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Reacting to the terror wave: action or inaction?

October 11, 2015

Reacting to the terror wave: action or inaction? | Anne’s Opinions, 11th October 2015

The Palestinian terror wave (the authorities are not calling it a 3rd intifada – yet) continues to sweep Israel. There were more stabbings in Jerusalem on Shabbat, rock throwing, and violent Arab protests in many towns. After Shabbat there were Israeli protests across Israel against the Arab violence.

Attempted car bombing outside Maale Adumim

This morning we saw an escalation as a female bomber blew up her car at a checkpoint outside Maale Adumim. Miraculously the only casualty was the bomber herself. severely injured. The circumstances of how the bomber was stopped sound almost like a spoof – but a diligent traffic cop stopped what could have been a massive terror attack in Jerusalem:

Police said officers noticed a “suspicious vehicle” driven by a woman toward a checkpoint en route to Jerusalem and signaled to her to stop. The woman then yelled “Allahu Akbar” and detonated a bomb in her car, a police statement said.

Army Radio reported the wounded officer is a traffic policeman who pulled over the bomber in her car for driving in a lane specified for public transport and carpooling.

…

Initial reports pointed to a possible suicide bombing, saying that the woman had died in the attack. Police later said the woman exited her car just before the bomb went off, indicating that it may not have been a suicide bombing attempt.

I wonder if the bomber was coerced into the attack to save herself from a “family honour” punishment. We’ll probably never know.

Hamas is obviously feeling neglected so they organized huge demonstrations at the border with Israel. After several protestors breached the border, the IDF opened fire, killing up to 7. In retaliation Hamas launched rockets at Israel last night, and in return the IAF bombed some Hamas targets.

Same old same old.

The question at the moment is how should the government, and Israeli citizens, react to this new uprising? Should we be taking a harsher stance with the Arabs or try to defuse the situation? Should Netanyahu be building more settlements davka now or is he right to placate and appease Obama and the Europeans?

I bring you some differing viewpoints here, and I find myself agreeing with them all, depending on the time of day and what’s on the news. I offer no solutions myself. I’m glad I’m not in the position to have to offer such and I don’t envy the government. On the other hand, that is what they were elected for, and the situation cannot be permitted to drift.

First I’ll quote from a few of Arlene Kushner‘s latest posts. She is well-worth following and reading on a regular basis. She always talks sense and her clarity is refreshing:

Boy, this is tough:

… I read what Kerry said yesterday in Valpariso, Chile, where he was giving a talk:

John Kerry

“Regarding Jerusalem, it absolutely is unacceptable on either side to have to have violence resorted to as a solution.

“And I would caution everybody to be calm, not to escalate the situation…it is very important to maintain a sense of calm that will minimize the instinct for escalation.”

