What Really Happened In The Middle East

What Really Happened In The Middle East

The Terrorism Awareness Project http://www.terrorismawareness.org/ has released a powerful 10-minute documentary about the origins and continuing causes of the Arab-Israeli conflict.http://www.terrorismawareness.org/wha...

The Terrorism Awareness Project is a program of the David Horowitz Freedom Center,http://www.horowitzfreedomcenter.org/
which publishes FrontPage Magazine, http://www.frontpagemag.com/ an online journal of news and political commentary.
http://backspin.typepad.com/backspin/...

Based on the pamphlet, "Why Israel Is The Victim" by David Horowitz

Sources for the quotes and facts contained in this presentation can be obtained from the David Horowitz Freedom Center at www.horowitzfreedomcenter.org

What Really Happened In The Middle East is the third video in a series that has been produced and developed by the Freedom Center. The Islamic Mein Kampf and What Every American Needs to Know About Jihad were issued earlier this year and have been distributed to more than two and a half million individuals. All three are available for downloading at www.terrorismawarness.org

https://youtu.be/09pmTh64vD8

Which Palestinian State Do They Want?

Which Palestinian State Do They Want?

Jonathan S. Tobin

In the last week, Islamist terror in Europe has at least temporarily distracted the continent from its habitual foreign-policy obsession: the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. But in spite of the current focus on domestic terror, there can be little doubt that Europe’s parliaments and diplomats will soon be back campaigning to recognize a state of Palestine and for pressure on Israel to make unilateral concessions in order to make that state a reality. But as a story in today’s New York Times illustrates, those in the international community that are so intent to pretend that a Palestinian state already exists and is need of international recognition need to figure out which one they are backing. Is it the Hamas terrorist state in Gaza? Or the corrupt Fatah state in the West Bank?

The Times focuses on one tragicomic example of the dysfunctional world of Palestinian politics. At the Beit Hanoun crossing point between Israel and northern Gaza, there are two Palestinian border checkpoints a half-mile apart. Those who seek to enter Gaza from Israel must pass through both, enabling both Fatah and Hamas to pretend to control the area. When Hamas sought to set up its own makeshift facility at the Fatah-run Palestinian Authority site, the system broke down and no one other than foreigners or Palestinians with emergencies was able to pass. Hamas backed down yesterday and the situation returned to normal but the anomalous situation remains as two governments attempt to carry on operations.

This was supposed to have been solved last year when PA leader Mahmoud Abbas signed a unity pact with Hamas that would bring both areas under joint control. But the pact was more of a ruse intended to blow up the peace negotiations with Israel the PA had been forced into by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry than an actual attempt at unification. Though the two rival groups actually have much in common—principally a commitment to ongoing conflict with Israel and an aversion to recognizing the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders are drawn—they are bitterly divided by conflicting financial interests as well as ideologies.

Both lack democratic legitimacy. Hamas won elections but to speak of a terrorist group coercing a population to back them is antithetical to any notion of the rule of law. Though hailed as moderates by the international community, Abbas and Fatah are even worse in that respect, as they have shunned elections for years for fear of losing to Hamas because of the latter’s better credentials in terms of shedding Israeli blood. Abbas still calls himself PA president, but that is more a matter of courtesy than anything else since he is serving in the 10th year of a four-year term to which he was elected.

Both promote hate against Israel in their official media and schools making peace less likely with each generation of children more steeped in the violent language of the conflict and a sense that all violence against Jews is to be condoned than the one that preceded it. What the two also have in common is a corrupt political system. Both rule by distributing money to large numbers of no-show or no-work government employees. Spreading the wealth around in this manner means that a huge percentage of Palestinians are directly dependent on either the PA or Hamas. This frees up the elites of both groups to loot the vast sums donated to help the Palestinians by foreign governments for either personal use or to pay for terror activities. Thus while Fatah runs a kleptocracy that saps the economy of the West Bank and stifles development, the more religious Hamas thieves use their international aid for rockets and terror tunnels rather than personal enrichment. The former is despicable, but the latter is certainly more dangerous.

But the division between the two is real, as Hamas operates an independent state in all but name and Fatah runs most of the West Bank with Israel only intervening to try to hunt down terror suspects.

The point of drawing attention to this division is not just to understand that sovereignty over A SINGLE Palestinian state is a myth and would not be resolved by international recognition. Rather, it is to bring to the attention of the world that by empowering either or both, they are laying the foundation for generations of future conflict rather than peace.

The common Palestinian political culture both Hamas and Fatah share is one in which their national identity is inextricably tied up with a war against Zionism. Though Fatah can sound more moderate than Hamas, especially when its leader is addressing the international and Israeli press rather than domestic audiences, it is just as locked into the idea that making peace on any terms would be a betrayal of their basic principles.

Giving more power to either or both would be to ensure more war for the Middle East. In the case of the West Bank, that would mean a repeat of the experiment whereby Israel withdrew every last soldier, settler, and settlement and instead of getting peace, saw the strip transformed into a terrorist launching pad/fortress.

All of which takes us back to our original question. If European governments and their parliaments are so concerned about the wellbeing of ordinary Palestinians, instead of pouring more money directly into the hands of Fatah or indirectly to Hamas via aid groups, they should insist on reform of both. More to the point, they should refrain from creating one or two more terror states that will strengthen the very forces of Islamist intolerance that have brought bloodshed to their streets. Sympathy for the Palestinians is understandable. Seeking to further empower Hamas and/or Fatah is a prescription for chaos and violence.

https://www.commentarymagazine.com/2015/01/15/which-palestinian-state-do-they-want-hamas-fatah-gaza/

Obama refuses to renew 40-year-old emergency oil supply pact with Israel

Obama refuses to renew 40-year-old emergency oil supply pact with Israel

By Pamela Geller 

Anyone who still believes Obama is not an antisemite is either antisemitic himself or has eaten an overabundance of mushrooms.

“US fails to renew emergency oil supply pact with Israel,“ Globes.co.il, ^[1] March 16, 2015
The agreement guaranteeing Israel’s oil supplies in wartime was first signed in 1975.

 ^[2]

The US has not renewed a historic agreement under which it guaranteed a supply of oil to Israel in emergencies, that is, instances in which Israel might be cut off from its regular commercial sources of oil because of war or closure of sea lanes. The agreement expired in November 2014, and since then the US administration has done nothing to renew it, Washington sources told “Globes”.

The sources said that it was not clear whether this was a deliberate step by the administration, stemming perhaps from renewed friction between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the White House, or a matter of bureaucratic inertia in Washington.

The agreement was first signed in 1975 during the Ford administration, two years after the Yom Kippur War and following the second disengagement agreement between Israel and Egypt in September 1975, under which Israel agreed to withdraw from the Egyptian oil fields in Sinai. The agreement by the US to guarantee Israel’s oil supply in emergencies was one of the most important of the incentives that motivated Israel to give up the oil fields.

In 1979, during the Carter administration, Israel and Egypt signed the Camp David Agreements, which were accompanied by two agreements between the US and Israel in the format of the 1975 agreement. In these agreements, the US gave Israel guarantees that it would have access to American oil if it was unable to supply the demand of its internal energy market because of war constraints. The agreements even stipulated that the US would assist in transporting oil to Israel if Israel was unable to procure oil tankers on the open market. The two agreements were eventually consolidated into one document. The agreement was set to last for fifteen years, and was supposed to have expired on September 25, 1994. At that point, the Clinton administration extended the agreement for ten years, and in 2004 it was extended for a further ten years. As mentioned, it expired in November 2014, and nothing has been done about renewing it.

Now, apparently after a push by the pro-Israel lobby in Washington AIPAC, a group of Democratic and Republican senators has written to Secretary of State John Kerry calling on the administration to renew the historic agreement. The letter is signed by Lisa Murkowski, who is chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and Mark Warner, the senior Democratic member of the committee, and four other senators.

Israel has never invoked the agreement, but Israel sources say that its importance lies in its very existence. An Israeli source compared the oil supply agreement to the loan guarantee agreement between the two countries that enables Israel to obtain commercial loans at low rates of interest. “Israel used the loan guarantee agreement very sparingly, but it is important that the loan guarantees agreement should exist, and the same applies to the energy agreement that guaranteed a regular supply of oil,” the source said, “We never used it, but it’s important that it should lie signed in a drawer.”

