Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Sunday, April 11, 2010
glick
Friday, February 19, 2010
Fatah are terrorists too
Fatah is not a moderate organization. They have fought a continuing war against Israel through the courts-both international courts and U.N bodies, and the court of public opinion. They honor the murderers of Jews, and never stop for a day with their media and mosque incitement.
http://tinyurl.com/ygvov59
Posted by truth seeker at 11:09 AM 0 comments
Thursday, February 18, 2010
How J Street hurts Israel
http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archive/2010/02/j-street-teams-up-with-leftist-christian/index.shtml
Author: SolomonJ Street Teams up With Leftist Christian Group to Cause Israel Diplomatic Trouble
J Street, in cooperation with anti-Israel Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP), is hosting a delegation of Congressmen from the US to Israel. Who is this CMEP that the "pro-Israel" J Street is running with? NGO Monitor has a good rundown:
Analysis: Churches for Middle East Peace and the BDS Movement
Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP), which is J-Street's partner in sponsoring the visit of a US Congressional delegation to Israel, is a US-based political advocacy organization. Like many other such NGOs, CMEP's rhetoric and its activities are not always consistent, and some of its constituent groups are centrally involved in the political war against Israel.
A number of CMEP partners take an active role in promoting BDS - the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign - as part of the 2001 Durban NGO agenda which calls for the total international isolation of Israel. For example, Friends of Sabeel North America (www.fosna.org) is a fundraising and publicity branch of the Palestinian NGO Sabeel. This organization, headed by Naim Ateek, is a leader of the church divestment campaign, and in his speaking tours around North America, Ateek employs antisemitic themes and imagery in sermons promoting his "Palestinian Liberation Theology." In promoting this agenda, his rhetoric includes references to "the Israeli government crucifixion system".
CMEP's website also features the "KAIROS Palestine Document", which was written by a group of Palestinian Christians, including Ateek. KAIROS Palestine calls for action designed to create "a system of economic sanctions and boycott [and divestment] to be applied against Israel," echoing Sabeel's efforts. CMEP also quotes Bishop Mark Hanson of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, referring to the document as "a word of hope in a time of pessimism that could lead to despair."
This adoption of the Palestinian narrative of victimization, perhaps a reflection of the close ties to Sabeel and other Palestinian groups, was also evident in a January 21, 2005 full-page New York Times ad sponsored by CMEP. The text read, in part, "With each news report of Palestinian suffering...popular support in Arab and Muslim countries for terrorism grows and the threat of attacks directed at the United States increases."
A number of CMEP's board members also reflect the goal of demonization, under the façade of promoting peace. For example, Helena Cobban, a fierce anti-Israel ideologue and member Human Rights Watch's Middle East board, sits on CMEP's Leadership Council.
Thus, while much of the media coverage of this delegation has focused on the involvement of J-Street angle, this is only half of the story. CMEP is an equal partner, and deserves equal scrutiny.
The fact that J Street would partner with a group like CMEP is simply and straightforwardly another nail in the coffin of J Street's pro-Israel bona fides. How out to lunch do you have to be to partner with this group and give them credibility before a group of Congressmen? Here, BTW, is a search on "CMEP" at CAMERA's site. Lots of material there.
J Street's handling of the event is already causing trouble, as the Foreign Ministry is refusing to meet the delegation with J Street as an intermediary: US congressman demands explanation for chilly reception in Israel
A visiting U.S. congressman lashed out at Israel's number two diplomat Wednesday, saying he was snubbed by the Foreign Ministry and demanding an official clarification.
Rep. William Delahunt, a Democrat from Massachusetts and a member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, is heading a congressional delegation to the region. The trip is hosted by J Street, a liberal Jewish lobbying group that presents itself as an alternative to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee -- one of Washington's most powerful lobbies.
J Street, which supports President Barack Obama's push for a Palestinian state alongside Israel, says it sought a meeting for the U.S. representatives with Israeli diplomats but was turned down.
The Foreign Ministry dismissed the complaint, saying in response that it did not need mediators to set up meetings with U.S. officials.
The snub appeared aimed at J Street. Israel's government has been critical of the group's programs, which are more dovish than those of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hawkish government.
Speaking to reporters in Tel Aviv, Delahunt said he was surprised and disappointed to read an Israeli newspaper report that he was being boycotted by the Foreign Ministry for his affiliation with J Street and identified Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon as the culprit.
"We were puzzled that the Deputy Foreign Minister has apparently attempted to block our meetings with senior officials in the Prime Minister's office and Foreign Ministry -- questioning either our own support of Israel or that we would even consider traveling to the region with groups thatthe deputy foreign minister has so inaccurately described as 'anti-Israel'," Delahunt said.
"In our opinion this is an inappropriate way to treat elected representatives of Israel's closest ally who are visiting the country."
Delahunt asked the Israeli government "for a clarification of its stance toward this and future delegations."
Ayalon's office said the deputy minister was prepared to meet any elected officials, especially from the U.S. Congress, but he "didn't need mediators."...
...Four other U.S. representatives were traveling with Delahunt -- Democrats Donald Payne of New Jersey, Lois Capps of California, Bob Filner of California and Mary Jo Kilroy of Ohio...
All five of the Congresspeople now assisting J Street in redefining what it means to be "pro-Israel" were signatories to the Ellison/McDermott sponsored letter on the Gaza "siege."
Here's more on J Street's latest self-inflicted wound: J Street blasts Ayalon's 'boycott'.
This is what a pro-Israel group does? Partners with one of the worst of the anti-Israel Christian groups and causes a diplomatic incident with the government? Once again we see that J Street is more about leftist politics than about support for Israel. Leftism is the only thing a group trying to claim it was pro-Israel in any meaningful sense could possibly have in common with CMEP. They partner with CMEP yet denounce John Hagee. They bring Bill Delahunt on a trip to Israel and instigate a row putting Danny Ayalon on the spot, as though he doesn't have enough to worry about.
This is about Jeremy Ben-Ami's ego, fundraising and leftist politics. It has nothing to do with supporting Israel.
Update: See Hillel's post above for even
Posted by truth seeker at 6:14 PM 0 comments
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
PALIN ENDORSES BOMBING iRAN
Sarah Palin entered the fray yesterday. In a high-profile interview yesterday with Chris Wallace, she spontaneously brought up the topic of Obama's winning a second term by bombing Iran:
WALLACE: How hard do you think President Obama will be to defeat in 2012?
PALIN: It depends on a few things. Say he played—and I got this from Buchanan, reading one of his columns the other day - say he played the war card. Say he decided to declare war on Iran or decided really [to] come out and do whatever he could to support Israel, which I would like him to do, but - that changes the dynamics in what we can assume is going to happen between now and three years. Because I think if the election were today I do not think Obama would be re-elected. But three years from now, things could change if—on the national security front …
WALLACE: But you're not suggesting that he would cynically play the war card?
PALIN: I'm not suggesting that. I'm saying if he did, things would dramatically change. If he decided to toughen up and do all that he can to secure our nation and our allies, I think people would, perhaps, shift their thinking a little bit and decide, "Well, maybe he's tougher than we think he's—than he is today," and there wouldn't be as much passion to make sure that he doesn't serve another four years.
Comments: (1) Buchanan disapproves of Obama taking out the Iranian nuclear infrastructure, but Palin and I "would like him to do" that, thereby removing the world's No. 1 security threat.
(2) After vilification from the Left and tepid reactions on the Right, it's nice to have a major political figure endorse my idea.
(3) I've always liked Palin and been mystified by the fervid hostility she engenders. Perhaps that results from her readiness, as Jeff Bergner puts it, to challenge "The Narrative" formulated by the Democratic Party. True to form, she is, so far, the only politician willing to touch the hot potato of the political implications of bombing Iran.
Posted by truth seeker at 3:59 PM 0 comments
Pipes to Obama Bomb Iran
How to Save the Obama Presidency: Bomb Iran
by Daniel Pipes
National Review Online
February 2, 2010
http://www.danielpipes.org/7921/bomb-iran-save-obama-presidency
I do not customarily offer advice to a president whose election I opposed, whose goals I fear, and whose policies I work against. But here is an idea for Barack Obama to salvage his tottering administration by taking a step that protects the United States and its allies.
If Obama's personality, identity, and celebrity captivated a majority of the American electorate in 2008, those qualities proved ruefully deficient in 2009 for governing. He failed to deliver on employment and health care, he failed in foreign policy forays small (e.g., landing the 2016 Olympics) and large (relations with China and Japan). His counterterrorism record barely passes the laugh test.
This poor performance has caused an unprecedented collapse in the polls and the loss of three major by-elections, culminating two weeks ago in an astonishing senatorial defeat in Massachusetts. Obama's attempts to "reset" his presidency will likely fail if he focuses on economics, where he is just one of many players.
He needs a dramatic gesture to change the public perception of him as a lightweight, bumbling ideologue, preferably in an arena where the stakes are high, where he can take charge, and where he can trump expectations.
Barak Obama's job approval problem.
Such an opportunity does exist: Obama can give orders for the U.S. military to destroy the Iranian nuclear weapon capacity.
Circumstances are propitious. First, U.S. intelligence agencies have reversed their preposterous 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, the one that claimed with "high confidence" that Tehran had "halted its nuclear weapons program," No one (other than the Iranian rulers and their agents) denies that the regime is rushing headlong to build a large nuclear arsenal.
Second, if the apocalyptic-minded leaders in Tehran get the Bomb, they render the Middle East a yet more volatile and dangerous. They might deploy these weapons in the region, leading to massive death and destruction. Eventually, they could launch an electro-magnetic pulse attack on the United States, utterly devastating the country. By eliminating the Iranian nuclear threat, Obama protects the homeland and sends a message to American's friends and enemies.
Third, polling shows longstanding American backing for an attack on the Iranian nuclear infrastructure.
*
Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg, January 2006: 57 percent of Americans favor military intervention if Tehran pursues a program that could enable it to build nuclear arms.
*
Zogby International, October 2007: 52 percent of likely voters support a U.S. military strike to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon; 29 percent oppose such a step.
*
McLaughlin & Associates, May 2009: asked whether they would support "Using the [U.S.] military to attack and destroy the facilities in Iran which are necessary to produce a nuclear weapon," 58 percent of 600 likely voters supported the use of force and 30 percent opposed it.
