Obama's New Book Brings Back Memories of Deception (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

Dov Lipman, who served as a member of Israel's 19th Knesset, writes about Obama’s revisionist ‘Promised Land’ -- a scathing review of the errors and outright misleading claims in Obama's new book.

After recounting -- and debunking -- numerous falsehoods, Lipman concludes:

I have no problem with criticism of Israel. We can debate the issues in intellectually honest discussions, and in the end, we may have to agree to disagree about Israel’s policies. But no one should accept a book that is filled with historical inaccuracies that invariably lead innocent and unknowing readers to reach false conclusions. Such a devastating book has real-life ramifications and consequences.

It is terribly disappointing. I surely would have expected truth, accuracy and fairness from Barack Obama, America’s 44th president. But the falsehoods and inaccuracies in this memoir only feed the theory that Obama was, in fact, anti-Israel. Now, through A Promised Land, he seeks to convince others to join him. [emphasis added]

Rather than review the list of falsehoods and inaccuracies, I just want to note why we should not be surprised by Obama's attack on Israel in his book.

On the one hand, we should recall Obama's attempt to recast the narrative of Israel's history as just a response to the Holocaust. 

In May 2008, presidential candidate Barack Obama told The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg how the Holocaust is the justification for the Jewish State of Israel:

I know that that there are those who would argue that in some ways America has become a safe refuge for the Jewish people, but if you’ve gone through the Holocaust, then that does not offer the same sense of confidence and security as the idea that the Jewish people can take care of themselves no matter what happens. That makes it a fundamentally just idea.

Never mind the 3,000-year-old Jewish ties to the land.

Do you remember Obama's speech during his trip to Cairo in June, 2009? 

America's strong bonds with Israel are well known. This bond is unbreakable. It is based upon cultural and historical ties, and the recognition that the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied. [emphasis added]

Sure, the Holocaust cannot be denied (if only!), but the Jewish historical, cultural and indigenous ties -- well, that is another matter.

This pales in comparison to Obama' rewriting of Israel's history in his new book.

But I want to concentrate on something else -- on why we should have known about Obama's disregard for Israel before he became president.

In June 2008, while at a Florida synagogue to reassure Jewish voters of his commitment to Israel, Obama was asked about his association with Rashid Khalidi.

Obama responded:

You mentioned Rashid Khalidi, who is a professor at Columbia. I do know him because he talked at the University of Chicago and he is Palestinian, and I do know him and I have had conversations with him.

He is not one of my advisers, he is not one of my foreign policy people, his kids went to the lab school where my kids go as well.

He is a respected scholar although he vehemently disagrees a lot of Israel policy."

Obama, with his wife and Khalidi

Two evasions are worth noting.

First of all, Obama claims he knows Khalidi from the University of Chicago and through the school where their children go.

The truth, however, is that Obama and Khalidi were very good friends -- not casual acquaintances.

An article in The LA Times, 2 months before Obama's appearance at that synagogue, reports about a party Obama attended in honor of Rashid Khalidi upon his moving to New York to teach at Columbia University:

A special tribute came from Khalidi's friend and frequent dinner companion, the young state Sen. Barack Obama. Speaking to the crowd, Obama reminisced about meals prepared by Khalidi's wife, Mona, and conversations that had challenged his thinking.

His many talks with the Khalidis, Obama said, had been "consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases. . . . It's for that reason that I'm hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation -- a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid's dinner table," but around "this entire world."

...And yet the warm embrace Obama gave to Khalidi, and words like those at the professor's going-away party, have left some Palestinian American leaders believing that Obama is more receptive to their viewpoint than he is willing to say.

Their belief is not drawn from Obama's speeches or campaign literature, but from comments that some say Obama made in private and from his association with the Palestinian American community in his hometown of Chicago, including his presence at events where anger at Israeli and U.S. Middle East policy was freely expressed. [emphasis added]

Obama could have answered honestly that Khalidi was a friend with whom he had little contact after his move to New York and that Khalidi was an Arab friend just as he had Jewish friends.

Instead, Obama was dishonest and misleading.

This article by Mona Charen which appeared in The National Review in June 2008 might explain why:

For a true friend, Obama also chose peculiar associates. He was quite friendly with Rashid Khalidi, a former director of the official press agency for the Palestine Liberation Organization (and now a professor at Columbia). Khalidi, who has called Israel an "apartheid" state and who defends the right of Palestinians to use violence against Israel, founded a group called the Arab American Action Network. When Obama served as a director of the Woods Fund in 2001 and 2002, the foundation donated $75,000 to the AAAN, for projects like an "oral history" project on the "Nakbah," which translates as "catastrophe," and is the name Palestinians use for the birth of Israel. Khalidi held a fundraiser for Obama when the latter ran for Congress in 2000 [emphasis added]

We should note in passing who else Obama worked with at the Woods Fund. Aaron Klein wrote in February 2008: Obama Worked With Terrorist

Obama served on the Wood's Fund board alongside William C. Ayers, a member of the Weathermen terrorist group which sought to overthrow of [sic] the U.S. government and took responsibility for bombing the U.S. Capitol in 1971.

Ayers, who still serves on the Woods Fund board, contributed $200 to Obama's senatorial campaign fund and has served on panels with Obama at numerous public speaking engagements. Ayers admitted to involvement in the bombings of U.S. governmental buildings in the 1970s. He is a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. [emphasis added]

Speaking of associating with terrorists, note that Mona Charen refers to Khalidi as "a former director of the official press agency for the Palestine Liberation Organization."

Khalidi has denied this.

But Martin Kramer gives multiple proofs that Obama's friend Khalidi did in fact work for the PLO as its official spokesman --

According to The New York Times on February 19, 1978

“If the Israelis had any brains they could neutralize Palestinian irredentism just by giving back the West Bank,” asserted Rashid Khalidy, an American-educated Palestinian who teaches political science at the American University of Beirut and also works for the P.L.O. “It would split us.”

There is proof of Khalidi working for the PLO in The Washington Post too. Here is a letter by Thomas W. Lippman -- a former diplomatic, national security, and Middle East correspondent for the Washington Post

The Post's defense of Rashid Khalidi ["An 'Idiot Wind,' " editorial, Oct. 31] was generally commendable, but in fairness to Sen. John McCain, it should be noted that Mr. Khalidi was indeed "a PLO spokesman."

In the early years of the Lebanese civil war, Mr. Khalidi was the Beirut-based spokesman for the Palestine Liberation Organization, and his office was a stop on the daily rounds of journalists covering that conflict. As we used to say in the pre-electronic newspaper business: Check the clips.

THOMAS W. LIPPMAN

The Middle East Institute

Washington

And there's more.

All of this was ignored back then.

The LA Times, which had video of what was actually said at that party for Khalidi, never released the tape. They claimed it would reveal the identity of the person who gave them the tape.

But neither would they release a transcript.

Did Khalidi really provide Obama "consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases," as he claimed -- or merely reinforce them?

