Obama v. Israel

OK, where is the outrage in this country over the treatment of Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu? Perhaps it is because the Jewish community in the U.S. is so entrenched in their support of President Obama that they have blinders on to what is happening to the U.S. - Middle East policies. 78% of the Jewish community voted for President Obama. Are those 78% unwilling to take a critical look at the President’s actions?

The excerpts below are from the Israeli newspaper Haaretz and can be read in its entirety at Haaretz.com. The comments are even more of a puzzlement. Again the media in Israel is left-leaning in the political spectrum and anti-Netanyahu even in the face of more aggressive Arab actions towards Israel after what looked to the Arab world like a U.S. President taking an anti-Israel foreign policy position.

Haaretz writes:

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his senior partner Ehud Barak returned from Washington yesterday, leaving behind a deep crisis with the world's most powerful country and Israel's greatest friend. U.S. President Barack Obama asked that Netanyahu give him unequivocal answers to his administration's demands, in order to begin indirect talks and advance the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. The demands include a complete freeze on settlement construction, including in East Jerusalem.”

Haaretz then shows their political stance:

“The choice here is between continued construction in East Jerusalem during the negotiations and Israel's future as a secure, democratic and Jewish state. A deterioration in relations with the U.S. administration is taking place at the peak of international efforts to block Iran and strengthen the axis of moderate Arab states. In the unnecessary fight with the United States, an essential ally for Israel, the Netanyahu government is showing itself to be the most extremist and dangerous in the country's history.”

An “unnecessary fight with the United States”? Netanyahu is the bad guy?

Obama has traveled to Saudi Arabia and kissed the hand of a Saudi Prince, but he hasn’t taken the time to visit Israel, the only friend of the U.S. in the Middle East. Now he has insulted the Prime Minister of Israel by not even extending his hand to Netanyahu either in greeting or in farewell. He certainly didn’t bow and kiss the Prime Minister’s hand, and actually cut off their meeting so that Obama could go have dinner – not even inviting Netanyahu to break bread. Netanyahu was allowed to leave through the front door of the White House this visit, though, which is better than leaving out the back door by way of the trash cans as he did after the last visit. At the White House there were no questions with the press, no photos of smiling faces, no State dinners, none of the pomp that took place with all of the Arab leaders that visited President Obama.

Perhaps this is what Obama meant when he pledged last June in Cairo that his administration would mean “a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world.” Perhaps the President hasn't seen the shouts of "death to Americans" being chanted around the Muslim world by Islamic fundamentalists.