Pajamas Media
Our commitment to Israel’s security is rock solid, unwavering, enduring and forever,” Hillary Clinton told AIPAC on Monday night. The words were meant to reinforce the Obama administration’s support among American Jews, 80 percent of whom voted for Obama in 2008, and to signal that the worst days of the recent harsh U.S.-Israeli spat had passed. The administration is also aware that its temper tantrum at Israel over housing in Jerusalem has helped spark a wave of Palestinian violence, much of it centering on Jerusalem; the words were an effort to calm those winds, too.
But they were only words, and other key elements of Clinton’s address offered little reassurance for those aware of the dangers Israel faces. Regarding the cardinal one, Iran, she said:
We are now working with our partners in the United Nations on new Security Council sanctions. … Our aim is not incremental sanctions, but sanctions that will bite. It is taking time to produce these sanctions, and we believe that time is a worthwhile investment. … But we will not compromise our commitment to preventing Iran from acquiring … nuclear weapons.
With some Israeli intelligence reports saying Iranian nukes will go online within the next half-year, talk of “taking time” in the sluggish, fractious Security Council to produce “sanctions that bite” is detached from reality. It remains to be seen whether the Obama administration is capable of seriously coping with an Iranian threat that Clinton characterized as “unacceptable to the United States.” The fact that, at such a critical moment, the administration went apoplectic over Israeli housing plans in Jerusalem does not foster optimism.
And after disposing of Iran in a few paragraphs, Clinton went on to devote over four times as much space to the Palestinian issue. She made de rigueur references to Palestinian incitement and to a “Hamas-controlled municipality glorify[ing] violence and renam[ing] a square after a terrorist who murdered innocent Israelis” — at best a remarkable gaffe if not a deliberate fudge.
The renaming in question was done by Fatah officials of Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority.
The administration continues to lionize Fatah as a key to peace despite its ongoing, systematic inculcation of hatred and delegitimization of Israel throughout the Palestinian population, particularly children.
Clinton continued:
We encourage [the Palestinian Authority] to … ingrain a culture of peace and tolerance among Palestinians.
Even in the best of cases, such “ingraining” would take time — a good deal more time, even, than it takes to get another watered-down, toothless Security Council resolution on Iran. But none of this deterred Clinton from conveying to Israel the same grimly relentless message: that “peace with the Palestinians” is Israel’s prime responsibility, building homes in Jerusalem is a blow to peace, and the Obama administration will keep obsessively pushing and pressuring Israel toward that hallucinatory goal.
The leader of the junior partner in the relationship, Benjamin Netanyahu, taking the podium sometime after Clinton, appeared to stand firm on the focal point of the recent dispute. Saying that Jerusalem is “not a settlement” but rather “our capital,” and evoking Israel’s ancient, 4,000-year-old bond with the city, he pointed out:
My government has maintained the policies of all Israeli governments since 1967, including those led by Golda Meir, Menachem Begin, and Yitzhak Rabin. Today, nearly a quarter of a million Jews, almost half the city’s Jewish population, live in neighborhoods that are just beyond the 1949 armistice lines. All these neighborhoods are within a five-minute drive from the Knesset. They are an integral and inextricable part of modern Jerusalem.
As for the Palestinian issue, the stark difference between Netanyahu’s words and Clinton’s was the lack of the secretary of state’s obeisances to a spurious evenhandedness.
Netanyahu stressed that “my government has removed hundreds of roadblocks, barriers, and checkpoints in the West Bank … help[ing] spur a fantastic economic boom there” and has “announced an unprecedented moratorium on new Israeli construction in Judea and Samaria.” He then asked: “What has the Palestinian Authority done for peace?” He also gave a brief, bitter catalog of the PA’s stonewalling of talks and ongoing anti-Israeli diplomatic and propaganda campaign.
On Iran, noting that its rulers see Israel as a “one-bomb country,” Netanyahu called its imminent nuclearization “an unprecedented threat to humanity” and said “Israel expects the international community to act swiftly and decisively to thwart this danger. But we will always reserve the right to defend ourselves.”
It is a note Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders have sounded before, giving the benefit of the doubt to international efforts against Iran while also giving them a special prod. At this late date, is it still a credible message? The Obama administration’s ongoing efforts to dissuade Israel from acting against Iran, reportedly even including the denial of bunker-busting bombs, suggest the message is still taken seriously.
Again, as on Jerusalem and other issues, a crucial gap between the two allies: “sanctions that bite” versus survival.
