We welcome your comments to this and any other CIJR publication. Please address your response to: Rob Coles, Publications Chairman, Canadian Institute for Jewish Research, PO Box 175, Station H, Montreal QC H3G 2K7 –
Contents:
President Obama, Respect our Decision: Daniel Tauber, Jerusalem Post, Mar. 24, 2015 — US President Barack Obama claims he is a friend of the State of Israel.
Obama’s Harvest of Violence: Hanin Ghaddar, Tablet, Mar. 24, 2015— Democracy, freedom, self-determination, human and individual rights are values that Arab liberals like myself thought we shared with the United States.
Beyond the Toxic Rhetoric: Obama, Bibi and Prospects for Peace: Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Jewish Journal, Mar. 25, 2015 — President Barack Obama remains furious at Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Orwellian Obama Presidency: Bret Stephens, Wall Street Journal, Mar. 23, 2015 — The humiliating denouement to America’s involvement in Yemen came over the weekend…
Obama is Unraveling Before Our Eyes! (Video): Israel Video Network, Mar. 25, 2015
Dear Mr. President, Israel is Not the Enemy – Nor is Netanyahu: Gil Troy, Jerusalem Post, Mar. 24, 2015
US Strategists: Obama Campaign Interference Backfired: Gil Hoffman, Jerusalem Post, Mar. 26, 2015
Tom Cotton, Tragic Hero: Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, Mar. 26, 2015
PRESIDENT OBAMA, RESPECT OUR DECISION
Daniel Tauber
Jerusalem Post, Mar. 24, 2015
US President Barack Obama claims he is a friend of the State of Israel. He has time and again declared his “unshakable support and commitment” to the Jewish state and touted the “unbreakable bond” between the US and Israel. Yet he and his administration have publicly pressured and rebuked Israel more times than is worth counting, more times than any other ally and, or so it feels as least, more times than all of America’s allies combined.
Since Obama’s “Unbreakable Bond” tour of Israel almost two years ago – a visit ostensibly meant to mend US-Israel relations – there have been a number of confrontations between the administration and Israel. These include tensions throughout the recently failed peace negotiations, particularly the US blaming Israel for the failure of those negotiations, a dispute over construction in Jerusalem, the “chickens***” incident and the administration’s boycott of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Congress speech.
The latest incident is the president’s reaction of disdain following the reelection of the prime minister and the Likud party. While the leaders of other nations publicly and without delay congratulated Netanyahu on his recent victory, Obama waited. Protocol dictated it, the White House claimed. Instead, the administration unleashed a torrent of criticism of Netanyahu, both by feigning concern for Israeli Arabs who may have been hurt by Netanyahu’s rhetoric and over Netanyahu’s statement of the obvious: a Palestinian state would be dangerous at this juncture and will not be established during his tenure.
Anonymous administration officials (perhaps the same ones who called Netanyahu “chickens***” or claimed that Netanyahu “spat in our face” by accepting an invitation to address the Congress) yet again set to work attacking Netanyahu. One senior official claimed that Netanyahu’s statement was forcing a “reassessment” of US Middle East policy. Not a chance term, “reassessment” recalls the crisis in US-Israel relations under president Gerald Ford. Administration officials further indicated that the US might not support Israel in the UN Security Council and might even support Palestinian admission to the United Nations. That would mean that the US would for the first time ever support a Palestinian state even if such a state continued the Palestinian terrorist war against Israel.
When Netanyahu elaborated and explained that peace between Israel and a demilitarized Palestinian state would be ideal, but that reality made it currently impossible, the White House refused to let it go. As if Obama was personally insulted by Netanyahu’s position, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters that despite Netanyahu’s explanation, “We can’t forget” Netanyahu’s comments. Once Obama’s displeasure was clear he made the required phone call to Netanyahu. But even then he could not limit the discussion to congratulating Netanyahu, but used the call as an opportunity to repeat the threat of reassessment.
President Obama claims that all of the public hostility, despite his “unshakable” and “unbreakable” bond with Israel, is due to the policies of Israel’s prime minister and his hawkish party, the Likud. Indeed, long before he could demonstrate his unshakable and unbreakable bond with Israel, that was how Obama, as candidate for president in 2008, responded to accusations that he would not be a friend to Israel in the White House. Obama responded at the time by complaining that it was unfair that “to a strain within the pro-Israel community… unless you adopt an unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel” then “you’re anti-Israel.”
