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No good news in the Mid East for Obama or Netanyahu when they meet Monday

November 8, 2015

No good news in the Mid East for Obama or Netanyahu when they meet Monday, DEBKAfile, November 8, 2015

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After more than a year, Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu meets President Barack Obama at the White House on Monday, Nov. 9, with the deck heavily stacked against him – and not just because of the Islamic State, which is a universal bane, or Obama’s Iran policy – or even the evaporation of the peace process with the Palestinians. This time, Netanyahu is not getting a dressing-down over the disappearance of the two-state solution, because even the US president has decided to shelve it for the remainder of his presidency which ends in January 2017.

This is not because the Netanyahu government has missed any chances for talks with the Palestinians, as the Israeli opposition loudly claims, but because it is unrealistic.

Palestinian Authority Chairman Abu Mazen (Mahmud Abbas), who lost all credibility on the Palestinian street long ago, has been quietly but continuously encouraging the continuous Palestinian wave of terror by knives, guns and cars.

The Israeli prime minister had his most promising card snatched from him just ten days before he traveled to Washington. He had intended presenting the US president with the quiet alliance he had formed with key moderate Arab governments as a viable alternative for the deadlocked Palestinian peace process, with the promise of a measure of stability for its members in the turbulence around them.

However, the linchpin Egyptian President Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi’s position was suddenly shaken up badly by the downing of the Russian passenger plane over Sinai on Oct. 31, presenting him with his most dangerous crisis since he took power in 2013.

In addition, the security situation in Syria, including along Israel’s northern border, especially the Golan, has gone from bad to worse – especially since Russia built up its military presence in Syria.

Israel has been forced to forego most of its red lines for defending its security as no longer relevant. Although no Israeli official says so openly, Israel’s military options in Syria have shrunk, and even the overflights by its air force flights for keeping threats at bay are seriously restricted..

Iran and Hizballah, under Russian air cover, have been slowly but surely making gains in their attempt to retake southern Syria from the rebels and hand it over to the army of Syrian President Assad.

Israel is still insisting that it will not allow the deployment of Iranian or Hizballah forces on the Syrian side of the Golan, but these statements are losing their impact. If the coalition of Russia, Iran, Syria and Hizballah defeats the rebels in southern Syria and moves in up to its border, Israel will find it extremely difficult to prevent this happening.

It would also mark the end of more than three years of investment and building of ties with various elements in southern Syria as part of a strategic decision to transform those groups into a buffer between Israel and Iran in the Golan area.

Netanyahu’s struggle against the nuclear deal with Iran was not just aimed at Washington’s recognition of Iran’s nuclear program, but ever more at Obama’s acknowledgement of Iran as America’s strategic partner and leading Middle East power. But in this respect, the US president is most likely chafing over the setbacks to his own cherished plan, as a result of four developments:

1. Iran has plunged more deeply than ever predicted into the Syrian conflict. For the first time since the 19th century, Iran has not only sent its military to fight beyond its borders, but it is coordinating its moves with Moscow, not Washington.

Even if Israel needed to turn to the US administration for a helping hand against Iran, it would have no address because Washington too has been displaced as a power with any say in the Syrian picture.

2. Although the alliance by Israel and moderate Arab countries was designed by Netanyahu to serve as a counterweight to the US-Iranian partnership,  that alliance too is far from united on Syria:  Egyptian President El-Sisi, for example, supports President Bashar Assad, and is in favor of keeping him in power in Damascus.

3. The Islamic State continues to go from strength to strength in Syria and the Sinai Peninsula which share borders with Israel as well as in Iraq.

4. Israel’s political, defense and intelligence elite have badly misread or missed altogether four major events in the region:

  • Assad’s persistent grip on power
  • The deep Russian and Iranian military intervention in Syria
  • The strengthening of ISIS
  • The eruption of a new, deadly Palestinian campaign of terror which strikes unexpectedly in every town, highway and street.

These errors are taking their toll on Israel’s security, wellbeing and prestige.

Even if Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and US President Obama, like Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon and Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, do reach an agreement on Israel’s security needs for the coming years and US military assistance, such an agreement may not withstand the test of Middle East volatility. The rapidly changing conditions are for now all to the detriment of the US and Israel.

Categories: Egypt, Iran - Syria war, Iran scam, Israel, Netanyahu, Obama - Middle East, Obama and Israel, Russia - Syrian war, Sisi
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Keeping up warm relations

November 6, 2015

Keeping up warm relations, Israel Hayom, Shlomo Cesanam, November 6, 2015

(Please see also, Obama rules out Israeli-Palestinian peace deal before leaving office. — DM)

Two state is deadScience and Technology Minister Ofir Akunis, seen with Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon in the Knesset, says the two-state solution is “dead.” | Photo credit: Noam Revkin-Fenton

The imminent meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama won’t repair their soured ties, but it’s clear that their face-offs are on hold as Israel and the U.S. prepare to deal with Middle East instability.

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Two weeks ago, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon met with his American counterpart Defense Secretary Ashton Carter. The defense secretary accompanied Ya’alon everywhere: to a memorial service at the Israeli Embassy marking 20 years since the assassination of former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, on a visit to the American Cyber Command at Fort Meade, in a dialogue with students and to a laid-back meal at the Pentagon, at which a military choir performed “Jerusalem of Gold” accompanied by a violinist. The Americans promise that the warm welcome Ya’alon received will continue — even if not with the same intensity — for another two days, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to land in Washington, ahead of a Monday meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House.

The meeting will not obliterate the soured relations between the two leaders. They “did not have a chance to meet” this year, but they did manage to publicly face off on important issues and policies. The main bone of contention is of course the understandings reached between six world powers on Iran’s nuclear program. Nevertheless, it is clear to everyone that the confrontations are over as is the discussion of whether the tension between the two leaders harmed the relations between their respective nations. Both sides agree that the threats, challenges and mutual interests supersede the various disagreements, and that new arrangements must be made for the future.

The agenda of the meeting will address coordination on a strategic outlook for the region. Two specific issues are up for discussion: Preserving Israel’s qualitative advantage over the rest of the countries in the region, and American aid to strengthen Israel during the next 10 years. The aforementioned edge was created as a result of the nuclear deal with Iran and the “compensation packages” the U.S. handed out to its allies in the Persian Gulf — first and foremost Saudi Arabia, but also countries like Jordan and Egypt. The aid comes in the form of information, technology, financial aid, weapons and ammunition.

The American aid will be provided under a 10-year plan. Former President George W. Bush signed the last aid deal, which expires at the end of 2017. Israel expects to fill up a “shopping cart” with items that already appear on a long list of requests, including a bump in the amount of defense assistance from $3.1 billion to $4 billion.

Since the deal will only take effect two years from now, diplomatic officials are discussing two separate lists: one for the long term, and a second that will give Israel the help it needs to preserve its advantage. The goals of the meeting between Netanyahu and Obama are based on the assumption that the Middle East is unstable, and will remain so for the next decade. That assumption is backed up by reports from teams of professionals in both the U.S. and Israel.

The bottom line, a member of Israel’s Diplomatic-Security Cabinet said this week, is that “the U.S. and Israel are in sync. They see eye to eye on the existing situation and have identical assessments of the changing situation in the region.”

Both Israel and the U.S., for example, agree that even after the Iran nuclear deal, the Tehran regime is no less dangerous. They both know that the Iranian money that was unfrozen when the sanctions were lifted, is already going to fund terrorism.

Netanyahu and Obama are going to talk about strategy, as the proposals for aid to bolster Israel are already known. But because in our region it is hard to know what the day will bring, both sides have built a model according to which “a variety of measures to provide a variety of solutions to a variety of threats” must be offered. The discussion in the White House will deal with all of the security ties between the two countries: Long-term financial aid; cooperation on cybersecurity; air, land, sea, and satellite power; intelligence; technological and defense development, including more Iron Dome batteries and similar defense systems, and the promotion of solutions that are still being developed. On everything relating to the immediate and broad-scale answer, Israel is asking for a way of defending itself against long-range and precision-guided missiles.

Netanyahu and Obama will also have to decide whether the time has come to strike a reciprocity deal — a defense pact between the two nations — that does not include a requirement to inform each other of certain covert actions, such as an attack on Iran. A deal like that would provide an answer for any scenario in which Iran breaks through to a nuclear bomb before the deal on its nuclear program is up.

“We left Gaza — and what did we get?”

But the headaches do not end there. When Netanyahu returns from the U.S., he will be facing two other important events: passing the state budget, which will among other things determine the defense budget, and the scheduled release of convicted spy Jonathan Pollard from a U.S. prison, which will mark the end of a long dispute with the Americans on the Pollard matter.

In Jerusalem, Netanyahu’s meeting with Obama is seen with utmost importance. Many officials at the diplomatic echelon argue that the meeting explains Netanyahu’s conduct these past few weeks: his measured responses to events in the field, the ban on MKs visiting the Temple Mount, the delay on committee discussions about construction in Jerusalem, and his remark that comparatively speaking, he is the prime minister who has allowed the least amount of building in Judea and Samaria.

On the other hand, Netanyahu is not hiding his official policy that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is not a partner with whom a peace deal can be made and that for now, Israel’s security and defense prowess in Judea and Samaria must be solidified without any visible changes.

The opposition and some media outlets have voiced criticism of Ya’alon, who is being accused of wanting to “manage” the conflict with the Palestinians and of directing “a policy of carrots” rather than finding a solution to it. Netanyahu, on the other hand, is accused of marking time and cultivating a vision in which we will “always live by the sword.”

The criticism is local, but it echoes throughout the world. That is why it was important to Netanyahu to issue a reply this week: “I’m not deceiving the public. We are living in the heart of radical Islam, and no policy we adopt will turn our neighbors into Norwegians or Swedes. We withdrew from every last [inch] of the Gaza Strip and didn’t get peace, [we got] rockets and terrorism. Therefore — with an arrangement or without one — we will always need the IDF to protect ourselves.”

Netanyahu is arriving in Washington as the head of a narrow right-wing government, most of whose members oppose a two-state solution. A member of his own Likud party, Science, Technology and Space Minister Ofir Akunis, said twice this week — at a weekend cultural event in Beersheba and at a Likud conference in Kfar Saba — that “the two-state solution is dead.”

According to Akunis, “the idea is irrelevant and is no longer at all possible.”

The understandings and agreements between Israel and the U.S. are also tied into the American and European demand to “end the occupation” at any price and “prevent apartheid.” While the security and defense factor is in place, Israel has no solution when it comes to the world’s demands on the Palestinian issue.

Categories: Israel, Middle East, Netanyahu, Obama and Israel, Palestinians, Peace process
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Our World: Showdown at the OK Corral

November 3, 2015

Our World: Showdown at the OK Corral, Jerusalem Post, Caroline Glick, November 2, 2015

ShowImage (16)US President Barack Obama meets with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, October 1, 2014. (photo credit:REUTERS)

Whatever he says before the cameras next week when he meets with Netanyahu, Obama has no intention of letting bygones be bygones.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s meeting with US President Barack Obama next week is likely to look less like a rapprochement than a showdown at the OK Corral.

The flurry of spy stories spinning around in recent weeks makes clear that US-Israel relations remain in crisis.

Two weeks ago, The Wall Street Journal published a fairly detailed account of the US’s massive spying operations against Israel between 2010 and 2012.

Their purpose was to prevent Israel from attacking Iran’s nuclear installations. The Journal report, which was based on US sources, also detailed the evasion tactics the Obama administration employed to try to hide its covert nuclear talks with Iran from Israel. According to the report, the administration was infuriated that through its spy operations against Iran, Israel discovered the talks and the government asked the White House to tell it what was going on.

Over the past several days, the Israeli media have reported the Israeli side of the US spying story.

Friday Makor Rishon’s military commentator Amir Rapaport detailed how the US assiduously wooed IDF senior brass on the one hand and harassed more junior Israeli security officials on the other hand.

Former IDF chiefs of General Staff Lt.-Gens. Gabi Ashkenazi and Benny Gantz were given the red carpet treatment in a bid to convince them to oppose Israeli strikes on Iran’s nuclear installations. More junior officials, including officers posted officially to the US were denied visas and subjected to lengthy interrogations at US embassies and airports in a bid to convince them to divulge information about potential Israeli strikes against Iran.

Sunday, Channel 2 reported that the IDF’s Intelligence Directorate’s information security department just issued guidance to all IDF soldiers and officers warning them about efforts by the CIA to recruit them as US agents.

These stories have been interpreted in various ways. Regardless of how they are interpreted, what they show is that on the one hand, the Obama administration has used US intelligence agencies to weaken Israel’s capacity to harm Iran and to actively protect Iran from Israel. And on the other hand, Israel is wary of the administration’s efforts to weaken it while strengthening its greatest foe.

These stories form the backdrop of next week’s meeting between Netanyahu and Obama – the first they will have held in more than a year. They indicate that Obama remains committed to his policy of weakening Israel and downgrading America’s alliance with the Jewish state while advancing US ties with Iran. Israel, for its part, remains deeply distrustful of the American leader.

This Israeli distrust of Obama’s intentions extends far past Iran. Recent statements by Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have convinced Israel that during his last 15 months in office, Obama intends to abandon US support for Israel at the UN Security Council, and to ratchet up pressure and coercive measures to force Israel to make irreversible concessions to the Palestinians.

From Netanyahu’s perspective, then, the main strategic question is how to prevent Obama from succeeding in his goal of weakening the country.

The implementation of Obama’s deal with Iran deal will form a central plank of whatever strategy the government adopts.

As far as Obama and his allies see things, the nuclear accord with Iran is a done deal. On October 21, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi hosted a reception for Democratic congressmen attended by White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough to celebrate its official adoption.

Unfortunately for Pelosi and her colleagues, Iran is a far more formidable obstacle to implementing the deal than congressional Republicans. As Yigal Carmon, president of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), explained in a report published on his organization’s website last week, at no point has any Iranian governing body approved the nuclear deal. Iran’s parliament, the Majlis, and its Guardians’ Council have used their discussions of the agreement to highlight their refusal to implement it. More importantly, as Carmon explains, contrary to US media reports, in his October 21 letter to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei did not give his conditional approval to the deal. He rejected it.

Carmon explained that the nine conditions Khamenei placed on his acceptance of the nuclear deal render it null and void. Among other things, Khamenei insisted that all sanctions against Iran must be permanently canceled. Obama couldn’t abide by this condition even if he wanted to because he cannot cancel sanctions laws passed by Congress.

He can only suspend them.

Khamenei also placed new conditions on Iran’s agreement to disable its centrifuges and remove large quantities of enriched uranium from its stockpiles.

He rejected inspections of Iran’s military nuclear installations. He insisted that Iran’s Arak heavy water reactor must remain capable of producing heavy water in contravention of the deal. And he insisted that at the end of the 15-year lifetime of the deal Iran must have sufficient uranium enrichment capability to enable it to develop bombs at will.

As Carmon noted, the US and EU have announced that they will suspend their nuclear sanctions against Iran on December 15 provided that by that date, the UN’s International Atomic Energy Commission certifies that Iran has upheld its part of the bargain.

By that date, in conformance with their interpretation of the nuclear deal, the US and the EU expect for Iran to have reduced the number of centrifuges operating at the Natanz facility from 16,000 to 5,060 and lower enrichment levels to 3.67%; reduce the number of centrifuges at Fordow to a thousand; remove nearly all its advanced centrifuges from use; permit the IAEA to store and seal its dismantled centrifuges; reduce its stockpile of enriched uranium to 300kg.; remove the core from the Arak reactor and disable it; and submit to agreed monitoring mechanisms of its nuclear sites.

Carmon noted that Iran has taken no steps to fulfill any of these conditions.

With Khamenei’s rejection of the nuclear deal and Iran’s refusal to implement it, there are two possible ways the US and the EU can proceed.

First, as Carmon suggests, Obama and the EU may renew nuclear talks with Iran based on Khamenei’s new position. These talks can drag out past Obama’s departure from office. When they inevitably fail, Obama’s successor can be blamed.

The other possibility is that Iran will implement some component of the deal and so allow Obama and the EU to pretend that it is implementing the entire deal. Given the US media’s failure to report that Khamenei rejected the nuclear pact, it is a fair bet that Obama will be able to maintain the fiction that Iran is implementing the deal in good faith until the day he leaves office.

So what is Israel to do? And how can Netanyahu use his meeting with Obama next week to Israel’s advantage? Israel has two policy options going forward. First, it can highlight the fact that Iran is not implementing the deal, just as Israel took the lead in highlighting the dangers of the nuclear accord with Iran over the past year. This policy can potentially force Obama onto the defensive and so make it harder for him to go on the offensive against Israel at the UN and other venues in relation to the Palestinians.

But then, it is far from clear that Obama will be deterred from adopting anti-Israel positions at the UN even if Israel succeeds making an issue of Iranian noncompliance with the nuclear deal.

Moreover, if Netanyahu leads the discussion of the Iran’s bad faith, as he drove the discussion of the nuclear deal itself, he will reinforce the already prevalent false assessment in the US that a nuclear Iran threatens Israel but is not dangerous for the US.

This incorrect assessment has made a lot of Americans believe that by seeking to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, Israel is advancing is own interests at America’s expense.

The other policy option is the one that Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon indicated Israel is pursuing in his meeting last week with his counterpart Defense Secretary Ashton Carter. At the Pentagon Ya’alon declared, “The Iran deal is a given. Our disputes are over.”

The downside of this position is that it indicates that Israel accepts the legitimacy of a deal that Iran is not implementing and that would imperil Israel’s national security even if Iran were implementing it.

Its upside is that it takes Israel out of the US debate regarding the nuclear deal. To the extent that opponents of Obama’s Iran policy are willing to lead the fight against the deal themselves, Israel could do worse than to take a step back and plot its own course on Iran, independent of the US policy discussion.

It is hard to know which line of action makes more sense. But as the spy stories demonstrated, one thing is clear enough. Whatever he says before the cameras next week when he meets with Netanyahu, Obama has no intention of letting bygones be bygones.

Categories: Foreign policy, IDF, Iran - sanctions relief, Iran scam, Israel, Khamenei, Netanyahu, Obama and Israel, Palestinians, Spies, U.S. media
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Ex- senior adviser:”Obama wanted to show Muslims, US isn’t close to Israel.”

October 31, 2015

Ex- senior adviser:”Obama wanted to show Muslims, US isn’t close to Israel.” Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, October 31, 2015

(Here’s another interesting clip from the Rubin article:

In sum, Ross (not to mention the former Israeli ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren) confirms a good deal of what Obama apologists deny. It turns out the Iran deal really does not stop Iran from getting the bomb. It turns out Obama was guilty of the bigotry of low expectations, never really wanting to hold the Palestinians to account. And from the get-go, he sought to shove Israel away from the United States. It was not Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “fault” that the relationship deteriorated. It was by design.

