How Obama tries to undermine and weaken israel
1. His administration continually leaks classified documents that endanger our soldiers and especially our ally Israel
2. Said he wants to bring daylight between Israel and
3 .He bragged about killing Bin Laden, when he hypocritically campaigned against the means they used to find him. That got the actual Seals who killed him so mad they are campaigning against him
4 He hired Muslim brotherhood tied terrorists to be in the USA government
5 Aided Muslim Brotherhood dominated Egypt by reducing helping overthrow Mubarack, their debt and doing military exercises with them, while scaling back our exercises with Israel.
6.He has stalled and delayed and appeased Iran as they march forward to develop nuclear weapons and daily say they want to wipe out Israel
7.. He has tried to bully, threaten, intimidated and repeatedly turned his back on Israel ( 49 borders, no building in Jerusalem) and had the word Jerusalem removed from the DNC platform as well as Hamas as terror, and Palestinians no right of return,. He realized that Jerusalem's omission was an error and lied and said he did not know, and when he instructed them to put it back, they did, but over a majority loud chorus of boos from the delegates. DNC convention has featured a large Muslim extremist sub convention.
8. Foolishly encouraged and embraced Arab Spring, which is turning into Arab nightmare. g. He forbade the CIA and FBI from using the words Muslim or Islam when they investigate, making it impossible to do their job and called Fort Hood massacre of a Muslim killing our soldiers shouting allah akbar workplace violence.
9. Obama refused to push for Israel to be included in an international terrorist conference.
10. Makes us more dependent on Arab oil that funds terror
11. Massive spread of Islamic jihad under his watch-
Libya: he helped push out Quaddafi
Iraq-pulled out after war was won opening way for ISIS
Syria: drew red lines and then ignored them when breached
Hamas: secret talks with this terrorist group while they toss missiles daily at Israel for 6 months and continued to fund PA even after the have unity government with Hamas
Iran: weakened sanctions consistently and now extends talks while they move forward , desperate for horrible deal tjhat will endanger Israel and all Mideast.
12. His record before he entered high electoral politics in 2004, especially his associations with radical anti-Zionists
13. Obama’s favorite foreign leader calls Israelis Nazis Erdogan calls Israel more barbaric than Hitler It is no surprise, with this violent, hateful rhetoric, that there are violent protests against Israel in Turkey. It is also no surprise that Obama would name this vicious Jew-hater as his closest friend among world leaders. “Erdogan calls Israel more barbaric than Hitler,” Times of Israel, July 19, 2014qw
1. His administration continually leaks classified documents that endanger our soldiers and especially our ally Israel
2. Said he wants to bring daylight between Israel and
3 .He bragged about killing Bin Laden, when he hypocritically campaigned against the means they used to find him. That got the actual Seals who killed him so mad they are campaigning against him
4 He hired Muslim brotherhood tied terrorists to be in the USA government
5 Aided Muslim Brotherhood dominated Egypt by reducing helping overthrow Mubarack, their debt and doing military exercises with them, while scaling back our exercises with Israel.
6.He has stalled and delayed and appeased Iran as they march forward to develop nuclear weapons and daily say they want to wipe out Israel
7.. He has tried to bully, threaten, intimidated and repeatedly turned his back on Israel ( 49 borders, no building in Jerusalem) and had the word Jerusalem removed from the DNC platform as well as Hamas as terror, and Palestinians no right of return,. He realized that Jerusalem's omission was an error and lied and said he did not know, and when he instructed them to put it back, they did, but over a majority loud chorus of boos from the delegates. DNC convention has featured a large Muslim extremist sub convention.
8. Foolishly encouraged and embraced Arab Spring, which is turning into Arab nightmare. g. He forbade the CIA and FBI from using the words Muslim or Islam when they investigate, making it impossible to do their job and called Fort Hood massacre of a Muslim killing our soldiers shouting allah akbar workplace violence.
9. Obama refused to push for Israel to be included in an international terrorist conference.
10. Makes us more dependent on Arab oil that funds terror
11. Massive spread of Islamic jihad under his watch-
Libya: he helped push out Quaddafi
Iraq-pulled out after war was won opening way for ISIS
Syria: drew red lines and then ignored them when breached
Hamas: secret talks with this terrorist group while they toss missiles daily at Israel for 6 months and continued to fund PA even after the have unity government with Hamas
Iran: weakened sanctions consistently and now extends talks while they move forward , desperate for horrible deal tjhat will endanger Israel and all Mideast.
12. His record before he entered high electoral politics in 2004, especially his associations with radical anti-Zionists
13. Obama’s favorite foreign leader calls Israelis Nazis Erdogan calls Israel more barbaric than Hitler It is no surprise, with this violent, hateful rhetoric, that there are violent protests against Israel in Turkey. It is also no surprise that Obama would name this vicious Jew-hater as his closest friend among world leaders. “Erdogan calls Israel more barbaric than Hitler,” Times of Israel, July 19, 2014qw
14. Uses IRS to harass pro Israel groups
15. His administrarion calls Bibi Chickenshit and a coward and obama uninterested in finding out whom, because it was him.
