Israelis indifferent to Obama visit

Mike L.

{Cross-posted at Israel Thrives and Geoffff's Joint.}

Op-ed: Lack of public interest particularly intriguing as US president repeatedly urged to come to Israel 

Tamar Hermann

President Obama's arrival is just around the corner, and apart from those in charge of the visit in government ministries and secret security agencies – there seem to be no fervent preparations or any special excitement ahead of the visit. It appears that the construction of the new coalition, the distribution of government portfolios and the upcoming Passover holiday with all its family and consumer-related aspects, are overshadowing the upcoming event.

Every thought or slip of the tongue made by Lapid/Bennett are perceived as much more fateful than the president's planned speech this Thursday, and discussions revolving around what we'll be cooking this holiday are more heated than those dealing with the approaching visit's positive or negative potential.

Not only is Obama not well-liked in Israel, but his administration has been lowering expectations since we first started hearing about this trip.  I suspect that our friend "Ziontruth" would agree with that assessment because the less western powers seek to impose their will upon Israel the better off everyone is, including the Palestinian-Arabs.

Obama's decision to deliver his address at Jerusalem's International Convention Center in front of students rather than at the Knesset – is particularly intriguing in light of the fact that many in Israel and abroad it recommended such a visit repeatedly.

Obama's decision to not speak before the Knesset represents his general dismissal of Israeli concerns as a whole.  I suppose that I have been frustrated over the last few years in how Obama's Jewish supporters not only overlook all these little symbolic gestures of contempt, but even overlook or dismiss or apologize for the foreseeable negative results of his actual behavior.  I tend to harp on the Brotherhood as regular readers of these pages know, but it remains unfathomable to me why Barack Obama would seek to help the rise of political Islam in the Middle East.

It's a mystery, tho many of our participants do not find it mysterious, at all.  There are those who argue that Obama favors political Islam because he favors political Islam.

Period.  End of story.

I prefer to be generous to my President in the hope that he may not be malicious... merely ideologically misguided and not terribly bright.

What remains more mysterious is why so many American Jews don't mind the fact that Obama supported the rise of the premier anti-Semitic organization in the world today?

How is it possible, you may ask yourself?

So it is quite surprising that when the visit is actually happening, the hosts seem unenthusiastic. What does the Jewish public in Israel think about the president and his visit to the region, and can that explain the apparent lack of interest we are witnessing?

I don't know about Arab-Israelis, but the Jews of the Middle East are entirely uninterested in Obama's visit because they know he's no friend to them and because they know that he is weak and increasingly irrelevant.  You can bet that if Obama had said something like, "I am coming to Israel in order to bring peace to the region," they would have stood up and taken a great deal of notice.

They would have run for the friggin' hills, in fact.

The very notion that Barack Obama would try to bring "peace" to Israel would have caused a panic among reasonable people, both Muslim and Jewish, throughout the region.

Many of them, and for very good reason, would have immediately run out to stockpile serious weaponry because the Israelis understand that whenever the west seeks to impose peace that the bloodshed is going to ramp up, as we saw with the Second Terror War after Arafat dismissed Bill Clinton.

I find myself, therefore, reasonably pleased that Obama might have the decency to approach things with a smidge of  modesty this time around.   With any luck, he won't start telling the Jewish people where we may, or may not, be allowed to live in Judea.

My suggestion to the Israelis is to ignore the guy as much as politically possible.  Be nice to him.  Feed him a good lunch and dinner.  Pat him on the head.

And then send him on his merry way.