Friday, July 26, 2024
From Ian:
Caroline Glick: The hour of Israeli leadership has arrived
Caroline Glick: The hour of Israeli leadership has arrived
During the course of his address to Congress, Netanyahu described the existential threat Iran poses to both Israel and the United States and laid out his vision for contending with it.Douglas Murray: The flag burning, terrorist supporting anti-Israel protesters are proving Netanyahu right
In his words, “America and Israel today can forge a security alliance in the Middle East to counter the growing Iranian threat.
“All countries that are in peace with Israel and all those countries who will make peace with Israel should be invited to join this alliance. We saw a glimpse of that potential alliance on April 14. Led by the United States, more than half a dozen nations worked alongside Israel to help neutralize hundreds of missiles and drones launched by Iran against us. …
“The new alliance I envision would be a natural extension of the groundbreaking Abraham Accords. Those accords saw peace forged between Israel and four Arab countries, and they were supported by Republicans and Democrats alike.
“I have a name for this new alliance. I think we should call it: ‘The Abraham Alliance.’”
On the face of things, since both Republicans and Democrats have played a role in forging the alliance—former President Donald Trump through the 2020 Abraham Accords, and President Joe Biden by organizing the Arab states in support of intercepting Iran’s missiles and drones shot against Israel on April 14—Netanyahu’s vision ought to attract support from both sides of the aisle. The problem is that Trump and Biden view their regional alliance as a means to achieve opposite ends.
Biden’s actions in the region are a continuation of those initiated by former President Barack Obama, and to understand his policies, they must be viewed in the context of Obama’s policies.
Obama’s predecessors hoped to buy off Iran with a “grand bargain” that could moderate its policies. That is, they believed Iran should change. In contrast, Obama believed that the United States should change.
Obama’s foreign policy was predicated on his anti-imperialist worldview. Guided by its principles of Western culpability for the pathologies of the Middle East, Obama believed that Iran’s hostility towards America was justified. As he saw things, it was up to the United States to make amends to Iran by changing the way it operated in the Middle East.
To accomplish this goal, Obama began realigning the United States towards Iran and its Sunni allies in the Muslim Brotherhood at the expense of Israel and America’s traditional Sunni Arab allies.
Obama’s betrayal of both Israel and the Sunni Arabs brought the long-estranged neighbors together. The Israeli-Sunni partnership was first brought to bear in the 2014 Hamas war (“Operation Protective Edge”) against Israel. Obama sided with Hamas’s state sponsors Qatar and Turkey and insisted that Israel accept the terror regime’s ceasefire demands. Supported by Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, Netanyahu was able to withstand Obama’s pressure.
The true birth of the Abraham alliance then, came without U.S. involvement, in response to the U.S.’s betrayal of Israel and the Sunni Arabs under the Obama administration.
When Trump came into office, he abandoned Obama’s realignment and sought to rebuild America’s credibility in the eyes of its allies. To this end, Trump embraced the new Israeli-Sunni partnership, using it as a means to rebuild U.S. credibility and reassert U.S. regional leadership.
Trump envisioned a regional partnership where, supported by U.S. military equipment, intelligence and diplomatic support, U.S. allies led by Israel and Saudi Arabia would combat Iran on their own. America wouldn’t fight the wars of the region for its allies, but it also wouldn’t second guess its actions in pursuit of the common goal of defeating the threat Iran posed to the region.
On Wednesday, I was down in DC to hear Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu give his address to the joint session of Congress.Daniel Greenfield: Kamala’s Anti-Israel Advisers Helped Bring On Oct 7
I don’t think I have ever seen a case made so forcefully — not just by the speaker but by the people who had come to town to oppose him.
As I waited to get into the heavily guarded Capitol, I chatted with two very friendly and professional police officers.
As we were there, a number of groups of “anti-Israel protesters” started to march past.
Many of them were so proud of their views that they covered their faces — as usual — with COVID masks.
“You c–k-sucking motherf–ckers. Get the f–k out of our city,” they screamed at the policemen.
“White supremacists,” they also screamed through megaphones at the boys in blue who were (incidentally) black.
