Paul Revere by Cyrus Dallin, North End, Boston

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Friday, March 22, 2013

President Obama Receives Highest Civilian Honor from Israel



Obama first sitting president to receive Medal of Distinction in Israel


"President Obama received Israel’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Distinction presented by President Shimon Peres at a state dinner."




Barack Obama visited Israel in the third month of his second term in office.

George W. Bush went during the last year of his presidency and his father, George H. W. Bush never went.

You know who else never went to Israel during his 8 years in office?

If you said Ronald Reagan, you'd be correct.

So, to review, Barack Obama, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, all went to Israel during their presidencies, while Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush never went, and George W. Bush went in the LAST year of his presidency.

And how many times have I read on rightwing blogs that President Obama disrespects Israel?  Is no friend of Israel?  

A lot.

And those bloggers obviously don't know what they're talking about.


By MARY BRUCE (@marykbruce) and JONATHAN KARL (@jonkarl) 
JERUSALEM, March 20, 2013 

"Seeking to reassure the United States's primary ally in the Middle East, President Obama today told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that his administration remains committed to doing "what is necessary" to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. "We do not have a policy of containment when it comes to a nuclear Iran. Our policy is to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon," 

Obama told reporters at a joint press conference after a series of closed-door meetings with Israeli leaders. "The United States will continue to consult closely with Israel on next steps. And I will repeat, all options are on the table," he said. It's no secret that Obama and Netanyahu have had a rocky relationship, although it was hard to tell by the way the two leaders publicly lauded each other and joked around. 

 During the American presidential campaign, Republicans alleged that President Obama was not committed to protecting Israel, but today Obama and "Bibi," as he called him, appeared at ease in front of the press. 

 Netanyahu even placed Obama's commitment to Israel's right of self-defense above that of any other U.S. president."



To the misinformed wingers who disparage this president and his relations with Israel?  

Do your homework.





Haaretz:

When love was here for a royal visit 

The whole point of Obama's trip to Israel is the pep talk for peace that he delivered in Jerusalem. Peace, the president said, is necessary, just and possible.


David Horovitz in the Times of  Israel

 "It was a deft, brilliantly conceived speech. He told Israelis how moral they are, how admirably creative they are, how smart with those 10 Nobel prizes, how democratic, how prosperous, and how mighty — the most powerful country in the region. He told them that the world’s strongest nation stood unshakably with them. “So long as there is a United States of America, Atem Lo Levad” — you are not alone. 

 And having built them up, convinced them of their near-invincibility, he showed them a theoretical future that he insisted could be realized if they would only trust in their strength sufficiently to take risks for peace. A future in which the security threats will recede. The prosperity will increase. The moral stain of occupation will disappear. All it takes is that determined, constant push for peace. How could they refuse him?"


Yossi Klein Halevi calls it perhaps ” the most passionate Zionist speech ever given by an American president”: 

 "Of course, his embrace had an explicit message for Israelis: Don’t give up on the dream of peace and don’t forget that the Palestinians deserve a state just as you do. But as the repeated ovations from the politically and culturally diverse audience revealed, these are messages that Israelis can hear when couched in affection and solidarity. After four years of missed signals, Obama finally realized that Israelis respond far more to love than to pressure."

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

Only, in the end, will truth win out.

Silverfiddle said...

More homework:

They Still Hate Us

Global Opinion of Obama Slips (Yes, it's from last year. Try and find something newer that has better results. You can't)

The Palestinians Still Hate Us

I'm not blaming Obama for any of this hatred. It predates him.

Just injecting some reality back into the conversation, although it is amusing to watch someone try to put lipstick on a pig...

Silverfiddle said...

So, Shaw and your progressive friends, a question:

What do you think of President Obama continuing Bush's policy of propping up a rotten, hated regime in Jordan?

Les Carpenter said...

I am looking forward to perusing the Memeorandum later today. Should be interesting.

Perhaps he will do a follow up visit?

Jerry Critter said...

You see this over and over again. The republicans accuse the Democrats of doing exactly what they are doing. Talk about projection!

Shaw Kenawe said...

"Just injecting some reality back into the conversation, although it is amusing to watch someone try to put lipstick on a pig.."

I'm not sure reasonable people would call President Obama receiving Israel's highest civilian award putting lipstick on a pig.

No president has ever had perfect foreign policy records, and I disagree with much of Obama's, from drones to having approved of the surge in Afghanistan.

But that doesn't take away from the fact that Israel honors our American president, the first sitting American president to receive such an honor.

That's something we should be proud of, but instead you make a nasty remark about the honor done to our country.

What's really bothering you about this? Angry that Israel didn't send him packing from its country in disgrace?

I have a sneaking suspicion you and a lot of other conservatives are p.o'd because this shows that Mr. Obama is not at all hated by Israel for his Middle East policies.

You'd have taken my head off if I had said the same piggy statement about any conservative president.



