Obama - Enemy Number One?

Sounds about as one might expect and am trying to get verified.
My un-named informed source responded : "There was a lot of truth in most of it."

Gary Aldrich was not a Secret Service agent, he was an FBI agent assigned to the WH for 5 years overlapping the GHWB presidency and Clinton. Apparently, he was there in some kind of liaison capacity. Aldrich probably repeated what he was hearing. (See 1 below.)
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Barton Biggs forever bullish, explains why he has turned bullish. (See 2 below.)
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More articles on Obama's recent actions. The commentary ranges from Obama embracing GW's thinking more and more , Obama abandoning the U.S. to backpedaling on previous comments regarding Israel which bordered on contempt for the Lilliputian country.

It would seem, after this week, Obama's face should appear in every post office under the banner "The FBI's Number One Enemy."(See 3, 3a and 3b below.)
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The worst thing of all look who our messiah is getting advice from. JPTV.com - Trifecta: Obama Taking Advice from Apologist for the Post-American World

Obama is taking advice from Fareed Zakaria, a journalist who wrote a book called The Post-American World. Should the President of the United States take advice from a writer who envisions a diminished role for the United States on the world stage? Find out what it is about the relationship between Obama and Zakaria that has the Trifecta gang so upset.
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Dick
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1) Unlimited Access by Gary Aldridge, who was head of the Secret Service White House detachment.


JFK and LBJ = Philanderers of the highest order.both kept a lot of women in White House for affairs. Both set up "early warning" systems for if and when their wives were nearby. Total immoral men. In addition, LBJ was as crude as the day is long.

Nixon = Weird, moral man but very odd and weird. Paranoid etc. Horrible relationship with his family, almost a recluse.

Agnew = nice, decent man, everyone was surprised at his downfall.

Ford = A true gentlemen who treated them with respect and dignity

Jimmy Carter = A complete phony who would portray one picture of himself to public and very different in private. I.E. Would be shown carrying his own luggage, suit cases were always empty, he kept empty ones just for photo ops. Wanted the people to see him as pious and a non drinker, he and family drank alcohol a lot. Had disdain for the Secret Service, and was very irresponsible with the "football" nuclear codes. Didn't think it was a big deal and would keep military aides at a great distance. Would never acknowledge military or Secret service they were there to serve him.

Ronald Reagan = The real deal. Moral, Honest, respectful and dignified. Treated Secret Service and everyone else with respect and honor. Would always thank everyone all the time. He took the time to know everyone on a personal level. One story was early on in Presidency the President came out of his room with a side arm attached to his hip. The Agent in charge said "Why the pistol Mr. President." Ronald Reagan replied, "In case you boys can't get the job done, I can help." It was common for him to carry a pistol. People do not know that when he met with Gorbachev, he had a pistol in his briefcase. Upon learning that Gary Hart was caught with Donna Rice during the election Ronald Reagan said, "Boys will be boys, but boys will not be President."

Nancy Reagan = Very nice but very protective of the President..the Secret Service was always caught in the middle. Nancy would try to control what the President ate all the time (healthy) and he would say to the Agents "come on you gotta help me out." The Reagans rarely drank alcohol. Secret Service said they could count on one hand the times the Reagans were served alcohol other than wine during dinner. They made the comment for all the fake bluster of the Carters it was the Reagans who lived life as genuinely moral people.

George and Barbara Bush = Extremely kind and considerate. Always respectful. Took great care in making sure the agents comforts were taken care of. They would bring them meals etc. One time Barbara Bush brought warm clothes to agents standing outside a Kennebunkport. One agent who was given a warm hat tried to nicely say no thanks when he was obviously freezing and President Bush said "Son, don't argue with the first lady, put the hat on."

Bill Clinton = Presidency was one giant party. Not trustworthy, he was nice because he wanted everyone to like him but life is just one big game and party to him.

Hillary Clinton = Another phony. Personality would change the instant cameras were near. She hated with open disdain the military and Secret Service. Again another one who felt people are there to serve her. She was always trying to keep tabs on Bill Clinton..

Al Gore = An egotistical ass who was once overheard by his Secret Service detail when he told his son he needed to do better in school or he "would end up like these guys" and pointed to the agents.

G W Bush = They loved him and Laura Bush. They said no one is a nicer person than Laura Bush who never has a harsh word to say about anyone. The Bush's went out of their way to take care of the Secret Service and made sure they were well cared for with meals and other comforts. GW was the most prompt of the Presidents. He ran like a well oiled machine. He was also the most in shape who had a very strict work out regimen. The Bush's made sure their entire administration understood to respect and be considerate of the Secret Service.
Karl Rove was the one who was the most caring of the Secret Service in the administration.

Barack Obama - Clintons over again - hates the military and looks down on the Secret Service.
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2)Biggs Turns Bullish as Investors 'Overreact' to Global Worries

Analysts are boosting U.S. earnings estimates by the most in a year, a sign to Barton Biggs and Michael Shaoul that stocks will weather the biggest drop in U.S. economic forecasts since 2009.
Standard & Poor’s 500 Index profits may reach $104.73 a share in the next 12 months as consumer demand pushes sales up 13 percent, according to data from about 9,000 analysts compiled by Bloomberg. The income estimate rose 2.8 percent in the four weeks ended May 2. Analysts are turning more optimistic as economists cut projections for 2011 U.S. gross domestic product growth to 2.7 percent from 3.2 percent in March, the data show.

Falling commodity prices and economic data that have trailed forecasts by the widest margin since August sent the S&P 500 down 2.2 percent since its high on April 29. Declines were twice as much in stocks that led last year’s rally, the data show. To Traxis Partners LP’s Biggs, Kevin Rendino of BlackRock Inc. and Marketfield Asset Management’s Shaoul, earnings growth will reverse the losses and extend the index’s two-year advance of 97 percent.

“Investors are overreacting,” said Biggs, citing concerns about the European debt crisis, housing and reduced stimulus from the U.S. Federal Reserve. “All those worries are true, but I can see a number of them will be resolved in the next two months, and I do not think the global economy will slow down significantly. Stocks are very reasonably priced on earnings for next year.”

Deere, GE

Biggs, who oversees $1.3 billion in New York, favors machinery companies such as Moline, Illinois-based Deere & Co., General Electric Co. in Fairfield, Connecticut, the biggest maker of jet engines, and Peoria, Illinois-based Caterpillar Inc., the largest supplier of earthmoving equipment.

The S&P 500 doubled from its March 2009 low to 1,363.61 on April 29, its highest level since June 5, 2008, as earnings topped estimates for nine straight quarters. Per-share profits in the S&P 500 are forecast to climb 17 percent in the next year after increasing 36 percent in 2010, Bloomberg data show.

“Companies have executed,” said Rendino of BlackRock, which oversees $3.64 trillion in New York. “Each quarter there seems to be an abundance of bears saying, ‘This is as good as it gets,’ and the quarter after that, it’s even better. It’s emblematic of the fact that U.S. corporations have executed quite brilliantly through this cycle. Stocks are cheap.”

Greek Downgrade

The S&P 500 slipped last week, falling 0.3 percent to 1,333.27, as profit from Dell Inc. that exceeded analyst predictions was offset by a credit downgrade of Greece by Fitch Ratings. Housings starts in the U.S. unexpectedly fell in April as flooding and tornadoes in the South shut down construction, the Commerce Department said May 17.

June futures on the benchmark gauge dropped 0.6 percent to 1,320.1 as of 8:26 a.m. in London today.

Analysts have raised forecasts for S&P 500 earnings during the next 12 months each month this year, according to average projections compiled by Bloomberg. They expect companies in the benchmark gauge to earn $104.73 a share, up from $96.92 forecast at the beginning of January, the data show. The four-week increase on May 2 represented the biggest gain since May 2010, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Equity Valuations

Global per-share earnings will rise 18 percent in 2011, Citigroup Inc. said May 18, boosting a previous prediction of 12 percent growth. Earnings are estimated to increase 11 percent in 2012 and 9 percent in 2013, analysts led by Robert Buckland, Citigroup’s chief global strategist, wrote. A total of 328 of 454 companies in the S&P 500 that reported earnings since April 11 exceeded estimates, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Rising income has held down valuations in the S&P 500 as it rallied 30 percent from last year’s low of 1,022.58 on July 2. The index traded at 14.9 times profit since then, on average, compared with a mean price-earnings ratio of 16.4 since over the past 57 years, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

“You’ll have a couple of months when people can convince themselves that anything will happen,” said Shaoul, the New York-based chairman of Marketfield, who oversees $1 billion and beat 99 percent of his peers last year. “People will start to worry about the U.S. economy. In the end, corporate earnings will tell them they needn’t worry.”

Marketfield owns shares of Memphis, Tennessee-based FedEx Corp., operator of the world’s biggest cargo airline, network- gear maker Ciena Corp. in Linthicum, Maryland, and Omaha, Nebraska-based Union Pacific Corp., the largest U.S. railroad by sales, according to a March 31 filing.

Economic Reports

Government reports on the economy are failing to match economist projections. The Citigroup Economic Surprise Index, which tracks how much data has varied from predictions in Bloomberg surveys, has sunk to minus 49.1, meaning reports are missing projections by the most since August. The measure, which starts in 2003, reached a record high of 97.5 in March.

A gauge of stocks whose gains or losses have exceeded the market’s return shows companies that led last year’s rally are trailing in 2011. The S&P 500 High Beta Index of 100 stocks such as Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and Massey Energy Co. has dropped 4.9 percent in May and has lagged behind the broader measure for three months, the longest stretch since November 2008. The S&P 500 has dropped 2.2 percent since April 29.

‘More Defensive’

“We are at a stage of the recovery now where a more balanced mix of sector leadership is likely to emerge,” said Jeff Palma, a strategist at UBS AG in New York. “Numbers are not as strong as we’re used to, but we think it will be sustainable. If you’ve been pushing a very cyclical strategy, then it is time to become a little bit more defensive.”

Palma expects the S&P 500 will end 2011 higher than last week’s close and advises holding more technology, health-care and phone stocks than are represented in indexes. UBS raised its per-share profit forecast for the equity index last week to $101 from $96.

The advance since the S&P 500’s 2011 bottom on March 16 has been led by companies whose earnings are least-dependent on economic growth. Health-care stocks such as Johnson & Johnson have the biggest increase among 10 industries at 14 percent. The household-product group including Procter & Gamble Co. climbed 12 percent, phone companies like AT&T Inc. gained 12 percent and utilities such as Southern Co. rallied 11 percent.

Before March 16, those groups had the four smallest returns of the bull market.

‘Playing Catch-Up’

Laszlo Birinyi, president of Westfield, Connecticut-based money-management and research firm Birinyi Associates Inc., said higher estimates from securities analysts show they are “playing catch-up,” and aren’t a bullish signal. The 67-year- old former head of Salomon Brothers Inc.’s equity desk said he’s still buying shares after being one of the first to advise clients to own stocks as the market bottomed in March 2009.

“The earnings outlook is good and the earnings have been good because companies have taken advantage over the past several years to restructure and realign themselves,” Birinyi said. “I’m still bullish and I want our clients and investors to realize this is a protracted, long bull market. Don’t get shaken out by the 3 percent or 4 percent declines.”

Salesforce.com Inc. in San Francisco, the largest supplier of online customer-management software, Denver-based Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc., the burrito chain spun off by McDonald’s Corp., and Paris-based Hermes International, the maker of Birkin handbags, are among stocks Birinyi recommends.