Even in his book, Obama still glosses over Khalidi's past and his connection with him, according to this quote from the book by Middle East Eye:

"They [Jewish supporters] attributed these whisper campaigns not to any particular position I’d taken (my backing of a two-state solution and opposition to Israeli settlements were identical to the positions of the other candidates) but rather to my expressions of concern for ordinary Palestinians; my friendships with certain critics of Israeli policy, including an activist and Middle East scholar named Rashid Khalidi; and the fact that, as Ben [Rhodes] bluntly put it, 'You’re a Black man with a Muslim name who lived in the same neighborhood as Louis Farrakhan and went to Jeremiah Wright's church.'”

With the publication of this book, we see that Obama's anti-Israel work did not end with pushing for UN Resolution 2334.

Now, Obama will spread his hate and ignorance directly to his readers.

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Is it Fair for Dershowitz to Criticize Tamika Mallory? (Judean Rose)

Alan Dershowitz has a piece over at the Gatestone Institute website on the Women’s March and antisemitism, “Termites, Bigots, and GOATs: Rationalizing Complicity with Antisemitism.” There isn’t a thing wrong with this piece. Dershowitz is absolutely right about everything he says here. Take this, for instance:

“Marching with these supporters of an anti-Semite is the equivalent of marching under the banner of David Duke, who inspires white supremacists with the same sort of bigotry with which Farrakhan preaches Black supremacy. Hitler inspired pride in Aryans, Mussolini made the trains run on time, and Stalin spread the wealth. But would the women who marched with Farrakhan's admirers have marched with these bigots?”

And this:

“Recall that Hitler was not elected by anti-Semites or because of his anti-Semitism. He was elected as the result of his economic and other policies by people who gave him a pass for his anti-Semitism because they approved of his other policies.

“People who support Farrakhan because of the alleged good he does for the Black community and despite his overt anti-Semitism are complicit in bigotry, and those who march under the banner of such bigots are only one degree removed from such complicity.”

No rational person could disagree with these words. But those of us who remember Dershowitz’s support for Obama in both 2008 and 2012, could perhaps be forgiven for looking askance at the source and thinking, “Pot, meet kettle.”

Now it’s true that Dershowitz disavowed Obama after a 2005 photograph surfaced of the smiling former president being all chummy with Farrakhan. Dershowitz's actual words were, "If I had known that the President had posed smilingly with [Louis Farrakhan] when he was a senator, I would not have campaigned for Barack Obama."

The fact of the matter is that black lawmakers colluded with the media to keep the photo out of the public eye during both campaigns and for all the years Obama was in office. Dershowitz didn’t know about the photo. None of us did. So is it perhaps unfair to blame Dershowitz for calling the kettle, um, “black?”

He couldn’t have known that Obama was bosom buds with the raving lunatic and infamous antisemite that is Farrakhan.

Or could he?

After Photo Emerges with Farrakhan, Obama Claims He’s ‘a Liberal Jew’ in Speech at Synagogue https://t.co/4q8vJKCy2M pic.twitter.com/dJVvqNRslr

— Chuck Woolery (@chuckwoolery) January 28, 2018

Written the same year that photo came out, “How Could We Have Known: The Jews Who Voted For Obama,” details Obama’s associations with a long list of known antisemites. At the top of the list is the man who officiated at the marriage of Barack and Michelle Obama, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright:

“We knew [Obama would] be bad for the Jews because he associated with people like the Reverend Jeremiah Wright who was outspoken in his support for both the Jew-hating Louis Farrakhan and Hamas. During an appearance at Michigan State University on February 7, 2008, Wright explained the creation of the State of Israel as ‘a political decision made in 1948 to solve a European problem of European Jews by putting them in somebody else’s country.’”

It’s certainly possible that Dershowitz, who termed President Obama a “true friend of Israel,” didn’t know that Obama was in thick with Farrakhan. But everyone knew about Obama’s friendship with the Reverend Wright. The idea that Dershowitz didn’t know about Wright’s association with Farrakhan just doesn’t pass the smell test.

Now for sure, Obama disavowed Reverend Wright’s views, in particular the Reverend's admiration for Farrakhan, early on, in 2008:

"I gave him the benefit of the doubt in my speech in Philadelphia, explaining that he has done enormous good in the church. But when he states and then amplifies such ridiculous propositions as the U.S. government somehow being involved in AIDS; when he suggests that Minister Farrakhan somehow represents one of the greatest voices of the 20th and 21st century; when he equates the U.S. wartime efforts with terrorism – then there are no excuses. They offend me. They rightly offend all Americans. And they should be denounced, and that’s what I’m doing very clearly and unequivocally here today.

"It is antithetical to my campaign. It is antithetical to what I’m about. It is not what I think America stands for.”

But that disavowal falls short. Obama never actually disavows Reverend Wright. He only disavows his views and not the man.

By the same token, during her infamous appearance on The View, when pressed by Meghan McCain, Mallory refused to denounce Farrakhan, the man. From the Fox News coverage:

“What I will say to you is, I don’t agree with many of Minister Farrakhan’s statements,” Mallory said.

McCain asked, “Do you condemn them?”

“To be very clear, it’s not my language. It’s not the way that I speak,” Mallory said.

To be fair Obama used stronger language than Mallory, absolutely denouncing the content of Wright’s words, even if he was unable to bring himself to repudiate Farrakhan, the man. But both Obama and Mallory refused to say, “I condemn Wright. I condemn Farrakhan.”

As Jews, we have no way to look kindly on this, and no reason to do so, either.

Of course, it is indeed possible that Dershowitz repents his two-time support for Obama. Maybe he regrets that he, like so many other liberal Jews, looked the other way on Obama’s associations with Wright. Perhaps he's sorry, that like the rest of Obama’s Jewish base, he, Alan Dershowitz, truly believed Obama’s denunciation of Wright’s views as a repudiation of the man himself.

But that belief was only possible because he wanted to believe in Barack Obama, like the other Jews wanted to believe in Barack Obama. They looked the other way, and gave Obama a pass on his associations with known antisemites. 

They gave Obama a pass just as Hitler’s supporters, in Dershowitz’s own words, “gave him a pass for his anti-Semitism because they approved of his other policies,” The difference is that Dershowitz not only gave Obama a pass, but like so many other liberal Jews, did so twice over. To Israel's detriment (and the world's).

 Dershowitz’s two-time vote for Obama seems no different, from this perspective, than supporting Mussolini because he “made the trains run on time,” or Stalin because “he spread the wealth.” Dershowitz’s support for Obama, in this light, also seems no different than Tamika Mallory, the Women’s March leader, giving Farrakhan a pass, and calling him “the GOAT.”

One would hope that Dershowitz’s Gatestone piece is really just a vehicle to express his shame at having twice supported and campaigned for a man who associated with known antisemites.

A man who was the worst president the Jews and Israel have ever known. 

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Michael Oren names a villain (Mike Lumish)

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Former Israeli Ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, has recently published his highly anticipated memoir, Ally: My Journey Across the American-Israeli Divide.

In the weeks and months leading up to the publication much chatter arose suggesting that Oren primarily blamed US President Barack Obama for the deterioration of US-Israeli relations during Obama's tenure.  Oren's recent articles in the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and Foreign Policy raised very serious concerns about Obama's foreign policy competency and his friendliness toward America's foremost ally in the Middle East, the Jewish State of Israel.

Those articles raised expectations concerning the book.