Netanyahu devoted the last part of his speech to reaffirming Israel’s value as a U.S. ally after a recent high-profile statement by General Petraeus seemed to cast doubt on that notion. “For decades,” Netanyahu said, “Israel served as a bulwark against Soviet expansionism. Today it is helping America stem the tide of militant Islam. … We share intelligence and we cooperate in countless other ways that I am not at liberty to divulge. …. Militant Islam does not hate the West because of Israel. It hates Israel because of the West.”
Netanyahu’s speech was eloquent, nuanced, and strong; but he remains the junior partner. The noble tonalities of the two speeches do not conceal the differences over the crucial issues of Jerusalem, the Palestinians, and Iran. Netanyahu’s speech treaded a fine line between honoring Israel’s alliance with the U.S. while signaling that he has to put Israel’s interests first. He will have to live up to that in action and not just in rhetoric.
P. David Hornik is a freelance writer and translator living in Tel Aviv. He blogs at http://pdavidhornik.typepad.com/
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23 Comments
1. Oscar the Grump:
The BBC had a different take on Clinton’s speech. “The time is coming where we will no longer be able to defend you due to the advances in weaponry” My question is when has the USA ever defended Israel? Not one American soldier has ever died in the defense of Israel. What does the Clinton speech really mean? Obama is already denying Israel the bunker buster bombs needed to end Iran’s threat. I’m sure other technologies will soon take the same course. In the same stroke, America is denying itself of Israeli brain power, the brain power to make major advances in strategic weapons systems. Israel will simply put all that talent on the international auction block. In a joint Indian/American military exercise Israeli technology aboard Russian built planes beat the American technology. In an international military exercise, Israel was included with America’s NATO partners. Israel’s technology was as good as or better than a lot of Western nations. Should Obama choose to shove Israel under the bus, Israel won’t let itself be run over.
Expect Israel to act unilaterally in respect to Iran and expect it soon.
Well,Rodham’s anti-semitism is legend…anything she says that seems to be pro Israel is nothing but fluff and disinformation…Barokeydoke has no intention of doing anything that might damage Iran and the hold the mullahs have on the government there…but the mere fact that he is naive enough to suppose he can tell Jews in Israel they can’t construct buildings in Jerusalem,when they have been doing so for 3000 yrs,tells me that his reputation for having a superior intellect is a joke..and not a very funny one at that.
Mar 23, 2010 - 11:27 am 3. Adina Kutnicki, Israel:
Orwellian doublespeak, coupled with duplicitous ‘promises’ is what passes for our ’special friendship’ from the Obama administration.
The very fact that the Hitlerite Persian regime received cheery greetings on their New Year from Washington’s third world loving President, with promises NOT to interfere in their internal affairs, demonstrates clearly which way the winds are blowing. With a hands off approach to the most dangerous regime bar none, what does Obama obsess over? Jerusalem building permits, having the audacity to interfere in our internal politics as if he were Israel’s Master.
To be sure, we have our own trouble making leftists who would like nothing more than for Obama to bitch slap us, but at least they are our problem. For the leader of the free world to behave as a dictator over our domain, well, that does NOT bode well for our ‘friendship’.
Not nice, not nice at all!!
Mar 23, 2010 - 12:37 pm 4. Leatherneck:
The government of the United States does not do the will of the people. What makes Israel think the CFR controlled State Department will do anything other than please the oil ticks?
Welcome to the New Age.
Mar 23, 2010 - 1:07 pm 5. Linda Garfield:
What a clueless group American Jews can be. Israel stands alone. The night Obama was elected, I predicted Obama would divide Jews. We now have an administration who has adopted the Palestinian narrative. Only this time American Jews are turning their backs, too. With their delusional, moral smugness, they jump on the anti-Isael bandwagon. Clinton & Obama’s stance contributes to the evergrowing anti-Israel hostility & Jews have little insight into this. Words matter, and if mesmerizing Obama says it, it must be so. Most descend into paroxysms of anger when one questions Obama’s Israel policies. Jews and non-Jews alike cannot wade through Arab progaganda & come out clear headed. They end up swimming with them. How in he world would they have reacted to Nazi rubbish? Obama is forcing the issue, & the time is coming when people will have to take a stand. Obama will never stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons. It’s going to get very ugly.
Mar 23, 2010 - 2:05 pm 6. steve:
Israel better turn back on the power at its Lavi fighter development program and refurbish their metal forming presses and fabricating machinery. The fighter jets, the munitions, all the spare parts that were promised…. don’t count on them.
Mar 23, 2010 - 2:30 pm 7. Joseph:
1. Oscar the Grump: “My question is when has the USA ever defended Israel?”
Fair question. I would mention crucial arms supplies to Israel during the ‘73 war. Also, during the ‘67 war, the US fleet countered the Soviet fleet and helped prevent an intervention by the USSR on behalf of its client states.
