Top Obama Lawyer Brings Anti-Israel Bias to High Court

The Obama administration’s anti-Israel bias was on full display at the Supreme Court earlier this week. Its chief lawyer, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, offered an incredibly insulting analogy while arguing a case involving whether a U.S. citizen born in Jerusalem has the right to require, upon request, that the State Department identify “Israel” as the place of birth on his or her passport. In defending the administration’s position that it has the inherent discretion to deny any such request if it believes that granting the request would undermine the president’s foreign policy objectives, Verrilli raised the bogeyman comparison to “issuing passports to people born in the Crimea tomorrow that identified Russia as the country of birth.” Verrilli said that to do so “would contradict the foreign policy position in a way that could be quite deleterious,” leaving the distinct impression that Israel’s relationship to Jerusalem should be analyzed the same way for the purposes of this case.

The case stemmed from an attempt by the parents of a boy born in Jerusalem, who is a U.S. citizen because both of his parents are U.S. citizens, to file an application for a consular report of birth abroad and a United States passport for their son, Menachem Binyamin, listing his place of birth as “Israel.” The parents were exercising a statutory right explicitly granted by Congress in the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, which still remains in effect and requires the State Department to record a Jerusalem-born U.S. citizen’s place of birth as “Israel” if requested to do so by the citizen or his or her legal guardian.

The State Department denied the parents’ request, despite the fact that their son was born in “West” Jerusalem, which even the Palestinian negotiators are not currently claiming belongs to them. The Palestinians insist that only “East” Jerusalem must become the capital of an independent Palestinian state, but the State Department’s rejection of the passport request thrusts the status of all parts of Jerusalem into the conflict, including the undisputed portion.

Verrilli argued to the Supreme Court that requiring the State Department to identify in a passport, an official government-issued document, Israel as the birthplace of a U.S. citizen, known by the government to have been born in Jerusalem, would impermissibly “interject an issue of recognition policy into the content of passports.” He added that “Congress cannot compel the Executive to issue diplomatic communications that contradict the official position of the United States on a matter of recognition,” in summing up the administration’s position. He also expressed concern about the impact that such implied recognition of Israel’s claims would have on the Palestinians, whom, he noted, declared, “Jerusalem the capital of the Palestinian state.”

Verrilli characterized the Obama administration’s role as “an honest broker who could stand apart from this conflict and help bring it to resolution.” He said that adhering to the Foreign Relations Authorization Act’s passport requirement would undermine this role and “the credibility of the President on this fundamental question of where the United States stands on the status of Jerusalem until the parties work it out.”

In other words, the Obama administration has come before the Supreme Court with self-righteous proclamations about the need to preserve the president’s credibility and even-handedness in his conduct of diplomacy on the Jerusalem issue in order to justify its utter disregard of a law on the books concerning the issuance of passports. True to form, the Obama administration is asserting unbridled executive power. Claiming that Congress cannot interfere with the president’s conduct of foreign diplomacy, the State Department decided to disregard an explicit provision in a congressional statute, which requires the State Department to record a Jerusalem-born U.S. citizen’s place of birth as “Israel” if requested to do so by the citizen or his or her legal guardian. The Foreign Relations Authorization Act’s Jerusalem provision granted no discretion to the executive branch in this regard.  The Act says: “For … a United States citizen born in the city of Jerusalem, the Secretary shall, upon the request of the citizen or the citizen’s legal guardian, record the place of birth as Israel.”

“Shall,” not “may,” is the operative word. Such legal technicalities do not faze the Obama administration, however. Its Solicitor General told the Supreme Court Justices that they “ought to defer to the Executive Branch’s judgment that the place of birth listing can have significant diplomatic consequences.” Justice Stephen Breyer agreed with this position because, as Justice Breyer so humbly put it, “I’m a judge. I’m not a foreign affairs expert.”

Justice Sotomayor, acting as if she were counsel for the Palestinians rather than a Supreme Court Justice, remarked that requiring the State Department to honor a Jerusalem-born U.S. citizen’s request to record his or her place of birth as “Israel” on an official government document would be tantamount to “asking the government to lie.” She reached that bizarre conclusion on the premise that the U.S. government would be identifying Jerusalem with Israel, contrary to the government’s official recognition policy.

The more conservative-leaning Justices expressed some skepticism regarding the argument that issuing the passport as requested would interfere with the president’s diplomatic powers to decide whether or not to recognize the sovereign claims of Israel to Jerusalem. Justice Scalia acknowledged that there could be a constitutional issue if the president’s recognition powers were being directly challenged by legislation, but he questioned whether that was the case here.

Justice Alito said that while he understood “the position of the United States that Israel does not exercise full sovereignty over Jerusalem,” he suspected there were certain attributes of sovereignty exercised by Israel such as Israel’s issuance of birth certificates for births within Jerusalem or Israel’s prosecution of crimes committed within Jerusalem which “the United States recognizes that Israel is lawfully exercising.”

Justice Kennedy proposed an idea he thought might alleviate the State Department’s concerns. He suggested that the State Department could simply include a statement with the passports it issues for Jewish American citizens born in Jerusalem that “This passport does not indicate that the government of the United States and the Secretary of State recognize that Israel has sovereign jurisdiction.”

Justices Kagan and Ginsburg expressed concern about the ramifications of appearing to take sides in the dispute between the Palestinians and Israel over Jerusalem’s status.

“I mean, history suggests that everything is a big deal with respect to the status of Jerusalem,” Justice Kagan said, pointing to the recent spate of violence in Jerusalem to support her point. “And right now Jerusalem is a tinderbox,” she added, “because of issues about the status of and access to a particularly holy site there. And so sort of everything matters, doesn’t it?”

With all due respect to Justice Kagan’s concerns about not setting off a “tinderbox,” what should matter is not to give the Palestinians a veto power over the implementation of a clear congressional statutory directive because of worries about a violent Palestinian reaction.

Justice Ginsburg questioned the fairness of the statute. “What about Palestinians who were born in Jerusalem and want to have Palestine as their place of birth?” she asked. “American born Palestinians cannot do that. And that suggests that Congress had a view, and the view was that Jerusalem was properly part of Israel.”

Horror of horrors that Congress should dare tilt in the direction of the one true democracy in the Middle East that has traditionally been our closest ally in the region!

In any case, President Obama has tipped the scale in precisely the opposite direction. Solicitor General Verrilli’s argument that the president’s ability to serve as an “honest broker” will be at risk if the Court rules against the State Department’s denial of the passport request rings hollow. Obama forfeited that role when he effectively endorsed the division of Jerusalem, based on Obama’s call for Israel to withdraw essentially to the pre-June 1967 lines as the basis for Palestinian-Israeli final status negotiations on the border between the two states. Obama’s map-drawing would mean that so-called “East” Jerusalem would become a part of a new Palestine state, codifying an artificial division that would reinstate the conditions prevailing during Jordan’s illegal occupation of the eastern portion of Jerusalem, including the Old City, between 1948 and 1967.

Prior to the Jordanians’ illegal occupation, Jerusalem was an undivided city. Historically, Jews have been living in Jerusalem continuously for more than three millennia. Jerusalem has never been the capital of any sovereign nation except of the Jewish people.

In more recent times, Jews have constituted the largest single group of inhabitants in Jerusalem since at least the mid-1800s. During the Jordanians’ illegal occupation between 1948 and 1967 of the eastern section, including the Old City, which Jordan annexed and ruled from its capital, Amman, Jewish homes and sacred places were destroyed or defaced. Jews were barred from worshipping at their holiest sites. The Palestinians today want to replicate this division and impose an ethnic and religious cleansing of any Jewish residents.

“In a final resolution, we would not see the presence of a single Israeli — civilian or soldier — on our lands,” Palestinian Authority President Abbas said last year.

When the Obama administration condemns Israel for planning to expand housing for Israeli Jews living in over-crowded Jewish neighborhoods within the portion of Jerusalem that Jordan had illegally occupied until Israel reunified the city, it is not neutral or acting as an “honest broker.” It is embracing the Palestinians’ bogus claims derived from Jordan’s illegal occupation.

Earlier this week, Abbas sent a letter to the family of the Palestinian jihadist killed by Israeli soldiers after he had seriously wounded Rabbi Glick, an American citizen, who was peacefully seeking more access for Jews to pray on the Temple Mount. Abbas called the would-be assassin “a martyr defending the rights of our people and the holy places.”

The Temple Mount is holy to Jews, as well as to Muslims. It includes but is not limited to the al-Aqsa Mosque. But Muslims, whom have been abusing the administrative responsibilities Israel granted to them in connection with the site,  insist on barring Jews from worshipping anywhere on the Temple Mount site. Defending “the holy places” means, according to Abbas, enforcing such discriminatory exclusion of Jews, whom he previously referred to as “cattle,” by “all means” necessary.

Palestinian violence has followed in the wake of Abbas’s incendiary rhetoric. But the Obama administration continues to side with the Palestinian position. When asked to comment last week on Glick’s shooting by a Palestinian jihadist, State Department Spokesperson Jen Psaki deplored the shooting but quickly pivoted to expressing the Obama Administration’s “support” for “the long-standing practices regarding non-Muslim visitors to the site, to Haram al-Sharif / Temple Mount.” Just by referring to the Temple Mount first by its Arabic name – even before its English designation – and omitting any reference to its Hebrew name Har haBáyit (or Har haMoria), the State Department spokesperson displayed the Obama administration’s pro-Palestinian bias.

In what should have been a prosaic explanation to the Supreme Court of the Obama administration’s position on the relevant law, its Solicitor General exposed the true animus that the Obama administration has towards the Jewish state of Israel. Solicitor General Verrilli’s reference to Russia and Crimea in an oral argument dealing with the issuance of a passport listing Israel as the place of birth for an American citizen born in Jerusalem was a contemptible distraction intended to place Israel in an unfavorable light in front of the highest court of the land.

It is always difficult to ascertain which way the Supreme Court will rule in a controversial case from the comments made by the various Justices during oral argument. However, what could emerge is a narrowly written majority opinion that sidesteps the constitutional question of separation of powers. The State Department can honor the Jerusalem-born American citizen’s request in accordance with the statute, based simply on the uncontested fact that it was Israel which issued the official birth certificate in the first place upon which the issuers of the passport relied for information. As Justice Kennedy, often a swing vote on the Court, suggested, the administrative action of issuing the passport with such birth information can be accompanied by a clear disclaimer statement that issuing the passport in no way is meant to express the U.S. government’s diplomatic recognition of Israel’s sovereign claims to Jerusalem.

Whatever the outcome, Solicitor General Verrilli’s slanderous Russia-Crimea analogy will remain a shameful episode in the annals of Supreme Court oral arguments.

RJC: OBAMA'S HOSTILITY TOWARD ISRAEL ESCALATES

The hostility of Pres. Barack Obama and his staff toward Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to be escalating dangerously. RJC Executive Director Matt Brooks said:

"Last week, the Obama administration went out of its way to 'humiliate' a top Israeli official in retaliation for private remarks for which that official had publicly apologized. Yesterday, the State Department accused the Netanyahu government of lacking a commitment to peace because it had the temerity to authorize housing construction in the capital of Israel. And today, top aides to the president attacked Israel's Prime Minister incoarse, insulting language from behind the veil of anonymity. 

