Doc's Talk: Have you forgotten February 2003? Obama sure did!

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Have you forgotten February 2003? Obama sure did!

Bush and Sharon Nearly Identical On Mideast Policy

Robert G. Kaiser
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 9, 2003; Page A01 (first post)

Running for reelection last month, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel repeatedly boasted of the "deep friendship" he has built with the Bush administration -- "a special closeness," he called it. He thanked President Bush for understanding Israel's security needs and for providing "the required leeway in our ongoing war on terrorism." He praised Bush's latest proposals for reaching a Palestinian-Israeli peace agreement -- a plan, said Sharon, that he and Bush had agreed on together. Sharon was describing what his American supporters call the closest relationship in decades, perhaps ever, between a U.S. president and an Israeli government. "This is the best administration for Israel since Harry Truman [who first recognized an independent Israel]," said Thomas Neumann, executive director of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, a think tank that promotes strategic cooperation with Israel as vital to U.S. security interests.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, left, with President Bush in the Oval Office. The pair got closer politically and personally after Sept. 11, 2001. (Kenneth Lambert -- AP)

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For the first time, a U.S. administration and a Likud government in Israel are pursuing nearly identical policies. Earlier U.S. administrations, from Jimmy Carter's through Bill Clinton's, held Likud and Sharon at arm's length, distancing the United States from Likud's traditionally tough approach to the Palestinians. But today, as Neumann noted, Israel and the United States share a common view on terrorism, peace with the Palestinians, war with Iraq and more. Neumann and others said this change was made possible by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and their aftermath.

The Bush administration's alignment with Sharon delights many of its strongest supporters, especially evangelical Christians, and a large part of organized American Jewry, according to leaders in both groups, who argue that Palestinian terrorism pushed Bush to his new stance. But it has led to a freeze on diplomacy in the region that is criticized by Arab countries and their allies, and by many past and current officials who have participated in the long-running, never-conclusive Middle East "peace process."

"Every president since at least Nixon has seen the Arab-Israeli conflict as the central strategic issue in the Middle East," said Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger, President Bill Clinton's national security adviser. "But this administration sees Iraq as the central challenge, and . . . has disengaged from any serious effort to confront the Arab-Israeli problem."

The turning point came last June, when Bush embraced Sharon's view of the Palestinians and made Yasser Arafat's removal as leader of the Palestinian Authority a condition of future diplomacy. That was "a clear shift in policy," Kenneth R. Weinstein, director of the Washington office of the Hudson Institute, a conservative supporter of Israel and Likud. The June speech was "a departure point," agreed Ralph Reed, chairman of the Georgia Republican Party and former director of the Christian Coalition.

Since then, U.S. policy has been in step with Sharon's. The peace process is "quiescent," said retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, Bush's special envoy to the region. "I've kind of gone dormant," he added. In December Bush appointed an articulate, hard-line critic of the traditional peace process, Elliott Abrams, director of Mideast affairs for the National Security Council.

"The Likudniks are really in charge now," said a senior government official, using a Yiddish term for supporters of Sharon's political party. Neumann agreed that Abrams's appointment was symbolically important, not least because Abrams's views were shared by his boss, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, by Vice President Cheney and by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. "It's a strong lineup," he said.

Abrams is a former assistant secretary of state in the Reagan administration who was convicted on two counts of lying to Congress in the Iran-contra scandal, then pardoned by President George H.W. Bush. In October 2000, Abrams wrote: "The Palestinian leadership does not want peace with Israel, and there will be no peace."

Said Meyrav Wurmser of the Hudson Institute, who shares his outlook: "Elliott's appointment is a signal that the hard-liners in the administration are playing a more central role in shaping policy." She added that "the hard-liners are a very unique group. The hawks in the administration are in fact people who are the biggest advocates of democracy and freedom in the Middle East." She was referring to the idea that promoting democracy is the best way to assure Israel's security, because democratic countries are less likely to attack a neighbor than dictatorships. Adherents of this view have argued that creating a democratic Palestine and a democratic Iraq could have a positive impact on the entire region.

