President Obama has certainly ratcheted up emotion regarding the proposed Islamic centre and Mosque close to the New York Twin Towers site. 

By initially coming down on the side of the argument opposite to the opinion of 70% of polled Americans (that there is a right for the Mosque to be built there, but that it is not wise or respectful) , Obama has not done his fellow Democrat congressmen any favours.   By packpedalling on his initial comments,  he risks alienating part of the 30% who agreed with his initial comments.

Comments are noted in the Australian , a video of a discussion and from a  seattle paper

Bradley Blakeman said “President Obama needs to decide between being a “community organizer” or a president. The president has involved himself in local issues and controversy that does not rise to the level of presidential action or attention. When he does so, he puts his administration off-message, forces division within his own party and weakens his ability to lead and be respected. The president’s missteps are self-inflicted and thus inexcusable.”

The Presidents decision to wade in on this topic may go down as an own goal that rivals others here, here

Following the warm talks between Netanyahu and Obama,  Bibi was interviewed by George Stephanopoulos for ABC. 

While Stephanopolous was fixated on what further steps Israel was prepared to take, including about the settlement freeze,  Bibi did well in trying to present a broad picture of what was needed for peace, including direct talks.  The interview is presented here. 

Here is a video of the positive presentation from Obama and Netanyahu after their meeting… and some brief commentary from Dore Gold

Today there are Good Vibrations but what about tomorrow (after the congressional elections)?

Yesterday’s meeting between US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seems to have gone well from Israel’s point of view. From all reports, it would appear that the icy tension that marred their encounter in March has thawed.

The two leaders apparently covered a range of issues which included:

The indirect talks between Israel and the Palestine Authority and the desire that these indirect talks will lead to direct talks;

The latest details of Israel’s easing of the blockade of Gaza;

 The continuation of the freeze on settlement building; and

 Iran and the fourth round of sanctions put in place recently

Most observers seem have taken a cautious approach to the talks, but early indications are that they have been rather successful (see more). The Australian covered the meeting in an article entitled ‘Obama and Bibi meet to heal rift’. The Age, for its part, seems to have missed the boat, and reported their journalist’s perception of what MAY have gone down (or perhaps it was wishful thinking?) in an article entitled ‘Netanyahu risks angering US over West Bank settlements’. While proposed settlement expansion in the West Bank and East Jerusalem will remain an issue, the matter certainly did not appear to be the central concern in the build-up to the meeting, particularly given that both sides were optimistic in the lead-up.

The Australian also published an Op-Ed piece by Rosemary Righter entitled ‘Obama slowing progress in Mid-East’. She asserts that while Obama is still pushing indirect talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians, the facts on the ground are that internally, both sides want to restart direct talks and that such direct talks are necessary (even though PA rhetoric sometimes suggest otherwise).

Righter contends that the progress made in the West Bank economically is pushing the drive to come to an agreement with the Israelis. Terrorist activity has been subdued to the point that dozens of checkpoints have been removed as many local politicians and businessmen reach the conclusion that there is a lot that can be learnt from the Israelis.

The fact that the PA and Fatah might be eager to strike a deal with the Israelis is a very positive thing but two very important issues remain a stumbling block (but you won’t discern this if you read what passes for analysis in the Fairfax written media).

The first is that despite the desire of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to demonstrate that he is genuinely interested in peace with the Israelis, his actions internally suggest a different story. His Fatah party’s constant glorification of terrorists responsible for the murders of countless Israelis culminated this week following the death of Mahammad Daoud Oudeh, the mastermind of the murders of 11 Israeli athletes during the 1972 Munich Olympics. Abbas referred to him as “a wonderful brother, companion, tough and stubborn, relentless fighter” (see more – just as an aside, our local broadsheet The Age also glossed over his murderous and terrorist past in their obituary published yesterday). Earlier this year, the Palestinian Authority planned to name a public square in Ramallah in honour of the terrorist Dalal Mughrabi, who perpetrated the worst terrorist attack in Israel’s history when she and others hijacked a bus and murdered 37 civilians in 1978. This campaign of glorifying terror runs alongside constant programs on Palestinian Authority television which continues to deny Israel’s existence (see more).

