The Center for American Progress’ Jihad Against the Free World

Daniel Greenfield

The colors of the American flag are red, white and blue, but the colors of the Center for American Progress are red, white and green. Red for the left and green for Islam.

The Center for American Progress is not just any organization. Headed up by John Podesta​, a co-chairman of Obama’s transition team and backed by a 38 million dollar annual budget, it is George Soros’ most ambitious attempt to turn his Shadow Party into a shadow government. CAP is the organization with the single greatest influence on the Obama White House and its foreign and domestic policy.

CAP is more than just another think tank; it’s a lever for shifting the Democratic Party further to the left, bought and paid for by George Soros​ and a roster of secret donors whose names are not made public by the secretive and powerful organization. Those who buy influence with it also get anonymity as part of the package. But the Center is more than a rogue billionaire’s brand of progressivism turned into talking-point groupthink by Washington insiders. It is a link between the American left and the Muslim right, articulating the Islamist agenda as a vehicle for the foreign policy of the post-American left. It’s where Ali Gharib can run pieces whitewashing the Muslim Brotherhood​ while Zaid Jiliani attempts to justify the ambassador to Belgium’s comments denying the existence of Muslim anti-Semitism.

A CAP report co-authored by Wajahat Ali, a defender of Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists, and a board member of the Muslim Students Association, a Muslim Brotherhood front group, claimed that counterterrorism analysts were misrepresenting the threat of Sharia law and that Sharia was “overwhelmingly concerned with personal religious observance such as prayer and fasting, and not with national laws.” That particular revelation might come as a shock to raped women in Pakistan and gay men in Iran.

Ali’s Islamist leanings drove him to call on Obama to “interact with democratically elected Muslim governments and representatives, such as Hamas and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran.” But despite Ali’s extremism, the Center allowed him to co-author a report on Islamic law and another report titled “Fear Inc.” which attempted to demonize Muslim and non-Muslim critics of Islamist organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood.

ThinkProgress, the Center for American Progress’ blog, is run by Faiz Shakir, who also serves as the organization’s vice president. The ThinkProgress blog has become extreme even by CAP standards, forcing Ken Gude, CAP’s national security director, to attempt to distance his center’s policy arm from its blogs. In a post jointly co-authored by Faiz Shakir and Ken Gude, the two men denied that their work was anti-Semitic, but avoided similarly ruling out that their work was anti-Israel, probably because such an assertion would have simply been unsupportable.

CAP and its various affiliated blogs have taken an enthusiastically uncritical approach to the Islamist Arab Spring and a hostile, critical approach to the State of Israel. At the ThinkProgress blog, Matt Duss described Israel’s border controls with Hamas-run Gaza as a “moral abomination” and compared the deaths of Islamist radicals who attempted to murder Israeli soldiers to the murders of Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner in the South during the Civil Rights movement.

Duss, writing at Middle East Progress, a spinoff CAP blog, ran a piece on Rashid al-Ghannushi. Al-Ghannushi is one of the leaders of Tunisia’s Islamist Ennahda organization with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. In the past he has called for a war against America, branding it an “enemy of Islam.”

Al-Ghannushi has also called for the genocide of Israeli Jews, writing: “There are no civilians in Israel. The population– males, females and children… are the army reserve soldiers, and thus can be killed.” True to form, Duss tossed softball questions to the gruesome Al-Ghannushi while praising him as a non-violent intellectual. This was business at usual at CAP where Netanyahu is a monster who must be kicked to the curb, but real monsters like Al-Ghannushi are moderates who deserve our support.
A more accurate name for CAP would be the Center for Islamist Progress. There is no Islamist thug or regime too awful for the Center, whose number one priority is backing Islamist takeovers in the Middle East. Its number two priority is fighting military action on Iran, and even decrying sanctions against Ahmadinejad and the Ayatollahs, and its number three priority is portraying Israel as the greatest threat to peace in the region.

But if the Center wanted to avoid allegations of anti-Semitism it would have been wise to also avoid picking a fight with the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a non-partisan organization started by Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal that tracks expressions of hate against the Jewish people. Instead, in response to a simple policy statement from the Wiesenthal Center against returning to the indefensible 1948 borders, ThinkProgress’ Ben Armbruster called it a “far-right” organization and accused it of branding Obama a Nazi.

The Wiesenthal Center had done no such thing and blasted CAP and Media Matters, the former home of Ben Armbruster, for conspiring to intimidate any group taking a pro-Israel position. CAP’s goal is to shift the Democratic Party further into the anti-Israel camp and attacking and silencing pro-Israel voices is an effective means of doing so. This Kulturkampf being waged against pro-Israel groups by Soros’ prodigies extended even to an attack on the most prominent Jewish anti-Nazi group in the world. An attack doubtlessly approved of by Soros, who was after all an unashamed Nazi collaborator.

Jewish liberals who attempted to denounce the harmful influence of the Center have been silenced. Josh Block, a former fellow at the Truman National Security Project (TNSP), was purged after he denounced Duss and co. for their bigotry. The purge was unsurprising considering that John Podesta of CAP is on the advisory board at TNSP and Rachel Kleinfeld, TNSP’s executive director who fired Block, has consulted for Soros’ Open Society Institute.

The Truman National Security Project was created to bolster the Democratic Party’s image on national security. Instead it has chosen to follow the CAP line and that has ominous implications for the Democratic Party. The Center for American Progress has done its best to revive the Carter-era Green Belt program of passing off Islamist empowerment and Israel bashing as policies that are in our national interest.

The American left has rolled out the red carpet for the Islamists without paying any attention to the bloody footprints that the Muslim Brotherhood​’s various affiliates leave behind. The red, white and green flag that they have raised over the White House, the State Department and over their party has already helped turn major portions of the Middle East and North Africa into another Iran. Unless moderate Democrats stand up to the extremists at the Center for American Progress, then their party will be permanently red, white and green all over.

War Games, An Energy Crisis, and the Iranian Threat

Mike Brownfield

December 30, 2011

A picture released by Fars News Agency on December 29, 2011, shows a U.S aircraft carrier spotted in an area of the Iranian navy ongoing maneuver zone on the Sea of Oman, near the Strait of Hormuz in southern Iran. UPI/ Abdollah Arab Koohsar/Fars News

The Strait of Hormuz lies between Iran and the United Arab Emirates, providing passage for some 15.5 million barrels of crude oil per day, amounting to one third of the world’s seaborne oil shipments. In a word, it is a 34-mile-wide chokepoint, making Iran’s threat this week to shut down the strait all the more serious for the global community. The Iranian regime’s provocative warnings came on Tuesday from Iranian First Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi who threatened to close the strait if Iran faces sanctions for its nuclear ambitions. And Wednesday, Iran’s top naval commander Habibollah Sayyari said, ”Closing the Strait of Hormuz for Iran’s armed forces is really easy … or, as Iranians say, it will be easier than drinking a glass of water.”

Iran’s closing of the strait — and its economic ramifications — is a scenario that has been contemplated before. From December 2006 to March 2007, Heritage Foundation scholars conducted a computer simula­tion and gaming exercise that examined the likely economic and policy consequences of a major oil disruption in the Persian Gulf. Specifically, the war game was based on a scenario in which Iran began blockading the Strait of Hormuz in January 2007.

What did they find? Based on their modeling, if Iran succeeded in fully blockading the strait for up to one week, Americans would see a massive spike in oil prices, a one-quarter drop in GDP of $161 billion, the loss of one million jobs, and a drop of real disposable personal income costing more than $260 billion.

With those threats at hand, the scholars recommended a series of steps to manage the theoretical blockade and its worldwide economic consequences:

A focused but restrained use of military power oriented toward objectives that address vital national interests would demonstrate U.S. determination to uphold freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, help to calm global markets, and reassure American consumers, and measures liberalizing energy policies and rolling back regulatory restrictions would allow the marketplace to work to meet global energy needs.

At the time this war game analysis was conducted, the scholars described why a potential blockage of the Strait of Hormuz would be such a significant threat. Their words ring true today. They looked back to the energy crises during the Arab oil embargo in 1973-1974 and the Iranian revolution in 1978-1979 — both of which led to fuel shortages, long gas lines, gasoline rationing, high inflation, and energy-related dam­age to the overall economy.

In those instances, they wrote, America suffered not only as a result of the changes in global oil supply, but also because of policies emanating from Washington:

At almost every turn, Washington policymakers exacerbated the already challenging energy situation with their own policy blunders. The federal government’s newly created maze of economic and environmental regulations and implementing agencies greatly hampered domestic energy supplies and limited the private sector’s ability to respond to events.

In retrospect, the U.S. government probably caused at least as much harm as any foreign entity did. Much of the energy crisis was self-inflicted by bad decisions made in Washington. The errors of the 1970s should serve as a cautionary tale as Amer­ica again faces similar energy challenges.

Today, Washington is throwing up similar roadblocks to energy independence. President Barack Obama has postponed a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline, which would transport 700,000 barrels of oil per day from Canada to refineries in Texas, and give a major boost to the U.S. economy. Meanwhile, his Administration has blocked access to shale resources and slowed down and even halted offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, which supplies 30 percent of domestic oil production. And the Environmental Protection Agency is imposing new, costly regulations on energy production. And all of this comes as Iran is threatening to cut off a quarter of the world’s energy supply.

As Heritage’s war game analysis showed, there are things America can do to respond to such provocations from Tehran, but no actions can totally eliminate the economic consequences. However, there are things Washington can and should do today to help America become less dependent on the Middle East for its energy and soften the blow should Iran choose to lash out at the West. America’s security depends on it.

