Barak Obama, AIPAC 2008 Conference speech
Many observers were understandably appalled by Obama's AIPAC 2008 speech and many pointed out that by saying that Jerusalem must remain the undivided capital of Israel Obama pre-judged the outcome of future negotiations. Later Obama "clarified" his statement to the great disappointment of some rabid Zionists. No big deal I would suggest - Obama is a politician and like any politician he zigzags, backtracks, "clarifies", "explains" and "contextualizes" every statement, whether true or false, he makes. But his "Jerusalem comment" is not the most shocking thing he said that day. How about this:
...any agreement with the Palestinian people must preserve Israel's identity as a Jewish state
Did you catch this?
Think about what this *really* means, what this *really* says:
First, it says that the 20% of Israeli citizens who are not Jews do not have an identity which is relevant to the state they live in. Nevermind the Palestinians of the Occupied Territories. How is that for overt Apartheid?
Second, if by "Jewish" an ethnicity is meant, then this means that Obama believes that Israeli must be "racially pure" in its identity and that, it turn, means that he supports the racist "Law of Return" which says that any Jew, no matter where he was born and where he lives, has the right to live in Israeli whereas the Palestinians who were born there and who were expelled by the Jews have no right to return to their own homes (a gross and abject violation of international law, by the way)
Third, if by "Jewish" one refers to a religion, than Obama's statement is even more bizarre, outright medieval. Simply put, Obama not only excludes all other religions from Israel (including Islam and Christianity to which is pretends to belong), but he even pre-judges of the religious choices of the (ethnically) Jewish people living in Israel. If, say, an Israeli Jew decides to convert to another faith and if his example is followed by a large number of Israelis their change of faith will not be reflected in the identity of the self-declared "only democracy in the Middle-East". Some "democracy", uh?
I find that statement of Barak Obama deeply, deeply offensive. This statement is racist, bigoted, prejudiced, ignorant, immoral and, last but not least, this is an apology for what is an undeniable a crime under international law.
And Obama pretends to embody some kind of "change"?! From his AIPAC speech it is clear that the only kind change Obama represents is a change for the worse.
Sure, Obama is everything Dubya is not: he is highly intelligent, he is charming, he has charisma and he can speak without saying some idiocy every 30 seconds. But that makes his disgusting statements to the AIPAC delegates even more clearly immoral and outright evil. While Dubya would parrot any nonsense whispered to him by his Neocon puppet masters, Barak Obama most definitely understood every word he spoke that evening. And that is his most damning disgrace.
