http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/feb/21/the-spook-who-couldnt-see-the-perils-of-jihad/ John Brennan, President Obama’s nominee for CIA director, does not believe we are at war with jihadists because “jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam, meaning to purify oneself or one’s community, and there’s nothing holy, legitimate, or Islamic about murdering innocent men and women.” On May 26, 2010, speaking at […]
http://pjmedia.com/claudiarosett/tehrans-man-onstage-in-manhattan/ Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammad Khazaee, appeared this past Wednesday evening, Feb. 20, onstage at the Asia Society in New York, in a “conversation” with a former U.S. ambassador and under secretary of State, Thomas Pickering. The event, moderated by Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, and titled “The U.S. and Iran: Road […]
http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/ “It’s an old story and a new story. We tell it over and over again because it is always happening. It is our story and the story of the world. It is the story we have accepted from our parents and it is the story that we will pass on to our children. It […]
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/341371/how-should-we-treat-american-jihadists-andrew-c-mccarthy If a plane full of 200 American citizens is hijacked by foreign jihadists, the law does not tell us whether the president should shoot down the plane or let it be plowed into a skyscraper and kill 3,000 American citizens. It is the kind of excruciating decision that war makes necessary. Legal niceties do […]
http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/02/the_left_is_circling_the_wagons_against_dr_ben_carson.html The Progressive hit media are frantically circling the wagons, probably formulating a potent Alinsky Rule # 5 offense against sage Ben Carson. Just yesterday, Media Matters went into full attack mode. It appears the leftists were blindsided by the transparency and unassuming integrity of this gifted brain surgeon. No doubt they are embarrassed by […]
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/02/get_out_of_jail_free_card_for_muslims_in_spain.html Ever since the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon drove out the Muslim Moors in what is properly named the Reconquista (The Recapturing) Muslim groups have been longing for the moment when they finally reclaim what is rightfully theirs. This is especially true when it comes to the former Cordoba mosque, which is now a […]
http://www.usmep.us/usmep/2013/02/05/senator-hagel-senator-graham-and-the-israel-lobby/
Of the many controversial statements made by Senator Chuck Hagel over the years, none seemed to enrage Senator Lindsey Graham more than his remark that the Israel lobby intimidates U.S. Congressmen into advocating “stupid” policies. He challenged Hagel to name one such senator and to identify one such stupid policy.
The challenge created an unusual opportunity for Hagel, for there could be no better and conclusive evidence of the Israel Lobby’s power of intimidation of U.S. senators on the subject of Israel than these hearings themselves, and most particularly Senator Graham’s own behavior.
Unfortunately, Hagel could not take advantage of that opportunity. Had he done so, his nomination by President Obama to head the Department of Defense would undoubtedly have been dead in the water, for his former Democratic colleagues are no less guilty of yielding to that intimidation than Hagel’s former Republican colleagues.
But the truth of Hagel’s charge must be affirmed, particularly by those who are more concerned about Israel’s ability to survive as a Jewish and democratic state than about jeopardizing contributions to their own electoral campaigns. The truth that needs to be affirmed speaks not only to the existential dangers created by the current Israeli government’s illegal and often immoral behavior in the Occupied Territories but to the violation of the shared values that supposedly form the foundation of the unprecedentedly close ties between Israel and the United States.
It is not enemies of Israel but some of its most loyal and patriotic citizens, six former heads of Israel’s Shin Bet, the internal national security agency on which Israel’s security and existence depend, who blasted the policies of the government headed by Prime Minister Netanyahu as threatening Israel’s very survival because of its colonial ambitions in the West Bank and its lack of interest in reaching a peace accord with the Palestinians. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand lectured Senator Hagel that America’s ties with Israel are “fundamental” and not to be questioned, even if according to Israel’s president, Shimon Peres, its right wing government’s policies have put the country on a path to apartheid, a judgment with which two former Israeli prime ministers, Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak, concur.
The heads of the IDF reportedly refused to implement a demand by Prime Minister Netanyahu to prepare for an assault on Iran’s nuclear facilities, believing it would have catastrophic consequences for Israel. Whether they are right or wrong—given their unanimity, the high likelihood is that they were right—no one can question the patriotism of these generals and security chiefs or their motives. Successive Israeli governments trusted them and relied on their judgments in safeguarding Israel’s existence. But such words of caution, when expressed by an American Congressman, are considered heretical, because the Israel lobby says so.
This record of Senate and House members’ gutlessness in their subservience to the Israel Lobby was exemplified by Senator Graham’s rudeness in his questioning of former Senator Hagel, repeatedly cutting him off as he was speaking. Apparently he believes that if he could have gotten Hagel to admit even one instance of disagreement with a policy of the current Israeli government, he would have made his case that Hagel is an enemy of the Jewish State, if not the Jewish People.
Of the many letters adopted by the Senate and the House to which Graham and other Senators referred, including letters criticizing Hamas, some of which Hagel would not sign onto, not one addressed the fact that the Likud, the party headed by Prime Minister Netanyahu, to this day officially opposes a Palestinian state in even one square foot of the West Bank, or that even after Netanyahu made his speech committing his government to a two-state solution, members of his cabinet and his party established a “Greater Israel” Parliamentary Caucus whose official goal is the prevention of Palestinian statehood and the annexation of all Palestinian territories.
The attacks on Hagel for his occasional dissent from Israel’s policies came from a man from a political party that has established entirely new depths of abusive attacks on the policies and the personality of the President of the United States and on the policies of their Democratic colleagues. Neither Graham nor any of his Republican colleagues have, to the best of my knowledge, expressed publicly a word of criticism of colleagues who established as their goal the defeat of every policy proposal that would be made by President Obama, irrespective of its merit, in the expectation that their stonewalling would lead to his defeat in the upcoming presidential elections. Yet they proclaim that the slightest criticism of even the most reprehensible policies of Netanyahu and Israel’s government disqualifies a person from serving in a high office in the U.S. government. How does one explain the Senators’ bizarre notion that criticism of their own government’s policies is a responsible exercise of their duties but criticism of a foreign government’s behavior—in the case of Israel, of course, but not of any other foreign government—is not, except in terms of the Israel lobby’s “influence” (to use the term preferred by Senator Graham).
Senator Hagel’s confirmation has to await action by the Senate Committee and by the full Senate. But we do not have to wait for confirmation that with respect to the Middle East peace process, the U.S. Congress remains in the grip of the Israel lobby. This was more than fully confirmed at last week’s hearing.
Henry Siegman is the president of the U.S./Middle East Project. He also serves as a non-resident research professor at the Sir Joseph Hotung Middle East Program, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
http://politicalmavens.com/ Last November, I wrote a piece concerning The Other Israel Film Festival at the JCC on the upper west side. Ironically, no Arabs would get to enjoy the Israeli filmmakers’ critical representations of their country’s politics and attitudes because Arabs exercise a wholesale boycott of all things Israeli. Now two Israeli films are nominated […]
http://righttruth.typepad.com/right_truth/2013/02/cousin-clueless.html
There are many people who think and vote as I do, with an ever-vigilant eye to the security of America and Israel –two of the most dynamic, generous and productive democratic systems in the world. Dishearteningly, however, many of us have discovered that some of our blood relatives, even close family members, are oblivious to the existential dangers that these nations face. I am one of many afflicted with such kin. For the sake of this essay, I’ll call my cousin Clueless (“C”), since his own name, defined as “wise” in Latin, is a mis-aptonym at best.
He recently re-entered by life via the Internet, after our dissociation in 1996 when he displayed an extraordinary lack of compassion and understanding for a personal matter. But now, well over a decade later, he e-mailed me a superficial opinion of my latest articles that I assumed he had scrutinized. A retired, successful professional, C wrote that he sensed a “drive” in my writing; I explained it as survival instinct. I actually wound up asking him if he was pro-democracy, and he answered, “Apparently.” Certainly, I had hoped this man of few words might elucidate further. Instead, he advised me, “We are both intelligent people and we could agree to disagree”– a mantra that the self-styled intelligentsia use to inform those on the lower strata that they are simply too evolved to discuss existential matters. In point of fact, he discounts the distasteful, revises the worrisome, and blames the messenger for upsetting his harmony.
I wondered how C’s intelligence and expertise in Value Engineering helped him appraise the decomposition of our American Constitution, the destruction of the American Dream of freedom for our progeny, the evisceration of our military, and the increasing invasion of Islam worldwide – 20,392 jihad attacks to date since 9/11/01 – as well as the stealth jihad into the White House and our institutions of learning by the virulently anti-American, anti-Semitic Muslim Brotherhood. Rather than disagree with hard cold facts, he resorts to his leftist “feelings” and denies reality. He prefers his news in small, inoffensive portions and chooses to be “up-lifted.”
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=304111
Have you thought what will happen if you succeed [in preventing the disengagement from Gaza]. Don’t you understand that if it happens we will disengage from you. We will say, “Your God is not our God, your land is not our Land.”Do you suppose we will simply give up what we see as our only chance for a normal life. Have you any idea how you will live in a country in which most of its inhabitants feel they have to sacrifice their lives – day after day, terror attack after terror attack – for you. – Yair Lapid, “To: The Opponents of disengagement,” June 24, 2005.
