3.22.13
Middle East: Both Israeli Jews and Arabs are furious at President Obama's disgracefully overdue trip to Israel. Wooing Islamists while giving our loyal ally in Jerusalem the cold shoulder is a disastrous foreign policy.
Only 10% of Israelis view the president of the United States favorably, according to a March 15 poll conducted by Maagar Mohot Institute, while just 33% believe he has a favorable attitude toward the Jewish state.
Such lack of support has to be unprecedented. But as Obama visits, Israel's enemies are letting it be known they think even less of him. Palestinians were burning effigies of Obama on Monday in demonstrations near Manger Square in Bethlehem, with no interference from Palestinian Authority law enforcement.
Major protests against Obama's visit in other Palestinian cities are expected this week.
One demonstrator gave a familiar Arab refrain to the Jerusalem Post:
"We want to tell America that we hate you."
Another complained that "Obama is coming to help the Israelis."
Symbolism might have a limited relationship to geopolitical realities, but it is beyond ironic that the presidential limousine broke down during a Mideast trip because it was pumped with the wrong fuel.
And the magnolia tree Obama and Israeli president Shimon Peres planted together on Wednesday was immediately dug up; the Agriculture Ministry may spend months checking it for disease. One "Arab Spring" planted by Obama is apparently enough for the Israelis.
Who can blame them? This is an administration that, as reported by the Washington Free Beacon, just released a map of "Israel" in which Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the Golan Heights are missing. And the president's official trip schedule lists stops in "Tel Aviv, Israel" but Israel's capital is simply "Jerusalem."
It's an administration whose Justice Department on Tuesday told a federal appeals court that an American boy born in Jerusalem cannot list Israel as his birthplace on his U.S. passport, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency is reporting.
As he was calling NBC News' Chuck Todd "incorrigible" at a press conference, Obama explained his Mideast failures with the excuse that "this is a really hard problem ... a hard slog," and "some of it is just because it is hard."
It makes it a lot harder when a president goes to an audience of Islamists in Cairo, as Obama did in his first year as president, and tells them that "the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that ... culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust," rather than the ancient claims based on the Old Testament, as the Zionist movement argued.
In that same speech, Obama declared that "the United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements," arguing that "this construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace."
Toward the end of his first term, Obama added insult when he declared that Israel should go back to its indefensible 1967 borders.
The predictable result of all this "smart" Obama diplomacy? The Muslim Mideast no longer respects us, and our ally Israel rightfully feels betrayed.
IBD
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