Love of the Land: Forget your right hand

Forget your right hand

Soccer Dad
09 May '10

The Washington Post reports, "Israeli construction in East Jerusalem adds to difficulties facing negotiators":

When the Obama administration launches indirect peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians, as early as this weekend, it faces a much more complicated landscape than the Clinton or Bush administrations did, especially in Jerusalem.
In the decade since Israelis and Palestinians came close to a peace deal in 2000, the complexion of Jerusalem, perhaps the most sensitive of all the sticking points, has been altered. Israeli construction is blurring lines between Arab and Jewish neighborhoods, making any bid to share or divide the city even more difficult than in the past.

A battle for sovereignty and international legitimacy is playing out on every hilltop and valley here. And with tens of thousands of new apartments planned for Jews in East Jerusalem -- well beyond the 1,600 announced in March during Vice President Biden's visit here -- the potential for construction derailing the new peace negotiations is high.

I'm sorry but Israel and the Palestinian were not "close" to a peace deal in 2000. Yasser Arafat rejected the deal. But why should the Palestinians be rewarded for rejecting the deal? It the Palestinians can reject any deal as insufficient, why should Israel be obligatred to cede the same territories for "peace?"

For Israel, the issue of Jerusalem is about not just Jews' historical claims to the city but also demographic realities. Israelis fret about the Jewish majority of the city declining as the Arab birthrate outpaces that of Jews; by some estimates, the Arab population -- which today is about 300,000, or 35 percent of the city's total -- could equal the Jewish population by 2030.

The qualfication of "some estimates" indicate that this is as much as wild guess as anything.

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Love of the Land: Forget your right hand

Love of the Land: Jerusalem Really IS a Final Status Issue?

Jerusalem Really IS a Final Status Issue?

Jennifer Rubin
Contentions/Commentary
05 May '10

David Axelrod pronounces: “The president agrees that Jerusalem as an issue can’t be the first issue for negotiations.” What’s more, he wants us to know that “Jerusalem should ‘probably be the last’ issue negotiated, Axelrod said, echoing the position of Israel’s government, which is that the issue is too sensitive to discuss before other issues, including borders, are settled.”

So let’s review. The adviser who went on the Sunday talk shows to make clear how angry Obama was over a Jerusalem housing project and has personally counseled the president to go beserk with the Israelis over the issue and who presumably is aware of the threat to abstain rather than veto a UN resolution should that building proceed now says it’s the last issue we should talk about. If you’re confused, I’m sure the parties in the region are, too. There are several explanations.

Perhaps Axelrod and the rest of the Obama crew are simply telling every party what it wants to hear, raising Palestinian expectations and simultaneously giving Jews assurances on the Israeli capital. It is a recipe for disaster, of course, once negotiations begin and everyone has a different set of expectations and understanding of the U.S. position.

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Love of the Land: Jerusalem Really IS a Final Status Issue?

Love of the Land: Obama's 5 Big Lies About Israel

Obama's 5 Big Lies About Israel

Daniel Greenfield
Sultan Knish
25 April '10

In preparation for his attempt to impose a final solution on Israel, Obama is spreading a variety of lies through the media and his spokesmen about Israel. And by exposing those lies, we can best get at the truth.


1. Netanyahu Must Choose Between Obama and his Right Wing


What Obama's people would like you to believe here is that all it would take to restore good relations with the Obama Administration is for Netanyahu to reject the "extremists" and do what Obama tells him to do.

But in fact the vast majority of Israelis support Netanyahu's position that Jews have the right to live anywhere in Jerusalem, and oppose Obama's position that Jews have no right to live or build homes in parts of Jerusalem that were seized by Jordan in 1948 and ethnically cleansed of Jews.

Netanyahu's real choice is between Obama and the vast majority of his country's voters. By demanding that he turn his back on them and do what Obama says, the real demand here is for Netanyahu to completely disregard Israel's democracy, and betray his own electorate, and enact Apartheid in Jerusalem. This will supposedly appease Obama. And all Netanyahu has to do is disregard the Israeli people's wishes in favor of DC's wishes.

So Netanyahu must choose between Obama and democracy. And the media is blasting him because he chose democracy over Obama.


2. Obama Wants Netanyahu's Right Wing Coalition to be More Centrist

More centrist. Really? Netanyahu's current coalition includes the left wing Labor party, an immigrant's rights party and the party of Sefardi Jews. It even has an Arab Muslim Deputy Minister.

So what is Obama's idea of a centrist Israeli government? One that jettisons Shas, the party of Jewish refugees from Muslim countries, and Yisrael Beitenu, the party of Jewish refugees from the USSR-- in favor of Kadima, an illegitimately created party headed by Tzipi Livni, a former member of Netanyahu's own Likud party. How is a coalition with Kadima more "centrist" than a coalition with the Labor party and parties that represent Israel's different minorities? The answer is it isn't. The only thing "centrist" about Kadima, is that Tzipi Livni airheadedly endorses every Obama proposal, which hasn't exactly made her popular in the country. But it has made her popular with Obama, who wants to force her into a coalition with Netanyahu.

If you believe the Washington talking heads, Livni will make Netanyahu's coalition more centrist than former Labor Prime Minister Ehud Barack. This despite the fact that Kadima officials have repeatedly stated they will not enter any coalition headed by Netanyahu.

Let me emphasize this again. Obama's people are trying to force Netanyahu to drop two parties, one of Jewish refugees from Muslim countries and another of Jewish refugees from Communist countries-- (it's not too hard to figure out why Obama would dislike both) in order to form a more "centrist" coalition with a former member of his own party.

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Love of the Land: Obama's 5 Big Lies About Israel

Love of the Land: On Israel, Obama Playing the Mideast Game Wrong

On Israel, Obama Playing the Mideast Game Wrong

Mortimer B. Zuckerman
U.S. News and World
23 April '10

The Middle East peace process is stalled thanks to a second deadlock engineered by the United States government. President Obama began the process with his call for a settlement freeze in 2009 and escalates it now with a major change of American policy on Jerusalem.

The president seeks to prohibit Israel from any construction in its capital—in an exclusively Jewish suburb of East Jerusalem. This, despite the fact that all former administrations had unequivocally understood that the area in question would remain part of Israel in any final peace agreement. Objecting to this early phase of the planning process for housing in East Jerusalem is tantamount to getting the Israelis to agree to the division of Jerusalem in any settlement—even before the start of final status talks with the Palestinians. In 1995, it was by a substantial bipartisan majority that Congress adopted the Jerusalem Embassy Act calling for the movement of the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem—and equally importantly, stating that Jerusalem must remain united under Israeli sovereignty.

But Obama has undermined the confidence of the Israelis in the United States from the start of his presidency. He uses the same term, "settlements," ambiguously for both massive neighborhoods that are the homes to tens of thousands of Jews and for illegal outposts, raising the question for the Israelis about whether the U.S. administration really understands the issue. The Palestinian Authority followed the president's lead and refused to proceed with planned proximity talks until Israel stops all settlement activities, including in East Jerusalem.

The president's attitude toward Jerusalem betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the history of the city. After Israel was recognized as a new state in 1948, it was immediately attacked by the combined armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. The attacks were repelled, but the Jordanians, who were asked not to join the Egyptian war effort, conquered East Jerusalem and separated it from its western half. In 1967, the Arab armies again sought to destroy Israel, but it prevailed in the famous Six-Day War and reconquered East Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Sinai Peninsula, and the Gaza Strip.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: On Israel, Obama Playing the Mideast Game Wrong

Love of the Land: American Neutrality Toward Israel Invites Violence

American Neutrality Toward Israel Invites Violence

When Israel is alone, its opportunistic enemies pile on.


Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Online
22 April '10

American relations with our once-staunch ally Israel are at their lowest ebb in the last 50 years.

The Obama administration seems as angry at the building of Jewish apartments in Jerusalem as it is intent on reaching out to Iran and Syria, Israel’s mortal enemies. President Obama himself, according to reports, has serially snubbed Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. A new narrative abounds in Washington that Israel’s intransigence with its Arab neighbors now even endangers U.S. troops stationed in the Middle East. Obama is pushing Netanyahu’s Likud government to make concessions on several fronts, from supplying power and food to Gaza to hasten Israel’s departure from the West Bank.

These tensions follow the Obama administration’s new outreach to the Muslim world. Obama gave his first interview as president to the Middle East newspaper Al Arabiya, in which he politely chided past U.S. policy on the Middle East.

In his June 2009 Cairo address, the president again sought to placate the Islamic world — in part by wrongly claiming that Islamic learning had sparked the European Renaissance and Enlightenment.

Lost in all this reset-button diplomacy is introspection on why past American presidents sought to support Israel in the first place. We seem to forget why no-nonsense Harry Truman, against worldwide opposition, ensured the original creation of the Jewish state — or why more than 60 percent of Americans in most polls continue to side with Israel in its struggle to survive.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: American Neutrality Toward Israel Invites Violence

Love of the Land: Israel Prepares for the Enemy It Faces

Israel Prepares for the Enemy It Faces

Jennifer Rubin
Contentions/Commentary
21 April '10

In contrast with the Obama administration, which perpetually talks down the potential for a military strike, Israeli officials are beginning to talk openly about such action. The Wall Street Journal reports:

The Israeli security establishment is divided over whether it needs Washington’s blessing if Israel decides to attack Iran, Israeli officials say, as the U.S. campaign for sanctions drags on and Tehran steadily develops greater nuclear capability.

Some senior Israeli officials say in interviews that they see signs Washington may be willing to live with a nuclear-armed Iran, an eventuality that Israel says it won’t accept. Compounding Israeli concerns were U.S. statements this past weekend that underscored U.S. resistance to a military option. Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Sunday discussed a memo to National Security Adviser James Jones warning that the U.S. needed new strategies, including how to contain a nuclear Iran—suggesting that Iran could reach nuclear capability without any foreign military force trying to stop it.

Until now Bibi has played along both with the Obama engagement gambit and the sanctions effort, but we now hear that “Israeli officials have increasingly voiced frustration over the slow pace of diplomatic efforts to get sanctions in place.” We are, after all, running out of time. The concern for the Israelis tells us much about the state of U.S.-Israel relations and the real weak link in going after Iranian nuclear capabilities:

Many Israeli military experts say Israel can easily cope with any military retaliation by Iran in response to a strike. Iran’s medium-range rockets would cause damage and casualties in Israel, but they aren’t very accurate, and Israel’s sophisticated missile-defense system would likely knock many out midflight.

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Love of the Land: Israel Prepares for the Enemy It Faces

Love of the Land: The Distracted President, the Frustrated Prime Minister

The Distracted President, the Frustrated Prime Minister

Jennifer Rubin
Contentions/Commentary
21 April '10

You can imagine Bibi Netanyahu’s frustration: a nuclear-armed Iran is perhaps only a year away and all Obama wants to talk about is Jerusalem housing and proximity talks with intransigent Palestinians who are utterly unprepared for a “peace” deal. As this report makes clear, Bibi is struggling to get the American president to focus on the real issue:

“If you stop Iran from importing refined petroleum — that’s a fancy word for gasoline — then Iran simply doesn’t have refining capacity and this regime comes to a halt,” Netanyahu said on the morning [ABC Good Morning] program.

The U.S. is leading a push in the United Nations to apply another round of sanctions against Iran in an effort to stop it from pursuing a nuclear program that Western nations believe is aimed at building atomic weapons.

