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Contents:
Vindictive Obama Punishing Israel for Re-Electing Netanyahu: Isi Leibler, Candidly Speaking, Mar. 23, 2015 — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s stunning election victory surprised the nation and shocked the media “experts” who were already writing his obituaries.
Israel: Beware of Obama: Michael Goodwin, New York Post, Mar. 22, 2015— First he comes for the banks and health care, uses the IRS to go after critics, politicizes the Justice Department, spies on journalists, tries to curb religious freedom, slashes the military, throws open the borders, doubles the debt and nationalizes the Internet.
Obama’s Iran Agenda: Stephen F. Hayes, Weekly Standard, Mar. 30, 2015 — We’ve seen a similar pattern on Iran and terror. Western Press Hasn’t Noticed Israel’s Rapidly Growing Clout Around the World: Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post, Mar. 19, 2015 — Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu’s triumph in Israel’s election this week, so shocking and appalling to the Western press, is many other things, too.
PLEASE WATCH THE IMPORTANT VIDEO LISTED FIRST IN THE ON TOPIC LINKS—ED.
What Candidate Obama Promised the Jews Before Elections (Video): Jewish Press, Mar. 22, 2015
A Complete Timeline of Obama’s Anti-Israel Hatred: Breitbart, Mar., 2015
Late Strategy Switch by Netanyahu Swayed Israel Election: Joshua Mitnick & Nicholas Casey, Wall Street Journal, Mar. 20, 2015
Senator Says Obama’s ‘Open Hostility’ to Netanyahu Causing Democrats to Lose Trust in President: Chris Coffey, Algemeiner, Mar. 22, 2015
VINDICTIVE OBAMA PUNISHING ISRAEL FOR RE-ELECTING NETANYAHU
Isi Leibler
Candidly Speaking, Mar. 23, 2015
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s stunning election victory surprised the nation and shocked the media “experts” who were already writing his obituaries. Gideon Levy of Haaretz even remarked that the only solution for Israel now “was to replace the people.” All the odds were stacked against Netanyahu. The prevailing “time for a change” mood which gained traction from the “anyone but Bibi” campaign was manifested in an unprecedentedly ferocious and vulgar media promotion of personal character assassination. Netanyahu was attacked for neglecting the economy, failing to reduce the widening gap between rich and poor and stemming the escalating rise in house prices. He was blamed for the deterioration of relations with the Obama administration and even castigated for his triumphant address to Congress discussing the Iranian nuclear threat.
But despite polls indicating that Likud was trailing the Zionist Union, Netanyahu achieved the greatest political achievement of his career — a landslide victory providing him with a powerful mandate to lead the nation and become the longest-serving Israeli prime minister. Most pundits believe that this was primarily achieved during the closing week of the election when he personally campaigned with more intensity than during his entire term of office. Brutally, and in some cases even resorting to divisive terminology, he succeeded in drawing the attention of the electorate to the critical security threats facing Israel. He convinced them of the need for a strong leader to confront the barbarians at our gates and one who could resist the pressures of the Obama administration to make further unilateral concessions to the Palestinians which would undermine security and lead to increased terror.
The majority of Israelis demonstrated that despite reservations about Netanyahu’s policies and personality, their choice was to elect a strong and experienced leader. Presumably that is why Likud gained so many votes at the last moment. Prior to the election, U.S. President Barack Obama had already signaled his malicious intent by appointing Robert Malley, known for his hostility to Israel, as White House coordinator for the Middle East, and designated White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough as keynote speaker at the anti-Israeli J Street Conference. Still smarting over Netanyahu’s address to Congress and having failed to bring about his downfall, Obama was clearly devastated by his spectacular electoral victory.
But having regard to the fact that the electorate in the only democratic country in the region had extended a clear vote of confidence in Netanyahu, it is anticipated that Israel’s long-standing ally — which purports to support democracy — would accept the will of the people in good faith. Besides, an analysis of the votes indicates Netanyahu’s victory was anything but a lurch to the far right. It was a vindication of the center right with the most radical party failing to meet the threshold, and the other two more conservative parties being reduced from 25 to 13 seats.
Nevertheless, the administration effectively declared war against Netanyahu. Obama grasped two remarks expressed by Netanyahu, somewhat out of context at the height of the election fever, to justify a veiled threat that the U.S. would “reassess” relations with Israel, hinting that the U.S. would punish Israel by failing to exercise its veto to protect Israel at the U.N. Security Council. Netanyahu was condemned as a racist because, in an effort to jolt his supporters to vote, he drew attention to the massive effort funded from overseas to transport Arab voters to vote for the Joint Arab List, which includes supporters of Hamas and terrorism. It was a clumsy statement and a blunder but he hastily clarified his remark, noting that he used similar arguments about the Left in his efforts to encourage a maximum turnout of Likud voters. He stressed that he was proud that Arabs enjoyed equal voting rights to Jews, but that he was no less entitled to be critical of their political party than any other opposing party.
For the administration to transform this into a major racist incident and a basis for reassessing the bilateral relationship becomes even more ludicrous when noting that it consistently ignores the obscene incitement and vicious hatred generated at all levels by the Palestinian Authority, including Abbas’ call for ethnic cleansing by declaring that he would not contemplate allowing a single Jew to remain in a Palestinian state.
Netanyahu was also quoted as stating that no Palestinian state would emerge under his government. Yet, he made it abundantly clear that he remains opposed to annexation and that like the majority of Israelis, he remains committed in the long term to separating Israel from the Palestinians, thus enabling them to have a state. But this is impossible under current circumstances while Israel is surrounded by jihadists pledged to its destruction and creating a new terrorist entity, extending the carnage rampant in the region. The fact is that Israel remains a democratic oasis of stability in a region in which barbarism is at an all-time high and where hundreds of thousands have been killed and millions displaced. There is not a single sane Israeli politician who could today possibly contemplate endorsing statehood for a criminal Palestinian society based on a culture of death that glorifies mass murders and extolls terrorism. Furthermore, it is acknowledged that were it not for the Israel Defense Forces, Hamas would already have wrested control from the corrupt and duplicitous Palestinian Authority whose leader’s term expired five years ago…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
Michael Goodwin
New York Post, Mar. 22, 2015
First he comes for the banks and health care, uses the IRS to go after critics, politicizes the Justice Department, spies on journalists, tries to curb religious freedom, slashes the military, throws open the borders, doubles the debt and nationalizes the Internet. He lies to the public, ignores the Constitution, inflames race relations and urges Latinos to punish Republican “enemies.” He abandons our allies, appeases tyrants, coddles adversaries and uses the Crusades as an excuse for inaction as Islamist terrorists slaughter their way across the Mideast.
Now he’s coming for Israel. Barack Obama’s promise to transform America was too modest. He is transforming the whole world before our eyes. Do you see it yet? Against the backdrop of the tsunami of trouble he has unleashed, Obama’s pledge to “reassess” America’s relationship with Israel cannot be taken lightly. Already paving the way for an Iranian nuke, he is hinting he’ll also let the other anti-Semites at Turtle Bay have their way. That could mean American support for punitive Security Council resolutions or for Palestinian statehood initiatives. It could mean both, or something worse.
Whatever form the punishment takes, it will aim to teach Bibi Netanyahu never again to upstage him. And to teach Israeli voters never again to elect somebody Obama doesn’t like. Apologists and wishful thinkers, including some Jews, insist Obama realizes that the special relationship between Israel and the United States must prevail and that allowing too much daylight between friends will encourage enemies. Those people are slow learners, or, more dangerously, deny-ists. If Obama’s six years in office teach us anything, it is that he is impervious to appeals to good sense. Quite the contrary. Even respectful suggestions from supporters that he behave in the traditions of American presidents fill him with angry determination to do it his way.
