Twisting Arms, Twisting Knives

Much has been made of the new 10-year aid package the Americans have pledged to provide Israel. As Caroline Glick has pointed out, this deal is not exactly what it seems with regard to Obama and Israel.

We all know Obama is anti-Israel; he always has been. So if much has been made of the new aid package, what gives? It all comes down to Obama’s wish to out-maneuver Congress. Israel agreed to the new package, which binds the Jewish state to a certain amount. Israel now cannot accept any supplemental amount Congress might want to send Israel’s way.

This is in keeping with a president whose mendacity knows no limits when it comes to Israel. For example, he has always sought to limit Israel’s missile defense funding. Of course, his enmity for Benjamin Netanyahu is legendary and chilling.

Additionally, Obama has befriended the left-wing J Street, a lobbying group in Washington that purports to defend Israel. The opposite is true. Hear Glick explain some of the shenanigans Obama has pulled:

“Today J Street, the self-proclaimed ‘pro-Israel, pro-peace’ outfit, is lobbying the IRS to revoke the charitable status of American groups that work to protect the civil and property rights of Jews in Judea and Samaria. It is also working with Iran’s lobby in Washington and Americans for Peace Now to undermine Republican efforts to sanction Iran for its anti-US aggression.”

The fact is, Obama is a menace when it comes to Israel, so when he appears to (almost bizarrely) be “helping” Israel with a long-range aid package, he is in fact attempting to control it as much as possible before he leaves office in January.

Notice what he aims for:

“For Obama, the MoU [Memorandum of Understanding] isn’t about securing military financing for Israel. The aid is a means for him to achieve a different aim.

“Administration and congressional sources warn that Obama wished to conclude the MoU in the final months of his presidency to burnish his pro-Israel credentials. He wants his pro-Israel bona fides intact as he enables the UN Security Council to adopt an anti-Israel resolution just after the US presidential election in November.”

And there you have it. In all likelihood, Obama is here for years to come. He has already promised to stay in Washington (ostensibly so his daughter can finish high school), and there is very real speculation that he is lobbying to become the next UN Secretary General; the job comes up almost at the same time Obama leaves office.

There, he would surely work tirelessly to render Israel defenseless internationally.

Jimmy Carter never liked Israel; biblically he is a Replacement Theology guy. Bill Clinton was a self-absorbed pragmatist who caused great harm to Israel.

But neither approached the naked evil of Obama.

Israel will be dealing with him for years to come.

Jim1fletcher@yahoo.com

When Discernment Dies

Shimon Peres suffered a stroke this week. The 93-year-old Israeli political icon is the last of the state’s founders and influencers. As of now, Peres is still alive, and doctors will determine soon if he can recover. The old lion has seen it all.

As prime minister, defense minister, foreign minister, transportation minister, finance minister, and president was born in Poland, a few years after World War I. Just before the Nazis came to power, he emigrated to Palestine.

He did not have the distinguished military career that many Israeli PMs have had, but did join the Haganah (the forerunner of the modern IDF) in 1947.

In 1976, as defense minister, Peres was largely responsible for the government approving the rescue operation to Entebbe. He was a member of the Labor Party (roughly the equivalent of America’s Democrat Party) for 37 years, but joined Ariel Sharon’s new Kadima movement in the wake of the pullout from Gaza.

The role that defines Peres—despite his glittering resume—is as one of the architects of the Oslo Accords, which officially began in 1991 and resulted in the last quarter-century of Palestinian terrorism in Israel. Peres, along with others, apparently believes in the good of man, and assumed Yasser Arafat and the PLO could be reasoned with. This was a catastrophic error, and plagues Israel to the this day. I would argue that it has also led indirectly to the emboldening of jihadists the world over.

When international media broadcast images of Bill Clinton with Yitzhak Rabin and Arafat on the White House lawn in September, 1993 (the same year the World Trade Center was first targeted by Muslim terrorists), the Muslim world saw it as weakness on the part of the West.

Peres had a large part in perpetuating the myth that the Palestinians would choose to join civilization. His dogged insistence on continuing “negotiations” is an ongoing tragedy.

Peres, then, has been an odd mixture of “doing good” and doing bad. He no doubt has always believed in the rightness of his views. He and Leah Rabin convinced Yitzhak Rabin to follow the siren song of Oslo. That has led to thousands of deaths at the hands of Palestinian terrorists.

I have always remembered the quote from a political commentator, who said that Peres believed that a “Maginot Line of five-star hotels” would convince the Palestinians that free markets and open society were the way to go. The Maginot Line, of course, was the fixed fortifications of the French, which the Nazis bypassed on their way to occupying France. It is an apt description of the idealism of Peres.

We do wish Shimon Peres the very best in his recovery.

Jim1fletcher@yahoo.com