The following is a subject the Czar has been struggling to understand for some time now, and no doubt (most of) you are equally puzzled. But really, what the hell is going on with the President and Israel?

First, in 2009, President Obama refused to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the AIPAC summit, but then publicly visited Hugo Chavez instead.

Then, in 2010, Vice-President Biden visited Israel and publicly embarrassed his hosts by denouncing the construction of new homes in East Jerusalem—not once, but a few times, before the world press. Israel was irate that Biden would condemn a perfectly legal action (especially when he was a guest), and changed government policy so that visiting American presidents and vice-presidents would not be made aware of any future internal actions until they were out of the country. In response, Obama walked out on PM Netanyahu when he visited the White House.

The latest middle-finger gaffe was the President’s comments that “the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps….” This shocked most people who realize that Israel nearly lost its life in 1967, and defensively took those positions with undeniable military advantage ever since. The White House had been promising something big, fun, and clever, and meant every word of it!

Until they learned that hundreds of millions of people around the world were outraged by it. Then, the next day, the President explained that he more or less meant something totally different, and he underscored this by repeating it:

And since my position has been misrepresented several times, let me reaffirm what “1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps” means.
By definition, it means that the parties themselves — Israelis and Palestinians — will negotiate a border that is different than the one that existed on June 4, 1967. That’s what mutually agreed-upon swaps means. It is a well-known formula to all who have worked on this issue for a generation. It allows the parties themselves to account for the changes that have taken place over the last 44 years.

Interestingly, most of the people who have worked on this issue for a generation still don’t know what the heck that means, because it sure as hell sounds like he wants Israel to put itself back in a severely weakened position. Every time he attempts to explain himself further, he throws more mud.

Sure would be a lot easier for himself, and the United States, if he said he screwed up. Might be a good idea if, in future, he reads through his speeches before he delivers them.

This is but nonsense to the liberal media. Glenn Kessler at Wa Po jumps up and down on Michele Bachmann for (a) twisting the President’s words around (b) because she’s a stupid woman. Everybody who knows anything knows Bachman is wrong, and the President is very clear on what he meant, and the whole thing is a perfectly brilliant solution. Read through it, and determine for yourself if Kessler has any clue what Obama meant, because it is quite clear the President had no idea what he was saying and is probably wishing, once again, he could pull those words back.

And he would not be the only one: the entire Democratic party has been expressly embarassed by the issue, especially since major political donor Haim Saban has announced he will no longer support the President. Harry Reid and Stenny Hoyer have gone further and openly dismissed the comments as bad foreign policy.

Therefore, one is inclined to ask: when even the Democrats are ardent supporters of Israel, what on earth is the President doing trying to alienate them so badly? The Czar really is at a loss for a short answer, but connects some dots.

Dot one. Barry Sotero spent a large amount of time in Muslim-based education. As a result, he imagines that he, as an apostate, understands the Muslim world view. It should be evident by now that he does not, based on the Muslim world’s responses to his efforts that range from lukewarm apathy to complete disdain.

Dot two. Need we say it? Jeremiah Wright. For evidently 20 years, Barack Obama listened to Wright’s anti-semitic jeremiads, in which Jews were blamed for most of the evils in the black community.

Dot three. The junior senator from Illinois entered politics thinking that Israel was pretty much a source for evil and oppression in the world, and that the United States would do better distancing itself from Israel, and maybe extending some welcoming hands to the Muslim world.

Dot four. The junior senator from Illinois is elected President of these United States, and discovers that a serious number of Islamic extremists want to destroy us, and have no patience for hand-holding.

Dot five. The President discovers that despite all this, Israel is a major friend to the US. Israel is one of our best trading partners, has a powerful military that buys American hardware and sells some futuristic software to our military in return. And that she is a fully functional democracy that has served as the keystone to stability in the region since the late 1940s. She also has a powerful lobby that turns many a politician’s ear on both sides of the aisle.

So perhaps what we are seeing is the President’s cognitive dissonance: that the Israel he assumed as a bad, nasty, wicked land of perfidy might indeed be a friendly, powerful, and extremely useful ally. And this has got him spinning around in confusion.

Unfortunately, each time he elects to test his original hypothesis, he is publicly humiliated. Perhaps he will quickly learn to stop testing Israel, and realize he has been deeply wrong about so many issues. Crap, even Carter understood this.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.