By Benjamin Weinthal

The Obama administration’s pressure-point campaign to turn Israel’s planned construction of 1,600 apartments in an east Jerusalem neighborhood into the sine qua non of Middle East peace conforms to Europe’s woefully flawed Israeli-Palestinian policy. Dissolution of Israeli settlements in the disputed territories has been the be-all and end-all of Europe’s incurably naïve strategy, at the expense of attention to Iran’s nuclear-weapons program.

To the Bush administration, and Dick Cheney in particular, the highly jingoistic Islamic regime was the first-priority obstacle to greater stability in the region. Obama and Hilary Clinton, on the other hand, mirror the EU’s longstanding, anti-Israeli view of settlements as the chief impediment to peace. Yet Tehran’s proxy terror troops in Lebanon (Hezbollah) and in Gaza (Hamas) were responsible for Israel’s two self-defense wars in 2006 and 2008–2009. Obama’s bizarre fixation on an apartment complex even as Iran races to develop a nuclear arsenal and arm its subsidiaries shows that his administration’s policy is limping on both legs.

By slouching toward the EU with his strong-armed criticism of Israel, Obama has opened more floodgates of Israel-bashing across Europe. The major European media — and leading politicians — are largely devouring the rift between Israel and the White House. Widely considered to be the most pro-Israel EU head of state, German chancellor Angela Merkel has followed Obama’s lead and exploited U.S-Israeli tensions to slam Israel during her visit to Lebanon. To repair U.S-Israeli relations and promote security in the region, Obama has an escape hatch: painful and crippling sanctions to destabilize the Ahmadinejad/Khamenei regime and advance Iran’s pro-democracy movement. http://article.nationalreview.com/428185/the-worst-crisis-in-35-years/nro-symposium?page=5

See also: Breaking with Israel
Regarding Israel, a lifetime of extremist associations has infected Obama with an emotional loathing for the Jewish state and a romantic vision of Palestinian terrorists as freedom fighters. (Anti-Israeli and naked anti-Jewish rhetoric is endemic within left-wing hate-church congregations, such as that led by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.)
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/breaking_with_israel_40EjmsZxdOigwkLAQAFqhJ

Und: Über die Krise zwischen der Obama-Regierung und Israel
http://zeitungfuerdeutschland.wordpress.com/2010/03/18/uber-die-krise-zwischen-der-obama-regierung-und-israel/

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