State Department uses Taxpayer Funds to Finance Anti-Netanyahu Campaign

The head of Israeli watchdog NGO Monitor has blasted the US State Department for funding an Israeli election campaign aimed at ousting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, pointing out that this is not the first time that US taxpayer funds have been used to finance organizations on the Israeli left.

“US State Department funding provided to this ostensibly non-governmental organization is another example of the lack of due diligence and accountability in the dispersion of taxpayer funding,” Professor Gerald Steinberg, whose organization tracks foreign funding of radical NGOs in Israel, told The Algemeiner. Steinberg was responding to reports that OneVoice International, which describes itself as an “international grassroots movement that amplifies the voice of mainstream Israelis and Palestinians,” and which has received two grants from State over the last year, is working with an Israeli group, V15, in an anti-Netanyahu campaign ahead of the Israeli elections in March.

According to the Washington Free Beacon, which broke the story, former Obama aides are also involved in the campaign. However, OneVoice development and grants officer Christina Taler told the paper that “no government funding has gone toward any of the activities we’re doing right now whatsoever” - though she added that her group had used the State Department grants to “build public campaign support for the [Israeli-Palestinian] negotiations” launched by Secretary of State John Kerry last spring.

Steinberg pointed out that American taxpayer funds have been used for similarly politically-charged projects in the recent past. In 2012, USAID, the US’s largest provider of foreign assistance, donated millions of dollars to Israeli NGOs through the “Peace and Reconciliation Program,” which included support for the so-called “Geneva Initiative” - another grassroots project pressuring the Israeli government to make concessions to the Palestinians.

“After public exposure, the funding was discontinued,” Steinberg said.

30 Ponovitz Yeshiva Students arrested for trying to kill each other

 No difference between Chassidishe Hooligans and Yeshivesha Hooligans. Chassidim fight for who is the legitimate Rebbe, and the Litvishe fight for who is the legitimate  Rosh Yeshivah. It's all about power, and they have their naive minions fighting for their cause.
My solution to all this, is to send them all to the army!

Bnei Brak early Thursday morning to carry out dozens of arrests at one of the Haredi world’s flagship yeshivas, following a series of complaints about violence, vandalism, and arson among a small core group of offenders, Tel Aviv police said Thursday.

Thirty yeshiva students were arrested during the raid at the famous Ponovezh Yeshiva, as police went door to door with lists of students, looking for suspects involved in what has been described by police and reports in the Haredi press as a feud between two rival groups of students at Ponovezh.

One of the groups is described in various reports in the Haredi press as “the terrorists”, and the other as “the haters”. The two follow separate rabbis, according to a statement made by one of the suspect’s attorneys in court on Thursday.

Over the past several months, police said they have received dozens of police complaints about acts of violence and vandalism and carried out the arrests in order to try to calm the situation at the yeshiva, known as possibly the most renowned Litvak yeshiva in the world.

One of the incidents mentioned in several reports in the Haredi press on Thursday, was of an incident during the month of Elul, before the high holidays, when students from the “terrorists” group ransacked a library at the yeshiva associated with their rivals. The incident was described as a “pogrom” in reports on Haredi internet sites Thursday.

Police said the raids were meant to focus on a core group of instigators, and by Thursday afternoon, 26 of the 30 were released without conditions. Another four were released from custody and ordered banned from Bnei Brak for three days. During their hearing Thursday, the presiding judge said that because of the type of allegations and the young age of the defendants, there was no reason to keep them in custody. 

Funeral of IDF Officer Kalangel murdered by Hezbollah ambush

Israeli soldiers carry the flag-draped coffin of Captain Yochai Kalangel during his funeral at Mount Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem 

A family member mourns during the funeral for Captain Yochai Kalangel at Mount Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem January 29, 2015. Reuters

Relatives and friends of Major Yochai Kalangel mourning during his funeral at the military cemetery in Mount Herzl Military Cemetery in Jerusalem on January 29, 2015, Major Yochai Kalangel was killed a yesterday in a Hezbollah attack on his vehicle on Israel’s border with Lebanon.

