President Barack Obama’s call yesterday for “restraint on all sides” as defenseless Coptic Christians were attacked and murdered in Egypt in a government-supported Islamic pogrom was typical of his administration’s response to attacks by states against civilians.

Though he has, in some cases, come around to criticizing and even toppling regimes, Obama’s first instinct is to treat the perpetrators and the victims as equals.

The sole, and repeated, exception is Israel, which the Obama administration criticizes and condemns for legal activities such as construction within the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem. By contrast, the administration coddles the unrepentant, terror-promoting Palestinian leadership–a fruitless effort, greeted with contempt rather than gratitude.

The same tendency is apparent in Obama’s newly-uncovered attempt to apologize for the atomic blast at Hiroshima, which the Japanese, appropriately, rejected. Obama has had trouble, especially early in his presidency, distinguishing defense from aggression–especially when that defense is on behalf of western democracy.

That is worse than moral equivalence; it is “immoral equivalence,” because it destroys the moral distinction between freedom and tyranny. (more…)

For long time Obama watchers this comes as no surprise. Bill Kristol is reporting  that the United States plans to abandon Israel at the UN Security Councel next week.  According to the Weekly Standard Editor, the Obama administration has been informing  foreign governments that it will support a resolution to set up an independent UN Commission to investigate Israeli actions in the guerrilla flotilla incident.

Apparently the President does not care

a) this is an extraordinary singling out of Israel, since all kinds of much worse incidents happen around the world without spurring UN investigations.

b) that the investigation will be one-sided, focusing entirely on Israeli behavior and not on Turkey or on Hamas.

c) that this sets a terrible precedent for outside investigations of incidents involving U.S. troops or intelligence operatives as we conduct our own war on terror.

The most recent  ’independent” investigation of Israel conducted by the UN, the Goldstone Report, threw any standards of investigation out the window. The report violated international standards for inquries, including UN rules on fact- finding. The Commission systematically favored witnesses and evidence put forward by anti-Israel advocates, and dismissed evidence and testimony that would undermine its case. The commission relied extensively on mediating agencies, especially UN and NGOs, which have a documented hostility to Israel; and reproduces earlier reports and claims from these agencies. And that’s just for a start. It is clear that Barack Obama is looking for the UN to create another anti-Israel Kangaroo court.

While UN Ambassador Susan Rice is reported to have played an important role in pushing for U.S. support of a UN investigation, the decision is, one official stressed, of course the president’s. The government of Israel has been consulting with the U.S. government on its own Israeli investigative panel, to be led by a retired supreme court justice, that would include respected international participants, including one from the U.S. But the Obama administration is reportedly saying that such a “kosher panel” is not good enough to satisfy the international community, or the Obama White House.

Remember, earlier this week Obama spoke about his desire for an international of inquiry. Also,  Ambassador Rice’s recommendation was foreshadowed when she remained mute during the UN’s Human Rights Council condemnation of Israel over the indecent.

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In the post-American world, a convoy of war ships trussed up as a “flotilla” is affectionately called “humanitarian aid.” And now the world is demanding a full-on “investigation” of Israel’s defensive action.

I asked former UN Ambassador John Bolton for his take on it. He said, “How Obama reacts in the UN Security Council and more generally will say a lot about his views on Israel.”

You gotta love how post-American Obama was so quick to call policeman James Crowley “stupid,” motivated by racism in the Gates affair, but when Jewish soldiers were getting beaten to a pulp on the killing flotilla, the Obama administration morally equivocated and “condemned those acts which resulted in the loss of life.”

What the hell does that even mean? And Obama and other world leaders are ignoring the fact that, as was reported by the Israel Project, “all nine protesters killed Monday (May 31) aboard a Gaza-bound Turkish ship carrying weapons-wielding activists are believed to be Turkish nationals and were backed by the IHH, an Islamist Turkish group connected to global jihadi networks.”

Has the post-American President Obama bothered to watch the murderous beatings?

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At the end of last week, I was watching President Obama’s speech before the United Nations. I must admit it was given with eloquence and was quite moving. However, for the most part it was rhetoric and the dreams of an idealistic man in Fantasyland. I do not want to really beat a dead horse, but as stated in my last article about the ideology of liberals, President Obama’s foreign policy completely ignores reality. It is almost delusional. Obama dreams about everything being utopian, but ignores the writings on the wall. And, in the process he insults our trusted ally Israel by demanding it stop building settlements without requiring the Palestinians to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist.

The speech was also very Wilsonian. I could imagine the words of Woodrow Wilson pitching the League of Nations to the United States Congress after the end of World War One. The League of Nations “is a definite guaranty of peace. It is a definite guaranty by word against aggression. It is a definite guaranty against the things which have just come near bringing the whole structure of civilization into ruin. Its purposes do not for a moment lie vague. Its purposes are declared, and its powers are unmistakable. It is not in contemplation that this should be merely a league to secure the peace of the world. It is a league which can be used for cooperation in any international matter.” In fact, parts of President Obama’s speech today mirrored these themes exactly. (more…)

One of my favorite features of the Newseum in Washington, DC is the daily display of newspaper front pages from around the world. Today, Canada’s National Post was a standout with Alex Spillius’ coverage of a clash between Presidents Obama and Sarkozy.

obama sarkozy pdf –

Obama: “We must never stop until we see the day when nuclear arms have been banished from the face of the earth.”