They expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country--a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America, a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.
While partially correct on the Middle East conflict, the comment does reflect Obama's lack of familiarity with the history of the conflict. Taranto writes:
To characterize the conflicts in the Middle East as "emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam" is only a partial truth. In fact, Arab states have sought Israel's destruction since its creation; and many of Israel's enemies over the years--Nasser's Egypt, Assad's Syria, Saddam Hussein's Iraq, Yasser Arafat's PLO--have adhered to secular ideologies.
It is true that the growth of radical Islam over the past 30 years has given anti-Israel belligerents a more religious consistency. For example, Hamas, which now controls the Gaza strip, from which it frequently fires rockets at civilians in southern Israel, is an Islamist group.
Hamas would be the terrorist group whose Mousa Abu Marzook wrote an op-ed last year that appeared in the LA Times--an op-ed that BizzyBlog notes Obama's pastor, Jeremiah Wright, reprinted in his church bulletin: A Fresh View of the Palestinian Struggle.
Technorati Tag: Barack Obama.
