http://frontpagemag.com/2013/bruce-thornton/where-does-republican-foreign-policy-go-from-here/print/ The GOP’s continuing analysis of last November’s debacle has now sparked a debate about foreign policy. Kentucky Senator Rand Paul’s 16-hour filibuster and his speeches at the Heritage Foundation and CPAC have reignited the perennial conflict between isolationists and interventionists of various stripes. As the headline in the New York Times read last week, […]
http://frontpagemag.com/2013/davidhornik/war-of-words-in-the-middle-east/
President Obama capped off the substantive parts of his visit to Israel with a speech to Israeli students Thursday afternoon in which he again focused heavily on the Palestinian theme. He repeated the standard, discredited claim that “given demographics,” Israel could only survive as a Jewish and democratic state by creating an “independent and viable Palestine.”
He allowed that: “There is no question that Israel has faced Palestinian factions who turned to terror, and leaders who missed historic opportunities. That is why security must be at the center of any agreement.”
Obama’s stock words, though, about the need to create Palestine drew lusty ovations from parts of a crowd that included a good many Arab students and left-wing Jewish students. Obama has been criticized for declining to address the Israeli Knesset. Claims that he was seeking a more congenial audience of Israeli students seemed borne out by Thursday afternoon’s address and its setting. He went so far as to seem to circumvent Israel’s political leadership by declaring that “political leaders will not take risks unless people push them to take risks.”
It was not hard to see shades of the same, delusions-of-grandeur, world-changing Obama who had addressed a Cairo audience of students almost four years ago, although in a different context and with different aims.
Earlier in the day Obama had gone to Ramallah for a meeting with Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas. At their joint press conference Obama retracted demands he made during his first term for an Israeli settlement freeze, saying no preconditions should be set for Israeli-Palestinian talks.
Yet, in his Jerusalem speech, Obama went back to making hard knocks against Jewish life over the 1967 Green Line, calling it “counterproductive” while sparing the PA any criticism for problematic behavior like systematic incitement and rampant anti-Israeli violence.
And not only anti-Israeli; Obama’s arrival in Israel on Wednesday had “sparked rage on the Palestinian street, as hundreds of Palestinian protesters rallied in Ramallah and Bethlehem against the visit. The protesters ripped posters of the American president and sprayed swastikas on others.”
It continued on Thursday during his Ramallah visit, as
Around 150 demonstrators chanted anti-American slogans, saying they wanted weapons not presidential visits.
“We want RPGs, not collaboration with the CIA,” they shouted, referring to rocket-propelled grenades….
In the Gaza Strip…Palestinian opposition to Obama’s visit was more militant.
Guerrillas fired two rockets at southern Israel in the early morning, causing only slight damage, in a signal that the world should not ignore them in any discussions on regional diplomacy.
Dozens of protesters in Gaza city smacked pictures of Obama with the soles of their shoes, burned US flags and chanted that the president should “get out of Palestine.”
The contrast between such conduct and his uniformly gracious reception in Israel clearly did not persuade Obama that an enduring cultural difference between Israel and the two Palestinian entities makes grandiose talk of a definitive peace hollow.
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/turks-in-germany-are-a-time-bomb?f=puball “The Turks in Germany are a time bomb, at least the majority of them”. This is the statement with which Peter Cohen, an American visiting professor at Munich University, concludes his recent study in Germany. Three million Turks live already in Germany already, while 2.5 million of them have German nationality, and the majority […]
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/former-attorney-general-urges-probe-of-al-jazeera
Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey’s call for a congressional “inquiry” into Al Jazeera’s purchase of Al Gore’s Current TV gives hope that the controversial transaction benefiting the pro-terrorist Muslim Brotherhood can still be derailed.
At a Breitbart News-sponsored forum during last week’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Mukasey said, in response to a question from this writer, “I think if an American medium is controlled by a political force from abroad, that’s a proper subject for inquiry.”
That political force is the Muslim Brotherhood, which spawned al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. Its financial backer, which owns Al Jazeera, is the undemocratic and authoritarian government of Qatar. Mukasey’s speech to the Breitbart event was about Muslim Brotherhood infiltration in the U.S.
At the same time, U.S. military veterans are speaking out. Larry Bailey, co-founder of a group of veterans and supporters of the Special Operations communities of the Armed Forces, tells Accuracy in Media that Congress should examine the “penetration” of the U.S. media market by Al Jazeera because the pro-Jihadist television channel only spells “more trouble within our society.”
Bailey, a retired U.S. Navy veteran, founded Special Operations Speaks (SOS).
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/343460/unmourned-mark-steyn
In 2011, I wrote about mass murder at Kermit Gosnell’s abortion “clinic”:
From the Office of the District Attorney in Philadelphia:
Viable babies were born*. Gosnell killed them by plunging scissors into their spinal cords. He taught his staff to do the same.
This is a remarkable moment in American life: A man is killing actual living, gurgling, bouncing babies on an industrial scale – and it barely makes the papers. Had he plunged his scissors into the spinal cord of a Democrat politician in Arizona, then The New York Times, ABC, CBS, NBC and everyone else would be linking it to Sarah Palin’s uncivil call for dramatic cuts in government spending. But “Doctor” Kermit Gosnell’s mound of corpses is apparently entirely unconnected to the broader culture.
And so it goes two years on, at “Doctor” Gosnell’s trial:
Medical assistant Adrienne Moton admitted Tuesday that she had cut the necks of at least 10 babies after they were delivered, as Gosnell had instructed her. Gosnell and another employee regularly “snipped” the spines “to ensure fetal demise,” she said.
Moton sobbed as she recalled taking a cellphone photograph of one baby because he was bigger than any she had seen aborted before. She measured the fetus at nearly 30 weeks, and thought he could have survived, given his size and pinkish color. Gosnell later joked that the baby was so big he could have walked to the bus stop, she said.
