Tag: Netanyahu

CSP: Obama’s not-so-hidden agenda

Center for Security Policy | Oct 26, 2010
By Frank Gaffney, Jr.
Earlier this year, President Obama drove U.S.-Israeli relations – to use one of President Obama’s oft-employed analogies – into a ditch. Arguably, ties between the two countries were never more strained than last Spring when Mr. Obama serially insulted the elected leader of Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, vilified his country and tried to euchre it into making territorial, political and other ill-advised concessions to Arabs determined as ever to destroy the Jewish State.  Unfortunately, what the President has in mind for Israel after the election next week will make his previous treatment of the Jewish State look like the good old days.

To be sure, ties between the United States and Israel – far and away America’s most important and loyal friend in the Middle East – have improved lately from the nadir to which Mr. Obama plunged them since he took office.  That has nothing to do, however, with a change of heart or agenda on the part of the President and his administration.

Rather, it is a reflection of a cynical calculation forced upon the Obama White House by its panicked congressional allies.  Already laboring under the backbreaking burden of their association with a president and his agenda that have become huge liabilities, Democrats on Capitol Hill faced wholesale defections of their Jewish constituents and funders if their party’s leader persisted in his assault on Israel.  Public letters and private conversations had the desired effect: Barack Obama began treating his Israeli counterpart with a modicum of respect and the optics of a restarted peace process – however shortlived or doomed – helped conjur up an image of a renewed partnership between the two nations.
Make no mistake about it, though:  Once the 2010 elections are behind him, it is a safe bet that President Obama will revert to form by once again exhibiting an unmistakable and ruthless determination to bend Israel to his will.

Worse yet, he will be able to take advantage of a vehicle for effecting the so-called “two state solution,” no matter how strenuously Israel and its friends in Washington object:  The Palestinians will simply unilaterally declare themselves a state and ask for international recognition – and Mr. Obama will accede to that request.

A number of the particulars involved in this gambit are unclear at the moment.  For example, will the Palestinians announce the borders of their state to be the 1967 cease-fire lines, in which case large Israeli population centers (defiled as “settlements”) will be inside a nation that is certain to be, to use Hitler’s phrase, judenrein (free of Jews)?  How will the Hamas-stan of Gaza be connected to the currently PLO-run West Bank – in a way that will make them “contiguous” without bisecting the Jewish state and ensuring that Hamas does not take over the rest of the so-called “Palestinian authority”?

Also unclear is precisely how Mr. Obama will handle the sticky issue of extending U.S. recognition of Palestine.  Will he want to parallel Harry Truman’s direct and immediate endorsement of the establishment of Israel in 1948?  Or will he do it more disingenuously, as former UN Ambassador John Bolton speculated in the Wall Street Journal last week, by having the United States abstain from an approving vote by the United Nations Security Council.  The hope behind the latter would be that Team Obama and its partisans will somehow avoid retribution from Israel’s friends, both Democrats and others, both here and abroad.

The truth is that, either way, Mr. Obama will have dealt Israel a potentially mortal blow.  Without control of the high ground and water aquifers of the West Bank, the Jewish state is simply indefensible and unsustainable. Some may suggest that international forces (perhaps led by the United States) should be deployed in the areas Jews have historically known as Judea and Samaria so as to ensure that they are not used to harm Israelis in the low-lying areas to the west.

We have seen how such arrangements work in practice in Lebanon, though– which is to say not well.

In southern Lebanon, UN “peacekeepers” have merely wound up protecting Israel’s enemies, notably Hezbollah, as such foes of both the Jewish State and our own  have amassed immense amounts of missiles and other arms and prepared to resume hostilities against Israel at a moment of that Iranian-backed terrorist group’s choosing (or, more precisely, that of their sponsors in Tehran.)  The same is certain to eventuate in the West Bank as paramilitary forces the United States has foolishly trained and equipped become a standing army and fall under the sway of Hamas.

Such a “two-state solution” will make another regional war vastly more likely, not prevent it.  Yet, the Obama administration is committed to pursuing that goal as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made excrutiatingly clear in a pandering speech to the Americah Task Force on Palestine last week.