http://www.timesofisrael.com/us-urges-rapid-end-to-unacceptable-violence-in-jerusalem/

~~~~~~~~~~

Let me get this straight: Arabs are killing Jews, but our government should not ratchet up the response to the terrorists? And whatever we do, we should not use violence in persuading those terrorists to stop what they are doing? We should, maybe, reason with them? Offer them perks if they stop?

This is moral equivalency run amuck. Politically correct thoughts from an empty head.

What it illustrates is the breath-taking international bias against Israel that we must contend with. No calling out the Arabs for their execrable behavior. No recognition of Israel’s right to defend her Jewish citizens. It helps us to understand (though not excuse) some of Netanyahu’s reluctance (until now) to take a strong stand against Arab terrorists.

In “Navigating choppy waters” she writes:

It has been revealed by media sources that during the Security Cabinet meeting Prime Minister Netanyahu held Monday night, after the close of Simchat Torah, the issue of threats by Obama was raised. Some of the right wing/nationalist members of the Cabinet (some within the Likud itself) were urging that part of the response to terrorism be increased building in Judea and Samaria.

This is not going to happen, Netanyahu informed them. For Obama has said that if there is building in Judea and Samaria, he will not veto a French resolution that is to be brought to the UN Security Council, a resolution that reportedly would declare “Palestine” a state and would declare the settlements “illegal.”

“We will not jeopardize international support for a declaration of building,” a senior source in the Netanyahu administration reportedly said, While the prime minister himself called for “a sober political maneuver.”

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/201499#.VhUukJuhfIX

…

The question I want to explore, then, is whether Netanyahu simply “caved” to the US, as Arutz Sheva suggests, and as is his pattern, or whether he has valid reason to be cautious here.

My gut impulse is to say, damn them all, go ahead and build. Now is the time for us to stand up for what is ours by right. But I know that my gut impulse is not necessarily the wisest course of action.

In exploring precisely what IS the wisest course, I contacted two highly respected and knowledgeable international lawyers, and here share their responses. Please, walk this through with me:

One lawyer, deeply involved in legal issues in Judea and Samaria, was interested in looking at the repercussions in terms of international law.

…

His opinion (this is not a legal opinion) is that a resolution would be tempered, and would

“call for an immediate return to negotiations, with the aim of establishing a Palestinian state and recommending a freeze in settlements.” All this, he says would not “really dramatically change the present situation.”

“But the settlement issue as well as that of Jerusalem have regrettably reached panic proportions thanks to very clever Palestinian manipulation of Obama and the EU and their evidently existing predisposition to harm Netanyahu and hence harm Israel.” (My emphasis added here)

…

The other lawyer, a man with sterling international credentials, chose to look at other, non-legal aspects of the issue (my emphasis added):

”The SC resolution would be very very damaging. Not because of any particular legal point, but because it would lock in a fundamental delegitimization of Israel, trigger a wave of EU sanctions, and make it harder for future US presidents to support Israel.

…

“Unless Bibi has concrete assurances on this, it makes sense to assume there will be no veto and build anyway…His (Obama’s) promise may be worth something if made publicly or with some other additional indicia of reliability.”

…

What we see then is that this is not a simple matter and should be taken seriously, but received without panic. It is not easy, being the head of a state that is isolated internationally and against which much venom is directed.

In the end it may well be that now is the time to stand up and claim our rights. But I would not make light of Netanyahu’s hesitancy to move forward.

And here is Arlene in a more belligerent mood after detailing the active incitement promoted by Mahmoud Abbas and his PA, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and all the rest of those “peace-loving Palestinians”: War. Whatever they call it:

One way or another we must vanquish them, make them afraid of us. But how?

The war that should happen will not happen, because no one wants to call it a war.

I’ve read a lot of suggestions both on the Internet, and from readers’ emails. What I will say here is that some of the suggestions that seem appealing – from the gut – will not work. We cannot banish all the Arabs to Gaza. We cannot take down whole Arab villages. We cannot.

…

Abbas speaks with forked tongue

But please be assured, I am not suggesting that Abbas has us cornered and that there is nothing we can do. This is only the case if we allow ourselves to be cornered. I believe attitude has a great deal to do with it. We must convey a self-confidence – a belief that we are in the right – which we are, and IN CONTROL.

No expressions of gratitude to Abbas for his cooperation on security matters. How ludicrous. Rather, a very quiet message to Abbas that if he doesn’t let his people know that they should cool it, it will go very badly with them and he will pay the price.

David Rubin, former mayor of Shilo, makes a host of suggestions in a blog on Arutz Sheva.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Blogs/Message.aspx/7584#.VhaFlJuhfIW

…

Rubin makes other suggestions, including:

“Declare the Levy Report, which in 2012 proved the legal basis for Jewish sovereignty in Judea and Samaria, to be the basis for government policy in ‘the territories.’”

That last suggestion, to implement the Levy Report – a campaign for which. called We have Legal Grounds, is being run by Arlene and others – is probably the best suggestion anyone has made for a long time. Don’t expect it to be implemented any time soon.

The blogger Abu Yehuda is also an excellent read and I would highly recommend you follow him and read his insights. His two latest posts contain interesting advice for our leaders (which of course won’t be followed):

In “Learning from Putin” he writes:

The Prime Minister’s reaction to the escalating terrorism of the last few months is an example. On the one hand, he wants to get tough with the stone- and firebomb-throwers. But on the other, he rejects the idea of changing the status quo with the PA, either by increased building or cutting off subsides. This is an attempt to treat the symptoms while feeding and stimulating the disease.

In all of these situations Israel is being forced to give up its sovereignty bit by bit. In each case, the government chooses to give in to blackmail. Our ‘strategy’, if you can call it that, is to walk between the raindrops. Unfortunately, as time goes on it rains harder and there is less and less room. We may have reached the point in all three of these cases that the old non-strategy no longer works.

We have allowed our fear of international reactions to keep us from exercising our rights in Judea and Samaria, and our fear of terrorism to limit actions against the PA. But at the same time, the US and EU keep increasing the pressure, and the PA keeps inciting and financing terror. So what have we gained?

…

I’m not going to try to provide a detailed prescription for solving these difficult problems. But in all of them we are moving in the wrong direction, from strength to weakness, from more to less independence and sovereignty.

There is a reason for this: it is because we haven’t articulated a clear picture of the desired end result. Lacking clear objectives, we are passive. Everything we do is a reaction to our enemies’ actions. No wonder we get boxed in – they are writing the screenplay, and we are performing our role in it.

…

Do we think that all faiths should be able to worship on the Temple Mount, including Jews? If so, we should insist on it. Rav Shlomo Goren wanted to build a synagogue on the Mount (not a third Temple, a synagogue). Why should this be an impossible goal?

And isn’t it past time that the PLO, the organization that has murdered more Jews because they are Jews than any other since the Nazis, joined their Nazi role models in oblivion?

I am not a fan of Vladimir Putin, but we could learn from him. The chaos of recent times is also an opportunity.

I find myself nodding my head in support at these suggestions.

On a similar theme, in “Sovereign or satellite?” Abu Yehuda addresses the American threat not to veto anti-Israel UN resolution, and writes:

Israel ought to have a close relationship with the US, because we share many of the same ideals. We certainly have the potential to be a valuable ally in a dangerous part of the world. But the present administration in Washington does not behave like an ally. … the president and his appointees like to talk about how much they care about Israel’s security. But they continue to act in ways that directly damage it.

I propose that we do implement a freeze, not on construction, but on our relationship with the Obama Administration.

The Prime Minister should publicly announce that while Israel wishes to continue its close relationship with the American people, it does not see the Obama Administration as an appropriate partner with which to do so. Therefore, until January 20, 2017, Israel will downgrade its relationship with the administration to the minimum required for diplomatic relations.

The PM should say that Israel does not see the administration as an unbiased broker in any negotiations with the PLO or anyone else.

Questionable US personnel in Israel (those suspected of working for the CIA) should be made persona non grata and asked to leave. The US-operated X-band radar station on Mt. Keren in the Negev, which serves as much to spy on Israel as to warn of an Iranian attack, should either be transferred to IDF control or shut down. Intelligence cooperation with the US should be limited.

I admit I like this suggestion the best of all that I have read, but it’s probably in the realm of a pipe-dream. I’m prepared to be proven wrong however!

Meanwhile, Israeli citizens have been reacting in their usual courageous way – in addition to the many protests last night.

Read this message of outrage from the bereaved Henkin family (click “more) at the end of the English to see the whole message) or see the whole text below this:.

I have to offer you my sincere condolences, Ambassador Shapiro. It is your duty, after all to explain on a daily basis an unexplainable and unjustifiable policy.

You have to defend a US government which on the one hand demanded that Israel should not free Palestinian terrorists with American blood on their hands, and on the other hand demanded that Israel will free Palestinian terrorists with Israeli blood on their hand. Apart from the blatant hypocrisy the US government has seemed to forget that by doing so it raised the chances that more people, among them US citizens like my brother Eitam, would be murdered at the hands of cold blooded terrorists.

You have to defend a government that appeases its enemies and pressures its friends; A government that decided that its army will “no longer be sized to conduct large-scale, prolonged stability operations”, when apparently the government itself is no longer sized to conduct prolonged operations or policy of any sort, perhaps explaining how chemical weapons continued to be used in Syria and how Russia got back into the middle east with a vengeance. You have to defend a government which focuses more on Timetables than on results, succeeding in pulling out forces but and almost nothing else.

You have defend a government that was so full of itself, that in 2009 it let Rahm Emmanuel declare that that “in the next four years there is going to be a permanent status arrangement between Israel and the Palestinians… and it doesn’t matter to us at all who is prime minister”. How unfortunate it was that the Arab-Israel conflict cannot be solved by pulling US troops out and declaring that the war has been won.

