Love of the Land: What the Obama White House has condemned

What the Obama White House has condemned

Elder of Ziyon
25 April '10

One of the strongest terms in the diplomatic arsenal is the word "condemn." It is used sparingly, to show extreme displeasure, usually for heinous acts of terror and mass murder.

Elder Brother of Ziyon asked me what international incidents the Obama White House has condemned since taking office.

Here's what I could find:

Terrorist bombings on the Moscow Metro
May 2009 fatal terror attacks in Iran
Murder of three employees of US Consulate in Mexico
Violence against civilians in Iran
Terrorist bombings in Iraq
Terrorist bombings in Jakarta
Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi's house arrest in Burma
Al Qaeda attack on Saudi Arabia’s Assistant Minister of Interior
Brutal murders and rapes in Guinea
Iran's executions of pro-democracy advocates
North Korean nuclear test

and, of course...

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Love of the Land: What the Obama White House has condemned

Love of the Land: Biden's knee-slapper

Biden's knee-slapper

Soccer Dad
25 March '10

Stand up comedian: Vice President Biden (h/t The Muqata last week):

"I just got back from five days in the Middle East," Biden said. "I love to travel, but it's great to be back to a place where a boom in housing construction is actually a good thing," he said. Israel announced during Biden's visit that it had approved construction of 1,600 homes in East Jerusalem, a move which the U.S. called an "insult" due to its timing. (Haaretz)

Israelly Cool observed:

That's really funny, especially to those who have lost their homes and may stand to lose their homes in future thanks to the US pressure on Israel.

And then there's the larger issue of what the administration is trying to accomplish. Israel Matzav wrote two weeks ago:

Because Jerusalem rent is so expensive, young families are trying to move out of the city. But the places that are cheaper that would be attractive to ultra-Orthodox families who would like to be near Jerusalem - Kiryat Sefer and Beitar Ilit - are over the 'green line' where the government has implemented a 'settlement freeze.' So they are looking for solutions in Jerusalem.

People have to live somewhere. Unfortunately, most of the 'international community' would rather that we just leave.

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Love of the Land: Biden's knee-slapper

Love of the Land: The White House War Against Israel

The White House War Against Israel

Edward Alexander
Frontpagemag.com
23 March '10

The decision of the Obama White House to pick a public fight with Israel over its interior ministry’s fairly routine announcement of progress towards approval of the construction (some years from now) of apartments in northeast Jerusalem has by now been subjected to sharp and justified criticism for its disproportionality; its bad faith in reneging on signed agreements with Israel; its mean-spirited spitefulness; its dogged attachment to the exploded assumption that “settlements” are the cause of Arab intransigence; its desire to keep intact the possibility of an apartheid state of Palestine that would not accommodate a single Jew; and its entire indifference to the violence that its reckless statements could (and did) incite in Jerusalem.

But there is a more sinister aspect to the relentless expressions of “insult” and “offense” coming from Vice-President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and White House advisor David Axelrod. It is the invocation, undoubtedly originating in the Oval Office itself, of a long-recognized trope of anti-Semitism, a lethal mixture of the ancient blood libel and the modern conspiracy libel.

Already in July 2009, long before the current ruckus, President Obama told Jewish leaders at a White House meeting that he wanted to “change the way the Arabs see us” by putting “space” between the U. S. and Israel. More recently Biden, according to several reports, told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that

“What you’re doing here [i.e., building houses for Jews in “settlements”] undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That endangers us and it endangers regional peace.”

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Love of the Land: The White House War Against Israel

Love of the Land: Palestinians Glorify a Terrorist

Palestinians Glorify a Terrorist

Daniel Mandel
Frontpagemag.com
23 March '10

Does building homes threaten peace? Or does holding a ceremony honoring as a hero and role model a terrorist who murdered dozens of civilians? Last week, Israel announced it would be doing the former. Palestinians did the latter. The Obama Administration condemned the Israeli words; it ignored the Palestinian deeds.

What could be wrong with building 1,600 homes for Jews in eastern Jerusalem? Nothing, except for Palestinians who do not accept Israel’s existence and intend as a first step towards ending it to set up their own Jew-free state and divide Israel’s capital in the process.

What could be wrong with the Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority (PA) publicly honoring Dalal Mughrabi, who led the 1978 coastal road terror attack that killed 37 Israeli civilians? Everything, where peace is concerned but, apparently, nothing where the Obama Administration is concerned.

Visiting Vice-President Joseph Biden condemned the Israeli building project. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called it “an insult to the United States.” Senior Obama adviser David Axelrod described it as “destructive” and an “affront.” But no such words – in fact, no words at all – issued from this Administration over the PA publicly glorifying Mughrabi, which also occurred during Biden’s visit.

The Obama Administration has noisily opposed Jewish construction in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem. But last year even it accepted Israel’s unilateral concession (unreciprocated by the PA) of a ten-month building freeze in the West Bank, excluding Jerusalem. Indeed, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton welcomed this concession and called it “unprecedented” – which it was.

After all, throughout the Oslo process, Israel built homes for existing Jewish communities without Palestinians breaking off talks, and little wonder: an Israeli commitment to cease building such homes does not feature in the Oslo agreements. The use of such a pretext for walking out of talks could only have gone so far.
However, last year, the Obama Administration arrived on the scene.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: Palestinians Glorify a Terrorist

Love of the Land: Third Act for the Jerusalem Crisis this Week

Third Act for the Jerusalem Crisis this Week

Leo Rennert
American Thinker
22 March '10

Relations between the United States and Israel hit crisis level last week. The drama has played out in two acts so far. The third act comes this week, and it determines whether this whole situation will be a tragedy or farce.

According to the New York Times, the acrimonious ten-day confrontation between President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is over -- with each side claiming victory. American officials say that they got important concessions from Israel, while Israeli officials say that Netanyahu didn't give away anything of real importance -- certainly not on Jerusalem, which, after all, was the casus belli for this U.S.-precipitated oratorical row.

Upon review of what actually transpired during these tense ten days, there's a lingering question that should nevertheless haunt Obama for a long time: Did he and his subordinates really need to huff and puff so vociferously against Israel and end up with so little?

The sudden crisis in U.S.-Israel relations can be divided into two parts -- the first involving a major Israeli screw-up, the second involving a much bigger Obama screw-up. In fact, what was barely a mini-crisis in the first act turned into a full-blown set-to when Obama raised the stakes for both sides big time.

The fuse was lit when visiting Vice President Biden was blindsided by an announcement from Israel's Interior Ministry that an interim approval was given to proposed plans for the addition of 1,600 apartment units in Ramat Shlomo -- an ultra-orthodox Jewish neighborhood in northeast Jerusalem. With the U.S. trying to get indirect peace talks underway, Biden was furious and criticized the Israeli move as an unnecessary and provocative obstacle to the peace process. He kept Netanyahu waiting for ninety minutes at a dinner hosted by the Israeli leader to draft a fairly sharp response.

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Love of the Land: Third Act for the Jerusalem Crisis this Week

Love of the Land: A Peace of Obama's Mind

A Peace of Obama's Mind

Jay D. Homnick
American Spectator
19 March '10

There is a wall of sorrow
Standing in Jerusalem
Repentance, joy and knowledge
Are her adornments, her refrain,
You can build yet upon her
The foundations deeply lain
Though she's all that does remain…
The many travelers near her
Taking pictures, going home
Never see her sorrow
Never hear her moan
I've been to her midst darkness
And I almost passed her by…
She is our reminder
Her expression not quite stone
Her silence is her beauty
And her sorrow is our own…

-- Avraham Rosenblum
The Kotel Song, 1980

The last time I said Kaddish at the Holy Wall
I looked at those stones
At those holy stones
And I realized those stones are not made out of stone.
The holy stones are made out of tears
Tears of my father
Tears of my grandfather
And I looked at those holy stones and I saw six million little tears…

-- Shlomo Carlebach
I Heard the Wall Singing, 1968

Jerusalem is in the news again. Something to do with a few housing units being announced in a way calculated to anger Vice President Biden upon his arrival in Israel. An insult, said Joe, echoed by Hillary, amplified by Gibbs, magnified by Axelrod. No thought of the insult expressed by the visit of Biden, with Obama still loath to come in person after 15 months in office.
Putting the proximate cause of strife aside, a much larger issue emerges from this event. It is of utmost historical significance and is ignored at the peril of reality.

It is the notion that Jerusalem will be divided in a final peace treaty. This is now just short of explicitly accepted in all government and media discussions of the negotiating process. What is more, diplomats, bureaucrats and pundits have now begun to signal comfort in the expectation that the Arab half of Jerusalem will then become the capital of the Palestinian state.
This is one of those classic bits of myth that lodge themselves into otherwise reasonable crania but explode upon the minutest examination.

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Love of the Land: A Peace of Obama's Mind

Love of the Land: How Obama Is Turning America against Israel

How Obama Is Turning America against Israel

Ed Lasky
American Thinker
19 March '10

At best, Barack Obama committed the latest big mistake in his conduct of foreign policy last week. At worst, the president carried out a deliberate operation intended to weaken the U.S.-Israel relationship and turn the public against the Jewish State.

An announcement was made by a ministry of the Israeli government during Vice President Joe Biden's visit to Israel that building permits were to be issued for a neighborhood in Jerusalem. The area concerned was expressly excluded from the moratorium on building that Prime Minster Netanyahu had offered to encourage the Palestinians to come to peace talks. The area is already filled with Israelis, and it was always considered an area that Israel would keep in any peace deal with the Palestinians. Indeed, the Palestinians never pushed to include this area in any previous dealings. The area is strategically important for the Israelis, being located on a higher elevation ideal for snipers to kill Israelis traveling on key highways.

Nevertheless, the announcement during Biden's visit was a diplomatic faux pas. Joe Biden made his displeasure clear while there, standing up Netanyahu for dinner (he was late by ninety minutes) and verbally lashing out.

Netanyahu and the Israeli government apologized profusely. That was not enough. When Biden returned home, the president (Mr. Cool) was "livid" and met with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to work out word by word what the American response would be.

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Love of the Land: How Obama Is Turning America against Israel

Love of the Land: Obama’s War Against Israel

Obama’s War Against Israel

Joel B. Pollak
Frontpagemag.com
19 March '10

There’s a joke making the rounds in my suburban Chicago neighborhood about the clash between the Obama administration and the Netanyahu government: Why did Vice-President Joe Biden get angry when Israel embarrassed him by announcing new construction in Jerusalem’s Ramat Shlomo neighborhood? Because it’s usually Biden’s job to embarrass himself.

The joke has carried on far too long. The tension between the two governments is being stoked by President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a deliberate attempt to weaken the coalition of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. If Israel had committed a real foul, the Obama administration could have used a quiet threat of public condemnation to force Israeli concessions, and the Netanyahu government would have little choice but to comply.

Instead, the Obama administration has turned a public relations snafu into a public test of Israeli sovereignty, leaving the Netanyahu government little choice but to resist. The neighborhood where 1600 homes were to be built is not a remote outpost. It is mere meters from the Green Line, in a part of East Jerusalem that is actually west of the Old City. It is likely to remain part of Israel in any future Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.

The timing of the administration’s attack is unfortunate, for two reasons. One is that Iran continues to move towards becoming a nuclear power. Each day the U.S. and Israel spend on the Ramat Shlomo question is a day wasted, a day that ought to have been spent dealing with our common enemy.

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Love of the Land: Obama’s War Against Israel

Love of the Land: The Chicken Licken syndrome

The Chicken Licken syndrome

It’s now up to Netanyahu to decide whether he’ll revive yesteryear’s resolve about Jerusalem or.


Sarah Honig
Another Tack/JPost
19 March '10

Hillary is hopping mad about Israeli “insults” (no less). Barack Obama’s vice president, Joe Biden (some of whose best friends are Zionists), has warned us (at Tel Aviv University) that “the status quo is not sustainable.”

Obviously doubting our abilities to comprehend so weighty a message, he slowly and deliberately reiterated the portentous mantra with extra emphasis on the really important syllables, so that even dim-witted vassals can get the point and get scared.

Our left-leaning media did all they could to amplify the implicit intimidations. Opinion-molders prone to running with the pack and going with the flow were duly aghast with angst.

But upon cooler reflection, those of us with more than two weeks’ worth of historic memory might recollect that this is hardly the first time we received the harshest of warnings that time isn’t in our favor – heaven forefend – and that if we don’t rush to slash our own throats, our enemies might shortly decapitate us. Do we really want to lose our heads?

IN SEPTEMBER 2000, Hillary’s significant other, Bill, when he was still president, delivered the same warning in the same omniscient tone of we-know-better-than-you-what’s-best-for-you. It was at the Millennium Summit. “Like all chances, this one too is fleeting and there’s not a moment to lose,” Slick Willy wagged his disapproving finger. If we don’t do pronto as he wishes, he admonished, disaster would strike and the sky would come crashing down upon our thick skulls. He only tried to save us from ourselves. Just like Biden. For our own good.

Amazingly the sky is still hanging up there, as it did eons ago, contrary to the dark predictions that it wouldn’t.

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Love of the Land: The Chicken Licken syndrome

Love of the Land: Biden's Sulk

Biden's Sulk

Benny Avni
Hudson New York
19 March '10
Posted before Shabbat

By the time Vice President Biden got to profess his love for Israel at Tel Aviv University Thursday, the bear hug he came to deliver was replaced by bear claws, and his mission - to declare “no space” between Israel and America when it comes to Iran’s nukes - was all but forgotten.

There is no question that the announcement of a plan to build 1600 new housing units in the neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo, released by Israel just as Biden landed on Monday, was ill-timed and altogether boneheaded. If Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as he claims, was blindsided by his interior minister Eli Yishai’s decision, he should have done more to censor his cabinet member.

Since then, however, Netanyahu endlessly apologized to Biden, assuring his guest that no one meant any disrespect to him or to President Obama (even though, unlike most Israelis, they consider Ramat Shlomo an “occupied territory.”) But before finally saying Thursday that he “appreciates” Netanyahu’s overtures, Biden publicly sulked for too long. He demonstrably arrived late to a Tuesday dinner hosted by Netanyahu, and expressed “condemnation” of the Jerusalem plan - the harshest of diplomatic phrases. Headlines across the world described an “Israeli slap in the face” of America. C’mon, get over it. Diplomatic snafus - and consequent attempts to walk them back - are not all that rare, and they are not unique to Israel either.

Last Friday, the UN Security Council issued a statement that urged Israelis and Arabs to avoid provocations at holy religious sites. It was triggered by Palestinian rioting over an Israeli plan to renovate West Bank biblical tombs, holy to both Jews and Muslims. The Arab-initiated Security Council action marked a departure from a long-held American policy to prevent the UN's top body from acting on any Arab-Israeli issue. The reason for that policy quickly became obvious: Palestinian officials used the council statement to further raise religious tensions across the region, declaring Israel’s “desecration” of Islam’s holy sites a violation of international law.

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Love of the Land: Biden's Sulk

Love of the Land: Why glorify the murderers?

Why glorify the murderers?

By Ron Kehrmann, Yossi Mendelevich and Yossi Zur
Los Angeles Times
17 March '10
Posted before Shabbat

Vice President Joe Biden took umbrage last week when Israel announced during his visit that it had approved new housing construction in East Jerusalem. But another contentious incident that took place during Biden's visit got far less scrutiny.