Tehran says its program is designed to produce electricity for civilian use.

Calling the standoff with Iran “the biggest issue facing our times,” Netanyahu said the international community could deliver “crippling sanctions,” without the support of China and Russia, both permanent members of the UN Security Council.

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Love of the Land: The Distracted President, the Frustrated Prime Minister

Love of the Land: Is Obama Using Israel as a Scapegoat for His Foreign Policy Failures?

Is Obama Using Israel as a Scapegoat for His Foreign Policy Failures?

Moshe Dann
Pajamasmedia.com
19 April '10

Though needing to handle dozens of difficult issues around the world, President Obama seems obsessed with one: the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Obama’s administration has been on the warpath with Israel from the beginning, picking fights over issues that have been around for a long time. These include where Jews can live and build in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria (the West Bank); removing checkpoints that stop terrorists; and easing restrictions on the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip. Yet Obama has been silent regarding anti-Jewish and anti-Israel incitement, and the upsurge in rioting, violence, and terrorist attacks sponsored by the Palestinian Authority.

An innocuous announcement of approval for building permits in a Jewish neighborhood of Jerusalem during Vice President Joe Biden’s visit gave Obama the opportunity he, perhaps, was waiting for — he bombarded Israel with unprecedented wrath and scorn. Out of proportion and unusually harsh, Obama’s disappointment seemed irrational.

A few weeks later, David Sanger of the New York Times quoted one of Obama’s foreign policy advisors:

If Obama can’t set some parameters for our allies, how is he going to set some for the mullahs?

Sanger also wrote:

Obama’s team seems to understand that if they lose that contest of wills [with Israel], the rest of their foreign policy agenda is also threatened.

Assuming this is true, Obama is tying Israeli concessions to U.S. moves to stop Iran from producing nuclear weapons, and to other issues as well. This policy makes Israel a scapegoat for Obama’s failures.

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Love of the Land: Is Obama Using Israel as a Scapegoat for His Foreign Policy Failures?

Love of the Land: Secretary Clinton at Dedication of Center: Israel must jump higher, remain silent (insatiable demands)

Secretary Clinton at Dedication of Center: Israel must jump higher, remain silent (insatiable demands)

Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA
16 April '10

[Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA:

Here are Secretary of State Clinton's marching orders to Israel:

"But easing up on access and movement in the West Bank, in response to credible Palestinian security performance, is not sufficient to prove to the Palestinians that this embrace is sincere. So we encourage Israel to continue building momentum toward a comprehensive peace by demonstrating respect for the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinians, stopping settlement activity, and addressing the humanitarian needs in Gaza, and to refrain from unilateral statements and actions that could undermine trust or risk prejudicing the outcome of talks."

There is a reason she doesn't just say "prejudicing the outcome of talks" because she knows what that means.

It means that Israel cannot annex territories during the course of negotiations.

That's the same limitation Israel accepted at the start of the Oslo process.

It is the only limitation.

What about settlement construction?

Oh, that's "spirit of Oslo".

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Love of the Land: Secretary Clinton at Dedication of Center: Israel must jump higher, remain silent (insatiable demands)

Love of the Land: The Times Makes It Official: Obama Has Shifted U.S. Policy Against Israel

The Times Makes It Official: Obama Has Shifted U.S. Policy Against Israel

Jonathan Tobin
Contentions/Commentary
15 April '10

If there were any lingering doubts in the minds of Democrats who care about Israel that the president they helped elect has fundamentally altered American foreign policy to the Jewish state’s disadvantage, they are now gone. The New York Times officially proclaimed the administration’s changed attitude in a front-page story this morning that ought to send chills down the spine of anyone who believed Barack Obama when he pledged in 2008 that he would be a loyal friend of Israel.

