Watchman Newsletter

Iranian Commander: ‘Erasing Israel Off the Map’ Is ‘Non-Negotiable’

Mohammad Reza Naqdi, head of the Basij militia unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, has surfaced to reassure the world that death for Israel is still very much on the table on the eve of the P+5 nuclear talks, and will never be negotiated away as part of any nuclear deal with President Obama.

Israel National News reports Naqdi saying that “erasing Israel off the map” is “non-negotiable” on Tuesday.

This is the same officer who previously boasted that Iran would keep arming Palestinian terrorists in the West Bank until Israel was annihilated. “The Zionists should know that the next war won’t be confined to the present borders and the Mujahedeen will push them back,” he said in 2014.

Obama Plans To Force Israel To Accept A Palestinian State With Jerusalem As The Capital

The Truth Wins (Link) - Michael Snyder  (November 5, 2013)

If Israel and the Palestinians do not agree on a “two state solution” by the end of this year, the Obama administration plans to propose its own solution and force it on the two sides in early 2014.  For Obama, the goal is to have this agreement in place in time to influence the November 2014 mid-term elections.  Unfortunately for Israel, the Palestinians have absolutely no incentive to move off of their current demands because Obama has been promising them a Palestinian state based on the pre-1967 borders with East Jerusalem as the capital since very early in his presidency.  So the Palestinians have no motivation to negotiate in good faith since they already know that they are going to get what they want in the end anyway.  Ultimately, Obama plans to force Israel to give up the West Bank, East Jerusalem and control over the Temple Mount in exchange for a “promise of peace” that is not even worth the paper that it will be printed on.

When it comes to Israel, the arrogance that Obama is displaying is absolutely appalling.  For example, Obama made the following statement about Israel earlier this year...

“Israel doesn’t know what its own best interests are.”

Oh, but Obama does?

Not only does Obama believe that he knows what is best for Israel, he also plans to force them to do it.

24 Signs That We Are Getting Dangerously Close To A Major War In The Middle East

The American Dream (Link) (February 6, 2012)

Is 2012 the year when we will see a major war in the Middle East? For years we have heard about rising tensions in the Middle East, and for years we have heard politicians express concerns about Iran’s nuclear program, but now things really do seem to be reaching a boiling point. In just the past few days, the U.S. government has imposed tough new sanctions on Iran and has totally shut down the U.S. embassy in Syria.

The truth is that we are getting dangerously close to a major war in the Middle East. So will Israel strike Iran at some point in the next few months? Will the U.S. military intervene in the rapidly escalating conflict inside of Syria? If a major war does erupt, it could send the price of oil skyrocketing and there is the potential that the war could broaden very quickly.

Hezbollah has already indicated that it will side with Syria, and there is always the potential that Hamas could as well. Russia and China have both stated that they are completely opposed to military action by the United States against Iran and Syria, and they have even hinted that they would possibly even help defend those countries. As the nations of the world take sides, there is even the potential that we could see World War III develop. Let us hope that it never comes to that, but with the world as unstable as it is right now, you never know what may happen.

What makes war so much more likely now is that nobody has shown any signs of backing down.

Putin prepares the Russian empire to strike back

The Guardian (Link) - Simon Tisdall (December 1, 2011)

As prime minister for the past four years, Vladimir Putin never really went away. But his looming reincarnation as the all-powerful, executive president of Russia – the country’s “paramount leader” in Chinese parlance – poses a stark challenge for which the US, Britain and other beleaguered western powers seem ill-prepared. As president, potentially until 2024, Putin has one overriding objective: the creation of a third, post-tsarist, post-Soviet Russian empire.

Putin famously described the collapse of the Soviet Union, the “evil empire” of Ronald Reagan’s imagining, as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.” His aim, once this weekend’s heavily managed parliamentary elections and next March’s presidential coronation are out the way, is to put this disaster to rights. Reinstalled as president, and with his political potboy, Dmitry Medvedev, pushed aside, Putin will again exercise unchallengeable control over Russia’s external affairs.

Never much interested in domestic policy, Putin’s only political trick is a hyper-nationalism that pits a proudly embattled Russia against a hostile, US-led, world conspiracy. But the trick works. Despite mounting criticism during the Duma campaign, both supporters and opponents acknowledge his perceived achievement in restoring Russia’s standing in the world following Boris Yeltsin’s chaotic 1990s decade.

Clinton presses Netanyahu to release frozen Palestinian tax funds

Haaretz (Link) - Barak Ravid (November 23, 2011)

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton phoned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Monday night and demanded that he release Palestinian tax revenue that Israel has frozen for more than a month after UNESCO accepted the Palestinians as a member.

A senior U.S. official and an Israeli source familiar with details of the conversation say Clinton called Netanyahu after messages relayed to him in recent weeks on the tax money were not answered positively.

The Prime Minister’s Office confirmed that Clinton called but said the subject was new sanctions that the United States would impose on Iran.

Israel holds $100 million in Palestinian Authority tax revenue collected in October as part of economic agreements between the two sides. Should the freeze continue through the end of November, the sum will reach $200 million.

According to the Israeli source, Netanyahu rejected Clinton’s request, saying he lacks a majority in the cabinet on the issue.

No Support For Israel In The White House?

YNet News (Link) - Yitzhak Benhorin (November 21, 2011)

The last year has seen the White House become empty of people who have a deep personal knowledge of the Israeli situation and who care about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At first it was the much publicized resignation of former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel who was involved in every significant detail of the White House’s Israel agenda.

Then David Axelrod, top political advisor to President Barack Obama left for greener pastures and last summer, Dan Shapiro chose to become US ambassador to Israel over taking the position of White House Middle East desk chief.

If that is not enough, next month Dennis Ross, Obama’s senior advisor on the Middle East, will be leaving office. Ross’ White House exit has barely raised a murmur in Israel even though it is one of the biggest losses to the US government as far as relations with Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are concerned. It leaves Israel without a reliable contact within the White house.

Rahm Emanuel was replaced by Bill Daley who doesn’t deal with the Israel issue. Axelrod, whose focus was the political significance of relations with Israel, was replaced with David Plouffe who is busy with managing Obama’s election campaign and has no connection to the Israel-Palestinian matter.

Abbas Going for Broke, Gunning for Unity with Hamas

Israel National News (Link) - Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu (November 20, 2011)

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is to meet with Hamas leaders in Cairo Thursday to sum up a unity deal based on “resistance,” a Palestinian Authority state based on the temporary 1949 Armistice Lines and non-recognition of Israel.

Abbas, head of the rival Fatah faction, formally signed a formal unity agreement with Hamas in May, but it quickly became nothing more than a ceremonial act following disagreements.

The failure of the Palestinian Authority to gain admittance as a full member in the United Nations has been a game-changer. Following the American and Israel decision to cut off funds to the PA after it won membership on the U.N.’s UNESCO agency, Abbas has made it clear he considers the Obama administration an obstacle to his plans for Palestinian Authority statehood.

Spokesmen for Hamas and Abbas have confirmed this week’s meeting will be full of substance as Abbas had apparently decided to bank on Asian and pro-Arab countries in Europe to give him the diplomatic backing he has lost with the United States.

R.I.P. to the Middle East ‘Peace Process’

Big Peace (Link) - Rob Miller (November 15, 2011)

The so-called Middle East peace process between the Israelis and the “Palestinians” is essentially dead, and it will be quite some time before there’s an attempt to revive it.

Israeli statesman Abba Eban’s famous quote about the “Palestinians” never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity has come true once more, although in fairness they had a large assist this time from President Obama.

Mahmoud Abbas has once again refused to enter direct negotiations with Israel, telling new US envoy David Hale that the Palestinians would not return to the negotiating table with Israel unless the Israeli government met the preconditions of freezing all construction in what the “Palestinians” consider settlements, including East Jerusalem and accepting the pre-1967 cease fire lines as the basis for future borders in any two state solution.

