Obama knows how to capitalize on the bulk of American Jews, who want Israel to be a nice Jewish boy that doesn’t make them feel uncomfortable

President Barack Obama declared that American Jews’ concerns are like those of Afro-Americans and other Americans, indicating that Israel is not one of those worries.

He unsurprisingly chose the left-wing and secular Forward to be the first Jewish newspaper ever to interview him.

Having embraced J Street and trying to manipulate public opinion into believing that it is speaks for mainstream American Jews, his choice of The Forward was natural. The newspaper for more than a century was known as “The Jewish Daily Forward.”
This year it became simply “The Forward.”

Its editor Jane Eisner told the Observer earlier this year that the newspaper has been trying “to understand who we are, who are readers are, who are readers ought to be….What we know is that most American Jews today are living a very pluralistic life—there’s a lot of intermarriage and interfaith relationships.”

The same Jane Eisner on Friday interviewed President Obama, who also likes to see American Jews as any other hyphenated ethnic community that views their old homeland as a fond memory that it relives, in the case of American Jews, by eating gefilte fish.

The president knows, as Eisner indicated to the Observer, that American Jews are a vanishing through an assimilation rate approaching 70 percent and that the number of Jews in the United States rises only by changing the definition of a Jew to embrace pluralism, the melting pot that is supposed to erase any outward indication that belies the belief in Mom, Flag and Apple Pie.

He knows that the hard-core pro-Israel Jews, those who view Judea and Samaria as a part of Israel, Jerusalem as the capital, and a strong Israel good for the security United States, are a minority.

Deep down in the interview with Eisner, President Obama said:

American Jews, like African-Americans or any other cohort of Americans, have a wide range of concerns. They care about student loans; they care about housing; they care about poverty; they care about women’s health issues. And so it’s not as if the American Jewish community makes decisions solely on the basis of a single issue

The “single issue,” of course, is Israel. He does not, nor do most American Jews, think too much about Israel, especially when it comes to the nuclear agreement with Iran, which was the focus of his comments to the Forward.

He explained:

I do get disturbed sometimes when I hear folks suggesting that those who oppose the deal are pro-Israel. We’re all pro-Israel. The issue is, how do we solve this very particular problem of making sure Iran doesn’t have a nuclear weapon….

I think we have to steer away from incendiary language that suggests that either those who are in favor of the deal are appeasing Iran or, conversely, that those who are opposed to the deal are not thinking about America’s interest.

If anyone has used incendiary language, it is President Obama, who has implied, as Eisner reported that she told him, “that even some of his supporters say that he has contributed to the incendiary language by implying that opponents of the deal are ‘warmongers.'”

She said that was the only time in the interview “that I saw him bristle and his back stiffen.” He replied:

What I said is that if we reject the deal, the logical conclusion is that if we want to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, military strikes will be the last option remaining at some point. It may not be under my administration; it might be under the next one. And that is something that has to be taken into account.

She did not respond, “What about more sanctions instead of war?

President Barack Obama has invited Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for a “working visit” to the White House two weeks after a deal with Iran is to be signed but before Congress will decide whether or not to ratify it, State Dept. sources told Yediot Achronot.

The office of the Prime Minister made no comment, and time will tell if the White House is telling the truth by denying the report.

The visit is supposed to take place on July 15 or 16, according to the Israeli newspaper.

The timing makes perfect sense for President Obama, whose mastery as a manipulator cannot be matched by anyone except Prime Minister Netanyahu, which probably explains their war-like relationship.

If the report is correct, and it probably is, it means that President Obama is confident that the talks with Iran over its nuclear program will be over before then. Obama has set a deadline of June 30 for a deal, but if history is a guide, it likely will be extended by one or even a few days.

If there is no deal, then Obama can welcome Netanyahu and say, “See, I told you that you could count on me not to make a “bad deal.”

If there is a deal, Congress has 30 days to have its say, and Netanyahu would not have such an easy time denouncing the deal in the White House as he did in Congress last March. The Prime Minister would have to face the cameras as President Obama expounds on how much he has done for Israel while promising he will never, never, never allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon or do anything that would endanger Israel.

