Atlas Shrugs

Blogger Interview: Natan Sharansky On "Two State" Solution

I took part in a conference call with Natan Sharansky - I'll load it but the audio is poor :(
I did ask him the following:

Pamela: You were at AIPAC and I saw that most of the panels that dealt with the Palestinian issue are still talking two state solution as if its de facto. Don't you think  that's putting the cart before the horse. And don't you think American Jewish leadership should take a more proactive role in denouncing this plan?

Sharansky: I don't think American Jewish leadership has to take a more active role in denouncing this plan. I think everybody in the American Jewish leadership should open their eyes and BTW the overwhelming majority of Israelis [inaudible] don't think that peace can be achieved -- that  at this moment there is  no Palestinian leader who really believes in the two state solution And the more we participate it this process the  more  the Palestinians  operate against this option.

We are seeing a very interesting cooperation between the enemies of Israel who want to destroy Israel, and that's why they don't believe in a two state solution. They believe there  will be one state where Israel, simply as  a Jewish state, will disappear. And at the same time, multiculturalists, professors,  so called liberals,  speak more and more against a Jewish state  and want one state for the citizens. But that means in fact - the same - disappearance of Israel as a Jewish state...... so the thing is,  it's not because of us  stopping it, but  because of the logic, the reality that the two state solution has become irrelevant and I don't think we have to take the initiative in fighting against this theory not but it's not because we are not ready for this , it is because there are so many hopes of fundamentalists, on one hand, and multiculturists on the other hand, that the Jewish state of Israel will disappear.

I disagree with Sharansky here. We must be more vocal about it. It is being pursuing vigorously -- I guess "reality and logic" are not in Condi and co's vocabulary. Their "thinking" is hardwired for delusion not logic.

Condi Rice says need to establish Palestinian state is “urgent”

Anne over at Boker Tov opines,

I can't believe the "Israel Lobby" sat still for this - from Condoleezza Rice:

"... the ideology of violent extremism is not something that a majority in the Middle East will actually support."

Doesn't she read the New York Times?  March 19, page A-10:

Poll Shows Most Palestinians Favor Violence Over Talks 

UPDATE: Over at Front page: "In at least twenty critical matters of Middle East foreign policy, the US State Department has acted independently of US Congressional approval in its implementation of Middle East policy."

 

1. The US State Department has ignored all data brought to its attention from Israeli intelligence which provides documents, records minutes, and recordings which demonstrate Abu Mazen's direct involvement with the PLO murder campaign which has ensued over the past three years, which has resulted in more than 18,000 terror attacks and more than 800 Israeli citizens who have been murdered by Arab terrorists in cold blood.

2. The US State Department has demanded that Israel free hundreds of Arabs who have been involved in acts of premeditated murder, meaning that Israel would have to free Arab terrorists who qualify as not having "blood on their hands" because while they tried to hurt people with bullets, bombs and rocks, they missed.

3. The US State Department has demanded that Israel free members of Arab terror organizations who are ideologically committed to murdering Jews.

4. The US State Department has refused to demand that the PLO withdraw its sentence of death for any Jew who lives in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, Katif or the Golan.

What Lebanon Really Means

Barry Rubin over at the GLORIA center explains what is happening in Lebanon. He correctly predicts an ominous outcome  to the Hezbo violent takeover in Beirut.  Their intention was never to be part of the process, their objective was always violent jihad. The Hezbos have been nothing if not consistent in their  objective of an Islamic Lebanon.
Excerpt:

What Spain was in 1936; Lebanon is today.

Does anyone remember the Spanish Civil War? Briefly, a fascist revolt took place against the democratic government. The rebels were motivated by several factors, including anger that their religion had not been given enough respect and regional grievances, but essentially they sought to put their ideology and themselves into power. Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy backed the rebels with money and guns. The Western democracies stood by and did nothing.

Guess who won? And guess whether that outcome led to peace or world war.

Funny, I thought September 11 changed everything.

Why should Lebanese Sunni, Druze, and Christians risk their lives when the West doesn't help them? Every Israeli speaking nonsense about Syria making peace; every American claiming Damascus might split from Tehran; every European preaching appeasement has in fact been engaged in confidence-breaking measures.

Hizballah doesn't need to win a military victory but only to show it can win one, using that position of strength to try to force its demands on the moderate government. . The government has already accepted Michel Suleiman, Syria's candidate for president. But Hizballah and the rest say this is not enough: they want veto power over everything.

The goal of Hizballah, and its Syrian and Iranian backers at present is not the full conquest of Lebanon--something beyond their means--but to control the government so it does nothing they dislike: no strong relations with the West, no ability to stop war against Israel, no disarming Hizballah's militias or countering that group's control over large parts of the country, and certainly no investigation of Syrian involvement in terrorism there.

Why, three years after Damascus ordered the murder of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri do investigators dawdle, having edited out the names of top Syrian officials they blamed for the killing in their initial report?

Israel bombed a nuclear reactor being built in Syria. Rice reportedly opposed the action. The world yawned.

Iran drives for nuclear weapons. There is some effort but too little, too slow. Whether or not the war in Iraq was a mistake, when terrorists murdered Iraqi civilians, much of the West blamed America; all too many Americans agreed.

Far too much Western media, intellectual--sometimes political life--reviles Israel. But Israel is no threat to them; other forces are. And events in Lebanon are one more proof that the Israel-Palestinian conflict is only a portion, say one-fifth, of the wider Middle East crisis.

Many in the West think Israel will pay the price for their follies. But Israel is ready to do what it needs for its self-defense. If anything, the mistakes of the last round in Lebanon reinforced this determination.

Instead, the main victims will be Arabs, mostly Muslims, in Afghanistan, Gaza, Iraq, and Lebanon, killed by the various Jihad groups, or ruled by them where they take power or dominate through intimidation. And second they will be Western interests, which would not fare well in a region dominated by a combination of Islamists and those who feel they have no choice but to appease them.

When Senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama says he will negotiate with Syria and Iran over Iraq's future, he signals every Persian Gulf regime to cut its own deal with Iran. When his stances convince Hamas that he's the guy for them; when Iran and Syria conclude they merely need stand defiant and wait until January 21 for any existing pressure vanishes, the U.S. position in the Middle East is being systematically destroyed.

Note that this does not make Obama the candidate favored by Arabs in general but only by the radicals. Egyptians, Jordanians, Gulf Arabs, and the majorities in Lebanon and Iraq are very worried. This is not just an Israel problem; it is one for all non-extremists in the region.

If the dictators and terrorists are smiling, it means everyone else is crying.

The Syrian and Iranian regimes know that while they may walk through the valley of the shadow of sanctions they need fear nothing because there are all too many who comfort them.

After all, if the UN human rights committee is run by Libya, if UNIFIL forces in Lebanon tread lightly so Hizballah won't be angry with them, if Westerners tremble and repeal freedom of speech lest some Muslims be offended, why should the "bad guys" worry?

Yet the West doesn't have to play it stupid forever. Now is the time for energetic action on Lebanon to wipe that confident sneer off their faces. To contain Iran and Syria, to buck up the Lebanese government side and all those Arabs who, whatever their faults, don't want to live in an Islamist caliphate.

If you want to know what's wrong, consider Obama's May 10 statement on Lebanon. He starts out playing tough, talking about "Hezbollah's power grab in Beirut....This effort to undermine Lebanon's elected government needs to stop, and all those who have influence with Hezbollah must press them to stand down immediately." He calls for supporting the Lebanese government, strengthening the Lebanese army, and to "insist on disarming Hezbollah."

But how to do this? By "working with the international with the international community and the private sector to rebuild Lebanon and get its economy back on its feet."

In other words, according to the Obama world view, it's a problem of development. If people have more money they won't be terrorists. Of course, that was the policy of Hariri, which was countered by Syria blowing him up. In politics, bombs trump business. And any way you can't have a strong economy with no government and chaos. Part of the mistake here is Obama's assumption that Hizballah (and other radicals) want stability and prosperity. In fact, they want to use instability as blackmail in their pursuit of power. They don't want conciliation. It's a military-strategic problem, not one of community organizing.

The statement continues: "We must support the implementation of UN Security Council Resolutions that reinforce Lebanon's sovereignty, especially resolution 1701 banning the provision of arms to Hezbollah, which is violated by Iran and Syria."

Great. But the UN is no substitute for U.S. power. As David Schenker of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy writes, "It is highly unlikely that the UN -- which failed to even prevent the rearming of Hizballah--would agree to more dangerous deployments in Lebanon." America doesn't need a president whose solution is to turn over crises to the UN.

Nor can Obama pass the buck to Lebanon's army. Its commander is Syria's presidential candidate, its soldiers are mostly pro-Hizballah, and the quarter-billion dollars of U.S. aid given since 2006 may well become additional assets for Tehran.

As President Harry Truman said of the president's desk, the buck stops here. So the president of the United States must take the lead, be tough, and make credible threats. What's needed is not a conciliator but a confronter.

