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John Bolton: Obama is the worst president regarding Israel

by Mojambo ( 106 Comments › )
Filed under Barack Obama, Iran, Israel, Palestinians at July 14th, 2011 - 8:30 am

I guess you can call that stating the obvious. Actually Obama is the worst president regarding the Free World ever, too. While George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, and Dwight Eisenhower can be classified as not great friends of Israel (to put it mildly), Obama due to his days hanging around Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said and Father Michael Pfelger, does seem to have a special animus towards the Jewish nation. I agree with Bolton that Israel should not over exaggerate power of the UN General Assembly.

By the way Bolton would be a perfect Secretary of State.

by Herb Keinon

US President Barack Obama is “the most anti-Israel president in the history of the state, without any question,” John Bolton, the former US envoy to the UN and a man considering entering the presidential race against Obama, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.

“If you think that this is just a misunderstanding of where the green crayon went in 1949, then think again,” Bolton said of Obama. Bolton’s comments came during a meeting he had with the Post’s editorial board.

Bolton, who is currently a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a Fox News commentator, said that Obama bought in to what he said was the “European line” that if you make progress between Israel and the Palestinians “sweetness and light” will break out in the region, and every other problem from Iran to terrorism will be easier to solve.

“I think that is like looking through the wrong end of the telescope,” he said.

Bolton, in the country along with former Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar and Nobel Peace Prize laureate David Trimble from Northern Ireland as part of a delegation of international dignitaries involved in an organization called Friends of Israel Initiative, said he was considering running for the Republican nomination, and would made a decision by Labor Day.

“The problem is that we haven’t had an adequate discussion of national security issues for two and a half years,” he said, explaining why he was thinking about entering the race.

“It is not a priority for Obama, and I think that is a big mistake for the United States.”

[…]

Some of Bolton’s harshest criticism of Obama had to do with the administration’s Iran policy, with Bolton saying he believed the Obama administration’s “real Plan B for the Iranian nuclear weapons program is that it can be contained and deterred, much as we contained and deterred the Soviet Union in the Cold War.

“I think that is fundamentally wrong,” Bolton said, adding that the only way to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons was through military action.

[……]

Bolton had equally strong words to say about the Palestinian bid for some type of statehood recognition at the UN in September, something he said should not – as it is in Israel and elsewhere – be getting more attention and energy than the Iranian nuclear threat.

Israel’s proper response to the move, he said, is “not to pay any attention to it, and to care no more about it than the grass you tread beneath your feet.”

Without referring directly to Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s oft-quoted comment that Israel faced a “diplomatic tsunami” in September, Bolton – who served as US envoy to the UN from 2005-2006 – said “if you make the General Assembly into something more than what it is, than you are giving it authority and legitimacy it doesn’t have.”

His comments were made against the backdrop of what is almost certain to be a US veto in the Security Council, the body whose approval is necessary for a state to become a UN member. In that case, the Palestinians are likely to take their bid to the General Assembly, which has no binding authority.

Bolton acknowledged, however, that the move did have political significance, similar to the “Zionism Equals Racism” declaration of the mid-1970s.

Leaning on past experience when he was head of the international organizations department in the State Department from 1989-1993, Bolton said that the only way to get this move stopped in the UN was for the US Congress to pass legislation saying that if the move did go through, Washington would cut off funding to the international body.

[…]

Read the rest: Bolton: Obama worst president for Israel

Tags: Herb Keinon, John Bolton
Posted in Barack Obama, Iran, Israel, Palestinians | 106 Comments »

Hanging Israel out to dry, and a flying pig moment in Britain

by Mojambo ( 106 Comments › )
Filed under Barack Obama, Israel, Media at June 8th, 2010 - 11:30 am

The recent performance of the Obama administration on three occasions concerning Israeli security and self defense is an absolute disgrace. I hope that the Jews who supported him (like Martin Peretz) are happy. John Bolton (whom should have been Sec. of State instead of the underwhelming Condoleeza Rice) lays it out for us.

by John Bolton

In less than a week, the Obama administration left Israel hanging out to dry three separate times.

