Barry "Almighty's" very first official trip/photo-op to Israel since being elected 'Dear Beloved Leader', comes during at time of much change in the Middle East. Too bad for him though that most of the change isn't necessarily for the better. That much talked about Arab Spring, has pretty much been a bust, first raising hopes of freedom and dignity, then veering off down a much darker path toward Islamist authoritarian rule. In Syria, tens of thousands of innocent people have died in what is a worsening civil war that has recently seen its first use of chemical weapons by a murdering despot desperate to remain in power. And Iran continues its steady march toward obtaining a nuclear weapons, ignoring international condemnation, what little of it there really has been. And Barry's rather one sided effort to seek peace between Palestinians and Israelis is now essentially in tatters.
So I guess it shouldn't come as too big of a surprise that the White House has, of late, been quite busy lowering expectations for Barry's sideshow trip to Israel all. As Barry will announce no new peace plan, no grand design or no major foreign policy initiative. His advisers are now resorting to calling the trip a "listening tour" and we all know how good Barry is at actually listening to anything other than the sound of his own voice. That is what you call a state visit when you have little, or nothing, as is the case here, to say. He who views himself as being a great and wondrous orator, has gone over with a resounding thud. But despite downgrading the trip, many still see Barry's arrival as being something of a sequel to his 2009 visit to Cairo, where he announced a "new beginning" with the Muslim world. However, four short years later, but as I recall, that was kind of a dud too.
And now, at least according to a recent survey by the Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project, confidence in Barry among those in Muslim countries dropped from 33% to 24% in his first term. Approval of Barry's policies declined even further, from 34% to 15%. And support for the United States in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Pakistan is lower today than it was in 2008, the final year of George W. Bush's administration. In his famed Cairo speech, you will remember, Barry, while apologizing for America, pledged a relationship between America and Muslims around the world "based on mutual interest and mutual respect." But in 2013, interests are diverging, and respect is in very short supply. But then, that's what happens when you project weakness and not strength. Barry is very conciliatory in his rhetoric and that only makes him appear to be weak,
Of all the strained relationships in the Middle East, the partnership with Israel is the most important and, potentially, the most easily repaired. That is, if Barry had a genuine interest in actually doing so. Barry has never been what you could call popular in the country, and with regard to some of the things he has been heard to say, it would appear that that bothers him very little. A poll released just last week showed that he had a scant 10% approval rating in Israel, with an additional 32% saying that while they may respect him, they certainly don't like him. And his attempting to make some gestures in an effort to heal the breach, such as visiting the grave site of Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, are viewed by manny as being nothing more than the actions of an opportunist and something that are purely symbolic in nature.
But if Israelis don't like Barry, I think it safe to say that the Palestinians like him even less. With Washington's perceived failure to take a harder line with Israel over the final status of Jerusalem, and U.S. opposition to President Mahmoud Abbas' successful campaign for higher Palestinian status in the United Nations, have engendered a deep sense of frustration. Passions spilled over in Bethlehem this week, when young Palestinians defaced a billboard with Barry's image and burned pictures of him in the streets. Barry's symbolic nods to Israel's history are likely to raise Palestinian ire even further. Still, I think it safe to say, judging by his many previous comments, that Barry's heart lies much more with the Palestinians than with the Israelis, and I think if he felt he could cut Israel loose he would do so in a heartbeat. Deep down inside of Barry, beats the heart of a Muslim sympathizer.
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