The Case Against Liberals and Assorted Radicals! Obama Provides Them Cover!

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Next year's SIRC President's Day guest speaker, Allen West, presents a case study of government and the private sector. (See 1 below.)
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Liberals and the radical left never cease their gutter tactics knowing the press and media will manipulate the  public into buying whatever they spew.

In our country, liberals have accused conservatives of a war on women when, in fact, liberal policies have done more to harm women than those accused by them.

When it comes to the manner in which Harry Reid ran the Senate, never allowing for votes, conservatives were blamed for throwing sand in the gears of government.

When Tea Partyers paraded, and cleaned up afterwards, they were accused of trashing the rights of minorities because they favored upholding dictates of the Constitution.

Meanwhile, liberals patronized those who paraded against Wall Street and smeared police cars with feces and lately police have been bashed for protecting themselves and taking the lives of their attackers.  Also, attacks by America's Justice Department and our current president inflamed destructive crowd behaviour which was reported as justified protests born out of frustration.

The constant drum beat asserting conservatives hold negative racial views is another ruse which liberals trot out at election time and then they turn their backs on black Americans by voting against charter schools and vouchers.  A rigorous education is the best ticket to improving one's economic opportunities yet, liberals are more interested in protecting unions .

The list is endless and are the choice, selective methods used by anarchists and chaos seekers because they are  effective and are meant to construct chasms between segments of society thereby weakening our Republic and causing discord.

Yet, liberals and radical progressives are praised and defended and portrayed as the true supporters of freedom and citizen rights.

These same philosophies and policies are not limited to America. They know no borders. They are the same fiendishly cynical methods now employed in Israel by radical Jewish elements.

Obama's attacks on Israel provide them cover. (See 2 below.)

I Challenge you to listen to this, somewhat rambling address, to the end.  It is also long but so important: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOPuWVNEPBw

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A response to my harangue regarding executive compensation.

This is from an old and dear friend, a fellow memo reader and in his former professional life a very solid analyst who was responsible for portfolio segments numbering in the many many billions: "Dear Dick,

I took interest in and I agree with your views on executive compensation.  As one who spent years looking at proxies as a fiduciary for the taxpayers of Georgia, I was ever appalled at what passed as objective justification of executive remuneration.  Note the point I make of using the word remuneration because "pay" which used to mean cash has become a trivial part of total remuneration - a feature I believe executives used intentionally to mask abuse.  I further grate at unreported perks of which the average investor has no idea.  Altogether, the broader issue is the "agency problem" where uneducated and unconcerned shareholders allow foxes to guard the hen house.

My solution to corporate compensation is to restore cash as the only compensation (however large that may be) which provides penultimate transparency.  Then executives could indulge themselves with all the perks they want with their own money, including using their own money to buy company stock!  For those who don't know history, I'll explain that back in the day men like Cornelius Vanderbilt didn't even take executive compensation.  They were grateful for investors who put their trust and capital backing in the company and took compensation, no more, no less, the same way as all the other investors - dividends per share. 

You may recall that the "agency problem" was one of my pet issues discussed with you when we met last summer.  Your readers may have some inkling how the agency problem plagues shareholders but I doubt if they know the depths to which it penetrates hidden government empires such as the Division of Investment Services.  If the owners of a business (shareholders) are so passive that they allow the agency problem in corporate governance you can bet they are clueless to the ravages of the agency problem hidden in government bureaucracies. 

Well, you can see this is one of my pet peeves.

As always, thanks for your emails."

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Israel will be pressed for any appearance of obstinacy when it comes to a two state movement but, according to this analyst, the screws will not be turned all the way.

Again, I find it hypocritical to accuse Israel of not agreeing to everything Abbas demands when Abbas refuses to recognize the legitimacy of Israel and is incapable of controlling terrorists who are likely to take over his territory  and are  bent on Israel's destruction.  Furthermore, when Israel gave up Gaza they were attacked by rockets. 

Obama needs to set up another "blame entity' to take attention off his own continued policy failures which have nothing to do with Israeli intransigence but it provides a convenient excuse. If Europe was not wholly dependent upon energy from Russia and The Middle East they would not give a fig about the Palestinians.  (See 3 and 3a  below.)

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Sowell issues two warnings! (See 4 below.)

Petraeus issues his own.  (See 4a below.)

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Dick
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1)- Government and the Private Sector – A Case Study
By Allen West

A fundamental tenet of socialist economic theory is the nationalization of production. That means more government control over the means of economic activity advancing more public and less private sector investment, ingenuity, and innovation. There are those who embrace the concept that government can provide services better and be a fair competitor with the private sector. That of course is a horrible misconception.

