The Violence in Jerusalem - Some Snap Judgements About Causes and Enablers

In Armon Hanatziv, a few blocks from where I live, and where my Conservative synagogue is located in "occupied east Jerusalem," dozens of Palestinian Arabs have blocked one of the roads. They've stoned a municipal bus and are hurling rocks, firebombs, and firecracker clusters at the police.

Anti-Zionists and local Arabs call Armon Hanatziv a "settlement neighborhood" because it is beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines.

Of course, to the Arabs any place Jews live is a "settlement" and all Jews are "settlers."

Our "original sin" is coming back to Eretz Israel.

Interestingly, the Arabs of metro-Jerusalem and specifically those of Jabel Mukaber in southeast Jerusalem which abuts Armon Hanatziv have no compunctions about reaping the benefits of the "occupation."

The parents of the stone throwers get a stipend from the Israeli government until they are 18 – just for being born. Their families get full national health insurance.

Their neighborhoods are neglected relative to the Jewish neighborhood because the Arabs refuse to vote in municipal elections – they could if they wanted to—so they have no say over how the budget is allocated.

Fortunately for them, the current mayor especially is interested in providing service to the Arab sector and has built schools and community centers to serve the Arabs of Jerusalem. Not enough but still noteworthy.

Now, it is said that the majority of the Arabs of Jerusalem and Israel in general want to live in peace and that the violence is the work of rabble-rousers.

I'd like to believe that.

But the young rabble-rousers, and the older Jerusalem Arabs who use their autos to run over passengers waiting at light rail stations, and the Arabs like Udai & Ghassan Abu Jamal of Jabel Mukaber who enter synagogues with butchery in their hearts..

And the Arabs of the Triangle in the Galilee that have taken to rioting…

And the Arab Knesset members who incite against this country

They are creating an atmosphere of fear. Yes, I know that's what they want.

The animated cartoons now going viral in Arab social media – some in Hebrew so we get the message – that celebrate this fear and warn is that every Arab is a potential "shahid" are having their intended effect.

And that in the long run ain't good for the Arabs or for the Jews.

You would think that looking around and seeing the upheaval in Syria, and in the former Lebanon (Hezbollah-stan), in Iraq, Sinai, North Africa, Hamas-occupied Gaza, and elsewhere that the Palestinian Arabs (those who are Jerusalem residents, those who are citizens of this country, and even those in Judea and Samaria who are under our "occupation") would be counting their blessings that the Jews are their biggest worry.

But the virus that is sweeping through Ebola-like the Muslim and Arab world has infected (or, more accurately, re- infected) the Arabs of Palestine.

Arabs work side by side with Jews in Jerusalem. Arab doctors serve Jewish patients and Jewish nurses treat Arab patients.

Now, with a sick new intensity, the mobilized Arab polity is putting this modes vivendi at risk like never before.

The top story on Israel Radio's 1 pm broadcast this afternoon is about Israeli leaders led by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu denouncing a decision by the mayor of Ashkelon to bar Arab workers from construction projects inside the city's kindergartens for fear the Arab workers might want to hurt the children.

Netanyahu said there was no place for such a policy in Israel.

The mayor, Itamar Shimoni, ordered the municipality's 40 kindergartens close to construction sites where Arabs work to have armed guards.

Shimoni said his only concern is the safety of the children. Given that attacking Jewish soft targets is being encouraged in Arab media and social media, I can't say that his fears are unfounded.

Can you?

The commissioner for equal opportunity employment, Tziyona Koenig, told the mayor his steps are probably illegal and has instructed him to desist. If he doesn't he could find himself in court.

And the head of the Ashkelon Parent's Committee Avivit Simani called the policy  a "populist ploy."

Maybe it is. I don't know.

This and that cabinet minister — including the most right wing minister in the government-- have attacked the mayor for a "racist" and "immoral" and "illegal" decision.

I think we should tune in again in a month or so before judging the mayor.

If the latest installment of the 100 year Arab uprising against a Jewish presence anywhere in Palestine takes off, my hunch is more and more Arabs will find themselves out of work.

The Palestinian Arab capacity not to miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity is unblemished.

Every decision as a polity they have made in favor of belligerency and intransigence and violence has left them worse off.

It will take time, but we Israelis will figure out how to limit the damage of the latest "intifada" just like we dealt with every intifada for the past 100 years of our Long War.