URLs in this post:

[1] Globes.co.il,: http://www.globes.co.il/en/article-us-fails-to-renew-oil-supply-agreement-with-israel-1001018925

[2] Image: http://pamelageller.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/obama-and-muslim-brotherhood-e1358361244230.jpg

http://pamelageller.com/2015/03/obama-refuses-to-renew-40-year-old-emergency-oil-supply-pact-with-israel.html/

Why Does the Arab World Long for Labor to Win?

Why Does the Arab World Long for Labor to Win?

The Arab world dreams of the day Herzog and Livni might be at the helm of the Jewish state.

By Dr. Mordechai Kedar

Honest disclosure I: I have been acquainted with the Herzog family for decades, ever since I was a child, and at various points in my life I crossed paths with all three Herzog brothers, Brigadier General (Res.) Joel, Michael and MK Yitzchak.  I have always held this aristocratic family in great esteem for their generosity, deportment, intelligence and erudition, as sons of Israel's late sixth president Chaim Herzog and grandchildren of the late Chief Rabbi Yitzchak Isaac Halevi  Herzog.  Ambassador Abba Eban, a significant political and cultural figure on his own, was their uncle. An aristocratic family in the deepest sense of the word.

Honest disclosure II: During the second half of the nineties, once I had finished my army service, I was active in the "Paths to Peace" organization, the younger and religious brother of "Peace Now". I gave peace a chance the European way, but our Arab neighbors disappointed us.

Honest disclosure III:  At various times, I have suggested a Middle East peace plan for us and our neighbors, "The Eight Palestinian Emirates Plan". I am openly against the establishment of a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria, one that will without doubt turn into another Hamastan and lead inevitably to the next war.

Honest disclosure IV: I openly support the Jewish Home party's list.

Let us start with the head of the Labor party, Yitzchak Herzog:

Years of research spent studying Arab discourse, media and culture - in the original Arabic - have led me to the incontrovertible conclusion that most of the Arab population hopes the day will come when Herzog is prime minister of Israel, for that day - at least according to the viewpoint of most Arabs -  is the beginning of the end of the state of Israel .The reason is simple: Herzog is seen as a person of weak character, unimpressive and spineless. He did not serve as a combat officer and was, instead, an officer in my unit, 8200, which is made up of brilliant nerds with the obligatory round-framed eyeglasses.

Herzog's gentle way of speaking and the unconfrontational terminology he uses, those that make him attractive to Israelis who want to think like Europeans and Americans, have convinced the Arab world that Herzog is the only way to soften Israel enough to step all over it and turn it into a dishrag that can be wrung into oblivion.

The Middle East's agenda is set by stereotypes and images, and the image Herzog projects is so weak that any threats Israel might pronounce would be met with derision. The distance from that derision to all-out war is a short one.

In the Middle East, anyone who proclaims non-stop that he wants peace, projects the image of someone who is afraid of war because he is weak, thereby awakening the militaristic adrenaline glands of his neighbors, who then resemble nothing so much as eagles and vultures hovering over a dying cow.

And the opposite is just as true: anyone who radiates power, strength, threat and danger enjoys comparative tranquillity because the bullies leave him alone. This is the reason the Arabs hated and respected Ariel Sharon and Moshe Dayan – they were afraid of them. Sadat made peace with Israel because he could not defeat the Jewish state despite the surprise factor he had in opening the Yom Kippur War and his early success in crossing the Suez Canal.  Hussein also made peace with Israel, hoping it would use its power to help him face the Baath party of Syria and Iraq. Arafat agreed to ahudabiyyah - that is, a temporary "peace" for as long as the enemy is too strong to defeat – after the failure of the first intifada.

Yitzchak Herzog at the helm of the government is the sweetest dream the Arab world can imagine, because it is proof that Israeli society is tired, exhausted, lacking the motivation to protect the country and ready to pay any price for a paper  that has the word "peace" written on it.  Herzog at the helm of the government will be subject to pressures from the Arab world – and from Obama's White House - because he creates the impression that "this time it will work", or shall I say, "Yes, we can".  

The pressures he will undergo will be much greater than those exerted on Netanyahu, because the White House and the Arab world will sense that his days as Prime Minister are numbered and therefore, they must make every effort to squeeze as much out of him as they can for the short period that Israelis will let him function before waking up to realize the imminent catastrophe and removing him from his seat as they did to Ehud Barak when he gave in to Arafat.

Yitzchak Herzog may bring about harmonious relations with the White House and perhaps even with the angst-consumed leaders of Europe, but he will bring a war of blood, fire and tears to the area called the Middle East where only those who are truly powerful, threatening and determined to deter their enemies survive.

Let us continue with MK Tzipi Livni, Herzog's rotation partner in what the two self-titled "The Zionist Camp":

Tzipi is the other aspect of the sweet dreams of the Arab world, a woman born and raised in a courageous Revisionist family, a home filled with healthy and strong Zionist principles. She began her political career in the Likud, but became more and more spineless, deteriorating from party to party, until she joined up with the other leading invertebrate, Yitzchak Herzog.

To the Arab world, Livni symbolizes and represents the dispirited and weary Israeli, those who have had enough of the struggle for survival and are willing to offer their necks to the slaughterer hoping that he will butcher them gently if they speak politely.

The internet tells us that in the eighties, Livni was actually a Mossad agent in Europe, and several Arab websites tell of the "special services" she did for the state of Israel.These services are understood in the West as undercover and secret, but in the Middle East the expression is interpreted in a totally different fashion. We can imagine how they will react on the web in the Arab world and what our image will be if she becomes prime minister.

However, the problem with Tzipi Livni is not just about her image, because in her case, our neighbors have proof that Livni hasn't the foggiest idea of how to navigate the complex, thorny paths of the Middle East: she was Foreign Minister during the Second Lebanon War, and was the Israeli architect of Security Council Resolution 1701 that allowed the Hezbollah – already clear in the phrasing she espoused – to renew and enlarge its rocket arsenal. I would expect someone with a law degree to comprehend the built-in failure in the way the resolution was phrased, but Tzipi Livni did not even reach this minimal legal test. Is there anyone in his right mind who would hire her to prepare a contract for renting out his apartment?

What is strange is that instead of being ashamed and keeping her mouth shut, Livni even defended Resolution 1701 in public, strangely calling it a resolution that "created change in southern Lebanon".

She is right about one thing. It surely did createchange in southern Lebanon, but one that is bad for Israel. Instead of demilitarizing Hezbollah – which many countries agreed was necessary after the Second Lebanon War – this resolution allowed Hezbollah to rearm. Livni's failure in phrasing the resolution and its implementation should have left her far away from any Israeli decision making positions, and certainly from those that have anything to do with our geopolitical reality.

In sum: Only in Israel do the spineless have the nerve to ask the public for another chance to sit for the Middle East exam which they are sure to fail once again. Only in Israel does the public's collective memory go only as far back as the last television debate, the slogan heard yesterday and the latest spin a candidate spread this morning at the advice of his media consultants because it is popular and easy to recall.

Not one of the soul weary people – those who talk non-stop about "peace" – can deal in a suitable manner with the cruel and difficult  cultural environment in our neighborhood, one which, in the best case, will kick him in the rear as a warning before plunging a dagger into his neck.

The Herzog-Livni duo is the last thing I would recommend to lead the state of Israel, as long as we want to survive in the "New Middle East" – not the Shimon Peres fantasy world of that name, but the one where what is new is "Islamic State". Perhaps, in the far-off future, when and if the surrounding cultural atmosphere turns into something like America or what it was once in Europe, we will be able to consider these two soul weary people as leaders of Israel.

However, while the Middle East looks the way it does and functions the way it does at present, there is no choice except to leave them nailed to their seats in the opposition consisting of other spineless "round eyeglasses" so they can raise shrill voices to criticize the nation's leaders, while those leaders radiate power, strength and believable threats.

This is the bitter reality in which we attempt to survive. I am not the one who created it, and I bear no guilt for the situation we are in. I am just the messenger who is charged with explaining to my readers what not everyone understands about the culture in our neighborhood. It is a culture that only provides quiet and tranquility to the leader who succeeds in persuading his neighbors that he is invincible and that they had better leave him in peace for their own good. 

This is an ongoing mission, especially since every once in a  while some "brilliant" figures appear, claiming to have just patented their invention of the wheel  and found the way to be accepted by our neighbors as a legitimate and welcome entity.

My advice? Learn Arabic.

Dr. Mordechai Kedar is a senior lecturer in the Department of Arabic at Bar-Ilan University. He served in IDF Military Intelligence for 25 years, specializing in Arab political discourse, Arab mass media, Islamic groups and the Syrian domestic arena. Thoroughly familiar with Arab media in real time, he is frequently interviewed on the various news programs in Israel.

Written in Hebrew for Arutz Sheva, translated by Rochel Sylvetsky.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/16606#.VP9ZAWTLfH8

Jews are Indigenous: Why Israel Advocacy Fails

Jews are Indigenous: Why Israel Advocacy Fails

By Hila Hershkoviz

As an Israeli Jew, I have always taken for granted my own indigeneity to my homeland. I am indigenous not only because I was born here; I am no more indigenous to the hills of Judea than any Jew born in the Diaspora.  I am indigenous to this land because, like Diaspora Jews, I am part of a nation that had two glorious kingdoms here, but due to a series of historic injustices committed against us by Assyrian, Babylonian, and Roman Empires, our land was ravished and our people dispossessed

I am also indigenous because I smile when my grandmother tells me partially in Hebrew, partially in Arabic, and partially in French about how it was tradition for her family in Morocco to dress in fancy clothes for the Shabbatot that fell on the three-week mourning period leading up to Tisha B’Av (unlike the other families), as part of the preserved honor culture of the “Levite” tribe.  I am indigenous because of my deep emotional reaction to reading the 2,300 year-old texts written by my ancestors on the Digital Dead Sea Scrolls website.  I am indigenous because, even after hearing it for the millionth time, I cringe every time a Jew refers to our beloved Judean soil – soaked with the blood, sweat, and tears of my people for thousands of years – as the “West Bank” and because not so long ago I literally burst into tears when I heard two people utter the unbearable words “a divided Jerusalem.”

The indigeneity of Jews to the land of Israel is not some vague, anemic, or obscure “semi-status.”  This is not only a matter of academic qualifications which we clearly meet – whether it be our national origin, indigenous culture, language, historic sovereignty, deep spiritual connection to the land etc. – but emotionally as well. Consider for a moment how much our people in exile over the centuries prayed, fought, and bled for our dream of returning home.  We might very well be the very embodiment of what it means to be an indigenous people.  The instinctive indigenous self-identification of Jews throughout the ages is what enabled Jewish freedom fighters to sacrifice their lives for this land, and it is what gives relentless strength to Israeli soldiers today.  Note for a moment how anti-colonial tactics such as terrorism, tactics that have been used successfully in places like Algeria to drive away real colonialists, do not work on us, an indigenous people, at all.

So why do those who care about indigenous rights not support a native people’s right to live on its ancestral lands?

Both liberal and conservative Israel advocacy organizations in America are doing it wrong.  Every time they portray Israel as a Western country, identify Jews (even indirectly) as white people while simultaneously referring to our ancient national culture as a “religion” or speak in a mannerism which would suggest we are anything but an indigenous people, they are reinforcing the bizarre but successful anti-Israel narrative depicting us as Western European colonialists in a foreign land.  Since the hasbara industry has collectively been identifying us in this fashion for years we shouldn’t be surprised when we are told to “go back to Europe.”  When all of the largest Jewish American Israel advocacy groups, whether right or left, insist on this false Western presentation of our people it not only weakens our position, it also destroys the possibility of ever truly integrating into the region and making peace with our neighbors.  A Western country does not belong in the Middle East and the inclination of the other peoples of the region to oppose such a state is instinctive.

Gay rights, women’s rights and Western-style democracy are also not going to do the trick as all three are irrelevant to the core issue at hand, and true indigenous status easily trumps all three in the minds of even the most progressive young activists.  Even if such topics may help gain the support of many American liberals, focusing on these issues bolsters the narrative that we are foreign to the Middle East, ultimately falsifying our people’s true historic narrative and further alienating the other Semitic peoples from us (those we are actually destined to live with).  It is also time to throw away the (somewhat arrogant and very much irrelevant to the point of discussion) “we are the good guys because we are more civilized/produce better technology/have more Nobel prizes than you” rhetoric and go back to the authentic definition of Zionism as an indigenous people’s liberation movement, with our inherent connection to our land based on indigenous rights, the correction of historic injustices and the universal rights of all native peoples.

The UN’s resource kit on indigenous people’s issues states that:

“Self-identification as indigenous or tribal is considered a fundamental criterion and this is the practice followed in the United Nations and its specialized agencies, as well as in certain regional intergovernmental organizations. Article 33 of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples refers to the rights of indigenous peoples to decide their own identities and membership procedures.”

In other words, it all comes down to self-identification. It is ultimately up to Diaspora Jews to make a decision. You are either native to Eretz Yisrael, the ancestral homeland of the people you are part of, to which your people’s language, customs, and traditions are indigenous and to which your people aspired and sacrificed to return for thousands of years; or you are indigenous to the place in which you were born in only because Assyrian, Babylonian, and Roman imperialists invaded your people’s homeland some centuries back.  You are either part of a Semitic people, a proud and ancient Middle Eastern nation with a rich treasured past and a collective meaningful future, or you choose to willingly give in to subtle Western social constructs pressuring you to discard your people’s authentic self-definition and identify as white people, part of the Euro-Western nations, history and ethos with the only thing distinguishing you being some kind of different “religion.”  I know where I stand.

Vote Alliance for New Zionist Vision in the U.S. elections to the World Zionist Congress.  #NotYourMothersZionism

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/jews-are-indigenous/#

The ‘New York Times’ Violates My Protocol The true rift between Netanyahu and Obama is about policy, not politesse

The ‘New York Times’ Violates My Protocol

The true rift between Netanyahu and Obama is about policy, not politesse

By Liel Leibovitz

Last week, I had some unkind words for the New York Times, whose account of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress had to be amended to reflect the fact that Bibi accepted the invitation after the White House was informed, not before. No sooner had the piece run than friends, colleagues, and assorted observers began to frantically assail me with the idea that while the Times had issued a correction, the question of whether Bibi accepted the invitation before or after wasn’t important after all. The real issue, they scolded me, in increasingly exasperated and acrimonious language, was and remains Bibi’s flauting of the established rules of respectful behavior.

In the Calvin and Hobbes comics, Calvin enjoyed playing a very special game called Calvinball , in which he made up the rules as he went along to make sure he was always winning. Reading the continuous coverage of Bibi’s visit in the last few days makes you feel that the White House and its supporters are now playing their own version of Calvinball; let’s call it “protocol,” which is the official-sounding scare-word they use to imply that Bibi’s behavior was thoroughly out-of-bounds.

So, what precise point of “protocol” did Bibi outrageously violate? Well, went the original version, he accepted an invitation to address Congress without the White House being informed that he was coming—which is certainly no way to behave. Once the New York Times admitted that this story, which it printed, was 100 percent wrong—and that the White House had in fact been properly informed—the conversation about protocol miraculously morphed. Keeping the all-important word “protocol” in play, the discussion now revolves around President Barack Obama’s statement that he would not meet with Bibi so close to the Israeli elections in March; that, Obama said, would be a violation of “protocol.” Which is a fine point, except for the fact that Bibi never asked for such a meeting. Instead, he was invited to address Congress by the speaker of the House of Representatives, who is the leader of a coequal branch of government—just as he had been invited in 2011 by the very same man to address the very same branch of government without anyone mentioning the word “protocol.”

Why all the fuss right now? There are two useful ways to approach the question. The first is to try and imagine what would not have been a violation of the shifting rules of “protocol.” Indulge me here. Imagine John Boehner coming up with the idea to invite the prime minister of Israel to speak. Singularly committed to the sanctity of bipartisanship—the idea, that is, that no decision in Washington should be made without the benign approval of both parties—Boehner then calls the White House. “I have this crazy idea,” he says. “How about a speech from Bibi?” On the other end of the line, crickets. “The thing is, John,” say the Democrats, “we don’t really like Bibi, and his Iran policy is not really the one we’re trying to promote. Mind scrapping the whole thing?” Fighting back a tear, Boehner agrees. “Sure thing, guys,” he says. “Sorry for bringing it up. See you later at the congressional gym.”

This scenario, of course, is idiotic—yet it’s precisely the one so many Obama supporters have been strongly promoting in tones of heavy outrage this past week. Which leads me to the second, more useful way of thinking about the conflict, namely asking why Bibi is so intent on making a speech that was bound to piss off the White House and its itchy-fingered defenders.

