Priorities! State Department ignores Syria, blasts Israel for giving Jews in Samaria a place to live
The self-proclaimed 'most pro-Israel administration evah' has blasted the Government of Israel for attempting to resettle the Jews of Amona, a neighborhood in Ofra (Samaria), in an alternate location in Samaria.
The statement, signed by Mark Toner, deputy spokesman for the State Department, drew an unusual linkage between the signing of the defense aid agreement with Israel and criticism of settlement building.
Toner stressed that the U.S. views advancement of the plan as a violation of a commitment by Netanyahu's government not to establish any new settlements in the West Bank.
The White House later further escalated the criticism, as Josh Ernest said that the decision constitutes a violation of a commitment undertaken by the Israeli government to the U.S. administration, adding that this isn't how friends behave.
"We had public assurances from the Israeli government that contradict this new announcement – so when you talk about how friends treat each other – this is also a source of concern. There is a lot of disappointment and great concern here at the White House," he said.
The criticism comes against the backdrop of the Civil Administration Planning Commission's decision last Wednesday to approve a plan for the construction of 98 housing units in the new settlement to be established next to the Shvut Rachel settlement.
According to the plan, it will be possible to build up to 300 housing units and an industrial zone. The NRG web site and Channel 2 were the first to publish the decision. The new settlement, which settlers say is only a neighborhood of the existing settlement of Shvut Rachel, can provide housing for residents of the illegal outposts of Amona, who are expected to be evicted by the end of December.
A senior U.S. official said that the White House boiled with anger at the advancement of the plan and even more at the timing of the decision – just a week after the signing of the military aid agreement by which the U.S. will give Israel $38 billion for a decade, and the day of the death of former president Shimon Peres, whose funeral was attended by President Barack Obama.
A large part of American anger was due to the administration seeing the step as a violation of a commitment Netanyahu gave Obama in 2009 that Israel would not build any new settlements. In his speech at Bar-Ilan that year, Netanyahu said he agreed to the establishment of a Palestinian state and added: "The territorial issues will be discussed in a permanent agreement. Till then we have no intention to build new settlements or set aside land for new settlements."
And in the seven years since the Bar Ilan speech, there have effectively been NO negotiations. At some point, life has to move on.
Ironically, the best thing that could happen for the 'peace process' would be for the 'Palestinians' to actually feel they are losing something by not coming to the table. Nothing else has even a remote chance of bringing them to the table.
The statement was unusual both in its length of more than 300 words, and in content, using strong language to express U.S. objections to advancement of the plan.
"We strongly condemn the Israeli government's recent decision to advance a plan that would create a significant new settlement deep in the West Bank, State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner said.
Still waiting to hear Obama 'strongly condemn' Assad, let alone do something about him. But priorities man, priorities.
And then the State Department dug deeper.
One of the statement's clauses referred to the defense aid agreement. Its wording was most extraordinary, for through the years the U.S. has avoided creating any linkage between defense aid to Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the settlement construction issue.
"It is deeply troubling, in the wake of Israel and the U.S. concluding an unprecedented agreement on military assistance designed to further strengthen Israel's security, that Israel would take a decision so contrary to its long term security interest in a peaceful resolution of its conflict with the Palestinians," Toner added.
The State Department's statement also referred to the timing of the decision – the day of former President Shimon Peres' death, saying:
"Furthermore, it is disheartening that while Israel and the world mourned the passing of President Shimon Peres, and leaders from the U.S. and other nations prepared to honor one of the great champions of peace, plans were advanced that would seriously undermine the prospects for the two state solution that he so passionately supported."
So we owe it to Peres' 'legacy' to create his virtual state on an island and jump into the sea? How absurd!
In case I don't have time later, I want to wish you all a Shana Tova and a Kethiva vaChathima Tova, may you all have a wonderful New Year (5777) and be inscribed and sealed in the books of life, health and happiness.
Hysterical: As Obama rushes to leave Israel, Clinton wants to shmooze
This video is apparently all over the internet. President Obama gave former President Bill Clinton a ride back from Shimon Peres' funeral on Friday night. Maybe Obama was afraid that they would close the airport for the Sabbath and not let him out. Or maybe he just wanted to leave. But Clinton clearly wanted to stay.
Let's go to the videotape.
I can tell you this much: There are very few commercial flights leaving here at 4:30 on a Friday afternoon. Heh.
Obama claims Peres and Rabin aren't buried in Israel
Shavua tov, a good week to everyone.
Here's a screen shot of the text of President Obama's speech at Shimon Peres' Friday funeral:
For the record, Mount Herzl is located in 'West' Jerusalem (the part that was ruled by Jews between 1948-67) so he doesn't have that excuse either. This is from Tom Gross via email:
What many Israelis and others don’t find amusing is that the White House – eager to stick with its fiction that (west) Jerusalem is not part of Israel – issued a press release correcting their previous press release which had stated that Peres’s funeral was in Israel. (See screenshot above.)
