Israel Matzav

Barack Obama's Jew-hating friends

At The American Thinker, Ed Lasky spotlights some of the company kept by US Presidential candidate Barack Hussein Obama (pictured, top left). It's not pretty.

Presidential candidate Barack Obama has established ties with Sojourners: a liberal Christian group (with the emphasis on liberal) as a way to burnish his religious credentials and gain political strength. This very same group is supportive of Hamas, a vicious Palestinian terror group responsible for the deaths of many innocent people and a group that indoctrinates its youth to hate. Not to mention dedicated to the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews. What gives, Barack?

Obama spoke at their forum in Washington, D.C. last month ; he also spoke at the Sojourners Pentecost conference last year where he received an award.

The Sojourners, supposedly a Christian organization, are willing to turn the other cheek to Hamas, and blame the US, Israel and the West for the persecution being suffered by Christians in Gaza:

An analyst writing for Sojourners preferred to point the finger elsewhere, at Fatah, and ultimately, at the West, for opposing Hamas.

"During Hamas' military takeover of Gaza in recent weeks, one of their biggest Fatah targets lay just behind a Greek Orthodox school in Gaza City," explained Philip Rizk, an "Egyptian-German Christian" who works in Gaza and blogs at tabulagaza.com. The Associated Press described the school as a Catholic Rosary Sisters school.

According to Rizk, Fatah forces took positions on the roof of a church school building during Hamas attacks on a Fatah headquarters. "Like many buildings that were used as strongholds during the fighting, the doors were blown open with a rocket-propelled grenade to ensure no resistance from inside. As widely reported in the Western media, the chapel and the nuns' living quarters were vandalized, crosses were broken, and equipment was stolen."

Rizk assured Sojourners readers that looters were likely the perpetrators of this vandalism. After all, Hamas "was fighting a war," and is not interested in desecrating churches. He also helpfully explained that during the recent struggles, "many shops and homes were similarly looted."

"I cannot excuse it," Rizk was quick to emphasize about the attacks on churches to his American religious audience. But he preferred to talk about a World Bank report, which describes the economic crisis in Gaza as worse than the U.S. Great Depression. People in Gaza are "desperate." The world is punishing Hamas by punishing Gaza. It's not just Christians who are "living in fear" but the "whole population.

...

But such "religious extremism [i.e. ever more radicalized Islam] is bound to rise up under conditions like those in Gaza," Rizk observed. Suffering people have told him they have nowhere to turn but to "God." He responded: "I hope I could say the same if I ever find myself in a similar situation," though presumably his understanding of God would not include violent attacks on churches.

"None of these actions can be excused," Rizk repeated. But, of course, "the broader context" must be understood. "Is it only the perpetrators that need to be condemned?" he rhetorcially asked.

Admitting that Hamas had forcibly taken over the Gaza, Rizk querulously asked, "How does an elected government perpetrate a coup d’etat?" He blamed the U.S., the West, and Israel for not accepting the Hamas electoral victory and isolatizing Gaza. "The U.S. started funding Fatah to counter Hamas’ strength—a policy that for many Americans should bring to mind the Banana Republics of Latin America," Rizk complained. "This month Hamas responded with force, seeking to disable those security bodies that were receiving outside funds." Now it all makes sense....

Since their military takeover, Hamas has brought "security," Rizk wrote. But the U.S.-led isolation of Hamas, and of Gaza, will only breed further economic collapse, he fretted.

Jim Wallis' Sojourners is not usually very anxious to spotlight the plight of persecuted Christians around the world, tormented by Islamist or communist regimes. But in its few references to problems for Christians, it will evade blaming the actual tormentors and inevitably fault the ultimate culprits: the U.S., Israel, the West, and their allies.

According to Lasky, Obama's spiritual mentor is Jeremiah Wright, who

openly spouts anti-Israel invective, supports divestment actions against Israel, supports Louis Farrakhan (Judaism is a "gutter religion") and travels to Libya to offer support to the arch-foe of Israel and sponsor of terror Col. Muammar al-Gadaffi (recall Lockerbie airplane bombing?)

Here's more on Wright:

Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Jr. is the long-time Pastor of Obama's church, and Obama has credited him as being an inspiration and guiding light for him. He is a spiritual mentor to Obama and coined the term the "audacity of hope" that Obama has essentially made a theme of his campaign as well as the title of a book. He also has, in the words of the Chicago Tribune, a militant past.

Moreover, Pastor Wright has beliefs that might disturb some of Obama's supporters. He is a believer in "liberation theology," which makes the liberation of the oppressed a paramount virtue. The language of liberation all too often veers off into anti-Jewish rants. For example, one of the founders of the movement, Gustavo Gutierrez, has stated that the infidelities of the Jewish people made the Old Covenant [between the Jews and God] invalid." Pastor Wright is also a supporter of Louis Farrakhan, and in 1984 traveled with him to visit Col. Muammar al-Gadaffi, an archenemy of Israel's and America and a firm supporter of terror groups.

Wright has also been a severe critic of Israel. In his own words,

The Israelis have illegally occupied Palestinian territories for almost 40 years now. It took a divestment campaign to wake the business community up concerning the South Africa issue. Divestment has now hit the table again as a strategy to wake the business community up and to wake Americans up concerning the injustice and the racism under which the Palestinians have lived because of Zionism.

...

Once this history came to light, Obama started publicly distancing himself from his spiritual mentor, disinviting Wright from various Obama campaign events. Wright rationalized his current persona non grata status by stating that otherwise

"a lot of his Jewish support will dry up quicker than a snowball in hell"

Wonder why?

Even Shrillery Clinton sounds better than this guy.

Previously at Israel Matzav:

Trying to figure out Obama.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:52 PM