Image by Yael Abramowitz
Struggling to hang onto just a shred of Jewish support, the president has been on a “charm offensive” recently. Making calls, sending out minions and serving kosher meals to elderly Holocaust survivors — anything to keep out of that “Jimmy Carter zone.” Below: a quick timeline of the week so far, and what’s coming up.
Monday morning: Obama called Netanyahu about those sure-to-be-successful indirect peace talks. (“It’s just like playing Telephone at summer camp, only it leads to mutually assured destruction.”)
Monday night: Sent National Security Council director Dan Shapiro to smooth things out with the Anti-Defamation League. “We do not believe it [the Israeli/Palestinian conflict] would cause Iran to end its unacceptable pursuit of nuclear weapons . . . endangers the lives of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq.” Translation: Everybody else totally does think that, so just remember who your goddamn friends are, okay? (Shapiro also took some time to seriously kiss ADL director Abe Foxman’s ass, even calling him “legendary.“)
Tuesday: Lunch with Elie Wiesel, whose open letter to Obama — published as a full-page ad in “The Wall Street Journal” added even more fuel to the fire. “Jerusalem is above politics,” wrote Wiesel, and statements like that always help peace talks. Lunch must have included some tasty matzoh ball soup because the “tension, I think, is gone,” said the author of “Night.”
Wednesday: U.S. envoy George Mitchell flew down to Israel to meet with Netanyahu.
Thursday: Mitchell to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. And just imagine the hurt feelings if he’d dared met with Abbas before Netanyahu. Remember: Jews must come first.
Heeb‘s predictions for Friday: In a last-ditch effort to kill the “Obama hates Israel” meme, all Jewish leaders are invited to a last-minute White House Shabbat dinner where the president acknowledges, for the thousandth time, the unbreakable bond between Israel and the U.S. As Hillary prepares the candles, the president surprisingly offers to convert and announces daughter Malia’s plans to become a Bat Mitzvah when she turns 12 this July. Alas, without the promise of unopposed housing construction in East Jerusalem, most Jewish leaders remain unimpressed, except J-Street’s Jeremy Ben-Ami who wants to do the invitations.
Meanwhile, Abe Foxman remains dissatisfied and predicts Obama will lose some Jewish votes: “People are angry . . . Americans do not want peace shoved down the throats of the Israelis.”
Yup, nothing’s worse than force-fed peace. Good luck, Barack. There’s just no pleasing some people.
Related Posts
About the Author
Steven enjoys alliteration and quirky line drawings. His turn-offs include broken links, enriched uranium and Holocaust denial.
More posts by StevenM
2 comments
Just Awful
May 5, 2010
This anti-Jewish tirade site is obnoxious in character and wrong in fact. That a senior editor like Gutierrez is tolerated at a nominally Jewish publication is proof that there is nothing Jewish at all about Heeb. The eternal capital of the Jewish people has always been Jerusalem–all of Jerusalem–and that holy city has never in the history of mankind served as the capital of any other sovereign people. So leave it to not-so-funny man Gutierrez and this horribly distasteful site to argue on behalf of a terrorist society with a national aspiration only to destroy Israel that Jerusalem ought to be ripped once again from the Jews and divided again to restore those peaceful loving days of 1948-67 (when Jews were barred from visiting their holy sites by the moderate Jordanian Arabs). Obviously, writers for a site bigoted enough to call itself Heeb and crazy enough to call anyone who doesn’t agree with Obama policy racist is immune to actual historical facts. So I’ll shut up now and let Heeb get back to it’s regularly scheduled assaults on all things Jewish. What an obnoxious Web site you’re running. Sheesh!
Ra'anan
May 8, 2010
It’s a shame that Obama’s sincere moves to promote peace are viewed as hostile.
The former occupant of the white house was considered “a friend” since he let Israel get away with whatever it wanted to do. Those lost eight years and the invasion to Iraq hurt Israel much more than the latest efforts to solve the problem.
I would highly recommend reading this account, written by an unbiased “accidental tourist”, to get some idea as to what is done in our name and how it affects Israeli society and US Jews: http://fasttimesinpalestine.wordpress.com/about/