‘Obama bad for Jews, world’
ISI Leibler pulled no punches in a frank assessment of the Jewish world he gave late last month.
ISI Leibler pulled no punches in a frank assessment of the Jewish world he gave late last month.
Visiting from Jerusalem, the former president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, and architect of Australia’s efforts to win freedom for Soviet refuseniks, said Israel remains the best hope for Jewry, in a world beset by a dithering West and resurgent anti-Semitism.
At an event in Melbourne co-hosted by the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC), Emunah, the Jewish Community Council of Victoria and the United Israel Appeal, Leibler condemned the West’s agreement with Iran over nukes.
And the veteran strategist, who also spoke at an AIJAC lunch briefing in Sydney last week, lamented the ALP’s change of policy over recognising a Palestinian state, adding that “it’s harder to be a Jewish leader in Australia today than in my time”.
But his greatest salvo was aimed at US President Barack Obama’s deal with Tehran, which he predicted would make British wartime prime minister Neville Chamberlain’s failed concord with Nazi Germany “look like a picnic”.
Leibler also slammed the US leader for his poor relations with Israel’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu, saying Obama “has behaved appallingly” to the leader of America’s “greatest ally”.
Asked who Obama’s successor might be in 2016, he responded that “anyone would be better” for Israel than the White House incumbent, including likely Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton.
“Obama is bad for Jews, bad for America and bad for the world, and may be laying the foundations for the breakdown of Western civilisation,” he stated.
He was also pessimistic about Jewish life in the US, citing rising intermarriage rates and high numbers of “liberal” Jews continuing to support Obama.
Leibler described Europe as a lost cause for Jews and suggested younger generations should either make aliyah or go elsewhere in the Diaspora, as long as they leave a continent he described as “now a cemetery for Jews”.
He said Europe was now beset by “a witch’s brew” of Islamist hatred of Jews, a reawakening of traditional anti-Semitism and “the adoption by the international left of Israel as the symbol of incarnate evil”. Europe was “worse than the 1930s”, when at least the left supported Jews, but now leftists are at the forefront of hostility to Jews and Israel.
Leibler said that “under the right sort of leadership, Palestinians could become good neighbours” to Israel, just as German society had been reconstituted after 1945, but a Palestinian state “will not occur in my lifetime”.
PETER KOHN
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