Drugmakers, Utilities

Months in which so-called defensive industries lead the market have been a time to buy stocks in the past, according to data compiled by Birinyi Associates. The S&P 500 has returned an average of 11 percent in the 90 days after drugmakers, utilities, household-products producers and telephone stocks led the index by 5 percent or more for two months, data from 13 instances since 1960 show. During those rallies, technology makers, retailers and banks posted the biggest gains.

“Valuations are still reasonable and they won’t preclude the market from doing well,” said Larry Puglia, who runs the Blue Chip Growth Fund at Baltimore-based T. Rowe Group Inc., which oversees more than $500 billion. “Corporate earnings have been quite impressive, which is favoring stocks.”

© Copyright 2011 Bloomberg News. All rights reserved.
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3)Obama's False Choice
By Jonathan Tobin


In his address to AIPAC Sunday morning, President Obama doubled down on the points he made in his speech on Thursday. After a lengthy, and not entirely unjustified defense of his administration's record of support for Israel's security, he continued talking down to the Jewish state and its government as if he knew better than they about the situation in the Middle East.

Following the talking points that the administration has been furiously spinning since Thursday, Obama attempted to explain that there was nothing original or new in his attempt to lay down the 1967 lines as the starting point for future talks. It is true, as he asserted that his line bout "mutually agreed upon swaps" of territory means that the "borders will be different." But contrary to his claim that this is what past administrations also support, the Bush 2004 letter let it be known that the United States supported Israel's claims on Jerusalem and the major settlement blocs. Obama is neutral about Israel's borders. That is why the Palestinians view his support of the 1967 borders as a green light for them to refuse to talk unless Israel agrees to surrender every inch of territory.

Even worse, Obama's lecture about why Israel must make further concessions in spite of Arab intransigence was condescending and somewhat misleading. Obama said that demographics and technology mean the status quo can't be sustained and implicitly accused Israel of "procrastination." But Israel has already offered the Palestinians a state in virtually all of the West Bank, part of Jerusalem and Gaza and been turned down twice. Even the supposedly right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu has made its commitment to a two-state solution clear. Obama says Israel can't wait "another decade or two or three decades" to make peace. But Israel has been trying to make peace for 63 years. The world may be "moving too fast" to wait for peace but why must he lecture the Israelis when it is the Palestinians who refuse to talk, let alone recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders are drawn?

Although Obama rightly declared that the United States would oppose attempts to bypass the peace process via the United Nations, his mention of the 1967 borders will be used, as it has already by the Palestinians, to buttress their attempt to get recognition for an independent state inside those lines with no recognition of Israel.

Like all Obama speeches, the president presented a false choice in which he said the "easy thing" would be to say nothing about the peace process rather than to confront it as he has done. Democratic Party donors will have the final word on how foolish his attempt to ambush Netanyahu this past week. But the real false choice is the notion that it is somehow in Israel's power to magically create peace. That decision has always been in the hands of the Palestinians and the Arab world. So long as they ally themselves with terrorists and refuse to negotiate and to demand a "right of return" which would destroy Israel (and which Obama again failed to condemn) there will be no peace.


3a)Obama Channels W. — Except on Israel and Palestinians
By Michael Barone


"The State Department is a fitting venue," declared Barack Obama at the beginning of his speech on the Middle East last Thursday.

That's curious because in three-quarters of his speech Obama repudiated most of what has been traditional State Department Middle East policy. Only in the last page and a half of a six-page text, when he discussed the Israeli-Palestinian issue, did he revert to State Department mode.

Not once did Obama mention the name of George W. Bush, but much of his speech sounded like it came from his predecessor.

"Too many leaders in the region tried to direct their people's grievances elsewhere," Obama said, blaming the West "as the source of all ills, a half-century after the end of colonialism." Bush said almost exactly the same thing.