These are the questions Obama isn't even pretending to try to answer: Are you willing to fight on this issue? To defy an "international community" that opposes action? To intimidate and defeat the radicals? Answer: No.

But here's the worst part that few in America but everyone in Lebanon will understand all too well: (there's more, go here)

[...]

Here, at the "From Beirut to Beltway" blog, is a typical, sarcastic, reaction by Lebanese government supporters:

"Oh the time we wasted by fighting Hizballah all those years....If only we had engaged them and their masters in diplomacy...sitting with them around discussion tables, welcoming them into our parliament, and letting them veto cabinet decisions. If only Obama had shared his wisdom with us before, back when he was rallying with some of our former friends at pro-Palestinian rallies in Chicago. How stupid we were when, instead of developing `national consensus' with them, we organized media campaigns against Israel on behalf of the impoverished people who voted for them.

"During that time when we bought into the cause against Israel, treating resistance fighters like our brothers, we really should have been `building consensus' with them. Because what we did...was...unnecessary antagonism, a product of a `corrupt patronage system and unfair distribution of wealth.'"

"We stand today regretting the wasted time that could have been wisely spent talking to them, to the Syrian occupiers who brought them into our system, and the Iranian revolutionary guards who trained them.^[1]

The battle isn't over, which is all the more reason for real--not just verbal--international action. Hizballah has made its point for the moment, that it is the most powerful and to it every knee must bend. Yet without serious political and diplomatic support for Lebanon's government and real costs inflicted on Syria and Iran, the battle will be lost eventually.

For all those in the West who don't like Israel, then at least help the people you pretend to like. Back the Lebanese government with real power and aid, covertly or overtly, those battling the radical forces in Lebanon.

Rick: "Sam, if it's December 1941 in Casablanca, what time is it in New York?"

Sam: "Um, my watch stopped."

Rick: "I bet they're asleep in New York. I'll bet they're asleep all over America."

300 million Arabs in 20 nations against 5 million Israeli Jews

Baehr is right. Nothing has changed. The seige rages on.

Israel's Siege Continues Richard Baehr American Thinkerhat tip Van

Israel's national anthem, Hatikvah, ("The Hope"), was written in 1886 by Naphtali Herz Imber, an English poet, originally from Bohemia.  In 1897, at the first Zionist Congress, Hatikvah was adopted as the anthem of Zionism. And at that time, The Hope of the delegates to the Zionist Congress was for a return to Zion, and the rebirth of the Jewish state.

[...]

Twenty two years on from the publication of The Siege, and 60 years on from the founding of the modern state of Israel, it is worth asking if anything has really changed.  Is Israel's hope for a future in its own homeland as much at risk today as when the anthem was adopted by the new state in 1948? Can Israel hope for a better future, for peace and normalcy, to be a state like any other?  Or is that hope naïve? More specifically, is Israel's and the Jewish people's hope for Israel to remain a free nation in its own land, at odds with the reality of the continuing Siege (today -- of 300 million Arabs in 20 nations aligned against just 5 million Israeli Jews)  as well as the new existential  dangers to the state?

I believe that the survival of Israel should matter a lot to American Jews. Just prior to the start of World War 2, the world's Jewish population stood at over 17 million, close to 1% of the world's total population.  Of that number, over half, more than  9 million, lived in Europe, about a third in America, and but 3%, roughly half a million,  in Palestine. Today, after 6 million Jews perished in less than six years in the Holocaust, we have never come close to restoring our numbers. The best current estimate of the world's Jewish population is a bit over 13 million, with roughly 80% of the total split between Israel and the US, about 40%, or  five million plus, in each country.

While Jewish numbers worldwide are down by almost 25% in 65 years, the world's population has more than tripled. We are now but 1 of every 500 people on the earth, a group smaller than the Dutch. In Europe, barely a million Jews still reside, fewer than 10% of the world's total Jewish population, and barely a tenth of their former level in Europe. As Diaspora Jewry suffers the twin blows of a high intermarriage rate and a low birthrate, the Jewish numbers in virtually every country outside of Israel continue to decline. The only exceptions recently have been Canada, where Jews have a much lower intermarriage rate and a higher birth rate than in the US, and Germany, which accepted some older Jews from Russia as refugees. In this country, despite  immigration of over half a  million Jews from Russia, Israel, and other countries in the last 30 years, the Jewish population has declined by over 10% from a peak of  6 million in 1950 to 5.3 million, according to one population survey, or is now just over 6 million, according to another survey.

