Israel Grimaces At Obama’s Diplomatic Gestures

Israel takes Obama’s outreach to opponents personally.  Without knowing all the back room details, it appears the exclusive influence on American diplomacy enjoyed by Israel since 1946, is threatened.  With global economic and environmental crisis at hand, can America risk ignoring efforts to get all nations back on the same page? Recent articles on DEBKAfile are questioning Obama’s dialog efforts with political opponents.  Balance must begin with shifting weight from one side of the scale to the other.  No longer can one side be propped up to give the illusion of balance.  There is no shortage of skeletons in the world’s closets when it comes to public and secret diplomacy.  No longer are empty gestures and rhetoric effective.  No one is fooled.  The era of using past atrocities to justify present atrocities must end. Obama is making a brave move that could threaten old alliances.  Israel has been the bear in the room for too long.  Illusions do not satisfy the reality that  regional conflicts can destroy the whole world.  Magic is only in the eye of the beholder.

• Looming Israel-US clash could spark early Israeli military strike – Even if Israel accepted a two-nation solution to its conflict with the Palestinians and removed every last settlement, Barack Obama would not be diverted from his global courtship of radical rulers led by Iran’s Ahmadinejad and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. Washington will seek to make Israel to follow its lead in accepting a nuclear-armed Iran and firmly oppose a military strike.

• Who runs Obama’s foreign policy show? –  How smooth is the cooperation between the White House, secretary of state Hillary Clinton and presidential envoys, Richard Holbrook for AfPak and George Mitchell for the Middle East?

• Gates totally opposes Israeli strike on Iran – Addressing US marines, Wednesday, April 16, US defense secretary Robert Gates said: “A strike probably would delay Tehran’s nuclear program one to three years, it would unify Iranians, cement their determination to have a nuclear program and also build into the whole country an undying hatred of whoever hits them.”

• Israel has capabilities for destroying Iran’s nuclear sites – (CSIS) – has concluded by means of detailed research and analysis that Israel is militarily capable of destroying Iran’s nuclear program. This view is shared by the Adm. Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint US Chiefs of Staff.

• Ahmadinejad:Iran forced Washington to retreat from enrichment demand – Following the suggestion that the six powers’ could waive the US demand for Iran to give up enriching uranium as a pre-condition for talks, the Iranian president said his government was not satisifed and was preparing counter-proposals as the basis for those talks.

• Iran plans a second, bigger satellite launch – (CSIS) , complete with graphs and diagrams, has been reprinted in thousands of copies in Tehran. It is compulsory reading for its intelligence and Revolutionary Guards personnel because the Study on a Possible Israeli Strike on Iran’s Nuclear Development Facilities concludes that the Jewish state has all the resources necessary for a successful strike.

• Egyptians close to Iranian-Hizballah arms-smuggling base in Sinai – Egyptian security forces are closing in on a secret Iranian-Hizballah headquarters in central Sinai which has been organizing the flow of smuggled arms to Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

• Netanyahu names professionals to his new inner military-security cabinet

• US Awards Iran Role as Military Partner, Sells Israel Short

How many Hollywood ‘B’ movies illustrate that a common enemy can unite the world.  Of course, that idea is fiction, maybe its naive to imagine it could really work.  If Utopia can be defined,  every religion, economy and political agenda would share the common goal of survival.  Ah, but human nature accepts contradiction between words and deeds.  Philosophers try so hard to paint logical explanations for human behavior, but, religions prefer a more authoritarian posture.  Religions don’t care about human nature or natural behavior,  religions just want to control humans by stating that a higher power says so, dieties spoke to our ancestors.  Skepicism and resentment abound among the sibling religions.  Israel, Iran and the entire Middle East have been itching to pull the trigger on each other officilly.  Their clandestine war has been raging for decades … with too many failed attempts to reconcile differences.  Death, destruction and grief have fanned the flames of feud since 1946.  The prevailing mindset for the Middle East continues to focus on eliminating each other.  Efforts by European and American diplomats have produced very short pauses in conflict, followed by escalation of violence.  Any target will do, as long as it reinforces the feud.  Retaliation that only begets more retaliation is the most senseless behavior for modern society.  With capabilities for mass extermination in the hands of everybody, juvenile behavior must no longer be tolerated.  Ruling the world by threatening to destroy the world is the self-fulfilling prophecy of the children of Abraham.  Abraham, Father of Religions, appears to have failed to discipline his naughty, arrogant children.

It is a crying shame that the entire world must suffer the consequences of a military industrial complex feeds all sides of conflict with no ethical restrictions.  Even gamblers know ‘when to fold’, cut the losses and start a new game.  .