FROM ATLASSHRUGS:
Another powerful post at Atlas Shrugs.
Apartheid? ApartLied
You will see no such "tolerance" and "reciprocity" for non-Muslims in Muslim countries living under Islamic law. Posters thanks to Elder of Ziyon.
GO. See it now.
The history of "Palestine" and why there has been no settlement of the "Palestinian" issue with Israel.
Debunking the Palestine Lie
Gee, this means a whopping 27% don't want, or are neutral on the extermination of the Jews. I'm sure Obama and the other Western apologist leaders are fine with this. After all, they'll quote the 27% as proof that the "Palestinians" want peace with Israel.
Read on for Andrew Bostom's analysis of the true situation in Gaza and the West Bank.
So goes Israel, so goes the West.
FROM AMERICANTHINKER.COM:
July 15, 2011
Only 73% of Palestinians Want Jews Annihilated (as Per Islam's Canonical Hadith)
Andrew G. Bostom
Data have just been released from a survey completed this week which confirm the implacable, murderous irredentism of Israel's Palestinian Muslim "peace partners."
American pollster Stanley Greenberg performed what is described as an "intensive, face-to-face survey in Arabic of 1,010 Palestinian adults in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip."
Here are the salient, pathognomonic findings:
First, a mere 73% of the Palestinians surveyed agree with the annihilationist dictates of this canonical hadith (the words and deeds of Islam's prophet Muhammad which have a weight often equal to the Koran), quoted in the Hamas Covenant.
As characterized in the hadith, Muslim eschatology -- end of times theology -- highlights the Jews' supreme hostility to Islam. Jews are described as adherents of the Dajjâl -- the Muslim equivalent of the Anti-Christ -- or according to another tradition, the Dajjâl is himself Jewish. At his appearance, other traditions maintain that the Dajjâl will be accompanied by 70,000 Jews from Isfahan, or Jerusalem, wrapped in their robes, and armed with polished sabers, their heads covered with a sort of veil. When the Dajjâl is defeated, his Jewish companions will be slaughtered -- everything will deliver them up except for the so-called gharkad tree, as per the canonical hadith (Sahih Muslim, Book 41, Number 6985) included in the 1988 Hamas Covenant (in article 7). The hadith-- which ¾ of those surveyed agree should be acted upon -- is cited in the Covenant as a sacralized, obligatory call for a Muslim genocide of the Jews:
...the Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to realize the promise of Allah, no matter how long it takes. The Prophet, Allah's prayer and peace be upon him, says: "The hour of judgment shall not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them, so that the Jews hide behind trees and stones, and each tree and stone will say: 'Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him,' except for the Gharqad tree, for it is the tree of the Jews." (Sahih Muslim, Book 41, Number 6985)
Second, 80% agreed with the quoted sentiments expressed article 15 of the Hamas Covenant (subtitled, "Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine is a Personal Duty") which elucidates classical jihadist theory -- including jihad martyrdom (i.e., homicide bombing) operations -- as well as its practical modern application to the destruction of Israel by jihad, and the need to recruit the entire global Muslim community, or "umma" in this quintessential Islamic cause:
The day the enemies conquer some part of the Muslim land, jihad becomes a personal duty of every Muslim. In the face of the Jewish occupation of Palestine, it is necessary to raise the banner of jihad. This requires the propagation of Islamic consciousness among the masses, locally [in Palestine], in the Arab world and in the Islamic world. It is necessary to instill the spirit of jihad in the nation, engage the enemies and join the ranks of the jihad fighters. The indoctrination campaign must involve ulama, educators, teachers and information and media experts, as well as all intellectuals, especially the young people and the sheikhs of Islamic movements...
It is necessary to establish in the minds of all the Muslim generations that the Palestinian issue is a religious issue, and that it must be dealt with as such, for [Palestine] contains Islamic holy places, [namely] the Al-Aqsa mosque, which is inseparably connected, for as long as heaven and earth shall endure, to the holy mosque of Mecca through the Prophet's nocturnal journey [from the mosque of Mecca to the Al-Aqsa mosque] and through his ascension to heaven thence. "Being stationed on the frontier for the sake of Allah for one day is better than this [entire] world and everything in it; and the place taken up in paradise by the [horseman's] whip of any one of you [jihad fighters] is better than this [entire] world and everything in it. Every evening [operation] and morning [operation] performed by Muslims for the sake of Allah is better than this [entire] world and everything in it." (Recorded in the Hadith collections of Bukhari, Muslim, Tirmidhi and Ibn Maja). "By the name of Him who holds Muhammad's soul in His hand, I wish to launch an attack for the sake of Allah and be killed and attack again and be killed and attack again and be killed." (Recorded in the Hadith collections of Bukhari and Muslim)
Third, 72% backed denying the thousands of years of Jewish history in Jerusalem.
Fourth, 62% supported kidnapping IDF soldiers and holding them hostage
Fifth, 53% were in favor or teaching songs about hating Jews in Palestinian schools.
Even the findings which delusive "peace processors" obsess over contained no silver linings. When respondents were queried about President Barack Obama's statement that "there should be two states: Palestine as the homeland for the Palestinian people and Israel as the homeland for the Jewish people,", only 34% said they accepted that idea, while 61% rejected it. And 66% admitted that the Palestinians' real goal should be to start with a two-state solution but then move to it all being one Palestinian state, i.e., destroy Israel as a Jewish State.
The really interesting thing here is that Shia Iran is supporting the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood. Just a few years ago, most Western "experts" believed that Shia and Sunni could never cooperate. The lesson here is that Islam overarches even bitter sectarian rifts within Islam. The West should take heed of the desires of Islamists, both Shia and Sunni for a global Caliphate.
FROM YNETNEWS.COM:
MI chief sees hope for Assad yet
Military Intelligence chief says Syrian president promoting worthwhile reform packages, retaining loyalty of army; also notes Iranian role in 'Nakba', Naksa' Day border riots as well as Tehran's influence over Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood
Moran Azulay
Latest Update: 07.05.11, 15:13 / Israel News
Military Intelligence chief Major-General Aviv Kochavi said Tuesday Iranian influence was growing in Middle Eastern countries experiencing unrest or upheaval – such as Egypt and Syria.
"Assad understands today that his solution cannot only come from military responses, and that is why he is turning to reform," Kochavi told the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, referring to the protest-plagued president of Syria.
In Egypt, meanwhile, Tehran is trying to influence the outcomes of elections by tightening relations with the Muslim Brotherhood, the MI chief added.
"We must not belittle the reform package Assad has begun to promote. These reforms regard the improvement of wages, subsidies, and the opening up of more jobs," Kochavi said.
Article continues HERE:
The only surprise here is that Hezbollah admits that it hides behind civilians while attacking Israel. By doing so, they assume all responsibility under international law for all civilian causalities.
Of course, the next time, and there will be a next time, that Hezbollah attacks Israel from Southern Lebanon they and their useful idiots in the West will blame Israel for any civilian causalities.
FROM ISRAPUNDIT.COM:
Shia News Admits Hezbollah Uses Civilians to Protect Weapons
by Bill Levinson
Shia News posted an article that, while putting “Israel” in quotes, admits that Hezbollah commits war crimes by using civilians to shield its military assets.
A Northern “Israeli” Command security source warned 150 Hizbullah field commanders of retaliation in case Hizbullah launches any missiles, after “Israel” claimed Hizbullah is leading activities in 150 villages in South Lebanon.
The warning stated that if any rocket was launched from any house or area in the said 150 southern villages, the “Israeli” army will then destroy every house or building from where the rockets are launched.
The Zionist security source added that the “Israeli” army is not responsible for any harm which might affect to the citizens of the Lebanese southern villages.
The latter is actually correct under international law; Hezbollah is responsible for harm that results from its positioning of rockets in a village, thus making the village a legitimate target.
This is why Israel must continue to man roadblocks into Israel from Gaza and the West Bank.
Palistenian woman sent to bomb Israeli hospital
Israeli soldiers don't let a pregnant Palestinian woman pass through a military checkpoint. With good reason.
Follow the link to a video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9qy4y-Y5zs&feature=player_embedded
A short, accurate history of the origins of the "Palestinians" and why the "Palestinians" will never recognize Israel.
FROM JEWISHWORLDREVIEW.COM:
Surprise, Surprise! Palestinians Won't Recognize Jewish State
By Richard Z. Chesnoff
" The Palestinian Authority will never recognize Israel as a Jewish state … Such a declaration would directly threaten the Muslims and Christians in Israel and prevent Palestinian refugees, who left their homes and villages a number of decades ago, from being granted the right to return to them."
This rather shocking comment made at a Ramallah press conference last week by one of the supposedly more "moderate" members of the Palestinian leadership produced headlines throughout both the Arab world and Israel.
Amazingly it received nary a mention in the major American media!
As Mr. Shaath well knows, Israel was established and internationally recognized as a Jewish state more than 60 years ago. He also knows that Arab refusal to recognize that fact is at the very core of the Mideast conflict. So how does Shaath expect to win Israeli confidence and concessions for peace if Palestinians still refuse to accept Israel's Jewishness?
And why is Mr. Shaath so worried about Israel's Arabs, that 20 percent of Israel's population of 8 million whose forebears were smart enough not to run away during the 1947-48 Arab-launched war? Surely he knows that Israeli Arabs -- Christian, Druze and Muslim -- are full fledged citizens of the Jewish state. They occasionally face problems, but they always vote, elect their own members of parliament, work in the Israeli government, in Israeli industry, agriculture and commerce, are doctors and nurses in Israeli hospitals, teachers and professors in Israeli schools and universities, serve in the Israeli army if they wish, share in a democratic system unmatched in the Middle East and enjoy a standard of living that is the highest of most Arabs anywhere!
Mr. Shaath also fails to explain that when he speaks of "a Right of Return" he's not referring merely to survivors from 1948's original 700,000 or so Palestinian refugees. He is talking about all their descendants -- four (sometimes five) generations of them -- roughly 4 million souls by Arab count! Does the Palestinian leadership really expect Israel to commit demographic suicide as part of a "peace deal"?
READ IT ALL:
Now this is telling. After years of crying that the Israeli "blockade" has created abject misery in Gaza, when Israel opens more crossings for trade, Gazans complain they can't compete with "cheap" Israeli merchandise. Go figure.
FROM ISRAELNATIONALNEWS.COM:
Hamas Panicked When Israel Eased Blockade
by Hana Levi Julian
Israel's decision to ease its blockade on Gaza has had an odd effect on the region: it has apparently thrown Gaza retailers into a panic, causing them to pressure their rulers.
As a result, the Hamas terrorist organization is fighting the implementation of the crossing agreements proposed by the Palestinian Authority and Israel. This, despite years of bitter complaints from Hamas, albeit unsubstantiated, that the blockade by Israel was causing a humanitarian crisis in the region.
Hamas now says Israel's agreement to ease the blockade is “part of the plot by Israelis, Arabs and Europeans" to topple Hamas.
According to the Gaza-based Al Ayyam newspaper, clothing retailers are claiming that rather than a lack, there is now an overabundance of selections in their market.
The problem is that since Hamas has not paid salaries, there are few customers available to buy the goods.
Soft drink manufacturers and those in the furniture industry are also complaining, as they don't want to compete with the lower prices of Israeli goods.
Both have called on the de facto Hamas government to prevent the entry of Israeli products, citing their ability to meet the needs of the local market themselves and fears they may have to close their factories if they cannot meet the competition.
Due to the goods that continue to be “imported” through the Gaza smuggler tunnels, as well as those that enter the region by truck, there is now a surplus of products in the small market.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri claimed the agreement is “part of the plot by Israelis, Arabs and Europeans to restore the rule of the [Fatah-led] Palestinian Authority in Gaza.”
Aid to Gaza Up by 60%
While Hamas backpedals on its claims that Israel has been starving its population by limiting the flow of aid through the crossings, the new policy change has resulted in what Gaza retailers are calling a glut of goods in the region.
Data gleaned from the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (CoGAT) for June showed a 60 percent increase in aid transferred from Israel to Gaza via the Kerem Shalom Crossing.
A new joint task force comprised of personnel from the Palestinian Authority and the IDF's CoGAT was created to oversee the policy changes and work on advancing coordinated projects to be supervised by the international community. The task force also continues to work on finding ways to increase the capacity of goods being transferred daily through the crossings, according to a statement from the IDF Spokesman's Office.
More than 3,000 trucks crossed into Gaza through Kerem Shalom and the Karni Crossing last month. In addition, the Jewish State continued to supply the region with heating gas (4 million liters), cooking gas (4,000 tons) and diesel fuel (approximately 600,000 liters).
Some 2,500 PA residents of Gaza entered Israel as well during the month of June, passing through the Erez Crossing, which is specifically intended for human traffic. The number is a 25 percent jump over previous figures.
In total, the number of trucks making their way into Gaza through the Israeli crossings has increased by 12 percent, according to the CoGAT.
(IsraelNationalNews.com)
Good news that Iran is postponing it's attempt to run the Israeli blockade of the Gaza strip. However, there is a note in the article that indicates that Iran is planning to send a "hospital" ship to Gaza which would be a major escalation of the propaganda war. Israel would have no choice but to turn away the ship which would be a major propaganda victory for Iran and Hamas. The political ramifications would be horrific.
Israel must find some way to stop this ship before it ever gets to the Mediterranean sea.
FROM ANSAMED.INFO:
MIDEAST: GAZA,DEPARTURE IRANIAN SHIP POSTPONED TO LATER DATE
(ANSAmed) - TEHRAN, JUNE 21 -
The departure of the first Iranian ship that will carry humanitarian aid to Gaza, defying the Israeli blockade, has been postponed to an unspecified date, the head of the juvenile organisation of the Iranian Red Crescent, Javad Jafarian, told press agency ISNA. Early in June, after the bloody Israeli raid on an international flotilla headed for the Gaza Strip, in which nine people were killed, the Iranian Red Crescent announced that it was ready to send two ship to the Palestinian territory. One ship with basic needs and one with volunteers, and the organisation also announced to send a hospital ship at some point in the future. On Monday last week, Iran said that this week one of its ships would weigh anchor, and that the country would send more aid to Turkey, to load it in Istanbul. The departure of the ship, according to Jafarian, has been postponed by "problems with international coordination and a change of the cargo to send" to Gaza. (ANSAmed).
2010-06-21 14:52
FROM ATLASSHRUGS:
Geert Wilders: "Change Jordan's name to Palestine"
Palestine was always Jewish. The Muslims have no claim to Israel. Just deception and lies to steal what is rightfully the Jewish people's.
The Sultan again clarifies Israel's precarious position in the world.
FROM SULTANKNISH:
The Noose Around Israel's Neck
By Daniel Greenfield
Israel is being hanged on a public gallows erected on the grounds of the United Nations with yards of rope gleefully supplied by the Muslim world. But the hangmen are mostly Westerners who still think that the Muslim lynch mob at their doorstep can be pacified with the death of a single victim.
There are three things you can do when you are about to be hanged. You can walk proudly, recite a glorious line or two to embed your martyrdom in historical memory, and then allow yourself to be hanged. Jews have an extensive body of experience with that brand of martyrdom.
Alternatively you can plead your case all the way to the gallows, arguing that a mistake has been made, that your case has been improperly reviewed, begging for someone to listen and do something. This way also ends in a hanging. But it's the hanging of a slave without even a shred of dignity attached to it. A man that dies pleading with his murderers, and puts his fate in the honesty of the liars and hypocrites whose own crimes makes the worst of his look like virtues, is a craven fool.
Because there is really only one thing you can do when the noose is being placed around your neck. Resist. A noose works by tightening around your neck and cutting off your air or breaking your neck. If you resist the tightening of the noose, you may actually survive. On the other hand if you follow through all the procedures, if you allow your hands to be tied behind your back, and the noose to be fastened around your neck while trusting in the system to do right by you-- your death is inevitable.
For seventeen years Israel has been walking toward the gallows. Its leaders have led it there by the nose ring of international assurances. Its people have been led there by refusing to see what is waiting ahead for them, even while the blood was being cleaned off the streets. Every attempt to reach a peaceful solution, every concession and show of good faith, has only tightened the bonds around its hands and the noose around its neck.
That is because every concession Israel has made, has further restricted not only its ability to defend itself, but even its ability to do basic things such as build residential housing in the capital of its own nation. Every gesture and agreement Israel has signed has bound it to ever more restrictive terms. And none of them have brought any peace. All they have ever done is set the bar higher for the next round of concessions demanded by the enemy and its aiders and abettors in the next phase of negotiations.
This is not a peace process, and it has never been one. It is a public lynching. It is the lynching of a country whose only real crime is that its existence offends the religious fanaticism and prejudices of a billion Muslims, who control much of the world's oil, and whose followers are willing to riot and kill in the streets of nearly every major city in the world at the slightest offense.
The lynching began as a trial where the murderer wore a fine suit and his victim sat in an orange jumpsuit in the dock. Every day during the trial, the murderer would be allowed to leave the courtroom to kill again. And every afternoon he would return to the courtroom with bloody hands that the judge and jurors would pretend not to see. And if the victim dared to call attention to those bloody hands, he would be silenced and told that those murders too were his fault. Hadn't he after all provoked the murderer into committing them?
Now the trial is coming to a close. The farce that the proceedings ever had anything to do with peace is unraveling. And we can thank Hamas and Obama for that. The endgame is all too clear. The undoing of that "mistake" which allowed the oldest and most persecuted minority in the Middle East to briefly reclaim their homeland from the tyranny of Muslim Caliphs and Sultans. To serve as a homeland for their persecuted brethren from the east and the west. From the south and the north. That mistake.
In a year in which the Iranian regime raped and murdered protesters after a stolen election. In which China and North Korea continue torturing and murdering political dissidents. In which Saudi Arabia and Dubai live off Southeast Asian slave workers. In which Venezuela's Chavez continues shutting down independent media outlets and imprisoning opponents. In which Turkey continues holding thousands of Kurdish political prisoners while occupying Cyprus. In which Russia continues to dismantle democracy and murder journalists. In which Sudan continues perpetuating genocide and the rest of the world nods mournfully but continues on with business as usual. In that year, Israel is the main culprit for such dastardly acts as reportedly assassinating a Hamas terrorist leader in Dubai and intercepting a flotilla providing aid and comfort to Hamas. Every country, including the nations on this list, are rushing forward their condemnations and demands that Israel be held accountable. Accountable for what? For refusing to be lynched.
Every time Israel tries to be accommodating, it instead takes a step closer to the gallows. It allows the noose to be tightened around its neck. And every time that happens, it has to fight harder for air. Eventually if things keep going this way, there will be no air at all. Only a sad forlorn figure swinging in the hot eastern wind from the desert. And cries of Ibtach al Yahood among the rubble of cities and gardens of Jerusalem, Haifa, Tel Aviv and Ariel.
Israel cannot survive by accommodating a lynch mob. Only by having the courage to defy it. When the international community at the behest of the Muslim lynch mob dictates the parameters of Israel's survival, it must expand those parameters by pushing through them to the other side. If they want to recognize terrorists, then we kill those terrorists. If they want to break the Gaza blockade, then we retake Gaza. If they want to unilaterally create a Palestinian state, then we annex those territories. Accommodation is a noose. Defiance is the air of freedom. Every time Israel retreats, it is condemned for it. When it advances, it is condemned for it also, but its freedom of action expands.
The world will always condemn Israel regardless of its intentions. But like any form of namecalling, those condemnations only gain power when Israel allows its actions to be dictated by them. Israel is not condemned because of what Israel does. It is condemned because of a diseased pattern of Islamic bigotry, left wing radicalism and international dhimmism converging in one place. This is a pattern of hate that cannot be undone. It can only be ignored.
When you listen to the threats and taunts of those who hate you, you give them power over yourself. If you try to accommodate your behavior to gain their favor, their outpouring of hate for you will only grow. For it is not your behavior they hate, it is you. By showing weakness, you invite attack. By giving your enemies power over you, all that you accomplish is to drive them into a feeding frenzy at your vulnerability. If you go on this way, you will either be a slave or a corpse. A slave if they have any use for you alive. A corpse if they don't. Either way you have put your head into the noose they made for you.
