In scandalous new campaign video, Obama takes Israel pandering to dangerous levels

By Ali Abunimah


"Is Barack Obama running for reelection as President of the United States or Prime Minister of Israel? A new Obama campaign video makes it increasingly hard to tell, and even more ominously ratchets further the Israelization of US politics.

False hopes of change
....
Putting Israel first

The themes of the video touch all the familiar messaging of extreme Zionist groups that Obama has used from his early AIPAC speeches: There is a focus on the Holocaust, Hamas rockets, Israeli children suffering, and Iran, Iran, Iran.

Who can now doubt that US Iran policy is largely about appeasing Israel lobbyists, when Obama is heard boasting in a campaign video that his administration has imposed “the hardest hitting sanctions the Iranian regime has ever faced”? Confrontation if not outright war with Iran is a key message of the Israel lobby these days.

Of course there’s no word about Israel’s war crimes, occupation, routine murder and imprisonment of Palestinian civilians and children, the siege of Gaza or the ongoing theft of Palestinian land in the West Bank for Jews-only colonies.

On the contrary, Obama boasts in the video about how he helped stymie justice and torpedo the Goldstone report, and pulled the US out of participation in the UN Durban conference on racism.

The video also reassures viewers that:

* Under Obama, US military aid to Israel increased to “unprecedented levels”
* “Obama 2012 budget has rise in US aid to Israel”
* “We are making our most advanced technologies available to our Israeli allies.”

While Obama boasts of his willingness to cut the federal budget – even as services for Americans are being slashed – he obviously feels politically safe increasing foreign aid, as long as the recipient is Israel......."