It is preposterous that Barack Obama, having just given a speech that many Israelis welcomed in which he appeared to show some real empathy for Zionism, and having firmly implied that he was giving the speech in Israel, should then allow his press aides to remove the word “Israel” from the White House press material sent out to hundreds of journalists.
Even journalists not normally sympathetic to Israel said they were surprised at the White House’s actions.
Obama was speaking at Mount Herzl nearby Yad Vashem in west Jerusalem. Shimon Peres’ coffin was laid to rest next to that of Yitzhak Rabin. Is it really the position of the White House that Rabin and Peres are not buried in Israel?
Why anyone thinks Obama has any empathy for Israel is simply beyond me. He cannot be gone from office soon enough.
Abu Mazen earns praise for plan to attend Peres funeral, but Fatah says he's 'destined for hell' and Hamas calls for 'days of rage'
'Moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud AbbasAbu Mazen is drawing praise from the Israeli Left for his plan to attend Shimon Peres' funeral. Peres was the man who brought the 'Palestinians' in from the cold.
But Israel's Arab MK's are being criticized for ignoring Peres' death, while Abu Mazen's Fatah faction has described Peres as 'destined for hell' and his Hamas rivals are calling for 'days of rage' in response to Peres' death.
This is the second link from the above paragraph.
On the day after former Israeli
President Shimon Peres passed away, Fatah demonized Peres as a murderer
about to enter Hell. In a cartoon on Fatah's official Facebook page
(shown above) Peres is shown trembling and handcuffed as the Grim Reaper
shows or reads to Peres from an English language scroll the long list
of "crimes" that the PA-Fatah accuse Peres of committing. In the
background flames are seen, representing the fires of Hell that,
according to Fatah, are awaiting Peres.
Likewise, official PA TV's "Israeli
affairs expert" spoke about Peres. The "expert," an Israeli Arab named
Fayez Abbas, described Peres as a man of war who should have been tried
in the International Criminal Court, and as "the greatest fraud in the
history of the Zionist movement." The essence of his message about Peres
was that he succeeded in deceiving the entire world when he talked
about peace:
The Hamas terror group urged Palestinians to hold a “Day of Rage” on
Friday, coinciding with the state funeral of former Israeli president
Shimon Peres, which will be held in Jerusalem on that day.
The call is meant to mark the one-year
anniversary of the beginning of a wave of terror attacks, including
stabbings and car-rammings throughout the West Bank and in Jerusalem,
that launched in September 2015.
Hamas’s call follows a Wednesday statement by the group’s spokesman in Gaza that expressed happiness at Peres’s death.
A spokesman for the group, Sami Abu Zuhri,
told AP on Wednesday that “the Palestinian people are very happy at the
passing of this criminal who caused their blood to shed.”
He added, “Shimon Peres was the last remaining
Israeli official who founded the occupation, and his death is the end
of a phase in the history of this occupation and the beginning of a new
phase of weakness.”
Meanwhile, Abu Mazen expressed sorrow over Peres' death... at least in English.
In a statement, Abbas said he has sent a condolence letter to Peres’s family expressing “sorrow and sympathy.”
He called Peres a partner in reaching a “peace
of the brave” with the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and prime
minister Yitzhak Rabin. The three men shared the 1994 Nobel Peace prize
for reaching the Oslo interim peace accord.
Abbas said Peres “exerted persistent efforts to reach a just peace from the Oslo agreement until the final moments of his life.”
Once again the 'Palestinian Authority' is speaking from both sides of its mouth.
Greetings from Paris - Charles DeGaulle where once again Every Landing Always Late. They've admitted to two hours and fifteen minutes so far. And to think that I ran like crazy thinking I had only an hour and fifteen minutes to make a connection (American left more than two hours late from Charlotte last night, but made up much of that time on the way).
That's okay, because I will have some time to work after I finish this post (and maybe another one) and Paris may be one of the most appropriate places in the world to talk about Shimon Peres, who passed away this morning at the age of 93, because he was fluent in French and because in his later years he so emulated the French.
Israel owes a lot to Shimon Peres, especially our alleged nuclear capability, which was his doing in the early 1960's. I saw a Facebook post this morning that claimed that Peres 'saved' the country from hyperinflation in the 1980's, but the person who wrote it was a child at the time, and I was an adult. I don't believe that's accurate.
Palestinian Communications Minister Imad Al-Faluji, Al-Safir, 3 March 2001. (Translated by MEMRI):
Whoever thinks that the Intifada broke out
because of the despised Sharon’s visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque is wrong..
. . This Intifada was planned in advance, ever since President
Arafat’s return from the Camp David negotiations, where he turned the
table upside down on President Clinton.
Yasser Arafat’s wife Suha (pictured above) said the following (from Palestinian Media Watch):
On the personal level, I miss him very, very
much. [Our daughter] Zahwa also misses him, you can’t imagine. She
didn’t know him. She knows that Arafat sent us away before the [Israeli]
invasion of Ramallah. He said: ‘You have to leave Palestine, because I
want to carry out an Intifada, and I’m not prepared to shield myself
behind my wife and little girl.’ Everyone said: ‘Suha abandoned him,’
but I didn’t abandon him. He ordered me to leave him because he had
already decided to carry out an Intifada after the Oslo Accords and
after the failure of Camp David [July 2000].
Imad Faluji, PA Minister of Communications:
Whoever thinks that the Intifada started because
of the hated Sharon’s visit to Al-Aqsa Mosque is mistaken. That was only
the straw breaking the Palestinian people’s patience. This Intifada was
already planned since [Arafat] the President returned from the recent
talks at Camp David [July 2000].” [Private filming of speech by Faluji, Dec. 5, 2000]
The Israel Project
notes that American diplomat Dennis Ross recounts in his book The
Missing Peace how the Israelis called Washington with proof that the
Palestinians were “planning massive, violent demonstrations
throughout the West Bank and the next morning, ostensibly a response to
the Sharon visit.” Washington pressured Arafat to dampen the violence, but the Palestinian leader – again per Ross – “did not lift a finger to stop the demonstrations, which produced the second Intifada.”
Who was Shimon Peres. Some interesting quotes are here. He did some good for the State of Israel, but he took many actions, especially in his later years, that were based on delusions of grandeur that harmed many people.
Hamas propaganda video encourages 'Palestinian police' to attack Israeli soldiers
When Israel entered into the Oslo accords in the mid-90's, it thought it was getting 'police' who would carry light arms and carry out typical policing functions.
But Yasser Arafat insisted that there be huge numbers of police - far more than any other population in the world on a per capita basis - and that they be given military armaments. And with Rabin and Peres eager for a deal - any deal (sound familiar?) - the 'Palestinians' got what they wanted.
Now, Hamas is encouraging the 'Palestinian police' to turn those arms on IDF soldiers just as they did during the 'second intifada' a decade plus ago.
Let's go to the videotape.
Newly released #Hamas propaganda video focuses on encouraging PA police to carry out terror attacks on #IDF soldiershttps://t.co/Xl4jzVtgwp
By the way, a senior Fatah official claims that Hamas only represents 5% of 'Palestinians.' Let's say that's an understatement, and a pretty gross one at that.
Martin Indyk, Barak Ravid and Haaretz (and NPR) campaign to pin Rabin assassination on Netanyahu continues
Israel's Left, together with certain career 'diplomats' in the US State Department, have never relented in their efforts to pin the assassination of Yitzchak Rabin on Prime Minister (and then opposition leader) Binyamin Netanyahu. The latest assault comes from the publication by Barak Ravid and Haaretz of a 'secret' cable (published by uber-Leftist NPR) ostensibly sent by then-US Ambassador Martin Indyk to the State Department on the morning after the assassination more than 20 years ago. But before we even look at the cable, look at the inflammatory Haaretz English edition (the only edition that's read and it's read mostly outside Israel) headline: Indyk: At Funeral, Netanyahu Lamented That Assassination Made Rabin a Hero.
Indyk made the remarks in a Frontline documentary broadcast on PBS on Tuesday. Netanyahu was opposition leader at the time.
"Netanyahu sat next to me when I was ambassador in Israel at the time of Rabin’s funeral," Indyk says in the film. " … I remember Netanyahu saying to me: 'Look, look at this. He’s a hero now, but if he had not been assassinated, I would have beaten him in the elections, and then he would have gone into history as a failed politician.”
Indyk said that he had the impression that "even at that moment of tremendous support, a tragic moment of support for Rabin, Netanyahu was thinking, well, politically he was on the ropes before he was assassinated."
Indyk's comments are reinforced by a telegram sent from the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv on the morning after Rabin's assassination, a message that was exposed by Wikileaks a few years back. In the classified telegram that Indyk sent on November 5, 1995 at 10:15 A.M. to the White House and the State Department, he reported on a conversation that had taken place a few hours earlier between the State Department adviser at the embassy and Netanyahu. The Rabin assassination, Netanyahu is quoted as saying, is "a disaster for the Jewish people, a disaster for Israel and a disaster for the right, which will be decimated if elections are called soon."
Netanyahu's office denies that the conversation ever took place and says that Indyk fabricated it.
The Prime Minister's Office issued a “blanket denial,” saying that what Indyk said “never happened.”
The
Likud issued a response to Indyk's statement saying that “this is
another blatant lie by Indyk, who never stops discrediting and defaming”
Netanyahu.
But what's also true is that the comments attributed to Netanyahu do reflect what the conventional wisdom here in Israel was shortly after the assassination: That it would turn Rabin into an icon (indeed, it has made criticizing the very premises of the Oslo Accords into heresy) and would decimate the Right the next time there were elections.
But instead of calling elections immediately as many in the Left urged Shimon Peres to do (link in Hebrew and discussed below), Peres waited three and a half months to call elections, by which time the 'Palestinians' had committed two massive terror attacks here in Jerusalem against the number 18 bus on consecutive Sunday mornings followed by a massive terror attack on the eve of Purim at Dizengoff Square in Tel Aviv.
The elections took place in late May, and shortly after Uzi Baram of the Labor party publicly thanked Arab voters for putting his party and the Left over the top, around 6:00 am on the morning after the elections, Netanyahu and the Likud suddenly and inexplicably pulled ahead and went on to victory.
Much of that is in - or is alluded to - in the Hebrew version of Ravid's article, which has far more than the English version. The Hebrew version reports that on the morning of Rabin's funeral, the Left was behaving every bit as politically expediently as the Right, urging Peres to call elections. And the Hebrew version reports that Yasser Arafat was decimated by Rabin's assassination (no other event shook him as much except for the 1988 assassination of his top aide - Abu Jihad - allegedly by Israeli commandos led by Ehud Barak in Tunis), believing correctly that Peres would not be strong enough or have close enough connections to the IDF to give the 'Palestinians' their reichlet.
The Hebrew version of Haaretz also reports that Arafat gave orders to the 'Palestinians' to 'minimize' celebrations of Rabin's assassination and shooting in the air (an order that Arafat did not give on 9/11 by the way).
Twenty years ago tonight was one of those moments that you always remember where you were when you heard about it. Twenty years ago tonight, then-Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin was assassinated at the end of a 'peace rally' in Tel Aviv. (For the record, I was in our apartment on the computer and Mrs. Carl had gone with a couple of the kids to the mall - I think I had the two then-youngest kids at home).
I have written many times before about the assassination and why I believe that the person sitting in jail for doing it did not receive a fair trial. But perhaps the more significant question is whether Rabin would have continued the 'peace process' had he lived. Jeff Jacoby argues that Rabin would have brought that process to an end after the 1996 elections (Hat Tip: Martin Kramer).
Oslo was a disaster from the outset, arguably the worst
self-inflicted wound in Israel’s history. By 1995, it was widely
regarded as a failure by Israelis; polls showed public approval of Rabin
and his Labor Party sinking to record lows.
Oslo’s architects had promised that empowering Yasser Arafat and the
Palestine Liberation Organization with their own quasi-state in Gaza and
the West Bank was the best way to suppress terror attacks and improve
Israel’s security. Rabin’s government took the gamble, but the “peace
process” didn’t deliver peace. It delivered bus bombings and suicide
attacks.
More Israelis were killed by Palestinian terrorists in the 24
months following the famous handshake on the White House lawn than in
any similar period in Israel’s history.
In public, Rabin professed
to be undaunted, repeatedly insisting that the engagement with Arafat
must proceed: “We have to fight terror as if there were no peace talks,
and we have to pursue peace as if there were no terror.”
But privately, Rabin was having grave doubts.
According to Efraim Inbar, head of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University and the author of “Rabin and Israel’s National Security,”
Rabin was no starry-eyed peacenik. He was a pragmatic leader for whom
peace, in and of itself, was never a core value. The Oslo concessions
could be justified only to the extent that they left Israel more secure.
As it became apparent that instead of land for peace, Israel had
exchanged land for terror, incitement, and hatred, Inbar said Wednesday in a lecture at Boston University, there is good reason to believe he would have pulled the plug.
Others have said the same thing. Dalia Rabin, the prime minister’s daughter (and a former deputy defense minister), recalled in 2010
that she had been told by many of her father’s confidants “that on the
eve of the murder he considered stopping the Oslo process because of the
terror that was running rampant in the streets, and because he felt
that Yasser Arafat was not delivering on his promises.” And Moshe
Ya’alon, who in 1995 was Israel’s chief of military intelligence, was
told by Rabin that he intended to “set things straight” with Oslo after
the 1996 election, since Arafat’s commitments were plainly worthless.
Would
he have done so? Of course we cannot know for sure, but as Inbar notes,
Rabin did believe that Oslo was reversible. When critics expressed
alarm at an agreement committing Israel to arm a Palestinian police
force, he replied that there was nothing to fear.
