Showing posts sorted by relevance for query obama. Sort by date Show all posts
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Wednesday, October 14, 2020

From Ian:

Josh Hammer: How to Combat Anti-Israeli Hate on College Campuses
The much-ballyhooed UN Security Council Resolution (“UNSCR”) 242, passed in the aftermath of the Six-Day War, does not in any way alter the conclusion that Israel is the best claimant to Judea and Samaria. That resolution affirmed “[w]ithdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict”; but as the careful reader will note, the operative language is “territories,” not “the territories,” therefore unambiguously permitting at least some Israeli presence in Judea and Samaria. Additionally, UNSCR 242 also requires Arab UN member states to “[t]erminat[e] . . . all claims . . . of belligerency and . . . acknowledg[e] . . . the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence” of Israel—obligations they clearly have not fulfilled. Given uti possidetis juris—not to mention the wholly defensive nature of Israel’s involvement in the Six-Day War—it would be extraordinarily peculiar to think of Israel as an “[o]ccupying [p]ower” under Article 49. Even assuming, arguendo, that “occupation” did commence in 1967, furthermore, it would not have survived the signing of the Oslo Accords and the peace treaty with Jordan, in 1993 and 1994—after all, Article 49 has no legal application outside of international armed conflicts. But this lattermost thought experiment notwithstanding, Israel was not an illegal “occupier” in 1948, it was not an illegal “occupier” in 1967, it was not an illegal “occupier” after the Arabs’ third failed attempt to exterminate Israel in the Yom Kippur War of 1973, and it is not an illegal “occupier” today.

This remarkably straightforward analysis and application of international law notwithstanding, supporters of the Jewish state on the American university campus today are routinely assailed as apologists for “apartheid,” illegal “occupation,” and/or European-style ethnic colonialism. Many, perhaps most, of these verbal assaults comfortably fit the requisite criteria for the U.S. State Department’s definition of anti-Semitism. But due to the ubiquity of these incidents, however tragic that ubiquity may be, it is imperative that Zionists squarely address how to best handle them. Based on personal experiences and the vicarious experience of close friends and loved ones from the front lines of the on-campus “Israel wars,” here is some advice to Zionist students under siege on the American university campus today.

First, know your facts and your basic history. Understand, and be able to explain, what exactly the Jewish state of Israel is and how it first came into being. Understand, and be able to explain, the relevant history—the dates and events that matter, and why they matter. Understand, and be able to explain, a rudimentary conception of the international law principle of uti possidetis juris and how it applies to the state of Israel’s rightful legal claim to Judea and Samaria—dating back to Article XXII of the Covenant of the League of Nations. Be respectful of the other side’s narrative, but be confident in the moral and legal superiority of your claim.

Second, be the better person. We Zionist veterans of the on-campus “Israel wars” all know what a determined SJP/JVP foe looks like: threatening, slanderous, bellicose, hysterical. It is imperative that supporters and friends of Israel neither mimic their grotesque tactics nor stoop to their sordid level. Instead, recall: We have the better of the legal argument, we have the better of the historical argument, and we have the better of the moral argument. All we must do is maintain our composure, speak the historical truth, and make the unabashed moral case for Israel’s right to the land of Eretz Yisrael—forcefully but respectfully, unapologetically but reassuringly.

Third, be strong and be proud. You are standing up for the noblest and most just causes of all: the health, safety, prosperity, and security of the Jewish people and the Jewish people’s right to self-determination and territorial sovereignty in their ancestral, biblical homeland. If you are a proud Jew or a proud friend of the Jews, then there is simply no more righteous cause. The modern state of Israel, which was born from the ashes of one of human history’s darkest chapters, has survived against impossible odds and developed the region’s most advanced military—a fighting force, that is, which self-imposes the most stringent ethical norms in all of modern warfare and has executed countless daring raids to rescue Jewish hostages abroad and bring them home to safety. Israel has become the whole world’s envy in technology venture capital. It is an intrinsically moral state, a beacon of light amidst a turbulent sea, and an indispensable military and intelligence ally for the United States. Perhaps most importantly, it is the Jews’ Promised Land. Israel is, in a nutshell, one of the most remarkable human success stories in two to three millennia—and inherently worthy of a robust defense in the lion’s den of today’s neo-Jacobin American university campuses.

On the one hand, it is profoundly sad to see Israel, once such a unifying issue for our normally fractious politics become the intensely debated subject that it is today. On the other hand, it is cause for optimism that, despite all the intensity and vitriol that this issue lamentably engenders, there is such a simple, persuasive, and compelling legal argument to support the modern state of Israel’s rightful territorial claim to Eretz Yisrael—including the most relevant portion, for purposes of this essay, Judea and Samaria. It is my hope that beleaguered students today encountering the BDS movement’s headwinds will be able to utilize this essay to stand up defiantly for Israel’s dignity—and defy those who would smear it as an illicit “occupier.”
Ruthie Blum: Gal Gadot's rude 'wokening'
Suddenly, the international sensation with a sexy Hebrew lilt was blasted for having served in the Israel Defense Forces and – gasp – being proud of it. This was a huge no-no for the BDS crowd, who began to accuse her of war crimes.

Luckily for Gadot, her box-office success was of greater interest to her Hollywood studio than her country of origin or the fact that her military duty involved teaching calisthenics to combat troops. If anything – as she herself has said in interviews – her fitness prepared her for the role with which she has become synonymous.

Even if she had been a commando, however, she would have been at a loss in the face of American "woke" culture, in which the pen has become stiff competition for the sword. What she ought to have learned by now, after so much time among progressive bullies in the United States, is that the animosity she's currently experiencing cannot be countered through appeasement.

Indeed, she can argue that Cleopatra was a descendant of Macedonian Greek general Ptolemy; she can shout "Joe Biden for president" from the rooftop of her LA mansion; and she can work to reassure her social-media followers that her main mission is to promote female empowerment – you know, in the vein of US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whose Sept. 18 passing spurred her to thank the late judge on Instagram "for everything [she] brought to this world," and to punctuate the tribute with a broken-heart emoji.

None of the above would or does suffice for the radicals bent on discrediting her, not only as a fair-skinned Israeli, but as someone who hasn't gone far enough to the left. Short of renouncing her roots and refusing the cinematic role of her dreams, there's nothing she can do to satiate their cancel-culture hunger.

