Being Safe While Isolated

BN-FH124_1029GL_P_20141029214811Originally published by the Jerusalem Post

Yehudah Glick has spent the better part of the last 20 years championing the right of Jews to pray on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem – Judaism’s holiest site. On Wednesday night, the Palestinians sent a hit man to Jerusalem to kill him.

And today Glick lays in a coma at Shaare Zedek Medical Center.

Two people bear direct responsibility for this terrorist attack: the gunman, and Palestinian Authority President and PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas. The gunman shot Glick, and Abbas told him to shoot Glick.

Abbas routinely glorifies terrorist murder of Jews, and funds terrorism with the PA’s US- and European-funded budget.

But it isn’t often that he directly incites the murder of Jews.

Two weeks ago, Abbas did just that. Speaking to Fatah members, he referred to Jews who wish to pray at Judaism’s holiest site as “settlers.” He then told his audience that they must remain on the Temple Mount at all times to block Jews from entering.

“We must prevent them from entering [the Temple Mount] in any way…. They have no right to enter and desecrate [it]. We must confront them and defend our holy sites,” he said.

As Palestinian Media Watch reported Thursday, in the three days leading up to the assassination attempt on Glick, the PA’s television station broadcast Abbas’s call for attacks on Jews who seek to enter the Temple Mount 19 times.

While Abbas himself is responsible for the hit on Glick, he has had one major enabler – the Obama administration. Since Abbas first issued the order for Palestinians to attack Jews, there have been two terrorist attacks in Jerusalem. Both have claimed American citizens among their victims. Yet the Obama administration has refused to condemn Abbas’s call to murder Jews either before it led to the first terrorist attack or since Glick was shot Wednesday night.

Not only have the White House and the State Department refused to condemn Abbas for soliciting the murder of Jews. They have praised him and attacked Israel and its elected leader. In other words, they are not merely doing nothing, they are actively rewarding Abbas’s aggression, and so abetting it.

Since Abbas called for Palestinians to kill Jews, the White House and State Department have accused Israel of diminishing the prospect of peace by refusing to make massive concessions to Abbas. The concessions the Americans are demanding include accepting the ethnic cleansing of all Jews from land they foresee becoming part of a future Palestinian state; denying Jews the rights to their lawfully held properties in predominantly Arab neighborhoods; and abrogating urban planning procedures in Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem built within the areas of the city that Israel took control over from Jordan in 1967.

The US claims that it has great influence over the Palestinians. If this is true, then as Fatah’s official celebrations of Glick’s attempted murder make clear, that influence is being intentionally exercised in a negative way. The Americans are encouraging the Palestinians to be more violent, more radical and more extreme in their demands of Israel and propagation of Jew-hatred.

The Obama administration is abetting Palestinian terrorism today. And it is doing so after it spent last summer siding with Hamas and its state sponsors Qatar and Turkey in its illegal war against Israel.

Moreover, it is important to note that the most outrageous statements the administration has made to date against Israel came after the first terrorist attack in Jerusalem directly inspired by Abbas’s call to murder Jews.

The most outrageous statements the administration has made about Israel came of course this week with The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg’s report that senior unnamed Obama administration officials called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “a chickensh*t” and a “coward.” They also described an administration in a state of “red hot anger” against Netanyahu and his government. Those statements were made after three-month old Chaya Zissel Braun, an American baby, was murdered by a Palestinian terrorist in Jerusalem in an Abbas-incited attack.

The most distressing aspect of Goldberg’s quotes is that in and of themselves, these profane, schoolyard bully personal attacks against Israel’s elected leader were the mildest part of the story.

The most disturbing thing about the gutter talk is what they tell us about Israel’s role in Obama’s assessments of his political cards as they relate to his nuclear negotiations with Iran.

The senior administration officials called Netanyahu a coward because, among other reasons, he has not bombed Iran’s nuclear installations.

And now, they crowed, it’s too late for Israel to do anything to stop Iran.

