Leadership
King Barack Flips American Voters the Bird
I have never seen anything like this in the sixty-one years of my life:
A United States president, acting like a monarch or dictator, thumbs his nose at the American people he is supposed to lead and protect, granting de facto amnesty to millions of illegal aliens by executive fiat.
President Obama’s November 20 executive action is bad for the country, is a blatant abuse of Constitutional power and directly contradicts the expressed will of the American people.
I will focus on the latter point. He acts like a king with utter disdain for the people.
It’s time to stop tip-toeing around the presidential problem we face. We are being gamed by a narcissistic president who cares more for his agenda than those that he serves..
And here’s what we need to do about it.
Last night President Barack Obama did something that no American president has ever done. He symbolically displayed his middle finger to the American people he is supposed to listen to and represent–as well as the Congress who makes our laws–and acted like a king who creates law, interprets and enforces them.
We haven’t seen those brazen actions on our shores for nearly 240 years when King George III did the same with the American colonists–making laws without their consent–which precipitated the Revolutionary War and the birth of the USA.
When a humble George Washington became our first president, he rigorously resisted the easy temptation to be called “Your Majesty” and rule like a king. No–he said calling him “Mr. President” was enough, and that republican institutions were to make laws only through the peoples’ elected representatives.
George Washington was a humble leader with great character.
Barack Obama seems to be completely lacking in this most important quality of leadership.
In the past few decades we’ve seen other presidents–both Democrat and Republican–chastised by the voters in mid-tem elections–come out humbled and working for the good of the nation.
In 1986, Democrats took over both the House and the Senate during the Reagan years. A humbled Ronald Reagan accepted the verdict of the voters and began working with House Speaker Tip O’Neill for the good of the nation. Economic prosperity followed.
Twelve years later, Bill Clinton’s government was shellacked in the mid-term elections. He, too, humbled himself, listened to the people and committed to working with Capitol Hill on major achievements which included welfare reform and a balanced budget.
When good leaders are rebuked, they learn (even when they may have mixed motives for changing). When bad leaders are chastised, they react in pride and disdain.
Last evening, Barack Obama gave a smooth yet deceptive speech. He decided to go around Congress and allow certain unlawful residents with established roots to “come out of the shadows” because mass deportation of illegal immigrants “would be both impossible and contrary to our character.”
“I hear those concerns,” he added in a speech that quoted both Moses and George W. Bush, but “immigrants are a net plus for our economy and our society.”
It all sounded good and almost reasonable at certain points. But the entire presentation was lawless in nature and deceptive to the core.
Before we analyze his action, let’s look at what Barack Obama, acting like a king, did on November 20 to lead our immigration system into certain chaos.
Specifically, the president’s executive action will:
- Create a new deferred deportation program for parents of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent resident children if they have been in the country for more than five years.
- Grant work permits for three years if they pass background checks and pay back taxes and fees. In nearly all states, the people who are granted legal status will be entitled to driver’s licenses.
- Expand protection from deportation to more “Dreamers,” or people who came to the U.S. illegally as children, and grant more work permits to high-skilled workers.
- Establish a new priority system for deporting illegal immigrants, requiring the Department of Homeland Security to focus on people serving jail time for criminal offenses.
- Add more immigration judges to the border region so illegal immigrants who are deemed low-priority can be released more quickly, and recent border crossers and those with serious criminal records can be deported.
While the president portrayed his edict as necessary to address long-standing immigration problems, giddy Democrats who held immigration parties across the nation also believe President Obama’s action will buy them millions of Hispanic votes and provide progressive candidates with an electoral edge for years to come.
And he enacted the ruling like a tin-pot dictator–against the wishes of the American people. Columnist John Hayward comments:
“It’s still striking that not a single poll can be produced showing majority support for what Obama did last night, including some resistance from people who are generally in favor of all that “pathway to citizenship” stuff but oppose the way Obama is forcing it down their throats. The most recent election could not have made it more clear that the American electorate doesn’t want this. But Obama seized new powers to override the American people, acting as the representative of foreign citizens.”
That’s an incredibly deaf abuse of power and wrong priorities.
The 2014 mid-term elections, which just rolled through the nation as a thunder storm, were a clear repudiation of two Obama policies: Obamacare (ACA) and amnesty for illegals. You can’t interpret the results any other way unless you live in a fantasy world.
Election 2014 was a refutation of Barack Obama’s policies and priorities. As he likes to say:
“Period.”
Let’s analyze the timing of the president’s announcement.
Barack Obama would like us to think that his executive order is based on what he knows is best for the American people and nation.
But that doesn’t square with reality. President Obama and his party controlled both the Congress and the presidency for the first two years of his term. If they really believed Americans wanted to legalize illegal entrants into the country en masse, then it would have been easy to pass comprehensive immigration reform without a fight. Write the bill. Pass it in both chambers and sign it into law.
Why didn’t they do it? Because they knew that the American people didn’t want illegal aliens being treated better than legal-in-the-process immigrants that America has always loved and championed.
We are a nation of immigrants—legal ones!—who believe in the rule of law and fairness.
The Democrats knew this and punted. Barack Obama also knew he couldn’t be re-elected in 2012 if he went against the wishes of the American people on such a major issue.
After he was re-elected, he pushed through the Senate another bill (with the help of a few Republicans) that the House refused to take up. Why did they table it? Because the People’s House knew that the folks didn’t support it.
Why did Barack Obama not push that bill prior to the 2014 elections? Because he knew if he did, then there might not be one Democrat left in either chamber of Congress. The shellacking would have been even worse than it was.
So after hearing the people speak in the 2014 election, he should have humbled himself like Reagan and Clinton and many other presidents, listened to the voice of the people, and gone to Congress after the lame-duck session to put together a good bill that will benefit the America people as well as take into account those who came to our nation unlawfully.
He refused to listen, and with no other elections to bind him, decided to act like a spoiled child or a self-absorbed dictator and rule by presidential fiat.
And why did he do that? Is it because he really wants to do “what’s best for America?”
I don’t think so. It’s a political move—plain and simple. Barack Obama believes that granting de facto amnesty to millions of Hispanics will help the Democrats win elections for years to come.
He did it for votes–nothing else.
So what should we do about this partisan and reckless act by a man who would be emperor?
1. Like the Committees of Correspondence of Revolutionary times, we need to make our voices heard that we want a secure border, a stream-lined legal process for legal immigration, and some penalties and process for those who broke our laws. That applies to adults only (kids are not responsible for their parents’ sins). Both the Heritage Foundation and Bill O’Reilly offer sensible plans for dealing with immigration.
2. We need to pray for the new Congress to wisely resist this president’s authoritarian tendencies in all area of his administration. May God give them specific wisdom to resist bad policies and enact righteous solutions that the nation truly wants and needs.
3. We must have a long memory—two years to be exact—and elect a humble and competent president in 2016 who will help reverse the bad decisions of the past few years and lead America once again into a time of moral, economic, and social renewal.
No more snubs by would-be monarchs should be tolerated in our nation.
To quote the early colonists, “We have no king but Jesus!”
What the Republicans Should Do
The Republican Party clobbered the Democrats in the recent election because concerned voters came out in droves because they do not like the direction we’re heading as a nation.
Republicans now hold 31 state governorships, will end up with an eight or nine vote margin in the US Senate (the most recent pick-up being Dan Sullivan in Alaska), and have more seats in the “People’s House” than anytime since 1929.
That means that the current American electoral map looks pretty red.
Disgruntled Dems and their media allies now talk about “getting along” in Washington and the so-called problem of “gridlock.”
Neither are problems. They are blessings.
Here’s what the Republicans should do.