[That last example is how we learned that a senior White House official called the Israeli prime minister a "chicken***".]

"Americans expect their commander-in-chief to keep faith with critical allies in perilous times. This administration is dangerously off-course and its apparent determination to provoke a crisis in US-Israel relations is the latest disastrous evidence.

The response from the pro-Israel community was swift. The Republican National Committee, House SpeakerJohn Boehner (OH), Gov. Rick Perry (TX),  Senators John McCain (AZ) and Lindsey Graham (SC), SenatorTed Cruz (TX), Senator Mark Kirk (IL),  Rep. Tom Cotton (AR) , and Rep. Doug Lamborn (CO) condemned the White House insults to our ally Israel and its leaders. Even the National Jewish Democratic Council felt compelled to rebuke the White House for it "profane and inappropriate" language.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest said that the comments against Israel and Netanyahu do not reflect the administration's views. According to reports, Earnest also said he was unaware of which senior official made the comment and added that he did not "know of any effort" underway at the White House to determine the source of the remarks.

Ari Fleischer, who served as White House press secretary for Pres. George W. Bush, tweeted, "As ex WH staffer, I can safely say staff wouldn't publicly call someone 'chickensh*t' if POTUS hadn't privately said something similar 1st."

Bibi and Barack on the Rocks The White House’s resort to petty insults risks a strategic relationship

The relationship between the Obama administration and the government of Israel is beginning to look like one of those longtime marriages you encounter all the time. Maybe you’re in one yourself. He feels, Rodney Dangerfield-like, that he gets no respect. She’d be happy to offer some—if only she could find something to respect.

The solution is a trial separation. Give this couple time apart to figure out what, if anything, still draws them together.

The latest eruption of pettiness—when marriages are in trouble, it’s always the petty things that tell—was the very public refusal of John Kerry and Joe Biden to meet with Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon during his visit to Washington last week. Mr. Yaalon was quoted earlier this year saying some impolitic things about the U.S. secretary of state, including that he was “obsessive and messianic” and that “the only thing that can save us is if Kerry wins the Nobel Prize and leaves us alone.”

The comments were made privately but were leaked to the press. Mr. Yaalon apologized for them. His meeting with Chuck Hagel at the Pentagon last week was all smiles. Asked by the Washington Post’s Lally Weymouth about the Kerry kerfuffle, he replied, “We overcame that.”

Or not.

“Despite the fact that Yaalon’s requests to meet with the senior members of the Obama administration were declined over a week ago, Washington waited until the visit ended before making the story public in order to humiliate the Israeli defense minister,” Ha’aretz reported. Mr. Yaalon is now said to be under an Obama administration “quarantine” until he performs additional penance, perhaps by recanting his hard-line views about the advisability of a nuclear deal with Iran or a peace deal with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

The good news here is that at least there’s one kind of quarantine this administration believes in. The bad news is that it seems to give more thought to pursuing personal vendettas against allies like Israel than it does to waging effective military campaigns against enemies like ISIS.

The administration also seems to have forgotten that two can play the game. Two days after the Yaalon snub, the Israeli government announced the construction of 1,000 new housing units in so-called East Jerusalem, including 600 new units in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood that was the subject of a 2010 row with Joe Biden. Happy now, Mr. Vice President?

The real problem for the administration is that the Israelis—along with all the other disappointed allies—are learning how little it pays to be on Barack Obama’s good side. Since coming to office in 2009, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has agreed, against his own inclination and over the objections of his political base, to (1) recognize a Palestinian state; (2) enforce an unprecedented 10-month settlement freeze; (3) releasescores of Palestinian prisoners held on murder charges; (4) embark on an ill-starred effort to reach a final peace deal with the Palestinians; (5) refrain from taking overtmilitary steps against Iran; and (6) agree to every possible cease-fire during the summer’s war with Hamas.

In exchange, Mr. Kerry publicly blamed Israel for the failure of the peace effort, the White House held up the delivery of munitions at the height of the Gaza war, and Mr. Obama is hellbent on striking whatever deal the Iranians can plausibly offer him.

Oh, and Mr. Kerry also attributes the rise of Islamic State to the Israeli-Palestinianconflict. Maybe if the Israelis grovel a bit more, Mr. Obama will oblige them by recognizing a Palestinian state as his parting act as president. Don’t discount the possibility.

Which brings me to the concept of a trial separation.

Last year, Mustafa Alani, a Saudi foreign policy analyst, observed of Riyadh’s evolving attitude toward Washington: “We are learning from our enemies now how to treat the United States.” Sure enough it wasn’t long after the Saudis turned down a seat on the Security Council and threatened a fundamental re-evaluation of their ties to the U.S. that Messrs. Kerry and Obama went bowing and scraping to King Abdullah when they needed the kingdom’s help against ISIS.

At least the Saudis understand the value of showing they’re prepared to be, as someone once wrote, co-dependent no more. The administration likes to make much of the $3 billion a year it provides Israel (or, at least, U.S. defense contractors) in military aid, but that’s now less than 1% of Israeli GDP. Like some boorish husband of yore fond of boasting that he brings home the bacon, the administration thinks it’s the senior partner in the marriage.

Except this wife can now pay her own bills. And she never ate bacon to begin with.

It’s time for some time away. Israel needs to look after its own immediate interests without the incessant interventions of an overbearing partner. The administration needs to learn that it had better act like a friend if it wants to keep a friend. It isn’t as if it has many friends left.

