Obama, Man of Abstention

How often has the President claimed to have Israel’s back? He just proved it by being completely behind the Jewish Nation and stabbing it in the back. Looking back, we should not be surprised.

During the course of his campaigns and Presidency, I continued to look for the positive in his words and deeds. While I did not vote for him, I did support him as my president. Obama has continued to let me, the Jewish people, the United States and the World down. I was inspired when he verbally declared that Jerusalem was the Eternal Capital of Israel. He re-tracked that then and now he confirms that retraction.

When he stood so often with both President Shimon Perez and Elie Wiesel, I believed as I saw him put his hand on these two giant men’s backs,  it was a demonstration of sincere support, genuine caring and partnership.These men of peace now have their resting peace violated, as Obama have signaled what having a hand on one’s back really means.

History will show that Obama left office as he came in, with few accomplishments to his legacy. Worse, as a President that could speak well with words meaning nothing. As was widely documented while in the senate, his history of no shows was disturbing and reckons relevance to this abstention. It demonstrates either negligence, support for the resolution or indifference. Abstention equals indifference. As the President is fond of often quoting Dr. Martin Luther King and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, he would do well to heed their united declaration on indifference, that it is worse that evil.The world abstained from responsibilty from the Holocaust. His legacy is one of abstention in all he did; bringing parties together, bettering the plight of people of color, the rise of ISIS, human slaughter in Syria, the deficit, a Supreme Court Judge’s funeral. addressing calls for security and truth in Bengazi. I could go on.

Just as Israel has put a stop to the terrorist’s stabbings in the streets of the Holy city, she now gets the cruelest cut of all from a “friend” in the security council of the shameful UN, right in the back.

This has shaken me up a bit. However, I remember as I lit the Chanukah candles, we have survived and thrived despite thousands of years of oppression, evil and indifference. It will take more that a man of abstention to extinguish the magnificent lights of Jerusalem.

Harold Klein

Woodmere, NY