Finally, A Voice Of Sanity

At a time when the most egregious lies about Israel are being devoured eagerly by most of the world, here is a voice of reason. Former Spanish Prime Minister   José María Aznar, writing in The Times this week, said:

If Israel goes down, we all go down

By José María Aznar

For far too long now it has been unfashionable in Europe to speak up for Israel. In the wake of the recent incident on board a ship full of anti-Israeli activists in the Mediterranean, it is hard to think of a more unpopular cause to champion.

In an ideal world, the assault by Israeli commandos on the Mavi Marmara would not have ended up with nine dead and a score wounded. In an ideal world, the soldiers would have been peacefully welcomed on to the ship.

In an ideal world, no state, let alone a recent ally of Israel such as Turkey, would have sponsored and organised a flotilla whose sole purpose was to create an impossible situation for Israel: making it choose between giving up its security policy and the naval blockade, or risking the wrath of the world.

In our dealings with Israel, we must blow away the red mists of anger that too often cloud our judgment. A reasonable and balanced approach should encapsulate the following realities: first, the state of Israel was created by a decision of the UN.

Its legitimacy, therefore, should not be in question. Israel is a nation with deeply rooted democratic institutions. It is a dynamic and open society that has repeatedly excelled in culture, science and technology.

Second, owing to its roots, history, and values, Israel is a fully fledged Western nation. Indeed, it is a normal Western nation, but one confronted by abnormal circumstances.

Uniquely in the West, it is the only democracy whose very existence has been questioned since its inception. In the first instance, it was attacked by its neighbours using the conventional weapons of war. Then it faced terrorism culminating in wave after wave of suicide attacks. Now, at the behest of radical Islamists and their sympathisers, it faces a campaign of delegitimisation through international law and diplomacy.

Sixty-two years after its creation, Israel is still fighting for its very survival. Punished with missiles raining from north and south, threatened with destruction by an Iran aiming to acquire nuclear weapons and pressed upon by friend and foe, Israel, it seems, is never to have a moment’s peace.

For years, the focus of Western attention has understandably been on the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians. But if Israel is in danger today and the whole region is slipping towards a worryingly problematic future, it is not due to the lack of understanding between the parties on how to solve this conflict. The parameters of any prospective peace agreement are clear, however difficult it may seem for the two sides to make the final push for a settlement.

The real threats to regional stability, however, are to be found in the rise of a radical Islamism which sees Israel’s destruction as the fulfilment of its religious destiny and, simultaneously in the case of Iran, as an expression of its ambitions for regional hegemony. Both phenomena are threats that affect not only Israel, but also the wider West and the world at large.

The core of the problem lies in the ambiguous and often erroneous manner in which too many Western countries are now reacting to this situation. It is easy to blame Israel for all the evils in the Middle East.

Some even act and talk as if a new understanding with the Muslim world could be achieved if only we were prepared to sacrifice the Jewish state on the altar. This would be folly.

Israel is our first line of defence in a turbulent region that is constantly at risk of descending into chaos; a region vital to our energy security owing to our overdependence on Middle Eastern oil; a region that forms the front line in the fight against extremism. If Israel goes down, we all go down.

To defend Israel’s right to exist in peace, within secure borders, requires a degree of moral and strategic clarity that too often seems to have disappeared in Europe. The United States shows worrying signs of heading in the same direction.

The West is going through a period of confusion over the shape of the world’s future. To a great extent, this confusion is caused by a kind of masochistic self-doubt over our own identity; by the rule of political correctness; by a multiculturalism that forces us to our knees before others; and by a secularism which, irony of ironies, blinds us even when we are confronted by jihadis promoting the most fanatical incarnation of their faith.

To abandon Israel to its fate, at this moment of all moments, would merely serve to illustrate how far we have sunk and how inexorable our decline now appears.

This cannot be allowed to happen. Motivated by the need to rebuild our own Western values, expressing deep concern about the wave of aggression against Israel, and mindful that Israel’s strength is our strength and Israel’s weakness is our weakness, I have decided to promote a new Friends of Israel initiative with the help of some prominent people, including David Trimble, Andrew Roberts, John Bolton, Alejandro Toledo (the former President of Peru), Marcello Pera (philosopher and former President of the Italian Senate), Fiamma Nirenstein (the Italian author and politician), the financier Robert Agostinelli and the Catholic intellectual George Weigel.

It is not our intention to defend any specific policy or any particular Israeli government. The sponsors of this initiative are certain to disagree at times with decisions taken by Jerusalem. We are democrats, and we believe in diversity.

What binds us, however, is our unyielding support for Israel’s right to exist and to defend itself. For Western countries to side with those who question Israel’s legitimacy, for them to play games in international bodies with Israel’s vital security issues, for them to appease those who oppose Western values rather than robustly to stand up in defence of those values, is not only a grave moral mistake, but a strategic error of the first magnitude.

Israel is a fundamental part of the West. The West is what it is thanks to its Judeo-Christian roots. If the Jewish element of those roots is upturned and Israel is lost, then we are lost too. Whether we like it or not, our fate is inextricably intertwined.

José María Aznar was prime minister of Spain between 1996 and 2004.

Breaking News! Barack Obama To Receive Psychiatric Help

 

 

White House sources have this morning confirmed that Barack Obama is receiving psychiatric care. The problems apparently started a week ago, after the President’s closest aides observed his behaviour becoming increasingly erratic. 

 

But it was after Obama became delusional that alarm grew among his staff. Specifically, one aide has confirmed: ‘It’s all rather embarrassing, actually. The President clearly believed himself to be in charge of, well, planning permission –  in Jerusalem.’

 

It was then that White House staff had to face the fact that Obama was seriously ill.

 

‘At first I thought he was just stressed,’ states one source who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity, ‘But then he got on to the phone to the Israeli Ambassador to America and began issuing bizarre instructions’.

Specifically, confirms the aide, Obama ordered the Israeli government to halt work on an apartment building near Sheikh Jarrah.

 

‘It was embarrassing, to say the least’, confides another aide, ‘There we are with people being killed on the streets of Iran, and there’s Obama marching around the Oval office, screaming down the phone to Tel Aviv about this new block of flats and demanding that it not go ahead!

 

And the aide continues: ‘It was apparent to everyone there that Obama was delusional. We had no choice but to organise the appropriate help for him.’

 

Rumours suggest that Obama has been assessed by a consultant psychiatrist, at the White House, and that a medication regime is being set up. Although details of the diagnosis remain under wraps, it’s rumoured that Obama is experiencing some form of  obsessive-compulsive disorder.

 

Specifically, his staff are hoping that the treatment will help to reduce the American President’s apparent fixation on Israel. 

 

 ‘His behaviour is troubling, no doubt about it, ‘ stated a member of the secret service, ‘Sometimes,  in the early hours of the morning, our boys will come across the President wandering around, muttering and mumbling about ‘that bloody Bibi’. We sure hope he gets better soon.’

 

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, has conveyed his ‘heartfelt wishes for Obama’s speedy recovery’ during a phone call with the Israeli Ambassador to the U.S.

He is reported to have said: ‘I am truly sorry to hear of Obama’s difficulties. We will of course disregard his irrational demands over what Israelis can and can’t do in the Israeli capital, Jerusalem. As far as I am concerned, it never happened and I won’t mention it ever again.  Our thoughts are with Obama and his family at this time.’

 

We will update this news story as soon as we get more details – watch this space!

 

 ***********************************************************************************************************************

 Jeff Jacoby, writing in the Boston Globe, offers some historical context:

 

Late last week, the Obama Administration demanded that the Israeli government pull the plug on a planned housing development near the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem.

 

The project, a 20-unit apartment complex, is indisputably legal. The property to be developed – a defunct hotel – was purchased in 1985 and the developer has obtained all the necessary municipal permits.

 

Why, then, does the administration want the development killed? Because Sheikh Jarrah is in a largely Arab section of Jerusalem and the developers of the planned apartments are Jews. Think about that for a moment. Six months after Barack Obama became the first Black man to move into the previously all-White residential facility at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, he is fighting to prevent integration in Jerusalem.

 

It is impossible to imagine the opposite scenario. The administration would never demand that Israel prevent Arabs from moving into a Jewish neighborhood. And the Obama Justice Department would unleash seven kinds of hell on anyone who tried to impose racial, ethnic or religious redlining in an American city. In the 21st century, segregation is unthinkable – except, it seems, when it comes to housing Jews in Jerusalem.

 

It is not easy for Israel’s government to refuse any demand from the United States, which is the Jewish State’s foremost ally. To their credit, Israeli leaders spoke truth to power, and said “no”.

 

“Jerusalem residents can purchase apartments anywhere in the city,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday. “This has been the policy of all Israeli governments. There is no ban on Arabs buying apartments in the west of the city, and there is no ban on Jews building or buying in the city’s east. This is the policy of an open city.”

 

There was a time not so long ago when Jerusalem was anything but an open city. During Israel’s War of Independence in 1948, the Jordanian Arab Legion invaded eastern Jerusalem, occupied the Old City, and expelled all its Jews – many from families that had lived in the city for centuries.

 

“As they left,” the acclaimed historian Sir Martin Gilbert later wrote in his 1998 book, Jerusalem in the Twentieth Century, “they could see columns of smoke rising from the quarter behind them. The Hadassah welfare station had been set on fire and… the looting and burning of Jewish property was in full swing.”

 

For the next 19 years, eastern Jerusalem was barred to Jews, brutally divided from the western part of the city with barbed wire and military fortifications. Dozens of Jewish holy places, including synagogues hundreds of years old, were desecrated or destroyed. Gravestones from the ancient Mount of Olives cemetery were uprooted by the Jordanian army and used to pave latrines. Jerusalem’s most sacred Jewish shrine, the Western Wall, became a slum.

 

It wasn’t until 1967, after Jordan was routed in the Six-Day War, that Jerusalem was reunited under Israeli sovereignty and religious freedom restored to all. Israelis have vowed ever since that Jerusalem would never again be divided.

 

And not only Israelis. US policy, laid out in the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, recognizes Jerusalem as “a united city administered by Israel” and formally declares that “Jerusalem must remain an undivided city.” 
 
US presidents, Republican and Democratic alike, have agreed. In former President Bill Clinton’s words, “Jerusalem should be an open and undivided city, with assured freedom of access and worship for all.”

 

As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama said much the same thing. To a 2008 candidate questionnaire that asked about “the likely final status Jerusalem,” Obama replied: “The United States cannot dictate the terms of a final status agreement…. Jerusalem will remain Israel’s capital, and no one should want or expect it to be re-divided.”

 

In a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Council, he repeated the point: “Let me be clear… Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided.”

 

Palestinian irredentists claim that eastern Jerusalem is historically Arab territory and should be the capital of a future Palestinian state. In reality, Jews have always lived in eastern Jerusalem – it is the location of the Old City and its famous Jewish Quarter, after all, not to mention Hebrew University, which was founded in 1918.

 

The apartment complex that Obama opposes is going up in what was once Shimon Hatzadik, a Jewish neighborhood established in 1891. Only from 1948 to 1967 – during the Jordanian occupation – was the eastern part of Israel’s capital “Arab territory”. Palestinians have no more claim to sovereignty there than Russia does in formerly occupied eastern Berlin.

 

The great obstacle to Middle East peace is not that Jews insist on living among Arabs. It is that Arabs insist that Jews not live among them. If Obama doesn’t yet grasp that, then he has a lot to learn.

This article first appeared in the Boston Globe on July 22, 2009.

USA Goes After British Hacker Who Just Wanted Proof Of Little Green Men

The latest example of British lunacy is the decision to extradite to America Gary McKinnon. Gary, for those who have missed all the media coverage, is both autistic and also an internet hacker. After he happily hacked his way into Pentagon and NASA computers,  America demanded his extradition. And the reason for his cyberspace mischief…?

Gary was looking for proof of  aliens. Yep, that’s right. His primary interest is ‘little green men’. Now, personally, I think the Pentagon should be offering Gary a job – clearly, their security is woefully lacking, as proven by this British alien enthusiast.

America has other ideas, though. Now Gary faces a sixty year sentence and the prospect of dying in a US jail cell. U.S prosecutor Mark Summers insists that Gary’s actions were ‘intentional and calculated to influence and affect the U.S. government by intimidation and coercion’.

Here in the UK, though, numerous politicians, celebs and mental health experts are calling on the government to intervene, insisting that for a person with Asbergers, extradition and prison could be fatal.

And why can’t Gary be tried in the UK? After all, it’s here where his crimes were actually committed. He could be sentenced to a maximum of five years in prison, under the Computer Misuse Act.

Instead, legislation that was intended to deal with terrorists, is being applied to this 43 yr old autistic bloke who no doubt wishes one of his beloved UFOs would indeed swoop down and rescue him from the long arm of American ‘justice’.

Lord Carlile, a former Liberal Democrat M.P., is the government’s Independent Reviewer Of Terrorism Legislation.  He has repeatedly lobbied the  Home Office to rethink Gary’s case. In a letter to the Home Secretary, he says:

‘…I believe we have a duty to protect the vulnerable and even the eccentric. Mr Mckinnon has had the shadow of extradition hanging over him for five years already, during which time he could have been tried, sentenced and perhaps served any prison time, were he to have been prosecuted in the UK.’

Meanwhile, let’s peruse the list of people that Britain apparently either can’t extradite, or is having trouble doing so, shall we…?

There’s radical Islamic cleric Abu Qatada, for a start. Described as Bin Laden’s ‘ambassador in Europe’. Qatada has been in prison here since 2005 while battling extradition to Jordan on terrorism charges.

Then there’s Rachid Ramda, an Islamic terrorist who spent an entire decade resisting extradition to France, where he was wanted for a series of bombings on the Paris metro in 1995. He was finally extradited in 2007.

Oh, and let’s not forget the case of four wanted for mass murder in Rwanda. They were successful in avoiding extradition and are now in Britain, totally free.

Finally, there’s convicted killer Selami Cokaj, an Albanian who who broke out of jail in his home country and in 1997, was discovered living in Nottinghamshire, running a car washing business.

Twice, British police arrested him. Yet he w

as freed on bail by British magistrates. Finally, Cokaj successfully avoided extradition to Albania – by lodging an eleventh hour asylum claim…

But Crown Prosecution Service lawyers – funded by the good old  British public – have been advised they have no choice but to work towards Gary’s extradition.

Quite apart from anything else, this case illustrates the strange nature of Britain’s extradition treaty with the U.S.   British citizens can be apprehended on little or no evidence – yet the criteria for extraditing Americans are far stricter.

To be clear: I’m not seeking to condone Gary McKinnon’s online exploits. I just think public funds could be put to far better use than turning over to the U.S. this vulnerable man whose dearest dream in life was to find proof of alien life.

Update:

It seems that Gary McKinnon’s motives in hacking into the Pentagon and NASA may have been somewhat darker than I, for one, initially realised. Fellow blogger Sultan Knish has pointed out the following:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200708/ldjudgmt/jd080730/mckinn-1.htm

16. Analysis of the appellant’s home computer confirmed these allegations. During his interviews under caution, moreover, he admitted responsibility (although not that he had actually caused damage). He stated that his targets were high level US Army, Navy and Air Force computers and that his ultimate goal was to gain access to the US military classified information network. He admitted leaving a note on one army computer reading:

“US foreign policy is akin to government-sponsored terrorism these days . . . It was not a mistake that there was a huge security stand down on September 11 last year . . . I am SOLO. I will continue to disrupt at the highest levels . . .”

McKinnon’s mother apparently refers to his being a ‘9/11 Truther’:

http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2009/01/12/234180/gary-mckinnons-mothers-appeal-to-the-dpp.htm

To quote a programme that some of us used to rather enjoy: the truth is out there…!

Joseph Farah On Obama’s ‘Auschwitz Borders’

 

American Arab journalist Joseph Farah is one of the few commentators who talks straight about what Obama is trying to do to Israel.  Here he makes it clear what Obama is really doing:

 

Barack Obama is taking what he and his administration refer to as “a more balanced approach to Middle East policy.”

Let me explain what that literally means in real terms.

It means the U.S. government is now using its clout with Israel to insist Jews, not Israelis, mind you, but Jews, be disallowed from living in East Jerusalem and the historically Jewish lands of Judea and Samaria, often referred to as the West Bank.

 

 I want you to try to imagine the outrage, the horror, the outcry, the clamoring, the gnashing of teeth that would ensue if Arabs or Muslims were told they could no longer live in certain parts of Israel – let alone their own country.

 

Of course, that would never happen with “a more balanced approach to the Middle East.”

 

It’s the 1930s all over again. This time, it’s the enlightened liberal voices of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama who are telling Jews where they can live, how they can live and how far they must bend if they want to live at all. I know you haven’t heard it put like this before. I don’t really understand why.

 

There is simply no other accurate way to explain the machinations behind the latest demands on Israel from the West and the rest of the world. Israel is being reduced to “Auschwitz borders.” Jews have already been told they can no longer live in the Gaza Strip.

