Hands off my country!

Posted on March 10, 2015 by Victor Rosenthal

Supporters of the Obama Administration, like Eric Yoffie of the the Union for Reform Judaism, pretend to be angered and offended by the “wildly inappropriate” action of PM Netanyahu in accepting the invitation of the Speaker of the House to address Congress. They insist that protocol was broken, that the speech was a an attack on the President and that Netanyahu didn’t offer an alternative to Obama’s policy. And they view the speech as unwanted interference in American partisan politics.

All of these complaints are false, and one can only assume that, like their president, they didn’t bother to listen to the speech. But the part about “interference” makes me laugh. There is simply no comparison. The US and Europe have been meddling in Israel’s affairs for years, and have recently taken it to a new level. And they don’t do it openly, by making speeches (indeed, Obama declined to speak to Israel’s Knesset in 2013, possibly because it would constitute recognition that Jerusalem is our capital).

As we approach our March 17 election, the flow of foreign money into groups trying to defeat PM Netanyahu continues unabated. The V15 organization is assiduously working to get out the anti-Netanyahu vote, in the cities and Arab towns. And they are not the only foreign-backed organization trying to influence the election against the PM. The Likud made a complaint to the Election Commission against V15, but unfortunately they shot from the hip and failed to establish a direct connection between V15 and the PM’s electoral opponents.

This is nothing new. For years, the EU, individual European governments and the US-based New Israel Fund (NIF) have been funding non-governmental organizations in Israel which work against the interests of the state to the tune of millions of dollars. These NGOs provided the raw material for the libelous accusations of war crimes against Israel made by the UN Human Rights Commission in the tendentious Goldstone Report about the 2008-9 Gaza War (since repudiated by the jurist whose name it bears) and the forthcoming Schabas Report about the more recent 2014 conflict.

The NGOs include some that engage in “lawfare” against Israel, including legal attacks against IDF soldiers and commanders; others that support boycott-divestment-sanctions (BDS); some that generate propaganda to demonize the state and the IDF; and some that engage in protests and vandalism in the territories.

It has recently been made public that the NIF received grants of more than $1 million from the US State Department during the first Obama Administration. The NIF supports hundreds of projects in Israel, ranging from relatively harmless ones like groups favoring ‘religious pluralism’ to Israeli Arab organizations that want to change Israel from a Jewish state to a binational state, to supporters of BDS and anti-IDF troupes that travel the world accusing it of war crimes.

But doesn’t Israel ‘meddle’ with US politics through the so-called ‘Israel Lobby’, in particular AIPAC?

Actually, no. AIPAC is an American organization, funded by pro-Israel Americans. Whatever influence it has comes directly from the fact that most Americans do support Israel, and members of Congress know this. Contrast this with Arab lobbies that recycle petrodollars to try to influence lawmakers, often in favor of policies that their constituents oppose.

Well, they say, what about the nefarious Sheldon Adelson?

Adelson has given millions to the Birthright program, which brings young Jewish Americans to Israel for ten days to see the country with their own eyes. But he also is the major investor in the Israel Hayom Newspaper, which infuriates the Left. So let’s look at Israel Hayom.

The argument is that since it is given away free, it isn’t a ‘real’ newspaper but just propaganda. But all newspapers make most of their profit, if any, from the sale of advertising. And Israel Hayom has plenty of ads. Free distribution of a newspaper to maximize circulation — Israel Hayom now competes closely with Yediot Aharonot for the largest circulation of any Israeli newspaper — is a legitimate business strategy.

Adelson doesn’t hide his ownership, and Israel Hayom is the only major newspaper that supports PM Netanyahu (Yediot and Ha’aretz in particular are vehemently, even viciously, opposed to him). As the Election Commission and Supreme Court recently decided when they turned down a complaint against Israel Hayom from Netanyahu’s opponents, a newspaper is entitled to an agenda — indeed it is impossible to imagine one without a point of view.

I don’t (obviously) have a problem with Israel Hayom. I read it every day. Indeed, Adelson, a private individual, is doing Israel a great service by providing a vehicle for the presentation of a centrist point of view, when other newspapers and TV and radio channels are all biased to the left to a greater or lesser extent.