President Obama also would offer Israel large bribes of military aid in exchange for its buying the deal.

If Netanyahu were to speak out against it without being 100 percent sure of being able to prove it endangers Israel’s security, which is difficult because it means proving an hypothesis, he would have to do as he sits next to the President in the Oval Office, with the cameras capturing every body gesture and word.

Americans’ overblown patriotism does not suffer a foreign official publicly telling their president he is wrong Netanyahu would risk losing American support for Israel against the Palestinian Authority campaign for backing in the United Nations and International Criminal Court.

Obama could refrain from vetoing a Security Council vote to make the Palestinian Authority a full member of the United Nations, thereby giving it de facto recognition of its definition of Israel’s borders.

Obama may or not have led one of the United States’ most disastrous foreign policies, but he has done so by masterfully putting everyone else in their place.

Netanyahu is an excellent chess player, but he might be checked when playing on Obama’s board.

The Netanyahu administration is holding talks with American officials for a 13-year military program of $45 billion in aid, Defense News reported.

The current American military aid program for Israel amounts to $3.1 billion a year following an increase from the original $2.4 billion a year from 2007 to 2017.  The new request would grant Israel “$4.2 billion to $4.5 billion,” according to a security source.

The military aid package does not include annual funding for anti-missile systems being developed by the United States and Israel.

A healthy part of American aid ends up in the hands of American defense contractors.

The preliminary talks for a new agreement for military aid also do not take into account aid that President Barack Obama may offer Israel to sugar-coat a deal an agreement with Iran over its nuclear program.

The request for a hike in aid reflects the arms race in the world and especially in the Middle East, where Arab countries have developed or bought sophisticated weapons that can threaten Israel.

Howard Kohr, chief executive officer of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), “estimates that Israel may have to spend $160 billion on defense in the decade to come,” according to Defense News.

Kohr told the House Appropriations subcommittee on foreign operations last month that Israeli defense spending coincides with “accelerated military investment fueled by the oil revenues of Israel’s Arab neighbors.”

In addition, economic sanctions have not stopped Iran from doubling its military spending and development of new weapons. The Islamic Republic also is preparing to receive the advanced S-300 anti-missile systems from Russia, which has indicated it will not be in a rush to deliver the systems to Iran.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry spoke directly to Israelis on television Saturday night to denounce what he called “hysteria” over the emerging deal with Iran to ensure it does not reach nuclear capability.

The question is: Who is more hysterical, opponents to the deal, whom Iran is helping with increasingly belligerency, or the Obama administration that is offering the same sales pitch every day?

Two days after Vice-President Joe Biden told a Washington-based think tank that the proposed deal is not about trust but about verifications of Iran’s nuclear development, Kerry told Israel’s Channel that Israel can be assured that “we will be able to know what Iran is doing and prevent them from getting a nuclear weapon.”

He said:

There’s a lot of hysteria about this deal. People really need to look at the facts, and they need to look at the science behind those facts.

It is not clear what he meant by “science” unless he was referring to the promises that inspectors will be on duty “24/7” in Iran, which for years has pulled the wool over the eyes of every United Nations effort to inspect what is going in at its nuclear facilities, at least the one which are known.

Kerry stated Saturday night, “I say this again – we will not sign a deal that does not close off Iran’s pathways to a bomb and that doesn’t give us the confidence – to all of our experts and global experts – that we will be able to know what Iran is doing and prevent them from getting a nuclear weapon….

“We will have inspectors in there every single day. That’s not a 10-year deal. That’s forever. There have to be inspections.”

Iran last month declared categorically that no inspectors will be allowed at its military sites.

Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, Maj. Gen. Hassan Fairuz Abadi declared:

The armed forces will not allow anyone to enter military sites.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ruled out any “extraordinary supervision measures.”

President Obama has dismisses Iran’s statements that contradict last month’s temporary agreement as nothing more than talk for domestic use only.