They are happy about this claimed state of affairs, because now Obama is free to make a deal with the Iranians that will allow them to develop nuclear weapons at will.

The obscene rhetoric they adopted in their characterization of Netanyahu didn’t come from “red hot anger.” It was a calculated move. Obama knows that he has caved in on every significant redline that he claimed he would defend in the nuclear talks with Iran.

Obama has chosen to demonize Netanyahu and castigate Israel now as a means to transform the debate about Iran into a debate about Israel. The fact that the trash talk about Netanyahu was a premeditated bid to capture the discourse on Iran is further exposed by the fact that Obama has refused to take any action against the officials who made the statements.

He isn’t going to punish them for carrying out his policies.

Obama knows that after next week’s midterm elections, he will likely be facing a Republican-controlled House and Senate. He has no substantive defense against attacks on his policy of enabling the world’s most active state sponsor of terrorism to acquire nuclear weapons. The threat a nuclear- armed Iran poses to the US is self-evident to most people who pay attention to foreign affairs.

Since he can’t win the substantive debate, he wants to change the subject by pretending that the only country that opposes Iran’s nuclear weapons program is Israel, which, his senior advisers insinuated to Goldberg, was apparently bluffing about its danger. After all, if it was a reason for concern, Netanyahu would have bombed Iran three years ago rather than try to accommodate Obama.

As a consequence, any congressional opposition to his deal makes no sense and therefore must be the result of the nefarious Israel’s lobby’s control of Congress. Loyal Americans, like Obama, must stand up to the cowardly, power grabbing, warmongering Jews, led by the coward in chief Netanyahu.

In other words, in castigating Netanyahu and Israel, the Obama administration has decided to use Jew-hatred as a political weapon to defend its policies of abetting Palestinian terrorism and enabling Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

There are critical messages to the Israeli people and our leaders embedded in the Goldberg article.

First, the unbridled attacks against Israel’s democratically elected – and popular – prime minister show us that when we are faced with an inherently hostile administration, the wages of appeasement are contempt.

No Israel leader has done more to appease a US administration than Netanyahu has done to appease Obama. Against the opposition of his party and the general public, Netanyahu in 2009 bowed to Obama’s demand to embrace the goal of establishing a Palestinian state.

Against the opposition of his party and the general public, in 2010 Netanyahu bowed to Obama’s demand and enacted an official 10-month moratorium on Jewish property rights in lands beyond the 1949 armistice lines, and later enacted an unofficial moratorium on those rights.

And Netanyahu bowed to Obama’s pressure, released murderers from prison and conducted negotiations with Abbas that only empowered Abbas and his political war to delegitimize and isolate Israel.

And for all his efforts to appease Obama, today the administration abets Palestinian terrorism and political warfare.

As to Iran, Netanyahu agreed to play along with Obama’s phony sanctions policy, and bowed to Obama’s demand not to attack Iran’s nuclear installations. All of this caused suffering to the Iranian people while giving the regime four-and-ahalf years of more or less unfettered work on its nuclear program.

Netanyahu only cut bait after Obama signed the interim nuclear deal with Iran last November where he effectively gave up the store.

And for Netanyahu’s Herculean efforts to appease Obama, Netanyahu found himself mocked publicly as a coward by senior administration officials who snorted that now it is too late for him to stop Obama from paving Iran’s open road to nuclear power.

One of the assets that Netanyahu’s continuous attempts to please Obama was geared toward securing was US support for Israel at the UN Security Council. And now, according to the senior administration officials, Obama has decided to spend his last two years in office refusing to veto anti-Israel Security Council resolutions.

Before formulating a strategy for dealing with Obama over the next two years, Israelis need to first take a deep breath and recognize that as bad as things are going to get, nothing that Obama will do to us over the next two years is as dangerous as what he has already done. No anti-Israel Security Council resolution, no Obama map of Israel’s borders will endanger Israel as much as his facilitation of Iran’s nuclear program.

