Yesterday, one of my blogging colleagues posted a blog that spoke of President Obama’s “mistakes,” and for me, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I thought it high time someone said it straight out: that all those “blunders” can’t possibly be blunders, and so I dashed off my thoughts in a fit of pique and posted them on Israellycool.

Not my usual style. Normally, I would have done thorough research and backed up my contentions with, if not facts, at least persuasive arguments. But I was short on time and the truth is, so convinced am I that the mistakes are not mistakes and the blunders not blunders that I failed to see that my audience might not be in the same place and might require suasion.

Israellycool readers were having none of that and the comments flew, thick and fast. The consensus seemed to be that I’d gone on a rant, hadn’t backed it, with the result that I came off as a “nutter” and conspiracy theorist. I went to bed thinking, “Okay. It was a rant. And now I’ve got a job to do. I have to write a follow-up piece to back up that rant with sound arguments.”

Note that I use the word “arguments” rather than “proofs.”

No Proof

I can’t prove that the President wants Iran to get the bomb. I can’t prove that he wants Iran to bomb Israel. I can’t prove that the dire results of his foreign policy were intended rather than incidental, intended to harm the Jews.

No one can prove these ideas at this juncture. All I can do is offer bits and pieces of the puzzle. That is the purpose of this follow-up piece: to offer up information that lends strength to my gut sense about the man and his policy.

For the record, I’m not one of those people who call President Obama a secret Muslim. I’m also not among those who clamor to see his birth certificate. But I do believe that President Obama holds radical political beliefs and wishes to eradicate American exceptionalism.

American Exceptionalism

Back in 2009, the question was posed to President Obama, “Do you believe in American exceptionalism?”

“I believe in American exceptionalism,” he responded. “Just as the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believed in Greek exceptionalism.”

About this, Dinesh D’Souza wrote, “If everyone believes they are exceptional, then clearly no one is.”

D’Souza then elaborates on the American dream and how American exceptionalism differs from the mindset of those in other nations around the world. He says, “Even in Europe today, inherited money is better than earned money. Why? Because inherited money is innocent. It fell out of the sky. If you earned it, the assumption is that you probably had to run over some guys to get it. There is a prejudice against the nouveau riche, against earned wealth.”

The American Dream

But in America, says D’Souza, one’s destiny isn’t “given” it’s “constructed.” D’Souza calls this “the core of the American dream.”

The other dream, says D’Souza, is “Obama’s dream.” He writes, “Before we get into Obama’s dream, I do want to point out that there is a common view even among conservatives, even among Republicans, that the problem with Obama is that he is a bungler, he is an amateur in the title of a recent book, he tries to do x but he gets y.

This has produced a whole set of conservative punditry essentially lecturing Obama on things like, ‘Obama, don’t you realize that confiscatory taxation does not produce economic growth?’ ‘Oh, Obama, don’t you realize that by blocking oil drilling in America you aren’t going to create jobs?’ ‘Oh, Obama, may we advise you that Assad, the dictator of Syria, or the Mullah’s in Iran are not our friends?’ ‘Obama, you should wake up to the fact that if we slash our own nuclear weapons this will not inspire the Iranians to do the same.’”

Expanding D’Souza’s List

I would add to D’Souza’s list, “Obama, don’t you realize that the Iranians publicly state their goal is to wipe out the State of Israel? Don’t you know that by signing the Geneva agreement, the U.S. gives Iran a green light to enrich uranium and develop a nuclear bomb? Don’t you realize that Israel, traditionally a U.S. ally, is Iran’s number one target? Don’t you realize that the leaking of Israeli military secrets by the Obama Administration might lead, God forbid, to the destruction of Israel?”

The entire world watches Obama’s machinations both at home with Obamacare and more, and abroad with the Middle East and shakes its head at all the “bungling,” and “blunders.” But D’Souza doesn’t see things that way. He writes, “I would like to offer a little different theory, and that is that Obama subscribes to an ideology that aims to reduce America’s influence in the world. He wants to cut America down to size. He doesn’t want America to be number one. He would be perfectly happy if we were number 18 or number 37.

Why does Obama want to reduce America’s footprint in the world? Because he believes we’ve been stepping on the world. This is his ideology. What Obama really wants to do is redistribute power globally. He would like to see many countries on the world stage – Brazil, India, China, Russia, all vying for power. No single superpower calling the shots.”

D’Souza doesn’t speak about Israel in his piece. My thought process expands, however, on D’Souza’s theory. President Obama doesn’t like the idea that America is all powerful and he doesn’t like it that Israel is its closest ally in the Middle East, the only democracy in the region.

Colonial Poster Boy

This goes against his world view as outlined by D’Souza. In fact, the State of Israel stands for everything the President hates. The State was designed by colonialist powers and wields more sway than it should, relative to its size. Furthermore, the President likely sees the Middle East conflict as one that has dragged on for much too long a time and messes with oil interests and poisons people against Muslims.

Today, global sympathy, more than ever, is against little Israel, plunked down smack in the middle of what would otherwise be almost universally Muslim territory. This world antipathy for Israel is in spite of Muslim terror worldwide and bloodshed in Muslim countries like Syria.

Furthermore, there is a narrative that has taken hold that promotes the Palestinian cause. The truth of this narrative matters little. Everywhere, there is a sense that Israel is on the wrong side of things. That Israel robs a people of its land and its rights.

There is a sense that the world gave the Jews their state because after the Holocaust, what choice did the world powers have? How else might they assuage their guilt? Now, however, there is a growing feeling that the Jews have stepped on another people using their history as leverage for state craft.

Wooing Turkey

Meantime, I have watched the President woo Turkey, and give the finger to Israel. It is my belief that the President would very much like to replace Israel, as the U.S.’s closest ally in the Middle East, with Turkey, which more closely dovetails with his personal druthers. During a trip to Turkey, the President said, “Some people have asked me if I chose to continue my travels to Ankara and Istanbul to send a message. My answer is simple: Evet [‘Yes’ in Turkish]. Turkey is a critical ally. Turkey is an important part of Europe. And Turkey and the United States must stand together – and work together – to overcome the challenges of our time.”

While wooing Turkey, the President dissed Israel. He forced PM Netanyahu to apologize to Erdogan for the Mavi Marmara incident in which Turkish nationals attempted to broach Israel’s legal under international law maritime blockade. We know that during one of Bibi’s visits to the White House, the President put his shoes up on the desk in an act of disrespect. We know of President Obama’s refusal to address the Knesset during his visit to Israel. This was seen as an act of delegitimizing Israel’s sovereign seat of government.

(photo credit: AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
This photo to my mind, more than anything, shows the President’s naked hatred of Israel. (photo credit: AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

 

We also know of the hot mic incident in which a short exchange could be heard between President Obama and former French President Sarkozy. Sarkozy said of Netanyahu, “I don’t want to see him anymore, he’s a liar,” to which President Obama responded, “You’ve had enough of him, but I have to deal with him every day!”

It seems to me that President Obama would much prefer to have Turkey step into Israel’s shoes, or even Egypt, up to the time that President Morsi, who represented the “largely secular” Muslim Brotherhood, was ousted.

Then there is this: Valerie Jarrett, the President’s adviser, has been negotiating with Iran in secret talks for more than a year. Her main interlocutor is Ali Akbar Salehi, who heads up Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization. Jarrett herself is Iranian born. The purpose of these secret negotiations was to build confidence and signal U.S. readiness to relieve the sanctions.

Panetta Punctuates

Concurrent with these secret negotiations to relieve the sanctions were the President’s assurances to Israel, given by his Defense Secretary at the time, Leon Panetta, that “We will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon, period… We will exert all efforts to ensure this does not happen.”

