Kerry remarks at Harvard: Morally obtuse and factually wrong

...It’s remarkable that the Secretary of State, who has spent so much time with Israelis and Palestinians and has visited Jerusalem repeatedly, has not bothered to learn the basic facts. He is instead parroting Palestinian propaganda.

Elliot Abrams..
Pressure Points..
14 October '15..

Secretary of State Kerry made an unhelpful, mistaken, ill-informed comment about the current wave of Palestinian violence yesterday when speaking at Harvard.

Here is the comment Kerry made:

So here’s the deal. What’s happening is that unless we get going, a two-state solution could conceivably be stolen from everybody. And there’s been a massive increase in settlements over the course of the last years. Now you have this violence because there’s a frustration that is growing, and a frustration among Israelis who don’t see any movement.

Kerry does not know what he is talking about. There has simply not been “a massive increase in settlements over the course of the last years.” There has been a steady growth in settlement population, though the bulk of that growth is in the major blocs–such as Ma’ale Adumim–that Israel will clearly retain in any final agreement. Kerry’s imprecision is another problem. Does he mean there has been a massive increase in the number of settlements? That’s flatly false. Does he mean a massive increase in settlement size, as existing settlements expand physically? That’s also flatly false. The so-called “peace map” or “Google Earth map” of the West Bank has changed very little.

The frequent Palestinian claim that Israel is “gobbling up” the West Bank so that “peace will be impossible” is what Kerry is here repeating when he says “a two-state solution could conceivably be stolen from everybody.” It’s a false claim and he should know it. If that is not what Kerry meant, he should be far more careful when he speaks about such an explosive topic–and at such an explosive moment.

Not everyone suffers from blindness but...

...Not everyone suffers from blindness. The editor of Asharq Al-Awsat, Eyad Abu Shakra, published a piercing article following the wave of terror on Black Friday two weeks ago. For a change, there wasn't a shred of self-deception in the article. Not poverty, not distress, not the occupation and not Israel. He points his accusatory finger at "real Islam" texts. That is the source of the murderous jihad, he wrote bravely. And in order to stop this disease, we must not cover up the problem. How fortunate it is that he didn't listen to Carter, or Army Radio.

Ben-Dror Yemini..
Israel Opinion/Ynet..
11 July '15..

Unlike the leaders of other Arab countries, Egypt's president has no delusions with regards to Islam. Several months ago, al-Sisi chose to make a dramatic speech about Islam in the most important religious institute: Al-Azhar University.

He firmly asserted that there is a problem with the direction Islam is being carried in, and called for a revolution from within. Here is a leader who doesn't suffer from blindness. But even the Egyptian president still has a problem in one area. Al-Sisi met with a delegation from the American-Jewish Committee. According to reports in the Egyptian press, he told them that "resolving the Palestinian problem will eliminate one of the main reasons for joining terror organizations."

That same day jihadists murdered, among others, 44 people in Nigeria and 14 others in Kenya. In the first 19 days of Ramadan, 1,899 people were murdered by jihadists, an average of close to a 100 per day. None of them had anything to do with the Palestinian problem.

The problem is that this thesis, on the connection between the Palestinian problem and Jihad, is quite common among "progressive" circles. Jimmy Carter, for example, claimed shortly after the murder in Charlie Hebdo that "one of the origins for it is the Palestinian problem." It used to be "look at the Jews for blame," now it's "look at Israel for blame."

This nonsense is also plaguing us. As I write these lines, there is a conversation on Army Radio about the arrest of Bedouin teachers caught spreading ISIS dogma. Most of the conversation revolved around the distress the Bedouin suffer under Israeli rule, which leads them, the poor things, to support jihad. When this is what is being broadcast on Army Radio, how can we judge Carter?

Obama officially divorces Israel

Fresnozionism.org
15 April '10
Posted before Shabbat

The administration-friendly New York Times today published a story entitled “Obama Speech Signals a U.S. Shift on Middle East” (dictated by) attributed to “unnamed White House officials” which I think we can take as an ‘official’ statement of the administration’s policy. It’s worth dissecting the key portions.

When Mr. Obama declared that resolving the long-running Middle East dispute was a “vital national security interest of the United States,” he was highlighting a change that has resulted from a lengthy debate among his top officials over how best to balance support for Israel against other American interests.

Mentioning the need to “balance support for Israel against other American interests” tells us two things:

1.our interests not only diverge from those of Israel, but in some sense are at odds with them; and,

2.we intend to change the degree to which we support Israel.

By “other American interests,” what is meant is the desire to improve relations with the Arab nations and perhaps Iran; the administration appears to believe that this can be accomplished by reducing our support for Israel.

(Read full post)

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