On Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with President Barack Obama at the White House, where Netanyahu lectured Obama on the need to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. Actually, Netanyahu went further, urging Obama to stop Iran from reaching a nuclear “threshold” – a term referring to Iran achieving the capacity to reach nuclear arms status within months even if frozen at the status quo.
Netanyahu explained, “Iran seeks a deal that would lift the tough sanctions that you worked so hard to put in place and leave it as a threshold nuclear power. I fervently hope that under your leadership that would not happen.”
That hope is destined to go unrealized, given that Obama gave Iran a tongue bath in his speech at the United Nations last week, in which he urged the mullahs not to “let this opportunity pass.” Undoubtedly, they will not. Obama’s negotiations provide the mullahs a unique cover to develop their arsenal – should Israel strike Iran in the midst of negotiations, Israel risks total international isolation, thanks to Obama’s “diplomacy.”
Meanwhile, Obama continues to pressure Israel to make concessions to terrorism. At the United Nations, Obama let his hypocrisy loose at full blast – even as he stated that ISIS only understood the “language of force,” Obama suggested that Israel’s failure to reach a negotiated settlement with terror groups Hamas and the Palestinian Authority represented Israeli willingness to “abandon the hard work of peace.”
The hypocrisy continued today, as President Obama waived his own standards with regard to airstrikes in Syria, allowing a higher number of civilian casualties. As Michael Isikoff of Yahoo! News reported today, “The White House has acknowledged for the first time that strict standards President Obama imposed last year to prevent civilian deaths from U.S. drone strikes will not apply to U.S. military operations in Syria and Iraq.” Those standards originally required “near certainty” that there would be no civilian casualties in a strike.
The policy was changed after a dozen civilians, including women and children, were killed when a US-fired Tomahawk missile hit Kafr Daryan in Idlib. Obama’s carelessness with airstrikes is so egregious that The Daily Beast reported that an airstrike actually hit members of the Free Syrian Army, our erstwhile “boots on the ground” allies in Syria. Just two weeks ago, the Wall Street Journal reported that Obama himself personally had to approve any airstrikes inside Syria, meaning that Obama signed off on strikes that killed both civilians and allies.
Obama’s new stance on civilian casualties comes just months after he forced Israel into a ceasefire with Hamas based on European and American objections to civilian casualties in Gaza – even though Israel was using so-called “knock bombs” to warn civilians, dropping leaflets to warn civilians, and even sending in ground troops to avoid civilian casualties in Gaza.
Either Obama bears a particular animus for Israel, or Israel is his Dream America – he forces Israel to do what he wishes it were palatable to force America to do, were he not subject to blowback from the American public and Congress. Israel fights the same enemies as America, but Obama treats Israel as though it were an enemy, emboldening both Hamas and Iran, and holding Israel to a standard of behavior no civilized nation should contemplate.
Netanyahu will leave the White House without an ally in his fight against Iranian nuclear ambitions and terrorist escalation. The only question is what will happen when Israel finally makes up her mind to act alone to ensure her own survival.
Ben Shapiro is Senior Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the new book, The People vs. Barack Obama: The Criminal Case Against The Obama Administration (Threshold Editions, June 10, 2014). He is also Editor-in-Chief of TruthRevolt.org. Follow Ben Shapiro on Twitter @benshapiro.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.