But I do have a problem with the US and European governments meddling in Israel’s politics and attempting to influence its elections to change our government to one which will be more compliant to their interests — interests which often oppose the continued existence of Israel as a Jewish state.

The left-wing politicians that think that they can accept the aid of these governments and still maintain their independence are fooling themselves. There will be a day when the US and Europe will call in their chips (Kerry has already said that he will push for an agreement with the Palestinians after the election). You don’t make a deal with the devil and ask for your soul back.

Hands off my country!

 

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Is Obama a Manchurian Candidate?

Posted on March 7, 2015 by Victor Rosenthal
Robert Malley. He devoted his career to anti-Israel activism and propaganda.

Robert Malley. He devoted his career to anti-Israel activism and propaganda.

One of my readers (you know who you are) argues that Barack Obama has one overriding policy objective to his presidency, an agenda to which he subordinates every other issue, foreign and domestic: to put an end to the Jewish state. Obama, he thinks, was supported throughout his career by Israel’s enemies, who succeeded beyond their wildest dreams when their anti-Israel ‘Manchurian Candidate‘ reached the pinnacle of American politics.

Nah, I always say, you’re paranoid. Yes, he is the least pro-Israel president ever. But to think that the President of the United States is fixated on one tiny state in the Middle East? That would be crazy.

But as time goes by and I note Obama’s incompetence about and inattentiveness to other issues, as well as his invariably taking the path that will be most painful to Israel, especially when that path doesn’t advance — or even harms — US interests, I begin to wonder.

One of the big mysteries for me has been his support for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. The Ikhwan is closely associated with anti-American radicals, burns churches and murders Christians, and has close connections with terrorist organizations like Hamas. When the Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi was in power, he expressed a desire to ‘reconsider’ the 1979 peace treaty with Israel, something that the US has said is a foundation for peace in the region.

The present Egyptian regime, led by Abdel Fattah al-Sisi strongly supports continuing the treaty. It opposes Hamas. And al-Sisi has recently spoken out against radical Islam in the most remarkable and courageous way. And yet, the US still supports the Brotherhood and gives Sisi the cold shoulder.

Ask yourself how this advances any American interest. I can’t see how it does, but it certainly would be a disaster for Israel if the Hamas-supporting Brotherhood were to replace the pragmatic Sisi.

I’ve written about Obama’s one-sided actions during the recent Gaza conflict. What American interest is served by protecting Hamas? Even if you think that an Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty is possible (or desirable), it is made less likely by empowering Hamas.

Speaking of the Palestinian issue, John Kerry recently announced that the US will have another go at forcing Israel to cede control of strategic territory in Judea/Samaria to the unstable and unwilling Palestinian Authority. What American interest is served by opening up another front for war and terrorism? Why is the expenditure of effort even justified when there are so many more deadly conflicts underway in the region and the world?

There are numerous other examples, but of course nothing quite matches the Obama policy of rapprochement with Iran, which will ultimately have the effect of legitimizing Iran’s deployment of nuclear weapons, and which in the short run will empower it in its conventional aggression in the region. If there is one really good way to maximize damage to Israel, this is it.

The Iranian regime makes no secret of its intentions to take over the entire region. It already has effective control of Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and much of Iraq. It is developing long range missiles which could target Europe or, at some point, even the US. The ideology of the regime hasn’t changed, and there is a thread of apocalyptic violence in Shiite theology that can’t be entirely discounted. Allowing it to obtain nuclear weapons cannot be in America’s interest.

Given all of this, Obama’s latest act is anticlimactic, but telling. Almost as if to make a statement about the future direction of policy toward Israel, the White House has appointed his advisor Robert Malley as “White House Coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa and the Gulf Region” on the National Security Council.

Malley, whom many know as the guy who continues to insist — despite statements to the contrary by former President Clinton and his Middle East Envoy Dennis Ross — that the failure of the Camp David and Taba talks in 2000-1 was Israel’s fault and not that of Yasser Arafat, has devoted his career to anti-Israel activism and propaganda. It’s hard to think of anyone much worse from Israel’s point of view unless Obama were to recruit in Gaza.

