In bowing to US pressure and approving the release of 104 terrorist murderers from prison, Netanyahu behaved like a coward.
Standing next to US Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday morning, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni gushed that through his indefatigable efforts to bring Israeli and Palestinian officials to Washington, Kerry proved that “nothing can stop true believers.”
As usual, the cognitively challenged Livni told us something she hadn’t intended to say. The term “true believer” was coined by Eric Hoffer in his classic work The True Believer from 1951, which Livni has obviously not read. Hoffer’s epic study of the psychological roots of fanaticism described a true believer as a person so fanatically committed to a cause that no amount of reality can make him abandon it.
And that just about sums up Kerry, and the man he works for, US President Barack Obama.
Kerry visited Israel six times in the four months leading up to the meetings in Washington this week, during which Americans, Palestinians and Israelis discussed the size of the table they will be sitting around in the coming discussions.
During the same four months, the Syrian regime used chemical weapons against its opponents on multiple occasions. Most recently, they gassed Palestinians in Yarmuk refugee camp outside Damascus, killing 22 people.
During those four months, al-Qaida strengthened its control over the Syrian opposition groups fighting the regime.
During those four months, the Syrian civil war became a focal point of a wider Sunni-Shi’ite religious war that has already spread to Lebanon and Iraq. In its post-US-withdrawal role of Iranian satrapy, Iraq has allowed Iran to use its territory and airspace to transfer war materiel to the Syrian regime.
During those four months, the Obama administration decided to begin arming the al-Qaidadominated rebel forces. It has also deliberately raised the risk of a Syrian-Israeli war by informing the media every time that Israel attacks missile sites in Syria.
Also during the four months that Kerry obsessed over convincing PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas to send his representative to Washington, Egypt experienced its second revolution in which, buffeted by millions of demonstrators who filled the squares of Egypt’s cities, the Egyptian military overthrew the US-supported Muslim Brotherhood regime.
The Obama administration was quick to jump onto the bandwagon of the first Egyptian revolution in January 2011. That revolution led to the military’s ouster of then-president Hosni Mubarak, a staunch US ally, and so paved the way for the totalitarian and deeply popular Muslim Brotherhood to rise to power.
When the Brotherhood became subject to its own revolution due to its incompetent handling of Egypt’s failed economy and its single-minded focus on transforming Egypt into an Islamist state as quickly as possible, the Obama administration was confounded. Speaking to The Wall Street Journal this week, a senior administration official expressed complete befuddlement at events in Egypt. “None of us can quite figure this out,” the official said. “It seems so self-defeating.”
And that is the thing of it. In its support for the Brotherhood, the administration was implementing its wholly unfounded, dead-wrong ideological belief that the Muslim Brotherhood is a progressive, “largely secular” organization that is dedicated to good works. And now that the Egyptian military, supported by about half of the Egyptian people, has rejected the Brotherhood, its actions are incomprehensible to the Obama administration.
In the face of massive documentary evidence, and facts on the ground, (Egypt has run out of food, and rather than get them some, overthrown president Mohamed Morsi rammed through a totalitarian Islamist constitution), the Obama administration still clings to its ideological belief that the Muslim Brotherhood is a positive, progressive, “largely secular” organization that is devoted to good works for the poor.
So, too, in Syria. The administration thinks it is okay to fund the Free Syria Army, because its leadership is dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood.
Owing to the administration’s blind faith in its belief that the reason that the US is hated in the Muslim world is because it has opposed populist Islamist forces, Obama and his advisers think it makes sense to arm those forces in Syria now – so long as the Muslim Brotherhood is able to hide the fact that it is dominated by al-Qaida for a sufficient number of news cycles to sell this fiction to the media.
The administration’s faith in Islamist reasonableness holds for the Shi’ite Islamists just as strongly as it does for the Sunni Islamists. This is why it maintains its commitment to negotiating with Iran’s fanatical regime about its nuclear weapons program, despite overwhelming evidence that the Iranians are using the negotiations as a means to develop their bomb in peace.
