The Epicenter of the World

We already knew that - Israel, aka the "epicenter" is supposed to be the center of the world's attention in the last days, and searching the world-wide news this weekend seems to confirm that idea.

There are more and more commentaries regarding the new U.S. position which proposes that Israel return to their 1967 borders and within these commentaries we see information not previously discussed. Each of these articles are worth reading, but I'll just quote new bits of information that may be interesting.

We shouldn't be surprised that the vast majority of news from the Middle East revolves around Israel and whatever "plan" becomes a reality - it was foretold by our prophetic scriptures.

Obama's sour notes in Israel are music to Europeans

Of course - we would expect nothing else from the EU:

The Quartet – EU, US, UN and Russia – on Friday issued a statement lauding Obama’s template, which included a call for negotiations to be held with the 1967 lines and mutually agreed land swaps as their basis as well as for talks to address land and security disputes before moving to other final status issues.

So the US feels it not only needs to offer sweeteners to the Palestinians to come back to the negotiating table, but also assurances to the Europeans that there’s an alternative path for progress on the peace process. To that end, Obama’s rhetoric hit the right notes on the other side of the Atlantic.

The statement concluded, “The Quartet reiterates its strong appeal to the parties to overcome the current obstacles and resume direct bilateral negotiations without delay or preconditions.”

How interesting. The EU states that they are happy with a mandate to begin negotiations with a basis rooted in the 1967 borders (aka a "precondition") but then states that they need to undertake a new round of negotiations "without preconditions". This kind of "doublespeak" comes directly from Orwell's "1984". Amazing.

Obama Demands Israel Downsize: This is the New Humbler Foreign Policy?

Obama’s idea of “helping” our ally Israel is demanding they unilaterally surrender massive areas of territory to quiet their enemies, despite being bordered on every side by mortal foes.

Have we mentioned these countries already invaded Israel multiple times without cause?

First, Israel is a sovereign country. All the US aid in the world doesn’t change that fact. Hello? Second, how exactly does tiny Israel hemorrhaging huge sections of land in a region already dominated by armed and hostile Muslims help make them, and the region—more secure? Third, if this move is not pro-Muslim at Jewish expense, how else can it be described? Stopping Barack’s nonsensical Israeli policy to stabilize the region and stave off potential world war is the topic of this essay.

This article summarizes the "History of Israel" and it is a great read - highly recommended. I can't resist the conclusion:

Since Israel was invaded the day after it was born, how can anyone claim Muslims fought a just war? Lands confiscated by the Jews are rightly theirs because they were illegally attacked and gained enemy territory upon counter-assault. This is an acceptable taking according to St. Augustine, St. Thomas, Grotius, and the Hague Convention.

Further, it would be irrational to abandon these lands when they act as a buffer against murderous neighbors which have already unjustly invaded 4 times in the last 60 years. So how does Obama claim friendship with Jerusalem?

Let’s refute the idea Palestinians want any peace with Israel. Instead, we must see Barack’s latest hare-brained scheme menacing every Israeli. For the smaller Israel becomes, the likelier their opponents will believe they can attack and win. Further, the notion appeasement creates lasting peace is the hope of cowards and fools

The Coming Assault on Israel

Nobody who reads the European news can doubt that the radical left is colluding with radical Muslims to delegitimize Israel and drive the Jews into the sea. That is the single most significant fact in international politics today. If you doubt it, check out all the articles on American Thinker and European websites.

In London, the Hamlet Towers district has just gone shari'a. Those Muslim votes were imported by the Labour Party when normal British voters were turning against the left. That's how Tony Blair stayed in power for a dozen years.

The other day Obama assured a brainwashed group of American Jews that those "Arab Spring" riots are bound to improve the chances for peace in the Middle East. He should have been laughed out of the room. Instead, liberal Jews seem completely willing to believe in Tinkerbell and the Fairy Queen again. Liberals all over the world are in nodding off to sleep, and the radical left plays them like a Hawaiian ukulele.

A month ago Barack Obama told Egyptian President Mubarak to leave office, thereby throwing the Middle East into a dizzying downward spin. Every Muslim country is now torn by vicious in-fighting between reactionaries and modernizers. Turkey has become a Muslim Brotherhood satrapy after seventy years of the most benign government in a bad neighborhood.

And we see this little recognized fact about the epicenter:

The irony is that "Palestine" was the Roman name for the place where Jesus was born. Those were the same Romans who routinely crucified Jewish rebels, remember? None of the Arabs in former Palestine knew they were Palestinians; they were Syrians or Druze or Bedouin, but why pick up that old Roman name? Today the world is conditioned to believe in "Palestinian" as a nationality, which brings us right back to the time of Jesus.

'Hamas Attacked You, Mr. President'

Netanyahu, in contrast, took Obama back to the basics of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. He explained that the 1967 borders were indefensible and that they were the “boundaries of repeated conflicts.” While Obama merely acknowledged that that “Hamas is an organization that has resorted to terror,” Bibi made the statement more starkly and tried to fold Obama’s views in with his own: “Hamas, as the president said, is a terrorist organization, committed to Israel’s destruction.” He also highlighted a specific and recent act of terror, Hamas’s anti-tank-weapon attack on a school bus. Netanyahu then brought Hamas’s hostility to the U.S. home to Obama, pointedly saying that “Hamas attacked you, Mr. President, and the United States, for ridding the world of bin Laden.”

