I tried to post but it was “held for the Blog owner”. Brad are you afraid of what others may say about Israel as a “friend” of the US?

I urge everyone here to Google
“foreign policy” petraeus israel
and read the article in Foreign Policy they’ll come up with. For a lot of people it will be a revelation – a needed revelation.

And for some lighter reading there’s Thomas Friedman’s article titled “Driving Drunk in Jerusalem”. Google for it or seek in in the NYT.

If relations are at a low, it’s because the Obama administration is now forcing Israel to deal with the U.S. as it does normal allies. That is to say, we will support them, we will go to war for them if push really comes to shove, but we also have our own interests to maintain. In recent years, Israel has grown too used to reflexive, blind support for anything it chooses to do.
We support their right to exist and to use reasonable force to secure that right. On the other hand, to the extent the government chooses to use security as a smoke screen or uses housing as shell game to seize land and endanger any hope of stability in the region, they can expect pressure from us. We are Israel’s friend, not Likud’s waterboy.

nnmns-
there are some things of which i am afraid, but ideas are not among them. the “hold” message appears automatically when content is determined to be questionable by the owners of the site, not me.
i will try and get to the “back room” and see what’s up. i always strive for maximum inclusivness, even if i find the content disagreeable. i would also encourage you to re-examine the content/style of your comment to see why it might have been held.
peace,
rabbi brad

I’m a consistent supporter of Israel. . . but not blindly so and most definitely not in this instance. Adding to settlements at this time — and, making matters worse by announcing the expansion during J. Biden’s visit to Israel — was an aggressive declaration by Israel that it is not serious about seeking a peaceful solution to the Arab-Israeli situation. . . and an intentional slap-in-the-face to U.S. efforts in that regard, and in others as well. As a US citizen, I take that insult personally, and many others (Jews like myself included). To suggest that the Obama Administration is the wrongdoer here, is outrageous. Furthermore, if the conservative Israeli government thinks that humiliating the Obama Administration serves the political interests of conservatives here — without damaging Israel in the process — they’d better think again. ERS

Thanks brad. I’m glad to hear it.

I liked Kenneth’s statement so much I’m going to repeat it here:
We are Israel’s friend, not Likud’s waterboy.

Can Israel sustain itself? If not now, can it do it eventually? Is the unconditional support of Israel by the U.S. really benefiting Israel? Is Israel more secure after 8 years of Bush? If Israel doesn’t want a two-state solution, is it ready to become an apartheid state? Would we give any other country billions of dollars annually in aid while it thumbed its nose at our strategic interests?
These are hard questions. Maybe Israeli policy makers ought to keep them in mind when considering things like settlements.
The U.S. can’t police the world forever. And the further in debt the U.S. goes, the harder it’s gonna be to sell the benefits of Zionism. After all, most of the U.S. isn’t Jewish.
Personally, I would have rather had an open immigration policy for European Jews after World War II. Antisemitism was a real force in Europe. Sadly, it probably would’ve been as well in the U.S. So, in a sense Zionism made sense half a century ago. I’m just not sure it makes sense any longer.

Dear Rabbi Hirschfield,
I am sure you have been to East Jerusalem and seen the outcome of Israel’s policy since 1967 of creating a greater Jerusalem that incorporates, or at least retains a majority Jewish population. If we are talking about a real two state solution then Israel doesn’t do itself a service by continuing to thread the needle by building in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, while disapproving almost all permits to Palestinians and simultaneously thumbing its nose at the United States at the very moment when the US is working overtime to put Iranian nuclear ambitions back in the box. I understand the realities of the governing coalition that PM Netanyahu is tied to. I also understand that at present a majority of Israelis and Palestinians do not believe that peace is possible, (although a majority of citizens on both sides believe in peace). It is a tough part of the world as you know and requires vigilance, statesmanship and a fundamental belief that we are all children of God if a viable solution is to be achieved.

Here’s a very pertinent article by Juan Cole.

LET THERE BE PEACE ON EARTH,AND LET IT BEGIN WITH THE LEADERS OF THE NATIONS.JESUS HAVE ALREADY SAID IN HIS LAST SUPPER THAT HIS PEACE HE HAS GIVEN TO US,AND S WE ARE TO RECEIVE THAT PEACE AND AS TO HOW,WE ASK THAT THROUGH PRAYERS AGAIN.THANKS!