In other words, Abbas is willing to sit down with the Israelis only if there’s nothing much left to negotiate. This is roughly the equivalent of agreeing to go to Las Vegas and place a bet on the roulette wheel only if your winnings are guaranteed in advance.

Obama set to beat Bush debt-aggregation record

Hot Air (Link) - Ed Morrissey (August 23, 2011)

In 31 months of Barack Obama’s presidency, according to the Treasury and CBS News, the US has added $4 trillion to its national debt. That approaches the presidential record set by George W. Bush of $4.9 trillion, but there’s a catch to that. Bush set that record in two terms — in 96 months:

The latest posting by the Treasury Department shows the national debt has now increased $4 trillion on President Obama’s watch.

The debt was $10.626 trillion on the day Mr. Obama took office. The latest calculation from Treasury shows the debt has now hit $14.639 trillion.

It’s the most rapid increase in the debt under any U.S. president.

The national debt increased $4.9 trillion during the eight-year presidency of George W. Bush. The debt now is rising at a pace to surpass that amount during Mr. Obama’s four-year term.

Let’s cast this by month rather than by year. Bush added an average of $51 billion a month to the national debt. In his 31 months in office, Obama has added to the national debt at an average monthly rate of $129 billion. That is 152% more per month than Obama’s predecessor.

Syria mobilizing troops for conflict with U.S., NATO

WorldNet Daily (Link) - Aaron Klein (August 21, 2011)

Syrian President Bashar Assad is taking military measures to prepare for a possible U.S.-NATO campaign against his regime, WND has learned.

While Assad struck a conciliatory tone in an interview today with his state-run television network, he also instructed the Syrian military to be prepared for an air or ground campaign if the international community determines his pledges of reform are not enough.

Last week, WND first reported Turkey secretly passed a message to Damascus that if it does not implement major democratic reforms, NATO may attack Assad’s regime, according to Egyptian security officials.

The Egyptian security officials said the message was coordinated with NATO members, specifically with the U.S. and European Union.

Israel ‘ready to negotiate borders with Palestinians’

The Telegraph UK (Link) - Adrian Blomfield (August 1, 2011)

The offer, which emerged tonight appeared to represent a major climb-down by Mr Netanyahu, who has consistently refused to discuss specific borders of a future state.

A government official in Jerusalem told The Daily Telegraph the offer was dependent on the Palestinians dropping their campaign for statehood at the United Nations next month and accepting Israel as a Jewish state.

The offer appears to cross Palestinian red lines, and it seemed likely to be rejected — although the onus is now likely to be placed on the Palestinians to present a counter offer.

Mr Netanyahu reacted angrily when the 1967 proposal was made by Barack Obama in May but was now said to be offering to trade Israeli territory on its side of the line for West Bank land where its main settlements were located.

As U.S. Steps Back, Europe Takes Bigger Role in Mideast Peace Push

The New York Times (Link) - Mark Landler (July 20, 2011)

It is a truism of Middle East peacemaking that the United States is the pivotal player — the most credible broker between the Israelis and the Palestinians. But with talks at a standstill, the Obama administration now finds itself on the sidelines, and Europe is emerging as the key diplomatic actor.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, have crisscrossed the Continent in recent weeks, trying to woo leaders who are weighing whether to support a Palestinian bid for statehood at the United Nations in September. Neither man has visited Washington since the spring.

That may suit the administration just fine. The White House, several officials said, has deliberately kept a low profile since President Obama’s speech on the Middle East in May, in which he tried unsuccessfully to break the stalemate by proposing a starting point for negotiating the contours of a Palestinian state.

Europe’s rising role stems not only from American fatigue with a seemingly intractable problem, but also from the peculiar dynamics of the Palestinian campaign at the United Nations. With more than 100 countries, most in the developing world, expected to support Palestinian recognition — and the United States almost certain to oppose it — Britain, France and Germany are viewed as influential swing votes.

Israel and Palestinian sources to Haaretz: U.S. peace efforts have failed

Haaretz (Link) - Barak Ravid (July 12, 2011)

The intensive U.S. efforts to create an agreed outline for renewed negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians have failed, Israeli and Palestinian sources have told Haaretz. The sources said the Palestinian leadership is more determined than ever to pursue the recognition of an independent Palestinian state at the United Nations in September.

An Israeli source who was close to talks held by the U.S. administration with both Israeli and Palestinian officials told Haaretz the Americans was unable to find a formula that both parties could accept and take to the negotiating table. He said the Americans were working on a formula that would combine President Barack Obama’s speech at the State Department on May 19 and his speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee on May 22. Such a formula would offer the Palestinians the 1967 border with territorial exchanges while promising Israeli recognition of Israel as the national home of the Jewish people.

Both parties raised numerous objections to Washington’s proposal, leading the administration to conclude that neither was ready to resume talks. The Americans therefore decided to settle for a generic Quartet statement containing only a single bit of real news - announcing the dispatch of a team of senior diplomats to hold another round of talks in Jerusalem and Ramallah and report back to Obama personally.

U.S. Reaches Out to Islamist Parties

The Wall Street Journal (Link) - Matt Bradley & Adam Entous (July 1, 2011)

The Obama administration is reaching out to Islamist movements whose political power is on the rise in the wake of Arab Spring uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa.

The tentative outreach effort to key religious political groups—the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Ennahdha in Tunisia—reflects the administration’s realization that the spread of democracy in the region requires it to deal more directly with Islamist movements the U.S. had long kept at arm’s length.

Speaking to reporters during a visit Thursday to Budapest, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the Obama administration is now seeking “limited contacts” with Muslim Brotherhood members ahead of parliamentary and presidential elections slated for later this year.

“It is in the interests of the United States to engage with all parties that are peaceful and committed to nonviolence,” Mrs. Clinton said. “We welcome, therefore, dialogue with those Muslim Brotherhood members who wish to talk with us.”

Israel served as ‘main course’ at EU dinner, official says

The Jerusalem Post (Link) - Herb Keinon (June 22, 2011)

Quartet envoys are expected to meet in Brussels at the end of the week amid increasing concern in Jerusalem that the EU hopes to avert a Palestinian statehood bid at the UN in September by, as one senior Israeli official said on Wednesday, “giving something” significant to the Palestinians.

According to the official, the concern was that the EU is pushing for the adoption of US President Barack Obama’s formula of restarting negotiations using the pre-1967 lines with mutually agreed land swaps as a baseline, but without pressing the Palestinians to elaborate on security arrangements of any future accord with Israel.

The official also said the Palestinians wouldn’t be pressed to acknowledge Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people as a baseline for negotiations.

Many in Europe feel that something significant must be given to the Palestinians to get them to back down from their bid to get the UN General Assembly to recognize Palestinian statehood, the official said.

Where Is the Church in the Meltdown?

Olive Tree Ministries (Link) - Todd Strandberg (June 15, 2011)

There are growing indications that the U.S. economy is headed back towards negative growth. The recovery that economists claim we’ve been having over the past several months has been mild at best. The unemployment rate went from a high of over 10 percent to just under 9 percent. We still have 16 million Americans out of work, and nearly 25 percent of the workforce is underemployed.

Several key financial indicators are pointing to a slowdown. Here are a few:

Obama urges Europe not to support Palestine’s U.N. statehood bid

International Business Times (Link) (May 26, 2011)

The US is worried that a unilateral support would isolate Israel, as British Prime Minister David Cameron is vague about the Palestine’s statehood bid.

President Barack Obama launched a campaign to convince the European leaders not to bid for a separate Palestinian state. But the only response he got from Cameron was noncommittal.

After a meeting on Wednesday with Obama, Cameron said the time was not yet right for to decide on the Palestinian bid for the United Nations’ recognition.

Palestinian Authority is expected to make the appeal at the U.N. General Assembly in September.

Obama’s abandonment of America

Caroline Glick (Link) - Caroline Glick (May 20, 2011)

I was out sick yesterday so I was unable to write today’s column for the Jerusalem Post. I did manage to watch President Obama’s speech on the Middle East yesterday evening. And I didn’t want to wait until next week to discuss it. After all, who knows what he’ll do by Tuesday?

Before we get into what the speech means for Israel, it is important to consider what it means for America.

Quite simply, Obama’s speech represents the effective renunciation of the US’s right to have and to pursue national interests. Consequently, his speech imperils the real interests that the US has in the region - first and foremost, the US’s interest in securing its national security.

Israeli rebuke of Obama exposes divide on Mideast

Reuters (Link) - Jeffrey Heller & Matt Spetalnick (May 20, 2011)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bluntly told President Barack Obama on Friday his vision of how to achieve Middle East peace was unrealistic, exposing a deep divide that could doom any U.S. bid to revive peace talks.

In an unusually sharp rebuke to Israel’s closest ally, Netanyahu insisted Israel would never pull back to its 1967 borders -- which would mean big concessions of occupied land -- that Obama had said should be the basis for negotiations on creating a Palestinian state.

“Peace based on illusions will crash eventually on the rocks of Middle East reality,” an unsmiling Netanyahu said as Obama listened intently beside him in the Oval Office after they met for talks.

Netanyahu insisted that Israel was willing to make compromises for peace, but made clear he had major differences with Washington over how to advance the long-stalled peace process.

Netanyahu’s resistance raises the question of how hard Obama will push for concessions he is unlikely to get, and whether the vision the U.S. leader laid out on Thursday to resolve the decades-old conflict will ever get off the ground.

Obama’s Speech Sends Chills Through Netanyahu Government

Fox News (Link) - Leland Vittert (May 19, 2011)

When reached via cell phone immediately after President Obama’s speech urging a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s spokesman Mark Regev sounded as though he had been slapped in the face.

Netanyahu swiftly rejected Obama’s call for Israel to pull back to the borders that existed before the 1967 Six-Day War. Roughly translated from Hebrew, a statement from the Prime Minister’s office said that they appreciated Obama’s commitment to peace, but called the pullback to the 1967 borders “indefensible,” and said that the Palestinians were less than an honest partner in the peace process.

While the idea of using the 1967 borders as a starting point to negotiate land swaps for a final peace deal is not new, hearing an American president use those words sent chills through the Netanyahu government, which is loathe to even think the words “’67 borders.”

Every Israeli television channel carried the speech live and commentators did not have to wait for a formal reaction to the speech to comment that Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition government would feel both blindsided and abandoned by a U.S. administration that has never been viewed as a friend.

Summer war in the Middle East?

Asia Times (Link) - Victor Kotsev (April 28, 2011)

Spring has come to the Middle East - not the Arab spring, unfortunately - and it is time for the annual billion-dollar question: will there be a big summer war? Indeed, it is a question worth multiple billions of dollars, as it has been codified into an elaborate ritual featuring ever-shifting alliances, “incidents,” threats, ever-accelerating arms procurement, and (surprise?) large speculative bets on the financial markets.

Big military campaigns in the Middle East have historically happened during or around the summer. With some exceptions, this continues to be true today, for a variation of the same historic reasons - the weather is best, meaning that air power is most efficient and ground maneuvers by large forces are easier, and the harvest has largely been collected, meaning that manpower is more readily available and war poses a lesser challenge to the national economies.

Thus, every spring politicians, investors and pundits become unusually restless and try to predict - if not determine - what will happen. It is a flare-up of activity in a game of intricate tactics and strategies, where war and politics form a full, endless circle. The game includes risky bets, secret maneuvers and intense though usually short bouts of violence (hardly any major war in the Levant since 1948 has lasted for longer than a month, mostly because of the enormous costs of modern warfare and resupply issues).

Obama’s plan: Palestinian state, without right of return

YNet News (Link) - Yitzhak Benhorin (April 21, 2011)

The White House has been working on a new peace initiative for the past three months, one that revolves around a few key principles: A Palestinian state without the right of return, Jerusalem as the capital of both states, and an emphasis on Israel’s security needs.

According to an article published in the New York Times Thursday, the details of the proposal are yet to be hashed out.

