Obama, Not Bibi, Created U.S.-Israel Crisis

Jonathan S. Tobin | @tobincommentary10.28.2014 - 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.

Obama hates israel, embraces terrorists

A twisted administration Posted: 29 Oct 2014 01:54 PM PDT (Scott Johnson) The twisted mentality of the Obama administration is prominently on display in Jeffrey Goldberg’s summary of his conversations with senior officials posted here. Anonymously describing Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu as “chickenshit,” one senior official serves up a pure case of projection, and another senior administration official seconds him (or her). It is as if Obama himself had dismissed someone as “arrogant,” or Joe Biden disparaged anyone as “stupid,” or John Kerry insulted someone as “haughty,” though in this case the official is projecting on behalf of the administration as a whole. The whole thing is almost — almost — unbelievable. If you’ve been awake and alert, however, it makes sick sense. It figures. “Fair is foul, and foul is fair:/Hover through the fog and filthy air.” On the substance of the issues, Danielle Pletka speaks for me in her comments on Goldberg’s column. She renders this stinging judgment: Let’s get this straight: Bibi et al, who have what most would agree is a legitimate and existential fear of an Iranian nuclear weapon, are “good” because they’re, er “chickenshit” about launching a strike on Iran; oh, and Bibi is also labeled a “coward” for having been “chickenshit” in that regard. But he’s “bad” because he won’t cave to a Palestinian Authority and Hamas so riven by terrorism, corruption and incompetence that they won’t “accommodate” with each other. How can we read this as anything other than an appalling display of hypocrisy, hostility to Israel and warmth toward the very powers that have killed almost as many Americans (Iran, Hamas, et al) as al Qaeda? Did team Obama label Ahmadinejad as “chickenshit”? Have they labeled the Qataris, who arm and fund ISIS at the same time that they buy US weapons as “chickenshit”? I’m sure that in defense of Obama, many will say that they expect more of the Israelis than they do of the Gulf or Turkey or NATO or … anyone. The question is, why? Coming back to the fons et origo of this whole relationship disaster, let us recall that it was Obama who ashcanned the George W. Bush commitment to Israel to oppose the return to 1967 lines; Obama who prayed at the altar of Jew-hating Reverend Jeremiah Wright; Obama who absorbed the scholarship of Israel-hating Rashid Khalidi; Obama, whose own settlement policy has been more extreme than that of the Palestinian Authority. But let’s forget about Obama’s own ideological dislike of the State of Israel and its leaders, whoever they may be. Set aside the fact that it is not Bibi who is acting like a selfish political actor, but Barack Obama and the personal sycophants around him who are more interested in the whims and fortunes of the American Narcissus. Let us instead focus on the fact that an unnamed “senior American official” is waxing triumphant over the fact that it is now “too late” for Israel to strike Iran’s nuclear weapons complex. This is good news? The fact that American officials believe it is more advantageous to have a nuclear Iran than to have someone in power in Israel who will not kowtow to the US president says something about the fundamental rot at the core of the Obama administration, its contempt for the national security of the American people – who are at terrible risk from an Iranian nuclear bomb – and the vileness of the cowards and chickenshit officials who people the fiefdom of Barack Obama.

Supreme Court and jerusalem

King Davis establish Jerusalem as capital of Israel in 995 BCE, 1700 years before Islam, and 3000 years before anyone heard of phony Arab Palestinians. Jerusalem is mentioned 687 times in tanach, NEVER in Quran. Shamefully Israel is ONLY nation in the world US will not recognize declaration of its capital. Our embassy is in Tel Aviv, not Jerusaleme. Here is SCOTUS case about it.
Young Jewish boy will soon take center stage at the Supreme Court 

Menachem Binyamin Zivotofsky is a 12-year-old boy who has been at the forefront of what could become an international incident. 12 years ago, he was born in Jerusalem and his parents want his birthplace to be officially listed as “Israel” on his passport. U.S. policy since 1948 has been that Jerusalem is a city. Congress passed a law in 2002 stating that citizens born in Jerusalem "the Secretary shall upon request record the place of birth as Israel." However at the time President Bush signed it, included a signing statement opposing that provision, calling it unconstitutional. Zivotofsky’s case has created a tug of war between Obama and Congress. The question becomes who is responsible for recognizing foreign countries. These minor cases can lead to uproar in the Middle East; this issue has been unresolved for 238 years. As with all cases, someone must lose, that most likely will be young Zivotofsky.
Government officials claim this battle could "provoke uproar throughout the Arab and Muslim world." The State Department’s Foreign Affairs manual states
“
For a person born in Jerusalem, write JERUSALEM as the place of birth in the passport," "Do not write Israel, Jordan or West Bank for a person born within the current municipal borders of Jerusalem."
This case was previously brought to the Supreme Court and ruled that “it was not a political question best left to the other two branches to fight out.” Now it has returned. Zivotofsky’s ordeal began back in December 2002 when Zivotofsky’s mother applied for a passport and "consular report of birth abroad" for young Menachem. They first attempted to use “Jerusalem, Israel” but was shot down immediately. The courts originally ruled that the family lacked standin to challenge the policy.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled against them. "The status of the city of Jerusalem is one of the most contentious issues in recorded history," the court said. "For more than two millennia, the city has been won and lost by a host of sovereigns. The controversy continues today as the state of Israel and the Palestinian people both claim sovereignty over the city."
In their brief, the Department of Justice claimed that Jerusalem is a sensitive “flash point” in the Middle East conflict and that changing the passport would “critically compromise the ability of the United States to work with their Middle East allies and enemies to further the peace process. Harry Reid encouraged his fellow Senators to support the law.
“
The law does not alter the position of the United States on the status of Jerusalem," "Rather, it continues Congress's century-and-a-half-old exercise of legislative authority over the contents and design of identification documents, such as passports, held by U.S. citizens."
The Supreme Court began their latest session began October 5th focusing on cases involving First Amendment rights in the digital age and religious freedom behind bars

