By Ted Belman
Obama came through for Israel at the UN. The primary message of his speech was that the PA cannot bypass negotiations and must compromise. He did not even mention that negotiations should be based on ’67 lines nor did he mention east Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine. Nor did he mention settlements. No more daylight between US and Israel.
Herb Keinon of JPOST wrote a great analysis.
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“Let us be honest with ourselves: Israel is surrounded by neighbors that have waged repeated wars against it,” Obama said. “Israel’s citizens have been killed by rockets fired at their houses and suicide bombs on their buses. Israel’s children come of age knowing that throughout the region, other children are taught to hate them. Israel, a small country of less than eight million people, looks out at a world where leaders of much larger nations threaten to wipe it off of the map. The Jewish people carry the burden of centuries of exile and persecution, and fresh memories of knowing that six million people were killed simply because of who they are. Those are facts. They cannot be denied.”
I don’t trust Obama for a second. He no doubt had next year’s election in mind. Doesn’t matter. This speech was of great value to Israel. Bibi should get the credit. His great relationship with the Republican Congress garnered for him the backing he needed.
Sarkozy had nothing good to say.
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“But who could doubt that a veto at the Security Council risks engendering a cycle of violence in the Middle East? Must we therefore exclude an intermediate stage? Why not envisage offering Palestine the status of United Nations observer state? This would be an important step forward.”
“The ultimate objective of peace negotiations must by the mutual recognition of two states for two peoples, based on the 1967 parameters with the exchange of agreed and equivalent territories,”
First time swaps were said to involve “equivalent territories”.
In advance of this speech, the Emergency Committee for Israel took out a full page ad in the NYT with the headline “Tell President Obama: Enough. It’s time to stand with Israel,” David Harris of the AJC took issue saying “This ad is highly objectionable, indeed counter-productive, to its stated aim of supporting Israel,”
JTA has the story. Worth reading.
In effect, Obama did what the ECI asked him to do, “Stand By Israel”.
Obama also was forthright on Iran and Syria to his credit.
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In Iran, we’ve seen a government that refuses to recognize the rights of its own people. As we meet here today, men and women and children are being tortured, detained and murdered by the Syrian regime. Thousands have been killed, many during the holy time of Ramadan. Thousands more have poured across Syria’s borders. The Syrian people have shown dignity and courage in their pursuit of justice — protesting peacefully, standing silently in the streets, dying for the same values that this institution is supposed to stand for. And the question for us is clear: Will we stand with the Syrian people, or with their oppressors?
It’s true enough that Rhodes has been BHO’s chief FP speechwriter; true also that he is, as you say, a disingenuous liar. (Of course, so is Cohen.) Perhaps Rhodes thinks he’s still writing novels?
I’m unaware, in any case, however, of Rhodes’ ever taking credit for the Cairo speech, as Cohen did. (Then again, TBS, that could signify any number of things.)
You must remember, too, that the Politico piece you cited was written not subsequent to — but in anticipation of — the June 2009 speech: dateline May 18. That is to say that it was, in large part, speculative.
A twisted collection of flotsam & jetsam washed up on the beach, for sure — though I don’t know whether Rhodes is an M.O.T.
We agree to disagree. I stand by that story as Rhodes has been Obie’s chief speechwriter on Foreign Policy.
Anyway, if Cohen wrote part of it, and Rhodes wrote the other part, big deal. When James Baker delivered his notorious speech, ironically of May 4, 1989, I believe telling Israel it must foreswear a ‘Greater Israel’, foreswear Settlements, et. al., Danny Kurtzer took credit even though Aaron Miller also claimed taking a part…it is said both Richard Haass and Dennis Ross were involved in the script as well. No matter – they’re all either Israel haters (and if Rhodes IS Jewish) self-haters too.
Politico & WSJ both turned out to be mistaken. Read the article I linked.
@Dweller,
Wrong again, pal.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/22588.html
Even if you weren’t – and it does appear you are, its irrelevant. Rhodes is a disingenuous liar…just like the entire Obama crew.
Of course.
And?
I’m afraid you move a little too fast for me, Warmonger
— or perhaps it’s simply that you leave out too many of the dots for me to draw your intended overarching conclusion[s] to all that
— or even for me to divine your central point in this.
When you write, it’s important to think of yourself as called upon, as it were, to give “street directions” — in a neighborhood and city that you’ve lived in all your life —
to somebody who’s never been to that city before. (Maybe not even that country.)
That attitude forces you to skip the mental shorthand that we all think in & unconsciously tailor for ourselves — and instead to put yourself in the shoes of a stranger, who has his own mental shorthand (inescapably different from your own).
He has to set his mental shorthand aside to ask directions — and you must do the same to give them.
I DID google Rhodes, some 18 months ago, Alan — when I was researching a related matter — and it was because of that googling that I made the remark that he didn’t write it. I googled him again (when you first made the Rhodes attribution [Sept 23, 1:56 pm]), just to be sure that I remembered the story correctly — and having done so, I stand by my earlier comment: Rhodes didn’t write the Cairo address of two years ago.
Whatever significance there may be to your new assertion that he was “involved” in writing the speech, I would submit that if you had read the article that I linked above in this thread [“STEVE COHEN”], you would have found, among other things, this:
Rhodes may well have written last week’s General Assembly address; not the Cairo speech, however.
Indeed He does. And He does this to teach us a lesson, for because of the hardness our hearts, we insist on putting more on our plate than we can handle.
Man has been doing that since before he learned how to rub two sticks together to start a fire.
Usenet comment thread is here.
Hi Dweller. We have our own will. We have our own mind. Suppose I was asked to assist a coach for little league baseball. I said sure. Game day came and I was so busy meeting a deadline at work that I lost track of the time and missed the game. The coach had to take on 15 little leaguers. It was more than he could handle. He lost his cool. No one stepped in to help him. But the parents let him know it was unacceptable to lose his cool.
Obama knows that the American Judenrat is just like a hungry puppy: throw him a bone and he’ll wag his tail full throttle. This is what he is doing, and the stupid American Jewish leaders will dance to his fiddle in no time.
Very likely Hussein Obama has been advised by some of his smarter counselors, as he himself lacks both the insight and the political stature to come to this conclusion on his own. Not once in nearly 3 years has he spoken positively about Israel, all of a sudden he’s become enlightened?
The problem is not that Obama is a closet anti-semite and a muslim panderer. The problem is that US Jews have failed to perceive him as such, being so enamored with the leftist utopia to the extent of having grown blind to the world’s reality.
Realize what you’ve just said.
In effect He permits MAN to do what you characterize as “putting more on our plate than we can handle.”
So He “steps in” only once in a while? — and other times, NOT?
Is it not more logical to say that there is NO time that He is not ‘stepping in’? — appearances to the contrary notwithstanding?
Your right Yamit. We have nothing to fear…so pass it on!
Hey Alan. Its your favorite boychik again! Of coase Obama is not to be trusted. I am just glad that for Israels he said what was long OVERDUE. Who cares who wrote the speech! Who cares if his wife had to put a gun to his head to make him say it. Who care? Even he CANNOT DENY the facts. Of coarse now he will probably have the attitude that Israel owes him. BULLSHIT!!
King of the Jews?
By Rabbi Meir Kahane
The G-d of the Jews is the G-d of History. He is; He exists; He dominates and controls. He shapes the present and decrees the future. “In the beginning, G-d created the heavens and the earth…” Thus the Torah begins its message to the Jew to let him know that the Jewish G-d exists as a real entity and not some intellectual plaything. He created the past and He controls the present and He wills the future. The Jewish G-d is the G-d of creation, the G-d of History past and future.
Before such a G-d there is fear and awe and in the face of such a G-d another kind of fear disappears. Awesome fear emerges as the Jew stands before Omnipotence and knows that nothing finite and nothing in this world matters in the face of the awesome and unlimited strength of the Divinity. And earthly fear disappears in the knowledge that the Chosen people of this Omnipotence need fear no nation or might or force on this world and that the Jewish Destiny is – guaranteed by the G-d of History.
Adon Olam
Eternal Master, who reigned supreme,
Before all of creation was drawn;
When it was finished according to His will,
Then the King’s Name was proclaimed
When this our world shall be no more,
In majesty He still shall reign,
And he was, and he is,
And he will be in glory.
Alone is He, beyond compare,
Without division or ally;
Without beginning, without end,
to Him is the power and sovereignty
He is my God, my Living Redeemer
rock of my affliction in the enemy day
He is my banner and refuge
filling my cup the day I call
Into His hand I commit my spirit
when I sleep, and I wake
and with my spirit, my body
The Lord is with me, I will not fear
Better google Ben Rhodes, boychik. HE WAS INVOLVED IN WRITING THAT CAIRO SPEECH!
As for the “price tag” – maybe so, I hope you’re wrong because the little anti-Semite Obama is clearly NOT to be trusted nor to be believed. Remember too, Barak is the suck-up guy to his pals in Washington. They want him, or Livni in Bibi’s chair but that ain’t gonna happen in their (hopefully very) brief tenure.
Re: “Warmonger” – on one hand he defends Israeli security procedures at airports, on the other hand he spouts anti-Semitic stupidity. Clearly a NUTCASE who doesn’t deserve anymore response.
dweller says:
G-d’s existence is absolute, that it includes no composition,and that we comprehend only the fact that He exists, not His essence. Consequently it is a false assumption to hold that He has any positive attribute: for He does not possess existence in addition to His essence. Know that the negative attributes of G-d are the true attributes: they do not include any incorrect notions or any deficiency whatever in reference to G-d, while positive attributes imply polytheism, and are inadequate, we cannot describe the Creator by any means except by negative attributes. Rambam
“God is not a man, that He should lie; neither the son of man, that He should repent: when He hath said, will He not do it? or when He hath spoken, will He not make it good?”
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain cometh down and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, except it water the earth, and make it bring forth and bud, and give seed to the sower and bread to the eater; So shall My word be that goeth forth out of My mouth: it shall not return unto Me void, except it accomplish that which I please, and make the thing whereto I sent it prosper.”
Dweller. G-d does not put more on our plate than we can handle. But MAN does! MAN will CONTINUE to overload unless G-d steps in to STOP it. I believe God will. And God will show us a way to PROVE that JC was NOT The King of the Jews! I know it!
Impossible.
He is the essence of integrity.
You can’t change His mind.
And you can’t “force His hand”
— unless I misunderstand what you meant by the expression.
What in blazes are you talking about?
Your right! There is a LOT more to this. Although they cant deny was has happened with the Jews they are still perplexed. They are FORCING the hand of G-d. Killing our king is a serious charge! Will G-d PROVE our innocense? Do we get to remain Jews or will we be FORCED to convert to something else and be turned into Gentiles? I dont think so. Not this time. JUDAISM LIVES!!
Yes, it was — among other things — a reaction to NY9.
I disagree — and most emphatically — that it was “nothing more” than a reaction to NY9.
With all due respect, you’re kidding yourself, Alan, if you think you can ignore the remarks of Barak, as well as those of BB during a joint appearance with BHO. The speech clearly came with a price-tag.
Ben Rhodes did NOT, in fact, write the 6-4-09 Cairo University speech.
I don’t know who wrote the recent, Aushwitz Borders” harangue, but it’s evident that Rhodes had nothing to do with the Cairo address. That was a common assumption, but it was actually written by STEVE COHEN (founder, Inst. for Middle East Peace & Development) — as he acknowledged during a speech of his own, delivered at Harvard’s Ctr for Middle East Studies — and on a request from then-White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel the week immediately preceeding the trip.
This is precious!
Lewis Black – The Old Testament
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-september-22-2011/west-bank-story
am still laughing at best ever satire on I-P conflict. Thank you Jon Stewart, John Olver, and Asif Mandvi.
Just a reaction to what happened in NY9 and what is definitely happening elsewhere. For once Jews are wising up about this guy, and even his sycophants like Booby Wexler, Debbi Wasserman, and Alan So-Low can’t help him because they’re considered NOTHING in the Jewish community. I only wish that the Jews of L.A.’s Westside and Valley would also wise up and get rid of Waxboy, Berman and Sherman. They may say nice things and attend rallies for Israel, but otherwise if Obama said “jump” all of these girlieboys would meekly cry “HOW HIGH?”
Two things.
One, Re: Obama…That speech was a reaction to what happened in NY 9th a week ago. Nothing more, nothing less. Obama is running scared, and it shows. His dhimmis in Congress too, are beginning to feel the heat, and Henry Waxboy’s obnoxious comments did more harm than good for our FIRST PALESTINIAN TERRORIST LOVING occupant of the White House.
The speech was written by Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes. Rhodes is a good writer, trouble is, the guy like his boss lies through his teeth. Rhodes came to Obama’s attention when he was a staff member of the notorious Iraq Study Group, Rhodes’ then-boss Lee Hamilton, along with that great friend of Jews and Israel – NOT, RINOS James “F the Jews” Baker and Bobby Gates chaired that committee which advocated U.S. surrender in Iraq, Appeasement of Islamic regimes, and demands on Israel to return to the 1967 borders – positions ironically almost all adopted by the fraud, coward, liar and anti-Semite currently sitting in the White House.
Rhodes was instrumental in writing two speeches that demonstrated Obama’s animus towards Israel. The first was that notorious June 4, 2009 speech in Cairo, the second, more recently, was the “Auschwitz Borders” speech of this past May. Then…all of a sudden this one which could have easily been written by one of President Bush’s scriptwriters. The only reason – the backlash of NY 9.
Furthermore, Rhodes (who doesn’t state what his religious background is, but I highly doubt he is Jewish) is on record saying that Obama fully “understands” Jewish and Israeli concerns. WTF! This is akin to saying that the fox understands the concerns of the hens. Bottom line here, as Ted so aptly put it is that you don’t trust nor believe Obama or his gifted though highly disingenuous little boy Ben.
