The Perry Mason school of life

SARAH HONIG

Israel’s elected leaders shouldn’t be subjected to diktats whereby they must suppliantly seek permission to save Israel from annihilation.

Back in 1940, as whodunit author Erle Stanley Gardner’s The Case of the Baited Hook got typically tangled, fictional legal wizard Perry Mason opined to his trusty secretary Della Street that “Every time you stop to figure what the other fellow’s going to do, you unconsciously figure what you’d do in his place.

“The result is that you’re not fighting him, but yourself. You always come to a stalemate. Every time you think of a move, you think of a perfect defense. The best fighters don’t worry about what the other man may do.”

Words to live by – unless, like America’s current commander-in-chief, the last thing you want is to conceive of yourself as a fighter.

Clearly, President Barack Obama didn’t attend the Perry Mason School of Law. Instead he honed his attitudes at Harvard Law. It’s a crucial difference – quite possibly the single biggest danger to global peace and, most immediately and acutely, to Israel.

Regardless of whether he lacks the intellectual integrity to unfetter himself from what was inculcated into him or whether he cannot resist the expediency of exploiting superficial truisms for political ends, Obama appears to expect all international arena players to abide by Harvard conventions. All are required to non-judgmentally tolerate adversarial viewpoints, to submit a priori that no cause is unavoidably more just than any other and to effectively prefer Third World ostensible underdogs with a peeve.

My country, Obama was taught at Harvard, isn’t necessarily more right, democracy isn’t necessarily democratic or superior and belligerents can be soothed with sufficient sympathy, flattery and concessions. Obama’s 2009 tour de force at Cairo University epitomized the ethos of post-hippie-era Harvard.

Its bottom line is that fanatics like Iran’s ayatollahs or the Muslim Brotherhood have compelling grievances and that it behooves us to see things through their eyes. This would, in theory, enable us to get a feel for their strategy and anticipate their tactical moves. They’d thereby be humanized in our view, the fear factor would abate and levelheaded accommodation would ensue.

So while Obama ups his anti-Iranian nukes rhetoric, he simultaneously escalates his pressure to prevent Israel from launching a preemptive operation against Tehran’s nuclear facilities.

Despite years of Israel warning and Washington dithering, the plain fact of the matter is that not much has changed. Israel still warns and Obamaesque Washington still dithers.

Despite a tough Senate sanctions bill, Obama is loath to fully impose it. He still palavers about that elusive international coalition to browbeat Iran, although it cannot evade the cognizance of even his most starry-eyed spinmeisters that Russia, China and assorted hangers-on won’t do their utmost to foil Iranian nuclear ambitions (that is, if they at all go through the motions).

Why, then, would the ayatollahs see reason, as Obama supposes they should? Iran consistently receives indications that it isn’t obliged to mend its thuggish ways.

For example, when Obama’s top defense officials underscore the negative consequences of resorting to military means, the Iranians get a message diametrically contradictory to the one Obama insists he’s sending. Rather than abide by his Harvard guidelines, the Iranians deduce that they can proceed with impunity to make whatever mischief strikes their fancy – nuclear or otherwise.

It boggles the mind that at this exceedingly late stage the delusion still persists that Iran can be somehow dissuaded from its nefarious plots, that it’ll be wowed by dynamic diplomacy and see last-minute sense.

Obama may have been given a stick by America’s legislators but he’s hesitant to wield it. He’s still trying to figure out what Ahmadinejad is going to do, which, as per Perry Mason’s insightful observation, means that Obama subconsciously strives to envisage what he’d do in Ahmadinejad’s place.

Here, however, the result isn’t a stalemate because the Iranian bomb becomes a more potent threat with each wasted day. Counting on a miraculous Iranian epiphany is as far-sighted as believing in the blossoming of the Arab spring that has so far only sprouted Muslim Brotherhood weeds throughout the region.

Rarefied Harvard moral relativism, though, can portray invasive noxious weeds as desirable fragrant roses. And so Obama rationalizes that the Brotherhood (its rabidly pro-Nazi roots dismissed from mind) could well become the nurturer of the tardy flowering of democracy and civil liberties in the Arab sphere.

His secretary of state Hillary Clinton confirmed reports that the Obama administration would work with ascendant Islamist parties in the Muslim world.

She’s willing to do business with the infidel- bashers, arguing that they might not be quite as bad as depicted by their deposed antagonists: “For years, dictators told their people they had to accept the autocrats they knew in order to avoid the extremists they feared. Too often we accepted the narrative ourselves.”

The line now is that moderate Islamists comprise the Brotherhood’s mainstream, that they can be counted upon to conduct a sane foreign policy, uphold the rights of women and religious minorities and justify Obama’s Harvard hopes.

They probably will. Just like Tehran’s ayatollahs did.

This is painfully reminiscent of Neville Chamberlain’s foreign secretary Lord Halifax, one of the prime architects of appeasement, who signaled Hitler that German designs on Austria, chunks of Czechoslovakia and Poland weren’t altogether unpalatable to British tastes, so long as German territorial expansion was “peaceful.”

Only after the Axis bully began misbehaving with particular impudence following 1938’s Munich pact did Halifax finally work out that this wasn’t quite cricket. But to his credit Halifax did agonize, even if belatedly, and he did draw some extremely cogent conclusions. “I often think how much easier the world would have been to manage,” he mused, “if Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini had been at Oxford.”

But they weren’t – just as the entire Middle Eastern coterie of baddies never imbibed Harvard liberalism. However, nothing suits these jihadists better than a leader of the free world who so dutifully complies with Harvard rules. So what if he assumes that they would too. Let him. They’ll do as they please, undeterred because he’s Harvard-bound to consider their perspective.

Israel, in contrast, is ineligible for similar indulgence and is slated to pay the price for Obama’s broadmindedness toward our region’s Muslim warlords.

The onus for quelling the chaos isn’t on the merchants of mass-murder but on Israel.

While Israel doesn’t ask that a single US soldier lay his life on the line for it, neither should Israel’s elected leaders be subjected to diktats whereby they must suppliantly seek permission to save Israel from annihilation. No Israeli government was elected to preside over another Holocaust.

That’s why the Jewish state’s coalition and opposition both must memorize Perry Mason’s precept.

Obama might kid himself that he’s playing for time till after November’s Election Day. Only by then, all bets will likely be off. Obama’s inaction inexorably pushes Israel to the desperate unilateral action it itself is leery of. We cannot remain pawns in Obama’s gamble that Ahmadinejad can be converted to Harvard niceties. Or as Perry Mason reiterated: “You can’t sit back and wait for things to happen to you.”

Islamists Take Over Tunisia

Anna Mahjar-Barducci

In the aftermath of the Tunisian Jasmine revolution, Salafists, as in Egypt, are taking advantage of the new freedoms to be a threat to the growth of democracy. Islamist groups are now flourishing and are trying to transform Tunisia into an Islamic emirate. For now, they did not manage to take over big cities, however they are expanding their control over the Tunisian town of Sejnane with its 5000 inhabitants, located in the country's northwest. According to Tunisian media, a group of about 250 individuals managed to "talibanize" Sejnane , imposing their hardline Islamic rule, without being in any way contravened by the country's security forces.

Famous for its pottery artifacts, Sejnane is not different from many other Tunisian towns, in its sidewalk cafés, small shops, a few mosques and dusty roads. However, in Sejnane about 80% of the population lives under the poverty line; unemployment is almost 60% with no sign that this situation may get any better. In this environment, for the last few months a group of Salafists, most of them young, have been imposing Islamic law . Salafist gangs of young individuals have begun terrorizing people, in search of "disbelievers." There have been countless episodes of intolerance and violence --- including a man beaten after the mosque service for having argued that tobacco was not haram (forbidden); another man wounded in his leg while buying cigarettes; a wine vendor having his fingers broken; and a young girl attacked at school for not wearing a veil.

Salafists have also established in Sejnane Sharia tribunals and even a jail, where they have been torturing people arrested for not "respecting" the Islamic code. It was reported that Salafists arrested people for celebrating the New Year Eve. Salafists not only forbade the sale of alcohol, but also the sale of cakes on New Year's Day, on the pretext that it was a Christian holiday that a true Muslim is not supposed to celebrate.

There are seven mosques In Sejnane, the most important of which is run by a young imam. "He is a Salafist," a Sejnane dweller declared to the media. "He is only 22 and did not even finish high school." "The state is absent," complained another man, "and the Salafist seized the opportunity to fill this void." According to reports, the head of the Salafist group in Sejnane is an old jihadist close to Al-Qaeda. He is accused of having attempted a coup in 2006 and was therefore sentenced to 104 years of prison. He was, however, freed in a general amnesty after the revolution.

The population in Sejnane feel abandoned by the government, which is doing nothing to protect their individual freedoms. The new regime seems absent and not willing to take any steps to crack down on Islamist violence. The President of the Tunisian League of Human Rights (LTDH), Abdel Sattar Ben Moussa, finalized a report on the situation in Sejnanel: he said the Salafist phenomenon is present throughout the country, but managed to proliferate in Sejnane due to the lack of functioning government institutions in the area.

Some media called Sejnane "the First Salafist Emirate in the Country," mentioning that if nothing will be done, other emirates will flourish in Tunisia. Liberal journalists have already been attacked and beaten for having denounced the Salafist violence in the country on the media. Hamadi Dimassi, a secular, liberal journalist attacked by Islamists, claims that there is a silent complicity from the Islamist party, Ennahda, which won the largest share of seats in Tunisia's Constituent Assembly, towards the Salafists. Sofiene Ben Hamida, another journalist recently beaten, declared that the government is not taking any serious actions to try to halt the Salafists.

Ennahda leaders admit that they are backing Salafist tendencies in the country, claiming that the government is not absent, but is simply "cautious" about take any actions that might worsen the situation or deepen the divide between the different parts.

In the meantime, this Ennahda's "caution" is transforming a revolution that was liberal and secular into a religious one. A nurse from Sejnane declared to the media that her home town now belongs to the Salafists and they are the ones now making the laws. If the government will continue its policy of not acting, as looks likely, the population will be scared to denounce the violence or to rebel, leading the country towards becoming another new Islamist State.

A Taste of Islam: An Interview with Bill Warner

Mark Tapson

In the years after the 9/11 attacks, more non-Muslims than ever before have studied Islam to understand the religious motives of those who had declared war on us. And yet non-believers who are alarmed at what they have found in the foundational texts of Islam are always told by apologists that we don’t understand the true Koran, that we labor under misconceptions about the Religion of Peace, that we don’t understand the complexities of sharia, that our objections and criticisms stem from racism (even though Islam is not a race) and an irrational fear of Islam and its adherents. The problem always seems to lie with us. What is the truth and how can we get to it behind the contradictions and the mystification?

Bill Warner has the answer. The founder and director of the Center for the Study of Political Islam (CSPI), he holds a PhD in physics and math. He has been a university professor, a businessman, and an applied physicist. But Dr. Warner has also had a lifelong interest in religion and its impact on history, and so the day after 9/11 he decided to make the source texts of Islam available for the average person who wants to know more. As part of that effort, Mr. Warner has produced a dozen books, including a Koran, a biography of Mohammed and a summary of the political traditions of Mohammed. He writes articles and produces news bulletins that record the suffering of the victims of political Islam. And he has spoken nationally and internationally about Islamic political doctrine.

Mark Tapson: Mr. Warner, your background is in physics and mathematics. How did you come to devote yourself to the study of religion and to feel compelled to share your insights on political Islam? How did the field of statistics shape your perspective on Islam?

Bill Warner: I was raised in a very religious family and read the Bible a great deal. I studied physics and math, but my interest in religion expanded to the effects of religion on history. After graduate school I was attracted to mysticism and Eastern religions. So, forty years ago, I looked into Sufism, mystical Islam. I went to Sufi dances, learned zikr (a Sufi devotional practice), met Sufi masters and read Sufi literature. But, there was always this jarring background noise of the history of Islam. So, I left my study of Sufism.

Twenty years later as a professor I had Muslims in my classes and they sparked my interest in the Koran. It was a tough read, but I read it cover to cover. The text was literally a puzzle, but I set it aside until 9/11.

On 9/11 as soon as the second plane hit the second tower, I knew it was an act of jihad. I stood up, turned off the TV and I haven’t watched it since. In that moment it came to me that the rest of my life would be spent explaining the meaning of Islamic texts.

I sat down and reread the Koran, read the Sira (Ishaq and Al Tabari), read the Hadith (Bukhari and Muslim). These are the absolute foundational texts of Islam, the source code, the DNA. I was following Sun Tzu’s advice; know your enemy and attack your enemy’s strategy.

My attack was to reveal the Koran, Sira and Hadith in a rational form that was easy to read. This became the Trilogy Project. I assembled a team of volunteers and paid writers and editors. From the beginning, I knew that it was the political aspect of Islam that offered the only chance of success. The religious aspect has too much misunderstood protection of the First Amendment.

MT: What is the Trilogy Project?

BW: The approach to the Trilogy was new and unorthodox, and its only chance of success lay in a scientific approach to the texts. Every paragraph can be verified by going back to the source texts. These books are not opinion, but give us the facts of the sources. For this reason, nearly every paragraph has an index number that allows it to be verified.

The greatest fun was solving the Koran puzzle. The Koran must be the most famous book that is not read or understood. The first step, which is not unique to me, is to lay out the Koran in the correct time sequence. The bookstore Koran is arranged by chapter length, and is not in the right time order. It was created by Uthman, the third caliph. The bookstore Koran is Uthman’s Koran.

If you take the life of Mohammed, the Sira, and lay it out alongside the Koran in the right time order, it is like matching a key to a lock. What is happening to Mohammed is reflected directly in the Koran. So if you integrate the life of Mohammed into the same text as the Koran and use separate fonts, so there is no confusion, you get a recreation of the Koran of Mohammed, the historical Koran. The Koran becomes an epic story that begins with a hymn to god and ends with the triumph over the world—the annihilation of all other civilization.

In 2006, I published the complete foundational doctrine of political Islam in three volumes. The Trilogy Project was finished. Now anyone can read and understand the Koran, Sira and Hadith. You can know Allah and Mohammed from the source texts.

This system of knowledge integrates the entire body of Islam into one view. If it is in the Trilogy, it is Islam. If it is Islam, it must be in the Trilogy.

Once the Trilogy was assembled, there was a bonus prize. Part of making the texts readable included sorting and reordering of the ideas. Once the work was all correlated, concepts leapt off the page. The ideas of Islamic ideology stood out. The simple statistical method of counting the words devoted to ideas clearly showed the themes of the doctrine.

The biggest statistical surprise was the dualistic nature of Islamic doctrine. Islam holds contradictory ideas that are simultaneously true. Now this confounds all Western logic, but this gives Islam its great strength. Islam is peace. Islam is jihad. Islam is a brother to Christianity and Judaism. Islam annihilates Christianity and Judaism.

I find it revealing that 64% of the Koran deals with Kafirs (non-Muslims), not Muslims. The Trilogy has a greater textual devotion to Jew hatred, 9%, than Mein Kampf. We are led to believe that there are a few verses about jihad in the Koran, but 24% of the Koran written in Medina is about jihad.

My work is from the view point of the Kafir, the non-Muslim. The Kafir is the victim in nearly every verse by Allah and most actions by Mohammed. The grandest lie of Islam is that Muslims have the correct view of Islam. But dualism demands that there are two correct views that contradict each other and cannot be logically aligned. Hence, there is the Kafir-centric view of Islam that is equally valid as the Muslim-centric view. Islam, the universities, and the apologists all insist that only the Muslim view is the true view. This is an error that is not supported by facts.

We can now hold fact-based discussions about Islam. There is no longer any need for “experts”, since we have the supreme experts in our hand — Mohammed and Allah.

MT: You’re speaking in Los Angeles on “A Taste of Islam.” Why is it necessary to appreciate “the full menu” of Islam in order to understand it?

BW: It is impossible to understand Islam based on just the Koran, but it is simple to understand when you look at the entire picture, both of Allah and Mohammed.

Muslims and their apologists want us to look at Islam one verse at a time. But this is like trying to understand a jigsaw puzzle by looking at it one piece at a time. If we put all the pieces together, as a system, the picture is obvious.

MT: Pointing out the theological motivation of Islamic fundamentalists always brings the politically correct objection that they constitute a “tiny minority of extremists” who have “hijacked” a religion of peace and interfaith tolerance. How are we to answer that objection?

BW: The use of the term “extreme” implies that something is being measured, and it is off the chart. There is one and only one measure of Islam and that is its doctrine as found in the Trilogy. For example, Mohammed preached the religion of Islam for thirteen years and made only 150 converts. But when he turned to jihad, ten years later he died, he was the ruler of Arabia and every Arab was a Muslim. Conclusion: jihad is normal, not extreme. But notice that since Islam is dualistic, Muslims can claim that it is peaceful.

As to the claim that the jihadists are few in number, look at war statistics. During WW II only 10% of our population was in the military. Did that mean we were not at war? No. In war only a few are doing the actual work, the rest of the country backs them with labor, money and morale.

There are four ways to be a jihadist – sword, pen, speech and money. Jihad is incumbent on ALL Muslims; therefore, it is the sixth pillar of Islam.

MT: Especially in the wake of the Arab Spring, the Obama administration wants us to draw a distinction between the terrorists and the “moderate” Islamists we can work with. How do you respond to that?

BW: First, a terrorist is a jihadist, modeled after Mohammed, the supreme jihadist. A moderate Muslim can be one who is not observant or it can be a Muslim who is following the Koran of Mecca, the religious Koran.

The apologists always want to talk about people, Muslims, not doctrine. Remember: when a Muslim is talking to a Kafir, there are twelve verses of the Koran that state that a Muslim is not the friend of a Kafir. Also, Mohammed repeatedly told Muslims to deceive the Kafir if it would advance Islam. There is one Muslim who will tell us the complete truth about Islam and that man is Mohammed.

The iron rule of Islamic doctrine is: if someone is talking about Islam and does not mention Mohammed or Allah (Koran) they are only building castles in the air.

An Islamist wants Sharia. Sharia destroys human rights and Kafir civilization. Why would we want to cooperate with someone who wants Sharia?

We don’t need politicians, religious leaders or academics to explain about Islam, we now have Mohammed and Allah. Forget the opinions of experts. For the first time in history, the common man can read the facts of the Trilogy and find out all of the answers without the “experts.”

Article printed from FrontPage Magazine: http://frontpagemag.com

URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/01/16/a-taste-of-islam-an-interview-with-bill-warner/

Dredging the BottomDredging the Bottom

Sultan Knish

Republican primaries are like visiting embarrassing relatives, no matter how bad you think it's going to be, it always turns out to be even worse. After months of this we're going to have a convention where we will be asked to believe in one of these men.

