Caroline Glick :: August 2010 Archives

Washington's Israeli allies

As Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu heads to Washington for another stillborn round of talks with Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas hosted by US President Barack Obama, he will probably be preoccupied with one issue.

It won't be Obama's bigoted demand that Jews be prohibited from building synagogues, schools and homes in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria.

Netanyahu won't be wondering how long Abbas can keep up with his "Palestinian president" act before his people chase him out of town. Abbas's term ended in January 2009.

Israel's elected leader will be thinking about Iran. He will be wondering how the US government will react if he sends the IAF to bomb Iran's nuclear installations. Will the US permit IAF jets to overfly US-controlled Iraqi airspace? Or will Obama follow the advice of his foreign policy mentor Zbigniew Brzezinski and order the US Air Force to shoot down those jets, abandon the US-Israel alliance and embrace a new role as protector of Iran's nuclear weapons program?

While Netanyahu wonders if the US can be trusted, other Israelis sleep soundly at night knowing that Uncle Sam has their back. The Israeli Left knows that no matter how forcefully its platforms are rejected by the public, the US government will embrace its members and fund its projects.

This week in the leadup to the talks, the openly subversive Geneva Initiative has launched a multimillion dollar public relations campaign targeting the public. Its goal is to persuade Israelis that Fatah is a legitimate partner for peace. The campaign is funded by USAID.

ACCORDING TO Yediot Aharonot, the Geneva Initiative has hired Ron Asulin, one of the country's top directors to stage and direct commercials featuring Fatah members telling Israelis they are credible partners in peace. The Geneva Initiative invited Yediot's Alon Goldstein to watch the recording sessions in Ramallah.

His report, published Sunday, is a fascinating glimpse at the Left's propaganda shop.

Goldstein describes how Asulin told Fatah's Saeb Erekat to begin his greeting with the word "shalom."

"It will be effective," Asulin promised.

Among his other achievements, Erekat played a starring role in the PA's 2002 blood libel in which he and his comrades accused Israel of committing a massacre in the Jenin refugee camp during Operation Defensive Shield. He told CNN that Israel had killed "more than 500 people." He also claimed that more than 300 were being buried in mass graves.

In the event, Palestinian losses in the battle stood at 54; some 90 percent of them were combatants. Twenty-three IDF soldiers were killed. The only massacres were the suicide bombings that killed some 500 Israelis - 80 percent of whom were civilians - in the months that preceded Defensive Shield.

Not only has Erekat never retracted his statements. He has repeated them.

But never mind. He said "shalom" rather nicely.

Next on the list of US-funded spokesmen was Fatah strongman Jibril Rajoub, who was instrumental in forging the operational alliance between Fatah and Hamas that facilitated the terror war against Israel 10 years ago. Throughout the roaring '90s, Rajoub assiduously recruited Hamas members to his Preventive Security Force in Judea and Samaria.

As recently as May 10 he appeared on PA television and said, "Building a school and throwing a hand grenade, in my opinion, are resistance. I build the school in order to strengthen the reasons for my people's resolve, as one of several aspects of the resistance, and when there is a need to throw a grenade [or launch] a rocket, I'll do that as well out of my belief in the inevitable victory of my cause and its justness."

Last week the US paid for him to be filmed telling Israelis we should trust him. It was no mean task. According to Yediot, "Asulin had to work hard" to get Rajoub to say the word "partner."

Then there is Fatah's propaganda boss Yasser Abed Rabbo. As Yasser Arafat's culture and information minister, it was Abed Rabbo who ended press freedom in the PA shortly after it was established in 1994. Under his reign, journalists and editors were detained and beaten, newspapers were closed and printing presses were torched. In 2002, Abed Rabbo outdid Erekat in his mendacious condemnations of Israel. He accused Israel of "digging mass graves for 900 Palestinians in the [Jenin refugee] camp."

In 2001 he ordered the PA media to stop filming mass celebrations of the September 11 attacks on the US.

Despite his long career as a propagandist, Asulin still had his work cut out for him. He had to convince Abed Rabbo to stop waving his finger at the camera. "When you wave your finger, you are actually warning me. You are making threats."

IT IS WORTH pausing for a moment and considering the nature of the US-financed Geneva Initiative that is going to such lengths to present a wholly distorted picture of reality to the public. It is the brainchild of Israel's most successful subversive - former justice minister and former Meretz leader Yossi Beilin.

Beilin is the architect of every major Israeli strategic disaster in the past 17 years. He was the architect of the disastrous 1993 Oslo Accord that lionized Arafat as a peace partner and empowered him to embark on a campaign of terror and political warfare that continued on long after his death in 2004.

Beilin is the architect of the disastrous 2000 Taba negotiations in which an embattled prime minister Ehud Barak offered Arafat the Temple Mount even as Arafat's men were butchering Israelis on the roads, in buses and cafes.

In 2002 Beilin worked with Colin Powell's State Department to draft the so-called road map for Middle East peace. That document was the most anti-Israel ever adopted by a US administration. The Sharon government managed in large part to scuttle the initiative by convincing president George W. Bush to agree that the document's draconian demands could only be implemented after the Palestinians suspended their terror war.

His ambitions checked by the unremitting Palestinian violence, Beilin found another outlet for undermining his government. In 2003 he partnered with the Swiss government and the EU in founding the Geneva Initiative. The initiative was an open bid to subvert the writ of the government to conduct foreign policy. Beilin and Abed Rabbo gathered their followers in Geneva, held staged "negotiations" and signed an "agreement" in which the Israelis agreed to every Palestinian demand and the Palestinians thanked them.

Ariel Sharon's chief of staff Dov Weissglas claimed in a 2005 interview that Sharon was so spooked by the affront that he was convinced to embark on the withdrawal from Gaza.

Together with the 2000 withdrawal from south Lebanon - which Beilin also spearheaded - the withdrawal from Gaza will go down in the annals of Israeli history as the greatest strategic blunder until that time.

Not surprisingly, the public takes a dim view of Beilin and his ilk. This is why in the last elections Meretz was destroyed as a representative political force. It won only three seats in the Knesset.

But Beilin and his supporters don't care.

They are not trying to win over the public in any real sense. In many ways they are the flip side of Fatah. Just as Fatah is the lawful representative of no one, so they are the lawful representative of next to no one. And just as Fatah rules through a mix of tyranny and corruption, so they seek to dictate Israel's path through a mixture of corruption and political subversion.

THE NEWEST Geneva Initiative campaign was far from the only display of the far Left's contempt for the Israeli people this week.

Over the weekend, more than 50 far Left activists who double as actors, writers and tenured professors signed open letters pledging not to perform at Ariel's new theater.

Since Ariel is beyond the 1949 armistice lines, as far as these self-described artists are concerned, its residents have no right to watch plays. On the other hand, as actor Doron Tabori, one of the signatories, argued in an appearance on the Knesset channel, the very idea that the state might consider ending its funding of his work in light of his discriminatory position is proof that his critics are all "fascists and racists."

Tabori is far from alone.

His rejection of the legitimacy of public criticism and his demonization of his critics is the hallmark of the Left.

Take Hebrew University Prof. Ze'ev Sternhall for instance. In 2001 he published an oped in Haaretz advising the Palestinians to limit their acts of murder to Israelis who live beyond the armistice lines. As he put it, "There is no doubt about the legitimacy of armed resistance in the territories themselves. If the Palestinians had a little sense, they would concentrate their struggle against the settlements... and refrain from planting bombs west of the Green Line."

On Sunday, in response to the Im Tirtzu student movement's recent campaign against Ben-Gurion University's anti-Zionist Politics and Government Department, Sternhall wrote a new piece in Haaretz. Under the headline, "Only force will stop force," he threatened the government. If it continues to back Im Tirtzu, if its members maintain their call to fire state-funded professors who call for a boycott of Israel, then Israeli professors should work to foment an international boycott.

As he put it, "Any attempt to harm a lecturer's status for political reasons will met with a firm response from Israel's academic faculty. The expected reaction from the international community, including the possibility of a boycott, could be no less painful."

It is from the Sternhalls and Taboris of Israel that groups like the Geneva Initiative draw their support base.

On Sunday, Charles Krauthammer wrote about the American public's abandonment of the political and cultural Left. Rather than consider the possibility that the public may have a point, he claimed that the American Left has responded to their fellow Americans' repudiation by demonizing their countrymen as a bunch of bigots.

Krauthammer concluded that the Left will pay for its assault on American society at the ballot box in November. As he put it, "A comeuppance is due the arrogant elites whose undisguised contempt for the great unwashed prevents them from conceding a modicum of serious thought to those who dare oppose them."

He is probably right about America. But their comrades in Israel will suffer no similar drubbing.

While Israel's elected leaders are left guessing if the US will stand behind the country at its moment of greatest need, the likes of Beilin and Sternhall know that they can rely on Washington come rain or come shine.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

Posted on August 31, 2010 at 5:25 AM

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Oliver Moan on the Ground Zero Mosque and the American Way

As promised.

Enjoy and post far and wide!

Posted on August 28, 2010 at 3:41 PM

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Filmmaker Oliver Moan on the Ground Zero Mosque

In this week's Tribal Update from Latma, the Hebrew-language satire website I edit, we bring you the great American filmmaker Oliver Moan to discuss the Ground Zero Mosque and the new American Way.

We also bring you Defense Minister Ehud Barak's spin doctor, Freddy Spin to discuss how business is done behind the scenes in Israel's command center.

I'll post the Oliver Moan clip separately in a few hours.

