No, not Israel! Obama.

Look, Israel made a mistake. Heck, I wrote two posts about that idiotic mistake because it was so huge. Then, Israel apologized profusely for the mistake.

However, the Obama administration decided that this gave them a pretext for taking a very aggressive stance toward the Netanyahu government. Essentially, we saw a repeat of last year’s settlement freeze fiasco, multiplied by a factor of two or three. Suddenly Israeli officials were being lambasted by American politicians and officials, new demands were on the table, the press was being leaked “Obama furious stories,” and it became very clear that this US administration would indeed treat Israel differently than any other country in the world.

That isn’t the worst of it, however. This NY Times article shows the worst part of it.

But in discussions in recent days, some senior officials have amplified their argument that the American approach needs to change. They said that Israel’s announcement that it would build 1,600 new houses in a disputed area of Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem, undermining a trip by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., further called into question the Netanyahu government’s commitment to seriously engaging in the peace talks.

Do you get that?

It’s Israel’s fault there are no peace talks.

At this point, in order to win this idiotic battle, that might only change the course of history, the Obama administration is rewriting history in order to explain its policy.

To remind the Obama folks, Israel WANTED peace talks. Netanyahu actually stood on a podium and accepted the premise of a two state solution. He backed off his demand that the Palestinians enter negotiations only after acknowledging that Israel is a Jewish state. He spoke often of having talks with Mahmoud Abbas. He even agreed to slow or freeze settlement construction.

What did the Palestinians do? They walked away from a peace offer in 2008, announced in the Washington Post that they now planned to wait because they thought that Obama-Netanyahu tensions were certain to follow as a result and within 2 years Netanyahu’s government would fall. They upped their demands of a settlement freeze to include a Jerusalem construction freeze. They continued to incite internationally and at home against Israel. And they did nothing about making peace.

It is so obvious that they would rather pursue a single state solution that I’ve had the pleasure of writing 4 posts about how they believe they are currently in their endgame (put “endgame” into our search box). They believe time is on their side, and Israel is reeling from numerous blows in recent years that have weakened its society and its motivation to continue the fight. However, their ace in the hole, the Palestinians believe, is Obama.

He is proving that they are right. The US could have been an honest broker here. The Year 2000 Clinton Parameters, for example, exhibit a great sensitivity and understanding regarding the needs and concerns of both the Israelis and Palestinians. Obama, however, has placed a great deal of pressure upon Israel, with very little on the Palestinians. This is now happening again, and he has made it so public, that whoever comes down from the tree first, will harbor great anger at the other side. That is to say, he has intentionally sown the seeds of a long-term conflicted relationship with the US that will be very hard to repair. He did this when peace talks are supposed to restart – peace talks that were proceeding despite the absence of a moratorium on east Jerusalem construction.

“There’s an issue of street credibility here,” said Aaron David Miller, a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, who was deeply involved in the Camp David talks during the Clinton administration.

Mr. Miller said that while the administration had “been thinking for months” about the advantages and risks of putting its own plan on the table, “they are worried about being accused of imposing their own solution.”

But such a plan could also, in the minds of some senior American officials, force Mr. Netanyahu to choose between the peace talks and the right-wing elements of his coalition, or to try to form a new coalition with the more centrist Kadima Party, led by Tzipi Livni, the former foreign minister.

If that’s really what they’re thinking in the White House today, they fail to understand that the problem isn’t the Likud. The problem is the White House. Israel has already offered REASONABLE peace twice in the past decade and once less reasonably (though certainly not justified in launching the war the Palestinians launched in 2000). Everybody knows the approximate parameters of a final deal. Netanyahu even said that he accepts a two state solution and is willing to negotiate. His ambassador to the US has stated that Israel is willing to make tough compromises.

Now Obama thinks he can produce a deal that will be superior to Clinton’s? After he has attacked Israel and its leadership so publicly? He thinks he can bring down the coalition in Israel and usher in a new age with Likud and Kadima?

Perhaps Obama should be focusing on the crew that has rejected negotiations, rejected previous peace offers, publicly stated a reluctance to enter new negotiations, and is benefiting from US military training and Israeli opening of avenues that enable the robust growth of the Palestinian economy.

It seems like a no brainer.

Unless you have a different plan in mind.

Obama has a different plan: to force and compel Israel to give up things, while he asks nothing from the Palestinians except to show up. Obviously, any Israeli government entering negotiations with this handicap, will seek to avoid closing any deal at all. They’d be crazy not to sabotage the talks.

In the meantime, with all this time wasted, Obama has forbidden Israel to tackle Iran militarily. The joke here is on Israel, since Obama won’t have to deal with the danger of an Iranian rocket reaching US shores for some years. The joke is, of course, that he actually treats the Iranians better than he treats the Israelis.

It may be time for those Jews who vote to think carefully about which party deserves their vote in November.

We have been spilling digital ink about this for the last 6 years. Lo and behold there is an anti-Semitic group on the campus called the MSU! While the administration and the deans deny that there are any problems, it seems that in fact that is not the case.

Recently, the UCI student government passed a first reading of a resolution BACKING the MSU, and the anti-Semitic thugs trying again to shut up the Jews from speaking freely at UCI.

And the worst part is you didn’t even send over any Michal Negrin as an apology.

A little while back, I had the bitter pleasure of criticizing the J Street student division for having a challenging time describing themselves – and ultimately they rejected the description – as “pro-Israel.”

It turns out the J Street students were prescient. They were merely expressing publicly what J Street, the organization, would demonstrate a few months hence.

Today, J Street went on the offensive.

…The Obama administration’s reaction to the treatment of the Vice President last week and to the timing and substance of the Israeli government’s announcement was both understandable and appropriate.

As Vice President Biden said, “Sometimes only a friend can deliver the hardest truth.” That is what he, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and White House Senior Advisor David Axelrod have done in recent days – and J Street, along with many friends of Israel, stands solidly behind them.

Um, false.

It’s true that only a friend can deliver the hardest truth. However, when the friend starts frothing at the mouth yelling at his junior friend and then after a year of obvious failure, falls right back into his previous pattern of undermining the possibility of negotiations by creating undue expectations that he will deliver the friend on a platter to his nemesis, then the friend’s behavior is neither understandable nor appropriate. In fact, it harms the peace process while undermining Israel and unfairly laying the blame for any failures at its feet.

Then J Street offers their recommendation for an agreement:

We urge the United States to take this opportunity to suggest parameters to the parties for resuming negotiations – basing borders on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed land swaps, with the Palestinian state demilitarized and on territory equivalent to 100% of the area encompassed by the pre-1967 Armistice lines.

Hmmmm, where have I heard that before?

Oh wait, I know!! First I heard Israel offer that to the Palestinians at Taba and then I heard Israel offer it to the Palestinians in 2008. The first time, it led to nothing but more violence, and the second time it led to nothing and a couple of months later we had Cast Lead.

The Obama administration will find vast support among American Jews and other friends of Israel for a bold new approach that aims to advance that interest and guarantees Israel a secure, democratic and Jewish future.

Yes it would.

Which is why most sane supporters of Israel realize that Obama has just stumbled again, just as he did when he first came to power and gave the Palestinians a reason to do nothing for an entire year, by demanding that the Israelis unilaterally stop all settlement construction and including east Jerusalem, part of Israel’s capital. They anticipated more pressure on Israel and did nothing while it was pending.

Now we are back to square one. It’s easy to blame it on Israel, especially if one rejects Netanyahu’s explanation that he had no idea that new construction in Ramat Shlomo would be announced on the eve of new talks with Biden visiting as a gesture of goodwill. However, even if this is true, and chances are it is NOT true, the last thing the US should have done is go on the warpath with Israel.

Ramat Shlomo is a Jewish neighborhood in a part of Jerusalem that will remain in Israeli hands. Building there is certainly part of the consensus of Israeli society both on the Left and the Right. If you’re offended about the timing of the announcement, that is fair. However, an apology was made at the highest levels and making a big stink over construction there is inappropriate, particularly since it plays into the hands of the Palestinians who are on the other side of these negotiations.

