Obama object of derision in Israel

Powerline Obama has become an object of derision in Israel across a broad swath of the political spectrum. Consider a recent op-ed in Ha’aretz, a left of center publication, by Ari Shavit, a respected member of the paper’s editorial board. As reported by the Jerusalem Post, Shavit wrote:

[T]he man sitting in the Oval Office is ignoring the possibility that his inaction will make the Middle East go nuclear and undermine the world order. He doesn’t care that he might be responsible for losing the United States’ superpower status and turning the 21st century into a century of nuclear chaos.

The dispassionate man from Chicago is proving every day what rare stuff he’s made of. The president sees how the Iranians mock him – and does nothing. He sees radical Islam approaching the nuclear brink – and does not budge. With amazing courage Barack Obama watches the tsunami rolling toward America’s shores – and smiles. . . .

He is staging a deceptive show of a deal with the Iranians, which will seem to dull the . . . threat. He is trying to make a fool of Jerusalem as Tehran is making a fool of him. The president is pushing Israel into a corner, but is hoping that Israel will accept its fate submissively. He is counting on Benjamin Netanyahu not to surprise him and ruin his election season. Never has the United States had such a gambler for a president. . . .

The international community and international public opinion are preoccupied with King Netanyahu these days – will he or won’t he attack? But instead of focusing on a statesman who isn’t supposed to save the world from Iran’s nuclear program, it would be better to focus on the leader whose historic role is just that. In the past 40 months Barack Obama has been betraying his office. Will he wake up in the next four months, come to his senses and change his ways?

Will Israel attack Iran in the coming months? I don’t know and won’t hazard a guess. The smart move might be to wait until November in the hope that Romney will defeat Obama. After that, Israel may not have to act alone.

But I doubt that Israel would even be contemplating an attack if it considered the U.S., under Obama, a reliable ally.

Is Israel supposed to absorb all African refugees?

 Commentary: ...the idea that tiny Israel should be considered the solution for African poverty is absurd. There are currently approximately 70,000 illegal African immigrants in Israel, roughly one for every 100 Israelis—Jew and Arab alike. In such a small country, that’s a large burden for Israelis to carry. If Americans are upset about undocumented immigrants in this country, the uproar in Israel isn’t hard to understand. Moreover, unlike the bulk of illegal immigration into the United States, the Africans are not merely a function of an economic cycle in which Mexicans and other Central Americans cross the border to fill low-paying jobs such as farm work. The Africans are refugees from war and famine in East African nations like Sudan and Eritrea, who not unnaturally see democratic and prosperous Israel as a haven from suffering that they cannot find anywhere else in the region. It’s also true that unlike the nations they pass through on their way to Israel, the Jewish state has treated newcomers with compassion.

Those who are quick to accuse Israel of racism should remember that it went to great trouble and expense to facilitate the mass immigration of tens of thousands of black Jews from Ethiopia in the past generation. Though the absorption of these immigrants has been a bumpy road for many, the nation took great pride in their coming and has done its often-inadequate best to care for them.

The Jewish tradition of caring for the homeless and the stranger has created a largedegree of sympathy for the African migrants in Israel. But while it was possible for the country to take in the initial small numbers who found their way there, including those seeking political asylum, now that the rate is up to 1,000 new illegals a month, the situation has gotten out of hand. Israel simply hasn’t the ability to care for or employ that many people who have no ties to the place.

Moreover, no matter how immigrant-friendly Israel may be, any nation has the right and the duty to police its borders. As is the case with America’s southern border, there are no easy or simple solutions–people who want to come will find a way to get in. But no nation can be expected to just simply accept such a situation, especially when it brings with it a rise in crime and other social pathologies. Though nothing justifies some of the unfortunate statements made yesterday in Tel Aviv, Israel has a right to ask those who arrive without permission to leave and to ensure that those illegals who keep coming are kept out.

How J Street betrays Israel

The Anti-Israel Lobby

‘Pro-Israel, Pro-Peace’ J Street backs congressmen who do not support Israel

BY: Adam Kredo - May 23, 2012 5:00 am

The self-described “pro-Israel, pro-peace” liberal advocacy group J Street is soliciting funds for congressional candidates who are openly hostile to Israel while simultaneously targeting for defeat explicitly pro-Israel lawmakers who do not agree with its radical Middle East agenda, according to aWashington Free Beacon analysis of J Street’s election year strategy.

Among the more than 50 candidates endorsed by J Street is a sizable delegation of lawmakers who have expressed hostility towards the Jewish state.