The Obama Administration reaches out to some of the world’s worst regimes in the name of their engagement policy. America and our allies watch as sanctions are eased on Cuba. Letters are written to Iran’s mullahs only to see that regime start killing protestors in the streets of Tehran. Envoys are sent to North Korea as they continue to defy the world’s demand to give up their nuclear weapons. The Burmese military junta’s representative is allowed to travel to our nation’s capital. The President’s envoy for Sudan talks about giving that genocidal regime “gold stars,” while the President shakes hands with Venezuela’s tyrannical leader. In the midst of all this embracing of enemies, where does the Obama Administration choose to escalate a minor incident into a major diplomatic confrontation? With Iran, Cuba, Sudan, North Korea or Burma? No. With our treasured ally, Israel.
Last October, Secretary of State Clinton recognized Israel’s desire for peace in the Middle East and praised Israel’s “unprecedented” concessions for agreeing to halt settlement construction in the West Bank, a concession that did NOT include halting construction of apartments for Jews in Jerusalem. Even last week after planned construction was announced, Vice President Biden still expressed “appreciation” for the “significant” steps taken by the Israeli government to address this minor issue. Now, however, we see the Obama Administration has decided to escalate, make unilateral demands of Israel, and threaten the very foundation of the US-Israel relationship. This is quickly leading to the worst crisis in US-Israel relations in decades, and yet this did not have to happen. More importantly, it needs to stop before it spirals out of control. Vice President Biden should rein in the overheated Obama Administration rhetoric and chill the political spin masters’ fire as they visit the Sunday media shows to criticize Israel.
Once again, the Obama Administration is missing the boat on a very, very important issue. They need to go back to the basics and acknowledge Palestinian leaders have not progressed any peace process since President Obama was elected. As Israel makes concessions (and is still criticized by the Obama Administration), Arab leaders are just sitting back waiting for the White House to further pressure Israel. The Obama Administration needs to open its eyes and recognize that it is only Iran and her terrorist allies that benefit from this manufactured Israeli controversy. Vice President Biden was actually right when he said last week, before the construction announcement, that “one necessary precondition for progress is that the rest of the world knows…there is absolutely no space between the United States and Israel when it comes to security.” Right now, thanks to the Obama Administration, there is a chasm. It’s time for President Obama to push the reset button on our relations with our ally Israel.

The Obama administration’s calculated decision to escalate its open attacks against Israel over a routine decision by the Jerusalem Planning and Building Board to approve 1,600 housing units in Ramat Shlomo neighborhood presents Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu with an unenviable task. He has to either relinquish Israel’s sovereignty over its capital by capitulating in the face of the unprecedented American assault, or he can tell Obama and Clinton and their cohorts to go to hell. It is depressing, and let’s face it, a bit scary that the US, which has refused to raise a finger against Iran’s nuclear program or any other rogue action by any other US enemy has decided to go after Israel in this fashion. It is depressing, but not surprising.
Anyone who paid the slightest attention to who Barack [short for Barakeh in Arabic] Obama is before he was elected knew full well that this man is an enemy of Israel. He was a member of an ardently anti-Semitic church for more than two decades. His friends ranged from virulently anti-Israel and anti-Jewish like Edward Said, Rashid Khalidi, William Ayres, Jeremiah Wright, Samantha Power and Susan Rice — among others — to radically post-Zionist like Arnie Wolf, Rahm Emmanuel and David Axelrod not to mention Joe Biden.
Given his pedigree, no one should have been surprised that Obama has chosen to stir up a crisis in his relations with Israel.
Bibi can tell Obama to stick it where the sun don’t shine and rally the Israeli public and Israel’s many friends in America to his side and so make it impossible for Obama to carry on doing this with immunity. Or he can lick Obama’s boots and set the clock ticking faster towards the destruction of this country.
What’s it going to be Bibi? What’s it going to be? You knew being Prime Minister would demand something of you. Do you have that something? I think you do, somewhere inside. What is it going to be?
Ante up.

Well brad another of my posts was “held for the blog owner”. What’s going on? Why can Sarah and Caroline post diatribes and I can’t reply?

Let’s try it with no URL.
Go to foreignpolicy.com and search for petreaus briefing. You’ll find the article about the briefing of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Petraeus arranged. It includes some strikingly honest revelations:

On Jan. 16, two days after a killer earthquake hit Haiti, a team of senior military officers from the U.S. Central Command (responsible for overseeing American security interests in the Middle East), arrived at the Pentagon to brief Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The team had been dispatched by CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus to underline his growing worries at the lack of progress in resolving the issue. The 33-slide, 45-minute PowerPoint briefing stunned Mullen. The briefers reported that there was a growing perception among Arab leaders that the U.S. was incapable of standing up to Israel, that CENTCOM’s mostly Arab constituency was losing faith in American promises, that Israeli intransigence on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was jeopardizing U.S. standing in the region, and that Mitchell himself was (as a senior Pentagon officer later bluntly described it) “too old, too slow … and too late.”

