Tag: israel

Obama underwater with Jewish voters. #rsrh

(Via Instapundit) I offer my sympathies in advance to the American Jewish community for the Left’s likely reaction to this, as I suspect that it is going to be at least moderately ugly:

United States President Barack Obama has lost nearly half of his support among American Jews, a poll by the McLaughlin Group has shown.

The US Jews polled were asked whether they would: (a) vote to re-elect Obama, or (b) consider voting for someone else. 42% said they would vote for Obama and 46%, a plurality, preferred the second answer. 12% said they did not know or refused to answer.

That’s down from almost 80% support in the 2008 election; essentially, the President tanked across the board, and I want to point out, particularly among American Jews with family in Israel (42 re-elect/50 somebody else).  It’s sort of funny, in its way.  The Right has been trying to figure out for decades how to get Jewish voters to peel themselves away from the Left; we tried everything, and nothing worked.  Turns out that all we needed to do all along was let the Democrats finally elect the elitist, ivory-tower academic of their dreams, and he’d do it for us.

Go figure.

Moe Lane

#rsrh QotD, Obama/Israel/Hot Air Edition.

Ed Morrissey, on the news that 327 Members of Congress have felt the urge to put daylight between themselves and the administration on the latter’s decision to try to bully Israel:

Accidental, latent, or overt, Obama’s hostility towards a key democracy in the most strategic part of the world has raised eyebrows of both Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill — perhaps belatedly, but not too late to put some serious pressure for this administration to grow the hell up.

It takes a good bit to make Ed swear (however mildly), ladies and gentlemen.  Although in this case I suspect that he was tempted to use a somewhat stronger word.  I am.

Moe Lane

Optimism Watch: Instapundit/Israel/Obama edition.

I like Glenn Reynolds, but I think that he’s wrong here about why the President is mucking about with Israel right now:

I think Obama expects Israel to strike Iran, and wants to put distance between the United States and Israel in advance of that happening. (Perhaps he even thinks that treating Israel rudely will provoke such a response, saving him the trouble of doing anything about Iran himself, and avoiding the risk that things might go wrong if he does). On the most optimistic level, maybe this whole thing is a sham, and the U.S. is really helping Israel strike Iran, with this as distraction.

For three reasons:

  1. He’s a Democrat, and Democrats are not very good at foreign policy.
  2. He’s a Democrat, and Democrats are not very good at foreign policy*.
  3. Even if he wanted to do this, his staff are all Democrats, and Democrats are not very good at foreign policy**.

Come right down to it, if the President was planning to implicitly or explicitly let Israel take care of our Iran problem we’d already know, because somebody in his administration would have leaked a warning to the Iranians via the New York Times.  Which is probably more ‘sedition’ than ‘treason’ – not much of a distinction, admittedly – but still something that any Democratic President has to take into account when trying to formulate a foreign policy at odds with the neocom wing of the Democratic party.

Moe Lane

*To paraphrase a classic: “I know that, technically, that’s only one [reason], but it was such a big one I thought I’d mention it twice.”

**Or three times.

Crossposted to RedState.

So. Over/under on the next wave of bombings in Israel?

I’m going to say some time in mid-May. It’s going to take about that long for Palestinian terrorists – to the extent that they can be distinguished from either Palestinian ‘government’ – to internalize this new ‘weak horse’ stance of the United States:

…Mr Obama was less inclined to be so conciliatory. He immediately presented Mr Netanyahu with a list of 13 demands designed both to the end the feud with his administration and to build Palestinian confidence ahead of the resumption of peace talks. Key among those demands was a previously-made call to halt all new settlement construction in east Jerusalem.

When the Israeli prime minister stalled, Mr Obama rose from his seat declaring: “I’m going to the residential wing to have dinner with Michelle and the girls.”

As he left, Mr Netanyahu was told to consider the error of his ways. “I’m still around,” Mr Obama is quoted by Israel’s Yediot Ahronot newspaper as having said. “Let me know if there is anything new.”

Continue reading So. Over/under on the next wave of bombings in Israel?

:brightly: Hi! Are you a Democrat in a Republican seat?

If so, here’s your bit of you’ll-wish-you-had-done-this-in-January advice for the day: take some time off from running over a cliff for the greater glory of your party’s leadership and publicly react to the President’s latest move against an  ally. (H/T: Instapundit)

The United States has diverted a shipment of bunker-busters designated for Israel.

