Comments on reads 3/31

JoshuaPundit: Massive Attacks On Israel's Borders By 'Peaceful Protesters'

And of course the press, seen here hiding behind a posed 'Palestinian' protester. As you know, people tend to act out more when the cameras are on them, so what we're really seeing is the press inciting violence.

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Twitter user Captain Barak Raz, who identifies himself as a spokesperson for the IDF's division in Judea and Samaria , posted a video of protesters throwing a firebomb at Israeli security forces.

“Firebombs on security forces peaceful protest???,” Raz tweeted when linking to the video. “#Yeahright.”

Raz also posted a picture of a Palestinian child throwing a stone for the photographers.

“Wow that’s one young rioter!!” Raz tweeted. “Peaceful??”

“This is how Palestinian rioters educate their children to terror,” one tweet on the feed read.

That's exactly why Oslo and the entire 'peace process' was always nonsense.

Ask yourself...what kind of parent would take a child of theirs into the middle of a violent riot? What kind of parent would smilingly teach him this kind of hatred?

The official purpose today was to violently penetrate Israel's borders and 'reconquer' Jerusalem.

The unofficial purpose is best expressed by Noah Pollack, executive director of the Emergency Committee for Israel.

“GMJ uses the same PR tactic that has become standard for all the terrorist groups who attack Israel. They want to put the Israelis in a situation where they have to kill people. Hamas, Hezbollah, GMJ—it’s all the same strategy: force the IDF to kill people, get it on video, kick back and enjoy the media furor.”

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Even more revealing are some of the anti-Semitic jackals in the west who are staunchly supporting today's festivities, including Desmond Tutu, Noam Chomsky and Cornell West, Nobel peace laureate Mairead Maguire, and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

FP: I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the West is directly engaged in anti-Semitic genocide via its funding and support of the Palestinians. The conflict would have been resolved a long time ago had it not been for that support, UNRWA being the central component. And it was at Oslo that Israel embarked on a damaging strategy of appeasing the West, just when the West started its decline, thus inviting an increase in genocidal anti-Semitism.

And Israel’s Jewish “friends” in the US assure us that if Israel stopped oppressing the Arabs and retreated from the West Bank, all this would not happen. That, in a sense, it’s true: it would not happen at the borders, but inside Israel.

Barry Rubin: Betrayal Glorified: The Bizarre Jewish Movement to Destroy Israel by Pretending to Save It

Another part of their problem with Israel is that it is, in a sense, too “Jewish” and at odds with their preferred ideology.  They want Israel to be what they want America and Europe to be. Yet instead it is too religious; too traditional; too much of a nation-state; too willing to defend itself; and too willing to recognize its enemies even if they are non-white, non-Western, and non-Christian.

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Yet beyond all of this there is one more point to be understood that is of the greatest importance: the program of this sacrifice (I mean, “save”) Israel for its own good. That is the very strange program of calling for a boycott of the settlements.

Boycotting the settlements will not affect the settlements, or Israel, or the policies of Israel’s Middle Eastern enemies, and it won’t promote the cause of peace. True, this is an attractive strategy because it sounds moderate and supportive of “mainstream” Israel. But that’s only part of it.

No, the main reason is that it will promote the cause of delegitimizing Israel.

The goal is to change the narrative. Instead of blaming the Palestinian leadership’s, Arab regimes’, and revolutionary Islamists’ rejection of Israel’s existence, refusal to make compromises, glorification of terrorism, demonization of Israel, and refusal even won’t negotiate, the fault lies with Israel. They don’t have to change at all. It’s Israel that has to make more concessions and take even more risks.

FP: In fact, the deluded liberal Jews are making a mistake similar to the one made by Israel’ Oslo accords. In both cases it was not and is not realized that the desired reality is not the actual reality and confuse the two will pay a heavy price. In the same manner in which Oslo, which was supposed to achieve peace, ended up in the West blaming Israel for Arab rejectionism, war and terror, the American liberal Jews’ delusion that a Palestinian state will bring peace end up in the destruction of Israel. There are many so deluded in Israel too.

 

Daniel Greenfield: Friday Afternoon Roundup - The Meaning of Freedom

1. KILL PEOPLE 2. GET MONEY 3. PROFIT 4. ALLAH AKBAR

The United States said Thursday it wanted to step up development assistance to Nigeria's restive Muslim-majority north as it urged the Abuja government to address grievances underlying violence.

Carson, while voicing concern about Boko Haram, said that Nigeria's federal government needed to address "the underlying political and socio-economic problems in the north" to prevent extremism.

"The government must also promote respect for human rights by its security forces, whose heavy-handed tactics and extra-judicial killings reinforce the belief that Abuja is insensitive to the concerns of the north," he said.

Carson said that the State Department took Boko Haram's potential threat to the United States "very seriously" but indicated that he opposed a terrorist designation.

FP: Would you now agree with my claim that the US is realigning with Islamism?

 

With targeted media leaks, US shoots down Israel's options

What reasonable interest does someone in the Pentagon have in hardening the Iranian pharaoh’s heart on the eve of Passover, and indicating to him that he has nothing to fear? This borders on insanity.

FP: Yeah, let’s appease Obama some more and get him re-elected.

 

Afghan police officer kills 9 comrades as they sleep

A police officer in eastern Afghanistan shot dead nine of his colleagues as they slept Friday morning and then fled in a government vehicle full of guns and ammunition, according to Afghan and American officials. The nine had been drugged earlier, an Afghan official said.

The incident, which took place in Paktika province, marks one of the deadliest cases of fratricide in Afghanistan this year. The apparent surge in such incidents -- when Afghan soldiers and policemen target their American and Afghan colleagues -- has raised concerns about the state of the war effort during a critical time, just as the Taliban's yearly "spring offensive" has begun.

FP: Building a nation for these people is the errand of a fool with a suicidal wish. See Bill Katz’s WARNING FROM A GROWN-UP.

And history is replete with many dominant powers that tried and failed. That they are not powers anymore validates the argument. Afghanis are as much a nation as the Palestinians.

 

Bill Katz: CALL AN AMBULANCE

A terminally whacked out professor of "sociology and environmental studies," based in Oregon, believes that denial of climate change is aberrant behavior and must be treated.  Professor Kari Norgaard equates the behavior with racism.  She made this assertion while attending a conference at which "scientists" are advocating pushing humans into denser and denser cities so that the rest of the planet can be given back to Mother Nature.  I'd love to know how many federal dollars are involved in this.

FP: What passes for academia and higher education these days.

Global Guerilla: Drones and Operational Maneuverability

Autonomous drone swarms will increasingly replace traditional, human-based military units in the near future.  That's a fact.  It's already starting. 

Some early morning thoughts on how these swarms will maneuver in operational space.

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You should understand that the evolution of warfare drives social organization (which makes it pretty hilarious that our academic institutions don't study it as a discipline unto itself).  The advent of drone swarms will change how our social system is organized.  Hint:  it's VERY anti-democratic and very similar to feudal models of violence. 

FP: But can you imagine what this relatively cheap,and accessible technology will do in the hands of terrorists? A much more effective lower tech WMT than the expensive, high-tech and overdestructive WMD’s.

 

Mark Steyn: Swingin’ Kennedy

And yet, and yet . . .  If you incline to the view that Obamacare is a transformative act, isn’t there something slightly pitiful about the fact that the liberties of over 300 million people hinge on the somewhat whimsical leanings of just one man? I mean, Kennedy seems a cheery enough cove, but who died and made him the all-powerful Sultan of Swing? “It is a decision of the Supreme Court,” explained Nancy Pelosi a few years back in more congenial times for the Democrats. “So this is almost as if God has spoken.”

That’s not how earlier Americans saw it: “If the policy of the government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court,” wrote Abraham Lincoln, “the people will have ceased to be their own rulers.”

FP: A fundamental flaw in the American political system.

