Commuting the sentence of Chelsea Manning, one of the great traitors of our time, is finger-in-the-eye willfulness. Obama took 28 years off the sentence of a soldier who stole and then released through WikiLeaks almost half a million military reports plus another quarter-million State Department documents.
.. The cables were embarrassing; the military secrets were almost certainly deadly. They jeopardized the lives not just of American soldiers on two active fronts — Iraq and Afghanistan — but of locals who were, at great peril, secretly aiding and abetting us. After Manning’s documents release, the Taliban “went on a killing spree”
.. Even the word “leaker” is misleading. Leak makes it sound like a piece of information a whistleblower gives Woodward and Bernstein to expose misdeeds in high office. This was nothing of the sort. It was the indiscriminate dumping of a mountain of national-security secrets certain to bring harm to American troops, allies, and interests.
.. What makes this commutation so spectacularly in-your-face is its hypocrisy. Here is a president who spent weeks banging the drums over the harm inflicted by WikiLeaks with its release of stolen materials and e-mails during the election campaign. He demanded a report immediately. He imposed sanctions on Russia. He preened about the sanctity of the American political process.
.. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. who went on to be a great Democratic senator, once argued passionately that in the anti-American, anti-democratic swamp of the U.N., America should act unwaveringly in opposition and never give in to the jackals. Obama joined the jackals. Why? To curry favor with the international Left? After all, Obama leaves office as a relatively young man of 55. His next chapter could very well be as a leader on the international stage, perhaps at the U.N. (secretary-general?) or some transnational (ostensibly) human-rights organization. What better demonstration of bona fides than a gratuitous attack on Israel?
.. A more likely explanation, however, is that these are acts not of calculation but of authenticity. This is Obama being Obama. He leaves office as he came in: a man of the Left, but possessing the intelligence and discipline to suppress his more radical instincts. As of November 9, 2016, suppression was no longer necessary.
.. We’ve just gotten a glimpse of his real self. From now on, we shall see much more of it.
Israel as the Lights Go Out
Israel went right on planning housing for tens of thousands more settlers while absorbing “more than one half of our entire global foreign military financing,”
.. But let’s be clear on the settlements. They may or may not constitute a primary cause of the conflict, but they do demonstrate Israel’s decades-long commitment to building in a way that makes a viable Palestinian state impossible. You cannot be a Palestinian in the West Bank watching the steady growth of Israeli settlements, outposts and barriers without concluding that Israel’s occasional murmurings about a two-state peace are mere camouflage for a project whose objective is to control all the land in perpetuity without annexing it. Annexation would be awkward; some 2.75 million Palestinians would demand the vote. Better to play games and let millions of strangers squirm.
Israeli Soldier Convicted in Death of Palestinian Attacker
Israeli Soldier Convicted in Death of Palestinian Attacker
.. The shooting was captured on video and quickly became a focus of the controversy ..
.. Using knives, guns and vehicles, Palestinians carried out more than 300 attacks against Israelis between September 2015 and last summer. More than 40 people were killed and hundreds wounded in the assaults, according to Israeli officials. More than 200 Palestinians were also killed, most after attacking Israelis, Palestinian officials said.
.. During Mr. Azaria’s trial, prosecutors argued that he was fully in control of his actions when he shot the Palestinian. He posted anti-Palestinian views on social media before joining the army, Israeli media reported.
Mr. Azaria’s lawyers argued that he acted in self-defense, fearing the attacker might still be able to trigger an explosive vest.
In an August 2016 survey conducted by Tel Aviv University and the Israel Democracy Institute, 65% of Israeli Jews said Mr. Azaria’s actions were justified under the circumstances, while 25% supported the military’s view.
Israeli government projects ‘ethnic cleansing’ on Palestinians
“I’m sure many of you have heard the claim that Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, the West Bank, are an obstacle to peace. I’ve always been perplexed by this notion. Because no one would seriously claim that the nearly two million Arabs living inside Israel, that they are an obstacle to peace. That’s because they aren’t. On the contrary. Israel’s diversity shows its openness and readiness for peace.
Yet the Palestinian leadership actually demands a Palestinian state with ONE precondition: No Jews.