Where are American Jews?

Where are American Jews?

By N. Richard Greenfield


http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |

"Mark my words," Vice President Joe 
Biden

told donors a few months before the election, "It will not be six months 
before the world tests Barrack Obama . We're going to have an 
international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy. 
And he's going to need help . to stand with him. Because it's not going to 
be apparent initially; it's not going to be apparent that we're right."


One could easily have said the same thing about American Jews and their 
relationship with Israel. It is being severely tested. As it turns out, 
Israel is indeed the focus of U.S. pressure and bullying. The threat to 
peace in the Middle East, says our current administration, emanates not 
from Hamas, Hezbollah, Jihad or Arab nationalism, but from Israel. The 
U.S. is casting Israel in the classic Jewish role of scapegoat, blaming 
her for all of the region's problems.


President Obama has embraced the ever-ready and willing State Department's 
negativity towards Israel and, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton 
leading the way, is making demands about Israeli 'settlements' which are 
harsh and uncompromising. At the same time, State ignores Arab illegal 
construction which is happening on a much wider and broader scale. State 
conveniently ignores the fact that if land were truly the issue, Israel 
and her Arab neighbors would have been at peace for the last 60 years. 
Even though State has always been biased against Israel, it has never had 
a Presidency to work with that was in such complete consonance with its 
views as the Obama Administration is today. The resulting bullying of 
Israel by the U.S. is without parallel in American-Israeli relations.





In the last month an undersecretary of defense unilaterally discussed 
Israel's nuclear capability. In the doing, a long-standing U.S.-Israeli 
agreement to publicly avoid discussion of this topic was broken. Defense 
is tampering with previously agreed-upon arms deals by denying Israel the 
right to make adaptations on equipment that Israel deems essential. 
Effectively, they are moving the long-promised F-35 fighter from Israel's 
grasp and, instead, Israel will put a good face on buying decades old 
F-15's and upgrading them to her specifications. At the same time, Egypt 
is being offered top of the line attack helicopters from a defense 
department that knows Egypt's only potential adversary for these weapons 
is Israel.


Meanwhile, Marine General (ret) Keith Dayton is training and arming a 
5,000 man Fatah security force designed to secure a Palestinian state on 
land Israel has not yet ceded. At the UN, Susan Rice is changing U.S. 
policy from one of support to belligerence. General James Jones, the 
President's National Security Adviser is touting Presidential Adviser 
Samantha Power's suggestion that an armed international force including 
American soldiers enter Judea and Samaria to force the Israelis to make a 
Palestinian state happen. General Dayton is already training such a force 
of Fatah soldiers in Jordan, presumably for this task. Meanwhile, George 
Mitchell, the special envoy to the area, is picking apart previous 
agreements telling Israel to conform to his selected conditions, while 
ignoring the obligations to which Palestinians were supposed to have been 
bound. All of this while rockets still fall on Israel from Gaza, and Fatah 
and Hamas fight running battles on West Bank streets.


The U.S. media notes all of this pressure and gleefully speculates that it 
will eventually topple the recently elected Netanyahu government. Mahmoud 
Abbas, the nominal head of Fatah, says he is waiting for this to happen 
before seriously considering negotiations. He is hoping the U.S. can get 
everything he wants before he even sits down with the Israelis.


Where are American Jews during all of this?


It seems they are still divided along pre-election lines. As individuals, 
most Jews who voted for Obama last November are content to ignore Israel's 
agony in the face of U.S. pressure because they still trust the President 
on other issues. They ignore the threats to Israel's safety and security 
and are blind to America's infringing on Israel's sovereignty as a free 
and democratic nation. Not coincidently, Soros-funded anti-Israel groups 
have popped up promoting the scurrilous conclusions of the infamous 
Walt-Merscheimer report which was rife with accusations of Jewish- 
American's dual loyalty and Israel's culpability for every ill in the 
Middle East.


If this continues, and there's little to indicate it won't, Jews will have 
to make painful and difficult choices between their support for Israel and 
their preference for other policies of this administration. This choosing 
will play out during the upcoming 2010 Congressional elections. The 
President is leaving them little room to maneuver, as there are even 
stories, unofficial so far, of U.S. political and economic sanctions 
against Israel if she doesn't accede to Obama's demands.


Without a strong American Jewish voice in support of Israel much is at 
risk. The solid coalition for Israel in the U.S. Congress is in the 
process of weakening as Democrats in Congress continue to find the 
pressures from Rahm Emmanuel and others difficult to resist. If Jews go 
silent during the 2010 elections and allow apathy, fear or political 
preference to prevent them from speaking up for Israel, the bullying will 
increase and the worst and most deadly outcomes will become real 
possibilities.

JWR contributor N. Richard Greenfield is publisher of the Connecticut 
Jewish Ledger.