Jewish Man Shot Dead in Brooklyn

A 29-year-old Russian Jew was shot twice in the chest on Tuesday morning and died of his wounds shortly thereafter, in an attack on Ocean Parkway in the Midwood area of Brooklyn, New York.

Police told JPUpdates that the shooting occurred in front of 1663 Ocean Parkway, and that they received an emergency 911 call at around 7 a.m. on Tuesday from a passerby who found the man on the ground.

He was rushed to Coney Island Hospital where the medical staff was forced to pronounce his death.

Police are currently investigating the murder, and it has not been clarified whether the motive was simply criminal, or whether it was a hate crime.

A bullet shell casing was reportedly found at the scene, although a gun was not found, indicating the attacker fled the scene with the weapon.

The Jewish community of Brooklyn is already reeling from another tragedy, after seven young children of the Sassoon family in Flatbush were killed in a fire caused by a Shabbat hot plate malfunction.

'Wall Street Journal' Lies .... that Israel spied on US Nuclear talk with Iran

The Liars 

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Tuesday that he was "shocked" and "baffled" by a Wall Street Journal report published Tuesday morning that claimed Israel had spied on US nuclear talks with Iran, collecting information that was used to lobby him and his colleagues in Congress to drum up opposition to an emerging nuclear deal.

According to the Journal, Israel spied on the talks as part of the Netanyahu administration's campaign to publicly build a case against the deal.

"I'm not sure what the information was, but I'm baffled by it," Boehner told reporters on Capitol Hill on Tuesday.  

The White House was critical of Boehner for inviting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint meeting of Congress earlier this month. Boehner will visit Israel during Congress' recess in late March.

"No information [was] revealed to me whatsoever," he added.

While Israel and the US are close allies, they have been known to spy on one another, the most notorious instance being the imprisonment of US Navy analyst Jonathan Pollard.

According to The Wall Street Journal, US spy agencies intercepted communications between Israeli officials who were sharing details that the Americans say could only have been learned from the secret negotiations with Iran.

Israel, for its part, denied that it spied on American negotiators, insisting that their efforts were aimed at Iranian officials.

Both Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman and Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon strongly denied that Israel spied on its ally following the report.

Yehuda Avner author of "Prime Ministers" Passes Away BD"E

Yehuda Avner z"l

Yehuda Avner Shaking hands with Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Begin in center

Adviser to 5 Israeli prime ministers, 3-time ambassador and author of 'The Prime Ministers' passed away at age 87 Tuesday.

Yehuda Avner, who served as Israel's Ambassador to three English-speaking countries and as adviser to five Israeli prime ministers, passed away last night at the age of 87. Father of four, he will be buried in Jerusalem this afternoon.

Mourned by Yeshiva University as a "true Ohev Yisrael (lover of Israel)," Avner's biography largely tells the story of the history of the State of Israel.

He was born Yehuda Haffner in England in 1928. Having experienced anti-Semitism there and being involved in the religious-Zionist Bnei Akiva youth movement, he moved to Jerusalem at age 19. He fought for the city during the War of Independence, and in 1949, he was amongst the founders of Kibbutz Lavi, a religious kibbutz in the Galilee.

Avner traveled to Britain to head the Bnei Akiva movement there, then returned to Israel in 1954, joined the Israeli Foreign Service, and ended up in the Prime Minister's Bureau. He wrote speeches and advised Prime Ministers Levi Eshkolo, Golda Meir, Menachem Begin, Yitzchak Rabin and Shimon Peres.

Among other functions, Avner served as the liaison between the variousprime ministers he worked with and the Lubavitcher Rebbe. This was especially so with Menachem Begin during the negotiations for the 1982 Israel-Egypt peace treaty.

He was appointed Ambassador to Britain and Non-resident Ambassador to Ireland in 1983, serving for six years. From 1992 to 1995, he was Israel's Ambassador to Australia.

Among other writings, Avner authored The Prime Ministers: An Intimate Narrative of Israeli Leadership, a dramatic and historic inside look at the workings of the top echelons of Israel's government. In 1995, the Yehuda Avner Chair in Religion and Politics was established at Bar-Ilan University.

​The funeral will take place today, Tuesday March 24, (4th of Nisan) at Bet HaHesped in Givat Shaul at 4:30 p.m.

