Egypt is Free?

Those words “Egypt is Free” less the question mark appeared as the headline banner on today’s Los Angeles Daily News. A very nice thought but it just isn’t true.

Egypt has been transformed but to what? Hosni Mubarak was a dictator who was from the ranks of the Egyptian military. Now that Mr. Mubarak is gone, probably by a bloodless coup, the military is in charge. It is the same military that supported Gamel Abdel Nasser and Anwar El Sadat. As of yesterday , Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces is the president.

Mohamed Hussein Tantawi

The first President of Egypt was Muhammad Naguib, one of the leaders of the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, who took office on 18 June 1953, the day on which Egypt was declared a republic. He was a military officer who led the revolt against King Farouk.

Does anyone really believe there will be a democracy in Egypt? The military is in control as it has been since the 1952 revolution and there is no evidence that their leadership will surrender authority. The most Egyptians can hope for is a less authoritarian leadership.

Apparently I am not alone in my opinion. Egypt’s Military Leaders Face Power Sharing Test is a column in the February 11, 2011 New York Times.

Egypt – Oh! It’s Just Another Protest

February 9, 2011: What part of this Daily Beast summary from Reuters do you believe?

The third week of protests in Egypt could be the biggest: Following Tuesday’s enormous demonstrations, in which record numbers of protesters poured into Cairo’s Tahrir Square and Google executive Wael Ghonim spoke, the opposition to President Hosni Mubarak is organizing another big protest for Friday. The White House, meanwhile, had Joe Biden push Vice President Omar Suleiman to end Egypt’s 30-year emergency law and for “prompt, meaningful, peaceful, and legitimate” transition. The BBC says the U.S. is no longer focusing on President Hosni Mubarak’s future, but rather pushing for concrete reforms.

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The United States is the leader of the free world. Most of our presidents throughout the 20th century espoused the idea of democracy but made deals with dictators. Both President Barack Obama and former President George W. Bush have been outspoken advocates of spreading democracy. Most recently it was George W. Bush who insisted that removing Saddam Hussein as the dictator of Iraq would spread democracy throughout the Middle East. So America can’t back down. The problem is the confrontation between America’s political values and its economic interests.

Look at the results of democracy in the Middle East. Iran now has a theocracy with a government that does not permit free elections. Gaza had free elections that the United States supported and the consequence is Hamas in control and little chance there will ever be another free election. Iraq’s government is in turmoil because too many people in that country do not subscribe to the idea that there are winners and loser in every election.

We have seen uprisings before and few have ended as we had hoped. The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 ended with the Chinese army killing several hundred people. The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was a spontaneous nationwide revolt against the government but ended when the army and security forces killed 41 people. The uprising in Tahrir Square, Cairo will most likely end as those two events did. There is no indication that anyone will remove the government of Hosni Mubarak.

I believe that U.S. economic and security interests will prevail within the American federal government. Thus next February all of this will be just a memory. Perhaps this will be a lesson to Obama and subsequent presidents.

Canada Is Booming

Canada’s population is less than the population of California. They released their jobs report on Friday for January. As the United States created 36,000 jobs, Canada created 69,200 jobs. In other words a country that is very similar to the United States but apparently different is flourishing. The consequence is that American dollar is now worth less than the Canadian dollar by one cent. Ten years ago the Canadian dollar could be bought for 75 cents. One year ago the Canadian dollar cost 90 cents.

What are they doing in Canada that the United States isn’t doing?

The Problems Egypt Still Face

This analysis by The Jerusalem Post is well written and should be taken seriously.

—

By BARRY RUBIN
02/02/2011 04:48
There’s a lot of confusion about the Egyptian crisis, yet it is vital that people understand what is at stake.

The first issue is whether only the ruler or the entire regime is going to fall. The mere resignation of President Hosni Mubarak from office would not be a huge problem. Vice President Omar Suleiman or someone else will take over, the regime will make adjustments to build support (and probably repress the Muslim Brotherhood) and Egypt’s policy – certainly its foreign policy – remains relatively unchanged.

But if the entire regime falls, this would lead to a period of anarchy – bad – or a new regime – worse.

There are some huge problems:
• The moderates’ weakness. There are no well-organized moderate groups with a big base of support. Can any such politicians compete with the highly organized, disciplined Muslim Brotherhood which knows precisely what it wants? Indeed, the muchtouted Mohamed ElBardai is a weak and ineffectual man with no political experience whatsoever. Many of the activists who have backed his candidacy are themselves Islamists.

Indeed, many of the non-Islamist “moderates” are not so moderate. In sharp contrast to reformers in other Arab countries, many of the Egyptian “democrats” are themselves quite radical, especially in terms of anti-American and anti-Israel thinking.

• The public’s radicalism. According to a recent Pew Research Center poll, the Egyptian public is extremely radical even in comparison to Jordan’s or Lebanon’s. When asked whether they preferred “Islamists” or “modernizers,” the score was 59 percent to 27% in favor of the Islamists. In addition, 20% said they liked al-Qaida; 30%, Hizbullah; 49%, Hamas. And this was at a time that their government daily propagandized against these groups.

How about religious views? Egyptian Muslims said the following: 82% want adulterers punished with stoning; 77% want robbers to be whipped and have their hands amputated; 84% favor the death penalty for any Muslim who changes his religion.

So how is such a radical public going to vote and what policies would they support? The Muslim Brotherhood is likely to be very popular while one would think secular moderates in suits and ties would not be able to compete in elections.

• The economy’s fragility. In a country like Saudi Arabia, a government can buy off opposition. Not so in Egypt, a place where there are few resources (some oil, Suez Canal) and too many people. So how is a government going to make the public happy? It won’t be able to offer greatly improved living standards, more jobs, and better housing. Instead, demagoguery is likely – as it has so often done before in the Arab world – to be the means of gaining votes and keeping the masses out of the streets.

This means the Islamization to some degree of social life, and waves of hatred against Israel and America, the Middle East equivalent of bread (subsidies for food will be increased, but how to pay for them?) and circuses. Moderate governments thrive usually when they can offer benefits. This is very unlikely in Egypt.

• The Islamists’ strength and extremism. If someone tells you that the Muslim Brotherhood is mild and moderate, don’t believe it. In its speeches and publications, it pours forth vitriol and hatred. Making the Shari’a the sole source of legislation for Egypt is one of its most basic demands. The rights of Christians and women (at least those who don’t want to live within radical Islamist rules) are going to decline in a country ruled by the Brotherhood, even as part of the coalition.

As for foreign policy, is the alliance with the United States and the peace treaty with Israel going to survive under such a regime? Maybe but why should that happen? And of course, the regime will support revolutionary Islamists elsewhere. Even ElBardei wants an alliance with Hamas. Such a regime will not be friendly toward the Palestinian Authority or oppose Iranian expansionism (even though it might well hate Iran as Shi’ites).

And what will the effect be on the rest of the region? Everyone will know – Israel and moderate Arabs alike – that they cannot depend on the United States. Revolutionary Islamists would be emboldened to subvert Morocco and Tunisia, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. With an Islamist-ruled Lebanon (for all practical purposes, if only unofficially), Gaza Strip, Iran and Turkey, and with Syrian participation, what will happen in the Middle East?

The worst kind of disaster is one that isn’t recognized as such.

Again, this has nothing much to do whether Mubarak himself stays or not, and everything to do with whether the Egyptian regime stays or not.

The writer is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal.

Hillary Clinton, Dealing with the Devil

Hillary Clinton appeared on Five Sunday Morning TV Talk Shows today. I presume her purpose was to reassure Americans, Israelis, and other Middle East nations that everything is going to OK in Egypt. I saw her on three of those appearances and she said almost the same thing on each program. It’s what she did not say that is of concern. She did not tell the audience of any contingency plans if Egyptians are killed in the streets by police or soldiers. She did not tell of any plans if Islamic extremists take control of Egypt. She did not discuss the possible revocation of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty that has been in place for 30 years.

In other words, no one, outside of the American government, knows what plans have been made to confront the possible consequences of the ouster of Hosni Mubarak as president of Egypt.

The troubling fact is that Egyptian soldiers stood in their U.S. made Abrams tanks as people protest in Tahrir Square in Cairo. Police used U.S. made tear gas to quell the crowds. Is it just possible that Egyptians will remember who provided the military ammunition and hardware that has sustained a 30 year dictator?

