Obama's Anti-Zionist Jew II

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has denied calling White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and senior Obama advisor David Axelrod “self-hating Jews."

Whether or not the Prime Minister used the term, increasing criticism by American Jews of Obama signals a split in the American Jewish community.

The trigger for the growing crisis between Israel and the U.S., and among American Jews, is the issue of “settlements” (which Obama labeled as “illegitimate” in his speech in Cairo nearly two months ago) in which he included Jewish communities in eastern Jerusalem.

Obama revealed that Rahm Emanuel, whose father was an Israeli and part of the underground resistance movement under the British Mandate, tells him everything he needs to know about Israel.

Emanuel has pushed Obama into a head-on collision with the Netanyahu government out of a strategy to demonstrate that the pro-Israel lobby American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) no longer speaks for American Jewry.

Obama's game is to try and defeat the Israel lobby from within, since he could not defeat the lobby from outside it.

But that strategy has backfired, turning into a wall of opposition, both in Israel, where Obama’s popularity rating is near-zero, in the U.S. where Emanuel has simply ignored opposing views of major Jewish organizations, and even in the liberal anti-Israeli American press.

The liberal "Washington Post" has criticized Obama on his policy towards Israel, and an editorial on Thursday went even further. Under the title “Tough on Israel - Why: President Obama's battle against Jewish settlements could prove self-defeating,” the newspaper’s editors wrote:

“One of the more striking results of the Obama administration's first six months is that only one country has worse relations with the United States than it did in January: Israel. The new administration has pushed a reset button with Russia and sent new ambassadors to Syria and Venezuela; it has offered olive branches to Cuba and Burma. But for nearly three months it has been locked in a public confrontation with Israel over Jewish housing construction in Jerusalem and the West Bank.”

The newspaper criticized Obama for his “absolutist demand” for a freeze on all building for Jews in Judea and Samaria and eastern Jerusalem and observed that Palestinian and Arab leaders hardened their positions, while the Israeli public opinion has rallied behind Netanyahu (quite the opposite result that Obama and Emanuel had hoped for).

The turning point against Obama may have been the meeting in the White House earlier this month with American Jewish leaders. The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations requested a discussion with Obama, but Emanuel decided who would attend.

He used the opportunity to attempt to create an impression of solid support for Obama and show off the relative new "J Street" lobby. Unlike AIPAC, it is active politically and endorsed and campaigned for Congressional candidates who fit their agenda, which includes Israel’s surrendering all of Judea and Samaria and parts of Jerusalem that were restored to the Jewish State in the 1967 Six-Day War.

At the same time, he excluded National Council of Young Israel (NCYI) and the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), both of which support a Jewish presence in all of Israel.

The latest confrontation on a new project for Jews in eastern Jerusalem prompted Alan Solow, chairman of the Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, to state this week, "Hundreds of Arab families have moved into Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem and the same right should be accorded to Jewish residents to live wherever they choose in Jerusalem. No government of Israel has or can pursue a discriminatory policy that would prevent the legitimate presence of Jews in any area of the capital."

In response, five leftist groups, including Americans for Peace Now and J Street, criticized supporters of Jews’ rights to build in the area.

While Emanuel is trying to strengthen his position, he faces another challenge on the Obama administration’s health plan. Emanuel’s brother Dr. Ezekiel Emmanuel is Obama’s “health czar,” and the plan is being widely panned in American media, leaving the White House Chief of Staff with two potential failures in the making.