UN General Assembly to ratify honor to Holocaust denier
The United Nations General Assembly is scheduled on Wednesday to ratify all resolutions adopted by the 'human rights council' during 2012. One of those resolutions honors a Holocaust denier.
While a handful of these decisions were good, many were despicable. One stands out for its ignominy: the appointment of a top
official whose life’s work—authoring books on World War II that make
Germans the victims and the Allies the war criminals—has made him a hero
to Holocaust deniers.
Alfred
de Zayas was appointed in March as the council’s “Independent Expert on
the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order,” an
anti-Western mandate created by Cuba's Communist regime.
Inexplicably, Zayas was unanimously recommended by a
U.N. committee that included British Ambassador Peter Gooderham, who was
supposed to effectively represent the interests and values of Western
democracies such as Britain, France, Germany and the United States.
To undo this wrong, tomorrow U.S. Ambassador
Susan Rice should lead the world's democracies in calling for a vote on
the omnibus resolution—which includes the appointment of Zayas—and vote No.
Ambassador Rice should also take the floor and explain
to the U.N. and the world why America and all decent people
categorically object to an appointment that contradicts the principles
of the U.N. and its founding history as the anti-Hitler alliance.Click here to send an email urging action.
By any standard that’s a remarkable correction. Let me rephrase it without the Times‘s defensive use of “imprecisely.” A more honest correction would have said this: “The Times
reported, not as opinion but as fact in a news story, that the new
construction being planned by Israel would cut Ramallah and Bethlehem
off from Jerusalem, divide the West Bank in two, and make a contiguous
Palestinian state impossible. None of those assertions was true, so we
have to withdraw all of them.”
Now how is it that three such glaring errors are made in one Times
story? After all, a simple glance at the map would show for example
that from Ma’ale Adumim to the Dead Sea is 15 kilometers, and that the
proposed construction would not cut the West Bank in two or make
contiguity impossible. It is just plain extraordinary that the Jerusalem
bureau chief of The New York Times knows so little about the
geography of the Jerusalem area that she could write such things. Here’s
my theory: that just about everyone she knows –all her friends– believe
these things, indeed know that they are true. Settlements are
bad, the right-wing Israeli government is bad, new construction makes
peace impossible and cuts the West Bank in half and destroys contiguity
and means a Palestinian state is impossible. They just know it, it’s
obvious, so why would you have to refer to a map, or talk to people who
would tell you it’s all wrong? This was precisely what was feared when Ms. Rudoren was named the Times’s
bureau chief: that she would move solely in a certain political and
social milieu, the rough Israeli equivalent of the Upper West Side of
Manhattan.
It's not correct that most of the people I associate with have a
left wing perspective, or any particular perspective. In fact I have
been widely praised for speaking to a broad variety of people for my
stories.
The essence of what our E1 story said was correct: that building
there is seen by palestinians, peace advocates and diplomats worldwide
as the death knell of the two state solution, because it prevents
meaningful contiguity in the West Bank and easy access to the heart of
East Jerusalem. (The Israelis also understand this; it's precisely why
this area was chosen at this time.)
On deadline, late at night and at the end of a very long couple of
weeks, I used imprecise language and, yes, did not study the map
carefully enough. I deeply regret that, but it does not betray any
agenda or anything about who I know or consult in my reporting.
So I did a little experiment.... I went through Rudoren's Twitter follows (she has over 800). It overwhelmingly leans Left (which may be inevitable when you work for the New York Times and follow many of its employees), but I managed to find 10 people whom I know (either personally or through email) among her followers that I would consider Center or Center-Right. I sent them an email with the following questions:
Just curious:
Jodi Rudoren follows you (and me) on Twitter. Has
she been in touch with you since she's been in Israel (other than
following you on Twitter) in connection with a story or otherwise?
Emails? Phone calls? Meetings?
Thanks for any responses
Within an hour, seven of them had answered. Of those seven, five are in Israel and two are in the US. Of the two in the US, one, a leader in a major US Jewish organization, says that she has 'met, facebooked, tweeted, emailed' with him. The other, a major US right wing blogger, says no contact.
Of the five Israelis, one has met with her once and spoken to her on the phone a couple of times. Another, a reporter for an Israeli newspaper, has asked Rudoren questions, but says that Rudoren has never initiated contact. The other three say they have had no contact with her. One of those three, a longtime activist in the 'settlement movement,' expressed particular frustration, because he has reached out to her a number of times and has gotten no response.
To that you can add me. I would venture to guess that I have one of the better-read right wing blogs in Israel that is not affiliated with any newspaper or major blogging group. I've had some email contact with her, but nothing substantive (her parents were friends of my parents of blessed memory, so I do have a personal connection).
Maybe she reads all our blogs silently?
I have no idea how much contact Rudoren has with people on the Left. But when she writes, "It's not correct that most of the people I associate with have a
left wing perspective, or any particular perspective," let's just say I have my doubts. If Rudoren wanted to meet on background with a representative group of Right wing Israeli bloggers, it would not take much effort to put such a meeting together. There's been no request that I know of (and I would likely know) for anything like that.
UPDATE 6:27 PM
Move one of the bloggers who has had no contact with Rudoren from Israel to the US.
I have been sent a full copy of Evelyn Gordon's latest JPost column, which is behind a paywall. It should be of interest to both the Americans and the Israelis who read this blog. Read the whole thing and I'll have some comments afterward.
On many issues, J Street isn’t nearly as representative of American Jewry as it likes to think. But the anguished query
posed by its communications director, Alan Elsner, last week is
undoubtedly shared by a vast swath of American Jews: “Why are Israeli
politicians of all stripes almost totally disregarding what we see as
the main issue facing the country, the need to reinvigorate negotiations
with the Palestinians toward a two-state solution?” Indeed, the former
head of the Union for Reform Judaism, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, voiced similar frustration
in October, saying he was “stunned” that “Israeli-Palestinian peace is
no more than a peripheral issue” in the election campaign. And unlike J
Street, Yoffie’s pro-Israel credentials are unimpeachable.
Most
Israeli Jews would counter with one very simple question: “What exactly
do you expect us to do?” Because until someone produces a credible
answer to that question, Israelis see little point in wasting time and
energy on it. And overwhelmingly, they view the answers produced by
American Jews as non-credible.
The most popular American Jewish response was perfectly captured
by America’s (non-Jewish) defense secretary, Leon Panetta: “Just get to
the damn table!” To which most Israelis would reply, “We’d like nothing
better, but how?” After all, despite having promised
to resume negotiations immediately after the UN recognized “Palestine”
as a nonmember state, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is
still refusing to do so without preconditions that Israelis deem
unacceptable. And there’s no way to get to the table if the other side
refuses to show up.