For Israel, the consequences will be intended. Those who make excuses for Obama’s policy failures — naive, bad advice, bad luck — have not come to grips with his dark impulses and deep-seated rage. His visceral dislike for Netanyahu is genuine, but also serves as a convenient fig leaf for his visceral dislike of Israel. The fact that it’s personal with Netanyahu doesn’t explain six years of trying to bully Israelis into signing a suicide pact with Muslims bent on destroying them. Netanyahu’s only sin is that he puts his nation’s security first and refuses to knuckle under to Obama’s endless demands for unilateral concessions. That refusal is now the excuse to act against Israel. Consider that, for all the upheaval around the world, the president rarely has a cross word for, let alone an open dispute with, any other foreign leader. He calls Great Britain’s David Cameron “bro” and praised Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood president, Mohammed Morsi, who had called Zionists “the descendants of apes and pigs.”
Obama asked Vladimir Putin for patience, promising “more flexibility” after the 2012 election, a genuflection that earned him Russian aggression. His Asian pivot was a head fake, and China is exploiting the vacuum. None of those leaders has gotten the Netanyahu treatment, which included his being forced to use the White House back door on one trip, and the cold shoulder on another. It is a clear and glaring double standard.
Most troubling is Obama’s bended-knee deference to Iran’s Supreme Leader, which has been repaid with “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” demonstrations in Tehran and expanded Iranian military action in other countries. The courtship reached the height of absurdity last week, when Obama wished Iranians a happy Persian new year by equating Republican critics of his nuclear deal with the resistance of theocratic hard-liners, saying both “oppose a diplomatic solution.” That is a damnable slur given that a top American military official estimates that Iranian weapons, proxies and trainers killed 1,500 US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Who in their right mind would trust such an evil regime with a nuke?
Yet Netanyahu, the leader of our only reliable ally in the region, is repeatedly singled out for abuse. He alone is the target of an orchestrated attempt to defeat him at the polls, with Obama political operatives, funded in part by American taxpayers, working to elect his opponent. They failed and Netanyahu prevailed because Israelis see him as their best bet to protect them. Their choice was wise, but they’d better buckle up because it’s Israel’s turn to face the wrath of Obama.
Stephen F. Hayes
Weekly Standard, Mar. 30, 2015
We’ve seen a similar pattern on Iran and terror. Iran continues to fund Hamas and Hezbollah, using these proxies to conduct attacks in Israel and elsewhere in the region and beyond. In 2011, the Treasury Department designated six al Qaeda operatives working under a secret agreement with the Iranian regime. Three months later, Treasury designated Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security for facilitating “the movement of al Qaeda operatives in Iran” and providing “money and weapons to Al Qaeda in Iraq.” The agreement provided al Qaeda senior leadership in Afghanistan and Pakistan with a “core pipeline” of support. In an interview with The Weekly Standard at the time, David Cohen, then a top Treasury official and now the number two at the CIA, said: “There is an agreement between the Iranian government and al Qaeda to allow this network to operate. There’s no dispute in the intelligence community.”
These are the hallmarks of a rogue regime, and Iran has shown no willingness to modify its behavior. A rational Iran policy would require that Iran stop its aggression and bring an end to its terrorism before the United States even considers engaging in negotiations on nuclear weapons. This is no rational Iran policy.So from the beginning of these negotiations, the administration has sought to “decouple” the nuclear talks from the hostile behavior of the Iranian regime. Discussion of Iran’s increased regional aggression and its unceasing support for terrorists, including al Qaeda, has seemed to be out of bounds for U.S. negotiators.
