Obama is thowing the only democracy in the Middle East to the Islamic wolves, betraying more than 60 years of mutual suport and cooperation between Israel and the United States begun by President Harry S. Truman.
Why? We can only guess. Obama has romanticized his early exposure to indionesian Islam and, because he has not studied history, even American oir European history, he is either naive about, ignorant of or indifferent to the explosiion of Jew-hating, jihadist Islamic political ideology that has occurred since he left Indoneisa in 1971. He also has this supreme belief that as the omnipotent and all-knowning American emperor he can do anything.
Caroline Glick and Anne Bayefsky detail why Israel should ignore the demands of the U.S. which gravely threaten Israel
Washington has abandoned its obligationsCaroline B. Glick
May 17, 2009
Philadelphia Inquireris the senior contributing editor and columnist for the Jerusalem Post and senior fellow for Middle Eastern affairs at the Center for Security Policy
Last Sunday, the head of Israel's military intelligence reported that Iran has mastered the nuclear fuel cycle and can rapidly move from low-grade uranium enrichment to weapons-grade uranium enrichment. He also said that the next 18 months will be "critical" for preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
There is a national consensus in Israel that preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons is the most important and urgent national-security challenge facing the country. Even if Iran refrains from using the weapons directly against Israel, a nuclear-armed Iran will accelerate its efforts to destabilize and destroy the Jewish state by using its proxies in the Palestinian Authority, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq to wage constant, unrelenting terror, guerrilla and conventional warfare.
A nuclear arsenal will likewise help Iran to expand its sphere of influence by empowering it to escalate its efforts to overthrow the Jordanian and Egyptian regimes, and accelerate Hamas' takeover of the Palestinian Authority, scuttling peace negotiations and peace treaties with Israel. Other Arab states - including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Morocco, and Kuwait - will also see their regimes threatened or overthrown by radical forces operating under Iran's nuclear umbrella.
And this is the best-case scenario.
It is no wonder, then, that Israelis of all political stripes are deeply disturbed by the Obama administration's Middle East policies. Since taking office, President Obama has made it clear that preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons is not a major concern for him. Rather, he strives to open diplomatic relations with Iran in the inexplicable hope that Iran can be appeased out of a nuclear program that has already brought it to the cusp of regional hegemony.
Over the last several weeks, as part of the buildup to tomorrow's meeting between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the administration has ratcheted up its rhetoric against Israel. Vice President Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, national security adviser James Jones, and White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel are among those who have stated that Israel cannot expect the United States to support its aim of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons unless Israel first makes concessions to the Palestinians. That is, if Iran acquires nuclear weapons, Israel will be to blame.
Israelis are mystified by this position. With Iran's proxy Hamas in charge of Gaza, and ascendant in the West Bank, it is clear that any Palestinian state that is established in the near future will be an Iranian-aligned terror state at war with Israel. That is, while administration officials claim "the only solution is a two-state solution," Israelis recognize that the rapid establishment of a Palestinian state will only cause more war, terror, and regional instability.
Moreover, statements by Biden and Defense Secretary Robert Gates expressing the administration's opposition to an Israeli military strike against Iran's nuclear installations, together with Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller's recent call for Israel to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, have led many Israelis to perceive a strategic and moral blindness informing the administration's views about Israel and Iran. Apparently, for the administration, there is no difference between Israel, a stalwart U.S. ally and fellow democracy, and Iran - a terror-supporting, human-rights-violating, self-declared enemy of the United States that has been attacking U.S. citizens, interests, and allies since the 1979 Islamic revolution, and has repeatedly called for Israel to be eradicated.
A poll taken earlier this month by Bar Ilan University showed that only 38 percent of Israelis view Obama as friendly toward Israel. Moreover, 66 percent of Israelis support a military strike on Iran's nuclear installations, and only 15 percent say they believe Israel should cancel an attack on Iran if the United States opposes the operation.
These data are important for understanding how Israelis are responding to the Obama administration's apparent hostility toward Israel and its perceived preference for a nuclear-armed Iran over any concerted action by the United States or Israel to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power. What the administration is signaling Israelis - and their government - is that Washington is no longer Israel's trusted ally. Indeed, it is becoming clear to the Israeli public that, for the administration, it doesn't matter what Israel does or what its enemies do. As far as Obama and his advisers are concerned, Israel's refusal to make further concessions to the Palestinians will be the cause for whatever transpires.
In this state of affairs, on the eve of the Obama-Netanyahu meeting, more and more Israelis have come to the conclusion that there is little point in taking Washington's views into consideration. If Washington is going to blame Israel anyway, we are better off being blamed for preemptively removing the threat of a new Holocaust than for allowing that threat to become a fact of life.
Bayefsky focuses on how the Obama Administration is using the UN to undercut Israel.
America is now on a collision course with Israel.
