U.S.-Israel Relationship in Crisis

ShowImage.ashxThe Obama administration’s contemptible hostility towards Israel has descended into the proverbial cellar.  According to an October 28th article appearing in The Atlantic by Jeffrey Goldberg, a high-level Obama administration official has recently added “chickensh*t” to other derisive terms used in ad hominem verbal attacks on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, such as “recalcitrant, myopic, reactionary, obtuse, blustering, pompous, and ‘Aspergery.’”

Prime Minister Netanyahu responded to the latest diatribe in his remarks to the Knesset on October 29th that “I am being attacked because I am willing to defend the State of Israel.”

Needless to say, other Israelis were more direct in expressing their outrage at the reported epithet. For example, Economy Minister Naftali Bennett said that “severe curse words against the Israeli prime minister are harmful to millions of Israeli citizens and Jews worldwide.” Former Israeli United Nations Ambassador Dan Gillerman described such name calling as “shameful,” “abusive,” and “counter-productive.”

The White House has tried to do some damage control regarding the “chickensh*t” remark, as it usually does after stepping into its own mess. U.S. National Security Spokesperson Alistair Baskey said in response to the latest imbroglio that “such comments are inappropriate and counter-productive. We do not believe there is a crisis in the relationship. The relationship remains as strong as ever and the ties between our nations are unshakable.”

With all due respect, Mr. Baskey, the relationship between Israel and the United States is at a historic low. The White House’s petty vindictiveness was illustrated again just last week when Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon was given a cold shoulder by various high-profile Obama administration officials, who were instructed not to meet with the defense minister during his visit to Washington. These officials included Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State John Kerry and National Security Advisor Susan Rice.  Aside from a routine meeting with his counterpart Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, Defense Minister Ya’alon did manage to meet with the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power, despite attempts by the administration, which came too late, to block the meeting. In any event, Ambassador Power focused her attention during the meeting on the settlements issue.

As Jeffrey Goldberg wrote in his article in The Atlantic:

The relationship between these two administrations — dual guarantors of the putatively “unbreakable” bond between the U.S. and Israel — is now the worst it’s ever been, and it stands to get significantly worse after the November midterm elections. By next year, the Obama administration may actually withdraw diplomatic cover for Israel at the United Nations, but even before that, both sides are expecting a showdown over Iran, should an agreement be reached about the future of its nuclear program.

While Jeffrey Goldberg correctly identified the problem, he mistakenly blamed Prime Minister Netanyahu as the main cause of the problem. Goldberg parroted the Obama administration line that, if it were not for the Israeli government’s settlements policies, a peaceful two-state solution would be achievable. He referred to what one Obama administration official described as the administration’s “red-hot anger” at the Israeli prime minister “for pursuing settlement policies on the West Bank, and building policies in Jerusalem, that they believe have fatally undermined Secretary of State John Kerry’s peace process.”

Indeed, Secretary of State John Kerry has gone public in blaming the Jewish state and its settlements policies for the failure of his feckless pretentions to be a peacemaker between the Israelis and the Palestinians.  He even went so far as to repeat without any rebuttal, at a White House reception earlier this month held in honor of a Muslim holiday, a contention that Israel’s intransigence was contributing to the rise of jihad in the Middle East.

The crisis in the once close relationship between the two countries originates from the very top of the Obama administration. President Obama himself has set the tone for the unprecedented verbal assaults from members of his administration on the leader of the only real democracy in the Middle East, and one of the United States’ closest allies – until now.

Back in November 2011, for example, Obama and former French President Nicolas Sarkozy were caught on an open microphone complaining about the Israeli prime minister. After Sarkozy said that he “can’t stand” Prime Minister Netanyahu and called him a “liar,” Obama replied: “You’re tired of him; what about me? I have to deal with him every day.”

In 2010, Obama is reported to have snubbed Prime Minister Netanyahu, declining to join the Israeli leader and his delegation for a White House dinner.

Obama came into office in 2008 with a decidedly pro-Palestinian bias. He absorbed the anti-Semitic rhetoric of his long-time pastor in Chicago, Jeremiah Wright, and of his friend from his teaching days at the University of Chicago, Rashid Khalidi.

Khalidi was a big fan of Yasser Arafat’s terrorist organization, the PLO.  He described Israel as a “racist” state and “basically an apartheid system in creation.” In 2003, at a farewell dinner for Khalidi, who was about to leave the University of Chicago for a position at Columbia University, Obama hailed Khalidi’s insights as an influence on his own thinking. Khalidi later returned the favor, telling pro-Palestinian audiences that Obama deserved their help in winning a U.S. Senate seat, stating: “You will not have a better senator under any circumstances.”

From the beginning of his first presidential term, President Obama signaled his intention to come down hard on Israel by initially demanding a complete freeze on settlements – including on any growth in existing settlements. He also outlined his concept of a final peace agreement that would require Israel to withdraw virtually entirely to the pre-June 1967 lines, but with no reciprocal requirement that the Palestinians renounce completely once and for all its assertion of a so-called “right of return” of millions of “refugees” to lands within pre-June 1967 Israel.  He has clearly bought into the self-serving narrative of Palestinian victimhood.

All that the Obama administration wants to talk about are Jewish settlements, failing even to distinguish between actual settlements in the West Bank and expansion of housing for Israelis living in certain Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem that happen to fall within the revisionist construct of a divided “East Jerusalem” that the Obama administration helps to perpetuate. Historically, Jerusalem has been an undivided city that has had a Jewish majority population and has in the past been the capital for the Jewish people. Jordan’s illegal occupation between 1948 and 1967 resulted in the artificial division of Jerusalem that the Palestinians, with help from the Obama administration, seek to make permanent. Jerusalem is whole again as it should be, but – unlike during the years of Jordan’s occupation – the holy sites are open to worshipers of all faiths.

During an “emergency” United Nations Security Council meeting convened on October 29th to discuss Israeli plans to build more Jewish housing in “East” Jerusalem, the U.S. representative speaking to the Council called Israel’s “unilateral” actions, including in Jerusalem, “deeply concerning” and provocative. This followed the usual Israeli-bashing by the United Nations bureaucracy. United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Jeffrey Feltman, said during the meeting that “Israel’s construction plans in East Jerusalem – if they go ahead – raise grave doubts on its willingness to promote peace.”

Israel wants peace, but not how the Palestinians, backed by the Obama administration and the Palestinians’ allies at the United Nations, would define it.

Gaza was a test case of the Palestinians’ ability and willingness to establish a model for an independent state after Israel withdrew completely in 2005 and turned over economic resources and responsibility for security to the Palestinian Authority. As has happened so often when the Palestinians had a chance for a truly peaceful two-state solution, they blew the opportunity. Hamas, whose genocidal charter calls for the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews worldwide, took over Gaza in 2007 and turned it into a launching pad for above-ground rocket and underground tunnel attacks against Israeli civilians living in Israeli towns and cities. In Jerusalem itself, just last week, a Hamas affiliated jihadist deliberately drove his car into a group of pedestrians, killing a 3-month old baby, who, it turns out, was an American citizen. The response from Palestinian President Abbas’s Fatah party was to call the baby murderer a “heroic martyr.” A Hamas spokesman called the murder a “natural response” to the “invasion of our land by the Jews.”

Abbas did not express outrage or remorse over the senseless murder of the baby. Indeed, his own incendiary remarks calling for the use of “any means” to stop Jews from visiting or worshipping at the Temple Mount may have helped incite this violent attack. Hanan Ashrawi, a prominent member of the PLO Executive Committee, added her own fuel to the fire by saying that allowing Jews to visit the Temple Mount (which is holy to Jews as well as to Muslims) is a “declaration of war against Islam.” President Obama himself did not speak out publicly regarding such inflammatory rhetoric, the subsequent murderous attack itself or the disgusting reaction of the Palestinian leadership to the attack.

