One Man's Decision.
Hey All,
I'm forwarding this article from the JPost that someone sent out on another list. It is written by Caroline Glick who many of you may know is an ex-IDF officer, a frequent commentator for the Jerusalem Post and is well qualified to comment on this subject. Here is a link to her personal website if you want to see her bio.
http://www.carolineglick.com/e/about.php
In my humble opinion, this is the most concise and accurate description of the current situation regarding the "Middle East Peace" issue and Israel's position relative to this issue that I have seen to date.
Those who studied last weeks Parasha reading my recognize the similarity that Mr. Netanyahu's position bears to that of Pinchas. He has a choice to make here and the result of that choice will determine the fate of the nation for years to come. The actions of one man can either redeeem or condemn Israel, that is what we learned last Shabbat. Let us all pray for Bibi, he is in great need of our support.
For those wondering how all of this relates to the Iranian nuclear issue and the recent Flotilla activity, let me just quickly summarize. Iran has it's own agenda, one that neither the US nor the oil rich, Sunni Muslim controlled nations (such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt) want to see brought to fruition. Of course Israel has a significant vested interest in that position as well, seeing as how she will be the primary initial target of Iran's impending aggression. So, while it may seem on the surface that the US and Saudi Arabia have finally come to the aid of Israel, rest assured that nothing could be farther from the truth. The US and Saudi Arabia simply find thier own interests to be in line with Israel's on this issue and once it has been resolved to thier satisfaction, the pressure will redouble on Israel to make the ultimate concessions to secure this so-called Peace.
The flotilla's have many purposes for both Iran and the Arab league at large. They serve as a distraction for the larger, more dangerous activities of these entities. They serve as a lightning rod to spin a perception of human rights violations by the so-called Israeli occupation and they serve as a probe to determine global standing on the issue of Israel's right to exist. They are an attempt to polarize world opinion regarding Israel so that a wedge may be driven into national political relations on a global level. In short, creating the scape goat.
Column One: Netanyahu must play for time
By CAROLINE GLICK, The Jerusalem Post
July 2, 2010
If he plays his cards wisely, he can say no to Obama and avoid an open
confrontation.
Just ahead of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s trip next week to
Washington, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas went on a
charm offensive towards the Israeli media. On Tuesday, Abbas invited
representatives of the Hebrew-language press to his office in Ramallah
and assured them of his good intentions towards Israel.
We have been here before. In Netanyahu’s last go-around as prime
minister, it seemed like every time he was due to visit Washington,
then president Bill Clinton’s advisers would set up a meeting for
Abbas’s predecessor Yasser Arafat with the Israeli media. Arafat would
talk about how much he wanted peace with Israel, and how he was just
waiting for Netanyahu to agree to embrace the cause of peace.
The peace-crazed Israeli media enthusiastically reported Arafat’s lies
to the Israeli people without questioning either Arafat’s motives or
his honesty.
Had they exhibited even a minimal amount of journalistic competence,
they would have at least checked to see what the Arafat-controlled
Palestinian media was reporting about their meeting with the “Rais.”
But that would have ruined their Netanyahu-bashing narrative. And so
the Israeli public was denied the knowledge that not only did the
Arafat-controlled Palestinian media fail to report their meeting,
Arafat’s newspapers and television broadcasts routinely told the
Palestinian people that there could be no peace with the Jews.
Indeed, they daily exhorted the Palestinians to view the destruction
of Israel as their greatest goal.
In a similar manner, this week, as Israel’s newspapers published
ecstatic headlines about Abbas’s moderation and desire for peace, the
Abbas-controlled Palestinian media made no mention of the meeting.
Moreover, in recent weeks, the Abbas-controlled Palestinian media have
been intensifying their incitement against Israel and Jews.
As Palestinian Media Watch reported this week, on Tuesday,
Abbas-controlled PATV aired a sermon by the PA’s Mufti Sheikh Muhammad
Hussein. The mufti said, “The Jews, the enemies of Allah and of His
Messenger, the enemies of Allah and of His Messenger! Enemies of
humanity in general, and of Palestinians in particular... The Prophet
says: ‘You shall fight the Jews and kill them...’” Similarly, last
week PATV re-broadcast a “documentary” film in which all of Israel is
described as “occupied Palestine.”