This week David Albright and Christina Walrond at the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington published a deeply disturbing report. They explained that based on what we know, Iran will reached “critical capacity” in its nuclear program by mid-2014. Albright and Walrond defined critical capacity as “the technical capability to produce sufficient weapongrade uranium from its safeguarded stocks of low enriched uranium for a nuclear explosive, without being detected.”
Albright and Walrond then explained the many ways Iran can speed up the process, and hide its achievement from the international community for long enough to make it too late to conduct military strikes on their nuclear facilities to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power.
In other words, they told us politely, and diplomatically, if urgently, that we have arrived at the moment of decision. Will the US or Israel strike Iran’s nuclear installations to prevent it from becoming a nuclear power, or will Iran become a nuclear power? If we wait much longer, we won’t have sufficient time to act.
But for Kerry and his fellow true believers the most urgent priority was to convince the Palestinians to sit in the same room as Israelis. And this week they scored a great victory for US foreign policy by achieving their goal.
In her brief remarks, not only did Livni inadvertently tell us that Kerry is a fanatic. She also told us that she is a fanatic.
Livni said, “[I]t took more than just a plane ticket to be here today. A courageous act of leadership by Prime Minister Netanyahu that was approved by the Israeli government made this visit here and the beginning of the negotiation possible.”
The “courageous act” she referred to was the government’s decision to release 104 “Palestinian prisoners” from Israel’s prisons. The demand for their freedom was the obstacle Abbas placed in the way of Livni acquiring her long-sought-after plane ticket to peace talks and five star receptions at Kerry’s Washington mansion.
The 104 “prisoners” are made up of Palestinians and Israeli Arabs. They are not car thieves or pickpockets. They are monsters with human faces. All 104 are serving life sentences for murder or attempted murder. Their crimes were gruesome acts of barbarism marked by demonic cruelty.
Yusef Said al-Al and Ayman Taleb Abu Sitteh stabbed David Bubil and Haim Weitzman to death and mutilated their bodies, cutting off their ears as souvenirs.
Three other “Palestinian prisoners” hacked four teenagers to pieces, killing them with pitchforks, hatchets and knives.
Thirteen-year-old Oren Baharmi was raped and murdered by Amad Mahmad Jamil Shehada.
And the list goes on and on, and on.
There was nothing even vaguely courageous about Netanyahu’s decision to release these monsters.
There was nothing even vaguely courageous about his cabinet members’ decision to vote for their release. Theirs was an act of utter cravenness. They dishonored the victims, the victims’ families and the nation as a whole.
And they endangered the country. According to the Almagor Victims of Terror organization, from 2000 to 2008, 180 Israelis were murdered by Palestinian terrorists released by Israel in previous “deals.” And those terrorists had been imprisoned for non-lethal actions, (i.e., without blood on their hands).
The fact that Netanyahu and his ministers passed this decision simply to provide a sufficient payoff to Abbas for him to send Saeb Erekat to Washington to talk about nothing with Livni, makes their actions, not only craven, but insane.
Livni’s obscene characterization of this cowardly, life-threatening injustice as a “courageous act,” exposes her as well as a true believing fanatic.
Only a fanatic could say such a thing.
In his remarks, Kerry said that the talks about the size of the table are going to bring about a situation where Israel will achieve, “not just the absence of conflict, but a full and lasting peace with the Arab and Muslim nations.”
Like Kerry’s demand that Israel free the terrorists, this statement bespeaks an underlying fanatical dementia. Regarding the “Arab and Muslim nations,” in Syria, neither the al-Qaida forces nor the regime have mentioned anything about putting down their weapons if Israel coughs up Jerusalem and Elon Moreh. The same goes for Hezbollah, Iran and their friends and enemies warring for power throughout the region.
As for the Palestinians, if they were interested in “lasting peace” with Israel, they wouldn’t demand freedom for terrorist murderers. Moreover, while Kerry was exulting in his brilliant success, Abbas announced that in his version of “lasting peace,” Jews will be wiped off of the map of Palestine.
