Netanyahu blasts ‘hypocrisy’ of the West on Iranian arms cache

BY YIFA YAAKOV March 10, 2014

In Eilat, PM accuses world powers of fixating on the illusion of a changed Tehran, even in the face of ‘murderous’ ship cargo

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to the press at southern port of Eilat, Monday, March 10, 2014, as Israel displayed advanced M-302 rockets that were unloaded from the Panamanian-flagged Klos-C vessel (photo credit: AFP/ Jack Guez)

• sile cargo escorted into Eilat port

Surrounded by a cache of missiles, part of an alleged Iranian arms shipment to the Gaza Strip seized on board the Klos-C last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu harshly rebuked the international community Monday for clinging to what he said was the illusion of a changed Iran, even after an Israeli raid to intercept the ship uncovered the cache of advanced arms.

Before making his statement, Netanyahu was briefed by military officials among the rows of weapons, marked with Iranian seals, neatly arrayed at the port. The arms, the officials said, included M-302 missiles with a range of up to 160-kilometers (100 miles). The officials said the Iranian-shipped, Syrian-made missiles were capable of causing more damage than the Iranian-made M-75 or Fajr-5 missiles used by Hamas against Israel in the past.

The IDF said it found 40 M-302 rockets aboard the Panamanian-flagged Klos-C it intercepted in the Red Sea last week, as well as 181 120-mm. mortar shells and approximately 400,000 7.62-caliber rounds. IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Peter Lerner said the mortar rounds had been made in Iran. Before he spoke to the press, IDF officers showed Netanyahu documentation they said confirmed the Iranian origin of the shipment.

With a grave expression, the prime minister blasted Western leaders for “smilingly shaking hands” with Iranian leaders even as the missiles were being unloaded at Israel’s southern Eilat port — a shipment as heavily masked, Netanyahu said, as Iran’s nuclear program.

He was referring to a European Union delegation led by foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who arrived in Iran Sunday for her first visit to the country – the first European diplomat in her position to do so since 2008 — and held a joint press conference with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif.

Calling on the international to wake up and see the truth behind “Iran’s fake smiles … before it’s too late,” Netanyahu said world powers must stop Iran from achieving military nuclear capabilities.

“They would like to continue to build up the illusion that Iran has changed course, but the facts we see on this pier prove the exact opposite,” Netanyahu said.

He said there was conclusive proof, including testimony by the ship’s crew, that the weapons containers were loaded onto the Klos-C in Bandar Abbas, Iran’s largest port. He said the ship’s bills of lading, both real and fabricated, showed that Iran had tried to mask the contents of the shipment — precisely as it masks its nuclear efforts.

“Just as Iran tried to camouflage this deadly weapons shipment, Iran camouflages its military nuclear program,” he said.

Some of the 40 rockets put on display by the IDF along the docks of the southern port of Eilat, Monday, March 10, 2014 (photo credit: AFP/Jack Guez)

“The international community would like to ignore Iran’s continued criminal hostility; the massacre it is helping to commit in Syria; its support for terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon,” said Netanyahu.

“There are those who would prefer that we not hold this news conference here today,” he added, addressing the foreign press in English. “They feel uncomfortable. They would prefer that we continue to nurture the illusion” of a new, moderate Iran, he added.

The prime minister said that the West was also keen to overlook human rights violations within Iran, such as the hundreds of executions that take place in the country each year.

He said that when it came to Israel, on the other hand, the international community loudly condemned even the smallest violation.

“The condemnations I’ve heard from the international community in the face of this murderous shipment have been limp, few and far between,” Netanyahu said.

“[But] if we build a balcony in some neighborhood in Jerusalem, harsh criticism is heard from the international community. This hypocrisy is not only morally unacceptable, it is also dangerous, because Iran camouflages its military nuclear program just as it tried to camouflage this deadly arms shipment.”

He warned that while the shipment seized on board the Klos-C contained long-range missiles, future shipments could contain nuclear materials, which Iran could send “to any port in the world.”

Mortars set up in Eilat Monday (photo credit: Mitch Ginsburg/Times of Israel)

Also speaking in Eilat on Monday afternoon was Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, who said Iran’s “charm and smile offensive” did little to conceal its long-term goals, which remained unchanged under President Hassan Rouhani.

These goals, said Ya’alon, included “disseminating the revolution,” “challenging the ‘Great Satan,’ or the United States and Western culture,” and undermining regimes in the Middle East.

“There is no conflict in the Middle East, from Afghanistan through Bahrain and Yemen to Syria, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, where Iran isn’t fanning the flames,” Ya’alon said.

He added that Iranian terror proxies were active in Asia and South America as well, and that the regime’s smiles masked continued activity on the terror, missile development and nuclear fronts.

As Netanyahu and Ya’alon spoke, dozens of rockets, boxes of hundreds thousands of bullets and nearly 200 mortar rounds were opened for the world to see as Israel put the seized weapons from the Klos-C on show.

The arsenal was presented at a news conference at a naval base in the southern port city of Eilat by Netanyahu, Ya’alon and navy chief Vice Admiral Ram Rutberg.

Journalists invited to the press conference were shown rows of armaments set up on a military dock, next to the Hanit navy boat, which intercepted the arms ship on Wednesday.

Netanyahu has said the seizure of the ship not only foiled the delivery of lethal weapons to Gaza but served to “expose the true face of Iran, which was behind it.”

Iran has flatly denied any involvement with the shipment, but Netanyahu accused the Islamic republic of “brazenly lying.”

“Each one of these rockets poses a threat to the safety of the citizens of Israel — each bullet and each rocket that was discovered had an Israeli address,” army chief Lieutenant General Benny Gantz said over the weekend.

If fired from Gaza, M-302 rockets, which have a range of 160 kilometers (100 miles), could easily reach Tel Aviv.

Bullets set up in Eilat Monday (photo credit: Mitch Ginsburg/Times of Israel)

Ambassadors and military attaches were also taken to see the haul on Monday afternoon, as Israel sought to demonstrate evidence of Iran’s ties with terrorist groups.

World powers are currently engaged in talks with Iran to roll back its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.

But Israel, which believes Iran is trying to build a military nuclear capability, has lashed out at the negotiations, arguing that the West is being duped over Tehran’s true intentions.

Mitch Ginsburg and AFP contributed to this report

President Obama’s ‘If Not Now, When?!’

By: Yoram Ettinger   March 8th, 2014

President Obama assumes that regional and global circumstances are now conducive for a peace accord between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.  According to Obama, such a peace accord would require Israel (once again) to undertake tangible, critical, territorial concessions, in return for (once again)intangible Palestinian commitments. "If not now, when!?" he asked Prime Minister Netanyahu, in a March 2, 2014 interview

However, the editorial headline of theMarch 3, 2014 Washington Post, a solid supporter of President Obama, stated: "President Obama's foreign policy is based on fantasy."  According to the Washington Post, "For five years, President Obama has led a foreign policy based more on how he thinks the world should operate than on reality.  It was [supposedly] a world in which 'the tide of war is receding….'  Secretary John Kerry displayed this mindset, [saying that] Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a 19^th century act in the 21^st century…. Unfortunately, Russian President, Putin, has not received the memo on the 21^st century behavior.  Neither has China's president Xi Jinping, who is engaged in gunboat diplomacy against Japan and weaker nations of Southeast Asia…. Assad is waging a very 20^thcentury war against his own people…."

Thus, President Obama considers the non-Palestinian-related Arab Tsunami a transition towards peace and democracy, in spite of the proliferating conflicts throughout the globe.  Therefore, he pressures Israel to retreat and concede, in defiance of the receding tide of peace and democracy in the boiling globe and the tectonic Middle East.  Contrary to the early assessments of the "Arab Springers," the real Middle East is increasingly stormy, ruthless, oppressive, Islamist, anti-American, intolerant, fragmented, unstable, unreliably treacherous and violently unpredictable.  Moreover, Obama bullies Israel to conclude a peace agreement in a region which has never experienced comprehensive intra-Muslim/Arab peace; a region that has always displayed intra-Muslim agreements signed on ice, rather than carved in stone; a region which features prominently in the clash of civilizations between Western democracies and rogue Islamic regimes. 

