Hamas calls for a new intifada and the Obama team continues to act as if Israel were the obstacle to peace.
What planet are these people on?
(Planet jihad, apparently.)
"Clinton: Israel must prove commitment to peace," by Matthew Lee for Associated Press, March 16 (thanks to Mark):
WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday said Israel must prove it is committed to the Mideast peace process with actions. But she brushed aside suggestions that relations with the main U.S. ally in the Mideast are in crisis over Israeli plans to build new Jewish housing in east Jerusalem.Clinton said Israel must back up verbal pledges to talk peace with the Palestinians and improve an atmosphere poisoned by last week's housing announcement if stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks are to be relaunched. She stressed that the U.S. remains committed to Israel's security despite current tensions.
Resolving what has become the most serious spat between the two countries in decades has become a top priority for the Obama administration as it strives to restart the moribund peace process with indirect, shuttle diplomacy by special Mideast envoy George Mitchell. Yet Clinton made clear that Israeli steps were needed first.
"We are engaged in very active consultations with the Israelis over steps that we think would demonstrate the requisite commitment to the process," Clinton said....
Do the Palestinians have to abandon jihad? End the genocidal children's shows? Stop teaching Jew-hatred? Nope. None of the above. They don't have to do anything at all.
Here's hoping from this quarter that Bibi gives some sort of stick-it-up-yours salute to Clinton and her kowtowing-to-Islam boss. Hard to believe that these characters are not following a pre-established (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) plan.
Go, Bibi, Go!
Unbelievable...
Why does this remind me of the "jokes" about the victim getting thrown in jail for putting his face in the way of the other guy's fist?
"Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday said Israel must prove it is committed to the Mideast peace process with actions."
Israel does not have to "prove" anything to anyone. It is not, contrary to Hillary Clinton's apparent impression, a vassal or tributary of the United States. In the Middle East, it is the only military ally of value to the United States, the only ally that can supply intelligence of value to the United States, and the only country that is unswergingly an ally of the United States and the rest of the West, because it is part -- a central and indispensable part -- of that West. What other military does Hiillary Clinton think, in the mighty conflicts to come, between Morocco and India, the United States can rely on? Egypt? Jordan? Saudi Arabia? The suicide bombers of Gaza? The goose-stepping bezonians of Fatah and its corrupt warlords? Who?
Israel, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE tell our current administration to "go pound sand". I'm sure the Saudis will provide PBO a shoulder to cry on and a sympathetic ear on the capriciousness of the Joooos.
China verbally slapped us around yesterday –- no White House response. Brazil told the United States they won’t support sanctions against Iran –- not a word from Hillary Clinton and her State Department bureaucrats. Iran continued to march toward nukes and suggested last week that 9/11 was an "inside job" by the U.S. government. Not a word of protest from Obama, Biden or Clinton.
This administration has no bile for anyone but Israel. The Washington Post reports today that Obama is making three demands on Israel before we will forgive the sin of building houses for its citizens.
Here is Netanyahu's reply to Hillary Clinton:
Here's his response to Hillary Clinton's demand for concessions:
"The State of Israel appreciates and respects the warm words said by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton regarding the deep bond between the U.S. and Israel, and on the U.S.' commitment to Israel's security," Netanyahu's office said in a statement.
"With regard to commitments to peace, the government of Israel has proven over the last year that it is commitment to peace, both in words and actions," said the statement."
The statement cited as examples Netanyahu's inaugural foreign policy speech made at Bar Ilan University, the removal of hundreds of roadblocks across the West Bank, and its decision to freeze temporarily construction in West Bank settlements. The latter, said the statement, was even called by Clinton an "unprecedented" move.
Netanyahu's office added in its statement that the Palestinians were continuing to thwart the political process by demanding preconditions before the resumption of peace talks. "They are orchestrating a de-legitimization campaign against Israel in international institutions."