 

Relatives and friends of Major Yochai Kalangel mourning during his funeral at the military cemetery in Mount Herzl Military Cemetery in Jerusalem on January 29, 2015, Major Yochai Kalangel was killed a yesterday in a Hezbollah attack on his vehicle on Israel’s border with Lebanon. (Credit: Flash90)

An Israeli soldier from the Givati brigade cries during the funeral for Captain Yochai Kalangel at Mount Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem January 29, 2015. Israel and Hezbollah signalled on Thursday their rare flare-up in fighting across the Israel-Lebanon border was over, after the Lebanese guerrillas killed two Israeli troops, one of them Kalangel, in retaliation for a deadly air strike in Syria last week.  (Credit: Reuters)

Dor Chaim Nini and Yochai Kalangel HY”D mudered by Hezbollah

The names of the two IDF soldiers killed in the Hezbollah strike this morning have been released: Staff-Sergeant Dor Chaim Nini, 20, from Shtulim, and Major Yochai Kalangel, 25, from Har Gilo.

Kalangel was a company commander in the Tzabar Battalion of the Givati Brigade.

Today, January 28, 2015, anti-tank missiles were fired at military vehicles near Mt. Dov in northern Israel. Two IDF soldiers were killed and an additional seven were wounded in the attack.Dor Nini, 20, will be laid to rest tomorrow in Moshav Shtulim, where he grew up.

Additionally, mortars hit a military position on Mt. Hermon. IDF forces closed the tourist site nearby and evacuated civilians from the area.

The IDF said in a statement that they hold Hezbollah responsible for today’s attacks and responded with combined aerial and ground strikes at Hezbollah operational positions.

SHOCKING: Bnei Brak Chareidie smuggles Arabs into Israel

Ok...now I heard everything!
Are these guys insane?

A Week After the Tel Aviv Stabbing, A Jew Smuggles Arabs Into Israel!

Arab illegals have committed numerous high profile terror attacks - still, Jews from Charedi city try to smuggle three in a car trunk.

Read this shocking story!

There have been two high-profile stabbings in Tel Aviv in recent months committed by Arab residents of Judea and Samaria who illegally crossed the 1949 Armistice line - and yet a Jewish resident of a Charedi suburb of the city on Tuesday was arrested bringing Arab illegals into the Tel Aviv area in his car trunk.

A 32-year-old Jewish resident of Bnei Brak, a Charedi suburb of Tel Aviv, was arrested on Tuesday evening at a security point in Samaria on Highway 5.

After stopping at the checkpoint, a female security checker opened his car's trunk, where she discovered three Arab men trying to enter Israel illegally, lying in the compartment one next to the other.

The driver admitted under initial investigation that he received 250 shekels (just over $60) from each of the three illegal Arab entrants, and in exchange agreed to help them sneak into Israel, possibly to find illegal work - or else commit terrorist attacks.

All four men were brought in for investigation by the police.

As shocking as the incident is, it is the second such attempt that was foiled this week alone. 

There has in fact been a long history of similar attempts to smuggle in Arab illegals.

Just last October an Israeli woman was arrested while trying to smuggle three Arab illegals past the 1949 Armistice line in her car, along with a stash of drugs. At a checkpoint one of the three was found hiding under a blanket in the backseat, and the other two hiding in the trunk.

Another Tel Aviv woman last May was arrested trying to smuggle in two Arab men, while riding in a car with her three daughters.

The phenomenon is made all the more sinister given that just last Wednesday Hamza Mohammad Hassan Matrouk, a 23-year-old Arab terrorist from Tulkarem in Samaria who was in Israel illegally, stabbed 12 people in an attack on a bus in Tel Aviv, leaving three of them critically wounded.

Likewise last November an Arab terrorist who had entered Israel illegally repeatedly stabbed 20-year-old IDF soldier Almog Shiloni hy''d at Tel Aviv's Hahagana train station - Shiloni later died of his wounds.

There have in fact been numerous other cases of Arab illegals attacking, with yet another occurring in November 2013, when a 16-year-old Arab terrorist who had breached the security border stabbed IDF soldier Eden Atias hy''d of Afula to death as he slept on a bus.

Netanyahu must address Congress on the threat of Iran!

by Mark Langfan

I’m confused.  I thought Obama had called PM Netanyahu “Chicken**”  But now Obama says “Netanyahu spat in his face” because Netanyahu accepted a Joint-Session ofCongress speaking-gig despite Obama’s threats.  Obama can’t have it both ways.  Either, Bibi is a fraidy-cat, or he has courage and nerve .  

The real answer is Netanyahu has courage.

Obama will do everything he can do to get rid of Netanyahu in Israel’s March 2015 election, install a 'West Bank' terror-state, and keep the truth about Iran’s nukes from Congress, and the American people.  That is why it is vital Netanyahu come to the US Congress, and tell the truth about Iran.

For the past six years, PM Netanyahu has displayed undaunted courage facing up to Obama’s incessant Two-State-Solution extortion of pushing Israel into 1967 ‘Auschwitz borders', and his crowning of Iran as a nuclear weapons state.  

Why exactly did Obama call Bibi “Chicken**” and a “coward”?  

Well the exact quote from the Jeffrey Goldberg article goes like this:

 “This official agreed that Netanyahu is a “chicken**” on matters related to the comatose peace process, but added that he’s also a “coward” on the issue of Iran’s nuclear threat. The official said the Obama administration no longer believes that Netanyahu would launch a preemptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities in order to keep the regime in Tehran from building an atomic arsenal.”

Now, let’s break down Obama’s breach of protocol in calling the leader of America’s greatest democratic ally in the Middle East expletive-laced names.

To Obama, Bibi was unwilling to take “risks for peace,” so he’s “chicken**”?  
Is putting Tel Aviv in range of a Palestinian-Hamastan-katyusha rocket state brave?

  No, it’s suicidal.  

Is Obama calling Bibi “chicken**” because Netanyahu doesn’t want to commit national suicide? 

Bibi is upsetting Obama’s plans to stand by while Israel is destroyed.

To Obama, Netanyahu is a “coward” on the Iranian nuclear issue because Israel didn’t unilaterally bomb Iran. Iran’s multiple nuclear facilities are spread all over the place and in deep-bomb resistant bunkers over a 1000 miles from Israel. Then, there’s the 4500 meter high Zagros mountains that Israeli pilots would have to fly east over to get to the hardened nuke facilities. 

Was Bibi a “coward” for not unilaterally attacking Iran? 

No, he was a wise Israeli Prime Minister. 

 

In fact, it is Obama who is the coward for letting Iran continue to enrich uranium, and to build up approximately 8 uranium nuclear bombs-worth of enriched uranium. 

 Based on 2008 legally-mandated unclassifiedAmerican intelligence reports to Congress, virtually all of Iran’s enriched uranium has been enriched on Obama’s watch.

But, what if Obama is actually not merely just appeasing Iran?  

What if Obama is actually lying to the US Congress, and the world, and de facto arming Iran with nukes. In fact, the real reason Obama doesn’t want Netanyahu to come US Congress is that he will tell the truth about Iran. 

And, that is why every American must demand Netanyahu come to Congress, and give the true “State of the World” speech.  

For, if Roosevelt had been capitulating to Hitler like Obama is to Iran, and lying about Hitler like Obama is lying about Iran, Churchill would have also accepted a Joint-session of Congress invitation to tell the truth. Hence, it is principally in the supreme interest of the United States, not just of Israel, that PM Netanyahu come to Congress, and speak truth to the power of Obama’s Iranian policy.

Truth be told, what Obama is truly afraid of is the moment Netanyahu starts talking before the House and Senate and tells the truth about Iran.

The writer, who specializes in security issues, has created an original educational 3d Topographic Map System of Israel to facilitate clear understanding of the dangers facing Israel and its water supply. It has been studied by US lawmakers and can be seen at www.marklangfan.com.

Mida K'neged Mida: Sikrikim Protest Outside Home of Rav Sternbuch, Who they Label ‘Reform Rabbi’

A message to Rav Sternbuch:

"when your'e in the mud with alligators, you get very dirty"

Rav Sternbuch is a radical fanatic himself, but now he is getting a taste of his own medicine. 

Rav Sternbach knows that the Asra Kedisha are a bunch of Mafia extortionists and ruled permitting building a much needed housing project in Beit Shemesh. 
The truth is that wherever you build anywhere in Israel it's going to be a problem, because the country is over 5,000 years old, and it's only natural that the people who died there, got buried there.....
but most of the dead are goyim; Romans, Syrian greeks, Egyptians, Armenians, turks and even Canaanites... 

Read the following:

In their latest affront to Talmidei Chachamim, a group of sikrikim protested outside the home of Eida Chareidis Ravaad HaGaon HaRav Moshe Sternbuch Shlita. The protestors, 15 in number, spread fish oil near the entrance of the rav’s home and carried signs against him including one written in Hebrew saying “Reform Rabbi”.

The delinquents protested the rav’s psak halacha which permitted the continuation of a controversial housing project in Beit Shemesh. The Gadol Hatorah ruled that kevarim are not being compromised. 

Eida Chareidis Gavaad HaGaon HaRav Yitzchok Tuvia Weiss Shlita is of an opposing opinion to the gavaad, which the sikrikim believe is license for them to deal as they wish with a Gadol BiYisroel.

The chareidi delinquents have targeted the gavaad and his family in the past with harassing phone calls, throwing trash and much worse at his home and even physically assaulting persons close to him

Indyk "the Clown" Interferes On Israel - Again

\By Moshe Phillips and Benyamin Korn

The former U.S. ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk, has called on Israel’s leaders “to stay out of America’s politics” — just hours after he urged the United States to interfere in Israel’s politics, something he himself has been doing for years.

The latest events began with the invitation to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of the U.S. Congress. The New York Times quickly sought a comment from Indyk, who is constantly quoted by the news media since the conclusion of his singularly unsuccessful term as the Obama administration’s chief envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

“Netanyahu is using the Republican Congress for a photo-op for his election campaign,” said Indyk, who apparently finds it inconceivable that the prime minister of Israel might want to speak to Congress about using Congressional sanctions to prevent Iran from nuking Israel. “And the Republicans are using Bibi for their campaign against Obama…It would be far wiser for us to stay out of their politics and for them to stay out of ours.”

That line about both sides staying out of the other’s business sounds reasonable and evenhanded. Until you realize that before he spoke to the Times, Indyk let loose his real feelings via Twitter: “Why should Netanyahu be able to speak and Herzog not,” he angrily tweeted, referring to Israeli Labor Party leader Isaac Herzog. “If Boehner is placing Congress into the midst of the Israeli elections, why don’t the Democrats invite Herzog too?”

The answer to Indyk’s petulant question is that Netanyahu is the prime minister. Israel’s prime minister is invited to speak in other countries, and the leader of the opposition is not, just as no Republican leader is invited to speak when President Obama is invited to deliver an address in another country.

Note, by the way, that Indyk served as ambassador in Israel in 1995, when Yitzhak Rabin was prime minister, and 2000, when Ehud Barak was prime minister. We don’t recall him ever demanding that Netanyahu, who was then the opposition leader, be invited along when Rabin or Barak came to the United States. For some reason, Indyk’s demand for “fairness” and “balance” applies only when it benefits the Israeli Labor Party.

The irony is that if there is one person in the diplomatic world who is well known for interfering in Israel’s politics, it’s Martin Indyk.

Consider:

– Knesset Members David Levy and Aryeh Deri revealed on July 26, 1995 that Ambassador Indyk personally lobbied them, and other MKs, to oppose a Knesset bill that would have made it harder for Israel to give the Golan Heights to Syria. (Agence France Presse, July 26, 1995)

– Israel Television reported on December 18, 1996, that Ambassador Indyk visited former Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, spiritual leader of the Shas party, and asked Yosef to order Interior Minister Eli Suissa (a Shas representative) to block a housing project in a part of Jerusalem that was beyond the 1967 line.

– The chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, MK Uzi Landau, revealed in March 1997 that Ambassador Indyk had been “pressuring members of the government” and “interfering in Israel’s internal political affairs.” (Haaretz, March 16, 1997)

– The Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot reported on July 8, 1997, that Ambassador Indyk “took part in the effort” to block Prime Minister Netanyahu’s choice for finance minister.

