Harper leads, Obama stumbles in the Middle East

The president’s backing for Israel in its war with the terror group Hamas has been palpably tepid. Israel has the right to defend itself has become the mantra of the administration, but it has been entwined in so many contradictions that it now lacks credibility. Consider:

1. Weeks earlier, the Obama administration had openly supported the Palestinian unity government that included Hamas, whose charter calls for both the destruction of Israel specifically and Jews generally.
2. From the onset of the current conflict, the Obama administration has worked with the Turkey and Qatar, all adversaries of the Jewish state, to call for an immediate cease fire. In the face of Israeli intelligence about Hamas’ planned operation to kill large numbers of Israeli civilians on the high holy days of the Jewish New Year, saying Israel has a right to defend itself but not permitting it to finish the mission to accomplish this is an act of whimsy – or pure hypocrisy.

The Federal Aviation Administration issued an unprecedented ban on American flights to Tel Aviv, even as flights continued to Ukraine, where a passenger jet had been downed and two military jets were shot down just days later. Active war zones like Baghdad and Damascus continued to receive American flights. The obvious conclusion: the administration was using Israel’s economic vulnerability during the height of the tourist season to bend Israel to its will.

And then there was John Kerry’s original ceasefire plan, which would have saved Hamas from the might of the Israeli military and handed Hamas what it wanted. The deal was so pro-Hamas that some observers quipped that Khaled Mashal, the leader of Hamas, probably wrote it while waiting out the conflict in his five-star Qatar hotel and faxed it to Kerry.

The Israeli cabinet, usually incapable of agreeing on when the Sabbath begins, rejected Kerry’s plan 19-0, and the plan drew fire from the Palestinian Authority and Egypt. Kerry had achieved a diplomatic miracle: he had devised something on which the PA, Egypt, and Israel could all agree. The plan was a disaster that only benefited Hamas. "It's as if he isn't the foreign minister of the world's most powerful nation, but an alien, who just disembarked his spaceship in the Mideast," wrote David Ravid. As the diplomatic correspondent for the far-left Ha’aretz, Ravid’s remarks had to be especially painful for the Obama administration’s liberal supporters. The Obama administration’s generated dissonance is accentuated by comparison to Canada, where Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been an unapologetic supporter of Israel because “it is the right thing to do.” Harper’s affinity for Israel is not based on theology, as some have argued, but on the recognition that, as a liberal democracy, Israel embraces the same values as Canada. With an intense dislike for theocracies and their assault on both human rights and democratic values, Harper has been especially critical of terrorism – which thrives on fear, repression, and violence – as antithetical to the ontological notion of humanity’s march toward greater freedom. Israel’s democracy is part of that historical view, existing as an island of democracy in a sea of repression. Harper represents what most Americans wish their president would. It is not just his support of Israel that creates the contrast; it is his understanding that the quest for freedom has been a long, painful, and difficult struggle, but it is a journey we are destined to continue for the benefit of all humanity. Jason Stverak is President of the Franklin Center for Government & Public Integrity.