Shiva will be held at Diskin 13, Villa 116, Jerusalem, until Monday morning March 30.

Click here to read a fascinating lecture Yehuda Avner delivered in 2008

Israel Bashing J Street Features Rep Schakowsky bashing "Orthodox Jew"

Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), speaking on Monday at the 2015 J Street convention, praised the far left “Pro-Israel, Pro-Peace?” organization for backing her 2010 re-election campaign against Joel Pollak, Breitbart News’s Senior Editor-at-Large and Breitbart California Editor.

Schakowsky begins by thanking J Street for its backing of her positions when it comes to Israel.

“I’d like to begin with just a great thank you for J Street. I have to tell you that the courage to take positions that I’ve been able to take are [sic] really because of the space that, in a very short time, J Street had opened for members of Congress to expand political discussion about the State of Israel and our relationship to it.”

In the video—which was provided by Paul Miller, who served as a senior policy adviser for Pollak’s campaign and is now the executive director of the Salomon Center—the Democratic Rep. from Illinois rips into the Breitbart editor.

“In 2010, I had an election… an election within our community. That is, I ran against a Jewish-Orthodox, Tea Party Republican who made it very clear that actually Jan Schakowsky was anti-Israel because of the positions that she took,” the Congresswoman said of Pollak.

“J Street came to my rescue,” she added. “Not just with money, but with the kind of moral support that was able to assure a substantial victory in that election.”

Ron Kampeas, the JTA Washington bureau chief, wrote on Twitter that Schakowsky “ickily” noted Pollak’s Orthodox observance of his faith:

The Democratic representative was one of the fringe leftist members of the House who decided to boycott Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s March speech to a joint session of the U.S. Congress.

Pundits have noted that Schakowsky has consistently taken controversial positions when it comes to Israel. Others have expressed doubt that J Street itself is in fact a pro-Israel organization.

“She has walked lockstep with the most anti-Israel administration in the history of US-Israeli relations,” Jerusalem Post columnist Caroline Glick said of Schakowsky in February.”

Famed Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz said of J Street in April 2014, “How can you be a ‘pro-Israel’ organization and never express any pro-Israel views? It is absolutely shocking to me. Every press release seemed to have a negative about Israel.”

“I just have to shake my head when these [J Street members] ask me to believe in Iran,” former Rep. Allen West said of the group in 2010.

J Street has consistently opposed any new sanctions against the Iranian regime and has pushed for further pressure against the Jewish state at the United Nations. Its Washington D.C. policy conference, which is rife with controversial figures, ends Tuesday.

Senators Call For Defunding The United Nations If Obama Goes To The UN Against Israel

The Obama administration made a lot of noise over the weekend about its displeasure at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s comments over the future of Palestinian statehood. 

Even though Netanyahu walked back his comments in an olive branch to the administration, the White House’s negative, threatening rhetoric towards the Jewish State has not diminished; in fact, it has increased.

What concerns many lawmakers in the House and the Senate are the administration’s threats to possibly change the level of support that America gives Israel in the United Nations. 

\Historically, the United States has been the nation that prevents adverse action against Israel such as the United Nations proclaiming Palestinian statehood. Some senators over the weekend fired a shot across the administration’s bow on this issue.

The Jerusalem Post reports:

The US Congress should reconsider funding for the United Nations if the Security Council approves a resolution on Palestinian statehood, Republican Senator John McCain said on Sunday.

McCain, in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” show, said President Barack Obama should not even be considering such a resolution.

Breitbart also reported:

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) threatened to cut off funding to the United Nations if President Obama uses it to bypass Congress on Iran sanctions on Thursday’s “On the Record” on the Fox News Channel.

“Here’s what the president needs to understand. If you go to the UN Security Council and you try to bypass the Congress to get this deal approved by the UN Security Council, but not come to your own Congress, then you’re going to risk Congress cutting off money to the United Nations” he stated.

The rubber is hitting the road here at the tail end of the disastrous Obama presidency. This is a very dangerous time for our nation. Our Congressional leaders are going to have to step up and defend the American way of life and our allies in the face of threats to injure them from our treasonous White House.

This may be the last opportunity for an old warrior like John McCain to rise to the occasion when his country needs him.

