Beyond Mere Hatred

By: Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook, The Jerusalem Post
December 29, 2009

The following OpEd by Palestinian Media Watch explains the unique and dangerous nature of Palestinian antisemitism.

Palestinian antisemitism has long been recognized as a vehicle of hatred. From academics teaching that Judaism permits murder and rape of non-Jews, to religious leaders teaching that Islam demands the extermination of Jews, Palestinian antisemitism is a compelling force driving hatred and terror. 
 
The Palestinian Authority depicts Jews as the archetypal force of evil throughout history. Jews are said to be responsible for all the world’s problems: wars, financial crises, even the spreading of AIDS. Jews are a danger to humanity.
 
Whereas this paradigm has been used before, the Palestinians take it a step further, turning demonization of Jews into the basis for Palestinian denial of Israel’s right to exist and a central component of Palestinian national identity.

Because of Jews’ evil nature, according to this Palestinian principle, nations of the world have been involved in continuous defensive actions to protect themselves. The antisemitic oppression, persecution and expulsions suffered by Jews throughout history are presented as the legitimate self-defense responses of nations.
 
Ibrahim Mudayris, a PA religious official, delineated this ideology: “The Jews are a virus similar to AIDS, from which the entire world is suffering. This has been proven in history… Ask Britain!… Ask France!… Ask Portugal… Ask czarist Russia – who invited the Jews and they plotted to murder the czar!… Don’t ask Germany what it did to the Jews, since the Jews are the ones who provoked Nazism to fight the entire world” (PA TV, May 13, 2005).

The apex of this Palestinian ideology, and possibly its purpose, is to use this demonization of Jews as the basis for denying Israel legitimacy and to present Palestinians as the ultimate victims. According to this Palestinian model, the Jews, who are said to have no history in the land, would never have considered coming to “Palestine”: Europeans created Zionism as the final act in the long series of self-defense measures, to rid themselves of the “burden” of the Jews.
 
Political commentator Fathi Buzia recently explained this on official PA television: “Europe, led by Britain, founded Israel… The Jews in the time of Herzl caused European societies to lose sleep. They wanted to be rid of them, and implanted them in Palestine” (PA TV, June 17). Dr Riad al-Astal, a history lecturer at Al Azhar University in Gaza, explained it this way: “In aiding Zionism, Britain’s first aim was to be rid of the Jews, who were known to provoke disputes and disturbances and financial crises in Germany, France and other European states” (PA TV, December 28, 2003).

This demonization of Jews as the reason for delegitimizing Israel has been an integral part of Palestinian ideology, voiced by political, academic and religious leaders since the establishment of the PA. Already in 1998 the official PA daily described both Hitler’s attempt to exterminate the Jews and British support for Zionism as defensive measures: “Hitler did not have colonies to send the Jews so he destroyed them, whereas Balfour… [turned] Palestine into his colony and sent the Jews. Balfour is Hitler with colonies, while Hitler is Balfour without colonies. They both wanted to get rid of the Jews… Zionism was crucial to the defense of the West’s interests in the region, [by] ridding Europe of the burden of its Jews” (Al-Hayat al-Jadida [Fatah], June 12, 1998).
 
This is not merely incitement; this is the foundation of Palestinian ideology. Israel is denied legitimacy and Palestinian victimhood becomes the foundation upon which a Palestinian national identity is created. Therefore, the Palestinian antisemitism construct is so problematic and hard to dislodge. Since the aim of Palestinian antisemitism is not merely to promote hatred, but part of a systematic demonization of Jews to deny Israel’s right to exist, proving that Jews are evil has become an element of the ongoing Palestinian narrative.

Indeed, even in the period of the Annapolis Conference, the PA has never stopped disseminating a steady diet of hatred of Jews and Israelis. It has accused Jews and Israel of spreading AIDS among Palestinians, causing drug addiction among youth, planning to destroy the Aksa Mosque, and murdering Yasser Arafat. Jews are said to have lived in ghettos not because of European hatred, but because they see themselves as superior and do not want to mix with non-Jews, while the Palestinian chief religious justice recently said that the Koran warns of the Jews’ inherently evil traits. Zionists are said to have forced Palestinians to undergo “selections” during the War of Independence, whereby the fit were put in labor camps and the unfit killed – some even burned alive.

All this and much more, since the renewal of the peace process.
 
The tragic reality is that this Palestinian antisemitism and its conclusions may already be ingrained in Palestinian society. During a talk show for teens on official PA TV, a young girl explained the reason Jews live in Israel: “About the problem of the Jewish presence: You’d agree that the Jewish presence in the land of Palestine was nothing but the liberation of all the countries of the world from the source of evil. The evil that is found in the Jews has become a germ among us, which is a cancer that buried us and is still burying. And we are the ones who suffer from this cancer” (PA TV, June 23, 2002). The adult moderator did not correct her. And why should he? She was merely reiterating the basis of Palestinian national identity.
 
In other countries, antisemitism has been a tool to promote hatred for a variety of internal reasons. As such, when hatred was no longer necessary, antisemitism as a government policy could be eradicated, as in post-Nazi Germany. But the goal of PA demonization of Jews transcends mere hatred. Antisemitism is its political tool to defame Zionism, deny Israel’s right to exist and create victimhood as the glue that cements Palestinian national identity. Because this political goal will exist as long as Israel exists, Palestinian antisemitism will be much harder to uproot.
 
If there is ever to be peace in the region, Palestinians must define a new Palestinian national identity – one that doesn’t rely on antisemitism and the eradication of Israel’s legitimacy as its foundation.

 

In the history of the world, there has never been a peace without a victory.  Our President cannot utter the word victory.

 

As I wrote in the past, Obama has a world view which defies the facts on the ground.  During the campaign, when he spoke about the Berlin Wall falling he made it seem like it just happened because of some kind of feel good dinner we had with our NATO friends.  Whenever he speaks about great victories in WWII, he never talks about the sacrifice of our soldiers.  And, forget about good vs. evil.  Obama champions the new relativistic world in which every form of government or opinion is just as valid as the next.  This is problemmatic in fighting a war.  When fighting a war you should be able to tell your soldier their cause is just and good and they will be dying to stop something that is evil.  If you cannot say that, you should not be sending soldiers into the field.  And, if you are truly fighting evil, then victory should be the deadline, not 18 months. 

 

One has to conclude that Obama has an unrealistic worldview.  How else could he seriously stand before crowds and declare that Islam has made great contributions to America (really, what are they?).  That he has built bridges with the Muslim world (really?  I think our Muslim friends are afraid for the exact reason Muslim tyrants aren’t – Obama is perceived of as weak and uncentered).  He shows he is embarrassed by the goodness of America and the use of American force in promoting democracy and freedom.  That is problemmatic enough for a professor teaching our kids, it is even worse in a President.

 

But, I must admit that Tuesday night was a new low in Presidential speech-giving.  I don’t really think the cadets at West Point wanted to hear that the war effort depends on our economy.  I have never heard the President send soldiers off to war and say that they won’t get everything they need because we may not have the funds for victory here.  To even talk about the economy or domestic programs when there will be those in the room who will not come home alive was a disgrace and I am embarrassed those kids had to endure that speech.

 

I guess I should not have expected passion from this President.  He is cold.  I have written about my surprise that after the election he did not visit the grave of his grandmother who died during the final days of the election.  He appears to have no ties before his Chicago days.  I was disgusted when he mentioned his visits with the soldiers at Walter Reid and his one trip to meet the casket of a fallen soldier (for a photo op).  Bush did all that, met with the families of fallen soldiers (any and all who wanted to meet) and did it without a photo without fanfare.  This President is not gracious. 

 

The disgrace is that he has not been to Afghanistan once since he became President.  My guess it that he will go when the political advisors tell him he has to go. 

 

Our cadets and soldiers deserve better.

http://www.forbes.com/2009/12/02/obama-speech-west-point-afghanistan-opinions-columnists-claudia-rosett.html

  

  

No Conviction In Obama’s Speech

Claudia Rosett, 12.03.09, 12:01 AM ET

 

 

 Credit President Barack Obama that when he delivered his Afghanistan speech this week to cadets at West Point, he was trying to engage with a world he’s never known. He’s never served in the military. He made a lightning trip to Afghanistan during his election campaign, but has never been there as president. He’s spent only a few years in national politics, and not until this January did he arrive at a desk where the buck stops for big decisions in war.

But any savvy politician knows that when it’s time to summon the troops to battle or rouse the country to win its wars, then it is time for a stirring speech. Shakespeare’s Henry V set the iconic bar, steeling himself and his men for the Battle of Agincourt with his cry of “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.”

Yet for all Obama’s oratory talent, his West Point speech fell flat. TV cameras panning the audience caught some cadets struggling to keep their eyes open. This was not solely the result of a confused strategy for Afghanistan, or of an awkward delivery by a president slightly out of sync with his teleprompter. There was something else seeping through, in both substance and style, and it was troubling.

This was a speech grounded in an oddly dim vision of America. There were moments in which Obama praised the troops and said some of the appropriate words: “freedom … justice … highest of hopes … ” But overall, it is on qualified, constricted and muted terms that some of these cadets and their brothers (and sisters) in arms will be dispatched to risk their lives for their country. Obama made no mention of fighting for outright victory. More troops will be sent for the rather less inspiring reason that “The status quo is not sustainable.” The mission he outlined is not to win, but simply to bring the war to an “end” (via a commitment that “cannot be open-ended”).

There was plenty in his speech about America’s burden, sacrifice, trials, storms, wrangles, rifts, past sins and deepest fears; including a riff about the “rancor and cynicism and partisanship that has in recent times poisoned our national discourse. “

There was no full-throated celebration of America’s heart and soul of freedom. The president invoked “the challenges of a new age” in terms by and large so dreary they made the “malaise” of Jimmy Carter’s America sound like high old times. Forget about Ronald Reagan’s “shining city on a hill,” or even Bush 41’s “thousand points of light.” Instead, there was the hallmark Obama apology for America: “We have at times made mistakes.” There was the damped-down phrasing with which Obama described America as having “underwritten global security for more than six decades”–a compliment of sorts, but quite a demotion from leader of the free world to underwriter of global security.

And in that U.S.-underwritten world–with, of course, “all its problems”–we encounter once again those passively enacted events in which there are no specific heroes. Never mind the kind of drum roll tribute that President Bush gave in his 2002 speech at West Point: “You walk in the tradition of Eisenhower and MacArthur, Patton and Bradley–the commanders who saved a civilization.” In the current version, America has been underwriting a sort of glacial drift: Walls “come down,” billions are “lifted from poverty” and together with “unparalleled scientific progress” there are “advancing frontiers of liberty.”

As for filling the shoes of giants, Obama hinted at an America a bit too cynical and past its prime for such stuff: “As a country, we’re not as young–and perhaps not as innocent–as we were when Roosevelt was president.” In this scheme of the universe, mortal combat figures as just one more tool of a multi-tasking White House, part of “the strategy that my administration will pursue to bring this war to a successful conclusion.”

In speaking of Iraq, Obama gave America (and former president George Bush) no credit for leading the overthrow of a mass-murdering, war-mongering tyrant. Nor did he take into account in any way the genuine dangers averted by the removal of Saddam Hussein’s corrupt, violent and predatory regime from the heart of the Middle East. Obama’s focus was on “the wrenching debate” the “substantial rifts,” and the “extraordinary costs” of the Iraq war. He did praise the troops for their “courage, grit and perseverance.” But in this speech, it all added up to nothing more than bringing the Iraq war “to a responsible end,” and “successfully leaving Iraq to its people”–as if America in 2003 had wantonly disturbed a perfectly reasonable setup in Baghdad, and deserved credit merely for rectifying the error.

