Ruminations More Than Obamanation

obama israel1As US President Obama takes off into the proverbial sunset, I would like to reflect on his visit to the Holy Land.

It is no secret I have been no fan of Obama. I find his socialist leanings to be of concern, and his foreign policy nothing short of naive and potentially damaging to the US, Israel and the world. Having said that, I don’t subscribe to the Obama is Satan/a Muslim/evil school of thought. At worst, he’s an ideologue whose ideology is fundamentally flawed. And dangerous.

I really wanted to hate everything Obama did and said on this visit. Especially after I learned students from Ariel University were excluded from his speech. Really, I did. But intellectually honesty is a pursuit of mine, and it dictates I call things as I see them, without being chained to preconceived notions.

To me, President Barack Obama came across as someone who seems to genuinely care about Israel and her people. His warm words seemed to contain less teleprompt-and-circumstance than usual, and they also contained some very important elements. In his impassioned speech (shrewdly) aimed directly at the Israeli people (instead of the Knesset), Obama recognized Israel as a Jewish state and he called for the palestinians to do so too. It is no wonder the palestinians got their kaffiyehs in a knot over it.

Having said all of that, his seeming distinction between Hamas and Hizbullah – the former apparently capable of redemption and the latter recognized as the unrepentant terrorists they are – is problematic. As is his naivety when it comes to the Palestinian Authority, who I believe only differ with Hamas with regards to their veneer of respectability. And I of course do not think the two-state solution can work, although I can’t blame Obama or any US president for promoting it. After all, our own Israeli governments have done so for years, and the US government can’t exactly be more right-wing than our own.

Does this mean I have joined the Barack Obama fan-club? Heck no. But I do admit that he surprised me in a good way. Perhaps that is partly because my expectations were so low.

At the end of the day, we need to be masters of our own fate. And it should not matter who is in the Oval Office as much as who is in the Knesset.

Update: I take it all back. Israel were beating Portugal in the World Cup qualifier until Obama left, and then Portugal equalized. He’s evil, evil I tell you!

13 thoughts on “Ruminations More Than Obamanation”

    1. You Yankee shall not slander the Mighty World Cup

      Soccer is the reason why I support Israel : So other countries can have an additional easy opponent to gain point for qualifiers.

      Aussie Dave now learn with Israel defeat and repeat with me : We shall bow to our Iberian Soccer Overlords

      Viva Portugal ! Viva Cristiano Ronaldo ! 😀

      As for Obama ? … Nice guy, wrong ideas, all that matter is that ?am yisra?el ?ay

      1. ha! YANKEES, indeed! American football–THAT’s a game. you know what we say about soccer here in the States? “Meh.”

        and you’re also wrong about Obama being a “nice guy” who just happens to have “wrong ideas.” he’s not a nice guy. and his ideas aren’t just wrong; they’re REALLY BAD.

        but we can agree on Am Ysrael Chai. 😉

  1. Aussie Dave: did you write this post before or after Obama made Bibi apologize to Erdogan?

    I too was happy (and surprised) to hear Obama’s comments. I was glad to see that he understands the Jews didn’t just show up in Israel in 1946.

    I was not terribly happy about his silly remark that Israeli parents should “sit down with” Palestinian children to truly understand their “hopes and dreams.” seriously? let’s flip that: can you imagine Palestinian parents agreeing to sit down with kids from Sderot? can you imagine Obama asking them to? of course not.

    but the Erdogan apology was sickening. it reminded me of who Obama really is. I think it’s about time Mossad got itself over to Los Angeles and liberated that video the LA Times has of Obama at the Rashid Khalidi dinner. I want to hear from his own mouth how committed he is to Israel. since that tape is more closely guarded than the Crown Jewels, we can assume that it wasn’t something he wants to share with the American voters.

    I can’t even comment how the apology made me feel about Netanyahu, who is someone I usually greatly admire. I sure hope there was a nice fat shipment of Iron Domes as a payoff, because otherwise, well…Bibi–WTF?

    1. I think the arm-twisted apology was a good move, under the circumstances. Everyone knows Israel apologized under pressure, and in exchange for something from the US. It was framed as based on Israel’s investigation which found operational mistakes, rather than Turkey’s narrative. It’s important to get back to a better relationship with Turkey, and some sort of apology was the price. No, I don’t think Israel did anything wrong, and I do think Turkey did. But that truth has been largely obscured. And in the world of diplomacy and global politics, sometimes you have to go along.

      1. Turkey has something that Bibi wanted, an air corridor to Iran, maybe even with a refueling stop. Nothing Israel does terrifies Sunnis more than a Shiite bomb. Nor has this been as sudden as the press portrays it. Talks with Turkey were ongoing before Obama’s visit.

      2. Well Turkey backtracked from Bibi outreach in less than a week. Obama magic at work, crashing and burning in five minutes.

    2. I wrote the post before the apology and while I *hate* it (I think if any party apologized, it should be the Turks), I suspect Obama offered Bibi a rather large carrot to do so. I am guessing it is something connected to action against Iran.

    3. Awesome, you said it. hussein obama just brought his fraud to Israel. Did Mr. Natanyahu just help to save obama’s face? Did Bibi forgave hussein already? He forgot how hussein humiliated him? Well, if Bibi wants to disgrace himself that is his perogative but he should not forget that is not his personal stuffs, it is the country of Israel that he must protect from the evils of obama and his Muslim terrorists that wanted to harm Israel. I believe that obama has some evil plans on this visit.

  2. he went to ramalla, equated their fight to the civil rights battle and said that the protests in the villages are “peaceful”

    mr obama, you have really bad intel

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