Dan Shapiro, Truly a Loyal and Long-Term Advocate For The Palestinians - by Stephen M. Flatow

...Reading Shapiro’s admission, one must laugh at his self-description as “an advocate for Israel.” He is, according to his own words, an advocate for the Palestinians – and has been for the past 29 years.

Stephen M. Flatow..
Jewishpress.com..
08 September '17..
Link: http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/dan-shapiro-advocate-for-the-palestinians/2017/09/08/

For many years, the State Department was known as the one U.S. government agency where it was almost impossible for a Jew to reach a senior position. In our era, that has changed, but with a twist.

Since the late 1980s, a certain kind of Jew has become most welcome at the State Department – the kind devoted to creating a Palestinian state in Israel’s back yard.

The latest example is former president Obama’s ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro.

Since being replaced earlier this year, Shapiro has become one of the most frequently sought-after “talking heads” on Israel affairs. He is constantly quoted in major newspapers, interviewed on television, and invited to deliver lectures at prestigious venues.

Daniel Kurtzer, Martin Indyk, and David Makovsky used to be the favorite Jewish ex-State Department officials whom CNN and The New York Times would trot out to call for more Israeli concessions. Now Dan Shapiro is giving them some competition.

With all the tumult over the Trump administration’s reluctance to demand the immediate establishment of a Palestinian state, it was inevitable that Shapiro would weigh in. And in true attention-grabbing fashion, Shapiro’s contribution (in the online magazine Tablet) is headlined “The Two-State Solution Remains the Best Option, But We Need to Plan in Case It Fails.”

What? A former ambassador to Israel conceding that the Palestinian state idea might not work out? Is he forsaking the dream the State Department and the Jewish left have pursued for so many years? Has Dan Shapiro joined the Republican Party, or the Israeli Right?

Not so fast.

The Coordinated Assault - by Caroline Glick

Whether Adais Sr. is really happy that his son will rot in prison is less important than the fact that he said what he said to his home crowd. He knows that his audience thinks his son is a hero. And so he played to his audience.

Caroline Glick..
Column One..
21 January '16..

"I'm proud of him."

That’s what the father of Dafna Meir’s murderer said when the Palestinian media asked him what he thinks of his cold-blooded son Murad Adais.

On Sunday afternoon, Adais butchered Meir in her home, in front of her children.

Whether Adais Sr. is really happy that his son will rot in prison is less important than the fact that he said what he said to his home crowd.

He knows that his audience thinks his son is a hero. And so he played to his audience.

Since last September when the Palestinians began their current terrorist onslaught, killers like Adais have been characterized as lone wolves. But a study published last November in Mosaic online journal by Shalem College’s Daniel Polisar shows that this characterization is both wrong and unhelpful.

Polisar studied Palestinian public opinion data from surveys conducted by four independent research groups over the past 25 years. His data exposed three key aspects to Palestinian positions about Israel that all bear directly on the current Palestinian terrorist offensive.

His first finding is that throughout most of the past quarter-century a solid majority of Palestinians have supported terrorism against Israelis.

Moreover, the more murderous an attack, the more it is supported.

Polisar’s second finding was that the vast majority of Palestinians hate Israelis and believe that Jews have no right to the Land of Israel, and therefore our state has no right to exist.

Taken together, these first two insights lead to one clear conclusion about the nature of the current Palestinian terrorism campaign against Israelis. As Polisar explained, they show that this campaign is not being carried out by “lone wolves,” who have been incited by Palestinian Authority propaganda. Rather, that propaganda reflects the murderous hatred that the vast majority of Palestinians feel toward Israelis and Israel.

Adais and his comrades may or may not be members of terrorist groups. But they are the loyal representatives of their terrorism-supporting society.

Obviously, any talk of a peace process in this climate is utter folly. The most Israel can aspire to is to deter the hate-soaked Palestinians from attacking us.

This brings us to the third insight of Polisar’s study. Twenty-five years of survey data make clear that most Palestinians believe that terrorism pays.

