President Barack Obama visited an influential conservative Washington D.C. synagogue on May 22nd with the avowed purpose of assuring his audience of about 1000 people that his “commitment to Israel’s security is and always will be unshakeable.” Donning a yarmulke and speaking from the synagogue sanctuary’s bimah where the Torah is recited, Obama claimed that “no U.S. President, no administration has done more to ensure that Israel can protect itself than this one.” Carried away by his own self-proclaimed support for Israel, he declared himself an “honorary member of the tribe.”
Obama’s understatement that the “Palestinians are not the easiest of partners” evoked laughter from the audience. He reiterated to applause his commitment to a two-state solution “for two peoples, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security,” while saying he recognizes the “existential risks” Israel would face from a bad deal with the Palestinians that does not “take into account the genuine dangers of terrorism and hostility.”
As usual, President Obama’s words are not matched by his actions. Indeed, Obama’s rhetoric is often at variance with what Obama actually does. He promised his largely Jewish audience that America has Israel’s back. In reality, Obama is stabbing Israel in the back. He is risking an existential threat to Israel from a nuclear-armed Iran, apparently willing to make concession after concession that will mean no unfettered inspections by international inspectors to enforce whatever nuclear enrichment and R&D restrictions are agreed upon with Iran. Then by Obama’s own admission, after about 12 years or so, the restrictions on Iran’s breakout time to build a nuclear bomb would virtually disappear.
Obama is simultaneously pursuing behind Israel’s back the possibility of a UN Security Council resolution that would give the Palestinians virtually everything they are looking for without meaningfully dealing with “the genuine dangers of terrorism and hostility” that Palestinian jihadists still pose to Israeli civilians.
The French government has been leading the Europeans’ initiative to set forth the basic terms of a final peace agreement in a Security Council resolution favorable to the Palestinian position. The resolution may include a target date for finalizing the agreement and requiring Israel to withdraw from the West Bank, with the potential for further Security Council action such as sanctions if Israel does not comply. Senior Obama administration officials reportedly have been meeting with their French counterparts to plot a common strategy at the UN for such a binding resolution.
Thus, the Obama administration appears to be ready to break with long-standing bipartisan American policy and support the Palestinian initiative at the UN rather than rely on direct negotiations between the parties. Obama is thereby furthering the Palestinians’ diplomatic strategy to isolate Israel as a pariah state in the international community.
The administration may be seeking to use its support of a UN pro-Palestinian resolution “as currency for procuring Saudi and Gulf support for…their acceptance of the nuclear deal shaping up with Iran.” Israel is clearly on the losing side of this exchange at both ends.
Obama’s definition of a two-state solution is essentially the same as the Palestinians’ definition, which their Arab allies support. Israel would be required to withdraw to the highly insecure pre-June 1967 lines, with minor agreed upon land swaps.
They would be expected to give up control over East Jerusalem, which would become the capital of the new Palestinian state. Nothing is being demanded of the Palestinians in return except perhaps an unenforceable promise to stop their terrorist attacks against Israeli citizens, a request that Hamas has rejected outright.
In other words, the Palestinians’ definition of a two-state solution consists of one state of their own, based on the pre-1967 dividing line with Israel, and a residual Israeli state within which millions of Palestinians with “refugee” status would have a right to claim land as their own based on some sort of perpetual birthright.
“What happened in 1948 will never happen again,” Abbas said in his commemoration speech. The Palestinians will not accept any “state with temporary borders.” The implication is that even a border based on the pre-June 1967 lines is regarded by Abbas as only temporary, since the Palestinian “refugees” also have the right to reclaim their ancestors’ so-called ‘homes’ within pre-June 1967 Israel.
Yet, as Abbas has said in the past, Israelis would not be permitted to stay in the West Bank as citizens or residents in the new Palestinian state. In other words, Abbas envisions a Judenrein state of Palestine living side by side with an Israeli state confined to its pre-June 1967 boundaries that is expected to forfeits its Jewish character with the absorption of potentially millions of Palestinian “refugees.” And President Obama’s support of a pro-Palestinian resolution at the UN Security Council will mean he is on board with this perverted version of the “two-state solution.”
The Palestinians want it all and are using the United Nations and other international organizations such as the International Criminal Court to achieve their long-term goal, no matter how long it takes. Obama appears willing to lend a helping hand.
President Obama is now on a charm offensive to persuade sympathetic Jewish-American audiences to trust him on Iran and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The truth is however, that for anybody who truly cares about Israel’s survival, Obama cannot be trusted. He is willing to sell Israel down the river to secure his own legacy as a “peacemaker.”
The Putin regime enjoys humiliating the United States, but even it seems to have tired of degrading Kerry who ruins their fun by failing to realize what is going on. Instead Kerry has become a nonentity; a forgotten messenger boy. It's a fitting purgatory for the formerly tireless leftist activist in the Senate.
It wasn't all that long ago that John Kerry was being touted as the last best hope for diplomacy. No one could quite admit that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama had made a complete mess, but the sighs of relief when John Kerry got the job instead of Obama's dishonest crony Susan Rice spoke volumes.
