Why Israel Voted For Life- The Real Story of Israel’s 2019 Elections

The Israeli 2019 elections are over, and in spite of all the nonsense in the garbage press, there’s only one major reason why it turned out as it did. In the end, Israel voted for life, plain and simple.

The results are as follows, but basically they can be understood as the collapse of the Israeli Left and a final verdict on the Left’s worst mistake… Oslo and the fallacy of the so called ‘two state solution.’

Bibi Netanyahu has won a record breaking fifth term as Israel’s prime minister. And the new government he will form will likely be further to the right, more nationalistic and much more stable then the current one with at least 65 seats or more. They may even get more because Israeli law specifies that those parties who fail to make the vote threshold (3.5%) must distribute their votes to another party.

The Blue and White Party, with former Labour General Benny Ganz and his co-chairman former TV Talking head Yair Lapid were supposed to win and oust Netanyahu. A lot of the Israeli press was touting them, since basically, the Blue and White party consisted of politicians who favored Oslo and the two state ‘land for peace’ solution. Ganz has always been noted for his hostility to Israelis who live in Judea and Samaria and Lapid’s sole claim to fame aside from his TV antics was that he was once finance minister as part of the usual Israeli political horse trading. I remember asking one of my Israeli friends in Lapid knew anything about finance.His response? “Well, I think maybe he knows how to use an ATM.’ Actually a pretty accurate answer as it turned out. In the end, they got 34 seats, almost all of them based on votes from Tel Aviv, which is almost akin to New York in terms of its politics. I doubt the Blue and White will be around for the next election. The entire Left coalition got perhaps 50 seats or so, including the Arab parties.

 
Israel’s Leftist Labour Party, which ruled the country for decades is essentially out of the picture. They won all of six seats in the new 120 member Knesset. The EU funded ultra Left Meretz Party had a grand total of four seats.

All the polls of the 2019 Israeli Elections had Blue and White leading Israel’s Left to victory.The press even trumpeted Israel’s attorney general’s last minute ‘indictments’ of Netanyahu for corruption, things that in most other countries would not even be questionable. Like our own president, Netanyahu has a lot of haters on the Left. Among his other sins, it was MIT grad Netanyahu who as finance minister rebuilt Israel’s economy by privatizing a number of things the government shouldn’t have been owning and encouraging entrepreneurship, pushing joint government and private industry projects, and generally turning Israel from a quasi-Socialist state with a struggling economy into the economic powerhouse it is today. The Left has never forgiven him.

So why did he win?

To understand that, you have to review both the past and the recent present.


The mantra of the Israeli Left was always 'land for peace.' The idea with Oslo was that this would work out like the deal with Egypt. There would be peace, and Israel's diplomatic status and image with foreign countries and the UN would be improved. Actually, that deal never really worked that way. Only since Egypt's Al Sissi took over has there been real co-operation between the two governments, based on a mutual distaste for Islamist terrorism.

The Camp David Accord was different because Anwar Sadat really wanted peace. Yasser Arafat was a Soviet trained terrorist who had no intention of it. It was President Bill Clinton who really created Oslo and gifted Arafat with his own kleptocrat fiefdom. Mr.Bill loved Yasser. He had him to the White house more than any other foreign dignitary, even though he knew Yasser Arafat had ordered two US diplomats tortured to death in the Sudan. And after Mr. Bill intervened in the Israeli elections to get Labour's Yitzhak Rabin elected, the time was right. Arafat, huddled away in Tunis with his small group of thugs was given territory to have as an autonomous region (not a sovereign state) in exchange for renouncing terrorism, avoiding incitement to violence and embracing peaceful co-existence.

Needless to say, he did nothing of the kind. The ensuing bloodbath and suicide bombings mounted up as the most appalling atrocities were committed while Rabin and the Labour Party talked about sacrifices for peace. And Israel's seeking peace resulted in even worse foreign relations with the EU and UN, demanding more and more concessions of Israel and only Israel.

The same thing happened after Gaza. The UN, President George W. Bush and his Roadmap and the EU all promised Gaza would strengthen Arafat as a gesture for peace, and that Gaza would never be allowed to become a security problem for Israel. None of those guarantees were worth the paper they were written on either.

Most Israelis realize now that the entire 'Oslo/Land for peace/ Two state solution'  nonsense is and always was a total fallacy. you can't allow a den of rattlesnakes or a pack of rabid dogs to live in your backyard and expect to have peace. It doesn't work that way. And tthat's really what Israel's 2019 elections were about.

Netanyahu announcing that he's going to annex the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and that he is committed to make them part of Israel is a major change. Among other things, it means those communities will be under Israeli law rather than military law. It gives them permanency.
Likewise, Netanyahu finally coming up with the courage to say there will be no 'Palestinian State' is also a major step. There's no reason for one and never has been, especially since Jordan gave these Arabs citizenship back in 1954 and most of these 'Palestinians'   still have it, including Mahmud Abbas. 'Palestine' has received more aid money than any other developing nation in history. What is there to show for it except some fat bank accounts in the EU and the Emirates? Nothing except a terrorist squat with murder for hire as its chief export.

The  Israeli 2019 elections were the  electorate finally saying 'Ani lo friar'*  once and for all. Recent terrorist attacks, including the brutal murder and rape of a nineteen-year- old girl and the murder of a Rabbi with ten children definitely help solidify this sentiment.

Another reason for Netanyahu's win is his diplomatic successes.  His relationships with the UN and some of the nations in the  the EU are a problem , but the relations to the UN and these particular EU Nations with any Israeli leader would be the same. They have their far Left and a lot of Muslim migrants to appease.

But Israel under Netanyahu has fostered very close relationships with Russia's Putin, India's Modi,  Brazil's Bolsanaro, numerous African nations, Australia's Scott Morrison, Egypt's Al Sissi and other Arab nations and of course, our own President Trump, Vice President Pence and the Republicans in congress. Ganz had zero foreign policy experience, and neither did Lapid.

And of course, Israel's economy remains robust.

So how will this affect America? In several ways.

First, it will definitely affect President Trump's deal of the century peace plan if it even gets aired. Since I doubt Netanyahu wouldn't have told President Trump what he had in mind beforehand, and the president has already confirmed that his plan does not require a 'Palestinian' state.That makes president Trump smarter than any President since Reagan, who said exactly the same thing about the necessity of such a thing.

I doubt this doesn't change a few things. But since Mahmoud Abbas has already said no to anything Trump comes up with, it's probably a dead issue.

Second, the recent anti-semitism coming from almost every Democrat running for president in 2020 and those of anti-semitic Democrat members of congress is going to be one more issue to divide things. Thanks mostly to Barack Hussein Obama, this stuff is now out in the open as the Democrat Party follows the trend set by the UK's Labour Party. The only Democrat presidential hopeful to go to AIPAC's convention was Cory Booker, who actually has a Jewish constituency in New Jersey. The rest boycotted it.  I expect this to continue as Israel haters  like Beto O'Rourke, Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg among others fight for the nomination. Buttigieg in  particular is the craftiest of the three, masking his contempt for Israel by attacking Netanyahu and thus claiming that attacking Israel's democratic choice 'isn't anti-semitism'  and pushing for that same old two state nonsense. I wonder if Buttigieg knows hoow gays are treated in 'Palestine?'

Beto actually called Netanyahu a racist.  BTW, anyone who thinks Mayor Buttigieg is the sort of person you want running America should check what he's done to South Bend, Indiana as mayor. The media's hushing this up, but I have a feeling it's going to come out as things heat up.

American Jews are going to become more divided...until they wake up. For many Jews in the past, especially those closest in age to the Holocaust, Israel was a major issue. It isn't anymore for a significant number of today's Jews, for various reasons.

There are a number of things responsible for the change.  As Israel went from a socialist, left leaning country to a more capitalist, nationalist state with a strong military most Israelis not only took pride in but served in it, many Jews who already leaned hard to the Left became estranged.

A large part of this increasing trend was the coverage Israel received from the media here in America. The New York Times and the alphabet networks were especially dishonest and repugnant, as was the BBC in Britain. Aside from demonizing Israel, they also sold the 'Palestinian' cause to these young Jews with the preconceived script of the Arab David versus the Israeli Goliath...carefully avoiding the vicious attacks on 'Goliath.' They also popularized the myth of Israel as 'occupier' and an 'apartheid state' committing 'war crimes.' This was the strategy of the Big Lie on steroids.

