By Alan
Caruba
I had to
laugh when I heard that the new King of Saudi Arabia, Salmon, told the White
House he wasn’t going to attend Thursday’s photo-op get together of Arab
leaders. Some lesser Saudi officials will attend. The message is clear enough,
so long as Obama continues to make nice with Iran, the center of the problems
in the Middle East, the Saudis and the others are going to be wary of any
proposal that comes out of the White House.
As far as
the Middle East is concerned, Obama seems to have no idea of the history or the
dynamics that affect all the actions there. His Secretary of State, Kerry, is
no better. He met with Arab officials last Friday and they told him they want a
defense treaty in the event they were attacked by “external forces”, something
that the Congress will not approve so long as Obama is in the White House.
One would
think that any President at this point would have concluded that the
Palestinians have no intention of signing onto a peace treaty with the
Israelis.
Writing in
The New York Times on May 8, Jonathan Schanzer, vice president of the
Foundation for Defense of Democracies, put it bluntly, “It doesn’t matter what
these politicians think now or have said in in the past. Peace between Israel
and the Palestinians is not happening in the next two years.” That’s how long
we all have to wait until Obama leaves office.
David P.Goldman, a Senior Fellow of the Middle East Forum, writing in Asia Times Online
on May 10, spelled it out. “It is inconvenient for diplomats to say so, but the
Palestinian Authority collapsed quite some time ago,” noting that “President
Mahmoud Abbas’ term in office began in 2005 and ended six years ago, and he has
not called new elections for the simple reason that Hamas—the Palestinian
branch of the Egypt-based Muslim Brotherhood—would win those elections.” These days the Egyptians label Hamas a
terrorist organization and have taken steps to eliminate the Brotherhood. At
least they know who the enemy is.
Obama has
been antagonistic to Israel from before he was elected and has made little
effort to hide it. Consider this, as Goldman notes, “Hamas fired over 4,000
rockets at Israel in 2014, prompting Israeli counterstrikes during the summer.”
Its declared intention and the reason for its existence is to eliminate the
State of Israel. Why are we surprised to hear that Obama wants to take the
statehood issue to the United Nations, a hotbed of anti-Semitism, and has
little to say of the Palestinian Authority’s assertion that it wants to drag
Israel in front of the International Criminal Court for having defended itself
against the attacks by Hamas!
Not only
has the Saudi King sent Obama a message, but so did the Israelis when they
overwhelmingly reelected Benjamin Netanyahu as their Prime Minister. “The
Israelis look around the Middle East and see nothing but conflict, carnage,
instability and danger,” said Schanzer. “The Obama doctrine—which includes a
deliberate contraction of American power in the Middle East—has undeniably made
Israel less safe.”
It has
made the U.S. and the world less safe too.
One of the
most obscene aspects of the Obama obsession with Iran is that, in return for
any deal—which Iran would ignore and cheat—they are ready “to provide as much
as $120 billion in sanctions relief to satisfy the narrow technical parameters
of a nuclear deal, which would legitimize Iran as a threshold nuclear state.
These funds,” said Schanzer, “will flow to Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian
Islamic Jihad and other Iran terror proxies dedicated to Israel’s demise.”
To put all
this in perspective, as Goldman reminds us, “From Israel’s standpoint, the
Palestinian Authority was offered 95% of Judea and Samaria in return for a
final peace agreement, and both times (at Camp David in 1999 under Ehud Barack
and in 2008 under Ehud Olmert) the offer was rejected.”
“The U.N.
Security Council,” said Goldman, “will punish Israel for the failure of
negotiations that were meaningless to begin with, and establish a
Hamas-controlled state within nine miles of the Mediterranean coast. Iran has
already promised to arm West Bank Arabs, just as it armed Hezbollah and Hamas.”
Israel
which has enjoyed the support of the United States since it declared its
independence in 1948 is now put at risk by the first administration to
deliberately turn its back on it in preference for a deal with the leading
terror-sponsor, Iran, in the Middle East.
You cannot
make a greater mess of the mess that already exists in the Middle East, but
Obama is doing his best to add to it. What else should we expect from a President
who refuses to utter words like “Islamic terrorism”?
© Alan
Caruba, 2015
6 comments:
In the end, his name will be remembered for saying it all, as an anti-American tribal declaration that America did not heed: Barack Hussein.
I'm curious. Why do Americans hate every one of there presidents? Sure does leave a poor impression of American attitude regarding their democratic government process. In the many years I've been watching the USA and talking to Americans, there is a continual grumbling, even hatred, blaming the leaders for their personal issues. One leader's advice is so noteworthy: JFK, "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country." That being said, what have all the millions of grumblers done to help secure a prosperous and healthy future for your community / country? I bet not a damn thing! No politician is going to do a perfect job. So much depends on the people feeding him/her information as well as advisers, etc. I believe it is much more effective to offer positive support as well as constructive criticism. Are American just born highly negative?
Obama is right about one thing. There is no such thing as "radical" Islam. It's just Islam!
The violence being practiced is Islamic in every sense. That was the way it was spread, that's the way it's taught, that's the way they keep their members in line and that's the way true Islam has been practiced since its founding.
Radical Islam to a true practitioner would be to refuse to be violent and perform Jihad in the name of Allah. That’s why Bush got it wrong when he called it “radical” Islam - in his attempt to define it a religion of peace. Dumb as dirt!
Peace to an Islamist can only be attained by everyone becoming a Muslim and accepting Sharia as a way of life. Which is rich since there are a number of sects of Islam, and they hate each other more than the hate what they call infidels because they consider each other heretics. And they’re divided intellectually and philosophically along more lines than just the differences between Sunnis and Shiites.
The current Islamic movement will collapse on its own madness. It’s unfortunate so many will have to suffer before that happens.
Now home work for everyone – This kind of thing isn’t new in the Islamic world. This same kind of stuff went in the Ottoman Empire. What did they do about it?
We don't hate all our Presidents, but we do dislike our current one who has run the economy into the ground and has terrible liberal policies.
Historically, Americans have always felt free to criticism their political leaders. That's a good thing.
Rich, you summed up the history of Islam very well.
Re the deleted common above it was an accidental repeat.
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