It's Time For Some Truth! Bill Clinton NEVER Balanced a Budget and NEVER Ran a Surplus

On Friday Former President Bill Clinton spoke at the dedication of a bridge at his Presidential library.  During his address he complained that Republicans try to take too much credit for his welfare reform legislation and for balancing the budget. The two parties can argue about who was behind welfare reform, but no one deserves credit for balancing the budget.  The truth is  the United States federal budget was not balanced in any of Bill Clinton's eight years as President. Not once!

The federal government has two types of debt public debt and intra-governmental debt.  Public debt is comprises securities held by investors outside the federal government, including that held by investors, the Federal Reserve System and foreign, state and local governments  Intra-governmental debt comprises Treasury securities held in accounts administered by the federal government, such as the Social Security Trust Fund.

Traditionally the annual federal government budget deficit or surplus is the cash difference between government receipts and spending, ignoring intra-governmental transfers. This is a trick as intra-governmental debt needs to be repaid just like the publicly held debt. This is also how Clinton claimed a surplus in three out of his last four years. (Source for all of the numbers below, US Treasury Direct).

Fiscal Year	End Date		Public Debt	Claimed Surplus
FY1997	09/30/1997		$3.789667T
FY1998	09/30/1998		$3.733864T	$69.2B
FY1999	09/30/1999		$3.636104T	$122.7B
FY2000	09/29/2000		$3.405303T	$230.0B
FY2001	09/28/2001		$3.339310T

These figures include the public debt but not the intra-governmental debt.  Its like paying off your American Express card while ignoring the fact that your Mastercard over the limit and months past due. Your Amex looks great but your budget is not balanced.

When the Treasury department reports the National Debt (now at $14.5 trillion) it counts both public and intra-governmental debt. Clinton's first full budget proposal in 1993 took effect in October 1993 and concluded September 1994 (FY1994) and his last started in October 2000 and ended in September 2001. Using those bookends and subtracting each year's national debt from prior years,  here's the national debt at the end of each year of Clinton Budgets.

Fiscal Year	Year Ending	National Debt	Deficit
FY1993	09/30/1993	$4.411488 trillion	$346.87 billion
FY1994	09/30/1994	$4.692749 trillion	$281.26 billion
FY1995	09/29/1995	$4.973982 trillion	$281.23 billion
FY1996	09/30/1996	$5.224810 trillion	$250.83 billion
FY1997	09/30/1997	$5.413146 trillion	$188.34 billion
FY1998	09/30/1998	$5.526193 trillion	$113.05 billion
FY1999	09/30/1999	$5.656270 trillion	$130.08 billion
FY2000	09/29/2000	$5.674178 trillion	$17.91 billion
FY2001	09/28/2001	$5.807463 trillion	$133.29 billion

To be fair, Clinton's FY 2000 budget came very close, it only added about $18 billion to the national debt, but in his last budget he was back up over $130 billion.

Despite what you may hear from Democrats on the campaign trail, there were no giant surpluses that Bush squandered (Bush did overspend, but there was no surplus to squander). The myth of Clinton balancing the budget and producing surpluses belongs with unicorns and and elves, in the realm of myths. The last president to preside over a balanced budget/surplus was Dwight Eisenhower, whose government saw surpluses of  approximately $2 billion dollars in 1956 and 57.

Neither Bill Clinton nor any Republicans deserve any credit for balancing the budget in the 1990s, because the budget was never balanced.

Clinton's a Liar! Netanyahu Has Agreed To More Concessions Than Rabin Ever Did

Former President Bill Clinton said some pretty outlandish things about the Middle East this week.

During the Clinton Global Initiative in New York, Clinton said the reluctance of Netanyahu to accept peace treaty terms reached at Camp David in 2000 is a main reason for a lack of peace today, The Jerusalem Post reported.

"The two great tragedies in modern Middle Eastern politics, which make you wonder if God wants Middle East peace or not, were [former Prime Minister Yitzhak] Rabin's assassination and [former Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon's stroke," Clinton said Thursday.

Granted, I have never been President of the United States, nor have I ever wasted a good Cuban Cigar the way Clinton did, but I would suggest the fact that Yassar Arafat walked out of the 2000 talks have more do do with the lack of peace than Bibi Netanyahu rejecting terms that were never part of a consummated peace treaty.

