Obama Goes After Israel In UN Speech
In declaring that it is time for Middle East peace “without preconditions,” President Obama used his speech to the U.N. General Assembly Wednesday to fire a warning at Israel that “America does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.”Obama’s stark declaration, which drew applause, was coupled with a call for Palestinians to end their “incitement of Israel.
“But it was the use of the U.N. forum to carry the settlement message to Israel that drew the most enthusiastic response on the floor — and incredulous reaction outside its walls.Obama just put Israel “on the chopping block,” said former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton.
Obama Gets Tough With Israel, Readies For Cairo
President Barack Obama has gotten tough with Israel and chosen Cairo — where President Hosni Mubarak rules with a firm hand — for his much-awaited overture to the Islamic world in what appears to be a clear break from decades of U.S. policy.
Many issues cloud American relations with the Muslim world, but none rankles like U.S. ties to Israel and massive support for the Jewish state in the heart of the Arab Middle East.
While the majority of the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims live in Asia, the growing militancy among the followers of the Prophet Muhammad took root largely in the Middle East. The dramatic strike against the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, was the work of Arabs under the direction of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, who was born in Saudi Arabia.
Bin Laden cited anger at U.S. support for Israel as the guiding philosophy of the terrorist organization that drew American forces into wars in Afghanistan, where he was believed to be hiding, and Iraq, which was flooded by al-Qaida fighters after the U.S. invasion in 2003.
Those wars and U.S. policy toward Israel have produced a growing belief in the Muslim world that the United States is at war with Islam.
Given those realities, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs played down expectations of a quick turnaround in U.S.-Muslim relations after Obama’s Thursday speech.
“This is about resetting our relationship with the Muslim world. … We don’t expect everything to change after one speech,” he said.
Half of Israelis Back Immediate Strike on Iran
Just over half of Israelis back an immediate attack on the nuclear facilities of arch-foe Iran but the rest want to wait and see the results of US diplomacy, according to a poll released on Sunday.
Fifty-one percent support an immediate Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear sites, while 49 percent believe the Jewish state should await the outcome of efforts by the US administration to engage with the Islamic republic, said the survey published by Tel Aviv University.
But 74 percent of those questioned said they believe that new US President Barack Obama’s efforts will not stop the Islamic republic from acquiring atomic weapons.
Israel, widely considered to be the Middle East’s sole if undeclared nuclear armed state, considers Iran its arch-foe after repeated statements by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for the Jewish state to be “wiped off the map.”
Israel and Washington accuse Iran of trying to develop atomic weapons under the guise of a civilian nuclear programme, a charge Tehran has repeatedly denied.
via Half of Israelis back immediate strike on Iran.
Will Israel Be Forced To Face The World Alone?
As Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu prepares for his visit to the United States next week, warnings abound that the Obama Administration’s policies will leave Israel to face Iran and Hamas alone.
The warnings are summed up in recent articles by the West’s two main pro-Israel female commentators: Melanie Phillips and Caroline Glick. Writing in the Spectator (United Kingdom) last week, Philips warns that “Obama is attempting to throw Israel under the Islamist bus.” She cites the report that Obama’s National Security Adviser told a European foreign minister that Obama will be ‘forceful’ with Israel, and plans to impose, with the EU and moderate Arab states, “a satisfactory endgame solution” upon Israel.
“This is all not only evil,” Phillips says, “but exceptionally stupid… The Arab states are beside themselves with anxiety about Iran. They want it to be attacked and its nuclear programme stopped. They are desperately fearful that the Obama administration might have decided that it can live with a nuclear Iran… A Palestine state will be Iran, in the sense that it will be run by Hamas as a proxy for the Islamic Republic. The idea that a Palestine state will not compromise Israel’s security is ludicrous.”
American Jewry: Spineless
After expressing incredulity at the American demands for further Israeli concessions in the light of the utter failure of the Disengagement, Phillips writes that U.S. Jews are reacting “with a total absence of spine… Almost eighty per cent of American Jews voted for Obama despite the clear and present danger he posed to Israel. They did so because their liberal self-image was and is more important to them than the Jewish state whose existence and security cannot be allowed to jeopardise their standing with America’s elite.”
Netanyahu must therefore take Israel’s message to “the ordinary American people,” she concludes: “They do value and support Israel. They do understand that if Israel is thrown under that bus, the west is next. And it is they to whom Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu must now appeal, over the heads of the politicians and the media and certainly America’s Jews and everyone else. He must tell the American people the terrible truth, that America is now run by a man who is intent on sacrificing Israel for a reckless and amoral political strategy which will put America and the rest of the free world at risk.”
Peres: Israel Supports Two-State Solution, Iran Engagement
Israel is on board with key elements of President Obama’s agenda in the Middle East, Israeli President Shimon Peres told reporters Tuesday after meeting with Obama at the White House.
He said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would support a two-state solution to achieve peace between the Israelis and Palestinians and that if Obama wants to engage Iran, the Israelis are willing to back him.
“Mr. Netanyahu said he will cooperate (with) the commitments of the previous (Israeli) government. The previous government accepted the roadmap (to Middle East peace). In the roadmap, you’ll find the attitude to the two-state solution,” Peres said.
He said Netanyahu is ready to “start to negotiate right away” and does not want to “govern the Palestinian people.”
The Tuesday sit-down was meant to lay the groundwork for a meeting later this month with Netanyahu which the U.S. president hopes will lead to a resumption of the Middle East peace process.
The White House released a statement Tuesday noting that Peres and Obama discussed issues “including the pursuit of a comprehensive peace in the Middle East and Iran’s nuclear program” and saying Obama looks forward to the meeting with Netanyahu.
Peres, more moderate than Netanyahu, had been downplaying the new Israeli leader’s previous refusal to endorse the “two-state solution” that has been the foundation of U.S. policy since early in the Bush administration.
The push for a two-state solution was also at the heart of a political flap Tuesday over the tone the administration was taking with its top ally in the Middle East.
Obama Nudges Israel On Palestinian Statehood
U.S. President Barack Obama nudged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday to accept the goal of a Palestinian state, as he pressed Israel and the Palestinians to “step back from the abyss.”
Deepening his direct role in reviving stalled peace efforts, Obama met Jordan’s King Abdullah and invited Netanyahu, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak for separate talks by early June.
He seized the chance to reassure Abdullah of his commitment to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict despite reluctance by Netanyahu’s new right-leaning government to support eventual Palestinian statehood.
Obama reasserted his pledge to “deeply engage” in Arab-Israeli peace diplomacy — in contrast to a more hands-off approach by his predecessor George W. Bush — and predicted good-faith gestures from both sides in coming months.
“What we have to do is step back from the abyss,” Obama told reporters after meeting Abdullah, a key Arab ally, at the White House.
But Obama’s Middle East strategy has been complicated by the emergence of a coalition led by Netanyahu, who since coming to power last month has avoided recognizing the Palestinians’ right to an independent state, as his predecessor Ehud Olmert did.
Obama took care not to confront Netanyahu head-on but made clear his administration hoped to coax him into accepting the principle of a two-state solution, which has been the basis of U.S. policy for years.
“They are going to have to formulate and, I think, solidify their position,” Obama said of Israel’s new government.
