Would Obama Start a War with Iran to Get Re-elected?

That is the question that went through my mind immediately when I first heard of the release of the information that a plot by Iran to assassinate the Saudi ambassador on US soil. (See story here. And see Obama talking tough here.) Why would the administration release such information right now?

For three years now the US has been appeasing Iran.

• When the people rose up in the streets to protest the stolen election of the holocaust-denying, religious fanatic Ahmadinejad, Obama was silent.
  
• When news item after news item detailed the relentless Iranian march toward obtaining both nuclear warheads and ICBM's to deliver them, Obama was passive.
  
• Meanwhile, Obama was so busy falling all over himself to celebrate Islamic holidays that he didn't bother to issue a statement on the highest Christian holiday of Easter.

Now, has Obama experienced a death-bed conversion? Has the futility of appeasement become apparent all of a sudden even to him? Will he be asking the British government for that bust of Winston Churchill back? Has he suddenly become a neo-con hawk?

"All options are on the table" is diplomatic-speak for "you better shape up or expect some bunker-buster bombs to rain down on your head as you pick up the morning paper one of these days."

What we do know is that Obama' poll numbers are sinking and much too low for him to have a realistic chance of re-election. And without re-election much of his program to move America left-ward is in danger of being rolled back. Certainly his classically Marxist "millionaire and billionaire" class warfare rhetoric has appeased his base, but his base is too small to re-elect him. Without Independents he is toast. See this excellent article by Jay Cost, which explains why.

He won 52% of Independents in 2008 but he did so by pretending to be a centrist. Now he is polling 17% lower among Independents (at 35%) and he knows that trick won't work again. But presidents who are at war tend to win a big sympathy vote because many patriotic Americans want to support the Commander-in-Chief during a time of war.

However, to argue against myself, it is not clear that this dynamic would apply to a president who starts another war in the midst of a recession when the country is already at war. The "hatred of stupidity" factor would likely outweigh the "patriotic my country right or wrong" factor. And he would alienate his base.

Unless . . . the other nation attacked the US first and it was seen as a clearly defensive and totally necessary response. And if it was decisive and, most importantly, quickly victorious, it just might work. If you were Bill Daley or David Axelrod and you thought it was his only hope for winning re-election, what would you advise him to do?

So, are we seeing the beginnings of the laying of a foundation for a narrative that ends with the US (with or without Israel) taking out Iran's nuclear program and maybe weakening the totalitarian theocracy that currently governs the nation as well?

It is much to soon to jump to conclusions. But over the next 13 months, as desperation grows in left-wing circles over the impending Republican election victories and the prospect of a Republican House, a Republican Senate and a Republican President, you had better believe that "all options will be on the table." As it sinks in to the brain trust in the White House and Obama's re-election campaign that they are doomed to lose, anything is possible.

If the socialist community organizer could successfully pose as a moderate centrist to get elected, why couldn't he pose as a neo-con hawk to get re-elected? One is no more absurd than the other.

Benjamin Netanyahu's Speech Today at the UN: An Answer to Those Who Urge Unilateral Surrender

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is one of the most demonized men on the planet today and also one of the world's greatest statesman. With a community organizer in the White House and faceless bureaucrats running the European Union into the ground, surely Netanyahu deserves the title "Leader of the West."

Here are some excerpts from his speech. I post them here in the faint hope that some who normally only hear anti-Zionist propaganda from the left-leaning media and intellectual elites of our culture will read them (and click through to the entire speech) and get the other side of the story for once.

At the beginning of the speech and all the way through, he pleads with the Palestinians to come to the negotiating table and make peace.

Ladies and gentlemen, Israel has extended its hand in peace from the moment it was established 63 years ago. On behalf of Israel and the Jewish people, I extend that hand again today. I extend it to the people of Egypt and Jordan, with renewed friendship for neighbors with whom we have made peace. I extend it to the people of Turkey, with respect and good will. I extend it to the people of Libya and Tunisia, with admiration for those trying to build a democratic future. I extend it to the other peoples of North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, with whom we want to forge a new beginning. I extend it to the people of Syria, Lebanon and Iran, with awe at the courage of those fighting brutal repression.

But most especially, I extend my hand to the Palestinian people, with whom we seek a just and lasting peace. (Applause.)

But he sadly notes the absurd anti-Israel prejudice that has been on display at the United Nations for many years:

Ladies and gentlemen, in Israel our hope for peace never wanes. Our scientists, doctors, innovators, apply their genius to improve the world of tomorrow. Our artists, our writers, enrich the heritage of humanity. Now, I know that this is not exactly the image of Israel that is often portrayed in this hall. After all, it was here in 1975 that the age-old yearning of my people to restore our national life in our ancient biblical homeland -- it was then that this was braided -- branded, rather -- shamefully, as racism. And it was here in 1980, right here, that the historic peace agreement between Israel and Egypt wasn't praised; it was denounced! And it's here year after year that Israel is unjustly singled out for condemnation. It's singled out for condemnation more often than all the nations of the world combined. Twenty-one out of the 27 General Assembly resolutions condemn Israel -- the one true democracy in the Middle East.

Well, this is an unfortunate part of the U.N. institution. It's the -- the theater of the absurd. It doesn't only cast Israel as the villain; it often casts real villains in leading roles: Gadhafi's Libya chaired the U.N. Commission on Human Rights; Saddam's Iraq headed the U.N. Committee on Disarmament.

You might say: That's the past. Well, here's what's happening now -- right now, today. Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon now presides over the U.N. Security Council. This means, in effect, that a terror organization presides over the body entrusted with guaranteeing the world's security.

You couldn't make this thing up.

So here in the U.N., automatic majorities can decide anything. They can decide that the sun sets in the west or rises in the west. I think the first has already been pre-ordained. But they can also decide -- they have decided that the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Judaism's holiest place, is occupied Palestinian territory. . . .

He takes on directly the mainstream media narrative of what is blocking peace and demolishes it effectively:

And the world around Israel is definitely becoming more dangerous. Militant Islam has already taken over Lebanon and Gaza. It's determined to tear apart the peace treaties between Israel and Egypt and between Israel and Jordan. It's poisoned many Arab minds against Jews and Israel, against America and the West. It opposes not the policies of Israel but the existence of Israel.

Now, some argue that the spread of militant Islam, especially in these turbulent times -- if you want to slow it down, they argue, Israel must hurry to make concessions, to make territorial compromises. And this theory sounds simple. Basically it goes like this: Leave the territory, and peace will be advanced. The moderates will be strengthened, the radicals will be kept at bay. And don't worry about the pesky details of how Israel will actually defend itself; international troops will do the job.

These people say to me constantly: Just make a sweeping offer, and everything will work out. You know, there's only one problem with that theory. We've tried it and it hasn't worked. In 2000 Israel made a sweeping peace offer that met virtually all of the Palestinian demands. Arafat rejected it. The Palestinians then launched a terror attack that claimed a thousand Israeli lives.

Prime Minister Olmert afterwards made an even more sweeping offer, in 2008. President Abbas didn't even respond to it.

But Israel did more than just make sweeping offers. We actually left territory. We withdrew from Lebanon in 2000 and from every square inch of Gaza in 2005. That didn't calm the Islamic storm, the militant Islamic storm that threatens us. It only brought the storm closer and make it stronger.

Hezbollah and Hamas fired thousands of rockets against our cities from the very territories we vacated. See, when Israel left Lebanon and Gaza, the moderates didn't defeat the radicals, the moderates were devoured by the radicals. And I regret to say that international troops like UNIFIL in Lebanon and UBAM (ph) in Gaza didn't stop the radicals from attacking Israel.

We left Gaza hoping for peace.

We didn't freeze the settlements in Gaza, we uprooted them. We did exactly what the theory says: Get out, go back to the 1967 borders, dismantle the settlements.

And I don't think people remember how far we went to achieve this. We uprooted thousands of people from their homes. We pulled children out of -- out of their schools and their kindergartens. We bulldozed synagogues. We even -- we even moved loved ones from their graves. And then, having done all that, we gave the keys of Gaza to President Abbas.

Now the theory says it should all work out, and President Abbas and the Palestinian Authority now could build a peaceful state in Gaza. You can remember that the entire world applauded. They applauded our withdrawal as an act of great statesmanship. It was a bold act of peace.

But ladies and gentlemen, we didn't get peace. We got war. We got Iran, which through its proxy Hamas promptly kicked out the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian Authority collapsed in a day -- in one day.

President Abbas just said on this podium that the Palestinians are armed only with their hopes and dreams. Yeah, hopes, dreams and 10,000 missiles and Grad rockets supplied by Iran, not to mention the river of lethal weapons now flowing into Gaza from the Sinai, from Libya, and from elsewhere.

Thousands of missiles have already rained down on our cities. So you might understand that, given all this,Israelis rightly ask: What's to prevent this from happening again in the West Bank? See, most of our major cities in the south of the country are within a few dozen kilometers from Gaza. But in the center of the country, opposite the West Bank, our cities are a few hundred meters or at most a few kilometers away from the edge of the West Bank.

So I want to ask you. Would any of you -- would any of you bring danger so close to your cities, to your families? Would you act so recklessly with the lives of your citizens? Israel is prepared to have a Palestinian state in the West Bank, but we're not prepared to have another Gaza there. And that's why we need to have real security arrangements, which the Palestinians simply refuse to negotiate with us.

Israelis remember the bitter lessons of Gaza. Many of Israel's critics ignore them. They irresponsibly advise Israel to go down this same perilous path again. Your read what these people say and it's as if nothing happened -- just repeating the same advice, the same formulas as though none of this happened.

And these critics continue to press Israel to make far-reaching concessions without first assuring Israel's security. They praise those who unwittingly feed the insatiable crocodile of militant Islam as bold statesmen. They cast as enemies of peace those of us who insist that we must first erect a sturdy barrier to keep the crocodile out, or at the very least jam an iron bar between its gaping jaws.

So in the face of the labels and the libels, Israel must heed better advice. Better a bad press than a good eulogy, and better still would be a fair press whose sense of history extends beyond breakfast, and which recognizes Israel's legitimate security concerns.

There is much more. Read it here.

The fact is that Israel wants peace and is willing to make peace as long as (1) the other side is willing to recognize the permanent legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state and (2) reasonable security arrangements can be made. If the Palestinians are not willing to make peace on this basis, they should be ostracized, de-funded, not recognized, pressured and vilified by the world community until they capitulate to reason.

Rick Perry Gets It When It Comes to the Middle East

As a result of the pro-Palestinian policies of the Obama administration, the Palestinians have become convinced that they can get statehood without recognizing Israel's right to exist. This week at the UN, unless something changes at the last minute, they will force the US to veto a resolution recognizing a Palestinian state.

Here are two clips (total of under 8 min) that offer insight into this complex issue.

The first clip here is of Charles Krauthammer putting the whole gambit into historical perspective. The second clip is a terrific speech Rick Perry made in New York City today here.

It is the clearest, most concise and morally sound speech I have heard on this issue in years. Perry's Middle East policy is extremely well-developed and a refreshing change from the appeasement and moral slime we have been getting from the Obama administration. Listen to it because you will be listening to the next president of the United States.

I just found the transcript of his remarks. What a blessing it must be for the family of Gilad Shalit to hear his name mentioned by a man who is running for president of the US!

Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry delivered the following remarks on the U.S., Israel, and Palestinian statehood in New York City earlier today:

Thank you. Let me begin by thanking Dr. Solomon Frager and Aron Hirtz for helping us organize this press conference today.

I am joined today by a diverse group of Jewish leaders from here and abroad who share my concern that the United Nations could take action this week to legitimize the Palestinian gambit to establish statehood in violation of the spirit of the 1993 Oslo Accords.

We are indignant that certain Middle Eastern leaders have discarded the principle of direct negotiations between the sovereign nation of Israel and the Palestinian leadership, and we are equally indignant that the Obama Administration’s Middle East policy of appeasement has encouraged such an ominous act of bad faith.

Simply put, we would not be here today at the precipice of such a dangerous move if the Obama Policy in the Middle East wasn’t naïve, arrogant, misguided and dangerous.

It must be said, first, that Israel is our oldest and strongest democratic ally in the Middle East and has been for more than 60 years. The Obama Policy of moral equivalency, which gives equal standing to the grievances of Israelis and Palestinians, including the orchestrators of terrorism, is a dangerous insult.

There is no middle ground between our allies and those who seek their destruction. America should not be ambivalent between the terrorist tactics of Hamas and the security tactics of the legitimate and free state of Israel. By proposing ‘indirect talks” through the U.S. rather than between Palestinian leaders and Israel, this administration encouraged the Palestinians to shun direct talks.

Second, it was wrong for this Administration to suggest the 1967 borders should be the starting point for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. When you consider this suggestion was made on the eve of the Israeli Prime Minister’s visit, we see in this American Administration a willingness to isolate a close ally and to do so in a manner that is insulting and naïve.

Third, by injecting the issue of 1967 borders in addition to a construction freeze in East Jerusalem and Israeli settlements, the Obama Administration has put Israel in a position of weakness and taken away their flexibility to offer concessions as part of the negotiation process.

Indeed, bolstered by the Obama Administration’s policies and apologists at the U.N., the Palestinians are exploiting the instability in the Middle East hoping to achieve their objective without concessions or direct negotiations with Israel.

The reason is simple: if they perceive they can get what they want from the U.N. without making any concessions why should they negotiate with Israel?

While the administration is right to finally agree to fight the Arab resolution at the U.N., it bears repeating that we wouldn’t be here today if they had stuck to some basic principles concerning Palestinian statehood:

First, Palestinian leaders must publicly affirm Israel’s right to exist, and to exist as a Jewish state;

Second, President Abbas must persuade all factions including Hamas to renounce acts of terrorism and release kidnapped Israeli Gilad Shalit, and;

Third, Palestinian statehood must be established only through direct negotiations between the Palestinian leadership and the nation of Israel.

By not insisting on these principles, the Obama Administration has appeased the Arab Street at the expense of our own national security interests. They have sowed instability that threatens the prospects of peace.

Israel’s security is critical to America’s security. We must not forget it was Israel that took out the nuclear capabilities of Iraq in 1981 and Syria in 2007. In both instances, their actions made the free world safer.

Today, the greatest threat to the security of Israel and, by extension, a threat to America, is the Iranian government developing a nuclear arsenal. One thing is clear: we must stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Economic sanctions must be tightened and increased and all options must remain on the table to stop a brutally repressive regime from acquiring a nuclear capability.

To date, we have fumbled our greatest opportunity for regime change. As average Iranian citizens were marching on Tehran in the Green Revolution in 2009, America was wasting precious time on a naïve policy of outreach to both the Iranian and Syrian governments.

Who knows what the leadership of Iran would look like today if America had done everything in its power to provide diplomatic and moral support to encourage the growing movement of dissidents who sought freedom.

Our actions in recent years have destabilized the Middle East. We have been complacent in encouraging revolt against hostile governments in Iran and Syria and we have been slow to recognize the risks posed by the new regime in Egypt and the increasingly strained relationship between Israel and Turkey.

It is vitally important for America to preserve alliances with moderate Muslim regimes and Muslim leaders who seek to preserve peace and stability in the region. But today, neither adversaries nor allies alike, know where America stands.

Our muddle of a foreign policy has created greater uncertainty in the midst of the “Arab Spring.” And our policy of isolating and undermining Israel has only encouraged our adversaries in their aggression.

With the end-run on Palestinian statehood imminent before the U.N., America must act swiftly.

First, every nation within the U.N. must know America stands with Israel and the Oslo accord principle of direct negotiations without equivocation.

Second, America must make it clear that a declaration of Palestinian Statehood in violation of the spirit of the Oslo accords could jeopardize our funding of U.N. operations.

Third, the Palestinians must know their gambit comes with consequences in particular that America will have to reconsider the $4 billion in assistance we have provided to the Palestinians over the last 17 years.

Fourth, we should close the PLO office in Washington if the U.N. grants the standing of a Palestinian state.

And fifth, we must signal to the world, including nations like Turkey and Egypt whom we have considered allies in recent years, that we won’t tolerate aggression against Israel.

Israel is our friend and ally. I have traveled there several times, and met with its leaders. It is not a perfect nation, but its existence is critical to America’s security in the world.

It is time to change our policy of appeasement toward the Palestinians to strengthen our ties to the nation of Israel, and in the process establish a robust American position in the Middle East characterized by a new firmness and a new resolve.

If America does not head off the aggression of forces hostile to Israel we will only embolden them.

