The White House engaged in two furtive gambits last week that painfully exposed the Obama administration's amateurish, deceitful Middle East-Islamic policies.
The first case concerned the thorny issue of Jerusalem's legal status in American law. In 1947, the United Nations ruled the holy city to be a corpus separatum (Latin for separated body) and not part of any state. All these years later and despite many changes, U.S. policy holds that Jerusalem is an entity unto itself. It ignores that in 1949 the Government of Israel made western Jerusalem its capital and in 1980 it declared the whole of Jerusalem to be the capital. The Executive Branch even ignores U.S. laws from 1995 (requiring a move of the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem) and 2002 (requiring that U.S. documents recognize Americans born in Jerusalem as being born in Israel). Instead, it insists that the city's disposition be decided through diplomacy.
Challenging this policy, the American parents of Jerusalem-born Menachem Zivotofsky, demanded on his behalf that his birth certificate and his passport list him as having been born in Israel. When the State Department refused, the parents filed a lawsuit; their case has now reached the U.S. Supreme Court.
Things started to get interesting on Aug. 4, when Rick Richman of the New York Sun noted that "The White House acknowledges on its own website that Jerusalem is in Israel—as does the State Department and the CIA on theirs," undermining the government's case. Richman pointed to three mentions of "Jerusalem, Israel" in captions to pictures on the White House website in connection with a trip by Joe Biden in March 2010: "Vice President Joe Biden laughs with Israeli President Shimon Peres in Jerusalem, Israel"; "Vice President Joe Biden meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, Israel"; and "Vice President Joe Biden has breakfast with Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair . . . in Jerusalem, Israel." Richman deemed this wording to be potentially "pivotal evidence" against the government's case.
 One of the pictures on the White House website that mentions "Jerusalem, Israel." |
At 3:22 p.m. on Aug. 9, Daniel Halper of the Weekly Standard reiterated Richman's point by posting the first of those pictures. Two hours and four minutes later, at 5:26 p.m., Halper reported that "the White House has apparently gone through its website, cleansing any reference to Jerusalem as being in Israel." The new caption read, "Vice President Joe Biden laughs with Israeli President Shimon Peres in Jerusalem." Someone on the White House staff hoped to pull a fast one. As James Taranto noted in the Wall Street Journal, the Supreme Court does not take kindly to such pranks.
 Barack Obama continues George W. Bush's tradition of hosting an iftar at the White House. |
But, it turned out, "some" was a weasel-word. Research by the Investigative Project on Terrorism and others established that the published list did not mention the American Islamists attending that dinner, including Haris Tarin of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, Mohamed Magid of the Islamic Society of North America, and Awais Sufi of Muslim Advocates.
(Also noteworthy: The White House invited not a single representative of the 12-member non-Islamist group, the American Islamic Leadership Coalition, whose mission statement proclaims the goal "to defend the U.S. Constitution, uphold religious pluralism, protect American security and cherish genuine diversity in the practice of our faith of Islam.")
In combination, two deceits in two days makes one wonder about the morality and even sanity of the White House staff under Barack Obama. Do his munchkins really think they can get away with such sleazy sleights of hand?
 One of the Islamists, Awais Sufi, at the White House dinner. |
Separately, each of these deceptions warrants condemnation; together, they symbolize the tenor of a failed administration in panic over its lowest-ever poll ratings (43.4 percent approval according to RealClearPolitics.com's aggregation of surveys) and trying to revive its fortunes by whatever means necessary, even if its dishonesty might expose it to ridicule.
More specifically, the two incidents point to the bankruptcy of the administration's Middle East and Islamic policies. The arrogance of 2009 remains in place, now tempered by failure and desperation.
Mr. Pipes is president of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University. © 2011 by Daniel Pipes. All rights reserved.
Aug. 16, 2011 update: For more inconsistencies on the first topic covered above, see the weblog entry "Jerusalem, Israel."
July 25, 2013 update: Two years later, more weasel words from the White House about guests at the iftar. Note the word some in the following text, titled "Expected Attendees at the White House Iftar Dinner."
This evening, the President will continue a White House tradition of hosting an Iftar celebrating Ramadan in the State Dining Room. This is the fifth Iftar hosted by the President. ... Below is a list of some of the expected attendees at tonight's White House dinner celebrating Ramadan:
Apr. 2, 2016 update: White House officials posted an official press video of French President François Hollande at a Nuclear Security Summit meeting with Obama that deleted the phrase "Islamist terrorism" from his remarks. Specifics from the New York Post:
The White House's transcript of the event shows the French leader declared at the 4:49 minute mark that "the roots of terrorism, Islamist terrorism, is in Syria and in Iraq." But rather than include Hollande's remark in its entirety, the Obama administration posted footage in which his interpreter's English translation of the words "Islamist terrorism" was missing.
The audio gap was first reported by the Media Research Center, a media watchdog. After initially posting the video without the edits, the White House took it down and uploaded it again with the interpreter's voice muted, the MRC reported. The nonprofit group reported that the White House's official MP3 recording of the meeting was also censored, but that the transcript was not. ...
A White House official said the audio gap was the result of a technical error that happened to come as Hollande was uttering the controversial words. "Nothing was edited out," the official told The Post. "A technical issue with the audio during the recording of President Hollande's remarks led to a brief drop in the audio recording of the English interpretation. As soon as this was brought to our attention, we posted an updated video online with the complete audio, which is consistent with the written transcript."
 The White House explanation. |
Sep. 30, 2016 update: The White House initially sent out Barack Obama's obituary of Shimon Peres as coming from "Jerusalem, Israel," but then corrected this by striking out the word "Israel." Yes, hard to believe, but here it is:
 The original and the corrected White House releases. |
May 22, 2017 update: The Trump White House indicated that Jerusalem is in Israel.
May 23, 2017 update: The next day, it changed its mind.
Comment: Beware, amateurism at work.