16. US denies visas to israelis in record numbers
17. In Gaza conflict: a. His FAA blocked flights to Israel b. Denying visas to Israelis
c. Holds up armaments so Israel can defend itself d. Tried to cut Iron dome funding but Congress overruled e. Tried to get Hamas biggest boosters Qatar to get agreement allowing Hamas total freedom to rebuild misslies f. JOHN KERRY PLEDGES $47 MILLION TO HELP HAMAS REBUILD MISSILE SUPPLIES AND REOPEN TUNNELS g. Obama works out $11 billion arms deal to Hamas biggest supporter, Qatar
18. appoints another anti israel person to important post
++++ all Obama's efforts to aid jihad
15. His administrarion calls Bibi Chickenshit and a coward and obama uninterested in finding out whom, because it was him.
16. US denies visas to israelis in record numbers
17. In Gaza conflict: a. His FAA blocked flights to Israel b. Denying visas to Israelis
c. Holds up armaments so Israel can defend itself d. Tried to cut Iron dome funding but Congress overruled e. Tried to get Hamas biggest boosters Qatar to get agreement allowing Hamas total freedom to rebuild misslies f. JOHN KERRY PLEDGES $47 MILLION TO HELP HAMAS REBUILD MISSILE SUPPLIES AND REOPEN TUNNELS g. Obama works out $11 billion arms deal to Hamas biggest supporter, Qatar
18. appoints another anti israel person to important post
++++ all Obama's efforts to aid jihad
Obama is brilliant at endangering Israel and USA while pretending he is disengaged.
The ‘Chickenshitgate’ Fallout for America, Israel, and the Middle East
President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu at the White House. Photo: Screenshot.
Responding to the anonymous “senior Obama administration” official who told The Atlantic correspondent Jeffrey Goldberg that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was a “chickenshit,” Bennett said, “Cursing the prime minister and calling him names is an insult not just to him but to the millions of Israeli citizens and Jews across the globe. The leader of Syria who slaughtered 150,000 people was not awarded the name ‘chickenshit.’ Neither was the leader of Saudi Arabia who stones women and homosexuals or the leader of Iran who murders freedom protestors.”
I would have also added Qatar into the mix, as that terror-financing, slave-owning Gulf emirate is also fawned over by the Obama administration, but Bennett’s point stands nonetheless. Our officials in Washington come across as a vindictive and petty bunch, accusing an ally of cowardice while hiding behind anonymity, and guilty of hypocrisy in its rankest form.
“Chickenshit?” That’s rich, coming from an administration whose fear of Vladimir Putin is the subject of derisory mirth in the Kremlin, and whose cravenness towards Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Damascus has directly resulted in the deaths of thousands of innocent Syrians. Blissfully dismissive of their own failings, they round on Netanyahu, a man who served with distinction in his country’s elite Sayeret Matkal army unit, by calling him, of all things, a coward!
And that’s not the only epithet. As Goldberg pointed out, “Over the years, Obama administration officials have described Netanyahu to me as recalcitrant, myopic, reactionary, obtuse, blustering, pompous, and ‘Aspergery.’” (For those unclear as to what that last term means, it’s a pejorative description for people with Asperger syndrome, a form of autism, and it’s as nasty as calling someone a “retard.” Remember that next time you hear another kumbaya, “let’s heal” speech from Obama.) You have to think that sooner or later, the administration will join the chorus of confirmed Israel-haters by labeling Netanyahu as a “baby killer” and a “war criminal.”
Sure, the Obama officials will say that the Israelis started it, by citing the injudicious comments about Secretary of State John Kerry uttered in private by Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon. But Ya’alon was man enough to apologize for what he said, and that still didn’t stop the administration from pursuing a private vendetta against him, blocking him from meeting with key officials like Vice President Joe Biden during his recent visit to Washington. And while the Israelis wish they could turn back the clock on Ya’alon’s advice to Kerry to “take his Nobel Prize and leave us alone,” Obama’s appointees see nothing wrong with insulting Netanyahu in such a grotesque manner because, you see, they are Right with a rolling, upper case “R,” and therefore anything goes.
I’ve argued many times in this column that, as far as Israel is concerned, the Obama administration is a lost cause. The only question now is how much damage they will do before Obama departs the White House—a day that can’t come soon enough, frankly.
The immediate danger lies on two fronts. Firstly, the Palestinians. Any doubts that the Obama administration believes that Israel is responsible for the stalemate with the Palestinians will have been dispelled by Goldberg’s revelations. As far as Obama, Kerry, and company are concerned, the primary problem is Israel’s insistence in building new housing units in its undivided capital, Jerusalem. Their impatience could reach the point where the U.S. no longer backs Israel at the United Nations, thereby allowing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s crusade for unilateral recognition to reach fruition. In the event of such an outcome, Israel could find itself worryingly isolated, as the European governments are anxiously awaiting a signal from the Americans that it’s okay to abandon the Jewish state. If so, we will then be confronted with the edifying spectacle of the world’s democracies aligning themselves with tyrannies from Venezuela to Iran in singling out Israel for opprobrium.
Secondly, the Iranians. The deadline for a final deal over the mullah’s nuclear ambitions—November 24—is upon us. Perhaps Obama thinks that cursing Netanyahu will persuade Iran’s Supreme Leader, the brutal Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to accept a deal. Judging by the breathlessly excited manner with which the regime’s English-language outlet, the Holocaust-denying Press TV, greeted chickenshitgate, the president might be onto something.
But what benefits will a historic accord with the Iranians bring us? Very few, whereas the costs will be enormous.
