politics to go: jeff dunetz

Obama administration’s magical anti-Israel week

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Sleight of hand is used by a magician to manipulate objects such as cards and coins secretly. It’s also a technique used by politicians to hide events or actions taken which may be criticized if widely publicized. This week while much of the country was worried about Ebola, the Obama administration was appeasing Hamas and blaming Israel for the Islamic State. The timing wasn’t intentional but it was serendipitous that while our eyes were on one hand the Obama administration was harming Israel with the other.

Last Sunday, when it was announced that Nina Pham was diagnosed with Ebola, news covered her story and ignored almost all others. She was the second person to be diagnosed in the United States and the first to contract the virus within the country.

While the media was concentrating on Ms. Pham, Secretary of State John Kerry was in Egypt donating $212 American dollars to help rebuild Gaza, and coordinating a donors conference which in total pledged over $5.4 billion for the rebuilding ($1 billion of which was from the terrorist and Brookings Institute sponsoring Qatar).

It certainly is in America’s interest to help rebuild Gaza. But it is in neither this country nor Israel’s interest to pledge money to Hamas-controlled Gaza without first securing the disarmament of Hamas and the demilitarization of Gaza — an action the US, EU, and others agreed to in principle at the end of Operation Protective Edge.

When you think about it, is there any greater danger to the future of Gazans than an armed Hamas? Kerry said as much at the conference: “As long as there is a possibility that Hamas could fire rockets on Israeli civilians at any time, the people of Gaza will remain at risk of future conflict.”

And it wasn’t just Kerry. At the Egyptian conference, the potential contributors worried about the inevitability of future military confrontations between Israel and Hamas and called for sustained efforts to resolve the issues between Israel and the Palestinians. Yet no one at the conference including the United States pushed the agreed upon solution — demilitarization — as a condition of giving the money.

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