[By Chaskel Bennett] When the next U.S. presidential race kicks off in earnest in a year or so, we will remember today. When the Jewish electorate will be inundated with speech after speech iterating and reiterating what a great friend Barack Obama and the Democrats have been to Israel, we will remember today. The Jewish community will be reminded how the bond between Israel and the U.S. is  “deep and unbreakable” as Vice President Joe Biden declared scant hours before harshly condemning Israel for provocatively announcing plans for new housing units in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood in north Jerusalem. (The announced plans were for a mere 1600 units, out of the many thousands of units desperately needed by Jewish families in sovereign Jerusalem.) Indeed, condemnation by the United States has been fast and furious against Israel for announcing this new apartment construction. Not in Judea or Samaria which always seems to be a source of American agita but in Jerusalem which never was, until today. The battle to reverse Israeli sovereignty over the Jewish holy city is underway and I will most certainly remember today.

Despite immediate Israeli apologies, the severe message from a seething Vice President Joe Biden was followed [a day later] by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivering a harsh forty three minute reprimand to Prime Minister Netanyahu. And, apparently not wanting to feel left out, in Washington Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg called in Israeli Ambassador Dr. Michael Oren to deliver yet another reprimand. David Axelrod, Obama’s chief political advisor said on Sunday’s NBC “Meet The Press” that Israel’s action was both an “affront” and an “insult.”

We get it. Barack Obama is mad. Really mad. Things are not going so well economically in the United States; health care legislation is teetering on the brink; Democrats are facing a potential rout in upcoming elections, and now (much to Barack Obama’s surprise, although certainly not a surprise for anyone paying any attention for the last sixty plus years) peace in the Middle East may not come as easily as he had promised.  But, President Obama, Secretary of State Clinton, and Deputy Secretary of State Steinberg, is Israel really the best place to focus your irritation with the current state of foreign affairs?  If the power players in Washington really need to show that they are taking their role of world superpower seriously, perhaps Iran, North Korea or Syria (or the UN) is a better place to direct this misplaced fury.

Israel has a proud history of ridiculously absorbing never- ending American demands, insults and clarifications while rogue nations and terrorist entities get the royal treatment. This is nothing new with this Administration. But what has been brewing for a while now appears to have reached a boiling point with Israel’s latest public relations fiasco.  Yes, the construction announcement was ill-timed and yes it was not diplomatically expedient, but come on, Jerusalem is Israel’s capital.  What right does any foreign country, friend or not, have to incite a public brouhaha over pending construction in a sovereign country’s capital? It is simply absurd. That Israel apologized is equally disturbing. It has to said- we are NOT sorry for building homes for our people in Jerusalem, our capital!

Prime Minister Netanyahu mistakenly thought the matter was put to rest after Vice President Biden accepted his public and private (personal) apologies.  No. President Obama and company have found it necessary to broadcast that they have been pushed to their limit by Israel.  It appears that the Administration intends to use this Israeli diplomatic misstep to push Israel’s back to the wall. We cannot let the President continue down this path.

Things must be really serious, even Abe Foxman of the ADL issued a statement. “We are shocked and stunned at the Administration’s tone and public dressing down of Israel on the issue of future building in Israel.” Foxman’s statement continued, “We cannot remember an instance when such harsh language was directed at a friend and ally of the U.S.  We can only wonder how far the U.S. is prepared to go in distancing itself from Israel in order to placate the Palestinians.” Well said Mr. Foxman.

If one were to observe the recent treatment of Israel by Washington it becomes blatantly clear who is treating whom shoddily. Since taking office, President Obama has traveled to more countries in his first year than any other US President including: Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Russia, Egypt (who can ever forget the Cairo speech?) and dozens of other countries across the globe. Israel has so far not made the cut. The President’s failure to travel to Israel is consistent with the undisciplined foreign policy of his administration which goes to great lengths to pacify the Arab world at the expense of the Jewish State. The question begs, if the Jewish community in the U.S. remains silent in the face of such obvious mistreatment, then how can we complain when Israel will be forced to agree to the impossible security concessions we know are heading her way?  Our voice must be raised now as the Obama Administration places the eternal Jewish capital in play.  “If I forget thee Jerusalem” is an integral foundation of our Jewish identity.  President Barack Obama and the Democrats must know that we will hold them wholly accountable for the forced division and repartitioning of Jerusalem.

It should be evident that the Obama Administration and the powers in Washington are on the wrong side of this issue when J Street, the self-loathing defeatist organization, praises and encourages the Obama administration’s condemnation of Israel and makes it clear that it (J Street) places the failure of peace talks at Israel’s feet. This position fans the flames against her and enables those in the Obama Administration, who harshly accuse Israel of stubbornly struggling to maintain the safety of its citizens and stability of its nationhood.

Do not fool yourselves. President Obama sees yet another window of opportunity of political success closing in on him and is seizing this moment to force a Middle East solution, regardless of whether it is appropriate for Israel.  What is abundantly clear is that the battle for Jerusalem is again upon us and Diaspora Jewry will once again be called upon to defend Jerusalem- not from actual Arab enemies but from an uncompromising and shortsighted American Administration that has lost its moral compass.  The time is now to stand shoulder to shoulder with Israel and make our position absolutely clear. We must also let Bibi know that we have his back-unequivocally and that any attempt to force Israel into a defensive posture will be overwhelmingly refuted at the ballot box. Midterm elections are coming quickly and Democrats are already feeling the heat for the many ill-advised domestic policies of the current Administration.

The President talks a good game about defending and protecting America’s national security. As a native New Yorker and first responder to the 9/11 terror attacks at the World Trade Center, I truly hope he knows what he’s doing. I’m not convinced. What I do know is that for the past sixty years, protecting and defending Israel has been at the forefront of America’s national security interests. Congress knows it. A recent Gallup poll confirms that the American public knows this too. It is frightening that as Iranian rhetoric ratchets up to unprecedented levels the President and his State Department focus their ire not on madmen or their centrifuges but on Israeli apartments. Joe Biden is quoted as telling the Israeli’s “what you are doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That endangers us and regional peace.”   Who knew that a few apartment buildings in Jerusalem contributed so heavily to the prospects for world war or regional peace?

I will remember today. Will you?

(Chaskel Bennett – YWN)

Write, call, and email the White House and Congressional leaders to stop the pressure on Israel. Pressure from the Obama Administration must be squarely placed on Iran and its proxy terrorist state of Syria – not on Israel.

President Barak H.Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC, 20500

http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact

Find your Congressional leaders: www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
www.congress.org/congressorg/directory/congdir.tt
Senate Majority leader Harry Reid– www.reid.senate.gov
Senate Minority leader Mitch McConell– www.mcconell.senate.gov
Senate foreign Relations Comm. Chairman- Sen.John Kerry www.kerry.senate.gov
Senate foreign Relations Ranking member- Sen. Richard Lugar www.lugar.senate.gov
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi – www.speaker.gov
Majority leader Steny Hoyer- www.majorityleader.gov
Minority leader John Boehner- www.republicanleader.gov