Netanyahu Hints IDF Must be Present on Future PA-Jordan Border

Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
A7 News

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has said for the first time publicly that the IDF must maintain a presence along the future eastern border of a PA state, preventing arms smuggling into Judea and Samaria. He noted that Israel gave up its military presence along the Gaza-Egyptian border smuggling route four years ago, a situation that he said should not be repeated. At a recent meeting of all Israeli ambassadors and lower-level diplomats, the Prime Minister noted that Israel’s security dangers are not at the borders of Gaza and Lebanon but rather beyond the borders. He said Israel cannot depend on paper agreements, signed or not, and broadly hinted that the IDF must maintain a presence along the eastern borders of any future Palestinian Authority state in Judea and Samaria in order to fight terrorism and prevent arms smuggling.

A third terror platform?

“Iran Is creating a base [in Lebano for weapons that are used in areas adjacent to Israel with the intention of attacking Israel," according to Prime Minister Netanyahu. "The problem in Lebanon is not the border. The problem of security is Syria. The same thing is happening in Gaza. The problem is not the border with Gaza….but with the 12 kilometers (eight miles) into Sinai" adjacent to the Philadelphi smugglng route.

He declared that “agreements, signatures and texts have left us with the same problem. We will not have a situation where Judea and Samaria become a third platform for rockets from Iran." The Prime Minister explained that the smuggling of weapons into Judea and Samaria would create a problem far worse than Israel faces on the northern and southern borders.

Preventing arms from entering Judea, Samaria and Gaza is a condition for peace, Prime Minister Netanyahu continued. Without directly calling for an IDF presence in territory that might be part of future PA state, he stated, "I doubt whether anything except a real presence of the State of Israel, of Israeli forces, can accomplish [a halt to importing weapon. The problem of demilitarization must be resolved effectively and this entails effectively blocking unauthorized entry, first and foremost from the east [of Judea and Sama, wherever the border is defined.”

'No' to another 1701

He previously has called for a future PA state to be demilitarized, but his speech was the first time that he said that Israeli forces will be stationed on its borders. The Prime Minister dismissed the option of again signing agreements such as United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the Second Lebanon War three year ago.

The resolution included a clause that called for United Nations UNIFIL forces to disarm Hizbullah terrorists, but the commanders of the international force said at the outset they would not and could not enforce it. Hizbullah has used the absence of control to stockpile at least three times as many missiles as it possessed before the outbreak of the 34-day war.

Israel, under the guidance of then-Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, agreed last year to end the Operation Cast Lead counterterrorist campaign with a signed agreement that the United States would ensure that technological installations and foreign monitors would be placed in Egypt to stop smuggling.

However, Hamas has continued to smuggle into Gaza advanced anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles as well as long-range Iranian-made rockets that can strike as far away as metropolitan Tel Aviv. The IDF has foiled some, but far from all, of the attempts to smuggle weapons, including rockets, into Judea and Samaria.

Obama's 2010 Policy and Iran: Misconceptions Guarantee Failure

Barry Rubin*

December 31, 2009

http://www.gloria-center.org/Gloria/2009/12/obama-2010-policy-and-iran

A friend of mine is angry, saying I'm too tough on President Barack Obama and that nothing he does pleases me. Well, I wish he'd do more that pleases me, and disconcerts America's enemies. True, he has done three good things lately: his Nobel speech, which sounded like it was actually given by a U.S. president; his remarks on the demonstrations in Iran (better six months late than never), and his tough verbal stance about investigating the mistakes that led to the near disaster (though I worry they're less about dramatic change and more just a show to reassure the public that something will be done). I also pointed out that the administration's relationship with Israel was pretty good overall.

Yet on the single most important Middle East issue, Iran's nuclear program and its aggressive ambitions, hints about his policy are getting worrisome both because of what this administration isn't doing and what it's obviously thinking. The year has now ended with no major public move toward imposing serious sanctions. True, there are a few statements you can dig out indicating a turn in that direction. Yet what should have happened was a major public speech by December 31 about the administration's sanction plans. After all, it set that date as a deadline for action ten months ago yet let it pass with no visible action.

There are other bad signs that the administration still doesn't comprehend the problems it faces. The likely sending of Senator John Kerry to Tehran is a terrible idea. It signals to the Tehran regime U.S. desperation to make a deal and chooses a highly unqualified envoy with too big an incentive to get some hint of agreement at any price.

Of even more concern is the strategy revealed by officials in interviews with the Washington Post: that the sanctions are focused "against discrete elements of the Iranian government, including those involved in the deadly crackdown on Iranian protesters...." In other words, they'll put sanctions against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its front companies.

"We have never been attracted to the idea of trying to get the whole world to cordon off their economy," a senior U.S. official told the Washington Post, adding, "We have to be deft at this, because it matters how the Iranian people interpret their isolation--whether they fault the regime or are fooled into thinking we are to blame."

In other words, Obama Administration sanctions on Iran (if they ever arrive) will have three functions. First, as a public relations' campaign "to avoid alienating the Iranian public" while striking at their rulers. Second, to "force the Tehran government to the negotiating table, rather than to punish it" for being an oppressive dictatorship or for seeking nuclear weapons. Third, it will supposedly bring the most fanatical group of rulers to their knees by attacking their pocketbooks.

It would be hard to device a worse strategy, other than doing nothing at all. The U.S. government thus signals the Iranian regime in advance that it won't go too far because it wants to avoid making the regime too angry to negotiate. In addition, the strategy encourages Iran's rulers to manipulate American eagerness for talks in order to stall for time. Then, too, it makes clear that there won't be a serious effort to undermine the country's economy. So why should Iranians pressure the regime to change course due to sanctions since it isn't costing them anything?

Finally, the strategy "hits" the current rulers in their least vulnerable spot. Once again we see the West's absolutely classical mistake in dealing with revolutionary Islamism: the belief it is responsive to materialist punishments. What are the Revolutionary Guard and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the supreme guide going to say: Oh, my! The Americans are reducing my income! Unless I give up nuclear weapons I won't be able to buy that new country house, that sports car I've been eyeing and the Paris original evening gown for my wife!

Sigh. No matter what sanctions the United States focuses on the Iranian elite that group will still have enough money from within the country to buy whatever it wants.

But there's more. Ordinary people may not understand the uses of sanctions yet leaders of great nations should. Of course, the ideal is to use sanctions to force the target to change its policies. Just because sanctions don't succeed in doing that, however, doesn't mean they failed because there are other goals involved:

--Sanctions seek to weaken the target so that it might be more easily defeated or fall in future.

--Another purpose is to deny the enemy resources, making it less able to carry out its programs.

--Still another is to show one's own allies a high degree of resolution in containing and countering a threat, thus encouraging their own defiance of the mutual foe.

--Sanctions seek to isolate and discredit the target, denying it allies and the help of others.

For example, sanctions against South Africa and the USSR failed to force directly any major policy shift yet by succeeding in the other categories they eventually contributed to the regime's downfall

The administration is ignoring all these functions to focus merely on one-which will inevitably not work-of getting the Tehran regime to make a deal. But we know they won't back down, which is precisely why the regime should be weakened and made to face a tougher challenge to succeed in getting nuclear weapons at a relatively low cost.

Then there's the idea that sanctions will rally Iranians to believe that America is on their side because they won't affect the lives of the masses.

Can the United States really determine what the Iranian people are going to think by such methods? If they support or believe the regime they will hate America no matter what it does. If they oppose the regime, they will blame it for Iran's troubles any way and want a tougher policy against it, though they still might be anti-American despite these calibration efforts. Like the bumper sticker says: Never apologize. Your friends don't need it and your enemies won't believe it any way.

In fact, the administration's sanctions strategy could have the opposite effect. By being afraid of even non-violent confrontations, Washington would be showing Iranians the power of the regime, its ability to defy the United States which is either afraid or unable to fight back effectively. This could make more Iranians support the government.

Equally disconcerting is that the U.S. government continues to believe that much of the regime wants a deal in which it will give up the pursuit of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles, it's just too divided and busy dealing with internal conflict to make a decision.

Whatever back-channel intelligence has been handed out-remember the 1996 scandal when the Iranian regime fooled the Reagan administration into thinking it was divided in order to get American missiles to use in the Iran-Iraq war?--this Iranian regime is not split between moderates and radicals. How has the United States scared regime elements to the point they want to make a big concession? Does any Iranian politician still in power believe he can give up on the nuclear campaign and still stay in office given the views of that country's supreme guide and president?

Two other fantasies on the administration's part add to the mess. One is the idea that the engagement effort has somehow undermined the regime because it is so attractive to some leaders and the masses. An official told the Post that the effort to engage "has had an unsettling effect on people in the regime. It has made it more difficult to demonize the United States and say it has been the root of all evil." This is a fantasy.

In addition, the administration is still pretending that its strategy of engagement has won over Russia and China for tougher sanctions, despite the constant statements from these two countries that they aren't interested.

One "clever" technique was Obama telling the Chinese that they should support tough sanctions since if Iran did get nuclear weapons Israel would then attack and China's own energy supply would be jeopardized. The Chinese opposition to sanctions runs deep: fear of antagonizing Iran, of jeopardizing their energy supplies right now, and of setting a precedent that might someday be used against itself.

When the U.S. government so clearly misunderstands the situation and how countries interact with it, the odds of Washington's policy being effective are zero. If you want a guarantee that there will be lots of violence and defeats for U.S. interests, follow the Obama Administration's strategy.


Here's what needs to be done: show the revolutionaries that the West is courageous, that they cannot win, isolated them and deny them of every possible asset. The United States should not attack Iran, except with words, aid to its own allies and the opposition, and sanctions that weaken the regime. If you want an alternative to war this is the one to pursue.
*Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), with Walter Laqueur (Viking-Penguin); the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan); A Chronological History of Terrorism, with Judy Colp Rubin, (Sharpe); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley).

