Diplomat Jim Patterson on What's Next for America and Israel?

Talking defense with Israeli hero at Friends of Israeli Defense Forces gala in California 2015.

What's Next, for America and Israel? Challenges and Opportunities in an Uncertain World
Kenney Auditorium, Nitze Building
John Hopkins University
School of Advanced International Studies
Washington DC

I attended this 90-minute conversation with Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer on November 28. Israel and Russia were the first two countries to send congratulations to GOP President-elect Donald J. Trump after his defeat of Democrat candidate former secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Derman explained three reasons for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's congratulations. First, the troublesome Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action between Iran and the P5+1 and the EU. (US, UK, Russia, France, and China + Germany and the European Union.)  UN Ambassador Samantha Power represented President Obama's deal negotiated and written at the White House rather than at the US Department of State. President Obama pushed the so-called Iran deal without official approval of Congress. Israel also did not agree to the deal as it guarantees Iran will develop nuclear weapons within a short time period. Obama's position that Iranian Islamic society will change to a peaceful State during this period has, according to many, no basis in reality. Hillary Clinton and Democrats supported the deal and Donald Trump promised to destroy it. Ergo, Israel's early congratulations to President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.

Secondly, Obama has ceded Syria, which borders Israel, to a potential Iranian terror base.

Third, the mistaken idea by Obama's administration that if the Israel-Palestinian issues were  settled the Middle East would become stable, peaceful and orderly. Dermer realistically sees Iran gaining power in the region as the US has largely withdrawn. In short, Obama fundamentally does not have a Middle East policy.

As Dermer spoke, Israel was fighting Palestinian fire intifada, an ISIS engagement from Syria, and a call in The New York Times by former Democratic President Jimmy Carter for President Obama to officially recognize the State of Palestine before President-elect Donald Trump takes office. Though Carter explained how Obama could do this, it is an "off the map" idea by Carter that, to a large degree, explains why Donald Trump and Mike Pence were elected

Palestinian terrorists have become bolder during the Obama administration without any official administration response. This has created tensions between the US and Israel during the past 8 years.

While Prime Minister Netanyahu said, prior US presidential election, that whether Clinton or Trump were elected president Israel would have a friend in the White House. Dermer was clearly very optimistic about working with Trump's administration based on his conversations with the Trump transition team.

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Jim Patterson is a life member of the American Foreign Service Association, contributor to the Foreign Service Journal, Member State Societies of California, Alabama, Indiana, New York, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana. Member Friends of Israeli Defense Forces. Member US Philippines Society. Associate Member Korean War Veterans Association. Life Member Associates of Vietnam Veterans of America. Member DACOR, Ambassador Club of Washington DC, Life Member Republican National Committee, Member California, Alabama, Indiana and Washington DC Republican Parties.

Diplomat Jim Patterson with November 30 Highlights in American Foreign Relations

"History is a vast early warning system." Norman Cousins. 

The United States and Britain signed preliminary peace articles in Paris for ending the Revolutionary War; the Treaty of Paris was signed in Sept. 1783.

1835, Samuel Langhorne Clemens - better known as Mark Twain - was born in Florida, Missouri.

1874, British statesman Sir Winston Churchill was born at Blenheim Palace.

1900, Irish writer Oscar Wilde died in Paris at age 46.

1908 The US Secretary of State and Japan's ambassador to the US exchange notes in what becomes known as the Root-Takahira Agreement: they affirm support for an independent China with an 'open door' policy and for the status quo in the Pacific

1908  photo facsimile transmitted across Atlantic by radio (London-NYC)

1947 Day after UN decree for Israel, Jewish settlements attacked

1950 US President Harry Truman threatens China with atom bomb

1962 U Thant of Burma becomes the 3rd Secretary-General of the United Nations

1967 Senator Eugene McCarthy announces he will run for the US presidency on anti-Vietnam war platform

1981 Cold War: In Geneva, representatives from the United States and the Soviet Union begin to negotiate intermediate-range nuclear weapon reductions in Europe (the meetings ended inconclusively on December 17).