But she might want to consider expressing a bit of gratitude to the slew of conservatives engaging in ideological warfare on her behalf. That would make her a genuine superhero.
Israeli Actress Gal Gadot Shares Morning Prayer Routine With Vanity Fair, Teaches Hebrew Slang
Israeli actress Gal Gadot talked about her upbringing in Israel and the Hebrew prayer she recites every morning in a cover story interview with Vanity Fair for its November issue.

The “Wonder Woman 1984” star, who grew up in the central Israeli city of Rosh Ha’ayin, told the magazine from her home in Tel Aviv that she started her days with the Jewish prayer “Modeh Ani.”

“I say thank you every morning,” she explained. “In the Jewish culture there’s a prayer that you’re supposed to say every time you wake up in the morning to thank God for, you know, keeping you alive and dadadada. You say ‘modeh ani,’ which means ‘I give thanks.’ So every morning I wake up and step out of bed and I say, ‘Thank you for everything, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.’”

The actress, 35, then closed her eyes, as if she was saying the prayer again, adding, “Nothing is to be taken for granted.”

Gadot grew up in a home with two working parents. Her father, Michael, was an engineer, and her mother, Irit, was a gym teacher who taught sports to Gadot and her younger sister, Dana, Vanity Fair reported.

Following high school, Gadot spent two years completing her mandatory service in the Israel Defense Forces, where she was a fitness and combat readiness instructor, before she went to college.

“I came from a home where being an actress wasn’t even an option,” the former Miss Israel said. “I always loved the arts and I was a dancer and I loved the movies, but being an actress was never a discussion. My parents were like, You need to graduate university and get a degree.”




Gal Gadot to Play Muhammad in Upcoming Biopic (satire)
In a decision that has angered both Muslims and western liberals, Israeli actress Gal Gadot has been cast to play the Islamic prophet Muhammad in an upcoming film about the founder of Islam’s life.

The ‘Wonder Woman’ star and Israel native will don a fake beard to play the lead role in ‘From Medina to Mecca: One Man’s Journey to Change the World, Establish the Caliphate, and Find Himself.’ She will speak Hebrew instead of Muhammad’s native Arabic, but director Patty Jenkins said that “most viewers won’t know the difference.”

“Muhammad was Middle Eastern and Gal is Middle Eastern, so it just made sense,” said Jenkins. “Besides, she knows a little Arabic, like ‘Show me your ID’ and ‘Stop or I will shoot.’”

Gadot’s casting drew criticism from Muslims, who objected to Muhammad being portrayed on film; leftists, who accused Gadot of cultural appropriation; and the alt-right, who opposed both a film being made about a Muslim and an Israeli Jew playing a leading role. James Zogby, the president of the Arab American Institute, called Gadot’s casting a “genocide.”

Gadot was originally cast to play Cleopatra in an upcoming biopic of the Egyptian queen but was forced to drop out after people on Twitter pointed out that she is not in fact Egyptian and did not die in 30 BC. Instead, Rob Schneider will replace Gadot as the film’s lead.

Thursday, January 23, 2020



 Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column


“…the person who has done the most or best to advance fellowship among nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and the establishment and promotion of peace congresses.” – the will of Alfred Nobel

The Nobel Prize for Peace has been awarded several times for accomplishments in Middle East peacemaking. It’s been given to some truly deserving people, like Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin, to some undeserving ones, like Shimon Peres, and to some who – if there were such a thing – in truth deserved the Hitler/Stalin Prize for evil, like Yasser Arafat.

Because of its anti-nationalist and anti-Western bias, the chance that the Nobel Committee will award the prize to US President Trump is microscopically small. But I think that an dispassionate examination will show that they ought to think about it.

Before I explain what I suppose will be considered my contrarian position, I should note that Nobel said nothing about ethical business practices, avoidance of conflict of interest, or general likeability. He did not require monogamy, or insist that a Nobel Laureate refrain from vulgarity in expression, or other unsavory things that Trump could be credibly charged with. The prize is awarded to those who have “conferred the greatest benefit to humankind” by promoting peace; and as I will argue, nobody has done more in recent years to reduce Middle Eastern conflict than Donald Trump.

The biggest threat to peace in the Middle East today comes from the Iranian regime: its expansionism, support for terrorism, and of course its nuclear weapons program. Less serious, but still relevant, is the ever-ongoing Arab war against Israel. Trump has acted in a way that promotes peace in both of these areas.

The Obama Administration agreed to a deal (the JCPOA) which removed painful sanctions from Iran in return for an agreement which – in the best case – would have merely delayed Iran’s breakout as a nuclear weapons state for a decade. In fact, the agreement was full of holes relating to inspections and verification, so it is doubtful that even the hoped-for delay would have been realized.

The removal of sanctions mandated by the deal enabled Iran to invest its newly available funds in training and arming terrorist militias in Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon, in missile development, in undercover terror cells around the world, and in its nuclear program, taking advantage of the various loopholes in the agreement.

Trump exited from the deal, re-imposed sanctions, and took other actions – for example, the targeted killing of Qassem Soleimani – which have greatly weakened the Iranian regime and thrown a monkey wrench into its plans, at least temporarily.

The Iranian regime wants a nuclear umbrella to protect it against the US and Israel, while it implements its plan to dominate the region and its oil resources, to push out all American influence, to destroy Israel, and to establish a Shiite caliphate that will replace Saudi Arabia as the center of the Islamic world.

Apparently, the Obama Administration believed that the interests of the US would be served by aligning itself with the Iranian regime against former American allies Israel and Saudi Arabia, even if this meant providing Iran a safe path to acquire nuclear arms. On the face of it, this seems absurd, but the administration’s actions throughout the eight years of its tenure can’t be interpreted in any other way. The deeper motivations of Obama and his people remain a matter of (dark) speculation. But Trump’s leaving the JCPOA and his killing of Soleimani unambiguously mark the repudiation of this policy.

The Iranian regime’s Hezbollah subsidiary has been exporting terrorism, particularly against Jewish targets on every continent except perhaps Antarctica. Arch-terrorist Soleimani was pulling the strings at the center of this web, and his elimination was a serious blow to it. He was in the process of setting up proxy militias similar to Hezbollah in Iraq and Syria when he received his 72-virgin salute.

Soleimani was in charge of foreign operations for the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), but was also considered one of the three most powerful men in the regime, who might even become the successor to Ali Khamenei. The IRGC is also responsible for suppressing dissent and protests within the country, and Iranian dissidents cheered the death of Soleimani, which they saw as greatly weakening the regime.

Trump’s tweets of support in Farsi to the Iranian people (as opposed to the lack of support shown to Iran’s Green Movement in 2009 by the Obama Administration) also bolstered popular opposition. Although the regime is highly oppressive and not loath to shoot protesters, the present unrest is its most serious challenge since the 1979 revolution.

Trump hasn’t limited his activism to the problem of Iran. It used to be fashionable to claim that the “plight of the Palestinians” was the primary source of instability in the Middle East, and that when it was “solved” (always at Israel’s expense), all of the various players in the region would lie down together in peace. And while this theory ignored things like the Sunni/Shiite conflict, Iranian expansionism, and radical Sunni groups like ISIS, it is nevertheless true that the Palestinian Arabs created chaos for decades, leveraging the Cold War, and now the Iranian-American conflict, to keep their anti-Israel war going.

In 1970, the PLO fought a mini-war against Jordan. Then it moved to Lebanon, where it started a vicious civil war whose embers still smolder and threaten to flare up. In 1982, it provoked Israel into a destructive war in Lebanon. During the 1980s, Palestinian terrorists brought their murderous activity to Europe as well as the Middle East, hijacking planes and even a cruise ship, and murdering Jewish athletes.

Part of the Obama/Ben Rhodes plan mentioned above to realign US interests included “solving” the Palestinian problem by weakening Israel and creating a Palestinian state. The idea was originally enunciated in the Iraq Study Report that Rhodes contributed to in 2006. Forcing Israel back to pre-1967 lines was part of the plan.

Obama and his people ignored the fact that Palestinian objectives didn’t stop at the Green Line (maybe they were aware of this and thought that the original creation of a Jewish state was a mistake anyway). They ignored the Iranian regime’s oft-stated intent to “wipe Israel off the map.” They followed a course that would reinforce the belief of both the ayatollahs and the PLO/Hamas that they would be given Israel on a platter, a dangerous tactic that could bring about a regional war that might dwarf the “big wars” of 1967 and 1973.

Trump short-circuited all of this. He cut funding to UNRWA, the UN agency dedicated to building an army of stateless “Palestinian refugees” to use as both a diplomatic and military weapon against Israel. He rectified the embarrassing failure of the US to admit reality, recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and move the US Embassy there. He signed the Taylor Force Act to keep American taxpayers from subsidizing Palestinian terrorism. He recognized Israel’s possession of the Golan Heights, essential for her security. His State Department rejected the idea that Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria were automatically illegal. In short, he took steps to put an end to the decades-long policy of encouraging the PLO and Hamas in their belief that a combination of terrorism and diplomacy would ultimately evict the Jews from the land of Israel.

Trump may have cut the Gordian Knot in the Middle East. If the American voters give him time to follow through, he may be able to prevent Iran from going nuclear, and perhaps help the Iranian people throw off the oppressive revolutionary Islamic regime. He might even end the Arab war against Israel, after some 100-odd years.

And if he succeeds, nothing could be more fitting than Donald Trump becoming the fifth American president to win the Nobel Peace Prize.




We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Monday, July 06, 2020

From Ian:

JCPA: The Third Wave of Anti-Semitism is on the Way
What is currently being promoted by the international community is not a discourse of criticism, which would be legitimate, but instead a storm of prejudices.

Research and polls carried out in dozens of countries testify that virus-inspired anti-Semitism has gone viral on social media, and it is the continuation of the ancient conspiracy theories of blood libels that have always painted the Jews as the source of diseases and the spreaders. Public opinion will surf again on this deadly anti-Semitic wave.

The Palestinian Authority’s Prime Minister, Mohammad Shtayyeh, personally promoted the coronavirus blood libel by stating that Israeli soldiers and settlers knowingly spread the Coronavirus widely among Palestinians. His spokesperson went so far as to state that the occupation itself was the virus and that the Jews had inflicted the pandemic on the Palestinians. The phenomenon of the anti-Semitism plague converged with the Coronavirus, which then intertwined with subsequent waves.

Responsible national and international leaders who have taken a stance to combat anti-Semitism in this period have mobilized to fight the idea that the Jews are responsible for COVID-19. In addition, some leaders seek to quash the conspiracy theories that imperialist Jews and their wealth are attempting to dominate the world. Some combat those who want to obliterate the Shoah’s memory. Others confront Neo-Nazi hatred. And others focus on their societies’ bias against the Jews because of their hatred, prejudice, and ignorance about Judaism.

The political, diplomatic, and academic spokespersons who care deeply about the adoption and the promotion of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), upheld the connection between hatred for Israel and anti-Semitic hatred during a webinar conference in June 2020. Katharina Von Schnurbein, the European Commission Coordinator on combating Anti-Semitism, alluded to a 2019 survey in which 85 percent of Jews declared that they feel they are perceived through the Israeli lens. Jews are synonymous with Israel.

The question that arises is the following: if, as the IHRA suggests, anti-Israel hatred is the engine of anti-Semitism, its twin, why are there no measures to deal with this dual-threat? Why not be more cautious when dealing with issues relating to Israel? Why not challenge both hatreds by delving deeper into Israel’s history, its democratic nature, humane inspiration, and the heroic story of the country itself?

Institutions and states that have implemented measures against anti-Semitism and have adopted the IHRA should monitor how they and their institutions influence public opinion and the spread of prejudice against Israel. Political actors must be more cautious before putting labels on Israeli-Jewish consumer products, or bandying about apartheid, or legitimizing BDS. The examples are endless, and the many condemnations and institutional threats today push anti-Semitic crowds into the streets with a “moral cloak.” These political actors and institutions are committed to fighting against anti-Semitism, but they are also responsible for creating it. This has been the case since the 1975 UN Resolution 3379, which equated Zionism with racism.
Rachel Riley – JLGB LIVE Youth-Led Q&A (h/t Arie)


South Africa paid the price for defaming Israel
Party members are expelled if they set foot on the tarmac of Ben Gurion International. Foreign Affairs bureaucrats walk the talk of the local BDS franchise, so rotten that it lost the license to tell lies about Israel under the BDS brand. But dare challenge bizarre views and you’re toast.

Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng is toast. He is threatened with removal from office. For loving Israel he is guilty of “endangering the justice system.” This from a governing party that beat the rule of law stone dead so that comrades could loot the country to their heart’s content.

Two things that the Chief Justice said brought haters out of the woodwork. One, he connected Israel to the bible, and two referred to God’s blessings and curses. To me the latter struck the rawest nerve.