First, government does not have to raise capital, it simply raises taxes – or it can print money to fund its programs. Government does not have to pay for advertising its “product,” it uses unlimited taxpayer funds. Government does not have to produce a superior product, it can use the legislative process to “mandate” – we call it coerce – behavior, forcing acceptance.

In the late 1970s, President Jimmy Carter felt every American had a “right to own a home” and thus created the Community Reinvestment Act. The result some 30 years later was a mortgage meltdown due to the government-created subprime crisis. Legislation and actions were advanced to support this scheme – such as repealing the Glass-Steagall Act – along with the expansion of GSEs (Government Sponsored Enterprises) such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Today, more than 90% of mortgages in America are backed by taxpayers, not the private sector.

Of course, there are private sector entities that lobby and profit from government crony capitalism. As always when following socialist economic principles, the end result is that there are those who line up at the government trough awaiting a “bailout” – that is, taxpayer funds.

In the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, government “nationalized” college student loans, dictating interest rates. So, with diminishing private financial sector involvement, government has created a monopoly – with the funds clawed back from private lenders of student loans used to expand the nearly 159 new government agencies and bureaucracies created by “Obamacare.”

This month the U.S. Supreme Court heard the case of King v. Burwell. According to the letter of the law, only states with sanctioned exchanges could offer “subsidies” for insurance to consumers. However, as it always is with government involvement in the private sector, the rules changed. Consumers in states that did not have exchanges also received government subsidies to pay for a highly expensive product – swelling enrollment numbers. This partly due to behavioral modification using coercion by way of taxation – “fines” to force “mandated” enrollment – that is, purchasing of the product.

But did the federal government even need to set up exchanges for health insurance at all? Enter the story of eHealthInsurance.com.

Vip Patel was a Silicon Valley success story prototype – went to Stanford University and received a graduate degree from the Wharton School of Business – doing well for himself riding the wave of technological innovation. Yet, this innovator developed a means, through technology, a way to use the Internet to help those less fortunate.

Vip Patel came to realize that technology could be used to innovate the individual health insurance market. He believed that one could place on the Internet, huge volumes of text and data that describes health insurance, organize it, and present it in a way that is understandable for people, and enabling the consumer to compare and shop for best rates and plans – all online.

Mr. Patel set out to build what would become eHealthInsurance.com, a highly successful company that pioneered the technology to do exactly what he believed needed to be done. Founded in 1997, eHealth, Inc. survived the dot.com bomb and went public in 2006. It has been profitable most years. Now, eHealth offers some 13,000 different health insurance policies sold by more than 180 different insurance carriers in all 50 States and the District of Columbia.

That is what we call the essence of the private sector and the opportunity economy that rewards ingenuity and innovation. However, this idea also served as the model for an idea that the government seems to think it invented – health insurance “exchanges.”

That brings us to today, last week the eHealthInsurance.com announced a major layoff for a company of its size – shedding some 15% of itsU.S.-based workforce – remember Obamacare will give us 159 new agencies and bureaucracies.

Over the past two years of Obamacare, the government exchanges have enrolled approximately 11.7 million people. (Private exchanges, including eHealth, have probably enrolled a tenth of that.) To achieve that, the government has spent upward of $6 billion to create and operate 15 government exchanges (14 state exchanges and one federal exchange) to compete with eHealth and other private sector companies. Recall that the private sector exchanges must raise capital, whereas Obamacare just instituted 20 new taxes. Is that fair competition?

The irony is that a great criticism from the White House’s own Chief Technology Officer was that government should be leveraging technologies that already exist in the commercial sector. Government should not be buying technology like a start-up – and certainly not attempt to be innovator and venture capitalist in one.

Perhaps a true public-private sector collaboration could have been engaged. One can only imagine a recommendation being made by White House or Health and Human Services Director, "Mr. President, here’s a website that is already working, it already does what you want to do. Why not just use them?” The arrogance of officialdom probably would preclude the president’s acceptance of such a suggestion.

Instead of leveraging a great idea and a highly functional technology solution that already existed, the government – with all of its muscle and virtually unlimited resources – has entered another private sector industry and, by abusing its power, is harming even the company which pioneered the concept and the technology it struggles to implement.

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2)

The Jewish Left’s War on Israeli Democracy

By Jonathan S. Tobin 

Faced with a crushing defeat, Isaac Herzog, the leader of Israel’s loyal opposition congratulated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on his victory and vowed that he and his Zionist Union would prevail in the future. That is the way to behave in a democracy even when there are plenty of hard feelings about things said and done in the campaign — as there were in Israel — and clear differences between the rival factions. Once the voters have their say, the politicians must abide by their verdict. But Netanyahu’s foreign left-wing critics feel no such compunction.  As American author and columnist Peter Beinart writes in today’s Haaretz, he and his liberal pals aren’t interested in following Herzog’s example. Instead, they plan on waging a war on Israeli democracy in which they will try to brand those entrusted by Israelis with their government as pariahs and to support actions by both the U.S. government and the Palestinians to undermine the Jewish state. By demonstrating such contempt for democracy, he is not only seeking to further divide American Jews from Israelis but is materially aiding those who seek its destruction.

Beinart claims his position is one taken out of love for Israel, which he has consistently stated must be saved from itself. But the distinction to be drawn here is not between supporters and critics of Netanyahu. Opposing the prime minister is not the same as opposing Israel. As a vibrant democracy, Israelis can and do disagree with their politicians. Though the parties that will likely make up Netanyahu’s next government will have won the votes of a clear majority of the voters, those who sought his defeat at the polls are entitled to a fair hearing and to gain the support of those living outside the country who agree with them. But what Beinart is suggesting goes far beyond that or anything that bears a faint resemblance to the normal give and take of democracy.

To the contrary, he plans to not only support possible actions by the Obama administration to “punish” Israel for re-electing Netanyahu, he seeks to organize an effort by American Jews to do the same via support for the Palestinians anti-Israel diplomatic campaign, boycotts of Israeli products and even efforts to deny Israeli politicians with whom he disagrees the right to visit the United States.

This is a disgraceful plan of action. But what is most lamentable about it and the likely applause it will receive in the mainstream liberal press is that it is rooted in sheer, willful ignorance about the realities of the Middle East that Israeli voters recognize and which Beinart strains with all his might to ignore.

The first few sentences of Beinart’s  Haaretz piece give away the game. In it he says American Jewish organizations have said that Israel needs to be given sufficient U.S. support and a respite from terror so that it will eventually feel safe enough to “take risks for peace.” He goes on to claim that, “this election was not fought in the shadow of terror” and that the Obama administration had not exerted pressure on Israel’s government since it had not “punished” Israel for not meekly obeying the president’s demands about far reaching territorial concessions to the Palestinians.

All of this is simply untrue.

First, to claim that Israel has not taken repeated risks for peace in the last two decades is an assertion of such astonishing mendacity that it makes it difficult to treat the rest of Beinart’s argument seriously or to give him credit, as I would prefer to do, for having good intentions. The last several governments of Israel have made repeated territorial withdrawals (including a couple made by one led by Netanyahu during his first term as prime minister), allowing the creation and the empowerment of the Palestinian Authority and then withdrawing every last soldier, settler and settlement from Gaza in 2005. But these gestures not only didn’t help bring peace, they resulted in the creation of terror bases from which Palestinians have launched suicide bombers and rockets at Israel’s cities. Israel traded land for peace and got only terror.

Israel’s governments have also repeatedly offered the Palestinians statehood and independence in virtually all of the West Bank, Gaza and a share of Jerusalem only to be turned down in 2000, 2001 and 2008. Even under the last government Israel tried to negotiate peace with the Palestinians and even Tzipi Livni, one of Netanyahu’s leading opponents in the election, verified that it was the Palestinians that blew up the talks. That was made even clearer by the documents that were recently revealed showing Netanyahu had gone further than anyone had known in accommodating the Obama administration’s demands in the talks (something that proved an embarrassment for the prime minister during the campaign).

Just as false is Beinart’s claim that the election was not fought in the shadow of terror. I know seven months is a long time in journalism but are we really supposed to have already forgotten last summer’s 50-day war in which Hamas rained down thousands of rockets on Israeli cities and sent terrorists through tunnels into the Jewish state hoping to kill and kidnap as many Jews as possible? Apparently Beinart has forgotten it. But Israel’s voters have not. When Netanyahu spoke of his unwillingness to let the West Bank become another Hamasistan, he may have sneered but Israelis know all too well this is a possibility. They also regard the rise of ISIS and the way Hezbollah operates freely in Syria as well as Lebanon as a deadly threat. Not to mention the fact that the overwhelming majority of Israelis agree with the prime minister (including Herzog and his party) about the Iranian nuclear threat and the foolishness of the Obama administration’s attempt to appease Tehran.

Last, his belief that Obama has been soft on Israel is just as absurd. For six years (with only a respite provided by his 2012 re-election campaign Jewish charm offensive), the president has picked endless and ultimately pointless fights with Israel over settlements and especially Jerusalem. He’s tilted the diplomatic playing field in the Palestinians direction on territory and the status of Israel’s capital. Even worse, the administration not only unfairly criticized Israel during last summer’s Gaza war but also ordered a cutoff of the flow of arms being resupplied during the fighting.

