[The comments in red come from a senior military officer]
WH Officials: Netanyahu ‘Spat in Our Face’ Over Boehner Invitation
THEY ARE NAMELESS AND BY REMAINING NAMELESS THEY ARE COWARDS
NY Times accuses Netanyahu of ‘playing politics on Iran’
Paper calls PM’s imminent speech to Congress ‘a breach of sense,’ wonders how he believes disrespecting Obama will help Israel.
ACTUALLY THE NEW YORK TIMES ACCUSATION IS DEVASTATING FOR PRESIDENT OBAMA AND SEC. KERRY. IT SAYS THAT THESE 2 INDIVIDUALS ARE SO PETTY THAT THEY WILL SACRIFICE THE NATIONAL INTERESTS OF THE UNITED STATES AND OF ISRAEL BECAUSE OF THEIR PERSONAL EGOS.
PM ruining US ties for election speech, Lapid and Livni say
In separate interviews, Netanyahu’s former allies accuse him of hurting Israel’s security to gain favor with right-wing voters
WHEN WERE THEY EVER ALLIES?….THIS IS THE SAME TZPI LIVINI THAT MET WITH STATE DEPARTMENT AND WHITE HOUSE OFFICIALS BEHIND THE BACK OF PRIME MINISTER NETANYAHU AND URGED THE US GOVERNMENT TO EXERCISE “TOUGH LOVE” WITH THE PRIME MINISTER AND WITH ISRAEL.
White House officials angrily denounced Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for responding favorably to House Speaker John Boehner’s invitation to speak before Congress in March, telling the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that the prime minister had “spat” in President Barack Obama’s face.
THESE ARE THE SAME ANONYMOUS WHITE HOUSE OFFICIALS WHO, WELL BEFORE THIS INCIDENT ,UNILATERALLY ATTACKED PRIME MINISTER NETANYAHU BY CALLING HIM “CHICKEN SHIT” AND THEN LEAKED THESE INSULTS TO THE MEDIA. THIS CERTAINLY WAS OBAMA VERY PUBLICLY SPITTING IN THE FACE OF PRIME MINISTER NETANYAHU AND ISRAEL.
“There are things you simply don’t do. He spat in our face publicly and that’s no way to behave. Netanyahu ought to remember that President Obama has a year and a half left to his presidency, and that there will be a price,” an unnamed senior U.S. official said.
THIS “UNNAMED SENIOR U.S OFFICIAL” SHOULD BE PUBLICLY IDENTIFIED AND FIRED IMMEDIATELY. HE IS THREATENING ACTION BASED NOT ON WHAT IS GOOD FOR THE UNITED STATES AND/OR GOOD FOR ISRAEL BUT ON HIS PERSONAL FEELINGS. IF HE SPEAKS FOR THE PRESIDENT, SHAME ON THE PRESIDENT.
U.S. officials said that the “chickens***” epithet that an anonymous administration official used to describe the Israeli leader several months ago was mild compared to the language used in the White House when officials learned of Netanyahu’s planned speech to Congress.
THIS IS A CONFESSION THAT THESE “UNNAMED SENIOR OFFICIALS” STARTED THE BATTLE AND HAVE LONG HELD A RESENTMENT AGAINST PRIME MINISTER NETANYAHU. BASED ON MY EXPOSURE TO THESE INDIVIDUALS I BELIEVE THAT THEY ARE ALSO VERY ANTI-ISRAEL. THE CLOSING OF BEN-GURION AIRPORT SIGNALED TO HAMAS THAT THEY CAN TIE UP ISRAEL ECONOMICALLY BY JUST THROWING A FEW MISSILES IN THE DIRECTION OF THE AIRPORT. THE MISSILE THAT WAS THE REASON FOR SHUTTING DOWN THE AIRPORT FELL AT A LONG DISTANCE. OTHER AIRPORTS IN THE WORLD UNDER MORE ACTIVE HOSTILE FIRE WERE NEVER SHUT DOWN. THE INTERFERENCE WITH THE ROUTINE RESUPPLY OF THE IDF WAS ANOTHER EXAMPLE. THERE IS EXAMPLE AFTER EXAMPLE. IT IS NO ACCIDENT. THE PRIME MINISTER HAS COME TO THE UNITED STATES ON VARIOUS OCCASIONS AND DID NOT VISIT THE WHITE HOUSE. THE WHITE HOUSE ANNOUNCING THEY WOULD NOT SEE HIM WAS GRATUITOUS SLAP. WASHINGTON INSIDERS UNDERSTAND THIS DIRTY GAME. HOPEFULLY, THE AMERICAN PUBLIC WILL ALSO REALIZE HOW SHAMEFUL THE WHITE HOUSE STAFF BEHAVIOR IS. UNFORTUNATELY WHEN IT COMES TO MILITARY OR INTELLIGENCE DECISIONS, WHITE HOUSE POLITICAL CONSIDERATIONS AND THE WHITE HOUSE POLITICAL STAFF ARE DOMINANT. CHICAGO POLITICS AT ITS WORST HAS ENTERED THE NATIONAL ARENA AND PREVAILS AT THE VERY TOP OF THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION.
