Caroline Glick: Obama’s money and Israel’s sovereignty
This week, MK Michael Oren stood up to his boss in the Kulanu party, Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon, to the political Left, including hundreds of retired security brass, and to the IDF General Staff. The former ambassador to Washington urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to sign the multi-year security assistance deal that US President Barack Obama demands Israel accept.French anti-racism groups spar over mayor’s support for Palestinian killer
The problem isn’t the money. By all accounts, Obama’s multi-year military assistance package is generous.
The problem is that in exchange for the expanded military aid, Obama is demanding that Israel surrender its diplomatic and military independence to the White House.
For more than 40 years, every US administration – including the Obama administration – that has sought to harm Israel in any way has hit up against an unmovable obstacle. Whether the White House wanted to enable the UN Security Council to pass an anti-Israel resolution, place an embargo on military exports or bureaucratically slow them down to force Israel to stand down during wartime; whether the White House wanted block expanded trade deals, crowd out Israel’s military industries, or sell game changing weapons systems to Israel’s enemies, the US Congress has always stopped it in its tracks.
Israel-haters in the US speak endlessly about the supposedly all powerful and malign “Israel lobby,” which controls US foreign affairs. But the simple truth is that it wouldn’t matter all that much if AIPAC were to shut down tomorrow. Even without AIPAC, Israel would enjoy the support of Congress.
Two French organizations devoted to fighting anti-Semitism clashed publicly over one group’s complaint to police on incitement against a mayor who launched a campaign in support of a Palestinian convicted of murder.'Palestinians were created to cause trouble for Jews'
France’s Human Rights League, a nonprofit founded in 1898 to protest the racially motivated conviction for espionage of the French Jewish army captain Alfred Dreyfus, criticized the National Bureau for Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism, or BNVCA, in a statement last week.
The league’s statement said BNVCA behaved like “a spokesperson of the Israeli government” when it filed the complaint against the Communist mayor of the Paris suburb of Stains, Azzédine Taïbi, for his refusal to remove from city hall a banner calling for the release of Marwan Barghouti, who is serving multiple life sentences in Israel for acts of terrorism in which dozens of civilians were murdered.
“Stains is taking action for peace, free Marwan Barghouti, the Palestinian Mandela,” the banner read.
A French judge in March instructed Taïbi to remove the banner or face sanctions, citing previous precedents including the Administrative Court of Montreuil’s injunction in July, which nullified the honorary resident status conferred on Barghouti by another Paris suburb, Aubervilliers. The court said such actions exceed the duties and responsibilities of municipal governments.
But Taïbi refused to comply, prompting BNVCA to file criminal charges against him. According to BNVCA, celebrating Palestinians who murdered Jews risks legitimizing acts of violence against Jews in France, where Islamists have killed eight Jews in two shooting attacks since 2012. The perpetrators of both attacks said they were acting to avenge Palestinians. BNVCA vowed to continue legal efforts to counter the celebration of terrorists in France.
A man calling himself Wild Bill described his support for Israel in a video that is going viral.
"We all know that Islam is giving the world a lot of things that will be long remembered. They invented the fine art of skyjacking, suicide bombers and taqiya - the art of lying to infidels," he began.
"They are the only religion to develop a preschool program where the children sing about exterminating Jews and I do believe they are the only ones to demolish two skyscrapers while 3,000 people were still inside. Yes, Islam has a long and proud history of doing things that nobody else does.
"But by far the most creative invention of Islam is the Palestinian: a person who has never been seen before in the modern world who supposedly lived in a nation that never existed. The Palestinian was invented shortly after the nation of Israel sprang into existence as the new name for the traditional home of the Jewish people.
"Now, prior to the invention of the Palestinian, the Arab nations had been lusting for the land of the Jews because the hardworking Jewish people had transformed the desert land into a well-irrigated and beautiful oasis and the Arabs decided they wanted it.