Is Ferguson mida k'neged mida?

While it's always been quite a debate if America is truly a friend of Israel's or just claims to be, I don't think anyone would disagree this current administration is one of if not the most openly anti-Israel. In the past 10 years that I can remember paying attention to such things I don't remember such unabashed hostility (again I'm not talking about what the government thinks or does behind the scenes which may be just as bad - I'm talking what they say right out in the open to the news cameras). I was quite surprised by two condemnations of Israel by Obama during this current conflict. By surprised I don't mean that I found it shocking or completely unexpected, but rather that the level of chutzpah shown was so above even what numbed out news-following senses have been accustomed to that it actually exhibited an emotional response rather than just a customary "what else is new?"

The first incident was when after barely mentioning the unjust kidnap and ultimately heinous murder of the Jewish boys (one of which was an American citizen) after 3 weeks, Obama immediately jumped up to speak out against the murder of an arab boy who was most definitely not an American and so soon that not even enough time had passed to know whether it was even Jews or not. Additionally the administration protested the physicality of the Israel police when arresting the boy's cousin (who at the very least was an American) when he had picked the fight with them in the first place and according to most if not all reports had a knife on him at the time. Can you tell me of a single police force in the entire world that when confronted by somebody with a knife in the middle of violent riots would put an arm around his shoulder and say, "Come young man, let's have a nice civilized chat about your behavior."? Certainly not the DC police operating a few hundred yards outside Obama's residence at the White House who slaughtered an unarmed mother for driving suspiciously and not obeying traffic instructions.

The second incident was when the administration spoke out against Israel's measures to defend itself against Gaza including the State Department stating how appalled it was by Israel's disgraceful shelling of a UN school in Gaza. Mind you this was after the UN itself had admitted to finding rockets stored several of it's schools in Gaza! (Never mind the fact that they also openly admitted to handing them back over to Hamas).

It seems quite fitting that for meddling in Israel's affairs America is now suffering an ongoing Black Intifada in Missouri. It has even gotten to the point where the NAACP has resorted to reaching out to the UN over America's supposed mistreating of blacks in the current situation. Perhaps the American government should be more careful what they say and do as in Shemayim the halacha is what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

All that chest beating must make one's arms tired

One of the greatest pointers I learned from parenting books was that when disciplining, don't make a threat to the child you don't intend or have the capability of following through on. Though one's initial logic might dictate that making the price tag on an undesirable behavior exceedingly high should scare the child off from doing it, if they take the chance and do it anyway you end up a double loser. First of all the behavior you were trying to avoid happened anyway, and secondly (and more importantly) your future authority has now been undermined as the child now has reason to believe that just as this threat ended up being empty so too other ones you make might be as well.

As it turns out, sometimes the rules of the game for little people are equally applicable to big people too. It seems Obama got himself into quite a pickle a while back when he first threatened that Assad's use of chemical weapons would merit American intervention and punishment. Now why on earth America would ever be interested in getting involved in the whole Syrian mess is completely beyond me. Could the motivation to take sides be solely to be on the opposite side of Russia? Though not impossible it's such a sorry excuse to risk a war that I would hope it's not true. Is it to counter one of Iran's staunchest allies in the region and therefore Iran itself by extension? Could be. But if Obama really intended on confronting Iran why not just go for them directly? And if he doesn't truly intend on confronting them, what's the use of getting involved with Syria simply due to the Iranian factor in the first place? Or perhaps it was simply out of the altruistic desire to protect innocents from the horrors of a death induced by chemical warfare? Yet as scary as such a scenario may be, many bloggers and even a few less mainstream media outlets have raised the valid question of why a given amount of people dying from nerve gas is a travesty requiring intervention but the murder of upwards of 100,000 people by "conventional" means is not? Would it not have been sufficient for the president to public state that he deplores the violence and the suffering of the innocents but that it's not America's place to get involved and he's leaving it up to the international community bodies such as the UN to resolve? Such a policy certainly got a free pass concerning Darfur.

Yet, whatever the reason President Obama felt it was appropriate to threaten US involvement, he had his reason and he did it. At least he thinks he had an appropriate reason. Please G-d - I seriously hope he though he had a appropriate reason. Regardless, whatever the reason (or lack thereof), now the president finds himself in the situation of the parent who has put out the threat to his child he didn't want to carry out. He seems to have committed himself to a ridiculous conundrum of choosing sides between a murderous dictator on the one hand and Al Qaeda on the other. Aside from the distastefulness of that in and of it's own right, I wonder if the old adage of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" even holds water in this case? Both the Syrian government and Al Qaeda seem equally hostile to America. In fact, given that Assad has never sent passenger jets crashing into the World Trade Center, perhaps logic would dictate Obama would be better served taking his side!

