Comments on reads 4/30 III

Islamist Egyptian Presidential Candidate Abd Al-Mun'im Abu Al-Futouh: I Personally Hope to Bear Arms to Confront the US Occupation in Iraq

Secular Egyptian Presidential Candidate Hamadeen Sabahi: Kidnapping or Slaughtering Americans in Iraq is Good; I Support Al-Qaeda when It Kills American Soldiers

 

FP: If you want to know the fate of Egypt left to its own Islamist devices, David Goldman’s The horror and the pita is a must read. But the Obama administration overrode Congressional law by declaring that billions in aid is in the national security interest of the US. Yet is there is one thing secular and religious Egyptians agree on it’s anti-American (and anti-Israel) Jihad. 

Let’s re-elect him.

 

yaacovlozowick

UN at its best: damning Israel for a law which has already been blocked!

A senior UN official in Geneva last week listed Israel among the countries that she says are restricting the activities of human rights groups.

The statement, issued on Wednesday by UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay, lists Israel along with countries such as Belarus, Zimbabwe, Egypt, Ethiopia and Venezuela.

…

Although the law never reached the Knesset, Pillay said in her statement: "In Israel, the recently adopted Foreign Funding Law could have a major impact on human rights organizations, subjecting them to rigorous reporting requirements, forcing them to declare foreign financial support in all public communications, and threatening heavy penalties for non-compliance."

FP: I wonder if the UN has given any thought to the consequence of killing the golden goose: Israel, the gift that keep on giving. If all its demonization and undermining of Israel ends up facilitating its destruction, the UN could be disbanded, because it would have nothing left to do.

It goes without saying that all Western countries have laws of that very kind and that even if it had been legislated, it would not have had anywhere near the effects mentioned. It looks like the pre-requisite to be a UN bureaucrat are ignorance and stupidity.

Incidentally, the same properties are indispensable to European left-wing “intellectuals”

 

Pioneer of global peace studies hints at link between Norway massacre and Mossad

In several anti-Semitic remarks, Norwegian sociologist Johan Galtung also defends 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion' and says Jewish influence was one of the factors leading to Auschwitz.

Johan Galtung, Norwegian sociologist nicknamed the 'father of peace studies,' made anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli remarks while lecturing at the University of Oslo, in an article published afterward in the Norwegian press and in an interview with Haaretz that followed.

Among other statements, Galtung claimed that a possible connection exists between the terrorist responsible for the massacre of children in Norway last summer, and the Mossad. 'The Jews control U.S. media, and divert for the sake of Israel,' wrote Galtung in an article published in Norway.

He pointed out that one of the factors behind the anti-Semitic sentiment that led to Auschwitz was the fact that Jews held influential positions in German society.

Galtung also recommended reading 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,' – one of the most popular anti-Semitic texts in the world.

Professor Galtung, 82-years-old, is one of the founders of the discipline called 'Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution,' as well as a founder of the international Peace Research Institute in Oslo. He is considered well-respected sociological researcher, has been awarded many prizes, and is the author of over a thousand articles and over a hundred books. Some of his work has also been translated into Hebrew.

Galtung's repeated anti-Semitic remarks were exposed by the website of the Norwegian periodical, 'Humanist.' ([Link: humanist.no)...] Some of the comments were made during a lecture at the University of Oslo last summer, and others were written by Galtung in response to an article critical of him that was published in the periodical.

Among other claims, Galtung stated that there is a possible link between Anders Behring Breivik, responsible for massacring dozens of children in Norway last summer, and Jewish and Israeli factions. The connection is supposedly based on the fact that the murderer has ties to the 'Freemasons' organization, 'which has Jewish origins,' according to Galtung. The supposed connection to Israel is through the Mossad – which Galtung believes might have given Breivik his orders.

Only the left’s Haaretz could give the idiot a platform. Instead of me commenting any further, read Bruce Bawer: The European Anti-Semitism Sweepstakes. Devastating.

 

Right-Wing Populism

A far-right group in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia is running a 'Muslim cartoon contest' and plans to display the works outside mosques. The move has alarmed authorities which fear it could incite violence and hurt German interests abroad, similar to the backlash that followed the 2005 publication of cartoons in Danish newspapers.

The German government has voiced concern that far-right activists in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia may incite violence with plans to hold a so-called "Muhammad cartoon contest" and to stage demonstrations outside mosques in the run-up to a regional election there on May 13.

SPIEGEL has learned that Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich warned of a confrontation between Salafists and right-wing extremists which he said could have unforeseeable consequences for public safety.

Pro-NRW, which has been categorized as an extremist right-wing group by the domestic intelligence agency, has said it plans to display the cartoons outside 25 mosques in the state.

Friedrich told lawmakers that this deliberate provocation would inflame tensions and lead to violent clashes, and that German embassies and companies operating abroad may also be affected, similar to the protests in Muslim countries following the publication in 2005 of Muhammad cartoons in Danish newspapers.

Friedrich's state secretary, Klaus-Dieter Fritsche, has telephoned the North Rhine-Westphalia government several times in recent days to discuss the problem. The state's interior minister, Ralf Jäger, said: "The so-called cartoon contest is deliberately aimed at provoking Muslims." He said he had instructed police to prevent demonstrators from protesting in the immediate proximity of mosques.

FP: The far right group made a mistake. It would have had a much better chance of success and popularity had it taken on the Jews rather than the Muslims, like Grass and Galtung  above (see Victor Davis Hanson: The New Anti-Semitism)

Now they’re gonna be accused of Islamophobia. Anyway, you’re witnessing the future of Europe and it’s disastruous whoever wins (if you had to bet, who would you say will win, given that the government is scared shitless of Jihad?)

 

How Banks Are Getting Richer Off The Poor

Some banks, namely U.S. Bank, Regions Financial and Wells Fargo, are luring low-income consumers to sign up for things such as prepaid debit cards and payday loans–products that typically come with all sorts of fees and charges, the Times reports. Why are banks courting these customers with pricey products?  Well, besides the obvious (fees) the products themselves weren’t subject to all the regulatory overhaul brought by the Dodd-Frank reform act. That leaves more room for banks to make money in an environment where doing so has become more difficult.

The Times story features David Wegner. He makes about $1,200 a month and is looking for a checking account.  He ends up with  U.S. Bank where he is offered all sorts of financial products geared toward low-income consumers. The branch offered him prepaid cards, check cashing and short-term loan options. He tells the Times that he felt like he was being treated like a second-tier consumer.

The truth is that when it comes to profitability Wegner is indeed a second-tier customer compared with other customers with higher checking balances. And you know what? There are higher tier consumers than them too like the ones with bigger checking balances. Consumers with multiple mortgages, checking accounts, savings, brokerage accounts and loans are valued more.

…

The bigger problem here is that low-income consumers don’t have much of an alternative when it comes to banking. There’s a growing population of people who don’t have a bank accounts because they feel they can’t afford it. They are called the un-banked and under-banked; people  who don’t have enough funds and/or mostly deal in cash transactions and who say they can’t afford bank fees. They turn to things like pre-paid debit cards which according to the Federal Reserve is the fastest growing non-cash method of payment.

FP: This one of the consequences of the destruction of the middle-class accompanying the societal decline of the corporate welfare state: only the rich and poor classes are left, with the former exploiting the latter with the help of a corrupt and incompetent government.

Comments on reads 4/30 II

China mulling guarantees for ships carrying Iran oil

India, South Korea also mulling sovereign guarantees that would insure tankers transporting Iranian oil after EU sanctions cut coverage of shipping firms.

FP: So much for effective sanctions (see my previous post on Iranian negotiations).

 

Barry Rubin: How Egypt's Presidential Election Will Change the Middle East and the World

The result may well be an Islamist versus Islamist run-off. In any event, it is likely that by the end of the year Egypt will have an Islamist president, parliament, and Constitution. Laws will be drastically altered, women’s rights will disappear, and Hamas would be backed up if it attacked Israel.

Once in power, an Islamist government would eventually appoint similar people to run the military, the religious establishment, the schools, and the courts. Those who don’t like it will head for the West in droves.

The alliance with America would be over, whatever cosmetic pretense of friendship remained and despite how much money the Obama Administration pumped in.  And the whole region will be sent a signal that this is the era of revolutionary Islamism and jihad at a time when America is weak or even—as many moderate Arabs believe—siding with the Islamists.  

In the West, no one in power is prepared for this revolution, an upheaval that will rival or exceed the 1979 one in Iran for its impact.

FP: The West will have to pay the price for ignoring reality. (see next)

 

Munich Terrorists Win Again: London Olympics Site Lists Jerusalem as “Palestine” Capital, Israel – No Capital

This year’s Summer Olympic Games in London will take place almost 40 years after the murder of Israeli Olympic athletes by Islamic terrorists.  The anti-Israel International Olympic Committee still refuses to memorialize the Israeli athletes who were slain there, lest it offend Muslims. And, yet, the Palestinian terrorists were rewarded with a UN mission not long after the murders.  And, now, they have an official Olympic delegation, which they’ve had for years, despite the fact that there is no official country called, “Palestine.”  Plus the Olympics even drops the bikini requirement from women’s beach volleyball to appease Muslims. And to add insult to injury, Tom Gross noticed that until this morning, the London Olympics website listed Jerusalem as the capital of “Palestine” and listed Israel as a country with no capital at all.  (Now, neither has a capital listed.) 

…

Yup, the Munich Olympic terrorists win again. See, terrorism pays. And not only do we negotiate with terrorists, we give them Olympic delegations and stolen capitals that have been Jewish for thousands of years.

Oh, and don’t forget how much of your tax money is going to help pay for security there for wealthy athletes like this pro-Iranian bim.

FP: I have already claimed that by and large the world has decided against the existence of Israel, so now there is just a matter of time and finding the least uncomfortable method to achieve it.

But we know, from the 1972 Munich Olympics–in which Israeli athletes were murdered by Palestinian terrorists–that the Olympics are a target for terrorists.  And, so, I roll my eyes at the British people in this video from ABC News, who whine about the Surface to Air Missiles that will be on top of their buildings during the Games, in order to combat terrorist attacks.  After all, these are the same British who allowed their country to become a satellite state of Greater Arabia (soon to be America, too).  And, now, they whine about the consequences.  Um, you get what you deserve. Let me guess: this guy couldn’t care less, for instance, if Israeli or American athletes were blown up by a missile or rocket. That’s the usual British attitude.

This is the West which Israel strives to appease via concessions to the Arabs.

UPDATE:

London Olympic website takes away Jerusalem, then gives it back

Website for 2012 Olympic Games designates Jerusalem as capital of "Palestine," does about-face and returns the holy city to Israel, then removes capitals from all countries • Israel said to be in Europe while neighboring "Palestine" is in Asia.

It’s the initial instinct that counts and reflects the real thinking.

 

Khaled Abu Toameh: Hamas's Zahar obtains Egyptian citizenship

Zahar says he'll vote for an Islamist candidate in Egypt elections, got citizenship under law that was little used under Mubarak.

FP: How will an Egyptian passport affect travel and activities of Hamas terrorists in the world? Just asking.

 

Iranian media hails Israeli 'differences of opinion'

Iran's Press TV runs report with the headline: "Former ISA chief says Netanyahu and Barak are not worthy of leading the regime" • Iranian lawmaker: Deployment of sophisticated stealth fighters in U.A.E. is U.S.-Israel plot to create regional instability. 

 

Former Israeli premier Olmert against Iran strike

Ehud Olmert tells Israel's Channel 10 that this is not the time to launch an Israeli strike against the Islamic Republic • Olmert was in office in 2007 when, according to foreign sources, Israel attacked a nuclear site in Syria. 

Dagan slams proposed law to silence former security officials

At Jerusalem Post conference, Environmental Protection Minister Gilad Erdan and former Mossad chief Meir Dagan clash over Knesset proposal which would place limitations on what former defense and security-related officials can say in public.

FP: Yuckh. These were the people assigned to protect the security and interests of Israel? And they have the nerve to criticize the current leaders? Israel is in critical trouble.

 

Tal Law alternative: Barak says let IDF decide whom to draft

Defense Minister Ehud Barak to propose "service for all" bill • Proposal grants IDF draft deferral for 400 yeshiva students and minimum wage for soldiers • Netanyahu: I will submit a proposal for draft equality.

FP: The secular-religious cleavage in Israel is too fundamental to enable the peaceful and effective resolution of this conflict. I do not believe that the system has the capacity and will to enforce military recruitment on the Haredim, who will not acquiesce. Furthermore, most of the Haredim will be useless to the IDF. Whatever outcome results from this, I expect it to be either violence, or not solve the problem of inequality, or both.

The Blackmailer Paradox and Iranian negotiations

Bill Katz: THE ROAD TO APPEASEMENT?

There are a number of stories around that the United States is willing to cut a deal with Iran that compromises long-held, bipartisan American positions.  From The Los Angeles Times:

WASHINGTON — In what would be a significant concession, Obama administration officials say they could support allowing Iran to maintain a crucial element of its disputed nuclear program if Tehran took other major steps to curb its ability to develop a nuclear bomb.

U.S. officials said they might agree to let Iran continue enriching uranium up to 5% purity, which is the upper end of the range for most civilian uses, if its government agrees to the unrestricted inspections, strict oversight and numerous safeguards that the United Nations has long demanded.

Such a deal would face formidable obstacles. Iran has shown little willingness to meet international demands. And a shift in the U.S. position that Iran must halt all enrichment activities is likely to prompt strong objections from Israeli leaders; the probable Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney; and many members of Congress.

But a consensus has gradually emerged among U.S. and other officials that Iran is unlikely to agree to a complete halt in enrichment. Maintaining an unconditional demand that it do so could make it impossible to reach a negotiated deal to stop the country's nuclear program, thereby avoiding a military attack.

It's the same old story – the obsession with an "agreement," a signed piece of paper, the same kind of signature we've gotten from North Korea many times...with no real result on the ground.

That position is contrary to the mood of many in Congress. Lawmakers in both houses have begun circulating resolutions, with support from dozens of members, that demand an end to all Iranian enrichment. One senior Senate aide involved in the issue said any deal allowing continued enrichment "would be dead on arrival" in Congress.

Over the last several years, Congress has led the push for increasingly tough sanctions against Iran, and could approve even tougher measures that would drive Tehran away from any potential deal with the U.S. and other powers.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also remains staunchly opposed. He argues that letting any centrifuges spin in Iran will allow scientists there to sharpen their mastery of nuclear science and edge toward bomb-making capability.

It's better to have no agreement than one that looks like Swiss cheese.  Then we have a clear situation, and we can take a number of new actions. 

I don't like what's emerging.  Some observers are noting that President Obama is going relatively easy on the brutal regime in Syria, Iran's closest Arab ally, because he doesn't want to upset the Iranians, hoping to sign a deal with them.  The deal, not our security, then becomes the objective.

One of the strongest opponents of the Iranian nuclear program has been France, under Nicolas Sarkozy.  But Sarkozy is likely to be voted out of office on Sunday, and a new, socialist government is likely to be more flexible.  This is not good.

Iran is a major threat, and the signals we are sending are not helpful in countering that threat.

 

FP: The best, if not the only way to realize what is happening to the negotiations with Iran is to familiarize yourself with game theory’s Blackmailer Paradox: where there are asymmetric needs for a negotiated agreement, the side that wants an agreement more can be blackmailed into concessions; if one side is sufficiently desperate for an agreement, it can be defeated into conceding everything without any reciprocation. By making concessions, the blackmailed signals his weakness to the blackmailer and disincentivizes any concessions on his part. He can assume—usually correctly—that he can get everything without any compromise on its own part.

The outcome from such blackmailing strategy with incremental violations, successfully played by the Nazis and the North Koreans, is well known and was predictable.

One of the perfect examples of this game has been played for 64 years by the Arabs and Israelis: the latter are so desperate for a peace agreement that, over time, they have made concession after concession to the former, luring the Arabs into believing that, with the help of support and pressure on Israel by the West, given time, they will reach their ultimate goal. Often, agreements reached in such circumstances give the blackmailer the capacity to violate it incrementally, making it not cost-effective for the blackmailed to respond to each and every increment, all the way to defeat.

The Oslo accord is a classic example of this strategy: it facilitated continuous incremental violations by the Palestinians that were tolerated by Israel, which made all the concessions without reciprocation. Furthermore, by supporting and funding the Arabs and by pressuring Israel, the West has reinforced Arabs’ belief that they do not have compromise on any of the three critical issues to yield genuine peace:

(1) recognition of Israel as a Jewish state

(2) renouncement to the right of return

(3) termination of the state of war

The failure of the so-called “peace process” we are witnessing today was guaranteed by the West and Israel playing the perfect blackmailed counterpart to the Arab blackmailer. In fact, they did the very opposite to what they needed to do to reach an effective settlement of the conflict.