Some Middle East hands who disagree with these supporters of Israel refer to them as "a cabal," in the words of one former official. Members of the group do not hide their friendships and connections, or their loyalty to strong positions in support of Israel and Likud.

One of Abrams's mentors, Richard Perle, chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, led a study group that proposed to Binyamin Netanyahu, a Likud prime minister of Israel from 1996 to 1999, that he abandon the Oslo peace accords negotiated in 1993 and reject the basis for them -- the idea of trading "land for peace." Israel should insist on Arab recognition of its claim to the biblical land of Israel, the 1996 report suggested, and should "focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq."

Besides Perle, the study group included David Wurmser, now a special assistant to Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton, and Douglas J. Feith, now undersecretary of defense for policy. Feith has written prolifically on Israeli-Arab issues for years, arguing that Israel has as legitimate a claim to the West Bank territories seized after the Six Day War as it has to the land that was part of the U.N.-mandated Israel created in 1948. Perle, Feith and Abrams all declined to be interviewed for this article.

Rumsfeld echoed the Perle group's analysis in a little-noted comment to Pentagon employees last August about "the so-called occupied territories." Rumsfeld said: "There was a war [in 1967], Israel urged neighboring countries not to get involved . . . they all jumped in, and they lost a lot of real estate to Israel because Israel prevailed in that conflict. In the intervening period, they've made some settlements in some parts of the so-called occupied area, which was the result of a war, which they won."

When it came into office the Bush administration was uncertain and divided, sometimes bitterly, over Mideast policy, according to numerous sources. The State Department pressed for continued negotiations and pressure on Sharon to limit the scope of his military response to Palestinian suicide bombers, while the Pentagon and the vice president's office favored more encouragement for the Israelis, and less concern for a peace process which, they said, was going nowhere anyhow. Bush chose not to get personally involved in Mideast diplomacy.

But the administration did make a series of statements and gestures intended to restrain Sharon's response to suicide bombings, and to reassert the traditional U.S. policy that Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank had to cease. At the urging of Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, Bush publicly embraced the idea of a Palestinian state.

An internal debate split the administration and invited the lobbying of think tanks, Jewish organizations, evangelical Christians and others who take a fierce interest in the Middle East. While some groups including Americans for Peace Now lined up against Sharon's tough policies and in favor of negotiations, most of the organizations and individuals who lobbied on these issues embraced a harder line, and supported Sharon. Over the past dozen years or more, supporters of Sharon's Likud Party have moved into leadership roles in most of the American Jewish organizations that provide financial and political support for Israel.

Friends of Israel in Congress also lined up with Sharon. In November 2001, 89 of 100 senators signed a letter to Bush asking the administration not to try to restrain Israel from using "all [its] strength and might" in response to Palestinian suicide bombings. Signers said they wanted to persuade Bush to prevent Secretary of State Colin L. Powell from pressuring Sharon.

Virtually all participants in these debates agree that Arafat personally contributed to Bush's hardening position over the past two years. Before he took office in 2001, a senior Arab diplomat said, Bush had privately urged Arafat to accept a comprehensive settlement offered him by Sharon's predecessor, Ehud Barak, in January 2001. But Arafat rejected it. A series of episodes in which Bush felt Arafat behaved inappropriately further soured the relationship. Bush repeatedly refused to meet with Arafat, who had met with Clinton 21 times. And month after month, U.S. officials blamed Arafat for failing to prevent the suicide bombings in Israel.

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Sharon began immediately to argue that Israel and the United States were fighting the same enemy, international terrorism. Over the months that followed -- months marked by escalating violence in Israel and the West Bank -- Bush and Sharon grew closer, personally and politically. By the end of last year the two had met seven times and talked on many more occasions by telephone (with Sharon doing nearly all the talking, Israeli officials said). Said a senior official of the first Bush administration who is critical of this one: "Sharon played the president like a violin: 'I'm fighting your war, terrorism is terrorism,' and so on. Sharon did a masterful job."

Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, a leading figure in Jewish-Evangelical Christian relations for two decades, offered a more sympathetic description of Bush's alignment with Israel and Sharon. "President Bush's policy stems from his core as a Christian, his perceptions of right and wrong, good and evil, and of the need to stand up and fight against evil," Eckstein said. "I personally believe it is very personal, not a political maneuver on his part."