Media coverage of the “flotilla” incident has ignored this critical shift in US policy. But it’s a safe bet that America’s adversaries, especially the terrorists, understand it all too well. Worse yet, President Obama’s visible discomfort in defending hard-pressed US interests around the world is only growing — with implications America hasn’t experienced since Jimmy Carter’s presidency.

Let’s recap the Obama “defense” of Israel.

First, in the UN Security Council, the administration succumbed to the rush to criticize Israel in a statement that, albeit watered down, nonetheless greatly intensified international pressure on Jerusalem. The correct approach was to resist the diplomatic peer pressure and bar any council action until tempers cooled and more facts were available — meaning at most a day or two’s delay. This America could easily have done. Failure to withstand the short-term heat only feeds the impression of White House weakness, and will come back to haunt us.

Second, at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, America, joined only by Italy and the Netherlands in dissent, overwhelmingly lost a vote to establish an international investigation of the Gaza incident. Even as the Obama administration touted its success preventing a Security Council investigation, it was losing precisely the same issue in Geneva — demonstrating why concessions in New York did absolutely nothing to stem the anti-Israeli tide. So much for Obama’s idea that he could reform the palpably illegitimate Human Rights Council by having the United States rejoin it.

Third, just a few days previously, at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference, the United States joined the consensus on a statement condemning Israel (which is not even a party to the treaty) and its nuclear program, while failing to condemn Iran, an NPT signatory that has been happily violating its treaty obligations. After the vote, National Security Adviser James Jones condemned the reference to Israel, utterly overlooking the fact that the Obama administration could readily have blocked it.

All three cases demonstrate deep-seated White House weakness. It would be a stunning admission of administration incompetence if diplomats in three separate venues had made these decisions entirely on their own (although that does happen too often at the State Department). Instructions to the US negotiators in all three likely came from either Obama or Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, so there is no dodging White House responsibility here, or the unmistakable pattern it represents.

Read the rest here: Letting Israel hang – US undercuts ally

Meanwhile if you can believe it, the British press lead by al-Guardian are impressed by Israeli Public Relations! I guess getting those videos and pictures out was a good idea.

Hat tip Israellycool

by Herb Keinon

While conventional wisdom in Israel holds that the government’s public diplomacy (hasbara) efforts following the Mavi Marmara incident last Monday were an unmitigated disaster, the picture painted in some circles abroad is that of a vast, smooth, efficient propaganda machine that has effectively dominated and controlled the flotilla narrative.

“Israeli PR machine won Gaza flotilla media battle,” ran a headline Friday in the Guardian, a British newspaper extremely critical of Israel.

The article was one of a number of stories the National Information Directorate had gathered and sent to reporters to combat the widespread narrative here that last week was an utter hasbara failure.

“In an operation reminiscent of the first week or so of the Israeli offensive against Gaza in winter 2008-2009, the Israeli PR machine succeeded in getting the major news outlets to focus on its version of events and to use the Israeli authorities’ discourse for a crucial 48 hours,” wrote Antony Lerman in the Guardian.

“This Israeli version of events was very often given an uncritical airing,” Lerman wrote. “The news imbalance may have been partly redressed, but the Israeli version of the events and the presentation of legal arguments to justify Israel’s actions by friendly commentators continues to occupy significant media space.”

The Independent, another British newspaper hypercritical of Israel, published an article the day after the incident headlined “Israel ruled the airwaves as it did the seas.”

Read the rest here: British press marvels at Israeli PR

Tags: Herb Keinon, John Bolton
Posted in Barack Obama, Israel, Media | 106 Comments »

Emanuel – “we might have made a mistake treating Israel like garbage”

by Mojambo ( 123 Comments › )
Filed under Anti-semitism, Democratic Party, Israel, Politics at May 17th, 2010 - 9:00 am

I guess Rahmbo and Obambi took for granted the docile, predictable, Jewish vote when they decided to treat Netanyahu like a Mafia turncoat on the witness stand. All it did was show what a small minded, petty, ignorant man we have in the White House – who treats friends like enemies and enemies like friends- and rallied support for Netanyahu both in Israel and America. I hope that friends of Israel, both Jewish and non Jewish, are not deceived by the “charm” offensive. You did not “screw up” the message Ramhbo – your message was already “screwed up”.

by Herb Keinon

The Obama administration has “screwed up the messaging” about its support for Israel over the past 14 months, and it will take “more than one month to make up for 14 months,” White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel said on Thursday to a group of rabbis called together for a meeting in the White House.