Moving Malley up isn’t likely to change much. His predecessor, Philip Gordon, was not particularly pro-Israel. But it is emblematic of the one-sided approach taken by the administration, what my reader calls the “laser-like focus” on Israel which characterizes an administration which is bumbling and inconsistent on almost everything else.

Can it be proven that Obama is a Manchurian Candidate? No — at least not unless the LA Times releases the tape of Rashid Khalidi’s dinner party. But as Hillary Clinton might put it, “what difference at this point does it make?”

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Yes, it was a historic speech

Posted on March 6, 2015 by Victor Rosenthal

This article was cross-posted to the Elder of Ziyon blog.

And if, in fact, [Iran] does not have some sense that sanctions will not be removed, it will not have an interest in avoiding the path that it’s currently on. — Barack Obama, March 3, 2015

I must admit that I feel sorry for President Obama, and not just because of his syntactical difficulties. I was able to watch PM Netanyahu’s speech in real time, while Obama was too busy, and had to content himself with looking at the transcript. To think, he even could have been present at the historic event had he wished to be!

I’m reminded of the day I stayed home in Pittsburgh to go to a football game, the day that Martin Luther King Jr. gave his ‘I have a dream’ speech in Washington. Or when a bunch of friends went to some music festival at Woodstock. I had to work that weekend.

Because it truly was historic. I’m sure that except for the most cynical partisans (e.g., Pelosi), all of those present felt it. The representatives of the American people, and not just the Republican ones, responded warmly and positively. Netanyahu spoke honestly, both intellectually and from the heart, and it was impossible to listen to him without perceiving this.

The speech had two parts, melded together. The first was the practical argument about stopping Iran from getting nuclear weapons. The second was more of an emotional appeal for morality in policy, which stood in sharp contrast to the Kafkaesque language that issues from the Obama Administration.

Obama said that Netanyahu didn’t say anything new and didn’t offer a “viable alternative.” It is true that he didn’t say anything new — the nature of the deal and the fundamental problems with it have been explained over and over, by Netanyahu and others. But he did offer an alternative: a better deal that would seriously restrict Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, and require Iran to change its behavior:

We can insist that restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program not be lifted for as long as Iran continues its aggression in the region and in the world. Before lifting those restrictions, the world should demand that Iran do three things. First, stop its aggression against its neighbors in the Middle East. Second, stop supporting terrorism around the world. And third, stop threatening to annihilate my country, Israel, the one and only Jewish state.

Obama responded with a remarkably convoluted argument which first mischaracterizes the PM’s position, and then seems to say that since nothing we can threaten Iran with can stop them from developing nuclear weapons, we can only stop them by not threatening them.

I won’t take up too much space on this. Here’s an analogy:

Judge: You are guilty of bank robbery. I sentence you to 10 years in prison.
Bank robber: I won’t agree to more than 2 years. Take it or leave it.
Judge: Oh, OK then.

Iran has violated the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty that it signed, refuses to allow inspections of sensitive facilities, and maintains secret installations. It violates the UN Charter by committing armed aggression against its neighbors, calls for the destruction of another UN member state and exports terrorism and murder all over the globe. It needs to be called to account — made to stop its behavior by full-scale international sanctions of every kind, including military action if all else fails.

This is the moment — maybe the last chance — for the post WWII ideal of morality in international relations, for those who believe that cooperation can bring about peace and deliver human rights to step up and take the right side for a change. PM Netanyahu probably doesn’t expect much from the international institutions like the UN, nor, unfortunately, from the Obama Administration. But he does think the American people and their representatives will understand and respond.

Barack Obama considers “the nature of the Iranian regime’s ambitions when it comes to territory or terrorism” a distraction. But the nuclear issue doesn’t exist in a vacuum. There are moral reasons to oppose the regime, with or without nuclear weapons:

That year, the zealots drafted a constitution, a new one for Iran. It directed the revolutionary guards not only to protect Iran’s borders, but also to fulfill the ideological mission of jihad. The regime’s founder, Ayatollah Khomeini, exhorted his followers to “export the revolution throughout the world.”

I’m standing here in Washington, D.C. and the difference is so stark. America’s founding document promises life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Iran’s founding document pledges death, tyranny, and the pursuit of jihad. And as states are collapsing across the Middle East, Iran is charging into the void to do just that.

