Obama’s New Book Demonizes Israel

The political left in America has constantly demonized the nation of Israel for decades in an attempt to lessen American support for Israel. Former President Barack Obama’s 768-page memoir, A Promised Land, published in November 2020, continues to garner criticism from people who claim it is shot through with historical inaccuracies and anti-Israel revisionist history. Writing for JNS.org, former Israeli Knesset member Dov Lipman said it “misleads readers in a way that will forever shape their negative perspective of the Jewish state.” This is very important because President Obama holds a significant following and is still well regarded in many political circles.

Lipman, who said he never before criticized Obama publicly, wrote, “However, his memoir, A Promised Land, is filled with historical inaccuracies that I feel the need to address. His telling of Israel’s story (at the beginning of Chapter 25) not only exhibits a flawed understanding of the region—which clearly impacted his policies as president”—but misleads readers. Obama is viewed as an intellectual and therefore many will simply take whatever he states as fact.

Richard Sherman, writing in clevelandjewishnews.com, said, “Obama writes the British were ‘occupying Palestine’ when the Balfour Declaration was issued in 1917. However, he ignores that the victors after World War I, in the San Remo agreement of 1920, awarded the Jewish people Judea and Samaria. In 1922 the League of Nations ratified the British Mandate, and in 1946 the United Nations ratified the actions of the League of Nations. By omission, Obama implies there was not a scintilla of international consent for a Jewish state.” Obama argues Britain created a Jewish state without the support of other nations, which is simply untrue.

Obama also claimed the Palestine Liberation Organization was a “result” of the 1967 Six-Day War when in fact it was begun in 1964. He claimed “Zionist leaders mobilized a surge of Jewish migration to Palestine” after the British supposedly illegally began forming a Jewish state there.

In the JNS.org article, Lipman sets the record straight: “The truth is that Jews, who maintained a continual presence throughout the 2,000 years that most were exiled from the land, had already been moving to Palestine in large numbers way before then; considerably more than 100,000 immigrants arrived in the late 19th century and beginning of the 20th century. Then, in the 1920s, high numbers fleeing anti-Semitism in Europe could only find safe haven in Palestine due to the United States having instituted quotas in 1924 on the number of Jews who could enter America. The number of immigrants rose even more in the 1930s when Adolf Hitler rose to power and began his conquest of Europe while the world remained silent.” It is historically inaccurate for President Obama to claim the British moved Jews there after World War 2.

Historical context is important. Obama should have portrayed the Jews as they were: a persecuted and desperate people searching for safety, and not, as he implies, strong conquerors flooding into Palestine. His claim that the new immigrants “organized highly trained armed forces to defend their settlements” is also misleading.

Acknowledging that the Arabs were attacking Jews before there was even a State of Israel is important historical context for understanding the Israeli-Arab conflict. The spreading of historical inaccuracies that attack Israel’s valid existence must be rejected and will only continue to lead to further anti-Semitism.