Richard Falk, a nominal Jew and antisemite?‏

UN Israel-hater calls for economic sanctions against Israel - see background info
?
Z STREET ACTION ALERT!
Once again a vituperative Israel-hater is given a bully pulpit (he's the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 - yes, that's actually the name of his position) for inciting world hatred against Israel.? This time the UN official - Richard Falk, a Princeton professor, and a Jew (at least by chance, probably not by choice) is calling for economic sanctions unless Israel removes any efforts to protect itself from Gazans dedicated to its destruction. How bad is Falk?? He was barred from entering Israel a year ago - when Ehud Olmert was PM, not the current "hardliner" - because he compared Israelis to Nazis, saying the Gaza "closure" was the same as the Warsaw Ghetto.

And yes, he also hates the US.? During his tenure with the UN Human Rights Council he called for a fresh investigation into the 9/11 attacks in order to examine the possible role that "neocons" may have played in the attacks.? And it isn't only the neocons he points his finger at - Falk also wrote a laudatory introduction to a book claiming that George Bush and other "elites" in the US administration very likely played a role in the 9/11 attacks.? Furthermore, when publicly asked at a UN session to state whether he ever made the statements 'that no plane hit the Pentagon,' and that 'the World Trade Center was brought down by a controlled demolition'? Falk did not respond.

WHAT TO DO?? We don't think there is much point complaining to the UN, as he is their point man on these issues.? What you CAN do is be prepared to write letters to papers that present his latest attacks on Israel and set them straight on Falk's record.? Tell your friends about it.? Send this information around so that people who don't already "get it" can see what a farce the UN is and how blatant is its anti-Israel animus.

AND write to the US Ambassador to the UN, telling her to exercise good moral judgment and denounce Falk's bias and inflammatory attacks.? Of course, she's not likely to share our position, but the more she hears from interested citizens perhaps the more she will at least be careful about how she comports herself. Here's her contact info:
Ambassador Susan Rice
Permanent Mission to the United Nations
799 UN Plaza
New York, NY 10017-3505
(212)415-4000; fax: (212)415-4443
E-mail: usa@un.int

On the Job Training

http://www.aifdemocracy.org/news.php?id=5451
On the Job Training
December 30, 2009
M. Zuhdi Jasser
National Review Online-- The Corner Blog
by M. Zuhdi Jasser

It is sad that President Obama and his team are still going through on-the-job training a year into their administration. Despite the fact that Janet Napolitano, our homeland-security secretary, bizarrely tried to nix the use of the term terrorism and despite the fact that his own White House dubiously dubbed this global conflict "an overseas contingency operation," the president has finally learned to use the most obvious term - terror- this week. Mr. President, if you are listening, here are a few more thoughts from a concerned Muslim. You cannot just stay hunkered down at your "beachhead" in Hawaii after another virulent byproduct of global political Islam attacked on our homeland. While no one was really hurt, you don't exactly look like you are taking the issue seriously when your photo of the day captures a romp on the beach. It was not a coincidence that this was attempted on Christmas day, yet you ignore the religious struggles in this conflict. It is time that our commander-in-chief and the leader of the free world come to terms with the reality that this is the greatest conflict of the century and a battle of ideas between western liberal secular democracies and political Islam.

While you and your colleagues are stymied by the question of whether to even use the term "terror," the ideology of al-Qaeda (violent political Islam) is spreading exponentially. Your systematic failure to advance American security against ideologies that threaten us may turn catastrophic. In fact the Christmas bomber said so himself, telling an investigator that "there are more just like me who will strike soon." By all means, Mr. President, fix the holes in our security that we know are there - but terrorists who are suicidal religious zealots and very creative will sadly very likely strike again soon. This year certainly proves that.

Our nation is clearly becoming more and more anxious and concerned over the rash of radicalized Muslims. Is it not time for you to acknowledge that terror is a simply a symptom of a more profound deeper underlying disease? That disease is political Islam.

Hopefully you will realize that we can only defeat an enemy we can name, describe, and understand. As Thomas Friedman and others have recently reminded us, the only answer to jihadists, Salafists, and Islamists is a narrative from within America, and most important from within Islam, that counters the global supremacism of political Islam. Until you say exactly that, we will continue to flail in this conflict.

I hope after Nidal Hasan, after the American jihadis in Pakistan, and now after the Christmas bomber radicalized in London, that you see our need for clear leadership against political Islam and its ubiquitous permeating militant manifestations. We need a leader who recognizes that this conflict is most significantly within Muslim communities as we Muslims struggle with the conflict between theocracy and democracy, sharia and liberty, Islamism and freedom, and salafism and modernity. The longer you squander your leadership and stay silent on this, the more vulnerable we will be.

- M. Zuhdi Jasser is president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, which is based in Phoenix, Ariz. He is a former U.S. Navy lieutenant commander and a physician in private practice.

This blog commentary appeared online at the National Review Blog "The Corner" on November 30, 2009. It can be found at this link [http://corner.nationalreview.com]

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/30/us/politics/30obama.html?_r=1&th&emc=th
December 30, 2009
U.S. Had Early Signals of a Terror Plot, Obama Says
By PETER BAKER and CARL HULSE

HONOLULU — President Obama was told Tuesday about more missed signals and uncorrelated intelligence that should have prevented a would-be bomber from boarding a flight to the United States, leading the president to declare that there had been a “systemic failure” of the nation’s security apparatus.

Two officials said the government had intelligence from Yemen before Friday that leaders of a branch of Al Qaeda were talking about “a Nigerian” being prepared for a terrorist attack. While the attacker was not named, officials said it would have been evident had it been compared to information about Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian charged with trying to blow up an American passenger jet on Christmas Day.

The government also had more information about where Mr. Abdulmutallab had been and what some of his plans were before boarding the Northwest Airlines flight to Detroit. Some of the information was partial or incomplete at the time, and it was not obvious that it was connected, one senior administration official said, but in retrospect it now appears clear that had it all been examined together it would have pointed to the pending attack.

The official, who like others spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive review, said the government was “increasingly confident” that Al Qaeda had a role in the attack, as the group’s Yemeni branch has publicly claimed. Such a conclusion could lead the United States to provide more intelligence and equipment to the Yemeni government and even consider fresh targets in a continuing campaign against radicals in Yemen.

The fresh information about what the government knew before the flight on Friday was provided to White House officials Monday night and to the president on Tuesday while he was here vacationing in Hawaii.

Shortly after being briefed, Mr. Obama told reporters that a review had revealed a breakdown in the intelligence system that did not properly identify Mr. Abdulmutallab as a dangerous extremist who should have been prevented from flying to the United States.

“A systemic failure has occurred, and I consider that totally unacceptable,” Mr. Obama said.

He said he had ordered government agencies to give him a preliminary report on Thursday about what happened and added that he would “insist on accountability at every level,” although he did not elaborate.

Mr. Obama alluded to the intelligence in his statement. “Had this critical information been shared, it could have been compiled with other intelligence and a fuller, clearer picture of the suspect would have emerged,” the president said. “The warning signs would have triggered red flags, and the suspect would have never been allowed to board that plane for America.”

The president’s withering assessment of the government’s performance could reshape the intensifying political debate over the thwarted terrorist attack. Instead of defending the system, Mr. Obama sided with critics who complained that it did not work and positioned himself as a reformer who will fix it. At the same time, the decision to speak a second time after remaining out of sight for three days underscores the administration’s concern over being outflanked on national security.

The aftermath of the attempted bombing has been marked by an increasingly fierce partisan exchange over culpability heading into a midterm election year. With Republicans on the attack against the administration as not taking terrorism seriously enough, Democrats returned fire by accusing the opposition of standing in the way of needed personnel and money while exploiting public fears.

The debate has escalated since Mr. Obama’s secretary of homeland security, Janet Napolitano, said Sunday that “the system worked” after officials said the suspect tried to ignite explosive chemicals aboard a Northwest Airlines flight approaching Detroit. Ms. Napolitano made clear the next day that she had meant the system worked in its response to the attempted bombing, not before it happened.

Mr. Obama appeared to be trying to contain the damage on Tuesday, offering “systemic failure” as a substitute diagnosis for “system worked.” He framed Ms. Napolitano’s statement by saying she was right that “once the suspect attempted to take down Flight 253, after his attempt, it’s clear that passengers and crew, our homeland security systems and our aviation security took all appropriate actions.”

The president praised the professionalism of the nation’s intelligence, counterterrorism, homeland security and law enforcement officials. But he spared little in his sharp judgment about how a known extremist could be allowed to board a flight bound for the United States after his own father had warned that he had become radical.

“There was a mix of human and systemic failures that contributed to this potential catastrophic breach of security,” Mr. Obama told reporters at the Marine Corps base at Kaneohe Bay outside Honolulu, near his vacation home in Kailua. “We need to learn from this episode and act quickly to fix the flaws in our system because our security is at stake and lives are at stake.”

Mr. Obama suggested that he would overhaul the watch-list system. “We’ve achieved much since 9/11 in terms of collecting information that relates to terrorists and potential terrorist attacks,” he said. “But it’s becoming clear that the system that has been in place for years now is not sufficiently up to date to take full advantage of the information we collect and the knowledge we have.”

Mr. Abdulmutallab, who has been linked to the Yemeni branch of Al Qaeda, came to the attention of the American authorities when his father went to the American Embassy in Nigeria last month to report that his son had expressed radical views before disappearing. The father, a respected retired banker, did not say his son planned to attack Americans but sought help locating him and bringing him home, United States officials said.

After Mr. Abdulmutallab’s father asked for help, embassy officials from several agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency, met to discuss the case, officials said.

Paul Gimigliano, a C.I.A. spokesman, said that was the first time the agency had heard of the young Nigerian. “We did not have his name before then,” he said.

The embassy sent a cable to Washington, which resulted in Mr. Abdulmutallab’s name being entered in a database of 550,000 people with possible ties to terrorism. But he was not put on the much smaller no-fly list of 4,000 people or on a list of 14,000 people who are required to undergo additional screening before flying, nor was his multiple-entry visa to the United States revoked.

“It now appears that weeks ago this information was passed to a component of our intelligence community but was not effectively distributed so as to get the suspect’s name on a no-fly list,” Mr. Obama said of the father’s warning. “There appears to be other deficiencies as well. Even without this one report, there were bits of information available within the intelligence community that could have and should have been pieced together.”

Mr. Obama’s appearance came after another day of Republican criticism. On Tuesday, the National Republican Congressional Committee sought to inject the bombing attempt into next year’s midterm races. In a series of news releases, the committee sought to press vulnerable Democrats on whether they agreed with Ms. Napolitano’s initial assessment.

“All year long, we’ve asked the question: What is the administration’s overarching strategy to confront the terrorist threat and keep America safe?” Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican leader, said in a statement Tuesday. “We haven’t gotten a satisfactory answer, and the secretary’s ‘the system worked’ response doesn’t inspire confidence.”

Democrats countered that Republicans had shown disregard for any terrorism risk by blocking the president’s nominee for head of the Transportation Security Administration and by voting this year against a measure providing $44 billion for Department of Homeland Security operations.

“They have essentially voted against and delayed providing the tools that are necessary to prevent these kinds of actions,” said Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

They also criticized Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the senior Republican on the intelligence committee and a leading critic of the White House, for tying the thwarted bombing to an appeal for money for his race for governor. In a letter first reported by The Grand Rapids Press, Mr. Hoekstra sought donations to help counter Democratic “efforts to weaken our security.”

A spokesman for Mr. Hoekstra’s campaign said the letter was appropriate and sought to inform potential donors of his leadership on national security issues.

Senator Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat and majority leader, said on Tuesday that once the Senate returned on Jan. 19, he would move quickly to overcome Republicans’ objections to the nomination of Erroll G. Southers, a former F.B.I. agent, to lead the security agency.

Senator Jim DeMint, Republican of South Carolina, has blocked the appointment, saying he was worried Mr. Southers might allow T.S.A. workers to join labor unions. “Republicans have decided to play politics with this nomination by blocking final confirmation,” Mr. Reid said.

Mr. DeMint said he was seeking an opportunity to debate the nomination rather than have it approved without discussion, and he accused Mr. Reid of grandstanding. “Senator Reid completely ignored this nominee until the recent terror attempt,” Mr. DeMint said, “and now he’s trying to show concern for airport security.”

Peter Baker reported from Honolulu, and Carl Hulse from Washington. Mark Mazzetti contributed reporting from Washington.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/29/AR2009122902052.html?wpisrc=nl_opinions

Eight yrs after 9/11

By Ruth Marcus
Wednesday, December 30, 2009; A13

The more I think about the Christmas all-but-bombing, the angrier I get. At the multiple failures that allowed Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to get on the plane with explosives sewn in his underwear. And at the Obama administration's initial, everything's-fine-everybody-move-right-along reaction.

I understand: When it comes to a terrorist attack, we live in an age of not if but when. What seems obvious in retrospect is rarely evident at the time; hindsight needs no Lasik. For every Abdulmutallab who slips through the inevitable cracks, many more are foiled. Or so we hope.

And so we have learned, because we must, to live with a new layer of risk. Like climbers adjusting to a higher altitude, we have grown so accustomed to the changed circumstances that we forget about the thinner air, the omnipresent danger. Until moments like the episode on Flight 253 yank us back to the new reality -- and, worse, to the realization that, eight long and expensive years later, not nearly enough has changed.

"Information was not shared. . . . Analysis was not pooled. . . . Often the handoffs of information were lost across the divide separating the foreign and domestic agencies of the government."

"Improved use of 'no-fly' and 'automatic selectee' lists should not be delayed. . . . This screening function should be performed by the TSA [Transportation Security Administration], and it should utilize the larger set of watchlists maintained by the federal government."

"The TSA . . . must give priority attention to improving the ability of screening checkpoints to detect explosives on passengers."

A trenchant analysis of the Christmas attack? No, quotes from the report of the 9/11 Commission.

As with the numerous missed opportunities to stop the 9/11 hijackers, the Abdulmutallab story that has emerged so far is an enraging litany of how-can-it-be's.

How can it be that his visa was not revoked after his own father went to U.S. authorities to report concerns about his son's radicalization? "After his father contacted the embassy recently, we coded his visa file so that, had he attempted to renew his visa months from now, it would have triggered an in-depth review of his application," one U.S. official told CNN. How reassuring.

How can it be that, after the father's alert, the most that seems to have been done was to place Abdulmutallab's name in a database so sprawling as to be nearly useless? There was, one administration official explained, "insufficient derogatory information" to bump Abdulmutallab to a higher status of watch list. Excuse me, but how much more derogatory can you get?

How can it be that British authorities denied Abdulmutallab's request for a visa renewal -- without triggering a comparable review by U.S. officials? Was the United States not informed or did U.S. authorities simply not take action in response? Either there is a continuing problem of intergovernmental communication or a continuing problem of bureaucratic lassitude. How can it be that an individual passenger (a) traveling from Nigeria, with its known security lapses, (b) not checking luggage and (c) purchasing a ticket with cash was not singled out for additional screening? What did he have to do -- wear a sign saying, "You might want to check my underwear"?

How can it be that screening technology is so lacking so long after the 9/11 Commission called for "priority attention" to detect explosives on passengers?

How can it be that our best line of defense seems to have been a combination of incompetence and bravery -- incompetence by the attacker whose device failed to detonate properly, and bravery by passengers who acted so quickly to subdue him and put out the fire?

And how can it be, in the face of all this, that the administration's communications strategy, cooked up on a conference call, was to assure us that officials were looking into things but in the meantime we should settle down?

This was not just one supposedly out-of-context stumble by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano; it was the official line. Making the rounds of Sunday talk shows, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs resisted every effort to get him to acknowledge that something had gone seriously wrong.

President Obama finally got it right Tuesday with his acknowledgement of "systemic failure" that was "totally unacceptable." Whether this is an effort at damage control or a belated realization of what seemed obvious from the start, it's a better strategy than the previous approach.

The American people are not as stupid as the administration's initial approach assumed. They accept that a smart, determined terrorist can -- and eventually probably will -- slip through the best-constructed defenses. They cannot accept -- nor should they -- a system so slipshod as to let through a bungler like Abdulmutallab, with all the red flags that were waved, and ignored.

marcusr@washpost.com

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/29/AR2009122902886.html?wpisrc=nl_opinions
A failure to communicate surrounding would-be bomber

Wednesday, December 30, 2009; A12

ALLEGED BOMBER Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab should never have been able to board Northwest Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit. In an editorial Tuesday we highlighted the available advanced imaging technology that would have revealed the lethal explosive hidden in his underwear. Now we want to shine a light on the stunning breakdown in communication among the State Department, the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) and the British government that allowed Mr. Abdulmutallab to buy a ticket in the first place.

To understand the "mix of human and systemic failures" that President Obama admitted Tuesday, you need only read the transcript of Monday's State Department news briefing. Mr. Abdulmutallab's father walked into the U.S. Embassy in Abujah, Nigeria, on Nov. 19 to express concern about his son. The prominent Nigerian banker told officials that his son had disappeared in Yemen, had become radicalized in Islam and severed all ties with the family. The next day that information was sent in a cable to the National Counterterrorism Center, which is the central repository for terrorism information. While that agency put Mr. Abdulmutallab's name on the vast (and seemingly inconsequential) terrorist watch list, it didn't believe that the information provided by the father was enough to hoist the son onto the "no-fly" or "selectee" list.

This might make sense were it not for a key fact that was there for all to see, but that State failed to call attention to: The would-be bomber had been issued a two-year visa to enter the United States in June 2008. "Anybody who went in to input that information [in a government database] would see that he had a visa from Embassy London," said State's spokesman, Ian Kelly. Yet no one did.

There was also the fact that the British government had denied a visa to Mr. Abdulmutallab in May and placed him on its watch list. British Home Secretary Alan Johnson said that U.S. officials should have been told that and believes they were. But again, the NCTC officials deciding on Mr. Abdulmutallab's status apparently lacked that information.

The failure of the NCTC tripwire was not the only one that allowed Mr. Abdulmutallab to board Flight 253. Having disappeared in Yemen over the summer, he turned up on Dec. 16 in Accra, Ghana, where he bought his Lagos-Amsterdam-Detroit ticket -- with cash. That, and the fact that he checked in without luggage, should have flagged him for further screening at the Lagos airport before his Dec. 24 flight to Amsterdam, and again when he transferred in Amsterdam for the Detroit flight. It didn't.

"It's essential that we diagnose the problems quickly," Mr. Obama said Tuesday. The president said he wants a preliminary report on the use of detection equipment and the gaps in information-sharing by Thursday. That's a fast turnaround -- but it's also more than enough time. The failures are there for all to see.

2010-Undo the Ties Connect the Dots and Change the Course!

Nurit Greenger
December 30, 2009

It as been a quandary to me why is there no where to find a morsel of history about a country names Palestine or a Palestinian State?

If there was such entity then who was the previous leader of this mysterious ‘country’ or ‘state’ before Arafat?

Can you possibly define this ‘country’ or ‘state’s’ historical borders?

What was the name of its capitol? What was its national monetary system?

What form of government it had before the terrorist Yasser Arafat invented and took control of this ‘country’ or ‘state’?

Does any museum anywhere in the world hold even one artifact from this ‘country’ or ‘state’? The answers to all these questions are NO, simply not! And please, don’t for one moment refer to or try connect these ‘Palestinians’ to the biblical Philistines; there is no connection whatsoever! After the 1967 Six Day War Arabs, following their anti-Israel political ideology and the quest to bring an end to the State of Israel, came up with the brilliant idea of creating a new Arab nation its people they names Palestinians! Only today we see how brilliant this idea was!

For edification, the name "Palestine" comes, via Greek and Latin, from the ancient Philistines nation.

When dealing with this ‘Palestinian’ issue, here is some history that one must learn and be familiar with: In 732 BC, the ancient Philistines lost their independence to Tiglath-Pileser III of Assyria. Later on, Nebuchadrezzar II of Babylon conquered all of Syria and the Kingdom of Judah, and the former Philistine cities became part of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. There are few references to the Philistines after this time period. However, Ezekiel 25:16, Zechariah 9:6, and I Macabeed 3 make mention of the Philistines, indicating that they still existed as a people in some capacity after the Babylonian invasion. Eventually all traces of the Philistines as a people or ethnic group disappear and subsequently the cities were under the control of Persians, Jews--Hasmonean Kingdom, Greeks-Seleucid Empire, Romans, and subsequent empires that ruled in the region.

I challenge as well as urge every human being on earth to search the history of the people who chose to call themselves “Palestinians.” The known fact is that these “Palestinians” are simply Arabs who arrived to the region, particularly to the Land of Israel, from all parts of the Arab world seeking better economic conditions. For political reason of advancing the war against Jews, since the turn of the 20th Century, the entire Arab world has used and is using these Arabs as a pawn to fight Israel, as part one of the Islamists wider scheme to follow the word of Allah and achieve Islam domination in the world.

With this truth brought to light, there is a need to understand and then make rational of why world political leaders are willing to negotiate with people—first Yasser Arafat and now Mahmoud Abbas-Abu Mazen—who are by far not leaders of a real country or a state but are qualified as terrorists, openly practicing a forked tongue deceiving political agenda?

Arafat then and Abbas now keep on telling the world one thing in English and then turn the microphones to their people and in Arabic tell an about-face story or a totally different story. Because of its advanced technology, the world we live in today seems to be much smaller, and one can no loner fool the masses that easily. The public reads, hears and knows the actual truth that can no longer be camouflaged. So why don’t the politicians do the very same?

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the “Palestinian Authority” (PA), Fatah al-Islam, (The name means Conquest of Islam), known to all as Fatah*, Hamas**, Hezbollah***, and the majority of the Arab world general population agree that the State of Israel must be exterminated, and that their ultimate goal, as commanded by Allah and plainly described in the Qur’an, is to achieve world domination. There are only some minor differences as to how and how fast this goal can be accomplished but the common denominator is one of the same, establishing Islamic world caliphate government inspired under Islam Sha’rah law. If one still doubts my writing, any Islamist will be only glad to provide you with a copy of the Qur’an for you to read and become ‘enlighten.’

The true history of this Arab group, now calling themselves “Palestinians” is so horrific it deserves nothing but the gallows. It is obvious that the Arab world is rewriting history in order to blame it on the Jews.

It is totally unacceptable that the very rich Arab nations do not help their own people to come out of their hopeless condition. But reality is that they do not wish to help their brethren. They want them to remain serving as the front line force active in destroying Israel. They fund these terrorists; they incite them with more hate and supply them with rockets and weaponry to use against the State of Israel as part of their advancement for world domination. Israel is on the front line to stop their goal.

Hamas is not only at war with Israel it terrorizes daily but it also systematically and brutally murders its own people and Fatah members. It appears as if the world accepts Arabs killing Arabs and Arabs killing Jews, but it is no at all accepting that Jews, forced to defend themselves, kill Arabs.

What happened to most of the Christian-Arabs once lived in these ‘Palestinian’ areas? The ‘Palestinians’ desecrated the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem, Christian and Jewish graves, the Jewish Holy sites. Anything that is not Muslim does not stand a chance to be respected! On second thought, perhaps the fashionable choice is not to want to know or face the truth.

The most amazing part of it all is how easy it was for the Arabs, calling themselves Palestinians, to feed their lies and history revision to the world and the media, liberals, the ‘enlightened’ Liberals and the Leftist activists and many politicians have been helping the Muslims to spread their deception and advance their goal. How can any of them look themselves in the mirror when they know they deny the truth to be told, thus openly support the agenda of ruthless despotism, and jihadism. After all Islam, that is by far not a ‘religion of peace,’ rather it is at war with the entire non-Muslim world and since the time of their Prophet Muhammad Muslims have slaughtered some 270 million human beings and they are still ferociously at it.

It is time to take off the fig leaf, leave the Garden of Eden and enter the real world where, the non-Muslim world must fast arrive at the realization that it has one major problem, which is Islam Jihad and that Jihadist forces are about to acquire nuclear weapons if mass destruction.

Is it out of fear the world chose to hide behind its anti-Semitic in the guise of anti-Israel resistance blaming Israel and Jews for all of world’s follies and perils, while ignoring reality and facts, or it is insanity that drives the choice of so many to be blind to their own demise?

It will be best that the majority begins making history! If the non-Muslim world does not immediately forcefully, and with heavy hand, deal with Iran and North Korea nuclear proliferation, Yemen as a terrorism training grounds and piracy hub, and the cancerous world jihads the legacy of those calling themselves world leaders, such as Barak Hussein Obama, the European Union as a whole, Russia, China and the current United Nations Organization will be all about a nuclear WWIII!

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*A radical Sunni Islamist group that first formed in November 2006 and has been described as a militant jihadist movement that draws inspiration from al-Qaeda, became very well known in May 2007 and June 2007 after engaging in combat against the Lebanese Army in the Nahr al-Bared UNRWA Palestinian refugee camp, which, on August 9, 2007, the United States Department of State classified as a terrorist organization

** Meaning "Islamic Resistance Movement," the Palestinian terrorist wing of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, created in 1987 at the beginning of the First Intifada, which is an uprising against Israeli rule in the “Palestinian Territories”

*** Literally "Party of God," a Shi'a terrorist Islamist political and paramilitary organization based in Lebanon

Victims of Dictatorship Unite: Why Central Europeans, Jews and Israelis Should Cooperate, Not Compete

RubinReports
Barry Rubin

Note: This article is a response to an op-ed by Ephraim Zuroff in the Jerusalem Post. To show my respect for Mr. Zuroff, I gave a blurb which is on the back cover of his latest book. But it is necessary to rethink the relationship between Jews and the peoples of Central Europe—including Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, and other countries—regarding the events of the World War Two era. Rather than compete over our sufferings in that period, we should join forces in exploring and exposing the traumas of that period. Central to Mr. Zuroff’s argument is the claim that any emphasis by Central European countries regarding their own sufferings during World War Two—especially if it focuses on the oppression of the Stalinist USSR—is somehow a challenge to the uniqueness and importance of the mass murder of Jews in those countries. Indeed, it is implied that this effort borders on or even exemplifies antisemitism.

I think this argument is fallacious and a strategic mistake. It is never a good idea to concea history. Due to the existence of the Soviet Union and Soviet bloc until 1991, the truth about the terrible oppression of Lithuanians, Latvians, Poles, Ukrainians, and others was hidden away from the world until recently. As part of their national reassertion, these peoples want to highlight what happened to them and the full horror of their sufferings.

They have every right to do so. And why should we oppose this as long as it does not come with the ignoring or justification of the Shoah? Is our highest priority to set up a competition of suffering , in which we define these oppressions as conflicting rather than mutually reinforcing? Instead, we should fully participate, as Jews and Israelis, in this process for several good reasons.

One factor is that many Jews were among the victims of Soviet repression. In the Lithuanian museum in Vilnius housed in the former KGB headquarters, it is pointed out that about ten percent of those deported by the Soviets in 1940-1941 were Jews. One of them was Menahem Begin. Although being sent to Siberia saved those who survived those camps, this was not the intention. Almost 1,000 Jews were massacred by the KGB in the Katyn forest along with thousands of Poles. Is the blood of these Jews and the tens of thousands who perished in the Soviet Gulag of lesser value than those murdered by the Germans?

Indeed, even if it came a very distant second to the Nazis, the Stalin regime also targeted Jews and greatly contributed to their suffering. If it had not been for the Soviet-Nazi alliance, Hitler might not have been able to start the war in the first place. Stalin turned over some Jewish leaders to the Nazis and being a Zionist was a criminal offense under the Soviet regime, including in the countries conquered by Moscow during the war.

A second reason why we should join with Central Europeans in commemorating and revealing the true extent of this repression and mass murder is to help Jews and others understand today that antisemitism is not a monopoly of the political right. This is of high importance at a time when the main source of antisemitism along with hatred of Jews and Israel in the West is from a left which justifies itself by claiming that it is immune to that contagion.

Third, the idea that Jews should only deal with Central Europeans nowadays by demanding they endlessly proclaim their guilt over the Shoah is counterproductive, likely to produce resentment rather than acknowledgement by them of responsibility and true repentence. By merely demanding they acknowledge guilt over our suffering—often at their hands--while refusing to heed their historic suffering at the hands of others is setting up a conflict exploited by antisemitic elements. We should engage in a dialogue in which we respect their historical experience, which is also that of many Jews as well. On this basis of solidarity against totalitarianism, we can stand together as friends.

In fact, these are precisely issues on which we need to cooperate today. At a time when nationalism is viewed as an unacceptable evil, we should affirm the importance of our shared belief in the preciousness of our peoplehood. We share, too, the experience of knowing that the threats of those who would wipe us off the map must be taken seriously.