Last week, The Weekly Standard sought answers from the White House to four questions about Iran’s support for al Qaeda. Our questions were straightforward: (1) Is there still an agreement between the Iranian regime and al Qaeda? (2) Is the Iranian regime currently harboring al Qaeda operatives? (3) Have U.S. negotiators raised this relationship in the context of ongoing nuclear negotiations? (4) Have U.S. government officials raised this issue at all, in any context, with Iranian regime officials? Bernadette Meehan, the spokeswoman for the National Security Council, sent us to the intelligence community for answers to the first two questions. A senior U.S. intelligence official tells TWS: “There has been no significant or substantive change in our assessment of the relationship between Iran and al Qaeda.” Meaning, it continues.
Meehan offered this as an answer to the final two questions. “You are no doubt aware that we have made very clear that the nuclear negotiations are focused exclusively on the nuclear issue, and do not include discussions of regional issues.” That’s not exactly right. According to a Wall Street Journal report last fall, Obama included both regional issues and terrorism in a letter he wrote to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameini, seeking to push the regime towards a nuclear agreement. Remarkably, the president didn’t challenge Iran on its aggression, and he didn’t confront the Iranian leader on his support for Hamas, Hezbollah, and al Qaeda. Instead, Obama green-lighted Iran’s involvement in the Syrian civil war. And his appeal to Khameini on terrorism did not involve a demand that Iran stop supporting the jihadist networks at war with America over the past two decades but a submissive suggestion that Iran and the United States might be allies against a common foe.
The administration is not, in fact, decoupling terrorism and regional aggression from the Iranian nuclear negotiations. Obama has made certain that they are part of the discussion. But rather than insist that Iran curb its destructive regional ambitions or end its lethal support for terror, the president has shown his willingness to tolerate, even condone, such behavior.
Obama puts the chances of a nuclear agreement with Iran at less than 50-50. Perhaps it’s not a certainty, but we think it’s considerably higher. The Obama administration is desperate for an accord, and Iran should be eager to accept a deal that provides a glide path to nuclear weapons. If it happens, the media will celebrate such a deal as “groundbreaking” and hail Obama as a “historic” leader willing to look beyond the petty preoccupations of his predecessors. And Obama will welcome into the civilized community of nations an Iranian regime that doesn’t deserve to be there… [To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
WESTERN PRESS HASN’T NOTICED ISRAEL’S
RAPIDLY GROWING CLOUT AROUND THE WORLD
Lawrence Solomon
Financial Post, Mar. 19, 2015
Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu’s triumph in Israel’s election this week, so shocking and appalling to the Western press, is many other things, too. It is a recognition by Israelis of Netanyahu as the Churchill of our times, a statesman who stands apart from virtually all other Western leaders who, whether out of cravenness or wilful blindedness, downplay the gathering storm from Iran. It is a repudiation by Israelis of those same Western leaders, who funded the “anyone-but-Netanyahu” campaign that tried to install in his place a compliant Jew to endorse their policies of appeasement.
And it is a back of the hand to monopolies and other special interests that oppose Netanyahu’s march to freer markets. At root, Israelis understand that they’re better off with Bibi. Israel under the rule of socialist parties, which dominated the country’s first half century of existence, was a country of heavy handed state control and of Big Labour — the Histradrut labour federation represented 85 percent of all wage earners in the 1980s. Under Netanyahu’s influence, starting in the late 1990s with his first term as prime minister, Israel systematically began dismantling the welfare state, tackling both the social safety net and the vested corporate interests.
He sold off Israel’s interests in state enterprises, abolished foreign exchange controls and otherwise liberalized the economy, attracting foreign capital and turning Israel into an entrepreneurial marvel that, according to The Economist, has the world’s highest density of startups and, next to Silicon Valley, the largest number of startups. High tech companies now beat a path to this Start-Up Nation’s door — an astonishing 250 from the U.S. alone have made Israel home to their R&D centres.
2014 set records for Israeli high-tech and biotech startups — 52 Israeli startups sold to the tune of some $15-billion plus 18 IPOs worth another $10-billion — according to end-of-year reports by accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers and Ethosia Human Resources, who expect 2015 to be even bigger. This January alone saw foreign giants such as Microsoft and Amazon shell out $900-million for companies rich in Israel’s only abundant renewable resource: ingenuity.
The Western press, operating as it does from its echo chamber, likes to describe Israel as increasingly isolated in the world due to its supposed failure to make peace with the Palestinians. Israel has never been less isolated, never been more embraced. In its immediate neighbourhood, Israel for the first time has de facto allies in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the leaders of the Arab Sunni world.
In black Africa, Israel now is tight with countries such as Nigeria, Kenya and Rwanda. In Asia, Israel is becoming tight with India, the world’s largest democracy, and with China, the world’s second largest economy, both of which are establishing free trade deals with Israel. Israel has been expanding trade with Japan, the world’s third largest economy. And Israel has close relations with countries of the former East Bloc, including Russia, once a Cold War adversary, now a partner in countering Islamic terrorism.
The watchful Arab press knows exactly why Israel has become so welcome around the world, even if the blinkered Western press doesn’t. As explained earlier this year in Al-Araby al-Jadid, a London-based Qatari daily, “Israel’s advanced technology developments have become its most prominent soft power tool for boosting diplomatic ties and improving its position in the world, enhancing its own security in the process.”
Because of Israel’s prowess in both military and civilian fields, it explained, China is cozying up to Israel, India is relying on Israeli instead of U.S. weaponry, and African countries are supporting Israel at the United Nations. Also because of this prowess, Al-Araby al-Jadid expects to see countries that once diplomatically sided with the Palestinians to flip and take pro-Israeli positions.
Israel’s technological prowess, and thus the welcome mat it now enjoys in ever-growing regions of the world, comes as a byproduct of Netanyahu’s dismantling of the welfare state. That dismantling may now accelerate because in this week’s election another dismantler shone — Moshe Kahlon, the Kulanu party leader who ran on an unabashedly pro-business, pro-competition “economic freedom” platform predicated on downsizing government while breaking up Israel’s remaining public monopolies and private oligopolies. The Western press may be surprised to learn that Kahlon, who is widely expected to become Netanyahu’s next finance minister, is considered centrist in Israeli politics.
Israel, once the darling of the Socialist Internationale, is fast becoming the darling of all but Socialist-leaning Europe, Iran and the ISIS wannabe set. Australia is stalwartly in Israel’s corner; Canada’s commitment to Israel is at an all-time high; America’s remains as strong as ever, President Obama and the American left notwithstanding. Two years from now, Obama will be gone, to be remembered as the worst American president in memory. Prime Minister Netanyahu will remain in power and on the world stage, to be seen as one of Israel’s greatest prime ministers and one of the world’s few true statesmen.
What Candidate Obama Promised the Jews Before Elections (Video): Jewish Press, Mar. 22, 2015 —Candidate Obama said so many interesting things in 2008 when he was trying to get elected — when he wanted that Jewish vote. Well, I mean, if it’s not racist to say that he wanted to get the Jews out to vote for him.
A Complete Timeline of Obama’s Anti-Israel Hatred: Breitbart, Mar., 2015 —According to reports, President Obama finally called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to congratulate him – but the “congratulations” was actually a lecture directed at forcing Netanyahu to surrender to the terrorist Palestinian regime.
Late Strategy Switch by Netanyahu Swayed Israel Election: Joshua Mitnick & Nicholas Casey, Wall Street Journal, Mar. 20, 2015—Six days before Israel’s election, a new set of polls showed Benjamin Netanyahu heading for defeat.
Senator Says Obama’s ‘Open Hostility’ to Netanyahu Causing Democrats to Lose Trust in President: Chris Coffey, Algemeiner, Mar. 22, 2015—President Obama’s hostility towards Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is creating a backlash in congress among Democrats, Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) told The Washington Post in an interview published on Friday.
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