Israel Matzav

Don't expect Obama to come to Israel

John Bennett gives three reasons why President Obama will not visit Israel between now and November (Hat Tip: Lance K).

Pro-Israel conservatives immediately blasted the president's remarks, but experts say Air Force One won't be touching down on Israeli soil this year. Here are three reasons why:

Strategy.Obama took office in 2009, and almost immediately took a harder stance toward Israel than recent U.S. presidents before him. He also went to Cairo for a seminal speech that was billed by the White House as offering an olive branch to the Arab world. "At the time, there were tensions between new presidents Obama and Netanyahu," says Nathan Brown of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, referring to Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu. "But if Obama had gone to Israel after the Cairo speech, it would have sent the opposite message to the Arab world than he intended.

Brown calls the lack of an Israeli trip "part of an overall approach" and adds, "if the president hasn't gone by now, he probably won't go--at least not this year."

Politics.Even if the president felt a need to travel across the Atlantic to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Netanyahu as Washington and Tel Aviv stare down Iran, a trip is highly unlikely. "The problem now is if you go, you look like you would be giving in to pressure," says Larry Korb of the Center for American Progress.

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Heavy numbers of Jewish-American voters reside in Florida and New York. Experts say the Israeli issue won't be the determining factor in the Sunshine State, always a key swing state, come November. As for the Empire State, Brown quips: "Any Democratic president who loses New York isn't getting re-elected."

Precedent.There is something of a conventional wisdom that all American presidents are required to visit Israel. But that's not the case. Since Israel's creation in 1948, more U.S. presidents--including Obama--have opted against visiting the Jewish state. Four have made an official visit: Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush. Notably, Nixon and Bush went in their second terms. But seven U.S. presidents did not go: Harry Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, George H.W. Bush, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan.

"The way people perceive it is as soon as a president takes the oath of office, he goes right over there," says Korb. "But that's just not the case. Many presidents have instead let their secretary of state handle that trip."

There's a difference between Obama and all of those Presidents other than George H.W. Bush: None of those other Presidents were so obsessed with Israel. And we all know what happened to Bush.

But more importantly, in my opinion, Bennett left out another key reason why Obama won't be coming here. Obama cannot afford to have pictures of thousands of Israelis demonstrating against him being beamed back to the US live via satellite. And it's very likely, at this point, that were Obama to come to Israel, there would be a lot of hostile reaction.

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Campaign 2012

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:58 AM