These are complex issues. To cite my family’s experience, the Soviets imprisoned my Zionist uncle in a cell with members of the Polish and Lithuanian anti-Soviet resistance; some relatives were deported to Siberia, others were saved from the Nazis by Polish collaborationist police who were secretly members of the Polish nationalist underground; still others were turned in by their Polish neighbors, and some were murdered by Lithuanian security police units; while others were saved by Red Army partisans but then kept as prisoners in the USSR for 12 years.

Mr. Zuroff ridicules the Lithuanian foreign minister for asking “How could it be that while some Lithuanians were risking their lives to save their Jewish neighbors, others were committing crimes by sending them to death?" Mr. Zuroff is right in saying that far more were committing crimes than saving neighbors. But the foreign minister is asking a central question: How did people in each of these countries choose sides and what can we learn from this process?

Finally, there is the question of the Jewish Communists, some of whom tortured and murdered local people—including other Jews—in the service of the Soviet secret police. Antisemites use this to stir up anti-Jewish hatred, just as the Nazis did (a point well made in Latvia’s museum on both the Shoah and their oppression by Germans and Soviet occupiers) . By refusing to deal with this issue we only help them do so. We should discuss this issue honestly. Just as the action of Nazi collaborators did not turn whole countries into war criminals, all Jews should not be held responsible for the deeds of a tiny minority. Moreover, these people did not act as Jews but as enemies of the Jewish people.

It is an important lesson for Jews to understand how some of their number betrayed them. Jewish Communists led the way in destroying the Jewish religion, language, and culture in the Soviet Union and satellite states. This is an important lesson for today where Jewish extreme leftists smear Israel and endeavor to hurt or destroy it.

In short, it is in our moral and political interest to join with Central Europeans in seeking to understand the truth about the past and its significance for the present. That includes acknowledging their suffering from both the Nazis and Stalinists during World War Two, and the latter for the half-century thereafter. One important element here is teaching about the costs and crimes of Communism in Western schools as well as the depredations of Nazism.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan).

Barack Obama gets an 'F' for protecting Americans

Toby Harnden
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tobyharnden/100020934/barack-obama-gets-an-f-for-protecting-americans/

There is no more solemn duty for an American commander-in-chief than the marshalling of “all elements of American power” – the phrase Obama himself used on Monday – to protect the people of the United States. In that key respect, Obama failed on Christmas Day, just as President George W. Bush failed on September 11th (though he succeeded in the seven years after that).. Yes, the buck stops in the Oval Office. Obama may have rather smugly given himself a “B+” for his 2008 performance but he gets an F for the events that led to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab boarding a Detroit-bound plane in Amsterdam with a PETN bomb sewn into his underpants. He said today that a “systemic failure has occurred”. Well, he’s in charge of that system.

The picture we’re getting is more and more alarming by the hour. Here are some key elements to consider:

1. Abdulmutallab’s father spoke several times to the US Embassy in Abuja, Nigeria and visited a CIA officer there to tell him, apparently, that he feared his son was a jihadist being trained in Yemen. According to CNN, the CIA officer wrote up a report, which then sat in the CIA headquarters at Langley for several weeks without being disseminated to the rest of the intelligence community. This was not just a casual encounter. Again according to CNN, there were at least two face-to-face meetings, telephone calls and written correspondence with the father. If it’s true that the CIA sat on this then it beggars belief.

2. After 9/11, the huge bureaucracies of the Homeland Security Department and the Directorate of National Intelligence (DNI) were created. Inside the DNI, the National Counter Terrorism Center was created. These organisations were created to “connect the dots”. It may well be that the fault lay with NCTC and not the CIA – CIA spokesman George Little says here that “key biographical information” and information about “possible extremist connections in Yemen” was passed to NCTC. If NCTC knew about it, then did someone at the National Security Council within the White House? There’s a huge blame game beginning so we’ll no doubt know soon enough.

3. It wasn’t just the meeting with the father. According to CBS, “as early as August of 2009 the Central Intelligence Agency was picking up information on a person of interest dubbed ‘The Nigerian’ suspected of meeting with ‘terrorist elements’ in Yemen”. So there were other parts of the jigsaw that were not put together.

4. In his studied desire to be the unBush by responding coolly to events like this, Obama is dangerously close to failing as a leader. Yes, it is good not to shoot from the hip and make broad assertions without the facts. But Obama took three days before speaking to the American people, emerging on Monday in between golf and tennis games in Hawaii to deliver a rather tepid address that significantly underplayed what happened. He described Abdulmutallab as an “isolated extremist” who “allegedly tried to ignite an explosive device on his body” – phrases that indicate a legalistic, downplaying approach that alarms rather than reassures. Today’s words showed a lot more fire and desire to get on top of things – we’ll see whether Obama follows through with action. In the meantime, he went snorkelling.

5. There has been a pattern developing with the Obama administration trying to minimise terrorist attacks. We saw it with Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad, a Muslim convert who murdered a US Army recruit in Little Rock, Arkansas in June. We saw it with Major Nidal Malik Hassan, a Muslim with Palestinian roots who slaughtered 13 at Fort Hood, Texas last month. In both cases, there were Yemen connections. Obama began to take the same approach with Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. We’ll see whether this incident shakes him out of that complacency. Whether it’s called the war on terror or not, it’s clear that the US is at war against al-Qaeda and radical Islamists.

6. Guantanamo Bay. It seems that two of the Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) planners behind this attack were released from Guantanamo Bay during the Bush administration. That calls into question the competence of Bush administration officials but also the wisdom of closing Guantanamo Bay. How many other enemies of America and the West are going to be released back to the battlefield? As Mike Goldfarb asks: “Is the Obama administration seriously still considering sending some 90 Yemeni detainees now being held at Gitmo back to their country of origin, where al Qaeda are apparently running around with impunity?”

7. Janet Napolitano, Obama’s Homeland Security Chief, has been a distaster in this, exhibiting the kind of bureaucratic complacency that makes ordinary citizens want to go postal. On Sunday, she told CNN that “one thing I’d like to point out is that the system worked” and ABC News that “once the incident occurred, the system worked”. A day later, she grumbled that quoted “out of context” before reversing herself, telling NBC: “Our system did not work in this instance. No one is happy or satisfied with that. An extensive review is under way.” The “system worked” comment was a “heckuva job, Brownie” moment. Is she up to the job?

8. Will Obama hold individuals accountable? Briefing the press today behind a cloak of anonymity as a “Senior Administration Official”, Denis McDonough, NSC chief of staff (he gave the game away by saying he was from Minnesota), said that Obama “intends to demand accountability at the highest levels” before adding: ” It remains to be seen what that means exactly.” If heads don’t roll – and soon – then Obama’s words will seem hollow. It’s an opportunity for him to show some real steel.

9. There’s a continued, unfortunate tendency for everyone in Obamaland to preface every comment about something going wrong with a sideswipe against the Bush administration. On Sunday, Bill Burton, Deputy White House Press Secretary, briefed: “On the Sunday shows, Robert Gibbs and Secretary Napolitano made clear that we are pressing ahead with securing our nation against threats and our aggressive posture in the war with al Qaeda. We are winding down a war in Iraq that took our eye off of the terrorists that attacked us, and have dramatically increased our resources in Afghanistan and Pakistan where those terrorists are.” Why pat yourself on the back for “winding down a war in Iraq that took our eye off of the terrorists that attacked us” when the issue at hand is why the US government under Obama, er, took its eyes off a terrorist who did try to attack us and nearly killed 300 people? It’s bordering on the juvenile. Obama’s been president for a year now. It’s time for him to accept that things that happen as his responsibility, not Bush’s. It’s time for him to echo Ronald Reagan, who said over Iran-Contra: “I take full responsibility for my own actions and for those of my administration.”

10. Will there be US air attacks against targets in Yemen? Watch this space. It’s safe to say that Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula or AQAP, described to me by a senior intelligence official today as “officially recognised and in corporate terms a sanctioned franchise of al-Qaeda” that is plainly now seeking to become an international rather than just a regional Islamist player.

Cheney: Obama 'trying to pretend'

Mike Allen
December 30, 2009 04:21 AM EST

Former Vice President Dick Cheney accused President Barack Obama on Tuesday of “trying to pretend we are not at war” with terrorists, pointing to the White House response to the attempted sky bombing as reflecting a pattern that includes banishing the term “war on terror” and attempting to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center. “[W]e are at war and when President Obama pretends we aren’t, it makes us less safe,” Cheney said in a statement to POLITICO. “Why doesn’t he want to admit we’re at war? It doesn’t fit with the view of the world he brought with him to the Oval Office. It doesn’t fit with what seems to be the goal of his presidency — social transformation — the restructuring of American society.”

Cheney was joining a chorus of Republicans who have criticized Obama following the Christmas Day attack, in which a Nigerian suspect is accused of trying to blow up a loaded airliner with a bomb stitched into his underwear.

A senior Democrat said in response: “It’s telling that in attacking the president and the administration, that Vice President Cheney did not condemn the attack against our nation on Christmas Day.”

Foreshadowing the party’s strategy for next year’s midterm congressional elections, GOP officeholders have eschewed the customary partisan restraint following a terrorist incident and baldly portrayed Democrats as weak on security.

Rep. Peter King of New York, ranking Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee and a member of the Intelligence Committee, said Tuesday on NBC’s “Today” show: “I think that the administration has made a mistake by treating this terrorist as a common criminal, by putting him into the criminal-justice system. I wish they had put him into a military tribunal so we could get as much intelligence and information out of him as we could.”

Here is Cheney’s full statement:

"As I’ve watched the events of the last few days it is clear once again that President Obama is trying to pretend we are not at war. He seems to think if he has a low-key response to an attempt to blow up an airliner and kill hundreds of people, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if he gives terrorists the rights of Americans, lets them lawyer up and reads them their Miranda rights, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if we bring the mastermind of Sept. 11 to New York, give him a lawyer and trial in civilian court, we won’t be at war.

