Joe Biden gets his revenge on Netanyahu by forcing Ukraine to vote against Israel
YNet is reporting that serial groper Joe Biden got his revenge for being 'humiliated' by Prime Minister Netanyahu six years ago by pressuring Ukraine to vote in favor of a Security Council resolution calling Israeli 'settlements' 'illegal' on Friday.
Ukraine’s decision to vote in favor of the resolution appears to
demonstrate the extent to which US President Barack Obama was behind the
decision.
According to officials in Israel, Ukrainian Prime Minister
Volodymyr Groysman, a Jew who is thought of as one of Israel’s main
supporters, wanted that his country not be involved in the consultations
held on the resolution.
However, Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko decided to vote in
favor of its passage following a telephone conversation with US Vice
President Joe Biden.
"The text of the resolution is balanced," Kiev asserted. "It
calls for taking measures necessary for peaceful solution from both
Israeli and Palestinian sides: Israel should stop its settlement
activities while Palestinian authorities – to take effective measures
toward fighting against terrorism."
"Our country consistently advocates the respect for the
international law by everyone and everywhere as has experienced itself
the tragic consequences brought by its violation," the Ukrainian Foreign
Ministry added.
Perhaps this is why one of the first places in which the Netanyahu government has announced that it will build in response to the United Nations is the scene of Biden's 'humiliation,' RamatShlomo.
ICYMI: Erdogan sends Deputy Mayor(!) to greet Biden at airport, Biden calls coup plotters 'terrorists'
Shavua tov, a good week to everyone.
You probably didn't hear much about Joe Biden's trip to Turkey last week. It's funny how Biden was 'humiliated' six and a half years ago when an Israeli bureaucrat announced a building permit when he was here in Israel, but apparently didn't notice who greeted him at the airport in Ankara last week. But don't worry - that didn't stop Biden from sucking up to Sultan Erdogan.
Erdogan sent a lowly deputy mayor to meet him at the airport and
later said the US must arrest Gulen to stop him from giving press
interviews.
Biden called the coup plotters “terrorists” and urged Kurdish forces
in Syria to move away from Turkey’s borders, but he said the US must
follow due process on Gulen.
“The constitution and our laws require for someone to be extradited
that a court of the United States has to conclude there’s probable cause
to extradite," he said.
"Thus far ... there has been no evidence presented about the coup."
The rift between Western powers and their Nato ally in the Middle
East has prompted speculation that Turkey might forge a new alliance
with Russia.
Erodgan met Russian leader Vladimir Putin earlier this month, while
Russian propaganda has switched to highlighting irritants in EU-Turkey
and US-Turkey relations.
By the way, those apartments are now being built six and a half years later. They're scheduled to be ready in 2020 (there's no infrastructure there - that comes first). Aren't double standards grand?
It's worth clicking through this link to see the headline in the ordinarily staid Foreign Policy Magazine.
Perhaps the key sentence is this: “His lack of conventional
real-world experience of the kind that normally precedes responsibility
for the fate of nations — like military or diplomatic service, or even a
master’s degree in international relations, rather than creative
writing — is still startling.”
Rhodes comes off like a real asshole. This is not a matter of
politics — I have voted for Obama twice. Nor do I mind Rhodes’s contempt
for many political reporters: “Most of the outlets are reporting on
world events from Washington. The average reporter we talk to is 27
years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around
political campaigns. That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing.”
But, as that quote indicates, he comes off like an overweening little
shmuck. This quotation seems to capture his world view: “He referred to
the American foreign policy establishment as the Blob. According to
Rhodes, the Blob includes Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates and other
Iraq-war promoters from both parties who now whine incessantly about the
collapse of the American security order in Europe and the Middle East.”
Blowing off Robert Gates takes nerve.
I expect cynicism in Washington. But it usually is combined with a
lot of knowledge — as with, say, Henry Kissinger. To be cynical and
ignorant and to spin those two things into a virtue? That’s industrial
strength hubris. Kind of like what got us into Iraq, in fact.
Rhodes and others around Obama keep on talking about doing all this
novel thinking, playing from a new playbook, bucking the establishment
thinking. But if that is the case, why have they given so much foreign
policy power to two career hacks who never have had an original thought?
I mean, of course, Joe Biden and John Kerry. I guess the answer can
only be that those two are puppets, and (as in Biden’s case) are given
losing propositions like Iraq to handle.
