Middle East facts out-reason left-wing, anti-Zionists at American-Israel Policy Conference in D.C.

Original videos filmed around AIPAC Policy Conference reveal competing perceptions, agendas, on US Mid-East policy.  

Anti-Zionist demonstrators slandered Israel and US Mid-East policy outside of AIPAC Policy Conference at the Washington Convention Center in early March.  Their oversimplified platitudes were contradicted by the Conference's reasoned analysis of Mid-East realities and the Obama Administration's Mid-East policies.

Watch hand-filmed excerpts from the event on DemoCast's playlist: 

AIPAC attendees challenge Code-Pink and Occupy AIPAC demonstrators;

Israeli U.S. Ambassador Michael Oren speaks with CNN's Frank Sesno;

U.S. policy advisors Dennis Ross and Elliot Abrams speak with CNN's Frank Sesno;

Mid-east policy roundtable with analysts Robert Satloff, Greg Stephens (of the Wall St. Journal), and Israeli analyst Amos Harel;

U.S. Medal of Honor recipients Lt. Col. Hon. Alfred Rascon and Sgt. Major Ken Stumpf share their experience of the Israel Defense Forces following their recent visit to Israel.


(Advance through playlist with lower center buttons).

Chuck Hagel nomination- Obama's latest volley to vilify counter-Islamists

Is the Obama Administration working to marginalize  Zionistic Americans as "unpatriotic" or "unreasonable?" 

Jennifer Rubin in the Washington Post explores Was Chuck Hagel nominated out of spite?  2/15/13

... What is unprecedented is to appoint a high national security official because the president is peeved about someone else.

Politico reports: The president feels personally invested in the nomination of Hagel. The Nebraska Republican is one of the few politicians he’s truly friendly with, and Obama plans to see the fight through, barring some major unforeseen development.

Democrats close to the White House say the typically cool-headed Obama has expressed flashes of real anger at what he sees as a politically motivated GOP fishing expedition that already netted his first choice for secretary of state — U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice.
Obama — ticked off by Rice’s treatment and still emboldened by his convincing victory over Mitt Romney — courted confrontation when he tapped Hagel.  If true, this is outlandish. The president would imperil national security out of spite? 

Mike Lumish's message, "American Jews need to Stand Up" in the Times of Israel's Ops and Blogs Section today augments Ms. Rubin's points:

"Jonathan Tobin has a piece, "Jewish Groups Must End Silence on Hagel" up at Commentary that concludes as follows:

The great irony, of course, is that while Hagel complains about the malicious power of the “Jewish lobby” Jewish organizations, with the notable exception of the Zionist Organization of America, have been almost entirely quiet regarding this toxic nomination of an unqualified bigot for the post of Secretary of Defense.  The western progressive-left tends to think that the “Jewish lobby” or the “Israel lobby” or AIPAC, or perhaps just the Jews as a whole, have a strangle-hold over the United States government.

We don’t.

It is a lie - and when influential people such as former Senator Chuck Hagel promote that lie they are spreading an ideological cancer of the sort that can have exceedingly dangerous consequences.  This is precisely the kind of thing that most American Jewish organizations were created to oppose and, yet, they are silent.  Jewish Democrats today, in the various pro-Israel / pro-Jewish non-profit organizations, seem incapable of mustering the fortitude to stand up to president Barack Obama.  By failing to do so they offer cover to Jewish congressional politicians, such as Chuck Schumer or Dianne Feinstein, who themselves remain supine before this president.

By refusing to accept the Hagel nomination without some further inquiry, the Republican Party has offered Jewish groups a golden opportunity to stand up for the best interests of the Jewish people, not to mention the best interests of the American people, through loudly and strongly and insistently opposing this nomination.

If the state of Israel means anything, it means Jewish people standing up for themselves in their own defense.  It means the resurrection not just of Jewish autonomy on traditionally Jewish land, but the resurrection of the Hebrew language and the creating and nurturing of Jewish culture in the arts and cinema and literature.  What the Israelis have created is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle because they have done something never before seen in the history of the planet.  They resurrected the national life of a people that wandered the earth, lost and desolate for two thousand years.

