In an August poll, the Jerusalem Post told us that 51 percent of Israelis felt that President Obama’s policies were pro-Arab while only 4 percent said Obama was pro-Israel. Compared to previous polls, the percentage of Israelis giving President Obama the benefit of the doubt about his feelings towards Israel was in fast and steep decline.

With American Jews purportedly having voted for him in November of 2008 at the rate of 78 percent – and with no outward sign as yet of their enthusiasm for the President abating – there is a stark contrast between American and Israeli Jews as to their feelings about President Obama’s views on Israel. That being said, we have to think there is some strain under the surface in the lopsided support that American Jews gave Obama during the election relative to what they’re thinking now.
First, there was the Cairo speech of early summer where the President justified Israel’s existence only in terms of the Holocaust, misrepresenting completely the historical and legal claim Jews have to the Land of Israel. More recent is last week’s UN speech in which the President invoked the words ‘occupation’ and ‘illegal settlements’ – code words of the Arab narrative and evocative of 1967 borders and worse. Especially toxic is the revelation that the President has known for more than a year about the advanced state of a second active nuclear site in Iran, but chose instead to focus on the modest Jewish building in Judea and Samaria as primary threats to peace rather than Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
We have to believe that there are some Jews who care deeply about Israel and voted for Barack Obama and are now troubled about their choice. The cornerstone of their faith in Obama had to be in the candidate’s stated “unshakable commitment to Israel’s security” and in no small measure the names of people who would be charged with that commitment once he was elected. To get there, Jewish voters had to overcome a number of things that would ordinarily give them pause. The deep animus towards Israel from the Democratic Party’s far left; the candidate’s anti-Israel friends like Reverend Wright, Bill Ayers, Rashid Khalidi and Samantha Powers; and the candidate’s obeisance to so many things Muslim replete with statements about recognizing Palestinian aspirations. But long time Israel hands lined up to give Obama’s support for the Jewish state credibility. They gave him cover and it worked.
Jews wanted to stay in their traditional political home and were caught up emotionally with the historic election of a black president. But something changed in that equation after the election, and Team Obama’s Middle East people – folks in whom the Jewish community felt both comfort and trust – have been pushed aside, ignored and marginalized; Important names with unimportant roles.
The Secretary of State: With a good, albeit short, Senate record aligned with Israel’s interests, and an emotional tie to the ‘handshake on the White House Lawn’, Hillary Clinton calmed Jewish sensibilities and encouraged Jewish support. But the fact is today that Hillary Clinton wields less power than any other Secretary of State in recent memory. She deals with secondary issues, travels widely to put a happy face on shameful policies, like our abandonment of our friends in Honduras, and takes leading roles only on things like women’s issues that don’t have much political impact abroad. In addition, her path to the President’s office is crowded and not direct.
And what about Dennis Ross and Richard Holbrooke? Though, like the administration, they are consistent boosters of the two- state solution as an end in itself, they are now not involved in considerations for Israel’s safety and security. They still, however, have the trust and respect of the Jewish community not for their fealty to Israel, but because of their previous efforts to work with both sides in the difficult controversy. After lining up with the Obama program before the election, they’ve been put into a chorus rather than given strong voice.
Holbrooke, who’s brief is Pakistan, is relegated to background; and Ross, a good soldier in the Obama campaign, was rewarded with a State Department position focusing on Iran, but is now also a non-entity in the shaping of policy. Far more prominent vis a vis Israel is George Mitchell, who is historically a lot less friendly towards Israel.
Much of this is becoming apparent to those Jewish voters who pushed their apprehensions aside when they saw Obama’s Middle East team taking shape. If Israel is still of significant import to these Jewish voters, they have rethink their support for this Administration, not just because of its staffing decisions, but because its policies are so threatening to Israel’s existence.
Israelis, who have what the President is fond of calling ‘skin in the game.’ have absorbed this point and have a vastly different view of the Obama Administration than do most of America’s Jews. Only one community is right – and we’d bet it’s the Israelis.

– nrg

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