As you know Koch lead the charge in NY-9 to support a Republican as a wake-up call to Obama. After Obama made his UN speech that was generally favourable to Israel, he promptly swore his allegiance to Obama. Nice words were all it took. He ignored that Obama hadn’t changed his goal of having negotiations based on ’67 lines with swaps. Albeit Obama stresses negotiations but that too is hypocritical because he has no intention of leaving Israel alone to negotiate as she sees fit but intends to pressure Israel to comply with his parameters. Obama got his henchmen, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Leon Panetta, Bill Gates and Angela Merkel, to put the pressure on Israel by blaming her for the failure of the peace process and for building in Jerusalem. Yet Koch ignores this and believes that Obama really intends to allow Israel to negotiate unfettered. How dumb can you get. Aside from that I see no daylight between what Kristoff wrote and what Obama’s people are saying. So since Kristoff is an enemy of Israel, Koch must conclude that Obama is too. But he doesn’t. Therefor, he is a hypocrite. Ted Belman
By Ed Koch, JWR
I read the op ed of Nicholas D. Kristof in The New York Times of October 6th with its headline caption, “Is Israel Its Own Worst Enemy?” I concluded on finishing that article that it is Nicholas Kristof who is truly an enemy of Israel.
As is fashionable nowadays, Kristof blames Israel for the lack of progress in the peace process with the Palestinians, claiming, “Nothing is more corrosive than Israel’s growth of settlements.” Why? One million, five-hundred-thousand Muslims live in Israel. Why do the Palestinian Authority and its supporters like Kristof believe that the West Bank should be “Judenrein” or that Jews may not live in a part of Jerusalem when they have lived in all parts of Jerusalem for 3,000 years until the Jordanians drove them out in 1948? Why, when a two-state solution comes into being and borders are agreed upon and Jews are located on the Palestinian side, shouldn’t Jews have the choice of remaining on as Palestinian citizens or resident aliens or leaving?
Nothing offended me more and showed Kristof’s true colors and antagonism to Jews than his claim that the Obama administration “humiliated itself” at the U.N. by making it clear that it will veto any effort to create a Palestinian state outside of direct negotiations between the parties. What is humiliating about insisting that the Palestinians recognize the state of Israel and negotiate all of their differences? Is Kristof implying that Obama is being pressed into taking that stance against his will, or against the will of the American people? Is he implying that the Jews forced him into taking that position?
Kristof calls for the pre-1967 borders with land swaps. Does he tell us how that is possible when Hamas (half of the Palestinian Authority the Quartet, U.S., Russia and European Union label as a terrorist organization) believes it is entitled to occupy Tel Aviv and its charter states every Jew entering Palestine after 1917 must be expelled. Has Kristof ever criticized Hamas’ charter and its numerous acts of terrorism intended to accomplish this goal?
Kristof criticizes the fact that Israeli citizens have become more conservative on “border[s] and land issues.” Why shouldn’t they? Former Israeli Prime Ministers Ehud Barack and Ehud Olmert offered to settle borders giving the Palestinian state 97 percent of the West Bank which they rejected. Many supporters of Israel believe Palestinians are not interested in a two-state solution, one Jewish and one Palestinian, but seek instead a return of Palestinians to Israel so as to ultimately overwhelm the Jewish state and make it a Muslim state. Has Kristof ever addressed that outcome?
The criticism that Kristof lodges against Hamas is “And Hamas not only represses its own people, but also managed to devastate the peace movement in Israel. That’s the saddest thing about the Middle East: hardliners like Hamas empower hardliners like Mr. Netanyahu.” As Ronald Reagan once said, “There he goes again,” equating terrorists with Israeli “hardliners.” Surely, Kristof knows the difference.
The Israelis have concluded, and I agree, the Palestinian leadership does not want peace. Within the last two weeks, the Quartet asked both parties to go back to the negotiation table and negotiate without preconditions. The Israeli Prime Minister immediately said “anywhere, anyplace.” The President of the Palestinian Authority said “no” unless Israel agrees to a settlement freeze and negotiates based on indefensible 1967 borders. Has Kristof criticized Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority for his refusal?
In his column, Kristof urges Palestinian women to engage in civil disobedience which could, he knows, end in violence and be met, he says, with “tear gas and clubbing,” ending with “videos promptly posted on YouTube.” So there we have it. Kristof wants a physical confrontation or have the state of Israel and its military lay down their arms and submit to threats of violence rather than defend their people. What an outrage. I have no doubt he is repelled by the deaths of innocent civilians in Syria at the hands of the Syrian army, but expresses no qualms at what would follow to the Jews of Israel were the Arab armies or terrorists to enter a vanquished Israel.
Kristof attacks Israel for “burning bridges” with Turkey. I believe it is Turkey that has effectively declared war on Israel. Recently, Turkey expelled Israel’s ambassador and Turkey’s prime minister Erdogan stated he will send Turkey’s navy to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza, a blockade a U.N. commission has just said is legal under international law and intended to prevent the Hamas government in Gaza from bringing even more rockets and other arms from Iran into Gaza. So if the Israeli navy continues the blockade, and the Turkish navy seeks to break it, and there is a naval clash, clearly Kristof will blame Israel for protecting its people from attack, the first obligation of any government.
Kristof closes with his usual disingenuous “mea culpa,” saying, “Some of my Israeli friends will think I’m unfair and harsh, applying double standards by focusing on Israeli shortcomings while paying less attention to those of other countries in the region. Fair enough. I plead guilty. I apply higher standards to a close American ally like Israel that is a huge recipient of American aid.”
Does he care that the Palestinian Authority now includes Hamas, a recognized terrorist organization, and receives millions in American aid? Does he care that Egypt which allowed the Israeli embassy to be sacked gets $2 billion in American aid? I don’t know what Turkey gets, if anything. But I do know that NATO’s expenses, and Turkey is part of NATO, are paid by the U.S. to the extent of 75 percent.
Frankly, I have no hesitation in calling Kristof by his rightful name: an enemy of Israel.
Kristof is a liberal anti-Semitic scumbag, as are most NY Times journalists, so it was easy to eviscerate his comments.
Ed Koch is trying to have it both ways – supporting Obama and Israel at the same time – which is the height of hypocrisy.
Ed Koch is a liberal Democrat which is synonymous with hypocrite because a) they are weak on national defense, and b) they claim to be helping the poor and downtrodden with their socialist-statist economic policies when they are actually dragging everyone down towards the least common denominator.
John F. Kennedy would be drummed out of the modern Democrat Party because he believed in lower tax rates as a means of raising everyone up and also believed in a strong national defense.
He’s not dumb, and I doubt he’s fickle either.
There may be a matter of blackmail here; I’m serious.
Mr Koch’s sexual proclivities are something of an open secret (as I gather)
— but the Demo’s, if so inclined, COULD let drop a story or two, here or there (without attribution of course, and untraceable to the Party), that might prove embarrassing to the former Mayor.
And if you think the operatives of a former, ward-heeling, community organizer from the Southside of Chicago wouldn’t stoop to it
— think again.
Just a thought, of course; nobody’s telling me anything special. . . .
Well, any Pali or Muslim woman might do civil disobedience towards her men, ONCE.
A second such experience for the woman could prove problematic
— without a head.
Complicates navigation. . . .
Ed Koch, like me, is too damn old to know what he wants. Just give him his easy chair and slippers and leave him alone with his memories.
Exactly!
If Koch can actually campaign for Obama now after all the good he did with regard to the 9th CD district then he truly is a moron and no better than the rest of them. I wouldn’t call him an enemy of Israel, (his reply to Kristoff’s article was on target) but he is obviously either just plain so naive or he really needs to align himself with the democratic party when all is said and done. Wishful thinking doesn’t cut it. And that’s what it is-wishful thinking. If Koch were living in the 9th CD and it was now Nov. 2012 I guess he would vote for Obama. That’s amazing. How can someone be so fickle-if not, actually, so DUMB. Where is his cognitive dissonance.
Koch may be a hypocrite and I am disappointed that he is back to supporting Obama, but nevertheless, this is a great article. Kristof is a scumbag and Koch eviscerates his arguments.
In his column, Kristof urges Palestinian women to engage in civil disobedience which could, he knows, end in violence and be met, he says, with “tear gas and clubbing,” ending with “videos promptly posted on YouTube.”