Pres. ObamaTrial balloon of Obama's Mideast plan rejected by Israel, criticized by experts
Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke out:
Israel will not accept a Middle East peace agreement that is forced on it by external forces.
The idea of a U.S.-imposed peace plan to solve the Israel-Palestinian conflict raised an immediate outcry from pro-Israel commentators.
Elliott Abrams, writing at the Weekly Standard, lays the problems out clearly:
The inability of Israelis and Palestinians to get to the negotiating table is, in this administration, an iatrogenic disease: Our diplomatic doctors have caused it. The astonishing incompetence of Obama and special envoy George Mitchell has now twice blown up talks-direct talks last year, and proximity talks more recently-by making Israeli construction plans a major world crisis, thereby forcing Palestinian leaders to back away from engagement with the Israelis. So the administration will, in the fall, just do it the simpler way. Why bother with Israelis and Palestinians, in whom the president apparently does not have "growing confidence," when you can just have your own brilliant team draw up the terms? As Ignatius's sources, "two top administration officials," tell him, "everyone knows the basic outlines of a peace deal."
This is false and dangerous. First, if indeed everyone has known the terms for nearly 20 years (since Oslo) yet agreement has never been reached, is it not obvious that neither Israelis nor Palestinians are willing and able to accept those terms? Does their embrace by an ambitious American president make them any more palatable to the people who will have to live with them? Second, the conclusion that all the terms are known is quite wrong. Is the fate of Jerusalem's Old City agreed? Do Palestinians accept that Israel will keep every major settlement bloc? Do Israelis and Palestinians agree on the terms needed to guarantee Israel's security once the IDF must leave the West Bank? (Examples: Is it agreed that Israel will control the air space and electromagnetic spectrum? Is it agreed that Israel can keep troops in the West Bank for some years? Do Palestinians accept that Israel can control the Jordan Valley and patrol the border with Jordan?) This is nonsense. One of Ignatius's sources says the Obama plan will "take on the absolute requirements of Israeli security." After 14 months of harassment by Obama and his team, will any Israeli risk his nation's safety on that assurance?
A tell-tale: One of the demands that Obama is said to have made of Prime Minister Netanyahu is withdrawal to the pre-intifada (September 2000) IDF lines in the West Bank. This is striking, for the demand apparently is not to promise a future withdrawal, or a staged withdrawal as and when conditions permit, but simply to pull back now. This means ignoring security conditions on the ground and the current capabilities of Palestinian forces to keep order and stop terrorism, or it means assuming that the Palestinian forces are adequate. If they are not, well, so what, there will be a few acts of terror, and then we'll see that maybe they pulled back too far too fast. Everyone makes mistakes. These are the kinds of calculations that persuade Israelis the administration is cavalier about their security, despite the occasional repetition of campaign pledges to the contrary.
READ MORE
MORE RESPONSES:
Jen Rubin at Commentary:
This is poppycock, of course. The Obami can't come up with an effective Iran approach. And now they want to add to their overwhelmed and underperforming foreign-policy apparatus by imposing a Middle East plan? It is apparent that the latter is an excuse and diversion from doing anything about the former. It is also very dangerous.
Barry Rubin:
First, high-ranking administration officials are not exactly deeply understanding of the issues at stake. Any plan presented by them will be full of holes and dangerous errors. Second, the notion that they can solve this issue and the whole Middle East will fall into place is absurd.
Dennis Glick and Daniel Mariaschin:
The harsh language, unfair demands, and collateral damage the administration has engaged in over these last few weeks sends the wrong message to the wrong people: That the ties that bind the U.S.-Israel friendship are fraying. In the rush to achieve a solution within 24 months, as some administration leaders have proposed, we must avoid inviting further instability in the region. The administration's impatience, in the form of its harsh criticism and unilateral demands, is misdirected. An incomplete and ill-conceived peace plan will whet the appetites of those whose interests are inimical to peace.
The Orthodox Union writes a letter of solidarity to Prime Minister Netanyahu
AND YET, OBAMA'S JEWISH APOLOGISTS AT J STREET EGG HIM ON:
If there is any lesson from the last 20 years of Middle East peacemaking (or the last year of the Israelis and Palestinians talking about possibly talking about talks, for that matter), it is that the parties themselves are incapable of resolving this decades-long conflict on their own. They will need a strong American presence at the table, suggesting bridging proposals to resolve impasses and providing the political support for the hard choices that will be necessary. And as the window for achieving a two-state solution grows ever smaller, there is no time to lose.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
ok with nuclear iran
Obama: A nuclear Iran inevitable
By HERB KEINON AND JPOST.COM STAFF
06/04/2010
US President said "current course would provide them with nuclear capabilities."
It is inevitable that Iran will produce nuclear weapons, as things stand, US President Barack Obama said on Monday, in an interview with The New York Times. Seeming to indicate his administration was now resigned to a future including a nuclear-armed Iran.
President Obama stated he was now convinced that “the current course they’re on would provide them with nuclear weapons capabilities,” though he gave no timeline.
He dodged when asked whether he shared Israel’s view that a “nuclear capable” Iran was as dangerous as one that actually possessed weapons.
By HERB KEINON AND JPOST.COM STAFF
06/04/2010
US President said "current course would provide them with nuclear capabilities."
It is inevitable that Iran will produce nuclear weapons, as things stand, US President Barack Obama said on Monday, in an interview with The New York Times. Seeming to indicate his administration was now resigned to a future including a nuclear-armed Iran.
President Obama stated he was now convinced that “the current course they’re on would provide them with nuclear weapons capabilities,” though he gave no timeline.
He dodged when asked whether he shared Israel’s view that a “nuclear capable” Iran was as dangerous as one that actually possessed weapons.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Obma and NYT team up by Barry Rubin
But again what has happened to make the question Netanyahu's ability or willingness to make a peace deal. Here are the total charges against him: The announcement of building a set of apartments, for which he apologized, and another regarding 20 additional apartments.
It's not as if he and his colleagues daily broadcast incitement to murder people on the other side through schools, sermons, and speeches. It's not as if they refused to negotiate at all month after month. It's not as if they released or did not incarcerate extremists who murdered civilians on the other side. (Actually they did release prisoners who murdered civilians but they were Palestinian prisoners who murdered Israelis.) It's not as if they don't even control half the territory for which they purport to bargain.
Those are all characteristics of the PA, things the Times does not even mention. And if the administration or the Times wanted to take offense at anti-peace actions they could mention that at the time of Biden's visit the PA dedicated a major square to a terrorist who murdered a score of Israeli civilians and Gail Rubin, a U.S. citizen and niece of then Senator Abraham Ribicoff. Not only did the Administration not protest this action but Clinton mistakenly attributed it to Hamas in her AIPAC speech.
Consequently, this editorial is not merely slanted; it is so profoundly dishonest, distorting both the Palestinian and the Obama Administration role, as to be suitable to that published in a state-controlled newspaper in a dictatorship.
Once--and perhaps again in the not-distant future--the U.S.-Israel link was called a "special relationship" because it was so close. Now it is still distinctive in a special way: Israel is the only country in the world--a list that includes none of those countries sponsoring anti-American terror or trying to destroy U.S. interests--that this administration, perhaps only temporarily, wants to intimidate and defeat.
But is this all about Israel or is it about the desperation to defend an administration which has failed so badly and acted so erratically in foreign policy?
By so misrepresenting the facts and situation, some media can go on defending Obama's policies and actions. But that's no way to defend America and its interests, quite the contrary.
*Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal.
It's not as if he and his colleagues daily broadcast incitement to murder people on the other side through schools, sermons, and speeches. It's not as if they refused to negotiate at all month after month. It's not as if they released or did not incarcerate extremists who murdered civilians on the other side. (Actually they did release prisoners who murdered civilians but they were Palestinian prisoners who murdered Israelis.) It's not as if they don't even control half the territory for which they purport to bargain.