*
Fox News, September 2009: asked "Do you support or oppose the United States taking military action to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons?" 61 percent of 900 registered voters supported military action and 28 opposed it.
*
Pew Research Center, October 2009: asked which is more important, "To prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, even if it means taking military action" or "To avoid a military conflict with Iran, even if it means they may develop nuclear weapons," Out of 1,500 respondents, 61 percent favored the first reply and 24 percent the second.
The nuclear facility at Qum on Sep. 26,2009 from 423 miles in space, provided by GeoEye.
Not only does a strong majority – 57, 52, 58, 61, and 61 percent – already favor using force but after a strike Americans will presumably rally around the flag, jumping that number much higher.
Fourth, were the U.S. strike limited to taking out the Iranian nuclear facilities, and not aspire to regime change, it would require few "boots on the ground" and entail relatively few casualties, making an attack politically more palatable.
Just as 9/11 caused voters to forget George W. Bush's meandering early months, a strike on Iranian facilities would dispatch Obama's feckless first year down the memory hole and transform the domestic political scene. It would sideline health care, prompt Republicans to work with Democrats, make netroots squeal, independents reconsider, and conservatives swoon.
But the chance to do good and do well is fleeting. As the Iranians improve their defenses and approach weaponization, the window of opportunity is closing. The time to act is now or, on Obama's watch, the world will soon become a much more dangerous place.
Mr. Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University.
Posted by truth seeker at 3:25 PM 0 comments
New Israel Fund hurts Israel
New Israel Fund Grants Spark Human Rights Brouhaha
Locking horns over Goldstone: An ad sponsored by the Im Tirzu Zionist group depicted Naomi Chazan, president of the New Israel Fund, with a horn on her head.
Locking horns over Goldstone: An ad sponsored by the Im Tirzu Zionist group depicted Naomi Chazan, president of the New Israel Fund, with a horn on her head.
by Stewart Ain
Staff Writer
Charges that the New Israel Fund supports Israeli civil rights groups that played a key role in providing information highly critical of Israel’s role in the Gaza war last year have sparked a spirited, and nasty, debate over the proper role for civil and human rights groups in a democratic state.
A 131-page report, commissioned by a three-year-old Zionist group active on Israeli campuses, called Im Tirtzu, found that 16 Israeli human rights organizations provided 92 percent of the critical information used in the UN report written by South African jurist Richard Goldstone. All 16 are funded by the New Israel Fund (NIF) and include such groups as Breaking the Silence, B’Tselem and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.
NIF, founded in
Inbal 300X250
1979, is a philanthropy that funds mostly left-of-center human rights groups (as well as groups addressing other social issues) in Israel. Supporters say it promotes equal rights for all Israeli citizens; critics have accused it of supporting Israeli Arab groups that in turn encourage insurrection against the Zionist state.
“At the end of the day, we have a situation where Israelis are blaming their brothers of committing war crimes without any proof,” said Ronen Shoval, a graduate student and founder of Im Tirtzu. “They are lying. ... And the NIF stands behind the Goldstone report. I can’t tell you how important it is that Jewish people in the United States understand that at the end of the day their money [to the NIF] helps Hamas.”
A spokeswoman for the New Israel Fund, Naomi Paiss, said that although her group took no position on the Goldstone report, it “is very proud of the groups we have supported. ... Their reports were carefully documented and in some instances were the only available information out of Gaza because the international press and the Israeli press were kept out.
“Those human rights organizations are there to do a job,” she continued. “They reported on their concerns about the Gaza operation and were the first to declare that the Israeli government should launch an independent inquiry into the events of Gaza. Had that been done, perhaps there would not have been a Goldstone report.”
But Jacques Berlinerblau, director of the Program for Jewish Civilization at the Georgetown School of Foreign Service, said he believes there is a time and a place for self-criticism, and this might not be it.
“The perennial danger of Jewish self-criticism is that it gets used in a lopsided manner,” he explained. “If you have a completely imbalanced critical apparatus that only features criticism of Israel — and Israel as a nation can be criticized — it may not behoove these groups [to continue their criticism] when they are the only voices out there being critical. When you find critical Palestinian voices, they become useful. But if they are criticizing alone and their work is used in a skewed manner, I don’t know how much good they are doing for Israel.”
Paiss insisted that these organizations “were acting out of love for Israel and loyalty to the values on which the state was founded. ... They took a reasoned and thoughtful look at what happened in Gaza and put out reports that were then used as sources for Goldstone’s report.”
Shoval stressed the serious implications of the Goldstone report, noting that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said two months ago that the three major dangers facing Israel were the Iranian nuclear threat, the missile threat from Hamas and Hezbollah and the Goldstone report.
“Goldstone has become code for a much broader phenomenon: the attempt to negate the legitimacy of our right to self-defense,” Netanyahu said at the time.
Asked her reaction to claims that the Goldstone report is being used by Israel’s enemies to delegitimize the Jewish state, Paiss replied: “We are acutely aware that Israel has real enemies and that the work of human rights groups are used for their propaganda. ... [But] you lose much more in a democracy when you shut down internal criticism out of fear that it would be used by people who hate you. If Israel gives in on basic democratic values, then it is really lost.”
The Im Tirtzu study found that without the NIF-funded NGOs’ reports, “Goldstone would have nothing on which to base most of the claims” he made against Israel.
“In recent years Israel has been increasingly accused of war crimes, and this allegation has become a type of new weapon among leftist organizations,” the study said. “In effect, a small group of leftist organizations that is financed by identical foreign sources has created international pressure that is seriously harming Israel in the diplomatic arena and challenges Israel’s legitimate right of self-defense in the future.”
Hamas is also claiming Israel committed war crimes in its 22-day Gaza incursion, Shoval said, in order to get the international community to put such pressure on Israel that it won’t dare respond the next time Hamas fires missiles at civilians.
He said he plans to bring his report to the Knesset with the hope that it investigates these human rights groups “because they are helping Hamas, and the State of Israel should check to see who is giving them money and whether it is legal or not.
Yisrael Hasson, a member of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, told The Jewish Week he is inclined to call for an investigation, “but I don’t want to say for sure because I’m still learning the issue.”
In the United States, Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, called the Im Tirtzu charges “an outrageous broadside,” telling The Jewish Week “it is absurd to blame Goldstone on NIF.”
He said there might be legitimate questions for NIF to respond to about standards for its recipient organizations, ensuring that they not support violence, as was the case with the Ford Foundation. But he said it was unfair to accuse NIF “of undermining Israeli security. Lots of people aided and abetted Goldstone.”
The charges exchanged between Im Tirtzu and the New Israel Fund also became personal attacks when Im Tirtzu took out an ad depicting Naomi Chazan, NIF’s president, with a horn on her head. Chazan is a former deputy speaker of the Knesset and a former member of the Knesset from the Meretz Party.
“She was the head of the campaign against the IDF,” Shoval said in explaining the caricature of Chazan. “She has a major part in deciding where the money is going, and I want to make sure that everyone knows that this is the person standing behind it.”
Asked why a horn was put on her head, he said the word for “horn” in Hebrew also means “fund,” “so it was a funny to put a horn on her head.”
In addition, he said his group staged a protest demonstration outside her Jerusalem home Saturday night.
Paiss said Chazan was in New York at the time and that the protesters mistakenly targeted a neighbor’s home and not Chazan’s.
Jeremy Ben-Ami, executive director of J Street, a Washington-based pro-peace-process lobby group, issued a statement expressing grave concern about the “vicious” attacks against the NIF and Chazan. He said it used “style reminiscent of propaganda from the darkest days of recent Jewish experience, depicting Chazan with a horn on her head and holding her personally responsible for the contents of the Goldstone Report.”
Ben-Ami said also that Im Tirtzu’s political leanings are clear from the fact that it accepted $100,000 from the John Hagee Ministries, a group run by Pastor John Hagee, a major supporter of Israel who has made controversial remarks in the past. Hagee is also founder and president of Christians United for Israel.
Paiss said she believes this attack on her organization is but the latest in a “coordinated attempt to delegitimize Israeli civil society and repress human rights groups and tolerance for dissent and honesty” in Israel. She cited the recent arrests of Anat Hoffman of the Israel Religious Action Center for her activities in support of women praying at the Kotel, and of Hagai el-Ad, executive director of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, as he was monitoring a demonstration protesting the seizure of Palestinian land in Jerusalem.
“We think it’s a suppression of free speech and that they want the human rights community in Israel to be defunded and defeated,” Paiss said.
But Gerald Steinberg, a professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University and a founder of NGO Monitor, charged that the NIF is guilty of a similar attack against him. He claimed it has been distributing a “finger” painting against him, even though his organization has never engaged in personal attacks.
“It’s an example of how NIF plays rough and dirty in attacking its critics, but is outraged when they are treated in the same way,” he said. “NIF is extremely closed and hostile to any criticism and independent analysis, and they have outraged the Israeli center by their funding of some of the most radical organizations.
“They collect most of their money from outside of Israel, and there is a demand that the Knesset demand transparency from government-funded NGOs,” Steinberg added. “Do NIF-funded NGOs discriminate against Israel when they encourage boycotts of Israel and encourage Israelis to reject the draft? This is part of a wider awareness effort going on in Israel. It is not right wing but centrist.”
Paiss denied that the NIF was behind a “finger” poster directed against Steinberg, whom she called a “voice and outlet for those who believe that any criticism of Israel is anti-Israel.”
“We think that loving examination of Israel’s real problems and proposing solutions is the best way to love Israel,” she added.
Posted by truth seeker at 2:57 PM 0 comments
Friday, February 12, 2010
Palin over Obama for a safe world
Column One: Sarah Palin’s friendship
By CAROLINE GLICK
12/02/2010 16:01
Hers is the strongest single American voice opposing Obama’s foreign policy, supporting Israel and denying Iran nuclear weapons.
Talkbacks (13)
US President Barack Obama is an inept, incompetent leader. More than his failure to pass his domestic agenda on health care and global warming despite his Democratic Party’s control over both houses of Congress, Iran’s announcement on Thursday that it is a nuclear power and has the capacity to produce weapons-grade uranium is a testament to Obama’s feckless incompetence. Even his most ardent supporters are admitting this.
Take The New York Times. In a news analysis Thursday of Obama’s failure to prevent Iran from advancing with its nuclear program, David Sanger wrote that for the US president, the last year has been “a year in which little in his dealings with Iran has gone the way that the White House expected.”
Since Obama first announced his wish to sit down with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, at a Democratic presidential candidates’ debate in the spring of 2008, the 44th US president’s only strategy for dealing with Iran has been to appease its leaders. And as of Tuesday, he still believes that ingratiating himself with the regime is his best bet.
On Tuesday, Obama wouldn’t admit that appeasement has failed, even as all of Iran’s top leaders said they were expanding their illicit uranium enrichment activities. The most he would do was acknowledge that the regime’s leaders “have made their choice so far, although the door is still open.”
As for sanctions, well, Obama said it will take “several weeks” to put those together at the UN.
The distressing truth is that Obama’s aim has never been to prevent Teheran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. His whole “sanctions-if-engagement-fails” strategy is just a ruse. The Obama administration has never intended to place biting sanctions on Iran. As one senior administration official told The New York Times, the purpose of the sanctions talk is to get the Iranians to agree to negotiate. As he put it, “This is about driving them back to negotiations, because the real goal here is to avoid war.”
Got that? As far as Obama is concerned, Iran with nuclear weapons isn’t the main concern. Israel using force to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons is the main concern.
US PRESIDENTS have a far freer hand in foreign policy than they have in domestic affairs. A president’s ability to implement his domestic agenda is constrained by Congress. Congress has much less of a say in foreign policy. But the main constraining factor for a US president in both domestic and foreign affairs is public opinion.
Over the past year, Obama failed to pass his domestic agenda even though he enjoyed governing majorities in both houses of Congress, because the public opposed his agenda. So, too, if the public is able to express its opposition to his foreign policy, particularly as it relates to Israel and Iran, he will be unable to sustain it.
To date, in light of his sinking approval ratings, the main thing Obama has had going for him is that since the presidential election, his political opponents have lacked a leader capable of uniting his opponents around an alternative path. Over the past week, that leader may have emerged.
On Saturday, former Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin gave the keynote address at the Tea Party Movement convention in Nashville, Tennessee. As she did in the presidential campaign, Palin electrified her audience in Nashville by credibly channeling the populist impulses of American voters. In her signature line she asked, “So how’s that hopey changey stuff working out for ya?”
Palin excoriated Obama on his handling of US foreign policy. Among other things, she noted that a year into his quest to appease dictators, America’s international standing is in shambles. “Israel, a friend and a critical ally, now questions the strength of our support,” she added.
Palin bellowed that on issues of foreign policy, there is no room for self-delusion. As she put it, “National security, that’s the one place where you’ve got to call it like it is.” And then, “We need a foreign policy that distinguishes America’s friends from her enemies and recognizes the true nature of the threats that we face.”
If her address wasn’t enough to convince Americans – and specifically American Jews – that Palin thinks supporting Israel and standing up to Iran are the keys to US nationalsecurity, then there was her interview on Fox News Sunday. Asked how Obama can win reelection in 2012, Palin responded, “Say he decided to declare war on Iran or decided really to come out and do whatever he could to support Israel, which I would like him to do.”
And if that still isn’t enough, there is her lapel pin. The politician who leads the populist opposition to Obama decided to make her most important speech since the 2008 election wearing a pin featuring the US flag and the Israeli flag.
Palin, who is considering a run in the 2012 Republican presidential primaries, is using her public platforms to reassemble the coalition ofsecurity hawks, social conservatives and blue collar workers that propelled Ronald Reagan to the White House in 1980. Her support for Israel serves her in building support among both security hawks and social conservatives.
Unlike Obama’s empty protestations of support for Israel, Palin’s support is obviously heartfelt and therefore will not diminish while Obama remains in office. And as Palin becomes stronger, her ability to influence the US debate in a manner that constrains Obama’s freedom to intimidate Israel into allowing Iran to become a nuclear power will rise.
In spite of Palin’s extraordinary support for Israel, the American Jewish community overwhelmingly rejects her. As Jennifer Rubin noted in her article, “Why Jews hate Palin,” in Commentary magazine, Jews disapproved of Sen. John McCain’s choice of Palin as his running-mate by a 54 to 37 percent majority. The sneering broadsides published against Palin by leading American Jewish writers are legion.
In her article, Rubin gives a number of reasons for American Jews’ rejection of Palin.
On the one hand, American Jews, who overwhelmingly self-identify as Democrats and disproportionately identify as liberals, oppose Palin for the same reason they oppose all social-conservative Republicans – because she isn’t a liberal Democrat. What makes American Jews’ rejection of Palin unique is its emotional potency. Rubin argues that the visceral hatred that many American Jews express towards Palin is effectively an issue of class hatred, or snobbery. They are four generations removed from the sweatshops where their great grandparents labored on New York’s Lower East Side. And they don’t like this woman with a funny accent who went to University of Idaho, guts fish and shoots moose.
This may be true. But if it is, American Jews might want to rethink their loyalty to their social class. As the demonstrations against Ambassador Michael Oren at UC Irvine, against former prime minister Ehud Olmert at University of Chicago, against Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon at Oxford, as well as the disinvitation of Prof. Benny Morris at Cambridge and the celebrity of Harvard’s anti-Semitic Prof. Steve Walt show clearly, the bastions of intellectual elitism where American Jews feel most at home have become the repositories of the most virulent hatred of Jews in America and the West today. Liberal standard bearers like Hollywood have had no compunction about giving prestigious awards to movies like Paradise Now, which glorified murderers of Jews in a manner unmatched since the days of Leni Riefenstahl. Elite media outlets like The Atlantic monthly are only too happy to publish the rantings of newly fashionable critics like Andrew Sullivan.
Liberal Democratic Jewish voices, like Leon Wieseltier at The New Republic, are aware that there is a problem with the rampant anti-Semitism in their camp. And they fear that as a consequence, American Jews may take a second look at Palin with her Israeli flag lapel pin. As Wieseltier wrote this week, “A day does not go by when I do not do my humble part to prevent such a transformation [of American Jewry from liberals to conservatives] from coming to pass.”
THE FACT of the matter is that for Israel’s sake such a transformation can’t happen quickly enough. It isn’t that American Jews have to change their social agenda, but they must recognize that today, sadly, there is not meaningful bipartisan support for Israel in the US Congress. The 54 lawmakers who wrote Obama a letter last month asking him to force Israel to open up Gaza’s borders were all Democrats. Opposition to passing sanctions against Iran, and opposition to an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear installations, are only politically significant among Democrats.
In her speech at the Tea Party Conference, Palin said, “We need a commander-in-chief, not a professor of law standing at the lectern.”
The fact of the matter is that Obama came to many of his anti-Israel sensibilities through his professor friends – Rashid Khalidi, John Mearshimer, Samantha Power, William Ayres, Bernadine Dohrn and, of course, the late Edward Said. Americans interested in national security – and particularly American Jews who support Israel – should be the first ones to second Palin’s statement.
Sarah Palin’s emergence as the mouthpiece of populist opposition to Obama presents Israel’s supporters – and particularly Israel’s Jewish supporters – with an extraordinary opportunity and an extraordinary challenge. Palin’s coupling of support for Israel with her populist domestic agenda marks the first time that support for Israel has been treated as a core, populist issue. The opportunity this presents for American Jews who care about Israel is without precedent.
But of course, to make the best use of this opportunity, American Jews who support Israel have to disappoint Wieseltier. They have to acknowledge that the Left has rejected their cause and increasingly, rejects them.
Obama’s failure to prevent Iran from moving forward with its nuclear program, and his stubborn refusal to support an Israeli move to deny Iran the ability to threaten Israel and global security as a whole, place Israel and core US national security interests in unprecedented jeopardy. His fellow Democrats’ willingness to support him as he maintains this perilous course means that the Democratic ship has abandoned Israel, and strategic sanity.
Palin’s future in politics is unknowable. But what is clear enough is that today hers is the strongest single American voice opposing Obama’s foreign policy and the loudest advocate for supporting Israel and denying Iran nuclear weapons. For this she deserves the thanks and support of American Jewry.
caroline@carolineglick.com
Fatah are terrorists too
Fatah is not a moderate organization. They have fought a continuing war against Israel through the courts-both international courts and U.N bodies, and the court of public opinion. They honor the murderers of Jews, and never stop for a day with their media and mosque incitement.
http://tinyurl.com/ygvov59
Posted by truth seeker at 11:09 AM 0 comments
Thursday, February 18, 2010
How J Street hurts Israel
http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archive/2010/02/j-street-teams-up-with-leftist-christian/index.shtml
Author: SolomonJ Street Teams up With Leftist Christian Group to Cause Israel Diplomatic Trouble
J Street, in cooperation with anti-Israel Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP), is hosting a delegation of Congressmen from the US to Israel. Who is this CMEP that the "pro-Israel" J Street is running with? NGO Monitor has a good rundown:
Analysis: Churches for Middle East Peace and the BDS Movement
Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP), which is J-Street's partner in sponsoring the visit of a US Congressional delegation to Israel, is a US-based political advocacy organization. Like many other such NGOs, CMEP's rhetoric and its activities are not always consistent, and some of its constituent groups are centrally involved in the political war against Israel.
A number of CMEP partners take an active role in promoting BDS - the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign - as part of the 2001 Durban NGO agenda which calls for the total international isolation of Israel. For example, Friends of Sabeel North America (www.fosna.org) is a fundraising and publicity branch of the Palestinian NGO Sabeel. This organization, headed by Naim Ateek, is a leader of the church divestment campaign, and in his speaking tours around North America, Ateek employs antisemitic themes and imagery in sermons promoting his "Palestinian Liberation Theology." In promoting this agenda, his rhetoric includes references to "the Israeli government crucifixion system".
CMEP's website also features the "KAIROS Palestine Document", which was written by a group of Palestinian Christians, including Ateek. KAIROS Palestine calls for action designed to create "a system of economic sanctions and boycott [and divestment] to be applied against Israel," echoing Sabeel's efforts. CMEP also quotes Bishop Mark Hanson of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, referring to the document as "a word of hope in a time of pessimism that could lead to despair."
