Obama and Israel

Excellent commentary from pajamasmedia.com:

October 29, 2008 - by Kyle-Anne Shiver
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“I want to remind those of you … who don’t know me and those of you who do know me what my record has been. It has been unstinting in the defense and support of Israel,” he said at a community center, having discussed at length his travels there and work as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “I give you my word as a Biden, I would not have given up that job to be Barack Obama’s vice president if I didn’t — in my gut, and in my heart, and in my head — know that Barack Obama is exactly where I am on Israel.”

– Vice-presidential candidate Joe Biden, September 2, at a Jewish community center in Florida

Please, dear reader, do call me a skeptic; I am one. I started learning the price of gullibility in first grade. I traded my chocolate chip cookies to a third grader for his promise of a new pencil sharpener at recess. He lied; I learned.

My grandfather helped. He taught me to “always consider the source” before believing a promise and to never place my trust in an untrustworthy person. I lived and I learned.

Now that I’m well into my sixth decade of life, I’m a very hard sell. And the higher the stakes riding on the promise, the more care I put into my decision to proffer my trust.

When it comes to Israel and her survival as a free nation, the stakes are so high that it behooves even the most trusting American to examine closely the words and records of our candidates in this regard. And, sadly, we are forced to admit that the only reason Joe Biden had to make the reassuring statement above to Jews in Florida is that his candidate, Barack Obama, has the most tenuous, nearly nonexistent, and utterly unreliable “record” of any candidate ever to seek the presidency.

Especially in the arena of foreign affairs. Especially with regard to Israel and the Palestinians.

Scores of articles have already been written about Barack Obama’s rubbery rhetoric, the kind that stretches credulity to the popping point. As it stands now, this untested knave has made so many contradictory statements regarding Israel — a divided or undivided Jerusalem, the threat of radical Islamic terrorists, and on and on and on — that one must pinpoint the date of a statement to even attempt to figure out where Obama actually stands on anything whatsoever.

But Joe Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is absolutely certain of one thing. He’s certain — certain — that the unreliable Obama will be tested within his first six months by other leaders around the globe. Where Americans have utterly failed to properly vet and test this candidate for the presidency, rogue regimes and terrorists and leaders bent on flexing their military muscle will not fail to test and terrorize in their attempts to find the limits of Obama’s mettle.

Not surprisingly, John McCain agrees.

But no American voter need take the word of the Republican candidate, John McCain, for any of this. We have the words of Hillary Clinton. We have the words of Joe Biden. We have the words of Joe Lieberman.

What’s even more startling to me is the fact that Barack Obama has laid out his specific plan to weaken America’s defenses — piece by piece — in the hope that countries like Iran, Russia, North Korea, and a host of other threatening, hell-bent regimes will see our example and follow suit.

Candidate Obama even made a video, in which he states unequivocally his plan to stake the security of the entire peace-loving world upon his own completely untested skill as a diplomat.

From where I sit, this isn’t a job for a diplomat; it’s the job of a messiah.

Nevertheless, Obama makes the following pledges regarding defense:

“I will cut tens of billions of dollars of wasteful defense spending.”

This makes me nervous.

“I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems.”

Actually these systems are proving quite capable of protecting against attack.

“I will not weaponize space.”

Even if Russia and China do?

“I will slow our development of future combat systems.”

Letting enemy regimes catch up with us helps preserve the peace? How?

“I will not develop new nuclear weapons.”

Well, it might be diplomatic to let Iran, Syria, North Korea, and others catch up with us. But is it safe?

“I will seek a global ban on the development of fissile material, and negotiate with Russia to take our ICBMs off hair-trigger alert and achieve deep cuts in our nuclear arsenals.”

Obama’s grandfather clearly did not teach him to consider the source and not to put one’s trust in untrustworthy people.

It is very sad to say, but of all our allies, Israel is by far the most vulnerable. Yet, candidate Obama, who still seems to believe in the tooth fairy, plans to sit down and talk with Ahmadinejad, albeit with “preparation” but still “without preconditions” in the first year of his presidency.

Whether this little pow-wow will take place before the anticipated “international crisis” or after is anybody’s guess. Eerily enough, a possible international crisis involving Israel was recently stopped accidentally by a group of Somali pirates.

According to the Israel National News website, an Iranian ship was hijacked by Somali pirates in August, an event which made barely a blip in the mainstream press.

U.S. and Israeli intelligence officials maintained a tight-lipped silence on the alleged incident. However, Russian intelligence sources reportedly said the ship was “an enormous floating dirty bomb, intending to detonate after exiting the Suez Canal at the eastern end of the Mediterranean and in proximity to the coastal cities of Israel.”

“The entire cargo of radioactive sand,” said the Russian sources, “[was] obtained by Iran from China (the latter buys desperately needed oil from the former) and sealed in containers which, when the charges on the ship are set off after the crew took to the boats, will be blasted high into the air where prevailing winds will push the highly dangerous and radioactive cloud ashore.”

Several military web blogs have noted that had the ship’s crew succeeded in reaching Israel’s coastal waters with their deadly cargo, it would have been quite easy to escape the vessel in small boats and then detonate explosives on the vessel. The radioactive powder, which would have been blown into the air, would have been carried by the wind straight to Israel.

Of course, the report goes on to say that it’s impossible to verify this with complete certainty, but if we consider Iran as the source, then we know without doubt that this scenario is certainly very plausible.

This simple deductive reasoning ought not be above anybody’s pay grade.

Of course, Americans sitting safely ensconced continents away from the evil masterminds of the Middle East can easily turn a blind eye towards the death and destruction that continues on a daily basis in our sister nation, Israel. But a great many American Jews have abandoned the safety of home to make aliyah and I could not help but shudder when I read this article by Naomi Ragen, who has made Israel her home since 1971 and has learned the hard way to consider the source of all promises.

Ms. Ragen writes passionately of living through the never-ending quest for peace in her adopted homeland, of trusting and voting for “peace now” candidates against her better judgment, of giving into the fantasies of her countrymen over the Oslo accords, of watching men, women, and children she knew get exploded into bits, and even of her own narrow escapes from death at terrorist hands.

On our presidential election, she makes this anguished plea:

The presidential election of the most liberal and inexperienced politician in America — a man with strong Muslim ties and a strong Muslim background; a man who is linked to domestic terrorism through Bill Ayers, and to numerous pro-Islamic and anti-American advisors, all of whom side with Israel’s leftist enemies (including Israelis), as well as to anti-American anti-Semites like Reverend Wright; a man whose supporters are among the same people who brought down the American economy with their “liberalism” in money-lending — is just about a fait accompli. I have no idea what has happened to the America I knew. I have no idea what happened to the American Jewish community’s support for Israel, how it has been washed away by deceptive self-interest and propaganda lies. But when I think what is in store for the America which is doing this to herself, and the American Jewish community that thinks by selling out Israel it will somehow achieve “change” that will benefit it, my heart aches.

I’m not Jewish. I cannot even pretend to know how it feels to have real relatives who miraculously survived the Holocaust. I cannot pretend to know the realities of living under the ever-present threat that the Israelis endure day in and day out every week, every month, every year. And I cannot pretend that I know the frustration that Israelis like Naomi Ragen have with their sister communities of Jewish Americans.

But I am a passionate lover of Israel. Not because of any creed or faith or bloodline. I love Israel simply because it is the right thing to do. Always has been. Americans once knew this without thinking. The Israelis have demonstrated again, again, again, and again that if the Muslim states want to live side by side in peace, then an everlasting peace will be immediate. Only people blinded by foolish gullibility or misplaced loyalties could possibly see it any differently, in my opinion.

Iran is a proven evil in this world. Ahmadinejad states over and over again his intention to bring about the “real Holocaust.”

This is one lesson the world simply cannot afford to learn again the hard way. But if we don’t vote for the wise hand of John McCain on the national tiller next month, then we may very well learn once again how brazen evil can be in the face of weak-kneed leadership.

Never again? One must never say “never” without the necessary conviction to make it so.