And now we have Mr. Putin and co. making fun of the US in the Crimea, sending a clear message to the whole world not to trust America’s assurances and guarantees. We have him in Syria too. In 2012, President Obama has ridiculed senator McCain when the latter said that Russia is a bigger geopolitical threat than al-Qaeda. ” The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back”, said the president. Well, now the 1980s are calling once again, to ask if we, if the US, if the current administrations needs them to lend us some leadership, since apparently they had way more than we have today, and we have less than we need.

You Ambassador Shapiro, have to defend all that and more. It is a heavy burden for any honest man. I offer you my sincere condolences.

These words, written in anger and bereavement, ring out with the truth.

And finally – a reminder to everyone that Israelis have not lost their humanity while under attack, in stark comparison to our enemies, one of whom named his new baby after a murderous terrorist:

At the site of the stabbing at the Petach Tikva mall last week, Shacharit (morning prayers) was held at that very site:

Let these be a reminder that we Israelis, we Jews, hold on to our humanity even in the darkest and harshest of times, especially when our enemies act in the most inhumane way possible.

Categories: Abbas, Israel, Jerusalem, Netanyahu, Palestinian Authority, Settlements, Terrorism
Tags: Henkins, intifada, Israel, Jerusalem, Obama, Palestinians, Settlements, Terrorism

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Does the PA have a strategy?‎

October 11, 2015

Does the PA have a strategy?‎ Israel Hayom, Richard Baehr, October 11, 2015

Abbas may sense that a reconciliation between Israel and the ‎Obama administration is not at hand this time around. The obvious and petty ‎boycott of Netanyahu’s speech at the U.N. certainly supports that thesis. This president ‎carries grudges. In Israel’s case, he seems to have come into office carrying one. ‎With the president in full-time legacy-building mode in his last 16 months in office ‎‎(the climate treaty and executive action on gun control are next up), it is hard to ‎believe that he will simply accept defeat and an inability to influence the Israeli-‎Palestinian conflict in the time he has left. ‎

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A third intifada has not yet been officially designated by Haaretz or The New York ‎Times or National Public Radio, though it may feel as if one is underway, when ‎over 60% of Israelis in the latest public opinion survey say they now fear for their ‎personal safety. So too, there is no evidence yet that the wave of Palestinian ‎attacks or — new to this current campaign — the attempted mass crossings from Gaza, ‎have peaked. ‎

Certainly, the reporting on the current events in Israel reflects old habits about ‎how most journalists cover stories of Palestinian violence and Israeli responses. ‎Two standbys always work. One if that there is “a cycle of violence” ( a pox on both ‎your houses), always leaving unclear who the original perpetrators were in an ‎individual attack or group of attacks. A second is to keep a daily scorecard of the ‎comparative body counts, especially when there are more Palestinian casualties ‎and fatalities than Israeli, courtesy of Israeli police or soldiers responding to ‎stabbing attacks, not all of which prove lethal before the attacker is neutralized. ‎This narrative leads to the inevitable charge of disproportionality, one that has ‎become the principal media assault on Israeli responses to terror emanating from ‎Gaza in recent years. As in every other instance in recent years, Haaretz is playing ‎its appointed role of feeding the many international journalists in the country with ‎the “truth in English” as it sees it, and as the international media want to receive ‎and see it, confirming all their established biases about Israel behavior.

For Israeli ‎responses to the current violence to be “fair” and proportional, the comparative ‎Jewish and Arab body counts would need to be more in balance than in prior ‎years. When the current campaign of attacks on Israelis began, The New York Times ‎relegated the story to it its interior pages. Once a few Palestinians were killed by ‎Israeli police, the story became front page news.‎

Any attack on Arabs by an Israeli is always highlighted since it removes any ‎attempt by Israel to argue it is the victim of attacks. It also buttresses the PA’s ‎charges that Israelis, whether in security roles or settlers, are willing executioners, ‎committing crimes against Palestinians. Regardless of how infrequent these individual attacks by Israelis ‎are, they serve to solidify the cycle of violence theme. The Israeli government can ‎condemn these attacks and capture the perpetrators, but it makes no difference. ‎The PA, meanwhile, will applaud the heroism of their new martyrs protecting the ‎holy places on the Temple Mount from an invasion of stinking Jewish filth.‎

The current wave of Arab attacks followed a Palestinian Authority incitement ‎campaign with language such as that above, in which President Mahmoud Abbas, ‎seemingly the president for life, though only elected to a four year term, ‎condemned Israel’s campaign to change the status of the Temple Mount, for which ‎there is no evidence whatsoever. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, probably in ‎seclusion and being treated with antidepressants since being denied the Nobel ‎Peace Prize for his abject surrender to the Iranians in Geneva, has acknowledged ‎to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the Americans understand there is no ‎Israeli effort underway to reshape any policy regarding behavior on the Temple ‎Mount. Kerry can probably blame Yasser Arafat’s Nobel Peace Prize for the peace ‎prize medal he did not receive (and likely would not have tossed away). The ‎selection committee was probably not anxious to have the Iranians make them look ‎like fools in years to come once they violated the nuclear deal as Arafat tossed Oslo ‎aside when it was inconvenient. ‎

The naked demagoguery of Abbas’ continually repeated lies about Israeli plans for ‎the Temple Mount will always have the desired affect on the many young men on ‎whom the PA can depend to take to the streets and do their part to protect the ‎‎”holy places” for a fee. While there is no consensus on the degree of PA control ‎over the attacks, the Palestinians certainly know where their rhetoric leads.‎

The question, though, is why the Palestinians have chosen this point in time to ‎overheat the situation, resulting in the loss of both Israeli and Palestinian lives.‎

The answer offered by most analysts so far is that the PA wanted to draw ‎international attention back to its grievances with Israel, which most basically ‎begins with the continued existence of the State of Israel. For many months, ‎relations between Israel and the United States, never very good at any time during ‎the Obama years, have become much more fractious as a result of the ‎disagreement between the two countries over the wisdom of America’s ‎spearheading the effort to make all the concessions required as achieve the ‎nuclear deal with Iran by the ‎P5+1 group of nations. ‎

In prior administrations, when relations between the two countries hit a rough ‎patch over some policy disagreement, typically there was an effort made by both ‎parties to try to restore the historic relationship. In the Obama years, the White ‎House has had problems with Israel on pretty much everything — whether to ‎impose new sanctions on Iran, inhibiting Israeli steps targeting Iran’s nuclear ‎program, the nuclear deal itself, and of course the peace process with the ‎Palestinians, the breakdown of which was blamed on Israel by the administration. ‎In no prior administration has the public rhetoric and off-the-record commentary ‎about Israel and its elected leader been so consistently hostile. A boycott of Netanyahu’s speech to a joint meeting of Congress was supported by the ‎administration, which pulled Vice President Joe Biden from attendance. Near a quarter ‎of all Democrats in Congress chose to observe the boycott. The administration ‎doubled down on its boycott campaign when Kerry and ‎Ambassador Samantha Power were instructed not to attend ‎Netanyahu’s recent speech to the U.N. General Assembly. It makes sense that the president has never condemned the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaigns targeting Israel on American ‎college campuses. He would probably be leading them if he were now a student. ‎

In any case, Abbas may sense that a reconciliation between Israel and the ‎Obama administration is not at hand this time around. The obvious and petty ‎boycott of Netanyahu’s speech at the U.N. certainly supports that thesis. This president ‎carries grudges. In Israel’s case, he seems to have come into office carrying one. ‎With the president in full-time legacy-building mode in his last 16 months in office ‎‎(the climate treaty and executive action on gun control are next up), it is hard to ‎believe that he will simply accept defeat and an inability to influence the Israeli-‎Palestinian conflict in the time he has left. ‎

Abbas has resorted to the strategy that always works to get his cause back in the ‎news — get some of his people killed by Israel, and blame it on Israeli over-reaction ‎and trigger-happy behavior. Maybe Obama will then show his disgust with Israel ‎and commit to not vetoing new measures targeting Israel at the U.N. Security ‎Council, including establishing a plan for Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank ‎and Jerusalem. ‎

It is also possible that Obama planned to lower the temperature of the American-‎Israeli relationship now that the Iran deal had not been blocked by Congress. The prime minister had been invited to the White House next month, and reportedly ‎the president planned to show up. If Abbas thought this was the new glide path, ‎then throwing a monkey wrench into the mix with new violence would certainly ‎complicate things. Obama’s press secretary, Josh Earnest, gave a particularly awful ‎response when questioned about the new wave of Palestinian violence this week, ‎suggesting he had not been advised to turn any page:‎

“The United States condemns in the strongest possible terms ‎violence against Israeli and Palestinian civilians. We call upon ‎all parties to take affirmative steps to restore calm and refrain ‎from actions and rhetoric that would further enflame tensions ‎in that region of the world. We continue to urge all sides to find ‎a way back to the full restoration of the status quo at the ‎Temple Mount in Haram al-Sharif, the location that has ‎precipitated so much of the violence that we’ve seen there.”

In other words, both sides are guilty for attacking the other’s ‎civilians, and somehow a change in the status of the Temple ‎Mount (Israel’s doing) was the root cause of the new problems. ‎

When the administration’s top spokesperson makes this kind ‎of comment, do you think Abbas will decide to ease ‎up on the violence accelerator?

Categories: Appeasement, Death to Israel, Defense of Israel, Diplomacy, Dishonor, Filthy Jews, Foreign policy, Hamas, Islamic culture, Islamic supremacy, Islamism, Israel, Israeli media, Kerry, Netanyahu, Obama - Middle East, Obama - rogue president, Obama and Israel, Obama's America, Obama's anti-semitism, Obama's foreign failures, Obama's legacy, Obama's weakness, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian heroes, Palestinians, Settlements, Two state solution, Western media
Tags: Appeasement, Death to Israel, Defense of Israel, Diplomacy, Filthy Jews, Foreign Policy, Hamas, Islamic culture, Islamic supremacy, Islamism, Israel, Israeli media, Kerry, Netanyahu, Obama and Israel, Obama's America, Obama's anti-semitism, Obama's foreign failures, Obama's legacy, Obama's weakness, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian heroes, Palestinians, Settlements, Two state solution, Western media