If Israeli Jews can do that, why cannot American Jews grow a spine and stand up for themselves?  AIPAC knows that Hagel is a potential nightmare, so why must they remain silent?  What good are they if they will not fight the very fights that they were created for to begin with?  I understand that it is counterproductive to fight battles that one is doomed to lose, but we are not doomed to lose this one if we would kindly show a little muscle and a little self-respect.

(Robert Kunst of Shalom Int'l outside the AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington, DC)

Hagel is bad news and the world-wide Jewish community knows it, but the world-wide Jewish community has no say in who Congress affirms as the Secretary of Defense of the United States.  But Jewish Americans do have a say and if we fail to make our voices heard in opposition to a clear and present danger than we let down the Jewish people as a whole.

Something like 80 percent of American Jews, including me, voted for Barack Obama during his first election for the presidency in 2008.  Something like 69 percent, without me, voted for Barack Obama during his second election for the presidency last year.  Immediately upon securing his second term in office president Obama turned around and thanked his Jewish supporters with a nice smack in the head with this Hagel nomination.

I say that it is time to stand up… long past time, actually."

Pres. Obama has again turned down Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's offer to meet during his visit to Washington during the first week of March. Obama opts instead to meet with Netanyahu in Jerusalem. LatmaTV parodies Obama's intentions in planning his March trip to the Mid-East.

NYC Mayor Ed Koch dies on Daniel Pearl's yahrzeit- revives concern about democracy's needed vigilance against Islamism

NYC Mayor Ed Koch (Photo: NY Daily News)

ED KOCH, the voluble three-term mayor who helped bring New York back from the brink of fiscal ruin in the 1970s and came to embody the city with his wry, outspoken style, has died at the age of 88 of heart failure in NYC.

As mayor from 1978 to 1989, the forceful, quick-witted Koch, with his trademark phrase "How'm I Doin?," was a natural showman and tireless promoter of both himself and the city.

New York writer Pete Hamill said in a 2005 discussion of Koch's legacy, "Here was a mayor who was a combination of a Lindy's waiter, a Coney Island barker, a Catskill comedian, an irritated school principal and an eccentric uncle.  He talked tough and the reason was, he was tough."  

In The Algemeiner, Dovid Efune says: 

Mayor Ed Koch (Courtesy: Vanity Fair)

It was only three weeks ago when he (Mayor Koch) told me in an interview that he felt President Obama had betrayed Israel with his nomination of Chuck Hagel. “Frankly, I thought that there would come a time when he would renege on what he conveyed on his support of Israel,” Koch said, adding, “it comes a little earlier than I thought it would.”

We published Koch’s articles nearly every week, and it was clear to me, just by the sheer volume of those which focused on Israel, that the Jewish State, and his Jewishness for that matter, were topics that were very close to his heart.

“Why would you expect Israel to cooperate in its intended lynching?” he asked recently in a passionate letter to British Prime Minister David Cameron. He viciously defended Israel’s right to self defense and called out those who displayed hypocrisy in their dealings with Israel on a regular basis.

“I’m of the belief that the leaders of the Jewish community have to do more to make Jews aware, young Jews aware, of the importance of Israel,” he told me in another interview late last year.

It is therefore noteworthy and fitting to point out that besides the ‘Hear o Israel’ prayer, the only other quote that Koch has engraved on his tombstone is the final statement of Daniel Pearl, the Jewish journalist who was kidnapped and beheaded while in Pakistan investigating Al Qaeda back in 2002.

“My father is Jewish. My mother is Jewish. I am Jewish,” reads the defiant etching, attributed to “(Daniel Pearl 2002, just before he was beheaded by a Muslim terrorist.)”

Koch explained that “the sense of justice that Judaism teaches” was the reason he elected to have the words “He was fiercely proud of his Jewish faith,” etched on the gravestone he prepared for himself. ...

