July 8, 2009
Benn attributes a lot of this to Obama's failure to sell his program. It is true that he has made no effort to appeal to Israelis on it but I think there's another explanation. The truth is that in the past a lot of Israelis on the left were persuaded that there was a real chance for peace and that by proving its willingness to leave the territories, Israel could persuade the Palestinians to make a deal.
Hardly anyone believes that today in Israel. People are fed up with the Palestinian leadership's bad faith and failure to deliver on commitments. They know that Hamas controls the Gaza Strip and has a big support base on the West Bank. They have no illusions about the Palestinian Authority leadership, which makes clear that its entire program is to have others pressure Israel into giving it everything it wants.
So the left's response would go something like this: We would be willing to dismantle all Jewish settlements in favor of a real and lasting peace. But do you really think freezing building on settlements will contribute to this goal? That's nonsense.
There's a secondary factor as well. Many Israelis on the moderate left--which are the overwhelming majority of those in the "left" category--support a two-state solution with some border shifts. In this concept, which is what Labor party leader and then prime minister Ehud Barak took to Camp David in 2000, Israel would retain some small areas with high Jewish (settlement) populations like Maale Adumim and Gush Etzion.
This concept was called the idea of the "settlement blocs." Israel believed that the last two U.S. presidents accepted this idea and thus agreed that Israel could continue building in these specific places. The Obama administration says that never happened.
So many Israelis on the left not only doubt the prospect of peace and blame the Palestinians for the situation and also favor the settlement blocs approach and are also made very nervous about a U.S. government that forgets past pledges to Israel and doubt Obama's willingness to be tough in opposing Iranian nuclear weapons.
That's why there's no pro-Obama bloc in Israel today, not even on the left.
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Obama's Real Agenda
by Anne Bayefsky
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1246443849765&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull
President Barack Obama last Monday met for the first time with leaders of selected Jewish organizations and leaks from the meeting now make one thing very clear. The only free country in the Middle East no longer has a friend in the leader of the free world. Obama is the most hostile sitting American president in the history of the state of Israel.
Israel - The only free country in the Middle East no longer has a friend in the leader of the free world. Obama is the MOST HOSTILE SITTING AMERICAN PRESIDENT in the history of the state of Israel.
BARACK OBAMA POLL RATINGS FALL BELOW GEORGE BUSH
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/
Barack Obama's honeymoon period appears to be coming to an end in America as polls have shown his ratings have fallen to their lowest point yet.
A USA Today/Gallup survey suggested that six months into his presidency, his popularity was lower than George W Bush's at the same stage of his tenure.
Amid rising unemployment and falling confidence in his economic plans, Mr Obama's job approval rating has dropped by nine points since January to 55 per cent, a point below his predecessor in mid-2001.
Other polls by ABC News and the Washington Post also showed Mr Obama's job approval falling below 60 per cent for the first time since he was sworn in as the nation's first black president, with a marked drop in the last month.
The president is facing criticism about how he is going to pay for $1 trillion plans to reform the US health care system. Half of respondents in one poll disapproved of his health care policy compared with just 44 per cent who approved.
OBAMA LIED TO CHRISTIANS AND JEWS
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=104843
JERUSALEM – American Jewish leaders are up in arms over recent U.S demands against Jewish construction in Jerusalem, pointing out that during the presidential campaign President Obama repeatedly told Jewish audiences that Jerusalem must remain undivided.
"I believe that on the issue of Jerusalem and the issue of Iran Obama intentionally misled both Jewish and Christian supporters of Israel," said Mort Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America. "He said as a candidate in 2008 that he supports an undivided Jerusalem and will never permit Iran to obtain nuclear weapons, and now we see that these claims were simply false," said Klein.
(...) During last year's presidential campaign, Obama numerous times told Jewish audiences he supports an undivided Jerusalem.
Replying to a 2008 questionnaire that asked about "the likely final status of Jerusalem,'' Obama wrote: "The United States cannot dictate the terms of a final status agreement. … Jerusalem will remain Israel's capital, and no one should want or expect it to be re-divided.''
In June 2008, Obama delivered a major speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, in which he stated that if elected "Jerusalem would remain the capital of Israel and it must remain undivided."
Immediately following the speech, Obama flip-flopped during a CNN appearance, explaining he meant Jerusalem shouldn't be physically divided with a partition. (...)
Dear Anonymous,
How dare you be so negative towards the leader of the free world? Obama is the best friend Israel has ever had and we should just continue to blindly support whatever he desires just like we have since the beginnings. While many were troubled with his close association with Israel haters like his reverend, I saw it as an opportunity to shed light upon the poor Palestinians that only want to live in peace.
Once Obama has wiped Israel off the map, the world will be at peace and everyone will see that it was just the Zionists that prevented the world from living in harmony. And if we are wrong, the loss of a tiny country is of no consequences to us believers in peace at all costs and we will continue to expouse the joys of Socialism and the inevitable destruction of Capitalism.
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