Write to bstephens@wsj.com

Israel Matzav: It's not incompetence, it's malicious brilliance

Caroline Glick shows how, at least when it comes to Israel, Barack Hussein Obama is not incompetent. In fact, he's brilliant in implementing strategies that are hostile to Israel and its continued existence while maintaining his claim to having the most pro-Israel administration evah.

In everything from dealing with the Congress, to reining in radical ideologues at the IRS, to handling the chaos at the Mexican border, to putting together coordinated strategies for dealing with everything from Ebola to Islamic State (IS), Obama’s critics claim that he is out of his league. That he is incompetent.

But if Israel’s experience with him is any guide, then his critics are the ones who are out to sea. Because at least in his handling of US relations with the Jewish state, Obama has exhibited a mastery of the tools of the executive branch unmatched by most of his predecessors.

...

First, in an article published in The Jerusalem Post, terrorism analyst and investigative reporter Steven Emerson revealed how the highest echelons of the administration blocked the FBI and the US Attorney’s Office from assisting Israel in finding the remains of IDF soldier Oron Shaul.

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In an order that senior law enforcement officials told Emerson came from Attorney General Eric Holder’s office, the FBI was told that it needed to first sign an “MLAT,” a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty with Israel, a procedure that would take weeks to complete, and is generally used in cases involving criminal prosecutions and other non-life threatening issues.

In other words, facing a bureaucracy acting independently, Holder – reportedly Obama’s most trusted cabinet secretary – acted quickly, decisively and effectively. And thanks to his intervention at the key moment, although Israel was able – after an exhaustive forensic investigation – to determine Oron’s death, today it is poised to begin negotiations with Hamas for the return of his body parts.

Then there was the unofficial arms embargo.

In August, The Wall Street Journal reported that the White House and State Department had stopped the Pentagon at the last minute from responding favorably to an Israeli request for resupply of Hellfire precision air-to-surface missiles. The precision guided missiles were a key component of Israel’s air operations against missile launchers in Gaza. The missiles’ guidance systems allowed the air force to destroy the launchers while minimizing collateral damage.

In keeping with the standard decades-long practice, Israel requested the resupply through European Command, its military-to-military channel with the US military.

And in keeping with standard practice, the request was granted.

But then the White House and State Department heard about the approved shipment and spun into action. As in the case of Oron’s Facebook page, they didn’t reject Israel’s request. They just added a level of bureaucracy to the handling of the request that made it impossible for Israel to receive assistance from the US government in real time.

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How can you oppose a hostile policy toward Israel that the administration insists doesn’t exist? Indeed, anyone who suggests otherwise runs the risk of being attacked as a conspiracy theorist or a firebrand.

The same goes for Obama’s policy toward Iran. This week we learned that the administration has now offered Iran a nuclear deal in which the mullahs can keep half of their 10,000 active centrifuges spinning.

Together with Iran’s 10,000 currently inactive centrifuges which the US offer ignores, the actual US position is to allow Iran to have enough centrifuges to enable it to build nuclear bombs within a year, at most.

In other words, the US policy toward Iran exposed by Obama’s nuclear offer is one that enables the most active state sponsor of terrorism to acquire nuclear weapons almost immediately.

But Obama denies this is his policy. For six years he has very deftly managed Congressional opposition to his wooing of the Iranian regime by insisting that his policy is to reduce the Iranian nuclear threat and to prevent war.

Opposing his policy means opposing these goals.

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At least as far as Israel is concerned, Obama’s mastery of the federal bureaucracy is complete. It is not incompetence that guides his policy. It is malicious intent toward the US’s closest ally in the Middle East. And to defeat this policy, it is not necessary to prove incompetence that doesn’t exist. It is necessary to show that there are far better ways to achieve his declared aims of supporting Israel and blocking Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

 Saul Alinsky would be proud.

Israel is Obama’s Lesser of Two Evils The enemy that you know is a better friend than the enemy you don’t know. By: Tzvi Ben-Gedalyahu

Obama needs Netanyahu more than he admits in public.
Photo Credit: Amos Ben Gershom/GPO/FLASH90

The United States again described Israel on Thursday as “an important partner, a security partner, a friend and ally,” and that is the bottom line underneath the media madness to create a non-existent Obama-Netanyahu crisis over building for Jew in eastern Jerusalem.

A quick look at media establishment headlines would lead one to the seemingly unmistakable conclusion that President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu are at each other’s throats.

The White House and the U.S. State Dept. condemned in the strongest possible terms the latest advancement in the bureaucratic process to build more homes for Jews in Jerusalem. For the record, more than one-third of those homes actually are for Arabs, but frustrated journalists, who turn fact into fiction for the sake of their agenda, rarely want to notice the truth.

Netanyahu responded to the criticism from Washington with equally blunt terms, saying that the Obama administration “doesn’t have the facts.”

U.S. State Dept. Jen Psaki spat back Thursday, “I think we have our information clear, and we responded to the facts on the ground.

Her follow-up statement that Israel remains an ally and “that has not changed” is not just fluff.

The Palestinian Authority has thoroughly dismissed Washington as useless in its single-minded objective of finishing off Israel as a Jewish state. The Arab world never was interested in making the Palestinian Authority a new country. If it were, the Palestinian Authority could have been an independent state long ago.

The Arab world also is more concerned about wild Islamic terror and about Iran than it is about Mahmoud Abbas and a Palestinian state, which is becoming more of an expensive and untrusted baggage than a than a strategic ally.

Ever since the Saudi Arabia so-called Peace Initiative in 2002 that declared the Arab world would “normalize” relations with Israel in return for Israel’s agreeing to the well-known conditions for Zionist hari-kari, the Western world, led by the United States, has naively pursued the “two-state” solution.