Therefore, many people are asking themselves "who is the villain?"

The Primary Question

Over the years, Barack Obama has nurtured an animosity among pro-Israel / pro-Jewish people throughout the world for his support of political Islam and his apparent eagerness to welcome a nuclear-armed Iran as a strategic partner to the United States... despite the fact that Iran is a Muslim-authoritarian theocracy that likes to hang Gay people from cranes.

Many of us who follow the conflicts in the Middle East want to know why Obama supports the Muslim Brotherhood and the forthcoming Iranian bomb?

As Ambassador to the US, Oren is used to fielding all sorts of questions concerning Israel.  One question that he found interesting, and I paraphrase, is this:

Is it easier to explain Americans to Israelis or Israel to Americans?  

He suggests that it is much harder to explain America - or, at least, the current American president - to Israelis than the other way around.

For Israelis, but also for many alert diaspora Jews, Obama's support for the Muslim Brotherhood is alarming and unfathomable given the fact that the Brotherhood is the parent organization of both Hamas and al-Qaeda and it called for the conquest of Jerusalem during Muhammad Morsi campaign rallies.

The Muslim Brotherhood is, in fact, a genocidal organization because it contemplates a second Holocaust against the Jews of the Middle East, via the conquest of Israel, and it supported Nazi Germany and the Nazi cause during, and after, World War II.

Thus, Oren writes:

"Most challenging to explain to Israelis was Obama's support for Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood.  Contrary to the assurances I had received that the administration would not engage the Isamist movement, the State Department formally initiated ties with Brotherhood leaders in January 2012.  Six months ater, after the election of the movement's leaders, Mohammed Morsi, to the presidency - by just over 51 percent of th vote - those contracts became an embrace."

This is a question that concerned Jews - aside from the ideologically blinkered - have been grappling with for years.  Although Obama's supporters, and particularly his Jewish supporters, refuse to acknowledge the obvious, the fact remains that the President of the United States supports a movement - political Islam - that oppresses women, is chasing Christians out of the Middle East, despises Gay people, is destroying antiquities, and screams from the hilltops for the blood of the Jews.

The fundamental question that Oren seeks to answer is, how is this possible?

The Cairo Speech of 2009

Whether or not the Cairo speech is the most important speech in the career of Barack Obama, it is the one wherein he endeavored to "reset" the American relationship to the Islamic world... as if there is any such monolith.

Concerning the speech, Oren writes:

More passionately than ever, he described his personal connections with Muslims and his conviction that "Islam is part of America."  He reiterated his vision of a new era of understanding between the United States and Muslims based on "mutual interests and respect" and the shared American and Quranic values of "justice and progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings."

Oren suggests that if you wish to understand Obama's foreign policy in regards the Middle East then the Cairo speech is key.  Unlike President George W. Bush, Oren claims that Obama was intent on supporting authentic, democratically-elected Muslim leadership.  Whereas Bush hoped to impose democracy, Muslim or otherwise, onto the Arab-Muslim Middle East, Obama was intent on taking what he considered a more "enlightened" and respectful approach grounded in his education at the feet of post-colonial professors such as Edward Said and Rashid Khalidi in places like Columbia University and Harvard.

The events around the Cairo speech presaged what was to come.  Over Hosni Mubarak's objections, Obama invited the Muslim Brotherhood to the speech despite the fact that the Brotherhood has generally been considered an enemy of Egyptian governments since the 1920s.  However, Mubarak represented old-school Cold War-style Arab-Nationalist dictatorships of the sort that Obama opposes in contradistinction to the new-school democratically elected "authentic" Islamists which Obama supports.

While opposing secular dictatorships is certainly within the liberal tradition, if Obama is a liberal and liberals support freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, and social justice, then why does Barack Obama support the Ayatollahs and the Brotherhood?

The answer, according to Oren, is that both are seen by the president as representing authentic expressions of Muslim democracy.  Many Christian Copts may have been kept from voting at the point of a rifle by Brotherhood members and Iran's "Supreme Leader," Ayatollah Khamenei, was not democratically elected and, in fact, was a product of the anti-American 1979 revolution. Nonetheless, according to Oren, Obama concluded that they represent the true democratic will of the Muslim world, along with other milder Islamists like Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey.

The Post-Colonialists

Obama's instincts are not his alone.

The Cairo speech is an expression of American post-colonialism as derived from an important strand of western academia typified by the late professor of literary criticism, Edward Said, and historian Rashid Khalidi, among others.  

Obama grew up in the aftermath of the Vietnam War and through the decay of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States toward the end of the twentieth-century.  He attended university at a time when veterans of both those fights held influence and tenureship throughout the Western academe and who generally looked upon American and Western influence throughout the non-western world as one of imperialism, racism, and theft of natural resources.

Oren says this:

Their ideas found fullest expression in Orientalism, a book published in 1978 by Edward Said, a Columbia literary critic and spokesman for the Palestinian cause.  Said denounced Middle East experts - the Orientalists - as "racist, imperialist, and almost totally ethnocentic," and accused them of abetting the region's conquests by the West.  Only by identifying "wholeheartedly with the Arabs" and becoming "genuinely engaged and sympathetic... to the Islamic world" could these scholars redeem themselves.  They had to shun traditional Middle Eastern professors such as Bernard Lewis and reject Israel, which Said maligned as the ultimate Orientalist project.

Thus according to Said and any number of currently working academics - including Jewish ones who claim to be pro-Israel - Israel represents a western, racist imperial intrusion onto the land of other people.


So, really, just who is the villain here?

The Villain

If anyone intends to use Oren's book to castigate or malign the Obama administration there is plenty of material here to mine.

Do not be shy.  Go right ahead.

I do not need to draw bullet points, just go into the index and choose the pet peeve of your choice.

{Mine is the apology to Erdogan which Oren actually approved of.}

An important truth of this book, however, is that while Oren is unsurprisingly kinder to Benjamin Netanyahu than he is to Barack Obama, he is also more than fair to Barack Obama.  This is not a book intended to smear anyone.  Oren is a well-respected historian and I, as someone who follows the conflict closely, found his portrayal of his central characters, including himself, to be decent.

Obama is not a villain in this treatment because the writer, in terms of Obama versus Netanyahu, is not dealing in Good Guys versus Bad Guys.  He is doing his best to be fair while, simultaneously, keeping an eye on his own political future, in the coming years, within Israel as a Knesset member with the moderate Kulanu party.

If there is a villain in Oren's story it is not Barack Obama nor, obviously, Benjamin Netanyahu.

The real villain is the news media.

Again and again throughout the book Oren castigates the news media for distorting the truth and Matti Friedman's important contribution to this subject did not go beneath notice.

Oren writes:

Israel sells.  Arabs massacring Arabs in, say, Syria is a footnote, while a Palestinian child shot by Israeli soldiers is a scoop.  The racist undertones are clear but the reality, irrefutable.  And no one understands it better than the terrorists, Hamas and Hezbollah.  If they fire at Israeli civilians, Irael will retaliate and invariably kill the Palestnian and Lebanese civilians behind whom the terrorists hide.  The pictures will be gruesome, and if insufficiently so, the terrorists will manufacture them, exhuming bodies from morgues and graveyards.  The staged images, picked up by editorless blogs proliferate on the Internet.  Many will be reproduced, uncritically, by the mainstream press.