When he speaks before Congress in March, Netanyahu is expected to urge lawmakers to impose tougher sanctions on Iran in order to force it to stop its suspect nuclear program, The Times of Israel reported.
DON’T FORGET THE IRANIANS ADVANCED OFFENSIVE MISSILE PROGRAMS, THE IRANIANS AIR DEFENSE SYSTEMS PROGRAMS, THE ACTIVE PARTICIPATION OF THE REVOLUTIONARY GUARDS IN LEBANON AND SYRIA, THE REESTABLISHMENT OF RELATIONSHIPS WITH HAMAS, THE ACTIVE INTERVENTION TO OVERTHROW THE GOVERNMENTS OF YEMEN AND SAUDI ARABIA, ETC. ETC.
Haaretz reported that last week Obama personally demanded in a telephone conversation with Netanyahu that the Israeli leader tone down his support for new sanctions legislation — a measure Obama has promised to veto.
The Washington Post reported that Netanyahu’s apparent “disrespect” for the U.S. leadership was particularly offensive to Secretary of State John Kerry, who over the past month had made many efforts on Israel’s behalf on the world stage. This included dozens of calls to world leaders to convince them to oppose a U.N. Security Council resolution that would have set a time frame for establishment of a Palestinian state.
“The secretary’s patience is not infinite,” a source close to Kerry told the Post. “The bilateral relationship is unshakable. But playing politics with that relationship could blunt Secretary Kerry’s enthusiasm for being Israel’s primary defender.”
IF SEC. KERRY IS TOO TIRED OR DEMOTIVATED TO DO HIS JOB, HE SHOULD IMMEDIATELY STEP DOWN.
Meanwhile, Israel’s intelligence chief has denied Kerry’s claim that he contradicted Netanyahu, his boss, by criticizing new sanctions during a January meeting, saying that they would be akin to “throwing a grenade into the process.”
Mossad chief Tamir Pardo denied saying any such thing during a Jan. 19 meeting with U.S. officials. Instead, the Mossad director said he reiterated that “firm pressure” was needed “to bring about meaningful compromises from the Iranian side.”
THIS COMPLETELY FALSE STATEMENT WAS PLANTED IN THE MEDIA. THE FACT THAT THE STATEMENT WAS UNTRUE AND WAS MEANT TO UNDERCUT PRIME MINISTER NETANYAHU IS ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE LENGTHS THAT THIS ADMINISTRATION WILL GO TO. THE PRESS SHOULD DEMAND THE SCALPS OF THE INDIVIDUALS WHO PLAYED THEM AS FOOLS. UNFORTUNATELY, TO THE SHAME OF THE PRESS, THEY WENT ALONG WILLINGLY WITH THIS EVIL CHARADE.
@ yamit82: That’s why the Saudis are building one heck of a big Wall. George Bush wasn’t sympathetic to terrorists, he stood up to them and sent forces in to crush them in Iraq, all was destroyed by the Obama regime. Obama bombs Isis at night, very ineffective in doing anything to diminish their numbers which have grown…You don’t fight terrorism by supporting Islamic reprisals in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and pulling out troops, announcing when you will do it.
@ yamit82: America’s leadership cannot be counted on to support Israel, under the Obama administration. He is not supportive or sympathetic to God’s people. It seems that Iran has been unchecked in their goals while he is in office, the Decline of America spells real trouble for the entire world. Israel has a power that no other nation has, and that’s the power of the One True God who has watchmen on their walls and viewing everything that happens. The time is coming when rogue nations will be corrected, but as of now Iran is going to acquire Nuclear payload.
@ ArnoldHarris: Iran is a threat to the entire world, first Israel and then America, other countries would also be targeted. Iran is a Rogue nation that believe it will hasten the Islamic Messiah the Mahdi by Nuclear War, they will bully and intimidate everyone once they have the capacity to send ICBMS to reach their destination.
