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.
Follow him on Twitter here and on Facebook here.

The EU Is At War With Israel

 

It's official. For all intents and purposes, the EU is at war with Israel.Some of the members, particularly in Eastern and central Europe aren't participating, but most of the EU is.

It isn't a shooting war, but an increasing effort to marginalize the Jewish State so it can be destroyed..

The EU supports anti-Israel NGOs financially,and continues to fund the PLO even though it uses much of those funds to pay terrorists for murdering Israeli civilians, even though that financial support frees up funds to be used in what the PLO refers to as 'operations.'

Only Israel has fruits, vegetables and fresh flowers specially labeled as being from 'the Occupied West Bank.'

Led by Angela Merkel and Frances Emanuel Macron, the EU has consistently evaded U.S. sanctions against Iran and continued to observe the farcical Iran 'deal' of Barack Hussein Obama. The EU has done this even though Iran has been quite clear of its genocidal intentions towards Israel.

And it was none other than Germany's Angela Merkel who pressured Eastern and Central European countries with good relationships with Israel not to relocate their embassies in Jerusalem or face her wrath.

The founding director of the European Coalition for Israel in Brussels, Tomas Sandell, reported that  that the  German Chancellor  waged a strenuous campaign to stop central and eastern European countries from moving their capitals to Jerusalem..

 “I have spoken to many Germans these last few days in Brussels,” he said. “They are not aware of this, and all of them would be shocked that all of the countries in the European Union today would want to block an embassy move to Jerusalem, not only for your own country, but for other countries that have the conviction [that] this is the right thing to do, the only country to do would be Germany. This is a big shock.”

According to Sandell, most of  Merkel’s calls to put the squeeze on European leaders happened when “many of the nations were seriously considering moving their embassies.”

This isn't a shock to me at all,but let's continue.

Germany also implemented  the marking of Israeli goods from 'disputed territories' in 2015. Not only did Germany start the labeling, but Merkel used her influence to get other Eu nations to do the same.The idea, of course is to further isolate Israel as an 'occupying power.'

As recently as a few days ago, the EU showed that it had chosen sides against Israel. When American U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley tried to discuss aspects of President Trump's proposed peace plan, they essentially brushed it off. Let's look at their official statement and then dissect what it really means.

After the usual horse manure about a 'just peace 'based on international law, relevant UN resolutions and previous agreements', here's what they said:

  "The EU is truly convinced that the achievement of a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as the capital of both States, that meets Israeli and Palestinian security needs and Palestinian aspirations for statehood and sovereignty, ends the occupation and resolves all final status issues, in accordance with Security Council Resolution 2334 and previous agreements, is the only viable and realistic way to end the conflict and to achieve just and lasting peace."

Let's translate this, shall we?

 

Resolution 2334 is the one former President Barack Hussein Obama engineered when the Security Council had a majority of anti-Israel countries on it and then made sure the US abstained so it would pass, his final hateful attack on Israel. Here's what it stipulated, and it's an  'anti-zionist' wet dream.

First of all, it negates every Israeli community as illegal outside the pre-1967 lines and gives East Jerusalem to the PLO. This creates 580,000 homeless Israeli refugees, bars them forever from all their holy sites, and puts all of Israel's central plain and its airports in easy missile and mortar by giving Israel's sworn enemies the high ground.

 

Not only that, it also  takes away any notion of security from what's left of Jerusalem that the resolution is willing to leave to Israel. The Israelis themselves had previous experience with this in 1967, when Jordan's King Hussein announced his entry into the war by shelling civilians and having snipers fire on West Jerusalem

Even worse, there would be nothing to stop Iran from supplying deadlier and deadlier missiles and arms to both the PLO and Hamas. With the Jordan Valley out of Israeli control, there would be nothing to stop Iran from moving troops, missile launchers and armor  to Israel's new borders.

Essentially, what the EU was saying to Ambassador Haley is that they weren't going to support President Trump's plan whatever it was, that Israel should be moved to indefensible borders, and that its enemies should have every strategic advantage so they can finally destroy it.

2334 also  violates the Oslo Accords and the Road Map, agreements the U.S. was a signatory to that stated unequivocally that any settlement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority could only be achieved through direct negations between the two parties.

And then of course, there's that notion of 'occupation.' That term has always been used to describe one country forcibly invading and taking control of another country's sovereign territory. And sovereign territory means land inside another established country's recognized borders, like Saddam Hussein occupying Kuwait or the US occupying Germany or Japan.

So we have to ask the question...which country's sovereign territory is Israel 'occupying?'

It can't be Jordan. Yes, Jordan illegally occupied Judea, Samaria (AKA The West Bank) and East Jerusalem in the 1948 war for 19 years after ethnically cleansing the Jewish population in this area,  but the UN never recognized these areas as Jordanian territory, Israel took it back in the Six Day war after Jordan attacked them and Jordan later gave up all claims to this area as part of their peace treaty with Israel. So it isn't Jordan Israel's occupying.

And it can't be 'Palestine' either. It never existed as a sovereign nation with established borders at all. Owning a house in say, Pennsylvania does not make it and maybe your yard a sovereign country, now does it?

So there really is no 'occupation.' According to the San Remo Accords between the League of Nations (the UN of its day) and Britain in 1922, the 22% of the Palestine Mandate that includes Judea and Samaria and what is now Israel was supposed to be the Jewish State, while the 78% of it that's now Jordan was supposed to be the Arab State. It's the only partition of the area both sides ever agreed on, and it was reaffirmed in Article 80 of the UN Charter.

What the EU and their pals at the UN are doing is pretty simple to figure out. They're simply doing what  Mark Twain predicted they would back in 1899 when the  Zionist movement was  beginning. Here's what he had to say  in a famous article on Jews he did in Harper's Magazine:

  I am not objecting; but if that concentration of the cunningest brains in the world were going to be made in a free country (bar Scotland), I think it would be politic to stop it. It will not be well to let the race find out its strength. If the horses knew theirs, we should not ride any more. 

Want further proof of how the EU has it in for Israel? The recent attempt to simply pass a resolution  condemning unprovoked terrorism  by Hamas against Israel in the UN General Assembly failed dismally once Israel's enemies in the UN insisted on a two thirds majority instead of the simple majority Ambassador Haley wanted.

You know what did pass? A resolution sponsored by Ireland calling for 'the achievement, without delay”  of the implementing  of U.N. resolution 2334.

Since 2334 was a series 6 Resolution that has no status as international law,  Israel promptly rejected it, as any country not interested in national suicide would.But thanks to Barack Hussein Obama, it remains a framework for countries that want Israel gone.

And make no mistake,it definitely is about the Jews. Much of what constitutes the EU will never forgive them for Auschwitz. Or for being so successful in a region noted for failed states.

Trump Freezes Obama's $221M Gift To 'Palestine'..What It means

President Trump took quick action to freeze President Obama's $221 million dollar  gift to 'Palestine' courtesy of the American taxpayers.The money was a last minute payout  from President Barack Hussein Obama to Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority in the last hours before President Trump's swearing in on January 20th. Apparently someone leaked this to someone in President Trump's circle, because he was about to act immediately.

Two congress members, Ed Royce of California, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Kay Granger of Texas, who sits on the House Appropriations Committee — had placed holds on it over moves the Palestinian Authority had taken to seek membership in international organizations as well as their incitement to violence against israel. Such holds are usually respected, but President Obama decided not to do so. This would have been added to the $250 million the PA received from the US government.