My Republican wish-list will be put into a David Letterman “Top Ten” format. And since the elections have been so consuming and intense lately, let’s start with another Letterman ten-fer which will get us to laugh a bit before going back to election analysis.
Laughter is good for the soul, both of people and nations (Proverbs 17:22)
A Few Laughs with David Letterman
If you are not a Seattle Seahawk fan, you probably missed a nearly-frightening circumstance that occurred at last Sunday’s game between the ‘Hawks and the New York Giants.
During the pre-game festivities, Taima, the Seahawk mascot–a large, menacing bird–was released as usual in the stadium to take its traditional swoop across the field and land on the arm of its trainer.
Instead of coming down to earth predictably, Taima went up into the crowd and landed on a man’s head, scuffling around on his hoodie. The amazing fan showed great self-control at being dive-bombed by the vicious hawk.
I think I would have been petrified.
Here is David Letterman’s Top Ten on what the man under “hawk-attack” must have been thinking:
Number Ten – “I shouldn’t have used salmon-scented shampoo this morning!”
Number Nine – “Can I keep him?”
Number Eight – “How about a selfie?”
Number Seven – “Can you drop me off in parking lot B?”
Number Six – “Beats the time I was groped by the Philly fanatic.”
Number Five – “He probably smells my hawk.”
Number Four – “Thanks a lot, Obama!”
Number Three – “My toupee!”
Number Two – “First $12 beers and now this!”
Number One – “Yum, wings!”
If you want to see the hawk landing, and Letterman’s humorous reply, you can view them here.
Oh–one more item on the hawk mal-function. Taima, the Seahawk mascot, to make sure he didn’t get in trouble with the NFL (they have enough problems right now), offered up this “statement” after the incident:
“I apologize to my family, fellow birds everywhere, the Seahawks organization and fans. I am embarrassed by the pre-game incident and poor judgment I showed. Please understand my actions were not consistent with the type of bird I want to become. Go Me’s!”
That’s pretty funny too.
It brings to mind what the Democrats should have said after the people sent them packing November 4th (it seems all we’ve heard are excuses and sour grapes):
Here’s what the Democratic press release should have stated:
“We apologize to you the America voter, and fellow Americans everywhere. We are embarrassed at how we have led this nation in the past six years and the poor judgment we’ve shown on the economy and foreign policy. Please forgive us for ramming bills through Congress and using Executive orders on things not consistent with democratic principles and ideals. We commit to serving the wishes of the people according to the guidelines in the Constitution. Go USA!”
Actually, I think if they’d have shown some humility, their numbers would be already rising. There’s something beautiful about honesty, humbleness and repentance.
But back to some real election analysis.
What the Republicans Should Do
First, let’s dismiss the drivel about “getting along” in Congress and the problem of “gridlock.” These concepts mean nothing in the present battle for America. The national press would have you believe that the Republicans should now somehow “get along” with the Democrats. Translation: Don’t push your Republican/backed-by-the people ideas. Just submit to the Democratic agenda.
That’s nonsense. The Republicans won this election. It’s only right for the Dems to do the submitting to the will of the America people–not the other way around.
As for the concept of gridlock, it’s actually a good thing for the next two years. The press would have you believe that’s bad for America because the mainstream media want secularism and democratic socialism to continue their march. They believe that anything that stops this imperative is “obstructionist,” “partisan,” and yielding to “gridlock.”
Poppycock
When there’s a huge fire consuming the road ten miles ahead, it’s gridlock that saves you from zipping in the flames.
It’s a blessing–a good thing. Necessary to save the Republic.
So what should the Republican Party, in responding to the will of the people, do for the next twenty-four months and beyond?
Here’s my Top-Ten List:
Number Ten – Stop the progressive agenda. Be firm and don’t compromise with bad policies. You won. Act like it. And, in order to reverse the damage that has been down to our nation over the past six years and beyond, the Rs must patiently work toward winning the next presidential election. If they don’t do that, America’s fall may not be reversed. Two-thirds of government is not enough. We need a Reagan-like statesman or woman in 2016 to truly turn our national tide (and slide). Don’t settle for anything less.