Fact check: Obama’s hasn’t been an original foreign policy as much as it has been a politicized foreign
policy. And this Rhodes guy reminds me of the Kennedy smart guys who
helped get us into the Vietnam War. Does he know how awful he sounds?
Kind of like McGeorge Bundy meets Lee Atwater.
It came to this: Netanyahu had to ask Berlusconi for help with Obama
In case you missed it, Haaretz reported on Tuesday that the US National Security Administration intercepted a 2010 phone call between Prime Minister Netanyahu and then-Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in which Netanyahu asked Berlusconi for help in repairing his relations with the self-declared 'most pro-Israel administration evah.'
During their conversation, Netanyahu claimed he needed Berlusconi's help due to an "absence of direct contact" between himself and President Barack Obama.
The document leaked to the WikiLeaks website is a brief summary of Netanyahu and Berlusconi's communications that was published by the NSA for internal usage by the American intelligence community and the White House. According to the document, the call was intercepted as part of U.S. monitoring of Berlusconi's office, and not through a wiretap on Israeli lines.
The conversation between Netanyahu and Berlusconi took place four days after a crisis erupted during Vice President Joe Biden's visit to Israel on March 9 due to Israel's decision to green light 1,600 new housing units in East Jerusalem's Ramat Shlomo neighborhood, which is beyond the 1967 Green Line.
The NSA report said "Israel has reached out to Europe, including Italy, for help in smoothing out the current rift in its relations with the United States."
The call took place on an open international line, so it is likely Netanyahu knew the conversation would be intercepted by U.S. intelligence services. It is even possible Netanyahu used the conversation with Berlusconi to try to reach out to America.
I don't know which is more troubling here - the fact that Netanyahu even had to reach out to Berlusconi in the first place or the fact that the United States, which continues to hold Jonathan Pollard after he spent 30 years in jail for 'spying' on Israel's behalf, was spying on Israel in the first place.
You just knew that Barack Hussein Obama was going to try to find a way to maintain control of the United States when his term of office ends on January 20, 2017. According to this report, Obama has agreed to endorse Joe Biden for President provided that:
a. Biden agrees to allow Obama to choose his running mate.
b. Biden agrees to serve only one term in office and to hand the reins to that running mate.
c. The running mate will be a black - probably former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick (having it be Mooch would be a little too obvious).
Biden is mulling over the offer.
Disgusting!
If I were Hillary Clinton (whom I also don't like), I'd be screaming FOUL at the top of my lungs.
A couple of years ago I posted the video below, which simulates a nuclear attack on Israel. I couldn't find the post, but I found the video.
Let's go to the videotape.
@KurtSchlichter has written a fictional account at Townhall of an Iranian nuclear attack on Israel - aided and abetted by the Obama administration. It's a very realistic scenario and it's about a year away.
The Iranians, from the beginning, cheated on a massive scale, and
Benjamin Netanyahu’s government immediately redoubled its efforts to
ensure the Iranians could not cross the line from aspiring to actual
nuclear power. Israeli cyber warriors worked to slow the program
remotely, but the NSA – on President Obama’s orders – assisted the
Iranians in hardening their computer systems pursuant to the nuclear
deal’s notorious “sabotage” provisions.
But it was not the Israelis who discovered the secret Iranian
parallel program that Netanyahu revealed to the world in March 2016. It
was the Americans who discovered it; the Israelis found out from sources
within the U.S. intelligence community who were horrified that the
Obama administration knew the Iranians were steadily advancing toward
completing their first bomb but was keeping it secret.
Ignoring the Iranians’ actions, President Obama lashed out at
Netanyahu after the Prime Minister revealed the program in a press
conference.
“These kind of inflammatory statements harm the cause of peace and
drive a wedge between allies,” Obama said, his rage unhidden. “This kind
of behavior is, frankly, dangerous to Israel’s safety.”
Obama’s barely-concealed threat was clear; he would not tolerate any
challenge to his legacy regardless of the risk to the Jewish state.
...
On July 5, 2016, with one hour to go before launch, Netanyahu
received a call from Vice President Joe Biden. U.S. intelligence had
seen the preparations and anticipated the strike; Biden, as the
conversation transcript later revealed, was clearly frightened.
“Benjamin, we’ve known each other a long time. You’ve got to believe
me. If you launch, he’ll warn the Iranians and he’ll order American
forces to shoot down your jets. I can’t talk him out of it. He’s
serious. He’ll do it. Please, please call it off.”
At that moment, Netanyahu was handed an intelligence update. There
was increased aircraft activity on the USS Reagan afloat just outside
the Persian Gulf, and Iranian anti-aircraft missile batteries were
alerting. President Obama was preparing to launch fighters and had
already warned the Iranians.
With a heavy heart, Netanyahu called off Operation Masada. A week
later, news of the fiasco was leaked by “an anonymous White house
source” to the New York Times. In the resulting uproar in Israel,
Netanyahu resigned. His place was taken by an elderly Laborite who
proclaimed, “This is an opportunity for peace!” and vowed to work
closely with the Obama administration. He was welcomed to Washington the
next week and treated with respect in return for his obedience.
Israelis were going to breakfast on August 30, 2016, when the bomb
went off above Tel Aviv. There was an unfathomably bright flash in the
cloudless sky at about 1515 feet, calculated precisely to be high enough
to maximize the thermal and blast effects but low enough to churn up
substantial fallout. It detonated over the Jaffa area of southern
outskirts of the city instead of where it was aimed, the government
center – only the Iranians could manage to miss a city with an A-bomb.
Ironically, Ground Zero was heavily populated by Israeli Arabs.
...
On CNN and MSNBC, Democrat “strategists” went on the air offering the
carefully crafted talking points hurriedly drafted in the West Wing,
accusing “warmongering Republicans” calling for retaliation against the
mullahs of “playing politics with this tragedy.” On the campaign trail,
Hillary Clinton refused to take questions, and insisted that, “This is
no time for the kind of hateful, incendiary language my opponent is
using.”
Only Fox News showed footage of Iranians laughing and singing in the
streets. Similarly, on several college campuses, students marched to
demand that there be no humanitarian aid to “the Zionist entity.” There
was also a video, widely shown on Fox and on conservative websites, but
never on any mainstream media outlet, of a prominent Democratic Senate
nominee high fiving some of her donors upon hearing the news.
Read the whole thing. The only details that might be unrealistic are that he has Scott Walker winning the Presidency (if only the next US President is a Republican - I fear it is going to be Hillary Clinton) and making the Marine who stormed out of the US command center that wouldn't help Israel the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and that he has Netanyahu returning to power after Walker's election.
Kurt's article reminded me a lot of this article by Steven Plaut about the day after a 'Palestinian state.' It was written in 2003, around the time that Israel started getting a handle on the intifadeh.
Hillary Clinton's staffers listened and cheered while one of her deputies chewed out Ambassador Oren
Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, when she was Secretary of State in what claims to be the 'most pro-Israel administration evah' allowed her staffers to listen in from another room when her deputy, Jim Steinberg, 'privately' scolded Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren over the announcement of construction in Ramat Shlomo, a Jewish neighborhood of more than 20,000 souls, while Joe Biden was in Israel in 2010. This is from the first link.
By the way, some of those apartments finally got their final approval to be built last month. Aren't you glad the 'Palestinians' decided to follow the Obama-Clinton-Biden lead and stay away from the 'peace talks'?
Oren recounted that when he landed back in Washington, D.C.,
following the trip, he landed “to learn that [then] Secretary of State
Clinton has excoriated Netanyahu for 45 minutes over the phone, rebuking
him for humiliating the president and undermining America’s ability to
deal with pressing Middle East issues.”
Soon after that, Oren found out that he had been “summoned” to the
State Department for an “immediate meeting,” according to the book.
Before attending the meeting, Oren huddled with his senior advisers
and informed them, “while I would continue to adhere publicly to the
‘all’s well’ [between the United States and Israel] pose, behind the
scenes I would forcibly resist this attempt to fabricate a crisis.”
Oren then traveled to the State Department for a tense meeting with
then-Deputy Secretary Jim Steinberg. Oren later found out the meeting
was being listened to by State Department staffers, who “cheered” as
Steinberg upbraided Oren.
“There, waiting in his not-nice American mode, was Deputy Secretary
Jim Steinberg, who proceeded to read me the text of Hillary’s
conversation with Netanyahu,” Oren writes. “This contained a list of
demands, including a total building freeze in East Jerusalem as well as
the West Bank, most of which would be unacceptable to any Israeli prime
minister, much less a [right-leaning] Likudnik.”
Steinberg went on to lecture Oren in a “furious” manner.
“Steinberg added his own furious comment—department staffers, I later
heard, listened in on our conversation and cheered—about Israel’s
insult to the president and the pride of the United States.”