Here is the whole show.

Feel free to post and distribute far and wide.

Latma is funded through contributions to the Center for Security Policy in Washington. If you would like to support our efforts, you can contribute to our efforts by clicking here. It takes you to the online contribution page to the Center for Security Policy through Network for Good. To earmark your donation to Latma, please write "Latma" in the box marked "designation."

Unfortunately, for now, we can only accept donations from donors in the US. We are finding a solution to the problem and check here for updates.

Posted on August 27, 2010 at 7:45 AM

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Accepting the unacceptable

Last weekend the mullahs took a big step towards becoming a nuclear power as they powered the Bushehr nuclear reactor.

Israel's response? The Foreign Ministry published a statement proclaiming the move "totally unacceptable."

So why did we accept the totally unacceptable?

When one asks senior officials about the Bushehr reactor and about Iran's nuclear program more generally, their response invariably begins, "Well the Americans..."

Far from accepting that Israel has a problem that it must deal with, Israel's decision makers still argue that the US will discover - before it is too late - that it must act to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power in order to secure its own interests.

As for Bushehr specifically, Israeli officials explain that it isn't the main problem. The main danger stems from the uranium enrichment sites. And anyway, they explain, given the civilian character of the Bushehr reactor; the fact that it is under a full International Atomic Energy Agency inspections regime; and the fact that the Russians are supposed to take all the spent fuel rods to Russia and so prevent Iran from using them to produce weapons-grade plutonium, Israel lacked the international legitimacy to strike Bushehr to prevent it from being fuelled last weekend.

BEFORE GOING into the question of whether or not Israel's decision makers were correct in deciding to opt out of attacking the Bushehr reactor to prevent it from being fuelled, it is worth considering where "the Americans" stand on Iran as it declares itself a nuclear power and tests new advanced weapons systems on a daily basis.

The answer to this question was provided in large part in an article in the National Interest by former Clinton Administration National Security Council member Bruce Riedel. Titled, "If Israel Attacks," Riedel -- who reportedly has close ties to the administration - asserts that an Israeli military strike against Iran will be a disaster for the US. In his view, US is better served by allowing Iran to become a nuclear power than by supporting an Israeli attack against Iran.

He writes, "The United States needs to send a clear red light to Israel. There's no option but to actively discourage an Israeli attack."

Riedel explains that to induce Israel to accept the unacceptable specter of a nuclear armed mullocracy, the US should pay it off. Riedel recommends plying Israel's leaders with F-22 Stealth bombers, nuclear submarines, a mutual defense treaty and perhaps even NATO membership.

Riedel's reason for deeming an Israeli strike unacceptable is his conviction that such a strike will be met by an Iranian counter-strike against US forces and interests in the Persian Gulf and Afghanistan. While there is no reason to doubt he is correct, Riedel studiously ignores the other certainty: A nuclear-armed Iran would threaten those same troops and interests far more.

Riedel would have us believe that the Iranian regime will be a rational nuclear actor. That's the regime that has outlawed music, stones women, and deploys terror proxies throughout the region and the world. That's the same regime whose "supreme leader" just published a fatwa claiming he has the same religious stature as Muhammed

.

Riedel bases this view on the actions Iran took when it was weak.

Since Iran didn't place its American hostages on trial in 1980, it can be trusted with nuclear weapons in 2010. Since Iran didn't go to war against the US in 1988 during the Kuwaiti tanker crisis, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad can be trusted with nuclear bombs in 2010. And so on and so forth.

Moreover, Riedel ignores what any casual newspaper reader now recognizes: Iran's nuclear weapons program has spurred a regional nuclear arms race. Riedel imagines a bipolar nuclear Middle East with Israel on the one side and Iran on the other. He fails to notice that already today Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Sudan and Turkey have all initiated nuclear programs. And if Iran is allowed to go nuclear, these countries will beat a path to any number of nuclear bomb stores.

Some argue that a multipolar nuclear Middle East will adhere to the rules of mutual assured destruction. Assuming this is true, the fact remains that the violent Iranian response to an Israeli strike against its nuclear installations will look like a minor skirmish in comparison to the conventional wars that will break out in a Middle East in which everyone has the bomb.

And in truth, there is no reason to believe that a Middle East in which everyone has nuclear weapons is a Middle East which adheres to the rules of MAD. A recent Zogby/ University of Maryland poll of Arab public opinion taken for the Brookings Institute in US-allied Arab states Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and the UAE shows that the Arab world is populated by jihadists.

As Herb London from the Hudson Institute pointed out in an analysis of the poll, nearly 70 percent of those polled said the leader they most admire is either a jihadist or a supporter of jihad. The most popular leaders were Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Ahmadinejad, Hizbullah chieftain Hassan Nasrallah, Syrian President Bashar Assad and Al Qaida leader Osama Bin Laden.

So if popular revolutions bring down any of the teetering despotic regimes now occupying the seats of power in the Arab world, they will likely be replaced by jihadists. Moreover, since an Iranian nuclear bomb would empower the most radical, destabilizing forces in pan-Arab society, the likelihood that a despot would resort to a nuclear strike on a Western or Israeli target in order to stay in power would similarly rise.

All of this should not be beyond the grasp of an experienced strategic thinker like Riedel. And yet, obviously, it is. Moreover, as an alumnus of the Clinton administration, Riedel's positions in general are more realistic than those of the Obama administration. As Israeli officials acknowledge, the Obama administration is only now coming to terms with the fact that its engagement policy towards Iran has failed.

Moreover, throughout the US government, the White House is the most stubborn defender of the notion that the Iranian nuclear threat is not as serious a threat as the absence of a Palestinian state. That is, President Barack Obama himself is the most strident advocate of a US Middle East policy that ignores all the dangers the US faces in the region and turns American guns against the only country that doesn't threaten any US interest.

And now, facing this state of affairs, Israeli leaders today still argue that issuing a Foreign Ministry communiqué declaring the fuelling of the Bushehr nuclear reactor "unacceptable," and beginning worthless negotiations with Fatah leaders is a rational and sufficient Israeli policy.

WHAT LIES behind this governmental fecklessness?

There are two possible explanations for the government's behavior. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu may be motivated by operational concerns or he may be motivated by political concerns.

On the operational level, the question guiding Israel's leaders is when is the optimal time to attack? The fact that government sources say that it would have been diplomatically suicidal to attack before Bushehr became operational last weekend makes it clear that non-military considerations are the determining factor for Israel's leadership. Yet what Riedel's article and the clear positions of the Obama administration demonstrate is that there is no chance that non-military conditions will ever be optimal for Israel. Moreover, as Israel's 1981 attack on Iraq's nuclear reactor shows, Israel can achieve its strategic objectives even without US support for its operations.

From a military perspective, it is clear that it would have been better to strike Iran's nuclear installations before the Russians fuelled Bushehr. Any attack scenario from now on will have to either accept the prospect of nuclear fallout or accept leaving Bushehr intact. Indeed from a military perspective, the longer Israel waits to attack Iran, the harder it will become to accomplish the mission.

So unless Israel's leaders are unaware of strategic realities, the only plausible explanation for Netanyahu's decision to sit by idly as Israel's military options were drastically diminished over the weekend is that he was moved by domestic political considerations.

And what might those political considerations be? Clearly he wasn't concerned with a lack of public support. Consistent, multiyear polling data show that the public overwhelmingly supports the use of force to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power.

Then there is the issue of Netanyahu's coalition. It cannot be that Netanyahu believes that he can build a broader coalition to support an attack on Iran than he already has by bringing Kadima into his government. Kadima leader Tzipi Livni is not a great supporter of an Israeli attack on Iran. Livni views being liked by Obama more important than preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear state.

The prospect of a Kadima splinter party led by former defense minister Shaul Mofaz joining the coalition is also raised periodically. Yet experience to date indicates there is little chance of that happening. Mofaz apparently dislikes Netanyahu more than he dislikes the notion of facing a nuclear-armed Iran, (and a nuclear-armed Saudi Arabia and Egypt and etc., etc., etc.).

Only one possibility remains: Netanyahu must have opted to sit on his hands as Bushehr was powered up because of opposition he faces from within his government. There is only one person in Netanyahu's coalition who has both the strategic dementia and the political power to force Netanyahu to accept the unacceptable. That person is Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

Barak's strategic ineptitude is legendary. It was most recently on display in the failed naval commando takeover of the Turkish-Hamas terror ship Mavi Marmara. It was Barak's idea to arm naval commandos with paintball guns and so guarantee that they would be attacked and forced to use lethal force to defend themselves.

Barak's ability to dictate government policy was most recently demonstrated in his obscene abuse of power in the appointment of the IDF's next chief of staff. Regardless of whether the so-called "Galant" document which set out a plan to see Maj. General Yoav Galant appointed to replace outgoing IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi was forged or authentic, it is clear that its operative clauses were all being implemented by Barak's own office for the past several months. So too, despite the fact that the document is still the subject of police investigation, Barak successfully strong-armed Netanyahu into agreeing to his lightning appointment of Galant.

Even if Galant is the best candidate for the position, it is clear that Barak did the general no favors by appointing him in this manner. He certainly humiliated and discredited the General Staff.

Barak is the Obama administration's favorite Israeli politician. While Netanyahu is shunned, Barak is feted in Washington nearly every month. And this makes sense. As the man directly responsible for Israel's defense and with his stranglehold on the government, he alone has the wherewithal to enable the entire Middle East to go nuclear.

How's that for totally unacceptable?

