When President Obama traveled to Israel, the American press hailed it as a new beginning–a do-over of the way President Obama had treated Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu during the President’s first term. President Obama did say a lot of the right things when he spoke to Israel–he seems to understand to some degree that in order for Israel to survive, they may have to attack Iran. But there is another part of the story.
On Friday, Paul Mirengoff at Power Line reported:
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu apologized today to Turkey for an Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla. The apology is, of course, the handiwork of President Obama. Indeed, Netanyahu made the call during an airport meeting with Obama shortly before Obama mercifully left Israel.
The apology is a humiliation for Israel, which had nothing for which to be sorry. Netanyahu’s statement — which he wisely resisted making for three years — will not improve Israeli relations with Turkey. Relations are poor not because of the flotilla incident, but because Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan, a good friend of Obama’s, is an Israel-hating Islamist.
Prime Minister Erdogan has been systematically moving his country away from its previously secular government into a Muslim state. He has cancelled military operations with Israel (which used to be routine) and condemned the State of Israel whenever possible.
The article at Power Line cites some of Prime Minister Erdogan’s recent statements:
How much does Erdogan hate Israel? Daniel Pipes reminds us that last month, Erdogan stated: “Just like Zionism, anti-Semitism and fascism, Islamophobia must be regarded as a crime against humanity.” And three days ago, Erdogan stood by his claim that Zionism, the principle upon which Israel is founded, constitutes a crime against humanity.
He really does not sound as if he wants to make friends.
Andrew McCarthy posted an article at PJMedia on Saturday which provided more information on the flotilla that was the source of the problem:
The lowlight of President Obama’s Middle East trip is his strong-arming of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into a humiliating apology to Turkey’s Islamic-supremacist government over Israel’s defense in 2010 of its blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza. The blockade was subjected to a terrorist offensive camouflaged as a humanitarian flotilla. The spearhead of the siege was the Mavi Marmara, a vessel controlled by a Turkish jihadist organization, the IHH, that is a part of the Union of Good, a formally designated terrorist organization under American law. Due to President Obama’s close relations with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Obama administration has resisted congressional calls to designate the IHH itself as a terrorist organization – sparing itself the embarrassment of noticing the intimate collusion of Erdogan’s ruling Islamist party and the jihadist group.
President Obama is not a friend of Israel. He may pose as a friend, but his actions show that he is not a friend.