Among other ominous comments, she declared that “the World Bank recently reported that if the Palestinian Authority maintains its momentum in building institutions and delivering public services, it is, and I quote, ‘well-positioned for the establishment of a state at any point in the near future.'”  She seemed determined in particular to emphasize the last seven words.

Voters need to know now whether President Obama and those in Congress who support his agenda are determined to help Israel’s enemies destroy her – not find out that is the case after the elections.

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. is President of the Center for Security Policy, a columnist for the Washington Times and host of the nationally syndicated program, Secure Freedom Radio, heard in Washington weeknights at 9:00 p.m. on WRC 1260 AM.

Theater of the Absurd

By Martin Sherman

Published in YNet News.com

Obama, after the “pragmatic” Palestinians have repudiated any idea of “historic compromise,” any recognition of Jewish national sovereignty: “…so far the talks are moving forward in a constructive way…”

You couldn’t make this stuff up!

In a different universe the recent events regarding the rekindling of the “peace process” could well be the stuff of a macabre comedy, couched and conveyed in deliberately overstated caricature.

But sadly in this universe they portend tragedy.

It has been an almost inconceivable spectacle, beginning with the Israeli prime minister traveling to Washington to express his resolve and commitment to implement a policy that he has repeatedly repudiated – and ridiculed – for over a decade and a half.

Macabre Comedy

Even more astonishing is the fact that he did so not because his earlier criticism was proven unfounded in any way, but despite the fact that it was proven well founded in every way; not because his previous warnings that the policy would herald disaster were proven wrong but despite the fact that they were proven right.

Yet the absurdity does not end here. In the Alice-in-Wonderland world of Middle East politics things get “curiouser and curiouser.”

No less astounding than Netanyahu’s acquiescence to discuss the implementation of the very policy he correctly predicted would fail, is the identity of the “partner” with whom he assented to do so. The Palestinian negotiation team is led by Mahmoud Abbas, someone who has neither the formal legality (since his terms of office has expired) nor the political legitimacy (since his authority in not recognized by a sizeable segment of the electorate) to do so.

And then enter Hamas. With an impeccable sense of timing, Abbas’ radical adversaries carried out two brutal terror attacks on Israelis, dramatically demonstrating that the man Netanyahu has incongruously deemed “my-partner-in-peace” cannot control events in the areas he purports to administer- underscoring both the impotence of the Palestinian “partner” and pointlessness of negotiating with him.

For what would be the value of an agreements reached if there is no guarantee that the Palestinian signatories will be any position to honor or enforce them, even assuming they desire to do so?

Abbas wants to shape Israel 

And just to drive home the absurdity and futility of the entire exercise, after explicitly rejecting Netanyahu’s call for a “historic compromise,” Abbas pronounced categorically that “we won’t recognize Israel as a Jewish state,” as to do so would “block any chance of Palestinian refugees from returning to their original homes inside Israel.”

This was reiterated the very next day by senior Palestinian negotiator Nabil Shaath, who declared that “The Palestinian Authority will never recognize Israel as a Jewish state,” since this “would…prevent Palestinian refugees, who left their homes and villages a number of decades ago, from being granted the right to return to them.”

So not only do the Palestinian leaders openly admit that they will never recognize the Jews’ right to political sovereignty in the Israel, but by obdurately insisting on the “right of return,” they make it quite clear that the only agreement acceptable to them is one that would make the maintenance of such political sovereignty untenable.

Now one might well ask: If Netanyahu is not recognized by his Palestinian interlocutors as representing the Jewish nation-state, precisely in what capacity is he participating in the “process”? But an even more troubling conundrum arises: In what capacity is Abbas doing so? For it seems that he has adopted a trans-national – or at least a trans-frontier – posture, speaking not only for the people he foresees living under the sovereignty of the envisioned Palestinian state, but also for those who he foresees will not!

Indeed, Abbas’ demands are not restricted to shaping the future state of Palestine, its character, the extent of its boundaries and the composition of its population (i.e. Judenrein with all the Jewish “settlements” evacuated and all the Jewish settlers expelled.) His demands extend to shaping the character of the State of Israel and to what the composition of its population should be (which à la Abbas is to include millions of non-Jewish Palestinian “refugees.”)