As for Sharon, the former president is totally deluded. The withdrawal from Gaza was in 2005, five years after Clinton left the payroll of the United States and placed himself on the payroll of Dubai and Saudi Arabia.Soon after disengagement Hamas started sending missiles into Israeli Territory, if Sharon wasn't in his comatose state at the time he would have turned Gaza into a parking lot and then re-occupied it.

Clinton did work directly with Rabin.  He forgets though that Rabin was a pragmatic man, who negotiated with (and even shook hands with) a terrorist  simply to prevent further bloodshed of innocent Israelis, but he wasn't willing to negotiate away Israel's security or her heritage.

Since his death, the myth of Rabin's peacemaking expanded.  While it is true that he was the Prime Minister who began the "Oslo Process, " it is also true that his final vision for the process was to the right of supposedly "hawkish" Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Rabin did not support the creation of a Palestinian State, while Netanyahu does. Like Bibi, Rabin did not support the division of Jerusalem. Rabin was not the "sacrifice everything for the sake of peace" type that the Labor Party Premiers who came after him. The truth is despite what Bill Clinton Says, Yitzchak Rabin was the last prime minister of Israel that did not support the creation of a Palestinian State.

Nine days before he died, Rabin delivered a speech to the Knesset that laid out his vision for the future of Israel and the disputed territories, including:

• No Palestinian State: "We view the permanent solution in the framework of State of Israel which will include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state, and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority."

• No return to '67 borders: "The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines."

• Control of Jordan Valley: "The security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of that term."

• Gush Katif as model: "The establishment of blocs of settlements in Judea and Samaria, like the one in Gush Katif."

• All settlements remain intact during interim period: "I want to remind you: we committed ourselves, that is, we came to an agreement, and committed ourselves before the Knesset, not to uproot a single settlement in the framework of the interim agreement, and not to hinder building for natural growth."

• United Jerusalem, which will include both Ma'ale Adumim and Givat Ze'ev -- as the capital of Israel, under Israeli sovereignty, while preserving the rights of the members of the other faiths, Christianity and Islam, to freedom of access and freedom of worship in their holy places, according to the customs of their faiths.

• (During interim period) "The responsibility for external security along the borders with Egypt and Jordan, as well as control over the airspace above all of the territories and Gaza Strip maritime zone, remains in our hands.

(The entire speech can be found here)

None of this is done to denigrate the memory of the Israeli PM who was slaughtered 15 years ago, its more to show the true nature of the media and world leaders. They have taken upon themselves to recreate Rabin into something he was not. For many years, Rabin’s legacy was defined by the dreams of  the peace process that he was engaged in with the Palestinians at the time of his murder. Whether this was what he would have wanted has been debated by his relatives and confidants, some of whom were aware of his growing  doubts about the intentions of Yasser Arafat, who was already sabotaging the diplomatic process by ordering terrorist attacks before, during and after the time of Rabin’s assassination.

Bill Clinton have known that at the time of his death Rabin was ready to bail on the Oslo process.

Last year Rabin's daughter Dalia wrote in an Israeli magazine :

"Many people who were close to father told me that on the eve of the murder he considered stopping the Oslo process because of the terror that was running rampant in the streets and that Arafat wasn't delivering the goods.

Father after all wasn't a blind man running forward without thought. I don't rule out the possibility that he considered also doing a reverse on our side.

After all he was someone for whom the security of the state was sacrosanct."

None of this is meant to disparage the memory of Rabin. Indeed, understanding that he was not a blind peace-maker like some of the Prime Ministers who followed him such as Peres, Barak and Olmert, enhances his memory. The Oslo process that he began, came to be roundly criticized as it lead to a deadly violence including the second intifada, while at the same time consolidating the power of the terrorist Arafat. But who can honestly know what would have happened if a crazy zealot didn't strike him down 16 years ago. Oslo might have been over long before the intifada and Arafat might have been sent back to his hiding place in Tripoli.

One thing is for sure, the same people who like Bill Clinton, created the revered image of Yitzchak Rabin vilify Benyamin Netanyahu even though Bibi's positions more moderate than the great peace maker Rabin.

Its very interesting the way history can work if Yitzhak Rabin was alive in 2000 that near deal that Yassir Arafat walked out on would have never happened. Yet Bill Clinton attacks Netanuyahu for having a more moderate position.  His criticism was simply a big political lie, unless of course it depends what is-is.

Hometown Slap-Down: Chicago Trib Tells Obama To Withdraw From 2012

Its not a big deal when I suggest to Obama that he consider not running for reelection, or you hear it from Republican pundits on TV News/Talk shows.  It's even no big deal when unnamed Democrats whisper that the President has no chance of winning and should give way to a Democrat with a better chance of winning.

But when a member of the editorial board of one of the President's hometown papers make the suggestion in print, then it becomes big news. In today's Chicago Tribune. Steve Chapman a member of the Editorial Board held back no punches as wrote just such an opinion piece.

The sputtering economy is about to stall out, unemployment is high, his jobs program may not pass, foreclosures are rampant and the poor guy can't even sneak a cigarette.

His approval rating is at its lowest level ever. His party just lost two House elections — one in a district it had held for 88 consecutive years. He's staked his future on the jobs bill, which most Americans don't think would work.

The vultures are starting to circle. Former White House spokesman Bill Burton said that unless Obama can rally the Democratic base, which is disillusioned with him, "it's going to be impossible for the president to win." Democratic consultant James Carville had one word of advice for Obama: "Panic."

Chapman suggests that Obama should get out before he is thrown out, but then he says something really frightening:

It's not as though there is much enticement to stick around. Presidents who win re-election have generally found, wrote John Fortier and Norman Ornstein in their 2007 book, "Second-Term Blues," that "their second terms did not measure up to their first."

Can you imagine that? If a first term Obama Presidency was bad, history tells us that a second term will be even worse.  This will give people nightmares.

Presidential encores are generally a bog of frustration, exhaustion and embarrassment. They are famous for lowest moments rather than finest hours. Richard Nixon was forced to resign in disgrace, Reagan had the Iran-Contra scandal, and Bill Clinton made the unfortunate acquaintance of Monica Lewinsky.

..Besides avoiding this indignity, Obama might do his party a big favor. In hard times, voters have a powerful urge to punish incumbents. He could slake this thirst by stepping aside and taking the blame. Then someone less reviled could replace him at the top of the ticket.

What is Chapman's solution? that Hilary Clinton become the Democratic Party standard- bearer.

Clinton is a savvy political veteran who already knows how to run for president. Oh, and a new Bloomberg poll finds her to be merely "the most popular national political figure in America today."

If he runs for re-election, Obama may find that the only fate worse than losing is winning. But he might arrange things so it will be Clinton who has the unenviable job of reviving the economy, balancing the budget, getting out of Afghanistan and grappling with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. Obama, meanwhile, will be on a Hawaiian beach, wrestling the cap off a Corona.

Interestingly today former President Bill Clinton commented on Dick Chaney's suggestion that his wife would be a better President than Obama.

"Well, you know, I'm very proud of her, so I'm always gratified whenever anyone says anything nice about her. And I very much agree that she's done a good job," Clinton told Bob Schieffer on CBS's "Face the Nation."

"But I also have a high regard for Vice President Cheney's political skills, and I think one of those great skills is sowing discord among the opposition. So I think he's right that she's done a heck of a job. But she is a member of this administration, and committed to doing it. And I think he, by saying something nice about her in the way that he did, knew that it might cause a little trouble," Clinton continued.

"I don't want to help him succeed in his political strategy. But I admire that he's still out there hitting the ball."

The truth is there is little chance that Hilary Clinton wage a challenge against President Obama, that would splinter the Democratic party into so many pieces it would take years for a united party to reunited again. Even if Obama is somehow booted a Clinton campaign would be fraught with disunity.

In the end, its nice to see the liberal media starting to gripe against the Teflon President, maybe during the next few months, instead of genuflecting at the name Obama, they will start doing their job by reporting the truth whether it helps or hurts the Obamessiah. That would be very interesting to watch.

Democratic Party Strategists Trying to Destabilize Israeli Government

For about a month there have been protests in Israel demanding progressive-type social justice and a more equitable economy, but according to reports their exact demands were not clear, but their language certainly sounded familiar, kind of like what comes out of the Democratic Party camp in the United States. And for very good reason, the protests are AstroTurf, and planned by a prominent Democratic party strategist. 

According to an investigative report by Maariv's Kalman Libeskind, the protests were engineered by a group of media strategists who are directed by prominent Democratic strategist Stanley Greenberg, a former adviser to Bill Clinton, John Kerry and others. Greenberg directed the strategists to create a protest that was not led by one specific group, in order to create social ferment. An unnamed left-wing leader would eventually step into this ferment and take the reins, Greenberg predicted.

