Sunday, March 11, 2012
Saturday, March 10, 2012
President Obama is busy sabotaging the Jewish state’s right of self-defense.
Obama Seeks to Delegitimize Israeli Concerns over Iran
Posted By Anne Bayefsky On March 9, 2012 @ 2:34 pm In History,Homeland Security,Iran,Israel,Middle East,Politics,US News,World News |30 Comments
Despite Prime Minister Netanyahu’s valiant effort this week to educate President Barack Obama on the meaning of Purim and the centuries-old tale about the triumph of moral leadership and courage, the painful reality is that his message fell on deaf ears. The president does indeed “have Israel’s back” — up against a wall.
Over the course of a week in which the president spoke frequently on the subject of Iran, one message stood out. By vociferously arguing that his administration’s brand of diplomacy is realistically capable of ending Iran’s efforts to acquire nuclear weapons, and that views to the contrary are irresponsible war-mongering, Obama is attempting to undermine the legality of an Israeli strike.
In fact, self-defense in international law depends on the assessment that the threat posed to one’s civilian population is real and sufficiently imminent as to justify the use of force to prevent the impending harm. Given the catastrophic nature of the danger, it is not necessary for Israel — or America — to wait until the genocidal Iranian mullahs and President Ahmadinejad have their hands on the nuclear trigger.
But President Obama is painting a different picture. If Israel can be cast as pre-empting or foregoing the reasonable possibility of diplomatic success with a “rational actor” — as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey recently described Iran — then it would not be engaged in justifiable self-defense. Labeling discussion of the necessity of using force to stymie Iran’s aggressive behavior as “loose talk of war” or “beating the drums of war” — in the president’s words — is also to deny that such a move would be legitimate self-defense.
This explains why in Sunday’s speech to the pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC, the president lunged the knife into Israel’s back and twisted it: “I firmly believe that an opportunity still remains for diplomacy. … Iran’s leaders still have the opportunity to make the right decision. … Israel…[has] an interest in seeing this challenge resolved diplomatically.” The insulting innuendo was that without his wise admonition Israeli mothers and fathers would be hankering to send their children into battle.
But even the spin doctors — desperate to explain away three years of policy development at odds with Israel’s (and America’s) national security — cannot cover for a patently obvious lack of resolve.
Recall the huffing and puffing and the fuzzy shifting deadlines on Iran of the administration’s first year in office. On July 22, 2009, Secretary Clinton said of U.S. action on Iran: “Our president came to office with a very clear preference for talking with people. … I think there is still a lot of opportunity here, but we are not going to keep the window open forever.” On July 27, 2009, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said: “The president is fully aware that the Iranians may simply try to run out the clock. … I think the president is hoping for some kind of response … at the opening of the U.N. General Assembly session.” On October 1, 2009, the president said: “Iran … must grant unfettered access to IAEA inspectors within two weeks. … We’re not interested in talking for the sake of talking. If Iran does not take steps in the near future to live up to its obligations, then the United States will not continue to negotiate indefinitely.” On November 29, 2009, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said: “Time is running out for Iran to address the international community’s growing concerns about its nuclear program.”
Or compare the president himself in his first year in office to the Obama of today. On May 18, 2009, President Obama was asked about Iran and any deadlines for his “policy of engagement.” He responded: “You know, I don’t want to set an artificial deadline. … We should have a fairly good sense by the end of the year as to whether they are moving in the right direction.”
Almost three years later, the president is still spinning his wheels. On March 6, 2012, after the administration announced a new round of talks with Iran, the president told a news conference in eerily similar terms: “To resolve this issue will require Iran to come to the table and discuss in a clear and forthright way how to prove to the international community that the intentions of their nuclear program are peaceful. … They know how to do it, and the question is going to be whether in these discussions they show themselves moving clearly in that direction.”
So let’s recap. The leading state sponsor of terrorism is poised to acquire the world’s most dangerous weapon. The president of the United States is still pretending that Iran could prove that its intentions are peaceful and is wondering where the Iranians are headed. And to forestall the possibility that Israel will give up on America’s commander-in-chief having his own country’s back, let alone theirs, President Obama is busy sabotaging the Jewish state’s right of self-defense.