Oren said he did not hold back in his response.
“Let me get this straight,” Oren recalls saying. “We inadvertently
slight the vice president and apologize, and I become the first foreign
ambassador summoned by this administration to the State Department.”
The Israeli people, Oren said, “will see this as nothing but a pretext to arm-twist us and beat up on us.”
A State Department official declined to comment on the issue.
That last line is an admission that the story is true. Don't misconceive that one. There's more.
One former high-ranking White House official said the Obama administration’s treatment of Oren is unusual.
“In eight years at State and eight at the [White House National
Security Council], I never participated in a meeting with the secretary
or deputy secretary of state that was piped elsewhere in the building
through hidden microphones,” Elliott Abrams, a former deputy assistant
to the president and deputy national security adviser in the George W.
Bush administration.
“There were always note takers present and everyone understood that
each side could distribute its own notes, but foreign diplomats could
rely on the U.S. not to tape the meeting or broadcast it to others
outside the meeting room where it took place,” Abrams said. “If this
really happened as Oren says, one has to ask whether this was a
punishment devised especially for Israel, or whether there were hidden
microphones recording lots of other Steinberg and Clinton meetings.”
And they talk about Richard Nixon.... Oh... wait... Hillary Clinton was kicked off the Watergate investigation committee staff back in the '70's for lying, unethical behavior, wasn't she? She knows all about hidden microphones and extra email accounts....
One senior official with a D.C.-based Jewish organization was not
surprised to learn that State Department staffers were pleased when Oren
was upbraided.
“The president stacked the State Department with opponents of Israel,
then let them indulge themselves by picking new fights with Israel
every few months,” the source said. “Of course they enjoyed it. This is
who they are. This is what they do.”
Most pro-Israel administration evah? Until Hillary Clinton takes charge....
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, former Israeli Ambassador to the United States and current MK Michael Oren (Kulanu) criticizes Prime Minister Netanyahu's handling of his relationship with President Hussein Obama, and then rips Obama for abandoning Israel. More after the lengthy excerpt (someone was kind enough to send me the full article by email).
[M]any of Israel’s bungles were not committed
by Mr. Netanyahu personally. In both episodes with Mr. Biden, for example, the
announcements were issued by midlevel officials who also caught the prime
minister off-guard. Nevertheless, he personally apologized to the vice
president.
Mr. Netanyahu’s only premeditated misstep was
his speech to Congress, which I recommended against. Even that decision, though,
came in reaction to a calculated mistake by President Obama. From the moment he
entered office, Mr. Obama promoted an agenda of championing the Palestinian
cause and achieving a nuclear accord with Iran. Such policies would have put him
at odds with any Israeli leader. But Mr. Obama posed an even more fundamental
challenge by abandoning the two core principles of Israel’s alliance with
America.
The first principle was “no daylight.” The U.S.
and Israel always could disagree but never openly. Doing so would encourage
common enemies and render Israel vulnerable. Contrary to many of his detractors,
Mr. Obama was never anti-Israel and, to his credit, he significantly
strengthened security cooperation with the Jewish state. He rushed to help
Israel in 2011 when the Carmel forest was devastated by fire. And yet,
immediately after his first inauguration, Mr. Obama put daylight between Israel
and America.
“When there is no daylight,” the president told
American Jewish leaders in 2009, “Israel just sits on the sidelines and that
erodes our credibility with the Arabs.” The explanation ignored Israel’s 2005
withdrawal from Gaza and its two previous offers of Palestinian statehood in
Gaza, almost the entire West Bank and half of Jerusalem—both offers rejected by
the Palestinians.
Mr. Obama also voided President George W. Bush’s
commitment to include the major settlement blocs and Jewish Jerusalem within
Israel’s borders in any peace agreement. Instead, he insisted on a total freeze
of Israeli construction in those areas—“not a single brick,” I later heard he
ordered Mr. Netanyahu—while making no substantive demands of the
Palestinians. Consequently, Palestinian President Mahmoud
Abbas boycotted negotiations, reconciled with Hamas and sought statehood in the
U.N.—all in violation of his commitments to the U.S.—but he never paid
a price. By contrast, the White House routinely condemned Mr. Netanyahu for
building in areas that even Palestinian negotiators had agreed would remain part
of Israel.
The other core principle was “no surprises.”