Although the rising tide of global and regional disorder, restlessness, uncertainty, terrorism and savagery warrant a higher security thresholds and more caution – especially for a besieged nation in a conflict ridden neighborhood - Obama leans on Israel to assume dramatic risks and lower its guards.  Israel is urged to undertake a lethal retreat from the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria, which over-tower Jerusalem and the 9-15 mile sliver along the Mediterranean, the majority of "pre-1967 Israel," including Tel Aviv, Haifa, Ben Gurion Airport and 80% of Israel's population and civilian infrastructures.

President Obama expects Israel to trade high-ground topography for high-tech military systems and security arrangements, devised by American generals, who led the failed efforts to snatch Iraq and Afghanistan out of the jaws of Islamic terrorism and Iranian radicalism. Israel is expected to entrust its own national security to the goodwill of its Arab neighbors and international guarantees, at a time when both are exposed as non-viable.  At a time when a posture of deterrence is increasingly critical for one's survival – especially in the Middle East - Israel is pushed to erode its own posture of deterrence, and to transform itself from a producer – to a consumer - of national security, from a strategic asset to a strategic burden.

Israel is expected to subordinate its own threat-assessment to assessments made by the US foreign policy establishment, whose track record in the Middle East has been systematically flawed, worthy of the March 3, 2014 Washington Post criticism: opposing the establishment of the Jewish State; overestimating Arab muscle and underestimating Jewish muscle; courting the anti-US, radical President Nasser of Egypt; betraying the Shah of Iran and facilitating the rise of Khomeini; punishing Israel for destroying Iraq's nuclear reactor and collaborating with Saddam Hussein (until the day of the August, 1990 invasion of Kuwait); embracing Yasser Arafat as a man of peace; providing a tailwind for the Gaza takeover by Hamas; heralding Hafiz and Bashar Assad as potentially peaceful, constructive and reformist leaders (until the eruption of the civil war in Syria); deserting pro-US Mubarak and courting anti-US, trans-national Muslim Brotherhood terrorists; potentially, transforming Iran from a controllable tactical threat to a non-controllable strategic, nuclear, apocalyptic threat; etc.

President Obama contends that Israel is, now, increasingly threatened by international isolation and the Arab demographic time bomb.  However, notwithstanding the anti-Israel diplomatic talk, the strategic walk is steadily and dramatically pro-Israel, highlighting the Jewish state as a key player in the world of commercial and defense high tech, a most attractive site for overseas investments, a preferred partner for scientific, technological, agricultural and medical cooperation and the most respected authority on military operations, intelligence and training. Contrary to conventional wisdom at the White House, there is no demographic machete at the throat of the Jewish state.  Israel is not threatened by an Arab demographic time bomb; Israel benefits from an unprecedentedly robust Jewish demographic tailwind.

"If not now, when?!" behooves the US and Israel to heed, now, the advice of the March 3 Washington Post editorial - refraining from a policy which subordinates grim and complicated reality to pleasant and oversimplified wishful-thinking – lest they undermine their own long term, strategic, vital interests. 

Iran to Receive Another $550 Million Cash Infusion  Adam Kredo 3-6-14

More cash flows to Iran as it announces military buildup

Iran is scheduled to receive another $550 million in unfrozen assets from the Obama administration on Friday, just days after Tehran unveiled a slew of new weapons and advanced ballistic missiles.

Iranian banking authorities on Wednesday confirmed that another$550 million is now on its way to Tehran under the interim nuclear accord inked last year with the United States and other Western nations.

The United States has agreed to unfreeze a total of $4.2 billion in Iranian oil assets over the next several months. Experts have warned that because the money is being given to Iran with no strings attached it could go to fund terror-related activities or even Iran’s nuclear program.

The latest cash delivery comes as Tehran unveils a slew of advanced weapons, including ballistic missiles capable of “precision targeting.” Iran was also caught smuggling a shipment of weapons to Palestinian terrorists in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday.

