Israel Matzav: Roger Cohen accuses Israel of racism

Roger Cohen accuses Israel of racism

I haven't been reading Roger Cohen lately - he's bad for my blood pressure. So I missed this.

The mass-market daily Maariv had a front-page post-Biden cartoon of Obama cooking Netanyahu in a pot. It was supposed to illustrate a relationship “in flames.” But the image — a black man cooking a white man over an open fire — also said something about the way Israel views its critics.

Roger Cohen seemingly forgets that this country's Jews are not all white - nor is our leadership. So the slur is false.

Jonathan Tobin says that it's become a new excuse for Obama's poor approval ratings in this country.

Israel’s liberal critics in this country are flummoxed by the fact that Obama is the least-liked American president by Israelis since Jimmy Carter. But rather than admit that this is the result of the administration’s conscious decision to distance itself from the Jewish state, writers like Cohen spin this understandable antagonism as being somehow the result of an Israeli character flaw. This is not the first time that the notion of Israeli racism has been claimed as the source of Obama’s unpopularity.

...

But had Barack Hussein Obama come into office ready to make good on his campaign pledges of support for Israel and not chosen to pick pointless fights with Israel’s government or downplay the threat from Iran, his poll numbers would be very different. George W. Bush also came into office with low Israeli popularity ratings, but he proved his friendship for the Jewish state with actions that eventually overshadowed the hostility most Jews felt for his father. Had Obama not sought to downgrade the alliance with Jerusalem, no one would be talking about the color of his skin having any impact on the way Israelis think of him. The attempt to blame the justified skepticism of Israelis about Obama’s intentions toward their country on Jewish racism is nothing but a contemptible slur.

I cannot recall any American President with popularity ratings as low as Obama's. Not even Jimmy Carter. But racism is not part of the picture.

Israel Matzav: Roger Cohen accuses Israel of racism