He has no problem with Israel, you see, just the Likud. But the Likud has led 11 of the 16 Israeli governments since Menachem Begin first broke the Israeli Left’s monopoly on power. The Likud is currently in the process of forming its 12th government. And for the three Israeli governments that will have spanned Obama’s presidency, all will have been led by the Likud. No, Mr. President. You need not be pro-Likud, but if your commitment to Israel is unshakable, that should be true even when the Likud is in power.
You should be sympathetic to Israeli reservations and fears regarding Palestinian statehood and other security concessions that lay behind the Israeli public’s support for Likud leadership.
After all, these concerns are not confined to the Likud or its allies. Even Labor (“Zionist Union”) candidate Tzipi Livni recently stated that she does not favor granting the Palestinians a fully sovereign state. And it was the late Labor prime minister Yitzhak Rabin who said – in the midst of the Oslo peace process – that he opposed Palestinian statehood. Toward the end of his life, Rabin stated that the end-goal of negotiations was for the Palestinians to have an autonomous entity that would not be a state, but something less than a state.
But, Mr. President, even if these concerns were not shared by the vast majority of Israelis, when the people of Israel elect the hawkish Likud to lead them, being committed to Israel means not taking every opportunity, or creating opportunities, to threaten and attempt to force them to reverse that decision. Unlike the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, Iran and even many American allies, Israel is a democracy. As such, the people of Israel held a vote, in a free election, to determine the composition of their legislature and government. We chose Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Likud to lead us. You do not have to agree with it, Mr. President, but you must respect our decision.
Hanin Ghaddar
Tablet, Mar. 24, 2015
Democracy, freedom, self-determination, human and individual rights are values that Arab liberals like myself thought we shared with the United States. That’s what you told us. For years, we’ve received training and attended workshops on democracy and freedom of expression sponsored by international NGOs and NGOs funded by the United States and the Europeans. We’ve been preached to by visiting American diplomats and think-tankers and journalists about the virtues of citizenship and democracy. We took plenty of notes. We’ve been told that if we speak out to defend our rights, we will be supported by America. And now we’ve been betrayed.
For many liberal Arab citizens like me, it looks like the United States is now taking sides in a sectarian conflict and turning a deliberate blind eye to violations of rights and values which are supposedly the core of what the United States represents. The United States is siding with the Shiites against the Sunnis. It is helping Assad, Hezbollah, and other allies of Iran stay in power. The United States has picked the Resistance axis over helping potential democracies to grow.
Last week, the pan-Arab newspaper Alhayat quoted a political source at the IAEA saying that Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif stated during the negotiations that Hezbollah and Hamas now work within “the American framework” and for the same goal: combatting terrorism in Syria and Iraq. The reality on the ground proves this statement is accurate. The U.S. intelligence community has now removed Iran and Hezbollah from its list of states and organizations that support terrorism. Last year, Iran and Hezbollah were at the top of that list. Is the definition of “terrorism” really that flexible?
The Obama Administration is turning a blind eye to the people’s suffering in my country for the sake of a “deal” with the mullahs of Tehran. The result is that liberal middle-class people here must now rely on the patronage of the Gulf countries, with which they do not share any liberal or democratic values, while the rural working classes are more likely to join Islamist groups such as ISIS and Al-Nusra in order to protect their families and communities.
In Lebanon, where I live, during the 10 years that followed the Cedar Revolution of 2005, which drove the Syrian army outside Lebanon, Hezbollah—an organization sponsored and directed by America’s new Iranian partner—has repeatedly used force to block every effort toward democracy or reform. Assassinations, bombings, and military invasions were some of the tools that the Party of God employed to intimidate the pro-Western March 14 political camp into surrendering the state.
Hezbollah today controls almost all state institutions and has made sure that they are never functional. My country does not have a president. The Parliament extended its own term, and services are deteriorating every day. Hezbollah wants to fight Iran’s war in Syria and needs the state institutions to get its legitimacy and freedom of movement across the border. Meanwhile, no one is allowed to object, because killing opponents has become a simple and easy task for the Party of God. No Hezbollah official has ever been held accountable for the party’s murders. A deal between Iran and the United States will only strengthen Hezbollah and other Iranian militias in the region, and money will flow and ease the financial trouble. Killing will become much easier. Meanwhile, state institutions will further deteriorate and Lebanon, once a great example for democracy and liberty in the region, will disintegrate. We will become yet another governorate in Iran’s empire.