As unpleasant as anti-Israel Security Council resolutions will be, and as unpleasant as an Obama framework for Israel’s final borders will be, given the brevity of his remaining time in power, it is highly unlikely that any of the measures will have lasting impact.

At any rate, no matter how upsetting such resolutions may be, Goldberg’s article made clear that Israel should make no concessions to Obama in exchange for a reversal of his plans. Concessions to Obama merely escalate his contempt for us.

Bearing this in mind, Israel’s required actions in the wake of Goldberg’s sources’ warnings are fairly straightforward.

First, to the extent that Israel does have the capacity to damage Iran’s nuclear installations, Israel should act right away. Its capacity should not be saved for a more propitious political moment.

The only clock Israel should care about is Iran’s nuclear clock.

As for the Palestinians, whether Netanyahu’s willingness to stand up to Obama stems from the growing prospect of national elections or from his own determination that there is no point in trying to appease Obama anymore, the fact is that this is the only pragmatic policy for him to follow.

The proper response to the assassination attempt on Yehudah Glick is to allow Jews freedom of worship on the Temple Mount. The proper response to Obama’s nuclear negotiations is a bomb in Natanz. Obama will be angry with Israel for taking such steps. But he is angry with Israel for standing down. At least if we defend ourselves, we will be safe while isolated, rather than unsafe while isolated.

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  • Yehuda Levi

    As usual, Caroline Glick is spot on about the fecklessness and immaturity of the Obama administration.

    It is ridiculous for the US to support the idea that parts of the world should be Judenrein. Yes, the Nazis would approve – but is that the standard of the US State Department?

    Rather than tell Arabs to grow up and quit treating any people like they don’t deserve to live, they criticize Israel. Fortunately, the American people are not as foolish and juvenile as their current leaders.

    • wildjew

      Many Americans are not so foolish. Many millions more elected and support Barack Hussein Obama, this nightmare. I am astonished his polling numbers are as high as they are presently. Aren’t you?

      • http://www.dilbert.com scook84

        I’m shocked! Shocked, I tell you!

        I never knew there were so many that not only support evil, but applaud those who do evil unto others..

        I thought we were better than that..

        Guess not.

        <3 Muah!

      • Yehuda Levi

        Although Obama was elected twice by foolish Americans, they support Israel by 70-80%. They know the Muslims are the problem, not the solution. They are reminded every day with another Islamic slaughter.

        If that number ever drops to 50% or less, then we have a real problem in this country recognizing evil.

      • Athelstane

        Not really foolish so much as easily bought. The Sheeple DO value their EBT cards and free phones. They will sell their very birthright of Liberty and Decency for the potage of lotsa free stuff.

        • wildjew

          A wise man’s heart directs him toward the right, but the foolishman’s heart directs him toward the left.
          Ecc 10:2

      • billobillo54

        Yes, I’m astonished. And, no I am not astonished. That’s because the progressivism, secularism, liberalism, materialism all lead to what the Apostle Paul wrote in Romans Chapter 1 regarding the ancient form being paganism: “Professing themselves to be wise they became fools…”

      • Cherlyn Tamara Keown

        Just more evidence for the growing epidemic of “useful idiots.”

    • Earthling

      Unfortunately, a good number of them are.

    • http://www.facebook.com/aemoreira81 aemoreira81

      Except that there are people who don’t deserve to live—specifically, allies of Moscow. They are by extension enemies of the West, and are more dangerous since Putin has nukes.

  • RickLoomis

    My take on this episode is, even after reading Goldberg’s article, closer to the opposite on many of her points. Carolyn is right on target 90% of the time, but some of her and Goldberg’s conclusions about this anonymous so-called insult I feel were too extreme, and maybe even wrong. If I were an Israeli leader, under the threats surrounding the country, I would honestly take being called a “coward” as a compliment.