 

Debbie Schlussel: Shocker: Immigration Lawyer Married to Arab Helps Muslims Commit Immigration Fraud

Sandra Zaher was apparently swayed by what I call, “the most effective form of free speech”:  pillow talk.  Zaher, an immigration lawyer in Canada, is married to an Arab.  And she has a booming business helping Muslims defraud Canadian and U.S. immigration authorities.  At least, it was booming until she got caught.  What I want to know is why it is even necessary to lie to Canadian immigration authorities.  In hockey, they refer to parties like that (particularly, goalies) as “sieves.”  They let everything–and everyone–in.

So the Muslims Ms. Zaher helped must have really been terrorists (they let those into Canada–and the U.S.–too; see, Imad Hamad, Tariq Ramadan, etc.). On the other hand, only barely mentioned in Canadian coverage of the story, Zaher helped Muslims immigrate from Syria, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates to the United States, too. How many of her Muslim clients committed immigration fraud to get here? I’d bet a lot.

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Since Zaher’s office is so close to the U.S. border, so I wonder how many of her Muslim immigration defrauding clients have since sneaked into the U.S. via Detroit.  But her website tells Syrian and Saudi Arabian Muslims that they should hire her if they want to “visit” the U.S. (See the screenshot from her website, above.) So, she’s likely also involved in direct immigration fraud in the U.S., too.

Ya think Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) cares and is investigating?

Nah, too busy “warning” us about “terrorist” air bags.

FP: Based on the approval of their green cards after the nineteen terrorists committed 9/11, the handling of Obama’s uncle case and our own experience with USCIS, I’ve come to the conclusion that the only thing the agency, like all the components of DHS, is capable of is to cause stupid hassles to legal legal applicants, as the illegal ones, particularly terrorists, either sail through or are ignored. Indeed, Obama’s limiting its agents from doing their duty and his recent giving residency to Syrians, including illegals suggests that its dismantling would have no effect on illegals but at the very least it would terminate the hassling of legal immigrants.

Comments on reads 3/30

Israel Matzav: Obama's BFF stands with Iran against 'western arrogance'

President Obama's closest friend among Middle East leaders visited Tehran on Thursday, where he listened to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad praise the long-standing cooperation between Iran and Turkey against 'western arrogance.'

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What many Americans don't get is that President Obama also stands against 'western arrogance.' He just can't say so until after the elections.

FP: Erdogan is against the arrogance of his allies in NATO—that makes NATO a very reliable organization, complete with a fifth column. As to Obama, he should register as foreign agent representing all enemies of the US. (see next)

 

Bill Katz: OUR DWINDLING DEFENSE

We cut our defenses drastically in the 1970s, as the Democratic Party became increasingly left-wing, especially during the Carter years.  We had Ronald Reagan to come along in 1980 and save American national security. 

And now, under Obama, we're making the same mistake we made back then, the same mistake we've made several times in the last century, with horrible results.  Consider this:

President Obama wants the U.S. Navy to patrol the vast Pacific Ocean and build itself up in the Middle East. Which is a nice dream. But the Navy is conceding it won’t build many ships to make it a reality — especially over the next five years. The Navy’s acknowledged as much — tensely, defensively, and always with a retort — for months. But now it’s officially revised its long-term shipbuilding plan downward and provided details about what’s effectively a five-year shipyard freeze.

According to the new shipbuilding plan (.pdf), released Wednesday by Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, the Navy won’t build any new ballistic missile submarines until 2021. It won’t build any big-deck amphibious assault ships, key for the Navy and the Marines to fight as a team, until 2017, when it will build… one more. After next year, the Navy won’t fund the construction of ships above replacement levels until 2018. All told, the Navy’s downgrading the total number of ships in 30 years it wants to maybe 300, a drop of at least 13 ships. And all this will occur as the Navy surges in the Persian Gulf and the Western Pacific.

 FP: Decline. Everywhere you look. Here’s more from Katz:

GREAT MOMENTS IN EDUCATION

I remember when the New York City school system was regarded as the leading urban school system in the country. 

I remember the pride felt by its teachers.  To become a teacher in New York City was an honor.  The standards were high, and teachers were respected for their knowledge and ability.  We had teachers who could diagram English sentences.  Today kids in New York are lucky to have teachers who can write an English sentence.

The sixties marked the sad turning point.  And the sixties roar on in a bizarre, new policy of political correctness that is worthy of a George Orwell novel:

New York (CNN) – Divorce. Dinosaurs, Birthdays. Religion. Halloween. Christmas. Television. These are a few of the 50-plus words and references the New York City Department of Education is hoping to ban from the city’s standardized tests.

The banned word list was made public – and attracted considerable criticism – when the city’s education department recently released this year’s "request for proposal."  The request for proposal is sent to test publishers around the country trying to get the job of revamping math and English tests for the City of New York.

The Department of Education's says that avoiding sensitive words on tests is nothing new, and that New York City is not the only locale to do so. California avoids the use of the word "weed" on tests and Florida avoids the phrases that use "Hurricane" or "Wildfires," according to a statement by the New York City Department of Education.

What?  There are hurricanes in Florida?  Don't tell the children!

In its request for proposal, the NYC Department of Education explained it wanted to avoid certain words if the "the topic is controversial among the adult population and might not be acceptable in a state-mandated testing situation; the topic has been overused in standardized tests or textbooks and is thus overly familiar and/or boring to students; the topic appears biased against (or toward) some group of people."

Matthew Mittenthal, a spokesman for the NYC Department of Education, said this is the fifth year they have created such a list. He said such topics "could evoke unpleasant emotions in the students."

You know what could evoke unpleasant emotions in students?  Going out into the world with a third-rate, politically correct education and finding how useless it is.  That's a real unpleasant emotion.

This is going to produce more like the following.

Martin Kramer

What happens to aging ’60s American Jewish radicals after the kids move out, the dog dies, and their parents (may they rest in peace), who so valued and cherished Israel, have passed on to their heavenly reward? You guessed it. (Yeah, I know, there are exceptions.)

FP: They fool themselves that they have a Jewish background, but they they are so desperate to be assimilated, to be the “good Jews” that  they have not even realized that they have internalized and are regurgitating anti-Semitism. They are like the converts to catholicism who strive to be more catholic than the pope.

And being Westernized rather than Jewish, they treat the Arab-Israeli conflict like so many Westerners do: ignorantly and without ability to reason.  This causes hugely flawed Western policies that bring the West down the drain. That's also why it's so easy for the Arab propaganda to play them like a violin.

This ignorance of  Jewish history has something to do with assimilated Jews’ failure to learn the lessons of the Holocaust. And some of it has to do with the left having lost the class conflict at home that has had two major consequences: it has turned the West into a kleptocracy--corporate welfare state/crony capitalism--that in turn has pushed the left into seeing Islamists as "oppressed 3rd world", enemies of the West and, therefore, allies in its dismantling it. Between them, the two sides are bringing the West down.

Those who don’t know or forget the past are doomed to repeat it. See also Soccer Dad's Mideast Media Sampler 3/30/12 @JoshuaPundit. This is very apropos these old Jewish radicals:

Nathan Guttman has written an apology for J-Street in the Forward. Guttman never writes that J-Street has become irrelevant but he reports:

The crowd gave only muted applause to comments touting the administration’s positions on the Middle East, Iran and the Palestinian issue. But the audience offered a lengthy standing ovation to Obama’s senior adviser Valerie Jarrett when she trumpeted the president’s health reform plan. Her mention of women’s rights to birth control brought the J Street delegates to their feet.

At the J-Street convention the crowd was more interested in reproductive rights than they were in the Middle East!

They’re not Jews, but lefties. Here’s a couple of examples of the ignorant Western policies derived from these useful idiots:

Ambulances in Gaza run out of fuel; Hamas in no hurry to procure more

From Ma'an:

The health ministry in Gaza said Thursday that 36 ambulances were offline due to the fuel crisis.