It’s true he could have gone further and ruptured the alliance completely or joined the efforts of Europeans to isolate Israel at the United Nations, measures that Beinart is urging him to take now. But even Obama understood that to do so was not only politically unpopular but bad policy since it would undermine U.S. influence as much as it would hurt Israel.

Thus the entire premise of Beinart’s argument is false. Israel has taken repeated risks for peace and it does still live under the shadow of terror. And it has no credible partner for peace since the Palestinian Authority still refuses to recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders are drawn or renounce the right of return for the descendants of the 1948 refugees.

The status quo is far from ideal for Jews or Arabs but in the absence of such a peace partner, how can any reasonable person blame Israeli voters for refusing to take actions that would further empower the terrorists? Beinart is free to disagree with them but the notion that he has the moral right to judge them or to try to punish them for not doing as he says is as arrogant and contemptible as his efforts to aid those who wish to overturn the verdict of Israel’s voters by non-democratic means.

The vast majority of Americans rightly believe American policy should punish those who threaten the Jewish state not the people of Israel. Part of the reason for that is that they respect the right of Israelis to decide their own fate just as we prefer to decide ours. Those who seek to wage war on Israel’s re-elected leader reveal themselves to be not only out of touch with the realities of the Middle East but as foes of the principle of democratic rule.

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3) INTERNATIONAL PRESSURE TO GROW AFTER ELECTION, BUT SKY WON'T FALL

Author:  Raphael Ahren

It was no secret that the international community was keeping its fingers crossed, praying for a change to a more dovish government in Israel. Now that these hopes were crushed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s resounding victory Tuesday, some fear that Europe and the United States will increase pressure on Israel over the stalled peace process with the Palestinians.

There’s certainly cause for concern. The European Union has long threatened to punish Israel for what it perceives as foot-dragging, as well as over ongoing settlement construction, which is considered an obstacle to peace. Neither is US President Barack Obama much of a fan of Netanyahu, especially since the latter’s Congress speech earlier this month, in which he ferociously attacked the administration’s policy on Iran.

How the international community will react to Israel’s 33rd government will, of course, depend to a large degree on its makeup and the policies it pursues.

If Netanyahu opts for a narrow right-wing coalition including his Likud party, Jewish Home, Yisrael Beytenu, Kulanu and the ultra-Orthodox lists — as most observers predict — world leaders will look toward Jerusalem with concern and skepticism. As soon as they start sensing that the new Netanyahu government acts as intransigently as the last one, or even more so, they will likely turn up the heat on Jerusalem.

Netanyahu’s assertion that no Palestinian state would come into being on his watch, in an interview on Monday, has already raised consternation in Washington.

And yet, the sky won’t fall. While increased pressure on Israel to move toward resuming negotiations and implementing a two-state solution is a given, Israel is not about to become a pariah state, or even be subject to severe punitive measures, as several Israeli officials and analysts have indicated.

“It’s clear that it won’t be easy, but I don’t know how bad it will really be,” a senior Israeli diplomatic official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Even Netanyahu’s apparent repudiation of Palestinian statehood does not necessarily mean that the international community will turn the screws on Israel.

“There’s a difference between things said during an election campaign and actual policy decisions,” the official said.

Officials in Jerusalem identify the EU as the main potential source of diplomatic trouble in the months and years ahead. Brussels adopted a carrots-and-sticks approach to the peace process: If a final-status agreement is signed, both Israelis and Palestinians stand to gain special membership status at the Union. If the two sides do not make progress, however, some sort of sanctions will soon be on their way, EU officials have indicated time and again.

“There is negative momentum in the EU and this is going to continue, but most probably not at an increased pace,” a diplomatic official in Jerusalem said Wednesday. “Rather, it will increase at more or less the same pace. It’s going to get worse, but it’s not going to happen at an increased rate because of the election result.”

Also on Wednesday, the EU’s foreign policy czar, Federica Mogherini, said she was committed to working with the incoming Israeli government on the resumption of the peace process. “More than ever, bold leadership is required from all to reach a comprehensive, stable and viable settlement.”

In private conversations, European officials are less politically correct, admitting their apprehension at the prospect of trying to advance a two-state solution as long as Netanyahu is in power, especially if he assembles a coalition of partners to whom territorial concessions are anathema.

Even Jerusalem’s closest friends in the EU — Germany, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands — would be hard pressed to defend Israel against efforts from others in the Union to turn the heat up on another Netanyahu government, they say. Governments usually supportive of Israel will be “empty-handed” in seeking to deflect such pressure if a right-wing government comes into power and prevents any progress on the peace talks, a senior European official told The Times of Israel recently.

