Bibi to Barry: Stuff It

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won't be attending next week when Barack Hussein Obama holds his international nuclear talent show in Washington, D.C. Netanyahu cancelled a scheduled trip to attend the 47-country (oops--46-country) nuclear security conference hosted by Obama. According to World Jewish Daily, Netanyahu decided to cancel the trip after learning that several Muslim states plan to bring up Israel's failure to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Israel will instead send a deputy who oversees nuclear issues.

Next week's nuclear security summit is part of a plan being pushed by the Obama administration to "highlight the president's efforts," as the WSJ puts it, "to reduce the threat of nuclear weapons, as well as the threat from proliferation and atomic terrorism. . . . Some Muslim countries have complained of a double standard in international pressure on Iran to dismantle its nuclear program while Israel is able to maintain its reported nuclear arsenal."

Israel never signed the 1970 NPT which allows countries to develop nuclear power in exchange for forgoing weapons. Based on estimates of the plutonium production capacity of its Dimona reactor, Israel may have stockpiled 80 to 200 nuclear warheads since the late 1960s, independent experts say. Unlike ObamaTeam, which has thrown out a long-time policy of nuclear ambiguity, Israel prefers not to comment on when or how they would use nuclear weapons, or even if they have them, preferring to maintain an ambiguity policy about nuclear capability. As Ed Driscoll writes at PajamasMedia, "the cardinal rule when it comes to nuclear weapons, is keep ‘em guessing. We want our enemies to believe that we may well be crazy enough to vaporize them, given sufficient provocation; one just can’t tell. There is a reason why that ambiguity has been the American government’s policy for more than 50 years. Obama cheerfully tosses overboard the strategic consensus of two generations."

Others are more critical than Driscoll of Obama's new policy of "disambiguation." CEO of PajamasMedia, Roger Simon, wrote this article: "President Weirdo Goes Anti-Nuke." Comparing Obama to "some looney member of Code Pink," Simon says our president "is abandoning the nuclear deterrent adhered to by every American president since Truman. And he is doing it in a manner that makes absolutely no sense." In a related article, "President Weirdo," Simons says that Obama's behavior makes Nixon seem "almost normal." Ouch.

Update. The Obama administration is now denying U.S. visas to Israeli scientists who work at Israel's Dimona nuclear reactor. WTF? According to the website Joshuapundit, this is a change in a routine policy that has allowed Israeli nuclear scientists and technicians to receive such visas and to study at U.S. universities.

h/t to Joshuapundit for the image.

Along with disambiguating his nuclear policy, it would seem that the Obama regime is also bent on removing any ambiguity about its posture towards Israel. I'm no State Department expert, but it doesn't take a genius to see that Obama's policies are chipping away at relations with one of our best allies in the Middle East. What is Obama doing, and why is he doing it? President Weirdo? Signs are certainly pointing that way.

To the 78% of Jews who voted for Obama: how's that working out for you? Here's a quote at the time of the election from someone named Jeremy Ben-Ami, executive director of the J Street lobby group, purported to be a "pro-Israel" lobby (with friends like those, who needs enemies?): "Surrogates and right-wing political operatives in our community stopped at nothing in their efforts to sway Jewish voters against Obama. We can only hope that these results put to rest for good the myth that fear and smear campaigns - particularly around Israel - can be an effective political weapon in the Jewish community." Well, Jeremy? What have you got to say now, Champ? Not much, evidently. The J Street website "news" was last updated 26 March. Keep up.

Update. This comes from a post at Friday's HotAir: "Support for Obama among Jewish voters basically unchanged from last year." Really? So you gotta ask:

• do these people read the news? (or rather, do they read anything beyond the New York Times?)
• do they understand Obama's policy towards Israel?
• do secular Jews in the United States give a rip about Israel?
• what would Obama have to do to get a negative rating from these people?

Allahpundit at HotAir explains the support for Obama this way: the sample is 50% Democrat and 15% Republican. But for me that still begs the question: Why do American Jews vote with the Democrats? One of the commenters at HA says that's because Jews are liberal, and that will never change. Have they not noticed the anti-Semitism of the Obama regime? Evidently not. Another commenter says that for many secular American Jews, liberalism is their religion, that these people are completely disconnected from Israel, and the liberal idealology for them is first, second, and third in importance. In fact, support for Israel is higher among American Christian groups than it is among many American Jews.

Here's a quote from a HotAir commenter, who says his is a family of observant Jews who reject leftism "in all of its pernicious guises. . . . Just please know that not every Jew is a half-witted true believer in this absurd jackass who leads you for the moment. I guess, though, that most of the thinking Jews may be in Israel."

And another one: "I know a lot of liberal Jews who square the circle for themselves on loving Israel and Obama at the same time. I think they are deluded, but they're my deluded fellow Jews." That sounds like some sort of mind jiu-jitsu to me. Oof.

Another commenter recommended Norman Podhoretz's book, Why Are Jews Liberals?