May 24, 2011, 3:30 AM
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As the Washington Post pointed out on Friday, US President Barack Obama purposely provoked the current fight with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. He knew full well that Netanyahu does not back the Palestinian formulation that negotiations with Israel must be based on the indefensible 1949 armistice lines, or what are wrongly referred to as the 1967 lines. In the days leading up to Obama's speech last Thursday, Israel registered explicit, repeated requests that he not adopt the Palestinian position that negotiations should be based on those lines.
And so it was a stinging rebuke when Obama declared Thursday: "The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps." According to the Washington Post, Obama wrote these lines of his speech himself and Netanyahu was informed of them just as he was scheduled to fly to the US on Thursday evening. Obama gave the speech while Netanyahu was in the air on his way to Washington to meet Obama the next morning. It is hard to think of a more stunning insult or a greater display of contempt for the leader of a US ally and fellow democracy than Obama's actions last week. And it is obvious that Netanyahu had no choice but to react forcefully to Obama's provocation.
The question is why would Obama act as he did? What did he wish to accomplish by purposely starting such an ugly fight with Netanyahu?
Probably the best way to figure out what Obama wished to accomplish is to consider what he did accomplish, because the two are undoubtedly related.
ON MAY 4, two weeks before Obama gave his speech, Fatah and Hamas signed a unity agreement. Hamas is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Like its fellow Brotherhood satellite al-Qaida, Hamas shares the Brotherhood's ideology of global jihad, the destruction of Western civilization and the establishment of a global caliphate. Also like al-Qaida, it is a terrorist organization which, since its establishment in 1987 has murdered more than a thousand Israelis.
In 2005, Hamas subcontracted itself out to the Iranian regime. Since then, its men have been trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and by Hezbollah. Hamas maintains operational ties with both outfits and receives most of its weapons and significant funding from Iran.
The agreement between Fatah and Hamas makes Hamas a partner in the leadership of the Palestinian Authority. It also paves the way for Hamas to win the planned Palestinian legislative and presidential elections that are scheduled for September just after the UN General Assembly is scheduled to endorse Palestinian statehood. It also sets the conditions for Hamas to integrate its forces and eventually take over the UStrained Palestinian army in Judea and Samaria and to join the PLO.
The Hamas-Fatah unity deal constitutes a complete repudiation of the assumptions informing Obama's policies towards the Palestinians and Israel. Obama perceives the conflict as a direct consequence of two things: prior US administrations' refusal to "put light" between the US and Israel, and Israel's unwillingness to surrender all of the territory it took during the course of the 1967 Six Day War.
The Hamas-Fatah unity deal is indisputable proof that contrary to what Obama believes, the conflict has nothing to do with previous administrations' support for Israel or with Israel's size. It is instead entirely the consequence of the Palestinians' rejection of Israel's right to exist and their commitment to bringing about Israel's destruction.
Forcing Israel into indefensible boundaries, (which as Netanyahu explained to Obama at the White House on Friday, "were not the boundaries of peace, they were the boundaries of repeated wars because the attack on Israel was so attractive for them,"), will not advance the cause of peace. It will advance the Palestinians' goal of destroying Israel.
Obama had two options for contending with the Palestinian unity deal. He could pay attention to it or he could create a distraction in order to ignore it. If he paid attention to it, he would have been forced to disavow his policy of blaming his predecessors in the White House and Israel for the absence of peace. By creating a distraction he would be able to change the subject in a manner that would enable him to maintain those policies.
And so he picked a fight with Netanyahu. And by picking the fight, he created a distraction that has, in fact, changed the subject and enabled Obama to maintain his policies that have been wholly repudiated by the reality of the Palestinian unity deal.
By inserting the citation of the 1949 armistice lines into his speech, Obama made Israel's size again the issue.
The Hamas-Fatah unity deal actually demonstrates that not only is Israel's size not the cause of the conflict, it is the main reason that Israelis and Palestinians live in relative peace.
Israel's control over Judea and Samaria and east Jerusalem, and with them, its ability to ward off invasion and attacks on its major cities is what has prevented wars. If Israel were more vulnerable, the de facto Palestinian terror state would not be weighing whether or not to begin a new terror war as its leaders from Fatah and Hamas are doing today. It would be waging a continuous campaign of terror whose clear aim is Israel's destruction for again, as Netanyahu said the 1949 armistice lines make war an attractive option for Israel's enemies.
BY PICKING a fight with Netanyahu, since Thursday, no one could have possibly noted this basic truth because the false issue of Israel's control over these areas - that is, Israel's size - has dominated the global discourse on the Middle East.
Obama would never have been able to create his diversion from the unwelcome fact of Palestinian duplicity and rejectionism, to imaginary problem with the size of Israel without the enthusiastic support given to him by the Israeli Left.
Led by opposition leader Tzipi Livni, the Israeli Left responded to Obama's full-scale assault on Israel's legitimacy by launching a full-scale partisan assault on Netanyahu. Rather than back Netanyahu as he fights for the country's future, Livni called for him to resign and said that he was wrecking Israel's ties with the US. In so doing, the Left provided crucial support for Obama's move to maintain his phony anti- Israel paradigm for Middle East policymaking in the face of the Palestinian unity deal's repudiation of that model.
The Left's assault on Netanyahu is not the only way it has enabled Obama to maintain his pro-Palestinian policies in the face of the Palestinians' embrace of terror and war. In his speech to AIPAC, Obama argued that Israel needs to surrender its defensible boundaries because the Palestinians are about to demographically challenge Israel's Jewish majority.
As Obama put it, "The number of Palestinians living west of the Jordan River is growing rapidly and fundamentally reshaping the demographic realities of both Israel and the Palestinian territories. This will make it harder and harder - without a peace deal - to maintain Israel as both a Jewish state and a democratic state."
The demographic time bomb story is a Palestinian fabrication. In 1997, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics published a falsified Palestinian census that inflated Palestinian population data by 50 percent. The Israeli Left adopted this fake report as its own when Palestinian terrorism and political warfare convinced the majority of Israelis that it was unwise to give them any more land and that the peace process was a lie.
Since 2004, repeated, in-depth studies of Jewish and Arab birthrates and immigration/ emigration statistics west of the Jordan River undertaken by independent researchers have shown that the demographic time bomb is a dud. In January, the respected demographer Yaakov Faitelson published a study for the Institute of Zionist Strategies in which he definitively put to rest the tale of pending Jewish demographic doom.
As Faitelson demonstrated, Jewish and Arab birthrates are already converging west of the Jordan River at around three children per woman. And whereas the fertility rates of Israeli Arabs, Gazans and residents of Judea and Samaria are all trending downward, Jewish fertility is consistently rising. Moreover, whereas the Arabs are experiencing consistently negative net immigration rates, Jewish net immigration rates are positive and high.
Faitelson based his multiyear projections on current population numbers in which Jews comprise 58.6 percent of the population west of the Jordan River and Muslims constitute 38.7% of the overall population. Non-Jewish, non-Muslim minorities comprise the other 2.7%. Using assessment baselines for Jewish net immigration well below current averages, Faitelson showed that in the years to come, not only will Jews not lose our demographic majority. We will increase it.
Faitelson's study, like the studies published since 2004 by the American-Israeli Demographic Research Group show that from a demographic perspective, Israel is in the same situation as many Western states today. Namely, it has to develop policies for dealing with an irredentist minority population.
There are many reasonable, liberal policies that Israel can adopt. These include applying the liberal Israeli legal code to Judea and Samaria and enforcing the laws of treason. It is hard to see why the best policy for Israel is to take some of that irredentist population off its books by establishing a terror state ruled by what Netanyahu rightly referred to as "the Israeli equivalent of al-Qaida" on its border.
ALL OF this brings us back to Hamas, terrorism, the Palestinian rejection of Israel's right to exist, and Obama's diversionary moves to facilitate his preservation of a Middle East policy based on a wholly false and discredited assessment of reality and the Israeli Left's facilitation of Obama's efforts.
When we realize what Obama is up to, we recognize as well what Netanyahu must do in response.
In his address before Congress on Tuesday and in all of his appearances in the coming weeks and months, Netanyahu should have one goal: to bring the focus of debate back where it belongs - on the Palestinians.
At every opportunity, Netanyahu needs to pound the message that the Palestinians' commitment to Israel's destruction is the sole reason that there is no peace.
As for the Israeli Left, it is high time that Netanyahu place the likes of Livni on the defensive. Netanyahu must attack the Left's doomsday demographic projections that are without factual basis and are indeed antithetical to reality. As long as the demographic lie goes unchallenged by Netanyahu, the Left will continue to argue that by refusing to build a terror state on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, Netanyahu is endangering Israel.
Netanyahu deserves a lot of credit for standing up to Obama on Friday. He showed enormous courage in doing so. It was his finest hour to date and polls over the weekend show that the public appreciates and supports him for it. He must build on that success by putting the focus on the truth.
Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.
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Bibi exposed Obama for precisely what he in fact is, a fraud.
Thanks for another great incisive insight into the Bibi/Obama debacle. On the subject of the Israeli left, I notice that in a Ma'ariv op-ed today Peace Now's Yarib Oppenheimer has come out shooting from the hip, playing the race card and accusing Bibi of dissing Obama 'cos he is black. http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART2/243/257.html?hp=1&cat=479
Could there be a more obvious symbol of the Israeli left's desperation? Life imitates art, Oppenheimer is becoming more like his Latma charicature every day.
Keep up the good work.
Diversionary tactics is a term that is almost always used in war and this is all about war for Israel's destruction and not about peace for Israel.
The two legged human species is about the dumbest of creatures which God created.
Not being able to see reality in front of his eyes but trusting in and believing devious,smiling liars and their toxic lies instead and especially if they are wearing an American flag pin on their lapel.
The diversionary phrase 'peace' has truly snookered the Livni's of Israel who after all the proof still think peace can be had with the Muslims.Nothing can awaken them from their blindness not even the Fogel family after a night visit from their Palestinian neighbors.
The Livni Jews hate reality and the truth and will die with their delusions and fantasies.
The question is ;will these mad and death loving Jews take the nation down with them for a diversionary tactic peace?
Caroline This morning I wrote this to a western anti-semite who said that the Jews stole the land from the 'poor Palestinian's.'
CogitoMan -'The Arabs(Palestinians)already have 22 nation states that take up hundreds of square miles if not millions and Israel(Jews)has a very tiny sliver of land that everyone wants to cut up and feed to the greedy,intolerant,bloodthirsty monsters who surround them.
It's not about land it's about Islam's intolerance for non-Muslims in their neighborhood.
Only a blind fool can't see the truth and injustice.
Why is that ?
The answer is because the hypocrite nations especially the extremely arrogant and proud Western ones are on a suicidal path to destruction.
They have angered the God of Israel and His anger now boils over into great wrath and destruction against those who push the Jews to suicide with their evil neighbors who do not seek peace but Israel's extermination.'
Today as Netanyahu speaks before Congress the U.S.weather experts say
;Atmospheric conditions were effectively creating a "cap" on storm system, which — like putting a lid on a pot of boiling water increases the intensity of the boiling — was expected to result in "dangerous supercell thunderstorms" in the late afternoon or early evening Tuesday.'
The anger of Israel's God against those who assume to feed Israel to the crocodiles has boiled over and His wrath is now visible for all to see but the blind fools and idol worshipers like Livni who are headed for their self destruction.
Caroline, excellent as always and to the point. Barack Obama has shown his duplicitous nature concerning world affairs and especially Israel's future on more than one occasion. His speeches in the past week lend credence to his concern or preferably lack of toward the continued existence of the Jewish State. Netanyahu must continue to stand strong. With HaShem on our side and our many supporters it will be a hard road, but we will endure.
In answer to "What kind of Israel do you want, Mr. Prime Minister?...": An Israel that is the homeland of the Jews, with Jerusalem as its undivided capital and borders that are defendable by Israel, without the need for security guarantees by the US, so as not to turn the Jewish state into a vassal state held hostage to the whims of the US and its allies, and their competing and conflicting lines of foreign policy/expediencies towards Israel's sworn enemies, that, as per the frankly risible strong-arming out of Washington, London and the EU, are not limited to the usual suspects.
Netanyahu was simply brilliant with Obama, speaking at AIPAC, and speaking to Congress! He did not back down. A moment of real pride for Jews everywhere, for the west, and for all freedom loving people everywhere! Brilliant!
Another brilliant speech by PM Netanyahu @ a Joint Meeting of the United States Congress today. He redirected the issue back to the Palestinians...
"You see, our conflict has never been about the establishment of a Palestinian state. It has always been about the existence of the Jewish state.... My friends, this must come to an end. President Abbas must do what I have done. I stood before my people, and I told you it wasn’t easy for me, and I said… "I will accept a Palestinian state." It is time for President Abbas to stand before his people and say… "I will accept a Jewish state."
Those six words will change history."
https://www.facebook.com/notes/the-prime-minister-of-israel/speech-by-prime-minister-benjamin-netanyahu-to-a-joint-meeting-of-the-united-sta/148067348598197
Could we please borrow your PM Netanyahu for 4 years, beginning 2012? Actually, could we just have him now please? His speach to AIPAC, and especially the one given to our congress were inspirational and powerful...and right on the mark! Truly the Churchill of our time!
"It threatens Islam" – Benjamin Netanyahu
THIS is the problem. THIS accounts for Netanyahu’s subsequent speech in the Knesset. Netanyahu does not know Islam itself and THAT is the problem. I would bet that the people surrounding Netanyahu also lack explicit knowledge regarding Islam. Netanyahu knows everything, except the most important thing – the exact nature, history, philosophies, vis-à-vis habits, teachings, the origin of Allah (it was their pagan moon god, unrelated to G-d. That is why what "Allah" says is 180 degrees opposed to G-d, not simply a "mis-interpretation". "Allah" had no connection to G-d to begin with). It seems obvious that Netanyahu does not know the Qur’an and has never read any part of it, does not know the theory of abrogation and how it relates the Qur’an. He seems to not know much of the Sunnah nor the Hadiths.
In short, Netanyahu does not know our enemy. But our enemy most certainly knows us. And that can result in needless tragedy.
How to get Netanyahu to learn about Islam itself. THAT is the number one goal transcending all others. THAT is the most important task of the moment. How much time should it take? (For me it was a few hours reading Islam 101 via JihadWatch. Follow that up with a reading of honor killings and Islam and the slave trade.) Is it by reaching people close to him who also lack knowledge of Islam? Is it by asking specific questions in a press meeting that he cannot answer thus making him aware of his own critical deficiency? I don’t know the answer of how to educate Netanyahu. But you should make it a priority.
Until Netanyahu and other leaders internalize the nature of Islam itself, they will never be sure of what they should do in war. They will never adequately prepare for a war they do not understand. They will always question whether they should seek victory. They will always fall victim to the next hudna and the subsequent learning cycle of the enemy who will return ever better prepared for victory and the destruction of our people.
"It threatens Islam" When Netanyahu is so clueless as to say those words. THAT is the problem. Contrary to what Spencer says (the source and inspiration of this message), it shows Netanyahu to be no better in his understanding of our enemy than Bush or Cameron. Obama, I suspect has absorbed at a young age the fundamental hatreds intrinsic to Islam. Obama may not know much about Islam either, but for him its hatreds have been internalized. Netanyahu needs to do the same, but with the opposite effect.
References:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/05/netanyahu-threat-posed-by-militant-islam-constitutes-the-greatest-danger-of-all.html
Militant Islam threatens the world. It threatens Islam.
"It threatens Islam" -- i.e., the real Islam is a Religion of Peace that has been Hijacked by a Tiny Minority of Extremists. This unreality is disappointing to see, and will not bode well for Israel insofar as it continues to translate into policy. Nonetheless, even to acknowledge that the threat has any Islamic character at all is a huge advance over Obama, George W. Bush, David Cameron, Gordon Brown, Tony Blair, et al.
Posted by Robert on May 24, 2011 10:55 AM
http://www.jihadwatch.org/islam-101.html
http://www.jihadwatch.org/quran-commentary.html
www.media-quest.com
All this preoccupation with Israel is itself a distraction. Why should a country as small as Israel, made up of a historically unjustly persecuted people constantly have to argue for its simple existence as well as its right to police against further unjust persecution? And yet, over and over again, world powers like the US are able to make the affairs of Israel a basis of US international diplomacy. It doesn't make any sense.
Very clearly, from the very beginning of the refoundation of Israel, the world powers have never seen Israel as a vital state. They see Israel as existing as a Jewish ghetto, run by Jews for the benefits of Jews, but existing only at the behest of others. And if any of these others do not feel like murdering and robbing Jews on some particular day, then that is a good day for Jews in Israel. Israel is to exist as a special Jewish quarter in a Muslim Middle East, constantly pressured with violence and subjegation by its neighbors, it's comfort tempered only by its role as a host for spritual places that have nothing to do with Judaism or Islam.
I think it could easily be proven true that the more useless a world leader is, the more likely they are to focus on the affairs of Jews and more currently, the affairs of Israel.
Peace be on Israel and its long and unjustly suffering peoples. And misery be upon the useless tools who constantly pick at its vulnerability and comfort its aggressors.
I wish Netanyahu the best of luck speaking at congress. But this shouldn't even be necessary and gives more dignity to the lie that Israel is obliged to matter as an issue in international conflicts or that it should have to appeal to anyone for its right to defend itself or preserve its integrity as a state.
This whole thing boils down to Israelis taking a broken down, rusted Yugo of a land, and turning it into an Escalade with the full package of accessories. Then being told to give it up because they don't like you and besides it would have been their Cadillac anyway and you stole it from them.
And when the Israelis offered to share, they said they wanted to own it free and clear and with a full tank of fuel.
This is over and above the need to kill all Jews just because.
I think Netanyahu spoke naively when he placed a great deal of meaning on the idea of Abbas saying that he would accept a Jewish state. After all, so what if Abbas did say that. It would only be words.
I also think Netanyahu has a right to say that it is not his job to devise a peace plan. Shouldn't it be enough for him to defend his country. What country do we expect to work out a peace plan with those who in words and deeds act to destroy them? It's ridiculous.
Isn't it by now clear from his strikingly artificial manners that Barack Obama is a dangerous psychopath who thinks that he has a magic touch? If Charlie Chaplin were alive, he - with his lucidity - would make an excellent new Great Dictator Adenoid from Obama!
Hi Caroline. I was curious about your opinion when it does come to the latest developments in the relations US / Israel.
I completely agree with you when you wrote ( in another article ) that Obama adopted the PA position when it does come to the borders.
Why did Obama had such attitude ?
It was a diversionary tactic , you wrote.
I do not agree with you.
I suspect that deep inside his heart Obama is a leftist that does believe in the occupation mantra.( Palestinians are oppressed and under occupation , israel is the mean oppressor ).
But there is more.
Clinton is not a fan of Netaniauh .
Back in the late 90s Clinton President had some clashes with Netaniauh , then Prime Minister.
There was therefore a bad relationship , deep antipathy , between the clintons and Netaniauh.
In the beginning of the Presidency Obama asked Israel to freeze settlements.
Israel refused.
Obama / Clinton egos were hurt.
Now they did strike back and decided to unilaterally declare 67 borders as Israel borders , knowing fully that Netaniauh would hate it ( with good reason ).
In short : Clinton / Obama are waging a personal vendetta against Israel.
This is very bad.
As I wrote I guess I am one of the few pro israeli, pro palestinian guys out there.
I believe Israel must be strong because the Muslim fellows that live around the jewish state have a dream : To destroy israel.
On the other hand power corrupts and corrupt power corrupts absolutely.
Many many times IDF has a complete disregard for the life of the common palestinians and this is completely wrong.
Palestinians are human beings like you and me..,and the lifes of them should be considered as valuable as the lives of everyone else.