For a start, this isn’t just about Israel. We will alienate the conservative Arab states like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, all of them already angry and frustrated with Obama’s kowtowing to Tehran. We will permit an Islamist state to become a nuclear power, at the same time that it backs terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah with money and weapons. We will lose our leverage over the Iranians, in the form of biting sanctions, with few resource at our disposal to compel them to cooperate with international nuclear inspectors when they start—as they inevitably will—obstructing them at every turn. And we risk, again, the prospect of an Israeli pre-emptive strike, because whatever else Netanyahu might be, he’s no chickenshit.
Umpteen immediate questions remain, among them: Will Obama apologize for the chickenshit remark? Will he publicly name and discipline the officials who showered Netanyahu with insults? What will he do if the Iranians decline to make a deal?
But the biggest question of all is a long-term one. What will the strategic map of the Middle East look like once Obama is done? That’s what should be occupying the minds of Israel’s leaders, who are painfully aware that Obama’s peace efforts can only lead to more conflict and strife.
Ben Cohen is the Shillman Analyst for JNS.org and a contributor to the Wall Street Journal, Commentary, Haaretz, and other publications. His book, “Some Of My Best Friends: A Journey Through Twenty-First Century Antisemitism” (Edition Critic, 2014), is now available through Amazon.
Obama, Not Bibi, Created U.S.-Israel Crisis
Jonathan S. Tobin | @tobincommentary
10.28.2014 - 7:10 PM
10.28.2014 - 7:10 PM
Since Barack Obama became president, The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg has been a reliable indicator of administration opinion about foreign-policy issues. Like some other journalists who can be counted on to support the president, he has been the recipient of some juicy leaks, especially when the White House wants to trash Israel’s government. But Goldberg and his “senior administration sources” reached a new low today when he published a piece in which those anonymous figures labeled Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu a “chickenshit” and a “coward.” The remarks are clearly not so much a warning to the Israelis to stop complaining about the U.S. push for appeasement of a nuclear Iran and the administration’s clueless approach to the conflict with the Palestinians. Rather the story is, as Goldberg rightly characterizes it, a genuine crisis in the relationship. That much is plain but where Goldberg and the talkative administration members are wrong is their belief that this is all Netanyahu’s fault. Their attacks on him are not only plainly false but are motivated by a desire to find an excuse that will be used to justify a drastic turn in U.S. foreign policy against Israel.
The administration critique of Netanyahu as a coward stems from its disgust with his failure to make peace with the Palestinians as well as their impatience with his criticisms of their zeal for a deal with Iran even if it means allowing the Islamist regime to become a threshold nuclear power. But this is about more than policy. The prickly Netanyahu is well known to be a tough guy to like personally even if you are one of his allies. But President Obama and his foreign-policy team aren’t just annoyed by the prime minister. They’ve come to view him as public enemy No. 1, using language about him and giving assessments of his policies that are far harsher than they have ever used against even avowed enemies of the United States, let alone one of its closest allies.
So rather than merely chide him for caution they call him a coward and taunt him for being reluctant to make war on Hamas and even to launch a strike on Iran. They don’t merely castigate him as a small-time politician without vision; they accuse him of putting his political survival above the interests of his nation.
It’s quite an indictment but once you get beyond the personal dislike of the individual on the part of the president, Secretary of State Kerry, and any other “senior officials” that speak without attribution on the subject of Israel’s prime minister, all you have is a thin veil of invective covering up six years of Obama administration failures in the Middle East that have the region more dangerous for both Israel and the United States. For all of his personal failings, it is not Netanyahu—a man who actually served as a combat soldier under fire in his country’s most elite commando unit—who is a coward or a small-minded failure. It is Obama and Kerry who have fecklessly sabotaged a special relationship, an act whose consequences have already led to disaster and bloodshed and may yet bring worse in their final two years of power.
It was, after all, Obama (and in the last two years, Kerry) who has spent his time in office picking pointless fights with Israel over issues like settlements and Jerusalem. They were pointless not because there aren’t genuine disagreements between the two countries on the ideal terms for peace. But rather because the Palestinians have never, despite the administration’s best efforts to tilt the diplomatic playing field in their favor, seized the chance for peace. No matter how much Obama praises Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas and slights Netanyahu, the former has never been willing to recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders would be drawn. They also chose to launch a peace process in spite of the fact that the Palestinians remain divided between Abbas’s Fatah and Hamas-ruled Gaza, a situation that makes it impossible for the PA to make peace even if it wanted to do so. The result of their heedless push for negotiations that were bound to fail was another round of violence this summer and the possibility of another terrorist intifada in the West Bank.
On Iran, it has not been Netanyahu’s bluffing about a strike that is the problem but Obama’s policies. Despite good rhetoric about stopping Tehran’s push for a nuke, the president has pursued a policy of appeasement that caused it to discard its significant military and economic leverage and accept a weak interim deal that began the process of unraveling the international sanctions that represented the best chance for a solution without the use of force.
Even faithful Obama supporter Goldberg understands that it would be madness for Israel to withdraw from more territory and replicate the Gaza terror experiment in the West Bank. He also worries that the administration is making a “weak” Iran deal even though he may be the only person on the planet who actually thinks Obama would use force to prevent an Iranian nuclear weapon.
So why is the administration so angry with Netanyahu? It can’t be because Netanyahu is preventing peace with the Palestinians. After the failure of Kerry’s fool’s errand negotiations and the Hamas missile war on Israel, not even Obama can think peace is at hand. Nor does he really think Netanyahu can stop him from appeasing Iran if Tehran is willing to sign even a weak deal.
