The incomparable Melanie Phillips dissects the Obama speech in The Spectator:
[…] He revealed gross ignorance of the Jews” unique claim to the land of Israel. He said that America’s unbreakable bond with Israel was based upon
the recognition that the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied. Around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, and anti-Semitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust…
The Jews” attachment to their homeland does not derive from the Holocaust, nor their overall tragic history. It derives from Judaism itself, which is composed of the inseparable elements of the religion, the people and the land. Their unique claim upon the land rests upon the fact that the Jews are the only people for whom Israel was ever their nation, which it was for hundreds of years — centuries before the Arabs and Muslims came on the scene. As for antisemitism, he made no mention of the alliance between the Palestinians and the Nazis during the 1930s, and the fact that Nazi-style Jew-hatred continues to pour out of the Arab and Muslim world to this day.
Building upon this ignorance and amnesia, he then adopted the Arab propaganda version of Israel’s history. He thus delivered a travesty of the facts.
On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people – Muslims and Christians – have suffered in pursuit of a homeland.
On the contrary, it is not undeniable because it is untrue. The Palestinians have been offered a homeland repeatedly — in 1936, 1947, 2000 and last year. They have repeatedly turned it down. The Arabs could have created it between 1948 and 1967, when the West Bank and Gaza were occupied by Jordan and Egypt. They chose not to do so. They could have created it after 1967, when Israel offered the land to them in return for peace with Israel. They refused the offer. The Palestinians have suffered because they have tried for six decades to destroy the Jews” homeland
For more than sixty years they have endured the pain of dislocation.
The “˜pain of dislocation” was caused by the fact that six decades ago they went to war against the newly recreated Israel to destroy it, and were subsequently deliberately kept in “˜refugee” camps by the Arab world. What other aggressors in the world are described as suffering “˜the pain of dislocation” caused by their own aggression — which has continued for sixty years without remission and shows no sign of ending?
Many wait in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza, and neighboring lands for a life of peace and security that they have never been able to lead.
There is one reason for that and one reason alone — the Palestinians have ensured that Israel has never lived in peace or security, because they have continued to attack it and murder its citizens. And Gaza? Doesn’t Obama realise the Israelis no longer occupy Gaza? It is run by Hamas, which shows its commitment to the peace and security of its inhabitants by throwing them off the tops of tall buildings…
There is much more. Read it all.