Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2009 9:28 am Post subject: Climate of Hate Against Jews
Obama Breeds Climate of Hate Against Jews
By Rabbi Dr. Morton H. Pomerantz
Our new president did not tell a virulent anti-Semite to travel to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington to kill Jews, but he is most certainly creating a climate of hate against us.
It is no coincidence that we are witnessing this level of hatred toward Jews as President Barack Obama positions America against the Jewish state.
Just days ago Obama traveled to Cairo, Egypt. It was his second trip in a short time to visit Muslim countries. He sent a clear message by not visiting Israel.
But this was code.
In Cairo, Obama said things that pose a grave danger to Jews in Israel, in America and everywhere. And if his views are not vigorously opposed they will help create a danger as great as that posed by the Nazis to the Jewish people.
Just last week, Obama told his worldwide audience — more than 100 million people — that the killing of six million Jews during the Holocaust was the equivalent of Israel’s actions in dealing with the Palestinians.
This remark is incredible on its face, an insult to the six million Jews who died as a result of Hitler’s genocide — and it is a form of revisionism that will bode evil for Jews for years to come.
While Obama acknowledged that “six million Jews were killed — more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today” — his discussion about the Holocaust was followed by this statement: “On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people — Muslims and Christians — have suffered in pursuit of a homeland.”
“On the other hand . . . ”?
Obama’s clever construct comparing the mass genocide of six million Jews to the Palestinian struggle will not be lost on the estimated 100 million Muslims who tuned into to hear him.
Perhaps it was not lost on James W. von Brunn, the 88-year-old white supremacist identified as the alleged attacker Wednesday at the Holocaust Museum. He apparently felt that he could easily take retribution against the Jews for the atrocities Obama implies they are guilty of.
At first blush Mr. Obama’s speech seemed rosy, optimistic — one that espoused tolerance and understanding.
If you scratch the surface it is a dangerous document that history will view as a turning point for America and Israel — one that will lead to dangerous times ahead for both Jews and believing Christians.
The immediate danger posed by Obama’s speech is in its incredible re-writing of the history of Jews, Christians and Muslims from Medieval times to the present.
Obama, continually throughout his speech, talks of Islam’s peaceful intent. And while there are certainly Koranic verses that support this interpretation, Islam has a long and bloody history of violence against fellow Muslims, Jews and Christians.
Has Obama not heard about the Muslim’s violent conquest of the Middle East, Spain and half of Western Europe? Was he never taught that the Crusades sought to turn back this Muslim onslaught that demanded subjugated populations convert or die?
In his almost hour-long speech, there is not a single word about Islam’s well known and checkered past.
Ironically, the American president offered plenty of references to what he sees are America’s evils, such as its “colonialism” and history of slavery.
“For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation,” Obama told his audience, citing a litany of American shortcomings. He failed to mention that Arab Muslims were the greatest slave traders in the history of humanity.
According to Obama, Israelis, too, are guilty of wrongdoing, especially when it comes to their supposed maltreatment of the Palestinians.
Isn’t it odd an American president would go to a foreign country and slander his own country and its long-time ally?
At the same time he praises — unconditionally — a religion and culture that has a long history of being antithetical to the very values that have made America a great nation?
Mr. Obama even has the unbelievable gall, when talking about the treatment of Muslim women, to condemn Western countries for attempting to stop Muslim women from using the full facial cover, or hijab. This is a symbol of Muslim subjugation of women.
Listen to what Obama said: “Likewise, it is important for Western countries to avoid impeding Muslim citizens from practicing religion as they see fit - for instance, by dictating what clothes a Muslim woman should wear.”
And Obama not only ignores the gross subjugation of women in many Arab societies — he does not mention even once the almost total religious intolerance throughout the Muslim world against Christians and Jews.
In his speech, Obama’s only plea for Muslim women living in Muslim countries is that they should be afforded an education.
How about a discussion of the beheading of Arab women for “crimes” such as adultery? How about the malicious treatment of women in Muslim countries who choose not to wear the hijab?
