The Obama Administration’s Expansive State of Palestine

There is no room left for the Jewish State of Israel.

Sometimes we find the traces of Government Policy in the strangest places. For years I have been suggesting to friends that President Obama is hell-bent on undermining the legitimacy of Israel as the Jewish State. The kind words and security “coordination” is the lipstick that covers up the true policy of this administration.

I have not written about this publicly because I was looking for some level of factual backup. The mealy-mouthed answers of State Department Spokesman Mark Toner did not suffice because through Orwellian double-speak, he managed to avoid a direct condemnation of the Jewish State.

However, there have been signs. When Mahmoud Abbas said that he would never recognize Israel as the Jewish State, President Obama never rebuked him despite demanding the Netanyahu accept the Palestinian State. As the Alegmeiner reported, in 2014, after Abbas insisted he would never recognize Israel as the Jewish State, Obama praised Abbas for having “consistently renounced violence … consistently sought a diplomatic and peaceful solution that allows for two states, side by side, in peace and security.”

Before you dismiss the smoking gun below as a clerical error, please contemplate the above. Please also consider that President Obama, as I have written before, is no fool. He is a very shrewd political operator who understands that laying groundwork, putting bureaucrats and bureaucratic process in place that will push your agenda forward for decades long after you are gone, is the hallmark of a successful politician. Please also consider Obama’s lack of rebuke of Palestinian Terror and quiet but consistent wordsmithing such as calling the Temple Mount Haram El Sharif, referring to neutralized Palestinian assailants as “dead” rather than terrorists etc.

In July 2012, the United States Government Launched the System for Award Management (SAM), which is now the consolidated entry point for government procurement and anyone wishing to do business with the US Government. Since everything has moved to e-procurement, SAM is THE only system with which to do business with the US government today.

I went and created an account on SAM (you can too) and was shocked by what I discovered in the registration process. When you bid on a government account, you must choose a “Country” for your physical address. It turns out that you can choose, the West Bank, Gaza Strip or The State of Palestine (screen shots below).

There are a few things problematic about this. First, last I checked the United States does not recognize a State of Palestine. I am not suggesting that there should not be one in the future. However, the current official policy of the US Congress and US Government is that there is no State of Palestine and it must only be constituted in direct negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

Second, last I checked, the Palestinian State being contemplated was in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. If you can be from either the West Bank OR the Gaza Strip OR the State of Palestine, where exactly is that State of Palestine going to be???

I don’t think this is an accident. Obama’s State of Palestine encompasses the current State of Israel. Either through his view of demographic trends or by scaring Israelis from Israel with an Iranian Nuclear threat or Palestinian knives, Obama would like to engender a Palestinian State between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea. Obama also has no problem skirting Congress on matters of Foreign Policy.

Those who know me, know I am far from a conspiracy theorist and definitely not right wing (nor left wing for that matter). I do not believe President Obama is a Muslim. I do, however, believe he has a philosophy and a strategy. That strategy started with empowering J-Street to silence anyone who considered anti-Israeli rhetoric to be anti-semitic. He created a J-street fig leaf much like he creates strawmen in his speeches. He has created daylight with America’s strongest ally in the Middle East and made its Prime Minister (of whom I have a fair bit of criticism) a pariah. He has signed a deal with the Iranians despite their ongoing threat to wipe out Israel. He has now also laid the bureaucratic framework for a new narrative. This narrative says that there is a West Bank, a Gaza Strip and a State of Palestine between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea. This narrative is now embedded in the Federal Procurement System and I bet is embedded in places that we have not yet discovered.