One of the Cover stories of this week's Jewish Star is a piece written by me called "Before The Fall:Reflexive Jewish Support for Dems." It talks about Jewish Organizations failure to be bi-partisan as one of the causes of the Iran deal being on the prescience of victory.
The article is an updated version of a post I did last week, however it focuses the blame squarely where it belongs on the leadership of Major Jewish Organizations, so I thought I would share, oh and because it is almost impossible to cut and post the piece from the newspaper, underneath the title from the paper, I posted the text of the article:
Now that Obama has enough senators that a veto of the anti-Iran deal bill cannot be overturned the postmortems have started, some blame the President, others blame the Democratic Party. I would argue that they are both partially correct but they’re omitting the biggest enabler, the Jewish community itself, especially the “Jewish leadership.” You see thirty years ago James Baker famously said, "F**k the Jews they won't vote for us anyway." But because of a blind loyalty to the Democratic Party by the Jews today Democrats Party politicians act as if their stance is, "F**k the Jews they will vote for us whatever we do!"
In 2008 despite all the warnings, despite the fact that Barack Obama sat in a church listening to anti-Semitic sermons for two decades, despite the fact that he was a close friend with Palestinian Liberation Organization spokesman Rashid Khalid the mainstream media and the Jewish community ignored the warning signs. Even before the election the Jewish community knew about the 2003 event honoring Khalidi, where Obama had made a toast that was so anti-Israel that the liberal L.A. Times hid the tape. Before the 2008 election Obama had already surrounded himself with anti-Semitic and anti-Israel advisers. Ignoring all that, the Jewish community gave Obama 78% of the Jewish vote. The leadership of certain major Jewish organizations despite their phony claims of bi-partisanship had a blind allegiance to the Democratic Party. That allegiance was so strong that when the Democratic Party demanded that V.P. Candidate Sarah Palin's invitation to speak at an anti-Iran rally be rescinded these major Jewish organizations rushed to comply.
During his first term President Obama proved to be the most anti-Israel president since the modern state of Israel was created in 1948. But it shouldn't have been as surprise.
Michael Oren wrote in his book “Ally: My Journey Across the American-Israeli Divide “ that At the very beginning of his administration Obama met with his hand-picked members of Jewish leadership (he included J Street and discarded the ZOA). Obama told that Jewish leadership that one of his goals was to drive a wedge between the US and Israel. “When there is no daylight,” the president told American Jewish leaders in 2009, “Israel just sits on the sidelines and that erodes our credibility with the Arabs.” The explanation ignored Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from Gaza and its two previous offers of Palestinian statehood in Gaza, almost the entire West Bank and half of Jerusalem—both offers rejected by the Palestinians. Those “Jewish leaders” were silent about the inclusion of an anti-Israel group J Street in those meetings, and they were silent about the president’s words about pulling away from Israel. Instead of organizing their membership to protest they began to teach the Democrats they would follow obediently without a complaint.
Obama even foreshadowed the Iran deal during his first months in office. During his 2009 speech in Cairo he said, “No single nation should pick and choose which nations hold nuclear weapons,” which foreshadowed his future negotiations with the rogue Iranian regime. Many heard him say that and warned what it may mean---“Jewish leadership” was silent.
During the his first term Obama continued to surround himself with anti-Israel and anti-Semitic advisers even including Al Sharpton who led two anti-Jewish riots in NYC from the supposed Jewish leadership just smiled and stayed silent.
During his first term when Obama constantly announced anti-Israel policies, not one of these Jewish leaders opened their mouth. Not one of those leaders called on those silent Congressional members of the Democratic Party who claimed to be “supporters of Israel” to criticize this president. Perhaps because of all the support they got from the “Jewish leaders” despite their silence not one of those congressional Democrats complained, empowering Obama to continue his anti-Israel behavior.
Despite an anti-Israel first term as the 2012 election neared, The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the American Jewish Committee in a joint statement asked their fellow Jews to pledge not to criticize Obama's anti-Israel policy. They said it was to keep the issue bi-partisan but it was really because their leadership was very partisan. Under Abe Foxman’s leadership the ADL allowed Obama to run rampant and instead spent time on liberal issues such as late-term abortion, amnesty for illegal immigrants. Another of those supposedly "bi-partisan" leaders Jack Rosen of the American Jewish Congress actually had fundraisers for the president in his home, ignoring his anti-Israel and anti-Semitic stances.