@ ArnoldHarris: Iranian Nukes is an International Issue, and a threat to Israel first and then to America and the rest of the civilized world. Obama’s policies are sympathetic to Islamic nations, he hates Israel. Obama’s hostility to Israel has deep roots extending all the way back to the years he took his family to Trinity United Church in Chicago to hear the sermons of Jeremiah Wright, the Jew hating, Israel -despising, Reverend. Obama’s hostilities were evident when he took office and made it clear he wanted to reset our foreign policy to be closer to the Muslim World. No doubt about his intentions today!
@ ArnoldHarris:
My comment to you is in moderation
@ ArnoldHarris:
The major Iranian opposition led by Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani
Former President of Iran
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani:
Fathered the Iranian Nuke program and is one of the Mullahs.
Their attitudes differ little from the current regime in theology and in supporting Iranian Hegemony over the region. They differ mostly over personality and internal Iranian policies which some consider slightly more liberal.
Effecting regime change and bringing them to power will not alter Iranian eschatology or their world view. Even if some other dissident group would be more condescending towards the West not sure it would include Israel and the Iranian Nuke program is popular with all ethnic and social strata in Iran. Even if I am wrong by the time a pro western group can be placed and empowered with the reins of power the current regime will not only have the bomb, militarized meaning fitted to long and medium range missiles or rockets. They are not aiming for one or two nukes but hundreds asap. They have sacrificed the benefits of 20 plus years of oil and gas revenues to attain such a capability and no sanctions will stop them now.
Israel may not be their primary target the Saudis might be and certainly the great Satan, America comes before the little Satan, Israel to their mind.
Be that as it may only America has the conventional warfare power to eliminate the threat. I don’t care who gets in the WH next election I don’t believe America will attack Iran.
They didn’t under 8 years of Bush who knew the threat and did as much as Obama to thwart Israel from attacking Iran. * years of Bush actually aiding Iran’s program and thwarting Israel was only continued by Obama. only Congress forced biting sanctions too late on Iran. One can say that American policy for the past 15 years has been to allow Iran to become a Nuke state.
Israel is on her own. Once Iran officially becomes nuclear HOT, every country in the region under threat will seek their own Nukes either development or by purchasing off the shelf like from Pakistan if they haven’t already. Saudis are purported to have several as payment for financing the Islamic Bomb of Pakistan. Once Iran goes hot and others follow Israel will have lost their ultimate deterrent.
War would be inevitable and with Israel’s deterrent neutralized countries like Egypt might be willing to chance it sooner than later. BTW Egypt and Algeria have very advanced nuclear development projects and A new site was reported last week that Syria is building a new Nuke reactor for making Nukes.
Can Israel live with a Nuke armed Iran????
The only way Israel alone can eliminate the Iranian threat is by nuking their major sites. We can do it but will we???
I say no and nobody believes we will so any threats amount to shooting blanks. The window IMO has long closed for us BB dally’d with trying to get Bush and Obama to do the dirty job and his bluff was called.
@ yamit82:
I do not think Israel or anyone else will use nuclear weapons to attack Iran or any other country, short of a general large-scale nuclear war, which is even less likely than an isolated nuclear attack involving Iran.
A good case could be made that decaying or even covertly assisting in overthrowing the present ayatollist regime in Iran, even if difficult, would be easier than trying to depend on aerial attacks against targets now buried deep under mountains. All the world’s nuclear powers — almost certainly including Israel — have taken steps to make it difficult or even impossible for any foreign power to destroy their nuclear arsenals by aerial assault. And if the United States, for example, cannot or will not bring themselves to destroy the start-up nuclear facilities of North Korea, then they almost can be counted on not making such an attempt against Iran either.
I never have claimed to be a military strategist. But that’s the way I see it.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Sanctions or to the point effective sanctions will not happen Russia, China and the Europeans will never return to the past now defunct sanctions regime.
Iran is Israels problem not the worlds. There is only one way to prevent Iran from getting Nukes and that is to Nuke their sites along with their military retaliatory options.
We don’t know that they already have several Nukes either homemade of imported from other sources like N Korea.
Hard for me to see Israel going that route nor anyone else.
So that leaves few options to Israel and the rest of the world. BB doesn’t have the balls and too much internal opposition from the security establishment.
Israel could if they really threaten to attack Iran get some military and economic concessions from Obama and Europe.
@ ArnoldHarris: We know they are White House officials because of the rhetoric…B.B. Netanyahu would not spit in the face of anyone, he has more character than that. These people in the White House are insane and desperate, the people of America have seen through all their Socialist-Islamist plots to destroy this country, and Israel is also in the crosshairs.
