Mitchell Bard: Iran, Israel and the United States -- What History Tells Us

Eisenhower, Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, Carter--and now Obama...

Iran, Israel and the United States -- What History Tells Us

by Mitchell Bard

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made clear that Israel cannot afford to wait too long before acting to stop Iran's nuclear weapons program. Meanwhile, President Obama warns that acting "prematurely" would affect U.S. interests.

This is not the first time that an American president and Israeli prime minister have disagreed and, if history is any guide, the alliance between the two countries is likely to grow stronger rather than more distant regardless of how the Iranian threat is handled.

In 1956, Israel joined Britain and France in an attack on Egypt after years of Egyptian provocations. President Eisenhower was furious because the attack took place a week before the presidential election, he wasn't consulted, and he feared the war could lead to a wider conflict that would involve the Soviets and undermine the future of theUnited Nations.

Arlene Kushner On The Murder Of Jewish Schoolchildren in Toulouse, France

From Arlene Kushner:

March 19, 2012

"Really, really ugly"

Wasn't going to post today, but must simply to get out the word.  I suspect many in the States will not have read about this:

Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, 30, was a teacher at the Ozar Hatorah school in Toulouse, in the south of France.  This morning at about 8:00 AM he was on his way to bringing his two sons, Gavriel, 6, and Aryeh, 3, to the Gan Rachi (kindergarten) when all three were gunned down.  With him was Miriam Monstango, the eight year old daughter of the head of Ozar Hatorah, who died of her wounds shortly thereafter.

Gunned down, please understand, because they were Jews. 

They will be buried in Israel.

Anne Bayefsky: Hamas Welcomed at UN Headquarters in Geneva

For Immediate Release: March 19, 2012

Contact:  Anne Bayefsky anne@hudsonny.org (917) 488-1558

Hamas Welcomed at UN Headquarters in Geneva Today the UN Human Rights Council and its UN staff in Geneva advertised and facilitated an event that handed a UN pass, and a UN microphone, in a UN room, to a representative of the terrorist organization Hamas.

Barry Rubin: Whether He Likes it or Not: Why Obama’s Policy Will Eventually Bring War with Iran

Whether He Likes it or Not: Why Obama’s Policy Will Eventually Bring War with Iran

By Barry Rubin

“A statesman has not to make history. But if ever in the events around him he hears the sweep of the mantle of God he must jump up and catch at its hem.”
–Bismarck


President Barack Obama hasn’t changed but the situation has, in part due to his actions. Obama will do everything possible to escape confrontation with Iran but events, reinforced by his own statements and of course by Iranian behavior, will one day, if he is still in office, force him in that direction. Obama is not a capable enough statesman to grab the hem of the mantle of God, but he has managed–to coin a phrase–to entangle himself helplessly into it.

As usual, Shakespeare said it best, in “Hamlet”:

“For ’tis the sport to have the engineer
Hoist with his own petard, and it shall go hard”

The word “petard” in Hamlet did not refer to clothing but to a landmine that blew up the sapper who laid it. In other words, a tool intended for one purpose turned against its creator despite his efforts and intentions

I’ve already written a satirical article to make this point and now this piece makes the same argument in a serious style.

David Gerstman: Washington Post Halfway Out of the Obama Tank?

Washington Post Halfway Out of the Obama Tank?

by David Gerstman

In October 2008, the Washington Post endorsed Senator Barack Obama to be the 44th president of the United States. The endorsement was unusual. The endorsement differed with Obama on a number of substantive issues, and you could cherry-pick enough information to build a reasonable case for Obama’s rival, Senator John McCain. The endorsement seemed to be based more on mythic qualities the Post’s editors ascribed to the candidate — “supple intelligence,” “sophisticated understanding of the world,” “nimbleness and steadfastness,” and “preternaturally confident,” for example — rather than any actual qualities or accomplishments.

Still, the editors didn’t want to get to carried away and allowed:

Mr. Obama has the potential to become a great president. Given the enormous problems he would confront from his first day in office, and the damage wrought over the past eight years, we would settle for very good.

With President Obama’s term now three-quarters over, how has he fared by the Washington Post’s standards? In the area of foreign policy, a strong case could be made from the Post’s editorials that President Obama has not even reached the bar of “very good.”

Chief among the endorsement’s concerns about candidate Obama was that he would insist “… on withdrawing U.S. combat troops from Iraq on a fixed timeline.” This past December, a Washington Post editor — with the piece “In Iraq, a return to old enmities” — criticized the president for failing to listen to his military chiefs in this regard. In September 2009, another editorial titled “Bob Woodward’s book portrays a great divide over Afghanistan” faulted the president for being too eager to withdraw from Afghanistan. While the endorsement only mentioned Iraq, the mindset it criticized was evident in the president’s dealings with Afghanistan, too.

The Middle East Media Sampler 3/19/2012: The Peter Beinart Principle

From DG:

1) The Peter Beinart Principle

Peter Beinart hoping to promote his recent book and latest project, has been given an op-ed at the New York Times to promote his views, To save Israel, boycott the settlements:

TO believe in a democratic Jewish state today is to be caught between the jaws of a pincer.
On the one hand, the Israeli government is erasing the “green line” that separates Israel proper from the West Bank. In 1980, roughly 12,000 Jews lived in the West Bank (excluding East Jerusalem). Today, government subsidies have helped swell that number to more than 300,000. Indeed, many Israeli maps and textbooks no longer show the green line at all. 