What happened instead is that newly sworn in President Trump froze the funds.  PA Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah was told by the U.S. State Department  that the funds were subject to an intensive review and that he should  not expected the money in the immediate future.

 
'Aiyee! No baksheesh? What will the Rais say?'



President Obama giving more more money to Hamas and the kleptocrat dictatorship of Mahmoud Abbas than any previous U.S. President was obviously a case of ideology rather than any attempt at peace. He simply wore a mask for 8 years to try and hide it.Any president actually interested in negotiations for peace would  have  used the money as an incentive to Abbas to negotiate and make meaningful concessions, since unlike the U.S. relationship with Israel, America gets absolutely nothing of value from 'Palestine.'

Instead  Obama gave them everything they wanted and more, including a key abstention at the UN with a resolution Secretary of State John Kerry helped write. And cynically, he gave it to them when it would no longer harm him or his party's nominee politically. His goal was obviously not peace, but Israel's surrender...from day one.

 

Perhaps President Trump actually showing 'Palestine' that there will be real consequences for their violence, incitement and refusal to negotiate realistically with Israel might just result in peace. We'll see.

The Paris ' Peace Conference' Turns Into A Farce

 
 Pro -Israel protesters outside Paris Conference


The Paris peace conference designed to be another slap at Israel turned into a farce devoid of meaning. It certainly didn't have the kick Barack Obama and John Kerry intended.

Instead of strengthening the insidious UNSC 2334, it actually buried it and made it ridiculous.

UNSC 2334, as biased as it was, had reiterated the Security Council’s:

“vision of a region where two democratic States, Israel and Palestine, live side by side in peace within secure and recognized borders,”

The final Paris communique threw away this “two democratic states solution” and changed it to:

“that a negotiated solution with two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security, is the only way to achieve enduring peace.”

They eliminated 'democratic' 9 times in the final communique. This seems self-evident because neither the Palestinian Authority or Hamasistan are democratic in the least, but the Paris communique not accepting the terms of the “two-state solution” proposed by the Security Council gives the lie to the whole enterprise and takes the mask off, weakening 2334's clout.

It also reaffirmed that the only way to any settlement was direct negotiations between the parties rather than a UN diktat, which 2334 most assuredly did not do.

There's also no followup, and no new demands of Israel.

The Paris statement did praise Saudi Arabia's 2002 Arab Peace Initiative as "a comprehensive framework for the resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict, thus contributing to regional peace and security." That's to be expected. But since it was a diktat that mimics 2334 in re-dividing Jerusalem and gifting all of Judea and Samaria to 'Palestine' and the Israelis will never abide by that anyway, it's meaningless...just like the entire conference.

Surprisingly, Britain refused to ratify the Paris statement, thus blocking the EU from signing on to it. Australia refused as well, as did most of the Eastern European EU members.

And even France's lame duck president Hollande changed his tune, saying that only negotiations between the two parties would result in peace, which 'cannot be dictated.'

 

What changed things? In part at least, Donald Trump:

In a recent interview with Bild and the Times of London, Trump said he hoped the UK would veto any anti-Israel resolution at the UN Security Council.

“The Brits read what Trump said and implemented it immediately,” an unnamed European diplomat who attended Monday’s EU meeting told Haaretz.

 


Quite simply, Trump explained that Obama was on his way out in a week or so, and there was a new sheriff in town. It's no coincidence that British PM Theresa May is now exulting over offers of  new trade deals outside the EU with America.

The Australians and the most of the  Eastern European countries were always on board with Israel anyway. Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop was fairly open about saying that the Turnball government didn't think much of 2334 and even less of the Paris communique:

Without specifically mentioning the conference's endorsement of resolution 2334, Ms Bishop noted the Coalition did not support "one-sided resolutions targeting Israel".

"The most important priority must be a resumption of direct negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians for a two-state solution as soon as possible," she said.

Australia became one of the few countries other than Israel to condemn the New Zealand-sponsored resolution 2334, with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull labeling it "one-sided" and "deeply unsettling".

U,S, Secretary of State John Kerry phoned Israeli PM Netanyahu and promised that the U.S. would not support any further UN action at tomorrow's UN Security Council Meeting, to which Netanyahu reportedly replied that Israel has already suffered enough damage thanks to the U.S. abstention on 2334.

It's the part about Kerry promising something is what has me concerned...stay tuned.

UPDATE: The UNSC meeting turned out to be nothing. Except for Israel's UN ambassador Danny Danon ripping the UN for encouraging  (encouraging? try financing amd abetting) Palestinian terrorism and intransigence.

A Final Act Of Hatred - Obama Attacks Israel's Legitimacy At The UN

 

Outgoing President Barack Hussein Obama has devoted a chunk of his remaining time and attention in office to indulge in a spiteful, personal demonstration of his hatred for Israel. It's the final attack of the most anti-Israel administration in U.S. history. And it isn't finished yet.

A reluctant Egypt had been prepared to present an incredibly biased anti-Israel UN Security Council resolution, a bigoted text that had been in the works for some time. But Egyptian President Asissi, after a conversations with president-elect Donald Trump  and Israeli prime Minister Netanyahu pulled the resolution indefinitely. As various diplomatic sources reported, Al Sissi decided that antagonizing the incoming president and straining his security arrangements with Israel weren't worth a UN resolution he didn't want to present anyway.

President Obama had been colluding on this all along with the Palestinians, even advising on wording. He contacted the anti-Israel countries of New Zealand, Venezuela, and the Muslim nations of Senegal and Malaysia to quickly co-sponsor the resolution and get in on the floor quickly for a vote. It passed 14-0, with the U.S. abstaining as planned.

In spite of the outright lies being told by the administrations lackeys, Resolution 2334 represents a major change in U.S. policy.

It demonizes Israel, yet again, as the 'occupying power' in disregard of all historical and legal norms. It refers to Judea, Samaria (AKA the West Bank) as well as east Jerusalem as 'occupied Palestinian territory,' a neat trick since there never was a Palestine and the 1994 peace treaty between Jordan and Israel didn't even mention a Palestinian state.

It calls for Jerusalem, with the Old City, which contains all the Jewish holy sites including the Western Wall to be ceded to 'Palestine.' That means those sites will be desecrated as they were during the nineteen year Jordanian occupation, and will be closed to Jews forever. Yes, it is now the official position of the United States of America that the Western Wall and the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, inhabited by Jews for thousands of years except for a 19-year hiatus between 1948-1967 when the Jews were ethnically cleansed from the area is now 'occupied Palestinian territory'. This delegitimizes Israel and the Jewish people and concurs with the anti-semitic UNESCO resolution of October,2016 that nullified all Jewish and Christian ties and connections to Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and referred to all of the Holy sites there by their Muslim names. Obama saw to it that United States voted against that UNESCO resolution, but there was an election going on then. That's obviously why the Obama administration vetoed a similar resolution to 2334 in 2011 before his re-election run, but didn't veto 2334. There's no election going on now, and Barack Hussein Obama's situation has obviously changed. Now he can take off the mask without any cost or consequences.

This new diktat creates the boundaries for 'Palestine' giving them all of Judea and Samaria as well as East Jerusalem. In other words, it legitimizes the creation of 580,000 Jewish refugees as well as totally unsafe borders for Israel. It also violates the Oslo Accords and the Road Map, agreements the U.S. was a signatory to that stated unequivocally that any settlement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority could only be achieved through direct negations between the two parties. And for the first time, it legitimizes Obama's call for imposing a Palestinian state on the 1948 ceasefire lines, another total departure from previous U.S. policy.