And while the President was angling for behind the scenes talks to relieve Iranian sanctions, he publicly talked tough on Iran and insisted, “I have Israel’s back.”

All this time, the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, pleaded with the world to stay Iran’s hand, to keep the pressure on Iran. He explained that the only purpose of enrichment was to build a bomb.

Netanyahu said, “We insist that these negotiations lead to the dismantling of Iran’s enrichment capability. Iran claims that it wants this for nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Seventeen countries produce nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without even one centrifuge. They produce this energy without centrifuges and without enrichment because enrichment is a main process in producing fissionable material for nuclear bombs.”

Most Important Point

“Whoever does not want fissionable material and nuclear bombs does not insist on enrichment; therefore, Iran – which has violated all understandings and misled time and time again, which has declared its intention to destroy the State of Israel and, of course, has violated other decisions as well, and which leads terrorism on five continents – must not be allowed to have an enrichment capability. This is the most important point.”

Yet the deal the U.S. and the world powers have just signed off on, permit limited enrichment of uranium, in direct contravention of UN Security Council Resolutions. PM Netanyahu said, “For years the international community has demanded that Iran cease all uranium enrichment. Now for the first time the international community has formally consented that Iran continue its enrichment of uranium. And this is in direct contravention of UN Security Council resolutions.”

Of course, none of this speaks to a deliberate targeting of Jews, but only of pulling the wool over Israel’s eyes while secretly negotiating with Iran to relieve the sanctions. None of this says that President Obama hates the Jews and hopes to wipe out the State of Israel for the purpose of hurting Jews. But what of his associations with those known to express virulently anti-Semitic sentiments and of his appointing many of them to high level government positions?

As Jennifer Rubin put it in this 2008 piece in Commentary, “You see, Obama is not responsible for Reverend Wright or Tony McPeak. But what about Samantha Power, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Robert Malley? Isn’t it reasonable to ask “Why does Barack Obama have so many foreign policy and national security advisers whose statements about Israel and American Jews are problematic?” Apparently we should not hold him responsible for selecting these individuals, nor attribute any of their views to him. And we shouldn’t be bothered either, I suppose, by his own comment that “nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people.”

Today we could add Hagel and possibly others to Rubin’s list. The smokescreen of course, is the impressive number of Jews that the President has appointed to cushy positions within his administration. Jewish Americans point to Rahm Emanuel, Jack Lew and Janet Yellen as proof that the President couldn’t possibly hate Jews. But none of these “court Jews” can erase the fact that in making the Geneva agreement, President Obama has strengthened an existential threat to the approximately six and a half million Jews who live in Israel.

Meantime, leaders of American Jewish organizations complain they were misled, that the Geneva agreement was “precooked.” Even prior to President Rouhani’s charm offensive, with its purpose of persuading the world that Iran has no nuclear ambitions, Valerie Jarrett was in secret negotiations held in various Gulf States, with Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, for the purpose of offering Iran relief from sanctions.

Back Door Deal

As the back door negotiations were reaching their peak, President Obama was imploring the American Jewish leadership to back the Geneva deal, without offering that leadership foreknowledge that in reality, it was a done deal.

In an opinion piece, Obama’s Hate for Israel, Farid Ghadry, co-founder and President of the Reform Party of Syria, states, “Today’s US policies may have finally tested positive for a disease called political incompetence highlighted by severe symptoms of ‘hate-those-Jews’ by a sitting US President.  . . I am starting to believe Obama wants the Iranians to build a bomb. A nuclear bomb will be his exit gift for Israel. . .

It is not easy to institute a contrarian US policy by a cabal in the White House without stirring suspicions by legitimate cabinet members, the media, the US Congress, and the public. You have to put on a show of support for Israel on the face of it to dissuade the skeptics. Is this why Clinton left the State Department? Is this why Panetta openly criticized Obama recently for his Syrian policy? Is this why Obama selected the clueless Hagel? Is this why Kerry is looking more and more genuinely disoriented? Is this why Obama purged all the military top brass who support Israel and kept those who agree with him?”

