Palestine – Obama Lacks Understanding and Vision…writes David Singer

March 10, 2014 by David Singer
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President Obama’s interview with Jeffrey Goldberg on 2 March exposed the President as a leader lacking in understanding and vision – bound to a 20 years old negotiating process that has proved an abject failure and will continue to do so until Obama finally declares it dead and buried.

The President still clings to the vain hope that the framework agreement for peace being drafted by Secretary of State Kerry will be accepted by Israel and the PLO – allowing the long drawn out negotiating processes established under the Oslo Accords, Bush Roadmap and Annapolis to continue until a peace agreement is executed between Israel and the PLO – matching those signed by Israel with Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994

The interview exposed Obama’s flawed knowledge concerning the following crucial issues that are critical to properly understanding the conflict and positing its possible resolution:

  1. The President claimed that the conflict had gone on “for decades” –  rather than for the last 130 years –indicating the President is ignoring earlier international decisions made on Palestine including the San Remo Conference and the Treaty of Sevres in 1920, the League of Nations in 1922, the Treaty of Lausanne 1923, the Peel Commission in 1937, the British White Paper 1939, the United Nations in 1945 and 1947, and the unification of Judea and Samaria with Transjordan in 1950 following the invasion of Palestine by six Arab armies in 1948.
  2. The President spoke of the “Palestinian territories” – rather than the “disputed territories” – where internationally recognized sovereignty has remain undetermined since 1948.
  3. The President referred to an existing “Palestinian Authority” – which had ceased to exist on 3 January 2013.
  4. The President agreed with this claim by Goldberg:

“It’s been the official position of the United States for decades that settlements are illegitimate”

Elliott Abrams – Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations –dismisses this urban myth:

“The U.S. position has fluctuated over time. In the Reagan years, the United States said the settlements were “not illegal.” The Clinton and George H.W. Bush administrations avoided the legal arguments but criticized the settlements frequently. President George W. Bush called the larger settlement blocs “new realities on the ground” that would have to be reflected in peace negotiations.

More recently, the official U.S. attitude has been more critical. In 2011, the Obama administration vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling the settlements “illegal” but former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice then denounced “the folly and illegitimacy” of continued Israeli settlement activity. “The United States of America views all of the settlements as illegitimate,” Secretary of State John Kerry said in August 2013.”

Who is feeding the President with misleading and false information to justify these comments to Goldberg?

The President’s lack of vision became obviously apparent with his following comment:

“I have not yet heard, however, a persuasive vision of how Israel survives as a democracy and a Jewish state at peace with its neighbors in the absence of a peace deal with the Palestinians and a two-state solution. Nobody has presented me a credible scenario.”

Amazingly – with the State Department evidently unable to present Obama with any credible scenarios in the event of the collapse of the “two-state solution” – President Obama then challenged Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu to come up with a plausible alternative:

“If he [Netanyahu] does not believe that a peace deal with the Palestinians is the right thing to do for Israel, then he needs to articulate an alternative approach. And as I said before, it’s hard to come up with one that’s plausible.”

Netanyahu had articulated an alternative approach at the United Nations on 11 December 1984 – one which apparently has gone missing from the State Department’s extensive archival records:

“Clearly, in Eastern and Western Palestine, there are only two peoples, the Arabs and the Jews. Just as clearly, there are only two states in that area, Jordan and Israel. The Arab State of Jordan, containing some three million Arabs, does not allow a single Jew to live there. It also contains 4/5 of the territory originally allocated by this body’s predecessor, the League of Nations, for the Jewish National Home. The other State, Israel, has a population of over four million, of which one sixth is Arab. It contains less than 1/5 of the territory originally allocated to the Jews under the Mandate…. It cannot be said, therefore, that the Arabs of Palestine are lacking a state of their own. The demand for a second Palestinian Arab State in Western Palestine, and a 22nd Arab State in the world, is merely the latest attempt to push Israel back into the hopelessly vulnerable armistice lines of 1949.”

Netanyahu’s recounting of history, geography and demography present at least two credible – and plausible – scenarios for President Obama to consider:

  1. Reunifying the heavily populated Arab areas of the West Bank (Areas “A” and “B” designated under the Oslo Accords) with Jordan – as existed between 1950-1967
  2. Direct negotiations between Israel and Jordan – the two successor States to the Mandate for Palestine – to redraw the existing international boundary between their respective States.