1982 US submarine Thomas Edison collides with US Navy destroyer in South China Sea

1988 UN General Assembly (151-2) censures US for refusing PLO's Arafat visa

1990 US President George H. W. Bush offers to send Secretary of State James Baker to Baghdad to meet with Saddam Hussein

1995 Official end of Operation Desert Storm.

1999 In Seattle, Washington, United States, protests against the World Trade Organization meeting by anti-globalization protesters catch police unprepared and force the cancellation of opening ceremonies. Jim Patterson Note: WTO was a 2016 political issue in the presidential election.

2006 President George W. Bush met in Jordan with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki; Bush said the United States would speed a turnover of security responsibility to Iraqi forces but assured al-Maliki that Washington was not looking for "some kind of graceful exit" from Iraq.

2006 Pope Benedict XVI visited Istanbul's famous Blue Mosque in a dramatic gesture of outreach to Muslims.

2011 The central banks of the wealthiest countries, trying to prevent a debt crisis in Europe from exploding into a global panic, swept in to shore up the world financial system by making it easier for banks to borrow American dollars.

Births of Note

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), clergyman/satirist

Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) (1835-1910), writer

Winston Churchill (1874-1965), British Prime Minister (Conservative: 1940-45, 1951-55) during World War II and winner of the 1953 Nobel Prize in Literature, born in Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, Oxfordshire, England, Naturalized U.S. citizen. (d. 1965)

Historian Michael Beschloss is 61

Deaths of Note:

1990 Norman Cousins, editor (Saturday Review), dies at 75. Quote: “History is a vast early warning system.”

Quote:

"For my own part I have always felt that a politician is to be judged by the animosities which he excites among his opponents. I have always set myself not merely to relish but to deserve thoroughly their censure." -- Winston Churchill

Political Leaders Comment on Death of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro Jim Patterson Diplomacy Blog

Political Leaders on  Death of dictator Fidel Castro 

November 26, 2016 

President-elect Donald Trump

“Fidel Castro’s legacy is one of firing squads, theft, unimaginable suffering, poverty and the denial of fundamental human rights,” read the President-elect’s three-paragraph statement.

“Though the tragedies, deaths and pain caused by Fidel Castro cannot be erased, our administration will do all it can to ensure the Cuban people can finally begin their journey toward prosperity and liberty.”

President Trump's first statement was simply "Fidel Castro is dead!" 

Nov 26 2016

CORKER STATEMENT ON THE DEATH OF FIDEL CASTRO

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. – U.S. Senator Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, today released the following statement regarding the death of former Cuban president Fidel Castro.

“Under Fidel Castro’s brutal and oppressive dictatorship, the Cuban people have suffered politically and economically for decades, and it is my hope that his passing might turn the page toward a better way of life for the many who have dreamed of a brighter future for their country,” said Corker.

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Statement on the Death of Fidel Castro

November 26, 2016|Speaker Ryan's Press Office

WASHINGTON—House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) today issued the following statement regarding the death of Fidel Castro:

“Now that Fidel Castro is dead, the cruelty and oppression of his regime should die with him. Sadly, much work remains to secure the freedom of the Cuban people, and the United States must be fully committed to that work. Today let us reflect on the memory and sacrifices of all those who have suffered under the Castros.”

Ros-Lehtinen Comenta Sobre La Muerte De Fidel Castro

Nov 26, 2016

Ros-Lehtinen Comenta Sobre La Muerte De Fidel Castro

Miami, Florida  - La Congresista Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, ex Presidenta del Comité de Asuntos Exteriores y la Presidenta del Subcomité del Medio Oriente y África del Norte , hizo las siguientes declaraciones sobre la muerte del dictador Fidel Castro:

“El día que el pueblo, dentro y afuera de la isla, esperaba ha llegado: el tirano ha muerto y puede comenzar un nuevo amanecer sobre el ultimo bastión del comunismo en el hemisferio Occidental. El mensaje ahora es bien claro  para aquellos que piensan que continuaran mal gobernando basado en opresión y el miedo. Basta ya de lo mismo. Al pueblo cubano se le ha negado por ya mucho tiempo la libertad y democracia que se merecen.

Aquellos que todavía dirigen a Cuba con un puño de hierro podrán intentar demorar la liberación de la isla pero no pueden detenerla. Los sucesores de Castro no pueden esconderse detras de cambios cosméticos que solo prolongaran los males de la nación cubana. Ningún régimen, no importa quien lo dirija, tendrá legitimidad si no es elegido por el pueblo cubano en elecciones abiertas e internacionalmente observadas.

Los apologistas de Fidel en todas partes del mundo pueden ahora ayudar a restaurar la libertad y el respeto a los derechos humanos en Cuba uniendo sus voces al llamado para que el nuevo régimen libere a los cientos de defensores de la libertad y presos políticos que los hermanos Castro mantienen en prision.

Solo cuando cierren los gulags, tengan elecciones libres, liberen a los presos políticos y la democracia sea restituida podrá los Estados Unidos levantar su embargo en contra del régimen comunista de La Habana. El momento para actuar es ahora.

Todos los amantes de una Cuba libre y soberana tenemos que apropiarnos de este momento para ayudar escribir un nuevo capitulo en la historia de una Cuba que será libre, democrática y prospera. Una Cuba donde la fe en Dios ha prevalecido sobre la tiranía; una Cuba que vio a su pueblo enfrentarse a los retos y vencerlos por su patriotismo y amor a la patria.”

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Ros-Lehtinen Comments on Death of Fidel Castro

Nov 26, 2016

Ros-Lehtinen Comments on Death of Fidel Castro

Miami, Florida – Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Chairman Emeritus of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Chair of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa, commented today on the death of the dictator Fidel Castro:

“The day that the people, both inside the island and out, have waited for has arrived: A tyrant is dead and a new beginning can dawn on the last remaining communist bastion of the Western hemisphere.  The message is now very clear to those who think they will continue to misrule Cuba through oppression and fear. Enough is enough. The Cuban people have been shortchanged for too long to continue down this reviled path.

Those who still rule Cuba with an iron grip may attempt to delay the island’s liberation, but they cannot stop it.  Castro’s successors cannot hide and must not be allowed to hide beneath cosmetic changes that will only lengthen the malaise of the Cuban nation. No regime, no matter who leads it, will have a shred of legitimacy if it has not been chosen by the people of Cuba in free and fair elections.

Fidel’s apologists around the world can help to restore freedom and human rights for Cuba by joining the call for the new regime to free the hundreds of freedom fighters and pro-democracy activists still locked in Castro’s prisons.

Not until the gulags are closed, elections are held, political prisoners are freed and liberty is restored can the United States lawfully end its embargo against the communist regime in Havana. The time to act is now. 

We must seize the moment and help write a new chapter in the history of Cuba; that of a Cuba that is free, democratic, and prosperous. A Cuba where faith in God has prevailed over tyranny, a Cuba whose people rose up to meet the challenges placed before them and overcame them through sheer patriotism and love of country.”

November 26, 2016

HOUSTON, Texas -- U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, released the following statement in reaction to the death of Fidel Castro: 

"Fidel Castro's death cannot bring back his thousands of victims, nor can it bring comfort to their families. Today we remember them and honor the brave souls who fought the lonely fight against the brutal Communist dictatorship he imposed on Cuba."

NOV 26 2016

Miami, FL – U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) issued the following statement regarding the death of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro:

“Fidel Castro seized power promising to bring freedom and prosperity to Cuba, but his communist regime turned it into an impoverished island prison. Over six decades, millions of Cubans were forced to flee their own country, and those accused of opposing the regime were routinely jailed and even killed.

