We welcome your comments to this and any other CIJR publication. Please address your response to: Rob Coles, Publications Chairman, Canadian Institute for Jewish Research, PO Box 175, Station H, Montreal QC H3G 2K7 – Tel: (514) 486-5544 – Fax:(514) 486-8284; E-mail: rob@isranet.wpsitie.com
RELIEF IN AFGHANISTAN AFTER LARGELY PEACEFUL ELECTION (Kabul) — Afghanistan's presidential election closed on Saturday amid relief that attacks by Taliban fighters were fewer than feared, and turn-out reportedly high, for a vote that will bring the first-ever democratic transfer of power in a country plagued by conflict for decades. It will take six weeks for results to come in from across Afghanistan's rugged terrain and a final result to be declared in the race to succeed President Hamid Karzai. This could be the beginning of a potentially dangerous period for Afghanistan at a time when the war-ravaged country desperately needs a leader to stem rising violence as foreign troops prepare to leave. It was not immediately clear whether either of the frontrunners, Ashraf Ghani and opposition leader Abdullah Abdullah, managed to garner the absolute majority needed to avoid a runoff. Diplomats, campaign insiders and election observers predicted a runoff sometime in late May or early June. (Reuters, Apr. 6, 2014)
Chickens Come Home to Roost for Obama: Michael Goodwin, New York Post, Mar. 30, 2014— Today’s quiz: What do Vladimir Putin’s aggression and ObamaCare’s troubles have in common?
Blaming Israel for the Collapse of the Peace Negotiations: Isi Leibler, Jerusalem Post, Apr. 6, 2014 — All signs indicate that the moribund peace process has now formally collapsed.
For Gulf Allies, Obama’s Turn Away From the Region Looks Like a Gift to Tehran: Lee Smith
, Tablet, Mar. 19, 2014 — President Obama is going to have his hands full when he visits Saudi Arabia later this month, a trip widely billed as a mission to repair his fraying relationship with Riyadh.
Ukraine: End of the American World Order?: Guy Millière, Gatestone Institute, Apr. 1, 2014— In a result known in advance, on March 16, the residents of Crimea, who include vast numbers of retired Russian army officers, voted overwhelmingly to leave Ukraine and join Russia.
Congressional Muscle and US Foreign Policy: Yoram Ettinger, Israel Hayom, Mar. 28, 2014
A New Beginning, or the Arrogance of Power: Jack E. Friedman, Jeruslalem Post, Mar. 24, 2014
Old Foes, New Allies?: Edan Landau, Jerusalem Post, Mar. 23, 2014
The Dissing of the President: Bret Stephens, Wall Street Journal, Mar. 31, 2014
Why do the Troops Think so Little of Obama?: Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post, Mar. 31, 2014
CHICKENS COME HOME TO ROOST FOR OBAMA
Michael Goodwin
New York Post, Mar. 30, 2014
Today’s quiz: What do Vladimir Putin’s aggression and ObamaCare’s troubles have in common? OK, that was too easy. It is impossible to dismiss as mere coincidence the Russian Bear’s invasion of Ukraine and the continuing mayhem of the Affordable Care Act. In their own ways, each reflects the full flowering of the policies of Barack Obama. His chickens are coming home to roost, and what a mess they are making.
Obama’s sixth year in the White House is shaping up as his worst, and that’s saying something. He’s been in the Oval Office so long that it is obscene to blame his problems on George W. Bush, the weather or racism. Obama owns the world he made, or more accurately, the world he tried to remake. Nothing important has worked as promised, and there is every reason to believe the worst is yet to come. The president’s casual remark the other day that he worries about “a nuclear weapon going off in Manhattan” inadvertently reflected the fear millions of Americans have about his leadership. Not necessarily about a bomb, but about where he is taking the country. We are racing downhill and he is stepping on the gas. Will he stop before the nation crashes?…
His trip abroad last week further secured his reputation for historic ineptitude. It wasn’t that the trip was a disaster — it never rose to that level. His presence and his promises simply made no difference. He failed to move the European Union toward a firmer stance on Russia, created bizarre headlines by differing with the Vatican over what he and the pope discussed, and got not-so-veiled threats from the Saudis about Syria and Iran. He could have stayed home and not done worse.
No president can win ’em all, but Obama’s foreign-policy record is unblemished by success. From east to west and north to south, America’s standing and influence have declined universally. It is impossible for a US president to be irrelevant, but Obama is testing the proposition. The frequent reports that Putin laughs when Obama warns of consequences can’t be far from the truth. Otherwise, Putin would be cautious instead of carving up neighbors and massing his military. It was also noteworthy that, after their Friday phone talk, Putin copied the Vatican and put out his own version of the discussion. Two can play the spin game, he seemed to be saying…
A Caesar at home and a Chamberlain abroad, Obama manages to simultaneously provoke fury and ridicule. He bullies critics here while shrinking from adversaries there. He divides the country and unites the world against us, diminishing the nation in both ways. His reign of error can’t end soon enough, nor can it end well.
BLAMING ISRAEL FOR THE COLLAPSE
Isi Leibler
Jerusalem Post, Apr. 6, 2014
All signs indicate that the moribund peace process has now formally collapsed. Few Israelis will be surprised. The Obama administration was repeatedly cautioned that pressuring Israel and appeasing the intransigent Palestinians would only result in greater demands on Israel. That is precisely what happened. After Israel succumbed (unwisely, in my opinion,) to US Secretary of State John Kerry’s pressure to release 100 mass murderers in order to “bribe” the Palestinians to merely agree to negotiate, what did we get in return? The Palestinians immediately demanded that Israel consider the unauthorized offers extended to them by former prime minister Olmert (which they had rejected), as an opening benchmark for negotiations.
Throughout the entire “negotiating” period, the Palestinians refused to make a single concession. Instead, they intensified incitement against Israel by hailing the released mass murderers as national heroes, providing them with pensions and glorifying their ghoulish murders on PA-controlled television. This month the Israeli government became exasperated when, after having refused to make a single concession, the PA announced that it would not extend negotiations beyond April and would revert to the United Nations. Pointing out that the release of the terrorists was scheduled as a process to be executed in stages to ensure a quid pro quo and progress in ongoing negotiations, Israel announced that it would not release the final batch unless PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas undertook to continue the talks.
Desperate to save face, Kerry attempted to bribe the PA with further concessions to persuade them to continue “negotiating.” Israel would release another four hundred prisoners (not with blood on their hands) and there would be an unspecified freeze on building construction beyond the green line (excluding Jerusalem). To make it difficult for right-wing coalition members to oppose the deal, Kerry included the release of Jonathan Pollard. The Palestinian response was to apply to join 15 international conventions, some of which were associated with the UN – a fundamental breach of the Oslo accords. When pleaded with by Kerry to halt these applications, Abbas responded that he would rather die as a martyr than do so.
Subsequently, the PA mocked the US by escalating their demands to the most outlandish proportions. These included outright acceptance of the 1949 armistice lines as the final borders – which would mean relinquishing the Western Wall and east Jerusalem Jewish suburbs; a freeze on construction over the green line including east Jerusalem; the release of 1,200 additional terrorists including Marwan Barghouti and Ahmad Saadat (the assassin of minister Rehavam Ze’evi); extending immediate Israeli citizenship to 15,000 Palestinian refugee families under the right of Arab return; and, to top it off, “lifting the siege of Gaza.”
For the first time on such an issue, the Left and Right of the Israeli government responded with one voice. Tzipi Livni, Israel’s negotiator at the peace talks, is hardly a hawk. Yet she accused the PA of breaching undertakings and questioned their good faith. After a stormy seven-hour meeting with Saeb Erekat, who at one stage threatened to charge Israel at The Hague with war crimes, Livni stated that there was nothing more to discuss until the Palestinians withdrew their applications to affiliate with the 15 international conventions. Regrettably, she could not resist subsequently blaming Housing and Construction Minister Uri Ariel for “sabotaging” the talks by reissuing tenders for 700 housing units in Gilo, an exclusively Jewish suburb of east Jerusalem. Finance Minister Yair Lapid also protested that Abbas engaged in a “deliberate provocation aimed to blow up the talks,” making it impossible to move forward, and “raises serious doubt whether he is genuinely interested in reaching an agreement.”
The American response was pathetic. Initially Kerry suggested that the PA application to affiliate to international organizations was not necessarily a fundamental breach of the Oslo accords. Then, as he realized the need to cover himself from the catastrophic fallout from his inept intervention, he resumed his old and discredited routine of applying moral equivalence to the actions of both parties. He thus accused Israel for being provocative in announcing building construction in Gilo – a Jerusalem suburb which everyone is aware will always remain within Israel. The White House also described Israel’s delay in releasing the last 26 prisoners as “problematic.
So far, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has remained silent in order not to be blamed for exacerbating the situation. But once it becomes clear that no further negotiations with the Palestinians will take place, it is imperative that our prime minister marshal all our resources to ensure that the United States and democratic countries are confronted with the facts. The Foreign Ministry will need to prove its mettle by galvanizing a major global initiative to promote Israel’s position, ensuring that our ambassadors launch a fullscale campaign and actively invite support from Jewish communities and friends of Israel everywhere.
The message to be conveyed is that the majority of Israelis wish to separate themselves from the Palestinians and were willing in the past to forfeit over 90% of the territories occupied by the Jordanian government prior to 1967. Israelis yearn for peace and are willing to negotiate with a reasonable partner who must also be willing to make compromises and accept Israel’s need for security in this volatile region. We must demonstrate the Palestinians unwillingness to concede on any issue – notably their adamant insistence that they will never deviate in relation to the three critical elements which are fundamental to any stable relationship and genuine coexistence: the right of return of Arab refugees, a willingness to accept an end of conflict and recognition of Israel as a Jewish state.
The obvious must be reiterated: it requires two parties to make peace, and further unilateral concessions merely provide an incentive for the Palestinians to make increasingly more outlandish demands. This is not merely the response of the duplicitous Abbas who is weak, corrupt and fears antagonizing Fatah. It is because the end of Jewish sovereignty assumes a far greater priority to the PA than their own statehood. Indeed, Abbas has repeatedly stated that he has no intention of retiring from office as a traitor by compromising Palestinian central objectives such as the right of return. The Palestinians are now convinced that their objective of dismantling Israel in stages can be achieved. They will initiate an intensive global campaign to condemn, criminalize, delegitimize and boycott us. The combination of Islamic states, Third World and rogue states guarantees a permanent hostile majority against Israel in all UN institutions. The condemnation of Israel this month by the UN Human Rights Council on issues including alleged breaching the human rights of Arab citizens in the Golan (the Europeans abstained) says it all.
We need the support of the American public and Congress to discourage the Obama administration from abandoning us and ensuring that the Palestinian campaign is restricted to empty resolutions. We need to confront the bias, prejudice and political correctness and encourage global leaders to take a position and not opt for the easy way out and distance themselves from us. We have real grounds for concern that the Obama administration may stand aside, fail to employ its veto power at the UN Security Council and unofficially encourage the Europeans to coerce us toward further unilateral concessions. Today, on this issue we speak with a united voice, encompassing the vast majority of Israelis, and call on global leaders to be responsible, overcome their traditional bias, prejudice and political correctness and deviate from the easy path of apportioning equal blame for breakdowns on both parties. This is not merely manifestly unjust but makes the possibility of moving towards a settlement even more remote.
In particular, this represents the most important challenge to the American Jewish leadership who must determine whether they are going to stand up and be counted or bury their heads in the sand. This is not a time for ambiguity or exclusive reliance on silent diplomacy. Hopefully, as proud American Jews they will not feel intimidated and should the US apportion equal blame or hold us responsible for the breakdown, they will display the courage to confront the administration. On our part, we should make it clear that we do not intend to extend further concessions to bribe the PA to negotiate with us. We remain willing to negotiate for the creation of a Palestinian state without preconditions. When the Palestinians signal willingness to conducting bona fide negotiations, we will respond positively and again demonstrate a willingness to make sacrifices to achieve a genuine peace.
FOR GULF ALLIES, OBAMA’S TURN AWAY FROM THE
REGION LOOKS LIKE A GIFT TO TEHRAN
Lee Smith
Tablet, Mar. 19, 2014
President Obama is going to have his hands full when he visits Saudi Arabia later this month, a trip widely billed as a mission to repair his fraying relationship with Riyadh [the trip occurred during the last week of March –Ed.]. His chief task will be to convince King Abdullah that he’s not planning to betray the longstanding alliance between the Saudis and the United States to reach his goal of cutting a deal with the Iranians on their nuclear program. Then he’s going to have to settle an intramural squabble among the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, of which Saudi Arabia is the leading member. Two weeks ago, the Saudis, along with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, announced they were withdrawing their ambassadors from Qatar, citing Doha’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood. They also asked the Qataris to stop using their lavishly funded broadcast network, Al Jazeera, to criticize members of the Gulf Cooperation Council and specifically to get rid of tele-preacher and Brotherhood mouthpiece Yussuf al-Qaradawi, who has been sharply critical of the other Gulf states for backing the anti-Brotherhood military government in Egypt.
Dissension in the Gulf is the last thing this White House wants right now. Indeed, it has lately prioritized strengthening the GCC—which also includes Kuwait and Oman—in order to start handing over some of the burden of providing for Persian Gulf security. In December, for example, Defense Sec. Chuck Hagel announced that the United States would begin selling arms to the GCC as a bloc. “We would like to expand our security cooperation with partners in the region by working in a coordinated way with the GCC,” he said at the time. “This is a natural next step in improving U.S.-GCC collaboration.” But that is going to be difficult as long as the GCC is acting like a collection of feuding petro-monarchies rather than a coherent political unit. The problem for the White House is that the crucial factor in achieving that goal is American hand-holding—the one thing Obama doesn’t want to promise. Without it, the GCC states will remain at each other’s throats—and incapable of providing any real counterweight to a newly emboldened Iran.
Like other similar cooperation arrangements and multilateral organizations around the world, the GCC is designed to function with American involvement. American weapons and missile-defense agreements alone aren’t enough to keep the GCC stable, because its members simply can’t, or won’t, cohere without Washington’s steadying influence. And no matter how much Obama tries to reassure the GCC, its member heads of state imagine they’re watching a repeat of the 1971 British withdrawal from the region—an event they in most cases remember vividly. What’s worse this time around is that there’s no Great Power next in line waiting to swoop in and offer protection as Washington was four decades ago. What’s unfolding in the Gulf is a version of what we’re seeing around the rest of the world, from Ukraine and Eastern Europe to Asia and the Middle East, as the United States shrinks from the roles it’s taken on in two decades as a global hegemon. America is the foundation of the international system and the guarantor of global order. When a tired and—as Obama so often says—“war weary” United States decides to stay at home, its absence is felt around the world.
At the heart of the GCC crisis is a family quarrel. Most of the GCC’s ruling families come from large tribes originating in the Nejd, in the center of modern-day Saudi Arabia, and came to rule the Gulf only in the last 250 years. Great Britain was the Great Power in the Gulf for roughly a century until it ran out money and announced it was withdrawing its position in the late 1960s. Unlike other Arab countries once under colonial tutelage—for instance, Egypt, Iraq, and Syria—the Gulf states were in no hurry to get rid of their European overlords. Without Western protection, the Gulf states—of geopolitical importance solely because they sit on enormous reserves of gas and oil within easy reach of sea ports—feared not only the depredations of outside powers, but also what they might do to each other… If Saudi Arabia’s chief concern right now is Iran and its nuclear weapons program, everyone else in the GCC is customarily most concerned about Saudi, their very large and rich big brother, which often bullies the other GCC states…
In engaging the Iranians, the White House used another GCC state, Oman—the weakest of the group—as a back channel. Last week Iranian President Hassan Rouhani visited Muscat, his first official trip to an Arab capital. The Omanis are thrilled at the prospect of all sorts of joint ventures, like a causeway connecting their two sides of the Straits of Hormuz, and a gas deal. But from Riyadh’s perspective, in using a GCC state as bait to win over the Iranians, Obama looks to be playing the Arabs off of each other and creating a dangerous wedge. The White House’s policy of engaging Iran has—intentionally or not—backed the rest of the GCC into the same corner as the Israelis…In his speech at AIPAC’s policy conference earlier this month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu even hinted at the possibility of an open partnership at some point in the future. “The combination of Israeli innovation and Gulf entrepreneurship,” said Netanyahu, “could catapult the entire region forward.”…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link –Ed.]
UKRAINE: END OF THE AMERICAN WORLD ORDER?
Guy Millière Gatestone Institute, Apr. 1, 2014
In a result known in advance, on March 16, the residents of Crimea, who include vast numbers of retired Russian army officers, voted overwhelmingly to leave Ukraine and join Russia. Reactions in the Western World were also known in advance. The U.S. government and European leaders said they would not recognize the vote, and they did not recognize it — or the subsequent annexation. Angela Merkel suggested that Russia's President, Vladimir Putin, had "lost touch with reality." U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry accused Putin of behaving as if it were the "nineteenth century". Barack Obama criticized Putin for "violating international law" and announced toothless sanctions on a few of his friends and one company.
But the sanctions imposed on Russia by the European Union and Western European countries are empty gestures. Putin knows this and treats them as a laughing matter. The decision to suspend Russia from the G8 is essentially a sign of powerlessness. Sergei Lavrov said the decision was "not a big problem" for his country. An American columnist aptly said that suspending Russia from the G8 was "like suspending a vegan from a steakhouse". Putin knows that Europe presently needs Russia more than Russia needs Europe. He did not go "too far": he went as far as he could. He evidently never stopped believing that the countries that were part of the Soviet Union had to remain under Russia's influence and that their integration into the European Union and NATO would be a mortal danger to Russia's survival. He shows that what Western leaders call "international law" only exists if Western powers are strong enough, politically and militarily, to enforce it. He shows they are not. If he thinks that it is necessary and possible for Russia to intervene in the Russian-speaking regions of Ukraine, he will do it. If he thinks that it is neither necessary nor possible, he will not do it.
When Georgia moved closer to the European Union and NATO, Putin waited for the right time to act, and he acted. In 2008, South Ossetia and Abkhazia were detached from Georgia by Russian military intervention. He knew that Russia could not afford to lose Sevastopol, its only warm water harbor. By annexing Crimea, he annexed Sevastopol. He apparently considers that he has in front of him a weak and declining America. And the general demeanor of the present U.S. administration tends to prove him right. The United States seem in full retreat. U.S. military budgets continue to fall. For the last five years, Barack Obama spoke of "ending" the wars in which the U.S. was involved, and he depends on Russia's cooperation for further negotiations with Iran, for dismantling chemical weapons in Syria, and for withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan. Putin doubtlessly thinks that Obama will not enter into an open conflict with Russia. Sanctions imposed on Russia by the United States are insignificant, and Putin has every reason to think they will not increase….
Putin has massed troops on the borders of Eastern Ukraine. He will probably decide to wait until the situation worsens and the impotence of the United States and Europe becomes even more obvious. He could annex Crimea without firing a single bullet. He doubtlessly thinks that he will later be able to do the same with the rest of Ukraine. Either the West will stand up to Putin, and it will have to do it fast, or Putin will win. Obviously, Europe will not stand up. Polls indicate that Americans are turning sharply toward isolationism. Showing his view of the situation, Obama recently said that Russia is nothing but a "regional power", acting "out of weakness". Russia covers ten time zones and has borders with Europe, the Muslim Middle East, China, North Korea, and Alaska. If massing troops on the borders of Ukraine and annexing Crimea are signs of "weakness," by its evident impotence, America appears even weaker…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link –Ed.]
Congressional Muscle and US Foreign Policy: Yoram Ettinger, Israel Hayom, Mar. 28, 2014 —On March 5, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 410-1 to upgrade Israel from a "major non-NATO ally" to a "major strategic partner" — significantly expanding the mutually beneficial U.S.-Israel strategic cooperation in the areas of missile defense, intelligence, national security, technology, energy, cyber security, irrigation, space satellites, defense industries, and more.
A New Beginning, or the Arrogance of Power: Jack E. Friedman, Jeruslalem Post, Mar. 24, 2014 —In his maiden overseas address in Cairo in 2009, President Barack Obama pledged to chart “A New Beginning” in his nation’s foreign relations.
Old Foes, New Allies?: Edan Landau, Jerusalem Post, Mar. 23, 2014 — During the past few months, we have witnessed what can only be perceived as a strategic change in US foreign and defense policy.
The Dissing of the President: Bret Stephens, Wall Street Journal, Mar. 31, 2014 —I've never liked the word diss—not as a verb, much less as a noun. But watching the Obama administration get the diss treatment the world over, week-in, week-out, I'm beginning to see its uses.
Why do the Troops Think so Little of Obama?: Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post, Mar. 31, 2014 —In the flood of polling we see every week there is occasionally some eye-popping nugget of data that washes up on the political landscape. The Post’s poll of members of the armed services who went to Iraq or Afghanistan has quite a few, but I will focus on one.
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