Obama throws Israel under the Bus

[sirs]

Observing now how this country, and once the strongest allie of Israel is now dictating that Israel return land used to defend itself from Arab aggression, should we not provide the appropriate example by giving California back to Mexico?  Perhaps Louisiana back to France?

[BT]

It will be interesting to see how this all plays out.

[sirs]

I predict:

That Israel will NOT bend at the demands being made upon them, to give up lands taken in DEFENSE of their country and existance

Hamas will fire far more rockets, with Iran/Syria/Hezbollah/Hamas attempting far more Homicide Bombers to be sent into Israel

Israel will RETALIATE

Wash, Rinse, Repeat

[Christians4LessGvt]

SIRS....I sware I cant tell you how often in the last two years I have thought
other countries leaders are looking out for our interests more than the jackass
that now sits in the oval office.

[sirs]

Starting to make Carter look.....regal, in comparison   

[BT]

I think the final deal is already set. Be interesting to see what Hollywood has to say. If they don't go ballistic, my guess is that Israel will keep the most important land gains from 67 and in the spirit of peace give back the rest.

[sirs]

With all due respect, the most important land gains are precisely the areas Israel took in defending themselves...in particular the Golan Heights

[BT]

The Golan Heights deal with Syria, what does that have to do with lands to the West?

[BSB]

My prediction is that it no longer matters what the United States says regarding the Israeli Palestinian conflict. Which is fine with me. We've given Israel more than enough in weapons and financial assistance to get the job done 20 times over. And, they show about as much gradutude as a polecat. They should have solved this years ago.  Fuck 'em, times up. 


BSB

[Christians4LessGvt]

[Christians4LessGvt]

Here's what I am talking about SIRS....
The Saudi's comprehend the Iranian threat while Obozo sells us down the river!
Thanks King Abdullah for telling Obama...to go to hell!

Gulf Sunni Royalist Bloc Expands

Saudis to US: No More Oil Trade for US Security Shield


Saudi King Abdullah

Saudi King Abdullah landed a surprise on the Gulf Cooperation Council summit convened in Riyadh Tuesday, May 10: He proposed inviting two Arab monarchs, Morocco's King Mohammed V and Jordan's King Abdullah II to join the GCC with full membership privileges. Neither kingdom is situated in the Persian Gulf geographic region which is represented by the GCC; nor do they have oil or gas and their economies are weak and dependent on American aid. Morocco and Jordan are furthermore not in Iran's cross-hairs, the threat of which is uppermost in the minds of Gulf rulers (along with the crisis in Yemen) Nonetheless both sides stand to gain from the partnership.

Although they have not yet officially answered the invitation, Gulf sources do not doubt it will be taken up willingly by the monarchs of Rabat and Amman. Their entry into the Gulf alliance would bring their armies into the mutual defense system known as Gulf Shield. It would qualify them for a military role in the ongoing Saudi-led GCC operation for propping up the Bahraini throne but, as full members, they would also enjoy the benefits of the Gulf's common market and be able to trim down their dependence on American economic and military aid.

GCC seeks extra leverage to fight Obama's Muslim vision

The affluent and powerful Arab Gulf grouping, for its part, would gain extra leverage for pursuing its main goals. Attaching Jordan and Morocco would downgrade the Egyptian-dominated Arab League and bypass its decisions which must be unanimous to be binding.

The expanded GCC would also be divorced from post-Mubarak Egyptian influence.
Saudi Arabia, one of the Arab League's seven founding members in 1945, is now bent on expanding the Sunni Arab royalist alignment to replace the League as the most powerful inter-Arab vehicle for challenging the two emergent Muslim forces seeking Middle East domination.

One is the mixed Shiite-Sunni grouping of radicals - Iran, Syria, the Lebanese Hizballah and the Palestinian Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Damascus-based extremists.

The second is the Sunni bloc President Barack Obama and Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan are in the process of creating.
The US president conceives this alignment as America's Muslim bridge to the moderate Sunni Muslims at large as well as reaching out to Shiite Iran for the sake of tempering its radical polices at the end of the road.