In the course of apologizing (again) for America, faulting his predecessor, reprising a mess of political infighting and lecturing his audience on the need to live up to “the values we hold dear” (while implying that may be too tall an order for a jaded country), Obama delivered the much-rehearsed news that he will send 30,000 more troops to “end” the war in Afghanistan, and will then start pulling them out within 18 months. In this speech, he also said: “The nation I’m most interested in building is our own.” Great. But when does he realize that leading this free and extraordinary country begins with looking up to his fellow Americans, not tearing them down?

Claudia Rosett, a journalist-in-residence with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, writes a weekly column on foreign affairs for Forbes.

Freedom’s Edge

 

  1 Attached Images

If anyone wonders where we are in the Biblical timetable of history…check out the following article from Israel Today.

Monday, November 30, 2009 Israel Today Staff

Will the Third Temple be built next year? According to a centuries-old rabbinical prophecy that appears to be coming true, on March 16, 2010, Israel will begin construction of the Third Temple in Jerusalem. During the 18th century, the Vilna Gaon, a respected rabbinical authority, prophesied that the Hurva Synagoge in Jerusalem, which was built during his day, would be destroyed and rebuilt twice, and that when the Hurva was completed for the third time, construction on the Third Temple would begin. The Hurva Synagogue was first destroyed shortly after its initial construction when Muslims demanding the return of loans tore it down. The synagogue was rebuilt a hundred years later and became the most important Jewish house of worship in the Holy Land, only be blown to pieces by Jordanian troops during Israel’s 1948 War of Independence. In 2001, Israel finally decided to rebuild the landmark, which today stands in the center of the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem’s Old City. The building is scheduled to be completed and the Hurva Synagogue dedicated for the third time on March 15 of next year.

The  Mob Speaks

By Adrienne A. Price

All summer we have been witness to a political drama not experienced since the protests to American involvement in Viet Nam and the Civil Rights movement.  This was the summer when major grassroots protests broke out throughout the United States.  This was the summer when middle of the road, normally docile hard working middle class Americans who were not used to talking back, demanded to be heard by their elected officials. 

 I didn’t know what to expect as I drove to Washington, D.C. on Saturday, September 12^th.  I watched TEA Parties being held throughout the United States over a three week period prior to September 12^th.  I knew those TEA parties received basically no coverage on television and in the newspapers.  It was the great unreported story of the dog days of summer.  Citizens who were not used to protests and rallies were finally speaking out against large government, waste and corruption and the press shamefully ignored them.

 I was running late and I heard the radio news stations report that thousands of protesters were participating in a TEA Party.  As I pulled into a parking lot about 3 blocks from the Capitol Building, I saw TEA Party participants everywhere.  I tried to reconcile the press reports about the number of protesters with the people I saw blocks from the Capitol Building and Independence Mall.  I was afraid the TEA Party was over before I had a chance to be counted.

 Nothing could have prepared me for what I experienced once I got to the Capitol Building.  Spread across the entire width of the Mall, from the Capitol toward the Washington Monument was a crowd as far as I could see.  There certainly were thousands of people.  Hundreds of thousands.  A District of Columbia police officer told me he estimated there were at least 1 million people in attendance that day.  Given the size of the crowd in front of me, I think attendance certainly could have been 1 million people or more.

 Hundreds of thousands of people from everywhere with hand made signs and dressed in red, white and blue.  The crowd brought their lawn chairs and box lunches on buses which left at midnight from Ohio or even earlier from Illinois.  The Floridians I met took buses and flew.  The Viginians came by bus and car.  The Philadelphians came by bus and train.  If not for the colorful posters with messages and the sea of “Don’t Tread On Me” flags, this group could have been mistaken for a concert audience on the grass at Tanglewood.  The crowd listened to speakers, enjoyed each other’s signs, schmoozed and marveled that others from all over our country felt the same way they felt.  The Texans wore cowboy hats and boots and just about everybody wore or carried an American flag.  American veterans wore hats or shirts identifying the branch of their service.

