The Rift Between Obama And Israel Widens

Two examples of how President Obama's non-actions on Iran are destroying the relationships between America and not just Israel but our other long term allies in the region.

 Mark Regev, a spokeman for Israeli Prime minister Netanyahu and the Israeli government makes it quite plain to Jake Tapper how the Israelis feel betrayed by the president..although I can't think for the life of me how they could have expected anything else. As it is,the Iranians have already received significant sanctions relief and a 3 month window to continue their illegal nuclear weapons program in exchange for absolutely nothing.

 Regev reminds us that the U.S. is not a disinterested party here. "The Iranians are building intercontinental ballistic missiles. They're not building them for us. They already have missiles that can hit Israel. They are building them for you."

Regev said that while Israel wants "to see the Iranian nuclear crisis resolved peacefully," the only good way to do that effectively short of military action is "a good agreement that actually effectively dismantles Iran's military nuclear program." Of course, this is anathema to President Barack Obama, who has done everything possible to thwart the Iran sanctions he now takes credit for. Just ask Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) about the president's opposition to the Kirk-Menendez amendment (which passed in the senate 100-0) implementing them :



Here's another signal, sent by none other than Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman,who says flatly that Israel needs to look for other allies other than America because the U.S. is "dealing with too many other challenges:

 "The Americans have a lot of problems and challenges around the world that they need to solve and they have problems at home. We need to understand them and our place in the global arena," Lieberman stated a week after returning to the ministry following his acquittal on corruption charges. During a speech given at the Sderot Conference, Lieberman stressed the importance of not putting too much focus on America as Israel's main ally. "For many years Israel's foreign policy was one directional towards Washington, but my policy has many more directions."

Barack Hussein Obama was quite plain when he came into office that his goal was to "create daylight" between America and Israel, and he's succeeded, to the detriment of both countries. Eventually, as I've written before on these pages, he intends to destroy the relationship completely if he can. His long history of having close relations with a whole slew of anti-Semites and 'anti-Zionists' like Al Sharpton, Khalid al-Mansour, Edward Said, Rashid Khalidi, Jeremiah Wright and Louis Farrakhan means it's practically in his DNA.

Of course, on our side of the pond, the White House has already given talking points to its anti-Israel apologists and flacks, as my friend Snoopy at Simply Jews reports.
 
In any event, the Israelis cannot allow an Iran with nuclear weapons. It is an existential threat to them, and I have no doubts they're going to do something about that .

Not Unexpected: Obama Refuses To Send Envoy To Margaret Thatcher's Funeral

 

Apparently Baroness Thatcher, one of America’s staunchest Cold War allies rates a great deal lower on President Obama's priorities than a fascist thug like Hugo Chavez, who received an official U.S. envoy.

The White House informed the British government that it would not be sending an envoy to here funeral, citing 'a busy week'. That decision was made before the Boston Bombing, by the way:

Friends and allies of Baroness Thatcher expressed ‘surprise and disappointment’ last night as it emerged President Obama is not planning to send any serving member of his administration to her funeral.

Whitehall sources have revealed that the US delegation at tomorrow’s service in St Paul’s Cathedral will be led by two Reagan era secretaries of state: James Baker and George Shultz.

Though President Obama himself had not been expected to attend, there had been speculation that he would be represented either by Vice President Joe Biden or wife Michelle. However, the Obama administration had said it would not be attending Thatcher’s funeral before the Boston bombings.

The Queen’s decision to attend Lady Thatcher’s funeral has effectively elevated it to a state occasion unprecedented for a political figure in Britain since the death of Sir Winston Churchill in 1965.

Other world leaders, including Canada’s Stephen Harper, Mario Monti of Italy and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, are attending the service in person.

What is the White House so busy with? A spokesman from our UK embassy clarified the matter, saying that both the First Lady and the Vice President were 'the President's point people on gun control', adding: 'This is a week when there is a lot of movement on Capitol Hill on gun control issues.'

Joe Biden is riding shotgun? Heaven help us.