“There is no danger that these guns will be used against us,” Rabin
said. “The purpose of this ammunition for the Palestinian police is to .
. . fight against Hamas. They won’t dream of using it against us, since
they know very well that if they use these guns against us once, at
that moment the Oslo Accord will be annulled.”
But he waited too long.
Rabin was never a willing participant in Oslo. Shimon Peres sent Yossi Beilin, Ron Pundak and Uri Savir to Oslo to negotiate with the PLO behind Rabin's back. Presented with the fait accomplis, Rabin went along. I think he would have dropped it in a minute.
In an effort to defend Prime Minister Netanyahu from charges of destroying the US-Israel alliance due to his 'prickly' relationship with President Obama, Jonathan Tobin almost turns relations between the US and Israel and the moderate Arab states, on the one hand, and the US and Iran, on the other hand, into a zero sum game.
But the U.S.-Israel crackup isn’t a tabloid romance gone sour. The differences between the two countries are rooted in the administration’s reckless pursuit of an entente with Iran at the cost of its friendships with both Israel and moderate Arab states. That pursuit began in Obama’s first months in office, and nothing Netanyahu could have done or said would have deterred the president from this course of action. His success was achieved by a series of American concessions on key nuclear issues and not by pique about Israel’s stands on the peace process with the Palestinians or perceived rudeness on the part of Netanyahu.
Despite the attempt to portray Netanyahu’s interventions in the debate about Iran as a partisan move or an insult to Obama, keeping silent would not have advanced Israel’s interests or made more U.S. surrenders to Iran less likely. At this point, Israel has no choice but to remind U.S. lawmakers of the terrible blow to American credibility and regional stability from the Iran deal. It is the White House that has turned the Iranian nuclear threat — which was once the subject of a bipartisan consensus — into a choice between loyalty to the Democratic Party and its leader and friendship for Israel.
It is almost a given that the next president — no matter who he or she might turn out to be — will be friendlier to Israel than Obama. But the president’s legacy may not only be the strengthening of a terror state in Tehran. It has also chipped away at the U.S.-Israel alliance in a way that will make it that much harder to maintain the across-the-board pro-Israel consensus in Congress in the coming years. Given the growing dangers that the deal poses to Israel this is something that should have both Republicans and Democrats deeply worried.
Coming into office, Obama had two independent foreign policy goals in the Middle East: To weaken or destroy the United States' relations with what he sees as 'neo-colonialist' Israel, and to bring Iran back into the fold of nations. Each goal has been pursued independently. The goal of weakening the alliance with Israel has been pursued through the Obama administration changing the terms of the 'peace process' as much as it has been played by making Iran a strong enough power to check Israel. The goal of bringing Iran back into the fold of nations has been pursued through the nuclear sellout. There is nothing Netanyahu or any other Israeli leader could have done to stop Obama on either front.
The moderate Arab states are collateral damage. For different reasons than Israel, they oppose a nuclear Iran and they oppose (although they cannot say so), the creation of a 'Palestinian' terror state in the Middle East. The fact that the two goals coincide on many levels doesn't mean that an alliance with Israel was traded for one with Iran. Each goal was pursued separately.
And none of this has anything to do with Obama's personal relationship with Netanyahu. Shimon Peres could have been Prime Minister and Moshe Dayan could have been Foreign or Defense Minister and they still would have clashed with Obama. Like the 'Palestinians,' Obama sees all of Israel as 'occupied,' and not just the territories liberated in 1967.
In Washington, whether it’s an R or D administration, in fact, we
want Israeli leaders like Rabin, Peres, and Barak who see the world more
or less the way we do when it comes to the two-state peace process. We
have a much harder time with those Israeli leaders—Begin, Shamir,
Netanyahu—whose views on what to do about the Palestinians don’t
naturally accord with ours. (Sharon was a special case. He and George W.
Bush got along reasonably well because neither really cared about the
peace process and both were governing in an age of terror.)
But sometimes those initial judgments about who’s naughty or nice end up confounding.
Because U.S. administrations tend to divide the Israeli political
spectrum into two parts—the good Israelis who share our views and the
not so good ones who don’t—they’re not entirely sure what to do with the
fact that Israeli prime ministers of all political stripes have
continued Israeli settlement building on the West Bank and construction
in parts of east Jerusalem that we’d like to see become the capital of a
Palestinian state.
It’s an inconvenient but important reality to acknowledge that of the
three U.S.-orchestrated breakthroughs in the Middle East peace process,
two of them—the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty and the Madrid peace
conference—came from hardline Likud prime ministers. The third—the three
disengagement agreements following the 1973 war —came courtesy of a
very tough Labor prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin.