This adoption of the Palestinian narrative of victimization, perhaps a reflection of the close ties to Sabeel and other Palestinian groups, was also evident in a January 21, 2005 full-page New York Times ad sponsored by CMEP. The text read, in part, "With each news report of Palestinian suffering...popular support in Arab and Muslim countries for terrorism grows and the threat of attacks directed at the United States increases."
A number of CMEP's board members also reflect the goal of demonization, under the façade of promoting peace. For example, Helena Cobban, a fierce anti-Israel ideologue and member Human Rights Watch's Middle East board, sits on CMEP's Leadership Council.
Thus, while much of the media coverage of this delegation has focused on the involvement of J-Street angle, this is only half of the story. CMEP is an equal partner, and deserves equal scrutiny.
The fact that J Street would partner with a group like CMEP is simply and straightforwardly another nail in the coffin of J Street's pro-Israel bona fides. How out to lunch do you have to be to partner with this group and give them credibility before a group of Congressmen? Here, BTW, is a search on "CMEP" at CAMERA's site. Lots of material there.
J Street's handling of the event is already causing trouble, as the Foreign Ministry is refusing to meet the delegation with J Street as an intermediary: US congressman demands explanation for chilly reception in Israel
A visiting U.S. congressman lashed out at Israel's number two diplomat Wednesday, saying he was snubbed by the Foreign Ministry and demanding an official clarification.
Rep. William Delahunt, a Democrat from Massachusetts and a member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, is heading a congressional delegation to the region. The trip is hosted by J Street, a liberal Jewish lobbying group that presents itself as an alternative to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee -- one of Washington's most powerful lobbies.
J Street, which supports President Barack Obama's push for a Palestinian state alongside Israel, says it sought a meeting for the U.S. representatives with Israeli diplomats but was turned down.
The Foreign Ministry dismissed the complaint, saying in response that it did not need mediators to set up meetings with U.S. officials.
The snub appeared aimed at J Street. Israel's government has been critical of the group's programs, which are more dovish than those of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hawkish government.
Speaking to reporters in Tel Aviv, Delahunt said he was surprised and disappointed to read an Israeli newspaper report that he was being boycotted by the Foreign Ministry for his affiliation with J Street and identified Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon as the culprit.
"We were puzzled that the Deputy Foreign Minister has apparently attempted to block our meetings with senior officials in the Prime Minister's office and Foreign Ministry -- questioning either our own support of Israel or that we would even consider traveling to the region with groups thatthe deputy foreign minister has so inaccurately described as 'anti-Israel'," Delahunt said.
"In our opinion this is an inappropriate way to treat elected representatives of Israel's closest ally who are visiting the country."
Delahunt asked the Israeli government "for a clarification of its stance toward this and future delegations."
Ayalon's office said the deputy minister was prepared to meet any elected officials, especially from the U.S. Congress, but he "didn't need mediators."...
...Four other U.S. representatives were traveling with Delahunt -- Democrats Donald Payne of New Jersey, Lois Capps of California, Bob Filner of California and Mary Jo Kilroy of Ohio...
All five of the Congresspeople now assisting J Street in redefining what it means to be "pro-Israel" were signatories to the Ellison/McDermott sponsored letter on the Gaza "siege."
Here's more on J Street's latest self-inflicted wound: J Street blasts Ayalon's 'boycott'.
This is what a pro-Israel group does? Partners with one of the worst of the anti-Israel Christian groups and causes a diplomatic incident with the government? Once again we see that J Street is more about leftist politics than about support for Israel. Leftism is the only thing a group trying to claim it was pro-Israel in any meaningful sense could possibly have in common with CMEP. They partner with CMEP yet denounce John Hagee. They bring Bill Delahunt on a trip to Israel and instigate a row putting Danny Ayalon on the spot, as though he doesn't have enough to worry about.
This is about Jeremy Ben-Ami's ego, fundraising and leftist politics. It has nothing to do with supporting Israel.
Update: See Hillel's post above for even
Posted by truth seeker at 6:14 PM 0 comments
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
PALIN ENDORSES BOMBING iRAN
Sarah Palin entered the fray yesterday. In a high-profile interview yesterday with Chris Wallace, she spontaneously brought up the topic of Obama's winning a second term by bombing Iran:
WALLACE: How hard do you think President Obama will be to defeat in 2012?
PALIN: It depends on a few things. Say he played—and I got this from Buchanan, reading one of his columns the other day - say he played the war card. Say he decided to declare war on Iran or decided really [to] come out and do whatever he could to support Israel, which I would like him to do, but - that changes the dynamics in what we can assume is going to happen between now and three years. Because I think if the election were today I do not think Obama would be re-elected. But three years from now, things could change if—on the national security front …
WALLACE: But you're not suggesting that he would cynically play the war card?
PALIN: I'm not suggesting that. I'm saying if he did, things would dramatically change. If he decided to toughen up and do all that he can to secure our nation and our allies, I think people would, perhaps, shift their thinking a little bit and decide, "Well, maybe he's tougher than we think he's—than he is today," and there wouldn't be as much passion to make sure that he doesn't serve another four years.
Comments: (1) Buchanan disapproves of Obama taking out the Iranian nuclear infrastructure, but Palin and I "would like him to do" that, thereby removing the world's No. 1 security threat.
(2) After vilification from the Left and tepid reactions on the Right, it's nice to have a major political figure endorse my idea.
(3) I've always liked Palin and been mystified by the fervid hostility she engenders. Perhaps that results from her readiness, as Jeff Bergner puts it, to challenge "The Narrative" formulated by the Democratic Party. True to form, she is, so far, the only politician willing to touch the hot potato of the political implications of bombing Iran.
Posted by truth seeker at 3:59 PM 0 comments
Pipes to Obama Bomb Iran
How to Save the Obama Presidency: Bomb Iran
by Daniel Pipes
National Review Online
February 2, 2010
http://www.danielpipes.org/7921/bomb-iran-save-obama-presidency
I do not customarily offer advice to a president whose election I opposed, whose goals I fear, and whose policies I work against. But here is an idea for Barack Obama to salvage his tottering administration by taking a step that protects the United States and its allies.
If Obama's personality, identity, and celebrity captivated a majority of the American electorate in 2008, those qualities proved ruefully deficient in 2009 for governing. He failed to deliver on employment and health care, he failed in foreign policy forays small (e.g., landing the 2016 Olympics) and large (relations with China and Japan). His counterterrorism record barely passes the laugh test.
This poor performance has caused an unprecedented collapse in the polls and the loss of three major by-elections, culminating two weeks ago in an astonishing senatorial defeat in Massachusetts. Obama's attempts to "reset" his presidency will likely fail if he focuses on economics, where he is just one of many players.
He needs a dramatic gesture to change the public perception of him as a lightweight, bumbling ideologue, preferably in an arena where the stakes are high, where he can take charge, and where he can trump expectations.
Barak Obama's job approval problem.
Such an opportunity does exist: Obama can give orders for the U.S. military to destroy the Iranian nuclear weapon capacity.
Circumstances are propitious. First, U.S. intelligence agencies have reversed their preposterous 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, the one that claimed with "high confidence" that Tehran had "halted its nuclear weapons program," No one (other than the Iranian rulers and their agents) denies that the regime is rushing headlong to build a large nuclear arsenal.
Second, if the apocalyptic-minded leaders in Tehran get the Bomb, they render the Middle East a yet more volatile and dangerous. They might deploy these weapons in the region, leading to massive death and destruction. Eventually, they could launch an electro-magnetic pulse attack on the United States, utterly devastating the country. By eliminating the Iranian nuclear threat, Obama protects the homeland and sends a message to American's friends and enemies.
Third, polling shows longstanding American backing for an attack on the Iranian nuclear infrastructure.
*
Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg, January 2006: 57 percent of Americans favor military intervention if Tehran pursues a program that could enable it to build nuclear arms.
*
Zogby International, October 2007: 52 percent of likely voters support a U.S. military strike to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon; 29 percent oppose such a step.
*
McLaughlin & Associates, May 2009: asked whether they would support "Using the [U.S.] military to attack and destroy the facilities in Iran which are necessary to produce a nuclear weapon," 58 percent of 600 likely voters supported the use of force and 30 percent opposed it.
*
Fox News, September 2009: asked "Do you support or oppose the United States taking military action to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons?" 61 percent of 900 registered voters supported military action and 28 opposed it.
*
Pew Research Center, October 2009: asked which is more important, "To prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, even if it means taking military action" or "To avoid a military conflict with Iran, even if it means they may develop nuclear weapons," Out of 1,500 respondents, 61 percent favored the first reply and 24 percent the second.
The nuclear facility at Qum on Sep. 26,2009 from 423 miles in space, provided by GeoEye.
Not only does a strong majority – 57, 52, 58, 61, and 61 percent – already favor using force but after a strike Americans will presumably rally around the flag, jumping that number much higher.
Fourth, were the U.S. strike limited to taking out the Iranian nuclear facilities, and not aspire to regime change, it would require few "boots on the ground" and entail relatively few casualties, making an attack politically more palatable.
Just as 9/11 caused voters to forget George W. Bush's meandering early months, a strike on Iranian facilities would dispatch Obama's feckless first year down the memory hole and transform the domestic political scene. It would sideline health care, prompt Republicans to work with Democrats, make netroots squeal, independents reconsider, and conservatives swoon.
But the chance to do good and do well is fleeting. As the Iranians improve their defenses and approach weaponization, the window of opportunity is closing. The time to act is now or, on Obama's watch, the world will soon become a much more dangerous place.
Mr. Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University.
Posted by truth seeker at 3:25 PM 0 comments
New Israel Fund hurts Israel
New Israel Fund Grants Spark Human Rights Brouhaha
Locking horns over Goldstone: An ad sponsored by the Im Tirzu Zionist group depicted Naomi Chazan, president of the New Israel Fund, with a horn on her head.
Locking horns over Goldstone: An ad sponsored by the Im Tirzu Zionist group depicted Naomi Chazan, president of the New Israel Fund, with a horn on her head.
by Stewart Ain
Staff Writer
Charges that the New Israel Fund supports Israeli civil rights groups that played a key role in providing information highly critical of Israel’s role in the Gaza war last year have sparked a spirited, and nasty, debate over the proper role for civil and human rights groups in a democratic state.
