Saturday, April 06, 2019
From Ian:
Netanyahu vows to annex settlements in West Bank if he wins election
Netanyahu vows to annex settlements in West Bank if he wins election
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu began a campaign over the weekend to take seats away from the Likud’s satellite parties on the Right, in an effort to win more seats for Likud than Blue and White in Tuesday’s election, and ensure that President Reuven Rivlin will ask him to form the next government.Ben Rhodes is back for more Israel-bashing
As part of that effort, in an interview with Channel 12 on Saturday night, Netanyahu vowed to annex territories in settlements and evacuate the illegal West Bank herding village of Khan Al-Ahmar, if he wins another term.
“We are dealing [with the Americans] on exercising Israeli sovereignty on Ma’aleh Adumim and other things,” Netanyahu said. “Everyone understands the next term will be fateful for guaranteeing our security and our control over key territory in Judea and Samaria.”
In weekend interviews with Channel 13 and the right-wing Makor Rishon and Israel Hayom newspapers, Netanyahu vowed to not permit a single settlement or a single resident of them to be evacuated.
“That [evacuation] will not be happening,” he told Channel 13. “If that’s the plan, there will be no plan.”
In the Makor Rishon interview, Netanyahu promised more clearly than ever that he would form a government with right-wing parties and not invite Blue and White to join his coalition.
“Anyone with a brain understands that a unity government cannot be formed,” he said.
In the same Times article, a “former member of the Obama White House” (sounding an awful lot like Rhodes) revealed that the Obama administration played a central role in that U.N. Security Council vote against Israel in the autumn of 2016.Sarsour Whitewashes Omar
You remember that one. It was a run-of-the-mill U.N. resolution declaring that the Jewish presence in the Old City of Jerusalem was “illegal.” The kind of resolution American presidents routinely vetoed many times in the past. But not President Obama. He had secretly decided to abstain, so that the resolution would pass.
The problem for Obama was the timing: The vote was scheduled to take place shortly before that year’s presidential election. So the Obama team manipulated the schedule. “There is a reason the U.N. vote did not come up before the election in November,” the anonymous “former official” told the Times. “It was because you were going to have skittish donors. That, and the fact that we didn’t want [Hillary] Clinton to face pressure to condemn the resolution or be damaged by having to defend it.”
At the time, of course, Team Obama loudly denied the Israeli government’s claim that the White House was secretly planning to let the U.N. resolution pass. Obama aides like Rhodes, on the record and off the record, vigorously attacked critics who raised such suspicions. But now we know that the suspicions were well-founded.
Why does any of this matter now, years after Obama left office?
First, it matters because Obama is still a major force in the Democratic Party. He will influence the outcome of the race for the Democratic nomination in 2020. His views on Israel will continue to shape the party’s position.
Second, it matters because it sheds some light on why Obama rushed to appoint Rhodes to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council in the waning hours before he left office—and why Rhodes wanted the appointment. Rhodes has harsh opinions about Israel. He seems proud that he helped trick the public into accepting the Iran deal. And he’s proud of his role in Obama’s policies towards Israel—in fact, he regrets that they weren’t harsher. Clearly, Rhodes wants a platform that will help keep him and his opinions in the public spotlight.
Serving on the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council gives Rhodes cover as he plans his next move. You can almost hear him warming up the argument: “You can’t accuse me of being anti-Israel—I’m part of the leadership of the Holocaust Museum!” Sadly, Israel and American Jewry have not heard the last of him.
Raging Linda Sarsour recently tried to whitewash her buddy Omar's obvious anti-semitism in a recent speech:
But what has happened often from White Jews when they call you call an antisemite, is they look at Muslim women from an orientalist trope, that we are inherently antisemitic because we are Muslims, right?
"It's a stereotype that has been used often against the Muslim community. That we are antisemitic until proven otherwise. That we are guilty until proven innocent. It's not okay."
"She didn't know nothing in Somalia, about no antisemitism. This is something she is learning along the way now that she is a legislator
Where to begin? White Jews. Two of the most hated groups among leftists and Muslims like Sarsour and Omar evidently. The inclusion of the word white is an attempt I suppose to do the old good Jew Bad Jew thing; a common anti-semitic trope. This is also an attempt, like all the rants these bigots give, to mainstream antisemitic tropes.
Orientalist? Well, this is a reference to failed Jew hater and PLO member Edward Said's definition of "a way of seeing that imagines, emphasizes, exaggerates and distorts differences of Arab peoples and cultures as compared to that of Europe and the U.S. It often involves seeing Arab culture as exotic, backward, uncivilized, and at times dangerous" Exotic? Eye of the beholder. Backward, uncivilized, and at times dangerous? Well, look at what they do and say. Geeze, a whole Arab nation, Brunei has progressed so much it is now stoning gays in 2019. If that ain't backward, uncivilized and dangerous, I don;t know what is.
Stereotype? Well, if it walks like duck....show me a Muslim that isn't Pro-BDS or or anti-Israel and I'll show you a Muslim that isn't antisemitic. Until then, the shoe fits Linda.
.jpg)