But secretly rooting for the good Israelis and wishing them success
is one thing. What about actually doing things that help the good ones
succeed or alternatively weakening the Israelis we don’t want to see in
power?
I can recall at least three occasions when Republican and
Democratic administrations willfully picked Israeli favorites and tried
to shape election outcomes.
...
Now, as the clock ticks down on Israeli elections scheduled for March
2015, will the Obama administration play internal Israeli politics to
try to tip the election against Netanyahu?
Obama’s relationship with Bibi is perhaps the most dysfunctional of
any president-prime minister pair in the history of the U.S.-Israeli
relationship. Doubtless John Kerry, too, would like to see another
Israeli leader with whom he could dance a real peace process.
Yet constraints against U.S. meddling abound. First, there’s the
Republican-controlled Congress, which will be watching hawk-like for any
such funny business. Second, there’s the absence of a clear and
credible alternative to Bibi with whom the administration is close; and
then there’s the matter of the lack of a big issue for such lobbying.
The peace process is in a coma; and ISIS, Hamas, Assad, Hezbollah, and
the Iranian mullahs make Israel look like the good guys. Finally,
there’s Obama himself. He’s not Clinton. Does he really care? Do most
Israelis trust him? Could he get away with a campaign that makes clear
Bibi isn’t the right guy and candidate, but X is? I am betting on “no”
to all three questions. Don’t even think about it, Mr. President.
The last constraint is the most important one. Many Israelis saw Bush I as neutral at best and hostile at worst. But that didn't compare with what Israelis think of Obama. While we may differ on why, most Israelis agree that Obama is viscerally hostile to Israel. There is little that can be done to convince us otherwise (and with good reason).
If Obama tries to interfere (and with his arrogance I would say that there's a fair chance of that happening). it would likely backfire. That's what Miller is trying to prevent.
Keep writing Aaron. But don't expect Obama to listen.
Aaron David Miller: 'We always tried to influence the Israeli elections, but we never succeeded; Obama shouldn't even try'
Aaron David Miller, who was Dennis Ross' top assistant, has told YNet that the United States 'always' tried to interfere in Israeli elections, but never succeeded (Hat Tip: Red Tulips) (link in Hebrew).
According to Miller, the US gathered a lot of information about Prime Minister Netanyahu - including his activities while a student in the United States - but no one would listen.
Miller admits that the George HW Bush administration influenced the outcome of the 1992 election to bring Yitzchak Rabin to power over Yitzchak Shamir, but he claims that's because the US set up the environment for that election through the Bush-Baker controversies with Shamir. He admits that the Clinton administration also tried - unsuccessfully - to ensure Shimon Peres' election as Prime Minister in 1996. But Peres lost to Netanyahu.
Miller says that the Clinton administration gathered information on Netanyahu and leaked it to the Israeli media. The information included Netanyahu's activities as a student in Boston and Philadelphia, his name change to Nitai, his forfeiting of his American passport, and the failure of Netanyahu's first marriage. Miller claims that it caused a scandal but had no influence.
Miller advises President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry not to even try to influence March's elections. Clinton was a President who was beloved in Israel, says Miller, while Obama is extremely unpopular (you don't say...) and any attempt to influence the March elections would backfire.
Obama and Kerry are declining to comment on the upcoming elections, although Kerry has said that he hopes that a new government will be able to conduct a 'peace process.'
Funny how he doesn't mention the Americans' greatest success - the 1999 replacement of Netanyahu with Ehud Barak courtesy of Clinton.
'I gave the order to turn Pollard away from the embassy' and Rabin and Peres knew
In an interview to be broadcast on Monday night on Israel's Channel 2, Rafi Eitan, who was Jonathan Pollard's 'handler' within the Israeli government admits that he gave the order to turn Jonathan Pollard and his then-wife Anne away from the Israeli embassy in Washington on November 21, 1985. Eitan also says that Yitzchak Rabin and Shimon Peres knew all about Pollard.
You received a phone call in real time that Pollard and his wife are here at the gate, what to do?
Rafi Eitan: Yes. I got the news that he was standing at the embassy.
What do you say to yourself?
I immediately say, 'Throw him out'. I have no regrets.
When I'm in a battle, and it’s life or death, I have to decide yes or
no. I decide according to what is required at that moment. I make a
decision based on the interests of the State of Israel, you cannot let
any other thought interfere with the decision the moment you make it,
had I not done it the situation would have been much worse.
In the interview, Eitan says that he knew about Pollard’s
impending arrest three days before the arrest. That very night he goes,
according to his testimony, to Prime Minister Shimon Peres and Defense
Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and tells them that the arrest is about to
happen. He says the prime minister and defense minister were aware even
before this incident that Israel operates agents in the United States
military.