And the plain fact is that they are right. For the past generation, the Palestinians have only benefited from killing Israelis through terrorism.

The fact that Israeli concessions to the Palestinians have strengthened their conviction that terrorism pays rather than convinced them to make peace shows that all concessions in the face of terrorism are dangerous.

While the majority of Israelis have learned this lesson and so elected governments that oppose appeasement, the Palestinians have learned that the Israeli public does not have the final word on whether or not they will be rewarded for their crimes against humanity.

The Palestinians believe that Israel is dependent on Western goodwill. So to the extent that the West pressures Israel surrender to Palestinian demands, the US and the EU work hand in glove with Palestinian terrorists and prove that they are right to murder mothers in their homes in front of their children.

This week US Ambassador Dan Shapiro proved the Palestinians right, yet again.

Actually, the opposite of the truth - by MK Yoav Kisch

...We must not let lies propagated by radical leftist groups affect our relationship with the U.S. And the U.S. ambassador, who is a good friend of ours, must not act as a spokesman for an extreme leftist ideology that Israeli society has justly rejected in an outright manner.

MK Yoav Kisch..
Israel Hayom..
20 January '16..

In a speech on Monday, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro claimed that Israel applies "two standards of adherence to the rule of law: one for Israelis and another for Palestinians." In fact, Israel uses a very heavy hand against Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria who commit crimes. When it comes to acts of terrorism and murder, Israeli security forces exert great effort to catch the culprits, whether they be Arabs or Jews. Shapiro acknowledged this regarding the Duma arson case, but it also goes for the Muhammad Abu Khdeir murder case, as well as all other murder and terrorism cases.

Yet, in some realms, the law is not applied equally and this is done in a way that actually favors the Palestinians. Take, for example, illegal construction in Judea and Samaria. The Palestinian have constructed thousands upon thousands of illegal buildings in Judea and Samaria, some funded by the European Union for the purpose of creating facts on the ground. Very few of these illegal buildings end up being demolished by Israel.

On the other hand, the Israeli legal system makes sure that Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria is conducted in strict accordance with the law. This is also true when it comes to traffic violations in Judea and Samaria. For Jews, there is strict police enforcement of traffic laws. Yet Israeli law enforcement officials are often helpless in the face of Palestinian violations of the same traffic laws. This has been detailed in reports issued by the state comptroller on law enforcement in Judea and Samaria.

It may be that Shapiro was misled by radical leftist nongovernmental organizations which regularly publish false reports about supposed Israeli "apartheid" practices. If this is the case, I recommend that Shapiro examine the credibility of the sources of these reports. Recently, it has become ever more clear that members of these NGOs are self-righteous fools driven by an extreme anti-Israel ideology. They will let nothing stand in the way of them achieving their goals, even if this means harming Palestinians. This is one of the reasons I initiated the bill regarding the funding of NGOs by foreign governments.

The Price of Folly, Double Standards and the Intifada - Jonathan S. Tobin

...The price of that folly is, as it has been from the outset, been paid in the blood of victims of terror at the hands of Palestinians that think they are acting on behalf of the just cause of ridding the country of its Jewish population. Unwarranted criticisms such as those of Shapiro don’t merely fall on deaf ears inside Israel. They undermine any rationale for moderation on the part of the Palestinians and tell the world that the U.S. no longer stands by its allies. That the administration persists in such folly after seven years speaks volumes about the damaging role it has played in making the Middle East a more dangerous place.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
20 January '16..

That the Obama administration has forfeited the trust of Israelis is not news. After seven years of picking fights with their government over consensus issues like Jerusalem, the 1967 borders and then embracing détente with Iran, the growing divide between the two allies is not in dispute. Having come into office seeking to create greater daylight between the U.S. and Israel, President Obama has gone further toward achieving that dubious goal than even many of his critics might have thought possible in January 2009. But with the Iran deal now a fait accompli and the Palestinian Authority having squandered all of the advantages Obama tried to give them by attacking the Netanyahu government one might think that relations have sunk about as low as they can go. Since, thanks to Palestinian intransigence, even the administration seems to concede that the peace Obama once thought he would achieve is not possible, what possible purpose would more American attacks on Israel serve?