 

Now they are being told they can no longer choose to live in any of the areas being set aside by international elites for a future Palestinian state.

 

Again, I ask: Why would internationalists seek to create, by definition, a racist, anti-Jewish state that doesn’t even tolerate the mere presence of Jews? Can anyone answer that question for me?

 

Obama and Clinton – and, thus, by definition, you and me, the taxpayers of the United States – have determined they will yield to the racist, bigoted, anti-Semitic demands of the Palestinian Authority that no Jews be allowed to live in their new state.

 

I like to think that in any other part of the world, this kind of effort at ethnically cleansing a region would be roundly condemned by all civilized people. Yet, because most people simply don’t understand the clear, official plan by the Arab leaders to force out all Jews from the new Palestinian state, the policies of capitulation retain a degree of sympathy, even political support, from much of the world.

 

Think about what I am saying: It is the official policy of the Palestinian Authority that all Jews must get off the land! Why is the United States supporting the creation of a new, racist, anti-Semitic hate state? Why is the civilized world viewing this as a prescription for peace in the region? Why is this considered an acceptable idea? Is there any other place in the world where that kind of official policy of racism and ethnic cleansing is tolerated – even condoned?

 

Why are the rules different in the Middle East? Why are the rules different for Arabs? Why are the rules different for Muslims? Why are U.S. tax dollars supporting the racist, anti-Semitic entity known as the Palestinian Authority?

 

That’s what we do when we forbid “settlement construction,” repairs, natural growth, additions to existing communities.  This is “balance”?

 

Are there any impositions upon the Arabs and Muslims suggesting they can no longer move to Israel? No.

 Are there any impositions on Arabs and Muslims suggesting they cannot buy homes in Israel? No.

Are there any impositions on Arabs and Muslim suggesting they cannot repair their existing homes in Israel? No.

Are there any impositions on Arabs or Muslims suggesting the cannot build settlements anywhere they like? No.

 

 Now, keep in mind, there are already quite a few Arab and Muslim states in the Middle East. Many of them already forbid Jews to live in them. Some prohibit Christians as well.

 

But now, the only Jewish state in the world, and one that has a claim on the land dating back to the days of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, is being told Jews must keep off land currently under their own control, but destined for transfer to people who hate them, despise them, want to see them dead and will not even accept living peacefully with them as neighbors.

 

 All the while, Israel continues to hold out its naïve hand of friendship to the Arabs and the Muslims – welcoming them in their own tiny nation surrounded by hateful neighbors.

 

Arabs and Muslims are offered full citizenship rights – and even serve in elected office. They publish newspapers and broadcast on radio and television freely. But, conversely, Jews are one step away from eviction from homes they have sometimes occupied for generations. Gaza is about to happen all over again.

 

I hope my Jewish friends remember this well. Many of them voted for Barack Obama. Many of them voted for Hillary Clinton. These are not your friends.

 

These are the same kinds of people who turned away ships of Jewish refugees from Germany in the 1940s. These are the same kinds of people who appeased Adolf Hitler at Munich. These are the same kinds of people who made the reformation of the modern state of Israel so difficult.

 

I say: “No more ethnic cleansing. No more official anti-Semitism accepted. No more Jew-bashing. No more telling Jews where they can live, how they can – and if they can live.”

 

 

 

Original article at    

The Dhimmi In The White House Protects Saudi Arabia – From families of 9/11 Victims

Reed it and weep, people:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has refused to allow victims of the Sept. 11 attacks to pursue lawsuits against Saudi Arabia and four of its princes over charitable donations that were allegedly funneled to al-Qaida.

The court, in an order Monday, is leaving in place the ruling of a federal appeals court that the country and the princes are protected by sovereign immunity, which generally means that foreign countries can’t be sued in American courts.

The Obama administration had angered some victims and families by urging the justices to pass up the case. In their appeal, the more than 6,000 plaintiffs said the government’s court brief filed in early June was an “apparent effort to appease a sometime ally” just before President Barack Obama’s visit to Saudi Arabia.

At issue were obstacles in American law to suing foreign governments and their officials as well as the extent to which people can be held financially responsible for acts of terrorism committed by others.

The appeal was filed by relatives of victims killed in the attacks and thousands of people who were injured, as well as businesses and governments that sustained property damage and other losses.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York previously upheld a federal judge’s ruling throwing out the lawsuits. The appeals court said the defendants were protected by sovereign immunity and the plaintiffs would need to prove that the princes engaged in intentional actions aimed at U.S. residents.

In their appeal to the high court, both sides cited the report of the Sept. 11 Commission. The victims noted that the report said Saudi Arabia had long been considered the primary source of al-Qaida funding. The Saudis’ court filing, however, pointed out that the commission “found no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded the organization.”

The victims’ lawsuits claim that the defendants gave money to charities in order to funnel it to terrorist organizations that were behind the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

The appeal also stressed that federal appeals courts have reached conflicting decisions about when foreign governments and their officials can be sued.

The case is Federal Insurance Co. v. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, 08-640.

Israel’s Stark Choices

 

I wish I could disagree with the following article; I wish the conclusions reached by the author were wrong.  Alas, I fear he’s spot on in this candid appraisal of the unpalatable options now confronting Israel.

And for those people who keep insisting that Jews are ‘over reacting’ when we express alarm about Israel, I’d just like to remind you: when the Jews first tried to reveal what had been happening in the concentration camps, what were many of them told? ‘Stop whining’.

So excuse us if we ignore those who dismiss  the threats facing Israel.

This superb piece is from the Sultan Knish blog– do check it out, you’ll find some great articles there.

 

Ending Arab Terrorism for Good and the Awful Question of the Moment

 

 

In 1775 the American colonies had an awful question facing them. So do we today. So do we always. The awful question does not go away merely because it remains ignored, unasked or dismissed as impractical. The awful question is not rooted in philosophy or wishful thinking. It requires facing reality and making a choice.

 

“The question before the House is one of awful moment to this country…and in proportion to the magnitude of the subject ought to be the freedom of the debate. It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfill the great responsibility which we hold to God and our country. Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings. “ – Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775

 

 The goal of Zionism was to create a Jewish state in the land of Israel, the ancestral home of the Jewish people, from which we were repeatedly forcibly expelled and to which we repeatedly struggled and sacrificed to return to. The Palestinian Mandate of the League of Nations under British authority where a Jewish homeland was supposed to be created consisted of 43,000 square miles bordering Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arabia.

 

A vast territory. Of that 43,000 square miles, 32,500 square miles (more than 75 percent) were used by the British to create Jordan ruled by the Hashemite kings transferred over from Saudi Arabia, which was given to the house of Saud. In 1931 the British attempted to limit Jewish immigration in violation of the Mandate and were thwarted by the League of Nations.

 

 In 1939 the League of Nations was gone and as the Nazis began their Final Solution of Jewish question the British succeeded in blocking escape to Israel. Millions of Jews died in the Holocaust who could have lived because the British diverted ships they took from America under the Lend-Lease act to block fleeing Jews.

 

Their blood is on the Empire’s hands. The British incited Arab riots against Jews, as Lawrence of Arabia had previously incited Arab revolts against the Turks. One such attack wiped out the Jewish community in Hevron. The British did nothing against to prevent the attacks but disarmed and suppressed the Jewish settlers at every turn. In Jerusalem they handed over two Jewish fighters outright to an Arab mob which tore them apart on the spot.

 

By the time the Jews of Europe were under the German knife, it had long since become clear that England had no intention of honoring the mandate. That England did not want a Jewish state. They wanted to dismantle Israel into Arab colonies ruled by their appointed kings such as the Kingdom of Jordan or the American backed House of Saud. They wanted colonies they would control and they were willing to see and even collaborate in the deaths of millions of Jews to bring it about.

 

When Israel was founded in 1948 it was after a prolonged armed campaign against British authority and over British objections on a mere 5000 square miles of land out of a territory nearly ten times that amount. After the 1967 war Israel liberated an additional mere 2500 square miles of territory it had been entitled to in the first place. And the world has never stopped demanding that Israel turn over that land to a terrorist regime that has used it to launch attacks on Israel and murder Jews.

 

The United States and Europe do this not merely out of Anti-Semitism, though that is undoubtedly a factor particularly in Europe. They do this because they believe it will pacify the Arabs. This is the refrain and has been the refrain in columns, in publications, by politicians and diplomats all in one voice proclaiming that the extremism, the terrorism and the hostility towards America and Europe would die down if Israel didn’t exist.

 

Never mind the absurdity of this belief, it is premised on a colonialist vision of the world in which the Arabs can be pacified by feeding them a little Israel.

 

 It has never worked and it will never work. But that too doesn’t matter. What does matter is this, independence. A final end to colonialism. While the British flag went down in Israel long ago, other flags have always risen in its place. The French flag, the American, even the Russian. Israel and most of the world’s Jews believe that Israel needs a friend, a big brother, a protector to survive. They forget that the true protector is in heaven and that the big countries we ally with become nothing more than crutches that break under us.

 

Colonialism will not end and independence will not be achieved until the psychological cycle of dependency is finally broken.

 

“Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty?

Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.“ – Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775

 

 The illusion Patrick Henry was referring to was the continued delusional belief that there was a way out of the situation besides Independence. The colonists faced a Britain determined to stamp out traces of rebelliousness by remaking the colonies in an image closer to the Mother Country with a state Anglican Church, tightly centralized controls and heavy taxation. They had the choice to submit or to resist.

 

 The illusion Israel faces today is the belief that it can satisfy the demands of the world and still survive. That there is some way out that will satisfy the Palestinian Arabs with enough land and thus satisfy the world and still live on in security.

 

There is no such way. There never was. The Arab desire from the beginning has been the destruction of the land of Israel and the creation of Arab states on that land to redeem their honor. There has never been a different agenda on the table. They are willing to fight for that and die for it and if things go on as they are now, they will succeed.

 

There will not be an Israel, there will be only millions more dead Jews and a stream of refugees seeking shelter around the world. Some will continue to label this paranoid or far fetched but what is happening now are the early stages of that very process, the anhiliation of Israel and the majority of the Jewish people who now reside there.

 

They may point to Israel’s technological and military superiority but like any strategic tool, they only matter when the nation’s leaders are prepared to use them. When you bomb empty buildings and airports, it may work as a bluff once or twice, but when you keep doing it, it becomes obvious that you’re bluffing. The enemy’s response to your bluff will then be to call your bluff by escalating further.

 

When Israel responded to an attack on its territory and the kidnapping of one of its soldiers with a hollow show of force while secretly negotiating for his release, they sent the go-ahead signal to Hizbullah to follow suit resulting in fighting on two fronts. Israel has no credibility left when it comes to the use of force. Sending in military forces into Gaza and bombing empty buildings may look impressive for the cameras but to the enemy it looks like a show and it turns Israel into a paper tiger, as Bill Clinton turned America into a paper tiger.  9/11 swiftly followed.

 

Yet even this show of force was condemned by the world as excessive and outrageous. In fact any military or defensive act by Israel is typically condemned by the world. Not because Israel is an agressor, but because there are 21 Arab countries and only one tiny Israel in the middle east sitting on a few thousand square miles of land. Because there are one billion Muslims in the world who all agree that Israel must go and the world thinks the destruction of Israel is a small price to pay for appeasing them, just as the world thought the destruction of Czechoslovakia was a small price to pay for appeasing Hitler.

 

As the Arabs increase their demands, the world follows suit. If Israel retreats from the West Banks, the Arabs will demand the Galilee and soon the Negev. Then they will demand Haifa and any part of Israel with a sizable Arab population. At no point will the world say enough is enough.

 

 As far as the Arabs and the world is concerned Jews in Israel are all settlers and the rights of the Arabs always trump those of the Jews. There is no point in railing against this or arguing right and wrong with the world. The world does not care. It never has.

 

When 300,000 Jews were murdered by the Nazis the New York Times put it on the back page.

When an Arab terrorist is assassinated by Israel it makes the front page complete with condemnations.

 

We can protest, threaten boycotts and argue till we’re blue in the face. This is how it’s always been. This is how it always is. Justice only comes to those willing to fight for it. It is rarely given out of righteousness, it is most often established as a boundary by force.

 

The awful question of the moment is whether Israel really wants to survive and is willing to do what it takes. The first step is a declaration of independence. Independence from the world’s demands, from the road map and Cslo, from American and European pressure and money. There will be consequences of course but there are consequences already. Boycotts by Churches and Universities are being planned and implemented regardless of what Israel does. They will spread regardless of what Israel does.

 

Israel will not survive by the favor of the world but by taking its fate into its own hands.

 

“I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past…And what have we to oppose to them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication?

 

What terms shall we find which have not been already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves. Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated…

 

Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt…In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free– if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged–we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left us!“ Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775

 

Peace has been tried. Co-existence has been tried. Every effort has been made to appease the Arabs and the world short of steps that would outright annhiliate Israel. Cold peace treaties were signed with the Arabs and kept only after it was clear to the Arab side that further conflict was futile.

 

No such ray of light has penetrated the Palestinian Arabs or the Shiite terrorists in Lebanon or the Iranian government. We are approaching a conflict, whether we want one or not. The only choice is whether we will strike a decisive blow first as we did in 1967 and achieve victory or whether we will allow our friends and allies to ties our hands as they did in 1973 resulting in a near-defeat and a near-anhiliation.

 

Oslo began the road to this war. It will no longer be a war against outside enemies but against internal ones as well. If Israel is to survive, a Palestinian state cannot exist within or near its borders. Nor can there be any sizable numbers of Arabs within Israel driven by a hostile intent towards the country. Oslo and Madrid can only be treated as experiments that failed. All 1967 territories must be annexed to Israel. All Arabs inside them have a choice of taking on Israeli citizenship and swearing allegiance or leaving.

 

The same choice has to be offered to Arabs in Israel as well. The world that cares so deeply about the Palestinian Arabs, while not caring in the least when Sudanese Arabs killed millions of Africans, will now have the chance to take those very same Palestinian Arabs in, welcoming them to London, Paris, Dublin and Brussels. England which after all had imported large numbers of Arabs in the 19th century to begin with as part of their colonial program should justly bear the largest share of the burden.

 

I’m not under any illusion that these nations will cooperate with such a program, but the world is a big place and Israel is a very small one. Too small to house millions of sworn enemies bent on its destruction. This will result in collective global outrage even though half the UN has done similar things with far less cause.

 

Just ask Turkey to return Cyprus, England to return Gibraltar or America to return Hawaii. You’ll be met with derisive laughter. That laughter should be the exact response to any further proposals for a Palestinian state. Countries have regularly drawn and redrawn their borders and expelled foreign populations. In fact Kuwait and Iraq expelled their own Palestinians after the two Iraqi wars. Israel should be no different.

 

Of course everyone shudders to contemplate what will come next after such a step. But what horror will happen?

*The world will condemn us?  The world already condemns us. All the time.

* Everyone will hate Israel?  Pretty much everyone hates us already.

* There will be a worldwide boycott? Unlikely. There will be smaller scale boycotts but those are happening anyway. The Arabs boycott Israel already. The Europeans are along the road to doing so. America isn’t likely to boycott Israel no matter what and the reality is Israel does millions of dollars worth of business even with the Arab countries despite the boycott.

 * Tourism will stop? Tourism will slow down but the appeal of Israel for most Christians will remain unchanged. They don’t come for Israel’s foreign policy but for the sights of the Bible.

 

Terrorism has done a lot more to retard Israel’s tourism than its foreign policy. Arab terrorism has been a wound in Israel’s side for a long time. Removing it for good will be bloody and painful but it will secure Israel’s future and bring domestic security and an era of real peace. Our enemies will no longer be inside our borders but outside them. As it is we have been fiddling with the bandage for decades and the pain has been tremendous and the damage to the nation, economically, diplomatically, militarily and in every other sense has far outweighed what removing it in one moment would have cost.

 

And the time is approaching now when we will no longer have the ability to remove it and by then it will be too late to do anything but flee or die. We have delayed too long, deluded ourselves for even longer. There is no multilateral or unilateral solution that will bring peace. Only removing the hostile population can do that. The Arabs inside and outside Israel have had their chance to live in peace with us. Those who have made their choice, have made it. Now it’s time to make ours.

 

 “They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year?… Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot?

 

Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. The millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations…The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery!…

 

The war is inevitable–and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come. It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace– but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field!” Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775

When Pictures Speak Louder Than Words

This post is dedicated to those people who constantly insist that Israel is on a ‘land grab’ in the Middle East. The claim would be funny – if millions didn’t believe it.

Let’s make this really simple:

 

Israel And The Arab Nations

 

See that tiny blue sliver?

That’s Israel.

Hardly been on a ‘land grab’ now, has it…?

 

Let’s get more specific:

Israel And Egypt - Israel is in BLUE

Egypt also has a border with Gaza. And prior to 1967, when Egypt occupied Gaza, it stuck the Palestinian Arabs in camps and then left them there to rot and garner world sympathy. Guess what? The world did not say a damn word. The Palestinians did not protest and they sure as hell didn’t aim deadly missiles into Egypt.  There was no international condemnation of Egypt behaving like ‘Nazis’, despite their abuse of the Palestinians.

 

Israel And Saudi Arabia

 

Saudi Arabia is a known supporter and funder of Islamic terrorism. Saudi Arabia can always be heard lambasting Israel for its ‘expansionist’ desires. Obscene, is it not…? Look at their comparative sizes again.

 

Now let’s take a good look at the relative sizes of Israel and America. Obama is so obsessed with ordering Israel to give up land – easy for him to demand that, isn’t it? After all, what does he know about living in a country so small that it’s a miracle it’s managed to survive this long surrounded by hostile states dedicated to its destruction?

Israel And America

 

And especially for my fellow Brits:

 

Israel (blue) And Britain (yellow)

 

 

And finally, just to really put it in perspective, here is Israel, compared with Lake Michigan:

 

Israel (blue) And Lake Michigan (yellow)

 

So next time you hear someone trotting out the weary old Arab propaganda about Israel being on a ‘land grab’, you’ll know their claims are utter fiction. By looking at these maps, you’ll perhaps now also realise that if Obama and the Arab and Muslim worlds get their way, you won’t be able to see Israel on any map for that much longer.

The Dhimmi In The White House

Obama’s moral equivalence is reaching new depths.  You may recall that the US had invited Iranian diplomats to attend July 4th celebrations at American embassies. Many people assumed that these invites – absurd to start with – would be rescinded given Iran’s violent measures against protesters  at present.

But no – the Dhimmi in the White House clearly wouldn’t dream of a public show of solidarity with the Iranian people! Instead:

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The United States said Monday its invitations were still standing for Iranian diplomats to attend July 4 celebrations at US embassies despite the crackdown on opposition supporters.

President Barack Obama’s administration said earlier this month it would invite Iran to US embassy barbecues for the national holiday for the first time since the two nations severed relations following the 1979 Islamic revolution.

“There’s no thought to rescinding the invitations to Iranian diplomats,” State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters.

“We have made a strategic decision to engage on a number of fronts with Iran,” Kelly said. “We tried many years of isolation, and we’re pursuing a different path now.”

 

And what a path it is!

Inviting Iranian diplomats to July 4th parties would be like the Allies inviting the Nazis to Thanksgiving lunch.  Does Obama really think that a few fireworks and hotdogs are going to overcome Islamic hatred for all things democratic and Western…?

If so, he’s not just a dhimmi.

He’s a fool.

 

What All Sane People Would Like To Tell Obama:

If like me you had to reach for a bucket after reading the transcript of Obama’s Love Letter to Islam, then you’ll appreciate this. It originally appeared at the superb Townhall.Com.

Enjoy!

Let’s All Accept Islam

by Bruce Bialosky

“Mr. Obama, your speech in Cairo encouraged me to reconsider my thoughts on how I view Islam as a religion in today’s society. I have really thought it over and decided to fully accept Islam … with just a few caveats.

First, they have to stop treating women as second class citizens. Don’t tell me those head covers are worn by choice. They are forced on them just like honor killings. It is sad the French have it right and we don’t on this issue. This is a country where we have worked for a hundred years to bring equality to women. Allowing any woman to be subservient is disgraceful. And come to think of it, tell your Secretary of State and Speaker of the House to stop covering their heads on visits. They are supposed to be beacons of the women’s movement. By covering their heads, they are not being respectful to their hosts– they are disgracing every woman who ever fought for equal rights.

Next, tell the Islamists to stop killing gays. Maybe gays are not totally accepted in this society, but we have made great progress in the last 50 years. We may not agree on gay marriage, but we certainly agree on equal rights for gays. We don’t allow them to be killed just for being gay.

How about the issue of freely elected democratic governments in the Muslim world? Not too many of those around, are there Mr. Obama? When the Islamic world stops being run like feudal societies given up by the rest of the world half a millennium ago, I think it would then be a grand time to accept the Muslims. I know it is sometimes politically expedient to deal with dictators. We even had to make a deal with a mass murderer named Stalin to try and fight another mass murderer named Hitler. But please explain to me why in today’s world, where the great majority of people live in democracies, that we need to make nice-nice with dictators. This country is all about not accepting autocracies, Mr. Obama.

Next, the Muslims should stop trying to tell us they really care about the Palestinians and that the trouble in the Middle East is because of their problems. The Arabs have done nothing — I repeat nothing — to help them for 60 years, and we all know that. The Palestinian problem did not start in 1967. It started in 1948 when the Arabs attacked Israel and got their butts kicked. These people willingly relocated out of the Israeli territory, and their Arabs friends did nothing to help them. So please be honest and stop lying to us because we both know it is a lie. Once you do that, we can all move forward.

Mr. Obama, we also want an apology for all those Christians and Jews kicked out of the Arab countries. While they have been really good on creating a lie about the Palestinians being kicked out of their land, they have done an excellent job of covering up all those people they kicked out. Well, they did not really kick them out. They offered them to convert or die. Moving was a much better option. If anyone wonders where all those Jews in Israel came from they should check it out. Not just Europe or Russia, but from all those neighboring Arab states where they were no longer welcome. That may answer why it is such a big deal that Jews are building settlements in the West Bank. It is not that they are Israelis – it is that they are Jews and if Israel gives back the West Bank, Jews and Christians will no longer be welcome.

Last, when Muslims start protesting the murders and indecencies performed in the name of Islam then I will accept them. We are told that the people who do these acts are a small minority of Muslims. So where are the protests, where are the books, where are the articles, where is the Islamic Pete Seeger? If Islam is really a religion of peace, then start showing it. We have been waiting for it and the memories I have are of Muslims out partying after the Twin Towers went down.

Mr. Obama, it is nice that you want us to accept Islam, but would you have asked us to accept Nazism or Communism with their mass murders and mistreatment of people? I suggest you remember we did not elect you to be Brown-Noser-in-Chief or Apologist-in-Chief; we elected you as Commander-in-Chief. I respectfully suggest you start acting like it because these apologies to mass murderers and intolerant sons-of-bitches are really getting tiresome

Pot Calling Kettle Black…

Now that Ahmadinejhad has won the Iranian election with 63% of the votes, the country is in chaos. Thousands of people have taken to the streets, on the verge of rioting, as they insist the result does not reflect the way they voted.

And America has expressed ‘concern’ over the possibility of election rigging in Iran.

The words ‘pot’ and ‘kettle’ come to mind.

USA: Hamas Supporter Given Key Homeland Security Post

It’s kind of hard to remain optimistic when open supporters of Hamas are given key roles like this. Take a look at this story just in from World Net Daily:

JERUSALEM – Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano swore in to her official advisory council the head of an Arab American organization whose officials have labeled deadly anti-U.S. jihadists as “heroes” and opposed referring to Hamas as a terrorist organization.

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, or ADC, also has close ties to anti-Israel professor Rashid Khalidi, whose association with President Obama – first exposed by WND – stirred controversy during last year’s presidential campaign.

The ADC also leads the opposition to domestic anti-terrorism measures taken after the 9-11 attacks, such as watch lists, background check delays for visas and an initiative meant to more comprehensively screen visitors from select Mideast countries or specific individuals labeled as possible national security threats.

Last week, Napolitano swore in Damascus-born Kareem Shora, the ADC’s national executive director, to a position on the Homeland Security Advisory Council, an outside-the-department group of national security experts that advises the secretary. Shora is the first Arab rights advocate on the panel.

Scores of senior ADC officials have expressed positive views toward terrorist organizations.

In 1994, during one of the main peaks of Hamas suicide bombings against Israeli civilians, then ADC President Hamzi Moghrabi said, “I will not call [Hamas] a terrorist organization. I mean, I know many people in Hamas. They are very respectable. … I don’t believe Hamas, as an organization, is a violent organization.”

Discover the Networks notes that two years later, Moghrabi’s successor, Hala Maksoud, defended the Hezbollah terrorist group.

“I find it shocking,” Maksoud said, “that [one] would include Hezbollah in … [an] inventory of Middle East ‘terrorist’ groups.”

In 2000, new ADC President Hussein Ibish characterized Hezbollah as “a disciplined and responsible liberation force.”

When Israel released Hezbollah prisoners in early 2004, Imad Hamad, ADC’s Midwest Regional Director, openly celebrated the freedom of “the heroes.”

Besides its deadly terrorism against Israel, Hezbollah distinguishes itself as second only to al-Qaida among terror groups responsible for killing the most Americans. It’s responsible for such deadly attacks as the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing, which killed 299 servicemen, including 220 U.S. Marines.

