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Obama Left Netanyahu
No Other Choice
I
t is hard to get your arms around the
stubborn determination of Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today.
For most of the nine years he has served
as Israel's leader, first 1996-1999 and now
since 2009, Netanyahu shied away from
confrontations or buckled under pressure.
He signed deals with the Palestinians
he knew the Palestinians would never
uphold in the hopes of winning the sup-
port of hostile U.S. administrations and a
fair shake from the pathologically hateful
Israeli media.
In recent years, he released terrorist
murderers from prison. He abrogated
Jewish property rights in Jerusalem, Judea
and Samaria. He agreed to support the
establishment of a Palestinian state west
of the Jordan River. He agreed to keep giv-
ing the Palestinians of Gaza free electrici-
ty while they waged war against Israel. He
did all of these things in a bid to accom-
modate U.S. President Barack Obama and
win over the media while keeping the left-
ist parties in his coalitions happy.
For his part, for the past six years
Obama has undermined Israel's national
security. He has publicly humiliated
Netanyahu repeatedly.
He has delegitimized Israel's very
existence, embracing the jihadist lie that
Israel's existence is the
product of post-Holo-
caust European guilt
rather than 4,000 years
of Jewish history.
He and his representa-
tives have given a back-
wind to the forces that
seek to wage economic
Benjamin
warfare against Israel,
Netanyahu
repeatedly indicating
that the application of
economic sanctions against Israel — ille-
gal under the World Trade Organization
treaties — are a natural response to
Israel's unwillingness to bow to every
Palestinian demand. The same goes for
the movement to deny the legitimacy of
Israel's very existence. Senior administra-
tion officials have threatened that Israel
will become illegitimate if it refuses to
surrender to Palestinian demands.
Last summer, Obama openly colluded
with Hamas' terrorist war against Israel.
He tried to coerce Israel into accept-
ing cease-fire terms that would have
amounted to an unconditional surrender
to Hamas' demands for open borders
and the free flow of funds to the terrorist
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March 5 • 2015
group. He enacted a partial arms embargo
on Israel in the midst of war. He cut off
air traffic to Ben-Gurion International
Airport under specious and grossly preju-
dicial terms in an open act of economic
warfare against Israel.
And yet, despite Obama's scandalous
treatment of Israel, Netanyahu has con-
tinued to paper over differences in public
and thank Obama for the little he has
done on Israel's behalf. He always makes
a point of thanking Obama for agreeing
to Congress' demand to continue funding
the Iron Dome missile defense
system (although Obama has
sought repeatedly to slash
funding for the project).
Israelis were united in our
opposition to Obama's behav-
ior. But Netanyahu said nothing
publicly in criticism of Obama's
destructive, dangerous policy.
He held his tongue in the
hopes of winning Obama over
through quiet diplomacy.
He held his tongue because
he believed that the damage
Obama was causing Israel was
not irreversible in most cases.
And it was better to maintain the guise
of good relations, in the hopes of actually
achieving them, than to expose the frac-
tures in U.S.-Israel ties caused by Obama's
enormous hostility toward Israel and by
his strategic myopia that endangered both
Israel and the U.S: other regional allies.
And yet, now Netanyahu, the serial
accommodator, put everything on the
line. He would not accommodate. He
would not be bullied. He would not be
threatened, even as all the powers that
have grown used to bringing him to his
knees — the Obama administration, the
American Jewish Left, the Israeli media
and the Labor party grow evermore shrill
and threatening in their attacks against
him.
Moment Of Truth
Netanyahu is convinced that Israel has
reached a juncture in its relations with the
Obama administration where accommo-
dation is no longer possible.
Obama's one policy that Netanyahu
has never acquiesced to either publicly or
privately is his policy of accommodating
Iran.
Since Obama's earliest days in office,
Netanyahu has warned openly and behind
closed doors that Obama's plan to forge a
nuclear deal with Iran is dangerous. And
as the years have passed and the lengths
Obama is willing to go to appease Iran's
nuclear ambitions have left their marks
on the region, Netanyahu's warnings have
grown stronger and more urgent.
Until Obama entered office, and to an
ever-escalating degree until his reelection
in 2012, preventing Iran from acquiring
nuclear weapons has been such an obvi-
ous imperative among both Israelis and
Americans that Netanyahu's forthright
rejection of any nuclear deal in which
Iran would be permitted to
maintain the components of its
nuclear program was uncon-
troversial.
In some Israeli circles, his
trenchant opposition to Iran's
acquisition of nuclear capabili-
ties was the object of derision,
with critics insisting that he
was standing strong on some-
thing uncontroversial while
buckling on issues like nego-
tiations with the Palestinians,
where he should have stood
strong.
But now we are seeing that
far from being an opportunist, Netanyahu
is a leader of historical dimensions. For
the past two years, in the interest of
reaching a deal, Obama has enabled Iran
to take over Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and
Yemen. For the first time since 1974, due
to Obama's policies, the Golan Heights is
an active front in the war against Israel,
with Iranian military personnel com-
manding Syrian and Hezbollah forces
along the border.
Iran's single-minded dedication to its
goal of becoming a regional hegemon
and its commitment to its ultimate goal
of destroying the U.S. is being enabled by
Obama's policies of accommodation. An
Iran in possession of a nuclear arsenal is
an Iran that can not only destroy Israel
with just one or two warheads, it can
make it impossible for Israel to respond
to conventional aggression carried out
by terrorist forces and others operating
under an Iranian nuclear umbrella.
Irreversible Damage
Whereas Israel can survive Obama on the
Palestinian front by stalling, waiting him
out and placating him where possible, and
can even survive his support for Hamas by
making common cause with the Egyptian
military and the government of President
Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the damage Obama's
intended deal with Iran will cause Israel
will be irreversible. The moment that
Obama grants Iran a path to a nuclear
arsenal — and the terms of the agreement
that Obama has offered Iran grant Iran
an unimpeded path to nuclear power — a
future U.S. administration will be hard-
pressed to put the genie back in the bottle.
For his efforts to prevent irreparable
harm to Israel, Netanyahu is being sub-
jected to the most brutal and vicious
attacks any Israeli leader has ever been
subjected to by an American administra-
tion and its political allies. They are being
assisted in their efforts by a shameless
Israeli opposition that is willing to endan-
ger the future of the country in order to
seize political power.
Every day brings another serving of
abuse. A week ago, National Security
Adviser Susan Rice accused Netanyahu
of destroying U.S. relations with Israel.
Secretary of State John Kerry effectively
called him a serial alarmist, liar and war-
monger.
For its part, the Congressional Black
Caucus intended to sabotage Netanyahu's
address before the joint houses of
Congress by walking out in the middle,
thus symbolically accusing of racism the
leader of the Middle East's only liberal
democracy and the leader of the most
persecuted people in human history.
Radical leftist representatives, who
happen to be Jewish, like Jan Schakowsky
of suburban Chicago and Steve Cohen of
Memphis, are joining Netanyahu's boycot-
ters in order to give the patina of Jewish
legitimacy to an administration whose
central foreign policy threatens the viabil-
ity of the Jewish state.
Netanyahu did not come to Washington
to warn Congress against Obama's nuclear
deal with Iran because he seeks a fight
with Obama. Netanyahu has devoted
the last six years to avoiding a fight with
Obama, often at great cost to Israel's
national security and to his own political
position.
Netanyahu came to Washington because
Obama has left him no choice. And all
decent people of good will should support
him — and those who do not and those
who are silent should be called out for
their treachery and cowardice.
❑
For an updates on the aftermath of Prime
Minister Netanyahu's speech, go to the IN's
website, www.thejewishnews.corn.