Tag Archives: Benjamin Netanyahu

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Terrorists must be destroyed

I shall now repeat this slowly.

Hamas … is … a … terrorist … cabal … bent … on … Israel’s … destruction.

There. Are we clear now?

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/mike-rogers-obama-benjamin-netanyahu-friction-109433.html?hp=l5

Accordingly, should Israel seek to negotiate with this organization as long as it remains dedicated to the eradication of the only democratic state in the Middle East?

Absolutely not.

Now, will someone please advise the president of the United States that Hamas has no place at any bargaining table until it lays down its arms and renounces its evil intention regarding Israel.

The fight goes on. President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appear to be at odds over how to handle Hamas. The president wants Israel to extend its cease-fire; the prime minister won’t do anything until Hamas stands down.

I’m with the Israelis on this one.

I do not doubt for a second that the United States remains committed to supporting Israel’s security and to maintaining our ironclad alliance with that nation. The president has declared as much repeatedly since taking office nearly six years ago, just as all of his predecessors in the Oval Office have done.

However, he needs to demonstrate some appreciation of the heinousness of this group’s agenda. It is attacking civilians with missile attacks. Israel has as much right to defend itself as any country on Earth, which is precisely what it is doing. The only reason Israel hasn’t suffered more civilian casualties is because its sophisticated “Iron Dome” missile defense system works well in protecting the nation against hostile acts.

So let’s stop attaching some kind of moral equivalence to what’s happening in Gaza.

Hamas picked this fight. Israel is intent on finishing it.

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Israel needs to strike back

How much clearer does Israel have to make it for the world to understand its predicament?

Terrorists in Gaza are launching missiles into Israeli cities and towns. They have injured Israeli citizens. Their targets are civilian neighborhoods, houses where families live with their children. Is the Israeli military supposed to let the attacks go without response? No.

http://news.msn.com/world/israel-says-its-downed-drone-along-southern-coast

Now it comes out that Israel shot down a drone launched from Gaza. It was downed near the city of Ashdod, just a few miles from the Israeli border with Gaza.

The United Nations is upset because of what some have called a “disproportionate response” from Israel to the attacks launched by Hamas, the terrorist organization that helps govern Gaza alongside the Palestinian Authority.

The response does not upset me in the least. Of course, I have the comfort of living thousands of miles away.

Still, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — a hardliner’s hardliner — makes no apologies for the air attacks his military has launched against the Gaza militants.

It falls on Hamas to stop the provocation. Immediately. Hamas started this conflict. The terrorists who run the organization do not want the Israelis to finish it.

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Israel vents its anger at Hamas

Can there be any doubt — any at all — as to why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu broke off peace talks with the Palestinian Authority?

Three Israeli teenagers have been killed by terrorists linked to Hamas, the monstrous group that helps govern Gaza, which is part of the Palestinian Authority. Israel in return has launched air strikes against the terrorists. Hamas is continuing its violent campaign against Israel, all the while joining the PA in some form of “unity government” arrangement agreed to by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

It was that unity government arrangement that angered Netanyahu enough to break off the talks. The PA cannot “have it both ways,” he said of Abbas’s agreement with Hamas and his desire to seek peace with Israel.

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/west-bank-kidnappings/israel-palestinian-tensions-near-breaking-point-over-dead-teens-n145096

I cannot proclaim to be an expert on this subject, but I have had the honor of seeing Israel up close. I’ve seen some of the damage that Hamas terrorists have inflicted on Israeli cities close to Gaza. I’ve gotten a pretty good feel for how close Israel is to its sworn enemies and I understand fully how Israel must be on constant vigil against terrorist attacks from Gaza, the West Bank, Golan and Lebanon.

Five weeks touring Israel in the spring of 2009 gave my traveling companions and me a deeper appreciation for what the Israelis face every single day.

And now we have this latest tragedy involving the three teens who were captured in the West Bank.

Hamas comprises a lot of very bad actors. Those are the individuals with whom Israel must co-exist. If they have to bomb them to keep them at bay, then so be it.

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Come to Israel and see for yourself, PCUSA

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had a classic response this morning to a question about a mainline Protestant denomination’s decision to divest itself of economic ties to Israel.

The decision by Presbyterian Church USA involves its divestment in companies that do business in the Middle East’s lone democratic state.

Netanyahu, appearing this morning on NBC’s “Meet the Press” news talk show, was asked by host David Gregory what he thought of that decision, which PCUSA based on Israel’s building of settlements in the West Bank region and Israel’s continued contentious relationships with its Arab neighbors.

Presbyterian Church Approves Israel Divestment, But Does its Boycott Even Matter?

For the life of me, this one is baffling.

Well, Netanyahu took the question from Gregory.

He responded magnificently. He noted that Israel grants full freedom in its country for Christians to worship their faith. He noted that many Arab nations persecute Christians, even kill them.

Netanyahu invited any Protestant denomination to tour the Middle East, encouraging them to look first-hand at the Arab nations — he mentioned Libya, Syria and Iraq by name — and then visit Israel. They will see up close the difference in the way they are treated in the Arab world as opposed to how they are received in Israel.

He offered two words of advice to anyone who takes him up on his invitation. “Be sure to travel in an armored vehicle” while touring any of those Arab nations, Netanyahu said. “And don’t tell anyone in any of those countries that you are a Christian.”

Amen, Mr. Prime Minister.

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Pope emerges as peace broker?

Can there be any doubt that Pope Francis I is the rock star everyone believes him to be?

The pope, in a stunning gesture to two sides in one of the world’s most contentious regions, invited them to the Vatican later this year in what has been called a “common prayer for peace.”

Who knows? A real deal that forges a permanent peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority could be next.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/world/2014/05/25/look-vatican-middle-east-balancing-act/6axOcIrwLCjnbWMkQSpD4L/story.html

“All of us … are obliged to make ourselves instruments and artisans of peace, especially by our prayers,” the pope said after a public Mass in Bethlehem.

The pope is touring Israel, the West Bank and Jordan on a whirlwind tour of the Holy Land. He just might get more out of this trip than anyone in the world ever imagined.

At issue are peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority that broke down when PA President Mahmoud Abbas brokered a unity government deal with Hamas, the reviled terrorist organization that vows to destroy Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ended the talks, declaring that Abbas cannot seek peace while sidling next to such a notorious terrorist organization.

Now comes the Holy Father. He wants to bring both sides together for a meeting in the Vatican. Abbas and Israeli President Shimon Peres have been invited.

“The time has come to put an end to this situation which has become increasingly unacceptable,” the pope told Abbas, adding that he was “expressing my closeness to those who suffer most from this conflict.” And who might that be? Some observers believe he is referring to the Palestinians.

If ever there was a time to pray for a solution that has evaded presidents, kings, sultans, imams, rabbis and just about anyone else with a semblance of moral authority in the world, this could be it.

Let’s hope Pope Francis I can deliver some pastoral guidance that helps end a centuries-old conflict.

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Obama got Syria 'right'

Once in a blue moon, politicians get praise from the most unlikely of sources.

Such as when an Israeli prime minister known for his hawkish views relating to anything involving highly hostile neighbors heaps praise on you for not using military force in a crisis.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — the hawk’s hawk — said President Obama was right to back away from his “red line” threat to use force against Syria when it became known that the Syrian government had used poison gas on its citizens.

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-05-22/netanyahu-says-obama-got-syria-right

In an expansive interview with Bloomberg News, Netanyahu said President Obama offered “the one ray of light in a very dark region” when he backed off the threat of force. What happened next, of course, was when the Russians brokered a deal to get the Syrians to turn over their stockpile of chemical weapons.

“We are concerned that they may not have declared all of their capacity. But what has been removed has been removed. We’re talking about 90 percent. We appreciate the effort that has been made and the results that have been achieved,” Netanyahu told Bloomberg’s Jeffrey Goldberg.

Goldberg makes it clear in the interview that Netanyahu and Obama haven’t yet healed the deep rifts between the men, who he writes have a “famously contentious relationship.”

It’s intriguing, though, to hear Netanyahu offer words of encouragement for the use of diplomacy over military action, which is the course sought by Obama in trying to find a path to peace in the Middle East.

Indeed, when someone with Netanyahu’s experience battling next-door enemies who swear to eradicate his country speaks of the virtues of diplomacy, there ought to be lessons learned by other critics who have far less skin in this game. I refer, of course, to Obama’s critics at home who continue to harp on the need to employ “the military option” to solve foreign crises.

The Israeli leader has many issues yet to settle with the United States. For example, Netanyahu wants to continue building Israeli settlements on land taken during the 1967 Six-Day War, something the United States opposes.

However, the cause for diplomacy has chalked up an important ally who has an up-close stake in finding peace in one of the world’s most violent regions.

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Can His Holiness work a miracle in Holy Land?

Pope Francis’s tour of Israel and Jordan is getting some hearts fluttering.

It’s not just that the head of the Catholic Church is making his first trip to the Holy Land. It is that this man who’s been dubbed a “rock star” on the world stage might be able to move Israelis and Arabs closer to a peace deal.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/great-expectations-can-pope-francis-bring-peace-middle-east-n112921

The Holy Father will deliver a Mass in Bethlehem on the West Bank. Just a hunch, but he’ll pack the place with worshipers. His predecessor, Benedict XVI, delivered a Mass in Nazareth in 2009. I had the pleasure of touring the amphitheater built for that event. He drew an overflow crowd in a city that is now 80 percent Muslim. Yes, they came from all over Israel to hear it, but I think you get my point, which is that the pope represents something quite special to folks of all faiths.

Peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority have broken down. PA President Mahmoud Abbas struck a deal that gave Hamas — a notorious terrorist organization — a role in governing the Palestinian Authority, which Israeli Benjamin Netanyahu said correctly was a non-starter for Israel.

Hope is emerging that Francis might be able in private talks to persuade the two sides to resume talks. Indeed, there must be a path to peace and it well might take someone with Francis’s global stature to help the two sides find their way toward that path.

He’ll be there only for a brief time but, hey, miracles can occur in an instant.

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Abbas finally sees light on Holocaust

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has said what most of the rest of the world already knows: The Holocaust committed against Jews in Europe was a dastardly act by the 20th century’s most despicable tyrant.

Now we’re getting somewhere.

http://news.msn.com/world/abbas-calls-holocaust-most-heinous-crime

Abbas made the statement the other day after spending a lifetime denying the Holocaust even occurred.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who’s angry with Abbas for agreeing to a “unity government” that includes the infamous Hamas terror organization, isn’t so sure Abbas’s statement is a sincere belief on his part. He thinks Abbas is trying to make nice because of the agreement with Hamas.

Whatever his motive, Abbas is right to acknowledge what he calls the “most heinous crime of modern history.”

It would be worth the Palestinian president’s time to tour the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum, near Jerusalem. There he will see exhibits depicting in graphic detail what Adolf Hitler and his Nazi murderers did to an estimated 6 million European Jews before and during World War II. He will see evidence of the death camps, the testimonies of survivors, the videos of the corpses discovered by Allied troops who liberated Europe from the Nazis.

Abbas’s statement runs counter to what many Arab leaders have said about the Holocaust. They have denied it or have downplayed its significance to those who fled to Israel after World War II.

He now ought to sit down with other Arab leaders and persuade them of what he has come to understand about the Holocaust.

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Kerry cannot possibly be an anti-Semite

An interesting development has emerged in Secretary of State John Kerry’s difficult struggle to find peace in the Middle East.

It turns out that the angry charges leveled at him by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet members — that Kerry’s promoting “anti-Semitic” notions — cannot possibly be true. Kerry’s family name originally was Kohn and that Kerry’s family has Jewish origins.

Grandpa Kerry/Kohn changed his name and his religion, from Jewish to Catholic, which John Kerry learned shortly before announcing his presidential candidacy in 2003.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/kerrys-brother-johns-not-anti-semitic-were-jewish-n30576

In fact, Cameron Kerry — the secretary of state’s brother — is a practicing Jew to this day, having married a Jewish woman.

Israeli foreign ministry officials, of course, are quite sensitive to any comments they construe to be against their interests. John Kerry said recently that “The risks are very high for Israel” after meeting with Iranian officials about plans to dismantle Iran’s nuclear program. Israeli officials took that to mean Israel needed to watch its step if it continued to threaten Iran with military action.

Naftali Bennett, an industry minister, said, “We expect of our friends in the world to stand by our side against the attempts to impose an anti-Semitic boycott on Israel, and not to be their mouthpiece.”

I understand fully the Israelis’ angst over negotiating with a country that has declared its intention to wipe Israel off the face of the planet. Let us take care, though, to avoid throwing around pejorative terms like “anti-Semitic” where it regards someone whose family roots run deep in the Holy Land.

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Iran must pay huge price for non-compliance

Congress is going to step into the Iranian nuclear program dismantling discussion if the need arises.

Go for it, lawmakers.

http://thehill.com/blogs/global-affairs/middle-eastnorth-africa/191416-congress-prepares-to-punish-tehran

The deal hammered out over the weekend between several of the great powers and Iran calls for the mullahs to take down its nuclear program over time. They must not develop a nuclear weapon. In return Iran will see a partial lifting of economic sanctions that have punished that country’s economy — and which, in my view, have helped bring the Iranians to the negotiating table after years of refusing to discuss their nuclear development program.

Iran has six months to make good on its promises. If it doesn’t, or if it reneges on any element of the agreement, then Congress is going to take action to clamp down even tighter on the Islamic Republic.

The decision to take action if Iran doesn’t comply forestalls any effort to derail the agreement brokered by Secretary of State John Kerry and the Iranian foreign minister. Yes, the agreement has drawn heavy fire from congressional Republicans and Democrats, not to mention from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who calls the agreement a “historic mistake.”

Israel remains prepared to take unilateral military action against Iran if it feels threatened. Who can blame the Israelis, given the constant battles they fight with many of their neighbors who are intent on destroying Israel?

The agreement might not be perfect, but Iran has paid a heavy price already for its refusal to talk — until now — with the rest of the world about its nuclear intentions. As for Israel’s security, Kerry says our nation’s key Middle East ally will remain secure and that the United States will continue to stand foursquare behind it.

Meanwhile, Congress is right to prepare a punishment option to have ready in the event Iran doesn’t comply with the agreement.

The task now is to persuade the Iranians that additional suffering makes it necessary for them to follow through.