Rick Richman at contentions Friday:
.... [Leslie] Gelb writes that Obama entered office with a “near-zero base of foreign-policy knowledge and no experience in the Middle East,” demanded a pre-negotiation halt to West Bank construction, to which “no Israeli leader, even a dovish one” would ever agree, adopted the “brilliant tactic” of publicly humiliating Israel’s prime minister (not even shaking his hand at the end of the prior meeting), and “only made matters worse” this week by appearing as if he were cowed by domestic politics into treating Netanyahu well. Gelb concludes that Obama needs new advisers.
That is a little like blaming the bit players for the failures of a one-man show.
The problem has been more than a staffing issue. Over the past year, Netanyahu (1) formed a coalition government with parties to both his right and left, (2) proposed immediate negotiations with no preconditions, (3) formally endorsed a two-state solution (as long as one of them is Jewish and the other is demilitarized), (4) removed scores of West Bank roadblocks and checkpoints, (5) implemented an unprecedented settlement moratorium, and (6) plans even more gestures to the perpetually confidence-impaired Palestinians to encourage them to join negotiations to give them a state.
During the same period, the Palestinians have been unwilling to commence direct negotiations unless Israel first conceded the principal issues to be negotiated, and Obama has acted as if he were the Palestinians’ attorney....
Also Friday: Obama praises Abbas as committed to peace
WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama is backing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's commitment to peace.
Obama spoke by phone on Friday with Abbas. In a White House account of the call, Obama expressed strong support for Abbas' leadership on behalf of Palestinians....
.... Obama is trying to show careful attention to both sides and prod direct talks between Israelis and Palestinians. The White House said he and Abbas discussed ways to revive those talks in the near term....
Today's headline:
RAMALLAH, West Bank - The Palestinian president... said that [returning to direct talks] under current circumstances would be pointless....
.... Mahmoud Abbas sounded determined not to return to the table unless Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu commits to an internationally mandated settlement freeze and agrees to pick up talks where they left off under the Israeli leader's predecessor in December 2008....
Hmmm, looks like Charles was right:
The world is tired of these troublesome Jews, 6 million -- that number again -- hard by the Mediterranean, refusing every invitation to national suicide. For which they are relentlessly demonized, ghettoized and constrained from defending themselves, even as the more committed anti-Zionists -- Iranian in particular -- openly prepare a more final solution.
And speaking of final solutions, Voz Iz Neias?
Washington - A former fighter in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) turned US spy offered a rare glance into one of the most complex countries in the Middle East.
During a conference held at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy on Friday, Reza Kahlili (pseudonym) estimated that Iran will eventually attack Israel, Europe and the Persian Gulf states. He called for a preemptive strike on the regime in Tehran, but not on the Iranian people or the country’s infrastructure.
Kahlili accused the Obama Administration of being naïve. According to him, the American overtures are viewed by the Iranian regime as a sign of weakness, while the Iranian people consider the efforts to engage the regime an act of betrayal against their struggle for freedom.
“This is a messianic regime.
There should be no doubt – They are going to commit the most horrendous suicide bombing in human history.
Comments