Twenty-four centuries later and Purim is as relevant as ever.
Friday, March 9, 2012
Obama wants to prevent Israel
Obama Vs. Israel: Priority No. 1? Stop Israel
It's Lucy and the football, Iran-style. After ostensibly tough talk about preventing Iran from going nuclear, the Obama administration acquiesced to yet another round of talks with the mullahs.
This, 14 months after the last group-of-six negotiations collapsed in Istanbul because of blatant Iranian stalling and unseriousness. Nonetheless, the new negotiations will be both without precondition and preceded by yet more talks to decide such trivialities as venue.
These negotiations don't just gain time for a nuclear program about whose military intent the IAEA is issuing alarming warnings. They make it extremely difficult for Israel to do anything about it (while it still can), lest Israel be universally condemned for having aborted a diplomatic solution.
If the administration were serious about achievement rather than appearance, it would have warned that this was the last chance for Iran to come clean and would have demanded a short timeline. After all, President Obama insisted on deadlines for the Iraq withdrawal, the Afghan surge and Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Why leave these crucial talks open-ended when the nuclear clock is ticking?
This re-engagement comes immediately after Obama's campaign-year posturing about Iran's nukes. Sunday in front of AIPAC, he warned that "Iran's leaders should have no doubt about the resolve of the United States." This just two days after he'd said (to the Atlantic) of possible U.S. military action, "I don't bluff."
Yet on Tuesday he returns to the very engagement policy that he admits had previously failed.
Real Target
Won't sanctions make a difference this time, however? Sanctions are indeed hurting Iran economically.
But when Obama's own director of national intelligence was asked by the Senate intelligence committee whether sanctions had any effect on the course of Iran's nuclear program, the answer was simple: No. None whatsoever.
Obama garnered much AIPAC applause by saying that his is not a containment policy but a prevention policy. But what has he prevented? Keeping a coalition of six together is not success. Holding talks is not success. Imposing sanctions is not success.
Success is halting and reversing the program. Yet Iran is tripling its uranium output, moving enrichment facilities deep under a mountain near Qom and impeding IAEA inspections of weaponization facilities.
So what is Obama's real objective?
"We're trying to make the decision to attack as hard as possible for Israel," an administration official told the Washington Post in the most revealing White House admission since "leading from behind."
Revealing and shocking. The world's greatest exporter of terror (according to the State Department), the systematic killer of Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan, the self-declared enemy that invented "Death to America Day" is approaching nuclear capability — and the focus of U.S. policy is to prevent a democratic ally threatened with annihilation from pre-empting the threat?
Indeed it is. The new open-ended negotiations with Iran fit well with this strategy of tying Israel down. As does Obama's "I have Israel's back" reassurance, designed to persuade Israel and its supporters to pull back and outsource to Obama what for Israel are life-and-death decisions.
All About Re-election
Yet 48 hours later, Obama tells a news conference that this phrase is just a historical reference to supporting such allies as Britain and Japan — contradicting the intended impression he'd given AIPAC that he was offering special protection to an ally under threat of physical annihilation.
To AIPAC he declares that "no Israeli government can tolerate a nuclear weapon in the hands of a regime that denies the Holocaust, threatens to wipe Israel off the map, and sponsors terrorist groups committed to Israel's destruction" and affirms "Israel's sovereign right to make its own decisions ... to meet its security needs."
And then he pursues policies — open-ended negotiations, deceptive promises of tough U.S. backing for Israel, boasts about the efficacy of sanctions, grave warnings about "war talk" — meant, as his own official admitted, to stop Israel from exercising precisely that sovereign right to self-protection.
Yet beyond these obvious contradictions and walk-backs lies a transcendent logic: As with the Keystone pipeline delay, as with the debt-ceiling extension, as with the Afghan withdrawal schedule, Obama wants to get past Nov. 6 without any untoward action that might threaten his re-election.
For Israel, however, the stakes are somewhat higher: the very existence of a vibrant nation and its 6 million Jews. The asymmetry is stark.
A fair-minded observer might judge that Israel's desire to not go gently into the darkness carries higher moral urgency than the political future of one man, even if he is president of the U.S.