“Sadly, Fidel Castro's death does not mean freedom for the Cuban people or justice for the democratic activists, religious leaders, and political opponents he and his brother have jailed and persecuted. The dictator has died, but the dictatorship has not. And one thing is clear, history will not absolve Fidel Castro; it will remember him as an evil, murderous dictator who inflicted misery and suffering on his own people.

“The future of Cuba ultimately remains in the hands of the Cuban people, and now more than ever Congress and the new administration must stand with them against their brutal rulers and support their struggle for freedom and basic human rights.”

James Patterson

JEPDiplomat@gmail.com

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release

November 26, 2016

Statement by the President on the Passing of Fidel Castro

At this time of Fidel Castro’s passing, we extend a hand of friendship to the Cuban people. We know that this moment fills Cubans - in Cuba and in the United States - with powerful emotions, recalling the countless ways in which Fidel Castro altered the course of individual lives, families, and of the Cuban nation. History will record and judge the enormous impact of this singular figure on the people and world around him.

For nearly six decades, the relationship between the United States and Cuba was marked by discord and profound political disagreements. During my presidency, we have worked hard to put the past behind us, pursuing a future in which the relationship between our two countries is defined not by our differences but by the many things that we share as neighbors and friends - bonds of family, culture, commerce, and common humanity. This engagement includes the contributions of Cuban Americans, who have done so much for our country and who care deeply about their loved ones in Cuba.

Today, we offer condolences to Fidel Castro's family, and our thoughts and prayers are with the Cuban people. In the days ahead, they will recall the past and also look to the future. As they do, the Cuban people must know that they have a friend and partner in the United States of America.

Antananarivo, Madagascar

November 26, 2016

The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, today issued the following statement on the death of former Cuban President Fidel Castro:

“It is with deep sorrow that I learned today of the death of Cuba’s longest serving President.

“Fidel Castro was a larger than life leader who served his people for almost half a century. A legendary revolutionary and orator, Mr. Castro made significant improvements to the education and healthcare of his island nation.

“While a controversial figure, both Mr. Castro’s supporters and detractors recognized his tremendous dedication and love for the Cuban people who had a deep and lasting affection for “el Comandante”.

“I know my father was very proud to call him a friend and I had the opportunity to meet Fidel when my father passed away. It was also a real honour to meet his three sons and his brother President Raúl Castro during my recent visit to Cuba.

“On behalf of all Canadians, Sophie and I offer our deepest condolences to the family, friends and many, many supporters of Mr. Castro. We join the people of Cuba today in mourning the loss of this remarkable leader.”

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Jim Patterson Note: No wonder Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio were outraged over the Trudeau statement. 

Diplomat Jim Patterson on Veteran's Day

Visiting the Star of Academy Award-winning actor Harold Russell who received two Academy Awards (one more than John Wayne) for his role as a returning WWII soldier in the 1946 film "The Best Years of Our Lives." Russell lost both forearms in war and held his two Academy Awards with his prosthetic hands.  Russell was also a fighter for employment rights for the disabled. I met him in Washington DC during and after passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. I am proud to say I shook his hand.


Veteran's Day Recollection 

In my middle elementary school years in central Alabama, it was common for boys and girls to play softball during recess. We played on two different fields on the schoolyard. The field the boys played on was near the bank of a large wooded ditch.  

A batter, one day, hit the softball into the ditch. The male teacher called “time out” until us boys climbed down the earthen bank into the ditch to locate our only softball. Our group of perhaps as many as twenty young boys searched the ditch dutifully.

I saw something on the ground. It was a metallic object partially buried in the dirt. At first, I used my shoe to attempt to dislodge the metallic object. After a few minutes I used my hands to remove it from its apparent long term location in the Alabama soil.

After wiping away some cold, dark soil I realized I had a discovered something unusual. I had seen similar objects in old war movies on TV. While searching for a softball, I unearthed an object of war: A hand grenade with its handle intact.

