02 January 2009 - Missing In Action in Gaza: Obama

The Gaza War is almost a week old, and there is one man still missing in action: Barack Obama.

He has said nothing in support of Israel--and his left-wing supporters are incensed that he has said nothing condemning it.

In lieu of any actual comment from our MIA president-elect, pro-Israel bloggers and protests have been featuring the following quote, which Obama delivered from Israel in July, when he was running for president:

If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I would do everything to stop that, and would expect Israel to do the same thing.

I think it's smart to tie Obama to that position. But it won't work, any more than tying him to his promise in June to keep Jerusalem united. He reneged the very next day. And support in the abstract, when there is no war on, is not the same as support in the particular circumstances of an armed conflict.

We also know that there is another Obama quote out there, which anti-Israel demonstrators would be waving around at their rallies if they could.

I'm talking about what Obama said at the 2003 farewell party for Rashid Khalidi, which the L.A. Times has on a tape that it refused to release, based on the bogus claim that they were protecting a source.

Whatever Obama said, or assented to, must have been pretty explosive. That's the best we can infer, anyway, from the newspaper's bizarre behavior in a year when it did all it could to promote its favorite candidate.

Obama has found time to tend to the internal affairs of the Democratic Party, commenting recently on the appointment of Roland Burris to the U.S. Senate.

Would it really be that hard to issue a statement supporting Israel in its struggle against terror?

Of course not. And the fact that Obama has said nothing, says everything.