As Abbas put it, “In a final resolution, we would not see the presence of a single Israeli – civilian or soldiers – on our lands.”
So again, while Kerry and Livni see rainbows and unicorns, Abbas sees a Jew-free Palestine, with the 600,000 Jews of Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria rendered homeless refugees to make room for his anti-Semitic fiefdom.
It is not surprising that Kerry, Obama and Livni are going along with this obscenity. It is not surprising that fanatics who pray to the god of the two-state solution think it is courageous to free Jewish-baby killers. It is not surprising they think the most important thing on the international agenda is to secure Israel’s surrender of land, our legal rights, and our ability to defend ourselves to a terrorist group that hates Jews so much it requires all of us to be gone before it will do us the favor of accepting sovereignty.
What is surprising – and frightening – is that Netanyahu, who is not a true believer, and knows that they are true believers, is going along with this.
Netanyahu knows that Israel cannot survive without Judea and Samaria. He knows what the Muslim Brotherhood is. He knows the nature of the Iranian regime. He knows that the PLO is no different from Hamas. Their goal is the same – they want to destroy Israel.
Netanyahu knows that Obama is hostile to Israel and that he will not lift a finger to block Iran from becoming a nuclear power.
So why is he going along with their insanity? In bowing to US pressure and approving the release of 104 terrorist murderers from prison, Netanyahu behaved like a coward. In bowing to US pressure not to bomb Iran’s nuclear installations, Netanyahu is being a coward.
The most important question for Israel today then is whether our leader is capable of being anything else.
Bibi knows perfectly that if Israel does not act to destroy the Iranian nuclear capability Obama will not lift a finger and that would l be the end of Israel. So does Bogie. And yet they both agreed to this absurd deal, so there must be a reason. You seem to forget the attack almost happened in 2008 but Bush was against.
@ Mladen Andrijasevic:
Doesn’t matter if she related specifically MAD or the eschatology of the Shia. I know she is aware of both but I am also sure most of her audiences haven’t a clue. What she does say is enough. I don’t agree with her BB’s and apparently your faith in BB or America.
Read your letter and even if he were to justify his actions on that element i still say he is wrong and should be tried as a traitor.
Israel has been aware and preparing for Iran confrontation for the last 15 years. The F-16I was especially designed and purchased for an attack against Iran. Special bunker buster Bombs purchased and developed by IMI for an attack against Iranian hardened targets.
Certainly an attack 3 years ago would have been tactically possible more than they are today and certainly more than they will be tomorrow or next year. It’s no secret that Iran has stepped over every red line BB has announced and set for the IDF to act but each time he moves his hypothetical red lines. He cowardly yelled wolf but never had the balls to act and I don’t believe he will or even can today without using tactical nukes. Do I believe he will opt for Nukes ( low yield). No and No! he won’t attack Hams you expect him to attack Iran?
He allowed Hezbollah to build 80,000 missiles against us and hardened bunkers interconnecting all over south Lebanon without acting. He de-facto recognized Hamas by negotiating with them and continues to support them economically as well as Abbas. Since taking office he has never refused to obey Obama and when he seeming did he quickly backtracked and capitulated.
If he believed Obama will attack Iran why pay for it in Israeli coin? If Obama attacks Iran he will do it for American interests not Israels. He will do it for the Saudis and Gulf states not Israel. Why should Israel pay unless it’s BB bluff and his concessions are his own policies and is using the fig leaf of Obama or the EU or the prospect of Iran as the boogeyman to justify his treason, cowardice and weak character and I could add in all probability plain old self interested corruption.
How does it go? If you are going to shoot – shoot!!!
@ yamit82:
I do not recall Caroline discussing the inapplicability of the mutually assured destruction doctrine (MAD) on Iran, Shi’a eschatology, the Twelvers and the Mahdi, but I will watch the videos again. However, all you had to do was to follow the link when I wrote – My interpretation on why Netanyahu did what he did is here – and you would have found out what I meant by the constraints:
What Netanyahu really meant to say in his open letter
http://www.madisdead.blogspot.co.il/2013/07/what-netanyahu-really-meant-to-say-in.html
Eric R. Said:
An Urban myth and logical fallacy based on all empirical data if studied in detail. That does not mean that it won’t be difficult and that for a time we we have to pay some economic price but i maintain our links to America are chains that bind and cost us more economically than maintaining our current position. Militarily it would free Israel up to either procure from any source willing to sell us and at considerable svings to the defense budget. It will allow Israel to sell our military products to ANY nation without an America veto. It will force Israel to develop and produce that which cannot be purchased and make Israel more independent and economically more viable.
The UN support? It could be that many countries even Europeans, allow themselves anti Israel votes because they know in advance that America will veto anti Israel resolutions.
I have long promoted that Israel leave the UN voluntarily. Who knows others might follow us eventually?
From 1948 to 73 Israel had no Superpower patron and we did pretty good against problems and threats as or greater than what we face today.
Israel psychologically without American patronage as was the case before 73 is a different Israel psychologically than the perception of Israelis have with American backing. I can assure you if we didn’t have America, Iran would long ago have been dealt with and we would not be worrying today as to whether Iran will become in the near future an existential threat. Israel has become an American aid junkie, addicted to believing America will protect our vital national interests. They are wrong and America won’t.
Mladen Andrijasevic Said:
Since you are giving BB the benefit of the doubt and criticizing Glick and Sherman for not explaining BB’s constraints, why don’t you tell us what are or wht you believe are those constraints.
Scoop Jackson Lecture: Caroline Glick
Caroline Glick: Iran & Israel, After the Bomb
Give the Netanyahu government the benefit of the doubt
http://www.madisdead.blogspot.co.il/2013/08/give-netanyahu-government-benefit-of.html
There has been a long while since when Netanyahu started betraying us all with ultimate intent. Several in our comment group and myself in particular consistently exposed him as an enemy. He is one of the worst with Peres as an enemy of the Jewish way of life and rights to and in Eretz Israel.
His penchant for histrionics did not fool us at all. He is blinded by self promotion and a Nobel prize.
Caroline Glick had much to do with him getting a pass for his terrible, intentional actions but to some extent she has corrected her trajectory.
Regarding Iran Netanyahu dropped the ball intentionally for reasons I expose in other documents. To use a nuclear Iran as blackmail bludgeon against the Jewish rights and life here.
Netanyahu indeed is a coward and also is a pathological liar, a vicious destroyer of Jewish Heritage, Jewish homes and families. And a petty thief as well. Lets nor forget that he was forced to return gifts to the State while he was in office and that he packed off as his own.
There was never any doubt about his character and objectives. He was with Sharon all along except in one occasion after “disengagement” was set in motion.
Another principal analyst, Dr. Sherman I believe, calls for him to resign and with him his co travelers.
Netanyahu will destroy not build.
He has not yet even allowed the Jewish owners of Bet HaMachpelah in Hebron to return to their legitimate home. The Court certified the purchase, but Netanyahu blocked that as well as much more.
The people must decide if they want a coward, liar, conniver, petty thief and quite possibly worse to be known as the leader of the Jewish people.
Time to remove the stain.
Caroline Glick would right in any other circumstance except now when we have the threat of annihilation from Iran and at the same time when we have a US president who supports the Muslim Brotherhood and appeases Iran. Survival is paramount. Netanyahu’s choices are limited and he probably has no other choice. One day we will read how this decision to release these murderers was reached. Either that or we will not be there any more if Netanyahu and Bogie fail.
Netanyahu is now faced with the consequences of the global media silence regarding the magnitude of the Iranian threat. The media , including Caroline Glick , have been avoiding the debate regarding the problem that the doctrine of mutually assured destruction, MAD, would not work with Iran, but the problem has not gone away just because the media is not tackling it,, and the Israeli government has to plan its actions fully taking into account the possibility that Iran CANNOT BE DETERRED. So it is not right that Caroline Glick writes that Netanyahu “behaved like a coward ” when she herself has not fully explained to her readers the constraints the government is under.
It may well be that Bernard Lewis is wrong. But surely the opinion on MAD by one the most respected scholars on an issue of such crucial consequences for the world should have been discussed in the media, all the more that his views are shared by Raphael Israeli, James Woolsey, Reza Kahlili and Matthias Kuntzel
Bernard Lewis:
In this context, the deterrent that worked so well during the Cold War, namely M.A.D. (Mutual Assured Destruction) , would have no meaning. At the End of Time, there will be general destruction anyway. What will matter is the final destination of the dead– hell for the infidels, and the delights of heaven for the believers. For people with this mindset, M.A.D. is not a constraint; it is an inducement…
Why are Bernard Lewis’s views on MAD ignored?
http://www.madisdead.blogspot.co.il/2012/05/why-are-bernard-lewiss-views-on-mad.html
Matthias Kuntzel:
There are other dictatorships in the world. But only in Iran are the fantasy-worlds of antisemitism and religious mission linked with technological megalomania and the physics of mass destruction. The specific danger presented by the Iranian nuclear option stems from the unique ideological atmosphere surrounding it – a mixture of holy war and high-tec, of antisemitism and weapons-grade uranium, of death-wish and missile research, of Shiite messianism and plutonium
Matthias Küntzel – Antisemitism, Messianism and the Cult of Sacrifice:The Iranian Holy War
http://www.madisdead.blogspot.co.il/2012/09/matthias-kuntzel-antisemitism_8.html
Open Letter to Caroline Glick:
Caroline, for a long time before you, yourself, were a true Bibi Believer. It is only now that you are crestfallen. Why were you embarrassed of Moshe Feiglin’s opposition to Bibi? (Admittedly naive, as the Likud is hopelessly corrupted as part of the scam Knesset democracy, but in reality a setup to serve an Israeli leftist elite oligarchy, as Professor Paul Eidelberg has aptly described.) What is your alternative to the morass created by this Israeli leftist elite oligarchy? I’m still waiting to hear something?
yamit82 Said:
Me too.
Y es the US Military has its ieas, but Darlin , they ain’t mine. Now the USA citizen will as open to “arm twisting” as the Israeli. But, isn’t that what Obama and Holder want?
Sorrry Keelie aparently the computor went nuts!!!!!!!!!
possible.
keelie Said:
keelie Said:
keelie Said:
keelie Said:
keelie Said:
@ yamit82:
Yamit,
Israel cannot just yet go it alone without America, but that is one of the reasons they want to kick the can a few years down the road – to be able to re-orient Israel’s economy and even military toward the two major Asian powers. The 2012 election showed that America is on its way to becoming an Afro-Latin-EuroSocialist one-party state, and the GOP is only going to accelerate that by giving amnesty to 8 million illegal Hispanic immigrants.
America is on the decline, and the party of leftist/black Jew-hatred will turn it into one-party. Israelis know it, even those on the left. The America I grew up in is dead, destroyed by America-haters in the Democratic party and their apparatus in the universities, in entertainment, and especially in the “news” media, who hate America, hate Israel, hate both Judaism and Christianity, hate capitalism, and love 3rd world types that they can turn into dependent voters for the Socialist cause, just like American blacks are.
The problem is that Israel is not there — not just yet.
@ honeybee:
Arm twisting? Just wait. I’ve been reading about how “complicated” it would be to impose the death sentence on the Fort Hood murderer (assuming he’s found guilty in this incidence of “workplace violence”). Apparently the US Military is very cagey about imposing the death sentence on him. Instead he may join Jonathan Pollard as a recipient of a life sentence. You can bet that every jihadist on the planet will attempt to arm-twist the US to release this murderer, using any means possible.
@ Eric R.:
BB is a weak corrupt coward who cares more about BB than Israel. BB as a politician never learned the word NO, so it didn’t have to be removed from his vocabulary. There are two things BB and Glick have in common. The belief that we cannot survive without American backing and approval.