— DM)

 

obama_netanyahu_1_2

Jennifer Rubin has an excerpt from an interview with Dennis Ross, a former senior adviser to Obama.

“When the president comes in, he thinks we have a major problem with Arabs and Muslims. And he sees that as a function of the Bush administration — an image, fairly or not, that Bush was at war with Islam. So one of the ways that he wants to show that he’s going to have an outreach to the Muslim world is that he’s going to give this speech in Cairo. So he wants to reach out and show that the US is not so close to the Israelis, which he thinks also feeds this perception. That’s why there’s an impulse to do some distancing from Israel, and that’s why the settlement issue is seized in a way.”

It’s not news, but it is confirmation that Obama deliberately sought to alienate and distance Israel. And would have done so regardless of who was the Prime Minister of Israel.

The popular meme among Obama supporters and Israel Laborites is to claim that Netanyahu ruined the relationship. But ruining the relationship was a strategic White House decision.

Categories: Netanyahu, Obama and Israel, Obama and Muslims
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Israel’s delightful partners for peace

October 27, 2015

Israel’s delightful partners for peace, Dan Miller’s Blog, October 26, 2015

(The views expressed in this article are mine, and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)

 

Mahmoud Abbas is the longest serving President of “Palestine,” having been elected to a four year term in 2005. Due to “internal Palestinian conflict,” there have been no elections since then. Abbas has been praised by Pope Francis and Imam Obama as a true partner for peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

Lone-Wolf-Attack

According to The Catholic Herald, Pope Francis did not refer to Abbas as an “angel of peace” in May of this year; He merely said that he could be one.

[A]ccording to La Stampa, after giving Abbas a medallion with the figure of the angel of peace, the Pope told him: “The angel of peace destroys the evil spirit of war. I thought about you: may you be an angel of peace.” Other reports quoted the Pope as saying: “Ho pensato a lei: che lei possa essere un angelo della pace” — “I have thought of you: that you could be an angel of peace.”

In March of 2013, Imam Obama said:

Of course, Israel cannot be expected to negotiate with anyone who is dedicated to its destruction. But while I know you have had differences with the Palestinian Authority, I believe that you do have a true partner in President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad. Over the last few years, they have built institutions and maintained security on the West Bank in ways that few would have imagined a decade ago. So many Palestinians – including young people – have rejected violence as a means of achieving their aspirations. [Emphasis added.]

Here are a few videos showing Abbas, his colleagues, friends and followers demanding (Islamic) peace and love everlasting. Their hopes for change they can believe in should be easy to accomplish. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu need only listen to reason and stop inciting Jews to violence against innocent Palestinians. Oh. One insignificant detail: destroy Israel and kill the Jews.

In a September 16 address, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared: “The Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher are ours. They are all ours, and they have no right to defile them with their filthy feet.” Abbas further said: “We salute every drop of blood spilled for the sake of Jerusalem.” The address was aired on the official TV channel of the Palestinian Authority.

Of course, it’s not just Abbas, may his holy name be praised. Here is a video of remarks by a member of the Fatah Central Committee. Fatah is an organ of Abbas’ Palestinian Authority.The fine gentleman in the video acknowledges that Israel has to be eliminated, but says that must be kept secret for a little while longer.

Fatah Central Committee Member, Abbas Zaki, Calls Netanyahu and Obama “Scumbags” and Says: “The Greater Goal Cannot Be Accomplished In One Go”, Al-Jazeera TV (Qatar) …

Here are videos of peaceful Palestinians promoting peace with Israel:

 

 

 

 

 

Israeli Prime Minister is an insecure and nasty little racist. He obviously doesn’t want peace because he refuses to give the Pope’s and Imam Obama’s friend, President Abbas, his colleagues and followers, what little they demand, merely the destruction of Israel. To Move On is a small price to pay for (Islamic) peace and understanding. Perhaps Imam Obama and Stenographer Kerry will persuade him to negotiate, seriously, for a two state solution.

On the other hand, this might be a better idea even though it wouldn’t work either:

 

Categories: Abbas, Death to Israel, Fatah, Hamas, Islam's war on Jews, Israel, Jews, Kerry, Netanyahu, Obama and Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian heroes, Palestinians and Jews, Pope Francis, Temple Mount, Two state solution
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The Holocaust is OVER

October 25, 2015

The Holocaust is OVER, The Gatestone Institute, Shoshana Bryen, October 25, 2015

  • This minute, the UN is labeling one of the oldest existing symbols of Jewish patrimony in the Land of Israel — the Tomb of Rachel, wife of the biblical patriarch Jacob — as a Muslim holy site.
  • The UN had not a word, however, about the Muslims who burned the Jewish holy site at Joseph’s Tomb last week. This omission raises a different question: the same Joseph is also a prophet in Islam; why are they firebombing his tomb?
  • Abbas has been lying about threats to the status quo on the Temple Mount, and proposing his own change: The Jews, he said, have no right to “desecrate” the mosque with their “filthy feet.”
  • Watch a beautiful little girl with a large knife tell her approving father, “I want to stab a Jew.”
  • In 2000, the New York Times wrote about Arafat’s summer “war-game camps” in Gaza, teaching Palestinian children how to prepare for battle. That is fifteen years of learning to kill Jews and creating child soldiers: a violation of the UN Convention on Child Soldiers, and one reason so many young Palestinians are primed for violence.
  • In the summer of 2015, tens of thousands of teenagers in Gaza participated in these “summer camps” to learn from their Hamas teachers to kill Jews.
  • If what happened in the 1930s and 1940s, however, is allowed to turn our attention from the current threats to the Jewish State, we will have granted Hitler and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem a belated victory they do not deserve.

Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, set off a firestorm on October 21 by saying that the Mufti of Jerusalem had actually planted the idea of exterminating the Jews in Hitler’s mind; that Hitler would have simply ousted them from Europe.

Scholars, academicians, politicians, friends and enemies of Jews, Israel, and Netanyahu leapt to the barricades. The Washington Post had the story on the front page. Twitter and blogs have overflowed with it. The Chancellor of Germany found it oddly necessary to say, “Germany is responsible for the Holocaust.”

But enough about who, between two long-dead anti-Semites, was the worst. It is a distraction and provides cover for today’s racists and those who would destroy Israel.