Quick Hits:

Despite some reports that President Obama’s approval rating went up this week, it didn’t last long. A Gallup poll released yesterday shows the President with a 41 percent approval and a 50 percent disapproval rating.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that residential telephone customers can sue the federal government for post-9/11 warrantless wiretapping.
North Korea has a new leader in Kim Jong Eun, but the country is maintaining its hostile bent toward South Korea. On Friday it announced that it would shun South Korea’s government “forever.”
Get ready to say goodbye to the incandescent light bulb. Starting Sunday, the traditional 100-watt bulb will no longer be manufactured in the United States.
Have you seen Heritage’s Top Ten Videos of 2011? Watch as we busted gas price myths, conducted an exclusive interview with Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, and paid tribute to Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday, all at Foundry.org.

The 2012 Arab Street-Driven Security Requirements

Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger
"Israel Hayom” newsletter, December 30, 2011
http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=1105

The 2012 stormy Arab Street is not heading towards a solution; it is heading towards exacerbated problems of state-sponsored terrorism, uncertainty and shifty regimes, policies and alliances. The 2012 Arab Street will not highlight the Arab Ghandis, Mandelas and MLKs; it will be dominated by the trans-national Muslim Brotherhood, which embraces Muhammad-style Islam as the sole-tolerated religious, political, social, military and moral compass. The Muslim Brotherhood aims to dominate the Abode of Islam, as a prelude to the physical subjugation of the morally-inferior Abode of the Infidel.

On December 29, 2011, Adel Al Toraifi, the Editor-in-Chief of the London-based Arab affairs magazine, Al Majalla accurately analyzed the Muslim Brotherhood's political sophistication. He quoted the former Muslim Brotherhood's Supreme Guide, Mahda Akef: "for us, democracy is like a pair of slippers that we wear until we reach the bathroom, and then we take them off.” Al Toraifi maintains that "The Muslim Brotherhood is skilled at political planning and tactics.... Those who expect – or hope – that the Muslim Brotherhood will…resemble the Islamist experience in Turkey, have no concrete evidence for this whatsoever, rather this is merely wishful thinking.” The deterioration of the Arab Street is, primarily, a derivative of the 1,400 year suppressive, intolerant monopoly of Islam over the religious, educational, cultural and, sometimes, the political and military sectors of Arab societies. Egypt was considered a relatively moderate Muslim country, but 2011 ushered in the Muslim Brotherhood in full force, awaiting the opportunity to assert itself, politically, between the Persian Gulf and the Atlantic Ocean.

The 2012 Arab Street will be further fueled by the American evacuation of Iraq. The evacuation could produce a volcanic eruption, in Iraq, consuming the pro-US regime in Baghdad, playing into the hands of Iran, which aspires to dominate the Persian Gulf and promotes anti-US regimes in the Mid-East and beyond (e.g. Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador). The US departure from Iraq could, also, wreak havoc in Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States.

While the US' strategic arm in the Mid-East is getting shorter, the Russian and Chinese Mid-East profile is growing stronger, providing a tailwind to anti-US regimes.

The 2012 Arab Street could dwarf the seismic events of 2011, impacting national and regional security and the resulting security requirements. The lower the stability and life-expectancy of Mid-East regimes, the shiftier are their ideology, policies and commitments (e.g., Egypt's and Jordan's peace accords with Israel). The higher the volatility of the Arab Street, the higher is the security threshold and requirements in the face of that volatility. Moreover, the shorter the US' strategic arm, the less effective is its posture of deterrence, the more adrenalized are rogue regimes, the more acute is the threat of war and the higher are the security requirements in the face of the stormy Arab Street.

The threshold of Israel's security requirements is rising as the threats are mounting.

According to Lt. General (ret.) Tom Kelly, Chief of Operations in the 1991 Gulf War, "I cannot defend this land (Israel) without that terrain (West Bank)... Without the West Bank, Israel is only 8 miles wide at its narrowest point. That makes it indefensible." General (ret.) Al Gray, former Commandant, US Marine Corps stated that "missiles fly over any terrain feature, but they don't negate the strategic significance of territorial depth…. To defeat Israel would require the Arabs to deploy armor, infantry and artillery into Israel…. It remains true in the era of modern missiles.”

The Judea and Samaria mountain ridges – the cradle of Jewish history - constitute the most effective tank obstacle (a 2,000ft-3,000ft slope over-towering the Jordan Valley, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and 80% of Israel's infrastructure). It is a dream platform of invasion to the 8-15 miles wide pre-1967 Israel, in the most conflict-ridden, unpredictable and treacherous neighborhood in the world, where there has never been an intra-Arab comprehensive peace, or intra-Arab compliance with most intra-Arab agreements. The Judea and Samaria mountain ridges are indispensable to Israel's survival in the raging Mid-East.

An insecure Israel would be a liability, rather than an asset, to the US. An insecure Israel would not be able to deter an Arab invasion of Jordan – which could have spilled over into Saudi Arabia - as Israel did in September 1970, when the US was bogged down in Vietnam. An insecure Israel would not be able to perform as "the largest US aircraft carrier which does not require a single US soldier, saving the US $20 billion annually (the late General Alexander Haig).”

Shabbat Shalom and may 2012 be top heavy on health, challenge and rewards,

Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, "Second Thought: US-Israel Initiative"
www.TheEttingerReport.com

The Narrative of Perpetual Palestinian Victimhood

Shelby Steele

Shelby Steele, Robert J and Marion E. Oster Senior Fellow, Hoover Institute, member of the Working Group on Islamism and the International Order.

The following is excerpted from a speech delivered September 22, 2011 in New York City at the conference "The Perils of Global Intolerance: The UN and Durban III," sponsored by the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust and the Hudson Institute.

The Arab-Israeli conflict, is not really a conflict, it is a war – a war of the Arabs against the Jews. In many ways, this conflict has been a conflict between narratives. We who strongly support Israel have done a poor job in formulating a narrative which will combat the story spun by the other side. We can do better.

The Durban conferences, the request for UN recognition of a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood, and the general animus in the Middle East and elsewhere toward Israel and toward the Jews, what are they really about? Is the Durban conference and the claim that Israel is a racist nation really about reforming the people of Israel and curing them of their racism?

I think their real interest is to situate the Palestinian people within a narrative of victimization. This is their ulterior goal: to see themselves and to have others see them as victims of colonialism, as victims of white supremacy. Listen to their language; it is the language of colonial oppression. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas claims that Palestinians have been occupied for 63 years. The word oppressed is constant, exploited. In this, there is a poetic truth; like poetic license, in a poetic truth a writer will bend the rules in order to be more effective.

I will give you one example of a poetic truth that comes from my group, black Americans. We make the following claims: America is a deeply, intractably racist society. It may not be as conspicuous today as it was before. Nevertheless, it is still there today structurally and systemically, and it still holds us back and keeps us from achieving the American dream.

To contradict this claim, one can come forward with evidence to suggest that racism in America today is about 25th on the list of problems facing black Americans. One can recount one of the great untold stories of America, namely, the moral growth and evolution away from that problem. This is not to say that racism is completely extinguished, but that it no longer prevents the forward progress of any black in the United States. There is no evidence to suggest that it does. Yet, this claim is still the centerpiece of black American identity – this idea that we are victimized by a fundamentally, incurably racist society.

Poetic truths like that are marvelous because no facts and no reason can ever penetrate. Supporters of Israel are up against a poetic truth. We keep hitting it with all the facts. We keep hitting it with obvious logic and reason. And we are so obvious and conspicuously right that we assume it is going to have an impact and it never does.

Why not? These narratives, these poetic truths, are the source of their power. Focusing on the case of the Palestinians, who would they be if they were not victims of white supremacy? They would just be poor people in the Middle East. They would be backwards. They would be behind Israel in every way. So this narrative is the source of their power. It is the source of their money. Money comes from around the world. It is the source of their self-esteem. Without it, would they be able to compete with Israeli society? They would have to confront in themselves a certain inferiority with regard to Israel – as most other Arab nations would have to confront an inferiority in themselves and be responsible for it.

The idea that the problem is Israel, that the problem is the Jews, protects Palestinians from having to confront that inferiority or do anything about it or overcome it. The idea among Palestinians that they are victims means more to them than anything else. It is everything. It is the centerpiece of their very identity and it is the way they define themselves as human beings in the world. It is not an idle thing. Our facts and our reason are not going to penetrate easily that definition or make any progress.

The question is, how do they get away with a poetic truth, based on such an obvious series of falsehoods? One reason why they get away with it in the Middle East is that the Western world lacks the moral authority to call them on it. The Western world has not said "your real problem is inferiority. Your real problem is underdevelopment." That has not been said, nor will ever be said – because the Western world was once colonial, was once racist, did practice white supremacy, and is so ashamed of itself and so vulnerable to those charges, that they are not going to say a word. They are not going to say what they really think and feel about what is so obvious about the circumstances among the Palestinians. So the poetic truth that Palestinians live by carries on.

International media also do not feel that they have the moral authority to report what they see. On the contrary, they feed this poetic truth and give it a kind of gravitas that it would never otherwise have.

Consequently, we need to develop a narrative that is not poetic, but literal and that is based on the truth. What would such a narrative look like?

It would begin with the presumption that the problem in the Middle East is not white supremacy but the end of white supremacy. After World War II, the empires began to contract, Britain went home, France went home, and the Arab world was left almost abandoned, and in a state of much greater freedom than they had ever known before.