Vice President Joe Biden used the “W” word – war – in a speech Thursday night that is part of a new White House charm offensive to calm down Israel’s concerns that Washington is ready to sign a “bad deal” with Iran over its nuclear program.

Biden said at his speech to the conservative Washington Institute for Near East Policy:

A war with Iran, if required, it will happen. It is a risk we may have to take should Iran race to a bomb….

The finest military in history remains at the ready. Don’t underestimate my friend Barack Obama. He has a spine of steel and he is willing to do what it takes to keep our allies safe.

Biden also emphasized parts of the proposed deal that Iran has thoroughly rejected in public, particularly “phased sanctions relief” and a demand that Iran take off the mask off past nuclear weapons research.

President Obama sent Biden two weeks ago to placate Israel at the annual Yom Ha’Atzmaut celebration in Washington, where he began his speech by declaring, “My name is Joe Biden, and everybody knows I love Israel.”

The White House clearly is trying to mend fences after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s speech in Congress in March, when he warned of a “bad deal” with Iran.

Obama lost the elections in Israel two weeks later. His aides not only have given up hope that Netanyahu won’t be able to form a new coalition government, they also have finally realized it will be much more stable and more right-wing than previous governments.

The president has no choice but to play ball with Netanyahu, and Biden is his pitcher, although he showed his ignorance of Jewish self-guilt by throwing a couple of spitballs in his Yom Ha’Atzmaut speech , bragging that two of his children married Jews.

Netanyahu is reciprocating to a certain extent and laying off high-profile attacks on the proposed Iran deal.

Zalman Shoval, an adviser to Netanyahu and former ambassador to the United States, told Bloomberg News Thursday that Israel “would like to do what we can to remove the unnecessary hindrances in our relationship with the U.S.”

“Neither side want to have an open conflict, but Netanyahu will certainly continue to criticize the Iran talks and there isn’t much he can deliver on the actual peace process,” Robbie Sabel, a Hebrew University professor and a  former Israeli diplomat, told Bloomberg.

Netanyahu last month suddenly released nearly half a billion dollars in tax revenues that Israel collects for the Palestinian Authority, without deducting the entire sum from a large debt Ramallah owes Israel for electricity and other services.

Israel also has allowed more permits for Arabs in Judea and Samaria to travel to Jerusalem.

Obama reiterated last month he will visit Israel, but not before June 30th, the deadline for a final deal with Iran.

Tehran already has said that the deadline is not holy, so don’t expect Obama land at Ben Gurion Airport on July 1

President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu traded shots on the proposed deal with Iran through separate statements that continue what has become a conversation of the deaf.

The Prime Minister two weeks ago stated that a better deal would be one that “would significantly roll back Iran’s nuclear infrastructure [and] link the eventual lifting of the restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program to a change in Iran’s behavior.”

He added:

Iran must stop its aggression in the region, stop its terrorism throughout the world and stop its threats to annihilate Israel. That should be non-negotiable and that’s the deal that the world powers must insist upon.

President Obama said on Saturday:

The Prime Minister of Israel is deeply opposed to it [the deal]. I think he’s made that very clear. I have repeatedly asked –w hat is the alternative that you present that you think makes it less likely for Iran to get a nuclear weapon? And I have yet to obtain a good answer on that.

The key word is “good” because Obama insists he has come up with a “good deal” that Netanyahu asserts is a “bad deal.”

Obama’s reasoning is that Iran will reject a “better deal,” which would mean “no deal,” exactly what Israel, Republicans, and some Democrats have said is better than a “bad deal.” For Obama, “no deal” is worse than a “bad deal” that he insists is a “good deal.”

It’s enough to drive a card player nuts, and since Iran is dealing most of the cards, it is the only one who knows what joker it has up its sleeve.

An outstanding example of President Obama’s frame of mind  that a deal is an end and not a means is Prime Minister Netanyahu’s statement after Iran’s Revolutionary Guards commander said that eliminating Israel is “non-negotiable.” The Prime Minister responded that Iran’s recognizing Israel should be “non-negotiable.”