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Obama's hostility to Israel
by Caroline Glick
"The fact is that Obama's actions and his words have made clear that Israel cannot trust him, not on Iran and not on anything. The only thing that has been consistent about his Israel policy has been its hostility."
Obama makes the case for an Israeli strike on Iran
In his commentary in Maariv's Friday news supplement, the paper's senior diplomatic commentator Ben Caspit laid out a hypothetical lecture that Obama might give Netanyahu when the two leaders meet alone in the Oval Office this afternoon. In Caspit's scenario, Obama used the one-on-one to set out the law to the Israeli premier. If you bomb Iran's nuclear installations before the November elections, in my second term Israel will no longer be able to buy spare parts for its weapons systems from the US. So too, Caspit's Obama said, the US will end its support for Israel at the UN Security Council if Israel dares to take it upon itself to prevent Iran from crossing the nuclear threshold before the US elections.
Perhaps Caspit wrote his article after hearing about a meeting between American Jews and Vice President Joe Biden's National Security Advisor Anthony Blinken. According to Commentary's Omri Ceren, Blinken told the assembled Jews that if Israel's supporters discuss Obama's hostile treatment of Israel in the context of the election, they can expect to suffer consequences if Obama is reelected.
It is important to keep Blinken's threats and Caspit's scenario in mind when considering Obama's speech to AIPAC on Sunday morning.
Obama's speech was notable for a number of reasons. First, this was the first speech on an Israel-related theme that Obama has given since the 2008 campaign in which he did not pick a fight with Israel. And it is due to the absence of open hostility in his address that Obama's supporters are touting it as a pro-Israel speech.
While he didn't pick a fight with Israel on Sunday, his speech did mark a clear attempt to undermine Israel's strategic position in a fundamental - indeed existential - way. As many commentators have noted in recent weeks, Israel and the US have different red lines for the Iranian nuclear program. These divergent red lines owe to the fact that the US has more options for attacking Iran's nuclear installations than Israel.
From Israel's perspective, Iran's nuclear program will reportedly become unstoppable as soon as the Iranians move a sufficient quantity of enriched uranium and/or centrifuges to the Fordow nuclear installation by Qom. Since Israel reportedly lacks the ability to destroy the facility, Israel's timeline for attacking Iran will likely end within weeks. The US reportedly has the capacity to successfully bomb Fordow and so its timeline for attacking Iran is longer than Israel's.
The reason this is important is because it tells us the true nature of Obama's demand that Israel give more time for sanctions and diplomacy to work. When one recognizes Israel's short timeline for attacking, one realizes that when Obama demands that Israel give several more months for sanctions to work, what he is actually demanding is for Israel to place its survival in his hands. Again, once Iran's nuclear project is immune from an Israeli strike Obama will effectively hold the key to Israel's survival. Israel will be completely at his mercy.
To understand just how dangerous this would be it is worth considering the other issues Obama covered in his speech. Obama's speech essentially boiled down to three assertions, which he argued prove that he is the best friend Israel has ever had and therefore can be trusted to ensure its survival.
First, Obama asserted that military cooperation between Israel and the US has grown to unprecedented levels under his leadership. Second he claimed that his administration has served as Israel's stalwart defender in the UN and generally when it comes to the Palestinian issue. Finally, he argued that he can be trusted to defend Israel from a nuclear armed Iran because of the sanctions that have been imposed on Iran by the US and the international community since he entered office.
The alleged expansion of US-Israel military cooperation under Obama's watch has served as a regular talking point for Obama administration officials. The claim is convenient because it is based on classified information unavailable to the general public. You and I have no way of knowing if it is true.
But what we do know is that under Obama's leadership, senior US military and defense officials have made repeated statements that are openly hostile to Israel. Then defense secretary Robert Gates called Israel "an ungrateful ally." Current Defense Secretary Leon Panetta demanded that Israel "get back to the damned table" with the Palestinians. General Dempsey and his predecessor Michael Mullen have spoken disparagingly of Israel and its military capabilities and so, at a minimum gave comfort to its enemies.
Aside from these rather uncooperative comments, under Obama the US has adopted policies and taken actions that have endangered Israel militarily on all fronts and in fundamental ways. With Obama at the helm the US not only stood back and allowed Hezbollah and Iran to take over Lebanon. The US has continued to supply the Hezbollah-controlled Lebanese military with sophisticated US arms.
