Jerusalem – Israeli President Shimon Peres briefed U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday about Israel’s killing of the Hamas military commander in Gaza, saying the man was a “mass-murderer”, Peres’s office said in a statement.
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Peres, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former Israeli prime minister, told Obama that the killing of Hamas’s Ahmed al-Jaabari was Israel’s response to a surge in cross-border Palestinian rocket and mortar salvoes from Gaza.
“Israel is not interested in stoking the flames, but for the past five days there has been constant missile fire at Israel and mothers and children cannot sleep quietly at night,” Peres was quoted as telling Obama.
“There is a limit to what Israel can absorb,” said Peres, who visited the Israeli border town of Sderot on Wednesday.
As a presidential candidate in 2008, Obama came to Sderot and voiced sympathy with residents under threat of rocket attack from nearby Gaza. He raised that visit during his successful campaign for re-election this month, after being accused by Republican rival Mitt Romney of being soft on Israel’s security.
If Obama deserves having been re-elected, his response to Peres will be something like, “How can I help?” If not, Israel should recognize that Obama, despite his statements in front of cameras, is not really a friend of Israel.
Why doesn’t Obama come out and say something about this? Why doesn’t he condemn the rocket attacks.
““There is a limit to what Israel can absorb,” said Peres”
This is the crux of the Israeli defense policy’s failure. Once you accept the willingness to “absorb” a certain quantity of attacks, then you’re in trouble, because politically, you can always be encouraged to accept more. If you establish a zero-tolerance policy, your’re on better footing, and then you can always back off slightly to demonstrate cooperation.
You know, he is meeting with Peres, and that has to tell you something. One doesn’t just walk into the oval office without an appointment. Since Obama is now the president for the next four years, maybe we can be proactive and write to the White House and let the president know how we feel about Israel’s security.
Where does it say it was face to face
“Israel is not interested in stoking the flames, but for the past five days there has been constant missile fire at Israel and mothers and children cannot sleep quietly at night,” Peres was quoted as telling Obama.
And if President Obama has no interest in the subject, will Shimon Peres hang himself (G-d forbid!) in a closet?
Is that the same Peres who went to Russia to attend the opening of a “Russian-Jewish tolerance museum” (all evidence of Russian “tolerance” can fit in a cupboard), got stood up buy Putin and thanked Russia for the pale?
The walking and breathing argument for mandatory retirement age among politicians? That one?