Israel Matzav

Obama to Jewish leaders: 'Stop fighting me on Iran and I'll stop Jew-baiting'

The only puzzling thing about this piece by Lee Smith is why he keeps insisting that President Hussein Obama is not an anti-Semite. Or maybe he didn't have a /sarc tag.

The participant told me that some Jewish leaders in the meeting objected to how the administration characterized the JCPOA’s critics. “Words have consequences, and when they come from official sources, they can be even more dangerous,” he said the president was told. “The community worked hard to keep it from getting personal and didn’t make it specific to him. The president complained about the lobbying, and said some of the same people who brought you Iraq are opposing the Iran deal. He was told those characterizations are not accurate. Jewish lobbyists didn’t support the Iraq war.”

Another participant who also asked to remain anonymous told me that some people expressed discomfort with  “how the debate is being framed—framed as, ‘if you are a critic of the deal, you’re for war.’ The implication is that if it looks like the Jewish community is responsible for Congress voting down the deal, it will look like the Jewish community is leading us off to another war in the Middle East.”

Apparently, President Obama wasn’t paying attention because the one point he made sure to drive home in his speech the next day at American University in Washington, D.C. is that there are only two choices: the JCPOA or war. And the only nation in the world that does not think this is “such a strong deal” and “has expressed support” is the Israeli government. In short, if you don’t like the agreement, then you want war and you’re aligned not with the United States and the rest of the civilized world, but with a Jewish pariah state.

A senior official at a Washington, D.C.-based Jewish organization involved in the Iran fight told me: “The President told concerned Jewish Americans that he would turn down the constant refrain of anti-Semitic insinuations from the White House. Then he went out and gave a speech implying that Jews are dragging American boys and girls into war.”

It’s unfortunate that the president of the United States seems to really believe that Israel and the American Jewish community was responsible for taking America to war in Iraq. But Obama is not an anti-Semite and it seems he doesn’t even really want to use anti-Jewish dog whistles, like he did last month on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. But the JCPOA is the cornerstone of his foreign policy legacy and he’s determined to win. AIPAC is leading the countercharge with a multi-million dollar campaign managed by a group called Citizens for a Nuclear Free Iran. According to The Washington Post, “The president suggested to AIPAC that ‘if you guys would back down, I would back down from some of the things I’m doing.’’’

Or, as one of the participants told me Obama said, “If you don’t like the claims that are being made, don’t run the advertisements.” In other words, lay off criticizing the Iran deal and I’ll lay off the Jew-baiting.

Read the whole thing. Yes, Obama is an anti-Semite.

Shabbat Shalom everyone.

Labels: American Jews, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, Lee Smith, Obama's anti-Semitism

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:56 PM