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Facts and Logic About the Middle East

August 4, 2015

Mr. Obama's Iran Deal Is a U.S. Disaster—But It Is Also a Threat to Jews

Dear Friend of Israel:

Above all, the President's Iran Deal is a threat to U.S. interests. First indisputable fact: Iran is the world's most belligerent declared enemy of the United States—whose Supreme Leader rouses chants of "Death to America" at Friday night mosque services.

Second indisputable fact: Iran's violent imperialistic activities in the form of global Islamic terrorism threaten our closest Mideast allies—such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain and especially Israel—as well as the regional stability our country depends on for peace, influence and access to vital energy markets.

Third indisputable fact: Iran is openly developing—and will continue to develop even if a deal is signed—both advanced nuclear weapons and intercontinental missile systems capable of attacking the United States within 10 short years.

Final indisputable fact: Iran has ignored, repudiated or cheated on every major nuclear disarmament agreement it's made in the last 20 years—which means we can't trust the Islamic Republic. Fatally, the proposed Iran Deal fails to guarantee freely conducted verification that Iran will not cheat this time as well.

But there's one more huge reason to oppose the Iran Deal currently awaiting Congress's upcoming vote to approve or deny it. This deal is fundamentally anti-Semitic.

As Professor Ruth Wisse points out in this week's FLAME Hotline featured article, below, President Obama's Iran Deal is the first time an American president has made a deal with an avowed anti-Semitic state. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has made clear Iran's violent disdain of the Jewish people, saying Israel's leaders "look like beasts and cannot be called human." He also calls for "Death to Israel," the Jewish homeland.

While Mr. Obama is quick to condemn violence committed against black Americans, he dismisses Iran's murderous jihad against Jews—which he admits is anti-Semitic—simply as "bad behavior."

I hope Professor Wisse's short piece below inspires and motivates you to step up—for the United States, for Israel and for the Jewish people. This Iran Deal must be stopped, and I hope you'll help.

I strongly encourage you to take two actions right now, while you have this urgent issue top of mind:

First, call and write your U.S. Senators and your Representative expressing your opposition to the Iran Deal. You can reach your elected officials by calling Congress at 202-225-3121. You can email them very easily by going to contacting the Congress. Tell them you oppose the Iran Deal because it doesn't prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and it makes war more likely. Do this today.

Second, please send a pledge of support to FLAME as we launch a new hasbarah initiative in media nationwide. Our editorial message is titled "A Cheater's Dream—Why We Must Stop the Iran Deal" and will begin appearing in August. This message outlines Iran's long pattern of lying and deceit in the face of nearly every international agreement, especially those related to its nuclear activity. With your help, we will double the media in which we run this ad and we will help convince the American people—and Congress—to reject this deadly deal. Please go to donate now .

In the meantime, I thank you for your support of FLAME and of Israel during this critical time.

Best regards,

Jim Sinkinson
Vice President, Facts and Logic About the Middle East (FLAME)

P.S.

As you know the U.S. Congress has asserted its right to approve or disapprove any reduction of sanctions on Iran—effectively a mandate on the Iran Deal. With the recent announcement of the proposed final deal, it's critical that we communicate to the American people and our elected representatives that we oppose this disastrous deal. That's why in a few weeks FLAME will be publishing a paid editorial message on this subject in media nationwide, including college newspapers—reaching at least 10 million key influencers—plus all U.S. Congressional Senators and Representatives. Because this matter is so critical to our country and to Israel, we intend to double the number of media into which we place this message. If you agree that FLAME's bold brand of public relations on Israel's behalf is critical, I urge you to help us trumpet this message, so Americans will realize that the proposed "Iran Deal" fails to fulfill Mr. Obama's 2012 promise to stop Iran's nuclear program. In fact this deal will surely pave the way for our worst enemy—and that of Israel—to continue developing nuclear weapons technology. Please help us spread the word by giving a donation now, as you're able—with $500, $250, $100, or even $18. (Remember, your donation to FLAME is tax deductible.) To contribute online, just go to donate now . Today more than ever we need your help to ensure that Israel gets the support it needs—from the U.S. Congress and from the American people.

Obama's Racial Blind Spot

The nuclear deal with Iran's fanatical anti-Jewish regime will fuel racism on a global scale.