In short, the “president” of a yet-to-be-established state – whose term of office has expired and whose legitimacy is contested by a significant portion of those he purports to represent – lays down, as a categorical demand, that for any agreement to be reached literally millions of people from third-party countries must be admitted as citizens – not into the sovereign territory of putative state over which he supposedly will have authority but into the sovereign territory of another state.

Like I said: You couldn’t make this stuff up!

Why help faltering, anti-Israel president? 

But perhaps the most macabre aspect of this preposterous tragic-comic spectacle is that it the only conceivable reason for Israel to participate in it at all, is to mollify a floundering US Administration desperate for some indication – any indication – of success to boost its flagging popularity

Now had this been an Administration that had wide spread support across the US, there might have been some justification in reluctantly acquiescing to its behest. Alternatively, had this been an Administration which was favorably disposed towards Israel there might have been some argument for lending it support in a time of distress. But neither of these is true.

On the one hand, the approval rates for the Obama Administration have been dropping like a lead balloon with public support evaporating with each passing week. On the other hand, the Obama Administration been described as arguably “the most anti-Israel Administration in the modern history of the state of Israel.”

So what conceivable political rationale is there in Netanyahu embracing a policy that rewards the White House’s hostility and hubris and accommodates Israel’s humiliation? What is possible political wisdom is there in providing the deeply unpopular incumbent Administration anything that might make it “look good”; anything that could give it any electoral advantage over the far more Israel-friendly Republican Party – especially as the crucial mid-term elections approach?

And if anyone thought that matter could not get any more farcical, they would be wrong. For just recently, Obama issued his latest exhortation for Netanyahu to make another gesture and extend the soon-to-expire building freeze. His reasoning: After the “pragmatic” Palestinians have repudiated any idea of making an “historic compromise” and any recognition of Jewish national sovereignty 60 years after Israel’s establishment, was:

“…so far the talks are moving forward in a constructive way, it makes sense to extend that moratorium so long as the talks are moving in a constructive way.”

You couldn’t make this stuff up! Or have I said that before?

The Truth about The Gaza Flotilla and the Gaza Blockade

If you want the facts, and not the media spin, about what really happened with the Gaza Flotilla then you should go to these two sites:

1) UPDATED FACTS: The Gaza Flotilla and the Maritime Blockade of Gaza

2) Glenn Beck Web Exclusive on the Flotilla

Will The Media Report Flotilla Disaster Accurately And Fairly?

Will the media report accurately and fairly as anti-Israel activists violently resist an IDF naval boarding with tragic results?

In the early hours of Monday 31 May, Israeli naval commandos boarded a flotilla of vessels heading for Gaza. What happened next has created a major media storm as, according to reports, over a dozen anti-Israel activists have died and many more injured, including Israeli soldiers.

Israel’s critics have been quick to condemn the incident, using it to inflame anti-Israel sentiment. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has already termed what is undoubtedly a serious incident as a “massacre”. Will this be the latest in a long list of incidents that have been distorted and misrepresented to cause Israel the maximum amount of damage to its image?
Connected to Terror: Who is Behind the Flotilla?
The organizations and passengers behind the Gaza flotilla have been variously described as “peace activists” and “humanitarian organizations”. This could not be further from the truth. The primary objective of this flotilla was not to deliver aid packages to Gaza but to spread anti-Israel propaganda in cooperation with Gaza’s Hamas rulers.

See here and here for detailed information on the IHH.

Amongst the other organizations involved in the flotilla is the International Solidarity Movement. The ISM has a shameful record of placing foreign nationals in danger through encouraging ‘direct action’, which resulted in the death of American citizen Rachel Corrie. In 2003, ISM’s extreme ideology was underscored when terrorists, originating from the UK, used ISM as a cover to attack Mike’s Place bar in Tel Aviv, murdering three people. More recently, ISM has been a leading force in the violent protests against the security barrier at Ni’lin, while an ISM activist has been jailed in the US, charged with “giving about $20,000 to a group he knew supported Hamas.”

