Commentary Regarding Netanyahu and His Address. Bibi's Approval Rating Climbs - Has To Be Galling For Obama!

MY SENTIMENTS:

This Tuesday Prime Minister Netanyahu, will address Congress and the world.

This administration has responded in a manner that suggests President Obama is nursing a bruised ego, I submit, Netanyahu is speaking  because our president has proven he is unworthy of being trusted and has repeatedly demonstrated  sympathy for Muslim extremists that is incomprehensible.

Radical Muslim extremists are terrorizing the world, slaughtering Christians and he and his feckless Sec of State seem ready to allow  Iran to gain nuclear status and/or be within a blink of same. This terrorist state has killed our Marines, destroyed our embassies, financed radical Islamists, killed innocents in a bombing of a community center as far away as South America  etc.and yet, these two American leaders believe we can trust the word of their leaders.

This is the same president who has brought our nation's military to a force level comparable to where it was before WW2.

Netanyahu is making this address because he has concluded Obama not only does not have Israel's back but also is more than willing to allow Iran to move forward on its stated goal of wiping Israel off the map.The primal reason for government is protective. A government and/or leader that cannot, nor will not, protect its people deserves no standing.

That many Democrats are unwilling to listen to what the Prime Minister of the only Democracy in that region of the world and a proven ally has to say, is simply further evidence of political hypocrisy.

We know the consequences of the patronizing Chamberlain's and we know the lonely wilderness occupied by the voices of the courageous Churchill's.  We also know those who fail to comprehend  history live to repeat its many tragedies.

What path will it be America?  The one suggested by a president who cannot define the enemy and refuses to listen to the warnings of the experienced because he is so arrogant and consumed by ideological convictions that have proven disastrous?  Or will we choose to embrace Yankee Skepticism and admonition of Reagan - "Trust But Verify,"  knowing we cannot verify and have had blunted every effort to do so?

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Obama's rudeness mixed with kerry's arrogance and utter stupidity is a powerful combination Resulting In America Being Played Like A Violin! (See 1 and 1a below.)

Just more mixtures of sentiment regarding Obama, Iran and anti Israel bigotry.

Netanyahu is getting notoriety and the polls, for what they are worth, show his favor ability moving his way. Has to be galling for Obama as his ratings continue low.

DUH!!! (See 1b, 1c,1d , 1e, 1f , 1g and 1h below.)

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Illegal immigration is just another Obama ploy to wreck our borders, keep them porous and make us vulnerable to terrorism all the while protesting the fact that he is dishonoring the pledge he took when he first became president and then was re-elected.  As president, he pledged to defend America and our Constitution. (See 2 and 2a below.)
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Dick

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1) RUMSFELD: I'M AMAZED AT THE ADMINISTRATION'S RUDENESS

Less than a week before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to address a joint session of Congress, former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld tells Israel Hayom that the focus on Netanyahu's visit rather than on his message is an “unfortunate distraction” from the important issue — the Iranian threat.

“I find it stunning to see the comments out of the White House on this issue,” he says. “It is more than a distraction, it is unfortunate. It plays into the hands of those people who are not in favor of the relationship [between Israel and the U.S.], who are not in favor of Israel or who are in favor of Iran, and the idea that people are saying what they are saying I find most unfortunate.”

In a special interview, to be published in full on Friday, Rumsfeld says that “the entire discussion on his visit, it seems to me, is a distraction from the important subject about Iran. Here is a country that is supporting terrorism, has a pattern of being hostile not only toward the United States and Israel but toward many of the countries in your region.

“If the White House or the administration has a problem on an issue with a friend, normally they would work it out privately. They would sit down and say 'gee what about this, what about that, let's work this out.' In this case it's all public diplomacy.”

Remarking on National Security Adviser Susan Rice's comments Tuesday that Netanyahu's acceptance of House Speaker John Boehner's invitation to address Congress “injected a degree of partisanship” that is “destructive to the fabric of the relationship” between the U.S. and Israel, Rumsfeld noted that “the comments by Susan Rice reflect an imperfect understanding of our system of government and our constitution.

“Certainly there's a role for the Congress in foreign policy and national security affairs. Iran is a critical issue and Israel is an important ally, and there is nothing inappropriate at all for the speaker to invite the prime minister or for the prime minister to come over. Historically he is a good friend of the U.S., he is a supporter of the relationship between our two countries, and I find it stunning to see the comments out of the White House on this issue.”

The former defense secretary does not share the State Department's opinion that Netanyahu is not familiar with all the details of the potential deal between Western powers and Iran. Nor does he think that Netanyahu's speech will undermine relations between Israel and the U.S. “I think the administration is making a statement that they don't want anything to intervene in their negotiations with Iran, and they are probably understandably apprehensive that Prime Minister Netanyahu will come and talk about this subject in a way that is not consistent with what their aspirations are for a deal with Iran. Therefore, they have said things that are undiplomatic and inconsistent with the relationship between our two countries and its importance, and I can't imagine that, among the American people, it will affect our relationship adversely in any way. I'm really amazed at the rudeness, at the undiplomatic way this administration is handling this issue.

“It is unfortunate because it damages, or appears to damage, the relationship with an important ally for the United States. I think it is exactly what the Iranians are happy to hear — it has to be encouraging for them. But it is also unprofessional. I think the rest of the nations of the world look at the administration's behavior in this matter and see the damage that has been done to one of our important relationships. It is not in any sense permanent damage because this administration is in its waning years, but I think that other countries will inevitably wonder how reliable an ally this administration is.”