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Contentions | Has Obama Read the Khamenei Palestine Book?

August 4, 2015

Contentions | Has Obama Read the Khamenei Palestine Book? Commentary Magazine, Jonathan S. Tobin, August 4, 2015

(Another interesting question would be, does Obama agree with any of Khamenei’s statements and, if so, which? — DM)

The Khamenei Palestine book is important not in and of itself but because the regime’s obsession with Israel is a key to its foreign policy. . . . But as much as Iran is focused on regional hegemony in which Sunni states would be brought to heel, as Khamenei’s Palestine illustrates, it is the fixation on Israel and Zionism that really animates their expansionism and aid for terror groups.

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It turns out President Obama isn’t the only world leader who writes books. His counterpart in Iran – Supreme Leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — has also just published a new book. But while it may not be as introspective as Obama’s Dreams From My Father, it does tell us at least as much about the vision of the person in charge in Tehran (as opposed to Hassan Rouhani, the faux moderate who serves as its president) as the president’s best-selling memoir. As Amir Taheri reports in the New York Post, Palestine is a 416-page diatribe against the existence of the state of Israel and a call to arms for it to be destroyed. Supporters of the nuclear deal the president has struck with Khamenei’s regime may dismiss this book as merely one more example of the Supreme Leader’s unfortunate ideology that must be overlooked. But as the New York Times noted last week, the administration’s real goal here isn’t so much in delaying Iran’s march to a nuclear weapon (which is the most that can be claimed for the agreement) as it is fostering détente with it. Seen in that light, the latest evidence of the malevolence of the Islamist regime should be regarded as yet another inarguable reason for Congress to vote the deal down.

In his interview with The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg on May 21, President Obama was asked directly about the significance of Iran’s anti-Semitism and its commitment to destroying Israel. The president said the anti-Semitism of the Iranian leadership did not mean they weren’t also “interested in survival” or being “rational.” As far as he was concerned, the ideology of the regime was not something that would influence its decisions.

But everything Khamenei says and, even more importantly, everything the regime does, by funding terrorist groups at war with Israel such as Hamas and Hezbollah or by embarking on a ruinously expensive nuclear project that placed it in conflict with the West, speaks to its commitment to policies that Obama may think are irrational but which are completely in synch with what he called its “organizing principle.” Why would a nation so rich in oil need to risk international isolation or war seek nuclear power if not to help Khamenei fulfill his pledge to “liberate” what is now Israel for Muslims?

The president told Goldberg that the American military option would be a sufficient deterrent to ensure that Iran didn’t violate the nuclear pact or behave in an irrational manner. But since the president has ruled out the use of force in a categorical manner, it’s hard to see why the Iranians would fear it once the U.S. and Europe are doing business with them. Even if it was a matter of snapping back sanctions, assuming that such a concept is even possible? Once the restrictions are unraveled, it’s fair to ask why would they work then when the president repeatedly tells us additional sanctions won’t work now and require us to accept the current deal that doesn’t achieve the objectives that the administration set for the negotiations when they began.

The Khamenei Palestine book is important not in and of itself but because the regime’s obsession with Israel is a key to its foreign policy. Iran constitutes a grave threat to Neighboring Arab countries that are at least as angry about the president’s embrace of Tehran as the Israelis since their nuclear status would undermine their security. But as much as Iran is focused on regional hegemony in which Sunni states would be brought to heel, as Khamenei’s Palestine illustrates, it is the fixation on Israel and Zionism that really animates their expansionism and aid for terror groups.

As Taheri notes in his article on the book, Khamenei distinguishes his idée fixe about destroying Israel from European anti-Semitism. Rather, he insists, that his policy derives from “well established Islamic principles.” Chief among them is the idea that any land that was once ruled by Muslims cannot be conceded to non-believers no matter who lives there now. While the Muslim world seems to understand that they’re not getting Spain back, the territory that constitutes the state of Israel is something else. Its central location in the middle of the Muslim and Arab worlds and the fact that Jews, a despised minority people, now rule it makes its existence particularly objectionable to Islamists like Khamenei.

Khamenei’s book shows that not only is he serious about wanting to destroy Israel and uproot its Jewish population, he regards this project as a practical rather than a theoretical idea. The administration ignores this because it wants to believe that Iran is a nation that wants to, as the president put it, “get right with the world.” But what it wants is to do business with the world while pursuing its ideological goals. The nuclear deal is a means to an end for the regime and that end does not involve good relations with the West or cooperation with other states in the region, let alone coexisting peacefully with Israel.

What is curious is that this is the same administration that regarded the announcement of a housing project in Jerusalem by low-level Israeli officials as an “insult” to Vice President Biden. But it chooses to regard the “death to America” chants led by regime functionaries in Iran as well as a book by the country’s leader indicating that Obama’s ideas about its character are fallacious as non-events. The only explanation for this remarkable lack of interest in Iranian behavior is an ideological fixation on détente with Tehran that is every bit as hardcore as any utterances that emanate from the mouth or the pen of the Supreme Leader.

Taken out of the context of a vision of friendship with the Iranian regime, the nuclear deal makes no sense. Yet squaring that vision with Khamenei’s literary effort is impossible. Members of the House and Senate must take note of this conundrum and vote accordingly.

Categories: Diplomacy, Dishonor, Foreign policy, Ideology, Imperialism, Iran scam, Iranian anti-semitism, Iranian proxies, Iranian Threats, Israel, Jews, Khamenei, Middle East, Obama, Obama's affinity for Iran, Obama's America, Obama's anti-semitism, Obama's legacy, Obama's motivations, P5+1, Palestinians, Peace in our time, Peace process, Progressives, Settlements, Two state solution, U.S. Congress
Tags: Foreign Policy, Ideology, Imperialism, Iran Scam, Iranian antisemitism, Iranian proxies, Iranian threats, Israel, Jews, Khamenei, Middle East, Obama, Obama's affinity for Iran, Obama's America, Obama's antisemitism, Obama's legacy, Obama's motivations, P5+1, Palestinians, Peace in our time, Peace Process, Progressives, Settlements, Two state solution, U.S. Congress

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Netanyahu slams Abbas after attack on Palestinian family

August 2, 2015

Netanyahu slams Abbas after attack on Palestinian family, Times of Israel, Tamar Pileggi, August 2, 2015

Netanuahu on Jewish terrorism

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chairs the weekly cabinet meeting at his Jerusalem office on August 2, 2015 AFP PHOTO / POOL / GALI TIBBON)

PM says Israel ‘condemns’ such violence, while the PA ‘names public squares after the murderers of children’

Speaking in the wake of a firebombing attack in the West Bank that left a Palestinian toddler dead, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday lashed out at Mahmoud Abbas, accusing the Palestinian Authority president of failing to condemn acts of Palestinian terrorism.

Netanyahu, addressing the weekly cabinet meeting, compared Israeli officials’ swift condemnation of Friday’s alleged Jewish terrorist attack to what he said was an inadequate response on the part of PA officials after Palestinian terrorists targeted Israeli civilians.

“We deplore and condemn these murderers. We will pursue them to the end,” he said. “They name public squares after the murderers of children. This distinction cannot be blurred or covered up,” he said.

“It is important to say this even as we utter our condemnations and unite against the criminals among our people,” Netanyahu said.

The prime minister also said that there would be a “zero tolerance” policy toward such crimes in Israel, and vowed to punish the perpetrators to the full extent of the law.

Gay pride

Participants in the gay pride parade in Jerusalem flee stabber Yishai Schlissel, July 30, 2015. (screen capture: Channel 2)

“We recently witnessed two abhorrent crimes. Our policy toward these crimes is zero tolerance,” he said, referring both to the killing of the Palestinian child and a stabbing attack at the Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade on Thursday.

Netanyahu recalled visiting the home of the historian Joseph Klausner as a child. Over the arched entrance to Klausner’s home, said the prime minister, the words “Judaism” and “humanity” were engraved in Hebrew.

The perpetrators of last week’s crimes did not represent Judaism, he said.

The prime minister said he had instructed security and law enforcement officials to use all legal tools at their disposal to apprehend the perpetrators of the arson attack and prosecute the perpetrator of the stabbing attack.

“We are determined to vigorously fight manifestations of hate, fanaticism and terrorism from whatever side. The fight against these phenomena unites us all.

“This is not a struggle by this or that faction. This is a matter of basic humanity and is at the foundation of our enlightened Jewish values,” he said.

The assailant in Thursday’s anti-gay attack was an ultra-Orthodox Jew, Yishai Schlissel, who had just been released after serving 10 years in jail for carrying out a similar attack at the 2005 Pride Parade. On Sunday, doctors said that one of the six victims, who suffered multiple stab wounds to her chest and abdomen, remained in critical condition.

Duma village

A Palestinian man mourns alongside the body of a one-and-a-half year old boy, Ali Dawabsha, during his funeral in Duma village near the West Bank city of Nablus, Friday, July 31, 2015. (Majdi Mohammed/AP)

On Friday, unknown assailants suspected to be Jewish settlers firebombed the home of a Palestinian family in the northern West Bank village of Duma, killing a toddler. The parents and brother of 18-month-old Ali Saad Dawabsha were hospitalized and are still fighting for their lives.

The family’s small brick and cement home was gutted by fire, and a Star of David spray-painted on a wall along with the words “revenge” and “long live the Messiah.”

The phrases were indicative of so-called “price tag” violence — a euphemism for nationalist-motivated hate crimes by Jewish extremists.

Categories: Abbas, Israel, Jews, Judaism, Netanyahu, Palestinian heroes, Palestinians, Settlements, Terrorists
Tags: Abbas, Israel, Jews, Judaism, Netanyahu, Palestinian heroes, Palestinians, Settlements, Terrorists

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Kerry I’ll be embarrassed in front of Ayatollah if Irand deal is killed

July 24, 2015

Kerry I’ll be embarrassed in front of Ayatollah if Irand deal is killed, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, July 24, 2015

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Come on guys, don’t embarrass John Kerry in front of his cool Ayatollah friends.

As a bonus, if the Iran nuclear sellout deal dies, John Kerry will be too embarrassed to show his long face in Vienna again. Or Havana or Tehran.