 



It calls for member nations, “to distinguish, in their relevant dealings, between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967” which legitimizes boycotts. And it calls for an immediate end to all Israeli construction In Judea, Samaria. According to this resolution, Israel isn't even allowed to build a kindergarten or repair a road.

This again is an Obama policy, not something historic. Obama's UN ambassador Samantha Power is noted for calling  for the U.S. to unilaterally invade the region, force Israel into indefensible borders, engage in ethnic cleansing by throwing every Jew out of Judea, Samaria, and East Jerusalem, turn those areas over to 'Palestine' and establish a U.S. peacekeeping force there to keep Israel from retaliating against the inevitable terrorist attacks on its civilians that would result from the new borders.

What this UN resolution calls for is pretty close to that, but Ambassador Power had the unmitigated gall to lie about it anyway. She defended the U.S. abstention as an act to save the so-called “two-state” solution, something she said Israeli 'settlements activities' are supposedly jeopardizing. She even had the nerve to quote President Ronald Reagan and deliberately take him out of context to justify the vote she just cast. In a 1982 statement, President Ronald Reagan did call for an end to "the use of any additional land for the purpose of settlements.” In that statement, quoted by Ambassador Power, President Reagan said that "the immediate adoption of a settlement freeze by Israel, more than any other action, could create the confidence needed for wider participation in these talks."

The part she conveniently left out was that in his speech, President Reagan was referring to a freeze on new settlements during a “period of transition,” which would “begin after free elections for a self-governing Palestinian authority” and could prove that “Palestinian autonomy poses no threat to Israel’s security.” President Reagan also said that “the United States will not support the establishment of an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza,” but suggested instead “self-government by the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza in association with Jordan.”

Sounds like Ronaldus Maximus understood the true nature of the 'Palestinians' and why 'statehood' for them was a singularly bad idea. Even the Oslo Accords only referred to limited autonomy, not a separate Palestinian state.

You see, it's not Israel's communities in Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem that have prevented a settlement.   As Mahmoud Abbas himself admitted, it was President Obama's idea to make a building freeze a major issue when it wasn't before, even to the point of creating a major diplomatic incident between the US and Israel over what was essentially a local zoning issue and then harshly criticizing Israel for rejecting an offer to resume the freeze that the US never made in the first place.

What's prevented a solution is the continued refusal of the Arabs whom call themselves 'Palestinians' to negotiate anything. negotiating, of course means making concessions to thew other side, and Abbas has said repeatedly that he's unwilling to make a single concession to Israel. And why should he, especially now?

President Obama started out his presidency letting anyone who was paying attention that he had  a major problem with America's alliance with Israel and wanted to create lots of 'daylight' between the two countries.  

He was thoroughly schooled in his disdain for Israel by his mentors from his earliest days, Frank Marshall Davis, Edward Said, Louis Farrakhan, Jeremiah Wright, Khalid al-Mansour, Bill Ayres and others. Abbas, as a trained Soviet apparatchnik recognized Obama's training instantly and knew that all he had to do was hold out until Obama gifted him what Abbas, wanted, without any concessions whatsoever.

No one with a shred of intellectual honesty can separate this UN action from Jew hatred. This resolution not only meets Natan Sharansky's famous '3D' definition of anti-semitism, ( Demonization, Double Standards, Delegitimization) but actually conforms to the U.S. Department of State's official working definition of it.

So, where does this go from here?

Reaction in the U.S. itself was mixed in some interesting ways.

President-elect Donald Trump was predictably outraged. Aside from his own warmth towards Israel and the Jewish people, this an attempt by a lame duck president to impose a policy on him as an incoming president was despicable, and Trump made no bones about saying so.

Trump apparently found out what was up, and had called for Obama to veto the resolution the day before it went tothe UN, saying, "As the United States has long maintained, peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians will only come through direct negotiations between the parties, and not through the imposition of terms by the United Nations,” the president-elect said in a statement Thursday.

"This puts Israel in a very poor negotiating position and is extremely unfair to all Israelis."

And Trump warned the U.N. shortly after the vote via Twitter that “things will be different” after his inauguration.

Many members of congress also expressed outrage. As you can imagine, this was mainly the Republicans. Sen. James Lankford, (R-OK), a member of the Senate appropriations subcommittee responsible for making foreign aid funding decisions, tweeted, "U.N. funding should be up for discussion if the anti #Israel resolution is approved."  Senators Lindsay Graham, Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton and others also voiced disgust at this and are calling for defunding the UN, unless this is repealed.

The Israelis,of course, are livid at this deliberate betrayal. But they should have expected it. This was always going to happen with Barack Hussein Obama in the White House, and I predicted it a long time ago. Needless to say, Israel isn't going to abide by any of this.No country would, unless they were collectively suicidal.

Contrary to popular belief in some circles, Israel is not dependent on American military aid. They have their own thriving arms industry and the amount involved is a relatively small part of their defense budget, although it undoubtedly helps. Actually, as I've pointed out before, the U.S. gets far more in goods and services from Israel than we pay out, and Obama's ' generous' new aid package was actually a reduction,not an increase and came with some major strings attached.

The real reason Netanyahu accepted it was an attempt to mollify what he understood was an anti-Israel president, and to try to avoid losing the alliance's real benefit for Israel...that of a trusted friend who would fend off what amounts to institutionalized Jew hatred in the sewer the UN has become. Frankly, after eight years of this president, he should have known better.

But with that benefit now gone, the Israelis have learned a vital and important lesson, one Obama didn't intend. This blatant treachery united the vast majority of Israelis. It proved that Netanyahu and the Israeli Right were correct all along. They now know that there's absolutely no benefit for them in making any concessions, or negotiating anything.Israel could reduce itself to an enclave around Tel Aviv and it would still be too much. And they would still be libeled as 'the occupying power' and face more demands no matter what.

What President Obama and his creatures don't understand is that instead of preserving the fallacy of the so-called two-state solution, this has killed it. In spite of a few indeterminate words about “all acts of violence against civilians, including acts of terror, as well as all acts of provocation, incitement and destruction” Hamas and the Palestinian Authority have never taken anything like that seriously because they have never suffered any consequences at all for it from the UN,the U.S. or the 'international community.' The aid has kept coming in, and no matter what horrendous atrocities they commit against Israeli civilians or what gets taught in the Palestinian Authority's mosques, schools and official media, no matter how well they reward the perpetrators, there's no penalty for their actions. Just pro forma 'condemnations of all violence against civilians' and calls to 'reduce tension' as if Israel was equally at fault.

This resolution essentially legitimizes terrorist attacks on Israelis as 'resistance' and don't think the 'Palestinians' won't rev things up. The Israelis know that and will respond in a far more decisive way than before now that they fully understand that to the UN, nothing they do to defend themselves is legitimate. They have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Instead of a partner for peace or someone to negotiate with in good faith, Israel, for the first time since the Second Intifada is going to treat Hamas and the Palestinian Authority as exactly what they have always been in reality - a toxic, hostile enemy.

Israel will build in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria like never before. And they may very well annex Area C at the least. After all, if the UN calls the Western Wall inJerusalem and Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, some of which have existed since the 1920's 'occupied Palestinian territory,' why not?

As for President Obama, his plan is to double down.

 

Today, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry made a speech which basically defended 2334. He re-emphasized the lie that the U.S. has always opposed 'settlements' in Judea and Samaria and has always supported a two state solution on the 1948 cease fire lines or to use Kerry's terminology, 'the pre 1967 lines.' The truth, of course is that no U.S. Administration ever called the Jewish communities in Judea,Samaria and Jerusalem 'illegal' before, or called for a two state solution on the 1948 cease fire lines. This is Obama's policy and his alone.

He also trotted out the old line that "“It is the only way to ensure Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state living in peace and security with its neighbors.”

He seems to forget that Israel is already a Jewish, democratic state with 20% of its population consisting of Arabs, most of whom are fully integrated into Israeli society with the full protection of law. How many Jews live in Abbas's 'Palestine?'. Abbas has already said that no Jews will be allowed in his little reichlet. If anyone has a problem with remaining democratic, it isn't Israel.But you'd never know that to listen to John Kerry. he also repeated the call for a divided Jerusalem and the de facto creation of 580,000 Jewish refugees.

As for peace and security, why would he or any sane person believe that the Arabs whom call themselves Palestinian have any intent of living in peace with Israel, no matter what? Kerry made a mention of their incitement to violence and glorification of terrorists, saying, "The murders of innocents are still glorified on Fatah websites.”

“Despite statements by President Abbas, too often they send a different message by failing to condemn specific attacks and by naming public squares, streets and schools after terrorists.”

Is Kerry really that blind and clueless to think that's going to change, especially since there's no consequences for it, and it's being rewarded by the UN and the Obama Administration?

Kerry made a vague promise in his speech that the US would not seek further UN action. That doesn't mean they won't condone it, help plan and compose  it, and do their best to help push it through.

On January 16th, there's a long planned French-sponsored conference that will focus exclusively  Israel and establishing a Palestinian state. Israel is not attending, but the U.S. will be there.

On January 17th, there's yet another UN Security Council meeting  scheduled.  The UN normally moves quite slowly, but rest assured that both the Paris conference and the meeting have already been pretty much scripted. My guess is that another resolution arises out of it.

 President Barack Hussein Obama isn't through attacking Israel yet.

.

When It Comes to Jew Hatred, The Left Lives in Glass Houses

 

A friend of mine, no mean writer herself sent me some links from the likes of the New York Times and the New Yorker and flattered me by asking if I would write something about them. They could have been written by the same writer, had the same basic format and came out the same day as a number of other pieces by the usual suspects.

The topic? Sudden concern by the Left at the rise in anti-semitism caused by Donald Trump and carried on by his supporters on the alt-Right! Of course, they never had the intestinal fortitude to actually accuse Trump's campaign of anti-semitism, but both quoted one of their fellow Democrat leftists as saying that it was Trump who enabled it. The Times piece quoted Trump hater and Hillary supporter John Podhoretz as saying that “The best analogy I can give is that the campaign turned over a rock and a lot of stuff began crawling out from under it.”

“There were these code words and dog whistles that let it appear that people who had been doing things in the shadows could now start marching forward.”

The main focus was on the awful things people write on Twitter. Heaven forbid they would blame Twitter, which has a history of banning and shadow banning Republicans and conservatives like Milo Yiannopoulos and Professor Glenn Reynolds for far less! But Twitter, of course, is down for the agenda.

So, after I stopped laughing out loud at this nonsense, I started thinking...why get into this meme now, with the election only a few weeks away? After all, these folks have accused Trump of everything else. But before we go there, let's examine their central point, that Trump's campaign is what has unleashed Jew hatred....hint hint, nudge wink.

Jew haters always have a real disdain for candidates who have a history of being closely involved with Jewish causes, who openly embrace Israel as the true friend and ally of America it is, who have close Jewish associates of long standing, who have Jewish family members like a beloved daughter (especially if that daughter converted), a close son-in-law and Jewish grandchildren.

So if some Jew haters support Donald Trump, the reason can't be anti-semitism. And while it might be getting a pass by Twitter, it isn't getting a pass by Trump or his supporters. You can find a few of these Jew hating trolls (frequently they're Muslims, which we'll talk more about shortly) on plenty of threads in conservative media, but the reaction from the thread in a place like PJ Media or Breitbart is always to call them out and bombard them mercilessly. I've run into a few of them myself and after I dispose of them with a few facts and some well-honed ridicule, I always get a fair amount of up votes.

Yet there's one thing that can't can't be shrugged off. Jew hatred in America has definitely increased and it was noticeable long before Donald Trump ran for president. So what caused it?

Starting with the first Bush administration, we saw much closer and intertwined relationships with the Saudis and the Emirates and with the last Clinton administration and that of George W. Bush, those relationships got even closer. We saw these countries financing the Muslim Brotherhood and taking over America's mosques via the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), we saw increased Muslim migration from countries where misogyny and Jew hatred were quite common and the virtual purchasing of Middle East Studies departments and foreign policy chairs in our major universities. In 2008, President Barack Hussein Obama was elected and he increased these trends on steroids. For the first time, America had a a president with major ties to the Saudis, the anti-semitic Nation of Islam and a 'spiritual mentor' who preached Jew hatred and anti-semitism from the pulpit.

While President Obama managed to cleverly finesse these issues with the help of a compliant media and of course Jewish apologists on the Left, once the votes were cast he reverted to type, announcing that he wanted to create 'distance' between America and Israel,  attacking its policies at every turn, protecting and enabling Islamists in America,  and actually rewarding and recognizing anti-semites......even partying with them as his intimates.

 

By 2012, President Obama had made a fair amount of progress towards making Israel a partisan issue in American politics. Remember how Obama saw to it that all the pro-Israel language from the 2008 platform was eliminated? And what happened at the convention afterwards when it didn't poll well? And when at least half (and probably more) of the delegates on the floor refused to vote for changes to include some of the former language. Listen to the reaction when those changes were shoved through over the obvious wishes of the assembled delegates in spite of not getting the required two thirds majority after three futile tries:



Those people, by the way, are not Trump supporters of members of the so-called 'alt-Right.' They're Democrats. And notice back then that Obama, at election time, was once again fooling Jewish Democrats by saying that Jerusalem was the capitol of Israel. Once the votes were cast, he 'evolved' again. Apparently our president isn't sure which country he was in for the funeral of Shimon Peres.

The members of the White House supported and Soros funded #Black Lives Matter movement are also Democrats on the Left. And anti-semites, who have made it a litmus test for Jews wishing to be 'part of the progressive movement' to denounce Israel or become pariahs. Even some far Left 'progressive' Jews couldn't cross the line when BLM labeled Israel an 'apartheid state' committing 'genocide.'

The Jewish students being assaulted and intimidated on America's campuses aren't being attacked by members of the 'alt-Right.' They're being attacked by members of the Islamist Muslim Students Association (MSA), Students For Justice in Palestine and similar BDS groups...Leftists all.

Hillary Clinton isn't a Trump supporter either. But aside from having no problem with Jews bring denied access to their religious sites while Secretary of State, she was also happy to take the advice of her campaign guru John Podesta and her campaign manager Robbie Mook not to mention Israel at any of her events except appropriate fundraisers.

And if that isn't enough, Mrs. Clinton has pledged to carry on President Obama's policy and do something guaranteed not just to make things more dangerous for Jews and increase the attacks on them but to have the same effect on young women. She wants to increase the wholesale importation of unvetted Muslim men from the most anti-semitic and misogynist countries on earth, simply because she knows they'll vote Democrat to keep the benefits and welfare payments coming in.

This is exactly what has happened in Europe. Do a search on rapes in Germany, Sweden, France, sex grooming in the UK and similar topics as well as the rise of attacks on Jews in Europe to see how that would work out in America if Mrs. Clinton gets her way.

If you're a woman without rape fantasies, a Jew who wants to be able to walk around in relative safety or a homosexual, voting for Mrs. Clinton is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders or a trout voting to bring more fishermen to your lake.

And what do you know? Both the New York Times,The New Yorker and the other down for Hillery media support that agenda!

Which tells us where the real anti-semitism is coming from, doesn't it? And it's done with the active aiding and abetting of the Left. Could these stories be coming out now because team Clinton has an inkling that some people are starting to figure this out?


The pitiful and disgraceful attempt to libel the most philosemitic and pro-Israel ticket in years to cover for their own tacit endorsement of Jew hatred and the anti-semitic groups mentioned is beneath contempt.

When it comes to Jew hatred, the Left lives in very shoddy  glass houses. For them to throw any rocks at anyone else is the height of hypocrisy.

For Israel, Signing Obama's New Us-Israel Arms Deal Was A Mistake

After a long negotiation, Benyamin Netanyahu signed a new MOU with President Barack Hussein Obama on a military aid package for U.S. military aid to Israel over the next ten years.

While it was touted as 'an unprecedented increase it military aid' to Israel, in reality, it was a decrease, and one with stringent and dangerous conditions that Netanyahu should have rejected outright.

Before we get to the details, let me dispose of some nonsense coming from figures on the Israeli  left like Israel's former Labor Prime Minister, Ehud Barak,  that Israel would have gotten a better deal if Netanyahu hadn't opposed Obama's Iran deal and made that 2015 speech to a joint session of Congress to try and head it off.

President Obama has made it clear from the beginning of his presidency that he loathes Israel and wanted to 'create distance' between the U.S. and Israel to appease the Muslim world. End of story.

Nothing Netanyahu could have done short of surrendering to all of Obama's demands, creating 500,000 Jewish refugees and moving Israel to unsafe borders would  have changed that, and President Obama would still have insisted on appeasing Iran with farcical Iran deal whether Netanyahu had stayed home and kept his mouth shut or not. Providing billions of dollars to Israel's most genocidal enemy and giving them a clear path to nuclear weapons was something Obama was always going to do, just like his efforts to empower Islamists in the region that ended up destabilizing the Middle East was always something he was going to do.

That, of course is one huge reason  for rejecting the agreement.  The Israelis should never have taken seriously any offer coming from President Obama, let alone signed on. This was just a convenient political smokescreen in an election year designed to appear to counteract  Obama's progress in making U.S. support for Israel a partisan issue, and what will likely be a U.S. abstention or perhaps even a vote in favor of a biased UN resolution. That resolution will be written to abrogate U.S. signed treaties like the Road Map and Oslo which call for direct negotiations between Israel and PLO and substitute a UN diktat, gifting the Palestinian Authority everything it wants without negotiating anything, at least on paper.  And yes, Barack Hussein Obama was always going to do that eventually too, when the opportunity arose, in this case after the 2016 elections. He is simply not to be trusted in any regard where Israel is concerned and neither is the current Democrat nominee, Mrs. Clinton. To be sure, such a UN resolution would never be accepted by the Israelis, but it would provide additional strain on the U.S.-Israel relationship, something President Barack Hussein Obama has had as a policy goal since he took office.

Netanyahu accepted this for a couple of reasons, both political rather than strategic. He didn't want to face political pressure at home for 'ruining the relationship with America' (the Israeli press has its strident leftists, just like America) and he was likely hoping to throw a bone to Obama in hopes he could mollify him during his last few months in office. So at best, this new agreement was  a calculated risk, but we'll see.

So that disposed of, let's look at the deal itself. It allocates $3.8 billion a year in military aid to Israel for a period of ten years, up from $3.1 billion per year. That's an increase of $700 million dollars per year, but it's not the increase it would seem to be. For one thing, arms costs have risen by between 20-25% since the last U.S./Israel arms agreement was signed. Subtract that percentage  from the new  the new amount, and you'll see it amounts to hardly any increase at all, and will likely even be a substantial decrease in ten years. This is especially relevant because this agreement forbids Israel from asking for more, no matter what. It also takes congress out of the equation, where Israel's real friends live and puts this in the hands of the White House.

This amount also includes funds for Israel's missile defense. which Congress funded separately as an additional appropriation of approximately $500 million on an annual basis. So this actually amounts to another cut in this supposed 'increase' in aid. This is especially bad in view of the fact that Congress had already decided to appropriate $3.4 billion of regular foreign aid, plus an additional $600 million for missile defense in 2017, or $4 billion in total. Obama, of course would never have signed off on that but at least it should have been a starting point, especially since Obama and Secretary of state John Kerry promised Israel 'unprecedented aid' after shoving through the Iran deal.

This ain't that, not by a long shot.

The only provision for any increase at all would be if Israel is involved in a war. That decision on whether Israel is at war would be dependent on President Obama or perhaps (G-d forbid) a President Clinton, herself no fan of Israel. Remember than President Obama was the only U.S, president since Israel became a U.S. ally to actually cut off arms shipments to Israel during a shooting war. This part of the deal actually legitimizes that kind of action.

Then there are the various other restrictions. Right now, Israel is allowed to spend 25% of the aid it receives in Israel with Israeli defense companies, while 75% must be spent in the U.S. That restriction, by the way, is unique to Israel. Here's just one example. Egypt receives $1.5 billion in military aid from the U.S. every year. They can spend it however and wherever they choose. After the breach between Obama and the al-Sissi government over Obama's pique over the removal of the president's Muslim Brotherhood favorite Mohammed Morsi from power, Egypt got its $1.5 billion after some song and dance. But the arms they bought with it were Russian.

The new deal mandates that 100% of U.S. aid to Israel be spent in the U.S. in the final five years of the proposed deal. Ironically, the 25% Israel now spends with Israeli defense companies like Rafael actually benefits the U.S. because it usually ends up being used for R&D, something that has produced a number of products that benefits our military like the unique light weight super strong helmet that has become standard issue for our troops.

There's another even more insidious problem with this. What if a future U.S. president for whatever reason decides not to sell arms to Israel any more? The most crucial need in a modern military to keep it up and running, especially in wartime is spare parts - airplane tires, nuts and bolts, engine parts, tank treads, electronics, repair kits, things like that. In 1967, France's Charles DeGaulle, who had been Israel's chief arms supplier decided to curry favor with the Arab world by suddenly cutting off all arms shipments to Israel on the eve of the Six-Day-War, even shipments Israel had already paid for. One of the miracles of the Six -Day-War is that it only took six days...had it lasted much longer, Israel would have had crucial problems finding spare parts. This new deal has that same risk built into it.

As I've pointed out before, the U.S. - Israel alliance is heavily weighted in America's favor, one of the only agreements of this type that is.  Israel actually provides goods, services and other considerations worth far more than the aid money it receives.

Rather than accept what Obama offered, perhaps Israel should have held out not for more money but for the ability to spend what it gets  where it wants  just like a lot of other countries do. Foreign aid totals about 1% of the U.S budget. The aid Israel will get under this new deal is less than 20% of it's overall defense budget and while that's not insignificant, it isn't overwhelming either.

Israel might be far better off not receiving these funds and charging the U.S. the going rate for those services it provides like other countries do. The going price for  hosting America's Middle East Strategic arms depot per year alone  would provide Israel with as much or possibly more money than this  aid package does based on what similar bases cost us. They could then invest that in Israeli companies to enable Israel to become self sufficient in  building their own weaponry without the necessity of depending on a foreign country for spare parts or shipments of armaments at crucial times. A few years ago, this wouldn't have been a problem but post-Obama and with the creation of Israel as a partisan issue for the Democrats, it is now.

If Israel is going to accept the funds, it should spend as much as possible on machinery and technology for its domestic arms companies that will eventually enable this kind of self-sufficiency.

Seeing how the first truly anti-Israel president in history has behaved, Israel needs to learn the lesson that a client state status has its risks. Things change. While there's an excellent  chance the relationship between Israel and America  would be vastly improved with Donald Trump and Mike Pence in office, it's far better to take precautions and opt for self sufficiency and independence, just in case.

-Selah-

Obama Judicial Appointees: 'Murder Jews, No Harm, No Foul'

As the AP reported, a three judge panel for the U.S. 2nd District Court of Appeals tossed out a $654 million jury verdict for damages against the Palestinian Authority and the PLO today for terrorist attacks it coordinated and sponsored in Israel that killed or wounded Americans.

The court's ruling was based on a very curious interpretation of the law involved, the U.S. Anti Terrorism Act, which allows American victims of foreign terrorist attacks to sue state sponsors of terrorism in U.S. courts for damages.

The original verdict was the result of a case called Sokolow v. PLO that was tried by jury in the Federal District Court in Manhattan and was brought by American victims and survivors of six terrorist attacks in Israel between 2001 and 2004. The evidence showed clearly that not only had the PLO under Yasser Arafat planned, financed, and executed the attacks but that it continued to pay generous stipends to the perpetrators and their families.

The 2nd Circuit refused to allow any of the evidence linking the Palestinian Authority and the PLO to the attacks and the attackers to be heard, although as a sop, they admitted the attacks occurred and were 'horrendous'. What they based their ruling on is that Palestine is not a state and therefore, the Federal District Court lacked jurisdiction to rule against them!

Now, the PLO and the Palestinian authority have always said that they're a sovereign state ever since Oslo and have always successfully insisted in being treated as one by the U.S. and other entities. They have their own flag, a national anthem, their own military, a presidential compound, a capitol, they belong to international organizations and institutions like UNESCO and the International Red Crescent whose rules prohibit non-states from joining, and they have what passes for a parliament, courts and laws.

In America, they have diplomatic missions in New York and Washington and lobbyists working on their behalf, they have bank accounts in America, and they receive huge amounts of foreign aid from the Obama Administration both directly and through a UN entity, UNRWA. But Judge John G. Koeltl, the Obama appointee who wrote the opinion on the case said the panel found that Palestine, when it comes to being sued is not a state, that the attacks didn't specifically target Americans and were 'fortuitous' (a very curious use of that word, by the way) and that according to the judges on this panel there was no link between the PLO's activities in America and their activities in the Middle East even though Arafat ruled both groups and appointed and hired their representatives in America. Or as the judges put it, there's no evidence showing the attacks "resulted from their actions that did occur in the United States."

Apparently these judges also believe that if a customer is shot and killed during a bank robbery or a motorist is killed by a drunk driver's negligence, the victim's family have no right to a civil suit for damages. It was just 'fortuitous.'

That judgment also ignored extensive evidence that shows that at least part of the funding for the attacks and stipends for convicted killers and their families came from money siphoned off from American aid obtained through the efforts of PLO, Palestinian personnel and lobbyists here in America...which the panel refused to hear.

Even more interesting, Judge Koeltl wrote in his decision: "The overwhelming evidence shows that the defendants are 'at home' in Palestine, where they govern. Palestine is the central seat of government for the PA and PLO. The PA's authority is limited to the West Bank and Gaza, and it has no independently operated offices anywhere else. All PA governmental ministries, the Palestinian president, the Parliament, and the Palestinian security services reside in Palestine," the ruling said.

Aside from the gaffe about the PLO having authority in Gaza (they don't) doesn't this sound like a description of a sovereign state to you? Don't a country's leader, its security forces and its parliament and its governing bodies normally reside in its own territory? And can you think of any government that has independently operated offices in any foreign country? Aren't embassies and foreign offices abroad run by the sovereign state they represent?

So one one hand, the judges based their ruling on Palestine not being a state, which the PLO and PA obviously consider that it is on every occasion except being responsible for terrorism committed on its behalf. And on the other hand, they go out of their way to describe it exactly as one would describe a sovereign state!

Actually, this isn't so hard to figure out if you dig a little. The panel consisted of Judges John G. Koeltl (Obama appointee), Pierre N. Leval (Clinton appointee), and and Christopher F. Droney (Obama appointee) all of them left wing Democrats. And the Obama Administration went out of its way here to do whatever they could to get the original verdict tossed and and protect Abbas and the PA from having to pay a dime to the Americans they murdered and maimed.

In the original trial, President Obama had his Justice Department lean successfully on the judge in the case, George B. Daniels, to substantially lower the bond the Palestinians would have to post in order to appeal, normally 111 per cent of the judgement in these cases. The Justice Department filed a 'friend of the court' brief that claimed that a high bond would negate millions of dollars spent to promote Democracy and a Two State solution, and the judge complied over the objections of the victim's attorneys.

That same Obama Justice Department brief was allowed to be introduced as evidence by the defense, and given that there were two Obama appointees on the panel, there's no doubt that it carried a great deal of weight in this skewed judgment.

The Anti-Terrorism Act which allows United States citizens who are the victims of international terrorism to sue in the federal courts was passed some years after the 1985 murder of Leon Klinghoffer in the Palestinian hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro. It was designed to provide American citizens with redress and such judgments have already been made against state sponsors of terrorism against American like Syria and Iran, even though Iran has no offices or diplomats here in the U.S. Notably, such outstanding judgments were ignored by the Obama Administration during negotiations over the Iran deal and during the recent $400 million dollar ransom paid Iran for American hostages.

Kent A. Yalowitz, a lawyer for the families in the case, said in a statement that the law had been passed by Congress “to protect Americans wherever in the world they traveled.”

“The very terrorists who prompted the law have now hidden behind the U.S. Constitution to avoid responsibility for their crimes,” Mr. Yalowitz said. “This cruel decision must be corrected so that these families may receive justice.”

Mr.Yalowitz is entirely correct, and frankly, I think the fact that most if not all of the victims were American Jews who were attacked in Israel also plays into this. This president's animus towards Israel is well known.

 


But aside from the possibility of an appeal to correct this, there's a bright side.

If Palestine isn't a state according to the Obama Administration, than the Israelis can declare Oslo and the Road Map null and void (the Palestinians already have) and proceed accordingly. They can cancel any and all agreements signed with the Palestinian Authority and the PLO since they were signed as agreements between two sovereign entities. Even the areas of sovereignty and control were clearly defined. But if Palestine isn't a state, then the Obama administration has no moral or legal right to treat it as one at any time, not just when it's convenient for the President's agenda. That 'non-state' status applies across the board.