Palestinian agitator Saeb Erekat used the tumult to weigh in. In the latest Palestinian effort to rewrite history, he said, “Palestine’s efforts against Nazis, are deep-rooted part of our history.”

Palestinian Authority (PA) strongman Mahmoud Abbas, a Holocaust denier at least since his PhD days (and now in the 10th year of his four-year term, so he cannot be called “President”) did not say anything on that subject. He does, however continue to incite Palestinians to kill Jews. Right now, today, this minute.

Abbas has been lying about threats to the status quo on the Temple Mount, and proposing his own change: The Jews, he said, have no right to “desecrate” the mosque with their “filthy feet.” He then assures those Palestinians who go out to kill Jews — because they understood the recommendation to be officially sanctioned — that, “Every drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem is pure, every shahid [martyr] will reach paradise, and every injured person will be rewarded by God.”

Also, right now, today, this minute, the United Nations is labeling one of the oldest existing symbols of Jewish patrimony in the Land of Israel — the Tomb of Rachel, wife of the biblical patriarch Jacob — as a Muslim holy site. The U.S., U.K., Germany, Netherlands, Czech Republic, and Estonia voted against this surreal piracy. But 26 other countries voted in favor of a resolution, totally fraudulent, that condemned Israel for aggression and illegal measures taken against the “freedom of worship and access” of Muslims to Al-Aqsa mosque and Israel’s “attempts to break the status quo since 1967.”

The UN had not a word, however, about the Muslims who burned the Jewish holy site at Joseph’s Tomb last week. This omission raises a different question: the same Joseph is also a prophet in Islam; what are they doing firebombing his tomb?

In addition, right now, today, this minute, the State of Israel is under physical and political attack, and its best ally, the United States, is largely absent. Secretary of State John Kerry admonished, “We continue to urge everybody to exercise restraint and restrain [sic] from any kind of self-help in terms of the violence, and Israel has every right in the world to protect its citizens, as it has been, from random acts of violence.”

No self-help? Kerry specifically said it; he meant that if the government shows up and kills the terrorist before he kills, fine, but he does not want Israelis to take their defense into their own hands. That is not the way defense is done in America, and it is not the way it is done in Israel. The United States is abandoning a core American value in pursuit of the chimera of Israeli-Palestinian “peace.”

Right now, this minute, young Palestinian children are being marinated in Jew-hatred by their parents and by their society. Watch a beautiful little girl with a large knife tell her approving father, “I want to stab a Jew.” Watch a Palestinian children’s TV program in which a girl of about 10, her hair covered, draped in a Palestinian shawl, tell other children that the “martyrs” are “grown up kids.” She compares their number to the number of dead Israelis. “It’s almost like a game,” she says.

1313(Image source: MEMRI)

In 2000, before the so-called “second intifada,” the New York Times wrote about Yasser Arafat’s summer “war-game camps” in Gaza, teaching young Palestinian children how to prepare for the battle they would fight. That is fifteen years of learning to kill Jews — and fifteen years of creating child soldiers: a violation of the UN Convention on Child Soldiers, and one reason so many young Palestinians are primed for violence. Any Palestinian now under the age of, say, 23 could have had that “training.” In the summer of 2015, tens of thousands of teenagers in Gaza participated in these “summer camps” to learn from their Hamas teachers to kill Jews.

Even before that — since the Palestinians created their own school curriculum 21 years ago, in 1994, under the Oslo Accords — Palestinian children have been exposed to lies, incitement to violence and raw anti-Semitism, in the schools of the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA. Palestinians under the age of 30 spend most of their formative years in schools that deny the legitimacy of the State of Israel and that deny any connection of the Jews to the land.

We are currently seeing the results of the long-term abuse of Palestinian children by their parents and teachers — abetted by the United Nations.

There have been many calls for the U.S. to defund the Palestinian Authority, either completely or in part. This week Congress, in rare bipartisan agreement, took up part of the challenge, stripping $80 million from $370 million of U.S. economic aid to the Palestinian Authority.

History provides a framework for understanding today’s politics. The Mufti of Jerusalem was not only a kindred spirit of Hitler; he spent much of the war in Berlin as the guest of like-minded practitioners of Jew-hatred. If what happened in the 1930s and 1940s, however, is allowed to turn our attention from the current threats to the Jewish State, we will have granted them a belated victory they do not deserve.

Categories: Abbas, Arafat, Death to Israel, Fatah, Foreign policy, Funding terrorism, Gaza, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Hamas, Holy places, Islam's war on Jews, Islamic supremacy, Israel, Kerry, Netanyahu, Obama and Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian heroes, Palestinians and Jews, United Nations
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The Inversion of Reality in Israel

October 25, 2015

The Inversion of Reality in Israel, American Thinker, Ricki Hollander, October 25, 2015

The perpetrator is turned into the victim.

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For ten years, I’ve spent the Jewish holidays in Jerusalem, joining multitudes from all over Israel and abroad who flock here to celebrate.  It is a period of festivity, with concerts and events throughout the city.  From my apartment outside the Old City, I watch Jews streaming to the Western Wall as generations before them have done, and Christian tourists who come to celebrate the Feast of the Tabernacles.

This year, the holiday begins with the usual exuberance, but events take a dark turn as streets turn into murder scenes, and paranoia grips the city.

Exhorted by their leaders to defend Islam’s holy sites, Palestinians are fed lies about marauding Jews planning to take over the Al-Aqsa mosque.  President Mahmoud Abbas, Israel’s purported peace partner, calls on Palestinians to prevent Jews from “defiling” the Temple Mount “with their filthy feet.” He promises that “every martyr will be placed in Paradise.”  His call is repeated by political and religious leaders on TV and social media, illustrated with graphic images of bloody knives.

As if on cue, Palestinians eager to find that promised paradise leave their homes with butcher knives to seek out Jewish victims.  A young Israeli couple are ambushed and killed before their children.  A vicious attack on a family returning from the Western Wall leaves two dead.  The gruesome scene is filmed by Arab onlookers who casually watch the victims die, sipping Coke and refusing to help.

Within days, a wave of violence has engulfed the city.  The festive streets filled with holiday celebrants have become eerily deserted.  No one knows when or where the next knifing will occur.