The special US-Saudi relations are history

Because of this plan, King Abdullah embarked on the phased separation of the kingdom's foreign and security policies from the US, starting with his acrimonious telephone conversation with Obama which took place on Feb. 9 when he was recuperating from back surgery in Morocco.

Since then, the Saudi king has made no bones about letting the US president know that, for him, the oil-for-security formula which governed relations between the world?s leading superpower and its biggest oil superpower for 60 years is history.
This means in practice that Saudi Arabia no longer depends on an American defense umbrella for its security and America can no longer rely on Riyadh "to regulate its oil supply policy and therefore its financial activities on world markets" for meeting US political, military and economic interests.

Obama initially sent two senior officials to Riyadh - US Defense Secretary Robert Gates on April 6 and by US National Security Adviser Tom Donilon on April 12 - to try and bring the Saudis back into the fold. Abdullah was not to be talked around.
Riyadh's policy reorientation is now anchored in six major changes, outlined here:

Under Saudi consensus, intelligence functions redistributed

1. The king has created the Saudi version of a unity government by pulling together the three main royal factions on the basis of a consensus. Abdullah's own faction and the two headed by Saudi Foreign Minister Saud bin Faisal, and Saudi Interior Minister and designated crown prince, the Sudairi Prince Nayef, all agree that the kingdom has come to a parting of the ways in its historic alliance with the United States. Saudi Arabia is strong enough and rich enough to look after its security and interests without America and is at liberty to turn to other world powers for help, such as China and Russia.
2. The functions of Saudi intelligence have been rearranged to reflect the new coalition: Up until now, Prince Muqrin bin Abdulaziz ruled supreme over Saudi intelligence agencies. In recent weeks, some of his functions were transferred to the National Security Council Director, the Sudairi Prince Bandar bin Sultan.
Intelligence sources describe the division of labor as follows:
Muqrin deals with the intelligence matters relating to Iran, Iraq, Persian Gulf states and outside the Middle East in such areas as Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Bandar is in charge of intelligence and undercover operations in the Arab countries which are in the throes of popular uprisings. Formerly a long-serving Saudi ambassador to Washington, he has also been taxed with dealing with issues arising from the dismantling of the working alliance between the United States and Saudi Arabia.
The decision by Riyadh to shop for ballistic missiles in China instead of America fell within his remit along with the negotiations for concluding the transaction.

Bandar leads Saudi operations against Assad and US Muslim policies

Bandar is running Saudi intervention against Assad in the Syrian popular uprising. When he needed the help of Saudi clandestine networks in Iraq for his Syrian project, he turned to Muqrin and they worked it out together.
In another facet of the division of labor, Bandar handles Saudi day-to-day activities for spiking America's Middle East policies, whereas Muqrin is in charge of the high-level policy interchanges between the Saudi and US intelligence services.
3. For Riyadh, there is no contradiction between the two functions: King Abdullah does not seek to sever all Saudi ties with the US. Indeed, however it may look, Riyadh attaches great importance to those ties, such as they are, provided only that they do not amount to a special relationship in the old format.
4. Neither is Saudi Arabia cutting its economy off from the US dollar although this is advocated by many in Riyadh and the Gulf emirates.
5. However, they part company on at least one fundamental issue: The Saudis and their GCC allies are single-minded about their determination to fight Iran's Islamic regime tooth and nail wherever its footprint is encountered in any Persian Gulf, Middle East or Arab countryeven if this drive brings them into collision with Washington and sabotages President Obama's policy objectives.
6. The Saudi leadership does not trust Barack Obama's approach to Iran, the Arab Revolt, or the Muslim world.

