Israel Matzav

Why some Jews hate Obama

Of course this JTA piece published in the JPost depicts Jews who hate and fear Obama as paranoid.

Obama is hardly the first president to be called an anti-Semite or hostile to Israel. In 1991, George H.W. Bush found himself the subject of withering Jewish criticism when he sought to delay $10 billion in loan guarantees for Israel unless Jerusalem agreed to a settlement freeze in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The national director of the Anti-Defamation League, Abraham Foxman, said he remembers holding a news conference to denounce Jewish characterizations of Bush as Satan and evil.

But the rhetoric and conspiracy theories against Obama seem to constitute an unprecedented level of vitriol, say many longtime observers of the Jewish political scene.

“I’ve never seen as much enmity toward a president by American Jews as I do toward Obama,” said Morton Klein, the national president of the Zionist Organization of America. “I’ve never heard people say, as they say to me, 'I hate him.' ”

Klein, who called on the American Israel Public Affairs Committee to disinvite Obama from its annual policy conference last year and thinks AIPAC should bar Obama from this year’s conference, lays the blame on the president.

“Among those who care about Israel, he surely is to blame for it,” Klein said. “Every chance he gets he blames Israel.”

Foxman says that extreme hatred of Obama is not so much about the president’s policies as it is about America’s economic troubles, the sense that Israel faces greater existential threats today than at any time in the last 30 to 40 years, and the Internet, which amplifies and spreads radical voices and conspiracy theories.

“All of these add an anxiety element that intensifies fear and anxiety,” Foxman told JTA. “Attitudes have intensified.”

Then there’s Obama himself -- a black president with the middle name Hussein who has been accused even by some Jewish Democrats of not being able to show sympathy for Israel in his kishkes.

“Here’s a president who doesn’t show emotion on anything, and the Jewish community is used to emotion,” Foxman said.

Democrats blame the Republicans for the vitriol; Republicans say Democrats are practicing divisive politics.

Obama's most vehement Jewish critics are not the only ones who accuse Obama of being a secret Muslim, a socialist and a threat to America. Many Tea Party activists have sounded similar themes, with some going so far as to decry his administration as pursuing Nazi-like policies.

But Obama’s most extreme Jewish critics also accuse him of seeking to erase the Jewish character of the Jewish state and plotting to wage war against Israel or the Jews. They see anti-Semitic overtones even in Obama’s hiring of Jewish advisers.

It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you.

After examining Obama's record four years ago and concluding that he was anti-Israel and an anti-Semite, I have seen nothing since to dissuade me of that conclusion. With the check of a reelection campaign this year, Obama has exhibited levels of hostility toward Israel that are unprecedented by any President. Imagine what he will do if God forbid he is reelected.

For a lengthy list of why so many Jews loathe and fear Obama, go here.

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:38 PM