Israel cannot go on this way. No country could for long. Yet it does, marching on toward the gallows, protesting that there has been a terrible mistake here. But there is no mistake here. None at all. The executioners nod sympathetically and promise to look into it, as they bind his hands behind his back. It's a farce and everyone except the dumbest among the lynch mob, and the condemned knows it.
But like the condemned man refusing a blindfold in the anecdote who's scheduled to be executed, we keep being warned not to make trouble. Go quietly. Breathe deeply. Soon it will all be over. What will the world say, if we resist? Exactly what the world says now. That we're the neighborhood bully. The troublemakers that are the cause of all the troubles of the otherwise peaceful nations of the Middle East. The worm in the lovely healthy apple otherwise covered with Muslim tyrannies.
Every threat that has been made has come about when Israel made concessions, not because it refused to. Every time Israel has chosen the high road, its enemies have ambushed it from the low road. It's past time to wake up and start learning some lessons. The noose is drawn. And the nation is gasping for air. That breath of air was Jerusalem. The next one will be the Galilee. And then what? How many more breaths do we have left before we choke and die?
Before Oslo, Israel was threatened with terror if it did not comply. It complied and the terror increased manifold. And if did not negotiate further, it was threatened with international isolation. It negotiated. It gave. And it was isolated anyway. It was threatened with boycotts, and it gave, and the boycotts came anyway. Now they threaten the unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state. Followed by a One State Solution. Followed by international intervention. Noose, gallows and all. And does anyone think that all these will not come about anyway, if Israel gives Abbas and his terrorist cronies their own official state with a capital in Jerusalem?
No compromise has worked until now. Which means no compromise will work. A process in which one side repeatedly compromises and the other side repeatedly threatens and takes, is not a process, but a holdup. If a man threatens you with a gun, then you might think that you can buy him off. Until he returns again and again. And then it is no longer a threat, it is a process. Israel is in that process, or rather it is being processed. At the end of the process is death. If you pay attention only to the gun, and not the pattern of threats, you may keep giving in, until you have given up your home, your wife and your children, and you have nothing left but your life. And then you will lose that as well. That is the nature of the process. To survive, you must not see the gun alone, but the process it is part of.
The last month should have been a final education. A grim testament to the fact that even when Israel withdrew from Gaza, allowed Hamas to control it, and did nothing but prevent Hamas from having outside access, the world is howling as if Israel had filled the country with graves from end to end, as Sudan or Iran or some of the other members and former members of the UN Human Rights Commission have. That is not justice. That is a lynch mob. And what does Netanyahu do in response? Like nearly every Israeli government before him, he backs off on the blockade. Because given that tidbit the lynch mob will be appeased. It will, won't it. Won't it?
We are no longer talking about negotiations. Or any serious discussion of a state. We are talking about the world rising up in one voice to defend the rights of a genocidal organization funded by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad whose charter includes the words; "The Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdullah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him." The pretense is over and done with. This is not about anything resembling peace. This is about death. This is a lynch mob. Some come willingly. Others think that they have no choice. That a single murder will buy them the tolerance of the Dar Al Islam.
This is what a noose looks like. These are the gallows. As its hands are bound, Israel loses the ability to defend itself. As the noose tightens, Israel dies. Only by resisting the noose, can it survive. Only by fighting to free its hands, can it resist. The way of surrender is the way of death. And after Israel dies, its own hangmen will be next. Because the lynch mob has only begun. Its appetite is whetted by death. Its hunger will only be sharpened by blood, not sated by it. And it will cover the world in blood, if it is not stopped. But now the noose draws tight. Only a little more air is left. What will we do with that air? Appeal for justice, or fight with all our strength to rip the noose away. For now the choice is still ours. When the noose has done it work, it no longer will be.
Well, the chances are against it and the odds are slim
That he’ll live by the rules that the world makes for him
’Cause there’s a noose at his neck and a gun at his back
And a license to kill him is given out to every maniac
Neighborhood Bully, Bob Dylan
Caroline Glick's latest offering puts the international kangaroo courts threat into perspective. The real enemy are the direct threats by Iran, Turkey, Syria, Hamas and Hizbullah to break the sea blockade.
FROM JEWISHWORLDREVIEW.COM:
Weathering the coming storm
By Caroline B. Glick
"International" kangaroo courts are in the offing. But that's the very least of Israel's problems
Israel is endangered today as it has never been before. The Turkish-Hamas flotilla two weeks ago precipitated a number of dangerous developments. Rather than attend to all of them, Israel's leadership is devoting itself almost exclusively to contending with the least dangerous among them while ignoring the emerging threats with the potential to lead us to great calamities.
Since the Navy's lethal takeover of the Mavi Marmara, Israel has been stood before an international diplomatic firing squad led by the UN and Europe and supported by the Obama administration. Firmly backed by European and largely unopposed by Washington, the UN is moving swiftly towards setting up a new Goldstone-style anti-Israel kangaroo court. That canned tribunal will rule that Israel has no right to defend itself and attempt to force Israel to end its lawful naval blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza.