The United States keeps making deals with despots and dictators as long as they support America’s point of view. In other words American administrations make deals with devils and hope those devils will not attempt to collect. Does America really support the idea of real democracy everywhere in the world? Probably not. The United States wants nations who will support American interests.

The Price of Democracy

Egyptian anti-government activists

It is astonishing that a wave of public demand for freedom is spreading across the Arabic world. First starting in Tunisia and spreading to Yemen and Egypt. There is talk on CNN that this public uprising could spread to many other Arabic nations. This is a situation that President George W. Bush publicly promoted.

One of President George W. Bush’s stated reasons for starting the war in Iraq was to bring democracy to that country. He stated in December 2006 that “[We] are committed to a strategic goal of a free Iraq that is democratic, that can govern itself, defend itself and sustain itself.” More broadly, the Bush Administration had viewed democracy promotion as an instrument for combating terrorism.

It was the United States that supported free elections in Gaza. The consequence is a government that has as its primary goal the destruction of Israel.

The United States has historically wanted to support democracy around the world but simultaneously has partnered with dictators that have given themselves the title of president. It’s a title that dictators believe gives them legitimacy and the prestige of public support.

What will America’s view of democracy in other nations be if Arabic nations overthrow their dictators and kings and replace them with Islamic governments that oppose our positions and views?

Military Industrial Complex

Robert Gates, Secretary of Defense, flies to China to discuss China’s growing military size with the Chinese. Is he likely to convince them that they should not build an ever larger military organization? Obviously the answer is no. As he travels there he warns America by way of releases to the press of China’s growing military strength. Those releases telling all of us that the Chinese could become a threat to America.

The six largest military contractors earned $222 Billion in 2009. Those companies employ lots of people and are spread throughout the country. What’s the likelihood we will reduce defense spending? Not likely given the income and jobs that are at stake.

		Billions of Dollar Revenue in 2009
Lockheed Martin		45
Boeing		34
Northrop Grumman		34
Raytheon		24
General Dynamics		32
United Technologies		53
TOTAL REVENUE		222

GOP Plays Politics with the New START Treaty

The Senate’s top two Republicans announced their opposition to the New START nuclear treaty with Russia this weekend, putting into question the fate of President Obama’s top national security priority for the close of his first term.

Despite their opposition the treaty appears to be on a path to approval.

The treaty calls for the resumption of nuclear controls that until now have had bipartisan support.

Minority leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Jon Kyl of Arizona took to the Sunday chat shows, arguing that Democrats were trying to push the treaty through too hastily.

“Rushing it right before Christmas, it strikes me as trying to jam us,” said McConnell on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Some Senate Republicans have signaled that they may vote for the treaty and the White House has been working furiously to win over the nine Republicans needed to ratify the agreement, but the NY Times notes that a “sour mood” has spread through Capitol Hill’s Republican ranks after the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” on Saturday. One GOP Senator whom Democrats had hoped would support the treaty, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that the lame duck session had been “poisoned” and that advocates of the treaty should “start over and do it in the next Congress.”

The Senator is full of crap. The bottom line is simple and he knows it: The prospect of President Obama achieving another victory in the lame-duck session is not exactly on the top of the GOP Christmas list.

The conservatives are whining that about hastiness? We’ve had eight months, 17 committee hearings and over a thousand questions asked about this treaty –a treaty that’s only 17 pages long. Seventeen pages that have been on both McConnell and Kyle’s desks for most of 2010, and now they’re arguing that Democrats were trying to push the treaty through too hastily.

They haven’t read it? If they haven’t read it yet, maybe they need to be fired. They aren’t doing even the most basic functions of their jobs.

The only thing they have against this treaty is that it will be another victory for Obama. There is no valid reason to oppose this treaty other than to try and make Obama look ineffectual.

If you doubted that Republicans could be so craven as to put their own political interests above national security, there’s your proof.

Who would’ve thought that the party whose ideology is supposedly rooted in national security is now holding our nuclear security hostage solely to weaken or embarrass the president? Public-spirited Republicans should demand that the treaty move forward as planned.

The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) is a consensus document. Obama went to great lengths to win the support of the military, the State Department and a broad range of Republicans and Democrats.

Anyone who thinks there’s something wrong with this treaty needs to take it up with people who know far more than you and certainly who know far more than elected officials whose best skill is playing politics.