Iran’s Defense Minister announced on Wednesday that the military had made great progress in approving the accuracy of its ballistic missile guidance system, which Tehran views as a deterrence to the U.S. and Israeli militaries.

“The guidance systems of (the missiles delivered to the IRGC) today enjoy the capability of striking the targets with full precision, and they have a margin of error below five meters,” Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan announced, according to Iran’s Fars News Agency.

Dehqan’s comment came during a ceremony marking the “mass delivery” to Iran of several different types of ballistic missiles and an air defense system.

These ballistic missiles are now being coupled with a new radar system that can “evade enemy radar systems, leaving the [hostile] forces unable to trace or intercept them,” according to Fars.

These missiles are said to have multiple types of warheads, making them more deadly and effective, according to Dehqan, who was quoted by the Associated Press as saying that the “missiles are able to hit and destroy enemy targets with precision, and they meet a variety of the armed forces’ needs.”

Iran’s ongoing ballistic missile program has become a sticking point in negotiations with the West.

Iran continues to test these missiles, which are capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, despite sanctions aimed at preventing such a buildup.

Iranian officials have referred to the ballistic missile program as a “red line” in talks with the West.

The White House has vowed to push the issue, though it remains unclear just how much progress has been made on this front.

It is also unclear how Iran’s thwarted weapons shipment to Gaza will impact negotiations.

The Israeli military seized the ship and referred to Iran’s smuggling effort as a “complex, covert operation.”

Many of the Gaza-bound missiles can be fired over a 100-mile distance, placing a majority of Israel at risk.

As sanctions on Iran continue to be relaxed under the interim accord, Iran will likely have an easier time funding such military programs. Iranian oil exports, for instance, have steadily risen during the past few months.

The total amount of sanctions relief could actually top $20 billion, according to some experts, who have pointed out that the White House’s figure of around $7 billion does not account for profits made over the next several months from oil sales.

Iran is scheduled to receive additional cash installments in April, May, June, and July

Antisemitism and Jewish Survival

 Published on JPost by David Turner on Wednesday, 5 March, 2014

As the quote appearing immediately below by Alex Bein describes, Jews almost never anticipate the catastrophe on the horizon. It's only in retrospect that its inevitability makes sense. Which is the issue I have addressed over the past few years on-line at the Jerusalem Post, and now in manuscript form almost ready to find a publisher. German Jewry never saw it coming until Hitler made it absolutely clear three years after his party won the 1932 elections freely and democratically. German Jewry even, in the early years of the Nazi government dismissed American Jewish boycotts as "harmful" and unwanted: they were, after all, loyal Germans and Germany their fatherland! And quickly dispensing with Germany's Constitution guaranteeing the rights of all citizens, Hitler embarked on what was to be the "final" solution to that two-thousand year Jewish Problem that had haunted the West.

Is American Jewry better prepared now that that which was unthinkable before it happened, the effort to exterminate all Jews everywhere and back to a single Jewish grandparent? 

That the Final Solution failed was the result not of effort, but accident. World War II ended before the War Against the Jews was completed. And the Jewish Problem remains yet unsolved.

Introduction: American “exceptionality” and the Jewish Problem

“almost all periods of great violence, at least since the Middle Ages, have caught the Jews by surprise and found them unprepared… the persecutions began with particular severity and intensity especially when the Jews position was so secure and their relationship to their environment well ordered that there was no thought of attacks and major violence—at least not in their country, their house.” (Alex Bein, 1990, The Jewish Question, pps. 95-6)

“hand the people a scapegoat to hate. Let them kill a scapegoat occasionally for cathartic release. The mechanism is ages old.” (Robert A. Heinlein)

I. Exceptionality

American Jews have long assured ourselves that unlike our forebear’s experience in the “old country,” traditional antisemitism somehow skipped the voyage across the ocean. And on the surface the Jewish experience in America seems to justify this perception. The United States may have gone through periods of heightened antisemitism but they were relatively infrequent and limited. At least that is the general impression. And while antisemitism in the United Statesduring the Holocaust was also intense most American-Jews still considered Auschwitz a European phenomenon which could never happen over here. 