Oren has many significant criticisms of Barack Obama and understands his flaws as a product of western post-colonial ideology which, in my view, is correct.  The problem is not that Obama has malice toward Israel, but that he honestly believes that the Arabs have been abused under Israel due to circumstances that neither could well control.  Obama is sympathetic toward the plight of the Jews in the Middle East, but he is also sympathetic toward the local Arab population who he believes have been displaced and occupied.

The End

Ultimately the book is a terrific read because, throughout, Oren is on the run and he is a man with a mission and that mission is defending and protecting the Jewish State of Israel.  His take on Barack Obama, however, is fair.  He gives Obama credit where credit is due, but he also criticizes Obama in an honest and straight-forward manner, which is why this highly sensitive administration takes such objections to the book.

The main criticism that he has of Obama is that he is an ideologically-driven president who simply does not understand the Middle East.  Obama hoped that an unclenched American hand could meet an unclenched Islamic hand.  This is an admirable goal for any president of the United States, but the only happy faces that Obama is finding in the Middle East are in the faces of the Iranian ayatollahs.

And that is not good for either Israel or the United States or Europe or the Sunni-Arab states.

No one is happy with the Iran nuke deal aside from the Iranians, Barack Obama, and some within the Democratic Party.

Oren certainly is not.

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Michael Lumish is a blogger at the Israel Thrives blog as well as a regular contributor/blogger at Times of Israel and Jews Down Under.

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Obama's Ongoing Friendship with the Muslim Brotherhood (Mike Lumish)

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In a recent piece entitled, The Pathos of Jewish anti-Zionism, I referenced Obama administration support for the Muslim Brotherhood and wondered aloud how any Jewish person could possibly stand behind a president of the United States that offered moral, military, and financial support to an organization devoted to a genocidally anti-Semitic worldview and the restoration of the Caliphate?


The truth of the matter is that Jewish support for Barack Obama, given Obama's callous indifference toward anti-Semitism and support for the Muslim Brotherhood, is perhaps the greatest failure of American Jewry in many decades.  I have been considering how this happened for a number of years and have come to the conclusion that many American Jewish supporters of Barack Obama simply refuse to acknowledge Obama's support for the Brotherhood as support for the Brotherhood.

Just as Jewish Obama supporters do not care about his indifference toward rising levels of violent Muslim immigrant anti-Semitism in Europe, so they do not care about his support for the rise of political Islam, which he refuses to even so much as name.

This is, in my view, a dangerous failure to acknowledge that which is obvious, but I am very much hoping that there is now sufficient evidence wherein the obvious simply becomes undeniable.

Khaled Abu Toameh has an article for the Gatestone Institute entitled, U.S. Seen in Middle East as Ally of Terrorists.  In this article he argues that given Obama's support for the Muslim Brotherhood many Egyptians see the administration as an ally of the Muslim Brotherhood.

{Shocking, I know.}

He writes:

While the Egyptian government has been waging war on the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamic radical groups, the U.S. Administration and some Europeans are continuing to hamper efforts to combat terrorism.

Many Egyptians and moderate Arabs and Muslims were shocked to hear that the U.S. State Department recently hosted a Muslim Brotherhood delegation.

And, indeed, the U.S. State Department did, in fact, recently host a Muslim Brotherhood delegation thereby incurring the anger of the Egyptian government, but given Obama's disrespect for allies - and dislike of Israel - this is hardly surprising.

Lori Lowenthal Marcus, writing in the Jewish Press tells us:

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shokry said the explanation given by the State Department for meeting with former Muslim Brotherhood party leaders was “not understandable.”

Shoukry was responding to U.S. State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki’s statements during the daily briefing that a meeting by the delegation of former Freedom and Justice Party (Muslim Brotherhood’s political party) members with U.S. State department officials, arranged and paid for by Georgetown University was “routine.”

The primary acts of Obama administration support for the Brotherhood consist of such "routine" recognitions.  By hosting the Brotherhood, they recognize it and thus legitimize it.   It is hard to imagine that anyone would think that when Obama administration officials legitimize an Islamist organization this somehow does not constitute support for that organization and, therefore, political Islam, more generally.

According to Toameh, a number of Egyptian columnists, along with the Egyptian government, have been highly vocal in their condemnation of Obama administration support for the Brotherhood.  One of these is Mohamed Salmawi.  Toameh writes:

"The U.S. Administration says it is combating these groups at home while it is supporting them abroad," Salmawi wrote. "This meeting has grave indications because it shows that Washington has not abandoned its policy of double standards toward Islamic terrorism.

Salmawi also took issue with the U.S. Administration for turning a blind eye to the hypocrisy and double talk of the Muslim Brotherhood. "One of the leaders of Muslim Brotherhood, for example, told the world that he welcomes the Jews of Israel," he added. "But this same leader announced in front of the Egyptian people that they should march in the millions to liberate Jerusalem from the occupation of the Jews. [Ousted President] Mohamed Morsi, before his election, described these Jews as descendants of apes and pigs. In English, the Muslim Brotherhood says one thing and in Arabic something completely different."

So, yes, the Obama administration does, in fact, support the Muslim Brotherhood despite the fact that the Brotherhood has called for the conquest of Jerusalem and, yet, American Jews still backed Barack Obama by about 70 percent in the last election.

The public legitimization of the Brotherhood, which Obama initially undertook during the famous (or infamous) 2009 Cairo speech, was perhaps the first public example of this "routine" legitimization.  Despite the wishes of former Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak, the Obama administration insisted upon Muslim Brotherhood attendance.  This suggested that political Islam is, for Barack Obama, a legitimate political movement in need of courting and cooperation.

The Brotherhood came to power in Egypt with the significant assistance of the Obama administration.  Obama demanded that Mubarak step down knowing full well that the Brotherhood was waiting in the wings.  When the Brotherhood came to power in a fraudulent election wherein Christians were sometimes prevented from voting at the point of a rifle, Obama still sent Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Cairo to ensure a smooth transition to an Islamist government.  Then, once in power, the Obama administration supplied this heinous genocidal regime with both financial assistance and heavy weaponry.

Our friend Alexi, however, has the raised the distinction between supporting a country and supporting a particular regime.  This is an important distinction to address and Alexi was absolutely right to raise the question.  The fact of the matter is that when Obama sent cash and Abrams tanks and F-16 fighter jets to Egypt he was giving that cash and weaponry to a regime that called for the conquest of Jerusalem.  It was the Brotherhood, not the Egyptian people, that received and then allocated these resources.  Those resources did not in any real way represent support for the Egyptian people, but were a means of bolstering the strength and prestige of the Islamist regime in Cairo.

Some people might argue that none of this was meant as support for the Brotherhood, per se, but actually represented support for the democratic forces sweeping the Middle East during the joyous Arab Spring.

The problem is that there were no democratic forces sweeping the Middle East during the misnamed "Arab Spring," unless you think of democracy as consisting of one man, one vote, one time.  Supporting democracy by supporting the Brotherhood would be akin to supporting democracy by supporting Adolph Hitler. The Brotherhood has an exceedingly long track record of terrorism and Jew hatred.  One of the founders of the organization, Sayid Qutb, even wrote a little book entitled, "Our Struggle with the Jews" which Richard Cohen describes in the Washington Post as "a work of unabashed, breathtakingly stupid anti-Semitism, one of the reasons the New York Review of Books recently characterized Qutb's views 'as extreme as Hitler's.'"

And, in fact, the Brotherhood supported the Nazis during World War II and gave refuge for many of them afterward, including the brutal Grand Mufti of Jerusalem who spent much of the war years as a guest of the German government in Berlin.

The real problem here is that Obama's Middle East policy, and particularly his policy toward political Islam, is entirely incoherent.  Obama seems to think that he can pick and choose which Islamists to support, which to ignore, and which to oppose, all based strictly on political considerations.

So, for example, Obama opposes al-Qaeda, but Obama had to oppose al-Qaeda due to the fact of 9/11.

The Brotherhood, as is well-known, however, is the parent organization of both al-Qaeda and Hamas, yet Obama certainly does not oppose the Brotherhood.  This, needless to say, raises the obvious question, how can one oppose a political organization with a revolting ideology, like al-Qaeda, while supporting its parent organization that holds to essentially the identical ideology?

The reason for this is because Obama is not in opposition to political Islam.

In fact, he cannot even bring himself to breathe the words "political Islam" or "radical Islam" or "Islamism," thus demonstrating political cowardice in the face of a real threat.

Finally, one cannot defeat an enemy without defining it, naming it, understanding it, and gaining public support for the effort.

This Obama refuses to do.

So many years after 9/11 - and as we see the spread of political Islam along with the attendant head-chopping, the genocide of minorities like the Yazidi, the burying of children alive, the burning of caged human beings doused with gasoline, and other such interesting examples of al-Sharia jurisprudence - one must wonder why?

Why is this president shielding political Islam from its richly deserved comeuppance and why did he tell us that the rise of this vile movement was something akin to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s?

Standing before the United Nations on May 19. 2011, Obama said this:

There are times in the course of history when the actions of ordinary citizens spark movements for change because they speak to a longing for freedom that has been building up for years. In America, think of the defiance of those patriots in Boston who refused to pay taxes to a King, or the dignity of Rosa Parks as she sat courageously in her seat.

If Martin Luther King, Jr. were alive to hear those words, he would never stop retching.

I know I haven't.

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Michael Lumish is a blogger at the Israel Thrives blog as well as a regular contributor/blogger at Times of Israel and Jews Down Under.

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Obama's anti-Israel friends

Barack Obama's recent pro-Israel statements don't reflect his pre-campaign thinking. From the NYT (h/t EBoZ)

He moved from his leftist Hyde Park base to more centrist circles; he forged early alliances with the good-government reform crowd only to be embraced later by the city’s all-powerful Democratic bosses; he railed against pork-barrel politics but engaged in it when needed; and he empathized with the views of his Palestinian friends before adroitly courting the city’s politically potent Jewish community.

“He has a pattern of forming relationships with various communities and as he takes his next step up, kind of distancing himself from them and then positioning himself as the bridge,” said Ali Abunimah, a Palestinian-American author and co-founder of the online publication Electronic Intifada, who became acquainted with Mr. Obama in Chicago.

Electronic Intifada is not just a Palestinian Arab advocacy periodical; it is a virulently anti-Israel publication that supports Hamas and advocates Israel's destruction.

As Mr. Obama moved closer to running, he paid a visit to James S. Crown and his father, Lester, billionaire investors who presided over a sprawling Chicago business dynasty and prominent leaders in the Jewish community.

As the meeting ended, the younger Mr. Crown said, his father — who is “fairly hawkish” about Israel’s security — was noncommittal about Mr. Obama. But, James Crown said, “I pulled him down to my office, and I said, ‘Hey, look, I think you should run, and I want you to win.’ ”

In courting families like the Crowns, Mr. Obama was gaining entree into the upper echelon of the city’s corporate boardrooms, a ripe source of campaign money. But he was also seeking to broaden his appeal to Jewish voters, and he was wading more deeply into one of the touchiest issues in American politics: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

For years, the Obamas had been regular dinner guests at the Hyde Park home of Rashid Khalidi, a Middle East scholar at the University of Chicago and an adviser to the Palestinian delegation to the 1990s peace talks. Mr. Khalidi said the talk would often turn to the Middle East, and he talked with Mr. Obama about issues like living conditions in the occupied territories. In 2000, the Khalidis held a fund-raiser for Mr. Obama during his Congressional campaign. Both Mr. Khalidi and Mr. Abunimah, of the Electronic Intifada, said Mr. Obama had spoken at the fund-raiser and had called for the United States to adopt a more “evenhanded approach” to the Palestinian-Israel conflict.

My critique of Rashid Khalidi's work can be seen here and here. Khalidi considers all of Israel "occupied" and was critical of Arafat - as being too flexible on Israel.

A.J. Wolf, a Hyde Park rabbi who is a friend of Mr. Obama’s and has often invited Mr. Khalidi to speak at his synagogue, said Mr. Obama had disappointed him by not being more assertive about the need for both Israel and the Palestinians to move toward peace. “He’s played all those notes right for the Israel lobby,” said Mr. Wolf, who is sometimes critical of Israel.

During the Senate campaign, Mr. Obama joined in a “Walk for Israel” rally along Lake Michigan on Israel Solidarity Day. The Crowns and other Jewish leaders raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for him. Several days before the primary in 2004, some of his Jewish supporters took offense that Mr. Obama had not taken the opportunity on a campaign questionnaire to denounce Yasir Arafat, the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, or to strongly support Israel’s building of a security fence.

But in a sign of how far Mr. Obama had come in his coalition-building, friends from the American Israel Political Action Committee, the national pro-Israel lobbying group, helped him rush out a response to smooth over the flap.

In an e-mail message, Mr. Obama blamed a staff member for the oversight, and expressed the hope that “none of this has raised any questions on your part regarding my fundamental commitment to Israel’s security.”

Notice that his letter didn't denounce Arafat or support the security fence.

Mr. Abunimah has written of running into the candidate around that time and has said that Mr. Obama told him: “I’m sorry I haven’t said more about Palestine right now, but we are in a tough primary race. I’m hoping that when things calm down I can be more upfront.”

The Obama camp has denied Mr. Abunimah’s account. Mr. Khalidi, who is now the director of the Middle East Institute at Columbia University, said, “I’m unhappy about the positions he’s taken, but I can’t say I’m terribly disappointed.” He added: “People think he’s a saint. He’s not. He’s a politician.”

But for all of Mr. Obama’s attentiveness to Jewish concerns about Israel, Republican Party officials have made it clear that they think this is an area of vulnerability. Though Mr. Obama has condemned Hamas, a militant Palestinian group, as a terrorist organization, just last week Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, suggested that the group wanted to see Mr. Obama in the White House. Mr. Obama denounced that suggestion as a “smear.”

It was more than a suggestion. Hamas leader Ahmad Yousef said explicitly, “We like Mr. Obama and we hope that he will win the election.”

