Israel Matzav

Michael Oren: 'Non-Orthodox' intermarried Jews in Obama administration don't understand Israeli character

Michael Oren continues to pound away at Barack Obama and his administration.

In an appearance at New York City's uber-Leftist 92nd Street Y on Sunday, Oren explained that his book was directed at American Jews (and here I thought it was directed at Israelis who still don't get that Obama is not our friend) and that he pushed to have it published now because of the critical juncture of the Iran negotiations.

Former Israeli ambassador to the United States Michael Oren says he pressured Random House to publish his controversial new book “Ally” now, rather than during book season in September or October, because “Israel is at a fateful juncture” before the deadline of the Iran talks and the vote on the French initiative on Palestine in the Security Council. He said that one of his main objectives was to “motivate, animate and inspire my readers” in advance of these challenges “to do more than just stand there”.

“It’s about saying no” to an Iran deal that “everybody in the Knesset agrees is emphatically bad,” Oren said. He compared “this critical moment” to the Holocaust era, when American Jews had an opportunity to “intercede and perhaps save millions of Jews”.

Oren received a surprisingly warm reception from the 92nd Street Y, where he made remarks that might be read by some as an indictment of American Jewry.

Oren discussed what he described as the unprecedented predominance of American Jews in the Obama administration – “there were discussions in the White House in which there were six Jews – 3 Americans and 3 Israelis, discussing a Palestinian state - and the only non-Jewish person in the room was the President or the Vice President.” He said that the non-Orthodox and the intermarried American Jews in the administration – “have a hard time understanding the Israeli character.” 

Well, yes, but that's not just the administration. That's true of American Jews in general. For years now, there's been a split between American Jewry and Israeli Jewry, but that split  has been virtually non-existent among Orthodox Jews. Orthodox Jews also consistently vote Republican (or have since Ronald Reagan beat Jimmy Carter in 1980), and the more Orthodox, the more consistent they are about that. And Orthodox Jews and most Israelis would disagree with Oren's statement that Obama is not anti-Israel. He most definitely is anti-Israel. As I said once before:

Oren doesn't go far enough. His claim that Obama was 'never anti-Israel' doesn't square with the facts that we knew long before Obama was elected President. The fact that the one example Oren gives of 'significantly strengthened security cooperation' under Obama relates to a natural disaster and not to a military action is telling.

And Oren ties the Obama White House in with the anti-Israel bent of American academia.

Recounting his academic experience in America, Oren said that “1968 revolutionaries” had taken over the Middle East and international relations departments of American universities and that unless one published their “neo-Marxist ideas”, one would not get tenured or published. When he came to Washington in 2009, he encountered the same ideas in his talks with Obama administration officials in the White House and the State Department: “I could tell what professors they had.” Oren went on to claim that the term “Israel Lobby”, which was condemned when it was used by Professor Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, is now an accepted term in Washington discourse.

Maybe that's why Oren made aliya. 

Read the whole thing.

Labels: anti-Semitism, Barack Hussein Obama, Iranian nuclear threat, Jimmy Carter, liberal academia, Michael Oren, Orthodox Jews, Republicans, Ronald Reagan, self-hating Jews

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:30 PM