President Obama discarded it in his first meeting with Mr. Netanyahu, in May
2009, by abruptly demanding a settlement freeze and Israeli acceptance of the
two-state solution. The following month the president traveled to the Middle
East, pointedly skipping Israel and addressing the Muslim world from Cairo.
Israeli leaders typically received advance
copies of major American policy statements on the Middle East and could submit
their comments. But Mr. Obama delivered his Cairo speech, with its unprecedented
support for the Palestinians and its recognition of Iran’s right to nuclear
power, without consulting Israel.
Similarly, in May 2011, the president altered 40
years of U.S. policy by endorsing the 1967 lines with land swaps—formerly the
Palestinian position—as the basis for peace-making. If Mr. Netanyahu appeared to
lecture the president the following day, it was because he had been assured by
the White House, through me, that no such change would happen.
Israel was also stunned to learn that Mr. Obama
offered to sponsor a U.N. Security Council investigation of the settlements and
to back Egyptian and Turkish efforts to force Israel to reveal its alleged
nuclear capabilities. Mr. Netanyahu eventually agreed to a 10-month moratorium
on settlement construction—the first such moratorium since 1967—and backed the
creation of a Palestinian state. He was taken aback, however, when he received
little credit for these concessions from Mr. Obama, who more than once publicly
snubbed him.
The abandonment of the “no daylight” and “no
surprises” principles climaxed over the Iranian nuclear program. Throughout my
years in Washington, I participated in intimate and frank discussions with U.S.
officials on the Iranian program. But parallel to the talks came administration
statements and leaks—for example, each time Israeli warplanes reportedly struck
Hezbollah-bound arms convoys in Syria—intended to deter Israel from striking
Iran pre-emptively.
Finally, in 2014, Israel discovered that its
primary ally had for months been secretly negotiating with its deadliest enemy.
The talks resulted in an interim agreement that the great majority of Israelis
considered a “bad deal” with an irrational, genocidal regime. Mr. Obama, though,
insisted that Iran was a rational and potentially “very successful regional
power.”
The daylight between Israel and the U.S. could
not have been more blinding. And for Israelis who repeatedly heard the president
pledge that he “had their backs” and “was not bluffing” about the military
option, only to watch him tell an Israeli interviewer that “a military solution
cannot fix” the Iranian nuclear threat, the astonishment could not have been
greater.
Oren doesn't go far enough. His claim that Obama was 'never anti-Israel' doesn't square with the facts that we knew long before Obama was elected President. The fact that the one example Oren gives of 'significantly strengthened security cooperation' under Obama relates to a natural disaster and not to a military action is telling.
Oren seems to be placing the burden of restoring the US-Israel relationship to what it was on both the US and Israel. But clearly, one party here (the US in the person of the Obama administration) initiated the hostilities. The actions that Obama took immediately on taking office - the introduction of 'daylight' between the US and Israel, the Cairo speech, the Buchenwald visit in which he adopted the 'Palestinian' narrative of Israel's sole right to our land being based on the Holocaust, and the disavowal of the Bush letter - set the tone for the relationship, and it's up to Obama - more likely to his successor - to reset that tone.
Yesterday, I met with the Washington correspondent of a US-based newspaper. She asked me how Israelis feel about the United States. I told her 'Israelis love the United States and the American people. Israelis hate Obama. For good reason.'
Luckily, they won't name a street 'Joe Biden Boulevard'
Remember the Jerusalem apartments that were the subject of a Joe Biden temper tantrum five years ago? Well, we are no closer to 'peace' now than we were then, but those apartments finally have received their final approval to be built. Well, some of them have.
Israel has approved construction of 900 homes in eastern Jerusalem, AFP reported Thursday, shortly after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu formed a new right-wing religious coalition.
The new homes will be built in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo following a decision late Wednesday by the city's district
planning committee.
In March 2010, the interior ministry announced a plan to build 1,600 homes in Ramat Shlomo, a haredi neighborhood in the eastern part of the capital.
The announcement came as US Vice President Joe Biden was visiting Israel, provoking fierce American opposition and souring relations with Washington for months.
At the time, then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made an angry phone call to Netanyahu, berating him for announcing the building plans, and demanding they be canceled.
In November 2013, the plan passed a further stage of approval but construction was held up because the planning committee said new roads must be built first.
Ramat Shlomo is a Haredi neighborhood, so I don't think they'll be naming any streets after Joe Biden. Too bad. It would be a nice touch of irony.
