Sunday, February 22, 2015

Why is Obama so Afraid of Benjamin Netanyahu?

Michael L.

{Cross-posted at Jews Down Under.}

obama screamBarack Obama seems terrified of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu received an invitation to speak before Congress concerning the Iranian threat from Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner, and he accepted.

The problem is that Obama suspects that Netanyahu will stress the idea that Iran should not be allowed to achieve nuclear break-out capacity, while Barack Obama seems to think that Iran should be left alone to achieve that capacity, while he seeks to normalize and legitimize American relations with Islamists.

Barack Obama is terrified that Americans might agree with Netanyahu's commonsensical notion that the West should not allow a hostile Islamic theocracy, that has regularly threatened both Israel and the United States with death, to enrich uranium for the purpose of making a bomb.

Obama, needless to say, has reminded us that the Ayatollahs claim no interest in constructing nuclear weaponry.  And while Obama may be a deeply trusting and kind-hearted soul, those of us with an inclination toward self-defense may be a tad more skeptical.

Thus, in order to prevent Netanyahu from speaking, or to undermine his credibility with both Congress and the American public, Obama has ordered his people away from the speech and is encouraging anyone who will listen to do likewise.

Obama has such a disregard for the American Jewish community - despite (or, perhaps, because of) their servant-like devotion - that reports are now emerging that Obama intends to snub AIPAC.

The Jerusalem Post tells us:
Michael Oren addressed on Saturday media reports that the White House may boycott the upcoming AIPAC conference in an attempt to undermine Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Congress address, calling AIPAC a "strategic asset" to the State of Israel whose status "must not be harmed." 
"Should the American government choose to boycott AIPAC," Oren said, "it will essentially choose to boycott its strategic alliance with Israel."
Barack Obama is so petrified of Benjamin Netanyahu that he is even willing to throw Jewish support in the trash merely to undercut the ability of the Prime Minister to communicate with the American public.

All this gibberish concerning "protocol" is merely the lame excuse the administration is giving in order to justify the snub.  Just what justification the administration will give for snubbing AIPAC has yet to be seen, but whatever the justification, if Obama wanted to attend AIPAC he would.  If he wanted to send senior administration officials, he would do that.

And if he wants the Democratic Party to send a clear message to its Jewish constituency that neither the administration, nor the party, are to be trusted by the Jewish people, then he will do that and that is precisely what he is doing.

Year by year, Barack Obama has shown himself to be a much better friend to political Islam (Islamism) then he is to the American Jewish community, or Jewish people more broadly.

Barack Obama and his people demean and insult the Prime Minister of Israel, even going so far as to anonymously call him "chickenshit" in what has to be one of the least professional examples diplomatic hostility and malfeasance in recent U.S. history.

The reason that Obama dislikes Netanyahu has very little to do with Netanyahu, himself.  This president would not like any Jewish Israeli leader that believes in Israeli self-defense, because no Jewish Israeli leader - left, right, or center - would favor a deal that leaves Iran with nuclear break-out capacity.

All Obama hopes to do is kick the can down the road so that when he leaves office Iran will not yet have the bomb.  The fact that he will leave them with the capacity to get the bomb shortly thereafter seems not the least bit troubling to this president.

Fortunately, it is troubling to Benjamin Netanyahu and whether Obama likes it or not - and he emphatically does not - Netanyahu is going to tell the world that allowing for a nuclear Iran is both irresponsible and criminally insane.

If Obama was hoping to keep Democratic Congresspeople away from Netanyahu's speech, he seems to have failed.   Less than two dozen of 188 Democratic representatives have agreed to stay away from Netanyahu's speech and that means that the great majority of Congress will be in the gallery listening to every word.

One has to wonder how it is that Barack Obama, a man who was once president of the Harvard Law Review, could be so afraid of spreading the idea that Iran should not be allowed to gain nuclear weaponry?  That is pretty much all Netanyahu is likely to say, after all.  Nothing that the man is likely to say to Congress will be earth-shattering or new.

If I am right - and I suspect that I am - all we are going to hear from Netanyahu are reasons why a nuclear-armed Iran is a terrible idea, not the least which reason is that it will lead to Middle Eastern arms race with Egypt and Saudi Arabia, not to mention Turkey and perhaps even Jordan, scrambling to gain their own nuclear weapons.

Obama is manufacturing hatred toward both Benjamin Netanyahu and the Jewish State of Israel, and thereby Jews more generally, merely because Netanyahu is going to plea to the American people to support Israel in preventing Iranian nuclear break-out capacity.

If Obama believes otherwise, he should allow Netanyahu to speak and then clearly tell the American public just how it is the Netanyahu is mistaken.

If the president of the United States cannot even bring himself to refute such an argument, then how can we possibly trust him to refute Iranian nuclear potential?

Finally, for Barack Obama to snub Netanyahu on the grounds that meeting so close to the Israeli election would amount to interfering with that election is the very height of hypocrisy.  Everyone who follows Israel knows that the Obama administration has sent a team into Israel for the purpose of unseating the despised Netanyahu in favor of a US puppet like Herzog or Livni.

Obama likes his Jews soft and malleable.

6 comments:

  1. Agreed.

    Note that the most vocal advocates may cause discomfort but have little support overall.

    The American people are not with Obama here and question his policies. He has shown a penchant for dishonesty.

    Does he see his legacy as so important that he will make a deal no matter what? It is good to hear both sides, but that is not how Obama likes it. Agree or else he will make you into someone who is bad before you can even speak.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Lee Smith at Tablet addresses this matter: The White House Freak-Out

    http://tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/189040/the-white-house-freak-out

    ReplyDelete
  3. "Does he see his legacy as so important that he will make a deal no matter what?"

    Yes, I think that's exactly right. It's about him!

    Obama's view of America is that its power on the global stage is the problem. Anything that reduces that power and 'spreads' power more equally, is seen as creating a better and 'fairer' world. If you believe America has caused the problems of the world - America must be curbed. If all cultures are equally good, why does America deserve to have nuclear weapons but not Iran?
    ( Why does Israel 'deserve' nuclear weapons, but not Iran?) If you believe all cultures are equal, why would it be anymore dangerous for the Iranian regime to have nuclear weapons than for America to have them? Or Britain? After all, it is only America that has ever used them.
    This sort of cultural relativism is fuelled by an extraordinary naïveté. The likely outcomes of Iran being a nuclear power are terrifying. And will almost certainly lead to every other major actor in the region also gaining nuclear capability. It's inconceivable that Obama doesn't realise that ( well one would hope so). One can only assume he welcomes it. It will be 'fairer'. ( And who is America to judge other cultures and find them failing?).

    As far as Obama throwing the American Jewish community under the bus, and showing this kind of contempt for them- and snubbing AIPAC - what percentage of them will actually not vote Democrat at the next election? Even with such displays of petulance and playground style humiliations- is there any danger of the Democratic party losing Jewish votes? Doubt it.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Obama has gone all in with the Muslim Brotherhood and some of the more odious Arab Muslim states and of course Iran. His concern, like most of the rest of the Muslim world is that he can't be seen treating the Jews or Israel as a 'normal' country. It must be suppressed, disparaged and hated no matter what. I wouldn't shocked if he has staffers scouring the White House to ensure no Israeli products of any kind are on the premises. Obama has, in all but name, ended relations with Israel. Much like in Turkey where the official position is that Israel must be exterminated and yet commercial trade continues, Obama has taken that approach as well. Officially Israel should not exist, and yet lower level relationships persist. Even to the point of silliness. For example the IAF announced it had agreed to purchase more F-35's for a total of 33. With an option to buy 17 more. This follows on the announcement that the F-35 wing assembly plant has begun operations in Israel cojointly with a $690 million contract with Raytheon for systems integration between Elbit systems and the native airframes. Israel also reached an agreement with the DoD that the planes no longer have to be maintained and serviced in the US. This had been a standing requirement driven by the computer subsystems which could only be accessed in the US by prime contractors.

    ReplyDelete