In the view of the paper’s Washington correspondents, the moment that signaled what had already been apparent to anyone who was paying attention was the president’s declaration at a Tuesday news conference that resolving the Middle East conflict was “a vital national security interest of the United States.” Mr. Obama went on to state that the conflict is “costing us significantly in terms of blood and treasure,” thus attempting to draw a link between Israel’s attempts to defend itself with the safety of American troops who are fighting Islamist terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere in the world. By claiming the Arab-Israeli conflict to be a “vital national security interest” that must be resolved, the “frustrated” Obama is making it clear that he will push hard to impose a solution on the parties.

The significance of this false argument is that it not only seeks to wrongly put the onus on Israel for the lack of a peace agreement but that it also now attempts to paint any Israeli refusal to accede to Obama’s demands as a betrayal in which a selfish Israel is stabbing America in the back. The response from Obama to this will be, the Times predicts, “tougher policies toward Israel,” since it is, in this view, ignoring America’s interests and even costing American lives.

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Love of the Land: The Times Makes It Official: Obama Has Shifted U.S. Policy Against Israel

Love of the Land: Obami’s Latest Israel Gambit Flops

Obami’s Latest Israel Gambit Flops

Jennifer Rubin
Contentions/Commentary
13 April '10

Once again, the Obami’s bullying has come to naught. Bibi Netanyahu and his government are not amused nor persuaded by the Obami onslaught over Jerusalem housing permits or the suggestion that an imposed peace deal might be in the offing. The Wall Street Journal reports:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government said it would reject any moves by the Obama administration to set its own timeline and benchmarks for Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, potentially establishing a new fault line between the U.S. and Israel. … Senior White House officials, such as National Security Adviser James Jones, have also discussed recently the prospects of Washington proposing its own Mideast plan, though U.S. diplomats stressed this past week that such a move wasn’t imminent or agreed upon.

These developments have rankled Mr. Netanyahu’s government, which is already at odds with Mr. Obama over the issue of Jewish building in disputed East Jerusalem.

“I don’t believe this will be accepted by the administration because it will be a grave mistake. … The solution has to be homegrown,” Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal late Sunday. …

“The longstanding Israeli position, not of this government only, but of successive Israeli governments, is that the Israelis and the Palestinians have to live together in peace and that an agreement has to be negotiated between them directly,” said a senior Netanyahu administration official.

Of course this was entirely foreseeable.

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Love of the Land: Obami’s Latest Israel Gambit Flops

Love of the Land: No American Troops Should Die Protecting Israel

No American Troops Should Die Protecting Israel

Marty Peretz
The New Republic
12 April '10

(Certainly a catchy title)

Almost before the celebrants at Barack Obama’s inauguration had gotten over their hangovers some 15 months ago, the president designated George Mitchell as his special envoy in the Middle East. I wrote then and several times since that he would be a flop, poor man. After all, it’s not the case that he had been a great success in any of his other high-minded missions, including the investigation into steroid use by baseball heroes. In his latest tussle with the now-almost-ancient struggle between Jews and Arabs over Palestine, he was also shackled by his boss’s stubbornly defective history of the region, which, of course, morphed into equally stubborn and defective formulae for fixing that history.

My guess is that this could be Mitchell’s final voyage to the Holy Land, and he may begin saying his goodbyes. Unless he is such a glutton for punishment that he can’t bear to leave. Senator, better take my advice. God bless and good riddance.

Maybe the Palestinian Authority will yet agree to participate in the “proximity talks” on which the president has staked so much. You need to keep in mind that it is the Palestinians--not the Israelis--who are rejecting these low-status negotiations. And not because they want higher-status talks. But because they want to extract concessions from Jerusalem as a precondition for participating even in this remote model for contact between the parties. Then, of course, they’ll try to extract more substantial concessions for attending direct talks. Maybe this is Obama’s plan as well.