That would be a tragic mistake.

This is a devastating indictment of Obama's Middle East foreign policy and one sure to resonate with voters. But beyond the politics, what stands out is its moral clarity.

American Jews Must Choose Between Israel and Obama

Last night's shocking election of a Republican in a Brooklyn-Queens district in New York City in the special election to replace the disgraced Anthony Wiener should be a huge wake-up call for President Obama. The district is mainly blue-collar, heavily Catholic and Orthodox Jewish, and registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by a 3:1 margin. This is a very big deal for Obama's re-election chances next year.

The three biggest issues were Obama and the economy, Obama and Israel and the Democratic candidate's support for same-sex marriage in the New York state legislature. It was a clearly a referendum on Obama. Two former mayors of New York, Ed Koch and Rudy Giuliani both endorsed the Republican, Bob Turner. The mismanagement of the economy by the Obama administration is obvious. What I want to focus on is Obama's obvious anti-Israel stance and how is may affect the upcoming presidential election.

Dan Senor of the Wall Street Journal lists the evidence of anti-Israel bias on the part of Obama. I quote it extensively because it is so concise and so clearly damning.

• February 2008: When running for president, then-Sen. Obama told an audience in Cleveland: "There is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt an unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel that you're anti-Israel." Likud had been out of power for two years when Mr. Obama made this statement. At the time the country was being led by the centrist Kadima government of Ehud Olmert, Tzipi Livni and Shimon Peres, and Prime Minister Olmert had been pursuing an unprecedented territorial compromise. As for Likud governments, it was under Likud that Israel made its largest territorial compromises—withdrawals from Sinai and Gaza.

• July 2009: Mr. Obama hosted American Jewish leaders at the White House, reportedly telling them that he sought to put "daylight" between America and Israel. "For eight years"—during the Bush administration—"there was no light between the United States and Israel, and nothing got accomplished," he declared.

Nothing? Prime Minister Ariel Sharon uprooted thousands of settlers from their homes in Gaza and the northern West Bank and deployed the Israeli army to forcibly relocate their fellow citizens. Mr. Sharon then resigned from the Likud Party to build a majority party based on a two-state consensus.

In the same meeting with Jewish leaders, Mr. Obama told the group that Israel would need "to engage in serious self-reflection." This statement stunned the Americans in attendance: Israeli society is many things, but lacking in self-reflection isn't one of them. It's impossible to envision the president delivering a similar lecture to Muslim leaders.

• September 2009: In his first address to the U.N. General Assembly, President Obama devoted five paragraphs to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, during which he declared (to loud applause) that "America does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements." He went on to draw a connection between rocket attacks on Israeli civilians with living conditions in Gaza. There was not a single unconditional criticism of Palestinian terrorism.

• March 2010: During Vice President Joe Biden's visit to Israel, a Jerusalem municipal office announced plans for new construction in a part of Jerusalem. The president launched an unprecedented weeks-long offensive against Israel. Mr. Biden very publicly departed Israel.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton berated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a now-infamous 45-minute phone call, telling him that Israel had "harmed the bilateral relationship." (The State Department triumphantly shared details of the call with the press.) The Israeli ambassador was dressed-down at the State Department, Mr. Obama's Middle East envoy canceled his trip to Israel, and the U.S. joined the European condemnation of Israel.

Moments after Mr. Biden concluded his visit to the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority held a ceremony to honor Dalal Mughrabi, who led one of the deadliest Palestinian terror attacks in history: the so-called Coastal Road Massacre that killed 38, including 13 children and an American. The Obama administration was silent. But that same day, on ABC, Mr. Axelrod called Israel's planned construction of apartments in its own capital an "insult" and an "affront" to the United States. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs went on Fox News to accuse Mr. Netanyahu of "weakening trust" between the two countries.

Ten days later, Mr. Netanyahu traveled to Washington to mend fences but was snubbed at a White House meeting with President Obama—no photo op, no joint statement, and he was sent out through a side door.

• April 2010: Mr. Netanyahu pulled out of the Obama-sponsored Washington summit on nuclear proliferation after it became clear that Turkey and Egypt intended to use the occasion to condemn the Israeli nuclear program, and Mr. Obama would not intervene.

• March 2011: Mr. Obama returned to his habit of urging Israelis to engage in self-reflection, inviting Jewish community leaders to the White House and instructing them to "search your souls" about Israel's dedication to peace.

• May 2011: The State Department issued a press release declaring that the department's No. 2 official, James Steinberg, would be visiting "Israel, Jerusalem, and the West Bank." In other words, Jerusalem is not part of Israel. Later in the month, only hours before Mr. Netanyahu departed from Israel to Washington, Mr. Obama delivered his Arab Spring speech, which focused on a demand that Israel return to its indefensible pre-1967 borders with land swaps.

Jews in the US are going to have to choose between left-wing ideology and support for the Jewish people and their national homeland in the next election. For conservative Jews it is a no-brainer, but for those who lean toward socialism it is wrenching. I only hope that this becomes the occasion for many of them to realize that left-wing ideology is inherently incompatible with the vision of human rights, democracy and political liberalism they cherish.

When Will the Arabs Recognize the Legitimacy of Israel?

Palestine Media Watch is an Israeli organization that provides an essential service by monitoring what the Palestinian Authorities officials and ordinary citizens are saying publicly in Arabic. What they say in English for the consumption of Westerners is often very different from what they say among themselves. And, of course, the left-leaning Western media never dig for the truth and so we live with systemic disinformation. That is why the PMW is so important.

The real reason why there is no peace in the Middle East is that the Arabs will not accept the existence of Israel as a Jewish state on her ancient, ancestral homeland. They want one State of Palestine with a ruling Arab majority and they want Israel to be destroyed as a Jewish State. This is because of Islamic supremacism, which proclaims that Islam supersedes both Judaism and Christianity as the one true religion. It not only wants to exist and be left alone; deep in its DNA is a thirst for domination and world rule. In this it resembles Communism and some of the ancient empires of world history.

Here is a sampling of what the Palestinians say among themselves, which shows that Israel has no partner for peace. From the PWA website:

Official PA daily calls Israel "the territories occupied in 1948":

"Under the slogan, 'Palestine is closer: Lod shall remain', the 'Khutwa' youth group, in cooperation with a group of Palestinian youth from the West Bank and from the territories occupied in 1948 (i.e., Israel), held a charity performance to support the resolve of our people in the occupied Palestinian city of Lod...
Manal Taha, one of the organizers of the event... [said that Israel's aim is] to threaten the resolve within the occupying entity, which continues through the actions of the authorities in Jaffa, Acre, Haifa, Jerusalem, and other occupied Palestinian cities. She added, 'Through this event we hope to turn the spotlight onto the suffering of our people in the Interior (i.e., in Israel). In addition, we aim for this event to be a first step on the road to restoring the spiritual connection between Palestinians wherever they may be, by carrying out other activities in the future for these purposes. Taha called upon everyone to participate in this activity, whose aim is to energize the connection between the Palestinians of the territories occupied in 1948 and [those in] the territories occupied in 1967."

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, June 23, 2011]

Official PA daily states that Israel - "the territories occupied in 1948" - is "currently under the rule of the occupation":

"If you climb the Khirbat Safa Hills [in the West Bank] and look with your eyes towards what the Israeli occupation and its settlers have seized, your eyes will well up and cause you to weep twice: once over the territories occupied in 1948 (i.e., year of Israel's creation), which are currently under the rule of the occupation. The Safa Hills look out over wide expanses of these territories, and sometimes you can see the Mediterranean Sea, the city of Ashkelon (i.e., Israeli city), and even Tal Al-Rabi'a "Tel Aviv", upon which the occupation has consolidated its control."

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Jan. 31, 2011]

The following are examples of the PA calling Israel "stolen":

In a 12th-Grade schoolbook published by the PA Ministry of Education, and in use today:

"Palestine's war ended with a catastrophe that is unprecedented in history, when the Zionist gangs stole Palestine and expelled its people from their cities, their villages, their lands and their houses, and established the State of Israel."

[Arabic Language, Analysis, Literature and Criticism, Grade 12, p. 104]

You can read more of this sort of documented evidence here.

Constant hectoring from Obama, the UN, the Europeans etc. of Israel to compromise and to negotiate is worse than useless under these conditions. All that amounts to is a demand for Israel to unilaterally surrender.

