WarSclerotic

History News Network.

[Moshe Dann, a former assistant professor of history, is a writer and journalist living in Jerusalem.]

President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s attack on Israel is failing spectacularly.

Most Israelis — especially those in the center and left — have rallied around Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. Judging by the media — especially television talk shows — Netanyahu’s popularity has soared following the rebuke from Hillary Clinton. Even those who usually berate him have come to his defense. American Jewish leaders and Congress are also pushing back against Clinton’s hysteria and Obama’s stern reprimands.

After all, the issue of sovereignty in Jerusalem, and therefore who sets the rules, is hardly something that Israelis are prepared to consider. Everyone has understood this for forty years. Since Camp David, in 1978, every American president has accepted that Jerusalem is a final status issue. So why would the Obama administration bring it up now?

To then call Jewish neighborhoods — in Jerusalem — “settlements,” to dispute the right of Israel to renovate a synagogue in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City, to scold Israel for wanting to enforce building codes and demolish illegal Arab buildings built in an historic, archeological park, is beyond appalling. To use Hillary’s word, it’s “humiliating.” And to paraphrase her again, it is a deliberate attempt to humiliate the Jewish people.

Obama’s ambush seems to have been a trap waiting to be enacted. The question everyone is asking: why? Let’s look at the administration’s strategy regarding five policy areas:

Iran: Obama’s policy of using sanctions to prevent Iran from achieving nuclear capability has failed. Israel represents the only military option. Pushing Israel around on minor issues may prevent a surprise attack on Iran.

Afghanistan and Pakistan: Vice President Joe Biden foolishly suggested that Israel’s difficulties with the Palestinians were affecting America’s struggles to the east.

Jerusalem and settlements: Obama and his administration have made it clear that they do not accept an Israeli presence in areas which it acquired in the Six Day War (1967). This is not a new position, nor is it different from that of most countries in the world. But most have refrained from making this an issue, especially because Arab terrorism is still a problem.

The Palestinian Authority: In its struggle with Hamas, Fatah needs to show that it is powerful. For all the talk about a two-state solution, however, according to Dr. Khalil Shikaki, director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Research, the Palestinian street still believes that only through violence will they achieve their aims.

Siding with the Palestinians on Jerusalem, Obama’s strategy seems intended to preempt Israeli sovereignty. The result quickly followed Vice President Joe Biden’s departure: Arab rioters engaged in pitched battles with police as Arab Palestinian leaders called for a renewal of the uprising (“intifada”) that swept the country after Arafat reject the offers at Camp David in 2000.

The potential for Arab violence is always there; it only needs a trigger. But previous attempts to ignite the kind of widespread terrorism and homicide bombings that frequented Israel have failed. Calls by Palestinian leaders for Muslims to engage in violence to protect the al-Aqsa mosque because of archeological excavations, or rebuilding a synagogue, have attracted little support.

And, unlike the situation ten years ago when a handful of policemen faced mobs of many hundreds, thousands of Israeli police were sent to Jerusalem to ensure calm. It worked.

America: Has Obama written off the Jewish vote in favor of Muslims? His outreach to the Muslim world and his direct appeal to American Muslims indicate a shift in political calculations. Facing an uphill battle in midterm elections, Obama may hope that he can salvage what seems to be a losing battle at home and abroad by knuckling Israel.

With a few Jewish advisors to protect him from charges of anti-Semitism, he may try for a brass ring in the Middle East merry-go-round. That would assume that voters are stupid. Many may be, but not enough.

A well-known columnist recently accused Israel of drunk-driving behavior. The drunk-with-power driver, however, is sitting in the White House.

Alan M. Dershowitz: Obama’s Legacy and the Iranian Bomb – WSJ.com.

Neville Chamberlain was remembered for appeasing Germany, not his progressive social programs.

ALAN M. DERSHOWITZ

The gravest threat faced by the world today is a nuclear-armed Iran. Of all the nations capable of producing nuclear weapons, Iran is the only one that might use them to attack an enemy.

There are several ways in which Iran could use nuclear weapons. The first is by dropping an atomic bomb on Israel, as its leaders have repeatedly threatened to do. Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president of Iran, boasted in 2004 that an Iranian attack would kill as many as five million Jews. Mr. Rafsanjani estimated that even if Israel retaliated with its own nuclear bombs, Iran would probably lose about 15 million people, which he said would be a small “sacrifice” of the billion Muslims in the world.

The second way in which Iran could use nuclear weapons would be to hand them off to its surrogates, Hezbollah or Hamas. A third way would be for a terrorist group, such as al Qaeda, to get its hands on Iranian nuclear material. It could do so with the consent of Iran or by working with rogue elements within the Iranian regime.

Finally, Iran could use its nuclear weapons without ever detonating a bomb. By constantly threatening Israel with nuclear annihilation, it could engender so much fear among Israelis as to incite mass immigration, a brain drain, or a significant decline in people moving to Israel.

These are the specific ways in which Iran could use nuclear weapons, primarily against the Jewish state. But there are other ways in which a nuclear-armed Iran would endanger the world. First, it would cause an arms race in which every nation in the Middle East would seek to obtain nuclear weapons.

Second, it would almost certainly provoke Israel into engaging in either a pre-emptive or retaliatory attack, thus inflaming the entire region or inciting further attacks against Israel by Hezbollah and Hamas.

Third, it would provide Iran with a nuclear umbrella under which it could accelerate its efforts at regional hegemony. Had Iraq operated under a nuclear umbrella when it invaded Kuwait in 1990, Saddam Hussein’s forces would still be in Kuwait.

Fourth, it would embolden the most radical elements in the Middle East to continue their war of words and deeds against the United States and its allies.

And finally, it would inevitably unleash the law of unintended consequences: Simply put, nobody knows the extent of the harm a nuclear-armed Iran could produce.

In these respects, allowing Iran to obtain nuclear weapons is somewhat analogous to the decision by the victors of World War I to allow Nazi Germany to rearm during the 1930s. Even the Nazis were surprised at this complacency. Joseph Goebbels expected the French and British to prevent the Nazis from rebuilding Germany’s war machine.

In 1940, Goebbels told a group of German journalists that if he had been the French premier when Hitler came to power he would have said, “The new Reich Chancellor is the man who wrote Mein Kampf, which says this and that. This man cannot be tolerated in our vicinity. Either he disappears or we march!”

But, Goebbels continued, “they didn’t do it. They left us alone and let us slip through the risky zone, and we were able to sail around all dangerous reefs. And when we were done, and well armed, better than they, then they started the war!”

Most people today are not aware that British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain helped restore Great Britain’s financial stability during the Great Depression and also passed legislation to extend unemployment benefits, pay pensions to retired workers and otherwise help those hit hard by the slumping economy. But history does remember his failure to confront Hitler. That is Chamberlain’s enduring legacy.

So too will Iran’s construction of nuclear weapons, if it manages to do so in the next few years, become President Barack Obama’s enduring legacy. Regardless of his passage of health-care reform and regardless of whether he restores jobs and helps the economy recover, Mr. Obama will be remembered for allowing Iran to obtain nuclear weapons. History will not treat kindly any leader who allows so much power to be accumulated by the world’s first suicide nation—a nation whose leaders have not only expressed but, during the Iran-Iraq war, demonstrated a willingness to sacrifice millions of their own people to an apocalyptic mission of destruction.

If Iran were to become a nuclear power, there would be plenty of blame to go around. A National Intelligence Report, issued on President George W. Bush’s watch, distorted the truth by suggestion that Iran had ended its quest for nuclear weapons. It also withheld the fact that U.S. intelligence had discovered a nuclear facility near Qum, Iran, that could be used only for the production of nuclear weapons. Chamberlain, too, was not entirely to blame for Hitler’s initial triumphs. He became prime minister after his predecessors allowed Germany to rearm. Nevertheless, it is Chamberlain who has come to symbolize the failure to prevent Hitler’s ascendancy. So too will Mr. Obama come to symbolize the failure of the West if Iran acquires nuclear weapons on his watch.

Mr. Dershowitz is a law professor at Harvard. His latest book is “The Case for Moral Clarity” (Camera, 2009).

WASHINGTON — Middle East peace envoy Tony Blair warned Iran on Monday the world will do “whatever it takes” to stop it acquiring a nuclear weapon.

“Iran must not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons capability. Iran must know that we will do whatever it takes to stop them getting it,” Blair told the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC.

“The danger is if they suspect for a moment we might allow such a thing,” he told delegates on the last day of the three-day annual policy conference of AIPAC, the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee.

“We cannot and we will not. This is not simply an issue of Israel’s security. This is a matter of global security, mine yours, all of us,” the former British prime minister said.

“Iran’s regime is the biggest destabilizing influence in the region,” he said, adding that both Israelis and Arabs know this.

He was alluding to Iran’s support for anti-Israeli Muslim militant groups in Lebanon and in the Palestinian territories as well as to Shiite militants in Iraq, which was formerly led by Sunnis, the majority group in the Arab world.

Yemen has also accused Shiite northern rebels of taking money from Iranians and of plotting to create a Shiite zone along the Saudi borders.

During the AIPAC policy conference, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Seccretary of State Hillary Clinton raised alarms about the perceived nuclear threat from Iran.

Clinton said it was worth taking the time needed for the United Nations Security Council to adopt new sanctions “that bite” against Iran.

Israel, which sees the threat more urgently, has raised the threat of a pre-emptive military strike against Iran’s nuclear sites.

The United States, Israel and others fear that Iran’s uranium enrichment program masks a drive for a nuclear bomb. Tehran denies the charge, saying it is for peaceful nuclear energy.

via AFP: World will stop Iran getting nuclear arms: Blair.

IDF chief of staff: Iran nuclear threat rising – Haaretz – Israel News.

Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi on Tuesday briefed the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on the security situation along Israel’s border, as well as the Iranian threat and the increase in Qassam rocket fire from the Gaza Strip.

Addressing the Iranian nuclear threat, Ashkenazi said that “the Iranians are pressing ahead with their nuclear program. I hope that the trilateral sanctions will prove effective.”

Ashkenazi added that it would be a mistake to rely on the opposition within Iran to neutralize the program’s progress, as “the [Iranian] regime is strong and effective.”

Ashkenazi also discussed the situation along Israel’s northern border, saying it is quiet “but that could change.”

“Hezbollah is deploying more forces north of the Litani River,” he added.

Turning to the issue of the recent escalation in Qassam rocket attacks launched at Israel from Gaza, Ashkenazi told the committee that Hamas is not directly behind the attacks.

“Hamas is not interested in losing control of the situation – but it could do more to stop the rocket fire,” he said, explaining that “the IDF retaliates against Hamas targets because we regard them as the sovereign group [in the Strip].”

An Israeli diplomat expelled? But look who the British government won’t get rid of… – Telegraph Blogs.

MEMRI – Middle East Media Research Institute.

Netanyahu, defiant, stands his ground – Ben Smith – POLITICO.com.

The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is delivering a defiant reply to the White House in a speech to the pro-Israel group AIPAC this evening, responding to American attempts to damp down their harsh words with an insistence on Israel’s right to construct housing in Jerusalem.

Netanyahu, who apologized for the announcement of new housing in Jerusalem during Joe Biden’s visit ten days ago, does not reprise his apology, according to prepared remarks. Instead, he reminds the White House that the new housing — though a thumb in the eye — did not actually violate any commitment he’d made, as any settlement freeze always excluded Jerusalem.

“The connection between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel cannot be denied.The connection between the Jewish people and Jerusalem cannot be denied,” Netanyahu says. “The Jewish people were building Jerusalem 3,000 year ago and the Jewish people are building Jerusalem today.Jerusalem is not a settlement.It is our capital.”

“Everyone knows that these neighborhoods will be part of Israel in any peace settlement.Therefore, building them in no way precludes the possibility of a two-state solution,” Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu returned in his speech to familiar themes: The historic assaults on the Jewish people, his theoretical desire for Palestinian independence, and the sole fault of Palestinian leaders in preventing it.

“Peace requires reciprocity .It cannot be a one-way street in which only Israel makes concessions. Israel stands ready to make the compromises necessary for peace. But we expect the Palestinian leaders to compromise as well,” he says.

Netanyahu concluded with a short tribute to the American-Israeli relationship, mentioning President Obama once twice and thanking him, and Congress, for military cooperation.

But his speech also included a clear rebuttal to Israelis and American Jews who have pleaded with him to mend his relationship with the White House.

“The future of the Jewish state can never depend on the goodwill of even the greatest of men. Israel must always reserve the right to defend itself,” Netanyahu says.

Koch on Obama and Israel: Why the trust is gone.

By Ed Koch

I consider the Obama administration’s recent actions against the Israeli government to be outrageous and a breach of trust. I refer to the denunciations by Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other administration officials The world knows what happened; nevertheless, I will try to put it into context.

Vice President Joe Biden was in Jerusalem to convey to the Israelis and the world that the United States government is committed to protecting and assuring the security of Israel from attack. While he was there, an Israeli government minister announced that the Israeli government had authorized the construction of 1,600 apartments in East Jerusalem to be occupied by Jews. Currently, 280,000 Jews live in East Jerusalem, and these apartments were to be added to an existing complex, built on land owned by Jews; about 250,000 Jews live on the West Bank outside of Jerusalem.

The timing of the Israeli government’s announcement was unfortunate and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apologized for it, but it did not mark any change in the Israeli government’s policy. That policy is and has long been to allow construction of homes for Jews in East Jerusalem.

Now a little history. In 1947, the United Nations passed a resolution authorizing the creation of a Jewish state within the British Mandate of Palestine. After it declared independence in 1948, Israel was immediately attacked by the combined armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Although Israel repelled the attack, Jordan conquered East Jerusalem, separating it from its Western half. Ultimately, a cease fire was arranged by the U.N. and for the next 19 years until 1967, Jordan occupied East Jerusalem, including the old city, which historically had been the capital of King David’s ancient kingdom. In 1967, the Arab armies of Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria again sought to destroy the State of Israel, but Israel prevailed in six days and conquered the Jordanian-held East Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip. During the 19 years that Jordan occupied East Jerusalem, it expelled all of the Jews living in what was historically the Jewish Quarter, and literally destroyed every synagogue and the homes of the Jews. When Israel reunited all of Jerusalem, Jews were, of course, allowed to live in any part of the city, and today, more than a quarter of a million Jews live in East Jerusalem. Numerous Arabs live there as well.

For quite some time and certainly since the Gaza War, the Palestinian Authority has broken off direct negotiations with Israel which had been ongoing since about 1993, in an effort to create two states, one Jewish and one Palestinian, living side-by-side in peace. This so-called two-state solution always seemed out of reach, notwithstanding the efforts of Presidents Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush to jumpstart negotiations.

President Obama has sought to revive the negotiations between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority. He called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to assist by committing Israel to stop building new apartments in East Jerusalem and new settlements on the West Bank. In a move that Hillary Clinton, according to The New York Times, praised as “unprecedented,” Netanyahu agreed to a ten-month settlement moratorium on the West Bank. However, he refused to stop Jews from living in any part of East Jerusalem, which is considered by Israelis to be an inseparable part of their capital. Both the Palestinian Authority and the U.S. government, ultimately accepted Netanyahu’s offer, albeit grudgingly, and the Palestinian Authority agreed to engage in indirect talks through the American mediator George Mitchell.

Given this history, it was a shock to the Israeli and American supporters of Israel to have Joe Biden, a great friend of Israel, make the extraordinary harsh statement he made denouncing the future construction of 1,600 apartments in East Jerusalem. The Vice President’s condemnation was even more baffling because, as The Times of March 12th reported, “he spent most [of the previous day] expressing his personal devotion to Israel, as well as the Obama administration’s ‘iron-clad commitment to Israel’s security.’” As someone high in political life once said to me after I mentioned to him the violation of his iron-clad commitment to me on a subject involving the mass transit fares in New York City, “Next time, get it in steel. Iron breaks.”

But even more disturbing than the Vice President’s reaction were the comments and implicit threats voiced by Hillary Clinton in a telephone conversation she had with Prime Minister Netanyahu, described in The Times of March 12th. “In a tense, 43-minute phone call on Friday morning, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel’s plan for new housing units for Jews in East Jerusalem sent a ‘deeply negative signal’ about Israeli-American relations.”

Under President Clinton and George W. Bush, Israeli Prime Ministers have offered the Palestinians a state of their own on virtually the entire West Bank and Gaza, with land swaps to compensate for any portion of the West Bank that would remain in Israel, but those offers were rejected by the Palestinians.

What is most disturbing about the truly harsh and inflammatory rhetoric of both Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton directed at the government of Israel, is that it is speculated President Obama himself may have ordered Biden and Clinton to make the statements they made. The Times of March 16th reported, “…the President was outraged by the announcement of 1,600 housing units in an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood in East Jerusalem during Mr. Biden’s visit, administration officials said. Mr. Obama was deeply involved in the strategy and planning for Mr. Biden’s visit and orchestrated the response from Mr. Biden and Mrs. Clinton after it went awry, these officials said.” President Obama and his administration’s overly harsh public reaction to the construction in East Jerusalem appears to have emboldened Israel’s enemies and provided a cover for their extremist views. It has also created a serious crisis of confidence among the Israeli public that it can depend on this administration for its security.

There will be an effort this week when Prime Minister Netanyahu meets with President Obama to mend fences. There will be huggy-kissy pictures with Hillary and handshakes by Bibi Netanyahu with Joe Biden and the President, but the relations will never be the same again. Humpty Dumpty has been broken and the absolute trust needed between allies is no longer there. How sad it is for the supporters of Israel who put their trust in President Obama.

Edward I. Koch, who served as mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989, is a partner in the law firm of Bryan Cave.

Atacking an ally to appease foes – The Trentonian Opinion: Serving Trenton and surrounding communities. (trentonian.com).

By DIANA WEST

Whew. We can breathe easier now that the Obama administration has taken a tough-as-scimitars line with Israel. Its blueprints for new housing, the administration says, pose a dire threat to U.S. troops.

As Vice President Joseph Biden put it, referring to a new housing project in Jerusalem: “This is starting to get dangerous for us. What you’re doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

In other words, it’s not the Muslim-made IED planted in the roads of Helmand Province that’s the problem; it’s the Jewish-built condo in Jerusalem.

The effects of such babble are as palpable as they are shameful.

The same week the Israeli housing project launched Obama administration diplomatic fireworks, the White House and most media ignored the Palestinian Authority’s commemoration of Dalal Mughrabi — a mass murderess who led an attack killing 38 Israelis in 1978. She now has a public square named in her honor.

In its silence on this calumny, the U.S. government has acquiesced to the jihadist narrative that Jews building homes in Israel’s capital is incitement, while Muslims naming public squares for terrorist mass murderers of Jews is a ho-hum event. On with the “peace process.”

This constant, drip, drip, drip policy of appeasing Islamic extremists has been eroding our national security posture since long before 9/11. It has been reshaping a world perspective that conforms with that of the Islamic world.

This eruption over housing in Jerusalem — an “insult,” an “affront,” said White House adviser David Axelrod — strangely parrots the language of a purportedly “offended” Islam.

Gen. David Petraeus put a military gloss on this same policy in recent testimony before the U.S. Senate.

He spoke of “insufficient progress toward a comprehensive Middle East peace,” the polite way of alluding to the open-ended jihad against Israel. This, he went on to say, presents “distinct challenges” to America’s interests in the region.

Why? “The conflict foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel,” he said. “Arab anger over the Palestinian question” limits U.S. partnerships with governments and peoples in the region and “weakens the legitimacy of moderate regimes in the Arab world.” Meanwhile, the general said, “al-Qaida and other militant groups exploit that anger to mobilize support.”

Subtext: If Israel would shrink into nothingness, everything would be beautiful.

Petraeus’ testimony about “Arab anger” echoes his concerns, as reported by Foreign Policy online, about Arab complaints on “the Palestinian issue.” Petraeus, Foreign Policy writes, believes this anger is “jeopardizing U.S. standing in the region.”

Question: Since when is assuaging “Arab anger” the concern of U.S. war planners? Answer: Since U.S. war planners became U.S. counter-insurgency planners — and Petraeus literally helped write the book on counterinsurgency. Playing to Arab demands, to Muslim demands, is the heart of counterinsurgency’s “hearts and minds” doctrine.

The general is employing the classic buzz terms — Arab “anger,” Arab “perception” of the “Palestinian question,” etc. — that are hallmarks of the Arab-ist slant on the jihad against Israel.

This jihad is now picking up a terrifying speed after the Obama administration’s apology to Libya’s dictator Moammar Gadhafi, its “outreach” to Iran’s tyrant Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and, let us not forget, President Obama’s bow to Saudi King Abdullah..

—Syndicated columnist and author Diana West blogs at dianawest.net.