One correction. The phrase 'U.S. delegation ' implies some kind of official status. Baker and Shultz were going to attend as private citizens. So are former Vice President Dick Cheney and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. And House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) announced that the House will send a delegation to London this week to represent the U.S. House of Representatives at the funeral, led by Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN).

We all know by now that out president is not exactly a class act,and that this is a calculated and deliberate insult, and while the Brits are phrasing their 'disappointment' in diplomatic language, they understand.

After all, President Barack Obama has already let it be known on a number of occasions that he has little regard for any special relationship between America and Britain.

But that brings something to mind.

When Mitt Romney traveled to the UK as a presidential candidate, he received a rude, foul and totally unjustified reception from the British,being criticized and insulted for things he never even said.The Obama media here made a huge deal out of it, and I recall the Obama worship in the British press.

But had Romney gotten elected, I guarantee you he would have come to Britain to pay his respects to America's great ally in spite of that.

That might just be something for our cousins across the Pond to consider.

Israel's Muslim Ally - Azerbaijan

Ever since the State of Israel was created, they've always faced the reality of being surrounded by a ring hostile Arab neighbors. But what the Israelis also noticed that outside this ring were a number of non-Arab countries in the region that had similar problems with their Arab neighbors and were excellent candidates for strategic alliances and commercial trade.

This was known in Israel as the Strategy of the Periphery.

It's why Israel had strong relationships with Iran and Turkey until the Islamist takeovers of those countries, why Israel was an ally of the Maronite Christians in Lebanon, why Israel helped arm and train the Kurdish Persh Merga to defend themselves against Saddam Husein's genocide, why Israel was one of the first countries to recognize South Sudan and why Israel still has a numbers of friends in East Africa.

The latest example of how this works is Israel's strategic alliance with Azerbaijan, a former part of the Soviet Empire located on Iran's northern border near the Caspian Sea. It is a predominantly Muslim country comprised of Azeris, who are a non-Arab, predominantly Shi'ite Muslim people.

The relationship between Azerbaijan and Israel goes back to the earliest days of Azerbaijan's independence with the fall of the Soviet Union's empire in 1991. The country had a large population of Jewish Azeris possibly dating back to the days of the Jewish Khazar kingdom. The majority of Azerbaijan's Jews emigrated to Israel during the chaos in the early days of independence, but once the dust settled Israel made some initial overtures and the two countries quickly established ties.

For the Azeris, the main advantages were access to Israeli aid and technology, especially in defense and agriculture and a counterbalance against neighboring Iran, which also has a large population of Azeris living just over the border. Early last year, there was a massive $1.6 billion weapons deal announced between between Azerbaijan and Israel, considered one of the largest sales in Israel’s history.The Azeris also were able to capitalize on their friendship with Israel to increase their influence in Washington, especially when it came to an ongoing dispute with neighboring Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave.

For the Israelis, aside from another market, the big advantage was oil as well as a friendly listening post next door to Iran. Before the 1979 Iranian revolution, Iran was main source of Israel’s oil. After the Ayatollahs took over, Israel's next major source of oil was Mexico and the Soviet Union.

Now, Azerbaijan supplies around 40% of Israel's oil via a pipeline that runs through Georgia to the Turkish port of Ceyhan:



While Israel's relationship with Turkey is almost non-existent these days thanks to PM Tayipp Erdogan and the AKP regime, money talks, Turkey makes a nice profit on the traffic and the lucrative deal still continues.

With Israel's own gas and oil scheduled to come online this year the oil is of less importance to Israel, but close ties are expected to continue - especially since there are a number of influential Israelis of Azeri origin, Azerbaijan still benefits from Israel's friendship in Washington and Iran is still a hostile factor.

There are a number of rumors circulating that Israel has made a deal with Azerbaijan to use airfields in the country as a staging ground in the event of an attack on Iran. What I've heard that is more likely is that Israel has arrangements with Azerbaijan to land and refuel for the trip home, which would be a major assist in a successful strike on Iran's nuclear facilities.

Azerbaijan is likely to remain a key ally of Israel for some time. In the Middle East, there's no greater reason for friendship than the same enemies and mutual benefit