Mideast mess. What else is new?

It was a year ago that Israel and Hamas were at the beginning of their latest conflict, all of it, every bit of it, caused by Hamas.  One wouldn’t know that from the UN and other Jew-haters, but that’s the truth.  A lot has happened since then in, and in regards to, the Middle East and a lot has not.  But the animalistic, warped ideology shared by a few of the troublemakers in the region continues to fester and grow unabated, no thanks to the supposed leaders of the free world.

What has not happened?  Well, nothing has really changed with Gaza.  There are two Israelis being held hostage there unfortunately, and their cases are a bit peculiar but at least the war is over.  Does anyone think there won’t be another?  Hamas wants to destroy the Jewish State and kill as many Jews as it can.  The terrorist entity is re-arming, and continuing to make terror tunnels.  It has its terrorist lackeys amongst the Palestinian population and they carry out acts of violence every day.  When Hamas is ready, it will again push Israel too far.  And again, Israel’s precious, gallant loved ones will be put in danger as it fights to secure yet another tentative and temporary peace, if it can be called that.  Depressing words, I know, but we all know it’s the truth.

The Palestinian Authority leadership, for whatever it is worth, continues to embrace the status quo all the while inciting its willing cohorts to commit violence on a daily level.  That violence includes stabbings and stone throwing.  And yes, as I and others have said many times, stone throwers are as much terrorists as those who strap bombs to their bodies and blow themselves up taking innocents with them.

People die from the rocks hurled at cars as was evidenced by the death of Adele Bitton last February who succumbed from complications due to a brain injury she suffered after the car in which she was riding was hit by rocks and crashed.  She was four years old and her death was murder, plain and simple.  The stabbings, the shootings, the stone throwing, it never stops.  If I wanted I could just make this column about what has occurred in only the last few weeks because the terror never stops in Israel.  We here in the US only hear about the spectacular, the mass killings by the terrorists, not the one or two here and there murdered or maimed.  They are Jews after all, so it doesn’t matter to the world at large.

Syria now almost doesn’t exist anymore.  And if you can believe it, after President Obama finally decided to so something about it, according to Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter just last week, the US has trained, now get this, only sixty, six zero, sixty Syrian rebel fighters as of July 3.  That’s right, sixty.  Further proof the administration was not, never was, serious about doing anything with Syria.  Hundreds of thousands killed and wounded, hundreds of thousands refugees.  It’s a mess, and that mess became a vacuum for ISIS to create a base.

Yes, ISIS.  What is new is that ISIS has marched over more swaths of territory in Syria and Iraq, all the while butchering and torturing.  The methods of execution these animals use to kill anyone who doesn’t agree with their particularly disgusting Islamic view grows by the week.  The US and some allies have half-heartedly taken action, and so, nothing really has changed.  ISIS is stronger now and spreading its cancer all over the region even into Northern Africa, and it is finding converts and demented supporters who now carry out attacks in the Western world including the US.

Egypt is having to contend with ISIS as was evidenced by attacks in the Sinai and in Cairo just the other day, among other parts of the most populous Arab country.  ISIS is getting closer to Israel now from the northeast and the southwest, as if the Jewish State doesn’t have enough problems as it is.  Turkey continues to do as little as possible to stop its territory from being used for fighters to get to ISIS or for ISIS to use Turkey’s territory to conduct massacres against those who oppose its ideology.

Because of weak US and world leadership, more Islamic State atrocities are coming.  Depressing again, but we all know it.

Now to Iran.  As of the writing of this piece,  an agreement between the P5+1 and the Islamic terrorist state of Iran appears to be imminent.  From what is already known, it looks very bad indeed.  No matter how many times US administration officials said it would not allow talks to go on forever, that it would walk away, the negotiations have gone on forever.  And a day.  And another day.  And another week, month, etc.  Always more.  And always more concessions not by Iran, mind you, but by the US!  The only walking away Obama does is walking backward.  Backing away from lines he has drawn.  But then again Obama has experience in backing away from lines he has drawn, e.g. his red line with Syria after the use by its dictator of chemical weapons on civilians.

Iran continues to run roughshod over many parts of the Mideast, is still heavily involved in terror, is working on a long-range missile program, and it also holds several Americans as prisoners.  All of these things not only do not disqualify Iran from getting so many benefits of the doubt from Obama and Kerry and the other appeasers of the P5+1, but those items are not even up for discussion.  They are off limits, period.  As we give in more and more to the Iranians I am embarrassed for my country’s leadership.  Of course, Sunni Arab states in the gulf are appalled and so, the US has zero credibility with the Arab gulf states as well as with Israel.

An agreement with Iran of course, will make Russia and China happy so that they can go back to selling weaponry to the Iranians.  My foolish President Obama, for reasons known only to him and his sycophantic and silly cohorts perhaps, keeps pushing for some kind of accommodation with the world’s worst terrorist regime.  I say accommodation because what has been going on with those talks with Iran is so ridiculous and dangerous as to only be considered a compromise of sorts and not a negotiation of strength by the US and other powers.  In fact, there is a split within the supposedly united P5+1 with Vladimir Putin calling not only for compromise, but that all sanctions against the crazy Iranians be lifted.

By the way, the P5+1 stands for five permanent members of the UN plus one other country.  The “P” should stand for “pathetic.”  The Middle East is more of a mess now than it was a year ago because of the actions and inactions of those who have shirked their responsibilities and thrown common sense out the window.

And speaking of Obama, we all have read and heard many times that Obama is looking for a legacy achievement, and that is why he tries so hard through his equally inept Secretary of State John Kerry to make some kind of agreement, any agreement, even so far as looking the other way when Iran keeps violating existing accords.  Perhaps legacy is part of it.  But I am not sure it is all of it.  I think there is some kind of combination really, of reasons Obama keeps plodding along trying to make the Iranians happy.  Legacy of course, but also naiveté, a knee-jerk Kumbaya-let’s-all-sit-in-a-circle-and-hold-hands-leftism, arrogance, the inability to look at the whole picture, anger toward Benjamin Netanyahu, and perhaps he is just having a bad day.  Every day.

Barack Obama has said in the past that he had Israel’s back.  In the same speech where he made that promise, he also said, “Iran’s leaders should know that I do not have a policy of containment, I have a policy to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.”  Obama lied.  It was not his first and only time, and he still has plenty more days in office to lie even more.  Truth be told, in the most critical of ways, when it matters more than anything else, including military aid, support at the UN, etc., the only time Mr. Obama has anything to do with Israel’s back is when he is sticking a knife in it.