It also interferes, in a fundamental way, with Israel’s sovereignty. Contrary to the opinion of some commentaries out there, Israel is not a child and does not require hand-holding or scolding. The complexities of Israel’s existence are perhaps difficult to comprehend these days where the primary opponent has become the Palestinians, not so much other Arab states, and where the “settlements” have become the perceived stumbling block and not Palestinian refusal to compromise or negotiate. However, Israel is a sovereign state, and it has the right to govern itself.

In fact, as we watch Hillary berating Netanyahu like he’s a five year old dipping his hand into the cookie jar, and Oren being treated by the Administration as Israel treats the envoy of a country whose leader goes around the world accusing Israel of war crimes and intentional murder of Palestinian children, one wonders what the Americans expect to happen. Do they think the Palestinians will now negotiate in good faith? Or do they think the Palestinians will realize they’ve now bought another year or so? Do they think the Palestinians will offer any significant concession, or gain brazenness and complacency – as we’ve already seen with their subsequent commemoration of a square to a terrorist who murdered Israeli civilians? Do they think the Israeli public will trust the Americans to be honest brokers, or that they will come to view this administration with wariness and distrust, thus undermining any concessions Israel could have made that now will appear to be forced upon Israel and against its best interests?

One thing is certain. If Obama would apply to his Iranian problem the same vigor he applies to castigating Israel, insulting its leaders and undermining the prospect of bringing the parties to the negotiating table by weakening Israel’s position, Iran would have stopped or at least slowed its nuclear plans long ago.

I guess we have our own amateurs running the place.

Which is all to say that once again J Street is in the wrong and as a friend to Israel the best thing it could do is reject the US administration’s misplaced full-court press on Israel and try to bring the two countries back to the equilibrium which existed before Obama came to power. That will enhance the already remote prospects for peace faster than any other approach.

DeScribe’s Harmony EP just hit stores today! Pick up the CD/Download or the signed limited edition, visit Shemspeed Direct, here! If you want to grab it from iTunes, click here. Either way, check out the Award Winning Harmony Music Video, above. Here is a little background on Shemspeed’s head quarters in Crown Heights. “It’s been almost 20 years since the Crown Heights riots showed the ugly face of racial tension that exists between the Black and the Jewish communities Shemspeed’s Brooklyn neighbourhood. Many efforts since then have been made to create multi-ethnic/cultural programming and social structures to work towards peace and mutual understanding between the two communities, but still today a lack of real communication remains, and most of all, the tension still remains. In a recent wave of violence and rising crime in Crown Heights it has become obvious that we must push for “raising an awareness of the need for racial harmony in Crown Heights and in the world.” DeScribe, in collaboration with a multi-racial group of Crown Heights and Brooklyn residents, is attempting to do just that through a powerful new Hip Hop music video which delivers a clear and conscious message of racial and religious HARMONY.”

p.s. We are at #9, help us get to #1 and Vote Vote Vote for Electro Morocco’s remix of Matisyahu. IT’S THE BEST ONE!!!
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This is not an easy post to write.

As our readers know, I am a dedicated Zionist and strong supporter of Israel. It is with a heavy heart, then, that I must report a development today that will probably make the life of one Palestinian a truly living hell.

Earlier today, Israeli forces in Ramallah captured a Hamas terrorist by the name of Maher Ouda. Ouda is in his mid-forties and accused of being involved in the murder of at least 10 Israelis and possibly as many as 70 Israelis.

Well, tough luck for Ouda because now he’s really going to suffer. In an Israeli prison.

How do I know this?

Because today, Marwan Barghouti, the Fatah terrorist leader widely held to be the “Nelson Mandela” of the Palestinians who will apparently merely need to be released in order to bring them to some sort of, uh, holy land, showed the world what it means to be incarcerated in an Israeli jail for the murder of four Israeli civilians and the attempted murder of one.

Yes indeed. Today, Marwan Barghouti completed his doctorate.

He has finished his thesis and other obligations!! He is going to be considered by a faculty committee at an Egyptian university as to whether he has completed all of his obligations towards a Ph.D.

Now at this point, you’re thinking, “Those horrid, vicious Israelis must have broken his thumbs so that he had to type with eight fingers.” Nope, it doesn’t say that in the story.

Maybe you’re thinking, “Surely some NGOs financed by Naomi Chazan’s New Israel Fund are planning to sue the Israel prison system for “shaking” Barghouti until all his knowledge spilled out.” Nope, as far as I know, the NGOs are busy undermining Israel with important accusations.

Your mind is telling you, “Well, hell, of course he had time to finish a doctorate, what else is he going to do?” Well, Israeli prisons permit conjugal visits, just ask Samir Kontar, the Lebanese terrorist and murderer who killed a little girl after murdering her dad in front of her and forcing her to watch. Yup, Samir got married and had conjugal visits during his horrendous stay in an Israeli prison.

Now you’re thinking, “Get outta here!”

Nope. It’s all true and I’m staying.

How did Barghouti get his degree?

Barghouti, 50, is one of several hundred Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons who enroll in studies at universities around the world, including in Israel.
…
Barghouti was able to complete his thesis with the help of hundreds of books and documents that Israeli authorities allow inmates to bring into prison.

Hundreds of Palestinian prisoners are currently enrolled as students with the Open University of Israel, which facilitates their studies by allowing them to sit exams in jail.

You’re thinking, “Sure, only ‘hundreds’ of prisoners are enrolled in university studies, but there are thousands of Palestinian prisoners. Ha!”

Maybe so, but some are still completing their high school studies. They’ll have opportunities in future arrests, especially if murder is involved.

That’s right, all you need to do is murder or plan to murder some Israelis and then you get to study for a number of years, generally uninterrupted except for the pesky conjugal visits or management duties for your in-prison political machinery that influences Palestinians outside prison.

And you don’t really need to worry about the 4 life sentences imposed upon you by the dastardly Israelis because at some point a live or dead Israeli soldier will be traded for your release and that of a thousand or so others. It’s not a question of “if” but “when?”

The sweetest part of the story is that it’s obvious that Israel wants to help the international community support the Palestinians as much as possible. Sure, the Palestinians get billions of dollars in aid from UNWRA and other bodies, but they don’t need to waste that money on things like education. After all, the Israelis will take care of any gaps. You didn’t believe me about the high school studies, but now you will:

Barghouti, who is also a Fatah member on the Palestinian Legislative Council, completed his high school exams while in Israeli prison in 1980.

See? I told you this was a painful post to write. I can only imagine the pain Maher Ouda is going through right now as he decides whether to apply for an MA degree. Poli Sci or Sociology? If only the Zionist occupiers would stop with the newspapers, television and radio available in Arabic, Hebrew and English and start offering cooking and yoga classes!

And yet…

“Dr. Marwan Barghouti.”

It has a nice ring to it.

Dr. Marwan Barghouti Thanks His Jailers for Their Kind Offer to Subsidize His Education

Tel Aviv Storm

Both photos taken by the talented Tommy Junger from his Tel Aviv-Jaffa collection.

Sunset * Tel Aviv

A rough week diplomatically for Israel. Fortunately, it remains a beautiful and vibrant place, despite setbacks.

Shabbat shalom!!

Two weeks ago Los Angeles was rocked by a Purim party of Olympic proportions. JConnectLA, the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, and Atid – the young professional group of Sinai Temple and took over the entire Rodeo Collection on Rodeo drive. Music was provided by Moshav, Ram2, DJ Miles, and one of LA’s top DJ’s DJ Felli Fel.

When the party hit about 1000 people, the Beverly Hills Fire Marshall said enough. Purimpalooza party goers filled Purim baskets that were delivered to the Jewish elderly, and a local bone marrow registry swabbed party goers for bone marrow matches.

Purimpalooza in LA was started by Cheston Mizel, when he began the organization that became JConnectLA. The first event drew about 50-75 people. Purimpalooza has grown from year to year, changing venues and designs.

I just want to give a huge mazal tov to all the organizers, and the participants, for making the dream blossom that started seven years ago – an event to draw together Jews from all backgrounds – to help unify, inspire, and connect young Jewish people in Los Angeles. Shabbat Shalom!

Co-Sponsors: Valley Alliance, LEV Foundation, Jewlicious Festivals, Chai Center
Partners: Jews for Judaism, JAMS (of USC), Sephardic Mizrahi Young Leadership (SMYL), LA Jewish Chamber of Commerce, Jewish Big Brothers Big Sisters
Media Sponsor: www.LosAngelesBlueprint.com