Crimes Against Liberty
Page 36
This indicated Obama sought even more Israeli concessions than were made at Bill Clinton’s Camp David summit in 2000—concessions which then-Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat rejected in favor of a new war against Israel. A few months later, as a further sign Obama was moving the goalposts on Israel, the State Department ducked the question of whether it would honor a promise by the George W. Bush administration to former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon that Israel would retain sovereignty over large Jewish areas in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) if a new Palestinian state were created.12
A little over a month in office, Obama pledged more than $900 million—not just $20 million—to rebuild Gaza13 and to shore up the Palestinian Authority. The stated purpose was to strengthen Palestinian moderates to facilitate the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, but experts warned the aid could be diverted to Hamas and other terrorist groups. Additionally, UNRWA, the main UN body administering this aid, is widely considered corrupt, it operates without internal or external audits, and it is known to be infiltrated by Hamas supporters and other radicals. As Republican congressman Mark Kirk noted, “To route $900 million to this area, and let’s say that Hamas was only able to steal 10 percent of that, we would still become Hamas’s second-largest funder after Iran.”14
Shortly thereafter, in an abrupt change of tone from her pro-Israel declarations when she was senator of New York, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton angered Jewish leaders by denouncing Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in Gaza. For some observers, Clinton’s condemnation brought back memories of her controversial kiss of Yassir Arafat’s wife Suha, after Suha had unleashed a shocking anti-Israel tirade, including outlandish accusations that Israel was poisoning the Palestinian water supply and attacking Palestinians with poison gas. Some Jewish leaders wondered out loud “who the real Hillary Clinton is.” One said, “She is pro-Palestinian 100 percent, really. Of course, we always knew it.”15
In March, the United States returned to the UN Human Rights Council, which it had left nine months earlier primarily because the Bush administration objected to its obsessive focus on denouncing Israel while overlooking the horrific abuses that occur every day in the Middle East’s assorted dictatorships.16 Also in March, tension arose between the United States and Israel following a surprise visit by Hillary Clinton to Israel, where she was once again “highly critical” of the Jewish state, this time over the demolition of Palestinian homes in Eastern Jerusalem. Israel strongly defended its actions, insisting they were a matter of law enforcement that had been approved following a hearing at the Israeli Supreme Court.
By April, reporters were asking the question, “Can Israel still call the United States its best international friend?” Israel’s primary security threat is Iran’s ambition to get a nuclear weapon—a logical focus in light of the Iranian president’s vow to wipe Israel off the map—but White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel told Israeli leaders if they wanted to defuse the Iranian threat they better start evacuating settlements in the West Bank. This drew accusations that the Obama administration was exploiting Israeli anxiety about Iran’s nuclear ambitions to pressure Israel into making more concessions to the Palestinians.
Meanwhile, the administration canceled a scheduled meeting between Obama and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and announced it would end Bush’s tradition of hosting Israeli prime ministers whenever they were in town. Adding to Israel’s unease, Obama demanded a complete settlement freeze in the West Bank and reversed the Bush policy of opposing Hamas’ inclusion in a future Palestinian government.17
The administration’s dictatorial tone continued with Mideast envoy George Mitchell’s assertion, after meeting with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, that a “two-state solution is the only solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This was an unmistakable rebuke of Netanyahu, who had shortly beforehand expressed his misgivings to Mitchell about Palestinian statehood. More significant, Mitchell adopted the controversial 2002 Arab peace initiative, which called for Israel to withdraw from Eastern Jerusalem, the entire West Bank, and the Golan Heights, and to accept the influx of millions of foreign Arabs as Israeli citizens as part of the “right of return,” in exchange for promises of peace with the Arab world. Mitchell proclaimed, as if wholly ignoring any Israeli aspirations or security concerns, “The U.S. is committed to the establishment of a sovereign, independent Palestinian state, where the aspirations of the Palestinian people to control their own destiny are realized. We want the Arab peace initiative to be a part of the effort to reach this goal.”18
