(Photo by Reuters)
Conventional wisdom has pegged President Obama as somehow lacking in his deference and cooperation with Israel, under attack from possible presidential rivals and facing a political crisis among Democratic Jewish voters. But shocking new developments and even a cursory glance at the Obama administration’s record on the topic reveals that the president may not be moving the US away from an Israeli alliance, but into a closer and more controversial relationship.
New information discovered by Newsweek magazine indicates that President Obama personally authorized the purchase and transfer of U.S. “bunker busting” bombs to the Israeli military only months after taking office in 2009. The weaponry had been sought for years by Israel, and at least one sale had been rejected by President George W. Bush just a few years earlier.
American officials warned that the consequences of such technology in Israeli hands could be a strike on suspected Iranian nuclear facilities. But the Obama administration approved the transfer regardless, and have continued to aggressively pursue many different forms of military cooperation with the Israeli government of PM Benjamin Netanyahu.
While publicly pressuring Israel to make deeper concessions to the Palestinians, President Obama has secretly authorized significant new aid to the Israeli military that includes the sale of 55 deep-penetrating bombs known as bunker busters, Newsweek has learned.
In an exclusive story to be published Monday on growing military cooperation between the two allies, U.S. and Israeli officials tell Newsweek that the GBU-28 Hard Target Penetrators—potentially useful in any future military strike against Iranian nuclear sites—were delivered to Israel in 2009, just several months after Obama took office.
The military sale was arranged behind the scenes as Obama’s demands for Israel to stop building settlements in disputed territories were fraying political relations between the two countries in public.
The Israelis first requested the bunker busters in 2005, only to be rebuffed by the Bush administration. At the time, the Pentagon had frozen almost all U.S.-Israeli joint defense projects out of concern that Israel was transferring advanced military technology to China.
In 2007, Bush informed Ehud Olmert, then prime minister, that he would order the bunker busters for delivery in 2009 or 2010. The Israelis wanted them in 2007. Obama finally released the weapons in 2009, according to officials familiar with the still-secret decision.
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Obama’s security cooperation extended beyond bunker busters. According to Rep. Steve Rothman (D-NJ), who serves on the committees that fund both the U.S. military and foreign aid, Obama gave “orders to the military to ratchet up the cooperation at every level with Israel.”
While the Obama administration has touted some public cooperation with the Israeli military, Newsweek’s article Monday will reveal other covert efforts by the U.S. military to aid Israel in the volatile Middle East region, and the impact the improving military cooperation has had on the sometimes chilly relations between Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the president’s popularity in the American Jewish community.
Revelations of an unprecedented sale of U.S. military technology and a covert program of American military operations designed to aid Israel mark dangerous territory for a president ostensibly still involved in negotiations for peace in the Middle East. They also run directly counter to some harsh rhetoric used against Obama by candidates for the Republican presidential nomination.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry, the GOP’s leading presidential contender so far, delivered a stinging critique of the president’s attitude towards Israel earlier this week. Toeing the standard conservative line, Perry blasted the president’s policy as “appeasement” of the Palestinians and a “dangerous insult” to Israel.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry ignited a political firestorm Tuesday by declaring President Barack Obama had pushed U.S.-Israeli relations to “the precipice” through “naïve and arrogant, misguided and dangerous” policies.
Appearing with Jewish American leaders and Israeli political figures at a hotel in midtown Manhattan, the Republican presidential hopeful decried the Obama administration’s approach to the Middle East as a “policy of appeasement” and “a dangerous insult” to Americans and Israelis alike.
He called for a policy tilted toward Israel and to “reconsider” U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority.
“There is no middle ground between our allies and those who seek their destruction,” said Perry, who’s being advised on foreign policy by some of the leading neoconservative voices of the George W. Bush administration. “America should not be ambivalent between the terrorist tactics of Hamas and the security tactics of the legitimate and free state of Israel.”
News of the secret bunker buster contract and Rick Perry’s attacks come amidst a backdrop of historic proportions at`the United Nations, where Palestinians are petitioning the international body for recognition as an independent state. Stalled peace talks between the Palestinian Authority and Benjamin Netanyahu’s conservative Israeli government have led to greater international support for statehood recognition, with many European nations standing behind the historic endeavor.
Standing in the way of a Palestinian state is the United States and President Obama, who delivered a keynote address at the UN on Wednesday that laid out firm American opposition to any bid for statehood and demanded that Palestinian leaders continue to engage in as-yet fruitless talks with Israel. Obama and U.S. representatives at the UN have consistently pledged to veto any resolution recognizing Palestinian statehood. It’s enough to make one wonder which side the president is really “appeasing.”
While pundits have insisted the president’s relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is “frosty,” the closeness of the two leaders was hardly in doubt after the president’s UN speech as Netanyahu praised Obama for “standing with Israel” and said he earned a “badge of honor” for singlehandedly blocking statehood.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told President Obama today that his opposition to United Nations recognition of Palestinian statehood is “a badge of honor.”