    The world knows that Israel is surrounded by barbarians and despots, much as it was 4,000 years ago. The so-called moderate Abbas stands behind the PLO Charter, which doesn’t recognize the existence of Israel and wants it all for Islam. And as Carolyn makes clear he is acting by word and deed, inciting and abetting killers, as if he was, or wants to be, in a state of war. Hamas, his new partner in war, cares nothing about Palestinian Arabs, and is using them as fodder in the greater war for expanding Islamism. Iran and Turkey, their supporters, we all know about. But the idea that Netanyahu was called a “coward” because he didn’t strike Iran is so far-fetched, I have no way to make sense of it. The last thing the U.S. ever wanted Israel to do alone was start a war with Iran.

    Therefore, calling Netanyahu a “coward” is simply a backhanded way of daring him to appease those who want Israel’s destruction. But the fact that they did stupidly call him a coward, implies that he did not give in to appeasement, unlike Obama with Iran. It implies that Netanyahu is actually morally stronger and more protective than Obama. It’s why Saudi Arabia and Egypt are on Israel’s side in this. If I was called a “coward” under these circumstances, I’d probably say “thank you.”

    What I wouldn’t say, since I’d assume the world already knew, was that the leader of a world power who appeases a weak country like Iran, whose only asset is oil, is the real coward. Appeasement and cowardice are sometimes synonyms. At least Chamberlain thought he was getting a peace treaty. And what Chamberlain thought he was gaining was actually much more than what the U.S. thinks it can gain from Iran.

    • Michael Garfinkel

      Here’s what I think., for what it’s worth:

      “…the PA’s television station broadcast Abbas’s call for attacks on Jews who seek to enter the Temple Mount 19 times” – Close down the broadcast. Incitement to violence is grounds for broadcast license revocation.

      Arrange for unfettered access for Jews to pray at the Temple Mount. This is a no-brainer!

      Crush Palestinian riots in Jerusalem, or anywhere else in Israel.

      Institute capital punishment for murder, and for heaven’s sake, never release terrorist murderers to please anyone – in Washington, New York, the Hague, Ramallah – anywhere.

      Destroy the Iranian facilities that are producing nuclear weapons, including their offensive missile capacity. Caroline is right; this must be done now.
      It should have been done years ago.

      Netanyahu is also right to have “written the White House off.”

      And oddly enough, it appears that Chuck Hagel and the Pentagon are the only adults in the room.

      But it should be obvious to anyone with eyes to see and ears to here that this administration is deeply hostile to Israel and is intent on pursuing a course that is detrimental to the Jewish state.

      With the mid-term elections out of the way, Obama will be less constrained; they are already chomping at the bit – as was only too evident in the Goldberg Atlantic article.

      Everyone talks about Israel’s “existential crisis,” without realizing fully that there really is an existential crisis!

      Crisis can also bring opportunity, and Israel must regain the initiative.

  • Bamaguje

    With regards to Muslim violence at the Temple mount, Israel only has herself to blame.
    When she appointed a Muslim Waqf over the Jewish holiest site, and then conceded authority to the Jordanian king, she gave Muslims an inch… now they want a mile.

    If the shoe were on the other foot, and Muslims regained control of an Islamic religious site from infidels… they (Muslims) would have razed to the ground any non-Islamic structure there.
    May be it’s time Muslims get a taste of their own medicine if they continue to misbehave.

    With regards to Iran’s nuclear program, it is unfortunate that Obama doesn’t realize that Mullah nuclear weapons are as much a threat to U.S. as they are to Israel.

    The “death to America” chanting Mullahs have never hidden their hostility for United States. Israel is the “little Satan”, while U.S. is the “great Satan.” In other words, America is their ultimate target.

    Using proxies like Hezbollah and Iraqi shiite militia, Iran has already carried out several attacks against U.S.
    Bombing of U.S. Marine barracks in Beriut, and attack on American forces in Iraq readily come to mind.

