4.Why Did Kerry Lie About Israeli Blame? By Jonathan Tobin

The Secretary of State knew exactly what he was doing — but don’t confuse that with being competent

http://www.jewishworldreview. com/ | In testimony before the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, Secretary of State John Kerry performed a post-mortem on the recent collapse of the Middle East peace talks. According to Kerry, the Palestinian refusal to keep negotiating past April & their decision to flout their treaty commitments by returning to efforts to gain recognition for their non-existent state from the United Nations was all the fault of one decision made by Israel. As the New York Times reports:

Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday that Israel’s announcement of 700 new apartments for Jewish settlers in East Jerusalem precipitated the bitter impasse in peace negotiations last week between Israel & the Palestinians.

While Mr. Kerry said both sides bore responsibility for “unhelpful” actions, he noted that the publication of tenders for housing units came four days after a deadline passed for Israel to release Palestinian prisoners & complicated Israel’s own deliberations over whether to extend the talks.

“Poof, that was the moment,” Mr. Kerry said in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Poof? To say that this evaluation of the situation is disingenuous would be the understatement of the century. Kerry knows very well that the negotiations were doomed once the Palestinians refused to sign on to the framework for future talks he suggested even though it centered them on the 1967 lines that they demand as the basis for borders.

Why? Because Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas wouldn’t say the two little words —“Jewish state”—that would make it clear he intended to end the conflict.

Since the talks began last year after Abbas insisted on the release of terrorist murderers in order to get them back to the table, the Palestinians haven’t budged an inch on a single issue.

Thus, to blame the collapse on the decision to build apartments in Gilo—a 40-year-old Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem that would not change hands even in the event a peace treaty were ever signed & where Israel has never promised to stop building—is, to put it mildly, a mendacious effort to shift blame away from the side that seized the first pretext to flee talks onto the one that has made concessions in order to get the Palestinians to sit at the table.

But why would Kerry utter such a blatant falsehood about the process he has championed?

The answer is simple. Kerry doesn’t want to blame the Palestinians for walking out because to do so would be a tacit admission that his critics were right when they suggested last year that he was embarking on a fool’s errand.

The division between the Fatah-run West Bank & Hamas-ruled Gaza has created a dynamic which makes it almost impossible for Abbas to negotiate a deal that would recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders were drawn even if he wanted to.

Since Kerry hopes to entice the Palestinians back to the talks at some point, blaming Israel also gives him leverage to demand more concessions from the Jewish state to bribe Abbas to negotiate. Being honest about the Palestinian stance would not only undermine the basis for the talks but also make it harder to justify the administration’s continued insistence on pressuring the Israelis rather than seek to force Abbas to alter his intransigent positions.

Seen in that light, Kerry probably thinks no harm can come from blaming the Israelis who have always been the convenient whipping boys of the peace process no matter what the circumstances. But he’s wrong about that too.

Just as the Clinton administration did inestimable damage to the credibility of the peace process & set the stage for another round of violence by whitewashing Yassir Arafat’s support for terrorism & incitement to hatred in the 1990s, so, too, do Kerry’s efforts to portray Abbas as the victim rather than the author of this fiasco undermine his efforts for peace.

So long as the Palestinians pay no price for their refusal to give up unrealistic demands for a Jewish retreat from Jerusalem as well as the “right of return” for the 1948 refugees & their descendants & a refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state & end the conflict, peace is impossible no matter what the Netanyahu government does.

Appeasing them with lies about Israel, like the efforts of some to absolve Arafat & Abbas for saying no to peace in 2000, 2001, & 2008, only makes it easier for the PA to go on saying no. Whether they are doing so in the hope of extorting more concessions from Israel or because, as is more likely, they have no intention of making peace on any terms, the result is the same.

Telling the truth about the Palestinians might make Kerry look foolish for devoting so much time & effort to a process that never had a chance. But it might lay the groundwork for future success in the event that the sea change in Palestinian opinion that might make peace possible were to occur.

Falsely blaming Israel won’t bring that moment any closer.

Why Did Kerry Lie About Israeli Blame? By Jonathan Tobin

5.Obama’s Durban gambit By Caroline B. Glick

At Durban, both the UN-sponsored NGO conclave & the UN’s governmental conference passed declarations denouncing Israel as a racist state. The NGO conference called for a coordinated international campaign aimed at delegitimizing Israel & the right of the Jewish people to self-determination, & belittling the Holocaust. The NGO conference also called for curbs on freedom of expression throughout the world in order to prevent critical discussion of Islam. As far as the world’s leading NGOs — including Amnesty International & Human Rights Watch — were concerned, critical discussions of Islam are inherently racist.

In defending US participation in the Durban II planning sessions, Gordon Duguid, the State Department’s spokesman argued, “If you are not engaged, you don’t have a voice.”

He continued, “We wanted to put forward our view & see if there is some way we can make the document [which sets the agenda & dictates the outcome of the Durban II conference] a better document than it appears it is going to be.”

While this seems like a noble goal, both the State Department & the Obama White House ought to know that there is absolutely no chance that they can accomplish it. This is the case for two reasons.

First, since the stated purpose of the Durban II conference is to oversee the implementation of the first Durban conference’s decisions, & since those decisions include the anti-Israel assertion that Israel is a racist state, it is clear that the Durban II conference is inherently, & necessarily anti-Israel.

The second reason that both the State Department & the White House must realize that they are powerless to affect the conference’s agenda is because that agenda was already set in previous planning sessions chaired by the likes of Libya, Cuba, Iran & Pakistan. & that agenda includes multiple assertions of the basic illegitimacy of the Jewish people’s right to self-determination. The conference agenda also largely adopted the language of the 2001 NGO conference that called for the criminalization of critical discussion of Islam as a form of hate speech & racism. That is, the 2009 conference’s agenda is not only openly anti-Israel, it is also openly pro-tyranny & so, seemingly antithetical to US interests.

Beyond all that, assuming that the Obama administration truly wishes to change the agenda, the fact is that the US is powerless to do so. As was the case in 2001, so too, today, the Islamic bloc, supported by the Third World bloc, has an automatic voting majority. Beyond chipping away at the margins, the US has no ability whatsoever to change the conference’s agenda or expected outcome.

Since it came into office a month ago, every single Middle East policy the Obama administration has announced has been antithetical to Israel’s national security interests.

From President Barack Obama’s intense desire to appease Iran’s mullahs in open discussions; to his stated commitment to establishing a Palestinian state as quickly as possible despite the Palestinians’ open rejection of Israel’s right to exist & support for terrorism; to his expressed support for the so-called Saudi peace plan which would require Israel to commit national suicide by contracting to within indefensible borders & accepting millions of hostile, foreign born Arabs as citizens & residents of the rump Jewish state; to his decision to end US sanctions against Syria & return the US ambassador to Damascus; to his plan to withdraw US forces from Iraq & so give Iran an arc of uninterrupted control extending from Iran to Lebanon, every single concrete policy Obama has enunciated harms Israel.

At the same time, none of the policies that Obama has adopted can be construed as directed against Israel. In & of themselves, none can be viewed as expressing specific hostility towards Israel. Rather they are expressions of naiveté, or ignorance, or — at worst — deliberate denial of the nature of the problems of the Arab & Islamic world on the part of Obama & his advisors.

The same cannot be said of the administration’s decision to send its delegation to the Durban II planning session this past week in Geneva. Unlike every other Obama policy, this policy is a hostile act against Israel. This is true first of all because the decision was announced in the face of repeated Israeli requests that the US join Israel & Canada in boycotting the Durban II conference.

Some could chalk up the US’s rejection of Israel’s urgent entreaties as an honest difference of opinion. But what lies behind Israel’s requests for a US boycott is not a partisan agenda, but a clearheaded acknowledgement that the Durban II conference is inherently devoted to the delegitimization & destruction of the Jewish state. & by joining in the planning sessions, the US has become a full participant in legitimizing & so advancing this overtly anti-Jewish agenda.

On Thursday, Professor Anne Bayefsky, the senior editor of the EyeontheUN website demonstrated that by participating in the planning sessions the US is accepting the conference’s anti-Israel agenda. Bayefsky reported that at the planning session in Geneva on Thursday, the Palestinian delegation proposed that a paragraph be added to the conference’s agenda. Their draft, “calls for implementation of …the advisory opinion of the ICJ [International Court of Justice] on the wall, [i.e., Israel’s security fence], & the international protection of Palestinian people throughout the occupied Palestinian territory.”

The American delegation raised no objection to the Palestinian draft.

Issued in 2004, the ICJ’s advisory opinion on Israel’s security fence claimed that Israel has no right to self-defense against Palestinian terrorism. At the time, both the US & Israel rejected the ICJ’s authority to issue an opinion on the subject.

On Thursday, by not objecting to this Palestinian draft, not only did the US effectively accept the ICJ’s authority, for practical purposes it granted the anti-Israel claim that Jews may be murdered with impunity.

This assertion aligns naturally with the language already in the Durban II agenda which calls Israel’s Law of Return a racist law. This law, which grants automatic Israeli citizenship to any Jew who wishes to live here, is the embodiment of Jewish peoplehood & the vehicle through which the Jewish people have built our nation-state. In alleging that the Law of Return is racist, the Durban II conference asserts that the Jews are not a people & we have no right to self-determination in our homeland. & Thursday, by participating in the process of demonizing Israel & its people, the US lent its own credibility to this bigoted campaign.

Obama’s spokesmen & defenders claim that by participating in the planning sessions in Geneva, the administration is doing nothing more than attempting to prevent the conference from being the anti-Jewish diplomatic pogrom it was in 2001. If they are unsuccessful, they will boycott the conference. No harm done.

But this claim rings hollow.

