Morsi, Obama and Bibi: which of these is not like the others?

Please Note: The individual opinions expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Ha’Am Newsmagazine as a whole.

An exciting trifecta of recent events: the American presidential inauguration was a few weeks ago, Israeli elections just ended (congratulations, Prime Minister Netanyahu), and the election in Egypt is still fresh in everyone’s mind. There are the two natural and historical allies — America and Israel — and a returning player with a new, dangerous element joins the mix.

However, as Obama increasingly alienates and insults America’s greatest ally, Israel — from Obama’s 2011 “advice” to Prime Minister Netanyahu that Israel return to 1967 borders; to the fact that Obama has never visited Israel during his time in office, despite having been as close as thirty minutes away in Egypt, and managing to go to Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iraq; to more recently refusing to meet with the Israeli Prime Minister, citing “campaign obligations,” while having time to meet with useless celebrities David Letterman, Beyonce, and Jay-Z — we watch in horror as Obama disintegrates the critical U.S.-Israeli relationship and sidles closer and closer to a huge threat to civilization, Western values, and national security, also known as Mohammed Morsi and the new Egypt, an Egypt after the misleadingly named “Arab Spring.”

Mohammed Morsi is the new, democratically elected president of Egypt. But who exactly is this new representative of “Arab democracy” so lauded by President Obama? Let’s take a look at a Secure America Now report (an organization presenting a fully sourced compendium of statements as well as other information about the Egyptian president):

• Morsi, in an address posted on the Internet on Jan. 10, 2010: “Dear brothers, we must not forget to nurse our children and grandchildren on hatred towards those Zionists and Jews, and all those who support them. They must be nursed on hatred. The hatred must continue.”
• Morsi joined the Muslim Brotherhood (the forerunner of Al Qaeda, a terrorist organization whose motto is “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Qur’an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.”) while living in the United States.
• Morsi has repeatedly denounced Egypt’s treaty with Israel.
• Morsi, July 2007: “Resistance is the correct and only way to free the land from the filth of the Jews.”
• Morsi is an unabashed supporter of Hamas, a terrorist organization.
• Morsi believes the 9/11 terrorists have not been identified and that the U.S. government was involved in the attacks: “something must have happened from the inside.”
• Morsi has pledged to work for the release of Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, a militant Islamist preacher imprisoned in the United States for planning the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
• Dr. Morsi has repeatedly defended the Sudanese President al-Bashir who has committed genocide against the people in Darfur.
• In one of Dr. Morsi’s most egregious statements, he said in 2004 that the “Quran has established that the Jews are the ones in the highest degree of enmity towards Muslims” and that “there is no peace with the descendants of the apes and pigs.”

Morsi is an enormous threat — but we fail to look at its source. The true root of the problem is the misguided, misplaced, and foolish hope in and lack of understanding of the “Arab Spring” and “Arab democracy.” Morsi is a consequence, a result of this extreme imprudence — and one might say clear anti-Israel sentiment — on the part of the Obama and the State Department, who put Morsi in power.

The Washington Post asks: “How did Washington become the best friend of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, even as President Mohamed Morsi was asserting dictatorial powers and his followers were beating up secular liberals in the streets of Cairo? It’s a question many Arabs ask these days, and it deserves an answer. Morsi and his Brotherhood followers are on a power trip after decades of isolation and persecution… And let’s be honest: The Obama administration has been Morsi’s main enabler…”

The problem is that the United States — under Obama — was an active force in violently removing from power former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, a centrist (if certainly not pro-West then at least tolerant and cooperative) leader who not only kept the violent Jihadist forces in his country from launching the nation into lawlessness and bloodshed, but who also kept a cold peace with Israel.

It should be no surprise to any responsible voter that Obama’s complete lack of foreign policy experience is responsible for the failure of his current Middle East foreign policies.

Libya’s cruel but cooperative dictator Moammar Gaddafi, who suppressed Islamic extremist terrorists in his country and was even praised by Tony Blair for being a major partner in fighting Al Qaeda, was killed by NATO drones ordered by Obama to strike the sovereign nation. The country turned lawless immediately.

On the eleventh anniversary of 9/11, terrorists attacked the American consulate in Benghazi, killing four Americans and demonstrating that, contrary to Obama’s campaign claims, Al Qaeda forces are still active and resurgent in the area.

In Egypt, after Obama and his administration helped to overthrow Mubarak, Morsi won elections and is now denouncing Israel, visiting Iran, preaching Sharia law, and asserting familiar “provisional” dictatorial powers, despite widespread pro-democracy demonstrations.

And now? Well, Prime Minister Netanyahu’s reelection garnered no response from Obama for about a week, while Obama called both Morsi and the defeated candidate Ahmed Shafiq to commend them just hours after Egypt’s election.

Most recently, we see Obama arming Egypt with a shipment of four brand new F-16s: “Four F-16 fighter jets left the U.S. this morning, bound for Egypt as part of a foreign aid package critics say should have been scrapped when the nation elected a president who has called President Obama a liar and urged that hatred of Jews be instilled in children.”

It is frightening when our president keeps our enemies closer than our friends — and for the wrong reasons.