Freedom is, however, a dicey thing to experience. When you come into freedom, you see yourself more accurately in the world. This is not unique to the Middle East. It was also the black American experience, when the Civil Rights bill was passed in 1964 and we came into much greater freedom. If you were a janitor in 1963 and you are still a janitor in 1965, you have all these freedoms and they are supported by the rule of law, then your actual experience of freedom is one of humiliation and one of shame. You see how far you have to go, how far behind you are, how little social capital you have with which to struggle forward. Even in freedom you see you are likely to be behind for a long time. In light of your inability to compete and your underdevelopment, freedom becomes something that you are very likely going to hate – because it carries this humiliation.

At that point formerly oppressed groups develop what I call bad faith. Bad faith is when you come into freedom, you are humiliated and you say, "Well you know the real truth is I am not free. Racism still exists. Zionism is my problem. The State of Israel is my problem. That is why I am so far behind and that is why I cannot get ahead."

You develop a culture grounded in bad faith where you insist that you are less free than you really are. Islamic extremism is the stunning example of this phenomenon. "I have to go on jihad because I am fighting for my freedom." Well you already have your freedom. You could stay home and study. You could do something constructive. But "No, I cannot do that because that makes me feel bad about myself." So I live in a world of extremism and dictators.

This is not unique to the Middle East. In black America we had exactly the same thing. After we got the civil rights bill and this greater degree of freedom, then all of a sudden we hear the words "black power." Then all of a sudden we have the Black Panthers. Then we have this militancy, this picking up of the gun because we feel bad about ourselves. We feel uncompetitive and this becomes our compensation. It is a common pattern among groups that felt abandoned when they became free.

This is the real story of the Palestinians and of the Middle East. They will never be reached by reason until they are somehow able to get beyond bad faith, to get beyond this sort of poetic truth that they are the perennial victims of an aggressive and racist Israeli nation.

Challenging their narrative with this explanation will enable us to be more effective. Until now, we have constantly used facts and reason and have not progressed.

Durban is a perfect example of bad faith because Durban is way of saying Israelis are racist and they are our problem. Durban really is a way of saying I am not free. I am still a victim. That is the real purpose of Durban. The Palestinian unilateral claim for recognition from the UN is also a perfect example of bad faith. If Palestinians proceed to the Security Council, they will very likely be turned down, and will respond by saying: "I told you we were victims. I told you the West is racist," and so on. It refuels the same sad identity.

The irony and the tragedy of all this is that it keeps these groups in a bubble where they never encounter or deal with the truth. This becomes a second oppression for all these groups. They have been oppressed once, now they are free and yet they create a poetic truth that then oppresses them all over again.

How are you going to have good faith if you are raised being told that the society in which you are trying to compete is against you, is racist? It is always the Palestinians who suffer, and will continue to suffer, because all of their energy is going into the avoidance of their situation rather than into being challenged by it and facing into it.

The strength of our argument is that it gives the Palestinians a way out. Development is the way out. The West can help you to compete. It may take a little while. But the alternative is a cycle of violence and hatred and poetic truths about constant victimhood.

The pattern of bad faith in certain places comes to embrace a kind of ethic of death. As Osama bin Laden claimed: in the West, you are all afraid of death, but we love death. Why would you love death? If you are not afraid of death then you are aggrandized; all of a sudden you are a big man. You are not a little, recently freed, inferior. Instead, you are somebody who manages, who conquers his world, who has power. For terrorism is power, the power of the gun. This poetic truth leads to a terrible, inconceivable fascination with death and violence and guns and bombs. It consumes a whole part of the world every single day – rather than the boring things that good faith requires, like going to school, raising your children, inventing software for instance, making money.

This is the way the narrative must be retold.

Middle East Craziness: Some Personal Anecdotes

Barry Rubin

I think if you haven’t had much contact with the Middle East it is hard to comprehend how loony a region this is and the magnitude of the lies told about it. I had to deal today with something relating to the presence of Egypt’s embassy in Israel and it made me think about some past experiences.

A few years ago I was giving a lecture at the Australian National University. It was a pretty routine and uncontroversial session when suddenly the question and answer period erupted into something close to a melee. One of the people in the audience was the wife of the Egyptian ambassador to Australia and she started yelling about how horrible a country Israel was, full of evil racists.

What was her grievance? She claimed that when she walked around the streets of Tel Aviv, people threatened and spat at her. This was thoroughly bizarre even beyond all the obvious reasons. She obviously dressed in Western clothes and was not identifiable as an Egyptian or Arab. I had never seen a picture of the ambassador or his wife in the Israeli media so nobody would know what she looked like anyway. The Egyptian embassy is located near Basle, an upscale yuppie area of expensive cafes and not particularly politicized. I don’t think there had ever even been a demonstration there. So aside from the fact that Israelis have never harassed foreign diplomats as far as I know and that there had never been an article or protest about such alleged harassment, there was every reason to believe that the whole story was a fantasy.

Yet she spoke with such passion and certainty that I wouldn’t have been surprised if some, many, most of the audience completely believed her and felt sorry for the poor woman.

Incidentally, we have now had a mob assault on the Israeli embassy in Cairo, with the Egyptian military standing by and doing nothing until the last possible moment when the Israeli staff members were literally barricaded in the last room and faced possible lynching. Yet even now there has not been the slightest gesture against the Egyptian embassy in Tel Aviv.

Another experience was one of many bizarre encounters I’ve had in a long career of dealing with the Middle East. One day I received a telephone call from the Egyptian embassy asking me to meet with a diplomat there, I believe the first secretary. We went to lunch in a nearby café (no jeering mobs followed him around, by the way).

He was going through his talking points, with no effect on me. Perhaps he was filling a quota or something. Suddenly, though, we got on a most strange topic. He started talking about his meeting with Israeli Arabs (Palestinians who were Israeli citizens, if you wish) and spoke along the following lines:

I don’t understand why they don’t serve in the Israeli army. I kept telling them that they should demand the right to serve in the army, and then get weapons and training so they could use the guns and experience gained in fighting Israel. But they weren’t interested.

Now I had no difficulty in believing that he had indeed had such a conversation. But what was pretty bizarre was that he was telling me this. So to make sure that I understood correctly I asked him to repeat the story and he did precisely the same way. Yes, I had understood him correctly.

This is a tiny portion of the kinds of logical disconnects one gets in dealing with this part of the world. Yet people think it is really easy and that by merely making parallels with their experiences back home people can not only understand things here but make peace easily and explain why revolutionary Islamists who say they want to kill you are really moderates.

Incidentally, I'm getting a bit tired of people who are always wrong continuing to make new mistakes without acknowledging the old ones. Recently, NY Times columnist Nicholas Kristof told us that the Muslim Brotherhood is really moderate because they were nice to him at dinner.

So here's the great expert last February:

"American officials worry that Mr. Mubarak has for decades stifled any secular democratic opposition, so the only organized dissent comes from the Muslim Brotherhood. The fear is that if elections come too soon, before secular groups can organize, the Brotherhood will do well.

"That’s a legitimate concern, but it’s one that the Egyptian opposition is fully aware of and has a variety of mechanisms to address. And a new opinion survey shows that the Muslim Brotherhood has only 15 percent approval...." (emphasis added)

So Kristoff was saying that the Brotherhood wasn't going to do well in parliamentary elections. In fact they came in first with almost 40 percent. Wrong then, wrong now, wrong in future.

Speaking of which here's the Obama Administration assuring American Jewish leaders in March 2011 that the Muslim Brotherhood would only be a minor player in Egyptian politics and was nothing to worry about.

Professor Barry Rubin, Director, Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center http://www.gloria-center.org
The Rubin Report blog http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/
He is a featured columnist at PJM http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/.
Editor, Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal http://www.gloria-center.org
Editor Turkish Studies,http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~db=all~content=t713636933%22

Islam’s War on Christmas

Mark Tapson
on Dec 30th, 2011

‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through Nigeria, not a creature was stirring except for the members of the militant Islamic sect Boko Haram, preparing to bomb Christian churches across the country and setting on fire the cars of worshippers inside a church just outside of Damaturu, the capital of Yobe state.

Christmastime in the United States now brings with it a new tradition that is becoming as familiar as eggnog, mistletoe, and the Macy’s Parade: skirmishes in the ongoing cultural war on Christmas. But as the recent attacks in Nigeria prove, in Muslim lands around the world there is also a very real and very violent war on Christmas, or more specifically on Christians themselves minding their own business in peaceful celebration of the birth of Jesus. In Iraq, for example, all Christian services and masses were scheduled for daylight hours. Why? “Midnight Christmas Mass has been canceled in Baghdad, Mosul and Kirkuk as a consequence of the never-ending assassinations of Christians,” bluntly stated Chaldean Archbishop Louis Sako of Kirkuk in northern Iraq. In Egypt, where we are witnessing the outright, state-assisted genocide of the dwindling Coptic Christian population, churches were also threatened with violence. Christian prisoners in Pakistan, incarcerated for such crimes as blasphemy against Islam, were refused Christmas Day visits from their families.

America itself has not been exempt in the past from Islamic Grinches determined to dampen Christmas spirits. Recall the Christmas Day Underwear Bomber, for example, and the failed Portland bomber who had hoped to slaughter and maim thousands of families gathered to watch the annual lighting of a community Christmas tree. Racist Islamophobes managed to prevent both those men from carrying out their jihadist obligations against Christmas celebrants. (FrontPage contributor Daniel Greenfield catalogues past Islamic Christmas assaults here).
But on this Christmas Day, Nigeria was the scene of the greatest holiday devastation. A series of coordinated bombings perpetrated by Boko Haram, which seeks to impose sharia across the country, struck three churches during services. Conflicting reports of casualties suggest that 40 or more were killed, at least 27 at a single location, and of course dozens more were wounded.

The New York Times reported that rescue workers faced not only a shortage of ambulances for the dozens wounded in the bombings, but also “an enraged crowd that initially blocked them from entering the church until soldiers arrived to restore order.” The Times didn’t specify what kind of enraged crowd would seek to block rescue workers from attempting to assist the suffering and dying Christians.

Setting off deadly holiday fireworks is becoming an annual tradition for Boko Haram, a sort of African Taliban, who carried out another series of lethal Christmas Eve bombings last year. It is often noted that the group’s name translates to “Western education is sacrilege,” but in fact its more official name in Arabic means “People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet’s Teachings and Jihad.” As part of that solemn commitment, Boko Haram has propagated at least 465 killings in Nigeria this year alone while spreading the Religion of Peace. Misunderstanders of Islam, as scholar of Islam Robert Spencer, tongue in cheek, might call them.
The White House condemned “this senseless violence and tragic loss of life on Christmas Day” in Nigeria. Except that it’s far from senseless. In the collective mind of Islamic fundamentalists like Boko Haram, it makes perfect sense. This wasn’t a random, spontaneous act of indeterminate motivation; it was part of the religious cleansing, the murderous targeting of the hated Christian communities, that has been on the rise since the mainstream media darlings of the Arab Spring protests began asserting their supremacist goals. Christmastime is a perfect opportunity not only to kill large numbers of Christians at once, but to strike fear into the minority Christian community at large, preventing them from congregating, driving them away or possibly even compelling their conversion to Islam.

As Spencer wrote on Jihad Watch,

In [Islamic] countries, Christians today are being kidnapped, imprisoned, wrongly arrested, beaten, and murdered – not because of anything they have done, but because they have dared to [hold]… beliefs that are considered blasphemous in authoritative Islam… Nowhere in majority-Muslim countries today do people who believe these things enjoy full equality of rights with Muslims.

What is so blasphemous about merely celebrating peace on earth, good will toward men? Well, as at least one Islamic scholar explains it in this video, for Muslims, wishing someone a cheerful and seemingly innocuous “Merry Christmas” is worse than fornication or killing someone, because it signifies that you agree with the Christian concept that Jesus Christ​ is the son of God. According to Islam, this is polytheism of the most offensive sort. It is “the most evil of shirk [idolatry] and kufr [disbelief],” as the scholar in the video puts it.
The most evil of disbelief. So evil that celebrating Christmas is completely beyond the pale and must be stamped out, most effectively through the annihilation of the celebrants. Keep that in mind the next time an Islamic apologist or interfaith huckster tries to sell you on the compatibility of Islam and Christianity. Keep that in mind when they assure you that Jesus is one of Islam’s most revered prophets. And keep in mind that the war on Christmas is more than just the shouting match between “Merry Christmas” and the politically correct “Happy Holidays.” It is, as Daniel Greenfield puts it, “the revival of an ancient religious war written in blood in the pages of the Koran.” And we lose that war at the cost of our civilization’s very soul.

That Areikat Is Still Lying But Thank You, Maen

My Right Word

My third blog post on him yesterday was, alas, premature. He continues to lie. Maen is mean.

EoZ already has fisked his op-ed in the Washington Post entitled "Palestine, a history rich and deep". Rich and deep with prevarications and misrepresentations.

His purpose in writing is "to tell you what the Palestinians, as a people, are all about." And what does he tell?

a) "We go far back, much further than those doubting our existence can remember. Jericho, my home town, goes as far back as 10,000 B.C., making it the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world." Jericho has nothing to do with Arabs.

b) "We Palestinians also happen to live in a place that many consider important, at the crossroads of three continents and containing a site of holy reverence for more than half of the world’s population."

Yes, and the y all they can to combat other religions and cultures.

c) "We lived under the rule of a plethora of empires: the Canaanites, Egyptians, Philistines, Israelites, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Crusaders, Mongols, Ottomans and, finally, the British."

First of all, that list is chronologically off and should be:

Canaanites, Egyptians, Philistines, Israelites, Greeks, Romans, Persians, Arabs, Crusaders, Mongols, Ottomans and, finally, the British.

Secondly, since the Arabs arrived, as conquerors and then occupiers of someone else's county in 638 CE, - and that someone else were those "Israelites", he is claiming a false historical narrative.

d) "Centuries of rule by an eclectic assortment have taught us that empires come and go but legacies and values remain."

But they are part of that category of empires, the one that raged out of the Arabian Peninsula in the first third of the 7th century, some 16 centuries after the First Temple, 20 centuries after the Tabernacle was erected at Shiloh, where I live.

e) "We proudly carry those values today. Family is sacred, education is indispensable, and religious tolerance is innate."

Tolerance?

f) "Many in the United States forget that Palestinians are Muslims and Christians. They ignore the fact that Palestinian Christians are the descendants of Jesus and guardians of the cradle of Christianity."

So, no Jew can be a "Palestinian"? No Jew is a descendant of those who lived in Eretz-Yisrael since the time of Abraham, Issac, Jacob, Samuel, Saul, David, Solomon, Ezra?

g) "Our recent history became intertwined with the plight of European Jewry seeking an end to centuries of persecution brought upon them by the West."

Yes, and the Arabs of the Palestine Mandate joined up with Hitler and the Nazis.

h) "Before World War II, Palestinians and Jews living in Palestine enjoyed times of great harmony."

And when was that? In 1920 when the Arabs killed Jews in Jerusalem in a political pogrom? In 1921, when Jews were murdered in Jaffa? In 1929, when Jews were slaughtered and raped and mutiliated by the score in Hebron and in other communities? During 1936-1939 when over 500 Jews were killed in the "Arab Revolt"?

i) "That period ended in 1948, however, and a conflict began."

It ended when Israel was born, the Zionists having accepted (yet another territorial compromise called ) Partition and the Arabs refused and launched the war of 1947-1949 when over 6000 Jews were killed, most of them civilians.

j) "It triggered our characteristic defense mechanism,"

So, terror is now a defensive mechanism, or did not terror come first, causing the Jews to be defensive?

k) "We developed our political representation"

The PLO was an Egyptian invention and without the intervention of neighboring Arab countries, as early as 1930, the Arabs of the Palestinme Mandate would be nowhere on their own.

l) "The two-state solution was this national platform. We agreed to confine our right to self-determination and statehood on only 22 percent of what used to be our historic homeland"

That two-state platform, if it does exist (and it still is the "stages solution", actually), was only adopted in 1993 at Oslo.

m) "With our can-do spirit, we built the institutions of the state"

Those "institutions" are non-transparent, undemocratic, elections have been postponed for years, Hamas and Fatah are divided, killing each other, repressing each other and have trouble "reconciling".

n) "We, the only remaining people under military occupation in the world"

Area A, where some 90% of the Arab population resides is under full PA control. And if there would be no terror, there would be no further "occupation".

o) "We are the Palestinians whose roots are so deep in our land. We are an old, rich and hopeful people whose emancipation is incomplete. A people with a state recognized by 129 countries yet not completely free. A state interrupted. That’s what we’re about."

No, not correct. Palestinianism is the negation of Jewish nationalism. There was no state ever of "Palestine" and nothing was interrupted. Up until the early 1920s, the Arabs requested to be considered as Southern Syrians and the country to be united with Syria. They are so "old" that they can't recall who they are.

Arakeit, thank you so much for this piece of proaganda which will assist the Zionist effort to regain the true narrative in this conflict.

Europe's Inexorable March Towards Islam

Soeren Kern • December 29, 2011

Post-Christian Europe became noticeably more Islamized during 2011.

As the rapidly growing Muslim population makes its presence felt in towns and cities across the continent, Islam is transforming the European way of life in ways unimaginable only a few years ago.

What follows is a brief summary of some of the more outrageous Islam-related controversies that took place in Europe during 2011.

In Austria, an appellate court upheld the politically correct conviction of Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, a Viennese housewife and anti-Jihad activist, for "denigrating religious beliefs" after she gave a series of seminars about the dangers of radical Islam. The December 20 ruling showed that while Judaism and Christianity can be disparaged with impunity in postmodern multicultural Austria, speaking the truth about Islam is subject to swift and hefty legal penalties. Also in Austria, the King Abdullah Center for Inter-Religious and Inter-Cultural Dialogue was inaugurated at the Albertina Museum in downtown Vienna on October 13. The Saudis say the purpose of the multi-million-dollar initiative is to "foster dialogue" between the world's major religions in order to "prevent conflict." But critics say the center is an attempt by Saudi Arabia to establish a permanent "propaganda center" in central Europe from which to spread the conservative Wahhabi sect of Islam.

In Belgium, it was revealed that Muslims now make up one-quarter of the population of Brussels, according to a new book published by the Catholic University of Leuven, the top French-language university in Belgium. In real terms, the number of Muslims in Brussels -- where half of the number of Muslims in Belgium currently live -- has reached 300,000, which means that the self-styled "Capital of Europe" is now the most Islamic city in Europe.

Also in Belgium, the most popular name in Brussels for baby boys in 2011 was Mohammed. It was also the most popular name for baby boys in Belgium's second-largest city, Antwerp, where an estimated 40% of elementary school children are Muslim.

Separately, the Islamist group Sharia4Belgium intensified a propaganda and intimidation campaign aimed at turning the country into an Islamic state. In September, the group established an Islamic Sharia law court in Antwerp, the second-largest city in Belgium. Leaders of the group say the purpose of the court is to create a parallel Islamic legal system in Belgium to challenge the state's authority as enforcer of the civil law protections guaranteed by the Belgian constitution.

In Britain, a Muslim group launched a campaign to turn twelve British cities -- including what it calls "Londonistan" -- into independent Islamic states. These so-called Islamic Emirates would function as autonomous enclaves ruled by Islamic Sharia law and operate entirely outside British jurisprudence.

Separately, it was revealed that more than 2,800 so-called honor attacks -- punishments for bringing shame on the family -- were recorded by British police last year, according to the first-ever national estimate of the problem. The highest number of honor crimes -- which include murder, mutilation, beatings, abductions and acid attacks -- was recorded in London, where the problem has doubled to more than five times the national average.

The data comes on the heels of another report which shows that tens of thousands of Muslim immigrants in Britain are practicing bigamy or polygamy to collect bigger social welfare payments from the British state.

The September 24 report shows that the phenomenon of bigamy and polygamy -- which are permitted by Islamic Sharia law -- is far more widespread in Britain than previously believed, even though it is a crime there, punishable by up to seven years in prison.

The rapid growth in multiple marriages is being fueled by multicultural policies that grant special rights to Muslim immigrants who demand that Sharia law be reflected in British law and the social welfare benefits system.

Meanwhile, a Christian worker in Britain filed a lawsuit after losing her job when she exposed a campaign of systematic harassment by fundamentalist Muslims. In a landmark legal case, Nohad Halawi, a former employee at London's Heathrow Airport, sued her former employer for unfair dismissal, claiming that Christian staff members, including her, were discriminated against because of their religious beliefs.

Halawi's case is being supported by the Christian Legal Centre (CLC), an organization that provides legal support for Christians in the United Kingdom. CLC says the case raises important legal issues, and also questions over whether Muslims and Christians are treated differently by employers.

In Denmark, a Muslim group launched a campaign to turn parts of Copenhagen and other Danish cities into "Sharia Law Zones" that would function as autonomous enclaves ruled by Islamic law. The Danish Islamist group Kaldet til Islam (Call to Islam) said the Tingbjerg suburb of Copenhagen would be the first part of Denmark to be subject to Sharia law, followed by the Nørrebro district of the capital and then other parts of the country.

Call to Islam said it would dispatch a 24-hour Islamic "morals police" to enforce Sharia law in those enclaves. The patrols would confront anyone caught drinking alcohol, gambling, going to discothèques or engaging in other activities the group views as running contrary to Islam.

Also in Denmark, the city council of Copenhagen approved the construction of the first official "Grand Mosque" in the Danish capital. The mega-mosque will have a massive blue dome as well as two towering minarets and is architecturally designed to stand out on Copenhagen's low-rise skyline.

Unlike most mosques in Europe, which cater to Sunni Muslims, the mosque in Copenhagen pertains to Shia Islam. The mosque is being financed by the Islamic Republic of Iran; critics say that theocrats in Tehran intend to use the mosque to establish a recruiting center for the militant Shia Muslim group, Hezbollah in Europe.

Meanwhile, the president of the Denmark-based International Free Press Society, Lars Hedegaard, was found guilty of racist hate speech for comments he made about Islam. He was ordered to pay a fine of 5,000 Danish Kroner (about $1,000). Hedegaard's legal problems began in December 2009, when he remarked in a taped interview that there was a high incidence of child rape and domestic violence in areas dominated by Muslim culture.

Although Hedegaard has insisted that he did not intend to accuse all Muslims or even the majority of Muslims of such crimes, and although he was previously acquitted by a lower court, Denmark's thought police refused to drop the case until he was found guilty.

The European Union, bowing to pressure from Muslim lobby groups, quietly abandoned a new measure that would have required halal (religiously approved for Muslims) meat products to carry a label alerting consumers that the animals were not stunned, and therefore conscious, just before slaughter.

With the exponential growth of Europe's Muslim population in recent years, thousands of tons of religiously slaughtered halal meat is now entering the general food chain, where it is being unwittingly consumed also by the non-Muslim population.

The EU decision shows that Muslims have the right to choose halal foods, but non-Muslims do not have the right to choose not to eat the ritually slaughtered meat.

In France, it was revealed that Islamic mosques are being built more often than Roman Catholic churches, and that there now are more practicing Muslims in the country than practicing Catholics.

Separately, Muslim groups in France asked the Roman Catholic Church for permission to use its empty churches as a way to solve the traffic problems caused by thousands of Muslims who pray in the streets. The request, which was variously described by French political commentators as "alarming," "audacious" and "unprecedented," was yet another example of the growing assertiveness of the Muslims in France.

In October, it was also reported that the country's decrepit city suburbs are becoming "separate Islamic societies" cut off from the state, according to a major new study, "Banlieue de la République" (Suburbs of the Republic), that examines the spread of Islam in France.

Muslim immigrants are increasingly rejecting French values and identity and instead are immersing themselves in Islam, according to the report, which also warned that Islamic Sharia law is rapidly displacing French civil law in many parts of suburban Paris.

The authors of the report show that France, which has between five and six million Muslims (France has the largest Muslim population in European Union), is on the brink of a major social explosion because of the failure of Muslims to integrate into French society.

France's much-debated "burqa ban" entered into force in April. The new law, which prohibits the wearing of Islamic body-covering burqas and face-covering niqabs in all public spaces in France, came amid rising frustration that the country's estimated 6.5 million Muslims are not integrating into French society.

In Germany, it was revealed that thousands of young women and girls in Germany are victims of forced marriages every year. Most of the victims come from Muslim families; many have been threatened with violence and even death. The revelations shocked the German public and added to the ongoing debate in Germany over the question of Muslim immigration and the establishment of a parallel Islamic society there.

Also in Germany, a best-selling book published in September revealed that the spread of Islamic Sharia law in Germany is far more advanced than previously thought, and that German authorities are "powerless" to do anything about the Muslim shadow justice system in Germany.

The book says Sharia courts are now operating in all of Germany's big cities. This "parallel justice system" is undermining the rule of law in Germany because Muslim arbiters/imams are settling criminal cases out of court without the involvement of German prosecutors or lawyers before law enforcement can bring the cases to a German court.

Separately, the number of potential Islamic terrorists currently living in Germany jumped to around 1,000, according to new information provided by the German Interior Ministry.

In Greece, the Parliament approved a controversial plan to build a taxpayer-funded mega-mosque in Athens. The move came amid thinly veiled threats of violence by thousands of Muslim residents of the city who have been pressuring the government to meet their demands for a mosque or face an uprising.

In Holland, it was revealed that 40% of Moroccan immigrants in the Netherlands between the ages of 12 and 24 have been arrested, fined, charged or otherwise accused of committing a crime during the past five years, according to a report commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of Interior.

In Dutch neighborhoods where the majority of residents are Moroccan immigrants, the youth crime rate reaches 50%. Moreover, juvenile delinquency among Moroccans is not limited to males; girls and young women are increasingly involved in criminal activities.

The "Dutch-Moroccan Monitor 2011" also revealed that most of the Moroccan youth involved in criminal activities were born in Holland. This implies that the children of Moroccan immigrants are not integrating into Dutch society, and confirms that the Netherlands is paying dearly for its failed multicultural approach to immigration.

Also in Holland, a mob of Islamists stormed a debate in Amsterdam that was featuring two Muslim liberals, the Canadian writer and Muslim feminist Irshad Manji and the Dutch-Moroccan Green Left MP Tofik Dibi.

The December 8 debate on how liberal Muslims can prevent Islam from being hijacked by Muslim extremists was held at the De Baile venue in downtown Amsterdam, and was sponsored by the Brussels-based European Foundation for Democracy. The event resumed after police arrested several of the Islamists.

The incident highlighted the increasing frequency with which Muslims are using intimidation tactics -- including harassment and even murder -- in an effort to silence free speech in Europe and to impose Islam on the continent.

On a positive note, a court in Amsterdam acquitted Geert Wilders -- the leader of the Dutch Freedom Party who had denounced the threat to Western values posed by unassimilated Muslim immigrants -- of charges of inciting religious hatred against Muslims for comments he made that were critical of Islam.

In June, the Dutch government said it would abandon the long-standing model of multiculturalism that has encouraged Muslim immigrants to create a parallel society within the Netherlands.

In Italy, it was revealed that 44% of Italians are prejudiced or hostile towards Jews, according to a new research study released by the Italian Parliament on October 17. The report, titled "Final Document: Investigation on Anti-Semitism," was commissioned by the Committee for the Inquiry into Anti-Semitism of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of the Italian Parliament. The 50-page document shows that anti-Semitism in Italy is also being fomented by Muslim immigrants who have established links with left-wing and right-wing extremists to carry out attacks on local Jewish communities, synagogues, schools and cemeteries.

In Spain, Muslims were accused of poisoning dozens of dogs in Lérida, a city in the northeastern region of Catalonia that has become ground zero in an intensifying debate over the role of Islam in Spain. All of the dogs were poisoned in September in Lérida's working class neighborhoods of Cappont and La Bordeta, districts that are heavily populated by Muslim immigrants and where many dogs have been killed in recent years. Local residents say Muslim immigrants killed the dogs because according to Islamic teaching dogs are "unclean" animals.