The latest attack is that Gingrich was actually anti-Reagan or at least had strong differences with Ronald Reagan. That is a serious attack or would be, if the conclusion to be drawn from even the heavily censored and selected quotes are that Gingrich thought Reagan was being too liberal.

So far the revelations are that Gingrich wanted budget spending frozen, Reagan refused because it would undermine defense. Gingrich said of Reagan's meeting with Gorbachev that it was, "the most dangerous summit for the West since Adolf Hitler met with Neville Chamberlain in 1938 in Munich." And overall that the United States lacked a comprehensive dedicated strategy for defeating the USSR.The takeaway is that Gingrich was attacking Reagan from the right. Which is not all that damning unless you assume that any deviation from Reagan's positions in any direction is treason. It seems to help Gingrich's conservative credentials more than it hurts him.

If you actually look at the context of some of the remarks, then the tone changes a great deal.


"The fact is that George Will, Charles Krauthammer, Irving Kristol, and Jeane Kirkpatrick are right in pointing out the enormous gap between President Reagan's strong rhetoric, which is adequate, and his administration's weak policies, which are inadequate and will ultimately fail."


Was Gingrich wrong? His views on sitting down with Gorbachev were not all that unusual for many conservatives at the time. Freezing spending might not have been that bad of an idea, whether it was workable is another question. And the United States did not have much of a strategy for defeating the USSR, which spared us the trouble by defeating itself.

When Romney distanced himself from Reagan he appeared to be doing it from the left, the Gingrich attacks appear to have come from the right. The only way they work is if we detach Reagan from conservative principles and place him above them.

As a bonus. Misleadingly edited videos always help make the case. More at The Hayride

Jeffrey Lord at the American Spectator has a piece putting some of the quotes in context, but he doesn't provide the complete floor statement either. It would be good if he did, to avoid all these snippets and see what Gingrich actually said in full so we can decide for ourselves.




SMOKING A KORAN

Pakistan’s largest real export is its off-the-books heroin trade and its economy runs on heroin. The ISI, Pakistan’s intelligence agency, which backed the Taliban, also took a cut of Afghanistan’s highly profitable opium trade. Iranian and Pakistani interference in Afghanistan marry their Islamic initiatives with the drug trade as Sunnis and Shiites compete for the lucrative traffic in the world’s leading source of opium which is smuggled through Pakistan and Iran.

Speaking of Iran, the Islamic Republic has the world’s highest percentage of heroin addicts, and the traffic is run by the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution which acts as the religious thugs of the ayatollahs. One of their means of smuggling heroin out of Iran is piggybacking the trade on Shiite Muslim pilgrims visiting holy sites abroad.

The Muslim world doesn’t have much to export besides oil and drugs. Countries that don’t have oil export drugs. Countries that do have oil, export drugs anyway. Terrorist groups with their secret cells, forged documents and covert funding sources make perfect drug smuggling networks until it is impossible to tell whether they are Islamic terrorists who smuggle drugs to fund their operations or drug smugglers who kill people to religiously justify their drug smuggling. When the commanders and the foot soldiers have spent enough time in the drug trade and are sampling their own product then they stop knowing the difference.

See my entire piece on the Islamic drug connection at The Islamic Paradise of the Needle and Powder




LOOK TO THE FUTURE

The good news is that our economy is recovering. We have not only broken the back of the recession, but kicked in the spleen of its brother the depression, and karate chopped the wrist of its uncle, the complete economic meltdown. The stock market is riding high thanks to its transformation from an index of companies, to an index of racehorses and greyhounds. I have been told by GE CEO Jeff Immelt that his horse, Foreseeable Disaster is coming up 4th, behind Microsoft's Blue Nag of Death, GM's Safety Issues and EcoTech's Al Gore. Betting is high and anyone who wants to get in on the action, please come see Vice President Biden in the cashier's cage to the right.

And there is still more good news. After yesterday's speech commemorating those killed in the Seattle Polar Bear Invasion, my popularity has shot up all the way to 27 percent. This puts me ahead in the polls, in front of my rivals, Republican challenger, George Prescott Bush III and my Neo-Monarchist challenger, the King of Nebraska, but still well behind Chinese Supreme Leader Hu Jintao, who has seized control of several key states.

Additionally with my new proposal to take all our remaining money and bury it in Michelle's vegetable garden, we may finally have a plan to cut spending that really works. At least until we dig it up that same night and spend it on one of those really bad ideas that I and my advisers come up with when we get high together.

How I saw the State of the Union Address 2012 shaping up. It could still happen...





THE WORDS... THEY HAVE NO MEANING

"To talk with Gingrich supporters is to enter a world where words have no meaning... Romney is now the only remaining candidate for president who opposes amnesty for illegals."

From Coulter's "Re-elect Obama: Vote Newt"



"Romney described immigration proposals by McCain and others as 'quite different' from amnesty, because they required illegal immigrants to register with the government, work for years, pay taxes, not take public benefits, and pay a fine before applying for citizenship. 'That's very different than amnesty, where you literally say, 'OK, everybody here gets to stay,''

Boston Globe, 3/16/07





THERE ARE NO ATHEISTS IN MUSLIM FOXHOLES

The trajectory of persecution is not very difficult to calculate. In the UK, Muslims outnumber Jews six to one. In France, Muslims outnumber Jews ten to one, and in Sweden by as much as twenty-five to one. These are not just numbers; they also accurately chart the trajectory of religious persecution, with the Muslim persecution of Jews spiking horrifyingly in Sweden, high in France, but not as high in England. One reason why the situation is not yet as bad as in the United States is because Jews still outnumber Muslims at least two to one.

Muslim persecution of a hated minority group increases proportionally in relation to their numerical advantage. Atheists are a larger percentage of the population in Europe, but demographics are still catching up to them. In the United States the demographic race may already be done, as far as atheists are concerned.

In the United States approximately 0.7 percent of the population identifies as atheist and 0.8 percent of the population as Muslim. If these surveys are correct then the number of Muslims in the United States has already exceeded the number of atheists. While not a single member of Congress identifies as an atheist, two identify as Muslims.

from my article, The Most Dangerous Place to be an Atheist






BUT HE ONLY SUPPORTS RAPING US AT THE STATE LEVEL

Whether you like a state-wide insurance mandate or not, it's a world of difference when the federal government does it... It was on account of the difference between state and federal powers that the Supreme Court overturned the federal Violence Against Women Act. The court was not endorsing rape, but reminding us that states make laws about rape, not Congress.

Romney supported the idea of other states doing something along the lines of his health care bill, but always opposed insurance mandates from the federal government (just as I oppose the federal government issuing general laws about rape, but support state laws against rape.)


From that same bulletin from CoulterWorld.

So Coulter's proposal is that we nominate a rapist because his rapine instincts are governed by the Constitution and though he supports rape at the state level, he will oppose it at the Federal level.

The only thing keeping Romney from raping us at the Federal level (Coulter's metaphor, not mine) is that he's apparently solid on State's Rights. Probably as solid as he is on immigration, the second amendment, abortion, gay rights and well any other issue.

If we do put our faith in Romney as a rapist within the Constitution, then he'll hand out the state waivers on ObamaCare. But what if he prioritizes rape over constitutionalism just like every other president from both parties going back further than we would like to think about?

If a candidate opposes a policy, then regardless of his Constitutional integrity, we at least have some confidence that he will not implement it. But if a candidate supports a policy, but opposes it only at the Federal level, then we have to put our faith in his restraint to not use the powers of the office that he has, or in this case to actively use them to undermine a policy that he supports in practice, but not in legal principle.

Ron Paul might have an inkling of credibility arguing that he would not enact a policy that he supports at the Federal level. Considering his earmarks dance, it's a small inkling, but he at least has some credibility on the issue.

With Romney, his establishment defenders have been reduced to arguing that Romney may support the practice of ObamaCare, but he will oppose it to protect states rights. Not only is this position ridiculous, not only does it ask us to take so much on faith that it's downright mindboggling. In Coulter's own metaphor it asks us to elect a rapist and trust that his principles will prevent him from raping us.

Worst of all Coulter has conceded and even defended the mandate, and is now just arguing against it on a Federal level.

"In a world where words have meaning, Mitt Romney is not the "moderate" in this race. He is the most conservative candidate."


The problem is that in CoulterWorld, the words mean something different than they mean here. It's entirely legitimate to state that none of the remaining three candidates are conservative. That is a defensible view.

Billing a man who called himself progressive and repeatedly disavowed the conservative label until it came in handy, who is conservative is demeanor, but has no consistent conservative record on the issues, as the most conservative candidate is a head spinner.

To seriously believe that Romney is more conservative than Santorum isn't the worldview of a world where words have meaning, it's a world where the word conservative has no meaning.





BUFFALOED SPENDERS

Yesterday, the Republican-controlled House passed HR 1022, a bill that would require the Secretary of the Interior to conduct a study of the history of Buffalo Soldiers in the establishment of national parks. The study will cost $400,000.


Voting in favor of this fantastic piece of budget cutting legislation was budget cutting hero, Paul Ryan. Michelle Bachmann voted against.

In between various bills about the importance of the budget, Ryan voted to authorize the Secretary of the Interior to study the suitability and feasibility of designating prehistoric, historic, and limestone forest sites on Rota, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, as a unit of the National Park System.

The bill was co-sponsored by five Democrats and one Republican. Can we really afford to be extending the national park system into the Northern Mariana Islands. Is that really the priority now?




SOROS MANUFACTURED CHAOS IN ISRAEL

In the warm summer of 2011, a twenty-something Israeli named Daphne Leef set up a Facebook protest page agitating against the high cost of housing in Tel Aviv. She pitched a tent and helped touch off a social protest movement that received national and international attention.

While the protests were billed as grassroots, there was nothing grassroots about them. The protests had been organized and funded by the New Israel Fund. Daphne Leef worked as a video editor for the New Israel Fund.

In the winter of that same year, as the protests had died down, a woman named Tanya Rosenblit boarded a bus which runs through religiously hyper-conservative neighborhoods and staged an incident with the passengers. Rosenblit was dubbed an Israeli Rosa Parks and her stunt helped generate waves of articles about major social problems in Israel.

Rosenblit was associated with One Voice, an organization funded by the New Israel Fund, whose board included Alon Liel, the husband of New Israel Fund director Rachel Liel. Hardly had the NIF gotten through manufacturing one phony social protest movement than it was hard at work on another.

See the entire piece at Front Page Magazine in Soros Manufactured Chaos in Israel




AND NOW THE ROUNDUP

Western Rifle Shooters has found a truly fantastic illustration to go with my SOTU parody. This should be Obama's presidential portrait.

Dress for success and the going rate for a 99 percent secretary

Romney hearts Hezbollah's health care system from Pamella Galler at Atlas Shrugs The takeaway here is that Romney operates on truisms from the same foreign policy experts who helped put the Brotherhood into power. He really does not get it.

Hezbollah and Hamas and the Brotherhood in Egypt are not popular because they offer health services or food. Those are bonuses that help lock in people. It's their Islamic beliefs that are popular and Romney is foolish to think that if America provided health care to them that it would swing them around.


... in other good news

The inauguration of Egypt's new parliament is an important step toward fulfilling public demands for the establishment of a regime based on Islam, said Ali Larijani, speaker of the Iranian parliament, in a letter on Wednesday. The letter was sent to Saad al-Katatny, People's Assembly speaker.


Shouldn't he have sent the letter to Obama who deserves much of the credit for the Caliphate?


New York Times now outsourcing its stories to CAIR

Learn about the legal claim to the State of Israel, from Eli Hertz, who has done a great deal of research on the topic at a Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors event in February


Another way

Yes, I am an Arab and despite that I love the Jewish people and the Land of Israel. I believe in the responsibility of Arabs to be loyal to the State of Israel and I believe that Jews should be able to settle everywhere in Israel,


With a predictable ending

Into The Fray: A study in impotence

MARTIN SHERMAN

Israel’s diplomatic reaction to recent charges that its water policy is racist exposes a preference for passivity over preemption.

Water reveals a new apartheid in the Middle East. The 450,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank use as much or more water than some 2.3 million Palestinians... even if only a few dare to use the word, all indications are that the Middle East is the scene of a new apartheid.... And in this situation, water is a particular element of conflict between Palestinians and Israelis. – Excerpt from the French parliamentary report on “The Geopolitics of Water” My most recent columns have been devoted to analyzing Israel’s public diplomacy, the reasons for its manifest ineptitude, and the mechanisms that produce this abysmal performance.

Last week, by coincidence, an illustrative example, underscoring precisely what I have been trying to convey, broke into the headlines.

It came in the form of a French parliamentary report on Israel’s water policy, authored by Jean Glavany, a Socialist member of the National Assembly, and accusing Israel of using water as an instrument of apartheid and oppression against the Palestinians.

Responses, recriminations, repudiations
The report sent Israeli officialdom into a tizzy.

The media were peppered with responses, repudiations and recriminations. Foreign Ministry officials claimed to have been unaware of the document until several days after its posting on the National Assembly website.

One diplomatic source characterized the report as “a serious mishap that... has seriously damaged Israel’s image in France.” The embassy in Paris was accused of falling asleep on the job for not alerting the Israeli authorities of the impending publication and the malevolent nature of its contents.

Israel robustly repudiated the report. The Foreign Ministry spokesman condemned it – correctly – as “unacceptable,” “loaded with the language of vicious propaganda, far removed from any professional criticism” and tainted with “blatant tendentiousness.”

Moreover, according to official Israeli sources, some members of the working group involved in compiling the report disassociated themselves from its anti-Israel tenor.

However, the damage had already been done. Israel had – once again – been linked to the dreaded “A-word.”

Cyberspace was replete with websites seizing on the report as yet another affirmation of the odious nature of the Jewish state and its dastardly discrimination against the “other.”

Delusional derogatory drivel
Israel’s firm rebuttal of the report was factually correct and morally justified. This was a document that comes as close to unadulterated, uninformed drivel as the written word can get, with accusations as malicious as they were mendacious.

Its allegations range from the highly implausible to the totally impossible. For example, one of its more ludicrous allegations is that Israel’s security barrier – “the wall”– “prevents Palestinian access to the Jordan River.”

However – as the most cursory glance at any map will show – the “wall” is located along, or close to, the 1967 Green Line, so it cannot constitute an impediment of any kind to Palestinian access to the Jordan River.

The river has anyway been reduced to a highly polluted trickle south of the Kinneret.

As such, it has been insignificant as a water source for decades, and access to it – or lack thereof – is irrelevant to Palestinians’ hydrological situation. So contrary to the impression the report creates, it has no bearing on the quantity of water available to them.

Only marginally less absurd is the document’s supposition that avaricious hydrological calculations lay behind the construction of “the wall,” to ensure Israeli supplies and to prevent Palestinians from extracting water from sites in the adjacent “buffer” zone.

In fact, construction of the security barrier was undertaken solely in response to the horrific Palestinian terrorism that took place between 2000 and 2003. It seems that a few “minor” details eluded Monsieur Glavany’s memory when forming his opinion of the function of the security barrier and the events that lead to its construction – such as the Passover massacre at Park Hotel in Netanya, and the carnage at the Sbarro restaurant and the Moment Café (both in Jerusalem), the Dizengoff Center and the Dolphinarium (both in Tel Aviv), and at the Beit Lid and Meggido junctions, to name but a few.

Had it not been for Palestinian terrorism there would have been no barrier. To suggest otherwise is either ignominious or ignorant.

Passivity over preemption
Despite all this, the French hydro-report episode was indeed a diplomatic debacle for Israel, not because of what was done after its publication, but because of what was not done before it.

Once again, Israeli diplomacy was seen to be slamming the stable doors long after the horses had bolted, reacting to events rather than anticipating them. It was a classic illustration of what I described in last week’s column, of “Israeli [diplomatic] endeavors [being] reduced to defensive tactical responses, chasing events rather than preempting them, and doomed to failure.”

There is little room for excuses, particularly when it comes to the water issue.

For while it may not have been possible to predict publication of this particular report at this particular time, the appearance of some similar document from some source or other was a near certainty, which should have been foreseen and preempted.

Sense of déjà vu
The situation that has arisen in the wake of the Glavany report has an eerie sense of déjà vu about it. It was barely two years ago that a similar document was produced by Amnesty International, brandishing similarly baseless accusations berating Israel’s water policy as an instrument of apartheid.

The report immediately became a centerpiece of a US lecture tour by Omar Barghouti, arguably the most prominent leader of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel. Flyers billing his talks splashed the title: “Thirsting for Justice: Israel’s control of water as a tool of apartheid and means of ethnic cleansing.”

The Israel diplomatic establishment had ample warning of Barghouti’s appearances.

Despite this, no action was taken on suggestions – including from this writer – to preempt his appearances with the massive distribution of factual material, refuting the cavalcade of distortions, falsehood, exaggerations, omissions and half-truths that comprised his talk.

Lessons unlearned
The lessons of the Amnesty/Barghouti episode remained unlearned.

Rather than adopt an offense strategic initiative to remove Israel’s water policy for the list of topics that can be used to denigrate the country, those charged with the conduct of its public diplomacy have opted for defensive tactical responses to hostile initiatives. Rather than launch an ongoing enterprise to set, a priori, the context in which later events are interpreted/perceived, they have opted to fend off individual accusations and condemnations, made in the inimical context prevailing today.

This is particularly exasperating in the case of water, which is one of the topics most amenable to mounting such an preemptive enterprise.

For while it is always possible to find heartrending anecdotal evidence involving highly localized incidents in which an elderly Palestinian may have been inappropriately treated, or in which the IDF damaged a cistern, these in no way reflect the intent or consequences of Israeli policy. This can only be fairly assessed by the overall impact that policy has had on the Palestinians’ water situation.

Here the facts are unequivocal. They should be used to quash any allegation of discriminatory deprivation, as part on an ongoing proactive initiative to inform opinion-makers, hydro-professionals and the general public, and to create a context in which any accusatory documents are likely to be dismissed with the contempt they richly deserve.

Facts, figures, fabrications
The Palestinians’ hydrological situation improved beyond all recognition under Israeli administration, not only in absolute terms compared to initial pre-“occupation” conditions, but in relative terms compared to that of Israelis.

Whether one focuses on overall consumption of fresh water; per capita consumption of fresh water; consumption of fresh water relative to Israelis; accessibility of running water to households; the area under agricultural cultivation; or the size of the agricultural product, the conditions for the Palestinians have been dramatically enhanced by Israeli rule.

Between 1967 and 2006, the overall annual consumption of fresh water by “West Bank” Palestinians grew by 300 percent, from 60 million cubic meters to 180 m.cu.m. The annual per capita consumption in the same period rose by almost 15%, from 86 cubic meters to 100 cu.m.