As Bayefsky & others argued this week, by entering into the Durban preparatory process, the US has done two things. First, it has made it all but impossible for European states like France, England, the Czech Republic & the Netherlands, which were all considering boycotting the conference from doing so. They cannot afford to be seen as more opposed to its anti-Israel & anti-freedom agenda than Israel’s closest ally & the world’s greatest democracy. So just by participating in the planning sessions the US has legitimized a clearly bigoted, morally illegitimate process, making it impossible for Europe to disengage.

Second, through its behavior at the Geneva planning sessions this week, the US has demonstrated that State Department protestations aside, the administration has no interest in changing the agenda in any serious way. The US delegation’s decision to accept the Palestinian draft, as well its silence in the face of Iran’s rejection of a clause in the conference declaration that mentioned the Holocaust, show the US did not join the planning session to change the tenor of the conference. The US is participating in the planning sessions because it wishes to participate in the conference.

The Durban II conference, like its predecessor is part & parcel of a campaign to coordinate the diplomatic & legal war against the Jewish state. By walking out of the 2001 Durban conference, & refusing to participate, support or finance any aspect of this UN-sponsored campaign until last Saturday, for seven years the US made clear that it opposed this war & believed its aim of destroying Israel is unacceptable.

By embracing the Durban campaign now, it is possible that the Obama administration will water down some of the most noxious language in conference’s draft declaration. But this doesn’t balance out the harm US participation will cause to Israel, or to the Jewish people. By participating in the conference, the US today is effectively giving American support to the war against the Jewish state.

The open hostility towards Israel expressed by the Obama administration’s decision to participate in the Durban process should be a red flag for both the Israeli government & for Israel’s supporters in the US. Both Israel & its Jewish & non-Jewish supporters must openly condemn the administration’s move & demand that it reverse its decision immediately.

For the past two years, the American Jewish Committee has been instrumental in convincing the American Jewish community to reject repeated Israeli requests that they call for a US boycott of Durban II. To secure US participation over Israel’s objections, the AJC even went so far as to sign a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asking her not to boycott the conference.

In return for the AJC’s labors, its senior operative Felice Gaer is now a member of the US delegation in Geneva. Happily ensconced in the Swiss conference room where the Holocaust is denied, the Jewish people’s right to self-determination is reviled, & Israel’s right to defend itself is rejected, Gaer now sits silently all the while using the fact of her membership in the US delegation as proof that the Obama administration is serious about protecting Israel at Durban II.

Whatever the AJC may have gained for its support for Durban II, Israel & its supporters have clearly been harmed.

Some might argue that no Israeli interest is served by openly condemning the White House. But when the White House is participating in a process that legitimizes & so advances the war against the Jewish state, such condemnation is not only richly deserved but required. It is the administration, not Israel that threw down the gauntlet. If Israel & its supporters refrain from vigorously criticizing this move, we guarantee its repetition.

JWR contributor Caroline B. Glick is the senior Middle East Fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC & the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post.

Obama’s Durban gambit By Caroline B. Glick

View of the construction site of the new Palestinian city of Rawabi, on February 23, 2014.

Avi Issacharoff The Times of Israel’s Middle East analyst, fills the same role for Walla, the leading portal in Israel.

A year ago the construction of the first 700 housing units of the first planned Palestinian city, Rawabi, north of Ramallah, was completed. But none of the apartment owners have moved into their purchased homes since the newly built city has no access to water.

Why? It seems that the Israeli government is delaying the connection of the city to a water pipeline. Why? That’s difficult to explain.

At first glance, logic dictates that the quick populating of Rawabi would serve everyone: Palestinians & Israelis, even those on the right & the settlers. The explanation is simple: This is a city built at a higher standard than any other city in the West Bank, impressive even in comparison to cities in Israel. At least theoretically, Palestinians moving there would not want to take part in any sort of armed conflict with Israel, certainly not an intifada.

This city will create, & already has created, thousands of jobs that, again, will distance the workers from the cycle of violence. Therefore, the more Palestinians that move there, & into any subsequent projects, the less likely the danger of widespread conflict in the West Bank. For the Palestinians who have already purchased apartments in the city, it’s clear that a move to Rawabi will improve their standard of living & benefit them economically.

Evidently, however, some Israeli decision-makers don’t see it that way.

For many years, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon postponed approval to connect Rawabi to water, since he wanted the Israeli-Palestinian Joint Water Committee to approve water for the city as well as for several settlements. The goal was to regulate the Israeli-Palestinian water sector in a way that would not cause Israel any political problems in the future.

The Palestinians were not in favor. In their eyes, the convening of the committee (under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu) is a way to obtain, via the PA & Rawabi, legitimacy for the allocation of water to the settlements.

View of the construction site of the new Palestinian city of Rawabi on February 23, 2014 (Photo credit: Hadas Parush/Flash 90)

To his credit, the defense minister was ultimately convinced of the necessity of populating the city, & three weeks ago unilaterally approved the connection of Rawabi to the sources of the Mekorot water company. The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, who is considered the sovereign Israeli government figure in the West Bank, urged that the project be completed as quickly as possible.

Mordechai was one of the initial proponents of supplying water to the city, primarily for the security interests it offers to Israel. But then, another political figure decided to intervene: Minister of National Infrastructure, Energy & Water, Silvan Shalom, who is responsible for the water supply of Rawabi, is postponing the supply.

A tour of the upscale Palestinian city

There are many fine aspects to Rawabi. To start with, the level of design & precision of everything constructed here is outstanding. It boasts a magnificent amphitheater built for shows & concerts with a capacity of 15,000.

And, then there are the views, where one can see as far as the Azrieli towers in Tel Aviv & the Israeli coast, as well as Modiin & Ramallah.

An urban commercial center is currently being constructed & will include a seven-theater cinema, a swimming pool, a mall reminiscent of Jerusalem’s Mamilla, cafes & restaurants, & fashion boutiques.

A model of Rawabi’s mosque in the visitors’ center (photo credit: Elhanan Miller/Times of Israel)

Said the deputy CEO of Rawabi, Amir Dajani, second to the entrepreneur & founder of initiative Bashar al-Masri: “We want to build a new tourist destination. Instead of going to the Old City in Jerusalem or Nablus, or traveling to Jaffa, people will say: ‘Let’s go to Rawabi.’”

Based on the plans, there will also be a recreational center, a hotel with 250 rooms, a soccer & athletics stadium, three schools & a large medical center.

“Another one of our goals is to leverage the Palestinian economy,” he continued. “We’ve created 8,000 jobs here, from janitors to contractors. We have a cement & an iron factory, & we will create permanent positions for 3,000-5,000 people: teachers, doctors, entrepreneurs, businessmen. We will create a technological incubator; we will recruit workers from Birzeit University, which is five minutes away, & from al-Najah National University in Nablus, some 25 minutes away. Rawabi will be a magnet to pioneers.”

According to Dajani, the city will target educated, young middle-class couples.

“We are contributing to the construction of the Palestinian state. We want to build new cities, & the success of Rawabi will certainly positively influence the Palestinian economy,” he said.

When asked what other cities are in the works, Dajani smiles & dodges the question elegantly. “Let’s focus meanwhile on Rawabi’s success,” he responded.

“We are talking about a project that will shape history. One-third of our engineers & architects are women. This is unprecedented in the Arab & Palestinian world. This is a tremendous experience for them, to plan & build a city, just like the men. We started here from scratch; we had to think of everything: infrastructure, media, medical services, a fire department, education.

Dajani continued: “This is going to be an environmentally friendly city. We recycle everything here. There will be no satellite dishes on the rooftops, no water towers, such as you see in other Palestinian neighborhoods. A computerized system will see to the recycling of the water, & to use the excess drinking water to water the city parks. We purchased the most technologically advanced recycling system.

“Public transportation will run on electricity, will be free to the residents of the city, & only visitors will be asked to pay. We are also planning an industrial area, although we haven’t yet received the approval from the Israeli side. However, we have already paved the roads leading to it,” he added.

Apartment prices in Rawabi are not astronomical, not even compared to Ramallah or Bethlehem. “The simple apartments will cost around $80,000, & the prices will reach about $200,000, depending on the size, of course. Right now, in the first stage, there are medium-sized buildings, but in the next stage there will also be duplexes with gardens.

“Overall, we are planning 6,000 housing units, which will house some 25,000 people,” Dajani said.

What about luxury villas. “Villas? Let’s start with drinking water, then we can talk about villas.”

Pipes but no water

The huge initiative was launched in 2008. It began with the paving of several dirt roads, & slowly, a small & manicured city rose before the eyes of its neighbors — the village of Atara & the settlement of Atarot.

But it has been four years now that al-Masri & his deputy Dajani have been trying to get the approval of the authorities, both Israeli & Palestinian, to supply the city with water.

Palestinian entrepreneur Bashar al-Masri seen in front of a view of his residential project of Rawabi, on February 23, 2014 (Photo credit: Hadas Parush/Flash 90)

“The water issue chases us like a dark cloud,” Dajani said.

We drive along the water line his men have set up in the areas under PA control (Area A), & Palestinian civilian control (Area B), until the place where the pipeline abruptly ends — precisely the spot that becomes Area C, under Israeli control. From here, the Israeli authorities have not permitted them to continue.

“I need a 3.5-km-long pipe to connect it to the Mekorot water company in Umm Safa. I have already set up a 2.4-km pipe through areas A & B. All I’m missing is the 1.1 kilometers that is supposed to go through Area C,” he said.

He pointed out the huge water reservoir, built about half a kilometer from the city, which is meant to ensure efficient water supply to its taps.

“We turned to the Palestinian Water Authority to obtain the Israeli approval in a way that would ensure we received water from a stable source, but to date, we have not received it. Why? I’m not a politician. I deal with the economy.”

The Israeli-Palestinian Joint Water Committee is supposed to convene, in accordance with the 1995 interim agreements, to enable water supply to projects such as these, & to the settlements. But since 2010, the Palestinians have refused to convene the committee since they are not willing to approve water for settlements.

Meanwhile, it should be stressed, there is no delay in supplying water to the settlements — Mekorot connects any legal Jewish home in the West Bank to water. But the Israeli political leaders fear the future consequences of the committee failing to meet, such as allegations that Israel is “stealing” the water supply of the West Bank.

The completion of the first stage of construction in Rawabi was likely seen by Ya’alon as an opportunity to twist the arm of the PA. He delayed water approval in order to force the PA to agree to convene the Joint Water Committee, & approve the transfer of water to the settlements & Rawabi. But the PA has refused to play along.

Palestinian construction workers carve Jerusalem stones in the site of the new Palestinian city of Rawabi, on February 23, 2014 (Photo credit: Hadas Parush/Flash 90)

For the Palestinian politicians, too, Rawabi is a playing field. The PA doesn’t seem to care that this remarkable project is delayed, in part because it is a private initiative by a wealthy businessman who is not a member of the corrupt Palestinian political system. So the PA is standing its ground & refusing to hold the committee meeting.

Ultimately, as noted, Ya’alon recognized the positive potential for Israel that this city holds, & approved the water supply unilaterally. President Reuven Rivlin said this week that the water supply to Rawabi is an Israeli interest. But now Shalom is blocking it. He maintains that the issue must receive the approval of the joint committee.

“Minister Shalom & the Water Authority maintain that a unilateral approval without the convening of the committee, which several Israeli officials have been suggesting & pushing, will undermine the basis for regulating the continued operation of the Joint Water Committee. Moreover, in a broader political sense, the move will likely lead to the complete dissolution of the Israeli-Palestinian water agreements & harm the Israel water sector,” a statement from Shalom’s office said.

“In addition, it would harm the cooperation of the professional echelons, the cooperation that today helps protect our water sources & prevents damage to our aquifers. We would be happy if the Palestinians would change their minds & convene the committee, which will discuss projects on both sides,” the statement concluded.

& so Rawabi is still dry.

Waterless, the first planned Palestinian city sits empty

7.“How Ugly Can It Get?” by Arlene Kushner February 22, 2015

Before I get to the ugly stuff, let me begin with a lovely scene: Jerusalem in the snow.

The snow fell this past Thursday night, accumulating to the better part of a foot & enfolding our beautiful city in a mantle of white. It is gone now because of heavy rains over Shabbat.

Credit: thejc.com

The windmill you see in this picture is a Jerusalem landmark. Built in the Mishkenot Sha’ananim neighborhood – the first Jewish neighborhood outside the walls of the Old City – in 1857, it was restored to working order a couple of years ago.

From the sublime – the beauty of Jerusalem in the snow – to the ridiculous. Because ridiculous is how I see the current political hoopla, which, yes, is also very, very ugly.

The issue is the scheduled talk by Prime Minister Netanyahu on March 3 in the Congress, on the subject of the negotiations with Iran. Should he go? Is he damaging Israel’s relationship with the US by doing this? Has the focus on Iran been lost because of the politics? Is this a partisan issue in the US, pitting Democrats against Republicans? & on & on & on…

Now it has been announced that Obama & Biden & Kerry may boycott the AIPAC conference, which is being held at the time Netanyahu will be in Washington.

& I doubt we’ve seen the end of this yet.

I am not going to belabor every step of this on-going maneuvering. It would be a waste of my time & yours.

For all who have eyes to see, the situation that underlies this is quite clear: Obama is seeking to throw up a political smokescreen. He wants to make things difficult for Netanyahu – to make him look small & less competent, to seem to be a trouble maker – because he desperately does not want the Congress or the American people to give credence to what our prime minister is going to say. For what Bibi intends to say stands a reasonable chance of undercutting the negotiations.

This is not about personal animosity between Obama & Netanyahu, it is about an existential issue.

It is not really a partisan issue, dividing Democrats & Republicans, either. A piece written in Algemeiner last week estimated that 98% of the Senate & 95% of the House of Representatives will attend. “Despite two weeks of intense anti-Netanyahu leaks, insults, & pressure, the White House has so far succeeded in persuading only a handful of Democratic members of Congress to stay away from the speech.”

http://www.algemeiner.com/ 2015/02/18/obamas-boycott-of- netanyahu-is-collapsing/

I would say it is more an issue that divides the Congress from the White House. Which is why Congress should be given the courtesy of having Netanyahu share directly the information he has.

As to damaging our relationship with the US… In the end, what is being damaged is our relationship with one particular president, not our relationship with the US. Both Congress & the American people are with us. Note that just today Israel announced the purchase of 14 additional next-generation US-made F-35 fighter jets, to be delivered in 2016.

Were Israel to adhere to whatever Obama wanted of us now, it would be suicidal. In Hebrew we say, ein breira – no choice. Obama has to be challenged. Netanyahu has made the point repeatedly now that we have displeased American presidents several times over the years, & yet have sustained a solid relationship with the US. It started, our prime minister reminds us, with Ben Gurion, who flouted President Truman’s wish that he not announce Israeli independence when he did.