The protesters continued on their way, screaming abuse and profanities everywhere they could.
Common enemies
Inside Congress, the Israeli prime minister made many points, but one was especially relevant to the American public.
Netanyahu addressed the complete moral inversion that we have seen from some people in America since the attacks of Oct. 7.
Referring to those people who immediately turned on Israel when its citizens had been raped, butchered and burned alive, he said people have to be able to make the moral distinction “between those who target terrorists and those who target civilians, between the democratic state of Israel and the terrorist thugs of Hamas.”
He mentioned the fact that the US director of national intelligence recently confirmed that Iran is funding anti-Israel protests in America.
This explains why the surge in radical anti-Israel protests — from the streets of our cities to the nation’s campuses — has been so coordinated and organized.
“They want to disrupt America,” Netanyahu said.
“These protesters burned America flags even on the 4th of July. If you remember one thing from this speech, remember this: Our enemies are your enemies, our fight is your fight, and our victory will be your victory.”
Prominent Democrats — including Nancy Pelosi, who had boycotted the prime minister’s speech — promptly took to social media to denounce Netanyahu for these words.
How dare the Israeli prime minister suggest that these protesters are bigots, useful idiots of the Iranians and much more?
As if on cue, the mobs outside on the streets of Washington immediately proved Netanyahu right.
Outside Union Station, these terrorist supporters ripped down the American flags that were flying there.
And then the mob burned them. Right on the streets of the nation’s capital.
The flag that American servicemen throughout the generations, and to this day, have fought for, bled for and died for was burned and trampled upon by people who no longer even pretend that their problem is with Israel.
“The idea that terrorists attack because they hate freedom, however, is misguided,” Philip Gordon wrote in ‘Winning the Right War’. “Even most of the Muslims who support terrorism and trust Osama bin Laden favor elected government” and “personal liberty.”
Gordon, Obama’s future Middle East coordinator, explained in his book that Muslim terrorists weren’t “born evil” or “hate our freedoms”, but rather they feel “shame” over the state of “a once great Islamic civilization” surpassed by other cultures including “the local upstart, Israel.”
America was “creating conditions” that “generate” Islamic terrorism by detaining Al Qaeda terrorists, failing to punish American soldiers and “justifying any Israeli military action”. Gordon urged the White House to assure Iran that we have “no intention of using military force against Iran or fomenting internal dissent” because “Iran’s concerns about such issues are legitimate”
Published in 2007 by an imprint of the New York Times, Gordon’s book was a blueprint of the policies that the Obama administration would adopt, including blaming America and Israel, appeasing Iran and Islamists, and making Muslims feel better about themselves. These are the building blocks of the policies that led us to Oct 7 and an Iranian war across the region.
Today, Gordon is Kamala’s National Security Advisor, and possible future Secretary of State.
Gordon’s hostility toward Israel and sympathy for Islamic terrorists is a longstanding matter. Even before joining the Biden administration, he had co-written an article with Iran lobby figure Robert Malley, under FBI investigation for mishandling classified documents, urging Biden to reverse Trump’s possible recognition of Israel territory, and to cut political and economic support for Israel to punish it for its diplomatic successes under the Trump administration.
Recently, Gordon urged Israel to stop seeking victory against Hamas and accept a hostage deal that would allow the Islamic terrorist group to hang on in Gaza and free thousands of terrorists.
In his book, Gordon had claimed that “though Hamas refuses to recognize Israel today, it is not hard to imagine an eventual change in that position”. And in 2014, he had argued that a reconciliation deal between the PLO and Hamas “isn’t necessarily a bad thing”.
In 2016, Gordon, speaking on behalf of the Clinton campaign, appeared at a conference by National Iranian American Council (NIAC) widely regarded as the Iran Lobby, and promised that Hillary Clinton would veto new sanctions on Iran. He was described as assuring the Iran Lobby of the “potential for collaboration with Iran”. The New York Times even appeared to list him as a “tour guide” on its Iran trips.
And Gordon is not the only terror booster on Kamala’s team.
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