PrintMay 8, 2009
Obama's Grotesque Choice
There is something groteque about President Obama's travel itinerary next month. In early June, he will stop off in Cairo to deliver an address to the Muslim world, fulfilling a campaign promise to select a Muslim capital for this occasion. But before reaching Egypt, he will stop off in Germany at the Buchenwald death camp, presumably to reassure Jews that he places a high priority on keeping memories of the Holocaust alive.
Two important audiences in one trip. Fine. But the symbolism of these two back-to-back destinations carries a dark and ominous tone. While Muslims will be treated to Obama's present and future agenda for them, Jews will be reminded of the worst calamity in their past.
Why not twin Cairo with a more fitting setting to call attention to the miraculous post-Holocaust rebirth of the Jewish state? Why use the occasion not for a look backwards, but for a forward look to a vibrant democratic Israel and its determination to overcome new genocidal threats to its future?
Why not, in sum, if Obama is going to be in Cairo, couple that with a speech to world Jews from Jerusalem, their eternal capital? Why, in short, focus on the future in his dealings with the Muslim world, but relegate his empathy for Jews to their darkest hour?
While Obama has yet to complete his Mideast foreign-policy review, there have been enough pronouncements from his top aides to trigger alarms that, with his unbounded hubris, he thinks he can bully through a permanenet solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- at the very likely cost of highly dangerous Israeli territorial and other concessions.
Since Obama and his Mideast envoy, George Mitchell, already have spoken warmly of the Arab "peace" initiative, which would force Israel to surrender Jerusalem's Old City, it's clear why he may prefer Buchenwald instead of Israel's capital for his outreach to Jews.
But somebody should have told him that Jews, unlike their Islamist foes, prefer life to death.
So, L'Chaim, Mr. President, as you pack your bags. To Jewish life, not Jewish death.
