Obama's money and Israel's sovereignty

Obama's money and Israel's sovereignty - Caroline B. Glick - http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Column-One-Obamas-money-and-Israels-sovereignty-457567

 

The problem is that in exchange for the expanded military aid, Obama is demanding that Israel surrender its diplomatic and military independence to the White House.

 

This week, MK Michael Oren stood up to his boss in the Kulanu party, Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon, to the political Left, including hundreds of retired security brass, and to the IDF General Staff. The former ambassador to Washington urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to sign the multi-year security assistance deal that US President Barack Obama demands Israel accept.

 

The problem isn't the money. By all accounts, Obama's multi-year military assistance package is generous.

 

The problem is that in exchange for the expanded military aid, Obama is demanding that Israel surrender its diplomatic and military independence to the White House.

 

For more than 40 years, every US administration - including the Obama administration - that has sought to harm Israel in any way has hit up against an unmovable obstacle. Whether the White House wanted to enable the UN Security Council to pass an anti-Israel resolution, place an embargo on military exports or bureaucratically slow them down to force Israel to stand down during wartime; whether the White House wanted block expanded trade deals, crowd out Israel's military industries, or sell game changing weapons systems to Israel's enemies, the US Congress has always stopped it in its tracks.

 

Israel-haters in the US speak endlessly about the supposedly all powerful and malign "Israel lobby," which controls US foreign affairs. But the simple truth is that it wouldn't matter all that much if AIPAC were to shut down tomorrow. Even without AIPAC, Israel would enjoy the support of Congress.

 

It would continue to enjoy that support because the vast majority of Americans support Israel and expect their representatives in Congress to support Israel.

 

In other words, the "Israel lobby" is none other than the American people.

 

As Oren warned, Obama's military assistance package would disenfranchise the American public when it comes to US policy toward Israel. The agreement bars Israel from asking that Congress augment the assistance that Obama has offered and bars Congress from acting. So if a future administration chooses to breach the agreement, or to suspend it, or if conditions change and Israel requires other assistance, Congress would be barred from stepping into the breach.

 

Then there is the assistance agreement's assault on Israel's military independence.

 

Israel's military industries are the primary guarantor of its independent capacity to fight and win wars.

 

Successive administrations have sought to restrict the activities of Israel's military industries and have used the military assistance to achieve their goal.

 

Israeli critics of US assistance note that Israel's military industries are the primary casualties of the aid.

 

Currently, the US allows Israel to use a mere 25 percent of its assistance at home. As a consequence, the main beneficiary of US military assistance to Israel are US defense contractors.

 

Critics of the US aid argue that if Israel stops receiving military assistance, far from harming the economy, the move would strengthen Israeli industry and expand economic growth. The thousands of jobs at US defense contractors that are created through US military assistance to Israel, will move to Israel, and go to Israelis.

 

Moreover, whereas Israel gives the US its technology for free as part of the security assistance package, if it stops accepting the assistance, it will be free to sell its technology to other partners such as India, which will eagerly partner with Israel in weapons development and production projects.

 

Strategically, canceling the US military aid package would massively expand Israel's military independence of action.

 

On the other hand, the deal that Obama is now trying to coerce Netanyahu to sign will require Jerusalem to give up the 25 percent of the military assistance it is now allowed to spend at home. Oren noted that such a concession will cost thousands of Israelis their jobs.

 

But even worse, an Israeli agreement to spend all future US military assistance in the US would be tantamount to an Israeli agreement to concede its military independence to the White House for a fistful of dollars. Without the independent capacity to develop and produce defense systems, spare parts and munitions, Israel will be unable to take military action without White House approval.

 

Obama's own record makes clear what Israel would be risking.

 

Two years ago during Operation Protective Edge, Obama initiated an unofficial embargo on missile transfers to Israel. In an act of economic warfare, Obama also temporarily banned US commercial flights from traveling to Ben-Gurion Airport and so threatened the economy. Obama undertook these steps as a means to coerce Israel into accepting Hamas's cease-fire terms.

 

Aside from Obama's terms themselves, the most distressing aspect of the current fight over Obama's defense deal is that the IDF senior brass - in active duty and reserves - supports Obama.

 

This support goes hand in hand with a series of actions taken by current and former senior security officials in recent months and weeks. Taken together, they strengthen the unpleasant and distressing conclusion that the Obama administration has unreasonably close ties to Israel's security establishment and is using them to undermine the elected government.

 

Since last month, retired IDF general officers have produced two major position papers dealing with various aspects of a future Israeli withdrawal from Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. Their most notable common feature is that they both reflect the Obama administration's policies on the Palestinian conflict with Israel.

 

The first paper, "Security First," was produced by a group called Commanders for Israel's Security. With the signatures of more than 200 retired generals, and recently endorsed by former prime minister and defense minister Ehud Barak, the CIS paper calls for Israel to announce that it is ending its claims to sovereign rights over Judea and Samaria. It also calls for Israel to take a number of unilateral steps in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem in order to show the Palestinians that it is serious about surrendering the areas in the framework of a peace deal with the PLO.