But even if Brussels will try the stick in an effort to prod Israel forward on the Palestinian front, it won’t take out a sledgehammer. Indeed, the EU might not be willing or able to apply real pressure on Israel, according to a senior European diplomat serving in Israel.

“Right now, Europe’s governments are bothered by the situation in Ukraine, so it is doubtful that they will take the time to create another active front, this one against Israel,” the official told the Al-Monitor website.

“While it will be difficult to sell [Jewish Home party leader Naftali] Bennett or [Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor] Liberman as Israel’s defense minister, it is hard to imagine that the various governments in Europe’s capitals will be in any hurry to apply real pressure on Israel.”

Economy Minister Naftali Bennett, leader of the Jewish Home party, speaks during an interview to The Associated Press in Jerusalem, Monday, February. 16, 2015.
(photo credit: AP/Tsafrir Abayov)

Indeed, senior officials in Brussels cynically mocked the prospect of the EU actually trying to punish Israel for lack of progress on the peace process, according to the report.

The director of the Center for European Studies at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliyah, Dr. Esther Lopatin, concurred, arguing that the fear that mighty Europe is about to exert heavy pressure on Israel has been exaggerated. Rather than alienate Israel, the EU is keen to increase academic, scientific and economic cooperation, she said. “There’s an acknowledgement in Europe that there a lot of smart people here who could help Europe.”

More importantly, she continued, political and societal trends within Europe will lead Brussels to take an increasingly benign attitude toward Jerusalem. The European Parliament, for instance, is increasingly dominated by center-right parties sympathetic toward Israel.

A case in point: Left-wing parties last year tried to pass a motion calling for the unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state. The center-right lists, however, succeeded in watering down the text of the resolution, adding the provision that such a recognition “should go hand in hand with the development of peace talks, which should be advanced.”

“That was a victory” for Israel, Lopatin said, in that it basically reflects the government’s own position: that a Palestinian state can only come about as the result of negotiations.

European foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini (C) speaks during a debate on the recognition of Palestinian statehood, on November 26, 2014 at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, eastern France
(photo credit: AFP/Frederick Florin)

Furthermore, the arrival on the scene of the Islamic State causes many Europeans to identify with Israel’s plight. Indeed, she argued, threats of homegrown Islamist fundamentalism slowly breed understanding for Jerusalem’s positions on the peace process.

“In the past, there was a consensus in Europe, which was to be very critical of Israel and attack it all the time. I see now for the first time the beginning of friction in this camp,” she said.

To be sure, senior policymakers in Brussels told her repeatedly that they will “no longer tolerate” Israeli obduracy on the Palestinian front, Lopatin said. “But rhetoric is one thing, and action is something else.” Yes, the EU will continue to try to pressure Jerusalem on the peace process, but mainly by making statements and not by implementing punitive measures, she predicted. “Here and there we’re going to see things. But it’s not going to be very significant.”
Wanted: a new ambassador to Washington

What about the incoming Netanyahu government’s relations with the US? Despite assurances from Washington that it’ll work with whoever Israelis elect, ties between the president and the old-new prime minister are liable to remain frosty. Indeed, some observers predict Obama will seek to take revenge on Netanyahu for his defiant speech to Congress, perhaps by trying to impose a peace deal.

However, if Netanyahu indeed builds a right-religious coalition, another US-sponsored push at final-status negotiations with the Palestinians seems unlikely, as Washington knows such an effort would be doomed to failure.

And yet, Obama may find other ways to get back at Netanyahu. He might, for instance, decide not to veto, or even back, a United Nations Security Council resolution that would enshrine certain principles in international law, such as the need for a two-state solution based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed land swaps. On Wednesday, in initial comments on Netanyahu’s strong election showing, the State Department did not rule out that option.

US Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power talks during a previous Security Council meeting, on December 22, 2014 at the United Nations in New York.
(Don Emmert/AFP)

Israeli officials play down the tension between Jerusalem and Washington, but admit that the aforementioned scenario is not impossible.

“Relations with the US are fantastic,” an Israeli diplomat said. “Relations between the two heads of government are not brilliant, as everyone knows, but they will live with each other. We will see some prodding here and there, but at the end of day Israel and America are on the same side.” The diplomat admitted that Jerusalem does not rule out a scenario in which the administration would refuse to prevent the passing of a pro-Palestinian Security Council resolution. “We worry by definition. That’s part of our success,” he said.

Netanyahu should proactively try to prevent the current friction from developing into a long-term crisis, recommended Eytan Gilboa, an expert on American-Israeli relations at the BESA Center for Strategic Studies.