It [the disengagement] had nothing to do with the Palestinians, demography, the desire to make peace, the relative [fatigue] of the IDF, or any other explanation that was given. There was a totally different motivation behind the disengagement. The Israelis merely felt that the settlers should be taught a lesson in humility and perhaps in democracy, too. – Yair Lapid, “Things we couldn’t say during disengagement,” May 15, 2006.
In the interests of full disclosure, I voted for Naftali Bennett’s party in the recent election. But I am beginning to wonder…
Vote Bennett, get German?
After all, when I cast my ballot for Bennett, I didn’t realize that Yael German, former Meretz member, or Ofer Shelah, the decidedly left-wing former journalist, were of part of the deal. But this is precisely the situation that has been created by Bennett’s decision to march in lock-step on the issue of national service for the ultra-Orthodox with Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid list, in which German and Shelah are in the No. 3 and No. 6 slots, respectively.
I am confident that many supporters of Bennett’s Bayit Yehudi were unaware that they were voting for a“package deal with Lapid’s Yesh Atid, in which Bennett would condition his participation in a Netanyahuled government on Lapid’s participation.
Had they believed that this was a tangible possibility, it is highly plausible that a considerable number of them, myself included, might well have voted differently.
By insisting on the acceptance of both his and Lapid’s demand regarding universal conscription of the ultra-Orthodox into national service as the sine qua non for his agreeing to join the coalition, Bennett is grossly distorting the will of his voters, and abusing the mandate given him by them.
Right goal, wrong tactic
Don’t misunderstand me. I think it is essential to enlist the ultra-Orthodox into the military, or at least some form of national service.
Since the early 1990s I have been urging right-wing parties to make this one of their declared policy aims, and warning that the failure to take the initiative on this issue was a massive blunder.
The current situation of mass exemption is both immoral and illogical and hence unacceptable, and without becoming ensnared in a discussion on details and the desired rate of implementation, I strongly endorse the initiative to induce, even coerce, far greater haredi participation in the workforce, the military and other national organs.
But as important as this matter is, it was not the cardinal issue for which Bennett and Bayit Yehudi were given the support they received. The primary banner that Bennett’s constituency rallied around was his opposition to Palestinian statehood, opposition which he was slated to spearhead.
This was the fundamental reason that many, including me, supported his party – despite grave reservations, some of which I have expressed on this page, concerning his operational proposal on how this should be undertaken.
True, Bennett and Bayit Yehudi are to be commended for it not being a narrow singleissue faction, and for presenting a multifaceted platform, addressing several vitally important socioeconomic problems plaguing Israeli society. However, these were never perceived or presented, prior to the elections, as being imperatives that had to be satisfactorily addressed before the party participated in a Likud-led coalition.
Certainly, voters were never put on notice that such participation was predicated on the approval of Yesh Atid on any issue – including the ultra-Orthodox one, a.k.a. “sharing/equalizing the burden.”
Right goal, perverse partner?
Whatever the manifest moral merits and potential political profits entailed in pushing for a more equitable sharing of the national burden, Lapid is a dubious – some might say, perverse – partner with whom to lock arms on this issue.
For unlike Bennett, who served as an officer in some of the IDF’s most elite special forces units, Lapid can hardly be presented as “leading by example.”
After all, despite being physically fit enough to engage in regular martial arts training, he elected to “share the burden” of military service as a reporter for the IDF journal, Bamahane – hardly the most arduous or hazardous “tour of duty” – which laid the foundation, at the taxpayers’ expense, for his subsequent successful journalistic career.
Now, while I am not implying that noncombatant service in general, and service in one of the IDF media organs in particular, is to be denigrated or dismissed, it can hardly be denied that Lapid’s personal history imparts a rather hollow – some might say, hypocritical – ring to his shrill castigation of haredi avoidance of “bearing the burden.”
Indeed, it makes him a highly unsuited – some might say, absurd – choice for the poster boy leading the charge for the ultra- Orthodox conscription.
Incompatible political DNA
Moreover, it must not be forgotten that Yesh Atid was born largely as a Center-Left party, and was billed as such in the election campaign. Indeed, alliances with Tzipi Livni and Shelly Yacimovich were pursued – albeit unsuccessfully. Much of Yesh Atid’s support came from last-minute ballots cast by a large bloc of hitherto undecided voters, who do not comprise committed hard-core party devotees.