American diplomacy had never before hit the low point that it had under Obama and Clinton. Liberals with an interest in foreign policy had expected professionalism; instead the two politicians used it as their private piggy bank. Obama handed off ambassadorships to key countries to big donors while Hillary spent more time seeing to the interests of Clinton Foundation donors than to our national interests.
Obama had campaigned as an internationalist who would put aside the provincialism of the Bush years to build meaningful multilateral relationships based on his experience with other countries and cultures. But once in office, he treated visits to other countries like domestic campaign trips to obscure states.
Foreign leaders soon found out that an Obama visit was usually a cross between a photo op using their historical landmarks as background and a vacation. While his gaffes and embarrassing behaviors got the most attention, the underlying problem was that he didn't understand what his job was. His routine of self-important speeches and announcements of billion dollar programs that would never materialize was built for his endless domestic campaign and its lapdog media. And it didn't play well internationally
As it turned out, Obama did not have a foreign policy, he had a domestic policy. His failure to work together with Republicans at home was more than equaled by his failure to work with allies abroad. At home or abroad, he came with a pre-approved progressive program that ignored emerging crises and which he refused to budge from until a crisis became severe enough to threaten his popularity.
An experienced White House staff might have eased the problem, but Obama was surrounded by fellow amateurs and egomaniacs putting the progressive agenda ahead of pragmatic diplomacy. And his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton had little real experience. In the past, she had told a number of lies to compensate for that by manufacturing imaginary achievements.
To the misfortune of America and the world, both the White House and the State Department were led by politicians with little understanding of foreign affairs who wanted photo ops for their domestic political campaigns more than they wanted to actually put in the work to get things done. John Kerry was supposed to change all that. An unlikely repeat presidential candidate, Kerry was not holding down the job as a platform for seeking higher office. Instead the career activist would finally have a direct line for putting his feverish foreign policy obsessions into practice.
Kerry cheerleaders had forgotten that while he genuinely did care about foreign affairs, unlike Hillary, his diplomatic adventures had been that of a professional patsy for assorted totalitarian states. It took the rise of a genuinely delusional Democrat like Obama to make Kerry seem like the voice of reason.
Obama was oblivious to the way things were done. Kerry was just oblivious. He understood the forms of diplomacy, but was as inept at assessing the sincerity of the other side as a sucker at a used car lot. When it came to Syria, no one could forget his pandering to Assad, and his confused statements made an already incoherent administration policy seem like it was coming apart at its contradictory seams.
Kerry's sympathy for the Muslim Brotherhood alienated Egypt. His sympathy for Assad then alienated the Muslim Brotherhood. Iran became his only option because he had alienated everyone else.
Obama let him have his way on Israeli and even lent some of his personal prestige with a visit, but Kerry botched the negotiations by letting the terrorists walk all over him and then insisting that Israel do the same. Then he made the mess into an even bigger disaster by blaming Israel for the failed talks.
That incident reinforced Netanyahu's conviction that Obama could not be trusted. Netanyahu had gone out on a limb for Kerry by making unpopular concessions while receiving nothing in return. And after all that, Kerry had turned around and stabbed him in the back. Not only had Kerry precluded further Israeli participation, but his promises on Iran were viewed as worthless in Jerusalem.
Obama stopped paying whatever little attention he had to Kerry. And Kerry became the man who totes potatoes back from Russia while imagining that he is changing the world. A clown in a diplomatic circus he is too oblivious to see.
The agenda isn't set by Kerry. It isn't even set by Obama. It's set by anyone and everyone else.
Iran has gotten its way on the nuclear program. The Saudis have turned up their noses at Obama's summit. Israel has led a loud protest campaign against the nuclear deal. The Saudis still insist on bombing Yemen. Iran insists on raising tensions with its expansionism around the region. The United States is unable to do anything about this because, aside from everything else, it no longer has any relationships abroad or credible voices to carry its message.
Kerry finally had the power to make the changes that he always wanted and proved once and for all that he is not a brilliant diplomat or a deep thinker, but a miserable failure.
And American diplomacy has failed with him.
Russia's military forces have begun a large exercise involving around 250 aircraft and 12,000 service personnel, according to its defence ministry.
The ministry described the four-day drill as a "massive surprise inspection", to check combat readiness.
The tests began on the same day as Nato and some of its partners started an Arctic training exercise.
Russia's actions in Ukraine and incursions into Western airspace have led to rising tensions with the West.
According to reports on the Russian agencies Interfax and Tass, the inspection of the aviation group and air defence forces in the central military district involves almost 700 weapons and pieces of military hardware.
During the exercise, Russia's long-range aircraft are due to carry out cruise missile strikes on practice targets in the Komi republic.
The BBC's Caroline Wyatt, in Moscow, says the current drills are in preparation for a larger exercise known as Center-2015 in the next few months.
Asked about Russia's assertiveness in a TV interview, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin joked that "tanks don't need visas".