I am one of those who believes Netanyahu absolutely must not back down now – rescheduling his talk or changing the venue. There can be no backing down at this point. There has been so much talk about how politicized this issue has become. But for Bibi to decline to speak to Congress as scheduled would also be a political act, because of how the situation has been framed. He would be seen as weak, & Obama as the winner. And he would be letting down those who have spoken out for him to come.

Senator Marc Rubio (R-FL) makes yet another point: it is exceedingly important for Israel’s enemies to see that the Congress stands with Israel, for if they believe Congress is not with Israel as strongly as was once the case, they will be emboldened. He implores all members of Congress to be present, to provide the support that Israel deserves. They must not be distracted, he says, by the minor issues such as the way Boehner extended the invitation. Israel has been the most loyal of allies, & is in trouble now – & the members of Congress must provide public backing with their presence.

Please, see & then widely share Senator Rubio’s extraordinary speech:

https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=ODjcm7U4lo0#t=148

Credit: Newstalkflorida

The public figure who most recently voiced support for what Netanyahu is doing is former NY City mayor, Rudy Guiliani. In an interview with Israel Hayom, he said (emphasis added):

“Netanyahu’s speech is absolutely essential. If I had been in his position, & the third most important person in the U.S. [the speaker of the House of Representatives] invited me to speak before Congress to explain the danger of a nuclear Iran — of course I’d accept the invitation & come. You have to understand that I, as an American, fear a nuclear Iran no less than the prime minister of Israel & no less than the people of Israel. Think for a moment — a bad agreement with Iran would give a group of irrational & insane people nuclear capability. If I were Netanyahu, I would go to the ends of the earth to discuss Iran’s nuclear program — on any stage I was given & in every situation. In our case, it’s the Congress….

“I met with Bibi privately on two occasions two weeks ago. I told him I would be doing the exact same thing if I were him. I told him that the American people respect him & agree with him, even if Obama & his administration are trying to paint a different picture. Netanyahu is doing exactly what he needs to do: to come & speak out against a bad agreement, even if the government doesn’t like it. Most Americans agree with Netanyahu on the Iranian issue.”

http://www.israelhayom.com/ site/newsletter_article.php? id=23673

Credit: AP. Former NY City mayor Rudy Guiliani.

In the course of this on-going political melodrama, we have just learned that Netanyahu has been accused of “leaking” information about the negotiations. In fact, Obama has now admitted that he has been withholding information about the negotiations from Israel.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/ 2015/ari-lieberman/obama- withholds-iran-negotiation- info-from-israel-1/

Obama’s claim is that Netanyahu would “cherry pick” the information he wished to leak without placing it “in context.” He claims that Israel does not know the full context of negotiations, & thus is in no position to critique what’s going on. But truth lies elsewhere: Obama does not want anyone to know how bad the deal is.

As to not having full context, there are certain elements of what is going on that have been made public & are clear: that the infrastructure for enriching uranium would be left in place, that there are no restrictions on building of the missiles that would deliver a nuclear warhead, etc.

Key here is the matter of a confidential report from the IAEA, which has been obtained by AP & Reuters. Any deal with Iran that lifted all sanctions is supposed to be predicated on the ability of the IAEA to monitor its program. But, says, the IAEA, Iran is being “evasive & ambiguous” as it tries to do a full assessment of the Iranian nuclear program.

In the face of this evidence of the unreliability of Iran, world powers should not be wooing Iran for a deal, declared Netanyahu.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/ pm-stop-courting-an-iran- thats-refusing-to-come-clean- on-its-nuke-program/

Not exactly “cherry picking,” is it? [Nukes aren’t cherries, are they?: Gail]

I note with more than passing interest that Sunni Arab states have been voicing concern to the US about the impending deal with Iran.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/ arab-nations-said-deeply- concerned-over-nuclear- agreement/

What I wonder is whether these states would be speaking out if Netanyahu had not done so first.

Of course, they are not saying explicitly that they agree with the Israeli prime minister. Perish the thought. But this is implicit in what’s happening. & as I see it, it shifts the dynamic. While Obama is prepared to come out swinging when the critic is Netanyahu, his tone is more deferential with the Arabs.

In fact, we’re hearing something now that we haven’t heard in a while. For some time Obama has been saying that a deal is close, is possible. But yesterday, Kerry declared that there were “significant gaps” & that the US was prepared to walk away if terms were not satisfactory. Doesn’t mean they don’t still intend to push ahead (they do), but this is a different tone.

http://www.ynetnews.com/ articles/0,7340,L-4629230,00. html

That the US is pushing ahead was made evident as Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif & Secretary of State John Kerry were meeting today for “intensive talks.”

I end with this piece, “Divided over that speech, not over a lousy deal with Iran,” by David Horovitz, editor of The Times of Israel (emphasis added):

“It is time to reframe the dispute. We are not witnessing what is being widely depicted as a battle between the Obama administration & the Netanyahu government over the timing, content & ostensible partisan implications of the prime minister’s scheduled March 3 address to Congress over Iran. We are, rather, watching the collapse of trust between the two leaderships over the critical issue of thwarting Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions.

“The looming deal is similarly inexplicable to the political rivals of Netanyahu who are campaigning to oust him in general elections on March 17…

”Where [Zionist camp head Bujie] Herzog & other Israeli party leaders differ with Netanyahu is over his handling of the crisis. Like Herzog, centrist Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid does not underestimate the Iranian threat. They just both think that Netanyahu is acting counterproductively & for domestic political reasons by preparing to lobby publicly against Obama in Congress, when they say he ought to be working to shift the administration more discreetly, behind the scenes.

“Of course, party leaders like Herzog & Lapid have to publicly criticize & castigate the prime minister; we’re less than a month from elections, & their entire domestic political goal is to undermine Israeli public confidence in his leadership so as to unseat him…”

No, no. There is no “of course” here! Horovitz elaborates on this point:

“In truth, it can hardly be doubted that Netanyahu has tried to impact the president’s stance in years of one-on-one conversations & in the endless top-level contacts between his officials & the Obama administration. The nature of the imminent deal — whose terms cannot be independently verified, but are profoundly troubling to such diplomatic veterans as Henry Kissinger & George Shultz — would indicate that private argument & entreaty have failed…

”In these final weeks of the election campaign, the face-off with Obama has become one more issue for the challengers to use against Netanyahu…

”Three years ago at a graveside in Jerusalem, the prime minister eulogized his father, historian BenZion Netanyahu, for having ‘taught me, Father, to look at reality head-on, to understand what it holds & to come to the necessary conclusions.’

“The prime minister says it would have been unthinkable to turn down the invitation to set out his concerns in the world’s most resonant parliamentary forum.

“Israel & those who care for Israel should not be blindsided by the battling between Netanyahu & Obama, or between Netanyahu & his domestic rivals, over the Congressional speech.

“They should be sounding the alarm to prevent a deal that would allow Iran to maintain an enrichment capability & other core aspects of its nuclear program.

“Those who care for Israel, in short, should look at reality head-on, understand what it holds, & come to the necessary conclusions…”

http://www.timesofisrael.com/ divided-over-that-speech-not- over-a-lousy-deal-with-iran/

This, then, is part of the picture of how ugly it can get, & writing about this embarrasses me even as it infuriates me. The existential issues of a nuclear Iran transcend political election issues. Or should. Yes, yes, I know about campaigning. But it seems to me nonetheless that a maximum show of public support for the prime minister as he does battle for the sake of Israel would be in order. I would suggest that the very fact of how self-serving these candidates – Bujie, Livni, Lapid, et al – are needs to be factored into assessments of their qualifications for office.

© Arlene Kushner. This material is produced by Arlene Kushner, functioning as an independent journalist. Permission is granted for it to be reproduced only with proper attribution. If it is reproduced & emphasis is added, the fact that it has been added must be noted. See my website at www.arlenefromisrael.info Contact Arlene at akushner18@gmail.com

“How Ugly Can It Get?” by Arlene Kushner

FREEMAN CENTER BROADCAST FEBRUARY 22, 2014

For Zion’s sake I will not hold my peace & for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest.” Isaiah 62

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8.OBAMA APPOINTS MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD-LINKED MUSLIM TO HEAD ‘CENTER FOR STRATEGIC COUNTERTERRORISM COMMUNICATIONS’ BY Robert Spencer

Source: jihadwatch.org FEBRUARY 20, 2015 · 12:00 AM

Rashad Hussain

Rashad Hussain was previously the Obama administration’s special envoy to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the thuggish international organization that is engaged in a full-scale campaign to intimidate Western governments into adopting hate speech codes that will effectively quash criticism of Islam – including jihad violence perpetrated in its name. Rashad Hussain is an apposite choice for this position, since several years ago he defended a notorious U.S.-based leader of a jihad terrorist group.

But someone doesn’t want you to know that, & made a clumsy attempt to cover it up.

In 2004, Rashad Hussain, then a Yale law student, declared that the investigation & prosecution of University of South Florida professor Sami al-Arian, who ultimately pled guilty to charges involving his activities as a leader of the terror group Palestinian Islamic Jihad & was recently deported, was a “politically motivated persecution” designed “to squash dissent.”

Hussain’s remarks in support of Al-Arian were published in the jihad-enabling Washington Report on Middle East Affairs in November 2004. But now all that has gone down the memory hole. The Washington Report’s archived version of this November 2004 article lacks two paragraphs that were included in the original version: the ones quoting Rashad Hussain. Otherwise the article is unchanged.

The Washington Report editors, caught red-handed, decided to brazen it out, & blame their accusers – a tried-and-true tactic that is also frequently employed by jihadists in the West. They insist that there was no cover-up, & anyone who thinks otherwise is a venomous Islamophobe: according to CNS News, “WRMEA news editor & executive director Delinda Hanley denied there was a ‘cover-up,’ & implied that anti-Muslim discrimination was behind the fact this was now being raised.”

Sure. It’s just “anti-Muslim discrimination” to be concerned about Rashad Hussain’s support for Al-Arian, a vicious suicide-bombing supporter who chanted “Death to America” & “Death to Israel,” & clearly meant it. When two Islamic Jihad suicide bombers killed eighteen people in Israel in 1995, Al-Arian called them “two mujahidin martyred for the sake of God.”

But there was no cover-up! It was all a mistake, you see: according to the Washington Report now, Sami Al-Arian’s daughter, Laila Al-Arian, actually said the words that were attributed to Rashad Hussain.

But this explanation doesn’t make sense, since the article was altered just to remove the quotes, not to change the name of the person quoted. Also, the author of the original story, Shereen Kandil, contradicts the Washington Report’s explanation, telling Patrick Goodenough of CNS:

“When I worked as a reporter at WRMEA, I understood how important it was to quote the right person, & accurately. I have never mixed my sources & wouldn’t have quoted Rashad Hussain if it came from Laila al-Arian. If the editors from WRMEA felt they wanted to remove Rashad Hussain from the article, my assumption is that they did it for reasons other than what you’re saying. They never once contacted me about an ‘error’ they claim I made.’”

Was the Washington Report covering for Rashad Hussain at its own discretion, or at the behest of someone else? Did Barack Obama himself know about this cover-up? Did someone in the White House or the State Department find out about Hussain’s defense of Al-Arian, & act to cover for the bright young special envoy before this defense was discovered & he became known as a terror apologist? We will probably never know. & now Rashad Hussain heads up a key center supposedly devoted to “countering violent extremism.” What could possibly go wrong?

“Report: Obama’s New Anti-ISIS Propaganda Head Tied to Muslim Brotherhood,” by Edwin Mora, Breitbart, February 17, 2015 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

The Obama administration is revamping its efforts to combat Islamic State (ISIS or ISIL) propaganda. ISIS & its supporters produce “as many as 90,000 tweets & other social media responses every day,” reports The New York Times.

An empowered Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications, currently a small component of the U.S. State Department, will spearhead the new campaign to fight the ISIS propaganda machine.

Rashad Hussain, a Muslim American with close ties to the White House, will replace Alberto Fernandez, the center’s director, according to The Times.

Hussain, who has reportedly participated in events linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, currently serves as Obama’s special envoy to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. He will take over when Fernandez retires in April.

“Hussain, a devout Muslim, has a history of participating in events connected with the Muslim Brotherhood,” reported Cal Thomas in an article published by Townhall.

Citing Egypt’s Rose El-Youssef magazine, The Investigative Project on Terrorism reported that Hussain “maintained close ties with people & groups that [the magazine] says comprise the Muslim Brotherhood network in America.”

Some critics describe Hussain as a Muslim Brotherhood sympathizer. He is not a confirmed member of the group.

An added component called the Information Coordination Cell will be part of the newly revamped center.

It will be “staffed by intelligence & Pentagon analysts among others” & “will be responsible for the broader coordination functions.”

“Skeptics of the new [anti-propaganda] campaign voiced concerns that the program is an attempt by the White House to end a long-simmering turf war with the counterterrorism center’s director, Alberto Fernandez, & exercise more control over the kinds of messages that are produced & coordinated with domestic & international partners,” notes The Times.

“Other officials questioned whether even a newly empowered center at the State Department would be up to the task. Operating the center on a shoestring budget of about $5 million a year, Mr. Fernandez, a respected Middle East specialist & career Foreign Service officer, & his supporters have long complained that neither the State Department nor the White House fully supported or properly financed the center’s activities,” the article adds.

The Obama administration plans “to harness all the existing attempts at counter-messaging by much larger federal departments, including the Pentagon, Homeland Security & intelligence agencies,” explains The Times.

The Times added: The center would also coordinate & amplify similar messaging by foreign allies & nongovernment agencies, as well as by prominent Muslim academics, community leaders & religious scholars who oppose the Islamic State, also called ISIS or ISIL, & who may have more credibility with ISIS’ target audience of young men & women than the American government.

About 80 people will staff the newly-empowered center.

“We’re getting beaten on volume, so the only way to compete is by aggregating, curating & amplifying existing content,” Richard A. Stengel, the under secretary of state for public diplomacy & public affairs, said on Monday, NYT reports.

He admitted that anti-ISIS propaganda efforts by the Obama administration “could have been better coordinated,” adds the article.

In its arsenal, the U.S. government has “more than 350 State Department Twitter accounts, combining embassies, consulates, media hubs, bureaus & individuals, as well as similar accounts operated by the Pentagon, the Homeland Security Department & foreign allies,” points out The Times….Twitter accounts!

I bet the Islamic State jihadis are shivering with fear.

OBAMA APPOINTS MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD-LINKED MUSLIM TO HEAD ‘CENTER FOR STRATEGIC COUNTERTERRORISM COMMUNICATIONS’