If you won’t think of the Ayatollahs, won’t you think of John Kerry forced to retire back to his windsurfing tax-free Elba with his rich wife, too humiliated to negotiate with any more terrorists?

A congressional vote to undermine the Obama administration’s diplomatic negotiations with Iran would be a major setback for the United States on the world stage and personally humiliating Secretary of State John Kerry said on Friday.

“I would be embarrassed to try to go out,” Kerry said during remarks at the Council on Foreign Relations. “What am I going to say to people after this? ‘Come negotiate with us.’ ‘Can you deliver?'”

“Do you think the ayatollah is going to come back to the table if Congress refuses this and negotiate this again?” he added.

Come on guys, don’t embarrass John Kerry in front of his cool Ayatollah friends.

John Kerry really wants Iran’s Supreme Ayatollah to like him so he can get invited to all his cool “Death to America” parties. He’s still haunted by memories of the time Russia wouldn’t return his phone calls for a week or ask him to the prom.

Kerry’s slip acknowledges that the entire facade of the “moderate” president is meaningless and it’s the Ayatollah that matters. Also the Ayatollah hasn’t actually approved the deal. But there’s another angle.

John Kerry is whining that America will look bad if it pulls back from the deal now. But Obama had no problem violating agreements with Israel, Poland and Libya. Here’s an example.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is denying that there were understandings between the Bush Administration and the Sharon and Olmert governments that limited natural growth of settlements but permitted some construction within agreed constraints.

Today, Elliott Abrams, who headed the Mideast team at the Bush White House and participated in the key discussions with Israeli officials about the settlements freeze issue, weighed in with an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal stating forcefully that, “There were indeed agreements between Israel and the United States regarding the growth of Israeli settlements on the West Bank…principles that would permit some continuing growth….They emerged from discussions with American officials and were discussed by Messrs. Sharon and Bush at their Aqaba meeting in June 2003….The prime minister of Israel relied on them in undertaking a wrenching political reorientation — the dissolution of his government, the removal of every single Israeli citizen, settlement and military position in Gaza, and the removal of four small settlements in the West Bank…For reasons that remain unclear, the Obama administration has decided to abandon the understandings about settlements reached by the previous administration with the Israeli government. We may be abandoning the deal now, but we cannot rewrite history and make believe it did not exist.”

Nobody in Obama Inc. was embarrassed to violate a deal with Israel. And that was a deal in which Israel did its part by withdrawing from Gaza.

Kerry whines that he would be embarrassed in front of the Ayatollah if Congress rejects a deal that wasn’t even finalized and in which Iran has yet to do its part.

But that’s just where the priorities of this administration are.

The Ayatollah is a “cool” enemy of the United States whom Kerry wants to impress. Just like he wanted to impress the Viet Cong in Paris and the Sandanistas and Assad. But he could care less what allies like Israel or Poland think.

They like America. So they’re not cool. There’s no need for the administration’s manchildren to impress them or win their approval.

Categories: Diplomacy, Dishonor, Iran scam, Israel, Kerry, Khamenei, Obama, Obama's America, P5+1, Settlements, U.S. Congress
Tags: Iran Scam, Israel, Khamenei, Obama, Obama's America, P5+1, Settlements, U.S. Congress

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Obama Won’t Enforce Anti-BDS Provision Language in Trade Bill he just Signed

July 1, 2015

Obama Won’t Enforce Anti-BDS Provision Language in Trade Bill he just Signed, The Jewish Press, Lori Lowenthal Marcus, July 1, 2015

(To enforce the anti-BDS provisions of the legislation Obama just signed would be Islamophobic. Or something. — DM)

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U.S. President Barack Obama Photo Credit: WhiteHouse.Gov screen capture

This week the United States officially put on notice its trade partners that it will not countenance boycotts or other economic warfare against Israel.

After signing the relevant trade legislation into law, however, the White House signaled to all its trade partners that they are still free to boycott goods made in the disputed territories, despite the clear language of the legislation the president signed.

This week the Trade Promotion Authority bill was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama.

The TPA is primarily focused on international trade between the U.S. and Europe. It also included a section which addresses trade between the U.S. and Israel.

That part of the legislation, the U.S.-Israel Trade and Commercial Enhancement Act, bans boycotts and other means of economic warfare against Israel or the “Israeli-controlled territories.” This amendment, introduced by Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill-6) with bi-partisan co-sponsorship, was unanimously adopted into the PTA in April.

The passage of the TPA, including the anti-BDS section, should sound a death knell for the BDS (Boycott of, Divestment from and Sanctions against Israel) Movement. It should.

However, as pro-Israel Americans and Israelis learned only a few weeks ago in the Jerusalem passport case (Zivotofsky v. Kerry), there are certain spheres of international decision making over which the president has exclusive, or at least primary and controlling, control. Obama claims that international trade is one of those areas, even though Article 1, Section 8, clause 3, expressly gives Congress the power to regulate foreign commerce.

So even though the TPA is intended to act as a strong deterrent to European and other countries to pass and enforce boycotts of Israeli products, the White House has already signaled that it will not extend its protection to any goods produced in the disputed territories.

The anti boycott of Israel language in the TPA is: “actions by states, nonmember states of the United Nations, international organizations or affiliated agencies of international organizations that are politically motivated and are intended to penalize or otherwise limit commercial relations specifically with Israel or persons doing business in Israel or in Israeli-controlled territories.” [emphasis added.]

In a statement which Matt Lee of the Associated Press attributed to State Dept. spokesperson John Kirby, the administration made clear that despite signing the TPA, the position of the White House remains, as it has been, that the U.S. opposes boycotts of the State of Israel, but it also opposes the presence of Jews in the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria and the Golan Heights.

In the statement the administration argues that by “conflating Israel and ‘Israeli-controlled territories’ a provision of the Trade Promotion Authority legislation runs counter to longstanding U.S. policy towards the occupied territories, including with regard to settlement activity,” and says that every U.S. administration has opposed “settlement activity.”

It goes on to point out that the “U.S. government has never defended or supported Israeli settlements and activity associated with them and, by extension, does not pursue policies or activities that would legitimize them.”

The U.S. administration announced that it will not jeopardize the holy grail of the two-state solution by enforcing the U.S. law as written and which its leader signed. In the statement it claims that “both parties have long recognized that settlement activity and efforts to change facts on the ground undermine the goal of a two-state solution to the conflict and only make it harder to negotiate a sustainable and equitable peace deal in good faith.” It is on this basis, ostensibly to promote a peaceful solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, that this administration

Professor Eugene Kontorovich of the Northwestern University School of Law analyzes several other provisions of the U.S-Israel trade aspect of the TPA which have been largely overlooked. In particular, Kontorovich points out, U.S. courts cannot recognize or enforce the judgment of any foreign court “that doing business in or being based in the West Bank or Golan Heights violates international law or particular European rules.”

Categories: BDS, Dishonor, Foreign policy, Ideology, Israel, Jewish occupation of Israel, Obama, Obama's America, Palestinians, Peace process, Settlements, U.S. Congress, U.S. Constitution
Tags: BDS, Foreign Policy, Ideology, Israel, Jewish occupation of Israel, Obama, Obama's America, Palestinians, Peace Process, Settlements, TPA, U.S. Congress, U.S. Constitution

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The Palestinians’ Real Strategy

June 22, 2015

The Palestinians’ Real Strategy, The Gatestone Institute, Khaled Abu Toameh, June 22, 2015

Marzouk’s remarks refute claims by some in the Arab and Western media that Hamas is moving toward pragmatism and moderation, and that it is now willing, for the first time, to recognize Israel’s right to exist. Many in the West often fail to understand Hamas’s true position because they do not follow what Hamas says in Arabic — to its own people. In Arabic, Hamas makes no secret of its call for the destruction of Israel.
The current strategy of the Palestinian Authority (PA) is to negotiate with the international community, and not with Israel, about achieving peace in the Middle East. The ultimate goal of the PA is to force Israel to its knees. For the PA, rallying the international community and Europe is about punishing and weakening Israel, not making peace with it.
Their strategy is no longer about a two-state solution so much as it is about inflicting pain and suffering on Israel. It is more about seeking revenge on Israel than living in a state next to it.
Hamas’s terrorism also helps the PA’s anti-Israel campaign in the international community. Each terrorist attack provides the PA with an opportunity to point out the “urgent” need to force Israel to submit to Palestinian demands as a way of “containing the radicals.”

All signs indicate that the Palestinians are planning to step up their efforts to force Israel to comply with their demands. But as the Palestinians are not united, they are working on two fronts to achieve their goal.

One party, headed by the Palestinian Authority (PA), believes that, with the help of the international community, Israel will be forced to fully withdraw to the pre-1967 lines, including east Jerusalem, and accept the “right of return” for millions of refugees and their descendants to their former homes inside Israel.

The second party, represented by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and several other terror groups, continues to reject any form of compromise, and insists that the only solution lies in the elimination of Israel. Unlike the first party, this one believes that direct or indirect negotiations with the “Zionist enemy” are a waste of time and that terrorism is the only means for the Palestinians to achieve their goal.

The two Palestinian parties, the PA and Hamas, have been at war with each other since 2007, when Hamas seized full control over the Gaza Strip and forced the Palestinian Authority to flee to the West Bank.

But while the two rival parties are fighting each other, they are also working separately to overpower Israel.

On June 19, a Hamas-affiliated group claimed responsibility for the shooting attack that killed Danny Gonen, a 25-year-old man who was visiting the West Bank.

Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian groups rushed to “welcome” the killing of the young Israeli man who, by the way, was not a “settler,” but a resident of the Israeli city of Lod, near Ben Gurion Airport.