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

Posted on August 27, 2010 at 3:13 AM

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Israel fights the demagogues

Israeli academia is in an uproar. And this is a good thing. Last week, the Zionist student movement Im Tirtzu opened a rather modest campaign against Ben-Gurion University's Politics and Government Department. And the howls of protest stretched from the Negev to the border with Lebanon.

Im Tirtzu is a grass-roots initiative of university students. Over the past few years it has managed to amass a modest budget funded by Jewish and non-Jewish Zionists here and in the US.

One of Im Tirtzu's central goals is to engender an atmosphere of academic freedom and intellectual pluralism on university campuses. Over the past generation or so, those campuses, and particularly the humanities and social sciences faculties, have become hotbeds of anti-Zionist activism and intellectual terror. Stories of professorial intimidation of and discrimination against Zionist students are widespread, as are instances of outright indoctrination in the classrooms.

As Ma'ariv's Ben Dror Yemini reported this week, at Hebrew University's law school, Prof. Yehuda Shenhav teaches a class called "Bureaucracy, Governance and Human Rights." In the course of their studies, the students are expected to participate in the work of anti-Zionist organizations including Machsom Watch and Yesh Din. At the end of the year, the participants - who will be paid NIS 1,450 for their activism - are expected to write an article describing their experiences which will be turned into a booklet edited by Shenhav and anti-Zionist activists Michael Sfard and Yael Barda and published by their anti-Zionist NGOs.

The situation at Ben-Gurion University's Politics and Government Department is particularly distressing. It is headed by Dr. Neve Gordon, an anti-Zionist activist who has written that Israel is a "proto-fascist state," has castigated it as an "apartheid state" and has signed petitions calling for international academic, scientific, economic and cultural boycotts of the country.

Responding to complaints from students, Im Tirtzu undertook an examination of the Politics and Government Department faculty. It discovered that among the department's 11 tenured instructors, nine are involved in extreme leftist political activity. Led by Gordon, six of the 11 signed a letter supporting soldiers who refuse to serve in the IDF.

Both of the department's research fellows are notorious among their students for their anti-Zionist views. Eight of the department's 19 adjunct lecturers publicly espouse radical leftist views. Three of the department's six doctoral candidates have signed letters in support of Gordon's calls for international boycotts.

AS EREZ Tadmor, Im Tirtzu's research director, noted in a television interview last week, these views represent the politics of but a smattering of the public. And yet, they are the predominant view of the department. In a place where the most radical, dogmatic views - views that reject the state's very right to exist - predominate, it is impossible to imagine that the average student feels comfortable exploring and researching other thought streams. Consequently, it is reasonable to fear that far from educating students, the department engages in wholesale indoctrination of students.

Indeed, as Makor Rishon's Yishai Friedman reported last Friday, the department pays them and gives them academic credit for participation in radical leftist NGOs. As Friedman exposed, students who volunteer at post-Zionist NGOs funded by the New Israel Fund receive academic credit for their efforts and the NIF provides them with generous NIS 7,400 scholarships for their activism.

Several of the department's faculty members serve or have served in leadership positions in these groups. For instance, Gordon served as the head of NIF-funded Physicians for Human Rights, which supported the false claim that the IDF massacred Palestinians in the battle at the Jenin refugee camp in 2002. The scholarship program is funded through the NIF's Shatil group's Everett Social Justice Fellowship initiative.

Last month, Im Tirtzu sent a letter to Ben-Gurion University president Rivka Karmi asking her to take action to correct the atmosphere of intellectual terror in the department.

It asked that she inform the group, within a month, of the actions she had taken in this regard.

It then gave her an ultimatum. If she refused to respond to its query, "we will be forced to utilize our freedom of speech and protest and use all legal means to inform the current and future student body, and especially those who support Ben-Gurion University in Israel and abroad, about the severity of the situation and the administration's prolonged refusal to contend with the situation which has allowed it to reach the current level of severity. We will also recommend that political science students not study at Ben-Gurion University.

"Additionally we will request that the university's donors place their contributions in an escrow account overseen by an attorney. The funds will be released to the university after it has substantively proven that the department's bias and distortion, expressed by the faculty and course syllabi, have been corrected."

Predictably, Karmi never acknowledged Im Tirtzu's letter. And so when the month ended last week, the group embarked on a worldwide public relations campaign against the department. The campaign, which was widely covered by the media (and evoked the predictable condemnation of Haaretz), has led to a storm of criticism by professors at Ben-Gurion and their comrades throughout the country. Predictably, they have castigated Im Tirtzu as a McCarthyist group, a fascist group, an extremist group and a far-right group that is seeking to silence dissent and destroy the principle of academic freedom.

So too, many professors who have spoken on the issue have argued that Im Tirtzu has no right to be heard. For instance, in a television appearance last week, Prof. Yossi Yonah from Ben-Gurion appeared on Erev Hadash with Tadmor. There he said, "I reject the authority, the legitimacy of a group like this to come and investigate my behavior as a member of the faculty."

These assertions are completely ridiculous. First of all, academic freedom is not threatened. What Im Tirtzu and other organizations like the Institute for Zionist Strategies have criticized is the fact that ideological uniformity in academic departments is not conducive to academic freedom.

NO ONE is criticizing professors' right to engage in academic study. Im Tirtzu and other groups object first to the fact that much of what is presented as academic work is nothing but polemical dogma, unsupported by empirical or theoretical research.

Second they object to the fact that the views of the radical Left, which represents almost no one here, receives the majority of teaching and research positions at Ben-Gurion University's Politics and Government Department.

Karmi has condemned Im Tirtzu and its campaign as McCarthyist and an attempt to silence opposing voices. While these assertions are par for the course for university heads who behave as though they have a divine right to unlimited taxpayer and donor funds, they are utterly false.

In acting as it has, Im Tirtzu has simply pointed out the obvious. No one is under any obligation to fund institutions that advance causes opposite to those they believe in. No one is required to study in a department that seeks to indoctrinate rather than educate. And both donors and students have a right to know what it is they are supporting.

Beyond that, the truth is that initiatives like Im Tirtzu's seek to expand rather than contract academic freedom. It is inarguable that academic freedom flourishes in environments where all dissenting views are given fair representation.

Perhaps more important than the ultimate consequences of Im Tirtzu's campaign is what both the initiative and the Left's response to it tell us about the direction Israeli society is taking.

The Left's hysterical response tells us that it - and particularly the academic Left - is incapable of withstanding even the slightest criticism. Yonah's insistence that the likes of Tadmor have no right to criticize academics exposes a deep and abiding contempt for the public harbored by our publicly funded professors. From a budgetary perspective, Im Tirtzu lacks even a small percentage of the funds available to anti-Zionist NGOs like Physicians for Human Rights, which enjoys seemingly bottomless financial support from the EU and the NIF.

And yet, despite their unrivaled access to funds, their nearly complete control over the country's universities, the often knee-jerk media support for their campaigns against Israel and their ability to spend sabbaticals abroad conferring with their Israel-bashing colleagues in places like Berkeley, for our radical academics, Im Tirtzu's initiative to expose their hostility to the state that supports them evokes group hysteria. In response they call for Bolshevik-style rejection of the public's right to notice their behavior, let alone criticize it.

Despite its modest budget, Im Tirtzu's message is getting across. And not for the first time. In the spring the group launched a wildly successful public awareness campaign about the NIF. The group released a report detailing the central role NIF-sponsored groups played in assisting the Goldstone Commission in preparing its libelous report accusing Israel of committing war crimes in Operation Cast Lead.

What Im Tirtzu's repeated success tells us is that something exciting is happening today. After a generation of meekly accepting the Left's domination of the public discourse - in the media, in academia, in the legal system and in popular culture - the public has finally had enough. Young people like Tadmor and Im Tirtzu's leader Ronen Shoval are finally standing up to their authority. And because they reflect the values and views of the overwhelming majority of the public, their message is getting through.

For the first time in a generation, the Left is on the defensive. Rather than dominating the airwaves with its allegations of Israeli and Zionist racism and criminality, it is forced to defend its right to block out all dissenting voices from the national debate.

There is much reason for concern about prospects for the future. With military threats to the country multiplying by the day and with the political campaign to delegitimize it escalating, Israel is under assault as never before. And yet, what the success of groups like Im Tirtzu shows is that, by and large, the public remains strong, vibrant, defiant and courageous. As our enemies grow stronger, the public is rising to meet and defeat them.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

Posted on August 24, 2010 at 11:15 AM

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Dusk in Iraq

A troubling milestone arrived on Thursday when the US withdrew its final combat brigade from Iraq. The remaining 50,000 US forces are charged with advising and training the Iraqi military. President Barack Obama has pledged to withdraw them as well by the end of next year.

When US-led allied forces invaded Iraq seven years ago, their action raised the hopes and incited the dreams of millions throughout the region and throughout the world.

Operation Iraqi Freedom promised to bring the light of liberty to a corner of the world that had known none. By doing so, it was supposed to inspire and enable men and women throughout the region to believe that they too could be free.

But as the last US combat brigade departed on Thursday, the Iraq they left behind was not an Arab shining city on an Iraqi hill. The Iraq they withdrew from has no government.

The post-March 7 elections coalition talks are hopelessly deadlocked. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has agreed to serve as the head of a caretaker government for now and take no major decisions about Iraq's future. In a word, Iraq suffers from governmental paralysis.