I am awakened one night by the sharp staccato of gunfire, followed by the long wailing of ambulances come to evacuate the latest stabbing victim, a 15-year-old boy, and his assailant, Fadi Aloun, shot dead by police.  On his Facebook page is Aloun’s declaration that he intends to become a shahid (martyr).  Film clips show him walking along the train tracks after the attack, while Jewish youths behind the guardrail point him out as the perpetrator, telling arriving patrolmen to shoot.

Palestinian sources proclaim that “Martyr Aloun” was “murdered in cold blood.”  The Globe and Mail follows, reporting that Aloun “was accosted … by a mob of Israelis, who accused him of carrying out a stabbing some time before” and “prodded” police to kill him.  The perpetrator is turned into the victim.

In the ensuing days, sounds of sirens and helicopters become a constant backdrop.  They signify new attacks and more casualties.  Regular radio programming is pre-empted with news that comes around the clock.  Reports of “incidents” are not confined just to Jerusalem now.  They are coming from all over the country – Tel Aviv, Petach Tikvah, Jaffa, Afula.  High schools are closed in Jerusalem – not enough security guards.  Jerusalem’s mayor says residents should carry weapons for self-protection.  Those who do venture out look over their shoulders.  Some sport baseball bats or umbrellas.  I buy pepper spray, one of the last available vials.

An acquaintance, Tzvi, recounts his own brush with terrorism: he is walking and chatting with his friend Daniel in the Old City, when suddenly Daniel keels over and falls to his knees, head forward and bleeding, dazed and unaware.  Tzvi whips around to see a petite Arab girl standing directly behind Daniel with arm raised, grasping a butcher’s knife, about to bury it in Daniel’s back.  In that second of panic, an unarmed Tzvi fends off the assailant by swinging his laptop at her head.  She staggers back, then lunges forward again with her knife, as if possessed.  He swings again, shouting, “An attack!” and yells at Daniel to shoot the attacker who, despite the blows, is still wildly lunging with her knife.  The police hear the shot, come running, and hold down the assailant, who is still fighting, screaming that she wants to die.  Medics treat Daniel and his attacker on the spot before transferring them to hospital.

The terrorist is Shorouq Dwayyat, an 18-year-old student who, before stabbing Daniel, implored her mother on Facebook not to mourn her when she becomes “a shahid for Allah.”  Palestinians, however, report that Dwayyat was attacked by Jewish “settlers” who ripped off her headscarf.  They show a video of her lying on the ground surrounded by Israeli police.  NPR airs a report interviewing Dwayyat’s family, who say they’ve heard that Shorouq’s hijab was removed.  They insist she is incapable of stabbing anyone and declare that Palestinian rage is stoked by three things – “the Al-Aqsa Mosque,” protecting Islamic rights,” like wearing our hijab,” and “Israeli attacks on children and others.”  The report gives no voice to the victims.

On one particularly brutal day of violence, two teenage cousins, Ahmed and Hassan, walk through the streets with knives, looking for victims.  They slash an Israeli man and then come upon a 13-year-old boy riding his bicycle.  They throw him down and repeatedly stab him, leaving him nearly dead.  Much of this shocking barbarism can be seen on surveillance film made public.  A CCTV clip also shows Israeli police approaching Hassan, who rushes at them with knife aloft.  He is shot dead.  Ahmed runs into the street and is struck by a car.  Cell phone footage shows him afterward, lying with his legs bent beneath him, blood on the ground.  Someone is heard cursing him.

The story quickly becomes inverted.  The Palestinian prime minister calls Hassan’s shooting an “assassination in cold blood.”  Abbas’s spokesman blames the Israeli government for Hassan’s “execution.”  In a televised speech, President Abbas accuses Israel of “executing our children in cold blood, just as they did to the boy Ahmad Manasra and to other children in Jerusalem and elsewhere.”

Inconveniently for Abbas, Ahmad is filmed, alive and well in an Israeli hospital.  Prime Minister Netanyahu calls the Palestinian leadership out, accusing them of lying to encourage more violence.  Yet some Western media continue to distort the story.  An NBC website article conveys the false Palestinian claims as credible and questions the accounts of Israeli spokesmen in a he-said, she-said scenario, despite clear-cut footage of the perpetrators chasing their victims and charging toward police with a knife.

With each attack, the facts are twisted by Palestinian media and leaders.  Terrorists shot or killed in self-defense are held up as victims of Israeli savagery.  Truth is turned on its head.

The story continues to be distorted here, too.  The reality of knife-wielding Palestinians shot in self-defense becomes a “cycle of violence.”  Victim and perpetrator are equated, distinctions blurred.

Headlines mislead: MSNBC describes an armed Palestinian lunging at security officers as “Man shot after rushing past police in Jerusalem.”  The LA Times declares “Four Palestinians Killed in Israeli Violence” while USA Today writes “Israelis Kill 4 as Violence Surges” without noting that the four killed were actively engaged in violence.

The president’s spokesperson parrots Palestinian accusations of excessive force and terrorism by Israelis.  Secretary of State John Kerry blames the outbreak of Palestinian violence on “massive” Israeli settlement building.

I feel I’ve entered an alternate universe, where black is white and perpetrator and victim are reversed.  Palestinian lies and incitement are downplayed or concealed.  Truth has become a casualty, along with the innocents who have been wounded and killed by those brainwashed by hate rhetoric.

 

Categories: Abbas, Al-Aqsa Mosque, Filthy Jews, Foreign policy, Islam's war on Jews, Islamic jihad, Israel, Kerry, Obama and Israel, Palestinian heroes, Palestinians and Jews, Temple Mount
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Palestinian terrorism is not random

October 23, 2015

Palestinian terrorism is not random, Israel Hayom, Yoram Ettinger, October 23, 2015

Unlike national liberation movements, Palestinian terrorism has deliberately, institutionally, and systematically targeted Arab and Israeli noncombatants, sometimes hitting combatants.

Palestinian terrorism has haunted Arab societies in Jordan (especially during the 1968-1970 era of PLO terrorism), Lebanon (particularly during the 1971-1982 civil wars), Kuwait (during the 1990 invasion by Saddam Hussein), Iraq (until 2002, as an arm of Saddam Hussein’s ruthless domestic oppression), Syria (until 2012, bolstering Bashar Assad’s regime) and currently in Egypt (collaborating with the Muslim Brotherhood terror organization). Pro-U.S. Arab regimes consider Palestinian terrorism a clear and present danger, never fighting on behalf of Palestinians. Sometimes these regimes launch severe military blows (1970 Black September in Jordan) and expulsions (300,000 expelled from Kuwait), showering them with rhetoric, but not resources.