ADC linked to Khalidi

The ADC is linked to Columbia University’s Khalidi, who spoke at several of the organization’s events. At one speech, in June 2002, the New York Sun documented how Khalidi appeared to condone the killing of Israelis.

The ADC also has collaborated on numerous projects with the Arab American Action Network, or AAAN, an organization founded by Khalidi’s wife Mona, and which WND first reported received start-up funds from a nonprofit, the Woods Fund, on which Obama served as a paid director.

The AAAN, headquartered in the heart of Chicago’s Palestinian immigrant community, worked on projects supporting open boarders and education for illegal aliens. Speakers at AAAN dinners and events routinely have taken an anti-Israel line. The organization co-sponsored anti-Israel projects and exhibits.

Khalidi, an apologist for PLO terrorism, holds the position of Columbia’s Edward Said professorship of Arab Studies. Said, a well-known far-leftist intellectual and apologist for Palestinian terrorism, served on an advisory counsel to the ADC.

ADC opposes anti-terrorism screening

The organization has actively lobbied against the Patriot Act and was reportedly instrumental in scaling back some of the restrictions of the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System program, or NSEERS. Shora was personally involved in those efforts.

The NSEERS required persons whose nationality identifies them as a possible security risk to submit to control processes governed by the Department of Justice. NSEERS also targeted specific individuals labeled as possible national security threats, at times making them undergo fingerprinting, photographing and registration.

Obama And The Whitewashing Of Islam

 

 Got a nice big bucket? If not, you’d better borrow one from a neighbour. Because trust me – you’re gonna need it after reading Obama’s Love Letter to the Muslim World. He attempted to whitewash Islam to such an extent that frankly, I’m amazed even the Muslim audience members were able to keep straight faces. America’s Prince Of Appeasement bowed low before them, and it was not a pretty sight.

 

Let’s  face it. Obama might as well be a Muslim. I  don’t care how much the man insists he’s a Christian. He speaks with a reverence for Islam and he calls the Quran ‘holy’. I don’t know many Christians that would do this. If Obama had spoken this way about Islam prior to the American elections, would he be sitting in the White House today? I’d wager the answer is a resounding NO.

But he did win, and now the Prince Of Appeasement clearly feels secure enough to express his reverence for Islam:

Obama: ‘Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality.’

(really? with not one Islamic democracy? with the Quran clearly stating that non Muslims must be coverted by force or beheaded? with millions of Muslims dedicated to transforming the world into a global Caliphate? with Jews and Christians and all ‘infidels’ living as dhimmis in Muslim lands, century after century? ‘religious tolerance’ – really?)

 

Obama: ‘In Ankara, I made clear that America is not – and never will be – at war with Islam.’

(no? then G-d only help America. Because Islam’s made it clear, it is War)

 

Obama: ‘The Holy Koran teaches that whoever kills an innocent, it is as if he has killed all mankind; and whoever saves a person, it is as if he has saved all mankind.’

(’holy’? Only if you’re a Muslim. How many Christians would even consider referring to the Quran as ‘holy’? Oh, and let’s not forget, that the above teaching is a JEWISH teaching that appeared IN Judaism thousands of years before Islam even existed.)

 

Obama: Islam is not part of the problem in combating violent extremism…’

(correct, Islam is the TOTAL problem!)

 

‘Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance.’

(Er, where? Not on  planet Earth!)

 

Obama specifically refers to both the Quran and the Christian bible as ‘holy’ – but manages to avoid referring to the Torah in the same way. Instead, he cites the Talmud.

Why is this? Why did Obama not quote from the Jewish holy text, the Torah? After all, it’s not like there’s any shortage of wise and compassionate teachings in the Torah! But no, instead Obama says:

The Holy Koran tells us, “O mankind! We have created you male and a female; and we have made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another.”

The Talmud tells us: “The whole of the Torah is for the purpose of promoting peace.”

The Holy Bible tells us, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of G-d.”

And what about the millions of people who DON’T belong to one of the three Abrahamic faiths?

Obama’s Cairo love-fest with Islam will surely go down in history as a masterclass in sheer, unadulterated appeasement.   Oh, how the extremists must be crowing right now.

I can almost hear Mohammed laughing.

****************************************************************

Melanie Phillips has voiced some very pertinent points about Obama’s comments on Israel today in Cairo. Here is what she says:

 

“Obama  revealed gross ignorance of the Jews’ unique claim to the land of Israel. He said that America’s unbreakable bond with Israel was based upon:

the recognition that the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied. Around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, and anti-Semitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust…

“The Jews’ attachment to their homeland does not derive from the Holocaust, nor their overall tragic history. It derives from Judaism itself, which is composed of the inseparable elements of the religion, the people and the land. Their unique claim upon the land rests upon the fact that the Jews are the only people for whom Israel was ever their nation, which it was for hundreds of years – centuries before the Arabs and Muslims came on the scene. As for antisemitism, he made no mention of the alliance between the Palestinians and the Nazis during the 1930s, and the fact that Nazi-style Jew-hatred continues to pour out of the Arab and Muslim world to this day.

Building upon this ignorance, he then adopted the Arab propaganda version of Israel’s history. He thus delivered a travesty of the facts:

On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people – Muslims and Christians – have suffered in pursuit of a homeland.

“On the contrary, it is not undeniable because it is untrue. The Palestinians have been offered a homeland repeatedly – in 1936, 1947, 2000 and last year. They have repeatedly turned it down. The Arabs could have created it between 1948 and 1967, when the West Bank and Gaza were occupied by Jordan and Egypt. They chose not to do so. They could have created it after 1967, when Israel offered the land to them in return for peace with Israel. They refused the offer. The Palestinians have suffered because they have tried for six decades to destroy the Jews’ homeland.

Obama: For more than sixty years they have endured the pain of dislocation.

“The ‘pain of dislocation’ was caused by the fact that six decades ago they went to war against the newly recreated Israel to destroy it, and were subsequently deliberately kept in ‘refugee’ camps by the Arab world. What other aggressor in the world is described as suffering ‘the pain of dislocation’ caused by its own aggression — which has continued for sixty years without remission and shows no sign of ending?“

Many wait in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza, and neighboring lands for a life of peace and security that they have never been able to lead.

“There is one reason for that and one reason alone – the Palestinians have ensured that Israel has never lived in peace or security, because they have continued to attack it and murder its citizens. And Gaza? Doesn’t Obama realise the Israelis no longer occupy Gaza?  It is run by Hamas, which shows its commitment to the peace and security of its inhabitants by throwing them off the tops of tall buildings.

So let there be no doubt: the situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable.

And what about the intolerable situation of Israel, forced to live in a state of siege for sixty years because of the unending aggression of the Palestinians and the wider Arab and Muslim world? The Palestinians could have lived in peace and prosperity alongside Israel at any time since 1948. If they were to end their attempt to destroy Israel and accept insteadthe right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state — that crucual qualification Obama omitted to mention –– they could do so tomorrow. The only reason their position is intolerable is because they themselves have made it so. What other aggressor in the world has its situation described as ‘intolerable’?

Palestinians must abandon violence.

Good. But then:

Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and does not succeed.

‘Resistance’? ‘Resistance’ is a term of moral approval. ‘Resistance’ describes a fight against injustice. But the Palestinians have been engaged in an attempt to wipe out Israel. Obama sees this as ‘resistance’ – even though he says violence is wrong. And then this:

For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation. But it was not violence that won full and equal rights. It was a peaceful and determined insistence upon the ideals at the center of America’s founding. This same story can be told by people from South Africa to South Asia; from Eastern Europe to Indonesia.

So Obama has equated genocidal terrorism by the Palestinians with the civil rights movement in America and the true resistance against apartheid in South Africa. Thus the moral bankruptcy of the relativist.

Next, he repeated that the settlements (all of them? just new ones?) undermined peace and so had to stop. But they don’t undermine peace. It is Arab rejectionism that prevents peace in the mMddle East, and the settlements are a palpable excuse. Yet Obama delivered no ultimatum of any kind to Iran, the real threat to peace in the region and the world; indeed, he repeated that Iran

should have the right to access peaceful nuclear power if it complies with its responsibilities under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,

– an alarming indication that he might view as acceptable a formulation which might enable Iran to continue to make nuclear weapons under some kind of verbal and political camouflage.

For his egregious sanitising of Islam and its history, and his absurd claims about its contribution to western civilisation, read Robert Spencer here. But in this regard, one of Obama’s references in particular made me catch my breath. It was this:

The Holy Koran teaches that whoever kills an innocent, it is as if he has killed all mankind; and whoever saves a person, it is as if he has saved all mankind.

This is boilerplate misrepresentation by Islamists and their apologists. The fact is that it is Judaism which teaches this as a cardinal precept. The Talmud states:

Whoever destroys a single soul, he is guilty as though he had destroyed a complete world; and whoever preserves a single soul, it is as though he had preserved a whole world.

The Koran appropriated this precept – but altered it to mean something very different. Thus:

That was why we laid it down for the Israelites that whoever killed a human being, except as punishment for murder or other villainy in the land, shall be regarded as having killed all mankind; and that whoever saved a human life shall be regarded as having saved all mankind. Our apostles brought them veritable proofs: yet many among them, even after that, did prodigious evil in the land. Those that make war against God and His apostle and spread disorder in the land shall be slain or crucified or have their hands and feet cut off on alternate sides, or be banished from the land. (My emphasis)

In other words, this turns a Talmudic precept affirming the value of preserving human life into a prescription for violence and murder against Jews and ‘unbelievers’. Yet Obama passed it off as evidence of the pacific nature of Islam.

So in conclusion, yes, there was some positive stuff in this speech – but it was outweighed by the United States President’s shocking historical misrepresentations, gross ignorance, disgusting moral equivalence between aggressors and their victims, and disturbing sanitising of Islamist supremacism

 

 

******************************************************************

UPDATE:

Clearly I am not alone in surmising that Obama has lost the plot entirely.  His recent announcement that America ‘is one of the largest Muslim countries’ is raising both eyebrows and suspicions in all sane observers. Here’s Melanie Phillips again, in the Spectator, saying what many are thinking:

“Having previously declared that America is ‘no longer a Christian nation’ – to be precise:

… At least not just. We are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, and a Buddhist nation, and a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers…

Obama has now announced, on the eve of his pilgrimage to make obeisance to the entire Islamic world, that the US can be seen as a Muslim country:

‘And one of the points I want to make is, is that if you actually took the number of Muslim Americans, we’d be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world,’ Mr. Obama said.

Uh? Here are some statistics of the number and percentage of Muslims in various countries:

Indonesia: 207,105,000 (88.2%);

Pakistan: 167,430,801 (95%);

India: 156,254,615 (13.4%);

Turkey: 70,800,000 (99%);

Egypt: 70,530,237 (90%);

Nigeria: 64,385,994 (45%);

Iran: 64,089,571 (98%);

Algeria: 32,999,883 (99%);

Morocco: 32,300,410 (99%);

Afghanistan: 31,571,023 (99%)

Saudi Arabia: 26,417,599 (100%)

USA: 4,558,068 (1.5%)

Just what planet is this US President on?

Or is this not a statement but an aspiration?“

Across the pond, Wesley Pruden in the Washington Post also picks up on this point, as well as rightly lambasting Obama for his pitiful love letter to Islam while in Cairo:

“Now it’s on to Normandy, to apologize to the Germans. It’s the least an American president can do after the way the Allied armies left so much of Europe in rubble. There’s a lot of groveling to do for what America accomplished in the Pacific, too.

This prospect should appeal to Barack Obama, who relishes the role of Apologizer-in-Chief. Apologizing for manifold sins against civilization is not always easy, but it’s simple enough: “Blame America First.” You just open a vein and let it flow. In Cairo, Mr. Obama opened an artery.

In an interview before the Cairo speech, he called the United States one of “the largest Muslim countries,” based on its Muslim population, and he later put the number of Muslims in America at 7 million, more than even most Islamic advocacy groups claim.

Mr. Obama described himself as “a Christian, but,” and offered a hymn to the Muslim roots he insisted during the late presidential campaign he didn’t have. He invoked his middle name, “Hussein,” as evidence that he was one of “them.” The Obama campaign insisted last year that anyone who uses the middle name was playing with racism.

The article notes also:

“But it was more fun to fish for applause by berating America and throwing rocks at Israel…. Israel, he said, must “live up to its obligations,” but he had hardly a word of rebuke for the long record of broken Palestinian promises. It was a remarkable insult to an absent ally, delivered to the applause of Israel’s sworn enemies.”

And the piece concluded:

“The great Cairo grovel accomplished nothing beyond the humiliation of the president and the embarrassment of his constituents, few of whom share his need to put America on its knees before its enemies. No president before him has ever shamed us so. We must never forget it.”

Obama Wooing Islam – By Promising To Hand Over Jerusalem

More on Obama’s apparent promises to deliver Israel to the Muslim world. Claims are now appearing that Obama has shown support for an end to Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel.

This just in, from World Net Daily

President Obama and his administration told Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during a meeting last week the U.S. foresees the creation of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, according to a top PA official speaking to WND.

“The American administration was very friendly to the position of the PA,” said Nimer Hamad, Abbas’ senior political adviser.

“Abu Mazen (Abbas) heard from Obama and his administration in a very categorical way that a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital is in the American national and security interest,” Hamad said.

Another PA official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told WND today that Obama informed Abbas he would not let Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “get in the way” of ‘normalizing’ U.S. relations with the Arab and greater Muslim world.

Also in Cairo today, Abbas met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, where the Palestinian leader briefed Egypt’s president on his recent trip to Washington, saying the U.S. was committed to bringing about an end to Israeli construction in the West Bank.

Hamad’s comments about Jerusalem today come as controversy abounded regarding the U.S. position on Israel’s capital city.

Last week, the State Department refuted a speech in which Netanyahu said Jerusalem never will be divided.

“Jerusalem is Israel’s capital,” Netanyahu said at an event marking Jerusalem’s reunification. “Jerusalem was always ours and will always be ours. It will never again be partitioned and divided.”

In response, the State Department released a statement that Jerusalem “is a final status issue.”

“Israel and the Palestinians have agreed to resolve its status during negotiations. We will support their efforts to reach agreements on all final status issues,” the statement said.

Also last week, a top Palestinian Authority official claimed in a WND interview that the Obama administration told the PA that Jerusalem will never be united under Israeli sovereignty.

“Americans said an open Jerusalem – yes. But a united Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty – no,” Hatem Abdel Khader, the PA’s minister for Jerusalem affairs, said in comments to both WND and Israel’s Ynetnews website.

“(The Obama administration) has made clear that Jerusalem must be accessible to everyone – but not united under Israel’s rule,” Khader said.

Khader told WND, “The Americans are very present on the ground, and they are making pressure over Israeli authorities and even municipalities.”

“They are acting according to the concept that the failure to establish a Palestinian state would jeopardize U.S. national security interests – and without Jerusalem there is no Palestinian state,” he said.

Khader’s claim the U.S. is helping the Palestinians gain a foothold in Jerusalem is accurate. In April, WND reported that under intense American pressure and following a nearly unprecedented behind-the-scenes U.S. campaign, the Netanyahu government has decided not to bulldoze Palestinian homes built illegally on Jewish-owned property in Jerusalem.

The issue is critical since the 80 homes in question are located in Silwan, an eastern Jerusalem neighborhood close to the Temple Mount and Jerusalem’s Old City that the Palestinians claim as a future capital. Jewish groups have been working to fortify the community’s Jewish presence. Silwan is adjacent to the City of David, a massive archeological dig just outside the Temple Mount that is constantly turning up Temple artifacts.

Like tens of thousands of other Arab housing projects throughout eastern Jerusalem, the Palestinian homes in Silwan were illegally constructed on property long ago purchased by Jews. The Israeli government ordered the structures’ legal demolition.

But during a visit here in early March, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton strongly protested the planned bulldozing.

“Clearly this kind of activity is unhelpful and not in keeping with the obligations entered into under the Road Map,” she said. “It is an issue that we intend to raise with the government of Israel and the government at the municipal level in Jerusalem.”

The Road Map calls for Israel to freeze Jewish settlement expansion in the West Bank but does not bar Israel from dismantling illegally constructed Palestinian homes in Jerusalem.

WND learned that in the weeks since Clinton’s visit here, the U.S. mounted an intensive campaign lobbying the Israeli government against tearing down the illegal Palestinian homes in Silwan. The campaign included letters from the Middle East section of the State Department addressed to various Jerusalem municipalities, with copies of the letters sent to the offices of Israel’s prime minister and foreign minister. The letters called on Israel to allow the illegal Palestinian homes in Silwan to remain and stated any demolitions would not foster an atmosphere of peace.

Also, in a follow-up visit here, State Department officials made it clear to their Israeli counterparts the U.S. opposes the Silwan bulldozing.

According to sources in the Israeli government, including in Netanyahu’s administration, a decision has been made not to bulldoze the illegal Palestinian homes. The sources said the issue of the homes may be raised again in the future, but for the time being the houses will remain intact.

The sources attributed the decision against the bulldozing – which has not yet been announced – to the intense American campaign against the house demolitions.

Said one source in Netanyahu’s administration, “This was very frustrating to us. Can you imagine if a foreign government came in and told a city office in the U.S. not to tear down a house that was illegally constructed on someone else’s property?”

While Clinton opposed the Palestinian house demolitions, informed Israeli officials said the Obama administration is carefully monitoring Jewish construction in eastern Jerusalem and has already protested to the highest levels of Israeli government about evidence of housing expansion in those areas.

The officials, who spoke on condition that their names be withheld, said that last month Obama’s Mideast envoy, George Mitchell, oversaw the establishment of an apparatus based in the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem that closely monitors eastern Jerusalem neighborhoods, incorporating regular tours on a daily basis.

The officials said that in recent meetings Mitchell strongly protested Jewish construction in eastern Jerusalem. Mitchell also condemned the work of nationalist Jewish groups to purchase property in Jerusalem’s Old City, including in areas intimately tied to Judaism.

Israel recaptured eastern Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount – Judaism’s holiest site – during the 1967 Six Day War.

The Palestinians, however, have claimed eastern Jerusalem as a future capital. About 244,000 Arabs live in Jerusalem, mostly in eastern neighborhoods, out of a total population of 724,000, the majority Jewish.

And so it begins. The slow but sure dismantling of the Jewish homeland. Note the false premise that has clearly been accepted by Obama: namely, that it is Israel which is ‘getting in the way’ of American-Arab and American-Muslim relations.

Just as Hitler convinced the German people that it was ‘only the jews’ that were preventing Germany from being great again, so now Obama is suggesting that it is ‘only Israel’ that is stopping America from having a good relationship with the Muslim world.

I mean, it’s not as though the Muslim world consists of barbaric theocracies that view America as ‘the great satan’ or anything like that, is it…?

If G-d forbid Israel vanished tomorrow, the Muslim world would still loathe America and all it stands for. Obama’s treachery would all have been for nothing. And the sole democracy in the Middle East, Israel, would have paid the ultimate price for appeasing the vile creed that is Islam, the ‘religion of peace’.

Obama – Selling Out Israel

Both Jews and non Jews alike are expressing alarm over Obama’s willingness to sacrifice Israel in order to placate the Arab world.

Atlas Shrugs has been monitoring this situation closely; here is a recent post which spells out precisely what is going on:

Obama committed to Expelling Jews from Jewish Homeland

The increasingly creepy President’s latest act of anti-semitism. From Israel Today:

‘Obama committed to ejecting Jews from Judea-Samaria,’ says Abbas

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday told reporters in Cairo that he is convinced that US President Barack Obama is firmly committed to finally ejecting the Jews from Judea and Samaria.

Abbas spoke to the press after briefing Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on his visit to the White House late last week, during which Obama apparently agreed with his guest that existing Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria must not even be allowed to experience “natural growth.”

“When the American administration talks about Israel’s duty to stop the settlements – including natural growth – it is a very important step,” noted Abbas.

Following their meeting last Thursday, Obama said that he also told Abbas to make a bit more of an effort to halt what he described as isolated and sporadic anti-Jewish incitement in Palestinian schools, mosques and media. Documentation by Israeli and international watchdog groups shows that the incitement is far from isolated or sporadic.

Meanwhile, Israeli officials cited by Ha’aretz decried the Obama Administration’s stiff demands that no more houses be built for Jews beyond the pre-1967 borders.

They noted that under former President George W. Bush, Israel reached understandings that the natural growth of existing towns would not subject to Israel’s commitments to halt settlement activity (commitments many Israelis see as null and void anyway since the Palestinians have failed to honor their reciprocal obligations).

But one official said those understandings are now “worth nothing,” and that the US is taking an unfair position by completely siding with Palestinian demands that go far beyond the original peace agreements.

Other officials attributed Obama’s hard line positions against Israel to his efforts to reconcile with the Arab and Muslim worlds, which will be the focus of a much anticipated speech he will give in Cairo this Thursday.

Israel to U.S.: ‘Stop favoring Palestinians’

UPDATE: The Lid compares Obama to Pharaoh: “This week the President of the United States declared that the Jews living in the West Bank cannot have children, and if they do those kids cannot live with their parents. Oh, that’s not what he said, but the result is the same. What he said is that there cannot be natural growth in the West Bank settlements:”

‘Obama’s decrees are like Pharaoh’s’

JPost.com Staff , THE JERUSALEM POST

“The American demand to prevent natural growth is unreasonable, and brings to mind Pharaoh who said: Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river,” Science Minister and Habayit Hayehudi head Daniel Herschkowitz said Sunday, referring to US President Barack Obama’s demand to freeze all settlement activity, even that ensuing from natural growth.

Speaking ahead of the weekly cabinet meeting, mathematician Herschkowitz furthered his point with a simple equation. “If there is a family that expands from one child to four or five, what should we tell them – to ship the children off to Petah Tikva? This is an unacceptable demand, even if it comes from the Americans, and Israel should reject it decisively,” he affirmed.

Interior Minister Eli Yishai said, “The American demand to freeze construction means expulsion for young people living in large locales. I hope the US administration understands that. If not, I don’t want to be an apocalyptic prophet saying we’re facing struggle and confrontation. The concessions they’re demanding of us are a security impediment we cannot withstand.”

Information and Diaspora Minister Yuli Edelstein chose a positive perspective on the dispute threatening an Israeli-American rift.

“The recent days prove what luck we have that it is [Prime Minister Binyamin] Netanyahu’s government conducting talks on West Bank natural growth and construction in Jerusalem,” he said. “Just imagine someone else, he would have led us to an entanglement lasting generations.”

“We aren’t headed for a confrontation with the White House, but rather for understandings, and Netanyahu’s visit there proved it. President Obama is a friend of Israel, and I’m sure we can resolve the disagreements,” Edelstein added.

Welfare and Social Services Minister Isaac Herzog of the Labor party stressed the importance in preventing a head-on collision with Obama.

“The current American administration sees things differently than the last two presidents did. Construction is being undertaken around Jerusalem according to understandings with previous administrations. Israel wants very much to reach understandings, and Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s upcoming trip to Washington proves it,” Herzog said.

Iran: We Have Now Test Fired A Missile That Can Hit Israel

Buried  on page thirty-nine of my newspaper, is a story about Iran. Oddly, many people seem to feel that anything involving Iran is ‘ just a middle eastern issue’ and nothing to do with us, safe and sound here in Britain.

They could not be more wrong. Iran’s declaration that it has successfully test fired the Sajjil-2, a missile capable of hitting Israel, and also USA bases in the region, has everything to do with us.

As does the spectre of an Iran with nuclear capability; something that is imminent if not already with us. For Ahmadinejad is not just, as the British media loves to call him, a ‘hardliner’.

Ahmadinejad is, bluntly put, a lunatic.

He’s also mismanaged the Iranian economy to such an extent that he may be defeated in the upcoming Iran elections on June 12.

Pray that he doesn’t get in. Pray hard.

Because remember, this is a man who has repeatedly vowed to ‘wipe the jewish state off the map’. This is a man who declared ‘there are no gays in Iran’ – presumably because any who dare creep out of the closet are immediately beheaded. And this is a man who has already organised a conference dedicated to the topic: ‘The World Without Israel’.

Ahmadinejad. Hitler. Different names: same aims.

A nuclear Iran will mean that the free world can be held hostage. Amadinejad subscribes to the  notion that ‘death for Allah’ is the highest honour any Muslim can hope for. A nuclear Iran is effectively an entire nation of potential ‘Shahids’, or ‘martyrs’.’

Not exactly a cheery thought, that, is it…?

Meanwhile, Obama has made it painfully clear to Israel’s Prime Minister, Netanyahu, that there is no support for a pre-emptive strike on the Iranian nuclear sites. Israel is well and truly on her own.

Apparently convinced that it is possible to ‘negotiate’ with a madman, Obama is  busy flapping his little olive branch at Mahmoud, amidst promises to deliver Israel on a silver platter ***if*** Mr Ahmadinejad would be kind enough to  shelvehis nuclear aspirations.

Those of us that support Israel often point out that she is the sole democracy in the region. This is a key point that the West would do well to remember. Because what Israel confronts today, the West will confront further on down the line. Support for Israel is support for democracy.

And when Obama hands Israel over in his insane bid to ‘reason’ with the unreasonable, in the form of Iran, he’s not just endangering Israel. He’s sending out a clear message to Iran and to every Islamic theocracy and Islamic terrorist group out there: the infidels are ours for the taking.