Officials at the Prime Minister’s Office did not rush to respond to the NY Times report. Thursday evening, sources in Jerusalem said that Israel was not surprised by the American plan currently being worked out.

“Everyone knew something is being formulated in Washington,” one official said.

At this time it’s unclear whether Prime Minister Netanyahu was aware of the initiative and gave it his blessing. Some officials estimated that the Obama plan is meant to affect the PM’s upcoming speech, which is expected to feature Israel’s new peace initiative.

‘US will have hard time standing alone in UN’

YNet News (Link) - Attila Somfalvi (April 13, 2011)

Israeli state officials estimated Wednesday that the US decision to postpone a European initiative to set parameters for peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians will involve a price to be paid by Benjamin Netanyahu. “The prime minister will be forced to outline his plans in a clear manner,” one state official said.

Israel has been working to prevent UN support in a unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state, however efforts to block endorsement have thus far failed. State officials now believe such efforts are futile, particularly in regards to the General Assembly.

An Israeli official said: “Obama wants a Palestinian state and although the US is not interested in a unilateral declaration, it would be hard for it to stand alone in the General Assembly and vote against it.”

In fact, many state officials believe Israel has failed on the UN front. “The fact that the Americans stopped the Quartet’s plan only proves how deeply we depend on them,” one official said. “But this hold-up will not change matters in the General Assembly and this is a trend we cannot change.”

Is this Obama’s next target after Libya?

WorldNet Daily (Link) - Aaron Klein With research by Chris Elliott (April 11, 2011)

Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa served on the committee that invented the military doctrine used by President Obama as the main justification for U.S. and international airstrikes against Libya, WND has learned.

The discovery is particularly pertinent because on Sunday Moussa announced during a special meeting in Cairo that the Arab League plans to press the U.N. to impose a no-fly zone over the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip similar to the one imposed now on Libya.

Moussa said he plans to present the proposal to the U.N. Security Council.

The call comes as Hamas has fired over 140 rockets into Jewish civilian population zones, prompting Israel to carry out anti-terror operations in Gaza aimed at diminishing Hamas’ rocketing capabilities.

As WND was first to report, billionaire philanthropist George Soros is a primary funder and key proponent of the Global Centre for Responsibility to Protect, the world’s leading organization pushing the military doctrine. Several of the doctrine’s main founders sit on multiple boards with Soros.

Israel threatens unilateral steps if UN recognizes Palestinian state

Haaretz (Link) - Barak Ravid (March 29, 2011)

Israel informed the 15 members of the United Nations Security Council last week, as well as several other prominent European Union countries, that if the Palestinian Authority persists in its efforts to gain recognition in September as a state within the 1967 borders, Israel would respond with a series of unilateral steps of its own.

Senior Foreign Ministry officials said the ministry’s director general, Rafael Barak, sent a classified cable last week to more than 30 Israeli embassies, directing them to lodge a diplomatic protest at the highest possible level in response to the Palestinian efforts to gain international recognition for statehood at the UN General Assembly session in September.

The Israeli diplomatic corps conveyed the message that support for international recognition, particularly by most of the members of the European Union, encouraged the Palestinians to forgo negotiations with Israel and to move more quickly toward recognition at the UN of Palestinian statehood. Israeli diplomats stressed that such a move violates the Oslo Accords and will not lead to a Palestinian state even if the General Assembly grants recognition, but could lead to violence on the ground.

‘New’ Egypt But Same Old Shariah

Investor’s Business Daily (Link) (March 22, 2011)

Islamofascism: The media sold the Cairo riots as the birth pangs of “democracy” in the Mideast. Egyptians want “freedom,” we were told. But their version of freedom means voting in Islamic law.

Over the weekend, 77% of Egyptians approved constitutional amendments drafted in part by the radical Muslim Brotherhood. As we predicted based on recent Pew polling of Egyptian attitudes, the post-Mubarak constitution enshrines Shariah law and gives the banned Brotherhood a spot on the ballot.

