President Obama, you just don’t seem to get it!

Until Obama is willing to accept the fact that Israel is not the villain, it will be impossible to formulate any peace plan.

By EARL COX
Earl Cox 311 (photo credit: Courtesy)
Earl Cox 311
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Recent news reports declare that President Barack Obama once again tried to bully Israel into making land concessions that would strengthen and embolden Israel's enemies. He again declared that Israel should pull back to the pre-1967 Six Day War borders, and he audaciously added that they should do it in 30 days.
Didn't the president listen at all to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu during his visit last month to the White House when he strongly stressed to the president that such a return was not possible and would be disastrous to Israel's existence? How could President Obama so completely ignore the message Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke with crystal clarity?  Didn't the president learn anything from the amazing response to Netnayahu's speech to the US Congress a few days later? Didn't he take notice that when Netanyahu outlined his policies and their rationale to the legislators, they gave him 29 standing ovations of approval? Doesn't Obama realize that Congress is not supporting his dictate that Israel give a significant portion of their already small country to the Arabs for a separate Palestinian state?
President Obama apparently did not learn anything from the developments in Gaza since Israel gave the Arabs control of that territory in 2005.  Hasn't he understood that the Arabs were given the opportunity to turn Gaza into a nice new Arab mini-state, but instead they turned it into a base for terrorism, from which they have launched hundreds of explosive rockets and missiles across the borders into Israeli territory? 
Hasn't Obama listened at all to anything the Hamas leaders have been saying as they clearly, strongly and openly declare their hatred for Israel and their plans and goals to destroy the Jewish state? Doesn't he understand that at least half of the Palestinian population and leadership are Hamas affiliated and thus hate Israel? Hasn’t he heard these hate-filled people proclaim that they will never accept Israel as a state?  If given more land, does President Obama expect the Palestinians and their leadership to suddenly do an “about-face” and become good neighbors with Israel?
Apparently Obama has very selective hearing and eyesight and thus has not learned anything from the performance of the present Palestinian government leaders or the behavior of the Palestinian people as they parade through the streets chanting “death to Israel.”  Doesn't President Obama recall how those corrupt Palestinian officials have squandered billions of dollars in aid from other countries, including the United States, without improving the lives of their people? Doesn't he remember that they have lied their way through five so-called peace treaties with Israel and never once took even the first step toward implementing anything they promised in writing?  Why does Barack Obama feel the Palestinians can be trusted to operate a viable independent state and be a peaceful neighbor to Israel when, by all indications, the exact opposite will be the result?
Surely Obama knows that the Hezbollah terrorists embedded along Israel's northern border with Lebanon are equipped and financed by Iran with the intent of destroying Israel.   Doesn't he realize that these terrorists tried to attack Israel again just a few weeks ago on Israel’s Independence Day and that Israel had to use military troops to repel their attacks in order to protect Israel and her people? Does he think Hezbollah will suddenly be peaceful once the Arabs get their own separate Palestinian state? 
What about the revolutionary uprisings in many of Israel's neighboring Arab-Muslim states? Can't President Obama discern what is happening?  Some who are failing to look below the surface might believe that these uprisings are the outcry of the common people because they have become disgusted with their heavy-handed Muslim leadership and that they are demonstrating for greater freedoms and less repressive governments.  Others, however, who are looking at these uprisings below surface level believe that the Muslim Brotherhood is at the epicenter of the chaos working their plan to bring the whole of the Arab world under total submission to Sharia Law.  If the people of the Arab world were truly desirous to have greater freedom and peace, would Lara Logan of 60 Minutes have suffered such horrific violations at the hands of Muslim demonstrators about whom she was reporting?  In fact, Ms. Logan said that even the mention of Israel or the Jews seemed to incite the mob to an even greater level of frenzy, wrath and violence.  President Obama, are these the sort of people you would want your wife and daughters living with as neighbors?
With relation to Israel, freedom and peace are not what the people in the Arab world really want as has been clearly demonstrated.  Those who may desire peace and freedom, but who are remaining silent, are irrelevant anyway.  Doesn’t President Obama know that peace, freedom and democracy don’t happen with the stroke of a pen?  These values and virtues must first be birthed in the hearts of the people and the people must have leadership willing to listen and steer their nations according to the desires of the people.  Hasn't Obama learned anything from the responses of the Muslim dictators in Libya and Syria to the dissatisfactions of their citizens? Hasn't he realized that rather than listen to their people and try to improve life in their countries, these Muslim leaders have, in order to retain their dictatorial power, chosen instead to turn their military machines on their own citizens killing thousands of innocent protesters?  How can Obama entrust a Palestinian state to such cruel Arab Muslim leadership?
On the other side of the coin, hasn't Obama learned anything from the leadership of Israel and the quality of life the Israeli people enjoy? Israel is America’s only friend, ally and true partner for peace in the Middle East.  The Israeli people love life and embrace peace so much so that they gave away a huge chunk of their land during the Gaza Disengagement in exchange for what was to have been a peaceful co-existence with those who now inhabit Gaza.  As the world knows, the opposite was the result.  Giving away Gaza only produced greater heartache and problems for Israel because it placed Palestinian terrorists in closer proximity to Israeli population centers and the Palestinians have taken full advantage of their new and improved positions from which to launch terror attacks upon innocent Israelis.  Hasn't Barack Obama understood that the Israelis have tried to do all within their power to live peaceably with their Arab neighbors?   Hasn't he seen how the Israelis have invested themselves in developing their people and country into a thriving and prosperous nation while the Arabs have continued to wallow in corruption, underdevelopment and poverty using the “poor, oppressed Palestinian” trump card at every opportunity?
      
Obama believes he was elected to the US presidency with a mandate for change. But doesn't he realize that this change was certainly not intended for US relations with Israel? Doesn't he know that Congress recently voted in favor of a resolution supporting Israel by a whopping bi-partisan margin of 90-4? Hasn't he seen the recent Quinnipiac poll released on June 9, 2011 showing that 79 percent of Americans oppose the creation of a Palestinian state if the Palestinians refuse to recognize Israel's right to exist? Is that supposed to be a mandate for change?  Hasn't Obama realized that there is no true democracy in any of the Muslim states in the Middle East and Asia? Doesn't he know that there is no Muslim state anywhere in the world whose citizens enjoy the freedoms we enjoy here in America and Israel? Does Obama really expect that the Palestinian leaders will shed their Muslim radicalism and values which embrace death over life and instead function as a democratic state when the concepts of freedom and democracy are so foreign to the average Arab? 
 
Until Obama and other world leaders are willing to look without bias at the issues facing Israel and accept the fact that Israel is not the villain, it will be impossible to formulate any peace plan.  Israel has a definite right to exist and to live in peace.  In order to be able to defend its borders, Israel cannot give away even one more square meter of land.  Is Obama, and the rest of the world for that matter, blind to the geography of Israel that this tiny Jewish state has a land mass equal roughly to one of America’s smallest states and that being New Jersey or Rhode Island.  Israel is surrounded by 21 Arab countries with more than one thousand times the land area of Israel. How can President Obama want Israel to give any of its real estate away to the Arabs who have so much more land than they need or are utilizing?   Why doesn’t Barack Obama put a little pressure on Jordan or other Arab countries to “donate” some of their unused land to establish a Palestinian state.  Could it be that these other countries already know that the Palestinians don’t make for good neighbors? 
 
Obama claims to be a Christian yet he seems so poorly informed concerning Israel's Biblical heritage.  If he knew and believed the Bible, wouldn't he understand that the present land of Israel was given, many centuries ago, by God to the Jewish people as "an eternal possession.” Eternal would include today, would it not? And doesn't that mean that this land grant has never been rescinded, and that God never intended there to be an Arab state on the land He gave to Israel?
Some analysts believe that Obama is behaving as he is toward Israel simply because he wants to improve his ties and relations with Arabs and Muslims. We remember well his Cairo speech, when he cited his own Muslim roots and declared that he wanted to establish "new beginnings" with the Muslim world.  We are supposed to have a highly educated person as the leader of our nation.  How can it be that our president has failed to learn so much about even the basic fundamentals and dynamics at work in Israel and the Middle East?  Israel loves life and it seems many in the Arab world embrace death, especially a martyrs death because, under Islamic law, the only sure way for a Muslim to reach paradise in the afterlife is to die a martyrs death taking the life of as many infidels (that means all non-Muslims) with him or her as possible.  The former Prime Minister of Israel, Golda Meir, beautifully stated Israel’s love for life when she said while addressing a group of Arab leaders, “We can forgive you for killing our children, but we can never forgive you for forcing us to kill your children.”   I think this says it all.