MR. GIBBS: The goal is to be -- I guess, partly to clear some of this up, this is a -- this will be a broader speech about our relationship with Muslims around the world. I know there has been some conjecture that included in this speech will be some detailed comprehensive Mideast peace plan, and that is not the intention nor was it ever the intention of this speech. As I said a few days ago, I mean, obviously it would be difficult to give a speech and not touch on this subject -- I think that would be -- that wouldn't work -- but the notion that it will be the sole focus of the speech is not the case.The bad news is that President Obama's is ratcheting up the pressure on Israel's Prime Minister, by sending US Sec. of State, Hillary Clinton to demand that Israel destroy caravans, trailer homes, and evict men, women and children from their homes in settlement outposts.
Q: Just to clarify, are you also ruling out -- forget out sole focus, but within the broader speech he is not going to say, "and here is what I want to do with the city of Jerusalem, and here is what I want" --
MR. GIBBS: No. As you know, Margaret, those are final status issues that the parties themselves have agreed to work out in whatever negotiation would be had. That's not something for the President to intone. (source, hat-tip to DovBear)
Kowtowing to Obama's decree, Israel's Defense Minister ordered Border Police shock troops to storm 2 outposts last night at 3 AM, evict people from their homes, and destroy these frail structures -- the most dangerous threat to Middle East Peace and global harmony.
Global Threat Hilltop 18 (Mitzpe Avichai) before Obama's decree.
Global Threat Hilltop 18 (Mitzpe Avichai) after Israel Border Police shock troops destroy it.
Prime Minister Netanyahu hinted this week during a Likud faction meeting that there would be no escape from evacuating the outposts, as demanded by US President Barack Obama, in order to focus the attention on the Iranian threat. (YNETNEWS)President Obama: Why not worry about something serious like North Korea's nuclear tests and restarting their nuclear reactor, instead of sending Hillary Clinton to impose upon Israel to destroy a bunch of trailers and evict their Jewish residents?
Stay tuned for next week; exclusive Muqata video interview with hilltop residents -- whose homes are slated for destruction in the coming weeks.
Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael טובה הארץ מאד מאד
27 comments:
I have two questions. First where is the proof (newspaper speculation does not count) that Netanyahu is responding to US orders? Isn't it possible he has his own reasons to oppose the settlements and is perhaps using Hillary's staments as an excuse and a cover? Second if he is following US orders why in the world are you mad at Obama? Instead you should be protesting your spineless wimp of a prime minister.
Additionally any one Torah True in the audience should be aware that Rav Shach took Hillary Clintons view and also opposed the expansion of settlements. Perhaps Netanyahu has been chozer b'tshuva?
Your post says Obama is "racheting up the pressure" Can you substantiate this please? Id like to see some evidence of a threat or ultimatum before you use phrases like "racheting up the pressure"
If all he did was ask his State Department to deliver a request that's not "racheting" That's business as usual. And if that's all he did what you should be asking is why your spineless wimp of a prime minsiter aquiecsed.
I hope the readers here are relieved to learn that Obama has no plan to split Jerusalem.
Just like most illegal activity, communities such as Mitzpe Avichai are wrong. Before you reply with the childish "but they do ittttt" we are better than that. If you do not like the laws, change them, that is one of the great benefits of living in a democracy. I would hope that all communities built outside the law be dismantled, both Israeli and not, however we should not use the government's inaction as an excuse for our own bad behavior.
Dovbear, if Israel today said they would be willing to give East Jerusalem to the PA, Obama would wet his pants with glee. Just because he has realized the truth that Israel will not give up its capital does not mean he believes in it.
DovBear: The JTA reported yesterday as follows:
Israel will give up settlement outposts in exchange for U.S. support in dealing with the threat from Iran, Benjamin Netanyahu said.
The prime minister told his Likud Party faction Monday that Israel will have to accede to the demands of the United States to remove the West Bank outposts in order to focus its attention on the Iranian nuclear threat, according to Israeli news reports.
"I identify the danger, and that's why I am willing to take unpopular steps such as evacuating outposts. The Iranian threat is above everything," Netanyahu reportedly said. "There are things on which you have to compromise."
Later, he added, "There are reasons to preserve our good relationship with the United States."Therefore, according to Netanyahu himself, that the outpost removal is a US order. He also said the step is unpopular and if he calls it a compromise, he's obviously not happy with the move (so he's not really being "chozer betshuva").
Lastly, you're 100% correct that Netanyahu is a spineless wimp of a Prime Minister. However, its rather arrogant and obtuse of US President Obama to link Iran and outposts together and demand that Israel remove these outposts.