Politics have played a role, several sources said. Gary Bauer, an evangelical Christian activist and Republican presidential candidate in 2000, said that he and like-minded evangelicals have campaigned vigorously in support of Israel and Sharon's tough policies. "I think we've had some impact," Bauer said.

Another conservative Republican with Christian ties who has made Israel a cause is House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.). Last April, speaking to a Jewish group in Washington, DeLay called Israel "the lone fountain of liberty" in the Middle East, and endorsed Israeli retention of the occupied territories. He referred to West Bank by the biblical names, Judea and Samaria, which are often used by Israelis who consider them part of Israel.

The Rev. Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention said the White House and its political director, Karl Rove, know "how critical [evangelical] support is to them and their party," and know how strongly evangelicals support Israel. "We need to bless Israel more than America needs Israel's blessing," Land said, "because Israel has a far greater ally than the United States of America, God Almighty."

"This is not your daddy's Republican Party," said James Zogby, president of the Arab-American Institute in Washington, who argues the administration is losing its ability to act as an honest broker in the Middle East by lining up with Israel. "There's a marriage here between the religious right and the neoconservatives," he said, referring to intellectual hard-liners such as Abrams and Perle, both of whom worked for Democrats before joining the Reagan administration.

Another political consideration involves Jewish voters, traditionally a Democratic constituency. Reed, the Georgia Republican chairman, said he saw a chance that Jewish voters, particularly younger ones, could begin moving to the Republican column in 2004 in part because of Bush's support for Israel. "There's clearly something going on -- it's tangible, it's palpable, and it could have a real impact," Reed said. Bush captured 19 percent of the Jewish vote in 2000; Reed said he could get 30 percent in 2004.

For now the Israeli-Palestinian issue is stalled. Many of those interviewed for this article said they expect no movement before the resolution of the Iraq issue. State Department officials confided privately that they feel sidelined, and that the debate inside the administration has ended, at least temporarily.

Diplomacy is now, at least nominally, in the hands of "the quartet" -- the United States, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union. Its members have drafted a "road map" outlining next steps toward a Mideast peace deal, including an end to violence and cessation of all settlement activity by the Israelis. In recent months Israel has sharply escalated settlement activity in the West Bank. In an interview with The Washington Post, Sharon recently dismissed the quartet as "nothing -- don't take it seriously."

Comment: Obama et al claims it is his Administration that is the "closest friend" Israel has ever had-this is pure nonsense and is only a political ploy to garner votes for November elections. It was under the last Bush Administration that the closeness between military and intelligence agencies emerged. Enough Obama, enough!
Thanks to D. Gerstman

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The IDF’s Minorities in Numbers and Pictures

In honor of IDF Diversity Week, we present diversity through numbers and pictures. Each year, more and more Muslims, Christians, Druze, Bedouin and immigrants from around the world take on the responsibility of defending Israel.

MUSLIMS:

Muslim Arab Israelis are not required to draft in the IDF, but there are many who volunteer. In 2013, there were over 200 Muslims serving in the IDF and over 300 in the reserves.

Bedouins:

Bedouins are nomadic Muslims who were in Israel when modern borders were set in place and are now considered Israeli citizens. They are not required to draft but a growing number choose to enlist. In 2012, there were over 1,400 Bedouin Muslim soldiers doing regular IDF service and almost 1,500 in the reserves.

Read more:http://www.idfblog.com/2014/02/27/truth-idf-numbers-pictures/#more-34027

Are you aware that in 2013, Middle class taxes go up-significantly?

In January of next year, the federal income tax rate for middle-class taxpayers is scheduled to rise from 25 percent to 28 percent, and the payroll tax is scheduled to rise from 13.3 percent to 15.3 percent… This drives the marginal tax rate based on the aforementioned three taxes to 48.12 percent. Add in state and local property, corporate, excise, and other state and local taxes, and the percentage of each additional dollar that is taxed hovers around 50 percent… When half of each additional dollar earned is taxed away, taxpayers experience a disincentive to start businesses or expand existing ones. This leads to fewer jobs being created.

Why is HAMAS Inside Tampa Schools?

Clare Lopez

Kelly Miliziano, who teaches history classes at Steinbrenner High School in the Tampa, Florida area apparently thinks it’s perfectly OK to invite a senior official of a HAMAS-affiliated organization into her classroom to discuss Islam with her students. According to local media reports, not only has this been going on for years, but in spite of the civil and criminal proceedings that could result from such reckless negligence, the Hillsborough County school superintendent, Mary Ellen Elia, and the chairman of the school board, Candy Olson, also expressed approval for students under their responsibility to be exposed repeatedly to guest speaker, Hassan Shibly, who is the Executive Director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in the Tampa area.
More...

Did You Know... Ignoring the Call to Islam will Bring Jihad

‘Conquest through Da’wa [proselytizing] that is what we hope for. We will conquer Europe, we will conquer America! Not through sword but through Da’wa.’
-- Yousef al-Qaradawi , Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader The Arabic word ‘Da’wa’ means the “call to Islam.” But do not think that Da’wa is the same thing as an invitation to an optional holiday event. The classical Islamic doctrine of jihad mandates that enemies must be given the opportunity to convert to Islam or pay the jizya tax before it is permissible to attack them.
Clare M. Lopez

Who is being discriminated-facts tell the truth

Religious bias

Hate crimes motivated by religious bias accounted for 1,409 offenses reported by law enforcement. A breakdown of the bias motivation of religious-bias offenses showed:

65.4 percent were anti-Jewish.
13.2 percent were anti-Islamic.
9.5 percent were anti-other religion, i.e., those not specified.
4.3 percent were anti-Catholic.
3.8 percent were anti-multiple religions, group.
3.3 percent were anti-Protestant.
0.5 percent were anti-Atheism/Agnosticism/etc.

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/hate-crime/2010/narratives/hate-crime-2010-incidents-and-offenses.

On March 31, 1977, the Dutch newspaper Trouw published an interview

with PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein. Here's what he said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism.

For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

In March 1977, Zahir Muhsein, a PLO executive, said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism."

"For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

The Arab Apartheid

Ben-Dror Yemini
In 1948, the Arab countries refused to accept the UN partition proposal and they launched a war of annihilation against the State of Israel which had barely been established. All precedents in this matter showed that the party that starts the war - and with a declaration of annihilation, yet - pays a price for it. Between 550,000 and 710,000 Arabs fled because of the war and a larger number of 850,000 Jews were expelled or fled from Arab countries (the "Jewish nakba").
Population exchanges and expulsions were the norm at that time, occurring in dozens of other conflict points and affecting about 52 million people. In all the population exchange precedents that occurred during or at the end of an armed conflict, there was no return of refugees to the previous region, which had turned into a new national state.
Only the Arab states acted completely differently from the rest of the world. Instead of assimilating the refugees, they crushed them despite the fact that they were their coreligionists and members of the Arab nation - instituting a regime of apartheid. So the "nakba" was not caused by the actual dispossession, which had also been experienced by tens of millions of others. The "nakba" is the story of the apartheid, oppression, abuse and denial of rights suffered by the Arab refugees at the hands of the Arab countries. (Maariv)

International Law and Military Operations in Practice - Col. Richard Kemp

"Islamist fighting groups study the international laws of armed conflict carefully and they understand it well. They know that a British or Israeli commander and his men are bound by international law and the rules of engagement that flow from it. They then do their utmost to exploit what they view as one of their enemy's main weaknesses. Their very modus operandi is built on the correct assumption that Western armies will normally abide by the rules, while these insurgents employ a deliberate policy of operating consistently outside international law. "

Lost Historical Moments

What Rabin’s last Knesset speech really said:repudiation of a Palestinian state

Rabin ruled out a fully sovereign Palestinian state :

“We view the permanent solution in the framework of State of Israel which will include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state, and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority.”

Rabin ruled out a total withdrawal from Judea and Samaria and thus a return to the pre-June 1967 borders :

“The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines.”

Rabin ruled out withdrawing form the Jordan Valley:

“The security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of that term.”

Rabin ruled out uprooting settlement blocs, like the Gush Katif bloc in Gaza (which was subsequently uprooted by former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon):

“The establishment of blocs of settlements in Judea and Samaria, like the one in Gush Katif.

AND

Rabin ruled out removing any settlement before coming to a full peace agreement with the Palestinians:

“I want to remind you: we committed ourselves, that is, we came to an agreement, and committed ourselves before the Knesset, not to uproot a single settlement in the framework of the interim agreement, and not to hinder building for natural growth.”

Rabin insisted on Israel retaining full security control of the borders with Egypt and Jordan, contrary to Israel’s relinquishment of the Philadelphia Corridor on the border with Egypt:

“The responsibility for external security along the borders with Egypt and Jordan, as well as control over the airspace above all of the territories and Gaza Strip maritime zone, remains in our hands.”

Correcting Oslo Myths-Part 2

3) Kuttab laments that the post-1993 Oslo process resulted in a Palestinian Authority "whose ministers and legislators are not guaranteed passage between Gaza and the West Bank ...."

Before free passage or other perquisites, PA leaders were obligated, among other things, to eliminate the terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, end anti-Israeli, antisemitic incitement in schools, mosques, and communications media, and resolve all outstanding issues through peaceful negotiations. They met none of these commitments, sometimes bolstering terrorism and greatly increasing incitement.

4) Kuttab complains that under Oslo the PA got "lightly armed police ---- but no real sovereignty over the land or contiguity between our communities in Gaza and the West Bank."

Oslo agreements repeatedly were revised, regardless of Palestinian non-compliance, until the authorized number of police grew from 8,000 to 40,000. Though they were to be the only armed forces in the territories, Israeli estimates early in the second intifada put the number of gunmen - police, "security services," terrorists, and armed gangs - at 85,000. Their armament reportedly included not only heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, but also anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles.

Sovereignty was to be negotiated in the envisioned 1998 "final status" talks - after a five-year period of confidence-building. Palestinian leadership chronically undermined the process. Palestinian terrorism made the 1993 - 1998 Oslo period more deadly for Israelis than the 15 years preceding it.

The United States doesn't have contiguity between the lower 48 states and Alaska and Hawaii; territorial contiguity between the West Bank and Gaza Strip - that is, through the 20 miles of Israeli territory between them - was never promised and would destroy Israeli contiguity.

5) "Palestinians have been made to endure hundreds of checkpoints in the West Bank, an eight-foot wall deep in our territories, and tight Israeli control over borders."

The security barrier is not "deep in Palestinian territories," but rather encompasses less than 8 percent of Judea and Samaria, and is mostly a fence, rarely a wall; the land in question is not "our [Palestinian] territories" but disputed territory to which, according to the authors of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, Jews as well as Arabs have claims; and there are no international borders, only the 1949 armistice lines with Jordan. Under 242, borders remain to be negotiated. As for checkpoints - like the security barrier and "tight Israeli control" - Palestinian Arabs precipitated these measures themselves. No terrorism and there would be no fence or tight Israeli control and few checkpoints - like before the first intifada.

Correcting Some Oslo Myths

1) In Oslo "Israeli, Palestinian and other world leaders promised that ... Palestinian sovereignty would be solidified."

No, they didn't. The 1993 Declaration of Principles and subsequent Oslo agreements outlined a process by which final status negotiations about the West Bank and Gaza Strip would be reached. The process required an end to anti-Israel terrorism and incitement and a commitment to peaceful negotiations. The PA, Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and other terrorist groups, sabotaged the process from the start.

2) "The reality is that, in defiance of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which states that it is inadmissible to occupy land by force, Palestinian territories are still under foreign military occupation."
Wrong again. Resolution 242 (1967) does note "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war." It also affirms the right of every state in the area "to live in peace with secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force." There were no "Palestinian territories." Jordan occupied the West Bank, Egypt controlled Gaza. Israel did not have "secure and recognized boundaries," so retention of some of those territories was possible under 242. Israel is not a "foreign" military occupier in the West Bank but, pending final negotiations, the lawful military administrator as a result of a successful war of self-defense.

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