Sunday, July 11, 2010

Yes, Obama, Israelis are Racists


Michael Lumish

I am just flabbergasted at the way that Barack Obama continues to endear himself to Israelis and American Jews. In a recent interview Obama was asked why it is that so many Israelis, well, aren’t very fond of him. During the interview Wednesday, when confronted with the anxiety that some Israelis feel toward him, Obama said that “some of it may just be the fact that my middle name is Hussein, and that creates suspicion.”

As J. Christopher Pryor notes:

The implications of Obama’s statements are truly frightening. By stating that Israelis are suspicious of him because he has a Muslim name, he reveals his belief that the Jews are superficial and racist, and distrust all Muslims.

Yup. The only possible explanation for Obama’s dismal approval ratings among Israelis is that they’re a bunch of racists. It’s the only thing that makes sense. It can’t be, for example, that the president actually told Jews where they may, or may not, live in Jerusalem, the ancient capital of the Jewish people. That cannot have anything to do with it. It’s not as if for the last 2,000 years various tyrants and bigots have, like Obama, told Jews where they may reside.

Nor can it have anything to do with the fact that Obama recently took a minor Israeli gaffe and intentionally blew it up into a major diplomatic rift. Remember? The Israeli Ministry of the Interior announced that sometime within the next few years they may start building in Ramat Shlomo, a Jewish neighborhood in the Jewish capital of the Jewish state. And Obama objected. Why in the world would that upset Jewish Israelis? It’s simply unfathomable.

Nor can it have anything to do with the fact that Obama greeted the Israeli Prime Minister at the White House with all the enthusiasm that one would normally reserve for the likes of Idi Amin or Charles Manson.

Nor can it have anything to do with the fact that by demanding “total settlement freeze” as a precondition for negotiations with the Palestinians that Obama hobbled the potential for a negotiated settlement and peace.

Nope.

Jews are simply bigots.

You know, it is often said that American Jewish progressives, such as myself, are so blinkered by an adoration for a progressive ideology and the Democratic party that we would vote for Hitler, himself, if he was a Democratic party nominee. I wouldn’t be so sure of that, however. We may be hideous racists who judge our president entirely on his middle name, but somehow I do not think so. Close to 80 percent of us, like myself, voted for Obama in 2008 and I am pretty sure that most us knew at the time that Barack’s middle name is “Hussein.”

But please do not expect so many of us to make that same mistake twice. For some reason, I am pretty sure that the great majority of diaspora Jews will not take kindly to Obama’s suggestion that Israeli Jews are racist.

Just a hunch, really.

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