Yes the world is more against us than ever.

The Europeans are treating Israel the way they treated the Jews of Europe. Israel is the "Jew" of countries.

The Europeans weep crocodile tears when Jews are slaughtered at prayer. And in the next breath ask: "But why do you build 'settlements' in Jerusalem that rile the Arabs? Why do you do such job discrimination like that Ashkelon mayor? Why do you visit the Temple Mount when you know this riles the Arabs? Why…'"

No one disputes the right of the Jews to defend themselves… in theory.

In practice, anything they do do is considered illegal under international law.

And a twisted hard-hearted international law is applied disproportionately (a word the Euros like) to the Jews of Israel.

Let me wrap up with some snap judgments about how we got to where we are: I trace the current upsurge in Arab violence in large part to the following factors:

1.   Foremost: The release by Netanyahu of 1,027 hardened terrorists in the Gilad Shalit deal of October 2011. Making this catastrophic decision even worse -- his subsequent three-part release of more Palestinian terrorists to entice Mahmoud Abbas to the negotiating table – at the behest of the Obama administration.

2.   Relentless Arab incitement – in the total absence of countervailing messages – against Israel (an Israel within any boundaries) by Muslim clergy, in PLO and Hamas-controlled media, and in Arab social media. The message is that Jews are not human. They are interlopers. Their presence in the Land of Israel is an insult to Islam.

3.   The war within Islam that is sweeping the Middle East. It is also carrying off the Palestinian Arabs.

4.   The conspiratorial mindset and tendency toward tyranny so terribly rampant in Arab politics. The latest example, an Arab bus driver (who works for the Jewish Egged company) hangs himself and the Palestinians are certain that the Jews killed him. Never mind that a group of pathologists including Palestinians signed off that it was a suicide.

5.  Exercising rights & ignoring wisdom. In the environment I just described, Jewish messianic twits bent on rebuilding the Temple Version 3.0 have been ostentatiously tripping up to the Temple Mount playing into Arab conspiracy theories.

ENDS

How to Understand What The New York Times Calls a 'Leaderless' Palestinian Arab Revolt

Two catalysts appear to be driving the latest "leaderless" Palestinian uprising against Israel. 

First, popular fears among Palestinian Arabs that Israeli authorities will permit Jews to pray on the Temple Mount or Haram al Sharif in Jerusalem's Old City. 

Second, say Israeli authorities, are relentless messages in official Palestinian media outlets supervised by Mahmoud Abbas calling for the destruction of Israel.

Add to the mix calls by senior Fatah figures (Abbas is the head of Fatah) like Marwan Barghouti for a return to "armed resistance" and the differences between Fatah and Hamas evaporate. 

Convinced Muslim shrines are in imminent danger individual Palestinians like 18-year-old Sawsan Abu Hashieh have heeded calls to defend the Muslim holy place. On Monday he stabbed and killed an off-duty soldier near a busy Tel Aviv train station. Hashieh's Facebook page showed him holding a sign that read: "We are people who love death while our enemies love life," the New York Times reported.

Some history. Israel's then defense minister Moshe Dayan ceded day-to-day oversight of the mount, where Sunni Muslims believe Muhammad ascended to heaven in 632, to Islamic religious authorities days after capturing the compound from Jordan in the 1967 war. 

In victory magnanimity and all that. 

Successive Israeli governments have maintained a policy prohibiting Jewish worship on the mount— though allowing tourists to visit— so as not to inflame Muslim sensibilities, as Shmuel Rosner explains in the Times.

The Palestinian street has taken to heart the desires of a small group of Jewish fanatics and messianics who want to construct a third temple at the site where the two temples of Bible times once stood.

The Palestinian media has played up the "threat" whipping up the street into the current violent frenzy.

Warning that Israelis would face a "devastating religious war" Abbas told a memorial rally in memory of Yasser Arafat that he will not permit the Jews to "contaminate" the mount, according to the Times. "Keep the settlers and the extremists away from al-Aksa and our holy places." He went on to say that "No one will accept that Jerusalem is the capital of anything but the state of Palestine," according to the Times of Israel.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has reiterated that he does not intend to change the status quo and accused Abbas of purposefully "inflaming" the situation, according to the New York Times.

Israeli experts maintain that steady drumbeating by Palestinian leaders and Muslim clergy that Jews are an alien presence in the Middle East helps stoke the violence, The Jerusalem Post reported. 