Under Obama, the US intervened in Egypt's internal politics to empower the Muslim Brotherhood and overthrow Hosni Mubarak. The transformation of Israel's border with Egypt from a peaceful border to a hostile one is the direct consequence of the US-supported overthrow of Mubarak and the US-supported rise of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists. These are indisputable facts. Their military repercussions are enormous and entirely negative.
Then there is Syria. For more than six months, Obama effectively sided with Bashar Assad against his own people who rose up against him. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called Assad a reformer. Now, as Assad butchers his people by the thousands, the US has still failed to send even humanitarian aid to the Syrian people. Almost unbelievably, Clinton said that Assad would have to agree to any US assistance to the people who seek his overthrow.
There have been reports that the US has warned Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Saudi Arabia about the possibility that Assad's ballistic missiles and chemical and biological arsenals may be transferred to terrorists. Such a prospect constitutes a clear and present danger to US national security - as well as Israel's national security. Indeed, the threat of proliferation of WMD is so dangerous that the administration could be expected to take preemptive steps to destroy or commandeer those arsenals. Certainly it could be expected to support an Israeli operation to do so. But according to reports, Obama has sufficed with empty warnings to the Arabs - not Israel - that this could perhaps be a problem.
By failing to act against Assad, the Obama administration is effectively acting as the guardian of Iran's most important regional ally. That is, far from enhancing Israel's military posture, Obama's behavior towards Syria is enhancing Iran's military posture. He is acting in a manner one would expect Iran's ally to behave, not in the manner that one would expect Israel's ally to behave.
As to Iran, while Obama touts the new anti-Iran sanctions that have been imposed since he took office as proof that he can be trusted to take action against Iran, the fact is that Obama has been forced to implement sanctions against his will by the US Congress and Europe. So too, Obama still refuses to implement the sanctions against Iran's Central Bank that Congress passed against his strong objections earlier in the year. As with the case of Syria - and Hezbollah in Lebanon - on the issue of sanctions, Obama's behavior has served to help rather than hinder Iran's pursuit of nuclear capabilities.
Beyond Israel's immediate borders, and beyond Iran, Obama's behavior towards Turkey has had a destructive impact on Israel's military position and strategic posture. Obama has said that Turkey's Islamist, anti-Semitic Prime Minister Recip Erdogan is one of the five foreign leaders he is closest to. He reportedly speaks to Erdogan at least once a week. The Turkish leader is the Middle Eastern leader that Obama trusts the most.
Erdogan gained Obama's trust at the same time that he ended his country's strategic alliance with Israel and began directly funding the Hamas terrorist organization and providing aid and comfort to Hamas by seeking to end Israel's lawful maritime blockade of Gaza's coastline.
What is notable about Obama's relationship with NATO member Turkey is that he has not used his relationship with Erdogan to influence Erdogan's behavior. Instead he has rewarded Erdogan's behavior.
Obama's self-congratulatory statements about US assistance to the development of Israel's missile defense systems ring depressingly hollow for two main reasons. First, the military cooperation agreement between Israel and the US for the development of the Iron Dome anti-mortar and rocket shield was concluded and financed under President George W. Bush due to the peripatetic actions of Senator Mark Kirk. Obama inherited the program. And in his 2012 budget, Obama reduced US funding of the project.
The second reason his statements ring hollow is because his actions as President have increased Israel's need to defend itself from Palestinian mortars and rockets from Gaza. Obama has empowered the Palestinians to attack Israel at will and pressured Israel to take no offensive steps to reduce the Palestinians' ability to attack it.
This brings us to Obama's statements about his support for Israel at the UN and towards the Palestinians. The fact is that it is Obama's hostile position towards Israel that fuelled the Palestinians' rejection of negotiations with Israel. As Mahmoud Abbas told the Washington Post's Jackson Diehl, Obama's demand for a Jewish building freeze convinced him that he has no reason to hold talks with Israel.
Then there is his "support" for Israel at the UN. The fact is that the Palestinians only sought a UN Security Council resolution condemning Jewish construction in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria because Obama made them think that he would support it. It was Obama after all who called Israeli settlements "illegitimate," and demanded an abrogation of Jewish building rights outside the armistice lines.