Spokesman Adham Abu Salmiya said the ambulances were parked because the ministry has run out of fuel needed to power them.

The shortage comes despite a deal announced Tuesday by the Palestine Electricity Company Egypt to provide gas to Gaza.

Palestine Electricity Company director in Gaza Walid Saad Sayil signed the agreement with the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation in Cairo on behalf of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority.

Sayil told reporters that Egyptian technicians have been instructed to conduct surveys to find the best route for a network of pipelines to transport gas from Sheikh Zweid to the Rafah crossing on Gaza's border.

First Hamas manufactures a fuel crisis in Gaza, and now it is deliberately keeping it going and causing Gazans to suffer. All because it has political and monetary goals it wants to achieve (getting a permanent supply of fuel from Egypt and being able to tax the fuel as it wants.)

And even if people die in the hospital, Hamas frames it as if it is someone else's fault.

And when push comes to shove, NGOs will bail Gaza out:

The Red Cross will provide the ministry of health in Gaza with 150,000 liters of fuel in the next few days to ease the crisis facings its hospitals, officials said Thursday.

Ayman al-Shehabi, spokesman of the group in Gaza, told Ma’an that the humanitarian situation is difficult in Gaza because of the fuel crisis. Hospitals are particularly affected, he said.

Even though Gazans are grumbling and blame Hamas, it doesn't matter - Hamas is paying no real penalty domestically or internationally for treating its citizens with as much disregard for their lives as Bashir Assad has for his people. The press has been remarkably soft on Hamas' deliberate acts to endanger its citizens, and no Arab state will publicly castigate Hamas while they are hoping for a unity deal. Chances are, Hamas knew all along that it could skate through this and end up getting everything it wants because of the dynamic it created.

It's sort of brilliant in a completely sickening, immoral way.

(I have a feeling that Hamas will find enough gas to bus anti-Israel protesters to the border today, though.)

(I already commented on the following, but Debbie does it so much better):

Debbie Schlussel: WTF?! Obama Gives Temporary Protected Status to All Syrian Illegal Aliens in US

Barack Obama and Janet Napolitano just gave thousands of Syrian Muslims–all of them either sympathizers with Hezbollah or the Muslim Brotherhood–permission to stay in the United States forever.  Yup, even illegal alien Syrian Muslims.  He granted all of them TPS–Temporary Protected Status, so they cannot be deported or even arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for being here illegally.  Behind the successful effort to get Obama to approve this absurd golden ticket to extremist Syrians to remain in our midst, is the pro-HAMAS/Hezbollah ADC (American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee) and Dr. Yahya Basha.

Basha, a Syrian multi-millionaire immigrant and extremist Muslim, is a HAMASCAIR activist who previously headed the American Muslim Council, which was shut down for HAMAS fundraising, martyr funding, and because Basha’s hand-picked executive director was paying homicide bombers and plotting assassinations of the Saudi King on behalf of Qaddafi.  Basha recently settled a lawsuit after firing a lawyer he hired because he discovered she was Jewish and married (two no-nos for women under Islam). Basha’s “Basha Diagnostics” business is a major advertiser in Detroit media and has influenced TV and radio stations to pander to Muslims if they want to continue to receive his dollars.  He was cited by the FDA for his shoddy mammograms and faulty equipment.  Yup, we need more Syrians in the mold of Yahya Basha in our midst. Oh, and he’s not even a Democrat.  His offices are regularly used by the dhimmis in Michigan’s Oakland County Republican Party and will probably be Romney’s campaign headquarters for the November election for the county.

There you have it, the utter stupidity of the West, sustaining genocidal terror regimes in the ME that hate its guts and use every opportunity to do it harm. It’s not difficult to see why Islamists claim that it’ll collapse.

Comments on reads 3/29 II

Ron Ben-Yishai: US thwarting Israeli strike on Iran Indeed, in recent weeks the Administration shifted from persuasion efforts vis-à-vis decision-makers and Israel’s public opinion to a practical, targeted assassination of potential Israeli operations in Iran. This “surgical strike” is undertaken via reports in the American and British media, but the campaign’s aims are fully operational: To make it more difficult for Israeli decision-makers to order the IDF to carry out a strike, and what’s even graver, to erode the IDF’s capacity to launch such strike with minimal casualties. The first and most important American objective is to eliminate potential operational options available to the IDF and the State of Israel. I have no intention of detailing or even hinting to the options which the US government aims to eliminate by exposing them in the media. … … Betraying an ally To sum up, the American publications caused the following damage:
• Iran now has a decent picture of what Israel’s and America’s intelligence communities know about Tehran’s nuclear program and defense establishment, including its aerial defenses.

• The Iranians now know about the indications that would be perceived by Washington and Jerusalem as a “nuclear breakthrough”. Hence, Iran can do a better job of concealment.

• The reports make it more difficult to utilize certain operational options. These options, even if not considered thus far, could have been used by the US in the future, should Iran not thwart them via diplomatic and military means.

FP: if you want to know why the US is running out of friends, it’s because it has a systematic record of betraying its friends and appeasing its enemies. Insofar as Israel is concerned, Obama is an enemy and if re-elected he’ll prove implacable.

Here’s more evidence:

Omri Ceren: State Department Spin on Jerusalem Meltdown is Already Wrong

The talking point will be that the Obama administration, by insisting that the status of West Jerusalem is subject to final-status negotiations, was only reiterating the explicit policies of past administrations. If that were true, then Obama critics would be making the same points they’ve made throughout this White House’s diplomatic campaign against Israel: that Obama, by making controversies out of issues everyone had been content to leave quietly buried, was unnecessarily damaging the U.S.-Israeli relationship and the prospects for long-term Middle East peace.

As it so happens, the claim is false. Previous administrations have recognized Israel’s right to at least part of its capital city. The debate has turned on whether the Jewish State is entitled to “all” of Jerusalem, not whether it’s entitled to any part of the city. It was always about not prejudicing whether Israel would have share Jerusalem with a Palestinian state, not whether the entire city was up for grabs (let alone whether the Palestinians can retroactively veto Israel’s sovereign decision to make the parts of Jerusalem it controlled pre-1967 its capital).

This are the rewards Israel reaps for appeasing Obama, yet another strategic blunder. Any ally that he has the back of should watch it like a hawk.


'Hamas' Khaled Mashaal may run for head of Palestinian Authority'

“There is a good chance” Hamas’ political bureau chief will try to compete with PA President Mahmoud Abbas for leadership of PA, Ramallah officials tell Israel Hayom • Abbas says reconciliation talks between his Fatah party and Hamas have broken down.

FP: If he does and wins (who else is there?) rest assured that Obama and the Quartet will deal with him without preconditions. I suspect that’s what they actually want to happen and working towards.



Elliott Abrams: Abandoning Syria

With 9,000 Syrians dead and the Assad regime increasingly isolated and under political, moral, military assault, it appears that the Obama Administration has made its choice: it is abandoning efforts to force the end of that regime.
The plan developed by Kofi Annan is a life-saving development for Assad, as it guarantees months of diplomatic wrangling while Assad methodically murders his way to victory. Town after town, neighborhood after neighborhood may be bombed and reduced to rubble, the death toll may double or triple, but there will be endless meetings in nice hotels in Europe and the Middle East. We can see that future right now, in stories like this: “Syria accepted a cease-fire drawn up by U.N. envoy Kofi Annan on Tuesday, but the diplomatic breakthrough was swiftly overshadowed by intense clashes between government soldiers and rebels that sent bullets flying into Lebanon.” A few more months of this is all that Assad needs.

FP: Is Assad an ally of the US? No. Is he an ally of Iran? Yes. Then he’ll stay in power. But even if he fails, Turkey will arrange for the MB to take over. America does not have a say in it.