Since the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1993, Palestinian terrorism has afflicted the Arabs of Judea, Samaria and Gaza, denying the Palestinians civil liberties and instituting a corrupt, oppressive reign of horror. It prompted most Christians to flee from Ramallah (home of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ headquarters), Bethlehem and Beit Jallah. In addition, Muslim emigration from the Palestinian Authority has increased since 2000. While Egypt prevents emigration from Gaza through Sinai, Gaza’s Arabs have emigrated, in increasing numbers, via the Mediterranean. Moreover, Palestinians flow across Jerusalem’s municipal lines, escaping Abbas’ tyranny to receive Israeli residency, social benefits and human rights.

Palestinian terrorists have targeted pro-U.S. Arab regimes and “the arrogant, infidel, Great Satan,” the U.S., joining the ayatollahs in Iran (since the toppling of the shah in 1979), Taliban, al-Qaida, Islamic State and other Islamic terror organizations. Osama bin Laden’s role model and spiritual mentor, Abdullah Azam, was from a village in Samaria.

Palestinian terrorism is a modern-day branch of Islamic terrorism, which has plagued the Middle East — and beyond — since the appearance of Islam in the seventh century. The current intensification of Islamic terrorism throughout the Middle East provides a tailwind to Palestinian terrorism.

Palestinian terrorism has inspired terror cells in Europe, Africa, Asia and the American continent, including sleeper cells in the U.S.

Anti-Jewish Palestinian terrorism has been a Middle East fixture since at least the 1920s, well before the 1948 establishment of Israel and the 1967 return of Jewish communities to Judea and Samaria. It’s well-documented collaboration with Nazi Germany sought to prevent the existence — not reduce the size — of the Jewish state. The political guideline of contemporary Palestinian terrorism, the Palestinian Covenant, was published in 1964, three years before the reunification of Jerusalem.

Palestinian terrorism is nurtured by 23 years of Palestinian hate education in kindergartens, schools, mosques and media — the most effective means of producing terrorists. It was established by Abbas (then Yasser Arafat’s chief deputy) in 1993, highlighting the fundamentals of Islam that serve to intensify Palestinian terrorism: the supremacy of Islam over all other religions; the permanent state of war between the abode of Islam and the abode of the “infidel”; the inadmissibility of “infidel” sovereignty over Waqf lands, which are divinely ordained to Islam; the sublime honor of sacrificing one’s life on behalf of Islam’s war against the “infidel”; and the provisional nature of agreements concluded with “infidels.”

Palestinian terrorism has been encouraged by Abbas’ systematic policy of naming streets, squares, monuments and sport tournaments in honor of terrorists, and extending generous financial assistance to their families.

Palestinian terrorism, an endemic feature in the Middle East, represents writing on the wall, warning us all of the destabilizing, anti-Western, terroristic nature of the proposed Palestinian state. An Israeli withdrawal from the mountain ridge of the Golan Heights would provide a platform for Islamic terrorists to traumatize northern Israel. But an Israeli withdrawal from the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria would provide Muslim terrorists a platform to topple the Hashemite regime in Jordan and target Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Ben-Gurion Airport and 80% of Israel’s population and infrastructure.

Palestinian terrorism is fueled by the inherently immoral “moral equivalence” between Israeli counterterrorism and Palestinian terrorism, which grossly misrepresents Middle East reality. It is fueled by foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority, which funds hate education. It is rewarded by calls to negotiate with the Palestinian Authority, while Abbas promotes hate education. It is emboldened by Western pressure for further Israeli concessions and Western denial of Israel’s moral high ground in the physical high ground of Judea and Samaria.

In order to defeat Palestinian terrorism, it is necessary to defy political correctness and shift gears, instead of chasing individual terroristic mosquitoes, the terroristic swamp needs to be drained. A large-scale, disproportionate, pre-emptive military operation needs to be launched throughout Judea and Samaria and Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem. Any (U.S. and Israeli) direct or indirect contact with and assistance to the Palestinian Authority needs to be conditioned upon an end to hate education. Families and communities of terrorists need to be severely punished for failing to exercise communal responsibility.

To frustrate Palestinian terrorism, which aims to set Israel on a path of retreat, Israel should proclaim a constructive response, expanding Jewish construction in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. While it would trigger short-term international pressure, it would yield long-term strategic respect, as documented by the legacy of Prime Ministers David Ben-Gurion, Levi Eshkol, Golda Meir, Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, who defied much more severe international pressure with slimmer military and commercial resources at their disposal.

Categories: Abbas, Arab nations, Death to Israel, Defense of Israel, Foreign policy, Moral equivalence, Muslim Brotherhood, Obama and Israel, Palestinian heroes, Palestinians and Jews
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‘The mufti planned to build crematorium in Dotan Valley’

October 23, 2015

‘The mufti planned to build crematorium in Dotan Valley’, Israel Hayom, Daniel Siryoti, Erez Linn, October 23, 2015

144559783633038330a_bGrand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini with Adolf Hitler in Berlin | Photo credit: AFP

Journalists and historians say Jerusalem Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini’s contribution to encouraging Hilter to pursue the extermination of Jews in Europe cannot be disregarded • White House: Inflammatory accusations on both sides need to stop.

The controversy over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s remarks on Jerusalem Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini’s role in the extermination of European Jewry has promoted veteran journalist Haviv Kanaan to recall the malicious plan the mufti devised.

Kanaan published an article in Haaretz in 1970 in which he reviewed the senior Muslim clergyman’s actions in 1942, when the Jewish community in then-British Mandate Palestine was preparing for the possibility of a Nazi invasion. Kanaan said that in 1968, while researching his article, he met with Faiz Bay Idrisi, a senior Arab officer in the Mandate Police, who spoke of al-Husseini’s intention to build a crematorium in the northwest Samarian hills.

“Even today, as I recall what I heard from police officials and mufti supporters, chills go through my body,” Idrisi told Kanaan at the time, recalling how in case of a German invasion “Haj Amin Husseini was gearing to enter Jerusalem at the head of the Muslim Arab Legion squadron he’d created for the Third Reich. The mufti’s plan was to build a huge Auschwitz-like crematorium in the Dotan Valley, near Nablus, to which Jews from Palestine, Iraq, Egypt, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, and North Africa would be imprisoned and exterminated, just like the Jews in the death camps in Europe.”