“He seems to think if he closes Guantanamo and releases the hard-core Al Qaeda-trained terrorists still there, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if he gets rid of the words, ‘war on terror,’ we won’t be at war. But we are at war and when President Obama pretends we aren’t, it makes us less safe. Why doesn’t he want to admit we’re at war? It doesn’t fit with the view of the world he brought with him to the Oval Office. It doesn’t fit with what seems to be the goal of his presidency — social transformation — the restructuring of American society. President Obama’s first object and his highest responsibility must be to defend us against an enemy that knows we are at war."

Although Cheney and other Republicans have accused Obama of a muted response to the attack, President George W. Bush was quieter for much longer about the attack by shoe bomber Richard Reid in December 2001.

Obama went before cameras on Monday, the third day after the fizzled bomb attempt.

It was six days after Reid's attempted attack that Bush finally discussed the incident, saying as part of a response to a question at his ranch in Crawford, Texas: “[W]e’ve got to be aware that there are still enemies to the country. And our government is responding accordingly.”

The day before, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had refused substantive comment, saying: “That’s a matter that’s in the hands of the law enforcement people.” Earlier, White House press secretary Scott McClellan had said officials were “continuing to monitor events.”

Also, Democratic officials maintain that Obama is, in fact, comfortable with the notion that the U.S. is at war with terrorists. Near the start of his inaugural address, he said: “Our nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred.”

And John O. Brennan, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, declared in an August speech to the Center for Strategic and International Studies: “[A]s the president has made clear, we are at war with Al Qaeda, which attacked us on Sept. 11 and killed 3,000 people. We are at war with its violent extremist allies who seek to carry on Al Qaeda’s murderous agenda. These are the terrorists we will destroy; these are the extremists we will defeat.”

The senior Democrat said: “There are numerous other such public statements that explicitly state we are at war. The difference from the last administration is that we are at war with that which is tangible — Al Qaeda, violent extremists, and terrorists — rather than at war with a tactic, ‘terrorism’.”

As indicative of what they contend is Obama’s world view, conservatives passed around the recording of a statement Obama made on Nov. 21, 2007, while taking calls on New Hampshire Public Radio: “I truly believe that the day I’m inaugurated, that not only does the country look at itself differently, but the world looks at America differently. If I’m reaching out to the Muslim world, they understand that I’ve lived in a Muslim country and I may be a Christian, but I also can understand their point of view. …

“The world will have confidence that I am listening to them, and that our future and our security is tied up with our ability to work with other countries in the world. That will ultimately make us safer. And that’s something that this administration has failed to understand.”

© 2009 Capitol News Company, LLC
http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=DEE3CCB3-18FE-70B2-A8EADFBA65A39259

Does Obama Realize We Are at War Yet?

Heritage Foundation

Refusing to interrupt his Hawaiian golf vacation for almost three full days after the Flight 253 attack, President Barack Obama finally emerged on December 28th to assure the American people that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was “an isolated extremist” and that he had already “been charged with attempting to destroy an aircraft.” Continuing to treat the incident like a common law enforcement problem Obama referred to Abdulmutallab as the “suspect” five times and promised he would “not rest until we find all who were involved and hold them accountable.” Perhaps Obama should have stayed on the links for another 24 hours, because by yesterday it had become exceedingly clear that Abdulmutallab was in no conceivable way “isolated” and was instead very much part of al Qaeda’s larger war on the United States. Here’s what we know so far:

* According to CBS News, as early as August of 2009 the Central Intelligence Agency was picking up information on a person of interest dubbed “The Nigerian,” suspected of meeting with “terrorist elements” in Yemen.
* According to the Wall Street Journal, the father of Mr. Abdulmutallab warned the CIA of his son’s likely radicalization at the U.S. embassy in Abuja, Nigeria. That led to a broader gathering of agencies the next day, including the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the State Department, in which the information was shared.
* According to CNN, information on Abdulmutallab, including his passport number and possible connection to extremists, had been sent to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, but it sat there for five weeks and was not disseminated.
* Also according to the Wall Street Journal, the National Security Agency who had been monitoring former Guantanamo detainees in Yemen had communications intercepts suggesting a Nigerian was being prepped for a terror strike by al Qaeda operatives in that country.
* And the Washington Post reports that not only did the British government reject an Abdulmutallab visa application this May, but that British Home Secretary Alan Johnson said that U.S. officials should have been told about the rejection and that he believes they were.



Faced with this preponderance of evidence that Abdulmutallab did not act alone President Obama finally admitted yesterday that “a systemic failure has occurred. And I consider that totally unacceptable.” It may have taken Obama four full days to reach this conclusion, after both White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano spent all of Sunday trying to convince the American people that “the system worked”, but his belated acknowledgment of the seriousness of the situation is welcome.

Also belatedly welcome is the acknowledgment that al Qaeda is a major force in Yemen that must be dealt with carefully. The Washington Post describes al Qaeda in Yemen as a ”major new threat to the United States,” but there is nothing new about it. In fact, al-Qaeda’s first terrorist attack against Americans came in Yemen, the ancestral homeland of Osama bin Laden’s father, who had migrated to neighboring Saudi Arabia before the birth of the al-Qaeda leader. In December 1992, bin Laden’s followers bombed a hotel in Yemen that was used by U.S. military personnel involved in supporting the humanitarian food relief flights to Somalia. And in October 2000, seventeen American sailors on board the USS Cole, were killed in an al-Qaeda bombing in the harbor of Aden, Yemen’s main port.

The Obama administration must stop thinking of al Qaeda and Abdulmutallab as mere criminals. Obama’s blindness to Abdulmutallab’s al Qaeda connections and his insistence on calling him a “suspect” in the “alleged” bombing is the same mindset dictating Obama’s decision to send Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other terrorists to New York for a civilian trial in federal court. Hopefully this incident will prod Obama into revisiting that historically bad decision.

QUICK HITS
New York Democratic Gov. David Paterson and California GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger are leveling sharp criticism at the Senate health care bill, warning that under that version their states will be crushed by billions in new costs.

Calling it “a tax on living” Florida Attorney General William McCollum is pledging to fight the constitutionality Obamacare’s individual mandate in court.

Thanks to millions spent in lobbying, trial lawyers are one of the few interest groups who do not have to sacrifice anything under Obamacare.

Democrats in Congress are attempting to blame Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) for the lack of a Transportation Security Administration leader despite the fact that it was the Obama administration that waited until September to even nominate someone.

According to an intelligence report obtained by the Associated Press Tuesday, Iran is close to clinching a deal to clandestinely import 1,350 tons of purified uranium ore from Kazakhstan.
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LOOKING FOR TERROR IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES

Joseph Farah, Publisher Whisteblower
December 2009

Copyright 2009 worldnetdaily.com Inc

Remember when Janet Napolitano’s Department of Homeland Security was advising police officers all over the country to watch out for “right-wing extremists” sporting Ron Paul bumper stickers, waving the flag, declaring the Constitution, of all things, as the law of the land and especially those returning war veterans? The report also showed that the bureaucracy created to protect Americans after the Sept. 11 attacks by Muslim terrorists had shifted its focus to those who opposed illegal immigration, supported the literal meaning of the Second Amendment, opposed the killing of unborn babies and promoted U.S. sovereignty and independence.

That’s where the real terror threat came from, according to Barack Obama’s administration. The report was distributed to law-enforcement offices around the country. It even resulted in American drivers being pulled over for bearing “Don’t Tread on Me” stickers on their bumper.

Clearly, the intent of this report was to target those that the Obama administration considers the real enemy in America. On the other hand, Napolitano named to a position on her Homeland Security Advisory Council one, Kareem Shora, national executive director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, whose officials have labeled deadly anti-U.S. jihadists as “heroes” and opposed referring to Hamas as a terrorist organization.

Nothing demonstrates the national security myopia of the Obama administration better than its eagerness to see threats where none exist while being unwilling and unable to see those that are staring us in the face. The Obama clan could never see domestic terrorism carried out by Islamic jihadists — no matter how many times the country actually experienced it. However, it imagined domestic terrorists were all around us in the form of flag-waving, patriotic Americans.
Go figure.

Even after the latest attack at Fort Hood, the Obama administration doesn’t see the pattern. It’s not diligently trying to determine what went wrong— how the U.S. government and U.S. military made such a profound and negligent error, literally incubating a potential mass murderer who all but put out smoke signals ahead of his massacre. Instead, it is warning against something that has never happened despite repeated, vicious, cowardly attacks by Muslim terrorists on Americans — the dreaded anti-Muslim backlash. Napolitano’s boss has made similarly insulting statements — assuming, of course, the very worst about the American people.

Why is it the same people who anticipate terror from quarters that are virtually terror-free have no compunction about profiling their most feared enemies — the flag-wavers and the National Rifle Association members and the anti-abortion activists? They not only don’t mind profiling those folks, they advocate it. They insist upon it. They make it a national policy. But, the very idea that a self-described Palestinian Muslim Army officer who defends suicide bombing, denounces American foreign policy, fights deployment, attends radical mosques and praises the favorite cleric of the 9/11 hijackers and then shoots dozens of unarmed soldiers at an Army post could be — gasp — a terrorist is unthinkable.

Now, if we had a watchdog media in this country, they would have a field day with this kind of twisted national security policy. Instead, the press just makes matters worse by attempting to paint the same ridiculous picture for the American people.

Guess what?
America ain’t buying it.
None of it.
We can all see through this smokescreen.

We know the U.S. government’s mission is not protecting Americans. It is protecting itself from what it perceives as its worst nightmare and threat — a vigilant, self-governing populace sworn to defend the Constitution and the rule of law.

Until next time,

Joseph Farah

Confession of the anti-Israel Bigot

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter is asking for forgiveness for stigmas he caused against Israel as a result of his peace agenda.