March 11 marked the 32nd anniversary of the deadliest terrorist attack in Israel's history, and this year the Palestinian Authority decided to honor the 19-year-old leader of the attack, Dalal Mughrabi, by naming a square in a town outside Ramallah after her. The commemoration was scheduled for the anniversary.

The official ceremony was ultimately canceled to avoid antagonizing Biden during his visit, but the square was nevertheless named for Mughrabi, and several dozen Palestinian students from President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement gathered in her honor for an unofficial dedication.

So what was the deed that deserved this commemoration? On a Saturday in March 1978, the squad of Palestinian terrorists led by Mughrabi entered Israel by boat from Lebanon and made their way to the main road between Haifa and Tel Aviv. By day's end, they had murdered 38 innocent men, women and children.

The first person Mughrabi and her gang of terrorists encountered was Gale Rubin, an American photojournalist taking photos of birds near the beach. They killed her and continued on their deadly path.

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Love of the Land: Why glorify the murderers?

Love of the Land: How Obama created the Biden incident

How Obama created the Biden incident

Charles Krauthammer
Washington Post
19 March '10

Why did President Obama choose to turn a gaffe into a crisis in U.S.-Israeli relations?

And a gaffe it was: the announcement by a bureaucrat in Israel's Interior Ministry of a housing expansion in a Jewish neighborhood in north Jerusalem. The timing could not have been worse: Vice President Biden was visiting, Jerusalem is a touchy subject, and you don't bring up touchy subjects that might embarrass an honored guest.

But it was no more than a gaffe. It was certainly not a policy change, let alone a betrayal. The neighborhood is in Jerusalem, and the 2009 Netanyahu-Obama agreement was for a 10-month freeze on West Bank settlements excluding Jerusalem.

Nor was the offense intentional. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu did not know about this move -- step four in a seven-step approval process for construction that, at best, will not even start for two to three years.

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Love of the Land: How Obama created the Biden incident

Love of the Land: [Hell froze over?] Text: Haaretz correspondents warn Obama its counterproductive to attack Netanyahu

[Hell froze over?] Text: Haaretz correspondents warn Obama its counterproductive to attack Netanyahu

Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA
17 March '10

[Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA They genuflect at the end of the column ("7. And as for you, Netanyahu? Do us all a favor and cancel the building in Ramat Shlomo.") but the rest of the article is absolutely incredible.]

U.S. anger over East Jerusalem row is excessive
Haaretz
By Avi Issacharoff and Amos Harel
17 March 2010


A few pointers for the Obama administration on the diplomatic crisis with Israel:

1. I don't support Netanyahu. I think his policies on settlements and building in east Jerusalem are wrong. I think he is stalling for time and I would genuinely like to see a comprehensive political settlement with the Palestinians. But America's response to the government's approval of 1,600 new housing units in Ramat Shlomo in northeast Jerusalem is excessive.

While it extends a hand to Iran, which continues in its effort to acquire a nuclear bomb; and reaches out to Syria as it arms Hezbollah with advanced weapons, it seems the Obama administration has made a conscious decision to aggravate a diplomatic crisis with the Netanyahu government.

True, Netanyahu may - unintentionally - have caused the crisis, which damaged U.S. Vice President Joe Biden. But now Obama's aides are refusing to relax their grip, hoping to force Israel into declaring a total freeze on building in east Jerusalem.

Washington ought to remember one thing, however: The majority of Israelis wholly oppose halting construction in east Jerusalem. They may be angry over the timing of the announcement - but most want building to continue.

So I am not at all sure that America's opposition to a democratic decision by Israel's citizens will damage Netanyahu's standing at home. In the final analysis, it will only push him further into the rightwing camp, by far the country's most powerful political force. The left and center would in any case never vote for him and the latest episode can only strengthen his image in the eyes of the right.

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Love of the Land: [Hell froze over?] Text: Haaretz correspondents warn Obama its counterproductive to attack Netanyahu

Love of the Land: Israel doesn't need to grovel for U.S. forgiveness

Israel doesn't need to grovel for U.S. forgiveness

Moshe Arens
Haaretz
16 March '10

So sorry! Very sorry! Very, very sorry! We apologize! This will never happen again! The prime minister, cabinet members and senior bureaucrats repeated this over and over again last week in an attempt to set right what seemed to them to have been a major blunder, one they thought had spoiled what should have been a dramatic goodwill visit by the vice president of the United States, Joe Biden. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu might have been humming "I'm just a soul whose intentions are good, Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood," while he sat waiting for the arrival of Biden, who vented his anger over what he considered an insult by being deliberately late for dinner.

The government's critics in the media had a field day. According to them the decision by the Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee to approve plans for putting up additional houses in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood, just as Biden was arriving in the country, was ruining relations between the United States and Israel and causing irreparable damage to strategic cooperation between the two countries. Listening to them, one might have thought that if some years from now historians try to determine why the U.S. administration did not take any effective action to prevent the Iranians from acquiring nuclear weapons, they will find that the responsibility lay on the shoulders of a minor Israeli civil servant who set the agenda of a local planning committee for that fateful day.

Since it was well known in Washington that the Netanyahu government had not frozen building activity in Jerusalem, and that therefore not only construction there was continuing but also the routine planning activities that precede construction, the blame was now being put on the "timing." Presumably, if the planning committee had held its session a few days before Biden's arrival there would not have been a problem.

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Love of the Land: Israel doesn't need to grovel for U.S. forgiveness

Love of the Land: Arab States Lose Faith in the United States Over Lack of Action on Iran, Administration Blames Israel

Arab States Lose Faith in the United States Over Lack of Action on Iran, Administration Blames Israel

JINSA Report #: 973
16 March '10

Viral on the web yesterday was a blog post at ForeignPolicy.com about a briefing supposedly given to Adm. Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, by CENTCOM senior officers following a trip through the Arab world. It contained the paragraphs:

The briefers reported that there was a growing perception among Arab leaders that the U.S. was incapable of standing up to Israel, that CENTCOM's mostly Arab constituency was losing faith in American promises, that Israeli intransigence on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was jeopardizing U.S. standing in the region, and that [U.S. envoy and former Senator George] Mitchell himself was (as a senior Pentagon officer later bluntly described it) "too old, too slow ... and too late."

The briefers were careful to tell Mullen that their conclusions followed from a December 2009 tour of the region where, on Petraeus's instructions, they spoke to senior Arab leaders. "Everywhere they went, the message was pretty humbling," a Pentagon officer familiar with the briefing says. "America was not only viewed as weak, but its military posture in the region was eroding." But Petraeus wasn't finished: two days after the Mullen briefing, Petraeus sent a paper to the White House requesting that the West Bank and Gaza... be made a part of his area of operations. Petraeus's reason was straightforward: with U.S. troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military had to be perceived by Arab leaders as engaged in the region's most troublesome conflict.

This, according to the blog, was the background to Vice President Biden's tongue-lashing of Israel's prime minister and the outrageous slander that Israel is to blame for the difficulties the Obama Administration is having getting our Arab leaders to help us in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Damage done.

In our experience, there are three half-truths and an enormous, vicious lie in the post.

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Love of the Land: Arab States Lose Faith in the United States Over Lack of Action on Iran, Administration Blames Israel

Love of the Land: How Many Lives Is Biden’s Pride Worth?

How Many Lives Is Biden’s Pride Worth?

Jonathan Tobin
Contentions/Commentary
16 March '10

What prompted this morning’s violence in Jerusalem’s Old City? Though the stone-throwing and disruptions resulted in only eight Israeli security personnel being wounded and a similar number of Palestinian casualties, the context of the American diplomatic offensive against the Jewish state must be seen as an incentive for the Palestinians to do their own part to ratchet up the pressure. While the Obama administration is using its hurt feelings about the announcement of building homes in a Jewish neighborhood of Jerusalem to put the screws to the Netanyahu government, the Palestinians have their own game to play here. And since Washington has decided to go all out to falsely portray the Israelis as the primary obstacle to peace, it should be expected that the supposed victims of the new housing — Palestinians who are in no way harmed by the building of new apartments — will seek to keep events churning.



The rumors filtering through the Islamic world about supposed “threats” to the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount are clearly efforts to foment violence — reminiscent of the bloody 1929 riots which led to Arab pogroms against Jews living in Jerusalem and Hebron and of the fake controversy over Ariel Sharon’s walk on the Temple Mount, which Yasir Arafat used as cover for launching the second intifada. The Jerusalem Post reports that busloads of Arabs are heading to the capital to “protect” the Temple Mount against mythical Jewish attempts to undermine the mosque’s foundations. They appear to be referring to this week’s rededication of the Hurva Synagogue in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, whose destruction by Jordan’s Arab Legion in 1948 was a symbol of the expulsion of Jews from the Old City. The mere act of reasserting the Jewish presence there is viewed as an affront by a Muslim world that still refuses to accept Israel’s legitimacy.



The point here is that while the Obama administration’s huffing and puffing about the insult given by Vice President Joe Biden last week may be about an effort to undermine the Netanyahu government, their decision to brand all Jewish building in the city as illegal and as reason for American rage means something very different to the Palestinians. The ultimatum delivered to Netanyahu by Secretary of State Clinton, in which she demanded that the housing plan be rescinded, is viewed by many Palestinians as American support — not only for their ambitions for a redivided city but also for the expulsion of the Jews from all of East Jerusalem.

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Love of the Land: How Many Lives Is Biden’s Pride Worth?

Love of the Land: Obama has crossed the line

Obama has crossed the line

Isi Leibler
Speaking Candidly from Jerusalem
16 March '10

The bureaucratic fashla [blunder] of our dysfunctional government to forestall the announcement of a new housing project in Jerusalem during the visit of US Vice President Joe Biden provided a pretext for the Obama administration to launch one of the harshest condemnations ever leveled against us by a US government. But while the timing of the announcement was appalling, it involved no breach of undertaking.

In fact, the Obama administration had previously publicly praised the Israeli government for making a “major concession” by imposing a settlement freeze which explicitly excluded Jerusalem.

The campaign was personally orchestrated by President Barack Obama. His Vice President Biden accused us of “endangering US lives in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.” Despite Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s abject apology, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accused him of “insulting” the US. Obama’s chief political adviser David Axelrod even claimed that the Israeli government was deliberately undermining peace talks.

These hostile outbursts must be viewed in the context of the fact that despite strong ongoing support for Israel by the American people, the US-Israel relationship has been on a downward spiral since the election of the new administration. Former Mossad head Ephraim Halevy attributes this to Obama’s determination to rehabilitate Islam’s global tarnished image.

Yet his strategy of “engaging” Islamic rogue states has been disastrous. The effort to prevent the nuclearization of Iran by appeasing the Iranian tyrants backfired with the ayatollahs literally mocking the US. The response of Syrian President Bashar Assad to US groveling and the appointment of an ambassador to Damascus, was to host a summit with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hizbullah terrorist leader Hassan Nasrallah and ridicule the US demand that he curtail his relationship with Iran. President Obama did not consider this “insulting,” prompting the editor of the Lebanese The Daily Star to say that “the Obama administration these days provokes little confidence in its allies and even less fear in its adversaries.”

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Love of the Land: Obama has crossed the line

Love of the Land: Time for some self-respect

Time for some self-respect

Fresnozionism.org
15 March '10

The US has ratcheted up the pressure on Israel after the initial flap about Jewish building in East Jerusalem. PM Netanyahu’s apologetic response did not defuse the crisis, showing that it is not about the ‘timing’ of Israel’s announcement, but rather represents a new turn in US policy.

Not only is it assumed that the Administration wants the Ramat Shlomo project canceled, but according to the Jerusalem Post today, the US is asking for further “confidence-building” concessions from Israel, like the release of more Palestinian prisoners.