Of-course I differ and always have. I believe the converse, that America is our greatest threat and impediment for survival. I can make the case if challenged.
As the son of a noted historian BB has not learned the lessons of history unless what he is doing is calculated to bring Israel down while enhancing his value on the VIP speaking circuit from $100,000 a speech to a half million per speech and the books he will write while living comfortably back in America where he was raised and educated.
@ Bert:
Israel Is Destroying Itself With Its Settlement Policy
IF SETTLEMENT EXPANSION CONTINUES ISRAEL WILL HAVE NO FUTURE
Caroline Glick’s words can be found here at the 49th minute or so.
Read more at: http://www.jewishpress.com/blogs/my-right-word/dani-dayan-caroline-glick-debate-the-yesha-communities-issue/2013/01/22/ | The Jewish Press
@ Bert:
Bert I have heard Caroline Glick talk about the Temple Mount in person so respectfully back off.
She is a very effective communicator for the positions of the right in Israel
Since everybody, including Netanyahu knows that there can be no long-term peace with the Palinazis, the only plausible reason that Bibi is going along with this is to buy time. He is hoping that by kicking the can a few years down the road, some things will change in Israel’s favor.
a) Israel’s energy resources will be further developed, including the offshore oil below the natural gas, and the Shfela basin oil shale, allowing her to become an energy exporter.
b) The expanded Eilat port (combined with the railway that the Chinese will build from Ashdod, plus the oil from (a)) will make Israel a valuable state to India and China, the world’s two rising powers.
c) The neighboring Arab states will continue with internal strife and civil war and continue to destroy themselves from within. Internal strife in Egypt, threatening the Suez canal, will also make the Eilat port more valuable.
d) The hope is that the Euro will implode and if not destroy the EU, at least greatly weaken it. This could allow some nations in SE Europe (Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Albania, Serbia, Rumania) to drift away from the EU and its fanatical Israel/Jew bashing. Tying into this would be the EuroAsia Interconnector, the 2,500-MW undersea cable that would run from Israel to Greece, and could supply Cyprus and Greece with a sizeable portion of their electric power.
If there is another rational reason for Israel to follow this course, I cannot think of it.
Glick has a good memory to recall the Eric Hoffa book, The True Believer and to draw the right lesson. Too bad that Glick is Jewishly illiterate. She never refers to the lessons in our Torah. For example Deuteronomy Chapter 28 which warns of dire consequences whenever Jews violate G-d’s laws. For example while the release of 104 terrorists bother her the giving away of the Temple Mount by Netanyahu does not concern her. We may call ourselves Jews but in reality we too often resemble what Rabbi Meir Kahane called Hebrew speaking gentiles.
@ keelie:
There are several other options Israel can use:
The Texas Option Shoot**shovel**shutup!
The Texas Justice Option Get a rope or plug in ol” Sparky
As long a Israel holds prisoners the are going to be open for international arm twisting. Exicute them, the EU,USA will scream,but they’ll forget. They forgot the Holocaust,didn’t they.
keelie Said:
He’s not a Muslin terrorist, there fore Obama doen’t LOVE him, try releasing the FT Hood killer or the Boston Bombers. Allow all the prisoners at Guantameno loose.
I have an idea: Let’s request that the US release Charles Manson and his followers just to prove to the world that the US government wishes to show its sensitivity toward these poor aging prisoners via an unusual act of kindness.
“What is surprising – and frightening – is that Netanyahu, who is not a true believer, and knows that they are true believers, is going along with this.”
BB has always been a blind spot for Glick. She has always given him a pass and blamed everyone and everything for our Mess and incompetence everywhere but never BB directly. Now at last she blames him halfheartedly but has yet to psychologically divorce her emotional attachment and belief in BB.
Note: Glick worked for BB as an adviser in his first term as PM (1996-2000) and has been one of his staunches acolytes since. I call that also an example of a fanatical true believer. After all this time reality is finally sinking in for her. The pity is it has taken so long for an otherwise brilliant analyst.
Terribly sad