UPDATES
6:00 am Israel time, Tuesday, February 10 2015
34 Days Until The Election
***Yesterday was another day of “rock” and Molotov cocktail terror attacks across Judea and Samaria.
A damaged car windshield in Samaria yesterday. Note how the Palestinian terrorist “rock” throwers always aim at the head of Israeli motorists (picture: rotter).
***Thousands more French Jews may soon be on the way to Israel. Organizers of “aliya fairs” (“immigration to Israel” fairs) in France this past weekend report that they were swamped with unprecedented numbers of potential immigrants to Israel. As has already been reported on israelstreet, 2014 saw record numbers of French Jews move to Israel.
***All signs point to a decisive battle shaping up in Syria this morning between Syrian Army units and rebel forces in the area north of Quneitra. In preliminary battles yesterday, both sides reported numerous dead. Hezbollah forces were especially hard hit, and the bodies of their dead were quickly trucked back to Lebanon.
***The University of California Los Angeles student association (USCA) passed two divestment resolutions on Sunday despite the best efforts of pro-Israel students. The first divestment resolution was directed against American companies that do business in Israel. The second divestment resolution was aimed at American, Turkish Egyptian, Brazilian, Indonesian, Russian, Mexican, and Sri Lankan bonds.
Yes, you read that correctly.
The UCLA student association voted to divest from the United States.
TODAY’S BLOG:
The hysterical chorus of anti-Netanyahu and anti-Israel voices grows ever louder and shriller that Netanyahu should postpone or cancel his talk scheduled for March 3 in the U.S. Congress.
To hear such non-luminaries and lesser lights as Isaac Herzog, Tzipi Livni, Nancy Pelosi, Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League, the head of the Reform Jewish movement Rick Jacobs, Barack Obama, John Kerry, and the spokesmen for the White House and U.S. State Department tell it, not only did the Netanyahu invitation and acceptance egregiously breach protocol but also the Netanyahu speech threatens the wonderful nuclear agreement that the P5+1 is on the verge of making with Iran.
As will be pointed out below, both of these claims are outrageous.
Here are 5 reasons why Netanyahu should speak:
1. Protocol was followed.
You will recall that back on January 21st when Netanyahu’s acceptance to speak was announced, White House Spokesman Josh Earnest and State Department Spokeswoman Jen Psaki rushed straight to their respective microphones to declare that poor President Obama and his State Department had not been informed in advance of the invitation.
On January 29, these declarations were shown to be outright lies. No friend of Israel or Netanyahu, the New York Times reported that Netanyahu “accepted after the administration had been informed of the invitation, not before” (click to see article–note correction at bottom).
The New York Times statement was immediately picked up the next day by David Bernstein of the Washington Post (click here to see article) when he wrote: “we have a situation in which the administration was so grossly incompetent that it was circulating false information about Netanyahu from multiple spokespeople, or that it intentionally sought to undermine Netanyahu by lying about his alleged ‘breach of protocol.'”
Not surprisingly, not one word has been spoken or written in the leftist Israeli media about the fact that protocol was followed –and there has been no follow-up in the American or international press.
And this has emboldened Obama to perpetuate the protocol fraud. Speaking yesterday at a press conference with Angela Merkel, Obama opined: ” . . . I think it’s important for us to maintain these protocols because the US-Israeli relationship is not about a particular party.”
Even today we had Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont further propagating the Obama protocol canard: “The president of the United States heads up our foreign policy and the idea that the president wasn’t even consulted – that is wrong.”
2. Israel’s strategic relationship with the United States is not at stake because of the speech.
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Despite what Obama supporters want to say, President Obama has spent the first six years of his presidency overseeing the weakening of the strategic relationship with Israel (as well as the relationships with other American allies around the globe).
Does anyone in his or her right mind really think that the U.S. Congress is going to allow strategic partnerships with Israel to be broken should Netanyahu speak?
However, this is not stopping Obama, once again, from using Netanyahu’s speech to drive a wedge between some Democrats and Israel. It is Obama, not Netanyahu, who has turned the speech into a partisan issue. Yesterday we had Obama dissembling that Netanyahu’s appearance gives the appearance of “what could be perceived as partisan politics.”
And one should not assume that a Netanyahu speech will not have repercussions. Every time that the petty Obama doesn’t get his way, he retaliates. And the truth is that whether Netanyahu speaks or not, Obama will have his revenge.
3. Time is of the essence.
The P5+1 is within weeks–perhaps two months at most–of an agreement with Iran. Obama said as much yesterday at the same press conference: “It does not make sense to sour the negotiations a month or two before they’re about to be completed.”
An agreement is on the table and will be reached.
4. The agreement with Iran is an extremely bad one.
Leaks about the details of the agreement have turned into a torrent. We all now know what the basic details are: the Iranian nuclear weapons program will be left in situ; some 7,000 centrifuges or more will be left refining uranium; the Iranian ballistic missile program will not be affected.
But Obama doesn’t care. To him, any agreement with Iran is a good thing. As he said yesterday: “But what’s the rush [to apply more sanctions]? Unless your view is that it’s not possible to get a deal with Iran and it shouldn’t even be tested. And that, I cannot agree with, because as the president of the United States, I’m looking at what the options are if we don’t get a diplomatic resolution. And those options are narrow, and they’re not attractive.”
The dye is cast. Obama, as we have known all along, doesn’t have the stomach for a military option against Iran–and besides, such an option would end Obama’s dream of a grand rapprochement with the ayatollahs that would be the crowning achievement of his presidency.
5. The survival of Israel is at stake.
With Iran all around us now–on the Lebanon and Syrian borders in the form of Hezbollah and Revolutionary Guards, and on the Gaza border in the form of Hamas, one can only shudder to think what will happen if Iran begins production of nuclear weapons. How long will it be until Iran or one of its proxies finds a way to send one of those weapons toward Israel?
In sum, it is entirely conceivable that Netanyahu will still decide not to speak, but your humble servant strongly believes that he should. Such a speech will not be about Democrats or Republicans or Obama (though you can count on Netanyahu to praise him endlessly) or Netanyahu.
Why should Netanyahu speak?
Nothing less than the survival of Israel and the more than six million Jews who live here is at stake.
A student from Malawi, who had worked with an Israeli health volunteer in his country battling AIDS, came up to us as we walked down the street in the UC-Davis Picnic Day Parade and wanted to carry the Israeli flag.