Then there is the US-trained and -armed Iraqi military. Recently, Iraq's most senior general, Lt.-Gen. Babakir Zebari, acknowledged that Iraqi forces will be unable to defend the country from domestic and foreign aggression until 2020. Zebari asserted that the reason the withdrawal of US combat forces was proceeding well was "because they [the US forces] are still here."

This week's suicide bombing at the military recruitment office in Baghdad in which some 61 people were murdered is part of a growing trend in Iraq. As the US withdraws, the forces the US fought throughout the past seven years are on the rise. Al-Qaida is reportedly behind much of the recent violence as it seeks to convince Iraq's uneasy Sunnis to rejoin its ranks in a continuing war against the Shi'ites. And as for the Shi'ites, their leaders remain alternatively and often simultaneously dependent on and threatened by Iran.

As outgoing US commander in Iraq Gen. Ray Odierno acknowledged last month, Iran remains the largest sponsor of sectarian violence in the country.

And so, despite the US investment of more than a trillion dollars in Iraq, and despite the more than 4,400 US servicemen and women who lost their lives in the country, the future of Iraq remains uncertain at best. Certainly a coherent, moderate, US-allied and democratic Iraq remains an elusive goal.

The US blames Iran for Iraq's political deadlock.

It is right to do so. The election results gave a narrow two-seat lead to former prime minister Ayad Alawi's Sunni-backed Iraqiya party over Maliki's State of Law Shi'ite coalition.

And yet, rather than accept the results, Iranian-allied Shi'ite politicians led by Ahmed Chalabi sued to have six members of Alawi's party denied the right to assume office due to their past ties to Saddam's Ba'athist party.

Although the lawsuit was defeated in May, the sides continue to be unable to come to an agreement that would enable the Iraqi parliament to come into office or a government to be formed.

Iran's hand is everywhere in this chaos. As George Friedman wrote in a recent Straffor Intelligence Bulletin, it is true that today, with 50,000 US forces still deployed in Iraq, "the Iranians do not have the ability to impose a government on Iraq. However, they do have the ability to prevent the formation of a government or to destabilize one that is formed. Iranian intelligence has sufficient allies and resources in Iraq to guarantee the failure of any stabilization attempt that doesn't please Tehran."

As Friedman notes, for Iran, keeping Iraq in an ongoing state of instability, with sporadic periods of outright chaos, is a low-cost, high-return investment. It denies Iraq the ability to reconstitute itself in its traditional role as a regional counterweight balancing Iranian power in the Persian Gulf. It also denies the US victory, erodes its will to fight and saps it of its determination to defend the Persian Gulf from Iranian ascendance.

As Friedman sees it, "The Iranian strategy seems to be to make the United States sufficiently uncomfortable to see withdrawal as attractive but not to be so threatening as to deter the withdrawal.

"As clever as that strategy is, however, it does not hide the fact that Iran would dominate the Persian Gulf region after the withdrawal. Thus, the United States has nothing but unpleasant choices in Iraq. It can stay in perpetuity and remain vulnerable to violence. It can withdraw and hand the region over to Iran. It can go to war with yet another Islamic country. Or it can negotiate with a government that it despises - and which despises it right back."

There are two frustrating aspects to Friedman's analysis and what it tells us about the prospects for the region going forward.

THE FIRST frustrating aspect of Friedman's diagnosis of the situation in Iraq today is just how similar it is to the situation in Lebanon.

As in Iraq, anti-Iranian political forces won the Lebanese elections last year. And as is the case today in Iraq, Iran's proxies in Lebanon gridlocked coalition negotiations, and so coerced the anti-Iranian March 14 movement candidates led by Prime Minister Saad Hariri to agree to forge a unity government with Hizbullah. Moreover, they forced Hariri to accept effective Hizbullah - that is, Iranian - control over his government. This they did by demanding that Hizbullah receive enough votes in the cabinet to give it a veto over all governmental decisions.

Hizbullah's dominant position in Lebanon was depressingly and tragically demonstrated last week, when Hariri called on the UN to investigate Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah's allegations that Israel was behind his father's assassination in 2005. Former prime minister Rafik Hariri's murder in February 2005 was carried out by Hizbullah and Syria, and his son knows this.

That he would bow to his father's murderer is a hair raising example of how the ruthless Iranian power game works. Lebanon's hapless prime minister rightly fears Hizbullah, Syria and Iran more than he trusts the US. And so he remains prime minister in name only and serves at their pleasure - the effective slave of his father's killers.

On a military level, the US's inconclusive campaign in Iraq bears striking similarities to Israel's departure from southern Lebanon 10 years ago. In Lebanon, as in Iraq for the US, Iran and its proxies made it impossible for Israel and its allies in the South Lebanese Army to bring stability to the south. Hizbullah's constant but low-key assaults on Israel and IDF forces, punctuated by sporadic escalations, eroded the Israeli ruling class's will to fight. So, too, the elusive character of the asymmetric enemy made it easy for the same elites to ignore the nature of the adversarial forces arrayed against Israel and so paved the way for Israel's retreat. This in turn fomented Hizbullah's triumphant takeover of the south, and in due course, its takeover of the whole of Lebanon.

THE SECOND frustrating aspect of the state of Iraq today is what it says about the US's ability to acknowledge the realities of the region and fashion successful strategies for contending with its challenges.

For the past seven years, advocates of the Iraq war and opponents of the war, Republicans and Democrats alike, have consistently refused to understand the nature of the battlefield and what that meant about their prospects in Iraq and the region.

Both the Bush and Obama administrations wrongly characterized Iraq as a stand-alone war. But the fact is that Iraq has always been a battleground of a regional war. And the main enemy in Iraq, the main obstacle to stability and victory, is Iran. Just as Israel was unable to beat Iran in Lebanon, and so lost to its proxy Hizbullah, so the US has been and will remain unable to defeat Iran in Iraq. And if it maintains its current strategy, it will be defeated by Iran's proxies.

The only way to safeguard Iraq is to overthrow the regime in Iran. The only way to get the likes of Hariri out from under the jackboots of Hizbullah and the Iranian-proxy regime in Damascus is to overthrow the regime in Iran.

If it were just a question of Iraq's well-being as a country, it would arguably make sense for the US to avoid escalation of the war and refuse to challenge the regime in Teheran.

But Iran is not only fighting for Iraq and it is not only fighting in Iraq. Through its proxies, Iran is also fighting in Lebanon and is using its proxies to increase its influence throughout the Persian Gulf, the Levant and beyond.

And with the regime just a short step or two away from nuclear capabilities it is clear that the US strategy in Iraq was wrong all along. It was wrong and dangerous.

The US strategy was to bring democracy to Iraq and by doing so, inspire democratic revolutions throughout the Arab world.

Although inspiring, it was wrong first and foremost because it was predicated on ignoring one of the basic dictates of strategy. It failed to recognize that there were other forces in the region.

It failed to anticipate that every US move would be countered by an Iranian move. And in failing to recognize this basic strategic truth - even though it has been staring them in the face - the Americans aggressively pursued a strategy that became more and more irrelevant as time went by.

As the actions of the Hariris of Lebanon and their counterparts in Iraq show clearly, Iran's counter-moves have always been more forthright and compelling than the US's moves have been.

In the September issue of Commentary, Arthur Herman depressingly sets out the Obama administration's declared plans and early moves to gut the US military. It is obvious that regardless of Obama's political position after the mid-term elections in November, he will not revisit the US's current Middle East strategy, which is predicated on ignoring the Iranian nuclear elephant in the middle of the room. He will not work to overthrow the regime or support any forces that would overthrow the regime.

It is true that in the short term, the prospects for the region hinge on whether or not Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has the courage to order the IDF to attack Iran's nuclear installations. And it is also true that if an Israeli strike is sufficiently successful, it would empower many positive forces throughout the region - from Teheran and Kurdistan to Ankara, Damascus and Beirut.

But in the medium and long term, nothing can replace America. And as long as the US continues on its trajectory of strategic blindness, the Iraqis will be far from alone in their suffering.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

Posted on August 20, 2010 at 9:39 AM

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Iranian Minister of Propaganda and Proliferation croons about the bomb

On this week's Tribal Update at Latma, the Hebrew-language satirical website I edit, we feature a new English song sung by Rashid Hamumani, the Iranian Minister of Propaganda and Proliferation. Mr. Hamumani has used the opportunity to share with his viewers the Iranian view of the Western world's moves to check Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Here's the song.

And here's the entire program which also features a discussion with Prof. Sham Gecko about the leftist intellectual McCarthyism at Israel's universities.

Latma is funded through contributions to the Center for Security Policy in Washington. If you would like to support our efforts, you can contribute to our efforts by clicking here. It takes you to the online contribution page to the Center for Security Policy through Network for Good. To earmark your donation to Latma, please write "Latma" in the box marked "designation."

Enjoy and feel free to post and spread far and wide.

Posted on August 20, 2010 at 9:05 AM

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Obama is no civil rights champion

Along the same lines as yesterday's column I wrote a blog post at Andrew Breitbart's new international security website Big Peace.

You can read it here.

Enjoy.

Posted on August 18, 2010 at 6:13 AM

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Standing on a landmine

US President Barack Obama's warm endorsement of the plan to build a mosque by the ruins of the World Trade Center tells Israel - and its enemies - everything we need to know about the President of the United States of America.

Speaking during a Ramadan fast breaking meal at the White House to an audience of people affiliated with various Muslim Brotherhood- related groups in the US, Obama couched his support for the mosque at Ground Zero in constitutional terms.

In his words, "As a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country. And that includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in Lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances. This is America. Our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable. The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country and that they will not be treated differently by their government is essential to who we are. The writ of the Founders must endure."

Of course, none of those who have voiced opposition to the mosque project at Ground Zero have claimed that the Islamic group behind the mosque project is acting unlawfully in seeking to construct a mosque. The nearly 70 percent of Americans who oppose building a mosque at Ground Zero oppose the mosque because they believe it is wrong to build a mosque at the site where less than a decade ago Muslims acting in the name of Islam murdered nearly 3,000 people in an act of war against the US and an act of terror against the American people.

Obama has been pilloried by his opponents for his position. And his fellow Democrats, facing the likelihood of massive defeats in the Congressional elections in three months, are reportedly deeply frustrated by his statements. Indeed, the uproar Obama's pro-mosque remarks has unleashed has been so harsh it raises the question of why he made it.

THERE ARE two possible explanations for Obama's move. Either he was motivated by politics or he was motivated by ideology. The view that Obama was motivated by politics is easily dismissed. With more than two-thirds of Americans telling pollsters they oppose the Ground Zero mosque project, it makes no political sense for a politician to strike out a position in favor of the mosque. Indeed, major Democrats have either refused to state a position on the issue or, like New York Governor David Paterson, they have recommended that the mosque builders construct their mosque elsewhere.

Perhaps Obama thought he could he could get away with making his statement. However, with his polling numbers consistently eroding, it is hard to imagine Obama's advisers would have told him that was a realistic view.

This leaves ideology. But what ideology motivates Obama to embrace such an unpopular initiative at such an explosive political juncture? Obama and his supporters would like us to believe this is a civil rights issue. In his defense of the Ground Zero mosque, Obama claimed his position was based on the American values such as, "The laws that we apply without regard to race, or religion, or wealth, or status. Our capacity to show not merely tolerance, but respect towards those who are different from us."

But if Obama is motivated by a belief in civil rights that is so strong it propels him to take on deeply unpopular causes in an election season, then one could reasonably expect that his support for civil rights would be absolute. That is, one could expect him to use the same yardstick for all groups, in all places and at all times.

But for Obama, there are some groups who must be denied the same civil rights he upholds as absolute in his defense of the plan to build a mosque at Ground Zero. As Obama has made clear since his first days in office, he believes that Jews should be denied the right to their property in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria simply because they are Jews.

OBAMA IS so firm in his belief that Jews should be denied civil rights in Israel's capital and in the heartland of Jewish history that he has provoked multiple crises in his relations with Israel to advance this bigoted view. Almost from his first day in office Obama has struck out a radical position in which he has insisted that Jews must be prohibited from building anything - synagogues, homes, nurseries, schools - in Judea, Jerusalem and Samaria on land they own. Jews - Israeli and non-Israeli - should be barred from exercising their property rights even if their construction plans have already been approved "in accordance with local laws and ordinances."

At the same time, Obama has insisted that Israel take no action to enforce its "local laws and ordinances" against illegal structures built by Arabs in Jerusalem, Judea, or Samaria.

Next month the deeply discriminatory and legally dubious 10-month moratorium on Jewish building in Judea and Samaria that Obama coerced Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu into instituting is set to end. So now Obama is putting the full weight of the White House on Israel to again coerce Netanyahu into prolonging the discriminatory ban that denies the civil rights and property rights of Jews simply because they are Jewish.

Obama claims to be embracing the nullification of Jewish civil right in the interests of peace. In his stated view, to forge peace in the Middle East it is necessary for the Palestinians to achieve statehood. But it hard to see how the establishment of a Palestinian state squares with Obama's purported dedication to civil rights.

In a briefing with the Egyptian media last week Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas told reporters that no Jews will be allowed to live in a future Palestinian state. He also said that while he would agree to allow NATO forces to deploy in the future Palestinian state, he would not permit any Jewish soldiers to serve in the NATO units stationed on the territory of such a state. As he put it, "I will not agree that there will be Jews among NATO forces and I will not allow even one Israeli to live amongst us on the Palestinian soil."

The notion that an inherently anti-Semitic Palestinian state, predicated on Jew hatred that strong, could possibly live at peace with Israel is simply ridiculous. But tellingly, in all the American pressure that has been placed on Abbas to begin direct negotiations with Israel, at no time has the administration been reported to have insisted that Abbas abandon his anti-Semitism. Obama has made no statement addressing the fact that the Palestinians demand that Jews be barred from living in the future Palestinian state. He has certainly not objected to this position although it squares with none of the American values of tolerance and property rights he upheld so strongly in his remarks on the Ground Zero mosque.

SO THE ideology Obama holds so strongly that it provokes him to take positions antithetical to the political interests of his party during an election season is not civil rights. Rather it has to do with his commitment to advancing the interests of a specific group or groups over the interests of other specific groups. In the case of the Ground Zero mosque he prefers the rights of Muslims over the values of the overwhelming majority of Americans. In the case of the Palestinians, he prefers their anti-Semitic nationalism over the civil rights of Jews.

Obama's behavior tells Israel's leaders something very important about how they should think about their relations with the Obama administration. It tells them that Obama is so wed to his ideology that he will push it regardless of political conditions. This means that for Israel, dealing with Obama is like standing on a landmine. Just as a landmine can explode at any minute, Obama can attack Israel at any moment. He is so ideologically bound to the Palestinian cause against Israel that he is liable to provoke a crisis when it is least politically advantageous - from his perspective - for him to do so.

This lesson is particularly urgent on the eve of yet another round of direct negotiations with the Palestinians and as the freeze on Jewish property rights is about to expire. Obama's ideological fanaticism means that nothing Israel does in the upcoming talks will help us.

As Obama's media surrogates like Tony Karon at Time magazine have made clear in recent weeks, the anti-Israel narrative has already coalesced. Everything that happens regarding those negotiations is Israel's fault. It is Israel's fault that they haven't begun. It will be Israel's fault when they falter. It will be Israel's fault when they fail. And if they succeed, Israel will still be blameworthy.

Facing this US President and his radical ideology, Netanyahu and his deputies must understand that they cannot appease him. They cannot convince him of Israel's good intentions.

The US leader who has rejected the expressed views of 68 percent of his fellow citizens in favor of the construction of a mosque at Ground Zero is not going to be moved by reason. The American President who defends the Ground Zero mosque builders even though their leader refuses to acknowledge that Hamas is a terrorist organization and has claimed that the US had the Sept. 11 attacks coming to it; and the American President who upholds the Palestinian cause even though it is virulently, and often genocidally anti-Semitic is not going to be appeased by Israeli building freezes and other confidence building gestures.

What this means is that Netanyahu and his deputies must concentrate on defending Israel and advancing its national interests. It is in Israel's national interest to guarantee the civil rights and property rights of Jews. It is in Israel's national interest to forthrightly set out and defend Israel's legal rights in Judea and Samaria and its sovereignty in united Jerusalem. It is in Israel's national interest to enforce its laws without prejudice towards all its citizens and expect all its citizens to respect its laws.

We are dealing with a self-consciously radical President who intends to remake the US relationship with the Muslim world. We will find no understanding from him.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

Posted on August 17, 2010 at 6:52 AM

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No words necessary

Posted on August 15, 2010 at 11:13 AM

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Guide to the Perplexed

Israel's leaders are reportedly concerning themselves with one question today. Are there any circumstances in which US President Barack Obama will order the US military to strike Iran's nuclear installations before Iran develops a nuclear arsenal?

From Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu down the line, Israel's leaders reportedly raise this question with just about everyone they come into contact with. If this is true, then the time has come to end our leaders' suspense.

The answer is no.

To all intents and purposes, there are no circumstances in which Obama would order an attack on Iran's nuclear installations to prevent Iran from developing and fielding nuclear weapons. Exceptions to this statement fall into two categories. Either they are so implausible that they are operationally irrelevant, or they are so contingent on other factors that they would doom any US attack to failure.

Evidence for this conclusion is found in every aspect of Obama's foreign policy. But to prove it, it is sufficient to point out point three aspects of his policies.

First of all, Obama's refuses to recognize that an Iranian nuclear arsenal constitutes a clear and present danger to US national security. Obama's discussions of the perils of a nuclear Iran are limited to his acknowledgement that such an arsenal will provoke a regional nuclear arms race. This is certainly true. But then that arms race has already begun. Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, the UAE, and Kuwait have all announced their intentions to build nuclear reactors. In some cases they have signed deals with foreign countries to build such facilities.

And yet, while a nuclear arms race in the Middle East is bad, it is far from the worst aspect of Iran's nuclear program for America. America has two paramount strategic interests in the Middle East. First, the US requires the smooth flow of inexpensive petroleum products from the Persian Gulf to global oil markets. Second, the US requires the capacity to project its force in the region to defend its own territory from global jihadists.

Both of these interests are imperiled by the Iranian nuclear program. If the US is not willing to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, it will lose all credibility as a strategic ally to the Sunni Arab states in the area. For instance, from a Saudi perspective, a US that is unwilling to prevent the ayatollahs from fielding nuclear weapons is of no more use to the kingdom than Britain or China or France. It is just another oil consuming country. The same goes for the rest of the states in the Gulf and in the region.

The Arab loss of faith in US security guarantees will cause them to deny basing rights to US forces in their territories. It will also likely lead them to bow to Iranian will on oil price setting through supply cutbacks. In light of this, the Iranian nuclear program constitutes the greatest threat ever to US superpower status in the region and to the wellbeing of the US economy.

Then there is the direct threat that Iran's nuclear program constitutes for US national security. This threat grows larger by the day as Iran's web of strategic alliances in Latin America expands unchallenged by the US. Today Iran enjoys military alliances with Venezuela, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Brazil and Bolivia.

As former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton has argued, at least the Soviets were atheists. Atheists of course, are in no hurry to die, since death can bring no rewards in a world to come. Iran's leaders are apocalyptic jihadists. Given Iran's Latin American alliances and Iran's own progress towards intercontinental ballistic missile capabilities, the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran makes the Cuban missile crisis look like a walk in the park.

In the face of this grave and gathering threat, Obama cancelled plans to deploy anti-ballistic missile shields in Poland and the Czech Republic. He has shunned the pro-American Honduran and Colombian governments in favor of Nicaragua and Venezuela. He has welcomed Brazil's anti-American president to the White House. He cancelled the F-22.

THE FACT that Obama fails to recognize the danger an Iranian nuclear arsenal poses to the US does not in and of itself prove that Obama would not attack Iran's nuclear installations. After all, the US has fought many wars and launched countless campaigns in its history against foes that posed no direct threat to the US. In most of these cases, the US has fought on behalf of its allies.

In the case of Iran's nuclear weapons programs, because the Iranians have openly placed Israel first on their nuclear targeting list, US debate about Iran's nuclear program has been anchored around the issue of Israel's national security. Should the US attack Iran's nuclear installations in order to defend Israel?

Given the distorted manner in which the debate has been framed, the answer to that question hinges on Obama's view of Israel. Recent moves by Obama and his advisors make clear that Obama takes a dim view of Israel. He views Israel neither as a credible ally nor a credible democracy.

First there is the character of current US military assistance to Israel and to its neighbors. In recent months, the Obama administration has loudly announced its intentions to continue its joint work with Israel towards the development and deployment of defensive anti-missile shields. Two things about these programs are notable. First, they are joint initiatives. Just as Israel gains US financing, the US gains Israeli technology that it would otherwise lack.

Second, as Globes reported last week, the Obama has actually scaled back US funding for these programs. For instance, funding for the Arrow 3 anti-ballistic missile program - intended to serve as Israel's primary defensive system against Iranian ballistic missiles -- was cut by $50 million.

The defensive character of all of these programs signals an absence of US support for maintaining Israel's capacity to preemptively strike its enemies. When the Pentagon's refusal to permit Israel to install its own avionics systems on the next generation F-35 warplanes is added to the mix, it is difficult to make the argument that the US supports Israel's qualitative edge over its enemies in any tangible way.

An assessment that the US has abandoned its commitment to Israel's qualitative edge is strengthened by the administration's announcement this week of its plan to sell Saudi Arabia scores of F-15 and F-16 fighter jets for an estimated $30 billion. While the US has pledged to remove systems from the Saudi aircraft that pose direct threats to Israel, once those jets arrive in the kingdom, the Saudis will be able to do whatever they want with them. If one adds to this equation the reduced regional stature of the US in an Iranian nuclear age, it is clear that these guarantees have little meaning.

Obama's moves to reduce Israel's offensive capacity and slow its acquisition of defensive systems goes hand in hand with his rejection of Israel's right to self-defense and dismissive attitude towards Israel's rule of law. These positions have been starkly demonstrated in his administration's treatment of Israel in the wake of the IDF's takeover of the Turkish-Hamas Mavi Marmara terror ship on May 31.

In the face of that blatant display of Turkish aggression against Israel as it maintained its lawful maritime blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza's coastline, Obama sided with Turkey and Hamas against Israel. Obama demanded that Israel investigate its handling of the incident. Moreover, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton claimed that Israel was incapable of credibly investigating itself and so required Israel to add non-Israeli members to its investigative committee.

Yet even Israel's acceptance of this US humiliation was insufficient for Obama. His UN envoy Susan Rice then demanded that Israel accept a UN investigative panel that is charged with checking to see if the Israeli committee has done its job. And if the UN panel rejects the Israeli commission's findings, it is empowered to begin its own investigation.

As to the UN, as former Obama and Clinton administration officials Ray Takeyh and Steven Simon explained in an article in the Washington Post last week, Obama's national security strategy effectively revolves around subordinating US national security policy to the UN Security Council. In the remote scenario that Obama decided to use force against Iran, his subservience to the UN would rule out any possibility of a surprise attack.

Although in theory the US military's capacity to strike Iran's nuclear facilities is much greater than Israel's, given its practical inability to launch a surprise attack, in practice it may be much smaller.

ALL OF these factors constitute overwhelming evidence that there are no conceivable circumstances under which Obama would order a US strike on Iran's nuclear installations to forestall Iran's development of nuclear weapons. And this reality should lead Israel's leaders to three separate conclusions.

First, and most urgently, Israel must attack Iran's nuclear installations. Iran's nuclear ambitions must be set back at least until 2017, the latest date at which a new -- and hopefully more rational -- US administration will certainly be in office.

Second, given the fact that the US will not take action against Iran's nuclear installations, there is no reason for Israel to capitulate to US pressure on lesser issues. The Obama administration has nothing to offer Israel on this most important threat and so Israel should not do anything to strengthen its position. Among other things, this conclusion has clear implications for Jewish construction in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem, Israel's future responses to Lebanese aggression, as well as for Israel's continued cooperation with the UN probes of the Turkish-Hamas terror ship.

Finally, Obama's behavior is a clear indication that Israel was wrong to allow itself to become militarily dependent on US military platforms. Former defense minister Moshe Arens wrote recently that Israel should strongly consider abandoning plans to purchase the F-35 and restore the scrapped Lavi jetfighter to active development. Arens suggested that in doing so, Israel may find willing collaborators in the Indians, the French and even the Russians.

No, the US has not become Israel's enemy - although the Obama administration has certainly struck an adversarial chord. Polling data suggests that most Americans disagree with Obama's treatment of Israel and recognize that Iran is a threat to the US.

But polls aside, the answer to Israel's desperate queries is that it is up to us. If the Obama administration teaches us anything, it teaches us that we must rely first and foremost on ourselves.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

Posted on August 13, 2010 at 8:21 AM

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The Tribal Updates presents Israelis for illegal aliens...

...and sushi as a metaphor for Bibi.

In Israel as in the US, the Left is running a concerted campaign to force the government to accept thousand of illegal aliens, mainly from Africa. This week's Tribal Update from Latma, the Hebrew-language website I edit presents the media campaign.

We also present the media's response to testimony presented by Netanyahu and Barak before the Turkel Commission -- the investigative body the Obama administration forced Israel to form - to investigate the state's handling of the Turkish-Hamas terror flotilla.

Latma is funded through contributions to the Center for Security Policy in Washington. If you would like to support our efforts, you can contribute to our efforts by clicking here. It takes you to the online contribution page to the Center for Security Policy through Network for Good. Latma is an initiative of the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC. To earmark your donation to Latma, please write "Latma" in the box marked "designation."

Enjoy!

Posted on August 13, 2010 at 7:54 AM

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Highlights of US trip

I returned this week from a month-long visit to the States. Among the trip's highlights was a visit to Aspen, Colorado in mid-July. There I spoke at the Aspen Counterpoint and Conscience Conference where I appeared with former CIA Director Jim Woolsey, former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton, the Jerusalem Post's Palestinian Affairs correspondent Khaled Abu Toameh, the President of Americans for Peace and Tolerance Charles Jacobs and author and women's rights activist Phyllis Chesler who joined us by satellite.

Nina Zale, an Aspen-based documentary filmmaker sent me some pictures she took at the conference. Here's a couple.

The day before the conference, I appeared on a local Aspen cable show called The Jerry Bovino Show. It's an hour long broadcast. I've asked David Reaboi from the Center for Security Policy check out if there's a way to upload it to YouTube. Until he works out -- and he's pretty good at this stuff -- here's the link to the show.

Here's the YouTube version of the TV show. Thanks Dave!

After Aspen I spoke in San Diego for Friends of the IDF and in LA at an event co-sponsored by Children of Holocaust Survivors and the David Horowitz Freedom Center. I know that Scott Jacobs from DemoCast was on hand in LA and videotaping my lecture but I haven't seen it up yet. If he posts the speech on YouTube, I'll post it here.

Later in the month I was in Baltimore where I spoke at Shalom Radio's annual dinner. Dave from the CSP came out and videotaped the whole thing. I talked about Iran, so it is a little hair-raising.

Here's the whole thing on YouTube.

From there I went on to Washington and New York, and Chicago. While I was in Chicago, I did a radio interview with Roger Aronoff from AIM radio.

Here's a link to the podcast and full transcript.

And now, after all that I am happily back home in Israel.

Posted on August 11, 2010 at 6:48 PM

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Obama's advisor discusses the PLO embassy with the Tribal Update

In this week's Tribal Update brought to you by Latma, the Hebrew-language satire website I edit, we feature an exclusive interview with Obama's advisor for reality perception, John Zelokoreli (John Itsnothappeningtome) discussing the administration's decision to upgrade the PLO office in Washington.

We also feature Dr. Hagai Saviv (Circle Round), an expert in Middle Eastern culture and military commentator who provides the context for last week's attacks on Israel from Egypt, Gaza and Lebanon.

As I mentioned last week, I am raising funds now to launch Latma in English with English-speaking actors. If you would like to help us, you can contribute to our efforts by clicking here. It takes you to the online contribution page to the Center for Security Policy through Network for Good. Latma is an initiative of the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC. To earmark your donation to Latma, please write "Latma" in the box marked "designation."

