NEW YORK — The Anti-Defamation League criticized Michael Oren, Israels former ambassador to the US, for an insensitive and unjustified attack on President Barack Obama.
Oren should walk back views published in an essay posted June 19 on the Foreign Policy website, the ADL said.
Oren wrote that Obamas attitudes toward Islam and American foreign policy in the Middle East are driven by his personal interactions with Muslims, including his exposure to Muslims while growing up.
The essay, said ADL National Director Abraham Foxman in a statement, results in borderline stereotyping and insensitivity.
Oren said that achieving a nuclear deal with Iran could bring a fresh start for Obama with Muslims, observing, The president who pledged to bring Arabs and Israelis together ultimately did so not through peace, but out of their common anxiety over his support for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and his determination to reach a nuclear accord with Iran.
Read related IJN editorial, “This is a diplomat? Michael Orens colossal blunder“
Understanding Obamas worldview was crucial to my job as Israels ambassador to the US. Right after entering office in June, 2009, I devoted months to studying the new president, poring over his speeches, interviews, press releases, and memoirs, and meeting with many of his friends and supporters.
The purpose of this self-taught course Obama 101, I called it was to get to the point where the president could no longer surprise me. And over the next four years I rarely was, especially on Muslim and Middle Eastern issues.
Oren, now a member of the Israeli Knesset, came under fire last week for an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal in which he wrote that Obama abandoned the principle of keeping disagreements between the two countries private and of no surprises between them.