Yet if America takes no action at all, it lives up to any paper tiger accusations thrown at it and future threats hold much less water. Even more than that, if the reason Obama holds back on action shows to be that his previous threats were too hasty and not thought through, it would call into question all of his other foreign policy past present and future. So at the risk of otherwise looking like a fool, he is called into action if for nothing other than to protect his own image. And this perhaps is the most ridiculous aspect of the entire equation. I once heard a shiur by Rav Tzvi Aryeh Rosenfeld quoting the sefer Lekutei Halachot that kings and leaders of countries who choose to make war against each other are held accountable for every drop of blood spilled from every soldier and civilian casualty. However immoral their rationale may be, at least Assad and Al Qaeda's actions can be justified according to their own particular interests - the former being to hold on to his seat of power and the latter being to spread their ideological cause. However the only motivation Obama seems to be driven by is one of frustration upon finding that not all Middle Eastern leaders cave to his demands as easily as Bibi Netanyahu.

Something Doesn't Smell Quite Right

Emergency Message for U.S. Citizens – August 2, 2013 UPDATE

 

The Department of State has instructed certain U.S. Embassies and Consulates to remain closed or to suspend operations on Sunday, August 4.  All facilities of the U.S. Consulate General are normally closed to the public on Sundays.  The Consulate General is instructing all U.S. government employees not required for ensuring essential building safety and security not to come into Consulate General facilities for afterhours work on Sunday, August 4.  The Department has been apprised of information that, out of an abundance of caution and care for our employees and others who may be visiting our installations, indicates we should institute these precautionary steps. It is possible we may have additional days of closings as well, depending on our analysis.

The above is part of a recent email sent out to everyone on the Jerusalem US Consulate mailing list. Of course anyone need only check the headlines since last Friday to be aware of this. But I'd like to know - is anyone else's Spidey-sense being set off on this one? As an interesting side note, the second line in the email states that regardless of a terror threat the consulate is usually closed for business on Sundays anyway. The same goes for the embassy in Tel Aviv. So it's not so clear why the media keeps mentioning the Israeli locations along with the other middle eastern ones as it appears no special external precautions are really being taken at the moment.

But as far as the other embassies go, this whole thing just doesn't make sense. The warnings are so vague that they essentially amount to, "We're worried that some really bad people are going to do some really bad things really soon." If they don't want to reveal any additional information for security purposes, then why go through the bother of making the whole thing so public in the first place? I'm not so hot at poker, but I imagine I'd feel pretty confident if I was playing at the same table as the federal government. I mean come on people, from an intelligence gathering perspective I think one could go about it much more effectively. Wouldn't it make sense to just close each of these locations individually and contact anyone scheduled to come in that day for a visa, passport, etc. telling them the toilets have all massively overflowed and they'll need to reschedule their appointment? Then in the meantime beef up security in as inconspicuous a manner as possible and play a little game of wait and see. Then when something does pop up maybe you can apprehend a few suspects and garner some information out of them? I'll admit I've never worked for an intelligence agency like the CIA or the like, but even an amateur like me has to venture a guess that my plan is at least a slightly more sound alternative to just broadcasting everything you currently know to the world via CNN. Maybe they are banking on the hope that conservative-minded Muslim extremists prefer not to monitor the mainstream media due to the liberal bias. 

And does the United States not feel at least slightly embarrassed that the best they can offer is a warning that a Al Qaeda might commit a terrorist attack somewhere in the Middle East, but they aren't sure where or when or against whom? And then again, maybe there won't be any attacks at all - they're not quite sure about it either way. Heck, even if something is supposed to happen they're not even 100% sure it's going to be at an embassy. It could even be an airbase, plane or a train (what... no automobiles?) So essentially what they are telling us is that it's just another normal day in the Middle East, eh fellas? And these crackpot intelligence reports are supposed to be what reassures us here in Israel when Obama tells us not to worry about Iran getting a nuke because they'll for sure find out about it in enough time to stop it? Do Iraqi WMD's ring a bell to anyone?

Some talkbalkers are spawning conspiracy theories that the whole thing is a ploy to distract the American public from the major scandals currently hitting Obama one after the other about how the federal government snoops on everything from your tax reports to your Facebook "Likes" and just about anything in between. Perhaps vague, but oh so deadly, threats such as these are even supposed to garner up support from the public and coax them into giving Obama carte blanche to peruse their Gmail. After Edward Snowden I supposed I can believe anything at this point. However, were these theories proven to be true I'd actually be a bit disappointed. Orwell's Big Brother and Inner Party had far more oppressive and invasive control over their subjects and yet even half the stuff they came up with had more substance and logic to it than what we are now currently expected to swallow.

So if you too feel that something doesn't quite smell right with this situation perhaps we should all follow our nose on this one. Maybe it's not for nothing that the American president's initials are B.O.