Obama admin. calls it car accident

Hamas Strikes in French Hill

Three-month-old baby killed in hit-and-run terror attack

Update: Baby girl was a U.S.

Kerry's continued betrayal or incopetency

ZOA Criticizes Kerry's Absurd Statements Blaming Israel for Increased Instability in the Middle East

New York, October 22, 2014 --The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has criticized Secretary of State John Kerry for making repeated, absurd statements blaming Israel for increased terrorism and instability in the Middle East.   In a recent speech at a White House ceremony for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, Secretary Kerry said the Israeli/Palestinian conflict was thought of by various leaders as fueling violence and leading to recruitment by the jihadist organizations. Secretary Kerry did not repudiate these absurd claims, thus lending credence to them. Anyone who believes that the Islamic State (IS) is murdering Christians, Muslims, Kurds, and others and seizing vast tracts of Iraq and Syria because of the lack of peace between Israel and Palestinian Arabs is either an idiot or an anti-Semite.   Secretary Kerry said, "I think that it is more critical than ever that we be fighting for peace [between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs], and I think it is more necessary than ever ... As I went around and met with people in the course of our discussions about the ISIL [Islamic State] coalition, the truth is we -- there wasn't a leader I met with in the region who didn't raise with me spontaneously the need to try to get peace between Israel and the Palestinians, because it was a cause of recruitment and of street anger and agitation that they felt."    State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf denied that Secretary Kerry had intended to mean that Israel was causing unrest and destabilization in the region, saying that Secretary Kerry "did not make a link between the growth of ISIL and Israel, period ... That was a wrong reading of his comments" ('US rejects Bennett's criticism of Kerry's remarks on ISIS, peace process,' Jerusalem Post, October 17, 2014).   ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, "We remain puzzled and perturbed that Secretary Kerry makes public assertions about Israel that are damaging to it's image and interests, then purports to deny that he made any such assertions or that his plain words have been misinterpreted.   "In fact, Secretary Kerry has not denied his latest statement. A denial would have involved repudiating the remarks he heard from Arab leaders. When Secretary Kerry repeats the absurd anti-Israel claims made to him by Arab leaders without comment or critique, his non-response to these absurd claims may well be interpreted as an endorsement by Kerry.   "The claim that the absence of an Israeli/Palestinian peace settlement is a force-multiplier or cause of jihadist recruitment in various Middle Eastern conflict is absurd. Considering that all jihadist organizations loudly proclaim their desire to see Israel utterly destroyed, the idea that an Israeli/Palestinian peace would tranquilize the situation is nonsense. Self-evidently, these terrorist organizations would be further enraged.   "In fact, the Arab war on Israel is unrelated and irrelevant to the present violence and conflict in Syria, Egypt, Libya, Iraq and Yemen. If Israel didn't exist, the same problems between and within Arab countries would still exist.   "Historically, too, the war waged by Arabs on Israel has had little to do with the numerous other conflagrations besetting the region.  In the 1950s, it had no bearing on the Algerian war. In the 1960s, it had no bearing on the Egyptian invasion of Yemen, or the bloody emergence of the Ba'athist dictatorship in Iraq, or the Aden (now Yemen) Emergency in which hundreds were killed in violence. In the 1970s, it had nothing to do with the Libyan-Chad war.  In the 1980s, it had nothing to do with the Iran-Iraq war, in which over a million people were killed. In the 1990s, it had nothing to do with Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait -- though Saddam Hussein absurdly linked them. "Secretary Kerry's latest damaging remarks about Israel which he fails to repudiate fit a pattern.    "In February, Secretary Kerry said in a speech delivered in Munich that, if Israeli/Palestinian talks fail, boycotting and isolating Israel is both inevitable and understandable, implying Israel will be held responsible and that boycotts are to be expected. He could have said that the U.S. would utterly oppose all such boycotts and reject blaming Israel, but he didn't.   Then, in May, Secretary Kerry said in remarks to the Trilateral Commission that Israel is becoming an apartheid state, a statement that all but justified the Palestinian violence, international boycotts and delegitimization. He could have placed blame for the absence of peace where it belongs -- on a Palestinian partner which refuses to accept Israel as Jewish state. Instead, he chose to essentially defame Israel before the world as a rights-abusing state fit to be a pariah -- then denied he had said or meant any such thing.   "We fear that it is likely that the Obama Administration is making a habit of uttering statements hostile to or blaming Israel -- and thus adding to its international isolation -- then offering denials and partial retractions to shirk any responsibility and domestic political cost for having made them.   "In any event, such a pattern increases pressure and does grave harm to Israel and the U.S./Israeli relationship. It certainly neuters President Obama's oft-made claim that he 'has Israel's back.'"