Also in Spain, two radical Islamic television stations began 24-hour broadcasting to Spanish-speaking audiences in Spain and Latin America from new studios in Madrid. The first channel, sponsored by the government of Iran, will focus on spreading Shiite Islam, the dominant religion in Iran. The second channel, sponsored by the government of Saudi Arabia, will focus on spreading Wahhabi Islam, the dominant religion in Saudi Arabia. The inaugural broadcasts of Islamic television in Spain were deliberately timed to coincide with the Christmas holidays, and represent yet another example of the gradual encroachment of Islam in post-Christian Spain.

In Sweden, police in the third-largest city, Malmö, reported a significant uptick in the number of reported anti-Semitic hate-crimes perpetrated by Muslim immigrants against Jews in 2011. The data came as the Swedish government on September 20 set aside 4 million kroner ($600,000) to help boost security around the country's synagogues, after accusations that Sweden has not done enough to protect its Jewish population.

Sweden has been accused of complacency about the growing problem of anti-Semitism in the country and the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center advised Jews to avoid traveling to southern Sweden.

In Switzerland, where the Muslim population has more than quintupled since 1980, a Muslim immigrant group based in Bern called for the emblematic white cross to be removed from the Swiss national flag because as a Christian symbol it "no longer corresponds to today's multicultural Switzerland."

Soeren Kern is Senior Fellow for Transatlantic Relations at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook.

If You Care for the Palestinians, Boycott the Palestinian Authority

Mudar Zahran • December 29, 2011

The Palestinian Authority's (PA) president, Mahmoud Abbas, went to the UN General Assembly in September, seeking recognition for a Palestinian state -- a request that was not only unilateral in breach of UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 838. In response, three congressional committees blocked $200 million in aid to the Palestinian Authority, a move the PA described as "collective punishment" -- although it is hard to understand why it does not consider firing thousands of rockets at civilians in Israeli villages "collective punishment." In November of 2011, 44 lawmakers, all Democrats, wrote to the heads of the House Appropriations State and Foreign Operations subcommittee, claiming that "Maintaining U.S. assistance to the Palestinian Authority is in the essential strategic interest of Israel and the United States"]. Nonetheless, it might just be in the Palestinians' best interest if the US, and the world, not only stops financial aid to the Palestinian Authority, but even boycotts it.

When the autonomous PA came into existence through the legal framework of the Oslo Peace Accord, signed between the Israelis and the Palestinian Liberation Organization [PLO] in 1993, the agreement was the most advanced political accomplishment ever by any terrorist organization. The PLO was the first terrorist entity ever to be rewarded with such as internationally-supported agreement as Oslo. This reward for bad behavior doubtless inspired the PLO to continue doing what it has always done best: promoting terrorism.

When the PLO arrived in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, it began breaching the Oslo Accord on day one, with then-Chairman Yasser Arafat trying to smuggle into Israel in his very own car a terrorist whom Israel had banned. When the PLO evolved into the PA , it created entire armed-terrorist factions, such as the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, whose members identified themselves as the military wing of Fatah, and posting on their insignias the emblem of Fatah, controlled by the Palestinian Authority. This Brigade then carried out dozens of terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians;as early as 2003, evidence shows that Arafat not only financed this group, but according to the BBC, that much of the PA's funding went to terrorists.

The PA has therefore been working against peace -- unless peace is defined as an Israel with no Jews in it; or with Jews, but under Palestinian subjugation. The PA has also been an obstacle to peace through its diplomatic evasions and its refusal to make even one counter-offer to Israeli offers of peace, as well as through its commitment to support and continue funding terrorism -- which has continued through the Al-Akas Martyrs' Brigade since Arafat's death in 2004, even though since 2007 this group has frozen its activities, after then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert gave a conditional pardon to 178 terrorists. The group, however, is still there and still officially a part of the Fatah Council. The Palestinian Authority still refuses to amend its charter, which demands liberating "all of historical Palestine," from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, with its ultimate mission being the destruction of the State of Israel.

Israel, on the other hand, responded to Abbas's UN-bid by freezing, for a few weeks, the payments of the tax and customs money it collects on behalf of the PA , only to release those funds by the end of November, 2011.

How will this money, together with US aid money, be used? To benefit and welfare of the Palestinians under the PA rule? In 2005, for example, even though the PA was the second-largest recipient of international humanitarian aid per capita in the world, the Palestinian Authority ranked 108 out of 159 countries on the corruption index presented by the United Nations Development Program, with no statistical information provided for years to follow. The lack of any information for the next six years indicates the loose accountability the PA, not to mention the UN, makes available.

When Arafat arrived from Tunis in 1982, he started establishing himself as an untouchable idol, just as the rest of Arab dictators do. Torture, and even murder, of those criticizing either the Fatah or him had become regular, a pattern Arafat even extended when he arrived in Judea and Samaria in 1994 to rule PA territories. Racketeering and extortion become common practices, but were described by PA officials as part of an Israeli conspiracy. To the Palestinian public, an economy controlled by the Palestinian Authority's leaders and their relatives – including both sons of the Palestinian president who, among other things, won a shady US government contract to fix a road – has become just another sad fact of life.

To be fair, the reformist Palestinian Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad, has brought some change by introducing rigorous fiscal governance to the operating and financing of the PA , nonetheless, Fayyad is one man facing serious opposition from the strong PA leadership -- who possibly regard him as having spoiled the fun -- to the point that PA president Abbas is said to be seeking a unity government with Hamas that excludes Fayyad.

Today, Western powers have been imposing tough sanctions on Syria's Assad regime for its brutality and corruption, and on other dictatorships, such as North Korea and Iran. The West has also been imposing sanctions on counties that support terrorism, as well as reducing aid to corrupt governments, but for some reasons these stands are not applied to the PA. Why is the Western world imposing sanctions on Hamas alone and not the on Palestinian Authority? The Palestinian Authority still incites terrorism and glorifies terrorists every day in its media, in its textbooks, in its summer camps and even in its crossword puzzles [see: www.palwatch.org]. It also oppresses its own people; therefore how is it different from Hamas?

Considering the sharp drop in the number of terrorist acts coming from the PA-controlled factions, some might argue that the PA is not as violent as Hamas. But Hamas and the PA still share the same goal: destroying Israel --only Hamas wants to accomplish it through violence, while the PA thinks it can accomplish it through diplomatic manoeuvres, without violence. All the while, it keeps its own terrorists – despite Abbas's promises to dismantle Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in 2005] --most likely just in case the PA turns to violence against Israel again. Apart from extremist religious observance, is the PA really all that different from Hamas?

The suffering, disappointment, frustration and anger of the Palestinians living under the Palestinian Authority's regime must be addressed by the world. Western governments should reconsider their financing of the PA. If the Western world cares about the Palestinians, it must ensure that its the generous funding actually improves the lives of those people; not, as is the case,the people in places where corruption still exists—despite Prime Minister Fayyad's efforts. Palestinian terrorist factions are still finding a safe haven in the PA, thereby posing a threat to regional security as well as to the welfare of the Palestinian people. It would be better for the Palestinian people to see aid to the PA stop altogether. No wonder the Palestinians say they prefer "Israel's hell" over the Palestinian Authority's "Paradise". As a recent poll revealed, 70% of the Palestinians in Jerusalem say they would still prefer to live under the rule of Israel.

IDF warns of 'painful' Gaza incursion if terror continues

Chief of General Staff, commander of Southern Brigade say another Gaza operation could be around the corner • Active duty brigades have already begun carrying out drills in preparation for a possible operation.
Lilach Shoval, Zeev Klein, with additional reporting by Gadi Golan and Israel Hayom Staff

On the third anniversary of Israel's three-week Operation Cast Lead offensive in Gaza, the general sense among Israel Defense Forces troops is that the next operation against Hamas' terrorist infrastructure is closer than ever. On Thursday, a rocket was fired from Gaza into the Eshkol region, exploding in an open area and causing no damage or injuries, Army Radio reported. This was the fifth rocket to hit the region since the IAF bombed Gaza Tuesday night, killing three Palestinian terrorists who were planning terror attacks.

The Israel Defense Forces Spokesperson's Unit issued a statement Thursday revealing that IAF jets had also carried out attacks overnight Wednesday, bombing a smuggling tunnel and a terror center in central Gaza. "The strike was in retaliation for the high-trajectory fire targeting southern Israel. The IDF will not tolerate any attempt to harm the citizens of Israel or its soldiers. We will continue to take measures against anyone who employs terror against the state of Israel," the statement said.

Speaking about the situation in Gaza, Gaza Division Southern Brigade Commander Col. Tal Harmoni, said Wednesday that while Operation Cast Lead had "achieved its objectives, the situation has changed."

"Today the region [Gaza] is relatively quiet and thriving. The other side is responding but in a measured fashion, and if the cracks widen we are prepared to launch another offensive, a different and more versatile [than the last] offensive, in order to renew deterrence," he said.

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According to Harmoni, what happens next will be dictated by the residents of the Gaza Strip. "The decision is in their hands. If they do not prevent rocket fire and stop terrorist cells from leaving the Gaza Strip and infiltrating Israel through Sinai, we will unleash a painful campaign on the Gaza Strip," Harmoni said.

The Colonel's statements came on the heels of Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz's statements to an audience of combat soldiers, telling them to prepare for an operation in the Gaza Strip should one become necessary.

In an earlier interview on Tuesday with journalist and TV host Ilana Dayan, on the occasion of IDF Soldiers Appreciation Day, Gantz hailed 2008's Operation Cast Lead as "an excellent operation," saying it resulted in increased deterrence for Israel in the face of Hamas. He added, however, that the war was far from over. "From time to time we have to deal with rocket fire from Gaza and we know that terrorists are gaining strength and expanding their base on Egyptian territory. I don't think Israel will be able to tolerate a continuing threat from Hamas in Gaza. Sooner or later we will have to launch a new large-scale operation in Gaza. The IDF knows how to strike terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip. Any potential operation would be planned in advance, initiated from our side, and carried out quickly."

Active duty brigades have already begun carrying out drills in preparation for a possible operation. A senior officer said on Wednesday that such an operation would indeed occur if the situation called for it.

The IDF has recently reported that Hamas was digging tunnels into Israel with the goal of abducting Israeli soldiers. Their motivation to kidnap an Israeli soldier comes after the "success" of the Gilad Shalit abduction, the cross-border raid that ended with the Hamas capture of the Israeli soldier who was eventually traded for over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in October of this year. "From an intelligence and infrastructure standpoint we are making great efforts not to be caught off guard [by an abduction attempt], to be less surprised than we were last time. We learned a lesson from Gilad Shalit's abduction and I believe soldiers know what is expected of them."

Harmoni also mentioned the targeted assassinations in Gaza on Tuesday that prevented a terror attack. "We performed the strikes knowing the risks, Hamas also understood that the cell was on its way to perpetrate a terror attack, which has now been thwarted or delayed."

According to reports in Gaza, the first attack killed Abdallah Telbani, 22, of the Al-Quds Brigade, striking his motorized rickshaw in the Jabaliya refugee camp, 4 kilometers (2.5 m) north of Gaza City. Another terrorist was wounded in the attack carried out by an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV).

The Gaza Strip did not remain quiet after the IDF strike. Terrorists fired four Qassam rockets on Wednesday from the northern part of the Gaza Strip. There were no casualties or damage from the rockets. Another rocket was fired Wednesday overnight but failed to explode upon landing in the northwestern Negev.

Meanwhile, in light of regional threats, the Knesset's joint defense budget committee approved a NIS 1.65 billion ($433 million) increase in defense spending, which will total NIS 60.7 billion ($16 billion) this year.

The joint committee is headed by MK Shaul Mofaz (Kadima) and is comprised of members from the Finance and Foreign Affairs and Defense committees. The committee approved the budget increase after a round of late-night phone calls among the ministers in response to demands made by Mofaz. The budget increase will be funded by the excess money that various ministries did not use this year.

Finance Committee Chairman MK Moshe Gafni (United Torah Judaism) criticized Mofaz for sidestepping the Knesset's authority by delaying the budget increase and putting the matter to a government vote. Gafni claimed that the Finance Ministry's budget surplus could also be used to fund free day care for babies and toddlers, a demand made by many citizens during the summer's social protests. However, Gafni said, Mofaz should not have delayed the increase in defense spending, lest the money go back to the Finance Ministry which would use it for its own purposes. "The national budget has a NIS 5 billion ($1.3 billion) surplus that will come back to the Finance Ministry as it was not used by other ministries. There are many [inefficient] money pits in Israel's budget, we do not need to trim the defense budget to pay for un-met [social] needs," Gafni said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to discuss the planned NIS 3 billion ($787.5 million) cut to the defense budget, set to begin in 2012.

The Defense and Finance Ministries have sparred for years over the former's high budgetary needs and latter's demand for transparency in its spending. The Trajtenberg committee this summer recommended that the Defense Ministry trim its budget, a recommendation met with open approval by the Finance Ministry. The Defense Ministry warned that budget cuts would hamper the defense establishment's ability to protect the state.

The defense establishment and Finance Ministry both expect Netanyahu to veto the budget cut.

The Dry Arab Spring and the Lost Left

Sultan Knish

All it takes to understand why the Arab Spring was doomed to turn into an Islamic Winter is that Muslims in the Middle East and North Africa were being asked to choose between a Socialist left and an Islamic right. The left has consistently lost open elections in Europe and America, it lost the battle of ideas in Russia and China, and unsurprisingly it also lost the Arab Spring.

The left wields power in the West only because it has managed to seize control of political and cultural institutions. Those institutions are used to maintain a death grip on the national dialogue, to criminalize dissent and to feed money to its supporters who are often literally paid to continue supporting it, whether in government contracts, welfare checks or organizational benefits. If the left did not have its media, its unions and its flow of supportive immigrants then it would be just another bunch of cranks. The Western left expected that overthrowing the dictators would pave the way for their favorite leftists to take over. Instead it wasn't the bloggers or the twitter activists who are ahead, it's the Islamists. To be fair to the left, many of its key foreign policy people did know that this would happen but were lying about it. They aren't idiots, they're traitors.

I doubt that anyone at the State Department with a background in the Middle East didn't know that the Muslim Brotherhood would surge in Egyptian elections or that the organization had numerous affiliates waiting to exploit the Arab Spring. The same goes for all the ex-diplomats holding down organizational positions in groups dedicated to promoting democracy in the region or writing articles for foreign policy journals.

They knew that the liberal bloggers were an expendable way to sell the Arab Spring to the West, but that the final victory would belong to the Islamists. And they know it now even as they keep lying that the Islamists are moderate and that their victories are only a temporary phenomenon until the local left gets its bearings. Some are working directly or indirectly for the Gulf Arab states, but quite a few are following the Western left's methodology of using the Clash of Civilizations to bring down the "empire" of Western civilization.

How could anyone have believed that the Middle Eastern left would have won when it has absolutely nothing to offer?

El Baradei's Kefaya movement and the unacknowledged party of many of the twitter activists got its start protesting against America and Israel. How was it supposed to have anything to offer Egyptians beyond the same negative energy that the Muslim Brotherhood could do so much better. If you're an Egyptian who wants a war with Israel, are you going to trust a simpering puppet like El Baradei to get it done or are you going to cast your vote for the Brotherhood or the Salafis.

Kefaya was in the peculiar position of being the American backed Anti-American movement, its activists trained by the Western left, and with Western leaders demanding that El Baradei be appointed to run a transition government. Kefaya smelled a lot like a puppet regime that constantly denounced its puppeteers and that schizophrenic identity didn't give it much credibility as a revolutionary party.

All that left were economic reforms which are not exactly the left's strong suit and not very popular. The average Egyptian wants cheaper food and more jobs, but he doesn't want the process that would make it happen. The Russians quickly turned on the reformers who then turned over the country to the KGB. Netanyahu's reforms have been as unpopular as they were necessary, but the focus on terrorism and the implosion of the left, as well as the popularity of Sharon, allowed him to do what had to be done. Despite the rise of the Tea Party the reform proposals in America are not faring any better.

People like the idea of reforms, but they don't like giving up subsidies or the uncertainty and chaos of the transition to a truer free market system. And the Middle Eastern left are not exactly plausible candidates for economic reform. Had Gamal Mubarak and Saif Gaddafi ever taken power, it is likely that they would have opened up their countries more than any of their revolutionary successors will.

The old Arab Socialists could promise national greatness, but the New Arab Left which lacked the military uniforms or the example of the Soviet Union as a model for the region, had nothing of the kind on tap. All they could do was try to sell social justice minus Islam, but not in opposition to Islam and not as a rejection of Islam-- and that went over about as well as could be expected.

In the United States or Europe a contest between the New Left and the Conservative Right would have provided palatable political options. In the Muslim Middle East it meant a debate over who would offer more subsidies, hate America more and restore the lost dream of national greatness that bedevils the Muslim world.

The Middle Eastern left is not secular, it's not reformist, it's not populist-- it's not to put it bluntly much of anything except in the opposition. It was useful only as the opposition, it allowed educated men and women with a sense of humor and some culture to act as the ambassadors of the Arab Spring to gullible Western journalists who didn't seem to realize that the reason all these young people were so Westernized is because they are members of the upper classes and live in a bubble of imported Western culture and education. Now they've done their jobs and their only accomplishment was to pave the way for the Islamists to come to power. Despite their Western veneer many of them can live with that, particularly those who had personal or familial grudges to settle with the old regime.

The real problem with the Arab Spring has been the lack of any domestic alternative to the Islamists. For all the talk about exporting American democracy, all we really did was subsidize local leftist NGO's and fly out bloggers to talk about reform. Could we imagine NOW and DailyKos taking power in America in open elections, and if not then what were the odds that was going to happen in a Muslim country where people like that are much less representative than they are here.

America's way of life derives from a culture of personal independence that can't be exported along with its institution. It was a country built by farmers, merchants and rebels who had their fill of lords and laws. The conservative reflex in American politics derives from that culture and it creates a base of opposition to the left. Anti-Monarchism is to American conservatism what Monarchism is to European conservatism, and what Islamism is to the Muslim world. It's the memory that people reach for when they imagine the better way of life that used to be.

This was always the flaw in the neo-conservative program which imagined that the American reflex of independence was universal and that it derived from free and open elections, rather than from the culture of a nation built by people looking to escape oppressive governments.

Democracy does not mean freedom, it means the freedom to choose. What exactly was the Muslim world likely to choose and what choices did it really have? Its domestic left is a joke and its Islamist parties are polished liars who have the money and contacts to create temporary economic booms that allow them to become entrenched and purge their rivals.

The Arab Spring had dried up a long time ago. There were no palatable regional alternatives to the Islamists, no philosophy with a regional grip that could counter it, and even the left hesitated to be actual alternatives to the Islamists, fully embracing a secular vision for their countries. Everything that happened was inevitable and it will happen again so long as the region is so barren that even when there is the freedom to choose, there is still nothing worth choosing.