Obama denounces military intervention in Bahrain

To make this point clear to the American public ahead of President Obama's speech Thursday, a prominent Saudi academic close to the royal circle published an article in the Washington Post laying out Riyadh's current posture. The writer was Nawaf Obaid, senior fellow at the King Faisal Center for Research & Islamic Studies, an institute headed by Prince Turki Al-Faisal.
Turki is a former Saudi intelligence director and ambassador to the US and Britain. Today, he is a key member of the new Saudi governing coalition and has the king's ear.

In Washington, sources report, the penny finally dropped: Riyadh wanted no part of the Obama administration's strategies for Iran and the Arab Revolt and the special bonds between Washington and Riyadh were no more.
Obaid used plain language to make sure the American public got the message:
His article opened with the words, "A tectonic shift has occurred in the US-Saudi relationship. Despite significant pressure from the Obama administration" and ended by saying: "Saudi Arabia has the will and the means to meet its expanded global responsibilities". In some issues, such as counterterrorism and efforts to fight money laundering, the Saudis will continue to be a strong US partner. In areas in which Saudi national security or strategic interests are at stake, the kingdom will pursue its own agenda.

"With Iran working tirelessly to dominate the region, the Muslim Brotherhood rising in Egypt and unrest on nearly every border, there is simply too much at stake for the kingdom to rely on a security policy written in Washington, which has backfired more often than not and spread instability. The special relationship may never be the same.
And indeed, in his speech Thursday, May 19, Obama did not mention Saudi Arabia but condemned its "repressive military action" in Bahrain. This was the first time a US President has ever denounced a Saudi military operation.
Since the beginning of the year, there has been a widening rift between Saudi Arabia and the United States. Word has now come virtually from the horse's mouth.

[Xavier_Onassis]

I agree entirely with BSB. Israel should cease in its land grabs in the West Bank and start behaving in concordance with the UN Charter. Settlements must be moved, Palestine must be given territorial integrity.

This is in keeping with UN Resolution 242. Time to read Netanyahu the Riot Act.

[Plane]

  It is hard to talk anyone into suicide.

Isreal's citizens mostly do think that if they become vunerable they will be attacked .

Are they wrong about this? The 1967 borders were not much good at makeing anyone happy in 1967.

[Christians4LessGvt]

Rabbi: "The President of the United States is Asking for Ethnic Cleansing"

Thursday, May 19, 2011
By Fred Lucas

(CNSNews.com) President Barack Obama has made an unprecedented demand on Israel, Jewish leaders said today after the president called for Israel to redraw its borders to where they were in 1967 before the Six Day War. One rabbi said Obama was, in essence, asking for "ethnic cleansing" of thousands of Jewish families.

"It's immoral in that basically the president of the United States is asking that 500,000 people who live, work, and raise families around Jerusalem, Jewish families,? that they be uprooted, resettled, deported from their homes, have their families broken," Rabbi Aryeh Spero, founder of Caucus for America, told CNSNews.com.

"The president of the United States is asking for ethnic cleansing," said Rabbi Spero.  "It's ironic that the president, who speaks in humanitarian tones regarding the Palestinians, doesn't have any humanitarian concerns toward 500,000 Jewish people and families that will be uprooted and deported from their homes."

Obama made the demand on Israel during a speech on the Middle East, delivered at the State Department on Thursday, as a way to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But Spero believes Obama was not being honest.

"Every time Israel relinquishes land on the altar of peace, it gets not peace but rockets," Spero said. "This has been played over and over by the Palestinian Authority, then with Yasser Arafat, with Hamas. He knows what will happen with the Israelis, and yet it doesn't seem to bother him."

"I'm just very disappointed that my president seems to be so indifferent to the plight of the Jewish people in Israel," he said.

Though Israel has given up land to Palestinians in the past because of pressure from the United States, no U.S. president has asked this much, said Rabbi Gershon Tannenbaum, director of the Rabbinical Alliance of America.

"It's par for the course, but not to this extent," Tannenbaum told CNSNews.com. "In other words, other presidents have also pressured Israel with the hope of achieving some kind of peace. But considering the history and considering facts on the ground, no president has been as severe as President Obama."

