Is Obama bungling the Middle East?

Sammy Benoit thinks so:

President Obama's Middle East policy is in ruins. While the U.S. continues to press Israel for a settlement freeze (and a freeze on Jerusalem), Obama's strategy is falling apart piece by piece. He has turned the Israeli populace against him and strengthened the hand of Prime Minister Netanyahu. At the same time, he has eroded his own support among American Jews and other U.S. friends of Israel. This is why he has pressured political hacks such as Congressman Steve Israel to lend their names to the anti-Israel group known as J Street. . . .

You should read the whole thing. It seems Obama is repeating the errors of the Clinton administration, trying to make peace with people who don't actually want peace -- unless you define "peace" as the liquidation of Israel, which is the ultimate objective of Fatah, Hamas and Hezbollah.

Sammy blogs at Yid With Lid.

Hope and Change, Middle East Edition

Just as the apotheosis of Obama means we're on the verge of economic recovery -- no matter what the unemployment rate -- it also means that peace is just around the corner:

The status of Jerusalem as the future capital of a Palestinian state is a red line that no Palestinian leader is permitted to cross, President Mahmoud Abbas' ruling Fatah faction declared in the West Bank on Saturday.
According to Israel Radio, the Fatah general conference, which convened in Bethlehem for a three-day gathering, adopted a position paper which also states that the Palestinian national enterprise will not reach fruition until all of Jerusalem, including the outlying villages, come under Palestinian sovereignty.
Fatah, which rules the West Bank but was ousted from power in Gaza by the Islamist Hamas movement, also ruled out any interim agreements with Israel.
"Fatah will continue to sacrifice victims until Jerusalem will be returned [to the Palestinians], clean of settlements and settlers," the paper states.

Via Memeorandum. At Jihad Watch, Robert Spencer says:

If Obama can force Israel to make enough concessions, they will surely end their jihad against the Jewish State -- won't they? All the learned analysts are just sure of it, so it must be so.

Right. One of the most stubborn follies of the past four decades -- and I'm old enough to have watched the 1967 Six-Day War on the 6 o'clock news -- is the bien-pensant notion that the essential problem in the Middle East is Israel.

There was a time when nearly all Democrats were staunchly pro-Israel, when even most liberals understood that Arab hatred of Israel was incited by the Soviets as part of a proxy campaign of Third World "wars of national liberation" against the West, and when most people could grasp the significance of the fact that Israel was attacked by enemies armed with MIGs and Kalishnikov assault rifles.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, however, people in the West seem to have forgotten that history. Now, the American foreign-policy establishment is dominated by alumni of elite "Middle East Studies" programs infested with the likes of Rashid Khalidi and Hamid Dabashi, the Columbia University heirs of Edward Said.

Therefore, "respectable" opinion about the Middle East now endorses the Fatah/Hamas/Hezbollah agenda, which can be summarized in two words: Kill Jews.

The successors of Yasser Arafat have their own American academic echo chamber, so that anyone who opposes their genocidal agenda is automatically accused by "learned analysts" of being an AIPAC stooge. And the Democratic Party is now controlled by what we might reasonably describe as the Sirhan Sirhan Caucus.

Obama and the betrayal of Israel

American Jews voted overwhelmingly (78%) to elect the man who is now poised to destroy Israel:

Barack Obama is to pursue an ambitious peace plan in the Middle East involving the recognition of Israel by the Arab world in exchange for its withdrawal to pre-1967 borders, according to sources close to America’s president-elect.
Obama intends to throw his support behind a 2002 Saudi peace initiative endorsed by the Arab League and backed by Tzipi Livni, the Israeli foreign minister and leader of the ruling Kadima party.

Anyone familiar with the strategic history of the region knows that Israel's pre-1967 borders were militarily indefensible. Any hostile power that can control the Golan Heights can destroy northern Israel; the West Bank is only 11 miles from Tel Aviv. The demands will not end, but rather increase, once Israel abandons the Golan and the West Bank, and any "promises" to the contrary are lies.

Israel's enemies, who have never ceased to proclaim their genocidal objective, will not be content so long as there is a Jew alive and free in the Middle East. And now, with the overwhelming support of American Jews, Obama prepares to hand the knife to Israel's executioners.

UPDATE: Pam Geller is not deceived:

"The better to eat you alive my dear."

Meanwhile, Shmuel Rosner calls our attention to a proposal for a "nuclear-free Israel" -- a nuclear Iran is apparently acceptable, however. Just coincidences, like the fact that Obama's buddy Bill Ayers dedicated a book to Sirhan Sirhan.

Jihad Watch offers 21 reasons why Israel cannot "compromise" its way to peace and security.

UPDATE II: Ed Morrissey:

Welcome to Obama 3.0 on Jerusalem. Now he has switched sides to the exact opposite of what he argued at AIPAC. . . .
Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister and leading candidate for Prime Minister from Ariel Sharon’s Kadima party, backs the Saudi peace plan in concept, including the division of Jerusalem. The Israeli Left supports it as well, with Shimon Peres and Ehud Olmert both endorsing the plan. Likud candidate Benjamin Netanyahu opposes it entirely.

Netanyahu is right, the rest are wrong. If Obama pushes the dismemberment and disarmament of Israel, Likud will come roaring back. And once that happens, Hamas and Fatah will launch another Intifada. Lather, rinse repeat. Saying, "Peace, peace," when there is no peace.

UPDATE III: Noah Pollak says the Times of London report is probably wrong.

There should be a proverb

"Three liberals in a row, just say no"? Or something like that (via Fausta):

A council of world leaders launched by former President Nelson Mandela is sending a three-person team to try to help ease tensions in the Middle East, the organization known as The Elders said Friday. Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and former Irish President Mary Robinson will visit Israel, the Palestinian territories, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Saudi Arabia April 13-21

Since liberals almost always achieve the exact opposite of their proclaimed goals, I'm pretty sure we can expect an outbreak of all-out war in the Middle East on or about April 22. That is, unless the mere prospect of a visit by these three clowns causes a war to start before then.

Meanwhile, on a related note, Soccer Dad viciously mocks Hillary's infamous "politics of meaning" guru, Michael Lerner, who can scarcely be mocked too viciously for my taste.