Netanyahu listed some of the crimes that the Iranian regime has committed against Americans and innocent people all over the world. And he didn’t hesitate to describe it precisely as it is:

Iran’s regime is as radical as ever, its cries of “Death to America,” that same America that it calls the “Great Satan,” as loud as ever. Now, this shouldn’t be surprising, because the ideology of Iran’s revolutionary regime is deeply rooted in militant Islam, and that’s why this regime will always be an enemy of America.

Americans have been aching to hear words like this from its own leadership, but they will not. They won’t hear the word ‘jihad’, or even the word ‘enemy’ unless applied to an abstract concept like terrorism. They won’t hear terrorism connected to Islam. They won’t be told that the world’s conflicts are related to ideology, specifically Islamic ideology; rather, they’ll hear that the problem is poverty and economic inequality. They’ll even be told that the US can partner with Iran to stabilize Iraq, while Iran holds war games in which mockups of US naval vessels are blown up.

Americans and their congresspeople are not stupid, and they understand that there is something very wrong here, even sinister. Part of the impact that Netanyahu’s address obviously had comes from the contrast between his plain speech and the administration’s Orwellian discourse.

Obama’s media lackeys pulled out all the stops in minimizing the importance and content of the speech, in insulting and accusing Netanyahu. The New York Times, the Pravda of the Obama Administration, repeated that the speech contained ‘nothing new’ and called it “exploitative political theater.” MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow said members of Congress “made an unprecedented spectacle of showing allegiance to a foreign head of state.” Jon Stewart called the event a “blowjob.” Yes, he did.

But the members of Congress who gave the PM some 24 standing ovations clearly didn’t see it that way. They understood that Benjamin Netanyahu is not only fighting for the survival of his nation and his people, but providing moral clarity about the intensifying conflict between the West and radical Islam — the conflict about which Barack Obama chooses to remain ambiguous.

The speech will probably have little effect on the Israeli election either way. Israelis have heard all of this before. Some appreciate Netanyahu as the world-class leader that he is, and others will continue to despise him because — just because. But that’s a different subject.

The importance of the speech will be for Americans, who heard a polite but devastating indictment of their president and his administration. They heard the facts. Now it’s up to them to ask the question that the facts demand:

Which side are you on, Barack Obama?

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The Speech

Posted on March 3, 2015 by Victor Rosenthal

It’s mid-morning in Israel as I write. Washington is still asleep. At 10:45 Eastern time, Binyamin Netanyahu will stand before a joint session of Congress and explain why he believes that the agreement with Iran that the administration wants to make — in the name of the P5+1, but after a negotiation dominated by the US — will be disastrous for his country, his region and for the West.

The administration has called Netanyahu’s speech ‘destructive’, and has persuaded (at present count) 47 Democratic members of the House and 8 Senators, including most of the Congressional Black Caucus, to skip the speech. The rhetoric has escalated, with the latest statements of administration spokespersons accusing Netanyahu of ‘betrayal of trust’ if he reveals details of the agreement that is developing.

Israeli officials indicated that they have knowledge of the details of the agreement from other sources, most likely other members of the P5+1 who are uncomfortable with the direction of the talks.

This is the latest in a series of escalations as the administration attempts to discredit Netanyahu, who has been accused of ‘violating protocol’, ‘disrespecting the president’, conspiring with the Republicans to embarrass Obama, and using the speech to advance his domestic political agenda.

It’s remarkable that they can use the word ‘betrayal’ with a straight face. If Netanyahu is correct and the agreement with Iran will in fact facilitate and legitimize Iran’s nuclearization, it constitutes nothing less than an abandonment of the administration’s oft-stated commitment to Israel’s security, and a violation of its promise that Iran would not be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon — in short, a betrayal of America’s best ally in the Middle East.

The repeated accusations of ‘disrespect’ are also hypocritical for a president who once left the PM sitting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House while he went to dinner, and who regularly permits his hatchet-men to throw epithets like “chickenshit” at him. Just yesterday he let it be known that he didn’t bother to watch Netanyahu’s speech to AIPAC.

