The Front Page Cover
2016 The truth will set you free
Featuring:
nObama's denouement
by Caroline B. Glick
~~~
.
Who's the Treasonous Candidate?
Lie often and long enough and one will begin to believe one's lies to be reality. Evidently, liar-Hillary Clinton has been living in the reality of her own lies for quite a while now. On Tuesday, liar-Clinton claimed that Donald Trump's rhetoric against Islamic terrorism "is giving aid and comfort to our adversaries." That's right, liar-Hillary just accused Trump of treason — for calling Islamic terrorism ... Islamic terrorism. It is this kind of backward and dishonest thinking which underhandedly vilifies those who speak the truth while at the same time justifying the motives of those who commit these heinous acts of terror. The truth is Trump is not the one who should be accused of treasonous actions.
Actually, the fault lies with liar-Clinton and her former boss, Barack nObama, who did "create the Islamic State," which emerged as the direct consequence of the politically motivated and premature withdrawal from Iraq. That, in turn, created the most catastrophic humanitarian crisis in the history of the region.
As an additional consequence of the failure of nObama and liar-Clinton to contain Islamic terror, the frequency of attacks targeting Americans on our soil will increase. Don't buy into the errant "lone wolf" rhetoric. All of these attackers are unified by Islamist doctrine. But according to liar-Hillary, even the suggestion of an Islamic connection to the actions of these terrorists is tantamount to treason. liar-Clinton's deceit has blinded her from reality, and, sadly, too many Americans have bought into this lie as well. ~The Patriot Post
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The Left's Narrative War on Cops
Last night a protest over the killing of a black man by a black police officer erupted into rioting in Charlotte, North Carolina. The rioters shut down part of Interstate 85 and attacked police vehicles. Police sought to protect a nearby Walmart from looting and dispersed the rioting mob with tear gas. Evidently, some people think looting of stores is an acceptable means of protesting injustice since it happens after every one of these incidents. At least 12 Charlotte police officers were injured by the rioters.
Once again the Leftmedia continues to promote the false narrative that all law enforcement is racist against blacks. Pointing to the recent shooting of an unarmed black man by police in Tulsa, Oklahoma, liar-Hillary Clinton argued that the narrative is justified. "Maybe I can, by speaking directly to white people, say, look, this is not who we are," she said before the Charlotte riots broke out. "We have got to do everything possible to improve policing, to go right at implicit bias." What more "justification" did rioters need?
The problem of assuming police racism before the completion of any investigation does nothing to promote true justice. Time and time again, as these investigations fully run their course, the police officers are exonerated. But that matters little to the Left. It's the narrative of "racist cops" that matters most, irrespective of the actual circumstances and facts of a particular incident. Consider it part of what Barack nObama's spokesman Josh Earnest recently called the "narrative battle." The trouble is, cops pay a heavy price in this war.
This crusade by the Left against police is part of a larger effort to fundamentally transform America. History is reinterpreted through the prism of the Left's worldview. For the Left, guilt is established not by facts but by association. Terminology such as "white-privilege" and "alt-right" is invented to further the leftist/socialist ideology that America is fundamentally an unequal and unfair nation. Therefore, the "cops are racist" narrative is a tool used to justify pushing for the radical transformation of the nation into a socialist state. ~The Patriot Post
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Scott Shooting Videos Released,
What’s That In His Right Hand?
by Rick Wells
{rickwells.us} ~ In a life or death situation a police officer isn’t playing games and he doesn’t deceive himself, the reality before him is the basis for his decisions... He also often doesn’t have an opportunity for second chances. They’ve got to get it right the first time and are trained to do so. Video of the shooting of Keith Lamont Scott has now been released by the City of Charlotte which shows the situation officers faced in dealing with that individual. While the body cam video doesn’t show a lot that would indicate whether or not Keith Lamont Scott was armed at regular speed, when it is paused at the right time, about the :17 point, approximately the still shot that is shown above of Scott standing, the ankle holster appears to be visible and the right pant leg raised following or in order to facilitate access. There may or may not be something in his right hand. The dash cam video offers a better perspective of the event as it unfolded, with Scott getting out of the vehicle and refusing to comply with the officer’s commands. What may be most telling is the manner of his movements. The right arm remains rigid against his body, a likely posture for someone attempting to hide the contents of his hand... http://rickwells.us/scott-shooting-videos-released-right/
1st VIDEO:
2nd VIDEO:
3rd VIDEO:
.