The Nauseating Moral Cowardice of the Liberal-Left Trenderati

James Delingpole

Did you hear the song Aussie comic Tim Minchin wrote savagely satirising Islam for Channel 4's Eid special? No, I didn't either. It didn't happen and it never would happen: first because no broadcast station in its right mind would ever allow it; second because I don't believe that Minchin would be stupid enough to write it.

And I'm not calling Minchin out for physical cowardice on this issue. From the Danish cartoons to the Paris bombing, we've seen far too many cases of artists testing the right to free speech – only to find that where certain religions are concerned, such matters are strictly verboten. But what I am definitely accusing him of is hypocrisy and moral cowardice, as regards the banned song he wrote for a Jonathan Ross Christmas special likening Jesus to a blood-drinking zombie. Personally, I'm sorry we didn't get to hear the song. As one of those typical, laissez-faire, occasional churchgoing C of E types, I have no problem with having my religion being satirised. Also, the points he apparently made in it sound not just funny but also quite astute: yes, there definitely is something very weird about the New Testament story.

In the performance Minchin likened the resurrection of Jesus to the 1978 horror film 'Dawn of the Dead', singing: "Try that these days you'd be in trouble, geeks would try to smack you with a shovel."

"Jesus lives forever, which is pretty odd, but not as odd as his fetish for drinking blood," he sang while playing the piano before a studio audience and fellow guests including Tom Cruise and the cast of Downton Abbey.

In a reference to the Christian doctrine of the virgin birth, Minchin sang: "Jesus' mother gave birth to him without having sex with a dude, no she would never be that rude, never even been nude with a dude."

When I Tweeted this morning in response to this "Really looking forward to hearing Tim Minchin's fearless comedy song about Mohammed", some members of his fan club – including the ephebically pouty-smile-tastic Prof Brian Cox, no less – Tweeted back that he had written a funny song sending up Islam called "Ten Foot C*** And A Few Hundred Virgins."


Actually, though, when you examine the lyrics, you realise that the title is about as daring as it gets. Nor is it directed specifically at Islam. It's an equal-opportunities offence number, which also has a dig at Christianity, rapture-based cults and religion generally. Sure, it's brave even to broach Islam at all. But no way does it criticise Mohammed – or indeed, even mention him – with the same unbridled satirical glee Minchin deploys on Jesus (above) and has done in the past on the Pope. Had he done so, he'd be needing a bodyguard this Christmas.

Again, let me stress, this isn't a plea to Minchin to acquire set of cojones and commit suicide through the medium of satire. I wouldn't write a rude song about Islam if you paid me a million quid. Or even ten million. But what I equally wouldn't do is compromise my integrity by laying heavily into one soft-target religion while treating a rival one, far more ripe for satire, with kid gloves. To do so would, I think, make me look a hypocrite and a fraud.

But hey, why single out Minchin? The problem I describe is absolutely endemic among the liberal left trenderati. You find it with the 'comics' on Radio 4's beyond-dismal The Now Show; with the team that fronts the even-more-beyond-dismal-if-that's-possible-but-yes-it-is-it-really-is 10 O'Clock Live; with the creators of the daringly satirical Jerry Springer: the Opera; with that rag-bag of Paul-Nurse-worshipping, Establishment lickspittles who call themselves "Skeptics" – the Ben Goldacres; the Simon Singhs; the Brian Coxes; the that-comic-who-does-those-science-shows-saying-how-true-man-made-global-warming-is-whose-name-I-keep-forgetting; and the rest…

Sorry. I know it's the season of goodwill to all men and stuff, but really: have these faux-edgy lightweights ever actually stood up for any cause in their lives which requires an ounce of moral and intellectual courage or originality of insight? I don't mean showing solidarity with Palestine or boldly declaring how fraudulent they find homeopathy or saying how ridiculous they find Christianity or being rude about Tories or supporting student protests or any of that predictable, career-safe, spray-on-credibility tedium. I mean actually, for once in their lives doing something that puts them out on a limb, that doesn't tick all the usual green-left-liberal trendy boxes,that runs the risk of them never getting invited back as one of the resident lefty chortlemeisters on Radio 4's News Quiz? Course not. For all their pretence at out-there dangerousness, these guys are as safe and cosy and establishment as you could get. Truly, they are the veritable IKEA, the World Of Leather, the Mister Byrite of popular culture. I'm sure it pays the rent – but at what cost to their shrivelled souls?

James Delingpole is a British writer, journalist and broadcaster who is (he says) right about everything. He is the author of numerous fantastically entertaining books including Welcome to Obamaland: I've Seen Your Future and it Doesn't Work. His website is http://www.jamesdelingpole.com/ and he also has a blog at the Daily Telegraph.

A Bad Year for Obama's Green Dream

Mike Brownfield

December 29, 2011

For President Barack Obama, 2011 began with a bang — a bold pronouncement that his green dream for America would bring forth a jobs explosion and a new economy fueled by alternative energy, a vision he likened to President John F. Kennedy’s “moon shot” in the 1960s. Much to Obama’s chagrin, the year has ended in a whimper with his green energy “sun shot” sputtering to the ground before it even took off.

The President set the bar awfully high in his State of the Union Address last January, hailing alternative clean energy as “our generation’s Sputnik moment” and claiming that it would be ”an investment that will strengthen our security, protect our planet, and create countless new jobs for our people.” The President said, “Already, we’re seeing the promise of renewable energy.” Unfortunately, what the President predicted is much different than what the rest of the country experienced in the ensuing year. The jobs that the President promised didn’t materialize, and his green energy investments are careening into the ground, not shooting to the moon. That news was sealed in The Washington Post this week with a story that didn’t see much light of day, published as it was on Christmas Day. The Post reported that politics, not policy, has been largely behind the President’s green jobs program:

Meant to create jobs and cut reliance on foreign oil, Obama’s green-technology program was infused with politics at every level, The Washington Post found in an analysis of thousands of memos, company records and internal e-mails. Political considerations were raised repeatedly by company investors, Energy Department bureaucrats and White House officials.

Of course, central to the story is solar energy company Solyndra, which received a $535 million taxpayer-funded loan guarantee. President Obama spoke at the company’s newly unveiled factory in May of last year, bragging that “[W]e can see the positive impacts [of the stimulus] right here at Solyndra.” Despite the President’s boosterism, Solyndra went bankrupt last summer, leaving 1,100 people out of work. The jobs the President promised didn’t stick around long, and they came at a heavy price.

The Post took a look at the Solyndra story and found that senior officials “pushed career bureaucrats to rush their decision” on the solar energy company’s taxpayer-backed loan guarantee in order to coincide with a visit by Vice President Joe Biden. And it reported that politics, “optics,” and political theater were at the top of the Administration’s mind, with one Obama staffer writing that “a meltdown” at Solyndra “would likely be very embarrassing for DOE and the Administration.”

The Post also found that the White House granted “easy access to venture capitalists with stakes in some of the companies backed by the administration,” many of whom were Obama campaign donors. And others were given jobs in the Administration and “helped manage the clean-energy program.”

If that story weren’t enough bad news for one week, on Tuesday another headline landed like with a thud on the White House’s doorstep. The Wall Street Journal reported that “Dark Times Fall on Solar Sector” and that “Bankruptcies, plummeting stock prices and crushing debt loads are calling into question the viability of an industry that since the 1970s has been counted on to advance the U.S.–and the world–into a new energy age.”

But wait, there’s more! The notoriously liberal New York Times printed a harsh assessment of the “green” economy in August and concluded that the President’s promise to create five million green jobs over 10 years is nothing more than “a pipe dream.” Case in point? The Times pointed to California’s Bay Area, where “green” jobs have actually been lost, not gained. And farther up the West coast, a $20 million federal grant to invest in weatherization programs was a total failure. Seattlepi.com reported that “only three homes had been retrofitted and just 14 new jobs have emerged from the program.” Their conclusion: “Seattle’s ‘green jobs’ program a bust.”

The White House, though, tries to tell a different story. On its website, you can find headlines like “Fastest Growing Industry in the U.S. — Solar Energy,” “Now Is Not the Time to Wave the White Flag on Clean Energy Jobs,” and “Investing in America’s New Energy Frontier” — all of which lead to stories that promote alternative energy as America’s brave new future. But as this year has shown, that is more fiction than fact, as much as President Obama would tell you otherwise.

Meanwhile, the President has flat out turned his back on real jobs and tangible energy sources by postponing a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline–a project that would directly create 20,000 truly shovel-ready jobs and an estimated 179,000 American jobs by 2035, bring with it a $20 billion private-infrastructure investment in the United States, and also promote energy independence. It seems that when it comes to jobs, energy, and investment, this is a President who prefers to choose fantasy over reality.

Quick Hits:

Iran has warned that the United States is not in a position to tell Tehran “what to do in the Strait of Hormuz,” following Iran’s threats to block the strait, thereby preventing the shipment of oil.
Kim Jong Un, the son of deceased North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il, was declared the country’s supreme leader at a memorial service for his father.
Occupy Wall Street protesters are descending on Iowa just days before the state’s caucuses. On Wednesday, 10 protesters were arrested.
Speaking of the Keystone XL pipeline, environmentalist activists now say President Obama has no choice but to reject the plan. Under a measure in the payroll tax cut extension, the President has 60 days to decide on the project.
Dim light bulbs, the nationalization of Internet networks, equine equality, and a plumbing police? Find out the top ten worst federal rules of 2011 at Foundry.org.