Anyone interested in peace in the Middle East should be pressuring the Arabs to accept a two-state solution with guaranteed security for Israel. Anyone who pressures Israel to compromise when the Arabs refuse even to recognize the Jewish state as legitimate is really on the side of the anti-Jewish, Muslim extremists who are determined to finish what Hitler started. The issue really is that stark.

The Truth about the "West Bank"

Here is a great presentation by the Israeli government explaining why there is no such thing as "occupied territories" and why the term "1967 borders" is incorrect. The propaganda is the Western world is thick and toxic, but this clear presentation cuts through the haze with history, facts and legal reasoning.



Everyone who wants to be informed should spent 6 minutes with this informative video.

Moral Clarity and the Lack Thereof

Congressman Gary Ackerman (D-NY) tells it like it is in this statement from his website on his resolution calling on Hamas to release Corporal Giliad Shalit.

“I think it is absolutely essential that the United States keep faith with our Israeli allies and stand with them in calling for the immediate release of IDF Corporal Gilad Shalit. The terrorists in Hamas, it should be recalled, snuck into Israel proper and attacked a group of IDF soldiers for the purpose of kidnapping Corporal Shalit in order to hold him hostage. Descending even further into subhuman barbarity, they have forced him to appear in propaganda videos, they have denied him visits from the Red Cross, they have denied him medical attention, and they have prevented him from sending even so much as a postcard to his parents, or allowing them to contact him.

Hamas’ stooges can say whatever they want about this blood-soaked bunch of terrorists, but their behavior, in the form of unrelenting violence against Israeli civilians and the disgusting anti-Semitism they spew, shows their true beliefs and their real values. These are not partners for any kind of peace. These are thugs hiding an agenda of hate behind a façade of religious devotion.

“Congress must stand with Israel in calling for Corporal Shalit’s immediate and unconditional release, and I expect many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this resolution and call for its consideration and adoption by the House.” [my bolding]

I guess he must just be some ignorant, Southern, Baptist, redneck - no, wait he is a Democratic congressman from a blue state!

Meanwhile the White House is still putting pressure on Israel to negotiate with Hamas and simultaneously stating that its policy is that Israel cannot negotiate with a negotiating partner which denies its right to exist. (See this post by Jen Rubin on the Obama administration's incoherence on Hamas.)

So what is the difference between Rep. Gary Ackerman and Barack Obama? Moral clarity and the lack thereof.

Michelle Bachmann on Israel

Here is a speech by Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann, candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, on Israel. It is only five minutes long but it is clear, cogent and compelling. She is a great speaker and has a positive and forward-looking attitude.



I think she may very well win Iowa and that could propel her candidacy int0 the top tier. If I were Mitt Romney, I would worry more about her than any other current declared candidate.

Maybe it is time for a woman leader of the free world, providing she is one with conservative views like Bachmann's.

The Real Obstacles to Peace in the Middle East

The outrageous behavior of the Iranian-backed, Assad dictatorship in Syria continues to get worse. The Syrian government has been shooting its citizens for weeks and the response of the US has been weak and muted.

Daniel Halper of the Weekly Standard describes the new lows to which this cynical regime has sunk in the manipulation of its own citizens in order to deflect world attention from itself:

For the last several months, Syrians have been loudly protesting their own government. The regime, led by strongman Bashar al-Assad, has responded by killing its own citizens, including women and children, and shutting off channels of communication that the protesters have been utilizing (such as the Internet). According to the Boston Globe, "the continuing crackdown that has killed more than 1,000 people, with hundreds more rounded up in mass arrests."

But in an apparent effort to turn the world's attention away from its own problems, the Syrian regime is reportedly now paying its citizens to protest the Israelis. Ynet reports:

The Syrian opposition group claimed that each farmer was promised $1,000 for showing up at the rally and $10,000 to their families if they are killed by IDF fire.

According to the report, the average salary of a Syrian citizen is about $200 per month, meaning that participation in Sunday's demonstration could provide a protester and his family with five months worth of financial relief.

So once again, Syrian protesters rushed Israel's border, resulting in the deaths of at least a dozen.

Will Washington protest?

In a related development, we hear that the Palestinian Authority, Israel's supposed partner for peace, is now paying a salary to terrorists in Israeli jails.

Last month as Mr. Obama was pandering to the Muslim world by suggesting that Israel return to their 1967 borders, the Palestinian Authority enacted a new law which will pay a monthly salary to Palestinians and Arab-Israelis serving prison sentences in Israel for terrorism.

Among those eligible for salaries are Abdullah Barghouti, serving 67 life sentences for acts that include planning the Sbarro restaurant (2001) and Monument café (2002) suicide bombings in Jerusalem; Hasan Salameh, serving 38 life sentences for offences that include planning a series of 1996 bus bombings; and Jamal Abu al-Hijja, serving nine life sentences for planning 2005 bombings in Hadera and Netanya

The law will provide a salary to help with the needs of the prisoners, benefits for released prisoners and payments to assist the prisoners' families.

When Obama made the comments in his recent speech in which he called on Israel to recognize (before negotiations had even started) that final agreement would be based on the 1967 borders with land swaps, he sparked outrage in Israel and among all supporters of Israel worldwide, including within his own Democratic Party.

Some ask why the fuss? After all, don't most people think a final agreement will take this form? That is not the point. The point is that he was asking Israel to make concessions ahead of time, without negotiations and without receiving anything in return. The real question is why did Obama not implicitly blame the Palestinians for holding up negotiations (since they are the ones refusing to negotiate after all) by calling on them to renounce the right of the descendents of the Arabs who fled in 1948 to return to Israel and swamp the Jewish state with their numbers?

Why always make it sound like Israel has to be the one to make the concessions, as if Israel was the obstacle to peace? Israel is not the obstacle to peace. The Palestinians are. And the cynical actions of dictators in the Arab world who manipulate the Palestinian-Israeli conflict for their own political benefit are obstacles to peace. Why is Obama so quiet about Syria? He has made himself into an obstacle to peace in the Middle East too.

Obama versus the Democratic Party

Obama might want to think again before calling for more bi-partisanship on Capitol Hill. Every time there is a bi-partisan consensus, it seems to be aimed at him. (A case in point would be his budget being defeated in the Senate by a vote of 97-0, which must be some kind of record.)

Now, a bi-partisan ad from the Emergency Committee for Israel shows the bi-partisan consensus against Obama's support for the Palestinian extremists dedicated to Israel's destruction.



I've said it before and it remains true: when you manage to place yourself to the left of Harry Reid you are not just out in left field, you are outside the ball park altogether across the river sloshing around in the drug-fueled, fever swamps of 60s radicalism.

When will the adults take control of the Democratic Party back from the fanatics?

The One-State Solution

Andrew Klavan has a better idea: a one-state solution in which we give the entire Middle East to the Jews. His humor has a serious point. Your money back if you don't laugh out loud.

The Palestinian UN Gambit is Illegal

The following letter signed by dozens of experts in international law and lawyers from both North America and Europe has been sent to Ban Ki-Moon, the Secretary-General of the United Nations. (HT Melanie Phillips)

It outlines the main legal and historical reasons for why a recognition of a Palestinian State based on the 1967 "borders" would be illegal and without force.

It is of great educational value to those who do not know the background of the conflict.

His Excellency Ban Ki-Moon,
Secretary-General of the United Nations,

1st Avenue & 44th St., New York, NY 10017

May 25, 2011

Excellency,

Re: The proposed General Assembly resolution to recognize a Palestinian
State "within 1967 borders"- an illegal action

We, the undersigned, attorneys from across the world who are involved in
general matters of international law, as well as being closely concerned
with the Israeli- Palestinian dispute, appeal to you to use your influence
and authority among the member states of the UN, with a view to preventing
the adoption of the resolution that the Palestinian delegation intends to
table at the forthcoming session of the General Assembly, to recognize a
Palestinian state "within the 1967 borders".

By all standards and criteria, such a resolution, if adopted, would be in
stark violation of all the agreements between Israel and the Palestinians,
as well as contravening UN Security Council resolutions 242(1967) and
338(1973) and those other resolutions based thereon. Our reasoning is as
follows:

1. The legal basis for the establishment of the State of Israel was the
resolution unanimously adopted by the League of Nations in 1922, affirming
the establishment of a national home for the Jewish People in the historical
area of the Land of Israel. This included the areas of Judea and Samaria and
Jerusalem, and close Jewish settlement throughout. This was subsequently
affirmed by both houses of the US Congress.