Fearing this outcome, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu bowed to US President Barack Obama's demand that Israel set up an Israeli inquest of the Mavi Marmara takeover and permit foreigners to oversee its proceedings. Netanyahu also agreed to scale-back Israel's blockade significantly, and allow international bodies to have a role in its far more lax enforcement. Netanyahu has made these concessions with the full knowledge that they will strengthen Hamas in the hopes that they would weaken the international onslaught against Israel.
Unfortunately, it took no time at all to see that his hopes were misplaced. Even before Netanyahu announced these concessions, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon already announced that they make no difference to him or to his friends in Washington and Brussels. They will move ahead with their plans to appoint a new kangaroo court charged with asserting that Israel has no right to defend itself.
As bad as all of this is, in truth, it is unimportant relative to the other consequences of the flotilla incident. The impact of the diplomatic campaign now being waged against Israel will be felt in the medium and long term. In the immediate term, Israel is facing two threats that dwarf what it faces from the UN.
READ IT ALL:
Caroline Glick pens another powerful and insightful look at Obama's siding with Islam against Israel.
FROM JEWISHWORLDREVIEW.COM:
How Hamas rises in the West
By Caroline B. Glick
It is not surprising that Obama is siding with Hamas. Here's why
Since the navy's May 31 takeover of the Turkish-Hamas flotilla, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his advisers have deliberated around the clock about how to contend with the US-led international stampede against Israel. But their ultimate decision to form an investigatory committee led by a retired Supreme Court justice and overseen by foreign observers indicates that they failed to recognize the nature of the international campaign facing us today.
Led by US President Barack Obama, the West has cast its lot with Hamas. It is not surprising that Obama is siding with Hamas. His close associates are leading members of the pro-Hamas Free Gaza outfit. Obama's friends, former Weather Underground terrorists Bernadine Dohrn and William Ayres participated in a Free Gaza trip to Egypt in January. Their aim was to force the Egyptians to allow them into Gaza with 1,300 fellow Hamas supporters. Their mission was led by Code Pink leader and Obama fund-raiser Jodie Evans. Another leading member of Free Gaza is James Abourezk, a former US senator from South Dakota.
All of these people have open lines of communication not only to the Obama White House, but to Obama himself.
Obama has made his sympathy for the Muslim Brotherhood clear several times since entering office. The Muslim Brotherhood's progeny include Hamas, al-Qaida and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Last June, Obama infuriated the Egyptian government when he insisted on inviting leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood to attend his speech at Al Azhar University in Cairo. His administration's decision to deport Hamas deserter and Israeli counterterror operative Mosab Hassan Yousef to the Palestinian Authority where he will be killed is the latest sign of its support for radical Islam.
READ IT ALL:
Obama barrels on, regardless of consequences, regardless of not having any understanding of Islamic intentions, regardless of moving the West closer to war.
"And that's still not the worst of it. What is worst is that Obama's advisers openly admit that they have no idea why Syria remains a rogue state despite their happy talk. As one administration official told Foreign Policy, understanding why Syria - Iran's Arab client state - is acting like Iran's Arab client state is, "the million dollar question."
"We do not understand Syrian intentions. No one does, and until we get to that question we can never get to the root of the problem," the official told the magazine."
FROM JEWISHWORLDREVIEW.COM:
Barreling on, regardless
By Caroline B. Glick
If safeguarding international security is the chief aim of US President Barack Obama's foreign policy, then at some point he can be expected to change course in the Middle East. For today, Obama faces the wreckage of every aspect of his Middle East policies. And largely as a consequence of his policies, the region moves ever closer to war.
In Iraq, Obama's pledge to withdraw all combat forces from the country by the summer has emboldened the various forces vying for control of the country to set it ablaze once more.
In Afghanistan, Obama's surge and leave policy has left would-be US allies hedging their bets, at best. And it has caused the US's NATO partners to question the purpose of their deployment in that country.
Then there is Iran. Last week's report by The New York Times that this January Defense Secretary Robert Gates penned a memo to National Security Advisor James Jones warning that the Obama administration has no effective policy for dealing with Iran's nuclear weapons program exposed the bitter truth that in the face of the most acute foreign policy problem they face, Obama and his crew are out to lunch.
Gates' attempt to mitigate the story's impact by claiming that actually, the White House is weighing all its option only made things worse. Even before the ink on his correction note was dry, his Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy was telling reporters in Singapore that the military option, "is not on the table in the near term."
Iran for its part continues to escalate its menacing behavior. Last week its naval forces reportedly interdicted a French ship and an Italian ship navigating through the Straits of Hormuz.
President Shimon Peres' announcement last week that Syria has transferred Scud missiles to Hizbullah in Lebanon was a sharp warning that Iran and its underlings are diligently preparing for war with Israel. It also demonstrated that the Obama administration's attempts to use diplomacy to coddle Syria away from Iran have failed completely.
Administration officials' statements in the wake of Peres's bombshell make clear that Syria's bellicose actions have not caused the US President to reconsider his failed policy. Obama's advisors responded to the news by irrelevantly boasting that their policy of "engagement" enabled them to bring the matter up with their Syrian interlocutors three times before Peres' announcement and once more after he made the statement.