Obama and his predecessors have managed to twist Israel’s weak arm to erase almost every red line to satisfy the Arab world’s insatiable appetite.

Israel in the past three years finally has found it muscle, as well as self-respect, and has stuck to a couple of red lines that are accepted by an overwhelming majority of Jews in Israel.

Mahmoud Abbas has milked the Obama Defense Minister for every concession it can wring out of Israel, where only a minute percentage would agree to the insane and impossible nightmare of expelling 300,000 Jews from neighborhoods such as Gilo, Ramot, Talpiot and French Hill in Jerusalem.

Only a minute percentage of Israelis would agree to allow mass immigration of foreign Arabs.

Abbas is finished with Obama, and the president knows it.

Abbas, his ministers, spokesmen and so-called negotiators have deposited he checks Israel has given them and now is ditching the United States in favor of the United Nations to empty out the bank.

It not only has demanded that the United Nations tell Israel to empty out the vault by 2016. Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian Authority ambassador to the United Nations, said on Thursday, “If this additional door of peace is closed before us, then we will not only join the ICC [International Criminal Court to seek accountability. We will join other treaties and agencies” and show the world “that we exist as a nation, we exist as a state although the land of our state is under occupation.”

Whether Obama’s foreign policy sages are even more dumb and blind than can be imagined, or whether they simply are smart enough to play charades and go through the emotions and stroke the Arab world’s skin of hate by criticizing Israel, Washington has given up on the idea that a two-state solution is going to protect Americans against Iran and worldwide Islamic terror.

The American-led war on ISIS has drawn many co-sponsors. One of the most important is not listed or recognized, and that country, of course, is not the Palestinian Authority.

It is Israel, which provides better intelligence on ISIS, Iran and just about anything else including Ebola, than any Arab or non-Arab country.

Obama may not love Netanyahu, but he needs him more than he needs Abbas.

Obama’s callousness toward the ‘kidnapped’ kids... and Israel His aloofness from the three families during the search exposed a callousness toward Israel which goes far beyond the episodic Netanyahu-Barack follies. Gil Troy

The sickening news started filling my inbox during a family dinner. The three boys had become three bodies. “Not for publication yet,” my first source warned; I chose not to announce the news because I still wasn’t ready to bury my hopes for those kids. Half an hour later, my teenage son glanced at his ever-pinging cellphone and shared the bad news. My slightly prolonged denial didn’t ease the pain. I still had that constricted feeling in the chest so many of us have felt for 18 days, the recurring pit in the stomach that members of the three families now will never lose.

It is strange to mourn for three kids you never met from families you don’t know. But that’s what community is all about, especially Jewish community, and most especially the Israeli community. Our parallel lives, shared values and common fate bind us. Beyond the altruism and transcendent tribalism, we all know it could have been one of our kids. Naftali, Gil-Ad, and Eyal were not strangers; they are us.

Because they were murdered deliberately for political reasons the grief mixes with fury. When three teenagers die tragically in an accident we nevertheless look for causes, seeking to assign blame. Acts of terrorism clearly implicate the terrorists and their enablers.

Yes, I remain disgusted by the Hamas terrorists and by Palestinians’ nihilistic political culture that repeatedly chooses violence over negotiations. But as an American – and a presidential historian – I am also furious at President Barack Obama. His seemingly heartfelt comments when the boys were found dead came two weeks too late. His aloofness from the three families during the search exposed a callousness toward Israel which goes far beyond the episodic Netanyahu-Barack follies. Just as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s quick condemnation of the kidnapping meant a lot positively, Obama’s emotional miserliness meant a lot, negatively.

True, Palestinian terrorism predated Obama’s presidency and will outlast him. True, Hamas psychopaths don’t need incompetent American leaders to embolden them. True, Obama’s words would not have saved the doomed teens.

I admit that it sounds provincial to bellyache about Obama’s silence in this particular case given the chaos around him. This, after all, is a flailing president who is losing in Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Syria, Iran, Russia and the Ukraine. This is a blame-America-first president who tried attributing the terrorist murders in Benghazi, Libya – which occurred on the momentous date of September 11 – to some idiotic American video. This is a power-fearing president who is degenerating from being as bad as Jimmy Carter to being worse than Jimmy Carter. And this is an inept president who, through indecision, insecurity and incompetence has elevated the few foreign policy messes he inherited to a chain of foreign policy disasters.

Of course, Obama and his acolytes will blame George W. Bush. While Bush reflects Republicans’ excess faith in American power, Obama reflects Democrats’ intemperate retreat from it. Words matter. Leadership counts. Strength breeds strength while weakness breeds weakness. America’s enemies smell Obama’s softness, his ambivalence, his tentativeness. Like unruly kids torturing an ineffectual substitute teacher, they have learned you can push his buttons, cross his red lines, dare to defy, without suffering serious consequences. Strategically, Obama’s longstanding critique of American power and primacy has handcuffed him while, tactically, his inexperience in executive leadership roles has him flummoxed.

I take no joy in watching Senator Yes We Can become President Don’t Blame Me as he weaves and bobs and dodges rather than stabilizing, shaping and forging. I don’t wish to demonize him, as too many opponents do; I am, however, deeply disappointed in him. Obama’s tenure shows – as Carter’s did – that a leadership vacuum at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue emboldens dictators and bullies worldwide.

In the Middle East, Obama’s flaccidity becomes even more troublesome given his distaste for Israel. He is not “anti-Israel”; he just sees the country as a presidential and regional irritant. Intellectually, he endorses the Jewish state’s existence and even occasionally gets swept up rhetorically in celebrating the romance of Jews’ redemptive return.

However, usually, Obama sees Israel as a pesky little country which should do America’s bidding. He echoes the elite trend to condemn Israel for one-sidedly occupying Palestinian land rather than understanding that Israel is struggling with a stubborn and dangerous neighbor over disputed territory. As he admitted in his Cairo speech, he views this conflict through the civil rights prism. This absurd, insulting analogy, making Palestinians victimized blacks and Israelis misguided racist rednecks, excuses Palestinian terror and minimizes Israel’s tough security dilemmas.

Obama also accepts the ridiculous assumption that solving the Israeli-Palestinian struggle is the keystone to calming the Middle East – as if Iran’s nuclear power grab, Iraq’s implosion, Syria’s explosion, Islamist extremism and the centuries-old Sunni-Shia conflict would disappear, if only Israel withdrew to 1967 borders. In his inability on June 12, 13 and 14 to embrace American citizens and two other innocent families in distress, Barack Obama showed his true feelings. I challenge his supporters, who have run out of excuses for him, to condemn his inaction and consider repudiating him.

Instead, his backers will support him and his calls for evenhandedness. They will debate the easily refuted “anti-Israel” charge instead of this tougher critique of insensitivity and ineptitude. As Israel mourns and fights, as Israeli soldiers take great risks to root out those kid-killing terrorists and their armories, Obama will demand “restraint.” Meanwhile, The New York Times will run absurdly amoral articles comparing Israeli kids victimized for being Israelis with Palestinian kids hurt while menacing soldiers, the UN will condemn Israel, and Israel will have to continue protecting itself militarily while fending off an ideological onslaught. That’s why it is fair to denounce Obama’s incompetence and iciness, along with Palestinian evil and enablement.

JEWISH PRESS: Ambassador Oren: Samantha Really, Really Cares about Israel Michael Oren knows his job. Never agitate the US. Don’t say Israel’s right when the US “knows” it’s wrong. It’s no wonder he praises Samantha Power, but must he say she “really cares” about Israel?

Samantha Power really cares about Israel, says Ambassador Michael Oren.
Photo Credit: White House video screen shot

Samantha Power, President Obama’s nominee to replace Susan Rice as Ambassador to the United Nations, “cares deeply” about Israel’s security needs, Israeli ambassador to Washington Michael Oren recently told The New York Times.

“Samantha Power and I have worked closely over the last four years on issues vital to Israel’s security,” he said. “She thoroughly understands those issues and cares deeply about them.”

Oren is as much a politician as he is a diplomat. He admitted he usually does not comment on presidential nominees until they are confirmed by the Senate.

So why did he have to go out of his way and tell The New York Times, Obama’s unofficial press agent, that Power is such a great fan of Israel, where 11 years ago she advocated calling for US troops to act as policemen?

Oren saw the need to defend the President and score points if she is confirmed by the Senate, even though the nomination of Power has left many Jewish groups and leaders on different sides of the fence.

The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) did not surprise anyone by strongly opposing her nomination, while the Conservative Jewish movement came out in favor of her, as did the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

The American Jewish Committee had no comment, and B’nai Brith said it was withholding approval of Power’s nomination until she addressed her earlier remarks under oath during Senate confirmation hearings.

“Israel has few real friends at the United Nations and at the top of the list is the United States, and it is really incumbent on the representative to be prepared, willing and able to rebuff and repel that kind of language,” said the group’s executive vice president, Daniel Mariaschin.

Power’s supporters have pointed out that she was on the front lines to work against anti-Israel resolutions in the United Nations, particularly the Palestinian Authority attempt to win United Nations Security Council approval for becoming a full-fledged member of the United Nations. The Obama administration threatened to cast a veto, which in the end was not necessary because the PA was lacking one vote to win the necessary two-thirds approval for the motion to move to the floor of the General Assembly.

Power may “deeply care” about Israel. Every US political leader is “Pro-Israel” because every one of them knows what is good for Israel, much better than the dumb Israelis. The American government also knows what is good for Iraq, Egypt, Syria and almost every other place in the universe, including the moon.

Being “pro-Israel” is not a condition to be the American Ambassador to the United Nations. First and foremost, the Ambassador must be pro-United States.

But that is like being pro-Israel. Every one has his or her own meaning of what is good for America.

Samantha Power obviously thinks Obama is good for America, as did most of the electorate. She was one of his strongest supporters even before anyone heard of his becoming a presidential candidate in 2008.

She also thinks “engaging enemies’ is good for the United States. It is the “engagement” policy that helped bring then U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to declare, two months after the beginning of the Arab Spring protests in Syria, that Assad is a “reformer.”

By the way, it was the same Clinton, when she campaigned against Obama for the Democratic party’s nomination for its presidential candidate, whom Power called a “monster.”

Power also has mouthed off at people whom she thinks are violating human rights.

She once not only called Yasser Arafat and Ariel Sharon violators of human rights, she also put them on the same level in her declaration against “Sharafat.”

When Power hears of human rights violations, she goes bonkers and always assumes the “other side” is to blame. That is why she backed the Muslims against the Buddhists in Burma.

The Canada Free Press wrote, “In her 2004 review of a book by the radical leftist Noam Chomsky, Ms. Power agreed with many of his criticisms of U.S. foreign policy and expressed her own concerns about what she called the ‘sins of our allies in the war on terror,’ lumping Israel with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan, Russia, and Uzbekistan.

In 2007, she stated, the American government’s relationship with Israel “has often led foreign policy decision-makers to defer reflexively to Israeli security assessments, and to replicate Israeli tactics….”

The problem with Power is not just her “invade Israel” policy that she advocated in her 2002 interview with a professor from, naturally, the University of California at Berkeley.

