Former President Barack Obama implied that Jewish history had nothing to do with the founding of Israel, framing the Jewish state purely as an answer for the Holocaust while accusing Jews of stealing the land.
Speaking at Queen’s University in Belfast on Tuesday night, Obama painted a revisionist picture of Israel’s creation, asserting that Jews simply fled European oppression and took land from local populations.
“The fact is that the Jewish people, for millennia, were oppressed, discriminated against, killed. Europe was responsible for much of it. They understandably sought a refuge,” Obama told the crowd, according to the Belfast Telegraph. “What is also undeniable is that they took land off people and they were excessive. And those people understandably said, ‘This is injustice and I want my land back.’”
The media watchdog group HonestReporting blasted the former president’s remarks, pointing out his total erasure of 3,000 years of Jewish ties to the region.
“According to Barack Obama, Jews fled Europe, arrived in someone else’s land and became ‘excessive,’” HonestReporting posted on X. “Conveniently missing: The Jewish people’s millennia-old connection to the Land of Israel and centuries of continuous Jewish presence there. Israel’s legitimacy did not begin with European persecution. Neither did Jewish history.”
Obama’s latest anti-Israel rhetoric is part of a long pattern of anti-Israel action. Throughout his presidency, Obama routinely undermined the Jewish state, pushed anti-Zionist talking points, and actively worked against Israel’s national security interests.
The narrative began back during his infamous 2009 Cairo Speech, where Obama framed the justification for Israel’s existence almost exclusively through the lens of the Holocaust and European antisemitism. That framing sparked anger from Israeli leaders and American Jewish groups. While Obama attempted to walk back those remarks during a 2013 trip to Jerusalem, his latest Belfast comments prove he has returned to his old playbook.
Beyond rhetoric, Obama’s actions in office consistently targeted Israel.
In December 2016, as a parting shot before leaving office, the Obama administration reportedly orchestrated and abstained from a backstabbing U.N. Security Council resolution that declared that Israeli settlements and control over East Jerusalem were illegal. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed the administration for betraying Israel, while Palestinian leaders openly celebrated.
Between 2010 and 2015, the Obama administration repeatedly leaked classified Israeli military intelligence to the press to stop Israel from defending itself. Leaks included exposing a secret airspace deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia to target Iran’s nuclear facilities, publicizing classified war games, and exposing Mossad operations.
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