"It will be the policy of the United States to promote reform across the region," Obama said, "and to support transitions to democracy." Sure sounds like W.

Obama came to office with quite a different view. He wanted to skedaddle from Iraq and engage with "the Islamic Republic of Iran." Ousting tyrants seemed the last thing on his mind.

But events — the mullahs' rejection of his overtures, the "Arab Spring" uprisings — have apparently convinced him that history is moving in the direction that Bush perceived and encouraged.

In June 2009, Obama scornfully ignored Iranian protesters. But now "we still hear the chants echo from the rooftops of Iran" and remember "the image of a young woman dying in the streets."

Obama used to portray the Iraq War as folly and predicted that Bush's surge would fail. Now he felt obliged to salute "the promise of a multiethnic, multisectarian democracy" in Iraq.

True, Bush did not pursue democracy in the Middle East with perfect consistency, and Obama didn't propose to do so either. Sometimes it must be subordinated to other interests.

"Universal rights apply to women as well as men," Obama said. But he did not mention Saudi Arabia, where women's rights are, er, not fully respected.

Obama denounced Moammar Gadhafi's strategy to "keep power by killing as many people as he likes" and said Gadhafi would "inevitably" be forced out in Libya.

But while Obama noted that "the Syrian regime has chosen the path of murder," he held out hope that Bashir al-Assad would lead "a transition to democracy" or "get out of the way."

For 40 years, State Department Arabists and secretaries of state seem to have believed that Assad pere et fils were on the brink of instituting reform and making peace with Israel. For reasons that are unclear, Obama evidently clings to that forlorn hope for change.

But on one issue Obama took the old State Department line. "The status quo" between Israel and the Palestinians, he said, "is unsustainable." The United States needs to pressure Israel into making concessions.

He emphasized this issue even though it's obvious that it's not a priority or even of much interest to the "Arab Spring protestors." And even though, as he mentioned in his speech, the merger of Fatah and Hamas means that Israel does not have a negotiating partner willing to recognize its right to exist.

He continued to press his demand, made by no previous president, that Israel stop all "settlements," even in Jerusalem. Of course, he failed to note that that demand derailed any possible negotiations, since no Israeli leader will ever agree and since, once Obama made it, Palestinian leaders had to insist on it, too.

And he asserted — also a first for an American president — that an agreement "should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps." Previous presidents have said that adjustments should recognize changes that have occurred in the last 44 years.

Obama did not, and he added that all Israeli troops should be withdrawn from Palestinian territory, undercutting any Israeli demand to leave a defensive force along the Jordan River.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, sitting next to Obama in the Oval Office after their meeting Friday, said flatly that the 1967 (actually 1949-67) lines were unacceptable and that asking Israel to negotiate with Hamas is like asking the United States to negotiate with al-Qaida.

Obama deserves credit for going to the State Department to renounce State Department policy on the Middle East. Unfortunately, he didn't follow through on that on Israel and the Palestinians.

3b)Obama's Abandonment of America
By Caroline Glick

Before we get into what President Obama's speech means for Israel, it is important to consider what it means for America.

Quite simply, Obama's speech represents the effective renunciation of the US's right to have and to pursue national interests. Consequently, his speech imperils the real interests that the US has in the region - first and foremost, the US's interest in securing its national security.

Obama's renunciation of the US national interests unfolded as follows:

First, Obama mentioned a number of core US interests in the region. In his view these are: "Countering terrorism and stopping the spread of nuclear weapons; securing the free flow of commerce, and safe-guarding the security of the region; standing up for Israel's security and pursuing Arab-Israeli peace."

Then he said, "Yet we must acknowledge that a strategy based solely upon the narrow pursuit of these interests will not fill an empty stomach or allow someone to speak their mind."

While this is true enough, Obama went on to say that the Arabs have good reason to hate the US and that it is up to the US to put its national interests aside in the interest of making them like America. As he put it, "a failure to change our approach threatens a deepening spiral of division between the United States and Muslim communities."

And you know what that means. If the US doesn't end the "spiral of division," (sounds sort of like "spiral of violence" doesn't it?), then the Muslims will come after America. So the US better straighten up and fly right.

And how does it do that? Well, by courting the Muslim Brotherhood which spawned Al Qaeda, Hamas, Jamma Islamiya and a number of other terror groups and is allies with Hezbollah.

How do we know this is Obama's plan? Because right after he said that the US needs to end the "spiral of division," he recalled his speech in Egypt in June 2009 when he spoke at the Brotherhood controlled Al Azhar University and made sure that Brotherhood members were in the audience in a direct diplomatic assault on US ally Hosni Mubarak.

And of course, intimations of Obama's plan to woo and appease the jihadists appear throughout the speech. For instance:

"There will be times when our short term interests do not align perfectly with our long term vision of the region."

So US short term interests, like for instance preventing terrorist attacks against itself or its interests, will have to be sacrificed for the greater good of bringing the Muslim Brotherhood to power in democratic elections.

And he also said that the US will "support the governments that will be elected later this year" in Egypt and Tunisia. But why would the US support governments controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood? They are poised to control the elected government in Egypt and are the ticket to beat in Tunisia as well.

Then there is the way Obama abandoned US allies Yemen and Bahrain in order to show the US's lack of hypocrisy. As he presented it, the US will not demand from its enemies Syria and Iran that which it doesn't demand from its friends.

While this sounds fair, it is anything but fair. The fact is that if you don't distinguish between your allies and your enemies then you betray your allies and side with your enemies. Bahrain and Yemen need US support to survive. Iran and Syria do not. So when he removes US support from the former, his action redounds to the direct benefit of the latter.

I hope the US Navy's 5th Fleet has found alternate digs because Obama just opened the door for Iran to take over Bahrain. He also invited al Qaeda - which he falsely claimed is a spent force - to take over Yemen.

Beyond his abandonment of Bahrain and Yemen, in claiming that the US mustn't distinguish between its allies and its foes, Obama made clear that he has renounced the US's right to have and pursue national interests. If you can't favor your allies against your enemies then you cannot defend your national interests. And if you cannot defend your national interests then you renounce your right to have them.

As for Iran, in his speech, Obama effectively abandoned the pursuit of the US's core interest of preventing nuclear proliferation. All he had to say about Iran's openly genocidal nuclear program is, "Our opposition to Iran's intolerance - as well as its illicit nuclear program, and its sponsorship of terror - is well known."

Well so is my opposition to all of that, and so is yours. But unlike us, Obama is supposed to do something about it. And by putting the gravest threat the US presently faces from the Middle East in the passive voice, he made clear that actually, the US isn't going to do anything about it.

In short, every American who is concerned about the security of the United States should be livid. The US President just abandoned his responsibility to defend the country and its interests in the interest of coddling the US's worst enemies.

AS FOR ISRAEL, in a way, Obama did Israel a favor by giving this speech. By abandoning even a semblance of friendliness, he has told us that we have nothing whatsoever to gain by trying to make him like us. Obama didn't even say that he would oppose the Palestinians' plan to get the UN Security Council to pass a resolution in support for Palestinian independence. All he said was that it is a dumb idea.

Obama sided with Hamas against Israel by acting as though its partnership with Fatah is just a little problem that has to be sorted out to reassure the paranoid Jews. Or as he put it, "the recent announcement of an agreement between Fatah and Hamas raises profound and legitimate questions for Israel."

Hamas is a jihadist movement dedicated to the annihilation of the Jewish people, and the establishment of a global caliphate. It's in their charter. And all Obama said of the movement that has now taken over the Palestinian Authority was, "Palestinian leaders will not achieve peace or prosperity if Hamas insists on a path of terror and rejection."

Irrelevant and untrue.

It is irrelevant because obviously the Palestinians don't want peace. That's why they just formed a government dedicated to Israel's destruction.

As for being untrue, Obama's speech makes clear that they have no reason to fear a loss of prosperity. After all, by failing to mention that US law bars the US government from funding an entity which includes Hamas, he made clear that the US will continue to bankroll the Hamas-controlled Palestinian Authority. So too, the EU will continue to join the US in giving them billions for bombs and patronage jobs. The Palestinians have nothing to worry about. They will continue to be rewarded regardless of what they do.

Then of course there are all the hostile, hateful details of the speech:

He said Israel has to concede its right to defensible borders as a precondition for negotiations;

He didn't say he opposes the Palestinian demand for open immigration of millions of foreign Arabs into Israel;

He again ignored Bush's 2004 letter to Sharon opposing a return to the 1949 armistice lines, supporting the large settlements, defensible borders and opposing mass Arab immigration into Israel;

He said he was leaving Jerusalem out but actually brought it in by calling for an Israeli retreat to the 1949 lines;

He called for Israel to be cut in two when he called for the Palestinians state to be contiguous;

He called for Israel to withdraw from the Jordan Valley - without which it is powerless against invasion - by saying that the Palestinian State will have an international border with Jordan.

Conceptually and substantively, Obama abandoned the US alliance with Israel. The rest of his words - security arrangements, demilitarized Palestinian state and the rest of it - were nothing more than filler to please empty-headed liberal Jews in America so they can feel comfortable signing checks for him again.

Indeed, even his seemingly pro-Israel call for security arrangements in a final peace deal involved sticking it to Israel. Obama said, "The full and phased withdrawal of Israeli military forces should be coordinated with the assumption of Palestinian security responsibility in a sovereign, non-militarized state."

What does that mean "with the assumption of Palestinian security responsibility?"

It means we have to assume everything will be terrific.

All of this means is that if Prime Minister Netanyahu was planning to be nice to Obama, and pretend that everything is terrific with the administration, he should just forget about it. He needn't attack Obama. Let the Republicans do that.

But both in his speech to AIPAC and his address to Congress, he should very forthrightly tell the truth about the nature of the populist movements in the Middle East, the danger of a nuclear Iran, the Palestinians' commitment to Israel's destruction; the lie of the so-called peace process; the importance of standing by allies; and the critical importance of a strong Israel to US national security.

He has nothing to gain and everything to lose by playing by the rules that Obama is trying to set for him.

caroline@carolineglick.com




3c)DE BORCHGRAVE: Obama can't wish away the wall

By Arnaud de Borchgrave and Arnaud de Borchgrave

For Israel, it was not an "Oy gevalt" moment of fear, shock and amazement, but more of an "Oy vey" exclamation of exasperated dismay. President Obama, a few hours before meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, trotted out a recycled Saudi peace plan, circa 2002. After all, Special Envoy for Middle East Peace George J. Mitchell recently resigned after two years of commuting between Washington, London, Jerusalem and Ramallah with nothing to show for his efforts.

Mr. Mitchell clearly had decided it was Mission: Impossible. But evidently, not impossible enough for President Obama.

Now Mr. Obama said the time had come for Israelis and Palestinians to agree on the pre-1967 Six Day War border with minor border rectifications in Israel's favor. When then-Saudi Crown Prince (now King) Abdullah suggested the same thing nine years ago, it carried a little more weight. All 22 members of the Arab League - which then numbered such paragons of moderation as Iraq's Saddam Hussein and Libya's Moammar Gadhafi - were aboard.

The 22 Arab governments said they were prepared to sign a final peace treaty with Israel and establish normal diplomatic and commercial relations in return for the 1967 frontier.

President George W. Bush didn't do any broken-field diplomatic running with this then-unique opportunity because he was too busy preparing the 2003 Iraqi blitzkrieg.