I've known David Makovsky for nearly 40 years, since he was a student at a Jerusalem yeshiva sending dispatches to Jewish media. I can't recall him ever getting something so wrong.
On Thursday night, US Vice President Joe Biden addressed the Washington Institute, where Makovsky is one of the scholars. In essence, Biden said, 'Sorry Israel, we screwed up. Iran is now a nuclear power and there's nothing you can do about it.'
"Let's get something straight so we don't
kid each other," Biden said. "They already have paved a path to a bomb's
worth of material. Iran could get there now if they walked away in two
to three months without a deal."
...
Critics have noted that this is an
apparent backing down from Obama's stated position that he would not
allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon, but Biden said that policy still
stands.
"President Obama, decided for the first time — people forget this —
to make it an explicit, declared policy of the United States of America,
no such policy existed before President Obama uttered it — that all
instruments of American power to prevent — not contain, not contain — to
prevent a nuclear-armed Iran would be used to prevent that from
happening," Biden said.
Let's face reality: Iran has become a borderline nuclear power on Obama's watch, and despite Obama's pronouncements, there is nothing Obama will do other than talk to stop them. I think it's going to take a bit more than that. What could go wrong?
One evening this past September, Vice President Joe Biden and his
wife, Jill, hosted a gathering in Washington to celebrate Rosh Hashanah,
the Jewish new year. The guests—political supporters, leaders of Jewish
organizations, members of Congress, Jewish officials of the Obama
administration, and the stray journalist or two—gathered by the pool of
the vice president’s house, on the grounds of the U.S. Naval
Observatory.
Biden was characteristically prolix. He talked about the Shoah, and
about the many contributions Jews have made to American life, and he
mentioned, as he invariably does in such settings, his first encounter
with a legendary Israeli prime minister.
“I had the great pleasure of knowing every prime minister since Golda
Meir, when I was a young man in the Senate, and I’ll never forget
talking to her in her office with her assistant—a guy named Rabin—about
the Six-Day War,” he said. “The end of the meeting, we get up and walk
out, the doors are open, and … the press is taking photos … She looked
straight ahead and said, ‘Senator, don’t look so sad … Don’t worry. We
Jews have a secret weapon.’ ”
He said he asked her what that secret weapon was.
“I thought she was going to tell me something about a nuclear
program,” Biden continued. “She looked straight ahead and she said, ‘We
have no place else to go.’ ” He paused, and repeated: “ ‘We have no
place else to go.’ ”
“Folks,” he continued, “there is no place else to go, and you
understand that in your bones. You understand in your bones that no
matter how hospitable, no matter how consequential, no matter how
engaged, no matter how deeply involved you are in the United States …
there’s only one guarantee. There is really only one absolute guarantee,
and that’s the state of Israel. And so I just want to assure you, for
all the talk, and I know sometimes my guy”—President Obama—“gets beat up
a little bit, but I guarantee you: he shares the exact same commitment
to the security of Israel.”
I understand from an article in Politico
that you'll be in Washington, D.C. on March 3rd. What good luck and
great timing! For, as you may have heard, your friend and Israel's prime
minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is scheduled to speak to Congress that
day. I write, as Chair of the nonpartisan Emergency Committee for
Israel, to urge you to attend the speech.
I imagine that, as a longtime supporter of Israel, you'll want to be
in attendance to show support for the U.S.-Israel relationship. You'll
surely want to show that you have no sympathy for the unfortunate
boycott by some politicians of the Prime Minister's speech, a boycott
that plays into the hands of the enemies of the Jewish state. You'll
certainly want to be there to show solidarity at this historic moment
when Israel, and Jews, are under assault.
I'm sure that, as a former secretary of state, you'd have no problem
getting a ticket to the speech -- but if there's some problem, do let me
know and I'd be happy to put in a word with the Speaker. Please let me
know if we can do anything to help facilitate your attendance at the
speech (the Emergency Committee would, for example, be happy to provide a
car and driver).
I look forward to seeing you in the House gallery on March 3rd along with other staunch friends of Israel.
Yours,
William Kristol Chairman, Emergency Committee for Israel
Well it would be one way of putting distance between Hillary Clinton and Barack Hussein Obama.... Maybe she could even use Biden's seat. Heh.