“I want to thank you Mr. President for standing with Israel and supporting peace,” Netanyahu told Obama before their private meeting today at the United Nations. “We both agree that Palestinians and Israelis should sit down and negotiate. … This is the only way to get a stable and durable peace.”
For his part, Obama told Netanyahu that “the bonds between the U.S. and Israel are unbreakable. Peace cannot be imposed on the parties. It’s going to have to be negotiated. … The ultimate goal of all of us is two states side-by-side living in peace.”
Quite literally pitting America and Israel against much of the world, Obama’s promise of a veto for any vote on Palestinian statehood has brought widespread international condemnation as well as domestic criticism. Some members of his own Democratic Party in Congress have said the president’s position on the UN vote is “wrong.”
President Obama has also made preservation of the vast amounts of financial aid to Israel a priority of his administration. Funneled to defense systems and the Israeli military, the U.S. government has given tens of billions of dollars to Israel over the past decade, not including such secret purchases as the “bunker busters.”
In the midst of a push for deficit reduction, many lawmakers on Capitol Hill had called for slashing the foreign aid budget that includes money for Israel. Republicans in Congress were calling for as much as $16 billion reduction in funding for overseas aid.
In the end, funding for foreign aid was reduced, but nothing was trimmed from over $3 billion in cash earmarked for Israel in the 2012 budget. The taxpayer money is to “to ensure our ally Israel maintains its qualitative military edge,” according to one member of Congress.
The president’s actions at the UN and conscious decision to move the U.S. into a closer relationship with Netanyahu’s government are in stark contrast to what many political analysts are calling a political disaster looming for Obama with Jewish voters before the 2012 election.
Some are already saying that it’s “too late” for Obama to get “large portions of the pro-Israeli community back” before next November.
Jewish voters, a typically reliable bloc for the Democratic Party, are now the focus of Democrats intent on keeping their support and Republicans who see an opportunity to pull them in after New York’s recent special congressional election.
Longtime New York Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf said the election, in which a Republican won the historically Democratic district, was in part a reaction to the president’s approach to Israel. Sheinkopf said the contest served as a “liberating device” for Jewish voters and not just Orthodox Jews, who tend to be more socially conservative.
“It is very unlikely he gets large portions of the pro-Israel community back; it’s too late. Something extraordinarily miraculous would have to occur,” Sheinkopf said. “There is a general sense of betrayal that this guy just doesn’t understand who these Jews are.
“He got his first warning,” Sheinkopf added.
But is the supposed flight of Obama’s “pro-Israeli” base an overblown misconception?
As recently as this summer, the president was cheerfully mingling with major Jewish donors at a “glitzy” event – “billed as an evening of ‘Americans in support of a strong U.S.-Israel relationship’” — hosted by the lobbyist group AIPAC. The event raised $1.5 million for President Obama’s reelection campaign.
For Obama, this meant both talking to the larger Jewish community, as he did in his May 22 speech at the annual meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and speaking directly to Jewish pro-Israel donors.
One such donor event took place at Adler’s Miami home. Democrats in the campaign pointed to this as a sign that even those who had concerns are back on board.
The main event, however, was the June 20 Washington fundraiser. Billed as an evening of “Americans in support of a strong U.S.-Israel relationship,” the dinner with Obama cost attendees from $25,000 per couple to the maximum allowed contribution of $35,800 per person. Organizers say registration exceeded plans by more than 50%, as did the net donation income from the evening, which ended up reaching $1.5 million.
Obama spoke at length from the podium, focusing heavily on the issue of Israel. He promised his steadfast support for the state, while acknowledging the possibility of “tactical disagreements” with the Netanyahu government. After the speech, the president stayed for a closed-door session in which he answered questions about his policy on Israel for another hour.
This is going to take another generation to fix.The current leadership in Israel is dug in, and won’t make any peace deal. They were never interested in peace, just land theft. This will only lead to more conflict.
Obama says ‘peace won’t be imposed by UN resolution…’ but the same hypocrite used a UN resolution to impose peace in Libya only a short while ago!?
If you want a Democrat to be elected POTUS in 2012, you better hope and pray that Obama vetos the Palestinian application as he has promised.
There will never be peace in the Middle East until Israel decides there will. Not because Israel is so great or powerful or right, but because they are simply the only side that can push the process. They are the only side with a functioning infrastructure, a functioning economy, a functioning military, a functioning court and legal system, the only side, in fact, with even a functioning society.
Israel is the only side that can enforce peace. Until they decide to accept that responsibility, there will be no peace. It’s not a matter of politics, or religion, or taking sides, it is, simply, reality. They are the only side that can enforce peace and hold those that break it accountable.