A pointed letter to President Obama

Folks, normally I pay little attention to what the glitterati have to say about politics. Sean Pean, Dann Glover, the Dixie Chicks, Ricky Martin, Calle 13, and many others, the way they parrot their secularist, reflexively anti-American opinions is enough for me to place them in the dark box of eternal forgetfulness. But the open letter actor John Voight addressed to President Obama stands apart, if anything because Mr. Voight is usually very well-spoken and can argue his viewpoints coherently, if not dispassionately. This is what he wrote yesterday in The Washington Times:

June 22, 2010

President Obama:

You will be the first American president that lied to the Jewish people, and the American people as well, when you said that you would defend Israel, the only Democratic state in the Middle East, against all their enemies. You have done just the opposite. You have propagandized Israel, until they look like they are everyone's enemy — and it has resonated throughout the world. You are putting Israel in harm's way, and you have promoted anti-Semitism throughout the world.

You have brought this to a people who have given the world the Ten Commandments and most laws we live by today. The Jewish people have given the world our greatest scientists and philosophers, and the cures for many diseases, and now you play a very dangerous game so you can look like a true martyr to what you see and say are the underdogs. But the underdogs you defend are murderers and criminals who want Israel eradicated.

You have brought to Arizona a civil war, once again defending the criminals and illegals, creating a meltdown for good, loyal, law-abiding citizens. Your destruction of this country may never be remedied, and we may never recover. I pray to God you stop, and I hope the people in this great country realize your agenda is not for the betterment of mankind, but for the betterment of your politics.

With heartfelt and deep concern for America and Israel,

Jon Voight

Though the situation in Arizona and not only in Arizona, but throughout the Southwest Border is of grave concern, I don’t think it ascends to the status of “civil war” and  therefore, somewhat of a hyperbole. Voight does score points on Israel. As I’ve explained elsewhere, although I don’t give unconditional support to the Israeli government in every action they take or fail to take – heck, I don’t even grant that privilege to the U.S. Government – I do believe in the right of Israel to exist, right where it is, within secure borders, at peace with itself and with its neighbors. Whatever other strategic consideration that make us allies, the fact remains, in my mind, that the Jewish State’s right to exist is absolute and inalienable.

Despite being a separate ethnicity and culture, the Palestinians have not earned, in my opinion, enough moral high ground to gain statehood. Every homicidal, suicide bombing, assassination, decapitation, and celebration of global terrorism – as when many Palestinians danced in the streets to celebrate the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 – undermines, in my view, the righteousness of their cause and their claim to immediate, unconditional sovereign independence. In this day and age, self-determination is not to be achieved over a pile of corpses, whether in the Holy Land (Israel + Palestine), Sudan, Sri Lanka, Kashimir, Northern Ireland, or even in my Puerto Rico.

These facts strengthen Mr. Voight’s letter and undermine Mr. Obama’s attempts to uplift the Muslim street at Israel’s expense. I’m sure also that hardcore Islamic regimes will simply ignore the President’s overtures while expanding their operations against Israel with a freer hand. This reveals the Obama Administration’s fundamental naiveté about the Muslim street that informs the President’s foreign policy and its tacit abandonment of Israel.

The Muslim street, as well as the Muslim intelligentsia, can and must be engaged constructively. But not at the expense of our allies, not at the expense of Israel. Mr. Voight is right in pointing this out and for this I applaud him.