Gal Beckerman: Peter Beinart's Big Zionist Experiment

As for what American Jews should do to try and bring about a more liberal Israel in line with these humanistic values, Beinart has two suggestions. First, he thinks we should invest more in Jewish education so that a population besides the Orthodox knows and cares about Israel. And second, he recommends a boycott of goods produced in the Occupied Territories or, as he prefers we call them, “undemocratic Israel.” Both of these are fine ideas, but the first is prohibitively expensive, as Beinart himself acknowledges, and the second is likely to have absolutely zero effect. In short, they are both thought experiments with minimal realistic effect and they, too, reflect what is so wrongheaded about Beinart’s approach.

FP: Actually, both suggestions are not fine and it’s not just a matter of cost. There are not only Orthodox Jews in the US, but also Reform and Conservative. Yet Beinart criticizes them too for being blind supporters of Israel. If so, what kind of Jewish education is left? What Beinart has in mind, in fact, is not Jewish education, but rather leftist education. That will turn youth into Beinarts and they will be useful idiots just like him. And they will suggest solutions just as ineffective and morally upside down as his second one, and as his entire self-centered screed.

Comments on reads 3/29

Elder of Ziyon: US State Dept. dodging question of Jerusalem in briefing

In response, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, made a statement:

U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, today called on the Administration to publically recognize Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel. During today’s Department of State press briefing, the Department’s spokesperson refused to answer whether Jerusalem is located in Israel and whether it is the capital of Israel. The questions were related to a press release issued Monday by the Department that noted ongoing travel by a Department official to “Algeria, Qatar, Jordan, Jerusalem, and Israel,” implying that Jerusalem and Israel are two distinct entities. State later issued a release noting the official’s travel to “Algiers, Doha, Amman, Jerusalem, and Tel Aviv.” Statement by Ros-Lehtinen:

“Now, the Administration has gone even further. A mistake on a press release is understandable, but today the Administration doubled down on its determination to treat Jerusalem as separate from Israel. Where does the Administration think Jerusalem is? On Mars?

“Legitimizing the myth that Jerusalem isn’t part of Israel undermines our ally Israel’s sovereign right to designate its own capital, and lends credibility to efforts by Palestinian leaders and extremists who continue to deny the connection of the Jewish people to their historic capital, Jerusalem.

“The Administration needs to face reality, recognize publicly that Jerusalem is the undivided capital of Israel, and fully enforce U.S. law by moving our embassy to Jerusalem.”

FP: In the context of the open mic discussion of Obama and Medvedev, imagine how Israel will be treated if Obama is re-elected.

 

Elder of Ziyon: "One of America's closest allies"

 

 

FP: Isn’t our brilliant orator president worthy of re-election? I’m sure he is taken seriously everywhere he goes. (see next)

 

JoshuaPundit: The Carpet We've Traveled - With Barack Obama!

 

 

 

Mock him, night day and always...he can't take it!

Cheerfully swiped from Gerard over at American Digest

FP: Geez, isn’t that racist?

 

Sultan Knish: The Bankrupt Race Card

The last two Democratic presidents were Southern governors, but the current occupant is a veteran of the corrupt urban political machine where there are only two games in town and when the money runs out, this is the one you play. The money is running out, the polls are running down and accordingly we have been treated to an episode of grievance theater, with our beloved leader in the role of healer and inciter.

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Obama helped Al Sharpton achieved an unprecedented national profile in order to marshal that part of his base which cares less about jobs, than about finding someone to blame. The Trayvon Martin circus is a bullhorn urging that all of us, black or white, to stop focusing on the economy and start focusing on race.

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Our racial dysfunction has always been secondary to our political dysfunction and now our political dysfunction is second to none. We have the best government that Warren Buffett's money could buy and that ACORN's election fraud can achieve. And we have a national government that is starting to look like the dysfunctional urban governments at the center of the grievance theaters.

Chicago nearly went bankrupt in 1930. New York nearly went bankrupt in 1975. But states have bailed out cities and the federal government has bailed out states. When there isn't enough money to keep the dysfunctional political machine built on corruption and subsidies going, there's always some larger entity to foot the bill.

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The local productions of grievance theater have gone national and we are all compelled to watch it play out. No matter what happens to George Zimmerman or what we learn about Trayvon Martin, the country has been turned into unwilling participants in a national drama that places a distorted idea of race at the center of our identity for the benefit of the same hucksters and politicians who have destroyed the city and are hard at work destroying the country.

FP: What exactly did people think was going to happen when they elected a president by affirmative action? The consequences for the US are precisely what could be expected.

 

Soccer Dad: Gulf U (via JoshuaPundit)

The New York Times recently featured a "Special Report," Elite Schools Find New Base in Emirates:

The universities are also contributing to much-needed original research on the Middle East, which education experts say can be patchy and outdated. The N.Y.U. Abu Dhabi Institute is spending $35 million on research into Middle Eastern issues. Wharton Abu Dhabi, an office that opened in early 2010, is supervising 30 research projects funded by the CERT Foundation, the entrepreneurial arm of the Higher Colleges of Technology in Abu Dhabi.

“Our goal is to create and disseminate knowledge in the region and the best way to do that was to set up an office in the Mideast,” said Pankaj Paul, regional manager for Wharton’s U.A.E. office, the business school’s sole presence outside the United States.

Hmmm. They're studying "Middle East issues" in Abu Dhabi. I wonder how academic that enterprise is! All in all the article reads more like a brochure for those looking to study in the Gulf, rather than a serious journalistic effort. After all, how could the New York Times have failed to note the arrest of Nasser bin Ghaith last year?

FP: As if Western education and research has not been sufficiently corrupted by Arab and Islamic money. I guess academics cannot sit still while the kleptocratic alliance between politicians and corporations gets rich—heck, the latter don’t even have PhD’s. With Middle eastern immigrants flooding the West to escape the Arab “spring” and the Western academia flooding the Islamic world, what do you expect the future of Western civilization to be?

 

Bill Katz: COURT?  WHAT SUPREME COURT?

As usual, the Obama administration is ready for any contingency, any emergency, in its quest to serve the American people.  Choke.  From The Hill: 

The White House has no contingency plans in place in the event the Supreme Court rules the healthcare law is unconstitutional.

When you think you're perfect, why plan?

White House officials said Wednesday they remain “confident” that the healthcare reform law is constitutional and is implementing all the provisions of the law.

Are they aware of the Supreme Court proceedings dealing with this law?  Recordings are available for a nominal fee.

If the law is thrown out, there's “no contingency plan in place,” principal deputy press secretary Josh Earnest said at Wednesday’s press briefing with reporters. “We're focused on maximizing the benefits of this law.”

Joshy baby, if the law is declared unconstitutional you can't put it in force.  Didn't you go to high school?

President Obama was in South Korea for the first two days of the High Court’s arguments. Earnest said Obama has followed the case through news reports but he’s unsure if Obama has listened to the audio from the Supreme Court.

He doesn't have to.  Someone can explain.

On this kind of thoroughness the health care of our citizens may depend.  Aren't you confident?  Aren't you ready for four more years? Maybe you'd better get your annual physical now.

FP: I was never impressed—to put it politely--with the democracy of 5 to 4 decisions of 9 unelected, politically appointed judges affecting the entire nation and the illusion that the process is constitutional, not political. But perhaps Obama is playing a game that may yet turn to be effective: without an alternative he may count on the justices to be considerate of precisely that if and hold their nose and not do it. Obama is not competent enough to come up with his own healthcare plan—ObamaCare is a misnomer, it is actually CongressCare—or an alternative, but he is probably shrewd enough to play such a game.

Incidentally, Katz also writes:

A SAUDI HINT? – The Saudi oil minister, in a column for Financial Times, says that high oil prices are not good for anyone, and that Saudi Arabia will do what it can to bring them down.  Hmm.  Just in time for the American election?  I wonder what Obama would give the Saudis in exchange for some real, politically timed, market manipulation.  Don't be shocked if gas at the pump suddenly starts dropping in price just as you're getting ready to go to the polls.

Go back and check that I’ve already predicted that something will happen to lower the price of oil in time for the election.

 

Debbie Schlussel: Olympics Drops Volleyball Bikini Requirement to Appease Muslims

The International Olympic Committee, which still refuses to memorialize the Israeli athletes massacred by Muslims at the 1972 Munich Olympics, is stepping up its pandering and appeasement of Muslims.  The Committee just ruled that it will no longer require women’s beach volleyball teams to wear bikinis . . . to appease Muslim countries.  The Olympics are encouraging Muslim countries, like Saudia Arabia, to send female sports teams to this summer’s London Games, to meet certain feminist-imposed standards.  And here is the result–burqa beach volleyball. Oh, and they also decided to change how teams qualify for women’s beach volleyball at the Olympics . . . also to give the Muslimas a chance to compete. See, the Munich Olympic massacre worked.

FP: The self-dhimmification continues.

 

Matt Taibbi: With Blistering Dallas Fed Report, Ending Too-Big-To-Fail Goes Mainstream

Wall Street is buzzing about the annual report just put out by the Dallas Federal Reserve. In the paper, Harvey Rosenblum, the head of the Dallas Fed's research department, bluntly calls for the breakup of Too-Big-To-Fail banks like Bank of America, Chase, and Citigroup.

The government's bottomless sponsorship of these TBTF institutions, Rosenblum writes, has created a "residue of distrust for government, the banking system, the Fed and capitalism itself."

The report (PDF), entitled, "Choosing the Road to Prosperity: Why We Must End Too-Big-To-Fail Now," is written in a surprisingly readable style and is illustrated with reader-friendly cartoons and pictographs. It uses rhetoric that, for the Fed, is extremely candid and colorful, going beyond an arcane analysis of monetary policy to focus on the cultural damage of Too-Big-To-Fail.

"These psychological side-effects of Too-Big-To-Fail can't be measured, but they're too important to ignore," Rosenbaum writes. "People disillusioned with capitalism aren't as eager to engage in productive activities. They're likely to approach economic decisions with suspicion and cynicism, shying away from the risk-taking that drives entrepreneurial capitalism."

FP: I would love to be proven wrong, but the kleptocratic alliance between Wall Street and the political system has had a destructive impact on the US that the decline is not reversible. That two protest movements from both extremes of the political spectrum have been neither serious nor able to dent the system is evidence for that. Every democratic system, particularly successful one that become dominant, ended up declining and collapsing due to the same self-destructive forces. Here’s some examples:

Dispatches: How The Banks Never Lose

How the Rich Beat the Taxman

The Midas Formula: Trillion Dollar Bet

Overdose – The Next Financial Crisis

Crash: How Long Will It Last?

Quants: The Alchemists of Wall Street

The Fabulous Life Of Billion Dollar Wall Street Ballers

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

Money Talks: Profits Before Patient Safety

Big Bucks, Big Pharma - Marketing Disease & Pushing Drugs

BP: $30 Billion Blowout

And so on.And this does not even touch military overstretching abroad.

Comments on reads 3/28 II

Bill Katz: THAT OPEN MIKE

That open mike flap involving President Obama and outgoing Russian President Medvedev continues to have repercussions.  Karl Rove believes it can damage Obama in the general election, and possibly cost him a second term:

The effects of Mr. Obama’s remarks in Seoul go beyond foreign affairs. If the president believes it is important to his reelection to conceal from Americans his response to Russians demands to halt development of a missile defense for Europe, voters have every right to ask: What other surprises does he plan to spring on us if he’s reelected?

That's a good question, and it should be asked.  But will it?  Rove is onto something, I think, but he makes the point that Republicans must learn to exploit the president's blunder:

This won’t all happen by itself. To make the most of Mr. Obama’s statement, Republicans will need to raise it again and again in speeches, ads, videos and debates.

And that means learning to deal with the mainstream media's relentless pro-Obama spin.  I could barely believe my ears yesterday when CNN reported Mitt Romney's critical reaction to Obama's slip, but then turned it around as a net loss for Romney...because Medvedev issued a statement criticizing him.  In other words, it's a net loss for a candidate if the president of a hostile country criticizes that candidate.  Amazing.  The sixties are really here again. 

I believe that, if Obama is re-elected, it will because of press bias, as it was in 2008.  The Republicans must learn what Reagan taught – how to speak over the heads of the journalists and directly to the American people.  The president has provided an opening with an outrageous example of his duplicity.  Republicans must slam through it.

FP: Yes, that’s one re-election factor, but only because the American public is gullible and lacks knowledge and ability to reason, which is what the media—the product of the same collapsed education system—exploits.

But the second reelection factor is the poor quality of the Republican party and its candidates: that they cannot dislodge the worst presidential failure proves it.

This is an American systemic failure and leadership crisis and decline are its integral components.

 

Lee Smith: Obama’s About-Face on Syria

If Bashar al-Assad manages to survive the uprising that has tested his regime over the last year, he’ll owe not only his allies, Iran and Russia, but the White House as well. Over the past few months, the Obama Administration has come to the Syrian president’s rescue—not because of any love for Assad, but because Obama wants to stay on Russia’s good side. The latest? The administration endorsed the same peace plan for Syria, put forward by former U.N. head Kofi Annan, that Moscow has been pushing. It calls for a ceasefire and dialogue between the opposition and the government that is slaughtering them. This Russia-U.S. condominium marks a dramatic turnaround in the White House’s regime change policy for Syria.

…

As the president recently confided to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, once he gets through this election, then he can focus on a reduction in bilateral missile defense. And then there are the further cuts in nuclear weapons that he wants to pursue with Moscow. In his second term, the president may get closer to the legacy he sketched as an undergraduate—a world where the United States and Russia are no longer on the brink of mutually assured destruction. The only problem is that this is not going to stop Iran from getting the bomb, or prevent nuclear weapons spreading like dandelions across the Middle East.

FP: I have a different interpretation: Obama has essentially lost the ME. Having betrayed allies and rewarded enemies that are implacable and, therefore, remain enemies, he no longer has any credibility or leverage—witness his continued funding openly hostile Egypt and Palestinians) and his inability to stop the Iranian nukes.

Erdogan: No need for strike on civilian nuke program

Qatar says no US strike on Iran from its soil

See what I mean?

So, like the child who leaves the mess he created, he is going to try his luck elsewhere. But his utter failure in the ME has exposed a weakness that ensures he’ll fail wherever he goes from now on. Besides, China holds the US by the financial balls and in negotiations Putin will eat him alive—remember how Obama backed out of the missiles in Eastern Europe?

Obama is a result of American decline—he would have never been elected had the US not been in decline already—and he is accelerating it, just as I argued repeatedly. If he is re-elected—and he probably will be—expect a very fast and steep downfall.

 

JoshuaPundit: Buh Bye, Tzipi Livni

I note that the former foreign minister under Ehud Olmert and the leader of Israel's Kadima Party, Tzipi Livni, has been resoundingly defeated in the Kadima primary. The new head of Kadima is Shaul Mofaz, a former Defense Minister and Army chief of staff.

Mofaz garnered between 64.5 and 65% of the vote, with Livni getting the rest. it's an extremely fitting result for the career of the egotistical drama queen of Israeli politics.

To give you an idea of how much Livni is disliked personally even by people that agree with many of her views,bear in mind that in the last election Kadima actually won the most seats, although not enough to govern.

As is customary,Israel's president polled the leaders of the other parties to see whether any of them were willing to form a governing coalition with Kadima and endorse Livni for prime minister - and none of them would,not even Labor or Meretz.

Mofaz has reached out to her and asked her to stay in Kadima, which is probably a huge mistake on his part, since she will probably accept once she gets her emotions under control.

And while Mofaz,an ex-Likudnik is a bit more to the right than Livni,I wouldn't count on seeing Kadima enter the Likud governing coalition any time soon.

FP: Both the West and Israel suffer from an acute crisis of leadership. In Israel the problem is worse, there have been several cases of fallen leaders who were returned to government e.g. Peres and Barak. I hope this won’t happen in the Livni case, who is probably one of the worst failures in Israeli politics, so good riddance.

The problem is that Mofaz is not an impressive leader—he is a sort of Israeli Romney, but then so are the rest of Israel’s politicians. The entire Kadima party is a conglomerate of opportunists who left Labor and Likud—that in itself should raise a question mark--to exploit Sharon’s own split from the latter. Reminds me of an yiddish saying “Fin Herzl a leck und fin Marx a shmeck” (A lick from Herzl and whiff from Marx), in other words, no substance.

The only raison d’etre for the party is to offer some Knesset seats to its top of the list and it’s not entirely clear how many of them will be left after an election, the usual record of new parties. Not many of Kadima’s own members bothered to vote in the primaries—that’s telling.

 

Soccer Dad: Running to asylum (via JoshuaPundit

This Is Just the Start by Thomas Friedman, March 1, 2011

Add it all up and what does it say? It says you have a very powerful convergence of forces driving a broad movement for change. It says we’re just at the start of something huge.

Asylum claims up from Arab nations , Al Jazeera, March 27, 2012 (h/t tweet from Daled Amos)

The number of people seeking asylum in developed countries has risen 20 per cent in 2011, with the Arab Spring movements fueling a sharp rise in arrivals from Libya, Syria and Tunisia, the UN refugee agency has said.

The number of asylum applications in 44 countries reached 441,300 during the year, up from 368,000 recorded in 2010, the agency said on Tuesday.

FP: Didn’t I say we’re on the European path? Let’s see: Amerabia?

 

Michal Toiba: Have war, may travel

More and more Israelis are seeking foreign passports in the wake of the looming threat of a war with Iran. The question is: Are they safer elsewhere?

FP: That’s probably the solution the West is seeking for the Arab-Israeli conflict. Problem is their Jews are immigrating to Israel.

French teens attack Jewish boy, 12, near Paris school

Attackers hit boy on his neck and call him “dirty Jew”

Toulouse school getting hate mail since attack

School's e-mail reportedly filled with messages calling for murder of Jews, linking attack to Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

See what I mean?

Yaakov Ahimeir: The UN is a battlefield

Does anyone really think that cutting off ties will prompt the Human Rights Council to beg Israel to change its mind?

FP: Does Ahimeir (and the Israeli left, particularly in the media) believe that not cutting ties will make any difference? There is something called a spine and one would have thought that Israel in the historical context of the Jews would have created one in them, but not in all apparently.

Pentagon seeks additional funding for Israel’s Iron Dome

“Supporting the security of the state of Israel is a top priority of President Obama and Secretary Panetta,” says Pentagon press secretary • Obama’s budget for next year calls for $3.1 billion in military aid for Israel, more than any other country.

Israel to build cutting-edge fence along Syrian border, says PM

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tours Israel’s border area in the south • Fence currently separating Israel and Syria is outdated, and last year demonstrators breached the section of it near Majdal Shams and Quneitra.

FP: If Israel is relying exclusively on a “bunker” defensive strategy at the expense of vanquishing its enemies, it is delusional.

'Natural gas exports will 1st go to Arab neighbors'

Landau says gas can be means to improve regional ties; Israel, Greece sign agreement for cooperation on environmental issues.

And so is this.

 

Classic Massachusetts: Uncle Obama Walks

A judge today ordered the OUI (Operating Under the Influence) charge against President Obama’s uncle “continued without a finding for one year.”

What does that mean? It means that a criminal immigrant with illegally-obtained documents who ignored a federal order to leave the country will get away with almost plowing into a police car while driving drunk.

In the town were I live (and drive) every day.

But, Obama, 67, must surrender his license for 45 days, effective today, the judge ruled.

Oh, goody! The driver’s license he can’t legally have, he has to give it up....for 45 days. Now that’s what I call “throwin’ the book at him!”

Meanwhile, by issuing the CWOF, the court has done President Obama’s second-favorite illegal immigrant relative a favor:

If your case is continued without a finding, it can help you in cases where a finding of guilty would cause you problems in your career or educational opportunities. Some job applications ask you if you've ever been found guilty of a crime, and you can honestly answer "no". A guilty plea vs. a cwof may make a difference for certain law enforcement careers, security clearances, the right to own certain firearms, eligibility for certain scholarships or financial aid, or many other reasons.

Yes, life is good for a guy who’s openly living in the US illegally and committing felony fraud/tax crimes in order to do so. By Memorial Day, Onyango will be back behind the wheel—not in Kenya, his only legal residence—but illegally, right on the streets where I live.

FP: Having gone through the legal immigration and naturalization process, both myself and recently my wife, this treatment of illegal immigrants (which is common)induces nausea. America claims it’s a nation of equal rights? Let’s be serious.

Comments on reads 3/28

Elder of Ziyon: Iran and Hamas agreeing to cooperate in case of war

Al Mustaqbal of Lebanon reports that the recent visit by Hamas' Mahmoud al Zahar to Iran was meant to strengthen ties between Hamas and Iran and to talk about specific tasks for Hamas in case Israel attacks Iran's nuclear program.

According to sources familiar with the details of the visits, there were meetings between the highest level Iranian political and security officials with leaders of Hamas. Zahar's visit to Tehran involved the following objectives:

1. Determine the role of Hamas in Gaza if Israel attacked Iran.

2. The introduction of missiles into the Gaza Strip to strengthen the Hamas arsenal that would be ready for any confrontation that could erupt between Israel and Iran. It is assumed that Gaza is one of the arenas of battle.

3. Increased financial support for Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Iran gave Ismail Haniyeh $33 million that was distributed immediately after his return to the sector to the staff of Hamas.

4. To thwart reconciliation efforts between Hamas and Fatah in order to keep the Gaza Strip a reliable tool of Iranian influence.

The article goes on to say that Iran is encouraging al-Zahar's influence against Khaled Meshal within Hamas.

FP: The consequences of strategic blunders that cannot be fixed tactically.

 

Sarkozy demands TV stations not air Toulouse attack footage

French police investigate origins of a package sent to Al Jazeera containing footage of the attack at the Ozar Hatorah school • The package was apparently sent during the siege of the apartment where Mohamed Merah was holed up.

FP: It’s precisely because Arab media won’t publish the video that it probably should be published. Let everybody see what the Islamists are capable of.  The media always promptly publishes visuals of Arab victims who are the results of Israel being forced to defend itself, even when they’re fakes, but the public never actually sees the cruelty with which Arabs murder innocent Jews. I am sure this contributes to the anti-Israel bias and anti-Semitism.

The only reluctance I have, other than decency, is that even that may not make a difference to those who disregard the barbarity and dangers of Arabs; in fact it may scare them even more into dhimmification and anti-Semitism. But this may well be one of those unpleasant necessities.

 

Report: Moroccan Jew murdered in Fez

A day after Israeli diplomat is evacuated from Rabat, Morocco, amid angry protest march, unidentified assailant uses an iron hammer to attack a Jewish man reportedly working as a rent collector in Fez.

FP: It’s dangerous for Jews to live in Europe, why would they want to leave in the Arab world?

 

To help childless couples, Israel may allow frozen embryo donation

Couples who have undergone fertility treatments resulting in frozen embryos must instruct hospitals every five years to keep, destroy or donate embryos to research. Donating embryos to couples who want children is not yet an option in Israel.

FP: In a country where demographics are such an acute issue the lack of this option is unconscionable. Another damage caused by religion?

Comments on reads 3/27 II

benncnn

UN says #Syria death toll tops 9,000 since beginning of uprising against President Bashar Al-Assad.

DailyNewsEgypt

Egypt among world's worst violators of religious freedom, says report

FP: But UNHCR wants to investigate Israel and here’s J Street’s Ben Ami:

Fear and Loathing on J Street

“Within Israel, democratic rights are being challenged: The status of women is under attack, the control of the religious right seems to grow by the week,” and the construction of Jewish homes in Jerusalem continues undeterred, Ben-Ami complained to a crowd of nearly 2,500. “All of this is enough to make someone give up and go home.”

Ben-Ami—like many speakers at the conference—offered a simple remedy.

“Give up the land,” Ben-Ami said, “necessary for a Palestinian state and secure Israel’s future as a Jewish democracy, or keep all the land and sacrifice either the Jewish or democratic nature of the Jewish state.”

Another one of those who, when god distributed stupidity he stood several times in line. But hey, if Soros funds you, what the heck. And Israel has its own idiots:

“Israel today is the most unequal society in the western world with the exception of you,” said Avishay Braverman, a liberal member of the Israeli Knesset. “It’s clear today that we have to partition the Holy Land as soon as possible.”

Pretty logical, no? Nobody like liberals to make sense.

 

FP_Magazine

Eating Cinnabon in Damascus: Why are foreign companies still holding on in Syria?

FP: What a stupid question. If academic and media institutions kissed dictators’ass to the last moment and denied it when the tyrants fell, who expects for-profit organizations to be any better?

 

NoahPollak

@AMSlaughter is babbling about Hamas embracing the two-state solution & joining peace process. Everyone is taking crazy pills

FP: The logical conclusion of Oslo and appeasement of the West by concessions to the Arabs. If one side keeps caving under pressure and the other shoots missiles and applies terror, what do you think a declining West will do?

Here’s a hint—do you see the connection?

Manfred Gerstenfeld: Tale of 2 murderers

American author Bruce Bawer describes this in his latest book, The New Quislings. Its subtitle is How the International Left Used the Oslo Massacre to Silence Debate about Islam. Vidkun Quisling, the Norwegian PM under the German occupation, became the template for a person who betrays his country and collaborates with foreign totalitarians. His name has even become a generic word in dictionaries. Bawer suggests that there are leftists, to be called “New Quislings,” who betray democracy by helping totalitarian Islam. He also describes how he himself was demonized in Norway after the murders.

…

Whitewashers are already calling Merah “a victim.” Yet the murders he committed should raise far more serious questions about Europe than those committed by Breivik. There are many more terrorists around like Merah, and his acts have much broader support.

Self-dhimmification continues apace in Europe. If I were Islamist I would advocate more massacres to accelerate the process.

 

Palestinian Authority faces economic woes, public anger as statehood efforts lag

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Even as attempts to end the Israeli occupation have idled in recent years, Palestinians and their international backers have hailed the West Bank’s expanding economy as one critical step on the path to statehood. Now the Palestinian Authority is mired in financial crisis, and there is a growing sentiment here that economic development efforts intended to lay the groundwork for independence have backfired.

That feeling was bolstered this month as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank warned that a growing deficit is imperiling the Palestinian Authority’s gains and faulted Israel for doing too little to facilitate business and trade. Donors pledged support at a meeting in Brussels last week, and U.S. lawmakers released $88.6 million in development aid that had been frozen since August. But concerns remain that foreign aid will continue to drop as the West focuses on its own economic woes and Arab neighbors grapple with political upheavals.

FP: The only time when the Palestinian economy in both West Bank and Gaza prospered and progressed significantly and had a semblance of freedom was under Israeli rule. As soon as the PLO returned from Tunis it all went down the drain.

Imagine now what will happen if a Palestinian state is declared without termination of the state of war and renouncement of the right of return. The new state will be a failed state from the start and each and every failure will be blamed on Israel, particularly once the West realizes that it will have to continue to sustain it for as long as it exists, something which it is in denial of. The more it will fail and the more it fund it, the more it will blame Israel.

So if it is to be blamed anyway, better in security than under terror from both Gaza and the West Bank.

 

WILLIAM SALETAN: Why Won’t They Listen? ‘The Righteous Mind,’ by Jonathan Haidt

Haidt seems to delight in mischief. Drawing on ethnography, evolutionary theory and experimental psychology, he sets out to trash the modern faith in reason. In Haidt's retelling, all the fools, foils and villains of intellectual history are recast as heroes. David Hume, the Scottish philosopher who notoriously said reason was fit only to be "the slave of the passions," was largely correct. E. O. Wilson, the ecologist who was branded a fascist for stressing the biological origins of human behavior, has been vindicated by the study of moral emotions. Even Glaucon, the cynic in Plato's "Republic" who told Socrates that people would behave ethically only if they thought they were being watched, was "the guy who got it right."

FP: I agree with Haidt’s analysis, but not with his conclusion. Reasoning, independent and critical thinking require serious mental training precisely in order to overcome emotions and intuition that are good targets of manipulation and exploitation. That used to be the function of education (and academics like Haidt), but it has now been substituted with vocational training and indoctrination that appeals to, instead of balance non-rational and irrational thinking, leaving the latter as the only capacity on which the public can rely comfortably. But that serves the kleptocratic state quite well and Haidt is not the only academic who inadvertently accepts it.

 

Gun-shy TSA gets critic booted from Congressional panel

Bruce Schneier, the security expert who coined the term "security theater" to describe the Transportation Security Agency's airport screening procedures, was uninvited from speaking on a Monday Congressional panel at the insistence of the TSA.

In a blog post, Schneier reports that he had been officially scheduled to appear at a hearing sponsored by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, but received word on Friday that he had been removed from the witness list.

"The excuse was that I am involved in a lawsuit against the TSA, trying to get them to suspend their full-body scanner program," Schneier wrote. "But it's pretty clear that the TSA is afraid of public testimony on the topic, and especially of being challenged in front of Congress."

This is not the first time the TSA has engaged in brinksmanship to avoid having to appear on a panel alongside its critics. The TSA abruptly canceled a planned appearance before the same committee last year. The agency objected to sitting alongside a representative of EPIC, a privacy group that also had a pending lawsuit against the TSA.

FP: See my previous post and comment on Barry Rubin peace. This is an example of what he’s talking about. TSA was from the beginning an ineffective bureaucratic golem bound to turn on its master and customers.

An even better example is the following:

Charles Hugh Smith: Welcome to the United States of Orwell, Part 2: Law-Abiding Taxpayers Are Treated as Criminals While the Real Criminals Go Free

As we all know, crafty (and politically protected) bankers are free to loot churches, muppets and the taxpayers at will while taxpayers are looted by lawless government. Here is a typical account of state thievery. It is anonymous for a good reason: As I noted last week, law-abiding citizens are terrified of their governments, local, state and Federal, as they know that these agencies are literally above the law and will exact retribution on anyone who reveals their tyrannical trashing of due process or who questions their feudal pillaging of oppressed debt-serfs. (I previously addressed this topic in Welcome to the Predatory State of California--Even If You Don't Live There March 20, 2012)

…

Meanwhile, Federal prosecution of financial fraud has fallen to a 20-year low. Coincidence? No; lack of funding and powerful political protection play roles in protecting the real criminals from any risk. Brown-nosing Republicans have made ceaseless efforts to gut any agencies still clinging to an interest in prosecuting financial crimes, but financial tyranny starts by gutting the statutes themselves so fraud, embezzlement, etc. are no longer crimes.

Not filing a tax return in California even though you moved out of the state 10 years ago, however, is a crime--but as in an Orwellian nightmare, the "law" isn't written down, it is embedded in some bureaucratic rules that are hidden from the taxpaying citizens. It isn't "legal," but since due process has been abolished, who cares what's legal or illegal?

It's actually very simple: whatever the state or Federal government does to you, that's legal. Whatever action you take to protect your rights is illegal.

California is the progressive state in most decline. And, as it turns out, most kleptocratic. And as California goes…

Which validates my core argument that between them the political and corporate system (they are one) won’t stop as long as there is public money to rob.