 

Among other things, the generals call for Israel to administratively divide Jerusalem. The Arab neighborhoods should be administered by an Arabs-only municipal authority that will operate within Jerusalem's city hall but be autonomous in its decisions.

 

The generals also call for a complete cessation of all building activities in Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria outside the separation barrier. Residents of these communities, they recommend, should be pressured to abandon their homes in exchange for government money.

 

The second paper was prepared by the Washington- based Center for a New American Security. CNAS is led by former senior Obama administration officials.

 

"A Security System for the Two-State Solution" was authored by leading members of US Gen. John Allen's team of advisers. In 2013, Secretary of State John Kerry hired Allen to prepare a security plan that would convince the Israeli government and public to surrender the Jordan Valley in the framework of a peace deal with the Palestinians. The public, and the government rejected his recommendations.

 

Among the paper's co-authors are Maj.-Gen. (res.) Gadi Shamni, the former IDF attaché to Washington, and Nimord Novik, Shimon Peres's former chief of staff. Novik also played a central role in writing the "Security First" paper.

 

In 2013-2014, Shamni raised a lot of Israeli eyebrows when it was reported Allen had hired him to serve on his team. Shamni's closest point man in his work for Allen was Kerry's lead negotiator Martin Indyk. Indyk viewed Shamni's presence on the team as a means to subvert public opinion. Indyk sought to recruit other retired IDF generals to work with Shamni to lobby Israelis to support Allen's plan, which required Israel to surrender its control over the border with Jordan.

 

The CNAS report essentially parrots Allen's plan.

 

Like Allen's plan, the CNAS plan claims to provide security arrangements that will provide for Israel's defense even after it withdraws from the Jordan Valley, and the rest of Judea and Samaria.

 

To this end, the report purports to "Build a multilayered system that addresses Israel's security concerns and in which Israel retains the right of self-defense as well as the capacity to defend itself by itself, but ensures that this is only necessary in extremis."

 

And who determines whether Israel has reached such an extreme situation? The Americans will. The basic premise of the CNAS paper is that the US military will replace the IDF as the guarantor of Israel's survival.

 

US forces will patrol the Jordan Valley along with Palestinian forces, which they will train.

 

More important, the Americans will stand at the helm of a security committee composed of Israelis, Palestinians and Jordanians. The Americans will dictate the tempo of Israeli withdrawals from Judea and Samaria, including from the international border with Jordan. If Israel believes that the Palestinians are not able or willing to maintain security in the areas that Israel is to vacate, and the Americans disagree, Israel will be forced to withdraw despite its objections.

 

If it fails to do so, or if it acts militarily against US objections, it will lose US diplomatic backing.

 

Shamni's paper, like Obama's defense assistance deal, is based on one strategic assumption: That Israel can trust the administration - any administration that ever will be - so much that its best bet is to give up its diplomatic and strategic independence in exchange for American weapons and Obama's promises. Moreover, it can commit its survival to the proposition that the US is strategically infallible.

 

On that point, it is worth noting that this week, terrorists whose affiliation was not reported detonated a car bomb along Jordan's border with Iraq and Syria.

 

Six people were killed.

 

The affected area has been the site of several recent attacks by Iranian-allied forces. As J.E. Dyer has noted, Iran seeks to use its control over the Iraqi army's campaign against ISIS in Falluja as a stepping stone in its westward expansion into Jordan.

 

In response to the attack, the Jordanian military declared the northern and eastern border areas closed military zones.

 

In the CNAS report, the threat posed to Israel from the east through Jordan is casually dismissed. While the authors allow that such a threat exists in theory, they insist that an attack from the east is "much less likely since the fall of Saddam Hussein."

 

Revealing the unity of purpose between the CIS and CNAS, both were presented in New York earlier this month at an event sponsored by the far-left Israel Policy Forum. The forum is considered a major player today due to its intimate ties to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

 

Shamni and his colleagues admitted, "Persuading Israelis to entrust part of their security to the United States will be one of the most challenging hurdles to an agreement."

 

Let us hope that it remains an insurmountable obstacle.

 

Obama's Red/Green Cover-up Begins to Unravel - By Cliff Kincaid - http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/70282/obamas-redgreen-cover-up-begins-to-unravel-opinion/#dBOibyqVXD6DCHbP.97

 

Seven years into Barack Obama's presidency, the scales may slowly be falling from the eyes of The New York Times. Could the truth about America's red diaper baby President be starting to emerge?

 

In a story about papers of his reported father, Barack Hussein Obama Sr., the Times said that President Obama has shown no interest in "the newly discovered documents, which included nearly two dozen of his father's letters, his transcripts from the University of Hawaii and Harvard University, and references from professors, advisers and supporters." The paper added, "Nearly three years later, as Mr. Obama celebrates his last Father's Day in the White House, the center [the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem] is still waiting" for a response from the President as to whether he is interested in seeing the documents.

 

What accounts for this strange behavior from Obama? Could the lack of interest have something to do with the fact that the Kenyan is not Obama's real father?

 

Based on the documents in the possession of the Schomburg Center, it appears that the Kenyan Obama didn't even claim the future President as his son.

 

"It was while pursuing his undergraduate degree at the University of Hawaii in 1960 that Barack Obama Sr. met Ann Dunham, a classmate," the Times said. "Although he already had a wife and two children in Kenya, he married her the following year, after she became pregnant. Their son was born on Aug. 4, 1961. But Barack Obama Sr. never mentioned his new wife and son, not even in his scholarship applications" (emphasis added).

 

There's more: "In 1963, as he applied for a grant to help cover his graduate studies at Harvard, Barack Obama Sr. was asked on a financial aid form about his marital status and number of dependents. He left the section blank" (emphasis added).

 

Joel Gilbert, a filmmaker with a keen interest in the case, is not surprised. "The Kenyan Obama never mentions Barry or Ann in correspondence or applications after Barry [Barry Soetoro was Obama's name when it reflected his step-father's surname] was born," Gilbert tells Accuracy in Media. "Nor did any of the Kenyan Obama's classmates know about a child or a marriage. This is just part of the mountain of evidence I cite in my film, 'Dreams from My Real Father,' that demonstrates the Kenyan Obama participated in a sham marriage to help cover up an affair between Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, and Frank Marshall Davis, Obama's communist mentor."

 

Davis was exposed as Obama's communist mentor by Accuracy in Media in 2008, with the assistance of blogger Trevor Loudon, before Obama's election to the presidency. The liberal media showed little interest. And when they did, they downplayed Davis's Marxism, suggesting he was just a civil rights activist. That was the official Obama campaign line.

 

Later that same year, the 600-page FBI file on Davis was released, demonstrating Davis's involvement in alleged Soviet espionage. Davis was even on the FBI's internal security index, which was reserved for individuals who were considered wartime threats to the United States. Again, the media showed no interest, apparently realizing that the Davis connection would derail Obama's campaign for the White House.

 

In 2012, Gilbert's film was released, asserting that Davis was Obama's real father.

 

But regardless of whether Davis was the real father or not, Obama was partially raised, by his own account, by Frank Marshall Davis from ages 9 to 18.

 

While the Times seemed perplexed by Obama's lack of interest in the newly discovered documents, the paper "continues to celebrate the false background story of President Obama," and perpetuates the notion that the Kenyan is the real father, Gilbert notes. To do otherwise would invite scrutiny of the Times and other news organizations for having failed to adequately probe Obama's controversial background before he assumed the presidency.

 

Gilbert commented, "The New York Times article mentioned that President Obama did not respond to the Schomburg Center's offer to share the documents. In fact, President Obama has expressed zero interest in the Kenyan Obama since he took office. The Kenyan Obama served as the diversion in Obama's run for the presidency, to sell himself as the multi-cultural ideal who would be a post-racial president. This was necessary to hide the fact that Barack Obama's real biological father and ideological mentor was Frank Marshall Davis, a Communist Party propagandist and one of the original 'Black Bolsheviks' in Chicago who was recruited by white communists to in turn recruit blacks into the Communist Party."

 

He added, "The fact that the Kenyan Barack Obama never mentions Barry or Ann Dunham [in the Schomberg documents] is more indication that he took part in a sham marriage to cover up the affair between Ann Dunham and Frank Marshall Davis. Every time more information and letters come out, they reiterate there was no connection between the Kenyan Obama and the President."

 

Gilbert's interest in the topic has now extended to members of Barack Obama's own alleged family. He interviewed Malik Obama, Barack's alleged half-brother, about the subject of Barack Obama's father. Malik Obama told Gilbert that he wants a DNA test and believes Frank Marshall Davis is the real father.

 

Based on all the available evidence, including the newly discovered documents, it would appear that the Kenyan Obama had been used not only for the purpose of concealing an illicit relationship between Obama's mother and Davis, but also for hiding a Marxist agenda for America and the world.

 

But Obama's cover-up goes much deeper than this.

 

As we have noted in the past, the same Obama campaign apparatus which asserted that Davis was just a black civil rights activist also claimed that Obama was a baptized Christian. However, Obama acknowledged in his book Dreams from My Father that his grandfather was a Muslim (page 104) and that he spent two years in a Muslim school in Indonesia studying the Koran (page 154). There is no evidence Obama was baptized as a Christian, in any formal sense, in Jeremiah Wright's church, and no evidence that Obama ever specifically rejected Islam.

 

The truth may be somewhere in the middle. Edward Klein, author of The Amateur: Barack Obama in The White House, notes that Wright told him that he "made it comfortable" for Obama to accept Christianity "without having to renounce his Islamic background."

 

All of this may help explain why Obama's policies seem designed to benefit America's enemies at home and abroad, including what Frank Marshall Davis called "Red Russia," as well as the Muslim Brotherhood and its various fronts.