Today’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon
Close to a deal
URL of the original posting site: http://conservativebyte.com/2015/07/close-to-a-deal
Posts tagged ‘Nuclear talks’
Caruba: Obama’s Middle East Debacle
May 18, 2015 By
I had to laugh when I heard that the new King of Saudi Arabia, Salmon, told the White House he wasn’t going to attend Thursday’s photo-op get together of Arab leaders. Some lesser Saudi officials will attend. The message is clear enough, so long as Obama continues to make nice with Iran, the center of the problems in the Middle East, the Saudis and the others are going to be wary of any proposal that comes out of the White House.
As far as the Middle East is concerned, Obama seems to have no idea of the history or the dynamics that affect all the actions there. His Secretary of State, Kerry, is no better. He met with Arab officials last Friday and they told him they want a defense treaty in the event they were attacked by “external forces”, something that the Congress will not approve so long as Obama is in the White House.
One would think that any President at this point would have concluded that the Palestinians have no intention of signing onto a peace treaty with the Israelis.
Writing in The New York Times on May 8, Jonathan Schanzer, vice president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, put it bluntly, “It doesn’t matter what these politicians think now or have said in in the past. Peace between Israel and the Palestinians is not happening in the next two years.” That’s how long we all have to wait until Obama leaves office.
David P.Goldman, a Senior Fellow of the Middle East Forum, writing in Asia Times Online on May 10, spelled it out.
“It is inconvenient for diplomats to say so, but the Palestinian Authority collapsed quite some time ago,” noting that “President Mahmoud Abbas’ term in office began in 2005 and ended six years ago, and he has not called new elections for the simple reason that Hamas—the Palestinian branch of the Egypt-based Muslim Brotherhood—would win those elections.” These days the Egyptians label Hamas a terrorist organization and have taken steps to eliminate the Brotherhood. At least they know who the enemy is.Obama has been antagonistic to Israel from before he was elected and has made little effort to hide it. Consider this, as Goldman notes, “Hamas fired over 4,000 rockets at Israel in 2014, prompting Israeli counterstrikes during the summer.” Its declared intention and the reason for its existence is to eliminate the State of Israel. Why are we surprised to hear that Obama wants to take the statehood issue to the United Nations, a hotbed of anti-Semitism, and has little to say of the Palestinian Authority’s assertion that it wants to drag Israel in front of the International Criminal Court for having defended itself against the attacks by Hamas!Not only has the Saudi King sent Obama a message, but so did the Israelis when they overwhelmingly reelected Benjamin Netanyahu as their Prime Minister. “The Israelis look around the Middle East and see nothing but conflict, carnage, instability and danger,” said Schanzer. “The Obama doctrine—which includes a deliberate contraction of American power in the Middle East—has undeniably made Israel less safe.”
It has made the U.S. and the world less safe too.
One of the most obscene aspects of the Obama obsession with Iran is that, in return for any deal—which Iran would ignore and cheat—they are ready “to provide as much as $120 billion in sanctions relief to satisfy the narrow technical parameters of a nuclear deal, which would legitimize Iran as a threshold nuclear state. These funds,” said Schanzer, “will flow to Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other Iran terror proxies dedicated to Israel’s demise.”
To put all this in perspective, as Goldman reminds us, “From Israel’s standpoint, the Palestinian Authority was offered 95% of Judea and Samaria in return for a final peace agreement, and both times (at Camp David in 1999 under Ehud Barack and in 2008 under Ehud Olmert) the offer was rejected.”“The U.N. Security Council,” said Goldman, “will punish Israel for the failure of negotiations that were meaningless to begin with, and establish a Hamas-controlled state within nine miles of the Mediterranean coast. Iran has already promised to arm West Bank Arabs, just as it armed Hezbollah and Hamas.”
Israel which has enjoyed the support of the United States since it declared its independence in 1948 is now put at risk by the first administration to deliberately turn its back on it in preference for a deal with the leading terror-sponsor, Iran, in the Middle East.
You cannot make a greater mess of the mess that already exists in the Middle East, but Obama is doing his best to add to it. What else should we expect from a President who refuses to utter words like “Islamic terrorism”?
© Alan Caruba, 2015
Netanyahu ‘spat in our face,’ White House officials said to say
Posted By Times of Israel staff January 23, 2015
URL of the Original Posting Site: http://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-spat-in-our-face-white-house-officials-say/#ixzz3PfvyEaze
“PM ‘will pay price’ for spat over Congress address; Obama said to have asked him to tone down pro-sanctions rhetoric; Wash. Post: Kerry’s enthusiasm for defending Israel may wane”
- US President Barack Obama, November 13, 2014 (photo credit: AFP/Christophe Archambault)
The White House’s outrage over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to speak before Congress in March — a move he failed to coordinate with the administration — began to seep through the diplomatic cracks on Friday, with officials telling Haaretz the Israeli leader had “spat” in President Barack Obama’s face.
“We thought we’ve seen everything,” the newspaper quoted an unnamed senior US official as saying. “But Bibi managed to surprise even us.’