At least six of J Street’s candidates have failed to affirm the U.S.-Israel alliance on the House floor, rejected Israel’s right to defend itself from terrorists, and backed a congressional missive demanding that Israel end its siege of the Gaza Strip. All of these positions place the candidates outside the mainstream pro-Israel community.

J Street’s attraction to such fringe candidates—as well as its public efforts to remove Israel’s allies from Congress—has led insiders to question its commitment to both the Jewish state and the core tenets of pro-Israel activism.

“They’re showing their true colors,” said Morris Amitay, a former executive director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee who currently runs his own political action committee. “You can forget about what they’re saying, but look at who they’re supporting—it’s people most observers would consider to not be friendly to Israel.”

“They sort of help the bad guys on this issue,” Amitay added.

Enemy number one on J Street’s political hit list is Rep. Joe Walsh (R., Ill.), a first-term legislator who been among Israel’s chief defenders during his two-year tenure in the House.

Walsh attracted J Street’s ire earlier this month when he referred to the two-state solution as a sham and advocated for “one contiguous Israeli state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.”

His call led J Street to issue a red alert to its supporters calling for Walsh’s ouster from Congress this November.

“The policies endorsed by Representative Walsh are not pro-Israel and are not endorsed by the Israeli mainstream,” the group wrote in a press release. “It is time for the American Jewish community to call him out and make clear that he does not speak for us or for Israel’s democratic, Jewish future.”

Walsh bristled at J Street’s attacks in a recent interview with the Free Beacon.

“For a group like J Street who only claims to be pro-Israel to go after me for being pro-Israel makes no sense,” Walsh said. “They hide under the cover of ‘pro-peace, pro-Israel,’ but they’re pro-Palestinian.”

Walsh went on to deem the group politically irrelevant.

“No one from the middle to the right takes them seriously,” he said. “They’re almost a joke. They’re extremely toxic and so loudly in your face to anyone who takes even a little bit of a pro-Israel stance.”

In a video that has since been scrubbed from the Internet, J Street’s vice president for campaigns admitted that the group has a small political constituency and explained that its ultimate goal is to “move Jews” farther to the left in order to place them more in line with J Street’s own views.

In addition to Walsh, J Street has targeted New Hampshire Reps. Charlie Bass (R) and Frank Guinta (R), who both possess stellar pro-Israel credentials.

Bass, for instance, co-sponsored the United States-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act of 2012, a bill passed by the House earlier this monthdespite the objectionsof several lawmakers affiliated with J Street.

His challenger, Ann McLane Kuster, who J Street has termed “a progressive hero,” has virtually no public record regarding Israel and is touted by J Street not as a pro-Israel stalwart, but as a “community activist, author, public policy advocate, and attorney.”

“They’re obviously just endorsing the candidate most likely to defeat Bass,” who has staunchly backed Iran sanctions and supported Israel’s right to defend itself from terrorism, said one pro-Israel insider familiar with the race.

Guinta, too, has taken a strong stance against Iran’s pursuit of nuclear arms and has vocally expressed support for the Jewish state.

Additionally, J Street is working to defeat Rep. Judy Biggert (R., Ill.), co-sponsor of the America Stands with Israel Act and a regular defender of the U.S.-Israel alliance.

“It is ironic that J Street turns out to want American Jews to be one issue voters,” said Elliott Abrams, a senior official in the George W. Bush administration who tracks opinion in the Jewish community. “J Street supports candidates critical of Israel and opposes candidates who are very pro-Israel. Doesn’t much matter where they stand on anything else.”

“Maybe,” Abrams added, “we should salute J Street’s bipartisanship: They barely care what party you’re in as long as you think undermining the Government of Israel is a good idea.”

As it works to defeat these expressly pro-Israel lawmakers, J Street is raising money for members and candidates who have run counter to the mainstream pro-Israel community’s agenda.

“J Street is much more concerned with pushing their far left agenda on Israel policy than supporting candidates who by all measure actually are pro-Israel,” said one pro-Israel political operative who is familiar with the group’s strategy.

Some of those endorsed by J Street hold positions at odds with J Street’s own principles, which stipulate that, among other things, a candidate must demonstrate “support for the special relationship between the United States and Israel.”

Endorsed Rep. Lois Capps (D., Calif), for instance, refused to sign a 2009 resolution that both affirmed Israel’s right to defend itself and also condemned the Goldstone Report, a highly flawed United Nations report that wrongly accused Israel of committing war crimes—a claim that report’s author, Richard Goldstone, later retracted as false.

Capps then declined to join 327 of her colleagues later that year in expressing support for a bi-partisan letter “reaffirming the U.S.-Israel alliance.”