The outspoken politician is himself on EU and US blacklists as part of sanctions following Russia's annexation of Crimea last year, limiting his travel options.
Russia has been heavily criticised in recent months over increased air activity around the Nordic countries, including several airspace violations by military aircraft.
Nato's two-week training exercise in the region - which began on the same day as Russia's tests - will be based in the north of Norway, Sweden and Finland. It will involve 115 fighter planes and 3,600 troops from nine countries.
The Arctic Challenge Exercise will also involve troops and planes from the US, Britain, Germany, France and the Netherlands - all Nato members - as well as neutral Switzerland.
Japan will join a major U.S.-Australian military exercise for the first time in a sign of growing security links between the three countries as tensions fester over China's island building in the South China Sea.
While only 40 Japanese officers and soldiers will take part in drills involving 30,000 U.S. and Australian troops in early July, experts said the move showed how Washington wanted to foster cooperation among its security allies in Asia.
The Talisman Sabre biennial exercises, to be held in locations around Australia, will encompass maritime operations, amphibious landings, special forces tactics and urban warfare.
"I think the U.S. is trying to get its allies to do more," said Euan Graham, director of the International Security Program at the Lowy Institute in Sydney.
"There is an obvious symmetry between Japan as the upper anchor of the Western Pacific alliance and ... Australia as the southern anchor."
All three nations have said they were concerned about freedom of movement through the seas and air in the disputed South China Sea, where China is creating seven artificial islands in the Spratly archipelago, a vital shipping corridor.
Some security experts say China might impose air and sea restrictions in the Spratlys once it completes construction work that includes at least one military airstrip. China has said it had every right to set up an Air Defence Identification Zone but that current conditions did not warrant one.
China claims most of the South China Sea. The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei also have overlapping claims.
The Japanese personnel will embed with U.S. forces while 500 New Zealand troops will join Australian contingents, according to the Australian Defence Force website.
Japanese Defense Minister Gen Nakatani rebuffed suggestions the exercises were aimed at China, telling Reuters that Japan simply wanted to improve military cooperation with the United States and Australia.
The deputy chief of staff of the Iranian Armed Forces said on Sunday that the radical Sunni Islamic State group is “US state-sponsored terrorism” aimed at defaming Islam on behalf of the “Zionist regime.”
Brigadier General Massoud Jazzayeri made the comments during a talk with military commanders and officials in Tehran, the Fars News Agencyreported.
“ISIL [an acronym for the Islamic State group] is the product of the thoughts and acts of the US state-sponsored terrorism with the aim of defaming Islam and preventing people’s tendency in different societies and countries towards this religion,” Jazzayeri said of the jihadist group that has seized large areas of Syria and Iraq, where it brutally enforces an extreme interpretation of Islamic
“To weaken the Muslims in all fields with the help and alliance of the regional hirelings are among other goals of creating the ISIL,” he continued.
Iranian officials have in the past accused the US of being behind radical Islamic terror groups.
In April the commander of Iran’s ground forces, Brigadier General Ahmad Reza Pourdastan, said the US had established the Islamic State, Boko Haram and al-Nusra Front groups to hurt Islam by pitting religious groups against one another.
DECLASSIFIED 2012 Defense Intelligence Agency document reveals: West will facilitate rise of Islamic State "in order to isolate the Syrian regime."
Levant Report: On Monday, May 18, the conservative government watchdog group Judicial Watch published a selection of formerly classified documents obtained from the U.S. Department of Defense and State Department through a federal lawsuit.
While initial mainstream media reporting is focused on the White House's handling of the Benghazi consulate attack, a much "bigger picture" admission and confirmation is contained in one of the Defense Intelligence Agency documents circulated in 2012: that an 'Islamic State' is desired in Eastern Syria to effect the West's policies in the region.
Astoundingly, the newly declassified report states that for "THE WEST, GULF COUNTRIES, AND TURKEY [WHO] SUPPORT THE [SYRIAN] OPPOSITION… THERE IS THE POSSIBILITY OF ESTABLISHING A DECLARED OR UNDECLARED SALAFIST PRINCIPALITY IN EASTERN SYRIA (HASAKA AND DER ZOR), AND THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THE SUPPORTING POWERS TO THE OPPOSITION WANT, IN ORDER TO ISOLATE THE SYRIAN REGIME…"
The DIA report, formerly classified "SECRET//NOFORN" and dated August 12, 2012, was circulated widely among various government agencies, including CENTCOM, the CIA, FBI, DHS, NGA, State Dept., and many others
The document shows that, as early as 2012, U.S. intelligence predicted the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS), but instead of clearly delineating the group as an enemy, the report envisions the terror group as a U.S. strategic asset.
While a number of analysts and journalists have documented long ago the role of western intelligence agencies in the formation and training of the armed opposition in Syria, this is the highest level internal U.S. intelligence confirmation of the theory that western governments fundamentally see ISIS as their own tool for regime change in Syria. The document matter-of-factly states just that scenario.
Also see:
Hillary Circulated Anti-Semitic Benghazi Conspiracy Theories by Man Who Called for Destroying Israel
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