Obama To Israel - Get Bent

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Obama To Israel - Get Bent

The Obama Administration is sending a clear message that they no longer consider Israel as one of our most important allies but as an obstruction. And they couldn't care less about making it blatantly obvious.

IDF Chief of Staff General Gaby Ashkenazi made a special trip to Washington DC to discuss the Iran situation, but cut short his trip and left for the simple reason that no one with any major position in the administration wanted to be bothered with listening to anything he had to say:

Last year, Israeli Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi had no problem setting up meetings with top officials in the U.S. government.

On his current trip to Washington, Ashkenazi sought to meet the administration of President Barack Obama, but most officials were unavailable.

Diplomatic sources said Ashkenazi failed to obtain access to any Cabinet member, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates. The Israeli military chief, who sought to discuss the Iranian nuclear threat, won't even meet his counterpart, Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"The administration is sending a very clear message to Israel, and this is we want to talk about Palestine and not Iran," a diplomat who has been following U.S.-Israel relations said.

On March 12, Ashkenazi left for a five-day visit to the United States meant to lobby the Obama administration to abandon the planned U.S. dialogue with Iran. Ashkenazi, scheduled to meet with the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, was expected to have brought new Israeli intelligence on Iran's nuclear weapons and missile programs.

But the diplomatic sources said the administration made it clear that nobody in a policy-making position was available to sit with Ashkenazi. This included the president, Vice President Joseph Biden, Gates, National Intelligence director Dennis Blair or Mullen.

"The Israeli government and military have been alarmed by the rapid and dramatic reversal in the U.S. policy toward Iran," the source said. "This reversal took place without any consultation with Israel, Gulf Arab countries or even Congress."

The sources said Israel has sought a U.S. commitment to limit its dialogue with Iran. Israel has also urged Obama to make it clear that the military option against Iran's nuclear program exists.

But Obama and his top aides appear uninterested in hearing Israel's position. The sources said a key aim of Ashkenazi was to urge the administration to release weapons and systems long sought by Israel in the area of aerial refueling, air-to-ground weapons, sensors as well as the F-22 fighter-jet.

"Ashkenazi sees this U.S. refusal as what has been undermining Israeli deterrence toward Iran and boosting the confidence of the Teheran regime," the source said. "The mullahs in regime have concluded that America has dropped the military option and won't allow such an option to Israel."

Nor is General Ashkenazi the only one getting stiffed.

Netanyahu's choice for head of his national security council is ex-Mossad chief Uzi Arad. He has been denied a visa to enter the USas an intelligence risk, believe it or not on trumped up charges stemming from the farcical AIPAC case which is on the verge of being thrown out of court. This in a country where Sandy Berger got off for actually stealing classified documents with a mere slap on the wrist, and the Obama Administration just set aside $20.3 million dollars to help Hamas migrate to America!

President Obama's foreign policy direction is crystal clear. He has accepted the leftist doctrine that the problems in the Muslim world are all the fault of the evil colonialist West, so he plans to placate them as much as necessary.That's what's behind his distancing himself and his administration from Israel, and from Britain, which is seen in the Arab world as a former occupier and colonial power.

In that context, the Obama Administration could care less about the implications of Iran having nuclear weapons. They don't see that as a threat to the new policy of moving closer to the Muslim world...and the last thing they want is for those pesky Jews in Israel to upset things.

Part of that policy will also involve maximum pressure Israel to impose a settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict on the Arab's terms, including flooding Israel with thousands of Palestinian 'refugees'. The legitimization of Hamas by the Obama Administration will be just the beginning.

I certainly hope that the many American Jews that helped vote this president into power with the naive idea that he was 'pro-Israel' are starting to realize what they've done.

They'll understand that far better in the future, when, to paraphrase Obama's old mentor Reverend Wright, the chickens come home to roost in a very personal and painful way.