It’s worth recalling that when Indyk was nominated, in 1997, to serve as Assistant Secretary of State, The New Republic opposed the nomination–on the grounds that as ambassador in Israel, Indyk “distinguished himself by exhorting [President Clinton] to campaign for [Labor Party leader] Shimon Peres” in the 1996 Israeli elections. (Editorial, August 11-18, 1997)

That’s right, the same Indyk who tweeted about inviting the head of Israel’s Labor Party to address Congress, and then turned around a few hours later and piously told the New York Times that neither side should interfere in the other’s politics–he himself sought American presidential intervention to help a previous Labor Party leader in an Israeli election.

Hypocrisy? Two-facedness? Political bias? Sure, all of those terms describe Martin Indyk. But most of all, his behavior appears to be guided by a desperate hope that nobody will bother to take a look at his own record.

(The authors are president and chairman, respectively, of the Religious Zionists of America, Philadelphia, and candidates on the Religious Zionist slate (www.VoteTorah.org) in the World Zionist Congress elections.)

White House going nuclear on Netanyahu

by Michael Goodwin

Thou shall not cross Dear Leader.

With their gutter sniping failing to stop Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s planned March speech before Congress, White House aides are unloading their full arsenal of bile.

“He spat in our face publicly, and that’s no way to behave,” one Obama aide told an Israeli newspaper. “Netanyahu ought to remember that President Obama has a year and a half left to his presidency, and that there will be a price.”

It is pointless to say petty threats do not become the Oval Office. Trying to instruct this White House on manners recalls what Mark Twain said about trying to teach a pig to sing: It wastes your time and annoys the pig.

Still, the fury is telling. It reminds, as if we could forget, that everything is always about Obama.

How dare Israel be more concerned with the existential threat of Iranian nukes than with Obama’s feelings? And what do members of Congress think they are, a separate branch of government or something?

Yes, the presidency deserves respect, even when the president doesn’t. Although Obama routinely ignores lawmakers and their role in our constitutional system of checks and balances, there is an argument afoot that Congress should have taken the high road and consulted him before inviting Netanyahu.

The argument has a point — but not a compelling one. To give Obama veto power over the visit would be to put protocol and his pride before the most important issue in the world.

Modal Trigger

Photo: AP

That is Iran’s march to nuclear weapons, and Obama’s foolish complicity. His claim at the State of the Union that “we’ve halted the progress of its nuclear program and reduced its stockpile of nuclear material” would be laughable if it weren’t so dangerous. The claim earned him three ­Pinocchios, with four being an outright whopper, by The Washington Post.

Outside the president’s yes-men circle, nobody believes the mad mullahs will voluntarily give up their quest for the bomb. International sanctions made life difficult for the regime, especially with oil prices cratering, but Obama ­relaxed restrictions with nothing to show for it except negotiations where he keeps bidding against himself.

He is desperate for a deal, and the Iranians know it, so they want to keep talking. They are gaining concessions and buying time, which means a reversal of their weapons program becomes much harder to achieve.

The ticking doomsday clock is what led to the remarkable comments by Democrat Robert ­Menendez. After Obama warned that more sanctions, even if they would not take effect unless the talks collapsed, could scare off the Iranians, the New Jersey senator said Obama was repeating talking points that “come straight out of Tehran.”

That’s a zinger for the ages — and has the added advantage of being true.

Any deal that leaves Iran with a capacity to make a nuke in weeks or months will ignite a regional arms race. As I have noted, American military and intelligence officials believe a nuclear-armed Iran will lead to a nuclear exchange with Israel or Arab countries within five years.

Israel has the most to lose from an Iranian nuke, and ­Netanyahu can be expected to articulate a forceful argument against Obama’s disastrous course. That’s why House Speaker John Boehner invited him, and it’s why the president is so bent out of shape and refuses to meet with Netanyahu. He doesn’t want Americans to hear the other side.

But we must. And Congress must not shirk from its duty to demand a meaningful agreement with Iran, or none at all.

An extra layer of sanctions waiting in the wings is good backup, but another pending bill is more important. It would demand that any agreement come before the Senate for a vote.

Naturally, Obama opposes it, but that’s all the more reason why it is needed. As Ronald Reagan famously said about Soviet promises, “Trust but verify.”

So must it be with Iran and, sadly, our own president.

Tipping off the enemy

A front-page story in The Wall Street Journal is a stunner — for all the wrong reasons. Under the headline, “US, Iraq Set Sights on Mosul Offensive,” it lays out plans for a summer attack against Islamic State, including the locations and numbers of allied Kurdish fighters and which Iraqi units will lead the charge.

Most shocking, the source is Gen. Lloyd Austin, the top American commander in the Middle East. He told the Journal US ground troops might be involved and that the military “would do what it takes.”

What the hell is going on? Since when does the military give the public, and the enemy, advance notice of battle plans? Has Gen. Austin lost his mind?

This is nuts.

The incredible moment a blind mom is able to see her newborn baby son for the very first time using special high-tech glasses

kathy beitz

Kathy Beitz, 29, from Guelph, Ontario, who is blind was able to use a device that allowed her to see her baby just hours after he was born.

In a YouTube video, that is quickly going viral, she gasps and says 'Oh my god!' as she holds baby Aksel in her hospital bed for the first time.

'Look at his long toes,' she says. 'I think he looks like us.'

Ms. Beitz was diagnosed with Stargardt disease, a genetic condition that causes macular degeneration, when she was 11. 

While she now has some peripheral vision, she developed a blind spot in the centre of her field of vision and is legally blind. 

The special glasses developed by the firm eSight is equipped with a video camera from which the images are enhanced and projected onto high definition screens in front of the eyes.

 About 140 people have eSight glasses in North America,

The wearer can then adjust the contrast, brightness and shadow to make things easier to see. 

'Their eyes actually perceive more when they look at the screen than they can with their natural eyesight,' said Taylor West, a spokesman for eSight to CBC. 

'For the first baby that I get to actually look at being my own is very overwhelming,' she told the camera. 

'The moment I got the glasses, I was very ready to put them on,' said Ms Beitz. 'I got to see that he had my husband's feet and toes, and I got to see that he had my lips.

'My husband and I got to have the family experience of looking at our brand new baby, and bonding with him and falling in love with him.' 

The glasses have changed her life profoundly. She said they make it much easier for her to care for the infant, go to the grocery store and complete other tasks that would otherwise be difficult. 

At a cost of $15,000, the device doesn't come cheap, however, the company has a fundraising department that helps people purchase the glasses.

The company is even trying to persuade insurers to make a contribution through healthcare plans. 

Ms. Beitz sister also suffers from Stargardt disease and now works for the company that developed the spectacles. 

She says she is forever grateful that her sister decided to purchase the glasses for her, although over time she will pay her back. 

A number of efforts are underway to help raise money for the device and include using crowdfunding. and a campaign based around Ms Beitz's story using the hash tag #MakeBlindnessHistory.

'Being a person with a disability who has two children of her own, she knew the struggles of being a legally blind or blind parent. So she was very adamant about getting the glasses for me and work with me to use them, so when I did have him, I got to experience everything that she didn't,' said Beitz.

'When I knew I was getting the glasses, I got very excited. I knew then I would be able to read books to the baby and be a part of that experience ... it gave a huge independence to my parenting skills.'

Why did Boehner really invite Netanyahu to address Congress? Hint: IRAN!

Iran has apparently produced an intercontinental ballistic missile whose range far exceeds the distance between Iran and Israel, and between Iran and Europe.

On Wednesday night, Channel 2 showed satellite imagery taken by Israel’s Eros-B satellite that was launched last April. The imagery showed new missile-related sites that Iran recently constructed just outside Tehran. One facility is a missile launch site, capable of sending a rocket into space or of firing an ICBM.

On the launch pad was a new 27-meter long missile, never seen before.

The missile and the launch pad indicate that Iran’s ballistic missile program, which is an integral part of its nuclear weapons program, is moving forward at full throttle. The expanded range of Iran’s ballistic missile program as indicated by the satellite imagery makes clear that its nuclear weapons program is not merely a threat to Israel, or to Israel and Europe. It is a direct threat to the United States as well.