Funny!
Notwithstanding Dr. Gosnell’s jest, and the fact that newborns delivered alive are generally regarded as “babies,” the New York Times’ only story on the case is punctilious enough to refer to Gosnell’s victims as “viable fetuses,” and its early paragraphs emphasize the defense’s wearily predictable line that this is a “racist prosecution.” Instead of my Arizona comparison, what about Sandy Hook? One solitary act of mass infanticide by a mentally-ill loner calls into question the constitutional right to guns, but a sustained conveyor belt of infanticide by an entire cadre of cold-blooded killers apparently has no implications for the constitutional right to abortion. As one commentator wondered two years ago:
Does 30 years of calling babies “blobs of tissue” have no effect on the culture?
For the answer, consider the testimony of “Nurse” Moton — and the clarification by AP writer Maryclaire Dale:
She once had to kill a baby delivered in a toilet, cutting its neck with scissors, she said. Asked if she knew that was wrong, she said, “At first I didn’t.”
Abortions are typically performed in utero.
http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=3809
Obama’s speech impediment
The warm bath in which U.S. President Barack Obama has been soaking since his arrival in Israel on Wednesday made up for the chilly reception he received in the Palestinian Authority.
While Israelis were decking themselves out in suits and stilettos to prepare for his major speech at the International Convention Center in Jerusalem on Thursday afternoon — and gala dinner at President Shimon Peres’ residence in the evening — Palestinians were in the streets of Ramallah and Bethlehem shouting “Allahu akbar” (“Allah is great”) and burning Obama’s effigy. This was their response to his assertion that a two-state solution has to include a Jewish state.
Such was the PLO’s welcome for the American leader. Hamas didn’t bother with all the rhetoric and ritual. Its operatives simply launched several missiles into southern Israel as soon as the sun came out. No muss, no fuss. Just a bunch of panicked Jewish families barely making it to their bomb shelters in time.
This did not constitute cause for presidential pause, however. On the contrary, Obama was on a mission to encourage everybody to get along. Any acts of violence aimed at the United States and Israel were the work of “extremists” bent on preventing the very peace he had come to promote.
Nor did the grim demeanor of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas — who reiterated his unwillingness to negotiate with Israel until it meets a list of impossible preconditions — put a damper on Israeli enthusiasm. Anyone unfamiliar with the local scene — Iran about to get the bomb; Syria using chemical weapons against its people; Egypt in the throes of radical Islamization; Turkey lost to the West; and the rest of region in turmoil — could be forgiven for asking whether Elvis had been sighted in the Holy Land.
Indeed, since landing at Ben-Gurion International Airport, Obama has been treated like a rock star — one who was gracious enough not to cancel his concert tour, in spite of pressure from BDS groups. And it is this mixture of awe and gratitude that best characterizes the attitude of those lucky enough to be blessed with an invitation to the International Convention Center to see and hear the U.S. president in person.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324557804578373050731998658.html?mod=opinion_newsreel Seders resonate with stories of liberation down through the years since the Book of Exodus. On Monday, millions of children will ask their parents: Why is tonight different from all other nights of the year? Children asking this question in Jewish homes around the world will be told that the Passover festival commemorates the […]
http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/../2013/03/eleanor_roosevelt_talks_about_her_husband_and_the_holocaust.html April 19 will mark the70th anniversary of the uprising of the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto. That date always reminds me of 1958 when Eleanor Roosevelt, the widow of Democratic President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, told me about her husband and the Holocaust. We were both NGO (Non-governmental Organization) representatives to the United Nations and […]
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323419104578374423019005526.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop
The Best Mideast Intentions Obama reassures Israel, but peace in Palestine seems a distant hope.
PULEEZ!!! HOW DUMB IS THIS SENTENCE? “History shows that a generation of militants can give way to a generation of pacifists. It happened in Germany and Japan, and nobody should give up hope that such a change will eventually come to Palestinians, whenever they tire of nationalist or religious slogans.” HUH? JIHAD IS A RELIGIOUS “SLOGAN”…..NO IT IS AN ARTICLE OF ISLAMIC FAITH. AND, THE JAPANESE SHINTOISTS AND THE NAZIS WERE “MILITANTS????” AND BY THE WAY THE ONLY THING THAT MADE THEM CHANGE WAS NORMANDY AND DRESDEN AND HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI AND TOTAL SURRENDER…..RSK
President Obama delivered an impassioned speech to an audience of young Israelis in Jerusalem Thursday, pledging America’s commitment to the Jewish state’s security while insisting that, when it comes to the Palestinians, “peace is possible.” Speaking alongside Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah earlier in the day, he also got a taste of how distant that possibility is.
The best news from this trip is that it seems to reflect Mr. Obama’s recognition that America’s friends have to trust him before he can broker a peace with adversaries. The President spent his first term trying to put distance between himself and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the result was mutual disappointment and discord.
This week Mr. Obama has sought to reassure Israelis about U.S. commitments even as he coaxes them to take risks for peace. From his reference to Mr. Netanyahu as “my friend Bibi” to his tough language on Iran’s nuclear program and his determination to stop it, the President put on a charm offensive designed to woo his skeptical Israeli hosts.
http://www.nationalreview.com/blogs/print/343514 HE IS FIRST OUT OF THE BOX BUT THERE WILL BE OTHERS…SO FAR THEY ARE ALL CONSERVATIVE….BUT NONE ARE DAZZLING…MY FAVE SO FAR IS REP. JACK KINGSTON (R- DISTRICT ONE)….STAY TUNED Representative Paul Broun is a true believer. When Georgia political insiders talk about Paul Broun, one theme emerges again and again: Broun says […]