Just last week, for instance, Abbas set three preconditions
for resuming negotiations: a settlement freeze, agreement that talks
would start from where they left off under former prime minister Ehud
Olmert, and agreement that the final borders would be based on the 1967
lines. Now consider what one of Israel’s most dovish politicians,
someone who actually has made the “peace process” her flagship campaign issue, has to say on these subjects:
At a conference of foreign diplomats last week, Tzipi Livni said
it was “clear … there would not be return to 1967 borders,” and that
“the only way for the conflict with the Palestinians to end is for
Israel to keep” the settlement blocs. Interviewed subsequently by The Jerusalem Post,
she said she wouldn’t agree to start the talks from where Olmert left
off, because “The idea that the Palestinians think they can take any
Israeli offer to their pocket and say ‘let’s start from this’ is
completely unacceptable.” She probably would agree to something like the partial settlement freeze Israel instituted in 2009-10, but Abbas deemed that
“worse than useless” and refused to negotiate. And neither she nor any
other Israeli politician would acquiesce in the full freeze Abbas
demands, covering even the huge Jewish neighborhoods of East Jerusalem
that everyone – Palestinians included – agree would remain Israeli under any deal.
So
given that Abbas will only negotiate under preconditions all Israelis
consider non-starters, how do American Jews expect Israel to “get to the
damn table”? Do they believe Israel should simply forfeit its vital
interests by, say, not only agreeing to the 1967 lines, but doing so
upfront, without even getting any reciprocal concession? Or do they have
some more feasible idea – and if so, why aren’t they sharing it?
The
more realistic, like Yoffie, do recognize that negotiations are
probably impossible. But their solution is equally unfeasible: returning
to “unilateral action.”
Is it really necessary to remind
American Jews that Israel tried unilateral withdrawals twice, from
Lebanon in 2000 and Gaza in 2005, and both times got nothing in return
but rockets on its cities and cross-border raids that kidnapped and
killed its soldiers? Very few Israelis would agree to repeat that
experience in the West Bank, whence even short-range rockets could
easily reach Israel’s major cities and commercial hubs. It’s no accident
that Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who has advocated turning to unilateralism, recently quit politics after polls showed his party barely squeaking into the Knesset.
So
do American Jews have a magic solution for how to withdraw unilaterally
without creating a security nightmare, or do they simply think Israelis
should be willing to live with endless rocket fire for the sake of
“peace”?
Then there’s the minor matter of the nature of our “peace partner.” How can Israel make peace with people who, for instance, accuse it of “one of the most dreadful campaigns of ethnic cleansing and dispossession in modern history”; praise Hamas for launching rockets at it; and claim it infects Palestinians with AIDS – all recent statements by senior PA officials? Or who deny Jewish history, glorify terror in their official media, demand that Israel commit demographic suicide and indoctrinate their children to view Israel’s eradication as their ultimate goal?
And another minor detail: Even with all this, the PA is too moderate for most Palestinians. As The Jerusalem Post’s Khaled Abu Toameh noted
last week, when Abbas returned to Ramallah after the UN recognized
“Palestine” in the 1967 lines, “fewer than 5,000 Palestinians … turned
out to greet him.” But when the head of Hamas came to Gaza and vowed “to
liberate all Palestine, ‘from the river to the sea’ … because the
country belonged only to Muslim and Arabs, hundreds of thousands of
Palestinians showed up to welcome [Khaled] Mashaal and voice support for
his plan to eliminate Israel.” So where does that leave prospects for
peace?
All this explains the shocking findings of a poll
commissioned by the Saban Center last month: Fully 55% of Israeli Jews
don’t think “lasting peace” with the Palestinians “will ever happen.”
And only 4% see peace as possible “in the next five years.”
So
unless American Jews can credibly explain to Israelis why they’re wrong,
and then present a credible plan for achieving this as-yet elusive
peace, it’s ridiculous to expect Israelis to consider “peace” a major
campaign issue. Politics, as Otto von Bismarck famously said, is the art
of the possible. And as long as peace talks don’t appear to be within
the realm of the possible, Israeli politics will quite rightly focus on
issues that are.
American Jews (indeed, Americans in general) who advocate that we 'just to get to the damn table' or act unilaterally, remind me of the Israeli Left., who for years argued that there has to be peace because we just can't live without it. The fact that the Left has been and will again in the upcoming elections be eviscerated, combined with the fact that even Tzipi Livni understands that there's not going to be peace anytime soon (see above), show that the Left is mouthing platitudes that really don't mean anything, and that American Jews are doing the same, albeit without the recognition that what they advocate is impossible.
It takes two to tango. There is no 'Palestinian' partner for peace.
WaPo's Milbank, Atlantic's Wright: Hagel smeared by neocons and Zionists
The Washington Post's Dana Milbank and the Atlantic's Robert Wright will both tell you that it was the all-powerful Zionists and neocons who did in Chuck Hagel. All-powerful? In Obama's Washington? That's just about the most paranoid statement I've heard in a long time.
The neoconservative journal, no fan of the iconoclastic former Republican senator, published a smear under the headline:
“Senate aide: ‘Send us Hagel and we will make sure every American knows
he is an anti-Semite.’ ” In the posting, this anonymous aide went on to
accuse Hagel of “the worst kind of anti-Semitism there is.” As
evidence, the article included a quotation from Hagel referring to the
“Jewish lobby.”
Other right-wing publications and conservative Zionist groups inevitably joined the chorus, including a column by Bret Stephens in the Wall Street Journal saying Hagel’s prejudice has an “especially ripe” odor.
Over the past year, as I've written about Israel critically and
gotten a milder version of the kind of blowback Hagel is getting, my
view of the people
generating it has changed. I used to think that all the
"anti-Israel" and "anti-Semitism" charges were just cynical smears, and I
still think some of them
are. But I also think some of them come from people who genuinely
believe that any severe critic of Israel speaks out of malice. These
people are blinded
by their passions, and the fact that their smears are wild and
unfounded doesn't mean they're insincere.
Still, these smears have been hugely counterproductive from a truly
pro-Zionist standpoint. What you're seeing now is one of the final
desperate spasms of
a group that has already helped destroy the thing it loves, and will
probably destroy a few other things before finally, like Joseph
McCarthy, destroying
itself and receding mercifully into the pages of history.
Yeah, that's it. If you criticize a critic of Israel, it's just a smear. What a coincidence that the biggest adherents of forcing Israel to live with a 'Palestinian state' designed to undermine its existence alongside it are the most vehement critics of measures to stop Iran's nuclear weapons drive.
But there's nothing to see here, so let's just move on.
Sources on Capitol Hill told the Free Beacon that opposition
to Hagel reaches all the way to the Embassy of Israel, which is said to
have quietly expressed concern about the former senator.
“Our office has talked with the Israel embassy who says their policy
is to support whatever the president wants in his cabinet and would not
provide further comment,” one Senate aide told the Free Beacon. “With a little prodding, our contact at the embassy did allude to their concern for Hagel’s nomination.”
An Israeli embassy spokesman declined comment.
Hagel has drawn additional heat from insiders who claim he lacks the
credentials needed to manage a department as large and essential as the
Pentagon.
“Yes, Hagel has crazy positions on several key issues. Yes, Hagel has
said things that are borderline anti-Semitism. Yes, Hagel wants to gut
the Pentagon’s budget. But above all, he’s not a nice person and he’s
bad to his staff,” said a senior Republican Senate aide who has close
ties to former Hagel staffers.
“Hagel was known for turning over staff every few weeks—within a
year’s time he could have an entirely new office because nobody wanted
to work for him,” said the source. “You have to wonder how a man who
couldn’t run a Senate office is going to be able to run an entire
bureaucracy.”
Others familiar with Hagel’s 12 year tenure in the Senate said he routinely intimidated staff and experienced frequent turnover.
“Chuck Hagel may have been collegial to his Senate colleagues but he
was the Cornhusker wears Prada to his staff, some of whom describe their
former boss as perhaps the most paranoid and abusive in the Senate, one
who would rifle through staffers desks and berate them for imagined
disloyalty,” said Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon adviser on Iran and
Iraq. “He might get away with that when it comes to staffers in their
20s, but that sort of personality is going to go over like a ton of
bricks at the Pentagon.”
Multiple sources corroborated this view of Hagel.
“As a manager, he was angry, accusatory, petulant,” said one source
familiar with his work on Capitol Hill. “He couldn’t keep his staff.”
“I remember him accusing one of his staffers of being ‘f—ing stupid’
to his face,” recalled the source who added that Hagel typically
surrounded himself with those “who basically hate Republicans.”
Sources expressed concern about such behavior should Hagel be
nominated for the defense post. With competing military and civilian
interests vying for supremacy, the department requires a skilled
manager, sources said.
“The Pentagon requires strong civilian control,” a senior aide to former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told the Free Beacon.
“It’s already swung back in favor of the military over the past five
years. A new secretary of defense should push it back in its rightful
place, but it’s doubtful Hagel would be that guy.”
“It’s not clear that [Hagel] has the standing, the managerial prowess, or the willingness to gore some oxen,” said the source.
One senior Bush administration official warned that Hagel is ill informed about many critical foreign policy matters.
“He’s not someone who’s shown a lot of expertise on these issues,” said the source, referencing a recent Washington Post editorial excoriating Hagel’s record. “That [op-ed] was extraordinary.”
“Only in Washington,” the official added, “can someone like [Hagel]
be seen as a heavy weight. He’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer.”
Hagel is likely viewed positively by the administration mainly
because he is a Republican who often criticizes his own party, the
source said.
“He’ll dance to a tune played by the White House,” said the former official. “That I think is the real problem.”
Read the whole thing. Yes, there's much more. This guy was a disaster from the get-go. His only qualification is that he's a RINO. I wonder if he paid his taxes.....
Moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud AbbasAbu Mazen
has asked the United Nations to 'allow' 'Palestinian refugees' from Syria to enter Judea, Samaria and Gaza. There's one small problem. None of Judea, Samaria or Gaza shares a common border with Syria. All share a common border with Israel. And countries control their own borders.....
Fatah spokesman Ahmed Assaf said that his faction was
prepared to receive the Palestinian refugees if Israel allows them to enter the
West Bank.
“This is a sacred right and an urgent humanitarian case,”
Assaf said. He was speaking during a sit-in strike in Ramallah in solidarity
with the Palestinians of Syria.
PLO leaders in the West Bank have accused the Syrian
authorities of perpetrating massacres against the Palestinians.
The
leaders accused the PFLP-GC, which is headed by Ahmed Jibril, of “selling itself
to the devil” by directing its weapons against fellow
Palestinians.
Jibril denied that he and his family had fled to Lebanon or
Iran.
He told reporters that some 400 militiamen belonging to the Syrian
opposition were now in control of the Yarmouk camp. He said that he instructed
his followers to withdraw from the camp to avoid further
bloodshed.
Jibril reiterated his support for the Syrian government,
which, he added, is facing a “conspiracy to topple the regime.”
On
Wednesday, another 60 Palestinian families from the Yarmouk camp crossed the
border into Lebanon to escape the fighting.
More than 2,000 Palestinians
have fled from Syria to Lebanon since the beginning of the week.
They have no 'sacred right' to be in Israel. They have lived in Syria for four generations. Whether they ought to be admitted as a 'humanitarian gesture' is a separate issue, but they seem to be doing just fine in Lebanon. And if they want to come here, they have to ask, not demand. They have no more right to be here any more than I have a right to come to whoever is now living in my old house in New Jersey and demand that it be returned to me.
Sorry to be so harsh, but what's going on in Syria cannot be used as a way for 'Palestinians' to find their way into Israel.
With news reports suggesting former Senator Chuck Hagel may be nominated for the job of Secretary of Defense, the Emergency Committee for Israel released "Not An Option," a 30-second TV ad that highlights Hagel's troubling record on Iran.
The ad recounts Hagel's numerous votes against sanctions, his opposition to designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization, and his view that there is no "viable" military option for preventing a nuclear Iran -- in contrast to President Obama, who insists all options remain on the table.
The ad will air on cable this Thursday and Friday throughout the Washington DC area.
Experts estimate that the specter of an Iranian nuclear weapon would be an economic disaster.
Top foreign policy experts writing in today’s Wall Street Journal
highlighted the threat posed by a nuclear Iran to global financial
markets. The article was written by Charles Robb, Dennis Ross and
Michael Makovsky who led a Bipartisan Policy Center task force that
examined the energy-related costs of inaction against Iran. They
concluded that “A nuclear Iran would raise the likelihood of
instability, nuclear proliferation, terrorism and war.”
To quantify this price impact, the task force “identified five
scenarios that an Iran with nuclear weapons would make more likely:
domestic instability in Saudi Arabia, the destruction of Saudi energy
facilities, an Iran-Saudi nuclear exchange, an Iran-Israel nuclear
exchange, and the lapse of sanctions against Iran.”
The task force concluded that even if none of these risks came to pass, the very specter would cause the following disruptions:
• Oil prices could rise by 10% to 25% in
the first year (or $11 to $27 more per barrel). As instability and
tensions remain high, so will prices, even rising as much as 30% to 50%
($30 to $55 per barrel) within three years.
• Consequently, gasoline prices could
jump 10% to 20% in the first year. Within three years, the cost of gas
could rise more than 30% (or more than $1.40 per gallon). Such
sustained price increases would have a pronounced negative impact on
the U.S. economy.
• U.S. gross domestic product could fall
by about 0.6% in the first year—costing the economy some $90
billion—and by up to 2.5% (or $360 billion) by the third year. This is
enough, at current growth rates, to send the country into recession.
• The unemployment rate could also rise
by 0.3 percentage points in the first year and by nearly 1% two years
later, resulting in some 1.5 million more Americans becoming jobless.
I'm sure President Hussein Obama is already planning how not to let this crisis go to waste.
"We are deeply disappointed that Israel insists on continuing this
pattern of provocative action. These repeated announcements and plans
of new construction run counter to the cause of peace," US State
Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters.
"Israel's leaders continually say that they support a path towards a
two-state solution yet these actions only put that goal further at risk.
"So
we again call on Israel, and the Palestinians, to cease any kinds of
counterproductive, unilateral actions and take concrete steps to return
to direct negotiations," Nuland said.
In a separate statement, British Foreign Secretary William Hague called the Israeli decision "a serious provocation and an obstacle to peace."
"If
implemented, it would make a negotiated two-state solution, with
Jerusalem as a shared capital, very difficult to achieve," he said. "We
urge Israel to reverse this decision and take no further steps aimed at
expanding or entrenching settlement activity."
US and EU
officials were in “close contact” regarding how to best and most
effectively react to Israeli plans for thousands of new Jewish
apartments in east Jerusalem, European diplomatic officials said on Tuesday.
The
comments came amid reports that the four EU countries on the UN
Security Council – France, Britain, Portugal and Germany – were preparing a statement in the council
condemning the settlement construction. The coordination with the US
stems from a desire to avoid an American veto of any Security Council
resolution on the matter.
Well, Boo F... Hoo. The 'Palestinians' - the fake 'people' (yes, Newt Gingrich had that one right) invented by the Arab countries as a tool to fight Israel's existence - have turned down countless offers for a 'reichlet' between the Jordan and the Mediterranean. With the consent of their negotiators, not one of those offers has included the areas in question. And for the last four years, the 'Palestinians' have just refused to come to the table. Enough is enough. We liberated Jerusalem in a defensive war 45 years ago, it has been our capital for 3,000 years, and there is simply no reason not to build here. And what happened in the Jerusalem planning council?
The Jerusalem Local Planning Committee on Wednesday afternoon gave final
approval for plans to construct 2,610 new housing units in Givat
Hamatos, a new neighborhood in southeast Jerusalem located across the
Green Line.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told 11 envoys from
Asian and Pacific countries on Wednesday that Jerusalem has been the
capital of the Jewish people for 3,000 years, and Israel would continue
to build it.
Netanyahu made his comments on the terrace of the King David Hotel, overlooking the walls of Jerusalem's Old City.
"I
want to take the opportunity to point out a simple fact," he said. "The
walls of Jerusalem that you see behind us represent the capital of the
Jewish people for some 3,000 years."
Netanyahu said every Israeli government has built in Jerusalem, "and we will not change that."
"This
is something natural, and I ask each of you to imagine that you would
be restricted in building in your capitals," he said. "This is not
logical, and for us what is important is that we are committed to our
capital, to peace, and we will build in Jerusalem for all its
residents."
Attending the meeting with Netanyahu were the
ambassadors of China, India, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines,
Australia, Myanmar, Thailand, Nepal, Vietnam and Sri Lanka.
On Monday, the Interior Ministry in a surprising move did not approve a major part of the new Givat Hamatos neighborhood.
The committee decided to postpone more than 1,000 units for both Arabs
and Jews which would be located in both Beit Safafa and Givat Hamatos.
Actions have consequences. If the 'Palestinians' are going to run to the UN rather than negotiating with us, then we're going to do what we should have done long ago. Build baby build!
Of course: Iran's Press TV says 'Israeli agents' behind Newtown school massacre, Daily Kos says Press TV is as reliable as Fox News
The image came from a blog that thankfully I was unable to access. I am hoping that the blog was taken down. Adam Lanza, who murdered 20 children and six adults in Connecticut on Friday was neither a Jew nor connected to Israel. But that hasn't stopped the usual anti-Semitic freakazoids from coming out of the closet to blame both Jews and Israelis for the massacre. Including Iran's Press TV.
Today, Michael Harris, former Republican
candidate for governor of Arizona and GOP campaign finance chairman, in
an internationally televised news broadcast, cited “Israeli revenge”
in, what he called, “the terrorist attack in Connecticut.”
Harris cited Israeli “rage” against the US and against President Barack Obama. By “Israel,” we mean “Netanyahu.”
The mission was to teach America a lesson, knowing that “America
would take the punishment, keep “quiet,” and let a ‘fall guy’ take the
blame.”
A “fall guy” is another word for “patsy.”
Harris, citing the flood of inconsistencies in the “cover story,”
pointed out the following, “The facts are now becoming obvious. This is
another case where Israel has chosen violence and terrorism where their
bullying in Washington has failed. Israel believes the US “threw them
under the bus,” particularly after the recent Gaza war, allowing Israel
to be humiliated in the United Nations. Their response was to stage a
terror attack, targeting America in the most hideous and brutal way
possible, in fact, an Israeli “signature attack,” one that butchers
children, one reminiscent of the attacks that killed so many children in
Gaza?”
Washington is terrified of Israel, their powerful lobby and its
relationship with organized crime. Now, a key former Senator, Chuck
Hagel, who has helped expose this fact, is likely to be nominated as the
secretary of defense, despite vocal protests from Israel.
Today, Israeli news gave further credence to Harris’ analysis when
they issued the following statements regarding the probable nomination
of Hegel:
“Chuck Hagel’s statements and actions regarding Israel have raised
serious concerns for many Americans who care about Israel,” said the
Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) Executive Director, Matt Brooks. “The
Jewish community and every American who supports a strong US-Israel
relationship have cause for alarm if the president taps Hagel for such
an important post.”
“The appointment of Chuck Hagel would be a slap in the face for
every American who is concerned about the safety of Israel,” he asserted.
In the world of Tehran and it's supporters, who number in the
millions of people around the world, people like Michael Harris (who has
appeared with Neo-Nazi's and supported all kinds of nutty things), and
Gordon Duff are legitimate sources of information.
As is said: "Information is Power". It is and when we get it, it is
important to understand what is being conveyed. Of course, Press is
going to get loons like Harris and Duff for their information. They
merely reinforce the meme that Iran wants to perpetrate. They want to
blame Israel for everything so is it a surprise that they try to hang
this one on Israel as well. BUT, as consumers of news it is important
that we understand what is being peddled. Same as information coming
from FOX. One pretty much needs to triple check their sources to see if
the story is true. One difference though between FOX and Press TV...
