Obama takes aim at Israel

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US Assistant Secretary Of State Pressing Israel To Lose Its Nukes And Make The Middle East A Nuke Free Zone…

Via Israel National News

Assistant US Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation, Thomas Countryman, recently visited Israel and held talks with senior Foreign Ministry officials, about the possibility of making the Middle East nuclear-free.

Washington seeks to advance the idea after reaching agreement with Russia about the matter.

The State Department confirmed Countryman’s visit and sources in the US Administration said that Israeli agreement to the idea would be a catalyst for bringing additional countries into discussions on the matter.

The Americans have been attempting to convene an international conference on the subject for some time, without success. Secretary of State John Kerry spoke about the idea with pessimism, and said it was “a very tough challenge.”

The Foreign Ministry did not want to respond to the report about Countryman’s visit and told Arutz Sheva that “the subject is a sensitive one, we will not talk about

[American Patriot]

Its a trap.

[MinutemanCO]

Are you kidding me? After the current administration did everything it could to ensure that Iran would end up with a nuke? They are not even attempting to veil their hypocrisy any longer.

[Ryan Ruck]

Congress Investigating Obama Admin-Funded Campaign to Unseat Israeli PM

State Department purged emails about $300,000 grant to anti-Netanyahu group

September 16, 2016

Congress on Friday launched a wide-ranging probe into a secret Obama administration-funded campaign to unseat Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to information exclusively obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

The probe comes on the heels of an internal government report determining that the State Department provided hundreds of thousands to an organization that plotted to unseat Netanyahu in the country’s 2015 election.

Obama administration officials were found to have deleted emails from State Department accounts containing information about its relationship with OneVoice, the non-profit group that led the effort.

OneVoice, which was awarded $465,000 in U.S. grants through 2014, has been under congressional investigation since 2015, when it was first accused of funneling some of that money to partisan political groups looking to unseat Netanyahu. This type of behavior by non-profit groups is prohibited under U.S. tax law.

A group of nine leading lawmakers led by Sen. David Perdue (R., Ga.) are now formally petitioning the State Department to come clean about the effort and provide answers about how U.S. taxpayer dollars were permitted to be spent on an organization working against the elected leader of America’s closest Middle East ally, according to a readout of the investigation obtained by the Free Beacon.

“State Department officials failed to properly vet the OneVoice grant proposal because they failed to properly conduct an analysis of risks in the pre-award phase,” the senators wrote in a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry. “Unfortunately, it seems that inconsistency and apathy toward oversight of such grants at the State Department is not new. Our aid dollars should be going toward solving real problems, not contributing to the destabilization of allied governments.”

The lawmakers—including Sens. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), Mark Kirk (R., Ill.), Orrin Hatch (R., Utah), Mike Lee (R., Utah), and Johnny Isakson (R., Ga.) among others—wrote that the State Department turned a blind eye to OneVoice’s highly partisan activities and failed to perform proper oversight about how U.S. funds were being spent by the group.

“State Department officials utterly failed to follow established procedures and guidelines to properly identify, mitigate, or guard against any risk that OneVoice would misuse these funds before, during, and after the grant period,” the letter said. “As a direct result of these failures, OneVoice was able to use the more than $300,000 grant to build campaign infrastructure and resources which later were deployed in support of a negative campaign against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his Likud Party, and the democratically elected coalition government of Israel during the 2015 Israeli parliamentary election.”

State Department officials were aware of OneVoice’s partisan activities, but still permitted the grant money to be awarded, according to the senators, who are pushing for the administration to take disciplinary action against the officials involved.

“Despite knowledge of such activities, State Department officials failed to adequately document any assessment of the risk that OneVoice might continue obstructive efforts against a certain political party in the event of an election,” the letter stated.

“State Department grant policies and procedures are in place to ensure that taxpayer dollars are used to fund U.S. government initiatives and further U.S. interests,” the letter said.

The senators require the State Department to answer a series of questions about the grant, including how it vetted OneVoice and why proper oversight methods were not employed.

They also are seeking to determine what “disciplinary action” is being taken against U.S. officials who knew about the plan to unseat Netanyahu but failed to take action to report this behavior.

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John Bolton Warns That Obama May Attempt to Divide The Land Of Israel At The UN Before The Inauguration

By Michael on November 20, 2016 • ( 9 Comments )



Is Barack Obama about to make the most catastrophic decision of his entire presidency? Former UN Ambassador John Bolton is warning that there is “a lot of speculation” over at UN headquarters right now about “resolutions that recognize a Palestinian state or that try and set a boundary for Israel based on the 1967 ceasefire lines”. Of course this would have to happen before the inauguration of Donald Trump on January 20th, because Trump has already made it quite clear that he will not support any UN resolution of such nature. Knowing that Trump is about to take office, advocates of the “two state solution” are putting an immense amount of pressure on Obama to support a UN Security Council resolution that would permanently divide the land of Israel while he is still in the White House, and at this moment we do not know what Barack Obama’s final decision will be.

Most Americans have no idea that this drama is playing out behind the scenes, but those in the know are very much aware of what is happening. The Wall Street Journal recently published an article entitled “Obama’s Israel Surprise?” that discussed the possibility of Obama supporting a UN Security Council resolution that would permanently divide the land of Israel, and the New York Times editorial board has formally endorsed such a resolution.

The rest of the UN Security Council is ready to agree to such a resolution, and at this point the only obstacle is getting Barack Obama’s approval. That is why it was so exceedingly alarming to wake up on Sunday morning and read former UN Ambassador John Bolton’s very chilling warning about what could soon happen at the UN. The following comes from an article on the website of The Hill…

Former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton warned Sunday that President Obama should not take any actions before leaving office that could hurt Israel at the U.N.

Bolton said during an interview with radio host John Catsimatidis that there is “a lot of speculation over in Turtle Bay at U.N. headquarters about resolutions that recognize a Palestinian state or that try and set a boundary for Israel based on the 1967 ceasefire lines.”

“I think that’d be very inadvisable for the president to do that,” he said.

John Bolton is still very tied in to the international community, and Donald Trump is reportedly actively considering asking him to serve as Secretary of State.

Needless to say, I would take what he is saying very, very seriously.

So what would this potential UN Security Council resolution look like?

Well, it would likely accomplish three historic things…

1. It would give formal UN Security Council recognition to a Palestinian state for the very first time.

2. It would grant East Jerusalem to the Palestinians as the capital of their new state.

3. It would establish the 1967 ceasefire lines as the basis for final negotiations for borders between the two states.

Up until now, the U.S. government’s veto power on the UN Security Council has always blocked anti-Israel resolutions from passing, but earlier this year the Obama administration said that such a “parameters resolution” was now “on the table”.

And at this point we still don’t know what Obama is going to ultimately decide, but the Trump transition team is so concerned about this that they recently warned Obama “against making moves on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in his last months in office”.

But no matter how much they object, the truth is that Trump and his team cannot actually do anything to stop Obama.

If Obama decides to betray Israel at the UN, it is going to happen.

And of course the Israeli government is extremely concerned about what might take place as well. According to the New York Post, the Israelis asked Secretary of State John Kerry if the Obama administration would promise to veto any anti-Israel resolutions at the UN for the remainder of Obama’s term, and Kerry flatly refused to make such a promise…

Israel faces a unique window of danger from Nov. 9 to Jan. 20: What might President Obama do in his final days in office to slam the Jewish state?

Start with Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent flat refusal to promise a US veto on any upcoming anti-Israel resolution in the UN Security Council.

On Saturday, Haaretz reports, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Kerry he’s counting on Washington to stick to its policy of nixing anti-Israel resolutions. Kerry’s reply: The administration has yet to make a decision on the matter.

Perhaps equally as alarming is what Obama told the Palestinians. In October, Obama reportedly told them to wait until after the election for any action at the UN Security Council…

On the surface, the latest message to the Palestinian Authority from the Obama administration is no different from the past two decades of American policy: the U.S. will veto any resolution attacking Israel or demanding Palestinian independence without them first making peace with the Jewish state. But, as Haaretz reported, there was one significant caveat to the warning. They were told not to push for any such resolution until after the presidential election next month.

So why would it be so catastrophic if Obama decides to support a UN Security Council resolution that permanently divides the land of Israel?

Well, John Kilpatrick, Shane Warren, Bob Jones and many others have warned that when we divide the land of Israel, our land will be divided too.

Whether it is Barack Obama, Donald Trump or some other president that does it, someday this will happen.

And when this happens, the floodgates will open and judgment after judgment will hit this nation. I have warned about many of these events in my latest book, and I hope to write much more about what is coming in the months ahead.

So right now we are in “the danger zone” until January 20th, 2017.

If we can get to January 20th and Donald Trump is peacefully inaugurated and the land of Israel has not been divided, perhaps we can all breathe a little bit easier for a while.

But if the land of Israel is divided between now and then, the consequences for this nation are going to be more severe than most people would dare to imagine.

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Jimmy Carter Urges Barack Obama To Divide The Land Of Israel At The United Nations Before January 20th

By Michael Snyder, on November 29th, 2016



In an absolutely stunning editorial for the New York Times, former president Jimmy Carter has publicly called for Barack Obama to divide the land of Israel at the United Nations before Inauguration Day. While he was president, Carter negotiated peace between Israel and Egypt, and ever since that time he has been a very strong advocate for a Palestinian state. Carter is completely convinced that a “two-state solution” will bring lasting peace to the Middle East, but now that Donald Trump has been elected Carter knows that his dream of seeing a Palestinian state while he is still alive is rapidly slipping away. In a desperate attempt to salvage the situation, Carter is urging Barack Obama to take bold action while he still has the power to do so.

In his New York Times editorial, one of the steps that Carter says that Obama should take is to give formal U.S. diplomatic recognition to a Palestinian state…

I am convinced that the United States can still shape the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict before a change in presidents, but time is very short. The simple but vital step this administration must take before its term expires on Jan. 20 is to grant American diplomatic recognition to the state of Palestine, as 137 countries have already done, and help it achieve full United Nations membership.

Of course such a move would largely just be window dressing. The new Trump administration could very quickly revoke diplomatic recognition, and so if Barack Obama really wanted to “leave a legacy” in the Middle East he would have to do something that Donald Trump would not be able to undo.

Later on in his editorial, Carter suggested just such a thing. He urged Obama to support a UN Security Council resolution that would set forth firm parameters for resolving the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians…

The Security Council should pass a resolution laying out the parameters for resolving the conflict. It should reaffirm the illegality of all Israeli settlements beyond the 1967 borders, while leaving open the possibility that the parties could negotiate modifications. Security guarantees for both Israel and Palestine are imperative, and the resolution must acknowledge the right of both the states of Israel and Palestine to live in peace and security. Further measures should include the demilitarization of the Palestinian state, and a possible peacekeeping force under the auspices of the United Nations.

In a previous article, I discussed what the three main pillars of such a resolution would probably look like…
1. It would give formal UN Security Council recognition to a Palestinian state for the very first time.
2. It would grant East Jerusalem to the Palestinians as the capital of their new state.
3. It would establish the 1967 ceasefire lines as the basis for final negotiations for borders between the two states.

Such a UN Security Council resolution would be considered legally binding on the Israelis and the Palestinians. And the Trump administration would not be able to undo such a resolution because it would take another vote of the UN Security Council to revoke the resolution once it had been passed and that would not happen.

Right now the rest of the UN Security Council is ready to support this kind of resolution. The only thing that has been standing in the way has been the U.S. Security Council veto power, and there have already been rumblings that Obama may not exercise that veto power if a “parameters resolution” is put up for a vote before he leaves office.

And if Obama was going to make such a move, a really good way to drum up some public support for it would be to have a highly respected former president publish an editorial supporting the move in a highly visible newspaper such as the New York Times.

Over in Israel, the government has been ignoring Carter’s anti-Israel rants for years, and they have also responded to this latest editorial by Carter with silence…

As Carter’s criticism of Israel over the years has become increasingly scathing and one-sided, Jerusalem’s policy has been to largely ignore him. In line with this approach, neither the Prime Minister’s Office nor the Foreign Ministry had any response on Tuesday to his op-ed.

But without a doubt the Israelis are very concerned about what may happen next. They know the kind of damage that Barack Obama could do before we get to January 20th, and they are desperately hoping that Obama does not decide to do something exceedingly foolish. The following comes from the Jerusalem Post…

A number of European governments, as well as various think tanks, are talking with Obama administration officials, urging them to take some kind of action on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the waning days of the current presidency.
Among the suggestions are a new UN resolution laying down parameters for a peace deal; US support for the recognition of “Palestine” in the UN; or – at the very least – backing or abstaining on an anti-settlement resolution in the Security Council.
Israeli officials consistently maintain that they do not know what – if anything – Obama has planned. However, the fact that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continuously says – as he did on Sunday – that he expects Obama not to divert from traditional US policy on the matter, is an indication that there remains concern over the matter in Jerusalem.

From a Bible prophecy perspective, the division of the land of Israel is the number one event that we are watching for right now, and this is one of the reasons why I have labeled the period of time leading up to January 20th as “the danger zone“.

There have been many that have warned that once we divide the land of Israel, our land will be divided as well. But in addition to the great earthquake that is coming to the center of our country, we also know that so many of the other major judgments that I warn about in The Rapture Verdict come after the land of Israel gets divided.

But even though the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have both been running stories about a potential UN Security Council resolution that would divide the land of Israel, and even though experienced politicians such as Jimmy Carter and John Bolton are making lots of noise about it, most people don’t seem to understand how immensely important this really is in the greater scheme of things.
But if Barack Obama does decide to make a move to divide the land of Israel at the United Nations at some point during the next several weeks, the consequences for this nation will be more severe than most people would dare to imagine.

http://endoftheamericandream.com/arc...e-january-20th

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Obama abstains in key Israel vote, clearing way for condemnation of Israeli settlements

Published December 23, 2016 FoxNews.com



A "shameful" abstention by the U.S. in a United Nations vote Friday allowed passage of a resolution condemning Israeli settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank.

The UN Security Council resolution was put forward byfour nations a day after Egypt withdrew it Thursday under pressure from Israel and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.Failure by the U.S. to veto the measure was seen as a double-cross of America's key Middle Eastern ally, and attributed directly to outgoing President Barack Obama, who has had chilly relations with Israel throughout his eight-year tenure.

Reaction from U.S. Republicans and Jewish leaders around the world was swift and sharp.

"It was to be expected that Israel's greatest ally would act in accordance with the values that we share and that they would have vetoed this disgraceful resolution," said Israel's Ambassador Danon. "I have no doubt that the new U.S. administration and the incoming UN Secretary General will usher in a new era in terms of the UN's relationship with Israel."

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., blasted the Obama administration for undermining America's historic Middle East ally.

"This is absolutely shameful," Ryan said. "Today's vote is a blow to peace that sets a dangerous precedent for further diplomatic efforts to isolate and demonize Israel."

Minutes after the vote, Trump took to Twitter to express his opposition.

Follow
Donald J. Trump
✔@realDonaldTrump

As to the U.N., things will be different after Jan. 20th.
2:14 PM - 23 Dec 2016

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"As to the U.N., things will be different after Jan. 20th," Trump tweeted.

The measure was adopted with 14 votes in favor, to a round of applause, after U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power abstained. It is the first resolution the Security Council has adopted on Israel and the Palestinians in nearly eight years.
THE WEEK IN PICTURES

"The resolution is too narrowly focused on settlements when we all know, or all should know" there are other factors that contribute to the conflict between Israel and Palestinians," Power said in an explanation for why the U.S. chose to sit on the fence, which ensured passage of the resolution

The Obama White House, under heavy pressure from the Israeli government and its supporters to veto the resolution, kept everyone guessing until the vote whether it would stop shielding Israel from council resolutions and permit it to pass by abstaining.

The resolution, warning that Israeli settlement expansion is “steadily eroding the two-state solution and entrenching a one-state reality,” calls on Israel to “immediately and completely cease all settlement activity in occupied territories, including East Jerusalem.” It repeated the longstanding UN position that all settlements on land Israel conquered in 1967 are illegal under international law.

A senior Israeli official accused the U.S. of a "shameful move" after learning that it did not intend to veto the text, the BBC reported.

The U.S., which has veto power as one the council five permanent members of the council, has traditionally sheltered Israel from condemnatory resolutions. But the Obama administration has long made clear its opposition to Israeli settlement-building in occupied territory and there had been speculation that in its final month it might allow a resolution against settlements to pass at the U.N.

A senior Israeli official told The Associated Press: "President Obama and Secretary [of State John] Kerry are behind this shameful move against Israel at the U.N.

"The U.S. administration secretly cooked up with the Palestinians an extreme anti-Israeli resolution behind Israel's back which would be a tail-wind for terror and boycotts and effectively make the Western Wall [the Jewish holy site in the Old City of Jerusalem] occupied Palestinian territory.”

Most of those critical of the move by the U.S. painted it as a stab in Israel's back delivered by Obama.

“This last minute political maneuvering is shameful," said Ric Grennel, former spokesman for the U.S. Mission to the UN and a Fox News contributor. "It is inconsistent with the long standing U.S. policy that no country or organization should be dictating solutions on the two parties.

"Today’s abstention by the Obama Administration will make it harder to find a peaceful solution because it imposes outside positions on Israel without letting them negotiate directly,” he added.

Wael Abu Youssef, a senior member of the Palestine Liberation Organization, told Reuters that Netanyahu's government "must not be rewarded" by the withdrawal of the draft resolution.

The resolution, although it reiterates long-held U.N. policy, could be more than symbolic. While it does not call for imposing sanctions on Israel, its language could hinder Israel's negotiating position in future peace talks. Given the widespread international opposition to the settlements, it would be nearly impossible for the Trump administration to reverse it.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/12...ttlements.html

[Ryan Ruck]

Good riddance asshole!

[Malsua]

This scorched Earth community fucking organizer needs to go back to Hawaii and disappear from the news. It simply can't happen fast enough for me.

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Obama Administration Working On Another UN Resolution That Would Officially Recognize A Palestinian State

By Michael Snyder, on December 26th, 2016

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 Barack 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 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…

More at link:

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/a...estinian-state

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Obama’s “Shameful Betrayal” of Israel

Netanyahu calls it right.

December 28, 2016
Bruce Thornton



If any doubts remained about Obama’s malignant narcissism, historical ignorance, and geopolitical cretinism, the lame-duck-in-chief dispelled them with his abstention at the Security Council vote on a resolution slandering Israeli “settlements” as the foremost obstacle to peace. Undoing this despicable abandonment of a crucial ally should shoot to the top of incoming president Donald Trump’s to-do list.

Israeli intelligence has demonstrated that this diplomatic drive-by was orchestrated by Obama himself. “From the information that we have, we have no doubt that the Obama administration initiated it, stood behind it, coordinated on the wording and demanded that it be passed,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of what he rightly called a “shameful betrayal.” On the one hand, such back-door machinations are par for the course in the corrupt U.N. When the Bush administration in 2002 was trying to get a U.N. resolution authorizing the Iraq War, Germany lobbied non-permanent Security Council members Mexico, Chile, Cameroon, and Angola to vote against the resolution, which ultimately failed.

But German Chancellor Gerhard Schröeder had grubby political reasons for his meddling. He was running for reelection on a dismal economic record, and found a useful distraction by tapping into German anti-Americanism and reflexive pacifism. So too with France’s machinations and opposition to the war, which were aimed at ending the sanctions on Iraq so that France could get back to doing profitable business with Saddam Hussein, who in 1983 was buying half of all French arms exports.

These actions are bad enough, and are evidence that the U.N. exists to serve the interests of member countries, usually at the expense of other member countries. But Obama has no such utilitarian motives. He’s done with running for office. His reasons for betraying Israel comprise petty spite at Netanyahu for stoutly and publicly resisting Obama’s policies and actions that endanger his beleaguered country; and obeisance to left-wing historical fantasies about “colonialism,” the “two-state solution,” and Palestinian Arab “national aspirations.” In other words, the clichés one would expect from a badly educated university adjunct professor for whom left-wing bromides function as fashion statements and status assertion.

History, of course, tells a different story. There is no “Palestinian” people or “homeland.” There are Arabs whose historical homeland is the Arabian Peninsula. Any Arab living elsewhere is the descendant of invaders, colonizers, occupiers, and immigrants. There are no “occupied territories” or “borders,” but rather contested territories which are bounded by the 1967 armistice line, and the disposition of which will be decided through a negotiated settlement. The “West Bank” is a euphemism for the historical Jewish districts of Judea and Samaria. Jerusalem is not an Arab city, but for three thousand years has been the capital of the Jewish people, who have inhabited it continuously. The “settlements” are not colonial outposts created at the expense of their rightful owners, but towns and cities in the ancient Jewish homeland, most of them on land purchased from Arab landowners happy to make a profit on such barren tracts.

Nor is Israel an “illegitimate” country. Its existence is the result of international law as created by treaties, conferences, the League of Nations, and the U.N. resolution which established an Arab and a Jewish state, the latter comprising one-quarter of the territory mandated for Israel in the postwar settlement. Israel is as legitimate, and in fact even more legitimate, than the other states created in the region like Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, or the states like Hungary, Austria, the Kingdom of Serbs and Croats, and Czechoslovakia created after the dismemberment of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Moreover, Israel has had to fight off three armed attacks against it on the part of Arab countries that disregarded the U.N. resolution, Article 39 of the U.N. Charter, and numerous international treaties. Instead they tried to win by force land given to the despised dhimmi Jews they had oppressed and dominated for over a thousand years. They tried and lost, and and in 1967 suffered the eternal wages of failed aggressors––loss of territory. Only in this case, the territory the Arabs lost was theirs only by dint of conquest, not legitimacy, and its loss was no different from the Muslim loss of Spain to the Reconquista, or from Greece’s liberation from the Ottomans in 1832. But the land won by the Israelis in the defensive war had been Jewish since the 13^th century B.C.

So why this bizarre animus against Israel on the part of the West, this disdain if not hatred of what one French minister called a “****ty little country”? Short-sighted American “realists” don’t believe that defending the region’s only liberal democracy and respecter of human rights is worth antagonizing countries comprising five of the top ten global oil producers. Equally short-sighted European realists, faced with unassimilated Muslim immigrants who hate the West, think they can buy some peace (and access to Middle Eastern labor and business opportunities) by appeasing the Arabs through bullying and slandering Israel.

Leftists hate Israel because they think it is a stooge of neo-colonialist America, an outpost of imperialism oppressing the “natives,” and like America it is a graphic repudiation of leftism’s utopian delusions. Sentimental Third-Worldism prefers the exotic, quaint “other of color” and their more “authentic and vibrant” cultures over a go-getting, brash, innovative people wildly succeeding by adopting the modern Western paradigm of political freedom and open markets. Juvenile idealizers of romantic revolutionary violence are turned on by the “freedom-fighters” and a “resistance” that use action to achieve their aims, even if that violence is indiscriminate terrorism against innocents. The global diplomatic establishment sees Israel as the impediment to some grand diplomatic triumph that will validate their magical thinking about the superiority of talk over action. And don’t forget that post-Holocaust anti-Semitism has found a respectable camouflage in hating the idea of Zionism while ignoring the near-century of terrorist violence and aggression directed at flesh-and-blood Jewish people.

Whether cold calculations of interest or irrational ideological compulsions and prejudices, none of these reasons for demonizing Israel is founded on coherent principle, consistent standards of judgment, or even historical fact. The conflict is not about “settlements” or “check-points” or “national aspirations.” It’s about Islamic-sanctioned Jew hatred, and Arab humiliation and resentment of a handful of refugee Jews who developed lands bare of resources into a nation more militarily powerful and economically successful than their Arab neighbors. No “two-state solution” is going to change these ancient and deep-seated religious beliefs and psychological wounds.
But what can Trump do about it? In the long-run, he must in word and deed tell the world that the U.S. will defend Israel and ensure its security no matter what the “international community” says or does. One place to start is by punishing the U.N. for this despicable resolution by stopping the $8 billion a year we taxpayers contribute to that corrupt country club for international thugs, dictators, autocrats, and their European useful idiots. I don’t mean a token reduction like the $60 million withheld for a while from UNESCO for admitting the Palestinian Authority as a member. Cut it all off.

More importantly, this latest outrage is an opportunity to rethink this country’s participation in an organization that works against our interests and those of our allies, justifies terrorism as legitimate “resistance,” and demonizes Israel while ignoring the millions of people slaughtered in the Balkans, Rwanda, Sudan, and today in Syria. We need to repudiate the delusional belief undergirding our participation in the U.N.: that unelected, unaccountable functionaries of pygmy states and thug regimes can more justly determine the legitimacy of the United States’ foreign policy and behavior than the American people.

In reality, the legitimacy of American actions is conferred by the democratic process: the free, open debate on the part of citizens who can hold their leaders accountable and have a sense of the ideals and principles that animate our foreign policy and provide its goals. Subjecting those decisions to the corrupt deliberations of the U.N. often compromises our own interests and endangers our national security.

So punish the U.N. for damaging our ally, then start the process of getting out by withholding our dues. That will get the world’s attention and, like the thought of being hanged in a fortnight, concentrate their minds wonderfully.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2652...bruce-thornton

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Report: Egyptian Media Have Transcript of Kerry/Rice Colluding With Palestinian Authority Against Israel…



Posted on December 27, 2016

by sundance

This is disturbing. According to The Times of Israel, the Egyptian government have transcripts of communication showing Secretary Kerry and Susan Rice formulating a plan with the Palestinian Authority to create the anti-Israeli U.N. scheme; and beyond…



President Barack Obama, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice and Senior Director for Multilateral Affairs Samantha Power, attend a wreath laying ceremony at the Memorial for United Nations staff killed in Iraq at the U.N. Headquarters in New York City, Sept. 23, 2009. (Official White House photo by Pete Souza)

This official White House photograph is being made available only for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way and may not be used in commercial or political materials, advertisements, emails, products, promotions that in any way suggests approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House.

The usual suspects: Samantha Power, Susan Rice, President Obama.

(Via Times of Israel)

An Egyptian paper published what it claims are the transcripts of meetings between top US and Palestinian officials that, if true, would corroborate Israeli accusations that the Obama administration was behind last week’s UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements.
At the same time, a report in an Israeli daily Tuesday night pointed to Britain helping draft the resolution and high drama in the hours leading up to the vote, as Jerusalem tried to convince New Zealand to bury the Security Council measure.

In a meeting in early December with top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, US Secretary of State John Kerry told the Palestinians that the US was prepared to cooperate with the Palestinians at the Security council, Israel’s Channel 1 TV said, quoting the Egyptian Al-Youm Al-Sabea newspaper.
Also present at the meeting were US National Security Adviser Susan Rice, and Majed Faraj, director of the Palestinian Authority’s General Intelligence Service.

Kerry is quoted as saying that he could present his ideas for a final status solution if the Palestinians pledge they will support the proposed framework. The US officials advised the Palestinians to travel to Riyadh to present the plan to Saudi leaders.



LinkedIn

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Obama Administration's Farewell Stab at Israel

A fitting conclusion to a disastrous tenure as secretary of state.

December 29, 2016
Joseph Klein

On December 28^th, outgoing Secretary of State John Kerry delivered a rambling truth-challenged defense of the Obama administration’s scandalous decision allowing the United Nations Security Council to pass its most egregious anti-Israel resolution yet. Security Council Resolution 2334, which was adopted last Friday, denounced Israel’s settlements activities as illegal and destructive to the prospects of a two-state solution. Kerry concluded his 73 minute speech by outlining six principles to guide direct negotiations of a final status agreement on all outstanding issues, giving some indication that the Obama administration does not intend to use the Security Council to impose complete parameters for a final agreement or to unilaterally recognize a state of Palestine before a final agreement between the parties is reached. However, given President Obama’s animus toward Israel, and particularly Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Obama may still have something up his sleeve to further hurt Israel.

Prime Minister Netanyahu said in reaction to Kerry’s speech that it was "as unbalanced as the anti-Israel resolution passed [at the United Nations] last week." Indeed, the Obama administration destroyed all prospects for good faith negotiations directly between the Israelis and Palestinians by facilitating the Palestinians’ lawfare strategy executed through the United Nations. The anti-Israel Security Council resolution Kerry called “balanced” prejudges all the major issues against Israel under the patina of international law.

Kerry began his speech by declaring, in response to Israeli criticisms of the Obama administration’s abstention on Security Council Resolution 2334, “Friends need to tell each other the hard truths.” Kerry would not know the truth if it hit him in the face. Kerry omitted and misrepresented key facts about the resolution itself and the root cause of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. He recited Palestinian talking points in lecturing Israel for expanding settlements where he said they do not belong, including in so-called “East Jerusalem.” He went so far as to accuse Israeli leaders, whom he called “the most right-wing in Israeli history,” of deliberately setting about to systematically take over the West Bank, with policies leading toward one state under Israeli rule.

Kerry claimed that the final text of Security Council Resolution 2334 was “balanced” and that it was consistent with long-standing U.S. policy. Nothing could be further from the truth. The resolution was virtually all about condemning Israeli settlements and declaring them to be illegal under international law.

Kerry said in his speech, “We have called for the Palestinians to do everything in their power to stop violence and incitement, including publicly and consistently condemning acts of terrorism and stopping the glorification of violence.” However, all of Kerry’s references in his speech to such wrongdoing, which he claimed he had raised with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to no avail, failed to make it into the resolution itself. A truly balanced resolution would have cited Hamas and the Palestinian Authority by name for incitement to genocide against Jews and committing or condoning random attacks on civilians, in violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and international humanitarian law.

The anti-Israel settlements resolution did not limit its condemnation of Israeli settlements to the far-flung outposts in the middle of the West Bank that Kerry focused attention on in his speech. To the contrary, the resolution, which Kerry tried to defend, declared that the “establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law." (Emphasis added.)

In consenting to wording declaring that all Israeli settlements since 1967 have “no legal validity” from their inception, the Obama administration sharply departed from the position of past administrations, as well as its own position when it vetoed a similar resolution in 2011.

Kerry, just like UN Ambassador Samantha Power in her remarks to the Security Council following the vote on Resolution 2334, invoked Ronald Reagan’s name to justify the Obama administration’s betrayal of Israel. True, Ronald Reagan did criticize Israel’s expansion of its settlements on policy grounds. However, neither he nor any other U.S. president did what President Obama decided to do – effectively use the United Nations Security Council as an instrument to outlaw retroactively all Israeli settlements built since 1967, including apartment dwellings in the Old City of Jerusalem. Indeed, to the contrary, President Reagan had said in 1981 that Israel’s settlements were “not illegal.”

Kerry also attempted to justify the Obama administration’s abstention on Resolution 2334 by citing the Reagan administration decision to abstain on UN Security Council Resolution 605,passed on December 22, 1987 by a 14-0 vote, as a precedent. Resolution 605 had criticized Israel for its actions in what was referred to as "occupied" territories, including in Jerusalem. There are some superficial similarities. Both resolutions did refer to the Geneva Convention as being applicable to the Palestinian and other Arab territories said to be occupied by Israel since 1967, including in Jerusalem. Like Resolution 2334, Resolution 605 deemed Israel as the “occupier” of the artificially divided portion of Jerusalem that Jordan had illegally invaded and attempted to ethnically cleanse until Israel re-unified all of Jerusalem after winning a defensive war against Jordan in 1967. However, there is a big difference between the two resolutions that Kerry chose to gloss over. The resolution on which the Reagan administration abstained did not question the legality of the settlements, in Jerusalem or anywhere else. It said simply that Israel was obliged under the Geneva Convention as the “occupying power” to limit its use of force against “defenceless Palestinian civilians.” The resolution on which the Obama administration abstained, on the other hand, effectively declared any Israeli residences or building activities in the Old City of Jerusalem, which is in the eastern portion of Jerusalem and includes the Western Wall, as illegal per se under international law.

Kerry doubled down on prejudging that Jerusalem needs to be artificially re-divided and the eastern portion handed over to the Palestinians as the capital of their new state. This would effectively ratify Jordan’s original illegal aggressive occupation and de-Judaizing of the Old City, which would certainly resume if the Palestinians were to assume control.

Kerry made a couple of pronouncements in his speech recognizing Israeli concerns about terrorism and its concerns about preserving its legitimacy as a Jewish state. However, the Security Council resolution he defended worsens Israel’s situation in both of these areas.

Kerry said “we all understand that Israel faces very serious threats in a very tough neighborhood. Israelis are rightfully concerned about making sure that there is not a new terrorist haven right next door to them, often referencing what’s happened with Gaza.” Yet what the resolution has done in declaring all Israeli settlements established since 1967 to be illegal is to provide Palestinians with justification for couching their acts of terrorism in the garb of “legitimate” resistance against "illegal" occupation and settlements.

Kerry also said “Israelis are fully justified in decrying attempts to…question the right of a Jewish state to exist.” He cited the intent of General Assembly Resolution 181, the 1947 partition resolution accepted by the Jewish residents but rejected by the Palestinians and their Arab supporters, “to create two states for two peoples, one Jewish, one Arab; to realize the national aspirations of both Jews and Palestinians.” He referenced the PLO’s self-proclaimed “Declaration of Independence,” which stated that Resolution 181 “provides those conditions of international legitimacy that ensure the right of the Palestinian Arab people to sovereignty.” Yet Abbas has repeatedly rejected the very idea of a Jewishstate existing in peace alongside a Palestinian state, for which Resolution 181 also provided the “conditions of international legitimacy.” If Resolution 2334 was intended to preserve the goal of “two states for two peoples, one Jewish, one Arab,” as Kerry claimed, why did he not insist that the words “Jewish state of Israel” appear at least once in the resolution? At least the resolution that Abbas is now demanding be followed as the basis for any future negotiations would give one point to Israel.
John Kerry’s speech defending the Obama administration's decision to allow the UN Security Council to condemn Israeli settlements and declare them to be illegal has been described as his farewell speech. The best advice to give to Kerry after his disastrous tenure as Secretary of State is “don't let the door hit you on the way out.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2652...l-joseph-klein

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Leaked Summary of the 70 nation conference on Israel

From Michael Snyder:

A draft of the summary statement that will be released at the conclusion of the 70 nation conference in Paris on Sunday has been leaked. As you will see below, this communique is going to call for the division of the land of Israel, for the establishment of a Palestinian state, for the 1967 borders to serve as the basis for final negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and for the condemnation of any officials that refuse to support a two state solution.

Of course this comes on the heels of UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which many believe represented America’s greatest betrayal of Israel. Israeli government officials are publicly warning that there is a possibility that the principles agreed upon at this conference may form the basis for another Security Council resolution before January 20th, and this is something that we should all be watching for very closely.

Haaretz exclusively obtained a copy of a draft of the summary statement that will be released following the conference on Sunday, and you can read it for yourself right here. Reportedly, there was a major meeting of diplomats last Friday, and the latest draft reflects feedback that was received from those diplomats during that meeting…

Last Friday, there was a meeting of senior diplomats from the dozens of Western and Arab countries that will attend the conference. The French delegate, Pierre Vimont, presented them with the first draft of the conference’s summary communiqué and asked for comments.

According to Western diplomats, Vimont said France wants to reach a consensus among the participating states on a balanced statement that would stress the centrality of the two-state solution to the international community, but would take this month’s transfer of presidential power in the United States into account.

In many ways, the document very closely tracks the language of UN Security Council Resolution 2334. Here are some of the things that really stood out to me in the draft…

-It makes a clear commitment to “two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security”.

-It insists that there must be an end to “the occupation that began in 1967”.

-It calls on Israeli and Palestinian leaders to publicly renew their commitment to a two state solution.

-It also calls on Israeli and Palestinian leaders to publicly renounce any of their officials that do not support a two state solution.

-It states that the 70 nations gathered in Paris only recognize the June 4th, 1967 borders, and that the only future changes to those borders they will recognize will come as the result of negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians. And just like UN Security Council Resolution 2334, Jerusalem is specifically mentioned. So according to this document, Israel does not own the Wailing Wall, the Temple Mount, a single inch of the West Bank or a single inch of East Jerusalem.

-The summary statement will also call on all countries to clearly distinguish between the State of Israel and territories that would belong to the Palestinians based upon the 1967 borders in all of their dealings.

Needless to say, this is a horribly anti-Israel document and the Israeli government is already strongly denouncing it.

At this point, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is most alarmed about the possibility that this summary statement could be used as the basis for another UN Security Council resolution just a few days later…

Netanyahu fears that the final communiqué of the Paris conference will be adopted next Monday by the EU foreign ministers’ council and the foreign ministers of the Quartet, and might also be the basis for another resolution at the Security Council, which is scheduled to convene next Tuesday for its monthly debate on the Israeli-Palestinian issue.

“We find ourselves only a few days before the Paris conference and, only a few days later, a Security Council debate,” Netanyahu said at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday. “We are making a great effort to prevent another Security Council resolution.”

http://www.silverdoctors.com/headlin...and-of-israel/

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