1a)  ISRAEL'S INHERENT RIGHT TO TAKE PART IN THE NEGOTIATIONS WITH IRAN

Author: Amos Hausner

A basic norm which has been adopted into our social economic and legal systems is that if someone’s basic and essential rights and interests are at stake – it is his inherent right to participate in all proceedings which are likely to affect these interests, be they legal, economical or even moral.

Iran keeps making existential threats against Israel, while simultaneously equipping itself with long-range missiles and producing materials which could potentially be used to manufacture nuclear warheads to be delivered by those missiles. Therefore, Israel finds itself in a position where its leaders, across the political spectrum, believe that these threats deserve an appropriate response. As to possible responses, it has been the policy of the State of Israel since its establishment in 1948 to take care of its own protection, without any need for military intervention by any of its allies.

Currently, leading nations including the US are conducting intensive negotiations with Iran regarding the development by this country of weapons for mass destruction. The former and current Israeli administrations found fit not to insist on direct participation in these negotiations, as well as in other measures taken in this regard, but rather to count on world leaders to take care of the Iranian problem. The reason given for this avoidance was that Iran constituted a serious threat not solely to Israel, but to most of the civilized world, particularly in light of the fundamental nature of the Islamic regime in Iran and its activities and threats to date.

This reasoning, however, has become more and more doubtful, as Israel feels increasingly insecure regarding the path of the negotiations, and the alleged achievements of the diplomatic process at this stage. In light of all this, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was invited to speak before the US Congress to express his position regarding the Iranian threat to Israel and the world.

The flaw in the thinking behind this planned address is the premise that others can be allowed to determine the future of Israel. Netanyahu has a problem with the US administration in regard to this issue, at least to some extent, so he is turning to the US Congress to effect the change he seeks in the direction of the negotiations. Yet even if he succeeds, it will still be others making existential decisions regarding Israel’s future. Only instead of the administration, it will be the US Congress.

The solution seems clear: Israel should be integrated into the negotiation process with Iran. This does not mean that it will have the power to veto decisions taken by others. Various nations, the US chief among them, have their own interests which do not necessarily coincide with those of Israel. Yet Israel’s strong involvement in the negotiations will be powerful in easing the insecurity which its population feels at present, and which brings its leaders to conflict with each other and with the US administration. Such participation will make the need for a speech before Congress obsolete. Further, Israeli participation in the negotiations will offer a greater opportunity to convince world leaders of the Iranian threat to the entire world.

Obviously, the Iranians will not see eye to eye with the rest of the world regarding Israel’s participation in the negotiations. But this may be a litmus test for the Iranians: if you are serious in your attempts to become part of the civilized world, a step which is of course required for a positive result in these negotiations, you cannot boycott the Israelis. If you refuse even to sit with them, what better proof is required of your bad will and your desire to endanger their existence? Another question is the stage which the negotiations have already reached. Israel has chosen not to participate so far, therefore, its participation logically need not obstruct understandings already reached. But regarding future stages of the negotiations, Israel’s participation appears to be the obvious required solution, let alone its inherent right to take part in proceedings the results of which are likely to significantly impact its future.

The cooperation between US and the Israeli administrations has the potential to reach a new peak as a result of the insistence from both sides on Israel’s participation in the negotiations.

The author is former Attorney General of the World Zionist Organization, son of Gideon Hausner, the prosecutor of Nazi criminal Adolph Eichmann, and board member of Massuah, international institute for Holocaust studies.

1b)

The Obama Matrix Emerges as a Policy Of Complete Acquiesence

By CONRAD BLACK,  Special to the Sun  

Almost everyone except the shrinking hallelujah chorus for the Obama administration acknowledges that there are serious problems in U.S. foreign policy and that the antagonists to the West and to stability in the world are gaining strength every week. The administration’s response to all of it is that none of it is America’s problem — the 21 Coptic Christians beheaded on film in Libya by ISIS, the incineration of a Jordanian pilot in a cage by ISIS, the increasing aggressions and massacres of Nigeria’s Boko Haram Islamic extremists, or the continuing Russian-sponsored aggression in Ukraine.

What has muddied the waters is that the administration periodically claims it is doing something about these outrages. Last summer, when the force of public opinion would not allow President Obama to pretend any longer that none of it was happening, or that if it was, it was virtually on another planet, he dusted off the Truman, Eisenhower, and Nixon doctrines and said that the United States would help indigenous elements resist terrorism and aggression in selected places (and helpfully added that “this is American leadership at its best”).

But he never goes beyond a hesitant and arm’s-length definition of assistance, building down from the Clinton administration’s conduct of the Bosnian War at 30,000 feet as a war worth killing for but not worth dying for. (And that was after Bob Dole’s lift-and-strike vote in the Senate, in which he required American dissent from the European Union policy of allowing the Serbians to cleanse the former Yugoslavia along ethnic and sectarian lines.) Now we have wars in which blankets and medicine and even limited ordnance may be supplied, and air attacks on enemies of civilization take place, but no weapons of self-defense are provided to Ukraine, and little direct assistance to any of these victims of aggression.

Instead of action, the White House organized the most platitudinous conference in modern history, except for the 2009 global-warming conference in Copenhagen, which Mr. Obama attended but at which he was unable even to gain an interview with the premier of China. (It all ended in shambles, taking the asinine Kyoto Accord — under which the West and Japan would have given Russia scores of billions of dollars as a reward for a reduced carbon footprint because of the disintegration of the USSR — down with it.) Yet in the Wall Street Journal of February 19, Secretary of State Kerry effectively wrote that this redundant anti-terrorism conference was the core of the American response to all these outrages.

Various subterfuges and feints have been presented, including the spurious claim that a “pivot to Asia” was in progress. A rearguard action has been conducted by the White House media operation, claiming that a clever and discriminating focus was underway on the realistically attainable and the avoidance of “stupid stuff.”

The president’s critics mistakenly accuse him of irresolution. He is very resolute: He has renounced any serious American involvement in international-security matters. He said in his national-security statement on February 6 that “hard choices” impended, and that it was imperative to avoid “the overreach that comes when we make decisions based upon fear.” This was just a matrix for an attitude, or policy (to put it grandiloquently), of complete acquiescence.

This theme was elaborated on by national-security adviser Susan Rice the following week at the Brookings Institution, when she gave the Obama line, “We insist upon investing in the foundations of American power: education, health care, clean energy, and basic research,” as if any of that has anything to do with countering terrorism or international aggression.

After the crushing rejection of the last mid-term elections, Mr. Obama has gone into a crouch, threatens preemptively to veto anything in the path of his retreat from the world, has presented an insane program of increased borrowing and spending that was dead on arrival in the air as he delivered it in the State of the Union message, and has strapped himself into a fuel-efficient time machine and fluttered back to the piping isolationist days of Herbert Hoover, when Hitler came to power and Japan invaded China. He couldn’t even send Attorney General Holder, who was in Paris anyway, to the January 11 anti-terrorist march in that city.

He told his prayer breakfast, the same week as the Rice speech, that ISIS’s atrocities were extenuated by the Crusades, Jim Crow, and other crimes of the Christian West. I have no standing to say how fervently the president believes that these past outrages are properly comparable to today’s Muslim extremism. Still, it is pretty clear by now that Mr. Obama will bestir himself even to the most pallid replication of traditional alliance solidarity and national-security alertness only if public opinion threatens to generate such wholesale desertions from among the congressional Democrats that his vetoes could be overridden.

He has thrown down the mask: Obviously this slant on security matters did not suddenly come upon him. Despite his escalation of the American effort in Afghanistan, he has been surreptitiously winding down American overseas involvements and redefining the national-security perimeter as, essentially, the United States itself, for six years. Now that he has fought his last election, he is revealing the proportions of his isolationism.

In 1937 in Chicago, Franklin D. Roosevelt startled the world by calling for a “quarantine” of aggressor-states. Three years later, he warned that if the democracies (Britain, France, Canada, and Australia) were defeated, this hemisphere would be like a prison, where we would be “hand-cuffed, hungry, and fed through the bars . . . by the contemptuous, unpitying masters of other continents.” His conviction, and that of his eleven successors, has been that the United States must consider its first line of defense to be Western Europe and the Far East, and not New England and California (or Pearl Harbor).

There is room for legitimate debate about the extent to which the U.S. should be involved in the world, but there is general agreement that the steps President Truman took to keep the Communist powers from strangling West Berlin, overrunning South Korea, and exploiting post-war devastation in Western Europe were correct and vitally served the legitimate strategic interests of the country.

Few would now dispute that Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger skillfully exited Vietnam, wisely brought China into the world equation, negotiated an excellent arms-limitation agreement with the USSR, and usefully started the peace process in the Middle East; and that Ronald Reagan’s combination of a defense build-up, the SDI program that frightened Russia with the prospect of removing its first-strike capability, and the stoking up of a mighty economic boom was a strategic grand slam.

George H. W. Bush expelled Saddam Hussein from Kuwait with great skill, and Bill Clinton handled NATO expansion well. The national-security consensus did not vanish, though Vietnam and the disappointing results of the Iraq War weakened it. But this abdication by Mr. Obama has had no consensus of support, and no serious public discussion; and it has been executed behind a smokescreen of false purposefulness.

It is little wonder that the American people wearied of armed foreign expeditions and became skeptical of them, or that the Obama administration wanted to concentrate more resources at home building the foundations of American life and union (and not, presumably, for exclusively opportunistic political reasons). But this complete indifference to the world, in its open-ended lassitude and in its suddenness, is problematical in many ways. It has been presaged by fierce talk of “crippling sanctions” on Iran, and of various things and people being intolerable and then being tolerated (most notoriously in the case of the “red line” in Syria).

It has incited increasingly provoking acts of aggression by those anxious to show the United States as a decadent and morally feeble paper tiger. It has reminded those who are historically knowledgeable of America’s inconstancy in pre-Roosevelt times: Foreign-policy specialists remember that President Wilson inspired the world, shattered by World War I, with notions of world government and durable peace and that the U.S bolted from its leader’s high-minded course and flopped back into isolation.

The world had become accustomed to American leadership and to an American definition of U.S. security interests that included the absence of threats to the United States from all theaters. Any departure from that status had to be responsibly discussed and introduced gradually and after consultation with allies, and as a handing over of the torch to reliable hands in each region — something like the British handing over influence in many parts of the world to the U.S. when the British could no longer afford to carry that burden after World War II.

And finally, the extreme confusion caused by this retreat, which a majority of Americans and most foreigners except terrorists and mountebanks like Mr. Putin hope will be reversed with a new administration, is being effected at a time when Western leadership is almost as weak in the other major countries as it is in Washington. If de Gaulle, Adenauer, Thatcher, or even Pompidou, Mitterrand, Kohl, or Blair were in office in France, Germany, and Britain, some degree of continuity would be possible.