Obama insists that Islam has promoted tolerance and that in Islamic societies such ideals have flourished.
Obama claimed that “as a student of history” he understands more than most the truth about “civilization's debt to Islam.”
He added, “And throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality.”
Does he not know that a Jew or Christian would be beheaded in Saudi Arabia for practicing their religion today, now, this minute?
Of course, Obama offers not one example of where religious freedom is truly tolerated in the Muslim world. Yet, he proudly told his audience that in every state of the union and throughout the U.S. there exist more than 1,200 mosques.
But why, Mr. President, is there no Christian Church or Jewish synagogue operating within the borders of Saudi Arabia? Not even one.
Why in many countries, including your host Egypt, Christian churches have suffered vicious and continual persecution? Why is a once vibrant Cairo Jewish community — a home for the likes of Maimonides — today practically extinct?
Why, dear president, has the ancient Christian community in the West Bank and places like Bethlehem been almost completely wiped out by the modern Muslim onslaught?
“On the other hand,” to quote you Mr. President, you avoided mentioning some other truths.
Let’s start with the Israeli Arabs who can claim one of the highest standards of living in the Arab world. Indeed, they have more rights than Arabs in any Muslim country, their religious freedom is completely protected, and they even vote in free elections.
Tell me what Muslim country matches Israel’s record in protecting its minorities?
Even Arabs in the West Bank, during the time of Israeli control, saw their standard of living rise dramatically. Today, Arabs there are among the best educated in the world, thanks to Israel.
In your revisionist view, Israel has acted to harm these people. But it was not Israel that could not abide by United Nations resolutions clearly setting borders for both the state of Israel and an entity that had never existed before named Palestine.
You cleverly omitted any discussion of these facts, or the continual attacks against the state of Israel over six decades by its Muslim neighbors. Nor is it the Israelis who persecute from time to time the Coptic Christians of Egypt.
No, Mr. President, I do not accept your assertion that you are seeking religious tolerance or that you are seeking to protect Jews.. I do not accept it because you are inventing a false history to fit your own agenda.
Mr. President, I am deeply disturbed that you would offer such a distortion of truth in the hopes of creating a lasting peace. A lasting peace cannot be created out of lies, distortions and half truths.
You profess to be a Christian. But you seem more intent on protecting Muslims. In your speech you talked openly of your Muslim heritage, your admiration of their way of life, and so forth. You said in your speech that you have made one of your chief aims of your presidency repairing the image of Islam.
Why did you hide these views from the American public during the recent presidential campaign?
Why, as president, did you fully bow to the Saudi king, who refuses to allow any religious freedom for any Christian or Jew?
You have made clear, by your words and assertions, that you are re-positioning the United States away from Israel, America’s lone democratic ally in the Mid-East.
You have made clear through your statements and those of your minions that Israel should, under no circumstances, prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons.
And yes, you have promised to retaliate against Iran if it ever attacks Israel with nuclear weapons.
But you know full well that if Iran succeeds in its admitted goal of “wiping the Jewish state off the map” — and hits this tiny nation with nuclear warheads — there will be no Israel for the U.S. to retaliate on behalf of.
Some Jews may be naïve, but we are not stupid.
Rabbi Dr. Morton H. Pomerantz is a member of the Reform movement of Judaism and serves as a chaplain for the State of New York. A former Navy and Marine Corps officer and chaplain, he has also served as deputy national chaplain for the Jewish War Veterans of the United States.
When the Germans moved their capital from Bonn to Berlin, the U.S. Embassy in Germany moved to Berlin, too. When the Brazilians moved their capital from Rio de Janeiro to Brasilia, the U.S. Embassy followed suit. When Jimmy Carter extended diplomatic recognition in 1979 to the People's Republic of China, the U.S. Embassy on Taiwan shut down and our diplomats obediently opened up shop in Beijing. So where is the U.S. Embassy in Israel?