The theory that’s being floated around by custodians of political civility and nonpartisanship like the New York Times, Josh Marshall , Matt Duss, et al., is that Bibi’s desire to speak to Congress is a petty bit of electioneering whose real audience is back home in Israel. If you believe that, you believe that Bibi and his men think that the best way to get Israelis to vote for him on March 17 is to make big-picture speeches in America two weeks earlier—while risking a very public pre-election row with your greatest ally and economic benefactor. You believe, bluntly put, that Bibi is a political moron in search of a blatant photo op that will allow him to bellow to a nation of his fellow troglodytes who will then vote for him. I don’t like Bibi very much, but I grew up with the man, and guess what: He’s smarter than that. And so is my toddler, who learned everything she knows about power dynamics and international politics from watching Frozen.

But there is another, much more serious explanation for Bibi’s eagerness to come to Washington in the middle of an election campaign that most polls show him winning handily: March 24 is the deadline for the framework agreement in the ongoing negotiations with Iran. As Michael Doran, a former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense and senior policy director in charge of the Middle East at the National Security Council, has shown in his factually grounded analysis of Obama’s Iran policy, when it comes to negotiating with the Islamic Republic, the Obama Administration is committed to keeping everyone in the dark. Unaware that he was being recorded, Benjamin Rhodes, a key Obama national security adviser, told a gathering of Democratic activists last year that Obama is hoping to keep Congress out of the loop as much as possible. “We’re already kind of thinking through, how do we structure a deal so we don’t necessarily require legislative action right away,” Rhodes said.

Congress, of course, may strongly disagree with Obama’s approach, especially now that it is controlled by the GOP. Which is why Congress can do many things to make sure the talks with Iran proceed with caution and some real degree of oversight, which Obama and his men are eager to avoid. As former Justice Department officials David Rivkin and Lee Casey wrote in a recent op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, “Congress should pass legislation now clearly stating the parameters of an acceptable nuclear deal with Iran, emphasizing the need to eliminate any Iranian breakout capability. It should also put the Iranians and our allies on notice that, absent congressional approval, the president cannot deliver comprehensive and permanent relief from the existing sanctions statutes.”

As Congress is about to face off with the president over these crucial issues, it makes sense that they might want to hear from the leader of one of the nations most threatened by Iranian aggression—who has warned about the dangers of an Iranian nuclear break-out for years, and has also demonstrated a pragmatic commitment to disarming Iran by way of joint diplomatic efforts rather than a unilateral Israeli strike. The looming March deadline and the face-off between the president and Congress—including prominent congressional Democrats—provide eminently sane and reasonable explanations for the timing of Bibi’s speech; that so many of Obama’s sycophants so aggressively promote the idea that Bibi is a re-election-crazy nutcase who doesn’t actually care much about Iran is truly baffling.

The Times’ insistence on sticking to the silly “protocol” storyline is truly maddening because there are real issues at stake here. The plain truth is that Obama and Bibi radically disagree on the direction that a joint Iran policy should take. Bibi forswore an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities because of the stated commitment of the past two U.S. administrations to U.N.-approved sanctions whose stated goal was to eliminate Iran’s capacity to build nuclear weapons. Now, it seems, American policy has swung 180 degrees in the opposite direction—toward embracing the idea of an unreconstructed Iran as a key U.S. ally in Iraq, Yemen, Syria, and beyond. Instead of eliminating Iran’s nuclear weapons capabilities, the Iranians will be able to retain a large proportion of their centrifuges and facilities, while sanctions will be lifted—strengthening the current regime, and allowing the Iranians to buy more of whatever they want to buy. Instead of finding new meanings for the word “protocol,” the Times might profitably spend its time on figuring out why the White House lied to them—and setting out the terms of a very real policy debate in a way that illuminates the administration’s choices. Those choices may be right, and they may be wrong. But it seems clear that Times readers would be better served by some real attention to what the administration is doing and why than by buying into a deceptive spin campaign designed to undercut the arguments of its most visible and vocal opponent.

Alas, the nonsense keeps on coming. The most recent storyline, also promoted heavily by the Times, that Bibi’s speech has met with opposition from a wide coalition including everyone from some Democrats to the ADL and the leader of the Reform movement somehow suggests he is empirically in the wrong. Reporters who cite the ADL’s opposition to Bibi’s speech might have noted that the man who will step in as the ADL’s head this summer, Jonathan Greenblatt, is currently employed as one of Obama’s advisers—which would make opposing Obama kind of sticky. Bibi surely has his detractors, and some of them have valid reasons for opposing his speech, even for loathing him, but the condemnation—in response to phone calls from reporters—is far from uniform. If it was, the story would not have generated so much attention for so long.

