Israel crisis: Obama's obscene moral relativism
As Palestinian terror dramatically escalates, the Obama administration is working hard – not to defeat the terrorists, but to tie Israel’s hands behind its back.
Sure, there is background noise paying lip-service to an Israeli right of self-defense and babbling about a Palestinian peace partner.
The reality, however, is that responsibility for the harrowing transition from the kidnap and murder of three Jewish teenagers by Hamas members to 4 million Israelis running in terror from Hamas rocket attacks leads directly to the White House.
Responsibility for the harrowing transition from the kidnapping and murder of three Jewish teenagers by Hamas members to 4 million Israelis running in terror from Hamas rocket attacks leads directly to the White House.
Here are the dots that need to be connected.
On June 2, President Obama emboldened Hamas by immediately announcingthat American support and financial aid would keep flowing to a newly formed Palestinian unity government that included the terrorist organization.
While the rockets flew and the kidnappers murdered, the State Department continued to insist on the existence of a phantasmagorical technocratic terrorist.
For instance, on July 2, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki explained a unity government between Hamas and Fatah – that was mysteriously missing the Hamas half. “They’re not a part of the technocratic government,” she said. “Obviously, the technocratic government is different from the reconciliation process. Obviously, everything’s linked. It’s all – but it’s different.”
Then there is the Obama administration’s twisted response to the kidnapping and murder of Naftali Fraenkel, Eyal Yifrach and Gilad Sha’ar.
Over 18 days, Obama never called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or Palestinian leader Mahboud Abbas to voice concern over the abduction of Fraenkel, a dual American-Israeli citizen.
In fact, Obama never publicly commented on the kidnapping of this American boy, or the grotesque anti-Semitism and support for the kidnapping that mushroomed across Palestinian society while he stayed silent – until the lifeless bodies of Fraenkel and the other boys were discovered on June 30.
By contrast, Obama did call Netanyahu on July 10, complaining about the reported police maltreatment of an American-Palestinian teenager who seems to have thought going to a riot in a war zone was a good way to spend a summer vacation. And Obama prioritized this case – to the highest level possible in the world of diplomacy – knowing that the State Department had already descended on Israeli authorities within hours, and that Israeli officials had already taken action to address it.
To this day, the Obama administration has refused to admit there was any Palestinian perpetrator involved in the teens’ kidnap and murder.
The Nuremberg Tribunal taught us that “crimes…are committed by men, not by abstract entities.” Refusing to out the criminals responsible for killing Jews is a hell of an incentive to keep going.
Add to the list White House Middle East Coordinator Philip Gordon’s contribution. On July 8, while hundreds of rockets were slamming into Israel and targeting Tel Aviv, Gordon was dispatched to Tel Aviv to slam Israel too. Evidently refusing to believe his lying eyes, Gordon blamed Israel for “no movement on the political track” and threatened it with “international isolation.”
Finally, the president’s overriding message has been one of obscene moral relativism. Begrudging throwaway lines about Israeli self-defense are routinely accompanied by appeals for “all sides” to “restrain” themselves – the democratic state under attack and the genocidal terrorist organization.
Even when Obama did write a condolence message to the families of Naftali, Eyal and Gilad, he used it as an opportunity to lecture Israel, and the euphemistic “all parties,” “to refrain from steps that could further destabilize the situation.”
A dozen times over the past three weeks, both during the kidnap-murders and the Gaza rocket attacks, the press briefings of the State Department spokesman have included: “We encourage all sides to exercise restraint.”
On July 8 – before he had ever called Netanyahu on the Hamas terror attacks – Obama instructed Israel’s democratically elected leaders from the op-ed pages of an Israeli newspaper: “All parties must exercise restraint…”
When Obama finally picked up a phone and called Netanyahu on July 10, he “urged both sides not to escalate the crisis and to restore calm.”
Given that Hamas’ official screed is to kill Jews everywhere and obliterate Israel, the president’s orders were directed to a party of one – the one under attack.
The fact is that in the middle of one more variation of the Arab war against the Jews, President Obama did not call Israel’s leader to offer unwavering support for Israel’s right of self-defense. On the contrary, he wants a cease-fire now. Having done everything in his power to rescue Hamas politically, he is now trying to save it materially.
It may seem mystifying why the president of the United States should talk the talk of self-defense but walk the walk of self-defeat. But this is the same man who saved Bashar al-Assad, strengthened Vladimir Putin and legitimized Hassan Rouhani.
Rescuing Palestinian terrorists is not the exception, it’s the rule.
Anne Bayefsky is director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust. Follow her on Twitter @AnneBayefsky.
No comments:
Post a Comment