This has put Israel in grave existential peril. If it makes any more concessions without reciprocation on those three issues, it will commit suicide. It is a major point of this game to weaken progressively the blackmailed side and make it increasingly difficult, over time, to exit the down spiral to defeat. That Netanyahu has already given up on (1) to resume negotiations demonstrates this very well.

In fact, as I have argued recently, we are seeing the beginning of what may be a blackmailer game with incremental violations by Egypt (played with some difficulty due to its internal economic and political problems; but this can become the only strategy to distract from those problems).

This is the game that Iran has played successfully with a desperate-to-avoid-military-action West, exploiting facilitating factors such as Western divisions, dependence on oil and domestic, leadership crisis, electoral circumstances, and domestic and international decline. Should the agreement contain the concession on 5% enrichment, Iran will likely play the incremental violation game with a predictable result.

Desperation to avoid war has always given aggressive parties the upper hand, with atrocious consequences. The difference between the Nazis, North Koreans, Palestinians and Iranians and their game counterparts is that the former have a strategy and the latter are not even aware they need one. That may well be a critical factor in Western collapse.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Repeats False NGO Claims in Latest Attack on Israel

PRESS RELEASE

April 30, 2012

Contact:

Jason Edelstein

NGO Monitor

+972-52-861-2129

mail@ngo-monitor.org

 

JERUSALEM - In response to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay including Israel among countries she alleges "curtail the freedom of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other civil society actors to operate independently and effectively," Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor today released the following statement:

The inclusion of Israel on this list is an absurd decision that demonstrates UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay's limited knowledge of Israel and reflects the powerful lobby of Israeli political advocacy NGOs in European and UN frameworks. In her statement, Pillay references what she calls a "recently adopted Foreign Funding Law." Legislation regarding foreign funding was proposed last year but was rejected in the democratic process and never reached the floor of the Knesset. Based on remarks, Pillay also appeared to be referencing the "NGO Funding Transparency Law," which passed the Knesset in February 2011. This law simply adopts financial reporting requirements for non-profits and contains absolutely no restrictions on NGO operations. Mirroring legislation in the United States, Canada, and other European countries, the legislation is intended to promote the democratic principles of financial transparency and the public's right to know. Commissioner Pillay is either confused or is regurgitating false information from self-interested political NGOs, or both.

On the heels of Israel's social protests last summer, in which numerous NGOs freely and openly organized massive demonstrations across the country, Pillay's comments show that the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) is again guilty of blatantly ignoring facts in order to isolate and demonize Israel. As has been repeatedly demonstrated, the UN Human Rights Council and OHCHR have a long and shameful history of exploiting human rights in order to single out Israel and make false accusations.

Commissioner Pillay, who heads one of the least transparent and closed international institutions, should embrace transparency and public accountability, rather than repeat these false claims. She has the moral obligation to correct the record immediately and issue a clear and public apology.

###

mail@ngo-monitor.org

www.ngo-monitor.org

Collected links

Andrew McCarthy: Triple Play! Obama Blows Off Congress, Funds Palestinians, Lies About PA Stance on Israel

Caroline Glick: The elephant of Jew hatred

Barry Rubin: Experts Agree: Anti-American Repressive Radicals Taking Power in the Middle East Makes the World A Better Place

Michael Young: Blank Barack

Emanuele Ottolenghi: Gary Sick, Discredited but Honored

Eric Trager: Meet the Islamist Political Fixer Who Could Be Egypt’s Next President

Lee Smith: Syrian Psychosis

Daniel Greenfiled: Friday Afternoon Roundup - Builders and Destroyers

Tom Holland: Islam's Origins: Where Mystery Meets History

Barbara Will: The Strange Politics of Gertrude Stein

CAMERA: CBS News' Mike Wallace: A Dissent

Yisrael Medad: Bob Simon & CBS throw the Jews to the lions

Daniel Greenfield: The Savage Lands of Islam (MUST READ)

Comments on reads 4/30

Who or what exactly is The New York Times’ R&D Ventures?

The New York Times Co. took the lid off a new advertising product Thursday with the introduction of Ricochet, which lets companies fuse their brand messages onto sharable NYT Co. content. Using the service, companies can create custom links to New York Times stories they select; the links take readers to a version of the story where the ads on the page are all for the company. It's a new kind of targeted advertising: Companies select which stories they want to be associated with, then figure out the ways they want to deliver it: tweet, Facebook post, newsletter, or more.

Ricochet will be available on a handful of sites within the Times Company's stable of properties including NYTimes.com, BostonGlobe.com, Boston.com, and About.com. The first advertiser to use the program is SAP, and you can get a sense of what Ricochet does here (compare it with the same page without the customized link). Pricing for the product will depend on the duration of a campaign and will be sold through the sales staffs at the respective NYT Co. brands.

FP: As if the media content was not sufficiently corrupted, watch how news items will increasingly be written in ways that are known to attract advertisers, rather than inform.

 

London rooftops to carry missiles during Olympic Games

Residents in east London are due to have missiles placed on their roofs this week to protect the Olympic Games from airborne terrorist attacks.

Military planners at the Ministry of Defence have decided to fit high-velocity rockets with a range of 5km to several apartment blocks close to the Olympic Park. This weekend they informed the occupants of the Lexington Building apartment complex in Bow that a missile battery would be installed this week.

The weapons are capable of shooting down aircraft and can counter "pop-up strikes" by helicopters, according to the MoD. During the Games, they will be controlled around the clock by 10 unarmed soldiers, who might be guarded by armed police.

FP: By a government that criticizes Israel for defense against missiles that are actually being launched.

 

Dutch "burqa ban" may go after government falls

With the collapse of the Dutch centre-right government, the Netherlands may now drop some of its most eye-popping proposals aimed at Muslims and other immigrants and could soften its strong anti-immigration rhetoric.

A ban on Muslim face veils, such as the Arabic-style niqabs that leave the eyes uncovered and Afghan-style burqas that cover the face with a cloth grid, is less likely to go ahead after the government collapsed at the weekend.

The minority Liberal-Christian Democrat coalition's alliance with Geert Wilders' Freedom Party (PVV) fell apart when they could not reach agreement on crucial budget cuts. An election has been called for September 12.

In return for Wilders' support in parliament, the government had proposed a number of laws, including bans on Muslim face veils and on dual nationality.

If it appears clear that there is no longer a parliamentary majority in favor of such proposals, they could soon be taken "off the table", said Maurits Berger, professor of Islam in the contemporary West at Leiden University.

"These policies were driven by PVV but also by this government in order to maintain their relationship with PVV. They have turned Holland into a pariah," Berger said.

FP: It would have been beneficial for Europe to be a pariah for Islamic immigration, but unfortunately that immigration will end up making Europe a pariah for native Europeans.

Apparently, anti-Semitism is the critical requirement to get elected as mayor of London:

Candidate Ken’s attitude to Jews may be key in race to run London

Ken Livingstone, who has vowed to turn the city into a ‘beacon’ of Islam and slammed ‘rich’ Jews, is now neck and neck in race to be mayor

Jews better get out while it’s still time.

 

A cost of war: Soaring disability benefits for veterans

After more than a decade of continuous warfare, the cost of disability compensation for wounded veterans is surging to mammoth proportions.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs expects to spend $57 billion on disability benefits next year. That's up 25% from $46 billion this year, and nearly quadruple the $15 billion spent in 2000, before the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan began.

"This is the cost of going to war," said Larry Korb, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress who served as assistant secretary of defense during the Ronald Reagan administration. "We've made so much progress in medicine [that] you're going to have a lot of people survive their injuries who didn't in the past."

About 4,500 U.S. troops were killed in Iraq and about 1,800 have been killed in Afghanistan. Some 633,000 veterans -- one out of every four of the 2.3 million who served in Iraq and Afghanistan -- have a service-connected disability, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Some vets struggle to find work

The VA designates some of these veterans as partially disabled, while others are considered fully disabled, depending on the extent of their injuries. The classifications determine how much money they're paid in benefits, but it doesn't prevent disabled vets from earning their own money, if they're capable of doing so.

FP: All for nothing.

 

Bill Katz

HOUSING PROSPECTS – Robert Shiller, the Yale economist who co-created the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home price index, says that housing prices may not rebound for a generation or more.  A weak labor market, high energy prices, and a general sense of unease in the buying public are combining to depress real-estate.  It wasn't many years ago that many people, especially in "hot" areas, believed their home was their greatest investment.  Now it may simply serve as a nice place to live, which ain't bad.