@ Ted Belman: I totally agree with everything you said, and I want to apologize to the Prime Minister for our embarrassing President Obama. We know that the Prime Minister is leading and trying to warn the world of the threat of Iran, which Obama has let slide, even without sanctions to slow them down. There are sinister motives in the State of Iran to rid the world of Israel, there is a demon behind the power of Iran. Secondly, the Middle East Meltdown reminds us that rumors of war in the Middle East are exactly what the Bible predicts about future events. Whether its names and places like the Euphrates River or Armageddon Valley, Megiddo, all those are centered in the Middle East.
@ Ted Belman:@ Ted Belman:
@ Bear Klein:
Ted, BK, thank you both. As I age relentlessly, I have cause to consider that for writers, a muscular soul and concise purpose are vital to an adroit keyboard, and vice versa. Now back to on-topic.
President Obama’s team of rumorsmiths plainly are unable to reverse an invitation to a foreign leader penned by the speaker of the United States House of Representatives for an address to a joint session of both houses of the Congress of the United States. And as numerous Israeli politicians have learned the hard way, Prime Minister Netanyahu is among the more stiff-necked of our Jewish nation. I think the latter characteristic is why he so frequently returns to power. Therefore, Netanyahu will never be dissuaded, and I cannot imagine that the leaderships of the two houses of Congress would ever terminate such an invitation and especially under the circumstances presently in play both in Washington and in the Middle East.
One would think that Obama, like any other Washington godfather, would have a back room consiglieri who would warn him not to be talked into a spitting match that he would be doomed to lose. Unfortunately for the USA and for the president himself, he operates as if her were his own consiglieri which plainly is a mistake of misapplied hubris. As a result, the prime minister of Israel will address the two houses of Congress while the resident of the United States nurses a grudge that he cannot set aside, and the two houses of Congress, the people of the United States and of Israel, and much of the rest of the world will notch downward their estimation of one Barack Hussein Obama.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Iranian nukes is an international issue and a major security issue for Israel. This is why this tops any perceived protocol issues.
This is not a domestic US issue, otherwise UK PM Cameron would not have lobbied US congressmen by calling them. Obama encouraged this breach of protocol because Cameron and Obama agree.
The real issue is that Obama is letting Iran have nukes on his watch and is not stopping it. He is weak and is getting played by Iran. PM Netanyahu’s disagreements with Obama on this crucial issue highlight the error of Obama’s stance towards Iran.
Obama and his minions are more concerned with PM Netanyahu not kowtowing to them, than actually stopping Iran in getting Nukes.
@ ArnoldHarris</a>:Well written!!
@ ArnoldHarris:
Right on Arnold. Well done.
Neither Binyamin Netanyahu, the State of Israel, nor the Jewish nation needs any special relationships with the current President of the United States — or any other such president, for that matter — or with the US State Department, or with the US Department of Defense. And most specifically, Netanyahu, Israel, and the Jewish nation as a whole has no need to court self-hating Jews such as represented by J-Street or any similar group.
In fact, the State of Israel, as represented by its elected prime minister, along with the re-assembled and re-arising Jewish nation have the support not only of the Congress of the United States, but also of the ordinary American citizens all across this broad land have indicated strong support for Israel in its brave struggle against the barbarism which besets not only the Middle East but is also threatening the freedoms and liberties of western Europe and is also becoming a threat in the United States as well. Some of Israel’s non-Jewish supporters go far beyond that support, regarding our Jewish nation as the very foundation upon which Western civilization developed over the centuries from its birth to current times.
Despite all that, Israel must assert its independence from this land and its peoples, because dependence always begets inevitable bondage.
I think Netanyahu will be lead the next government following the March Knesset election. I think that whatever he has to say before the joint session of the two houses of the Congress of the United States, will be viewed on television by much of the population of the world, and will be one of the most influential performances of our era. If he handles his opportunity adroitly, as I am certain he shall do, it could well result in immediate legislation which, if Obama carries out his usual threat of a veto, could lead to the first congressional override of any of his numerous vetoes. If so, that will greatly diminish his would-be imperial control over the an American foreign policy which has steered this country into misdirection and chaos abroad and growing distrust here at home. Everyone involved will profit from that, including none other than Barack Hussein Obama, who has put himself into position of becoming the Neville Chamberlain of the early 21st century. If he has any sense of the developments of the threads of comparatively recent history, he may have reason later on to tip his hat to the circumstances that must compel him to change course. If not for Israel, then even more so for the United States of America.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI