RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/08/the_democrats_2020_platform_resurrects_obamas_hostility_to_israel_and_appeasement_of_iran_.html

Democrats’ crowing that their 2020 platform on Israel  is a victory for the moderates is disingenuous. The Democrat party’s 2020 platform is not pro-Israel. It is pro-Iran.

The Democrat party’s platform promises to return to the Iran nuclear deal and rejects regime change “as the goal of U.S. policy toward Iran.” The opening statement of the platform stresses:

“Democrats will call off the Trump Administration’s race to war with Iran and prioritize nuclear diplomacy, de-escalation and regional dialogue. Democrats believe the United States should not impose regime change on other countries and reject that as the goal of U.S policy towards Iran.”

Translation: Obama’s appeasement of Iran’s nuclear and regional ambitions is back.

A nuclear Iran is an existential threat to Israel. The Obama/Biden administration handed $150 billion to the Iranian mullahs, which financed both Iran’s nuclear program and its financing of global terrorism. This money propped up a regime that had been facing strong internal opposition. Biden’s campaign promise to return to the Iran nuclear deal on Day One is memorialized in the Democrats’ platform. They will undo President Trump’s stringent sanctions which are destroying the economic base of the Iranian regime. This one action alone undermines all the Democrats’ assurances about support for a “strong, secure, democratic Israel.”

A nuclear Iran by definition makes Israel insecure.

The platform does not guarantee that Israel will remain a Jewish state. The language in the platform before 2012 made clear that there was no Palestinian right of return to Israel. Removing the explicit language that Palestinians have a right to resettle is creating another existential threat to Israel.

The Democrats’ platform promises to oppose any effort “to unfairly single out and delegitimize Israel.” Who is going to define “unfairly?” According to Democrats, BDS is not unfairly singling out Israel; it is protected free speech.

The Democrat platform’s opposition to settlement expansion will lead to the same endless criticism of Israel that marked the Obama/Biden administration. What is settlement expansion? Is it adding bathrooms to existing structures, as Obama/ Biden insisted? Memorably, Biden threw a temper tantrum when Israeli authorities had the temerity to announce an advance in a stage towards building permits for homes in a Jerusalem neighborhood while Biden was in town. With that outburst, Biden has signaled just how shaky his pledge is to keep Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The platform never reveals its definition of Jerusalem’s boundaries.

And while the document affirms Biden’s statements that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and that he would not move the embassy back to Tel Aviv, Biden has also said that he would open a consulate in eastern Jerusalem for the Arab Palestinians. So are the Democrats creating a new entity of East Jerusalem? So much for the denunciation in the Democrats’ platform of unilateral steps, which apparently only refer to ones taken by Israel.

The Democrats’ party platform, with its firm opposition to Israel extending sovereignty to Jewish communities, also leaves the Palestinian Authority with no incentive to negotiate with Israel. No, with this platform, everything reverts back to the PA simply waiting for the inevitable appeasement by a Democrat administration and pressuring of Israel to make still more concessions just to bring the PA “back to the table.”

While the Democrats’ platform does not tie U.S. military aid to Israel renouncing its sovereignty in areas byond the 1949 Armistice Lines, Senator Van Hollen (D-MD) led an effort joined by 19 Democrat senators to block U.S. military aid if Israel uses it to “annex territory.” Well, that sure sounds like the Democrats are gearing up to tie military aid to controlling Israel’s internal decisions.

The Democrats’ 2020 platform is a return to the Obama policy of appeasement to Iran’s nuclear ambitions and to Iran’s plans for regional hegemony. According to former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, “The Biden/Obama administration deliberately damaged the relationship between the United States and Israel.”

So the Democrats’ claim that the  2020 Platform reveals that the Progressive wing of the Democratic party was shut down was greatly exaggerated.