Abbas and the Hamas leadership play “good cop-bad cop” in terms of tactics, but their end-game is the same – the extinguishment of Jewish self-determination in any lands the Palestinians falsely consider their birth-right. There is no room for any Jewish state anywhere between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, in their own vision of the region.

The Obama administration turns a blind eye to the Palestinian pathology of hatred of Jews, some of which is rooted in Islamic supremacism. Preached in mosques and taught in Palestinian schools to poison the minds of generations of Palestinians, such hatred prevents the realization of any true two-state solution which recognizes the right of self-determination of the Jewish people as well as the Palestinian people to live side by side in peace and security.

Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: Click here.

Subscribe to Frontpage’s TV show, The Glazov Gang, and LIKE it on Facebook.

  • Larry Larkin

    Khalidi wasn’t, and isn’t, merely a friend of the PLO, he WAS PLO, in that he was their designated spokesterrorist.

    He is yet another of the low life bastards that the empty suit has associated with by preference and choice his entire adult life. Look at oh bummers friends and everyone of them is a dirt bag of one flavour or another.

    • carpe diem 36

      as they say birds of a feather….. Our sages stated ages ago that a man is known by the friends he keeps. Look who Obama keeps.

    • JayWye

      “was” PLO? I suspect he still is.

  • teq

    Of all the names to call Bibi surely “coward” is the least believable. I’ve heard people call him a bully, which may refer to the fact that he doesn’t suffer fools gladly and probably hasn’t been able to hide his contempt for Bambi very well, and Bambi being very vain was insulted by it.. But coward? Afraid to start wars? I thought Bambi was mad at him for the wars in Gaza. Now they bash him for not starting enough wars?
    I think the stress of the coming elections where Bambi knows he’s gonna be shellacked and left with a Republican congress is causing his staff to lapse into hysterical gibberish.

    • Michael Garfinkel

      The motive is resentment, not hysteria.

  • Joe The Gentile

    The ‘chicken sh_t’ remark is the ultimate responsibility of the Obama administration and Obama himself because they have not fired the ‘high-level official’ responsible. This is not just a new low in Israel-Palestine relations. It is a new low in diplomacy, period. The remarks are unprofessional, immature, and juvenile in the extreme. Sadly, Obama is embarrassing the United States.

    • Michael Garfinkel

      Still, Obama is quite an authority on Islam:

      “So I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed”

      “The Islamic state is not Islamic.”

      “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.”

      “Ramadan is a celebration of a faith known for great diversity and racial equality”

      And so on.

      So, as the author notes: when Hanan Ashrawi, a prominent member of the PLO Executive Committee, added her own fuel to the fire by saying that allowing Jews to visit the Temple Mount (which is holy to Jews as well as to Muslims) is a “declaration of war against Islam” – Obama remained silent.

      Why bury the leed?

      Frankly, I’m waiting for the arrogant SOB to issue the first fatwa on White House Stationery.

      • carpe diem 36

        “where it was first revealed” You say revealed when you see an unusual image. Is that what Obama sees himself as, an Image?? wow!!! how arrogant and ignorant at the same time.

      • JayWye

        Comrade Obama In “Audacity of Hope” wrote:
        “I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.”
        in other speeches;
        1. “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam”
        2. “The sweetest sound I know is the Muslim call to prayer”
        3. “We will convey our deep appreciation for the Islamic faith, which has done so much over the centuries to shape the world – including in my own country.”
        4. “As a student of history, I also know civilization’s debt to Islam.”

  • BMS

    Obama’s treatment of Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East is nothing short of contemptible. His actions, since day one of his administration have been pro Palestinian and pro Islamic extremists. He’s now getting in bed with Iran and will let them move closer to getting the bomb. He can’t bring himself to condemn the terrorist attacks against Israel by Palestinians because he will NEVER say anything bad against Islam. Americans elected a real Jew and Israel hater when they foolishly voted him in office. His policies, the policies of a community organizer with zero foreign policy experience and Muslim Brotherhood advisors, have wreaked havoc in the Middle East. The end of his presidency can’t come soon enough!

