Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Obama goes to Israel: Meeting none of these challenges will be easy


Obama is in Israel, or as he called it, “the historic homeland of the Jewish people.” Oh, and some other people as well... what were their names again?

A COMMON STORY: Israel and the US, he says, “share a common story...” It’s total bullshit, but that’s why it’s called a “story” “...patriots determined ‘to be a free people in our land,’ pioneers who forged a nation, heroes who sacrificed to preserve our freedom, and immigrants from every corner of the world who renew constantly our diverse societies.” And the original inhabitants, mowed down in their thousands, because we don’t want our societies to be that diverse.

WHY WE STAND: “We stand together because we are democracies.” He must have not heard that the coalition deal for the new Netanyahu government this week includes rewriting the Basic Law to make democracy subordinate to Israel’s “Jewishness.”

THAT NOISE IS GUNFIRE AND THE MESS IS PALESTINIAN BLOOD: “For as noisy and messy as it may be, we know that democracy is the greatest form of government ever devised by man.”

He visited Pres. Shimon Peres.

INTO A RADIOACTIVE HELLSCAPE: Peres: “After the meeting we just had, I have all confidence that your vision can transform the Middle East.”

Obama: “Well, as with all our visits together, I have once again succumbed to your charms and I’m grateful to your hospitality.” Ewwwww.



Peres made him perform manual labor, as is the custom.



Do people still pay for trees to be planted in Israel, by the way? This was a common form of fund-raising for Israel in the early “making the desert bloom” phase, but they kept it up long after Israel had all the trees it wanted, after which the trees were planted, then immediately uprooted. I assume the same tree got “planted” over and over.

And of course Obama met Netanyahu. Both talked about how the US is giving Israel lots of money and military hardware so that Israel can defend itself “by itself.”



Obama says a two-state solution requires “a strong and secure” Jewish state (note that he’s stopped even pretending that Israel is secular or that all of its residents have equal status) and “a sovereign and independent” Palestine, which presumably has no need of strength and security.



He says that last year no Israeli citizen was killed by “terrorism emanating from the West Bank.” He didn’t say how many Palestinians were killed by the Israeli military (or by Jewish settlers), and I think we can be reasonably sure he doesn’t know how many were killed because it never occurred to him to ask.

TRUE DAT: “Meeting none of these challenges will be easy.”



On Syria’s alleged use of chemical weapons: “But as is always the case when it comes to issues of war and peace, I think having the facts before you act is very important.” Next up on Fox: a rebuttal from Dick Cheney.

“I believe that the Assad regime has lost all credibility and legitimacy.” He does not say when Assad had all that credibility and legitimacy.



He gave Israel a green light for a military attack on Iran (well how else would you read this?): “I think that what Bibi alluded to, which is absolutely correct, is each country has to make its own decisions when it comes to the awesome decision to engage in any kind of military action, and Israel is differently situated than the United States. And I would not expect that the Prime Minister would make a decision about his country’s security and defer that to any other country -- any more than the United States would defer our decisions about what was important for our national security.”



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1 comment:

  1. "I have once again succumbed to your charms..."

    Has he told Mrs O?

    ReplyDelete