However, Tannenbaum thinks the proposal is a non-starter primarily because the borders have never been the issue.

"The suggestion is going to die, this is not going to work," he said. "It won't go anywhere. If you notice, there was an attack on all the borders of the state of Israel. There was an attack on the 1967 borders. The problem with Israel for the Palestinians is the very existence of the state of Israel -- not its borders -- but that it exists at all. They will not rest until there is no Israel."

But Spero is not so sure the proposal will just go away, even without support from Congress.

"While he [Obama] can't force the Jewish people out of their lands, he can certainly pressure Israel to the point where it finds itself in a very insecure state of affairs," said Rabbi Spero. "He could without certain military weapons and parts that are needed for Israel?s defense. So, it?s a tremendous amount of intimidation and pressure."

Israel expanded its territory after the Six Day War defeating Egypt, Jordan and Syria. Israel gained the West Bank, the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, and the Sinai Peninsula (the Sinai was returned to Egypt in a deal brokered in 1978). Since 1967, and most notably in the early 1990s, Israel gave up significant amounts of land for peace to the Palestinians. The conflict has nevertheless raged onward.

"The reason Israel today is bigger than it was in 1967 is because the Arab countries united in an attack against Israel,
Tannenbaum said. "Miraculously, Israel fought them off and won. Now Israel has returned a majority of the West Bank and Israel has returned the Gaza Strip. There still is no peace. So at this point, returning more land is counterproductive and is not the answer. And the president is wrong in his plan."

On the eve of a visit to the U.S. by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the timing of the announcement seemed calculating, said Rabbi Yehuda Levin, a spokesman for the Rabbinical Alliance of America.

"I'm not a political Zionist," said the rabbi. "I have my problems with the state of Israel and the things that they do that flies in the face of our religious traditional heritage. Nevertheless, in terms of security for human beings, one has to be totally concerned. I have many family members and extended family members and fellow Jews in Israel and I'm concerned for their safety."

"I'm just prayerful that the Congress of the United States will respond to the Jewish people and residents of Israel that the position of one human being as president does not reflect what the country feels," Levin said.

Obama recognized the negotiations would be a challenge because of the agreement between the Fatah, the leading Palestinian political party and the terrorist group Hamas, but he reaffirmed America?s relationship with Israel.

Still the speech has sparked concern and widespread coverage.

"We welcome the president's recognition of Israel's security needs and that Hamas cannot be a partner in the peace process, but a call to a return to 1967 borders as the basis for negotiations, even with "land swaps" is a non-starter, when at least half of the Palestinian rulers are committed to Israel's destruction," said Rabbis Marvin Hier and Abraham Cooper, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in a written statement. "The road to peace has been clear for a long time -- direct negotiations between parties who recognize each other's legitimacy."

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla), in a statement released after the president?s speech, said: "This proposal is a slap in the face of our friend and democracy's only ally in the Middle East: Israel. As a nation, we should support and promote freedom and democracy in the region, but we should not do so at the expense of Israel.  That land belongs to Israel period."

"Based on archeological evidence and historical right, that land belongs to Israel," said Inhofe. "As I have outlined several times before, Israel is a strategic ally to the United States that acts as a roadblock to terrorism.  Every other country in that region hates Israel and would stop at nothing for Israel?s destruction just as they would stop at nothing to see our own destruction."

"President Obama's speech today kowtows to the very forces that hate us," said the senator. "I will try to address all these issues on the Senate floor next week to refute President Obama?s message today."

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/rabbis-respond-obama-speech-ethnic-clean

[Xavier_Onassis]

This is not suicide for Israel, just as the accords in Northern Ireland were not suicide for the IRA.

The Israelis have killed far more Palestinians than vice versa, anyway.

And in any case, they have had over 50 years to sort this out. It should not be a perpetual problem for people in this country to pay for.

The US will always be Israel's best allies, because they have no other allies at all, because they are so bloody obnoxious.