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Why Obama's Support for the Muslim Brotherhood Matters (Mike Lumish)

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Anti-BDS / pro-Israel activist and writer, Jon Haber of the Divestthis! blog, and I had an ongoing discussion for a number of months that I wish to briefly revisit.  Our conversation faltered and then stopped on the taboo question of Obama's support for the Muslim Brotherhood and, therefore, his support for political Islam, more generally.

At this point, I find it rather difficult to imagine how anyone paying attention could possibly still refuse to acknowledge the obvious fact that the Obama administration supported the Muslim Brotherhood.  It is not a matter of abstract conjecture, nor is it dependent upon whatever may, or may not, have been going on in Obama's mind.

The only things that matter in determining the question of Obama administration support for the Brotherhood is whether or not the Obama administration turned over funds, weaponry, and political support to the Brotherhood before or during its time in power in Egypt.

If the Obama administration did turn over funds, weaponry, and lent political support to the Brotherhood, which it did, then - pretty much by definition - Barack Obama should be said to have supported the Muslim Brotherhood.

In his retort to my latest piece in this conversation, Haber says this:

I continue to take issue with the core assertion that drives much of Mike’s argument (one he claims I agree with in his last piece) that the current President supports (or “supported”) the Muslim Brotherhood, if by “support” he means (1) agrees with the goals of that organization and (2) wishes it to succeed.

That is, actually, not at all what I mean.  The reason that Obama should be said to support the Muslim Brotherhood is because he did, in fact, support the Muslim Brotherhood.

A = A.

Haber claims that Obama gave "endless slack to Islamist foes," yet he denies that he supported those Islamist foes.

Excuse me, but at what point does giving "endless slack" not begin to constitute support?  Certainly giving "endless slack" is not an act of neutrality.  Nor, of course, is it an act of opposition.  This being the case, perhaps I can be forgiven for misinterpreting Haber's claim that Obama gave "endless slack to Islamist foes" as representing "support."

Of course, if that behavior is not oppositional and if it is not neutral, than just what is left?

Supportive seems to come to mind.

Furthermore, Obama's friendliness toward the anti-Semitic, genocidally-malignant Muslim Brotherhood is not dependent upon an ideological alignment between himself and them.  The Brotherhood, as a radical Islamist organization, wants to see the world live under al-Sharia (which, needless to say, means dhimmitude or death to all non-Muslims) and called directly for war against Israel and for the conquest of Jerusalem.  Barack Obama, as President of the United States presumably does not share such goals, but then one begins to wonder what kind of benefit accrues to the American people through promoting the Brotherhood or enabling an Iranian nuclear bomb?

Haber characterizes my argument, as follows:

Premise 1: The Muslim Brotherhood is a totalitarian organization with goals at odds with the US and the West, which is also the wellspring of Jihadi violence in the Middle East.



Premise 2: President Obama and his administration have made decisions and statements (especially when the Muslim Brotherhood was in power in Egypt) that involved helping and praising that Brotherhood regime.



Premise 3: Only someone who supports the Muslim Brotherhood would help and praise the Muslim Brotherhood regime when it ruled Egypt. 

Conclusion: President Obama supports a totalitarian organization with goals at odds with the US and the West, which is also the wellspring of Jihadi violence in the Middle East.

Haber agrees that premises one and two are valid.  He writes:

But for purposes of this conversation Premise 1 is perfectly acceptable in its present form.  And I think anyone who has followed US foreign policy over the last 5-6 years would agree that Premise 2 is on safe historic ground.

This leaves only premise 3 which is, for all intents and purposes, the same as the conclusion.

Haber wants to argue that support is not necessarily support if the supporter was in the wrong frame of mind.  He writes:

But a reasonable person can come up with a variety of alternatives to Premise 3.  For example, someone might make crappy decisions (like the ones we’ve seen the Obama administration make) because they suck at diplomacy/realpolitique due to incompetence, arrogance or a combination of both.  Or perhaps the President’s ideology blinds him to seeing forces (even Muslim Fundamentalist forces) fighting against an oppressive regime as new totalitarians in waiting (vs. successors to the civil rights heroes of old).

The funny thing is, I have actually argued both of those things in my discussions on just why Obama supports political Islam and, therefore, supports the Muslim Brotherhood.  But whatever the reason why Obama supports the Brotherhood, it is hard to argue that he has not done so and Haber does not bother to try.

So, yes, when an American president offers "help and praise (to) the Muslim Brotherhood" then it supports the Muslim Brotherhood.

When an American president offers help and praise to anyone or anything then he supports that anyone or anything.

Obama supported the Muslim Brotherhood and it is important for those of us who care about the well-being of Israel to wrap our brains around this fact.  Barack Obama supported an organization that exists to promote Sharia and, therefore, promote the dhimmitude and "racist" persecution of all non-Muslims.  Barack Obama supported an organization that called for the conquest of Jerusalem, which is essentially the same as calling for the genocide of the Jews.

I backed off of this conversation for the simple reason that Haber said he wanted to wrap it up.

However, the reason that he wanted to wrap it up is because "our attempts to find major disagreements could devolve into a Narcissism of Small Difference destined to deliver a diminishing return on investment."

But this is not a small difference.

The fact that Obama supported the Muslim Brotherhood demonstrates that he supports political Islam.

The fact that American Left-leaning Jews support Barack Obama demonstrates that they support an American president that supports political Islam.

The only questions are, why does he do it and why can't we face it?

If one wishes to understand Barack Obama's special relationship with Islamist regimes, like the Brotherhood or Iran, one must first acknowledge that which is directly before our eyes.

It is only then that we can begin to answer the question why and I would suggest that if you want to know the answer to that question, look to his ideologically-academic and religious mentors.

Look to people like Rashid Khalidi, the late Edward Said, and a certain minister in Chicago who shall remain nameless.

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Michael Lumish is a blogger at the Israel Thrives blog as well as a regular contributor/blogger at Times of Israel and Jews Down Under.

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"Rabbi Obama" Threatens Israel (Mike Lumish)

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Let's get something straight, shall we?  Barack Obama, whatever else anyone might wish to say about the man, is not Jewish.

Obama is not Jewish, nor is he Muslim, nor is he Rosicrucian, nor Buddhist, nor a follower of the ancient faith of the Jains.  

It is reported that former senior White House adviser, David Axelrod, claims that Obama said, "I think that I am the closest thing to a Jew who’s ever sat in this office."  According to the Times of Israel, the White House is proving itself a little uncomfortable with this quote and is refusing to affirm its authenticity.

Times of Israel staff notes:

The White House on Tuesday partly endorsed comments attributed to US President Barack Obama by a former top adviser, who told Israel’s Channel 2 that the president shares the “common bonds and commons values” of the Jewish community.

However, Spokesman Josh Earnest did not go so far as to confirm ex-Obama senior adviser David Axelrod’s recollection that the president said he considered himself “the closest thing to a Jew” who’s served in the Oval Office.