If Palestine isn't a state, then Judea and Samaria (AKA The West Bank) belongs entirely to Israel, since the only state that ever physically controlled any part of it in recent times aside from Israel was Jordan, who illegally invaded it in 1948, were driven out in 1967 after they attacked Israel and have since relinquished all claims to the area. If Palestine isn't a state,there is no 'occupation' (not that there ever was) and Israel can annex it as sovereign territory. Moreover, since many of the 'Palestinians' including Mohammad Abbas hold Jordanian citizenship and Israel and Jordan have no dual citizenship agreement, Israel can legally remove these non-Israeli citizens from its new borders and repatriate them to Jordan. Israel can also insist that all UNWRA camps in this region be located elsewhere.

Since Palestine isn't a state, Israel can also avoid repatriating the tax monies it collects on the PLO's behalf, deposit it in a fund, and allow Israelis and American Jews and their families to sue in Israeli courts and collect damages accordingly.

The Obama Administration and its minions can make the decision to treat Palestine as a state in every respect except the basic one of responsibility for its actions. That's pretty much been the president's policy since he took office, and not just when it comes to Palestine. Essentially, it's an endorsement of the same old BDS horse manure that 'resistance to occupation is not terrorism.' At least when it comes to Israel, the Jew among nations.

But aside from being brutally immoral in terms of what America has always stood for, this action opens up a whole new door. If Palestine isn't a state, then the Obama Administration doesn't have a leg to stand on when talking about 'Palestinian land,' 'occupation,' or demanding further Israeli concessions.

Hostages, Ransoms, Iran, and Israel - Obama Lies Again

 

It's been revealed that American hostages held unjustly by Iran were released this January, but only after a sum of $400 million in cash sent by the U.S. was received by the Islamic Republic. This transaction was meant to be hidden, but now it's come out, it has immediately raised questions. Was this a ransom? Why was this hidden from the American public?



The totally misnamed Josh Earnest, Obama's spokeshole was quick to say that no ransom was paid, and Hillary Clinton said - it seems to be her trademark -that this was old news and 'no one cares about it anymore.' Well, it worked for Benghazi and her illegal private e-mails and server, so why not?

But it was left for Barack Obama to pull off the biggest, most shameless lies of the bunch. He gave a press conference and asserted the following:

• That it was U.S. policy never to pay ransom for hostages, ever.

• That the money arriving at the same time was just a coincidence and was a payment on an old claim by Iran on a missing arms deal to the Shah that we never delivered. And that America's own lawyers advised paying this settlement because Iran had pursued litigation in court and by settling, 'we saved America billions of dollars.'

• That this was old news, that the Iran deal was working and that even Israel admitted it. Obama also said those who had been most critical of the deal should admit they were wrong:
  
  “What I’m interested in is if there’s some news to be made, why not have some of these folks who were predicting disaster come out and say, ‘This thing actually worked.’ Now that would be a shock,” he said.“That would be impressive. If some of these folks who said the sky is falling suddenly said, ‘You know what? We were wrong and we are glad that Iran no longer has the capacity to break out in short term and develop a nuclear weapon.’ But that wasn’t going to happen.”
  
  “The Israeli military and security community … acknowledges this has been a game changer,” he said. “The country that was most opposed to the deal.”

Well, let's examine these claims. First of all have we paid ransom before for hostages during Obama's term in office?

Remember these?


In 2011, the Obama Administration paid $1 million dollars to Iran as 'bail money' to get them to release two hikers, Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer who accidentally wandered over the Iranian border two years before and were being held in Tehran's notorious Evin Prison. An additional $500,000 in 'bail' was paid earlier for the release of Sarah Shourd, Bauer's girl friend when she became seriously ill in Evin. So, a total of $1.5 million in ransom money.

In 2012, the Obama Administration used USAid as a conduit to pay $4.6 million to the Egyptian Government for the release of 43 NGO operatives...including Sam LaHood, the son of the then Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood.

Then there was deserter Bowie Bergdahl. Remember him? Not only were 5 extremely skilled and dangerous Taliban commanders sent back to Afghanistan, but there a great deal of evidence that the Obama Administration also paid a ransom of something like $5 million to the Taliban for his release.

Even if Bergdahl's ransom consisted of just the five Taliban commanders alone, those of you with loved ones serving in AfPak can thank the Obama Administration and Mrs. Clinton, then Secretary of State for making things far more dangerous and life threatening for them.

These are just a few instances that come readily to mind, and I'm certain there are other instances. So contrary to what the president said, yes, his administration does pay ransoms for hostages. And if I remember, he mentioned that countries that do that see the price go up. That's certainly been the case for the United States!

 

Let's look at the president's next claim, that the cash payment of $400 million wasn't a ransom, it was a claims settlement for an arms deal that the Iranians were already pursuing via litigation. And the money just arrived there at the exact same time as the hostages were being released just by coincidence.

Now anyone who's ever paid a court judgment knows this is sheer fantasy. Settlements of this kind involve legal documents including one called a satisfaction of judgement filed by the litigant at the same time payment is made. And the president's nonsense - that's the most benign word I can use here - about the fact that it needed to be all cash 'because we don't have a banking arrangement with Iran' is a blatant falsehood. There absolutely no reason the U.S. couldn't have deposited the funds in a Swiss bank by check for the Iranians to have wired to wherever they wanted in any currency they desired.

There's a name for what the Obama Administration chose to do instead. It's called money laundering and it's a felony offense. No wonder even some of the officials in Obama's serially lawless Justice Department were concerned about this one.

The Iranians wanted cash for a simple reason - to humiliate the Great Satan and show the money off to prove it actually was a ransom. Which is exactly what they've done.

One of the the hostages has recounted that even though the plane to take them home was ready for takeoff, the Iranians told them that they were waiting for the plane with the money and they weren't going to be released until it arrived.

Another falsehood the president told us is that this was supposedly an arms contract that was never fulfilled. I know a little bit about arms dealing and how it's legitimately conducted. The normal procedure is that the contracts are signed and the consignee (the purchasing country) goes to a large bank and obtains a Letter of Credit in the amount required. A Letter of Credit is a guarantee from a bank on behalf of one of its customers (in this case, Iran) to the seller's bank that the seller (in this case, the U.S.) will be paid in full to the amount of the Letter of Credit as long as the contracted goods and services are delivered.

To restate this more simply, the buyer's bank guarantees payment (normally they have the funds on hold) to the seller's bank when the buyer receive what they ordered.

Since, as President Obama told us, the arms were never shipped to the Ayatollahs the money was never released to America either.

So yes, that $400,000,000, was ransom money. And our president lied once again, without being challenged by a servile press.

Finally, let's look at his claim that the Israelis are on board and just love the Iran deal.

Now, there are a few Israeli members of the military and security establishment that agree with the president, but what's notable is that they're all ex-members and almost all associated with the left wing Zionist Union (AKA Labor) party that the president tried and failed to put into power with substantial injections of cash and paid activists when he interfered with Israel's elections. They're the people whose mindset and opinions the Israeli electorate overwhelmingly rejected.

And the people who they elected and who have actual responsibility for Israel's security?

Avigdor Liberman, Israel's defense minister compared the Iran deal to Munich in 1938.

"The Munich Agreement didn’t prevent the Second World War and the Holocaust precisely because its basis, according to which Nazi Germany could be a partner for some sort of agreement, was flawed, and because the leaders of the world then ignored the explicit statements of [Adolf] Hitler and the rest of Nazi Germany’s leaders,” the ministry said.

“These things are also true about Iran, which also clearly states openly that its aim is to destroy the state of Israel,” it said, pointing to a recent State Department report that determined that Iran is the number one state sponsor of terrorism worldwide.

Yitzhak "Tzachi" Hanegbi, currently Minister in the Prime Minister's Office in charge of National Security and Foreign Affairs has a long history as part of Israel's security and defense establishment and who until recently chaired the Knesset’s powerful Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. He said, “I don’t know to which Israelis he (Obama) spoke recently. But I can promise you that the position of the prime minister, the defense minister and of most senior officials in the defense establishment has not changed.”

“The opposite is the case. The time that has elapsed since the deal was signed proved all our worries that, regrettably, we were justified before the deal was made.”

And Prime Minister Netanyahu? Netanyahu merely issued a statement that Israel “has no greater ally than the United States” but made plain nonetheless that Israel’s position on the Iran nuclear deal “remains unchanged.”

While he felt the need to be somewhat more diplomatic than Liberman (who later yielded and walked his initial statement back a bit), it's worth noting that Netanyahu used the example of Munich himself previously. And it's a correct one, with both involving a weak leader seeking to appease a vicious, aggressive enemy and buy 'peace' at an ally's expense. Czechoslovakia had a strong, well equipped military, strong, built up defenses on the German border and a world class armaments manufacturer in the Skoda Munitions Works. If Chamberlain had not sold out his ally, Hitler might never have felt secure enough on his Eastern front to start WWII and engage Germany in a two front war for some time. Certainly, it would have given the West a lot more time to arm and prepare if nothing else.

There should be no question in anyone's mind that President Barack Hussein Obama sees Israel as eminently disposable, just like Chamberlain saw the Czechs.

 

At any rate, another outright lie from this president.

And there was not a single question or followup at his press conference challenging any of these gross fabrications.

No one even challenged him by asking for his reaction to Iran's Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Khamenei essentially dumping the Iran deal and any future negotiations in a very public manner. (Hat tip to Moon of Alabama via The Glittering Eye)

Which is exactly why he keeps doing it. Because what used to be a free, independent press is now largely his enabler, a group of courtiers and political activists that covers for him. For them, that is more important than truth, the nation's well being or even a semblance of ethics. And thus, they reinforce President Obama's gigantic ego in believing that he can lie with impunity and that he really is smarter than everyone else.

Why Obama Backed Herzog - The Secret Plan To Betray Israel

It's already well known that the Obama administration sent its top political operatives  like Jeremy Bird, national field director for Obama’s 2012 campaign and  and loads of cash via a front group called “One Voice International" in an effort to illegally influence Israel's elections. Obama's goal was to unseat Israeli PM Benyamin Netanyahu and Likud in favor of Yitzhak Herzog and the far Left marriage of Labor and Tzipi Livni's Hatnua party, known as the 'Zionist Union.'

While President Obama's hatred for Netanyahu is also well known, the real reason for his touting of Buji* and the Zionist Union went far beyond that. And the full story has just surfaced now.



As confirmed by a report yesterday by Israel's Channel 10, Ephraim Sneh, one of Herzog's advisers has admitted that Buji had a private and secret agreement with Palestinian strong man Mahmoud Abbas that he was prepared to put into place if Zionist Union had won as Obama planned, and he had been elected Prime Minister. This agreement largely mirrored what The Obama Administration was trying to force on Israel, and in fact that's why Buji made the agreement in the first place, to get Obama's support, money and political muscle to try and make sure it happened.

As Buji admitted when confronted on this yesterday, here's what this 'deal' consisted of:

• A full withdrawal by Israel to the pre-1967 lines and the removal of every Jew living in Judea and Samaria. East Jerusalem was to be ceded to the Palestinian Authority as its capitol. There was a provision for land swaps on 4% or so of the territory to allow for Jewish communities like Gush Etzion, but cut off from Israel by Palestinian East Jerusalem in front of them and surrounded by 'Palestinian' territory in the rear, I'll leave it to your imagination how long those communities would last.

• Buji also agreed to the right of return for Palestinian 'refugees' and financial compensation for those whom chose not to return. No mention, of course, of any compensation  for the almost 1 million Jewish refugees resettled in Israel whom were ethnically cleansed from the Arab world after everything they owned was plundered.

• Another part of the agreement Buji signed on to was a 'symbolic presence' of Israeli security forces in the strategic Jordan Valley, with most of the security forces being composed of Jordanian and Palestinian forces. Again, I'll leave it to your imagination how long that would last before the unlucky IDF soldiers serving in the Jordan Valley were murdered or taken hostage, with any whom escaped being faced with a retreat through miles of hostile territory.

In other words, rather than a deal, it was a surrender to Mahmoud Abbas's wildest dreams.




When asked about it by Channel 10, here was Buji's reply:

“During the talks with the Palestinian Authority president in 2014, I made efforts aimed at reaching understandings that would have prevented the wave of terror that I anticipated, just like the efforts I am now making so that the abandonment of the initiative for a regional conference by the extreme right-wing government won’t lead us to another war.”

Can you imagine how much worse the casualties in that 'wave of terror' would have been if this servile snake had gotten his way? With the Arabs whom call themselves Palestinians controlling the high ground in Samaria and the Shomron as well as East Jerusalem?



And that initiative for a 'regional conference' which will not include Israel? What Herzog is pimping for amounts to a diktat in favor of Abbas and 'Palestine' sponsored by France, the Arab League and the EU, rather than the mandatory bilateral negotiations both Israel and the Palestinians agreed to as part of Oslo and the Road Map. That alone should give you an idea of what treaties with the Arabs whom call themselves Palestinians are worth...even if the casualty list since that devil's bargain with Arafat was made doesn't convince you.

This is exactly why Israel's toxic Left continues to lose support.

Fortunately, in spite of all the efforts and all the money spent to push it through, Buji and Obama's evil plan failed miserably, more proof indeed, if it was needed, that G-d does indeed protect Israel.

What this amounts to, aside from a lack of basic common sense is a collaboration with Israel's enemies. In America, part of U.S. law still on the books is the Logan Act, which prohibits private American citizens from making agreements with foreign powers. I'm unaware if Israeli law contains similar provisions, but if it doesn't it should.

President Obama has made a fetish out of trying to interfere with Democratic elections in Canada, Britain and Nigeria, where he got a former Muslim dictator Muhammadu Buhari back in power by withholding vital arms supplies, including helicopters, needed by Christian President Goodluck Jonathan to fight Boko Haram. Hundreds of Nigerian Christians died because their military was simply outgunned and incapable of fighting back, and Buhari ended up winning the election.

But nowhere else did President Obama attempt to actually facilitate the destruction of a country

As for Herzog, this alone should be an excellent reason to end his career in Israeli politics forever. His father, Chaim Herzog must be rolling in his grave with shame.

* In Hebrew, 'Buji' is slang for a little doll or toy. In an interview with MK Herzog's mother, she unfortunately revealed that this was her pet name for him as a child and in view of his extremely diminutive stature, Yitzhak Herzog has been stuck with it ever since. It is not considered a term of endearment by most Israelis whom use it to refer to MK Herzog. Nor does Yitzhak Herzog care for it in the least.