US must not turn its back on our only real friends in the Middle East

This article was published in the Friday, June 3, 2011, issue of The News-Sentinel newspaper.
By Donna Volmerding
On June 4, 2008, Obama addressed the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and said, “Any agreement with the Palestinian people must preserve Israel’s identity as a Jewish state with secure, recognized, defensible borders, and Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided.”
Obama said he spoke “from his heart and as a true friend of Israel.” Then in May 2011, in a dramatic about-face, he said that Israel must give up the land it has owned and occupied, and return to pre-1967 levels, which would necessarily include the division of Jerusalem. (The six-day war in 1967 was not started by Israel, but it was finished by Israel.)
Obama reneged on a promise “as a true friend of Israel,” and he cut that friendship off at the knees. Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, termed Obama’s decree “indefensible” and said “that asking Israel to negotiate with Hamas is like asking the United States to negotiate with al-Qaida.”
Recently, wrote Jordan Sekulow, director of policy and international operation for American Center for Law and Justice, “Fatah, the U.S.-backed Palestinian National Liberation Movement, signed an agreement to form a unity government with Hamas, a U.S.-listed foreign terror organization. ... Hamas’ own foreign minister has stated that Hamas ‘believe(s) that negotiations with the Israeli enemy are in vain.’
“The Hamas charter calls for Islam to ‘abolish’ Israel and for Muslims to ‘fight the Jews and kill them.’ It further proclaims, ‘There is no solution to the Palestinian problem except jihad.’”
Israel is a country that is about 8,000 square miles with a population of about 7.5 million. It is surrounded by Arab countries that will not even acknowledge its right to exist.
Netanyahu said, “If Arab nations would lay down their arms, there would be peace. If Israel would lay down its arms, there would be no Israel.”
Yet Arab Palestinians, Arab countries and President Obama want little Israel to give up its land. Why? Why can’t Arab nations give a portion of the millions of acres of land they own to help their brother Palestinians?
The Middle East is on fire, with great unrest, revolutions and economic turmoil in Arab countries. Palestinian Arabs have now united with a terror organization, and Muslim leaders are threatening the total annihilation of Israel.
Arab nations have so much land, so much wealth, so much oil, yet they want to deny little Israel the land it won in a war they started.
We cannot turn our backs on our only real friends in the Middle East, the Jewish people, the state of Israel and the only stable, democratic government in the region.