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Tag: Barack Obama

What’s next with Iran deal

Given the copious amount that has been written on the Iran deal, we publish this summary of key points by American Jewish Congress to help readers wade through the various articles and blogs, and form their own opinion about the deal:

The historic deal with Iran intended to curb its nuclear weapons program will receive a full airing in the U.S. Congress in the next several weeks. The following is a short summary of key points to keep in mind as the debate unfolds:

  1. Several steps must be taken before the Iran deal goes into effect. Congress has 60 days to review the deal’s terms, hold hearings, conduct a debate and take a vote in both the House and Senate.
  2. If Congress passes a resolution of disapproval and sends it to President Barack Obama for his signature, he has 12 days to veto the resolution. The president has said already that he would take such action, if necessary.
  3. Many members of both parties in Congress have expressed deep skepticism. Israel is lobbying hard against it; Gulf states, led by Saudi Arabia, also oppose the deal, but are conducting their lobbying efforts more quietly.
  4. The deal also must be brought to the United Nations Security Council. It is unclear at this time if that will happen before or after a congressional vote.
  5. No sanctions will be lifted before the end of this year. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) first must provide, by Dec. 15, a baseline assessment of Iran’s possible military activities relative to its past nuclear program.
  6. The IAEA will be given “when necessary, where necessary” access to monitor Iranian compliance, with a mechanism that gives Iran up to 24 days before permitting inspectors to visit designated sites.
  7. This “managed access” falls well short of the president’s earlier assertion that the IAEA must be allowed to have intrusive access on an “anytime, anywhere” basis.
  8. The current UN arms embargo will remain in place for five years and UN ballistic missile sanctions will stay in place for eight years, though both time periods can be reduced if Iran is judged to be acting in full compliance with the deal.
  9. The lifting of the arms embargo is outside the parameters set by President Obama, who repeatedly said during negotiations that only issues related to the nuclear file were legitimate subjects for compromise.
  10. Economic sanctions against Iran will be removed in stages, with some frozen assets scheduled to be released when the deal moves to implementation by the end of the year, in which case Iran is expected to benefit from $100 billion to $150 billion in cash.
  11. Many observers are concerned that Iran, whose current annual defence budget is approximately $30 billion, will use the influx of cash to support proxies such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria, Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Houthi rebels in Yemen, and to foment instability throughout the region with greater funding to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and the al-Quds force’s efforts in Iraq and Syria. This is on top of billions in expected oil revenues and the significant economic bump Iran is expected to enjoy through increased commerce with the international community.
  12. Sanctions can be restored should Iran violate the deal, though most observers are highly dubious that so-called “snapback” provisions will be effective.
  13. The deal will be terminated 10 years from the date of its adoption as long as Iran does not violate UN sanctions, though there are elements of it that have a 15-year life expectancy.
Posted on July 24, 2015July 22, 2015Author American Jewish CongressCategories Op-EdTags Barack Obama, IAEA, International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran, nuclear deal, UN, United Nations
U.S.-Israel relations

U.S.-Israel relations

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, right, with Michael Oren, then the Israeli ambassador to the United States, at Ben-Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv on April 9, 2013. (photo from U.S. State Department via jns.org)

It’s safe to say that in the coming weeks you’ll be reading a great deal about the memoir Ally: My Journey Across the American-Israeli Divide (Random House, June 2015), authored by Israel’s former ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren.

book cover - Ally: My Journey Across the American-Israeli Divide by Michael OrenOren spent the years 2009-13 as Israel’s envoy in Washington. Once a dual national of both the United States and Israel, the New Jersey-raised Oren had to surrender his U.S. passport at the American embassy in Tel Aviv before taking up his ambassadorial post – an emotionally wrenching episode that he describes in detail. Oren’s complicated identity as an American and an Israeli is a theme that runs throughout the book, and his treatment of this subject is a welcome tonic to the dreary and rather smelly charges of “dual loyalty” that too often accompany examinations of the relationship that Jews in the Diaspora have with the Jewish state.

The main attraction of the book, of course, is its account of the Obama administration’s Middle East policies, and Oren’s candor has already gotten him into trouble. Dan Shapiro, the current U.S. ambassador to Israel, who makes several appearances in Oren’s memoir, told Israel’s Army Radio that Ally is “an imaginary account of what happened,” belittling Oren for having, as a mere ambassador, a “limited point of view into ongoing efforts. What he wrote does not reflect the truth.”

