Israel Matzav

The one-policy President

Caroline Glick points out that Barack Hussein Obama has only one policy in the Middle East: Degrading Israel.

What makes Obama's Israel policy notable is not simply that it involves betraying the US's most steadfast ally in the Middle East. After all, since taking office Obama has made a habit of betraying US allies.

Obama's Israel policy is notable because it is a policy. Obama has a clear, consistent goal of cutting Israel down to size. Since assuming office, Obama has taken concrete steps to achieve this aim.

And those steps have achieved results. Obama forced Netanyahu to make Palestinian statehood an Israeli policy goal. He coerced Netanyahu into temporarily abrogating Jewish property rights in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. And now he is forcing Netanyahu to pretend the 1949 armistice lines are something Israel can accept.

Obama has not adopted a similarly clear, consistent policy towards any other nation in the region. In Egypt, Syria, Iran, Turkey, Libya, and beyond, Obama has opted for attitude over policy. He has postured, preened, protested and pronounced on all the issues of the day.

But he has not made policy. And as a consequence, for better or for worse, he has transformed the US from a regional leader into a regional follower while empowering actors whose aims are not consonant with US interests.

Read the whole thing.

What Caroline doesn't address in this article is why. Why does Obama not have a policy anywhere else in the Middle East except Israel? And the answer to that seems obvious. Obama has no real interest in foreign policy other than cutting Israel down to size. And the pro-Israel community needs to recognize that if God forbid Obama is reelected in 2012, he will spend a second term doing just that. I discussed that here.

Where does Israel fit into this? It seems that Victor Davis Hanson got it partly right when he wrote:

Does Team Obama really believe that a murderous autocratic cabal like Hamas is merely different from a democratic constitutional republic like Israel? At best we have naiveté at the helm (Obama thinks he can mesmerize misunderstood killers), at worst, a genuine feeling that Israel is an aggressive, Western imperialist power exploiting indigenous people of color who simply wish to be free--in other words, the Rev. Wright-Bill Ayers-Rashid Khalidi view of the Middle East.

If D'Souza is correct (and what he writes is certainly plausible), it should be clear that Obama views Israel - like the United States - as a post-colonial country that is "an aggressive, Western imperialist power exploiting indigenous people of color who simply wish to be free." But Hanson got one detail wrong. Obama doesn't look at us that way because of Wright, Ayers and Khalidi. They just reinforced the view of Israel that Obama already had in his blood from his Kenyan father.

Ouch.

Ouch indeed. Especially if Obama can carry act in accordance with his inclinations without having to worry about reelection.

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Caroline Glick, Obama's obsession with Israel, Obama's obsession with Palestinians

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:42 PM