White House on Ayatollah’s ‘Death to America’: ‘Intended for Domestic Political Audience’

Salemi/AP
Salemi/AP

On Monday, the White House dismissed Ayatollah Khamenei’s “Death to America” rhetoric, telling CNN that it was “intended for a domestic political audience.” That comment came on the heels of White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest explaining that such rhetoric provided even more reason for negotiating a deal with the Iranian regime.

At the same time that the White House essentially blew off Ayatollah Khamenei’s “Death to America” routine, the White House deliberately misinterpreted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s comments the day before and the day of his re-election in Israel. Apparently the things said during an election do not constitute electioneering; the things said in a country that has not had free elections for three decades constitute electioneering. Welcome to the delusional anti-Semitic world of the Obama administration, where Palestinian diplomats can refuse to disassociate from Hamas, and Iran can openly embrace the destruction of America and Israel, but it’s the Jews who need to be clubbed into line.

The day before his re-election as prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu said this in an interview with Israeli publication NRG:

NETANYAHU: I think anyone who is going to build a Palestinian state today will be freeing up space to give an attack area to radical Islam against Israel. This is the reality created here in recent years. Anyone who ignores this sticks his head in the sand. The left does this, burying its head in the sand again and again. We are realistic and understand…

NRG: If you are elected head of state, no Palestinian state will come to fruition?

NETANYAHU: Indeed.

NRG: Construction in Jerusalem and the West Bank will renew?

NETANYAHU: We are continuing all the time, but that’s not a question about additional building. There is a real threat that the government of the left will join the international community and do their bidding….

Netanyahu clearly stated that a Palestinian state was impossible “today” thanks to the “reality created here in recent years.” And he is correct. But the White House deliberately misinterpreted the remarks to suggest Israeli intransigence with regard to negotiations. Negotiations with whom? The very people who vow the destruction of the state of Israel, build terror tunnels to kidnap civilian children, and fire rockets into major Israeli cities.

But assume, for a moment, that the Obama administration didn’t lie about Netanyahu’s comments. Assume that Netanyahu said everything the White House said he did. Even then, couldn’t Netanyahu’s words be construed as electoral posturing? Not according to this White House. White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough said as much to astroturfed, George Soros-funded anti-Israel front group J Street on Monday:

We cannot simply pretend that those comments were never made, or that they don’t raise questions about the Prime Minister’s commitment to achieving peace through direct negotiations.

The White House then went further and explained that the Prime Minister’s comments would be the basis for a full re-evaluation of the US-Israel relationship.

So the White House “cannot simply pretend” Netanyahu’s comments never happened – they can even make up what they wish Netanyahu had actually said. But they can pretend that Iran’s “death to America” ideology, which has been consistent since 1979, never happened.

The White House similarly suggested that Netanyahu’s comments notifying Israeli voters that left-wing non-governmental organizations were busing Arabs to polls to vote for the anti-Israel Joint Arab List somehow endangered Israeli democracy. By the same token, somebody ought to notify President Obama that his constant race-baiting – Al Sharpton is his go-to racial commentator – endangers American democracy.

The State Department defines anti-Semitism thusly with regard to anti-Israel sentiment:

DOUBLE STANDARD FOR ISRAEL: Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.

There is no doubt by this criteria that President Obama’s administration fulfills the State Department’s own definition. No democratic nation in the world would be expected to negotiate or make concessions to a terrorist regime, yet that is what the Obama administration expects and demands. No democratic nation in the world would be expected to sit idly by while a nuclear-armed enemy developed on its doorstep, yet that is precisely what President Obama insists upon. And the double standard is blatant: when White House press secretary Josh Earnest was asked yesterday by CNN’s Jim Acosta about the fact that Obama “has said things that he has reversed over the years,” Earnest simply dismissed that fact and went right back to bashing Netanyahu’s non-existent destruction of the non-existent peace process.

At this point, presumably, Netanyahu should begin threatening Iran with nuclear holocaust, aggressively invading Yemen, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, and shouting “Death to America.” Given the Obama administration’s positions in the Middle East, doing so would only boost the US-Israel relationship.

Ben Shapiro is Senior Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the new book, The People vs. Barack Obama: The Criminal Case Against The Obama Administration (Threshold Editions, June 10, 2014). He is also Editor-in-Chief of TruthRevolt.org. Follow Ben Shapiro on Twitter @benshapiro.

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