Rev. Jesse Jackson has said:
“Zionists who have controlled American policy for decades remain strong; they’ll lose a great deal of clout when Barack Obama enters the White House. President Obama is about change, and the change he promises is not limited to what we do in America. It is a change at the way America looks at the world and its place in it.”
If Rev. Jackson is correct, the Zionists who will lose their clout in standing with Israel are you and me. A vast majority of Zionists worldwide are not Jewish, but rather are Christian.
Netanyahu and Obama: The Perfect Storm
Prime Minister Netanyahu’s meeting with President Barack Obama on Tuesday, May 19 is simply the tradewind of a perfect storm; no matter how they smile for the cameras. The likelihood of Obama supporting an attack on Iran or Netanyahu’s quid pro quo benchmarks for a Palestinian mythological state is less than zero.
Obama’s secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, does not like Netanyahu. The Clintons did everything possible to marginalize him, and more, during his last term as prime minister. President Bill Clinton made some very unflattering remarks about him in the presence of Aaron David Miller, a Middle East negotiator. The White House spokesman at the time was Joe Lockhart, who described Netanyahu in an interview as "one of the most obnoxious individuals you're going to come into - just a liar and a cheat. He could open his mouth and you could have no confidence that anything that came out of it was the truth."
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
U.S. tough on Israel, light on Palestinians
May 15, 2009
BY STEVE HUNTLEY
Hanging over next week's meeting between President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be Obama's June address to the Muslim world.
Outreach to Islam is central to Obama's strategy of shifting away from the foreign policy of George W. Bush. He won't want anything coming out of his Washington session with Netanyahu that could spoil the speech. That kind of thinking had to figure, in part, in Obama's praiseworthy decision to reverse himself and oppose release of photos of alleged detainee abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan. Inflammatory images igniting anti-U.S. protests in the Muslim street wouldn't be a good scene-setter for Obama's June 4 speech.
The conventional wisdom in the Muslim world -- shared by much of Europe and left-wing America -- is that Washington tilts too much toward the Jewish state and should adopt an "even-handed" approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
During the campaign, Obama seemed to agree: "I think there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt an unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel, then you're anti-Israel, and that can't be the measure of our friendship with Israel."
Netanyahu, of course, is Likud.
Vice President Joe Biden sounded a tough line in a speech to Israel supporters.
"You're not going to like my saying this," Biden stated as he listed things the administration wants Israel to do to promote peace, including freezing settlement construction, removing roadblocks in the West Bank and turning over more security responsibilities to the Palestinians.
Israel has signaled it won't start new settlements in the disputed lands. But it can hardly be expected to stop natural growth in long-established communities. Peace efforts by presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush recognized major settlements would become part of Israel in any solution to the conflict. Those towns are organic communities where families form and new economic endeavors blossom to serve them.
Already, Israel has been trying to make movement easier on the West Bank. For example, two roadblocks near Ramallah, the seat of Palestinian government, were taken down four days ago.
Israel also has handed over some security responsibilities in the West Bank to the Palestinians. But the Israelis won't, and shouldn't, move so quickly that their citizens are again threatened by suicide bombers.Beyond that, the Israel-must-do-more argument is dishonest.
Already it has done plenty. It pulled out of Lebanon in 2000, soon found itself facing 10,000 terrorist rockets and mortars, and in 2006 was forced into war with Hezbollah. In 2000, Israel offered the most generous terms imaginable to create a Palestinian state, and in return got a suicide-bomb campaign aimed at civilians. In 2005, Israel shut down all settlements in the Gaza Strip and pulled out, only to be confronted with a Hamas terrorist statelet and more warfare.
Where are bold moves by the Arabs? They point to the "Saudi peace initiative." That offers peace if Israel gives up everything it won in the 1967 defensive, existential war -- and more. It demands "a right of return" for Palestinians who fled their homes, often at the urging of invading Arab armies, in 1948. That demand includes descendants of the refugees -- millions of people who weren't born in 1948. Only last week, the Arab states reaffirmed that demand.
The Palestinians are the only people to have been accorded refugee status for six decades and counting. Imagine if Germany declared a right to return for millions of its citizens to the provinces of East Prussia, Pomerania and Silesia it lost in World War II.
Biden is telling Israel supporters things they don't want to hear. Obama and Biden should do the same for Palestinian supporters. A good place to start would be telling them to acknowledge the realities of the world and abandon the "right of return." Don't expect to hear that June 4.
Comment at suntimes.com.
Related Blog Posts
Palestinians ask Barack Obama’s envoy to pressure Israel
From A Pakistan News
Israel Balks
From Three Wise Men
The views expressed in these blog posts are those of the author and not of the Chicago Sun-Times.
henrymiller wrote:
Israel has brought the US nothing but grief for sixty years. As our putative "allies," the country does more damage to US interests than if they were our enemies and we could solve a lot of problems just by ending all economic and political support for Israel.
5/15/2009 2:39 PM
5/15/2009 12:03 PM CDT
jeanrenoir wrote:
After eight years of a president who was clearly nothing but a ventriloquist's dummy for Likud, operated by his neocon handlers, America desperately needs a president who can and will talk straight to Israel about AMERICA's interests, which were so terribly abused by Likud and he neocons in their American proxy war for Israel in Iraq. Beyond that, there is tremendous American outrage over Likud's purchase of the American government through AIPAC and its donors, donors whom Obama alone doesn't need to win the campaign financing race. Finally, America is outraged over the mere possibility that Israel might repay all America has done for Israel by giving this country $10 gas and a Depression with an attack on Iran. An American president who will tell Netanyahu the score, at this critical juncture, is actually Israel's de facto best friend, since Netanyahu is dancing on the edge of a volcano in America, even as we speak.
5/15/2009 10:28 AM CDT on suntimes.com
gommygoomy wrote:
Gee. That's wierd. Why would he do that? Why would he do, lots of things? Why would he give his FIRST INTERVIEW, to a MUSLIM Reporter? Why would he prostate himself, before a MUSLIM King, yet NOT, before a CHRISTIAN QUEEN? Why would he give $900 MILLION DOLLARS to a MUSLIM TERRORIST GROUP? Hamas. Why would he write in his book, that 'if push ever came to shove, between the MUSLIMS, and the JEWS, he would side with the MUSLIMS'? This guy is a MUSLIM. He was BORN to a MUSLIM FATHER. That makes him a MUSLIM. Period. His FATHER was MUSLIM. His MOTHER converted to ISLAM. His STEP FATHER was MUSLIM. He came up in INDONESIA, where he attended MADRASSA. He IS the Manchurian Candidate. And, PLEASE, don't tell me that he went to a Christian Church. CHRISTIAN Churches, don't give out LIFETIME ACIEVEMENT AWARDS to LOUIS FARAKHAN. The Leader of The Nation Of ISLAM. It's time to start believing your EYES and your EARS.
5/15/2009 8:41 AM CDT on suntimes.com
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment