RUTHFULLY YOURS

U.S. President Barack Obama is rumored to be planning a lame-duck anti-Israel move after the election of his successor next Tuesday, and before the handing over of his White House keys in January. In other words, there is reason to believe that the outgoing leader-from-behind of the free world is set to recognize a Palestinian state.

Though, as the Syrian civil war proves, bolstering one party to a conflict does not always translate directly into attacking the other, in the case of Jerusalem vs. Ramallah, the dichotomy is crystal clear.

By now, only extremists refuse to acknowledge that Hamas, the terrorist organization running Gaza — while running it into the ground — is not a statehood-yearning entity willing to forfeit its aim of annihilating all infidels in its path, Israel chief among them.

But there are still many diehard two-state-solution seekers, both in Israel and abroad, who cannot relinquish the fantasy that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party — the guys ruling the West Bank — are still potential partners. Even those who blast the PA for inciting youth to violence; denying Israel’s ties to the Jewish holy sites in Jerusalem; and now launching a campaign to sue Britain for the 100-year-old Balfour Declaration — which expressed support for the Zionist enterprise, well before the establishment of the Jewish state in 1948 — conclude that it is “urgent” to create a Palestinian state. And that Israeli settlements are an obstacle to that imperative.

On October 31, Secretary of State Kerry continued his remarkable campaign to drum up business for Iran. Speaking at Chatham House in London, here is part of what he said:

Iran deserves the credit of having met its part of the bargain, and it’s important for us and the rest of the world to meet ours, to make sure that the lifted sanctions are in fact not still impeding the ability to be able to do business, and to grant that Iran gets the benefit of the bargain that they made. And that is just plain, simple, good faith in international relations

…. Because it’s important for people to understand that we have worked hard to make sure that we have lived up to every component of what is required of us here. And I wish that some of the larger banks were, in fact, ready to make loans and engage in opening accounts, because they can. They’re allowed to, but they’re still remaining somewhat risk averse for various reasons….

[W]e agreed to lift certain sanctions. So OFAC, the Office of Financial Accountability has come out and made it very, very clear that if you do due diligence in the normal fashion, no extra due diligence, just normal due diligence for whoever it is you’re opening an account or for ever – whatever lending you’re about to do, and later it turns out it was some unforeseeable entity that pops up, you will not be held accountable for that. And so what we’ve done is we’ve been trying to reduce the level of risk so that people will begin to engage in a broader range of lending. Why are we doing that? Because the deal we made was that sanctions would not continue to interfere with their ability to do a normal course of business, and regrettably because of some of the uncertainties about OFAC or some of the uncertainties about who’s doing what, it hasn’t been. And we’re trying to change that.

I must say though that we’ve made good-faith efforts way beyond what we agreed to do, I mean, like this meeting. I mean, I never anticipated I’d be sitting in the banks to try to get them to do this. But we have reached out way beyond what anything within the four corners of the agreement in order to try to make sure that it delivers in full.

Despite the innumerable ways in which Iran has demonstrated bad faith–from its continuing support for terrorist groups to its detention of American sailors in January to its arming of the Houthi rebels in Yemen with missiles with which they have attacked American ships–Kerry wants us to bend over backwards to help their economy. It isn’t enough to remove sanctions that prevent banks from lending to Iran; Kerry has become a cheerleader now urging banks to make more loans whatever the risks. This is not in fact giving Iran the benefit of the bargain it struck, which exists in the letter of the JCPOA agreement. It is going much further. In fact it is going so far that Kerry is now giving banks bad advice–advice that is directly contradicted by U.S. Treasury officials.

Most of us, including several democratic lawmakers, cringed when Obama inked the Iran deal but those of us who are familiar with the malevolent nature of the Iranian regime, recoiled in horror when we learned that Obama transferred $400 million to the Iranians in exchange for four American citizens held captive by the mullahs on trumped up charges. The $400 million was part of a larger installment totaling $1.7 billion, ostensibly to settle claims Iran had against the United States stemming from aborted Iranian arms purchases dating back to the Shah. Obama claimed that this was money that was “owed” to Iran and the settlement, which included $1.3 billion in interest, saved the U.S. taxpayer “billions” because the Iranians were demanding even more at the Hague tribunal, where the claim was being adjudicated.

The timing and method of the cash transfers were disquieting to say the least and raised serious questions of legality as well as broader geo-political concerns. The Americans were freed only after Iran received its $400 million. The payment, which was airlifted in the dead of night in an unmarked cargo plane, was made in untraceable cash, stacked on wooden pallets. The Iranians demanded Swiss Francs and Euros rather than Dollars and a pliant Obama agreed to the Islamic Republic’s dictates. Gleeful Iranian leaders were quick to announce victory and claimed that the payment was indeed a ransom, contradicting the administration’s adamant denials.