By Ruth R. Wisse, Wall Street Journal, July 30, 2015

Barack Obama's election to the presidency represented to many Americans this country's final triumph over racism. Reversing the record of slavery and institutionalized discrimination, his victory was hailed as a redemptive moment for America and potentially for humankind. How grotesque that the president should now douse that hope by fueling racism on a global scale.

The Iranian regime is currently the world's leading exponent of anti-Jewish racism. Comparisons to Nazi Germany are always a last resort, since even with all the evidence before us it is hard to fathom the evil the Nazis perpetrated. Yet Iran's frank genocidal ambition dwarfs its predecessor's. Whereas Adolf Hitler and Reinhard Heydrich had to plot the "Final Solution" in secrecy, using euphemisms for their intended annihilation of the Jews of Europe, Iran's Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei tweets that Israel "has no cure but to be annihilated." Iran's leaders, relishing how small Israel is, call it a "one bomb state," and until the time arrives to deliver that bomb, they sponsor anti-Israel terrorism through Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other militias.

President Obama takes some forms of racism seriously. Without waiting for a judgment to be rendered, he leaped to the defense of my Harvard colleague Henry Louis "Skip" Gates Jr., who in 2009 was involved in a confrontation with Cambridge police investigating a reported break-in at his house. In the disputed shooting of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla., in 2012, the president identified with the victim of the alleged racism to the point of saying the 17-year-old "could have been my son.

Yet when it comes to the world's most widespread and ideologically driven racism, President Obama seems to have a blind spot, initiating a nuclear deal with the fanatical anti-Jewish regime in Tehran, despite what he calls Iran's "bad behavior." The euphemism this time is his, not that of the perpetrators, and it camouflages their intentions even if they won't.

Perhaps Mr. Obama is oblivious to what the scholar Robert Wistrich (who died in May) called "the longest hatred" because it has been so much a part of his world as he moved through life. Muslim Indonesia, where he lived from age 6 to 10, trails only Pakistan and Iran in its hostility to Jews. An animus against Jews and Israel was a hallmark of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's church in Chicago that Mr. Obama attended for two decades. And before he ran for office, Mr. Obama carried the standard of the international left that invented the stigma of Zionism-as-imperialism. As a presidential candidate, Mr. Obama felt obliged to repudiate his pastor (who had famously cursed America from the pulpit), and muted his far-left credentials. Mr. Obama was voted into office by an electorate enamored of the idea that he would oppose all forms of racism. He has not met that expectation.

Some Jewish critics of Mr. Obama may be tempted to put his derelictions in a line of neglect by other presidents, but there is a difference. Thus one may argue that President Roosevelt should have bombed the approach routes to Auschwitz or allowed the Jewish-refugee ship St. Louis to dock in the U.S. during World War II, but those were at worst sins of omission. In sharpest contrast, President Obama's nuclear agreement with Iran is an act of commission. This is the first time the U.S. will have deliberately entered into a pact with a country committed to annihilating another people—a pact that doesn't even require formal repudiation of the country's genocidal aims.

As a Jew I know that the appeal to history is about as effective as the child's threat of punishment against the bully the child cannot hope to defeat. Nonetheless, Jews do "write" history, thanks to the outsize evils marshaled against them. Because the most repressive and aggressive regimes continue to organize against the Jews, the Jewish people have become the "true north" of toleration and concern for human rights. Those who defend the Jews are necessarily on the side of peace and brotherhood, those who attack them invariably on the side of evil. Depending on the outcome of the Iran deal, this outreach to an anti-Jewish regime may one day rival the blot of slavery on the American record. Israel will strive to protect its citizens, but Mr. Obama has increased the odds against them.

What of American Jews in all this? It is sometimes mistakenly assumed that those who are passionately for Israel are therefore less for America. It is just the opposite: Anti-Jewish aggression is always aimed at the self-accountable way of life that the Jews represent. "Death to the Jews!" is a call to arms against Western liberal democracies; that is why in Iran the cry is often accompanied by "Death to America!"

Americans intent on stopping Iran are not against the president but in favor of the hope he once embodied for an end to racism. They hope for respectful treatment of blacks and Jews alike. They believe that America stands for humanity's better nature.

Ms. Wisse, a former professor of Yiddish and comparative literature at Harvard, is the author of "Jews and Power" (Schocken, 2007) and "No Joke: Making Jewish Humor" (Princeton, 2013).

 

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