Hillary Clinton Enables Obama’s Anti-Israel Vendetta By Jennifer Rubin
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/
While Hillary Clinton won’t say anything of substance herself, the New York Times reports her views on Israel via a third party, Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations:
“Secretary Clinton thinks we need to all work together to return the special U.S.-Israel relationship to constructive footing, to get back to basic shared concerns and interests, including a two-state solution pursued through direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians,” Mr. Hoenlein said in a statement issued by his organization on Sunday evening. “We must ensure that Israel never becomes a partisan issue,” he quoted her as saying. Mrs. Clinton knows Mr. Hoenlein from her time in the Senate.
As a preliminary matter, let me suggest that rather than help her remain vague and noncommittal, leaders of pro-Israel organizations should demand some specific answers as to her views before providing helpful summaries that maintain her pro-Israel posturing. Frankly, it is a measure of how little she cares about the Jewish state that, even on this issue at a time of peril in the relationship between the two countries, she will not make simple representations.
It is wrong to threaten Israel with allowing anti-Israel resolutions to pass the United Nations Security Council. Would that be so hard? Perhaps Clinton agrees with President Obama and could not make such a statement.
Attempting a reconciliation with Iran at the expense of Israel and our allies is dangerous and unworkable. Would that be possible for Clinton to say? Again, maybe she likes the Obama rapprochement with the mullahs; certainly she has endorsed his diplomatic efforts while telling Congress to hold off on sanctions.
Singling out Israel to blame for the absence of a peace process is wrong and unfair since we know Israel has repeatedly offered the Palestinians a state of their own, has withdrawn from territories and uprooted inhabitants (in Gaza, for example) and has frozen settlements for a time at the request of the United States while the Palestinian Authority has never given up on the right of return, acknowledged Israel as a Jewish state or ceased to incite violence. That is probably a tough one since in office Clinton berated the prime minister about housing, elevated the issue of housing, refused to recognized a prior understanding between the United States and Israel on housing and made little or no effort to address corruption and other maladies within the PA. And who can forget her role in ambushing the prime minister with the “pre-1967 borders” speech.
Maybe she was willfully blind to the direction her policies were heading or maybe she lacked the political courage to speak up, but the erosion in the U.S.-Israel relationship began on her watch. And since leaving office she — maybe the only figure in the country who could rally Democrats — has been silent while the administration publicly and through background leaks has berated the prime minister, widened the rift between the two countries and thrown concession after concession at the feet of Iran’s mullahs. She did not criticize the president for suggesting that killings of Jews in a French kosher market was “random” or speak out about the rising scourge of anti-Semitism in Europe. For all her concern about the plight of women and girls, neither in office or since leaving has she highlighted the plight of women, say, in Gaza or elsewhere. She was, however, happy to take millions for her foundation from governments that back Hamas (Qatar) and persecute women. Sorry, but she’s an enabler in Obama’s anti-Israel vendetta.
Hillary Clinton is second to none in evading responsibility, but on this the question is presented: Are Jewish voters going to hold her accountable for her actions, demand nothing of her in the campaign and still vote for her in overwhelming numbers? I suppose so, but it would be a delightful surprise if prominent Jewish supporters and leaders would speak up. It is only because they demand nothing that she feels free to do anything. Perhaps Martin O’Malley will run as the pro-Israel Democrat. (Might I suggest he and Harvey Weinstein talk?) When it comes to being a “friend of Israel,” Hillary Clinton is a fraud.
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