PDavidHornik

Reply to comment

Thanks for the comment to "Arens: Hang tough, Bibi"--and in reply: It's not a question of Netanyahu having spine and backbone; he has it. But he has very tough choices to make. Buckling to Obama entails dangers; standing up to him does, too. Israel is very much the junior partner in this relationship. Netanyahu, relatively speaking, is trying to make a stand on the settlements while having already made a big verbal concession on the Palestinian state. Netanyahu now has the toughest job in the world and has to choose between lesser evils.

Sarkozy insults Lieberman, word gets out in Israel

And I'm reviewing the brouhaha on Pajamas Media. Sarkozy has a backlog of mouthing off at democratic officials, cozying up to brutal tyrants.

Arens: Hang tough, Bibi

Former defense minister and foreign minister Moshe Arens rightly points out that "The right of Jews to live in Judea and Samaria is a basic principle not subject to negotiations." He says Netanyahu has already erred by framing the issue with Obama as one of "natural growth."

Succumbing to the pressure that is being applied on the settlement issue will only result in additional pressure on other issues, and before long Israel's position on matters of principle and substance will begin to crumble. This is not going to be easy, but Israel's staunch supporters in the U.S. will stand by it. It will be a test for the American Jewish leadership - and for the people of Israel.

He's right, of course, that concessions to Obama and his crew will be pocketed by them and used as fuel for further demands for further concessions. This is war. Obama sees "the Palestinians" (who already have one state in Jordan and since 1937 have responded to all offers of a second state with waves of terrorism and incitement) as the same as pre-Civil Rights Bill American blacks and is hardly going to change that perception. Don't confuse him with the facts. Who, though, are these staunch supporters in the U.S. who will stand by Israel? Apart from a few pundits, Evangelical leaders, Jewish leaders, and members of Congress, I don't see it. If this is a test for the American Jewish leadership, they're mostly in Obama's pocket and will fail the test.

The issue is the same as ever--Arens is out of power and so admonishes Netanyahu, who's in power, to be tough. The record is that the Likud prime ministers eventually buckle to the U.S. pressure--Begin less so, but he did, too, at Camp David with Sadat and Carter. I take this to mean, not that Begin, Shamir, once-Likudnik Sharon, and Netanyahu were weak people, but that the pressure is pretty savage. On the other hand, Arens is quite right that, under the pressure, Israel has now reached the point of conceding the most fundamental rights, which also entails taking grave security risks with Judea and Samaria.

Cal Thomas does not eulogize Michael Jackson

Instead, he skillfully calls into question the whole celeb craze. Jackson was weird, Farrah Fawcett was good-looking--this is enough to be an icon? My own feeling about Jackson: I could never stomach a thing about him. Though I love the song "The Girl Is Mine," for the most part I found his music stupid, shallow, artificial, and annoying, and the physical stuff, how he made constant revisions of his appearance and cultivated a hermaphroditic image, I found truly revolting. Drugs, lousy relationships, weird goings-on with kids--this is something to idolize? If he had really created lasting and valuable music, that would have been the only real excuse.

Melanie Phillips: "Obama's Deadly Hand Revealed"

Will his American Jewish supporters now realize their mistake? No, not most of them, says Melanie Phillips, not now or ever. Melanie Phillips sums up the bitter truth about this emerging disaster of a president as only she can.

Schoenfeld on the CIA, Iran, and tragic U.S. helplessness

Important Wall Street Journal op-ed by Gabriel Schoenfeld: what did the U.S. gain by defanging the CIA in a fit of (liberal) moralism in the 1970s? Nothing--but it lost the crucial capacity to influence events in other countries by means infinitely less costly than war. Schoenfeld says that even if Obama had wanted to take a wisely aggressive approach to the Iranian situation, he would have had little means to do so thanks to the weakened state of the CIA. I remember that time in the '70s--the Democrats were riding high after Watergate and the abandonment of U.S. allies in Southeast Asia, and the CIA was next on the chopping block.

Ira Sharkansky sheds light

Obama is dictating policy on fine points to Israel while "engaging" the likes of Iran, Syria, and the Palestinians. It doesn't occur to Obama and his admin. (or they couldn't care less) that the Israeli leaders and populace might understand some things about our neighborhood and about Israeli policy and needs. Calm, inisghtful commentary by Hebrew University professor emeritus Ira Sharkansky.

Settlements on Pajamas Media

I'm letting off steam on the U.S.-Israeli settlements confrontation. As the last sentence of the article suggests, Netanyahu and his govt. are caught between two big evils--making the perilous and humiliating concessions Obama demands, or standing up to him and taking his wrath. Netanyahu tried a middle path, making some of the big concessions but not all. So far it's not good enough for the pertinacious moralists in Washington.

Abrams refutes Hillary on settlements

Elliot Abrams: Hillary is disseminating falsehoods on U.S.-Israeli agreements about settlement policy, and is herself, along with the Obama administration, pursuing a policy--jamming it down Israel's throat--based on falsehood. Important Wall Street Journal op-ed.

Bard on the settlements

Mitchell Bard gives one of the most clear, concise accounts you'll see of the Israeli-settlement issue and the misconceptions attending it.