There’s no ready answer to that question, but the latest contretemps between the administration and the Jewish state highlights a problem that goes deeper than the personal dislike between Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu or even the president’s disappointment at being denied the opportunity to cut the Gordian Knot of Middle East peace. Far from being just a harmless spat, the latest irritant in the fractious relationship between Israel and the United States is actually an example of how Western governments don’t merely bungle the peace process but blunder into statements that actively create incentives for Palestinian attacks on Israelis.

The problem stems from a speech given Monday by Dan Shapiro, the U.S. ambassador to Israel. By blasting Israel’s government for employing “double standards” in justice in the West Bank, Shapiro was wading into dangerous territory. Asserting that Israel doesn’t punish attacks on Arabs the way they do those against Jews, Shapiro was not only making an argument that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. He was also promoting an invidious moral equivalence between the two sides in the conflict that ultimately serves to encourage Palestinians to think they are justified in carrying out random attacks on any Jew within reach.
Part of the reason for the hostile reaction to Shapiro’s speech was bad timing. Though the meme that Israel lets Jewish settlers in the West Bank get away with murder is a popular one on the left, it is a lot harder to make that argument in the wake of the draconian methods employed by Netanyahu’s government to track down the murderers in an arson attack on an Arab village last summer. Though the assailants were part of an isolated fringe group whose sympathizers many only number a few hundred and active participants are far fewer than that, Israeli security services not only arrested them but treated them with the same tough measures employed against Arab terror suspects. That included being held without charges or access to lawyers. Some of those caught up in the investigation even claimed they were tortured and saw no irony in complaining about practices that they applaud when used against Palestinian suspects.

Shapiro’s speech was also ill-timed because he gave it on the same day Dafna Meir, a 40-year-old Jewish mother of six, was buried. She was stabbed to death while defending her children from a Palestinian terrorist that burst into their home in a settlement near Hebron. But, of course, Meir is just the latest victim in a murder campaign being carried out by Palestinians in what is being called the “stabbing intifada.” Though Shapiro duly condemned the murder of Meir, the problem is that he seemed to be treating allegations of minor violence by settlers as being essentially the same thing as the daily attempts to slaughter Jews that has been happening for months.

Thanks Dan. As usual, the Jews are to blame

...Ambassador Shapiro, please tell Secretary Kerry that the British Mandate for Palestine ended more than 67 years ago and the White Paper is a dusty archive item, historical evidence of the global effort (including by the U.S.) to prevent the Jewish people's return to Zion. Jewish settlement throughout our homeland is not the problem, it is the solution. Once you understand this, the world will be a safer place.

Dror Eydar..
Israel Hayom..
19 January '16..

It is worth reading the speech U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro gave at the Institute for National Security Studies conference on Monday. Just hours after we buried Dafna Meir, may God avenge her blood, Shapiro delivered a slap to our faces in a self-aggrandizing address in which he highlighted the wonderful accomplishments that were made possible by "America's global leadership" in recent years. Shapiro said the Iran nuclear deal made "all of us safer."

I hope he is right, but I highly doubt it. As a king of Israel once said, "Don't count your chickens before they hatch."

Shapiro praised U.S. policy in Syria and Iraq and vowed that the Islamic State group would ultimately be defeated. Tell that to hundreds of thousands of Syrians who have been murdered and the millions who have been displaced. Tell that to the women who have been raped and sold into sex slavery and to the Christians who have been forced to convert to Islam. Is this the "global leadership" to which you referred, Ambassador Shapiro?

The real treat came in the middle of the speech.

"We are concerned and perplexed by Israel's strategy on settlements," Shapiro said, adding, "Settler outposts are being legalized -- despite earlier pledges to the United States not to do so." In that line, he was referring to Gush Etzion. He then topped it off by saying, "At times there seem to be two standards of adherence to the rule of law: one for Israelis and another for Palestinians."

If you think Israel is practicing apartheid, Ambassador Shapiro, just say so outright, as that was the grave implication of your words. Parts of the Left in both Israel and the U.S. have already crossed that line.

Shapiro asked, "What is Israel's plan for resolving the conflict?" (Well, we'll contain the conflict for now and deepen our roots in the land of our forefathers. Thanks for asking, Mr. Ambassador!) Can Shapiro tell us what America's plan is? Secretary of State John Kerry visited here countless times and came up with nothing. Does the U.S. want us to hand over the heart of our homeland to a weak Palestinian entity that would soon be taken over by Islamic madmen?

Editorial - Shapiro and Pollard

JPost Editorial
12 August '11

http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=233504




New US Ambassador Shapiro passes the buck and calls Pollard’s fate “an issue for the American legal system.”

The first two questions that new US Ambassador Daniel Shapiro was asked by Channel 2 diplomatic correspondent Udi Segal on Israel’s highest-rated news show last week were both about the fate of the Israeli agent Jonathan Pollard, who has served over 25 years in jail for espionage.

Despite the importance of the issue to Israelis, it would have been understandable had Shapiro diplomatically declined to address such a sensitive matter. But that’s not what he did.

In bypassing the questions, Shapiro passed the buck and called Pollard’s fate “an issue for the American legal system.”

If only it were so.

Pollard’s case is not before the courts. Even though the merits of his case have never been heard in a court of law, all his legal remedies have been exhausted.

The US Constitution grants the president nearly unlimited powers of clemency, specifically for cases like this, where the justice system cannot or will not correct itself.

While the president is free to consult with the justice system or the White House counsel, who receives recommendations from the US pardon attorney, he is under no obligation to do so.

The Office of the Pardon Attorney in the Justice Department was created to assist the president with the sheer volume of work done in investigating and making recommendations for clemency, but the president is neither bound by nor limited by the office’s work. He does not require the pardon attorney’s or the White House counsel’s recommendations, and he does not have to follow any prescribed routine or investigation.

Bill Clinton’s tenure is a case study in the unlimited power to grant clemency. Some of the more extreme examples include the pardons Clinton gave international commodities trader and indicted tax evader Marc Rich and to 16 members of FALN, a Puerto Rican nationalist group responsible for 130 bombings in the US in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Given that the US justice system has not given Pollard a proper forum and no more legal remedies exist, his attorneys filed an appeal for clemency with President Barack Obama in October 2010. Although the formal filing by the attorneys was done via the pardon attorney, it was addressed to the only person who can grant clemency to a prisoner: Obama himself.

In other words, Pollard’s case is now formally awaiting the decision of Obama, and no one else. His case is officially before the president and has been since October.

When Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres made their official requests for Pollard’s release, they made it directly to the president and not to the pardon attorney or the White House counsel.

Netanyahu and Peres await a response from Obama, not from the American legal system.

Similarly, all of the high-ranking American officials from former CIA director James Woolsey, to former secretaries of state George Schultz and Henry Kissinger, to former US attorney-general Michael Mukasey have appealed for clemency for Pollard in the form of commutation of his sentence to time served directly to the president, not the Justice Department.

To sum things up: Jonathan’s fate is squarely in the hands of Obama. The legal system is no longer relevant, so anyone who points to it as being responsible for responding to requests for clemency for Pollard is misleading Israelis.

Normally, ambassadors can be excused for missteps because they are functionaries who aren’t particularly close to decision-makers. This may have been the case with Shapiro’s predecessor, James Cunningham, who blamed the decision not to permit Pollard to attend his father’s funeral on the American justice system, even though US officials said Cunningham had been consulted on the matter.

This may also be true regarding Cunningham’s predecessor, Richard Jones, who had to apologize for telling an audience at Bar-Ilan University in May 2007: “The fact that he wasn’t executed is the mercy that Jonathan Pollard will receive.”

But Shapiro is different. His status as the president’s most trusted adviser on the Middle East predates Obama’s election. As an expert on US-Israel relations, he should know better.

He started off on the wrong foot.

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