"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu again calls on the Palestinians to enter the tent of peace without preconditions, because that is the only way to reach a settlement that will ensure peace, security and prosperity for both nations," said the statement.
A Newsweek article includes this astonishing bit:
"Biden's trip had a deeper motive, though. He was there to offer Israel a deal: we'll support you on Iran—keeping "all options on the table"—in return for Israeli flexibility in the West Bank. Obama would continue flogging sanctions relentlessly (he had made some of his own concessions to obtain sanctions support from allies) and refuse to discount the possibility of force. Or, in Biden's more diplomatic lingo during a speech at Tel Aviv University: "We are determined to keep the pressure on Iran so that it will change its course. And as we do, we will also be seeking to improve relations between the Israelis and Palestinians. They are connected indirectly, but there is a relationship."
The settlements-for-Natanz idea (a reference to Iran's uranium-enrichment facility) has been around for a while. And it makes good sense: if Israel views Iran's would-be nukes as the gravest existential threat ever, and if Israel needs American support in confronting the threat, then it should give America something in return. That logic is how Netanyahu got his right-wing political partners to agree on a partial settlement freeze in November—against their beliefs. The freeze coincided with an upgrade in American-Israeli security cooperation. Biden simply made the linkage more explicit."
We are asked to accept this unbelievable demand:
"The settlements-for-Natanz idea (a reference to Iran's uranium-enrichment facility) has been around for a while. And it makes good sense: if Israel views Iran's would-be nukes as the gravest existential threat ever, and if Israel needs American support in confronting the threat, then it should give America something in return."
In other words, the Obama Administration will only defend Israel against a nuclear threat from Iran -- or will it? -- if Israel gives up its legal, historic, and moral claims, and -- for that is essentially what is being asked -- returns not to what some call the "borders" (they never were, because the Arabs, hoping to go in for the kill again, between 1948 and 1967, refused to recognize any permanent borders), but are really only the Armistice Lines of 1949, what Abba Eban called "the lines of Auschwitz," and to treat the Jordanian seizure, in 1949, of territory assigned -- does the Admiinistration deny this? -- by the League of Nations' Mandates Commission to the Mandate for Palestine, which was set up for the exclusive purpose of the establishment of the Jewish National Home.
Does anyone in the Obama Administration read? Can they not read the book-length studies of Julius Stone? Of Howard Greif? Perhaps Cass Sunstein can do so. Perhaps someone else is capable of learning the relevant history and law. Or perhaps not, for those born, like so many among those taking a "leadership role" and presuming to instruct and protect us, and -- it now appears, to threaten to abandon to its nuclear fate the tiniest, in size, but among the most valuable military allies, and surely the most steadfast in its unfeigned friendship for the United States if not always for those bullies who occasionally come to brief authority, and in its behavior, wants only to be allowed to defend itself against an insidious, and relentless, Jihad-without-end that is scarcely understood by those in Washington now alienating, wantonly, not only Israel, but many people in Western Europe who are at long last waking up to the meaning and menace of Islam, and are not impressed with America as Baby Huey, squandering so many resources on an ill-thought out campaign to change various Muslim countries, without any consideration of what, in the end, the Western world will gain by this, vis-a-vis the Camp of Islam.
This Adminisration, in its display of cruel contempt and complete want of sympathy for Israel, has shown it does not, and does not wish to, understand Islam, Jihad. And it does not want to find out about the history of Israel's many agreements with Arab states and how, in every case, those agreements were scrupulously observed by one, the Israeli, side, and went unobserved, in every important respect save the cosmetic, by the various Arab sides.
This Administration does not want to know, really, what is happening in Western Europe, in Thailand, in India, in Sudan, in Nigeria. It knows Islam is fine. It doesn't want to know, it doesn't want to hear about -- what's that? asks Hillary Clinton, what's that, asks Biden, Jones, Obama? -- the Treaty of Al Hudaibiyya.
