The Source of Obama’s Anti-Israel Policy

Bishop Jackson is a black, Harvard-educated retired attorney and an author who definitely “gets it.”

Like Obama, I am a graduate of Harvard Law School.  I too have Muslims in my
family.  I am black, and I was once a leftist Democrat.  Since our
backgrounds are somewhat similar, I perceive something in Obama’s policy
toward Israel, which people without that background may not see.  All my
life I have witnessed a strain of anti-Semitism in the black community.  It
has been fueled by the rise of the Nation of Islam and Louis Farrakhan, but
it predates that organization.

We heard it in Jesse Jackson’s “HYMIE town” remark years ago during his
presidential campaign.  We heard it most recently in Jeremiah Wright’s
remark about “them Jews” not allowing Obama to speak with him.  I hear it
from my own Muslim family members who see the problem in the Middle East as
a “Jew” problem.

Growing up in a small, predominantly black urban community in Pennsylvania,
I heard the comments about Jewish shop owners.  They were “greedy cheaters”
who could not be trusted, according to my family and others in the
neighborhood.  I was too young to understand what it means to be Jewish, or
know that I was hearing anti-Semitism.  These people seemed nice enough to
me, but others said they were “evil”.  Sadly, this bigotry has yet to be
eradicated from the black community.

In Chicago, the anti-Jewish sentiment among black people is even more
pronounced because of the direct influence of Farrakhan and the Nation of
Islam.  Most African Americans are not followers of “The Nation”, but many
have a quiet respect for its leader because, they say, “he speaks the truth”
and “stands up for the black man”.  What they mean of course is that he
viciously attacks the perceived “enemies” of the black community white
people and Jews.  Even some self-described Christians buy into his
demagoguery.

The question is whether Obama, given his Muslim roots and experience in
Farrakhan’s Chicago, shares this antipathy for Israel and Jewish people.  Is
there any evidence that he does?  First, the President was taught for twenty
years by a virulent anti-Semite, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright.  In the black
community, it is called “sitting under”.  You don’t merely attend a church,
you “sit under” a Pastor to be taught and mentored by him.  Obama “sat
under” Wright for a very long time.  He was comfortable enough with
Farrakhan, Wright’s friend, to attend and help organize his “Million Man
March“.  I was on C-Span the morning of the march arguing that we must never
legitimize a racist and anti-Semite, no matter what “good” he claims to be
doing.  Yet a future President was in the crowd giving Farrakhan his
enthusiastic support.

The classic left wing view is that Israel is the oppressive occupier, and
the Palestinians are Israel’s victims.  Obama is clearly sympathetic to this
view.  In speaking to the “Muslim World,” he did not address the widespread
Islamic hatred of Jews.  Instead, he attacked Israel over the growth of West
Bank settlements.  Surely, he knows that settlements are not the crux of the
problem.  The absolute refusal of the Palestinians to accept Israel’s right
to exist as a Jewish state is the insurmountable obstacle.  That’s where the
pressure needs to be placed, but this President sees it differently.  He
also made the preposterous comparison of the Holocaust to Palestinian
“dislocation”.

Obama clearly has Muslim sensibilities.  He sees the world and Israel from a
Muslim perspective.  His construct of “The Muslim World” is unique in modern
diplomacy.  It is said that only The Muslim Brotherhood and other radical
elements of the religion use that concept.  It is a call to unify Muslims
around the world.  It is rather odd to hear an American President use it.
In doing so he reveals more about his thinking than he intends.  The
dramatic policy reversal of joining the unrelentingly ant-Semitic,
anti-Israel and pro-Islamic UN Human Rights Council is in keeping with the
President’s truest albeit undeclared sensibilities.

Those who are paying attention and thinking about these issues do not find
it unreasonable to consider that President Obama is influenced by a strain
of anti-Semitism picked up from the black community, his leftist friends and
colleagues, his Muslim associations and his long period of mentorship under
Jeremiah Wright.  If this conclusion is accurate, Israel has some dark days
ahead.  For the first time in her history, she may find the President of the
United States siding with her enemies.  Those who believe as I do that
Israel must be protected had better be ready for the fight.  We are.

NEVER AGAIN!

E.W. Jackson is Bishop of Exodus Faith Ministries, an author and retired
attorney.