“No Democratic president has ever strong-armed Israel”
by Martin Kramer, Sandbox
Whenever the United States has put serious, sustained pressure on Israel’s leaders—from the 1950s on—it has come from Republican presidents, not Democratic ones…. Despite the Republican Party’s shrill campaign rhetoric on Israel, no Democratic president has ever strong-armed Israel on any key national security issue.
Efraim Halevy, “Who Threw Israel Under the Bus?,” New York Times, October 24
Former Mossad head Efraim Halevy likes Barack Obama and dislikes Mitt Romney. He’s entitled to his opinion. What he isn’t entitled to do is make categorical statements that do violence to the historical record.
I’m teaching a graduate course this semester on relations between Israel and the United States, and one of my purposes in following a historical approach is to fortify my students against people who misrepresent the past for some present purpose. Just the other week, we spent two hours discussing how President John F. Kennedy (yes, a Democrat) put the screws on Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and his successor, Levi Eshkol, over Israel’s nuclear end-run. The story has been told at considerable length elsewhere, most ably by Avner Cohen, Zaki Shalom, Michael Karpin, and Warren Bass, so I’ll just recap it here. It’s relevant not only as a corrective to Halevy’s erroneous claim. It’s essential background to the renewed debate over Israel’s nuclear posture that the Obama administration has helped to prompt.
When Kennedy entered the White House in January 1961, the CIA had just concluded that the facility under construction in Dimona, with French assistance, was destined to become a nuclear reactor. U.S. intelligence had been one to two years behind the curve on the pace of Israel’s nuclear program, and Kennedy was worried. He had campaigned on a promise to stop proliferation. In his third debate with Richard Nixon, he had warned that “there are indications because of new inventions, that 10, 15, or 20 nations will have a nuclear capacity, including Red China, by the end of the Presidential office in 1964. This is extremely serious.” The CIA would soon list Israel right behind China as a potential proliferator.
In May 1961, just months after his inauguration, Kennedy raised the issue of Dimona with visiting Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, and received a boilerplate assurance that the project had a peaceful purpose. Kennedy and his advisers continued to suspect otherwise, given the size of the plant. Israel allowed informal visits, but they were far from thorough, and in May 1963, Kennedy finally decided to press the issue and insist on regular inspections. He wrote a letter to Ben-Gurion (May 18), warning that an Israeli weapon would throw open the gates of proliferation everywhere:
We are concerned with the disturbing effects on world stability which would accompany the development of a nuclear weapons capability by Israel. I cannot imagine that the Arabs would refrain from turning to the Soviet Union for assistance if Israel were to develop a nuclear weapons capability—with all the consequences this would hold. But the problem is much larger than its impact on the Middle East. Development of a nuclear weapons capability by Israel would almost certainly lead other larger countries, that have so far refrained from such development, to feel that they must follow suit.
Then came the threat. Kennedy, noting the ways the United States had assisted Israel, warned Ben-Gurion that the U.S. commitment to his country “would be seriously jeopardized in the public opinion in this country and in the West as a whole if it should be thought that this Government was unable to obtain reliable information on a subject as vital to peace as the question of the character of Israel’s efforts in the nuclear field.” Years later, Yuval Ne’eman, the physicist who helped Ben-Gurion write his replies, tolda journalist that “Kennedy was writing like a bully. It was brutal.” Kennedy’s “Scylla and Charybdis-like letter,” writes Zaki Shalom, “made it absolutely clear that he wanted Israel to accede to his demands unconditionally and immediately, and a request of this sort from the pinnacle of American power, in language so blunt, left Israel no space for maneuvering.”
Within a month, Ben-Gurion had resigned. He had already been weakened politically, but there has long been a suspicion that Kennedy’s pressure contributed to his decision. (Ne’eman believed it was the main cause.) Kennedy did not relent, and after allowing Levi Eshkol ten days to settle in as new prime minister, he reissued his threat (July 5). Kennedy demanded of Eshkol that the United States be allowed to conduct visits
as nearly as possible in accord with international standards, thereby resolving all doubts as the the peaceful intent of the Dimona project…. As I wrote Mr. Ben-Gurion, this Goverment’s commitment to and support of Israel could be seriously jeopardized if it should be thought that we were unable to obtain reliable information on a subject as vital to peace as the question of Israel’s effort in the nuclear field….. It would be essential… that our scientist have access to all areas of the Dimona site and to any related part of the complex, such as fuel fabrication facilities or plutonium separation plant, and that sufficient time be allotted for a thorough examination.
