Obama draws rebuke from Jewish group over his take on Israel-Hamas conflict

Former President Barack Obama has weighed in on the conflict between Israel and Hamas in recent days, prompting a stern rebuke from the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC), which accused him of portraying a false moral equivalence between the two sides, as Breitbart reports.

The group took particular issue with Obama's suggestion that “occupation” was to blame for recent hostilities and that everyone is “complicit” in fanning the flames of the current conflict.

Obama holds forth

The Jewish group's criticism stemmed from Obama's recent interview with Pod Save America in which, as Fox News noted, he stated that “all of us are complicit” in what is currently taking hold in the Middle East.

Obama further opined that “nobody's hands are clean” when it comes to the war in which Israel and Gaza are now engaged.

The former president went on to suggest the need for Americans to simultaneously accept and acknowledge positions that may initially appear utterly incompatible.

Obama said of the Oct. 7 terror attacks on Israel, “What Hamas did was horrific, and there is no justification for it.”

“And what is also true is that the occupation, and what's happening to Palestinians, is unbearable, and what is also true is that there is a history of the Jewish people that may be dismissed unless your grandparents, or your great-great-grandparents or your uncle or your aunt tell you stories about the madness of antisemitism, and what is true is that there are people right now that are dying who have nothing to do with what Hamas did,” the former president added.

As such, he suggested, no resolution would be possible unless everyone works to admit “the whole truth” and avoids clinging to one side's interpretation over the other.

RJC condemns remarks

Taking issue with virtually everything Obama said about the current conflict, the RJC issued a statement of rebuke.

“At a time when morality, international law, and the welfare of our chief ally in the Middle East all demand that we stand with Israel, full stop, Barack Obama says it's complicated. It's not,” the group began, adding:

Hamas attacks civilians; Hamas takes hostages; Hamas uses Gazans as human shields; Hamas steals humanitarian supplies; Hamas builds terrorism tunnels instead of bomb shelters, or schools, or houses. The US should be fully behind Israel as it seeks to end Hamas's capability to Harm Israelis and Gazans alike. But instead, when Israel faces a barbaric attack from Hamas, Obama blames Israel.

Turning the tables on the former president's analysis, the RJC declared that it is he that is complicit in the bloodshed seen in Israel and Gaza in recent weeks, noting that Obama's policies “and those of President Joe Biden put billions of dollars into Iranian coffers, money used to fund and train Hamas and other terrorist groups” bent on the elimination of the Jewish state.

Any effort by Obama “to dilute his own culpability,” the group concluded, does not alter history or the truth, and that is a sentiment with which many others can easily agree.