American Hypocrisy over Israel May have been Out-Done by UK

If you have been reading this blog for a couple of years you will know I am not a fan of Theresa May. Her third attempt to start an inquiry into child sex abuse is sputtering along barely moving. Her obscene remarks in parliament in an attempt at humour have not helped to endear her to me. Now, after the UK played a critical role in the writing of the most recent antisemitic UNSC resolution, she has the nerve to complain about John Kerry's antisemitic complaints about Benjamin Netanyahu. It's too late P.M. T.M.; you blew it!

British Prime Minister Theresa May rebukes U.S.

over Israel criticism

By Eric DuVall, UPI

British Prime Minister Theresa May condemned a speech by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday, during which Kerry harshly criticized the Israeli government's policy on Palestine. May said the United States should refrain from critiquing the domestic political process of an ally. File Photo by Monika Graff/UPI | License Photo

LONDON, -- British Prime Minister Theresa May offered a rare rebuke of the United States, condemning a speech by Secretary of State John Kerry attacking Israeli settlements on Palestinian land.

The statement, released by 10 Downing St. on Thursday night, comes as the Obama administration's final days tick down and after President-elect Donald Trump criticized the U.S. decision not to veto a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements.

The U.N. resolution, which Israel has accused the United States of brokering, calls the settlements a "flagrant violation" of international law that endangers the increasingly distant possibility the Israelis and Palestinians will be able to reach a lasting two-state peace deal. Great Britain acted as a go-between in crafting the resolution, which Israel deeply opposed, making Thursday's rebuke all the more surprising, The Washington Post reported.

In a speech Wednesday, Kerry labeled the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "the most right-wing in Israel's history, with an agenda driven by the most extreme elements."

May, who leads a conservative British government, responded Thursday, saying through a spokesman the United States should refrain from critiquing the domestic politics of an allied government.

May does "not believe that it is appropriate to attack the composition of the democratically elected government of an ally," a spokesman for the prime minister said. "The government believes that negotiations will only succeed when they are conducted between the two parties, supported by the international community."

It is not appropriate to attack... Isn't that exactly what the UK did in the UN? So what she's really saying is that it is not appropriate to be seen to attack.... You should be more subtle, more sneaky, like a snake!

T.M. should have kept her mouth shut rather than joining Obama and Kerry in their last minute slide from any semblance of decency and good character into a desperate pettiness.

The comments come as U.S. allies prepare to rewrite the diplomatic playbook once Trump assumes the presidency. Trump was publicly outraged by the U.S. decision not to veto the U.N.'s Israeli settlement resolution and has said he supports the Israeli government's claims to land in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Why Israel must control the West Bank and Golan Heights... 

video 5:03

To do otherwise would be just suicidal. The USA knows that and, surely, the UK does too. So stop the BS and tell the world you want Israel to be destroyed so Muslims can live in peace. Oh, wait, there are no Muslim countries living in peace. Must be the Jews fault! Surely, once all the Jews are dead, the Muslims will be happy and stop killing each other and raping little English girls.

Ceasefire Agreement for Syria, Sort of

World powers agree Syria ceasefire, says John Kerry

From BBC Middle East

The aftermath of airstrikes in rebel-held Aleppo  Reuters

The Syrian government has been closing in on

rebel-held areas of the city of Aleppo

World powers meeting on Syria have agreed to seek a nationwide "cessation of hostilities" within a week, US Secretary of State John Kerry has said.

But he said the halt would not apply to the fight with jihadist groups Islamic State (IS) and al-Nusra Front.

So that means that the ceasefire, if arranged, would only apply to the battle between the Assad regime and the Syrian rebels. But it's a start, and it would mean that half the country could find itself in relative peace. Also, the various forces could concentrate on the IS and al-Nusra which could lead to a military settlement within a couple of years. Both results might effect the flow of migrants to Europe and elsewhere.

He also said the powers had agreed to immediately accelerate and expand the delivery of humanitarian aid.

The announcement comes as the Syrian army, backed by Russian air strikes, advances in Aleppo province.

The move threatens to encircle tens of thousands of civilians in rebel-held parts of the major city of Aleppo.

Mr Kerry admitted the ceasefire plan was "ambitious" and said the real test would be whether the parties honoured the commitments.

"What we have here are words on paper, what we need to see in the next few days are actions on the ground," he said.

A UN task force will be set up to ensure humanitarian access is granted to all sides, Mr Kerry added.

He made the announcement alongside his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov and the UN special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura.

Mr Lavrov said there were "reasons to hope we have done a great job today".

At the press conference Mr Kerry again suggested that Russian strikes were targeting opposition forces, rather than terrorists as Moscow says.

But both men agreed that peace talks involving the Syrian government and rebels should resume as soon as possible.

Stinging Critique of Susan Rice by the Most Famous Rabbi in America

The New York Times - Saturday, 28 Feb. 2015

Susan Rice, Security Adviser to the President, appears to have taken on the role of 'frontman' for President Obama and Foreign Secretary John Kerry. Willingly, she stepped forward and condemned Israeli President Netanyahu's upcoming speech to Congress as 'destructive to US - Israeli relations'. 

She also tweeted, “Personal attacks in Israel directed at Sec Kerry totally unfounded and unacceptable”, thereby running interference for the 'obsessive and messianic' Kerry.

What do we know about Susan Rice and why was she trashed in the poster above?

New York Observer

Susan Rice was part of Bill Clinton’s National Security Team that in 1994 took no action whatsoever during the Rwanda genocide, leaving more than 800,000 men, women, and children to be hacked to death by machete in the fastest genocide ever recorded.

Not content to insist on American non-involvement, the Clinton administration went a step further by obstructing the efforts of other nations to stop the slaughter. On April 21, 1994, the Canadian UN commandeer in Rwanda, General Romeo Dallaire, declared that he required only 5000 troops to bring the genocide to a rapid halt. In addition, a single bombing run against the RTLM Hutu Power radio transmitting antenna would have made it impossible for the Hutus to coordinate their genocide.

But on the very same day, as Phillip Gourevitch explains in his definitive account of the Rwandan genocide, We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We will Be Killed With Our Families, the Security Council, with the Clinton Administration’s blessing, ordered the UN force under Dallaire reduced by ninety percent to a skeleton staff of 270 troops who would powerlessly witness the slaughter to come. This, in turn, was influenced by Presidential Decision Directive 25, which “amounted to a checklist of reasons to avoid American involvement in UN peacekeeping missions,” even though Dallaire did not seek American troops and the mission was not peacekeeping but genocide prevention. Indeed, Madeleine Albright, then the American Ambassador to the UN, opposed leaving even this tiny UN force. She also pressured other countries “to duck, as the death toll leapt from thousands to tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands … the absolute low point in her career as a stateswoman.”

In a 2001 article published in The Atlantic, Samantha Power, author of the Pulitzer-Prize winning A Problem from Hell and arguably the world’s foremost voice against genocide and who is now Rice’s successor as America’s Ambassador to the UN, referred to Rice and her colleagues in the Clinton Administration as Bystanders to Genocide. She quotes Rice in her 2002 book as saying, “If we use the word ‘genocide’ and are seen as doing nothing, what will be the effect on the November congressional election?” That Rice would have brought up the midterm elections as a more important consideration than stopping the fastest slaughter of human life in all history – 330 dying every hour – is one of the saddest pronouncements ever to be uttered by American public official.

Susan Rice

But she did not stop there.

Rice then joined Madeline Albright, Anthony Lake, and Warren Christopher as part of a coordinated effort not only to impede UN action to stop the Rwanda genocide, but to minimize public opposition to American inaction by removing words like “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” from government communications on the subject.

In the end, eight African nations, fed up with American inaction, agreed to send in an intervention force to stop the slaughter provided that the U.S. would lend them fifty armored personal carriers. The Clinton Administration decided it would lease rather than lend the armor for a price of $15 million. The carriers sat on a runway in Germany while the UN pleaded for a $5 million reduction as the genocidal inferno raged. The story only gets worse from there, with the Clinton State Department refusing to label the Rwanda horrors a genocide because of the 1948 Genocide Convention that would have obligated the United States to intervene, an effort that Susan Rice participated in.

It was painful enough to watch Kofi Anan elevated to Secretary General even though as head of UN peace-keeping forces worldwide he sent two now infamous cables to Dallaire forbidding him from any efforts to stop the genocide (the cables are on display in the Kigali Genocide Memorial).

It’s nearly as painful watching Rice lecture the Jewish state, which lost one third of its entire people in a genocide of four short years, lecture the Jews about how unacceptable it is for them to criticize those who claim to know how to protect them better than they know themselves.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, whom Newsweek and The Washington Post call “the most famous Rabbi in America,” is the international best-selling author of 30 books, and will shortly publish The Fed-up Man of Faith: Challenging G-d in the Face of Tragedy and Suffering. His website is www.shmuley.com. Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley.