PDavidHornik

And stop the idiocy about Obama visiting Israel

Israeli-American billionaire Haim Saban says here that he won't be donating anymore to Obama.

Saban also said in the interview that Obama should visit Israel as he has done with other countries in the Middle East.

“I’m very perplexed as to why the president, who’s been to Cairo, to Saudi Arabia, to Turkey, has not made a stop in Israel and spoken to the Israeli people,” Saban said. “I believe that the president can clarify to the Israeli people what his positions are on Israel and calm them down. Because they are not calm right now.”

Right, he'll kiss the Western Wall, cradle a couple of Sderot children in his arms, and tell us how much he loves us and how our security is the dearest thing to his heart. It will not change who he is, the decades of radicalism that shaped him (see post on Stanley Kurtz below), his basic worldview. I fervently hope it doesn't happen and that we're spared such a visit. The media will make a huge circus out of it and the hearts of the shallower among my compatriots will be set a-flutter.

Cliff May: Obama to Israel--make peace with genocidists, pronto

Obama says "Israel cannot be expected to negotiate with Palestinians who do not recognize its right to exist" (meaning Hamas, now a partner in the Palestinian government) and yet, in the next breath, "the march to isolate Israel internationally — and the impulse of the Palestinians to abandon negotiations – will continue to gain momentum in the absence of a credible peace process and alternative."

"But how," Cliff May asks,

can Israelis set in motion a "credible peace process" if their only possible negotiating partners are Palestinians with whom "Israel cannot be expected to negotiate"? The President is too smart not to perceive the sharp contradiction between these two statements.

Probably true, which means he's playing a game that does not redound to Israel's benefit. Toward the end of the article May writes:

On Sunday, Obama said, "the United States will stand up against efforts to single Israel out at the United Nations or in any international forum. Israel's legitimacy is not a matter for debate. That is my commitment; that is my pledge to all of you."

Over the next few months, he will have an opportunity to act on that commitment and pledge – to publicly defend Israel against those who want to destroy her and those merely indifferent about her survival. Is Obama eager to seize such any opportunity? There is reason for doubt. Nevertheless, Israelis and their American allies must hope he doesn’t miss it – for the sake of both nations.

Must hope, but it's not exactly a robust hope. Kind of gives me that 1930s feeling (see previous post).

Victor Davis Hanson: America does not have to decline

It decided to decline that other time, he reminds us, after World War I. By the 1930s, while the withdrawn U.S. and the weary and jaded Britain and France looked on or conducted peace processes, the communist Soviet Union, imperial Japan, and fascist Italy and Germany were on the rise. If America keeps sinking now, there'll be more than enough actors who are, again, happy to fill the vacuum.

Melanie Phillips's tribute to Stephen Harper and Richard Kemp

There are still shining lights in these dark times; read about it.

Stanley Kurtz: The real Obama is the radical, "pro-Palestinian" one

He makes that case in this fascinating survey of Obama's past ties with Khalidi, Said, Abunimah, and the gang. Kurtz claims Obama has tilted somewhat toward Israel to enable him to have a national political career, but his real proclivities remain with those who see Israel as Middle East bad guy, oppressor, and spoiler. I was just getting skeptical about claims of that sort, figuring that some years at the hub of the real world of international politics must have sobered Obama, but then came the shocks beginning last Thursday. Kurtz: if the big O. is still in there in 2013, woe betide. It's damn scary.

Phyllis Chesler on Thomas Friedman the rank opportunist, conformist, and coward

She takes down his latest piece of nonsense-trash in the august New York Times.

Barry Rubin: Why there's no "peace"

For those who still don't get, Mahmoud Abbas spelled it out clearly in a speech that went ignored, as Rubin reports and analyzes. By the way, I am not an assenter to the talk about how much Israel would be prepared to give up, and think we should be prepared to give up much less. For instance, Netanyahu talks about a "presence" on the Jordan River. We have to have permanent sovereignty there. There is no conceivable situation in which Israel could withdraw a military presence from there and just trust what will happen in the next year or five years.

More from Israel Harel on Israel's wretched, irresponsible opposition

Both houses of the U.S. Congress applaud Netanyahu this week, while the whole Israeli opposition, as Harel points out, particularly the wretched Shaul Mofaz, heap abuse on him. Netanyahu in his speech pulls Israel out of major, if not predominant, parts of the Land of Israel, perturbing Harel (and me), and Israeli leftists and even purported "centrists" say he ain't done nothing and he's throwing glimmering chances of peace to the dogs. No class, no ability to rise above politics ever, no brains, no backbones. That's the opposition in Israel whenever there's a purportedly right-of-center government in office. Craven people whose only real "opponent" is other Israelis.

Bret Stephens on the anti-Israeli president

Another good op-ed.

Cal Thomas: Stop betraying Israel, wise up to reality

Great op-ed.