Until now, I’ve refrained from being sharply critical of President Obama. I’ve wanted to give him time to develop his policies, to learn from his experience that the real obstacle to peace in the Mideast is not Israel. I’ve assumed that his native intelligence would allow him — once he became involved in the process — to get past the unexamined left-wing worldview that came from his educational background and his associations, and to put aside the bad advice that he’s received. I’ve hoped that he would turn out to be a Truman or JFK, someone capable of thinking for himself as soon as he realized that the buck does in fact stop at his desk.
I’ve criticized some of his actions, true. I was upset by his early choice of Zbigniew Brzezinski, Samantha Power, Rob Malley, and some others as advisers. I objected to his nomination of Chas Freeman as Chairman of the National Intelligence Council. I found his Cairo speech offensive. I was unhappy with his embrace of the phony ‘pro-Israel’ group J Street. I strongly objected to his original call for a settlement freeze. I was dismayed by his treatment of PM Netanyahu when he visited the US recently.
But I kept hoping that he would someday ‘get it’. Not any more:
Nov. 18 (Bloomberg) — Israeli plans to build 900 new homes in Jerusalem’s Gilo neighborhood, constructed beyond the city’s 1967 borders, could have “dangerous†consequences, President Barack Obama said today.
Obama said “additional settlement building does not contribute to Israel’s security,†according to a transcript of an interview he gave Fox News. “I think it makes it harder for them to make peace with their neighbors, I think it embitters the Palestinians in a way that could end up being very dangerous.â€
Obama’s remark was echoed by the European Union, Ban Ki-Moon, and others.
Some background: Gilo is within the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem, on the southwest side of the city, next to the Arab town of Beit Jala and not far from Bethlehem. Some Jews lived there pre-1948. In 1967, the area was captured from the Jordanians along with the rest of East Jerusalem, and in 1980 it was formally annexed to Israel as part of Jerusalem. Today, about 40,000 Jews live in Gilo.
Gilo is highly strategic, providing a buffer between Jerusalem and Arab towns. In 2000-2002, Fatah Tanzim (Fatah — our ‘peace partner’) snipers occupied homes and churches in the Christian Arab town of Beit Jala, firing at Gilo daily. IDF response was limited in order to avoid harming the non-hostile population. Here’s a photo of a playground in Gilo — note the concrete barrier to protect the children from sniper fire:
Playground in Gilo. Note concrete barrier to protect children from sniper fire.
The use of the word ‘settlement’ in connection with Gilo is a litmus test of attitude toward Israel’s rights in East Jerusalem. Although the Netanyahu government has indicated that it is prepared to consider evacuating settlements in Judea and Samaria as well as ceding some Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem as part of a peace settlement, it considers neighborhoods such as Gilo an integral part of Israel, no less so than West Jerusalem or Tel Aviv. This is not a ‘right-wing’ point of view. Even Tzipi Livni, leader of the opposition in Israel, has said that “there is an Israeli consensus” on this.
Obama’s remark thus takes the Arab position that the status of East Jerusalem is no different than that of Judea and Samaria. It implies that a Jewish neighborhood of East Jerusalem could well become part of ‘Palestine’ in some imagined agreement. His use of the phrase ‘settlement building’ is a deliberate attempt to blur the distinction between building a new settlement where none existed, and building some homes in a neighborhood of Israel’s capital.
A deliberate attempt, that is, to mislead. A lie.
Right now the Palestinians are focusing on Jerusalem, attacking Israel’s claim to sovereignty. This takes the form of incitement of Arabs to violently riot over nonexistent Israeli attempts to ‘storm’ the Temple Mount, at the same time that they demand — and the Obama administration supports this unprecedented demand — that Israel may not build anything in the eastern part of its capital. The Obama administration denies Israel sovereign rights in East Jerusalem.
Obama’s statement is not only deliberately misleading, it is deliberately threatening: “It embitters the Palestinians in a way that could end up being very dangerous†Obama says, repeating and reinforcing the threats of the Palestinians, who always promise terrorism if they do not get their way.
Although Obama said this building activity “makes it harder to make peace”, he must know that this is not so; practically speaking no peace agreement could call for the evacuation of Gilo — even French FM Kouchner admits this! Therefore it only ‘makes it harder’ because it opposes maximalist Palestinian aspirations. Is his position always going to be that surrender in the face of threats is the best policy?
It’s time now to ‘call the child by his name’ (to translate a Hebrew expression) and admit: Our President is no friend of Israel. Barack Obama is perhaps the most anti-Israel President since Bush I or Eisenhower, and he may turn out to be the worst ever in this regard.
Just like J Street, the only thing pro-Israel about him is his insistence that he is. His primary policy goal in the Mideast is to create a Palestinian state in order to ingratiate himself with the Muslim nations — something, incidentally, that he has so far entirely failed to do — and Israel’s security is very low priority.
