“The Israeli government’s decision to cut off food, water and electricity to a captive civilian population threatens not only to worsen a growing humanitarian crisis; it could further harden Palestinian attitudes for generations, erode global support for Israel, play into the hands of Israel’s enemies, and undermine long term efforts to achieve peace and stability in the region….”
—–Former President Barack Obama, sticking his nose into a matter that he should have no say in, and further enhancing his established record as a foreign policy incompetent.
The former President’s advice comes in an annoying post on Medium titled, “Thoughts on Israel and Gaza.” Primarily, his comments are stupid, but individuals with out-sized influence on public opinion, like irrationally popular ex-Presidents, have an ethical obligation to avoid allowing their stupidity to infect public affairs. How could anything “further harden Palestinian attitudes for generations” when for generations Palestinians have wanted to kill as many Jews as possible and wipe their nation from the map? Is Obama warning Israel that they risk really, really making Palestinians hate them? And nothing Israel does that isn’t suicidal will assist “efforts to achieve peace and stability in the region.” There will be peace and stability when the Palestinians genuinely condemn terrorism and accept that Israel is a legitimate nation…in other words, never.
Moreover, Obama is ethically estopped from complaining about how Israel responds to terrorism, having helped fund Iran’s support of Hamas with his unconscionable Iran nuclear deal, or as I call it, the “Don’t nuke Israel until I’m safely out of office or dead” agreement. As a former President of the US, he should keep his opinions to himself and not interfere in any current policy controversies whatsoever, especially when it involves another nation’s self-defense.
The one positive aspect of Obama’s drivel is that it reminds me to finish the series searching for the worst U.S. President before Joe Biden. My sense of urgency in the project was drained after I considered Woodrow Wilson, who seemed so obviously the ultimate winner of the booby prize that heading further down the list seemed gratuitous. Now, remembering how destructive, arrogant and incompetent Obama was, I realize that Wilson has some competition.
Ethics Alarms 
Jack,
Please let us know how many people write in accusing you of being a racist.
What’s THAT supposed to mean?
Democrats would be wise to do their best to silence Obama, lest they become ethically estopped from complaining when Trump, another ex-President, opens his big mouth to trash the sitting president.
Never mind the lie that Gaza has no electricity, water or food.
Correct me if I am wrong- we provided humanitarian aide to Germany, Japan, and Italy after we defeated them. This call for humanitarian aide before defeat is non-sensical.
Yep.
jvb
That there picture kinda sorta says it all, don’t it?
No wonder my longtime Usenet ally, Christopher Charles Morton, used to call him Urkel.
Of course, no one is really looking at the Democratic Presidents’ involvement and seeming promotion of Iran into a leadership position in the Middle East and promotion of Hamas. It really does look like our government is filled with people who like Iran and terrorists.
Robert Malley was the negotiator of the Iran nuclear deal with Obama and this recent deal for Biden. His father was an anti-Israeli jew who was friends with Yassir Arafat and Fidel Castro. The family was thrown out of France for writing articles calling for the murder of world leaders. Robert Malley attended the same private school in Paris as Anthony Blinken. He went to Harvard Law School with Barack Obama. He had to resign from Obama’s election campaign when it was revealed he was talking to Hamas. In the last 2.5 years, he seems to have helped funnel $50-$80 billion to Iran. Two of his top aides were part of the Iran Experts Initiative, and Iranian government program to promote Iran in governments and by people pushing pro-Iranian stories in the media. His recent deal with Iran saw $6 billion transferred from Qatar to Iran, $10 billion from Iraq, $7 billion in drawing rights from the IMF, and $3 billion from Japan. It was a $26 billion deal. He has been removed from his post lately for ‘mishandling’ classified information concerning Iran.
Ariane Tabatabai was on the negotiating team for the Iran nuclear deal. She is the chief of staff for the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations at the Pentagon. She contacted Iran’s Foreign Ministry before attending policy event on several occasions. She asked Iran’s Foreign Ministry if she should go to a workshop in Israel covering Iran’s nuclear program. She also contacted them to discuss her testimony before Congress on the Iranian nuclear deal. She talked to them about an article she wrote for the Boston Globe promoting Iran’s nuclear program.
Ali Vaez worked with Malley for the State Deparment and Malley hired Dina
Esfandiary to his think tank. Both also are part of the Iran Experts Initiative.
These people passed background checks. Wait, who is doing these background checks?
Nejwa Ali, was a public affairs official with the PLO’s delegation to the US in 2016 and 2017. She now works for Homeland Security, doing background checks on people entering the country. She has made numerous anti-Israel posts and pro-PLO posts. Oh, so PLO members are doing background checks. Got it.
