Monday, July 09, 2012
By: Marc Goldman

[Note: This was written in response to an op-ed that has made the rounds in email as well, which makes the argument that Pres. Obama is a strong friend of Israel.]

Mark Vogel’s response regarding Obama’s support for Israel and where Obama’s true sympathies lie is misleading and dangerous. To equate help in fighting the Carmel Forest Fire or in rescuing Israelis trapped in the Egyptian embassy is disingenuous and ignores the following facts among many others:

• Obama’s first international phone call from the oval office after becoming president was to Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinian authority, successor to Yasser Arafat. Of everyone on the world’s stage, that’s whom he chose to call first.


•  Obama’s first overseas trip was to Egypt, and to other Muslim nations, most of who are conspiring to destroy Israel.


•  After bowing to the king of Saudi Arabia, when there were demonstrations in Cairo Egypt, Obama could not wait to insist on our allay Mubarak leaving office, thus opening the door for the Muslim brotherhood to take over Egypt, which has now happened. He did that despite the fact that Mubarak, perhaps not the world’s greatest humanitarian, did however faithfully keep and honor the peace treaty with Israel. Obama’s behavior was completely opposite when the Iranian people were peacefully demonstrating to overthrow their government, a government that has threatened to annihilate Israel. Obama’s position was “it is an internal Iranian affair, it’s none of our business.” Similarly Obama was happy to lead from behind to over throw Gaddafi in Libya, which was not threatening Israel. Yet in Syria, the Iranian client state which is sworn to Israel’s destruction, Obama is eerily quiet as the Syrian government murders its citizens by the thousands.


•  The issue of the disrespect, which Obama overtly showed to Prime Minister Netanyahu, is not a matter of being invited for dinner or left standing in the doorway. In the Arab world, signs of respect and deference speak volumes and so the public dissing of Israel’s prime minister and the deep bow to the Saudi king send very loud and clear messages from the president of the United States to Israel and to its enemies, in a way that is too subtle for most Americans to recognize.


•  The sanctions, which have been placed on Iran as it continues to violate one after another of UN resolutions in its mad dash to develop a nuclear weapon, have been forced on the unwilling Obama administration by a Congress that is far more sympathetic to Israel.


•  And lest we forget; the Barack Obama who spoke at AIPAC, while he was a candidate for president, in words that every supporter of Israel responded to with enthusiasm; that he was committed to Jerusalem being the eternal undivided capital of Israel. Is the very same Barack Obama who the very next day issued a statement that he misspoke, and that what he meant was that Jerusalem should not be divided with barbed wire as it had been before 1967.

The likelihood that the real Barak Obama is the one who was overheard telling Russian Prime Minister, Medvedev, to please tell Vladimir Putin not to pressure him at this time, that Obama will have much more flexibility after he is reelected, is too frightening and dangerous to take a chance on.