In separate statements, these terror groups explained that the attack came in the context of Palestinian efforts to “preserve the resistance” against Israel in the West Bank. They said that such attacks were “legitimate means” to achieve Palestinian rights and aspirations.

These groups made it unavoidably clear that their real objective is not to “liberate” the West Bank, but to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. As one of them said, “We will continue to support any resistance action on the land of Palestine until it is liberated, from the (Mediterranean) sea to the (Jordan) river, and cleansed from all Zionist usurpers.”

Hours after the West Bank attack, a senior Hamas leader, Musa Abu Marzouk, repeated that his movement was seeking to replace Israel with an Islamist state: “Hamas wants a state not only in the Gaza Strip, but in all of Palestine; we won’t give up our weapons and will continue to fight in order to liberate our land.”

Marzouk’s remarks refute claims by some Arab and Western media that Hamas has been moving toward pragmatism and moderation, and that it is now willing, for the first time, to recognize Israel’s right to exist. Many in the West often fail to understand Hamas’s true position because they do not follow what Hamas says in Arabic — to its own people. In Arabic, Hamas makes no secret of its call for the destruction of Israel. To Hamas’s credit, this message is often repeated in English and other languages.

While Hamas and its allies work toward destroying Israel through terrorism, the Palestinian Authority seems more determined than ever to step up its worldwide campaign to delegitimize and isolate Israel with the help of various international parties, such as the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Some senior Palestinian officials like to describe this campaign as a “diplomatic war” against Israel. They argue that this war has thus far proven to be much more “effective” than rockets and suicide bombings. “When we launch rockets at Israel, we don’t get any sympathy,” explained one official. “But everyone in the international community is now supporting our diplomatic efforts. That’s why we believe that what Hamas is doing right now is harmful to Palestinian interests.”

Shortly before the Israeli man was fatally shot in the West Bank, the chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, revealed his plan to rally the world against Israel so that it would be forced to submit to the Palestinian Authority’s demands, above all a complete withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines.

Erekat’s plan calls for working very closely with EU countries and members of the UN Security Council, to increase pressure on Israel to comply with the Palestinian demands. It also calls for recruiting international support for recognition of a Palestinian state and paving the way for it to join various international organizations and conventions.

In his plan, Erekat warns against endorsing any UN Security Council resolution that would include recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, or offer concessions on the “right of return” for refugees. He also repeats the Palestinian Authority’s rejection of the idea of land swaps between the future Palestinian state and Israel. In addition, Erekat emphasizes his opposition to the idea of creating a demilitarized Palestinian state or giving up any part of Jerusalem.

The Palestinian Authority’s current strategy is to negotiate with the international community, and not with Israel, about achieving peace in the Middle East. The PA knows that it is not going to get from Israel all that it is asking for. That is why the Palestinian leaders have chosen to negotiate with France, Britain, Sweden and the US. The Palestinians are hoping that these countries will give them what Israel cannot and is not prepared to offer at the negotiating table.

Even if Israel wanted to give one hundred percent of what it gained in 1967, the reality on he ground does not allow it. Since 1967, both Jews and Arabs have created irreversible “facts in the ground,” such as the construction of tens of thousands of houses for both Arabs and Jews. A full withdrawal would mean that tens of thousands of Jews and Arabs would lose their homes both in the West Bank and in Jerusalem.

The ultimate goal of the Palestinian Authority is, with the help of the international community, to force Israel to its knees. For the PA, rallying the international community and Europe is about punishing and weakening Israel, not making peace with it. The PA wants to see Israel degraded, isolated and turned into a rogue state. It wants to see Israelis brought before the International Criminal Court and expelled from as many international organizations as possible.

From talking to senior Palestinian Authority officials, one is left with the impression that their true goal is to see Israel in a state of surrender and defeat. Their strategy is no longer about a two-state solution so much as it is about inflicting pain and suffering on Israel. It is more about seeking revenge on Israel than living in a state next to it.

In many ways, the PA’s “diplomatic war” on Israel also helps Hamas. By constantly accusing Israel of “war crimes” and “atrocities,” the PA is helping Hamas justify its terror attacks against Israelis. The PA’s anti-Israel campaign also helps in creating sympathy and understanding for Hamas’s terror attacks.

Meanwhile, Hamas’s terrorism also helps the Palestinian Authority’s anti-Israel campaign in the international community. Each terrorist attack provides the PA with an opportunity to point out the “urgent” need to force Israel to submit to Palestinian demands as a way of “containing the radicals.”

This is how Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, although remaining sworn enemies, complement each other’s role against Israel.

And many in the international community seem to be helping these two Palestinian camps in their effort to undermine and destroy Israel.

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Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (r) meets with the Hamas political bureau chief Khaled Mashaal in Qatar, July 20, 2014. (Image source: Handout from the PA President’s Office/Thaer Ghanem)

Categories: Abbas, Antisemitism, Diplomacy, Dishonor, Europe, Foreign policy, France, Hamas, Human rights, Ideology, Iranian proxies, Islamic jihad, Islamism, Israel, Jerusalem, Jewish occupation of Israel, Jews, Middle East, Netanyahu, Obama, Obama administration, Palestinian Authority, Palestinians, Peace process, Settlements, Terrorists, Two state solution, United Nations
Tags: Abbas, Antisemitism, Europe, Foreign Policy, France, Hamas, human rights, Ideology, Iranian proxies, Islamic Jihad, Islamism, Israel, Jerusalem, Jewish occupation of Israel, Jews, Middle East, Netanyahu, Obama, Obama Administration, Palestinian Authority, Palestinians, Peace Process, Settlements, Terrorists, Two state solution, United Nations

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US Diplomats Reveal EU Sanctions Assault After Iran Deal

June 9, 2015

US Diplomats Reveal EU Sanctions Assault After Iran Deal, Israel National News, Ari Yashar, June 9, 2015

EU flag

EU flag (illustration)Flash 90

Israel has been fighting the Iran nuclear deal due to the great danger it poses, but senior Western officials have revealed it is also doing so because once a deal is reached, the European Union (EU) and UN are planning a diplomatic offensive targeting the Jewish state.

The political assault is meant to force Israel into returning to yet more peace talks with the Palestinian Authority (PA) and making dangerous concessions in the process – and reportedly the EU already has a list of sanctions ready to force Israel to bend.

A senior Western diplomat told Ma’ariv in a report published Tuesday that “a diplomatic attack against Israel is expected soon that will surprise even the pessimists in Jerusalem.”

“In the (UN) Security Council, in western capitals and at EU headquarters, they are just waiting for the Iran deal to be signed and for it to be approved by the American Congress,” warned the diplomatic source.

It appears that the waiting period will likely expire in September, at which time a UN General Assembly will open in tandem with the first shots of the diplomatic barrage against Israel.

Diplomatic sources familiar with Western European positions vis-a-vis Israel said the EU already has a list ready, itemizing sanctions against Israel in the fields of trade, agriculture, science and culture.

That list is to be translated into an economic assault – unless Israel presents a new set of concessions it is willing to make for a new round of peace talks, after the last set of talks was torpedoed by the PA signing a unity deal with the Hamas terrorist organization.

“S‭enior officials in Jerusalem are aware of the existence of sanctions documents at EU headquarters, some of which have even fallen into their hands,” one diplomatic source revealed to Ma’ariv.

The source added that US President Barack Obama’s threat made in an Israeli interview this month, according to which he may cut US support for Israel at the UN, specifically was referring to “the sanctions file” against Israel which is currently biding its time at the EU headquarters.

The US is reportedly weighing its responses, as the current Israeli government does not appear to be likely to launch a new series of peace talks after the massive failure of the last round, and the PA’s unilateral moves in the international arena in breach of the 1993 Oslo Accords that founded it.

“The make-up of the government is such that no faction or minister will stand up to the lack of an initiative from Prime Minister (Binyamin) Netanyahu,” a diplomat from New York told Ma’ariv. “The coming months will be difficult for Israel. This time Israel will pay a heavy price for continued stagnation. This time, it is also uncertain if Uncle Sam will succeed in saving Israel, and maybe he won’t want to do so.”

Categories: Economy, European Union, Foreign policy, Ideology, Iran scam, Israel, Multiculturalism, Netanyahu, Obama, Obama's America, P5+1, Palestinian Authority, Peace process, Settlements, Two state solution
Tags: Economy, European Union, Foreign Policy, Ideology, Iran Scam, Israel, Multiculturalism, Netanyahu, Obama, Obama's America, Palestinian Authority, Peace Process, Settlements, Two state solution

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Liberating Our Jerusalem

May 18, 2015

Liberating Our Jerusalem, Sultan Knish Blog, Daniel Greenfield, May 17, 2015

[T]here are still Jews in the West Bank and they have to be gotten rid of. Once enough Jews have been expelled, there will be peace. That’s not a paragraph from Mein Kampf, it’s not some lunatic sermon from Palestinian Authority television– it is the consensus of the international community. This consensus states that the only reason there still isn’t peace is because enough Jews haven’t been expelled from their homes. The ethnic cleansing for peace hasn’t gone far enough.

There will be peace when all the Jews are gone.

Jerusalem Day is a reminder of what the real problem is and what the real solution is. Muslim occupation of Israel is the problem. The Islamization of Jerusalem is the problem. Muslim violence in support of the Muslim occupation of Israel and of everywhere else is the problem. Israel is the solution. Only when we liberate ourselves from the lies, when we stop believing that we are the problem and recognize that we are the solution. Only then will we be free of the Joe Bidens and the Peter Beinarts, the Jimmy Carters and Barack Obamas, the Gilad Atzmons and Jeremy Ben Amis. Only then will the liberation that began in 1967 be complete.

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When Jordan’s Arab Legion seized half of Jerusalem, ethnically cleansed its Jewish population and annexed the city– the only entity to recognize the annexation was the United Kingdom which had provided the officers and the training that made the conquest possible. Officers like Colonel Bill Newman, Major Geoffrey Lockett and Major Bob Slade, under Glubb Pasha, better known as General John Bagot Glubb, whose son later converted to Islam, invaded Jerusalem and used the Muslim forces under their command to make the partition and ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem possible.