Well, tant pis pour eux.
They are going to have to hear about that. Because many people in the West no longer have much faith in the ability of this Administration to correctly deal with the multifarious threats from the Camp of Islam. Iraq was a waste, Afghanistan will be a waste. And Iran will be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons. And the display of pusillanimity, and failure to think about things intelligently, broadly, imaginatively, cunningly, in this abandonment or attempted blackmail of Israel -- sacrifice your claim to "the West Bank" and to the Old City of Jeruslam, with all that those mean morally and civilisationally and militarily to you, or sacrifice our shield for you against Iran -- in other words, the American offer is this:
Not Your Money -- Or Your LIfe. That's okay, that's a reasonable choice. But the Administration is really offering Israel a cruel variant:
Your Life, or -- Your Life.
My sympathies go to Benjamin Netanyahu for having to restrain himself in his responses to Obama's and Clinton's outrageous demands, when surely his natural inclination must be to tell them to stick them where the sun don't shine. I sincerely hope Bibi doesn't have a dog at home, else he would surely want to kick the poor animal out of frustration every night when he returns from the office.
This is the result of Pot smoking. Loss of intelligence and common sense.
Ladies and gentlemen
every one of us who recognises that the Arab Muslim - and Persian Muslim, and you-name-it Muslim - war against the Jewish state of Israel is a Jihad, and that it is driven by the Jew-hatred hardwired into all the texts, the interpretations of those texts, the laws and the documented historic conduct of Muslims toward Jews, and that the Jihad against the Jews is part of the Global Jihad against everybody and everything not-Muslim,
must write or email first of all to Mr Netanyahu and beg him to stand firm and say NO.
Friendly words of encouragement, especially if they come from US citizens who are not Jews, should surely help a little. Israel is in a terribly lonely place, out in the middle of the arena with the jihadi monsters circling closer and closer.
Secondly, write to the Israeli ambassador in your home country, expressing your support. State that you personally regard Jerusalem - *undivided* Jerusalem, as the ancient and contemporary political and spiritual capital of the Jewish state of Israel. State that you are disgusted by the Obama administration's bullying and harassment of Israel.
Put it this way: if the Israeli ambassador in, say, Australia or New Zealand or Canada or the USA or the UK has in his in-tray a mountain of letters from citizens of that country, each one intelligently expressing support for Israel in its war of self-defence against the Jihad, *especially* when such letter-writers explicitly identify themselves as non-Jews, then he will be in a position (if, for example, he is hauled up to Please Explain Israel's actions, or to be lectured) to tell the relevant head of state, or foreign affairs minister, that, 'oh, by the way, *this many* [insert number] of voting non-Jewish citizens in your country have just told me personally, in the last few days, that they are fully in support of us, i.e. of Israel, for reasons X, Y and Z'. In other words: dear sir, lots of decent human beings in your country are on our side, and you might lose some VOTES if you insist on ostentatiously kicking us in the head when we're down.
Thirdly, and at the same time: write to your head of state and any other relevant person in government, such as the Foreign Affairs minister and his or her Shadow on the opposition bench, and state unequivocally your support for Israel (be specific: use Mr Fitzgerald's various essays on the subject, as posted from time to time on this site, to help make it quite, quite clear where you stand, exactly - e.g. that you want your country to recognise undivided Jerusalem as capital of Israel, that you want to see your country at the UN voting AGAINST 'let's lynch Israel' resolutions pushed by the Islamintern, that you want ACTION to make sure the genocide-minded Jew-haters of Muslim Persia do *NOT* get nukes with which to murder six million Jews, etc., etc.).
It is time Israel demand the mandate that created their state be enforced.
They then need to tell everyone there in Israeli territory that unless they renounce Islam and agree to live in peace they will be deported immediately.
One last set of questions, Your Honor, for Hillary Clinton:
Hillary, what is the Treaty of Al-Hudaibiyya?
