Obama’s Middle Ground on Middle East Disingenuous
Posted on: July 17, 2009

Here’s an editorial from the Calgary Herald:

Obama’s middle ground on Middle East disingenuous
Calgary Herald
July 17, 2009

There is no doubt that U. S. President Barack Obama is a supporter of Israel, but his egalitarian approach to the Middle Eastern conflict is making him look misguided, and more than a little under the spell of a warm-and-fuzzy belief about where the onus lies for peace. Meeting recently with the leaders of various American Jewish organizations, Obama said that for peace to happen, Israel must do some “serious self-reflection.”

Israel is not an infallible entity. It has made some mistakes; it will make others. But the fact remains that all it takes for peace in the Middle East is for Palestinians to lay down their arms. The warfare would stop immediately and Israel has proven it is willing to trade land for peace. Israel has no interest in perpetuating the hostilities; its military actions have been taken to defend itself. “Serious self-reflection” is the responsibility of groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah, whose stated goal is to kill every Jew in Israel. When a country is faced with a neighbour as fanatical as that, it is clear whose warped goals and futile twisted hatreds need to be the object for self-reflection.

Obama once said he understood perfectly Israel’s self-defence tactics because “if somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I’m going to do everything in my power to stop that.” Obama needs to remember which direction those rockets are coming from, whose house they’re invading, and to whom he should be directing his advice about engaging in some serious thinking.