liar-Clinton Aide Cheryl Mills Had Classified
Access, Never Qualified For A Security Clearance
by Rick Wells
{rickwells.us} ~ Cheryl Mills, liar-Hillary Clinton’s personal attorney and Chief of Staff while she was Secretary of State has some legal problems of her own... Information included in the document dump of investigation records made by the FBI on Friday indicates that Mills never qualified for her security clearance to view classified information. The foot-dragging at the State Department has gone on for as long as they are able to stretch it out, it appears, with a judge having ordered last week that they begin producing documents related to the security training, briefings, and clearances of liar-Hillary Clinton and her aides, including Cheryl Mills. That’s going to be tough to do because some of those documents never existed. As Breitbart News reported in February, liar-Hillary Clinton never signed and executed a Classified Information Nondisclosure Agreement. Now, as it turns out, Cheryl Mills never did either. She also didn’t sign another mandatory form pertaining to her access to classified information...
.
The national security crisis neither
candidate is talking about, but should be
by Various Scholars
{aei.org} ~ During the 1988 presidential debates, no one asked either of the candidates about Iraq, yet soon the US was at war in the Persian Gulf to repel Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. During the 2000 presidential debates, no one asked either candidate about the threat from al Qaeda... yet within months al Qaeda had attacked the American homeland and the war on terror dominated George W. Bush’s presidency. So in 2016, what national security issue is no one asking the candidates about today that could come to dominate the next president’s term in office? In advance of the first 2016 presidential debate, Marc A. Thiessen pulled together a collection of AEI scholars and eminent foreign policy thinkers from outside the Institute (Elliott Abrams, Jon Alterman, Senator Tom Cotton, Rudy deLeon, Eric Edelman, General (Ret.) Mike Hayden, Peter Hoekstra, John McLaughlin, General (Ret.) David Petraeus, John A. Rizzo and Stephen Slick) to offer their perspectives in response to the above prompt...
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nObama Is Implicated In liar-Hillary’s Email Scandal
by Dave Hodges
{thecommonsenseshow.com} ~ President nObama has become ensnared in liar-Hillary’s Clinton’s email scandal... Many, possessing first hand information are stating that nObama is just as guilty as liar-Hillary when it comes to national security and the handling of classified emails. The details are in the video below. http://www.thecommonsenseshow.com/2016/09/25/obama-is-implicated-in-hillarys-email-scandal/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=obama-is-implicated-in-hillarys-email-scandal
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Hamas and Black Lives Matter:
A marriage made in hell
by LEE KAPLAN
by LEE KAPLAN
{familysecuritymatters.org} ~ On October 2014, the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation (a clearinghouse for the International Solidarity Movement, ISM) ended their Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) organizing conference against Israel in San Diego, California... At the conclusion of the weekend event, their lead organizer, Anna Piller, alias Anna Baltzer, a woman with a deceased Jewish grandmother but no foundation in or knowledge of Judaism herself, who makes her living promoting Boycott, Divest, Sanction (BDS) for Arab terrorist groups, sent out an email blast. In it she urged her followers to descend on Ferguson, Missouri in 2015 and demonstrate with black American radicals there about the shooting of Michael Brown, a black 17 year-old robber who was killed by a Ferguson police officer when the youth tried to steal the officer's gun after attacking him. Brown had just robbed a liquor store. That email also broadsided a cry for action "From Ferguson to Palestine," bringing the BDS movement and Palestinian groups, both domestic and abroad, to ally with U.S. black "liberation" groups and radicals, and tying the goals of Hamas to domestic complaints by American blacks over alleged unfair treatment by US law enforcement. A "delegation" of Arab Palestinians from Gaza and the Palestinian Authority, college-age Arab activists, arrived in Missouri to plot strategy and tactics with Baltzer's ISM group and similar groups in the USA shortly after Brown was killed. Jeff PIckert, alias Max Suchan, another member of the ISM, was arrested by Ferguson police during the riots that ensued for inciting black crowds to riot and attack the police... http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/hamas-and-black-lives-matter-a-marriage-made-in-hell?f=must_reads
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Judicial Watch Statement on New liar-Hillary
Clinton Email Court Developments
by JUDICIAL WATCH
by JUDICIAL WATCH
{familysecuritymatters.org} ~ Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton made the following statement regarding today's decision by U.S. District Court Judge James E. Boasberg ordering the Department of State... to begin processing at least 1,050 pages of liar-Hillary Clinton emails recovered by the FBI and provide Judicial Watch all non-exempt documents before November 4: The State Department admitted that it has 5,600 liar-Clinton emails recovered by the FBI that were government documents and not personal emails as she claimed. The public deserves to know what is in those emails, well before November 8, and the State Department should not continue dragging its feet on producing them. The State Department admitted in court today it pulled staff off of liar-Clinton email Freedom of Information Act requests. The American people need to pressure State to stop sitting on these new liar-Clinton emails for political reasons and release them as the law requires. It is outrageous the State Department has had these new liar-Clinton emails since late July, but has only released 5 records. The court ordered State to process the first 350 pages of documents by October 7, the second 350 pages by October 21, and the third by November 4. The State Department claims a substantial number of the liar- Clinton emails may be duplicative or near-duplicative of emails liar-Hillary Clinton previously turned over to the State Department...
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Clarion's Role in Exposing
ISIS-Linked Imam in Maryland
by Ryan Mauro
{clarionproject.org} ~ As the Clarion Project wrote about yesterday, an imam in Maryland has been arrested for involvement in a pro-Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) terrorist plot, but he’s been on our radar for months... We published the first article exposing him in July, prompting his mosque to label us as “anti-Islamic,” a rather dangerous label to have placed upon you by an ISIS supporter with over 1,000 Facebook “likes.” We can now publicly reveal from our Muslim sources that the cleric threatened a Muslim woman who criticized his extremism. The preacher, Imam Suleiman Anwar of the Islamic Jurisprudence Center who is also known by his actual name of Suleiman Bengharsa, also sent her a “letter to America” that expressed his solidarity with ISIS, Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, perhaps by accident... https://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/clarions-role-exposing-isis-linked-imam-Maryland
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Abbas to Arab Leaders: Go to Hell!
by Khaled Abu Toameh
by Khaled Abu Toameh
{gatestoneinstitute.org} ~ In his speech last week before the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas trotted out his usual charges against Israel... citing "collective punishment," "house demolitions," "extrajudicial executions" and "ethnic cleansing." However, Abbas's thoughts seem to be elsewhere these days. He is facing a new challenge from unexpected parties, namely several Arab countries that have come together to demand that he reform his ruling Fatah faction and pave the way for the emergence of a new Palestinian leadership. Yet this was not included in the UN speech. Indeed, why would Abbas share with world leaders that his Arab brothers are pressuring him to introduce major reforms in Fatah and end a decade-long power struggle with Hamas that has resulted in the creation of two separate Palestinian entities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Abbas, his aides admit, is today more worried about the "Arab meddling" in the internal affairs of the Palestinians than he is about "collective punishment" or "settlement activities." In fact, he is so worried that he recently lashed out at those Arab countries that have launched an initiative to "re-arrange the Palestinian home from within" and bring about changes in the Palestinian political scene... https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9023/abbas-arab-states
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Debunking the Biggest Immigration Lies
by Michael Cutler
{frontpagemag.com} ~ John Adams famously stated, “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”... Knowledge is power. Nations go to great lengths to steal the secrets of their enemies for a variety of purposes. Conversely, nations seek to protect their own secrets jealously and often provide false information, known as “disinformation,” to confuse and confound their enemies. A historic example of such disinformation was a military operation launched by the Allies during the Second World War known as “Operation Fortitude” also known as the “Calais Deception,” wherein the Nazis were convinced that the Allies would launch an attack as Pas de Calais when in reality, U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, was planning to attack German forces at Normandy to begin the liberation of France... http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/264305/debunking-biggest-immigration-lies-michael-cutler
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FBI found political 'pressure' surrounding
treatment of Benghazi emails
by Sarah Westwood
{washingtonexaminer.com} ~ State Department officials engaged in a coordinated effort to manage the political fallout from the discovery of emails related to Benghazi among Hillary Clinton's records in 2015.. according to a 189-page summary of interviews conducted by the FBI in its investigation of Clinton's email practices. The 296 Benghazi-related emails released by the House Select Committee on Benghazi in May 2015 served as the first test for the State Department officials who would ultimately screen all 30,000 of liar-Clinton's emails. But at least one witness described to the FBI the particular "pressure" placed on those officials to avoid classifying anything in the documents, even though some of the information was actually classified... http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/fbi-found-political-pressure-around-treatment-of-benghazi-emails/article/2602763/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Examiner%20Today&utm_source=StructureCMS
.nObama's denouement
by Caroline B. Glick
{jewishworldreview.com} ~ The Memorandum of Understanding that President Barack nObama concluded last week with Israel regarding US military aid to Israel for the next decade is classic nObama.
Since he entered office nearly eight years ago, nObama’s foreign policy has always sought to kill two birds with one stone. On the one hand, his policies are geared toward fundamentally transforming the US’s global posture. On the other, they work to weaken if not entirely neutralize his congressional opponents at home.
The second goal is no mean task. After all, the US Constitution empowers Congress with the foreign policy powers aimed at checking and balancing the president’s.
For instance, to ensure that no president could adopt foreign policies that harm US national interests or undercut the will of the people, the Constitution required that all treaties be approved by two-thirds of the Senate before they can take effect.
Were it not for nObama’s double tracked foreign policy, that constitutional provision should have blocked nObama’s radical and dangerous nuclear deal with Iran. Understanding that he lacked not merely the support of two-thirds of the Senate but of even a bare majority of senators for his deal, nObama decided to sideline the Senate.
To this end, nObama speciously claimed that the deal was not significant enough to be considered a treaty. The Iran deal of course is a more radical course change than the US’s approval of the UN Charter and the NATO Treaty. The nuclear deal radically changes not only the US’s policy toward Iran and toward every nation, friend and foe, in the Middle East. As former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and George Schultz argued during the nuclear negotiations, it upends 70 years of US nuclear policy, undermining the foundations of the US’s nonproliferation policies.
nObama and his advisers insisted that the deal was a mere presidential agreement. In response to their absurd claim, Sen. Tom Cotton and 46 other senators sent a letter to Iran’s leaders informing them that since the deal would not be brought before the Senate for a vote, the nuclear agreement they were negotiating with the nObama administration would be binding neither on Congress, nor on nObama’s successor.
Cotton’s letter prompted nObama to make yet another end run around Congress. The day the agreement was concluded in Geneva, and even before lawmakers had the chance to read it, the administration anchored the deal in a binding UN Security Council resolution. The maneuver gave the nuclear deal the force of international law.
Now, if Congress fails to respect the deal, or if nObama’s successor disavows it, the US will face the prospect of Iran arguing that it is free to build bombs at will, since the US breached the deal.
Another congressional authority is the power of the purse. Throughout nObama’s two terms, Congress repeatedly used this power to implement foreign policies he opposed in relation to both Iran and Israel. Over nObama’s objection, Congress repeatedly passed and upheld sanctions laws against Iran for its illicit nuclear program and its support for terrorism.
As for Israel, nObama routinely sought to slash US funding for Israel’s missile defense programs. Congress in turn routinely over road him and expanded US funding for Iron Dome and David’s Sling.
This of course brings us to last week’s Memorandum of Understanding. Just as the Iran deal gutted the Senate’s treaty approval authority, so the MoU works to empty of meaning Congress’s power of appropriation. nObama knows full well that he cannot prevent Congress from appropriating supplemental aid to Israel. So he forced Israel to agree to reject any supplemental assistance Congress might wish to appropriate.
Not surprisingly, lawmakers are irate over his action.
Sen. Ted Cruz explained, “I... have significant concerns with aspects of the MoU that attempt to restrict Congress’s rights and responsibilities – particularly our ability to appropriate additional funds as we and not the executive branch deem consistent with the interests of the American people.”
Congress isn’t the only casualty of nObama’s MoU.
The MoU strikes a body blow to AIPAC.
Since his first days in office, nObama has made a goal of weakening AIPAC.
First, nObama legitimized the anti-Israel Jewish lobby J Street. J Street’s purpose was to deny AIPAC the ability to claim that it speaks for the entire American Jewish community and so render it inherently controversial.
Today J Street, the self-proclaimed “pro-Israel, pro-peace” outfit, is lobbying the IRS to revoke the charitable status of American groups that work to protect the civil and property rights of Jews in Judea and Samaria. It is also working with Iran’s lobby in Washington and Americans for Peace Now to undermine Republican efforts to sanction Iran for its anti-US aggression.
In 2013, nObama coerced AIPAC into lobbying Congress to support his proclaimed plan to bomb Syrian-regime targets in response to the Assad regime’s use to chemical weapons. AIPAC’s action were viewed by liberal Democrats as proof that “the Israel lobby” was filled with warmongers.
It convinced Republicans that the group was the stooge of the administration.
Having hung AIPAC out to dry, nObama proceeded to tear it to shreds when he decided at the last minute to call off the air strikes.
Then of course there was the Iran deal. nObama spent a year and a half pretending away the popular opposition to his nuclear diplomacy and pretending that his only opponent was an all-powerful AIPAC, which worked at the behest of a foreign government.
And now, he has signed the MoU.
For decades, AIPAC’s bread and butter has been US aid to Israel. Indeed, the strongest opponent of Netanyahu’s announcement in 1997 that he wished to end US aid to Israel was AIPAC.
AIPAC’s role in lobbying aid bills through Congress has always been a noncontroversial way for the group to build up its power and influence and for members of Congress to exhibit their support for Israel. Since most lawmakers support Israel and support providing military aid to Israel, the vote is always an easy victory that gives it the aura of power and influence.
For AIPAC, nObama’s MoU is a disaster. In one fell swoop, he took away its main lobbying operation, the one that it was guaranteed to succeed in passing with massive bipartisan support. Following the deal, AIPAC will be hard-pressed to maintain even a semblance of the power it held when nObama entered into office.
Since the MoU was signed, Israeli media coverage has been dominated by claims by leftist politicians such as former prime minister Ehud Barak that if they were in charge, nObama would have agreed to give Israel much more than the $3.8 billion per year Netanyahu came up with.
Given that their claims are entirely theoretical, there is absolutely no way to know whether they are accurate. But what is clear is that taking inflation into account, the new level of aid is not significantly higher than the aid package approved by then-president George W. Bush 10 years ago.
The aid deal’s main financial significance is found in its multi-year lifespan. The deal’s longevity mean that lawmakers and lobbyist won’t be able to wait it out.
A number of Israeli and American commentators have argued that despite its drawbacks, nObama’s MoU shows that at the end of the day, nObama really is pro-Israel. After all, they argue, he didn’t have to sign a deal. He could have let his successor handle it.
But this of course fails to recognize the basic fact that US aid to Israel was never in jeopardy. Both liar-Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump would reach a deal. And if they failed to do so, Congress would simply appropriate the assistance.
For nObama, the MoU isn’t about securing military financing for Israel. The aid is a means for him to achieve a different aim.
Administration and congressional sources warn that nObama wished to conclude the MoU in the final months of his presidency to burnish his pro-Israel credentials. He wants his pro-Israel bona fides intact as he enables the UN Security Council to adopt an anti-Israel resolution just after the US presidential election in November.
For the past year and a half, the French have been sitting on just such a resolution. If passed, the French draft Security Council resolution will require Israel to accept a deal with the Palestinians that would require it to withdraw to the 1949 armistice lines with minor adjustments and partition Jerusalem within 18 months or face the prospect of the nations of the world recognizing a sovereign state of Palestine in a formal state of war with Israel.
After the presidential election, the French draft can be pulled out for a quick vote while US Ambassador Samantha Power is in the ladies room.
In the face of the congressional outcry that would follow, nObama can now pull out the video of his meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from Wednesday where Netanyahu thanked him profusely for the military aid and praised his support for Israel.
So why did Netanyahu agree to the deal?
The answer is that it was his best option.
Netanyahu is not delusional. He knows that he can’t prevent nObama from doing as he pleases. Under the circumstances, his best bet was to make the best of a bad situation.
If nObama hadn’t secured the MoU, and still decided to ram through the anti-Israel resolution at the UN Security Council, he might have generated so much ill will toward Israel among Democrats that a president liar-Hillary Clinton would be unable to agree to a significant aid package with Israel.
With the MoU already signed, even if the Democrats abandon even the conceit of supporting Israel, liar-Clinton will have a hard time abandoning a deal that nObama negotiated. So even under the worst of circumstances, Israel will continue to receive military aid from the US for the next decade.
On the other hand, if Trump is elected, he will be under no legal obligation or political pressure to maintain the MoU.
At a minimum, Trump can cancel the MoU’s provision denying Israel the right to accept or request supplemental funding from Congress. As George W. Bush’s former deputy national security adviser Elliott Abrams wrote this week, just as nObama reneged on Bush’s 2004 letter to then-prime minister Ariel Sharon accepting that the large Israeli population centers built beyond the 1949 armistice lines would remain intact in any future peace deal, so the next president can ignore nObama’s MoU.
Given the utter absence of leverage that either Israel or the Congress wields over a lame duck president, and given the alternatives, accepting the MoU on nObama’s terms was probably Israel’s least bad option. But going forward, the aid saga reinforces Israel’s burning need to diminish with the goal of phasing out all US military aid to Israel as quickly as possible.
Since he entered office nearly eight years ago, nObama’s foreign policy has always sought to kill two birds with one stone. On the one hand, his policies are geared toward fundamentally transforming the US’s global posture. On the other, they work to weaken if not entirely neutralize his congressional opponents at home.
The second goal is no mean task. After all, the US Constitution empowers Congress with the foreign policy powers aimed at checking and balancing the president’s.
For instance, to ensure that no president could adopt foreign policies that harm US national interests or undercut the will of the people, the Constitution required that all treaties be approved by two-thirds of the Senate before they can take effect.
Were it not for nObama’s double tracked foreign policy, that constitutional provision should have blocked nObama’s radical and dangerous nuclear deal with Iran. Understanding that he lacked not merely the support of two-thirds of the Senate but of even a bare majority of senators for his deal, nObama decided to sideline the Senate.
To this end, nObama speciously claimed that the deal was not significant enough to be considered a treaty. The Iran deal of course is a more radical course change than the US’s approval of the UN Charter and the NATO Treaty. The nuclear deal radically changes not only the US’s policy toward Iran and toward every nation, friend and foe, in the Middle East. As former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and George Schultz argued during the nuclear negotiations, it upends 70 years of US nuclear policy, undermining the foundations of the US’s nonproliferation policies.
nObama and his advisers insisted that the deal was a mere presidential agreement. In response to their absurd claim, Sen. Tom Cotton and 46 other senators sent a letter to Iran’s leaders informing them that since the deal would not be brought before the Senate for a vote, the nuclear agreement they were negotiating with the nObama administration would be binding neither on Congress, nor on nObama’s successor.
Cotton’s letter prompted nObama to make yet another end run around Congress. The day the agreement was concluded in Geneva, and even before lawmakers had the chance to read it, the administration anchored the deal in a binding UN Security Council resolution. The maneuver gave the nuclear deal the force of international law.
Now, if Congress fails to respect the deal, or if nObama’s successor disavows it, the US will face the prospect of Iran arguing that it is free to build bombs at will, since the US breached the deal.
Another congressional authority is the power of the purse. Throughout nObama’s two terms, Congress repeatedly used this power to implement foreign policies he opposed in relation to both Iran and Israel. Over nObama’s objection, Congress repeatedly passed and upheld sanctions laws against Iran for its illicit nuclear program and its support for terrorism.
As for Israel, nObama routinely sought to slash US funding for Israel’s missile defense programs. Congress in turn routinely over road him and expanded US funding for Iron Dome and David’s Sling.
This of course brings us to last week’s Memorandum of Understanding. Just as the Iran deal gutted the Senate’s treaty approval authority, so the MoU works to empty of meaning Congress’s power of appropriation. nObama knows full well that he cannot prevent Congress from appropriating supplemental aid to Israel. So he forced Israel to agree to reject any supplemental assistance Congress might wish to appropriate.
Not surprisingly, lawmakers are irate over his action.
Sen. Ted Cruz explained, “I... have significant concerns with aspects of the MoU that attempt to restrict Congress’s rights and responsibilities – particularly our ability to appropriate additional funds as we and not the executive branch deem consistent with the interests of the American people.”
Congress isn’t the only casualty of nObama’s MoU.
The MoU strikes a body blow to AIPAC.
Since his first days in office, nObama has made a goal of weakening AIPAC.
First, nObama legitimized the anti-Israel Jewish lobby J Street. J Street’s purpose was to deny AIPAC the ability to claim that it speaks for the entire American Jewish community and so render it inherently controversial.
Today J Street, the self-proclaimed “pro-Israel, pro-peace” outfit, is lobbying the IRS to revoke the charitable status of American groups that work to protect the civil and property rights of Jews in Judea and Samaria. It is also working with Iran’s lobby in Washington and Americans for Peace Now to undermine Republican efforts to sanction Iran for its anti-US aggression.
In 2013, nObama coerced AIPAC into lobbying Congress to support his proclaimed plan to bomb Syrian-regime targets in response to the Assad regime’s use to chemical weapons. AIPAC’s action were viewed by liberal Democrats as proof that “the Israel lobby” was filled with warmongers.
It convinced Republicans that the group was the stooge of the administration.
Having hung AIPAC out to dry, nObama proceeded to tear it to shreds when he decided at the last minute to call off the air strikes.
Then of course there was the Iran deal. nObama spent a year and a half pretending away the popular opposition to his nuclear diplomacy and pretending that his only opponent was an all-powerful AIPAC, which worked at the behest of a foreign government.
And now, he has signed the MoU.
For decades, AIPAC’s bread and butter has been US aid to Israel. Indeed, the strongest opponent of Netanyahu’s announcement in 1997 that he wished to end US aid to Israel was AIPAC.
AIPAC’s role in lobbying aid bills through Congress has always been a noncontroversial way for the group to build up its power and influence and for members of Congress to exhibit their support for Israel. Since most lawmakers support Israel and support providing military aid to Israel, the vote is always an easy victory that gives it the aura of power and influence.
