Obama goes to Belfast and reveals himself
Actually, it’s not as though his anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian sympathies were previously unknown. But now that such attitudes have become the norm – even the required norm – among Democrats, Obama can be more open about it:
According to Irish media, Obama – speaking about the Israel-Palestinian conflict at an event in Belfast – said it was “undeniable” that Jews who settled in Palestine to escape persecution “took land off people and they were excessive. And those people understandably said, ‘This is injustice and I want my land back.’”
Read those words again, and consider who spoke them. The problem is not merely that Obama said it. It is that countless people will believe it precisely because Obama said it.
This was not some 5th grader history student speaking. This was a two-term president of the United States, a man who remains one of the most influential figures on the planet …
His influence is actually less now than when he was president, but he still is respected by many. However, I doubt his saying this persuaded those who were previously unpersuaded; Obama is very much preaching to the choir and what he said is now a standard belief among Democrats (and many people on the right, as well). Many are ignorant of history, but is Obama? Does it even matter?:
In one fell swoop, Obama, either knowingly or through astonishing ignorance, peddled one of the most pernicious myths about Jews and Zionism – a myth which perhaps more than any other has been responsible for a century of conflict, tens of thousands of Jews killed, and many more times that of Arabs. All because of this false claim that the Jews stole the land.
If this is what Obama truly believes, then, in my view, he is an antisemitism superspreader
And if he says it without believing it, then he is even worse – a knowing, evil antisemitism superspreader.
More:
It is not “undeniable” that Jews “took land off people”. It is, in fact, very deniable, because it is quite simply untrue. You do not need to be a professor of Middle Eastern history to understand that the Jewish people have maintained a connection with the Land of Israel for more than 3,000 years. We are not strangers who have appeared here out of nowhere. Jews who more recently settled in waves of aliyah did not steal the land, as you inferred, but bought it legally from Arabs, even paying exorbitant prices. Don’t take my word for it – you can check for yourself in Ottoman and British documents.
And what exactly was it “excessive” that, according to you, the Jews did? Flee from gas chambers? Were my own parents “excessive” when they escaped to Palestine in 1932 because Hitler was round the corner? They bought their own home, by the way.
“Excessive” is just one of the words du jour about Israel. I doubt Obama sits around thinking about the details of that “excessiveness.” It is like the word “disproportionate” to discuss the war; people use the word without even knowing what it means in terms of a war.
You can read a deeper analysis of Obama’s remarks here.
I am heartily sick of this man, who has done so much damage to the nation and the world and who became president based on a masquerade about his intentions, which were always far more leftist and transformative than he initially let on. Yes, he spoke of “hope and change” – but he didn’t specify what the change would be. He just let his sonorous voice do the talking and let the listeners fill in the blanks with whatever they imagined to be his goals.
And he knows it. He’s long known it and used it: “In the prologue to the second of his autobiographies, The Audacity of Hope, Barack Obama said: ‘I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.'”
NOTE: By the way, Belfast is in Northern Ireland, not Ireland proper. Ireland itself is probably the most anti-Israel, anti-Jewish, and pro-Palestinian country in Europe – which is saying a lot. Northern Ireland is more mixed.
If you want to hear about what’s going on in Ireland vis a vis Israel, watch some of this:
Actually, prior to 1948, 98% of the Jewish settlement was along the northern coastal plain and in the Valley of Jezreel. The Jewish settlers weren’t in a position to seize anyone’s land. They purchased land from extant landholders.
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NB, the war in 1947-49 was an initiative first of Arab paramilitaries and then of the Arab states. You lose, you leave, you spend decades refusing to settle with your adversary.
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Anyone who fancied Obama was well read learns he’s about as well read as the deputy dean of students at your local college.
I saw through this shallow phony right from the start. It was very obvious despite his pretentions of “moderation” that he spoke for the already-ascendant hard left of the Democrat party and that his Third-world political and personal background inclined him to hate America and Israel.
He has not changed his stripes but is only more upfront about it.
Obama, an anti-semetic, anti-American, Marxist. And a lying sack of …. Unfortunately he cannot fundamentally transform to ambient temperature soon enough to do anyone any good.
Here’s hoping Obama’s merde touch wins again.
What a nauseating person he is. Among other things, his presidency set back race relations in the U.S. by decades.
He is really a man that is almost totally devoid of grace, possessing of a monstrous ego.
Buck O’Fama
Today is the anniversary of Marie Antoinette’s execution. Apparently kings and queens >can< be executed for treason.
FOAF
Which reminds me of Obama writing about his college days at Occidental.
A poseur, who is more concerned with the impression he makes than in speaking from his heart. I am reminded of the time in 20089 when he was speaking to a group of Democrat faithful when he let his guard down and referred to rural Pennsylvania voters as “bitter clingers to guns and religion.” Speaking to the crowd, or letting his guard down?
Obama has been instrumental in the politicization of all aspects of American life. See my post Life in the Fully Politicized Society:
https://davidfoster273133.substack.com/p/life-in-the-fully-politicized-society
“ He just let his sonorous voice do the talking and let the listeners fill in the blanks with whatever they imagined to be his goals.”
I used to call him President Saruman.
“said it was “undeniable” that Jews who settled in Palestine to escape persecution “took land off people and they were excessive.”
Yea, that has about as much “undeniability” as there are 57 states.
I strongly suspect Robert Brisco is rolling over in his grave. (It’s in Dolphins Barn Jewish Cemetery in Dublin, btw; I’ve stood over it).
Note in this regard that “The Emerald Isle Immigration Center in New York City has devoted a special prize called the Robert Briscoe Award. The group celebrates the historically very close relationship between Jewish and Irish communities in New York City and honours Jewish New Yorkers who have helped support immigration in the United States.”