Thanks for your support!

I hope you enjoy and post our show on your websites.

Caroline

Here's the full broadcast.

And here's the clip with Obama's advisor.

Posted on August 7, 2010 at 11:56 AM

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Israel's made-in-America enemies

It wasn't a US Army sniper who killed IDF Lt.- Col. Dov Harari and seriously wounded Capt. Ezra Lakia on Tuesday. But the Lebanese Armed Forces sniper who shot them owes a great deal to the generous support the LAF has received from America.

For the past five years, the LAF has been the second largest recipient of US military assistance per capita after Israel. A State Department press release from late 2008 noted that between 2006 and 2008, the LAF received 10 million rounds of ammunition, Humvees, spare parts for attack helicopters, vehicles for its Internal Security Forces "and the same frontline weapons that US military troops are currently using, including assault rifles, automatic grenade launchers, advanced sniper systems, anti-tank weapons and the most modern urban warfare bunker weapons."

Since 2006, the US has provided Lebanon some $500 million in military assistance. And there is no end in sight. After President Barack Obama's meeting with Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri in June, the White House proclaimed Obama's "determination to continue US efforts to support and strengthen Lebanese institutions such as the Lebanese Armed Forces and the Internal Security Forces."

And indeed, in late June, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates informed Congress that the Pentagon intends to provide the LAF with 24 120mm mortars, 24 M2 .50 caliber machine guns, 1 million rounds of ammunition, and 24 humvees and trailers. The latest orders should be delivered by the end of 2011.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the administration has already allocated $100m. in military assistance to Lebanon for 2011.

According to Lebanon's As-Safir newspaper, in written testimony to Congress, last week Obama's nominee to head the US Central Command, Gen. James Matthis, claimed that relations between US Central Command and the LAF focus on building the LAF's capabilities "to preserve internal stability and protect borders."

And how is that border protection going?

Tuesday's unprovoked LAF ambush of Lt.-Col. Harari's battalion within Israeli territory showed that the LAF is fully prepared to go to war against the US's closest ally in the region, in order to deter IDF units from crossing the border.

Even worse, are willing to commit unprovoked acts of illegal aggression to harm Israel.

As The Jerusalem Post reported on Wednesday, there is no reason to be surprised by what happened.

Since 2009, LAF soldiers have frequently pointed their rifles at IDF soldiers operating along the border. In recent months they have also cocked their rifles while aiming them at IDF forces. It was just a matter of time before they started shooting.

The same aggressive border protection is completely absent, however, along Lebanon's border with Syria. Since 2006, the LAF has taken no actions to seal off that border from weapons transfers to Hizbullah. It has taken no steps to protect Lebanese sovereignty from the likes of Syria and Iran that are arming Hizbullah's army with tens of thousands of missiles.

THEN THERE'S Centcom's "internal stability."

For the past four years, in open breach of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which set the terms for the cease-fire that ended the Second Lebanon War, the LAF has done nothing to block Hizbullah from remilitarizing and reasserting control over southern Lebanon.

Moreover, the institution that the State Department views as the anchor of a multiethnic, independent Lebanon did not lift a finger against Hizbullah when Hizbullah staged a coup against the Saniora government in 2008.

In a sense, by effectively collaborating with Hizbullah, the LAF did ensure "internal stability."

But it is hard to see how such "internal stability" -- based as it is on Hizbullah control over Lebanon -- advances US interests.

In stark contrast, as the Los Angeles Times reported last week, the US-supported Lebanese Internal Security Forces have used US signals equipment to help Hizbullah ferret out Israeli agents. According to the Times, "A strengthening Lebanese government is helping Hizbullah bust alleged spy cells, sometimes using tools and tradecraft acquired from Western nations eager to build up Lebanon's security forces as a counterweight to the Shi'ite group."

The US has refused to reckon with the consequences of its actions. As the Times reported, last week Assistant Secretary of Defense Alexander Vershbow visited Beirut and said that continued US aid and training to the LAF would allow the Lebanese Army to "prevent militias and other nongovernmental organizations" from undermining the government.

It bears recalling that Hizbullah has been a partner in the Lebanese government since 2005. Since its successful coup in 2008, Hizbullah has held a veto over all the decisions of the Lebanese government.

It also bears recalling that during the 2006 war, the LAF provided Hizbullah commanders with targeting data for their missiles and rockets.

The LAF also announced on its official Web site that it would award pensions to families of Hizbullah fighters killed in the war.

UNFORTUNATELY, THE LAF is not the only military organization aligned with Israel's enemies that the US is arming and training. There is also the US-trained Palestinian army.

As Israel Radio's Arab Affairs commentator Yoni Ben-Menachem reported last month, the IDF is deeply concerned about the US-trained Palestinian force. Ben-Menachem recalled that since 1996, Palestinians security forces have repeatedly taken leading roles in organizing and carrying out terrorist attacks against Israel.

Hundreds of Israelis have been murdered and maimed in these attacks.

The Palestinian force being trained by the US Army represents a disturbing, qualitative upgrade in Palestinian military capabilities. OC Central Command Maj.-Gen. Avi Mizrahi warned IDF ground forces about the new US-Palestinian threat in May.

As Mizrahi put it in a speech at Tze'elim training base cited by Ben-Menachem, "This is a well trained force, better equipped than its predecessors and trained by the US. The significance of this is that at the start of a new battle [with the Palestinians] the price that we will pay will be higher. A force like this one can shut down a built-up area with four snipers. This is deadly. These aren't the fighters we faced in Jenin [in 2002]. This is an infantry force that will be fighting us and we need to take this into account. They have offensive capabilities and we aren't expecting them to give up."

The IDF assesses that the US-trained force will be capable of overrunning small IDF outposts and isolated Israeli communities.

To date, the US has spent $400m. on the Palestinian army. The Obama administration has allocated an additional $100m. for the next year.

And the US is demanding that Israel support its efforts. In a General Accounting Office report issued in May, Israel was excoriated for hampering US efforts to build the Palestinian forces.

The GAO railed against Israel's refusal to permit the transfer of a thousand AK-47 assault rifles to the Palestinian forces. It criticized Israel's rejection of US plans to train a Palestinian counterterror force. It complained that Israel does not give freedom of movement to US military advisers to the Palestinian forces in Judea and Samaria.

The US claims that what it is doing cultivates stability. It argues that the Palestinian and Lebanese failure to prevent terror armies from attacking Israel is due to their lack of institutional capacity to rein in terrorism rather than the absence of institutional will to do so. The US claims that pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into these Lebanese and Palestinian armies will enable them to become stabilizing forces in the region that will engender peace. What the administration ignores, however, is the fact that the members and commanders of these US-trained forces share the terrorists' dedication to Israel's destruction.

TO ITS undying shame, Israel has publicly supported, or, at best failed to oppose these American initiatives. By doing so, Israel has provided political cover for these US initiatives that endanger its security. Although it is crucial to call the US out for its sponsorship of terror-aligned armies, it is also important to understand Israel's role in these nefarious enterprises.

Israel has gone along with these US programs for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it has been due to domestic politics. Sometimes it owed to Israel's desire to be a team player with the US government. But generally the Israeli rationale for not loudly and vociferously objecting to US assistance to enemy armies has been the same as Israel's rationale for embracing Yassir Arafat and the PLO in 1993 and for every other Israeli act of appeasement toward its enemies and allies alike.

Successive Israeli governments have claimed that by supporting actions that strengthen Israel's enemies, they gain leverage for Israel, or, at a minimum, they mitigate the opprobrium directed against Israel when it takes actions to defend itself. In Lebanon, for instance, Israel agreed to the US plan to support the Hizbullah-dominated Saniora government in the hopes that by agreeing to give the Lebanese government immunity from IDF attack, the US would support Israel's moves to defeat Hizbullah.

But this did not happen. Indeed, it could not happen. The pro-Western Lebanese government ministers are beholden to Hizbullah.

Whether they wish to or not, former prime minister Fuad Saniora and his successor Hariri both act as Hizbullah's defenders to the US.

And once the US committed itself to the falsehood that the Sanioras and Hariris of Lebanon are independent actors, it inevitably became Hizbullah's advocate against Israel as well. The logic of appeasement moves in one direction only - toward one's enemies.

The same holds for the Palestinians. Israel believed that once it capitulated to international pressure to recognize the PLO the US, the EU and the UN would hold the PLO to account if it turned out that Arafat and his minions had not changed their ways. But when Arafat ordered his lieutenants to wage a terror war against Israel rather than accept statehood, the US, the EU and the UN did not rally to Israel's side.

They had become so invested in their delusion of Palestinian peacefulness that they refused to abandon it. Instead, at most, they pinned the full blame on Arafat and demanded that Israel support their efforts to "strengthen the moderates."

And so, in this demented logic, it made sense for the US to build a Palestinian army after the Palestinians elected Hamas to lead them.

And so on and so forth. In every single instance, Israel's willingness to embrace lies about the nature of its enemies has come back to haunt it. Never has Israel gained any ground by turning a blind eye to the hostility of the likes of Salam Fayyad and Saad Hariri.

It is true; the US is abetting and aiding the war against Israel by sponsoring the LAF and the Palestinian military. But it is also true that the US will not stop until Israel demands that it stop. And Israel will not demand that the US stop building armies for its enemies until Israel abandons the notion that by accepting a lie told by a friend, it will gain that friend's loyalty.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post

Posted on August 6, 2010 at 12:44 PM

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Lights, camera, peace process!

The Israeli Left is on a collision course with the Obama administration. It is reportedly trying to undermine negotiations between the Netanyahu government and Fatah. The Obama administration is earnestly seeking to initiate them.

According to an unnamed eyewitness interviewed by Israel Radio, during a July 8 meeting between Kadima Council Chairman and former vice premier Haim Ramon, and Fatah chief negotiator Saeb Erekat, Ramon urged Erekat to tell Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas to reject the Netanyahu government's offer for direct negotiations towards a peace deal.

Ramon allegedly claimed to speak for President Shimon Peres and warned Erekat that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will not give the Palestinians what they demand. In light of this, Ramon urged Fatah to reject Netanyahu's offers to meet.

The implication was clear. If the Palestinians wait out this government, a Kadima-led leftist government will happily give them what they want: Israel on a platter.

Ramon has rejected these allegations. He has also accused the eyewitness of being an agent of the Prime Minister's Office.

If Ramon is telling the truth, the PMO would have been justified in keeping an eye on him. According to reports from late March, Ramon played a central role in instigating the crisis between Israel and the US that erupted during US Vice President Joseph Biden's visit to Israel. Ahead of that visit, Kadima MK Yoel Hasson gave an interview to Israel Radio in which he said that the people of Israel would soon see how bad Israel's relations with the US had become under Netanyahu.

During that visit, the administration seized on a routine meeting of Jerusalem's municipal planning committee as a means of provoking the largest crisis in US-Israel relations in some twenty years. After Biden's visit, Makor Rishon reported that Ramon met with one of Obama's senior Middle East advisors before Biden arrived.

If Ramon did in fact tell Erekat to refuse Netanyahu's offers to negotiate, it means that the Israeli Left and the Obama administration are working against one another. Whereas the Left's chief concern is bringing down the government, the administration has made clear that it fervently wishes for Abbas to agree to direct talks with Netanyahu and begin those talks ahead of the midterm Congressional elections in November.

WHILE THEY disagree on when these negotiations should take place, the Israeli Left and the Obama administration agree on what it will take to get them started and keep them going.

Like Ramon, Obama seeks to woo Abbas to his side by promising to deliver up Israel. According to media reports, Obama has pledged that if Abbas agrees to negotiate, the administration will coerce Netanyahu into submitting to the Palestinians' demands on substantive issues. These include borders, Palestinian militarization, ethnic cleansing of Jews from Judea and Samaria and large portions of Jerusalem, and other issues.

Unfortunately for Obama, despite these and other massive inducements, Abbas still refuses to negotiate. And so the administration has released its heavy guns.

No, Obama is not threatening to end US training of the Palestinian army. That $550 million training will continue despite Israel's position that a Palestinian state must be demilitarized and its concern that the US trained force will turn its guns on Israel.

Among other things, that concern is based on the fact that members of the Palestinian security forces and their Fatah affiliates have been responsible for most of the lethal attacks against Israelis in Judea and Samaria in recent years.

Despite this, the Obama administration's commitment to its Palestinian army is so massive that the US's General Accounting Office just published a report criticizing Israel for not being sufficiently supportive of the US-trained military force.

No, Obama is not threatening to end US support for Palestinian statehood or stop defining that objective as the US's central goal in the Middle East. Indeed, Obama's decision to upgrade the PLO mission in Washington signals that he is willing to consider accepting a Palestinian state formed outside the framework of a peace deal with Israel. That is, he is willing to consider supporting a Palestinian state that will be at war with Israel.

So what are the big guns that Obama has just turned on Abbas in his bid to cajole him into talking to Netanyahu? According to the Daily Telegraph, Obama is threatening not to increase the pressure he is currently exerting on Israel to extend its ban on Jewish building in Judea and Samaria if Abbas refuses to negotiate. So Obama's "stick" against the Palestinians doesn't involve sticking it to the Palestinians. It involves the intensity with which he sticks it to Israel.

It is certainly ironic that Ramon's meeting with Erekat places Kadima in conflict with the Obama administration it supports. But arguably more remarkable than what divides the two is what unites them.

In both cases, the Israeli Left and the Obama administration are offering to serve up Israel to the Palestinians for negotiations that have no chance whatsoever of leading to a peace deal.

What this means is that both are willing to serve up Israel not for peace, but for political theater.

IT IS hard to think of anything Abbas hasn't already done to make clear that he doesn't want to negotiate. He has refused to negotiate. He has demanded impossible preconditions. He has asked Fatah and the Arab League to refuse to negotiate.

While Abbas rejects the legitimacy of the Jewish state, his refusal to sit down with Netanyahu is not primarily a question of ideology. It is important to remember that Abbas doesn't actually represent anyone anymore.

Abbas has no legal authority to represent the Palestinians. His term of office ended in January 2009. The only reason he continues to be referred to as the president of the Palestinian Authority is because the US insisted that he pretend that he is still represents someone.

But Abbas's status as a has-been is the least of his problems. Even if Abbas's term had not ended a year and eight months ago, he still wouldn't have the power to make a deal with Israel. Hamas, not Abbas' Fatah holds the cards in Palestinian society. This much was made clear in the first instance when Hamas won the Palestinian elections in 2006. By most non-Abbas controlled accounts, despite the billions of dollars Fatah has received in US and EU aid since then, if elections were held today, Hamas would likely win again.

And then there are the military realities.

Today, it is not the US-trained and financed Palestinian army that keeps Abbas' expired government in power in Judea and Samaria. It is the IDF. If the IDF were to withdraw, Hamas would take over in those areas just as it took over Gaza three years ago.

And if Abbas signed a peace accord with Israel tomorrow, he would have no capacity to implement it. He would be dead before he had a chance to declare statehood. And he knows it.

When Hamas reinstated its missile war against Israel last week, the media contended that Hamas is seeking to derail talks between Abbas and Netanyahu. Whether this is true or not, it misses the point.

The point is that Hamas can derail talks any time it wishes because Hamas is the real power in Palestinian society - not Abbas.

And because the US has coerced Netanyahu into agreeing to hold talks with a Palestinian who has no power to negotiate, and because the Palestinians with actual power are controlled by Iran and wholly committed to Israel's destruction, it is clear that Obama's most earnestly held goal and the Israeli Left's greatest desire is not to engage in a peace process, but to engage in political theater with Abbas at Israel's expense.

UNFORTUNATELY, WHILE the goal is theater, its consequences are anything but entertaining. Indeed, they are deadly.

This longstanding penchant for having Israel negotiate with the Palestinians despite the latter's refusal to accept the legitimacy of the Jewish state has brought about a situation in which Israel faces the prospect of a two-state solution that involves the creation of two Palestinian states. The first - the Palestinian state in Gaza, has existed for five years. It is run by Hamas and is controlled by Iran and Syria.

The second - the Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria is run by Fatah. Protected by the IDF, it wages war against Hamas in the streets. And legitimized by the Israeli Left and the US, Fatah wages diplomatic war against Israel internationally. And when the blinds are pulled, Fatah forces join with Hamas and Islamic Jihad in their common goal of killing Israelis.

Because this political theater requires everyone in a position of power to ignore the fact that the Palestinians have both no interest and no ability to make peace with Israel, the Palestinians are consistently supported. And since it requires Israel to make endless concessions to the Palestinians to keep the drama going, support for Israel has consistently eroded.

Reality on the Palestinian side is not the only thing the likes of Ramon and Obama ignore in the interest of their love of theater.

They also ignore that the Israeli people have had enough of their play acting.

In a poll of Israeli Jews carried out for Channel One last week, by a margin of more than two to one, respondents said the withdrawal from Gaza was a mistake. By a margin of three to one they said they would not support similar withdrawals in the future. By a margin of nearly four to one they said their support for settlers had increased since the expulsions from Gaza. And by a margin of two to one, they said that the withdrawal harmed Israel's deterrence.

Ramon is the architect of the unilateral withdrawal strategy. He cooked it up back in 1994 when the Palestinian introduction of the suicide bomber to the daily lives of Israelis soured the public on the peace process with the PLO. And now, with no chance that Abbas or any other Palestinian leader will sign or implement a deal with Israel, it is clear that the only way to progress in the political theater Obama and Ramon so fervently desire is for Israel to give more unreciprocated concessions to the Palestinians.

The obvious remedy for all of this is for the Israeli Left and the US to recognize what it is that they are doing. Outside the world of theater, neither the Israeli Left nor the US have an interest in building yet another terror state in Judea and Samaria in addition to the one in Gaza. Neither has an interest in weakening Israel to the point where it cannot defend itself and therefore invites aggression from its neighbors.

If the Israel Left and the Obama administration truly want peace, they would be making some demands on the Palestinians. At a minimum they would demand that the Palestinians accept the legitimacy of the Jewish state and reform their anti-Semitic institutions.

But then they wouldn't have their political theater. And that is something that cannot live without.

Posted on August 3, 2010 at 1:00 AM

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US aid to the PA

Watch this amazing video about what US aid money to the Palestinian Authority pays for and what it could be used to do.

Watch it and then send it to your email lists and post it on your blogs. And if you are American -- or European or Japanese or Canadian or Australian or the citizen of any of the dozens of states that annually give hundreds of millions of dollars to the Palestinians -- send it to your elected representatives and ask them to justify their actions.

Posted on August 1, 2010 at 7:29 PM

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Standing on a landmine

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Lights, camera, peace process!

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US aid to the PA

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