Obama has had his chance and he’s shown us that rather than learning from his experience, he’s flying in the face of it. Hopefully, he’ll only be doing it until 2012.
Technorati Tags: Israel, Barack Obama, Gilo
I had pretty much the very same feeling.
He has been schooled by Rashid Khalidi. He has the Arab point- of- view.
I too had hoped that he would learn. I too thought that he would understand in time the real nature of the conflict.
Apparently what has happened is he now has come to understand that the major initiative to ‘solve the Middle East problem’ has failed.
We are in the stage then of ‘blaming’ others for the failure. Who is the world’s favorite scapegoat? Why not jump on the bandwagon. Israel is the culprit.
But now the Israel- Palestine thing is small potatoes. Iran is openly defiant. No uranium will be shipped anywhere. They are going nuclear in front of his eyes. What is he going to do?
The balance has shifted. China has the money and the one with the money usually controls the relationship. The sad truth about becoming number two was made apparent on his visit to China.
Things are not going well. And so there is a shift in tone. The world of sunshine and light, and reconciliation of former enemies is going.
I have no idea whatsoever of how this will play out.
I share the feeling of this being something like ‘the last straw’.
But there will be many other ‘straws’. He still is the President and he still determines so much.
Let us at least hope he took in Peres’ rebuke and might have some sense that on this one he slipped. Let us also hope on the big one, Iran, he comes at some point to a simple understanding which anyone with any real knowledge of Iran has. i.e. nothing will stop them but a devastating military elimination of their nuclear sites.
I’m surprised it took you two so long to come to this conclusion. I felt this when he was campaigning and I’m only a Gentile!
This J Street is a joke, too. They are a vulgar group, imho. Look at the treatment they dished out to Sarah Palin as reported by the JP.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1258624598309&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Grandma! What is your source – that you reported in another post – that CNN is 90% Saudi-owned?
I’m with you. I met Rashid Khalidi when I was a grad student at U Chicago in the late 1990s. He was a guest professor for one of my classes, and I was assigned to read one of his putrid books. He was a world-class jerk.
This is a man who has dedicated the whole of his adult professional life to the demonization and destruction of Israel. As soon as I learned that he was such a “good buddy” of Obama’s, I knew then that anything Obama said before the fact about being a “friend” of Israel was pure b.s. Khalidi raised $70,000 for Obama’s first senate campaign, and I’m sure he didn’t do this just because he thought Obama was a swell guy.
Before the election, I did my best to warn people. I got in furious e-mail battles with Jewish friends and relatives – some of whom in the wake of the same I am barely on speaking terms with to this day.
I never entertained any hope that Obama would at some point “get it” in a positive sense, and like you, “Grandma”, I am dismayed that any Jews voted for him at all, to say nothing of the fact that 78% of Jewish Americans did this. To one sweet little old lady in our local Jewish community, an Obama booster, who protested to me that Obama is surrounded by “so many Jewish advisors”, I had only one reply. “You know what I call that?”, I asked her, “…CAMOUFLAGE, that’s what I call that!”
Sadly, given millenia of persecution, there are so many Jews who feel so intrinsically powerless, that they will leap at any chance to “cut a deal”, to gain some semblance of “acceptance”. These are the people who joined the “Jewish Police” in the Warsaw Ghetto…and today’s ‘modern’ “Jewish Police” have names like Emmanuel, and Axelrod.
The lessons of our history, and the example of Israel is lost on these people.
I’m sure Obama has only three years left, but he can do a lot of damage in that time. This is such a f*****g nightmare!
The first thing you learn from studying history…..is that nobody ever learns from history!
For Robman:
Doctor David Hocking is a very reliable source for the info on CNN. He has a friend who works for CNN and he called his friend to confirm the stock of CNN was 90% owned by the Saudis. The friend confirmed it. Perhaps you can get Dr. Hocking to respond to you on this. His website is http://www.davidhocking.org
Sorry, I do not have the exact link, because the information is at least a year or two old, but it should be public knowledge somewhere on the web. I will try to find it.
Grandma,
Thanks for the info, and I hope you can further confirm the same as you intend. This is VERY important ammunition! We need to establish both financial links and a quid pro quo, HRW-style. When this happens, and to the extent that such information can get into mainstream public knowledge, the whole Saudi-Obama-Media axis can be outflanked, and the “case against Israel” as made by the same will collapse like a house of cards.
A small correction in my original post above: I met Rashid K. in the late 1980s, not the late 1990s. Time sure flies!
Here you go Robman,
It took some digging to find something regarding the stock ownership of CNN and other western media, but this site looks like a good start.
http://lightonthings.blogspot.com/2009/02/arab-muslim-control-on-western-media.html