    • Michael Garfinkel

      Here’s a key part of the conversation Goldberg had with “an unnamed White House official;” it’s gotten little attention, lost in the fuss over of the vulgarity of the term “chickensh*t:

      “The official said the Obama administration no longer believes that
      Netanyahu would launch a preemptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities
      in order to keep the regime in Tehran from building an atomic arsenal.
      “It’s too late for him to do anything. Two, three years ago, this was a
      possibility. But ultimately he couldn’t bring himself to pull the
      trigger. It was a combination of our pressure and his own unwillingness
      to do anything dramatic. Now it’s too late.”

      To my ear, there’s more than a “smidgeon” of gloating in that comment.

      Think about that for a minute…

      Obama and his crew are apparently more vicious than we thought – and far more dangerous.

      • El Cid

        Obama’s viciousness and vindictiveness and nihilism were evident from the first speeches he made in the first presidential fight.

        Go back, look, listen.

        What were you Americans thinking?

      • carpe diem 36

        No he is not more vicious that we thought – we knew he was as vicious a man as is possible, and he continued to exhibit that viciousness, not only against Bibi but against the American people and against the USA as well. What a POS creep of a potus.

      • JayWye

        Comrade Obama WILL WARN Iran if Israel launches a strike at Iran. He’s already done so once,when Israel forward-based warplanes in Azerbaijan.

  • Douglas Mayfield

    Obama hates Netanyahu and everything he stands for, including Israel surviving and prospering as a free country.

    That hatred is derived from Obama’s socialist driven, basic Left wing, deep seated hatred of freedom and individual rights wherever he finds them, both here in America and around the world.

    Hence Obama’s foreign policy of embracing cheap vicious murdering tyrants such as Chavez and Castro while they were alive, their successors, Putin, etc. while snubbing or actively hamstringing our allies including Israel and Netanyahu.

    America has so far survived six years of Obama’s socialist poison. We’ll see what the next two years bring.

    • carpe diem 36

      He is already a lame duck, and will be more so for the next two years. He will just stay home and brood.

    • barney59

      Don’t forget his Islamic sympathies and how he threatens the world with his covert support of the creation of the Caliphate and Muslim Brotherhood…

    • JayWye

      Comrade Obama has been seating LOTS of leftist Federal judges,and they serve for as long as they want. They will be causing further damage for decades. We’re already seeing the effect of those leftist judges.
      Further,he’s destroyed America’s credibility and trust in foreign affairs.

  • http://johnnyangeladvocacygroup.net JohnnyAngel Advocacy Group

    Obama has become a COMPLETE DETRIMENT to the US on the world stage as well as at home. He must be IMPEACHED !!!

    • JayWye

      NOT gonna happen,even if Repubs take the Senate and keep the House. Boehner has already ruled out impeachment.
      the only way Comrade Hindmost is leaving the WH early is if it’s on a stretcher.

  • YouHaveCatTobeKittenMeRightMeo

    Classic liberal chickenshit technique to make people obey them. Insults and character assassination attempts.

  • Harry_the_Horrible

    Israel needs to find a more reliable ally. The US can no longer be depended upon. We have gone seriously off the deep end and we won’t recover for a generation if at all.

    • carpe diem 36

      Israel was and is as the Bible said A Nation Living in Loneliness. This is both its strength and its destiny. It exists in a bad neighborhood, with neighbors who wish to annihilate it for its greatness and its enormous success, that they cannot match.

      • Harry_the_Horrible

        I just wish we were on their side and could be depended upon.

        • carpe diem 36

          We are on their side, whoever wishes to be included in te “we”, the others do not count, Jews can only count on themselves and their God of Israel.

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

      I would argue that the distrust has actually originated on Israel’s end…by being unexpectedly warm to Russia in ways heretofore seen as sacrilegious, given how Russia has historically treated Jews.

      • Harry_the_Horrible

        Nope.
        Last time I checked, Israel provided the Chinese with info on their Lavi fighter design, which became the basis for the J-10. I think they also tried to sell US AWACS tech to China, too.
        In general you can expect Israel to do what is perceived as good for Israel.
        Of course we’ve done a few back-stabs ourselves. Every dollar sent the PA goes into the coffers of folks dedicated to wiping out the Israelis.
        But, in general I think they have been more loyal to us than we have to them.

  • mhb

    Please name that person that call him “chickensh*t
    Why has none name him

    • cree

      From above: “According to an October 28th article appearing in The Atlantic by Jeffrey Goldberg, a high-level Obama administration official has recently added “chickensh*t” to other derisive terms used in ad hominem verbal attacks on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, such as “recalcitrant, myopic, reactionary, obtuse, blustering, pompous, and ‘Aspergery.’”

  • Gee

    The reason Odumba regime “turns a blind eye to the Palestinian pathology of hatred of Jews” is because they share it.

    • Dxates

      Zionists are not Jews thou Dolt! Where is Zionism defined by name in the Torah, Talmud, or your ever fickle Bible? When did the Hebrews write of Zionism??? THEY DID’NT!! At least Palestinians are a legitimate Semite. Zionist pups like you are a disgrace to all Jews and Judaism….period!

  • carpe diem 36

    By using such an ugly expression the person uttering that not only brings shame on himself but of his boss as well. To resort to name calling fits five year olds not people representing our nation. This low grade behavior will bring nothing but shame to all of us for having someone like that representing us in the eyes of the world while doing absolutely nothing to harm Mr. Netanyahu, who remains a brave, intelligent, competent, articulate leader of a very small, brave, intelligent and magnificent little country.

  • carpe diem 36

    zjiddelach. I love this word. Describes them to a T.

  • Dxates

    Netanyahu is a terrorist, and those standing behind this fraud are themselves culpable of being frauds. There is nothing remotely Jewish in the Knesset and certainly not in the Zionist rhetoric that is dragging Israel into the abyss. It is about time the real Americans spoke up and called Netanyahu what he has always been…a complete imbecile and stain upon Judaism.

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

    If you ask me, I don’t think that this rift has anything to do with the Palestinians…which might actually be worse. Abbas and Hamas are merely “observers” insofar as this crisis is concerned. If you do a quick search on Israel and Russia, you will see that Russia and Israel have grown closer together this year, and the USA has thus begun to reconsider what heretofore had been a special relationship with Israel…and this was the upshot. I see a Moscow angle to this.

  • sydchaden

    Islam is the religion of love, and Netanyahu is chickenshit. What is so hard to understand? The 87% of American Jews who voted for Obama voted for a nuclear Iran and against the survival of Israel. They may not have understood that, at the time, but, it should be clear, now.

    • Earthling

      Listen gramps, you are entitled to make up your own opinions but not your own facts. 78% of American Jewish votes went for Obama in 2008; in 2012, it was 69%. Now go eat your Wheaties and some Geritol.

  • Dxates

    There is no anti-Semitism in the Obama Administration. How could being critical of Israeli government whose prime make-up is of illegal Zionist squatters be considered anti-Semitism? There is not any Semites in the illegal squatter parties that have basically delegitimized the Knesset itself . Zionism is not Judaism, nor does Zionism have any moral, or spiritual relation to Judaism in any holy context or scripture, but it seems many people like yourself are deluded to believe otherwise.

    • Gee

      Alright you racist moron go back to your mother’s basement and shut the f*ck up.

      We really don’t need you to lecture us how total f*cking stupid and racist you are – we got it already

      • Dxates

        Someone needs to drag pond scum like you around with a leash, otherwise all you are worth is a gun to the head…You sir are the definition of worthless…Cheers!

  • http://www.MARVINFOX.com/ Marvin E. Fox

    The Obama Administration’s talk of the solidity of American-Jewish relations strengthens another niche in the hogwash about ‘the most transparent administration in American history.’ Nearly everything we find out about the Obamians is when Obama or one of his staff screws up and breaks Obama’s translucent bond by going public with what the Administration is actually about.
    These frequent lapses into truth helps the American people to understand the various hidden faces in Obama’s actions. It also tells us we have just learned something our own government is doing that it didn’t want us to know.
    Therin lies the rub! We American citizens are attempting to go one direction. Obama and the Democratic Party is going in an entirely different direction. We discover Obama and the Democratic Party’s general direction because of a bureaucratic accident that allows a quick burst of knowledge out of the Obama bureaucratic closet. The illumination is important, but we still don’t know what our government is doing. We only know it is headed in the wrong direction, and we don’t like it. We need America’s Constitutional government. That’s a change I can believe in!
    Marvin Fox

  • KlugerRD

    What Jeffrey Goldberg fails to understand is that Israel fully supports Netanyahu and his administration while Obama enjoys very little support here. The odd man out here is Obama.

    Obama’s policies have directly resulted in the complete destabilization of the Middle East and the exponential rise of radical Islam. Under Obama Israel went from relative calm to where they are now.

    Obama is also ignorant of history. The last time a U.S. President literally forced Israel to make extraordinary concessions to Fatah was Clinton and it resulted in Arafat rejecting them and the Second Intafada in Israel. This time you now have Hamas and the results could be worse.

    Obama is not the man Netanyahu is and it bothers Obama.

    And I hope Goldberg is proud that he is the primary tool for the most anti-Israel President in history..

  • JayWye

    “The Obama Doctrine can be described in just nine words: Embolden our enemies, undermine our friends, diminish our country.” Frank J. Gaffney Jr.

    Comrade Obama IS the muslim Manchurian Candidate.

  • Troy Bassett

    The Obama Administration is a disgrace, but the illegal settler issue is far worse. Israel under Netanyahu has become isolated with its legitimacy now questioned more than ever. Israel would be wise to uproot all of the settler party’s in the Knesset and ship them, and their followers back to Europe. If not it is only a matter of time before the US revokes its veto, and throws Israel into the dustbin of history.

    • JayWye

      there’s nothing “illegal” about Israel’s settlements. the West Bank was NEVER assigned by the UN to anybody,it was actually supposed to be part of Israel.(the river being a natural boundary) But Jordan SEIZED the West Bank in the 48 War.same for Egypt and Gaza,another ILLEGAL seizure. And no “Palestinians” existed until 1967.Before that,they were just Arabs of the various nations.

      BTW,the Arabs REFUSED a two-state solution back in 1947.
      then Arafat refused it again after the Oslo Accords,and instigated his Intifada.

      • Troy Bassett

        The settlements are squatter dwellings that harbor terrorism against the actual, and rightful owners of Palestine. All of your hubris is just that. No facts, just a bunch of bunk. In 1979 and 1980, numerous UN Security council resolutions, including 446, 452, 465, 471 and 476, considered the settlements as having “no legal validity” under the Fourth Geneva Convention. In 2004, an advisory opinion by the primary judicial organ of the UN, the International Court of Justice, also found the settlements to be illegal under international law. Furthermore all of the religiosity practiced by Ashkenazi European Zionists is made up fantasy. They have no ties to the Hebrews, and no ties to the land of Palestine. Palestinians have been in Palestine for well over three thousand years. Zionists on the other hand with their “dreamed up” ideology by atheist Theodor Herzl have been around for about 100 paltry years. Do get a grip on reality…

  • http://batman-news.com Kuffar

    Let us count the ways: Why Barry hates Bibi –
    Muslims are natural anti-semites
    Bibi stands in the way of Barry’s legacy. A two state solution that will ultimately lead to Israels demise.
    God’s chosen will always be hated by those in league with evil
    Bibi blocks promises he made to the Muzzies.
    Bibi won’t grovel at his feet.
    Finally there are too many to mention but, those people who are truly great, like Bibi, are ultimately hated by those who pretend to be great.