Radicalizing Middle East Foreign Policy

Sénat/Flickr

Radicalizing Middle East Foreign Policy

President Obama’s most recent appointment underlines the direction of U.S. policies in the Middle East.

He’s back. It has been over five years since Robert Malley officially served under Barack Obama. But after laying low for half a decade, the unashamed terrorist-supporting Middle East “expert” has found himself exalted into the extremely powerful position of president of the National Security Council (nsc).

Malley’s checkered past makes this one of the boldest anti-Israeli appointments in the Obama administration.

In 2008, in the midst of Senator Obama’s presidential campaign, Malley served as a foreign policy adviser with a focus on the Middle East. However, Malley was quietly dropped from the campaign after news came to light that he had been speaking to, and working closely with, Hamas—the Islamic group operating out of Gaza—which is classified as a terrorist organization by the State Department.

Malley has a long history of dealing with terrorists in the Middle East, and shares a similar mindset with many of them when it comes to the nation of Israel.

Malley was exposed to a hatred of Israel from an early age. His parents were close friends of Yasser Arafat, and staunch anti-Israel supporters. His father was a member of the Egyptian Communist Party, and was a proponent of Russian influence in the Middle East. Aside from a communist-leaning, pro-Palestinian upbringing, there are other not-so-subtle clues that reveal Malley’s anti-Israel stance.

Take some of his articles for example. In 2001, Malley co-wrote an article titled “Fictions About the Failure at Camp David,” published in the New York Times. In the piece, Malley alleged that it was Israel, not the Palestinian Authority, which was responsible for the failure of the peace process during Bill Clinton’s term as U.S. president. His revisionist viewpoint runs counter to the beliefs of Clinton himself, who blamed Arafat for the failure of the Camp David Summit in his autobiography, My Life.

Malley has written or co-written numerous articles calling on the U.S. to disengage from its alliance with Israel and strengthen ties with the Arabs. In some of these articles, Malley implores the U.S. to reach out to, among others: Hamas (terrorists), Hezbollah (terrorists), Syria (murderous dictator), and Muqtada al-Sadr (an Iraqi Shiite terrorist leader who calls the U.S. the “Great Serpent” and actively fights U.S. influence in the region).

Malley also penned articles that justify terrorist attacks on Israel, condemn the U.S. for its alliance with Israel, and claim that more “land for peace” deals between Israel, Syrian, Lebanon and the Palestinians will somehow bring an end to terrorist attacks against Israel and usher peace into the Middle East.

In a 2008 article for American Thinker, Ed Lasky wrote that Malley “seems to have an agenda that includes empowering our enemies and weakening our friends and allies.” Lasky goes on to pose the questions, “What does it say about Senator Obama’s judgment that he appointed a man like Malley to be a top foreign policy adviser? Or does it speak more to his true beliefs?”

Today, that senator is now the U.S. president in his second term in office, and he has Robert Malley squarely in the driver’s seat when it comes to Middle East foreign policy!

The New York Times—which has served as a soapbox for Malley’s anti-Israel, revisionist articles—was quick to applaud the return of the “Middle East peacemaker” as they called him. In an article titled “Aide’s Return to White House Reflects Changing U.S. Role in Middle East,” the New York Times spoke of how Malley would be entering a region glutted with issues that have remained unsolved for years—including the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

For President Obama to bestow a position of great power and authority on a man with such radical ideals on the Middle East—a man sacked for engaging in talks with terrorists—is as blatant an act of anti-Semitism as the papers Malley wrote! As Lasky suggested in his article, there is something truly sinister at play with this appointment.

President Obama rejected Malley once, for fear of such a radical damaging his campaign. However, the president has nothing to fear now as he is in his second term. The first term of President Obama was marred with failure upon failure in the Middle East, primarily surrounding the Arab Spring. The policies of supporting traditional enemies and rejecting long-time allies such as Israel looks only set to increase as the president hands Mideast policy-making to a man who would turn it on its head.