Obama and Israel

In the American Thinker:

Pakistan and North Korea have engaged in a nuclear bazaar to sell nuclear technology; Iran has spent billions to develop a nuclear weapons arsenal; Syria
is cooperating with North Korea (and probably Iran) on weapons of mass destruction . They all have monetary or geopolitical reasons to do so. Iran wants to be a hegemonic power in the region-and also may very well have theological "reasons" for developing nuclear weapons. Saddam Hussein was a megalomaniac who wanted nuclear arms to expand his power.

Yet somehow, Cirincione blames Israel for nuclear proliferation and seemingly wants to pressure Israel to shut down its nuclear program and strip itself of any nuclear weapons it may or may not have in its inventory. This man was chosen by Barack Obama to be one of his top advisers in the area of nuclear proliferation. He is also another in a disconcertingly long line of Obama advisers, who seemingly have an anti-Israel bias and who would be very willing to apply American pressure on our tiny ally to disarm itself in the face of its mortal enemies. [emphasis added]

Hmm, no wonder Hamas political adviser Ahmed Yousef said, “Actually, we like Mr. Obama. We hope he will [win] the election…”

Obliterate Iran

The quiz for today is, who said:

"I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president we will attack Iran...In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them."

"We should be looking to create an umbrella of deterrence that goes much further than just Israel. Of course I would make it clear to the Iranians that an attack on Israel would incur massive retaliation from the United States. But I would do the same with other countries in the region ... . You can't go to the Saudis or the Kuwaitis or UAE and others who have a legitimate concern about Iran and say, well, don't acquire these weapons to defend yourself unless you're also willing to say we will provide a deterrent backup" (WND).

If you said, John McCain you would be wrong. The answer is Hillary Clinton. Wow! Whodathunk Hillary would out-hawk the Republicans?! Code Pink is not going to be pleased.

Clinton, Carter and Hamas

According to Michael B. Oren, in July 2000 Bill Clinton spent nearly two weeks trying to get Israel’s Ehud Barak and the Palestinian’s Arafat to come to a peace agreement. Israel finally agreed to give away the farm: 95% of the West Bank, all of Gaza, the eastern half of Jerusalem and part of the Negev. Arafat refused (Oren, Michael B. Power, Faith and Fantasy; America in the Middle East; 1776 to the Present. New York : Norton, 2007, 579).

Palestinian leaders didn’t (and still don’t) want peace. They want to push the Jews into the Mediterranean Sea. Unless our politicians clearly understand this, we will always be at a disadvantage in negotiation.

One such totally clueless Democrat is Jimmy Carter who is now in the Middle East kissing Hamas terrorists and paying his respects to Arafat's grave!

Israel shuts down fuel to Gaza

Ed Morrissey wrote an excellent article on Israel's recent shut down of fuel shipments to Gaza. I agree with his assessment completely.

Shooting in Jerusalem

A couple days ago a terrorist attacked a Jewish school in Jerusalem killing about 10 students and wounding numerous others. What was not so widely reported in the American presses was the fact that the gunman many have killed dozens more if not for the fact that he was shot dead by one of the students who was licenced to carry a gun.

Condi's anti-semitism

I must admit I was once a big fan of Condoleezza Rice. In fact, at one time on this blog I expressed my sincere hope that she would run for President. I was wrong.

Rice recently compared the plight of Palestinians to American blacks in the 60's. That's strange, I don't recall black people in the 60's sending suicide bombers to slaugher innocent people. In fact, one of the hallmarks of Martin Luther King's civil rights movement was its peaceful civil disobedience.

Needless to say, the fact that American blacks were victims of violence and
hate, while Palestinians are its proficient practitioners, seems to have escaped
the secretary of state's attention.

Moreover, Rice's comparison between Israeli security measures and America's
Jim Crow laws is both intellectually dishonest and morally obscene.

There is no similarity whatsoever between Israel establishing a checkpoint
aimed at catching Palestinian suicide bombers and the state of Georgia's 1960s
era prohibition against serving blacks and whites in the same restaurant (Jerusalem Post, JihadWatch).

