Embracing Obama

Obama is no more hostile to Israel than many Israelis on the Left and in the concerned middle.

By ANNE ROIPHE
Obama cartoon 521 (photo credit: Avi Katz)
Obama cartoon 521
(photo credit: Avi Katz)
A lot of talk about how bad US President Barack Obama is for Israel swirls through Jewish communities in America. Of course, that means all Israel-loving American Jews should vote for a Republican in the presidential elections next November – any Republican, preferably one beloved by Evangelicals, because they love Zion so much.
But wait a minute. This claim that Obama is bad for Israel is based on his opposition to the continued building of settlements. It is based on his push for a return to the table and resumption of the peace talks, those same peace talks that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would rather pause, a long pause, maybe an eon or two.
We remember when the Oslo peace process between Israel and the Palestinians looked possible. But we also remember that some forces inside Israel were so opposed to the accord that they encouraged the assassination of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin. Obama probably would have been a supporter of Oslo, but back then so were most American politicians, Republicans included. Large parts of the Jewish community also then supported Oslo, hoping for a just and lasting peace, which would bring an end to the threats rising from all surrounding nations and factions.
So Obama is no more hostile to Israel than many Israelis on the Left and in the concerned middle. He is no more hostile to the survival of Israel than many American Jews who also believe in a two-state solution, in compromise, in talks and in an end to the expropriation of land on which Palestinian villagers tend their farms and orchards.
This campaign to make Obama seem like a dangerous figure, willing to sacrifice the Jewish state for some other political agenda is nasty and deceitful. Yes, politics as usual, but shame on those that are using fear to herd Jews into the Republican camp. And Jews, for very good reasons, can be made fearful as fast as tsunamis can roll across the beach.
Netanyahu has been disrespectful of Obama, and many in the American Jewish world are eager to follow his lead. The Republican Party is naturally delighted to sweep up the Jewish votes this will bring them. With sufficient antagonism to Obama, states like Florida might fall into line behind a Republican presidential candidate – any Republican, no matter how bizarre his or her economic positions might be or how little he or she knows about foreign policy or how benighted his or her attitudes towards gays or the working poor, or disadvantaged children, may be.
Yes, American social divisions and economic battles are not about Israel at all. But we can’t ignore the views of the Republican primary voters who cheered at one of the Republican debates at the suggestion that a 30-year-old man be allowed to die if he couldn’t afford health insurance. Those values remain in philosophical opposition to the Jewish way of living and thinking; they reflect an awed respect for America’s winners and contempt for the vast populace in trouble. This unkind and un-Jewish vision of the world, in the end, will be really dangerous for Jews and for Israel. It will push us into conflicts and in the end what we fear most will really happen.
I understand the “the welfare of Israel is my primary issue” kind of voting. And if I really believed that Obama’s vision of a two-state solution were a danger to the existence of Israel I would vote against him too. But I won’t be stampeded into that view by a loud campaign by some American Jews who have pushed right-wing Israeli policies for years.
The two-state solution and a genuine attempt at achieving it seems the only way to reach a peaceful and permanent homeland, a nation of Jews, for Jews. To stall endlessly, to eat up more Palestinian land, to infuriate all the Arab countries and to alienate the rest of the world, is not a prudent or promising political path. In the end you will have a land that cannot be democratic or it cannot be Jewish, and neither of those ultimate situations will make us safe or bring us an Israel that will last through another half century.
I understand that many American Jews do not want to be critical of Israel because so many forces in the world are allied against it. This makes us want to circle our arms around our vulnerable and besieged state and deny any moral or political missteps it may be taking. But in the end we in America will harm the country we love if we don’t stand with those inside its borders who see disaster in triumphalist policies and hope in compromise.
Obama is not perfect but he is a decent, fair, thinking man who knows that Israel must tame its wildest ambitions and return to its Ben-Gurion roots, which included a willingness to compromise on borders, and military vigilance combined with openness to the changing world around it.
If Obama is re-elected he will not ignore the need for justice in the Middle East. And if American Jews yearn for a safe and secure Israel they should yearn for an American president, like Obama, who wants just that for all the peoples in the area. Our security depends on every other group also feeling comfortable, able to make their own nation.
Obama should be embraced by Jews, even tough Jews, even Arab-hating Jews, even American Jews who want to sleep in safety in their own homes.