On Obama's direction, the Democrats removed four pro-Israel planks from their party platform in 2012. After this reporter discovered the change and the mainstream media picked up the story the convention tried to add one (Jerusalem as capital of Israel) back. The rank and file Democrats at the convention voted no, but the embarrassed leadership lied and said it was passed (to the boos and catcalls of the convention). The planks about not returning to the 1949 armistice lines, not negotiating with Hamas, and insisting the Palestinian refugees will return to Palestinian territory as opposed to Israel were never put back and our “Jewish leadership” said nothing.
When the USCJ and JTS leaders met with Obama and allowed
When the Jewish DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz kept praising Obama as having a wonderful pro-Israel policy, not one of the supposed “Jewish leaders” said, “Hey we understand you have to support Obama but don't lie about his Israel policy.” After all they had a blind loyalty to the Democratic Party.
With the help from the Jewish leadership, this anti-Semitic, anti-Israel president received 69% of the Jewish vote.
And it continues, when President Obama rushed to condemn Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu for statements taken out of context, the leadership of Conservative Jewry’s Rabbinical Assembly followed up by condemning Netanyahu also despite the fact they admitted they didn’t read Bibi’s statement.
Now Obama has done what he promised back in 2009 when he met with the “Jewish leadership” he drove a wedge between the U.S. and Israel, he's done what he said he would do in Cairo, he created a deal which will allow Iran to get a bomb. He has surrounded himself with anti-Semites and anti-Israel advisers just as he did during his campaign he’s done all of it and nothing but silence from “Jewish leadership.”
Two weeks ago when they interviewed the president for a teleconference seen by Jewish community, the head of he Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations and the head of the Jewish Federation didn't challenge him about the deal. I’m not saying that they should have been rude, but instead of asking specific questions about the side deals, or about the fact that the U.S. is obligated to protect Iran's nuclear plants, or the paragraph which allows Iran to take the money and then leave the deal, or any other specific questions worrisome parts of the deal, these two supposed asked softballs like, "Can the U.S. Israel relationship be repaired?" Or when the president lied during his opening statement, they didn't question him about it. Perhaps they didn't read the agreement, perhaps they were trying to protect the president, but it was just another way the “Jewish leaders” enabled the Democratic party to ignore the Jewish voters.
Now everyone is surprised how so many Democrats chose loyalty to their party over rejecting an obviously lousy Iran deal. Strangely most of them began their expressions of support by listing the all the reasons the deal stinks, but then went ahead by saying here was no better choice. That's the political version of everyone gets a participation trophy, and ignores the foreign policy people in France and Great Britain who have said if Congress kills the deal a better one can be negotiated.
People shouldn't be surprised. By remaining silent about the anti-Israel policies of a president who surrounded himself with anti-Semites, and then publicly supporting the Democratic Party our supposed leaders betrayed the Jewish community (and their vows of bi-partisanship) and at the same time they taught the Democrats they could do anything to the Jews and we will give them our campaign donations and we will give them our votes.
Here's a little secret, the way people vote influence candidates positions. Progressives are not pro-Israel and the Jews don't care so why should the Democrats support Israel? On the Republicans side the reason many GOP candidates are pro-Israel is the evangelical vote that is a major part of their base. But if the very pro-Israel evangelicals ever lose their influence in the party, only then will Jewish issue be truly bi-partisan.... both parties wont care about them.
Obama didn't defeat the "Jewish Lobby” as some have claimed, any influence they ever had was defeated by a blind allegiance to the Democratic Party by our leaders and by Jewish voters. The only way we will ever get it back is first, to start voting for the other party--not blindly, but look at Republican candidates with an open mind.
The other thing the Jewish community has to do is stop financially those Jewish organizations whose leadership blindly supports progressive politics and parties. There are plenty of Jewish charities, Only by moving our money away from Democratic/ progressive organizations masquerading as Jewish ones will we be able to make both parties fight for our support by backing those issues important to the Jewish community. Only then will we be able to prevent the next P5+1 agreement with a country bent on destroying the Jews.
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