Other parts of the region are no better. Yemen and Iraq are also crumbling under Iran’s sectarian rule, which flourishes when state institutions are weak. Without the state, there are no citizens, only sects, followers, and violent militants. More Sunnis will join organizations like ISIS to fight more Shiites. But it seems that chasing a deal with Iran is more significant than making genuine efforts to maintain or help potential democracies in the region.
Abandoning Arab liberals and civil society to sectarian warfare seems to now be a valid compromise to make to Iran in return for the deal. Is this what the United States wants the region to become? A battleground for mad extremists? Is the nuclear deal worth that much blood? Are we that insignificant? The values we thought we shared with the United States are no longer important to the Americans. I fear that we will be unable to uphold those values alone.
In the wake of the Syrian uprising, Abdel Baset Al-Sarout, a Syrian soccer goalkeeper, became Homs’ most popular protest singer and a symbol of Syria’s peaceful protests. He was called “Bulbul (nightingale) of the revolution” because his moving chants kept peaceful protests alive despite the Assad regime’s crackdown. Peaceful protesters around Syria gathered around his revolutionary songs in the streets and called for freedom from Assad’s autocratic rule. A few months through the uprising, and as Assad’s unrelenting violence increased, Al-Sarout took up arms and fought in Homs for more than two years, after which he was forced to surrender and escape due to a military siege that starved everyone in the city. Right before leaving Homs, Al-Sarout condemned the international community for abandoning Syrians and said that they had to surrender because they were betrayed by everyone and were left alone.
Meanwhile, ISIS was getting stronger and more popular in the North, and after Al-Sarout left Homs, reports and YouTube videos hinted that he has joined ISIS. It would actually be surprising if he didn’t. He wouldn’t have joined ISIS if he had a choice. Either he fights, or he leaves for Turkey. Al-Sarout couldn’t leave, so joining an Islamist militant group was his only option. Reality now tells us that today’s America does not care about our aspirations for freedom, for democracy, and for citizenship. Al-Sarout was for a long time what the West likes to call a “moderate rebel.” What he didn’t expect was that the international community would actually choose a murderous dictator over a people’s desperate call for freedom. He didn’t imagine that the United States would ignore his people’s torment for the sake of a nuclear deal with Iran. He thought that his people’s call for freedom, democracy, and political rights would resonate with U.S. values. When they didn’t, his perception of these values changed…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
OBAMA, BIBI AND PROSPECTS FOR PEACE
Rabbi Abraham Cooper
Jewish Journal, Mar. 25, 2015
President Barack Obama remains furious at Benjamin Netanyahu. He and many European leaders were counting on Israelis to get rid of an intractable "hawk" and replace him with Yitzak (Bougie) Herzog, the more flexible "dove.” With Bibi out of the way, the path would have been cleared for a quick final deal with Iran (including immediate removal of sanctions) and hasten a two-state solution in the Holy Land, before President Obama’s second term ended.
But how realistic was that? Let’s say that Bougie had won 30 seats en route to setting up a center-left coalition, Prime Minister Herzog would have to strive mightily to thwart Tehran going nuclear. Ayatollah Khamenei and his lackeys would still be plotting the Jewish State's annihilation. Israel's Prime Minister would also be challenged by a new strategic threat from Iran and its Hezbollah terrorist allies, who are busily building a new missile-laden front to threaten the Galilee and Israel's northern panhandle from Syrian territory–opposite the Golan Heights. To date, these provocative moves by Tehran haven’t raised any protest from either the U.S. or the European Union.
Without doubt, a Left-led coalition is much more strongly committed to a Two-State solution than the Netanyahu-led Likud ever was; though it is hard to see how a deal could have been reached by Herzog during the next two years. Hamas’ continued terrorism and genocidal hate, and the embrace by leaders of the corrupt-riven Palestinian Authority of terrorist murderers of Jews, leave many Israelis on the Left doubtful that President Mahmoud Abbas has either the power or desire to negotiate a final settlement. His game plan remains relying on the U.N., the E.U., and (perhaps) the U.S. to force Israel into a deal that heavily favors maximal Palestinian aspirations. Israelis across the political spectrum still want a peace deal with their Arab neighbors, but even a Herzog-led coalition still needs a Palestinian partner prepared to tell his constituents in Arabic that their Jewish neighbors are there to stay and that they too have rights to be in the Holy Land. Tragically, there is no Palestinian Anwar Sadat on the horizon.