On universities where the Left had control (that is, most of them) Jewish students were made to feel uncomfortable by both radical professors and anti-Israel student groups. A great number of Mid East studies Departments were essentially bought by the Saudis for the express purpose of giving an academic luster to the 'anti-zionist ' agenda. This propaganda was especially well received by a number of black and other minority students, adding pressure to Jews to virtue signal by damning Israel and become part of the in crowd.

Finally, the nomination of Barack Hussein Obama served as a test for those 'good Jews' to virtue signal and vote for the first black president, even to the point of ignoring his many anti-semitic and anti-Israel mentors. His establishing J Street with the financial backing of anti-Israel billionaire George Soros gave many of these Jews a banner to march under to pretend they were pro-peace no matter how many of their fellow Jews the 'Palestinians' brutally murdered. These Jews simply made a choice - Obama over Israel. Not even Obama's appeasement of the genocidal Iranian regime made any difference. Many of them have made the same choice today...the resistance and the newly anti-Israel Democrat Party over pro-Israel President Trump. Will they continue to make that ultimately self hating and suicidal error? Time will tell. In the UK, it took awhile before Britain's Jews awoke to what Labour had become  and by then it was pretty much too late.

Interestingly enough, as a number of young American Jews go left, associate themselves with the increasingly anti-Israel Democrat Party  and distance themselves from Israel and religious observance, their contemporaries in Israel are doing exactly the reverse, getting closer to religion and moving right politically.

There's a reason for that.

While these young Israelis were too young to experience the signing of Oslo Accords in 1993 and 1995, these younger Israelis lots of them religiously observant to some degree, grew up with the consequences. They grew up with the so-called Second Intifada, which began in September 2000. they saw their friends and contemporaries murdered by Israel's 'peace partners and saw the government doing little about it. They went to the funerals of their friends murdered by homicide bombers and in many case experienced them firsthand, even though they survived.

Trust me, when you experience something like that and what it looks like, sounds like and smells like, it changes your entire perspective about 'land for peace' and 'the two state solution.' When you see parents sobbing over their dead children, when you see grown men in tears picking up their dead bodies while  you can actually hear the 'Palestinians' celebrating this in the distance all the rhetoric you've been fed by left wing politicians, the media and what's known as the international community is revealed as the horse manure it really is. You never forget. Never.

The Israeli Left is essentially history now.  The most Netanyahu's new government is going to allow is a small enclave in Area A where the majority of Arabs live, a place where they lack statehood but can run their lives domestically. and frankly, I wouldn't even give them that much. A 'Palestinian' enclave would simply be a cancer in an otherwise healthy area. Most of these people are Jordanian citizens, including Mahmoud Abbas. There's no reason they shouldn't return there, where they can mouth their hatred of Jews to their heart's content without hurting anyone but themselves.

Israel has finally gotten out of it's defensive crouch. There won't be any more cringing over the latest nonsense from the UN or questioning over the ownership of the land from the river to the sea, land not only promised to the Jews by the Almighty but by the League of Nations Palestine mandate, its reaffirmation by Article 80 of the UN Charter and the San Remo accords that even the Arabs agreed to. It's time to end this.

Selah.

*'I'm no sucker'







Rob Miller writes for Joshuapundit. His articles have appeared in The Jerusalem Post, The Washington Examiner, American Thinker, The Los Angeles Times, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The San Francisco Chronicle, Real Clear Politics, The Times Of Israel, Breitbart.Com, Yediot and other publications.
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Why Trump's Policies And Israel's New Law Could Lead To Real Peace

 

Amid headlines from the usual suspects about President Trump 'criticizing Israeli settlements' (including the leftist press in Israel) the truth is that Trump's policies and Israel's new law could lead to real peace.

What President Trump actually said was that the creation of new settlements was not helpful when it came to “the process of reaching peace."

With a meeting coming up between the president and Israeli PM Netanyahu, someone he's been on friendly terms with for years, it's obvious that the Donald is laying the groundwork for a serious attempt at a deal. In an interview with Israel Hayom, President Trump had some revealing things to say.

After praising PM Netanyahu, voicing his expectation of an excellent future relationship with Israel and harshly criticizing the Iran deal, the conversation turned to Jerusalem and Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.

Actually President Trump has said nothing negative about building and expanding existing Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. Nor will he. In fact when he was asked whether he was going to condemn Israeli announcements of building in existing Jewish communities like the previous administration, he responded "No, I don't want to condemn Israel. Israel has had a long history of condemnation and difficulty. And I don't want to be condemning Israel. I understand Israel very well, and I respect Israel a lot, and they have been through a lot. I would like to see peace and beyond that. And I think that peace for Israel would be a good thing for the Israeli people, not just a good thing, a great thing." ...

" They [ new settlements] don't help the process. I can say that. There is so much land left. And every time you take land for settlements, there is less land left. But we are looking at that, and we are looking at some other options we'll see. "

That hardly qualifies as 'criticizing settlements.' It's simply a self-evident statement and an attempt at prepping the ground with an appearance of neutrality pending any coming negotiations. And President Trump also had this to say about relocating the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem:

Q: How soon will you decide on the issue of relocating the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem?

"Well, I want Israel to be reasonable with respect to peace. I want to see peace happen. It should happen. After all these years. ... Maybe there is even a chance for a bigger peace than just Israel and the Palestinians. I would like to see a level of reasonableness of both parties, and I think we have a good chance of doing that."

Q: And the embassy?

"I am thinking about the embassy, I am studying the embassy [issue], and we will see what happens. The embassy is not an easy decision. It has obviously been out there for many, many years, and nobody has wanted to make that decision. I'm thinking about it very seriously, and we will see what happens."

Q: You always speak about making good deals. Don't the Palestinians have to make concessions as well?

"Yeah. They do. Absolutely. It has to be good for everybody. No deal is good if it is not good for everybody, and we are in that process, and we will see what happens. People have been in that process for many decades, and it has been going a long for a long time. So many people think it cannot be made. I have very smart people that ... say a deal can't be made. I disagree with them. I think a deal should be made, and it can be made," he concluded.

What President Trump is doing here is straight out of 'The Art Of The Deal.' He is deliberately positioning himself so that the U.S. can appear as a reasonable arbiter. With the Israelis, whom he knows are the far more reasonable party, he's holding out certain carrots; an embassy in Jerusalem, recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's undivided capitol as well as  recognition  of Jewish communities and their right to natural growth in Judea and Samaria. There's also the promise of demanding real life meaningful concessions from the Arabs whom call themselves 'Palestinians' as part of any deal  as opposed to just taking Abbas's word for it. He's even holding out the promise of formal relations between Israel and the other Arab states. While those relationships exist in reality, especially with Saudis Arabia and the Gulf States, they're clandestine. And Trump's disdainful mention of the Iran deal maybe points to something big in the future. Nothing unites like a common enemy.

With the 'Palestinians',  Trump's using the stick.

Some fake news articles from the usual sources have mentioned that  'officials' are reaching out to the Arabs whom call themselves 'Palestinians' ot reassure them nothing's changed.  It's news to their leaders, who are literally going berserk. President Trump not only froze $21 million Obama gifted to 'Palestine' indefinitely, he's also defunding UN bodies who recognize 'Palestine' like UNESCO. And the U.S. just blocked a UN appointment for former 'Palestinian' PM Salem Fayyad. In contrast, Trump selected as U.S. Ambassador to Israel none other than David Friedman, who supports moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem as well as the Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria.

What Trump is doing with the 'Palestinians' is the equivalent of training a puppy. He's letting them know there are consequences for their incitement, violence and intransigence and that if they want to receive certain privileges like anything resembling statehood they had better behave appropriately.

This is something they have never have had to deal with before, and it might actually result in peace if they get the message. The Donald is just setting up the climate for a shot at making a deal, and if Abbas wants anything at all he's going to have to be willing to come to the table with real concessions that mean something or wind up with NOTHING.

Don't be surprised if Abbas ends up with demilitarized autonomy in Area A and perhaps some of Area B when and if a deal gets made...exactly what they were supposed to get under Oslo, rather than 'statehood.'

Another piece of the puzzle has to do with so new legislation passed by the Israeli Knesset.

Israel's newly passed Regulation Law, legalizes Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria that were unknowingly built on land that may have been privately owned by Arabs or where the inhabitants had permission from the Israeli government to do so.

The law provides for a legal settlement to owners of private land who can prove their claims of 125% of the land's assessed value or the equivalent of 20 years rent on the raw land.

Basically, this is eminent domain, similar to laws in many other countries that allow private land to be acquired for public benefit. In many cases, title would have transferred by adverse possession (open use of the land for a statutory period without an objection from the owners) without compensation being required. Again, most countries have this kind of law, so the Israeli government is actually being more lenient in passing this law then they need to be.

