Category Archives: Israel

Obama’s “Peace Talks”

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This article is triggered by Gerald Seib’s recent piece in The Wall Street Journal.

A White House statement cited by Seib:

The President…reiterated the United States’ serious and growing concern about the rising number of Palestinian civilian deaths and the loss of Israeli lives, as well as the worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza[.]

Not a word about the primary cause of those Palestinian deaths, just the outrageous moral equivalence asserted between the terrorists’ assault on Israel and Israel’s defense against that assault, and through that the tacit implication (excuse the redundancy) that those Palestinian civilian deaths are Israel’s doing.

No harm to peace-making by Obama’s Cabinet there.

And this:

Meanwhile, Israel also was squirming over the talks between the US and five international powers and Iran over the Iranian nuclear program. As it became obvious that those talks were moving in the direction of an agreement that would leave Iran with a continuing capacity to enrich uranium, Israeli discomfort grew. When the talks were extended earlier this month for four more months, it grew further. A separate issue, yes, but one that affects the atmosphere.

No, this is not a separate issue; Iran’s nuclear weapons program and the Palestinian Authority’s terror war against Israel are inextricably intertwined. Let’s leave aside the fact that Iran is largely funding and almost exclusively arming the PA (apart from the latter’s primary industry of rocket-making within the Gaza Strip (itself supplied by inputs from Iran)). Iran has as its own goal, to use Iran’s words, of “wiping Israel from the map.” What does the Obama administration, and his Secretary of State (and Seib) think Iran will do with its uranium, enriched to weapons grade? The question answers itself: Iran will attack Iran with nuclear weapons, or supply the weapons to the PA (and/or other terrorist organizations in the region—Hezbollah comes to mind) for the purpose of seeing them used in Israel.

Iran’s nuclear weapons program is as much a threat to Israel’s existence as is the PA’s constant terror attacks. The PA is a client of Iran.

President Barack Obama, and his Cabinet, surely know this. From this, another question raises itself: what is the value—in fact, what is the purpose—of Obama’s “peace talk” efforts as they concern Israel and the Palestinian Authority?

UN Perfidy?

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UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon leveled his strongest criticism yet of Israel’s military operation in Gaza on Monday, accusing Israel of “pummeling” Gazans with “indiscriminate destruction” and warning Israel to fulfill its obligations as an “occupying power” to protect civilians.

Mr Ban stopped short of accusing Israel of targeting civilians, but he said that “every home, every school, every refuge” had become a target.

The UN carefully does not warn the Palestinian Authority to fulfill its obligations as the government of Gaza to protect civilians, to, much more, stop using civilians as shields. The UN carefully does not acknowledge that “‘every home, every school, every refuge’ had become a target” because the PA terrorists had made them so by storing their rockets in these places, had made them so by launching their rockets from these places.

And the UN carefully ignores the fact that it’s been caught—twice—storing the PA’s rockets in UNRWA facilities and then turning them over to the terrorists when discovered.

No, this is all Israel’s fault.

“In the name of humanity, the violence must stop,” Mr Ban said.

In the name of humanity, the terrorists must be stopped.

What is the Obama Administration’s Goal?

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[T]he [UN] Security Council adopted the presidential statement calling for an “immediate and unconditional humanitarian cease-fire….”

This is the second Security Council cease-fire resolution in the last few days that the US has supported. Such cease fires plainly are one-sided. On the one hand, they allow the terrorists breathing time during which to rearm, refit, and replace their combat losses, at least to an extent. On the other hand, they provide no benefit to the Israelis; rather, they actively harm the Israeli effort by interrupting, if not breaking, IDF momentum.

On top of that, there’s no evidence the Palestinian Authority would respect even this cease fire, anyway: they’ve either rejected other cease fire offers—from Egypt, for instance, and Jordan—or they’ve simply, cynically, violated them.

This present terrorists’ war also is a direct outcome of the prior “major” cease fire implemented just two years ago, as predicted at the time.

The Obama administration knows all of this.

UN Involvement in the Israeli/Palestinian Authority War

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The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, a UN organization “providing humanitarian relief” in Gaza, said they found rockets hidden by PA terrorists inside a “vacant” school earlier in the week. This is the second time the UNRWA has been found to have PA’s rockets stored in UNRWA facilities.

This time the rockets were found in an “unused” UNRWA building situated

between two other UNRWA schools that are being used to host 1,500 displaced people.

Also this time, instead of returning the rockets to the PA, as the UNRWA did with that prior cache,

UNRWA staff withdrew from the area.

And abandoned those 1,500 refugees the UN was pretending to shelter.

More Moral Equivalence Nonsense

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President Obama and John Kerry have adopted this ostensibly even-handed trope [that both Israel and the Palestinian Authority must agree to a cease fire], and on Tuesday the European Union went further and deplored Israel and Hamas as if they were equal perpetrators. Hamas should stop its “criminal and unjustifiable acts,” the EU said, but it added that it was “particularly appalled” at the human cost of the Israel ground offensive.

No. There is no equivalence between a nation that is protecting its citizens from terrorist assault and an entity that only rains rockets on that nation for the purpose of killing as many civilians, including children, as it can; there is no equivalence between a nation that is protecting its citizens and an entity that shoots rockets at a nuclear power plant in that nation for the purpose of destroying the plant and scattering as much radioactivity as widely as possible; there is no equivalence between a nation that is protecting its citizens and an entity that uses its own civilians, including its own children, as shields for the purpose of running up the Palestinian body count for PR purposes.

The US and the EU each must put aside this despicable assumption of an equivalence of morality between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (“particularly appalled!?” Maybe the EU isn’t assuming so much equivalence…) and exert such pressure as they have left on the PA to stop its assault and to forswear terrorism.

If there is to be a legitimate cease fire, it can come about in one of only two ways. The PA must stop its attacks on Israel and allow verification of that cessation. Alternatively, Israel must continue in Gaza until the PA’s ability to continue its attacks is destroyed completely and the PA terrorists are dead or captured. Given the integrity of the PA, though, the former alternative is likely only to provide a brief respite before the PA resumes its terrorism.