Obama's Foreign Policy Advisers: Leftards Kill the Messenger

Obama and the Jews Jerusalem Post

Heaven forbid the leftists address the legitimate concerns raised by those of us who care deeply about America and the future direction of this country. CHANGE can be bad. For example, CHANGING to a sharia compliant, terror aligning, socialist state would be a bad CHANGE. Obama would not be the first Democrat recognizing Islamic terrorists, Kerry, Biden & Hagel hung out  with the Islamist Party in Pakistan. But it is bad for America and not what we want.

Obama's foreign policy adviser's give freedom lovers great pause.

I am appalled at the attacks on those investigative journalists exposing the truth about Obama's true agenda. Check out this asshat's Orwellian editorial in the Jewish JTA. He mendaciously smears the  inestimable Ed Lasky. Kampeas is JTA's Jerusalem bureau chief (collective oyish).

Ed Lasky has done extensive research on Obama's advisers as have many others but Ron Kampeas, Goebbels lite, goes after Lasky merely for doing us the great service of exposing the backgrounds of Obama's advisers.

Kampeas is a self hating Jew and a leftist - morally ambivalent at best. He has been doing Obama's bidding for some time. Does Kampeas even care to fact-check? Just read the advisers own writings, read how other media characterize them. The JTA accepts tax-deductible contributions-does this political activity raise questions about their tax status?

Obama's advisers drawing scrutiny Ron Kampeas

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- Even as U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) solidifies his status as the Democratic front-runner with victories Tuesday in Wisconsin and Hawaii, he is facing a new line of attack from some Jewish circles regarding his advisers on foreign policy.

In recent weeks, writers associated with several right-wing media outlets have taken aim at what they describe as anti-Israel voices advising Obama on Middle East issues, spurring a rash of mass e-mails voicing similar concerns.

Among those cited by critics are Zbigniew Brzezinski, the national security adviser in the Carter administration; Samantha Power, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and lecturer at the John F. Kennedy School of Government of Harvard University; Robert Malley, an adviser on Israeli-Arab affairs during the Clinton administration; and George Soros, an international financier who has funded pro-democracy efforts throughout Europe and in recent years became a major supporter of the Democratic Party in the United States.

Fairly or unfairly, each has been on the receiving end of criticism from some pro-Israel activists or Jewish groups over positions viewed as being hostile to the Jewish state.

The Obama campaign acknowledges that it has received advice from the people named in the negative e-mail campaign, describing the meetings with these individuals as a product of Obama's "one America" philosophy of reaching out to all Americans.

But, in the end, campaign officials say, the candidate should be assessed according to his own votes and statements. Besides, they add, the personalities in question do not play any formal role in advising Obama on Middle East issues. That task, they say, falls to a collection of policy experts in good standing with the pro-Israel lobby.

Unlike the Internet attacks falsely painting Obama as a secret radical Muslim, the "adviser" e-mails appear to have struck a chord among some Jewish organizational leaders, in addition to worrying some grassroots voters.

No one has said he is a secret radical Muslim. We .... I said he is Muslim by birth. His father was a Muslim and his stepfather was a Muslim and he attended a madrassah in Indonesia from the ages of 6 to 10. FACT.

This week, in an interview with Shalom TV, a Web-based Jewish channel, World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder said that "if you have an adviser that is not sympathetic to Israel -- not sympathetic to some Jewish concerns -- you have a potential problem."

"If you only have one or two close advisers and they're both anti-Israel," Lauder said, then "it's only a matter of time before the president becomes anti-Israel."

Lauder made no specific reference to Obama, but the comments come at a time when the Illinois senator appears to be the only candidate facing major questions about his advisers on Israel-related issues.

Lauder's speech, a rarity for him to speak out so strongly, is a must listen here.

Last week, Malcolm Hoenlein, the professional head of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, reportedly told Israeli reporters that the "change" mantra in the current U.S. election -- mostly associated with Obama -- was worrying.

Thank Gd someone is speaking out in the public forum.

Ha'aretz framed Hoenlein's comments as an expression of concern about Obama's camp, but the Jewish communal leader told JTA that he was speaking generally about this campaign season and the calls for change coming from supporters of several of the candidates in both parties.

In an effort to counter various attacks against Obama going back several months, his campaign has responded with several long e-mails to Jewish supporters. Insiders say response has been positive -- a perception borne out by primary elections exit polls that show Jews trending toward Obama more than other whites in some states.

