Obama's legacy on Israel

By -
Now that Obama's term is almost over, can we finally put to bed the preposterous notion, advanced by many of my more right-wing co-religionists, that "Obama is the worst president for Israel ever"?

Obama's actually been a pretty good friend to Israel, having her back at the UN, increasing military aid, and never, ever pressuring Israel financially like Reagan and George HW Bush did. His relationship with Netanyahu has been frosty, but the blame for that lies more with Netanyahu than with Obama.

So what was Obama's crime? Apparently it was criticizing settlement expansion and pressuring Israel to negotiate with the Palestinians. At best, Obama has been accused, in the words of one recent critic I exchanged comments with as "[approaching] the peace process with complete naivete, and many assumptions that are simply not true".

Obama approached the peace process exactly like his two predecessors did. Perhaps that that doesn't work anymore, but Bill Clinton and George W Bush both did the same things, so Obama's approach was hardly unprecedented. They all pressured Israel to negotiate and to freeze settlements. They all criticized Israel publicly, albeit mildly, when Israel did things they deemed unhelpful.

Perhaps the peace process, as begun with the Oslo agreement (driven by Israel herself, not the US), is a failure and a new path needs to be expored. Perhaps Obama's "crime" was continuing longstanding American policy when the Middle East was changing drastically. But keeping a steady hand on the tiller hardly equates to throwing Israel under the bus.

History will judge the Jewish right-wing's hand-wringing over Obama's relationship with Israel as overblown partisan hysteria. I hope that our community can have a calmer, fact based view in the future.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What kind of skeptic are you?

By -
A comment on my last post got me thinking: There are 2 types of skeptics hanging out in this zone of the blogosphere. Skeptic type #1: I only believe what is proven by empirical evidence. There is no logical reason to believe in god or any divine source to Judaism, especially since one can trace the entirely social development of superstitious belief in gods or god in various cultures. Plus, in light of modern science, archeology, and historical research, the divine revelation and many other events related in the Torah could not have happened. The definition of a rational human being is one who bases belief on observation. I am such a rational being. It would make no sense for me to believe in something intangible like god. That is outside the realm of empiricism and therefore does not exist. The entire basis of Judaism is riddled with inaccuracies and ancient misconceptions. The Torah is clearly not divine. Therefore, the entire basis of the religion is a myth. Skeptic ty
Read more

Women's ritual roles

By -
On DovBear's blog , LadyKaye wrote a post on whether women can lain from the Torah in public and discussed the reason given in the Talmud against it, that of "Kavod HaTzibur" (respect to the congregation). She discusses the 2 explanations generally given for Kavod HaTzibur. One is that women were simply held in lower regard. The other was a convoluted apologetic that involved women's educational opportunities (see her post for a full explanation.) I thin there's no question that it's the lower regard for women that accounted for Kavod HaTzibur. Women were deemed inferior. That's OK, since most of the world deemed women inferior at the time the halachot were written & codified. (Mishna & Talmud.) Actually, Judaism was more respectful of women's rights and status than the surrounding society. They were deemed inferior, but not property. Since the episode of B'not Zelafchad in the Torah, Judaism has had a tradition of working within the hal
Read more

Boycott the Chidon HaTanach?

By -
Bat-El Levi, 15, from Be'er Sheva is one of the 4 Israeli finalists in the Chidon HaTanach, the international Bible competition for Jewish teens sponsored by Israel. She is also a Messianic Jew who believes in Jesus. From The Jerusalem Post: The controversy surrounding the participation of 16-year-old Bat-El Levi, from Beersheba, began last week as a result of a campaign led by the haredi anti-missionary organization Yad Le'Achim. Yad Le'Achim discovered that Levi belonged to a messianic Jewish congregation. The organization immediately contacted rabbis and other spiritual leaders. Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, a leading religious Zionist halachic authority, called to boycott the quiz if the messianic Jew did not forfeit her participation. His call was joined by other rabbis aligned with religious Zionism, including Safed Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliahu. Sources close to the Levi family, who did not deny their ties with a messianic Jewish congregation, said there had been attempt
Read more