The accusation that Netanyahu is working with the Republicans against the president is also an inversion of reality. The objective of the PM is to oppose the agreement with Iran, not to attack Obama, which he has been (excessively, in my opinion) careful not to do. In any event, Netanyahu, unlike Obama, is up for reelection, and the presence of a former Obama electoral advisor in Israel working against the PM for a group funded by American and other foreign money speaks volumes.

The use of the Congressional Black Caucus as a vehicle to power the boycott of Netanyahu’s speech is a particularly ugly maneuver, which can only damage the already-marginal relationship between American blacks and Jews. There is even a rumor that some caucus members will not just skip the speech, but will walk out. I very strongly hope that this is not true.

In all of this, the contrast between the President and the Prime Minister is sharp. Obama’s tactics are insults, innuendo and demagoguery. Netanyahu, on the other hand, is putting his own electoral future in danger as well as inviting reprisals from Obama in order to take a stand that he sees as critical to the survival of his nation.

I just want to add a word about Netanyahu’s main opposition here in Israel, ‘Buji’ Herzog and Tzipi Livni. While they say the agree with the PM about the danger of an Iranian bomb, they have chosen to oppose his trip and his speech, calling it an election gimmick. They have echoed some of the US administration’s talking points.

Of course they are entitled to an opinion, and since they are the opposition it is likely to be opposed to that of the PM. But Israelis can be excused for thinking that maybe they are already beholden to the Obama Administration for their assistance — and maybe it would be better to have an independent government in Israel rather than a satellite of the anti-Israel administration?

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Netanyahu’s AIPAC speech

Posted on March 2, 2015 by Victor Rosenthal
PM Netanyahu speaks at AIPAC convention March 2, 2015

PM Netanyahu speaks at AIPAC convention March 2, 2015

PM Netanyahu spoke at the AIPAC convention this morning. The speech was well-written and delivered nicely, but there was nothing exceptional in it (the transcript is here). There was, however, one thing that I found interesting.

At one point, Netanyahu referred to times at which the US-Israel relationship had been particularly strained, and said that despite the strains the relationship had continued stronger than ever. He gave three examples: the decision of David Ben-Gurion to declare the state of Israel against the opposition of Secretary of State George Marshall; the decision of Levi Eshkol to preemptively attack Egypt in June 1967; and the decision of Menachem Begin to destroy the nuclear reactor at Osirak in 1981.

There were plenty of other examples that he could have chosen: the nuclear brinksmanship employed to force Nixon to resupply Israel in 1973; President Ford’s “reassessment” of relations with Israel in 1975; the struggle over the sale of AWACS aircraft to Saudi Arabia in the 1980s; the loan guarantees crisis of 1992 (which helped defeat then-PM Yitzhak Shamir’s reelection bid); and of course the numerous spats over US demands for Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians.

But the three examples that he did choose have something in common: in each case Israel disobeyed the US, and took very forceful action which had immediate consequences. The point of his examples, it seemed to me, was not so much that there have been disagreements before and the relationship survived, but rather that sometimes Israel’s existential interest drives it to act in direct opposition to the US.

This, I understood him to imply, is one of those times. And therefore Israel will take the action necessary to protect itself, despite ‘orders’ to the contrary from the US.

An unrelated point: he began by saying that he had great respect for President Obama. I suppose, given the accusations leveled against him by his opponents at home and Obama’s goons, that he had to say that. But I wish he had left it out — it sounded servile, especially toward the man who has himself behaved toward the Prime Minister with a total lack of respect on multiple occasions.

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What is the administration thinking?

Posted on February 27, 2015 by Victor Rosenthal

As of today, it seems that about 25 Democratic members of the House and 4 senators will be skipping PM Netanyahu’s speech to Congress as a result of White House pressure (or out of a desire to help their beloved president — take it either way).

Some think that Netanyahu made a mistake by accepting Speaker Boehner’s invitation. It certainly has given the White House an opening to send its minions out to bash Netanyahu. But in order to decide whether the speech is a good idea or not, we need to understand its objective.

Many people think the objective is to support possible sanctions legislation or to spur Congress to demand oversight over the Iranian deal. But while these wouldn’t be bad things, it is hard to imagine that any possible additional sanctions could effect Iran’s progress. And even if Congress were able to shoot down the deal, do you think it would matter?

