I get a lot of e mails and responses to my memo. Most are positive some are not but this one I thought very special and it came from a very special person and fellow memo reader. "Dick,
I've been reading all your blog pieces since the UN vote the other day. A parting gift to the nation on Christmas and Hanukkah from a petulant, petty,arrogant president who has zero leadership skills.As one of the pieces said. in the end Israel can only count on itself to defend itself. Thank goodness it has a leader in Netanyahu who sees this clearly and hopefully will now have a US president who has Israel’s back and will end this tragedy called the Obama administration.
I just heard the interview with Dershowitz where he spoke with Obama in October and asked for his support and Obama replied: ‘Don’t worry, I will always have Israel’s back” Final proof of him being a liar and fraud we’ve suffered with for 8 years as leader of this country. Trump may turn out to be many things, but I am willing to bet his word is good, and he is not a liar".
Happy Hanukkah to you and Lynn
J---"
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Yesterday, I was copied on an e mail that had nothing to do with me but I responded to one of the recipients who I know. He is a friend and very Liberal. I responded that I did not know why I was copied and then I proceeded to express some thoughts which countered the thrust of what I was sent. His final e mail acknowledged that we were coming at the subject from opposite poles and therefore we would not change each other's minds.
Always the one to have the last word, I noted that I am open to the views of others if only to assure that I remain open to challenges to my thinking.
Then I began to think about our back and forth e mails and I concluded what I always have: Why are Liberals fearful of discussing opposing view points. Is every political discussion a battle of opposing ideas? Are they so insecure that listening to another viewpoint is deemed threatening?
Are Liberals so sanctimonious that if someone challenges their viewpoint they are incapable of defending it or are they so convinced they are right they cannot tolerate other ideas? No wonder our campuses are in such a mess. Thoughtful conversation has become the victim of the hysterical. Kim Strassel is correct - intimidation is the weapon of the weak and no wonder PC'ism is destroying our freedoms and increasing divisions. Sad.
===
I post a lot of what Johnathan Tobin writes because I agree with him most of the times and find he is direct and to the point.
I thought this op ed particularly informative because Obama and his lackeys, Kerry, and Rhodes, are doing their best to deny the significance of the Resolution that was passed because Obama chose to stick it to Netanyahu.
It has taken 8 years for Obama to reveal his true stripes even to those who still believe him and refuse to open their eyes because they have so much invested in their community organizer saint and because they hate Trump.
I felt Obama was a fraud from the git go. Slick of tongue but inexperienced, not trustworthy and too steeped in the influence of questionable past relationships and associations That I feel redeemed is no comfort because I never wanted him to fail though I never believed he would succeed.. He was propped up by the mass media and his cupboard was never allowed to be seen bare. Little was ever known about him, his bloopers were never highlighted, he was always protected by an adoring press because he was their creature.The groundswell against him was never reported upon because his favorable ratings were always high and to be critical opened you up to charges of racism so the 'deplorables' kept silent, waiting in the wings for the day when they could record their feelings not against him but against his surrogate an equally flawed candidate named Hillary.
Now all the elites are shocked. They cannot explain to themselves where they went wrong. They have blamed everything and everyone but nothing really sticks . The elites simply remain out of touch with the goring Obama and his failed policies have caused others who want to work, live and play by the rules and who have respect for the law. These 'deplorables' were characterized as gun toting, bible thumping angry whites who did not have the good sense to come out of the rain.
Well these 'deplorables' rained on the elite's parade alright but the battle is far from won because the anger of the geographic bar bell elites has transferred to attacking the victor who most assuredly is a novice in the traditional sense and has made his own crude mistakes. However, he won fair and square and that sticks in the craw of the elites. It offends their sensibilities and wounds their pride.
How can so many Ivy League snobs be so wrong?
In a little over 20 days the battle will really begin. The shellacked opposition have begun attacking Trump's Cabinet selections and other appointees with gusto. They will go beyond legitimate questioning and probing and will dig up whatever dirt they can find and manufacture. That is what the snakes in D.C do for a living and they will be led by one of the biggest Boa's of all - Chuck Schumer.
Obama has set the stage by blowing smoke in Trump's face and casting rocks in his path prior to the Inauguration in order to protect his legacy and insure his record in the history books. This is the same president who, in 8 years, presided over one of the largest defeats of incumbents his party has sustained since the early 1900's. Many Democrats face a tough sledding because a disproportionate number are up for re-election in states carried by Trump. Do they side with the 'great one' or do they cross over to save their skin or are they going down for defeat regardless of what they do?
Maybe they become obstructionists like they claimed the Republicans were with respect to Obama, in the hope Trump will fall on his sword and a little push from them could help. Many, being consummate politicians, who enjoy their power and perks, the last thing they are thinking about is what is best for America. After all they have not been terribly on board with the idea of "America Being Great Again." if judged by their actions, words and policies. Their main job is to get re-elected and that demands independent thinking and courage and that is why Democrat House members returned Ms. Pelosi and why they might select Rep. Ellison to choke off any hope they might otherwise have.
If Trump wishes to succeed, and I believe his ego will drive him to do so, he will avoid the mass media, do what his instincts tell him and drive hard, be bold and show the way for the weak-kneed in his own Party. Congress is adept at moving slower than a tortoise and I suspect Trump is not one to tolerate delay and dragging. If he can accomplish a host of judicial appointments, virtually all of whom will be resisted by Democrats, starting with his replacement of Justice Scalia, truly reform the tax code rather than apply cosmetics, oversee the various renegade agencies actually enforce the rule of law and/or follow the dictates of Congress, address the matter of Islamic Terrorists, while rebuilding our military, he will go down in history as a solid president.
This will be a bitter pill for the anti-Trump crowd who are convinced he will destroy what remnants Obama did not have time to wreck.
Trump has assembled a pretty decent team to help him execute and there will be bumps along the way and some disappointments will surface because several of his appointees are not 'bubble' conversant and others will meet resistance from agency bureaucrats who do not accord with Trump's views regarding markets, trade, immigration, climate, energy development etc. They know they can wait out the gnats who annoy them because that is how D.C works. Outlast 'em is their mantra.
If you think we are in for a stretch of tranquility I believe you are mistaken. I think we are ready to begin a roller coaster trip that will have our heads spinning and it's consequences are too unpredictable but, as I have repeatedly said, for the first time in eight years I am upbeat. Israelis must be ecstatic except for the fact that Obama is preparing to have the U.N declare Palestinian a Nation .
So let the games/Middle East War begin as it most likely will because Hamas, Hezballah, Iran must be emboldened by Obama's treacherous and perfidious actions! (See 1, 1a, 1b, 1c and 1d below)
===
Dick
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1)
Why This Resolution Was Different
There is a fundamental difference between this and other anti-Israel
resolution that previous administrations allowed to be passed. The United
States has always opposed the settlements and never recognized
States has always opposed the settlements and never recognized
Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. But while other resolutions unfairly criticized
the Jewish state, none of them specifically labeled the Jewish presence in territory Israel took control of in the 1967 Six Day War as illegal. This is significant because it means that hundreds of thousands of Jews living in decades-old Jewish neighborhoods in the city of Jerusalem or in settlement blocs that even Obama has conceded would remain inside Israel in the
event of a peace treaty are now international outlaws. It will also mean that
Jews living in the disputed territories or Israeli officials may be hauled into
the International Criminal Court. It will put air in the sails of an anti-Semitic
BDS (boycott, divest, sanction) movement that had seemed to be losing
ground in recent years. Now, for the first time, it can claim to have the
backing of the UN.
Nor was the resolution balanced as Obama’s apologists claim. While it condemned attacks on civilians and incitement to violence, it also did not
specify that the Palestinian Authority was guilty of fomenting and financing
terror even as it did not hesitate to indict the state of Israel on false
charges of damaging peace.
Just as important, it removes any incentive for the Palestinian Authority to
budge from its refusal to negotiate peace with Israel. In effect, Obama, who
has claimed to be a champion of the peace process, has effectively killed
it. By colluding with the Palestinians in this UN gambit, Obama has
endorsed their end-run around direct negotiations sponsored by the United States and has ensured they won’t be revived, no matter how many times Netanyahu reiterates his offer of talks.
Nothing Netanyahu did in the last eight years or even in the last few
months was a departure from existing Israeli policies toward the territories.
To the contrary, settlement growth slowed under his government, a fact that
his right-wing critics have not missed. Nor has he stepped back from his willingness to negotiate a two-state solution.
No previous American government made a point, as Obama has
consistently done, of attacking Israel’s position in Jerusalem. Under the
terms of this resolution, the Western Wall and other Jewish holy places in Jerusalem are considered to be Palestinian. This isn’t merely offensive to
Jews. It’s a not so thinly veiled endorsement of the vicious Palestinian
campaign at UNESCO and other UN bodies to deny Jewish history and
religion by claiming Jerusalem’s holy places are exclusively Muslim.
As Obama knew full well, the mischief that will ensue from Resolution
2334 will not be able to be undone by his successor. He took this vindictive
act in full knowledge that it was the Palestinians who have turned down numerous offers of statehood. It may also be followed up in the days before
January 20 with an even more damaging resolution that could recognize Palestinian statehood in the 1967 lines without forcing them to make peace
with Israel first. Though Obama and his apologists may believe this is
necessary to “save Israel from itself,” what he has done could actually
finish the already remote hopes for peace for another generation.
This betrayal won’t cause Israel to surrender its rights or its security and it
may well encourage President-elect Trump to take actions to retaliate
against the UN and the Palestinians in order to restore some balance. But
whatever else happens, it cannot be denied is that on Jerusalem and on
peace, Barack Obama has done more to damage the U.S.-Israel
relationship that any president in the last 60 years.
1a)
Breaking: John Kerry Is Working On Another UN Resolution That Would Officially Recognize A Palestinian State
Multiple media outlets are reporting that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is finalizing a document that the Obama administration hopes will form the basis for a UN
Security Council resolution that officially recognizes a Palestinian state before the end of
Obama’s term on January 20th. This comes on the heels of the UN Security Council’s
adoption of resolution 2334 on December 23rd. That resolution declared that all Israeli
settlements in the West Bank are illegal, it stated that the Security Council recognizes the
1967 ceasefire lines as the border between Israel and “Palestine”, and it officially gave East Jerusalem to the Palestinians. But it stopped short of formally recognizing a Palestinian state. Resolution 2334 speaks of a Palestinian state in the future tense, but this new resolution that
1967 ceasefire lines as the border between Israel and “Palestine”, and it officially gave East Jerusalem to the Palestinians. But it stopped short of formally recognizing a Palestinian state. Resolution 2334 speaks of a Palestinian state in the future tense, but this new resolution that
John Kerry is reportedly working on would give immediate and permanent UN Security
Council recognition to a Palestinian state.
If there is a UN Security Council resolution that officially establishes a Palestinian state prior
to January 20th, there will be no question that it will represent “the dividing of the land of
Israel” at the United Nations that so many of us have been watching for.
According to the Times of Israel, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is anticipating
precisely this kind of move at the UN, and he is reaching out to Donald Trump for assistance…
Amid escalating fallout from the UN Security Council vote Friday that condemned Israel’s
settlement activities, a furious Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was reported on
Sunday night to be attempting to “recruit” the incoming Trump administration and the US
Congress to block a feared bid by the outgoing Obama administration to have the
Security Council approve principles for a Palestinian state.
It is being widely reported that John Kerry will deliver a speech within the next few days that
will set out a specific plan for a “two-state solution”. That same article from the Times of
Israel says that Netanyahu is deeply concerned that Obama “will seek to have a resolution enshrining those parameters adopted by the UN Security Council” before the end of his term
on January 20th…
Netanyahu’s fear is that Secretary of State John Kerry will set out principles or parameters for a Palestinian state in a speech that he has said he will deliver in the next few days on his Middle East vision. The prime minister fears that, in its final days, the Obama
administration will seek to have a resolution enshrining those parameters adopted by
the UN Security Council, the report said.
France is to hold a conference on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on January 15, and
Netanyahu expects that Kerry will attend, that the Middle East Quartet — the US, UN, Russia
and EU — will coordinate their positions at that summit, and that they will then turn to the
Security Council in the very last days of the Obama presidency, a Channel 10 report
further suggested.
If John Kerry simply were to get up and give a speech about what he thinks the solution to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict should be, that would be rather meaningless. In fact, there would
be little point in doing that unless action was going to be taken at the UN Security Council
before the end of Obama’s term.
Earlier today, Israeli-French anchor and reporter Julien Bahloul sent out the following message
When you hit the translate button, this is how that tweet gets translated: “#BREAKING:
Secretary of State John Kerry would work on a text recognizing the State of Palestine”.
When I first saw that, it sent chills through me.
lines as the basis for the borders between the two states, but it would also incorporate “land-
swaps” so that most of the Jewish settlers in the West Bank could stay where they are…
United States Secretary of State John Kerry is preparing a document which will form the basis
for final negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians to be presented next month before President Barack Obama leaves office, the Palestinian al-Quds newspaper reported Monday.
The document will outline the establishment of a future Palestinian state according to the internationally recognized 1967 borders, with land-swaps leaving approximately 75 to 80
percent of Israeli settlers living in the West Bank under the sovereignty of Israel, the report
states.
The principles will also set out requirements for Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish
State, and Israel’s required recognition of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, al-Quds says.
It would be hard to overstate how dangerous this is. As I explained yesterday, when Barack
Obama decided to betray Israel at the United Nations, he cursed America. And a resolution
that would officially recognize a Palestinian state would be an even bigger betrayal than
resolution 2334 was.
Back in August, I went on one of the biggest Christian shows in America and specifically
warned that Barack Obama would betray Israel at the United Nations. I have also repeatedly
pointed out the pattern of judgment that we have seen over the last several decades
whenever the U.S. has made moves toward dividing the land, and I have repeatedly warned
about what will happen when our government is involved in officially dividing the land of
Israel and establishing a Palestinian state.
I cannot understand why more Christian leaders are not getting extremely upset about this.
They know that the Bible says that God will bless those that bless Israel and that it will curse
They know that the Bible says that God will bless those that bless Israel and that it will curse
those that curse Israel.
Many of those leaders also know that there will be extremely severe consequences for the
United States once a Palestinian state is declared.
So why aren’t they saying something?
Why aren’t they warning the people?
Why are they just going about business as usual as if nothing is going to happen?
This past weekend preachers all across America should have been preaching fiery sermons
This past weekend preachers all across America should have been preaching fiery sermons
about Obama’s betrayal of Israel on Friday. But that wouldn’t have been politically-correct to
preach during the Christmas season, and so in most churches nothing was said.
The passing of UN Security Council resolution 2334 was the most prophetically significant
event in at least 40 years, and another resolution that would officially recognize a Palestinian
state would be even more important.
America is already under a curse due to the passage of resolution 2334. If another resolution
is passed that formally establishes a Palestinian state, our nation will experience a shaking
unlike anything that we have ever known before.
Let us pray that the Obama administration is not successful in getting this resolution passed
before January 20th, because if it happens all hell is going to break loose in America.
1b)
Thanks to no-drama Obama, American leadership is gone
If Dec. 7, 1941, is the day that Franklin D. Roosevelt said “will live in infamy,” then Dec. 20, 2016, has got to be a
close second. No Americans died that day as they did at Pearl Harbor, but the American Century, as Time
magazine founder Henry Luce called it, came to a crashing end. Turkey, Iran and Russia met in Moscow to settle
matters in the Middle East. The United States wasn’t even asked to the meeting.
Winston Churchill said in 1942 that he had not become Great Britain’s “First Minister in order to preside over the
liquidation of the British Empire.” Nonetheless, by the end of the 1940s, much of the empire was gone. Churchill
was an unapologetic colonialist, but he was up against liberation movements of all kinds, not to mention the
antipathy of the United States to imperialist ambitions — in short, history itself. Churchill had a marvelous way
with words, and greatness accompanied him like a shadow, but in certain ways he was a 19th-century man
wandering, confounded, in the 20th.
Barack Obama is quite the reverse. He is a 21st-century man who never quite appreciated the lessons of the 20th.
He has been all too happy to preside over the loss of American influence. Aleppo, Syria, now a pile of rubble, is
where countless died — as did American influence. The Russians polished it off from the air, doing for the Syrian
regime what the United States could not figure out how to do for the rebels. The city hemorrhaged civilian dead,
and America, once the preeminent power in the region, did virtually nothing.
It could be that Obama was right. It could be that all along he knew that the rebels were beyond saving — although
he predicted that Bashar al-Assad would be toppled — and, anyway, the United States was not going to again get into some Middle Eastern quagmire. America had twice made war in Iraq; it had lost Marines in Lebanon. Though
perhaps these were just excuses to do nothing. After all, no one ever recommended putting boots on the ground in
Syria. That was Obama’s straw man.
“Time will tell” is the appropriate cliche. But I, along with others, thought the United States could have limited the bloodletting, that it could have established no-fly zones where Syrian government helicopters could not have
dropped barrel bombs. It could also have established safe zones for refugees. The Russians managed to do what
they wanted to do. Why not the United States?
The answer has always been clear to me — Obama did not care enough. Not from him ever came a thundering
demand that Russia and Iran get out and stay out. Behind the arguably persuasive reasons to do little in Syria was
an emotional coldness: This was not Obama’s fight.
Say what you will about Donald Trump, he cares. He cares about things I don’t, and he has some awful ideas, and
he is an amoral man in so many ways. But, in contrast to Obama, his emotions are no mystery. When the
Chinese fished a U.S. Navy drone from the Pacific Ocean, the White House reacted so coolly you would think
freedom of the seas didn’t matter. Trump, however, tweeted his indignation, finally telling Beijing it could keep the
drone — a way of telling them to stuff it.
Hillary Clinton lost the election for a host of reasons, not the least of them her shortcomings as a candidate. And
Trump won for many reasons, not the least of them his political talents. But Clinton had to defend an
administration that was cold to the touch. Kellyanne Conway keeps pointing out that Clinton had no message.
True. Neither, for that matter, did Obama. He waved a droopy flag. He did not want to make America great again.
It was great enough for him already.
That coolness, that no-drama Obama, cost lives in Syria. Instead of rallying the United States to a worthy cause — intervening to save lives and avoid a refugee crisis that is still destabilizing Europe — he threw in the towel. The
banner he flew was one of American diminishment. One could agree. One could not be proud.
Since the end of World War II, American leadership has been essential to maintain world
peace. Whether we liked it or not, we were the world’s policeman. There was no other cop on
the beat. Now that leadership is gone. So, increasingly, will be peace.
1c)
Obama’s Fitting Finish
In the list of low points in U.S. foreign policy, the betrayal of Israel
ranks high.
Barack Obama’s decision to abstain from, and therefore allow, last week’s vote to censure Israel at the
U.N. Security Council is a fitting capstone for what’s left of his foreign policy. Strategic half-measures, underhanded tactics and moralizing gestures have been the president’s style from the beginning. Israel
is aren’t the only people to feel betrayed by the results.
Also betrayed: Iranians, whose 2009 Green Revolution in heroic protest of a stolen election Mr. Obama conspicuously failed to endorse for fear of offending the ruling theocracy.
Iraqis, who were assured of a diplomatic surge to consolidate the gains of the military surge, but who
ceased to be of any interest to Mr. Obama the moment U.S. troops were withdrawn, and only
concerned him again when ISIS neared the gates of Baghdad.
Syrians, whose initially peaceful uprising against anti-American dictator Bashar Assad Mr. Obama
refused to embrace, and whose initially moderate-led uprising Mr. Obama failed to support, and who
se sarin- and chlorine-gassed children Mr. Obama refused to rescue, his own red lines notwithstanding.
Ukrainians, who gave up their nuclear weapons in 1994 with formal U.S. assurances that their “existing borders” would be guaranteed, only to see Mr. Obama refuse to supply them with defensive weapons
when Vladimir Putin invaded their territory 20 years later.
Pro-American Arab leaders, who expected better than to be given ultimatums from Washington to
step down, and who didn’t anticipate the administration’s tilt toward the Muslim Brotherhood as a
legitimate political opposition, and toward Tehran as a responsible negotiating partner.
Most betrayed: Americans.
Mr. Obama promised a responsible end to the war in Iraq. We are again fighting in Iraq. He promised
victory in Afghanistan. The Taliban are winning. He promised a reset with Russia. We are enemies
again. He promised the containment of Iran. We are witnessing its ascendancy in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon
and Yemen. He promised a world free of nuclear weapons. We are stumbling into another age of
nuclear proliferation. He promised al Qaeda on a path to defeat. Jihad has never been so rampant
and deadly.
These are the results. They would be easier to forgive if they hadn’t so often been reached by
disingenuous and dishonorable means.
The administration was deceptive about the motives for the 2012 Benghazi attack. It was deceptive
about Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s service record, and the considerations that led it to exchange five Taliban
leaders for his freedom. It was deceptive about when it began nuclear negotiations with Iran. It was
deceptive about the terms of the deal. It continues to be deceptive about the fundamental aim of the agreement, which has less to do with curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions than with aligning Washington’s interests with Tehran’s.
Now the administration is likely being deceptive about last week’s U.N. vote, claiming it did not
promote, craft or orchestrate a resolution that treats the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City as a settlement in illegally occupied territory. Yet in November, John Kerry had a long talk on the subject
with the foreign minister of New Zealand, one of the resolution’s sponsors.
“One of the closed-door discussions between United States Secretary of State John Kerry and the New Zealand government today was a potential resolution by the United Nations Security Council on a
two-state solution for the Israel-Palestine conflict,” the New Zealand Herald reported last month. “‘It
is a conversation we are engaged in deeply and we’ve spent some time talking to Secretary Kerry
about where the U.S. might go on this,’” the paper added, quoting Foreign Minister Murray McCully.
The Israelis claim to have more evidence along these lines. If so, it means the administration no longer bothers to lie convincingly.
Even this might be excusable, if Mr. Obama at least had the courage of his mistaken convictions, or if
his deception were in the service of a worthier end. Instead, we have the spectacle of the U.S.
government hiding behind the skirts of the foreign minister of New Zealand—along with eminent co-
sponsors, Venezuela, Malaysia and Senegal—in order to embarrass and endanger a democratic ally in
a forum where that ally is already isolated and bullied. In the catalog of low points in American
diplomacy, this one ranks high.
After the Carter administration pulled a similar stunt against Israel at the Security Council in December
1980, the Washington Post published an editorial that does the paper honor today.
“It cannot be denied,” the editors wrote, “that there is a pack and that it hounds Israel shamelessly
and that this makes it very serious when the United States joins it.” The editorial was titled “Joining
the Jackals.”
Unlike Mr. Carter, Mr. Obama hasn’t joined the jackals. He has merely opened the door wide to them,
whether at the U.N. or in the skies over Syria or in the killing fields in Ukraine. The United States
abstains: What a fitting finish to this ruinous presidency.
Write bstephens@wsj.com.
1d)
Obama’s war against America
By Caroline Glick
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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