Israel is on the Table

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday was quoted by Israel's Army Radio as criticizing the motives and methods of US Secretary of State John Kerry.

Commenting on Kerry’s decision to leave Israel off the itinerary of his forthcoming damage-control trip to the Middle East next week, in which the secretary will discuss the Iran deal with jittery Egyptian and Gulf leaders, Netanyahu was quoted as saying in a private conversation: “He really has no reason to come here.” 

The Iran deal “has nothing to do with us, and has no influence on us,” he reportedly went on bitterly. “We’re not at the table” where it was negotiated, Netanyahu was said to have quipped. “We’re one of the courses on the menu.”

More eloquently, he could have said: “we’re on the table.”

Israel is the sacrificial victim that Barack Hussein has brought to appease the Mullahs and Ayatollahs, a soon-to-be-burnt-offering of supplication and submission. The government-backed mobs demanded “Death to America! Death to Israel!” Obama and Kerry delivered even as the official calls for genocide continue to be issued by Iranian senior officials and clerics.

Obama and Kerry blithely portray their mission as preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon when it fact the process guarantees that they will get one, sooner by cheating or later by law, under American and world power tutelage, patronage and even protection.

In the fine print, the deal commits the US and Powers, backed by a UN Security Council resolution, to defend the nuclear program of Iran from sabotage and attack.

According to Annex III, the signatories commit to "strengthen Iran’s ability to protect against, and respond to nuclear security threats, including sabotage, as well as to enable effective and sustainable nuclear security and physical protection systems.

Kerry was evasive when asked in a hearing about that buried provision. “I don't see any way possible that we would be in conflict with Israel with respect to what we might want to do there and we just have to wait until we get until that point." It appears "that point" refers to a future time at which Israel believes it's necessary to sabotage Iran's nuclear program. That’s not exactly a hypothetical scenario. It seems that at “that point”, according to Kerry, the US would have to choose sides. Which means, in practical terms, the sides have already been chosen.

What happens when Israeli warplanes, defying Obama and the Powers, seek to set back the murderous program by a few good years or to punish an actual attack?  After all, Netanyahu says that the deal, the dealmakers, “have no influence on us.”  It doesn’t sound like Israel is going to desist from all necessary measure to prevent an Iranian bomb.

The deal has placed America and Israel on the brink of a confrontation, and has placed Iran on the fast track to an arsenal of nuclear weapons and a dominant role in the Mideast.  Will the US seek to intercept Israeli aircraft, or tip off Teheran about an impending attack? Will Obama stand by while Netanyahu defies him, endangering his “legacy”?

And if Iran fires back with tens of thousands of missiles, directly or through its proxies, who will die? Israelis, in massive numbers. And guess who is going to be blamed?

The Jews.

Who will defend a surrounded, friendless Israel? Israelis will not go without a fight. But who will be fighting on their side.  Will Jewish Americans and Jewish Europeans stand up and be counted, and risk the ire of their hosts?

If Israel defies Obama and hits Iran, who will be branded with the tattoo of dual loyalty? Is it so hard to guess? What happened in World War II to German-American and Japanese-American citizens? 

The announcement of the long-overdue parole of Jonathan Pollard in November, the reports that he will not be allowed to come to Israel, all of these will fuel the outrage, discrimination, and then isolation of American Jews. Despite the joy at the prospect that Pollard may be freed, the timing bodes ill.

Netanyahu’s reported comments, like those of other ministers across the political spectrum, convey the Jewish State’s sense of betrayal and deep dismay at the deceptive tactics and abysmal negotiating strategy of the Obama Administration.

It’s not just that the deal is bad, and dangerous. It’s just stupid. At least if the goal is advancing American interests.

The efforts by Obama and Kerry seek to bypass Congress, the majority of which in both houses rejects the Vienna Agreement. Secret annexes are withheld from Israel, from Congress and even – “don’t ask, don’t tell”, to retain (implausible) deniability – from Kerry himself. But Kerry last week warned that an Israeli strike on the Iranian reactors would be "a huge, and enormous mistake."

But more than that: the events in Vienna set the stage for the outbreak of anti-Semitism in America to a degree unknown since World War II, already suggested by Kerry to predicting the “isolation” and “blame” to which the Jewish State would be subjected if the deal is soundly rejected by Congress. Obama himself hints that he is one guy up against powerful “lobbyists, money.” To whom might he be referring, one wonders?

This is how it is playing out. Israel will be isolated, canary in the coal mine, facing on all sides the mad fury of the Muslim world, now emboldened and enriched and inflamed by a fetid tailwind from Washington and Europe.

When Obama in his first term distributed a photo of his feet up on his desk as he scolded Netanyahu, his heels sent a coded message to one core constituency. When the Israeli leader and his delegation were left to go hungry in the White House while the President supposedly supped with his family, this was just an appetizer for all of the unkosher courses that have followed.

Now we have come to the main course. The sole remaining hope is that Congress will undo some of the damage inflicted by Obama and stand up for intelligence and allegiance with a true ally rather than submitting to the genocidal appetite of a terror state.

Huckabee wasn’t accurate when he said that Obama had marched Israel to the door of the oven. Obama just invited Netanyahu to dinner, opened the oven door and invited the Israeli leader to bend over and take a whiff. Isn’t it delicious? Do you want this or do you want war? Obama has set the table. If this deal is done, Israel is the meal.

The deal may be done, but the meal isn’t over. Not yet lost is the hope that the appetites of Obama and Kerry and those who follow their folly will not be sated. For the sake of American interests, for justice and decency, and common sense, Congressional representatives – and especially Jewish Democrats – must listen to their brains, and their consciences, to reject this unconscionable deal, this poisoned meal they have been forced to swallow.

Yet all hope is not lost. If Obama vetoes the will of Congress and Congress fails to override, and before the table of negotiations and legislation is cleared, the Jewish State and its supporters have a last course of action in store for a hostile world salivating for the sacrifice of Israel.

An MK in Netanyahu’s Likud party, Israel Katz, addressed “Respected Mr. Huckabee”, saying: “Nobody marches the Jews to ovens anymore. To this end we established the State of Israel and the IDF; and, if need be, we will know how to defend ourselves, by ourselves.” 

We know what that Operation will be, or should be, called.

Just Deserts.