President Obama has urged us to have a conversation about race, ever since he became President. So let’s do that. Is it possible that the president is a bigot? Let’s look at the facts. Whenever policemen and white people have been shot, murdered or ambushed, the president has remained quiet. However, when African-Americans and minorities have been brutally attacked by whites, we have received a lecture about the importance of improved race relations.
The United States refused to veto a resolution that essentially turned Israel into a pariah state violating international law. This can lead to all kinds of sanctions and international criminal sanctions against Israel. Why would the United States refuse to veto such a United Nations resolution when it has done so in the past?
The United States occupies Puerto Rico, runs its financial affairs and refuses to give Puerto Ricans the right to vote in U.S. elections. China occupies Tibet Russia occupies the Ukraine and the list goes on. Only Israel has been sanctioned and criticized. If that is not enough, Ben Rhodes, the president’s spokesperson, made it clear that he was in effect punishing the uppity Jew, Benjamin Netanyahu, for having the audacity to speak out against the president when he thought President Obama was wrong.
Under prior United Nations decisions and resolutions, Jews should have a right to live anywhere in Palestine. Palestine is defined as the Jewish national homeland from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean and from Egypt in the south to Lebanon in the north. Now, it seems the administration and the rest of the world want to create another terrorist regime on the West Bank of the Jordan River which will be an Arab state called, “Palestine.” This is an undemocratic totalitarian regime run by corrupt dictators. Is this really what the United States wants?
Certainly Obama knows what he is doing. He knows a little bit about the law and how to get around it. In 1967 Israel won a war of survival. This was a war in which many Arab states attempted to eradicate the Jews from their national homeland. Israel won that war and came to occupy the land that the League of Nations had promised to the Jews after World War I.
It seems that Obama, however, was very angry about the fact that Jews were interested in living anywhere within the League of Nations’ definition of Palestine. The United States sought to establish another Arab fundamentalist terrorist regime in the Middle East. That is the only way we can look at it. When Gaza was given its independence, it turned into a hornet’s nest of terror. Apparently the United States, under the Obama regime, seeks the same for the West Bank of the Jordan River.
Bear in mind Israel is half the size of New Jersey. The land is tiny. The country Obama envisions would be four miles wide at its narrowest point. Essentially, the administration is attempting to put Israel in the box whereby it would not be survivable in the Arab world. 150,000 Hezbollah missiles sit poised ready to strike Israel and Lebanon. Syria is a wreck and the rest of the Middle East is aflame.
The Obama administration has done nothing about the terror of Arabs against Arabs or Arabs against Western interests. Nevertheless, the administration found it necessary to refrain from vetoing a resolution that would weaken Israel to the point where it would not be able to survive in any significant military way. Why would an African-American President who knows something about racism do that?
It is clear that from the beginning of his term President Obama regarded Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israelis in general as conservative Jews, who should be completely dependent on the President’s will and the whim of those in positions of power. The fact that Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke before Congress at the invitation of a Republican Senator infuriated President Obama and he was determined to get even. He was angry that the Israelis refused to knuckle under to his political pressure and to be subservient in the way that African-Americans traditionally were degraded by white southern racists.
The president’s actions reek of the very bigotry that African-Americans suffered throughout the course of the United States history both as slaves and later under American apartheid politics. Black people were treated as inferior and therefore became inferior.
President Obama seems intent upon imposing the same system of racism and bigotry against the Jewish people and Israel specifically. It is easy to say that this is simply hypocrisy. It is difficult to talk about. Jews and Blacks have been linked in the struggle for civil rights ever since the founding of this republic.
Alexander Hamilton, one of the architects of this nation, formed the first anti-slavery society in New York and was very strongly pro-Jewish. Hamilton understood the fact that these minorities should work together to overcome racism and bigotry.
A number of years ago I wrote to President Carter about his repulsive political diatribe equating Israel with South African apartheid politics. The former President wrote back to me and made notes on the letter which I wrote to him. He claimed that he was not a racist and that most “Jews agree with me.”
It is true that there are Uncle Toms in every facet of society. There is always a kapo willing to undermine and sell out his own people. Jews have experienced that as have Blacks and other minority groups.
The real issue concerning the president’s refusal to veto the anti-Israel resolution in the United Nations, is whether the president has harbored malice against the Jewish people and the leaders of Israel. The president is intent, upon leaving office, to put those annoying aggressive Jews in their place. He is doing to the Jewish people and the State of Israel what has been done to black people for millennia.
The president apparently has forgotten that American blacks were sold into slavery not only by other Blacks but most importantly by Muslim North African slave traders. The black man was hunted down in Africa by black tribes and was exchanged for cash by the Muslims of North Africa. Non Muslim Blacks are being butchered in South Sudan while the world ignores their plight. This President, who is supposed to know his history, is nevertheless angry at the Jewish leaders of Israel who stood up to his sanctimonious, hypocritical behavior. He has been able to strike the last blow.
The president’s actions may or may not be reversed in the future. It has always been difficult for the Jew in hostile worlds to survive. It is particularly painful when another minority group member behaves in a way which can only be described as bigoted, limited, and narrow-minded. Hopefully, the strategic alliance between Jews and other minority groups will survive the president’s unforgivable behavior.
Rieders, who practices law in Williamsport, is past president of the Pennsylvania Trial Lawyers Association.
This article was published by the PA Sun Gazette and may be found here.