Obama and the Jews

Granted there was something about George W Bush that sent plenty of otherwise reasonably normal people a little nuts too and perhaps the nature of politics and technology today is such that this kind of crazy is inevitable regardless of who wins elections. But what, in the name of god, has Obama done to merit this kind of stuff from Glenn Reynolds?

Possibly Obama just hates Israel and hates Jews. That’s plausible — certainly nothing in his actions suggests otherwise, really.

OK! I guess that White House seder is proof of how deep the conspiracy runs? Evidently the administration is protesting too much. Only a White House riddled with anti-semites would feel the need to have a seder!

Then Reynolds argues that, although there’s nothing to contradict the notion that Obama hates Israel, it’s also the case that:

But it’s also possible — I’d say likely — that there’s something else going on. I think Obama expects Israel to strike Iran, and wants to put distance between the United States and Israel in advance of that happening. (Perhaps he even thinks that treating Israel rudely will provoke such a response, saving him the trouble of doing anything about Iran himself, and avoiding the risk that things might go wrong if he does). On the most optimistic level, maybe this whole thing is a sham, and the U.S. is really helping Israel strike Iran, with this as distraction. The question for readers is which of these — not necessarily mutually exclusive — explanations is most plausible.

Oh please. This too seems far too complicated and further evidence that once you start from the assumption that nothing can be as it seems you find yourself having to manufacture increasingly complex and improbable arguments to justify stuff that would be pretty darn simple if only you began with a sensible or rational approach rather than the presumption that Obama’s already sold the jerseys.

Because, really, it cannot be stressed too often that, when it comes to foreign policy, most of Obama’s views are notable only because they’re so conventional. There may be arguments about means but very rarely about ends. This is true, in spades, of his views about Israel and the middle east none of which, as best I can tell, would be considered too radical for the Brookings Institute.

UPDATE: And, of course, as Matt Zeitlin reminds one, Obama won 77% of the self-loathing Jewish vote…