If the PA and Fatah want to show they are a genuine peace partner of Israel, this internal demonisation of Israel needs to stop. Indeed, the necessity is the basis for every accord between the two sides since the start of the Oslo process. What is needed is an honest campaign in the media and through the education system with more clearly defined peaceful aims. Peace cannot be achieved when generation after generation of children are being taught a narrative where Israel does not exist and where terror is honoured.

The second and more important issue is that of Hamas. Whatever deal is made with Fatah has no bearing on relations with Hamas, which means that the 1.5 million citizens of Gaza and the Hamas leadership do not need to adhere to any deal. This is the most dangerous problem affecting the Israelis and the Palestinians, but the world either fails to acknowledge it, or glosses over it as if it were not such a big deal. Indeed, many observers in the media, notably Paul McGeough and others in the Fairfax stable give scant recognition to the excesses of Hamas and its fellow Islamist friends including Hezbollah and the Turkish IHH which orchestrated the flotilla farce that ended tragically in late May.

The concluding sentence of Rosemary Righter’s article is an example of the world’s lack of understanding of Hamas. When asking whether the PA could also deliver in Gaza, a PA official is quoted as saying, “with all our difficulties with Hamas, if we can only produce the baby, everyone will look after it”.

To me, this is a most unfortunate metaphor – referring to peace as a baby - because we all know that Hamas has no regard for children. During Operation Cast Lead the world saw how Hamas booby-trapped schools and zoos. We also saw armed Palestinians grabbing children and using them as human shields. And we heard loud and clear directly from Hamas MP Fathi Hammad when he declared “For the Palestinian people, has developed its [methods] of death and death-seeking. For the Palestinian people, death has become an industry, at which women excel… and the children. This is why they have formed human shields of the women, the children, the elderly, and the mujahideen, in order to challenge the Zionist bombing machine. It is as if they were saying to the Zionist enemy: ‘we desire death like you desire life’.”(see more) So if Hamas has no regard for their own children, how are they supposed to react to the bastard child of the Israel-Fatah peace process?

Finally, the Australian is also reporting the following story ‘Soldier charged on Gaza killings’, which refers to the prosecution of an Israeli soldier responsible for shooting dead two Palestinian women who were reportedly waving white flags during Operation Cast Lead. The Israeli army has been investigating many cases of misconduct during the war in Gaza, and have apparently dismissed dozens of incidents raised by the Goldstone Report because “according to the rules of warfare, no faults were found in the forces’ actions”. In two weeks time the IDF and the Foreign Ministry are expected to present a revised and updated version of its reports to the United Nations (see more).

I have yet to read anywhere whether Hamas will also be presenting their findings on their conduct during the conflict, despite Hamas claiming on a number of occasions last year that it would launch an investigation into charges by Goldstone of war crimes (see more).

In an interview conducted last year, Hamas political leader Khaled Meshal declared, “Hamas respects the international law and is ready to cooperate with this law.” He continued, “if the report… has any reservations on Hamas’ actions, we are ready to explain them and we will form an honest and neutral investigation committee in Gaza to give Goldstone and its committee and the international community the facts.” No inquiry, to the best of my knowledge has ever been set up and it is unlikely it ever will be.

Interestingly, in the same interview when asked about the thousands of rockets that have been fired into Israel he declared, “Hamas does not aim to kill civilians. Hamas does not want to target civilians. Hamas defends itself, but because it has simple abilities and its rockets are inaccurate in targeting, so it reaches the civilians, but we do not intend to do that (see more).” Of course, this is a blatant lie. It is only the fortunate inaccuracy of these weapons which prevents more Israeli civilians from being killed and one only needs to have a quick read of Hamas’ deadly covenant that it calls for the annihilation of all Jews by Jihad, to understand Hamas’ true intentions.

If only some in the media did a little more reading from time to time.

Much of the sting seems to have gone out of the planned meeting between the 2 leaders.  Regarding President Obama, maybe its the Gulf oil  congealing,  maybe his so-called health care victory hasn’t yet saved lives, maybe its just reality biting and the realisation that rocking the boat for the upcoming Senate elections is not a good move.  PM Netanyahu will hopefully go into the meeting with eyes wide open.

David Horowitz has quite a positive prediction for the meeting, even if it comes from a base of low expectations.The positive vibe has been enhanced by the positive response to Israel’s relaxation of some of the construction material allowed into Gaza, and the news that US led sanctions are hitting the Iranian pocket nerve..

We shall see!

Building on the U.S. Jewish leaders who have spoken out against President Obama’s approach to Israel, Hana Levi Julian - from News Essentials - writes that:”Thousands of Americans are preparing to protest in New York this Sunday against the Obama administration’s increasing hostility towards Israel. The event is scheduled to take place outside the Israel Consulate on Sunday, April 25 at 1:00 p.m. EDT. A partial list of organizations who endorsed the demonstration is below.Beth Gilinsky, head of the Jewish Action Alliance that is sponsoring the event, said, “We are outraged that President [Barack] Obama is scapegoating Israel and wants to expel Jews from their homes in Jerusalem. President Obama and Secretary Hillary Clinton show more anger about a Jewish family building a home in Jerusalem than Iran building a nuclear bomb,” she added.Gilinsky was referring to the brouhaha that ensued following a mis-timed announcement that the fourth stage of a seven-year plan for a housing project in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood of Jerusalem had been approved by Israel’s Interior Ministry.The announcement, made during a visit to the region by Vice President Joe Biden, led to weeks of recriminations and condemnations by U.S. officials, beginning with an immediate, harsh condemnation from Biden himself. Less than 24 hours after he left the country, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to scold him for having embarrassed the vice president and the Obama administration, and delivered a list of concessions and demands Israel was expected to fulfill in response. Other Obama officials followed with statements of criticism of their own.

Not one U.S. official at the time made mention of the formal government ceremony held by the Palestinian Authority during Biden’s visit — the naming of a public square in Ramallah to honor Dalah Mughrabi, the terrorist who led an attack that came to be known as the Coastal Road Massacre. In 1978, Mughrabi and her band of terrorists hijacked a tour bus on the coastal highway, murdering 37 innocent civilians and wounding 71 others, including more than a dozen children.

On the night that PA officials gathered to honor Mughrabi, Biden was delivering a speech at Tel Aviv University in which he repeated his condemnation of Israel for proceeding with the three-year-old housing project in a part of the nation’s capital restored to Jerusalem during the 1967 Six-Day War, and thus not recognized by the U.S. government. American officials followed up a day later, when Biden had left the country, with more harsh criticism of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his government.

“Vast segments of the Jewish community will not tolerate the president’s continuing attacks on Israel. Grassroots Jewry will not be silent,” Gilinsky vowed. A long list of Jewish organizations as well as a number of Christian and other non-Jewish groups have signed on to the event as well.

The demonstration will also feature a taped statement by former New York City mayor Ed Koch, a strong supporter of Obama’s presidential campaign. Koch recently expressed his shock and disappointment with the increasing anti-Israel views expressed by the president and the increasing hostility of his administration towards the Jewish State.

Among the organizations who have officially endorsed the upcoming rally are:

AISH Center

Americans for a Safe Israel

Artists 4 Israel

Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors

Christians and Jews United for Israel

Coalition for Israel

Crown Heights Women for the Security and Integrity of Israel

Dr. Joseph Frager, Jerusalem Reclamation Project

NY Assemblyman Dov Hikind

IsraelAlive

Israel Day Concert in the Park

Jewish Political Education Foundation

Dr. Michael Ledeen, Center for Defense of Democracies

Unity Coalition for Israel

Dr. Herbert London, The Hudson Institute

AMCHA, Coalition for Jewish Concerns

Stand With Us

Endowment for Middle East Truth

World Committee for the Land of Israel

Zionist Organization of America

Z Street.”

…………  It is interesting to look through the list of supportive organisations, and their websites. 

Postscript - here are some of the speeches at the rally which was very successful despite the rain.  As one speaker put it, the attendees were not fairweather friends.

An excellent interview by Frank Gaffney with Fouad Ajami can be found here where Ajami analyzes Obama’s stance in Afganistan, moves to Lebanon and then concludes with a discussion of Israel and Iran.  

The interview is gloomingly consistent with Gaffney’s initial description of what he sees as the 9 words of the Obama doctrine: diminish the country, undermine our allies, embolden our enemies.   

Ajami, who is Professor and Director of Middle East Studies at The Johns Hopkins University, feels that Obama has a great self belief in his ability to charm people out of their basic beliefs, but in reality Obama is removing the protective U.S. umbrella.  Also, Israel is the litmus test of how people see the world, and Obama has returned to the false idea of linkage between Israel and the Palestinians and how the U.S. is seen by the Muslim / Arab world.

With the withdrawal of the U.S. Ajami states that Iran in now becoming the power of the Mediterranean, not just the Persian gulf.  He predicts that things will come to a moment of reckoning; and currently Obama is showing a preparedness to live with a nuclear Iran. 

Ajami agrees with the sentiment that at this moment it is better to be an enemy than a friend of Obama, and while George Bush was committed to freedom (as evidenced by the Cedar revolution in Lebanon), Obama is prepared to “sup with the dictators.”

The interview is related to a recent article by Fouad Ajami in the Wall Street Journal… where he states “America’s enemies are increasingly brazen, its friends unnerved. Witness the hapless Lebanese, once wards of U.S. power, now making pilgrimages, one leader at a time, to Damascus. They, too, can read the wind: If Washington is out to “engage” that terrible lot in Syria, they better scurry there to secure reasonable terms of surrender. The shadow of American power is receding; the rogues are emboldened.”

Charles Krauthammer also pours cold water on what was achieved at the recent nuclear meeting in Washington.. and bemoans that discussion on Iran was not centre stage.  As he states “So what was the major breakthrough announced by Obama at the end of the two-day conference? That Ukraine, Chile, Mexico and Canada will be getting rid of various amounts of enriched uranium.  What a relief. I don’t know about you, but I lie awake nights worrying about Canadian uranium. I know these people. I grew up there. You have no idea what they’re capable of doing. If Sidney Crosby hadn’t scored that goal to win the Olympic gold medal, there’s no telling what might have ensued.  Let us stipulate that sequestering nuclear material is a good thing. But, it is a minor thing, particularly when Iran is off the table, and Pakistan is creating new plutonium for every ounce of Canadian uranium shipped to the U.S.”

Since the recent deterioration of U.S-Israel relations, several people and groups including U.S. Congress members, have written to Pres Obama, urging him to restore the previous strong links between the 2 allies.  Ex-New York Mayor, Ed Koch, has perhaps been the most eloquent in his dismay and criticism of the Obama administration approach here. Koch also is one of the first of the Democrat leaders who had vigorously promoted Obama for President, but now speaks forcefully against Obama’s attitude towards Israel. 

Since Koch was also critical of a silence among others who should speak out, it is welcome to read the respectful but strong letter to President Obama from Ronald Lauder, President of the World Jewish Congress here.

Lauder urges Obama to recognise that Iran is the clear and present danger; that the Palestinians are the ones who should be flagged for the lack of progress, not the Israelis; and that it is vital for the relationship between the U.S. and Israel to be restored to its previously close one.

Lauder concludes with the following : “And what about the most dangerous player in the region?  Shouldn’t the United States remain focused on the single biggest threat that confronts the world today?  That threat is a nuclear armed Iran.  Israel is not only America’s closest ally in the Middle East, it is the one most committed to this Administration’s declared aim of ensuring Iran does not get nuclear weapons.

The article also links to the website of the Congress, which describes some of its activities, and is worth looking through.

Another Middle East politics Institute was recently inaugurated. The opening included this speech from Hillary Clinton, where she made some encouraging remarks.

The recent verbal attack by Obama on Israel, together with the accusatory British behaviour, has certainly put increased pressure on Netanyahu and his government.  However, the government has to doubly ensure that its decisions are in Israel’s best interests, not those of the U.S.A.

