In June, Republican presidential candidate Willard
MittRomney
...former governor of Massachussetts, currently the presumptive Publican nominee for president. He is the son of the former governor of Michigan, George Romney, who himself ran for president after saving American Motors from failure, though not permanently. Romney's charisma is best defined as soporific, which is probably why he is leading the Publican field. On the plus side, he isn't President B.O...
told an audience of Christian conservatives that he would do the "opposite" of what US President Barack Obama
We're gonna punish our enemies and we're gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us...
has done in terms of Israel. "I think, by and large, you can just look at the things the president has done and do the opposite." Romney explained that his "overarching" message was that "I would not want to show a dime's worth of distance between ourselves and our allies like Israel. If we have disagreements, we can talk about them behind closed doors. But to the world, you show that we're locked arm-in-arm." Did anyone not understand what Romney meant?
Apparently, Obama's surrogates refuse to grasp the plain meaning. Obama's team has seized on an odd strategy--to take Romney's figure of speech literally, and have one editorial after another suggest that an "opposite" approach therefore means completely abandoning Israel.
I can hardly wait for them to discover that Romney also said that President B.O. "threw Israel under the bus."Â Is this really what Obama's supporters are reduced to? Perhaps, in the face of Obama's dismal handling of America's Israel relationship, regional diplomacy and the entire Middle East, semantics are all they have left.
The B.O. regime has distinguished itself by innumerable calculated insults and slights designed to show "daylight" between Obama's America and Israel. I ask those defenders of Obama's Israel record: would you have a problem with the "opposite" of the following partial list of incidents?
--Obama's speech, sandbagging Netanyahu on the eve of his Washington visit, calling on Israel to retreat to the 1949 Armistice line as a starting point for negotiations?  Â
--Obama tearing up American commitments to Israel to support retention of major settlement blocs in any peace negotiation?
--Defense Secretary Robert Gates calling Israel "an ungrateful ally"?
--Shoving PM Netanyahu out the White House back door, without so much as feeding him dinner, issuing a joint statement or allowing a photo-op?
--Obama, over an open mike, agreeing with French President Sarkozy's statement that "I cannot bear Netanyahu, he's a liar", helpfully adding, "You're fed up, but I have to deal with him every day"?
--The administration dressing-down Israel in Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton... sometimes described as
The Woman to Call at 3 a.m.and at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as
Another Daniel Webster...
's publicized 43-minute telephone harangue of PM Netanyahu for announcing construction--specifically exempted from any building freeze--in a Jewish neighborhood of Jerusalem?
--Senior advisor David Axelrod
...a Chicago-based political hack, political adviser to Barack
B.O.Obama since 2004. Following the 2008 election, he was appointed as Senior Advisor to Obama and we all see how well that worked out....
televised proclamation that President B.O. considered housing approvals in Jerusalem "an affront, an insult...and very, very destructive"?
--Vice President Biden's castigating Israel for endangering American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan by building homes in Jerusalem?
--New Defense Secretary Leon Panetta
...current SecDef, previously Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Panetta served as President Bill Clinton's White House Chief of Staff from 1994 to 1997 and was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1977 to 1993....
's chastising Israel to "get back to the damn [negotiating] table?
--Obama freezing-out Israel, of all countries, from two high-level American-sponsored counter-terrorism conferences?
THE "OPPOSITE" of Obama's quiescent silence would be helpful, too. Obama, reputedly a gifted orator, never found the words to unequivocally condemn non-stop anti-Israel incitement by the Paleostinian leadership in violation of every agreement from Oslo to the Roadmap; or official Paleostinian glorification of terrorists, including celebrating the grisly murder of the Fogels and their sleeping little boys and baby girl; or Paleostinians refusing to negotiate at the same "damn table" as the Israelis; or rapprochement between the Paleostinian Authority and Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,, which considers it a religious obligation to destroy Israel; or Paleostinians threatening another intifada; or the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem--whose salary comes from American taxpayers--urging Arabs to "fight and kill the Jews;" or Paleostinians raining literally hundreds of rockets from Gazoo on the million Israeli civilians living within range.
Obama's defenders cite intelligence coordination with Israel and the cooperative development of the Iron Dome rocket shield as evidence of Obama's Israel commitment. Those, however, were joint US-Israel defense and intelligence projects initiated by the Bush administration, just part of a decades-long bipartisan partnership with Israel. I'll give Obama credit for not cancelling them like he did other American commitments to Israel, but that doesn't exactly merit the pro-Israel vote.
More importantly, all that "daylight" Obama created between America and Israel has stripped Israel diplomatically, exposing it to an onslaught by a world that does not wish the Jewish State well. Without America's once-reliable protection, it is open season on Israel. Whether the issue is Israeli security, illusory sovereignty, academic and economic boycotts, or the developing Islamist noose encircling Israel's borders, Obama has left Israel twisting in the wind and dangerously isolated. And most importantly of all, Obama's focus on Israeli settlements as the root of all regional problems has been shown to be dangerously foolish. As the administration obsesses over Jerusalem housing starts scheduled for 2014, the Moslem Brüderbund takes over Egypt and Tunisia, a re-armed Hezbollah runs Leb, and we've been caught flat-footed by the Syrian massacres, without a clue as to what comes next or who will control the Syrian chemical and biological weapons stockpiles.
Oh, and a country called Iran has now enriched enough uranium for five nuclear bombs, as Obama continues "engagement"--non-stop talking and watering down Congressional sanctions.
Is that a record worth repeating, or is it time for the "opposite?"
The writer is an American attorney and political commentator living in Israel. He serves as Counsel to Republicans Abroad Israel.