NEW YORK SLIDING – Three major economists, including Arthur Laffer, place New York State right at the bottom in economic outlook.  As a New Yorker, I'm not surprised.  New York has worked hard over the years to create an inhospitable business climate and to drive out its most productive and imaginative citizens through high taxes and ridiculous housing prices.  That places us right down there with California, Illinois, and New Jersey.  The states with the best economic climate, according to these three economists, are Utah, South Dakota, Virginia, Wyoming and Idaho.

FP: Decline.

 

New Attacks On Church Leaves 16 Nigerian Christians Dead

Nigeria's Muslim sect Boko Haram attacked church services Bayero University's campus in the northern part of the country today.

Small soda cans filled with explosives and smoke bombs were hurled into the church to drive the worshipers outside, where gunmen lay in ambush. Hundreds were injured, and at least 16 people are known to have died.

The university is in the predominantly Muslim north of the country.

Boko Haram is a jihadist group who is waging war on Nigeria's federal government.They want all Muslim prisoners held by the government to be released and for sharia law to be imposed on all of Nigeria, the most populous nation in Africa.Boko Haram has been responsible for over 450 killings this year alone, mostly Christians and government officials.A Christmas Day suicide bombing of a Catholic church in Madalla near Nigeria's capital killed at least 44 people.In January, a coordinated assault on government buildings and other sites in Kano took at least 185 lives.

In a separate attack earlier in the week, Boko Haram claimed responsibility for a suicide car bombing at the offices of the influential newspaper ThisDay in Nigeria’s capital Abuja and an attack on an office the publication shared with others in the city of Kaduna. Seven people died. Boko Haram stated that this is going to be part of an ongoing campaign against newspapers and journalists who 'defame Islam' or write articles criticizing the movement…

,,,

Nigeria has the misfortune to be located on what have aptly been called Islam's bloody borders. The North of the country is primarily Muslim, the rest is Christian and animist. As the eighth largest oil exporter in the world Nigeria represents a rich prize for the jihadis if they can take it over, as well as a strong base in West Africa.

FP: So many Muslims are misinterpreters of the religion of peace. I wonder how long it’s gonna take the world to blame Israel for all this.

 

Cash-strapped UNESCO gives Saudi king its highest honorary medal

UN group, which lost US funding after admitting ‘Palestine’ as a member last year, hails Abdullah for enhancing ‘the culture of dialogue and peace’.

UN group, which lost US funding after admitting ‘Palestine’ as a member last year, hails Abdullah for enhancing ‘the culture of dialogue and peace’

FP: Hard to know whether to laugh or cry.

Comments on reads 4/29 II

Paul Mirengoff: There he goes again

No sooner do I finish my post about President Obama and Israel than I learn, via Andy McCarthy, that Obama has decided to provide $192 million to the Palestinian Authority. This despite Congress’s freeze on PA funding.

The administration claims it is pouring in the funds to ensure “the continued viability of the moderate PA government.” It also claims that the PA has fulfilled all its major obligations, such as recognizing Israel’s right to exist, renouncing violence and accepting the Road Map for Peace.”

The latter claim is as laughable as the administration’s assertion that the PA is “moderate.” McCarthy points out:

[T]he very immoderate PA has reneged on all its commitments. In addition to violating its obligations by unilaterally declaring statehood, the PA has also agreed to form a unity government with Hamas, a terrorist organization that is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. The PA continues to endorse terrorism against Israel as “resistance.” Moreover, the PA most certainly does not recognize Israel’s right to exist. Back in November, for example, Adil Sadeq, a PA official writing in the official PA daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, declared that Israelis “have a common mistake, or misconception by which they fool themselves, assuming that Fatah accepts them and recognizes the right of their state to exist, and that it is Hamas alone that loathes them and does not recognize the right of this state to exist. They ignore the fact that this state, based on a fabricated [Zionist] enterprise, never had any shred of a right to exist. . . .”

Throughout his time in office, Obama has demonstrated to the PA that he will reward its bad behavior. If the “peace process” were not a joke to begin with, Obama’s policy would ensure that it is so.

FP: The main responsibility for the continuation of the conflict is the Western support of Arab genocidal war against Israel.

 

Debbie Schlussel: Sacha Baron Cohen “Dictator” Movie DOA: Muslim Autocrats Still Preferable to Muslim “Democracy”

But, as we’ve seen with Gaza, Libya, Egypt, Iraq, Afghanistan, and everywhere else where we’ve intervened to remove dictators like this, the dictators are the far lesser of two evils and much preferred to Islamic democracy.

Not that this should have been a secret to anyone.  And yet it was.  During eight years of President Bush crowing about democracy in the Muslim world (and so many mindless “conservatives” gushing over that BS), I repeatedly warned that it would elect Muslim extremists and be a disaster, further destabilizing the Middle East.  And every single step of the way, I was right.  It’s the undeniable truth of the Muslim world that their dictators are noxious and live free of criticism for doing what Israel can never do.  And yet, the larger undeniable truth is that the people the dictators rule are barbarians and savages, who–in Egypt, for instance–are now legalizing necrophilia.

FP: I’m sure that Schlussel knows Islamic democracy is a contradiction in terms. Indeed, it is the whole point of Islamic regimes to guarantee that the public is not ruled by human laws. And as I keep arguing, it is not by chance that all Arab regimes have been dictatorships: that’s the only way to keep barbarians and savages in check. We are witnessing now what happens in the absence of dictators. (see next).

 

Elder of Ziyon: Egyptian protesters call Saudis "Zionist," insulted Saudis close embassy

From Al Arabiya:

Saudi Arabia recalled its ambassador to Egypt for “consultation” and temporarily closed its embassy and consulate in Cairo following protests in Egypt against the detention of an Egyptian activist by the Saudi authorities.

The Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported that the reason behind the diplomatic move was “unjustified protests” in Egypt and attempts to storm the Saudi embassy and consulates which “threatened the safety of its employees.”

Egyptians have been protesting outside the embassy against the arrest of an Egyptian lawyer and human rights activist, Ahmad al-Gazawi, in the kingdom.

Saudi Arabia said he was arrested for smuggling drugs.

Egyptian activists, however, said Gazawi was detained for filing a complaint against Saudi Arabia for its treatment of Egyptian citizens in Saudi prisons.

What the stories aren't telling you is how deeply the Egyptian protesters insulted the Saudis.

They didn't call them kufrs, or women, or infidels. No, they used the worst insult imaginable.

They called them Israelis.

FP: So that you understand why the Saudis felt so insulted that they closed their embassy and recalled their ambassador.

A wonderful and enlightened culture, the Arabs. The West should encourage such nonsense—let them be at each other’s throat.

 

Mark Steyn: Cuisines from My Stepfather

For their next exploding cigar, the Democrats chose polygamy. Brian Schweitzer, the Democratic governor of Montana, remarked that Romney was unlikely to appeal to women because his father was “born on a polygamy commune.” Eighty-six percent of women, noted Governor Schweitzer with a keenly forensic demographic eye, are “not great fans of polygamy.” You can understand the 86 percent’s ickiness at the whole freaky-weirdy idea of a president descended from someone who had multiple wives. Eww.

Just for the record, Romney’s father was not a polygamist; Romney’s grandfather was not a polygamist; his great-grandfather was a polygamist. Miles Park Romney died in 1904, so one can see why this would weigh heavy on 86 percent of female voters 108 years later.

Meanwhile, back in the female-friendly party, Obama’s father was a polygamist; his grandfather was a polygamist; and his great-grandfather was a polygamist who had one more wife (five in total) than Romney’s great-grandfather. It seems President Obama is the first male in his line not to be a polygamist. So, given the “gender gap,” maybe those 86 percent of American women are way cooler with polygamy than Governor Schweitzer thinks. Maybe these liberal chicks really dig it.

FP: An example of the level of electoral discourse in the US, if you wondered why I don’t bother with the election.

 

Mordechai Kremnitzer and Amir Fuchs: Above the law

A proposed bill allowing a simple majority in the Knesset to overturn laws that the Supreme Court has judged to be unconstitutional is dangerous and undemocratic.

FP: Nonsense. Israel has neither a constitution, nor a constitutional tradition, so the Supreme Court is its least democratic institution. Until recently it was of the extreme left, hardly reflecting the public on the right and more or less arbitrary in its decisions.

The lack of a constitution is probably rooted in the secular-religious divide of Israeli society, that could never agree on one.

 

Elliott Abrams: Palestinian politics drift away from America

Over time, it is likely that the Fatah party will turn against Salam Fayyad.

FP: Who doesn’t drift away from America these days? Israel should drift too, this way its chances of support by Obama will increase significantly.

 

Dan Margalit: Where is Diskin's integrity?