For now, Obama seems intent on pummeling and punishing Prime Minister Netanyahu. However, the suggestion of a game-changing U.S. support of an U.N. Security resolution that would effectively force a shotgun marriage between Jerusalem and Ramallah is a terrible idea. It would only backfire, weakening Israel's left and further emboldening Hamas and Hezbollah to ramp up terror attacks against a Jewish State that may no longer have the U.S. in its corner.
In fact, the road to real progress towards peace starts in the Oval Office through Ramallah. Here are five suggestions for the next Obama-Abbas call: 1. No more International Criminal Court shenanigans. Seeking indictment of your negotiating partners for crimes against humanity is a deal-killer. 2. No more unilateral moves to gain U.N.-recognized statehood without negotiating with the Israelis. 3. Including Hamas that refuses to drop its genocidal anti-Israel agenda – in a Palestinian government is untenable. PA must take back control of Gaza. If the PA can’t even enter, let alone control, the largest Palestinian communities, how can Israel expect that the PA can deliver on any commitment. 4. No more anti-Semitic attacks and incitement by Palestinian media, religious and other elite. Stop denying the Jewish people's link to its ancestral homeland. Such hatred incenses Israelis and contributes to the explosion of anti-Semitism across Europe and on North American university campuses. 5. The US and European donors are ready to invest billions more in peace. For that to happen, transparency must reign–insuring that help actually reaches Palestinians who need it. The brutal truth is that if elections were held on the West Bank right now, Hamas would win in a landslide, because of one central issue: corruption…
And Bibi? He walked back his election campaign statement that there will be no Palestinian state under his watch. But he knows that if and when a viable partner emerges from the Palestinian camp, any elected Israeli Prime Minister will have to rush to the negotiating table. Prime Netanyahu must also do everything in his power to de-personalize disagreements with President Obama. But no one should expect Netanyahu to step back from his stance on Iran. He (and every Jew) is right to take the Mullahocracy's existential threats at face value.
I was present at our Nation's Capitol for Bibi Netanyahu's speech on Iran. Love him or hate him, everyone there, and all Israelis watching at home, saw a true world leader in action. In the end, his respectful and masterful speech reminded everyone, that he has earned his place on the international stage, no matter how discomfiting his message is to some. If the Obama Administration really wants to reach Israelis, denouncing the democratic results of the Israeli electorate, is not the way to go. What they want to hear from Washington is a coherent plan for fighting terrorism in their neighborhood and the details of a deal with Iran that, to paraphrase Netanyahu, Israelis and Iran's Arab neighbors, can "literally" live with.
Hopefully, the mushrooming dangers in the region will help both President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu recalibrate their rhetoric and refocus on the enormous challenges at hand.
THE ORWELLIAN OBAMA PRESIDENCY
Bret Stephens
Wall Street Journal, Mar. 23, 2015
The humiliating denouement to America’s involvement in Yemen came over the weekend, when U.S. Special Forces were forced to evacuate a base from which they had operated against the local branch of al Qaeda. This is the same branch that claimed responsibility for the January attack on Charlie Hebdo and has long been considered to pose the most direct threat to Europe and the United States. So who should Barack Obama be declaring war on in the Middle East other than the state of Israel?
There is an upside-down quality to this president’s world view. His administration is now on better terms with Iran—whose Houthi proxies, with the slogan “God is great, death to America, death to Israel, damn the Jews, power to Islam,” just deposed Yemen’s legitimate president—than it is with Israel. He claims we are winning the war against Islamic State even as the group continues to extend its reach into Libya, Yemen and Nigeria. He treats Republicans in the Senate as an enemy when it comes to the Iranian nuclear negotiations, while treating the Russian foreign ministry as a diplomatic partner. He favors the moral legitimacy of the United Nations Security Council to that of the U.S. Congress. He is facilitating Bashar Assad’s war on his own people by targeting ISIS so the Syrian dictator can train his fire on our ostensible allies in the Free Syrian Army.
He was prepared to embrace a Muslim Brother as president of Egypt but maintains an arm’s-length relationship with his popular pro-American successor. He has no problem keeping company with Al Sharpton and tagging an American police department as comprehensively racist but is nothing if not adamant that the words “Islamic” and “terrorism” must on no account ever be conjoined. The deeper that Russian forces advance into Ukraine, the more they violate cease-fires, the weaker the Kiev government becomes, the more insistent he is that his response to Russia is working. To adapt George Orwell’s motto for Oceania: Under Mr. Obama, friends are enemies, denial is wisdom, capitulation is victory.
The current victim of Mr. Obama’s moral inversions is the recently re-elected Israeli prime minister. Normally a sweeping democratic mandate reflects legitimacy, but not for Mr. Obama. Now we are treated to the astonishing spectacle in which Benjamin Netanyahu has become persona non grata for his comments doubting the current feasibility of a two-state solution. This, while his Palestinian counterpart Mahmoud Abbas is in the 11th year of his four-year term, without a murmur of protest from the White House. It is true that Mr. Netanyahu made an ugly election-day remark about Israeli-Arab voters “coming out in droves to the polls,” thereby putting “the right-wing government in danger.” For this he has apologized, in person, to leaders of the Israeli-Arab community.
That’s more than can be said for Mr. Abbas, who last year threatened Israel with a global religious war if Jews were allowed to pray in the Temple Mount’s Al Aqsa mosque. “We will not allow our holy places to be contaminated,” the Palestinian Authority president said. The Obama administration insists that Mr. Abbas is “the best interlocutor Israel is ever going to have.” Maybe that’s true, but if so it only underscores the point Mr. Netanyahu was making in the first place—and for which Mr. Obama now threatens a fundamental reassessment of U.S. relations with Israel. In 2014 Mr. Abbas agreed to a power-sharing agreement with Hamas, a deal breaker for any Israeli interested in peace. In 2010 he used the expiration of a 10-month Israeli settlement freeze as an excuse to abandon bilateral peace efforts. In 2008 he walked away from a statehood offer from then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. In 2000 he was with Yasser Arafat at Camp David when the Palestinians turned down a deal from Israel’s Ehud Barak…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
Obama is Unraveling Before Our Eyes! (Video): Israel Video Network, Mar. 25, 2015 — Boy is Obama showing his true colors.
Dear Mr. President, Israel is Not the Enemy – Nor is Netanyahu: Gil Troy, Jerusalem Post, Mar. 24, 2015 — Dear Mr. President, I write having urged voters to retire Benjamin Netanyahu and having condemned his election demagoguery.
US Strategists: Obama Campaign Interference Backfired: Gil Hoffman, Jerusalem Post, Mar. 26, 2015 — US president Barack Obama inadvertently helped Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's re-election by interfering in the March 17 race, Democratic and Republican strategists who advised Israeli parties said in recent days.
Tom Cotton, Tragic Hero: Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, Mar. 26, 2015—T he snarky quip attributed to 19th-century French foreign minister Charles Maurice de Talleyrand — “It was worse than a crime; it was a blunder” — has recently been making the rounds to deride a letter written by Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) and signed by 46 other senators.
Contents:
Visit CIJR’s Bi-Weekly Webzine: Israzine.
CIJR’s ISRANET Daily Briefing is available by e-mail.
Please urge colleagues, friends, and family to visit our website for more information on our ISRANET series.
To join our distribution list, or to unsubscribe, visit us at https://isranet.org/.
The ISRANET Daily Briefing is a service of CIJR. We hope that you find it useful and that you will support it and our pro-Israel educational work by forwarding a minimum $90.00 tax-deductible contribution [please send a cheque or VISA/MasterCard information to CIJR (see cover page for address)]. All donations include a membership-subscription to our respected quarterly ISRAFAX print magazine, which will be mailed to your home.
CIJR’s ISRANET Daily Briefing attempts to convey a wide variety of opinions on Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world for its readers’ educational and research purposes. Reprinted articles and documents express the opinions of their authors, and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of the Canadian Institute for Jewish Research.
Rob Coles, Publications Chairman, Canadian Institute for Jewish Research/ L'institut Canadien de recherches sur le Judaïsme, www.isranet.org
Tel: (514) 486-5544 – Fax:(514) 486-8284 ; ber@isranet.wpsitie.com
