Did First Lady Use 'Divisive Rhetoric' in 2014 Campaign?

Since Benjamin Netanyahu’s victory in Israel’s recent elections, the Obama administration has made its displeasure with the results abundantly clear. To help justify changes in its posture towards Israel, the White House appears anxious to point out what it sees as “divisive” rhetoric and attitudes by Netanyahu and his party aimed at the Arab population of Israel. To that end, Press Secretary Josh Earnest came to the press gaggle on Air Force One on Wednesday with a prepared response on the topic. When none of the reporters broached the subject, Earnest unloaded anyway:

There’s one other thing that I anticipated might come up that I just did want to mention as it relates to the Israeli elections. Specifically, there has been a lot of coverage in the media about some of the rhetoric that emerged yesterday that was propagated by the Likud Party to encourage turnout of their supporters that sought to, frankly, marginalize Arab-Israeli citizens. The United States and this administration is deeply concerned by divisive rhetoric that seeks to marginalize Arab-Israeli citizens.

It undermines the values and democratic ideals that have been important to our democracy and an important part of what binds the United States and Israel together. We’ve talked a lot about how our shared values are an important part of what binds our two countries together, and rhetoric that seeks to marginalize one segment of their population is deeply concerning and it is divisive. And I can tell you that these are views that the administration intends to communicate directly to the Israelis.

However, when it comes to condemning divisive campaign rhetoric, the White House could begin closer to home. Although President Obama takes exception to what he perceives as Likud’s attempt to “marginalize one segment of [Israel’s] population,” First Lady Michelle Obama routinely invoked race and gender in her campaign stump speech in the run-up to the 2014 mid-terms. Remarks she made at a rally in Milwaukee in September 2014 are typical of how she clearly labels the Democrats (“our people”) as female, minorities and the young, while Republicans are simply “the other side”: