When two Israeli girls, Maya Wind and Netta Mishly, graduated high school, they didn’t move into a college dorm room. They didn’t travel to India or Europe or the Philippines. They didn’t get a job. They didn’t start a career. They went to jail for more than a month.
Eight months into President Barack Obama’s administration, his Middle East peace “road map” is crystal clear. First, he dialed down the pressure on Iran, whose nuclear weapons program presents an existential threat to Israel. Second, he shifted the blame for Islamic extremism to Israel and solely blamed it for the Palestinian’s plight. Then he unilaterally ratcheted up the pressure on Israel to cease building settlements and to ease its self-defense blockade of Gaza. Now, Obama has upped the ante even further, framing lasting peace in the Middle East as requiring Israel to retreat to its 1967 borders. Although he blandly claims that there are “no preconditions” to relaunching negotiations, in truth he has doomed the peace talks before they even start. Obama has set up Israel as the fall guy for negotiations that will ultimately fail and is the architect of that failure.
I am sick and tired of hearing about how Obama is “not good for the Jews,” or, as a friend of mine put it recently, “everyone who voted for him should be ashamed.” If looking for solutions to Israel’s toughest problems — Iran and the Mideast peace process — and trying to fix both is somehow bad for Israel, then I’m not sure what’s good.
Democrats for Israel (DFI) gathered at a private Beverlywood home on Sept. 13 for its annual Garden Party fundraiser.
The Anti-Defamation League feted a doctor, an L.A. city councilwoman and two lawyers during its Deborah and Jurisprudence Awards dinner at the new Montage Beverly Hills Hotel on Sept. 30.
Dentist to the stars Dr. Jay Grossman attended A Smile for Every Child, a Sept. 10 gala for his nonprofit Homeless Not Toothless. The local organization has brought together nearly three-dozen Los Angeles-area dental offices to provide free care to the homeless and underserved.
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