Mar 23, 2010 - 2:41 pm 8. Dennis Thompson:
It is quite unfortunate and mind boggling but American Jews would turn out in the same number to vote for Obama bin Biden if the election were held today. There seems to be a self-loathing aspect to this…
Mar 23, 2010 - 3:11 pm 9. Historian:
Dennis, the Socialist Democratic Party in the Soviet Union was invented and modified for and by Jews. Marx, Trotsky, Lenin, Alxelrod and so many others were part of the Bolsheviks revolution and a large number were Jews. Jews historically reject themselves as Jews(inferiority complex), became atheists and 100% Marxists. The religious Orthodox are a bit more conservatives but remember zionism and the Kibutz are all rooted in Marxism. Being a Communists is part of being Jewish. So, yes I am amazed that only 80% of Jews voted for Obama, next elections if any, it will be 100% Jewish support for Obama! They are afterall the choosen people of G-d.
Mar 23, 2010 - 5:25 pm 10. miguelj:
At the end of the day, what matters is this: the Iranian ruling clique are like hysterical children. If Israel strikes at them, there is no way they won’t blame the US too, and they’ll strike back at the US because of it. At that point, the US is in it, willy-nilly. That is why Israel and the US (with the Saudis as silent partners) need to hit–not just the Iranian nukes–but the individuals who make up Iran’s ruling class.
Mar 23, 2010 - 8:14 pm 11. David W. Lincoln:
A contemporary exhibit of Swift’s dictum that there are none so blind as those who refuse to see: http://www.reutrcohen.com/2010/03/neda-agha-soltans-fiance-visits-israel.html
It’s been said before, and it will be said again: Freedom is not free!
Mar 23, 2010 - 9:00 pm 12. logic 101:
Historian,
It is true that g-dless jews were the original socialist leaders. But many are fairly right wing. The key fact left out of your missive is that many american jews came to america to escape Hitler. They had supported the largest party to oppose nazis (national socialists), the sozis (soviet style socialists). This large portion of american jewry were socialists more than they were jews in germany, why wouldn’t they be so in america? Besides, those that worship the golden calf (socialism) will suffer the same hellish fate as those followers of moses that strayed in a similar manner.
I was going to leave a comment but after reading #5, Linda Garfield’s comment, decided she had said it best. It is time to face the truth, which, of course, was staring us in the face all the time. Obama’s background, as well as his first actions as president gave him away but to a country full of people who were too blind to see.
Mar 24, 2010 - 6:36 am 14. Prologue:
8. Dennis Thompson said:”It is quite unfortunate and mind boggling but American Jews would turn out in the same number to vote for Obama bin Biden if the election were held today. There seems to be a self-loathing aspect to this…”
I believe that it is fear, plain and simple fear. If we go along, we’ll get along. If we appease, they will like us. They may talk themselves into believing they act out of principle, but they are scared. What they will do when things get worse remains to be seen. “These are the times that try men’s souls.”
Mar 24, 2010 - 6:42 am 15. Righteousness Reigns:
Rodham-Clinton and the administration she represents will wind up on the ash heap of history, and this much sooner than later. She and those who parrot the same verbal vomit will find all they’ve labored for lying in ruins, and their personal lives and families in shambles.
This for their unyielding intransience and stiff-necked rebellion
against the Holy One of Israel. For those who doubt this, check out history but laugh now while you can, you won’t be laughing for long.
Clinton says something to the effect:
“She made de rigueur references to Palestinian incitement and to a “Hamas-controlled municipality glorify[ing] violence and renam[ing] a square after a terrorist who murdered innocent Israelis”.
Pity she she is not clued up with the facts or is covering for Abbas as suggested in other blogs:
15 Reasons Hilary Was Wrong at AIPAC
How off was Hilary’s ascription of the glorification of terrorist Dalal Mughrabi to Hamas alone? In Hillary Clinton’s unfortunate mistake, Palestinian Media Watch piles up the evidence so high that it can’t be simply an unfortunate error:
A Washington Post article by Jackson Diehl
A familiar obstacle to Mideast peace: Mahmoud Abbas
substantiates that.
Joseph
Good response. However, the US has never fired on anybody in defense of Israel. 67 is a bad example most of what Israel used was either French or British. On the other hand 73 is great example of your thesis. The USA did supply Israel with much war material including tanks and planes. Still no shot was ever fired in defense of Israel. Russia got what it wanted a proxy war. Still Russia didn’t count on its outcome. Other than the Cuban Missile crisis, that was the closest the US ever came to war with the Soviets. I think what we have here is a question of semantics as to what you or I consider defense. Did the US come to the defense of the British in the Falklands war?