In wondering just what is behind this oft-repeated notion that Obama, while not technically Jewish, is, in fact, Jew-ish, Jeffrey Tobin over at Commentary has this to say:

But the idea that he somehow considers himself at least as, if not more, Jewish than the leaders of the Jewish state and its supporters is a remarkable insight into his thinking. The question is not so much whether to accept this bizarre formulation as it is to what would lead the president to come to such a mistaken conclusion. The only answer is that he, like some of his Jewish supporters, actually thinks Jewish identity is a function of modern American political liberalism rather than a faith or a people.

Tobin is surely exaggerating.  While Obama likes to imply that his policies derive from his values and his values derive, at least in part, from the Jewish side of what they used to call "the Judeo-Christian tradition," I find it highly unlikely that he thinks of himself as more Jewish "than the leaders of the Jewish state and its supporters..."

However, this notion that to be a good Jew one must be something akin to a good Democrat, fighting for social justice in the spirit of Tikkun Olam, is so politically self-serving as to be laughable.  The obvious implication of such nonsense is that unless Jewish Americans follow the Obama administration and the Democratic Party than they are not really being very good Jews.

Meanwhile President Obama, whom David M. Weinberg is calling "Rabbi Obama" in the pages of Israel Hayom, is yet again threatening to throw Israel to the wolves at the United Nations.  Barack Obama may love the Jewish people with all of his heart.  The very thought of Golda Meir may get him all weepy and, as he likes to remind us, the very values that he cherishes (whatever those might be, exactly) are the very values that we cherish.  (Or perhaps that is not the case, at all.)  But whatever is the case, one thing is certain:

Barack Obama is no friend to Israel.

According to The Telegraph:

Barack Obama has warned that America's veto in support of Israel at the UN is increasingly "difficult" because of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's wavering stance on a Palestinian state.

Mr Obama said the lack of progress in peace efforts, and Mr Netanyahu's apparent about-turn on support for a two-state solution before and after the recent Israel elections, mean Israel is in danger of losing "credibility".

This is a sick game that the current American administration is playing with the lives and well-being of the Jewish people of Israel.  From 1937, with the Peel Commission, to the present, Israelis, for the most part, having been willing to share our tiny bit of Jewish homeland.  Yet no matter how often Jewish Israelis say "yes" they are always blamed for intransigence and however consistently the Palestinian-Arabs say "no" to a state for themselves in peace next to Israel, they are always rewarded with moral support and cold, hard cash.

Also, of course, Netanyahu was merely being honest when he claimed that there would not likely be a two-state solution during his tenure.  How could it possibly be otherwise when the Palestinian-Arab governments are split between a genocidally-authoritarian theocratic regime in Gaza and a genocidally-authoritarian semi-secular regime in what some people insist upon calling the "West Bank," as both call for violence against Jews and and as the rest of the region is engulfed by the ongoing blood, fire, rapes and beheadings of the misnamed "Arab Spring."

Obama said:

"If, in fact, there's no prospect of an actual peace process, if nobody believes there's a peace process, then it becomes more difficult to argue with those who are concerned about settlement construction..."

The opposite is actually true.  If there is no peace process then construction of Jewish townships in Judea and Samaria becomes less politically relevant, not more so.   If the Palestinian-Arabs absolutely refuse to accept a state for themselves in peace next to the Jewish one, than why should Jews not be allowed to build housing for themselves on the land of our ancestors?

Every time administration officials whine about Jews daring to build housing for themselves in Judea, they justify the Arab anti-Semitism that resides at the very heart of the conflict.  Were it not for that anti-Semitism no one would mind if Jews built housing for themselves in Judea and Samaria.  The only reason that anyone objects is because Jews are Jews.  So when Obama complains about "settlements" he is effectively agreeing with Mahmoud Abbas that any future "Palestinian" state must be Judenrein.

This is blatant anti-Jewish bigotry on its face, yet the Obama administration goes along with it and American Jews, largely, go along with Obama.

What we will likely see in the coming months is the ratcheting up of the BDS movement in the European capitals, with Barack Obama leading from behind in Washington. Obama need not come out personally in favor of the movement to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel for him to send messages that amount to approval.

When Obama says, "The danger here is that Israel as a whole loses credibility. Already, the international community does not believe that Israel is serious about a two-state solution," he is sending distinct and relevant messages to the enemies of the Jewish people all around the world.

He is also sending a distinct and threatening message to the Jewish people, as a whole.

One obvious message is that Obama, himself, does not think that Israel has "credibility" (whatever exactly he means by that.)

Another obvious message is that he, himself, believes that Israel is not serious about a two-state solution and is, therefore, fair game.

And, finally, that is the real message.  If Israel has no "credibility," and if Jewish Israelis do not really want a two-state solution, then it's open season.

Barack Obama may as well just have rung the dinner bell.

This is called leading from behind.

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Michael Lumish is a blogger at the Israel Thrives blog as well as a regular contributor/blogger at Times of Israel and Jews Down Under.

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If you want to understand Trump, read what he wrote in 2012

Maybe I just missed it, but of all the millions of words being written about Donald Trump over the past year, I never saw anyone in the media actually compare his views and actions against what Trump wrote in his 2012 book, "Time to Get Tough."

Trump wrote the book during the 2012 presidential race. It is written in his voice, almost certainly based on his recording his words and then editing them. There is no ghostwriter here.

Much of it is online.

The table of contents of the book is essentially a blueprint of the topics that Trump was to campaign on four years later:

Not Steve Bannon. This is all Trump. Which is a comfort, in a way - the analyses about Bannon secretly controlling the White House agenda do not appear to be based on any actual research.

There are a few differences between the book and what we are seeing, and I'll highlight a couple of those. But for the most part this book is an invaluable tool to understand Trump, whether you love him or loathe him. It is sort of pathetic that no one in the media seems to be willing to compare Trump's words today against what he was saying previously. Whatever happened to source material?

Trump mentions Israel essentially  only in the context of Iran:

[W]e know Obama’s instincts on Iran are horrible. On May 18, 2008, during a campaign speech then-candidate Obama made this breathtakingly ignorant statement: “I mean, think about it. Iran, Cuba, Venezuela—these countries are tiny, compared to the Soviet Union. They don’t pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us. . . . You know, Iran, they spend one-one hundredth of what we spend on the military. If Iran ever tried to pose a serious threat to us, they wouldn’t stand a chance. And we should use that position of strength that we have, to be bold enough to go ahead and listen.” Then, after his advisors told him what a moronic statement he’d made, Obama went out two days later and reversed his stance: “Iran is a grave threat. It has an illicit nuclear program, it supports terrorism across the region and militias in Iraq, it threatens Israel’s existence, it denies the holocaust.”27 Once again, the guy’s initial instincts are always wrong. And in this case, they endangered America and our ally Israel.

Obviously we must listen to our intelligence experts to decide the best way to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions. But here’s the reality: because the clock is ticking down, the next president America elects will in all likelihood be the president who either stops Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon or who sits back and lets it happen. Given Obama’s track record of weakness, that’s not a risk America can afford to take.

The highlighted portion is of course of interest today, when it appears based on media reports that Trump disrespects the role of the intelligence agencies.

By the way, Trump's 2000 political book, The America We Deserve, had far more about Israel's importance as an ally for the US. It also has an entire chapter warning of the dangers of terrorism, more than a year before 9/11.

