For the most part, American Jews are politically liberal. For decades they have supported leftwing politicians who are antagonists if not outright enemies of Israel.
Why does this matter?
It matters to me because the Holocaust in which the Nazis wantonly murdered six million Jews in the 1930s and ‘40s has been the defining event of my life – the event against which I measure the political philosophies and actions of both individuals and nations.
I was a baby when that blight on human history took place, but I fully appreciate that if my twin brother and I had been born in Germany during the ghastly Nazi reign, we would have been victims of the unspeakable “experiments” of Dr. Mengele.
It matters to me because the wretched survivors of the Holocaust, against all odds – including ships of refugees that were turned back from our own shores by FDR, only to be returned to the death camps – somehow managed to arrive in their ancient homeland and create one of the most vibrant democracies in the world, whose advanced scientific institutions contribute to research and development of medicines, therapies, technology and cures for the world’s devastating horrors
It matters because Israel, the locus of Jewish prayer and survival, is but a sliver of land, not much larger than 8,000 square miles, which is comparable to New Jersey, our 5th-smallest state. This tiny country is populated by six million Jews and one-million Arabs and surrounded by 22 Arab Muslim states with a population of over 300-million – most of them dedicated to Israel’s annihilation, the rest sly participants in the charade of a “peace process.”
While Israel’s Arab minority is accorded full citizenship and education, freedom of speech, congregation, religious autonomy and even participation in Israel’s parliament, the Arab nations that surround it – including Jordan and Egypt, which are ostensibly at peace with Israel – afford Jews absolutely no rights and no protection.
Again, why does this matter? It matters to me because, for millennia, “wandering” Jews were deprived of living in their homeland and destined to travel the earth looking for safety and freedom, only to be subjected to – where to begin? – the Crusades, the Inquisition, European pogroms, and the Holocaust. Only America, from its inception a mere 232 years ago, welcomed the Jews, until the State of Israel was born in 1948, becoming the last best hope of a people whose manifest destiny was spelled out to them in the Bible.
Today, there is a worldwide renaissance of anti-Semitism, including on the campuses of our own country, in the ranting of various “religious” leaders, in the literature of some of America’s so-called intelligentsia, and, yes, even in the Congress of the United States.
Yet again, why does this matter? It matters to me because unlike the purveyors of Islamic jihad and their brothers and sisters in suicide-bombing, death-adoring ideology, I love life and don’t want to see our country succumb to the encroaching horrors of Sharia law (including "
honor killings"),
Sharia finance (in which money must be donated to Islamic charities, including those that promote Jihad and suicide bombing), or any of the other Islamic-dictated demands that are utterly anathema to and in egregious violation of both U.S. law and the freedoms cherished by all Americans.
It matters to me because while Obama makes the perfunctory and requisite statements of support for America and Israel, his policies – and those who formulate them – would do irreparable harm to both nations.
LET ME COUNT THE WAYS
It would have been enough for me not to vote for Obama, knowing that he is the
most liberal politician in the U.S. Congress, as judged by the non-partisan National Journal and based on the cold hard facts of his far-left voting record.
It would have been enough for me not to vote for Obama, knowing that he has zero experience in foreign policy and has never managed or run anything of substance that requires executive experience – not a company, not an agency, not even a senate committee!
It would have been enough to know that Obama makes John Kerry’s acrobatic flip-flopping look like child’s play.
· He’ll pull the troops out of Iraq in 16 months, now he’ll “refine” that policy.
· He’ll filibuster the FISA bill, but he voted for it.
· He’ll campaign with public financing, but he rejected that option.
· He’ll renegotiate Nafta, but now he won’t.
· He’s against gun rights but supported the Supreme Court’s
Heller decision for gun rights.
· He’ll debate Sen. John McCain anywhere, anytime, but he has refused to.
· Iran poses no serious threat, but oops, Iran poses a grave threat.
· He supports an undivided Jerusalem, but 24-hours later said he “misspoke.”
It would have been enough to appreciate Obama’s sponsorship of the “global poverty” act, which lays the groundwork for the United Nation’s draconian tax on America, and also that he fervently supports that cesspool on 2nd Avenue, which for decades has been a consistent purveyor of virulent anti-Semitic bias.
