Predictions from Barry Rubin:
How would the U.S. government respond?
A. President Barack Obama warns Egypt that breaking the U.S.-guaranteed Egypt-Israel peace treaty would bring a strong military response from America, an immediate aid cut-off, sanctions on Egypt, full U.S. aid to Israel, and possible U.S. military action against Egypt.
What? Oh, sorry, I was daydreaming for a moment. Let’s start that section over again….
How would the U.S. government respond?
President Obama would make a speech, call for a solution of the Israeli-Palestinian issue, express his admiration for Islam, stress the need for further study, play golf.
Have I left out anything?
More thoughts from VDH:
If one had, for two and a half years, made it clear to the world that the Middle East’s problems were attributable not to the rising Hamas-Syria-Iran nexus, not to the corruption and intransigence of the Palestinian Authority, and not to the general misery that accrues from tribalism, fundamentalism, gender apartheid, lack of constitutional government, and statist economic practices, but to democratic Israel’s building apartments in Jerusalem and general unwillingness to trust its assorted neighbors — then one might have anticipated the current aggression against Israel. The more the Obama administration talked up the Israel “problem” in the midst of Middle East unrest that had nothing to do with Israel, and promised to lean on it, the more it became a self-fulfilling prophecy that an Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, or Hamas would try to deflect popular dissatisfaction with their own ruthless autocracy onto the constitutional state of Israel.
Indeed, it’s already started to happen.
“How would the U.S. government respond?
President Obama would make a speech, call for a solution of the Israeli-Palestinian issue, express his admiration for Islam, stress the need for further study, play golf.
Have I left out anything?”
Yes…….
BHO would suggest that both sides show…restraint.
One of his fave crisis words.
Obama is awesome!
Minefield, backed up by helicopter gunships.
Clearly, High Speed Rail installed between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and Amman Jordan will solve everyone’s problem and Peace and Tranquility will reign.
What, making a speech doesn’t automatically solve all problems? Who knew?
Rubin left out the part where it takes Obama a month or more to make the speech. And the speech was contradicted by numerous statements from his staff the next day.
He would set up a commision to study the possibility of taking in a few Jewish war refuges. Not action, of course, but lots of study…the results of which will be ignored.
It was the infiltration of the Syrian border by hundreds of unarmed civilians, who successfully trampled the border fence and crossed into Israeli territory near Majdal Shams, that was the real shock of the day. Protests in that area were a matter of routine on Nakba Day and were expected: for nearly 1000 Syrians to gather at the border and for hundreds to rush across the fence into Israeli-controlled territory was not a scenario that was forseen or prepared for.
Too bad such fairly peaceful means are almost unique rather than being the accepted form of protest (or propaganda ploy, for that matter).
Don’t forget President Awesome taking credit for Israel’s eventual victory.