So here, again, are the facts: John Boehner invited Bibi to speak on an issue of national importance to both the United States and to Israel, and Bibi accepted. The White House was informed of the invitation in advance, as is proper. Democrats were not consulted. Tzipi Livni, Buji Herzog, Jonathan Greenblatt, and the editorial board of the New York Times were not consulted either. This is all according to custom and according to precedent. Any other reading of this story is a violation of protocol.

Liel Leibovitz is a senior writer for Tablet Magazine.

http://tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/188940/new-york-times-protocol

'Wretched Politicians Hide What the Palestinians Really Think'

'Wretched Politicians Hide What the Palestinians Really Think'

By Shimon Cohen, Ari Yashar

Director of pioneering new research explains 'people think they get the Palestinians, but they have no idea - and that has to change.'

Dr. David Bukay of University of Haifa's school of political science has been leading a research project that just completed an in-depth investigation of Palestinian Arab views of the peace talks and the desire for peace with Israel.

Speaking to Arutz Sheva, Bukay explains that the research which investigates figures from Palestinian Arab media and textbooks shows that "people think they know what the Palestinians think, but they don't know."

The doctor reveals that the Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership, media and educational system are engaged in "a process of demonization and dehumanization towards Israel at levels higher than (the Nazi) Der Sturmer. This they pass to their children in a deep process of hatred and incitement with no equal in history."

Bukay explains that in the research all the materials were gathered by Itamar Marcus's Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), and adds "if the state of Israel, instead of funding hundreds and thousands of Israel-hating NGOs gave funds to Marcus and the organization he leads and MEMRI which deals with what's happening in Muslim states, and allowed them to exist and not just live on donations, people in Israel would benefit."

"We are blind and disconnected from the reality," argues Bukay. "Anti-Semitism first blossomed in Islam and not in Europe. There anti-Semitism against the Jewish people began. Statements that Jews are descended from apes and pigs started there. These are Islamic expressions."

"In the Koran there are very serious expressions against Jews and people need to know this. People need to know what (PA chief negotiator Saeb) Erekat thinks and what he writes about the state of Israel and the Jewish people when he sits at the negotiating table," he continued.

What does the PA want?

Bukay noted that while there is a huge emphasis in Israel placed on the "two-state solution," people tend to ignore what the PA wants.

"They write these things openly. When they speak about two states to two peoples they talk about a Palestinian state and next to it a state of all its citizens at best, or a non-Zionist state on the way to a large Palestinian state. That's their intention," he deduces.

The doctor slammed "wretched little politicians" for being eager to prove how moderate they are when the outcome rests to a large extent on the desires of the PA.

"When they say peace it isn't peace you live in and exist but rather peace without the existence of the state of Israel," says Bukay. "The second a Palestinian baby is born he is born with a load of malice, hatred and demonization towards Israel, so there is no chance to ever reach any kind of deal with him."

According to the researcher, the Israeli political leadership is actually aware of what the PA is doing, but has chosen to ignore it, and therefore decides to hide the truth from the public.

This, says Bukay, is despite the fact that "we as a public need to know who the Palestinians are and what their goals are."

Important research, but just the beginning

The research on the extent of anti-Israel sentiments in the Palestinian Arabpublic has been compiled into a booklet that was published several days ago, and Bukay says it will be distributed among various states and leaders to raise awareness.

But one booklet such as this isn't enough, he adds, calling for many more booklets exposing the Palestinian Arab position. "I have the materials for it," he notes, saying he hopes to publish them soon so that Israelis will be familiar with what they're actually facing.

Bukay says he isn't concerned about being labeled "right-wing" in Israeli academia, saying "I want to bring to public awareness what the Palestinians think and how they educate their children."

A common mistake among Israelis is to think that political and educational processes among the Palestinian Arabs are similar to those occurring in Israel, argues the researcher, saying "we believe in the image of them being like us, hoping for peace, and that our peace is like theirs, and this is just a misunderstanding that can be solved."

"The public needs to know that this image is disastrous. This is mental blindness. We just read what we know and that's too little. The right way is to bring things to their (the public's) attention. There isn't A SINGLE word of our opinion here (in the research), but rather just the positions of the Palestinians," he explains.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/191699#.VOuz8WTLfH8