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Cal Thomas
"Enemy: "a person who feels hatred for, fosters harmful designs against, or engages in antagonistic activities against another; an adversary or opponent." -- Dictionary.com
Despite Vice President Joe Biden's recent pledge of unswerving fidelity to Israel during his recent visit there, the rhetoric and pressure directed by the Obama administration against the only fully functioning democracy in the Middle East more accurately resembles the behavior of an enemy. Increasingly under this administration -- but also present in Republican administrations -- America's policy toward Israel is full of "harmful designs" and "antagonistic activities." The intentions may not be deliberate, but the outcome would lead to the same injurious end.
The latest pretext for putting more pressure on Israel to do more in the "pursuit of peace" comes from a decision by Israel's
The failure of this formula has been evident for decades, but U.S. policy continues to employ it, always with the same results. Whether Israel's concessions have been unilateral -- most recently with its abandonment of the Gaza Strip, which predictably led to terrorist attacks from that territory -- or negotiated deals which the Palestinians have never lived up to, Israel always ends up getting its pocket picked. Then, the United States, the U.N., Europe and Russia demand that it put more valuables in its pocket so the thieves can continue their thievery.
A
After apologizing to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the "offense" of the housing announcement during Biden's visit, Netanyahu reminded the Israeli parliament that Israel has been building in east Jerusalem for four decades. He said, "The building of those Jewish neighborhoods in no way hurt the Arabs of East Jerusalem and did not come at their expense."
That doesn't matter when the wrong formula is employed. In this twisted thinking, whatever Israel does is unjustified so long as the Palestinian-Arab-Muslim side is unhappy. What part of annihilation does the
Making demands of only one side before serious negotiations begin, especially on matters of Jerusalem, so-called "refugees" and borders, effectively pressures Israel into making concessions on all three, which would severely damage its prospects for continued existence.
How about first making these demands of the Palestinian-Arab-Muslim side:
(1) A pledge of no more war with Israel, or terrorism;
(2) a declaration by a powerful Islamic cleric that their God no longer requires them to kill people who don't believe as they do; and
(3) no more teaching in Palestinian textbooks and in their media that Jews created AIDS and descend from monkeys and pigs?
After those three demands are met, the
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Israel's New Enemy: America?