Those are all characteristics of the PA, things the Times does not even mention. And if the administration or the Times wanted to take offense at anti-peace actions they could mention that at the time of Biden's visit the PA dedicated a major square to a terrorist who murdered a score of Israeli civilians and Gail Rubin, a U.S. citizen and niece of then Senator Abraham Ribicoff. Not only did the Administration not protest this action but Clinton mistakenly attributed it to Hamas in her AIPAC speech.
Consequently, this editorial is not merely slanted; it is so profoundly dishonest, distorting both the Palestinian and the Obama Administration role, as to be suitable to that published in a state-controlled newspaper in a dictatorship.
Once--and perhaps again in the not-distant future--the U.S.-Israel link was called a "special relationship" because it was so close. Now it is still distinctive in a special way: Israel is the only country in the world--a list that includes none of those countries sponsoring anti-American terror or trying to destroy U.S. interests--that this administration, perhaps only temporarily, wants to intimidate and defeat.
But is this all about Israel or is it about the desperation to defend an administration which has failed so badly and acted so erratically in foreign policy?
By so misrepresenting the facts and situation, some media can go on defending Obama's policies and actions. But that's no way to defend America and its interests, quite the contrary.
*Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Obama is causing a third intifafda
Where did the “education” take place?
http://danielgordis.org/2010/03/26/obama-intifada/
Will Barack Obama Ignite the Third Intifada?
Posted by Daniel Gordis in Featured Articles on March 26, 2010 | 37 responses
As I was departing the United States following a brief visit last week, the news being broadcast in the airport was preoccupied with Prime Minister Binyamin’s Netanyahu’s recent and apparently inadvertent snub of Vice President Joe Biden. Some 11 hours later, when I’d landed in Tel Aviv and was listening to the radio in the taxi on the way to Jerusalem, the news was of rioting in Jerusalem, the numbers of police officers injured, and the number of protesters detained during Hamas’s “Day of Rage.” On the American news, Hillary Clinton was calling for more than an apology, demanding “concrete steps” towards peace on Israel’s part. And in Israel, the fluent-Hebrew-speaking Arab protester interviewed on the radio was calling for armed resistance to Israel’s “assault on Jerusalem,” insisting that the time for a third intifada had now arrived.
The radical difference between the broadcasts is an apt metaphor for the wholly different ways in which the current crisis in Israeli-American relations is perceived on the two sides of the ocean. The Americans are quite right to be incensed at the way Biden was treated. Whether Netanyahu was sandbagged by Interior Minister Eli Yishai, or whether this was simply another example of Israeli bureaucratic incompetence is not yet entirely clear. But it should never have happened.
Having said that, however, it is also clear that in the context of a generally positive relationship, Israel’s insult to Biden would have been unfortunate, but it would have blown over almost immediately. The snub has had such massive repercussions because the relationship between the American and Israeli administrations is frayed, and wholly devoid of trust. The important question is why that is the case.
WHILE ISRAEL has obviously made some serious gaffes since Obama entered office, the real cause for this nadir in Washington-Jerusalem relations is the fact that Barack Obama seems to have little comprehension of the region on which he seeks to impose peace. The president’s ignorance of the world in which he is operating is apparent on at least three levels. He seems unaware of how profoundly troubled Israelis are by his indiscriminate use of the word “settlement,” he appears to have little comprehension of the history of Palestinian recalcitrance, and he has apparently learned little from decades of American involvement in the Middle East peace process.
First, there is the issue of the word “settlements.” To the Israeli ear, anyone who would use the same noun for both a small city with tens of thousands of inhabitants and for a tiny hilltop outpost consisting of a trailer and a portable generator simply does not understand the terrain. Gilo, to Israelis, is not a settlement. It is a huge neighborhood of Jerusalem, a part of the capital city. When Obama called Gilo a settlement after Israel announced new housing units there in November, Israelis drew the conclusion that the president of the United States is wholly out of his element.
Similarly, Obama’s demands for an absolute freeze on settlement construction strike Israelis as either foolish or unfair. Why, they ask, did all construction have to cease? Israelis who had planned to add a bedroom to their home for recently married children, who had already poured a foundation and ripped out the back wall of their home, were now told that nothing could proceed. When the president, who does not seem to know a city from an outpost, insists that houses remain open to the elements during the cold Israeli winter because of his desire to appease the very Palestinians who have never been serious about peace efforts, he does not win friends.
Nor, Israelis have noted, did Obama demand any similarly concrete concessions from the Palestinians or their puppet-president. That, too, has served Obama poorly in this country. And despite all this, Israelis believe the world has forgotten, Netanyahu acceded to Obama’s demands for a freeze, at no small political cost.
Thus, when the Americans decided to make the undeniably ill-timed announcement of the Ramat Shlomo housing plans into a cause célèbre, Israelis were hard-pressed to feel contrite about anything beyond the personal hurt caused to Biden. Ramat Shlomo is an enormous neighborhood that is already home to some 20,000 people, and which is situated between the even larger neighborhoods of Ramot and Sanhedria. Ramat Shlomo is Jerusalem, period. Building there may be wise or unwise for a whole array of reasons, but for the Americans to seize on this as a “settlement construction” issue only further confirmed Israeli suspicions that Obama couldn’t locate the neighborhood on a map.
THE SECOND major element that Obama appears not to understand is that the Palestinians’ current refusal to conduct face-to-face negotiations has a long history; their recalcitrance has nothing at all to do with the settlements. The settlements, like the refugee problem (on which Israel will never compromise), and the division of Jerusalem (where some accommodation will almost certainly be forced on Israel), will be addressed when the Israelis and Palestinians sit down for face-to-face negotiations.
But Abbas has agreed only to mediated talks because he is unwilling to countenance the concessions that direct talks might ultimately require of him. The Palestinians have balked at every attempt to sign a substantive agreement with Israel. There remains virtually no Israeli political Left, not because of the Israeli Right, but because Yasser Arafat unleashed the Second Intifada when Ehud Barak called his bluff and offered him just about everything he could have expected, proving beyond any doubt that the Palestinian leadership had no interest in “land for peace.”
For the Obama administration to suggest that the Palestinians cannot negotiate now because of settlement construction strikes Israelis as either hopelessly naïve, or worse, fundamentally hostile to the Jewish state.
And finally, despite his appreciable intellectual capacities, Barack Obama seems to have no appreciation of what America can and cannot do in the Middle East. He believes so deeply in the power of his own rhetoric that he imagines that he can evoke the passions of Grant Park on Election Day, or the Washington Mall on Inauguration Day, in a Muslim world that has disdain for the very democratic values that brought him to power. This is hubris at its most dangerous. Obama’s Cairo speech was rhetorically brilliant, but the president has been snubbed. Iran has yet to grasp Obama’s outstretched hand, and instead, proceeds apace in its quest for a nuclear weapon. The Palestinians have not budged. Yet Obama continues to believe that his eloquence will win the day.
Does Obama really not understand that this conflict has a long and consistent history? The Arabs rejected the UN Partition Plan in 1947, and refused a treaty at the end of Israel’s War of Independence in 1949. After their defeat in June 1967, they gathered in Khartoum and declared “no peace, no recognition and no negotiations.” Arafat said “no” at Camp David in 2000, and Abbas continues in that tradition. Why the American administration cannot or will not acknowledge that is one of the great wonders of this most recent train wreck.
WITH HIS laser focus on the settlements, Obama is ignoring the fact that Abbas wouldn’t negotiate even if not a single settlement existed. In so doing, Obama has not only not moved the process forward, but he has afforded Abbas a refuge from responsibility, and he has given those who would like to ignite a third intifada an empty but symbolically powerful excuse for doing just that. A third intifada remains unlikely at present (though, it’s worth noting, the IAF attacked Gaza targets this week and the IDF killed a Palestinian teenager during a scuffle – precisely the sort of innocuous events that could one day be seen as the first events of the third intifada), but should it happen, it will be, first and foremost, the product of Washington’s naïveté.