This is direct defiance  to the UN's bigoted Resolution 2334, which sought to impose a ridiculous settlement with no regards to Israel or to previous agreements whatsoever.

You'd never know it listening to the UN squawk, but in actual fact,  the Regulation Law changes very little. All of the Israeli communities and almost all of the Israeli population live in Area C, which was always under Israeli sovereignty according to Oslo and was always supposed to be retained by Israel in any peace settlement, at least until Barack Hussein Obama came along. The governing authority, in some cases the Israeli government and in other cases the IDF is already permitted to acquire privately owned land for public benefit just as governments in most countries do.

What the new Regulation Law does is simply this; in places where Israelis built settlements on privately held Palestinian property without knowing it was privately owned or received the government’s consent for building  there, the Israeli government is now required to impose eminent domain and compensate the owners as described above, either 125% of the land's assessed value or the equivalent of 20 years rent on the raw land. As opposed to evicting people whom may have lived on the land for decades.

While Israel's Supreme Court might challenge this law, there's a decent chance it won't. Israel Supreme Court is far more to the Left than the Israeli government or even the majority of most Israelis, because of the bizarre way the justices are chosen...they pick their own successors. There's currently legislation pending to change that, and since a thumbs down on the Regulation Law might be an incentive to the Knesset approving this  legislation on how Supreme Court justices are chosen, the Court may choose simply to not address it.

The 'Palestinians' saw Resolution 2334 as a victory, giving them everything they wanted while giving up nothing. Trump's actions and the Israeli Regulation Law are showing them how wrong they were. The 'Palestinians'  are now being shown in no uncertain terms that they had better be prepared to make real concession and actually negotiate in good faith for once if they want anything at all. Whether they take that opportunity is anyone's guess, and I personally doubt they will. But if they actually do, than Trump's polices and Israel's new law could actually lead to real peace.

Two Speeches And Some Funerals

Anyone remotely following the news from Israel knows that some serious violence has broken out there. As usual, the media bends over backwards to paint this as a 'cycle of violence' for which both sides are responsible. This is an outrageous, Newspeak lie, and as I'll show you, it has some serious implications for America,believe it or not.

Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority have long practiced a double game perfected by Abbas's old chief, Yasser Arafat. The idea is to mouth platitudes in English while funding and encouraging genocide against Jews in Arabic in the PLO's schools, mosques and media. And the current explosion of violence against Israel's Jews is directly linked to this tactic.

Abbas's recent speeches have literally involved marching orders to the Arabs whom call themselves Palestinians to violently attack Jews, primarily but not limited to Jerusalem.

Abbas was preparing the ground as long ago as September 17, just prior to the Jewish High Holy Days, saying: "Every drop of blood that has been spilled in Jerusalem is holy blood as long as it was for Allah. Every Martyr (Shahid) will reach Paradise, and everyone wounded will be rewarded, Allah willing.' ... We will not allow them to carry out their actions and divide the Al-Aqsa [Mosque], and stated: 'The Al-Aqsa [Mosque] is ours, and they have no right to defile it with their filthy feet. We will not allow them to, and we will do everything in our power to protect Jerusalem."

At the same time, the signals to attack Jews were amplified in the mosques, schools and media of 'Palestine' as they always are.

The Muslim Waqf which controls the al-Aksa mosque allowed the stockpiling of rocks, firebombs and iron bars on the mosque specifically to attack Jews worshiping at the Kotel(the Western Wall) below.


They deliberately sought to provoke a reaction from Israeli security forces.

In case you think mere rocks are no problem, I invite you to read this woman's account of being assaulted by the brave 'Palestinian' warriors.

Other attacks were planned and carried out against Israelis without warning, with cars being particularly vulnerable because of their orange Israeli license plates.

One of the first to die was Alexander Levlovitz, who was murdered when his car was attacked in the neighborhood of Har Homa. His wife and baby were injured by shards of broken glass.

 

One Israeli woman was actually pulled from her car after it was stoned and was only saved from assault and worse by Israeli passerbys who fired on the crowd.

Mahmoud Abbas's recent speech in the UN has to be seen in the context of the terrorist attacks he and Fatah were and are encouraging.

In it, he talked of 'a year of a new war of genocide perpetrated against the Palestinian people' and 'the historic injustice inflicted on the Palestinian people in Al-Nakba of 1948, the occupying Power has chosen to defy the entire world by launching its war on Gaza, by which its jets and tanks brutally assassinated lives and devastated the homes, schools and dreams of thousands of Palestinian children, women and men and in reality destroying the remaining hopes for peace.'

Actually, it's the other way around. The real attempted genocide is being launched by the Arabs whom call themselves Palestinians against Israel's Jews.

Abbas also said that the Palestinian Authority was no longer bound by Oslo or any other agreements it has signed with Israel. That was really no big news since they have never abided by the terms of Oslo anyway, and Selim Fayyad, the former PLO PM made it clear some time ago.


Under US law and the terms of the agreements, this should have resulted in a suspension of funding for 'Palestine.' Don't hold your breath. Instead, the 'Palestinian' flag was raised at the UN for the first time, in spite of the fact that only member nations are supposed to be allowed to do so.Deceitful, which is how both Benyamin Netanyahu and virtually every Israeli figure of note referred to the speech hardly covers this tissue of lies.

The speech, by the way was attended by America's UN ambassador and President Obama, neither of whom attended Israeli PM Benyamin Netanyahu's subsequent speech on which more later. But it was obviously the signal for more terrorist attacks.

 

Eitam and Naama Henkin (HY"D) , were murdered in a drive by shooting by Arabs belonging to the al-Aksa Martyrs brigade, part of Fatah. They were killed in front of four of their children. According to investigators, Eitem used his last strength to open the car door and tell his four children aged aged 4 months, 4, 7 and 9 to flee and hide. That and the fact that the alarm had been raised is all that saved them. Eitam Henkin, by the way, was an America citizen, and our Secretary of State's response was a pro forma condemnation and an urge for both sides to 'reduce tension.'

One of the weapons involved was a U.S. M-16 provided for PLO 'security forces.'

Thousands of Israelis attended their funeral...and a particularly poignant moment was when their nine-year old son recited kaddish for his parents, the Jewish prayer for the dead. The Henkins left six children to be raised by their grandparents.



Aside from throwing rocks and firebombs, another tactic being used is random stabbings. There have been multiple attacks of this sort.

One of the more serious ones involved the murder of Rabbi Nehemia Lavi, 41, and Aharon Banita, 21 (HY'D)and the stabbing and wounding of Mrs. Banita and her baby as Arab onlookers applauded, spat on them and kicked them.

Here's how the BBC reported this attack:



The attacks have continued, without even a faux condemnation by the PLO or Abbas. And why not? This is exactly what they've encouraged and planned.

Needless to say, the Obama Administration continues to call for 'both sides to reduce tension.' To them, Israel obviously is at equal fault for even existing and attempting to protect its people.

And the UN? Instead of voicing any concern for the victims of these unprovoked attacks, they're concerned about the terrorist attackers.

"The Secretary-General condemns the killings and looks to the Government of Israel to conduct a prompt and transparent investigation into the incidents, including whether the use of force was proportional."

He did not mention what the Palestinian Authority might do to reign in the recent violence or condemn the recent terror attacks which left Israelis dead and others wounded in stabbing and shooting attacks in the West Bank and Jerusalem.

*************

Benyamin Netanyahu's speech at the UN mainly concerned Iran.



It was essentially a useless but eloquent cri d'cour in front of a half empty UN General Assembly. Attending were three obviously embarrassed State Department functionaries whom were careful not to applaud, at least not too openly. America's President, Secretary of State and UN Ambassador were absent.

The high point of the speech was Netanyahu's accusing the UN of aiding and abetting a genocidal regime that intends to murder the Israeli people - followed by a 45-second silence where you can literally feel some of the attendees withering under Netanyahu's accusatory glance.

While Netanyahu pledged that Israel has defended itself, is defending itself and will defend itself (a phrasing purposely borrowed from Shachris, the Jewish morning prayer concerning G-d's reign over the earth) he merely emphasized that Israel now stands alone. And that the Obama Administration has picked sides in this war, even to the extent of threatening Israel to withhold a U.S. veto on a UN resolution unilaterally proclaiming 'Palestine' on the pre-1967 lines including East Jerusalem,something that would create half a million Jewish refugees and attempt to force Israel back to indefensible borders if it dares to build homes for its people or takes steps our president deems too thorough to curtail the terrorist attacks.