Unsurprisingly, a PA negotiator reportedly declared that President Obama was intent on creating a Palestinian state “more quickly than anybody could imagine.”19 The administration also irked Israel when they cavalierly rejected Netanyahu’s insistence that the Palestinians recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people as a condition to renewing peace talks.20
Administration demands on Israel persisted with the U.S. State Department’s command that Israel engage in negotiations with Syria, one of the primary sponsors (along with Iran) of the Hezbollah terrorist group. This was just two days after Syrian foreign minister Walid Muallem praised a speech by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in which the Iranian leader called the Israeli government “the most cruel and repressive racist regime.”21
INTENSE AND UNPRECEDENTED PRESSURE
In May, Rahm Emanuel upped the ante against Israel. Whereas the administration had been linking U.S. pressure against Iran to Israel’s discontinuation of West Bank settlements, it now took the position that America’s ability to confront Iran was solely dependent on progress toward creating a Palestinian state.22
Reports also surfaced in May that Obama’s nuclear arms reduction efforts “threatened to expose and derail a 40-year-old secret U.S. agreement to shield Israel’s nuclear weapons from international scrutiny by pressuring Israel to join the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which would require Israel to declare and relinquish its nuclear arsenal.”23 The United States joined Britain, Russia, France, and China in voicing support for making the Middle East a nuclear-weapons-free zone. This would ultimately force Israel to surrender what is perhaps its biggest deterrent against another Arab invasion—its never-declared nuclear arsenal.24
Identifying the apparent goal underlying all of Obama’s policy reversals, journalist Caroline Glick reported in the Jerusalem Post on May 8 that U.S. national security adviser James Jones “told a European foreign minister that the US is planning to build an anti-Israel coalition with the Arabs and Europe to compel Israel to surrender Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem to the Palestinians.” Haaretz, wrote Glick, had quoted Jones in a classified foreign ministry cable as saying, “The new administration will convince Israel to compromise on the Palestinian question. We will not push Israel under the wheels of a bus, but we will be more forceful toward Israel than we have been under Bush.”
This was consistent with earlier reports that the United States supported the 2002 Arab peace initiative, whose “right of return” clause, Glick observed, would mean “Israel would effectively cease to be a Jewish state.”25 This, of course, is precisely the Palestinians’ goal, which is why they refused Netanyahu’s insistence on recognizing Israel as a state of the Jewish people.
Author Joel Rosenberg similarly reported that his sources were telling him the Obama administration had been “applying intense and unprecedented pressure on the Netanyahu government to make huge unilateral concessions to the Palestinians even before direct peace talks begin.” Obama had even contacted the leaders of Germany, Britain, and France to get each to agree to the strategy. But
Netanyahu held his ground.26 Indeed, in a speech marking the annual Jerusalem Day, Netanyahu insisted that Jerusalem would always remain united under Israeli sovereignty—a contradiction of the 2002 Arab peace plan, which called for Israel to surrender Eastern Jerusalem to the Palestinians. “United Jerusalem is Israel’s capital,” said Netanyahu. “Jerusalem was always ours and will always be ours. It will
never again be partitioned and divided.”27
Meanwhile, as his efforts to end Iran’s nuclear program foundered, Obama sternly warned Netanyahu against Israel’s exercising its own self-defense by attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities.28
A few weeks later, Hillary Clinton delivered another harsh warning from Obama for Israel to halt all construction in settlements on the West Bank. “He wants to see a stop to settlements—not some settlements, not outposts, not ‘natural growth’ exceptions,” said Clinton, who indicated she had communicated that message “very clearly.” This was an in-your-face rebuke to Israel, which had recently told the administration it wanted to preserve the right to undertake some limited new construction in West Bank settlements. 29 Aaron David Miller, who served under both Democratic and Republican administrations, told AFP that Obama’s toughness against Israel was “almost unprecedented” and represented “something of a radical break with past administrations.”30
WorldNetDaily reported that just days after Netanyahu’s speech, the Obama administration told the Palestinian Authority Jerusalem could not remain united under Israeli sovereignty. A top PA official said the United States was cooperating with the PA to “thwart Israel’s plans in Jerusalem.” This report was consistent with the State Department, just one day earlier, saying the future status of Jerusalem would be determined through peace negotiations—a contradiction of Netanyahu’s vow that Jerusalem would “never be divided.”31
Obama then met with Palestinian president Abbas, whose adviser, Nimer Hamad, reported that Obama “was very friendly to the position of the PA” and had told Abbas that the United States foresees the creation of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, which Obama said was “in the American national and security interest.” Another PA official reportedly said that Obama informed Abbas that he would not let Netanyahu “get in the way” of normalizing U.S. relations with the Arab and greater Muslim world.32
Obama’s hostility toward Israel continued as his administration reportedly blocked the sale of six AH064D helicopters to Israel while approving twelve for Egypt. This was revealed in a January 2010 Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs report concluding that the Obama administration had refused for the past year to approve any major Israeli weapons requests while approving more than $10 billion in arms sales to Arab League states.33 Caroline Glick had confirmed the administration’s limitations on arms sales to Israel in a June 2009 interview with National Review Online. Should the Palestinian army attack Judea and Samaria, said Glick, and the U.S. side with the Arabs against Israel, “Israel will have to move quickly to find other suppliers.”34
“I CONDEMN THE DECISION BY THE GOVERNMENT OF ISRAEL”
As the months ticked by, Obama’s pressure on Israel was unrelenting. Showing its enthusiasm for dictating the most minute aspects of Israeli domestic policy—even in Israel’s own capital city—the State Department in July warned Israel not to permit construction of a 20-apartment building on a piece of privately owned land in Eastern Jerusalem. Netanyahu flatly rejected the demand, saying Israeli sovereignty meant that any Jerusalem resident, whether Jewish or Arab, could choose to live in any part of the city. “Jerusalem,” he said, “is not a settlement.” Another Israeli official called the Obama demand “odd,” saying he’d never heard of a similar demand against an Arab citizen building in Jerusalem.35
Relations between the United States and Israel reached a low—maybe an all-time low—in March 2010, when Israel announced its plan to build 1,600 homes in an Israeli settlement in Eastern Jerusalem—the announcement occurring when Vice President Joe Biden was in Jerusalem for meetings with Prime Minister Netanyahu. After he heard of the announcement, a petulant Biden kept Netanyahu waiting ninety minutes before dinner as the administration contemplated how to respond. They decided to use the harsh word “condemn,” which is rarely used by countries when discussing their own allies. “I condemn the decision by the government of Israel to advance planning for new housing units in East Jerusalem,” Biden said. “The substance and timing of the announcement, particularly with the launching of proximity talks, is precisely the kind of step that undermines the trust we need right now and runs counter to the constructive discussions that I’ve had here in Israel.”36
The relationship continued to deteriorate from there. Biden delivered a speech a few days later in Tel Aviv looking as though he were seeking an approving pat on the head from Obama. After paying lip service to our “unbreakable bond” with Israel, he again scolded Israel over the housing project. By marked contrast, he lauded Palestinian president Abbas and prime minister Fayyad as willing partners for peace and again accused Israel of having “undermined the trust required for productive negotiations.” As Leo Rennert wrote in American Thinker, Biden’s slamming Israel while not mentioning “anything about Abbas’s multiple impediments to advancing the peace process makes a mockery of Obama-Biden pledges to hold all sides equally accountable when they get out of line.” If they had, said Rennert, Biden would have condemned “Abbas’s incitement campaign against Israel in Palestinian Authority media, schools and mosques; and Abbas’s retention of clauses in the PLO/Fatah charter that call for the total elimination of the Jewish state. He also might have ‘condemned’ Fayyad for joining Abbas in legitimizing terrorist murderers. Doesn’t such conduct also ‘undermine trust required for productive negotiations?’”37
UNFORESEEN CONSEQUENCES
Many astute observers, including Rennert, have noted that Obama’s bias toward the Palestinians and against the Israelis has been counterproductive to his stated goal of peace. By highlighting and magnifying any and all alleged Israeli infractions and wholly ignoring those of the Palestinians, Obama left the Palestinians with no incentive for cooperating toward peace, effectively encouraging them to remain intransigent and allow Obama to do their negotiating for them. Although Obama’s strategy has proven counterproductive, we can’t expect anything else from him, for that’s Obama’s typical MO: he must have his way, and he will bully anyone that gets in his way, including our longest and most loyal Middle East ally.
Even the reliably pro-Palestinian New York Times chided the “rare and decidedly undiplomatic language” with which Obama and Biden condemned Israel’s housing policies, though it said the administration was “understandably furious.” The Times acknowledged “Obama seriously miscalculated last year” in demanding the complete halt of all new settlements, and faulted Obama and Mitchell for failing to extract any concessions from Arab leaders in exchange for Obama’s demanded Israeli settlement freeze.38
For all Obama’s posturing about bringing a new era of diplomatic relations, he has single-handedly made a royal mess of our relationship with Israel—and for nothing. The peace process was, if anything, set back by his antics. Israel’s ambassador to the United States Michael Orin said ties between Israel and the United States were the worst they’d been since 1975. But Obama was unrepentant, demanding a monopoly on the claim to being offended. His aide David Axelrod reiterated that Israel’s housing announcement was an “affront” and an “insult” to the United States.39
ISRAEL: A BIPARTISAN CAUSE NO MORE
Caroline Glick argued that “bipartisan support for Israel has been one of the greatest casualties of U.S. President Barack Obama’s assault on the Jewish state.” Today, said Glick, Republican support for Israel is at an all-time high, but it is a minority position among Democrats. She cited evidence demonstrating a remarkable change in the Democratic attitude pre- and post-Obama. Eleven days before Obama’s inauguration, the House passed Resolution 34, which sided with Israel against Hamas during Operation Cast Lead—the Israeli offensive to stop Hamas from firing rockets into Israel. Of the 390 yea votes, five nays, and thirty-seven abstentions, Democrats cast four nays and twenty-nine abstentions. In November 2009, Congress passed a resolution urging Obama to disregard a report that falsely accused Israel of committing war crimes during Cast Lead. There were 344 yea votes. Of the thirty-six nay votes,
thirty-three were Democrats, and forty-four of the fifty-two abstentions were from Democrats.
In February 2010, fifty-four congressmen—all Democrats—sent Obama a letter encouraging him to pressure Israel to open the borders of Hamas-ruled Gaza and also accusing Israel of engaging in collective punishment. Moreover, when Obama was berating Israel over the Jerusalem construction issue, 327 congressmen signed a letter to Secretary of State Clinton demanding the administration quit publicly attacking Israel. Of the 102 refusing to sign the appeal, ninety-four were Democrats. Glick concluded that the numbers point to a 13-point decline in the number of congressmen supporting Israel, with the entire decrease coming from the Democratic side. Meanwhile, the number of Democratic congressmen willing to attack Israel has tripled. Even the pro-Israel initiatives the other Democrats do support are “less meaningful than those they supported before Obama entered office.”40
BACKLASH
Eventually, Obama’s mistreatment of Israel began to backfire, as there is just so much good will a fallen messiah can squander. Conservative and even some liberal commentators criticized Obama’s dogmatic position against Israeli settlements. The left-leaning Washington Post, while also critical of Netanyahu, said that by insisting on “a total construction ban” in the settlements, the administration risked “bogging itself down in a major dispute with its ally, while giving Arab governments and Palestinians a ready excuse not to make their own concessions.”41
Reminding Obama that he has always insisted the United States not “dictate” to other countries (as he alleged his predecessor did), columnist Charles Krauthammer noted he was doing just that with Israel, especially in demanding it stop the settlements. No “natural growth,” wrote Krauthammer, meant “strangling to death the thriving towns close to the 1949 armistice line ... no babies. Or if you have babies, no housing for them—not even within the existing town boundaries. Which means for every child born, someone has to move out. No community can survive like that.” All that would be required for both Jews and Arabs to stay in their existing homes, noted Krauthammer, is for the 1949 armistice line to be “shifted slightly into the Palestinian side to capture the major close-in Jewish settlements” and “then shifted into Israeli territory to capture Israeli land to give to the Palestinians.”