Lee Smith: Biden Torpedoes Abraham Accords Summit
Plainly, the Obama-Biden team doesn’t care about interfering in Israeli elections or else Barack Obama’s State Department wouldn’t have funneled money to an NGO that campaigned against Netanyahu in 2015. Nor do Arab royals sitting atop petro-kingdoms have much theoretical or practical reason to worry about appearing to back one candidate against another. Smaller powers like the UAE make alliances not with factions but with states—and all parties in Israel support the Abraham Accords. Israel’s strategic class, its political, military, and intelligence echelons, as well as Israeli voters consider relations with Gulf Cooperation Council members a strategic boon. It is difficult to imagine any circumstances short of war under which an Israeli prime minister would think it politically wise to abandon a normalization agreement with any Arab state, never mind a major oil producer.Caroline Glick: Netanyahu – Israel's indispensable statesman
No, “election interference” is a staple of American political discourse. More particularly it is the rhetoric through which the Democratic Party now pushes information operations, like the Russiagate conspiracy theory holding that Russia interfered with the 2016 vote to put Trump in the White House. News of the canceled visit by the Israeli prime minister was eagerly pushed in the press and on social media by Obama’s Israel point man Dan Shapiro through his proprietary Israel wing of the echo chamber.
But there’s a bigger play here than interfering in Israeli politics by denying Bibi a preelection photo op with Israel’s peace partners in the Gulf. Their larger goal is to weaken or dismantle the Abraham Accords, which by assembling a treaty structure that binds Israel together with the Gulf states structurally interferes with the administration’s stated goal of realigning the United States with Iran—and therefore against Israel and the Gulf—by reentering Obama’s nuclear deal.
But isn’t peace in the Middle East the collective dream of the Beltway policy establishment, left and right? Trump, love or hate him, got Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan as well as the UAE to normalize relations with Israel, the first peace agreements with the Jewish state since Jordan signed in 1994—and Biden said he wanted to build on the Abraham Accords. But as it turns out, “peace” has a very particular meaning for American policymakers. For the Middle East hands in the Biden administration, what matters most is completing the project many of these Obama alumni helped initiate while serving under Biden’s former boss—realignment with Iran.
Trump didn’t just withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, which undergirded Obama’s realignment strategy, he also designed a strategic architecture to counter Iranian influence—the Abraham Accords. To bind Israel and the Arab Gulf states, the Trump White House had to bracket the issue that previously kept these traditional American allies apart—the Palestinians. That alone earned Trump the wrath of Washington’s wise men.
For decades the professional peace processors warned that there could be no stability in the Middle East unless there was a comprehensive settlement to the Palestinian issue. By giving the Palestinians unbridled veto power, the Beltway establishment also ensured their job security. As long as the Palestinians said no, the peace processors were still in business. Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner wondered why the wise men held them in contempt for making peace. What they didn’t understand was that making peace meant the wise men were fired.
The alliance between Israel and the Gulf states is an impediment to the dream of a reempowered, nuclear-armed Iran backed by the United States, which was Obama’s main foreign policy aim—and an affront to peace processors convinced of their own never-ending importance. The Biden administration apparently aims to sink the accords by penalizing Israel and its peace partners for getting too close, and returning the Palestinians to center stage—in order to prepare the ground for reentering the Iran deal.
According to The National's report, the new administration intends to cancel the Trump administration's policy regarding Israeli exports to the US That policy determined that exports from Area C of Judea and Samaria, which are under full Israeli control, will be marked as "Made in Israel."Israeli Minister Exposes the Truth About the Palestinian People
The new administration intends to reinstate US financial support for UNRWA and the Palestinian Authority and will pressure Israel to permit Jerusalemites to vote in the Palestinian elections. It will undertake to reopen the US's diplomatic mission to the PA. The memo also makes clear that the Biden administration will reinstate the Obama administration's policy of pressuring Israel to withdraw to the 1949 armistice lines "with mutually agreed land swaps and agreements on security and refugees."
As to the Abraham Accords, despite the memo's deliberately vague diplomatic language, it is clear that the Biden administration intends to subvert the accords in a way that will indirectly reinstate the PLO's veto over Arab-Israeli ties.
The contents of the memo, as described in The National report are not surprising to anyone who paid attention to statements made throughout the 2020 presidential campaign and since by President Joe Biden and his advisors. But the report does make clear the magnitude of the challenge Israel will face in managing and maintaining its alliance with the US in the coming years.
This challenge grew even more daunting last Wednesday and Thursday as Biden torpedoed US-Russian relations by calling Putin a "murderer" and threatening him; and Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan got into an ugly public fight with their Chinese counterparts on live television.
The need to steer Israel's ship of state between a hostile ally and two rival superpowers with whom Israel enjoys relatively reasonable if limited ties may well be the most difficult challenge facing Israel's prime minister in the coming years.
On Tuesday, as Israelis go to the polls, they should pause a moment and ask themselves, "Which candidate is most capable of competently protecting Israel in the regional and international arenas in the coming years?" The answer isn't hard to ascertain.
David Singer: Netanyahu’s feats merit his being Israel’s next Prime Minister
The country’s relatively small size and electronic health records that cover more than 99% of residents were two important reasons for siting the study in Israel, Pfizer Chief Executive Officer Albert Bourla said in an interview late Thursday with Israel’s Channel 12 news. But what tipped the scales in Israel’s favor was Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s persistence, which Bourla termed an “obsession.”
“He called me 30 times,” Bourla said. “He would ask me about the variants, what data we have. And I would say, ‘Prime Minister, it’s three o’clock.’ And he said, ‘No, no, don’t worry, tell me.’ Or he would call me to ask about the children, ‘I need to vaccinate the schools.’ Or to ask about pregnant women. So he convinced me, frankly, that he would be on top of it.”
On advancing the personal safety and security of every Israeli citizen – Netanyahu has overseen:
- The United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco establishing diplomatic relations with Israel under the Abraham Accords.
- Kosovo - one of the few Muslim countries in Europe - establishing an embassy in Jerusalem.
- The UAE announcing the setting up of a $10 billion fund to invest in Israel
- Israelis visiting Dubai in their tens of thousands
- Several more Arab countries reportedly being on the brink of joining the Abraham Accords -including Oman, Qatar and Mauritania.
- Normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel beginning with Saudi Arabia granting overflight rights to Israel and - most recently - allowing an Israeli racing team to participate in the Dakar Rally.
- An offer of Gaza, 70% of the West Bank and areas of Israel’s sovereign territory being made to the Palestine Liberation Organisation for the creation of a second Arab State – in addition to Jordan – in the territory formerly comprising Mandatory Palestine.
Denigrators and detractors contesting Netanyahu’s re-election face an uphill battle.
















Sana, March 11 - Families of a man and woman hoping not to be dismembered by missiles from an American Predator aircraft at the celebration of their nuptials lamented this week that securing a venue that can accommodate such a preference will cost them a metaphorical arm and leg.