Kerry's anti Semitsm

So our Secretary of State is clearly an anti-Semite or a fool. Think Kerry's Jewish grandfather Otto, who converted away because of anti-semitism in Vienna, would be proud? Family name was Kohn.

Ministers wallop Kerry for linking stalled peace talks to rise of Islamic State
Naftali Bennett says ‘someone will always blame the Jew'; Gilad Erdan accuses US secretary of state of not understanding region
BY JOSHUA DAVIDOVICH October 17, 2014, 2:44 pm 25
 


US Secretary of State John Kerry came under fire from right-wing Israeli politicians Friday after saying that the Israeli Palestinian conflict was fueling the spread of Islamic terror in the Middle East.


Economy Minister Naftali Bennett indicated that Kerry was using an anti-Semitic canard and Communications Minister Gilad Erdan accused the top US diplomat of showing an unprecedented lack of understanding of the Middle East.


Speaking at an event marking the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha at the State Department Thursday, Kerry said it was “imperative” to restart stalled Israeli-Palestinian talks, since the conflict was helping the Islamic State recruit new members.

“There wasn’t a leader I met with in the region who didn’t raise with me spontaneously the need to try to get peace between Israel and the Palestinians, because it was a cause of recruitment and of street anger and agitation that they felt –- and I see a lot of heads nodding –- they had to respond to,” he told gathered diplomats.

“People need to understand the connection of that. And it has something to do with humiliation and denial and absence of dignity,” he added.

Writing on Facebook, Bennett, who heads the nationalist Jewish Home party, a major coalition member, linked to an article about Kerry’s remarks, commenting in Hebrew that “Even when a British Muslim beheads a British Christian, someone will always blame the Jew.”

Gilad Erdan on July 8, 2013. (photo credit: Flash 90)
Gilad Erdan on July 8, 2013. (photo credit: Flash 90)

Likud minister Erdan, thought to be Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pick to become Interior Minister, also blasted Kerry on Facebook, asking sarcastically whether anybody truly believes Islamic State fighters would put down their arms if Israeli-Palestinian talks were restarted.

“I actually respect Kerry and his efforts, but every time he breaks new records of showing a lack of understanding of our region and the essence of the conflict in the Middle East I have trouble respecting what he says,” he wrote in Hebrew.

Jewish Home MK Ayelet Shaked also expressed dismay over the statement.

This is not the first time Kerry has been criticized by members of Israel’s ruling coalition.

In January, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon was quoted calling Kerry “inexplicably obsessive” and “messianic” in his efforts to coax the two sides into a peace agreement. Ya’alon said Kerry has “nothing to teach me about the conflict with the Palestinians.

“All that can ‘save us’ is for John Kerry to win a Nobel Prize and leave us in peace,” Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth quoted him saying at the time.


Read more: Ministers wallop Kerry for linking stalled peace talks to rise of Islamic State | The Times of Israel http://www.timesofisrael.com/ministers-wallop-kerry-after-peace-talks-linked-to-islamic-state/#ixzz3GPQYlmtx
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Peace impossible with Palestinians now

"Ever since the clashes began in 1936, Dr. Moshe Beilinson, who served as the deputy editor of the [now defunct] Davarnewspaper, was asked 'when will it end?' and he would reply 'when the last of our enemies understands that we are here forever.' There are no shortcuts. Our efforts to create shortcuts over the last two decades - from Oslo until the present day - have all failed."
    "Abbas has never said that he recognizes us as the nation state of the Jewish people. He also never said that if a compromise is reached, even one that adheres to his vision of the 1967 lines, it would end the conflict and the [Palestinian] demands. He never said that he has given up on demanding refugee rights. So where can we go with him?"
    "The other side doesn't think that the 1967 lines will be the end of the story, and they never said that it would be the end of the story. To them it is merely a stage; it is not about establishing a state, but rather destroying the Jewish state and negating its existence. There is a lack of symmetry here that is not in our favor, so we need to learn how to manage this conflict without delusions."  (Israel Hayom)