Netanyahu further explained that the Arab attack on Israel in 1948 created two refugee problems, of equivalent numbers. In addition to the Palestinian refugees, Israel’s Arab neighbors expelled their Jewish residents during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.

The difference, Netanyahu said, was that “tiny Israel” absorbed their refugees, while the Arab countries refused to do the same with the Palestinians. Finally, he brought out his trump card, 4,000 years of Jewish tragedies, including pogroms, expulsions, and massacres.

The paragraph above should be permanently etched in our minds. In fact, it could be considered as the bottom line with this entire issue. While Israel absorbed not only Jewish refugees, but thousands of Arab refugees, the Arab neighbors refused to take in any "Palestinian" refugees. Why not? Because thee refugees were a powerful means to achieve their ultimate goal: To reduce the size of Israel in order to make the destruction of Israel a reality. Period.

In Oval Office, Bibi Offers History Lessons

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seemed to think he needed to educate President Obama on some issues today, so in the Oval Office he described in some detail to the president a history of the refugee problem in the region dating back 63 years, as well as his view on the need for Israel to be able to defend itself in the context of thousands of years of Jewish suffering.

“We don't have a lot of margin for error,” Netanyahu said to the president. “Because, Mr. President, history will not give the Jewish people another chance.”

In 1967, Netanyahu said, “Israel was all of 9 miles wide -- half the width of the Washington Beltway... So we can't go back to those indefensible lines, and we're going to have to have a long-term military presence along the Jordan.”

Krauthammer's Take

Krauthammer offers a realistic view of the Middle East today:

What Obama did today is something that no American president has ever done, which is to endorse the return to the 1967 lines, which … would reduce Israel to a country with a waist eight miles wide.

Now, the reason this is odd is because you would expect it would be at least in return for something. But the Palestinians in the two and a half years of this administration have not offered anything as a concession to the Israelis.

Isn't that fact alone striking?

[Palestinian leader] Mahmoud Abbas has boycotted the negotiations. And then, a few weeks ago he joins in a government with Hamas, which is dedicated to the extermination of Israel. In return for all of those anti-Israel gestures [by Abbas], Obama makes the biggest concession [to the Palestinians] of the entire Arab-Israeli negotiations in 50 years.

And look at this little known fact (little known because the MSM refuses to propagate this message):

In 2004, Israel was preparing a withdrawal from Gaza, and it got explicit written promises from the U.S. government that it [the United States] would not ask Israel a return to the ‘67 lines and it [the United States] would support Israel holding on to the close-in settlements as a new “reality on the ground.”

What Obama did today is to tear up that agreement.

I'll let Caroline Glick close this summary:

Obama's abandonment of America

Obama went on to say that the Arabs have good reason to hate the US and that it is up to the US to put its national interests aside in the interest of making them like America. As he put it, "a failure to change our approach threatens a deepening spiral of division between the United States and Muslim communities."

And you know what that means. If the US doesn't end the "spiral of division," (sounds sort of like "spiral of violence" doesn't it?), then the Muslims will come after America. So the US better straighten up and fly right.

And how does it do that? Well, by courting the Muslim Brotherhood which spawned Al Qaeda, Hamas, Jamma Islamiya and a number of other terror groups and is allies with Hezbollah.

And he also said that the US will "support the governments that will be elected later this year" in Egypt and Tunisia. But why would the US support governments controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood? They are poised to control the elected government in Egypt and are the ticket to beat in Tunisia as well.

And here is her summary of the entire situation:

Then of course there are all the hostile, hateful details of the speech:

He said Israel has to concede its right to defensible borders as a precondition for negotiations;

He didn't say he opposes the Palestinian demand for open immigration of millions of foreign Arabs into Israel;

He again ignored Bush's 2004 letter to Sharon opposing a return to the 1949 armistice lines, supporting the large settlements, defensible borders and opposing mass Arab immigration into Israel;

He said he was leaving Jerusalem out but actually brought it in by calling for an Israeli retreat to the 1949 lines;

He called for Israel to be cut in two when he called for the Palestinians state to be contiguous;

He called for Israel to withdraw from the Jordan Valley - without which it is powerless against invasion - by saying that the Palestinian State will have an international border with Jordan.

And this:

Conceptually and substantively, Obama abandoned the US alliance with Israel. The rest of his words - security arrangements, demilitarized Palestinian state and the rest of it - were nothing more than filler to please empty-headed liberal Jews in America so they can feel comfortable signing checks for him again.

Indeed, even his seemingly pro-Israel call for security arrangements in a final peace deal involved sticking it to Israel. Obama said, "The full and phased withdrawal of Israeli military forces should be coordinated with the assumption of Palestinian security responsibility in a sovereign, non-militarized state.

What does that mean "with the assumption of Palestinian security responsibility?"

It means we have to assume everything will be terrific.