Israel Matzav

Worse than a blind spot

In an eye-catching headline, Ed Driscoll refers to Barack Hussein Obama's blind spot to anti-Semitism. Driscoll is referring to yesterday's news that President Obama referred to the Paris supermarket massacre as a random shooting. But the quotes that Driscoll cites prove that this is far more than a blind spot. It's active anti-Semitism.

At Commentary, Jonathan S. Tobin writes:

His Vox comments are, in fact, far worse than his initial reaction which was more a matter of omission than a conscious twisting of events.

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Let’s first note that his characterization of the assailants again omits their Islamist loyalties and the fact that religion was the motivating factor for their crime. This is consistent with administration policy that seeks to cleanse ISIS, al-Qaeda, or other Islamists of any connection with the Muslim faith. This is absurd not just because it is wrong. It also puts Obama in the position of trying to play the pope of Islam who can decide who is or is not a real Muslim, a responsibility that no American president should try to usurp.

But it is also significant that once again the president chooses to treat a deliberate targeting of a Jewish business filled with Jewish customers as something that is random rather than an overt act of anti-Semitism. Doing so once might be excused as an oversight. The second time makes it a pattern that can’t be ignored.

This is a peculiar talking point especially since the increase of anti-Semitism in Europe with violent incidents going up every year is something that even the Obama State Department has dubbed a “rising tide” of hate.

Why does the president have such a blind spot when it comes to anti-Semitism? His critics will jump to conclusions that will tell us more about their views of Obama than about his thinking.

But suffice it to say that this is a president who finds it hard to focus on the siege of Jews in Europe or of the State of Israel in the Middle East. Nor can it be entirely coincidental that a president who treats Israeli self-defense and concerns for its security as a bothersome irritant to his foreign policy or seeks to blame the Jewish state’s leaders for obstructing a peace process that was actually blown up by the Palestinians would have a blind spot about anti-Semitism.

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As Jonah Goldberg writes at the Corner, “Obama’s a Fool For Randomness:”

There was nothing random about it, at all. There are about 310,000 Jews in the greater Paris area. Out of close to 12 million inhabitants. The odds of killing four Jews randomly are pretty daunting. But, thankfully,  you don’t have to do the math because Amedy Coulibaly said openly and proudly that he was targeting Jews. No one disputes this, except for Barack Obama. He would never describe the targeting of a black church by the Klan as simple random violence — nor should he. And we know he’s perfectly comfortable denouncing crimes committed in “in the name of Christ” no matter how ancient they may be. But crimes in the name of Allah must not be named as such — or at all.

This is as much about a 'blind spot' as the killings themselves were random. It's anti-Semitism. Pure and simple. And it was on display for everyone whose eyes were open to see all the way back in 2007.

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.

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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?

If he walks like an anti-Semite, talks like an anti-Semite and acts like an anti-Semite, it's not just a blind spot. He's an anti-Semite.

Too bad all those American Jews had to prove that they were open-minded and liberal by voting for this anti-Semite because he's (half) black... twice. 

Labels: anti-Semitism, Barack Hussein Obama, France, Jeremiah Wright, Paris

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:53 PM