The Red Cross and the Islamic University in Gaza plan to hold a joint conference on Sharia law.

The faculty of Sharia (Islamic law) at the Hamas-affiliated Islamic University in Gaza is preparing to hold an international conference in cooperation with the International Committee of the Red Cross on the subject of international humanitarian law in light of Islamic Sharia

.

The conference is scheduled to take place on October 13 and 14 this year, according to a joint ad of the Red Cross and the Islamic University, which appeared in the Hamas-affiliated Palestine newspaper on Sunday.

According to the ad, the first session of the conference will deal with humanitarian issues. 

The second session will discuss the basic principles in the management of armed conflicts, the third session will deal with victims’ rights and measures for their protection during armed conflict, and the fourth session will deal with guarantees for the implementation of the principles of the management of armed conflict and modern challenges.

All the sessions will examine these issues according to Sharia law and international humanitarian law, the ad states.

The cooperation with the Red Cross is puzzling given that the Islamic University is considered a stronghold of Hamas and, according to Israeli intelligence, Hamas uses it to develop its rocket arsenal.

In January of 2009, the Israeli Air Force attacked a target at the Islamic University which served as a laboratory for developing weapons.

During a visit to Gaza in 2012, Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal spoke at the Islamic University, and called on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to retire from politics. In the speech, Mashaal also praised Hamas’s targeting of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem with rockets during Israel’s Operation Pillar of Defense which preceded his visit to Gaza.

Diana Feinstein's despicable Obama-engineered political assassination attempt against Prime Minister Netanyahu,

In what was perhaps the most despicable, low-point of the Obama-engineered political assassination attempt against Prime Minister Netanyahu,

 California Senator Diane Feinstein - on CNN's State of the Union -said, 
"He [Netanyahu] doesn’t speak for me on this, I think it’s a rather arrogant statement. I think the Jewish community is like any other community. There are different points of view. I think that arrogance does not befit, Israel, candidly." 

Senator Feinstein gets her mentality straight from the same 1930's and 40's mentality displayed by the American Jewish establishment during the Nazi Holocaust.  Led by Rabbi Stephen Wise, the vast majority of American Jews chose the keep-quiet, watch-the-Jews-burn, and protect their Democratic President Roosevelt at all costs.

Only the very few Jews of the Bergson Group stood up for truth, for saving European Jewry and defied the Democratic Roosevelt.  Sen. Feinstein's public animosity towards Netanyahu proves nothing has changed since the First Nazi Holocaust.  Sen. Feinstein is another Rabbi Wise.

Wikipeida:  "Gerhart Moritz Riegner (Berlin, September 12, 1911 – Geneva, December 3, 2001) was the secretary-general of the World Jewish Congress from 1965 to 1983.

"On August 8, 1942, he [Gerhard Riegner] sent the so-called Riegner Telegram through diplomatic channels to Stephen Samuel Wise, president of the World Jewish Congress. (However, Wise did not receive it until the end of the month).  The source of the information was Eduard Schulte, the anti-Nazi owner of a prominent German company that employed high-level Nazi officials. The telegram was the first official communication about the planned Holocaust."

The Riegner telegram read in part: "Received alarming report stating that, in the Fuehrer's Headquarters, a plan has been discussed, and is under consideration, according to which all Jews in countries occupied or controlled by Germany numbering 3½ to 4 millions should, after deportation and concentration in the East, be at one blow exterminated, in order to resolve, once and for all the Jewish question in Europe. Action is reported to be planned for the autumn. Ways of execution are still being discussed including the use of prussic acid. We transmit this information with all the necessary reservation, as exactitude cannot be confirmed by us. Our informant is reported to have close connexions with the highest German authorities, and his reports are generally reliable. Please inform and consult New York."

On the 28 August 1942, the Riegner telegram found its way to the President of the World Jewish Congress, Rabbi Stephen Wise, who decided to not make it public, and instead kept it quiet.

When much later in the war Rabbi Wise finally asked his "friend" US president Roosevelt to intervene, and save the Jews, Roosevelt said: “The only way to stop the slaughter is to win the war. Tell your Jewish associates to keep quiet.”  And, Rabbi Wise "kept quiet."  And 6 million Jews died.

I repeat, Sen. Feinstein is another Rabbi Wise.

