President Obama has articulated two goals related to Israel for his second term in office. The first is a nuclear Agreement with Iran and the second is a peace agreement based on an independent Palestinian state.
Unfortunately for Israel his goals and approaches to achieving them conflict with Israel’s best interests and put Israel in jeopardy. The Iran agreement will almost certainly result in nuclear weapons for Iran and the desired peace with the Palestinians should it come into being would result in yet another hostile bordering state sandwiching Israel between it and Gaza. We know how well Gaza worked out.
Obama supporters will argue that the Iran deal has yet to be concluded so opposition to it is premature. We know however that the Iranians will be allowed to continue enriching uranium and will be able retain it’s hard water reactor two components needed to produce bombs but not needed for a peaceful nuclear program. We know that given Iran’s oil reserves they hardly need a ‘peaceful’ nuclear program. We also know directly from President Obama’s lips that they are pushing for a duration cap on the agreement of ten years and a one year breakout limitation.
With respect to a peace agreement the onus by the president and the world at large is focused almost exclusively on Israel and the plight of the Palestinians with little concern for the security needs of Israel.
Interestingly, the conversation about these issues has become personal. President Obama has completely ignored the concerns voiced by Israel through its PM Netanyahu. Instead he views Netanyahu as an obstructionist who is seeking to derail his goals. ‘His goals’. Our president has taken a position which is that he knows what’s better for Israel and the world than those who are first in the line of fire and who carry the existential risk of annihilation.
Polls show that the majority of Americans categorically reject the Iran treaty. Potus seems not to care. Obama supporters argue that Obama is being impeded but rarely argue the merits of the prospective agreements. The issue to them is one of not cooperating with the president, not giving him the support to effect his policies, disrespecting him as in Netanyahu’s address to congress, not the merits of the issues.
And the of course Netanyahu had the audacity to win the election handily in spite of the presidents transparent attempt to unseat him.
The presidents attempts to mollify the Moslem world are well known. Since day one in office he has issued conciliatory speeches to Moslems, has apologized for imagined American transgressions against Moslems, refuses to call it ‘islamic terrorism’, has supported Morsi in Egypt over al Sisi and refuses to properly engage ISIS allowing them to expand, consolidate and murder, rape and enslave at will offering only token air support as a response.
And last but not least he chooses to negotiate with Iran, the biggest sponsor of terrorism in the world while shunning Netanyahu and threatening Israel America’s greatest ally in the region seizing on Netanyahu’s election comments that he won’t allow a Palestinian state during his tenure in office and that arabs are going to the polls in droves. Not that he needed an excuse. His attitude has been known from day one. He offers a letter of friendship to the people of Iran while Khamenei publicly reiterates ‘death to America’ and he abandons Israel in the highly biased UN as punishment.
Today begins a UN hearing on Gaza. Israel is absent. So is the United States. One can guess as to the outcome.
President Obama’s attitude is a recipe for disaster initially for Israel but ultimately for the USA and the world. One must urge and support congress in preventing President Obama from achieving his damaging goals for Israel. One must pressure the democrats in congress and the media to speak out against the president’s approach. The letter from the 47 senators to Iran was a good thing.
Mainly we need to recognize that the problem is not the act of disagreeing with and obstructing the president. Rather it is the president’s plans and approach which if implemented would cause grave problems for Israel, the region and the world. Obstructing is good. Implementing is bad. We need to recognize that the president’s sympathies are not with Israel, that his conflict with PM Netanyahu is sophomoric and needs to change and that it is Israel who is America’s friend and Iran is it’s enemy.
President Obama has twenty months left in office. The countdown has begun.