American “exceptionality” is assumed the result of several factors including diversity of peoples (the “melting pot”), the “separation” of church and state and, most importantly, the protections guaranteed in the American Constitution and Bill of Rights. All provide safeguards, a firewall against the excesses of antisemitism, excesses seemingly reported daily in Europe today. American “exceptionality” will be scrutinized and evaluated during the chapters devoted to the Roosevelt Administration’s response to the unfolding Final Solution. As regards the “melting pot,” most populations that are “absorbed” are Christian, a fact immediately describing Jews as Other. Of course Jews can and do convert or disappear through assimilation, become “invisible” in Christian America. But conversion failed to protect the “converted” from burning at the stake during the Inquisition; and assimilation provided no defense once Germanychanged the law to define as “Jew” even a third generation Christian with a single Jewish grandparent. As to the protections offered by America’s founding documents, they failed to dissuade Congress from passing a series of discriminatory laws severely limiting Jewish immigration before and during the 1920’s. It was those same laws that would eventually condemn European Jewry to Auschwitz. 

And while the stress of the Great Recession has reintroduced antisemitism to political acceptability in Europe with Jews there daily facing assault and even murder on Europe’s streets American Jewry continue to view ourselves uniquely blessed, reassured again by that European example that America remains “exceptional.” 

II. The Jewish Problem

“Stereotype” and “prejudice” are artifacts of the evolution of a society; its historical experience. They represent society’s cultural unconscious which color its members worldview. Afro-Americans, for example, tend to view and are viewed in return through their unique historical experience of slavery. And stereotypes based on that terrible experience continue to define their social status, limit their integration into and possibilities for advancement within American society. Similarly are Jews seen by and respond to Christian society by reference to their historical experience in the Diaspora, an experience shaped by Christianity’s Jewish Problem. 

What is the Jewish Problem and how did it come to define the place of Jews in Christian society? What is the source of antisemitic stereotypes that define Jews in Christendom and, through today’s internet, around the world?

As described by several prominent Christian theologians and historians writing following the Holocaust Christianity is fundamentally anti-Jewish. I return to this issue in some detail further on but for now I’ll mention two gospels as example: Matthew 27:25 represents “the Jews” as Christ-killers; and John 8:44 describes “the Jews” as “children of Satan.” From these sources and others emerged most anti-Jewish stereotypes which even today demonize “the Jews” including, and most graphically, Nazi propaganda during the Holocaust. 

For centuries Jews have turned to education to convince Christians away from antisemitism, and in America today the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is heavily committed to just this effort. But centuries of deeply-embedded persecution inspired by stereotype will not be wished or educated away. The very infrequency, the unpredictability of appearance of lethal antisemitism makes it difficult to understand and describe by Jew and Christian alike. Only occasionally does societal stress rise to levels seeking a scapegoat for relief. 

And so the Jewish Problem demanding “solution” lays dormant. And so remains, just beyond consciousness, until conditions converge and once again call it forth. 

Under religious governance, before the social revolution in which the secular nation-state replaced the theological feudal estate, the preferred “solution” to make Jews and Judaism “disappear” was through “conversion.” With secularism “conversion” has no relevance and so making Jews and Judaism “disappear” has taken on another and more “technological” path. 

III. “Why the Jews?”

As may already be clear from this Introduction the discussion unfolding is not about whether but when the next effort to achieve the long “unsolved” solution to Christendom’s Jewish Problem will appear. That there was a mid-twentieth century effort should be sufficient to convince that the millennial search for that elusive solution yet remains. If anything, events taking place in Europe today reaffirm the rule that, as societal stress increases so too does antisemitism. And, as in Europe between the wars, today’s Great Recession finds political parties with an antisemitic agenda rising from the ashes of the Holocaust. While it may be consoling for American Jewry to point to Europe past and present as confirming our own good fortune, even the most confirmed optimist might at least be questioning America’s status as “exceptional.” 