I showed the hand grenade to a playmate who displayed no interest in it. He was busy looking for a softball, a sporting item, while I had located a hand grenade an object intended to kill. My playmate’s mind was on sports and my mind became fixed on the possibility the hand grenade could be dangerous. It might explode as I handled it. It might explode if I threw it back on the ground.

I climbed out of the wooded ditch as my playmates continued to search for the softball. I could hear them talking and laughing as I carried the hand grenade to the male teacher who stood patiently in the sun as his students hunted for the lost softball.

I walked up to my teacher and handed him the hand grenade. It is understatement to say It caught him by surprise. He took it from my hands and confirmed what I knew I had found.

“Jimmy,” he said, eyes wide with astonishment, “you found a hand grenade.”

We both looked at each other in silence. Perhaps we were both thinking the same thought.

Thousands of miles away war raged in Vietnam. Newspapers printed front page photos of dead and dying U.S. and Vietnamese troops. There were photos of Vietnamese children crying at the corpse of a family member. Perhaps it was their their last family member. Other photos showed Vietnamese children, perhaps war orphans, standing alone looking at the horrors of war all around them.

Perhaps my teacher and I were having the same thought as the hand grenade, maybe a war souvenir from an Alabama veteran, brought the war in Vietnam from the jungles thousands of miles away to our small Alabama schoolyard and into our lives and minds.

My teacher was past the age of military service for Vietnam but, in the mid 1906s, the war was in my future. War was in store for me and all my playmates. Years later, some of my classmates volunteered as soon as they could to escape school.

By the time I graduated high school, President Nixon had ended the draft. Peace talks began. The war in Vietnam was in its final stages.

Some classmates never came back from Vietnam.  I honor them, their service and sacrifice on Veteran’s Day. Some classmates did return but were never the same for the acts they committed and the death and destruction they saw and it overwhelmed their minds. I can understand that. So can my elementary school teacher.

The hand grenade, a weapon of war, death and destruction, I found as a youth in the wooded ditch while searching for a lost softball that long ago day overwhelmed my young mind and that of my teacher as we stood in silence and looked at it and into each other’s eyes.  War and its weapons have a way of overwhelming minds whether in faraway battlefields or my Alabama playground.

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James Patterson, former U.S. diplomat, is a Washington DC-based writer and speaker. JEPWriter@gmail.com

Valley (Alabama) Times News Wednesday November 9 2016 My hometown newspaper

Old Dynamite Discovered Near Elementary School

LANETT — Two citizens cleaning up trash near Huguley School Monday discovered an item that appeared to be a stick of old dynamite in the 3900 block of 32nd Street SW and notified law enforcement. Lanett Police Chief Angie Spates said officers responded to the location and photographed the item, which was sent to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Montgomery. "An agent with the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency bomb squad was sent to the site and determined there was no need for evacuation of the school but that all students and faculty should remain inside of the enclosed building," said Spates. "Contact was made with officials at Huguley Elementary to advise them of the situation and the decision was made to put the school on soft lock-down until additional agents arrived to take possession of the item." It was later determined that the object found was indeed a stick of dynamite that could possibly have been there since the early 1970s, but no longer contained ingredients that could be used in a harmful manner. Due to the recovery process by bomb squad personnel, parents encountered a road block when they went to the school to pick up their children Monday afternoon, which was cleared shortly thereafter and normal traffic resumed

My cousin Sandy in Vietnam circa 1960s.

My cousin Sandy in Busan South Korea 1954. Busan  (부산 or 釜山(Korean pronunciation: pusʰan]), officially Busan Metropolitan City, romanized as Pusan before 2000, is South Korea's second-largest city. Sandy told me in 1954 it was only rice fields, farming and fishing. He said a Korean family had a worn out dishing net and he worked to fix it for them. It was so bad he said he ordered a new net from Japan. The two Korean guys in the photos were his friends who lived with him. One translation of friend is chingu and it is written in different ways in Korean language.