In 2010, Capps become one of the “Gaza 54” when she signed onto a J Street-orchestrated letter that asked President Obama to pressure the Israeli government to ease up on its so-called siege of the Gaza Strip.

Later in 2010, Capps again bucked the majority of Congress when she refused to back a letter reaffirming Israel’s right to defend itself in the wake of the “Gaza Freedom Flotilla” incident, in which Israeli soldiers were attacked and beaten by a delegation of pro-Palestinian terrorists.

J Street has also thrown its support behind Capps’ Californian colleague, Rep. George Miller (D), a fellow “Gaza 54” signer who would not support a congressional missive voicing “solidarity” with Israel. Miller also would not vote in favor of a letter that reaffirmed U.S. support for Israel and recognized Israel’s right to defend itself against Palestinian attacks.

Another J Street endorsee who appears to run counter to the group’s own mission is Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D., Wis.), a “Gaza 54” backer who voted against a 2009 Iran sanctions bill and condemned Israel defending against armed militants aboard the “Freedom Flotilla.”

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio) has also been endorsed by J Street; he declined to join a bipartisan cadre of 76 senators who expressed the commitmentof the U.S. government’s alliance with the Israeli government regardless of disagreements over the peace process.

J Street has also endorsed Reps. David Price (D., N.C.) and Peter Welch (D., Vt.), both of whom endorsed the “Gaza 54” letter and spearheaded a letter asking President Obama to continue sending U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority despite its attempts to establish statehood at the United Nations.

“It’s clear from the candidates J Street chooses to support they are not interested in standing shoulder to shoulder with Israel and value those who seek to drive a wedge between the Israeli government and the American government,” said the pro-Israel political operative.

Noah Pollak, executive director of the Emergency Committee for Israel, said J Street’s election year tactics fit in with its ongoing campaign to undermine the Israeli government.

“I’m surprised J Street didn’t think of doing this sooner because it fits so nicely with the group’s broader program of attacking Israel and her supporters, and promoting her detractors,” Pollak said. “Members of Congress who are singled out by J Street should wear it as a badge of honor.”

 

USA learned Homeland Security from Israel

In her 25th visit to the holy land, Dr. Condoleezza Rice, who served as Secretary of State and National Security Advisor to President George W. Bush, discussed the events surrounding 9/11 and how the war on terrorism brought Israel and the United States closer then ever, the Times of Israel reports.

Speaking at a homeland security conference in Tel Aviv, sponsored by Motorola, Rice noted that although the two nations were always allies, al Qaeda provided the two countries, “with a common cause in the fight against people who would seek political gain by attacking civilians, parents and children.”

Rice discussed the tense and chaotic aftermath of the attacks, and the realization that American security would be changed forever. So, she said, the administration made the decision to turn to their long-time ally in the Middle Eastern. “We realized that Israel, our good friend, was very advanced in this area. Security has been a concern of Israel’s since the day it was born.”

Rice went on to praise the technical advances made by the Jewish state that have become a critical part of the American fight against radical Islamists.

Haredim and service

Legislation to replace the “Tal Law” will be passed by the end of July, said Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu at the first cabinet meeting of the newly enlarged coalition, held Sunday morning.

The new law, he said, will divide the burden of military service in a more equal, egalitarian and just basis for all Israelis, Jews and Arab alike, without pitting different communities against each other.

Netanyahu said that an inter-party working group will be formed this week to present alternatives to the Tal Law.

Passed in 2002 as a temporary, five-year law, and renewed in 2007, the High Court of Justice ruled in February of this year that the law allowing haredi men studying full-time in yeshiva to indefinitely postpone their military service contravenes Israel’s Basic Laws. It will expire on August 1.

Netanyahu originally announced back in January that the Tal Law would be extended for another five-year term, but widespread public opposition forced an about-face on the issue.

The prime minister also said that a similar working group would be established in the coming days to lead to a change in the electoral system, another of the commitments made by Netanyahu and Kadima chairman Shaul Mofaz in their agreement last week to form a national unity government.

He also mentioned the other coalition goals of passing a new budget and advancing the peace process with the Palestinians.

To that end, Netanyahu added, special envoy to the Palestinian Authority Yitzhak Molho met with PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

“I hope we will be able to advance the dialogue between the two sides in order to resume the diplomatic talks,” the prime minister said.

Despite Netanyahu’s warm words of welcome to Mofaz and Kadima, several MKs from both parties have continued to express their concerns with the new arrangement.

Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya’alon (Likud) said on Saturday evening, “We certainly need to examine the negative consequences of recent political events. Events like this do not encourage people to be involved in politics and even to not come and vote.”

And senior Kadima MK and former Knesset speaker Dalia Itzik said on Channel 2’s Meet the Press program that Kadima’s move to join the government “was a step that looks bad.”

But she added, “The stench will be less important if the results are good... then we will have done good for the State of Israel.

I want to give this opportunity to this move which has started in a negative fashion but could end up finishing well.”

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Time gets it wrong on Israel again

Mitt Romney’s Up-Side Posted: 17 May 2012 02:52 PM PDT (John Hinderaker) Democrats have made much of President Obama’s supposed advantage over Mitt Romney in “likability,” as measured in various polls. My view has been that this edge is almost entirely illusory, because 1) telling a pollster that you like Obama personally is mostly a consolation prize after having expressed disapproval of his policies, and 2) most voters who don’t obsessively follow the Republican primary process have only a vague idea of Romney, but as they see more of him, they will find him plenty likable enough. This Gallup Poll isn’t precisely on point because it measures overall “approval” as opposed to “likability,” but it illustrates the same phenomenon. Note that Gallup has been testing Romney’s approval rating since late 2006. It has shot up since he clinched the GOP presidential nomination: Gallup says: Fifty percent of Americans now have a favorable opinion of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, up from 39% in February and his highest by 10 percentage points. His current 41% unfavorable rating, though, leaves him with a net score of +9, after being at -8 in February. Why the sudden jump? Presidential candidates typically get a spike in their favorable ratings in the wake of winning the nomination. … Republicans and independents are fueling the rise in Romney’s favorable rating, with Democrats’ views of him unchanged. Eighty-seven percent of Republicans now view him favorably, up from 65% in February. His favorable rating among independents is 11 points higher, and independents now view Romney more positively (48%) than negatively (43%). So Republicans who may have favored another candidate didn’t want to be fulsome in expressing their feelings about Romney to pollsters, but now that he is the nominee they are coming around. As for independents, Romney probably benefits both from being the nominee and from the fact that they are now starting to get a look at him. (It is easy to lose sight of the fact that an overwhelming majority of Americans do not spend their evenings watching presidential primary debates.) Romney is ahead of Obama in net approval in this poll, +9 to +6. Here is where I think Romney has a lot of up-side: there are still a lot of independents who have seen little of him. Many of them won’t really tune in until the fall. When they do form an impression of Romney, I think it is highly likely to be positive, as Romney comes across as reasonable, competent and likable. So I will be surprised if this comparison does not continue trending in his favor from now until the election.

No moment of silence to honor victims of Munich Olympics Massacre Posted: 17 May 2012 02:14 PM PDT (Paul Mirengoff) This year marks the 40th anniversary of the massacre at the 1972 Olympic Games of 11 Israel athletes and coaches by Palestinian terrorists. As a reminder of this atrocity, the Israeli Olympic Committee asked that there be a moment of silence to honor the victims at the commencement of the Games. The International Olympic Committee has refused to agree. The best IOC President Jacques Rogge could do was to promise to attend the Israeli delegation’s traditional tribute to the victims. Rogge also told the Israels to “rest assured that, within the Olympic family, the memory of the victims of the terrible massacre in Munich in 1972 will never fade away.” This may or may not be true. But the important thing is that the massacre never fade from public memory. A public moment of silence promotes this goal; Rogge’s attendance at a private ceremony does not. One suspects that that the International Olympic Committee would be pleased enough if the massacre at its Games were forgotten by the public. In any event, a moment of silence does not seem like too much to ask. As Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said: “This rejection told us as Israelis that this tragedy is yours alone and not a tragedy within the family of nations.” Just so. One wonders, though, the extent to which the moment of silence would have been observed by those in attendance.

