Did The Arabs of The 57 States Send Any Relief Workers To Haiti

Liberal Icon Attacks Obama Over Israel

Marty Peretz, editor-in-chief and former owner of the liberal magazine The New Republic and a staunch supporter of Barak Obama in 2008, has written a column sharply critical of the president over Israeli aid to Haiti.

On Jan. 15, Obama commented that in addition to U.S. aid to Haiti, assistance had come from “Brazil, Mexico, Canada, France, Colombia, and the Dominican Republic, among others.”

He declined to mention Israel.

In a column headlined “Maybe I’m Getting Paranoid . . . About Obama,” Peretz wrote: “The fact is that, next to our country, Israel sent the largest contingent of trained rescue workers, doctors, and other medical personnel.

“The Israeli field hospital was the only one on the ground that could perform real surgery, which it did literally hundreds of times . . .

“So didn’t Obama notice? For God’s sake, everybody noticed the deep Israeli involvement. I understand that Obama doesn’t like Middle East narratives that do not contain ‘one side and the other side’ equal valance. But he couldn’t have that here. The Arabs don’t care a fig.”

Peretz concluded: “Yes, I think that the labors of the Israelis were edited out of Obama’s speech, either by his speechwriters (who have made dissing Israel their forte) or by his own oh-so-delicate but dishonest censoring mechanism.”

This is not the first time the liberal editor has criticized Obama over Israel. In his column of July 14, 2009, Peretz wrote: “Frankly, I am sick and tired of President Obama's eldering — more accurately, hectoring — Israel's leaders. It is, after all, they whose country is the target of an armed and ideological cyclone that Obama has done precious little to ease.”