That is that Press TV is a semi-official source of information and
reflects the Governments thinking in Iran while FOX is the media arm of a
political group that got beaten like a drum in the last election.
What's the difference between the US Left and Iran? One's a group of anti-Semitic raving lunatics and the other is an Islamic Republic.
Disgraceful: Obama using Newtown massacre as a fundraiser
And you thought this sort of 'classy' move would end after the 2012 elections? No....
In email from chief campaign advisor David
Axelrod that urges supporters to watch President Obama's moving address
to the community of Newtown, Conn., there are two links that open a page
with a video player featuring the president's speech and two donate
buttons asking for $15-$1,000 for his campaign.
"The next chapter begins today. Stand with President Obama for the next four years," headlines the donation page.
While he links to the donation pages in his
email, Axelrod did not mention donations with his words. Instead, he
expresses the horror the nation feels about the shootings. "Our hearts
broke on Friday as we learned of the tragic and senseless deaths of 20
children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown,
Connecticut," he wrote. "As we reflect on the lives lost last week, we
must also, as the president urged, consider how each of us can play a
part in making our country worthy of the memory of those little
children."
But above and below a picture of Obama giving his speech are two links to the donation and video player page. One reads, "Watch this speech." The other reads "http://my.barackobama.com/Newton". Clicking the picture also directs supporters to the video player and donation page.
Obama critic and blogger
Jeryl Bier wrote, "Not one, but two buttons - two opportunities to
donate to the Obama campaign. Not to the Red Cross, or to a memorial
fund for the children and adults killed in Newtown. How hard would it
have been to shift the focus, disable the buttons, for just one email,
just one blog post? But the show must go on."
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Shame on you America for reelecting this vile creature for another four years. I'm embarrassed (and yes, I voted).
Imagine if this had come out before the US election
The mainstream media worked with the Obama administration to prevent the details of the Benghazi consulate terror attack from coming out before the elections for exactly the reasons we all suspected. Now that the political fallout for Hussein Obama will be much lighter, an independent inquiry has slammed the State Department for the lack of security that led to four American deaths, including that of the US Ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens (above).
In a scathing assessment, the review cited "leadership and management"
deficiencies at two department offices, poor coordination among
officials and "real confusion" in Washington and in the field over who
had the responsibility, and the power, to make decisions that involved
policy and security concerns.
The report's harsh assessment seemed likely to tarnish the four-year
tenure of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who said in a letter
accompanying the review that she would adopt all of its recommendations.
"Systemic
failures and leadership and management deficiencies at senior levels
within two bureaus of the State Department ... resulted in a special
mission security posture that was inadequate for Benghazi and grossly
inadequate to deal with the attack that took place," said the
unclassified version of the report by the official "Accountability
Review Board."
The board specifically faulted the department's
Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, the regional office which is responsible
for the Middle East and North Africa, and the Bureau of Diplomatic
Security, its law enforcement and security arm.
The five-member
board said US intelligence provided no "specific tactical warning" of
the attack and that there was "little understanding of militias in
Benghazi and the threat they posed to US interests" in the eastern
Libyan city, where the central government has little influence.
...
The report faulted as "misplaced" the mission's dependence for
security support on the "armed but poorly skilled" Libyan February 17
Martyrs' Brigade militia members and unarmed guards hired by State
Department contractor Blue Mountain Libya.
No Blue Mountain guards
were outside the compound immediately before the attack to provide
early warning, which was their responsibility. The report raised the
possibility that Blue Mountain guards left the "pedestrian gate open
after initially seeing the attackers and fleeing the vicinity. They had
left the gate unlatched before."
The board found little evidence
that the February 17 guards alerted Americans to the attack or swiftly
summoned more militia members to help once it was under way. There had
been questions of reliability in the weeks preceding the attack.
"At
the time of Ambassador Stevens' visit, February 17 militia members had
stopped accompanying special mission vehicle movements in protest over
salary and working hours," the report said.
The board recommended
that the State Department create a new, senior position to oversee
security at "high threat" posts, to strengthen security at such posts
beyond what is usually provided by host governments, and to consult
outside experts on "best practices" for operating in dangerous
environments.
The department should also hire more security
personnel at dangerous posts, ensure key policy and security staff serve
there for at least a year and consider making it easier to punish those
who perform poorly in future security incidents.
Have you ever been to an Israeli diplomatic installation outside Israel? I have. In New York and in Boston. Additionally, there is similar security at many Jewish community institutions throughout Europe (I've been to them in Vienna, Madrid and Paris off the top of my head). The security is all run by Israelis - no locals. You have to be admitted to an anteroom through one secure door, and that door has to close completely before the door that actually lets you into the building opens. Maybe the US will acknowledge reality and adopt similar measures now. Don't bet on it with Obama in charge. And notice once again that the buck stops at Hillary.
And for those of you who still believe the White House's story that Benghazi started as a demonstration against a movie about Mohamed....
Republican lawmakers had blasted [Susan] Rice for comments she made on
several television talk shows in the aftermath of the attack in which
she said preliminary information suggested the assault was the result of
protests against an anti-Muslim video made in California rather than a
premeditated strike.
The review, however, concluded that no
protest took place before the attack. Rice has said she was relying on
talking points drawn up by US intelligence officials.
But hey - the election is over so who the hell cares anymore?
Building in Jerusalem is very popular. In addition to the 1,500 housing units that were approved in Ramat Shlomo earlier this week, the Netanyahu government has announced that it will speed up the approval process for another 5,000 units. Needless to say, this has not endeared the Likud-Beiteinu combination to the Tzipi Livni party. On Wednesday morning, on Israel Radio, Livni had a tantrum.
Speaking to Israel Radio, Livni said "They do this every election. The
Likud is exposing Jerusalem to international condemnation for electoral
purposes."
...
For her part, Livni said Israel must reserve the right to build in
Jerusalem, Israel's capital city. "I myself built in Jerusalem," she
said, referencing her governmental experience in previous Likud- and
Kadima-led coalitions. "I built in Jerusalem," she repeated, "and I will
protect it in any diplomatic negotiations [with the Palestinians.]"
The
difference, she added, was that her construction over the green line
was undertaken in conjunction with negotiations. "When we built, there
was international silence. Because we were building alongside a
diplomatic effort to reach a solution," she said.
Actually, that's a load of crap. Ramat Shlomo was completed in 1996 - before Livni took office. The only new neighborhood that has been built in 'east' Jerusalem since has been Har Homa, which was approved and started... during Netanyahu's first term in office. In fact, Livni and her boss, Ehud K. Olmert, spent most of their time in office denying that they agreed to a freeze in 'east' Jerusalem.
The only housing that has been built in 'east' Jerusalem since then has been small projects here and there. There has been nothing as significant as Givat HaMatos, a new neighborhood proposed for the southern end of the city, and no project has been as large as the 1,500 units proposed for Ramat Shlomo.
Israelis aren't dumb enough to be fooled by Livni.
Asked about Hagel’s 2008 statement
that the “Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people here [in Washington,
D.C.],” South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham said Hagel will “have
to answer for that comment” if he is nominated.
“And he’ll have to answer about why he thought it
was a good idea to directly negotiate with Hamas and why he objected to
the European Union declaring Hezbollah a terrorist organization,”
continued Graham, a member of the Armed Services committee. “I think
he’ll have to answer all those questions.”
Asked if he’d oppose Hagel’s nomination from the
start, Graham said he would not. “I want to listen to what he has to
say,” Graham said. “I like Chuck. He’s been a friend. He has a stellar
military record. But these comments disturb a lot of people and he’ll
have to answer those questions.”
John McCain of Arizona said he “strongly disagree[s]" with Hagel's comments on the "Jewish lobby."
“I know of no ‘Jewish lobby,’” McCain said. “I know
that there’s strong support for Israel here. I know of no ‘Jewish
lobby.’ I hope he would identify who that is.”
Senate Foreign Relations Committee member Marco Rubio of Florida called references to a Jewish lobby “inaccurate.”
“I don’t agree with that statement,” Rubio said.
“If he is nominated, there’ll be a hearing. His entire public record and
all his public pronouncements will be reviewed as a part of that
process. And we’ll move on from there."
MK Danny Danon: 2013 will be year of decision on Iran
Here's a wide-ranging interview with Danny Danon, the young Likud MK who jumped to number 5 on the Likud slate during the primaries a couple of weeks ago. Danon spends a lot of time in this interview talking about Iran, but he talks about the 'Palestinians' and touches on other subjects as well.
According to the defector’s account, two senior Syrian officers moved
about 100 kilograms of chemical weapons materials from a secret
military base in January. The base was in a village called Nasiriyah,
about 50 to 60 kilometers northeast of Damascus.
The officers
placed the chemicals in a civilian vehicle and were seen driving across a
bridge in the direction of the highway toward Lebanon, the Syrian
source said. Two days later, he continued, two men with Lebanese accents
arrived at the Nasiriyah base and were given training in how to combine
and activate the chemicals, as well as the proper safety precautions in
handling them.
Rumors about possible movement of Syrian chemical
weapons have been spreading recently in the Middle East. But U.S.
officials don’t appear to have any evidence that chemical weapons have
actually been moved anywhere outside Syria.
The Syrian source
also described construction of special trucks, which could transport and
mix the weapons, at a workshop in the Damascus suburb of Dummar. This
workshop was part of a network of secret research facilities known in
Arabic as the “Bohous,” the source said.
Construction of these mobile
laboratories began in the summer of 2011, a few months after
revolutionaries began threatening Assad’s regime.
In the Dummar
workshop, the Syrian source said, technicians constructed a mobile lab
that could combine and activate so-called “binary” chemical weapons
agents. These mobile mixers were constructed inside Mercedes or Volvo
trucks that appeared, from the outside, to be similar to refrigerator
trucks. Inside were storage tanks, pipes and a motor to drive the mixing
machinery, the defector said.
The defector estimated that 10 to
15 of these mobile laboratories had been constructed. An independent
source said these numbers were high, but he confirmed that the Syrians
do have mobile labs.
Drawing on the defector’s reports, the
Syrian opposition quietly gave Lebanese officials a description of the
trucks about six weeks ago, so that they could monitor whether the
vehicles were crossing into Lebanon with chemical weapons on board.
Since then, none has apparently been seen near the border.
I can’t help but wonder about Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold, Seung-Hui Cho
and Adam Lanza. If they had been born in Gaza or the West Bank, shaped
by terrorist organizations’ hateful propaganda, would they have strapped
bombs around their waists and blown themselves up? I’m afraid the
answer is yes.
Maybe. But we'd be fooling ourselves if we think that Izz al-Din Shuheil al-Masri, Saeed Hotari or Abdel-Basset Odeh would have become suicide bombers had they lived in a society other than the 'Palestinians,' and that is the more relevant question.
Each of the non-Muslim Americans mentioned by Lankford acted on his own. That is not the case with the 'Palestinians.' This is from a Daniel Pipes piece called Arafat's Suicide Factory.
The system works: Hassan reports that "hordes of young men" clamor to be
sent to their own obliteration. Hamas and Islamic Jihad have
established a process of selection based in the mosques, where "a
notably zealous youth" ready for martyrdom gets noted by clerics who
recommend him for selection.
Those who make the cut enter a protracted, highly supervised, and
disciplined regimen of spiritual studies and military-like training.
These adepts are taught to see suicide operations as a way to "open the
door to Paradise" for themselves and their families. "I love martyrdom"
says one such "living martyr."
Just before setting off on an attack, the men engage in exquisitely
pious preparations (ablutions, clean clothing, a communal prayer
service). Their deaths are celebrated by Hamas or Islamic Jihad by
orchestrating a festive funeral celebration ("as if it were a wedding,"
Hassan observes) and distributing video cassettes with a statement from
beyond the grave. The sponsoring organizations then make sure that the
family receives both social kudos and financial rewards.
These facts tell us three things: Militant Islamic suicide killers are
not born; they are manufactured. Like the four simultaneous suicide
hijackings on Sept. 11, the four nearly simultaneous suicide attacks in
Israel last week resulted from long-term planning by sophisticated
organizations. They cannot operate clandestinely, but require the
permission of a ruling authority, either the Taliban or the PA.
Previous studies have shown that most suicide bombers are religious, young, male, unmarried, and unemployed, with some high school education (Ganor 2000). A study that examined the sociodemographic characteristics of suicide versus non-suicide terrorists revealed significant differences between the two types of terrorists: the mean age of suicide bombers was 24.5 years, they were older than non-suicide terrorists, more suicide bombers than non-suicide terrorists were educated in religious schools, and the percentage of suicide terrorists affiliated with religious fundamentalist organizations was higher than that of non-suicide terrorists (Pedahzur et al. 2003). It should be noted the sociodemographic characteristics of the suicide bombers (young, unmarried, and unemployed) are congruent with those of suicide bombers in other terrorist organizations such as the “Black Tigers” (LTTE) in Sri Lanka (Gunaratna 2000) and female suicide bombers acting on behalf of the PKK in Turkey (Ergil 2000). Most of the female suicide bombers in Palestinian society are also in their twenties and single. However, in contrast to male suicide bombers, they have a higher level of education than the average population. In fact, some female suicide bombers are graduates of universities or other institutions of higher education (Berko 2004; Yaffeh 2003).
