We can avoid Iranian nukes by opting for the Auschwitz borders or
we can avoid the Auschwitz borders but be bullied by Iranian nukes.
By SARAH HONIGTweedledee Tweedledum 311(photo credit: From Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland)
Time to quit quibbling. No pedantic hairsplitting can mitigate the evidence: The Obama administration cynically links Iran to the Arab-Israeli conflict. The premise is simple and chilling. If Israel wants a last-minute, last-ditch, quasi-credible American move to keep Iran from obtaining nukes, it must pay the piper by making hefty concessions to the sham paraded as the Palestinian Authority. Boiled down to its bare essence, the White House diktat means that Israel can maybe extricate itself from existential Iranian threats by submitting itself to existential Iranian-proxy threats.Had Barack Obama ever read Shalom Aleichem’s autobiography he’d have encountered the author’s harrowing recollection of the story his grandfather told him about “the bird-Jew.” That was how the grandfather referred to Noah, a pious innkeeper who lived in constant dread of the gentile village squire. Trembling, Noah headed for the manor to renew his lease. His timing was off, because the courtyard was full of festive guests ready to go hunting.The squire, in a jovial mood, agreed to renew the lease if Noah would climb the stable roof and pretend to be a bird, so he could shoot him. Fearful of angering the nobleman, the worst consequence the Jew could imagine, Noah obsequiously did his bidding. He went up and, as ordered, bent forward, flung his arms sideways and assumed a birdlike pose. At that point the squire fired and Noah fell, as any slain bird would.Although realizing he was about to be put to death anyway, the bird-Jew played along with his executioner, still absurdly terrified of what might happen if he didn’t. Obama is the proverbial squire in our own tale, casting Israel as the latter-day bird-Jew.Israel is now squarely in Obama’s gun sights. It’s blamed for all Mideast ills. Obama, after all, is the high priest of the political theology of American/Western guilt. Israel embodies Western culpability. If Obama preaches American penance vis-à-vis Arabs/Muslims, Israel obviously must atone in more than words for the sins he ascribes to it.It’s in this context that we ought to examine Gen. David Petraeus’s statement last month to the Senate Armed Services Committee. More than hinting that Israel puts American lives at risk, he wrote that the Arab-Israeli “conflict foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of US favoritism for Israel. Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of US partnerships with governments and peoples” of the region “and weakens the legitimacy of moderate regimes in the Arab world. Meanwhile, al-Qaida and other militant groups exploit that anger to mobilize support. The conflict also gives Iran influence in the Arab world through its clients, Lebanese Hizbullah and Hamas.”The subtext is unavoidable: Neutralize the Israeli irritant and all will be hunky-dory.The latest stooge in the Obama fool’s errand to assuage Muslim animus is the president’s national security adviser, Gen. James Jones. He told the Washington Institute for Near East Policy that “one of the ways Iran exerts influence in the Middle East is by exploiting the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict. Advancing peace would... help prevent Iran from cynically shifting attention away from its failures to meet its obligations.”Dutifully following their boss’s lead, both Tweedledum and Tweedledee know whom to fault. And said boss, while painting himself as Israel’s loyal ally, insisted at a recent press conference that resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was “a vital national security interest of the United States.” For those who failed to get his point, Obama honed it: The conflict is “costing us significantly in terms of blood and treasure.”PATRIOTIC AMERICANS are now told insidiously that by not bowing down toObama’s ultimatums Israel jeopardizes the lives of American troops inIraq and Afghanistan. When depicting a pacified Mideast as a “vitalnational security interest” that must be secured, the “peeved” Obamaputs Israel on notice that he will shove a solution down itsintransigent throat.
The nature of his cure is determined by his diagnosis, which in turn iscolored by his perception of democracy’s foes as frustrated potentialfriends. In Obama’s universe, it’s the West’s haughty insensitivitywhich sparks Arab/Muslim hostility. Islamic expansionism andexclusionism aren’t problems but cultural assets for America.Consequently democratic Israel must sacrifice its self-preservation tofacilitate appeasement of Muslims sworn to annihilate the Jewish state.Obama’s radical worldview places the onus on the victim. Its corollarycontention is that were the aggressor’s grievances redressed, all wouldbe hunky-dory.The great American silent majority may not be fully aware of Obama’sdangerous undertones. Many of his Jewish voters willfully prefer not tounderstand. They’d rather not admit liability for their political folly– a common psychological shortcoming.So we Israelis are left alone. It’s up to us not to be bamboozled.While the current US administration calls the shots, there is noIsraeli-American alliance we can remotely count on. Obama will donothing whatever to even diminish the danger of an Iranian nuclearthreat against Israel. Otherwise he wouldn’t have frittered valuabletime for more than a year, twiddling his thumbs. The sanctions Obamaproposes are preposterously useless anyhow and further diluting them towin Chinese and Russian acquiescence would make them altogetherlaughable. China and Russia, let’s not forget, are Iran’s principalenablers. Obama knows this.Had Obama wanted to effectively deal with Iran’s rogue regime, he’dneed no allies. America could have unilaterally declared stringentsanctions, imposed them on prime trading partners and enforced anair-and-sea blockade that few would have dared breach. No militaryattack would be required.But that’s not Obama’s agenda. We must suspect that he desires anuclear Iran to render Israel more vulnerable, pitiably dependent andpliable, thereby facilitating his envisioned great rapprochement withthe Muslim world.Obama’s endgame is to debilitate, demoralize and destabilize Israel.All he offers Israelis is a choice of how his inimical goal will beachieved. This may be via allowing Iran the weaponry with which tointimidate Israel or by shrinking Israel into the Auschwitz borders (asultra-dove Abba Eban called the 1949 armistice lines into which Obamaschemes to squeeze us).We can avoid Iranian nukes by opting for the Auschwitz borders or wecan avoid the Auschwitz borders but be bullied by Iranian nukes. Theunspoken signal from Washington is: Either way, you’re dead. Yet we aresomehow supposed to refrain from saying so lest we upset Obama evenmore.Our steadfast striving not to incur more wrath makes just about as muchsense as it did for the two Jews in the following variation on thebird-Jew theme. These Jews faced a firing squad. One of them cursed theexecutioner who offered him a blindfold. The other was horrified andexclaimed in trepidation: “Why are you making him angry? You’re goingto get us killed!”www.sarahhonig.com