    What more, Hezbollah Jihadis have been caught sneaking across the U.S. southern border that Obama refuses to secure. It doesn’t take much imagination to realize that Hezbollah could smuggle a radioactive dirty bomb or even suitcase nuclear bomb across the porous border for a terrorist attack.

    http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2013/10/mexican-cartels-help-hezbollah-infiltrate-u-s/

    It is also noteworthy that Iran is trying to build ICBMs that can reach U.S. They’ve already tested several long range missiles.

  • wildjew

    Caroline wrote: “…the wages of (Netanyahu) appeasing (Barack Obama) are contempt.”

    It is really quite astonishing. PM Netanyahu is unquestionably a student of history. He’s got to know this simple truth; the fruit of appeasing tyrants. Without doubt like many he has thoroughly studied the folly of appeasement Neville Chamberlain undertook with Germany, the 1938 Munich agreement and the consequent contempt he was treated to by Germany’s chancellor. The political right here in the U.S. has been “shouting from the rooftops” before and after Obama was first elected, he is a racist who sat in an anti-Semitic, anti-American, racist church listening to vicious anti-Semitic, racist sermons at the mouth of a dedicated anti-Semite for twenty years.

    • Bamaguje

      Netanyahu doesn’t have much of a choice… does he?
      So long as Israel is dependent on U.S. aid, America will always be able to arm twist the Jewish nation.
      Israel must wean herself off American aid, so she can act more freely in her own self interest

      • wildjew

        I agree. Israel needs leaders who believe that somehow, some way Israel will survive without American aid as David Ben-Gurion was forced to do not by choice but because the U.S. imposed an arms embargo on Israel for better than a decade. Israel survived. Every diplomat worth his or her salt knows aid to Israel buys concessions from the Jewish state; bloody and murderous concessions.

      • Gee

        Israel is not dependent on US aid – it is less than 1% of our GNP.

        But yes I agree we need to build our own aircraft again

  • richarddonna

    Obama reveres the sociopath Muhammad who personally decapitated 600 – 900 unarmed Jews. He loves the foundational antisemitism of the “holy” Koran..”Holy”..what a crock!..He is just antisemitic as the State Dept has been for eighty years.

  • DontMessWithAmerica

    We all know that Obama is a Marxist-racist-anti-Semitic-Islamist who is the enemy of Israel as of the U.S. and needs to be treated as an enemy. Like too many Americans, Israel is in denial about this fact. It needs to become realistic, to divorce itself completely from America, accept the fact that it is at war with Islam as all the rest of the world and act accordingly. When an enemy neighbor praises terrorists and rewards them, kill him; that is what one does in war.

    • wildjew

      So is the Republican leadership in denial of this fact.

      Civil war looms for GOP

      The Hill

      ….“People want to see a bold vision. They want to see a real fight on ObamaCare repeal and tax reform that takes a blowtorch to the tax code. They want to see real entitlement reform, not empty talk,” one conservative GOP aide said.

      “The American people don’t want Republicans to become appeasers and supporters of a watered down Obama agenda.”

      The problem for Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and other GOP leaders is that they will also face pressure to govern — which could involve cooperating with President Obama to keep the government operating and turn legislation into law.

  • Gee

    The only thing that will ever work is to return the Jordanian colonists to Jordan.

    • Yehuda Levi

      The two-state solution:

      Israel and Jordan.

  • cree

    Not only has the Obama regime become the existential threat to our republic but that too of Israel, which to many Americans the two countries have always had an inseparable unity.

    Obama, disregarding to outright opposing Israel as if it were our enemy reveals the reality that now exists. Obama is becoming more dangerous. His world vision of utopian peace among nations is creating the opposite.

    History reveals how idiot narcissists produce the conditions leading to catastrophe. If Israel is forced into doing what it must, expect catastrophe. Obama owns his rule; he is close to creating dystopia.