Rice's statements are insulting both to Israelis and to African-Americans. I think the President needs to ask her to resign.

Israel air strikes in Syria

Did Israeli planes take out North Korean nukes in Syria? (Ya Libnan).

More on Herod's tomb

Haaretz is reporting more on what appears to be the discovery of the tomb of Herod the Great.

Herod's tomb discovered?

Hebrew University in Jerusalem announced today that it has discovered the tomb of Herod the Great (the ruler who, according to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, sought to have the baby Jesus killed). More details are to be released at a news conference on Tuesday (YNet News).

Pelosi in Syria

According to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Nancy Pelosi got the message wrong when she went to Syria.

Pelosi said, that her meeting with the President of Syria “enabled us to communicate a message from Prime Minister Olmert that Israel was ready to engage in peace talks as well….” But Olmert denied that he had asked Pelosi to communicate that message:

Olmert emphasized that although Israel is interested in peace with Syria, “that
country continues to be part of the axis of evil and a force that encourages
terror in the entire Middle East…”

“In order to conduct serious and genuine peace negotiations, Syria must cease its support of terror, cease its sponsoring of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad organizations, refrain from providing weapons to Hizballah and bringing about the destabilizing of Lebanon, cease its support of terror in Iraq, and relinquish the strategic ties it is building with the extremist regime in Iran…” (CNSNews).

Apparently Nancy Pelosi was more interested in delivering a sound bite which made her sound like a great peacemaker than she was about the truth.

That “tiny” minority

Palestinian Media Watch recently reported on a survey which found that:

Among young people ages 18-25, those who have been most influenced by PA
education, an overwhelming number - between 84% - 93% -- denied Israel's right
to exist. [http://www.neareastconsulting.com/] This was higher than the overall
figure of 75% who denied Israel's right to exist. It should be noted that PA
teachings denying Israel's right to exist are endemic throughout PA society and
media, including among Fatah leaders, which would account for the high levels of
denial of Israel's legitimacy throughout PA society.

Just another survey of that “tiny” radical minority.

More background on Temple Mount

On Monday Recliner Commentaries provided some ancient background on the current Muslim-Jewish disputes over Temple Mount. Below is a little more current history:

When the United Nations voted in 1947 to create twin states in British
Palestine, a Jewish and an Arab state side-by-side, the city of Jerusalem was to
be internationalized and belong to neither. The Zionists accepted this plan but
the Arabs rejected it--and in May 1948, the armies of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq,
Egypt, and the Arab Legions of Transjordan attacked the new Jewish state. They
failed to destroy it but did capture half of Jerusalem--the important half, the
Old City, where the Temple Mount stands. For the next 20 years the Kingdom of
Jordan refused to allow Jews into the Old City, refused them access to the
Western Wall--and systematically destroyed the city's synagogues, presumably as
proxies for the Jews who got away.

Egypt provoked another war with Israel in 1967 (the Six Day War) by demanding that U.N. troops be withdrawn from the Sinai buffer zone and blockading the Straits of Tiran. During the fighting, Israeli soldiers recaptured the Temple Mount. They discovered that Jordanians had torn up Jewish tombstones from the Mount of Olives and used them to pave roads and build latrines. And yet soon afterward Israel unilaterally awarded control of the Mount to the Waqf. It was the same sort of pathetic, heartrending gesture that speaks of desperate longing for friendship and no more war that Barak made 30 years later, when he allowed the Waqf to pillage and violate the Mount.

That generous Israeli gesture of the late 1960s was met by universal
gratitude throughout the Arab world, especially among the Palestinians of
Jerusalem.

Just kidding.

Virtually all such Israeli gestures meet with the same response: redoubled hatred.

Read the entire article at the Weekly Standard.

Muslim protests in Jerusalem

Israeli authorities have been doing construction work near Temple Mount in Jerusalem, sparking protests by Muslims who say the work will endanger their Al Aqsa Mosque which sits on Temple Mount. Never mind the fact that Muslims have been doing extensive unauthorized digging underneath Temple Mount, which may have destabilized the site of their own Mosque! (CNSNews.com)

Temple Mount site is sacred to Jews because for hundreds of years Jews had a temple on that site—long before Muhammad was even born. It is sacred to the Muslims because Muhammad woke up one morning in what is now known as Saudi Arabia, declaring that he had traveled several hundred miles to Jerusalem during the night (no, they didn’t even have cars, much less planes back then!), prayed with Jesus, and ascended to heaven (and got back to the woman he had been sleeping with in time for breakfast)!

