"Mr' Obama's obtuse approach to Israel doesn't reflect anti-Semitism or anti-Zionism so much as it expresses his refusal to consider the overriding moral dimension to the Middle East conflict. In this, he presents a painful contrast to his predecessor, George W. Bush made his share of foreign-policy errors, but he never lost sight of the irreducible difference between nations that sought a peaceful, stable, democratic world and those he unabashedly called the "evil-doers"-gangster regimes and terrorist bands bent on domination and destruction. When it comes to Israel and her enemies, Alan Dershowitz (who supported Obama's presidential campaign) memorably drew the crucial distinction on my radio show: "If the Palestinians put down their weapons, there would be peace tomorrow. If the Israelis put down their weapons, there would be genocide tomorrow." In other words, there is no moral equivalence between those who seek only security within their own borders and those who yearn to annihilate a neighboring people.

"Assuming that President Obama continues to ignore or obscure the contrasting agendas of Israeli and Islamic combatants-that he continues to worry more over Jews building apartments in Jerusalem than over Muslim fanatics building nukes in Teheran-will Jewish voters wake up to the administration's threat to our interests and our values?

"That seems doubtful, since so many secular Jews share the president's discomfort with moral judgments and recoil from the imposition of absolute categories of good and evil on contemporary affairs. For one thing, talk of ultimate right and wrong smacks inevitably of religiosity, and Jews remain disproportionately disengaged from organized faith-they are vastly less likely to affiliate with congregations, or even to profess belief in God, than their Christian neighbors. The most conventionally religious elements in the Jewish community, the Orthodox, display no reluctance to uphold clear distinctions between good and evil, and they voted overwhelmingly against Obama- just as their less stringent compatriots unblushingly backed their fellow relativist by similarly lopsided margins.

"A major shift in the Jewish vote would require a deeper shift in Jewish attitudes and an unlikely new willingness to reaffirm the most rigorous, judgmental aspects of our tradition. The sad fact is that most Jews like Obama's leveling approach, and his eradication of differences, including the existential distinction between Jew and Gentile. Consider the goofy pride with which so many besotted liberals pointed to the recent White House seder, led by Jeremiah Wright's long-time congregant in his conspicuous yarmulke, presiding over the annual ritual of particularistic national origins despite his admitted ignorance of Jewish tradition. By contrast, when George W. Bush hosted menorah lightings in the White House, he never presumed to kindle the lights himself but instead assigned the task to Jewish offspring of fighting men who were serving their country in lraq or Afghanistan.

T"his president, unlike Mr. Bush, would feel profound discomfoft with the uncompromising Jewish emphasis on separation-between pure and impure, kosher and nonkosher, Sabbath and weekday, good and evil, After all, the Book of Genesis shows God beginning the work of creation through the process of division-between light and darkness, waters above and waters beneath, eafth and seas, and so forth. TheHavdalah ("Separation") prayer recited by religious Jews at the conclusion of every Sabbath emphasizes this crucial aspect of the sacred: "Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, Who separates between holy and secular, between light and darkness, between Israel and the nations, between the seventh day and the six days of labor."