She is pro-American just like she is pro-Israel.

Anti-Americanism proves that the United States is wrong, in her opinion. Power stated in a New Republic article in 2003, “Much anti-Americanism derives from the role U.S. political, economic, and military power has played in denying such freedoms to others… We need a historical reckoning with crimes committed, sponsored, or permitted by the United States.”

She is a fighter for human rights, so much so that she likes the idea of using the American military to police Israel, the Balkans and Libya.

Interestingly, she never has said that the U.S. Army should patrol the streets of Iran.

Or Syria.

Or Saudi Arabia.

RABBI DOV FISHER: Here We Go Again: Samantha Powers, President Obama's new nominee to represent America in the United Nations, in her own words

Samantha Powers, President Obama’s new nominee to represent America in the United Nations, in her own words:

1.  We need to face “alienating a domestic constituency of [giggle] tremendous political and financial import” (0:52-0:59)

2.  To foster peace, we should move billions of dollars from providing arms to and servicing Israel’s military and instead move those billions towards investing in “the new State of Palestine.”  (1:06-1:14)

3.  Although Israel is not quite engaged in Genocide, the reports of major human rights abuses there are stark.  So America needs to place a huge American military force — a “mammoth protection force” — into the area.

4.  Leaders like Ariel Sharon and Yasser Arafat are of the same exact mindset and caliber, so may be called “Sharafat.” (2:22)

Two minutes, 57 seconds.  Her own words.  Calm in an interview.  She would be the next United States ambassador to the United Nations, in an Administration that has Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense.

Presumably Chuck Schumer, who gives political kosher-certification to political pork, will be her first stop for the Jewish seal of approval. 

Here we go again

A Passover quiz published by Yaakov Kirschen

OBAMA'S FOREIGN POLICY

Obama Fires 20,000 Marines, But Sends $700 Million to Palestinian Terrorists

I recall Obama talking a lot about “Nation-Building at Home” instead of abroad, but like every other word that comes out of his mouth, that was another lie.

While Barack Hussein Obama is firing 20,000 Marines as part of his massive purge of the United States military to “save money”, he’s also fighting to send $700 million to the terrorists of the Palestinian Authority.
On Feb 8th, Obama issued yet another waiver for Palestinian Authority aid, claiming that sending money to the corrupt undemocratic terrorist kleptocracy that refuses to negotiate a peaceful solution was “important to the national security interests of the United States.”
Unlike those 20,000 Marines who aren’t important to the national security of the United States.
And now the big push for terrorist cash in on with John Kerry leading the way, clutched medals in hand.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is fighting to send the Palestinian Authority nearly $700 million in aid, despite major budget cuts and a fierce debate over where existing money should go.
“The Secretary feels extremely strongly that it is time now to get this support to the Palestinian Authority,” said State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland.
Kerry is working with lawmakers to “get appropriated money released for the Palestinian Authority because we think it’s very, very important that they remain effective in supporting the needs of the Palestinian people,” Nuland said.

What about the needs of the American people? Kerry has already been responsible for heaps of money being dumped on Pakistan and on Egypt. Now he wants even more cash for Islamist terrorists.

Should the American people continue suffering under crippling taxes while their money is being used to fund international terrorism?

Obama supporters celebrate no more Israel

A T-shirt on sale in Jerusalem's old city depicts Obama donning traditional Arab headgear

YNET: US elections: How do haredim vote? Hundreds of thousands of American Orthodox Jews expected to take to polls Tuesday to vote for next president. While analysts believe most will support Romney, radical Satmar sect releases campaign backing Obama

The US presidential election is closer than ever, with some states hinging on a handful of votes – and this time around some of these votes belong to Jewish Orthodox citizens.

In Israel, Shas and United Torah Judaism control the black kippa public, but in the United States those donning the skullcap do not necessarily go to the polls as one. In the battle between pundits and analysts there is some disagreement on whether the haredim will overwhelmingly support any one candidate – or rather split between the two.

US Jews

'Ashamed of Israel, proud to be Jewish' / Tali Farkash They are politically involved, have high voter turnout rate and are no longer purely Democratic. Dr. Yehuda Kurtzer seeks to strengthen American Jewry's connection to Israel, but clarifies that Jewish vote has nothing to do with Israeli issue Full story

Will those wearing black vote "black"? Or will the conservative element bring them to the Republicans?

Of the 650,000 Orthodox Jews living in the US (which comprise 11% of the entire Jewish population), 400,000 are haredim, concentrated mostly in the New York and New Jersey area.

Their growth rate is estimated at 4% annually, which has led to their expansion into other states, specifically swing states such as Florida and Ohio. In 2008, most haredi votes went to John McCain, much like in the 2004 race, but what will happen this time around?

'Almost all lament the tense relations with Israel' (Photo: EPA)  

Journalist Binyamin Rose, editor of the English-language haredi magazine "Mishpacha", does not foresee a change. According to him, the question of relations with Israel and the conservative agenda make the case, and most of the ultra-Orthodox – like the Orthodox themselves – will support Mitt Romney.

A small minority, especially those coming from relatively lower social-economical means, will vote for the incumbent Barack Obama, as his administration holds the promise of wider economical support.

"There are those who feel more comfortable with the Democrats, and even if they dislike Obama and his policy towards Israel – they will prefer to stick with the benefits," says the haredi analyst.

"But the majority, which is better off and does not require this financial support, will vote Romney. They are quite frightened by the president's Middle East policy, and have grown tiresome of liberalism in regards to issues such as same-sex marriages."

Anti-Zionist ultra-Orthodox for Obama

The radical wings of the haredi camp, which is based in the US, thinks otherwise: During the last few weeks, the anti Zionist Satmar sect has been leading an intense campaign on haredi radio stations and internet networks.

Their goal is to persuade voters to neutralize the pro-Israeli factor in the election, with some even specifically calling for the election of Obama, who is perceived by some as hostile towards the community.

According to them, it is incorrect to assume Romney as good for the Jews, and such an action might turn out to be the verboten "Hitgarut Ba'Umot" (a provocation of the non Jewish nations) and will thus lead to anti-Semitism.

A. W., a Satmar Hasid from Kiryas Yoel in Monroe, recounts how the Satmar organization "Natrina," which runs "True Torah Jews," launched a campaign three weeks ago aimed at Jewish and haredi audiences, calling on them to vote for President Obama.

He says the campaign is aired hourly on all major radio stations, with the intent of persuading the haredim, as well as the greater Jewish audience, not to allow Israel to enter into the election, "something that could spark anti-Semitism."

The campaign directly attacked Benjamin Netanyahu, arguing that the prime minister of Israel tried to influence the US election and that US Jews are deeply concerned by such an action.

This time, they say, the PM's gross interference has really crossed a red line and it is possible that he has actively hurt US Jews' image. Those who desire to fix the damage declare that the statements of Israeli politicians do not represent the opinions of US Jews.

Binyamin Rose does not anticipate the campaign will have a major effect. He clarifies that "only the most extreme will make such a political calculation. In Satmar there is actually a feeling of solidarity with Israel, as well as sympathy and concern for the safety of those Jews living in Israel – despite its anti-Zionist ideology.

"Those who will vote for Obama will do so for financial reasons and in spite of his Israel policy – not the opposite."

Precious votes of Florida and Ohio

At the heart of the haredi support for the Republican party, according to Rose, lies the fact that as a group they feel like "a minority of minorities," together with their natural inclination to identify with groups they feel politically comfortable with.

In this case we are talking about Evangelists, which hold hawkish pro-Israel views (in terms of national security), as well as a conservative social outlook (traditional-religious).

Summing up, Rose points out that in the states where the haredim have the largest electoral weight, such as New York, their vote is completely ineffective because of the historical and incontestable Democratic control of these states – regardless of haredi support.

Obama and Romney at the Western Wall (Photos: Ohad Zwigenberg, AP)

This seems to be the case in New Jersey as well, where there is also a high concentration of haredim. On the other hand, in Florida and Ohio, where the haredim are a minority, by virtue of that fact that these are swing states, the haredi vote might in fact be of paramount importance.

Despite all this, he recalls, neither one of the candidates has put much effort into persuading this group – maybe because both understand that the camp in its majority will vote republican.

"Romney has chosen to invest his resources in more influential places. Just this last week he spent $11 million on his Pennsylvania campaign."

Sandy throws some weight behind haredi vote

And there are of course haredim who do not vote at all – but not necessarily on principle: "In Israel everyone receives an envelope to their home, inviting them to vote and directing them to their local voting station. However, in the US, you have to register on your own, you have to be proactive.

"Naturally you need some sort of interest or incentive to do so, and as such there are some who just give up, but they cannot be characterized. It is not ideological."

Chaim Shaulson, an Israeli journalist living in Brooklyn for the last three decades, who publishes the spicy blog "In the World of Haredim," believes that the haredi community has been given a unique opportunity to influence the results of the election in New York as well, potentially granting Romney an additional 29 electorates.

"Both candidates have yet to step foot here, we barely feel the campaigns – but this might turn out to be a mistake on their part."

In his thinking, Hurricane Sandy, which according to most analysts boosted Obama's popularity in light of his perceived successful reaction and leadership to the untimely emergency, might actually come back to haunt the president, as most residents of Manhattan have yet to fully return to their normal routine, and as such will have a hard time to get to the voting stations, resulting in a low voter turnout – thus increasing Republican prospects for wining the state.

"There is no fuel, people are getting around by horse and carriage because the thousands of cabs have been rendered useless," says Shaulson. "The government says it is a matter of days, but in the meantime it has been like this for a week.

"There, in the city, the majority supports the Democrats, and if the residents will not or cannot get to voting stations, then the Republicans will attempt to exploit the situation and steal the victory – mostly through the haredi vote."

Nonetheless, the haredi blogger is skeptical that such a dramatic scenario will in fact take place, as the governor of New York, a Democrat himself, has announced that voting in the state would be extended to two days because of the storm's impact.

Hence it seems that the haredi potential influence remains larger in Florida and Ohio. "The difference in those states is very small, and I believe that even tomorrow night, after CNN's exit polls, we will not know who is going to be president."

Selfish considerations

And what is the main factor or consideration for a haredi on his way to vote? Neither Obama's stand on Israel nor Romney's conservative world view. Rather, Shaulson, is of the opinion that it is money on their minds.

"In Borough Park they had the opportunity to place a representative in the New York Senate, but they preferred to close a deal with another candidate only for this type of reason, and he won," he says.

According to him, the haredi community is never officially affiliated with one of the sides for precisely this reason.

"This is not an ideological issue, only a selfish one", he argues. "They say that the world rests on three pillars –geld (money in Yiddish) kesef (money in Hebrew) and money (paraphrasing Jewish oral law, according to which the world rests on three pillars: Torah, work and charity of the righteous).

Despite data pointing to a consistent support of the Republican party by religious Jews, Shaulson is uncertain. "Today the public believes Obama more on economical issues. On the other hand, almost everyone laments the tense relations with Israel – even Satmar."

He refuses to commit to definite conclusions and hints that nothing is final and all remains open. "You will not find a single haredi synagogue in which worshippers were told on Shabbat who to vote for."