For AIPAC, nObama’s MoU is a disaster. In one fell swoop, he took away its main lobbying operation, the one that it was guaranteed to succeed in passing with massive bipartisan support. Following the deal, AIPAC will be hard-pressed to maintain even a semblance of the power it held when nObama entered into office.
Since the MoU was signed, Israeli media coverage has been dominated by claims by leftist politicians such as former prime minister Ehud Barak that if they were in charge, nObama would have agreed to give Israel much more than the $3.8 billion per year Netanyahu came up with.
Given that their claims are entirely theoretical, there is absolutely no way to know whether they are accurate. But what is clear is that taking inflation into account, the new level of aid is not significantly higher than the aid package approved by then-president George W. Bush 10 years ago.
The aid deal’s main financial significance is found in its multi-year lifespan. The deal’s longevity mean that lawmakers and lobbyist won’t be able to wait it out.
A number of Israeli and American commentators have argued that despite its drawbacks, nObama’s MoU shows that at the end of the day, nObama really is pro-Israel. After all, they argue, he didn’t have to sign a deal. He could have let his successor handle it.
But this of course fails to recognize the basic fact that US aid to Israel was never in jeopardy. Both liar-Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump would reach a deal. And if they failed to do so, Congress would simply appropriate the assistance.
For nObama, the MoU isn’t about securing military financing for Israel. The aid is a means for him to achieve a different aim.
Administration and congressional sources warn that nObama wished to conclude the MoU in the final months of his presidency to burnish his pro-Israel credentials. He wants his pro-Israel bona fides intact as he enables the UN Security Council to adopt an anti-Israel resolution just after the US presidential election in November.
For the past year and a half, the French have been sitting on just such a resolution. If passed, the French draft Security Council resolution will require Israel to accept a deal with the Palestinians that would require it to withdraw to the 1949 armistice lines with minor adjustments and partition Jerusalem within 18 months or face the prospect of the nations of the world recognizing a sovereign state of Palestine in a formal state of war with Israel.
After the presidential election, the French draft can be pulled out for a quick vote while US Ambassador Samantha Power is in the ladies room.
In the face of the congressional outcry that would follow, nObama can now pull out the video of his meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from Wednesday where Netanyahu thanked him profusely for the military aid and praised his support for Israel.
So why did Netanyahu agree to the deal?
The answer is that it was his best option.
Netanyahu is not delusional. He knows that he can’t prevent nObama from doing as he pleases. Under the circumstances, his best bet was to make the best of a bad situation.
If nObama hadn’t secured the MoU, and still decided to ram through the anti-Israel resolution at the UN Security Council, he might have generated so much ill will toward Israel among Democrats that a president liar-Hillary Clinton would be unable to agree to a significant aid package with Israel.
With the MoU already signed, even if the Democrats abandon even the conceit of supporting Israel, liar-Clinton will have a hard time abandoning a deal that nObama negotiated. So even under the worst of circumstances, Israel will continue to receive military aid from the US for the next decade.
On the other hand, if Trump is elected, he will be under no legal obligation or political pressure to maintain the MoU.
At a minimum, Trump can cancel the MoU’s provision denying Israel the right to accept or request supplemental funding from Congress. As George W. Bush’s former deputy national security adviser Elliott Abrams wrote this week, just as nObama reneged on Bush’s 2004 letter to then-prime minister Ariel Sharon accepting that the large Israeli population centers built beyond the 1949 armistice lines would remain intact in any future peace deal, so the next president can ignore nObama’s MoU.
Given the utter absence of leverage that either Israel or the Congress wields over a lame duck president, and given the alternatives, accepting the MoU on nObama’s terms was probably Israel’s least bad option. But going forward, the aid saga reinforces Israel’s burning need to diminish with the goal of phasing out all US military aid to Israel as quickly as possible.
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