Archive for the ‘Benjamin Netanyahu’ Category

William Saletan is attempting to rewrite history. His latest column attempts to paint over President Obama’s history by saying that President Trump “rewards America’s enemies and punishes its friends.” No president rewarded its enemies more or punished America’s allies more than President Obama. Let’s remember the multiple times that President Obama attempted to punish Israel. Think of how, during the Arab Spring, he threw Egypt under the diplomatic bus. Think of the time early in his administration when he got rid of Winston Churchill’s bust from the Oval Office.

In terms of rewarding friends, President Trump is great at it. He’s the candidate that promised to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. He’s the president that moved the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. To the Jewish people, there’s no quicker way to endear yourself to them than by doing that. There’s no greater ally to the United States than Israel. Especially considering where it’s located and its history, Israel hasn’t survive without help from the United States. Watch the effusive praise Israeli PM Netanyahu lavished on President Trump during their recent meeting:

On the premise that President Trump “rewards America’s enemies and punishes its friends,” Saletan wrote “On Monday, in a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump took credit for recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. ‘Many presidents’ had talked about doing that, said Trump, but ‘I was able to do it.’ He seemed unaware that this supposed feat was a concession to Netanyahu, which previous presidents had held back as a bargaining chip.”

Actually, President Trump did it for a reason that DC elites can’t grasp. President Trump did it because he’s into keeping promises. Here’s something else that Saletan doesn’t comprehend:

That’s how Trump sees the meeting with Kim. It’s not about confronting North Korea. It’s a chance to upstage previous presidents.

Bulletin to Saletan: yes, it’s about confronting Kim. In fact, it’s all about confronting Kim Jung-Un. Next, Saletan said:

Trump ridiculed the idea that “Obama could have done that.” Obama “would not have done it,” he jeered. “Neither would Bush, and neither would Clinton. And they had their shot, and all they did was nothing.”

I don’t see this as being a controversial statement. The history is clear. Clinton, Bush and Obama kicked the can down the road. Now that NoKo is on the verge of getting deliverable nuclear weapons, President Trump has determined that there isn’t any more road left to kick that can down. He’s decided, totally unlike Susan Rice, that North Korea can’t get a nuclear weapon.

Not only didn’t Saletan prove his statement correct. It’s that there’s abundant proof that he’s just plain wrong.

This afternoon, President Trump officially announced “that America formally recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital city.” Predictably, opponents raised concerns that this might derail the (mostly imaginary) peace talks.

For more than 20 years, the ‘international community’, another fictional creation, has insisted that recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capitol would prevent a peace agreement. That’s another farce. The Palestinian Authority, aka the public version of Hamas, is the biggest impediment to Middle East peace. They’ve had the opportunity to establish a Jewish state multiple times. Each time, they’ve rejected the terms because they wouldn’t admit that Israel has a right to exist.

In his speech, President Trump said “I have determined that it is time to officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. While previous presidents have made this a major campaign promise, they failed to deliver. Today I am delivering. When I came into office I promised to look at the world’s challenges with open eyes and very fresh thinking. We have declined to acknowledge any Israeli capital, at all. But today we finally acknowledge the obvious, that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital. This is nothing more or less than a recognition of reality. It is also the right thing to do. It is something that has to be done.”

This is long overdue. Here’s Prime Minister Netanyahu’s response to President Trump’s speech:

Lost in all of the criticism of John Kerry’s long-winded speech yesterday is ‘praise’ he received from Alan Dershowitz. In an interview on Fox News’ Kelly File, Prof. Dershowitz said “this speech should win an Academy Award for best fictional presentation.”

The interview started with Sandra Smith asking Prof. Dershowitz “Do you think there was collusion here”? Prof. Dershowitz immediately replied “I think it’s obvious. First of all, if the United States did not have a role in having this go through, it would show that we had abdicated responsibility. Of course, we had a role.” President Obama and Secretary Kerry played their parts as useful idiots perfectly in letting UNSCR 2334 pass.

To put Prof. Dershowitz’s quip in perfect context, Prof. Dershowitz said “It is so undemocratic for a lame duck president, when Congress is not in session, to take out his anger and pique at another country by tying the hands of the incoming president. It’s going to make peace much, much more difficult to achieve. And this speech today, the idea that Secretary Kerry would talk about Israel not wanting to make peace, not mentioning that it offered a 2-state solution in 1937, 1948, 1967, 2000, 2005, 2008. Every time, the Palestinians have rejected it. You wouldn’t know thanks to John Kerry’s rewriting of history. This speech should win an Academy Award for best fictional presentation.”
Watch the entire interview. It’s must-see TV if you support Israel and you want a detailed, fact-filled, presentation on the subject:

Prof. Dershowitz has been on fire on this subject since President Obama, Secretary Kerry and Ambassador Power stabbed Israel in the front.

Earlier this week, Prof. Dershowitz said “What he did was so nasty, he pulled a bait and switch. He told the American public this is all about the settlements deep in the West Bank. And yet, he allowed he representative to the U.N. to abstain, which is really a vote for, a resolution that says the Jews can’t pray at the Western Wall, Jews can’t live in the Jewish Quarter [of Jerusalem] where they have lived for thousands of years. And he’s going to say, ‘Whoops! I didn’t mean that!’ Well read the resolution! You’re a lawyer, you went to Harvard Law School.”

Later in that interview, Prof. Dershowitz said “He will go down in history — President Obama — as one of the worst foreign policy presidents ever.” Hillary Clinton started the negotiations with the Iranians, which makes her one of the worst Secretaries of State in US history. Secretary Kerry, though, IMO, is worse because Hillary did this to curry favor with the left. Kerry made this decision because he’s that stupid.

Let’s remember that then-Sen. Kerry criticized President Reagan for putting Pershing II missiles into western Europe, saying that this would start an arms race that the US couldn’t win. A short 5 years later, the Soviet Union collapsed. Let’s remember that, as a presidential candidate, then-Sen. Kerry downplayed Qaddafi turning over his WMDs, saying that was inevitable. It became inevitable because Libya was afraid of getting invaded after the US finished off Iraq.

Technorati: John Kerry, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State, Samantha Power, UN Ambassador, Foreign Policy, United Nations Security Council, Democrats, Benjamin Netanyahu, Alan Dershowitz, Temple Mount, Western Wall, Jerusalem, Israel, Jewish Quarter, West Bank, Peace Process

John Kerry’s history on foreign policy throughout the years has been nothing short of a disaster. This morning, John Kerry ended his foreign policy career with a disastrous, rambling, lengthy speech at Foggy Bottom.

Let’s skip the formalities and stipulate that the Obama administration hates Benjamin Netanyahu. That’s why President Obama sent his campaign team to Israel to defeat PM Netanyahu.

It didn’t take long for PM Netanyahu’s office to respond to Kerry’s speech, saying “For more than an hour, Kerry obsessed over the issue of settlements and hardly touched on the root of the conflict - Palestinian resistance to a Jewish state within any borders.” Secretary Kerry’s inability or unwillingness to admit that the Palestinians have never negotiated in good faith with Israelis is the heart of the problem. It’s why Secretary Kerry’s diplomacy is such a failure.

Later, PM Netanyahu added “Israelis do not need to be lectured about the importance of peace by foreign leaders.” Saying that relations between this US administration and Israel are chilly is understatement. Saying that Secretary Kerry is more incompetent than Mrs. Clinton is mind-boggling. This snippet of Secretary Kerry’s speech is both naïve and frightening:

Alan Dershowitz’s op-ed obliterates Secretary Kerry’s speech. This paragraph alone obliterates Kerry’s BS:

Before June 4, 1967, Jews were forbidden from praying at the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest site. They were forbidden to attend classes at the Hebrew University at Mt. Scopus, which had been opened in 1925 and was supported by Albert Einstein. Jews could not seek medical care at the Hadassah Hospital on Mt. Scopus, which had treated Jews and Arabs alike since 1918. Jews could not live in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem, where their forbearers had built homes and synagogues for thousands of years. These Judenrein prohibitions were enacted by Jordan, which had captured by military force these Jewish areas during Israel’s War of Independence, in 1948, and had illegally occupied the entire West Bank, which the United Nations had set aside for an Arab state. When the Jordanian government occupied these historic Jewish sites, they destroyed all the remnants of Judaism, including synagogues, schools, and cemeteries, whose headstones they used for urinals. Between 1948 and 1967 the UN did not offer a single resolution condemning this Jordanian occupation and cultural devastation.

This exposes the Obama administration’s deep-seated hatred of the Netanyahu government. The Obama administration knew that this resolution would tip the international scales into the Palestinians’ favor. Here’s Prof. Dershowitz’s explanation of that:

But that has now changed with the adoption of the Security Council Resolution. The UN has now determined that, subject to any further negotiations and agreements, the Jewish areas of Jerusalem recaptured from Jordan in 1967 are not part of Israel. Instead, according to the resolution, they are territories being illegally occupied by Israel, and any building in these areas — including places for prayer at the Western Wall, access roads to Mt. Scopus, and synagogues in the historic Jewish Quarter — “constitutes a flagrant violation under international law.” If that indeed is the status quo, absent “changes . . . agreed by the parties through negotiations,” then what incentives do the Palestinians have to enter negotiations?

President Obama’s hostility towards Israel has never been more openly displayed than during this past week. Without question, he’s been the most hostile, anti-Israel president in US history.

Technorati: John Kerry, Barack Obama, UN Security Council, Resolution 2334, United Nations, Palestinian Authority, Democrats, Benjamin Netanyahu, Alan Dershowitz, Donald Trump, Wailing Wall, Jerusalem, Jewish Quarter, Two-State Solution, Israel