Unlike Czechoslovakia, do not expect Israel to simply succumb to this without a fight. They really have no other place to go, and disapproval by the UN or the Obama Administration isn't going to weigh much against extermination. That is literally the choice they have been forced into making.

Israel has survived before under far greater odds, and without the backing of the United States.It may very well have to do so again.

If I were speaking to Netanyahu, I'd tell him in no uncertain terms that President Obama intends to do this anyway before he leaves office. When someone blackmails you based on hatred and ideology, they will always eventually do what they threaten you with.

Israel must make its future decisions based on this reality. Virtually every attempt to appease Obama has simply resulted in more dead Jews and increased danger for the country.

The odd part is that this kind of blackmail is likely to create an even more hard line Israeli government, as Netanyahu is currently being assailed by his coalition to do something to protect Israel's citizens. But perhaps that's what our president has in mind anyway, to force Israel into a major split with the US that he can then point to as a reason to cut ties and lead the charge to isolate Israel internationally, that daylight between America and Israel he's been talking about since 2009.

If Israel can no longer depend on America as an ally, perhaps that actually might be for the best.Reality beats fantasy and illusion every time.

So how does this relate to America and our lives here? More than you can imagine, if present trends continue.

In spite of CAIR's propaganda, there were just over three million Muslims in America when President Obama took office. He has brought almost a million more Muslims into America via diversity visas, family unification and refugee asylum, and he plans to bring far more into America before he leaves in 16 months. In fact, it's quite likely that the Muslim population of America is going to double during his terms in office. Arabic is already the fastest growing language on U.S. college campuses and among the immigrant population in general. The Obama Administration's anti-Israel stance is designed to appeal to these new voters and existing Democrats whom would just as soon get a temporary refuge from history by cutting all ties with Israel and the region.

After all, that vacation from history worked so well during the Clinton years, didn't it?

Rest assured that this increase is also going to change how we live, and that's particularly true if you are Jewish, homosexual or female. We're already seeing  increased crime...and vastly increased welfare costs. This is a mirror to  what is happening in Europe now. And we can expect a lot more Nidal Hassans,  Mohammad Abdulazeezses and Tsaernov brothers to surface.

Ironically, if this trend continues the same Leftist Jews whom have worshiped Obama are going to be targeted, and left wondering what happened. They may very well look towards the Israel they been so anxious to demonize as their refuge, just as many Jews in Europe do now.

From a foreign policy standpoint, if this moves in the same direction in the future America will have replaced a firm ally with countries like Iran that still want infidel America destroyed and are anxious to work towards that end. And other countries, who have already seen how the Obama Administration treats an ally are already distancing themselves.

I will leave it to you to decide whether this is the kind of America you want to live in.

The Israeli Elections - More Than A Referendum On Netanyahu

The results from the Israeli election are in, and Israeli PM Netanyahu has defied all expectations by scoring a decisive victory to win a fourth term.While pre-election polls showed the Livni/Herzog coalition, self-named 'The Zionist Camp' well ahead, apparently the champagne corks got popped prematurely. Not only did Likud finish well in front, but the rest of the right did too and Bibi will be able to put together a natural governing coalition, while Herzog will not.

Netanyahu has already declared victory. The Central Elections Committee has shown Netanyahu and Likud with 30 seats, compared to Zionist Camp’s 24 seats.

Next came the Joint (Arab) List at 13 seats, Yesh Atid at 11, Kulanu with 10 and Beyt Yehudi with 8. They were followed by Shas and United Torah Judaism, 7 each, Yisrael Beytenu 6, and Meretz with 4 seats.

Since Israel has so many parties, the end of every election involves major horsetrading in order to get to the magic number of 61. Netanyahu will get there relatively easily. Herzog and Livni simply can't. They're history.

So how did Netanyahu manage to win when all the pundits and the polls saw him losing?

First off, this was not merely a referendum on Netanyahu. It was a referendum on Barack Obama by the Israeli people.

The Israeli reaction to President Obama's blatant meddling and financing of the 'Zionist Camp's' campaign was visceral. Many of them remembered the last time in happened, when an Israeli election was manipulated to put in Left in power in 1999. Oddly enough, Yitzhack Herzog, the current Labor candidate was involved in that money laundering scam up to his neck.

Now, it worked in 1999, but many Israelis remember how the Left's victory was followed by Arafat's hideous war against Israel's civilians, hundreds of dead and maimed Jews and the feckless inability of the Labor government to cope with it. It took Arik Sharon, the old lion scarred in so many of Israel's battles for survival to come forth once again to lead Israel to victory.

That memory still runs deep, like an angry scar across Israel. They went along with 1999 because of the lingering shock of Rabin's assassination, because they badly wanted peace, and because President Clinton was personally popular in Israel and they trusted him.

They do not trust Barack Hussein Obama, and with good reason. Herzog and Livni were President Obama's candidates, and they announced themselves willing to do his bidding early and often. Herzog made his desire to divide Jerusalem and to throw those he called 'settlers' out of their homes well known.

Herzog and Livni openly courted the Arab list as partners in a future coalition, even though it contained a number of politicians vociferously opposed to Israel's very existence, like Haneen Zoabi and Ta’al Party chairman MK Ahmed Tibi.

Obama's operatives like Jeremy Bird, national field director for Obama’s 2012 campaign and funded by “One Voice International" put together a group of activists called v15. OVI paid for hundreds of people to go door-to-door and try to boost the turnout on the Left and among the Arab voters. Since OVI receives State Department funds, The U.S. congress is investigating with the idea of eliminating OVI's 501c status.

Believe it or not, Netanyahu is now under fire as a 'racist' by the White House and the usual suspects because he had the unmitigated gall to called attention to the millions of dollars and shady operatives Obama sent in to interfere with Israel's elections, and the fact they were doing just what Obama's pals at ACORN used to do...buy votes among the Left and the part of Israel's Arab population in places like Umm Al-Fahm that simply aren't loyal to the country and truck them to the polls.

What passes for 'journalists' at places like Pravda-on-the -Hudson might be surprised, but there are plenty of Arabs who voted Likud and Beit Yahudi. Just ask Ayoob Kara, an Arab MK who had a prominent place on the Likud list, who left the IDF with the rank of major and will probably retain his slot as a deputy minister. In fact the place in Israel where Netanyahu and Likud got their biggest majority (77%) was in Al-Naim, an all Bedouin town.

There was also another talking point involved in what the Leftist press characterized as Netanyahu's 'veer to the Right' or as I prefer to call it, his acknowledgement of reality. He's apparently realized that there's no basis for a Palestinian state next door to Israel at this time, and certainly no way to accede to Mahmoud Abbas's ridiculous demands unless Israel wants to commit national suicide. He finally said so, simply admitting what everyone with any knowledge of the region already knows. Abbas's continued sponsorship of terrorists in the mosques, media and schools he controls as well as his alliance with Hamas.

Netanyahu also realizes, as many other leaders in the region do, that President Barack Obama's policies in the region are both wrongheaded and dangerous, and quite likely to result in catastrophe. He didn't quite say this, but he clearly made the case that this was certainly no arena for amateurs like Herzog.

And finally, he talked to the Israeli people and reminded them what was at stake. in the end, that hit home much more than the flashy glitz the 'Zionist Camp' was putting out.

In spite of all the foreign money, all of the promises of Hope and Change from Herzog and Livni, and all of the blatantly biased media coverage, in the end that was what counted. They were smart enough to see through what Obama and the Israeli Left were trying to do, and they voted accordingly.

The interesting thing is that even if Netanyahu had lost and the Obama backed surrender caucus of Livni and Herzog had won, the pressure on Israel to retreat to indefensible borders, create half a million Jewish refugees and accede to President Obama's diktats wouldn't change one iota. They'd merely have more willing partners, who wouldn't realize the trap they were stepping into until it was far too late.

I doubt President is going to take this rebuke from a bunch of stubborn Jews lightly, and I fully expect Netanyahu and Israel to accused of all sorts of things. President Obama vowed to create daylight between America and Israel in 2009, and anyone who's observed him at work on this project, would have to grant he's made some progress.

In a subsequent article, I'll examine the implications of this and where it's likely to lead.

Breaking: NYT Admits Obama Deliberately Manufactured Netanyahu Spat

President Barack Obama and his minions in the White House and the press have had a lot to say about how 'disrespectful' it was for Congress to invite Israeli PM Benyamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of congress without informing the White House. And how wrong it was for Netanyahu to accept when he knew the White  House hadn't been informed.