Hundred of thousands of people and no trash!  This group of new-found protesters treated Independence Mall like it was their own backyard.  Even the police looked relaxed as they stood around the perimeter of the group because in 3 hours I did not see one person misbehave.

 Some news stations reported about angry protesters.  I didn’t see one.  I walked around and through much of the crowd.  I talked to dozens of people and I was greeted with a smile and a kind word by all.  It was the 4^th of July without the fireworks. 

 And, the signs.  Those wonderful signs.  Signs made with poster board, markers and held up with wood bought at Home Depot.  “No more cash for these clunkers” had a picture montage of all of the czars serving in the White House.  “Baroke.”  “Taxed Enough Already.”  “If health care costs too much now, how much will it cost when it is free?”  There was even a man with a sign reading, “Single and looking for a conservative girlfriend” with his phone number.  His sign made him very popular and quite a few mothers asked him if he had a job and where he lived.

The people I met were the salt of the earth.  By and large they were family men and women of all ages.  They didn’t appear to be wealthy, nor were they fancy, but they all seemed to have enough.  These were not people who flew to Washington and stayed at the Willard Hotel before the rally.  These were people who spent the whole night in buses traveling to Washington to have their voices heard.  They are the people who live in small towns and large cities who get up in the morning, earn a living, educate their children, pay their taxes and get along. 

 Throughout the day the signs and conversations I heard had a few common themes.  The protesters were afraid of losing their freedom to large government control.  The protesters were afraid of enslaving their future and the future of their children to large debt.  The protesters believed in the American dream and were afraid it was slipping through their fingers.

I was surrounded by a sea of people who share certain core values which they work hard to instill in their children.  They understand the value of fiscal responsibility in their personal lives and can not understand how their representatives in Congress continue to spend money they don’t have.  They teach their children honesty, yet they cannot get a straight answer from their elected officials.  They raise their children to be independent, yet they cannot understand a government which would want to make more of its citizens dependent on it.  To this group, dependence is not a success.  An immigrant I met, who was originally from Sierra Leone, could not understand how any American could want big government over personal freedom.  He spoke from experience.

 This group raised their children with the message that through education, hard work and perseverance they too would find their American dream.  Many protesters did not want government hand-outs or bail-outs.  They were angry that the government passed a stimulus package in a rush without any accountability and with earmarks and pork galore.  They were not angry at successful people. They hoped to maintain the American dream in which hard work could make anybody a success.  They are not against helping those in need.  However, they see large government, higher deficits, higher taxes and greater regulation ringing the death knell to their potential to realize the American dream.  They did not buy into the class warfare that has punctuated so much of the dialogue out of Congress.  They worry about the future for their children.

 The protesters showed they kept up with the issues and were offended by how they are characterized by many elected officials.  They held signs asking why they should trust the government to be in charge of their health care.  They held signs telling the government to fix bankrupt Medicare and Social Security before taking over health care.  They held signs showing their disgust with government waste.

Some protesters held signs indicating they were proud of be part of the mob, or calling themselves mobsters.  This hard-working group, which taught their children about respect, was not used to being called mobsters, brown-shirts or Astroturf.  They didn’t speak to others with pejoratives and they could not understand how their elected officials called them by names or their President told them to stop “talking and get out of the way.”  They were not used to being characterized as fools.  They hear the President saying, on one hand, that he is open to all ideas, and, on the other hand, that the time for discussion is over.  Many signs warned elected officials that they have to be re-elected.

Two hours after the rally, I stood in the lobby of Chesapeake House, a rest stop along the highway in Maryland.  The lobby was filled with TEA Party protesters who noticed a report on a news station about the protest.  The lobby was silent with people who could not believe that that station did not show a picture of the entire crowd, but just three individual protesters.  A person sitting at home watching could not possibly understand the magnitude of the rally from the report.  Instead, the news station showed a few angry protesters, a person with a shot gun (at the Capitol?) and then cut to a long discussion about the uncivil tone to the current political conversation.  This lobby, filled with people who were not used to protesting and who respected the major institutions of this federal democracy, were shocked by the disrespect they felt by being ignored and by having the whole nature of their rally misrepresented.  One million peaceful citizens took to the streets of Washington, D.C. to declare their independence and demand to be heard by their government.  The press, with one exception, was absent.

At the weekly Israeli Cabinet meeting July 19, 2009:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu referred to this morning’s newspaper
headlines regarding Jerusalem:

“I would like to re-emphasize that the united Jerusalem is the capital of the Jewish people and of the State of Israel. Our sovereignty over it cannot be challenged; this means – inter alia – that residents of Jerusalem may purchase apartments in all parts of the city.

This has been the policy of all Israeli governments and I would like to say that it is indeed being implemented because in recent years hundreds of apartments in Jewish neighborhoods and in the western part of the city have been purchased by – or rented to – Arab residents and we did not interfere. This says that there is no ban on Arabs buying apartments in the western part of the city and there is no ban on Jews buying or building apartments in the eastern part of the city.

This is the policy of an open city – an undivided city that has no separation according to religion or national affiliation. We cannot accept the idea that Jews will not have the right to live and purchase in all parts of Jerusalem. I can only describe to myself what would happen if someone would propose that Jews could not live in certain neighborhoods in New York, London, Paris or Rome. There would certainly be a major international outcry. Accordingly, we cannot agree to such a decree in Jerusalem. This has been the policy of Israeli governments over the years and it is also the policy of our Government.”

Tuesday, July 21, 2009 Israel Today Staff

Jordan this week began revoking the citizenship of thousands of Palestinians who have personal roots in Judea and Samaria. Jordanian officials told reporters that the decision was made in order to head off any possible Israeli plans to evict Palestinians from Judea and Samaria and demand that Jordan take them in.

Jordanian Interior Minister Nayef al-Kadi told London-based Arabic daily Al-Hayat that he doesn’t view the move as a revocation of citizenship, but rather the correcting of a mistake made when Jordan officially severed all administrative ties to Judea and Samaria in 1988.

Al-Kadi said Jordan wants the Palestinians to adhere to their true identity and nationality, rather than be seen as Jordanians. He ignored the fact that about 70 percent of Jordan’s population is self-defined as Palestinian.

Because Jordan (a name given to the region by the British) is in fact a nation of Palestinians, some Israeli politicians who are now part of the ruling coalition have argued that a Palestinian state in fact already exists, and that Israel should not have to surrender land in order to create a second Palestinian state.

Jul. 19, 2009

Anne Bayefsky , THE JERUSALEM POST

President Barack Obama last Monday met for the first time with leaders of selected Jewish organizations and leaks from the meeting now make one thing very clear. The only free country in the Middle East no longer has a friend in the leader of the free world. Obama is the most hostile sitting American president in the history of the state of Israel.

This was the very first meeting with Jewish community’s leaders. Earlier requests for an audience with major Jewish organizations had reportedly been ignored. Six months after taking office the president finally got around to issuing an invitation to stop the bleeding.

 Increasing numbers of Jews even among the overwhelming number who voted for Obama ¬ have been voicing serious concern about his real agenda. The meeting, however, did not showcase the president’s trademark engagement and dialogue routine. Instead, he decided to cherry pick his Jewish audience to include pro-Obama newcomers with little support in the mainstream Jewish world, such as J Street, while blackballing the Zionist Organization of America.

 The oldest pro-Israel group in the United States, with a Washington office second in size only to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), was not a voice Obama wanted to hear. This leaves the president willing to engage Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad but not ZOA President Mort Klein.

 The growing alarm in the Jewish community was also something the White House was bent on covering up. They refused to put the meeting on the President’s public schedule until it was outed. The White House demanded strict confidentiality and issued a terse couple of lines that it occurred when it was all over.

BUT THERE is no papering over the distressing reality that emerged. The president told his listeners that he preferred putting daylight between the United States and Israel. His reported justification: “there was no light between the US and Israeli positions for the last eight years, and no progress was made.”