MigdalDavid0002

Since then, the annexation and ethnic cleansing has become an international mandate. It would be absolutely inconceivable for the international community to denounce an ethnically cleansed group which survived attempted genocide for moving back into a city where they had lived. It is, however, standard policy at the State Department and the Foreign Office to denounce Jews living in those parts of Jerusalem that had been ethnically cleansed by Muslims, as “settlers” living in “settlements,” and describe them as an “obstruction to peace.” Peace being the state of affairs that sets in when an ethnic cleansing goes unchallenged.

Describing Jewish homes in Jerusalem, one of the world’s oldest cities, a city that all three religions in the region associate with Jews and Jewish history, as “settlements” is a triumph of distorted language that Orwell would have to tip his hat to. How does one have “settlements” in a city older than London or Washington D.C.? To understand that, you would have to ask London and Washington D.C., where the diplomats insist that one more round of Israeli compromises will bring peace to the region.

They say that there are three religions in Jerusalem, but there are actually four. The fourth religion is the true Religion of Peace, the one that demands constant blood sacrifices to make peace possible, that insists that there will be peace when the Jews have been expelled from Judea and Samaria, driven out of their homes in Jerusalem, and made into wanderers and beggars once again. Oddly enough, this religion’s name isn’t even Islam– it’s diplomacy.

Diplomacy says that the 1948 borders set by Arab countries invading Israel should be the final borders and that, when Israel reunified a sundered city in 1967, it was an act of aggression, while, when seven Arab armies invaded Israel in 1948, it was a legitimate way to set boundaries. When Jordan ethnically cleansed East Jerusalem, it set a standard that Israelis are obligated to follow to this day by staying out of East Jerusalem.

Vice President Biden was so upset that the Jerusalem municipality had partially approved some buildings in the city during his visit that he threw a legendary hissy fit. Hillary Clinton stopped by MSNBC to tell Andrea Mitchell that, “It was insulting. And it was insulting not just to the Vice President who didn’t deserve that.” David Axelrod browsed through his thesaurus and emerged on the morning shows calling it an “affront” and an “insult.” Two for the price of one.

Editorials in newspapers denounced the Israeli government for this grave insult to the Obama Administration.”Israel’s Provocation”, the Chicago Tribune shrieked in bold type, describing it as a “diplomatic bomb” that went off in Biden’s face. The Atlantic, eager to get in on the action metaphors, described Israel slapping Biden in the face. A horde of other columnists jumped in to depict the Israelis kicking and bashing the poor Vice-President, while holding his head in the toilet.

Whether Joe Biden was the victim of the Jews or the Jews were the victims of Joe Biden is all a matter of perspective. The Hitler Administration was quite upset to find that Jewish athletes would be competing in the 1936 Munich Olympics. When you ethnically cleanse people, they are supposed to stay ethnically cleansed. It’s in poor taste for them to show up and win gold medals at the Olympics or rebuild their demolished synagogues. It’s insulting to the ethnic cleansers and their accomplices.

That sounds like a harsh accusation, but it’s completely and undeniably true.

bauernfeind-mur-lamentation-jerusalem

When Muslims move into a Jewish town, poor Joe doesn’t come crying that he’s been bombed with a diplomatic affront and slapped with a Menorah. When Muslim countries fund Muslim housing in Israel, there are no angry statements from Clinton and no thesaurus bashing from David Axelrod. Muslim housing in Jerusalem or anywhere in Israel is not a problem. Only Jewish housing is. The issue is not Israel. If it were, then Arabs with Israeli citizenship would get Biden to howl as loudly. It’s only the Jews who are the problem.

The entire Peace Process is really a prolonged solution to the latest phase of the Jewish Problem. The problem, as stated by so many diplomats, is that there are Jews living in places that Muslims want. There were Jews living in Gaza before 1948, but they were driven out, they came back, and then they were driven out again by their own government in compliance with international demands. Now only Hamas lives in Gaza and it’s as peaceful and pleasant without the Jews as Nazi Germany.

But there are still Jews in the West Bank and they have to be gotten rid of. Once enough Jews have been expelled, there will be peace. That’s not a paragraph from Mein Kampf, it’s not some lunatic sermon from Palestinian Authority television– it is the consensus of the international community. This consensus states that the only reason there still isn’t peace is because enough Jews haven’t been expelled from their homes. The ethnic cleansing for peace hasn’t gone far enough.

There will be peace when all the Jews are gone. That much is certainly undeniable. Just look at Gaza or Egypt or Iraq or Afghanistan, which has a grand total of two Jews, both of them in their seventies. Or Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Syria where peace reigns now that the Jews are gone. Some might say that violence seems to increase proportionally with the number of Muslims, but we all know that would be a racist thing to say. On the other hand suggesting that violence increases with the number of Jews living on land that Muslims want, that’s just diplomacy. A common sense fact that everyone who is anyone in foreign policy knows to be true.

How will we know when the Muslims have gotten all the land that they want? When the violence stops. Everyone knows that agreements mean nothing. No matter how many pieces of paper are signed, the bombs and rockets still keep bursting; real ones that kill people, not fake ones that upset Vice Presidents. The only way to reach an agreement is by groping blindly in the dark, handing over parcel after parcel of land, until the explosions stop or the Muslims fulfill their original goal of pushing the Jews into the sea.

That’s the wonderful thing about diplomacy if you’re a diplomat and the terrible thing about it if you are anyone else without a secure way out of the country when diplomacy fails. And diplomacy in the region always fails. Camp David and every single agreement Israel has signed with Muslim countries aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. The only peace treaty that counts is the one made by tanks and rifles. It’s the one made by Israeli planes in Egyptian skies and Israeli soldiers walking the border. It’s the one made by Jewish farmers and ranchers, tending their sheep and their fields, with rifles strung over their backs. The only peace that’s worth anything is the peace of the soldiers and settlers.

In 1966, Jerusalem was a city sundered in two, divided by barbed wire and the bullets of Muslim snipers. Diplomacy did not reunite it. Israel pursued diplomacy nearly to its bitter end until it understood that it had no choice at all but to fight. Israel did not swoop into the fight, its leaders did their best to avoid the conflict, asking the international community to intervene and stop Egypt from going to war. Read back the headlines for the last five years on Israel and Iran, and you will get a sense of the courage and determination of the Israeli leaders of the day.

When Israel went to war, its leaders did not want to liberate Jerusalem, they wanted Jordan to stay out of the war. Even when Jordan entered the war, they did not want to liberate the city. Divine Providence and Muslim hostility forced them to liberate Jerusalem and forced them to keep it. Now some of them would like to give it back, another sacrifice to the bloody deity of diplomacy whose altar flows with blood and burnt sacrifices.

As we remember Yom Yerushalayim, Jerusalem Day, it is important to remember that the city is united and free because diplomacy failed. The greatest triumph of the modern state happened only because diplomacy proved hopeless and useless in deterring Muslim genocidal ambitions. Had Israel succumbed to international pressure and had Nasser been as subtle as Sadat, then the Six-Day War would have looked like the Yom Kippur War fought with 1948 borders– and Israel very likely would not exist today.

Jerusalem-Scopus

Even as Jews remember the great triumph of Jerusalem Day, the ethnic cleansers and their accomplices are busy searching for ways to drive Jews out of Jerusalem, out of towns, villages and cities. This isn’t about the Arab residents of Jerusalem, who have repeatedly asserted that they want to remain part of Israel. It’s not about peace, which did not come from any previous round of concessions, and will not come from this one either. It’s about solving the Jewish problem.

As long as Jews allow themselves to be defined as the problem, there will be plenty of those offering solutions. And the solutions invariably involve doing something about the Jews. It only stands to reason that if Jews are the problem, then moving them or getting rid of them is the solution. The bloody god of diplomacy always assumes that they are the problem. There is less friction in defining Jews as the problem, than in defining Muslims as the problem. The numbers alone mean that is so.

Jerusalem Day is a reminder of what the real problem is and what the real solution is. Muslim occupation of Israel is the problem. The Islamization of Jerusalem is the problem. Muslim violence in support of the Muslim occupation of Israel and of everywhere else is the problem. Israel is the solution. Only when we liberate ourselves from the lies, when we stop believing that we are the problem and recognize that we are the solution. Only then will we be free of the Joe Bidens and the Peter Beinarts, the Jimmy Carters and Barack Obamas, the Gilad Atzmons and Jeremy Ben Amis. Only then will the liberation that began in 1967 be complete.

Only then will we have liberated our Jerusalem. The Jerusalem of the soul. It is incumbent on all of us to liberate that little Jerusalem within. The holy city that lives in all of us. To clean the dross off its golden gates, wash the filth from its stones and expel the invaders gnawing away at our hearts until we look proudly upon a shining city. Then to help others liberate their own Jerusalems. Only then will we truly be free.

Categories: Antisemitism, Appeasement, Biden, Britain, Diversity, Foreign policy, Human rights, International Community, Islamic supremacy, Islamism, Israel, Jerusalem, Jews, Kerry, Middle East, Multiculturalism, Obama, Palestinian Authority, Palestinians, Peace process, Settlements, Terrorists, Two state solution, West Bank
Tags: Antisemitism, Appeasement, Biden, Britain, DIversity, Ethnic cleansing, Foreign Policy, human rights, International Community, Islamic supremacy, Islamism, Israel, Jerusalem, Jews, Middle East, Multiculturalism, Obama, Palestinian Authority, Palestinians, Peace Process, Settlements, Terrorists, Two state solution, West Bank

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Column One: Managing Obama’s war against Israel

March 27, 2015

Column One: Managing Obama’s war against Israel, Jerusalem Post, Caroline Glick, March 26, 2015

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

As Max Boot explained Wednesday in The Wall Street Journal, the administration’s animosity toward Israel is a function of Obama’s twin strategic aims, both evident since he entered office: realigning US policy in the Middle East toward Iran and away from its traditional allies Israel and the Sunni Arab states, and ending the US’s strategic alliance with Israel.

Obama has reached a point in his presidency where he is prepared to give full expression to his plan to end the US’s strategic alliance with Israel.

He thinks that doing so is both an end to itself and a means of succeeding in his bid to achieve a rapprochement with Iran.

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On Wednesday the Jerusalem Municipality announced it is shelving plans to build 1,500 apartments in the Har Homa neighborhood. Officials gave no explanation for its sudden move. But none was needed.

Obviously the construction of apartments for Jews in Jerusalem was blocked in the hopes of appeasing US President Barack Obama.

But is there any reason to believe he can be appeased? Today the White House is issuing condemnations of Israel faster than the UN.

To determine how to handle what is happening, we need to understand the nature of what is happening.

First we need to understand that the administration’s hostility has little to do with Israel’s actions.

As Max Boot explained Wednesday in The Wall Street Journal, the administration’s animosity toward Israel is a function of Obama’s twin strategic aims, both evident since he entered office: realigning US policy in the Middle East toward Iran and away from its traditional allies Israel and the Sunni Arab states, and ending the US’s strategic alliance with Israel.

Over the past six years we have seen how Obama has consistently, but gradually, taken steps to advance these two goals. Toward Iran, he has demonstrated an unflappable determination to accommodate the terrorism supporting, nuclear proliferating, human rights repressing and empire building mullahs.

Beginning last November, as the deadline for nuclear talks between the US and its partners and Tehran approached, Obama’s attempts to accommodate Tehran escalated steeply.

Obama has thrown caution to the winds in a last-ditch effort to convince Iranian dictator Ali Khamenei to sign a deal with him. Last month the administration published a top secret report on Israel’s nuclear installations. Last week, Obama’s director of national intelligence James Clapper published an annual terrorism threat assessment that failed to mention either Iran or Hezbollah as threats.

And this week, the administration accused Israel of spying on its talks with Iran in order to tell members of Congress the details of the nuclear deal that Obama and his advisers have been trying to hide from them.

In the regional context, the administration has had nothing to say in the face of Iran’s takeover of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden this week. With its Houthi-proxy now in charge of the strategic waterway, and with its own control over the Straits of Hormuz, Iran is poised to exercise naval control over the two choke points of access to Arab oil.

The administration is assisting Iranian Shi’ite proxies in their battle to defeat Islamic State forces in the Iraqi city of Tikrit. It has said nothing about the Shi’ite massacres of Sunnis that come under their control.

Parallel to its endless patience for Tehran, the Obama administration has been treating Israel with bristling and ever-escalating hostility. This hostility has been manifested among other things through strategic leaks of highly classified information, implementing an arms embargo on weapons exports to Israel in time of war, ending a 40-year agreement to provide Israel with fuel in times of emergency, blaming Israel for the absence of peace, expressing tolerance and understanding for Palestinian terrorism, providing indirect support for Europe’s economic war against Israel, and providing indirect support for the BDS movement by constantly accusing Israel of ill intentions and dishonesty.

Then there is the UN. Since he first entered office, Obama has been threatening to withhold support for Israel at the UN. To date, the administration has vetoed one anti-Israel resolution at the UN Security Council and convinced the Palestinians not to submit another one for a vote.

In the months that preceded these actions, the administration exploited Israel’s vulnerability to extort massive concessions to the Palestinians.

Obama forced Benjamin Netanyahu to announce his support for Palestinian statehood in September 2009. He used the UN threat to coerce Netanyahu to agree to negotiations based on the 1949 armistice lines, to deny Jews their property rights in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and to release scores of terrorist murderers from prison.

Following the nationalist camp’s victory in last week’s election, Obama brought to a head the crisis in relations he instigated. He has done so for two reasons.

First, next week is the deadline for signing a nuclear agreement with Iran. Obama views Netanyahu as the prospective deal’s most articulate and effective opponent.

As Obama sees it, Netanyahu threatens his nuclear diplomacy with Iran because he has a unique ability to communicate his concerns about the deal to US lawmakers and the American people, and mobilize them to join him in opposing Obama’s actions. The letters sent by 47 senators to the Iranian regime explaining the constitutional limitations on presidential power to conclude treaties without Senate approval, like the letter to Obama from 367 House members expressing grave and urgent concerns about the substance of the deal he seeks to conclude, are evidence of Netanyahu’s success.

The second reason Obama has gone to war against Israel is because he views the results of last week’s election as an opportunity to market his anti-Israel and pro-Iranian positions to the American public.

If Netanyahu can convince Americans to oppose Obama on Iran, Obama believes that by accusing Netanyahu of destroying chances for peace and calling him a racist, Obama will be able to win sufficient public support for his anti-Israel policies to intimidate pro-Israel Democratic lawmakers into accepting his pro-Iranian policies.

To this end, Obama has announced that the threat that he will abandon Israel at the UN has now become a certainty. There is no peace process, Obama says, because Netanyahu had the temerity to point out that there is no way for Israel to risk the transformation of Judea and Samaria into a new terror base. As a consequence, he has all but made it official that he is abandoning the peace process and joining the anti-Israel bandwagon at the UN.

Given Obama’s decision to abandon support for a negotiated peace between Israel and the Palestinians, modes of appeasement aimed at showing Israel’s good faith, such as Jewish building freezes, are no longer relevant. Scrapping plans to build apartments in Jewish neighborhoods like Har Homa will make no difference.

Obama has reached a point in his presidency where he is prepared to give full expression to his plan to end the US’s strategic alliance with Israel.

He thinks that doing so is both an end to itself and a means of succeeding in his bid to achieve a rapprochement with Iran.

Given this dismal reality, Israel needs to develop ways to minimize the damage Obama can cause.

Israel needs to oppose Obama’s policies while preserving its relations with its US supporters, including its Democratic supporters. Doing so will ensure that it is in a position to renew its alliance with the US immediately after Obama leaves office.

With regards to Iran, such a policy requires Israel to act with the US’s spurned Arab allies to check Iran’s expansionism and nuclear progress. It also requires Israel to galvanize strong opposition to Obama’s goal of replacing Israel with Iran as America’s chief ally in the Middle East and enabling it to develop nuclear weapons.

As for the Palestinians, Israel needs to view Obama’s abandonment of the peace process as an opportunity to improve our diplomatic position by resetting our relations with the Palestinians. Since 1993, Israel has been entrapped by the chimerical promise of a “two-state solution.”

By late 2000, the majority of Israelis had recognized that there is no way to achieve the two-state solution. There is no way to make peace with the PLO. But due to successive governments’ aversion to risking a crisis in relations with Washington, no one dared abandon the failed two-state strategy.

Now, with Obama himself declaring the peace process dead and replacing it with a policy of pure hostility toward Israel, Israel has nothing to gain from upholding a policy that blames it for the absence of peace.

No matter how loudly Netanyahu declares his allegiance to the establishment of a Palestinian state in Israel’s heartland, Obama will keep castigating him and Israel as the destroyer of peace.

The prevailing, 23-year-old view among our leadership posits that if we abandon the two-state model, we will lose American support, particularly liberal American support. But the truth is more complicated.

Inspired by the White House and the Israeli Left, pro-Israel Democrats now have difficulty believing Netanyahu’s statements of support for the establishment of a Palestinians state. But those who truly uphold liberal values of human rights can be convinced of the rightness of Israel’s conviction that peace is currently impossible and as a consequence, the two-state model must be put on the back burner.

We can maintain support among Republicans and Democrats alike if we present an alternative policy that makes sense in the absence of an option for the two-state model.

Such a policy is the Israeli sovereignty model. If the government adopts a policy of applying Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria in whole – as I recommend in my book The Israeli Solution: A One- State Plan for Peace in the Middle East, or in part, in Area C, as Economy Minister Naftali Bennett recommends, our leaders will be able to defend their actions before the American people, including pro-Israel Democrats.

Israel must base its policy of sovereignty on two principles. First, this is a liberal policy that will ensure the civil rights of Palestinians and Israelis alike, and improve the Palestinians’ standard of living.

Second, such a policy is not necessarily a longterm or permanent “solution,” but it is a stable equilibrium for now.

Just as Israel’s decision to apply its laws to united Jerusalem and the Golan Heights in the past didn’t prevent it from conducting negotiations regarding the possible transfer of control over the areas to the Palestinians and Syrians, respectively, so an administrative decision to apply Israeli law to all or parts of Judea and Samaria will not block the path for negotiations with the Palestinians when regional and internal Palestinian conditions render them practicable.

The sovereignty policy is both liberal and strategically viable. If the government adopts it, the move will rebuild Israel’s credibility and preserve Israel’s standing on both sides of the aisle in Washington.

Never before has Israel had to deal with such an openly hostile US administration. Indeed, until 2009, the very notion that a day would come when an American president would prefer an alliance with Khamenei’s Iran to its traditional alliances with Israel and the Sunni Arab states was never even considered. But here we are.

Our current situation is unpleasant. But it isn’t the end of the world. We aren’t helpless. If we act wisely, we can stem Iran’s nuclear and regional advance. If we act boldly, we can preserve our alliance with the US while adopting a policy toward the Palestinians that for the first time in decades will advance our interests and our liberal values on the world stage.

Categories: Arab nations, Diplomacy, Elections in Israel, Foreign policy, Human rights, Iran, Iran military, Iran scam, Iranian nukes, Iraq, Islamic slaughter, Islamism, Israel, Leftists, Middle East, Netanyahu, Obama, P5+1, Peace process, Settlements, Shiite, Sunni, Syria, Terrorism, Theocracy, Two state solution, U.S. Congress, Yemen
Tags: Arab nations, Elections in Israel, human rights, Iran, Iran Scam, Iranian nukes, Islamic slaughter, Islamism, Israel, Leftists, Middle East, Netanyahu, Peace Process, Settlements, Shiite, Sunni, Syria, Terrorism, Two state solution, U.S. Congress, Yemen

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