Number Nine – Approve the Keystone Pipeline. The US is experiencing an energy renaissance where we could lead the world over the next few decades. The progressive focus on global warming and renewable fuels is a misguided tangent. Let’s become the new Saudi Arabia in the coming decades both in oil and natural gas while protecting our environment. This will bring a surge of good, high-paying jobs.
Number Eight – Pass the Republican alternative to Obamacare sign it into law once the Supreme Court strikes down the illegal exchange subsidies (which may happen next summer). The Republican bill honors pre-existing conditions, forces no one to have insurance, is doctor-patient centered, and is not a one-size-fits all monstrosity. When the Supreme Court rules next summer, millions of people will lose their insurance and need coverage. Force president Obama to sign the Republican alternative knowing that a veto would bring down the wrath of the American electorate and leave millions without coverage.
Number Seven – Focus your rhetoric and priorities on the rebirth of faith, family, and freedom across the length and breadth of the fruited plane. This is what Americans want. It is their birthright. They want to us to remain “America,”–not become a dying, secular socialist democracy. Cast vision for these principles and the people will follow you.
Number Six – Strengthen and rebuild the military by using the power of the purse. We live in a dangerous world where America’s military might is necessary to defeat evil powers. Congress should re-fund America’s heroes to allow them to protect our shores and lift up the lamp of liberty in other nations.
Number Five – Protect our most fundamental right to religious liberty and conscience in all aspects of American society. Pass any necessary laws allowing people to express that faith in and through their businesses, schools, and neighborhoods in the United States without penalty or persecution.
Number Four – Prepare a Balanced Budget Amendment, and promise to pass it when we elect a Republican president in 2016. The 18 trillion dollar national debt has not gone away and may be up to twenty trillion when Barack Obama leaves office. Only a balanced budget amendment can bring our nation back into economic sanity and health.
Number Three – Change the tax code either through a Flat Tax or Fair Tax and lower the corporate income tax rates to the lowest in the world. This will bring trillions of dollars back home for investment, create fairness in the tax system, and stimulate the growth of millions of jobs over the next decade.
Number Two – Seal the southern border with fences, boots and technology. Then streamline and increase legal immigration to two or three million a year while sending any current illegal immigrants to the back of the immigration line.
Number One – Champion the sacredness of marriage between one man and one woman and commit to rebuilding the American family (especially in cities and minority areas). Marriage and family are the cornerstones of any great society.
These are the ten things that Republicans should do to bring God’s blessing back to the United States of America.
Those are my ideas. I’d love to hear yours.
The New Nazis and a Lone Prophetic Voice
On September 29, 2014, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke before the the United Nations General Assembly. His remarks reminded me of Winston Churchill in 1939–a lone prophetic voice of moral clarity in a sea of drivel.
He warned that a new group of “Nazis” threaten the entire world. He deplored the UN’s duplicity of speaking against ISIS while supporting Hamas and caving in to nuclear-bound Iran. His words were sobering yet carried a ring of truth.
I wish he’d gone further. We need to dismantle the corrupt and inept United Nations and call for a new global alignment to take its place.
Let’s call it Free Nations--whose members must be committed to truth, justice, and liberty.
That, and the return of Jesus Christ, are our only hopes of winning World War III.
Listen to the prophet’s words.
This speech is worth reading in its entirety. I have edited it slightly, and have placed some captions and highlights to clarify his main points.
If the reality of Israeli nationhood, the inspiration of its leader, and the truths he shares don’t convince you of God’s reality, then nothing ever will.
May we hear the voice of the prophet and rise to defeat evil in our day.
Benjamin Netanyahu
Ladies and Gentleman,
The people of Israel pray for peace. But our hopes and the world’s hope for peace are in danger. Because everywhere we look, militant Islam is on the march.