An Al-Jazeera report from May 28, translated by MEMRI, shows activists on board before departing for Gaza, chanting Intifada songs aimed at Jews and praising martyrdom. Chants include “Intifada, intifada, intifada! Khaybar, Khaybar, oh Jews! The army of Mohammed will return!” relating to a seventh century massacre of Jews in Khaybar by early Muslims.

“Peace” Activists Used Deadly Violence
Despite claims that the activists on board were only prepared to resist the IDF peacefully, the reality was quite the opposite. Upon boarding the Marmara, owned and operated by the extremist IHH, Israeli naval personnel were attacked by activists who had prepared themselves with weapons including knives and clubs. This, despite the following statement from a Free Gaza spokesperson:
We were not going to pose any violent resistance. The only resistance that there might be would be passive resistance such as physically blocking the steering room, or blocking the engine room downstairs, so that they couldn’t get taken over. But that was just symbolic resistance.
Is the clip below showing an IDF soldier being attacked with a crowbar “symbolic resistance”? 
In addition,  IDF forces apprehended two activists holding pistols. The activists took these pistols from IDF forces and apparently opened fire on the soldiers as evident by the empty pistol magazines. This goes  some way to explaining the number of casualties as live fire was exchanged as IDF forces found themselves under severe threat as evidenced by the number of injured Israeli soldiers and the types of injuries. One soldier suffered a serious head injury, two others were injured by gunshots and one more was stabbed.
Click here to see Israeli TV footage of Israeli soldiers under attack.

Propaganda Not Humanitarianism

If there was any doubt that these organizations were unconcerned with universal human rights, this was confirmed by the rejection of a request from the family of Gilad Shalit for activists to pressure Hamas to allow international organizations to bring letters and food packages to the kidnapped soldier in exchange for the family’s support for the international expedition’s attempt to dock in Gaza.
In fact, Israel offered to transfer the supplies on the flotilla to Gaza from Ashdod port through official channels, an offer that was rejected in favor of confrontation on the part of the anti-Israel activists. As flotilla organizer Greta Berlin stated: “this mission is not about delivering humanitarian supplies, it’s about breaking Israel’s siege.”
The flotilla was clearly warned by the Israeli Navy in advance of the boarding and the offer repeated by the IDF.

A Legitimate and Legal Operation
 

IMRA asked Hebrew University international law expert Dr. Robbie Sabel about the legality of the IDF action in international waters.
Dr. Sabel explained that a state, in a time of conflict, can impose an embargo, and while it cannot carry out embargo activities in the territorial waters of a third party, it can carry out embargo activities in international waters.
Within this framework it is legal to detain a civilian vessel trying to break an embargo and if in the course of detaining the vessel, force is used against the forces carrying out the detention then that force has every right to act in self defense.
Dr. Sabel noted that there is a long history of embargo activities in international waters.
Indeed, according to the San Remo Manual that governs international humanitarian law, it is permissible under rule 67(a) to attack neutral vessels on the high seas when the vessels “are believed on reasonable grounds to be carrying contraband or breaching a blockade, and after prior warning they intentionally and clearly refuse to stop, or intentionally and clearly resist visit, search or capture.”
Will the Media Report Fairly?
The initial pictures and reports of this incident (supplied mainly by the less than objective al-Jazeera and Turkish media) do not paint Israel in a positive light, not helped by the fluidity of the situation and conflicting information.
It is the duty of the international media to report fairly and accurately. We have been here before, from incidents ranging from the al-Dura affair, the Jenin “massacre” and many other libels perpetrated by a media all too willing to take the side of those who seek to harm Israel.
We hope that the media will not repeat its past mistakes. While a clearer picture of today’s events may eventually emerge, the damage has already been done in the first few hours of reporting. Retractions and corrections will do little to soften the blow.
Will the media take at face value the statements and anti-Israel propaganda of groups who were committed to causing an incident of this nature? Will the media join in the automatic knee-jerk anti-Israel reaction that is all too often the norm?


Why Is The US Undermining The Sovereignty Of Israel?

WHY IS THE U.S. UNDERMINING THE SOVEREIGNTY OF ISRAEL?
By Gary A. Aminoff

Here are a few questions that I would like answers to:

When was the last time a sovereign nation announced urban planning decisions in its principal city and had the wrath of the United States rain down upon it?

What right does the Secretary of State have to declare the decision by the City of Jerusalem to allow the construction of 1,600 housing units “insulting” to the United States?

Why is the United States interfering in the right of a nation to conduct its business and provide housing for its residents?

The degrading treatment of a sovereign country by the United States is intolerable to all who believe in the right of nations to govern their own countries.   It is especially troubling to American Jews who wonder why their government is treating Israel differently than it treats any other country?

The answer, of course, lies with the troubled political position of President Barack Obama.  Obama, apparently having no coherent foreign policy, having alienated many of our allies, along with taking actions that make the United States appear weak and indecisive, needs a foreign policy “win.”

He, like many on the left, have delusions that the real reason the Palestinian Arabs won’t make peace with Israel is because of…..settlements.  Those who know the truth would double over in laughter at the thought, if the matter weren’t so serious.

The political naivete demonstrated by this administration, from the President to the Vice President to the Secretary of State to Special Ambassador Mitchell is astounding.  They clearly have no understanding of what motivates the Palestinians.  They think it is (wait for it)…the settlements.

The truth is, and everyone clearly knows this except our brilliant administration, that if Israel were to decide to destroy every settlement in the West Bank or all the housing in Jerusalem there would still be no peace with the Arabs.

Wake up Secretary Clinton, housing of residents of Jerusalem has NOTHING to do with whether the Arabs make peace with Israel or not.  Israel gave up ALL of its settlements, and moved ALL of its population out of Gaza.  Did that make a difference to the Arabs?  Did it result in peace?  Of course not!

They are playing our administration for fools.  The housing issue is simply a “red herring” that enables them to avoid negotiating with Israel.  Danny Danon, a member of the Israeli Knesset had this to say today,

“Secretary Clinton recently embraced the task of helping solve shipping problems of American food products to our shores, yet condemns our right to build homes for Jews in the city of Jerusalem. Jews living in Jerusalem is why Israel exists as a Jewish state. With all due respect, Madam Secretary, forget the gefilte fish for Passover and support our inalienable rights to the Jewish homeland, Israel.”

Here is the bottom line and why there will never be peace anytime soon between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs.

The goal of the Palestinians, whether they are led by Hamas or by Abbas, is not peace with Israel.  It is the total destruction of Israel and its disappearance from the Middle East along with all of the Jews.

You can call for whatever talks you want to arrange.  No amount of talking will result in peace between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs in our lifetime.  Perhaps a new generation of Arabs who are not taught to hate Jews from the time of their birth will be able to accept Israel in the region.  But, like the Jews after the exodus from Egypt, it will take a full 40 years for that generation to come into power.

I will tell you one way that peace could occur tomorrow from the Israeli point of view.  Have the Arabs declare that they recognize the State of Israel and that they agree to stop bombing Israel or attacking Jews.  Achieve that, and you will achieve instant peace.  Since we all know the Arabs will never do that…..we also know there will be no peace.

It is counter-productive for the US to put pressure on Israel.  Israel is not only a sovereign country, it is a democracy, it supports the US and the West, and it is a country which produces innovative products that make our everyday life easier and safer.  The medical achievements that have come out of Israel in the past 20 years have saved an untold number of American lives.

To attempt to humiliate or subjugate Israel for domestic political gain is behavior which is not worthy of the long history and special relationship between the United States and Israel.

Gary Aminoff is the President of the San Fernando Valley Republican Club and is a member of the Republican Jewish Coalition.  He is a commercial real estate broker practicing in Beverly Hills.

Netanyahu Rejects Obama Request To Stop Building in East Jerusalem

In the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, there is a compound that was legally purchased by American businessman Irving Moskowitz in 1985. All papers are in order. The site originally belonged to the Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini, a Nazi collaborator and mentor of Yasser Arafat, and later became the Shepherd Hotel. Plans now are to replace the hotel with a housing complex of some 20 to 30 apartments, to be purchased by Jewish families.

But Mahmoud Abbas was disturbed about these plans, because this would “shift the demographic balance” in the city. Which is to say that he covets eastern Jerusalem and wants to see it stay predominantly Arab.

(Clarification: It is predominantly Arab not because this was the historical situation, but because Jordan rendered the area Judenrein from 1949-67.)

Reports are that Abbas complained to the Americans. And what happens when Abbas protests? Seems that the American president jumps. Michael Oren, Israeli ambassador to the US, was summoned to the State Department and told that the Obama administration wanted us to stop the building.

“Nothing doing,” Oren told them.

What’s important here is that, not only will Israel refuse, but that PM Netanyahu was reportedly incensed about this, saying that Obama had “crossed a red line.” The issue here is very clear:

Jerusalem united is undisputedly our sovereign capitol. Jews are allowed to build, and live, anywhere in the city. “This has always been Israel’s policy and this is the policy of the current government,” declared the prime minister.

“…There is no prohibition against Arab residents buying apartments in the west of the city and there is no prohibition barring the city’s Jewish residents from buying or building in the east of the city. That is the policy of an open city that is not divided.”

“Thousands of Arab families build houses in Jerusalem, in the [primarily Jewish] neighborhoods of Neve Yaakov and French Hill, and I’ve never heard any comment on the matter from the United States or Europe. I’m trying to put this delicately: It would be very strange if Jews were discriminated against in Jerusalem of all places, especially in light of the fact that it is not an isolated site; this is the heart of the city, very close to the Government Compound and Israel Police Headquarters.”

Diaspora Affairs Minister Yuli Edelstein said,

“A demand to cease construction in a neighborhood situated only several meters from the Hebrew University proves how dangerous it is to be dragged into a debate on settlement freeze, which will lead us to a total demand to freeze our normal lives throughout the entire State of Israel.”

The municipality of Jerusalem also weighed in on this issue, with a statement that reflects a principle of enormous significance:

“The Local Planning Committee of the Jerusalem Municipality operates according to equal criteria for all issues of construction permits, without regard to race, creed, gender, religion, or national identity of the resident or property owner.”

Imagine if Israel tried to prevent Arabs from building legally in the city. It seems that the world finds this acceptable only where Jews are concerned. And the Palestinians deign to refer to Israel as apartheid?

The YNET news site has an article on this issue in which it quotes Prime Minister Netanyahu:

“Our sovereignty in Jerusalem is indisputable. We can’t agree to such a demand in east Jerusalem.”

“I wish to make this clear – the united Jerusalem is the capital of the Jewish people in the State of Israel,” he added.

Leo Rennert writes in The American Thinker

In a Washington Post op-ed intended to catch President Obama’s attention, former Israeli Prime MInister Ehud Olmert urges the U.S. administration to stop obsessing about Jewish settlements and instead focus on Palestinian leader Mahmdoud Abbas’s obstructionism in rejecting any realistic two-state solution.

By lining up with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu against Obama’s misbegotten diplomacy, Olmert demolishes a central tenet of the president’s view of Israel’s approach to peacemaking. Obama has made no secret of the fact that he views Netanyahu’s Likud party as the main Israeli obstacle to the peace process. His administration calculated that, if Likud and Netanyahu could be marginalized — in Israel as well as among most American Jews — Obama would be able to get greater concessions from Israel to move toward a two-state solution.

Olmert’s article demolishes this scenario by making it clear that it’s not just Likud that opposes a total freeze on construction in existing settlements, but that this is a widely held view across the entire Israeli spectrum. Olmert’s Kadima party is just as much at odds with Obama on this as is the Likud.

It’s also a signal to American supporters of Israel, including the Jewish community, that it’s time to press Obama to focus on Abbas’s rejectionism as the main obstacle — not Netanyahu.

All of this leads us to the inevitable conclusion that the US should stop meddling in the internal affairs of a sovereign country. The US would never interfere in the internal decisions of any other country. What gives it the right to do so in Israel?