You know that part of their action plan would be to also sacrifice you?
I suggest ahead of time that they sacrifice me, I say at the outset, I
take all the responsibility, I gave the order, only I gave the order,
no one authorized me to do so. Just me. No one gave me an order, I
initiated it all alone. I am responsible, I tell them in advance.
But there was an incident here, it still exists, is affects the relations between Israel and the United States.
True, but nobody asked who is responsible. Everyone knew who was in charge, who initiated, who did what - only I am responsible.
Now you can tell us, Rabin is no longer with us, Shimon
Peres, he has already finished his last public position, do the prime
minister and defense minister know that Israel has American agents
inside the U.S. Army?
I do not want to answer that, because as soon as I answer this, there will be headlines in the newspapers.
From your answer I can understand.
You can understand.
They knew?
Obviously...I never lied to my government.
I don't just think he's wrong morally - I think he's wrong politically. If Israel had 'owned' Pollard when it happened, we wouldn't still have this scandal 29 years later, and Pollard wouldn't still be rotting away in jail.
Yes, that's the entry hallway to the synagogue, right outside the study hall where last Tuesday's terror attack took place. But Peres apparently made his statement while visiting the mourners.
"My grandfather, Tzvi Meltzer, was murdered in a synagogue by Nazis as
he was wrapped in a prayer shawl just for being a Jew," related Peres.
"Today too, our people are united under faith against all murder and
terror. The memory of your loved ones will be blessed."
Peres was accompanied by Rabbi David Yosef, Sheikh Kablan of the Israeli Druze community, Ali
Saeed of the Bedouin community and Abu Ghosh mayor Salim Jaber.
The report said Peres had relayed a message in closed conversations to Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid that he should quit together with Hatnua leader Tzipi Livni. If both parties would leave Netanyahu's government, it could stay together if haredi (ultra-Orthodox) parties would join, but elections would be the most likely scenario.
"The Netanyahu government has reached the end of its path," Peres was quoted as saying. "It did not meet my expectations and did not advance the diplomatic process." Sources close to Peres, Lapid, and Livni did not confirm the report.
As a former president, Peres is now more free to criticize Netanyahu than when he was president, a post seen as statesmanlike and apolitical.
Peres has never been statesmanlike and apolitical. I don't think he knows what those words mean.
Pigs fly: Shimon Peres (SHIMON PERES!) tells the Beeb he has 'problems' explaining support for Gaza expulsion
Shimon Peres has told the BBC that he has 'problems' explaining why he supported the Gaza expulsion (although the media STILL insists on calling it a 'pullout') nine years later.
While later taking a more supportive tack, in 2006, Peres publicly
upbraided residents of Sderot, who live about three kilometers from Gaza
- as “crybabies,” for complaining about 14 years of incessant
Palestinian terrorist rocket attacks on their town.
“I don’t understand what the hysteria is about. Kiryat Shmona was
shelled for years,” Peres said, referring to Israel’s northernmost town,
on the Lebanon border, Ynet News reported at the time.
“This hysteria over the Qassams must end,” he told journalists at the
Knesset, according to the report. “We’re just adding to the hysteria.
What happened? Kiryat Shmona was shelled for years. What, there weren’t
missiles?”
Yes, Kiryat Shmona was (and still occasionally is) shelled. But not with the consistency or the length of time that Sderot is shelled. I never heard that Kiryat Shmona residents had only 15 seconds to make it into shelters.
One day, God Willing, those who brought the Gaza debacle on us will pay a political price. One quarter of the Jews expelled from Gaza still don't have a place to live nine years later. And whatever money they received to 'compensate' them for losing their homes and businesses is long since gone. Most of them are broke. And a lot of the money went in the early years when they were forced to live in hotels - and to pay for them. .
The entity that was set up to 'resettle' them spent a huge amount of its budget on public relations to garner support for the expulsion. Government corruption at its worst. Simply disgraceful.
I am sitting in a pizza shop in Skokie, Illinois (which is about to close) because it's the first place since Thursday night I have managed to get internet access on my laptop. If you think you know where I am, you can come say hello.
In his last month as President of Israel, Slimy Shimon Peres says that Barack Hussein Obama can be 'trusted' on Iran (Hat Tip: Sunlight).
In an interview with Channel 10 ahead of his
departure from the President’s office next month, Peres rejected the
notion that Obama was a “weak president” and lauded Obama’s efforts to
strengthen US-Israeli ties. He said no other American president had been
as receptive to Israel’s security concerns, nor taken as many steps to
defend Israel in the international arena.
“What has he not done for Israel that was requested of him to do?” Peres asked of Obama.
“He vetoed UN resolutions [against Israel over
settlements], did things that I do not know if anyone else would do,”
said the outgoing president, whose seven-year term ends July 26.