This volume, America the Exception? is the result of several years development on-line as a Jerusalem Post “blog.” And particular thanks are due the Post and its intenet edition, JPost for permitting me the opportunity. In particular is with to thank its former Managing Blog Editor, Lidar Gravé-Lazi. Of course neither Jerusalem Post nor its editor are responsible for my views as expressed on-line or in print. One area of confusion for several blog participants was my description of Western antisemitism as an unconscious cultural inheritance. Religion and national identity provide two examples of how this process works. And while other examples appear throughout the following pages a brief description of “cultural inheritance” transmitted trans-generationally may benefit. 

“Why the Jews?” is a familiar question which few find easy to answer. Yes anti-Judaism is prominent in early Christian scripture. And yes two-thousand years of theological explanation of those hateful references keeps the image of the Christ-killer Jews current. But there is a wide gap between religion-inspired antisemitism and physical annihilation. 

In everyday use stereotypes serve as a shorthand in communication. They speed conversation by eliminating lengthy description among those familiar with their target. Stereotypes serve the same purpose in prejudice, reducing the complex to more easily assimilable “truths” needing no further explanation. And so antisemitism passes from generation to generation as common knowledge. Many antisemitic stereotypes originated during the Middle Ages and have been current for more than a thousand years. The Black Plague killed fully a third of all living in Europe, Christian and Jew without distinction. Unaware of the democratic process by which the plague killed Jews also, Christians assumed Jews, described by the “John” gospel as doing the work of Satan as responsible, and available. And so “the Jews” died both the result of plague, and at the hands of local Christians. 

Nazi Germany made free use of medieval anti-Jewish stereotypes. Such descriptions of “the Jew” as despoiler of chaste Christian maidens; of “the Jew” as usurer; the existence of a secret Jewish cabal patiently plotting world domination: all are examples of culturally unconscious inheritances, stereotypes of “the Jews,” remnants of the Middle Ages. 

The image of “the Jew” as Christ-killer is not likely to inspire “sympathy” among Christians and particularly those accepting scripture literally as the “inerrant Word of God.” And the story of the death and resurrection of Jesus described in scripture is an annual part of the Christian calendar celebrated during Easter. How many Jewish children today are even aware that as recently as the twentieth century Eastertide inspired murderous pogroms, particularly in Eastern Europe and Russia? How many Jews and Christians today identify those pogroms, as inspired by the story of the death and resurrection of Jesus, particular as depicted in Matthew 27:25, a curse enduring through the centuries and ensuring eternal punishment for the Jewish Christ-killers? At least so long as Jew and Judaism are not reduced to memory and legend.

IV. Outline of the book

America the Exception? is divided into four sections. Part One: The Jewish Problem and Christian Insecurity discusses Christian scripture (Paul and the four canonical gospels) as inspiration for what later emerged as theology’s explanation for Jewish survival and the threat that represents to Christian understanding and representation of Jewish scripture. Part Two: The Jewish Problem and its secular solutiondiscusses the period from the emergence of the secular nation-state to a secular and final solution to the history-inspired Jewish Problem. Part Three: An American Exception? considers the history of antisemitism from pre-colonial times to the present. Of particular interest is the popular spread of antisemitism in the United States before, during and following the Holocaust. Particular attention is devoted to the Roosevelt Administration’s response to Germany’s unfolding Final Solution. Part Four: Jewish Problem/Jewish Solution focuses on Israel, its strengths and weaknesses according to its designated role as Zionist refuge for the Diaspora. 

The final chapter, Chapter 29: Summary and Guide to the Future describes how we, facing the next and final Final Solution change the script and raise ourselves from victim to survivor: the Jewish Solution to Christendom’s Jewish Problem. 

Reading the Obama Interview by Alexander H. Joffe The Times of Israel March 3, 2014

Bloomberg columnist Jeffrey Goldberg's interview with President Obama on the eve of his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is highly significant, verging on a turning point in US-Israeli relations.

Several points emerge from the interview. First is the implied threat that if current peace negotiations with the Palestinians fail, the US will be unable – read unwilling – to defend Israel. Moreover, it is up to the Palestinians to judge: "If Palestinians come to believe that the possibility of a contiguous sovereign Palestinian state is no longer within reach, then our ability to manage the international fallout is going to be limited."

Declaring "our ability to manage the international fallout is going to be limited" is not accidental; indeed, Obama repeats it twice. Obama's statement that "What we also know is that Israel has become more isolated internationally" is not simply a prediction but a prescription. Similar statements by Secretary of State John Kerry in recent months have given European governments and industry the license to begin quietly exploring ways to boycott Israeli industries and corporations, arguably as part of an American strategy to pressure Israel during negotiations. A statement by the US president will be paradigmatic. This alone is a momentous policy shift.

Part of the rationale for pressuring Israel is spelled out, pursuit of a "potential realignment of interests in the region," the nature of which is unclear, perhaps given that half the Arab states are engaged in civil war. But the key obstacle is: "The only reason that that potential realignment is not, and potential cooperation is not, more explicit is because of the Palestinian issue." That is to say, Israel.

But the goals behind the interview, published during the annual AIPAC convention in Washington, are also significant and provide additional clarity regarding the administration's, and the president's, attitudes towards Israel and much more. Superficially the president's carefully chosen words appear intended to influence Netanyahu himself. But the mix of praise and condescension (Netanyahu is "smart," "tough", and a "great communicator" but "If not now, when? And if not you, Mr. Prime Minister, then who?") seems more likely to simply humiliate Netanyahu, to degrade him publicly. Either Obama is tone deaf or simply does not care. Both may be the case.

The interview may also appear aimed at the Israeli public, a last ditch call to leave the West Bank and make peace before it is impossible. There is of course a strong case to be made here. But Obama shows no awareness or even interest in Israeli politics, the need or the methods to build the consensus necessary for such a dramatic move. For Netanyahu it would mean alienating the entire Israel right and constructing a new coalition out of weak components, as well as convincing the Israeli public that this is necessary and wise and not caving to an American diktat. Obama's statement that if Netanyahu were "strong enough that if he decided this was the right thing to do for Israel, that he could do it" defies reality. It is not up to Netanyahu to "decide" then "do" but rather to lead and persuade.

This is characteristic of Obama's larger mindset – he sees himself and his policies as wise, necessary and above politics. He has, after all, a pen and a phone. In the domestic arena Republican opposition and the normal give and take of democratic politics are depicted as betrayal and heresy. His opponents are troglodytes and wreckers who find themselves, like Netanyahu, the victim of personal vilification as well as the occasional IRS audit.

Netanyahu is obviously not a Republican, but he has been characterized in the same terms and the same breath as the president's other political opponents. Of course, this petty mindset has now collided with that of a fully professional dictator, Vladimir Putin, a far more obstinate foe than Netanyahu, one whom Obama cannot afford to call names.

But if Obama's remarks are not aimed at Netanyahu himself or Israel, then who? The answer is specifically non-religious American Jews and the American Left. One clue is Obama's use of the phrase "how Israel survives as a democracy and a Jewish state" juxtaposed with "permanent occupation of the West Bank." This is the paramount concern to non-religious American Jews. For the American Left the concern is "U.S. involvement" which, regarding Syria, "would have had the third, or, if you count Libya, the fourth war in a Muslim country in the span of a decade."

Stoking resentments and calling out enemies are this administration's stock and trade. Netanyahu's humiliations at the hands of this administration are unique – left alone while the president goes to dinner with his family, denied photo opportunities, and subjected to a stream of hostile comments and leaks, including the compromise of a key cyberwarfare program aimed at Iran, Stuxnet. So too is his vilification by the captive American press and the network of party organizations (such as the New American Foundation, J Street and others), which have characterized him as a "settler," an opponent of a Palestinian state, and a warmonger on Iran. One need not be an ally of Netanyahu to recognize these as misrepresentations.

On the one hand these are designed to separate American Jews from their traditional organizations, above all AIPAC. By continually characterizing AIPAC as a right wing, Republican organization rather than a centrist, non-partisan one, and by loudly calling opposition to the administration's opening to Iran as right-wing war-mongering (above all Netanyahu's), the goal has been to isolate Jewish support from anything except the new party line and its approved organs. As Lee Smith points out in Tablet, AIPAC was played and then humiliated by the administration for the purpose of demonstrating the organization's weakness. Confused by this strategy of politicizing support for Israel and subjugating it to a domestic agenda, AIPAC fell into the trap.