For one, the prime minister should appoint a foreign minister capable of building a new working relationship with Secretary of State John Kerry. Netanyahu should also urgently replace the current ambassador to Washington.

“Ron Dermer completely burned himself,” Gilboa said, referring to the Netanyahu confidant’s central role in planning his Congress speech. “Someone who will encounter closed doors at the White House and State Department cannot be effective.”

Israeli Ambassador to the US Ron Dermer presents his credentials to President Barack Obama at the White House, December 4, 2013.
(photo credit: Twitter/Amb. Ron Dermer)

The prime minister should also invite himself to the White House, Gilboa urged. Obama might not be keen on welcoming him, “but there’s no other way,” he said. “Neither the US nor Israel can wait until the end of Obama’s term, which is on January 20, 2017. Both leaders have to move on — it would be foolish to simply disconnect for the next two years.”

Either way, Gilboa warned, there is a real chance that the administration might not veto a Security Council resolution on Palestine, as a means to pressure Netanyahu and perhaps also to show him that he cannot challenge the White House and expect business as usual.

3a)  Abbas Paving the Way to Turn West Bank into an Islamist State

by Khaled Abu Toameh

Abbas has chosen to align himself with Hamas and Islamic Jihad, thus facilitating these two organizations' dreams of taking over the West Bank. These two radical groups seek to destroy Israel and are opposed to any peace process in the Middle East.

These threats are primarily aimed at getting the international community into providing the Palestinian Authority with more financial and political support.

This alliance could also result in renewed terrorist attacks against Israel, because Hamas and Islamic Jihad will interpret Abbas's anti-Israel moves and rhetoric as a green light for such actions.

Abbas's rapprochement with Hamas and Islamic Jihad will only confirm the fears of many Israelis that the West Bank will fall onto the hands of Islamists once Israel withdraws from that area.

The two-state solution started the day Hamas kicked Abbas out of the Gaza Strip and turned it into an Islamist emirate. In the end, the Palestinians got two states that are even at war with each other.

Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas and the PLO leadership in the West Bank are once again threatening to halt security coordination with Israel -- this time in protest over the victory of Binyamin Netanyahu and his Likud Party in Israel's March 17 general elections.

The latest threat was made during a meeting of PLO leaders, headed by Abbas in Ramallah, to discuss the outcome of the Israeli elections.

At the meeting, the PLO leaders decided to ask the commanders of the PA security forces in the West Bank to come up with a "detailed plan" to stop security coordination with Israel.

Halting security coordination with Israel means that Abbas and the PLO would be paving the way for Hamas to extend its control from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank. With that, the Palestinians would have another Islamist state that seeks to eliminate Israel.

Abbas and the PLO leadership are, in effect, saying: "We don't like the results of the elections and that is why we are going to facilitate a Hamas takeover of the West Bank."

It is only the Palestinian Authority's security coordination with Israel that has thus far foiled Hamas's plans to stage a coup against Abbas's regime in the West Bank.

Were it not for this coordination, Abbas would have been removed from power several years ago -- as was the case in 2007, when Hamas drove him and his PA out of the Gaza Strip. Even senior Palestinian officials acknowledge that Abbas would not survive in power without security coordination with Israel.

But now, Abbas and the PLO have decided to respond to the victory of Netanyahu by not only cutting off security coordination, but also intensifying their efforts to isolate and delegitimize Israel in the international community.

Abbas and the PLO have also decided to engage in a "comprehensive dialogue" with Hamas and Islamic Jihad, in response to the victory of Netanyahu. These two radical groups seek to destroy Israel and are opposed to any peace process in the Middle East.

In other words, Abbas has decided to join forces with the enemies of peace, simply because he does not like the results of the Israeli elections.

Abbas's decision to reach out to Hamas and Islamic Jihad means that he sees these two organizations as legitimate players in the Palestinian arena and partners in a future Palestinian state. This is the same Abbas who has been warning over the past few years of Hamas's repeated attempts to stage a coup against him in the West Bank.

Best Frenemies? Mahmoud Abbas (r) meets with the Hamas political bureau chief Khaled Mashaal in Qatar, July 20, 2014. (Image source: Handout from the Palestinian Authority President's Office/Thaer Ghanem)

The Palestinian Authority initially responded to the results of the elections by threatening to pursue its efforts with the International Criminal Court to file "war crimes" charges against Israel. Now the PA and PLO leaders have gone a step further, by threatening to cut off security and economic ties with Israel.

These threats are primarily aimed at scaring the international community into providing the PA with more financial and political support. Moreover, these threats are designed to rally the world against Israel, so that it would be forced to submit to Abbas's demands and withdraw to the pre-1967 lines.

Abbas has chosen to align himself with Hamas and Islamic Jihad, thus facilitating these two organizations' dream of taking over the West Bank. This alliance could also result in renewed terrorist attacks against Israel, because Hamas and Islamic Jihad will interpret Abbas's anti-Israel moves and rhetoric as a green light for such actions.

Abbas's rapprochement with Hamas and Islamic Jihad will only confirm the fears of many Israelis that the West Bank will fall into the hands of Islamists once Israel withdraws from that area.

However, Abbas's decision to wage a diplomatic and political campaign against Israel in the international arena is not going to bring Palestinians closer to achieving their aspirations.

Abbas and the international community -- especially the U.S. Administration -- are ignoring the fact that the Palestinians already have two separate mini-states, in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The two-state solution was born the day Hamas kicked Abbas out of the Gaza Strip and turned it into an Islamist emirate. In the end, the Palestinians got two states that are even at war with each other.

Now, by joining forces with Hamas and Islamic Jihad, Abbas is paving the way for turning the West Bank into another Islamist state.

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4)Two Warnings

By Thomas Sowell

When Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a joint session of Congress on March 3rd, it was the third time he had done so. The only other person to address a joint session of Congress three times was the legendary British prime minister Winston Churchill.

The parallels between the two leaders do not end there. Both warned the world of mortal dangers that others ignored, in hopes that those dangers would go away. In the years leading up to World War II, Churchill tried to warn the British, and the democratic nations in general, of what a monstrous threat Hitler was.

Despite Churchill’s legendary status today, he was not merely ignored but ridiculed at the time, when he was repeatedly warning in vain. Knowing that his warnings provoked only mocking laughter in some quarters, even among some members of his own party, he said on March 14, 1938 in the House of Commons, “Laugh but listen.”

Just two years later, with Hitler’s planes bombing London, night after night, the laughter was gone. Many at the time thought that Britain itself would soon be gone as well, like other European nations that succumbed to the Nazi blitzkrieg in weeks (like France) or days (like Holland).

How did things get to such a desperate situation, with Britain alone continuing the fight, and struggling to survive, against the massive Nazi war machine that now controlled much of the material resources on the continent of Europe?

Things got that desperate by following policies strikingly similar to the policies being followed by the Western democracies today, including some of the very same notions and catchwords being used today.

Just recently, a State Department official in the Obama administration said that Americans have remained safe in a nuclear age, not because of our own nuclear arsenal but because “we created an intricate and essential system of treaties, laws and agreements.”

If “treaties, laws and agreements” produced peace, there would never have been a Second World War. The years leading up to that monumental catastrophe were filled with international treaties and arms control agreements.

The Treaty of Versailles, which ended the First World War, imposed strong restrictions on Germany’s military forces – on paper. The Washington Naval Agreements of 1922 imposed restrictions on all the major naval powers of the world – on paper. The Kellogg-Briand pact of 1928 created an international renunciation of war – on paper.

The Munich agreement of 1938 produced a paper with Hitler’s signature on it that British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain waved to the cheering crowds when he returned to England, and said that it meant “Peace for our time.” Less than a year later, World War II began.

Winston Churchill never bought any of this. He understood that military deterrence was what preserved peace. With England playing a leadership role in Europe, “England’s hour of weakness is Europe’s hour of danger,” he said in the House of Commons in 1931.

Today, with the Obama administration “leading from behind” – in practice, not leading at all – we see in Ukraine and the Middle East what that produces.

As for disarmament, Churchill said in 1932, “Alone among the nations we have disarmed while others have rearmed.”

Today, the United States has that dubious and reckless distinction. Our pacifists, like those in England during the 1930s, argue that we should disarm to “induce parallel” behavior by others. In England between the two World Wars, the rhetoric was that they should disarm “as an example to others.”

Whether others would follow that example was just as dubious then as it is today. While Russia and China increased the share of their national output that went to military spending in 2014, the United States reduced its share. Churchill deplored the “inexhaustible gullibility” of disarmament advocates in 1932. That gullibility is still not exhausted in 2015.

“Not one of the lessons of the past has been learned, not one of them has been applied, and the situation is incomparably more dangerous,” Churchill said in 1934. And every one of those words is more urgently true today, in a nuclear age

4a)  Ex-CIA Head Says Iran is a Greater Danger than ISIS

by Ari Yashar 

At a time when US President Barack Obama's administration has shown a softening stance vis-a-vis Iran, even  considering an alliance against Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists in Iraq and Syria, former CIA head Gen. David Petraeus warned Iran is a greater danger than ISIS in Iraq.

In an interview conducted in Iraq and posted by the  Washington Post on Friday, Petraeus, who led US troops during the 2007-2008 surge in Iraq, spoke about the challenges facing the war-torn country.

Speaking at the annual Sulaimani Forum of Iraqi leaders in northern Iraq's Kurdistan region, the general acknowledged that aside from Iraqi factionalism and sectarianism leading to disaster, the US had made many mistakes in the country as well.

" This includes the squandering of so much of what we and our coalition and Iraqi partners paid such a heavy cost to achieve," he said, noting how the US withdrew all forces in 2011. Petraeus voiced hopes that the joint efforts in the region can put an end to the chaos.

" The hard-earned progress of the Surge was sustained for over three years.  What transpired after that, starting in late 2011, came about as a result of mistakes and misjudgments whose consequences were predictable. And there is plenty of blame to go around for that," he noted. Obama had made withdrawing US troops from Iraq a key point of his platform.

Despite recent focus being put on ISIS and its well publicized atrocities, which have led the US to form a multi-nation coalition conducting strikes against the group, Petraeus pointed the finger elsewhere concerning the greatest threat in the region.

"I would argue that the foremost threat to Iraq’s long-term stability and the broader regional equilibrium is not the Islamic State; rather, it is Shiite militias, many backed by - and some guided by - Iran," warned the general.

The Shi'ite militias may have blocked ISIS from surging into Baghdad, but they have also killed Sunni civilians and committed atrocities, he noted. By doing so, they have increased the Sunni-Shi'ite divide and marginalized Sunnis in a way that strengthens Sunni radicalism and ISIS, said Petraeus.

Warning specifically about Iranian designs, he added "longer term, Iranian-backed Shia militia could emerge as the preeminent power in the country, one that is outside the control of the government and instead answerable to Tehran."

Via terror proxies, Iran has been seizing power in Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iraq, as well as great influence in other parts of the region.

US attitude to Middle East has been flawed

Speaking about the push to distance from Iraq, a move that Obama vocally advanced, Petraeus noted  "there was certainly a sense in Washington that Iraq should be put in our rearview mirror, that whatever happened here was somewhat peripheral to our national security and that we could afford to redirect our attention to more important challenges."

"In retrospect, a similar attitude existed with respect to the civil war in Syria - again, a sense that developments in Syria constituted a horrible tragedy to be sure, but a tragedy at the outset, at least, that did not seem to pose a threat to our national security," he continued.

"But in hindsight, few, I suspect, would contend that our approach was what it might - or should - have been. In fact, if there is one lesson that I hope we’ve learned from the past few years, it is that there is a linkage between the internal conditions of countries in the Middle East and our own vital security interests."

When asked about Qassem Soleimani, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander who has taken a very public role in Iraq aiding the fight against ISIS, after establishing and directing Shi'ite militias that attacks US troops, Petraeus had sharp words.

"I have several thoughts when I see the pictures of him, but most of those thoughts probably aren't suitable for publication in a family newspaper like yours," he quipped. "What I will say is that he is very capable and resourceful individual, a worthy adversary. He has played his hand well. But this is a long game, so let’s see how events transpire."

Iran is our enemy

The general noted how Soleimani used to be a "man of the shadows," but in recent months he has become strikingly visible in pictures published of him at the battle front.

That turns of events underscores "a very important reality: The current Iranian regime is not our ally in the Middle East. It is ultimately part of the problem, not the solution. The more the Iranians are seen to be dominating the region, the more it is going to inflame Sunni radicalism and fuel the rise of groups like the Islamic State."

"While the U.S. and Iran may have convergent interests in the defeat of Daesh (ISIS), our interests generally diverge. The Iranian response to the open hand offered by the U.S. has not been encouraging," he noted, regarding Obama's outreach to the Islamic regime.

Petraeus added "Iranian power in the Middle East is thus a double problem. It is foremost problematic because it is deeply hostile to us and our friends. But it is also dangerous because, the more it is felt, the more it sets off reactions that are also harmful to our interests - Sunni radicalism and, if we aren't careful, the prospect of nuclear proliferation as well."

The general recounted how, in 2008, a decisive battle took place between Iraqi Security Forces and the Iranian-backed Shi'ite militias.

"In the midst of the fight, I received word from a very senior Iraqi official that Qassem Soleimani had given him a message for me. When I met with the senior Iraqi, he conveyed the message: 'General Petraeus, you should be aware that I, Qassem Soleimani, control Iran’s policy for Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, and Afghanistan,'" he recalled.

"The point was clear: He owned the policy and the region, and I should deal with him. When my Iraqi interlocutor asked what I wanted to convey in return, I told him to tell Soleimani that he could 'pound sand," concluded the general.

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