This is a serious charge, and it remains to be seen if Shapiro will attempt to substantiate it. In the meantime, it should be pointed out that what makes Ally such a fascinating read is that it provides, from Oren’s perspective, a detailed sense of the bitter atmosphere in both Washington and Jerusalem that underlay diplomatic efforts on the issues we are all intimately familiar with, from the negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program to the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Unlike other diplomats, Oren didn’t wait 20 years to publish his story – most of the key individuals in his book, most obviously U.S. President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, are still in power, and the bilateral tensions that Oren agonizingly explains haven’t been lessened since his departure from Israel’s Washington embassy. Diplomats aren’t supposed to be this transparent, which is why Oren will be regarded in many circles as a man who broke “omertà,” the code of silence which ensures that we ordinary mortals are kept in the dark about what our leaders are saying in private.

While it’s true that Obama comes in for heavy criticism, Oren rubbishes the claim that the president is “anti-Israel.” The reality is more complex; as Oren writes, “the Israel [Obama] cared about was also the Israel whose interests he believed he understood better than its own citizens.” One might add that this paternalistic approach has informed Obama’s stance on the entire region, resulting in a sly policy that presents itself to Americans as a much-desired withdrawal from the Middle East’s endless bloodshed while, at the same time, fundamentally redistributing the region’s balance of power in favor of Iran, whose rulers have spent almost 40 years chanting, “Death to America.”

Read more at jns.org.

Format ImagePosted on June 26, 2015June 25, 2015Author Ben Cohen JNS.ORGCategories BooksTags Barack Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel-U.S. relations, Michael Oren, Middle East
נתניהו בקונגרס האמריקני

נתניהו בקונגרס האמריקני

כלי התקשורת בקנדה סיקרו בהרחבה את נאומו של ראש הממשלה, בנימין נתניהו, בקונגרס האמריקני ביום שלישי בשבוע שעבר. (צילום: Amos Ben Gershom / IGPO via Ashernet)