It's in Tel Aviv. It's probably the only case of a U.S. Embassy not being in the city that the host country claims as its capital. And there's a reason our embassy is not in Jerusalem: We don't want to antagonize Israel's Arab enemies.
This point gains special significance now that President Obama has sent former Sen. George Mitchell to Jerusalem. Mitchell is Obama's enforcer. Mitchell's task is to pressure Israel to "freeze" settlements in Judea and Samaria, on the West Bank of the River Jordan.
In his speech in Cairo earlier this month, President Obama essentially bought into the Arab position on Israel--that the creation of the Jewish state in the Middle East was a result of European guilt for the Holocaust. This position ignores the historical fact that Jews have lived in Judea and Samaria--and in their capital of Jerusalem--since long before their Roman conquerors dispersed thousands of Jews throughout the known world. Zionism--the political movement that holds that Jews have a right to return to their ancient homeland--began seriously in the 1890s. That was long decades before Adolf Hitler's rise to power.
Obama's bad history is now leading to even worse diplomacy. Jimmy Carter, perhaps panting for another Nobel peace prize, is in the Mid-East, planning to meet with others who want to de-stabilize Israel. Hamas--the terrorist gang that controls the Gaza Strip--will roll out the red carpet for the former U.S. President.
Carter calls all Jewish settlement on the West Bank "illegal and [an] obstacle to peace. The Israelis took Carter's advice on Gaza. They dismantled all their settlements there. They handed over the land to the Palestinians. They followed Carter's formula of land for peace. And what did they get? Hamas control of Gaza and 6,000 Hamas missiles raining down on Israel. Some deal. Some peace. It might better be called Carter's "Piece Plan"--handing over territory to Israel's sworn enemies-piece by piece.
Jimmy Carter has published books and articles likening Israel's position in the West Bank to that of the apartheid regime in South Africa. He use of apartheid is intended to de-legitimize Israel and bring its downfall--just like the anti-apartheid campaign in the `90s brought an end to the white supremacist regime in South Africa.
Yet what is Carter advocating by freezing the natural growth of Jewish settlement on the West Bank? What Carter is saying, in effect, is that Arabs should be able to continue to live in peace in Tel Aviv, but Jews--and Christians--cannot live in Jericho and Bethlehem. Who's the real supporter of apartheid?
Carter predicts that President Obama will take the next logical step after he succeeds in freezing Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria: "In the future, I am sure, [Obama] will call for the dismantling of the settlements that exist."
Since President Obama refuses to talk about moving our embassy to Jerusalem, isn't it ironic that George Mitchell and his wrecking crew are operating out of their hotel headquarters in--where else?--Jerusalem. Mitchell's deputy, Mara Rudman, a George Soros follower, is there. So is Gen. Keith Dayton, who is busily training an army for Fatah in the West Bank. Fatah is the name of the "political organization" that formed the core of Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Arafat, who personally ordered the murder of U.S. Ambassador Cleo Noel and his aide, virtually invented airline hijacking for purposes of terror.
President Obama's national security advisor, Marine Gen. Jim Jones, is on record rejecting all Israeli claims to natural growth of their settlements in Judea and Samaria.
Question: If Jews cannot live in Judea and Samaria--where Jews have lived since before the Roman Empire-why should they be allowed to live in Tel Aviv? Tel Aviv was founded only in the early 1900s.
The plan to create a Judenrein--a Jew-free zone on the West Bank of the Jordan--is ultimately a plan to de-stabilize and then dismantle the Jewish state. This is not just a change from George W. Bush; it's a change from Harry Truman!
That's how far back U.S. support for Israel goes--right to the beginning of the Jewish state in 1948. But no more. The Obama administration will press and push, prod and peck away at Israel's basic security needs. If Obama succeeds, Israel may not be destroyed, but she will be much weaker, much more vulnerable, much more in danger from enemies pledged to destroy her. Is that the change America wants? Is that the kind of change Americans voted for?
Ken Blackwell is Senior Fellow, Family Empowerment at the Family Research Council.
This article was originally published in Townhall Magazine on June 18, 2009.
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