Then a law professor entered the fray to do a non-political, objective hatchet job on Mogoeng Given that law professors who recognise the sovereign rights of Israel are as rare as a pig in Palestine, we can speculate if the professor would have delivered the opinion he did, or any at all, had the Chief Justice laid into Israel for crimes against humanity.

Israel more than any country attracts claims beyond wild, and most especially Jews with a chip on their shoulder who compete with Palestinian Arabs to come up with the wildest. Here is one example of suggested reading: The Chief Justice the Bible and Palestinian Real Estate, Daily Maverick 01.07.2020.

But for my money, the claim that Jesus was a Palestinian (Arab?) wins hands down. Yasser Arafat’s PR, Hannan Ashrawi, disclosed the astounding fact to the Washington Jewish Week on February 22, 2001. No one blinked. She was not the first or the last to bring Christ into play. It is done annually. “Every Christmas, Palestine celebrates the birth of one of its own,” proclaimed a PLO’s statement at Christmas time. I don’t know if anyone has made Jesus into a Muslim, but the PLO seems to leave that possibility wide open.

Hate is one of the more perverse emotions. More than it destroys the subject of hate it destroys the hater. In party politics hatred can harm a whole country. Antisemitism in fact could be at the bedrock of South Africa’s collapse into a failed state.

Hell, though, is not the end of the world. Life in a failed state is not entirely bad. You have to deal with elements more or less stable, more or less controllable, more or less mad. Only one thing really matters – to recognise the curse that brought you to hell and what will keep you there unless you learn that those who curse Israel will be cursed.

Tuesday, February 02, 2021


Last Friday, during the White House Briefing led by Press Secretary Jen Psaki, we were treated to the following exchange:

Q Thank you, Jen. Two quick foreign and one domestic, if that’s okay. Can you confirm officially that Robert Malley has been appointed Special Envoy for Iran? Is that —

MS. PSAKI: I can. I believe it was announced this morning. Yes? Or I guess I can confirm it here too for you.

Q That would be great. And then the — as you know, settlements have been a major obstacle to getting the Palestinians back to the negotiating table. Would President Biden consider it — does he believes settlements are — should be halted in the West Bank so that the Palestinians will come back?

MS. PSAKI: I don’t have any new comments from President Biden on this or the current circumstance. He’s obviously spoken to this particular issue in the past and conveyed that he doesn’t believe security assistance should be tied. But I don’t have anything more for you on the path forward toward a two-state solution. [emphasis added]

The journalist's question contains 3 mistaken assumptions -- assumptions that at this point have also been accepted without question by the media as fact.


Assumption #1: Settlements are an obstacle to the Palestinian Authority coming to the negotiating table.

Just last month we noted that historically this claim is simply not true. Jackson Diehl -- the deputy editorial page editor for The Washington Post -- made the point in 2010 that Abbas admitted that he demanded a settlement freeze before coming to the table because Obama did:
When Obama came to power, he is the one who announced that settlement activity must be stopped. If America says it and Europe says it and the whole world says it, you want me not to say it?
Going a step further, the settlements are part of the negotiations as per Oslo, not a sweetener to encourage the Palestinian Arabs to first come to the table:
Settlements are only one of the six issues to be negotiated by Israel and the Palestinians according to the original Oslo Accords from 1993. To single out the issue of settlements ahead of any negotiations while ignoring other bilateral issues constitutes a fundamental distortion of these signed agreements.
Yet this distortion has taken hold, including in the minds of the journalists who are supposed to be in command of the facts.


Assumption #2: Israel should make unilateral concessions

Why should the assumption be, as this journalist clearly believes, that unilateral concessions by Israel owes it to the Palestinian Arabs -- and the peace process itself -- to make immediate sacrifices?

Why does nobody suggest a freeze on Abbas's pay-to-slay policy that encourages terrorism and the murder of Israelis?

In fact, we have already seen Israel commit to a freeze in the settlements in 2009, in a sign of good faith that Abbas would come to the negotiating table.

To the contrary, when Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu implemented a 10-month security freeze in order to coax the Palestinians to the negotiating table, Abbas essentially responded with a 9-month negotiating freeze. And after the moratorium on Israeli building expired, he again refused to talk peace.
Those unilateral concessions to the Palestinian Arabs do not work.


Assumption #3: Settlements are being built

The building of Israeli settlements is supposed to be a a major obstacle -- and that is a claim that was made over and over by the Obama administration:

Back in 2014, in an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg about his Middle East policy, Obama claimed:
we have seen more aggressive settlement construction over the last couple years than we've seen in a very long time.
Obama's deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes claimed, on December 23, 2016, that "thousands of new settlements are being constructed...you saw tens of thousands of settlements being constructed"

On December 28, 2016, following the US abstention that allowed the passing of UN Resolution 2334, then-Secretary of State Kerry claimed, "We’ve made countless public and private exhortations to the Israelis to stop the march of settlements."

In a speech Biden gave before J Street in April 2016, he copied that heated rhetoric, condemning "the actions that Israel’s government has taken over the past several years – the steady and systematic expansion of settlements..."

In January 2017, I wrote a post debunking the claim of settlement expansion in detail -- and showed how even then the media parroted these fabrications. 

In point of fact:
There were 228 settlements -- not tens of thousands
What Kerry calls a march of settlements in 2016 is 3 settlements in 2012 -- with none from 1990 till then and none from the end of 2012 to 2016 when Kerry made his claim
If you look at what is actually going on, you see the issue is not the building of an expanding number of settlements, but of homes inside those settlements.
Even taking into account that the issue is the houses being built, according to Haaretz in 2015 -- the number of houses constructed was down under Netanyahu:
According to data from the Housing and Construction Ministry, an average of 1,554 houses a year were built in the settlements from 2009 to 2014 — fewer than under any of his recent predecessors.

By comparison, the annual average was 1,881 under Ariel Sharon and 1,774 under Ehud Olmert. As for Ehud Barak, during his single full year as prime minister, in 2000, he built a whopping 5,000 homes in the settlements.
So:
Israeli settlements are not the obstacle to negotiations, they are one of the issues to be discussed at the negotiations
There is no justification for Israel to concede on a negotiating point, while Abbas merely pockets those concessions
Settlements are not expanding. Houses within the settlements are being built to meet the need.
There was a time when journalists asked the kinds of questions that kept the administration on its toes --  attacking the points, not the people presenting them.

Of course, that would require a certain level of knowledge as well as a willingness to challenge the common perception.

