which we have never seen before. Who knows how far those negative feelings may go or the backlash they may cause.

There is no reason for Republicans to get their hopes up, but Democrats would be wise to take a lesson from the anticipated shellacking they will take in the midterm elections and act accordingly.



Daled Amos

President Obama in Trouble

Great News... As elections loom, US president losing support of once- sympathetic voters

by Yitzhak Benhorin

Part 1 of analysis

After the US president licks the wounds suffered in the Congress elections campaign, he will prepare to head to the Far East. Recently, he called off his plan to visit the Golden Temple in Punjab, India, officially pleading “logistical problems.” However, according to reports (which have been denied,) the president is in fact concerned about donning the white robe customarily worn in the temple. The unofficial reason for calling off the visit is the wish to avoid another photo to be used by Obama’s rivals as proof that he is in fact Muslim.

If these reports are accurate, this story perfectly expresses the turnaround in the president’s status since November 2008. Obama entered the White House with immense confidence, delivering strategic speeches in Turkey and in Egypt where he expressed his wishes to improve ties between the US and the Muslim world. Yet Obama in November 2010 no longer possesses the self-confidence that turned him from a junior senator to the leader of the world’s greatest power. Right now, he is hiding in the bunker.

On top of the smearing on racial on religious grounds, the president is facing genuine distress in the face of the Congress elections. The beaten up president and his party members have known for months now that the battle for a Congress majority is a lost cause. The House majority, as well as the post of House speaker, will fall into the hands of the conservatives. The big question is whether the Democrats will be able to maintain their control in Senate.

Can’t count on young voters
In the last elections campaigns, it was possible to point to a political gender-based gap. While men tended to vote Republican, women tended to vote Democrat. Yet the recent polls show that the female vote is also shifting to the Right. Some 52% of women still support the Democrats, yet this marks a sharp drop in the face of the masculine zeal to topple the Left, and Obama knows it. Hence, his West Coast trip is dedicated to meetings with women and efforts to boost two female Democrats who had been serving in Senate for 18 years now.

Yet it’s not only the women who are abandoning the Democrats. Americans who are 50 years of age and above are concerned that Democratic policies will undermine their future old-age allowances. Young Americans are also making it difficult for Obama. The 30-and-below group that brought him to power two years ago is known as an elusive constituency, and it is doubtful whether young voters will be heading to the polling stations en masse in nine days.

Yet Obama’s greatest problem is the independent voters. These are the people who titled the balance in 2008 and elected Obama, who promised them change. Now, the president is paying the price for that promise, which to begin with created an exaggerated bar, turning him into a leader that is no different than his predecessors; a leader who makes promises but cannot deliver the goods.


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Ynet News

Obama's Great Betrayal

US president's policy focuses on boosting Israel's international isolation.

by Shoula Romano Horing

It seems that President Obama's confrontational and accusatory attitude toward Israel during the last two years has encouraged the anti-Semites in the international community, who did not dare to reveal themselves during the Bush Administration. Now, they have resurfaced and are making Israel the new scapegoat for all the evils in the world.

Furthermore, the Obama Administration has been an active participant in international bodies with bias against Israel which the Bush Administration refused to join or concur with. In some instances, the current Administration even consented to these bodies' investigations of so-called Israeli "crimes." But more cynically and morally repugnant, Obama has been using the threat of international isolation to pressure Israel into more concessions.

Otherwise, why would one of the assurances reportedly given by the US to Israel, in an effort to get the West Bank settlement freeze extended for 60 days, be an American commitment to use its veto to prevent UN recognition of a unilaterally declared Palestinian state?

Under Presidents Bush and Clinton it was taken for granted that the veto would be used, as it was understood that any peace deal premised on the "two-state solution" would only be decided through negotiations.

Reportedly, Prime Minster Netanyahu also fears that as soon as any new 60-day freeze ends, and with the November US midterm elections over, the Obama Administration - with the help of the international community - will aim to force a permanent agreement on Israel by presenting a "take it or leave it peace plan."

Such initiative would publicly support the Palestinian position that the 1967 borders should be the basis for a future Palestinian state, including a divided Jerusalem.

Breaking 40-year precedent
In the last two years, Israel has been under a new kind of attack on her legitimacy and on her right to exist. A campaign has been conducted where many of Israel's enemies are employing legal tricks, through multinational and international bodies, to present Israel as an illegitimate pariah state that should be isolated like Apartheid South Africa.

Sadly, the Obama Administration was an active participant in these efforts until it recently felt the backlash from Jewish voters and has eased off before the midterm elections.

In May, the Obama Administration broke 40 years of US precedent and shamefully signed a unanimous resolution adopted at a meeting of the 189 signatories of The Nuclear Proliferation Treaty, singling out Israel's atomic program without even mentioning Iran's. The draft urged Israel to sign the NPT and put its nuclear facilities under UN International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards.

During the previous NPT conference in 2005, the Bush Administration refused to accept parts of the draft document that called on Israel to join the NPT and turned down the idea of holding talks in order to create a region free of nuclear weapons.

While President Bush refused to join the UN Human Rights Council and lend it legitimacy, President Obama’s first foreign policy decision was to join the Council, knowing that it has adopted more resolutions and decisions condemning the state of Israel than all others 191 UN members combined.

In August, under heavy Obama Administration pressure, Israel agreed for the first time ever to participate in a UN review panel investigating IDF actions in the Gaza-bound flotilla incident.

It appears that letting Israel feel isolated and alone while relying on the US as her only friend is the Obama Administration's strategy to "deliver" Israel to the Arabs. However, recent polls reveal great support for Israel by the American people.

The American people who care about Israel's survival must stand by Israel in the upcoming November elections and only vote for the Republican Party, to deflect future US pressure by Obama. In the meantime, the Israeli government must wait for the American voter's verdict against Obama and the Democratic Party.

Ynet News

The President Who Cried 'Lone Wolf'

By: Michael Goodwin

ONE of the most troubling tics of Team Obama is the frantic rush to de clare that every terror attack on American soil is carried out by an isolated individual with no connection to al Qaeda or other groups. It was the gist of their rapid response to the failed airline bombing on Christmas Day, to the Fort Hood shooter and, most recently, to the plot by Faisal Shahzad to set off a car bomb in Times Square.

On the surface, the aim is obvious: to minimize the fear that radical Islamic organizations have penetrated homeland defenses. The working assumption is that Americans will be less frightened of isolated individuals who appear not to be capable of large-scale mayhem of the kind that rocked the nation on 9/11.

It's a reasonable theory, but it has a problem. The claims have been dead wrong in all three cases. Each "lone wolf" was quickly shown to have had contacts with or received training from a terror group abroad. The result is the opposite of what the White House wants. Instead of calming fears, the links provoke suspicions that officials don't know what they are doing or are intentionally hiding the deadly overseas connections. Either option serves to ratchet up public fear and decrease confidence in the government.

The effect of this uncertainty has been dramatic in New York. The city has been on edge since the smoking Nissan Pathfinder failed to detonate on May 1, with routine events such as truck breakdowns and unattended packages drawing hundreds of emergency calls.

On Friday alone, parts of Times Square were cleared twice after reports of suspicious packages. Beyond adding to the jitters, the larger problem with the White House approach is that it reeks of an agenda. It is as though President Obama and his team are jumping to the "lone wolf" theory to vindicate their view that more engagement with the Muslim world is depriving the terror groups of anti-American fuel and neutralizing the jihadist movement. Again, it's a reasonable theory, but it, too, comes with a problem. It's not working because it can't.

From Iran to Iraq to Afghanistan, and now on the streets of New York, the make-nice policies have not slowed the savage killing or the attempts. With the attacks and plots increasing, we are no safer for our efforts over the last 17 months to engage the enemy.

It is time the White House faces the fundamental fact: The jihadist movement is not a rational response to American policies or life's vagaries. Nor are its leaders especially impressed by Obama's race or Muslim-heritage name.

Just as when George W. Bush was president, suicide bombers aren't looking for a seat at the negotiating table. They want to kill everybody at the table. This is the murderous reality of the war against terror, no matter how zealously Washington pretends it is otherwise. They are who they are, and it's not our fault. But it is our problem. And while Obama is entitled to have his theories and fantasies, he shouldn't confuse them with the truth or his duty as commander-in-chief. Like it or not, he is leading a nation at war. Increasingly, it looks like a generational war, meaning it will probably not end during his time in office.

Yet that can't be an excuse for lowering our guard for a single day. If America suffers a massive attack on his watch, especially after so many attempts, his legacy will be irreparable.

There really is no choice. If we don't kill them, they will surely kill us.

Michael Goodwin
Michael Goodwin is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist known for never letting the political elite forget their job is to represent taxpayers. He started his career with The New York Times as a housing reporter and then City Hall bureau chief. He was the editorial page editor at the Daily News, where he directed a series of reports on the Apollo Theater that won the Pulitzer. A series documenting abuse of farmworkers earned the board the Polk Award. In 2000, he was named executive editor of the News and returned to column writing in 2004.



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