Obama's Wobbliness Is a Great Danger to Israel
Obama's rhetoric only emboldens terrorists
It is extraordinary that a gullible world now regards Israel as rejectionist, yet it is Arab leaders who have rejected everything over the decades—rejected a partition of the land proposed by the Peel Commission in 1936; rejected the United Nations partition plan of 1947; rejected the Israeli offer after the 1967 Six Day War to return all the territories; rejected the major opportunity for peace after the Oslo agreement of 1993; rejected Ehud Barak's proposal for a Palestinian state and President Clinton's compromise proposals; rejected Ehud Olmert's even more generous proposal for a Palestinian state. Sadly, President Obama seems to have drawn a moral equivalent between those who have been prepared to live in peace and those who have chosen war in 1948, 1956, 1973, and 1982, with follow-on campaigns of terrorism after every loss.
Instead of embracing peace, Arab leaders converted the West Bank territory they came to control into a launching pad for suicide bombing, an Intifada that killed more than 1,000 Israelis and ultimately forced Israel to return to the West Bank at great cost and build a security fence against terrorist infiltration. This conduct turned upside down the priorities of the road map for peace, which stated that prior to Israeli concessions the Palestinians would be obliged to demonstrate a commitment to curbing terrorism, eschewing violence and its incitement. No chance, not least because one generation poisons the next.
The hatred of Jews is cultivated throughout the Arab Muslim world without drawing any rebuke from the moral arbiters who are so ready to condemn Israel for the smallest infraction. Hate permeates all points of Palestinian public communications—newspapers, videocassettes, sermons, books, the Internet, television, radio, and, most insidiously, the schoolrooms. The anti-Jewish campaign is so dishonest, so vicious, so persistent that it surpasses that of Nazi Germany in its heyday. New media cable networks like al Jazeera, al Manar, and al Arabiya make the campaign all-pervasive. And the United Nations? It has become a forum not for peace but for fomenting and focusing anti-Israeli propaganda, not for independent inquiry but for the indictment of Israel whenever it seeks to eliminate a terrorist sanctuary, not for enforcing agreements but providing a smokescreen for their violation.
Now comes President Obama to undermine a commitment made by the United States. To appreciate what is at stake, we have to look at the record. Israel of its own volition withdrew settlers and settlements from Gaza, though this evacuation was not required by the road map. The Bush administration acknowledged in return that settlement construction in the West Bank would be permitted within the existing construction line—not new settlement but building to cope with the growth of families. This understanding was confirmed by senior members of the National Security Council and in letters from the office of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to Condoleezza Rice, who was then national security adviser. Among other things, the letters said, "In the framework of the agreed principles on settlement activity, we will shortly make an effort to better delineate the settlement construction line in Judea and Samaria." Former Sharon aide Dov Weisglass wrote recently reaffirming "that the administration recognized Israel's right under the road map to development from within the existing construction line."
For years, Israel has relied on these understandings for developments of homes within the guidelines set down, without objection from the U.S. government and without denials when this policy was reported in the New York Times and in the Washington Post.
Repudiating these understandings is an extraordinary breach of the normal behavior of governments and stands in juxtaposition to U.S. demands that the Israeli government adhere to commitments made by its predecessors. Surely there could have been a much more constructive way in which the two governments could have reached an understanding rather than through a public confrontation after a speech in Cairo, of all places. Is it not understood that, far from advancing peace, these hard-line statements will serve only to harden the determination of the Palestinians not to make any compromises, as both sides must do? Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has already stated he will not even negotiate with the Israelis.
Reader Comments
Obama and Israel
It's time for pro-Isr
ael conservatives to pressure the Administration, through petitions, letters and demonstrations, to show some decent concern for Israel. The President is deaf to pleas but responds to pressure.
I belong to the San Francisco Voice for Israel. We face an ugly and raucous group of enemies in our counter-demonstrations. However, the leaders, and most of the membership, of this group are liberal Democrats, and I don't think they'd ever protest anything Obama did. And for the most part the media ignore us, while giving much sympathy to our enemies, especially International Answer.
Someone needs to stop the onslaught before it's too late.
Muslim TERROR State Reduces Israel at Mid-section to 9 Miles Wide INDEFENSIBLE Borders
To Rj of OH - From cradle to grave, Palestinian Authority Muslims are taught to hate and MURDER Jews and MAKE WAR - the phony "peace" promised Israel!
Hamas/PA Target JEWISH INNOCENTS. Israel Targets Terrorists
Israel sends truck loads of food, medical and other supplies into Gaza. Israeli hospital treats Gaza patients in urgent need.
An Israeli hospital treated a young Muslim woman-she returned strapped with a bomb belt to blow up amongst the Jewish doctors and nurses who helped her.
Israel warns Gaza civilians by leaflets, loudspeakers and telephone calls to evacuate battle areas.
ACJ - Vilified: TELLING LIES ABOUT ISRAEL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Op5vT3vnfOk
Hamas TV video teaches that bombs that kill Israelis are more precious to an Arab mother than her children.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIBNRVgq59Y
Hamas Member of Parliament Fathi Hammad, February 29, 2008 on Al-Aqsa TV that for PA Arabs, "death has become an industry at which women excel… The elderly excel at this, and so do the mujahideen and the children."
Translated by MEMRI, Hammad : "This is why they have formed human shields of the women, the children, the elderly and the mujahideen, in order to challenge the Zionist bombing machine. It is as if they were saying to the Zionist enemy: 'We desire death like you desire life.'"
Religious HATE and Religious MURDER of Jews and other non-Muslims is taught in mosques worldwide.
Palestinian Authority Muslims CELEBRATE Murder of 3,000 Americans 9/11
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrM0dAFsZ8k
The Islamo Fascists commit war crimes: they use human shields; hide behind women and children; wage war from densely populated areas, store and fire rockets from residential buildings, schools, hospitals and mosques to deliberately MAXIMISE Arab injuries and deaths so that when Israel fires back in self defense and accidently kills civilians, the Islamics scream to the world, but the blood of the Arabs is on the heads of the Islamo Fascists.
There has not been a single Muslim street demonstration to protest the cruel, massive Islamic attacks on non-Muslims in New York, Bali, India, Phillipines, Israel, London, Beslan, Madrid and more.
The Palestinian Authority hailed as heroes the terrorists who brutally murdered defenseless 8 months pregnant Jewish mother, Tali Hatuel, and 4 little daughters in Gush Katif in May 2004.
Muslim killers of Jewish children are adored-Palestinian Authority newspaper al-Hayat al-Jadida called savage child-killer Kuntar "a beacon of light" and an "authentic role model." PLO/Palestinian Authority leader, Abbas, called Kuntar a hero. Syria's Assad said Kuntar was chief among honorable men and awarded Kuntar Syria's highest medal, the Syrian Order of Merit.
mortimer zuckerman's comments about Obama's rhetoric
I'm glad that Mr Zuckerman has spoken out against President Obama's unfortunate rhetoric, not only in his Cairo speech, but subsequently, declaring the settlements to be "illegal." Yet the right of the Jewish people to the biblical land of Israel has been recognized by the entire world community, as manifest in the Balfour Declaration, and the League of Nations' establishment of the British Mandate, under which Britain, which unfortunately failed to do so, was tasked with keeping the land in trust for the Jewish people. Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem were liberated by Israel during its defensive war with Egypt and Jordan. Those territories had been opportunistically snatched by Egypt and Jordan, who had no legal sovereignty over them, nor did they create a Palestinian state there when they had the opportunity, possibly because at that time the Palestinians were considered part of the Arab nation, along with all the Arabs in their separate 21 countries. In fact the name Palestinian comes from the Romans, who renamed Judea Palestine as an insult to the Jews whom they had defeated. (Palestine was Latin for the Phillistines, ancient Israel's traditional enemies.) The Palestinian refugees who have been used as pawns by their leaders since 1948, could have been assimilated into the other Arab nations long ago, just as Israel assimilated the essentially equal number of displaced Jews who had to flee their homes in the Middle East after the creation of the Jewish state. So, I applaud Mr Zuckerman for reprimanding our president for undermining the Jewish national right to its one and only homeland.
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