Obama would be well-served to recognize that the history of this region is clear. Peace emerges when the two primary sides do the work themselves, with the United States entering late in the process to iron out stubborn details. Sadat went to Jerusalem without American urging, and though Jimmy Carter ultimately brought the two sides together to conclude the deal, the bulk of the work had been done by Sadat and Begin long before Carter entered the picture. The Nobel Committee, which once exercised much more subtle judgment, essentially acknowledged that fact by having Sadat and Begin split the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize, without including Carter.
The same was true with Rabin and Hussein, who worked on the Israeli-Jordanian peace deal. Clinton orchestrated the ceremony; but the principals had done most of the work without him.
And history suggests that only Israeli right-wingers can forge a deal. Israelis do not trust the Left to be security-conscious, and a left-wing government always has a right-wing flank blocking it. Obama may bristle at Netanyahu’s hawkish rhetoric, but the more Obama weakens this prime minister, the less likely a deal will become. The US cannot wish democracy on Iraq, or peace on the Middle East. There will be a settlement of this conflict when the Palestinians are ready, not when Barack Obama decides to impose one.
SO, WHERE do we go from here? To begin to pull out of the present nose-dive, each of the parties will need to shift gears.
The Palestinians have to decide if they will take risks for peace, and if they can elect a president who is more than a figurehead. Last week’s “Day of Rage,” it should be noted, was called by Hamas – yet it unfolded not in Hamas’ Gaza, but in Fatah’s Jerusalem. Fatah needs a genuine leader, perhaps someone like Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, who is now saying that the Palestinians should first build the trappings of statehood, and only then declare independence down the road. It is no surprise that Shimon Peres recently compared Fayyad to David Ben-Gurion, the creator of the modern State of Israel.
The Israelis need to learn to play in the major leagues. When the American vice president visits, you need to have your act together. If Israeli leaders continue to act as if they run a banana republic, they will deservedly be so treated. But much more significantly, Netanyahu needs to apprise Israelis of his vision. Does he favor a two-state solution? What are his plans for Jerusalem? For the settlements? Let him tell us, and then we can decide. If we approve, he’ll stay in office. And if we don’t, he’ll be gone. But we deserve to know what our prime minister has in mind.
In some respects, though, Barack Obama has the hardest job, at least in the short term. When he took office, there was no love lost between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and Gaza was still smoldering from the recently concluded Operation Cast Lead. But there was reasonable quiet on the West Bank and in Jerusalem, and a renewed Intifada was nowhere on our radar screen. Obama’s blunderings have now restored the region’s previous tinderbox qualities.
The president needs to back down from his relentless and fruitless focus on settlements, and concentrate more on what he doesn’t yet know than on the power of his rhetoric. Should another intifada erupt, it will have had its seeds in a Washington more interested in the magic of its words than in the painful lessons of a century of history.
http://danielgordis.org/2010/03/26/obama-intifada/
Will Barack Obama Ignite the Third Intifada?
Posted by Daniel Gordis in Featured Articles on March 26, 2010 | 37 responses
As I was departing the United States following a brief visit last week, the news being broadcast in the airport was preoccupied with Prime Minister Binyamin’s Netanyahu’s recent and apparently inadvertent snub of Vice President Joe Biden. Some 11 hours later, when I’d landed in Tel Aviv and was listening to the radio in the taxi on the way to Jerusalem, the news was of rioting in Jerusalem, the numbers of police officers injured, and the number of protesters detained during Hamas’s “Day of Rage.” On the American news, Hillary Clinton was calling for more than an apology, demanding “concrete steps” towards peace on Israel’s part. And in Israel, the fluent-Hebrew-speaking Arab protester interviewed on the radio was calling for armed resistance to Israel’s “assault on Jerusalem,” insisting that the time for a third intifada had now arrived.
The radical difference between the broadcasts is an apt metaphor for the wholly different ways in which the current crisis in Israeli-American relations is perceived on the two sides of the ocean. The Americans are quite right to be incensed at the way Biden was treated. Whether Netanyahu was sandbagged by Interior Minister Eli Yishai, or whether this was simply another example of Israeli bureaucratic incompetence is not yet entirely clear. But it should never have happened.
Having said that, however, it is also clear that in the context of a generally positive relationship, Israel’s insult to Biden would have been unfortunate, but it would have blown over almost immediately. The snub has had such massive repercussions because the relationship between the American and Israeli administrations is frayed, and wholly devoid of trust. The important question is why that is the case.
WHILE ISRAEL has obviously made some serious gaffes since Obama entered office, the real cause for this nadir in Washington-Jerusalem relations is the fact that Barack Obama seems to have little comprehension of the region on which he seeks to impose peace. The president’s ignorance of the world in which he is operating is apparent on at least three levels. He seems unaware of how profoundly troubled Israelis are by his indiscriminate use of the word “settlement,” he appears to have little comprehension of the history of Palestinian recalcitrance, and he has apparently learned little from decades of American involvement in the Middle East peace process.
First, there is the issue of the word “settlements.” To the Israeli ear, anyone who would use the same noun for both a small city with tens of thousands of inhabitants and for a tiny hilltop outpost consisting of a trailer and a portable generator simply does not understand the terrain. Gilo, to Israelis, is not a settlement. It is a huge neighborhood of Jerusalem, a part of the capital city. When Obama called Gilo a settlement after Israel announced new housing units there in November, Israelis drew the conclusion that the president of the United States is wholly out of his element.
Similarly, Obama’s demands for an absolute freeze on settlement construction strike Israelis as either foolish or unfair. Why, they ask, did all construction have to cease? Israelis who had planned to add a bedroom to their home for recently married children, who had already poured a foundation and ripped out the back wall of their home, were now told that nothing could proceed. When the president, who does not seem to know a city from an outpost, insists that houses remain open to the elements during the cold Israeli winter because of his desire to appease the very Palestinians who have never been serious about peace efforts, he does not win friends.
Nor, Israelis have noted, did Obama demand any similarly concrete concessions from the Palestinians or their puppet-president. That, too, has served Obama poorly in this country. And despite all this, Israelis believe the world has forgotten, Netanyahu acceded to Obama’s demands for a freeze, at no small political cost.
Thus, when the Americans decided to make the undeniably ill-timed announcement of the Ramat Shlomo housing plans into a cause célèbre, Israelis were hard-pressed to feel contrite about anything beyond the personal hurt caused to Biden. Ramat Shlomo is an enormous neighborhood that is already home to some 20,000 people, and which is situated between the even larger neighborhoods of Ramot and Sanhedria. Ramat Shlomo is Jerusalem, period. Building there may be wise or unwise for a whole array of reasons, but for the Americans to seize on this as a “settlement construction” issue only further confirmed Israeli suspicions that Obama couldn’t locate the neighborhood on a map.
THE SECOND major element that Obama appears not to understand is that the Palestinians’ current refusal to conduct face-to-face negotiations has a long history; their recalcitrance has nothing at all to do with the settlements. The settlements, like the refugee problem (on which Israel will never compromise), and the division of Jerusalem (where some accommodation will almost certainly be forced on Israel), will be addressed when the Israelis and Palestinians sit down for face-to-face negotiations.
But Abbas has agreed only to mediated talks because he is unwilling to countenance the concessions that direct talks might ultimately require of him. The Palestinians have balked at every attempt to sign a substantive agreement with Israel. There remains virtually no Israeli political Left, not because of the Israeli Right, but because Yasser Arafat unleashed the Second Intifada when Ehud Barak called his bluff and offered him just about everything he could have expected, proving beyond any doubt that the Palestinian leadership had no interest in “land for peace.”
For the Obama administration to suggest that the Palestinians cannot negotiate now because of settlement construction strikes Israelis as either hopelessly naïve, or worse, fundamentally hostile to the Jewish state.
