Well, Michael Oren certainly knows how to pick up a slow news day. The June 23 release of his book, Ally (a look at his up-close observations of the Obama White House and its nasty attitude toward Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu), has created that proverbial firestorm of backlash.

Mostly from the Obama White House, of course.

In Ally, Oren provides a front-row seat to the behind-the-scenes stuff going on since 2009, when Obama entered the Oval Office. To say that his treatment of Netanyahu has been abysmal is being too nice. Obama has simply drawn on his background as a Palestinian sympathizer and Saul Alinsky disciple.

In other words, it’s easy to see that Obama has a visceral hatred for Zionism, the Jewish state, and those who defend it.

Predictably, Obama’s apologists have rushed to trash Oren and his perspective. Philip Gordon, a former Obama aid, has called Ally a “caricature” that is filled with “exaggerations and distortions.”

It’s a standard denial, issued by your garden-variety leftist who wants to prop up the Regime. Notice carefully how Gordon reacts to Oren’s assertions that Obama’s dealings with Israel have been unusually harsh, even unprecedented:

“’Really?’ Gordon writes. ‘To take just a few examples, Dwight Eisenhower slammed Israel for the 1956 Suez operation and forced it into a humiliating retreat; Gerald Ford froze arms deliveries and announced a reassessment of the relationship as a way of pressing Israel to withdraw from the Sinai; Jimmy Carter clashed repeatedly with Prime Minister Menachem Begin before, during and after the 1978 Camp David summit. Ronald Reagan denounced Israel’s strike on the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq and enraged Jerusalem by selling surveillance planes to Saudi Arabia; George H.W. Bush blocked loan guarantees to Israel over settlements; Bill Clinton clashed publicly with Israel over the size of proposed West Bank withdrawals; George W. Bush called for a settlement freeze in the 2002 road map for peace and afterward repeatedly criticized Israel for construction in the West Bank.’”

That is all true, but within Gordon’s foray into truth-telling lies…a lie.

No American president—ever—has consistently treated Israel so shabbily. Jimmy Carter came close, but Obama is far and away the first American president to openly loathe the Jewish state. It’s all documented, from his public shunning of Netanyahu, to his withholding of munitions during last summer’s deadly conflict with Hamas, to public signals that he is willing to abandon Israel at the U.N.

No, Obama is an Israel-hater of the first rank.

Oren’s book (I got a Kindle copy this week) is riveting. His analysis of new-Secretary of State John Kerry’s “shuttle diplomacy” in 2013 is fascinating, if only because it recalls how Kerry kept subtly threatening the Israelis:

“In time, Kerry would caution Israelis about the outbreak of a Third Intifada if they failed to make peace, of facing economic boycotts and of becoming an apartheid state. Perceived as threats, these messages reinforced, rather than weakened, those most opposed to his initiative. Then, as his special Middle East envoy , the secretary named the veteran peace negotiator Martin Indyk. This, too, was counterproductive. British-born, raised in Australia, and naturalized as a citizen of the United States, where he initially worked for AIPAC, Martin later served twice as America’s ambassador to Israel . There , and later, as the Brookings Institution’s policy director, he had a frosty relationship with Netanyahu. I respected Martin’s diplomatic experience and tried to advise him on ways of earning Netanyahu’s trust. Still, the question hounded me: if Kerry was serious about the process, why did he seem intent on shaking Israelis’ faith in it?”

All through Ally, Oren presents an insider’s view. It is common knowledge among the American people that Obama and his team do not like Netanyahu. So why would Gordon resort to false statements condemning the book?

Because leftists lie. They attempt to manipulate reality, and in far too many cases, succeed. In other words, what is at once obvious to the outside world—Obama detests Netanyahu and says things in public that weaken Israel—is distorted by the President’s apologists.

The truth is, Obama, a leftist ideologue all his adult life, is out to damage the relationship between America and Israel.

The only saving grace is that, on this point, he is also defying his own people.

Reprinted with author’s permission from Israel Watch