Overall consumption by Israel dropped by 15% (from 1,411 m.cu.m. to 1,211 m.cu.m.), while the per capita consumption plummeted by 70% (from 508 cu.m to 170 cu.m.), a remarkable decrease made possible not only by more efficient usage but also by massive replacement of fresh water by recycled sewage for irrigation, and of naturally occurring fresh water by desalinated water for domestic use.

By contrast, the Palestinians have steadfastly refused to undertake agreed-upon sewage purification projects, allowing untreated effluents to endanger “downstream” Israeli supplies.

Palestinian claims that it is Israel which has prevented the construction of recycling plants are preposterous. For what twisted logic could conceivably induce the fiendishly cunning Zionists to oppose the construction of installations that would protect their own water resources from Palestinian pollutants?

The wimpiness of ‘Zionist oppression’?
Moreover, from 1967 to the years just before Oslo, Palestinian household consumption rose dramatically – by almost 600%, significantly higher than the 230% in Israel.

Similarly, water-conveyance to households also increased impressively.

Whereas in 1967 only 10% of the “West Bank” Arab population was connected to a running water system, the figure today stands at 95%. So much for discriminatory deprivation.

Palestinian agricultural performance improved dramatically as well, even though water allocations were not increased. (In recent years Israeli farmers have had their freshwater allocations slashed by 50% and more.) This was facilitated by the introduction of more advanced methods of irrigation and cultivation, resulting in an increase of the area cultivated by about 160% and of the agricultural product by 1,200%.

As world-renowned soil-physicist and hydrologist Daniel Hillel observes, by the 1990s, farming “was transformed from a subsistence enterprise to a commercial industry.”

Furthermore, the inflammatory claims that luscious lawns and shimmering swimming pools in Jewish settlements unfairly and provocatively deprive Palestinians of water are belied by a single statistic: Israel conveys more water (nearly 56 m.cu.m.) from inside the pre-1967 borders into the “West Bank” than the total consumption of the entire Jewish population in the settlements across the “Green Line” (just over 48 m.cu.m.).

In other words, there is a net inflow of water from pre-1967 Israel to the Palestinians which more than compensates for the much-maligned lawns and pools.

Demand – not discrimination
While claims that per-capita consumption of water by Israelis is much higher than that of the Palestinian population are true, this is principally a result of differences in demand – not supply – because of differences in lifestyles. (Clearly, the fact that a millionaire in an opulent penthouse in Manhattan will use far less water than equally affluent owner of a sprawling estate in Bel Air is not a matter of discriminatory deprivation).

Different rates of consumption are found between the Jewish and Arab populations within pre-1967 Israel – and between different socioeconomic groups within the Jewish population – without anyone raising the claim that this is the result of purposeful deprivation.

Interestingly, per-capita consumption in the frequently vilified settlement of Kiryat Arba is 25% lower than in the Beduin city of Rahat – and 90% lower than in up-market Savyon). What perverse discrimination does that indicate?

The perils of PC-diplomacy
These facts and many others should be assertively and proactively inserted into the public discourse, not only as a response to attacks, but as part of an ongoing endeavor to mold public awareness and perception of the realities that pertain to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

One of the principal reasons that this is not occurring is the PC (Palestinian-compliant) perspectives of the Israeli civil society elites, discussed in my previous columns, who exert a dominant influence on the conduct of our public diplomacy.

These entrenched elites cannot permit accurate portrayal of Palestinian society without undermining their own worldview.

(With regard to the water issue, I can attest to this personally.) After all, this would entail exposing the fundamental reasons why the Palestinians find themselves in the miserable state in which they are today: a) a chronic and cavalier disregard for the truth; b) an enduring propensity to blame others for their fate; and c) an obdurate refusal to take responsibility for their own actions – and inaction.

And that is something one does not say in polite company.

www.martinsherman.net

Europeans Increasingly Converting to Islam

Soeren Kern

http://www.stonegateinstitute.org/2790/europeans-converting-to-islam

Irish actor Liam Neeson says he is thinking about becoming a Muslim after undergoing a spiritual awakening in Turkey.

Neeson, who was born into a Roman Catholic family in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, told the London-based newspaper The Sun that he was impressed by the religious atmosphere in Istanbul while filming a movie in the city.

He said: "The [Islamic] call to prayer happens five times a day, and for the first week, it drives you crazy, and then it just gets into your spirit, and it's the most beautiful, beautiful thing. There are 4,000 mosques in the city. Some are just stunning, and it really makes me think about becoming a Muslim."Neeson is just one of hundreds of thousands of Europeans who are trading their Christian heritage for the supposed exoticism of Islam. The surge in conversions is contributing to the mainstreaming of Islam in Europe and contributing to the Islamization of the continent.

In Britain, the number of Muslim converts recently passed the 100,000 mark, according to a survey conducted by an inter-faith group called Faith Matters. The survey revealed that nearly two thirds of the converts were women, more than 70% were white and the average age at conversion was just 27.

The survey, conducted by Kevin Brice from Swansea University in Wales, asked converts for their views on the negative aspects of British culture. They identified alcohol and drunkenness, a "lack of morality and sexual permissiveness" and "unrestrained consumerism."

More than one in four acknowledged there was a "natural conflict" between being a devout Muslim and living in Britain. Nine out of ten women converts said their change of religion had led to them dressing more conservatively. More than half started wearing a head scarf and 5% had worn the burka.

Separately, government authorities revealed that an increasing number of inmates at British prisons are converting to Islam. For example, one-third of the inmates at one of Britain's most notorious youth jails are Muslims and the religion is attracting a large number of converts.

There are 229 Muslims out of a total of 686 youngsters detained at Feltham Young Offenders' Institution in West London, according to Ministry of Justice figures. There are now so many worshippers at Friday prayers that they have to be split between Feltham's mosque and its gym.

Prison insiders say most non-Muslims are locked up during Friday prayers because so many guards are needed to monitor the lunchtime service. As a consequence, many disillusioned youngsters are becoming attracted to Islam by the prospect of getting better food and superior treatment at the prison.

One of the more prominent Britons to convert to Islam is Lauren Booth, sister-in-law of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Booth, who converted after feeling a "shot of spiritual morphine" on a trip to Iran, now wears a hijab head covering whenever she leaves her home and prays five times a day.

In France, an estimated 70,000 French citizens have converted to Islam in recent years, according to a report by France 3 public television. As in Britain, the majority of converts to Islam in France are young women who say they are disenchanted with materialism.

Conversions to Islam are also rife in Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Holland, Hungary, Ireland, Luxembourg, Norway (and here and here), Poland, Portugal and Spain.

In Italy, Ambassador Alfredo Maiolese, an Italian MP, recently became a Muslim and now dedicates his time trying to improving the image of Islam in the West. In Sweden, there are now at least 5,000 converts to Islam.

In Germany, at least 20,000 people have converted to Islam in recent years, according to a report by RTL television. Some of these converts are playing a growing role in jihad in Germany. In 2010, for example, two German converts to Islam who were found guilty of plotting to create what a judge called a "monstrous blood bath" by carrying out terrorist attacks against American targets in Germany.

"This trend has taken on a very threatening quality toward our security, and while not every convert is a potential terrorist, we are facing a sort of homegrown terrorism that has sprouted in our own backyard," according to Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble.

Many European coverts to Islam on fact become vastly more pious than Muslims who were born into Islam. Such converts, taking an absolutist approach, are often easily led into extremism.

In Belgium, for example, Muriel Degauque, a woman from Charleroi and a convert to Islam, committed a suicide car bomb attack in November 2005 against American troops in Iraq. A bakery worker, Degaugue had married a Muslim man and quickly became radical in her religious views.

In Switzerland, young converts to Islam are a potential threat to the country's security, according to Alard du Bois-Reymond, who was head of the Swiss Migration Office until he was removed for his politically incorrect observations.
Du Bois-Reymond told the German-language newspaper NZZ am Sonntag that Swiss converts include people who want a "radically different society" and are "resistant to dialogue." He described the Central Islamic Council of Switzerland, which was founded and is run by Swiss converts to Islam, as "the most radical group in Switzerland."
Also in Switzerland, Daniel Streich, a former member of the Swiss People's Party (SVP) who rose to fame for his campaign against the construction of minarets for mosques, converted to Islam. He now says Switzerland needs more mosques.

In Spain, at least 50,000 native Spaniards have converted to Islam in recent years, many of them women. Webislam.net, a Spanish-language website devoted to propagating Islam in Spain, recently published an article that encourages Spanish women to wed Muslim men. The article describes marriage to a Muslim this way: "Multiculturalism is a rewarding experience for all concerned."

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

Obama: Of course I intend to prevent a nuclear holocaust . . . in a few months

Caroline B. Glick

In truth, American Jewry's diffidence towards taking a stand on Iran, or recognizing Obama's dishonestly on this issue specifically and his dishonestly regarding his position on US-Israel ties generally, is not rooted primarily in American Jews' devotion to Obama. It isn't even specifically related to American Jewry's devotion to the political Left. Rather it has to do with American Jewish ambivalence to Israel

European and American perfidy in dealing with Iran's nuclear weapons program apparently has no end. This week we were subject to banner headlines announcing that the EU has decided to enact an oil embargo on Iran. It was only when we got past the bombast that we discovered that the embargo is only set to come into force on July 1.

Following its European colleagues, the Obama administration announced it is also ratcheting up its sanctions against Iran in two months. Sometime in late March, the US will begin sanctioning Iran's third largest bank.

At the same time as the Europeans and the Americans announced their phony sanctions, they reportedly dispatched their Turkish colleagues to Teheran to set up a new round of nuclear talks with the ayatollahs. If the past is any guide, we can expect for the Iranians to agree to sit down and talk just before the oil embargo is scheduled to be enforced. And the Europeans — with US support — will use the existence of talks to postpone indefinitely the implementation of the embargo.