But it is the misfortune of the West, and of those hundreds of millions of people elsewhere who depend on the West, that all of the traditionally leading Western countries are, for different reasons, having crises of leadership and policy coherence. This encourages the enemies of the West and makes essentially very vulnerable countries such as Russia and Iran appear strong. The leaders of Canada, Australia, Israel, India, and to some extent Japan are more robust, but the vacuum in America and Western Europe is profound and dangerous.

The world is fragmenting so quickly that Mr. Obama will not make it to the finish line with his policy of unilateral passivity, and neither will at least one or two of the other main Western governments. The provocations will inflame opinion, and even this administration will have to respond, and not just with more tokenistic gestures and tired pieties. The West is fatigued but not degenerate and defeatist. It will turn suddenly, and the people will assert themselves. This torpor will end, but, unfortunately, probably only after another violent provocation.

1c)

Iran on the Nuclear Edge

Official leaks suggest the U.S. is making ever more concessions.

Secretary of State John Kerry told Congress this week that no one should pre-judge a nuclear deal with Iran because only the negotiators know what’s in it. But the truth is that the framework of an accord has been emerging thanks to Administration leaks to friendly journalists. The leaks suggest the U.S. has already given away so much that any deal on current terms will put Iran on the cusp of nuclear-power status.

The latest startling detail is Monday’s leak that the U.S. has conceded to Iran’s demand that an agreement would last as little as a decade, perhaps with an additional five-year phase-out. After that Iran would be allowed to build its uranium enrichment capabilities to whatever size it wants. In theory it would be forbidden from building nuclear weapons, but by then all sanctions would have long ago been lifted and Iran would have the capability to enrich on an industrial scale.

On Wednesday Mr. Kerry denied that a deal would include the 10-year sunset, though he offered no details. We would have more sympathy for his desire for secrecy if the Administration were not simultaneously leaking to its media Boswells while insisting that Congress should have no say over whatever agreement emerges.

The sunset clause fits the larger story of how far the U.S. and its allies have come to satisfy Iran’s demands. The Administration originally insisted that Iran should not be able to enrich uranium at all. Later it mooted a symbolic enrichment capacity of perhaps 500 centrifuges. Last July people close to the White House began talking about 3,000. By October the Los Angeles Times reported that Mr. Kerry had raised the ceiling to 4,000.

Now it’s 6,000, and the Administration line is that the number doesn’t matter; only advanced centrifuges count. While quality does matter, quantity can have a quality all its own. The point is that Iran will be allowed to retain what amounts to a nuclear-weapons industrial capacity rather than dismantle all of it as the U.S. first demanded.

Mr. Kerry also says that any deal will have intrusive inspections, yet he has a habit of ignoring Iran’s noncompliance with agreements it has already signed. Last November he insisted that “Iran has lived up” to its commitments under the 2013 interim nuclear agreement.

Yet even then Iran was testing advanced centrifuge models in violation of the agreement, according to a report from the nonpartisan Institute for Science and International Security. In December the U.N. Security Council noted that Iran continued to purchase illicit materials for its reactor in Arak, a heavy-water facility that gives Tehran a path to a plutonium-based bomb.

The International Atomic Energy Agency reported last week that Iran was continuing to stonewall the U.N. nuclear watchdog about the “possible military dimensions” of its nuclear program. On Tuesday an exiled Iranian opposition group that first disclosed the existence of Tehran’s illicit nuclear sites in 2002 claimed it had uncovered another illicit enrichment site near Tehran called “Lavizan-3.” The charge isn’t proven, but Iran’s record of building secret nuclear facilities is a matter of public record.

As for the idea that the IAEA or Western intelligence agencies could properly monitor Iran’s compliance, a report last year from the Pentagon’s Defense Science Board is doubtful. “At low levels associated with small or nascent [nuclear] programs, key observables are easily masked,” the board noted.

This is significant since the Administration insists that any deal will give the U.S. at least one year to detect and stop an Iranian “breakout” effort to build a bomb. Iran’s ballistic missile programs aren’t even part of the negotiations, though there is no reason to build such missiles other than to deliver a bomb.

The Administration’s emerging justification for these concessions, also coming in leaks, is that a nuclear accord will become the basis for a broader rapprochement with Iran that will stabilize the Middle East. As President Obama said in December, Iran can be “a very successful regional power.”

That is some gamble on a regime that continues to sponsor terrorist groups around the world, prop up the Assad regime in Syria, use proxies to overthrow the Yemen government, jail U.S. reporter Jason Rezaian on trumped-up espionage charges, and this week blew up a mock U.S. aircraft carrier in naval exercises near the Strait of Hormuz.

***

Given how bad this deal is shaping up to be, it’s not surprising that U.S. allies are speaking out against it. “We prefer a collapse of the diplomatic process to a bad deal,” one Arab official told the Journal last week. Saudi Arabia has also made clear that it might acquire nuclear capabilities in response—precisely the kind of proliferation Mr. Obama has vowed to prevent.

No wonder many in Congress want to hear Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu next week. They look at all of this public evidence and understandably fear that the U.S. is walking into a new era of nuclear proliferation with eyes wide shut.

1d)

Obama vows veto of new Senate legislation ensuring vote on Iran deal By MICHAEL WILNER Bill calls for up-or-down vote; AIPAC to lobby for legislation.

WASHINGTON -- Four senators have introduced a bill that would grant Congress the opportunity to approve, or disapprove, of a comprehensive nuclear deal with Iran negotiated by the Obama administration. Under the pen for several months, the bill was published with a total of 12 cosponsors just five days before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to address the legislature. He is expected to express support for Congress' role in the diplomatic process. Given the timing of its publication, the bill represents a nexus of tension among policymakers at the White House, the Israeli premier and US lawmakers over the role of Congress on Iran policy, the foreign policy powers of the president and the quality of a proposed nuclear agreement. The Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015 was introduced on Friday by Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Bob Corker (R-Tennessee) and ranking member Robert Menendez (D-New Jersey), as well as Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and Tim Kaine (D-Virginia). Their move was immediately criticized by the White House. US President Barack Obama will veto all legislation on Iran so long as negotiations are under way, one spokesman told The Jerusalem Post. "The president has been clear that now is not the time for Congress to pass additional legislation on Iran," National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said in an e-mail. "If this bill is sent to the president, he will veto it." The bill would require Obama submit to Congress the text of a final agreement as well as evidence of Iran's compliance to the deal, and prohibits him from "suspending, waiving or otherwise reducing" congressional sanctions for sixty days. At that point in time, Congress would vote on a joint resolution of approval or disapproval of the deal. Should Congress vote against the agreement, and should the president veto that resolution, the legislature would vote a second time with the potential to override his veto with a two-thirds majority. Such a vote "would block the president from implementing congressional sanctions relief under the agreement," Corker's office says, effectively killing the deal. "We are in the final weeks of an international negotiation," Meehan said, explaining the president's position. "We should give our negotiators the best chance of success, rather than complicating their efforts." The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which is preparing to open its annual conference on Sunday and to host Netanyahu the following day, will fight for the bill, one official said. Previously, the president had expressed opposition to additional sanctions legislation on Iran during the talks, warning that such a bill would derail the prospects for a diplomatic solution to the decade-long conflict. The same logic now applies to Corker's oversight bill, the White House says. "We support the legislation and will be lobbying for it," an AIPAC official told the Post. In a prepared statement to press, Corker said few issues are more important to US national security than the current deal under discussion in Switzerland. US Secretary of State John Kerry travels to Montreux on Monday to continue intensive negotiations with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. "Any agreement that seeks to do this must include Congress having a say on the front end," Corker said, highlighting bipartisan support for his bill. Kaine, a vocal supporter of the president's efforts, suggested a vote from Congress might underscore American support for a prospective deal. "Iran is fully aware that its ultimate goal– elimination of statutory sanctions created by Congress– will require Congressional approval," Kaine said. "But long before Congress considers that repeal, a deal with Iran will involve up-front relief... I believe Congress should weigh in on the content of the deal given the centrality of the congressional sanctions to the entire negotiation and the significant security interests involved." Support from Kaine gave this new bill, written by Republicans, a vital bipartisan boost, just days after the Virginia senator announced his intention to skip Netanyahu's speech on Tuesday. Senators John McCain (R-Arizona), Joe Donnelly (D-Indiana), Marco Rubio (R-Florida), Heidi Heitkamp (D-North Dakota), Kelly Ayotte (R-New Hampshire), Bill Nelson (D-Florida), Jim Risch (R-Idaho) and Angus King (I-Maine) cosponsored the legislation. Aside from Kaine, who characterized Netanyahu's planned speech as "highly inappropriate," all authors and cosponsors of the bill are expected to attend. As of this writing, five Democratic senators and several congressmen announced plans to skip the speech, which has infuriated the White House. Netanyahu strongly opposes the deal currently under discussion, which is said to include a sunset clause of roughly ten years before restrictions on Iran's nuclear program begin to ease. Tehran would also be allowed to retain a substantial amount of its nuclear infrastructure, according to reports. "There are lots of voices saying lots of things, both about what’s happening in the negotiation– I find most of those stories amusing more than anything else– and what’s going to happen if you get one," Wendy Sherman, Obama's chief negotiator with Iran, told the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on Friday. Sherman said the US would be "fortunate" to reach agreement on the proposal, which is now before the Iranians. The Obama administration says its goal is to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, and will settle for nothing less than a verifiable deal that puts Iran at least a year away from acquiring the necessary fissile material. Israel publicly opposes any deal that allows Iran to retain a nuclear weapons capacity. At a press conference with his Italian counterpart in Tehran, Zarif dismissed Netanyahu's concerns as an "unfortunate" effort to distract the world from Israel's conflict with the Palestinians. "I believe this effort is fruitless and it should not be an impediment to an agreement," he said on Saturday, accusing Netanyahu of attempting to "utilize a fabricated crisis to cover up realities in the region." 1e) Netanyahu’s Moment By William Kristol Sometimes a speech is just a speech. Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech about Iran policy on March 3 will not be his first address to Congress. It will make familiar, if important, arguments. One might assume that, like the vast majority of speeches, it would soon be overtaken by events in Israel and the United States and the world. But the Obama administration’s reaction to the Israeli prime minister’s appearance suggests Netanyahu’s is more than just another speech. An administration that disdains the use of disproportionate force has been, to say the least, disproportionately forceful in its efforts to undermine Netanyahu’s message and discredit the messenger. What is Obama so worried about? What is he, if we may put it indelicately, so scared of? We can get a clue from the almost equally disproportionate reaction of Obama’s surrogates to Rudy Giuliani’s suggestion that Barack Obama doesn’t love his country. Why, really, should anyone care about Giuliani’s comment? We have no crime of lèse majesté in this country. But Obama defenders did care. Did they suspect Giuliani had struck a nerve? It seems he did. After days in which the entire media and most politicians, including many Republicans, hurried to condemn Giuliani and to assure everyone that Barack Obama loves our country as much as the next red-blooded American, a new poll from YouGov reports only 47 percent of respondents saying they think the president loves America, with a slight majority either thinking he does not (35 percent) or being unsure (17 percent). By contrast, 58 percent think Rudy Giuliani loves America, and only 10 percent think not. As for themselves, 85 percent of respondents say they love America, and only 6 percent say they do not. What does this have to do with Netanyahu? Agree with his policies or not, no one doubts he loves his country. In fact, he seems to like America a lot, too. One suspects that if asked, respondents to the YouGov poll might have judged Netanyahu more of an America-lover than Barack Obama. And they would in a sense have been right. After all, Obama is not just a citizen of America. He’s a citizen of the world. And he’s a disbeliever in American exceptionalism in any sense stronger than the British believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks in Greek exceptionalism. There’s nothing surprising about this. Obama is very much in the mainstream of modern progressive thought in his embrace of cosmopolitanism and his distrust of nationalism. He’s not interested in riding a high horse equipped, as he would see it, with patriotic blinders or nationalist spurs. Netanyahu, by contrast, is a patriot and a nationalist. He’s an Israeli patriot and nationalist. But he also appreciates the historic role and accomplishments of the great nation-states of the West. History—the history of the Jewish people, but not only the Jewish people—is always on his mind. He is inspired by the example of Ze’ev Jabotinsky—and also of Winston Churchill. He appreciates the legacy of David Ben-Gurion—and also of Harry Truman. When Netanyahu walks to the podium of the House of Representatives on March 3, he’ll undoubtedly have in mind an earlier speech given by a foreign leader to a joint meeting of Congress. On December 26, 1941, Winston Churchill addressed Congress, though in the smaller Senate Chamber rather than in the House, as so many members were out of town for Christmas break. Churchill enjoyed the great advantage in December 1941 of having an American president who, after Pearl Harbor, was a clear and unambiguous ally in the war for the West. Netanyahu has no such advantage. So it might be hard for him to say, as Churchill did, that here in Washington he had “found an Olympian fortitude which, far from being based upon complacency, is only the mask of an inflexible purpose and the proof of a sure, well-grounded confidence in the final outcome.” But Netanyahu won’t be speaking only to the Obama administration, which has, after all, made clear its lack of interest in listening to Netanyahu and whose allies won’t be there to listen. He’ll be speaking to the American people.  So he can echo Churchill in appealing to them and warning that, in the struggle in which we’re engaged, “many disappointments and unpleasant surprises await us.” He can echo Churchill in expressing confidence that the West, led by the United States, will prevail. And he can look forward to a time when an Israeli prime minister will be able to say what Churchill could say in December 1941: “Lastly, if you will forgive me for saying it, to me the best tidings of all—the United States, united as never before, has drawn the sword for freedom and cast away the scabbard.” President Obama has not, and will not, cast away the scabbard. Though Netanyahu will of course focus, as he should, on the details of a possible Iran agreement—the speech will be a moment that points beyond the particulars of an Iran deal. It will be a moment that could cause us to reflect on what kind of people we are, and, with new leadership, what kind of deeds we might once again be capable of. As it will be a moment of vindication for Zionism, the cause to which he and his family have dedicated their lives. In past episodes of Jews’ being consigned by the world to their fate, they were powerless to fight. And so the world (and not a few Jews) became accustomed to Jews’ playing the role of victim. On March 3, something remarkable and historic will happen. The prime minister of Israel, speaking on behalf of not only his country and millions of Jews, but on behalf of the West itself, will command the world’s attention as he declares his refusal to appease the enemies of Israel and the West. Both Jabotinsky and Churchill, both Ben-Gurion and Truman, would appreciate the moment. 1f) Netanyahu Visit Set to Test Mideast Relations Address by the Israeli prime minister is likely to ripple beyond politics By Carol E. Lee and Jay Solomon A long-awaited showdown this week between the White House and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has far-reaching implications for ties between the two countries, for the shape of power and influence in the Middle East and for a potential international agreement on Iran’s nuclear program. Mr. Netanyahu arrived in the U.S. on Sunday, two days before a scheduled speech before Congress, which has rankled the Obama administration. But as leading American and Israeli officials made last-minute attempts at conciliation, they also reiterated their grievances, pointing to a likely difficulty in bridging differences between the governments and potentially elevating the role of Congress in the debate. Mr. Netanyahu said he respects President Barack Obama but would press on with his plans for the speech, in which he is expected to support congressional calls for additional sanctions against Iran if a strong agreement to curb its nuclear program isn’t reached in the coming weeks. Secretary of State John Kerry said in a televised interview that the Israeli leader is “welcome” to speak in the U.S. but disagreed with the way the speech to Congress was arranged. Meanwhile, in a measure of the depth of tensions in Washington, the leadership of a powerful pro-Israel lobby on Sunday publicly broke with Mr. Obama on Iran and said the group would seek instead to reshape American policy through the Congress. Long-simmering tensions between the Obama administration and the Netanyahu government flared in January after Mr. Obama’s State of the Union address, when House Speaker John Boehner(R., Ohio) invited the Israeli leader to address Congress without consulting with the White House or congressional Democrats. Mr. Netanyahu was adamant he would address Congress to oppose an international nuclear deal with Iran that he contends could allow that country to retain a possible nuclear-weapons capability. The deal being negotiated between global powers and Iran seeks to expand and regulate Iran’s nuclear program to guard against the possibility of weapons development, a goal the nation has disavowed. International powers have set an end-of-March deadline to reach a political agreement. In the U.S., a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll showed nearly half of American voters believe Republican leaders shouldn’t have invited the Israeli leader to address Congress without first notifying Mr. Obama. In Israel, a group representing more than 170 retired Israeli intelligence and military officials warned Sunday that Mr. Netanyahu’s planned speech would harm Israel’s security interests. The high stakes of the Iran debate gives the U.S.-Israeli disagreement a potential reach that some find alarming. “It’s the combination of the depth and duration of the estrangement of the leaders against this backdrop of an unraveling region that makes this not just unprecedented, but it makes it dangerous,” said Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations and a longtime presidential adviser and government official. “These two countries at this time do not have the luxury of a broken relationship between the American president and the Israeli prime minister,” he said. Mr. Kerry flew Sunday to Switzerland on a trip to advance the Iran diplomacy and meet with his Iranian counterpart. In an address before a United Nations Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva on Monday, Mr. Kerry will make a “strong statement” about the U.S. record in defending Israel, a senior State Department official said. A second senior State Department official said Mr. Kerry will emphasize the extent to which the administration has gone to “stand up for and defend Israel’s interests” before international institutions around the world. Messrs. Kerry and Netanyahu spoke via telephone Saturday. Speaking on ABC on Sunday, Mr. Kerry said the U.S. “has a closer relationship with Israel right now in terms of security than at any other time in history.” Pro-Israel advocates made clear at a conference of the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which began on Sunday in Washington, that they are relying on Congress to upend any international Iran deal not to their liking. Howard Kohr, Aipac’s executive director, emphasized the “critical role” of U.S. lawmakers in the Iran diplomacy, explicitly citing the need to pass additional sanctions against Tehran if no deal is reached by summer and to refuse to undo sanctions in place if the terms of the deal are weak. “Congress, time and time again, has led the effort to bring pressure on Iran,” Mr. Kohr said before an audience of some 16,000 Aipac members. “Congress must review this deal.” Mr. Netanyahu is expected to make a similar case in speeches before Aipac on Monday and a joint session of Congress Tuesday. White House officials say the end-run around the president by Mr. Netanyahu and his Washington allies is unwise, given that Congress isn’t in charge of most foreign policy-making. But Mr. Obama may have in some ways set up his administration for this Congress-first dynamic. Aipac and Mr. Netanyahu lobbied for sanctions against Tehran’s central bank in 2012. The White House opposed those sanctions, but a measure received overwhelming support in Congress. The White House now cites the central bank sanctions as critical in bringing Tehran to the negotiating table. Aipac has had battles with previous White Houses on Middle East policy. But former members of the organization said the Iran debate has even more far-reaching ramifications for the Jewish state. The estrangement of Messrs. Obama and Netanyahu reflects “profound differences in strategic vision,” said Steve Rosen, a former director of foreign policy issues at Aipac. “The past fights we’ve had were far more limited.” Mr. Obama is sending two top foreign policy aides, National Security Advisor Susan Rice and Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power, to address the Aipac conference on Monday. Senior U.S. officials have warned in recent days that hard-line positions such as those pursued by Mr. Netanyahu and Aipac could lead to a military conflict with Iran. Mr. Kohr, on Sunday, said that argument was designed to silence critics. The White House has criticized Mr. Netanyahu over the speech and Mr. Obama has refused to meet the Israeli leader during his U.S. trip. Instead, White House officials have worked to undercut the opposition to a deal with Iran. However, while a number of leading Democrats have said they would boycott Mr. Netanyahu’s address to lawmakers, it is unclear how many will support a White House deal with Iran. Sen. Ben Cardin (D., Md.), addressing Aipac Sunday, voiced a policy line that appeared in sync with that of the pro-Israel lobby. “You have to have deadlines,” Mr. Cardin said. “It’s only because of U.S. pressure that we’ve gotten as far as we are.” — Felicia Schwartz and Rebecca Ballhaus contributed to this article. 1g)  http://www.israelvideonetwork.com/the-video-the-united-nations-wished-didnt-get-out/?omhide=true&utm_source=MadMimi&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Top+Weekly:+A+Gazan+Arab+Secretly+Produced+this+Video+for+All+to+See!+and+MORE!&utm_campaign=20150226_m124595951_2/26+WEEKLY+Top+Weekly:+A+Gazan+Arab+Secretly+Produced+this+Video+for+All+to+See!+and+MORE!&utm_term=v_png_3F1424949671

1h) Gallup:  Netanyahu's Favorability Ratings Improve in U.S.

Ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to the U.S. Congress that has strained relations between Israel and the White House, nearly twice as many Americans view Israel's leader favorably (45%) as unfavorably (24%). Netanyahu's favorable score is up from 35% in 2012. His current favorable rating ties his highest rating among the six times Gallup has measured it, spanning his three tenures as prime minister.

Americans' Views on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu

While Netanyahu's favorable score has varied slightly over the
years, his unfavorable score has been relatively stable, ranging from 20% to
28%. 
Notably, even while his favorable score increased since 2012, his
unfavorable score stayed about the same. Meanwhile, fewer Americans have no
opinion of Netanyahu today than did so in 2012, with 31% vs. 41%, respectively,
either saying they are unsure or have never heard of him.

These results come
from the annual Gallup World Affairs poll, conducted Feb. 
8-11. This week,
Netanyahu will address a joint session of Congress. He is expected to make a
forceful case against any agreement the U.S. and five other nations might strike
with Iran to limit Iran's nuclear program. 
Republican House Speaker John
Boehner issued the invitation to the Israeli prime minister without first
notifying the White House, an unusual step that many Democrats and White House
officials have interpreted as an effort to undermine Obama's diplomatic
negotiations with Iran.

