Obama Omits Jews from List of Minorities Threatened by ISIS

Republican lawmaker Lee Zeldin of New York has become a one-man crusade in questioning the reason President Obama left out any mention of Jews in the list of minorities threatened by ISIS.

President Barack Obama forgot one minority threatened by ISIS in his request to Congress for an authorization for the use of military force: the Jews. Republican lawmaker Lee Zeldin of New York is calling on Obama to amend the request in light of the deadly terrorist attack on the kosher supermarket in Paris by an ISIS-allied gunman.

The draft Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) notes that “ISIL has threatened genocide and committed vicious acts of violence against religious and ethnic minority groups, including Iraqi Christian, Yezidi, and Turkmen populations.”

Zeldin told CNN that he immediately noted the omission of Jews from the list. The language in the draft authorization is borrowed directly from a resolution passed last year by Senate Foreign Relations Committee. However, the resolution was passed before the Paris attack. Zeldin is the sole Jewish Republican in Congress and a member of the House Foreign Relations Committee, which will debate the AUMF.

“I strongly believe we were reminded in Paris that these radical Islamic extremists, they want to wipe Israel off the map,” said Zeldin. “They target not only Jews but our freedom our exceptionalism as Americans — the whole western world.”

“Jews should have been included by the White House.”

The president recently came under scrutiny after he referred to the January attack on the Paris Hyper Cacher as “random.” Spokespersons for the White House and State Department raised further ire by suggesting that Obama was referring to the victims as random, not the choice of target. “If a guy goes into a kosher market and starts shooting it up, you don’t – he’s not looking for Buddhists, is he?” asked one reporter from the AP. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest later clarified that Obama never meant to suggest that the attack was not anti-Semitic in nature.

The terrorist in the attack, Amedy Coulibaly, had pledged allegiance to ISIS, and was working in coordination with the gunmen in the Charlie Hebdo shooting. Coulibaly’s common law wife, Hayat Boumeddiene, is believed to have been an accomplice. She was last traced to ISIS-controlled border town of Tel Abyad, Syria.

If approved, the AUMF will authorize the president to participate in the war against ISIS over the next three years. However, the AUMF proscribes ground operations except for rescue operations and special forces operations to “take military action against ISIL leadership.” Obama may face a tough fight in Congress as Republicans are concerned that the document does not give the president sufficient flexibility and Democrats are concerned that it gives him too much.

By: Atara Beck, World Israel News