Obama draws moral equivalence between Hamas massacre and Israeli ‘occupation’

When Israel faces “a barbaric attack from Hamas, Obama blames Israel”; Israeli MK rejects US talk of handing Gaza to Palestinian Authority

By Israel Today Staff | | Topics: Hamas, America
Few Israelis are surprised to find Barack Obama taking sides against them. Photo by Kobi Gideon/GPO
Few Israelis are surprised to find Barack Obama taking sides against them. Photo by Kobi Gideon/GPO

Although he allowed that there is no justification for Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel, former US President Barack Obama appeared to equate the massacre to what he said was Israel’s “unbearable” treatment of Palestinians.

In the interview on Pod Save America, a podcast run by four alumni of Obama’s administration, the former president said, “If there is any chance of us being able to act constructively to do something, it will require an admission of complexity and maintaining what on the surface may seem contradictory ideas.”

He went on to explain that “what Hamas did was horrific, and there is no justification for it. And what is also true is that the occupation, and what’s happening to Palestinians, is unbearable.”

Also true, he said, “Is that there is a history of the Jewish people that may be dismissed unless your grandparents, or your great-grandparents, or your uncle or your aunt tell you stories about the madness of antisemitism.”

At the same time, he continued, “There are people right now who are dying who have nothing to do with what Hamas did.”

“And what is true,” Obama continued, “I mean, we can go on for a while.”

He said that one can pretend but can’t really speak the truth on social media. He added that “nobody’s hands are clean” and that “all of us are complicit to some degree.”

According to Matt Brooks, CEO of the Republican Jewish Coalition, it is Obama that is complicit.

When Israel faces “a barbaric attack from Hamas, Obama blames Israel,” said Brooks.

“It is Barack Obama who is complicit in the death and suffering over the last month in Israel and in Gaza. His policies and those of President Joe Biden put billions of dollars into Iranian coffers, money used to fund and train Hamas and other terrorist groups whose stated goals are the destruction of Israel and the annihilation of Jews,” he continued. “Obama’s attempt to dilute his own culpability in this situation doesn’t change the facts.”

Gilead Ini, a senior research analyst at the Committee For Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA) watchdog, wrote that both the structure of Obama’s comments and their timing were “amoral.”

“The equivalence between Oct. 7 and a geopolitical conflict (one that’s unsolved and no small part because Palestinian rejection of peace) minimizes the horrors of the former,” wrote Ini. “We have most months of most years to pontificate about the occupation. Not now,” he added.

“On the one hand, children, grandparents and civilians [were] kidnapped, slaughtered en masse, burned and beheaded a few weeks ago. On the other hand, the land swaps in Olmert’s 2008 peace offer left 0.7% difference between Israeli and West Bank lands exchanged. Stop,” he said.

“Gaza, by the way, wasn’t occupied on Oct. 6,” he noted.

According to Israeli philosopher Yoram Hazony, it was Obama’s “complexity” theory that led directly to the current situation in the Middle East.

“Yes, he’s right about his own ‘complicity.’ He created this hell with his own hands,” wrote Hazony. “Obama’s theory of the ‘complexity’ of the Middle East—from which he concluded that Iran needs to be strengthened so it can ‘balance’ Israel,” led directly to the current crisis, he continued.

Morton Klein, national president of the Zionist Organization of America, called the former president the “Israel-hater-in-chief,” and Abraham Foxman, the former Anti-Defamation League leader, called Obama’s remark that no one has clean hands “simplistic arrogance.”

 

Likud lawmaker blasts US talk of handing Gaza to PA

A Likud parliamentarian has slammed a US proposal to hand over control of the Gaza Strip to the Palestinian Authority after Israel’s military operation to destroy Hamas, as well as US calls to provide the Palestinians with fuel.

Amit Halevy said that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who has repeatedly voiced support for Israel’s right to self-defense, was both contradicting himself and “slapping Israel in the face” by pressing these positions.

“While Blinken declares his commitment to defeating Hamas, he is compelling us, at the same time, to provide Hamas with essential resources, including food, water and most notably fuel, which serves as the lifeblood for Hamas’s tunnels of destruction,” Halevy wrote on his Facebook page Saturday night. “Fuel is what enables them to maintain the supply of electricity, air, water and the continued production of rockets and other weaponry in the tunnel-based weapons manufacturing facilities.”

Israel has so far resisted in providing the Palestinians with fuel, noting that Hamas is hoarding more than half a million liters (over 132,000 gallons) under Gaza’s central Dar Al-Shifa Hospital.

“And while Blinken vows that he will do everything to prevent a recurrence of the events of Oct. 7, he pushes for giving control of Gaza to the Palestinian Authority, whose members, exactly like Hamas, advocate for the destruction of Israel and applaud Hamas’s murderous Nazi-like massacre of Jews, seeking to emulate them,” wrote Halevy.

“On both of these points, Blinken is actually demanding that the soldiers of Israel and the Jewish state be sacrificed on the idolatrous altar of the Palestinian Nazi lie,” the lawmaker wrote.

Earlier this month, an Israeli NGO released a video compilation of senior Palestinian Authority officials expressing their support for Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre in southern Israel.

Blinken arrived in the Jewish state on Friday for his third visit since the start of the war.

The top American diplomat met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other members of the War Cabinet including Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and ministers-without-portfolio Benny Gantz and Gadi Eizenkot.

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3 responses to “Obama draws moral equivalence between Hamas massacre and Israeli ‘occupation’”

  1. Vernon Ryan says:
    November 5, 2023 at 9:14 pm

    Biden and Blinken think as much about Israeli’s as they did Americans left behind in Afghanistan, and now Gaza. The left, never changes.

  2. Robert Dyer says:
    November 6, 2023 at 4:36 pm

    “I will bless them that blessed thee and curse them that curseth thee.” God’s eternal love and promise to Israel.

  3. Robert Dyer says:
    November 6, 2023 at 4:41 pm

    Sorry Obama, it’s God’s son the messiah of Israel and savior for all mankind who believe that will Rule the world from Jerusalem.

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