But even if Netanyahu has seen his relationship with
the White House deteriorate, it appears to have had no impact on his standing
with the American people.

Republicans Now See Netanyahu Much More
Favorably

Though the American public in general views Netanyahu more
favorably than unfavorably, there are sharp party differences in these views.
Republicans are much more likely to view Netanyahu positively (60%) than
negatively (18%), while Democrats are evenly divided in their views of him: 31%
favorable and 31% unfavorable. Independents' favorable ratings of Netanyahu are
twice as high as their unfavorable ratings.

Americans' Views on Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, by Self-Identified Party Affiliation

Despite
White House and other prominent Democratic officials' criticism of Netanyahu's
visit, his favorable rating has improved among all major party groups since
2012. The increase has been slightly higher among independents
(+13 points) and
Republicans (+10 points) than Democrats (+6 points). 
Democrats are slightly
more likely now to see Netanyahu favorably compared with 2012 -- the
well-broadcast break with the Obama administration in recent weeks
notwithstanding.


Bottom Line

Despite Americans' support for Israel and a
long history of close ties between the two countries, Netanyahu has found
himself in a major political controversy by coming to Washington to address
Congress against the wishes of the White House. But the political tension felt
in the nation's capital has not hurt Netanyahu's image with the American public
at large. Americans see him about as favorably today as they did at any of the
six measurements Gallup has taken since 1996. The dust-up with the White House
may have won Netanyahu more independent and Republican admirers while at the
same time not costing him Democratic support.

Survey Methods

Results for
this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted Feb. 8-11, 2015,
with a random sample of 837 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S.
states and the District of Columbia. For results based on the total sample of
national adults, the margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points at the 95%
confidence level. All reported margins of sampling error include computed design
effects for weighting.

Each sample of national adults includes a minimum
quota of 50% cellphone respondents and 50% landline respondents, with additional
minimum quotas by time zone within region. Landline and cellular telephone
numbers are selected using random-digit-dial methods.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2)Gowdy Bill Will Dismantle Obama’s Amnesty, Speed Up Deportation -

The Daily Calle by: Chuck Ross

South Carolina Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy has introduced an immigration bill to defund President Obama’s executive amnesty and expedite the removal of criminal aliens from U.S. soil.

Named after Michael Davis, Jr., a sheriff’s deputy in California who was killed in the line of duty last year by an illegal immigrant, Gowdy’s bill would also provide a work-around for state and local governments to reinforce federal immigration laws while also implementing an annual review of the executive branch’s use of prosecutorial discretion in immigration cases.

“If we are serious about finding a long term solution to our immigration system, we must address interior enforcement,” Gowdy, the Republican chairman of the Immigration and Border Security Subcommittee, said in a statement announcing the measure.

“This bill, which is one part of the Committee’s step-by-step process to address our broken immigration system, will ensure we do not repeat the mistakes of the past and help us earn back the trust of the American public,” he added.
- See more at: http://americanactionnews.com/articles/trey-gowdy-bill-would-dismantle-obama-s-amnesty-speed-up-deportation-of-criminal-aliens#sthash.c1Q0vVmH.dpuf

2a) Obama is Immigrating Muslims How Will This Impact Our Future?

By Cal Thomas

Washington is such a phony city. Maybe that’s why it has such a good relationship with Hollywood.

In the sequel to a “film” we have seen many times before, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) may “shut down” Saturday because of a dispute between the Obama administration and the new Republican congressional majority over funding for the president’s immigration orders, which writes The Hill.com, would “provide deferred deportations and work visas to illegal immigrants.” In essence, the orders would grant them the equivalent of squatter’s rights.

DHS doesn’t have to shut down. Most employees will show up for work, though they might have to go without pay for a while, at least until Congress gets its act together, as it has in previous politically motivated closings.

DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson employed a scare tactic to pressure Republicans into caving. Johnson appeared on “ABC News This Week,” warning that Minnesota’s Mall of America might be a terrorist target.

But Press Secretary Josh Earnest assured Americans there was no “…specific, credible plot against the Mall of America or any other domestic, commercial shopping center.”

As usual, we are focusing on the wrong subject, or at least the wrong part of the right subject.

Of greater concern should be the flood of immigrants from Muslim countries among whom terrorists are surely hiding. As reported by Investors.com, “France, Belgium and now even liberal Denmark regret letting in so many immigrants from Muslim countries. Their swelling Islamic communities have become breeding grounds for terrorists. So why is the U.S. opening the floodgates to foreign Muslims?”

Good question.

The time to be concerned about lung cancer is before one starts smoking, not after cancer is detected. The time to be concerned about terrorists infiltrating America is before they arrive and attack shopping malls, not after their growing numbers threaten our national security

As Investors reports, “Between 2010 and 2013, the Obama administration imported almost 300,000 new immigrants from Muslim nations — more immigrants than the U.S. let in from Central America and Mexico combined over that period.” Many of them are arriving from Iraq and now Syria where ISIS has established a caliphate and from which it has announced plans to conquer Rome, meaning Christianity. “The U.S. will admit as many as 2,000 Syrian nationals by the end of fiscal year 2015, up from 525 since fiscal 2011,” Investors adds.

President Obama is living up to his 2008 campaign promise to “fundamentally transform the United States of America.” But transform it into what?