If the former Shin Bet chief has no faith in Netanyahu and Barak, why did he try so hard to be appointed to head the Mossad by the very same people?

FP: Integrity? In today’s Israeli elite? You gotta be kidding me.

 

Anti-Semites scrawl swastikas on Jewish monuments in Geneva

A memorial for Holocaust deportees, as well as a well-known synagogue and Jewish bookshop, are defaced Thursday night with the Nazi symbol • Hekhal Haness synagogue has video surveillance; staff hopes the footage will help police find those responsible.

FP: You cannot even count on Switzerland to stick only to hiding Jewish funds stolen by the Nazis anymore.

Comments on reads 4/29

Israel Matzav: Obama ups the ante on unfrozen aid to 'Palestinians'

Two weeks ago, I reported that Secretary of State Clinton was bypassing a Congressional hold on funding for the 'Palestinian Authority' in a clear break with past tradition. On Thursday, I reported that the Obama administration has released $147 million in aid to the 'Palestinians.' Now, in a Friday afternoon move designed to avoid media attention, the Obama administration has officially upped the ante to $192 million (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).

An official with the US Agency for International Development said Saturday that the money had been restored.

Obama stated that the aid was “important to the security interests of the United States.”

The US Congress froze a $192 million aid package to the Palestinian Authority after its president, Mahmoud Abbas, defied US pressure and sought to attain UN endorsement of Palestinian statehood last September. The presidential waiver means that aid can now be delivered.

FP: These days you gotta be an enemy of the US to in order to be funded as a security interest of the US. We have a saying relevant to this: The Palestinians are peeing on the US and Obama pretends it’s raining.

 

Israel Matzav: Tigers' outfielder beats up 'f***ing Jews' in midtown Manhattan

Detroit Tigers outfielder Delmon Young has been placed on the 'restricted list' by his team after attacking a group of 'f***in Jews' on Thursday night in front of a Manhattan Hotel (Hat Tip: Michael Savage).

Detroit Tigers slugger Delmon Young went on a drunken, anti-Semetic rampage outside a posh Manhattan hotel early this morning — shouting “F-ing Jews” to a group of tourists before throwing one to the ground, sources said.

The $6.5 million outfielder was so drunk that he had to be hospitalized after his arrest.

Young directed his rage on four men who were in town for a bachelor party when he saw them talking to a yarmulke-and-Star of David-wearing pan handler outside the Hilton Hotel on Sixth Avenue at 2:40 a.m.

He allegedly shouted “You bunch of F-ing Jews!” and pushed the first member of the group that he could get his hands on — Jason Shank, a business man from Schaumburg Ill, sources said.

The 6-3, 240-pound Young allegedly shoved the much smaller Shank, 32, into a hotel wall, and then tackled him before the scuffle was broken up, sources said.

Shank and his pals quickly escaped into the Hilton. Young gave chase but was stopped by a guard, who made him prove he was a hotel guest, sources said.

FP: They’re coming out of the woodwork and crawling from under the rocks now (see also Helen Thomas continues to shoot off her anti-Semitic mouth and the media continue to cover for her). That’s why Beinart, Friedman et al are now hostile to Israel: they delude themselves that this will convince these assholes that they are not Jews or that they are good Jews).

 

LEE SMITH: Syrian Psychosis

Vogue was not alone: Even after the onslaught kicked into full gear, plenty of journalists wanted to meet with the first family of Syria. Bob Simon’s producer at 60 Minutes wrote that the show would be “be most honored to have President al Assad on our program”—honored, five months after Syrian streets started to run red with blood.

But it’s not just journalists who lose perspective when it comes to dealing with Syrian regime. It’s also U.S. policymakers and Middle East experts. Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post offers an important corrective to her colleague Farhi’s assertion that Washington’s foreign policy community “had long regarded Syria as a regional troublemaker and leading violator of human rights.” Wrong, Rubin counters, the best and brightest were all on the Assad bandwagon.

From the worthies who authored the Iraq Study Group to Gen. David Petraeus, from Jim Baker to Bill Clinton, from John Kerry to Barack Obama, everyone wanted to engage Assad. What they thought was sophisticated diplomacy—convincing Assad of his true interests—amounted to nothing more than missionary work. The number of policymakers and Middle East analysts who argued against warming up to Assad—who cited his past record and identified the trail of blood that led back to his door, and who showed that the Syrian president was a serious problem and that American interests, as well as regional stability, would be best served by Assad’s demise—is so small that it couldn’t fill out the bench of an NBA team. And in any case, they were all dismissed as ideologues—like George W. Bush, who unconscionably withdrew the U.S. ambassador from Damascus after Assad was believed to have had former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri assassinated.

Assad deserves no credit for conning the U.S. foreign policy establishment, for the foolishness, the empty talk, and the vanity is all self-generated. And it goes on. Some Republican Senators, like Richard Lugar and Bob Corker, can’t decide if America should still be demanding Assad’s exit. Corker says he thinks “it's odd to state as a national policy that we want to see Assad gone.”

FP: Why the West will not survive. BTW, that’s the same Bob Simon who blood libeled Israel and ambushed Michael Oren.

As to Simon’s blood libel:

Giulio Meotti: Bethlehem’s last Christians?

World, churches silent in face of Islamic persecution of Palestinian Christians

Christians have long been the frontrunners of Arab nationalism. The most prominent Palestinian intellectual was a Christian, Edward Said. The propaganda term “Nakba” has been penned by a Christian, Constantin Zureiq. The terrorist George Habash was a Christian, as was Yasser Arafat’s wife. Azmi Bishara, the Arab MK who leaked secrets to Hezbollah, comes from a middle-class Christian family from Nazareth.

Since the first Intifada, Palestinian Christians created a Muslim-Christian unity to portray Israel as the aggressor, colonizer and invader. They thought that the Islamic-Christian front against Zionism would help secure their position in the Arab world. Indeed, Arab Christians, and especially their judeophobic clergy, have been in the vanguard of the battle for the destruction of Israel. It was a political operation that also served to cover the crimes committed against Christians by the PLO and the Islamic groups: forced marriage, conversions, beatings, land theft, fire bombings, commercial boycott, torture, kidnapping, sexual harassment, and extortion.

…

The silence of the Vatican and the World Council of Churches has been astonishing. Only a few Christian leaders have been brave enough to denounce what is taking place on the ground. With harsh and unexpected words, in 2005 the Custodian of the Holy Land, Pierbattista Pizzaballa, said to an Italian newspaper: “Almost every day – I repeat, almost every day – our communities are harassed by the Islamic extremists.”

…

In fact, the bigger truth ignored by the Western press and the Churches is that Israel’s barrier helped restore calm and security not just in Israel, but also in Bethlehem. The Church of the Nativity, which Palestinian terrorists defiled in 2002 to escape from the Israeli army, is now filled again with tourists from around the world.

The Catholic and Orthodox Churches also frequently asked Israeli authorities to change the route of the fence. They simply didn’t want to live under the Palestinian autocracy. Thus, for example, the Rosary Sisters School in the Dachyat El Barid neighborhood north of Jerusalem was included on the Israeli side of the fence, in light of requests from the Mother Superior of the order.

FP: So much for the claim that religion is the source of morality. Can you recall of any historic circumstance in which the church (not just individual Catholics) has acted morally? And it is hypocritical just like everybody else. That it did not care or try to save the Jews during the Holocaust is consistent with its anti-Semitism. Now it is blaming the Jews for Muslim crimes. Christianity was, is and will always be Christianity.

 

Bill Katz: THE PERMANENT CAMPAIGN

As we've said before, some of the best journalism on American politics comes from Britain.  The Brits have a sharp eye when it comes to our political games, and they instinctively seem to know what's going on.  This, from Toby Harnden, in London's Daily Mail, on Obama's permanent campaign:

Barack Obama has already held more fundraising events to build cash for his re-election bid than all five Presidents since Richard Nixon combined, according to figures to be published in a new book.

Actually, there have been six presidents since Nixon, excluding Obama:  Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton, and Bush 43.  I assume Harnden is leaving out Ford because he wasn't technically running for re-election in 1976.  He had acceded to the presidency upon Nixon's resignation. 

Obama is also the only president in the past 35 years to visit every electoral battleground state in his first year of office.

The figures, contained a in a new book called The Rise of the President’s Permanent Campaign by Brendan J. Doherty, due to be published by University Press of Kansas in July, give statistical backing to the notion that Obama is more preoccupied with being re-elected than any other commander-in-chief of modern times.

And we are paying for those re-election trips.

While the Obama’s campaign activities in office have been largely in line with historical trends, he is especially vulnerable to criticism because in 2008 he promised to change how politics works and to curb links with special interests.

Vowing in 2008 to ‘launch the most sweeping ethics reform in US history’ Obama said that if elected he would ‘make government more open, more accountable and more responsive to the problems of the American people’.

Yeah, change we can believe in.  We've seen how that's worked out.

In his State of the Union speech in January, Obama bemoaned the ‘corrosive influence of money in politics’. The following month, he reversed course and announced he was allowing cabinet members and top advisors to speak at big money events for so-called super PACs – unaccountable outside groups raising money for his re-election.

No wonder young people have lost their enthusiasm for Obama.  He's just another politico doing what politicos have always done.  There is no real hope and change in this administration.  The extraordinary thing about it is its ordinariness.

FP: The fundamental problem here is not Obama, but the gullibility of the American electorate that continues to tolerate the corporate welfare state that robs it blind and holds the illusion of democracy. This is not a problem of individual politicians, but a systemic one.

Here’s another systemic problem:

JoshuaPundit: The TSA And Jeffrey Goldberg's Mother-In-Law 'Proof Al-Qaeda Has Won'

Lefty columnist Jeffrey Goldberg is just a tad upset at the antics of the TSA with his 79-year-old mother-in-law…

She entered the machine and struck the humiliating pose one is forced to strike -- hands up, as in an armed robbery -- and then walked out, when she was asked by a TSA agent, in a voice loud enough for several people to hear, "Are you wearing a sanitary napkin?"

Remember, she's 79.

My mother-in-law answered, "No. Why do you ask?"

The TSA agent responded: "Well, are you wearing anything else down there?"

Yes, "down there."

She said no, at which point, the friend with whom she was traveling, also a not-young volunteer library advocate, came over and asked if there was a problem.

The TSA agent said, again, in full voice, "There's an anomaly in the crotch area."

Goldberg, as usual, gets it only half right.

It's not our government debasing itself in the name of security, but in the name of Islamism.

Our government is absolutely committed to the principle that Islamism and the likes of CAIR and other Muslim Brotherhood front groups must be pandered to, no matter what. And in their view, it's far better to spend billions of dollars on scanners supplied by a George Soros owned company that don't work all that well, on a new class of government employees, and on wasting millions of man hours at the airports rather than engaging in some common sense profiling and screening.

The Qu'rannic term for this is jirzya, a monetary tribute paid by infidels to Muslims for the privilege of letting them live. To make it even more bizarre, an Islamist group is now receiving your tax dollars to train TSA screeners on why they should be devoting extra care in looking at a 79-year-old grandmother or reducing a four-year-old autistic child to tears rather than devoting extra time to travelers coming from Muslim countries identified as havens for Islamist terrorists.

You simply couldn't make this stuff up.

FP: The self-dhimmification continues apace.

 

Israel can’t count on J Street (h/t JoshuaPundit)

At this week’s meeting of the JCRC Council, three organizations briefed the council on their organization’s Iran policy. I was shocked to hear J Street’s regional director say that in the event that war broke out involving Israel, J Street would not necessarily support the Jewish state.

FP: Well, duh: only fools would expect an organization funded by Soros who has mostly pro-Arab members to be pro-Israel.

What is important, however, is that J-Street was created exclusively to back Obama’s anti-Israel policies. So their stance reflects Obama’s. Which means that he does have Israel’s back, but he holds a knife.

 

John Hinderaker: After Last Night

Events like last night’s always leave me feeling in need of a shower. Partly it is because there some truth to Kimmel’s joke, after noting that the room was full of politicians, members of the media and celebrities, that “Everything that is wrong with America is here in this room.” Partly is is due to the sense that everyone involved in the event is pretending. The politicians pretend to engage in self-deprecation that shows they don’t take themselves too seriously. The comics pretend that they are just trying to be funny, lampooning politicians impartially in search of laughs. But, even though some of the lines are indeed funny, the premise of the event is fundamentally false. In fact, politicians, comedians and even the celebrities present are pursuing an agenda that is both self-aggrandizing and political. That is why, I think, such events always leave me feeling unclean.

FP: Kimmel was pretty lame and mostly not funny. He kept reading from notes with quite a few mistakes. But what the public should take away from these events is that the jokes are always on itself: politicians, media and entertainers all are the elite of a system whose main agenda is to advance themselves.

Comments on reads 4/28 II

Caroline Glick: Post-Zionism is so 1990s

The Oslo peace process was based on the radical belief that it is possible to make peace by empowering terrorists and giving them land, political legitimacy, money and guns. To embrace this nonsense, the public had to be willing to tolerate the notion that there was something unjust about the Zionist revolution. Because if Zionism and the cause of Jewish national liberation are just, then it is impossible to justify empowering the PLO, a terrorist movement dedicated to the destruction of Israel and the delegitimization of Zionism.

Most Israelis never adopted the post-Zionist narrative. But they did accept the doctrine of appeasement. And they shared the belief that if appeasement failed, the world would rally to Israel's side.

…

The lesson that Israelis took from the failure of the peace process was that Israel has no Palestinian partner for peace. And until the Palestinians change, Israel has no one to talk to.

While a slight majority of Israelis still support partitioning the land between Israel and a Palestinian state, the overwhelming majority of Israelis believe that Israel has no one to make peace with and therefore no possibility of successfully partitioning the land.

This is not the lesson that foreigners learned. From Bill Clinton to George W. Bush to Tony Blair to Barack Obama to Nicolas Sarkozy, foreign leaders have insisted that the Oslo process had nearly succeeded and that its failure was a fluke.

…

The most the parts of the international community that are not completely anti-Israel have been willing to grant about the failure of the peace process is that it failed due to a lack of courage. By this telling, the problem isn't the concept of appeasing terrorists with land, guns and legitimacy. Rather the problem is narrow-minded, cowardly leaders. And so the way forward for them is also clear: figure out a more attractive appeasement package for the Palestinians and put Israel's feet to the fire to make it cough up the required concessions.

FP: The consequences of Western appeasement were predictable even before the decline of the West: Oslo was the admission by Israel that the Arabs have a just cause. That put the existence of Israel in question and a West in decline found its traditional scapegoat.

 

Eric Trager: What Israel Needs From American Jews

Much ink has been spilled and great deal of space on the Internet has been wasted debating the dubious merits of Peter Beinart’s The Crisis of Zionism, but as off target as his views about American Jewry may be in many respects, his ignorance of Israel has made it a symbol of all that is wrong with the liberal Jewish critique of the country. It’s all well and good for Beinart and other American Jews to wish for peace or to argue that different policies might bring it closer. It’s that they operate in an intellectual vacuum in which the real world dilemmas of Israeli life and the realities of Palestinian nationalism don’t exist.

That’s why, despite the fact that the vast majority of Israelis desire a two-state solution and are no more enamored of extremist settlers than Beinart, they support the government they elected in 2009 and are almost certain to return it to power when it faces the electorate sometime next year. They do not see their country walking off a cliff bent on suicidal policies as Beinart and others preach. Instead, they believe they are undertaking prudent measures of self-defense and asserting their right to exist in peace and freedom. Israel has achieved much in its 64 years of existence, but it cannot magically transform the political culture of the Palestinians that rejects the legitimacy of any Jewish state no matter where its borders are drawn.

This is a basic truth that most Israelis intuitively understand but which continues to elude some of their liberal American friends. Israeli Independence Day is as good a day as any for some of these preening liberal Zionists to ask themselves why is it that the average Israeli regards their impulse to save Israel from itself with a mixture of humor and contempt? After a generation of territorial withdrawals, peace accords and peace offers that have been consistently rejected by the Palestinians, Israelis are right to view those who act as if the history of the last 20 years never happened as simply irrelevant.

…

Without that respect and understanding, Israelis are to be forgiven for viewing American liberal Zionism as a thin façade for self-righteous and ignorant claptrap.

FP: Jewish American liberals ought to consider the vast difference in consequences of their recommended policies for Israel ought to be for Israelis and for themselves, should their recommendations prove to be the nonsense that it is. While it may take a long time for the latter to experience the consequences of the destruction of Israel, the effect on Israelis will be immediate and lethal. Indeed, it is precisely because they are in the US rather than in Israel that they should be more circumspect.

 

Charles Krauthammer: While Syria burns

In the year since, the government of Syria has more than threatened massacres. It has carried them out. Nothing hypothetical about the disappearances, executions, indiscriminate shelling of populated neighborhoods. More than 9,000 are dead.