And finally, despite his appreciable intellectual capacities, Barack Obama seems to have no appreciation of what America can and cannot do in the Middle East. He believes so deeply in the power of his own rhetoric that he imagines that he can evoke the passions of Grant Park on Election Day, or the Washington Mall on Inauguration Day, in a Muslim world that has disdain for the very democratic values that brought him to power. This is hubris at its most dangerous. Obama’s Cairo speech was rhetorically brilliant, but the president has been snubbed. Iran has yet to grasp Obama’s outstretched hand, and instead, proceeds apace in its quest for a nuclear weapon. The Palestinians have not budged. Yet Obama continues to believe that his eloquence will win the day.
Does Obama really not understand that this conflict has a long and consistent history? The Arabs rejected the UN Partition Plan in 1947, and refused a treaty at the end of Israel’s War of Independence in 1949. After their defeat in June 1967, they gathered in Khartoum and declared “no peace, no recognition and no negotiations.” Arafat said “no” at Camp David in 2000, and Abbas continues in that tradition. Why the American administration cannot or will not acknowledge that is one of the great wonders of this most recent train wreck.
WITH HIS laser focus on the settlements, Obama is ignoring the fact that Abbas wouldn’t negotiate even if not a single settlement existed. In so doing, Obama has not only not moved the process forward, but he has afforded Abbas a refuge from responsibility, and he has given those who would like to ignite a third intifada an empty but symbolically powerful excuse for doing just that. A third intifada remains unlikely at present (though, it’s worth noting, the IAF attacked Gaza targets this week and the IDF killed a Palestinian teenager during a scuffle – precisely the sort of innocuous events that could one day be seen as the first events of the third intifada), but should it happen, it will be, first and foremost, the product of Washington’s naïveté.
Obama would be well-served to recognize that the history of this region is clear. Peace emerges when the two primary sides do the work themselves, with the United States entering late in the process to iron out stubborn details. Sadat went to Jerusalem without American urging, and though Jimmy Carter ultimately brought the two sides together to conclude the deal, the bulk of the work had been done by Sadat and Begin long before Carter entered the picture. The Nobel Committee, which once exercised much more subtle judgment, essentially acknowledged that fact by having Sadat and Begin split the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize, without including Carter.
The same was true with Rabin and Hussein, who worked on the Israeli-Jordanian peace deal. Clinton orchestrated the ceremony; but the principals had done most of the work without him.
And history suggests that only Israeli right-wingers can forge a deal. Israelis do not trust the Left to be security-conscious, and a left-wing government always has a right-wing flank blocking it. Obama may bristle at Netanyahu’s hawkish rhetoric, but the more Obama weakens this prime minister, the less likely a deal will become. The US cannot wish democracy on Iraq, or peace on the Middle East. There will be a settlement of this conflict when the Palestinians are ready, not when Barack Obama decides to impose one.
SO, WHERE do we go from here? To begin to pull out of the present nose-dive, each of the parties will need to shift gears.
The Palestinians have to decide if they will take risks for peace, and if they can elect a president who is more than a figurehead. Last week’s “Day of Rage,” it should be noted, was called by Hamas – yet it unfolded not in Hamas’ Gaza, but in Fatah’s Jerusalem. Fatah needs a genuine leader, perhaps someone like Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, who is now saying that the Palestinians should first build the trappings of statehood, and only then declare independence down the road. It is no surprise that Shimon Peres recently compared Fayyad to David Ben-Gurion, the creator of the modern State of Israel.
The Israelis need to learn to play in the major leagues. When the American vice president visits, you need to have your act together. If Israeli leaders continue to act as if they run a banana republic, they will deservedly be so treated. But much more significantly, Netanyahu needs to apprise Israelis of his vision. Does he favor a two-state solution? What are his plans for Jerusalem? For the settlements? Let him tell us, and then we can decide. If we approve, he’ll stay in office. And if we don’t, he’ll be gone. But we deserve to know what our prime minister has in mind.
In some respects, though, Barack Obama has the hardest job, at least in the short term. When he took office, there was no love lost between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and Gaza was still smoldering from the recently concluded Operation Cast Lead. But there was reasonable quiet on the West Bank and in Jerusalem, and a renewed Intifada was nowhere on our radar screen. Obama’s blunderings have now restored the region’s previous tinderbox qualities.
The president needs to back down from his relentless and fruitless focus on settlements, and concentrate more on what he doesn’t yet know than on the power of his rhetoric. Should another intifada erupt, it will have had its seeds in a Washington more interested in the magic of its words than in the painful lessons of a century of history.
Obama declared diplomatic war on Israel
Has the Obama Administration, Against U.S. Interests, Declared Diplomatic War on Israel?
By Barry Rubin*
March 29, 2010
http://www.gloria-center.org/gloria/2010/03/has-the-obama-administration
Has the Obama Administration, against U.S. interests, declared diplomatic war on Israel?
Up to now my view has been that the U.S. government didn't want a crisis but merely sought to get indirect negotiations going between Israel and Palestinians in order to look good.
Even assuming this limited goal, the technique was to keep getting concessions from Israel without asking the PA to do or give anything has been foolish, but at least it was a generally rational strategy.
But now it has become reasonable to ask whether the Obama White House is running amuck on Israel, whether it is pushing friction so far out of proportion that it is starting to seem a vendetta based on hostility and ideology. And if that's true, there is little Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or any Israeli leader can do to fix the problem.
A partial explanation of such behavior can be called, to borrow a phrase from the health law debate, a "single-payer option" as its Middle East strategy. That is, the administration seems to envision Israel paying for everything: supposedly to get the Palestinian Authority (PA) to talks, do away with any Islamist desire to carry out terrorism or revolution, keep Iraq quiet, make Afghanistan stable, and solve just about any other global problem.
What makes this U.S. tactic even more absurd is doing so at the very moment when it is coddling Syria and losing the battle for anything but the most minimal sanctions on Iran.
During his visit to Washington, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tried to defuse the tension. His partners in government, we should never forget, are Defense Minister Ehud Barak, leader of the Labour Party, and President Shimon Peres, who has done more to promote Middle East peace than any other living Israeli leader.
But according to reliable sources, Obama went out of his way to be personally hostile, treating Netanyahu like some colonial minion who could be ordered around.
It is not entirely clear what demands the White House has made on Israel. Those most often mentioned are the release of more Palestinian prisoners, the permanent end of construction in the West Bank, and the permanent end to construction in parts of Jerusalem over the pre-1967 border.
Palestinian prisoners: It is ironic, given U.S. statements that Israel must "prove" its commitment to peace, that there have been so many prisoner releases in the past. Thus, Washington is not giving Israel credit for these. Moreover, many of those arrested have committed terrorism against Israeli civilians in the past and may well do so in future. Finally, releasing prisoners will not bring any gratitude from the PA or increased willingness to negotiate. If such a release is forced, the PA will merely assume that it doesn't matter if Palestinians attrack or kill Israelis because Washington will secure the release of those captured in future without the PA having to do anything.
West Bank and Jerusalem Construction: Only five months ago, the U.S. government agreed to a temporary halt to construction and Israel's government agreed. If this did not prove Israel's commitment to peace--and the White House broke the deal--why should Israel assume that it will get any credit for this step either? What is its incentive for such a big concession? Such construction should give the PA an incentive to make a deal faster. But, again, if this goal is achieved by U.S. pressure, why shouldn't the PA presume that all settlements will be removed in future by a similar mechanism without its having to make full peace and any concessions?
I won't take space here to restate all the arguments regarding Israel's claims to areas of Jerusalem under Jordanian rule before 1967. Note that President Clinton, in the Camp David and Clinton plan proposals in 2000, supported Israeli rule over much--though definitely not all--of east Jerusalem.
Why should the administration believe that it can press Israel to make big concessions, a: with no PA concessions; b. with its U.S. ally showing itself so unreliable that it is unlikely to credit Israel with concessions it does make or to keep agreements based on Israeli concessions; and c. at a time when the U.S. government is not workin very hard to stop Iran's nuclear weapons campaign?
The one answer the administration gives is so factually inaccurate as to call into question--if I may coin a phrase--its analytical sanity.
Judging from the evidence, such as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's AIPAC speech, the administration thinks it can force Israel's government to give in because it knows better what Israelis want than do Netanyahu, Barak, and Peres.
Actually, a poll by the highly respected Smith Research company for the Jerusalem Post, found that only 9 percent of Israeli Jews considered the administration pro-Israel, while 48 percent said it was more pro-Palestinian. To understand these figures, you have to know that most Israelis are very reluctant to say anything critical of the United States, out of genuine respect, concern not to damage relations, and speaking on the basis of their hopes.
So does the administration want to resolve this issue or to break Israel's willpower? Is it going to keep piling on demands in hope of giving the PA so much that it will agree to talk about getting itself even more unilateral Israeli concessions? Is the goal to overthrow Netanyahu-which isn't going to happen-or turn him into a servant who will follow orders in future-which also isn't going to happen?
Doesn't this U.S. government understand that if it proves itself hostile that will destroy any incentive Israel has to enter negotiations with Obama as the mediator? If he's this much acting solely based on PA interests now, does any Israeli government want to make him the arbitor of the country's future, deciding on its borders, security guarantees, and other existential issues? Of course not.
By the same token, can't he comprehend that he is giving the PA every incentive to keep raising the price, especially since it doesn't want to talk any way?
Is there no real sense--probably not--that if this administration undermines Israel's trust in Washington it will push the whole country further to the right. If the U.S. government politely asks to stop building in east Jerusalem in exchange for some tangible benefit and for a limited time, lots of Israelis would be willing to agree. But if this happens in a framework of enmity and threat, with the "reward" being no benefit and even more concessions to follow, even doves will grow sharp beaks.
It seems as if the Obama Administration has chosen just one country in the world to try to pressure and intimidate. And it has picked the worst possible target in this respect, both because of how Israelis think and also given very strong domestic U.S. support for Israel (especially strong in Congress).
Won't it see that if it bashes Israel while ignoring the PA's commemoration of a major square in honor of a terrorist who murdered a score of Israeli civilians, with Clinton even claiming this was done by Hamas and not the PA? And as the administration betrays Israel's main priority-failing to put serious pressure on Iran to stop building nuclear weapons-why should Israel want to do big favors and take big risks for this president?
Finally, since this administration has already unilaterally abrogated two major U.S. promises-the previous president's recognition that settlement blocs could be absorbed by Israel as part of a peace agreement, and the Obama administration's own pledge to let Israel build in east Jerusalem if it stopped on the West Bank-why should it put its faith in some new set of promises?
So the Obama Administration will have to decide, and do so in the coming days.
Does it want to try to get some limited concessions from Israel to use as capital in trying to get talks started, using these to brag--futilely, of course--to Arabs and Muslims how they should be nicer to the administration in Iraq and Afghanistan?
Or does it want to live up to the negative stereotypes held by its worst enemies while simultaneously committing political suicide and destroying U.S. credibility in the Middle East. We will know the answer pretty soon.
*Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), with Walter Laqueur (Viking-Penguin); the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan); A Chronological History of Terrorism, with Judy Colp Rubin, (Sharpe); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books, go to http://www.gloria-center.org.
By Barry Rubin*
March 29, 2010
http://www.gloria-center.org/gloria/2010/03/has-the-obama-administration
Has the Obama Administration, against U.S. interests, declared diplomatic war on Israel?
Up to now my view has been that the U.S. government didn't want a crisis but merely sought to get indirect negotiations going between Israel and Palestinians in order to look good.
Even assuming this limited goal, the technique was to keep getting concessions from Israel without asking the PA to do or give anything has been foolish, but at least it was a generally rational strategy.
But now it has become reasonable to ask whether the Obama White House is running amuck on Israel, whether it is pushing friction so far out of proportion that it is starting to seem a vendetta based on hostility and ideology. And if that's true, there is little Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or any Israeli leader can do to fix the problem.
A partial explanation of such behavior can be called, to borrow a phrase from the health law debate, a "single-payer option" as its Middle East strategy. That is, the administration seems to envision Israel paying for everything: supposedly to get the Palestinian Authority (PA) to talks, do away with any Islamist desire to carry out terrorism or revolution, keep Iraq quiet, make Afghanistan stable, and solve just about any other global problem.
What makes this U.S. tactic even more absurd is doing so at the very moment when it is coddling Syria and losing the battle for anything but the most minimal sanctions on Iran.
During his visit to Washington, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tried to defuse the tension. His partners in government, we should never forget, are Defense Minister Ehud Barak, leader of the Labour Party, and President Shimon Peres, who has done more to promote Middle East peace than any other living Israeli leader.
But according to reliable sources, Obama went out of his way to be personally hostile, treating Netanyahu like some colonial minion who could be ordered around.
It is not entirely clear what demands the White House has made on Israel. Those most often mentioned are the release of more Palestinian prisoners, the permanent end of construction in the West Bank, and the permanent end to construction in parts of Jerusalem over the pre-1967 border.
Palestinian prisoners: It is ironic, given U.S. statements that Israel must "prove" its commitment to peace, that there have been so many prisoner releases in the past. Thus, Washington is not giving Israel credit for these. Moreover, many of those arrested have committed terrorism against Israeli civilians in the past and may well do so in future. Finally, releasing prisoners will not bring any gratitude from the PA or increased willingness to negotiate. If such a release is forced, the PA will merely assume that it doesn't matter if Palestinians attrack or kill Israelis because Washington will secure the release of those captured in future without the PA having to do anything.
West Bank and Jerusalem Construction: Only five months ago, the U.S. government agreed to a temporary halt to construction and Israel's government agreed. If this did not prove Israel's commitment to peace--and the White House broke the deal--why should Israel assume that it will get any credit for this step either? What is its incentive for such a big concession? Such construction should give the PA an incentive to make a deal faster. But, again, if this goal is achieved by U.S. pressure, why shouldn't the PA presume that all settlements will be removed in future by a similar mechanism without its having to make full peace and any concessions?
I won't take space here to restate all the arguments regarding Israel's claims to areas of Jerusalem under Jordanian rule before 1967. Note that President Clinton, in the Camp David and Clinton plan proposals in 2000, supported Israeli rule over much--though definitely not all--of east Jerusalem.
Why should the administration believe that it can press Israel to make big concessions, a: with no PA concessions; b. with its U.S. ally showing itself so unreliable that it is unlikely to credit Israel with concessions it does make or to keep agreements based on Israeli concessions; and c. at a time when the U.S. government is not workin very hard to stop Iran's nuclear weapons campaign?
The one answer the administration gives is so factually inaccurate as to call into question--if I may coin a phrase--its analytical sanity.
Judging from the evidence, such as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's AIPAC speech, the administration thinks it can force Israel's government to give in because it knows better what Israelis want than do Netanyahu, Barak, and Peres.
Actually, a poll by the highly respected Smith Research company for the Jerusalem Post, found that only 9 percent of Israeli Jews considered the administration pro-Israel, while 48 percent said it was more pro-Palestinian. To understand these figures, you have to know that most Israelis are very reluctant to say anything critical of the United States, out of genuine respect, concern not to damage relations, and speaking on the basis of their hopes.
So does the administration want to resolve this issue or to break Israel's willpower? Is it going to keep piling on demands in hope of giving the PA so much that it will agree to talk about getting itself even more unilateral Israeli concessions? Is the goal to overthrow Netanyahu-which isn't going to happen-or turn him into a servant who will follow orders in future-which also isn't going to happen?
Doesn't this U.S. government understand that if it proves itself hostile that will destroy any incentive Israel has to enter negotiations with Obama as the mediator? If he's this much acting solely based on PA interests now, does any Israeli government want to make him the arbitor of the country's future, deciding on its borders, security guarantees, and other existential issues? Of course not.
By the same token, can't he comprehend that he is giving the PA every incentive to keep raising the price, especially since it doesn't want to talk any way?
Is there no real sense--probably not--that if this administration undermines Israel's trust in Washington it will push the whole country further to the right. If the U.S. government politely asks to stop building in east Jerusalem in exchange for some tangible benefit and for a limited time, lots of Israelis would be willing to agree. But if this happens in a framework of enmity and threat, with the "reward" being no benefit and even more concessions to follow, even doves will grow sharp beaks.
It seems as if the Obama Administration has chosen just one country in the world to try to pressure and intimidate. And it has picked the worst possible target in this respect, both because of how Israelis think and also given very strong domestic U.S. support for Israel (especially strong in Congress).
Won't it see that if it bashes Israel while ignoring the PA's commemoration of a major square in honor of a terrorist who murdered a score of Israeli civilians, with Clinton even claiming this was done by Hamas and not the PA? And as the administration betrays Israel's main priority-failing to put serious pressure on Iran to stop building nuclear weapons-why should Israel want to do big favors and take big risks for this president?
Finally, since this administration has already unilaterally abrogated two major U.S. promises-the previous president's recognition that settlement blocs could be absorbed by Israel as part of a peace agreement, and the Obama administration's own pledge to let Israel build in east Jerusalem if it stopped on the West Bank-why should it put its faith in some new set of promises?
So the Obama Administration will have to decide, and do so in the coming days.
Does it want to try to get some limited concessions from Israel to use as capital in trying to get talks started, using these to brag--futilely, of course--to Arabs and Muslims how they should be nicer to the administration in Iraq and Afghanistan?
Or does it want to live up to the negative stereotypes held by its worst enemies while simultaneously committing political suicide and destroying U.S. credibility in the Middle East. We will know the answer pretty soon.
*Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), with Walter Laqueur (Viking-Penguin); the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan); A Chronological History of Terrorism, with Judy Colp Rubin, (Sharpe); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books, go to http://www.gloria-center.org.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Obama's war against Israel
Barack Hussein Obama II?s War Against Israel
Posted By Pamela Geller On March 25, 2010 @ 4:43 pm In Featured Story, Hol=
ocaust, Israel, Obama | 225 Comments
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was in the U.S. and met with Bar=
ack Obama in the White House, but you won?t find any photos of Netanyahu=
with Obama on the wire services. There aren?t any. Obama wouldn?t allow=
it. Politico reported:
But the meetings were shrouded in unusual secrecy, in part because U.S. of=
ficials, who just ten days earlier called the surprise announcement of new=
housing in East Jerusalem an ?insult? and an ?affront,? made sure to rewa=
rd Netanyahu with a series of small snubs: There were no photographs relea=
sed from the meeting, and no briefing for the press.
He bows to the Saudi king, he shakes hands warmly with his ?amigo? Chavez,=
but he won?t be seen with the leader of the only democracy in the Middle=
East, and our only reliable ally there.
And this comes after he has put unprecedented strain on the U.S./Israel al=
liance by pressuring Israel for allowing Jews to build homes on Jewish lan=
d, and blaming Israel for the conflict with the Palestinians Muslims.
Obama is not a passive, weak or naive player in the Muslim/Jewish conflict=
. He was wet-nursed on Jew-hatred. He grew up in a Muslim country and stud=
ied the Koran. He knows what is prescribed for the Jews in Islam. He knows=
that the Koran says that the Jews are the Muslims? worst enemies (5:82)=
and that ?ignominy shall be their portion wheresoever they are found? (3:=
112).
He knows that Islamic tradition records Muhammad saying:
The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jew=
s and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves beh=
ind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, or the serv=
ant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him; but the tree Gh=
arqad would not say, for it is the tree of the Jews.
He must know all this, and yet has never renounced it. On the contrary, he=
embraces it, calling upon us to ?respect? Islam.
I am staggered by the speed with which Obama has sought to undermine the=
Jewish people. But knowing what I know of him after my three years of inv=
estigation for the book I wrote with Robert Spencer, The Post-American Pre=
sidency: The Obama Administration?s War on America [1], I expected nothing=
different. In the summer of 2008, I trekked to Florida to warn the alter=
cockers who were seduced by the idea of Obama, but to no avail: my voice=
and the voices of those like me are kept neatly tucked away in the blog=
box.
But now here we are. Jews may then have tried to avoid Obama?s anti-Semiti=
sm, but they cannot now avoid the consequences of avoiding Obama?s anti-Se=
mitism. He has unleashed an evil in this world the extent of which we are=
only now beginning to see. He has made the world safe for haters and kill=
ers. The post-World War II peace was no accident; it was a direct result=
of American hegemony. But now he is following the European lead and unrav=
eling it. Europe learned the wrong lessons from the war and the Holocaust.=
The lesson that Europe decided to take from Auschwitz was that everything=
was caused by nationalism. European leaders decided that therefore what=
they really needed was a European Union that would obviate their need for=
nationalism and prevent another Auschwitz.
They took all the wrong lessons from World War II and continue to apply th=
em, while ignoring the only lesson that?s really relevant from World War=
II, which is that you have to choose good and defend good, and fight with=
the intention of defeating evil. We have to be able and willing to make=
moral distinctions and stand up for the good and fight evil ? and that is=
something that both the Europeans and Obama refuse to do.
Nationalism isn?t evil. British nationalism hasn?t been evil. French natio=
nalism isn?t evil. Polish nationalism isn?t evil. American nationalism was=
n?t evil and has never been evil. Contrary to Obama?s actions, American ex=
ceptionalism [2] isn?t evil.
But what did the Jews learn from the Holocaust? What does ?never again? me=
an? Why does the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., cover up the crimes=
of the Muslim world and the Mufti of Jerusalem [3] in the execution of th=
e Holocaust? Why does the State of Israel not fight global anti-Semitism?=
Why is Islamic anti-Semitism not decried from the pulpits and the bimas=
of the shuls and Hebrew schools across the Jewish world? Why aren?t Rober=
t Spencer, Bat Ye?or, and Ibn Warraq mandatory reading in Jewish day schoo=
ls? How can we fight a mortal enemy that promises our annihilation when we=
dare not speak its name?
The Jewish people, both in Israel and the diaspora, seem to be suffering=
from the Stockholm Syndrome. There can be no logical reason why an Americ=
an Jew could intellectually excuse Obama?s twenty-year friendship and clos=
eness with the anti-Semitic Farrakhan acolyte Jeremiah Wright. There is no=
way an American Jew could explain away or rationalize Obama?s connections=
to Rashid Khalidi, Ali Abunimah, Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, and know=
about those connections without knowing what was coming. These Jews (and=
our history is plagued with them) love ideas, not people. They are so mar=
ried to their dogma, their ideology, that they cannot, will not, see what=
is right in front of them. They worship at the church of human secularism=
. That is their religion. They have no G-d. They are merely wearing a Jewi=
sh coat, but do not speak for Jews.
It is the curse of the Jewish people historically to be betrayed by our ow=
n. This is the deepest cut of all. The kinderlach, the mamas, the tatas,=
the bubbies and zadies, shvestas and bruders who were tortured and died=
unspeakable deaths are crying out to you. Are we so broken a people that=
they shall have died in vain, for nothing?
The six million looked like you, laughed like you, denied like you. The si=
x million loved their country ? some were war heroes for Germany in World=
War I. They too thought the fringe would stay relegated to the margins of=
society.
The six million are cold in their graves, weeping for what awaits you.
The only difference between American Jews of the 2000s and the European Je=
ws of the 1930s is Israel. This is what separates you from the dehumanizat=
ion, the oven, the end. A Jewish homeland is the thin blue and white line=
between civilized men and bloodthirsty savages.
And look what Barack Obama is doing to the Jewish homeland. This is the sa=
me ?Stephen Wise [4]? Jewish mentality that sold us out and delivered us=
into the hands of the Third Reich during WWII. It was Wise who prevailed,=
not Peter Bergson [5].
Will the American diaspora repeat the same ghastly mistake again, while Sh=
oah victims still walk the earth?
Article printed from Big Journalism: http://bigjournalism.com
Posted By Pamela Geller On March 25, 2010 @ 4:43 pm In Featured Story, Hol=
ocaust, Israel, Obama | 225 Comments
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was in the U.S. and met with Bar=
ack Obama in the White House, but you won?t find any photos of Netanyahu=
with Obama on the wire services. There aren?t any. Obama wouldn?t allow=
it. Politico reported:
But the meetings were shrouded in unusual secrecy, in part because U.S. of=
ficials, who just ten days earlier called the surprise announcement of new=
housing in East Jerusalem an ?insult? and an ?affront,? made sure to rewa=
rd Netanyahu with a series of small snubs: There were no photographs relea=
sed from the meeting, and no briefing for the press.
He bows to the Saudi king, he shakes hands warmly with his ?amigo? Chavez,=
but he won?t be seen with the leader of the only democracy in the Middle=
East, and our only reliable ally there.
And this comes after he has put unprecedented strain on the U.S./Israel al=
liance by pressuring Israel for allowing Jews to build homes on Jewish lan=
d, and blaming Israel for the conflict with the Palestinians Muslims.
Obama is not a passive, weak or naive player in the Muslim/Jewish conflict=
. He was wet-nursed on Jew-hatred. He grew up in a Muslim country and stud=
ied the Koran. He knows what is prescribed for the Jews in Islam. He knows=
that the Koran says that the Jews are the Muslims? worst enemies (5:82)=
and that ?ignominy shall be their portion wheresoever they are found? (3:=
112).
He knows that Islamic tradition records Muhammad saying:
The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jew=
s and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves beh=
ind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, or the serv=
ant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him; but the tree Gh=
arqad would not say, for it is the tree of the Jews.
He must know all this, and yet has never renounced it. On the contrary, he=
embraces it, calling upon us to ?respect? Islam.
I am staggered by the speed with which Obama has sought to undermine the=
Jewish people. But knowing what I know of him after my three years of inv=
estigation for the book I wrote with Robert Spencer, The Post-American Pre=
sidency: The Obama Administration?s War on America [1], I expected nothing=
different. In the summer of 2008, I trekked to Florida to warn the alter=
cockers who were seduced by the idea of Obama, but to no avail: my voice=
and the voices of those like me are kept neatly tucked away in the blog=
box.
But now here we are. Jews may then have tried to avoid Obama?s anti-Semiti=
sm, but they cannot now avoid the consequences of avoiding Obama?s anti-Se=
mitism. He has unleashed an evil in this world the extent of which we are=
only now beginning to see. He has made the world safe for haters and kill=
ers. The post-World War II peace was no accident; it was a direct result=
of American hegemony. But now he is following the European lead and unrav=
eling it. Europe learned the wrong lessons from the war and the Holocaust.=
The lesson that Europe decided to take from Auschwitz was that everything=
was caused by nationalism. European leaders decided that therefore what=
they really needed was a European Union that would obviate their need for=
nationalism and prevent another Auschwitz.
They took all the wrong lessons from World War II and continue to apply th=
em, while ignoring the only lesson that?s really relevant from World War=
II, which is that you have to choose good and defend good, and fight with=
the intention of defeating evil. We have to be able and willing to make=
moral distinctions and stand up for the good and fight evil ? and that is=
something that both the Europeans and Obama refuse to do.
Nationalism isn?t evil. British nationalism hasn?t been evil. French natio=
nalism isn?t evil. Polish nationalism isn?t evil. American nationalism was=
n?t evil and has never been evil. Contrary to Obama?s actions, American ex=
ceptionalism [2] isn?t evil.
But what did the Jews learn from the Holocaust? What does ?never again? me=
an? Why does the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., cover up the crimes=
of the Muslim world and the Mufti of Jerusalem [3] in the execution of th=
e Holocaust? Why does the State of Israel not fight global anti-Semitism?=
Why is Islamic anti-Semitism not decried from the pulpits and the bimas=
of the shuls and Hebrew schools across the Jewish world? Why aren?t Rober=
t Spencer, Bat Ye?or, and Ibn Warraq mandatory reading in Jewish day schoo=
ls? How can we fight a mortal enemy that promises our annihilation when we=
dare not speak its name?
The Jewish people, both in Israel and the diaspora, seem to be suffering=
from the Stockholm Syndrome. There can be no logical reason why an Americ=
an Jew could intellectually excuse Obama?s twenty-year friendship and clos=
eness with the anti-Semitic Farrakhan acolyte Jeremiah Wright. There is no=
way an American Jew could explain away or rationalize Obama?s connections=
to Rashid Khalidi, Ali Abunimah, Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, and know=
about those connections without knowing what was coming. These Jews (and=
our history is plagued with them) love ideas, not people. They are so mar=
ried to their dogma, their ideology, that they cannot, will not, see what=
is right in front of them. They worship at the church of human secularism=
. That is their religion. They have no G-d. They are merely wearing a Jewi=
sh coat, but do not speak for Jews.
It is the curse of the Jewish people historically to be betrayed by our ow=
n. This is the deepest cut of all. The kinderlach, the mamas, the tatas,=
the bubbies and zadies, shvestas and bruders who were tortured and died=
unspeakable deaths are crying out to you. Are we so broken a people that=
they shall have died in vain, for nothing?
The six million looked like you, laughed like you, denied like you. The si=
x million loved their country ? some were war heroes for Germany in World=
War I. They too thought the fringe would stay relegated to the margins of=
society.
The six million are cold in their graves, weeping for what awaits you.
The only difference between American Jews of the 2000s and the European Je=
ws of the 1930s is Israel. This is what separates you from the dehumanizat=
ion, the oven, the end. A Jewish homeland is the thin blue and white line=
between civilized men and bloodthirsty savages.
And look what Barack Obama is doing to the Jewish homeland. This is the sa=
me ?Stephen Wise [4]? Jewish mentality that sold us out and delivered us=
into the hands of the Third Reich during WWII. It was Wise who prevailed,=
not Peter Bergson [5].
Will the American diaspora repeat the same ghastly mistake again, while Sh=
oah victims still walk the earth?
Article printed from Big Journalism: http://bigjournalism.com
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Dangers of Obama's failed Middle East policy
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/rubin/267326
The Error-Ridden Obama Middle East Policy
Jennifer Rubin - 03.27.2010 - 8:00 AM
In a must-read analysis of the Obami assault on Israel, Elliott Abrams writes:
Since the Oslo Accords of 1993, 17 years of efforts under three American presidents and six Israeli prime ministers have taught five clear lessons. Each of them is being ignored by President Obama, which is why his own particular “peace process” has so greatly harmed real efforts at peace. Today the only factor uniting Palestinian, Israeli, and Arab leaders is distrust of the quality, sagacity, and reliability of American leadership in the region.
The lessons Abrams enumerates suggest that we are in for a dangerous and destabilizing period in which the U.S.-Israeli alliance is torn asunder. First in the list of grievous errors: rather than provide Israel with security and reassurance, the Obami are out to bludgeon the Jewish state to cough up concessions:
During the George W. Bush years, the leader of the Israeli right, Ariel Sharon, decided to abandon the idea of a “Greater Israel,” impose constraints on settlement construction in the West Bank (no new settlements, no outward expansion of settlement territory), and remove every settlement in Gaza and four small ones in the West Bank. His closest advisers say all of this was possible for him only in the context of unwavering American support for Israel’s security steps—including the targeting and killing of Hamas terrorists and the refusal to deal with a terrorist leader like Arafat. What was the turning point for Sharon? Bush’s June 24, 2002, speech, where he abandoned Arafat, denounced Palestinian terrorism, and said thorough reforms were the only possible basis for Palestinian statehood. Reassured, Sharon began to act.
Contrast this with the Obama administration, where Israel has been “condemned”—the toughest word in the diplomatic dictionary—for a housing project.
