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U.S. President Barack Obama gave a speech last week on the Middle East. Presidents make many speeches. Some are meant to be taken casually, others are made to address an immediate crisis, and still others are intended to be a statement of broad American policy. As in any country, U.S. presidents follow rituals indicating which category their speeches fall into. Obama clearly intended his recent Middle East speech to fall into the last category, as reflecting a shift in strategy if not the declaration of a new doctrine. While events in the region drove Obama’s speech, politics also played a strong...

THE MATHEMATICS OF A SECOND JEWISH HOLOCAUST? Palestinians and many of their advocates around the world claim that the “refugees” of 1948 have a “right to return” to Israel, and that such “right” is guaranteed by international law. Nonsense. No such guarantee exists, nor should it. UN Resolution 194, which is often cited as the basis for this “right of return” is a resolution of the United Nations - nothing less, nothing more. Notwithstanding the fact that UN resolutions aren’t worth the paper on which they’re printed, if said resolution were bound by anything, let alone international law, Israel would...

JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel returned from Washington on Wednesday to a nearly unanimous assessment among Israelis that despite his forceful defense of Israel’s security interests, hopes were dashed that his visit might advance Palestinian peace negotiations. One of the widely articulated goals of his trip, where he met with President Obama and addressed Congress, was to find a way to lure the Palestinians back to direct negotiations, thereby preempting their plan to approach the United Nations in September for recognition of statehood within the pre-1967 lines. Instead, the Palestinians now say, Mr. Netanyahu’s speeches convinced them...

I don’t think I’ve ever seen an international issue clarified in as little time as the 26 hours or so it took to get from “1967 lines” to “No way.” And we have President Obama to thank for it. In all the discussion of how he was schooled and taken to the woodshed by Prime Minister Netanyahu, there has been little recognition of the fact that Bibi had no choice but to say what he did in the press conference on Friday. Obama isn’t the first American president to give short shrift to the fundamentals of negotiation; most of our...

There is a small detail at the end of Obama’s big Middle East speech that everyone has overlooked up until now but which shows how inept this administration is at understanding the IsraelI-Palestinian issue and why it continually makes Israel mistrustful. In doing his balancing act on Israeli and Palestinian fears and hostility, he says this: “I’m convinced that the majority of Israelis and Palestinians would rather look to the future than be trapped in the past….We see it in the actions of a Palestinian who lost three daughters to Israeli shells in Gaza. `I have the right to feel...

(Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bluntly told President Barack Obama on Friday his vision for the borders of a future Palestinian state would leave the Jewish state with an "indefensible" frontier. Netanyahu's remarks after the White House talks underscored how a new U.S. push for Middle East peace had opened one of the deepest divides in years in relations between the United States and close ally Israel. "Peace based on illusions will crash eventually on the rocks of Middle East reality," an unsmiling Netanyahu told Obama in the Oval Office.

Gene Simmons, (whose real name is Chaim Witz born in Haifa, Israel) goes off on Obama for calling for Israel to a return to its 1967 borders saying he has no f-ing idea what the world is like because he doesn't have to live there

For many on the right, the stock of President Barack Obama’s foreign policy credentials went up after he authorized the U.S. raid that led to the death of terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden earlier this month. But since then, the White House has left much to be desired by those on the right, particularly after his speech at the State Department in Washington, D.C. on Thursday. The latest critic, columnist Mark Steyn, who appeared on Thursday night’s Hugh Hewitt radio show, struck some critical blows at the president’s approach to Israel policy (Snip) “The fact is this narcissistic buffoon gave

Live thread of Israeli PM "Bibi" Netenyahu and the crypto-Marxist Muslim, "Hussein"

Abbas calls emergency meeting on Obama address By KHALED ABU TOAMEH 05/19/2011 21:18 PA president seeks urgent consultations with Arab leaders over address; Hamas spokesmen accuses Obama of "deception," favoritism to Israel. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday called an emergency meeting of the PA leadership to discuss US President Barack Obama’s speech on peace in the Middle East, a PA official in Ramallah said. Abbas has also decided to hold urgent consultations with a number of Arab leaders on the speech, the official said. PLO Executive Committee member Saeb Erekat said that Abbas remained committed to fulfilling all...

