Under these conditions, it’s only a matter of time before Iranian panzers make their final drive to the shores of the Mediterranean! Of course, the greatest point of contention in the matter was Obama’s call for Israel and the Palestinians to establish borders circa 1967. There is nothing terribly new about this demand, as both the Clinton and Bush II administrations conducted talks under the same basic framework. Washington’s support for Israeli-Palestinian frontiers roughly matching those before the Six Day War has merely become more explicit.
Realities on the ground between Israelis and Palestinians will not change because of Obama’s gestures, and Netanyahu has made clear that Israel will continue business as usual with settlement expansion. To neutralize opposition claims that he is jeopardizing the alliance with America, he’ll leverage an extensive and formidable influence network right in Washington. The Likud PM is secure in his freedom of action thanks to the unswerving loyalty of the U.S. Congress, as facilitated by organizations like JINSA and AIPAC[1]. Israel will not only defy its patron, but will likely extract further concessions and technology transfers in addition to the $3 billion in military aid it already receives each year. And Obama will play along to avoid further arousing the wrath of the Lobby- after all, elections are around the corner.
It is Republicans who stand to benefit most from the President’s speech; they immediately sensed an opportunity for new sources of 2012 campaign funds. In their heated denunciations of Obama’s treachery toward Israel, presidential candidates like Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty and Newt Gingrich are looking to cash in on disenchanted Jewish donors who would have normally backed the Democratic Party. The neoconservatives will also use this hysteria-for-profit scheme to reassert control over GOP Evangelicals, for whom Zionism is a sacred cause. The enthusiasm of rank-and-file movement conservatives for the State of Israel is matched only by the contempt shown them by Lobby luminaries. It is easy to sympathize with an ordinary Israeli concerned with the security of his home and family. What’s more difficult to fathom is the devotion of so many American Christians to elites bent on destroying every last trace of traditional faith and culture in our land.