No matter what kind of deal is signed or not signed, Iran will continue its development activity. It has consistently cheated on its obligations to the IAEA, and everyone knows that it has secret facilities in addition to what it has declared. The point of the deal for Iran is to give its actions legitimacy — and to delegitimize an Israeli attempt to stop them by force.

So in my opinion, the message that Netanyahu will deliver will be something like this:

We gave you a chance to stop Iran by diplomatic means. We stayed our hand in 2012 because you assured us that Iran would not be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon. Now  it’s clear that the diplomatic effort has failed, and we know that you will not use military force.

Israel sees a nuclear-armed Iran as an existential threat. We will not permit our nation to be threatened in this way. Therefore, we are putting you on notice that when the time is right, we plan to take action.

Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

I expect that there will be a Security Council resolution condemning, even punishing Israel after the fact, and if Obama is still in the White House the US will not veto it. Netanyahu will articulate the legal case that I’m sure the Foreign Ministry is building right now, the argument that the Iranian nuclear project constitutes aggression against Israel and that the inevitable military action that Israel will take is legitimate self-defense. It would be helpful to this argument if the deal falls apart first, but realistically it is unlikely that Obama will allow it to.

The failure to stop Iran is a massive failure for US policy in the region if the policy is intended to prevent war, because war is the certain outcome of Iran crossing the nuclear threshold.

One wonders whether this obvious conclusion is lost on the administration, or if possibly they think that war might solve some problems for them. Yes, it sounds extreme — but what are they thinking?

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The US changes course

Posted on February 27, 2015 by Victor Rosenthal

Iranian bombThis article was cross-posted to the Elder of Ziyon blog.

Recently, I attended a panel discussion including the representatives of several of the political parties competing in our upcoming election. I found it quite interesting that the question of Iran barely came up. When I made a remark about Barack Obama being an enemy of the Jewish state, the fellow from Meretz called my opinion ‘extreme’ and said something about how Israel and the Palestinians needed a push to get together, and he appreciated Obama providing it.

Oh yes, I thought, the Palestinians and the phony ‘peace’ negotiations. I remember that. But in fact it hadn’t crossed my mind, nor had the actions of the administration during the recent Gaza conflict. What prompted my remark about Obama being an enemy was the deal with Iran that is coming together right now, the deal that mainstream journalists are reporting is even worse than the Israeli leaks that so angered, yet again, the US president (it’s funny how we infuriate him so easily, almost just by breathing).

This deal — or rather, the realignment of the US towards Iran and away from its traditional allies in the Sunni Arab states and Israel that the deal exemplifies — represents a real change in US policy. While previous administrations also have pushed the pointless Palestinian ‘peace process’ with more or less enthusiasm, the Obama administration is breaking entirely new ground with its pro-Iranian policy.

If — and this is quite a big ‘if’ given Iran’s historical behavior — if Iran lives up to the terms of the deal as reported, the regime will not assemble and test a weapon for 10 years. In return for this ‘restraint’, it will be able to continue enrichment of nuclear material as well as research and development in the areas of weaponization and delivery systems. Its continued violations of the non-proliferation treaty and the Security Council resolutions intended to enforce it will be ignored, and Iran’s emergence as a nuclear-armed state will be fully legitimized.

If such an agreement were to be signed, it would make it much harder for Israel to argue that any action it might take against Iran was defensive. Israel would be portrayed as violating the international consensus that rendered Iran’s program kosher. In my opinion, this is the main reason that Iran wants the deal. It certainly isn’t afraid of US action!

The Hebrew term for negotiations could be translated literally as “give and take.” This seems a strange negotiation, all give and almost no take. Quoting Henry Kissinger,

Nuclear talks with Iran began as an international effort, buttressed by six U.N. resolutions, to deny Iran the capability to develop a military nuclear option. They are now an essentially bilateral negotiation over the scope of that capability through an agreement that sets a hypothetical limit of one year on an assumed breakout. The impact of this approach will be to move from preventing proliferation to managing it.

President Obama believes that it is possible for the US to establish an alliance of sorts with Iran that will help it defeat the Islamic State and bring stability to the Middle East while at the same time permitting the US to safely withdraw its forces from the region. Not only is he acquiescing to Iran’s nuclearization, he appears to have given Iran a free hand in Syria and Iraq.