In one excerpt cited by PMW, the film’s narrator asserts, “The West
Bank and Gaza have another section in Palestine which is the
Palestinian coast that spreads along the [Mediterranean] sea, from...
Ashkelon in the south, until Haifa, in the Carmel Mountains.
“Haifa is a well-known Palestinian port. [Haifa] enjoyed a high status
among Arabs and Palestinians, especially before it fell to the
occupation [Israel] in 1948. To its north, we find Acre. East of Acre,
we reach a city with history and importance, the city of Tiberias,
near a famous lake, the Sea of Galilee. Jaffa, an ancient coastal
city, is the bride of the sea, and Palestine's gateway to the world.”
On Tuesday, the moderate Abbas told his Israeli guests that he’s ready
to hold direct negotiations with Netanyahu as soon as the premier
gives him his positions on borders and security.
As Abbas’s full statement made clear, what he means by that is that he
will negotiate with Netanyahu after the latter agrees to adopt his
predecessor Ehud Olmert’s position on borders and security. Those
positions included an Israeli withdrawal to the 1949 armistice lines
including the division of Jerusalem and the stationing of foreign
forces along the border with Jordan.
FOR ITS part, the Obama administration is putting its own pressure on
Netanyahu to make Abbas and US President Barack Obama happy. Over
the past several weeks the administration has been pressuring
Netanyahu to extend the 10-month prohibition on Jewish construction in
Judea and Samaria beyond its scheduled September end date.
As a sweetener to help Netanyahu swallow this strategically and
politically disastrous pill, Obama and his aides claim that an
extension of the draconian, bigoted policy would serve as a confidence
building measure to convince Abbas to begin direct negotiations with
Israel.
In Obama’s bid to convince Netanyahu to extend the Jewish building
ban, we see the foreign policy equivalent of a used car salesman’s
attempt to sell the same customer the same lousy car twice using
different lies each time.
Last year, Obama and his advisers justified their demand that
Netanyahu act to strangle the Jewish communities of Judea and Samaria
by claiming that doing so would make the Arab world begin normalizing
its relations with Israel.
Obama’s Jewish surrogate, former congressman Robert Wexler, told
Netanyahu last July that in exchange for barring Jews from building
kindergartens in Israel’s heartland, Israel would see 20 Arab
embassies open in Tel Aviv.
Of course not only did that not happen, moments after Netanyahu
announced the prohibition on Jewish building, Obama’s peace mediator
George Mitchell claimed that his massive and unprecedented concession
was insufficient.
Channeling Abbas, Mitchell declared that the US expects Israel to
agree to destroy all the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and
withdraw to the indefensible 1949 armistice lines.
Weeks after Netanyahu’s concession in Judea and Samaria, the
administration began its onslaught against Jewish building in
Jerusalem.
As the minutes tick by towards Netanyahu’s visit with Obama at the
White House, Netanyahu is signaling that he is willing to buy the same
used car a second time. Although Netanyahu continues to insist that he
will not accept preconditions for negotiations, he has empowered
Defense Minister Ehud Barak to take a leading role in contacts with
the PA.
On Wednesday, Barak announced that he will be holding direct talks
with Israel-boycotting PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in the coming
days. Earlier this week Barak effectively announced his support for an
Israeli withdrawal to the 1949 armistice lines even without a peace
treaty. In a media interview, Barak claimed that that the unilateral
withdrawals from Gaza and South Lebanon were great achievements that
should be repeated.
Netanyahu’s desire to avoid a confrontation with the Obama
administration is understandable.
Given the nature of the Israeli media, Netanyahu would certainly pay a
political price if he were to be blamed for making the administration
turn against Israel. But the truth is that today more than ever, Obama
shares Netanyahu’s desire to avoid an open clash.
