Last month, after expressing his horror at the Hamas atrocities, former President Barack Obama went on to warn that an Israeli ground operation in Gaza would backfire, resulting in the erosion of Israel’s security and its global support. Now, after Israel not only ignored his sage advice, it appears to be well on the way to eradicating the world’s last holdout of the criminal Muslim Brotherhood, Obama is feeling free to side with the brotherhood.
You may recall that he singlehandedly pushed the rise of this Islamist underground to presidential power in Egypt with his Al Azhar University speech on June 8, 2009.
The most poignant and dangerous part of Obama’s speech called for peace between Israel and the “Palestinians.” He reaffirmed America’s alliance with Israel, but also described the “Palestinian” statelessness as “intolerable,” and recognized their aspirations for statehood and dignity as legitimate—just as legitimate as Israel’s desire for a Jewish homeland.
In the span of two years, that speech resulted in a completely torn up up Middle East: a raging civil war in Syria, political upheaval and increased repression in Egypt, increased violence between Israel and Hamas and Israel and PA Arabs, the collapse of the Lebanese economy, the terrifying expansion of Iran’s nuclear program.
And then Obama extracted the bulk of America’s military presence in the region, enabling both the rise of ISIS and the Russian takeover of Syria.
Holy macro, that man knows how to inflict damage.
The Republican Jewish Coalition on Sunday responded to Obama’s remarks on the “Pod Save America” podcast (Obama Equates ‘What Hamas Did’ to ‘Unbearable Occupation’), in which he blamed both sides for the ongoing conflict between Hamas and Israel, saying that “nobody’s hands are clean… all of us are complicit to some degree.”
The thing that irked the RJC (and the rest of us) the most was that Obama said, “What Hamas did was horrific, and there is no justification for it. And what is also true is that the occupation, and what’s happening to Palestinians, is unbearable.”
That is to say, there is justification for the Hamas atrocities, it’s the “occupation,” which on most calendars ended rather abruptly on August 15, 2005, when Obama was still the junior Senator from Illinois.
RJC CEO Matt Brooks sent us the following response:
At a time when morality, international law, and the welfare of our chief ally in the Middle East all demand that we stand with Israel, full stop, Barack Obama says it’s complicated. It’s not.
Hamas attacks civilians; Hamas takes hostages; Hamas uses Gazans as human shields; Hamas steals humanitarian supplies; Hamas builds terrorism tunnels instead of bomb shelters, schools, or houses. Hamas is to blame for the current war. The US should be fully behind Israel as it seeks to end Hamas’s capability to harm Israelis and Gazans alike.
But instead, when Israel faces a barbaric attack from Hamas, Obama blames Israel.
It is Barack Obama who is complicit in the death and suffering over the last month in Israel and Gaza. His policies and those of President Joe Biden put billions of dollars into Iranian coffers, money used to fund and train Hamas and other terrorist groups whose stated goals are the destruction of Israel and the annihilation of Jews.
Obama’s attempt to dilute his own culpability in this situation doesn’t change the facts.
Commentary Magazine’s executive editor Abe Greenwald was even angrier, running the headline, “We’re Not All Complicit—But Obama Sure Is.” He noted:
Obama speaks in stentorian generalities because details expose the truth. And in this case, the truth is simple: It’s Hamas’s fault. All of it, the terrorism, the Palestinian trauma, the current war, and the deaths to come.
There’s nothing contradictory about the slaughter of Jews and the suffering of Palestinians. Hamas is responsible for both, keeping their own people in generational misery to justify an exterminationist war on Jews. Palestinian oppression hasn’t been “unbearable” to decades of Palestinian leaders (including Hamas); it’s the goal they’ve fought for every time Israel has tried to give Palestinians their own state.
Why? Because they’d rather kill Jews than be free. How’s that for nuance?
Rachael Bade wrote in Politico (Why Obama’s message on the Israel-Hamas war matters):
On the one hand, that posture isn’t entirely out of character for the former president — at least on the substance. Obama had a notoriously frosty relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who ignored the American president’s attempts to ease tensions in the region, which included a push for an end to Israeli settlement expansion into Palestinian territory, warnings in his last days as president that moving the embassy to Jerusalem would be “explosive” and undermine long-term peace efforts and an embrace of a two-state solution recognizing a free Palestinian state based on 1967 borders (which was also President George W. Bush’s position, though now it seems almost like a pipe dream for the Palestinian cause).
But Obama’s remarks were jaw-dropping for many other reasons.
The sentiment appears to go against decades of U.S. orthodoxy of staunchly backing Israel, even among Democratic leaders in Washington — though, in recent days, some Democratic senators have started calling for a humanitarian pause on Israel’s counteroffensive to help Palestinians.
She then noted: “Indeed, the remarks are a striking jab at not only Israel, but against Obama’s own former vice president. Obama’s remarks also buck the company line Democratic leaders have been using on this matter.”
As I said, that man knows how to inflict damage. He could usher in the second Trump presidency and the collapse of Democratic aspirations to take back the House (see: Can Israel Wait One Year? Trump Leading Biden in 5 Out of 6 Swing States).
Go, Barack, go!