…

the briefers were careful to tell Mullen that their conclusions followed from a December 2009 tour of the region where, on Petraeus’s instructions, they spoke to senior Arab leaders. “Everywhere they went, the message was pretty humbling,” a Pentagon officer familiar with the briefing says. “America was not only viewed as weak, but its military posture in the region was eroding.”

…

When Vice President Joe Biden was embarrassed by an Israeli announcement that the Netanyahu government was building 1,600 new homes in East Jerusalem, the administration reacted. But no one was more outraged than Biden who, according to the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth, engaged in a private, and angry, exchange with the Israeli Prime Minister. Not surprisingly, what Biden told Netanyahu reflected the importance the administration attached to Petraeus’s Mullen briefing: “This is starting to get dangerous for us,” Biden reportedly told Netanyahu. “What you’re doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That endangers us and it endangers regional peace.” Yedioth Ahronoth went on to report: “The vice president told his Israeli hosts that since many people in the Muslim world perceived a connection between Israel’s actions and US policy, any decision about construction that undermines Palestinian rights in East Jerusalem could have an impact on the personal safety of American troops fighting against Islamic terrorism.” The message couldn’t be plainer: Israel’s intransigence could cost American lives.

This has, of course, been going on for decades and American lives have been lost because of it in Iraq and Afghanistan and likely elsewhere. It’s a great recruiting tool for Al-Qaeda.
It’s time for Americans, like I presume “Sarah Palin” and Caroline are, to decide whether they care for Israel or for the USA. The two countries interests are definitely not the same.

Last June, I noted Gen. David Petraeus’s MoveOn.org-like take on Guantanamo Bay — close it because it causes us problems and violates (unspecified) Geneva Conventions — and his willingness to attribute to the Palestinian war on Israel “justifications” for the existence of Hezbollah.
Now this from Foreign Policy (via Judeosphere):
On Jan. 16, two days after a killer earthquake hit Haiti, a team of senior military officers from the U.S. Central Command (responsible for overseeing American security interests in the Middle East), arrived at the Pentagon to brief Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The team had been dispatched by CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus to underline his growing worries at the lack of progress in resolving the issue.
Read: further Israeli concessions.
The 33-slide, 45-minute PowerPoint briefing stunned Mullen. The briefers reported that there was a growing perception among Arab leaders that the U.S. was incapable of standing up to Israel, that CENTCOM’s mostly Arab constituency was losing faith in American promises, that Israeli intransigence on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was jeopardizing U.S. standing in the region, and that Mitchell himself was (as a senior Pentagon officer later bluntly described it) “too old, too slow … and too late.”
Mind, this was supposes to be a military briefing, not an OIC event.
The January Mullen briefing was unprecedented. No previous CENTCOM commander had ever expressed himself on what is essentially a political issue; which is why the briefers were careful to tell Mullen that their conclusions followed from a December 2009 tour of the region where, on Petraeus’s instructions, they spoke to senior Arab leaders. “Everywhere they went, the message was pretty humbling,” a Pentagon officer familiar with the briefing says. “America was not only viewed as weak, but its military posture in the region was eroding.” But Petraeus wasn’t finished: two days after the Mullen briefing, Petraeus sent a paper to the White House requesting that the West Bank and Gaza (which, with Israel, is a part of the European Command — or EUCOM), be made a part of his area of operations.
Imperial General Time.
Petraeus’s reason was straightforward: with U.S. troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military had to be perceived by Arab leaders as engaged in the region’s most troublesome conflict.
Q: Since when does the US supreme commander ensure that US military doctrine conforms to Arab perceptions? A: Since now.
The Foreign Policy piece includes an update:
[UPDATE: A senior military officer denied Sunday that Petraeus sent a paper to the White House.
"CENTCOM did have a team brief the CJCS on concerns revolving around the Palestinian issue, and CENTCOM did propose a UCP change, but to CJCS, not to the WH," the officer said via email. "GEN Petraeus was not certain what might have been conveyed to the WH (if anything) from that brief to CJCS."
(UCP means "unified combatant command," like CENTCOM; CJCS refers to Mullen; and WH is the White House.)]
So, Petraeus did propose to put Israel under his purview, but to Mullen, not to the White House. The report goes on:
The Mullen briefing and Petraeus’s request hit the White House like a bombshell. While Petraeus’s request that CENTCOM be expanded to include the Palestinians was denied (“it was dead on arrival,” a Pentagon officer confirms), the Obama administration decided it would redouble its efforts — pressing Israel once again on the settlements issue, sending Mitchell on a visit to a number of Arab capitals and dispatching Mullen for a carefully arranged meeting with the chief of the Israeli General Staff, Lt. General Gabi Ashkenazi. While the American press speculated that Mullen’s trip focused on Iran, the JCS Chairman actually carried a blunt, and tough, message on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: that Israel had to see its conflict with the Palestinians “in a larger, regional, context” — as having a direct impact on America’s status in the region. … Certainly, it was thought, Israel would get the message….
The dhimmi-hostage message carried by Gen.Petraeus being that Israel building 1,600 apartments in Jerusalem places US troops’ lives in danger in the wider region (Iraq and Afghanistan). Such appeasement, this time at the expense of the Israelis, will only embolden all of our jihadist enemies to make more and more outrageous demands. The story continues:
Israel didn’t.
Well, thank goodness.
When Vice President Joe Biden was embarrassed by an Israeli announcement that the Netanyahu government was building 1,600 new homes in East Jerusalem,
He should have gone and cut a ribbon on the project
the administration reacted. But no one was more outraged than Biden who, according to the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth, engaged in a private, and angry, exchange with the Israeli Prime Minister. Not surprisingly, what Biden told Netanyahu reflected the importance the administration attached to Petraeus’s Mullen briefing: “This is starting to get dangerous for us,” Biden reportedly told Netanyahu. “What you’re doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That endangers us and it endangers regional peace.”
Yedioth Ahronoth went on to report: “The vice president told his Israeli hosts that since many people in the Muslim world perceived a connection between Israel’s actions and US policy, any decision about construction that undermines Palestinian rights in East Jerusalem could have an impact on the personal safety of American troops fighting against Islamic terrorism.” The message couldn’t be plainer: Israel’s intransigence could cost American lives.
How about Israelis continuing to breathe? Is that okay?
There are important and powerful lobbies in America: the NRA, the American Medical Association, the lawyers — and the Israeli lobby. But no lobby is as important, or as powerful, as the U.S. military. While commentators and pundits might reflect that Joe Biden’s trip to Israel has forever shifted America’s relationship with its erstwhile ally in the region, the real break came in January, when David Petraeus sent a briefing team to the Pentagon with a stark warning: America’s relationship with Israel is important, but not as important as the lives of America’s soldiers. …
Here’s a plan Gen. Petraeus should be able to get behind: A new battle strategy, maybe a Kilcullen special, for him to join forces with Iran to once and for all nuke Israel and its genocidal apartment houses out of existence. That, according to his own lights, is sure to keep American troops safe in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Heck, it would win the war — or at least the jihad.

In short, if we are the poodle of Israel why should any Arab nation respect us? And Israel goes out of its way to show we are its poodle.

Gosh Caroline I didn’t realize you are so close to the edge. I’m guessing you read way too much from AIPAC or some such organization. I urge you to cut down; it will do your blood pressure a world of good.
And in any case, keep in mind there are two countries. Many of us here are Americans and America comes first to us. It seems you are more concerned about Israel, and that’s fine, but don’t count on America putting Israeli interests before its own like it has for so long.

Indeed we must take it seriously when, Israel is being protrayed as “the bad guy” when they are merely doing what any nation would do er military attack when lies are told and believed about why Israel took the actions it did to defend itself. Yes, this is serious “es, trouble is afoote”!

And I liked Kenneth’s statement so much I’ll repeat it, too. We are Israel’s friend, not Likud’s waterboy.

I’m a fan of Caroline’s, GO GIRL!!!!!
Hey, M&Ms…”why should any Arab nation respect us? ”
Why on earth would anyone want the respect of these snakes?
Go Bibi and all the Israelis.

Caroline,
The problem is that people only look to the media for their information. The media went out of their way to make a big deal about Obama being the first African American President, but when you look at his lineage you find that he’s 1/16 African and 7/16 Arabic. So by the media’s standards he is also the first Arabic President. Which is not necessarily bad in and of itself. However, taken with his past Church history, etc. his support of Israel had to be questioned a little bit.
The good news is that everything is ultimately in the Creator’s hands and it will all work out in the end.

Perhaps I am somewhat uninformed, however it seems to me that if Israel wants to build homes/apartments/ etc. within its borders – whose business is it anyhow? How would we (the USA) react if any foreign government objected to the fact if we wanted to build the same in any part of our country? There is an old quotation from Benito Juarez that declares “Respecting the right of others creates peace.” While we can and should support Israel’s independence and democracy, wouldn’t it be better to keep our collective nose out of their internal affairs and concentrate instead on larger issues?

Let the nations of the world heed God’s Word over Israel and her people (His people)…..that it is their land….given to them by Him and we had best support them as a nation under God….woe to those who come against them…….

The world had better be aware that God watches over Israel and her people….they are His chosen ones…..it is their land given to them by Him a long time ago and prophecy tells us He will protect them….and prophecy tells us we had better not come against them…that God will retaliate against the nations that do not support them…..He is never going to allow other then His chosen ones to occupy Israel….

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