A 131-page report, commissioned by a three-year-old Zionist group active on Israeli campuses, called Im Tirtzu, found that 16 Israeli human rights organizations provided 92 percent of the critical information used in the UN report written by South African jurist Richard Goldstone. All 16 are funded by the New Israel Fund (NIF) and include such groups as Breaking the Silence, B’Tselem and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.
NIF, founded in
Inbal 300X250
1979, is a philanthropy that funds mostly left-of-center human rights groups (as well as groups addressing other social issues) in Israel. Supporters say it promotes equal rights for all Israeli citizens; critics have accused it of supporting Israeli Arab groups that in turn encourage insurrection against the Zionist state.
“At the end of the day, we have a situation where Israelis are blaming their brothers of committing war crimes without any proof,” said Ronen Shoval, a graduate student and founder of Im Tirtzu. “They are lying. ... And the NIF stands behind the Goldstone report. I can’t tell you how important it is that Jewish people in the United States understand that at the end of the day their money [to the NIF] helps Hamas.”
A spokeswoman for the New Israel Fund, Naomi Paiss, said that although her group took no position on the Goldstone report, it “is very proud of the groups we have supported. ... Their reports were carefully documented and in some instances were the only available information out of Gaza because the international press and the Israeli press were kept out.
“Those human rights organizations are there to do a job,” she continued. “They reported on their concerns about the Gaza operation and were the first to declare that the Israeli government should launch an independent inquiry into the events of Gaza. Had that been done, perhaps there would not have been a Goldstone report.”
But Jacques Berlinerblau, director of the Program for Jewish Civilization at the Georgetown School of Foreign Service, said he believes there is a time and a place for self-criticism, and this might not be it.
“The perennial danger of Jewish self-criticism is that it gets used in a lopsided manner,” he explained. “If you have a completely imbalanced critical apparatus that only features criticism of Israel — and Israel as a nation can be criticized — it may not behoove these groups [to continue their criticism] when they are the only voices out there being critical. When you find critical Palestinian voices, they become useful. But if they are criticizing alone and their work is used in a skewed manner, I don’t know how much good they are doing for Israel.”
Paiss insisted that these organizations “were acting out of love for Israel and loyalty to the values on which the state was founded. ... They took a reasoned and thoughtful look at what happened in Gaza and put out reports that were then used as sources for Goldstone’s report.”
Shoval stressed the serious implications of the Goldstone report, noting that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said two months ago that the three major dangers facing Israel were the Iranian nuclear threat, the missile threat from Hamas and Hezbollah and the Goldstone report.
“Goldstone has become code for a much broader phenomenon: the attempt to negate the legitimacy of our right to self-defense,” Netanyahu said at the time.
Asked her reaction to claims that the Goldstone report is being used by Israel’s enemies to delegitimize the Jewish state, Paiss replied: “We are acutely aware that Israel has real enemies and that the work of human rights groups are used for their propaganda. ... [But] you lose much more in a democracy when you shut down internal criticism out of fear that it would be used by people who hate you. If Israel gives in on basic democratic values, then it is really lost.”
The Im Tirtzu study found that without the NIF-funded NGOs’ reports, “Goldstone would have nothing on which to base most of the claims” he made against Israel.
“In recent years Israel has been increasingly accused of war crimes, and this allegation has become a type of new weapon among leftist organizations,” the study said. “In effect, a small group of leftist organizations that is financed by identical foreign sources has created international pressure that is seriously harming Israel in the diplomatic arena and challenges Israel’s legitimate right of self-defense in the future.”
Hamas is also claiming Israel committed war crimes in its 22-day Gaza incursion, Shoval said, in order to get the international community to put such pressure on Israel that it won’t dare respond the next time Hamas fires missiles at civilians.
He said he plans to bring his report to the Knesset with the hope that it investigates these human rights groups “because they are helping Hamas, and the State of Israel should check to see who is giving them money and whether it is legal or not.
Yisrael Hasson, a member of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, told The Jewish Week he is inclined to call for an investigation, “but I don’t want to say for sure because I’m still learning the issue.”
In the United States, Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, called the Im Tirtzu charges “an outrageous broadside,” telling The Jewish Week “it is absurd to blame Goldstone on NIF.”
He said there might be legitimate questions for NIF to respond to about standards for its recipient organizations, ensuring that they not support violence, as was the case with the Ford Foundation. But he said it was unfair to accuse NIF “of undermining Israeli security. Lots of people aided and abetted Goldstone.”
The charges exchanged between Im Tirtzu and the New Israel Fund also became personal attacks when Im Tirtzu took out an ad depicting Naomi Chazan, NIF’s president, with a horn on her head. Chazan is a former deputy speaker of the Knesset and a former member of the Knesset from the Meretz Party.
“She was the head of the campaign against the IDF,” Shoval said in explaining the caricature of Chazan. “She has a major part in deciding where the money is going, and I want to make sure that everyone knows that this is the person standing behind it.”
Asked why a horn was put on her head, he said the word for “horn” in Hebrew also means “fund,” “so it was a funny to put a horn on her head.”
In addition, he said his group staged a protest demonstration outside her Jerusalem home Saturday night.
Paiss said Chazan was in New York at the time and that the protesters mistakenly targeted a neighbor’s home and not Chazan’s.
Jeremy Ben-Ami, executive director of J Street, a Washington-based pro-peace-process lobby group, issued a statement expressing grave concern about the “vicious” attacks against the NIF and Chazan. He said it used “style reminiscent of propaganda from the darkest days of recent Jewish experience, depicting Chazan with a horn on her head and holding her personally responsible for the contents of the Goldstone Report.”
Ben-Ami said also that Im Tirtzu’s political leanings are clear from the fact that it accepted $100,000 from the John Hagee Ministries, a group run by Pastor John Hagee, a major supporter of Israel who has made controversial remarks in the past. Hagee is also founder and president of Christians United for Israel.
Paiss said she believes this attack on her organization is but the latest in a “coordinated attempt to delegitimize Israeli civil society and repress human rights groups and tolerance for dissent and honesty” in Israel. She cited the recent arrests of Anat Hoffman of the Israel Religious Action Center for her activities in support of women praying at the Kotel, and of Hagai el-Ad, executive director of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, as he was monitoring a demonstration protesting the seizure of Palestinian land in Jerusalem.
“We think it’s a suppression of free speech and that they want the human rights community in Israel to be defunded and defeated,” Paiss said.
But Gerald Steinberg, a professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University and a founder of NGO Monitor, charged that the NIF is guilty of a similar attack against him. He claimed it has been distributing a “finger” painting against him, even though his organization has never engaged in personal attacks.
“It’s an example of how NIF plays rough and dirty in attacking its critics, but is outraged when they are treated in the same way,” he said. “NIF is extremely closed and hostile to any criticism and independent analysis, and they have outraged the Israeli center by their funding of some of the most radical organizations.
“They collect most of their money from outside of Israel, and there is a demand that the Knesset demand transparency from government-funded NGOs,” Steinberg added. “Do NIF-funded NGOs discriminate against Israel when they encourage boycotts of Israel and encourage Israelis to reject the draft? This is part of a wider awareness effort going on in Israel. It is not right wing but centrist.”
Paiss denied that the NIF was behind a “finger” poster directed against Steinberg, whom she called a “voice and outlet for those who believe that any criticism of Israel is anti-Israel.”
“We think that loving examination of Israel’s real problems and proposing solutions is the best way to love Israel,” she added.
Posted by truth seeker at 2:57 PM 0 comments
Friday, February 12, 2010
Palin over Obama for a safe world
Column One: Sarah Palin’s friendship
By CAROLINE GLICK
12/02/2010 16:01
Hers is the strongest single American voice opposing Obama’s foreign policy, supporting Israel and denying Iran nuclear weapons.
Talkbacks (13)
US President Barack Obama is an inept, incompetent leader. More than his failure to pass his domestic agenda on health care and global warming despite his Democratic Party’s control over both houses of Congress, Iran’s announcement on Thursday that it is a nuclear power and has the capacity to produce weapons-grade uranium is a testament to Obama’s feckless incompetence. Even his most ardent supporters are admitting this.
Take The New York Times. In a news analysis Thursday of Obama’s failure to prevent Iran from advancing with its nuclear program, David Sanger wrote that for the US president, the last year has been “a year in which little in his dealings with Iran has gone the way that the White House expected.”
Since Obama first announced his wish to sit down with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, at a Democratic presidential candidates’ debate in the spring of 2008, the 44th US president’s only strategy for dealing with Iran has been to appease its leaders. And as of Tuesday, he still believes that ingratiating himself with the regime is his best bet.
On Tuesday, Obama wouldn’t admit that appeasement has failed, even as all of Iran’s top leaders said they were expanding their illicit uranium enrichment activities. The most he would do was acknowledge that the regime’s leaders “have made their choice so far, although the door is still open.”
As for sanctions, well, Obama said it will take “several weeks” to put those together at the UN.
The distressing truth is that Obama’s aim has never been to prevent Teheran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. His whole “sanctions-if-engagement-fails” strategy is just a ruse. The Obama administration has never intended to place biting sanctions on Iran. As one senior administration official told The New York Times, the purpose of the sanctions talk is to get the Iranians to agree to negotiate. As he put it, “This is about driving them back to negotiations, because the real goal here is to avoid war.”
Got that? As far as Obama is concerned, Iran with nuclear weapons isn’t the main concern. Israel using force to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons is the main concern.
US PRESIDENTS have a far freer hand in foreign policy than they have in domestic affairs. A president’s ability to implement his domestic agenda is constrained by Congress. Congress has much less of a say in foreign policy. But the main constraining factor for a US president in both domestic and foreign affairs is public opinion.
Over the past year, Obama failed to pass his domestic agenda even though he enjoyed governing majorities in both houses of Congress, because the public opposed his agenda. So, too, if the public is able to express its opposition to his foreign policy, particularly as it relates to Israel and Iran, he will be unable to sustain it.
To date, in light of his sinking approval ratings, the main thing Obama has had going for him is that since the presidential election, his political opponents have lacked a leader capable of uniting his opponents around an alternative path. Over the past week, that leader may have emerged.
On Saturday, former Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin gave the keynote address at the Tea Party Movement convention in Nashville, Tennessee. As she did in the presidential campaign, Palin electrified her audience in Nashville by credibly channeling the populist impulses of American voters. In her signature line she asked, “So how’s that hopey changey stuff working out for ya?”
Palin excoriated Obama on his handling of US foreign policy. Among other things, she noted that a year into his quest to appease dictators, America’s international standing is in shambles. “Israel, a friend and a critical ally, now questions the strength of our support,” she added.
Palin bellowed that on issues of foreign policy, there is no room for self-delusion. As she put it, “National security, that’s the one place where you’ve got to call it like it is.” And then, “We need a foreign policy that distinguishes America’s friends from her enemies and recognizes the true nature of the threats that we face.”
If her address wasn’t enough to convince Americans – and specifically American Jews – that Palin thinks supporting Israel and standing up to Iran are the keys to US nationalsecurity, then there was her interview on Fox News Sunday. Asked how Obama can win reelection in 2012, Palin responded, “Say he decided to declare war on Iran or decided really to come out and do whatever he could to support Israel, which I would like him to do.”
And if that still isn’t enough, there is her lapel pin. The politician who leads the populist opposition to Obama decided to make her most important speech since the 2008 election wearing a pin featuring the US flag and the Israeli flag.
Palin, who is considering a run in the 2012 Republican presidential primaries, is using her public platforms to reassemble the coalition ofsecurity hawks, social conservatives and blue collar workers that propelled Ronald Reagan to the White House in 1980. Her support for Israel serves her in building support among both security hawks and social conservatives.
Unlike Obama’s empty protestations of support for Israel, Palin’s support is obviously heartfelt and therefore will not diminish while Obama remains in office. And as Palin becomes stronger, her ability to influence the US debate in a manner that constrains Obama’s freedom to intimidate Israel into allowing Iran to become a nuclear power will rise.
In spite of Palin’s extraordinary support for Israel, the American Jewish community overwhelmingly rejects her. As Jennifer Rubin noted in her article, “Why Jews hate Palin,” in Commentary magazine, Jews disapproved of Sen. John McCain’s choice of Palin as his running-mate by a 54 to 37 percent majority. The sneering broadsides published against Palin by leading American Jewish writers are legion.
In her article, Rubin gives a number of reasons for American Jews’ rejection of Palin.
On the one hand, American Jews, who overwhelmingly self-identify as Democrats and disproportionately identify as liberals, oppose Palin for the same reason they oppose all social-conservative Republicans – because she isn’t a liberal Democrat. What makes American Jews’ rejection of Palin unique is its emotional potency. Rubin argues that the visceral hatred that many American Jews express towards Palin is effectively an issue of class hatred, or snobbery. They are four generations removed from the sweatshops where their great grandparents labored on New York’s Lower East Side. And they don’t like this woman with a funny accent who went to University of Idaho, guts fish and shoots moose.
This may be true. But if it is, American Jews might want to rethink their loyalty to their social class. As the demonstrations against Ambassador Michael Oren at UC Irvine, against former prime minister Ehud Olmert at University of Chicago, against Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon at Oxford, as well as the disinvitation of Prof. Benny Morris at Cambridge and the celebrity of Harvard’s anti-Semitic Prof. Steve Walt show clearly, the bastions of intellectual elitism where American Jews feel most at home have become the repositories of the most virulent hatred of Jews in America and the West today. Liberal standard bearers like Hollywood have had no compunction about giving prestigious awards to movies like Paradise Now, which glorified murderers of Jews in a manner unmatched since the days of Leni Riefenstahl. Elite media outlets like The Atlantic monthly are only too happy to publish the rantings of newly fashionable critics like Andrew Sullivan.
Liberal Democratic Jewish voices, like Leon Wieseltier at The New Republic, are aware that there is a problem with the rampant anti-Semitism in their camp. And they fear that as a consequence, American Jews may take a second look at Palin with her Israeli flag lapel pin. As Wieseltier wrote this week, “A day does not go by when I do not do my humble part to prevent such a transformation [of American Jewry from liberals to conservatives] from coming to pass.”
THE FACT of the matter is that for Israel’s sake such a transformation can’t happen quickly enough. It isn’t that American Jews have to change their social agenda, but they must recognize that today, sadly, there is not meaningful bipartisan support for Israel in the US Congress. The 54 lawmakers who wrote Obama a letter last month asking him to force Israel to open up Gaza’s borders were all Democrats. Opposition to passing sanctions against Iran, and opposition to an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear installations, are only politically significant among Democrats.
In her speech at the Tea Party Conference, Palin said, “We need a commander-in-chief, not a professor of law standing at the lectern.”
The fact of the matter is that Obama came to many of his anti-Israel sensibilities through his professor friends – Rashid Khalidi, John Mearshimer, Samantha Power, William Ayres, Bernadine Dohrn and, of course, the late Edward Said. Americans interested in national security – and particularly American Jews who support Israel – should be the first ones to second Palin’s statement.
Sarah Palin’s emergence as the mouthpiece of populist opposition to Obama presents Israel’s supporters – and particularly Israel’s Jewish supporters – with an extraordinary opportunity and an extraordinary challenge. Palin’s coupling of support for Israel with her populist domestic agenda marks the first time that support for Israel has been treated as a core, populist issue. The opportunity this presents for American Jews who care about Israel is without precedent.
But of course, to make the best use of this opportunity, American Jews who support Israel have to disappoint Wieseltier. They have to acknowledge that the Left has rejected their cause and increasingly, rejects them.
Obama’s failure to prevent Iran from moving forward with its nuclear program, and his stubborn refusal to support an Israeli move to deny Iran the ability to threaten Israel and global security as a whole, place Israel and core US national security interests in unprecedented jeopardy. His fellow Democrats’ willingness to support him as he maintains this perilous course means that the Democratic ship has abandoned Israel, and strategic sanity.
Palin’s future in politics is unknowable. But what is clear enough is that today hers is the strongest single American voice opposing Obama’s foreign policy and the loudest advocate for supporting Israel and denying Iran nuclear weapons. For this she deserves the thanks and support of American Jewry.
caroline@carolineglick.com
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Palin on Obama attacking Israel
It is, as the two Republicans point out, all of a piece. The Obami have, as Palin puts it, reached out “to some of the world’s worst regimes in the name of their engagement policy,” and averted their eyes to violations of UN agreements and to gross human-rights abuses.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Palin most pro-Israel
Sarah Palin on Israel
Republican Presidential candidate John McCain selected Alaska governor Sarah Palin to be his running mate on Friday. Palin, who has high approval ratings and a reputation for having cleaned up her state's government, is the first woman nominated for a national ticket by the Republican party.
Sources in Alaska say that Palin is very strongly pro-Israel.
"The Jewish community should be very excited that Sarah was selected. She has been very conscious of the Jewish community here in Alaska and now with the opportunity of her new position, she'll have the opportunity to look at the Jewish community globally," said Alaskan Republican Jewish Coalition member Terry Gorlick, who knows Palin well and has worked with her on several issues.
"Sarah's absolutely pro-Israel," he said, referring to conversations with her and comments she's made about Israel's security and its importance to the United States. He noted that as governor she signed a resolution honoring Israel for its 60th birthday.
Alaska¹s AIPAC chairman, David Gottstein, said that he had spoken to the governor about arranging a trip to Israel, but scheduling conflicts had kept it from happening to date.
"She has ties and interests in the Holy Land," said Gottstein, and also described her as someone who could be effective across party lines, noting that he worked well with her despite being a Democrat.
Ironically, the National Jewish Democratic Coalition rushed to attack Palin for her lack of foreign policy experience.
But the National Jewish Democratic Coalition used the fact that Palin hasn't been to Israel to attack her familiarity with the country and the crucial foreign policy issues connected to the region.
"In Governor Sarah Palin, McCain chooses a running mate with zero foreign policy experience," said NJDC executive director Ira Forman.
"For a party which claims it is trying to reach out to the Jewish community, McCain's pick is particularly strange. Prior to today's selection Palin apparently has never spoken publicly about Israel."
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! The Republican Jewish Coalition, and the local Lubavitch Rabbi (who is one of a handful of Orthodox Rabbis in Alaska) both came out strongly in favor of Palin.
"Senator Lieberman and Representative Cantor would also have been excellent choices," said RJC spokeswoman Suzanne Kurtz, but stressed that McCain¹s nominee was just as good.
"They¹ll make a great team," she said.
The RJC put out a statement on Friday saying that, "Palin has a proven track record of experienced and principled leadership. Palin has been a leader on the critical issue of energy independence and lessening our need to buy oil from nations not sharing America and Israel's foreign policy interests."
And she received praise from other Jewish quarters, including from Anchorage Chabad Rabbi Yosef Greenberg. He recalled Palin's support for a Jewish museum he is building there and her hora lessons at the annual Jewish gala she has attended the last two years.
He also spoke of her reaction to giving birth to a child with special needs.
"She said, God doesn¹t give you something you can't handle," he said. "It was straight out of the Lubavitch book."
Finally, I received the following in an email just before the Sabbath yesterday from a friend who is the country coordinator for Israel for the McCain campaign:
The Chicago Tribune and Seattle Times report that Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska has been selected as the GOP running mate, and has departed Juneau in a private jet for announcement in Akron, Ohio later today with McCain.
"Sarah Baraccuda" was born in Idaho, but moved to Alaska as a young child. Her father taught science and math in High Schools. She was the star point guard on the state womens basketball championship team, earning her nickname to this day, hitting the winning shot with a broken bone but refusing to leave the championship game. She returned to the Lower 48 for college, graduating in Political Science and Journalism from University of Idaho.
She is a first term Governor. She met her husband, a native Inuit (eskimo in non-PC parlance) while spending the summer as a commercial fisherman. She claims to have broken three fingers that summer on the boat, but pulled in her Big Fish by summer's end. Husband continues as an Alaskan commercial fisherman to this day. The Palins have five children, eldest son serving in Iraq. Palin is a founding member of Feminists for Life. When informed by her OBY/GYN that her fifth child was going to be Down's Syndrome she refused to abort, and regularly quips "so he has an extra chromosome. Who is to define what is perfect and correct but God?"