The same is the case with the Palestinian decision to have the UN accept "Palestine" as a member. In his September 2010 address to the UN General Assembly Obama called for the establishment of a Palestinian state within a year. It was his statement that made the Palestinians think the US would back their decision to abandon negotiations with Israel and turn their cause over to the UN.
So in both cases where Obama was compelled to defend Israel at the UN, Obama created the crisis that Israel was them compelled to beg him to defuse. And in both cases, he made Israel pay dearly for his protection.
The fact is that Obama's actions and his words have made clear that Israel cannot trust him, not on Iran and not on anything. The only thing that has been consistent about his Israel policy has been its hostility. As a consequence, the only messages emanating from his administration we can trust are those telling us that if Obama is reelected, he will no longer feel constrained to hide his hatred for Israel.
What these messages make clear is that if our leaders are too weak to stand up to Obama today, we will pay a steep price for their cowardice if he wins the elections in November.
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 11:54 AM
"The fact is that Obama's actions and his words have made clear that Israel cannot trust him, not on Iran and not on anything. The only thing that has been consistent about his Israel policy has been its hostility."
Obama makes the case for an Israeli strike on Iran
In his commentary in Maariv's Friday news supplement, the paper's senior diplomatic commentator Ben Caspit laid out a hypothetical lecture that Obama might give Netanyahu when the two leaders meet alone in the Oval Office this afternoon. In Caspit's scenario, Obama used the one-on-one to set out the law to the Israeli premier. If you bomb Iran's nuclear installations before the November elections, in my second term Israel will no longer be able to buy spare parts for its weapons systems from the US. So too, Caspit's Obama said, the US will end its support for Israel at the UN Security Council if Israel dares to take it upon itself to prevent Iran from crossing the nuclear threshold before the US elections.
Perhaps Caspit wrote his article after hearing about a meeting between American Jews and Vice President Joe Biden's National Security Advisor Anthony Blinken. According to Commentary's Omri Ceren, Blinken told the assembled Jews that if Israel's supporters discuss Obama's hostile treatment of Israel in the context of the election, they can expect to suffer consequences if Obama is reelected.
It is important to keep Blinken's threats and Caspit's scenario in mind when considering Obama's speech to AIPAC on Sunday morning.
Obama's speech was notable for a number of reasons. First, this was the first speech on an Israel-related theme that Obama has given since the 2008 campaign in which he did not pick a fight with Israel. And it is due to the absence of open hostility in his address that Obama's supporters are touting it as a pro-Israel speech.
While he didn't pick a fight with Israel on Sunday, his speech did mark a clear attempt to undermine Israel's strategic position in a fundamental - indeed existential - way. As many commentators have noted in recent weeks, Israel and the US have different red lines for the Iranian nuclear program. These divergent red lines owe to the fact that the US has more options for attacking Iran's nuclear installations than Israel.
From Israel's perspective, Iran's nuclear program will reportedly become unstoppable as soon as the Iranians move a sufficient quantity of enriched uranium and/or centrifuges to the Fordow nuclear installation by Qom. Since Israel reportedly lacks the ability to destroy the facility, Israel's timeline for attacking Iran will likely end within weeks. The US reportedly has the capacity to successfully bomb Fordow and so its timeline for attacking Iran is longer than Israel's.
The reason this is important is because it tells us the true nature of Obama's demand that Israel give more time for sanctions and diplomacy to work. When one recognizes Israel's short timeline for attacking, one realizes that when Obama demands that Israel give several more months for sanctions to work, what he is actually demanding is for Israel to place its survival in his hands. Again, once Iran's nuclear project is immune from an Israeli strike Obama will effectively hold the key to Israel's survival. Israel will be completely at his mercy.
To understand just how dangerous this would be it is worth considering the other issues Obama covered in his speech. Obama's speech essentially boiled down to three assertions, which he argued prove that he is the best friend Israel has ever had and therefore can be trusted to ensure its survival.
