Former President Barack Obama told his former staffers that “all of us are complicit to some degree” for the Hamas terror attacks and ongoing the violence in Gaza.
During the Pod Save America Saturday, Obama appeared to describe a moral equivalence between Hamas murdering Israelis and the Israeli “occupation” of Gaza.
The last time Gaza was “occupied” by Israel was in 2015 when Israel withdrew all of its soldiers and civilians in a “disengagement” aimed at reducing violence in the region.
However, Hamas responded by launching thousands of rockets at Israel, igniting several wars.
Here is what Obama said:
“If there’s any chance of us being able to act constructively, to do something, it will require an admission of complexity.”
“And maintaining, what on the surface may seem contradictory ideas — that what Hamas did was horrific, and there’s no justification for it; and what is also true is that the occupation [sic] 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-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 who are dying who have nothing to do with what Hamas did. And what is true, right — I mean, we can go on for a while.”
“And the problem with the social media, and trying to — TikTok activism, and trying to debate this, on that, is you can’t speak the truth.”
“You can pretend to speak the truth. You can speak one side of the truth, and in some cases, you can try to maintain your moral innocence, but that won’t solve the problem. And so if you want to solve the problem, you have to take in the whole truth, and you then have to admit nobody’s hands are clean, that all of us are complicit to some degree. I look at this, and I think back, “What could I have done during my presidency to move this forward — as hard as I tried, and I’ve got the scars to prove it.”
“But there’s a part of me that’s still saying, well, “Was there something else I could have done?” That’s the conversation we should be having.”
“Not just looking backward, but looking forward. And that can’t happen if we are confining ourselves to our outrage.”
“I would rather see you out there talking to people, including people who you disagree with.”
‘If you genuinely want to change thin, then you’ve got to figure out how to speak to somebody on the other side, and listen to them, and understand what they are talking about, and not dismiss it. Because you can’t save that child without their help. Not in this situation.”
Obama’s approach matches his posture toward the Middle East throughout his presidency. He creates a false moral equivalence between the deliberate murder of 1,400 people in Israel, with extreme brutality, with an “occupation” that does not exist in Gaza and that exists in the West Bank only because the Palestinian Authority refuses to agree to peace with Israel.
He adopts a post-modern approach that insists there is not one truth, but many truths, which has the effect of minimizing the evil of genocidal violence, as practiced by Hamas, into merely one perspective among many.
As Breitbart noted, Obama’s reaction to the terror attacks was similar to 2015, when he reacted to the violence of the so-called “Islamic State,” which had published a video of a Jordanian pilot being burned alive inside a cage, by arguing that medieval Christians had been just as violent during the Crusades.
Obama’s dismissive approach allowed ISIS to grow into a malevolent and tyrannical terrorist regime.
Last week, Obama was roasted on X following the release of a letter telling Israel to practice restraint in their ongoing conflict with Hamas.
While the letter began expressing solidarity with Israel, it quickly shifted gears to warn Israel about its strategies for defending itself.
In a statement earlier this month, Obama wrote:
“As I stated in an earlier post, Israel has a right to defend its citizens against such wanton violence, and I fully support President Biden’s call for the United States to support our long-time ally in going after Hamas, dismantling its military capabilities, and facilitating the safe return of hundreds of hostages to their families.”
“But even as we support Israel, we should also be clear that how Israel prosecutes this fight against Hamas matters,” Obama said.
“Still, the world is watching closely as events in the region unfold, and any Israeli military strategy that ignores the human costs could ultimately backfire.”
READ: Obama Slams Israel for “Dismantling” Hamas and “Ignoring Human Costs”