The Israeli strategists reportedly include Boaz Gaon, Moshe Gaon and Eldad Yaniv, who worked in Ehud Barak's successful race for Prime Minister in 1999, also in cooperation with Greenberg.

Press reports at around 10:00 p.m. Saturday evening estimated the total number of protesters at anywhere between 100,000 and 400,000. This would be the rough equivalent of the number of people represented by three to thirteen seats in the Knesset.  

The protesters are mostly secular people and the participation of nationalists in the summer-long protest wave has gradually lessened, as details emerge of left-wing involvement in their organization. In Jerusalem, Channel 2 reporter Dafna Liel said most of the protesters are secular people. Liel's mother, Rachel Liel, is Director of the New Israel Fund, which has assisted the protests.

The New Israel Fund is an NGO which gives money to organizations promoting their version of peace in the Middle East including groups that completely reject the legitimacy of Israel and others that reject the Jewish nature of the country.

Its bad enough that the President and Secretary of State are trying to forge policies that will serve to destroy Israel from the outside, but now its strategists are partnering with anti-Israel organizations to destroy Israel from the inside.

Top Quotes From Ann Coulter’s “Demonic: How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America”

Ann Coulter’s Demonic: How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America is an outstanding book filled with her normal helpings of great quotes that are both snarky and though-provoking.It just occurred to John Hawkins that no one has put together a list of the best quotations from the book. So he remedial that error. Below are some of the Gems from John's post:

Time magazine’s Walter Shapiro said that “for the first time in more than 30 years the nation has elected a President with sex appeal.” Shapiro quoted The Boomer Report editor Cheryl Russell saying “Every woman I know is having sex dreams about Bill Clinton.” (If you call nightmares about Bill Clinton dropping his pants “sex dreams,” I guess I was, too.) — P.18

It would be as if, after fighting Democrats for a hundred years over the issue of abortion, Republicans finally got Roe v. Wade overturned, and then, out of pure political calculation, Democrats jumped on the bandwagon and demanded a federal law outlawing abortion. Some pro-life Republicans would probably object that federal law outlawing abortion is not one of Congress’s enumerated powers. On the basis of Republican’s constitutional objections, Democrats would then reverse the entire history of the pro-life movement and start claiming the Democratic Party alone fought to end abortion in America. That is exactly what they have done with the history of civil rights. — P.182

Noticeably, the first abortion doctor was killed not after Roe,but twenty years later, immediately after the 1993 decision upholding Roe, Planned Parenthood v. Casey. In the first few years after Casey, about six more people were killed in attacks on abortion clinics. Most of the abortionists were shot at, depending on your point of view, had a procedure performed on them with a rifle. — P.207

Jon Stewart transmits the party line to idiots, who sit in the audience of The Daily Show and maniacally applaud everything he says. They don’t get all the jokes, but they know who they’re supposed to hate. –P.252

It’s an obsession with the Democrats to nationalize everything: health care, welfare, the speed limit, abortion, the drinking age — so there’s no escape. Like all totalitarians, the Democrats’ position is: We thought up something that we know will work better than anything anyone else has done for the last 30,000 years. We don’t know why no one else has thought of it. We must be smarter. This is why the history of liberalism consists of replacing things that work with things that sounded good on paper. — P.276

These are just a few of many great quotes to be found at the original post at Right Wing News.  I recommend strongly you click here and read the entire post.

Top Congressional Democrats Complain OBAMA IS NOT A LEADER!

This morning on Morning Joe the hosts were discussing the debt ceiling and the president’s handling of the issue with Peggy Noonan who wrote an article very critical of Obama in the WSJ today (among other things she called him a loser).

Scarborough interrupted Noonan to  reveal that just two days ago his co-host ultra-liberal Mika Brzezinski had heard from many Democrats about how disappointed they were in Obama. “Forty or fifty of the most powerful Democrats on the Hill” thought that “the president has been invisible,” and that “he is not a leader,” said Scarborough. They also felt he was abandoning the Congressional Democrats the same way he abandoned them during the Obamacare debate:

(if you cannot sea video below click here)




As for Noonan, she really lit into the POTUS in her column this morning saying he still has the support of the Democrats, but that support has become more tepid.

.....I want to talk about something that started to become apparent to me during the debt negotiations. It's something I've never seen in national politics.

It is that nobody loves Obama. This is amazing because every president has people who love him, who feel deep personal affection or connection, who have a stubborn, even beautiful refusal to let what they know are just criticisms affect their feelings of regard. At the height of Bill Clinton's troubles there were always people who'd say, "Look, I love the guy." They'd often be smiling—a wry smile, a shrugging smile. Nobody smiles when they talk about Mr. Obama. There were people who loved George W. Bush when he was at his most unpopular, and they meant it and would say it. But people aren't that way about Mr. Obama. He has supporters and bundlers and contributors, he has voters, he may win. But his support is grim support. And surely this has implications.

Basically even his supporters don't really trust the man.

The past few weeks I've asked Democrats who supported him how they feel about him. I got back nothing that showed personal investment. Here are the words of a hard-line progressive and wise veteran of the political wars: "I never loved Barack Obama. That said, among my crowd who did 'love' him, I can't think of anyone who still does." Why is Mr. Obama different from Messrs. Clinton and Bush? "Clinton radiated personality. As angry as folks got with him about Nafta or Monica, there was always a sense of genuine, generous caring." With Bush, "if folks were upset with him, he still had this goofy kind of personality that folks could relate to. You might think he was totally misguided but he seemed genuinely so. . . . Maybe the most important word that described Clinton and Bush but not Obama is 'genuine.'" He "doesn't exude any feeling that what he says and does is genuine."

The fact is, he's good at dismantling. He's good at critiquing. He's good at not being the last guy, the one you didn't like. But he's not good at building, creating, calling into being. He was good at summoning hope, but he's not good at directing it and turning it into something concrete that answers a broad public desire.

And so his failures in the debt ceiling fight. He wasn't serious, he was only shrewd—and shrewdness wasn't enough. He demagogued the issue—no Social Security checks—until he was called out, and then went on the hustings spouting inanities. He left conservatives scratching their heads: They could have made a better, more moving case for the liberal ideal as translated into the modern moment, than he did. He never offered a plan. In a crisis he was merely sly. And no one likes sly, no one respects it.

So he is losing a battle in which he had superior forces—the presidency, the U.S. Senate. In the process he revealed that his foes have given him too much mystique. He is not a devil, an alien, a socialist. He is a loser. And this is America, where nobody loves a loser.

 I couldn't  have said it better.  And what is becoming clearer by the day, his own party is beginning to believe him a loser.

Obama Administration's Mishandling of the Palestinian Unilateral Independence Bid is Wasting 2011

By Barry Rubin

And so he rushes off to Europe to muster support so that the United States is not alone. It’s the end of May already. Besides, the UK, France, Germany, and Italy have already made clear that they won’t support unilateral independence.

In a real sense this issue has illustrated Obama’s incompetence and the mess created by his world view. What would a “real” president have done?

First, get an early start. The moment the PA announced it was considering this scheme, he would have coordinated with European allies to get a joint statement that this was unacceptable and that there would be negative consequences for the PA in pursuing it and refusing to negotiate with Israel. What’s being done in May should (and could) have been done in January. Why is Obama trying to get a joint stand with Europe now when the issue has been discussed for months?

Second, lobby hard in the Third World. American diplomats should be limousining into the offices of presidents, prime ministers, and foreign ministers all over the world to make it clear that the United States wants them to oppose this initiative. Favors should be called in; gentle warnings made. Yet as Latin American countries—a traditional area of U.S. influence--unilaterally recognized a Palestinian state, Obama stood by and did nothing.

Third, make the consequences clear to the PA. The PA has done many things to sabotage Obama’s prized peace process. Here’s a partial list:

--Went back on its promise to him not to push the Goldstone Report, which even its principle author now disowns, at the UN.

--Sabotaged his September 2009 initiative for a Camp David-style summit to be held in December, after he publicly announced it at the UN.

--Refused to negotiate seriously with Israel when Israel accepted and implemented a nine-month-long freeze of construction on settlements and then even added Jerusalem to it. The PA waited a few days before the expiration, held a couple of formal chats, and then demanded that the freeze be renewed!

--Made a deal with Hamas that obviously runs counter to U.S. policy and puts a big hole in the side of the already sinking peace process.

--Going to the UN in this time-wasting, negotiations’ killing maneuver.

Ironically, the Palestinians are almost universally portrayed as the world’s leading victims. Yet in a very real sense, they are the world’s most spoiled political grouping. Decades of refusal to negotiate, intransigence, and terrorism are rewarded while massive subsidies continue ignoring political behavior, incitement, violation of commitments, terrorism, and corruption.

Maybe that’s the real problem making this conflict persist.

Fourth, Obama has not put any sanctions on the PA, refused to threaten it, and has barely criticized it in public. Indeed, the money and diplomatic support continues no matter what the PA does. Obama’s level of backing for Israel does not go up in response to PA behavior either. So he has taught the PA that sabotaging American policy pays because it makes him (and the world) criticize Israel, widens the U.S.-Israel rift, and even brings more U.S. concessions for the Palestinians in a desperate effort to make peace, even if the Palestinian leadership cares less about that achievement than the United States, EU, and UN.

It is an amazing example of Obama’s exaltation of weakness that even a deal between the PA and Hamas has barely brought a squeak from him, after a period of saying “we’ll see what happens.” The administration’s great defense is that maybe the deal will collapse of its own weight. We’re also told that Congress will declare U.S. aid to the PA illegal and stop it because of this alliance with a terrorist group.

Yet what kind of president let’s something happen that would lead to Congress forcibly terminating one of his priority policy initiatives? This is not leadership and, of course, if it happens that will be a major embarrassment for the White House. The obvious criticism is: Why didn’t you do anything?

Fifth, the president should have explained very clearly why he is opposed to this maneuver. The problem is that he cannot really do so without blaming the PA.

Let us remember that in the year 2000—that’s eleven years ago! How time flies when you’re fantasizing about an unworkable peace process—the Palestinian leadership rejected peace. (Note: So did the Syrian leadership and the U.S. government is still treating that regime as a friend!) President Bill Clinton denounced the PA rulers. Then President George W. Bush discovered that PA leader Yasir Arafat was lying to him and trying to import Iranian weapons to launch a full-scale war on Israel. He, too, got angry.

Obama, however, has not caught on and probably never will. The PA does not want to make a compromise peace resulting in a two-state solution. Going to the UN to circumvent talks and allying with Hamas are two major ways that the PA is violating the Oslo agreement, the very basis of its existence. In fact, by rejecting peace and instead launching a terrorist war on Israel they violated it eleven years ago. And, as far as Western diplomacy goes, they never pay the price.

It will pull the rug out from under the United States every time and make its president look foolish. And that’s sure what’s happening with the PA’s unilateral independence bid.

In short, this is a huge mess. And while the PA is responsible for it, the president is, too. The PA is showing by how it behaves that it doesn’t want peace. Still, the West just doesn’t want to recognize this fact. It’s far easier and cost-free to blame Israel.

But what’s the point in Obama coming up with a new peace plan when it should be clear that it isn’t going anywhere, and why it isn’t going anywhere. People talk of a “cycle of violence.” Well what about the cycle of diplomacy? Here’s how that works:

U.S. and Europe propose plan, demand is made for both sides to make concessions, Israel makes concessions, PA doesn’t implement its part; plan fails; Israel blamed; new cycle begins.

Of course, sometimes Israel refuses also or only makes partial concessions. Yet every time the PA’s score is zero. At least Israel is always willing to talk. The PA has now refused serious talks for 2.5 years and there’s no doubt it will get to the three-year-mark.

The fact that Israel has caught onto this game and refuses to play anymore has provoked astonishment in Europe and America. Don’t those Israelis realize that it’s for their own good? No, they realize it is against their interests and also realize that these countries either haven’t been paying attention or don’t care.

But to return to the PA’s UN maneuver. The Obama Administration has botched it. In the end, the unilateral independence gimmick will be defeated but at the cost of at least one year wasted diplomacy and an increasingly reckless PA strategy. This time, though, the U.S. government will have to stick its neck out and (very possibly) do a unilateral veto.

In an article in the Wall Street Journal, former U.S. Ambassador to the UN John Bolton explained how a previous president dealt with a previous such situation. Secretary of State James Baker, someone personally unfriendly to Israel by the way, made it clear in 1989 that if the UN were to take such a step the United States would cut off all of its financial donations to that institution. The problem immediately disappeared.

That's called using power, unapologetically taking leadership, and getting your way. It's a concept totally alien to the Obama Administration. But not to America's enemies.


Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, and a featured columnist at PajamasMedia http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/ His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is http://www.gloria-center.org. His PajamaMedia columns are mirrored and other articles available at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.co