Militant Islam
It’s not militants. It’s not Islam. It’s militant Islam. Typically, its first victims are other Muslims, but it spares no one. Christians, Jews, Yazidis, Kurds – no creed, no faith, no ethnic group is beyond its sights. And it’s rapidly spreading in every part of the world. You know the famous American saying: “All politics is local”? For the militant Islamists, “All politics is global.” Because their ultimate goal is to dominate the world.
Now, that threat might seem exaggerated to some, since it starts out small, like a cancer that attacks a particular part of the body. But left unchecked, the cancer grows, metastasizing over wider and wider areas. To protect the peace and security of the world, we must remove this cancer before it’s too late.
Last week, many of the countries represented here rightly applauded President Obama for leading the effort to confront ISIS. And yet weeks before, some of these same countries, the same countries that now support confronting ISIS, opposed Israel for confronting Hamas. They evidently don’t understand that ISIS and Hamas are branches of the same poisonous tree.
ISIS and Hamas share a fanatical creed, which they both seek to impose well beyond the territory under their control.
Listen to ISIS’s self-declared caliph, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi. This is what he said two months ago: “A day will soon come when the Muslim will walk everywhere as a master… The Muslims will cause the world to hear and understand the meaning of terrorism… and destroy the idol of democracy.” Now listen to Khaled Meshaal, the leader of Hamas. He proclaims a similar vision of the future: “We say this to the West… By Allah you will be defeated. Tomorrow our nation will sit on the throne of the world.”
As Hamas’s charter makes clear, Hamas’s immediate goal is to destroy Israel. But Hamas has a broader objective. They also want a caliphate. Hamas shares the global ambitions of its fellow militant Islamists. That’s why its supporters wildly cheered in the streets of Gaza as thousands of Americans were murdered on 9/11. And that’s why its leaders condemned the United States for killing Osama Bin Laden, whom they praised as a holy warrior.
ISIS and Hamas the Same
So when it comes to their ultimate goals, Hamas is ISIS and ISIS is Hamas.
And what they share in common, all militant Islamists share in common: • Boko Haram in Nigeria; • Ash-Shabab in Somalia; • Hezbollah in Lebanon; • An-Nusrah in Syria; • The Mahdi Army in Iraq; • And the Al-Qaeda branches in Yemen, Libya, the Philippines, India and elsewhere.
Some are radical Sunnis, some are radical Shi’ites. Some want to restore a pre-medieval caliphate from the 7th century. Others want to trigger the apocalyptic return of an imam from the 9th century. They operate in different lands, they target different victims and they even kill each other in their quest for supremacy. But they all share a fanatic ideology. They all seek to create ever expanding enclaves of militant Islam where there is no freedom and no tolerance – Where women are treated as chattel, Christians are decimated, and minorities are subjugated, sometimes given the stark choice: convert or die. For them, anyone can be an infidel, including fellow Muslims.
Militant Islam’s ambition to dominate the world seems mad. But so too did the global ambitions of another fanatic ideology that swept to power eight decades ago.
The New Nazis
The Nazis believed in a master race. The militant Islamists believe in a master faith. They just disagree about who among them will be the master… of the master faith. That’s what they truly disagree about. Therefore, the question before us is whether militant Islam will have the power to realize its unbridled ambitions.
There is one place where that could soon happen: The Islamic State of Iran. For 35 years, Iran has relentlessly pursued the global mission which was set forth by its founding ruler, Ayatollah Khomeini, in these words: “We will export our revolution to the entire world.”
Listen to its current commander, General Muhammad Ali Ja’afari. And he clearly stated this goal. He said: “Our Imam did not limit the Islamic Revolution to this country… Our duty is to prepare the way for an Islamic world government…” Iran’s President Rouhani stood here last week, and shed crocodile tears over what he called “the globalization of terrorism.”
Maybe he should spare us those phony tears and have a word instead with the commanders of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. He could ask them to call off Iran’s global terror campaign, which has included attacks in two dozen countries on five continents since 2011 alone. To say that Iran doesn’t practice terrorism is like saying Derek Jeter never played shortstop for the New York Yankees.
This bemoaning of the Iranian president of the spread of terrorism has got to be one of history’s greatest displays of double-talk.
Now, Some still argue that Iran’s global terror campaign, its subversion of countries throughout the Middle East and well beyond the Middle East, some argue that this is the work of the extremists. They say things are changing. They point to last year’s elections in Iran. They claim that Iran’s smooth talking President and Foreign Minister, they’ve changed not only the tone of Iran’s foreign policy but also its substance. They believe Rouhani and Zarif genuinely want to reconcile with the West, that they’ve abandoned the global mission of the Islamic Revolution.
Really? So let’s look at what Foreign Minister Zarif wrote in his book just a few years ago: “We have a fundamental problem with the West, and especially with America. This is because we are heirs to a global mission, which is tied to our raison d’etre… A global mission which is tied to our very reason of being.”
Nuclear Iran
So don’t be fooled by Iran’s manipulative charm offensive. It’s designed for one purpose, and for one purpose only: To lift the sanctions and remove the obstacles to Iran’s path to the bomb. The Islamic Republic is now trying to bamboozle its way to an agreement that will remove the sanctions it still faces, and leave it with the capacity of thousands of centrifuges to enrich uranium. This would effectively cement Iran’s place as a threshold military nuclear power. In the future, at a time of its choosing, Iran, the world’s most dangerous state in the world’s most dangerous region, would obtain the world’s most dangerous weapons.
Allowing that to happen would pose the gravest threat to us all. It’s one thing to confront militant Islamists on pick-up trucks, armed with Kalashnikov rifles. It’s another thing to confront militant Islamists armed with weapons of mass destruction. Imagine how much more dangerous the Islamic State, ISIS, would be if it possessed chemical weapons. Now imagine how much more dangerous the Islamic state of Iran would be if it possessed nuclear weapons. Would you let ISIS enrich uranium? Would you let ISIS build a heavy water reactor? Would you let ISIS develop intercontinental ballistic missiles? Of course you wouldn’t.
Then you mustn’t let the Islamic State of Iran do those things either.
Because here’s what will happen: Once Iran produces atomic bombs, all the charm and all the smiles will suddenly disappear. They’ll just vanish. It’s then that the ayatollahs will show their true face and unleash their aggressive fanaticism on the entire world. There is only one responsible course of action to address this threat: Iran’s nuclear military capabilities must be fully dismantled. Make no mistake – ISIS must be defeated. But to defeat ISIS and leave Iran as a threshold nuclear power is to win the battle and lose the war.
To defeat ISIS and leave Iran as a threshold nuclear power is to win the battle and lose the war.
The fight against militant Islam is indivisible. When militant Islam succeeds anywhere, it’s emboldened everywhere. When it suffers a blow in one place, it’s set back in every place. That’s why Israel’s fight against Hamas is not just our fight. It’s your fight. Israel is fighting a fanaticism today that your countries may be forced to fight tomorrow.
The Truth About the Recent Israeli-Palestinian War
For 50 days this past summer, Hamas fired thousands of rockets at Israel, many of them supplied by Iran. I want you to think about what your countries would do if thousands of rockets were fired at your cities. Imagine millions of your citizens having seconds at most to scramble to bomb shelters, day after day. You wouldn’t let terrorists fire rockets at your cities with impunity.
Nor would you let terrorists dig dozens of terror tunnels under your borders to infiltrate your towns in order to murder and kidnap your citizens. Israel justly defended itself against both rocket attacks and terror tunnels. Yet Israel also faced another challenge. We faced a propaganda war. Because, in an attempt to win the world’s sympathy, Hamas cynically used Palestinian civilians as human shields. It used schools, not just schools – UN schools, private homes, mosques, even hospitals to store and fire rockets at Israel.
As Israel surgically struck at the rocket launchers and at the tunnels, Palestinian civilians were tragically but unintentionally killed. There are heartrending images that resulted, and these fueled libelous charges that Israel was deliberately targeting civilians.
We were not. We deeply regret every single civilian casualty. And the truth is this: Israel was doing everything to minimize Palestinian civilian casualties. Hamas was doing everything to maximize Israeli civilian casualties and Palestinian civilian casualties. Israel dropped flyers, made phone calls, sent text messages, broadcast warnings in Arabic on Palestinian television, always to enable Palestinian civilians to evacuate targeted areas.
No other country and no other army in history have gone to greater lengths to avoid casualties among the civilian population of their enemies. This concern for Palestinian life was all the more remarkable, given that Israeli civilians were being bombarded by rockets day after day, night after night. As their families were being rocketed by Hamas, Israel’s citizen army – the brave soldiers of the IDF, our young boys and girls – they upheld the highest moral values of any army in the world. Israel’s soldiers deserve not condemnation, but admiration. Admiration from decent people everywhere.
Now here’s what Hamas did: Hamas embedded its missile batteries in residential areas and told Palestinians to ignore Israel’s warnings to leave. And just in case people didn’t get the message, they executed Palestinian civilians in Gaza who dared to protest.
No less reprehensible, Hamas deliberately placed its rockets where Palestinian children live and play.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is a war crime. As Israeli children huddled in bomb shelters and Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system knocked Hamas rockets out of the sky, the profound moral difference between Israel and Hamas couldn’t have been clearer: Israel was using its missiles to protect its children. Hamas was using its children to protect its missiles.
By investigating Israel rather than Hamas for war crimes, the UN Human Rights Council has betrayed its noble mission to protect the innocent. In fact, what it’s doing is to turn the laws of war upside-down. Israel, which took unprecedented steps to minimize civilian casualties, Israel is condemned. Hamas, which both targeted and hid behind civilians – that a double war crime – Hamas is given a pass.
The Human Rights Council is thus sending a clear message to terrorists everywhere: Use civilians as human shields. Use them again and again and again. You know why? Because sadly, it works.
By granting international legitimacy to the use of human shields, the UN’s Human Rights Council has thus become a Terrorist Rights Council, and it will have repercussions. It probably already has, about the use of civilians as human shields.
It’s not just our interest. It’s not just our values that are under attack. It’s your interests and your values.
The New Tyrannies
We live in a world steeped in tyranny and terror, where gays are hanged from cranes in Tehran, political prisoners are executed in Gaza, young girls are abducted en masse in Nigeria and hundreds of thousands are butchered in Syria, Libya and Iraq. Yet nearly half, nearly half of the UN Human Rights Council’s resolutions focusing on a single country have been directed against Israel, the one true democracy in the Middle East – Israel. where issues are openly debated in a boisterous parliament, where human rights are protected by independent courts and where women, gays and minorities live in a genuinely free society.
The Human Rights… (that’s an oxymoron, the UN Human Rights Council, but I’ll use it just the same), the Council’s biased treatment of Israel is only one manifestation of the return of the world’s oldest prejudices. We hear mobs today in Europe call for the gassing of Jews. We hear some national leaders compare Israel to the Nazis. This is not a function of Israel’s policies. It’s a function of diseased minds. And that disease has a name. It’s called anti-Semitism.
It is now spreading in polite society, where it masquerades as legitimate criticism of Israel. For centuries the Jewish people have been demonized with blood libels and charges of deicide. Today, the Jewish state is demonized with the apartheid libel and charges of genocide. Genocide? In what moral universe does genocide include warning the enemy’s civilian population to get out of harm’s way? Or ensuring that they receive tons, tons of humanitarian aid each day, even as thousands of rockets are being fired at us?