Good point Seth. Instead of blaming Obama (with no proof) for making a threat, shouldn't the law abiding citizens of Israel be congratulating their prime minister for enforcing the law of the land?
Seth: I would hope that all communities built outside the law be dismantled, both Israeli and not, however we should not use the government's inaction as an excuse for our own bad behavior.Seth: Instead of dismantling the outposts, the request has always been to legalize them. Even when Jews spend millions of dollars for Arab property, like the "peace house" in Hevron, the government bypasses "due process" to evict the Jewish residents.
Most of these "outposts" are built on State Land, private Jewish land within the municipal boundries of existing settlements. The vast majority of them are "illegal" from a zoning point of view, not that they are built on "private Palestinian" land.
I have no problem moving those from private Palestinian land to alternative locations.
Jameel thank you for providing that documentation. Still I question your use of the words decree and pressure. It doesn't sound like Netanyahu was forced. It sounds like he made a deal in which he traded something of value in exchange for something of value. That's how the world works.
Obama hasn't acted arrogantly or obtusely. He wants something (presumably because he thinks it is in the USs best interest) so he made an offer and your prime minister accepted. That's politics. Don't like it? Get a new prime minister.
DB: Instead of blaming Obama (with no proof) for making a threat, shouldn't the law abiding citizens of Israel be congratulating their prime minister for enforcing the law of the land?If the government was serious about enforcing the law of the land, he would start with destroying the estimated 35,000 illegally constructed Arab homes in Israel.
Going specifically after 22 Jewish trailer parks and ignoring the illegal Arab construction is blatant racial application of the law.
Seth my mind reading machine is out of order so I can't say what would or would not make Obama wet his pants. Since you are so supremely knowledgeable about what the president thinks I suggest you offer your services to Netanyahu. The prime minister quite obviously sucks at high stakes poker and would certainly benefit from your clairvoyant expertise.
Im going to add that Netanyahus claim of US pressure is suspect. If I wanted to do something deeply unpopular Id also seek to cover myself by claiming someone more powerful forced me. That's part of what it means to be a spineless wimp. If Netanyahu was a man hed leave Obama out of it and take responsibility for his own choices and actions.
DB: All the news sources are reporting that Netanyahu was "Pressured" or "Strongly Requested" by Obama.
However, I will indulge you that it could be that Netanyahu is also bowing to Leftist pressure from Ehud Barak, who is compulsive about wanting to destroy outposts.
Either way, it speaks very poorly of Netanyahu. Yes, I will scream it from the rooftops -- you can quote me, "Netanyahu is acting like a spineless wimp of a prime minister."
My problem with Obama is that he's linking 2 completely disconnected issues which are of several different levels of magnitude. Iran is a nuclear threat to Israel, Europe and the USA.
22 settlement outposts with a total of a few dozen caravans with Jews in them on barren hilltops can not be anywhere in the same league in terms of importance.
Even my not best friend, Dennis Ross has stated there should be no linkage between the 2 in his new book.
Due to Ross' position as U.S. Secretary of State's special adviser on Iran, and since his viewpoint clashes with President Obama's worldview, Ross' superiors at the State Department do not allow him to promote the book or be interviewed about it.
DB: All the news sources are reporting that Netanyahu was "Pressured" or "Strongly Requested" by Obama.Based on what? Their own bias, or something better?
However, I will indulge you that it could be that Netanyahu is also bowing to Leftist pressure from Ehud Barak, who is compulsive about wanting to destroy outposts.Will you concede he might not be bowing at all? I'm horrified to think your prime minister could be so easily manipulated.
Either way, it speaks very poorly of Netanyahu. Yes, I will scream it from the rooftops -- you can quote me, "Netanyahu is acting like a spineless wimp of a prime minister."But in this post, you said nothing of the sort. Here it was all Obama's fault.
My problem with Obama is that he's linking 2 completely disconnected issues which are of several different levels of magnitude. Iran is a nuclear threat to Israel, Europe and the USA.
22 settlement outposts with a total of a few dozen caravans with Jews in them on barren hilltops can not be anywhere in the same league in terms of importance.I don't know his rationale, and I will concede that his rationale might be wrong. However, I believe he is doing what he thinks is best for America. That's his job. His concern isn't greater Israel, or Zionist dreams, or anything like that, nor should it be. His job is to do what he thinks is best for the US, and I think he thinks he is doing that. Netanyahu's job is to do what's best for Israel. If he bends over and does something good for the US but bad for Israel that's not Obama's fault. That's just Obama doing his job. Your complaint should be with Netanyahu for failing to do his own job.
