Posted on 11/05/2013 4:56:59 AM PST by SJackson
All of Obamas second term foreign policy goals are harmful to Israel. Everything that is good for Obama is necessarily bad for Israel.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu apparently believes the greatest threat the country now faces is an escalated European trade war. Hes wrong. The greatest threat we are now facing is a national leadership that cannot get its arms around changing strategic realities.
Over the weekend, Yediot Aharonot reported that during Secretary of State John Kerrys seven-hour meeting in Rome last week with Netanyahu, Kerry warned that the price for walking away from the talks with the PLO will be European economic strangulation of Israel.
According to the newspaper, [T]he secretary of state told the prime minister that he heard from his European friends... that if the negotiations fail, Israel can forget about participating in the European research and development program Horizon 2020. And that will only be the beginning.
More and far weightier actions to boycott Israel will follow. They are already being prepared. This will cause incalculable damage to the Israeli economy.
On Sunday, outgoing National Security Adviser Yaakov Amidror warned the cabinet that Israels diplomatic standing and ability to avert a European economic war is dependent on continuing the negotiations with the PLO.
In his words, It is absolutely clear that our ability to handle international pressure is dependent on making advances in the negotiations. If the negotiations fall apart, it will give justification to all the forces that want to boycott us to do so.
In other words, the viability of our economy is dependent on the PLOs willingness to sit at a table with us.
Actually, according to Amidror, the PLOs sufferance of our leaders is only half the story. The other half is President Barack Obama. As he sees it, Israels international position is directly related to Obamas position.
Everyone hoping for Obama to be weakened needs to [understand that]...
Israel will also be weakened. There is a connection between these things.
Apparently based on fear of angering Europe or weakening Obama, Netanyahu has reportedly agreed that early next year the Obama administration will put forward a bridging proposal in the talks. The proposal will have two parts. First, it will contain the details of a new interim arrangement. Second, it will contain the details of a final settlement.
From Obamas prior statements and consistent policies that castigate the Jewish presence in Judea, Samaria and united Jerusalem as illegitimate, it is fairly clear that Obama and Kerry expect Israel to relinquish its legal claims to Judea, Samaria and united Jerusalem in the framework of a final peace.
From a legal and diplomatic perspective, such a move by Israel would be the most disastrous it has ever made. It would empty out our sovereign rights in general. And it would imperil our military viability.
As to the interim deal, from American and European projects on the ground today in Judea and Samaria it is apparent that the plan will require Israel to cede to the PLO its control of planning and zoning in Area C.
Such a move will enable the Palestinians, Europeans and Americans to strangle the Israeli communities in the region and render it practically impossible for the IDF to operate in Judea and Samaria without PLO permission.
THE PROBLEM with the governments behavior is not simply that it is maintaining allegiance to a policy paradigm that works to our extreme strategic disadvantage.
Thats old news.
The problem is that we are maintaining allegiance to a policy paradigm that is based on inaccurate strategic assumptions.
Amidror spelled them out.
Israel is operating under the assumption that there is a cause and effect relationship between our actions and Europes. To wit, if we ditch the phony peace talks, they will destroy our economy.
But there is no cause and effect relationship between Israeli actions and European actions. Europe made hostility toward Israel the centerpiece of its unified foreign policy without connection to Israeli actions. So undertaking strategically damaging talks with the Palestinians to appease Brussels is a fools errand.
Then there is Amidrors assertion that Israel has an interest in strengthening Obama, because if he is weakened, we are weakened.
Certainly such an argument could have been made with regard to Obamas predecessors in office. But can it be made today? Last week The New York Times revealed Obamas foreign policy goals for his second term. They are: negotiating a nuclear deal with Iran, brokering peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians and mitigating the strife in Syria.
Will the achievement of these goals that is, the success of Obamas second term foreign policy be helpful to Israel? Consider Syria. Obama negotiated a deal with Russia regarding Syrias chemical weapons that leaves Irans Syrian proxy Bashar Assad in power, and according to chemical weapons inspectors, likely in possession of parts of his chemical arsenal.
Moreover, the Obama administrations repeated exposure of Israeli military operations against Hezbollah in Syria has harmed Israels national security. The administrations leaks have increased the prospects of war between Israel and Syria.
So a key part of Obamas Syria policy involves exacting a huge, unexpected cost for every strike Israel has undertaken to prevent Hezbollah from acquiring weapons systems that will imperil Israel.
Then too, Monday Kuwaits al Anbaa newspaper reported that the State Department is carrying out talks with Hezbollah in Lebanon. According to Lebanese sources quoted in the article, US Ambassador to Lebanon David Hale has told Lebanese leaders that a cabinet cannot be formed without Hezbollah participation.
Israel is a victim, not a partner in the USs Syria policy. Israel is weakened by Obamas success.
As for Iran, it is now inarguable that the USs primary objective is not to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. It is to prevent Israel from attacking Irans nuclear installations. Here too, success for Obama requires Israel to be imperiled.
Finally, our experience has shown us that peace is not a possible outcome of Obamas pro-Palestinian policy. The only beneficiaries of administrations use of European economic blackmail to force Israel to make strategically suicidal concessions to the PLO are the PLO and Hamas, and the anti-Semitic forces in Europe.
All of these parties reject Israels right to exist. Weakening Israel in the manner Obama has laid out will increase their appetite for aggression.
SO HERE we are, three for three. All of Obamas second term foreign policy goals are harmful to Israel. Everything that is good for Obama is necessarily bad for Israel.