  • Leona Rund Zions

    Caroline, you have brilliantly unravelled the Gordian Knot that is Barakian Foreign Policy. Barry’s arrogance and self-righteousness wreaks of narcissistic self-importance and not only Israel, but our own USA are in dire circumstances because of his petulant indulgences.

  • GHjo

    The next we will hear, is that Obama is sending nuclear experts to Iran,to help them making the bomb?Anything is possible with this man in charge.And what about the Saudis?They will buy a few bombs from Pakistan,and then the whole Persian gulf go up in flames and mushrom clouds.

  • joe kulak

    Obola is a Jew-hater, pure and simple.

    • JB Ziggy Zoggy

      Yes. Obama is a jew hater on a par with his pal the ayatollah. He’s also a flabby, flaccid, scrawny, pot bellied, weenie armed, chicken legged, chestless fem with a face like a purple lipped monkey with simian AIDS and rectal ebola. And somebody take him to a downtown alley so a rat can nibble that nasty wart off his face.

  • Arafat

    FP Magazine commenters please make a difference. Take the time to support Bill Maher’s invitation to speak at Cal Berkeley. There are a half dozen articles you can write a comment to at Cal Berkeley’s student newspaper.

    Take the time to do this!

  • Athelstane

    In 1982 when I was in the US Navy and our ship was making a port visit, we took a several day tour of Jerusalem and the envions. I remember one of my sailors (a Gunner’s Mate as I recall) telling me of the Dome of the Rock, “Sir, about five rounds of 5 inch HEPD would get rid of that hemorrhoid forever and a day.” In the light of October, 1983 and everything after I would be all for it.

  • SoCalMike

    Israel has to do the job the US should have done years ago.
    The Obama Administration has sold out the US as well as the free world and oppressed people everywhere.
    And no one here even blames him or seems to notice.
    Maybe when Hizbullah gets a nuke off on or over US soil.

    • Original Prankster

      Hopefully the bomb will be dropped on NYC

  • Original Prankster

    My deepest desire is to see Obama taken from the White House in cuffs – I can see the jug-eared mulatto crying to Allah for help

  • tickletik

    Given all this. Maybe it’s time PM Netanyahu stopped trying to appease the unappeasable and do a complete 180 on his policy. Prime Minister, if by some miracle you are reading this comment, then please consider this. There is no point trying to make peace with those who are trying to kill you. You tried, you made your best effort, and all it has gotten you is their hatred and contempt. OK, it didn’t work, we learn from our mistakes. Realize it was an honest mistake and try the opposite.

    The country will back you up. There are more Gentiles in this world who will back you up than you might think. We aren’t the only ones threatened by this insanity.

    Stand up for yourself. Tell them enough.

  • objectivefactsmatter

    Time to assassinate Abu Mazen.

    • Doc2Go

      objectivefactsmatter,

      Good to see you, here! Well met.

      Not time. With respect, past the time. As with any cancer, ignoring the most important cells (appeasement) causes those cells to spread. On assassinating him, three similar psychopaths would replace him, overnight. While it may sound as though I am saying not to hit Mazen, that isn’t the case. What I actually mean is don’t just hit him. Hit him, his three generals, their thirty colonels, their ninety captains, and all two hundred and seventy lieutenants. In one night. Then, apologise to no one.

      Let all of the “Palestinians” be sent back to their real homelands in Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen. I think Israel should return to the ’67 borders…as in 767BC. Period. No one else has an historic written claim to the land as they do. Eight million people have tried inasmuch as was possible to live in peace with their neighbors. They have done so for almost seventy years, surrounded by hundreds of millions of people clamouring for their deaths. Enough is enough.

      -Doc

      • objectivefactsmatter

        He and Arafat should have been taken out in the early 1990s when it became clear they were muscling in on the developing Oslo talks.

        Better late then never.

  • Softly Bob

    The Jews are not settlers in Jerusalem – the city is theirs. If you disagree don’t argue with me, argue it with God.

    • Doc2Go

      Softly Bob.

      Ezzzactally.

      -Doc