Avner Cohen writes of this letter: “Not since President Eisenhower’s message to Ben-Gurion, in the midst of the Suez crisis in November 1956, had an American president been so blunt with an Israeli prime minister…. Since the United States had not been involved in the building of Dimona and no international law or agreement had been violated, Kennedy’s demands were unprecedented. They amounted, in effect, to an ultimatum.” Israeli journalist Michael Karpin writes that “no American president had ever threatened an Israeli prime minister so bluntly during political negotiations in time of peace.”
Inevitably, Eshkol agreed to the inspections. He had little choice; to borrow Halevy’s words, he had been “strong-armed.” But the change in administration following Kennedy’s assassination in November created a gap that Israel exploited. During the course of the 1960s, Israel succeeded in turning the U.S. “inspections” of Dimona into hurried affairs scheduled well in advance. Parts of the facility were concealed from American scrutiny. By 1968, the CIA had concluded that Israel had built a bomb. It was Richard Nixon (a Republican) who finally sat down with Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir on September 26, 1969, to finalize the U.S.-Israel understanding that exists to this day. Israel would keep its capabilities under wraps—nuclear “ambiguity” or “opacity”—and the United States would look the other way. The United States would not pressure Israel to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Thus was born the Israeli exception to the American rule.
Why is this relevant now? The debate over Israel’s nuclear exception is about to be renewed in full vigor. Kennedy wrote to Ben-Gurion: “Development of a nuclear weapons capability by Israel would almost certainly lead other larger countries, that have so far refrained from such development, to feel that they must follow suit.” Now Iran is cast in the role of the “larger country,” and the idea of a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East is gaining momentum. Israel would be called upon to disarm, in exchange for Iran’s disavowal of its nuclear ambitions. Obama’s own vision of a “nuclear-free world,” articulated in 2009, is the context.
An American-supported “Middle East WMD-Free Zone Conference” (with the unpronounceable acronym MEWMDFZ) may or may not take place in December as scheduled. The head of Israel’s own nuclear energy agency has described the conference initiative as “futile,” and the meeting may be postponed. But as former Shin Bet head Ami Ayalon has said, “after the U.S. elections, this issue of the Middle East as a nuclear-free zone will be back on the table.” And Israel’s leading authorities on the subject believethat in light of Obama’s commitment to non-proliferation, Israel “might face new pressure from the administration down the line.”
I’m reasonably certain that Halevy knows the history. Perhaps as a former head of the Mossad, he’s barred from discussing it. That’s understandable, but it’s inexcusable to pretend that the battle over Dimona never happened, and to do so for a purpose—playing American partisan politics—that’s unseemly for a man in his position. I’m now immersed in teaching precisely this subject, and I detect no systemic difference in the approaches of Democratic and Republican presidents to Israel. But when it comes to “strong-arming” Israel on the “key national security issue” of its nuclear posture, the unsurpassed record is held by a Democrat.
• Read also Jonathan Tobin on Halevy’s article, here and here.
@ teppo:
I send only one per day. There may be 6 or 8 posts in each one but that works for you as you can read what you want.
Dr. Steve Carol Said:
Can’t argue with that.
@ Dr. Steve Carol:
Dr. Carol,
I have to smile about the last passage in the comments about Clinton and the story of his cronies refusing to “take out” Bin Laden. Sadly though, the ending wasn’t as funny. Clinton was too busy playing with stupid princess wannabes like Lewinsky and bombing Serbs to deal with those who would kill us. John O’Neill and so many others paid with their lives just as Chris Stevens, Ty Woods, Glenn Doherty, and Sean Smith did due to the Islamoappeasing cowardice of a Democrat occupant of the White House.
