How Much Does Obama Hate Israel? 1.9 Billion Times

Bunker busters
Bunker busters

One of the many persistent right-wing lies about Pres. Obama is that he hates Israel. It may be true that he’s not fond of the country’s leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, a despicable figure who is closely aligned with Republicans in the U.S. Congress, a cabal that makes no secret of its contempt for the president. But there’s no evidence that Obama loves or hates Israel any more than he likes or dislikes any of America’s allies.

Writing in the Atlantic, Conor Friedersdorf summed up this particular right-wing myth about the president last summer:

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Netanyahu is not Richard Nixon

For twenty years, many people in Israel and in the West have expressed the hope that Benjamin Netanyahu would prove to be the Richard Nixon of the State of Israel … the Nixon who yearned to enter the pantheon of statesmen, and who defied his Red-baiting past and initiated diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China. … It is amazing to recall how long this fantasy persisted.

— David Remnick, writing in the New Yorker.

Albright: Netanyahu Is Meddling in U.S. Affairs

He is interfering in our internal affairs. … I don’t want to interfere in Israeli internal affairs, but it strikes me that there is an awful lot going on in his neighborhood in the Middle East, and that’s where he should be.

— Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of meddling with U.S. politics, The Hill reports.

Another School Hit in Gaza; Another Denial by Israel

6

Number of schools serving as shelters bombed in Gaza in three weeks of fighting. Israel, like Bashar al-Assad in Syria and Vladimir Putin in Russia, claims the hits were the result of “errant rocket fire” from the other side. The UN says it supplied the coordinates of the girls’ elementary school most recently hit to Israel 17 times. The United States agreed after the strike to send more ammunition to Israel, as the governments of Chile, Peru, Brazil and Ecuador withdrew their ambassadors to the country in protest of the civilian killing.

Traveling Doesn’t Boost Palin

12%

Portion of likely Republican primary voters who support Sarah Palin, as of March. In January, 19% said they would vote for Palin. Meanwhile, 5% support Michele Bachmann and 1% wrote in Donald Trump as their preferred candidate. The poll indicates that Palin’s Israel trip, wherein she claimed to fly the Israeli flag in both her home and her office, failed to make her look more presidential.