In 2010, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel called the settlement of Ariel, which stretches deep into the West Bank, “the heart of our country.” Through its pro-settler policies, Israel is forging one political entity between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea — an entity of dubious democratic legitimacy, given that millions of West Bank Palestinians are barred from citizenship and the right to vote in the state that controls their lives. 

Beinart can argue "[t]hrough its pro-settler policies, Israel is forging one political entity between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea," but this premise is factually wrong.

Palestinian Terrorists Now Dictate Where Israel Can Build In Their Cities

Two towns in southern Israel are opposed the the building of a power station in their area.

Some of the concerns are environmental.

But the biggest concern in Southern Israel is that the power station will be within the range of rockets from Gaza:

Arlene Kushner: Conference On: "Jerusalem: How Important Is It to the Muslims?"

From Arlene Kushner

March 18, 2012

"Islam and Jerusalem"

On March 14, I attended a conference that considered the question, "Jerusalem: How Important Is It to the Muslims?"  Held at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center, it was jointly sponsored by the Center and the Middle East Forum, of Philadelphia.

Speakers, in order of their presentations, were:

The Middle East Media Sampler: Worldwide Campaign to Islamize Jerusalem

From DG:

1) On "Judaizing" Jerusalem

You haven't heard Shakespeare until you've heard it in the original Klingon.
Chancellor Gorkon - "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country" 

In one of its more blatant attempts to rewrite history, on a recent television program, the Palestinian Authority  claimed that "If I forget thee, Jerusalem ..." is from the Crusaders, not a part of the Bible. (It is from Psalms, chapter 137.) Palestinian Media Watch reports:

Barry Rubin: The Obama Administration's Pro-Islamist Syrian Opposition "Leadership" is Collapsing

The Obama Administration's Pro-Islamist Syrian Opposition "Leadership" is Collapsing

By Barry Rubin

Five months ago, I wrote here and here detailing how the U.S. government collaborated in creating an anti-American, Islamist-dominated leadership for the Syrian revolution. This leadership group, assembled by the Islamist Turkish regime as the Obama government’s subcontractor, failed immediately. Now it is collapsing openly.

Of the nineteen announced members of the top leadership, I explained, ten of them were Islamists, either Muslim Brotherhood or Salafist. A reliable Syrian opposition source tells me that two more members are secretly Islamist tools. This was far in excess of the proportion of those forces in the revolution. In short, the U.S. government was helping to turn Syria’s revolution over to the Islamists. If this group had succeeded, the West would be facing still another radical Islamist regime that hated the West, wanted to go to war with Israel, and would be imposing a new dictatorship on its country.

Cartoon: Obama As Moses Leading Israelites: Michael Ramirez vs New Yorker

Israel Matzav posted this cartoon from the New Yorker, illustrating how unappreciative Israel--and American Jews--are of all that Obama has done for Israel (by his own admission):

Michael Ramirez addressed the metaphor of Obamoses, last year. However Ramirez sees Obama's leadership on the question of Israel very differently:

Yedidya Atlas: Jerusalem: A Tale of One City – Part II

Jerusalem: A Tale of One City – Part II

By: Yedidya Atlas

In 2008, then Presidential candidate Barack Obama addressed the annual AIPAC conference in Washington, DC. He received tumultuous applause for his declaration that he would not allow Iran to acquire nuclear arms, and that Jerusalem would remain the undivided capital of Israel.

Given his latest AIPAC performance and the usual next day equivocations, not to mention his administration’s machinations for the past three years on dragging out and limiting the effectiveness of those “crippling sanctions” while pressing Israel not to attack Iran, even if necessary, Mr. Obama’s credibility on Jerusalem can also be called into question.

President Obama is certainly consistently inconsistent. In 2008 he equivocated on Jerusalem the next day by saying whether or not Jerusalem remains undivided is “going to be up to the parties to negotiate a range of these issues.” In his now infamous May 19, 2011 policy speech at the State Department he merely said of the two “wrenching and emotional issues remaining” to negotiate “the future of Jerusalem” was one.

Hence, the Obama administration’s stance on Jerusalem is that at the very least, the Muslim claims to Jerusalem have equal validity to that of the Jewish State which clearly has no right to self-determine its own undivided eternal capital. In brief, Mr. Obama & Co. have bought into the Islamic Big Lie on Jerusalem.

Read the whole thing.

The author is a veteran journalist specializing in geo-political and geo-strategic affairs in the Middle East. His articles have appeared in such publications as The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, Insight Magazine, Nativ, The Jerusalem Post and Makor Rishon. His articles have been reprinted by Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in the US Congressional Record.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Jerusalem.

Latma Presents The Strange, Natural Phenomenon Of Missiles In Southern Israel

Latma takes a look at the past weeks events in Israel:

The Middle East Media Sampler 3/16/2012: New York Times: What Rockets?

From DG:

1) We trust in truces

The last we heard from the New York Times (two days ago) Unannounced Truce Calms Violence in Gaza:

Hamas sought the aid of Egyptian mediators to broker unannounced understandings with Israel to end the violence. The truce came into effect before dawn on Tuesday.
Its fragility was apparent from the start.