This should come as no surprise in light of al-Husseini’s known views and actions during the Holocaust, and prior to it.

Haj Amin al-Husseini was born in Jerusalem in 1895 to a wealthy family of landowners. His father also served as the grand mufti of Jerusalem and his uncles headed the Arab Higher Committee in British-Mandate Palestine.

Al-Husseini was appointed grand mufti in 1921. An inflammatory address he gave in August 1929 sparked mass anti-Jewish violence, which resulted in the massacre of dozens of Jews by Arab mobs.

John Chancellor, the British high commissioner at the time, held al-Husseini responsible for the massacres.

Shortly after Hitler’s rise to power, al-Husseini sent a message to the German envoy in Jerusalem, expressing support for the new Nazi regime. He received generous funding from the Nazis in return.

In 1937, al-Husseini was ousted from office. He fled to Lebanon, and from there to Syria, all while maintaining his ties with the Nazi regime. In 1941, the Muslim clergyman arrived in Berlin, where he met with Hitler and the senior Nazi leadership, who assured him that once the Middle East is conquered, “Germany’s sole purpose would be to obliterate the Jewish population occupying the Arab space under the auspices of the British.”

Another voice lending merit to Netanyahu’s remark is author Wolfgang Schwanitz, who penned the book “Nazis, Islamists, and the Making of the Modern Middle East.” Schwanitz also argues that Hitler’s meeting with al-Husseini played a critical role in inspiring the Holocaust.

“It’s a historical fact that the grand mufti was an accomplice in this. … He was the top non-European adviser to Hitler on the process of eliminating Europe’s Jews,” Schwanitz said. “It would be absurd to discount the mufti’s role in encouraging Hitler and other Nazi officials to carry out the final solution.”

Meanwhile, the White House on Thursday addressed the controversial remarks surrounding the mufti’s role in the Holocaust.

“There was no doubt as to who was responsible for the Holocaust, which involved the systematic murder of six million Jews,” said White House Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz. “Inflammatory actions and accusations on both sides could fuel the violence even further. This needs to stop.”

Categories: Foreign policy, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Islam's war on Jews, Israel, Netanyahu, Obama and Israel, Palestinian heroes
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Lies, lies and whoppers in the Middle East

October 23, 2015

Lies, lies and whoppers in the Middle East, Washington Times, Wesley Pruden, October 22, 2015

10222015_2015-10-22-19-23-278201_c0-0-1800-1049_s561x327Secretary of State John Kerry. (Associated Press

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

A diplomat, as any deputy assistant associate undersecretary could tell you, is a public servant paid to lie for his country. Lies are the hard currency in the land of the girly men.

The truth is rarely heard above the rattle and din of the teacups in the lounges where the masters of the art gather to collect their strength after a long day’s work in the vineyards of falsification, where Israel usually gets the shaft plunged to the hilt.

The knife has become the weapon of choice in the Palestinian war against Israeli civilians, brandished as if it were a holy scimitar of the avenging Allah. The dean of a university in Gaza characterizes this campaign of the short knives as “military operations,” and urges that it be aimed at women and children.

“The Jews of Palestine are fair game today, even the women,” the dean, Subhi al-Yazji, a learned doctor of Koranic studies, told an interviewer on Hamas television. “Every single Jew in Palestine is a combatant — even the children, breastfed on hatred for the Palestinian people.”

Just who is promoting this villainy launched from the shadows is clear to everyone, but it’s not polite in the well-behaved precincts of the West to say so. But we can be reassured, because John Kerry, the secretary of state and the grand master of moral equivalence, is on the job. He spent four hours Thursday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Berlin about how to “defuse” the violence. Their conversation was conducted as the knives conducted their own deadly business on the streets.

Before they sat down Mr. Kerry made the ritual condemnation of the assault on the Jews, composed of equal parts blarney and buncombe, and bravely urged an end to “all incitement and violence.” This softly worded admonition by the secretary of State naturally must include the Israelis who have done nothing but offer their Jewish flesh for the Palestinian blade. “There is no question,” said Mr. Netanyahu, “that this wave of attacks is driven directly by incitement by Hamas, incitement from the Islamist movement in Israel and incitement, I am sorry to say, from President Abbas and the Palestinian Authority.”

This was plain and unvarnished, what everybody knows to be true, but for reasons best known to him President Obama and his men (and women) won’t say anything like that. Perhaps they have a fear of cold steel in the ribs, too. What Mr. Kerry offers is this can of diplomatic yah-yah from the archives of claptrap at the State Department:

“I come directly from several hours of conversation with Prime Minister Netanyahu and I would characterize that conversation as one that gave me a cautious measure of optimism that there may be some things that may be in the next couple of days put on the table which would have an impact — I hope. I don’t want to be excessive in stating that, but I am cautiously encouraged.” There are a dozen lies somewhere in that thin treacle of organic gluten-free fat-added diet marshmallow, but only a diplomat could find them.

The moment cries for someone to say something real, and we get that from the secretary of state. And this: “We have to stop the incitement, we have to stop the violence.” Well, duh. He said he had talked to [Mr.] Abbas and Jordan’s King Abdullah, who are trusted to oversee the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, source of the latest Palestinian complaining. Abbas and Abdullah have assured him of their commitment to calm. Of course they do. And if you can’t trust a trusty, as a famous Southern governor caught between two fires once said, who can you trust?

The purveyors of calm work in parallel with the inciters of blood lust. This week a Jordanian teacher, from whom in other places you would expect something more, posted on the Internet a video of his 8-year-old daughter brandishing a knife, held up like a crucifix of the faith, declaring, “I want to stab a Jew.”

Mr. Netanyahu, who has no fear of saying what he thinks, nevertheless caught a little flak this week in Israel for speaking of some of the dark work of those who encouraged Hitler to proceed with the Holocaust. Hitler’s evil was unique, a professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem told Mr. Netanyahu, and assigning blame to others makes him a Holocaust denier. Such a “dangerous distortion” of history “downplays” the Holocaust, the leader of the opposition in the Knesset told him.

Mr. Netanyahu was speaking a perfectly obvious truth, but we’re not supposed to notice what’s going on. It’s not diplomatic.

Categories: Abbas, Foreign policy, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Islamic supremacy, Israel, Kerry, Netanyahu, Obama and Israel, Palestinian heroes, Two state solution
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