These people are not mentally ill. Many, if not most of them, believe that they are helping their societies.
But perhaps the biggest difference is in the third factor cited by Lankford:
The third factor is the desire to acquire fame and glory through
killing. More than 70 percent of murder-suicides are between spouses or
romantic or sexual partners, and these crimes usually take place at
home. Attackers who commit murder-suicide in public are far more brazen
and unusual. Most suicide terrorists believe they will be honored and
celebrated as “martyrs” after their deaths and, sure enough, terrorist
organizations produce martyrdom videos and memorabilia so that other
desperate souls will volunteer to blow themselves up.
But suicide bombing attacks commonly take place in public. Most importantly, in American society, people like Adam Lanza are shunned and scorned, whereas in 'Palestinian' society, suicide bombers are praised and lionized. While Columbine shooter Eric Harris may have "fantasized with his fellow attacker, Dylan Klebold, that the filmmakers
Steven Spielberg and Quentin Tarantino would fight over the rights to
their life story," among the 'Palestinians' that sort of thing actually happens. While Lanza had to murder his mother to get her weapons, a 'Palestinian' mother is thrilled that her child would become a suicide bomber. Maybe that's why an Adam Lanza is a rarity in the West, while for every 'successful' 'Palestinian' suicide bomber, there are tens, if not hundreds more who are caught before they can do their deed.
Other Muslims share the 'Palestinians' admiration for suicide bombers. More here.
Here's video of Prime Minister Netanyahu welcoming Senator-elect Ted Cruz (R-Tx) on his first trip to Israel. Notice what Cruz says about Israel being in the front lines protecting the US against Syrian and Iranian weapons of mass destruction (toward the end of the video).
Russia has sent warships to the
Mediterranean Sea in case it has to evacuate Russian citizens from
Syria, Interfax news agency quoted an unnamed naval source as saying on
Tuesday.
A group of two assault ships, a tanker and an escort vessel left a Baltic port on Monday, the source said.
"They
are heading to the Syrian coast to assist in a possible evacuation of
Russian citizens ... Preparations for the deployment were carried out in
a hurry and were heavily classified," the source was quoted as saying.
The report could not immediately be confirmed independently.
95% of the residents have fled the Yarmouk 'refugee camp' in Syria in the face of fighting between forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad and Islamist rebels. The world remains silent.
The Palestinian ambassador said on Tuesday over 95 percent of
Palestinians in the Syrian refugee camp of Yarmouk have fled,
Palestinian news agency Ma'an reported.
Mahmud al-Khalidi told
Ma'an refugees fled to UNRWA schools after fighting raged for days in
the district on the southern edge of President Bashar Assad's Damascus
powerbase, rebel and Palestinian sources said.
According to Ma'an,
Al-Khalidi requested the Syrian Foreign Ministry to end airstrikes on
the camp, but officials insisted rebels must leave the camp first.
The
battle had pitted rebels, backed by some Palestinians, against
Palestinian fighters of the pro-Assad Popular Front for the Liberation
of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC).
Many PFLP-GC fighters defected
to the rebel side and their leader Ahmed Jibril left the camp two days
ago, rebel sources said.
"All of the camp is under the control of
the (rebel) Free Syrian Army," said a Palestinian activist in Yarmouk.
He said clashes had stopped and the remaining PFLP fighters retreated to
join Assad's forces massed on the northern edge of the camp.
...
Government forces have used jets and artillery to try to dislodge the
fighters but the violence has crept into the heart of the city and
activists say rebels overran three army stations in a new offensive in
the central province of Hama on Monday.
On the border with
Lebanon, hundreds of Palestinian families fled across the frontier
following the weekend violence in Yarmouk, a Reuters witness said.
Syria hosts half a million Palestinian refugees, most living in
Yarmouk, descendants of those admitted after the creation of Israel in
1948, and has always cast itself as a champion of the Palestinian
struggle, sponsoring several guerrilla factions.
Both Assad's
government and the mainly Sunni Muslim Syrian rebels have enlisted and
armed divided Palestinian factions as the uprising has developed into a
civil war.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human
Rights says heavy battles are under way Tuesday in the Palestinian
refugee camp of Yarmouk, in southern Damascus.
The Observatory says the fighting is forcing
Palestinian refugees and Syrians who came to Yarmouk to escape violence
elsewhere in the country to flee the camp.
When the revolt against Assad’s rule unrest
began in March 2011, the half-million-strong Palestinian community in
Syria tried to stay on the sidelines.
As the civil war deepened, most Palestinians
backed the rebels, though some groups — such as the Popular Front for
the Liberation of Palestine-General Command — have been fighting on the
government side.
Just keep it on your own side of the border boys....
The bottom line: If this is Syria’s new government then Syria now has
an Islamist regime. This is happening with the knowledge and
collaboration of the Obama Administration and a number of European
governments. It is a catastrophe and one that’s taking place due to the
deliberate decisions of President Barack Obama and other Western
leaders. Even if one rationalizes the Islamist takeover in Egypt as due
to internal events, this one is U.S.-made.
As Spyer points out, U.S. and European policy can be summarized as follows:
“To align with and strengthen Muslim Brotherhood-associated elements,
while painting Salafi forces as the sole real Islamist danger. At the
same time, secular forces are ignored or brushed aside.”
The new regime, recognized by the United States and most European
countries, as the legitimate leadership of the Syrian people, is the
Syrian National Coalition, which has also established a military
council.
Spyer’s detailed evidence for these arguments–much of which comes
from raw wire service reports, praise is due to Reuters in this case–is
undeniable. And if we know about these things there’s no doubt that the
highest level of the U.S. government does so as well. Why is this
happening? Because Obama and others believe that they can moderate the
Muslim Brotherhood and it will tame the Salafists, despite massive
evidence to the contrary. This is going to be the biggest foreign policy
blunder of the last century and the cost for it will be high.
It should
be stressed that such a strategy is totally unnecessary and the
alternatives have been ignored, the real moderates are being betrayed.
Time for Obama's court Jew to speak out against Hagel (UPDATED)
For someone who got Chuck Hagel so right in 2007 - in a post that was disappeared down the memory hole, but may still be found via the Way Back Machine - Ira Forman's silence is deafening. Forman, chair of the National Jewish Democratic Council and most recently the Obama campaign's liaison to the Jewish community, had this to say about Hagel in March 2007.
As Senator Hagel sits around for six more months and tries to decide
whether to launch a futile bid for the White House, he has a lot of
questions to answer about his commitment to Israel. Consider this:
- In August 2006, Hagel was one of only 12 Senators who refused to write the EU asking them to declare Hezbollah a terrorist organization.
- In October 2000, Hagel was one of only 4 Senators who refused to sign a Senate letter in support of Israel.
- In November 2001, Hagel was one of only 11 Senators who refsued to
sign a letter urging President Bush not to meet with the late Yassir
Arafat until his forces ended the violence against Israel.
- In December 2005, Hagel was one of only 27 who refused to sign a
letter to President Bush to pressure the Palestinian Authroity to ban
terrorist groups from participating in Palestinian legislative
elections.
- In June 2004, Hagel refused to sign a letter urging President Bush to highlight Iran's nuclear program at the G-8 summit.
In 2009, when Hagel was appointed to be co-chair of President Obama's National Intelligence Advisory Board, Forman had this to say:
Back in 2009, when President Obama appointed Hagel to co-chair the
President's National Intelligence Advisory Board, the NJDC's then
executive director, Ira Forman, reserved criticism, as The Weekly
Standard reported at the time.
"Anybody who's looking for purity from us is going to be
disappointed," he said, after apparently being pressed to criticize
Hagel's appointment. Forman at the time also suggested that the RJC was
engaging in selective criticism and hadn't been so exercised about Hagel
until the former Republican senator was embraced by Obama.
But Forman (who since went on to be the 2012 Obama campaign’s Jewish
outreach coordinator) added: "If [Hagel] was taking a policy role, we'd
have real concerns."
Secretary of Defense sure sounds like a 'policy role' to me. But last week, Forman refused to comment when contacted by the Daily Beast's Eli Lake.
Hagel doesn't just represent someone who is anti-Israel or who is an obsessive believer in 'engagement.' As Bret Stephens points out in the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, Hagel has attempted totar American Jews with the anti-Semitic canard of dual loyalty.
Prejudice—like cooking, wine-tasting and other consummations—has an
olfactory element. When Chuck Hagel, the former GOP senator from
Nebraska who is now a front-runner to be the next secretary of Defense,
carries on about how "the Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up
here," the odor is especially ripe.
Ripe because a "Jewish lobby," as far as I'm aware, doesn't exist. No
lesser authorities on the subject than John Mearsheimer and Stephen
Walt, authors of "The Israel Lobby," have insisted the term Jewish lobby
is "inaccurate and misleading, both because the [Israel] lobby includes
non-Jews like Christian Zionists and because many Jewish Americans do
not support the hard-line policies favored by its most powerful
elements."
Ripe because, whatever other political pressures Mr. Hagel might have
had to endure during his years representing the Cornhusker state,
winning over the state's Jewish voters—there are an estimated 6,100
Jewish Nebraskans in a state of 1.8 million people—was probably not a
major political concern for Mr. Hagel compared to, say, the ethanol
lobby.
Ripe because the word "intimidates" ascribes to the so-called Jewish
lobby powers that are at once vast, invisible and malevolent; and
because it suggests that legislators who adopt positions friendly to
that lobby are doing so not from political conviction but out of
personal fear. Just what does that Jewish Lobby have on them?
Ripe, finally, because Mr. Hagel's Jewish lobby remark was well in
keeping with the broader pattern of his thinking. "I'm a United States
Senator, not an Israeli Senator," Mr. Hagel told retired U.S. diplomat
Aaron David Miller in 2006. "I'm a United States Senator. I support
Israel. But my first interest is I take an oath of office to the
Constitution of the United States. Not to a president. Not a party. Not
to Israel. If I go run for Senate in Israel, I'll do that."
Read these staccato utterances again to better appreciate their
insipid and insinuating qualities, all combining to cast the usual slur
on Jewish-Americans: Dual loyalty. Nobody questions Mr. Hagel's loyalty.
He is only making those assertions to question the loyalty of others.
When someone in as prominent a position as Hagel is making those kinds of assertions against American Jewry, it's time for the American Jewish leadership to circle the wagons and fight back. And yet, Ira Forman is hiding in the brush along the side of the road (as, admittedly, are many others who find anti-Semitism in every pro-Israel pronouncement of a Christian Zionist - I looked in vain for a statement about Hagel from Abe Foxman over the last month).
What's the matter, Ira? Cat got your tongue? Or has Obama threatened your pocket?
“Chuck Hagel would not be the first, second, or third choice for the
American Jewish community’s friends of Israel. His record relating to
Israel and the U.S.-Israel relationship is, at best, disturbing, and at
worst, very troubling. The sentiments he’s expressed about the Jewish
lobby border on anti-Semitism in the genre of professors John
Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt and former president Jimmy Carter.”
It’s no secret that some of the most critical stories concerning
Israel in the international press are lifted straight from the pages of
Israel’s very own Haaretz newspaper, and all the more so thanks to its
English language website.
While Haaretz is entitled to fulfill its role as a critical domestic
judge of Israel and its government’s policies, what happened when it
published a story that was — quite simply — dishonest?
Levy regularly demonizes the Jewish state to foreign audiences and in
his own newspaper columns. He regularly goes beyond legitimate
criticism of Israel, crossing red lines and allying himself with those
who refer to Israel as a racist “apartheid state”, promote boycott,
divestment and sanctions (BDS) and wish to see the very destruction of
Israel.
On the basis that Levy promotes the canard of Israeli “apartheid”, he
is the last journalist who could give an objective analysis of this
polls results.
His article opened with the following premise:
Most of the Jewish public in
Israel supports the establishment of an apartheid regime in Israel if it
formally annexes the West Bank.
Levy’s entire premise was based, however, on a hypothetical situation
where Israel annexes the West Bank – a policy that the majority of
Israelis are opposed to according to the very same poll.
Other statistics were casually tossed into the mix by Levy in an
attempt to fit the figures to his framing of Israel as an apartheid
state. Minority opinions were highlighted and illustrative graphs that
appeared in the Haaretz Hebrew edition were noticeably absent from the
English article.
Levy stated that the survey was commissioned by the New Israel Fund’s
Yisraela Goldblum Fund. It was perhaps an indicator of just how
politicized and toxic this poll was that the New Israel Fund publicly disassociated itself (Hebrew) from it.
After an outcry over the article, Haaretz was forced to issue a clarification
stating that the original headline did not accurately reflect the
findings of the poll and amended the headline.
While it did not
represent a correction or apology, Haaretz did publish an opinion piece
by Dr. Yehuda Ben Meir, who shredded Levy, concluding:
There’s a lot of room for improvement in
Israeli society, but this article does an injustice to the State of
Israel, the Jewish people and the truth. an injustice to the State of
Israel, the Jewish people and the truth.
Toronto’s Globe & Mail (to its credit) was the only non-Israeli
paper to report the clarification – an indication of just how much
damage the original story had caused to Israel internationally.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-one years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 8 to 29 years and five grandchildren. Our eldest daughter and eldest son are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
'