Shaw Kenawe said...

PS. Got anymore PIG comparisons for this:

"NYTimes: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Friday apologized in a personal phone call to Turkey’s prime minister for a deadly commando raid on a Turkish ship in 2010, in a sudden reconciliation between the two countries that was partly brokered by President Obama during his visit to Israel this week, according to Israeli, Turkish and American officials."

Jerry Critter said...

I would say SF is trying to deflect the comments on your post. What's wrong, SF. Don't want to discuss the topic?

FreeThinke said...

I seem to remember this award was announced as a planned event back in mid-February.

If I remember correctly, or a long time, during Benjamin Netanyahu's last tenure as Israel's Prime Minister President Obama had insisted that Israel return territories conquered while Israel was forced to fight against Arab aggression, and give up the settlements established on those disputed lands. This created a god deal of tension between the president and Mr. Netanyahu.

According to John Podhoretz of the New York Post, a well-informed, highly articulate neocon, and the son of former leftists Norman Podhoretz and Midge Dector, Mr. Obama has done "a complete 180ยบ" in recent weeks, which of course pleased Shimon Peres and the Knesset no end -- as well it should.

Try to remember that I'm the Conservative-Libertarian one who freely admits that partisans from ALL sides tend to emphasize the negatives and give as little attention possible to the positives when discussing public persons whose views they oppose.

It's a game. All of us play it. I doubt it will ever stop, but that doesn't make it right.

I also believe it's only fair "to give the devil his due," as it were.

skudrunner said...

I think it is great because so few have received this honor. LBJ, JFK, JC, BC, GWB, Powell, Galbraith. That just shows, go there and get a medal, what a wonderful country.

He can put this right beside his Nobel Peace Prize.

LOL Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Les Carpenter said...

Silver, Jordan is not the subject of this post. Your comment seems to be a deflection, or as Ayn Rand might say an evasion of the subject at hand.

S.W. Anderson said...

"To the misinformed wingers who disparage this president and his relations with Israel?

"Do your homework."


But that would mean grappling with, even accepting, facts, truth and stuff like that. It's just so much more comfortable to surf to Worldnut Daily or watch Fox, and to learn about Obama's secret plot to disarm Mercan patriots so they won't be able to share their weapons with valiant Israelis when the inevitable Iranian nuclear blackmail/Second Holocast/holy-war invasion of the whole Middle East to set up an Islamic Caliphate from Algeria to Pakistan gets under way.

S.W. Anderson said...

In a typical display of trollish ignorance, Skudrunner tells us, "I think it is great because so few have received this honor. LBJ, JFK, JC, BC, GWB, Powell, Galbraith. That just shows, go there and get a medal, what a wonderful country."

From the Huffington Post:

"Obama was awarded Israel's Medal of Distinction Thursday night during a lavish dinner. He is the first sitting U.S. president to receive Israel's highest civilian honor."



Shaw Kenawe said...

To the two Anons, I wish you could express your dislike of skudrunner's catty remarks about President Obama's warm welcome in Israel and the honor he received without resorting to calling skudrunner names.

See S.W. Anderson above to see how deftly that's done. He manages to show how absurd skudrunner's remarks are, and he does it with facts...and style.

skudrunner said...

You try to give presbo a compliment and get blasted. Peres and obama exchanged medals, peres got his in june and obama got his this week.

I think that is an honor and a step in the right direction.

Shaw Kenawe said...

skudrunner, you're too cute by half.

Your original comment was NOT a compliment. It was your attempt to diminish Mr. Obama's honor.

I don't know who you hang out with, but commenters here are smart enough to understand sarcasm and cattiness when we read it.

Silverfiddle said...

OK, let's face it directly.

The Israeli government most likely gave it to him to curry favor.

Israel is in a very bad neighborhood surrounded by enemies. Many libertarian-conservatives are taking the Ron Paul line that we should stop sending billions to Israel every year, and many in the American left equate Israelis with modern day Nazis in their outrage over the conflict with the Palestinians.

So Israel sees support eroding globally, and more worrisome, in America.

Now, some global Real Politik:

* The crazy act of sending fighter jets to the muslim bros in Egypt (a continuation of our bipartisan foreign policy) is really about keeping them from attacking Israel.

* The peace deal with Turkey, where Netanyahu apologized to Erdogen, was about maintaining a common front against Iran and the Assad regime in Syria.

* The Hashemite's are teetering in Jorda, when they fall, all hell will break loose, especially for Israel.

None of this is a criticism of Obama. He is just continuing the party line.

Silverfiddle said...

Here's more perspective from a political scientist. There is nothing anti-Obama in the article, indeed, he seems to favor democrat presidents.

Rather, he accurately describes the place Israel finds itself in:

's charm isn't enough to convince a skeptical Israeli public

Nothing happens in a vacuum.

Les Carpenter said...

Nothing happens in a vacuum. Indeed this is true.