It is easy to understand why our leaders insist on holding on to strategic assumptions that are no longer valid. The region is in a state of flux. In stormy seas, our natural inclination is to go back to what has always worked. Since 1968, the conviction that a strong Israel is consonant with US global interests has guided US policy in the Middle East. Its hard to accept that this is no longer the case.
But we have to accept it. By clinging to our now outdated strategic assumptions, not only are we engaging in dangerous behavior. We are blinding ourselves to new strategic opportunities presented by the chaos in neighboring countries.
True, the new opportunities cannot replace our lost alliance with the US or Europe as a trading partner. But they will get us through the storm in one piece.
American Indians have a Homeland called Reservations. It is not an independent nation like Israel, but autonomous. They are doing pretty good now with royalties and tax free items. Israel located in US will do fine. No one will surround her and threaten to nuke her.
On the other hand, how is Israel doing strategicly in the Middle East with a UN sponsored homeland since 1948?
Israel is building nukes because she is outnumbered by Arabs in the Middle East at a ratio of 50 to 1. It is used as a doomsday weapon if her defenses are breached. If a independent Jewish state was formed by the US on former US territory. US does not intend to invade her and kill all the Jews in it. The alternative Jewish state will not need a large military nor nuclear weapons. She would be surrounded by American states on very friendly terms. Right now she does not have such luxury. Furthermore, it removes our conflicting desires in the ME (friendship with oil producing Arab regimes).
“The more religiously serious ones DONT support Democrats. Its the self indulgent secular ones that dont even try to get something serious and constant going with God that are the trouble here.”
Thanks HiTech that I didn’t know, gives me a little better understanding of the issue.
So does biting the hand of your friends, particularly when said friends innocently observe something that walks, talks, and swims like a duck.
And the secular wing of American Jewry is distressingly large. To fall from faith is nothing new for them. The Old Testament story makes that clear. But even a strong Old Testament faith will illuminate a Jewish person enough to make it clear that the Democrats are bad news. They are also demographically gaining on the secular ones, who tend not to be pro-life. Spoiled Judaism, like spoiled Christianity, is double plus bad news, because it represents turning a whole suite of virtues over to Satan.
Another good point you make, the Jewish vote and donations to the fascist democrats is really off the charts, someone posted figures that indicated something in the area of 51% of the money the democrats rake in comes from Jewish liberals.
Yes... the folks with the learning ethic, but they have turned it to learning demonic garbage. I mean I am pretty blunt about this.
And lest spoiled Christendom get away unscathed, let me point out that modern liberalism is pretty much a gospel sans God and Christ. It can’t possibly work, it’s asking Satan to do mighty works that only God is capable of, but the believers keep their twisted faith (which God put there for the purpose of believing in the real gospel) working overtime trying to believe in modern liberalism anyhow.
Obama has proven himself to be the ultimate political nightmare,on every front, in every realm imaginable, be it economic, political, geopolitical, philosophical, ideological, sociological and in particularly in his case, zoological.
Oh, my. Ecoomic sanctions. Sort of like another White Paper, only with money instead of people. I’m boycotting EU products, anyway. As for thes threats, in our case they always tend to backfire and then blow up in the face of the threatener(see the past four millenia for details).
Our real new strategic priority is building EMA, the Eastern Minorities Alliance of Christian countries and enclaves, India, Kurds and Allawites. The sooner the ruling class becomes hip to that, the better off we’ll all be.
One of the original plans was take a part of Germany after WW2 and make it a Jewish nation/homeland. Instead the UN allowed the massive refugees into Palestine partition themselves into an independent nation with UN support. It is built on faulty strategic thinking. Problem is the Arabs did not go along with the vote despite what the world decided. The Arabs have not given up this pursuit to drive the Jews into the sea. Each war the Arabs lose, the tech gap between Arab and Israeli forces closes. Arabs are no longer poor camel jockies. They have petro money and influence in the world. Worst they found a religious motivation to adopt kamikaze like tactics against the Israelis that nullifies the tech advantages and brings the battle close range and war of attrition (something the smaller population of Israel cannot afford). Iran is building nukes and no one (even the US under GWB) could find a solution to stop them short of a war.
Isreal has nukes. Usage of nukes as a deterrent works to a point for a small nation like Israel. The Arabs are crazy enough to do it. Reliance on nukes and if forced to use it will spell only total destruction of 6 million Jews in Israel in a nuclear exchange. Israel cannot force Arab countries not to build their own nukes not unless they plan to bomb everyone that tries. So the plan to save the Jews from future holocausts by giving them their Biblical homeland (after being absent for 1700+ years) and disregarding the original Arabs that lived there is laying the seeds for conflict. At least the Americans outnumbered the Indians and won, the Jews are outnumbered 60 to 1, and the Arabs do have reasonable technological parity (but not unity). Numbers, geography, international politics, etc etc is turning against Israel. Bottom line is this is not going to end well for the Jews.
Since the US is the only nation that gives a damn about the Jews and Israel, it might be more humane to get them out of the strategic kill zone of the Middle East and use a small part of the US and give it to them as a homeland. No nation today will do that. Otherwise we may see another Jewish Holocaust of 6 million again (unless the Book of Revelation comes true and a Messiah saves them in their darkest hour).
We are not monolithic. Those Jews who would rather forget that they are Jewish, or better yet, redefine Jewishness as being an incurable libtard, are the ones concerning whom you speak.
There is a second group of American Jews, however, either proudly religious and nationalistic, or simply nationalistic, who are very much to their senses.
The religious ones will inherit the earth, because they have more kids, and the nationalistic but secular ones will ally themselves with them, and get invited over for Shabbos meals, to discuss nationalism and religion. So don’t give up. Our very best allies among the nations are freepers and religious Christians, and also Hindus.
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