But even he may be tiring of these prevaricative tactics. So, pushed by his (what should be) desolating failure even to get indirect contacts going, Obama may be tempted to spring his more-or-less detailed peace plan upon the world. As you surely have grasped, I am far from convinced that any such design will succeed. And it is not, as many in the media seem to assume, because Israel is intransigent. For that matter, I do not think one should blame the ongoing failures of diplomacy on the intransigence of the Palestinians, obstinate though they are. The real impediment to successful Israeli-Palestinians talks, even to unsuccessful talks, is that Palestine is a failed society.

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Love of the Land: No American Troops Should Die Protecting Israel

Love of the Land: The New York Times, Obama, and Israel: A New Low for the Paper of Record

The New York Times, Obama, and Israel: A New Low for the Paper of Record

Ron Radosh
Pajamasmedia.com
27 March '10

If one needs any more proof of the animus towards Israel coming from the editors of The New York Times, look no further than today’s editorial — which marks a new low for the paper. Perhaps they were merely lazy and decided to plagiarize editorials appearing regularly in the pages of The Nation. Or perhaps they just realize that most of their readers don’t subscribe to the official publication of the far Left, and need to get the message out on their own.

Whatever the explanation, the editors felt the need to both chastise Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel for defending his country’s interests, and to praise to the skies President Barack Obama for his highly extraordinary and rude treatment of Netanyahu two days ago. According to their account, “the Obama administration had hoped Mr. Netanyahu would give it something to work with.” But instead, he unceremoniously would not condemn the very legal building in Jerusalem that all previous administrations had not contested. Instead, Netanyahu’s firm stance is interpreted by them as an assault on the supposed but really non-existent “peace process,” and a barrier to reaching a “two-state solution” for the Middle East.

As usual, the editors call the government “right-wing,” which means to the Times readers it is evil personified. Moreover, by insisting on the right to build in an area which everyone knows will be part of Israel once peace is attained, somehow to the editors it is to take place in an area “which Palestinians hope to make the capital of an independent state.” So by refusing to accept Obama’s demands, the editors assert that Obama “has been understandably furious at Israel’s response.”

Meanwhile, just a few days after Secretary of State Clinton told AIPAC that the U.S. would demand “sanctions that bite” on Iran, we have all learned that instead, U.S. policy is to soften any talk of sanctions in the vague hope that Russia and China will work with us to convince Iran to move away from its program for a nuclear bomb capacity. But while the U.S. can play nice with Iran, the announcement that an apartment complex will be built someday in Jerusalem means to the Times that the administration has to get even tougher with Israel.

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Love of the Land: The New York Times, Obama, and Israel: A New Low for the Paper of Record

Love of the Land: No Denying White House Animus Toward Israel

No Denying White House Animus Toward Israel

Jonathan Tobin
Contentions/Commentary
25 March '10

This White House likes symbolism. After Barack Obama moved in, one of the first things his staff did was to unceremoniously remove the bronze bust of Winston Churchill that had been in the Oval Office and return it to Great Britain, thus signaling that this president no longer valued the special relationship with the UK, which had been a cornerstone of American diplomacy from the days of FDR to those of George W. Bush. And when Obama finally met with the Dalai Lama last month, the visit was kept low key, with no official welcome and no media allowed to witness the event for fear of offending China. The one picture that was released of the meeting appeared to show the president lecturing the exiled Tibetan so no one might think that a former editor of the Harvard Law Review had anything to learn from a legendary spiritual leader.

But the cold reception of the Dalai Lama now seems like a wild party compared to the way Obama received Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House this week. Oh, I know, Bibi is in the doghouse because we’re all supposed to think that Israel gravely insulted Vice President Joe Biden by allowing the announcement of a housing-project start in an existing Jewish neighborhood of Jerusalem to coincide with his recent visit there. But the reason this is such a “big f@!%ing deal,” as the vice president might put it, is not because it was a real insult but because it was an excuse for the administration to renew its war on Netanyahu.

