Reponse to Halevy who defends Obama

Efraim Halevy, the former director of Israel’s Mossad, has penned a most peculiar column published in The New York Times.http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/from-under-the-bus-a-response-to-efraim-halevy-and-the-nytimes/

Halevy maintains that “no Democratic president has ever strong-armed Israel on any key national security issue,” and that Republican presidents were the ones who have thrown Israel “under the bus.”

Halevy used to be a serious man.  But his unserious analysis is as incomplete as it is irrelevant. In fact, it amounts to historical malpractice.

Halevy’s airbrushed “history” leaves out Republican then-president Nixon’s extraordinary backing of Israel in the Yom Kippur War, and Ronald Reagan’s formalization of strategic cooperation with Israel, which created the web of ties between the Pentagon and IDF and the progressive strengthening of Israel’s military capability still in effect today. He omits Republican presidents who fought bitterly against the United Nations’ “Zionism is Racism” resolution — and finally got that resolution repealed — and ignores then-president George W. Bush’s diplomatic cover for the Second Lebanon War.

Somehow, Halevy’s history lesson also conveniently glosses over Democrat president Clinton’s relentless pressure on Israel to make concessions in the face of bloody Palestinian violations of the Oslo accords, and welcoming Yasser Arafat to the White House more than any other foreign leader. And where is his analysis of Democrat president Johnson’s leaving Israel abandoned and alone to face the tightening noose of genocidal Arab armies in 1967?

What makes Halevy’s piece both pointless and partisan is that he uses these cherry-picked lists to suggest that, due to this “historical record,” voters should support President Obama. Yet, although President Obama has his own record — and what a record it is — regarding Israel, Halvey has nary a word to say about it.  Furthermore, Governor Mitt Romney has a sterling record of support for Israel, and a staunchly pro-Israel foreign policy team; yet Halevy deems this unworthy of comment. What kind of analysis of the election ignores entirely any analysis of the actual candidates or their records?

Just a sampling of what Halevy skips: How did Halevy omit Obama’s deliberate policy of publicly putting “daylight” between America and Israel? Or his administration’s publicly calling Israel “an ungrateful ally”? Or publicly announcing that America would not be “complicit” in any strike against construction of Iran’s holocaust-in-a-suitcase? Or publicly condemning Israel for building apartments in Jerusalem, even though such development specifically was not part of any construction freeze? Or publicly undermining Israel by endorsing Palestinian positions even before any negotiations began? Or publicly calling on Israel to go back to its 1949 “Auschwitz borders” as a starting point for those negotiations? Or publicly tearing up agreements made by prior administrations regarding settlement blocs? Or publicly calling on Israel to apologize for the Gaza flotilla incident?

As a big proponent of public transportation, Obama has fleets of public buses under which he has thrown Israel. Halevy should try looking under at least one.