BIBI'S APPALLING DECISION

By Sig Demling

For most of the Prime Minister's administration, I've fully supported Benjamin Netanyahu.

I believed that he had Israel's best interests at heart when he took office and for a long time thereafter.

But that seems long ago. Now I have doubts. Big-time. 

My displeasure is based on a conversation I had with an Israeli friend shortly after Ariel Sharon decided to hand the rule in Gaza back to the Arabs.

The then Prime Minister's intentions may have been noble but the results have proven to be disastrous. Not only did the Arabs -- no surprise here -- destroy all the industry Israel left for them to develop but hothouses were razed and synagogues eliminated.

Arik didn't foresee that Hamas would viciously annex Gaza while murdering its Fatah counterparts although an X-Ray of Arab mentality should have at least hinted at such homicide.

Simply put, Sharon's lesson that should have resonated for decades through the government in Jerusalem was that if you do a favor for an Arab expect a butt-slap in return.

Apparently this maxim has conveniently been forgotten by Netanyahu. 

Coerced by Barack Obama into allowing Mahmoud Abbas to demand pre-conditions, Bibi capitulated. That was Mistake Number One because it inevitably invited Mistake Number Two.

Already, the Arabs were licking their chops in high glee. Kerry, who stated up front that there would be no pre-conditions, suddenly is allowed to do an about-face, abjectly giving in to Abbas. 

At this point in time, The Old Bibi would have unequivocally stated to Obama-Kerry: "You said 'No pre-conditions' THEREFORE, NO PRE-CONDITIONS. Therefore, I'm outa here."

Such a reasonable response would have: 1. Put Abbas in his place; 2. Have Obama-Kerry understand that they either must to stick to their word  or face the consequences; 3. Force Kerry to put the onus on the culprit, Abbas.

But something unsettling -- to say the least -- has happened to the Prime Minister. The New Bibi has developed politically wobbly feet and we're seeing the point underlined every week.

A brief chronology, Professor Truth:  A. Netanyahu changes his mind and agrees to pre-conditions; B. Abbas demands a full-scale prisoner release; C. Israel agrees; D. Abbas insists that it's not enough; E. Bibi agrees to a further prisoner release.

Alas, caving in to the Arabs has now become official Israeli policy.

At the current pace, it may never stop. 

What's more, I've never been more disappointed in Bibi in my life.

OBAMA LOGIC -- SCREW ISRAEL AT ALL COSTS

By Sig Demling

Obama's peace deputy John Kerry agreed that talks between the Arabs and Israel should begin with no preconditions. 

It was as plain and forthright an assertion as could be made in English, Hebrew and Arabic.

Mahmoud Abbas and Benjamin Netanyahu would sit down, exchange ideas until a peace pact could be hammered out.

Bibi agreed. Mahmoud made demands., 

Not a peep was heard from the American president. 

The Chief Executive knew -- based on history -- that the Arabs have balked at making peace with Israel over and over and over again ever since they tried to exterminate the Jewish State at birth.

As dumb as he may be, Obama pushed his stooge, Kerry, to the Middle East determined to achieve what Abbas & Co. want no part of -- peace with Israel.

The Jewish Prime Minister has welcomed Kerry on each of his six visits while in Ramallah, Abbas balks and balks and balks.

Now, on this latest Kerry exercise in futility, Netanyahu repeated his mantra; let's talk. And what does he get in return from the Arab side?

More pre-conditions.

Abbas wants Arab criminals with blood on their hands released from Israeli prisons. 

Abbas wants a return to the indefensible 1967 lines. 

Abbas wants not to recognize Israel as the Jewish State that it is.

So, on the one hand you have the Jewish leader ready, willing and able to talk and on the other hand, there remains the endlessly balking Arab.

Logic tells you that if anyone should be prodded to resume talks it is Abbas.

You would think.

But not by the Israel-hating White House.

Instead of labeling Abbas with the phony label he deserves, Obama phones Netanyahu and urges the PM to get back to the peace table. That's a re-defining of chutzpuh if ever there was one.

Any one who has followed this column should not be surprised. We've said it five, four, three, two and a year ago that the president does not like Israel and will do anything in his power to torpedo it on the world stage.

Obama does nothing about the Syrian slaughter. He does nothing about the Egyptian civil war. He looks the other way while Hezbollah stocks up on missiles and he pretends that Iran is, well, just so sweet it should not even be confronted.

Forgive the bromide but with friends like Obama, who needs enemies?

SUCKERED BY THE STALL -- AND KERRY

By Sig Demling

As a nation, Iran is very good at doing a few things: 

1. Making a lot of bucks out of its oil reserves.

2. Threatening Israel with extinction once it develops a nuclear bomb.

3. Pretending that it is in the business of developing peaceful atomic energy.

You'd be surprised how many allies have helped Iran further its destruction aims. They include:

A. Uncle Sam's vacillating president.

B. The European Union's leaders who forgot all about World War II and the Holocaust and dreamily believe that the mullahs will make nice.

C. The United Nations, which could not be more prejudiced against Israel had Lebanon's Nasrallah was calling the shots. 

I'm one who firmly believes the Jerusalem Post's sage columnist Caroline Glick who has often underlined a key point; and that is when the chips are down Obama will stab Israel in its back rather than protect the Middle East's only legitimate democracy. 

Now that Iran has a new leader who appears to be slightly less of a nut case than the previous madman, the Western leaders have been doing handstands of joy believing that the Iranians have come to their peaceful senses and all will be wonderful under the latest leadership.

That, of course, is -- pick your choice of description:

I. Hokum bunkum.

II. An Alice In Wonderland illusion.

III. Neville Chamberlain-type thinking.

Or, as my father would say in his cryptic moments, "You can't shoe (or shoo) a horsefly.

In this case, the horseflies are that collection of warlike Iranian mullahs who call the shots behind any elected leader in Tehran and, make no mistake, madness is the mullahs' middle name.

One thing you can say about the Iranians is that they make no mistake about their determination to eradicate Israel. The Palestinians do it another way. 

The path taken by Mahmoud Abbas is just to the left of warlike. What the PA has in mind is to sucker Israel into peace talks with Arab pre-conditions firmly in place. 

At last look Abbas & Co. asserted that it wants a host of blood-on-their-hands prisoners released by Israel and all Samaria and Judea construction halted. Hopefully, when Secretary of State John Kerry arrives in Israel for his latest round of talks, he supports Israel's no-pre-conditions stance.

Furthermore, it's imperative that Benjamin Netanyahu point out to Obama's stooge that engaging in any kind of peace deliberations is futile because the boys and girls of Ramallah -- like their parents -- practice Jew-hating as easily as they exhale. 

What better proof than the verbal bile emanating from Abbas' official television station ahead of the recent Ramadan holiday.  In one segment of its program two Palestinian girls deliver a venomous poem ridiculing Israeli Jews. 

One line from the poem goes as follows:

"Oh Sons of Zion, oh most evil among creations, Oh barbaric monkeys, wretched pigs."

While the little ladies are reciting their poem the Abbas' doting tv host looks on in admiration.  And that's not all. The girls continue as follows:

  "Jerusalem vomits from within it your impurity because Jerusalem, you impure ones, is pious, immaculate and Jerusalem, you who are filth, is clean and pure."

Since Abbas not only condones but encourages such vicious anti-Israeli sentiments on his tv station one has to wonder why Kerry is coming here to induce talks between Bibi and the hate-monger.

The Israeli public is wise to this. As columnist Ruthie Blum explains in Israel Hayom, such sanctioned anti-Israel perorations makes it almost futile to have talks with the Arabs because Abbas messengers continue to spout vile thoughts about Jews.

"As long as Washington is in denial about this reality," writes Blum, "Kerry might as well stay home."

He won't because somehow Obama's messenger believes that Israel can be forced to capitulate. 

The Prime Minister won't because he knows that if he does, Bibi can kiss his country good-bye.

THE ARAB ATTEMPT AT KILLING ISRAEL'S SPIRIT

By Schmoel Yitzhak

John Kerry reminds me of a baseball pitcher from yesteryear with an usual nickname.

Hugh Mulcahy was his real name. He pitched for the Philadelphia Phillies in the late 1930s before serving in World War II.

Mulcahy was a good hurler on  one of the worst teams in Major League Baseball history. Which meant that no matter the good stuff he may have had on the ball, his teammates inadvertently would undermine his efforts.

As a result, good, old Hughie got the nickname "Losing Pitcher" because at the bottom of the box score of most games Hughie started, there would be an LP: Mulcahy. And it wasn't for winning either.

John Kerry is politics answer to Hugh Mulcahy. The Secretary of State -- he's on his sixth visit to Israel -- steps on the mound and makes his pitch for kick-starting peace talks and like Mulcahy winds up with yet another LP Kerry at the bottom of the box score.

What's disturbing about this latest Kerry assignment is a report in the Arabic Al-Hayat newspaper suggesting that Benjamin Netanyahu has tentatively agreed to Mahmoud Abbas' demands for pre-conditions before coming to the bargaining table.

The first thing to know is that the story appeared in a London-based Arabic journal which means that it may very well have been planted by the duplicitous Palestinians to gain some sort of propaganda edge before Kerry and Bibi actually start talking. 

As for the alleged Al-Hayat-reported pre-conditions, they included a quiet Israeli construction freeze outside of large settlement blocs and a phased release of security prisoners, many with blood on their hands.

The good news -- for the moment at least -- is that a senior Israeli official quickly debunked the Al-Hayat report and Avigdor Lieberman seconded the veto.

Since Lieberman is Chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, his words bear added value. And when he says that conditions are not ripe for a breakthrough, Lieberman means it.

"We will fight against and adamantly object to any decision regarding the release of terrorists or freezing construction," Lieberman asserts. 

Which is well and good but I would have preferred to hear those words directly from the Prime Minister. I want to hear Bibi unequivocally declare both to the Israeli public as well as to Kerry-Abbas that he has no intention whatsoever to capitulate to Arab demands for pre-conditions.

I say this because the where-there-smoke-there's-fire adage could very well be applied to the Al-Hayat report. Consider these possibilities:

1. In order to get an edge -- weaken Israel's position -- a propagandist on the Palestinian side could have planted the pre-condition story and then hope for the (Arab) best.

2. Desperate to avoid going oh-for-six in his shuttle diplomacy, Kerry himself could have arranged the Al-Hayat item to gain some sort of leverage with Bibi.

Here's the problem: over the past decade Israel has been too easily coerced by a desperate Obama administration which has re-defined incompetence. (See Egypt if you think I'm kidding.)

Rather than taking the initiative when it knows that it's doing the right thing, Jerusalem too often winds up in retreat. 

Perhaps the best -- or worst, depending on your viewpoint -- example is the Mavi Marmara episode and its aftermath. 

Because the Turkish-inspired invasion of Israeli waters was correctly blunted by the Israeli Navy with the deaths of nine activists, the Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan demanded an apology from Israel. 

(A reality check would have determined that the apology should have been delivered by Turkey.) 

At first Netanyahu held his ground, dismissing any possibility of bowing to the Erdogan demands. And Bibi was right to do so but then another element intervened. 

Inevitably wrong in his judgement -- see Egypt as Exhibit A -- Obama pushed Israel to apologize for the blockade-busting deaths. 

The president whose middle name should be "Appease-At-All-Costs" sold Israel's Prime Minister a bill of cheap goods. According to Obama's theory, an Israeli apology would rekindle warm relations between Turkey and Israel. 

Trouble is, Obama wouldn't know a bully if he punched the chief executive in the mouth; and Erdogan is a Class B  bully. Not only have Turkish-Israeli relations not improved; they're as frigid as ever because Erdogan believes he has intimidated his Jewish adversary.  Writing in The Times of Israel, Aaron Kalman put the issue in proper perspective.

"The apology," writes Kalman, "which was prompted by Obama's visit was supposed to lead to a thawing of relations with Ankara -- once Israel's closest regional ally -- but relations have remained chilly."

That's my point; Israel was coerced into a negative position. It's a feeling shared by the electorate. In fact a new poll discloses that a majority of Israelis believe that the country's apology was misguided. No less than 71 percent responded that way to a poll released by the Begin-Sadat Center at Bar-Ilan University.

This should be a lesson for Bibi the next time Kerry pushes the Prime Minister toward pre-conditions leading to peace talks.

So far, Kerry's only claim to fame since he launched his Ramallah-Jerusalem shuttle is that he's yet to put one win on the board and even Hugh Mulcahy was able to do that.

A QUESTION OF CURIOUS KERRY'S PRIORITIES

By Sig Demling

One of my favorite kids books is about a monkey named Curious George.

The good news is that H.L. Rey's creation is fictional. Which means that every time the simian does something foolish it's good for a laugh. Nobody gets hurt but the make-believe George.

The bad news is that we have a Curious George in real life and his name is John Kerry.

 Curious John is not a monkey, it's just that he acts like one. With each attempt to bring Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas to the negotiating table, Kerry has managed to even cause his friends to deride him. 

Exhibit A is the New York Times which does everything it can to make the Obama administration appear to be operating on Oz instead of Earth. 

But after examining the molten Middle East, even Times reporters are mocking Kerry as some latter-day dunce. Times reporters Mark Landler and Jodi Rudoren took a brief respite from hammering Israel to wonder why in heaven's name Kerry is attempting peace negotiations between the Israelis and Arabs. 

"With so much of the Middle East still convulsing from the effects of the Arab Spring," write Landler-Rudoren, "Kerry's efforts raise questions about the Obama administration's priorities at a time of renewed regional unrest."

Unrest?

Doesn't that seem like the understatement of the half-century? More than 80,000 Arabs have been killed in Syria with no end to the slaughter in sight. 

Unrest?

More than a million Egyptians have rebelled against President Mohammed Morsi whose year-old administration has gone with the Nile wind and a rapidly rising death toll.

Have Kerry and his puppeteer Barack Obama done anything meaningful to defuse the unrest and minimize the murders? 

No. Their focus for some Curious George-type reason remains on Israel while experts cite the idiocy of American blueprints. One such political sage is Robert Blecher who cannot fathom White House policy. Deputy Director of the Middle East and North Africa Program of the International Crisis Group, Blecher views Kerry's shuttle diplomacy as both obsolete and useless.

"The moment for this kind of (Kerry shuttle) diplomacy has passed," Blecher asserts. "Kerry is working with actors who have acted in this movie before and the script is built around the same elements. But the region is a completely different place today."

It certainly is, as events in Cairo these days have amply demonstrated. Obama helped give Hosni Mubarak the boot and now the president is being whacked in the noggin by a political boomerang. It was the White House which hastily opened the trap[ door on Mubarak, setting the stage for the Morsi dictatorship which now is disappearing like a firefly in the forest.

Instead of focusing on the Syrian civil war or the Egyptian madhouse of mystery, Kerry is wasting his time commuting between Jerusalem and Ramallah. Times of Israel columnist David Horovitz subscribes to our theory that the Secretary of State would be better off just twiddling his thumbs.

"Pulling Abbas and Netanyahu back to the table," Horovitz insists, "will only presage another failure."

And if you're wondering why, just ask Gershon Mesika, head of the Samaria Regional Council. He'll tell you that Abbas is not equipped to make the mountainous climb toward negotiations. 

"Kerry," says Mesika, "is trying to get the Palestinians to consent to something to which they have no intention of every agreeing. They will never relent in their demands for any part of Israel."

Horovitz views Kerry as "like some hapless golfer" in a futile effort to putt the little white ball in the hole. Mesika puts it another way.

"Kerry's expectation that the Palestinians would ever sign a peace deal in which they would give up even one inch of land is unrealistic," Meskia concludes, "and reflects a lack of understanding of the situation."

That was Curious George's problem. The monkey lacked an understanding of the situation.

Trouble is, George was a monkey. 

Kerry is Secretary of State.

THE TRUTH ABOUT B.D.S

By Simon Fischler 

It is high time that the BDS movement along with its leaders and supporters are exposed. 

The Boycott, Divest and Sanction movement claims to be a humanitarian, freedom fighting organization that stands against racism and Apartheid. 

In reality it is the exact opposite of what is claims to be.

The leaders of this movement seek one thing, the complete destruction of the 80% Majority Jewish, Nation State of Israel.

While fighting for Palestinian Nationalism, they openly deny the Jewish People have a RIGHT to nationhood, liberty and self-determination.

Omar Barghouti, founder of BDS, clearly states he is against the existence of a Jewish Nation State (the same state that is in existence today) alongside and Arab (Palestinian) State (the state that does not exist today because of the Arab refusal to abide by international law). 

Every member of the BDS leadership seeks to strip Israel of its freedom and Liberty. They actively advocate ruling over Israel and the Jews, which is racist, aggressive and colonialist. 

This also means Mr. Barghouti stands openly against peace and international law. Why does he stand against international law? The UN was very clear when it said two states for two peoples; one Jewish and one Arab. 

So, along with opposing international law Mr. Barghouti seeks to dominate another nation.

Barghouti and his followers are not content to achieve statehood for the Palestinians. He wishes to occupy Israel, flood her borders with foreign Arabs under the pretense they are refugees and annihilate the Jewish People’s liberty and self-determination .

He openly backs the destruction of a country that is eighty percent Jewish by flooding it with Arabs who have never set foot in Israel. 

This is a person who claims to fight racism, but intends to destroy another nation’s dreams of freedom -- about as racist as it gets.

This is to be expected of the leaders of BDS: after all, they are the offspring of Mohammad, the same person who brought COLONIALIST, IMPERIALIST Arab and Muslim ideology to the world as he ransacked Arabia, the Levant, North Africa and Spain.

The greatest irony is that Mr. Barghouti openly seeks the destruction of the Jewish state, while reaping the benefits of Israeli democracy: he attended and received degrees from Tel Aviv University. 

Barghouti rationalizes this apparent paradox by claiming he is following in the footsteps of Nelson Mandela by attending university in a country he calls an Apartheid State. 

There is no comparison between the two, and it is an example of how far someone like Omar Barghouti is willing to go with his LIES.

Israeli Arabs and many Palestinian Arabs can freely walk onto Tel Aviv University campus and attend classes and seminars with Jewish Israelis. 

This is something that never would have happened in Apartheid South Africa. 

That is not only not Apartheid, but it is not what Mandela was forced to do.

Although Mandela received his degrees before South Africa’s Apartheid laws were enacted in 1948, because of the segregation in South Africa before the Apartheid Laws, he was forced to receive his degrees by way of correspondence. There was no way Mandela could have freely walked onto a white campus.

Mr. Barghouti comparing himself to Nelson Mandela is much like when Dan Quail once compared himself to John F. Kennedy. 

I am sorry, Mr. Barghouti: YOU ARE NO NELSON MANDELA.

The BDS movement advocates annihilating the dreams of another nation solely for their cause. 

BDS is not unique in this arena; it is similar to colonialist movements that have popped up regularly in history, nearly all revolving around racist, anti-Semitic beliefs. 

The most recent of these movement and closest to BDS were the Nazis. 

They came to power in a Germany battered and bitter after losing World War I. 

They did so by touting hopes and dreams of restoring Germany to greatness, of taking back lands that were once part of Germany. Their “dream” – fascism -- became based on the ideal of racial purity, of the Aryan race being expunged of the “impurities” of Jews, homosexuals and Gypsies. However, the ultimate goal of Nazism was the complete conquest of Europe. 

BDS and its supporters propound a Fascist, colonialist movement that represents the worst aspects of the imperialist dreams of pan-Arabism: that is complete domination of the nations in and around Arabia and the Muslim world, especially the sole Jewish Nation. 

Unfortunately, in certain ways we Israelis have become complacent, largely because of the vaunted competence of the IDF. 

Whatever happens, we know the IDF will take care of us.

But military might or competence on the battlefield cannot protect Israel from the insidious 

battle of words and false claims that is being waged against the Jewish state by movements like BDS. 

BDS is a manifestation of the Nazi, Arab, war Criminal Haj Amin al-Husseini and is the most serious threat today against the State of Israel. 

Movements like BDS are as dangerous as a nuclear Iran and must be viewed that way, comparable to the “Brown Shirts” of Germany. BDS, it leaders and backers should be seen as enemies of Israel, with all the implications that brings upon them.