Obama Triples US Arms Sales to Saudi Arabia. Just like the Deficit!!

A funny thing happened along the way to ‘containing’ Iran. Israel lost its historic military edge in the Middle East, and Obama tripled the Bush arms commitment to Saudi Arabia. Haha, the joke it appears is on us. In the last year of the Bush administration the US announced 3 major arms packages.

1. 10 year, 30 Billion dollar arms commitment to Israel.
2. 10 year, 20 Billion arms sale package to Saudi Arabia
3. Multi billion dollar arms sale package to US Gulf allies.

Last year, I wrote that per capita (dollars spent per person) Israel was the largest defense spender on the planet. However, in raw dollar numbers Saudi Arabia was doubling us. According to the Economist, in 2009 Israel spent approximately 16 billion dollars on arms, roughly 3 billion of it coming from US military aid. Compared to the Saudis who spent an alarming 38 Billion dollars on weapons.

Alarm bells went off

Early on in the Obama administration Israel voiced serious concerns to the US at the highest levels. Commitments to Israel regarding arms packages had been broken, and top of the line advanced US weapons were being sold to Saudi Arabia, including guided weapons, smart bombs, and advanced fighter aircraft as part of their 20 billion dollar package under Bush.

Senior sources in the current U.S. administration, and senior officials at the foreign and defense ministries in Israel, have suggested that during the last year of the Bush administration the U.S. sold advanced military equipment to moderate Arab states – Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. The Americans justified the arms sales with the need to bolster these countries against the perceived threat posed by Iran.

In an address before the National Jewish Democratic Council, Israel’s ambassador to Washington, Michael Oren, commented on the matter. “We discovered that the qualitative edge of the IDF has been eroded,” Oren said. “We came to the Obama administration and said: ‘Listen, we have a problem.’”

According to Oren the response of the Obama administration was positive and immediate. “They said they are going to deal with this matter and ensure that the qualitative edge of the IDF is preserved,” he said. “Since then we have embarked on a dialog [on preserving the IDF's qualitative edge].” [...]

The results?

The Obama administration and democrats tried to make hay implying that Bush was not Israel’s friend, rather Obama is. They were going to fix this. This week it all came gushing out. Today Israel announced it was agreeing to pick up approximately 20 F35 JSF fighter from the US in a 3 billion dollar deal, in order to ostensibly ‘maintain our qualitative edge’.

At the same time, last week the Saudi’s were reported to have agreed to purchasing 84 new F15 fighters from the US in a 30 billion dollar arms deal. As the big fix to allay Israel, Obama had agreed to keep some of the long range weaponry destined to the Saudis out of their deal..

Wait for it.. Today the other shoe dropped.

The Saudi deal swelled, doubling to 60 BILLION DOLLARS over the next 10 years. Throwing in on top of the 84 F15s, an additional 130+ attack helicopters – Some 60 of them advanced Apache gunships, plus US Blackhawks. This will bring the Saudi air-force well above the 200 mark for advanced F15s, and dwarf Israel’s attack helicopter fleet by a factor of about 3.

Obama came through all right..

He in theory cut some of the munitions & systems going to the Saudis, and instead TRIPLED the 20 billion dollar Bush commitment turning it into a 60 billion dollar arms orgy.

One that will see Israel numbers wise outgunned, outspent, and in theory possibly outmatched in the next 15 years. Shifting the balance of power in the Middle East, a balance which was already tilting of late away from Israel toward Iran & terrorists.

Containing Iran is costing us dearly indeed, and they have not even developed the nuclear weapons yet.

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President Touched A Raw American Nerve

Surrounded by high profile liberal Jewish advisers, Obama promised the world and some regarding his Israeli bonafides while campaigning. The American Jewish community extended the benefit of the doubt despite what were clear warning flags.

Among them:

• Obama’s hard progressive political views, most often associated with unfriendly parts of the US democratic party.
• Strong ties to African American Black Liberation Theology in the form of a 20 year stint under viciously anti-Israel pastor Jeremiah Wright.
• A consistent pronounced sympathy to Palestinian and Arab narratives
• His primary foreign policy focus, a loudly stated intention to engage with rogue & terror supporting regimes.

We all know the results.

Crisis

While American public support of Israel was peaking, the White House pursued a highly visible policy of creating daylight between America & Israel. Undermining Israel’s elected government, ratcheting up pressure, and for the 1st time ever turning the Israeli public itself against a sitting US President. All of it simply unheard of.

Obama was gambling, senior administration figures even warned him such policies could cost him dearly..

Gibbs is also a regular at foreign policy meetings. He volunteered that he attended all 33 hours of the Afghanistan briefings, though he noted that he never said a word. He did chime in during last month’s escalating tensions with Israel, if only to make sure the president understood the “conventional wisdom” promoted in the media, that Obama’s toughness with Likud hard-liners would potentially erode his domestic Jewish support. “For a lot of reasons, he would discount that,” Gibbs said, referring to the president.

Obama was wrong..

Push back

The American Jewish community, both houses of Congress, the American public  have all voiced their anger. The GOP buttressed by poll after poll showing massive pro-Israel support among Republicans (often over 80%), in conjunction with alarming diminishing support among Obama democratic faithful; has seized Israel as a key issue and is running with it politically for the 2010 Mid-Terms. All in the hopes of luring soft democratic Jewish & independent voters to GOP candidates, based on the mounting anger with White House Israel policy and the very public blowout.

As the Obama administration tries to mend its strained ties with Israel, strategists say U.S. policy on the Jewish state could influence several battleground House and Senate races this fall.

Jewish leaders from both parties are watching Senate campaigns in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois and Florida, and a pair of House races in President Barack Obama’s home state where they say Israel policy could loom large. [...]

There is also the matter of funding. Rumors that Jewish funding for democratic candidates, once a torrent has dwindled into a dry wadi. In reaction, a massive WH PR blitz this past month to repair the messaging as Rahm Emmanuel calls it, patch up the dyke so to speak.

In Israel

Concern mounts. An unfriendly administration, the GOP push politically which seeks to wedge American voters on the issue. All of it threatens what was once a green pasture of strong bi-partisan Israel support in America. The only consolation, many candidates will be yelling loud & proud over each other on both ends of the aisle to establish their own Pro-Israel bonafides with the American public.

Israel - So often already through no fault of its own, has become an all new battleground once again in 2010.

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Just like Sesame Street: When we die as martyrs!

The Palestinian Authority is supposed to be combating incitement, at least that’s what Mahmoud Abbas has told Obama, Israel and Jewish leaders.

Obamas has staked the last 17 months on reaching nothing remotely resembling peace. Instead we are shooting lower. According to White house officials dialog between the parties would be a major breakthrough, especially seeing as this actually was going on before Obama assumed office. So far so futile. The word was in Washington that by pressuring Israel (and pressure there has been in spades) the ‘door would open’ for comprehensive peace..

So far despite the grandiose plans, as well as a politically difficult settlement moratorium by Israel (which will soon expire after 10 months) there is..

• No open door
• No direct negotiations
• No seeming wider Arab world involvement
• No halt to PA incitement

All aboard, the peace train!!

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Elliott Abrams

The former dep. national security adviser to G.W Bush and Middle East expert does an extensive video interview on his views of the current state of Middle East Peace (or lack thereof), and the missteps of the Obama administration regarding the US Israel relationship. (H/T Jen Rubin)

Missed Opportunities under W & Obama 

I am always on the lookout for Mr. Abrams articles and views, because he’s usually quite on the mark. Amongst other interesting points he touches on is one regarding his own personal differences of opinion with the Bush admin regarding the rushed Annapolis peace drive. My own views at the time chronicled here at the Hashmonean were that Condi Rice and the US State Department convinced the President to gamble all on Annapolis, to try and secure some foreign policy gains during the radical FP shifts of Bush’s 2nd term. That term came up short in all too many ways save for Iraq.

I still believe one of the last remaining opportunities to stop the Iranian nuclear weapons drive was lost at the tail end of that 2nd term, with Bush & Cheney still in office. Hopefully I’m wrong about that. At the time it was rumored that PM Olmert floated a request to strike, but President Bush was advised against getting on board while VP Cheney held a harder line. We all know what has developed subsequently under the new President Obama.. Iranian, Syrian and Palestinian appeasement have reached new untold heights at both Israeli & American expense.

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PR Job – Obama Admin Displays Its Effective Israel Outreach

Lots has been made of late of the massive PR job the Obama administration has been selling American voters & Jewry regarding Israel. Everything is just great, there never was a crisis, the whole thing was really just some ‘faulty messaging’.. In fact, we may have imagined the whole thing here in Israel *eyeroll*.

I do have a vivid imagination.. But never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that a US Deputy National Security Adviser (tasked with advising the President on the war on terror no less) would lavish praise on the Hezbollah terrorist organization!? Then follow that outrageousness up by referring to the Capital of the State of Israel Jerusalem as Al Quds in an official statement, on official White House video no less!

John Brennan calls for the US to build up Hezbollah moderates!

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration is looking for ways to build up “moderate elements” within the Lebanese Hezbollah guerrilla movement and to diminish the influence of hard-liners, a top White House official said on Tuesday.

