printOn November 20, 2008, I wrote a column titled “Obama’s And Abdullah’s Plans for Israel.” The column pretty much outlined what has come to pass today. Here’s the lead and a little more:
Barack Obama has decided to revive a plot the Saudi Crown Prince hatched in 2002. Abdullah bin Abdulaziz had suggested Israel beat a retreat to the pre-1967 borders, in return for the recognition, whatever that means, of the Arab world.
Back then, Time magazine made the mustachioed monarch its “Man of the Week,” for what it termed his “peace plan.” [Their enthusiasm today is a little more muted.] The Sunday Times now reports that:
“Obama intends to throw his support behind a 2002 Saudi peace initiative endorsed by the Arab League and backed by Tzipi Livni, the Israeli foreign minister and leader of the ruling Kadima party.”
A loose paraphrasing of U.N. resolution 242, this “peace initiative” requires Israel to give the Golan Heights to Syria, which is tantamount to returning land to the aggressors, and “allow the Palestinians to establish a state capital in east Jerusalem.” For its concessions, the Arab League will doff a collective kafia to Israel. As will Israel be given “an effective veto” on the national suicide pact known as the right of return—the imperative to absorb millions of self-styled Palestinian “refugees” into Israel proper.
Understandably, it’s a little tough locating in US media the precise wording of the president’s plan for Israel. But Ha’aretz has it:
U.S. President Barack Obama said Thursday that the U.S. endorses the Palestinians’ demand for their future state to be based on the borders that existed before the 1967 Middle East war.
“The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states,” Obama stressed during a major Mideast policy speech at the State Department.
If it continues to return land to the aggressors, Israel will be in violation of Nullum crimen sine poena, the imperative in international law to punish the aggressor (one that seems to comport quite well with the natural law). Israel has already breached this principle—and its own national self-preservation—by signing and honoring agreements (Oslo I and II) with a terrorist organization (the PLO). Israel has also flouted the “rights of necessity,” as explained by Professor of International Law, Louis Rene Beres:
“[T]his norm was explained with particular lucidity by none other than Thomas Jefferson. In his ‘Opinion on the French Treaties,’ written on April 28, 1793, Jefferson wrote: ‘The nation itself, bound necessarily to whatever its preservation and safety require, cannot enter into engagements contrary to its indispensable obligations.’”
What will Bibi Netanyahu’s do? That’s the question.
UPDATE I: Bibi has booed Obama’s latest decree. The Israeli Prime Minister, however, still used dhimi-like tones, which can only be ditched once Israel cuts the Gordian Knot that ties it to the US (foreign aid).
“Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said on Thursday Israel would object to any withdrawal to “indefensible” borders, adding he expected Washington to allow it to keep major settlement blocs in any peace deal.”
MORE.
UPDATE II: GANGSTA DIPLOMACY. George Will: “Obama’s dilation on the 1967 borders makes matters worse: Borders are what negotiations are supposed to be about, not what is to be stipulated before negotiations.”
Remember Netanyahu’s last visited to the White House? The boorish Obama practically confined the Israeli Prime Minister and his party to the basement. Once again Obama has exhibited contempt for Netanyahu by making this Middle-East statement on the eve of the PM’s visit to the White House. Bibi can hardly bail on the bastard, and so is destined to be diplomatically humiliated again.
UPDATE III (May 20): I’ve just heard Fox News’ Neil Cavuto complaining about Bibi Netanyahu, while reverentially referening to The Saudi Prince, to whom he had just been making overtures. It was quite bizarre. Cavuto had suddenly turned into a defender of the Leader of the Free World (who presides over the largest welfare-warfare state in this “free” world), against the onslaught of the Israeli PM, who dared to lecture the venerable leader (BHO), as follows:
“For there to be peace, the Palestinians will have to accept some basic realities,” Netanyahu said, sitting beside Obama at an appearance with reporters. “The first is that, while Israel is prepared to make generous compromises for peace, it cannot go back to 1967 lines.”
In his speech about Middle East issues Thursday, Obama had reiterated U.S. support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem, suggesting that Israel revert to the territory it held prior to its gains in the Arab-Israeli War of 1967, while allowing for swaps of land between the two future states.
“These were not the boundaries of peace,” Netanyahu said at the White House. “They were the boundaries of repeated wars.”
Netanyahu ought to have given Obama a taste of his own boorishness and canceled his visit to the White House. Instead, he firmly but politely told the president what was what.
Where’s the shock here? From day one Obama has showed the back of his hand to the Israelis while shamelessley sucking up to the Muslims. We know where his allegiance is and it’s not Israel. Heck, it’s not even with the United States.
This has been a bad day. It’s gotten so much worse.
It is quite surprising to hear such speech from a man who is not able to effectively protect the borders in his own country.
As long USA is driving the bus I don’t care who is under it.
Thank you Ilana for the lucidity of this article. I heartily agree with the facts that you have so clearly written down. Israel has fought hard for her land and for her sovereignty. the underhand way in which obama has sneaked this disastrous plan into his wider speech shows the character of the man…he has pro-Moslem leanings stemming from his early education and his paternal background. How did the American public not see this radical intention i.e. the destruction of
israel.You Ilana have said it loud and clear.
ann-Wendy
The buck naked anti-israelism on display by obama is appalling.
Israel needs to sever it’s ties with the USA and go at it with some new allies.
All of these “God bless America” types had better start keeping up with all that America is doing that is absolutely adverse to God’s teaching. Not the least of which is going against Israel. It seems to me that a country that is on thin ice with the creator would not want to become an enemy to God’s chosen people, the Israelis. Instead of following God we are following Obama. Not a very good trade. Instead of all those bumper stickers saying “God bless America” they should be saying “America bless God”.
I realize that Obama has treated Prime Minister Netanyahu badly and that his policy towards Israel and the “peace process” is disasterous, but I wanted to point out that at least since Carter was president, the U.S. has been going down this road of giving the Palestinians a state in the heart of Biblical Israel. Most recently, it was the under the leadership of the favorite of conservatives and Christians in America, George W. Bush, who proposed the plan of the quartet (U.S., E.U., Russia and the U.N.), to partition Israel and give Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem as capital to the Palestinians. Bush even proposed an Israel splitting corridor to connect Gaza and the West Bank! Isn’t Obama just executing the plan that previous administrations also endorsed? What Obama is doing is inexcusable, but so were the devious schemes of earlier administrations concerning Israel.
I am offering 12,000 square feet of land and 2300 square feet of house in Vienna VA to be used for a Palestinian State – President Obama need only send me 694,000 $ and it is his.
It is always the nature of socialists to give from A to B that which they do not have.
Buchanan’s odd “equivalence”. Here is Pat Buchanan:
http://lewrockwell.com/buchanan/buchanan164.html
“Palestinian protesters approached the fence separating Lebanon and Israel and climbed the fence on the Israeli-occupied Golan heights to come and reclaim Palestinian lands. Fifteen to 20 were shot to death and scores were wounded by Israeli troops.
Though the White House backed Israel, across Europe what Israel did to these protesters seemed exactly what the king of Bahrain and the president of Yemen had done to theirs.”
Pat does not distinguish between citizens protesting in their own country and INVADERS broaching a border!! But this is rather typical of most people who discuss Israel – one standard for everyone else and a second standard for the “Zionist Entity”.
Unfortunately, Bibi thinks that Jordan ought to be the Palestinian homeland. Perhaps the Palestinians are not God’s “chosen people,” but they do have some rights to their homeland. I personally prefer the “one state” solution, an Israel with “one man,one vote.” Over time its the Palestinians who have been “thrown under the bus”