THE MIDTERM congressional elections are just four months away and
Obama’s Democratic colleagues are running scared. Polls show that the
Democratic Party is likely to lose control over the House of
Representatives. The Democrats will also likely see their control over
the Senate weakened if not lost. As The Wall Street Journal’s
political analyst John Fund reported this week, out of 70 competitive
congressional districts, the Democrats will likely lose 60 and so lose
control over the House.
Going into such a problematic electoral season, the last thing Obama
needs is an open confrontation with Israel. A new row with Netanyahu
will not only harm Democrats in key states like Florida, New York, New
Jersey, Illinois and Pennsylvania.
It will harm the Democrats’ fund-raising efforts among Jewish American
donors. Over the past several months, there have been repeated reports
that Jewish Americans are drastically cutting back their donations to
Democrats. The trend will likely escalate if Obama forces Netanyahu
into a corner next week.
What this means is that Netanyahu is well placed to stand up to
Obama’s pressure. If he plays his cards wisely, he can say no to Obama
and avoid an open confrontation. For instance, instead of agreeing to
extend the building prohibition, Netanyahu should say that he is
willing to discuss that demand in face-to-face negotiations with
Abbas. Rather than agree to Abbas’s preconditions, Netanyahu should
say that he is willing to listen to Abbas’s position in face-to-face
negotiations. And so on and so forth. Such statements by Netanyahu
will take the pressure for making concessions off him and put Obama
and Abbas on the spot.
Even more importantly, it will buy Israel time.
And buying time should be Israel’s chief goal with respect to
Washington today. Since taking office, Obama has repeatedly
demonstrated that he will not reconsider his fundamentally hostile
view of Israel. Obama’s basic belief that Israel’s strength and size
are to blame for all the violence and radicalism in the Arab world is
not subject to change, regardless of how clearly and continuously
events on the ground prove it wrong.
EVEN WORSE for Israel, Obama is not alone in this view. Indeed, as a
report in Foreign Policy this week makes clear, Obama’s position on
Israel is moderate when compared to the positions being staked out in
influential policy circles in the US military.
On Wednesday, Foreign Policy published the content of a memo written
last month in the US Military’s Central Command. The memo, a “Red
Team” assessment of how the US should position itself vis-à-vis the
likes of Hamas and Hizbullah, reveals that among key members of the US
policy-making community, Israel is viewed with extreme hostility.
The leaked memo reportedly reflects the views of a significant number
of senior and mid-level officers in Centcom, including large numbers
of intelligence officers, as well as a significant number of area
analysts stationed in the Middle East. It argues that it is wrong for
the US to lump jihadist movements like Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood,
al-Qaida and Hizbullah in one group.
Dismissing the significance of the identical religious dogma that
stands at the root of these movements, the memo asserts that Hamas and
Hizbullah are pragmatic and important social forces with which the US
must foster good relations.
The memo calls for the US to support the integration of Hizbullah
forces into the Lebanese military. It also calls for the US to
encourage and permit the integration of Hamas forces into the
US-trained Palestinian security forces.
As far as Israel is concerned, the memo blames the Jewish state for
the US’s failure to date to adopt these recommended policies.
Moreover, the memo’s authors condemn Israel’s maritime blockade of
Gaza as keeping “the area on the verge of a perpetual humanitarian
collapse.”
The Centcom memo also condemns Israel’s July 2006 decision to respond
to Hizbullah’s unprovoked bombardment of northern Israel and its
unprovoked cross-border attack against an IDF patrol in which five
soldiers were killed and two were kidnapped and subsequently murdered.
Denying Hizbullah’s subservient relationship with the Iranian regime,
the report claims that Israel’s decision to use force to defend itself
against Hizbullah’s acts of war served to strengthen Hizbullah’s ties
to Teheran.
What this memo shows is that Israel has little hope of seeing a change
for the better in US policy in the near future and its best bet today
is to play for time. Next week at the Oval Office, Netanyahu should
capitalize on his advantage four months ahead of the congressional
elections and put the burden on Obama and Abbas to show their good
intentions.
caroline@carolineglick.com
=============================================
Women For Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green)
POB 7352, Jerusalem 91072, Israel
Tel: 972-2-624-9887 Fax: 972-2-624-5380
mailto:wfit2@womeningreen.org
http://www.womeningreen.org
I'm forwarding this article from the JPost that someone sent out on another list. It is written by Caroline Glick who many of you may know is an ex-IDF officer, a frequent commentator for the Jerusalem Post and is well qualified to comment on this subject. Here is a link to her personal website if you want to see her bio.
http://www.carolineglick.com/e/about.php
In my humble opinion, this is the most concise and accurate description of the current situation regarding the "Middle East Peace" issue and Israel's position relative to this issue that I have seen to date.