The real reason to target Netanyahu is that it is easier to scapegoat the Israelis than to own up to the administration’s mistakes. Rather than usher in a new era of good feelings with the Arab world in keeping with his 2009 Cairo speech, Obama has been the author of policies that have left an already messy Middle East far more dangerous. Rather than ending wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, his decision to withdraw U.S. troops and to dither over the crisis in Syria led to more conflict and the rise of ISIS. Instead of ending the Iranian nuclear threat, Obama is on the road to enabling it. And rather than manage an Israeli-Palestinian standoff that no serious person thought was on the verge of resolution, Obama made things worse with his and Kerry’s hubristic initiatives and constant bickering with Israel.
Despite the administration’s insults, it is not Netanyahu who is weak. He has shown great courage and good judgment in defending his country’s interests even as Obama has encouraged the Palestinians to believe they can hold out for even more unrealistic terms while denying Israel the ammunition it needed to fight Hamas terrorists. While we don’t know whether, as Goldberg believes, it is too late for Israel to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, it is Obama that Iran considers weak as it plays U.S. negotiators for suckers in the firm belief that the U.S. is a paper tiger that is not to be feared any longer.
If there is a crisis, it is one that was created by Obama’s failures and inability to grasp that his ideological prejudices were out of touch with Middle East realities.
The next two years may well see, as Goldberg ominously predicts, even more actions by the administration to downgrade the alliance with Israel. But the blame for this will belong to a president who has never been comfortable with Israel and who has, at every conceivable opportunity, sought conflict with it even though doing so did not advance U.S. interests or the cause of peace. No insult directed at Netanyahu, no matter how crude or pointless, can cover up the president’s record of failure.
Now as Israel goes into Gaza to destroy missile launchers and tunnels used for terror, Obama and Kerry demand ceasefire. World Jewish digest headline is “Obama undermines Israel”. So what else is new from this terrorist loving president of ours?
Obama is most anti American Anti
Israel foreign policy ever
The biggest mistake
Obama’s critics make is to accuse him of being unengaged and apathetic. He is
not. He has been brilliant in pretending to be unengaged while he orchestrates
surrounding Israel with terrorists and weakening America. Take out a map
and see.
Egypt-he helped push out Mubarak and was the primary backer of Muslim Brotherhood ascending to power (thank God it was temporary). He gave Morsi $1.5 billion plus our best weapons. He was very angry when Egypt deposed them. Can you imagine what would be if Morsi was still in charge?
The Washington Post has a lengthy feature in the weekend magazine entitled Where Obama Failed on Forging Peace in the Middle East (Hat Tip: Republican Jewish Coalition via Twitter). Some highlights.
Obama Seeks to Delegitimize Israeli Concerns over Iran
E. W. Jackson Sr.:
Why Obama is Opposed to Israel
A BLACK AMERICAN CLERGYMAN POINTS TO THE SOURCE OF THE PRESIDENT'S ANTI-ISRAELISM
E. W. Jackson is Bishop of Exodus Faith Ministries, an author and retired attorney
Like Barack Hussein Obama II, I am a graduate of Harvard Law School . I too have Muslims in my family. I am black, and I was once a leftist Democrat. Since our backgrounds are somewhat similar, I perceive something in Obama's policy toward Israel which people without that background may not see. All my life I have witnessed a strain of anti-Semitism in the black community. It has been fueled by the rise of the Nation of Islam and Louis Farrakhan, but it predates that organization.
We heard it in Jesse Jackson's “HYMIE town” remark years ago during his presidential campaign. We heard it most recently in Jeremiah Wright's remark about “them Jews” not allowing Obama to speak with him. I hear it from my own Muslim family members who see the problem in the Middle East as a “Jew” problem.
Growing up in a small, predominantly black urban community in Pennsylvania , I heard the comments about Jewish shop owners. They were “greedy cheaters” who could not be trusted, according to my family and others in the neighborhood. I was too young to understand what it means to be Jewish, or know that I was hearing anti-Semitism. These people seemed nice enough to me, but others said they were “evil”. Sadly, this bigotry has yet to be eradicated from the black community.
In Chicago , the anti-Jewish sentiment among black people is even more pronounced because of the direct influence of Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam. Most African Americans are not followers of “The Nation”, but many have a quiet respect for its leader because, they say, “he speaks the truth” and “stands up for the black man”. What they mean of course is that he viciously attacks the perceived “enemies” of the black community – white people and Jews. Even some self-described Christians buy into his demagoguery.
The question is whether Obama, given his Muslim roots and experience in Farrakhan's Chicago , shares this antipathy for Israel and Jewish people. Is there any evidence that he does? First, the President was taught for twenty years by a virulent anti-Semite, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. In the black community it is called “sitting under”. You don't merely attend a church, you “sit under” a Pastor to be taught and mentored by him. Obama “sat under” Wright for a very long time. He was comfortable enough with Farrakhan – Wright's friend – to attend and help organize his “Million Man March”. I was on C-Span the morning of the march arguing that we must never legitimize a racist and anti-Semite, no matter what “good” he claims to be doing. Yet a future President was in the crowd giving Farrakhan his enthusiastic support.
The classic left wing view is that Israel is the oppressive occupier, and the Palestinians are Israel 's victims. Obama is clearly sympathetic to this view. In speaking to the “Muslim World, “he did not address the widespread Islamic hatred of Jews. Instead he attacked Israel over the growth of West Bank settlements. Surely he knows that settlements are not the crux of the problem. The absolute refusal of the Palestinians to accept Israel 's right to exist as a Jewish state is the insurmountable obstacle. That's where the pressure needs to be placed, but this President sees it differently. He also made the preposterous comparison of the Holocaust to Palestinian “dislocation”.