John Brennan, assistant to the president for homeland security and counter-terrorism, met with Lebanese leaders during a recent visit.

“Hezbollah is a very interesting organization,” Brennan told a Washington conference, citing its evolution from “purely a terrorist organization” to a militia to an organization that now has members within the parliament and the cabinet. “There is certainly the elements of Hezbollah that are truly a concern to us what they’re doing. And what we need to do is to find ways to diminish their influence within the organization and to try to build up the more moderate elements,” Brennan said.

He did not spell out how Washington hoped to promote “moderate elements” given that the organization is branded a “foreign terrorist organization” by the United States. “We don’t deal with them,” he acknowledged.

Last month, the United States and Israel accused Syria of arming Hezbollah with increasingly powerful missiles and weapons technology. Brennan said he raised those concerns during his recent visit to the region.

This is the man advising the President on Counter Terrorism, and this is the administration that has a “rock solid commitment to Israel’s security”.

This terrorist organization is now viewed as legitimate because it has members in Lebanese parliament? Despite starting a war with Israel 3 years ago, bombarding Israeli civilians with thousands of rockets and now arming itself with tens of thousands more including long range weapons most normal countries do not even possess, let alone any other terrorist groups. They need to be ‘engaged’ like Iran & Syria to ‘promote their moderation’.

It’s total progressive insanity from the Muslim / Arabist outreach capitol of the World – The Obama White House! Hamas cannot be far behind.

Michael Rubin at AEI unleashes..

Reuters reports that the Obama administration wants to help shore up “moderates” within Hezbollah. In order to help the White House identify terrorist moderates, I offer this list:

• Hezbollah: The moderates are the ones who make car bombs only out of midsize vehicles rather than SUVs or trucks.
• Hamas: Moderates still believe in annihilating Israel, but they refrain from advocating throwing all the Jews into the sea because of environmental impact; they propose burying some instead.
• Taliban: Ask Colin Powell. It’s been almost nine years since he spoke of moderate Taliban, so his definition might be ready by now. But, generally, moderate Taliban dilute the acid somewhat before they toss it into unveiled women’s faces.
• Al Qaeda: The moderates are the ones who would have taken down only one World Trade Center tower, rather than both.
• PLO: Moderates are pragmatists: They are willing to speak about tolerance and reform so long as the State Department keeps the subsidy flow coming. They accuse radicals of making the purchase of Western weaponry to funnel to terrorists that much more difficult.
• Abu Sayyaf: Moderates refrain from using a blunt knife when beheading captive Western tourists.
• IRGC: Moderates firmly believe that they should keep their nuclear bomb yields below 50 kilotons so that the radiation cloud from nuking Israel doesn’t blow back too far.

Pandering to Islam.. Obama Style.

If all this was not disturbing enough, here’s Brennan putting the cherry on top just in case you were buying the White House PR Job about Israel, Jerusalem or anything else.

Evolution!

I’m not the Prime Minister of Israel, just a citizen.. But I can’t imagine anyone here is going to be overly thrilled with the notion of ‘embracing the moderates’ in the terrorist organizations trying to kill us, or by the White House referring to our Capital as Al Quds!?

I seem to recall Hezbollah murdering US Marines, French soldiers, Americans (including CIA station chiefs) but I guess this was the phase when they were terrorists. Now that they only fire tens of thousands of missiles at Israelis, murder our boys ect they are militiamen come diplomats.. Isn’t  that just special?

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Special Relationship.

Take cover fellow Zionists. CNAS (the Center for a New American Security) is perhaps one of the most influential American Think Tanks these days, it is associated directly with the Obama administration as a core policy former. High profile administration members were plucked directly from CNAS for Obama’s administration. Oh Joy.

CNAS are the good people who brought us:
Game Changing Diplomacy

Otherwise known as shelving the military option and engaging like eunuchs with Iran. In fact the entire fruitless 15 months of disastrous American policy in regards to Iran that we have all suffered from, came directly from CNAS. That’s the same fruitless failed policy Sec. Def. Gates recently warned basically amounts to no policy at all!

But Don’t You Worry.. Now they have another whopper on deck for us.

RED ALERT: CNAS presents Setting the Conditions For A Palestinian State & the Palestine Protection Force.

For the past year since Obama took office, CNAS has been working on a special project. A detailed plan & study for:

Implementing an International Protection Force in Palestine!!

I wonder who commissioned that one huh?
Exactly the type of protection force you might need if;

• You were to say try & impose a peace deal on the parties.
• Strip Israeli sovereignty and its rights of self defense.