Read this correction , from Pravda-on-the-Hudson own website.

Correction: January 30, 2015
An earlier version of this article misstated when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel accepted Speaker John A. Boehner’s invitation to address Congress. He accepted after the administration had been informed of the invitation, not before.

Omri Ceren first spotted the correction and explained on Twitter:

 NYT tries to promote anti-Netanyahu talking point that #Israel blindsided Obama. They got just 1 tiny detail wrong.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/30/us/politics/benjamin-netanyahu-is-talking-to-harry-reid-and-leading-democrats-to-little-effect-so-far.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=2

Correction: January 30, 2015 

An earlier version of this article misstated when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel accepted Speaker John A. Boehner’s invitation to address Congress. He accepted after the administration had been informed of the invitation, not before.

This correction literally destroys the entire accompanying NYT article, about how Netanyahu was trying to make peace with Democrats in congress and explain why he had cooperated in 'bypassing the White House.'

Let's look at what originally ran, in the print edition:

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, said Thursday that Mr. Netanyahu had called him the previous afternoon to explain why he had accepted an invitation to speak to Congress without first notifying the White House.

Then it was revised in the online edition:

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, said Thursday that Mr. Netanyahu had called him the previous afternoon to explain why the White House had been circumvented before he was invited to speak before Congress. 

And let's look again the correction at the bottom of this piece of journalistic chicanery, online:

An earlier version of this article misstated when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel accepted Speaker John A. Boehner’s invitation to address Congress. He accepted after the administration had been informed of the invitation, not before.

Of course, the truth is that the White House was never bypassed or circumvented. Netanyahu only accepted Speaker John Boehner's invitation after he knew the White House had been informed and had a chance to object.

And if the Obama White House had some objection  and had actually communicated it to  Netanyahu, do you think that just maybe, he might have made decision not to accept the speaking invitation?

Instead, the Obama White House said nothing, and Netanyahu, whose country gets threatened with destruction by Iran about every other week  decided to accept Boehner's invitation to speak to congress and help provide an impetus for legislation on Iranian sanctions that's in both Israel and America's interest .

American Thinker (where yours truly has been proud to appear in from time to time) blogged on this and revealed another tidbit :

In 2011, Boehner sent a notice to the WH stating his intention to invite Netanyahu to speak before a joint session of Congress. The White House never responded (spite? incompetence?) and Boehner proceeded to extend the invitation to Netanyahu. Netanyahu accepted the invitation and spoke. The White House did not express any outrage in 2011.

So there was a precedent set then, and no reason for Boehner or Netanyahu to assume there was any problem when the White House didn't respond with any objections this time.

The resulting fracus was simply kabuki outrage manufactured to create a negative impression that Israel had somehow 'disrespected' an American president. And of course, to assist Netanyahu's political enemies in the coming election...where the Obama Administration has already sent a crack campaign team and millions in campaign funds for the same purpose. The shotgun wedding of Labor's Yitzhak Herzog and Tzipi Livni lost no time in trying to spin this to show that 'Netanyahu was destroying Israel's relationship with the U.S.'

Actually, the reality is that it really doesn't matter what Netanyahu says or what Israel does.If it wasn't this, President Obama would have set up something else, and there will certainly be more of this coming no matter who gets elected in March and no matter how many of Mahmoud Abbas's demands Israel submits to.


This president wants very much to curtail America's alliance with Israel. That's the goal, and it has been ever since President Barack Hussein Obama first entered the White House.

Obama, Netanyahu And Congress: The Real Inside Story Raises Further Questions

President Obama's latest escapade involving Israel says a great deal about his deep animus towards Israel. And it raises an important question.

Our story starts with Speaker of the House John Boehner inviting Israeli PM Benyamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress on Iran and on Islamist terrorism in March.

Boehner's rationale for this was a widely popular bi-partisan bill up in congress calling for large scale sanctions on Iran if the Obama administration is unable to craft a deal limiting Iran's nuclear weapons capacity. President Obama, who watered down the previous sanctions and unilaterally dispensed with them said bluntly that he'd veto any legislation regarding Iran, and made a special point of mentioning this in his State of the Union address.

President Obama's logic is that he and Secretary Kerry just need a little more time....in spite of three missed deadlines for a deal that have seen Iran's nuclear stockpile actually grow.

There’s really zero transparency about what’s actually going on. IAEA inspectors have not been allowed inside major Iranian bases like Fardo, and among many things, Secretary John Kerry was apparently 'misinformed' when he claimed over a year ago that he had an agreement with the Islamic Republic that to cease operations at their heavy water reactor at Arak, a facility with no peaceful applications designed to produce weapons-grade plutonium. The IAEA hasn't been allowed to inspect Arak either. Nor has it been shut down, as Kerry originally told us. Meanwhile, the Iranian Majlis is on the verge of passing legislation mandating that Iran increase its nuclear enrichment.

Small wonder Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ), a co-sponsor of the senate version of the bill called what President Barack Hussein Obama had to say about Iran as 'talking points straight from Tehran.'

Even the Washington Post awarded the president “Three Pinocchios” out of a possible four for his dishonest and delusional remarks on Iran during his speech.

So it's quite natural that Speaker Boehner would want the Prime Minister of Israel, who's been outspoken on Iran's nuclear threat to address congress to increase consensus on a bill that would almost certainly have to override a presidential veto. And Israeli PM Benyamin Netanyahu, whose country gets threatened with annihilation by Iran every other week was happy to accept.

That's when the White House literally went berserk.

 

The president claimed that congress had disrespected him by not clearing Netanyahu's visit with the White House, although in fact congress has the legal right to invite anyone it wants to to address a joint session.

But the president's special wrath was directed at Benyamin Netanyahu,and that was no accident, as we'll see. The president announced that he would not meet with or otherwise acknowledge Netanyahu's presence during his visit. And unnamed White House officials were quoted in the press as saying that Netanyahu had 'forgotten that Obama's going to be president for another year and a half', and that Netanyahu was 'spitting in our faces' by daring to come to America without an official presidential invitation. There were dark statements about how there would 'be a price to pay.'

The president tried to justify this by saying that the invitation by congress was a breach of protocol, and against U.S. policy to meet with a head of state this close to a national election.

He lied about that too.

For instance, a couple of months before the British general election, President Obama invited British PM David Cameron to the White House in a high profile visit that was essentially an endorsement. And just a couple of weeks ago, only four months before what's shaping up as the tightest UK election in years, the president, who is more popular in the UK than he is here did the same thing,having a meeting with Cameron, a lavish photo-op and calling him 'a great friend' and one of his "closet and most trusted partners in the world."

 

There have been other occasions. Remember the president's love affair with former Islamist Egyptian leader Mohammed Morsi in the run up to the Egyptian elections?

The president also had the White House release a leak alleging that Israeli Mossad Head Tamir Pardo had personally warned US senators against further Iran sanctions. 

At that point, I got fairly concerned, because to my knowledge no one in Israel's security apparatus has ever said anything like that..if anything the reverse, that increased sanctions had the best chance to bring Iran to the table for real concessions. For the head of Mossad to say this would amount to him creating his own private foreign policy.

I can tell you now without any doubt whatsoever that this was a complete fabrication by the White House, and I heard it directly from several people who definitely ought to know.

Moreover, the Mossad released a public statement on the matter. And it was not exactly diplomatic in tone.

A senior Israeli official delivered an uncommonly harsh attack on US President Barack Obama's administration Thursday evening, following the American report that alleged that Mossad Head Tamir Pardo had warned US senators against further Iran sanctions, in contradiction of Israel's official stance.

"The fraudulent claims against the Mossad Head were raised by the Americans yesterday, despite a message that had been transmitted to them on Tuesday by Intelligence Minister [Yuval] Steintz,” the senior Israeli source told Channel 2 news.

He added that Israel had gone over the minutes of the meeting between Pardo and the delegation of senators, and that Pardo had not said what was attributed to him.

"Leaking the Mossad Head's statements, even if they had not been falsified, is a serious breach of all the rules,” the senior source added. “Friends do not behave like this. Information from a secret meeting must not leak out.” [...]

"The Head of Mossad did not say that he opposes additional sanctions on Iran,” said the spy agency Thursday.

"Mossad Head Tamir Pardo met on January 19, 2015, with a delegation of US senators,” Mossad said in a statement. “The meeting was held at the request of the senators and with the prime minister's approval. At the meeting, the Head of Mossad stressed the extraordinary effectiveness of the sanctions that have been placed on Iran for several years in bringing Iran to the negotiating table.”