Anne Bayefsky
National Review Online
May 15, 2009, 3:58 p.m.In advance of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to the United States on Monday, President Obama unveiled a new strategy for throwing Israel to the wolves. It takes the form of enthusiasm for the United Nations and international interlopers of all kinds. Instead of ensuring strong American control over the course of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations or the Arab-Israeli peace process, the Obama administration is busy inserting an international mob between the U.S. and Israel. The thinking goes: If Israel doesn't fall into an American line, Obama will step out of the way, claim his hands are tied, and let the U.N. and other international gangsters have at their prey.
It began this past Monday with the adoption of a so-called presidential statement by the U.N. Security Council. Such statements are not law, but they must be adopted unanimously -- meaning that U.S. approval was essential and at any time Obama could have stopped its adoption. Instead, he agreed to this: "The Security Council supports the proposal of the Russian Federation to convene, in consultation with the Quartet and the parties, an international conference on the Middle East peace process in Moscow in 2009."
This move is several steps beyond what the Bush administration did in approving Security Council resolutions in December and January -- which said only that "The Security Council welcomes the Quartet's consideration, in consultation with the parties, of an international meeting in Moscow in 2009." Apparently Obama prefers a playing field with 57 members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, 22 members of the Arab League -- most of whom don't recognize the right of Israel to exist -- and one Jewish state. A great idea -- if the purpose is to ensure Israel comes begging for American protection.
The U.N. presidential statement also makes laudatory references to another third-party venture, the 2002 Arab "Peace" Initiative. That's a Saudi plan to force Israel to retreat to indefensible borders in advance of what most Arab states still believe will be a final putsch down the road. America's U.N. ambassador, Susan Rice, announced to the Security Council that "we intend to integrate the Arab Peace Initiative into our own approach."
Make no mistake: This U.N. move, made with U.S. approval, sets America on a well-calculated collision course with Israel. U.S. collusion on this presidential statement was directly at odds with Israel's wishes and well-founded concerns about the U.N.'s bona fides on anything related to Israel. Israeli U.N. ambassador Gabriella Shalev issued a statement of Israel's position: "Israel does not believe that the involvement of the Security Council contributes to the political process in the Middle East. This process should be bilateral and left to the parties themselves. Furthermore, the timing of this Security Council meeting is inappropriate as the Israeli government is in the midst of conducting a policy review, prior to next week's visit by Prime Minister Netanyahu to the United States. . . . Israel shared its position with members of the Security Council."
By contrast, Rice told reporters: "We had a very useful and constructive meeting thus far of the Council. We welcome Foreign Minister Lavrov's initiative to convene the Council, and we're very pleased with the constructive and comprehensive statement that will be issued by the president of the Council on the Council's behalf. This was a product of really collaborative, good-faith efforts by all members of the Council, and we're pleased with the outcome."
The Obama administration's total disregard of Israel's obvious interest in keeping the U.N. on the sidelines was striking. Instead of reiterating the obvious -- that peace will not come if bigots and autocrats are permitted to ram an international "solution" down the throat of the only democracy at the table -- Rice told the Council: "The United States cannot be left to do all the heavy lifting by itself, and other countries . . . must do all that they can to shore up our common efforts." In a break with decades of U.S. policy, the Obama strategy is to energize a U.N. bad cop so that the U.S. might assume the role of good cop -- for a price.
On Tuesday the Obama administration did it again: It ran for a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council. As expected, the administration won election to represent the Council's Western European and Others Group -- it was a three-state contest for three spaces.
The Council is most famous, not for protecting human rights, but for its obsession with Israel. In its three-year history it has:
adopted more resolutions and decisions condemning Israel than condemning the 191 other U.N. members combined;
entrenched an agenda with only ten items, one permanently reserved for condemning Israel and another for condemning any other U.N. state that might "require the Council's attention";
held ten regular sessions on human rights, and five special sessions to condemn only Israel;
insisted on an investigator with an open-ended mandate to condemn Israel, while all other investigators must be regularly renewed;
spawned constant investigations on Israel, and abolished human-rights investigations (launched by its predecessor, the Commission on Human Rights) into Belarus, Cuba, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
Moreover, every morning before the Human Rights Council starts, all states -- and even observers like the Palestinians -- get together in their regional blocs for an hour to negotiate, share information, and determine positions. All, that is, except Israel. The Western European and Others Group refuses to give Israel full membership. Now the U.S. will be complicit in this injustice.
Joining the Council has one immediate effect on U.S.-Israel relations: It gives the Obama administration a new stick to use against Israel. Having legitimized the forum through its membership and participation, the U.S. can now attempt to extract concessions from Israel in return for American objections to the Council's constant anti-Israel barrage.
Obama administration officials may believe they can put the lid back on Pandora's box after having invited the U.N., Russia, the Arab League, and the Organization of the Islamic Conference to jump into the process of manufacturing a Palestinian state while Israel is literally under fire. They have badly miscalculated. By making his bed with countries that have no serious interest in democratic values, the president has made our world a much more dangerous place.
-- Anne Bayefsky is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and at Touro College
