OBAMA WATCH: 10.29.16 - Checkmating Obama

Checkmating Obama - By Caroline B. Glick - http://www.jewishworldreview.com/1016/glick102816.php3

 

In one of the immortal lines of Godfather 2, mafia boss Michael Corleone discusses the fate of his brother, who betrayed him, with his enforcer.

 

"I don't want anything to happen to him while my mother is alive," Corleone said.

 

Message received.

 

The brother was murdered after their mother's funeral.

 

Last week it was reported that the Obama administration has delivered a message to the Palestinian Authority. The administration has warned the PA that the US will veto any anti-Israel resolution brought before the UN Security Council before the US presidential elections on November 8.

 

Message received.

 

Open season on Israel at the Security Council will commence November 9. The Palestinians are planning appropriately.

 

Israel needs to plan, too. Israel's most urgent diplomatic mission today is to develop and implement a strategy that will outflank President Barack Obama in his final eight weeks in power.

 

Lobbying the administration is pointless. Obama has waited eight years to exact his revenge on Israel for not supporting his hostile, strategically irrational policies. And he has no interest in letting bygones be bygones.

 

Before turning to what Israel must do, first we need to understand what Israel can do.

 

A good place to begin is by considering what just transpired at UNESCO, where twice in a week, UNESCO bodies resolved to erase 3,000 years of Jewish history in Jerusalem and the Temple Mount.

 

The fight that Israel waged at UNESCO is not the fight it needs to wage at the Security Council. The stakes at the Security Council are far higher.

 

Like the UN General Assembly, UNESCO's decisions are non-binding declarations that have no legal or operational significance. As such, there is no reason to expend great resources to fight them. For Israel, the goal of the fight at UNESCO is not to defeat anti-Israel initiatives. That is impossible given the Palestinians' automatic majority.

 

The purpose of the fight at UNESCO is to humiliate European governments that side with anti-Semitic initiatives, and to weaken the congenitally anti-Israel body itself.

 

The government achieved both of these objectives. Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's disavowal of his own government's abstention from the vote on the first resolution - like the similar position taken after the fact by the Mexican government - was a diplomatic victory for Israel.

 

So too, the fact that UNESCO's own Secretary-General Irina Bukova felt compelled to disavow her own agency's actions by rejecting the resolution's denial of the Jewish people's ties to Jerusalem was a significant victory for Israel. Her statement was deeply damaging for UNESCO and its reputation.

 

Finally, the fact that Tanzania and the Philippines voted against the resolution was a testament to Israel's capacity to convince other governments to abandon their traditional pro-Palestinian voting pattern.

 

The Palestinians won the vote at UNESCO because they are more powerful diplomatically than Israel. They have an automatic anti-Israel majority. But they weren't empowered by their victory. To the contrary. They were bloodied by it.

 

In a sign of their weakening hold on member nations, the Palestinians and Jordanians felt compelled to send a threatening letter to the members of UNESCO's World Heritage Committee lest they dare to vote against the resolution. Powerful players don't make threats. They don't need to.

 

Israel's experience at UNESCO teaches us that there are governments that are open to counteroffers. Israel doesn't need to hide in America's shadow. It is capable of working on its own to blunt the impact of the Palestinians' automatic majority. And it will need to use all of its resources to fend off a US-backed assault at the Security Council.

 

Unlike UNESCO, the Security Council can pass legally binding resolutions. Israel needs to be prepared to bring all of its resources to bear to prevent such a resolution from being adopted against it. Obama's intention to abandon Israel at the Security Council means that Israel comes to this battle severely hobbled.

 

But there is one advantage to the US's betrayal.

 

Over the years, Israel's ability to trust the US to veto anti-Israel resolutions at the Security Council was been a mixed blessing. On the one hand, the US has secured Israel from diplomatic assaults. But on the other hand, our ability to trust Washington has made us diplomatically lazy and ineffective.

 

Safe in Washington's shadow, we have behaved as through all diplomacy is public diplomacy. That is, we have pretended that statecraft begins and ends with making the moral or strategic case for our side against the other guys.

 

But public diplomacy is just one diplomatic tool.

 

The Syrian regime, for instance, has no moral case for securing international support. Bashar Assad didn't convince Russian President Vladimir Putin to support him by arguing that he is better than alternative regimes. He bought Putin's support by offering him permanent air and naval bases in Syria.

 

Then there is Morocco, another weak state with no public diplomacy case to make. Last March, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon outraged Rabat when he acknowledged the plain fact that Western Sahara, which Morocco occupies, is "occupied territory."

 

Morocco quickly secured the support of Spain and France and launched an all-out onslaught against Ban. How did Morocco manage?

 

Morocco's most powerful diplomatic resource is its control over migration flows from North Africa to Europe. Anytime it wishes, Rabat can open the migratory floodgates just as easily as it can keep them shut. And the French and Spanish know it.

 

In less than a month, Ban issued repeated abject apologies.

 

Game. Set. Match. Morocco.

 

From reports to date, it appears that shortly after the US elections on November 8, the Malaysians or Egyptians will submit a Palestinian-backed resolution that defines Israeli communities in united Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria as illegal. If the resolution is brought to a vote, the US will fail to veto it.

 

Such a resolution, or a resolution obligating Israel to withdraw to the 1949 armistice lines, would cause Israel grave harm.

 

So what resources does Israel have to prevent this from happening?

 

Of course, we have public diplomacy. And that might work with some friendly nations. But it won't get us over the top. We need to learn from the Syrian and Moroccan examples and consider what we have to offer Security Council members in exchange for their support in scuttling the approaching onslaught against us.

 

One such resource is the US Congress. Israel's allies in Congress are sickened by the Obama administration's devastating Middle East policies. A solid majority of lawmakers can be trusted to support actions that will reinforce Israel's position.

 

Israel has other resources as well that we can trade on. We have natural gas. And we have technologies that the governments of the world require to surmount the challenges of the 21 century. There is no reason to give these resources away when we can trade them for diplomatic support.

 

As for the Palestinians, as the UNESCO vote showed, they are less popular now than at any time in the past 40 years. All they have to offer is threats and antisemitism. Both are powerful weapons.

 

But they are no longer invincible.

 

Israel's goal must be to use our resources at the Security Council in a manner that will make it impossible for Obama to enable an anti-Israel resolution to pass.

 

A method for achieving this goal has two components. The first component is to convince a friendly country on the Security Council to propose a balanced resolution that would counter the Palestinian-backed Israel-bashing one.

 

Such a resolution could include four points. First, it could deplore efforts to deny Jewish history in Jerusalem and the Temple Mount.

 

Second, it can condemn the PA/PLO for their continued unlawful funding of terrorists.

 

Third, it can urge Israel to restrain settlement construction in areas that in previous negotiations have been identified as likely territory for a future Palestinian state.

 

Fourth, it can call on Israel and the PA to reinstate negotiations immediately without preconditions.

 

Israel has friendly ties with a few Security Council members, among them Uruguay and New Zealand. In the final weeks of the Obama era, it is possible that Israel will be able to convince one of them to submit a balanced resolution along these lines.

 

Obama would be hard-pressed to oppose such a resolution in favor of one that singles Israel out for rebuke.

 

But that still is insufficient. Obama can make Uruguay and New Zealand a better offer if he wishes.

 

And so we move to the second aspect of the plan.

 

If we learn nothing else from the Obama era, we must recognize that the time has come for Israel to stop sufficing with just one Security Council veto. Most states have several. And we need a few more.

 

Russia today is the best place to start our search for a second veto.

 

Putin is a dealmaker. As his agreement with Assad showed, he is willing to consider attractive offers. Obviously, Israel won't offer Russia bases. But we do have other things to offer Putin in exchange for a veto.

 

For instance, in exchange for a Russian veto at the Security Council, Israel can offer Putin to lobby the US Congress to cancel US sanctions against Russia over Russia's annexation of Crimea.

 

Israel has no dog in that fight. And the sanctions are not getting the US anywhere.

 

Putin might go for the deal for two reasons. First, by stepping into the breach and defending Israel against Obama, he will humiliate Obama.

 

Second, if Israel succeeds with the Congress, he will reap economic rewards.

 

For his part, Putin wouldn't even have to openly side with Israel. All he would have to do is announce that in the interests of regional stability, Russia will not support an unbalanced resolution on Israel and the Palestinians.

 

If Putin supports a balanced resolution, Obama will be checkmated. His plan to take revenge on Israel for not following him off the strategic cliff will be foiled. Israel will have survived his presidency.

 

None of this will be easy. And success is far from assured. There are many more ways for Israel to fail than succeed. Our diplomatic weakness remains a millstone around our neck. But as the UNESCO resolutions showed, attacking Israel is no longer cost free. We are not powerless in the grip of circumstances. We have cards to play.

 

And now is the time to play them for all they are worth.

 

Why the State Department Won't Acknowledge The Truth About Fatah - By Stephen M. Flatow - http://www.prophecynewswatch.com/article.cfm?recent_news_id=741

 

The U.S. State Department denounced the latest terrorist attack in Jerusalem by condemning "the statements glorifying this reprehensible and cowardly attack."

 

At first, it might seem like good news President Barack Obama's administration finally acknowledged and criticized the horrendous glorification of terrorist attacks we read about almost every day.

 

Until you notice the State Department forgot to mention one little thing--the identity of those it condemned. Who exactly has been making statements "glorifying" the attack? Who called the terrorist a hero and a martyr? Who defended and justified the murder of an Israeli Jewish grandmother?

 

The answer is Fatah, whose chairman is Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas.

 

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) created the PA in 1994 to govern territories from which Israel was withdrawing. Yasser Arafat, head of the PLO, was the first head of the PA. After he died, Abbas succeeded him.

 

The PLO consists of eight terrorist organizations, Fatah being the largest. Arafat was chairman of Fatah and the PLO. Following his death, Abbas become chairman of Fatah and the PLO. 

 

In other words, Abbas--hailed as a "moderate" by the Obama administration, the United Nations and the international news media--is chairman of the movement that is spearheading the glorification of the Jerusalem terrorist attack.

 

Within hours of the most recent Oct. 9 attack, Fatah's Facebook page featured a large, full-color cartoon depicting a hand with a machine gun waving from the top of Jerusalem's Dome of the Rock. 

 

On the ground below are two Israeli army helmets in a pool of blood. They represent Israeli police officer Yosef Kirme, 29 and the grandmother, Levanah Malichi, 60, murdered in the attack. Evidently, Fatah regards Israeli grandmothers as soldiers.

 

Fatah's Facebook page also featured an announcement praising "the shahid (martyr) Musbah Abu Sbeih, the one who carried out the operation." Abbas's Fatah uses the word "operation" when referring to terrorist attacks. 

 

That's because it doesn't consider murdering Israelis as terrorism. Palestinian Media Watch notes, "Defining a dead murderer as a shahid indicates that, according to Fatah, the murder of Israelis is sanctioned and even desired in the name of Islam."

 

The Fatah posting described the terrorist as "one of the most prominent people in Jerusalem and the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque." It said the charges Sbeih was recently convicted of in Israeli court constituted "ribat," an Islamic term referring to praiseworthy religious conflicts over Muslim land. The posting further justified his attack, claiming "the occupation authorities persecuted him."

 

Abbas's Fatah further justified the attack by falsely claiming, "The occupation government...is granting permission to the settlers to invade it, defile it, and desecrate its sanctity on a daily basis under the umbrella and protection of the occupation police."

 

False claims about Jews "defiling" other people's religious sites have been used throughout the ages to stir up anti-Jewish hatred and violence. It's called blood libel.

 

At the same time, the Jerusalem branch of Abbas's Fatah issued a call to Arab shopkeepers to go on strike "in memory of the souls of the martyrs of Palestine and this morning's martyr." The PA's official Voice of Palestine Radio broadcast called for the strike "due to the death of the Shahid Abu Sbeih."

 

So why won't the Obama administration acknowledge the truth about what Abbas's Fatah is doing? Why won't it refer to Abbas and Fatah by name? Because here's what would happen.

 

Obama would have to put Fatah back on the U.S. list of terrorist groups. (Supporting and encouraging terrorism is one of the criteria for getting on the list.) He would have to stop giving Abbas $500 million each year, since it's against the law to give U.S. funds to terrorist groups. 

 

And Obama would have to give up his dream of forcing Israel to permit the creation of a Palestinian state led by Abbas, Fatah and the PA.

 

Obama's political agenda--his entire policy concerning Israel and the Palestinian Arabs--conflicts with telling the truth about Fatah.

 

No matter how loudly Abbas's Fatah cheers for terrorists, the Obama administration will never do more than make vague allusions to "the statements glorifying this reprehensible and cowardly attack," without ever identifying who is doing the glorifying.