Officials said the U.S. military was ordered to divert a shipment of smart bunker-buster bombs from Israel to a military base in Diego Garcia. They said the shipment of 387 smart munitions had been slated to join pre-positioned U.S. military equipment in Israel Air Force bases.

“This was a political decision,” an official said.

I would further suggest that said reaction include the word ‘idiot,’ but I suppose that’s just a little too much to expect in the way of political courage.  At least, from Democratic legislators.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Duelling Quotes of the Day, Israel edition.

Jim Geraghty:

The headline in Haaretz is “Netanyahu’s brother-in-law: Obama is an anti-Semite” but the story actually quotes him as saying Obama is “anti-Israel.” I don’t think the terms are quite the same, although the middle portion of that venn diagram is pretty big.

R.S. McCain:

This is why the “peace process” can never lead to peace: The PLA, Fatah and Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades don’t want peace, they want dead Jews.

I would very much like not to have to jog the administration’s elbow on this issue, but they’re making a mistake both foreign and domestic with regard to our new Israeli policy.  The ‘foreign’ part is covered above: for ‘domestic,’ see Walter Russell Mead.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Jimmy Carter apologizes for the entire ‘trying to destroy Israel’ thing.

Before you read that: Jimmy’s grandson is running for a Georgia state senate seat in a district with a significant Jewish population.  OK? OK.  From UPI:

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter asked the Jewish community for forgiveness for any actions that may have caused distress.

In a letter to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency published Monday, Carter offered a holiday message wishing for an Arab-Israeli peace.

“We must recognize Israel’s achievements under difficult circumstances, even as we strive in a positive way to help Israel continue to improve its relations with its Arab populations, but we must not permit criticisms for improvement to stigmatize Israel,” Carter’s message said. “As I would have noted at Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, but which is appropriate at any time of the year, I offer an Al Het (a plea for forgiveness) for any words or deeds of mine that may have done so.”

Via AoSHQ. It says something about Jimmy Carter that wanting to help his grandkid’s electoral chances would be the nice reason why he’s doing it: all the other ones are either less charitable, or else would put too many people’s hopes up.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Alchemists create enchanted tamed lightning stones.

I figure that I might as well be honest about how well I understand the underlying physics of some of this stuff.

New Israeli battery provides thousands of hours of power

A new kind of portable electrochemical battery that can produce thousands of hours of power – and soon replace the expensive regular or rechargeable batteries in hearing aids and sensors and eventually in cellphones, laptop computers and even electric cars – has been developed at Haifa’s Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.

The unique battery is based on silicon as a fuel that reverts to its original sand. The battery can also be left on the shelf for years and inserted into a device to provide immediate power.

The good news is that these things are pretty inert, so they’ll have a long shelf life.  The bad news is that they aren’t generating enough power yet to run your car.  Come back in ten years for that.  But they’ll work for small, low-power items; expect medical sensors to start becoming even more wireless in a year or so, for example.

Cool stuff.

Breaking: Mahmoud Abbas claims USA committed to ending West Bank settlements.

Is this correct, Mr. President?

A simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ will do.

‘Obama committed to ejecting Jews from Judea-Samaria,’ says Abbas

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday told reporters in Cairo that he is convinced that US President Barack Obama is firmly committed to finally ejecting the Jews from Judea and Samaria.

Abbas spoke to the press after briefing Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on his visit to the White House late last week, during which Obama apparently agreed with his guest that existing Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria must not even be allowed to experience “natural growth.”

(Via Fausta) While I am willing to believe that there may have been either a breakdown in communications somewhere – or that yet another Palestinian leader is willfully never missing a chance to miss a chance – there needs to be some clarification on this issue. Israel is not going to even freeze settlements in the West Bank, let alone dismantle them.  Meanwhile, the Palestinians apparently expect that the settlements will be removed, because that’s what the USA has decided to do.  The two positions cannot be reconciled.  This really does need to be addressed: if the President goes to Cairo without everybody involved already knowing precisely where his administration stands on this issue, the President’s Cairo speech will fail.  And by ‘fail’ I mean ‘start up another round of violence.’

Which will not be the President’s intent, but that won’t matter.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.