Obama has said that we cannot stand idly by. And what has he done? Stand idly by.

Yes, we’ve imposed economic sanctions. But as with Iran, the economic squeeze has not altered the regime’s behavior. Monday’s announced travel and financial restrictions on those who use social media to track down dissidents is a pinprick. No Disney World trips for the chiefs of the Iranian and Syrian security agencies. And they might now have to park their money in Dubai instead of New York. That’ll stop ’em.

Obama’s other major announcement — at Washington’s Holocaust Museum, no less — was the creation of an Atrocities Prevention Board.

I kid you not. A board. Russia flies planeloads of weapons to Damascus. Iran supplies money, trainers, agents, more weapons. And what does America do? Support a feckless U.N. peace mission that does nothing to stop the killing. (Indeed, some of the civilians who met with the U.N. observers were summarily executed.) And establish an Atrocities Prevention Board.

With multiagency participation, mind you. The liberal faith in the power of bureaucracy and flowcharts, of committees and reports, is legend. But this is parody.

FP: For all those who still belabor the illusion that America has not declined. And it declined in the worst possible way. For consider: when it did intervene in Libya and Egypt, it brought to power rabidly hostile Islamist regimes. Now another potential Islamist regime in Syria will be even more rabidly hostile to the US for helping others, but not it. What do you expect will happen when these regimes get together? Yet Obama deludes himself that they’ll be allies.

The difference between the US actions in Egypt and Libya and non-action in Syria has nothing to do with morality, but with American decline: it will intervene only when it does not face willful powers such as China, Russia and Iran. That’s the best evidence of decline.

 

David Ignatius: How Osama bin Laden is winning, even in death

In the year since Osama bin Laden’s death, it has been a comforting thought for Westerners to say that he failed. And that’s certainly true in terms of al-Qaeda, whose scorched-earth jihad tactics alienated Muslims along with everyone else. But in terms of bin Laden’s broader goal of moving the Islamic world away from Western influence, he has done better than we might like to think.

Egypt is a case in point: This has been a year of mostly nonviolent democratic revolution. But it has brought to power some Salafist and Muslim Brotherhood groups that share common theological roots with bin Laden. And the al-Qaeda goal of driving the “apostate,” pro-American President Hosni Mubarak from power has been achieved.

…

As Wednesday’s anniversary of bin Laden’s death approaches, I have been going back over my notes of these messages. I found some unpublished passages that show how bin Laden’s legacy is an ironic mix: His movement is largely destroyed, but his passion for a purer and more Islamic government in the Arab world is partly succeeding. In that sense, the West shouldn’t be too quick to claim victory.

…

What we’re seeing now in Egypt is something that might be called electoral bin Ladenism. Take the group Gamaa Islamiya, which under its spiritual leader, Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, made the first unsuccessful attempt to destroy the World Trade Center in 1993. Today, the organization has formed a Salafist political party with the benign name Building and Development Party. This organization, which like al-Qaeda traces its roots to the Islamist theorist Sayyid Qutb, has 13 seats in the new Egyptian parliament.

…

Zawahiri got little traction with his opportunistic “Onward, O Lions of Syria” video in February. But as time passes, al-Qaeda is slowly becoming a more potent part of the Syrian opposition.

And the battle is still raging in Yemen, the place that bin Laden believed offered his best chance of victory. The United States just decided to step up its drone war there, which is a sure sign that al-Qaeda poses a significant, continuing threat.

So, a year on, it’s a time to think about bin Laden’s failures but also about the ways his fellow Islamists have morphed toward a political movement more successful than even bin Laden could have dreamed.

FP: Alas, this is not the achievement of Islamism or Al-Qaeda, but a consequence of Western self-induced decline, one could even consider collapse.

 

Open calls for Assad’s ouster becoming more common in Jerusalem

Likewise, Ayoub Kara, a Druse Arab lawmaker from Netanyahu’s Likud Party, said he has been approached by members of Syria’s opposition. “From all the talks I’ve had with them not a single word was said against Israel, the opposite is true, they say they will strive for peace with Israel,” he said.

Syria’s opposition is fractured, consisting of groups with a wide range of beliefs, and neither Kara nor Herzog would identify his contacts.

But their comments risk playing into Assad’s hands. Since the uprising erupted, Assad, who has traditionally tried to portray himself as leading the Arab world’s opposition to Israel, has tried to discredit his opponents as lackeys of Israel.

FP: It has taken some time, but Israeli leadership seems to have been unable to succumb to wishful thinking again. As I argued before, while the fall of Assad would be a positive development, there is no alternative replacement which is not negative to Israel. Whatever comments the various (and unknown) opposition figures make now, they are probably due to efforts to obtain support from the West and even Israel to topple Assad and bear no relationship to what will happen once a new regime is in power. Second, whoever gains the upper hand--and most likely are the Islamists--will be constrained by the rest of the Arab world to be hostile to Israel, but less controllable than Assad.

Comments on reads 4/28

Liberman: Our obligation to the coalition is over

Yacimovich, Gal-On submit bills to dissolve Knesset; Mofaz prepares Kadima for early elections.

'Diskin angry he wasn't named Mossad chief'

Sources close to PM and Barak accuse Diskin of being "politically motivated" and "frustrated," after he slammed the 2.

FP: Israel has as much a death wish as the West. Part of it is the Americanization of society and particularly of the elite. Can you imagine the likes of Olmert, Dagan, Mofaz, Halutz, Barak and now Diskin in the days of the founders?

It will take much less time for Israel to get its death wish if this continues.

 

Gazan leaders call for abduction of Israelis

Islamists urge "all armed factions" to kidnap Israeli soldiers to use as bargaining chips to free Palestinian prisoners.

FP: Since the newly moderating Hamas will kidnap and Israel will deal and release prisoners, why not release all prisoners rather than wait for the kidnapping?

Noam Shalit is all for it:

Daniel Greenfield: ABSOLUTE SCUM

I haven't written much about Noam Shalit, the man who managed to get the country to pay a blood price for his son and then used that to launch his political career, but the man is absolute scum. If Israeli voters need a reminder of what scum he is, he's busy giving it to them.

The father of an Israeli soldier held in captivity for more than five years by Hamas has said he would kidnap Israeli soldiers if he were a Palestinian... He also said he would be prepared to negotiate with Hamas if he were an MP, something the Israeli government, along with Britain and the US, refuses to do.

By now the whole country knows that there is absolutely nothing that Noam Shalit would not be prepared to do.

FP: Yuckh. It now looks that I was right in suspecting that he was more of a left political opportunist than a bereaved father, more intent on pushing the government to release genocidal murderers than on release of his son. He gives us an excellent indication of the fate of Israel if it heeded the Israeli left.

But no one should be fooled by the West not negotiating with Hamas. Hirst, they are doing it, except not openly. And second, the West would loooooove to have politicians like Shalit in power to serve as a fig leaf for bringing their discrete negotiations in the open and sell Israel out completely.

 

Elder of Ziyon: Arabs attacked Jews on Yom Ha'atzmaut

And, worse:

Three members of the Shukrun family were hospitalized overnight Thursday following an attack by a group of young Arabs. Two of the family members were moderately wounded in the attack, while the third suffered light injuries.

"I tried running away with my children and sister, but they kept coming back to hit us," Tzipi Shukrun told Ynet. "They kids are traumatized."

The family arrived at a park located in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, near the Jerusalem Cinematheque, to celebrate Independence Day. "We wanted to have a barbecue on the grass with my parents. I have three small children. At around 16:30 a group of Arabs, who seemed to be about 18 years old, sat next to us. It was calm; there were a number of Jewish and Arab families near us so we weren't scared. My kids played soccer with the Arab children."

But as the Shukrun family was preparing to leave, the teens approached and began cursing. "My two brothers, my father and another teenager tried to prevent them from reaching my children. In response, they took out clubs, chains and a knife and began brutally attacking the children," Tzipi Shukrun recalled.

She said the assailants yelled out "Yahud (Jew)."

Tzipi said one of her brothers "was struck in the head and began bleeding, and another one of my brothers suffered a severe blow to the eye. I called the police but it took them 25 minutes to arrive at the scene.

"My brother, who served in Sayeret Matkal (elite IDF unit), arrived at the scene before the police did," she told Ynet. Police officials said officers arrived at the scene at 6:22 pm, just seven minutes after Tzipi Shukrun called.

"I tried to run away with my sister and children, but they (Arabs) kept coming back to hit us. Luckily, my brothers blocked their path. It's difficult to fathom that something like this could happen in the heart of the capital," Shukrun said.

FP: I’m sure that if they get a state they’ll stop doing this. Let’s give them one.

 

MEMRI: Al-Jazeera TV Host Faysal Al-Qassem: A Gazillion Times More Syrians than Palestinians Have Been Killed

   

FP: Excellent example of why Arabs are a lost cause: whenever they have their own problems they always eschew responsibility by invoking Israel. Here is in short what happened at Deir-Yassin [from Wikipedia]:

The Deir Yassin massacre took place on April 9, 1948, when around 120 fighters from the Irgun Zevai Leumi and Lohamei Herut Israel Zionist paramilitary groups attacked Deir Yassin near Jerusalem, a Palestinian-Arab village of roughly 600 people.^[1] The assault occurred as Jewish militia sought to relieve the blockade of Jerusalem during the civil war that preceded the end of British rule in Palestine.^[2]

Around 107 villagers were killed during and after the battle for the village, including women and children—some were shot, while others died when hand grenades were thrown into their homes.^[3] Several villagers were taken prisoner and may have been killed after being paraded through the streets of West Jerusalem, though accounts vary.^[4] Four of the attackers died, with around 35 injured.^[5] The killings were condemned by the leadership of the Haganah—the Jewish community's main paramilitary force—and by the area's two chief rabbis. The Jewish Agency for Israel sent Jordan's King Abdullah a letter of apology, which he rebuffed.^[2]

Compare the scope, context and Israel’s government reaction to it, decide whether it was a massacre and compare it to what Assad is doing to his own people. Note how the pathetic so-called journalist attacks and tries to intimidate the TV host and calls the Syrian masscre ‘trivial’—an excellent example of Arab culture.

 

'Obama mulls compromise on Iranian nuke program'

Washington to consider allowing Iran to continue uranium enrichment up to 5%, 'LA Times' quotes US gov't officials as saying.

FP: Predictable and I told you so.

 

Diskin says he has 'no faith' in current leadership

Former Shin Bet chief says leaders are not fit to lead, says they mislead the public about Iran: "Attacking Iran will encourage them to develop a bomb all the faster."

Diskin also said Friday that political killings like the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin may reappear in Israel. "There are tens of Jewish extremists in the territories and in Israel that are ready to use firearms against Jews," he said.

FP: First Dagan, then Gantz, now Diskin. The entire security apparatus, past and present, was and is in the hands of the discredited left which, together with the media and until recently the Supreme Court managed to undermine and subvert the elected government. Recall also that the IDF elite managed, in a despicable way, to torpede the appointment of Yoav Galant as Chief of Staff with the leftie Gantz, who promptly appointed the leftie Nitzan Alon as the Chief of Central (West Bank) Command. If these continue to be responsible for Israel’s security I am pessimistic about Israel’s future.

 

Polite Letter Brought Israeli To CBS For On-Camera Outrage

When the venerable CBS newsmagazine “60 Minutes” aired a segment critical of the Israeli treatment of Palestinian Christians last week, correspondent Bob Simon repeatedly suggested that Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren had crossed a line by contacting the network's top executive in advance to complain of a coming “hatchet job.”

…

But Simon’s apparent shock — and high dudgeon — at Oren’s conduct were nowhere to be found in a letter he wrote the ambassador before the taping, and which was provided to BuzzFeed by a political operative not party to the dispute who said he shared it because he thought it illustrated CBS doubletalk.

“Fortunately, we are still in the process of reporting the story, so [CBS News Chairman Jeff] Fager and I want to give you an opportunity to express your views and correct any misrepresentations or omissions which you apparently believe might have occurred,” Simon wrote, in a courteous missive on personalized “60 Minutes” letterhead, dated January 4. “Thank you and best wishes.”

…

Oren responded to Simon on January 11 with an equally courteous letter, saying he was “indeed concerned” about the planned segment and that he would like to “respond to the allegations raised” once he knew what they were.

All this is fairly common in the dance between reporters and sources. It’s not unusual for reporters to seek difficult interviews with innocuous correspondence. Less common is the theatrical outrage Simon expressed on air, but not in the letter, at Oren’s interest in shaping a story about his country.

And the courteous tone broke down during the taping of the interview in early February. As the tape ran, Simon confronted Oren with his complaints to Fager. Oren said the segment’s topic was “outrageous” and “incomprehensible” in the context of violence against Christians elsewhere in the region, and that Simon’s questions had "confirmed" his fears.

FP: PowerLine is right:

I will reiterate that Oren had obviously a good bead on the hatchet job that 60 Minutes had in the works. We can now add that Simon is a faker and the interview was an ambush.

What the Western media is doing (particularly in the US) is to incite systematically anti-Semitism and violence against Israel and Jews. Disgusting.

 

PowerLine: More Bad News for Sarkozy and for France

French unemployment has risen to 2.88 million, the largest number of unemployed since 1999. The unemployment rate rose to 9.3 percent. This is the eleventh consecutive months in which the unemployment rate increased. Although it could be worse, Spain’s unemployment rate is 24.4, the French jobs picture seems dire enough to ensure the defeat of President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Nor is this the only bad economic news. French household spending fell by 2.9 percent in March from February. And the French economy is expected to grow by only 0.5 per cent this year, according to the latest International Monetary Fund forecast.

Sarkozy’s election prospects have also worsened because right-wing candidate Marine Le Pen, who finished a strong third in the first round of voting with 18 percent of the vote, apparently has decided that a victory by Socialist Francois Hollande would serve her interests better than Sarkozy’s re-election would. Reportedly, Le Pen hopes that, with the fall of Sarkozy, she will become the leading right-of-center alterative to the French Socialists. And Le Pen can reasonably expect that Hollande’s government will quickly become unpopular, given the economic climate.

It’s probably a pipe dream for Le Pen to see herself as the leading center-right alternative (at least I hope it is). But who can blame a politician for preferring a long-shot at eventual control of the government to short-term control of a ministry or two, promised by a rival who is unlikely to win in any event.

As for Sarkozy, he must now win perhaps 75 percent of Le Pen’s vote without the support of Le Pen. And he must still win some of the centrist vote that went to fifth place finisher Francois Bayrou, who captured 9 percent of the vote in the first round. The rhetoric needed to appeal to the Le Pen bloc is, of course, likely to suppress centrist support.

But this is detail. Sarkozy finds himself in this hole due to the state of the French economy.

FP: The fate of Europe: Collapsing while Islamizing.

Daniel Katz

BRITAIN BLOCKS TRADE WITH ARGENTINE MILITARY – Britain has suspended all exports to the Argentine military because of continuing tensions over the Falkland Islands.  Argentina's somewhat strident, nationalist government, which is moving closer to Venezuela, Cuba and Iran, has been making new demands based on the notion that the Falklands, a British possession, should belong to Buenos Aires.  That, of course, was the cause of the 1982 Falklands war, won by Britain under Margaret Thatcher. 

JAPAN THREATENED – It has been revealed by Tokyo that Japan had to scramble jets 156 times in 2011 in response to approaching Chinese aircraft; and it had to scramble jets 247 times in response to Russian planes coming close to Japanese airspace.  Both China and Russia set a record in 2011 in aircraft making invasive moves toward Japan.

SYRIAN AGONY - Despite a phony ceasefire arranged by Kofi Annan, the murders in Syria continue.  The world is doing very little.

There apparently is no "Plan B."  At a time when America should be leading, we're just one of the boys.  We know that if the current Syrian regime remains in power, the big winner will be Iran, for whom Syria is a major ally.  And yet we continue to do essentially nothing. 

We were so quick to push Hosni Mubarak, an American ally, out of power.  We seem to be more reluctant about an American enemy. 

RUBIO FINED – Senator Marco Rubio has been fined $8,000 by the Federal Elections Commission for accepting more than $210,000 in improper contributions during his 2012 run for the Senate.  This is not good for Rubio's chances to be put on the national ticket.  The Dems will make major hay with the fine, in part to draw attention away from their own internal problems, and in part to drive Rubio down just as he is rising.  But Rubio obviously should have been more careful. 

MORE HOPE AND CHANGE - The bad economic news keeps coming back, and it has to have a major impact on the election.  From The Wall Street Journal:

The U.S. economy slowed its pace of expansion in the first three months of the year compared to the prior quarter, as government spending fell and a build up in inventories eased …

There actually hasn't been any good economic news in months.  It's hard to see what the Obama administration can present to the American people unless things improve over the summer.

FP: Further validation of my arguments. The first three items are consequences of American and Western international decline. The last two are evidence of the crisis of leadership and domestic US decline. An Obama reelection will further accelerate both but I doubt Romney will help much.