In a letter sent to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) in time for the Christmas season, Carter wrote: "We must recognize Israel 's achievements under difficult circumstances, even as we strive in a positive way to help Israel continue to improve its relations with its Arab populations, but we must not permit criticisms for improvement to stigmatize Israel. As I would have noted at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, but which is appropriate at any time of the year, I offer an Al Het (a prayer said on Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement - that signifies a plea for forgiveness) for any words or deeds of mine that may have done so." (Quite possible that he is gravely ill now and is trying to obtain redemption for his consistent anti-Israel bigotry. Isn't it too late and insincere?) Vatican: No Reconciliation, No Respect! Plans by Pope Benedict XVI to relaunch the process of beatification of Pope Pius XII, the Catholic Church leader during World War II who remained silent as the Nazis exterminated Europe's Jews, have provoked criticism in Israel and in Europe. (At a time when Christians all over the world are supposed to pray for peace and forgiveness, the Vatican has again shown disrespect and contempt toward Jews and a complete lack of interest in reconciliation. Why must only Jews be polite and considerate toward their enemies, oppressors and haters? Common moral and international legal standards must be applied to all, especially to the Vatican - the moral leader of 1.3 billion of the world's Christians!)

Tribute to a Hero of Zion #1: Yitzhak "Ike" Ahronovitch, the captain of the Exodus ship whose attempt to take Jews to Palestine built support for Israel's founding, has died. He was 86. The Exodus 1947 ship left France in July 1947 carrying more than 4,500 people - most of them Holocaust survivors and other displaced Jews - in a secret effort to reach Palestine. At the time, Britain controlled Palestine and was limiting the immigration of Jews.

Tribute to a Hero of Zion #2: Thousands of people took part in the funeral of Rabbi Meir Avshalom Chai who was murdered on Thursday by 'peace loving' and 'moderate') a Fatah terror squad. He lived in Shavei Shomron for 14 years and was married with seven children. Samaria Regional Council Head Gershon Mesika said "Rabbi Meir is a victim of the folly of the government of Israel... (its inaction against Arabs, anti-Jewish policy and political games)" "I demand that you (Ehud Barak and Binyamin Netanyahu) face the widow and orphans and ask forgiveness" (Two weeks ago the main checkpoint between Shechem and Tulkarm was opened)

IDF Can when Politicians Want. Security Services in partnership with soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) killed the murderers of Rabbi Meir Avshalom Chai. All three were convicted terrorists who had been committed to and later released from Israeli prisons.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Food for Thought. by Steven Shamrak

Once again, the Israeli 'justice' system, controlled by a corrupt and self-hating Labor party, is able to claim success. After threats of prosecution, the Israeli FM Avigdor Lieberman was effectively silenced and marginalised. The same tactic was previously used against Ariel Sharon when threats were made to prosecute him and his son for corruption.

To Visit the Jewish Temple Mount a Jew Must go to Court. The High Court has ordered Israel Police to allow Yehuda Glick, chairman of the Human Rights on the Temple Mount group, to ascend the Mount, after having denied him the right to do so for many months. Police last year banned Glick because of his activities in promoting Jewish visits to the Mount.

Goldstone Report Works Both Ways. Fifteen Israelis who were injured by Kassam rockets from Gaza Arab terrorists during Operation Cast Lead have filed a lawsuit against Hamas in a Belgian court. The Israelis are demanding that Belgian authorities issue international arrest warrants for senior Hamas terrorists, including Khaled Mashaal, Ismail Haniyeh, Mahmoud a-Zahar, Ahmad Jabbari, and Muhammad Deff. Part of the case rests upon the Goldstone report, which ruled that Kassam rocket fire by Hamas was a violation of international law, and that the court could not ignore the case.

Netanyahu is Bribing Traitorous Rats. Several Kadima MKs have committed themselves to leave the party. Netanyahu and his associates have negotiated with 15 Kadima MKs about leaving Kadima over the past three months. Each of the MKs who leave Kadima will become a minister, deputy minister or Knesset committee chairman. (In order to improve his position in Likud, Netanyahu is trying to bring traitors into the party.)

Foreign Media is Anti-Semitic. Nearly three-quarters of Israelis view the foreign media as being negative towards Israel . The Palestinian Authority's information campaign and poor public relations by the Israeli government were close behind as reasons for the bad image. (The self-hating Israeli media is also not a big help!)

Israelis Oppose Foreign Funding of Self-Hating Groups. A new poll has found that a majority of Israelis oppose European government funding of non-governmental 'human rights' organizations, such as the leftwing groups Peace Now and Betzelem, in order to increase domestic pressure on the Israeli government. The poll's findings show that 59% oppose foreign contributions while only 28% support them.

Swastikas on Walls of Ancient Synagogue near Hevron. A group of Jews, in a rare visit to the ruins of an ancient synagogue in a PA controlled village southwest of Hevron, was shocked to discover that swastikas had been scrawled on the walls. (No international outrage. It was not even covered by the mainstream news! Why is Arab/Muslim thuggery not news worthy?)

Quote of the Week: ''I do not believe in truces with the Hamas. We must respond to terrorism with force.'' - Opposition leader Tzipi Livni said not long ago - Another political stunt from the Israeli left! While being in power her party has forcibly removed 8,500 Jews from Gaza but has not done the same to the hostile Arab population of Gaza!

IDF Fighting Jewish Patriots, not Enemies. The Israel Defense Forces will use air reconnaissance and photography to detect violations of the freeze on settlement construction in the West Bank , as well as special forces raids on violators. The document, issued by officers from the Central Command, details the intelligence-gathering methods to be used to detect freeze violations and plans to demolish 'illegally' built structures. (Why is the same vigour and determination not used against enemies and truly illegal Arab constructions? Stupid appeasement games must end, it has never worked for Jews!)

EU/Spanish Anti-Israel/Anti-Semitic Hypocrisy. T he Spanish foreign minister, Miguel Moratinos, who will assume the EU presidency on Jan. 1, at a Brussels news conference. "Of course I cannot guarantee that at the end of the year we will have a Palestinian state. But we are going to fight for this final aspiration to become a reality." (I wonder why the independence of the Basque people, whose land is in Europe and is occupied by Spain and France, is not a priority for the future EU president?)

Jewish Music Banned at Jewish Holy Site. The Organization for Human Rights in Judea and Samaria has accused Israeli authorities of unfairly and selectively enforcing laws for Jewish and Arab residents of the mixed city of Hevron . For years, visitors arriving at the Cave of the Patriarchs in the holy city have been greeted by Jewish music. Last week the Jewish music was banned by Israeli police!

Retaliate by Refusing Arabs' Goods. Palestinian Authority (PA) Economics Minister Hassan Abu-Libda said that his office has decided to make 2010 the year that the PA economy stops accepting goods from the Jews of Judea and Samaria (Yesha). PA authorities confiscated and destroyed a large shipment of Yesha produce delivered to Jericho that they valued at $50,000 and almost three times that much were seized in other parts of the PA. (There aren't many Arabs' goods on the market but we can start with driving less and checking where the figs, sultanas or dates are produced.)

The Result of Non-Jewish Migration and Political Apathy. 1. The government discussed imposing limitations on the sale of alcoholic beverages. Under the proposed rules, individuals under 21 will not be able to purchase alcoholic beverages, and no sales will be permitted after 11 PM. In addition, drinking in public places would be prohibited, and alcohol will be sold only in specially licensed stores. 2. Five men were stabbed in a mass brawl that broke out in Kiryat Gat early on Saturday a week ago over music blasting from a car. ''The husband (of kiosk owner) was stabbed and seriously wounded. A number of passersby came to his aid, and four more people were stabbed,'' said a police spokeswoman.

Hypocrisy of the Headlines.

Israel feels tarnished as critics apply apartheid tag... - Why don't Arabs feel 'tarnished' wearing the well deserved tag of blood-thirsty terrorists, anti-crusaders bigots and heroin pushers? Where are the headlines about it?

Iran's $250M Terror Gift. Iran "wants to hold all the cards in its hands" in any future dialogue with the United States and for that reason it gave Hamas 250 million dollars to derail the internal Palestinian Authority talks over unity, PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas said. "Every six months Iran transfers this sum to Hamas."

Opposition to Rabin Bank Note. Bank of Israel was asked by Land of Israel activists to reconsider its decision to put the portrait of former Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin on bank notes: "Let it be clearly understood that Rabin's image was controversial... Rabin caused inestimable and indescribable damage to the state of Israel." (And it is conveniently forgotten that Yitzhak Rabin was a Haganah commander who carried out the attack on the Irgun weapon supply boat, the Altalena, killing and wounding Jews and sinking the boat, at the time when Jews needed weapons most!)

Arabs Stand United Against Israel. The close relationship between Syria and Lebanon strengthens both countries and reinforces the united Arab stance against Israel said Lebanese Prime Minister Sa'ad Hariri, who has blamed neighbouring Syria for the assassination of his father, during a meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad. Lebanon 's prime minister. (Even a blood feud is unable to break the bonds of Arabs hatred against Jews. I wish Jews would show the same unity in pursuit of the Jewish National goal!)

Time to Remember Basics on Israel .

At a Knesset discussion last week, MK Yariv Levin (Likud) said that it is time to return to some "basic truths" about the State of Israel, which he said was established not as a "Jewish, democratic state," but a "Jewish state with a democratic system of government. Israel was established in order to be the state of the Jewish people." (Both ideas have unfortunately been ignored by Labor and Likud governments) Levin made the comments after discussion in the Knesset on a law he proposed that seeks to preserve a law that prevents Palestinian Authority Arabs from acquiring Israeli citizenship if they marry an Israeli Arab.