Comments on reads 3/27

Sultan Knish: All the Pravda

In the Post-American World ruled by the teleprompter and the trending topic, nothing that Obama says actually matters. His only power is over American allies, and only those allies who are willing to endure him and listen to him. And that is a diminishing number … it was about a conniving liar who was using us as a pretext in whatever game he was playing.

…

Russia is not exactly in the same league. It's doubtful that Putin was worried about what Obama would or wouldn't agree to. Ever since Hope and Change took an oath on a mirror, Moscow has been casually slapping around Washington D.C. or swatting it away like a pesky fly. That isn't about to change now.

…

The only thing that Obama really needs from Russia is for the reformed reds to avoid causing him any problems … That makes the tradeoff a fairly simple one. Russia avoids creating a crisis until after election day and in return they will get the same charming fellow in the Oval Office who won't care what happens afterward to all the small country with funny names.

…

It's a sad testament to the Republic that these days our political system has converged with the Russian one. Some twenty years after the Soviet Union fell, the American and Russian leaders have a good deal in common. They both oversee mafia states that spend money wildly for their 1 percent who are in power or close to those who are, while playing class warfare games with business titans when they aren't hitting them up for cash.

Propaganda is the only thing on television. Enemies of the state are forever being denounced in the most vulgar and violent language. Nationalization and federalization are passed off as reform programs, when they are actually payday programs to shove as much money and power to the right people as possible. And the goal of those in power appears to be a perpetual one party state run for their own benefit.

Obama and Putin are both petty tyrants living in a house of mirrors, czars of their own egos, corrupt and corrupting forces that hang around the necks of two great nations. They don't quite understand each other, though both are lawyers and bag men for their respective syndicates, neither do they respect each other. But they both know how to play the game.

FP: I wrote a long time ago an article on my technical web site about the similarity between the Soviet and American systems much before Obama came along:

What struck me after living in the US for a while, was the similarity, at a very fundamental level, between the US  and Soviet systems: while the means by which they attain their objectives differ, the objectives themselves are, for all practical purposes, the same: control and exploitation of the public. Both systems indoctrinate with propaganda from childhood. But because the Soviet system had coercion at its disposal, the propaganda did not need to be convincing: if you stepped out of line, the government came hard after you. That’s why propaganda could be blatant and absurd, and the public was fully aware of it and did not believe it, only pretended to. That is also one reason why the Soviet system collapsed.

The US system cannot use coercion (well, not at the Soviet level, at any rate, but the way things are going, give it time), so it must rely solely on propaganda, which must be believed. This means it’s got to be very subtle and psychologically simple and attractive, rather than blatant and absurd, to be at once unobtrusive and effective. It’s no coincidence that the mother of marketing and advertising originates here. If you step out of line, the government does not need to come after you: business, the media, and even the public itself will. They cannot jail, torture, or disappear you (the system is testing the waters, though), but they will try to marginalize you, and make it very difficult to function professionally and socially. And at least insofar as members of the public are concerned, they are enforcers without realizing it. Quite elegant.

Otherwise put, under Soviet “communism”, everybody must believe without questioning in the party, which almost nobody did; under US “capitalism”, everybody must believe without questioning in “the market”, which almost everybody does (I use quotes, because neither system is the true thing, as they pretend).

Neither system has changed much since then. But it does get worse:

Bill Katz: OBAMA AND THE ISLAMIST

Still more about the true nature of the man who would be president again. Who is Barack Obama, and where do his sympathies lie?  It is remarkable, isn't it, that more than three years into his , we're still asking the same questions...and getting no real answers from the mainstream media.

The two met in South Korea on Sunday, Eastern Time, to discuss Syria’s civil war and Iran’s nuclear weapons program, but they also talked about the president’s two daughters, Malia and Sasha, Obama said during a press conference, according to a White House statement.

“The bottom line is that we find ourselves in frequent agreement upon a wide range of issues… [and] because he has two daughters that are a little older than mine — they’ve turned out very well, so I’m always interested in his perspective on raising girls,” Obama said.

One of Erdogan’s two daughters, Sumeyye, is entering Turkish politics via her father’s Islamist party, according to the Turkish press.

She wears Islamist-style clothes that obscure her hair and shape.

We repeat the same comment we made in regard to our first post this morning.  "Res ipsa loquitur."  The thing speaks for itself.

How did the United States of America ever slip this far down? 

FP: You ain’t seen nothing yet. (see next)

 

Barry Rubin: The Government is Not a Magic Box

Roosevelt’s statement might have been appropriate for his time. But what happens when after decades of continuous growth the once-small government becomes a country in itself?

What happens when a government through the power of the purse and of regulations can ensure reelection?

What happens when the “fail-safe” institutions of the media, the educational system, and the entertainment industry are enlisted in its ranks, as well as the use of crony capitalism to create “captive corporations” through massive subsidies that don’t even accord with the public interest?

What happens when the functions formerly held by elected officials are usurped by appointed officials and their agencies?

What happens if all of the elected and appointed officials caught up in their own culture of accumulating control for their “team” become less responsive than ever?

Then government does become an “alien power,” or at least a power in the hands of a class or caste that wants to impose its way of life and thinking on everyone else. That is the real “class warfare” going on in America today.

FP: Rubin describes here the decline process of dominant powers, no matter how hard their founders strived to prevent it, as the US founders did. The world has belabored under the illusion that societies advance from non-democratic, unfree systems to democracy and freedom, while history shows that the opposite is true.

 

Olmert at J Street insists Abbas is partner for peace

“No one can say to me after hundreds of hours of discussing peace with Abu Mazen that he is not a partner because he doesn’t want peace,” Olmert says at J Street annual conference.

FP: He could not convince Israelis of this—incompetence, opportunism and corruption did not help--and the only ones left to dump this nonsense on are American and Arab anti-Semites—how fitting—after all, they don’t have to live with the consequences which they desire for Israel. Had Sharon not split from Likud and then died Olmert would have never become PM. How he ever became anything is a one of the stains on Israel.

And here is the party which he came to lead:

Livni vs Mofaz: 33% vote so far in Kadima primary

Livni complains of deceptive SMS, phone campaign by Mofaz; party's Elections C'tee says won't extend vote beyond 10 p.m.

Pathetic.

 

JoshuaPundit: SecState Clinton Announces National Security Waiver On US Aid To Egypt

Late Friday, when no one was paying attention, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton informed Congress that she had issued a national security waiver on US aid to Egypt. So it's official now - Egypt will get its $1.5 million in military aid.

I've already discussed the problems with that here. The arms will eventually get into the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood, and some of them will likely end up in the hands of Hamas. But of course, what's important to the Obama Administration is appeasing Islamists at every turn.

One argument that's been made in favor of the military aid is that if we curtailed it, our relationship with Egypt would essentially be over. So what? What kind of 'relationship' do you think we have with a government that held U.S. citizens for a $5 million ransom? For all we know, unblocking the aid might very well have been part of the deal for their release.

FP: Egypt should hold more Americans for ransom and start violating incrementally the peace treaty with Israel to guarantee that the aid keeps flowing. How the mighty superpower has fallen. Pathetic.

 

Israel Matzav: German public television airs uncritical Ahmadinejad Holocaust denial interview

German public television ZDF (Second German Television) broadcast an uncritical, 42-minute interview with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in which the Iranian denied the Holocaust.

…

The fact that Ahmadinejad and the Iranian leadership are far less isolated than they ought to be is the ultimate proof that anti-Semitism is alive and well in the world today.

FP: This in the nation responsible for the Holocaust where Holocaust denial is illegal.

 

Walkouts spoil Syrian opposition's bid for unity

Veteran dissident, Kurds quit Syria opposition meeting; some groups are wary of Syrian National Council.

FP: Arabs will be Arabs, about the only unifying factor is hatred of Jews. I reiterate that regardless of what does or does not happen, if Assad falls—and that is a very big if now—Syria will be taken over by Islamists, whether immediately or over time.