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice supports the treaty. So do other prominent Republicans including George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, James Baker and Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee.

Every member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff strongly backs it. The chairman, Admiral Mike Mullen, has said, “I believe — and the rest of the military leadership in this country believes — that this treaty is essential to our future security.”

You oppose the treaty? Ask those experts why they support it. Then ask yourself why their word isn’t good enough for you.

The treaty would require that Russia and the United States cut back on nuclear arsenals and would allow the United States to resume inspecting Russia’s nuclear facilities, a right that lapsed last December for the first time since the Cold War. Does anyone really want Russia shuffling its nuclear weapons around without inspections? Even a year’s gap has put us in greater danger of materials falling into the wrong hands.

The intrusion of partisan politics into national security is a break with tradition. The opposition party in Congress, whether Democrat or Republican, has long set politics aside so that the country could present a united front to other nations. Lacking trust, we will have fewer allies and partners. Does anyone really think we can go it alone in today’s world?

Obama went to extraordinary lengths to iron out areas of disagreement with Kyl, knowing two-thirds of senators must approve the treaty. The president had no fewer than 29 meetings, phone calls or exchanges with the Arizona senator and his staff, White House documents show. The sticking point seemed to be Kyl’s sense that the United States needs to go to greater lengths to modernize its nuclear arsenal (at the expense of the deficit). So the president offered to add $80 billion to the budget for that purpose.

So how did Kyl respond? He disrespectfully blindsided the president last month, timing the announcement of his opposition to embarrass Obama just before he left for Portugal for a NATO summit.

Kyl is taking his marching orders from Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, who openly proclaims that Republicans’ top priority for the next two years is to defeat Obama.

If this isn’t a clear demonstration of putting the quest for party power ahead of the good of the country, what is?

http://www.examiner.com/populist-in-national/gop-shamelessly-plays-politics-with-the-new-start-treaty

Reality Check

I agree with Mr. Friedman’s opinion. Will American Jews stay quiet and let this play out?, David Bancroft

From the New York Times on December 11, 2010

Reality Check By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

The failed attempt by the U.S. to bribe Israel with a $3 billion security assistance package, diplomatic cover and advanced F-35 fighter aircraft — if Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu would simply agree to a 90-day settlements freeze to resume talks with the Palestinians — has been enormously clarifying. It demonstrates just how disconnected from reality both the Israeli and the Palestinian leaderships have become.

Oil is to Saudi Arabia what unconditional American aid and affection are to Israel — and what unconditional Arab and European aid and affection are to the Palestinians: a hallucinogenic drug that enables them each to think they can defy the laws of history, geography and demography. It is long past time that we stop being their crack dealers. At a time of nearly 10 percent unemployment in America, we have the Israelis and the Palestinians sitting over there with their arms folded, waiting for more U.S. assurances or money to persuade them to do what is manifestly in their own interest: negotiate a two-state deal. Shame on them, and shame us. You can’t want peace more than the parties themselves, and that is exactly where America is today. The people running Israel and Palestine have other priorities. It is time we left them alone to pursue them — and to live with the consequences.

They just don’t get it: we’re not their grandfather’s America anymore. We have bigger problems. Israeli and Palestinian negotiators should take a minute and put the following five words into Google: “budget cuts and fire departments.” Here’s what they’ll find: American city after city — Phoenix, Cincinnati, Austin, Washington, Jacksonville, Sacramento, Philadelphia — all having to cut their fire departments. Then put in these four words: “schools and budget cuts.” One of the top stories listed is from The Christian Science Monitor: “As state and local governments slash spending and federal stimulus dries up, school budget cuts for the next academic year could be the worst in a generation.”

I guarantee you, if someone came to these cities and said, “We have $3 billion we’d like to give to your schools and fire departments if you’ll just do what is manifestly in your own interest,” their only answer would be: “Where do we sign?” And so it should have been with Israel.

Israel, when America, a country that has lavished billions on you over the last 50 years and taken up your defense in countless international forums, asks you to halt settlements for three months to get peace talks going, there is only one right answer, and it is not “How much?” It is: “Yes, whatever you want, because you’re our only true friend in the world.”

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, what are you thinking? Ehud Olmert, the former Israeli prime minister, offered you a great two-state deal, including East Jerusalem — and you let it fritter away. Now, instead of chasing after Obama and telling him you’ll show up for negotiations anywhere under any conditions that the president asks, you’re also setting your own terms. Here’s some free advice: When America goes weak, if you think the Chinese will deliver Israel for you, you’re wrong. I know China well. It will sell you out for a boatload of Israeli software, drones and microchips so fast that your head will spin.

I understand the problem: Israeli and Palestinian leaders cannot end the conflict between each other without having a civil war within their respective communities. Netanyahu would have to take on the settlers and Abbas would have to take on Hamas and the Fatah radicals. Both men have silent majorities that would back them if they did, but neither man feels so uncomfortable with his present situation to risk that civil war inside to make peace outside. There are no Abe Lincolns out there.

What this means, argues the Hebrew University philosopher Moshe Halbertal, is that the window for a two-state solution is rapidly closing. Israel will end up permanently occupying the West Bank with its 2.5 million Palestinians. We will have a one-state solution. Israel will have inside its belly 2.5 million Palestinians without the rights of citizenship, along with 1.5 million Israeli Arabs. “Then the only question will be what will be the nature of this one state — it will either be apartheid or Lebanon,” said Halbertal. “We will be confronted by two horrors.”

The most valuable thing that President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton could do now is just get out of the picture — so both leaders and both peoples have an unimpeded view of their horrible future together in one state, if they can’t separate. We must not give them any more excuses, like: “Here comes the secretary of state again. Be patient. Something is happening. We’re working on a deal. We’re close. If only the Americans weren’t so naïve, we were just about to compromise. … Be patient.”

It’s all a fraud. America must get out of the way so Israelis and Palestinians can see clearly, without any obstructions, what reckless choices their leaders are making. Make no mistake, I am for the most active U.S. mediation effort possible to promote peace, but the initiative has to come from them. The Middle East only puts a smile on your face when it starts with them.

Canada’s Harper and Obama on Israel

This is an interesting article from the Jerusalem Post. Notice that the author’s focus in this article isn’t only that Obama has forsaken Israel as an ally of the U.S., but that he’s forsaken our neighbor and ally for 100+ years, Canada. Now that’s food for thought!

The divide between the world’s two largest Jewish Communities, the U.S. and Israel, is widening every day. All because in the overwhelming majority of U.S. Jews are only willing to tolerate the Left’s way of looking at the world. The Jewish Community of Israel actually has a balance of public opinion, with Left and Right, and even Independent voters in fairly high numbers. How refreshing! How normal!

by Isi Leibler
November 18, 2010

Having recently visited the US and Canada, I was left with a feeling of profound disquiet concerning the starkly contrasting attitudes toward Israel displayed by the leaders of these two neighboring countries.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has unquestionably emerged as Israel’s greatest friend in the world, effectively assuming the role previously occupied by former Australian prime minister John Howard.

Harper’s principled approach to Israel was demonstrated in an extraordinary address he gave in Ottawa to an interparliamentary conference for combating anti-Semitism. Courageously dismissing the traditional political correctness expressed by many liberals, who feel obliged to distance themselves from the Jewish state, Harper made it clear that under his leadership Canada would not “pretend” to be impartial on Israel even if that meant facing negative repercussions at the UN and other international organizations.

He said that the persecution of Jews had become a global phenomenon in which anti-Semitic ideologies targeted the Jewish people in their “homeland” and perversely exploited the “language of human rights to do so.” He stressed that “while Israel is the only country in the world under attack, is consistently and conspicuously singled out for condemnation, I believe we are morally obligated to take a stand.

“I know this because I have the bruises to show for it, that whether it is at the UN or any other international forum, the correct thing to do is simply to just go along with this anti-Israeli rhetoric, to pretend it is just about being evenhanded, and to excuse oneself with the label of ‘honest broker’… There are after all, a lot more votes in being anti- Israel than taking a stand.

“But as long as I am prime minister, whether it is at the UN or anywhere else, Canada will take that stand, whatever the cost. Not just because it is the right thing to do but because history shows us that the ideology of the anti-Israeli mob tells us all too well, that those who threaten the existence of the Jewish people are a threat to us all.”