Palin has proven a true maverick in cleaning up Alaskan environmental issues, often at the expense of major corporations. Like McCain, she is considered part of the West Coast political leadership within the GOP and Washington, as opposed to Clinton and Obama, considered very Eastern Ivy League. Both GOP candidates have sons on active duty in Iraq.
The editorial comments are my friend's and not the campaign's.
And as Boker Tov Boulder points out, Sarah Palin is no Dick Cheney.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:29 PM
Be the first to rate this [?]
You might like:
Passages 2009: Notable lives lost this year (USATODAY.com in Life)
Sarah Palin redux (this site)
Sarah Palin and Israel (this site)
Sabbath music video (this site)
(Selected for you by a sponsor )
4 comments:
At 3:01 AM, Orde said...
Oh yeah, very pro-Israel, her church background is same as mine. Not that replacement theology crap. Nor is it the lukewarm Christianity-lite so common today that's basically pop psychology w/a few proof text verses thrown in.
At 9:50 PM, NormanF said...
When you consider most American Jews are more liberal than they are Jewish, its amazing America does support Israel as much as she does. Most of the support for Israel comes from non-Jews!
At 10:19 PM, HCFPINMA said...
Sarah palin is a true Evangelical.
Based on her faith she belives to defend israel and to be pro-life and pro-Israel!
Her recent comments cleary provs that"
Palin said that" It was God'd task to send troops to Iraq!"
She siad that because she belives Israel needs to be protected in the Middle East!
I am Jewish , i AM VERY PLEASED WITH PALIN
At 7:51 PM, Letitfail said...
Dummies,Sarah Palin is Jewish. Both her parents were born in Lithuania,family name is Sheigam. Her grandparents are buried in a Jewish Cemetery in Lithuania. Sarah has an Israeli flag on her governor's desk. Can't get more Yiddish than than.
Republican Presidential candidate John McCain selected Alaska governor Sarah Palin to be his running mate on Friday. Palin, who has high approval ratings and a reputation for having cleaned up her state's government, is the first woman nominated for a national ticket by the Republican party.
Sources in Alaska say that Palin is very strongly pro-Israel.
"The Jewish community should be very excited that Sarah was selected. She has been very conscious of the Jewish community here in Alaska and now with the opportunity of her new position, she'll have the opportunity to look at the Jewish community globally," said Alaskan Republican Jewish Coalition member Terry Gorlick, who knows Palin well and has worked with her on several issues.
"Sarah's absolutely pro-Israel," he said, referring to conversations with her and comments she's made about Israel's security and its importance to the United States. He noted that as governor she signed a resolution honoring Israel for its 60th birthday.
Alaska¹s AIPAC chairman, David Gottstein, said that he had spoken to the governor about arranging a trip to Israel, but scheduling conflicts had kept it from happening to date.
"She has ties and interests in the Holy Land," said Gottstein, and also described her as someone who could be effective across party lines, noting that he worked well with her despite being a Democrat.
Ironically, the National Jewish Democratic Coalition rushed to attack Palin for her lack of foreign policy experience.
But the National Jewish Democratic Coalition used the fact that Palin hasn't been to Israel to attack her familiarity with the country and the crucial foreign policy issues connected to the region.
"In Governor Sarah Palin, McCain chooses a running mate with zero foreign policy experience," said NJDC executive director Ira Forman.
"For a party which claims it is trying to reach out to the Jewish community, McCain's pick is particularly strange. Prior to today's selection Palin apparently has never spoken publicly about Israel."
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! The Republican Jewish Coalition, and the local Lubavitch Rabbi (who is one of a handful of Orthodox Rabbis in Alaska) both came out strongly in favor of Palin.
"Senator Lieberman and Representative Cantor would also have been excellent choices," said RJC spokeswoman Suzanne Kurtz, but stressed that McCain¹s nominee was just as good.
"They¹ll make a great team," she said.
The RJC put out a statement on Friday saying that, "Palin has a proven track record of experienced and principled leadership. Palin has been a leader on the critical issue of energy independence and lessening our need to buy oil from nations not sharing America and Israel's foreign policy interests."
And she received praise from other Jewish quarters, including from Anchorage Chabad Rabbi Yosef Greenberg. He recalled Palin's support for a Jewish museum he is building there and her hora lessons at the annual Jewish gala she has attended the last two years.
He also spoke of her reaction to giving birth to a child with special needs.
"She said, God doesn¹t give you something you can't handle," he said. "It was straight out of the Lubavitch book."
Finally, I received the following in an email just before the Sabbath yesterday from a friend who is the country coordinator for Israel for the McCain campaign:
The Chicago Tribune and Seattle Times report that Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska has been selected as the GOP running mate, and has departed Juneau in a private jet for announcement in Akron, Ohio later today with McCain.
"Sarah Baraccuda" was born in Idaho, but moved to Alaska as a young child. Her father taught science and math in High Schools. She was the star point guard on the state womens basketball championship team, earning her nickname to this day, hitting the winning shot with a broken bone but refusing to leave the championship game. She returned to the Lower 48 for college, graduating in Political Science and Journalism from University of Idaho.
She is a first term Governor. She met her husband, a native Inuit (eskimo in non-PC parlance) while spending the summer as a commercial fisherman. She claims to have broken three fingers that summer on the boat, but pulled in her Big Fish by summer's end. Husband continues as an Alaskan commercial fisherman to this day. The Palins have five children, eldest son serving in Iraq. Palin is a founding member of Feminists for Life. When informed by her OBY/GYN that her fifth child was going to be Down's Syndrome she refused to abort, and regularly quips "so he has an extra chromosome. Who is to define what is perfect and correct but God?"
Palin has proven a true maverick in cleaning up Alaskan environmental issues, often at the expense of major corporations. Like McCain, she is considered part of the West Coast political leadership within the GOP and Washington, as opposed to Clinton and Obama, considered very Eastern Ivy League. Both GOP candidates have sons on active duty in Iraq.
The editorial comments are my friend's and not the campaign's.
And as Boker Tov Boulder points out, Sarah Palin is no Dick Cheney.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:29 PM
Be the first to rate this [?]
You might like:
Passages 2009: Notable lives lost this year (USATODAY.com in Life)
Sarah Palin redux (this site)
Sarah Palin and Israel (this site)
Sabbath music video (this site)
(Selected for you by a sponsor )
4 comments:
At 3:01 AM, Orde said...
Oh yeah, very pro-Israel, her church background is same as mine. Not that replacement theology crap. Nor is it the lukewarm Christianity-lite so common today that's basically pop psychology w/a few proof text verses thrown in.
At 9:50 PM, NormanF said...
When you consider most American Jews are more liberal than they are Jewish, its amazing America does support Israel as much as she does. Most of the support for Israel comes from non-Jews!
At 10:19 PM, HCFPINMA said...
Sarah palin is a true Evangelical.
Based on her faith she belives to defend israel and to be pro-life and pro-Israel!
Her recent comments cleary provs that"
Palin said that" It was God'd task to send troops to Iraq!"
She siad that because she belives Israel needs to be protected in the Middle East!
I am Jewish , i AM VERY PLEASED WITH PALIN
At 7:51 PM, Letitfail said...
Dummies,Sarah Palin is Jewish. Both her parents were born in Lithuania,family name is Sheigam. Her grandparents are buried in a Jewish Cemetery in Lithuania. Sarah has an Israeli flag on her governor's desk. Can't get more Yiddish than than.
Monday, February 22, 2010
54 Dem US reps and J Street hurt Israel again
Serious Words, Serious Consequences
by Matthew Brooks, Executive Director, Republican Jewish Coalition
The 54 Democrat members of Congress (no Republicans) who signed the January 21, 2010 letter to President Barack Obama initiated by Reps. Jim McDermott (D-WA) and Keith Ellison (D-MN) presumably wanted to make a thoughtful, serious statement of concern and a specific request for action. They were concerned for the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza and their request was that American government pressure be brought to bear on Israel to ease the restrictions on Israel's border with Gaza.
The Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) took the letter and its words seriously. We saw that the 'Gaza 54' called for the loosening of security measures that Israel put into place to stop terrorism and reduce the ability of Hamas to launch attacks on Israel. The letter acknowledged that "the Israeli government has imposed restrictions on Gaza out of a legitimate and keenly felt fear of continued terrorist action by Hamas and other militant groups." But the congressmen did not make any mention of the potential consequences for Israel, or what alternate measures would provide equal protection for Israel's citizens against attacks initiated from Gaza.
The letter simply asserted, without foundation, that: "Easing the blockade (sic) on Gaza will not only improve the conditions on the ground for Gaza's civilian population, but will also undermine the tunnel economy which has strengthened Hamas... Most importantly, lifting these restrictions will give civilians in Gaza a tangible sense that diplomacy can be an effective tool for bettering their conditions. Your Administration's overarching Middle East peace efforts will benefit Israel, the Palestinians, and the entire region."
One in five Democrats in Congress signed a letter asking the president to pressure Israel to take unilateral actions that its leaders believe would undermine its security, with no concomitant expectation of concrete action on the Palestinian side to assure the safety of Israeli citizens. They are willing to bet that if American diplomacy forces Israel to make "tangible" changes to its policies, that will somehow "benefit Israel" in the long run.
This is at best, naïve. Israel can't afford to relax its security measures just because someone in the US says it will all be okay. Its enemies' commitment to its destruction has not waned. Loosening the "blockade" will not persuade Hamas to change its goals nor deter it from attacking.
THE DEMOCRATS' letter effectively demonstrates a mind-set all too typical of the Left, which we are seeing increasingly in more "mainstream" discourse: that Israel is doing wrong, Israel must make concessions, Israel is not acting morally except when it gives in. Unfortunately, history teaches us that appeasement leads to more violence, not less. The fact that so many Democrats signed the letter is troubling in and of itself.
The RJC (generously) called the letter signers "misguided." Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) agrees, telling The Jerusalem Post's Shmuel Rosner in a recent interview that the Gaza 54 are "misinformed" legislators.