How befitting that the day of his passing, Feb 1st 2013 comes 11 years to the day after the brutal murder of Daniel Pearl, that icon of Jewish pride. They will forever share a yahrzeit, and in many ways a legacy." 

That Mayor Koch died on Daniel Pearl's yahrzeit draws deserved attention to Pearl's legacy- and the Islamic supremacism which so threatens the West and Judaism. 

Photo courtesy Hiram 7

The late Christopher Hitchens was honored to present the 2010 Daniel Pearl Memorial Lecture at UCLA.  He consoled Daniel's surviving parents Judea and Ruth Pearl from the last scene of Shakespeare's Macbeth, "Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier's debt.  He only lived until he was a man that which no sooner had his prowess confirmed.  In the unshrinking station where he stood.  But, like a man, he died.  Your cause of grief must not be measured by his worth, for then it hath no end."  

Mr. Hitchens then warned about anti-Semitism- particularly within Islam- as the precursor warning of fascism and tyranny. 

"Because anti-Semitism is the godfather of racism and the gateway to tyranny, fascism and war, it is to be regarded not as the enemy of the Jewish people alone, but as the common enemy of humanity and of civilization- and has to fought against very tenaciously for that reason, most especially in its current, most virulent form of Islamic Jihad.

Daniel Pearl's revolting murderer was educated at the London School of Economics. Our Christmas bomber over Detroit was from a neighboring London college - the chair of the Islamic Students' Society. Many pogroms against Jewish people have been reported from all over Europe, today as I'm talking. And we can only expect this to get worse. And we must make sure that our own defenses are not neglected.

Our task is to call this filthy thing, this plague, this pest, by its right name. To make unceasing resistance to it. Knowing all the time that it's probably ultimately ineradicable, and bearing in mind that its hatred towards us is a compliment, and resolving, some of the time (at any rate) to do a bit more to deserve it!"

Mayor Koch's public service  is remembered in this WABC TV News obituary:

In an interview conducted in 2007, Former Mayor Edward I. Koch reflected on his life and political career, and talked of how he would like to be remembered.


Asked by reporter Tim Weiner: "How do you want to be remembered?" Mayor Koch replied, "I want to be remembered as being a proud Jew who loved the people of the City of New York. And did his best to make their lives better."  

A documentary about his life opened just prior to his demise.  Glenn Whipp writes in the L.A. Times:

Former New York City Mayor Ed Koch died the same day a new documentary about his life and legacy opened in New York.

"Koch," which will open in Southern California theaters beginning March 1, offers evidence that the combative mayor had mellowed little in his later years. Filmmaker Neil Barsky conducted extensive interviews with Koch in his Manhattan apartment in 2010 and early 2011, where the former mayor, who ruled New York from 1978 to 1989, spoke of his controversial time in office, offering no restrictions on subject matter or time.

Here is the trailer:


The N.Y. Times reviews "Koch"



Asked by reporter Tim Weiner: "How do you want to be remembered?" Mayor Koch replied, "I want to be remembered as being a proud Jew who loved the people of the City of New York.  And did his best to make their lives better."

With presidential debates behind us, DemoCast revisits Israel's plight under Obama - broadcast tonight - LegacyTV at 9pm/ 8pm CT

Obama's real record on Israel by Anne Bayefsky Oct 23, 2012 in FoxNews.com  Anne Bayefsky is director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust. 

The question before American voters, who value our special bond with the Middle East’s only democracy, is whether the specifics of the president’s four-year record are consistent with the well-being of the people who live and breathe Jewish self-determination as a bulwark against modern anti-semitism. 

Just a partial rap-sheet speaks for itself: 

• President Obama has never visited Israel during his time in office, despite having been as close as thirty minutes away in Egypt, and managing to go to Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iraq 

• President Obama told Jewish leaders in July 2009 that he was deliberately adopting a policy of putting daylight between America and Israel. Read More:

Before the candidates' debate rhetoric erased everyone's memory, during the Obama first-term, DemoCast chronicled a foreboding of the American-Israel relationship under Obama.