EC: Modern Day Lunacy

Walter E. Williams
Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Sen. John Rockefeller, D-W.Va., chairman of the Senate Finance Subcommittee on Health Care, and Rep. Joe Courtney D-Conn., a member of the House Education and Labor Committee, have introduced the Pre-existing Condition Patient Protection Act, which would eliminate pre-existing condition exclusions in all insurance markets. That's an Obama administration priority. I wonder whether President Obama and his congressional supporters would go a step further and protect not just patients but everyone against pre-existing condition exclusions by insurance companies. Let's look at the benefits of such a law. A person might save quite a bit of money on fire insurance. He could wait until his home is ablaze and then walk into Nationwide and say, "Sell me a fire insurance policy so I can have my house repaired." The Nationwide salesman says, "That's lunacy!" But the person replies, "Congress says you cannot deny me insurance because of a pre-existing condition." This mandate against insurance company discrimination would not only apply to home insurance but auto insurance and life insurance as well. Instead of a wife wasting money on costly life insurance premiums, she could spend that money on jewelry, cosmetics and massages and then wait until her husband kicked the bucket to buy life insurance on him.

Insurance companies don't stay in business and prosper by being stupid. If Congress were to enact a law eliminating pre-existing condition exclusions, what might be expected? Say I'm a salesman for Nationwide and you demand that I write you an insurance policy for your house that has already gone up in flames. I send an appraiser out to your house to get an estimate how much money it would take to make you whole. Let's say it comes to $400,000. Guess how much I'm going to charge you for the policy? If you said somewhere in the neighborhood of $400,000, you'd be pretty close to the right answer. You might say, "Williams, you're right. Forcing fire and auto insurance companies to sell policies for a pre-existing fire or auto accident is bizarre and stupid, but it's different with health insurance." Yes, health insurance is different from fire and auto insurance but the insurance principle remains the same.

If Congress and the president are successful in making the Pre-existing Condition Patient Protection Act the law of the land, their treachery won't stop there. Insurance companies will attempt to charge people with pre-existing health conditions a higher price to compensate for their higher expected cost. Those people will complain to Congress. Then Congress will enact insurance premium price controls. Insurance companies might try to restrict just what treatments they will cover under such restrictions. That means Congress will play a greater role in managing what insurance companies can and cannot do.

The dilemma Congress always faces, when it messes with the economy, was aptly described in a Negro spiritual play by Marcus Cook Connelly titled "Green Pastures." In it, God laments to the angel Gabriel, "Every time Ah passes a miracle, Ah has to pass fo' or five mo' to ketch up wid it," adding, "Even bein God ain't no bed of roses." When Congress creates a miracle for one American, it creates a non-miracle for another. After that, Congress has to create a compensatory miracle. Many years ago, I used to testify before Congress, something I refuse to do now. At several of the hearings, I urged Congress to get out of the miracle business and leave miracle making up to God.

For a president and congressman to shamelessly propose something like the Pre-existing Condition Patient Protection Act demonstrates just how far we've gone down the road to perdition. The most tragic thing is that most Americans have no idea that such an act violates every principle of insurance and it's something that not even yesteryear's lunatics would have thought up.


Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.

Right vs Left

Ted Belman

ted-44The comments in the last few days attempted to distinguish “real leftism” from “fascist or faux leftism”.

This brings up the question of how do you define the former. Secondly, any definition must yield to history. What has been done in the name of the left to date? It should be judged by results.

The left has accomplished many good things such as workers rights. But at the same time it denies rights. In ways, it fights for group rights over individual rights. This points out the clash between the two. Never easy to negotiate. A balance must be found.

This clash has been with us forever. It is not going away . We must manage it.

Capitalism, too, produces good and bad. We must also manage it.

Rather than look at the pros and cons or the good and the bad, we should also look at the bottom line. i.e. on balance is it good or bad.

The same goes for any ideology, like, for religion, for instance. The left is anti religion and for good historical reason. But not all religions can be tarred with the same brush. While Christianity and Islam can each on balance be found wanting, Judaism at least for over 2500 years has not been. The criteria for judging that I use is how they treat their neighbour. But that doesn’t stop the Left from attacking Judaism or Jews.

I am not unfamiliar with both Christianity and Islam. They both have sorry records. But I prefer to judge them on today’s reality. I ignore their theology. It doesn’t matter to me who they consider God to be. What matters is, what these religions motivate their adherents to do. Today, Christianity is a force for good in my opinion, moreso the Christian Right than the Left. The Christian Left no doubt does good but it also is at the forefront of the fight to demonize Israel. Islam, to the greatest extent, attacks both Jews and Christians and individual freedom and rights and must be resisted at all costs.

Rome used Christianity or the Church for its purposes. So too did Hitler. But Stalin ostracized all religion. All three sought the same thing, to maintain and grow their power.

The Right attacks the Left for a denial of individual freedom. I suggest that that is a fair charge. The left thinks the world is better off for such denial.

Then there is the economic bottom line. The Right focuses on the creation of wealth and believes that all boats benefit from the rising tide. The Left inhibits the creation of wealth by demanding the redistribution of wealth. Thus the Right respects and protects private property while the Left think its theirs for the taking.

Have I got that right?

Another value that movements and people differ on is universalism and particularism. The Left favours universalism which is another form of equality. Multiculturalism is a variant of it though on the surface it seems otherwise. Universalism was a rallying cry of Communism. Christianity and Islam considers themselves universal religions, ie that apply to all men. Both self righteously seek converts. Judaism puts more emphasis on the particular i.e. the Chosen people and Zionism, although it never denied the universal. A few years ago I wrote about this in Particularism before Universalism.

Everyone is familiar with Hillel’s quote, loosely translated,

“If I am not for myself, who am I? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?”

I have always understood this to mean that an individual must make the case for his particular before making the case for the other. Particularism before universalism. Neither should be to the exclusion of the other, but the former, according to Hillel, comes first. One might add that it is only natural to fight for yourself before fighting for others.

The twentieth century witnessed within the Jewish community a flight from the Jewish particular in favour of the universal. As the Jews came out of the ghetto, they shed religion for secularism. They became Communists in Russia, socialists in Europe and liberal Democrats in America.

The Jewish Right wishes to follow Hillel’s dictum by emphasizing the Jewish particular first and then addressing the “other”. Thus, it chooses a Jewish Israel even if it offends the Western notion of democracy. On the other hand, the Jewish Left wishes to do the opposite. It stresses the rights of the other, particularly the “Palestinians”, at the expense of Jewish rights. [..] The Jewish Right wants Israel to be a Jewish state whereas the Left argues that Israel should be a state like other states or of all its citizens. Binyamin Netanyahu got it right when he said, “Israel is the state of the Jews and not of its citizens.”

Finally the Left and Right can be distinguished by their attitudes to war and peace. The Left prides itself on being for peace (Peace Now) and being anti war. The Right has no such pretensions. This is paradoxical because the Anti War movement is anything but peaceful. The Left charges the Right with being war mongers. The Right seeks peace through strength. It believes the enemies of peace must be confronted whereas the Left believes they should be appeased. The Right believes that confrontation leads to peace and appeasement leads to war.

In a way, the Left views the world as it would like it to be, the Right as it is.

What is shaping up for the US is a very clear battle between the Left, now in power, and lead by Obama, and the Right, girding for battle, lead by Sarah Palin. We are in for a classic ideological battle. The state vs the individual, capitalism vs socialism, private property vs public property and confrontation vs appeasement.

May the best metroman or woman prevail.


The Left is out to get Israel

The struggle of Israel, even if the world doesn’t want to accept it, is the struggle of the world.

January 3, 2009 Pilar Rahola


Why don’t we see demonstrations against Islamic dictatorships in London, Paris, Barcelona? Or demonstrations against the Burmese dictatorship? Why aren’t there demonstrations against the enslavement of millions of women who live without any legal protection? Why aren’t there demonstrations against the use of children as human bombs where there is conflict with Islam? Why has there been no leadership in support of the victims of Islamic dictatorship in Sudan? Why is there never any outrage against the acts of terrorism committed against Israel? Why is there no outcry by the European left against Islamic fanaticism? Why don’t they defend Israel’s right to exist? Why confuse support of the Palestinian cause with the defense of Palestinian terrorism? An finally, the million dollar question:Why is the left in Europe and around the world obsessed with the two most solid democracies, the United States and Israel, and not with the worst dictatorships on the planet? The two most solid democracies, who have suffered the bloodiest attacks of terrorism, and the left doesn’t care.

And then, to the concept of freedom. In every pro Palestinian European forum I hear the left yelling with fervor: “We want freedom for the people!” Not true. They are never concerned with freedom for the people of Syria or Yemen or Iran or Sudan, or other such nations. And they are never preoccupied when Hamas destroys freedom for the Palestinians. They are only concerned with using the concept of Palestinian freedom as a weapon against Israeli freedom. The resulting consequence of these ideological pathologies is the manipulation of the press.

The international press does major damage when reporting on the question of the Israeli-Palestinian issue. On this topic they don’t inform, they propagandize. When reporting about Israel the majority of journalists forget the reporter code of ethics. And so, any Israeli act of self-defense becomes a massacre, and any confrontation, genocide. So many stupid things have been written about Israel, that there aren’t any accusations left to level against her. At the same time, this press never discusses Syrian and Iranian interference in propagating violence against Israel; the indoctrination of children and the corruption of the Palestinians. And when reporting about victims, every Palestinian casualty is reported as tragedy and every Israeli victim is camouflaged, hidden or reported about with disdain.

CONTINUE

Pilar Rahola is a Spanish politician, journalist and activist. She is a passionate defender of the United States and Israel and an indefatigable fighter against anti-Semitism. All these despite being ideologically from the left. Her articles are published in Spain and throughout some of the most important newspapers in Latin America. She is the recipient of major awards by Jewish organizations.


Ted Belman
Jerusalem