2. Article 80 of the UN Charter determines the continued validity of the
rights granted to all states or peoples, or already existing international
instruments (including those adopted by the League of Nations). Accordingly
the above-noted League resolution remains valid, and the 650,000 Jews
presently resident in the areas of Judea, Samaria and eastern
Jerusalem, reside there legitimately.

3. "The 1967 borders" do not exist, and have never existed. The
1949 Armistice Agreements entered into by Israel and its Arab
neighbors, establishing the Armistice Demarcation Lines, clearly stated that
these
lines "are without prejudice to future territorial settlements or boundary
lines or to claims of either Party relating thereto". Accordingly
they cannot be accepted or declared to be the international boundaries of a
Palestinian state.

4. UN Security Council Resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973)called upon
the parties to achieve a just and lasting peace in the Middle East and
specifically stressed the need to negotiate in order to achieve "secure and
recognized boundaries".

5. The Palestinian proposal, in attempting to unilaterally change the
status of the territory and determine the "1967 borders" as its recognized
borders, in addition to running squarely against resolutions 242 and 338,
would be a fundamental breach of the 1995 Israeli-Palestinian agreement on
the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, in which the parties undertook to
negotiate the issue of borders and not act to change the status of the
territories pending outcome of the permanent status negotiations.

6. The Palestinians entered into the various agreements constituting what
is known as the "Oslo Accords" in the full knowledge that
Israel's settlements existed in the areas, and that settlements would be one
of the issues to be negotiated in the permanent status negotiations.
Furthermore, the Oslo Accords impose no limitation on
Israel's settlement activity in those areas that the Palestinians agreed
would continue to be under Israel's jurisdiction and control pending
the outcome of the Permanent Status negotiations.

7. While the Interim Agreement was signed by Israel and the PLO, it was
witnessed by the UN together with the EU, the Russian Federation , the US,
Egypt and Norway. It is thus inconceivable that such witnesses, including
first and foremost the UN, would now give license to a measure in the UN
aimed at violating this agreement and undermining major resolutions of the
Security Council.

8. While the UN has maintained a persistent policy of non-recognition of
Israel's sovereignty over Jerusalem pending a negotiated solution, despite
Israel's historic rights to the city, it is inconceivable that the UN would
now recognize a unilaterally declared Palestinian state, the borders of
which would include eastern Jerusalem. This would represent the
ultimate in hypocrisy, double standards and discrimination, as well as an
utter disregard of the rights of Israel and the Jewish People.

9. Such unilateral action by the Palestinians could give rise to
reciprocal initiatives in the Israeli Parliament (Knesset) which
could include proposed legislation to declare Israel's sovereignty over
extensive parts of Judea and Samaria, if and when the Palestinians carry out
their unilateral action.

Excellency,

It appears to be patently clear to all that the Palestinian exercise, aimed
at advancing their political claims, represents a cynical abuse of the UN
Organization and of the members of the General Assembly. Its aim is to by-
pass the negotiation process called-for by the Security Council.

Regrettably this abuse of the UN and its integrity, in addition to
undermining international law, has the potential to derail the Middle-East
peace process.

We trust that you will use your authority to protect the UN and its
integrity from this abuse, and act to prevent any affirmation or recognition
of this dangerous Palestinian initiative.

Sincerely,

Ambassador (Ret) Attorney Baker Alan, Ambassador (Ret) Dr. Rosenne Meir, Dr.
Arnon Harel. Adv.
Prof. Einhorn Talia, Prof. Shochetman Eliav, Abu Lior, Adv., Asraf Shlomo,
Adv. (LL.B, LL.M)
Baba-Nahary Merav, Adv., Benjamin Aryeh N., Adv. LL.M Ben-Shahar Meir, Adv.
LL.B, LL.M
Bulshtein Ariel, Adv., Burstyn Yitzhak .adv LL.M, Carmi Anat, Adv.
Cohen Hila, Adv. Daniely Mirit, Adv., David Liat, Adv. (LL.B, LL.M)
Dermer Yossi, Adv., Eagle Shira, Adv. Eisenberg M., Adv Elad Cohen, Adv.
Elkalay Shimrit, Adv., Friedman Shlomo, Adv., Fuchs Yossi ,Adv.
Ganan Yuval. Adv. Goelman Avinoam, Adv. Goldman Ezra Adv.,
Guggenheim Chanania U., Adv Hacohen Itay, Adv. Harshoshanim Ariel, Adv.
Hershkovitz David, Adv. LL.M Jarden Elon ,Adv., Kavatz Gad, Adv.
Koslowe Avital Adv. (LL.B, LL.M) Lapidot Harel, Adv.
Lapidot Ohad Ziv, Adv., Levy Yechezkel, Adv. LL.M. Magen Alon, Adv. LL.B
Meiri Eddy, Esq. Morginstin Philip B.,Adv Nadel Gill, Adv.
Naor Avi, Adv., Nimni Eliyahu, Adv. Nir-Tzvi Doron, Adv. Orbach Nir, Adv.
Peretz Yitzhak, (LLB, Hons.) Adv. Rotenberg Zvi E. ,Adv., Shaya Dotan, Adv.
Shimon Yehuda Arye, Adv. Shmuelyan Eli, Adv., Tamari Amir, Adv.
Tamari Ilana, Adv., Teplow Michael I., J.D adv. Vaknin Emanuel, Adv.
Weistuch Elad, Adv. Wiseman Gabriel, Adv. Yamin Uri, Adv.
Zell Mark, Adv.

Melanie Phillips discusses this letter and the hypocritical and despicable recent actions of David Cameron, the Prime Minister of the UK in a recent post.

Obama, Israel and America

I know I've been blogging an awful lot about Israel lately, but it has been in the news and I have been meaning to comment on the events of last week in Washington and have just not had time yet. I've been reading a lot of commentary on Obama's speech, the meeting between Netanyahu and Obama, both of their speeches to AIEPAC and then Netanyahu's speech to the joint session of Congress. I've read the speeches and a lot of analysis (who could have time to read it all!) and I'd like to make two observations.

1. Barack Obama is clearly biased against Israel and in favor of the Palestinians, even though political realities force him to pretend to be Israel's friend. He cannot shift American foreign policy unilaterally and dramatically, but he can work incrementally to move it left-ward in little ways and this is what he is doing.

2. Many seasoned observers of American foreign policy regard him as a naive, incompetent, ill-informed amateur when it comes to foreign policy and this is undoubtedly true. He alienates allies and defers to enemies in such a way as to discourage those who should be standing with America and encouraging those whose fundamental interests are at odds with those of America. However, to say this is not in any way to negate point #1 above. He may well be both incompetent and biased.

The best summary of the week I've seen is from Charles Krauthammer, who writes in a NRO blog post entitled "What Obama Did to Israel":

"Every Arab-Israeli negotiation contains a fundamental asymmetry: Israel gives up land, which is tangible; the Arabs make promises, which are ephemeral. The longstanding American solution has been to nonetheless urge Israel to take risks for peace while America balances things by giving assurances of U.S. support for Israel’s security and diplomatic needs.

It’s on the basis of such solemn assurances that Israel undertook, for example, the Gaza withdrawal. In order to mitigate this risk, Pres. George W. Bush gave a written commitment that America supported Israel’s absorption of major settlement blocs in any peace agreement, opposed any return to the 1967 lines, and stood firm against the so-called Palestinian right of return to Israel.

For two and a half years, the Obama administration has refused to recognize and reaffirm these assurances. Then last week in his State Department speech, President Obama definitively trashed them. He declared that the Arab-Israeli conflict should indeed be resolved along “the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps.”

Nothing new here, said Obama three days later. “By definition, it means that the parties themselves — Israelis and Palestinians — will negotiate a border that is different” from 1967.

It means nothing of the sort. “Mutually” means both parties have to agree. And if one side doesn’t? Then, by definition, you’re back to the 1967 lines.

Nor is this merely a theoretical proposition. Three times the Palestinians have been offered exactly that formula, 1967 plus swaps — at Camp David 2000, Taba 2001, and the 2008 Olmert-Abbas negotiations. Every time, the Palestinians said no and walked away.

And that remains their position today: The 1967 lines. Period. Indeed, in September the Palestinians are going to the U.N. to get the world to ratify precisely that: a Palestinian state on the ’67 lines. No swaps.