Arab social media is also feeding the uprising with songs and cartoons calling on Palestinians to use vehicles to "Run Over the Settler," according to the Times. Official Palestinian media inculcates the idea that all Israelis are settlers and all of Palestine is occupied.

I don't want to suggest that Netanyahu handled the increasing messianic traffic to the Mount well. 

The job of messianic fanatics is to create apocalyptic conflict. They believe God will intercede, save the Jews from the wrath of 1.6 billion Muslims allowing them to get down to animal sacrifice. 

Abbas and other Arab leaders are using the ravings of the Jewish fanatics as a pretext. By inflaming the situation they hope to get the U.S. to agree to a Security Council resolution that would give Israel a deadline for a withdrawal to the 1949 Armistice Lines.

Given that John Kerry thinks peace was at hand "and then poof" some Israeli added a toilet to his apartment in "occupied east Jerusalem" and given that a senior U.S. official close to Obama thinks Netanyahu is a chickenshit - the prospect of a U.S. betrayal of Israel at the UN can't be ruled out.

The Arabs can almost smell Washington's capitulation. They see Obama capitulating to Teheran on Iranian nuclear weapons and say: "What about us?"

Once the Palestinians force Israel back to the old armistice lines (what is euphemistically termed the 1967 boundaries) finishing Israel off will be the next step. 

What's Israel gonna do when "Palestine" in adjoining Israel by inches mortars Ben-Gurion Airport while Hamas in Gaza launches rockets and Hezbollah in Lebanon unleashes formerly Syrian missiles? 

What's Israel gonna do? Drop an atom bomb?

More likely it will come under EU and US pressure not to react disproportionately.  

This scenario is precisely what Arafat had in his diabolical mind when he spoke of the destruction of Israel is phases. It's what the 1993 Oslo Accords were supposed to have delivered (from the Arab viewpoint) before Hamas mucked things up with their suicide bombing campaign in the Yitzhak Rabin years.

  

So here we are.

Israeli authorities have been struggling to come up with an answer to the seemingly random violence which has taken six Israeli lives in the last month. 

"Someone gets up in the morning, goes out of the mosque at noon, and says, 'Today I will kill some Israelis' – no organization behind it, he doesn't have to prepare himself, he can take the knife from his kitchen," said Yaakov Amidror, an Israeli security analyst. "There is no stage where intelligence can intervene and stop it," the Times reported.

As for deterrence: The terrorists may "love" death but they don't want their families to be homeless.

Netanyahu has procrastinated -- he should have ordered the attorney general to cut through the red tape and deliver swift house demolitions for the families of the terrorists.

He should never have allowed the prisoner releases. 

Ever since the 2011 Gilad Shalit deal and the release of 1,027 terrorists with blood on their hands (are there any other kind?) the enemy has been emboldened. 

Netanyahu could have at least refused more prisoner releases intended to entice Abbas to the negotiating table. But he didn't because he was under heavy pressure from President Barack Obama.

Prisoners are released at the end of a conflict (in appropriate cases) not during it.

Back to deterrence. What to do now?

Netanyahu could reimpose the security checkpoints removed up and down Judea and Samaria to appease the EU and the Obama administration.

Netanyahu could stop payments to the Palestinian Authority. 

He could end cooperation with the PA. 

Netanyahu could forbid Palestinians from working in Israel. 

If Hamas in Gaza acts up he could genuine blockade the Strip -- not provide electricity, medicine, and building materials.

He could invite any Israeli Arab who wants to renounce their citizenship to please do so. That opens up lots of possibilities.

He could hold Jerusalem and Israeli Arab parents financially responsible for the violence their underage young people commit.

He could put some of the most troublesome Jewish fanatics under house arrest.

At that's just for starters.

The Third Intifada Myth

It's very easy to get fixated on the events of the day.

They sweep over us and overwhelm our senses. Rocks. Car terror. 

The Palestinian Arab Supreme Monitoring Committee has declared a one-day strike against the Jewish sector of Israel. No school. No shops.

These are Arab citizens of Israel we're talking about. But their leaders despise Israel no less than the Palestinian Arab leaders of Gaza and Judea and Samaria (the west bank).

The troubles in Kafr Kana (in the general vicinity of Haifa) set off the latest crisis. It began Friday into Saturday when police shot Kheir a-Din Hamdan who had attacked their cruiser van while it was on routine duty in Kafr Kana.

