Susan Nevens | 13 April 2016
Let us not be fooled for one second that the relationship between Israel and the US was strained during Barack Obama's administration.
In its article dated April 10, 2016, the NYT calls Barack Obama "Israel’s Unsung Protector", alas for he sobers of this world Mr. Obama's protection of Israel was celebrated and prominent ballad which has been playing for the last 7 years.
In fact no president in 20/21st century of the US history has been as accommodating to Israel as Barack Obama, the man who has professed that he feels Jewish in his soul.
The man whose White House has posted twice as many items about Jewish concerns as George W. Bush’s did. The man who has talked endlessly about his “sympathy and identification with the Jewish experience,” his “passions for Israel’s survival,” his “closeness to the Jewish American community,” and “the deep affinities he feel for the Israeli people and for the Jewish people."
The case for Obama’s Israel policy is ever more augmented with record-high levels of Foreign Military Financing (FMF). The Obama administration has increased security assistance to Israel every single year since the president took office, providing nearly $10 billion in aid — covering roughly a fifth of Israel’s defense budget — over the past three years. To put this in perspective, this is about 20% higher than the remaining six dozen recipients of U.S. FMF combined.
In fact Obama has increased the military aids to Israel more than once despite the fact that the United States and Israel sign defense agreements once every 10 years and the new agreement would have not gone to effect until October 2017, when the United States begins its 2018 fiscal year. But in 2011Obama felt that the Democrats will lose Jewish voters and contributors during the 2012 presidential election unless his administration committed to increasing its security assistance beyond the current, considerable sum of $3.1 billion annually, so he raised it to $4 billion a year till 2017.
In fact the Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak recorded a public service message in which he praised the Obama administration for providing more defense assistance to Israel than any other president ever.
Mr. Obama's historic aid levels have been complemented by other steps to ensure Israel’s unrivaled military advantage in the region, including high-level consultation with Israeli officials on U.S. arms sales to the region, operational cooperation to improve Israel’s conventional military and counterterrorism capabilities, and providing Israel with advanced technology, such as the fifth-generation stealth Joint Strike Fighter, to which no other state in the Middle East has access.
Under Obama’s direction, the United States has deepened defense cooperation by championing efforts to provide Israel with $275 million over and above its annual FMF (Foreign Military Fund) to help finance Iron Dome, an anti-rocket system, right in the middle of Israel massacring Gazan in summer of 2014 .
Obama has consistently defended Israel at the United Nations, rejecting the Goldstone report, defending Israel over the Gaza flotilla incident with Turkey, and blocking Palestinian attempts to circumvent direct negotiations with Israel and impose an outcome through early recognition of statehood.
But then again it mattered naught that some of us talked incessantly about Mr. President kindness to Israel, our words were not words of US MSM God the New York Times.
BTW, both Hillary Clinton the Senator, the Secretary of State and Senator Bernie Sanders were cheerleaders of this 'Unsung" protector of Israel, they both gave their blessing and stamp of approval. The former (Clinton) shamelessly gloats about it, the latter (Sanders) shamelessly skirts around the subject.