Note how Obama has undermined Israel’s negotiating position. He is demanding that Israel go into peace talks having already forfeited its claim to the territory won in the ’67 war — its only bargaining chip. Remember: That ’67 line runs right through Jerusalem. Thus the starting point of negotiations would be that the Western Wall and even Jerusalem’s Jewish Quarter are Palestinian — alien territory for which Israel must now bargain . . .

Obama also moved the goal posts on the so-called right of return. Flooding Israel with millions of Arabs would destroy the world’s only Jewish state while creating a 23rd Arab state and a second Palestinian state — not exactly what we mean when we speak of a “two-state solution.” That’s why it has been the policy of the U.S. to adamantly oppose this “right.”

Yet in his State Department speech, Obama refused to simply restate this position — and refused again in a supposedly corrective speech three days later. Instead, he told Israel it must negotiate the right of return with the Palestinians after having given every inch of territory. Bargaining with what, pray tell?

No matter. “The status quo is unsustainable,” declared Obama, “and Israel too must act boldly to advance a lasting peace.”

Israel too? Exactly what bold steps for peace have the Palestinians taken? Israel made three radically conciliatory offers to establish a Palestinian state, withdrew from Gaza, and has been trying to renew negotiations for more than two years. Meanwhile, the Gaza Palestinians have been firing rockets at Israeli towns and villages. And on the West Bank, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas turned down the Olmert offer, walked out of negotiations with Binyamin Netanyahu, and now defies the United States by seeking not peace talks but instant statehood — without peace, without recognizing Israel — at the U.N. And to make unmistakable this spurning of any peace process, Abbas agrees to join the openly genocidal Hamas in a unity government, which even Obama acknowledges makes negotiations impossible."

The key point is that Obama is putting pressure on Israel to make concessions now - in advance of any peace talks - without getting anything in return. Why, if he is not simply biased against Israel?

Alas, the mask has slipped. The reaction to Obama's biased speech has been fascinating. While left-wing media types profess to buy Obama's position that "nothing has changed," Jewish donors to the Democratic Party, the Canadian government, PM Netanyahu, Congress and even major players in the Democratic Party such as Harry Reid beg to differ. When the president is out to the left of Harry Reid, it is time to stop nonsensically referring to him as a "centrist." (And when the US president stands to the left of Canada on an issue, it really must be extraordinary times!)

PM Netanyahu's speech to Congress was interrupted 56 times for applause including 29 standing ovations. He was witty, relaxed and positive. Many Americans wish they had a president who could analyze the geo-political situation with his combination of moral clarity and logical thinking. It is safe to say that Obama does not speak for Congress, which is much closer to the American people, on this issue.

In the comments sections of various newspaper columns and blog posts, you often see people lamenting how "the Jews" control the US government and the media and everything else. Reading them is surreal; it is like going back into a time machine into the 1930s.

People on the left, who have thrown in their lot with Islamofascism, need to understand one thing: it is not just the Jews in the US who stand with Israel. And it is not just the fundamentalist, dispensationalist strain of American Evangelicalism. It is the majority of the American people who recognize in Israel a nation with a common heritage, a liberal democratic politics and a need for support in a hostile environment. They realize that once the Islamofascists succeed in destroying Israel ("the Little Satan"), America ("the Great Satan") is next on the menu. They understand that Israel and other Western countries have a common heritage, common tradition and common enemies.

The Left needs to understand that just as America rejected Stalin's Russia (which the Left held up as the Utopian future) and just as America rejected Hitler's Third Reich (with its attack on God and God's people), America will reject Islam and its attempt to destroy the West. When Israel is attacked, the West is attacked.

The Left has always been a Fifth Column within our culture - disloyal and dangerous. But it cannot win as long as the majority of the people reject it and its totalitarian friends. Obama is finding that out the hard way, and in November 2012, this lesson will be clear in a way that is indisputable. For as someone said: "Elections have consequences."

Michael Horton on Israel

A reader of a previous post on Israel "Hatred of the Chosen People is Rooted in Hatred of God" asks me what my take is on this post by Michael Horton "Biblical Foreign Policy?" in which Horton criticizes Jack Hayford's recent call for Christians to stand with Israel as a "holy nation."

Horton argues that this is not a biblical position. Why not? He points to Hayford's dispensational theology as the basis for Hayford's argument that Israel is a holy nation and claims that if one does not accept dispensationalism, one has no basis to think of Israel as anything but a secular nation. As such, it has no claim on Christian support any more than any other nation.

Horton says that Hayford roots his argument in the Abrahamic Covenant, but the Abrahamic promises were conditional. The land was part of the blessing but Israel's disobedience led to the forfeiting of the land and the promises are all fulfilled in Christ. He writes:

I can agree with the point that “This relates not only to a people (the Jews), but it also relates to a land (Israel),” and that God did in fact judge Israel’s enemies. Nevertheless, God’s covenant with Israel was itself conditional. It is not Israel’s land, but God’s, and if Israel breaks the covenant, then the land will “vomit out” Israel as well (Lev 20:22). God himself will lay the nation waste through other nations and send his people into exile “east of Eden.” The land will no longer be holy, but common, even though God continues to work through the holy line—the “stump of Jesse,” from whom David and eventually the greater David (the Messiah) would come. Throughout the law (especially in Deuteronomy), the temporal promise of “long life in the land” is conditioned on Israel’s faithfulness to the covenant it swore at Mount Sinai. It is distinct from the unconditional promise of everlasting life and peace through Abraham’s Seed, through whom all families of the earth will be blessed.

The way the Gospels, but especially Hebrews and Galatians, interpret these passages is to recognize that the Sinai covenant was temporary, conditional, and typological. It was a shadow of the things to come—namely, Christ and his kingdom. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus announces a “regime change” from the civil laws of the theocracy. Instead of driving out the enemies of God, the True Israel—those united to Christ—are to endure suffering for the gospel and to pray for their persecutors. God’s common grace is shed on the just and the unjust alike in this age. Having fulfilled its job, like a trailer for a movie, the old covenant is now “obsolete” (Heb 8:13). Christ’s ministry, far greater than that of Moses, fulfills the everlasting promise that God made to Abraham. Now, blessing has come from the Jews to the ends of the earth in Jesus Christ, the true Israel, the true and faithful Son of David, the true Temple.

Now I myself am an amillennialist and there is much in this interpretive approach that I can agree with. The Reformed approach needs to be wary of veering too close to a hard line dispensationalist approach, on the one hand, and also be careful not to give aid and comfort to Marcionism, on the other. I have two problems with Horton's post: one theological and one political and they are closely connected.

The first problem I have with his post is that he comes close to supersessionism in saying that all the promises made to Israel are fulfilled in Christ. (This is not outright Marcionism, but there is definitely a bad odor of Marcionism in the air.) He does explicitly say that he believes that the Church has not replaced Israel and that in the last days there will be a great outpouring of God's Spirit on Israel and both of those statements are true and I am grateful that he makes them. The problem comes when he says that God's future plan for blessing Israel has nothing to do with the State of Israel. Nothing? Isn't that going a bit far? Isn't "not replaced" a rather weak way to describe God's on-going concern for Israel? In fact, if God is not protecting Israel now (and all through the centuries between the first and second comings of Christ) then how could Israel even endure all this time, longer than any other recognizable people? He has to preserve them if He is going to be able to bless them in the last days.

We can agree that the modern State of Israel is not a fulfillment of biblical prophecy in the sense of being the literal fulfillment of OT promises about returning to the land without going so far as to say that the (modern, secular) State of Israel has nothing to do with God's continuing concern for Israel.

When Horton says that there will be an outpouring of God's Spirit on Israel in the last days, he is referring to Rom. 11:26 "All Israel will be saved," which Paul refers to as a mystery. (25) That honors one important Pauline emphasis. But Paul also expresses concern for Israel in the period of "hardening" while the Gentiles are coming in (i.e. now). He warns the Gentiles not to get too proud and urges them to remember that they are being incorporated into Israel, not the other way round.

"But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you." (Rom. 11:17-18 ESV)

It is this consciousness of the Church being dependent upon the root (Israel) and God's on-going concern for Israel now that I find missing in Horton's post. And it leads to an indifference to Israel as a state. If the State of Israel is part of God's providential provision for Israel's continued existence throughout history as we move toward the last days when "all Israel will be saved" then I think Christians have a theological reason to be concerned for Israel.

The second issue is a political one and it follows directly on the theological context just sketched. There is no doubt that Israel is a secular, nation state. But to think that God cannot and does not work through kings, empires, nation-states etc. in working out His Providence would be an unbiblical notion. Scripture explicitly teaches in both Testaments that God raises up kings and states and casts them down according to His mysterious purposes. He brings judgment on oppressors and He causes a witness to His glory to be made possible.

In this context, we need to see the State of Israel as God's gracious provision for the protection of His people. It may well be that the worldwide anti-Semitism of the mid-Twentieth century was just a warm-up for the coming hatred of the Jews to be displayed through the UN and most nations of the world. We don't know, but it is hardly far-fetched to suggest that God's plan for preventing the extermination of the Jews might include a nuclear-armed Israel upon which God's temporal blessing is even now being poured out.

None of us know the future; all we can go on is observations made in the present. Maybe the State of Israel will not endure until the Second Coming, which may be a long way off. Unlike my Dispensational friends, I am agnostic on those points. All I am insisting is that God is using the secular nation-state of Israel to perform a task right now and that that task is the protection of the Jews. I have no problem believing that God can and does accomplish His purposes in history through secular politics. (Ironically, the Orthodox Jews who do not believe in the State of Israel may end up being saved because of it. Such ironies abound in history.)

Politically, Israel is an outpost of civilization in a sea of tyranny and barbarism. Israel is a liberal, democratic, state which honors the rule of law and has a limited government. The only Arabs in the world who enjoy full human rights and the blessings of parliamentary democracy live in Israel. The IDF is the most moral and conscientious army in the world. Israel is a highly educated
country full of people who just want to live in peace. Despite all this, Israel has been attacked repeatedly by Islamofascists whose ideology owes much to Hitlerism and who openly brag about wanting to finish what Hitler started by driving the Jews into the sea.

Under these circumstances, I don't see it as an option, or even as debatable, for Christians to do anything but stand with Israel. Indifference is a moral outrage, just as it was in the 1930s. The only defensible political position I can see is to be pro-Jew and pro-Israel. Anti-Zionism and anti-Israel politics seem to me to be inextricably bound up with a just-below-the-surface anti-Jew attitude. Of course, not all Western anti-Israel activists are anti-Jew, but the number who are is extremely disturbing.

The final sentence of Horton's post is the really problematic one for me:

Yet, by acknowledging that God’s promise of a temporal, geo-political theocracy and land were conditional and that this covenant now lies in the past, we are free to support our friends in Israel and Palestine in their pursuit of a stable peace that will doubtless require trust and negotiation on both sides.

How many problems are packed into that one sentence!

First, he seems to say, contra Paul in Rom. 9-11, that God's covenant with Israel lies in the past. Maybe he does not mean that, but it sure sounds suspicious. Horton seems out of sync with the authoritative Word of God at this point. Paul asks: "Has God rejected his people?" and replies: "By no means!" (Rom. 11:1) He also says: "As regards the gospel they are enemies of God for your sake. But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable." (Rom. 11:28-30) For Paul, the covenant with Israel does not lie only in the past; it is a present reality.

Second, he implies that we Western Christians have friends equally in Israel and Palestine, which implies a moral equivalence between the two sides which simply does not exist. (see above)

Third, he says that both sides are required to trust, but who is Michael Horton to demand that Israel trust people who teach anti-Semitism in their schools, name town squares after suicide bombers and claim that a Jewish Temple never stood in Jerusalem? And that is just Fatah; Hamas is far worse!

Western leftists in the media and in liberal Protestantism continually hammer away at the theme that both sides are equally to blame for the conflict. Informed students of the conflict know that is not true. You can't negotiate with people who want to kill you; you can only allow them to do so bit by bit or else resist.

I would argue that there is a compelling set of theological and political reasons for Reformed Christians to stand in support of Israel alongside our Dispensational friends, secular Jews, political liberals and others. In our haste to differentiate ourselves from Dispensationalism let us not run straight into the arms of the Marcionism that has dogged modern, liberal Protestantism since Harnack.

It is ironic that as conservative a theologian as Michael Horton would come to a conclusion on this issue that is such a neat fit with the views of the most liberal of contemporary liberal Protestants. My argument is that avoiding Dispensationalism need not take us so far in that direction.

Israel Belongs to Israel

Israel has been the homeland of the Jews for 4000 years. True, at times they have been invaded, conquered and kicked out (eg. 596 BC, 72 AD). But they have always come back. Now they are back again in the land of Joshua, David, Isaiah and Jesus. But they are accused of being an occupying force and Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria are called the "occupied territories." Why?

Here is what I do not understand. The rationale for why much of biblical Israel is supposed to belong to the Muslim Palestinians is what? That they conquered it and it therefore belongs to them by right of conquest. They were not there 4000 years ago. And the Arabs belong in Arabia, not Israel, come to that. Muslims claim the Holy Land because their armies invaded it and conquered it.

Now comes the inconsistency. Israel conquered Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria (as well as Gaza, the Sinai, the Golan Heights) in a defensive war in 1967. So they have as much right to it as the Palestinians if ownership derives from the right of conquest. In fact they have more right because they are currently in control and they got control not by invading, but by simply defending themselves from a genocidal attack by hostile nations.

Almost all modern nations control the territory they control because of wars in the past. If Israel has to give back the "occupied territories" then, in the name of fairness and consistency, the US should give back most of North America to Mexico and the native Americans. (Mexico will then have to give back most of Mexico to the native people too, for that matter.) When it comes to the Muslim, Arab nations, they have a lot of giving back to do. Muslims has no right to conquer Asia Minor and North Africa in the 7-9th centuries. And they should not be in Europe (eg. the Balkans). And they never owned the Holy Land. So the Dome of the Rock will have to go.

Now some would say all this is nonsense. When a war is over and the dust settles, borders are fixed and you can't go re-writing history. And that is true. But what's good for the goose is good for the gander. When Obama gives Texas, Southern California and New Mexico back to Mexico, he can then tell the Israelis to give back the land of David and Solomon.

Or is there one rule for the Jews and a different rule for everyone else?

Hatred of the Chosen People is Rooted in the Hatred of God

The form that the ancient and primal hatred of the Jews takes today is being anti-Israel. (It also often took this form in past eras, such as the Second Temple period.) The hatred of God's Chosen People is rooted in the Fall - in the hatred of God. Obviously, the people of God are easier to get at than the Creator Himself and so they bear the brunt of Satanic/human wrath all through history. You can read about it in the book of Revelation.

Hatred of the Chosen People is irrational, unprovoked and unlike the usual run-of-the-mill ethnic jealousies and prejudices. It is religious: anti-Semitism is the ultimate in religious war. So it quite ironic that today it is the most secular of Western elites - proud and smug that they are not religious fanatics like those other men (like American Evangelicals, for example) - who succumb to this particular fanaticism.

Melanie Phillips, in her column in the Spectator, has a column entitled: "And now, those on the side of civilization." She quotes Col. Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, who stands in a great tradition of British Judeophilia. He has some very interesting things to say about today's anti-Israel prejudice:

This malevolent portrayal of the Israeli Defence Forces is carefully and systematically planned, cultivated, developed, expanded and relentlessly driven forward. It is the key part of what amounts to nothing less than a pernicious and increasingly dangerous global conspiracy of propaganda aimed at the total delegitimization of the state of Israel. A conspiracy that has so far exceeded in its international scope, anything dreamt of even by that master of propaganda, Dr Josef Goebbels himself, spreading the idea that Israel is so evil that it has no right even to exist, aiming for the point where that idea becomes an acceptable, mainstream argument in our societies.

It is no surprise of course that such a campaign has great popularity in the Arab and the wider Islamic world any more than Goebbels’s twisted propaganda machine succeeded in persuading so many Germans to his murderous cause. But what is truly shocking is the traction that this propaganda has gained in the west among student bodies, teachers, university authorities, academics, think tanks, human rights organizations, aid agencies, parliamentary bodies, and – perhaps most damaging of all, the mass media.

...The Report of the UN Fact Finding Mission into the 2009 Gaza Conflict, better known as the Goldstone Report, accused Israeli forces of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity, deliberately killing, wounding and terrorising innocent civilians...only last month, Judge Richard Goldstone retracted the most serious allegations that he had made, saying that Israel did not in fact intentionally kill or wound innocent civilians. He wrote that if he had known at the time of his investigation what he knows now, the Goldstone Report would have been a very different document. Well, I, with my far more limited resources and access, could have told him a great deal of what is now apparently new to him.

In fact, I did tell him at the time of his report, in evidence I gave to the United Nations Human Rights Council in October 2009:

“During its operation in Gaza, the Israeli Defence Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.”

I based my opinion on 30 years of experience fighting terrorists and insurgents, of my detailed study of Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, of my extensive knowledge and understanding of the Israeli Defence Forces, and of my knowledge of Hamas and its military strategy and tactics. The same strategies and tactics used by insurgents and violent jihadists in Iraq, Afghanistan and many other parts of the world.

Many people have contradicted my assertion about the IDF. But no one has been able to tell me which other army in history has ever done more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone. In fact my assertions about the steps taken in that conflict by the Israeli Defence Forces to avoid civilian deaths are inadvertently borne out by a study published by the United Nations itself. A study that shows that the ratio of civilian to combatant deaths in Gaza was by far the lowest in any asymetric conflict in the history of warfare.

The UN estimate that there has been an average three-to-one ratio of civilian to combatant deaths in such conflicts worldwide. Three civilians for every combatant killed. That is the estimated ratio in Afghanistan: three-to-one. In Iraq, and in Kosovo, it was worse: the ratio is believed to be four-to-one. Anecdotal evidence suggests the ratios were very much higher in Chechnya and Serbia.

In Gaza, it was less than one-to-one.

This extremely low rate of civilian casualties flatly contradicts many of Goldstone’s original allegations, and the bleating insistence of various other human rights groups about Israel’s alleged crimes against humanity.

His entire speech is well-worth reading; you can read it here.

The world-wide propaganda campaign currently being carried on against the IDF is spear-headed by Muslim nations in cooperation with Western left-wing media, government and union elites. It uses the United Nations as its tool and is in the process of totally discrediting the UN in so doing. In a line from his speech not quoted by Phillips, Kemp said:

A favourite vehicle for the anti-Israel conspiracy is the United Nations Human Rights Council. While continuing to neglect the woefully abused rights of 350 million citizens of the Middle East, not to mention the rights of many more people the world over, the Council focuses its attention almost exclusively on Israel.

I invite you to do some reading on the UN Human Rights Council. It is dominated by human-rights abusing countries and is a complete sham. Its only function is to attack Israel, which it does relentlessly and without regard for the truth. It is so unbalanced and one-sided that its activities can only be described as anti-Jewish propaganda.

It is a particularly pernicious and evil thing to attack the only Western democracy in the Middle East as the incarnation of all evil. Those who let themselves be drawn into anti-Israel propaganda need to beware of the snares of the Evil One. This is not just politics; it is a spiritual war.

Why Do Western Leftist Leaders Refuse to Deal with the Reality that Israel's Neighbors Do Not Want a Two-State Solution?

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu spoke earlier today in the Knesset about how the root of the conflict in the Middle East is the refusal of Israel's neighbors to acknowledge Israel's right to exist. He is utterly clear and objectively right, but why do so many in the West pretend that the Palestinians want anything other than an Arab, Muslim state dominated by non-Jews? After the founding of the State of Israel nearly a million Jews were expelled from Arab countries, so why would anyone think that a Muslim Palestine would do any different? Unless one thinks that the more likely scenario is genocide - a second Holocaust.

Israel will never let itself be destroyed. And her enemies show no sign of wanting to make a permanent peace. Why does Obama constantly speak as if it were Israel which was the impediment to the peace process? Since when is self-defense as sin just because you are Jewish? Why do we tolerate genocidal, anti-Semitic, hatred and still manage to blame Israel? Have we forgotten how many Europeans blamed the Jews for Hitler's hatred of them? Are we determined to make the same mistake all over again?

From PM Netanyahu's speech:

The Middle East is changing rapidly and drastically. Hundreds of millions of people around us yearn for political and financial freedom and are fighting to obtain these freedoms. These are inevitable changes. It is very possible that in the long term, these changes will be for the best, and I hope they will, for the good of these people and because at the end of the day, if this struggle is successful, it will promote the chance for peace and the peace’s resilience. But in the short term, in the interim, our situation could possibly worsen, be more problematic and more challenging. We can see what is happening in Egypt, in Syria and in Lebanon. Lebanon is now controlled by Hezbollah, under the sponsorship of Iran, when only five years ago there was such great hope for freedom and progress. We saw what happened along the borders of Israel yesterday. Thousands thronged against our fences in an attempt to invade our territory and challenge our sovereignty. I must say that from the point of view of yesterday’s rioters, 63 years of Israeli independence have changed nothing.

What were they yelling in Gaza yesterday? They were shouting that they want to return to Jaffa.
What were they crying in Syria yesterday? They were chanting that they want to return to the Galilee.
What did the leader of Hamas say yesterday? “We want to see the end of the Zionist agenda,” the very same words used by his patrons in Iran, but, my friends, this was not only said there.

I said that we hear what is being said around us, but the most interesting thing is what happened in Bil’in. And this does not only happen there, but it was interesting, because two days ago at the demonstration in Bil’in, the cat was let out of the bag – more precisely, the key was let out of the bag. At the procession in Bil’in, a young girl was walking along holding a large symbolic key. Every Palestinian knows what that key symbolizes. This is not a key to their homes in Bil’in, Ramallah or Nablus. It is the key to our homes in Jaffa, Acre, Haifa and Ramle. My friends, the root of this conflict never was a Palestinian state, or lack thereof. The root of the conflict is, and always has been, their refusal to recognize the Jewish state. It is not a conflict over 1967, but over 1948, over the very existence of the State of Israel. You must have noticed that yesterday’s events did not occur on June 5, the anniversary of the Six Day War. They occurred on May 15, the day the State of Israel was established. The Palestinians regard this day, the foundation of the State of Israel, their nakba, their catastrophe. But their catastrophe was that they did not have a leadership that was willing to reach a true historic compromise between the Palestinian people and the Jewish people.

Regrettably, since then until this day, they have not had a leadership that is prepared to recognize the State of Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish people. That has not happened yet.

My friends, we must not bury our heads in the sand. We must face reality, as it is, with our eyes wide open. We must stop self-flagellating and blaming ourselves. We must call a spade a spade: the true reason the Palestinians refuse to recognize the State of Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish people. I must say that I think that most people are beginning to understand this in face of the reality that is unfolding before us in our region and along our borders in particular. And I believe that most people are united regarding the standpoints that I will point out.

First, the people is united in our need to defend the country and its borders. Second, it is united in our need to maintain peace with Egypt and Jordan. Third, it is united faced with the threat of a nuclear Iran.

I also believe that most people are also united in regard to my viewpoints on the issue that seems to be in dispute, the political process with the Palestinians. The citizens of Israel are much more united than is commonly believed, and much more united than the political parties that are supposed to represent them here in this house. There are consensuses regarding the basic issues:

First, about my demand that the Palestinians recognize the State of Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish people.

Second, about my view, which is shared by many here, that the agreement between us must end the conflict and end the demands from the State of Israel.

Third, that the problem of the Palestinian refugees will be resolved outside of Israel and not within its borders.

Fourth, that a Palestinian state only be established under a peace treaty that will not compromise the safety of Israel. I believe there is agreement on this, and I stress that this state must be demilitarized, with practical security arrangements, including long term IDF presence along the Jordan River.

Fifth, we agree that we must maintain the settlement blocs. Many of us agree that the settlement blocs must remain inside the borders of the State of Israel.

Sixth, that Jerusalem remain the united and sovereign capital of the State of Israel.

These are the principles that guide my path, our path.

I know that a huge majority of people understands that we can only make peace with those who want to make peace with us. Those who wish to obliterate us are no partners for peace. A Palestinian government with half its members declaring daily that they plan to annihilate the Jewish state is not a partner for peace. Those who say, and I am familiar with the saying, that you only make peace with your enemies, must complement the statement with a small but important remark. You only make peace with an enemy, but with an enemy who has decided to make peace.

We can only pray that some day, the enemy will finally want to make peace. At this point, it does not appear that European and US policies are contributing to that goal. For this, the West must bear a heavy responsibility. If another Holocaust occurs, that may well be the death knell of Europe and maybe of the West.