Obama replied that the idea simply is not practical. So forget it.

It also is not practical to make sure that Iran does not have the infrastructure to obtain a nuclear bomb in the future. So forget it.

Netanyahu said Saturday at a tradtional post-Passover Mimouna celebration, “To my regret, all of the things I warned about vis-à-vis the framework agreement that was put together in Lausanne are coming true before our eyes.

“This framework gives the leading terrorist state in the world a certain path to nuclear bombs, which would threaten Israel, the Middle East and the entire world. We see that Iran is being left with significant nuclear capabilities; it is not dismantling them, it is preserving them. We also see that the inspection is not serious. How can such a country be trusted? …

“We see that the sanctions are being lifted, immediately, according to Iran’s demand, and this is without Iran having changed its policy of aggression everywhere, not just against Israel, but in Yemen, the Bab el-Mandeb, the Middle East and through global terrorist networks. The most dangerous terrorist state in the world must not be allowed to have the most dangerous weapons in the world.

President Obama’s turning a deal with Iran into an end and not a means is illustrated in an article on The Hill website Saturday, in which it outlined five keys areas where the United States made concessions to Iran in order to reach a temporary framework agreement:

Banning uranium enrichment: Before talks began, the Obama administration and the United Nations Security Council called for Iran to stop all uranium enrichment. The framework agreement, though, allows Iran to continue enriching uranium and producing plutonium for domestic civilian use…The deal’s critics worry any enrichment could quickly be diverted to military use.

Unofficial presidential spokesman and New York Time columnist Thomas Friedman interviewed President Barack Obama Saturday and unwittingly revealed a presidential strategy towards Iran that is based on plain hope and lots of conditional “ifs.”

In the interview under the title “The Obama Doctrine and Iran”, President Obama elevated Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to the clear leader in the campaign to bury the emerging deal that is supposed to make sure Iran cannot get its hands on a nuclear weapon.

Prime Minister Netanyahu already has led off a media blitz with interviews on several American television networks on Friday, a strong follow-up to his candid speech to a joint session of Congress last year in which he warned of a bad deal.

President Obama’s defense of last week’s temporary framework for a final agreement with Iran in June expressed his optimism and hope but did little to convince anyone who is undecided whether the emerging deal is worthwhile.

His assumption – giving it the old college try for diplomacy is better than trying force that cannot force Iran into submission – is the underlying difference in views between Israel and the president.

Obama assumes nothing can stop from getting a nuclear bomb if it wants it, and therefore it is best to try to engage it, change its personality, culture and character and maybe, just maybe, it will become a new creature.

Netanyahu and Israel, with more experience than the entire world when it comes to negotiating with the Muslim world, know that force, whether economic or military, is the only language it understands and that there is such a thing as Iran or an Arab country surrendering, even if they call it a cease-fire in order to uphold their honor.

One of President Obama’s weakest arguments in his interview with Friedman was that the policy of “engagement” has succeeded. After pointing out that Cuba does not threaten the United States but Iran does, he nevertheless compared them.

Obama said:

You take a country like Cuba. For us to test the possibility that engagement leads to a better outcome for the Cuban people, there aren’t that many risks for us. It’s a tiny little country. It’s not one that threatens our core security interests, and so [there’s no reason not] to test the proposition. And if it turns out that it doesn’t lead to better outcomes, we can adjust our policies.

The same is true with respect to Iran, a larger country, a dangerous country, one that has engaged in activities that resulted in the death of U.S. citizens, but the truth of the matter is: Iran’s defense budget is $30 billion. Our defense budget is closer to $600 billion. Iran understands that they cannot fight us. … You asked about an Obama doctrine. The doctrine is: We will engage, but we preserve all our capabilities.

His entire defense of engagement with Iran is based on the defense budget. It is not clear why he even mentioned Cuba since he admitted there is no comparing the tiny country with Iran.

Friedman, Obama’s favorite interviewer, did not bother the president with nuisance questions, such as what followed the Obama administration’s engagement with Syria, for starters.