"The Head of Mossad noted that in negotiating with Iran, a policy of 'carrots and sticks' must be adopted, and there are not enough 'sticks' nowadays,” it added.

Furthermore, said the agency, he “said specifically that the agreement that is being formed with Iran is bad and could lead to a regional arms race.”

Both the Mossad and the Israeli government are livid over this, and that can't help but affect the relationship with the U.S. This indeed is hardly the way an ally acts.

Of course, the real reason for all this goes well beyond the president's ego. It’s very much about the Israeli elections.

Ha'aretz is Israel's very Left wing newspaper beloved of the main stream press here and in Europe because of its political stance, even though few Israelis bother reading it.The paper's most popular edition is its English language one, although it also publishes in Hebrew. There was one article in the Hebrew edition that by an interesting coincidence, Ha'aretz decided not to translate and include in its English edition.

It was translated by IMRA (Independent Media Review Analysis), and here's a summary:

 Haaretz reporter Roi Arad revealed in an article in the Hebrew edition
today (January 26th)  that the foreign funded organization, “One Voice”, is bankrolling the V-2015 campaign to defeat Binyamin Netanyahu’s national camp in the March
2015 Knesset Elections.

One indication of the generous financing is that it has now flown in a team of five American campaign experts (including Jeremy Bird, the Obama campaign's national field director) who will run the campaign out of offices taking up the ground floor of a Tel Aviv office building.

V-2015 is careful not to support a specific party - rather “just not Bibi”.
As such, the foreign funds pouring into the campaign are not subject to
Israel’s campaign finance laws.

 The alliance of Yitzhak Herzog and Tzipi Livni jumped in hard on the controversy, claiming that Netanyahu is destroying Israel's relationship with the United States...and they're using Obama's money and campaign muscle to trumpet that message in the Israeli media. One of the major weaknesses of the Israeli left is that they have zero credibility with the majority of Israel's public when it comes to national security. .They now have an issue to exploit to attempt to cover for that.

The President’s strategy is blatantly obvious. He's directly interfering with democratic election of a U.S. ally in order to elect a more 'flexible' Israeli government that will cave in to Hamas/Fatah's demands. Given that his friends in Iran have already said they've given Hamas and Fatah advanced missile technology and will wage war against Israel from Palestinian controlled territory in Judea and Samaria (AKA The West Bank) this attempt to place Israel in a vulnerable position with indefensible pre '67 borders goes beyond mere malice and crosses the line to overt hostility.

The last time this happened, in 1999, President Clinton used the same tactic against Netanyahu in order to bring the hapless Ehud Barak and Labor to power. He funded Labor's campaign against Netanyahu and sent James Carville and Stanley Greenberg to run the campaign. Barak won, but the result was the Second Intifada, the death of hundreds of Jews in Arafat's war on Israeli civilians and the ascension of Ariel Sharon and Likud in 2001.

But President Obama's attempt to subvert Israel's election may actually backfire badly . Things are quite different today. Clinton was personally popular in Israel then, and Barack Hussein Obama is not, to say the least. Also, the stakes are a lot higher than they were in 1999, and most Israelis know it.

Aside from President Obama apparently being willing to try to deliver the Jews to the Iranians and those Arabs whom identify themselves as Palestinians in order to appease them or to destroy a valuable U.S. alliance in the process, I think it's time we took a look at whom this president protects and empowers and whom he attacks. And that goes beyond Israel.

The terrorist group Boko Haram in Nigeria have already pledged allegiance to the new Caliphate of Islamic State and have been responsible for thousands of deaths in Africa. They already control much of Northern Nigeria, and are attacking major cities like Maiduguri.

 

Many of their arms came from Moamar Ghaddaffi's stocks in Libya, which Islamists got their hands on after President Obama's illegal intervention in favor of jihadis and Islamists in Benghazi. The Nigerian army has frequently found itself outgunned in trying to protect its country.

The current Nigerian government under President Goodluck Jonathan has always had friendly relations with Israel, and in an effort to fight off Boko Haram negotiated a major arms deal with the Israelis which included Boeing CH-47 Chinook helicopters.

The Obama Administration stopped the sale of the desperately needed arms for a 'review.'

The transfer of such aircraft requires a review to determine its “consistency with US policy interests,” Obama administration officials told The Jerusalem Post.

Reviews of this kind take place in the case of “any requests for one country to transfer US-origin defense items to another country,” said Ned Price, White House Assistant Press Secretary and Director for Strategic Communications.

According to a report initially published in a local Nigerian daily, ThisDay, Nigerian government officials believe a large sale was halted because of “unfounded allegations of human rights violations by our troops,” one such official is quoted saying. The Nigerian official is not named in the report.

“This,” he continued, “after the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had initially approved the purchase.”

US officials tell the Post such transfers must be consistent with a policy directive revised by President Barack Obama in January, which outlines the criteria for conventional-weapons sales.

The ostensible reason given was a report by the highly suspect NGO Amnesty International, which accused the Nigerian forces of 'human rights violations.' Since this report took place months ago, back in August of last year, why would a review take place now when the arms are desperately needed, especially after all of the presidential rhetoric linking Boko Haram with al-Qaeda and Islamic State?

The answer, again, is elections.

Nigeria's elections occur next month and President Goodluck Jonathan, whose support comes mainly from the Christian south of the country is running against Muhammadu Buhari, a retired Muslim general and former hard line dictator with Islamist leanings who has been defeated three times before in his attempts to regain power. His power base in mainly in the Muslim North.

The biggest issue in the election? Protecting the country from the attacks of Boko Haram. And with arms shipments to the Nigerian Army suspended or severely curtailed, President Jonathan's chances for re-election continue to slip, and Buhari's chances improve.

That's exactly how the Obama Administration wants it.

Just a few days ago, none other than Secretary of State John Kerry visited Nigeria to meet with both candidates.

Mr. Kerry warned that the level of American support would be influenced by the determination of Nigeria’s politicians to carry out fair and peaceful elections.

“Bottom line, we want to do more,” he said. “But our ability to do more will depend to some degree on the full measure of credibility, accountability, transparency and peacefulness of this election.” [...]

“There has been a history of violence being fomented by political parties here in previous elections,” a senior State Department official told reporters before Mr. Kerry’s meetings.

“We hope that if there is any doubt about the election that they will use their court system and not encourage their supporters to go into the streets,” said the official, who declined to be identified under the department’s protocol for briefing reporters.

There's no mention of it in this linked New York Times article, but the 'violence' involved came almost exclusively from Muslim supporters of Buhari after he was defeated by Jonathan the last time out almost two to one,in 2011. And it is Buhari who is threatening violence again if he loses this time.

Yet the Obama Administration is doing its very best to put Buhari in power by holding up desperately needed arms shipments and threatening the current president.

Scoff at this all you want. But by delaying arms shipments to Nigeria's beleaguered army, the Obama Administration is assisting Boko Haram and doing its best to help a Muslim former military dictator who already was involved in inciting sectarian violence to take power.

Whether it's Africa, Libya, Iran, Turkey, Syria Egypt or Hamas/Fatah, one thing that is consistent is the Obama Administration's support and empowerment of Islamists and its opposition and attempts to weaken  any of our allies like Israel, Nigeria's Jonathan Goodluck or the al-Sissi government in Egypt who oppose them. It's a clear, unmistakeable  pattern.

Perhaps it's time we started asking why.

UPDATE: Proof that Obama deliberately manufactured the nonsense about Netanyahu 'disrespecting the president'....from the New York Times, no less.

Chickensh*t

 

That quaint kid's playground epithet is the money quote from an article entitled "The Crisis in U.S.-Israel Relations Is Officially Here," posted by Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic.

It's what Goldberg reports that an anonymous senior Obama administration official called Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu in a conversation Goldberg had with him. And in the article, Goldberg also mentions that President Obama "in interviews with me, has alluded to Netanyahu’s lack of political courage."

Now, for all that Jeffrey Goldberg has consistently been a fairly servile apologist for the president and the Obama Administration when it comes to Israel, he's not entirely wrong that Netanyahu has been guilty of a lack of courage in some instances. But that lack of courage is from an entirely different direction than Goldberg supposes.

Contrary to the tile of Jeffrey Goldberg's piece, the crisis in US-Israel relations started from the moment Barack Hussein Obama was elected president. Where Netanyahu and certain other Israeli leaders have exhibited a lack of courage is in trying desperately to deny and fend it off, and make believe it wasn't happening.

Barack Obama started his presidency by stating openly (once he was safely elected) that he wanted to create daylight between the U.S. and Israel, and he has been doing so ever since.

Is Jeffrey Goldberg suffering from amnesia? Do we really need to revisit the climate that's been created between the US and Israel since Barack Obama took over as president?  His repudiation of the agreements made with Israel by President Bush  that convinced Israeli PM Ariel Sharon to go ahead with the Gaza disengagement, claiming they never existed? His call for Israel to re-divide Jerusalem and retreat to indefensible borders? His telling Iran that Israel was on its own in the event of any hostilities? His insisting that Israel has no right to Jewish religious sites? His repeated statements that the Palestinians need not recognize Israel as a Jewish State and his continued funding of the Palestinian Authority in spite of their continued support and incitement for terrorism against Israeli civilians? His instituting what amounted to a de facto arms embargo for six months during the early part of his first term? His approval and funding of the new Hamas/Fatah entity which includes a genocidal terrorist group? The list could go on for quite some time.

Would any other sovereign nation put up with constant temper tantrums from a foreign government over building homes in its own capital? With pressure to release convicted murderers from its jails as a 'gesture for peace?' With mysterious holdups for bureaucratic 'review' of badly needed military supplies in the middle of a war? With deliberately insulting treatment of its elected leader by the president of what was supposed to be a closely allied government?

While Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders have sometimes made statements that have revealed a lack of discretion,it's been in reaction to a long climate of outright hostility from the White House that makes even former President Carter's tenure look benign by comparison. Jeffrey Goldberg might wish to forget it, but it was the overt actions and attitude from this president and his administration towards Israel and Netanyahu that came first and poisoned the well.

The Israelis never figured on a president getting elected in America who had an animus towards Israel, and their futile attempts to muddle through and somehow make the relationship work only made President Obama more insistent, unreasonable and demanding.

And speaking of political courage, let's take a good look at what gave Barack Obama the license to act out this way towards Israel. It was America's Jews on the Left - like Jeffrey Goldberg.
Remember this,from back in 2008? (courtesy of Omri Ceren):

So, all you rumor-mongering, fever-headed Jewish conspiracists: Support McCain, if you want, and there are credible reasons for doing so, but stop smearing Obama in the face of overwhelming evidence that the man is a great friend of Jews and of Israel. After a point, it becomes obvious that what you fear is not Israel's destruction, but the presence of an African-American in the White House. And that's disgusting.

Obama's background and his feelings about Israel were obvious to anyone whom bothered to look at him honestly. President Barack Obama has had close associations with Israel haters and in some cases open anti-semites his entire life. Frank Marshall Davis, Edward Said, Rashid al-Khalidi, Khalid al-Mansour, Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, and Al Sharpton and others like them all figure or have figured prominently in his background.

So how did this all slip by?

What happened is that many on the Left and those in media simply didn't want to know, especially Jews. They made a clear decision that voting Democrat and embracing their Leftist politics meant more to them than supporting their brothers and sisters in Israel. It was this hideous betrayal that enabled President Obama to act out and make support for Israel as an ally a partisan issue once he was elected. A significant number of American Jews voted Democrat in 2008 and found solace in candidate Obama telling them what they wanted to hear, in political groups the George Soros financed J-Street,and the NJDC, and in the bogus mantra of 'the two state solution'. It enabled President Obama to neuter AIPAC, as well as other Jewish groups. With a few honorable exceptions, they all fell in line with the New Order. And even after they had ample evidence of President Obama's attitude towards Israel during his first term, most of them voted for him again.

And this backing of Obama and his agenda led,in case no one's noticed, not only to the increased intransigence of Abbas and Fatah but to the increased hostility towards Jews and Israel in places like the EU and and a rising climate of Jew hatred in places like university campuses, again with some rare exceptions. The backing of the majority of America's Jews for Obama and their tolerance for his policies was and is the protective cover and the impetus for all of it.

And it's ironic that Goldberg himself, whom I'm sure knows this as well as I do is still drinking the same Kool-Ade. Read this from his article today:


Unlike the U.S. secretary of state, John Kerry, I don’t have any hope for the immediate creation of a Palestinian state (it could be dangerous, at this chaotic moment in Middle East history, when the Arab-state system is in partial collapse, to create an Arab state on the West Bank that could easily succumb to extremism), but I would also like to see Israel foster conditions on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem that would allow for the eventual birth of such a state. This is what the Obama administration wants (and also what Europe wants, and also, by the way, what many Israelis and American Jews want), and this issue sits at the core of the disagreement between Washington and Jerusalem.

I'm sure that in the rarefied bubble Jeffrey Goldberg lives in, there are plenty of Jews who have no problem with creating Jewish refugees, redividing Jerusalem again and making it Jew-free 'for peace'. But hardly any Israelis do, now that they've seen up close what that means. Fully 76% of them,more than three out of four would oppose any kind of Palestinian state that would redivide Jerusalem and put half of it under the control of Hamas/Fatah.

What 'conditions' does Jeffrey Goldberg expect Israel to foster? Stop building in Jerusalem while the Arabs continue to build illegally and make East Jerusalem into their de facto capital? Stop Jews from living there because they're Jews? Ignore the current terrorist attacks and the intifada in Jerusalem incited and ordered by Abbas and Hamas, something that was planned by them a year ago and was just awaiting the proper excuse to be launched? Ignore Abbas's alliance with a genocidal terrorist group?

Actually, what the Jeffrey Goldbergs want is a lot simpler. They want Israel to bend over, do whatever President Obama and John Kerry tell Israel to do and stop embarrassing them.

And they think Bibi Netanyahu 'lacks political courage?'

It is highly possible President Obama will have the U.S. abstain from Mahmoud Abbas's attempt to push through a UN Security Council resolution gifting Hamas/Fatah all of Judea and Samaria and East Jerusalem to create 'Palestine' on the pre '67 lines. If that happens and it passes, or if the president seeks to impose his own, similar diktat on Israel, Israel will simply refuse to comply, since they can't without committing national suicide. The response from the usual suspects is easy to predict. How dare Israel defy the UN diktat to create half a million Jewish refugees, redivide Jerusalem and to give Abbas and Hamas the ability to turn Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem into attack platforms like Gaza! How dare they defy President Obama! What an ungrateful ally!

At that point, unless congress intervenes in some fashion, U.S. military sales to Israel could very likely be cut off or 'suspended' by executive order and favorable trade treaties revoked.

If that's how it goes down, President Obama will then have achieved his goal of distancing America from Israel. And those of America's Jews who have been so eager to support Barack Obama's hostile agenda on Israel or simply keep quiet about it may just find out what a really bad idea that was, both for America and for them personally.

That story has already been played out before elsewhere. Just ask the Jews of England, France and elsewhere in Western Europe whether it was Israeli institutions being targeted or Jewish ones when Israel was recently defending its citizens from Hamas and see what they tell you.

The Book of Esther, a bit of scripture some Jews may be familiar with is another example.

As Mordecai reminded her when Esther was tempted to go with the flow and look the other way where her fellow Jews were concerned..If you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s  family will perish.

There's a reason the Book of Esther is read every Purim for all Jews to hear and remember. The Goldbergs of the world ought to do some serious thinking about that.

Netanyahu Caves In On Gaza Reconstruction

 

The Hamas/Fatah Unity government  and the UN have apparently come up with a formula for Gaza reconstruction, and Israel has apparently agreed to it.

According to the agreement, Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority will be in charge of ensuring that the construction materials sent into Gaza for reconstruction will not be diverted to Hamas’s military efforts. 

Coordinating the plan from the UN side was none other than Hamas money-launderer Robert Serry, whom Israel should have declared persona non-grata and kicked out of the region a long time ago.

“The crisis in Gaza is far from over and the window of opportunity to address critical needs and stabilize the situation is short,” Serry warned.

The envoy appealed for action to “change fundamentally the dynamics in Gaza,” warning that “if we do not, Gaza could implode — or, yet again, explode — possibly with a new and even more devastating round of violence.”

Israel agreed to the UN proposal to put the PA in charge of overseeing Gaza’s reconstruction under the auspices of the UN.

Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, who's in charge of the IDF’s interaction with Palestinian authorities, was quoted as saying that this new agreement would allow Gaza’s reconstruction to go forward while securing the security interests of Israel.

'Securing the security interests of Israel?' How, exactly? Ironically, on the day the Israelis agreed to this, a mortar shell was fired from Gaza into the Eskol Council area in southern Israel.