“During the elections there were doubts about President Obama’s support for Israel, and now they have resurfaced,” Emanuel said, according to one of those who participated in the meeting. “But concerning policy, we have done everything that we can that is in Israel’s security – and long-range interests. Watch what the administration does.”

Dennis Ross, who runs the administration’s Iran policy, tried to allay fears during the meeting that by calling for a nuclear-free Middle East, US policy regarding Israel’s alleged nuclear capabilities was changing.

Since 1995, Ross explained, the administration’s policy, supported by Israel, was to push for a nuclear-free Middle East in conjunction with comprehensive peace. Emanuel, according to a participant in the meeting, said, “We understand Israel’s full layer of deterrence.”

These comments came during the second of two White House meetings with a carefully selected slate of 15 rabbis from across the US representing the Orthodox, Reform and Conservative streams. The first meeting took place on April 20, shortly after Obama was widely perceived to have treated Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu shabbily during their last White House meeting.

In addition to Emanuel and Ross, the other administration officials in the meetings were Dan Shapiro, the deputy national security adviser who supervises policy for Israel and its neighbors; Susan Sher, the chief White House liaison to the Jewish community; and Danielle Borin, associate director of the White House Office of Public Engagement and special assistant to Vice President Joe Biden.

Ross opened Thursday’s meeting, saying he hoped that the rabbis “had seen the manifestations of the change” of the administration’s tone since they met the first time a month ago.

He quoted Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who last week in Washington declared that regarding defense and security, the relationship between Israel and the US had never been stronger.

Ross said the US was providing Israel with everything it needed “in a tough neighborhood,” integrating Israel into America’s “military architecture,” especially in the missile defense sphere. Both he and Shapiro were meeting Israeli officials on a weekly basis, either in Jerusalem or Washington, regarding defense issues, Ross added.

Read the rest: Emanuel to Rabbis: ‘US screwed up’

Colonel Ralph Peters weighs in on a related topic

‘It’s those damned Jews.” That’s the muffled message I hear when, pretending to represent our national interest, voices call for the abandonment of Israel.

We’ve heard it from agenda-driven scholars who write that our alliance with Israel is responsible for our problems in the Middle East. More worrisome still, I’ve begun to hear it from a minority of military officers, as well as from Washington types.

This latest, and sadly lasting, bout of moral cancer can be dated back to 2006 and the publication of an article that had sought a home for years, “The Israeli Lobby And US Foreign Policy,” by professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt.

The book’s assault on Israel was welcomed by figures including President Jimmy Carter’s national-security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski — a hoary Israel detractor. With their Ivy League credentials, Mearsheimer and Walt made anti-Israeli diatribes (semi-)respectable. Their effect has been lasting.

OK, let’s get one thing straight: There is no evidence that if Israel disappeared tomorrow, the Middle East would suddenly blossom into a pro-American model of justice, hard work and progress.

Nor is there any evidence that anti-American terrorism would slacken. In al Qaeda’s list of complaints, Israel barely makes the top dozen. A US turn away from Israel would only encourage and empower terrorists, convincing them of our cowardice and folly.

The grotesquely failed societies of the Middle East desperately need Israel and the US to blame for their self-wrought problems. Neither Washington nor Tel Aviv and Jerusalem are responsible for the Arab world’s pervasive corruption, stagnation, oppression of women and lack of creativity or a work ethic.

Neither the US nor Israel is to blame for the unprecedented squandering of wealth by Arab oil powers, for their failure to invest in human capital or productive infrastructure, for the absence of democracy and respect for human rights, or for the region’s mockery of the rule of law.

Given the vast homemade tragedy of the greater Middle East, it’s inevitable that Israel’s hated for its shining success amid the local squalor. Likewise, the US is hated for our might — and the seductiveness of our civilization.

But if that explains why Arabs, Persians and others would relish, but not reward, our abandonment of Israel, it doesn’t explain the American voices repeating Arab propaganda about devious Jews controlling our foreign policy.

I divide the dump-Israel movement’s leaders and fellow travelers into four groups: