I thought Kerry’s speech was excellent, the best explanation a senior official has made about why settlements are poison. As Kerry notes, Israel is on a path that increasingly makes a two-state solution impossible, and at that point if it wants to remain a Jewish state it will not be a democracy and will have no chance of enduring peace.
It’s not that if the settlement policy ended, peace would break out. Bibi Netanyahu is right that there are other obstacles on the Palestinian side. But we should work toward a situation where peace is possible in 20 years — and settlements foreclose that possibility.
.. it’s already striking that the most consistent supporters of current Israeli policies are not American Jews but rather American evangelicals. That trend is likely to continue under Trump and his extremist pick for ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, a strong supporter of settlements.
Why do so many people believe the United Nations to be a tribune of virtue?
The women are both tough and beautiful. And, most of all, Israelis persevere.
Still, I find arguments about Israel incredibly tedious. What I mean is my position on Israel is pretty close to my position on, say, Great Britain, Japan, or Australia. It’s a democratic country. It respects the rule of law. It’s a strategic ally. And, that’s sort of about it.
.. Also, because I find so many anti-Israeli arguments and politics so fundamentally dishonest, flawed, and — quite often — repugnant, it’s easy to get really worked up on the topic.
.. I love how Israel’s critics make such a fuss about Israel’s military superiority as if it has nothing to worry about. If you’re walking into a saloon where everybody wants to kill you, you might walk in better armed than everybody else. If Israel loses a single war, it loses everything.
.. Even if we “lost” WWII, the idea that the Germans or Japanese would or could conquer North America is highly debatable. I would like to think that our culture could stay as free and democratic as Israel’s if we were under constant threat of military annihilation.
.. Whenever Israel is attacked, her critics bemoan the heavy-handedness of its military responses. Even in the bad cases, I tend to marvel at Israel’s restraint. Israel is a perfect example of how lefties shout “Violence never solves anything!” only when the good guys use violence.
.. It needs to be remembered that the U.N. hates Israel because it is in the political interests of member states, particularly Arab states, which use Palestinians as a distraction from their own despotisms, to hate Israel. Think of all the horrors and crimes committed by evil governments around the world. Now think about the fact that from 2006 to 2015 alone the U.N. has condemned Israel 62 times. All of the other nations combinedhave received 55 condemnations. Iran? Five. The genocidal Sudanese? Zero. Anarchic Somalia? Zero. Saudi Arabia? Zero. Pakistan? Zero. China? Zero. Russia? Zero.
The U.N., more than any other player save the Palestinian leadership itself, is responsible for the horrible plight of the Palestinians because it is in its institutional interest to keep the issue alive. After World War II, there were untold millions of refugees all around the world; they all found homes and settled down — except for the Palestinians.
David Friedman: First 100 days under Hillary
This election places our commitment to the State of Israel front and center. Just as our ancestors did for us, let us do all we can to make Israel safe and secure.
.. The Clinton machine has done a spectacular job manipulating the liberal media against Donald Trump. While the revelation of Mr. Trump’s demeaning comments caught on tape some 11 years ago brought him, as one would expect, widespread negative attention, The New York Times ran with the story with all the journalistic integrity of the worst gossip rag. If only the Times had reported on the Nazi death camps with the same fervor as its failed last-minute attempt to conjure up alleged victims of Donald Trump, imagine how many lives could have been saved. But the Times has never been committed to the unvarnished truth and its priorities have never included causes important to Israel or the Jewish people.
.. if Hillary Clinton wins the election, she will have prevailed because of the efforts by the Times and others to conceal, and where concealment was impossible, to justify, her criminal activity, conflicts of interest, failed policies, and support for our enemies.
.. As it revealed just two weeks ago, the Times favors convening a session of the United Nations Security Council to impose upon Israel the world’s “resolution” of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The United Nations, as advocated by the Times, should set the borders of the two states, determine how many “refugees” may flood into Israel, and proceed to divide Jerusalem into an Israeli capital and a Palestinian one.
.. Early in her tenure as secretary of state, Clinton jump-started the Obama administration’s hostility toward Israel by foolishly demanding that Israel undertake a unilateral construction freeze in Judea and Samaria without requiring any Palestinian concessions in return.
.. she relies extensively upon Huma Abedin, who grew up in Saudi Arabia and has well-established ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, and she selected as her running mate an Israel-basher (and as obnoxious a debater as America has ever seen) who led the walkout of eight US senators boycotting Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech to Congress.
.. I have pointed out the dramatic contrast between the Republican National Platform – the most pro-Israel platform by either party in American history – and the Democratic one.
.. I have also noted, on numerous occasions, that president Trump will trust Israel to seek peace as best it can, and will not attempt to impose a “twostate solution,” or any other “solution,” against the wishes of the democratically elected Israeli government.
.. BECAUSE IF HILLARY CLINTON IS ELECTED, THE PRO-ISRAEL AMERICAN JEWISH COMMUNITY IS GOING TO START TO FEEL A LOT LIKE THE JEWS OF FRANCE.
.. under president Trump, Israel will feel no pressure to make self-defeating concessions, America and Israel will enjoy unprecedented military and strategic cooperation, and there will be no daylight between the two countries.
.. the vibrancy and sanctity of Jerusalem
.. We have been entrusted a legacy by the greatest of generations that preceded us to ensure that Israel survives and flourishes as a light unto the nations
The Obama Administration’s Final Warning On The Middle East Peace Process
The vain and bullying persona that Donald Trump projects online and in three dimensions is consistent: he is convinced that all that is required to restore the globe to a state of order and prosperity is his own good self. “The world was gloomy before I won—there was no hope,” he tweeted on the day after Christmas. “Now the market is up nearly 10% and Christmas spending is over a trillion dollars!” He is both the Prince of Peace and the savior of the Nasdaq index.
.. Trump is prepared to insert himself into any argument—even if it is a century old and endlessly complex—with half a thought and a hundred and forty characters.
.. Daniel Kurtzer, who was Ambassador to Egypt under Bill Clinton and Ambassador to Israel under George W. Bush, told me that he was appalled both by Trump’s presumption and Netanyahu’s collusion.
“We are in uncharted waters—a President-elect trying to make policy and a foreign leader conspiring with that President-elect to undercut a sitting President,” Kurtzer said. “But such are the times.
.. The political center of gravity in Israel has been moving to the right for many years, so much so that the greatest threat to Netanyahu’s personal power comes from politicians and parties who support some form of annexation of the West Bank or some form of one-state resolution in which the Palestinians do not have full civil rights. And even though Netanyahu has paid lip service to a final settlement and two states for two peoples, he always, given a choice between power and principle, acts to preserve his power.
.. the Administration had been “alarmed” by many of Trump’s appointments to his national-security team—notably the appointment of Michael Flynn as national-security adviser—but the selection of Friedman was “over the top.”
.. “He put his political and charitable support directly into the settlements; he compares Jews on the left to the kapos in the concentration camps—it just put it over the top.”
.. The Israelis—right, center, and left—have long been wary of the U.N., a venue that once upheld the notion that Zionism is a form of racism and passes relatively frequent condemnations of Israeli actions, but which does not have the political wherewithal to sanction Russia for bombing hospitals and aide convoys in Syria or countless other states for their more heartless and illegal transgressions.
.. Netanyahu’s argument, and that of those to his right as well, is that Israel cannot relinquish the “strategic depth” provided by the West Bank when the “neighborhood” is either in flames (Syria), unstable (Jordan, Egypt), or hostile (take your pick).
Moreover, he argues that the Palestinians, thanks to the anti-Israeli incitement of their schoolbooks and politicians and propaganda, will never be satisfied with a two-state solution; what they want is greater Palestine, all of Palestine—not merely Ramallah and Jenin and Nablus but Haifa and Safed and Afula. That is Netanyahu’s argument for the status quo.
.. he went on, what the Secretary of State failed to recognize was that the conflict with the Palestinians “has always been about Israel’s right to exist.”