Second, the Obami have failed to hold the Palestinians accountable for their own behavior or make any demands that one would ordinarily place on a party to a negotiation:
Had there been early and regular insistence that incitement end, the Mughrabi incident would never have taken place. The price for such negligence is being paid in both Israeli and Palestinian society: Every such action and every vicious broadcast helps persuade Israelis that Palestinians do not truly seek peace and helps raise a new generation of Palestinians who see Jews as enemies to hate, not neighbors with whom to reach an accommodation. This infantilization of Palestinian society, moreover, moves it further from the responsibilities of statehood, for it holds harmless the most destructive elements of West Bank life and suggests that standards of decency are not necessarily part of progress toward “peace.”
Coupled with these errors is the inordinate fixation on the Palestinian conflict, as the Iran menace goes unchecked. (”Arab leaders want to know what we will do to stop Iran; they want to know if their ally in Washington is going to be the top power in the region. Israelis wonder where the “uh oh, this will make Islamic extremists angry” argument stops. Does anyone think al-Qaeda or the Taliban would be mollified by a settlement freeze?”) And then we see the obsession with what has surely become a counterproductive peace process: “First, it means we care more about getting Syria, Egypt, or others to endorse some negotiating plan than we do about their own internal situations. . . . Second, we use all our chips for the negotiating sessions, instead of applying them to the hard work of nation building. We ask Arab states to reach out to Israel (which they will not do) when we should be demanding that they reach out to the Palestinians (which they might).”
In assessing all of this, one can’t but conclude that the errors are too fundamental and too serious to be easily reversed. It is not as if the problem were a stray comment or a clumsy encounter or one misguided adviser. It is rather the confluence of all of the bad judgments and ill-conceived ideas, which Abrams sets forth, surely held near and dear by the president himself, that have brought about the current crisis in U.S.-Israeli relations. The fixation on fruitless peace processing is not unique to the Obama administration, but has become a far more dangerous endeavor in combination with the Obami’s infatuation with the Palestinian bargaining stance and their determination to muscle Israel into concessions. It’s one thing to have fruitless talks in which the Israelis need not fear the American interlocutors; it’s quite another to be dragged to the table fearing that the Obami have in a very real sense bought into the Palestinian victimology and have become their agent rather than the proverbial “honest broker.”
The results of the Obami’s error-ridden approach are becoming apparent with each passing day: more international attacks on the legitimacy of the Jewish state and its right to self defense (Obama does it, why shouldn’t they?), the reinforcement of the Palestinian rejectionist mentality, and the looming danger of a nuclear-armed Iran, to which the U.S. has no serious response. The Obami are not simply placing Israel at risk; they are marginalizing the U.S. as a bulwark against the terror-sponsoring states of Iran and Syria and against despotic regimes far from the Middle East (they too are watching the Obami’s conduct and drawing lessons). And along the way, we have forfeited that credibility which Clinton told AIPAC the U.S. was so concerned about.
What must friends and foes think, after all, when we abandon our ally, when we ignore violent provocations, when we water down to thin gruel any response to the mullahs, and when we ignore the human-rights atrocities throughout the Muslim World? They see, sadly, the reality of the Obama White House — an administration that is frittering away America’s standing in the world and fast losing its reputation as a defender of democracy, human rights, and freedom. Israel is the immediate victim, but the entire world will become more dangerous and less free as a result.
The Error-Ridden Obama Middle East Policy
Jennifer Rubin - 03.27.2010 - 8:00 AM
In a must-read analysis of the Obami assault on Israel, Elliott Abrams writes:
Since the Oslo Accords of 1993, 17 years of efforts under three American presidents and six Israeli prime ministers have taught five clear lessons. Each of them is being ignored by President Obama, which is why his own particular “peace process” has so greatly harmed real efforts at peace. Today the only factor uniting Palestinian, Israeli, and Arab leaders is distrust of the quality, sagacity, and reliability of American leadership in the region.
The lessons Abrams enumerates suggest that we are in for a dangerous and destabilizing period in which the U.S.-Israeli alliance is torn asunder. First in the list of grievous errors: rather than provide Israel with security and reassurance, the Obami are out to bludgeon the Jewish state to cough up concessions:
During the George W. Bush years, the leader of the Israeli right, Ariel Sharon, decided to abandon the idea of a “Greater Israel,” impose constraints on settlement construction in the West Bank (no new settlements, no outward expansion of settlement territory), and remove every settlement in Gaza and four small ones in the West Bank. His closest advisers say all of this was possible for him only in the context of unwavering American support for Israel’s security steps—including the targeting and killing of Hamas terrorists and the refusal to deal with a terrorist leader like Arafat. What was the turning point for Sharon? Bush’s June 24, 2002, speech, where he abandoned Arafat, denounced Palestinian terrorism, and said thorough reforms were the only possible basis for Palestinian statehood. Reassured, Sharon began to act.
Contrast this with the Obama administration, where Israel has been “condemned”—the toughest word in the diplomatic dictionary—for a housing project.
Second, the Obami have failed to hold the Palestinians accountable for their own behavior or make any demands that one would ordinarily place on a party to a negotiation:
Had there been early and regular insistence that incitement end, the Mughrabi incident would never have taken place. The price for such negligence is being paid in both Israeli and Palestinian society: Every such action and every vicious broadcast helps persuade Israelis that Palestinians do not truly seek peace and helps raise a new generation of Palestinians who see Jews as enemies to hate, not neighbors with whom to reach an accommodation. This infantilization of Palestinian society, moreover, moves it further from the responsibilities of statehood, for it holds harmless the most destructive elements of West Bank life and suggests that standards of decency are not necessarily part of progress toward “peace.”
Coupled with these errors is the inordinate fixation on the Palestinian conflict, as the Iran menace goes unchecked. (”Arab leaders want to know what we will do to stop Iran; they want to know if their ally in Washington is going to be the top power in the region. Israelis wonder where the “uh oh, this will make Islamic extremists angry” argument stops. Does anyone think al-Qaeda or the Taliban would be mollified by a settlement freeze?”) And then we see the obsession with what has surely become a counterproductive peace process: “First, it means we care more about getting Syria, Egypt, or others to endorse some negotiating plan than we do about their own internal situations. . . . Second, we use all our chips for the negotiating sessions, instead of applying them to the hard work of nation building. We ask Arab states to reach out to Israel (which they will not do) when we should be demanding that they reach out to the Palestinians (which they might).”
In assessing all of this, one can’t but conclude that the errors are too fundamental and too serious to be easily reversed. It is not as if the problem were a stray comment or a clumsy encounter or one misguided adviser. It is rather the confluence of all of the bad judgments and ill-conceived ideas, which Abrams sets forth, surely held near and dear by the president himself, that have brought about the current crisis in U.S.-Israeli relations. The fixation on fruitless peace processing is not unique to the Obama administration, but has become a far more dangerous endeavor in combination with the Obami’s infatuation with the Palestinian bargaining stance and their determination to muscle Israel into concessions. It’s one thing to have fruitless talks in which the Israelis need not fear the American interlocutors; it’s quite another to be dragged to the table fearing that the Obami have in a very real sense bought into the Palestinian victimology and have become their agent rather than the proverbial “honest broker.”
The results of the Obami’s error-ridden approach are becoming apparent with each passing day: more international attacks on the legitimacy of the Jewish state and its right to self defense (Obama does it, why shouldn’t they?), the reinforcement of the Palestinian rejectionist mentality, and the looming danger of a nuclear-armed Iran, to which the U.S. has no serious response. The Obami are not simply placing Israel at risk; they are marginalizing the U.S. as a bulwark against the terror-sponsoring states of Iran and Syria and against despotic regimes far from the Middle East (they too are watching the Obami’s conduct and drawing lessons). And along the way, we have forfeited that credibility which Clinton told AIPAC the U.S. was so concerned about.
What must friends and foes think, after all, when we abandon our ally, when we ignore violent provocations, when we water down to thin gruel any response to the mullahs, and when we ignore the human-rights atrocities throughout the Muslim World? They see, sadly, the reality of the Obama White House — an administration that is frittering away America’s standing in the world and fast losing its reputation as a defender of democracy, human rights, and freedom. Israel is the immediate victim, but the entire world will become more dangerous and less free as a result.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