First, Obama asserted that military cooperation between Israel and the US has grown to unprecedented levels under his leadership. Second he claimed that his administration has served as Israel's stalwart defender in the UN and generally when it comes to the Palestinian issue. Finally, he argued that he can be trusted to defend Israel from a nuclear armed Iran because of the sanctions that have been imposed on Iran by the US and the international community since he entered office.
The alleged expansion of US-Israel military cooperation under Obama's watch has served as a regular talking point for Obama administration officials. The claim is convenient because it is based on classified information unavailable to the general public. You and I have no way of knowing if it is true.
But what we do know is that under Obama's leadership, senior US military and defense officials have made repeated statements that are openly hostile to Israel. Then defense secretary Robert Gates called Israel "an ungrateful ally." Current Defense Secretary Leon Panetta demanded that Israel "get back to the damned table" with the Palestinians. General Dempsey and his predecessor Michael Mullen have spoken disparagingly of Israel and its military capabilities and so, at a minimum gave comfort to its enemies.
Aside from these rather uncooperative comments, under Obama the US has adopted policies and taken actions that have endangered Israel militarily on all fronts and in fundamental ways. With Obama at the helm the US not only stood back and allowed Hezbollah and Iran to take over Lebanon. The US has continued to supply the Hezbollah-controlled Lebanese military with sophisticated US arms.
Under Obama, the US intervened in Egypt's internal politics to empower the Muslim Brotherhood and overthrow Hosni Mubarak. The transformation of Israel's border with Egypt from a peaceful border to a hostile one is the direct consequence of the US-supported overthrow of Mubarak and the US-supported rise of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists. These are indisputable facts. Their military repercussions are enormous and entirely negative.
Then there is Syria. For more than six months, Obama effectively sided with Bashar Assad against his own people who rose up against him. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called Assad a reformer. Now, as Assad butchers his people by the thousands, the US has still failed to send even humanitarian aid to the Syrian people. Almost unbelievably, Clinton said that Assad would have to agree to any US assistance to the people who seek his overthrow.
There have been reports that the US has warned Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Saudi Arabia about the possibility that Assad's ballistic missiles and chemical and biological arsenals may be transferred to terrorists. Such a prospect constitutes a clear and present danger to US national security - as well as Israel's national security. Indeed, the threat of proliferation of WMD is so dangerous that the administration could be expected to take preemptive steps to destroy or commandeer those arsenals. Certainly it could be expected to support an Israeli operation to do so. But according to reports, Obama has sufficed with empty warnings to the Arabs - not Israel - that this could perhaps be a problem.
By failing to act against Assad, the Obama administration is effectively acting as the guardian of Iran's most important regional ally. That is, far from enhancing Israel's military posture, Obama's behavior towards Syria is enhancing Iran's military posture. He is acting in a manner one would expect Iran's ally to behave, not in the manner that one would expect Israel's ally to behave.
As to Iran, while Obama touts the new anti-Iran sanctions that have been imposed since he took office as proof that he can be trusted to take action against Iran, the fact is that Obama has been forced to implement sanctions against his will by the US Congress and Europe. So too, Obama still refuses to implement the sanctions against Iran's Central Bank that Congress passed against his strong objections earlier in the year. As with the case of Syria - and Hezbollah in Lebanon - on the issue of sanctions, Obama's behavior has served to help rather than hinder Iran's pursuit of nuclear capabilities.
Beyond Israel's immediate borders, and beyond Iran, Obama's behavior towards Turkey has had a destructive impact on Israel's military position and strategic posture. Obama has said that Turkey's Islamist, anti-Semitic Prime Minister Recip Erdogan is one of the five foreign leaders he is closest to. He reportedly speaks to Erdogan at least once a week. The Turkish leader is the Middle Eastern leader that Obama trusts the most.
Erdogan gained Obama's trust at the same time that he ended his country's strategic alliance with Israel and began directly funding the Hamas terrorist organization and providing aid and comfort to Hamas by seeking to end Israel's lawful maritime blockade of Gaza's coastline.
What is notable about Obama's relationship with NATO member Turkey is that he has not used his relationship with Erdogan to influence Erdogan's behavior. Instead he has rewarded Erdogan's behavior.