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Frank Gaffney puts Obama's dislike for Israel into perspective.
FROM JEWISHWORLDREVIEW.COM:
One more time
By Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.
A solemn vow has animated the people of the State of Israel and their admirers for over sixty years: "Never again." Those two words have captured a shared, steely determination to prevent another Holocaust - the genocide waged against the Jews by Nazi Germany. Today, alas, there is growing reason to fear that the operative phrase is becoming instead: "One more time."
Consider a few illustrative examples of the gathering storm that is developing in the Middle East and elsewhere, to the grave detriment of the Jewish State - and to America's vital interests:
The so-called "international community" as represented by the United Nations and its various subsidiaries has institutionalized anti-Zionism and, in the process, increasingly legitimated anti-Semitism. Israel is the target of the vast majority of UN investigations of human rights abuses and condemnatory resolutions. No other nation even comes close to the "world body's" sustained and vicious assault on one of the planet's most liberal democracies and freest societies.
The latest of such UN travesties is the denunciation of Israel produced by Sir Richard Goldstone, a South African jurist (who happens to be Jewish). The "Goldstone Report" he authored purports to be an objective analysis of the conduct of the Israelis and Palestinians when the former retaliated at last against the latter after years of rocket fire on Israel from the Gaza Strip. This odious document largely ignores the responsibility of Hamas for what happened, accuses the Jewish State of using excessive force and has encouraged international prosecution of Israelis on specious war crimes charges.
Barack Obama has had a longstanding enmity towards Israel. Under the influence of his one-time fellow University of Chicago professor Rashid Khalidi, the future president honed a sympathy for the Palestinian cause assiduously promoted by his colleague. Indeed, as far back as 2004, Mr. Obama was letting it be known that he had to subordinate public expression of his anti-Israel sentiments in order to advance politically. In a report published in March 2008, a similarly minded pro-Arab activist in Chicago, Ali Abunimah, quoted the then-Senate candidate as saying four years before, "Hey, I'm sorry I haven't said more about Palestine right now, but we are in a tough primary race. I'm hoping when things calm down I can be more up front."
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Diana West clarifies the full court press by Obama against Israel.
FROM JEWISHWORLDREVIEW.COM:
So Israel's the Bad Guy Here? Really?
By Diana West
Phew. We can breathe easier now that the Obama administration has taken a tough-as-scimitars line with Israel, whose existentially threatening architectural blueprints for new housing, the administration says, pose a dire threat to U.S. troops and interests. Or, as Vice President Joseph Biden put it, referring to a new housing project in Jerusalem, as reported by Yedioth Ahronoth: "This is starting to get dangerous for us. What you're doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan." In other words, maybe it's not the Muslim-made IED planted in the roads of Helmand Province that's the problem; maybe it's the Jewish-built condo in Jerusalem. Such is the babble of the jihad-blackmailed. And the problem with giving in to blackmail is that it never ends.
The effects are as palpable as they are shameful. The same week the Israeli housing project launched diplomatic fireworks and blaring world headlines, the White House and most media ignored the Palestinian Authority's (PA) official commemoration of Dalal Mughrabi, a mass murderess who led an attack killing 38 Israelis in 1978. She now has a PA public square named in her honor (joining two PA girls high schools, two summer camps and other institutions so named). In its silence on this calumny, the U.S. government has acquiesced to the jihadist narrative that Jews building homes in Israel's capital is incitement; and Muslims naming public squares for killers of Jews in the PA is just peace-process-as-usual.
This is the policy of appeasement, Islamic appeasement, and, under the constant drip, drip, drip of oil dependence, it has been eroding our national security posture since long before 9/11, reshaping a world perspective that conforms with that of the Islamic world. This eruption over housing in Jerusalem -- an "insult," an "affront," said White House adviser David Axelrod, strangely using the language of offended Islam -- is just its most vivid political manifestation to date.
Gen. David Petraeus put a military gloss on this same policy in recent testimony before the U.S. Senate. Setting up a discussion of what he called "root causes of instability" or "obstacles to security," he led off with "insufficient progress toward a comprehensive Middle East peace," meaning the open-ended jihad against Israel (not that he put it that way). This, he went on to say, presents "distinct challenges to our ability to advance our interests in the (region)."
Why? "The conflict foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel," he said. "Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of U.S. partnerships with governments and peoples in the (region) ... and weakens the legitimacy of moderate regimes in the Arab world. Meanwhile, al-Qaida and other militant groups exploit that anger to mobilize support."
Subtext: If Israel would shrink into nothingness, everything would be beautiful.
Petraeus' testimony about "Arab anger" echoes his concerns, as reported by Foreign Policy online this week, about Arab complaints on "the Palestinian issue," as a senior military officer put it to the blog. Petraeus, Foreign Policy writes, believes this anger is "jeopardizing U.S. standing in the region." Indeed, hoping "to be perceived by Arab leaders as engaged," Petraeus sought to place Israel under his command purview. (Request denied.)
Q: Since when is assuaging "Arab anger" and demonstrating "engagement" to Arab leaders the concern of U.S. war planners? A: Since U.S. war planners became U.S. counter-insurgency (COIN) planners -- and Petraeus helped write the book on COIN. Playing to Arab demands, Muslim demands, generally, is the heart of "hearts and minds" in CENTCOM land.
No wonder the general talks about "Arab anger" caused by Arab "perception" over "the Palestinian question" as hindering U.S. objectives. He is using the classic buzz terms for the Arab-ist slant on the jihad (not "Arab anger") against Israel. This jihad is now picking up a terrifying speed, particularly as the Obama administration, fresh from an apology to Libya's Moammar Gadhafi, "outreach" to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Iran, "population protection" at the expense of force protection in Hamid Karzai's Afghanistan (don't forget President Obama's bow last year to Saudi's King Abdullah), assists by bringing the hammer down on Israel.
What makes the blackmail unbearable is that the hammer is coming down on something all too symbolically close to Israel's very existence: building houses.
Another accurate assessment of the Obama administration's assault on Israel by Caroline Glick. Obama is setting up Israel to have no other option than to attack Iran's nuclear facilities and so set of a major war in the Middle East. In so doing, he will also have creates instability throughout the world and incite Muslims everywhere to attack non-Muslims.
FROM JEWISHWORLDREVIEW.COM:
Why Obama is waging war on Israel
By Caroline B. Glick
There are five explanations for president's behavior. And they are not mutually exclusive
Why has US President Barak Obama decided to foment a crisis in US relations with Israel?
Some commentators have claimed that it is Israel's fault. As they tell it, the news that Israel has not banned Jewish construction in Jerusalem — after repeatedly refusing to ban such construction — drove Obama into a fit of uncontrolled rage from which he has yet to recover.
While popular, this claim makes no sense. Obama didn't come to be called "No drama Obama" for nothing. It is not credible to argue that Jerusalem's local planning board's decision to approve the construction of 1,600 housing units in Ramat Shlomo drove cool Obama into a fit of wild rage at Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
Obama himself claims that he has launched a political war against Israel in the interest of promoting peace. But this claim too, does not stand up to scrutiny.
On Friday Obama ordered Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to present Netanyahu with a four-part ultimatum.
First, Israel must cancel the approval of the housing units in Ramat Shlomo.
Second, Israel must prohibit all construction for Jews in Jerusalem neighborhoods built since 1967.
Third, Israel must make a gesture to the Palestinians to show them we want peace. The US suggests releasing hundreds of Palestinian terrorists from Israeli prisons.
Fourth, Israel must agree to negotiate all substantive issues, including the partition of Jerusalem, (including the Jewish neighborhoods constructed since 1967 that are now home to more than a half million Israelis), and the immigration of millions of hostile foreign Arabs to Israel under the rubric of the so-called "right of return," in the course of indirect, Obama administration-mediated negotiations with the Palestinians. To date, Israel has maintained that substantive discussions can only be conducted in direct negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian officials.
If Israel does not accept all four US demands, then the Obama administration will boycott Netanyahu and his senior ministers. In the first instance, this means that if Netanyahu comes to Washington next week for the AIPAC conference, no senior administration official will meet with him.
Obama's ultimatum makes clear that mediating peace between Israel and the Palestinians is not a goal he is interested in achieving.
Obama's new demands follow the months of American pressure that eventually coerced Netanyahu into announcing both his support for a Palestinian state and a ten month ban on Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria. No previous Israeli government had ever been asked to make the latter concession.
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FROM JEWISHWORLDREVIEW.COM:
Enlightened nations of the world are on a coffee-break from enlightenment
By Caroline B. Glick
"Never again!"
So declared Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu as he spoke at Auschwitz-Birkenau on Wednesday, the 65th anniversary of its liberation.
Netanyahu used his speech at the notorious death camp to nudge what he referred to as "the enlightened nations of the world," to recognize that "murderous evil" has to be stopped as early as possible to prevent it from achieving its aims. Unfortunately, the events of the past week show clearly that evil is on the march, and "the enlightened nations of the world" are on a coffee-break from enlightenment.
As Netanyahu addressed the world from the site of the most prolific genocide factory in human history, at the place where over a million Jews were gassed, starved, beaten, raped, frozen, shot and hanged and then burned in ovens, Iran's leaders were declaring loudly that they intend to finish what the Nazis started. They will destroy the Jewish people.
Iran's dictator supremo Ali Khamenei used a photo op with Mauritania's President Mohammed Ould Abdel Aziz — who cut his own country's diplomatic ties with Israel last January -- to renew his pledge to commit yet another Holocaust. As he put it, "Surely, the day will come when the nations of the region will witness the destruction of the Zionist regime… When the destruction happens will depend on how the Islamic nations approach the issue."
And as he spoke, "the enlightened nations of the world's" ability to deny that the Iranian regime is building a nuclear arsenal was finally and utterly wiped away. On Monday Germany's Der Speigel reported that evidence gleaned from document intercepts and from the testimony of two senior Iranian defectors who were involved in Iran's nuclear program, proves beyond a reasonable doubt that Iran's nuclear program is not a peaceful one. The Iranians are designing and building nuclear warheads for their Shihab-3 ballistic missiles. According to a summary of the findings now circulating through the halls of power, Iran will have the wherewithal to build nuclear warheads by 2012.
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