Efraim Halevy was as clueless about the “Disengagement” he claimed he opposed as Tenet was on the eve of 9/11. But he NEVER voiced his concerns or the evidence that it would boomerang on Israel to Ariel Sharon. To me, his words are feh…no value, and pretty stupid for a man who ran a JEWISH INTELLIGENCE agency. Halevy was also on board when Saddam smuggled out the WMDs to Syria – I guess if he did know about it, highly possible, he never shared this (through Sharon) with a Bush who was anathema to a clown like himself.
With friends like Halevy, who needs enemies. But he can come out of retirement to head Libya’s Intelligence agency.
Why oh why do the western powers refuse to understand the islamic mindset. Somebody send me a paper by Derek Prince – Update 60 (Google it) dated November 1990 and in there he says the following: 1) With our background in the Christian West, even though we are not all Christians, we have a kind of respect for concepts like mercy and forgiveness. Muslims don’t have those concepts. The aspects that impress them are power, and they use power to attain honour. 2) There is no such thing as a democracy in the Middle East, there couldn’t be such a thing! 3) Democracy, mercy and forgiveness are concepts that have no real meaning for them, and if we try to relate to them on that basis, as a lot of Western governments are doing, there is a failure to connect with reality.
He makes a few more salient points like that, We westerners need to understand their mentality and work in that framework, not try to think that they work and think like the Greek or Christian mindset.
The post by Ted Belman, and the response by Dr. Carol should be required reading for every American Jew going to the polls with the intent of pulling the lever for four more years of Obama …
The historic record shows that President Kennedy was not the only Democratic President to pressure Israel. The facts are:
PRESIDENT HARRY TRUMAN
•Truman was strongly misojudaic, and in fact expressed himself on Jews in even coarser terms than his predecessor. He referred to New York City as “kike town,” for instance, and reacted to pressure from American Jews as he wrestled with whether to recognize the soon-to-be-born Jewish state by snapping: “Jesus Christ couldn’t please them when he was here on earth, so how could anyone expect me to have any luck?” And though Truman did of course recognize Israel, the vital step in securing its existence, the authors discount the oft-told story that he did so at the behest of his Jewish Kansas City buddy, Eddie Jacobson; the overriding reason, they maintain, was political, the necessity of locking up the Jewish vote for the looming 1948 election.
•The US pressured Israel to postpone its declaration of independence, and accept a UN trusteeship.
•The US State Department, the Pentagon and the CIA were convinced that establishment of the Jewish State would trigger a war, producing a second Jewish Holocaust in less than a decade, that a Jewish State would be a strategic burden upon the US, that Arab oil producers would boycott the US and that Israel would join the Communist Bloc. They were wrong on all counts.
•Dec. 6, 1947 – Total U.S. arms embargo hurts Israel since the Arabs were obtaining arms from the British.
•Mar. 8, 1948 – Clark Clifford’s memoir to Pres. Truman recommended UN sanctions against the Arab states for attacking Israel – Truman did nothing.
•The State Department demanded that Israel end its “occupation” of the Negev, the internationalization of Jerusalem and the absorption and compensation of Arab refugees. Ben Gurion defied all these pressures. He re-established Jewish sovereignty as Israel proclaimed its independence, increased construction in the Negev, relocated government agencies from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which was declared the capital of Israel.
•In 1950, the US Administration pressured Israel to refrain from Jewish construction in Jerusalem and from declaring Jerusalem the capital of Israel. In response, Prime Minister Ben Gurion built, relocated government agencies and thousands of immigrants to Jerusalem and declared Jerusalem the capital of the Jewish State.
PRESIDENT JOHN KENNEDY
In addition to JFK’s actions regarding Israel’s nuclear program, he:
•Kennedy’s overall Middle East strategy was neutral with regard to the Arab-Israeli conflict. While selling Israel “Hawk” anti-aircraft missiles he at the same time courted Egypt’s Nasser and was suckered by the latter into a premature U.S. recognition of the Egyptian-installed Yemeni Republican regime.
•Kennedy had to dispatch an aircraft carrier to the Red Sea as a sign of support for the Saudis when Nasser threatened their regime.
PRESIDENT LYNDON JOHNSON
•In May 1967, when Israel asked LBJ to fulfill the pledges made by President Eisenhower in 1957, (as Egypt mobilized for war, blockaded the Straits of Tiran and expelled the UNEF), the US could not find the documents that stated those pledges. To Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban, President Johnson warned “Israel will not be alone unless it decides to go it alone,” in effect warning it not to launch a pre-emptive attack. As war loomed President Johnson told the Israelis: “The U.S. is not the policeman of the world” and wished Israel “good luck” but did nothing to assist.
•As the war reached its sixth day, US pressure on Israel forced Israel to stop military action.
•Though Israel was the victim of aggression, the US sponsored UN Security Council Resolution 242 which was “even-handed” thus treating the aggressors and the intended victim on an equal basis.
•In 1967, the Johnson Administration pressured Israel against annexation of East Jerusalem. In response, Prime Minister Eshkol annexed, reunited Jerusalem, and built the formidable Ramat Eshkol neighborhood.
PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER
•Mar. 16, 1977 – President Carter openly endorsed the idea of a “homeland for the Palestinian refugees” i.e. the creation of a second Palestinian state.
•President Carter allowed the PLO, the world’s leading terrorist organization, to establish offices in Washington, D.C. and New York in the late 1970s.
•July 1977 – Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan described (in his memoirs) the White House meeting between Carter and Israeli officials. “Our talk,” Dayan wrote, “lasted more than an hour and was most unpleasant. President Carter…launched charge after charge against Israel.”
•Oct. 1, 1977 – The U.S. and the Soviet Union unexpectedly issued a joint statement on the Middle East calling for an Arab-Israeli peace conference in Geneva, with the participation of Palestinian representatives. It was the first time the U.S. officially employed the phrase “legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.”
•Oct. 5, 1977 – Carter gave Israel a virtual ultimatum. He told Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan at the UN Plaza Hotel in New York that Israel would have to accept a Palestinian “entity” or “homeland” in Judea-Samaria and Gaza. If Israel refused Carter would address himself to the “friends of Israel in the United States” (read “American Jews”) warning that Israel’s intransigence was holding up peace and endangering vital American interests.
•Feb. 14, 1978 – Carter announced the first jet plane sales to Egypt, the sale of advanced jets to Saudi Arabia, while at the same time reducing Israel’s request for similar jets. Carter’s decision was “to maintain an arms balance.” In direct contravention of their commitment to the US…the Saudis deployed F-15 fighter jets at Tabuk air base, located 150 km from Eilat , Israel – and by its silence at this violation the U.S. acquiesced to the Saudi move.
•At the September 1978 Camp David summit between President Carter, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Carter wholeheartedly supported the Egyptian demand that Israel return “every inch” of Sinai in exchange for peace. This set the precedent of total Israeli withdrawal from all the territories it gained in a defensive war in 1967.
•In 1978 after being attacked multiple times from PLO bases in southern Lebanon, Israel launched a defensive operation. US pressure forced the Israelis to stop its incursion and withdraw leaving the PLO intact to continue its operations. Israel would therefore have to repeat, at greater cost, this operation in June 1982.
•If there’s one thing that the Carter Administration can be given credit for, it’s creating the new wave of Islamist terrorism, both Sunni, operating out of Afghanistan, and Shiite, operating out of Iran. The Carter Administration cracked down on Israel and put its “faith” in Muslim terrorists, who then went on to wage war on America, even while Carter was in office.
Carter would continue his anti-Israel stance long after serving as president.
PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON
•In 1993 – Clinton forced Israel to let Mohammed Atta go free. Terrorist pilot Mohammed Atta blew up a bus in Israel in 1986. The Israelis captured, tried and imprisoned him. As part of the Oslo agreement with the Palestinians in 1993, Israel had to agree to release so-called “political prisoners.” However, the Israelis would not release any with blood on their hands. The President Clinton, and his Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, “insisted” that all prisoners be released. Thus Mohammed Atta was freed and eventually thanked the US by flying an airplane into Tower One of the World Trade Center. This was reported by many of the American TV networks at the time that the terrorists were first identified. It was censored in the US from all later reports.
•In the 1990s, Clinton elevated the father of modern terrorism, Yasir Arafat, to the status of a national liberation leader. Arafat was the most frequent foreign visitor, 11 times, at the White House and met with President Clinton 24 times. Not only did this “consistent involvement” at the highest level not produce any progress, it raised the expectations of Palestinians to an absurd level, leaving them more intransigent and belligerent than they were at the outset. It didn’t matter to the Clinton administration that Arafat never revoked the PLO Charter calling for Israel’s destruction. It didn’t matter that he indoctrinated a generation of Palestinian children to become suicide bombers in jihad against the Jews. It didn’t matter that he used billions of dollars of American and European taxpayer money to build the largest terror army in the world.
•In 1996, Bill Clinton came to Israel to support Shimon Peres during his campaign for prime minister against Binyamin Netanyahu. Clinton viewed the post-Zionist, anti-Jewish Peres as being the most dovish candidate. It is a long held principle of diplomacy that foreign government not interfere in the domestic affairs of another nation – often honored in the breach of the principle as was the case this time.
•The Clinton administration tied itself to a policy toward the Palestinians which, opened it to ever escalating blackmail. As the terror threat emanating from the PA-ruled areas rose, empowering Arafat became the obsession of the Clinton White House. Arafat was showered with money, guns and love. The CIA helped train Palestinian “security” force to keep the peace, but in reality the training enabled them to attack Israel more effectively. No Israeli security consideration could hold a candle to the need to strengthen Arafat. From bombing to bombing, Arafat was enriched and empowered. Israel’s security became the main obstacle to furthering movement towards peace.
•In Nov. 1999 while on a state visit to the Middle East and attending a meeting in Gaza, President and Mrs. Clinton, sat and listened to a speech delivered by Yasir Arafat in which he accused Israel of poisoning Palestinian babies. His wife, Suha, then continued the public tirade, with Hillary at her side. Mrs. Arafat made the deliberately false allegation that “Our [Palestinian] people have been submitted to the daily and intensive use of poisonous gas by the Israeli forces, which has led to an increase in cancer cases among women and children.” Mrs. Arafat also accused Israel of contaminating much of the water sources used by Palestinians with “chemical materials” and poisoning Palestinian women and children with toxic gases. Instead of reacting with outrage, Hillary Clinton sat by silently – and gave Suha a hug and a kiss when she finished speaking her poisonous invective seemingly giving her seal of approval to what had just been said. Later, many hours after the event, and only after a media furor put her on the spot for what many view as a bit more than a mere political “faux pas”, . Mrs. Clinton said she was unable to understand the translation into English of Suha’s speech, due to malfunction of her ear phones! Mrs. Clinton further called on “all sides” to refrain from “inflammatory rhetoric and baseless accusations” – including Israel, whose leaders made no such accusations. Glossing over this remarkably repugnant affair, Mrs. Clinton has never specifically contradicted and denounced the monstrous lies uttered by Yasser Arafat’s wife in her presence.
•The Clinton administration sponsored the Mitchell Report which recommended a freeze on Israeli “settlements” which went beyond what was envisioned at Oslo.
•President Clinton invited Ehud Barak and Yasir Arafat to Camp David in May 2000, pressured Barak into extraordinary concessions, and left Arafat with the impression that a bit more turmoil in the region would persuade him to lean on Barak even more. And, the second intifada erupted as if on cue!
•According to Richard Clarke in “Against All Enemies” and cited in other sources as well, John O’Neill, the FBI Counter Terrorist expert who was portrayed in the recent movie “World Trade Center,” and murdered in the Twin Towers on 9/11, argued for a surgical strike on Bin Laden right after the USS Cole bombing in 2000. According to both O’Neill and Clarke, Northern Alliances forces in Afghanistan had zeroed in on Bin Laden, and were prepared to liquidate him. O’Neill was stunned when Madeleine Albright, Sandy Berger, and William Cohen told him that Clinton had vetoed the strike. The reason cited? Clinton and Albright were involved in delicate negotiations with Arafat and Barak at Camp David, and Arafat would be upset if American forces were seen bombing fellow Arabs!
•Thus, Clinton, in a real chance to have prevented 9/11 chose the feelings of Yasir Arafat, a murderer of American citizens, over terminating a known terror threat to America!
PRESIDENT BARAK HUSSEIN OBAMA
•President Obama chose as Middle East advisors, known misojudaic, and anti-Israel personalities, including Zbigniew Brzezinski, Robert Malley, Rashid Khalidi, Samantha Power, Dennis Ross, State Department Coordinator on Iran, Daniel Kurtzer, Aaron Miller, Marty Indyk, Merrill McPeak, and Susan Rice, appointed as US Ambassador to the UN.
•In April 2009, Obama chose Charles Freeman to be the Chairman of the National Security Council. Freeman, was a long-standing apologist for Saudi Arabia, a harsh and ideological critic of Israel, an a subscriber to the Walt/Mearsheimer “Israel Lobby” thesis. A public outcry against his appointment forced Freeman to withdraw, but he remained an advisor to the administration.
•End of April 2009, General James Jones, National Security Adviser to Obama, reportedly told a European foreign minister that the United States, European Union and moderate Arab states must redefine ‘a satisfactory endgame solution’ to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. NOTE: The U.S. national security adviser did not mention Israel as party to these consultations.
•On May 3, 2009, President Obama’s Jewish Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, threatened Israel. According to the Jerusalem Post, Emanuel stated, “Thwarting Iran’s nuclear program is conditional on progress in peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.” The message was clear: America will bar any action against Iran unless Israel makes concessions to the Palestinian Arab thugs who seek to eviscerate all Jewish presence east of the Mediterranean. In addition, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Congress, “For Israel to get the kind of strong support it’s looking for vis-a-vis Iran, it can’t stay on the sidelines with respect to the Palestinians and the peace efforts.”The two issues — Iranian nuclear development and the Israeli-Arab conflict — “go hand in hand.” This is pure nonsense. The Iranian nuclear program threatens not only Israel, but U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, the government of Turkey, the government of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, as well as the territory of Eastern Europe. Iran’s centrifuges make it a regional power, able to leverage its calculated irrationality into fearful appeasement by the West. America’s interest in the Iranian nuclear program has nothing to do with the Israeli-Arab conflict.
•On May 5, 2009 – Vice-President Joe Biden and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry turned the thumbscrews tighter, telling Israel to stop building more settlements, dismantle existing outposts and allow Palestinians freedom of movement. That the settlements and checkpoints helped Israel have a semblance of security and reduced suicide and other terrorist attacks seemed of no importance to either Biden or Kerry.
•Under Obama the US opened a US Consulate in Jerusalem to serve mainly the Arabs while at the same time refusing to open the US Embassy in Jerusalem to serve the Israelis as was stipulated by law. The US also supports illegal Arab construction and condemns Jewish construction, legal or otherwise.
•In 2009, Obama demanded a settlement freeze. Fortunately he didn’t have the support in the US or in Israel to bring it about.
•2009: The Muslim Brotherhood’s spiritual leader – Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi – wrote an open letter to Obama arguing terrorism is a direct response to U.S. foreign policy.
•2009: Obama travels to Cairo to deliver an apologetic speech to Muslims, and infuriated the Mubarak regime by inviting banned Brotherhood leaders to attend. Obama deliberately snubs Mubarak, who was neither present nor mentioned. President Obama’s Cairo Speech showed only a superficial understanding of the Jewish relationship with the Land of Israel. He called Israel’s independence a response to the Holocaust and not the establishment of the third Jewish Commonwealth after a 1,875-year interregnum. In so doing, he fed into the Arab complaint that Israel was foisted on the region by guilty Europeans rather than as a legitimate and permanent part of the region. He also snubs Israel during the Mideast trip.
•He used fulfilling his promise of giving his first foreign policy address in an Arab capital to distance America from Israel: “The US does not accept the
legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. It is time for these settlements to stop,” he told cheering crowds in Cairo. But worse was still to come. “The aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied. It is also undeniable that the Palestinian people, Muslims and Christians, have suffered.” By adopting the rhetoric of Arab anti-Semites that the desire of the Jews to live in their homeland started with the Holocaust and has no other roots, Obama, in the words of Charles Krauthammer, “In three minutes… did more to delegitimize the existence of Israel than any president in American history.”
•2009: Obama appointed a Brotherhood-tied Islamist – Rashad Hussain – as U.S. envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation, which supports the Brotherhood.
•2010–The administration accepted the 2010 Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty Review that singled out Israel for condemnation – despite public statements that it would never do that. The U.S. rejoined the UN Human Rights Commission and the UN Alliance of Civilizations, an openly anti-Israel body that claimed in 2006 that global tensions were driven primarily by the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and referred to the September 11th attacks as resulting from “a perception among Muslim societies of unjust aggression stemming from the West.”
•2010– The administration heaped emergency aid on the Hamas terrorist regime in Gaza – an allocation of $27 million in its earliest days in office and another $400 million in 2010 – aside from the $100 million+ given to the Palestinian Authority, including $115 million 2012 over the protestations of Congress. More importantly, he released this aid without extracting a single concession from either Hamas or the PA to stop the rocket firing against Israel, terrorist attacks, incitement and put for compromises to move the peace process forward.
•2010: State Department lifts visa ban on Tariq Ramadan, suspected terrorist and Egyptian-born grandson of Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna.
•2010: Hussain meets with Ramadan at American-sponsored conference attended by U.S. and Brotherhood officials.
•2010: Hussain meets with the Brotherhood’s grand mufti in Egypt.
•2010: Obama meets one-on-one with Egypt’s foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, who later remarks on Nile TV: “The American president told me in confidence that he is a Muslim.”
•2010: The Brotherhood’s supreme guide calls for jihad against the U.S.
•2011: Qaradawi calls for “days of rage” against Mubarak and other pro-Western regimes throughout the Mideast.
•2011: Riots erupt in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. Crowds organized by the Brotherhood demand Mubarak’s ouster, and stormed buildings setting in motion what was labeled falsely as an “Arab Spring.”
•2011: The White House fails to back longtime ally Mubarak, who flees Cairo.
•2011: White House sends intelligence czar James Clapper to Capitol Hill to whitewash the Brotherhood’s extremism. Clapper testifies the group is moderate, “largely secular.”
•2011: Qaradawi, exiled from Egypt for 30 years, is given a hero’s welcome in Tahrir Square, where he raises the banner of jihad.
•2011: Through his State Department office, William Taylor – Clinton’s special coordinator for Middle East transitions and a longtime associate of Brotherhood apologists -gives the Muslim Brotherhood and other Egyptian Islamists special training to prepare for the post-Mubarak elections.
•2011: The Brotherhood wins control of Egyptian parliament, vows to tear up Egypt’s 30-year peace treaty with Israel and reestablishes ties with Hamas and Hezbollah.
•2011: Obama gave a Mideast speech demanding Israel relinquish land to Palestinians, insisting on “land swaps” and territorial continuity for the second Palestinian state–which in reality would mean the rump of Israel, along the 1949 armistice lines, or perhaps even the 1947 partition lines, would effectively be cut in two! — all that while still refusing to visit Israel.
•2011: Justice Department pulls plug on further prosecution of U.S.-based Brotherhood front groups identified as collaborators in conspiracy to funnel millions to Hamas.
•2011: In a shocking first, the State Department formalizes ties with Egypt’s Brotherhood, letting diplomats deal directly with Brotherhood party officials in Cairo.
•April 2012: The administration quietly releases $1.5 billion in foreign aid to the new Egyptian regime.
•June 2012: Mohamed Morsi wins presidency amid widespread reports of electoral fraud and voter intimidation by gun-toting Brotherhood thugs – including blockades of entire streets to prevent Christians from going to the polls. The Obama administration turns a blind eye, and recognized Morsi as victor.
•June 2012: In a victory speech, Morsi vows to instate Shariah law, turning Egypt into an Islamic theocracy, and also promises to free jailed terrorists. He also demanded Obama free World Trade Center terrorist and Brotherhood leader Omar Abdel-Rahman, a.k.a. the Blind Sheik, from U.S. prison.
•June 2012: State grants visa to banned Egyptian terrorist who joins a delegation of Brotherhood officials from Egypt. They’re all invited to the White House to meet with Obama’s deputy national security adviser, who listens to their demands for the release of the Blind Sheik.
•2012–2012—was the year the Obama administration took its most overt steps yet to tell the Arab and Muslim world that the US was severable from Israel. The NATO-related air rescue operation Anatolian Eagle was canceled because Turkey would not let Israel participate. The administration then touted the bilateral missile defense exercise Austere Challenge as bigger and better — and more meaningful – until they canceled it in April, with more than a suggestion that it might give Iran the idea that the U.S. and Israel could use it as cover for an attack (an early sign of the “complicity” argument to follow). In May, the Administration went ahead with Eager Lion 2012, a Special Operations exercise with 19 Arab and Muslim countries, including Egypt, Lebanon and Pakistan. The tactics and training of Special Operations is an important component of Israel’s “qualitative military edge.” How much of what the U.S. and Israel developed over the years was shared with countries overtly hostile to Israel? Israel was not invited to the May NATO confab, although 13 NATO “partner nations” were invited to discuss terrorism. Two other US-organized and led multilateral counterterrorism confabs excluded Israel as well. When Turkey objected to the sharing of intelligence information with Israel, Secretary of Defense Panetta said no NATO radar intelligence would be shared “outside of NATO.” NATO Secretary General Rasmussen rushed to assure the Turks of the same thing. Finally, the administration announced that Austere Challenge would be reconstituted as the biggest and best missile defense exercise yet. Until this week, when it announced that the exercise would be scaled back – way, way back – so Iran would not think it was cover for a US-Israel attack.
•During the June 2012 Global Terrorism Conference, sponsored by the U.S., the Obama administration did not take a tough stand. According to Rabbi Marvin Hier, Israel was deliberately excluded from the conference, yet countries with a history of sponsoring radical Islamic ideology were invited. What is this telling Iran, the world’s largest state supporter of terrorism?
•Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), chairperson of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, could not understand the snub, since “Israel, if any state, knows something about counter-terrorism. Yet that is the country that is not invited to participate in the conference.…This administration has not shown friends we are their allies and enemies that we are their adversaries.” The Obama administration caved to pressure and made a terrible mistake, setting a bad precedent. What the U.S. should have done is take the position that the problem is with those hostile to Israel. They should be saying ‘we will never have these conferences if Israel is excluded, so get used to it, and let’s move forward.’
•July 2012: Obama invites Morsi to visit the White House this September.
•The Muslim Brotherhood’s sudden ascendancy in the Mideast didn’t happen organically. It was helped along by a U.S. president sympathetic to its interests over those of Israel and his own country.
•In July 2012, when Sec. of State Hillary Clinton visited Cairo, she was met with hundreds of protestors hurling tomatoes and shoes (explain significance) at her. Protests against visiting dignitaries is nothing new to US officials. But who was behind the protests in Cairo? Answer: members of the Free Egyptians Party together with other Egyptian liberals. At the same time, leading Christians, including Naguib Sawiris, the man behind that party and perhaps the most outspoken anti-Islamist figure in Egypt today, refused to meet with Hillary. Why? Because these people see the Obama administration as an ally of the Muslim Brotherhood and empowered the Brotherhood to gain control. So, in addition to being hostile our ally Israel, Obama has enabled and encouraged a group of even more hostile foes of Israel to surround the Jewish State.
•2012 – As the US geared up for its presidential election, America’s Middle East policy of more than 60 years is in shambles. Its position as a world-leader, as well as a major power player in the Middle East is vanishing like a mirage in the desert. Why doesn’t the President and his Sec. of State, Defense and UN Ambassador come clean and explain the Benghazigate affair (certainly far worse, and far more grounds for impeachment, than Watergate)? Because of the lies of Obama, Clinton, Panetta and Rice –four Americans died! Citizens should be asking as Iran is about to go nuclear (thanks to four years of grace by the Obama administration) and the Muslim Brotherhood moves toward establishing a pan-Islamist caliphate — WHO LOST EGYPT? WHO LOST THE MIDDLE EAST? and who is the worst US president vis-a-vis Israel in US history?
Complied by Dr. Steve Carol
Prof. of History (retired)
Middle East Consultant for the Salem Radio Network News
Associate Prodcuer and Official Historian of the Middle East Radio Forum http://www.middleeastradioforum.org
If Kennedy had succeeded Israel might have been annihilated already. It is my understanding that Golda’s nuclear threat is what prompted the US arms re supply in the 74 war. Military, economic and resource independence are the only things to guarantee Israel’s and the Jews existence.