(AP)
President Obama has a Jewish Problem.
The left’s hostility to Israel is ancient news. (Even members of the pathetic Park Slope Food Co-op tried to ban Israeli-made products from the store.)
But in a revealing episode tarring the Democratic National Convention, we learned last week who Israel’s friends are. And who would ape Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and enjoy seeing the Jewish state wiped from the map.
On Wednesday, Republicans put out the word that “God’’ had been edited from the Democratic platform. Plus, a passage stating that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel vanished — poof! — like Jews from Germany.
What to do? At the 11th hour, these slights were called to attention of Obama. Which raises the questions: Did the president know about the platform changes, and ignore them? Or should he have known, but was kept out of the loop?
The platform malfunction could threaten the support, particularly financial, that Obama enjoys from Jews. So scrambling Democratic leaders said the president personally reinserted both “Jerusalem” and “God.”
But not without a vicious fight.
Los Angeles Mayor and convention Chair Antonio Villaraigosa called for a voice vote from delegates to restore the words, which should have been routine. Instead, “those who shouted opposition to the language change were as loud, if not louder, than those who voiced their support,’’ is how the liberal Huffington Post described it.
Villaraigosa awkwardly asked for second vote. Same thing. He looked around the hall for guidance, but the almighty was noticeably absent.
The third time delegates voted, it seemed the “nays’’ had it, and “God’’ and “Jerusalem’’ would remain on the cutting-room floor. But Villaraigosa declared that two-thirds had approved, and the measure passed.
The crowd booed, loudly.
The episode reveals the deep rifts between Dem moderates and the far-left wing, emboldened by a president perceived as a pal. As charged in the surprise documentary hit, Dinesh D’Souza’s “2016: Obama’s America,’’ the president is blatantly hostile to Israel and deferential to the Arab world.
He’s called on Israel to return to its pre-1967 borders, which Israelis say would make the country unable to defend itself. He enraged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by doing, as D’Souza says, “nothing significant” to prevent Iran from acquiring nukes.
Obama was spiritually advised for decades by a fierce anti-Semite, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. (Greatest hit: “God damn America!”) During the last campaign, he was advised by Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser to noted anti-Semite Jimmy Carter. (Brzezinski groused that the United States’ special relationship with Israel resulted from Jewish pressure.)
Jews traditionally vote Democratic by 3-to-1, but Obama can’t afford to lose the support of voters like Terri Rose:
“The party has gone to a place in which I no longer feel comfortable. God being taken out of the platform seems like the Democratic Party is taking the place of the higher authority.
“Jerusalem being taken out of the platform, I think, was designed to appease Palestinian sympathizers who have grown both in number and in voice.”
Said Dem pal Michael Shapiro, “The anti-Semites are getting bolder and more influential.”
The convention debacle plunged Jewish leaders into damage-control mode. Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz told CNN there was “no discord” when the platform was amended — making Anderson Cooper accuse Schultz of living in an “alternate reality.”
New York Sen. Chuck Schumer minimized the Jerusalem diss. “It was just sort of left out.” And so on.
The president must take a clear stand on Israel and its haters. His Jewish Problem won’t go away.
Please tarnish Silver!
State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, the sex fiend’s best buddy, seemed ready to walk away from disgraceful behavior without a scratch. Not so fast!
Silver arranged to pay $103,080 of taxpayer hush money to two alleged victims of Assemblyman Vito “Gropez’’ Lopez, accused of putting his filthy hands on at least four young staffers.
But two days after The Post reported that the special prosecutor in the case, Staten Island DA Dan Donovan, planned to let Shelly skate, Supreme Court Justice Fern Fisher stopped the insanity. She authorized Donovan on Friday to give the powerful lawmaker no special breaks.
As well as investigating Lopez, Donovan now will look into possible violations related to the payoff. Is the boys’ club doomed?
The Albany cesspool must be cleaned.
It’s a gho$t of a chance
Staten Island cop Paul Pizzuto was fired for ticketing dead people, a police version of “The Sixth Sense.’’ But he contends in a state Supreme Court lawsuit that he should not have been canned because he was just trying to meet ticket quotas that the NYPD denies even exist. I have a solution.
The city could raise revenue by fiercely ticketing entitled bicycle riders. Like the menace who blew through a red light and into a crosswalk last week, laughing as he narrowly missed scoring a direct hit. Getting serious about rogue riders will help us all.
Ripping off state taxes is an ‘art’
Owners of the upstate jiggle joint Nite Moves have asked the state’s highest court to classify $20 lap dances put on by the club’s buxom babes as “dramatic or musical arts performances’’ — exempt from state sales tax.
Hey, why not? The government supported Andres Serrano’s photo of a crucifix submerged in the artist’s urine with a $15,000 federal grant. Courts upheld the Brooklyn Museum’s right to display Chris Ofili’s painting of the Virgin Mary caked in elephant dung.
Culture vultures on the Court of Appeals should open their eyes and empty their wallets.
Naked cuties grinding against slobbering patrons may be one guy’s pleasure. But they’re another man’s art.
Oh, this poor kid
“For me, it was, like, ‘OK, whatever.’ ”
Ireland Baldwin, 16, told Page Six Magazine that she scoffed at dad Alec’s infamously scary voicemail.
The bloviating actor railed at his daughter, then 11 — calling her a “rude, thoughtless little pig’’ — for having missed his phone call.
She excused his hobby of roughing up photographers (and journos like me on Twitter), saying he’s “pretty frustrated’’ by the attention he brings upon himself.
Tragically, the bully’s chief enabler is just a kid.