It is by no means the first time that Israel has had to stand tall diplomatically - Ariel Sharon famously warned Bush that Israel was not prepared to play the 1938 role of Czechoslovakia.

Yet, Israel has often seemed too self-effacing in its dealings with other countries - the apologetic behaviour towards Turkey is one example.

Marla Braverman in her recent article in Azure, entitled A State in need of a spine provides an excellent overview of Israel’s often meek approach, and cautions as to its dangers.  In contrast to the  “spineless” examples,  she praises the time when “Former prime minister Menachem Begin faced just such a challenge in 1982, when American president Ronald Reagan suspended his country’s strategic cooperation agreement with Israel after the Jewish state applied its law to the Golan Heights, a territory it captured from Syria in the Six Day War. This punitive measure prompted Begin to cancel the agreement altogether and respond in anger, “Are we a vassal state of yours? Are we a banana republic? Are we fourteen-year-olds who, if we misbehave, get our wrists slapped?”

Undoubtably, Israel’s leaders are also very much factoring Iran into the equation;  and as Greg Sheridan recently pointed out in the Australian, the diplomatic Obama attack on Israel may have been an attempt to prevent Israel from attacking Iran when Obama shows strong signs of accepting Iran’s push to nuclear capability.

One useful and detailed website we have linked to on the right is entitled Think Israel

Also, here is a relevant article by Caroline Glick seeing the bright side of Obama’s anti-Israel stance..thanks Ruth for your pointing this out.

With Massachusetts very much a traditional democratic state, it was a shock for the Democrats locally and nationally, that a republican won the seat previously held by Teddy Kennedy for 50 years before his recent death.  Although the local Democrat contender, Martha Coakley, campaigned poorly, the victory for Scott Brown is widely seen as a significant negative vote for Obama, and a dissatisfaction with the way the country is heading under his leadership. 

While health care was the primary focus for the Republican,  the impact of  the victory will extend to other issues both domestic and international.  Hence, the Israeli government and other countries will be following the fallout with interest.  Increased pressure on Israel, if it is unpopular, will clearly be less attractive to Democrat politicians concerned about retaining their seat in elections later in 2010.  The Obama mandate is also losing its lustre.

Politico, a US political website which we link to on the right, has a couple of relevant articles about the fallout - here and here.

And for a spoof on the shock-horror, here is a clever dubbing.

Barack Obama is undoubtably the pivotal player in much of today’s political life. 

Greg Sheridan, Foreign Editor of the Australian, suggests that there has been an evolution in Obama’s posturing, in his piece entitled A different Obama now speaks. 

Sheridan opines that Obama’s recent Afganistan and Nobel Prize speeches reflect a move towards the political centre, and away from a postmodern stance that was highlighted by his earlier Cairo speech.   Sheridan concludes with a statement about the Nobel Prize acceptance speech:

“I must say I had to pinch myself a few times to make sure I was really reading Obama, though the almost equally muscular Afghanistan speech should have prepared me. The fact that this speech followed the Afghanistan speech suggests it’s not an aberration. This is the emerging Obama.  Perhaps no paragraph was more startling than the one in which Obama praises Richard Nixon (for going to China), Ronald Reagan (for his dealings with the Soviet Union) and Pope John Paul II (for his inspiration to the Poles) as heroes of human rights. This is admittedly in the context of their engaging their enemies, but such engagement is always part of a realistic appreciation of the world which also champions human rights. The utterly fatuous Sydney Peace Prize, or indeed the almost equally suspect Nobel Peace Prize, I’m sure never had Nixon, Reagan or the late Pope on their shortlists. But Obama apparently does.

One thing effective machine politicians very much like is getting re-elected. Obama understands that the US is governed from the Centre and presidents are re-elected from the Centre. Obama’s ability to do all the postmodern moves, to deploy all the language and symbols of the debased intellectual fashions of our time, is formidable.  But much more formidable is his ability not to be trapped in this bubble of incoherence.  He has escaped postmodernism and retreated into history, which never really came to an end.”

If Israel is the canary in the coalmine, Nir’eh  -  “Let’s see”