Seth Leibson 04-06-2012

April 6, 2012

By Seth Leibsohn



Good morning.  It’s Friday, April 6, 2012.  For our Jewish brethren tonight it’s Passover, a story of redemption, of fleeing slavery and entering freedom.  For our Christian brethren it is Good Friday, the day Jesus was crucified.  As I’ve heard any number of pastors say over the years, “I don’t know why we call it ‘good’ Friday.”  But the reason, and the story, for both, is about redemption and freedom.  It is also the day Abraham Lincoln—the man our school children used to be taught was the man who freed the slaves—it is the day he was shot.  Lincoln of course died the day before Easter— the Christian story of hope and redemption.  Given all that Lincoln stood for, and the unique timing of his death, the great political science professor Clinton Rossiter wrote of him that he was the “Christ-martyr of America’s democratic passion play.”  What a phrase.



The Jews, Ruth Wisse has said, needed a desert experience to obtain their freedom—and they crossed the Sinai to begin that journey.  Similarly, Christians have a risen Christ to take on the sins of the world and show the way of forgiveness and peace.  It is with some sadness, then, that I have to report on a few contemporary events that also put me in the mind of all this.  One man who helped preach and teach the story of the redemption through Christ and has helped show the way of reform for thousands of prisoners is Chuck Colson.  Every Easter he would go to a prison and preach.  Not this Sunday—he is unwell and in need of our prayers.  Few have done as much for prison and prisoner reform as Chuck Colson.  As Joe Loconte wrote of him:  “His work among inmates earned him the 1993 Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, placing him in the ranks of Billy Graham, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, and Mother Teresa.”



You see, Colson took a different view of crime, prisoners, and humanity:  He believes the taproot of crime is sin and until people deal with that, they will not deal with their temporal guilt or habit of recidivism—and thus it is no accident that the prisons where Colson has operated have much lower recidivism rates than those that do not. Chuck Colson has done more for prison and criminal justice reform than any 20 or 40 departments of criminal justice in America. Our prayers are with him.



And, globally, our prayers must be with Israel right now, as well.  The Sinai—which, let us remind, Israel returned to Egypt in a “land-for-peace” swap in 1979—is now “a terror zone,” according to the Israeli Prime Minister and as evidenced by the latest rocket attack on Israel, i.e., yesterday.  By the way, one important fact here:  When people say Israel must return the lands it took in the 1967 war against Israel: Israel has returned more the 90 percent of that land, it’s called the Sinai.  And it is now a terror zone.



Israel has never been in more danger than it is right now—and not just because of the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and not just because of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah running of the West Bank, and not just because of Hamas’ running of the Gaza (land from 1967, by the way, Israel also returned “for peace”), and not just because Iran has threatened to remove Israel from the face of the earth as it tries to acquire nuclear weapons and funds both Hamas and Hezbollah.  But, also, it must be said, because the United States has, by and under President Barack Obama, undermined Israel and, at the same time, emboldened her (and our) enemies.



Let us pause a moment on Egypt, which, along with Iran’s weapons program, will be President Obama’s foreign policy legacy.  President Obama helped usher our ally Hosni Mubarak out of power.  Mubarak kept the Muslim Brotherhood illegal in Egypt.  The Brotherhood’s motto is: “Allah is our objective; the Prophet is our leader; the Quran is our law; Jihad is our way; dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.”  Today, Mubarak is gone from power and the Brotherhood now controls the Parliament and has just fielded a candidate for President.  Meantime, an even harder line Islamist is leading in the polls there, if he is not ultimately disqualified based on ancillary grounds having to do with his mother.  We have turned an ally into an enemy—and it is the most populous Arab state in the world.  



As we ask questions of our friends about President Obama, with what we call “intuitive empathy,” here is one:  President Obama has weakened Israel and in fact strengthened her and our enemies:  Why would he do that?



Perhaps, though, we need to set the predicate for this point.  I contend there are few countries as culturally and politically aligned with the United States as Israel.  Indeed, just to take one crude fact, in almost any given year, no country votes with the United States at the UN more than Israel—and not just on Middle East issues, but on every issue.



Now, back to President Obama and Israel:  Just a few facts.  Can you name me one other country our President has publicly lectured about its borders and what they need to be?  President Obama did that to Israel last year.  And if Israel actually heeded President Obama’s lecture, it would make Israel 9 miles wide at its most vulnerable point, half the width of the Washington Beltway.  But let’s look at the longer record here, courtesy of Dan Senor in the Wall Street Journal:



President Obama, from day one of his administration, has been pressuring Israel to freeze settlement building—and putting such building of housing on par with Palestinian terrorism.  Housing on the one hand; the slaughter of innocents on the other.



In October 2011, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta publically said Israel was “isolating itself” in world affairs.



By the way, Mr. Panetta's criticism was promptly endorsed by the Turkish Prime Minister, a harsh critic of Israel, who said Mr. Panetta was "correct in his assumptions." Indeed, almost every time the Obama administration has scolded Israel, the charges have been repeated by Turkish officials.



In November of last year, in advance of meeting with the Israeli Defense Minister, Mr. Panetta publicly previewed his message. He would warn Israel against a military strike on Iran's nuclear program: "There are going to be economic consequences . . . that could impact not just on our economy but the world economy." Even if the administration felt compelled to deliver this message privately, why undercut the perception of U.S.-Israel unity on the military option?



That same month, an open microphone caught part of a private conversation between Mr. Obama and French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Mr. Sarkozy said of Israel's premier, "I can't stand Netanyahu. He's a liar." Rather than defend Israel's back, Mr. Obama piled on: "You're tired of him; what about me? I have to deal with him every day."



In December of last year, again undercutting the credibility of the Israeli military option, Mr. Panetta used a high-profile speech to challenge the idea that an Israeli strike could eliminate or substantially delay Iran's nuclear program, and he warned that "the United States would obviously be blamed."



Mr. Panetta also addressed the Israeli-Palestinian peace process by lecturing Israel to "just get to the damn table." This, despite the fact that Israel had been actively pursuing direct negotiations with the Palestinians, only to watch the Palestinian president abandon talks and unilaterally pursue statehood at the U.N. The Obama team thought the problem was with Israel.



In January of this year, Mr. Obama referred to the Turkish Prime Minister as one of the five world leaders with whom he has developed "bonds of trust." According to Mr. Obama, these bonds have "allowed us to execute effective diplomacy." The Turkish government had earlier sanctioned a six-ship flotilla to penetrate Israel's naval blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza. Mr. Erdogan had said that Israel's defensive response was "cause for war."



At a conference in Tunis last month, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was asked about Mr. Obama pandering to "Zionist lobbies." She acknowledged that it was "a fair question" and went on to explain that any pandering is simply election year politics.



All of this has been so bad, that even other Democrats have weighed in. Just last year, a number of leading Democrats, including Sen. Harry Reid and Rep. Steny Hoyer, felt compelled to speak out in response to Mr. Obama's proposal for Israel to return to its indefensible pre-1967 borders. Rep. Eliot Engel told CNN that "for the president to emphasize that . . . was a very big mistake."



In April 2010, 38 Democratic senators signed a critical letter to Secretary Clinton following the administration's public (and private) dressing down of the Israeli government.



Sen. Charles Schumer used even stronger language in 2010 when he responded to "something I have never heard before," from the Obama State Department, "which is, the relationship of Israel and the United States depends on the pace of the negotiations. That is terrible. That is a dagger."



Sen. Joe Lieberman said of Mr. Obama last year, "I think he's handled the relationship with Israel in a way that has encouraged Israel's enemies, and really unsettled the Israelis."



Now, just three more quick items, because the American press has not done a very good job of reporting them at all:



Item 1:   In December of last year, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton compared Israel’s religious Jews to the leadership of Iran and compared them to the Jim Crow South.  This is nothing short of a piece than the ignominious UN declaration that Israel is an apartheid, racist state.


Item 2:  President Obama’s administration has twice leaked information about Israel that both weakens Israel and strengthens Iran:



a. Just last month, The New York Times reported that the US military had just finished a secret war game to test the repercussions of an Israeli attack on Iran, and concluded that the chances were high that the US would end up drawn into a broader regional war that would leave hundreds of Americans dead.



"The results of the war game were particularly troubling to Gen. James N. Mattis, who commands all American forces in the Middle East, Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia….General Mattis told aides that an Israeli first strike would be likely to have dire consequences across the region and for United States forces there."



The message was clear: The US is highly unlikely to support an Israeli strike. (h/t CS Monitor).



b.  This month, the administration leaked that Israel has obtained access to bases in Azerbaijan, on Iran's border.



President Obama has, thus, frustrated Israel’s defense and self-defense and at the same time, on the other side of the same coin, bought Iran more time.  Let it not go unknown, however, that Iran is not just Israel’s enemy, it is our enemy, too; it has been at war with us for over 30 years and Reuters reported just yesterday on Iranian and Hezbollah agents in New York City.



This moment, when we think about all that has taken place and all that we celebrate having taken place in Israel, let us remember the sobering words Charles Krauthammer reminded us of in citing Milan Kundera:  Small nations can disappear.  Czechoslovakia was a small nation and it disappeared.  Israel is a small nation, too.  And, let us add a corollary to this:  In the age of nuclear weapons, especially in an age where a suicidal cult-nation is set on acquiring nuclear weapons, large nations like the United States can disappear too. President Obama has weakened Israel and in fact strengthened her and our enemies:  Why would he do that?



Our job is simple: to prevent someone from someday ever having to write a book entitled “Why America Slept.”