#14: What are the American Jews afraid of? This go along, get along, appeasement attitude sounds familiar. It didn’t work during WWII for the Jewish people. American Jews need to help the country get rid of the pretender to the presidency and his leftist buds by speaking out and voting them out, starting in November.
Mar 24, 2010 - 9:12 pm 19. John:
Hilary Clinton, a famous friend of Yasser Arafat, has a long history of anti semitism which has often been glazed over by her Ivy League ability to equivocate. Both she and Obama stand clearly in the Hamas camp and its threats to destroy Israel. Why American Jews have backed both these people is beyond belief.
Mar 25, 2010 - 4:22 am 20. Ray, Illinois:
Israel does not stand alone; “real” Americans stand with Israel as they face threats from Iran. It is Obama and the Democrats who not only do not support Israel, but they also stand by the Iranian President’s rants to destroy Israel. Blindly the American Jewish community follows Obama off the cliff. The American Jewish community can not admit mistake for voting for Obama, so they follow him as he insults and put their fellow Jews in Israel at risk, but supporting the radical muslim president in Iran. How has the world benefited from the election of Obama? Has the safety of Democracies become safer or worse under Obama? Answer – worst, from Israel being threatened by Iran, Poland and Georgia being threatened from Russia, Japan and South Korea being threatened from North Korea, Taiwan being threatened by China…no where has freedom been improved around the world with the election of Obama. Obama also ignores the students in Iran being murdered, the black Christians in Africa being slaughtered. Obama is a total disgrace to the world; yet the American Jews follow Obama blinding off the cliff. Just like in the late 1930s and early 1940s with the German Jews…they followed Adiloph Hitler blindly as he murdered fellow Jews. They tried to rational and appease their decisions to follow Hitler; but in the end they were cowards and had the same blood on their hands that Hitler and the Nazis had. History is repeating it’s self, we have a President who sat in a Jew-hating church in Chicago for 20 years; hearing the anti-Jew rants from Rev. Wright and Louis Farakahan, then he lies to the American people stating he never heard the sermons. Yet the American Jews follow Obama and vote for Obama..why? Because they are either too stupid or too scared. We should all support Israel; the best way is support an overthrow of the radical muslim president in Iran and voting out the radical muslim in the White House in 2012. Wake up American Jews, Obama is not your friend. Obama is using you.
Mar 25, 2010 - 10:01 am 21. spindok:
I wonder about some comments here. Obama is not a Muslim. He is either Christian or someone pretending to be so for political gain.
Jews tend to be socially liberal in the US and had so many reassurances in the run-up to the election about Israel that they felt comfortable in the vote. They mostly voted domestic, tired of Bushie Republicans who…anyway anyone who voted for Obama (I was not one)…the alternative was hardly robust.
Polls in Israel show that Obama still has a lead over Bibi in the general polls on popularity. Probably because Israelis are real fans of the US in a general way but very self-critical about their own, a very Israeli and Jewish trait. They are also tired of this war as are many on the other side
There are true cultural differences because Israelis will fight tooth and nail together when the threat is there and breakup into factions immediately after. This is usual in Israeli politics. Consensus happens rarely.
I think that Bibi is overwhelmed now. He is not Golda and these are not those times. I think he has chosen a path and should stick to it.
At the same time I think Bibi is beyond what he can achive for now.
Jerusalem is Israel. Israel annexed certain territory captured in the hard war with Jordan in ‘67. It is no longer under occupation as is the rest of the West Bank and Gaza. No nation, including the US under Republican or Democracts are willing to make a formal recognition of that fact.
Nobody likes what is happening now, least of all the average Israeli or Palestinian.
I think Bibi would be wise to make his own moves to make peace, or at least coexistance with the Palestinians. Who needs the US under Obama now? Where can anyone make a deal with this feckless administration?
Our government is beyond anything which seems credible to any outsider. They shift and play politics beyond what I have seen in my 50 years and anyone can see there is nothing left in great America but a raft blown by the winds of the day.
Next war for Israel survival, and there will be one as much as I wish it will not happen. They know now that they are on their own.
Spindok
Mar 25, 2010 - 3:25 pm 22. Joel:
To #21–the poll by Haaretz in Israel showing that Obama is popular there, was fudged via a mistranslation.
Mar 25, 2010 - 8:49 pm 23. Joel:
Ps–an accurate poll of Israelis on Obama–see here:
http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=171849
Mar 25, 2010 - 10:59 pm
story@pajamasmedia.com.