It would have been enough for me to consider Obama’s oft-repeated promises to raise taxes to unprecedented heights, open our borders further to the flood of illegal aliens, appoint his socialist cronies to the Supreme Court, reinforce his death-wish for America’s unborn babies, institutionalize socialized medicine, and support the anti-free-speech return of the so-called
Fairness Doctrine.
In what Investor’s Business Daily calls Obama’s “stealth socialism,” the Democrat candidate also promises:
· Free college tuition.
· Universal” 401 ks.
· Free job training (even for criminals).
· Wage insurance (to supplement dislocated union workers' old income levels).
· Free childcare and universal preschool.
· More subsidized public housing.
· A fatter earned income tax credit for "working poor."
· And [again] the Global Poverty Act that amounts to a Marshall Plan for the Third World, first and foremost Africa.
It would have been enough for me to witness – with revulsion, I might add – Obama apologizing to a throng of Germans for America’s “mistakes.”
It would have been enough to
learn that Obama’s recent, $500,000 overhaul of his 757 included the removal of the American flag and its replacement with a symbol of his own campaign.
All of this, and much more, would have been enough for me not to vote for Obama. But it is not only his florid narcissism and Marxist policies that offend me.
It is his judgment, particularly when it comes to the people he admires, associates with, looks to for mentoring, and especially listens to.
I happen not to inhabit the politically correct world of liberals who believe that a person cannot be judged by his associations. It is precisely Barack Obama’s longtime, continuing, and newfound associations that strike fear into my heart – as they should in the hearts of all Americans, Jews and non-Jews alike.
LIE DOWN WITH DOGS, WAKE UP WITH FLEAS
But who are those associations that, as an American and especially as a Jew, I am so worried about? Obama’s 300-plus foreign policy
advisors include high-ranking people who are known for their undisguised contempt of Jews, in general, and their loathing of Israel, in particular:
General Merrill "Tony" McPeak, who Sen. Obama once considered a potential V.P., was his campaign co-chairman and top military adviser. When asked by The Oregonian to name the problem preventing peace in the Middle East, McPeak said: "New York City. Miami” – code-names for Jews. Obama refused to remove him from his campaign, but he slunk out anyway.
Samantha Power, a former senior policy advisor to Obama (before she resigned for insulting Hillary Clinton) has advocated ending all U.S. military aid to Israel. She has written of her willingness to “alienate a domestic constituency of tremendous political and financial import [American Jews]…it may more crucially mean sacrificing…billions of dollars, not in servicing Israel’s military, but actually investing in the state of Palestine.”
Robert Malley, a top foreign policy advisor to Obama, left the Obama campaign when it was revealed that he'd been conducting meetings with Hamas. Two years ago, after the terror group won a majority in the Palestinian parliament, Malley advocated international aid to their newly formed government. He stated that the election of Hamas expressed Palestinian "anger at years of humiliation and loss of self-respect because of Israeli settlement expansion, Arafat's imprisonment, [and] Israel's incursions…”
Rashid Khalidi, a longtime friend of and fundraiser for Obama, is a former spokesman for the Palestine Liberation Organization. According to WorldNetDaily, at a 2003 farewell party for Mr. Khalidi, Obama sat in attendance as a young Palestinian-American recited a poem accusing the Israeli government of terrorism…and sharply criticizing U.S. support of Israel. Obama has credited Mr. Khalidi with uncovering "my own blind spots and my own biases" regarding the plight of the Palestinians. Obama funneled $75,000 in grants to the Arab American Action Network (run by Mr. Khalidi's wife, Mona), a group that calls Israel's independence Al-Nakba (the catastrophe).
Anthony “Tony” Lake, Obama’s top foreign policy advisor, served in the Carter ("Israel practices apartheid") administration, notorious for its animus toward Israel. As national security advisor to President Clinton, Lake shaped the policy that treated Islamic terrorism as a law-enforcement matter, which paved the way for the first World Trade Center bombing, the bombing of our embassies in Africa, the bombing of the USS Cole, and the disaster of September 11, 2001.
Susan Rice, another of Obama’s senior foreign policy advisors, was John Kerry's chief foreign policy adviser when he ran for President. Kerry’s idea for dealing with the Middle East was to appoint not one but two diehard enemies of Israel – James Baker and Jimmy Carter – as negotiators. Faced with a firestorm of criticism, Kerry backed down and blamed his staff, which consisted of Susan Rice.
Madeleine K. Albright, Clinton’s Secretary of State, lobbied Congress for increased foreign aid to the terrorist Arafat and arranged for him to become the White House’s most frequent guest. She consistently touted negotiations, rather than confrontation, with terror regimes.
Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter’s National Security Advisor, has been one of Israel’s most consistently hostile critics and Hamas’s most ardent supporters, as well as a staunch admirer (both in writing and verbally) of Stephen Walt’s and John Mearsheimer’s virulently anti-Israel book, “The Israel Lobby,” which, among other things, contends that Jewish pressure, and not shared values, binds America and Israel together. Brzezinski's son, Mark, is also among Obama's foreign policy advisors.
Lee Hamilton, a former congressman who served as the Chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East, waxed adoringly of Arafat, calling him a “moderate” leader.
James {“F… the Jews”) Baker, Reagan’s former Chief of Staff and the first President Bush’s Secretary of State (a department whose Arabist tilt is well-known), is among the harshest detractors of Israel, has often engaged in raw anti-Semitic remarks, is known for coddling Middle East dictators (including Syria’s Assad), and has been heavily invested (through the Carlyle Group) in the Israel-hating country of Saudi Arabia. In fact, Baker’s law firm defended the Saudi Defense Minister who was sued for alleged complicity by the families of the World Trade Center victims.
Daniel Kurtzer, a former U.S. Ambassador to Israel, was one of James Baker’s “Jew Boys,” which included, among others who militated against Israel, Dennis Ross (of the Clinton administration). Kurtzer recently said: "It will be impossible to make progress on serious peace talks without putting the future of Jerusalem on the table."
And this is the short list!
MORE DOGS, MORE FLEAS
I haven’t even mentioned the terrorists William Ayers and his wife Bernadette Dohrn, his indicted Chicago crony Tony Rezko, his first and most influential mentor, the Communist Frank Marshall Davis; or Father Michael Pfleger, the liberal Chicago priest and longtime friend of Obama, who delivered an explosive, racially charged sermon at Obama’s church, which forced the Democrat candidate to – what else? – dispense with him! You can Google these enemies of America!
Nor have I mentioned the hearty endorsements Obama has received from America-reviling Hamas (from whom he receives
money), Hugo Chavez, Farrakhan, Michael Moore, Fidel Castro, Kim Jong Il, and “Hanoi” Jane Fonda.
Among the other people Obama has chosen to affiliate himself with are:
George Soros, the multibillionaire, self-hating Jew who has devoted a good part of his life to vilifying Israel and funding groups that work unstintingly to destroy the tiny state. With his 527 groups, he has funded people – like Obama – to shatter the bonds between Israel and America.
Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s pastor for over 20 years, has shrieked his Black Theology anti-American and anti-Semitic “sermons,” to which the current candidate for president had not a word of objection! Until, that is, Wright’s venom came to light and Obama had to dispense with him in the same way he dispensed with the “typical white woman” – his grandmother – who raised him. Wright, remember, is an ardent supporter of Louis Farrakhan, who called Judaism a "gutter religion" and said Jews are "bloodsuckers".
These are only a smattering of people who, in Obama’s “judgment,” are worthy of being his mentors and political advisors.
As Ed Lasky of the American Thinker – to whom I am indebted for much of this material – has written: “One seemingly consistent theme running throughout Barack Obama's career is his comfort with aligning himself with people who are anti-Israel advocates.” And, I would add, anti-American advocates!
I ask: Does Obama have any friends, associates, mentors or advisors who don’t hate America and Israel? If so, e-mail me. I haven’t found one yet!
Any voter – whether Democrat, Republican or Independent – should find Obama’s far-left voting record and silly-putty changes-of mind on crucial policy issues reason enough not to vote for him in November.
Certainly, every American Jew should consider his ascension to the presidency a virtual death knell for Israel.
If the corrupt
ACORN group he so heartily supported in the Chicago machine – where he “made his bones” – doesn’t rig the election with the votes of millions of dead people and convicts, as they have so many times in the past. I trust the electorate will do the right thing.
The right thing, of course, would be vote against Obama, a candidate who has been infested with far more odious things than fleas, specifically the treacherous anti-American, anti-Israel advice that has clearly shaped his worldview.
Obama would make America less safe, and an unsafe America – which is the last, best hope for the survival of the Jews and Israel – would destroy the twin pillars of steadfast Judeo-Christian values. Destroying both nations is the goal of the Jihadists that Obama would sooner chat with than confront.
