Obama Guts Keystone! Personal Thoughts On Immigration! Netanyahu and Obama Meet After More Than A Year!

A series of articles about Israel and The Middle East.. (See 1, 1a, 1b, 1c and 1d below.)

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Obama guts The Keystone Pipeline. Why did it take 7 years to do what you knew he would do all along -  pacify the Greens?

By playing politics with America's energy dependency,  Obama continues to act in defiance of logic and America's security but Obama does not seem to care because he would rather embrace the specious climate arguments of the Greens. 

Our nation already has thousands of miles of pipelines.  If what they carry was so injurious why aren't we digging them up and/or shutting them down? (See 2 below.)

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My personal thoughts about immigration:

It is obvious we need to rewrite our immigration laws.

Second, as we re-write these laws we should keep in mind that we have every right to decide who best to grant immigration and eventually citizenship.

Third, to be a citizen it should be mandatory that you speak English.  A nation without a common language is prone to many future problems.  Why should Americans have to learn a language, ie. Spanish  etc.which is not our native tongue?  Why should Americans have to listen to hours of Spanish etc. to get a prescription filled etc.

Fourth, with respect to illegal immigrants already in America, we should take a two prong approach:

a) For those who wish to remain, have been good "illegal' citizens they should be given a chance to earn 'legal" citizenship.

For those who either do not wish to remain and/or may even wish to but have broken our laws, been engaged in anti-social behaviour they should be deported.

My rationale is based on the fact that all citizen's should be legally here and have skin in the game.  We should have enough respect for who we are as a people and what America stands for tto be free to impose  a cost on anyone who wants to be an American.  You cheapen a product/service/entitlement when you give it away.

Finally, on a purely humanitarian standpoint I would favor a certain number be allowed to immigrate if they meet all other requirements.

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It now appears The JV Team of radicaI Islamists are more than capable of blowing up planes - what say Obama?

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Obama has taken care of himself but has imposed much pain upon many of his fellow Demwits. (See 3 below.)

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 I write often about the fact that progressives and liberals seek results and want to sustain a given cause and/or thesis by employing ideas that are self-defeating and thus expose themselves to their own stupidity and/or hypocrisy

For example: It should be evident by now, government generally fails in accomplishing  set and objective goals and, even if  and when it succeeds,  generally does so at a cost over run that is obscene. Yet,  progressives and liberals want more and bigger government. If a small shovel fails they believe a bigger one works because failure can always be attributable to lack of sufficient funding.

Empirically speaking,  progressives and liberals  do not want to succeed.  What they actually want is control and more power.  Obviously, they do not believe in freedom, in independence, choice and are driven by other motivations but wrap them in a cocoon of disingenuous words like compassion , fairness and whatever other feel good concept sells the day and/or takes the cake.

If Democracy and Capitalism, freedom, both  personal and  market,  have produced more wealth for more people than any other social and economic system yet devised by man why would anyone want to destroy it?  Once again, it can only be because chaos and claims of unfairness allows those who espouse it to gain power.

We are returning to a period akin to the '60's when radicals took to the streets in protest against authority because leadership failed to produce and was closed to reasonable and inevitable change. The more those in power resisted change or imposed change that failed to deliver the more radical became the pressure. I believe  much of the change that occurred in the '60's seeded the problems we face all over again as government's and corrupt politicians fail to protect citizens. Today the hue and cry of wealth disparity, police brutality, etc. becomes a new source of discontent brought about by failed economic policies, corrupt practices born out of greed and abuse of markets, a political system that is undemocratic and corrupt and, of course, the rise in terrorism which threatens the very freedoms we have etc.

Add to this the impact of technology's effect on dispersing information and you create an atmosphere ripe for radicals and un-reasoned responses.  

I believe we are in for another period similar to the '60's but even more dangerous because governments are basically financially bankrupt, including our own, citizens have lost their will and sense of morality, the family is broken as a stable institution and the scourge of radical Islam and terrorism is capable of destructive action both economically and physically.

Domestically, this is why frustrated citizens seek an outsider to solve systemic problems with which they have little experience.  Their appeal lies in rhetoric with little fleshing out of serious ideas and legitimate and workable pathways for accomplishment.  Add to that white guilt and you have the election and re-election of Obama.  

Are we about to rededicate ourselves to a repeat performance.  

Welcome to the 21st Century and a budding politician: https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=854875314626488 (See 4 below.)

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This Monday, Netanyahu and Obama meet for the first time in more than a year.

Obama has finally acknowledged the issues between the Palestinians and Israelis will not be resolved during his remaining  time in office.

The Israelis warned Obama, when he first came into office, that he was wrong to move hastily and was unprepared but Obama, ever arrogant and unwilling to be challenged, plowed ahead.  Did Obama who also had received an unearned Nobel Prize and feel compelled to bring about its justification?

The Middle East is now aflame, Palestinian youth feel stabbing Israelis is the way to achieve a two state solution, and Russia dictates America's role in the region.  Quite an accomplishment even by Obama standards of screwing up everything he touches!

Obama seeks a favorable place in  history, Netanyahu seeks to keep his nation from being destroyed by Obama's incompetence.  Doubt they are on the same page!

Should prove an interesting meeting between two men who distrust each other! (See 5 below.)

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Dick

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1)  J STREET:  A KNIFE INSIDE THE TENT

By Charles Jacobs

This is an altered version of an article first published at the Jewish Advocate

 

The daughter of our friends, a nurse at a major Jerusalem hospital, fears for her life every time she goes to work. Many of her colleagues are Israeli Arabs who have easy access to scalpels and sharp instruments all throughout the building. How can she, who dedicates herself to closing the wounds of both Arabs and Jews, escape the fear that at any moment during her day one of these people might pick up a scalpel and plunge it into her back?

 

Why? Because every Palestinian is told by their media and self-proclaimed leaders the lethal lie that Jews mean to destroy Al Aqsa mosque and are, in the words of Prime Minister Abbas, defiling it every day with their “dirty feet.”

 

This is “the knifing jihad.” Reader, you are three clicks away from video clips of Arabs stabbing Jews, running them over with cars, chopping at their necks with hatchets. Another click gets you to a Palestinian little girl stabbing her toy doll, demonstrating how she’d do it to any of our children. Click again to find an Imam, knife in hand, sermonizing on the supremely moral act of killing a Jew. Throughout the Muslim world these images evoke glee.

 

Much of world Jewry, though distanced from these immediate threats, now walks in a shadow of unease. Even here in America many Jews are worried. What of the arrival on our shores of John Kerry’s 10,000 Syrian refugees? What really are American mosques preaching about Jews? The tides seem to be turning against us, and worse: we sense we are being betrayed.

 

Betrayed by the Iran deal. The Democratic Party, political home of most American Jews, provided Iran with a clear and legal pathway to nuclear weapons after 10 or 15 years. Soon the agreement will grant billions to Iranian Mullahs, who will target Jews with smuggled weapons, hit squads, and terror proxies.

 

Betrayed by Europe. Waves of refugees from the Syrian war will besiege Europe’s Jewish communities with hundreds of thousands of Muslims – many of whom were raised on a diet of Jew-hatred. As Manfred Gerstenfeld reminds us: “In the current century all murders of Jews in Europe because they are Jews…have been committed by Muslims.

 

Even before this fresh onslaught, the Jews of Europe have sustained unrelenting political and physical assault by the growing Left/Islamist (or “Red/Green”) Alliance, which holds Israel, and its supporters in the West, responsible for all the world’s ills. Much of Jewry has concluded that Europe’s Jews should leave before it is too late. Europe will betray them — as it is betraying itself. Betrayed by the “international community.” The world is silent in the face of Jew-hunting. John Kerry feels no outrage. He is evenhanded. The UN, the NGOs, all those who lecture us on the importance of caring about humanity and acting virtuously are silent – or worse. The media, and its moralizing journalists who long ago gave up on truth to promote an ideological narrative “for a better world” – now seem to justify collective punishment for Jews. The NYT, BBC, CNN, MSNBC all produce morally perverted “reports,” with inverted headlines. The New York Times, in a paroxysm of “evenhandedness,” declared itself agnostic on the question of whether the Temple Mount itself is a false Jewish claim.

 

Yet perhaps what is most painful is the behavior of two groups of American Jews – our confused leaders and our Jewish “progressives.” Knowing the growing Islamist threats faced by Europe’s Jews, no group has been more vociferous than American Jewish leaders, rabbinic and secular, about the absolute need for Jews here to assist Muslim refugees to enter Europe – no matter what. Locally and nationally, rabbis have – with much emotion – insisted that we see ourselves in the faces of these refugees, but somehow not in the faces of our besieged brothers and sisters in Europe who will reap the whirlwind.

 

Most disheartening are the actions of “progressive” Jewish groups — J Street (launched by funding from billionaire hater of Israel, George Soros) and the New Israel Fund (with so many dollars of Israel’s European enemies), who “contextualize” the murders, who “understand” the stabbers and who come just inches away from justifying the murder of Jews. After all, if Israel doesn’t cede the West Bank “for peace” they tell us, then we all just can expect this to continue. The Palestinians’ rage, after all, is understandable. No, they should not stick a knife into a Jewish woman, but, but, but. Progressives must signal their universalism by publicly renouncing their old tribal identity. If a progressive’s apartment building were on fire, he might feel guilty about racing past his neighbor’s door to save his own child. Aligning themselves with “the other” provides Jewish progressives with feel-good moral superiority. In many cities, these organizations were invited into the communal Jewish tent for the sake of unity. What we got instead is an ideological knife in the back. It’s time to show them the door.

 

Charles Jacobs is the head of Americans for Peace & Tolerance.

1a)

The Quakers, No Friends of Israel

A benign reputation masks a tough campaign to boycott the Jewish state.

By Alexander Joffe And Asaf Romirowsky

 

American religious history is filled with examples of faiths whose public perceptions defy deeper realities. The Quakers, for instance, are known as peaceful and supremely benign. Few suspect that one central mission is promoting the boycott, divestment and sanctions, or BDS, movement that opposes Israel’s existence.

The commitment of the Quakers through their primary organization, the American Friends Service Committee, is unmistakable. It is a leading member of the BDS umbrella group known as the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation and provides support to BDS efforts on numerous college campuses. The AFSC works alongside the Students for Justice in Palestine and the rabidly anti-Zionist Jewish Voice for Peace. Its representatives have even helped write Israel divestment resolutions for student governments.

One Quaker group describes the BDS movement as “the transforming power of love and nonviolence, having faith that enmity can be transformed and that oppression can give way.” How much of the AFSC’s almost $160 million annual budget is devoted to BDS isn’t known, as the Internal Revenue Service classifies the organization as a church.

Quakers, who tremble or “quake” before God, began as dissenting Protestants in England during the 17th century. Adherents rejected traditional sacraments—baptism and the Bible’s inerrant authority—and instead bore witness through “spirituality in action” and followed the “inner light,” which founder George Fox described as “spirit, and grace, by which all might know their salvation, and their way to God.”

The faith opposes all violence and rejects any compulsion in religion, and the sect has no formal church hierarchy. The closest thing is the AFSC, which was formed in 1917 after the Quakers were challenged over their refusal to be drafted.

But by the 1940s the AFSC had grown into a global nongovernmental organization providing international relief, charity and training. After World War II the AFSC played a leading role in European refugee relief and won, along with their British counterparts, the 1947 Nobel Peace Prize.

The dawn of the Cold War, however, proved to be a turning point. In 1947 a Quaker faction argued that the threat of atomic war seemed so grave that the organization should abandon its long-standing policy of neutrality. Thus the group began directly challenging America’s Cold War policies.

That laid the groundwork for the Middle East, where Quakers had a long history of missionary work. During Israel’s War of Independence in 1948, the group joined an effort to provide relief to Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip. For almost 18 months the organization built schools and clinics, and taught vocational skills. Unlike any relief organization at the time (or since), the AFSC conducted an accurate census and reduced the refugee rolls, rooted out corruption and tamed costs.

That good work ended the following year, when it became clear that the refugees would accept no solution except repatriation to what was now Israel. Barring that, they demanded permanent international relief.

To its credit, the AFSC couldn’t countenance open-ended relief, which it believed might harm the refugees’ skills and sense of self-respect. The AFSC withdrew from Gaza in 1950, turning the work over to a United Nations organization. After that, the Quaker group gradually abandoned relief work.

The Quakers began to take a fervently pro-Palestinian stance in later decades. In 1973 the AFSC called for a U.S. embargo on arms and other aid to Israel, and in 1975 adopted “a formal decision to make the Middle East its major issue.” It opened an office in Israel, installed specialized staff members at offices in the U.S., and began advocating for Palestinians in Israeli and international courts. The AFSC treads dangerously close to outright anti-Semitism and “replacement theology,” the idea that Palestinians were the “new Jews,” displaced and downtrodden.

Why the commitment against Israel? Part of the explanation is the banal devolution from a peace church into what scholar H. Larry Ingle called “one more pressure group within the secular political community.” From advocating for improved relations with communist China and the Soviet Union in the 1950s, to overt support for North Vietnam during the 1960s, the AFSC has long been in the vanguard of the Protestant left.