Oh my. The mind does boggle, doesn’t it?
jvb
COTD Michael.
Investigative reporter level information. Much obliged. Needs to be promulgated as much as possible.
Michael, this is really the case? Yikes. I always assume Obama went on his apology tour because he’d been raised Muslim. He must have been getting financial support from wealthy Iranian expats or something.
I just saw all of this appear in various sources after the Iran hostages deal. Then I saw the case about the Homeland Security agent. It was just unbelievable.
When Obama was president, I said that if you asked me what his religion was, I would have to say he was Shia. In hindsight, I guess I should say, the religion of the Executive Branch, not Obama personally. I say that because the Obama Administration never supported Christian groups abroad, rarely supported Sunni groups, but always seemed to be promoting Iran and other Shia groups. It was weird. Now, this could have been a strategy to weaken Islam in the Middle East by starting an internal Islamic Civil War (which is what the whole ISIS/Syria thing was). The Shiite countries are weaker than the Sunni countries, so propping up Shia interests would encourage the Shiite countries to confront the Sunni countries, which is what happened. Trump used this fear of Iranian hegemony in the Middle East to get the Sunni countries to sign the Abraham Accords and make peace with Israel. If this had been the plan all along, it would be regarded as 4-D chess in the extreme. I would have to applaud the ingenuity of the State Department in finally bringing some semblance of peace in the Middle East (through the strategic application of wars).
However, under Biden, the Executive Branch ruined the Abraham Accords by supporting Iran again. This explains why Trump had to use Jared Kushner to negotiate the Abraham Accords, the State Department would not have done it because they support Iran. I am almost surprised they didn’t use the Abraham Accords to impeach Trump the second time. Yet again, Trump had gone against the Executive Branch’s foreign policy, like he did in Ukraine for his first impeachment.
When I say the Executive Branch (and the press, and academia, and Hollywood) don’t support Christians abroad, look that the very different reactions to Israel attacking Gaza and Azerbaijan killing every Christian left in Karabakh. At least the Russians allowed most of the population to leave Karabakh before the Azerbaijan military came in to exterminate everyone. Contrast that to Egypt and Gaza. But you didn’t hear much about this. When Christian churches were bombed in Sri Lanka, many news outlets wouldn’t even call the victims ‘Christians’, instead calling them ‘Easter worshippers’. There was almost no coverage and no State Department response when Malaysia ruled that Christians couldn’t say the word God, and many churches were attacked for it. Imagine if Israel cleared the Temple Mount of Muslims and gave control of the Dome of the Rock to a Maronite Church, what would the US State Department response be?
It never cease to amaze me how talking heads in media and politics talk about Israel’s “total blockade” as if Gaza’s border with Egypt didn’t exist. They don’t control that border. They can bomb the established crossing at Rafah, but the border is 10km long, and for most of its length, there’s nothing stopping you from walking or driving across except a border fence – the same sort of fence that Hamas breached in several places with bulldozers in order to get their death squads out to the kibbutzim. If both Egypt and Hamas were really serious about getting aid across, Israel couldn’t stop them.
The various excuses I’ve seen for this all fall flat. Egypt doesn’t want to create more openings in the border fence because it fears an exodus of Gazans across the border – but prior to 1967, Gaza was in Egypt. And if Israel is a genocidal apartheid regime for confining Gazans in an “open air prison”, why does Egypt get a pass for participating in that confinement?
I’ve heard that Egypt is already fighting Islamic extremist insurgents in the Sinai, and doesn’t want to add Hamas fighters to the mix. A valid concern, but what makes Israel’s security concerns over terrorist incursion less valid?
I’ve heard that Egypt is bound by prior agreements to get Israel’s consent to open its border with Gaza. But isn’t Israel’s blockade supposed to be a war crime? You can’t be legally obligated to participate in a war crime. “We’re just doing what the war criminals tell us” is not a good look.
Clearly, they don’t really believe these things are war crimes. They just pretend to because it’s Israel, and Israel has to play by special rules.
Egypt has said they don’t want Palestinians in Egypt because they are a security risk. The Palestinians have tried to overthrow the government of every country that gave them shelter since their creation just after WWII.
Of course that’s true. But the question is, why is that a valid concern for Egypt, but not for Israel? Why is it “apartheid” for Israel to not let security threats in, but normal and acceptable for Egypt not to let security threats in? The territory used to belong to both Egypt and Israel, at various times within living memory.