Caroline Glick writes, “Over the past year, Obama has engaged in systematically weakening Israel’s position both regionally and in Washington. Regionally, the US has forced Israel into talks with the Palestinians that are engineered to weaken Israel strategically and diplomatically. The US has delegitimized Israel’s legal rights to sovereignty and self-defense, while effectively justifying Palestinian terrorism as a legitimate response to Israeli actions – which themselves were perfectly legal. So, too, the US has given a green light to the EU’s illegal, discriminatory economic war against Israel.”

A Rapprochement

Glick concludes, “His goal is not to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power. It isn’t even to facilitate a rapprochement between America and Iran. The goal of Obama’s foreign policy is to weaken the State of Israel.”

Is any of the above a proof for my rant of yesterday in which I stated that the President’s blunders and mistakes are neither, but are purposeful policy? No. There is no proof available to the public to back this contention. All I have is what I see and read, along with my gut conclusions.

Take what you like and leave the rest.

17 thoughts on “Follow-Up: Make No Mistake About It”

  1. Varda, when you call my president a Jew hater, in effect an anti-Semite, then you really do need to prove your case. Your unfounded accusations are deeply offensive to me, and I do think your posts on this subject reflect badly on this site. I’ll just choose to skip your posts in future and enjoy what I can from IsraellyCool.

    1. That is certainly your right. As for me, I did my best. I worked hard on this post, tracked down links to sources and so forth. If you read this with an open mind and followed all the links and still come to this conclusion, then yes, it’s best you stop reading my pieces. Be well, Jim.

    2. Jim, it’s your right to read what you like. I’ve never liked Obama since before he mysteriously bumped Hilary out of the nomination (she was the runaway front runner remember?). If you don’t like someone’s opinion, don’t read their stuff. He sat for years in the church of a Jew hater and fails to remember the Jew hatred he heard. I’ve run out of patience for believing he doesn’t harbour at best a dislike of Israel and at best, a reflex suspicion of Jews.

      Varda’s posts are well written and well researched and she’s backed up this one with the opinions of some pretty well respected commentators. The fact that you don’t like their conclusions is all part of the plurality of opinion we value on this side of the free vs enslaved world. Israellycool posts light stuff and heavy stuff and the views of a few different people.

      Every now and then the New York Times publishes an opinion I agree with, more often than not it doesn’t. Sounds to me Israellycool you more often agree with than not. You get the point so stop trying to hint that one or two posts by one or two writers are enough to sour Israellycool for you. If that’s the case you’re not thinking straight.

      1. Brian, I like IsraellyCool. I have for years. I obviously don’t come to this site to have my preconceived poliitcal opinions reinforced or validated. I can accept fair criticism of my president and of myself. I think it vital that Israelis and Americans understand one another no matter their political orientation. To that end, IsraellyCool has been a valuable resource to understand what some informed Israelis think on issues important to them and to Americans. But Varda’s unfounded accusations regarding President Obama’s alleged Jew hatred reflect her own mental state and do not comport with any reality to which I can reasonably relate. It is truly upsetting to read this on a site I respect and have enjoyed coming to for years. Varda has disqualified herself for me as a source of information that I will look to in the future to know what Israelis are thinking on issues of mutual interest to our two countries.

        1. “I think it vital that Israelis and Americans understand one another no matter their political orientation.”

          Really? So how much understanding, instead of brushing it off intolerantly as a “fringe right-wing opinion,” have you given so far to the idea that most Israelis now no longer believe in a negotiated peace involving land concessions with the Arabs?

          Understanding? Don’t make me laugh! As a kumbaya-toting lefty and stubborn reader of Israel’s leading Hebrew-language Arab newspaper, you’re as rigidly ideological as they come.