In the past, outrageous lies against the Jews were the precursors to the wholesale slaughter of our people.
But no more.
Today we, the Jewish people, have the power to defend ourselves. We will defend ourselves against our enemies on the battlefield. We will expose their lies against us in the court of public opinion. Israel will continue to stand proud and unbowed.
Despite the enormous challenges facing Israel, I believe we have an historic opportunity.
An Opportunity to Unite Against Evil
After decades of seeing Israel as their enemy, leading states in the Arab world increasingly recognize that together we and they face many of the same dangers: principally this means a nuclear-armed Iran and militant Islamist movements gaining ground in the Sunni world.
Our challenge is to transform these common interests to create a productive partnership. One that would build a more secure, peaceful and prosperous Middle East.
Together we can strengthen regional security. We can advance projects in water, agriculture, in transportation, in health, in energy, in so many fields.
I believe the partnership between us can also help facilitate peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Many have long assumed that an Israeli-Palestinian peace can help facilitate a broader rapprochement between Israel and the Arab World. But these days I think it may work the other way around: Namely that a broader rapprochement between Israel and the Arab world may help facilitate an Israeli-Palestinian peace.
And therefore, to achieve that peace, we must look not only to Jerusalem and Ramallah, but also to Cairo, to Amman, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh and elsewhere. I believe peace can be realized with the active involvement of Arab countries, those that are willing to provide political, material and other indispensable support. I’m ready to make a historic compromise, not because Israel is occupying a foreign land. The people of Israel are not occupiers in the Land of Israel. History, archeology and common sense all make clear that we have had a singular attachment to this land for over 3,000 years.
The Middle East is in chaos. States are disintegrating. Militant Islamists are filling the void.
Israel cannot have territories from which it withdraws taken over by Islamic militants yet again, as happened in Gaza and Lebanon. That would place the likes of ISIS within mortar range – a few miles – of 80% of our population.
Land for Peace, or Suicide?
Think about that. The distance between the 1967 lines and the suburbs of Tel Aviv is like the distance between the UN building here and Times Square. Israel’s a tiny country. That’s why in any peace agreement, which will obviously necessitate a territorial compromise, I will always insist that Israel be able to defend itself by itself against any threat. Yet despite all that has happened, some still don’t take Israel’s security concerns seriously. But I do, and I always will. Because, as Prime Minister of Israel, I am entrusted with the awesome responsibility of ensuring the future of the Jewish people and the future of the Jewish state.
And no matter what pressure is brought to bear, I will never waver in fulfilling that responsibility.
I believe that with a fresh approach from our neighbors, we can advance peace despite the difficulties we face.
In Israel, we have a record of making the impossible possible. We’ve made a desolate land flourish. And with very few natural resources, we have used the fertile minds of our people to turn Israel into a global center of technology and innovation.
Peace, of course, would enable Israel to realize its full potential and to bring a promising future not only for our people, not only for the Palestinian people, but for many, many others in our region.
But the old template for peace must be updated. It must take into account new realities and new roles and responsibilities for our Arab neighbors. There is a new Middle East. It presents new dangers, but also new opportunities. Israel is prepared to work with Arab partners and the international community to confront those dangers and to seize those opportunities. Together we must recognize the global threat of militant Islam, the primacy of dismantling Iran’s nuclear weapons capability and the indispensable role of Arab states in advancing peace with the Palestinians.
All this may fly in the face of conventional wisdom, but it’s the truth. And the truth must always be spoken, especially here, in the United Nations.
The Biblical Prophetic Word
Isaiah, our great prophet of peace, taught us nearly 3,000 years ago in Jerusalem to speak truth to power.
“For the sake of Zion, I will not be silent. For the sake of Jerusalem, I will not be still. Until her justice shines bright, And her salvation glows like a flaming torch.”
Let’s light a torch of truth and justice to safeguard our common future.”