For today's American Jews, "never again" is, at best, a useless cliche.  At worst, the J-Street/Peace-Now inspired American Jews perversely use the "Never Again" motto as a bully-club in their support of the Palestinians, and their BDS-laced-hate of Israel.

Unfortunately, the Feinstein type of American Jew still greatly outnumbers the Bergson-stand-up-for-truth Jew.  The proof?  Count how many American Jewish organizations came out in support of Netanyahu's congress speech.  Virtually none.  The vaunted Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish organizations was AWOL in any support of Netanyahu.

Sen. Feinstein, in her execution of Obama's shoot-to-kill-Netanyahu order, proved her loyalty is not to the Constitution of United States, and to the values of liberty and freedom it represents.  

She proved her loyalty to the democratic President Obama.  but Sen. Feinstein took an oath of office to the Constitution and laws of the United States, not to President Obama.  Feinstein's hit-job on Netanyahu showed she didn't want the true American marketplace of ideas to guide what's best for American policy.  Instead, Sen. Feinstein wants the monopoly of Obama's Iranian insanity to reign tyranny over the United States and the free world.

Imagine for a moment, if the 1940's Republicans had invited the Nazi Holocaust exposer Gerhard Reigner to a joint session of Congress, and that Sen. Feinstein was then a US senator.  On Roosevelt's and the State Department's orders, the 1942-version of Sen. Feinstein would have tried to kill the messenger then, as she sought to kill Netanyahu now.

Because, make no mistake about it, Obama's Iranian-nuclear-strategy is to politically kill the messenger of truth.  Netanyahu is only the messenger of the simple truth that a nuclear-empowered state-sponsor of terrorism will bring a new holocaust and and irreversible catastrophe to the world.

Obama knows his nuclear empowerment of Iran can't stand the truth of the light of day.  So, his strategy is to keep it in darkness and violate the Constitution by avoiding a senate ratification of Obama's Iranian deal.  Be sure, Sen. Feinstein will again violate her oath of office by supporting Obama's Iranian-nuclear end run around the US Senate.

Little did Sen. Feinstein know that Feinstein's Netanyahu "doesn't represent her", intended as an insult, was the highest compliment and endorsement of Netanyahu and his position. Thank G-d Netanyahu doesn't represent Sen. Feinstein's mentality.

Sassoon Leveyeh

Father of the children eulogizing 

Caskets of the children on way to Israel

R' Gabi Sassoon Father of Children

Black Juan Williams of Fox News, a Racist!

Juan Williams should check his facts before speaking on national media.

To say that Jewish people can’t live wherever they want to live, is the same as saying Black people need to ride the back of the bus.

To say that Jews must be restricted from building in certain neighborhoods is to say that you support Jim Crow racial separation.

To say that Jews must be confined to particularzones and may not be permitted to move freely is to reintroduce the Nuremberg Laws.

We are accustomed to racist slurs, but it was doubly hurtful to hear you, Juan Williams, a leading African American spokesman, a confidante of Barack Obama, jump in with that comment. How about a moratorium on backstabbing from you and from our supreme leader?

The talk was about the just-concluded Israeli elections, won by Benjamin Netanyahu. Since you are the Liberal on that panel, Fox News’ “The Five,” it was expected of you to be disapproving. But still, it was surprising to hear you jump in to declare Israel guilty of “occupying Arab territory.”

“That’s a fact,” you said. 

Well, no it isn’t. Some other time we’ll discuss Israel’s absolute right to the entire “West Bank.” Read the Levy Report for a start.

Meantime, you seemed so pleased, so proud of yourself to present that nugget of information to the many of us who enjoy “The Five” for its lively chatter – and if not for Fox News, where to go? Fox News remains the only network consistently fair and upright in news and opinion. 

See this for the drama of the media’s war against the Jews. Might prove illuminating at this critical period.

Many of us have given up on Obama in terms of friendship. His grudge against the Jewish State, hence the Jewish people, seems limitless.

But I expected better from you, Juan. 

I had placed you in a special category so far as being a Liberal. Every now and then you veer off script and speak as a man with a mind of his own. I respect you for this, for not being robotic, still do, but on this one you lost me. 

The word “occupied,” to certain Jews, like me, sounds like the “N” word to you.