Even with minimal impact, attacks can still cross the line and are cause for concern, said Dennis Ross, the Clinton administration's top Middle East envoy.

"When you're in the political season, every difference tends to be magnified," said Ross, who has given the Obama campaign advice and who is now a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a pro-Israel think tank. "We can have political differences, but it can't lead to demonization."
Much, if not the vast majority, of the material targeting Obama's advisers is distorted and even false.

Check the URLs and all their op-eds,etc

The campaign notes that its Middle East policy is strictly the province of four individuals, each of them perceived as pro-Israel and three of them Jewish: Dan Shapiro, a longtime activist and bridge between the Jewish organizational leadership and Democratic Party; Anthony Lake, a Clinton administration national security adviser; Eric Lynn, the Obama campaign's Jewish liaison who has lived in Israel; and Dennis McDonough, once the foreign policy adviser to former U.S. Senate majority leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), who had impeccable pro-Israel credentials during his time in office.

Lasky hardly barely mentioned Lake and certainly did not fault him for his attachment to the Berkshires. He only quoted Peretz who had pointed out that he had been out of the big picture for some time, living in the Berkshires.

Of the four regular advisers, only Lake has taken shots from Obama's critics. In an article in the American Thinker -- the online conservative magazine that has been the principle redoubt of Obama-Israel skepticism -- Ed Lasky faults Lake, who recently converted to Judaism, for having worked for the Carter administration and for living in the Berkshires.

Much of the material appearing in a number of Lasky articles and circulating in e-mails is similarly flimsy, especially his attacks on Malley

Read the URLs, read the NY Sun, read Martin Peretz, read Commentary), according to Obama supporters and some former U.S. diplomats.

Like Ross, Malley was a senior adviser to the Clinton administration at the U.S.-Israeli-Palestinian talks at Camp David in the summer of 2000.

Malley has differed with Ross and others over the degree of blame to be assigned over the talks' breakdown -- Ross singles out the late Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat -- but he does not solely blame Israel. And in public talks in Washington, he emphasizes Israel's security as a critical element in formulating policy.

"He is not anti-Israeli, he is not a fanatic anti-Israeli," Ross told JTA. "To use these tacks is just wrong."

The targeting of Malley led Ross and four other Clinton-era officials to publish an open letter last week defending his record.

"Whatever differences do exist, there is no disagreement among us on one core issue that transcends partisan or other divides: that the U.S. should not and will not do anything to undermine Israel’s safety or the special relationship between our two nations," the letter said. "We have worked with Rob closely over the years and have no doubt he shares this view and has acted consistent with it."

Soros, the billionaire philanthropist, has donated to Obama's campaign. He has also been critical of Israel and of pro-Israel orthodoxies, but the Holocaust survivor has cast his criticisms as mindful of Israel's security.

Right-he admits in a NYT magazine article that he is harsh on Israel, and funds a a variety of anti-Israel groups

Read Peretz and listen to his 60 Minutes interview. Check out this Atlas post. He was a nazi collaborator in rounding up the wealth of Jews, he never was in a concentration camp. He was a kapo not a survivor.

Soros vigorously opposes the pro-Israel lobby in America and has unsuccessfully tried to create a pro-Palestinian anti-Israel l alternative to it.

Recently, he considered funding an alternative pro-Israel lobby, one that would more aggressively advocate for a two-state solution, while also maintaining Israel's security needs. Lasky links to a Soros article last year in the New York Review of Books to show that the financier is a "fierce foe" of Israel. In it, Soros describes his thesis as follows: "Military superiority is necessary for Israel's national security, but it is not sufficient."

Talk about selective quotations-read his article-his animosity shines through-as it does in other statements he has made, other articles he has written, groups that he funds.

Despite what Obama supporters and some observers say are distortions and falsehoods, there's enough that would worry parts of the pro-Israel community, particularly the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and its allies.

Brzezinski's time as Carter's national security adviser left a bitter taste among Israelis and pro-Israel activists. They perceived Brzezinski as creating a false dichotomy between Israel's needs and the effort to recruit Middle Eastern states to America's side in the Cold War -- a key point given that his overriding concern in the Carter administration was containing the Soviets.

It didn’t help that Brzezinski initially endorsed the views of Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, academics who promulgated the thesis that the pro-Israel lobby fundamentally distorts U.S. foreign policy. He later backtracked to a degree, suggesting that their book overstated its case.

The Obama campaign says it does not take advice from Brzezinski, but has accepted his endorsement as a senior U.S. statesman, who says the Illinois senator has the best policy for extricating the United States from Iraq.