Obama's self-congratulatory statements about US assistance to the development of Israel's missile defense systems ring depressingly hollow for two main reasons. First, the military cooperation agreement between Israel and the US for the development of the Iron Dome anti-mortar and rocket shield was concluded and financed under President George W. Bush due to the peripatetic actions of Senator Mark Kirk. Obama inherited the program. And in his 2012 budget, Obama reduced US funding of the project.
The second reason his statements ring hollow is because his actions as President have increased Israel's need to defend itself from Palestinian mortars and rockets from Gaza. Obama has empowered the Palestinians to attack Israel at will and pressured Israel to take no offensive steps to reduce the Palestinians' ability to attack it.
This brings us to Obama's statements about his support for Israel at the UN and towards the Palestinians. The fact is that it is Obama's hostile position towards Israel that fuelled the Palestinians' rejection of negotiations with Israel. As Mahmoud Abbas told the Washington Post's Jackson Diehl, Obama's demand for a Jewish building freeze convinced him that he has no reason to hold talks with Israel.
Then there is his "support" for Israel at the UN. The fact is that the Palestinians only sought a UN Security Council resolution condemning Jewish construction in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria because Obama made them think that he would support it. It was Obama after all who called Israeli settlements "illegitimate," and demanded an abrogation of Jewish building rights outside the armistice lines.
The same is the case with the Palestinian decision to have the UN accept "Palestine" as a member. In his September 2010 address to the UN General Assembly Obama called for the establishment of a Palestinian state within a year. It was his statement that made the Palestinians think the US would back their decision to abandon negotiations with Israel and turn their cause over to the UN.
So in both cases where Obama was compelled to defend Israel at the UN, Obama created the crisis that Israel was them compelled to beg him to defuse. And in both cases, he made Israel pay dearly for his protection.
The fact is that Obama's actions and his words have made clear that Israel cannot trust him, not on Iran and not on anything. The only thing that has been consistent about his Israel policy has been its hostility. As a consequence, the only messages emanating from his administration we can trust are those telling us that if Obama is reelected, he will no longer feel constrained to hide his hatred for Israel.
What these messages make clear is that if our leaders are too weak to stand up to Obama today, we will pay a steep price for their cowardice if he wins the elections in November.
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 11:54 AM
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Monday, March 5, 2012
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Can Israel trust Obama
Though Mr. Obama now takes credit for sanctions, his Administration fought Congress tooth-and-nail on sanctioning Iran's central bank. The President only reluctantly signed the sanctions into law as part of a larger defense bill. His aides also worked to stop legislation to cut off Iran from making financial transactions via the Swift banking consortium.
As for military strikes, senior Administration officials have repeatedly sounded as if their top priority is deterring Israel, rather than stopping Iran from getting a bomb.
As recently as November, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said a military strike would have "unintended consequences" and wouldn't necessarily result in "deterring Iran from what they want to do." In the last two weeks, Joint Chiefs Chairman Martin Dempsey said an Israeli strike would be "destabilizing," while Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testified that the Iranians haven't decided to build a bomb. Little wonder the Israelis are nervous about U.S. resolve.
It's welcome news if Mr. Obama is now trying to put those fears to rest, but he is also more outspoken than ever in trying to avert Israel from acting on its own. "Do we want a distraction in which Iran can portray itself as a victim, and deflect attention from what has to be the core issue, which is their pursuit of nuclear weapons?" Mr. Obama told Mr. Goldberg—the "distraction" here meaning an Israeli attack.
If the President's contention is that an Israeli strike would be less effective and have more unpredictable consequences than an American strike, he's right—and few Israelis would disagree. Israelis don't have the same military resources as the U.S.
The question Mr. Netanyahu and Israeli leaders have to ponder is whether Mr. Obama now means what he says. The President has built up an immense trust deficit with Israel that can't be easily dispensed in a week. All the more so when Israelis know that this is an election year when Mr. Obama needs to appear more pro-Israel than he would if he is re-elected.
It's good to hear Mr. Obama finally sounding serious about stopping a nuclear Iran. But if he now finds himself pleading with Israel not to take matters in its own hands, he should know his Administration's vacillation and mixed signals have done much to force Jerusalem's hand. More fundamentally, a President who says he doesn't "bluff" had better be prepared to act if his bluff is called.
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