כלי התקשורת בקנדה סיקרו בהרחבה את נאום נתניהו בקונגרס האמריקני
כלי התקשורת בקנדה סיקרו בהרחבה את נאומו של ראש הממשלה, בנימין נתניהו, בקונגרס האמריקני ביום שלישי בשבוע שעבר. זאת, תוך מתן דגש לעימות שיצר נתניהו עם נשיא ארה”ב, ברק אובמה, שביקורו נעשה בניגוד לפרוטוקול ולכללים של מנהיגים זרים שמגיעים למדינה, כיוון שהבחירות בישראל יתקיימו ביום שלישי בשבוע הבא.
עיתון ‘גלוב אנד מייל’ ציין כי אובמה שלא טרח לצפות בנאום של נתניהו, לא מצא בו שום דבר חדש. לדברי העיתון למעלה משלושים חברי קונגרס מטעם המפלגה הדמוקרטית החרימו את את הנאום. מנהיגת המיעוט הדמוקרטי בבית הנבחרים, ננסי פלוסי, הגדילה לעשות ואמרה: “נאום נתניהו הוא עלבון לאינטיליגנציה של ארה”ב”.
‘גלוב אנד מייל’ הוסיף כי במשרד החוץ הקנדי הגיבו בזהירות לנאום. במשרד אמרו: “אנו תומכים בצעדי המשא ומתן עם איראן, אך במקביל אנו ספקטים לגבי כוונותיה של איראן בנוגע לתוכנית הגרעין”. לדברי הפרשנים של ‘גלוב אנד מייל’ “נתניהו גרם לממשלת הרפר להיות במצב מביך, כיוון שמצד אחד היא רוצה להביע את תמיכתה החזקה בראש הממשלה, ומצד שני היא לא רוצה להעליב את בת הברית הקרובה ביותר שלה”. בקרב הקהילה היהודית בארה”ב נשמעו קולות של תומכים ומתנגדים כאחד, לצעדו החריג והמתוקשר של נתניהו, שלא זכור כמותו בוושינגטון. גם בקרב הקהילה היהודית בקנדה יש תומכים ומתנגדים לנאום נתניהו.
‘גלוב אנד מייל’ ציין עוד כי הנאום מוושינגטון שודר בשעת ארוחת הערב בישראל, שבועיים לפני הבחירות בימים מכריעים לגבי עתידו של נתניהו.
עיתון ‘הנשיונל פוסט’ מצטט מחוקקים בארה”ב שאמרו שהנאום של נתניהו, סיים כל תקווה לתיקון מערכת היחסים השבורה בין עם אובמה. אחד מהסנטורים הדמוקרטים שהחרימו את הנאום, סטיב כהן, הדגיש בחריפות: “הדבר היחיד שראש ממשלת ישראל השיג הוא הרחבת הקרע בין שני המנהיגים”.
‘הנשיונל פוסט’ דיווח גם על התגובה הנרחבת של הבית הלבן על נאומו של נתניהו. להלן הדברים: “ראש ממשלת ישראל לא סיפק כל סוג של חלופה, שישיג אותו מנגנון לאימות, למנוע מאיראן להשיג את הנשק גרעיני. נתניהו נשא נאום די דומה ב-2012 על כמה שעיסקה עם איראן הולכת להיות מסוכנת. ובכל זאת שנה מאוחר יותר אפילו קציני מודיעין ישראלים ומספר חברי ממשלה בישראל, הודו במפורש כי המשא ומתן עם איראן, מנע ממנה להתקדם בתוכנית הגרעין שלה. עדיין אין לנו עיסקה, ואנחנו מנהלים משא ומתן למנוע מאיראן להשיג נשק גרעיני. אך שום דבר אחר לא מתקרב לזה. הסנקציות או אפילו פעולה צבאית לא תהיה מוצלחת כמו העיסקה שאנו מנסים להשיג”.
כתב ‘הסי.בי.סי’ השוהה בישראל, דרק סטופר, אומר כי נתניהו אמנם נאם בקונגרס, אבל יתכן והקהל האמיתי שלו היה כאן בישראל. כאשר קמפיין הבחירות הקרובות נמצא בשבועיים האחרונים שלו. הנאום נקבע לשעה שהישראלים יוכלו לצפו בו, בעת שהם בבית. נתניהו ידע היטב שהופעה חזותית חזקה תשחק לטובתו משמעותית בישראל. לדברי סטופר נתניהו מכה בתוף נגד איראן כבר שנים, ובנאום שלו הוא השתמש רבות באותה שפה ובאותם נימוקים כבעבר.
לטור שלו בעיתון ‘הטורונטו סטאר’ על ראש ממשלת ישראל, העניק הרב דב מרמור, שהוא ניצול שואה וממנהיגי היהדות הרפורמית החשובים ביותר, את הכותרת: “נתניהו בחר בתעמולת בחירות על חשבון מדינאיות בנאום לקונגרס”. ואילו כותרת המשנה של מרמור: “זה אתגר היסטורי למנוע שואה נוספת. בנוסף לאמצעי הבטחה קונבציונאלים דרושה מדיניות עדינה, ולא רברבנות ותעמולת בחירות”.

Format ImagePosted on March 10, 2015Author Roni RachmaniCategories עניין בחדשותTags Barack Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Congress, בנימין נתניהו, ברק אובמה, קונגרס
All ears on Netanyahu talk

All ears on Netanyahu talk

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu addresses AIPAC. (photo by Amos Ben Gershom IGPO via Ashernet)

Washington, D.C.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu addressed the AIPAC Policy Conference Monday, presaging his address to the U.S. Congress Tuesday. “Never has so much been written about a speech that hasn’t been given,” he joked, referencing the controversy around his visit.

Netanyahu said the speech was not intended to show disrespect to U.S. President Barack Obama. “I deeply appreciate all that President Obama has done for Israel: security cooperation, intelligence sharing, support at the UN, and much more, some things that I, as prime minister of Israel, cannot even divulge to you because it remains in the realm of the confidences that are kept between an American president and an Israeli prime minister,” he said. “I am deeply grateful for this support, and so should you be.”

He said his purpose in coming was to “speak up about a potential deal with Iran that could threaten the survival of Israel.”

As prime minister of Israel, Netanyahu said, he has a moral obligation to speak up. “For 2,000 years, my people, the Jewish people, were stateless, defenseless, voiceless. We were utterly powerless against our enemies who swore to destroy us. We suffered relentless persecution and horrific attacks. We could never speak on our own behalf, and we could not defend ourselves.

“Well, no more, no more,” he said. “The days when the Jewish people are passive in the face of threats to annihilate us, those days are over.”

Of the controversy that surrounds his visit, and the apparent rift it illuminates, Netanyahu took the opportunity to itemize a long list of historical disagreements between the two allies.

“In 1948, Secretary of State [George] Marshall opposed David Ben-Gurion’s intention to declare statehood. That’s an understatement. He vehemently opposed it. But Ben-Gurion, understanding what was at stake, went ahead and declared Israel’s independence,” said Netanyahu.

“In 1967, as an Arab noose was tightening around Israel’s neck, the United States warned prime minister Levi Eshkol that if Israel acted alone, it would be alone. But Israel did act – acted alone to defend itself.”

He noted, “In 1981, under the leadership of Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Israel destroyed the nuclear reactor at Osirak: the United States criticized Israel and suspended arms transfers for three months. And, in 2002, after the worst wave of Palestinian terror attacks in Israel’s history, Prime Minister [Ariel] Sharon launched Operation Defensive Shield. The United States demanded that Israel withdraw its troops immediately, but Sharon continued until the operation was completed.”

The reason he mentioned all this history, he said, was to make a point. “Despite occasional disagreements, the friendship between America and Israel grew stronger and stronger, decade after decade. And our friendship will weather the current disagreement, as well, to grow even stronger in the future. And I’ll tell you why. Because we share the same dreams. Because we pray and hope and aspire for that same better world. Because the values that unite us are much stronger than the differences that divide us. Values like liberty, equality, justice, tolerance, compassion.”

On Tuesday, Netanyahu addressed Congress, thanking Obama and the United States for support. “This Capitol dome helped build our Iron Dome,” he said.

The day before Purim, he made a parallel between Haman and Ayatollah Khamenei and outlined a litany of Iran’s sins. He warned that the agreement being negotiated “doesn’t block Iran’s path to the bomb, it paves Iran’s path to the bomb.”

If all else fails, the prime minister warned, Israel will do what it needs to do. “For the first time in 100 generations, we the Jewish people can defend ourselves,” he said. “Even if Israel has to stand alone, Israel will stand.” However, he added that he knows Israel does not stand alone because it has the support of the United States, an assertion that received an ovation from the combined senators and congresspeople.

Top of agenda

Fears that the controversy over Netanyahu’s speech to Congress could fragment the historic support for Israel across Democratic and Republican members of Congress pushed bipartisanship up the agenda of the 16,000-delegate AIPAC conference, which ran Sunday to Tuesday.

Former CNN anchor Frank Sesno interviewed Democratic Senator Ben Cardin and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham on stage at the conference, primarily about Iran’s nuclear program. Both politicians were emphatic that the pro-Israel consensus would withstand the tempest.

Cardin insisted that a final agreement must be transparent and allow inspectors on the ground throughout Iran. He favors increased sanctions on Iran if no deal is reached by the March 24 deadline. He said the only reason Iran is negotiating in the first place is because of sanctions and the economic isolation they have put on the country. “We’ve got to keep the heat on,” he said.

“Diplomacy would be the right answer, rather than war,” Graham said, adding that Congress should have the right to vote on the deal. “A bad deal is a nightmare for us, Israel and the world.” He warned that if Iran were to get a nuclear weapon it would lead to a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, with the Sunni countries seeking the same weaponry.

On the reactions to Netanyahu’s visit, the men were unanimous.

“Don’t lose focus,” Cardin said. “The bad guy is Iran.” He urged AIPAC delegates to put pressure on their members of Congress to support proposed legislation that would make it difficult or impossible for countries that boycott Israel to do business with the United States.

Graham, who is chair of the Subcommittee on the Department of State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs, received an ovation when he threatened to cut off money to the UN if vilification of Israel in the General Assembly continues.

The bipartisanship flag was waved again later in the day when Representative Steny Hoyer, the Democratic whip in the House of Representatives, and Representative Kevin McCarthy, the Republican majority leader in the house, spoke.

Lawfare not fair

The 1975 UN General Assembly resolution equating Zionism with racism is that body’s most notorious attack on Israel, said Brett Schaefer, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, but there have been 20 condemnatory resolutions against Israel just in this session of the GA alone, compared with three condemnatory resolutions for every other nation.

Likewise, the UN Human Rights Council, he said, has a disproportionate focus on Israel, while ignoring serious human rights abuses elsewhere. The council’s standing agenda has one permanent item on Israel and another item covering every other country on earth.

These institutional attacks on Israel began before the latest round of “lawfare,” Palestinian leaders’ attempts to gain international recognition without negotiating directly with Israel. Schaefer outlined a long list of successful and unsuccessful attempts by the Palestinians to gain legitimacy through the UN and its agencies. Yet such efforts are in direct violation of peace negotiations, which are premised on mutual recognition and negotiation, he said.

While Palestine has been recognized by UNESCO, the UN body on culture, education and science, Schaefer said Palestine is highly unlikely to be recognized as a full member of the GA because membership must be recommended by the Security Council to the assembly and the United States would likely veto such a move.

“What this is about is Palestinians getting what they want without compromise,” he said, noting that the Palestinian leadership has prepared their people to expect nothing less than complete victory and to view compromise as betrayal. However, Schaefer added, “They’ve been pretty successful so far.” The international community is “enabling Palestinians” in avoiding peace negotiations, he said. This includes the Obama administration, according to Schaefer, which puts pressure on Israel to compromise, but not on the Palestinians. “The Palestinians see no downside to what they’re doing right now,” he said, adding that there does not appear to be any reason to change course.

Gil Troy, a professor of history at McGill University, said the UN was founded as a great healing, redeeming instrument promoting the universality of human rights, but it is now a “Third World Dictators’ Debating Society.” A coalition of Soviet-led developing countries hijacked the UN from the democracies decades ago, he said.

With 193 member-states now, Troy said, the UN represents 193 forms of nationalism, but there is only one form of nationalism that is delegitimized by the GA – the Jewish nationalism called Zionism.

A conundrum for Israel in all of this is that the UN is widely respected worldwide. “The United Nations is the greatest social services agency the world has ever seen,” Troy said. For the overwhelming majority of the world, it is a great organization helping their daily lives, therefore, if the UN hates Israel, Israel must be evil.

Schaefer said Palestinian leaders have benefited from their position as something between a government and a figurehead. “Palestinians have achieved some aspects of self-government but they don’t have any of the responsibilities of government,” he said. UNRWA and other international agencies use foreign aid to run the health, education and civil infrastructure in Palestine, so the Palestinian leaders do not have to take responsibility for their people. He said the world should force the leaders to govern their people.

Schaefer suggested that the United States begin using its own power at the UN. “The United States needs to elevate awareness among other countries that their votes at the General Assembly matter,” he said. There used to be a rule about aid to countries that do not vote with the Americans consistently, but that has been rescinded, he said.

Canada, eh?

An AIPAC session on relations between Ottawa and Jerusalem drew a respectable audience – mostly Canadians but a significant number of Americans as well – and this itself is a sign of Canada’s changed roles in the world, said Jonathan Kay. “No one would have cared what Canada thought 10 years ago,” he said.

Kay, editor of The Walrus and former editor of the National Post’s comments section, was joined on a panel by B.C. author Terry Glavin.

While Prime Minister Stephen Harper is widely credited (or condemned) for shifting Canada’s position to be more pro-Israel, Kay noted it was former Liberal prime minister Paul Martin who changed Canada’s voting patterns at the UN. Kay said he sees this shift as one of the most abrupt changes in foreign policy he’s ever seen. Canadian voting policy had been in line with European nations, he said, which meant generally anti-Israel, but it is now the most “doctrinaire pro-Israel country in the world.”

Glavin said the shift did not come from the top down. Changes in the views of the Canadian general public have been seismic, he said. Canadians had clung to the idea that their country is one of “peacemakers, not warmongers,” an “honest broker” and “not those vulgar Americans.”

As well, the presence in the Liberal and New Democratic parties of a small group of vocal anti-Israel members went largely unchecked until after the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001, when there was a significant shift in what Canadians were willing to accept in terms of radical foreign-policy views, Glavin said. “Most Canadians had enough by about 2006, 2007,” he added.

The Conservative party that Harper leads is technically less than 20 years old. When the Conservatives won a majority in 2011, Glavin said, some Canadians were waiting for the creation of a “Pentecostalist Taliban State.” Instead, he said, the country has accepted thousands of gay refugees, increased aid to Palestinians and focused on maternal health in the developing world.

Kay put it more succinctly, calling the Conservatives socially liberal on gay rights and abortion in a way that has no analogue in the United States. He characterized Canada for his American audience as “like one big Vermont,” and said the Conservative government accepts gay marriage as a given and, “cats aren’t marrying dogs or whatever.”

On the Israel front, Glavin said Harper has made clear that the struggle is between “free people and tyrants,” not between Israelis and Palestinians. The engagement in Afghanistan has also changed Canadians’ views of foreign affairs, he added.

Kay believes that the 1956 Canadian “invention” of peacekeeping was a stale dogma that Canadians cherished but were eventually prepared to abandon as the country became more confident. As the threats in the world, particularly radical Islam, increased, Canadians took a different view of their own role.

Will things change if this year’s election is won by Justin Trudeau, whom Glavin said some Canadians view as a “foppish drama teacher snowboarder”?

Kay predicts Trudeau would essentially ignore the Middle East. “To the extent that he knows about stuff, it’s domestic stuff,” Kay said.

Kay credits the CBC for moderating what was once a reliably anti-Israel bias, but Glavin raised a recent incident in which CBC television host Evan Solomon asked then foreign minister John Baird if he thought it was OK to appoint a Jewish person, Vivian Bercovici, as ambassador to Israel. Glavin said that the prime minister recently appointed Kevin Vickers, the heroic sergeant-at-arms who killed the terrorist on Parliament Hill last year, ambassador to Ireland and nobody questioned the fact that an Irish Catholic was being appointed to Canada’s highest office in Dublin.

Baird reflects

Recently resigned foreign affairs minister Baird rejected the idea that strong support for Israel has damaged Canadian relations with other countries, saying that Canada has better relations with the Arab world now than it has had in years.

As foreign affairs minister, he said, his job was to promote Canadian values and interests. Supporting Israel, he said, is where those two intersect.

On Iran, Baird said, history should provide an object lesson. Hitler published Mein Kampf years before he began the “Final Solution.” The world was warned. Now Iran is promising to wipe Israel off the map.

“We’ve got to take that incredibly seriously,” he said.

Pat Johnson is a Vancouver writer and principal in PRsuasiveMedia.com.

Format ImagePosted on March 6, 2015March 4, 2015Author Pat JohnsonCategories WorldTags AIPAC, Barack Obama, Ben Cardin, Binyamin Netanyahu, Brett Schaefer, Gil Troy, John Baird, Jonathan Kay, lawfare, Lindsey Graham, Pat Johnson, Terry Glavin, UN, United Nations

Bibi, Obama: Grow up

Iran’s propaganda machine Press TV on Monday reported that U.S. President Barack Obama had “unfriended” Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Facebook.

Predictably, it turned out the report was a hoax. Iran’s humorless propagandists reported as fact a joke from an Israeli satire site. And yet, despite the big journalistic oops (as if they care), the Iranian voice box made a legitimate point. The two men, ostensibly leading figures in world diplomacy, have in recent weeks been behaving like sulky teenagers.

Netanyahu unwisely accepted an invitation from the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, John Boehner, to address Congress, specifically to pressure the Americans to increase sanctions on Iran. The fact that this visit would take place at the height of the Israeli election campaign has been criticized by some, with others noting that former president Bill Clinton hosted Shimon Peres during an election cycle. The fact that the invitation came from the speaker of the house, rather than from the president, whose responsibilities include being the country’s foremost voice on foreign affairs – and its head of state and commander in chief – is a significant protocol breech, but a deliberate one.

We are becoming almost inured to successive hyperbolic assertions that bilateral relations between the United States and Israel are at their lowest ebb. But this time, it seems true, although a result of such foolishness that it seems almost comical, as well as tragic. These two men, whose seeming dislike for each other they are not even mature enough to hide or deny, are submerging the best interests of the relationship, shootings spitballs at each another across the divide.

Critics of Obama’s motivations allege that he does not pass the “kishkes” question; that his commitment to Israel’s security, such as it may be, is based a political imperatives or strategic demands, rather than a personal commitment to the idea of the Jewish state. To many others, these criticisms don’t hold water.

But what of Netanyahu? What on earth is he thinking, deliberately provoking his country’s most important international ally by inserting himself squarely into a constitutional tight spot, pitting the executive and legislative branches of the U.S. government against each other? Especially when Israel’s own intelligence service, the Mossad, has made clear that it is in Israel’s interest to allow negotiations with Iran to proceed, rather than to undermine them with additional immediate sanctions.

We are driven to ask, does Netanyahu know something we don’t? Does he know something the Mossad does not? Or is he driven merely by the hawkish demands of his domestic political constituency?

And why does he think that picking a fight – a very public, nasty and juvenile fight – with the president who was reelected with the support of 70 percent of American Jewish voters, would be a wise strategic or ideological move?

Greater minds can dissect the realpolitik motivations of these two strong figures. Wise figures in the think tanks of Washington and Tel Aviv are dissecting the nuance and nonsense the two leaders have displayed recently.

From where we sit, however, their behavior simply looks like they are putting their immature dislike for each other as individuals ahead of the interests of their countries. And, there is Speaker Boehner, ready to take political advantage.

Barrels of ink are being spilled this week on this topic, with the best minds of our generation advising both these men how to proceed. Our advice is simple, but it should be said: Just grow up.

Posted on January 30, 2015January 29, 2015Author The Editorial BoardCategories From the JITags Barack Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Iran, Israel, John Boehner, United States
הסגרה והקיסטון

הסגרה והקיסטון

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nov 19 Interesting in the news 6

Format ImagePosted on November 19, 2014March 8, 2016Author Roni RachmaniCategories עניין בחדשותTags Barack Obama, Hassan Diab, Keystone, pipelines, ברק אובמה, הצינורות, הקיסטון, חסן דיאב

What to do in Iraq?

Extremists have taken over much of Iraq, spreading medieval theology using modern weaponry, leaving hundreds of corpses and severed heads in their wake. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, has been disowned by the umbrella that spawned it, al-Qaeda. ISIS is said to be more extreme and more anti-American than al-Qaeda. Extremism seems to have taken an even more extreme turn.

The ostensibly democratic government in Iraq that resulted from the American intervention there ended up being dominated by Iraqi Shi’ites, which is part of the reason the Sunni extremists of ISIS have been met with, if not a hero’s welcome in parts of Iraq, at least with little resistance. The lack of resistance is partially due to the propensity of American-trained Iraqi soldiers and police to drop their weapons and flee in the face of ISIS, which observers say is a reaction to a lack of commitment to the ideals of democratic government – a product of the failure of the government to live up to the hopes of the post-Saddam Hussein era. It is also a reflection of just how brutal ISIS has been in its onslaught.

While the capital city of Baghdad was not under immediate threat by ISIS (as of press time this week) Iraq as a country seems effectively inoperative. All of the effort, lives, injuries and expense of the American and allied intervention there may prove to have been for naught. The new reality is far from clear, but all appearances suggest things are worse than ever.

So desperate is the situation that Iran may be our new ally in the conflict. The Shi’ite extremists who run Iran have come to the aid of the American-installed, Shi’ite-dominated government in Baghdad, sending Iranian Revolutionary Guards to help fight the Sunni ISIS. U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, a leading hawk who no one accuses of being soft on Tehran, accommodates the new bedfellow by comparing the situation with the West’s alliance with Stalin during the Second World War.

A wild-eyed optimist might even see this bizarre situation as a backdoor route to a new entente with the heretofore-implacable Iran. Were this catastrophe to have a silver lining of bridging the chasm between Iran and the West, it would be based on our mutual interest in an intra-Muslim sectarian conflict – and it is hard to see how anything good could come from our getting mired in something like that. In fact, the engagement of Western forces in Middle Eastern and Asian situations we really do not well understand may be the greatest lesson of this entire mess. The determination of George W. Bush for “regime change” in Iraq (something his father had, in hindsight, the wisdom to stop short of) unleashed a firestorm of consequences. Saddam was a murderous tyrant, but the current situation presents for Iraqis all the horrors of his dictatorship and more – plus unprecedented instability for the entire region.

Where we go from here is something the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama and other allied leaders are pondering now. And they may be as baffled as the rest of us. Given the West’s past failures in the region, it is hard to be hopeful.

Posted on June 20, 2014June 18, 2014Author The Editorial BoardCategories From the JITags al-Qaeda, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Iraq, ISIS, Saddam Hussein
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