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Briscoe_(politician)
I wonder whether the Center will be awarding the prize this year?
The land was conquered and ruled by the Ottoman Empire for hundreds of years.
Arabs did not own, nor claim ownership; they were subjects of the Ottoman Empire, essentially renting from a Sultan far away.
When humans rent, they are not owners.
If you live in a rental property you have zero claim to it — you must leave if a new owner wants you to leave.
The Allies took ownership when the Ottomans lost WWI.
It’s not complicated, and it never has been.
Ranchman:
That’s a nice succinct summary.
I would add that all Muslim lands were conquered and occupied, usually brutally, and the previous occupants killed, displaced, enslaved, forced to convert, or reduced to secondary citizenship.
And if those lands are reconquered that is a deep offense to Muslims. They never forget. They are still moaning about the deep unfairness of their loss of Spain and Portugal — Al Andalus — in 1492. They still vow to retake Al Andalus. It was one of the first things Bin Laden said publicly after 9-11.
Their ambitions don’t stop there.
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Make war on [unbelievers] until idolatry shall cease and [Allah’s] religion [Islam] reigns supreme.
–Quran, Sura 8:39
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Which is why almost all the religion-based terrorism in the world comes from Islam and why “moderate Muslims” do nothing to stop it.
Muslims use the freedoms of the West to subvert us. They are deeply dishonest and hypocritical when they pretend otherwise.
Hi. I’ve read a number of O’Neill’s articles over the last several years, but this was the first interview with him that I’ve ever taken in at length – watched most of the attached video. A number of interesting points in there.
1) The tie-in of the anti-Israel stuff in Ireland with the ‘race to the bottom’ victimhood fetish makes a good deal of sense to me – I need to feel more oppressed than others as a sort of twisted way to validate myself in the era of… I don’t know, I guess I would have to use the German term Entwertung, anti-valuation.
2) All this moaning about ‘colonisation,’ yet at the same time, the studied looking away on the part of the Irish ruling class from the fact that they themselves are facilitating the colonization of Ireland by importing already one-fifth of the current population of the geographical entity labelled ‘Ireland’ and allowing, or using, those people to make Ireland into something else entirely – who knows what that is supposed to be exactly, maybe they don’t much care in any event.
3) I didn’t realize Ireland’s population is less than that of Denmark; that was a bit of a surprise.
Michelle Obama has, in my opinion, this, and only this saving grace: she loathes her husband as much as I do.
David Foster @ 9:49 pm last night wrote about how “Obama has been instrumental in the politicization of all aspects of American life.”
Mamdani, too.
You reminded me of him creating this monster in January:
https://www.nyc.gov/mayors-office/news/2026/01/transcript–mayor-mamdani-establishes-office-of-mass-engagement-
Sickening! Anathema to America’s limited government principle, IMO.
Government is their religion, & everyone must worship & work for it.
Neo wrote:
“This was not some 5th grader history student speaking.”
That is precisely who was speaking. A public school 5th grader from the Inner City of Chicago.
Angling for a second
OscarNobel Prize…?John Galt III:
I did NOT write that.
It was a quote from an opinion piece. Quotes are indented in a box, and are in italics.
Should also be noted that there is little if any evidence of a distinct “Palestinian” national identity that predates the Zionist movement of the late 19th century. IOW “Palestine” was cooked up by the Arabs to resist Jews returning to the land with which they have had a spiritual and historical connection for nearly 4000 years.
Barry’s nasty rant came that close to Helen Thomas – “Go back to Poland!”
Should also be noted that there is little if any evidence of a distinct “Palestinian” national identity that predates the Zionist movement of the late 19th century.
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British authorities assembled three Ottoman subprefectures, made some adjustments in the exterior boundary of the set, and called the result the ‘Mandate of Palestine’. You can go back about 1,300 years through Omayyad, Abassid, Seljuq, and Ottoman provincial maps and you’ll not find a territorial unit which resembles that assembled by Britain. The one which does resemble it is the Christian Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem.
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The notion of a ‘Palestinian’ identity was unusual prior to 1968. People understood themselves as associated with a village, with a lineage, with greater Syria, or with the Arab world.
Helen Thomas, who can forget that twisted sister?
Michelle Obama has, in my opinion, this, and only this saving grace: she loathes her husband as much as I do.
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I think that’s the issue of your imagination.
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You can call her ‘Michelle Antoinette’ or ‘Moochelle’ with some justice. However, one of the curios about the couple is that they have a domestic life which is orderly not only in comparison to the black rank-and-file but even in comparison to the median of the professional-managerial class segment of the black population. They both seem to have concluded (like many couples in old age) that they wouldn’t be any more satisfied with life appended to anyone else.
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Curious how Bill Bradley landed on the gray divorce square and Al Gore landed on the adjacent square; Wesley Clark was due for that as well but seems to have thought better of it. And then there’s John Edwards. (Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, and Richard Gephardt all outlived their wives. Gary Hart too).
Barry M: I hope you don’t mind me calling Obama “Barry”, I think the context usually makes it clear that I’m not talking about you:). I like to use it because a former co-worker attended that fancy private high school in Hawaii with BO and gave me a great quote I love to use – “Barry was one of the stoners!”.
In fact that is where my nom de plume comes from, it stands for “friend of a friend”, meaning Obama who was POTUS when I started using it.
Not to worry.
Seriously.
It’s an Irish name after all….
(Or is it Scottish?)
Hey, maybe I should change my name to Barack?
“It’s an Irish name after all….”
You mean Bronk O’Bama?