Peres went on to deflect criticism regarding
Obama’s alleged hostile attitude toward Israeli officials, specifically
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and said relations between the two
countries have never been better.
“All of [Israel's] defense officials agree
that, when it comes to security, there has never been such a committed
relationship between Israel and the United States,” he said.
“Obama has not once said a word of condemnation to us… I look at the results, [Obama] says things that make sense,” he added.
Peres stressed that the US president had been
consistent in his stance towards Israel and the Jewish people, despite
not having been involved in such issues in the past. When asked whether
Obama can be trusted to dismantle Iran’s nuclear weapons program, Peres
responded with a short but definitive “yes.” Netanyahu, by contrast, has
openly challenged Obama’s declared readiness to sanction a deal with
Iran that could leave it with an ongoing, albeit heavily inspected
Iranian-enrichment program.
No one in Israel listens to Shimon Peres. Hopefully, no one in America will either. What has he not done for Israel that he's been asked to do? I cannot begin to count (and don't have the time to)..... But see the next post for one example.
As of July, we will finally have a President who is more pro-Israel than pro-'Palestinian.' Former Knesset speaker Reuven 'Ruby' Rivlin has been elected Israel's tenth President by the Knesset. He will serve a 7-year term.
Rivlin, who won out in a field of five presidential candidates, will
replace President Shimon Peres in the position when the 90-year-old
steps down on July 27 when his seven year term comes to a close.
Sheetrit and Rivlin went to a second round runoff round after none of
the candidates managed to get a majority 61 votes in the first round of
voting on Tuesday.
Rivlin lead the first round with 44 votes,
followed by Sheetrit with 31 votes, former MK Dalia Itzik with 28 votes,
former Supreme Court justice Dalia Dorner with 13 votes and Nobel
Laureate Dan Shechtman with only one vote.
Rivlin teared up during
a speech to the Likud faction on Monday afternoon, saying "I was born
in the [Likud forebear] Herut Party and I never left it for any
temptation. Tomorrow may be my greatest hour, but it may be an important
time for the whole party, in which one of its sons will become
president of our country."
At the beginning of the faction
meeting, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu did not mention the
presidential race of his own volition, simply answering positively when
asked by reporters if he wants to wish Rivlin good luck. Then, the two
awkwardly shook hands.
When photographers asked if Netanyahu wants to express his support for the cameras, he said "I already did."
Rivlin is opposed to the creation of a 'Palestinian state.'
Here's hoping he brings back the President's Conference, which unfortunately is not happening this year.
If only Netanyahu had the backbone to say "Peres is a delusional moron who doesn't speak for me or for the people of Israel. Peres could not be elected dog catcher, let alone head of his coop board in this country."
But Netanyahu has all the backbone of a pretzel soaked in warm water overnight.
With the announcement that Prime Minister Netanyahu has now endorsed Likud MK Ruby Rivlin for President (yes, that's yours truly with Rivlin when he was Knesset speaker in 2004 - thanks David C), Israel may have a very different President than Shimon Peres come June 10.
On the day that President Shimon Peres hosted Pope Francis, the
frontrunner to succeed Peres made clear he does not share their vision
of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
But in an interview with The Times of Israel,
the Likud’s Reuven Rivlin also promised that, if elected president, he
would not seek to intervene in the decisions of Israel’s elected
politicians on peacemaking or anything else.
Israelis and Palestinians are “destined to
live together,” Rivlin told The Times of Israel Monday. But “I’m a
utopianist,” he said. “I have a vision that suddenly all the Jewish
people [from around the world] will come to live here… And if there were
10 million Jews here, we wouldn’t have to give up on anything.”
Rivlin was speaking to The Times of Israel in a
short telephone interview timed to coincide with Wednesday’s Jerusalem
Day, which he lamented was no longer a “consensus” day of festivities
but, rather, had come to be celebrated “only by kipa-wearing [Orthodox]
Israelis.”
He was reluctant to discuss the June 10
Knesset vote in which he hopes his 119 colleagues will elect him as
Israel’s 10th president. “I think I have the support of most of them,”
he said, and he stressed that, if elected to succeed Peres, his fellow
MKs know that “I won’t intervene in Knesset decisions. [The MKs] will
decide Israel’s borders, and its [policies on] peace. The president is a
bridge to enable debate, to reduce tensions, to alleviate frictions.”
The presidency is a largely ceremonial
position, but some presidents — certainly including Peres — have made no
secret of their political and diplomatic preferences while in office.
“It’s not for the president to determine the arrangements between Israel
and the Palestinians, and the Arab world,” Rivlin elaborated, “but to
be the bridge between opinions, and to facilitate dialogue and
understanding.”
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