Obama clearly has Muslim sensibilities. He sees the world and Israel from a Muslim perspective. His construct of “The Muslim World” is unique in modern diplomacy. It is said that only The Muslim Brotherhood and other radical elements of the religion use that concept. It is a call to unify Muslims around the world. It is rather odd to hear an American President use it. In doing so he reveals more about his thinking than he intends. The dramatic policy reversal of joining the unrelentingly anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and pro-Islamic UN Human Rights Council is in keeping with the President's truest – albeit undeclared red – sensibilities
Those who are paying attention and thinking about these issues do not find it unreasonable to consider that President Obama is influenced by a strain of anti-Semitism picked up from the black community, his leftist friends and colleagues, his Muslim associations and his long period of mentor-ship under Jeremiah Wright. If this conclusion is accurate, Israel has some dark days ahead. For the first time in her history, she may find the President of the United States siding with her enemies. Those who believe, as I do, that Israel must be protected had better be ready for the fight.
E. W. Jackson is Bishop of Exodus Faith Ministries, an author and retired attorney
HONORS ANTISEMITES
ama medals antisemite Tutu
Tutu's war on Israel, Jews
Special: Archbishop Tutu leads vile, racist campaign against Israel and Jewish people
Giulio Meotti
Published: 08.11.11, 21:47 / Israel News
share
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, whose role in the fight against South African apartheid in the 1980s gained him the Nobel Peace Prize and global fame, is among the world’s most respected figures.
Barack Obama awarded him the US highest honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Tutu has been called “an inspiration" and was compared to Albert Schweitzer and Gandhi. The Wall Street Journal labeled him “the best known priest in the world.” Tutu was even asked to donate his genome to scientists to discover the African roots of mankind.
Receive Ynetnews updates directly to your desktop
With Nelson Mandela in jail, it fell to Tutu to steer the struggle against institutionalized racial oppression in a nonviolent direction. From his church in segregated Soweto, Tutu urged the imposition of economic sanctions against the white government. Since then, Tutu’s face has become the symbol of tolerance and goodness.
However, the Archbishop’s iconic voice has also found another cause no less popular: The global campaign against Israel and the Jewish people. Tutu just promoted an appeal to the US pension fund of the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association for cutting the partnership with Israeli companies. He also helped the Australian Marrickville Council approve a boycott of Israel's goods.
Egypt-he helped push out Mubarak and was the primary backer of Muslim Brotherhood ascending to power (thank God it was temporary). He gave Morsi $1.5 billion plus our best weapons. He was very angry when Egypt deposed them. Can you imagine what would be if Morsi was still in charge?
Where Obama failed in the Middle East
“If you want Israel to take risks, then its leaders must know that the United States is right next to them,” Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, told the president.In other words, the Arabs saw an opportunity to get something for nothing, and Obama fell right into the trap.
Obama politely but firmly disagreed.
“Look at the past eight years,” he said, referring to the George W. Bush administration’s relationship with Israel. “During those eight years, there was no space between us and Israel, and what did we get from that? When there is no daylight, Israel just sits on the sidelines, and that erodes our credibility with the Arab states.”
Obama’s Muslim middle name, former anti-Zionist pastor in Chicago and past friendships with prominent Palestinians had shadowed his presidential campaign. He wanted to restore the United States’ reputation as a credible mediator. To do so, he believed that he needed to regain Arab trust — and talk tough to Israel, publicly and privately.
This was the change that Obama had promised — a new approach to old problems. But the stunned silence of Jewish leaders around the table that day suggested the political peril he would face along the way.
“We believed from that point that we were in for problems,” said Abraham Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, who attended the meeting. “And we were right.”
The way Obama managed the Israeli-Palestinian issue exhibited many of the hallmarks that have defined his first term. It began with a bid for historic change. But it foundered ultimately on his political and tactical misjudgments, on a lack of trusted relationships and on an outdated view of a conflict that many of his closest advisers imparted to him. And those advisers — veterans of the Middle East peace issue — clashed among themselves over tactics and turf.
...
Within a week of his appointment, Mitchell was on a plane to Europe and the Middle East for a “listening tour.”
To Obama and Mitchell, it was a propitious time, despite the recent Gaza war. Never before had the governments of the Sunni Muslim kingdoms, from Saudi Arabia to Jordan, shared more strategic interests with Israel. The reason was the common threat of Shiite Muslim Iran, which leaders in Riyadh and Jerusalem held in near-equal disdain.
In the words of one senior administration official, Mitchell’s plan was to “expand the chess board” — that is, to ask Israel and the Palestinians to return to direct talks and to ask the Arab states to make symbolic gestures to show Israel it was serious about a wider peace.
The approach captured the essence of Obama’s view of foreign policy: everyone gives a little, everyone gets a little. And several senior administration officials believed that Obama, after a historic election at home and rock-star popularity abroad, would be able to persuade traditionally recalcitrant Middle East leaders to agree.
But no Arab leader showed an interest in helping Obama with Israel. Mitchell did hear something else on his trip — that a freeze on Israeli settlement construction would send a strong signal that the new president wanted to make a difference.
Hillary Clinton, Mitchell, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Dennis B. Ross — a Middle East adviser to Obama during the 2008 campaign who joined his administration as a State Department adviser on Iran — were veterans of the Clinton years.Read the whole thing (it's much longer). Bottom line: Whether Obama is anti-Israel or not (I believe he is), he screwed up royally. I shudder to think what he might do in another four years (God forbid).