Canada was in fact “punished” for its support of Israel when it was ignominiously defeated by Portugal, an almost bankrupt country, in its attempt to obtain a seat at the UN Security Council. All 57 seats of the Organization of the Islamic Conference opposed the Canadian nomination.

For some, Canada’s defeat under such circumstances will be viewed as a badge of honor. But what made Canada’s defeat even more outrageous was the role of the US. According to Richard Grenfell, a former press officer with the US mission to the UN, “US State Department insiders say that US Ambassador Susan Rice not only didn’t campaign for Canada’s election but instructed American diplomats to not get involved in the weekend leading up to the heated contest.”

David Frum, a speechwriter to former president George W. Bush, also noted that “the US government has kept awfully quiet about the suggestion that it went missing during the Security Council vote.”

The US betrayal of its neighbor and long-standing ally is a chilling indication of the depths to which the Obama administration has stooped in its efforts to “engage” and appease Islamic and Third World rogue states.

Having joined the appallingly misnamed UN Human Rights Council dominated by dictatorships and Islamic nations, the US is now beginning to reap the harvest from this flawed policy. This was exemplified this month during the council’s first “universal periodic review of human rights.” In a session where US representative Esther Brimmer told the group that “it is an honor to be in the chamber,” Cuba described the US blockade of Cuba as a “crime of genocide”; Iran, a country which stones women for adultery, urged the US “to combat violence against women”; and Libya complained about US “racism, racial discrimination and intolerance.”

In the midst of this and despite repeated assurances concerning the “unbreakable bond of friendship” between the US and Israel, Obama is continuing to flex his muscles by beating up on Israel. Yet, his Middle East policies, which run counter to American public opinion, have failed disastrously, with US approval levels in the Muslim world even plummeting below 2008 levels.

Obama’s most recent assault on Israel was conveyed from his childhood home, Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, the largest Islamic country in the world, which he praised as a model of tolerance worthy of global emulation.

While compared to Arab standards, Islamic Indonesia may be relatively tolerant, the president overlooked the recent opinion polls, in which 25 percent of the population expressed confidence in the leadership of Osama bin Laden, and that between 2004 and 2007, 110 Christian churches were closed due to pressure from local governments. In January of this year, 1,000 Muslims burned down two churches in Sumatra.

Needless to say, Indonesia does not recognize Israel, bans Israeli aircraft from flying over Indonesian territory and denies entry visas to Israeli citizens. It is especially galling that from such a country, Obama again saw fit to distance the US from Israel and aggressively condemn the Jewish state for building homes in the exclusively Jewish suburbs of its capital Jerusalem.

We must ask ourselves what endgame the US administration is pursuing. Obama knows that former prime ministers Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert offered the Palestinians everything and that they still refused to reach an accommodation because their ultimate objective remains the delegitimization of Jewish sovereignty. What they now seek is a non-demilitarized state based on the 1949 armistice lines to provide them or other Arab states with a launching pad to attack and destabilize Israel. Not surprisingly, the Europeans are more than happy to accept such a state of affairs. It would thus be catastrophic for the Obama administration to stand aside and enable this process to eventuate.

Yet, all indicators suggest that the Obama administration is determined to capitalize on Israel’s international vulnerability. Despite the absence of any response from the Palestinians or the Arab world to Israel’s 10-month settlement freeze, the US has literally bludgeoned Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to breach his undertaking to the people of Israel and renew a settlement freeze, including areas that will undoubtedly remain in Israel.

Although on the surface the US appears to be offering incentives to Israel to persuade it to accede to its requests, anyone reading between the lines recognizes that nothing new is being offered. The exercise of the veto in the face of UN resolutions demonizing Israel and offering to maintain Israel’s security needs have been fundamental tenets of the relationship between Israel and the US. In reality, Obama issued an ultimatum to Netanyahu by threatening to abandon Israel unless it capitulates to his demands.

Many of us today yearn for an American president who would be more considerate of our needs than the present incumbent. It would perhaps be an impossible dream to have someone of the caliber of Stephen Harper leading the US, but alas, today, we are becoming increasingly reconciled to the reality that the US president is no friend of Israel and is paving the way for an imposed settlement with potentially disastrous long-term repercussions on the security of our nation.

ileibler@netvision.net.il

This column was originally published in the Jerusalem Post