In the heart of those nations where Islam predominates, Obama pronounced himself “a Christian, but…” And then acknowledges that Islam was revealed. The one statement seems not only weak and defensive, but reveals his own hesitant, conditional or limited Christianity.

I understand that Barack Obama wants desperately to demonstrate his stark differences with everything Bush. He views his own elevation as a repudiation of George W. Bush and all his works.

What he did on his trip to the Middle East was also a repudiation of American policy going back to liberalism’s great model, Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Roosevelt arrived in February 1945 for his only summit with the leader of Saudi Arabia, King Abdul Aziz. Roosevelt was conveyed on the U.S.S. Quincy, a warship of his beloved Navy. FDR can be seen in photographs of that solitary meeting. Wearing his dashing Navy cape, the President sits across from the king in his flowing robes. The President looks straight into the news cameras, calm and confident. Just months from death, Roosevelt gave the last ounces of his strength to advance his agenda for peace in the region.

Roosevelt was not willing, however, to crush the hopes of the Jewish people for a land to call their own. He had sent a letter the previous fall to New York Sen. Robert F. Wagner: “I know how long and ardently the Jewish people have worked and prayed for a free and independent Jewish commonwealth. I am convinced that the American give their support to this aim and if re-elected I shall help bring about its realization.”

FDR, too, knew the power of words. “I shall help to bring about its realization”--the realization of a Jewish state. Nothing like those words were uttered by Barack Obama in his Middle Eastern trip.

Roosevelt had to know his task would not be an easy one. The Saudi king had suggested that instead of letting the Jews settle in Palestine, they should be given a homeland in defeated Germany. Let the Germans pay for what they had done, or had allowed to be done to the Jews.

Roosevelt, citing his own rural upbringing as a farmer, offered the king help with reclaiming water for his parched desert kingdom. The king waved off such help—if it meant that the deserts might bloom for the Jews, too.

What has changed? Sixty-four years later, aren’t the Arab rulers still willing to see their own people impoverished and oppressed rather than let them advance with their Jewish neighbors? Aren’t they still unwilling to recognize Israel as a Jewish commonwealth? Nothing the Expected One achieved as he abased himself and the U.S. before the Arab world can give us hope for positive change.

Let us not think that he has brought balance. Only six percent of Israelis think Obama is pro-Israel. What can the rest of Israel’s friends be thinking?