Quakerism’s lack of a coherent theology and Christian praxis renders it especially susceptible to shifting fashions. Like other liberal denominations, Quaker membership has shrunk dramatically; today there are fewer than 400,000 American Quakers. Substituting “social justice” for traditional liturgy in large part accounts for the decline—and shows the danger of placing antipathy toward the Jewish state of Israel at the center of religious belief.

Messrs. Joffe and Romirowsky are fellows at the Middle East Forum. They are co-authors of the book “Religion, Politics, and the Origins of Palestine Refugee Relief” ( Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).

1b)

Into the Fray: Marshaling the intellectual arsenal to preserve the Jewish state By MARTIN SHERMAN What is at hand is less a clash of weapons and more a clash of wit & will; the side that will prevail is the side whose political vision is sharpest and whose national resolve is strongest.

I find it quite unfortunate, that very few in the general public... understand the situation we are in; for even if we destroy every current enemy militarily, the existential threat through attrition will not diminish. Likewise, the tools necessary for opposing (and hopefully reversing) that threat are different [from] what Israelis are used to... A country that offers no safety to its citizens inside its own borders, a people that have no conviction in holding onto their own ancestral lands, cannot possibly claim to have a certain future. – Facebook comment, from “Citizen Morgan,” on last week’s column. This insightful observation by “Citizen Morgan” encapsulates quite succinctly much of what I laid out in last week’s column. War of wits and will; not weapons Readers will recall that in it, I argued that the major strategic threat facing the Jewish state today is less cataclysmic destruction and more continual erosion, and hence the major challenge is not repulsing invasion but resisting attrition. Furthermore, to contend with this threat and withstand this challenge, it is not is not military superiority which is called for – however overwhelming. Indeed, what is at hand is far less a clash of weapons and far more a clash of wit and will. In such a clash, the side that will prevail is not the one with superior martial prowess but rather superior ideo-intellectual competency – the side whose political vision is the sharpest and whose national resolve is the strongest. This, of course, has been abundantly clear for over two decades; however the current round of Arab Judeocidal violence serves to make this even more starkly apparent. Israel cannot – and will not – win the war of stones, kitchen knives and meat cleavers without first winning the war of ideas. Action-oriented skeptics, who believe the physical trumps the philosophical, and what is needed are concrete measures and not conceptual frameworks, will doubtlessly dispute this. For ‘read-meat’ enthusiasts: A caveat But this would be both myopic and mistaken. For any harsh responses to Palestinian-Arab violence will be hastily canceled, unless they can be couched and conveyed in a context that allows them to be sustained. In my column a fortnight ago, I detailed a far-from-exhaustive list of measures that should be implemented, including: deportation of perpetrators and their dependents; revoking citizenship/residency rights; confiscation of property; refraining from returning bodies of slain terrorists, and rapid demolition of their family homes; passing new legislation – and/or robust enforcement of existing legislation – imposing stiff punishment for incitement; and cutting off funding to entities/ organizations fomenting violence. But it is one thing to brandish a set of punitive responses. It is quite another to implement them, and certainly to sustain implementation for any extended time. For example, on several occasions, the government has withheld – tax revenues collected on behalf of the Palestinian Authority. However, when complaints regarding the damage this was causing the Palestinians escalated, the measures were rescinded. This generates the inevitable expectation that, were they implemented again, they would be again rescinded before any real harm was inflicted – degrading any deterrent element the measure had to discourage the Palestinian-Arabs from further objectionable behavior. Caveat (cont.) Indeed, more recently the cabinet decided that bodies of slain terrorists would not be returned to the Palestinian side because of concern that funerals would become a focus of incitement to further acts of terrorism. But soon, in the face of protests and threats, the government caved in, and returned the bodies of murderers of Jews, risibly in exchange for a Palestinian promise that the funerals would not become centers for agitation. Predictably, this promise was not honored by the Palestinian side – now secure in the knowledge that, if once more the bodies of killers are withheld, their release will be speedily attained by threats of more violence. It was clearly not a preponderance of Palestinian military might that impelled Israel to recant on punitive actions it had undertaken. Rather, it was that it could not sustain the legitimacy of their prolonged application because of the “excessively” severe repercussions this may entail. Thus as I have warned repeatedly, successive governments have shied away from taking decisive action against the Palestinian-Arabs in an effort to avoid confrontations in which Israel can prevail, thereby precipitating a confrontation in which it may well not. So, how are we to explain the puzzling conundrum of the powerlessness of the powerful; of Israel’s manifest incompetence/ impotence in handling the Palestinian issue, despite staggering successes in nearly every other field of human endeavor? Like scissors with single blade  Anyone seeking the reason for the phenomenon need look no further than the abysmal performance of Israel’s public diplomacy. After all, trying to enforce an appropriately assertive operational policy without accompanying it with a commensurately assertive public diplomacy campaign to legitimize it, is almost like trying to cut cloth with a scissor with one blade – and just as effective. In numerous articles I have underscored the strategic imperative of enhancing Israel’s public diplomacy. I warned incessantly against the practice of allotting minuscule sums for the nation’s public diplomacy effort and the perils this entails. For, as I pointed out, “the function of diplomacy in general and public diplomacy in particular, is essentially similar to that of the classic role of the air force.” Indeed, “just as the latter was traditionally tasked with creating freedom of action for ground forces to achieve their objectives, so should diplomacy be seen as charged with facilitating freedom of action for the nation’s strategic decision-makers, to allow them to achieve the objectives of strategies they formulate.” Without a radical restructuring of its diplomatic strategy, infrastructure and doctrine, there is little chance Israel will be able to persist with a policy that goes beyond temporary and tenuous containment of recurring rounds of Palestinian-Arab violence. To succeed, such an endeavor to “weaponize” Israel’s diplomatic strategy would have to address the issue of new (renewed) “ammunition” (style/substance of the message to be delivered) and its “artillery” (logistical infrastructure /resources to deliver it).  