First, the prime minister should not cancel his trip just because the
White House and the Democrats are whining about it. They are not upset
because there wasn’t the usual coordination on this invitation between
the White House and Congress; they are upset because Netanyahu
intimidates the Democrats and exposes the weakness of their commitment
to stopping Iran from having nuclear weapons. Netanyahu’s presence will
put in vivid relief the lip service the Democrats give to the
U.S.-Israel alliance and Washington’s ambivalent support for Israel
under President Obama. The fact is, the Democrats have been artful at
maintaining a sizable majority among Jewish voters at home despite being
much less supportive of the state of Israel than Republicans have been
for at least the past 20 years. Netanyahu’s planned visit helps expose
that disconnect. Obama has refused to meet with Netanyahu, Vice
President Joe Biden will conveniently be traveling overseas,
and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) went so far as to say
that Democrats may not attend the joint meeting because “it’s not a high-priority item for them.” Really? That doesn’t sound like a mere excuse; Pelosi wanted to deliver an insult — and she succeeded.
As
I always say, in politics, it’s best to start from an honest place.
America’s relationship with Israel is nothing new, but we are at a point
now where that relationship needs to be politically recalibrated. The
Democrats need to either renew their support for Israel or admit their
diminished commitment.
The second reason Netanyahu needs to
address Congress is that Obama is not making the case that America must
be prepared to do whatever it takes to stop Iran from making a nuclear
weapon. In fact, Obama appears to be doing the opposite.
He is allowing Iran to skate by, leaving much of its nuclear
infrastructure in place and accepting at face value the Iranians’
promise that they are absolutely not lying about their nuclear
intentions this time. Alarm bells are ringing and bipartisan experts are
cautioning against the trajectory the Obama administration is taking
with its negotiations. Obama seems to be focused on making a unilateral
agreement that would allow him to say in one of the future books he
plans on writing about himself that Iran didn’t have a single nuclear weapon under his watch. That seems to be driving the train here, but that isn’t going to keep us safe in the long run.
The tweet above is apparently a denial of this story (more here), which claims that US Secretary of State John Kerry - whose administration is trying to avoid influencing the Israeli elections - met with opposition leader Yitzchak Herzog in Munich on Saturday (wow is that rich... meeting with Israeli Left... in Munich... on the Sabbath).
Kerry is trying to deny playing politics. Herzog obviously has no such compunctions.
I keep seeing things in the American media about how there's opposition in Israel to Netanyahu going to Washington and how Netanyahu is going to back down. Sorry but I don't see it.
The opposition is Netanyahu's opposition - the same people who would be criticizing him no matter what he does.
The idea that this is going to influence the elections is a farce. The only way this is going to influence the elections is that the more Netanyahu stands up to Obama, the better he does in the polls.
The idea that Netanyahu cannot lobby Congress to oppose Obama's Iran policy is something that most people here simply will not accept. Our lives are at stake, and even the Europeans admit that Obama's milquetoast Iran policy is doing damage to the West.
Cancel his trip? I just don't see it happening.
And any Democrat that doesn't show up for Netanyahu's speech is going to hear about it from his constituents. That's why the only one who keeps saying loudly that he's not showing up is Joe Biden, and even he has conveniently arranged to be out of the country so that he has a cover story.
The real reason Obama - and Kerry and Biden - won't meet with Netanyahu
Barak Ravid reports that the real reason why President Obama - and Secretary of State Kerry and Vice President Biden - won't meet with Prime Minister Netanyahu when he's in Washington in March has nothing to do with pique over the way Netanyahu's invitation to Washington came about. It also has nothing to do with the Israeli elections which will take place two weeks after Netanyahu's visit.
The real reason why Obama, Kerry and Biden won't meet with Netanyahu is a 'policy disagreement.' Obama has asked Netanyahu to stop lobbying Congress for more sanctions against Iran, and Netanyahu, with his country's best interests at heart, won't let up.
U.S. President Barack Obama has demanded that Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu stop encouraging U.S. senators and congressmen to
advance new sanctions legislation against Iran.
A senior American official, who asked to remain
anonymous due to the diplomatic sensitivity of the issue, said Obama
gave Netanyahu this message during a telephone call on Monday, January
12.
Obama stressed to Netanyahu that he is seeking to
reach an agreement with Iran that will prevent it from obtaining nuclear
weapons and assure the international community in a verifiable fashion
that Iran’s nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only, the official
added. But new sanctions legislation is liable to sabotage the
negotiations that Obama and five other countries are conducting with
Iran, the president said. He told the Israeli leader that should such
legislation pass Congress, he intends to veto it.