Two, Sarko is another disgusting Hungarian JINO cut from the cloth of Soros in many ways. Although he is somewhat tough on Islam in his own country, he doesn’t mind appeasing it on the Palestinian question to the detriment of Israel. I honestly expected better from Sarkozy, but then again he’s French…and 1916, 1940, 1954 in Indochina, and so much more, including allowing Islam to run rampant in French towns and cities in the past four decades come to mind here. He might be tough in France (not sure if that’s saying much) but he has the balls of an eclair, or maybe the attitude of JINO Democrats here when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian issue. Much better than his predecessor on Israel, better than Mitterrand too, the faux resistance fighter and pervert, but that’s really not saying very much.
“Grew a pair”?
Don’t think so. This wasn’t about courage, but calculation.
Put down the palm fronds, Bill, and pause with the hosannas.
If you’ve listened to the carefully orchestrated remarks of BB and Ehud Barak, it’s clear that this came with a high price.
We’ll be hearing the consequences of that price with increasing insistence from Jewish liberals as Election Day approaches.
who else would be vetoing the pal u n recognition bid. ron, you are barking up the wrong tree.
it was a good speech (and two years overdue). Obama must have really hated having to make it at the UN, following Brazil’s Rouseff who got cheers for championing the pal state.
I had Fox news on because they promised to cover Obama live. But I finally flipped to CNN which had already started covering Obama’s speech live. and then the post-speech coverage was solely about the Jewish vote.
It’s not just NY9. in 2010, NY1 was almost a tie, and NY2 (DCCC Steve Israel), NY4, NY5, NY14 and NY22 were real contests, where the Dems actually had to debate and campaign. Israel was a key issue in NY4 and NY5 (McCain won Nassau County in 2008)
IF NY3’s GOP Peter King does run for Senate, then NY3 will also be a contest.
I do not think Abbas has his nine votes at the UNSC – and that is what he needs to force the US to veto.
But Obama also said
So he kept his proposal alive though muted.
Cali, you got that right.
I often said, forget what obama says, watch what he does.
He is liar and a phony.
I said before he is nothing more than an “acorn community organizing pamphlet distributing anti-Semite, pretending to be a Christian for political reasons who embraces Islam and an incompetent president, a stooge for George Soros and company and the liberal left media”.
He is no friend of Israel.
Cali, well done! Go to the top of the class. You are spot on.
Don’t ever trust of Obama, he throws you under the bus in a heartbeat when he finish using you. This speech was simply because he wants to be re-elected. If he manages, God forbid, he’ll let loose-trust me on that!
We know Obama has no morals, so there’s no point in asking if Obama considered whether it was the moral thing to do.
I also think this is good news but I also think the Jewish community (like the 9th district just showed) should continue to support candidates that speak out for Israel and not get suckered into voting for Obama in 2012 just because he did what amounts to a good thing for Israel. I think he probably did it not because it would be good for Israel but because he probably felt he had no choice, both internationally in terms of avoiding the fallout and politically (again, thanks to the 9th district) that would necessarily result if he didn’t. Is it really worth the risk to now even consider trusting this guy? I would beg the Jewish community in America as well as all skeptical Americans who support Israel (forgeting as well America for now) and keep voting Republican. There won’t be anything to stop him in a second term when the scenario repeats itself. I do admit that I am at least temporarily relieved.
I noticed that all the news shows led with Davis’ execution. At 1:00 am on C-Span I was finally able to see/hear the speech. Today’s Wash Post did not feature it. Before the speech, all the cable boys (Cooper, Matthews, et al) asked ONLY political questions about the promised veto; i.e., Jewish votes, Jewish $$, etc. Never, ever, ever any mention, question, thought… is this the MORAL right thing to do. In other words, the media framed it as a political question only, and the Jews forced our beloved president to do the thing that will make everybody angry at the US, and those poor, poor Pals…don’t they deserve freedom? NBC showed lovely “We just want freedom” pix of Pals, and every picture of Israelis was of a soldier with Darth Vader-type masks shooting. Also, never, ever a mention of Hamas from all these nitwits.
The charade is disgusting…But we have to acknowledge — Mr Obama — for whatever reasons — did the right thing.
And who knows, if circumstances bring war, maybe, sad to say, this time war IS the answer…
Obama received a wake-up call from NY’s 9th congressional district.
Part of the credit goes to Anthony Weiner who’s actions forced a special election in a heavily Jewish district. And Breitbart for exposing him (no pun intended). G-d does work in mysterious ways.
Is it posible that Barak Hussain Obama has only just become aware of the so called pro Israel facts he quoted,as they have been widely known to millions for rather a long time.
If he did know these widely known facts but kept quiet, then that raises the question of his agenda, maybe to win back the Jewish vote so he can get re-elected.Time will tell.
That is GREAT news. We can breathe a little sigh of relief!!