“There are things you simply don’t do. He spat in our face publicly and that’s no way to behave. Netanyahu ought to remember that President Obama has a year and a half left to his presidency, and that there will be a price,” he said.
Officials in Washington said that the “chickenshit” epithet — with which an anonymous administration official branded Netanyahu several months ago — was mild compared to the language used in the White House when news of Netanyahu’s planned speech came in.
In his address the Israeli leader is expected to speak about stalled US-led nuclear negotiations with Iran, and to urge lawmakers to slap Tehran with a new round of tougher sanctions in order to force it to comply with international demands. The Mossad intelligence service on Thursday went to the rare length of issuing a press statement to deny claims, cited by Kerry, that its chief Tamir Pardo had told visiting US politicians that he opposed further sanctions.
Haaretz reported that Obama had personally demanded that Netanyahu tone down his pro-sanctions rhetoric in a phone call between the two last week. The president has said a sanctions bill would cripple negotiations with Iranian leaders at a critical stage, and has threatened to veto such a bill should it come through.
The Washington Post reported that Netanyahu’s apparent disrespect for the US leadership was particularly offensive to Secretary of State John Kerry, who over the past month had made frenzied efforts on Israel’s behalf on the world stage — making dozens of calls to world leaders to convince them to oppose a UN Security Council resolution which would have set a timeframe for the establishment of a Palestinian state.
“The secretary’s patience is not infinite,” a source close to Kerry told the Post. “The bilateral relationship is unshakable. But playing politics with that relationship could blunt Secretary Kerry’s enthusiasm for being Israel’s primary defender.”
The White House said Thursday that Obama would not meet with Netanyahu when he travels to Washington, with a spokeswoman citing a “long-standing practice and principle” by which the president does not meet with heads of state or candidates in close proximity to their elections. Kerry will also not meet with Netanyahu. Netanyahu will be in Washington in part for a March 3 address to a joint session of Congress. House Speaker John Boehner invited Netanyahu to speak to Congress without consulting the Obama administration.
The White House initially reacted icily to Netanyahu’s plans to address Congress, an appearance apparently meant to bolster opposition to a nuclear deal with Iran as it is currently shaping up, as well as opposition to new sanctions against Tehran.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest suggested Wednesday that Netanyahu and Boehner had broken with protocol in not informing Obama of the prime minister’s travel plans.
“We haven’t heard from the Israelis directly about the trip at all,” he said, adding the White House would “reserve judgment” about any possible face-to-face meeting until explanations are made.
“The typical protocol would suggest that the leader of a country would contact the leader of another country when he is traveling there. That is certainly how President Obama’s trips are planned,” explained Earnest.
“So this particular event seems to be a departure from that protocol.”
Speaking several hours after Earnest, top US diplomat Kerry said Netanyahu was welcome to give a speech at “any time” in the United States. But Kerry agreed it had been a “little unusual” to hear about the Israeli leader’s speech to US Congress next month from the office of Boehner and not via the usual diplomatic channels.
- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, meets with US president Barack Obama, at the White House, Washington DC on October 01, 2014. (Photo credit: Avi Ohayon/GPO)
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, leader of the House Democrats, said that Boehner blundered when he invited Netanyahu to address Congress amid sensitive negotiations about Iran’s nuclear program and in the shadow of Israel’s elections.
“If that’s the purpose of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s visit two weeks before his own election, right in the midst of our negotiations, I just don’t think it’s appropriate and helpful,” Pelosi told reporters Thursday at her weekly news conference. The speech, Pelosi suggested, could give Netanyahu a political boost in elections a few weeks later and inflame international talks aimed at stopping Iran’s nuclear program.
Israel is scheduled to hold elections on March 17. Netanyahu confirmed Thursday that he would address Congress in early March. He was initially slated to speak on February 11, but changed the date so he could attend the AIPAC conference.
“The Prime Minister is expected to arrive in the US at the beginning of March and will also participate in the AIPAC conference,” read a statement from the PMO. “The speech in front of both houses of Congress will give the prime minister the opportunity to thank President Barack Obama, Congress, and the American people for their support of Israel.
“I look forward to the opportunity to express before the joint session Israel’s vision for a joint effort to deal with [Islamist terrorism and Iran’s nuclear program], and to emphasize Israel’s commitment to the special bond between our two democracies,” Netanyahu said, according to the statement.
Israel and the United States are close allies, but personal relations between Obama and Netanyahu have reportedly deteriorated over the years. The pair have publicly clashed over Israeli settlement building in the West Bank and about how to tackle Iran’s disputed nuclear program. Obama’s allies fear Netanyahu’s March trip could be used by Israel and by Republicans to rally opposition to a nuclear deal, undercutting years of sensitive negotiations just as they appear poised to bear fruit.
In November the already faltering ties between the leaders were served a new blow when an anonymous US official was quoted calling Netanyahu a “chickenshit” in an article published by journalist Jeffrey Goldberg in the American magazine The Atlantic. The article portrayed the rift between the United States and Israel as a “full-blown crisis.”
AP and Lazar Berman contributed to this report. 
What Did You Say? 
You must be logged in to post a comment.