King Bibi? Posted: 17 May 2012 11:24 AM PDT (John Hinderaker) Benjamin Netanyahu is on the cover of this week’s Time magazine. The accompanying article, by the magazine’s managing editor Richard Stengel, is titled “King Bibi.” On the cover next to Netanyahu’s photo are the words: “King Bibi. He’s conquered Israel. But will Netanyahu now make peace–or war?” The theme of the article is that Netanyahu has consolidated his power in Israel, giving him a golden opportunity to surrender to the Palestinians and leave Iran alone. Conditions in the Middle East are constantly changing, but our journalists’ prescription for the area is fossilized and never changes: if only Israel would give a little more, peace would descend. Here is this week’s cover. The manner in which Netanyahu is depicted suggests that Stengel and his colleagues are not entirely confident that he will “make peace.” The article is not yet available online except to subscribers, but the Time staff describes it in a blog on the magazine’s web site: TIME’s cover story this week, written by TIME managing editor Richard Stengel, profiles Israel’s controversial Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. … Netanyahu, as Stengel writes, stands on history’s cusp: “The question is whether he is a prisoner of that history or he can write a new narrative.” He bears with him the memory of his military service—and the even more painful memory of the death of his elder brother Yoni, a celebrated Israeli commando. He also carries with him the legacy and learning of his father, the late Benzion Netanyahu, a noted, uncompromising Zionist academic. Like his father, he sees Jewish history as a succession of holocausts. Like his father, he has an almost mystical belief in the abiding power of anti-Semitism, as though it were more biological than cultural. Sounds like they think he is a “prisoner of…history.” Where on earth could he get the idea that anti-Semitism is persistent? That baggage hardly makes Netanyahu the most likely figure, then, to calmly address the two great geo-political questions confronting his nation: the threat of a nuclear Iran and the perennial challenge of forging a lasting peace with the Palestinians. Bibi has adopted a hawkish pose on the former that flies, sometimes, even in the face of the intelligence analyses of his own officials. Actually, Netanyahu’s position on Iran is the same as President Obama’s: Iran under its present regime must not be permitted to become a nuclear power. The difference is that Netanyahu may mean it. And, under his watch, the peace process has gone moribund — which compelled the Palestinians to break away from talks and take their cause to the floor of the United Nations General Assembly last year. Got that? They were “compelled” to stop negotiating. By Netanyahu’s intransigence, apparently; this was the position that has “compelled” them to refuse to talk to Israel for the last two years: Netanyahu’s proposal to the Palestinians is clear: an immediate renewal of peace talks at the highest level without preconditions “until results are reached and in which all core issues to the conflict are put on the table,” including borders, settlements, refugees, Jerusalem, security arrangements and recognition of Israel’s legitimacy. Time’s blog post finishes by quoting the cover story’s conclusion: He has …a governing coalition that will not leak or collapse if he opens negotiations. He will no longer have to look over his shoulder. He will not have to call elections at the drop of a hat. He has not had that before, and it gives him room to maneuver and room to compromise. “Now he is the emperor … he can do anything,” [Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas] said last week. “If I were him, I would do it now, now, now.” Do what now? “Compromise,” apparently. But Israel has compromised again and again, and it is the Palestinians who refuse even to talk. The choice, writes Stengel, is Bibi’s. What choice? To withdraw from the West Bank as it did from Lebanon and Gaza? How did those gestures of good faith work out for Israel? For some reason, liberals seem to regard Palestinians as automatons. The choice is never theirs; their conduct, including incessant terrorist attacks, is somehow determined–”compelled”–by others. In reality, it is the Palestinians who need to make a choice: the choice to recognize Israel’s right to exist, to abandon their dreams of driving out or killing the Jews, and to establish themselves as a normal country rather than a band of ersatz “refugees.” When the Palestinians make the choice to lay down their arms, there will be peace; not before. And there is nothing “King Bibi” can do to change that reality.

Barak we cannot afford delegating the responsibility for the future security of Israel even into the hands

Observations:

Ehud Barak: An International Agreement with the Iranians that Allows Them to Continue a Military Nuclear Program Is Delusional - Piers Morgan (CNN)

In an interview Wednesday, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said:

• We are now facing - I don't like the use of words like catastrophe that you have mentioned. It's not about catastrophe. It's about a real challenge to the whole world, not just to Israel. I think that a nuclear Iran will change the whole landscape of the Middle East. We have to do something to block it from happening, be it these sanctions or the negotiations or something else.
• The real challenge now is these negotiations. And what should be done about the negotiations? We strongly believe and we rely upon the United States and the other members of the P5+1 and expect them to set the bar at the place where it becomes clear that at least once agreed and however long it takes to reach there, it will block Iran from turning militarily nuclear, which means that there is a need to stop enriching uranium to 20% or even to 3.5%, to take all the enriched uranium out of the country....And basically, there is a need to destroy the installation near Qom. So if all these elements are set - and the IAEA has the tightest protocols...that's it.
• But if the world community will set the threshold in a way that even if fully accepted...by the Iranians...it still allows them to keep moving toward a military nuclear program, that's ridiculous; it's delusional.
• We say, and the leaders of the world are saying, including the American president, no option should be removed from the table. And we basically mean it....But at the same time, we cannot afford delegating the responsibility for the future security of Israel even into the hands of our best and most trusted and trustworthy allies.