Jordan’s King Abdullah needs to step up to the plate – and Obama must not let him refuse to do so.

President Obama – presently sinking in murky political quicksand – can still be saved by grabbing Netanyahu’s 1984 lifeline with both hands.

David Singer is a Sydney Lawyer and Foundation Member of the International Analysts Network

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

25 Responses to “Palestine – Obama Lacks Understanding and Vision…writes David Singer”
  1. Gil Solomon says:

    David,

    Sorry for the delay in answering your question, as I had an urgent family matter to attend to.

    What in my opinion should be done you ask?

    Below is what I would hope should be done, knowing full well that even 10% of what I am suggesting below would require the leadership of a Menachem Begin or Yitzhak Shamir as against the confused, floundering and disunited lot that currrently make up the Israeli cabinet of today, a cabinet who have no concept of Hasbara, who rarely stand up for Israel’s rights and history, a cabinet that makes concesson after concession to an unrelenting enemy in a futile hope of achieving peace with these people.

    Firstly Israel should keep at close quarters, people like you David who have a thorough encyclopedic ability to recall historical facts to bolster any decisions made.

    I would like to see Israel declare the Oslo Accords a tremendous mistake and as far as Israel is concerned all agreements therein are henceforth dead and buried. This was a futile effort by that left wing idealogue Shimon Peres who brought to life a people who never existed, the so called “Palestinians”. You and I both know the history of these so called people with their so called country.

    Next Israel should give the world a history lesson on the so called “Palestinians” and declare that the PA’s day in the sun and limelight on the world stage are over. Their narrative is to be once and for all exposed as the fiction that it is and these people and their claims will be indulged no more. Concession after concession have produced nothing. In fact the hatred being taught to Arab children from kindergarten age has, if anything intensified. A total cessation of building in Judea & Samaria produced nothing, release of terrorists who carried out the most heinous crimes produced nothing but more demands, apologising to Turkey for the deaths of some of their citizens involved in a terrorist incident off Gaza, produced nothing.

    Now it’s time for Israel to act like a sovereign power, acting in its own interests and finally get up off its knees. Now it’s time for the gloves to come off, to take unilateral action on borders, hand the welfare of people outside those borders to the UNHCR, Jordan Egypt or whoever and to expel all foreign and hostile NGO’s.

    Israel should announce to the world that in any future confrontation with the IDF, there will be no prisoners. All taunting of the IDF by rock throwing Arab youths will no longer be tolerated. Israel will in future act like any normally military and use lethal force to suppress this activity and bring quiet to the Judea & Samaria. In short the IDF’s current paralysis is to cease.

    Along the same lines, according to Israel’s Chief of Military Intelligence, Major General Aviv Kohavi, Israel faces 170,000 rockets aimed at her. To quote General kohavi: “Israel is surrounded by 360 degrees of actual enemies. We call this period in time the ‘Era of Fire’, in light of the amount of missiles and rockets we face as a constant threat. There are about 170,000 rockets and missiles that threaten Israel. For the first time the enemy now has the ability to hit Israeli cities hard. IAF pilots can no longer move freely towards their targets and have to dodge missiles that threaten them.”

    To all this I say, if you know the numbers then you know the locations of these missiles be they at ground level in the open (unlikely) or hidden in the lounge room with a detachable roof that can be opened and shut at will or in the myriad of underground tunnels in Gaza or elsewhere. The IDF should immediately mount a pre-emptive strike to take out these missile batteries once and for all. If they are located purposely in civilian population centres then so be it. There will be collateral damage as they say but I say, so be it.

    Israel should finally take control of the Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest site, where both Temples stood.
    it was pure foolishness for Israel to have allowed the Muslim Waqf to retain control of this holy site after the 1967 war. All this because of then Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan’s desire to be seen as magnanimous in victory. Contrary to popular misconceptions, Rabbis wanted Israeli control of this site while researching where Jews were not allowed to go. Moshe Dayan’s decision doesn’t say much about the people around him at the time in the Israeli cabinet who allowed this decision to prevail.

    Control of the Temple Mount would mean not only reclaiming Jewish heritage, but this is where foreign dignitories would be taken on arrival, not to Yad Vashem a memorial to our various graveyards.

    All Israeli Arab citizens should be required to swear an oath of allegiance to the Jewish state and if not they can be sent on a one way trip to the Arab country iof their choice. No longer should Israel have to put up with their representatives, like Ahmed Tibi, who spew treason and venom day in day out from within the Knesset. In short, the party’s over.
    These people were given citizenship as if it were confetti being thrown on a passing parade.

    Electricity provided to the so called “Palestinians” from the Israeli grid should no longer be assumed to be available 24/7.

    Foreign and hostile NGO’s should be deported as Putin did in Russia recently and no apologies made. Bedouin land claims in the Negev need to be once and for all denied and all those living in Israel illegally, including the estimated 60,000 African need to be deported.

    I’ll end here as this is sure to bring a lot of conjecture, but you asked for my opinion and there it is. While I’ve stuck my neck out writing all of this, much of which you David will disagree with, it is primarily a wish list, but one thing is that we are both on the same side.

    However, I fervently believe in the pre-emptive strike on those 170,000 missile batteries. Rather now than before they’re airborne.

    • david singer says:

      Gil

      The one option in your agenda that could happen is as you state:
      “Now it’s time for the gloves to come off, to take unilateral action on borders,”

      However I don’t think it is time – yet.

      I believe that before this is contemplated Israel should first offer to resolve the border between it and Jordan in direct negotiations following the failure of Israel and the PLO to allocate sovereignty in the West Bank between them after 20 years of fruitless negotiations.

      Successfully concluding those negotiations with Jordan will not end the Jewish-Arab conflict – but would go a long way to improving international support for Israel.

      Should Jordan refuse to enter such negotiations or not be able to reach agreement with Israel on redrawing the new border – then Israel would in my opinion be entitled to annex any part of the West Bank pursuant to the rights conferred on the Jewish people to reconstitute the Jewish National Home under article 6 of the Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the UN Charter and to provide Israel with secure and recognized boundaries as prescribed by Security Council Resolution 242.

      How many times do you keep trying to save someone who doesn’t want to be saved?

      After 130 years of Arab rejectionism – the time to say “enough is enough” is fast approaching.

      Negotiations between Israel and Jordan represent the last realistic attempt to save the Arab League from jumping over the cliff.

  2. Gil Solomon says:

    David,

    You can attempt to spin this any way you like. I for one am not being secretive or attempting to mislead anybody. I simply quoted ONE response from ONE person who seems to have the same political viewpoint as I. He too referred to your article as “deluded”. I found no relevance in also quoting your reply back and my quote as I would be there cutting and pasting all day.
    However, I’m glad that you did post all this stuff for all to read.

    Most of the posts in Jwire are from those who feel that you have a one dimensional perspective when it comes to the so called “peace process” and Obama’s role in it.

    I maintain that Obama is not a fool and has his own vision and agenda which are not in Israel’s interests. I strongly disagree with your assessment that he lacks understanding. He knows exactly what he is doing and to this end he has appointed the following people to various posts, one of whom (Salam al-Marayati)even suggested that Israel is to blame for 9/11.

    I repeat, Obama is not some fool just taking in what he has been told.

    Five years into his administration, his actions speak for themselves and you David give a great disservice by giving the impression that Obama simply “lacks understanding”. The man has his own agenda when it comes to the Jewish nation and no amount of quoting of history will put him off track.

    The following are his chosen EXECUTIVE appointees who did not have to go through the normal Congressional oversight.
    There is no doubt that Obama feeds off them and vice versa.
    Arif Alikhan – Assistant Secretary for Policy Development for Homeland Security.
    Mohammed Elibiary – Homeland Security Advisor.
    Rashad Hussain – Special Envoy to the Organisation of Islamic Conference.
    Salam al-Marayati – Obama Advisor and founder of the Muslim Public Affairs Council and is its current executive director.
    Imam Mohammed Magid – Obama’s Sharia Czar from the Islamic Society of North America.
    Eboo Patel – Advisory Council on faith-based Neighbourhood Partnerships.

    Make of this as you will.

    • David Singer says:

      Gil

      You have convincingly destroyed your own argument by naming some of Obama’s advisors who would have no interest in detailing the ongoing conflict between Jews and Arabs for the last 130 years or telling him the Palestinian Authority no longer existed or that the West Bank and Gaza were “disputed territories”

      Obama is indeed being fed a diet of deceptive and misleading information.

      This was obvious to me when he was quite ready to agree with Goldberg that it had been US policy for “decades” that the settlements were “illegitimate”. He would naturally assume that someone like Goldberg knew what he was talking about.

      Goldberg was factually wrong – and Obama swallowed that comment hook, line and sinker.

      Whilst you and I focus on this one conflict – Obama is confronted by a growing number of international crises.

      He has to rely on advisors for his information and trust in what they tell him.

      My point is that they are leading him into quicksand from which he will be unable to extricate himself.

      That goes for Kerry too.

      • Gil Solomon says:

        David,

        You conveniently ignored the fact that I specifically said: “There is no doubt that Obama feeds off them and vice versa.”

        A President makes these kind of political appointments to people who share his own basic outlook. For you to imply that five years in to his administration Obama has no grasp of the situation and is just there being given this information by the same and only people (whoever they are) day in day out and that no one there can get to him with an opposite viewpoint is beyond belief.

        The facts are that Obama was and is hostile to Israel. The writing was on the wall from the day he went to Cairo.

        For you to not see this is also beyond belief.

        • Sam Rosenwax says:

          If like me, you had followed Obama before he became known internationally, you would have clearly seen that he was never pro-Israel. Acquaintances in the United States alerted me to him.

          Americans went to the polls blinkered, they were so intent on electing a black person. Speaking today with a friend in the USA, I was told he and his party are in deep, political trouble. There are still two years to push. I don’t know what is likely to happen with mid terms coming up.

        • David Singer says:

          Who do you think is getting to Obama with an opposite viewpoint to that being presented by his advisors and the State Department to him personally in briefings on a daily basis?

          I don’t disagree that Obama is adopting a hostile attitude to Israel.

          It is however only going to result in him falling flat on his face if he believes that in doing so he can get Israel and the PLO to sign any peace agreement.

          • Gil Solomon says:

            David,

            Can you not comprehend what people are trying to tell you?

            It is irrelevant if anybody came to Obama with an opposite viewpoint. The man, clearly follows the Islamic agenda of hatred towards Israel and to this end is doing exactly what he wants. I’ll let readers surmise what I think of Obama as I am unable to have my views on this man and his background published.

            No advisor, if he exists, who tries to take him off his desired course would have any effect and would probably be fired for his efforts. After FIVE YEARS into this administration you cannot keep giving Obama the benefit of the doubt, like he’s some fool, some sponge who hasn’t got a mind of his own or viewpoint of his own but just simply is getting the wrong advice. Just look at the body language, the utter contempt he shows Netanyahu in public settings. See how he undermines Netanyahu prior to every trip he has made to Washington.

            David you are a good historian.
            You document well who said what and can roll off chapter and verse of many resolutions etc. But you would make a hopeless intelligence analyst as you would get all the history down pat but come to an incorrect solution as to what should be done in the present circumstances. In short, you have no “gut feeling” about many issues as your analysis is consistently, let’s say wrong and I’m trying to be as diplomatic as I can here, which is certainly not my usual style of writing.

          • David Singer says:

            Gil

            You state:
            “But you would make a hopeless intelligence analyst as you would get all the history down pat but come to an incorrect solution as to what should be done in the present circumstances.”

            So what should be done in the present circumstances in your opinion?

  3. Liat Nagar says:

    David,
    Obama harbours extreme personal dislike for Netanyahu and no interest in the history of Israel and the Jewish people, no interest in their necessity to secure their future either. All his inner and outer antennae point towards the Arab peoples. While he and Kerry are involved in any so called ‘peace negotiations’ there’s no chance of anything positive happening – in fact his behaviour is fuel for the Palestinians to move inexorably toward getting their own independent country without having to even consider Israel.

    • david singer says:

      Liat

      You overlook the fact that Obama and Kerry are going to look pretty stupid when the Kerry framework agreement goes up in smoke.

      Both have invested an enormous amount of time and energy in the belief they can succeed where other Presidents and Secretaries of State abjectly failed.

      Both need to pull a rabbit out of the hat to save face and enhance their stature and prestige as diplomats on the world stage where a host of far more serious problems requiring resolution need their urgent attention.

      That rabbit (or bunny) is Jordan – the last Arab State to occupy the West Bank between 1948-1967 when the Arab residents of the West Bank were Jordanian citizens.

      Abdullah needs to be pressured – as is happening with Netanyahu.

      Abdullah does not like that attention and is already wriggling and squirming.

      In the end I believe Obama and Kerry will have no option but to call the shots and drag Abdullah kicking and protesting to the negotiating table.

      If I am wrong then further conflict between Jews and Arabs is not too far away.

  4. Paul Winter says:

    Wrong again. Let me count the ways.

    First of all, Abdullah no more wants any more Palestinian Arabs than he has threatening to topple him from his throne. Nobody wants those Arabs; they cause chaos wherever they go. They ruined Lebanon, formed a bond with Egypt’s MB and betrayed Kuwait’s generosity.

    Bibi’s 1984 comments are not a lifeline but a reality that he has abandoned. Bibi is gutless and hubristic, as conceited as Peres that his brilliant diplomacy will bring peace or a continuation of the status quo until something better comes up. A no action talker.

    Lastly Obama. Why is everyone talking about a clueless clown in the white house. He knows precisely what he does. As an islamophile, he has embraced to Arab/mohammedan narrative. As a supporter of revolutionary islam, he supports islamist Turkey, betrays Karzia by talking to the Talibaan, supports al qaeda allied gangs in Syria, cosies up to the Iranian terror state and goes behind Israel’s back in doing so. If you and others like you refuse to see the pattern of malevolence in a man committed to both avenge himself on whites and to advance revolutionary islam’s goal to reestablish the caliphate, we all face a dismal future. Obama should be impeached for dishonesty and disloyalty and deported to Kenya whose citizenship he has yet to renounce.

    • Paul Winter says:

      Oops! I left out a very important reason why Abdullah does not want any more Palestinian Arabs in his Hashemite kingdom and another reason those people are hated more than the endemic mutual hatred that pervades the Arab world: Black September 1970 when the PLO tried to depose Abdullah’s father Hussein and to take over Jordan.

      • david singer says:

        Paul

        I don’t believe Netanyahu has abandoned the history, geography and demography lesson he gave the UN in 1984.

        The time is coming when it offers the only realistic way forward following the collapse of the “two-state solution”

        The PLO has had a 20 year window of opportunity to bury the hatchet and has well and truly blown it.

        If there is going to be any prospects of advancing an end to the conflict then Obama will have to make it clear to Abdullah that “no” is not an option.

        Obama is not prepared to take “no” from Netanyahu. So why should Abdullah be allowed to wheedle out of resolving a problem Jordan created in 1967 by going to War with Israel?

        Restoring the status quo in Judea and Samaria as existed at 5 June 1967 – so far as is now possible given the changes on the ground since then – seems to me to present the only realistic option that can be pursued.

        • Paul Winter says:

          David, I think that we will have to agree to differ.

          You are perfectly right that the two-state farce is concluding and that the PA has well and truly blown it. But helping to blow it are the Arab League, the EU, the UN and its agencies and the self-styled peace makers, primarily the USA. None of them has asked anything of the Arabs and all have demanded everything from the Jewish state, especially its abandonment of agreements Israel signed in good faith.

          The weaknesses of your argument are:
          *neither Jordan nor Israel is a protectorate or a vassal state of the USA or of any grouping of states or organisations. Neither Israel or Jordan is obliged to say “yes sir” to the USA and more to the point, the USA has no right to expect compliance from sovereign states: “no” is very much an Israeli and Jordanian option.
          *in 1984 Netanyahu was the spokesman for a leader. He is now in a leadership position without knowing how to lead. He is a weak loudmouth who thinks that fine and clever words equate to principled and strong leadership. Begin would have had Obama for lunch. Bibi forgets and allows the world to forget that Israel is the victor in defensive wars and has a right to demand that its terms for peace be accepted. Bibi also forgets that he has no right to allow the world to treat a victorious democracy and a vanquished dictatorial aggressor organisation as equals.
          *forcing Jordan to take over a region it has relinquished is not an option for either Jordan or Israel. The Arabs might very well rise up again and depose their (almost) beloved king, so taking over Judea and Samaria is not an option for Jordan. Jordanian control of Judea and Samaria is not an option for Israel either because it would mean giving up the strategically important Jordan valley, which is why any future “Palestine” would need to be disarmed and for Israel to control its borders. The horrible butchery in post-Arab winter Syria is a lesson for Israel that no thinking person can ignore.

          The search for peace has led nowhere. Israel does not need any peace that require “painful concessions”; better no peace than pain preceding the pain of a future war. Israel as a victor has to make no concessions, especially as the aggressive bad losers that the Arabs are make none. Enough is enough! Other options must be explored, including Caroline Glick’s option of annexing all of the land because the declining Arab birth rate means that Israel will always remain Jewish and democratic.

          • David Singer says:

            Paul

            So we both agree the two- state solution is a non-starter.

            I think that both Israel and Jordan are susceptible to American pressure.

            Do you think the decision to release 104 murderers was a decision made by Israel without American pressure?

            Do you think Israel agreed to a 10 month moratorium on building in the settlements without American pressure.

            Do you think Abdullah is busy arguing that Jordan is not Palestine – as Kerry is putting pressure on him to help resolve the problem of the West Bank – which Jordan materially contributed to creating in 1967?

            Caroline Glick’s solution is surprising.

            Why Israel needs to take under its wing the responsibility for the welfare and well being of 1.5 million more Arabs is beyond my understanding.

            Israel made it clear in offers made in 2000 and 2008 that it was only seeking sovereignty in less that 10% of the West Bank.

            What has changed to lead to it seeking sovereignty in 100%?

  5. Otto Waldmann says:

    The now famed ( hopefully not for long ) Goldberg variations on a Middle Eastern theme, elicited nothing new.
    It is, however, worthy of everybody’s attention what Pres. Obama suggested in terms of ALLOWING Israel ( Bibi ) to come up with a version of an outcome unlike anything on the oposite side of the Israeli table – and implicitely, it seems – the US preffered options. The mere coda that Obama is not YET persuaded by such an option, does NOT close the door to Israel acting as she thinks it realistic and come up with THE option.
    To be sure, Obama Admin. is a lot more concerned with its perception by a militant and perniciouly aggressive palestinian camp, including the pro-palestinian international brigades, rather than concluding the charade everybody calls “peace negotiations”.
    Historis data aside, the dynamics of a contemparary political morphology, the mere fact that NOTHING shall stay the same on the palestinian side of the trenches, should serve as the most reliable, most confident assurance that Israel has all the time in the world to remain a reliable state entity vbersus what is still a concoction of absurdities everybody calls, already, “Palestine”.
    We must refer cosntantly to the tangibles that there shall be NO state of Palestine formed and functioning aloingside the Jewish State of Israel as long as the political minds representing it are in the shape and substance of today and, realistaically, until the end of the current generation of Jew haters across the divide !!!
    The Obama circus shall go on as long as security concernes for the mere safety of American interets, at home and specially abroad, shall depend on the vile and destructive intents of everything palestinian and pro-palestinian.
    Clear and simple: USA is protecting USA while allowing Israel to protect Israel. There is no clearer distinctin between the two state entities than that principe at work. The good thing aboput it is that, regardless of the Goldberg Variations, USA shall cntinue to be the material(istic) rock on which Israel shall continue to function. And this “continue to function” is the real tachles we should all (not) worry about !!!
    Meanwhile, David, your stuff is quite inspiring and shall always prompt people’s attention; just look at me, I just replied to it…..

    • Paul Winter says:

      Sorry Otto, you err in almost every paragraph.

      The Goldberg variations are pleasant but Barrack Hussein’s boorishness is hardly music to the ears of any Zionist.

      Obama does not allow or disallow any sovereign undefeated state to do anything. What Barrack is doing is getting Bibi to be the subject of his rope-a-dope game.

      You completely misread the Obama administration. It is NOT concerned by Palestinian Arab intransigence. It takes the Pally narrative as gospel and seeks to coerce Israel to play its part of committing national suicide, its role in the Arab charade.

      Time is not on Israel’s side as you claim unless Bibi finds his backbone and send Barrack to the barracks to learn how to be an American, how to love democracy and to fight to defend it. It is not just us who need to assert that there is no Palestine (or West Bank, or settlements, or occupation especially an illegal one), but all the bigwigs in the Knesset and the professional Jews in the Diaspora; our soapbox is too insignificant.

      The USA under Obama is NOT protecting USA interests. The weakness shown over Ukraine, Syria and Tunisia, the betrayal of Israel, Afghanistan and Egypt,its sucking up to islamist regimes especially Iran which openly defies the USA, its weakness with regard to Venezuela and its policies at home with record unemployment, record debt, spying on its citizens, using its legal and tax branches against its political enemies and its hostility to Israel as record rejections of visas to Israelis show.

      • Otto Waldmann says:

        Paul, komam, all cases in point, Tunisia, Egypt, Iraq, Afganistan, even Venezuela are crises which DO not impinge in substance on the Israel-palestinian situation. They are all specific LOCAL developments with their own idiosyncracies. There is a distant commonality between some of the specific cases/states and, also, one may lead PERIPHERAL attention to the “palestinian plight”. The ideological expanse to which the concerned citizen has been falling prey for so long, by which ALL political events of temporal concidence are inter-related and, in OUR case, there MUST be inevitably something wrong for the Jew in each and all of them, needs to be analysed and eventually dismissed in the name of mere sanity.
        I need to reiterate that Obama’s primordial responsibility is USA and all that it entails. And what it entails is the inescapable burden of a political colossus charged with minding all trouble spots in the World as an organic corollary of its ( US’s) structure and function, internationally and implicitely nationally.
        I will repeat this one as well : Israel shall remain at all times America’s responsiblity, but the other crises require thought and attention which MAY give the FALSE impression that Israel’s interests would be at times sacrificed. As long as we keep in mind that America’s very identity is analogue with Israel’s very existence, we can assume with confidence that , principally, the open and declared foes of Israel shall NOT prevail with US. US and Israel are reciprocal extentions, never possibly contradictory.
        Comments to the contrary abound and they would even serve as necessary tactics in the continuation of the indestructible commonality I presented.

  6. Gil Solomon says:

    David,

    Your comment: “President Obama – presently sinking in murky political quicksand – can still be saved by grabbing Netanyahu’s 1984 lifeline with both hands” indicates to me that you are as politically delusional as ever.

    • David Singer says:

      Gil

      You might have more credibility if you detailed your reasons for concluding that I am “as politically delusional as ever”

      Do you disagree with one word uttered by Netanyahu in 1984?

      Do you disagree that the “two-state solution” is ready to be declared dead and buried by Obama?

      Do you disagree with the two credible and plausible alternative scenarios I presented arising from Netanyahu’s 1984 comments?

      Do you disagree that those two scenarios offer a lifeline to Obama?

      Do you disagree with any statement in my article?

      I am sick and tired of people like you who make despicable personal attacks without any evidence to support your claim.

      Carp,carp,carp – never anything constructive.

      Put up – or shut up.

      • Gil Solomon says:

        Please read Paul Winter’s post above.
        He has put it very clearly.

        David, as far as you telling me to “Put up – or shut up”, hear this. I am quite capable of giving a detailed response but no longer even attempt to do this in respect to your articles.

        You should take note of some of the other respected commentators on this site who live in the real world.

        • david singer says:

          Gil

          An Emperor with no clothes.

          Making abusive personal comments and not being prepared to substantiate them makes anything you say not worth the paper it is written on.

          • Gil Solomon says:

            David,

            Below is a comment someone made to your same article that appeared on the Arutz Sheva website. It sums up the situation quite well.

            “Sick of people covering for Obama, naivety 5 years in is no longer naivety. If you think Obama has any lack of knowledge or reasoning for this region, or for Israel you are deluded. People who excuse his actions based on the idea that he just doesn’t understand what he is doing are doing a great disservice to the truth of the facts. The facts are that if one makes a mistake he stops making that mistake in the future, but if one succeeds in his goals he continues on that path. So, what do you think Obama’s goals are at this point?
            James E, Jerusalem (12/3/014)”

          • David Singer says:

            Gil

            One of the first principles of retaining credibility is to be upfront and transparent.

            JWire readers would not know that the Arutz Sheve response you posted here was replied to by me and that you also posted a response as well.

            Why are you being so secretive in misleading JWire readers to believe that I did not respond to this comment – and neither did you.

            For the record here is my post:

            “I believe Obama has been fed this rubbish and trusts those who provide him with their wrong and misguided advice.When someone like Goldberg makes the allegation about the length of time US policy has declared the settlements “illegitimate” – one can readily understand how Obama can be influenced by the opinions of others.Israel continuously refuses to correct errors such as those I have highlighted.Until this occurs Obama will continue to mouth what others tell him.

            To complete the record here is your post:

            “What makes you think that Obama is simply mouthing what others tell him? This man knows exactly what he is doing. If Obama is not a Muslim, then he clearly favours the Islamic line of hatred towards Israel and shame on those American Jews who continue to support him or even work for him.
            If five years in to this administration he has learned nothing and not changed tack then he is clearly working for the destruction of Israel. Most can see this.”

            Where do you want to discuss this issue further – here or on Arutz Sheva?

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