Israel Matzav

Obama blames the West for radical Islam

In an interview with CNN's foreign affairs analyst Fareed Zakaria on Sunday, Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Hussein Obama adopted the 'Muslims as victims' narrative, blaming the West for increasingly militant Islam (Hat Tip: NJDhockeyfan via Little Green Footballs):

Obama went public and placed unabashed blame on "the West" for Islamic extremism. In an interview on July 13th with CNN's Foreign Affairs Analyst, Fareed Zakaria asked:

[ZAKARIA]: But how do you view the problem within Islam? As somebody who saw it in Indonesia ... the largest Muslim country in the world?

Obama reminisced about the years he lived in Indonesia (late 1960's, early 1970's) and then calmly offered up a very firm opinion about "the problem with Islam."

[Obama] And what's interesting is, you can see some correlation between the economic crash during the Asian financial crisis [1997], where about a third of Indonesia's GDP was wiped out, and the acceleration of these Islamic extremist forces.

It isn't to say that there is a direct correlation, but what is absolutely true is that there has been a shift in Islam that I believe is connected to the failures of governments and the failures of the West to work with many of these countries, in order to make sure that opportunities are there, that there's bottom-up economic growth.

Just to be clear: Obama states unequivocally that "the West" caused a "shift in Islam," and the "shift" caused by the Free World is the "problem with Islam."

The post goes on to list several 'reminders' of the problem with Islam, four of which pre-date the Asian financial crisis. Unfortunately, I can think of many more. Read the whole thing.

By the way, in that same CNN interview, Hussein completed his abandonment of Israel and firmly placed Jerusalem under the bus. He disavowed his June speech to AIPAC in which he called for an undivided Jerusalem to be Israel's capitol, saying that his June speech had "poor phrasing."

“The point we were simply making was, is that we don’t want barbed wire running through Jerusalem, similar to the way it was prior to the ‘67 war, that it is possible for us to create a Jerusalem that is cohesive and coherent,” Obama said.

Obama’s campaign has issued similar clarifications since the candidate’s speech to pro-Israel lobby group after he clinched the Democratic presidential nomination early last month.

In the speech, Obama told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee that if elected president in November, he would work for peace with a Palestinian state alongside Israel. “Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided,” the Illinois senator said. Palestinian leaders reacted with anger and dismay.

I wonder if Florida Dhimmicrat Bob Wexler will consider this backtracking on Jerusalem.

Change. It's a daily occurrence.

/Crickets chirping as we wait for Wexler's response

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:25 PM