There is nothing new in this game of fake sanctions. And what it shows more than anything is that the Europeans and the Americans are more concerned with pressuring Israel not to attack Iran's nuclear installations than they are in preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power.

For his part Obama has a second target audience — American Jews. He is using his fake sanctions as a means of convincing American Jews that he is a pro-Israel president and that in the current election season, not only should they cast their votes in his favor, they should sign their checks for his campaign.

For their part, both Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak were quick this week to make clear that these moves are insufficient.

They will not force Iran to abandon its nuclear weapons program. More is needed. As to American Jewry, the jury is still out.

In truth, American Jewry's diffidence towards taking a stand on Iran, or recognizing Obama's dishonestly on this issue specifically and his dishonestly regarding his position on US-Israel ties generally is not rooted primarily in American Jews' devotion to Obama. It isn't even specifically related to American Jewry's devotion to the political Left. Rather it has to do with American Jewish ambivalence to Israel.

The roots of that ambivalence — which is shared by other Western Jewish communities to varying degrees -- predate Obama's presidency. Indeed, they predate the establishment of Israel. And now, as the US and the EU have given Iran at least another six months to a year to develop its nuclear bombs unchecked, it is worth considering the nature and influence of this ambivalence.

Today's principal form of Jew hatred is anti-Zionism. Anti-Zionism is similar to previous dominant forms of Jew hatred such as xenophobic and racist anti-Semitism, and Communist anti-Jewish cosmopolitanism in the sense that it takes dominant, popular social trends and turns them against the Jews. Anti-Zionism's current predominance owes to the convergence of several popular social trends which include Western post-nationalism, and anti-colonialism.

The problem that anti-Zionism poses for American Jewry is that it forces them to pay a price for supporting Israel. This is problematic because Zionism has never been fully embraced by American Jewry. Since the dawn of modern Zionism, the cause of Jewish self-determination placed American Jewish leaders in an uncomfortable dilemma.

Unlike every other Diaspora Jewish community, the American Jewish community has always perceived itself as a permanent community rather than an exile community. American Jews have always viewed the United States as the new Promised Land.

With the formation of the modern Zionist movement in the late nineteenth century, American Jews found themselves on the thorns of a dilemma. Clearly, the state of world Jewry was such that national self-determination had become an existential necessity for non-American Jews.

But while supporting Jewish refugees and a scrappy little country was okay, support for the Zionist cause of Jewish national liberation involved an acceptance of the fact that Israel — not the US — is the Jewish homeland. Moreover, it involved accepting that there are Jewish interests that are independent of — if not necessarily in contradiction with — American interests. For instance, irrespective of the prevailing winds in Washington, and regardless of whether the US supports Israel or not, it is a Jewish interest that Israel exists, thrives and survives.

In a recent oped in Haaretz, Hebrew University political science professor Shlomo Avineri contrasted world Jewry's massive mobilization on behalf of Soviet Jewry in the 1970s and 1980s and their relative silence today in the face of Iran's Holocaust denial and open calls for the annihilation of the Jewish state. Avineri is apparently confounded by the disparity between Western Jewry's behavior in the two cases.

But the cause of the disparity is clear. Supporting the right of Soviet Jews to emigrate was easy. Unlike Israel, Soviet Jews were powerless. As such, they were pure victims and supporting them cost Diaspora Jews nothing in terms of their position in their societies. Just as importantly, the cause of freedom for Soviet Jewry was perfectly aligned with the West's Cold War policies against the Soviet Union. The frequent Jewish demonstrations outside Soviet legations provided Western leaders with another tool to fight the Cold War.

In contrast, supporting Israel, and the cause of Jewish freedom and self-determination embodied by Zionism is not cost free for Diaspora Jews. At root, to support Israel and Zionism involves accepting that Jews have inherent rights as Jews. To be a Zionist Jew in the Diaspora means that you embrace and defend the notion that the Jews have the right to their own interests and that those interests may be distinct from other nations' interests. That is, to be a Zionist involves rejecting Jewish assimilation and embracing the fact that Jews require national independence and power to guarantee our survival. And this can be unpleasant.

Pro-Israel American Jews have historically tried to tie their support for Israel to larger, more universal themes in order to extricate themselves from the need to admit that as Jews and supporters of Israel they have a right and a duty to support Jewish freedom even if it isn't always pretty. Again, for Israel's first several decades, it was about helping poor Jews and refugees. In recent years, the predominant defense has been that Israel deserves support because it is a democracy.

Certainly, these are both reasonable reasons for supporting Israel. But neither support for Israel because it was poor nor support for Israel because it is free are specifically Zionist reasons for supporting Israel. You don't have to be a Zionist to support poor Jewish refugees and you don't have to be a Zionist to support democracy.

You do have to be a Zionist however, to defend the Jews in Israel and throughout the world in a coherent manner when the predominant form of Jew hatred is anti-Zionism. You have to be willing to accept and defend the right of the Jewish people to freedom and self-determination in our national homeland against those who deny that right. You have to be a Zionist to defend Israel's right to survive and thrive even though it is no longer poor and its democratically elected government is not liked by the Obama administration.

And you have to be a Zionist to realize that since Jewish survival is dependent on Jewish power, and anti-Zionists reject the right of Jews to have power, that anti-Zionists seek to bring about a situation where Jewish survival is imperiled.

The weakness of American Jewry's response to Iran's genocidal intentions towards Israel is of a piece with its weak response to the forces of anti-Zionism generally and to Jewish anti-Zionists particularly. Since 2007, the US government has effectively ruled out the use of force against Iran's nuclear weapons program and embraced a policy of pursuing negotiations with ayatollahs while enacting impotent sanctions to quell Congressional pressure. At least in part, this policy owes to the US's assessment that a nuclear Iran does not pose a high-level threat to US national security.

At the same time, both then president George W. Bush and Obama determined that an Israeli military strike against Iran's nuclear weapons program does pose a high-level threat to the US. As a consequence, both administrations have taken concerted steps to prevent Israel from attacking Iran.

On the merits, both of these policies are easily discredited. But the fact that they continue to be implemented shows that they are supported by a large and powerful constituency in Washington.

To oppose Iran's nuclear program effectively, American Jews are required to oppose these strongly supported US policies. And at some point, this may require them to announce they support Israel's right to survive and thrive even if that paramount right conflicts with how the US government perceives US national interests. That is, it may require them to embrace Zionism unconditionally.

No doubt, if they do so, their own conditions will improve. They will finally be able to speak coherently against the gathering forces of anti-Zionism — both from within the Jewish community and from without. This in turn will act as a lightning rod for inspiring American Jews to embrace their Judaism.

With their leaders to date having abjectly failed to contend with the most powerful form of Jew hatred, it is no wonder that so many Diaspora Jews are leaving the fold. If they reverse course and go after their attackers, American Jewish leaders will give community members a meaningful reason to proudly embrace their identity.

In a speech this week at the Knesset, Netanyahu explained the different lessons the Holocaust teaches the international community on the one hand, and the Jews on the other. As far as its universal lessons are concerned, Netanyahu said, "The lesson is that the countries of the world must be woken up, as much as possible, so that they can organize against such crimes. The lesson is that the broadest possible alliances must be forged in order to act against this threat before it is too late."

As for the Jews, Netanyahu embraced Zionism's core principle: "With regard to threats to our very existence, we cannot abandon our future to the hands of others. With regard to our fate, our duty is to rely on ourselves alone."

We must hope that world Jewry will recognize today that the fate of the Jewish people in Israel and throughout the world is indivisible and rally to Israel's side whatever the social cost of doing so. But even if they do not recognize this basic truth, the imperatives of Zionism, of the Jewish people, remain in place.

Ireland's top diplomat in Gaza to see blockade impact

GAZA CITY - Agence France-Presse

Irish Foreign Minister Eamon Gilmore (L) shakes hands with UNRWA commissioner-general Filippo Grandi during his visit to the UNRWA aid distribution centre in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip on January 27,2012. AFP photo

Irish Foreign Minister Eamon Gilmore (L) shakes hands with UNRWA commissioner-general Filippo Grandi during his visit to the UNRWA aid distribution centre in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip on January 27,2012. AFP photo
Visiting Irish Foreign Minister Eamon Gilmore on Friday kicked off a three-day trip to Israel and the Palestinian territories with a brief visit to the Gaza Strip.

It was Gilmore's first visit to the Hamas-ruled coastal territory which has been languishing under an Israeli blockade for more than five years.

"Ireland is completely opposed to the blockade," Gilmore told AFP in Gaza City. "It has a huge impact on people who are living in Gaza and it is clearly having a devastating impact on the local economy," said the minister.

"The blockade should be ended soon in order to allow the local economy to grow and ensure that people who live in Gaza can exercise their human rights: freedom of movement and travel." Gilmore's spokesman Philip Grant earlier said the minister wanted to see first hand the impact of the embargo.

"Within the European Union, Ireland has been one of the most forceful countries calling for a lifting of the Gaza blockade. He is here to see what the economic and social impact has been on the people of Gaza," he said.


The minister's visit comes nearly three months after Israeli forces blocked a vessel carrying 15 Irish activists, among them a member of the European parliament, from reaching Gaza in defiance of Israel's controversial naval blockade.

The move sparked tensions with Dublin, which has repeatedly expressed its opposition to the Israeli embargo that was first imposed in 2006, then tightened a year later when Hamas seized control of the territory.

"Flotilla is a voluntary activity by individuals and organisations -- they do that obviously in response to the blockade," Gilmore said.

"The role of the Irish government is playing through the European Union and the United Nations and international organisations, and we made very clear the position of the Irish government -- that it opposes the blockade, and that we believe it is wrong." Irish activists were also part of an earlier 10-ship flotilla which tried to reach Gaza in July but their vessel was damaged, with the organisers accusing Israel of sabotage.

At the time, Dublin said it would take a "very serious view" if the allegations were proven.

During his brief visit to the coastal territory, Gilmore met representatives of Palestinian civil society and also talked with officials from UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, but did not meet any Hamas representatives in line with EU policy, which blacklists the group as a terror organisation.

He left around midday (1000 GMT) and headed to Jerusalem where he was to be briefed by OCHA, the UN agency for humanitarian affairs, before heading out on a tour of the Old City and a visit to the flashpoint Palestinian neighbourhood of Silwan in the city's annexed eastern sector.

Israel has vigorously defended its right to maintain a blockade on the Gaza Strip, saying it is necessary to prevent weapons from entering the Hamas-run territory.

Last September, a UN report into a deadly Israeli commando raid on a Turkish-led flotilla in May 2010, which left nine activists dead, found the Jewish state had acted with "excessive force" but said its naval blockade on Gaza was legal.

Mahmoud Abbas Continues Ruthless Campaign Against Opponents

Challah Hu Akbar

Last week I reported that Mahmoud Abbas was monitoring the phone calls of political opponents. A few weeks before that Jordan, at Abbas’ behest, seized Mohammad Dahlan’s assets as well as those of his brother and an unidentified individual.

Palestine Press and Palestine Today are both reporting that Fatah has expelled Samir Mashharawi. Mashharawi is a friend of Dahlan and worked with him in Gaza, when Dahlan was in charge of the security forces. Dahlan was expelled from Fatah back in June, with ratification of the expulsion coming in August. According to Palestine Press, Mashharawi slammed Fatah a few weeks ago in an article on Al-Arabiya. Mashharawi reportedly said that Fatah “lacked leadership” and had lost “the spirit of the struggle.” According to Al-Quds Al-Arabi, Mashharawi has been residing in the UAE, where he is engaged in business dealings with Dahlan.

Abbas is also targeting Mashharawi due to his comments in support of Dahlan in the Abbas-Dahlan affair. According to Mashharawi, the dispute between Dahlan and Abbas is“personal” and Abbas is using it as a distraction as he “wants to run away from five years of failure in running the Palestinian Authority and the political portfolio.”

In July 2011, Palestinian Authority security forces, at the behest of Abbas, raided Dahlan’s home in Ramallah. During the raid they arrested 23 guards and confiscated 16 guns and two vehicles. According to Mashharawi, Abbas wanted to do far more.

“They wanted to initiate an armed clash with Dahlan’s men so that the police could open fire. The goal was to kill Dahlan and then announce that he was part of a conspiracy to overthrow the Palestinian president.”

All of these events further emphasize the points recently made by Jonathan Schanzer.

All things considered, Dahlan’s fate is inconsequential. His star fell long ago. More noteworthy is the ruthlessness Abbas has employed in pursuing him. With Washington’s full support to fend off Hamas’s challengers, Abbas has become relentless against anyone who dares challenge him.

While Dahlan will probably not pose a political threat from exile, Abbas will likely keep after him. But it won’t end there, either. The Palestinian president has also picked fights with other potential political threats, including Prime Minister Fayyad, and Yasser Abbed Rabbo of the PLO. All three share a belief that the Palestinian Authority under Abbas has become less transparent and strayed from its original goal: a viable and transparent state that coexists with its neighbors, including Israel.

The Dahlan affair can best be understood as a witch hunt. It underscores the fact that Abbas has consolidated power, and that he will abide no challenges. Abbas’s whims bode poorly for the Palestinian Authority, which may now expend more energy settling scores than resolving the long-standing conflict with Israel.

Don’t you just love Palestinian politics?

Turkey is Hamas’ New Primary Funder

Challah Hu Akbar | Jan 27, 2012

Back in December IMEMC reported:

Turkish sources reported that Prime Minister of Turkey, Receb Tayyip Erdogan, sent a confidential letter to Ismail Haniyya, Prime Minister of the Hamas-led government in the Gaza Strip, inviting him to visit Turkey, and informing him that he has decided to grant Haniyya’s government $300 Million.

Jonathan Schanzer wrote shortly thereafter:

…this pledge would cover nearly half of Hamas’s reported $769 million budget next year, and would make Turkey its primary benefactor.

Hamas and Turkish officials deny the report, and Hamas probably won’t submit to an external audit any time soon. But let there be no doubt: Hamas is for sale, thanks to the Iranian nuclear program and the Arab Spring. .With Iran stepping back, could Turkey step in? From publicly clashing with Israeli president Shimon Peres over Israel’s Hamas policy at Davos in 2009 to sponsoring the ill-fated flotilla that attempted to breach Israel’s blockade of Gaza in 2010, Erdogan has become a champion of the Hamas cause.

In recent years, the Turkish government has provided nominal assistance to Hamas in Gaza through a series of charities. Hamas reportedly now operates on Turkish soil, meaning Ankara is already a patron. And Hamas recently announced that leader Ismail Haniyeh plans to visit Turkey soon.

Now, more confirmation of that IMEMC report has arrived. A diplomat was quoted by Reuters today.

“Iran used to give $250 million to $300 million to Hamas but there have been interruptions in the payments in past year. Our understanding is that there has been no payment since August 2011,” he said.

Hamas Gaza Strip leader Ismail Haniyeh was thought to have “received promises from Turkey to provide the movement and his administration with $300 million a year to help Gaza”.

In addition to this Reuters report, Palestinian news sources are reporting that Yediot Ahranot in its Friday paper is reporting that Turkey has agreed to provide Hamas with $300 million.

The Yediot Ahranot article does not appear to be online currently. If it becomes available I will link to it. If anyone has a hard copy and would like to email it, please do.

A Slashed and Burned Military

Mike Brownfield

January 27, 2012

The future is not bright for the U.S. military. Yesterday, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta gave America a glimpse of the half-trillion dollars in defense spending cuts requested by the Obama Administration and detailed how the U.S. military’s capabilities would be affected in practical terms. The result is a slashed and burned military that woefully lacks the forces it needs to meet America’s security challenges on a global scale.

On the ground, in the sea, and in the air, American forces will shrink drastically — the Army will shrink by 72,000 people, the active Marine Corps will be reduced by 20,000, the Air Force will see six tactical fighter squadrons de-established while an additional training fighter squadron will be eliminated, the next-generation F-35 Join Strike Fighter procurement will be slowed, and the Navy will retire seven cruisers and two amphibious ships at an early juncture while delaying the procurements of new ships. To put these cuts in context, we are returning to ground forces levels we had under President Bill Clinton when the Army strained and scrambled to execute smaller missions like Kosovo and Bosnia–let alone significant ground force operations. In order to compensate for the drastically reduced military capabilities, the Administration plans to increase reliance on unmanned drones and special-operations teams based around the globe. But special operations are a scalpel, not a Swiss army knife. They are not an “easy-button” substitute for the many security missions the United States undertakes worldwide. And they rely on a strong backbone of conventional forces in order to succeed. The U.S. Navy’s presence was essential in Somalia during the recent hostage rescue, as was the Air Force’s support in the first phase of Afghanistan and the Army’s muscle during the surge in Iraq. Special forces without robust conventional forces is like a wide receiver without a quarterback and a line.

In a new paper, The Heritage Foundation’s Baker Spring, the F. M. Kirby Research Fellow in National Security Policy in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, explains that the U.S. military is in danger of becoming the broken force it was in the Carter era:

As was the case following the Vietnam War in the 1970s, defense budget reductions of the scope previewed by Panetta generally lead to reduced combat readiness and, ultimately, a hollow force. This is because a force that is too small has to endure higher operating tempos and rotation cycles. It also results in a reduction in the technological edge that permits the U.S. military to achieve victory on the battlefield quickly and with fewer casualties. Finally, it becomes more difficult to man the force with high-quality personnel and maintain high morale.

Unfortunately, these cuts are just the beginning. Under the Budget Control Act that Congress passed last summer, the military will face automatic budget cuts amounting to as much as $600 billion in addition to those that Panetta laid out yesterday. As Spring explains, the only way to avoid these automatic cuts is for the Budget Control Act to be amended or repealed — a measure that President Obama has said he would veto.

All of this comes despite the fact that spending on national defense — a core constitutional function of government — has declined significantly over time, despite wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Spending on the three major entitlements–Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid–has more than tripled. And while Washington attempts to cut spending, it is the military that is taking the brunt of it: For every dollar the President hopes to save in domestic programs, he plans on saving $128 in defense.

This leaves America in a precarious position. Fewer troops in all the services will be scrambling in a global shell game to mask the fact that the United States can’t defend all of its interests. The force will be even more stressed than at the height of Iraq and Afghanistan. By cutting the defense budget, the United States is undermining the responsiveness of its defense industrial base. In addition, without proper investments, the United States will lose technological advantages vis-a-vis its future strategic competitors.

Meanwhile, America’s enemies are watching. They can count our troops, our planes, and our ships. They can look on as America’s military retreats and loses its ability to project forces around the world. And they will quickly realize that the United States will not be able to cover its responsibilities worldwide. That is an invitation for the sort of security threats America cannot afford — and they are threats that America may not be able to respond to with its stripped-down military.