For almost a decade, Israel has built, dug and fortified the 440-mile-long "Separation Wall" between Israel and the West Bank, which now juts into Palestinian territory for 85 percent of its length. It's twice as long as the 195-mile border between Israel and the West Bank before the 1967 war.

Israel's detractors were happy to report that it is longer than the communist-era Berlin Wall that kept East Germans under communist denomination. The Israeli wall is designed to keep Arab suicide bombers out of the Jewish state. But it also incorporates into Israel some of the larger Jewish settlements in the West Bank. It also put 90 percent of the territory's water aquifer west of the demarcation securely under Israeli control.

U.S. aid and Israeli bonds picked up most of the wall's $2.5 billion cost. In its concrete sections, it is 26 feet high. In the rural areas, it's an electronic fence bordered on both sides by trenches averaging 200 feet wide, security roads and coils of razor wire.

Agricultural land, including olive groves, had to be destroyed to make way, and houses along the route were either leveled or turned over to Israeli Defense Force guard posts. Palestinians have to obtain special permits to cross through certain gates to tend their land on the Israeli side of the demarcation.

The wall's tattletales are regularly tattletold by the Israeli media. There is no doubt in anyone's mind - with the exception of Peace Now activists - that anything west of the division is now an integral part of Israel. Then-Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, who later became foreign minister, referred to the wall in 2005 as "the future border of the state of Israel." Several ministers have said the same thing since.

Beyond the wall in Palestinian territory lie the balance of about 140 Israeli settlements and their populations, totaling 300,000. In East Jerusalem, a Palestinian sine qua non for their capital, about 200,000 Israelis have moved in. About the same number of Palestinians are still there.

With the Separation Wall completed, 85 percent of the half-million Israeli settlers now living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem will be under the protection of Israeli security forces. These are also deployed along the Jordan River, which Mr. Netanyahu says must remain there under any peace treaty negotiated.

Mr. Netanyahu lost no time rejecting Mr. Obama's call for a full withdrawal from the West Bank. The pre-1967 borders were indefensible anyway. He flew to Washington next day to tell Mr. Obama so. He urged Mr. Obama to endorse a 2004 Bush commitment when the 43rd U.S. president said a full withdrawal to the 1967 frontier was "unrealistic" and that any future peace agreement would have to recognize "new realities on the ground."

Mr. Netanyahu was on safe ground in Washington, where he came to address AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Washington's most powerful lobby was holding its annual convention.

Both AIPAC (with a powerful membership of 100,000 American supporters of Israel) and Mr. Bush guaranteed U.S. support for retaining the major settlement blocs in Palestinian territory. Some 70 million to 80 million U.S. evangelicals are, for the most part, in AIPAC's corner.

It is a formidable coalition with sharp congressional elbows. No one would dare stand up to Israel's friends. And every member of Congress feels compelled to pledge fealty.

Mr. Obama also had the "Arab Spring" uppermost in his mind: from Tunisia to the vest-pocket war in Libya, where civil war is getting bloodier; to Egypt, where the army was in charge pending fall elections that were expected to return an anti-U.S. majority for the Muslim Brotherhood; to Yemen, where a pathetic tin-pot dictator was making things easier for al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula; to Syria, where a ruthless dictator's son had almost 1,000 protesters gunned down by his security forces; and back to Gaza, where Hamas agreed to form a common front against Israel with Fatah and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

It was easier to spot the rites of hell in the Arab world than the rites of spring. Egypt's new foreign minister, Nabil Elaraby, under a temporary military government that many feared would become permanent, bypassed the establishment and lifted Hosni Mubarak's blockade of Gaza. At the same time, Mr. Elaraby upgraded diplomatic relations with Iran.

Mr. Obama may be a day late and a dollar short. His warning to the Palestinians not to circumvent negotiations by going to the United Nations in September will not succeed in getting them a state of their own. They know that. But at least they'll get the name of the state of Palestine recognized by the world. Hamas also reckons that this could be the road to a third intifada (uprising).
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