Also on Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was invited to address a joint session of Congress by House Speaker John Boehner.

Boehner has asked Netanyahu to address US lawmakers on February 11 regarding Iran’s nuclear program and the threat to international security posed by radical Islam.

Opposition leaders were quick to accuse Boehner and the Republican Party of interfering in Israel’s upcoming election by providing Netanyahu with such a prestigious stage just five weeks before Israelis go to the polls.

Labor MK Nachman Shai told The Jerusalem Post that for the sake of fairness, Boehner should extend the same invitation to opposition leader Isaac Herzog.

But in protesting as they have, opposition members have missed the point. Boehner didn’t invite Netanyahu because he cares about Israel’s election. He invited Netanyahu because he cares about US national security. He believes that by having Netanyahu speak on the issues of Iran’s nuclear program and radical Islam, he will advance America’s national security.

Boehner’s chief concern, and that of the majority of his colleagues from the Democratic and Republican parties alike, is that President Barack Obama’s policy in regard to Iran’s nuclear weapons program imperils the US. Just as the invitation to Netanyahu was a bipartisan invitation, so concerns about Obama’s policy toward Iran’s nuclear program are bipartisan concerns.

Over the past week in particular, Obama has adopted a position on Iran that puts him far beyond the mainstream of US politics. This radical position has placed the president on a collision course with Congress best expressed on Wednesday by Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez. 

During a hearing at the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee where Menendez serves as ranking Democratic member, he said, “The more I hear from the administration and its quotes, the more it sounds like talking points that come straight out of Tehran.”
Menendez was referring to threats that Obama has made three times over the past week, most prominently at his State of the Union address on Tuesday, to veto any sanctions legislation against Iran brought to his desk for signature.

He has cast proponents of sanctions – and Menendez is the co-sponsor of a pending sanctions bill – as enemies of a diplomatic strategy of dealing with Iran, and by implication, as warmongers.

Indeed, in remarks to the Democratic members of the Senate last week, Obama impugned the motivations of lawmakers who support further sanctions legislation. He indirectly alleged that they were being forced to take their positions due to pressure from their donors and others.

The problem for American lawmakers is that the diplomatic course that Obama has chosen makes it impossible for the US to use the tools of diplomacy to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

That course of diplomatic action is anchored in the Joint Plan of Action that the US and its partners Germany, France, Britain, China and Russia (the P5+1) signed with Tehran in November 2013.

The JPOA placed no limitation on Iran’s ballistic missile program. The main areas the JPOA covers are Iran’s uranium enrichment and plutonium reactor activities. Under the agreement, or the aspects of it that Obama has made public, Iran is supposed to limit its enrichment of uranium to 3.5-percent purity.

And it is not supposed to take action to expand its heavy water reactor at Arak, which could be used to develop weapons grade plutonium.

THE JPOA is also supposed to force Iran to share all nuclear activities undertaken in the past by its military personnel.

During his State of the Union address, Obama claimed that since the agreement was signed, Iran has “halted the progress of its nuclear program and reduced its stockpile of nuclear material.”

Yet as Omri Ceren of the Israel Project noted this week, since the JPOA was signed, Iran has expanded its uranium and plutonium work. And as the Eros-B satellite imagery demonstrated, Iran is poised to launch an ICBM.

When it signed the JPOA, Obama administration officials dismissed concerns that by permitting Iran to enrich uranium to 3.5% – in breach of binding UN Security Council Resolution 1929 from 2010 – the US was enabling Iran to develop nuclear weapons. Enrichment to 3.5%, they said, is a far cry from the 90% enrichment level needed for uranium to be bomb grade.

But it works out that the distance isn’t all that great. Sixty percent of the work required to enrich uranium to bomb grade levels of purity is done by enriching it to 3.5%. Since it signed the JPOA, Iran has enriched sufficient quantities of uranium to produce two nuclear bombs.

As for plutonium development work, as Ceren pointed out, the White House’s fact sheet on the JPOA said that Iran committed itself “to halt progress on its plutonium track.”

