Exclusive
By Walid Shoebat
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the White House and President Barack Obama’s ‘warning’ that his country could face a bleak future -— one of international isolation and demographic disaster -— if he refuses to endorse a U.S.-drafted framework agreement for peace with the Palestinians.
Such threats, we believe, will amount to nothing. We, who support Israel’s right to exist, should not care what Obama says but care more about Obama’s success rate, which is not much. It is always when a U.S. President begins to fail in all of his policies that they end up twisting Israel’s arm using it as an scapegoat to maintain a presidential legacy.
If one views all the years in which we always read, “Obama warns”, we find that none of his predictions and warnings came through. Now he says that if the peace talks fail, “Obama warned”, the U.S. will have limited ability to protect Israel from what he called “international fallout.” Obama also “warned” about “continued aggressive settlement and says that Kerry has explored Israel’s security needs with the help of Army General John Allen, the former U.S. commander in Afghanistan.
“They’ve come up with a plan for how you would deal with the Jordan Valley, how you would deal with potential threats to Israel, that are unprecedented in detail, unprecedented in scope,” he told Goldberg.
Should Israel, and is Israel going to rely on International Security just because Obama said so? Netanyahu promised that he will never allow Israeli security be protected by any third party forces and will always keep Israeli security in the hands of the IDF. Netanyahu cannot and will not comply. He risks much since 70% of Israelis reject such plan. Israel knows well and has seen this type of security during May 1967 when International Forces were supposedly protecting the Straights of Tiran and United Nations forces retreated.
The same happened in Lebanon in 1978 and in 1983 when Hezbollah in Beirut blew up 241 American forces. And in 2000 Lebanon kidnapped 3 Israeli soldiers and United Nations forces did nothing. And in 2006 resolution 1701 to stop Hezbollah and such forces did nothing to stop Hezbollah’s armament. And in 2005 on the Gaza/Egypt border United Nations forces failed to prevent weapons smuggling and when Hamas took over United Nations forces fled.
And in 2013 they retreated from Syria and we are dealing with massive persecution of Christians.
Even if the U.S. places U.S. troops to guard the Jordan Valley from any terrorist incursions, this will escalate the situation since Islamist terrorists will even focus more on killing American “infidel” troops to pressure the U.S. to pull out its troops. This is exactly what Hezbollah did in Lebanon and the U.S. tucked tail and pulled out, even under the Ronald Reagan administration. Even the so-called Palestinian peace partner, Palestinians celebrated the death of 3000 Americans in 9/11.
Obama knows this and most likely has it under his cuff since Americans will begin to object that sacrificing Americans and place them in harm’s way to protect Israelis makes quite the argument as to why we should support Israel.
What Netanyahu should tell Obama is this; United Nations forces did nothing and so we too will do nothing to all of your threats, Mr. President. Netanyahu, we believe has no choice but to reiterate what he has said before:
We don’t want to see rockets and missiles streaming into a Palestinian state and placed on the hills above Tel Aviv and the hills encircling Jerusalem. If Israel does not maintain a credible military and security presence in the Jordan Valley for the foreseeable future, this is exactly what could happen again.
Obama says that the Israelis have a promising negotiating partner in Abbas, whom he described as “sincere about his willingness to recognize Israel and its right to exist; to recognize Israel’s legitimate security needs; to shun violence; to resolve these issues in a diplomatic fashion that meets the concerns of the people of Israel. And I think this is a rare quality not just within the Palestinian territories, but in the Middle East generally. For us not to seize that opportunity would be a mistake.”
If all this is true, why did Israel have to build a wall to shun Palestinian violence? Israel was never in the business of erecting walls, they removed a wall after 1967 in Jerusalem that separated the old city and now Obama wants to establish East Jerusalem as a capital for Palestine?
We are not alarmed at all of this. We believe that there are still a few years left before we see serious “international threat” as Obama declares. Even the Palestinian Authority (PA) has offered a three-year gradual withdrawal by Israel from the so-called occupied West Bank. The proposal was presented by the acting PA Chief Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday as part of any future peace deal. And Abbas can see the horizon,
“I am saying that clearly: whoever proposes 10 or 15 years for a transition period does not want to withdraw,” Abbas said. “We say that a transitional period should not exceed three years, during which Israel can withdraw gradually,” he added.
We do not see Obama’s comments to mount to anything when he said that the president will make an “urgent appeal” to Netanyahu to accept Kerry’s plan during their meeting on Monday. The Palestinian Authority has put all their chips on betting on the U.S. for the past two decades. This will deteriorate the Palestinian Authorities image in the Muslim region who do not trust the United States.
Obama talks hot air. He has many problems; the issue of Iran and the interim nuclear deal, the president is dismissing arguments that the limited sanctions relief is leading businesses to rush back to Iran, though he will soon have to directly address Netanyahu’s vocal objection to the deal.
When asked how Iran views his “all options on the table” threat, which alludes to the possibility of military action if Iran seeks the ability to produce nuclear weapons, Obama said, “We have a high degree of confidence that when they (Iranians) look at 35,000 U.S. military personnel in the region that are engaged in constant training exercises under the direction of a president who already has shown himself willing to take military action in the past, that they should take my statements seriously.”
Really? We have predicted for years that either Israel or the U.S. will do anything about Iran’s nuclear program, and so far we were right and everyone who was optimistic about an attack was completely wrong. The fallout will happen between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The Muslim world will deal with its own self-destruction focusing on Jerusalem and Obama, we believe for the meanwhile has no choice but to keep hands off Israel. And if the US can place 35,000 U.S. Military personnel in the region, why then can’t Israel place its IDF forces in the Jordan Valley?
But Obama faces more serious problems than the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. The president’s handling of the crisis in Ukraine and Crimea region reinforces doubts about his toughness in addressing foreign challenges and if so, it will be similar in the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, North Korea’s nuclear weapons advances and China’s increasingly aggressive regional posture.
But even his “tough talk” things look worse for the U.S. and Russia’s accomplishments early in Obama’s first term in the “New Start” treaty to reduce nuclear weapons. The “reset” program with Russia listed 17 areas of cooperation, including on Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan, trade and military-to-military engagement. Any reset in U.S.-Russia relations now has vanished when deteriorating relations with Russia threaten to jeopardize other U.S. foreign policy priorities.
Obama says the threat of “kinetic strikes” was enough to get Syria to give up its chemical weapons in a deal brokered by Russia. But is Obama ready to do “kinetic strikes” against Russia? We think not. Will he do this with Israel? Impossible. Will he be willing to start deteriorating relations between the U.S. and Russia and Israel? We think not.
It was Turkey that was able to force Israel to apologize and pay for the flotilla crisis. The White House recently says Obama and Erdogan also conferred on Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. And Obama thanked Erdogan for working to restart peace talks in Cyprus.
But Turkey twisting Netanyahu’s arm to deal with the Flotilla is a much smaller issue than allowing the Palestinians to establish East Jerusalem as a capital for the Palestinians. For such to happen, it will take a massive army to even try to force Israel in giving up Jerusalem. This is not likely to happen as a result of Obama’s barking. There are several years in the horizon for this to happen. In the meanwhile, we can watch the dogs bark.