Obama and Israel

Some neocons are concerned about a President Obama's policies toward Israel.

The folks over at Commentary magazine (intellectual base of neo-con thinker Norman Podhoretz, who is a Giuliani advisor) have been scrutinizing Barack Obama's Middle East advisors and policies. Noah Pollak has zeroed in on Samantha Power, a human rights advocate, Harvard University professor and TIME columnist. Pollack goes so far as to suggest that if Obama was elected, Power would be advising him to repudiate Israel and appease Iran--"America's greatest ally in the Middle East," and its "greatest enemy," respectively, in Pollak's view.

Of course, Obama has not really mentioned anything specific about Israel and the Middle East. This is all being based on some of his advisors and as the article notes, one of his advisors is staunchly pro-Israel. That said, I think America would be a much more credible third-party in Middle East negotiations if we weren't seen as tied to Israel at the hip. Yes, Syria, Iran, the Palestinians, and so on have done some despicable things, but Israel is no saint. We need to call out Israel just as strongly when they do not live up to their end of a bargain as we do everyone else in the region.