Hamdan tried to break the windows of the van and to stab the cops. He had a knife. It was dark. It was late. But there were Israelis to threaten and kill.

Maybe the cops could have shot him in the feet rather than in the upper part of his body since when they got out of the cruiser Hamdan began backing away. 

In response to Hamdan's demise the local Arabs rioted. Maybe because they feel Hamdan has a right to stab Jewish police. Or because, anyway, he didn't succeed..so what's the big deal?

The Arabs say that if Hamdan had been a Jew the police would have allowed him to stab them. Yeah. Right. I invite any Jew (particularlyAmerican and European) to test that theory -- if they believe it.

“The police executed Hamdan in cold blood, without having any reason," is what the leaders of the Arabs sector in Israel are saying.

Up and down Israel – including here in Jerusalem – the Arabs are rioting. They have 100 reasons to riot.  1000 reasons. 

Certainly Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah thugs have encouraged it. And Hamas has encouraged it. In fact, no Arab voice has discouraged it.

Think about that: No Arab voice has discouraged it violence.

Not all Arabs, of course are rioting. Most went to work. Most could not go to school. 

So there is an unquestionable sense of tension all over. The Arabs are mobilized and feeling frustrated: They Jews just won't go away.

"Our" "Israeli" Arabs are impacted by the militancy and irrational nuttiness sweeping the "neighborhood." 

They are susceptible to conspiracy theories even on the best of days.  

They are convinced that the Jews will rebuild their Temple and dislocate them from the Temple Mount – which is the 3^rd holiest place in Islam.

I'm glad to see more Israeli leaders and holy men including one of the Orthodox chief rabbis urging Jews not to visit the Temple mount for now. 

The status quo was that Jews could visit the Mount but not pray there because it "offends" the Arabs. 

Lately some messianic Jews craving Temple Version 3.0 want to have another go. They don't care if it inflames 1.6 billion Muslims. They hear God's voice telling them it doesn't matter.

Our messianics have little support among the general population, or among the Orthodox population, and have zero support from the Israeli authorities. 

But they hear God's voice. Or they listen to rabbis who hear it. Whatever.

But their ravings play into the hands of the Arab fanatics. I guess fanatics feed off each other.

Meanwhile, having nothing to do with the Temple Mount the Arabs in Syria, the Arabs in Iraq, the Arabs in north Africa, the Arabs in Lebanon, the Muslims just about everywhere are aggrieved and killing each other. 

In Pakistan. In Somalia. In Afghanistan.  

None of that will go away even if God forbid the Palestinian Arabs manage to get rid of Israel -- or if old ayotallah Ali Khamenei's wet dream comes true and the Jewish state is nuked...

The Muslims still will not stop the war of civilizations. The war of civilizations that manifests mostly within Islam itself.

So it is not clever for Jews to unite them against Israel by making an issue of the Temple Mount at a time when the entire Islamic civilization is already awash in fanaticism and blood-letting.

Here's the bottom line: There is no 3^rd intifada.

And truth be told there was no second or first intifada.

It's one big long intifada.

The Muslim Arabs opposed Israel's existence since the beginning of the Zionist enterprise.  Before there were "settlements" and the "occupation."

It's just one long continuing intifada with interruptions for Hudnas and double-dealings and tactical arrangements like Oslo in 1993.

Islam in its 21^st century incarnation is not a civilization that believes in getting along with other civilizations; in live and let live.

Whatever the particular issue or crisis or cause of any given day — the fundamental problem for the Muslim Arabs is that they reject the idea of sharing any part of the vast Middle East with non-Muslims. 

And, increasingly, they are unwilling to share any part of Europe with non Muslims either. Hence the plot against the Queen in Londonstan.

How to Unite a Divided Arab & Muslim World

Say you looked around the Arab and Muslim world and saw a civilization at war with itself.

Sunnis killing Shi'ites.

Persians at loggerheads with Turks who are at loggerheads with Arabs.

Say you saw the Palestinian Arabs divided as usual – Hamas against Fatah; the West Bank against Gaza.

Egypt against Hamas.

Say that Muslims and Arabs – while paying lip service to their hatred of Jews and Israel were just too busy to act on it in any concerted manner.

Now, what can you do to unite the Muslims and Arabs – to get them to put their differences momentarily aside?

Simple. Make them think the Jews are about to oust them from the Temple Mount.

Start by having more and more prominent Jewish personalities visit the Mount.

Have Knesset members insist Jews ought to pray on the Mount.

In short, send a clear message that Jews are making a move to change what is admittedly an unfair "status quo" in which Jews don't assert their rights to the shrine.

Well, that's just what messianic Jews of an apocalyptic bent are doing.

They are uniting a fragmented Muslim world and a divided Arab polity.

And since there are no shortage of Arab fanatics – the behavior of the Jewish messianics hardly needs to be distorted by much in the Arab media and on Arab social media to elicit "lone wolf" terror attacks.

That's exactly what's been happening.

Doesn't saving a Jewish life mean anything?

When you know your actions will cause Jews to die -- not just in Israel but perhaps in the Diaspora -- shouldn't that make you think twice about asserting Jewish rights to the Temple Mount just now – what the Middle East is already burning.

For myself, I am not hankering after Temple III and for animal sacrifices.

But even for those who are – howabout waiting a bit. Now is not the time to go up to the Temple Mount.

It's not clever. In fact, it's downright reckless.  

Obama Plans to Circumvent Congress on a Bad-for-Israel Iran Nuke Deal

President Barack Obama will not seek Congressional approval for any deal his negotiator Wendy Sherman might reach with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Teheran's nuclear weapons program,  The New York Times reported.

The U.S. is negotiating with Iran as part of the P5+1 talks— the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain, and Germany— in Vienna that are scheduled to conclude on Nov. 24.

A spokesman for EU foreign minister Catherine Ashton-- who is not known for her Zionist sympathies -- said the talks had reached a critical point. 

On Sunday, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that a prospective agreement might leave Iran with the capacity to build nuclear weapons on short notice. "This is a threat to the entire world, and first and foremost to us. This threat is far more serious than that posed by the Islamic State,"  Haaretz reported.

The anti-Netanyahu tabloid Yediot Aharanot claimed there was no basis to Netanyahu's concerns. That's because no one at Yediot read the Times story and because their dislike for the mercurial Netanyahu clouds their ability to report the news. 

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has insisted that Iran must expand its nuclear enrichment program.

Any Iran deal would likely involve the gradual lifting of sanctions. Obama can do this without congressional approval. "We wouldn't seek congressional legislation in any comprehensive agreement for years," a senior official told the Times.

Sherman has been briefing key congressional committees on the talks, the Times reported.

New Jersey Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said that "If a potential deal does not substantially and effectively dismantle Iran's illicit nuclear weapons program, I expect Congress will respond. An agreement cannot allow Iran to be a threshold nuclear state," the Times reported.

If no agreement is reached by Nov. 24, Menendez has proposed tightening sanctions on Iran.

"Congress will not permit the president to unilaterally unravel Iran sanctions that passed the Senate in a 99 to 0 vote," in 2010 said Republican Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois, the Times reported.

The president's goal "between now and 2017" is to avoid having to bomb Iran or having Teheran announce that it has an atomic bomb, said Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The talks are expected to be extended should no agreement be reached, according to the Times.

I've been saying for years that the U.S. would not take out Iran's nuclear facilities. A large part of the reason is that Washington exhausted itself in Iraq. A war with Iran is not something American public opinion would tolerate. 

Obama's tenure has been a disaster for Israel though on Iran -- given the mess George W. Bush left in the Middle East -- I doubt a Romney presidency would have been any different.  

The British Street

The British Ambassador to Israel Matthew Gould has just been on Army Radio to say that yesterday's vote in the British Parliament was a reflection of the mood on the British Street and that Israelis should be worried.

The vote – a nonbinding resolution to give diplomatic recognition to a Palestinian state – was a lopsided Ayes 274, Noes 12 ... which suggests the Parliament is becoming more like the UN General Assembly.

An automatic anti-Zionist majority.

Israel's "friends" in Parliament and its enemies voted together. The friends are "tired" of defending us against popular opinion.

"The conflict in Gaza over the summer, the announcement on settlements since the summer, have had a big impact. And I think that this parliamentary vote is a sign of the way that the wind is blowing in public opinion," said Gould.

Reading between the lines, Gould is saying that if Israel were to permit Hamas in Gaza to bombard its territory with impunity and not attempt to deter such behavior, Israel could begin to win back the British Street.

Somehow, I doubt it.

Of course, Israel would still have to pull back to the 1949 Armistice Lines because "settlements" in Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria are another reason why we've lost the British Street.

The Palestinian Arabs would then establish a Muslim state in the West Bank. 

How much longer afterwards it would still be comfortable to live in a truncated Israel is something we'd soon discover.

When would mortars let alone rockets make air travel from our only airport all but impossible?

For if the events in Syria/Iraq -- the ISIS advance on Baghdad -- prove anything it is that territory and strategic depth not airpower or nuclear weapons is what matters on the ground.

Would Palestine be controlled by Fatah? By Hamas? By a Palestinian offshoot of al-Qaida or ISIS?

That's of no particular concern to the British Street.

They'll be some MP's who will claim their vote is for Israel's own good and others who well know what they are doing will only bolster the Arab side.

The Arabs are engaged in a zero sum game. 

All of them. All of them that matter.

The British Street – including its 2-3 million Muslims – are fine with the Palestinian Arabs getting their way without having to make concessions at the negotiating table.  Without having to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

It is so convenient to buy into the mantra that the settlements are the problem. 

So lazy to blame Palestinian violence, intransigence, and victimization on Israel.

So easy for "friends" to say they've lost patience with the Jewish state.

What amazes is that there are 12 MPs who – for whatever the reason –  some perhaps even out of principle – did not jump on the anti-Israel or "save-Israel-from-itself" bandwagon.

Demographics and Good News as Israel & the Jewish People Head into the Jewish High Holidays

So here is the good news for the Jewish New Year 5775.

The population of Israel stands at 8,904, 373

The Jewish population is around 6,135,000

176, 230 babies were born since last Rosh Hashana

Some 24,801 people came to live in Israel

75,848 couples got married

The most popular boy's name was Yosef (probably in memory of Ovadya Yosef)

Next comes Daniel, Uri, Etai, and Omer

For girls the most popular name is Tamar, followed by Noa, Shira, and Edel

Wishing all my readers and Twitter followers a year of health, creativity, and peace.

א גוט געבענטשט יאָר

Barack Obama as Sal Tessio and Just as Unconvincing

Sal Tessio: [to Hagen] Tell Mike it was only business. I always liked him.

Tom Hagen: He understands that. 

As regular followers of this blog know I have never been one to single out President Barack Obama for opprobrium.

I've said that Israeli governments have had profound differences with all previous U.S. administrations and that we should not make a big deal about the troubled Netanyahu-Obama relationship.

Who can forget the set-up photo in the White House cabinet room of president Ronald Reagan glaring (if looks could kill) at the diminutive Yitzhak Shamir, foreign minister at the time, on one of his visits to the White House.

Now, though, I am beginning to be swayed to the view that Obama is giving Jimmy Carter a good run for level of presidential antipathy toward the Zionist enterprise.

Today's Wall Street Journal – heavily and sympathetically sourced to unnamed White House officials – carries a long piece – a bill of particulars – explaining why Obama has lost patience with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

The writer wants it known that U.S.-Israel relations are at their lowest point since Obama took office.

Who can quantify low?

Of course, Obama torpedoed the relationship from Day 1 (with an ignoble assist from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton) by pushing for a "settlement freeze" and forcing Mahmoud Abbas to do so also.

Obama made it impossible to Abbas to even speak to Netanyahu without a settlement freeze in the West Bank and Jerusalem.

Talk about a non starter.

That amateurish stunt essentially sabotaged the status quo and made things worse. Much worse. It raised Palestinian expectations. 

Later, Obama gave a speech in Cairo in which he got just about everything about the Arab world wrong. To top it off, he clumsily justified Israel's existence on the basis of the Holocaust. As if the Jewish connection to Eretz Israel dated back to World War II and no earlier.

He went on to mishandle the Arab Spring.

He fumbled the Egypt crisis. Libya. The Iraq pullout (pullout good - way he did it bad).

It's a long list. 

Fast forward to today.

Obama has now instructed that future Israeli requests for weaponry including ammunition be approved by him at the White House.

The implication is clear.

The president was reportedly taken aback to learn that the Pentagon had routinely authorized Jerusalem to tap into a pre-positioned weapons stockpile in the Jewish state. Like he didn't know we were fighting Iran's proxy, Hamas and needed those supplies.

The re-op undercut White House and State Department efforts to pressure Israel into halting its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza.

In other words, before anyone in Israel, me included, complains that Netanyahu is not crushing Hamas – let's understand that the president of the US is working to save Hamas. Just like Reagan saved Arafat and the PLO in the 1982 Lebanon War.

And bank this:  U.S. guarantees and international  guarantees are only as good as the occupant in the White House. Only as good as that day's goodwill. 

Israeli restraint but good will. Israeli withdrawals - like from Gaza buys goodwill. And this goodwill has the shelf life of a container of fresh milk left out I the Middle East sun.

At least Reagan's heart was in the right place, or so say his supporters, and he was overwhelmed by Caspar Weinberger ("Why won't anyone believe me that I am Episcopalian -- my grandparents converted! I can prove it") and Reagan dumped the pro-Israel Al Haig for two-faced George Shultz.

So Reagan gets a pass from some.

Me thinks, Obama's dislike for things Israeli is of a different order altogether.

The president considers Netanyahu to be reckless and not to be trusted. 

Now, let's face it – our premier is a political chameleon and a backstabber – just like most politicians. So I am not suggesting there is no merit in the claim.

But Obama is angry at him for substantive reasons not because Bibi is, well, Bibi. He's angry about Bibi's principles - principles shared by most Israelis when it comes to Hamas, the Pakestinian Muslim Brothethood.

Israeli officials characterize the president and his team as naïve, the newspaper said.

That's putting it politely.

And it is not far from what most Americans think -- and I mean those who try to think well of Obama.

But is Obama only naïve or is there some kind of visceral refusal to "get" Israel. Even as a candidate he wanted Israel to pull back to the 1949 Armistice Lines.

The Netanyahu government has been counting on military-to-military ties and backing from the U.S. Congress as a workaround to White House animosity. It has basically given up on the White House.

But let's face it – how practical is this approach with some two years more to go in this administration?

One could count on one hand the number of high level officials simpatico to Israel in this administration  -- and still have five fingers left over.

Supposedly, goes the Journal piece, the administration believes that Israel is not been doing enough to limit civilian casualties in Gaza risking a humanitarian catastrophe. A position that parallels the Euro-Left and is about as naïve as naïve gets.

It willfully ignores Israeli efforts to limit collateral damage. Just naïve ?

Could the US do any better under identical conditions? I don't think so.

Obama is angry because his efforts to bring about a ceasefire have been undermined by Israeli opposition to giving Qatar and Turkey roles in the process. Left unsaid is that Egypt and israel are on the same page. 

Qatar (paymaster of Al Jezerra) and Turkey are the primary backers of Hamas. Turkey's president for life ran for election on an anti Zionist platform calling Israelis worse than Nazis.

Turkey has gone over the edge but NATO doesn't have the guts to face up to the fact that the current regime in Ankara has nothing in common with the Turkey that was admitted to the alliance.

Turkey is a stalking horse for the wrong side in The Long War. Separate story.

Supposedly, the Obama administration was particularly incensed when on July 30 a U.S.-supplied Israeli shell struck a United Nations school in Gaza, so the Journal reported. The Israeli army has again and again explained that Hamas is shooting from schools, mosques, and hospitals.

The evidence is available to the president on YouTube.

And there have been not a few cases when such school explosions turned out to be caused by Hamas misfiring at Israel. 

  

The administration was further riled when on Aug. 2 Netanyahu telephoned U.S. ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro to say that he didn't want the Obama administration "to ever second-guess me again" about how to deal with Hamas. The White House accused Israel of leaking the conversation.

Now, here I have to say that Netanyahu may have overplayed his hand.

If so, it reflects the frustration of having Shapiro (who speaks good Hebrew) make like he is a friend of Israel while representing a policy that is hostile to Israel's fundamental interests.

The relationship between Obama and Netanyahu has reached a nadir.

Obama is holding up access to the bullets, bombs, and ordinance Israel needs to overcome Hamas.

I can't read his mind or his heart but it is as if wants us in a war of attrition so that Israel will make concessions to the Palestinians of Hamas or the Palestinians of Fatah ( six of one, half a dozen of the other).

He is even holding off transfer of the additional $225 million in funding for the Iron Dome anti-rocket system that was approved by Congress.

Pretty clear it's both business and personal.

It's  gonna be a bumpy two years until Obama leaves the White House.