What happens to our brothers and sisters in Eretz HaKodesh happens to ALL JEWS.
Divide and conquer is alive and well in the US adm.
NO ONE should trust ANYONE in this adm. They are laying the groundwork for the destruction G-d forbid of Israel. Deception and deceit and the modus operandi! You need only OPEN YOUR EYES to what this adm is DOING -- NOT WHAT THEY SAY.
As usual, Jameel is RIGHT ON TARGET!
So if Obama is only looking out for US interests, then based on his statements, his world view must be that Israel should be seriously weakened for the welfare of America.
But as cynical as you are, I'm sure you must agree that a strong Israel is important for the safety and continuity of Jews around the world.
And you as a Jew! should be concerned first and foremost about the weakening of Israel by Obama.
The Palestinian Authority's honoring of terrorists directly violates US conditions to receive funding, yet the US ignores its own laws and funds the PA.
---------------------------
Will the US follow its laws
and suspend funding to Abbas?
Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook
Jerusalem Post Op-Ed, May 25, 2009
As US President Barack Obama prepares to welcome Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to Washington this week, and US lawmakers debate the proposed $900 million aid package to the PA, it is once again using its money to proclaim that killing Israeli women and children is heroic.
The PA chose to name its latest computer center "after the martyr Dalal Mughrabi," who led the most deadly terror attack in the country's history. Her 1978 bus hijacking killed 37 civilians, 12 of them children, including American photographer Gail Rubin. The new center is funded by Abbas's office, which is bolstered by Western aid money. (Al-Ayyam, May 5)
US law prohibits the funding of Palestinian structures that use any portion of their budget to promote terror or honor terrorists. But $200 million of the US's proposed $900m. aid package is earmarked to go directly to the Abbas government, which regularly uses its budget to honor terrorists. In fact, this latest veneration of Mughrabi is not an isolated case, but part of a continuing pattern of honoring terrorists that targets children in particular.
Last summer the PA sponsored "the Dalal Mughrabi football championship" for kids, and a "summer camp named for martyr Dalal Mughrabi... out of honor and admiration for the martyr." It also held a party to honor exemplary students, also named "for the martyr Dalal Mughrabi," under the auspices of Abbas and at which Abbas's representative "reviewed the heroic life of the martyr [Mughrabi] (Al-Hayat al-Jadida, July 23, 24 and August 8, 2008). All these PA-funded activities were to teach kids that a killer of women and children is a role model.
TWO MONTHS AGO, 31 years to the day after the Mughrabi murders, PA TV broadcast a special program celebrating the terror attack, calling the killing of 37 civilians "one of the most important and most prominent special operations... carried out by a team of heroes and led by the heroic fighter Dalal Mughrabi" (PA TV March 11). And its not just Mughrabi who is a Palestinian hero. Despite professions in English by Abbas and other PA leaders that they reject terror, the PA has a long and odious history in Arabic of celebrating terrorists as role models and heroes, often involving US money.
USAID spent $400,000 in 2004 to build the Salakh Khalaf soccer field. After Palestinian Media Watch reported that Khalaf was the head of the Palestinian terror group that murdered 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics and two American diplomats in Sudan, USAID publicly apologized and said it would demand that the PA change the name. The name was never changed.
In 2002, US money funded renovations of the "Dalal Mughrabi school for girls". After PMW alerted the US State Department to Mughrabi's terrorist past, the funding was cancelled. Within 24 hours, the PA said the name would be changed, and the American money was reinstated. Once the work was completed, however, the school was renamed for the terrorist. It bears Mughrabi's name to this day.
...
Will the US follow its own laws, and insist that the PA stop turning killers of women and children into heroes and role models before it receives another cent of US money? Congress and Obama can send a message to the PA that the US will not fund the PA, or any part of its budget, until it proves that it has ceased promoting terrorist murderers as heroes and role models. It can demand a statement from Abbas - in public, in Arabic and in the PA media - that murdering Israelis is terror, that terrorists are neither heroes nor holy martyrs and that they will no longer be honored.
Jameel is right... Israel is committing a crime of ethnic cleansing at the behest of the US. That would be never be tolerated if the people to be kicked out of their homes were Arabs.
In fact, Israel is going to legalize an illegal Arab settlement in the Jordan Valley. Israel's government is bent on rewarding the country's enemies and punishing its friends,
Its insane!
JPOSTDespite remarks made by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in which the premier emphasized his position that settlements should expand to provide for natural growth, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday that the United States was opposed to any construction in the West Bank.
"The president [Barack Obama] was very clear when Netanyahu was here - not settlements, not outposts, not natural growth expansion," she told reporters at the White House.