According to former administration officials and outside advisers briefed on some White House meetings, Emanuel, in particular, thought Netanyahu could be pressured to make concessions, just as he had in the 1990s.
Emanuel’s father was born in Jerusalem and, before the state of Israel was created in 1948, belonged to the Irgun, a Jewish paramilitary movement classified as a terrorist group by the British forces it fought. Emanuel served as a civilian volunteer for the Israel Defense Forces during the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
He often told others that he believed his view was consistent with that of the Israeli political center, which had traditionally disliked the settlement project because of its cost and security risks and the moral questions it raised about the occupation of Palestinian land. He also had an outsize say in the Obama administration about Israel policy.
“I have some very smart people advising me on this,” Obama told the Jewish leaders in that first meeting at the White House in July 2009, turning to Emanuel.
“We understand there is a profound political edge to Israeli politics. Rahm understands the politics there and he explains them to me.”
To many in the administration, Emanuel’s instinct was one of “tough love” toward Israel.
“But his depth may not have been as grounded in the realities of the current conflict as it should have been,” said a senior administration official, who worked on the Israeli-Palestinian issue.
Netanyahu had changed since the 1990s, and so had the Israeli public. From his experience with Clinton, Netanyahu learned that he could not afford to lose his base. For him, a fight with a U.S. president pressuring Israel was a safer political bet than it once had been.
...
On the eve of Abbas’s arrival in Washington in late May 2009 for his first meeting with Obama, Hillary Clinton provided an unscripted push to the Palestinian leader’s position.
At a State Department appearance with the Egyptian foreign minister, Clinton, speaking for Obama, said, “He wants to see a stop to settlements — not some settlements, not outposts, not ‘natural growth’ exceptions.’
“That is our position,” she said, outlining a demand publicly stronger than any to date. “That is what we have communicated very clearly.”
White House officials acknowledged recently that her comments were a mistake. But the president declined to soften that position when he had a chance.
...
Around midnight, after touring the Sphinx and pyramids, Obama headed to Dresden, Germany, for a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The U.S. delegation did not stop in Jerusalem, as some Israeli officials had hoped it would. The trip had a planned symmetry, as White House aides recently described, that a few days in Israel would have disrupted.
After a quick meeting with Merkel, Obama headed for the hilltop camp of Buchenwald, an iconic element of the genocidal Nazi network. He met the Nobel Peace laureate Elie Wiesel on his arrival. Wiesel spent time at the camp as a child. His father died there.
Of the horrified liberators who arrived at the camp decades earlier, Obama said, “They could not have known how the nation of Israel could rise out of the destruction of the Holocaust and the strong, enduring bonds between that great nation and my own.”
For the small number of people who witnessed that still afternoon, the memory was indelible. It was also a miscalculation, a sign that the president knew less about the historic shape of the Israeli-Palestinian story than he thought. Some prominent Israelis and Jewish supporters said Obama, in his somber remarks at the gates of the camp, suggested that the state of Israel emerged as a moral response to the Holocaust. But most Israelis believe the state’s legitimacy is rooted in the Bible and Hebrew texts of its people, a central tenet of Zionist thought.
“What you saw, at several turns during Obama’s management of this, was a complete lack of an emotion-based relationship with Israel,” said a former Palestinian political adviser to the Palestine Liberation Organization, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide a candid view.
“The Cairo speech was excellent, important,” the adviser said. “But it didn’t preclude a Jerusalem speech. It didn’t show any emotional smarts.”
...
In their meeting, Obama informed Ross that he wanted him to “quarterback” all Middle East policy, including that involving Iran.
Ross was inheriting a policy that he considered politically unfeasible. He believed the haggling over the freeze was wasting Obama’s political capital in a region that once had high hopes for his presidency.
“We had adopted a hard and firm position on this by then,” Ross said in an interview, echoing what he told the president. “The problem was that it put the emphasis on one issue when it wasn’t the only, or even most important, issue and, in any case, needed to be put in context.”
Ross arrived in the West Wing in July 2009, the same month Obama held his first meeting with Jewish leaders. The initial question Ross wanted answered was: Who developed the settlement-freeze idea and was it possible to alter it? What he got was finger-pointing and no clear reply, even among senior officials.
With Mitchell in the region or at his home in Maine, Ross accumulated more influence on the issue as the weeks wore on and progress remained elusive.
“What’s the strategy here?” Obama asked constantly in meetings with Mitchell, Emanuel and others pushing for the settlement freeze, according to participants. “I see you want the moratorium, but how does it get us where we want to be? Tell me the relationship between what we are doing and our objective.”
The senior staff rivalry intensified as the questions persisted.
Administration officials said Mitchell and Ross clashed over responsibilities and policy approach, and Israel appeared to see its influence rise within the West Wing.
To those on Mitchell’s staff, there was confusion about how he could be so inept at the internal White House politics. He had been a skilled Senate majority leader, adept at political infighting.
“So it surprised me that it so surprised him that you have to do that in the job he was in,” said one administration official involved in Middle East policy.
...
Biden soon received disturbing news.
Israel’s Interior Ministry announced the construction of 1,600 new housing units in northern East Jerusalem — a community called Ramat Shlomo — that undermined Mitchell’s success at bringing the two sides closer together.
“It may have been a coincidence, but if so, it was an extraordinary and unfortunate coincidence,” Mitchell said in an interview.