Those who studied last weeks Parasha reading my recognize the similarity that Mr. Netanyahu's position bears to that of Pinchas. He has a choice to make here and the result of that choice will determine the fate of the nation for years to come. The actions of one man can either redeeem or condemn Israel, that is what we learned last Shabbat. Let us all pray for Bibi, he is in great need of our support.
For those wondering how all of this relates to the Iranian nuclear issue and the recent Flotilla activity, let me just quickly summarize. Iran has it's own agenda, one that neither the US nor the oil rich, Sunni Muslim controlled nations (such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt) want to see brought to fruition. Of course Israel has a significant vested interest in that position as well, seeing as how she will be the primary initial target of Iran's impending aggression. So, while it may seem on the surface that the US and Saudi Arabia have finally come to the aid of Israel, rest assured that nothing could be farther from the truth. The US and Saudi Arabia simply find thier own interests to be in line with Israel's on this issue and once it has been resolved to thier satisfaction, the pressure will redouble on Israel to make the ultimate concessions to secure this so-called Peace.
The flotilla's have many purposes for both Iran and the Arab league at large. They serve as a distraction for the larger, more dangerous activities of these entities. They serve as a lightning rod to spin a perception of human rights violations by the so-called Israeli occupation and they serve as a probe to determine global standing on the issue of Israel's right to exist. They are an attempt to polarize world opinion regarding Israel so that a wedge may be driven into national political relations on a global level. In short, creating the scape goat.
Column One: Netanyahu must play for time
By CAROLINE GLICK, The Jerusalem Post
July 2, 2010
If he plays his cards wisely, he can say no to Obama and avoid an open
confrontation.
Just ahead of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s trip next week to
Washington, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas went on a
charm offensive towards the Israeli media. On Tuesday, Abbas invited
representatives of the Hebrew-language press to his office in Ramallah
and assured them of his good intentions towards Israel.
We have been here before. In Netanyahu’s last go-around as prime
minister, it seemed like every time he was due to visit Washington,
then president Bill Clinton’s advisers would set up a meeting for
Abbas’s predecessor Yasser Arafat with the Israeli media. Arafat would
talk about how much he wanted peace with Israel, and how he was just
waiting for Netanyahu to agree to embrace the cause of peace.
The peace-crazed Israeli media enthusiastically reported Arafat’s lies
to the Israeli people without questioning either Arafat’s motives or
his honesty.
Had they exhibited even a minimal amount of journalistic competence,
they would have at least checked to see what the Arafat-controlled
Palestinian media was reporting about their meeting with the “Rais.”
But that would have ruined their Netanyahu-bashing narrative. And so
the Israeli public was denied the knowledge that not only did the
Arafat-controlled Palestinian media fail to report their meeting,
Arafat’s newspapers and television broadcasts routinely told the
Palestinian people that there could be no peace with the Jews.
Indeed, they daily exhorted the Palestinians to view the destruction
of Israel as their greatest goal.
In a similar manner, this week, as Israel’s newspapers published
ecstatic headlines about Abbas’s moderation and desire for peace, the
Abbas-controlled Palestinian media made no mention of the meeting.
Moreover, in recent weeks, the Abbas-controlled Palestinian media have
been intensifying their incitement against Israel and Jews.
As Palestinian Media Watch reported this week, on Tuesday,
Abbas-controlled PATV aired a sermon by the PA’s Mufti Sheikh Muhammad
Hussein. The mufti said, “The Jews, the enemies of Allah and of His
Messenger, the enemies of Allah and of His Messenger! Enemies of
humanity in general, and of Palestinians in particular... The Prophet
says: ‘You shall fight the Jews and kill them...’” Similarly, last
week PATV re-broadcast a “documentary” film in which all of Israel is
described as “occupied Palestine.”
In one excerpt cited by PMW, the film’s narrator asserts, “The West
Bank and Gaza have another section in Palestine which is the
Palestinian coast that spreads along the [Mediterranean] sea, from...
Ashkelon in the south, until Haifa, in the Carmel Mountains.
“Haifa is a well-known Palestinian port. [Haifa] enjoyed a high status
among Arabs and Palestinians, especially before it fell to the
occupation [Israel] in 1948. To its north, we find Acre. East of Acre,
we reach a city with history and importance, the city of Tiberias,
near a famous lake, the Sea of Galilee. Jaffa, an ancient coastal
city, is the bride of the sea, and Palestine's gateway to the world.”
On Tuesday, the moderate Abbas told his Israeli guests that he’s ready
to hold direct negotiations with Netanyahu as soon as the premier
gives him his positions on borders and security.
As Abbas’s full statement made clear, what he means by that is that he
will negotiate with Netanyahu after the latter agrees to adopt his
predecessor Ehud Olmert’s position on borders and security. Those
positions included an Israeli withdrawal to the 1949 armistice lines
including the division of Jerusalem and the stationing of foreign
forces along the border with Jordan.
FOR ITS part, the Obama administration is putting its own pressure on
Netanyahu to make Abbas and US President Barack Obama happy. Over
the past several weeks the administration has been pressuring
Netanyahu to extend the 10-month prohibition on Jewish construction in
Judea and Samaria beyond its scheduled September end date.
As a sweetener to help Netanyahu swallow this strategically and
politically disastrous pill, Obama and his aides claim that an
extension of the draconian, bigoted policy would serve as a confidence
building measure to convince Abbas to begin direct negotiations with
Israel.
In Obama’s bid to convince Netanyahu to extend the Jewish building
ban, we see the foreign policy equivalent of a used car salesman’s
attempt to sell the same customer the same lousy car twice using
different lies each time.
Last year, Obama and his advisers justified their demand that
Netanyahu act to strangle the Jewish communities of Judea and Samaria
by claiming that doing so would make the Arab world begin normalizing
its relations with Israel.
Obama’s Jewish surrogate, former congressman Robert Wexler, told
Netanyahu last July that in exchange for barring Jews from building
kindergartens in Israel’s heartland, Israel would see 20 Arab
embassies open in Tel Aviv.
Of course not only did that not happen, moments after Netanyahu
announced the prohibition on Jewish building, Obama’s peace mediator
George Mitchell claimed that his massive and unprecedented concession
was insufficient.
Channeling Abbas, Mitchell declared that the US expects Israel to
agree to destroy all the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and
withdraw to the indefensible 1949 armistice lines.
Weeks after Netanyahu’s concession in Judea and Samaria, the
administration began its onslaught against Jewish building in
Jerusalem.
As the minutes tick by towards Netanyahu’s visit with Obama at the
White House, Netanyahu is signaling that he is willing to buy the same
used car a second time. Although Netanyahu continues to insist that he
will not accept preconditions for negotiations, he has empowered
Defense Minister Ehud Barak to take a leading role in contacts with
the PA.
On Wednesday, Barak announced that he will be holding direct talks
with Israel-boycotting PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in the coming
days. Earlier this week Barak effectively announced his support for an
Israeli withdrawal to the 1949 armistice lines even without a peace
treaty. In a media interview, Barak claimed that that the unilateral
withdrawals from Gaza and South Lebanon were great achievements that
should be repeated.
Netanyahu’s desire to avoid a confrontation with the Obama
administration is understandable.
Given the nature of the Israeli media, Netanyahu would certainly pay a
political price if he were to be blamed for making the administration
turn against Israel. But the truth is that today more than ever, Obama
shares Netanyahu’s desire to avoid an open clash.
THE MIDTERM congressional elections are just four months away and
Obama’s Democratic colleagues are running scared. Polls show that the
Democratic Party is likely to lose control over the House of
Representatives. The Democrats will also likely see their control over
the Senate weakened if not lost. As The Wall Street Journal’s
political analyst John Fund reported this week, out of 70 competitive
congressional districts, the Democrats will likely lose 60 and so lose
control over the House.
Going into such a problematic electoral season, the last thing Obama
needs is an open confrontation with Israel. A new row with Netanyahu
will not only harm Democrats in key states like Florida, New York, New
Jersey, Illinois and Pennsylvania.
It will harm the Democrats’ fund-raising efforts among Jewish American
donors. Over the past several months, there have been repeated reports
that Jewish Americans are drastically cutting back their donations to
Democrats. The trend will likely escalate if Obama forces Netanyahu
into a corner next week.
What this means is that Netanyahu is well placed to stand up to
Obama’s pressure. If he plays his cards wisely, he can say no to Obama
and avoid an open confrontation. For instance, instead of agreeing to
extend the building prohibition, Netanyahu should say that he is
willing to discuss that demand in face-to-face negotiations with
Abbas. Rather than agree to Abbas’s preconditions, Netanyahu should
say that he is willing to listen to Abbas’s position in face-to-face
negotiations. And so on and so forth. Such statements by Netanyahu
will take the pressure for making concessions off him and put Obama
and Abbas on the spot.
Even more importantly, it will buy Israel time.
And buying time should be Israel’s chief goal with respect to
Washington today. Since taking office, Obama has repeatedly
demonstrated that he will not reconsider his fundamentally hostile
view of Israel. Obama’s basic belief that Israel’s strength and size
are to blame for all the violence and radicalism in the Arab world is
not subject to change, regardless of how clearly and continuously
events on the ground prove it wrong.
EVEN WORSE for Israel, Obama is not alone in this view. Indeed, as a
report in Foreign Policy this week makes clear, Obama’s position on
Israel is moderate when compared to the positions being staked out in
influential policy circles in the US military.
On Wednesday, Foreign Policy published the content of a memo written
last month in the US Military’s Central Command. The memo, a “Red
Team” assessment of how the US should position itself vis-à-vis the
likes of Hamas and Hizbullah, reveals that among key members of the US
policy-making community, Israel is viewed with extreme hostility.
The leaked memo reportedly reflects the views of a significant number
of senior and mid-level officers in Centcom, including large numbers
of intelligence officers, as well as a significant number of area
analysts stationed in the Middle East. It argues that it is wrong for
the US to lump jihadist movements like Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood,
al-Qaida and Hizbullah in one group.
Dismissing the significance of the identical religious dogma that
stands at the root of these movements, the memo asserts that Hamas and
Hizbullah are pragmatic and important social forces with which the US
must foster good relations.
The memo calls for the US to support the integration of Hizbullah
forces into the Lebanese military. It also calls for the US to
encourage and permit the integration of Hamas forces into the
US-trained Palestinian security forces.
As far as Israel is concerned, the memo blames the Jewish state for
the US’s failure to date to adopt these recommended policies.
Moreover, the memo’s authors condemn Israel’s maritime blockade of
Gaza as keeping “the area on the verge of a perpetual humanitarian
collapse.”
The Centcom memo also condemns Israel’s July 2006 decision to respond
to Hizbullah’s unprovoked bombardment of northern Israel and its
unprovoked cross-border attack against an IDF patrol in which five
soldiers were killed and two were kidnapped and subsequently murdered.
Denying Hizbullah’s subservient relationship with the Iranian regime,
the report claims that Israel’s decision to use force to defend itself
against Hizbullah’s acts of war served to strengthen Hizbullah’s ties
to Teheran.
What this memo shows is that Israel has little hope of seeing a change
for the better in US policy in the near future and its best bet today
is to play for time. Next week at the Oval Office, Netanyahu should
capitalize on his advantage four months ahead of the congressional
elections and put the burden on Obama and Abbas to show their good
intentions.
caroline@carolineglick.com
=============================================
Women For Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green)
POB 7352, Jerusalem 91072, Israel
Tel: 972-2-624-9887 Fax: 972-2-624-5380
mailto:wfit2@womeningreen.org
http://www.womeningreen.org
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