Another guest post from FOZZIE BEAR, our official religious Zionist correspondent
Thanks if you post this, and credit to you for providing a forum for respectful disagreement with your positions.
Fozzie Bear.
(I'm really not a racist, you know. In Israel I vote for Meimad and Labor!)
[Disclosure, I am a registered democrat who couldn't vote last time around. I probably would have voted for Obama, but this time I won't vote for him. My main reasons are that I think he's had 4 years to focus on the economy and has conspicuously failed to do so - which is why he is still running on a slogan of 'there's a lot still to do'. My question is "well, why haven't you been doing it these past four years?"]
But, with regards to Israel, although it's true there has been a lot of technical and material support, the nature of the relationship has changed. And I believe, sadly, that this is due to Obama's acceptance of the basic Palestinian position that the problem is Israel's refusal to be more generous on giving them land for their own state.
He has made clear from the start, I think, that his role will be that of bringing Israel to heel, rather than being either a) a fair broker; or b) Israel's friend.
He clearly isn't Israel's friend. I think he originally believed that peace here is simply achievable by someone encouraging the two sides to trust each other a bit and to make a deal. That was, I thought, the main content of his early Cairo speech. But, the truth is a lot more complex. I don't think he knows who his friends are and who his enemies are. The leaders of the middle east are not warm fuzzy democrats who wear robes and ride camels. They are often evil bad people. The leader of Fatah is a Holocaust denier, for example. (I don't much like his choice of his other friends either - Putin is a bad man, for example.)
And this is where the Democrats blur the facts when presenting Obama as a friend of Israel. Obama has sent military aid to Israel, but not friendship. The military support has come, I feel, as a way of masking the absence of true partnership.
Let's be honest. Almost the entire mainstream of Israeli society wants a peace-deal with the Palestinians. All the Palestinians have to do is to start acting like human beings (i.e. abandon terrorism!) and they will get a state with most of the land they want. The content of the deal isn't complex. The will-power to make a deal is absent though. And Obama doesn't know who his friends are and who they aren't . The Palestinian leadership still works to delegitimize Israel. Try reading Abu Mazzen's article in the NY Times a year or two ago. He re-wrote history and denies, basically, a historical connection of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel. This isn't the language of partnership.
And, so, although the Democrats claim that Mr Obama has fought Palestinian attempts to gain sovereignty through the UN, that's a selective interpretation. I think that Obama has done the bare minimum, at the last minute, to stop the Palestinian efforts to delegitimize Israel, and only because he had to due to domestic politics - not because he wanted to ideologically.
See too the recent mess over Iran. Israel can't afford to allow Iran to have a nuclear bomb. They will forward it on to all the terrorists they support like Hezbollah and then where will be. Ahmedinajad isn't a normal sane guy. He's Hitler in Arabic and don't fool yourself into thinking otherwise. Obama should know this. Instead of stopping Iran, he makes it clear to the world that he won't support Israel. [DB: Sorry to interrupt, but Bull - F - S. Obama has (a) done everything he can to stop Iran; (b) told the world that Iran will not be allowed to go nuclear; and that (c) he will personally stop it. He's also (d) made it clear that the US will stand by Israel no matter what, that the bonds of friendship are unshakable, and that Israel will be protected. Fozzers, we think you're a fine religious Zionist correspondent, but we will not tolerate invented facts.]
(I find it heavily ironic that this is the same Obama that wanted Israel to make peace with Syria four years ago, and today won't lift a finger to stop Assad slaughtering his own people.)
And now, my interpretation of events is that the US army is sending mixed signals about it's willingness to stand by Israel in the event of an attack. This interpretation is not 100% solid, since the facts are unclear, demanding interpretation. The US did send a senior army representative over to Israel recently to give the appearance of solidarity, but the statements of senior US army folks, like Dempsey tell a different story. Does this demonstrate an 'unwavering support of Israel? Doesn't sound like it, does it? Sounds more like "Wow, Israel's really becoming a pain in my backside. I'd better make sure the world knows I am not so buddy-buddy with them. ."
So no, I won't be voting for Obama this time around.
Search for more information about my mistaken and misguided religious Zionist correspondents at4torah.com
Thanks if you post this, and credit to you for providing a forum for respectful disagreement with your positions.
Fozzie Bear.
(I'm really not a racist, you know. In Israel I vote for Meimad and Labor!)
[Disclosure, I am a registered democrat who couldn't vote last time around. I probably would have voted for Obama, but this time I won't vote for him. My main reasons are that I think he's had 4 years to focus on the economy and has conspicuously failed to do so - which is why he is still running on a slogan of 'there's a lot still to do'. My question is "well, why haven't you been doing it these past four years?"]
But, with regards to Israel, although it's true there has been a lot of technical and material support, the nature of the relationship has changed. And I believe, sadly, that this is due to Obama's acceptance of the basic Palestinian position that the problem is Israel's refusal to be more generous on giving them land for their own state.
He has made clear from the start, I think, that his role will be that of bringing Israel to heel, rather than being either a) a fair broker; or b) Israel's friend.
He clearly isn't Israel's friend. I think he originally believed that peace here is simply achievable by someone encouraging the two sides to trust each other a bit and to make a deal. That was, I thought, the main content of his early Cairo speech. But, the truth is a lot more complex. I don't think he knows who his friends are and who his enemies are. The leaders of the middle east are not warm fuzzy democrats who wear robes and ride camels. They are often evil bad people. The leader of Fatah is a Holocaust denier, for example. (I don't much like his choice of his other friends either - Putin is a bad man, for example.)
And this is where the Democrats blur the facts when presenting Obama as a friend of Israel. Obama has sent military aid to Israel, but not friendship. The military support has come, I feel, as a way of masking the absence of true partnership.
Let's be honest. Almost the entire mainstream of Israeli society wants a peace-deal with the Palestinians. All the Palestinians have to do is to start acting like human beings (i.e. abandon terrorism!) and they will get a state with most of the land they want. The content of the deal isn't complex. The will-power to make a deal is absent though. And Obama doesn't know who his friends are and who they aren't . The Palestinian leadership still works to delegitimize Israel. Try reading Abu Mazzen's article in the NY Times a year or two ago. He re-wrote history and denies, basically, a historical connection of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel. This isn't the language of partnership.
And, so, although the Democrats claim that Mr Obama has fought Palestinian attempts to gain sovereignty through the UN, that's a selective interpretation. I think that Obama has done the bare minimum, at the last minute, to stop the Palestinian efforts to delegitimize Israel, and only because he had to due to domestic politics - not because he wanted to ideologically.
See too the recent mess over Iran. Israel can't afford to allow Iran to have a nuclear bomb. They will forward it on to all the terrorists they support like Hezbollah and then where will be. Ahmedinajad isn't a normal sane guy. He's Hitler in Arabic and don't fool yourself into thinking otherwise. Obama should know this. Instead of stopping Iran, he makes it clear to the world that he won't support Israel. [DB: Sorry to interrupt, but Bull - F - S. Obama has (a) done everything he can to stop Iran; (b) told the world that Iran will not be allowed to go nuclear; and that (c) he will personally stop it. He's also (d) made it clear that the US will stand by Israel no matter what, that the bonds of friendship are unshakable, and that Israel will be protected. Fozzers, we think you're a fine religious Zionist correspondent, but we will not tolerate invented facts.]
(I find it heavily ironic that this is the same Obama that wanted Israel to make peace with Syria four years ago, and today won't lift a finger to stop Assad slaughtering his own people.)
And now, my interpretation of events is that the US army is sending mixed signals about it's willingness to stand by Israel in the event of an attack. This interpretation is not 100% solid, since the facts are unclear, demanding interpretation. The US did send a senior army representative over to Israel recently to give the appearance of solidarity, but the statements of senior US army folks, like Dempsey tell a different story. Does this demonstrate an 'unwavering support of Israel? Doesn't sound like it, does it? Sounds more like "Wow, Israel's really becoming a pain in my backside. I'd better make sure the world knows I am not so buddy-buddy with them. ."
So no, I won't be voting for Obama this time around.
Search for more information about my mistaken and misguided religious Zionist correspondents at4torah.com
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