The term “occupied” as applied to Israel, rather against Israel, is another way of saying that Jews need to be segregated.

Sound familiar?

If the rest of us need more sensitivity training about what it’s like being Black, perhaps you and some others could use some sensitivity on what it’s like being Jewish. There was a time when we marched together. I prefer to think that we still do, with partners like Thomas Sowell and Amy Holmes and Harris Faulkner, thank goodness for them, but then this happens, and I wonder.

I wonder if we can count on you in a pinch, as you counted on us at Selma. With rabbinical leaders like Abraham Heschel, we showed up. 

Will you? Or will you, and Mr. Obama, always stick to the thought that Jews must know their place.

This too might sound familiar, Juan, to you and to nearly every member of the African American community.

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz wants a national discussion about race relations. If that’s okay, I suggest we take up Mark Levin’s proposal – a national conversation about anti-Semitism. I say this politely. Levin, speaking to Sean Hannity, is far more direct:

“The fact of the matter, Sean, I want to say this and it’s important. Eric Holder said this nation is full of cowards because we won’t have a discussion about race. Well, I think this nation needs to have a discussion about what’s going on in this White House and this administration about anti-Semitism.

“Mr. Holder, Mr. Obama, let’s have a national discussion about the anti-Semitism that reeks from your administration.”

As for me, I’d rather not have this discussion. These conversations seldom end well. Better to simply know that we have friends in a world full of enemies.

Piling on is what we don’t need.

Jack Engelhard writes a regular column for Arutz Sheva. The new thriller from the New York-based novelist, The Bathsheba Deadline, a heroic editor’s singlehanded war on terror and against media bias. Engelhard wrote the int’l bestseller Indecent Proposal that was translated into more than 22 languages and turned into a Paramount motion picture starring Robert Redford and Demi Moore. Website: www.jackengelhard.com

UN: Israel #1 Violator of Women's Rights

Here read the Rush Limbaugh transcript....
Before you read this you will need tissues .... not to cry.... but to laugh your head off!

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: From Anne Bayefsky at Fox News:  "Guess who is the number one violator of women’s rights in the world today?"

  I posed the question right before the end of the previous hour, and the staff on the other side of the glass, they're all guessing, 

"Ah, it's gotta be Saudi Arabia. It's gotta be Iran. It's gotta be, it's gotta be, it's gotta be, it's gotta be some Muslim country for crying out loud."  

No, no, no.  

According to the UN, who is the number one violator of women's rights in the world today?  

The answer is -- dadelut dadelut dadelut dadelut -- 

Israel!  (laughing) They're violating the rights of Palestinian women.

It's just absurd.  Look, if you want to understand, Israel is the Tea Party.  That's all you have to know.  Israel is the Tea Party and Benjamin Netanyahu is Todd Akin, as far as the American left, the worldwide left, as far as the Democrat Party is concerned. Israel is the Tea Party, Benjamin Netanyahu may as well be Todd Akin, or what was her name, Christine O'Donnell.  I mean, that's the only way you can possibly understand this. Iran is the Service Employees International Union.  The Palestinians are the NAALCP. 

I mean, if you want to understand how this works, if you want to have this make the slightest bit of sense to you from the leftist perspective, it's what you must understand.  

Iran is the Service Employees International Union, big donors to the Democrats, they're on same side of issues.  The Palestinians, Hamas, Fatah, they are the NAALCP and the Congressional Black Caucasians.  

Let's see, who else?  

Western Europeans would be the equivalent of the feminazis, actually in more ways than one there.  And the enemy, the enemy of this coalition, the coalition of the American Democrat Party, Iran, Palestinians, Fatah, Hezbollah, and Western European, that's the equivalent, that's the Democrat Party.  Everybody else may as well be the Tea Party, and that's how you understand this. 

Now, here you have Boko Haram, which is bragging about the number of women they have kidnapped and killed. You have Islamic Sharia law, which is the most discriminatory against women philosophy you can probably find on earth.  

There may be some weirder ones in obscure places.  Iran is still stoning women.  They just stoned Soraya.  And they're beheading people.  You are absolutely right.  Saudi Arabia is beheading people.  In Saudi Arabia women can't drive.  Nowhere can they drive.  They have to cover their heads and so forth. 

Even the American journalists go over there and fall for it, Christiane Amanpour covers up, probably doesn't drive.  She probably doesn't drive anyway.  Chauffeur.  Andrea Mitchell, NBC News, Washington, she goes over there, she covers up, she dresses the part and then all the while ripping the shreds out of Netanyahu. (laughing)  Sometimes all you can do is laugh.

So the number one violator of women's rights in the world today is Israel, violating the rights of Palestinian women.  

"That's the view of the UN’s top women’s rights body, the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).  CSW ends its annual meeting on Friday, March 20 by condemning only one of the 193 UN member states for violating women’s rights -- Israel."

"Not Syria. Where government forces routinely employ rape and other sexual violence and torture against women as a tactic of war. ... Not Saudi Arabia. Where women are physically punished if not wearing compulsory clothing, are almost entirely excluded from political life, cannot drive, cannot travel without a male relative, receive half the inheritance of their brothers, and where their testimony counts for half that of a man’s."

Although the Saudis just did give women the right to vote for the first time in this year's upcoming elections.  They didn't promise to count them. (laughing) Well, it said they could vote, but they haven't promised yet to count them. 

"Not Sudan.  Where domestic violence is not prohibited.  There is no minimum age for 'consensual' sex.  The legal age of marriage for girls is ten. 88% of women under 50 have undergone female genital mutilation. And women are denied equal rights in marriage, inheritance and divorce.  Not Iran. Where every woman who registered as a presidential candidate in the last election was disqualified."

Here's Obama on TV talking to the people of Iran, trying to develop a rapport and create an accord.  Adultery in Iran, if a woman is caught committing adultery, "punishable by death by stoning.  Women who fight back against rapists and kill their attackers are executed." Did you not know this? "The constitution bars female judges. And women must obtain the consent of their husbands to work outside the home."

There's no possibility that the UN Commission on the Status of Women will criticize Iran because Iran is an elected member of the Commission on the Status of Women.  Sudan is currently the vice-chair position of the Commission on the Status of Women.  Now, I'm gonna trying to get serious for a moment, but it's a waste of time.  This is the place, folks, where every half-baked, cockamamie theory about global warming is coming from.  I honestly, I cannot relate to any of this that comes out of the UN.  This is beyond parody and beyond description. 

I mean, they're very serious here.  In all of these countries I just listed, the offenses and the rules and the prohibitions against women, they're all true.  In Iran if a woman is raped and she fights back and kills her attacker, they kill her.  And Iran is a member in good standing of the UN commission on the rights of women or whatever it is.  Israel, officially announced as the top violator of women's rights in the world.  Israel. 

This organization, United Nations, is just an abject joke.  It's a bad joke.  The fact that there are so many in the American diplomatic corps that take this organization seriously --  this organization is due serious condemnation.  I mean, this goes beyond offensive. This goes beyond absurd.  This is the stuff of nightmares, but the reality is what it is.  And of course when you say that Israel, an ally of the United States and of course Jewish, the number one location, by the way, the most focused anti-Semitism on this planet is at the United Nations.  And here's Barack Obama sidling up to it.  The American Democrat Party, the American left, the United Nations is the end all, the United Nations source authority, the United Nations inviolate. 

This goes beyond argument.  We need to get out of the UN.  This is seriously corrupt.  But it's even beyond that.  'Cause these people are serious.  And the nations we're talking about literally have the tyrannical, dictatorial power to implement all of this.  There are people in the world being forced to live this way, and it is a shame that the United States of America in any way sidles up to any of these nations and offers tantamount support.  And then while that's happening, to have to sit around and listen to the same people call American conservatives and Israeli Jews the modern focus of evil in the world, as the big problem facing the world?  This is seriously wrong, it is seriously corrupt, and it is an absolute outrage that the United States of America gives any of it the time of day.  

END TRANSCRIPT

Obama ignites a backlash

By Jennifer Rubin

On Thursday, the White House, despite clarification about election comments from the reelected Israeli prime minister, kept up its war of words on the Jewish state. In a read-out of the president’s belated call with the prime minister the White House said Benjamin Netanyahu had won only a “plurality,” which might suggest there is ever a majority winner in Israel’s parliamentary system. There is not; this was another dig at Netanyahu, one more sign the president has essentially lost it, allowing his personal animus to govern his actions. Even after Netanyahu clarified in an interview that he had never retracted his embrace of a two-state solution, although current circumstances did not allow it (would any reasonable observer differ?), the administration refused to be mollified.

The president’s behavior seems to have induced a backlash.

I spoke by phone with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who seemed incredulous that the president would behave this way. But he suggested the president is alienating Democrats and convincing Congress he is irrational and untrustworthy when it comes to Israel and Iran. “It’s been unnerving seeing the president show his open hostility,” Graham said. “It’s immature and over the top and has made people suspicious.” He observed, “He makes it hard for Democrats to trust him.” The timing could not be more inopportune for the president who faces votes in Congress to require an up-or-down vote on the Iran deal and potentially to impose more sanctions. The Corker-Graham-Menendez bill will be marked up in April (with new Democratic co-sponsors, according to a Senate source) and Graham says, partly due to the president, Congress will have enough votes to override a veto. With the White House now suggesting it might not make the deal public, Graham says, the entire endeavor has become “absurd.”

Moreover, Graham hinted at another avenue to stop the president from going to the United Nations in lieu of the Senate. In deliberate fashion he added, “As for using the U.N. to avoid coming to the Congress, well that will create a real crisis between Congress and the U.N.” He notes that the United States pays for 22 percent of the U.N. budget and that the subcommittee he controls oversees State Department funding. Without directly threatening to cut off U.N. funding he says, “I am not going to ask American taxpayers to spend money on the U.N. that would [confirm a deal and undercut the Congress].” He added, “If the U.N. is used to going around Congress it would create a tremendous backlash.”

In addition, in a highly unusual statement AIPAC (whose members are overwhelmingly Democratic) chastised the president:

Today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strongly and clearly reaffirmed his commitment to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In addition, he sought to reassure that his government will be dedicated to serving and representing all the people of Israel – both Jewish and non-Jewish citizens. Unfortunately, administration spokespersons rebuffed the prime minister’s efforts to improve the understandings between Israel and the U.S. In contrast to their comments, we urge the administration to further strengthen ties with America’s most reliable and only truly democratic ally in the Middle East. A solid and unwavering relationship between the U.S. and Israel is in the national security interests of both countries and reflects the values that we both cherish.

Former AIPAC spokesman Josh Block told Right Turn, “It is quite rare for AIPAC to directly and publicly criticize the White House, and clearly there is a feeling that the president’s staff is acting in an irresponsible way that undermines America’s interests and vital relationship with our only reliable democratic ally in the region.” He explained, “That would be bad White House policy at any time, but especially as the president has so badly alienated our Arab allies as well, and is, despite repeated promises to the contrary, in the midst of giving Iran a nuclear deal that provides the Islamic Republic with the capabilities to develop nuclear weapons at any time of its choosing.”

By the afternoon in eloquent fashion from the Senate floor, Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) blasted Obama’s hostile reaction to our closest Middle East ally. Rubio declared, “This is a historic and tragic mistake. Israel is not a Republican or Democratic issue. If this was a Republican president doing these things, I would give the exact same speech. In fact, I would be even angrier. This is outrageous. It is irresponsible. It is dangerous, and it betrays the commitment this nation has made to the right of a Jewish state to exist in peace.”

Obama was expert in inspiring Israelis to rally around their prime minister. Now he is helping to consolidate bipartisan opposition to his policies, his unilateralism and his approach to Iran and Israel – and potentially to precipitate a bipartisan attack on the U.N. There really is no community organizer on the right who could have produced such results.

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In addition, 363 House members, a huge bipartisan show of solidarity, are reportedly signed onto a letter to be sent to the president demanding Congress have a role and that any deal “foreclose any pathway to a bomb.” If nothing else, the president’s behavior has caused Democrats to lose faith in his “trust me” approach to negotiations. And to make matters worse for the president, his new year’s greeting to Iran in fawning tones drew a comparison between “hardliners” in both countries who seek to nix a deal. This gross moral equivalence and the assumption that the Iranian people have a say in their affairs should be enough for even the most loyal Democrats to question whether the president can be trusted to make a deal, and frankly whether he is totally out to lunch.