Abbas and his PA thugs are almost guaranteed to look the other way while their Hamas partners purloin whatever they need to rebuild the tunnels and the rest of their terrorist infrastructure.

PM Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ya'allon have just given up their prime bargaining chip for Israel's main strategic goal with Hamas.

Here's how this should have worked.

 

"Oh hello Mr. Serry, have a seat. Oh, so this is what you and Mahmoud Abbas came up with? Let's have a look."

"Hmm, this seems OK..but there's something missing. When is Hamas going to disarm and turn its missiles and mortars over to us? I don't see anything here about that."

"Oh that's to be negotiated later? Ummm, no, sorry. When we find out when the Hamas disarmament happens, then we can talk about the reconstruction.In fact, I just sent off a query to your boss, Ban ki-Moon to find out how that's coming along. I'm surprised he didn't mention it."

"The rubble and destruction? Well, I understand it's upsetting to you Mr. Serry. We didn't like the damage done to our people's homes either. But it serves a purpose you know, especially if Hamas isn't going to disarm. When they start to look around them, maybe they'll think twice about attacking us again."

"But since Hamas isn't willing to disarm and since we're not getting any UN or donor aid to help our people anyway and have to pay for that ourselves, the disarmament thing is our primary goal here. We'd rather just let things sit until this disarmament question gets settled. After all, wasn't the Hamas disarmament in that UN resolution anyway?"

"Now no need to get red in the face, Mr. Serry. After all, you're on such good terms with Hamas, and I have confidence in your abilities. Why don't you talk to your Hamas friends and work out a schedule for disarmament, and then we can talk about getting that reconstruction moving right along."

"I believer you know your own way out. Keep me posted on how you're doing with Hamas, and have a nice day."

Instead of that, the Hamas/Fatah entity gets what it wants, and Israel gets..what? The right to fight the next round?

This needs to stop.Israel was never intended to be a nation of friers.

Strike, Zion! Israel Recalls Reservists, Prepares For Ground Operation

Hamas may just have violated its last ceasefire.

Israel has recalled 2,000 reservists and is in the process of recalling others for use in a ground operation. Airstrikes have already paved the way and  the Israeli positions inside the security buffer are in an excellent position to take the fight to Hamas.

 

DF OC Southern Command Maj. Gen. Sami Torkeman met with southern Israel mayors and community leaders Tuesday night and warned them to prepare for a major escalation in the conflict with Hamas, with residents advised to take extra precautions, and stay close to bomb shelters and fortified rooms.

 

The political background on this is interesting as well. Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moishe  Ya’alon had been pretty much operating the war and the diplomacy track in a vacuum, refusing to share anything or convene with the rest of Israel's security cabinet,which angered them immensely. Netanyahu and Ya’alon were convinced that Hamas was tired of fighting and ready for a long term truce and some of my sources say that Netanyahu and Ya’alon were even ready to sign off on a ridiculous agreement (courtesy of US Secretary of State Kerry and President Obama) that would have met some of Hamas's demands and given them a win. The idea of course was 'quiet for quiet.'


 


 
The missile barrage by Hamas took Netanyahu by surprise and opened him up to what was essentially a mini revolt both from members of his cabinet and from the Israeli public, who after a month of tough fighting were furious that the Army remained handcuffed and the Israelis still need to run for shelters and sealed rooms.

 

Netanyahu's popularity has been sinking like a stone with each ceasefire because of his reluctance to deal decisively with Hamas. And the other members of his cabinet gave him a barrage of their own

Many government ministers demanded Israel delivered a fatal blow to Hamas in Gaza, and abandon ceasefire talks altogether.

"The government policy of 'calm will be met with calm' is fundamentally wrong. We need to talk and negotiate with Hamas only when it has surrendered. We now must seek a quick and decisive end to Hamas," Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said in a meeting with Yisrael Beiteinu MKs.

Cabinet member, Economy Minister Naftali Bennett, said following the resumption of rocket fire that "when you want to defeat a terror organization, you reach a decisive victory. When we hold peace talks with a terrorist organization we get more terror. Hamas thinks that rocket fire helps them reach their goals in talks and so they fire even during a ceasefire. Rockets are not an accident as far as we're concerned, it's systematic."

Bennett went on to say that "Only a severe response, like any sovereign nation responds to rocket fire on its territory, will be able to stop the deterioration (of the situation). Sooner or later, Israel will need to subdue Hamas, there's no way to avoid it."

"The negotiations with Hamas do not serve Israel's security interests, and there's no point in continuing them," Interior Minister Gideon Sa'ar said.

Housing Minister Uri Ariel said that "we must strike the Hamas enemy until we achieve victory. I support the prime minister and security forces in giving a decisive and painful response to the terrorists, and in restoring the security to the citizens of Israel. It can't be that we'll be responsible for halting fire while they're responsible for firing." 

Even some of the Left of center members of Israel's security cabinet weighed. Yesh Atid's Yair Lapid went on Facebook saying that Israel must not end Operation Protective Edge before ensuring the disarmament of the terror infrastructure in the Strip, and before the transfer of international funds to Gaza is monitored and supervised. Although he favors 'an international conference' to do it, which isn't going to happen.

And the usually flexible Tzipi Livni weighed in as well, saying, "You can't negotiate with terrorists until you have beaten them."

So in a way, Hamas has actually rescued Netanyahu and given him a chance to stiffen his spine again and do what has to be done.

Israel cannot allow control of the Gaza Strip by a hostile entity. Ever since they pulled out ( with a plethora of international security guarantees, I might add)  they have been attacked from Gaza. at the enemy's whim No nation can put up with this.

I would give UNRWA 24 hours to get the civilian population out of the way, either in the open areas of Gaza or in the camps they run in the Arab occupied part of Judea and Samaria, with the IDF supervising to make sure none of those brave Hamas fighters were sneaking away dressed as woman.

Then destroy Hamas utterly, no holds barred, annex Gaza and repopulate it with Jews. And watch it become another Singapore.

Among other things, it would be a useful example to Hezbollah and Fatah about what could happen if they ever dare attack Israel.

Enough. Finish it. 

A Holdup In Gaza Negotiations - Hamas and PA Refuse To Return Dead Soldier's Bodies

Lt. Hadar Goldin and Sgt. Oron Shaul were killed in action during attempts to kidnap them, and their remains were taken into the tunnels by Hamas.

The Israelis have requested that their remains be returned as part of any long term ceasefire...but Hamas and The Palestinian Authority have refused to do so, and will not discuss the issue.

The talks are at a dead end. Israel made several concessions as far as easing the passage of Gaza residents, goods and money in and out of Gaza. But Hamas and the PA are insisting on an airport and seaport, the replacement of Egypt as a mediator and the release of a number of convicted terrorists in Israeli hands...without giving up anything, not even the bodies of two dead Israeli soldiers.

 

Believe it or not, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu reportedly tried today to "soften" his coalition partners to concessions, including that of Israel paying the salaries of Hamas officials in Gaza.

Reportedly Economics Minister Bennett and Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman are adamant against making "terrorism pay," and Liberman specifically mentioned the return of the bodies of Goldin and Shaul as essential before the end of Operation Protective Edge.

"It's unthinkable that all Hamas members, including 20,000 of the terrorists in Hamas's military wing, will receive their salaries in an orderly fashion, through the Palestinian Authority or any other way, while the bodies of IDF soldiers still have not received a proper burial in Israel," remarked Liberman.

There's likely a very good reason Hamas and the PA are refusing to return the bodies. They were almost certainly mutilated and desecrated, something Israel has seen before.


The Israeli delegation left Cairo and headed by to Israel last night for consultations but there is simply too much daylight between the Israeli and Palestinian positions, and Hamas and the PA are divided about letting Mahmoud Abbas take control again. The cease fire ends at midnight Thursday night local time. It will almost certainly end before then, with a barrage of Hamas rockets fired at Israeli civilians...probably sometime today.

 

The Israeli people and the IDF are both sick and tired of half measures, this on again, off again nonsense. They want Hamas dealt with once and for all. Netanyahu has to know that the Israeli public's patience has run out, and his popularity continues to drop the longer he hesitates.They will not tolerate a return to the status quo, where Hamas has the option on whether to attack Israel or not...and each time, with better weaponry.

There are actually indications from my sources that this message may have finally gotten through, and that Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon are preparing to do a lot more than merely destroying the tunnels they can find and mounting limited air strikes when Hamas attacks again. From what I gather, this time they're preparing to target the Hamas leadership. And that means hitting Shifa Hospital in central Gaza City, where the rats are hiding.

The quicker this finishes, the better.