Someone please start immediately a separate thread "We Stand With Israel" Not a prayer thread, please. We need a thread site where we can post what we really feel about Obaxander the Great's ghastly move. Leni

In a bombshell speech just concluded on FNC, Obama abandoned Israel in three major ways. 1: He called for Israel to give up and retreat from the entire West Bank. His excuse was that "some Palestinians live there." Obama conveniently chose to forget the tens of thousands of Jews who live there, and that they would face immediate slaughter by Hamas if abandoned by Israel. Remember, if Israel retreats to the 1967 borders, as now called for by Obama, the country becomes just 7 miles wide at some places. That means Arab tank-killing man-portable weapons, with ranges of more then...

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was quick on the draw Thursday in voicing clear displeasure with President Barack Obama’s mideast policy speech. “Israel appreciates President Obama’s commitment to peace,” the response began, curtly. “Israel believes that for peace to endure between Israelis and Palestinians, the viability of a Palestinian state cannot come at the expense of the viability of the one and only Jewish state.” “That is why Prime Minister Netanyahu expects to hear a reaffirmation from President Obama of U.S. commitments made to Israel in 2004, which were overwhelmingly supported by both Houses of Congress.” “Among other things,” Netanyahu reminded...

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is endorsing the Palestinians' demand for their future state to be based on the borders that existed before the 1967 Middle East war, in a move that will likely infuriate Israel. Israel says the borders of a Palestinian state have to be determined through negotiations.

The Hamas movement called US President Barack Obama's Mideast policy speech a "complete failure," saying it was like "throwing sand in the eyes of the public." Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri claimed the speech lacked content, adding that his organization "is opposed to intervention in our internal affairs." Abu Zuhri urged the Palestinian Authority to dismiss the speech, and emphasized the need to "coordinate the stances of Palestinian forces against the American arrogance." (Elior Levy)

Florida Republican Congressman Allen West blasted the speech given by President Barack Obama on the Middle East and North Africa, calling it “the beginning of the end of the state of Israel.” West’s statement, just released by his office, claimed the president declared a new state of Palestine should be built on the “pre-1967 borders with Israel (in fact, the president mentioned the 1967 borders recognized by the U.N.) West then went further, quoting what he called ancient history that proves there is no such thing as the “Palestinian people.” From the in-box: Congressman Allen West Response to President Barack...

US President Barack Obama dramatically changed US foreign policy - sandbagging Israel and aligning himself with PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas' preconditions for talks - when he called Thursday for a "full and phased withdraw of Israeli forces" from "occupied Palestinian lands" to the 1949 armistice borders that Israel's former Foreign Minister and UN ambassador in 1967, Abba Eban, referred to as the "Auschwitz borders." Obama's comments came during his much anticipated policy address at the State Department in which he outlined the United State's new foreign policy for the Middle East and North Africa in light of the "spring revolutions"...

JERUSALEM - Israel's prime minister has rejected a key aspect of President Barack Obama's policy speech, saying that a return to his country's 1967 borders would spell disaster for the Jewish state. In a statement released late Thursday, Benjamin Netanyahu called the 1967 lines "indefensible."

JERUSALEM – Sen. Barack Obama told the Palestinian leadership during a trip to the region in July he supports their rights to a capital in eastern Jerusalem, but he asked them to keep his remarks secret, according to a Lebanese newspaper. The Al-Akhbar daily, known to have close contacts to Palestinian leaders in Lebanon, quoted sources in Ramallah claiming that in a meeting in July with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, the two heard from Obama "the best things they ever heard from an American presidential candidate." The report claimed Obama told Abbas and Fayyad...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s associates expressed their disappointment with Barack Obama’s speech Thursday, with one aide saying that the US president is detached from regional realities. The PM’s associates told Ynet early Friday that Netanyahu, who departed to the US Thursday night, is prepared for a confrontation with President Obama on vital issues. (Snip) The PM’s aides added that Obama’s historic speech lacked many key points and that his address was “bad for Israel.” Netanyahu himself issued a quick response to the speech earlier, demanding that the president reaffirm previous US pledges that Israel will not be asked to withdraw