Given the ideology of the Iranian regime, this represents an astonishing triumph of delusional wishful thinking. Here is how Maj. Gen. Ya’akov Amidror, former Israeli National Security Advisor and head of the research department of Israeli Military Intelligence described it:

From the point of view of the Arab Middle East, the decision to alter the course with Iran means that America is effectively choosing a side in the historical, centuries-old feud in favor of the Shiite minority, scaring the Sunni majority. By doing so, the Americans are encouraging the Shiites, who since the revolution in Iran 35 years ago have been the most dynamically negative force in the Middle East, a force which reaches far and wide via its terrorist group proxies.

Iran established Hezbollah in Lebanon — and it is fighting on behalf of the Assad regime in Syria. Iran created the Islamic Jihad group as a Sunni proxy among the Palestinians — to fight Israel. And Iran is helping Hamas, also a Sunni Palestinian organization — to undermine the Palestinian Authority and also to fight Israel. Iran backs the Houthi rebels who have conquered Sana’a, and it prodded the riots in Bahrain, which were subdued with help from Saudi Arabia. Across the entire globe, the Iranians and their Hezbollah allies have carried out dozens of terrorist attacks against Israel, and the Americans are well aware of this. The U.S. is on the verge of partnering with this radical force, in the hope that doing so will bring about regional stability? It’s hard to believe, but reports to this effect are multiplying.

The new American policy will turn the entire Sunni world against the US, Amidror notes, as well as encourage even more nuclear proliferation as the abandoned Sunnis nuke up in order to protect themselves against the aggressive and expansionist Iranian regime. It will encourage Iran to continue to export terrorism all over the world, including America’s soft underbelly via Latin America.

It also represents a striking reversal of the commitment of most recent American administrations to the security of Israel. Iran stands behind almost every enemy of Israel today, from the tens of thousands of Hizballah missiles in Lebanon that can strike almost every location in the Jewish state, to the tunnel diggers and suicide bombers of Hamas, to the self-motivated stabbers and murder drivers in the territories. Right now, Iran is  beefing up its forces in the Syrian Golan, creating yet another possible front for conflict.

Aligning with Iran and protecting Israel are inconsistent actions — doing one precludes doing the other. To facilitate the possession of nuclear weapons by a regime that holds Holocaust denial conferences and cartoon competitions, that almost daily announces that Israel must and will be destroyed, and that almost entirely surrounds Israel with its military proxies, is nothing less than an act of aggression against the Jewish state.

This is why I called Obama an enemy of the Jewish state and the Jewish people, and why I don’t consider that statement ‘extreme’ at all.

The relationship between Israel and the US is in the process of being torn apart, and it has nothing to do with ‘protocol’ or personal animosity between Netanyahu and Obama. It is a divergence over policy, a result of a conscious decision taken by the administration to reverse course in the Middle East and place the US in the Iranian corner. Unless the next American president sharply changes course yet again, the map of Israel’s alliances will look significantly different in the coming years.

Posted in Iran, US-Israel Relations | 1 Comment

How Herzog and Livni could win

Posted on February 23, 2015 by Victor Rosenthal
Some of the members of the Joint Arab List. Haneen Zouabi is second from right.

Some of the members of the Joint Arab List. Haneen Zouabi is second from right.

Last week I suggested that the aptly misnamed “Zionist Union” party would do anything to get into power, even — for the first time in Israel’s history —  invite an Arab party into their coalition, and yesterday Tzipi Livni made it clear that she did not rule this out.

The Joint Arab List is polling around 12 mandates now, and has the potential to go much higher. While voter participation among Israeli Arabs has always been low, some Arab leaders that supported a boycott in the past are now urging them to vote. And there is a well-funded (by foreign money, of course) get-out-the-vote effort aimed at them.

The race is still neck-and-neck with a “poll of polls” showing Netanyahu’s Likud and Herzog/Livni’s Zionist Union within one seat of each other. While the parties that would form a right-wing coalition still expect to get about 10 more seats than the Left (even including the Arabs), an opportunistic ‘center’ party could be tempted to flip leftward.

After the votes are counted, the President (Reuven Rivlin) will give some Knesset member the job of forming a government “after consultation with representatives of party groups in the Knesset.” This is usually understood to mean the one that is most likely to be able to form a coalition, but there is no legal requirement that this be so, at least in the first rounds. If that Knesset member doesn’t succeed, then the President can choose someone else.

In October 2008, Ehud Olmert resigned as Prime Minister due to criminal allegations (he has since been convicted). His deputy, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, was unable to maintain the coalition, so new elections were held in February of 2009. Livni’s party, Kadima, got the most votes with 28 seats to the Likud’s 27. But the President, Shimon Peres, gave Netanyahu the first shot at forming a coalition, because more of the other parties were prepared to join with Netanayahu than Livni.

The background was the mushrooming evidence of Olmert’s corruption, plus the negligence of the Olmert-Livni-Peretz government during the 2nd Lebanon War of 2006 (Labor’s Amir Peretz had been Defense Minister, one of the worst in Israel’s history). It was surprising and embarrassing that Olmert hung on as long as he did.

The left-leaning Peres did the right thing in this case even though he doubtless would have preferred Livni to his old enemy Netanyahu. But he had no choice; picking Livni would just have resulted in even more time without a government, and not only the party leaders but the nation had had more than enough of Kadima and Livni.

Nevertheless, if one party gets significantly more votes in the upcoming election than the others, I can see the President feeling that it would be ‘more democratic’ to give that party the first shot at forming a coalition, even if it is less likely to succeed based on initial consultations with party leaders. The pressure would be on everyone to get on board.

With a bit of luck, plenty of center-party cynicism, plus the Arab parties, it is imaginable that Herzog and Livni (they have a power-sharing agreement) could be the next Prime Ministers.

Of course it is by no means certain that the Arabs would agree to join a Zionist government, especially one led by a party called the “Zionist Union.” But I wonder what would happen if promises of pro-Arab legislation, ministerial jobs and other perks are dangled in front of them. You can be sure that Herzog and Livni will pull out all the stops.

The Zionist Union’s party list (without the Arab parties) has already been strongly criticized for being soft on anti-Zionism:

Bayit Yehudi candidate Ronen Shoval submitted a complaint to the Central Election Committee … which states that Labor-Hatnua’s Hebrew name, “Zionist Camp,” is misleading. …

For example, they quote [Zuheir] Bahloul as saying “our Palestinian identity is stronger than the Israeli one.” MK Stav Shaffir’s quote is taken from a book on the 2011 social protests, of which she was a leader, which said she called Hatikvah a racist song. MK Merav Michaeli once said in an Army Radio interview that mothers should not send their sons to the army as long as the “occupation” continues. Bayit Yehudi used several quotes for candidate Yossi Yona, including “I don’t connect to this word, Zionism. It doesn’t express who I am” and “Yom Hashoa and Nakba Day should be on the same day.”

Shoval’s complaint was turned down of course, but there is no doubt about the anti-Zionism of  the Balad party, one of those that make up the joint list:

Balad is a political party whose stated purpose is the “struggle to transform the state of Israel into a democracy for all its citizens, irrespective of national or ethnic identity.” It opposes the idea of Israel as a solely Jewish state, and supports its recasting as a binational state.

Balad also advocates that the state of Israel recognize Palestinian Arabs as a national minority, entitled to all rights that come with that status including autonomy in education, culture and media. Since the party’s formation, it has objected to every proposed state budget on the grounds that they have discriminated against the Arab population.

The party supports creation of two states based on pre-1967 borders, with the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem to constitute a Palestinian state and the implementation of UN Resolution 194 regarding the right of return to Palestinian refugees. [194 is interpreted by Arabs to mean that descendents of 1948 Arab refugees have a right of return to Israel — ed.].

It is unthinkable that representatives who agree with this platform can be part of the government of Israel. In fact, I believe that even the presence of a person like Balad member Haneen Zouabi in the Knesset is unacceptable. It simply stands in contradiction to Israel’s Declaration of Independence as a Jewish and democratic state. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court places its understanding of ‘democratic’ above that of ‘Jewish’. But that’s another issue.

Posted in Israeli Arabs, Israeli Politics | 1 Comment