YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Here is David Pryce-Jones opinion on the coming meeting between Obama and Netanyahu.
UPDATE #2: The London Times tomorrow will have this story, with the same theme as below.
The critical juncture will be what comes out of the Obama-Netanyahu meeting. If there is procrastination by Israel on the two-state solution or there is no clear American vision for how this is going to play out in 2009, then all the tremendous credibility that Obama has worldwide and in this region will evaporate overnight if nothing comes out in May. All eyes will be looking to Washington in May. If there are no clear signals and no clear directives to all of us, then there will be a feeling that this is just another American government that is going to let us all down.
UPDATE: The NY Times dutifully regurgitates the Obama line on Israel. Israel is building parks in East Jerusalem, an action viewed as enhancing their ownership of the city.
“Everything Israel does now will be highly contentious,” said Robert H. Serry, the United Nations special Middle East coordinator, on a recent tour of East Jerusalem. He warned the Israeli authorities “not to take actions that could pour oil on the fire.”
The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says, however, that it will push ahead. Interior Minister Eli Yishai said last week of the activity in one core area: “I intend to act on this issue with full strength. This is the land of our sovereignty. Jewish settlement there is our right.”
As part of the plan, garbage dumps and wastelands are being cleared and turned into lush gardens and parks, now already accessible to visitors who can walk along new footpaths and take in the majestic views, along with new signs and displays that point out significant points of Jewish history.
The parts of the city that are being developed were captured in the 1967 Middle East war, but their annexation by Israel was never recognized abroad.
The fact that the holiest site in all of Judaism is included was not mentioned in the article.
Israeli officials point out that when East Jerusalem was in Jordanian hands from 1949 to 1967, dozens of synagogues in the Jewish Quarter were destroyed, Jewish graves were desecrated and Jewish authorities were largely denied access to the Western Wall or other shrines. By contrast, in Jerusalem today Muslim and Christian authorities administer their holy sites in a complex power arrangement under Israeli control.
This doesn’t matter to Obama. He has his own agenda; making friends with Islam. The Palestinians even deny that Jews ever lived there.
At the same time, the Web site of Al Quds University, one of the most important Palestinian institutions, states that the Western Wall, the remnant of the Jewish temple destroyed by the Romans in A.D. 70, was probably built by the Romans because the temple could not have stood there.
There is no scholarly dispute about whether the temple stood beneath what is today the Aksa Mosque compound.
These are the people Obama is trying to make friends with. Israel stands in his way.
The Obama administration is taking steps that, if carried through, will lead to a Middle east war within two years. He has been on an apology tour of Europe and is now planning more “outreach” to the Islamic world. No doubt this will be an attempt to depict the US as a cuddly, friendly little cub that no one would fear or distrust. Unfortunately, cuddly, friendly cubs get eaten unless there is a mother bear nearby. We have been that mother bear for the past 64 years but Obama seems determined to end that. His target is Israel.
His administration is planning to present Israel with a fait accompli with regard to the Palestinians.
Using the annual AIPAC conference as a backdrop, this week the Obama administration launched its harshest onslaught against Israel to date. It began with media reports that National Security Adviser James Jones told a European foreign minister that the US is planning to build an anti-Israel coalition with the Arabs and Europe to compel Israel to surrender Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem to the Palestinians.
According to Haaretz, Jones was quoted in a classified foreign ministry cable as having told his European interlocutor, “The new administration will convince Israel to compromise on the Palestinian question. We will not push Israel under the wheels of a bus, but we will be more forceful toward Israel than we have been under Bush.”
He then explained that the US, the EU and the moderate Arab states must determine together what “a satisfactory endgame solution,” will be.
As far as Jones is concerned, Israel should be left out of those discussions and simply presented with a fait accompli that it will be compelled to accept.
I think Bibi Netanyahu knows enough history to recall Czechoslovakia in 1938. I wonder if Obama does ?
As far as the Obama administration is concerned, Israel is the only obstacle to peace.
To make certain that Israel understands this central point, Vice President Joseph Biden used his appearance at the AIPAC conference to drive it home. As Biden made clear, the US doesn’t respect or support Israel’s right as a sovereign state to determine its own policies for securing its national interests. In Biden’s words, “Israel has to work toward a two-state solution. You’re not going to like my saying this, but not build more settlements, dismantle existing outposts and allow the Palestinians freedom of movement.”
What Obama may not understand is that the Jews will not be complicit in another Holocaust, no matter his convenience and his desire to accommodate Muslims.
As Obama’s chief of staff Rahm Emmanuel made clear in his closed-door briefing to senior AIPAC officials this week, the administration is holding Israel indirectly responsible for Iran’s nuclear program. It does this by claiming that Israel’s refusal to cede its land to the Palestinians is making it impossible for the Arab world to support preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
Does anyone else remember Chamberlain’s words ?
Speaking over British radio, in words that again ring
familiar, Chamberlain called the Czech issue “a quarrel in a
faraway country between people of whom we know nothing,” and
observed that “however much we may sympathize with a small nation
confronted by a big and powerful neighbor, we cannot in all
circumstances undertake to involve the whole British Empire in
war simply on her account. If we have to fight, it must be on
larger issues than that. … War is a fearful thing.”
I would suggest that Obama consider the consequences of convincing Israel that they are alone, or worse, that we sympathize with their enemies. For the consequences, you might read this report by Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
he expects, writes Martin Walker of United Press International,
some 16 million to 28 million Iranians dead within 21 days, and between 200,000 and 800,000 Israelis dead within the same time frame. The total of deaths beyond 21 days could rise very much higher, depending on civil defense and public health facilities, where Israel has a major advantage.
It is theoretically possible that the Israeli state, economy and organized society might just survive such an almost-mortal blow. Iran would not survive as an organized society. “Iranian recovery is not possible in the normal sense of the term,” Cordesman notes. The difference in the death tolls is largely because Israel is believed to have more nuclear weapons of very much higher yield (some of 1 megaton), and Israel is deploying the Arrow advanced anti-missile system in addition to its Patriot batteries. Fewer Iranian weapons would get through.
The report also points out that Israel, backed into a corner, would most likely strike at its other potential enemies, including hostile Arab states. The fallout would probably mean the end of the Age of Petroleum, since the oil fields in the Middle East would be unusable for decades.
I don’t think Obama is equipped to make these judgements. He is starting down a very dangerous road with no evidence that he understands the risks. Neither did Chamberlain.