For Biden, who was scheduled to dine with Netanyahu that evening, this was a diplomatic embarrassment. The vice president wanted to issue a statement from Jerusalem, but its wording was the subject of intense debate among his advisers and those back at the White House. Biden showed up for dinner at Netanyahu’s residence more than an hour late, and the statement he finally issued used the term “condemn,” the most severe under consideration. As Ross put it later, according to officials familiar with the debate, he believes that term should be used only to describe events related to terrorism.
Referring days later to the settlement announcement in his speech at Tel Aviv University, Biden noted that he had “condemned it immediately and unequivocally” at “the request of President Obama.”
As Biden flew home that day, his aides believed the episode was over. Some joked that the new Israeli settlement should be renamed “Biden Towers.”
While the vice president was in the air, Obama had breakfast with Secretary Clinton at the White House. By the end of the meal, Clinton returned to the State Department, where she got Netanyahu on the phone.
For about 45 minutes, according to senior State Department and White House officials, some of whom witnessed the call, Clinton sharply criticized the prime minister, calling what had happened a humiliation to the United States.
“She told him that this had created a problematic atmosphere and that we’re looking to you, as a friend, to take some concrete steps to make it right,” said a senior State Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Clinton had several items that Obama wanted Netanyahu to address. While they have not been made public, Israeli and U.S. officials acknowledged recently that Netanyahu effectively froze new building in East Jerusalem after the Clinton call [emphasis mine. CiJ].
Obama Seeks to Delegitimize Israeli Concerns over Iran
Posted By Anne Bayefsky On March 9, 2012 @ 2:34 pm In History,Homeland Security,Iran,Israel,Middle East,Politics,US News,World News |30 Comments
Despite Prime Minister Netanyahu’s valiant effort this week to educate President Barack Obama on the meaning of Purim and the centuries-old tale about the triumph of moral leadership and courage, the painful reality is that his message fell on deaf ears. The president does indeed “have Israel’s back” — up against a wall.
Over the course of a week in which the president spoke frequently on the subject of Iran, one message stood out. By vociferously arguing that his administration’s brand of diplomacy is realistically capable of ending Iran’s efforts to acquire nuclear weapons, and that views to the contrary are irresponsible war-mongering, Obama is attempting to undermine the legality of an Israeli strike.
In fact, self-defense in international law depends on the assessment that the threat posed to one’s civilian population is real and sufficiently imminent as to justify the use of force to prevent the impending harm. Given the catastrophic nature of the danger, it is not necessary for Israel — or America — to wait until the genocidal Iranian mullahs and President Ahmadinejad have their hands on the nuclear trigger.
But President Obama is painting a different picture. If Israel can be cast as pre-empting or foregoing the reasonable possibility of diplomatic success with a “rational actor” — as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey recently described Iran — then it would not be engaged in justifiable self-defense. Labeling discussion of the necessity of using force to stymie Iran’s aggressive behavior as “loose talk of war” or “beating the drums of war” — in the president’s words — is also to deny that such a move would be legitimate self-defense.
This explains why in Sunday’s speech to the pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC, the president lunged the knife into Israel’s back and twisted it: “I firmly believe that an opportunity still remains for diplomacy. … Iran’s leaders still have the opportunity to make the right decision. … Israel…[has] an interest in seeing this challenge resolved diplomatically.” The insulting innuendo was that without his wise admonition Israeli mothers and fathers would be hankering to send their children into battle.
But even the spin doctors — desperate to explain away three years of policy development at odds with Israel’s (and America’s) national security — cannot cover for a patently obvious lack of resolve.
Recall the huffing and puffing and the fuzzy shifting deadlines on Iran of the administration’s first year in office. On July 22, 2009, Secretary Clinton said of U.S. action on Iran: “Our president came to office with a very clear preference for talking with people. … I think there is still a lot of opportunity here, but we are not going to keep the window open forever.” On July 27, 2009, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said: “The president is fully aware that the Iranians may simply try to run out the clock. … I think the president is hoping for some kind of response … at the opening of the U.N. General Assembly session.” On October 1, 2009, the president said: “Iran … must grant unfettered access to IAEA inspectors within two weeks. … We’re not interested in talking for the sake of talking. If Iran does not take steps in the near future to live up to its obligations, then the United States will not continue to negotiate indefinitely.” On November 29, 2009, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said: “Time is running out for Iran to address the international community’s growing concerns about its nuclear program.”
Or compare the president himself in his first year in office to the Obama of today. On May 18, 2009, President Obama was asked about Iran and any deadlines for his “policy of engagement.” He responded: “You know, I don’t want to set an artificial deadline. … We should have a fairly good sense by the end of the year as to whether they are moving in the right direction.”
Almost three years later, the president is still spinning his wheels. On March 6, 2012, after the administration announced a new round of talks with Iran, the president told a news conference in eerily similar terms: “To resolve this issue will require Iran to come to the table and discuss in a clear and forthright way how to prove to the international community that the intentions of their nuclear program are peaceful. … They know how to do it, and the question is going to be whether in these discussions they show themselves moving clearly in that direction.”
So let’s recap. The leading state sponsor of terrorism is poised to acquire the world’s most dangerous weapon. The president of the United States is still pretending that Iran could prove that its intentions are peaceful and is wondering where the Iranians are headed. And to forestall the possibility that Israel will give up on America’s commander-in-chief having his own country’s back, let alone theirs, President Obama is busy sabotaging the Jewish state’s right of self-defense.