Quick Hits:

The U.S. economy anemically grew 2.8 percent in the fourth quarter last year, and indicators point to even slower growth in the beginning of 2012, leading the Federal Reserve to say it expects to keep interest rates low through late 2014.
GOP presidential candidates engaged in their 19th debate last night, their last chance to spar before Florida’s primary vote on January 31.
A “very high escalation” of violence has been reported in Syria over the last four days despite the presence of Arab League observers sent to monitor the organization’s plan to end the 10-month-old crisis.
Censorship is coming to Twitter. The micro-blogging company announced that it will begin to censor content in countries where particular words are against the law but will be displayed in countries where they are legal.
LUNCHTIME CHAT: How have President Obama’s economic policies impacted America? Find out in our live chat with Bill Beach, director of Heritage’s Center for Data Analysis, today from 12 PM to 1 PM ET. Click here to join in.

The Zionist imperative

Caroline Glick

European and American perfidy in dealing with Iran's nuclear weapons program apparently has no end. This week we were subject to banner headlines announcing that the EU has decided to place an oil embargo on Iran. It was only when we got past the bombast that we discovered that the embargo is only set to come into force on July 1.

Following its European colleagues, the Obama administration announced it is also ratcheting up its sanctions against Iran... in two months. Sometime in late March, the US will begin sanctioning Iran's third largest bank.
At the same time as the Europeans and the Americans announced their phony sanctions, they reportedly dispatched their Turkish colleagues to Tehran to set up a new round of nuclear talks with the ayatollahs. If the past is any guide, we can expect for the Iranians to agree to sit down and talk just before the oil embargo is scheduled to be enforced. And the Europeans - with US support - will use the existence of talks to postpone indefinitely the implementation of the embargo.

There is nothing new in this game of fake sanctions. And what it shows more than anything is that the Europeans and the Americans are more concerned with pressuring Israel not to attack Iran's nuclear installations than they are in preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power.

Obama has a second target audience - American Jews. He is using his fake sanctions as a means of convincing American Jews that he is a pro-Israel president and that in the current election season, not only should they cast their votes in his favor, they should sign their checks for his campaign.

Both Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak were quick this week to make clear that these moves are insufficient. They will not force Iran to abandon its nuclear weapons program. More is needed.

As to American Jewry, the jury is still out.

In truth, American Jewry's diffidence towards taking a stand on Iran, or recognizing Obama's dishonesty on this issue specifically and his dishonesty regarding his position on US-Israel ties generally is not rooted primarily in American Jews' devotion to Obama. It isn't even specifically related to American Jewry's devotion to the political Left. Rather it has to do with American Jewish ambivalence to Israel.

The roots of that ambivalence - which is shared by other Western Jewish communities to varying degrees - predate Obama's presidency.

Indeed, they predate the establishment of the State of Israel. And now, as the US and the EU have given Iran at least another six months to a year to develop its nuclear bombs unchecked, it is worth considering the nature and influence of this ambivalence.

Today's principal form of Jew-hatred is anti- Zionism. Anti-Zionism is similar to previous dominant forms of Jew hatred such as Christian anti-Judaism, xenophobic and racist anti- Semitism, and Communist anti-Jewish cosmopolitanism in the sense that it takes dominant, popular social trends and turns them against the Jews. Anti-Zionism's current predominance owes to the convergence of several popular social trends which include Western post-nationalism, and anti-colonialism.

The problem that anti-Zionism poses for American Jewry is that it forces them to pay a price for supporting Israel. This is problematic because Zionism has never been fully embraced by American Jewry. Since the dawn of modern Zionism, the cause of Jewish self-determination placed American Jewish leaders in an uncomfortable dilemma.

UNLIKE EVERY other Diaspora Jewish community, the American Jewish community has always perceived itself as a permanent community rather than an exilic community. American Jews have always viewed the United States as the new Promised Land.

With the formation of the modern Zionist movement in the late 19th century, American Jews found themselves on the horns of a dilemma. Clearly, the state of world Jewry was such that national self-determination had become an existential necessity for non-American Jews.

But while supporting Jewish refugees and a scrappy little country was okay, support for the Zionist cause of Jewish national liberation involved an acceptance of the fact that Israel - not the US - is the Jewish homeland. Moreover, it involved accepting that there are Jewish interests that are independent of - if not necessarily in contradiction with - American interests. For instance, irrespective of the prevailing winds in Washington, and regardless of whether the US supports Israel or not, it is a Jewish interest that Israel exists, thrives and survives.

In a recent op-ed in Haaretz, Hebrew University political science professor Shlomo Avineri contrasted world Jewry's massive mobilization on behalf of Soviet Jewry in the 1970s and 1980s and their relative silence today in the face of Iran's Holocaust denial and open calls for the annihilation of the Jewish state. Avineri is apparently confounded by the disparity between Western Jewry's behavior in the two cases.

But the cause of the disparity is clear. Supporting the right of Soviet Jews to emigrate was easy. Unlike Israel, Soviet Jews were powerless. As such, they were pure victims and supporting them cost Diaspora Jews nothing in terms of their position in their societies.

Just as important, the cause of freedom for Soviet Jewry was perfectly aligned with the West's Cold War policies against the Soviet Union. The frequent Jewish demonstrations outside Soviet legations provided Western leaders with another tool to fight the Cold War.

In contrast, supporting Israel, and the cause of Jewish freedom and self-determination embodied by Zionism, is not cost-free for Diaspora Jews. At root, to support Israel and Zionism involves accepting that Jews have inherent rights as Jews. To be a Zionist Jew in the Diaspora means that you embrace and defend the notion that the Jews have the right to their own interests and that those interests may be distinct from other nations' interests. That is, to be a Zionist involves rejecting Jewish assimilation and embracing the fact that Jews require national independence and power to guarantee our survival. And this can be unpleasant.

PRO-ISRAEL AMERICAN Jews have historically tried to tie their support for Israel to larger, more universal themes, in order to extricate themselves from the need to admit that as Jews and supporters of Israel they have a right and a duty to support Jewish freedom even if it isn't always pretty. Again, for Israel's first several decades, it was about helping poor Jews and refugees. In recent years, the predominant defense has been that Israel deserves support because it is a democracy.

Certainly, these are both reasonable reasons for supporting Israel. But neither support for Israel because it was poor nor support for Israel because it is free is a specifically Zionist reason for supporting Israel. You don't have to be a Zionist to support poor Jewish refugees and you don't have to be a Zionist to support democracy.

You do have to be a Zionist however, to defend the Jews in Israel and throughout the world in a coherent manner when the predominant form of Jew-hatred is anti-Zionism.

You have to be willing to accept and defend the right of the Jewish people to freedom and self-determination in our national homeland against those who deny that right. You have to be a Zionist to defend Israel's right to survive and thrive even though it is no longer poor and its democratically elected government is not liked by the Obama administration.

And you have to be a Zionist to realize that since Jewish survival is dependent on Jewish power, and anti-Zionists reject the right of Jews to have power, that anti-Zionists seek to bring about a situation where Jewish survival is imperiled.

The weakness of American Jewry's response to Iran's genocidal intentions towards Israel is of a piece with its weak response to the forces of anti-Zionism generally and to Jewish anti- Zionists particularly. Since 2007, the US government has effectively ruled out the use of force against Iran's nuclear weapons program and embraced a policy of pursuing negotiations with ayatollahs while enacting impotent sanctions to quell congressional pressure. At least in part, this policy is due to the US's assessment that a nuclear Iran does not pose a high-level threat to US national security.

Both then-president George W. Bush and later Barack Obama determined that an Israeli military strike against Iran's nuclear weapons program does pose a high-level threat to the US. As a consequence, both administrations have taken concerted steps to prevent Israel from attacking Iran.

On the merits, both of these policies are easily discredited. But the fact that they continue to be implemented shows that they are supported by a large and powerful constituency in Washington.

To oppose Iran's nuclear program effectively, American Jews are required to oppose these strongly supported US policies. And at some point, this may require them to announce they support Israel's right to survive and thrive even if that paramount right conflicts with how the US government perceives US national interests.

That is, it may require them to embrace Zionism unconditionally.

No doubt, if they do so, their own conditions will improve. They will finally be able to speak coherently against the gathering forces of anti-Zionism - both from within the Jewish community and from without. This in turn will act as a lightning rod for inspiring American Jews to embrace their Judaism.

With their leaders having abjectly failed to contend with the most powerful form of Jew-hatred, it is no wonder that so many Diaspora Jews are leaving the fold. If they reverse course and go after their attackers, American Jewish leaders will give community members a meaningful reason to proudly embrace their identity.

In a speech this week at the Knesset, Netanyahu explained the different lessons the Holocaust teaches the international community on the one hand, and the Jews on the other.

As far as its universal lessons are concerned, Netanyahu said, "The lesson is that the countries of the world must be woken up, as much as possible, so that they can organize against such crimes.

The lesson is that the broadest possible alliances must be forged in order to act against this threat before it is too late."

As for the Jews, Netanyahu embraced Zionism's core principle: "With regard to threats to our very existence, we cannot abandon our future to the hands of others.

"With regard to our fate, our duty is to rely on ourselves alone."

We must hope that world Jewry will recognize today that the fate of the Jewish people in Israel and throughout the world is indivisible and rally to Israel's side whatever the social cost of doing so. But even if they do not recognize this basic truth, the imperatives of Zionism, of the Jewish people, remain in place.

Originally published in the Jerusalem Post.