Woohoo! How do you like them apples!? But you don’t need me to explain this, Samantha Power – One of the top tier national security advisers for President Obama already explained how such a force could protect Palestinians from Israeli Genocide previously in this classic, where she outlines the need for a Palestine Protection Force..

Holy Triple Schizer Batman!

Thankfully Rahm Emanuel, the court’s super jew has declared that now is not the time to impose a peace plan, only maybe a bit later on. So this is just a plan, kinda like Game Changing Diplomacy was also ‘just a plan’..

Let’s say it all together now.. Oy Vey.
It’s a 108 pages long, I’ll get back to you once I read it all so you won’t have to..

LINK UPDATE:
Obama now pledging that Peace cannot be imposed from outside in a letter to his prime backer Alan Solow. This whole imposition plan has really riled up the feathers on both continents it seems, hardly surprising seeing as the notion breaks every pledge to Israel America has ever made. I hope this Obama pledge is of the iron clad variety, unlike US pledges to Ariel Sharon regarding Jerusalem as well as major settlement blocks, all of which conveniently evaporated when Obama took office..

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Fixture in Peace Process for 25 Years No Longer Religious Believer in Power of American Messiah

Aaron David Miller at the Hudson Institute in October 2009 warning the Obama Administration against the folly of endagering the Special American Israel relationship (see below)

Miller, a center left State Department fixture who has advised 6 different Secretaries of State is a public policy fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, prolific author and columnist.

He is considered for better or worse amongst the top US experts on the region & Middle East Peace. He has just penned an article in Foreign Policy that has shaken the American Status Quo to its very foundations.

He describes in the lengthy worthy piece how US policy & Peace Processing has become a religion for American bureaucrats & political leaders, a religion he formerly practiced but now no longer believes in..

Like all religions, the peace process has developed a dogmatic creed, with immutable first principles. Over the last two decades, I wrote them hundreds of times to my bosses in the upper echelons of the State Department and the White House; they were a catechism we all could recite by heart. First, pursuit of a comprehensive peace was a core, if not the core, U.S. interest in the region, and achieving it offered the only sure way to protect U.S. interests; second, peace could be achieved, but only through a serious negotiating process based on trading land for peace; and third, only America could help the Arabs and Israelis bring that peace to fruition.

He describes how these concepts have become immovable dogmas of the religion, and how Obama has thrown himself full force into becoming a believer, pursuing them with zeal. The problem is, Miller no longer carries the faith..

Today, I couldn’t write those same memos or anything like them with a clear conscience or a straight face. Although many experts’ beliefs haven’t changed, the region has, and dramatically, becoming nastier and more complex. U.S. priorities and interests, too, have changed. The notion that there’s a single or simple fix to protecting those interests, let alone that Arab-Israeli peace would, like some magic potion, bullet, or elixir, make it all better, is just flat wrong. In a broken, angry region with so many problems — from stagnant, inequitable economies to extractive and authoritarian governments that abuse human rights and deny rule of law, to a popular culture mired in conspiracy and denial – it stretches the bounds of credulity to the breaking point to argue that settling the Arab-Israeli conflict is the most critical issue, or that its resolution would somehow guarantee Middle East stability.

Uh oh.. This is contrary to the very pillars Obama & his administration have laid forth in their endless Israel Assault of pressure. Leak after leak, statement after statement, all highlighting how solving the Arab Israeli Palestinian conflict is the most critical puzzle piece, and a top American national priority interest. The statements have been piling up in fact.

The American left wing has gone so far as to frame the life & death of American soldiers themselves as requiring immediate resolution of the problem.. Of course, that is patently absurd. But the left, seizing on the anti-Israel attitude is making ever rising claims of absurdity and the false memes are spreading fanned by a loving it media. All this despite individuals like Petraeus himself stating clearly this is simply not the case, that these memes are false.

We have seen so far the results.. Absurd efforts to define local zoning laws in Israel all the way from Washington D.C.; A pressure campaign to topple Netanyahu; Frigid Israeli American relations; Threats, public dressing downs of foreign leaders; A total fantasy like American eyeball aversion to the Palestinians or their actions, while Israel is routinely blamed for everything under the sun.. No matter, the Obami soldier on as if on Crusade to borrow from Miller’s religious metaphor.

Miller doesn’t see the factors for Peace

He writes that Obama & advisers are trying to manufacture artificially the necessary components for peace and a deal using sheer American will. But that this is an illusion as there are no partners currently, or willingness in the region in order to conclude such a deal irrespective of America’s will, and that in the end this will result in a stunning American failure.

 He continues..

Bottom line: Negotiations can work, but both Arabs and Israelis (and American leaders) need to be willing and able to pay the price. And they are not.

Under these circumstances, the refrain from many quarters is that America must save the day. If the Arabs and Israelis are too weak or recalcitrant, then the United States must support and/or push them to make the deal.

Miller chides the administration for making huge errors in the focus on settlements, and questions the logic behind the Obama strategies themselves as they do not lead in any way to a deal or peace, only to expending more & more American political capital without benefit, concluding..

The believers need to re-examine their faith, especially at a moment when America is so stretched and overextended. The United States needs to do what it can, including working with Israelis and Palestinians on negotiating core final-status issues (particularly on borders, where the gaps are narrowest), helping Palestinians develop their institutions, getting the Israelis to assist by allowing Palestinians to breathe economically and expand their authority, and keeping Gaza calm, even as it tries to relieve the desperation and sense of siege through economic assistance. But America should also be aware of what it cannot do, as much as what it can. [...]

In many ways there are subtle & not so subtle jabs at the Obama admin here, the entire religious framework and Yes We Can attitude gets a thorough lashing in Miller’s piece. Time for believers to re-examine the faith, the statement is directed at the Department of State, the NSC & Obama himself and the message is clear enough, cut it out because No We Can’t.

Miller was on to something..

In October 2009 Miller appeared at the Hudson Institute on a powerful panel examining the US Israel relationship.

He posited that the Obama administration on the Arab Israeli conflict was not transformational, but transactional – Trying to focus on the dozens of details and seeking endless concessions to iron them out to produce a deal. But, he felt that as tough as the Obama admin may get to wring concessions, they would have to be respectful of Israel & the relationship to succeed.

He stated that listening to Israel would be more important than lecturing Israel in order to notch gains. That American will & opinion matched that of Israeli will & opinion, that the countries identified with each other on a powerful plane, and that Obama would need to proceed cautiously lest he upset that balance..

Off a cliff

We have since seen the admin push this transactional concept to the very edge right along with the US Israel relationship itself, thoroughly disregarding Miller’s warnings. Precisely because they do not listen, they do not respect, and many suspect they do not care about Israel in the least. I would add to Miller’s provocative & interesting piece that not only he, but a great many are now no longer believers.. 

If you want to know why you need only look at President Obama and his ugly relationship with the State of Israel.

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Obama Peace Plan?
TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE.

The unfriendly American administration which has perpetuated crisis over settlements and Jerusalem has squandered Israeli trust & faith in its efforts to endlessly court Muslims & the Arab world, all of it at American & Israeli strategic expense as the move to halt Iran flounders.

Polling in Israel shows there is zero faith or support for any possible American or Obama floated imposed peace plan.

ISRAEL
84% – Overwhelming majority refuse division of Jerusalem.
90% – Overwhelming majority refuse handing off Jordan River Valley security zone.
81% – Overwhelming majority state Obama “improper” to ‘impose’ plan.

Palestinians
Polling of Palestinians themselves shows overwhelming opposition to any Peace or two state solution!

Would accept the creation of a Palestinian state within the pre-1967 borders with a land exchange as a final solution for the Palestinian problem?
66.7% against VS 28.3% in favor, and 5% who did not know or did not express an opinion.

Would support division of Jerusalem as a capital of two states?
77.4 opposed such a plan VS 20.8% in favor, and 1.8% had no opinion or chose not to express it.

Linkage!?

The Obama administration seems incapable of embracing Arab rejections of peace. Senior Obama officials continue to meet privately in the White House with the radically left American Jewish group Jstreet, with prominent anti Israel figures like Brzezinski, all of it in order to seemingly form policy. Policy that is totally unacceptable in Israel, and is clearly oblivious to both Israeli political & public reality!?

Brezinski may have proposed the latest imposed peace plan, but calling for America to impose a fake plan that delivers no peace, only endless Israeli concesions is long standing policy for far left American groups like Peace Now, J Street etc. Meanwhile, the policy of linking endless Israeli concessions & Palestinian statehood to stopping Iran from developing nuclear weapons is alive & well, despite the fact that a prominent proponent of engagement himself has declared this linkage policy to be a serious mistake.

Just how far is President Obama willing to go to accommodate the idea of containing a nuclear Iran, as opposed to stopping one?
I mean beyond..

• Creating crises after crises with Israel.
• Embracing false Arab narratives.
• Watering down sanctions.
• Rejecting congressional fuel sanction efforts.
• Freezing arms sales to Israel.
• Dividing Jerusalem.
• Polling at 4% in the holy land.
• Overlooking Syrian SCUD weapon exports to Hezbollah

etc..

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