Twenty-four centuries later and Purim is as relevant as ever.
E. W. Jackson Sr.:
Why Obama is Opposed to Israel
A BLACK AMERICAN CLERGYMAN POINTS TO THE SOURCE OF THE PRESIDENT'S ANTI-ISRAELISM
E. W. Jackson is Bishop of Exodus Faith Ministries, an author and retired attorney
Like Barack Hussein Obama II, I am a graduate of Harvard Law School . I too have Muslims in my family. I am black, and I was once a leftist Democrat. Since our backgrounds are somewhat similar, I perceive something in Obama's policy toward Israel which people without that background may not see. All my life I have witnessed a strain of anti-Semitism in the black community. It has been fueled by the rise of the Nation of Islam and Louis Farrakhan, but it predates that organization.
We heard it in Jesse Jackson's “HYMIE town” remark years ago during his presidential campaign. We heard it most recently in Jeremiah Wright's remark about “them Jews” not allowing Obama to speak with him. I hear it from my own Muslim family members who see the problem in the Middle East as a “Jew” problem.
Growing up in a small, predominantly black urban community in Pennsylvania , I heard the comments about Jewish shop owners. They were “greedy cheaters” who could not be trusted, according to my family and others in the neighborhood. I was too young to understand what it means to be Jewish, or know that I was hearing anti-Semitism. These people seemed nice enough to me, but others said they were “evil”. Sadly, this bigotry has yet to be eradicated from the black community.
In Chicago , the anti-Jewish sentiment among black people is even more pronounced because of the direct influence of Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam. Most African Americans are not followers of “The Nation”, but many have a quiet respect for its leader because, they say, “he speaks the truth” and “stands up for the black man”. What they mean of course is that he viciously attacks the perceived “enemies” of the black community – white people and Jews. Even some self-described Christians buy into his demagoguery.
The question is whether Obama, given his Muslim roots and experience in Farrakhan's Chicago , shares this antipathy for Israel and Jewish people. Is there any evidence that he does? First, the President was taught for twenty years by a virulent anti-Semite, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. In the black community it is called “sitting under”. You don't merely attend a church, you “sit under” a Pastor to be taught and mentored by him. Obama “sat under” Wright for a very long time. He was comfortable enough with Farrakhan – Wright's friend – to attend and help organize his “Million Man March”. I was on C-Span the morning of the march arguing that we must never legitimize a racist and anti-Semite, no matter what “good” he claims to be doing. Yet a future President was in the crowd giving Farrakhan his enthusiastic support.
The classic left wing view is that Israel is the oppressive occupier, and the Palestinians are Israel 's victims. Obama is clearly sympathetic to this view. In speaking to the “Muslim World, “he did not address the widespread Islamic hatred of Jews. Instead he attacked Israel over the growth of West Bank settlements. Surely he knows that settlements are not the crux of the problem. The absolute refusal of the Palestinians to accept Israel 's right to exist as a Jewish state is the insurmountable obstacle. That's where the pressure needs to be placed, but this President sees it differently. He also made the preposterous comparison of the Holocaust to Palestinian “dislocation”.
Obama clearly has Muslim sensibilities. He sees the world and Israel from a Muslim perspective. His construct of “The Muslim World” is unique in modern diplomacy. It is said that only The Muslim Brotherhood and other radical elements of the religion use that concept. It is a call to unify Muslims around the world. It is rather odd to hear an American President use it. In doing so he reveals more about his thinking than he intends. The dramatic policy reversal of joining the unrelentingly anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and pro-Islamic UN Human Rights Council is in keeping with the President's truest – albeit undeclared red – sensibilities
Those who are paying attention and thinking about these issues do not find it unreasonable to consider that President Obama is influenced by a strain of anti-Semitism picked up from the black community, his leftist friends and colleagues, his Muslim associations and his long period of mentor-ship under Jeremiah Wright. If this conclusion is accurate, Israel has some dark days ahead. For the first time in her history, she may find the President of the United States siding with her enemies. Those who believe, as I do, that Israel must be protected had better be ready for the fight.
E. W. Jackson is Bishop of Exodus Faith Ministries, an author and retired attorney
HONORS ANTISEMITES
ama medals antisemite Tutu
Tutu's war on Israel, Jews
Special: Archbishop Tutu leads vile, racist campaign against Israel and Jewish people
Giulio Meotti
Published: 08.11.11, 21:47 / Israel News
share
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, whose role in the fight against South African apartheid in the 1980s gained him the Nobel Peace Prize and global fame, is among the world’s most respected figures.
Barack Obama awarded him the US highest honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Tutu has been called “an inspiration" and was compared to Albert Schweitzer and Gandhi. The Wall Street Journal labeled him “the best known priest in the world.” Tutu was even asked to donate his genome to scientists to discover the African roots of mankind.
Receive Ynetnews updates directly to your desktop
With Nelson Mandela in jail, it fell to Tutu to steer the struggle against institutionalized racial oppression in a nonviolent direction. From his church in segregated Soweto, Tutu urged the imposition of economic sanctions against the white government. Since then, Tutu’s face has become the symbol of tolerance and goodness.
However, the Archbishop’s iconic voice has also found another cause no less popular: The global campaign against Israel and the Jewish people. Tutu just promoted an appeal to the US pension fund of the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association for cutting the partnership with Israeli companies. He also helped the Australian Marrickville Council approve a boycott of Israel's goods.
No comments:
Post a Comment