Here's an important section that is critical to understanding Trump's foreign policy philosophy in his own words:

If history teaches us anything, it’s that strong nations require strong leaders with clearly defined national security principles. Realities change at warp speed; international events can turn on a dime. The 9-11 terrorist attacks, the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, the Arab Spring—all these happened in the blink of an eye. A president can’t always predict where the next national security “fire” will erupt, but he can and must have a steady and reliable compass to guide his decisions. Citizens need to know the values and principles their president will rely on to lead America through whatever unknown threats lie over the horizon. I believe that any credible American foreign policy doctrine should be defined by at least seven core principles:

1. American interests come first. Always. No apologies.

2. Maximum firepower and military preparedness.

3. Only go to war to win.

4. Stay loyal to your friends and suspicious of your enemies.

5. Keep the technological sword razor sharp.

6. See the unseen. Prepare for threats before they materialize.

7. Respect and support our present and past warriors.

Sadly, President Obama has undermined each of these core principles. First, no sooner had he been sworn into office than he went on an apology tour to the Arab world. Did you know that the very first interview Obama gave as president was with the Arabic news channel Al Arabiya? I’ve got news for President Obama: America is not what’s wrong with the world. I don’t believe we need to apologize for being hated by Islamic radical terrorists who hate our religion, hate our freedom, and hate that we extend human rights to women. Second, even as Obama’s blown trillions of our tax dollars on his “stimulus” schemes, he’s proposed cutting $400 billion from our defense budget. Third, by announcing the time and date for withdrawal in Afghanistan and not clearly defining our objectives in Libya’s civil war, Obama has completely blown it, making it virtually impossible for us to define what victory is and achieve it. Fourth, the president sold out our dear friend and ally Israel. He’s also thrown other allies, like Poland and the Czech Republic, under the bus by bowing to Russian demands that we not build missile defenses to protect our friends. Fifth, by slashing military budgets Obama has threatened our ability to keep our technological edge in weapons systems. Sixth, Obama has been caught flatfooted by China’s development of the J-20 fighter jet, something his administration didn’t think would happen for years to come. And finally, by raiding the defense budget to pay for his failed social programs, Obama continues to weaken our ability to honor our present and past warriors.

Perhaps the most important section to read in the 2012 book is this, about Russia:

Obama’s popularity in America may be at rock bottom levels, but I know one place his ratings are likely sky high: the Kremlin. Russia’s leaders can hardly believe their luck. Never in a million years did they think America would elect a guy as ineffective as this. Obama’s pretty-please diplomacy and endless American apology tours have served Russian interests extremely well. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, of whom I often speak highly for his intelligence and no-nonsense way, is a former KGB officer. No sooner did Obama move into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue than he began making concessions and sacrificing American power on the altar of “improving relations” with Russia.

According to Barack Obama’s favorite newspaper, the New York Times, within weeks of being sworn in as president of the United States, Obama sent a top U.S. official to Moscow to hand deliver a secret letter to Russia’s then-President Dmitry Medvedev. According to the Times, the secret letter said that Obama “would back off deploying a new missile defense system in Eastern Europe if Moscow would help stop Iran from developing long-range weapons.” It’s so outrageous I hardly believed it until I read it myself. Obama had barely moved his stuff into the White House residence and already the guy was just itching to start degrading America’s power and undermining our allies.

Not surprisingly, Putin was ecstatic: “The latest decision by President Obama . . . has positive implications,” said Putin. “I very much hope that this very right and brave decision will be followed by others.”15

But it gets even worse. Incredibly, the Obama administration made the decision to throw our friends Poland and the Czech Republic under the bus and leave them naked to missile attacks “despite having no public guarantees” that Moscow would help crack down on Iran’s missile programs. 16 Many in the intelligence world were baffled by Obama’s reckless and foolish move. U.S. senators piped up too. “This is going to be seen as a capitulation to the Russians, who had no real basis to object to what we were doing,” warned Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. “And at the end of the day you empowered the Russians, you made Iran happy and you made the people in Eastern Europe wonder who we are as Americans.”17 What was Barack Obama’s response? “If the byproduct of it is that the Russians feel a little less paranoid and are now willing to work more effectively with us to deal with threats like ballistic missiles from Iran or nuclear development in Iran, you know, then that’s a bonus.”

The results of Obama’s pandering to the Russians have been a total disaster. In 2010, the Russians outsmarted Obama by promising to play nice and not sell Iran anti-aircraft missiles. The administration proudly hailed the announcement as a big success and praised Medvedev for having “shown leadership in holding Iran accountable for its actions, from start to finish.” Then, even as Obama was busy cheerleading the Russians’ actions, the Los Angeles Times reported that “Russian diplomats were quietly recruiting other countries . . . to undercut tougher penalties imposed on the Islamic Republic.”18 It was an incredible coup for Russia: they got Obama to give up missile defense for absolutely nothing in return and stuck it to America by secretly convincing other nations to back Iran.

Putin has big plans for Russia. He wants to edge out its neighbors so that Russia can dominate oil supplies to all of Europe.19 Putin has also announced his grand vision: the creation of a “Eurasian Union” made up of former Soviet nations that can dominate the region. I respect Putin and the Russians but cannot believe our leader allows them to get away with so much—I am sure that Vladimir Putin is even more surprised than I am. Hats off to the Russians.

If Trump's opinion hasn't changed, then it seems like while his respect for Putin is quite real, his overtures towards Russia are meant to outfox Putin, not to blindly do his will as the media seems to imply.

Perhaps this is wishful thinking, but there is no better place to begin such an analysis than Trump's own words, especially when they align so well with practically everything else he is doing.

In this next section, Trump pretty much admits that he would divide the country to win a presidential campaign - because that is what he accused Obama of doing in 2012:

In all my years in business and participating in politics I’ve never seen the country as divided as it is right now—and I’ve seen bad times. Voters’ hatred of both Democrats and Republicans is beyond anything I have ever witnessed. A great leader can bring America together. But unfortunately for us, Barack Obama is not a leader.

...[T]he Republicans are going to have a very tough race. Obama is harnessing all of the negativity he created and flipping it back on the people—a very smart, if cynical, strategy. I’ve never seen anything like it. The guy is willing to rip the country in half to win. Sadly, it may prove to be a winning strategy. If I were doing as badly as he is, I would realize it is my only road to victory.

It is obvious that this was Trump's strategy on the campaign trail. Unfortunately we have seen very little of Trump's trying to bringing America together since then. Today's divisions are worse than they were under Obama, and that's saying something. I think that this division is far more dangerous and will cause far more long-term damage than any of Trump's policies might. From the point of view of Israel, Trump has managed to split the American Jewish and the American Zionist community far worse and far more starkly than eight years of Obama deliberately pushing J-Street for that very purpose.

What about Trump's thin skin? There is plenty of evidence of it in this book as well, and he rips many people who insult him (or who he simply thinks are useless.) . But he also says why he is so aggressive towards those who cross him. He says "I always believe when attacked, hit your opponent back harder and meaner and ideally right between the eyes." In a few cases, however, he admits respecting people he disagrees with.

It makes no difference if you support Trump or not. It is a much better use of your time to read this book (it really isn't that long) than to read any of a zillion half-baked analyses being published in the media about him.

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