And so it begins. The Obama administration and its cohorts in the European Union have been unable to browbeat Israel into stopping its much-needed operation to root out terrorists in Gaza. So now they are getting personal with Israel--and shamefully so.
The Obama administration has announced a 24-hour ban on travel to Israel's Ben Gurion Airport for all U.S. airlines, and now European airlines seem poised to follow suit.
The FAA said the travel ban for American airlines was prompted by rocket shrapnel falling near Ben Gurion Airport. But don't be fooled.
The real reason for the ban is political. President Obama wants Israel to stop Operation Protective Edge right now and pull its forces out of Gaza, leaving the mission incomplete and Hamas intact to fight another day with tunnels and rockets aplenty. So he is trying to hit Israel in the pocketbook and send a message by shutting off its lone major airport during the height of the summer tourist season.
As Noah Pollak of The Weekly Standard writes:
Yesterday, moments after Secretary of State John Kerry departed for the Middle East to attempt to broker a ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza war, the State Department issued a warning recommending that “U.S. citizens consider the deferral of non-essential travel to Israel” due to the threat from “long-range rockets launched from Gaza.”
Interesting timing.
Long-range rocket fire from Gaza has been dramatically curtailed in recent days by the IDF’s ground operation, and was heaviest at the beginning of the war – some two weeks ago. Despite Hamas and Islamic Jihad barrages of M75 and M302 rockets fired at Tel Aviv and Jerusalem on July 8, 9, and 10, no travel warning was issued.
Israel earned over $10 billion last year from 3.5 million visitors, the plurality of whom were Americans. Coming at the height of summer tourism season, State's warning could cost Israel many millions of dollars in lost revenue.
So why did the State Department issue this warning not when long-range rocket fire was a more serious threat, but only yesterday, days after such fire had decreased sharply, and coinciding with Kerry's trip to the region?
The answer may be that the Obama administration is using the travel warning to exert pressure on Israel to agree to a ceasefire. It could be a shot across the bow – a deniable but very real signal to Prime Minister Netanyahu that the Obama administration’s support for Israel’s operation in Gaza has come to an end, and that there will be consequences for its continuation. And at the same time the State Department was delivering a blow to the Israeli tourism industry, Kerry was showing solidarity with Gaza by announcing a $47 million aid package, much of which is slated to be administered by UNRWA, the corrupt and terror-linked UN agency that has been in the news for storing Hamas rockets in one of its schools.
How nice. The Obama administration has now rewarded Hamas with a major victory and sent exactly the wrong message: one of fear and submission to terror.
The only silver lining in this? If rockets out of Gaza are enough to shut down Ben Gurion, imagine what rockets fired from the mountains of Samaria (the so-called "West Bank"), which overlooks the airport and the Tel Aviv metro area, would do?
Translation: Israel will not be giving up one inch of Judea and Samaria to form a new Palestinian terror enclave anytime soon.