The Beauty of It All: Obama Does Not Matter

Kish Mich Vee Dee Yeedin Huben Gereet

And now President Barack Obama is threatening Israel and American Jews that he will bypass Mideast peace negotiations that include Israel and instead will go directly to the United Nations to impose, by U.N. fiat, a fait accompli, a “Two-State Solution,” on Israel.

Do you realize the beauty of it all?  For people of faith — Jews, Christians — Obama does not matter. 

And for people lacking faith — Obama also does not matter.  

When Sennacherib came upon the Kingdom of Judah, his fierce armies threatened King Hezekiah, camping outside Jerusalem in their myriads. That threat’s resolution is recounted in II Kings 18-19. 

Obama is no Sennacherib; he is a struggling golf player who, to demonstrate how “cool” he is, delights in walking down airport stairways without holding the railing.  That is all he is.  An empty suit, a Constitutional scholar who never was, a law review president who never published a single piece of legal scholarship, a reverse-Midas who ruins or tarnishes everything he touches.  Hugo Chavez did not fear him.  Vladimir Putin does not regard him.  The Iranians do not take him seriously.  America’s deepest enemies see him and act with a full sense that the vault is open, its contents free for the taking. 

If he was potentially someone of substance six years ago, he now is exposed as one of America’s weakest Presidents, both domestically and abroad.  Because of his station, he cannot be disregarded — but he is not to be feared.  Obama does not matter.

Among the Great Masters — Rembrandt, Van Gogh —  none painted with the beauty rendered by the Master of the Universe. 

 It is a thing of beauty:  

Obama's six years of incessant private tantrums and public threats and pressures against Israel — infantile gestures like refusing to have dinner with Bibi, making faces and digging his fingernails into his chair as Bibi spoke with him at the White House, demands that Israel stop building residences in Judea and Samaria, demanding along with Hillary and Biden that Jews stop building homes even in Jerusalem, speaking of Israel moving to pre-1967 lines, and now intimating that he will support “Two State” resolutions in the anti-Jewish U.N. — all have set new more-extreme “red lines” for Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas), Hamas, and others who represent the Arabs of Judea and Samaria.  

Although a new American President later can “walk back” Obama’s unilateral narcissistic fits of vituperative pique, history shows that Arab leaders in Judea and Samaria cannot walk back their intensified demands.  Once demanded, they are engraved. 

And here is the beauty:

Each time Obama applies new pressure on Israel, he inadvertently strengthens Israel in Judea and Samaria.  

Every time Obama demands a unilateral Israeli withdrawal (a la Obama’s one-way hasty exits from Iraq and Afghanistan, and like the unilateral withdrawals that Ehud Barak executed in South Lebanon and that Ariel Sharon replicated with similarly disastrous results in Gaza) — Obama  inadvertently forces Abbas, the PA (Palestine Authority), and Hamas to adopt their own more extreme stands.  We cannot blame them; he forces it on them, and then they later cannot back down.  

Every time Obama ups the ante, he inadvertently makes it even more impossible for any Israeli leader, right or left, to acquiesce to any future deal like Rabin’s Oslo or Sharon’s Gaza disasters.  

Meanwhile, life does not remain in stasis. Inevitably, more Jews build homes in Judea and Samaria. Despite Obama, Hillary, Kerry, Biden and their building freezes, there now are 750,000 Jews living in East Jerusalem and in the rest of post-1967 Judea and Samaria.  

In 2009 when Obama’s Reign of Error began, there were fewer than 200,000 Jews in East Jerusalem and fewer than 300,000 Jews in the rest of Judea and Samaria.  Six years of pressure from Obama and his henchmen has resulted in increases to 325,000 and 425,000 respectively.  In total, a fifty percent increase.  As Obama hardens his lines —something he does nowhere else and to no one else — he compels Arab leaders there to harden their lines, guaranteeing perpetual stalemate, leaving the Jewish numbers to rise. 

The “Two State Solution” died when Obama became President.  He killed it without knowing it.

It is a thing of beauty:

The absurd “Two State Solution” that Sharon never should have accepted in the first place, died when Obama became President.  As with so much other destruction that Obama has wreaked elsewhere in the world and at home, he killed it without knowing it.

Even without new construction, more Jewish children are born each day to those 750,000 Jews.  Relatives move in.  Human increase cannot be stopped.  With those numbers, how is anyone going to move 750,000 Jews out of their homes? Not since Adolf Hitler has anyone moved that many Jews out of their homes. How is Obama or Hillary going to do it?  How would Buji or Tzipi? This is not Yamit or Gush Katif.  This is nearly a million Jews.  

Short of a Hitler-like Panzer blitzkrieg, backed by cattle cars and storm troopers — how is anyone going to move 750,000 Jews out of Judea and Samaria?  

And, thanks to Obama and his cohorts, that fascinating question can wait another day because Obama’s latest threats have pushed Abu Mazen and Hamas into harder lines, making “peace talks” even more impossible, leaving everyone in stalemate.  Meanwhile, while you were reading this, more Jewish children were being born in Judea and Samaria.

Consider a hypothetical: 

Yenta the Matchmaker decides to marry Abe to Sadie.  Both are in their late 50’s, Abe bankrupt, Sadie infertile. Abe says he will marry Sadie only if she agrees to bear him five children.  Sadie responds that, at age 57, she no longer can bear but would agree to adopt five.  Abe insists: “I want you to bear five children, not adopted.”  Yenta next spends five years pleading with Sadie:  “Promise him you will bear two children.  I can get him down from five.”  Sadie responds: “Do you not understand me?  I cannot bear children.  By the way, now I am 62.” As Yenta threatens to increase pressure on Sadie to bear, Sadie adds: “And I want a million-dollar ring from him.”  Yenta explains that Abe is bankrupt and is counting on Sadie to support him.  Sadie responds “I can compromise.  His ring can be $900,000.”

This kind of stuff is what goes on in these Mideast negotiations.  Add some music and put in on Broadway, but there is never going to be a “Two State Solution.”  It was killed by three men, with two accomplices.  

The murderers:  Obama, Ehud Barak, and Ariel Sharon.  The accomplices:  Yasser Arafat and Abu Mazen.  

If there ever was a possibility that some Labor Party government unilaterally would impose an Israeli withdrawal from Judea and Samaria, based on a Shimon Peres-like oblivion to the harsh realities of real life, Ehud Barak’s withdrawal from South Lebanon and Sharon’s from Gaza killed it.  

The withdrawals taught something shocking to the fools who had supported Oslo and unilateral withdrawals: 

 if you let them have cement and steel to build homes, they instead will built terror tunnels.  Now the rockets reach Haifa, Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem, so Israel’s “beautiful people” no longer are limited to watching reality on the news. The Tel Aviv café night-life bon vivants now get to experience bomb shelters in vivid color and 3-D surround sound.

In all the years, Arafat and Abu Mazen never gave an inch.  Barak even offered Arafat East Jerusalem, and Arafat responded with an Intifada, as if to say: “How dare you offer me a country of my own?” Ehud Olmert, still awaiting the opportunity finally to begin serving his well-earned six years in prison for corruption and bribery, likewise was denied.  They will not accept any deal that includes living alongside a country defined as “Jewish.”

That was Netanyahu’s point when telling the media there never will be a “Two State Solution” while he is Prime Minister.  “Two State” is ridiculous because, at the end of the day, the Arab leaders of Judea and Samaria will not accept any arrangement that includes Jewish Israelis living on land that Israel liberated after 1967. They will not abide any neighbor, regardless of borders, that defines itself as a “Jewish” country. And no one will be able to evict 750,000 people from their homes unless they engage in Hitler techniques, doubtful in Israel.

For those who can handle the truth, there never will be a “Two State Solution” — regardless of whether we want one.  Israelis of all stripes have come to realize that Iran and its Shiite surrogates are gobbling up parts of Iraq, Syria, Libya, Lebanon, and now Yemen.  They see that Hamas controls so much of Gaza and “the West Bank” that Abu Mazen has refused to call an election for six years since his four-year term ended in 2009.  They realize that any new Arab country established in Judea and Samaria instantly would become a haven for world terror. Israel’s national airport would have to close down permanently.

Let Obama’s pressure continue.  Let him continue forcing Abu Mazen and Hamas to ever-increasing negotiating extremes.  Meanwhile more Jewish children continue to be born every day in Judea and Samaria, and exorbitant housing prices along the coastal plane force a new Finance Minister who promised lower prices to find a way to increase home construction by enormous numbers to offset increased demand with increased supply.  Housing in East Jerusalem and the rest of Judea and Samaria will continue to rise.  The Jewish population will exceed the first million.  Obama does not matter.  It is a thing of beauty. 

Rabbi Dov Fischer is author of General Sharon’s War Against Time Magazine (Steimatzky: 1985). His political commentaries have appeared on the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, National Review,  Los Angeles Times, and in other major American publications.  He formerly was Chief Articles Editor of UCLA Law Review, is an adjunct professor of law at two prominent American law schools, and is Rav of Young Israel of Orange County, California.  He is author of Jews for Nothing (Feldheim: 1983) and is in his fifth year as a member of the National Executive Committee of the Rabbinical Council of America. His writings can be found at RabbiDov.com  As with all of Rabbi Prof. Fischer’s writings, this commentary expresses his own views.