And what do scholars of Islam -- Majid Khadduri, say, or Joseph Schacht -- say about the continuing relevance of the Treaty of Al-Hudaibiyya?
Do you know of any Arab "Palestinian" leaders who have mentioned the Treaty of Al Hudaibiyya? Who? To what audience? Where? When?
Do you have any evidence to suggest, in texts or behavior, that supports the notion that the model of treaty-making with Infidels that Muhammad, that Perfect Man, al-insan al-kamil, provided for all later Muslims with his own agreement with the Meccans in 628 A.D. at Hudaibiyya, is not still of supreme importance?
Please give as much detail as possible.
Thank you.
Israel must wait out the Obama Administration as best it can. Sensible folk (which would not include anyone who voted for Obama except those who now regret their vote for Mr. Hope and Change) can only hope that Obama has one term in office and not two. Four years will be quite enough and for sundry reasons. Meanwhile, Israel must consult its own interests and ignore the American government as much as possible. Barack, Joe, Hillary et al. are not friends of Israel and are, in fact, enablers of Israel's enemies. The only question which is debatable is whether Obama and company are deeply ignorant or maliciously complicit.
For all the anti-Israel, anti-Semites out there. Is it Israel, and historically been Israel, the major obstacle for peace in Jerusalem, peace in proximity to the Muslim world, barring their willful self-removal from existence in the region as rightfully declared by the League of Nations post WWII?
I think not. To do so would require a considerable amount of the re-writing of documented historical facts transposed into the realm of mere biased fiction.
This US administration, and the "lauded" MSM have, and will, almost certainly continue in the near future, try to posit that exact same anti-Israeli sentiment.
Fully expected, on my part.
Always it's the Jews that must give and prove and pander.
[Shakes_head_in_astonishment]
Does anyone in the Lilly-White House read history?
As Muslims cause more and more problems in the West shouldn't that cause any person of normal intelligence to start thinking differently about what Israel has been putting up with all these years? Are people really this dense?
I asked a series of questions of Hillary Clinton in a post above. But Wednesday's New York Times contains a little item that makes me re-think:
"Obama to Take Questions From Fox News
WASHINGTON — President Obama will give a rare interview on Wednesday to Fox News, the cable network that a top administration official once accused of being a political arm of the Republican Party.
The interview, with Bret Baier, an anchor and a former chief White House correspondent for Fox, will be broadcast at 6 p.m., at the height of a week in which Democrats, including Mr. Obama, are pressing allies and lawmakers to push ahead to get the health care bill passed in the House despite solid Republican opposition and the lessening of public support for the legislation.
At the briefing on Tuesday, Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, was asked if the president believed he could really change the minds of viewers who watch Fox. It is “certainly worth a shot,” Mr. Gibbs said, adding that Mr. Obama was well aware that wavering Democrats and their constituents tuned in to the network.
Last year, however, Obama administration aides used the in-house White House blog and other news media to criticize Fox for its coverage, particularly its commentary. Fox officials defended their reporters, taking pains to put distance between pundits and those working the White House and other beats.
For his part, Mr. Obama and his aides met with Fox executives during the 2008 presidential campaign, and he once appeared on Bill O’Reilly’s program during the convention cycle."
I think all the questions above around and about the Treaty of Al-Hudaibiyya, should be asked of Barack Obama, and I wish I knew how to get those questions to Bret Baier who will be doing the interviewing, and could put Obama on the spot.
Suggestions as to how to get the questions -- addressed to Hillary Clinton in the posting at 8:08 p.m. -- to Bret Baier would be welcome. Anyone have any idea how to proceed?
Worth a shot.
I remember reading something about Biden speaking in Israel before he was VP and telling a group that they would have to get used to a nuclear Iran. Does anyone recall this reference?
I remember reading something about Biden speaking in Israel before he was VP and telling a group that they would have to get used to a nuclear Iran. Does anyone recall this event?