It was the biggest turnout in the nation’s first fair elections in more than six decades. Only, Egypt’s first test of transition to “democracy” resembled what ended up happening in the Gaza Strip, when Palestinians voted Hamas into power in their first “free elections.”

After winning the 2006 election, which was endorsed by the Bush administration, Hamas vowed not to impose Islamic law. But after almost four years of Hamas rule, secularism has been driven out of Gaza. Women with full face veils are now a common sight. Cinemas have been burned down, novels confiscated by religious police.

UN intervention into Libya an ominous precedent for Israel

Center For Security Policy (Link) - Frank Gaffney, Jr. (March 21, 2011)

There are many reasons to be worried about the bridge-leap the Obama Administration has just undertaken in its war with Muammar Gaddafi. How it will all end is just one of them.

Particularly concerning is the prospect that what we might call the Gaddafi Precedent will be used in the not-to-distant future to justify and threaten the use of U.S. military forces against an American ally: Israel.

Here’s how such a seemingly impossible scenario might eventuate:

The Rise of Samantha Power and the risks for the American- Israel relationship

American Thinker (Link) - Ed Lasky (March 20, 2011)

As stories leak out regarding who was responsible for Barack Obama’s sudden pivot from passivity regarding Libya towards military engagement (albeit with England and France being in the lead) one name has emerged as playing a key role in persuading him to push the button: Samantha Power.

Her influence might cause qualms among supporters of the American-Israel relationship. As has been covered by American Thinker and others (notably Noah Pollak in Commentary Contentions, among them), Power has been critical of the strength of this friendship and alliance. This concern should be now be heightened. Not only has she emerged as a key player in foreign policy but the rationale that was used to justify American actions towards Libya can be used by other nations - if not the United States - to justify more active involvement in the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

Power was Barack Obama’s most influential foreign policy adviser during the campaign; they go back years and are basketball and Blackberry buddies. Any influence she has would not be good for the American-Israel relationship-for reasons outlined here and here (where she said this regarding problems Barack Obama had during the campaign; “So much of it is about: Is he good for the Jews?”).

Column One: A win-win plan for Netanyahu

The Jerusalem Post (Link) - Caroline B. Glick (March 11, 2011)

The most effective way to defend Israel against Obama is to boldly assert, defend and implement a unilateral Israeli plan.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is stuck between a diplomatic rock and a political hard place. And his chosen means of extricating himself from the double bind is only making things worse for him and for Israel.

Diplomatically, Netanyahu is beset by the Palestinian political war to delegitimize Israel and the Obama administration’s escalating hostility. That hostility was most recently expressed during President Barack Obama’s meeting with American Jewish leaders on March 1. Insinuating that Israel is to blame for the absence of peace in the Middle East, Obama scolded Jewish leaders, telling them to “search your souls” over Israel’s seriousness about making peace.

Obama’s newest threat is that through the so called Middle East Quartet, (Russia, the UN, the EU and the US), the administration will move towards supporting the Palestinian plan to declare statehood. That state would include all of Judea and Samaria, Gaza and eastern, southern and northern Jerusalem. Since it would not be established in the framework of a peace treaty with Israel, and since its leaders reject Israel’s right to exist, “Palestine” would be born in a de facto state of war with Israel.

To credit this threat, Obama has empowered the Quartet to supplant the US as the mediator between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Wis. governor: GOP won’t be ‘bullied’ by union bill protesters

The Hill (Link) - Jordan Fabian (February 18, 2011)

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) says his party has been emboldened by massive protests against his controversial budget plan.

Walker said demonstrators who filled the state capitol building in Madison and the boycott by state Senate Democrats — some of whom fled the state in protest — have steeled the resolve of members of his party.

“If anything, I think it’s made the Republicans in the Assembly and the Senate stronger,” he told Fox News’s Greta Van Susteren in an interview Thursday night. “They’re not going to be bullied. They’re not going to be intimidated.”

Walker also fired back at President Obama, who sided with the public employees, saying on Fox News Friday, “We are focused on balancing our budget. It would be wise for the government and others in Washington to focus on balancing their budgets, which they are a long way off from doing.”