Let me begin with the “ammunition” in the envisioned “arsenal”. Tale of two narratives  At the heart of the conflict lies a clash of two narratives: On the one hand the stirring, fact-based Zionist narrative, on the other, the openly conceded fabricated “Palestinian” narrative, which as one senior PLO official admitted “serves only tactical purposes” and whose sole purpose is to function as “a new tool in the continuing battle against Israel.” Although enormous efforts have been invested in a futile endeavor to portray them as reconcilable, the truth is that they are mutually exclusive. Either one will prevail, absolutely and exclusively, or the other will. The reason for this lamentable impasse is, as is becoming ever clearer in the current round of killings, that Arab enmity toward a Jewish state does not arise from anything the Jews do, but from what the Jews are. This enmity, therefore, can only be dissipated if the Jews cease to be. Since successive Israeli governments, intimidated by left-leaning civil society elites, have refused to acknowledge this fact, and refrained from formulating policy that reflects it. Accordingly, they have perpetuated the myth that there is middle ground, which could leave both sides frustrated, but still tolerably satisfied enough to eschew violence. Clash of two narratives So if the eye of the storm is irreconcilable claims for sovereignty over a given geographical area, driven by mutually exclusive national narratives, which claim is to prevail? Although there is seldom agreement among political scientists on issues relating to nations and nationalism, there is consensus that a discernably unique identity is a crucial precondition for validating claims for the right to national sovereignty and nationhood. It is beyond dispute that Jews have a far stronger claim to a distinct national identity, and hence the right to sovereign nationhood, than most nations – particularly the Palestinians. The Jews have a unique language, unique script, unique religion, unique history and heritage, unique calendar, unique customs, unique... By contrast, Palestinian-Arabs can point to nothing unique in any of these areas – not in language, in religion, in script, nor in customs... The Palestinian-Arabs admit that they are part of a wider national grouping. Thus, Article 1 of the Palestinian National Covenant proclaims: “the Palestinian Arab people are...part of the Arab nation.” Article 12 baldly admits that a separate Palestinian identity is a ruse to further wider Arab interests. Thus, at an Arab League summit in 1987, convened in Amman, King Hussein conceded that Palestinian identity was merely a response to Jewish national claims, not driven by any authentic endogenic sentiment of uniqueness, stating, “The appearance of the Palestinian national personality comes as an answer to Israel’s claim that Palestine is Jewish.” Clearly, then, if the Jewish claim has undisputed validity over an irreconcilably, mutually exclusive counter-claim by the Palestinian-Arabs, surely it is the Jewish claim that must prevail – exclusively and absolutely. Expression of Jewish sovereignty Thus in the resultant Jewish nation state, Jewish people will comprise the sole and exclusive source of political sovereignty. Non-Jewish residents will enjoy full equality regarding individual civil rights, including the right to vote, but no collective national rights. In a Jewish state, the national flag will bear the Star of David, not a crescent moon or cross; the state symbol will be the menorah, not an Arabian scimitar or a Crusader sword; the official day of rest – the Sabbath – will fall on Saturday, not Friday nor Sunday; the national anthem will refer to the yearning of a Jewish soul, not a multi-cultural one of all-its-citizens. In a Jewish state there will be Judeo-centric legislation, enshrining the Law of Return for Jews in the Diaspora, but not the “Right of Return” for diasporic Palestinian- Arabs. Public life will be conducted, and the yearly calendar constructed, according to Jewish tradition and Zionist heritage. Hebrew, not Arabic or English will be the hegemonic means of communication in commerce, academic, and legal proceedings. Any individual who actively rejects this should not continue to live within the frontiers of the country. There is absolutely nothing undemocratic about this – indeed, it is a necessary precondition for sustainable democratic rule. For as John Stuart Mill reminds us: Free institutions are next to impossible in a country... without fellow-feeling... [generated by] identity of political antecedents; the possession of a national history, and consequent community of recollections; collective pride and humiliation, pleasure and regret, connected with the same incidents in the past. Without this, he warns, “The united public opinion, necessary to the working of representative government, cannot exist.” More than a random amalgam  For those who might throw up their hands in a show of politically-correct horror, current events in the region ought to serve as a sobering reminder that a cohesive nation – and hence a stable nation-state – is more than a random amalgam of the inhabitants of a given territory, bound by nothing more than the accident of their geographic location. Any doubts as to the continuing validity of this historic insight should swiftly be dispelled by the spectacle of gore and guts across the splintering Arab world in Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen. Of course, much has yet to be said as to the “intellectual arsenal” that needs to be marshaled to preserve Israel as the nation-state of the Jews. But a clear idea of the superior Jewish claims to sovereignty, expression of that sovereignty in the Jewish nation-state and the need for a muscular public diplomacy offensive to promote and protect it are indispensable initial building blocks. Subject to breaking news I will pursue these matters further in next week’s column, including more on the provision of “intellectual ammunition” and the mechanisms of the “intellectual artillery” to deliver it. Martin Sherman (www.martinsherman.org) is founder and executive director of the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies (www.strategic-israel.org). 1c) Obama’s Middle East Escapism The region is descending into disorder while John Kerry holds talk in Vienna that will achieve little. By Robert B. Zoellick   Secretary of State John Kerry’s new diplomatic process for dealing with Syria’s harrowing civil war involves convening a series of talks in Vienna. The effort is probably well-intentioned. But I cannot conceive of what he expects to accomplish. Does anyone really believe that Syria can be put back together again and then revived through democratic elections? The danger is that the all-purpose diplomatic resort to “process” will lead the United States to ignore realities and even make them worse. America faces two interconnected perils in the region: the expansion of Islamic State and the breakdown of the Middle East’s century-old security order. The Obama administration’s fear of involvement and denial of the fundamental struggle for dominance in the region increases the risks for the U.S., Europe, Africa and Asia. The conference in Vienna last week—involving at least a dozen interested parties, including Iran, Saudi Arabia and Russia—was escapism, not a serious strategy. The next gathering in a week or so will be more of the same. The old state borders and authorities of the Middle East, established during and after World War I, are disintegrating. The Arab lands are now the scene of a terrible contest for power. As former U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus explained to Congress in September, “almost every Middle Eastern country is now a battleground or a combatant in one or more wars.” The antagonists recognize that the stakes are for nothing less than control of this crossroads for Asia, Europe and Africa. It is the home of three of the world’s major religions, the world’s primary source of energy, a cradle of civilizations and graveyard of armies and empires—and is now the scene of possible nuclear-weapons proliferation. Islamic State, or ISIS, bubbled over from this caldron. Pursuing the ideal of offensive jihad, ISIS—whose motto is “enduring and expanding”—seeks to hold and enlarge the territory of its declared caliphate. This barbaric army feeds off Sunnis’ sense of dispossession. The ISIS promise of power depends on a victorious image—and on the absence of a successful Sunni alternative in the battle against ancient and modern foes. Iran views the regional breakdown as an opportunity finally to win the Iran-Iraq war, establish dominance over Shiite populations and expand Persian hegemony over the Middle East. Iran’s alliances with Bashar Assad’s Syria and with Hezbollah, and Tehran’s convergence of interests with Russia, are backed by Shiite militia, Iran’s Quds Force and supplies of weaponry and money. The traditional Sunni Arab states—Saudi Arabia, the Gulf entrepots, Jordan and Egypt—are fearful. Lower energy prices are draining resources. ISIS can never conquer Shiite Iran, but it does threaten Sunni rivals, which are tempted to compete through more sectarian strife. These Sunni states suspect that the aim of U.S. policy is to accommodate Iran’s power or, worse, to rely mistakenly on Iran to provide stability in the region. The Sunni states are watching Iran’s nuclear program, missile tests and regional subversion with high anxiety because they believe that they stand alone in this contest for power and even for survival. The Russian and Iranian interventions in Syria further darken this bleak picture. Bashar Assad has killed about a quarter-million of his own people and depopulated half the country. More civilians have died at his hands than by ISIS violence. ISIS will recruit Sunnis repulsed by the Assad regime’s heretical (Shiite and Russian Orthodox) reinforcements. Moreover, Russia’s bombardments in support of the regime have targeted Sunni forces resisting both Mr. Assad and ISIS. If Mr. Kerry’s “peace conference” presses these anti-Assad forces to accept a cease-fire, ISIS will gain legitimacy as the only counter to Mr. Assad. Peace depends on the future power balance. A Sunni counterforce won’t fight ISIS unless it and the Syrian people are protected against enemies. If Iraq is unable to offer its own Sunni tribes a secure existence, they will feed—or acquiesce to—Islamic State’s rule. The Turkish and Jordanian ideas for safe zones within Syria would offer the opportunity for the formation of a Sunni alternative to ISIS and the Assad regime. These zones, in addition to providing a space where Sunni forces could build military capacity, could gain legitimacy if they were used for humanitarian relief, including health and schooling for refugees. The U.S. could again provide assistance and protection as it did for Kurds in Iraq after the first Gulf War. The Sunni states could direct their aid to this project, joined by the Europeans, who have an incentive to stem the flood of refugees. The allied effort, including Kurds who are now fighting alongside Arabs, needs to counter the prevailing image of Islamic State success. The jihadists’ possession of extensive territory makes ISIS vulnerable to attacks on supply lines and to economic warfare that targets resources, such as the smuggling of oil and antiquities. A social-media counterattack should highlight negatives like Islamic State’s sex slaves and its violence committed against other Sunnis; the allied technological pushback should include shutting down online propaganda sites and radio networks. The Obama administration won’t take these steps. Others will consider them too hard or costly. The U.S. and its allies should then acknowledge the likely result. First, America will forfeit influence over the new order that emerges from this Middle East power struggle. Second, ISIS is likely to consolidate or extend its reach in Yemen, Libya, Afghanistan, Africa and beyond. And third, America’s interests and friends are likely to suffer. Conferences in Vienna will neither influence nor provide an escape from the brutal realities mounting daily in the Middle East. Mr. Zoellick is a former World Bank president, U.S. trade representative and deputy secretary of state. 1d) Welcome to the Real New Middle East JONATHAN S. TOBIN  The 20th anniversary of Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination has set off a bit of nostalgia in some precincts for the euphoria that affected many in Israel and the United States after the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993. At the time, Shimon Peres’ book, The New Middle East, symbolized the pie-in-the-sky expectations about the peace process. Though all of his predictions proved absurdly and tragically inaccurate, Peres still holds onto his faith in a process that was flawed from the start by placing his trust in a terrorist. He still foolishly blames Prime Minister Netanyahu and not Yasir Arafat for the collapse of his dreams. But while Peres’ idiotic vision of the region turning into a version of the Benelux nations (tell that to Hamas and Hezbollah, not to mention Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah), the truth is that there are some things about the real Middle East today that benefit Israel and are every bit as extraordinary as Peres’s fanciful scenario. More importantly, they were achieved by a so-called right wing government staying strong and making common cause with Arabs who share Israel’s fear of Islamists. This week in a move that stunned the Arab world, Egypt voted with Israel in the United Nations for the first time in its history. Days before that, reports told of Jordanian combat pilots participating in a joint military exercise with Israel and the United States. Neither event is by itself of great significance. But taken together and put in the context of the conflicts in the Middle East that have nothing to do with the Palestinians, they show that that although Israel’s critics harp on its isolation, Israel is no longer completely surrounded by enemies but can, in fact, look at Egypt and Jordan as nominal if not entirely friendly allies. The vote at the UN was over something relatively minor — membership on the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space Affairs — but the mere fact that it was the first time it ever voted for Israel for something is historic. After an avalanche of criticism from the Arab world, the Egyptian government claimed the move was really just a tactical move that might ensure the election of some Arab nations to the committee, too. But that excuse doesn’t hold water, and there’s no denying the symbolism here. After 67 years of fervent opposition that continued even after a peace treaty was signed between the two countries in 1979, the vote indicates just how far the government of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has moved towards cooperation with the Jewish state since the military toppled the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013. Cairo now correctly views Israel as a fellow combatant in the struggle against the Islamists of the Brotherhood, Hamas, and its Iranian allies. That’s the same view held by Jordan’s government, though, to be fair. King Abdullah and his father, King Hussein, always understood that Israel was a covert ally in the Hashemite regime’s struggle for survival against Palestinian and other radical Muslim foes dating back to the 1970s. The only difference is that, with ISIS on the march and Iran (with the tacit acceptance of the Obama administration) extending its influence across the region, the need for close cooperation with Israel on security matters is now more important than ever. What this means is that, although Israel’s enemies are still legion, and Palestinians remained mired in a culture of hate and rejectionism, two of the nations that posed the most potent military threat to Israel’s existence in the first decades of its life are now more or less allied with it. Indeed, their governments see eye-to-eye with Netanyahu on all major security matters, including their justified concerns about the implications of President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. Even as we celebrate these developments, we shouldn’t ignore the fact that anti-Semitism and hate for Israel are still endemic in both Egypt and Jordan. The rising tide of global anti-Semitism that has its roots in the Muslim world still constitutes a potent threat to Israel’s future and requires it to, as Netanyahu correctly noted, “live by the sword” for the foreseeable future. Would it have been nice if Peres’s vision had come true? Of course, it would have. But as I noted last week, the counter-factual scenarios that are mooted about what would have happened if Rabin lived are as nonsensical as they are anachronistic. Oslo had already started coming apart in a maelstrom of Palestinian terror before his murder. That was way polls showed Rabin being defeated by Netanyahu in the next election at the time of his death. And there is nothing that Rabin could have done to offer a fair settlement to the Palestinians that wouldn’t later be put forward by Ehud Barak or Ehud Olmert. It is also fair to point out that at the time of his death Rabin was still fervently opposed to an independent Palestinian state or the division of Jerusalem, let alone unilateral withdrawal from the territories. All of which is to say Peres’s idea that all the spears would be beaten into plowshares didn’t take into account the fact that Palestinian nationalism is inextricably tied to the struggle to eradicate Israel, no matter where its borders would be drawn. Its failure had nothing to do with Netanyahu and everything to do with the Palestinians. But while we might lament this reality, the situation that Israel now finds itself in is actually far stronger than the one Rabin left behind. Moreover, though not all of his moves or statements have been wise, Netanyahu deserves a great deal of the credit for the Jewish state’s strong economy and a strategic situation that is rooted in a wise refusal to trust in the goodwill of vicious enemies. President Obama’s disastrous outreach to Iran is partly responsible, and Netanyahu’s new Middle East isn’t the utopia of Peres’s book. But the notion of a Jewish state that can look to Egypt and Jordan as tacit military allies is something that David Ben Gurion could only have dreamed about. And that is something very much worth celebrating. JONATHAN S. TOBIN IS SENIOR ONLINE EDITOR OF COMMENTARY MAGAZINE AND CHIEF POLITICAL BLOGGER AT WWW.COMMENTARYMAGAZINE.COM. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2)  Obama kills Keystone XL pipeline proposal The Obama administration rejected a Canadian energy giant's application to build the Keystone XL pipeline on Friday, capping a seven-year saga that became an environmental flashpoint in Barack Obama's presidency. Obama announced the decision at the White House after meeting with Secretary of State John Kerry. Killing the pipeline allows Obama to claim aggressive action on the environment, potentially strengthening his hand as world leaders prepare to finalize major global climate pact within weeks that Obama hopes will be a crowning jewel for his legacy. Yet it also puts the president in a direct confrontation with Republicans and energy advocates that will almost surely spill over into the 2016 presidential election. Although the project is dead for now, Obama's rejection will likely not be the last word for Keystone XL. The pipeline's backers are expected to challenge his decision in court, and the Republican-controlled Congress may try to override the president, although those efforts have previously failed. The project could also get a fresh look in 2017 if a Republican wins the White House and invites TransCanada to reapply. Another open question is whether TransCanada will try to recoup the more than $2 billion it says it has already spent on the project's development. Earlier in the year, the company left the door open to suing the U.S. government under NAFTA. The 1,179-mile proposed pipeline has been in limbo for more than 7 years, awaiting a series of U.S. reviews that have dragged on more than 5 times longer than average, according to a recent Associated Press analysis. The pipeline requires a presidential permit to cross the U.S.-Canadian border Over time, the pipeline took on symbolic value of epic proportions, elevated by environmentalist and energy advocates alike into a proxy battle for climate change. Although Obama insisted both sides had over hyped the pipeline, his many delays only fueled the mushrooming political controversy. Obama forecast his reluctance to authorize the pipeline on Wednesday when his administration rejected TransCanada's unusual request to suspend — but not withdraw — its application. The White House suggested the move was aimed at delaying until Obama leaves office and is potentially replaced by a Republican, although TransCanada insisted that wasn't the case. TransCanada, an Alberta-based company with an expensive North American footprint, first applied for Keystone permits in September 2008 — shortly before Obama was elected. As envisioned, Keystone would snake from Canada's tar sands through Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska, then connect with existing pipelines to carry more than 800,000 barrels of crude oil a day to specialized refineries along the Texas Gulf Coast. Democrats and environmental groups latched onto Keystone as emblematic of the type of dirty fossil fuels that must be phased out. Opponents chained themselves to construction equipment and the White House fence in protest, arguing that building the pipeline would be antithetical to Obama's call for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. But Republicans, Canadian politicians and the energy industry touted what they said were profound economic benefits — thousands of U.S. construction jobs and billions injected into the economy. They argued transporting crude by pipeline would be safer than alternatives like rail, and charged Obama with hypocrisy for complaining about the lack of investment in U.S. infrastructure while obstructing an $8 billion project. Amid vote after vote in Congress to try to force Obama's hand, the president seemed content to delay further and further into the future. The first major delay came in 2011, when Obama postponed a decision until after his re-election. He cited opposition to the proposed route through Nebraska's sensitive Sandhills region and said the U.S. would wait while the route was revised. When Congress passed legislation requiring a decision within 60 days, Obama rejected the application, but allowed TransCanada to re-apply. In a major speech unveiling his climate change agenda in 2013, Obama established a litmus test for Keystone. "Our national interest will be served only if this project does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution," Obama said at Georgetown University. Yet although a U.S.-commissioned environmental review found Keystone unlikely to exacerbate emissions, that assessment was based on outdated, higher oil prices, so environmentalists insisted it be redone. The administration again delayed the decision — this time indefinitely — in April 2014, citing legal uncertainty in Nebraska. After seizing full control of Congress later that year, Republicans passed a bill forcing Keystone approval, which Obama rejected, wielding his veto pen for only the third time. For TransCanada, the financial imperative to build Keystone may have fallen off recently amid a sharp drop in oil prices that could make extracting and transporting the product much less lucrative. But TransCanada's CEO has insisted that isn't the case. When the company first proposed Keystone in 2008, oil was suffering an even bigger plunge and the global economy was collapsing. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Democratic Rebuilding At The State And Local Level Could Take A Long Time–Or Just Losing A Presidential Race Matt Vespa For the most part, Republicans trounced Democrats in state and local races across the country. It was a great night for the GOP, especially Matt Bevin’s surprise win in Kentucky. Most had written him off in the weeks prior to Election Day, citing the inability for both him and his Democratic opponent, Attorney General Jack Conway, from getting any sort of traction with the electorate. In the end, Bevin beat Conway by almost ten points. The Republican State Leadership Committee, who serves at the frontlines of state and local races, noted their massive victory during their conference call yesterday. I’ve written previously about how the Obama presidency has left a huge butcher’s bill for the Democratic Party at the state and local level. This is where the fresh faces, and the new blood, comes from for future elections. After Clinton, the bench is quite bare. Given how the post-2015 election map looks, one could wonder if the Democratic Party can still compete at the state and local level. InsideSources gave a quick rundown of the “beating” Democrats took Tuesday night. Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post noted the absolute Republican dominance at the state and local level, adding (what we party members have known for a while) that it shows the GOP’s message is far from broken. He also reiterated the fact that this is where the new leaders are found: That dominance — and what it means to the policy and political calculations and prospects for both parties at the national level — is the single most overlooked and underappreciated story line of President Obama's time in office. Since 2009, Republicans have made massive and unprecedented gains at the state level, gains that played a central role in, among other things, handing control of the U.S. House back to the GOP in the 2010 election. […] It's hard to overstate how important those GOP gains — and the consolidation of them we've seen in the last few years — are to the relative fates of the two parties. While the story at the national level suggests a Republican Party that is growing increasingly white, old and out of step with the country on social issues, the narrative at the local level is very different. Republicans are prospering at the state level in ways that suggest that the party's messaging is far from broken. There are other, more pragmatic effects of the GOP dominance in governor's races and state legislatures, too. Aside from giving the party a major leg up in the decennial redrawing of congressional lines, which has led to a Republican House majority not only today but likely through at least 2020, the GOP's dominance gives the party fertile ground to incubate policy that makes its way to the national level and to cultivate the future stars of the national party from the ground up. Over at Commentary, Noah Rothman attributed the party’s losses to their indefatigable defense of Obamacare: Democrats have sacrificed a lot for ObamaCare. The party that rode two anti-GOP waves to unqualified power has been decimated. In 2009, Democrats controlled 62 of 99 legislative chambers, 29 governorships, and substantial majorities in both chambers of Congress. Today, the GOP controls 70 percent of all legislative chambers and 32 governorships. Nearly half the population of the United States lives under total Republican control. In the Congress, Republican majorities in the lower chamber appear nearly impossible to oust in this decade and the project of retaking the Senate in 2016 now seems a daunting task despite the number of exposed GOP members in traditionally Democratic states. If Democrats were to lose the presidency in 2017, they would no longer be able to avoid taking stock of the full scale of the party’s decimation. Obama’s hold on the White HoOuse has masked the scope of the party’s truncation. Being eaten alive from the inside out–what a David Cronenberg-esque political narrative that would be. So, are Democrats still competitive at this level? They know they have problems. Donna Brazile, the DNC’s co-chair, called her party’s extensive losses at this level a “crime.” Advantage 2020 is the Democrats’ $70 million effort to retake their lost ground. The RSLC has their seven-year, $125 million RedMap effort aimed at defending this territory, along with gaining ground in state legislatures. The problem here is whether Democrats can revive those state party apparatuses that have truly “atrophied” after years of neglect, as written in the New Republic last year. Moreover, besides rebuilding, it’s convincing the white working class voters who dot the areas where Democrats have been booted, to vote for them again. Regardless, for Democrats, this has to be done: The [Democratic] party could "write off" white working class in the South and still win many elections, but it's impossible to write off working Americans in all of the Red States or in all non-urban areas and still have a stable and enduring Democratic majority. […] In many Red States, Democrats' populist rhetoric simply doesn't penetrate the local political culture, which is dominated by Fox News and conservative radio. In these areas, Democrats have no alternative except to try to rebuild local political organizations and regain the support that has atrophied for several decades. Many Democrats would prefer not to have to face this monumental organization challenge, hoping instead that the existing Obama coalition and demographic changes in America will prove sufficient to elect a president in 2016, hold the Senate, and weaken GOP control over the House of Representatives. But the harsh reality for Democrats is that they cannot achieve all three of these objectives without increasing their support among white working class Americans—and if Democrats keep telling themselves that "the problem is just the South," that support may decrease instead. Hillary Clinton has promised to rebuild the dying Democratic state parties, though I’m sure her stellar numbers on personal qualities aren’t going to help the party on that front. Yes, she might get some Democrats excited, but let’s be honest–Hillary isn’t all that popular. So, can Democrats be competitive at the state and local level? It remains to be seen, but it’s certainly possible. But given the demographics of some of these areas, which are firmly Republican, and the fact that the local party apparatuses have withered; it’s quite the hurdle indeed. Yet, Republicans won in areas carried by Obama Tuesday night. Maybe Democrats just need to get over Obamamania and think clearly. On the other hand, and I’ll part with this, the Democratic turnaround in these underreported elections could be just one presidential loss away, according to Vox. Last Note: On Bevin's win, National Journal's Josh Kraushaar wrote how the governor-elect reached out to black voters in the state, and how school choice could be a powerful tool in that outreach.  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Has the World Lost Faith in Capitalism? A new survey suggests that restoring confidence in free enterprise will mean ensuring that the same rules apply to everyone By  TIM MONTGOMERIE If you want to find people who still believe in “the American dream”—the magnetic idea that anyone can build a better life for themselves and their families, regardless of circumstance—you might be best advised to travel to Mumbai. Half of the Indians in a recent poll agreed that “the next generation will probably be richer, safer and healthier than the last.”The Indians are the most sanguine of the more than 1,000 adults in each of seven nations surveyed in early September by the market-research firm YouGov for the London-based Legatum Institute (with which I am affiliated). The percentage of optimists drops to 42 in Thailand, 39 in Indonesia, 29 in Brazil, 19 in the U.K. and 15 in Germany. But it isn’t old-world Britain or Germany that is gloomiest about the future.re. It is new-world America, where only 14% of those surveyed think that life will be better for their children, and 52% disagree.The trajectory of the world doesn’t justify this pessimism. People are living longer on every continent. They’re doing less arduous, backbreaking work. Natural disasters are killing fewer people. Fewer crops are failing. Some 100,000 people are being lifted out of poverty every day, according to World Bank data.Life is also getting better in the U.S., on multiple measures, but the survey found that 55% of Americans think the “rich get richer” and the “poor get poorer” under capitalism. Sixty-five percent agree that most big businesses have “dodged taxes, damaged the environment or bought special favors from politicians,” and 58% want restrictions on the import of manufactured goods. These findings don’t mean that Americans are necessarily ready to give up on free enterprise. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, they think that capitalism is absolutely the worst economic system—except for all of the others that have been tried from time to time. Forty-nine percent still agree that free enterprise is the best system for lifting people out of poverty; only 18% disagree. And by 61% to 12%, Americans agree that unemployment is a bigger social problem than the existence of a “superrich” elite.Friends of capitalism cannot be complacent, however. The findings of the survey underline the extent to which people think that wealth creation is a dirty business. When big majorities in so many major nations think that big corporations behave unethically and even illegally, it is a system that is always vulnerable to attack from populist politiciansJohn Mackey, the CEO of Whole Foods, has long worried about the sustainability of the free enterprise system if large numbers of voters come to think of businesses as “basically a bunch of psychopaths running around trying to line their own pockets.” If the public doesn’t think business is fundamentally good, he has argued, then business is inviting destructive regulation. If, by contrast, business shows responsibility to all its stakeholders—customers, employees, investors, suppliers and the wider community—“the impulse to regulate and control would be lessened.” Mr. Mackey wants businesses to focus on maximizing purpose as much as profit. He highlights how, for Southwest Airlines, the mission is to give more Americans the ability to see the world. That aim is communicated from the top to the bottom of the company. Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information so that it is universally accessible. For his Whole Foods chain, it is about helping people lead longer, healthier lives through better food choices. Of course, many big businesses see close connections with government as part of their purpose and as a blessing rather than a curse. In his recent book, “The Great Divide,” the economist Joseph Stiglitz identifies those capitalists who have found innovative ways of persuading the government to protect their market status. He calls this phenomenon “socialism for the rich.” Michael Gove, a minister in Britain’s Tory government who represents a different brand of politics from Prof. Stiglitz’s, has reached similar conclusions. He makes a distinction between the “deserving rich” who work hard and creatively, adding value to society, and an “undeserving rich” who feast on government interventions, rig rules and sit on each other’s remuneration committees. Banks are uppermost in the minds of most people when we think of crony capitalism. We remember how some banks quickly punished small-business people or private households when they fell into financial distress. But when those same banks and financial institutions got into trouble seven years ago, they were bailed out by the taxpayer, and a different set of rules seemed to apply. For today’s pessimism about capitalism to be overturned, people must think that the same rules apply to everyone. For capitalism to enjoy the public’s confidence, we need a system where the rich can get poorer as well as the poor richer. There must be snakes as well as ladders in the boardroom board game. Which capitalists are still popular? Another global survey conducted by YouGov seeks to identify the world’s most popular person each year. The winner for the past two years hasn’t been a celebrity or sports star. It hasn’t been Barack Obama or even the pope. It has been Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft and a transformational philanthropist. Those who are determined to restore faith in capitalism won’t just champion figures like Bill Gates and John Mackey. They will be tough on the crony capitalists who cheat emissions regulators or fix financial markets. When capitalism is seen to be both fair and effective, it can be popular again. Mr. Montgomerie is a columnist for the Times of London and a senior fellow of the Legatum Institute, whose new report can be read at Prosperity-for-All.com.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) Obama’s Captain Obvious Moment JONATHAN S. TOBIN / NOV. 6, 2015 Is it possible that President Obama has finally learned from some of his mistakes? That’s the question observers must be asking today after reading accounts of statements from White House officials in advance of next week’s meeting between the president and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. The main revelation is that his advisers say the president understands that a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians won’t happen before he leaves office in January 2017. While cynics could chortle and say this is Obama’s Captain Obvious moment since, if this is so, then he is perhaps the last person on Earth to finally acknowledge this. But the real question here is not so much why Obama has conceded the point, but whether he is still blaming Israel for this failure and what, if anything, he’ll do to punish them for it. Let’s recall that President Obama came into office in January 2009 determined to change what he considered was the fundamental flaw of U.S. Middle East policy during the George W. Bush administration: a lack of “daylight” between the U.S. and Israel. Obama believed that if he distanced the U.S. from Israel, it would encourage the Palestinians to make peace and assist his policy of outreach to the Muslim and Arab worlds that he outlined in his Cairo speech later that year. Obama achieved the daylight and then some during the last seven years of constant sniping at Israel as he broke new ground in terms of criticism especially on the status of Jerusalem. But no matter how much he tilted the diplomatic playing field in the direction of the Palestinians, they never chose to talk peace seriously. Though Netanyahu accepted a two-state solution and offered to give up almost all of the West Bank, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas refused that opening just as he and his predecessor Yasir Arafat refused even more generous offers of statehood and a share of Jerusalem from Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert. Abbas blew up the peace talks sponsored by Secretary of State John Kerry last year by signing a peace pact with Hamas and making an end-run around the negotiations by going to the United Nations, where he sought recognition without having to first make peace. But even then Obama chose to blame Israel rather than the Palestinians. Just as ominously, the president cut off arms resupplies to the Israelis in the middle of last summer’s war with Hamas and threatened to reassess America’s longstanding policy of backing Israel at the United Nations. At the same time, Obama undercut Israel’s security — and that of its moderate Arab neighbors — by pushing for détente with Iran and signing a deal that legitimizes Tehran’s nuclear program. The open breach with the Israelis over a pact that gives Iran a path to a bomb rather than eliminating their program as Obama pledged worsened his already shaky relations with the Jewish state. That set up a final year in office when, with political constraints no longer operating, Obama might really put the screws to the Israelis in an effort to force them to make even more far-reaching concessions to the Palestinians in order to realize the president’s ambitions. While Obama is the sort of man who never admits a mistake, apparently he has been forced to concede that Abbas is incapable of signing a peace deal under any circumstances. Obama has refrained from criticizing the Palestinian for inciting the latest surge in terrorism with false accusations whose purpose is to whip up religious hate. But there is a limit to even his obstinacy. There may come a day when a Palestinian leader will be ready to acknowledge the legitimacy of a Jewish state, but Abbas is not that person. So while the Americans are saying they want Netanyahu to make gestures to ease the Palestinians’ plight — something that Netanyahu had been trying to do before the current terror surge — they know that nothing either the U.S. or Israel does will convince the Palestinians to talk. Two states won’t happen this next year or in any other year until the Palestinians give up their dream of eliminating Israel and, as the current violence indicates, that is something they are not yet ready to do. The purpose of the meeting with Netanyahu is supposedly to paper over the divided between the two countries after the Iran debate. The U.S. knows that Israel needs more military aid in large part because Obama’s pact with Iran and his dithering over Syria has worsened the strategic situation in the region and Obama is prepared to comply. To his credit, the president has, for the most part, left in place or strengthened the strategic alliance with Israel that he inherited from Bush. Yet the damage done from seven years of working to create daylight can’t be repaired by a meeting or military aid. No matter how generous the aid, it can’t make up for the undermining of Israel’s security via a U.S. policy that is indifferent to Iran’s quest for regional hegemony and which has stood by while ISIS arose and Russia intervened in Syria. There is also the possibility that Obama might continue his pointless feud with Netanyahu by abandoning Israel at the UN even though doing so would undermine U.S. interests as much as those of the Jewish state. But the talk about giving up on two states in the next year might also be a recognition that Obama understands that any further undermining of Israel — whether at the UN or in unleashing Kerry to make another futile attempt at negotiations — would harm U.S. interests as much as that of Israel. But Given Obama’s inability to acknowledge error, and his animus for Israel, it’s still possible he has another ambush up his sleeve either next week or in the months to come. If so, the results will likely be as dismal as every other initiative undertaken by this administration. Obama came into office with a theory about Middle East peace and he spent years trying to make it work. In the wake of Abbas’s rejection of peace and statehood in late 2008, a wise president would have understood that pressuring Israel would only lead to years of increased violence. Though he can blame Netanyahu all he likes, the responsibility for that failure and the increased escalation in the conflict during the last seven years belongs as much to Obama as it does to Abbas or Hamas. It is past time for him to admit his mistakes or to at least stop trying to double down on it with more pressure on Israel that will accomplish nothing. The manner of his cutting off his losses won’t be gracious. But if that’s what the White House is trying to do now, the world should be grateful. JONATHAN S. TOBIN IS SENIOR ONLINE EDITOR OF COMMENTARY MAGAZINE AND CHIEF POLITICAL BLOGGER AT WWW.COMMENTARYMAGAZINE.COM. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------