I think the claim that BN is a wimp for giving in to Obama, is a gross misjudgment of reality. It is not every day that a foreign leader is able to sway the President of the United States from a number of positions well publicized before the meeting. The "4-letter" mantra, the linkage, and the no time limit, are all positions that BHO seemed to pull back on after their meeting. This is no minor accomplishment. I also think it is very likely that the outpost rampage was more a bone thrown to AB - to pacify his leftist dogs and keep his party from splitting - in order to keep the government stable. This is the price of having a leftist party in the coalition. You need to throw them a bone every once in a while to keep them happy.
DovBear: Your post says Obama is "racheting up the pressure" Can you substantiate this please? Id like to see some evidence of a threat or ultimatum before you use phrases like "racheting up the pressure"
If all he did was ask his State Department to deliver a request that's not "racheting" That's business as usual.That's right. And hey, if the Godfather makes you "an offer that you can't refuse", that's not a threat or pressure either. It's just a a businessman making you an offer. Business as usual.
And if you should wake up in the morning with a bloody horse's head lying next to you in your bed, well, there's no way to substantiate any frivolous speculation that this was done by the Godfather, in order to pressure you to accept his "offer". (And never mind those irresponsible newspapers who might make precisely such a claim). There's no solid proof, and that's all that matters.
DovBear: ...I question your use of the words decree and pressure. It doesn't sound like Netanyahu was forced. It sounds like he made a deal in which he traded something of value in exchange for something of value. That's how the world works.Sure, it was just a friendly offer. Take it or leave it, no pressure. Happens every day in the Oval Office.
Yep, you've got me convinced.
Obama whines about the North Koreans but turns up the heat on Israel.
That's how a metrosexual wimp proves his manhood!
We have a radical socialist marxist in the WH, and if you expect anything good for Israel from this you are delusional. The geula is finally headed this way.
Great post Jameel. No point in starting a conversation with dove bear. His leftist obama loving opinions are insane at best.
Anyone who does not believe Pres. B. Hussein Obama wants to seriously weaken Israel so as to make it vulnerable to destruction, is a self-deluded fool.
Just ask Obama's godfathers, Jeremiah Wright and Louis Farrakhan.
FROM CAROL HERMAN
How many ways can a man lose re-election? Bush the Elder LOST. Got only one term. Ditto for Jimmy Carter.
As to politics in America; sure, it's winner takes all, once 51% is reached. Obama won by 52%. But McCain was the worst presidential candidate to run in a very long time! So that's how Obama won.
Sure, too, the media love him. Because "president teleprompter" gives speeches. And, what else can the shambles of a media report on? There's no reporting coming out of Irak, by the way!
Today, at the NY Post, Ralph Peters actually savages Obama. Does this set the stage for the future? Probably so.
Obama has co-opted Dubya's policies. And, that means? Well, it means he thinks he can pick up republican voters! But he can also lose die-hard democratic voters. You just can't predict.
Including how, in 2010, the GOP decides to run for open posts. (More local than not. But it could wipe the grins off of Pelosi's and Reid's faces? If Americans turn away from the dems.)
Obama may be highly overrated?
I also know that news "happens" ... and then it disappears from view.
You think Obama's big Egyptian speech will even be remembered much by Labor Day? Yes. Obama is hoping Bibi goes nuts. But what if Bibi just shrugs?
Wouldn't be the first time a president mismanaged. You'd have thought the record for that democratic mishap went to Jimmy Carter.
But the future could prove this to be wrong? Obama may not hold all the cards, after all. As a matter of fact, all he's good at is "making speeches." Dubya won re-election when he couldn't even string two sentences together.
Events (just like crazy weather patterns), can affect politics. All of this is "just that." No wars have broken out. And, if anything? It's very possible as the Shi'a rise; the Saud's face defeat. Even though the Americans never put up a fight against Wahhabism.
I think it was Ralph Peters, today, who said Obama is gonna make a "short stop" in Riyadh, to bow low. Will cameras be available?
Do you feel snookered yet? When you own the ability to vote, Obama may be wrong in thinking he's pressuring Israelis to change horses; just to give Livni a chance to run, again.
When power goes to the head of a lightweight? You'll see him floating. You won't see him anchored in policies that even involve America's military.
While the Shi'a? They're new to the table. And, there's panic elsewhere. In Israel? This should be nothing new. Life goes on. IF Obama can't knock his policies out of the ballpark? 2010 could prove interesting. Just as 1994 proved "interesting" to Bill Clinton. He lost Congress.
Sorry. No tea leaves.
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