My favorite example is a daily press briefing held on November 17, 2009, when the following exchange took place between the State Department Spokesperson Ian Kelly and Matt Lee, reporter for the Associated Press. The topic was what the Obama administration had accomplished till then in advancing peace between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs:
MR. KELLY: Well, I would say that we’ve gotten both sides to commit to this goal. They have – we have – we’ve had a intensive round or rounds of negotiations, the President brought the two leaders together in New York. Look --

QUESTION: But wait, hold on. You haven’t had any intense --

MR. KELLY: Obviously --

QUESTION: There haven’t been any negotiations.

MR. KELLY: Obviously, we’re not even in the red zone yet, okay.

QUESTION: Thank you.

MR. KELLY: I mean, we’re not – but it’s – we are less than a year into this Administration, and I think we’ve accomplished more over the last year than the previous administration [under President George Bush] did in eight years. [emphasis added]

QUESTION: Well, I – really, because the previous administration actually had them sitting down talking to each other. You guys can’t even get that far.

MR. KELLY: All right.

QUESTION: I’ll drop it.
The question is, who in the media is both willing and able to keep the Biden administration honest about its Middle East policy now.

Hat tip: IM



Wednesday, February 03, 2021

vic

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column


The other day YouTube decided that I wanted to see a compendium of large ships crashing into each other or into docks, cranes, and other installations. What impressed me was the unavoidability of the crashes: the ships moved ponderously, inexorably, toward their fates as tiny humans scuttled around on the decks, horns blowing with great urgency (I imagine the ship’s captains shouting “Full astern!”), but all for nothing when the almost irresistible force of the ship meets the almost immovable object of its nemesis in a crescendo of crushing, grinding, and snapping.

Whew. And this reminded me of the situation with Iran. The Iranians have ramped up their production of enriched uranium and activated advanced centrifuges in their Natanz facility, and they are threatening to kick out IAEA inspectors on 26 February. They are telling US officials that if they want to reenter the (worthless) deal, they’d better hurry and start removing sanctions while there is still time. US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, for his part, is demanding that the Iranians first “return to compliance,” although what that would mean in practice considering the progress they have made is unclear.

What is becoming clear is that the Biden Administration is dead set on a course of returning to the deal, although Blinken, at least, wants to renegotiate it. On the other hand Robert Malley, President Biden’s choice for Special Envoy to Iran, wants to jump back in to the deal as it was when President Trump took the US out of it. Malley’s think tank published a position paper a few days ago, which contained this:

The Biden administration should pursue U.S. re-entry into the 2015 nuclear deal, starting by revoking the 2018 order ending U.S. JCPOA participation and initiating a process of fully reversing Trump-era sanctions while Iran brings its nuclear program back into full compliance. As further confidence-building measures, Washington could support Iran’s International Monetary Fund loan request as a sign of good-will in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, and perhaps engage Tehran in discussions on a prisoner swap.


Do you hear the horns blowing and the captains shouting yet?

Persia was among the earliest known places where the game of chess was played, and the Iranians have proven to be very good negotiators. A strategy that calls for American concessions up front (“confidence building”) will fail, as it did under Obama. Only a tough strategy that demands action by Iran as an alternative to more pressure (“an offer that they can’t refuse”) will succeed. The Trump Administration left the US in a strong bargaining position toward Iran, with very painful sanctions in force. The US should insist on concrete, verifiable steps by Iran before removing any sanctions, and should threaten to take even stronger action if Iran does not comply.

Biden’s administration is replete with former Obama Administration officials (conservative blogger Jeff Dunetz calls it “the reBama Administration”), including Malley, who incidentally is also very out front about his pro-Palestinian sympathies. From the standpoint of American or Israeli interests, Malley is a wretched choice. He is far more pro-Iranian than even Blinken, Jake Sullivan, or Wendy Sherman, all former Obama-era Iran hands retreaded by Biden.

One wonders why Biden picked a team that is unlikely to produce better results than it did under Obama, and may even do considerably worse. Maybe Blinken vs. Malley is a good-cop bad-cop routine. But who knows if Biden was responsible for those choices, or if they were made for him?
Fortunately I am not Prime Minister of Israel, but if I were I would not expect better performance from a reBama Iran team than from the original one. And I think this could have been known for some time. Biden announced his intention to reenter the deal in September of 2020. From then on, it became clear that any military action by Israel – even special operations short of war – would be construed by the new administration as a slap in the face.

This could be the reason that Biden announced so early that he would be re-entering the deal: so that the “slap in the face” argument could be used against any last-minute Israeli action before Biden took office, or even before the election. And it was indeed deployed (by Obama surrogates Ben Rhodes and John Brennan) to criticize Israel’s assassination of the head of Iran’s nuclear program, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, on 27 November.

Rhodes and Brennan said that Israel’s act was “aimed at undermining diplomacy” between the US and Iran, and that seemed ridiculous. How could anyone see it as anything but an attempt to slow Iran’s progress to the bomb? But in fact they were sending a message: after Biden becomes president, we’ll remember anything you do now, and you’ll be sorry.

I missed this. On 1 October, I wrote that I had expected that if Biden won the election, Israel would act against the Iranian nuclear facilities in the last weeks of the Trump Administration. I was wrong. Apparently our government got the message that the Americans would not forgive Israel if she eliminated the need for an Iran deal before Biden could sign one.

The weeks passed, Iran ramped up their processes, and Israel did nothing. Now that Biden is in the White House, it is even less likely that Israel will act, despite the recent sabre-rattling of our Chief of Staff.

Israel is in the position of a helpless observer on the deck of a small vessel who can only watch as a huge cruise ship or supertanker plows into it – which is just where the people pulling Biden’s strings want us.

Thursday, January 14, 2021

In 2010, Jackson Diehl -- the deputy editorial page editor for The Washington Post -- suggested 
How Obama sabotaged Middle East peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The conventional wisdom at the time was that Netanyahu was responsible for the impasse.

Diehl disagreed:
For 15 years and more, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas conducted peace talks with Israel in the absence of a freeze on Jewish settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Now, it appears as likely as not that his newborn negotiations with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu -- and their goal of agreement on a Palestinian state within a year -- will die because of Abbas's refusal to continue without such a freeze.

...So why does Abbas stubbornly persist in his self-defeating position? In an interview with Israeli television Sunday night, he offered a remarkably candid explanation: "When Obama came to power, he is the one who announced that settlement activity must be stopped," he said. "If America says it and Europe says it and the whole world says it, you want me not to say it?"

The statement confirmed something that many Mideast watchers have suspected for a long time: that the settlement impasse originated not with Netanyahu or Abbas, but with Obama -- who by insisting on an Israeli freeze has created a near-insuperable obstacle to the peace process he is trying to promote. [emphasis added]
Whether Obama deliberately pressed for the freezing of settlements in the hope of pressuring Israel into a concession or blundered into creating a deadlock -- either way, Obama's interference changed the Palestinian story, turning a freeze of settlements into a new demand.

Now we see something similar happening with the coronavirus.

One of those leading the way, on January 3rd, in accusing Israel of deliberately withholding the vaccine from the Palestinian Arabs was The Guardian:



This was followed by the usual gang, such as Haaretz on January 10th


And Al Jazeera on January 13th:


Among many other media outlets.

But that was not what the Palestinians themselves were saying.

Nov. 21, 2020:‎
PA meets with WHO, UNICEF, UNRWA “to ensure that Palestine is provided ‎with adequate Coronavirus vaccines” (Israel not invited)‎

Dec. 12, 2020:‎
PA orders “four million doses of the Russian vaccine… expected in Palestine by ‎the end of this year” (Israel's help not requested)‎

Jan. 9, 2021:‎
PA announces: “Four vaccine producer companies [will deliver for] 70% of the ‎Palestinian people… the WHO will provide for 20%” (Israel's help not needed)‎

Jan. 9, 2021:
PA announces: “Two million doses were ordered [from AstraZeneca]… we ‎received an official response from the company… [Also] the Russian company ‎Sputnik, and a vaccine was ordered… We are not just waiting… we are ‎working…” (Israel's help not needed)‎
But with the media helpfully getting the story wrong and ganging up on Israel, the PA just couldn't resist:
Jan. 10, 2021:‎
PA Foreign Ministry demands that Israel “supply the Palestinian people with ‎Coronavirus vaccines… [Israel is] racially discriminating against the ‎Palestinian people, and negating its right to health [services]… an apartheid ‎against the Palestinian people in the field of health”
You can almost hear Abbas now, "If American media says it and European media says it and the whole world says it, you want me not to say it?"

Going a step further, the vaccine accusation is beginning to get traction in Congress too:


According to the article, the new Congresswoman, a member of the "progressive" wing of the Democrats 'shared' her copy of the Guardian article.

And now with this story still making the rounds, the "human rights" organization B'Tselem has come out with their report accusing Israel of apartheid.



B'tselem and their friends are posting and reposting this all over the internet to get maximum exposure, tossing around the claim that Israel is guilty of "Jewish supremacy."




Of course, the Palestinian Authority is already accusing Israel of apartheid, so this report won't have any effect on Palestinian propaganda.

Instead, the timing of the report and the massive distribution over social media may indicate a campaign to influence more than a Congressperson or two.

This could be one component of an orchestrated campaign to influence the incoming Biden administration. The lingering accusation of Israel withholding the vaccine could be part of this too.

If so, it is going to be a long 4 years.




 

Wednesday, November 18, 2020

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column



A recent IAEA report showed that Iran has considerably more low-enriched uranium than was permitted by the JCPOA and is installing advanced centrifuges at Natanz, also in contravention of the agreement, to further increase production. In addition, the uranium is being enriched to a higher degree than before. If they want to, the Iranians could have nuclear weapons sometime in 2021.

Apparently in response to the report, President Trump reportedly asked advisors for options to take action against Iran’s nuclear program. Those options could include anything from increased economic pressure, to cyber-attacks, and even military action. The NY Times said he had been “dissuaded” by advisors from a military strike because it “could easily escalate into a broader conflict in the last weeks of Mr. Trump’s presidency.” But Trump is nothing if not independent.

When Donald Trump took over from Barack Obama, one of the first things he did was reverse Obama’s disastrous Iran policy (I highly recommend this link), which was one of appeasement and acquiescence to extortion, motivated in part by Obama’s desire to see the end of the sovereign Jewish state. I’m convinced that Trump’s “maximum pressure” policy on Iran is the only approach short of war that might have any chance of modifying the behavior of the Iranian regime, which sees its nuclear program as a top priority. While the Iranian regime has responded to the pressure with increased aggressiveness, the US has – or would have, if the policy were to be continued – far more staying power.

The Iranian regime’s strategy has been to keep a low profile. It didn’t retaliate after the American killing of its most valuable terror operative, Qassem Soleimani. It didn’t construct a nuclear weapon. It has contented itself with strengthening its assets in Iraq and Syria, and gradually ramping up its nuclear program without taking any major visible steps. Despite its claims that the US is weak, the regime knows that it would be no match for what is still the world’s greatest military power. And it fears Trump because of his unpredictability.

Unsurprisingly, the major media are full of claims that “maximum pressure has failed.” That is not precisely true: it simply needs more time.

It may not get it. All the evidence seems to point to a Biden Administration returning to the Obama policy in some form, although the particular animus of Obama toward Israel seems to be lacking in Biden himself. The history of negotiations with the regime over its nuclear program shows that it will not give up anything that it is not forced to, and it will demand the relaxation of sanctions as a condition for negotiations. The regime has already indicated that it is happy with the (apparent) result of the American election, and is looking forward to dealing with a Biden Administration.

Whatever happens, Israel will be deeply involved. Part of Iran’s response to an attack, whether by Israel or the US, would be to unleash Hezbollah and Hamas against Israel’s home front. It would also attack US assets in Iraq, and American warships (and maybe commercial shipping) in the Gulf. It would probably hit Saudi Arabia too. These points were certainly made to Trump by his advisors.

While one conclusion could be that it is best not to act, there is another interpretation: rather than a minimalist operation to take out specific nuclear facilities, a larger operation that would also destroy Iran’s overall military capability is indicated. Probably an American attack on Iran would be accompanied by Israeli preemptive strikes against Hezbollah, in order to prevent the damage that would be done to Israel by the massive rocket barrage that would follow a blow against Iran.

PM Netanyahu has been averse to preemptive action against Hezbollah, partly because he wants to avoid the international condemnation that would follow. And because life is unpredictable, he will delay until the last moment; who knows what might happen to make war unnecessary? Finally, he may believe that an ultra-fast response to a Hezbollah attack plus Israel’s anti-missile systems would mitigate the disadvantages of allowing them to strike first.

On the other hand, he is a strong proponent of the Begin Doctrine, which says that Israel will not – must not – allow hostile states in the region to obtain nuclear weapons, especially Iran, which he views as having an antisemitic and genocidal regime. He knows that if Iran gets nuclear weapons, they will serve as an umbrella to protect Hezbollah, greatly multiplying the danger to Israel. I’m convinced he would go along with an American plan.

If Trump wants to achieve his original objective of precluding a nuclear-armed revolutionary Islamic regime in Iran, he has only about two months to act – and his ability to do so will weaken as the lame duck period progresses.

The clock is ticking.




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Wednesday, November 11, 2020

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column


In the Fall of 2012, Bibi Netanyahu and then Minister of Defense Ehud Barak had a plan to destroy Iran’s capability to make nuclear weapons. The plan was not executed because of opposition from the Cabinet, the Israeli security establishment, and of course the Obama Administration, which was facing an election and secretly negotiating with Iran toward what would become the JCPOA.

The “nuclear deal” that was ultimately signed in 2015 provided Iran with cash for its Hezbollah terrorists and its expansion into Iraq and Syria, as well as fully legitimizing Iran’s nuclear project in 10-15 years. Even before then, the JCPOA lacked adequate safeguards to prevent cheating, and Iran took advantage of the loopholes to pursue development of uranium and plutonium bombs.

The Obama Administration was following a playbook developed – in part by advisor Ben Rhodes – in the 2006 Iraq Study Report, which intended to extricate the US from Iraq and bring about overall stability in the region by appeasing and empowering Iran and Syria (there was still an independent Syria then) at Israel’s expense. It seemed to me then, and still does today, that the negative consequences for Israel from the plan were not simply an unfortunate byproduct of it, but rather a desired outcome.

President Trump took the opposite tack, choosing to weaken Iran and empower America’s traditional allies in the region, Israel and the Sunni Arab states. He took the US out of the JCPOA, re-imposed sanctions on Iran, recognized Israel’s sovereignty in the Golan and Jerusalem (the 2006 plan envisioned Israel transferring the Golan to Syria), and encouraged an alliance between Israel and the Sunni Arab states.

If Trump’s policy to build up a strong countervailing power while weakening and isolating Iran would continue, then it might be possible to force Iran to give up its nuclear dreams without military action. But if, as seems likely, Joe Biden takes office as President of the US on 20 January 2021, then everything may change.

The following is sheer fantasy. I don’t know what the PM of Israel is thinking, I am not acquainted with anyone in the Trump Administration, the Biden team, or Israel’s defense establishment, and I have no insider knowledge about anything.

By Chanukah 5781 [10 December 2020], it became clear to the Prime Minister of Israel that President-elect Biden, although personally not particularly anti-Israel, was assembling a team heavy with individuals that were less than sympathetic to our point of view, like Susan Rice, Jake Sullivan, and Daniel Benaim. Biden had also made appointments that were concessions to the extreme left wing of the Democratic party that had almost defeated him in the race for the nomination. Intelligence reports showed a continuous flow of communications between Biden and the headquarters of the group led by Barack Obama, located only about 3 km. from the White House.

The PM of Israel was worried. Biden had already announced his intention to re-engage with Iran, which would probably mean a loosening of sanctions. The PM knew that the Iranians had recently made significant progress toward the development of a nuclear arsenal. He had no confidence that the Biden Administration would have the will to stop them; he could imagine a repeat of the JCPOA process, in which Iran made a fool of US negotiators.

Israel would have to stop Iran, or nobody would.

The PM knew that during the Obama Administration the Americans considered Israel a prime target for intelligence-gathering. The Americans had been operating a radar installation in Israel since 2008 that could spot air activity anywhere in the country, even small drones. Electronic communications in Israel’s defense headquarters, the Kiriya in Tel Aviv, have been tapped for some time. It would be very hard to take almost any kind of military action against Iran without the Americans finding out.

The PM decided that if Israel were to take action, it would have to be before 20 January, when Biden would be inaugurated. Indeed, considering the precedent of the incoming Obama team which aborted the ground invasion of Gaza in January 2009, it would have to be before Biden’s people got themselves organized. Otherwise, he was sure the Americans would act, diplomatically or even kinetically, to prevent Israel from striking the Iranian nuclear program.

Such an operation would not be simple or easy. The Iranian assets that would need to be destroyed are buried deeply underground and defended by surface-to-air missile batteries. The moment Israel attacked, the Iranians would unleash Hezbollah in Lebanon, which had some 130,000 short range rockets and longer range missiles, some with precision guidance. They are fitted on mobile launchers and ensconced in the homes of civilians. Hezbollah has plans to invade across the northern border, and kill Israelis and take hostages.

But the IDF has been preparing for this for some time. There is a plan called tochnit zayin [Plan Z]. The Prime Minister convened his mini-security cabinet, a subset of a subset of the cabinet, including the Minister of Defense and several others, together with the IDF Chief of Staff and a few key officers, including the Air Force and Navy commanders. The meeting took all of 15 minutes. The clock began to tick on tochnit zayin.

The IDF announced that it would carry out a defensive exercise on our northern border. It was not a massive exercise, and only a small number of reserve units were called up. Several days later an Israeli submarine moved into position in the Persian Gulf (or, if you prefer, the Arabian Gulf). At 0200 on the 4th day of Hanukah, the submarine fired a missile almost straight up. The missile contained a small nuclear bomb designed to maximize the production of gamma rays, and it exploded high in the stratosphere at an altitude of about 100 km. A person on the ground might see a small dot of light if he knew where to look; he would not be injured or even feel anything.

Most of the gamma radiation from the explosion was absorbed by the air. The gamma rays ripped electrons from atoms in the air, and the electrons spun downward; their motion in the Earth’s magnetic field produced a powerful pulse of electromagnetic radiation, lasting only one millionth of a second but containing an enormous amount of energy. Much of Iran was blanketed by this pulse. Electrical conductors that it passed over had high voltages induced in them, and semiconductor devices, especially those connected to power lines or antennas, were reduced to inert lumps of silicon. Telephone and cellular networks, broadcasting equipment, internet routers, the power grid, and countless other things became inoperative. Even emergency generators, with their solid-state controls, didn’t start.

When Israeli aircraft arrived to bomb the nuclear sites with multiple bunker-busters, Iranian radar was dark. When eyewitnesses tried to alert their commanders, they were unable to do so. When they finally drove to Teheran to inform their leaders (most vehicles were still operative, especially older ones), their leaders could not communicate with each other, or, importantly, with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Lebanon is too close to Israel to receive the same treatment, but units of Israeli special forces penetrated its borders and destroyed communications infrastructure and cut cables at key points. A bombing campaign followed, aimed primarily at the nervous system of the country – the power grid and communications systems. In 2006, the IDF was surprised by its inability to intercept and interrupt communications over Hezbollah’s fiber optic network. Since then, it’s been documented and mapped. It was quickly destroyed. Since 2006 the IDF has collected good intelligence about Hezbollah’s installations, including the hiding places of mobile rocket launchers and weapons depots. Many of them were destroyed almost immediately.

The Hezbollah leadership was targeted; unlike in 2006, the IDF knew where they were and was able to kill them. Without a head and a nervous system, and without support from Iran, Hezbollah was demoralized, and was unable to sustain a massive rocket attack. There was some damage to Israel’s home front, but Iron Dome and Arrow antimissile systems significantly reduced it.

All this happened in a couple of days. By the time Hanukah was over, the Lebanese government – less Hezbollah – was suing for peace. In Iran, economic paralysis had begun to set in.

The US and the Russians, who had been informed only an hour before the operation, offered to help Iran and Lebanon to rebuild, as did Israel and the Gulf states – on condition that the mullahs in Iran and what was left of Hezbollah in Lebanon would have no role in the government. They accepted.

By the time Joe Biden became president, he faced a whole new Middle East.



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Sunday, October 20, 2019

From Ian:

To whom does the land of Israel belong?
The League of Nations 1923 “Any attempt to negate the Jewish People’s right to Palestine, Eretz-Israel, and to deny them access and control in the area designated for the Jewish People by the League of Nations is a serious infringement of international law. The Origin and Nature of the “Mandate for Palestine”

The entire point of this written exercise is to arm the Jewish People of Eretz Israel with Biblical, Historic and Legal facts, in order to combat the lies of their enemies. An enemy who have illegally migrated, and invaded into the Jewish State of Eretz Israel.

By constantly attacking and criticizing Israel, the West has emboldened Islamitic terrorists to attack even the Western nations within their own boarders. Since the Western World is in need of leaders, these nations take the cowardly way out, they try to appease their violent Islamitic enemy, by blaming Israel for their unwillingness to make peace. When at every step Israel is trying to move forward, they are met with murder, terrorism, lies and deceit, and a very frightened and useless Western World.

IT IS ALL ONE BIG LIE

Vladimir Lenin – “ A lie told often enough becomes the truth.”

Joseph Goebbels – “ If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually believe it.”

Hitler – “ If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.”

Isa Blagden writer, – “If a lie is only printed often enough it becomes a quasi-truth and if such a truth is repeated often enough, it becomes an article, of belief, a dogma and men will die for it.(The Crown of Life,1869 )

Lying is a weapon of choice, used Against the Jewish people of Eretz Israel

The same lying sinister forces were at work against the Jewish people in the past. They were actively at work in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah 2,500 years ago when the Jewish remnants returned from the Persian Empire, to rebuild and resettle Jerusalem and the Jewish territories.

These ungodly lying forces are alive and well today working through Arab leaders both inside and outside of Israel. Deceit and Lying are a major strategy used by the Islamic Jihadists who wish to destroy the Israel of today. They are aided by the “politically correctness” of the Left Wing Western World, which is another way of saying, they are Anti-G-d, Anti-Semitic, and Anti- Judaeo Christian Ethics

Jonathan S. Tobin: Why America can't escape the Middle East
As Obama discovered after his withdrawal from Iraq and humiliating "red line" fiasco in Syria, the price of dishonor can be quite high.

Having washed his hands of those countries and punted their fate to Iran and Russia, it wasn't long before a new threat arose. The establishment of IS and its so-called caliphate in large portions of Syria and Iraq was the logical consequence of Obama's policies. As that terror group expanded the territory under its control, and videos of the hideous atrocities it committed went viral, Obama had little choice but to reverse course and commit to fighting IS.

Trump made an issue of the failure of Obama's half-hearted campaign against the Islamic State and vowed to defeat the group. And that's exactly what he did after winning the 2016 election. But with IS largely, but not completely defeated, he has now reverted to his instinctual isolationism, vowing to avoid any more involvement in Syria and leaving the Kurds to their own devices after years of promises from Washington that they would not be abandoned.

Some Americans outside the Beltway, including some supporters of Israel, have no problem with what he's done in Syria because they are blind supporters of the president. Others share his ignorance of a complex conflict and see no reason why Americans should be part of it.

As Obama found out after the atrocities perpetrated by the Islamic State aroused the anger of the public, Trump or his successor will have to respond to Turkish atrocities or those of the next Islamist terror group that will fill the vacuum he is creating by withdrawing US forces.

Islamist terror is an international problem, and not just something the Israelis and the Arabs have to worry about. Israel can defend itself, but actions that make its neighborhood even more dangerous undermine its security. Beyond that, allowing Turkey and Iran to do as they like in the region ultimately harms everyone, including Americans who have yet to absorb the fact that their safety is no longer ensured by the oceans that separate them from other continents. Unfortunately, Republicans and Democrats who still imagine Americans can simply go home and avoid further involvement in the Middle East's wars are engaging in magical thinking rather than supporting a coherent strategy.
In latest sign of thaw, Israel sending official to anti-Iran summit in Bahrain
A senior official is confirmed to attend a security conference in Bahrain on Monday, a source in the Gulf country told The Times of Israel, in the latest significant sign of warming ties between parts of the Arab world and Israel.

A senior Foreign Ministry official working on regional security and counter-terrorism, whose name was withheld by Israel’s military censor for security reasons, will represent Israel at the Working Group on Maritime and Aviation Security.

Starting Monday, the two-day event is expected to deal mainly with efforts to thwart the Islamic Republic’s growing regional aggression. Delegates are set to discuss the protection of vessels in the Persian Gulf from Iranian attacks, as well as the prevention of the smuggling of weapons and weapons of mass destruction and the protection of civil aviation.

The meeting, co-hosted by Bahrain, the US and Poland, is part of the so-called Warsaw Process, which started with the Ministerial to Promote a Future of Peace and Security in the Middle East that took place in the Polish capital earlier this year. That conference, co-sponsored by Poland and the US, was originally billed as part of global efforts to counter Iran, but was later toned-down and instead focused on the vaguer goal of seeking stability in the Middle East.

The Foreign Ministry did not deny that it was sending a representative to Manama for the conference on maritime and aviation security. In a terse statement sent to The Times of Israel, the ministry said: “Israel participates in the post-Warsaw process.”

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