April 27, 2009: Ettinger’s attack on Obama was off base

By Michael Regenstreif

I was taken by surprise when I read Diane Koven’s page 1 report on the speech made by retired Israeli diplomat Yoram Ettinger at the Passover luncheon hosted by Canadian Friends of Hebrew University on April 14. According to Ettinger, Barack Obama is the first-ever American president who “does not emanate from the common Judeo-Christian background ... the first president who does not come from that school of thought.”

When I told Diane how shocked I was at Ettinger’s comment, she told me that my shock was shared by many in the room that day at Agudath Israel. It’s common knowledge that Obama grew up a Christian, that he’s never practised any other religion. The ‘Obama is a Muslim’ canard that was used as a scare tactic during the campaign has been thoroughly discredited. As for the “Judeo” part of his values, Obama has talked about how influenced he has been by Jewish concepts of social justice. And, just this month, Obama became the first sitting president in American history to host a Passover seder in the White House.

Diane’s report goes on to discuss Ettinger’s concern that several key officials in the Obama administration do not understand Israel or are openly hostile. Ettinger mentions Susan Rice, Obama’s UN ambassador and James Jones, his national security adviser.

I was surprised to see Rice’s name mentioned in that context. After the election, JTA had a story about Obama’s national security team being dominated by pro-Israel figures. Susan Rice was the first name mentioned. In her confirmation hearings, Rice discussed how unfairly Israel has been treated at the UN.

As for Jones, there have been references to him in a couple of JTA pieces published while Benjamin Netanyahu was putting together his new coalition government.

“Insiders argue Netanyahu’s bottom-up approach to Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking parallels that of General James Jones, Obama’s national security adviser. Both have said in recent interviews that they favour building infrastructure before advancing to final-status talks,” said one article.

“Netanyahu heralded his relationships and meetings with U.S. figures from President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to national security adviser James Jones and special Mideast peace envoy George Mitchell,” said the other.

In her report, Diane quotes Ettinger as saying Obama regards the Arab-Israeli conflict as the root cause of Middle Eastern turbulence. When I searched to find any record of Obama saying something along those lines, all I could find was Ettinger’s own pronouncements to that effect. In fact, in looking through countless reports of what Obama has had to say about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, I could find nothing inconsistent with moderate Zionism.

* * * * * * * *

I attended the Free Thinking Film Society’s screening of the film, The Case for Israel featuring Alan Dershowitz, on April 13 at Library and Archives Canada. Always a compelling speaker, Dershowitz eloquently shows how support for Israel – and the two-state solution – is the only logical choice when looking at the Palestinian-Israeli conflict from a human rights perspective.

This film should be seen by everyone involved in Israel advocacy at any level. The film society’s Fred Litwin has a license to show the film in Ottawa through the end of 2009 and organizations or schools who’d like to arrange a screening can contact him at fred.litwin@gmail.com.