Last October, Foreign Policy magazine reported that Iran was violating that commitment by seeking to procure parts for its heavy water plutonium reactor at Arak. And yet, astoundingly, rather than acknowledge the simple fact that Iran was violating its commitment, the State Department excused Iran’s behavior and insisted that it was not in clear violation of its commitment.

More distressingly, since the JPOA was signed, Iran has repeatedly refused to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to access Iran’s nuclear installations or to inform the IAEA about the nuclear activities that its military have carried out in the past.

As a consequence, the US and its partners still do not know what nuclear installations Iran has or what nuclear development work it has undertaken.

This means that if a nuclear agreement is signed between Iran and the P5+1, that agreement’s verification protocols will in all likelihood not apply to all aspects of Iran’s nuclear program. And if it does not apply to all aspects of Iran’s nuclear activities, it cannot prevent Iran from continuing the activities it doesn’t know about.

As David Albright, a former IAEA inspector, explained in a Wall Street Journal op-ed last May, “To be credible, a final agreement must ensure that any effort by Tehran to construct a bomb would be sufficiently time-consuming and detectable that the international community could act decisively to prevent Iran from succeeding. It is critical to know whether the Islamic Republic had a nuclear weapons program in the past, how far the work on warheads advanced and whether it continues. Without clear answers to these questions, outsiders will be unable to determine how fast the Iranian regime could construct either a crude nuclear-test device or a deliverable weapon if it chose to renege on an agreement.”

Concern about the loopholes in the JPOA led congressional leaders from both parties to begin work to pass additional sanctions against Iran immediately after the JPOA was concluded. To withstand congressional pressure, the Obama administration alternately attacked the patriotism of its critics, who it claimed were trying to push the US into and unnecessary war against Iran, and assured them that all of their concerns would be addressed in a final agreement.

Unfortunately, since signing the JPOA, the administration has adopted positions that ensure that none of Congress’s concerns will be addressed.

Whereas in early 2013, Secretary of State John Kerry declared that “the president has made it definitive” that Iran needs to answer all “questions surrounding Iran’s nuclear program,” last November it was reported that the US and its partners had walked back this requirement.

Iran will not be required to give full accounting of its past nuclear work, and so the US and its partners intend to sign a deal that will be unable to verify that Iran does not build nuclear weapons.

As the administration has ignored its previous pledges to Congress to ensure that a deal with Iran will make it possible to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons, it has also acted to ensure that Iran will pay no price for negotiating in bad faith. The sanctions bill that Obama threatens to veto would only go into effect if Iran fails to sign an agreement.

As long as negotiations progress, no sanctions would be enforced.

OBAMA’S MESSAGE then is clear. Not only will the diplomatic policy he has adopted not prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons (and the ability to attack the US with nuclear warheads attached to an ICBM), but in the event that Iran fails to agree to even cosmetic limitations on its nuclear progress, it will suffer no consequences for its recalcitrance.

And this brings us back to Boehner’s invitation to Netanyahu.

With Obama’s diplomatic policy toward Iran enabling rather than preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power, members of the House and Senate are seeking a credible, unwavering voice that offers an alternative path. For the past 20 years, Netanyahu has been the global leader most outspoken about the need to take all necessary measures to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power, not only for Israel’s benefit, but to protect the entire free world. From the perspective of the congressional leadership, then, inviting Netanyahu to speak was a logical move.

In the Israeli context, however, it was an astounding development. For the past generation, the Israeli Left has insisted Israel’s role on the world stage is that of a follower.

As a small, isolated nation, Israel has no choice, they say, other than to follow the lead of the West, and particularly of the White House, on all issues, even when the US president is wrong. All resistance to White House policies is dangerous and irresponsible, leaders like Herzog and Tzipi Livni continuously warn.

Boehner’s invitation to Netanyahu exposes the Left’s dogma as dangerous nonsense.

The role of an Israeli leader is to adopt the policies that protect Israel, even when they are unpopular at the White House. Far from being ostracized for those policies, such an Israeli leader will be supported, respected, and relied upon by those who share with him a concern for what truly matters.

caroline@carolineglick.com