I suspect that the Palestinians understand Obama’s people better than Netanyahu does. Israel has implemented a settlement freeze in Judea and Samaria (and taken harsh actions against violations), removed roadblocks and checkpoints, and said that it will talk to the Palestinians directly and without preconditions. The Palestinians, on the other hand, insist on preconditions even for indirect talks. And, importantly, they don’t budge.

Naturally the US approach is — since they can’t move the Palestinians — to try to move Israel. The issues on which Israel and the Palestinians are the farthest apart are refugees and Jerusalem; so perhaps the administration thinks that if it can break Israel on Jerusalem, the Palestinians will soften on refugees. Perhaps the Palestinians even led them to believe this.

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Love of the Land: Time for some self-respect

Love of the Land: The Attack on Netanyahu

The Attack on Netanyahu

Leo Rennert
American Thinker
15 March '10

In orchestrating fierce attacks by Vice President Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton against Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Obama allowed his long-held anti-Likud animosity to blind him to basic political and diplomatic realities about the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. As if Mideast diplomacy doesn't face enough hurdles, Obama has made things worse.

Even before he became president, Obama, when asked whether he was a friend of Israel, responded with a qualified affirmative, emphasizing that one didn't have to be in lockstep with Likud orthodoxy to qualify as a supporter of the Jewish state. To Obama, Netanyahu's political party basically doesn't fit his idea of who should run Israel's government.

And judging by his directives to Clinton and Biden to go all-out in condemning Netanyahu over an announcement of a preliminary planning OK for 1,600 housing units in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood of Jerusalem, Obama showed that he has carried his animus against Likud into the White House.

But in giving full vent to his anti-Likud sentiments, the president forgot to do his homework about past and current U.S. criteria for a two-state solution. Ramat Shlomo was simply the wrong target for creating a crisis with Netanyahu and Israel.

In getting all exercised about more housing in Ramat Shlomo, Obama forgot that his own Secretary of State praised Netanyahu not too long ago when he agreed under administration pressure to impose a ten-month moratorium on housing construction in West Bank settlements. Netanyahu's unilateral concession to entice the Palestinians to come to the negotiating table did not encompass East Jerusalem. Clinton nevertheless praised it as an "unprecedented" confidence-building measure.

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Love of the Land: The Attack on Netanyahu

Love of the Land: Behind Obama's Dangerous Overreaction on Israel

Behind Obama's Dangerous Overreaction on Israel

Anne Bayefsky
Eye on the U.N.
Special to nydailynews.com
15 March '10

Bayefsky is a Professor at Touro College and a senior fellow with the Hudson Institute.

The Obama administration's hysterical response to Israel's announcement that it will continue to build new homes for its expanding population in disputed territory ought to evoke one response: Methinks thou doth protest too much.

Given that the United States is supposed to be committed to the parties determining ultimate legal ownership of the land in final status negotiations, what is going on?

The Palestinian Authority is the only side refusing to sit across the table from its interlocutor without preconditions. Recent reports indicate that Mamhoud Abbas and company are still inculcating the next generation of budding terrorists in the abc's of antisemitism, refusing to put Israel on the map in their authorized school books and fanning the flames of Islamic extremists at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem - all of which is incitement and a gross violation of the Roadmap. As for Hamas, the other Palestinian authority running Gaza, it is just openly dedicated to Israel's annihilation.

None of that is preventing the Obama administration from insisting that Israel negotiate with one half of the Palestinian split personality.

In fact, the words of Vice President Biden, Secretary of State Clinton, and top advisor David Axelrod in the last few days suggest, instead, that what really concerns the human rights gurus in the White House is preserving the option of apartheid Palestine. After all, the purpose of denying the ability of a Jew to build a house on land that theoretically may one day change hands, is to ensure that a Jew-free Palestinian state can come into existence unimpeded.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: Behind Obama's Dangerous Overreaction on Israel