The RJC decided to take action because we were troubled that 54 Democratic congressmen would call on the president to pressure Israel in this way. We asked our members to express their view on the letter. Within hours, a strong grassroots showing from across the country had signed the petition on our web site, calling for the letter signers to "take a firm stand against terrorism by disassociating yourself from this dangerous letter and upholding America's commitment to Israel's security in the future."
There are simple facts missing from the Gaza 54 letter about Israel's actions to help the residents of Gaza. The same facts were missing from remarks by one of the 54, Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA), who last week told students in Gaza that the US should bring in ships to the coast to break the Israeli "blockade" on the Gaza Strip.
As RJC wrote in our own letter to President Obama, asking him to repudiate Baird's remarks: Egypt also has a blockade of Gaza in place and is constructing a wall, similar to Israel's, to stop the smuggling of people and weapons across its border with Gaza; Israel allows huge quantities of food, medicine, and other humanitarian supplies into Gaza each day; Israel has prohibited only building supplies from coming into Gaza, to prevent them from being diverted by Hamas to military use. Israel has taken necessary and justifiable steps to stop terrorism originating from Hamas-controlled Gaza.
THE TRUTH is that the Palestinians are victims of their leaders and of their choices. For decades they have been taught to hate Israel (and Jews), to demand retribution and reparations, and to never compromise - by leaders who pocketed the funds meant to help them, corrupted the political system meant to lead them, and used them as foot soldiers against a reluctant enemy, Israel. Sadly, the lessons of hatred have been well-learned. Palestinian voters chose Hamas in the election of January 2006, giving them 74 of the 132 parliamentary seats and leading to the June 2007 Hamas coup in Gaza that split the Palestinian proto-polity in two. Afterward, hundreds of rockets were launched from within Gaza. The "blockade" of Gaza is a direct result of all these events.
The 54 Democrats who wrote to President Obama should understand this history and the Israeli security measures required to guarantee Israel's continued existence and safety. They paid lip service to Israel's security needs, but without confronting the hard question, which Israel faces daily, of how to keep Israeli citizens safe.
Lacking that important element, the letter was just another outrageous political attack on Israel and it deserved the condemnation of RJC and other friends of Israel. We stand by our characterization of the letter and by our statements about it.
###
by Matthew Brooks, Executive Director, Republican Jewish Coalition
The 54 Democrat members of Congress (no Republicans) who signed the January 21, 2010 letter to President Barack Obama initiated by Reps. Jim McDermott (D-WA) and Keith Ellison (D-MN) presumably wanted to make a thoughtful, serious statement of concern and a specific request for action. They were concerned for the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza and their request was that American government pressure be brought to bear on Israel to ease the restrictions on Israel's border with Gaza.
The Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) took the letter and its words seriously. We saw that the 'Gaza 54' called for the loosening of security measures that Israel put into place to stop terrorism and reduce the ability of Hamas to launch attacks on Israel. The letter acknowledged that "the Israeli government has imposed restrictions on Gaza out of a legitimate and keenly felt fear of continued terrorist action by Hamas and other militant groups." But the congressmen did not make any mention of the potential consequences for Israel, or what alternate measures would provide equal protection for Israel's citizens against attacks initiated from Gaza.
The letter simply asserted, without foundation, that: "Easing the blockade (sic) on Gaza will not only improve the conditions on the ground for Gaza's civilian population, but will also undermine the tunnel economy which has strengthened Hamas... Most importantly, lifting these restrictions will give civilians in Gaza a tangible sense that diplomacy can be an effective tool for bettering their conditions. Your Administration's overarching Middle East peace efforts will benefit Israel, the Palestinians, and the entire region."
One in five Democrats in Congress signed a letter asking the president to pressure Israel to take unilateral actions that its leaders believe would undermine its security, with no concomitant expectation of concrete action on the Palestinian side to assure the safety of Israeli citizens. They are willing to bet that if American diplomacy forces Israel to make "tangible" changes to its policies, that will somehow "benefit Israel" in the long run.
This is at best, naïve. Israel can't afford to relax its security measures just because someone in the US says it will all be okay. Its enemies' commitment to its destruction has not waned. Loosening the "blockade" will not persuade Hamas to change its goals nor deter it from attacking.
THE DEMOCRATS' letter effectively demonstrates a mind-set all too typical of the Left, which we are seeing increasingly in more "mainstream" discourse: that Israel is doing wrong, Israel must make concessions, Israel is not acting morally except when it gives in. Unfortunately, history teaches us that appeasement leads to more violence, not less. The fact that so many Democrats signed the letter is troubling in and of itself.
The RJC (generously) called the letter signers "misguided." Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) agrees, telling The Jerusalem Post's Shmuel Rosner in a recent interview that the Gaza 54 are "misinformed" legislators.
The RJC decided to take action because we were troubled that 54 Democratic congressmen would call on the president to pressure Israel in this way. We asked our members to express their view on the letter. Within hours, a strong grassroots showing from across the country had signed the petition on our web site, calling for the letter signers to "take a firm stand against terrorism by disassociating yourself from this dangerous letter and upholding America's commitment to Israel's security in the future."
There are simple facts missing from the Gaza 54 letter about Israel's actions to help the residents of Gaza. The same facts were missing from remarks by one of the 54, Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA), who last week told students in Gaza that the US should bring in ships to the coast to break the Israeli "blockade" on the Gaza Strip.
As RJC wrote in our own letter to President Obama, asking him to repudiate Baird's remarks: Egypt also has a blockade of Gaza in place and is constructing a wall, similar to Israel's, to stop the smuggling of people and weapons across its border with Gaza; Israel allows huge quantities of food, medicine, and other humanitarian supplies into Gaza each day; Israel has prohibited only building supplies from coming into Gaza, to prevent them from being diverted by Hamas to military use. Israel has taken necessary and justifiable steps to stop terrorism originating from Hamas-controlled Gaza.
THE TRUTH is that the Palestinians are victims of their leaders and of their choices. For decades they have been taught to hate Israel (and Jews), to demand retribution and reparations, and to never compromise - by leaders who pocketed the funds meant to help them, corrupted the political system meant to lead them, and used them as foot soldiers against a reluctant enemy, Israel. Sadly, the lessons of hatred have been well-learned. Palestinian voters chose Hamas in the election of January 2006, giving them 74 of the 132 parliamentary seats and leading to the June 2007 Hamas coup in Gaza that split the Palestinian proto-polity in two. Afterward, hundreds of rockets were launched from within Gaza. The "blockade" of Gaza is a direct result of all these events.
The 54 Democrats who wrote to President Obama should understand this history and the Israeli security measures required to guarantee Israel's continued existence and safety. They paid lip service to Israel's security needs, but without confronting the hard question, which Israel faces daily, of how to keep Israeli citizens safe.
Lacking that important element, the letter was just another outrageous political attack on Israel and it deserved the condemnation of RJC and other friends of Israel. We stand by our characterization of the letter and by our statements about it.
###
Saah is the only major politician advocating bombing Iran
View my complete profile
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Palin endorses bombing Iran
Daniel pipes
Sarah Palin entered the fray yesterday. In a high-profile interview yesterday with Chris Wallace, she spontaneously brought up the topic of Obama's winning a second term by bombing Iran:
WALLACE: How hard do you think President Obama will be to defeat in 2012?
PALIN: It depends on a few things. Say he played—and I got this from Buchanan, reading one of his columns the other day - say he played the war card. Say he decided to declare war on Iran or decided really [to] come out and do whatever he could to support Israel, which I would like him to do, but - that changes the dynamics in what we can assume is going to happen between now and three years. Because I think if the election were today I do not think Obama would be re-elected. But three years from now, things could change if—on the national security front …
WALLACE: But you're not suggesting that he would cynically play the war card?
PALIN: I'm not suggesting that. I'm saying if he did, things would dramatically change. If he decided to toughen up and do all that he can to secure our nation and our allies, I think people would, perhaps, shift their thinking a little bit and decide, "Well, maybe he's tougher than we think he's—than he is today," and there wouldn't be as much passion to make sure that he doesn't serve another four years.
Comments: (1) Buchanan disapproves of Obama taking out the Iranian nuclear infrastructure, but Palin and I "would like him to do" that, thereby removing the world's No. 1 security threat.
(2) After vilification from the Left and tepid reactions on the Right, it's nice to have a major political figure endorse my idea.
(3) I've always liked Palin and been mystified by the fervid hostility she engenders. Perhaps that results from her readiness, as Jeff Bergner puts it, to challenge "The Narrative" formulated by the Democratic Party. True to form, she is, so far, the only politician willing to touch the hot potato of the political implications of bombing Iran.
Posted by Jewu.info at 5:58 PM
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Palin endorses bombing Iran
Daniel pipes
Sarah Palin entered the fray yesterday. In a high-profile interview yesterday with Chris Wallace, she spontaneously brought up the topic of Obama's winning a second term by bombing Iran:
WALLACE: How hard do you think President Obama will be to defeat in 2012?
PALIN: It depends on a few things. Say he played—and I got this from Buchanan, reading one of his columns the other day - say he played the war card. Say he decided to declare war on Iran or decided really [to] come out and do whatever he could to support Israel, which I would like him to do, but - that changes the dynamics in what we can assume is going to happen between now and three years. Because I think if the election were today I do not think Obama would be re-elected. But three years from now, things could change if—on the national security front …
WALLACE: But you're not suggesting that he would cynically play the war card?
PALIN: I'm not suggesting that. I'm saying if he did, things would dramatically change. If he decided to toughen up and do all that he can to secure our nation and our allies, I think people would, perhaps, shift their thinking a little bit and decide, "Well, maybe he's tougher than we think he's—than he is today," and there wouldn't be as much passion to make sure that he doesn't serve another four years.
Comments: (1) Buchanan disapproves of Obama taking out the Iranian nuclear infrastructure, but Palin and I "would like him to do" that, thereby removing the world's No. 1 security threat.
(2) After vilification from the Left and tepid reactions on the Right, it's nice to have a major political figure endorse my idea.
(3) I've always liked Palin and been mystified by the fervid hostility she engenders. Perhaps that results from her readiness, as Jeff Bergner puts it, to challenge "The Narrative" formulated by the Democratic Party. True to form, she is, so far, the only politician willing to touch the hot potato of the political implications of bombing Iran.
Posted by Jewu.info at 5:58 PM
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