Obama also warned Netanyahu not to meddle in the
battle he is waging against Congress over the sanctions legislation, the
official said. This warning was issued more than a week before Speaker
of the House John Boehner publicly invited Netanyahu
to address a joint session of Congress. Netanyahu’s address, which will
take place at the height of the battle between Obama and the
Republican-controlled Congress, is expected to focus on the Iranian
nuclear issue and what he sees as the need to ratchet up the pressure on
the Iran.
At Netanyahu’s behest, both Israeli Ambassador to Washington Ron Dermer
and members of AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, have
been urging members of Congress in recent weeks to advance legislation
to impose new sanctions on Iran. Netanyahu has also urged new sanctions
on Iran in all his meetings with American legislators, including his
meeting earlier this week with a delegation headed by Republican Senator
John McCain.
...
"We thought we've seen everything," a senior American official said.
"But Bibi managed to surprise even us. There are things you simply don't
do. He spat in our face publicly and that's no way to behave. Netanyahu
ought to remember that President Obama has a year and a half left to
his presidency, and that there will be a price."
Obama is about as lame a duck as one can find. He's in the home stretch of his second and final term as President. The Republicans control both houses of Congress. He needs Netanyahu to have any kind of foreign policy legacy that's connected to the Middle East. And if he goes too far, he will drive pro-Israel donors away from the Democratic party for years to come.
US Vice President Joe Biden has apologized for saying that Turkish President Erdogan had said that Turkey made mistakes that led to the rise of the Islamic State terror group. This is from the first link.
"The Vice President apologized for any implication that Turkey or other
Allies and partners in the region had intentionally supplied or
facilitated the growth of ISIL or other violent extremists in Syria. The
Vice President made clear that the United States greatly values the
commitments and sacrifices made by our Allies and partners from around
the world to combat the scourge of ISIL, including Turkey," a White
House statement said on Oct. 4.
Biden called Erdoğan to clarify
recent comments made at Harvard University, according to the statement.
"The two leaders reaffirmed the importance of Turkey and the United
States working closely together to confront ISIL," it added.
Earlier,
Erdoğan had demanded an apology from Biden. "If Biden told these words,
then he will be history for me. I never uttered such remarks," he said
after the morning prayer for Eid al-Adha -the festival of sacrifice
observed by Muslims all over the world- in Istanbul early Oct. 4.
"President
Erdoğan told me, he is an old friend, said you were right, we let too
many people through, now we are trying to seal the border," Biden had
said during a speech on foreign policy at Harvard Kennedy School on Oct.
2, while complaining about the conduct of his country's regional allies
that led to the rise of the ISIL.
"I was Prime Minister at the
time. We absolutely didn't provide even the smallest amount of support
to any terrorist organization, including the ISIL. Nobody can prove it.
Foreign fighters never crossed from Turkey to Syria. There were people
coming to Turkey as tourists and went to Syria, but nobody can suggest
that they were armed while crossing the border," Erdoğan said.
Do you believe Erdogan? Or do you believe that Biden accidentally let the truth slip? Tough call, eh?
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) says the United States
must look to Qatar, an ally of the terrorist group Hamas, for advice in
resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
...
As CNSNews.com reported last week, Qatar is a strong supporter and
funder of Hamas. Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal operates from Qatar, and
has so far rejected ceasefire proposals put forward by Egypt and
promoted by Secretary of State John Kerry.
...
“War is a deadly thing,” Pelosi said on Sunday, speaking about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“And I have many Palestinians who live in my district, and I am
hearing them regularly about how their families are affected who live in
the region. It’s a terrible thing. But let me just say that any missile
that comes from someplace has a return address. And if Israel is
responding to that address, then that’s a shame that the Palestinians
are …rumored to be using children and families as shields for their
missiles.”
Pelosi said the first thing to do is to “avoid conflict” that “Hamas initiated.”
“[T]his has to be something where we try to have the two-state
solution, that we have to support…(Palestinian Authority chairman
Mahmoud) Abbas and his role as a leader there. We have to support Iron
Dome to protect the Israelis from the missiles. We have to support the
Palestinians and what they need. And we have to confer with the Qataris,
who have told me over and over again that Hamas is a humanitarian
organization, maybe they could use their influence to –
Crowley interrupted her at that point, and they turned to another topic….
This moron was once third in line to be President of the United States? She makes Biden look intelligent.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
