Another timely piece from Caroline Glick:
The next 22 months until President Barack Obama leaves office promise to be the most challenging period in the history of US-Israel relations.
Now unfettered by electoral concerns, over the past week Obama exposed his ill-intentions toward Israel in two different ways.
Now unfettered by electoral concerns, over the past week Obama exposed his ill-intentions toward Israel in two different ways.
First, the Justice Department leaked its intention to indict Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez on corruption charges. Menendez is the ranking Democratic member, and the former chairman, of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He is also the most outspoken Democratic critic of Obama’s policy of appeasing the Iranian regime.
As former US federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy wrote this week at PJMedia, “It is perfectly reasonable to believe that Menendez may be guilty of corruption offenses and that his political opposition on Iran is factoring into the administration’s decision to charge him. Put it another way, if Menendez were running interference for Obama on the Iran deal, rather than trying to scupper it, I believe he would not be charged.”
We already experienced Obama’s efforts in this sphere in the lead-up to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech before the joint houses of Congress on March 3 with his campaign to pressure Democratic lawmakers to boycott Netanyahu’s address.
Now, with his move against Menendez, Obama made clear that support for Israel – even in the form of opposition to the nuclear armament of Iran – will be personally and politically costly for Democrats.
The reason Obama is so keen to transform Israel into a partisan issue was made clear by the second move he made last week.
Last Thursday, US National Security Adviser Susan Rice announced that the NSC’s Middle East Coordinator Phil Gordon was stepping down and being replaced by serial Israel-basher Robert Malley.
Malley, who served as an NSC junior staffer during the Clinton administration, rose to prominence in late 2000 when, following the failed Camp David peace summit in July 2000 and the outbreak of the Palestinian terror war, Malley co-authored an op-ed in The New York Times blaming Israel and then-prime minister Ehud Barak for the failure of the negotiations.
What was most remarkable at the time about Malley’s positions was that they completely contradicted Bill Clinton’s expressed views. Clinton placed the blame for the failure of the talks squarely on then-Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s shoulders.
Not only did Arafat reject Barak’s unprecedented offer of Palestinian statehood and sovereignty over all of Gaza, most of Judea and Samaria and parts of Jerusalem including the Temple Mount, he refused to make a counter-offer. And then two months later, he opened the Palestinian terror war.
As Jonathan Tobin explained in Commentary this week, through his writings and public statements, Malley has legitimized Palestinian rejection of Israel’s right to exist. Malley thinks it is perfectly reasonable that the Palestinians refuse to concede their demand for free immigration of millions of foreign Arabs to the Jewish state in the framework of their concocted “right of return,” even though the clear goal of that demand is to destroy Israel. As Tobin noted, Malley believes that Palestinian terrorism against Israel is “understandable if not necessarily commendable.”
The deeper significance of Malley’s appointment is that it demonstrates that Obama’s goal in his remaining time in office is to realign US Middle East policy away from Israel. With his Middle East policy led by a man who thinks the Palestinian goal of destroying Israel is legitimate, Obama can be expected to expand his practice of placing all the blame for the absence of peace between Israel and the Palestinians solely on Israel’s shoulders.
The US position paper regarding Israeli-Palestinian negotiation that was leaked this past week to Yediot Aharonot made clear the direction Obama wishes to go. That document called for Israel to withdraw to the indefensible 1949 armistice lines, with minor revisions.
In other words, since taking office, Obama has used the US’s intelligence ties with Israel to harm Israel’s national security.*
He has also used diplomacy to harm Israel. Last summer, Obama sought a diplomatic settlement of Hamas’s war with Israel that would have granted Hamas all of its war goals, including its demand for open borders and access to the international financial system.
Now of course, he is running roughshod over his bipartisan opposition, and the opposition of Israel and the Sunni Arab states, in the hopes of concluding a nuclear deal with Iran that will pave the way for the ayatollahs to develop nuclear weapons and expand their hegemonic control over the Middle East.
AMID ALL of this, and facing 22 months of ever more hostility as Obama pursues his goal of ending the US-Israel alliance, Israelis are called on to elect a new government.
This week the consortium of former security brass that has banded together to elect a leftist government led by Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni accused Netanyahu of destroying Israel’s relations with the US. The implication was that a government led by Herzog and Livni will restore Israel’s ties to America.
The Left’s campaign to blame Netanyahu for Obama’s hostility will make it all but impossible for a Herzog-Livni government to withstand US pressure that they say will disappear the moment Netanyahu leaves office.
In contrast, as the US position paper leaked to Yediot indicated, Netanyahu has demonstrated great skill in parrying US pressure. He agreed to hold negotiations based on a US position that he rejected and went along with the talks for nine months until the Palestinians ended them. In so doing, he achieved a nine-month respite in open US pressure while exposing Palestinian radicalism and opposition to peaceful coexistence.
On the Iranian front, Netanyahu’s courageous speech before Congress last week energized Obama’s opponents to take action and forced Obama onto the defensive for the first time while expanding popular support for Israel.
It is clear that things will only get more difficult in the months ahead. But given the stakes, the choice of Israeli voters next Tuesday is an easy one.