Even within the administration there was confusion about whether the payment was in fact a ransom. State Department spokesman Mark Toner came very close to acknowledging this fact when he noted that the $400 million was used as “leverage” to ensure the Americans’ safe return. The White House however, quickly repudiated the State Department’s characterization.

Even if one were to believe the story peddled by the administration, the mere appearance of a quid pro quo payment potentially exposes the U.S. to extortion and hostage-taking. The Iranians certainly believed it was a ransom payment and more likely than not, every two-bit dictator on the planet saw it that way as well.

But there are deeper more troubling aspects to this convoluted story. In his January 17, 2016 address to the American people, Obama tried to put a positive spin on his dealings with the Islamic Republic but as noted by Rick Richman in an excellent article featured in Mosaic, the deal struck with the Iranians was rotten to its core and the administration deliberately kept the American people in the dark about various aspects of the shady arrangement.

Like a warped Islamic version of Santa Claus, Obama had a secret Muslim list. And his people checked it at least twice. The list was of Muslims who were prospects for important jobs and appointments.

It included a Muslim who had described Israel as an “Apartheid State,” Iran’s “go-to guy in New York financial circles” and a number of figures linked to the Muslim Brotherhood.

It was the ultimate religious test from an administration that had vocally rejected them.

Obama had claimed that having religious tests for migration was “shameful” and “not American.”

“When I hear folks say that, well maybe we should just admit the Christians but not the Muslims,” he huffed from Turkey. His Muslim host country was run by a bigoted sponsor of Islamic terror.

“We don’t have religious tests,” he insisted.

Except we did and we do. Obama also had religious tests. His religious tests excluded Christians and favored Muslims. That is why his Syrian refugees were between 98% and 99% Muslim with only 68 Christians and 24 Yazidis, even though both groups are real victims of the Muslim religious war.

Syria is 10% Christian and hundreds of thousands have been displaced. Yet only 68 have made it past Obama’s iron curtain. That’s either an Islamic religious test or the world’s greatest coincidence.

But would the man who piously lectured us on the evils of religious tests really have a religious test?

Of course he would.

The hacked emails include a list of “Muslim American candidates for top Administration jobs, sub-cabinet jobs, and outside boards/agencies/policy committees.”

The list was sent to John Podesta who headed the Obama-Biden Transition Project. It had been put together by a woman who had sat on the Commission on International Religious Freedom, but boasted that she had, “Excluded those with some Arab American background but who are not Muslim (e.g., George Mitchell). Many Lebanese Americans, for example, are Christian.”

How “shameful.” How “not American” of Barack Hussein Obama.

“Most who are listed appear to be Muslim-American, except that a handful (where noted) may be Arab American but of uncertain religion (esp. Christian),” she assured Podesta.

Religious tests are only out of line when they exclude Muslims. Not when they exclude Christians.

A generation ago the Communist tyranny in Cuba demanded that the United Nations condemn America for the embargo. The brutal Castro regime’s rant accused the United States of threatening “nuclear annihilation,” “countless acts of sabotage and plans to assassinate Cuban leaders.”

On a cold day in October, the European left-wing activist serving as UN Ambassador announced to applause that her administration would no longer be voting to defend the US at the UN.

“UN Member States have voted overwhelmingly for a General Assembly resolution that condemns the U.S. embargo and calls for it to be ended. The United States has always voted against this resolution. Today the United States will abstain,” Samantha Power said.

“Thank you,” she added, acknowledging the applause.

Under Obama, the United States would no longer defend the United States. A generation ago the Communists had been in Cuba. Now they were in Washington D.C.

Instead of defending America, Obama’s chosen representative agreed that our Communist enemies had a point about our lack of human rights and our imperialist foreign policy.

“Let me be among the first to acknowledge – as our Cuban counterparts often point out – that the United States has work to do in fulfilling these rights for our own citizens. And we know that at times in our history, U.S. leaders and citizens used the pretext of promoting democracy and human rights in the region to justify actions that have left a deep legacy of mistrust,” she said.

If the Cuban representative had been in her place, he could not have done much better. Communist Cuban propaganda was now being parroted by Ambassador Power. If the Castro dictatorship wanted to save money, it could shut down its propaganda department and outsource the labor to Washington D.C.

The Cuban ambassador boasted that Cuban Communists had “rid ourselves of US imperialism” and proclaimed that, “We will never go back to capitalism.” He declared that the resolution was a powerful message to “the peoples of the world.” The message is indeed unmistakable.

Ben Rhodes, the close Obama adviser who sold the media on the Iran sellout, curtly tweeted his justification, “No reason to vote to defend a failed policy we oppose.”

Who is this “we”?

On the morning of January 17, 2016, President Obama declared that this was “a good day, because, once again, we’re seeing what’s possible with strong American diplomacy.”http://mosaicmagazine.com/observation/2016/11/the-story-of-obamas-ransom-payment-to-iran-gets-worse/America paid Iran $1.7 billion in cash—funds that by law were not to be released unless and until Iran paid what it owed to American victims of its terrorism.

The Iran nuclear deal had been implemented the day before—an example, the President said, of his “smart, patient, and disciplined approach to the world.” Now Iran was releasing five American hostages, the result of the administration’s “tireless” efforts. “On the sidelines of the nuclear negotiations,” the president explained, “our diplomats at the highest level, including Secretary [of State John] Kerry, used every meeting to push Iran to release our Americans.” In return for that gesture, the president continued, he was making a “reciprocal humanitarian gesture”: namely, clemency for seven Iranians imprisoned or awaiting trial for criminal violations of American sanctions. Later it was announced that the U.S. had also dropped outstanding warrants against another fourteen Iranians.

The president then added something else: with the nuclear deal implemented, and the hostages released, “the time was right” for “resolving a financial dispute that dated back more than three decades.” That dispute involved an Iranian claim regarding money advanced by the government of the Shah for military equipment that Washington did not deliver after the 1979 revolution. Now, the president asserted, we were returning Iran’s “own funds,” including “appropriate interest,” but “much less than the amount Iran sought.” The savings, he said, came potentially to “billions”—a figure quantified by his press secretary as “up to $6 billion or $7 billion” in a “very good deal for taxpayers.” In other words, now that the larger issues had been resolved, the U.S. was simply issuing a long-delayed refund to Iran, and in the process saving Americans a significant amount of money.

The president’s statement, however, omitted a great deal of relevant information. The president was returning $400 million in Iran’s “Foreign Military Sales” (FMS) account with the Pentagon, plus $1.3 billion in interest, but he failed to mention that in 1981, when Iran filed its claim before the Claims Tribunal at The Hague, the U.S. had responded with a counterclaim for $817 million for Iran’s violations of its obligations under the FMS program. In 2016, with both the claim and the counterclaim still pending, it was possible that Iranowed billions of dollars to the U.S., not the reverse.

Nor did the president mention the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act, signed by President Bill Clinton in 2000 and stipulating that Iran’s FMS account could not be refunded until court judgments held by the U.S. government against Iran for damages from terrorist acts against American citizens were resolved to America’s satisfaction. Those judgments, including interest accumulated between 2001 and 2016, totaled about $1 billion. The president did not explain how, under the 2000 law, with those judgments still outstanding, he could pay Iran anything at all.

Nor did the president mention that his “refund” to Iran was being paid in untraceable European cash, a fact discovered by reporters seven months later. He would then contend that, in light of the sanctions on banking transactions with Iran, “we had to give them cash.” But the sanction regulations expressly authorize bank payments to settle Iran’s claims at The Hague, as Michael Mukasey, the former U.S. attorney general, later testified to Congress, adding that there was “no legitimate reason why [Iran] should want cash other than to pursue terrorism.” Indeed, the Hizballah International Financing Prevention Act, passed by Congress in December 2015, had resulted in Tehran’s needing significantly more cash to continue funding its terrorist organization in Lebanon, Syria, and elsewhere.

In a February 3 letter, Ed Royce, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, asked the administration to provide the legal basis for paying Iran’s claim, as well as a specific computation of the interest paid. He repeated the request in a June 1 letter, adding that according to information provided to him by the Congressional Research Service, the Hague tribunal paid 10-percent simple interest on such claims. Computed at that rate, and before considering the U.S. counterclaim under the FMS and the terror judgments still outstanding, Iran’s total claim on the FMS account was virtually identical to the $1.7 billion the administration paid, with no “billions” in savings.

To date, the administration has released no legal analysis to support its payment, no evaluation of the U.S. counterclaim, no text of the settlement agreement, no computation of the interest, no credible explanation for issuing the payment in cash, and no document showing the approval of the attorney general as required for issuing such a payment. For months, the administration hid important facts—including how the settlement was paid—even in response to direct congressional inquiries.