According to the earliest biography of Muhammad (written by a Muslim), Aisha, one of Muhammad’s favorite wives, said that Muhammad’s body “remained where it was but God removed his spirit by night.” The woman Muhammad was sleeping with that night said that Muhammad

“went on no night journey except while he was in my house. He slept that night
in my house. He prayed the final night prayer, then he slept and we slept. A
little before dawn the apostle woke us, and when we prayed the dawn prayer he
said…I prayed with you last evening prayer in the valley as you saw. Then I went
to Jerusalem and prayed there” (Ibn Ishaq, The Life of Muhammad, 183-184).

Knowing that people would mock Muhammad, she urged him not to tell anyone and sent her black slave to follow him. Ignoring her advice, Muhammad began telling everyone.

For a fascinating history of Muslims in Jerusalem, see danielpipes.org. Dr. Pipes has a Ph.D in history from Harvard and is an expert in terrorism and Islamic history.

Hezbollah rearming

According to an article in today Jerusalem Post, "Military Intelligence head Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin announced Tuesday that Hizbullah was rebuilding itself and rearming, and that UNIFIL forces were making no effort to disarm the terror group."

Of course it is no surprise that the United Nations sits on its hands and does nothing, but where are all the peace advocates and anti-war protesters now? Why isn't the news media covering this? Surely people must realize that if the international community continues to allow Hezbollah military buildup it is only a matter of time before another war breaks out.

Israeli plans attack on Iran?

The TimesOnline (London) reported today that Israel has secret plans to destroy Iranian nuclear facilities and that the Israeli airforce has been actively practicing for such an attack.

Israeli officials, of course, deny such plans but, in my view, they would be out of their minds if they did NOT have such plans in place. Their country's existence may depend on these plans.

More on declassified Arafat document

A few days ago Recliner Commentaries commented on the recently de-classified document on Yasir Arafat. Today, Caroline Glick asks some very insightful questions about the U.S. government, our State Department, and the media. Please take time to read the entire article in the Jerusalem Post but if time doesn’t permit, an excerpt is copied below:

"On the face of it, the released cable, which calls into question the very foundation of US Middle East policy for the past generation is simply stunning. The cable concludes...The emergence of the United States as a primary fedayeen target indicates a serious threat of further incidents similar to that which occurred in Khartoum."

"The media's silence on the issue does not merely raise red flags abut their objectivity. By not availing the American public to the knowledge that Fatah and the PLO have been specifically targeting Americans for 33 years, the media has denied the American people basic knowledge of the world in which they live."

"The media's abject refusal to cover the story raises an even more egregious aspect of the episode. Specifically, what does the fact that under seven consecutive administrations, the US government has covered up Arafat's direct responsibility for the murder of American diplomats while placing both Arafat and Fatah at the center of its Middle East policy, say about the basic rationale of US policy towards Israel and the Palestinians? What would US Middle East policy looked like, and what would have been the results for US, and international security as a whole, if rather than advancing a policy that made Arafat the most frequent foreign visitor to the White House during the Clinton administration, the US had demanded his extradition and tried him for murder?"

"How many lives would have been saved if the US had not been intent on upholding Arafat's big lie? How would such a US policy have impacted the subsequent development of sister terror organizations like Hizbullah, al-Qaida and Hamas, all of which were founded by members of Arafat's terror industry?"

"Sadly, the release of the cable did not in any way signal a change in the US policy of whitewashing Fatah. In contravention of US law, for the past 13 years, the State Department has been denying that Fatah, the PLO and the Palestinian Authority are terrorist organizations, and has been actively funding them with US taxpayer dollars"

"This policy went on, unchanged even after Fatah gunmen murdered three US embassy employees in Gaza in October 2003. This policy continues, unchanged still today, as Fatah's current leader, Arafat's deputy of 40 years Mahmoud Abbas works to form a unity government with Hamas. Indeed, the central component of the US's policy towards the Palestinians today is the goal of strengthening Fatah by arming, training and funding its Force 17 terror militia."

"In a November 14, 2006 interview on Palestinian television, Ahmed Hales Abu Maher who serves as Secretary of Fatah in Gaza, bragged of Fatah's role in the development of international terrorism."

"Imagine what the world would have looked like if, rather than clinging to Arafat's big lie that he and his Fatah terror organization were central components of Middle East peace, the US had captured and tried Arafat for murdering its diplomats and worked steadily to destroy Fatah."

"Imagine how our future would look if rather than stealthily admitting the truth, while trusting the media not to take notice, the US government were to base its current policies on the truth, and the media were to reveal this truth to the world."

Kassams over Israel

In an excellent article in the Jerusalem Post Benjamin Netanyahu wrote:

"Hizbullah and Hamas are rapidly arming themselves thanks to the Israeli government's decision to refrain from taking action against them. Since the cease-fire was declared, dozens of Kassam rockets have been fired at the western Negev. The government continues not to react."

Then he asked, "If the Israeli government accepts the ongoing firing of Kassams at its cities, why shouldn't the world?"

I have an entirely differnt question:

Where are all the journalists, the media pundits, and anti-war protesters who opposed Israel's response in the Lebanon War? Why are they not venting their rage over the continued unprovoked shelling of Israel? Do they really want peace in the Middle East or deep down inside are they just as anti-Jewish as those firing the Kassams?

Declassified document: the Arafat murders

A report in yesterday’s WorldNetDaily (hat tip: LGF) cites the release of a de-classified document demonstrating that Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat was responsible for the murders of U.S. diplomats. Excerpts of the WND article appear below:

"After 33 years of secrecy, the U.S. State Department has finally declassified a document admitting it knew the late Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, plotted and supervised the murders of two U.S. diplomats in Sudan in 1973, a cover-up first exposed by WND in January 2001."

"The document, released earlier this year, with no fanfare, makes it clear the Khartoum operation 'was planned and carried out with the full knowledge and personal approval' of Arafat, a frequent visitor to the White House throughout the 1990s who died in 2004."

"A primary goal of the attack, it says, 'was to strike at the United States because of its efforts to achieve a Middle East peace settlement which many Arabs believe would be inimical to Palestinian interests."

This report raises numerous questions: For example, why was the report kept secret for all these years? Why did the U.S. continue to push Arafat as if he were some kind of great peacemaker when we knew the truth all along? Why has America continued to pressure Israel to give up more and more concessions to terrorist entities like Arafat’s Fatah or Hamas or Hezbollah that have absolutely no interest in peace whatsoever?

Our government’s endless appeasement Palestinian terrorists—apparently based on a naïve faith in the goodwill of its radical Muslim leaders—has not brought about peace but has only perpetuated the bloodshed.

Holocaust documents released

Recently Recliner Commentaries posted The "Logic" of Iran's Holocaust Denial. New information about the Holocaust has just been released:

"For the first time, secrets of the Nazi Holocaust that have been hidden away for more than 60 years are finally being made available to the public. We’re not talking about a missing filing cabinet - we’re talking about thousands of filing cabinets, holding 50 million pages. It's Hitler’s secret archive."

Read the entire article at CBS news. Sounds like 50 million more reasons to call Ahmadinejad and his Holocaust deniers evil idiots!

Nuclear attack on Israel

According to the BBC, "Iran's moderate former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has won election to Iran's powerful clerical body, the Assembly of Experts."

In 2002 the "moderate" Rafsanjani called for nuclear attack against Israel! According to a 2002 MEMRI special dispatch, Rafsanjani said:

"If one day...the world of Islam comes to possess the weapons currently in Israel's possession [meaning nuclear weapons] - on that day this method of global arrogance would come to a dead end. This...is because the use of a nuclear bomb in Israel will leave nothing on the ground, whereas it will only damage the world of Islam."

If the BBC thinks this is moderate, I wonder what constitues a "radical."