Iran on Saturday formally inaugurated what it said was mass production of a long-range anti-ship cruise missile.
The ceremony for the Qadir cruise missile, a homegrown Iranian invention said to be capable of striking naval targets up to 300 kilometers (186 miles) away, was attended by high-ranking members of the defense establishment, including Defense Minister Hossein Dehqan, according to a report by Fars News, a semi-official Iranian news agency.
Dehqan said he missiles could be deployed quickly and accurately from a variety of different platforms. He said the Qadir had highly advanced radar, anti-jamming and anti-electronic warfare systems, and was capable of delivering a missile with high destructive power while flying at low altitude
At a separate event commemorating the appointment of Iran’s new police chief on Saturday, the Iranian army Chief of Staff Hassan Firouzabadi criticized the United States, declaring that Tehran will never have faith in Washington, which Fars Newsreported he characterized as “not trustful.”
“The high precision, rapid reaction and high quality of these important products have incredibly increased the Armed Forces’ combat power in the sky, sea and ground,” Dehqan said, while asserting Iran’s regional dominance in developing its own weapons.
“God willing, the Defense Ministry’s new missiles with much more advanced capabilities will be delivered to the Armed Forces next year,” he said.
Fox News reported today that a bipartisan U.S. Senate committee with subpoena powers is investigating the possibility the Obama administration may have aided efforts to defeat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in this Tuesday’s elections.
A source told Fox News the investigation focuses on State Department grants to a non-profits group that has been leading field organizing efforts openly aimed at replacing Netanyahu’s government with a center-left coalition.
The news report has been making big waves in the news media here in Israel.
Reported FoxNews.com: “The fact that both Democratic and Republican sides of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations have signed off on the probe could be seen as a rebuke to President Obama, who has had a well-documented adversarial relationship with the Israeli leader.”
A source told Fox News the senatorial probe is looking into U.S. governmental “funding” to OneVoice Movement, which is a partner in a get-out-the-vote drive with a newly-formed Israeli political action group calling itself V15.
V15, short for Victory 2015, attracted U.S. media attention after it hired 270 Strategies, a consulting firm whose senior leadership is comprised mostly of former top staffers for President Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign.
The V15 organization has partnered with OneVoice, a U.S.-U.K. nonprofit, for its get-out-the-vote-organizing drive aimed at replacing Netanyahu’s government with a center-left coalition.
V15′s headquarters is actually the offices of OneVoice, which bills itself as an “international grassroots movement that amplifies the voice of mainstream Israelis and Palestinians.”
OneVoice received a State Department grant for $350,000.
OneVoice’s offices Tel Aviv officers are being used as the campaign headquarters for V15′s anti-Netanyahu effort, as WND first reported.
It was OneVoice that reportedly hired 270 Strategies, a consulting firm whose senior leadership is comprised mostly of former top staffers for President Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign.
Aside from the State Department, OneVoice is also openly partnered with Google, the U.K. Labour Party and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
[This story isn't widely circulated, so be it could be completely false]
The Kremlin press office Friday told media heads not to leave Moscow in the next few days and stand by for an important announcement by President Vladimir Putin. The CEO of the Center for Political information Alexei Mukhin did not deny that President Putin is “currently incapacitated.” Thursday, Russian Internet sites carried rumors of Putin’s death after he had not been seen in public since March 5. The rumors were not confirmed. Mukhin’s reply to the query was “no comment.”
With the recent announcement on Twitter that all Russian Embassy employees had left the London Embassy (disputed by this Washington Post story) combined with new reports that the Russian flag is no longer flying over the Kremlin as seen in screenshotsabove/below, speculation is now rampant about either a Vladimir Putin death announcement, the birth of his son or an announcementof the beginning of World War 3 to the Russian people, after lethal aid was confirmed as being shipped to the Ukraine, while the American people remain uninformed as the mysterious disappearance of Vladimir Putin suddenly becomes the biggest story on the internet as summed up in the 1st video below. The secret arrival of North Korea's Prime Minister in Russia on Friday for a 'surprise visit' has only compounded the mystery.
In a story now confirmed by the websites Western Journalism and DebkaFile, Russian media has been told to stay in town as a huge announcement will be coming this weekend that no one should miss.
Couple of comments I read this morn...lol
ReplyDelete"I think he died fighting a bear shirtless while riding a tiger."
"No,he survived, Brian Williams came charging in on a tyrannosaurs Rex and saved him"
Kidding aside...heres the "what ifs"...what if Russia splits up again, and Putin ends up being the leader of the specific areas God names in Ezekiel...just say'n
Frankly I'm extremely concerned about Putin. Even prayed for him. Putin at least is very intelligent, cool headed and as a master chess player who is able to keep his wits about him while dealing with hot headed numb skulls. We may not be so fortunate with his replacement.
ReplyDeleteI expect the next two or three weeks to be, or bring about, an incredible birth pain like we have not witnessed yet.
I believe in Caver lingo....Woo doggie ;)
Good points above...Mrs C - I should post an article summarizing ALL of the crazy conspiracy stories - it actually has some humor attached indeed. Ally - if there is a coup, then the future could get very interesting, heck this whole thing is actually fascinating to watch, with every passing day
ReplyDelete