This is not the first president to dislike an Israeli prime minister or even Israel itself. The elder George Bush and his secretary of state, James “f@!% the Jews” Baker despised Yitzhak Shamir. But never has the leader of America’s ally Israel been treated with such open contempt as shown by Obama to Netanyahu. The Israeli’s visit to the White House was closed to the press — with not even one photo released of their encounter. The fact is that Obama didn’t even want his picture taken with Netanyahu. That’s particularly strange since the president has never any qualms about getting snapped next to a wide variety of international leaders on his travels.

In yesterday’s press briefing, spokesman Robert Gibbs was quizzed on this startling behavior by Jake Tapper. In response to repeated questions as to why the White House chose to treat a democratically elected head of the government of a close U.S. ally in this manner, Gibbs did not try very hard to pretend that it was anything but an indication of Obama’s dislike for the Israeli and the country he represents. Coming from a president that has spent his time in office making non-stop efforts to reach out to and engage America’s enemies around the world, this open hostility to Israel is breathtaking in its brazenness.

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Love of the Land: No Denying White House Animus Toward Israel

Love of the Land: Israel Policy Makers Should Assume a Two Term Obama Presidency

Israel Policy Makers Should Assume a Two Term Obama Presidency

Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA
Weekly Commentary
25 March '10

When Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu sits with his "seven ministers' forum" tomorrow (this) afternoon they should analyze Israel options based on the working assumption that U.S. President Obama will ultimately serve two terms rather than that President Obama will already find himself seriously weakened as we approach the November congressional elections and perhaps even essentially relegated to lame duck status for the balance of his term after those elections give expression to a massive shift against Mr. Obama.

The second scenario might justify a policy of concessions to buy time with the expectation that they can be contained as Israel finds itself in a much stronger position vis-à-vis Obama in a few months. That was part of the logic for the housing construction freeze in Judea and Samaria that was set to expire just as the congressional campaigns will be heating up in the U.S..

But there's no guaranty that this is how it will play out. And it could turn out to be a devastating mistake to rely on it.

Assuming a two term Obama presidency radically changes the ramifications and consequences of the concessions Israel makes today.

Let's not kid ourselves.

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Love of the Land: Israel Policy Makers Should Assume a Two Term Obama Presidency

Love of the Land: Obama and Netanyahu: pointless poison

Obama and Netanyahu: pointless poison

Jackson Diehl
Washington Post
24 March '10

So it’s now been two weeks since President Obama chose to seize on a poorly-timed Israeli announcement about new Jewish housing in Jerusalem to launch another public confrontation with the government of Binyamin Netanyahu. The results, so far, are these:

Obama’s demand, through Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, that Israel reverse its decision on the new neighborhood and freeze all other new construction in Jerusalem has been publicly rejected by Netanyahu. And the administration, for the second time in a year, has backed down. “Ultimately,” said State spokesman P.J. Crowley at his briefing Tuesday, “the future of Jerusalem can only be resolved through the direct negotiations [between Israel and the Palestinians] that we hope will get started as quickly as possible.” That, word for word, has been the Israeli position all along.

Meanwhile, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has adopted Obama’s original demand as his own: He’s saying he won’t begin even the indirect, “proximity” talks he previously agreed to until Israel accepts the Clinton terms on Jerusalem. How could he do otherwise? The Palestinian leader cannot be less pro-Palestinian than the White House. But Abbas cannot climb down from his position so easily -- which means that, for the second time in a year, the Middle East peace process has been stalled by a U.S.-engineered deadlock. U.S. and Israeli negotiators worked until 3 a.m. Wednesday in an attempt to come up with a formula that would allow the talks to go forward. They met again Wednesday morning. So far, no luck.

Finally, Obama has added more poison to a U.S.-Israeli relationship that already was at its lowest point in two decades. Tuesday night the White House refused to allow non-official photographers record the president’s meeting with Netanyahu; no statement was issued afterward. Netanyahu is being treated as if he were an unsavory Third World dictator, needed for strategic reasons but conspicuously held at arms length. That is something the rest of the world will be quick to notice and respond to. Just like the Palestinians, European governments cannot be more friendly to an Israeli leader than the United States. Would Britain have expelled a senior Israeli diplomat Tuesday because of a flap over forged passports if there were no daylight between Obama and Netanyahu? Maybe not.

(Read full story)

Love of the Land: Obama and Netanyahu: pointless poison

Love of the Land: The Shadow Viceroy

The Shadow Viceroy

Lee Smith
Tabletmag.com
24 March '10

If no one was sure what Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was going to tell the 7,500 delegates who descended on Washington for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee Policy Conference early this week, everyone knew what Elliott Abrams was going to say. For more than a year, the former deputy assistant to President George W. Bush has been the most vocal critic of the Obama Administration’s handling of the U.S.-Israel relationship. With the recent Washington-Jerusalem confrontation over 1,600 apartment units still simmering, Abrams drew a standing-room-only crowd to his two AIPAC panels.

“If we distance ourselves from Israel,” Abrams told the audience, “the Jordanians, Egyptians and the rest of our allies in the Middle East will think, ‘if they can do it to the Israelis, why not us?’ ”

Abrams, while well under 6 feet tall, is a commanding physical presence, with broad shoulders and a prominent chin and nose, a profile worthy of a Roman coin. And like a provincial governor, he wielded power on behalf of a hegemon in a way that earned him more enemies at home than abroad. His rivals mock the policies he advocates, describe him as arrogant, and fear winding up on the wrong end of his sharp wit. While in the United States he is best known for his role in the Iran-Contra scandal, in the Middle East, he is simply “Elliott”—the man tapped by Bush to administer the daily conduct of U.S. policy in large parts of the region, with particular attention to democracy promotion and the Bush Administration’s “Freedom Agenda” in Egypt and throughout North Africa, as well as in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Israel, and the Palestinian territories.

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Love of the Land: The Shadow Viceroy

Love of the Land: Obama Officials: Relax, We’re Just Trying to Break up Bibi’s Coalition#links#links#links

Obama Officials: Relax, We’re Just Trying to Break up Bibi’s Coalition

Noah Pollak
Contentions/Commentary
16 March '10

Jeffrey Goldberg spoke with White House officials today and posted this report.

So what is the goal? The goal is force a rupture in the governing coalition that will make it necessary for Netanyahu to take into his government Livni’s centrist Kadima Party (he has already tried to do this, but too much on his terms) and form a broad, 68-seat majority in Knesset…

Obama knows that this sort of stable, centrist coalition is the key to success. He would rather, I understand, not have to deal with Netanyahu at all — people near the President say that, for one thing, Obama doesn’t think that Netanyahu is very bright, and there is no chemistry at all between the two men — but he’d rather have a Netanyahu who is being pressured from his left than a Netanyahu who is being pressured from the right.

So here we have on record the Obama administration saying 1) that it is trying to topple the government of a democratic ally (if only we could try this in Tehran!) 2) that it believes it has such mastery of Israeli politics that publicly bludgeoning Bibi will result in such a shakeup, and that 3) even if the hoped-for new government is formed, the White House thinks it’s a good idea to go on record stating that the Prime Minister they will have to deal with is stupid.

This is pretty amazing. And it’s more evidence that not only is Obama ignorant of how Israel and the Middle East work, but that he refuses to do any on-the-job learning. He is pushing forward with his failed strategy of a year ago, only this time with a bigger hammer. He appears to be unconcerned with the importance to the Israeli public of his reversal on the terms of the settlement freeze, which the White House was praising just a few months ago. He clearly does not understand one of the basic lessons they teach in Peace Process 101 — that Israel does not take risks for peace when it feels threatened, especially not when it feels threatened by the United States. Obama clearly doesn’t understand this, although I remain skeptical that all of this is really about the peace process.

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Love of the Land: Obama Officials: Relax, We’re Just Trying to Break up Bibi’s Coalition