Evidently, unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip, 21 settlements and 9,000 residents counts for nothing. The Palestinian terrorist leadership and street have refused to accept a Jewish state for the past eight years (and the previous 53) because the United States did not add sufficiently to Israel’s isolation. The president apparently believes that the Palestinians are more likely to end terrorism, incitement to violence and rampant anti-Semitism if the United States applies more pressure on their victims.

Even if Obama doesn’t get it, Mahmoud Abbas does. He is now refusing to negotiate anything with the new Israeli government until Obama’s settlement conditions are met. During the meeting, the president repeatedly described his new policy in terms of one of Yasser Arafat’s favorite mantras, “even-handedness.” That’s diplotalk for a moral equivalence between an Arab war against Jewish self-determination launched from the day of Israel’s birth decades before any “occupation” and the conditions of third-generation Palestinian “refugees” kept in limbo pending Israel’s destruction.

But Obama’s even-handedness was no slip of the tongue. In his Cairo speech, the president equated the Holocaust to Palestinian “dislocation.” The president promoted his strategy of putting hard public “pressure” on Israel as a means to build more credibility with Arab states. He must have meant the kind of credibility that comes from his policy of leaving an “open door” to Iran after its discredited election.

OBAMA THEN claimed that the widespread perception of an anti-Israel agenda was all the media’s fault because the media is only interested in a “man-bites-dog” story. When an administration sends a US ambassador back to Syria though it is still listed as a key state sponsor of terrorism, hosts terrorist kingpins pursuing Israel’s annihilation, and was caught trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction, the story is far-fetched alright, but true. The president joked that Al-Jazeera often airs pictures of him wearing a yarmulke at the Western Wall.

Except the photo-op during the election campaign had been intended to fool a Jewish audience that is no longer amused. Reports also quote the president as claiming Israel has yet to “engage in serious self-reflection.” Considering Israel is a democratic country forced to send its children into the armed forces for two to three years and its men into reserve duty for another twenty-five, that isn’t the audacity of hope. It’s just plain audacity.

There is no doubt that the pressure on Israel from the Obama administration is going to get a lot worse, as the President told the group “there is a narrow window of opportunity for advancing the peace process.” Everyone understood the threat. The narrow window is Obama’s self-defined political ambitions bearing no relationship to the realities of the Middle East ¬or the welfare of either Israel or the United States.

VIDEO: Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon talks about the need for the Palestinians to recognize Israel as a Jewish State. Ayalon explains that Israel does not require the affirmation of any people or nation. The Israeli government calls on the Palestinian leadership to turn to their own
people and say in a very clear and concise manner that they recognize the
right of the Jewish People to their own state in their historic homeland.
This is important for the continuation of the peace process and will be a
signal by the Palestinian leadership that a two state solution is the end of
their claims.

To watch the video either:

Download the video
http://mfaex.castup.net/mfa/public/danny.zip

Or view it on YouTube:
http://infobot.com/youtube/watch?v=OwNh3oaXvOE

Tuesday, June 16, 2009 Israel Today Staff

Israelis very happy with Netanyahu’s speech Polls conducted in Israel the day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s peace policy speech revealed that he hit a home-run as far as the home crowd was concerned. Netanyahu’s approval rating stood at a dismal 28 percent a month ago following controversial budget debates in the cabinet. But Sunday’s speech boosted him to a comfortable (by Israeli standards) 44 percent approval rating.

Israelis from across the political spectrum who took part in a survey commissioned by Ha’aretz said they were happy with Netanyahu’s refusal to divide Jerusalem and to allow the Palestinians to flood the Jewish state with millions of so-called Arab “refugees.” But what they were most pleased with was Netanyahu’s firm demand that a future Palestinian state be demilitarized, and that America seek a solution to the conflict based on that premise. Those are the same parts of the speech that elicited the most outrage from the Palestinians and prompted them to declare that Netanyahu had effectively killed the peace process.

The Fox is in the Hen House

Even the fawning mainstream media are starting to crack open the agenda of Barack Hussein Obama. On an ABC web site the question of Barack Hussein Obama’s Muslim background was a taboo subject in the campaign and its contrast of the President’s now willingness to openly be proud of that background.

This should automatically be seen as a red flag, especially if you are a supporter of Israel as an ally, and its right to live in its own land free from threat. Do you honestly know any Muslim that is “pro Israel”? You can count on your hand how many Muslims are pro Israel, so the fact that President Obama is now proud of his Muslim heritage should be a major wake up call to all who voted for him; who also believe in the safety of America and Israel. The evidence of his anti Israel position was hidden by the mainstream media and the twenty years of attendance at Rev Wright’s church as well as being the Presidents spiritual mentor should suggest this position.

Further, Obama stated that his friendship with Rashid Khalidi the PLO operative helped in molding his views regarding Israel. The LA Times withheld a video tape a few days prior to the election that exposed Presidents Obama’s true virulent anti Israel position.

Many might argue that the appointment of many Jews to President Obama’s administration including Rahm Emanuel would preclude him from being anti Israel. History shows that many Jews have acted against the interests of their own people. An example of this was Sir Herbert Samuel, a British secular Jew, appointed to be the first High Commissioner of the Palestine Mandate. Sir Herbert Samuel himself appointed the known Islamist, Haj Amin Husseini, who later became an ally of Hitler in the Holocaust and was the root cause of the Arab Israeli conflict.

Pressuring Israel not to expand existing settlements at the same time trying to tie Israel’s actions to America’s actions on stopping Iran from getting the bomb is criminal both to the safety of Israel and America. He has bowed to the Saudi King and twisted Europe’s arm to allow another Islamist fox (Turkey) into the E.U, especially since Europeans have made their views clear — statistics show that 70% of Europeans do not want Turkey’s entry into the EU.

The fox has entered the henhouse working diligently to free chicken-killers. Obama wants the closure of Gitmo or bringing Muslim terrorists into the American prison system to help recruit American born inmates. Obama stopped the trials of terrorists that attacked the USS Cole. Obama initiated a policy of appeasement with Muslim nations including the now acceptance that “Iran has legitimate energy concerns regarding nuclear power.”

Obama proved what I have been saying for years, that American liberal mediocre minds are no match to fourteen centuries of Islamic deception. Obama knows well how to have Americans major on the minors (Water Boarding) while ignoring the majors — Iran’s nuclear buildup and the nuclear arms race in the Middle East. He has alienated the CIA, undermining their morale as well as their ability to defend America. The water boarding PR campaign was initiated not because it might be undermining American values as anybody with common sense who knows the facts is aware that water boarding was only used three times on terrorists who we knew had information we needed in order to save thousands of lives.

Even the media and the American people did not buy the Presidents arguments, so Nancy Pelosi became Obama’s sacrificial lamb and was set up to take the bate and she conveniently took the fall while Obama the fox got off the hook.

His spiritual actions are also striking as he ignores the tradition of all previous Presidents by not attending the National Day of Prayer breakfast. He specifically requests a picture of Jesus on the cross be removed from the wall that would be behind him when speaking at an event in Georgetown University. The President found time to condemn the murder of the abortionist doctor but not a word on the murder by an Islamist who opened fire and killed a soldier in Arkansas. Both murders happened within hours of each other.

 ‘America in not a Christian nation’ says Obama, but ‘the largest Muslim country.’ We are actually number 38 on the list. Anyone who dared to expose prior to his inauguration was instantly labeled a nut case or racist bigot, but outlined above are the policies, words and the actions of a President that could be argued is an accurate description of a President doing as much as he can to do the bidding for the Islamist agenda.

We will see the future with more of Obama’s lunatic policies when it comes to our defense but when his stardom wanes, enough Americans will finally get it and the danger this man poses to the safety of this nation and the free world will limit him to one term and maybe in 2010 if the Republicans can get their act together retake control the House of Representative to blunt some of this insanity. Walid Shoebat