The second installment of the "Israel under Obama" series will be broadcast tonight on Legacy TV at 9pm ET/8pm CT. 

The program shows Obama's ceremonial pledges to be on Israel's side - contradicted by examples of his philo-Islamist Iran and Arab Palestine policies working against Israel's strength and self-defense. 

It features statements from Amb. John Bolton, former CIA director James Woolsey, Israeli analyst Barry Rubin, actor Jon Voight, radio host, Michael Medved, Malcolm Hoenlein of the Conference of Presidents of Jewish Organizations, and activist Bob Kunst at AIPAC and the White House. 

The show will be broadcast nationwide on LegacyTV across America- check for your for local station listings. 



If LegacyTV isn't available in your area, you may watch it here:


Please support future airings of the "Israel under Obama" series on LegacyTV and more channels by clicking the "Donate" link in the right-hand column.

Obama's attitudes towards Israel and the Middle East

Obama on his own Middle East record: Zero Percent Success by Prof. Barry Rubin in PJ Media Oct 10, 2012
  
.... The (Obama Administration's) "peace process" policy has failed.  And this administration has done more to undermine Israel’s security than all the previous presidencies put together. The problems include: pushing Israel to ease the pressure on Hamas in the Gaza Strip; helping a genocide-oriented anti-Israel government into power in Egypt; same thing in Syria; making America’s leading ally in the region a Turkish regime that was viciously anti-Israel; and more.  Read more.
 

Romney's vs. Obama's attitudes on Israel by Daniel Pipes in Israel Hayom Sept 4, 2012

"President [Barack] Obama has thrown allies like Israel under the bus," Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate for president, said in his high-profile speech accepting his party's nomination last week, repeating a slang phrase for sacrificing a friend for selfish reasons that he has used before, notably in May 2011 and January this year.

This criticism of Obama fits a persistent Republican critique. Several other recent presidential candidates have also used or endorsed the same "bus" formulation to describe Obama’s attitude to Israel: Herman Cain in May 2011, Rick Perry in September 2011, Newt Gingrich in January 2012, and Rick Santorum in February 2012.

These Republican attacks on Obama's relations with Israel have several important implications for U.S. foreign policy. First, out of the many Middle East-related issues, Israel, and Israel alone, retains a permanent role in U.S. electoral politics, influencing how a significant numbers of voters — not just Jews but also Arabs, Muslims, Evangelical Christians, conservatives and liberals — vote for president.
Read more

DemoCast.TV shows commentary on the course of the Obama Administration's Middle East policies and its impact on the America-Israel relationship.



US Jewry’s cherished values by CAROLINE B. GLICK in The Jerusalem Post  10/11/2012

For 70% of American Jews, party loyalty trumps all of their conceivable rational interests.

Obama’s gutting of Medicare to pay for Obamacare has harmed the medical choices for older Jewish Americans.

His war on tax deductions for charitable contributions has placed synagogues, Jewish schools and nursing homes in financial jeopardy.

So with economics ruled out as a reason to support Obama we are left with American-Jewish values.

But is Obama really advancing those values? What are those values anyway?  Read more

Video chronicle of commentary on US-Israel relations during the Obama Administration from JooTube.TV:



Ms. Glick concludes: "The most disturbing aspect of the surveys of American Jewish voters is not that they are willing to vote for the most hostile US president Israel has ever experienced in order to remain true to their party. The most disturbing aspect of the American Jewish community’s devotion to Obama and the Democrats is that it indicates that the vast majority of American Jews have abandoned their faculties for independent thought and judgment in favor of conformism and slavish partisanship. They have rendered themselves unreachable."

How Obama's soft-on-Islamism policies undermine liberty in Middle-East & America- Prof Barry Rubin

Prof. Barry Rubin, known for his Middle East strategies work at the GLORIA Center at the IDC in Herzliya, Israel, is also Middle East Editor for PJ Media.

What to Say When You’re Handed the Obama-Is-Good-for-Israel Talking Points
[Jews for Obama boast that] "Obama just gave Israeli President Shimon Peres a presidential medal
of freedom."  Well, he also has just helped give Israel a second Muslim Brotherhood-dominated regime next door and insists that this is a good thing.



Question: [Jews for Obama claim that] U.S.-Israel bilateral relations are good especially with regard to military aid.

Rubin:  That’s true, but only a small part of that relates to Obama’s benevolence. Why?

a.  Congress supports Israel. There was more pushback against Obama from Democratic members on this issue than on any other, foreign or domestic. Thus, Israel is the only “target” of Obama whose constituency has vocal defenders within his own party that raise the cost of his actions against it, at least during his first term. (Note that last phrase.)

b. The same applies to public opinion, which is strongly pro-Israel. This factor also inhibits Obama, at least during his first term. (Note that last phrase.)

c. Regarding military relations, the U.S. armed forces are generally quite pro-Israel and want these programs. Many of them are based on previous commitments, which Obama merely continues.

An especially important reason why Obama’s administration hasn’t been far more hostile to Israel in practice is that the Arabs and Iran shafted his policy. Remember that Obama offered to support the
Palestinians, pressure Israel, and accelerate talks if only the Arab states and Palestinian Authority showed some flexibility. They repeatedly rejected his efforts—refusing even to talk–giving him no
opportunity or incentive to press Israel for concessions. Note too, though, that the repeated humiliations handed him by the Arabs never made him criticize them publicly, change his general line, or back Israel more enthusiastically.

The same point applies to Iran. While Obama has intensified sanctions on Iran, he:

• Did so only after a long delay.

• Did less than Congress wanted/

• Exempted in effect China, Russia, and Turkey from observing the sanctions.

Obama has been visibly eager to make a deal with Tehran, even on bad terms. Only Iran’s hard line has prevented some kind of arrangement that favored Iran. Instead, though, Tehran has used Obama’s slowness and desire for some compromise in order to buy time for its nuclear program to progress.

Finally, there’s the most important factor of all. The main damage Obama has done to Israeli security is neither so much in the area of bilateral relations nor regarding the Israel-Palestinian conflict but
as a result of his regional policy in the Middle East. This includes his:

• Soft line toward antisemitic, anti-Israel, and also anti-American Islamism.

• Support for overturning the Mubarak regime and encouragement for a
  Muslim Brotherhood takeover there. During the 2011 crisis, Obama never
  even consulted Israel. The outspoken antisemitism, calls for genocide
  against Israel’s citizens, and support for anti-Israel terrorism by the
  Muslim Brotherhood have had no effect on Obama’s policy and brought no
  criticism by the U.S. government of that movement.

This point must be underlined. Do not forget for one moment that the Brotherhood is an explicitly antisemitic movement that calls for genocide against Jews in and often outside of Israel. It has never to the tiniest degree criticized or repented for its strong support for Nazi Germany. It is in fact the most important antisemitic movement in the world today. Anyone who claims that this movement is in fact moderate (denying its antisemitism and genocidal intentions) and helps it to achieve power, is acting profoundly against the interests of Israel and of the Jewish people. Period.
Read Prof. Rubin's full points

Caroline Glick: Are Obama & the Left undermining the frontline of the free world against Islamo-Marxism?

"Defeating the Jewish Alinskyites" by Caroline Glick in TownHall June 12, 2012

Saul Alinsky, the godfather of subversive radical political action, had a very clear strategy for undermining and destroying his enemies: Infiltrate, divide and destroy.

Since his disciple Barack Obama was elected US president in 2008, Alinsky's impact on Obama has received a fair amount of attention.

Less noticed has been the adoption of Alinsky's methods by radical leftist Jews in the US and Israel for the purpose of undermining the American Jewish community on the one hand, and Israel's nationalist camp on the other. This week we saw the impact of both campaigns.


Caroline Glick delivers address to The Jerusalem Post Conference in NYC, Sunday 29 April 2012

Campaign-minded Obama puts self-interest over stopping Iran's nuclearizing against Israel; A handful of Zionist supporters valiantly resist 'Nazi-esque' anti-Jewish rally outside of White House meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu

President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hold a chilly press conference following their White House meeting about whether the 2 countries can afford to wait and see whether current sanctions will deter Iran's mullah regime enough to abandon their nuclear weapons development.



Bob Kunst of Shalom International drove from Florida to the White House, sleeping in his car in the cold, winter night, to protest Obama's abandoning Israel to challenge Iran's offensive nuclear weapons alone.

Meanwhile, nearby, 13,000 people attended the AIPAC Policy Conference- but only 2 (Australian-Israeli Ari and your reporter) showed-up to support Israel against a loud, well-organized throng of hard-leftist activists from Occupy- DC and Code:Pink.

Anglo-Israeli, Ari, is appalled when confronted by the leftist anti-Zionist rally outside of the White House visit of Prime Minister Netanyahu.

Ari says that these anti-Israel rallies are reminiscent of the Nazi campaign rallies organized around "cleansing the world" of Jews- which brought them to power and empowered the public to serve-up their Jewish citizens for annihilation.

What effect will events at AIPAC's Policy Conference have on presidential campaigns?

The annual AIPAC Policy Conference is the largest gathering of the pro-Israel movement. Thousands of participants come from all 50 states to take part in “three of the most important days affecting Israel’s future.” The 2012 conference will be held March 4-6, 2012, in Washington, D.C.

Confirmed speakers: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; Israeli President Shimon Peres; Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY); House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA); Senator Carl Levin (D-MI); Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-CT); Senator Johnny Isakson (R-GA).

How will the early AIPAC Policy Conference this year factor in the Republican Primaries?

In this DemoCast video clip, filmed in Los Angeles in 2010, the current Republican polls leader, Gov. Mitt Romney emphasizes his view of American and Israeli moral exceptionalism.



Republican candidates Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum have been more outspoken about their support of Israel and opposition to political Islamism than Gov. Mitt Romney.



Speaker Newt Gingrich reinforced his Middle East-policy bona fides at this salon appearance following the keynote speech of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at AIPAC '11.

The Ron Paul factor, and the Jews for Obama factor according to analyst and critic, Eric Golub

DemoCast caught-up with pop-culture vulture, Eric Golub, author of "Ideological Idiocy," and publisher of Tygrrrr Express, who shares his perspectivess on the 2012 race for the presidency. He says that Ron Paul supporters are not GOP voters anyway. And that liberal American Jews are more loyal to liberalism than Judaism or Israel.

The Palestinian Conflict is the Excuse of Arab Jew-Haters, Not the Cause of Their Hatred

US Amb. Howard Gutman

President Obama's appointed Ambassador to Belgium, Howard Gutman, made remarks in Belgium in which he attempted to distinguish Muslim anti-Semitism from classic anti-Semitism. He put forth a view shared by Obama that contemporary Muslim anti-Semitism is distinct and caused by perceptions of the Israel-Palestine conflict.  Jonathan S. Tobin challenges this view, excerpted here from Commentary" Conflict is the Excuse of Arab Jew-Haters, Not the Cause of Their Hatred."

"It is true that those who express hatred for Jews and give vent to these feelings are more likely to do so when Israel is in the news. Then they claim it is the conflict or specific actions undertaken by the Jewish state that is the cause of what they say and do. But, as with the “classic anti-Semitism” that Amb. Howard Gutman saw as different from contemporary Arab hate, Israeli actions merely provide an excuse for this prejudice. Israeli actions are not its cause.

The anti-Semitism growing in Britain and throughout Europe did not arise in an ideological or cultural vacuum. Nor did it come to life only after 1948 or 1967. It sprung from Arab propaganda about Israel and Jews virtually identical to the old anti-Semitism and even has used texts such as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as its sourcebook. The calumnies thrown at Israel and its supporters abroad are not the stuff of diplomatic complaints about specific incidents in which Israelis are wrongly alleged to have misbehaved, such as the Gaza offensive or the flotilla. Rather, they are rooted and often expressed in the language and spirit of “traditional” anti-Semitism in which the Jew is a foreign body who is falsely thought to be oppressing innocent gentiles, in this case the Palestinians. European anti-Semites, a growing group comprised of both Muslim immigrants from the Middle East and homegrown leftist intellectuals, aren’t merely upset with Israeli policies. They believe the Jewish state has no right to either exist or defend itself.

Israeli Premier Netanyahu defends Israel's case against Pres. Obama attempting to throw democracy's ally, Israel under his bus

Watch Pres. Obama's press conference following extended discussion with Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu.

Pres. Obama begins, Netanyahu's starts at 7:11 in this clip from PBS NewsHour.

Why Obama's "peace process" will backfire to generate instability throughout the Middle East - Yossi Klein Halevi videos

Yossi Klein Halevi debunks Obama's professed "peace process" as hypocrisy: "If U.S. doesn't pre-empt Iran from going nuclear, Iran will launch a Jihadist war against Israel, exploding the peace-process.The reknowned Israeli thinker and writer, Yossi Klein Halevi, (American-born and raised, currently publishing in The New Republic) returned to the U.S. to explain to Americans how Pres. Obama's behavior and policies towards Israel intentionally undermine the friendship between the countries. Worse, he describes how detrimental, he feels, the Obama Administration's contemptuous treatment of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bullies all Zionists. This sends a signal to the world that "it's now open-season" against the Jewish State.

An obvious example of that, Mr. Halevi says, is Britain's expelling the head of the Mossad desk in the Israeli Embassy in London. The message to the jihadists, he believes, is to encourage Iran (through its proxies Hizbollah or Hamas) to open a limited front of attacks against Israel, with the expectation that Obama will step-in and prevent Israel from comprehensively eliminating the threat, while publicly diminishing Israel's public image by portraying him as having to restrain their aggression.



In this DemoCast video of Mr. Halevi's speech in Los Angeles on April 22nd, Halevi explains many of his views on the relationship and the situation, including how Obama's ambition to force creating a Palestinian State with a hostile Palestinian population would be an existential threat to Israel. If Obama doesn't stop Iran from going nuclear, there will be no possibility of peace in the Middle East, as Jihad forces (Hamas) in the mid-east will be united around Iran against Israel.

"Obama will be judged by Israel by how he handles the nuclear issue with Iran. And from what we've seen so far, with one deadline after another, we in Israel frankly have zero confidence in the backbone of this Administration." "We are seeing potentially a tragedy of historic proportions." Mr. Halevi deconstructs what he sees as Washington's misguided priorities of achieving stability in the Middle-East. Halevi spoke at Nessah Israel Synagogue in L.A. at an 22 April event organized by 30 Years After (and co-sponsored by the Jewish Journal, and OLAM Magazine).

In this, Part II, question and answer session, Mr. Halevi deconstructs what he sees as Washington's misguided priorities of achieving stability in the Middle-East. Halevi spoke at Nessah Israel Synagogue in L.A. at an 22 April event organized by 30 Years After (and co-sponsored by the Jewish Journal, and OLAM Magazine).



Olam's editor, David Suissa, postulates on Obama's motives with Halevi during the question and answer session in this video - characterized in Mr. Suissa's Op/Ed in the Jewish Journal of L.A.:

"For about an hour, Halevi had us riveted with his anatomy of a deteriorating relationship. At the end, the big question lingered: Why would Obama act this way toward a great ally? If it’s not anti-Semitism or tough love, is there a larger narrative that speaks to the soul of the man — a narrative that might explain why he bows to America’s foes and mistreats America’s friends?