More sinisterly, this holds out the threat of labeling Israel and any of its supporters as right-wing war-mongerers. This was the view of the Democratic Party's left wing before and during the Iraq War. Demonizing anything besides the Obama line on Israel may be an effective way of keeping Jewish opposition in line.

The corollary goal is to break American Jewish power, real and perceived, and to harness what remains to the Democratic Party and the administration. The operative theory appears to be the inverse of James Baker's legendary remark, "fuck the Jews, they don't vote for us anyway." American Jews will vote Democrat regardless, but Israel's position has always been exceptional in American politics. This is to be ended.

Syria, Libya, and now Ukraine have shown that the international scene erupts quickly to disrupt domestic agendas. But it is a reasonable prediction that these and other fiascos will prompt Obama to redouble pressure on Israel, particularly by unleashing Europeans, not for the sake of a rare policy success – which Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has repeatedly assured will not be forthcoming. It will be to punish a vassal state and a domestic minority that refuse to comply fully and cheerfully.

Alex Joffe is a historian and archaeologist. He is a Shillman-Ginsburg Fellow of the Middle East Forum.

The Myth of Israel's Settlement Boom

Tuesday, March 04, 2014 |  Israel Today Staff 

The presentation of these numbers is ill-informed, at best, and purposely deceptive, at worst.

The reason for the seemingly enormous increasing in “settlement activity,” as many Israeli officials pointed out, was that for much of 2012 there was a building freeze imposed on Jewish construction in the disputed territories. 

Fueling recent heavy criticism of Israel amidst ongoing US-brokered peace talks is the perception that construction of new Jewish homes on lands claimed by the Palestinians skyrocketed over the past year.

Even Israeli newspapers on Tuesday ran reports that while new building starts in Tel Aviv had decreased by 19 percent in 2013 compared to the previous year, Jewish construction in the so-called “West Bank” had shot up by 123 percent.

The presentation of these numbers is ill-informed, at best, and purposely deceptive, at worst.

The reason for the seemingly enormous increasing in “settlement activity,” as many Israeli officials pointed out, was that for much of 2012 there was a building freeze imposed on Jewish construction in the disputed territories.

So, naturally, any new building in 2013, regardless of how minuscule by comparison to other parts of the country, would register as a major upswing in national statistics.

To put the numbers in perspective, 1,133 Jewish housing units (primarily apartments) were built in Judea and Samaria in 2012. In 2013, that number increased to 2,534 units, hardly a building boom.

THE ETTINGER REORT--SELECTED ARTICLES

Dear Gen.  A_//////_,

Below are  a few of my politically-incorrect articles on issues which are relevant to the national security of the US and Israel and their bilateral relations.

The documents aim at generating second thoughts (out of the box thinking) on conventional wisdom in areas which are critical to the future of the Jewish State and the USA. 

The documents are based on my 40 year experience  - as a researcher, diplomat (Ambassador), lecturer, writer and consultant to members of Congress and Knesset -  in the areas of Middle East politics and US policy in the Middle East (CV attached):

1.  Exposing the Demographic Bogey (Jewish demographic tailwind; no Arab demographic time bomb). 

2.  US-Israel Relations: A Bottom-Up, Mutually-Beneficial Two Way Street!

3.  The US-Iran-Israel Nuclear Labyrinth.

4.  A Palestinian state – would it further US interests?

5,   Is the Palestinian issue the crown jewel of Arab policy-making?

6.  The Palestinian Refugees – a Reality Test.

7.  The Arab League peace proposal, May 2013.

8.  Tom Friedman – Mistaken or Misleading?

9  The unique US covenant with Israel: Judeo-Christian foundations from the 17^th century.

10.  Are the "settlements" an obstacle to peace?

  

11.  Can Israel afford to concede the mountain ridges of Judea & Samaria (West Bank)?

More documents are posted at The Ettinger Report: http://www.TheEttingerReport.com

 Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, Jerusalem,

www.TheEttingerReport.com.)