Netanyahu, Obama meeting, Sept. 2014. Photo: GPO

The U.S. Department of State sent a strong expression of condolence to the family of Palestinian-American Orwah Hammad, who was killed by the Israeli military as he was throwing a firebomb at civilians, an act of terrorism under even the Department of State’s own definition.

An Administration that is condemning the Islamic State and Al Qaeda, not to mention bombing them, has nothing but sympathy for a young man who died while trying to kill Jews.

For this Administration, there are good terrorists and bad terrorists. The Islamic State and Al Qaeda fall in the latter category. Hamas falls in the former.

What’s the difference? Hamas restricts its terror to Israel. Their victims are primarily Jews. The Administration’s mendacity is as palpable as is its hypocrisy.

Even when a three-month-old child was killed by an act of Palestinian terror, the Obama Administration described it as a traffic accident.

The Obama Administration has found a moral equivalence between an infant who was thrown twenty feet into the air from her stroller by a Jihadi driving full force into a group of pedestrians, and a terrorist seeking to burn people alive with a Molotov cocktail.

When State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki was asked about an expression of condolence for the Molotov-cocktail-throwing terrorist, she claimed she was unaware of this information, showing either ignorance or a passing acquaintanceship with the truth.

Psaki called on the Israelis to conduct a thorough investigation into the death of Hammad. She did not call on the Palestinian Authority to investigate what incited Hammad and his cousin to attempt to burn passing Israeli motorists. Of course, no such investigation is needed. Incitement to kill Jews is the one bond that the so called moderate Palestinian Authority and the terrorist group Hamas have in common.

This is the latest in the vicious anti-Israel campaign of the Obama Administration. As investigative reporter Steve Emerson revealed, officials in the highest levels of the Obama Administration may have blocked the FBI and the Department of Justice from assisting the Israeli government in finding the remains of Israeli soldier Shaul Oron, who was killed in the last Gaza war.

In August, the Wall Street Journal reported that Administration officials prevented the resupply of missiles to Israel – right in the middle of a war. Although the Israeli request was approved by the United States military’s European command, the normal channel through which such requests are made and granted, the Administration added an ad hoc extra layer of bureaucracy that was devised to delay the delivery of the missiles.

Then there was the FAA’s outrageous suspension of flights to Israel because of the Gaza War. Yet, no such suspension has been applied to any other recent conflict.

And if this was not sufficient to illustrate the Obama Administration’s contempt for Israel, there was also John Kerry’s recent remark that the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is at the root of the Mideast conflict, although the evidence strongly shows that this is not the case. In Asia, for example, there is little to no interest among Muslims in this conflict. Yet, as former Singapore Prime Minister  Lee Kuan Yew points out, the Islamic State has been successful in recruiting young Asian Muslims through social media there – and there is intense conflict between devotees of Islam and other religions.

Many American Jews fail to comprehend that there is a relationship between attitudes toward and depictions of Israel and anti-Semitism. After all, delegitimating a people is also dehumanizing them. How else do you explain Psaki’ sympathizing with those who sought to firebomb Jews?

Attitudes toward Jews define how Israel is perceived, and attitudes toward Israel influence how Jews are perceived. The linkage between these is inextricably bound together. One has to go no further than Jewish-hatred on the  American campus, as Daniel Mael notes, to see this.

Obama’s hostility towards Israel shapes attitudes towards Jews. It produces a climate of opinion conducive to anti-Semitism. To fail to distinguish between a terrorist shot while throwing a firebomb and a child murdered for being a Jew is to fail to distinguish evil from good. It is to enter a moral vacuum that degrades everyone’s humanity. It is unworthy of what America stands for in the world.

Abraham H. Miller is an emeritus professor of political science, University of Cincinnati, and a contributor to the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity. He is the author of Fourteenth Street, A Chicago Story, a recent work of political fiction.