    3. Hey Jim,

      What do you make of the fact that Obama has consistently been positive and conciliatory toward anti-American regimes, while he has done the opposite toward putatively pro-American regimes?

      He wanted to immediately pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan (Iraq being the world’s greatest financier of Terror before Saddam’s ouster, and Afghanistan being behind 9/11), but he goes to war in Libya (a terrible regime, but one that was cooperating with the US at least).
      He does nothing to support pro-Western rebellions in Iran (who is now the world’s greatest financier of Terror), but when people rise up against Mubarak (another terrible but cooperative-with-the-US regime) he demands immediate regime change. And then, when the people rise up again against Muslim Brotherhood Morsi Obama supports that regime against the “will of the people”.

      I’m not supporting Varda’s thesis, but it seems to me something is clearly rotten in Washington as far as US interests are concerned.
      Even the Saudis blurted out “We are learning from our enemies now how to treat the United States”.

      Do you have an opinion on these facts?

    4. As for Varda’s thesis, what do YOU make of the fact that Obama surrounds himself with lots of anti-Israel people and has been doing so for decades? Is this not an indication of his own opinions?
      Emerson’s “show me who a man’s friends are and i will tell you who he is”?

      1. The problem with US

        This is the problem with so many members of our people:

        There is not a single member of the Media establishment that is doing more to promote positive views on Israel and treats the truth as it is than Glenn Beck. Not just in America, in the whole world there is no one that can compare in terms of visibility and pro-Israel stances.

        When the world was condemning us for the Mavi Marmara, he was the only one showing the footage from Israeli television and showing how the protesters were behaving.

        The man is a lover of Israel and of Jews, he is happy to give us our support as Jews and doesn’t try to convert us. But dear G-d what will our liberal friends and hosts of MSNBC will think if we dare say that Glenn Beck is not a terrible monster? We ought to distance ourselves from him! I mean, what has he done for us lately?

        So sad.

  2. WOW. My eyes are bugging out, my jaw is on the floor. I liked Varda’s earlier piece, it was quite emotive and appropriate given recent events. It echoed the sentiments of the pro-Israel group – that the deal with Iran is just the latest in a whole series of actions Obama has taken against Israel.

    To me, Varda doesn’t need to justify her statements, because they are true and they are borne from continual disappointment in the betrayal of Obama. Obama is not friendly to Israel. Obama is not friendly to America. Obama is an enemy to both.

    The justification is only useful to people who are new to pro-Israel writing. For the rest, I’m surprised it had to be spelled out.

    1. THANK YOU, Itchy. Many of my friends are supporting and even adding to my arguments but in private and on my Facebook wall. I think the mean comments scared them off. It means a lot to me that you see what I mean and saw it the first time around.

  3. I am not American. Obama and the US presidents before him can take a hike for all I care. I see the huge American influence on Israel’s domestic and foreign policy as problematic and as a sign of weakness. Their political and economic fiascos would affect us much less if we had better leaders. The focus on Obama just distracts from the real issues in Israel: It’s our own politicial duds from Netanyahu to Lapid to Livni that are about to ruin us.

  4. Varda, thanks for re-writing this with a bit more thought. I think that Obama’s foreign policy is atrocious, possibly the worst that an American president has had, but I think your premise is flawed.

    “Of course, none of this speaks to a deliberate targeting of Jews, but only of pulling the wool over Israel’s eyes while secretly negotiating with Iran to relieve the sanctions”. Indeed.

    Obama is trying to maneuver policy, but is COMPLETELY outmatched by his adversaries. He’s a child playing with the big boys, but I certainly don’t think he is anti-semitic, and I DO think he has American’s best interests at heart. Nothing you’ve written here contradicts that.

    I very much appreciate the effort you’ve made for clarity, and I hope that you will be able to see our true enemies a bit better.

  5. Dizzy, I guess time will tell. Or perhaps it won’t and we’ll never really know.

    Thanks for giving me a second chance, for coming back to read and comment.

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