Again, all the media outlets describe him as a foreign policy adviser.

Power, the lecturer from Harvard, is a more sensitive problem for the campaign. An expert on genocide who has worked with Jewish activists who press the case that the United States should have done more to stop the Holocaust during World War II, she served for two years on Obama's Senate staff and is a permanent adviser -- but not, the campaign says, on Middle East-related issues.

The Obama campaign has rejected efforts to paint her as anti-Israel, although notably, it does not address her writings related to Israel.

"Samantha Power is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author of a book about the evil of genocide, which includes an extensive discussion of the Holocaust, so for this smear e-mail to paint her as anti-Israel is outrageous," said a statement from the campaign that first appeared in the Palm Beach Post in Florida.

Even as they defend Power, Obama campaign officials say she has little say on Middle East issues, confining her advice to issues such as the genocide in Darfur.

U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.), who is arguably Obama's top congressional backer in Florida, told the Palm Beach Post that the e-mail campaign criticizing the candidate's advisers was a "lie."

"I wouldn't be involved with any candidate," Wexler was quoted as saying, "that didn't recognize Israel as a Jewish state, that didn't reject the Palestinian right of return, and that didn't demand that Hamas reject terror as a condition for talks with the Palestinians."

Kampeas also ignores the criticism from other, more prestigious people. Many have been mining the anti-Israel rich histories of Obama's advisers. Eric Trager over at Commentary blog  recently wrote of Obama's adviser Robert Malley;

In the ongoing debate regarding Barack Obama’s stance on Israel, Obama foreign policy adviser Robert Malley has emerged as a divisive figure.

Malley’s supporters and critics agree that he embraces a pro-Palestinian narrative in his approach towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As President Bill Clinton’s special adviser on Arab-Israeli affairs from 1998-2001, Malley was the only American official to blame the United States and Israel—rather than Yasser Arafat—for the failure to achieve Israeli-Palestinian peace at Camp David in 2000. Since leaving government, Malley has further developed his pro-Palestinian credentials: he has gushed over Arafat; partnered with Arafat adviser Hussein Agha in promoting his revisionist account of Camp David; and blamed the Bush administration overwhelmingly for continued Israeli-Palestinian strife.

Given Malley’s unabashed bias, supporters of Israel have questioned his true motives, with Martin Peretz’s determination that Malley is a “rabid hater of Israel” representative of the debate’s deteriorating tenor. Last week, Malley’s fellow peace processors shot back, calling the attacks “an effort to undermine the credibility of a talented public servant who has worked tirelessly over the years to promote Arab-Israeli peace and US national interests.” Malley’s former colleagues further wrote that he neither harbors an anti-Israel agenda nor has sought to undermine Israeli security.

Yet the very question of whether or not Malley is a “anti-Israel” is a red herring. Rather than psychoanalyzing Malley to uncover his true motivations, we should assess Malley’s policy prescriptions as to whether they have advanced Israeli-Palestinian peace—the cause for which Malley was employed. It is within this framework that Malley’s insufficiency as a presidential foreign policy adviser is most profoundly exposed.

Consider, for example, Malley’s address at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in September 2005. While debating U.S. policy towards Islamist parties, Malley argued that the U.S. should allow Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to permit Hamas’ participation in the upcoming parliamentary elections. Malley said:

[Abbas] thinks that it’s the only way that he can restore political stability; that he can regenerate his own political party; and that he can sustain the ceasefire. . . . We should not be second-guessing that assessment.

Of course, Malley’s policy of not “second-guessing” Abbas on Hamas was an unambiguous disaster, with Hamas’ subsequent election dashing all hopes that the post-Arafat era could yield peaceful compromise.

And Noah Pollak wrote of close pal and Obama advisor, Samantha Power;

Samantha Power: the Salon Interview

It might be time that I downgraded my opinion of Samantha Power from someone who I believe holds naive and mischievous opinions on the Middle East to someone who for the most part simply doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She gave a must-read interview yesterday to Salon.com.

What is the biggest foreign policy challenge for the next president?

The next president is really going to have to walk and chew gum at the same time, because no long-term peace in the Middle East is possible until we get some kind of modus vivendi in the Arab-Israeli situation.

Remarkable. Neither the Iraq war, nor the Iranian nuclear program, nor North Korean nuclear proliferation, nor the situation in Pakistan, nor the ascendant Iran-Syria-Hezbollah-Hamas axis, in Power’s assessment, is comparable to “the Arab-Israeli situation.” This is, of course, the view of the world one gets from watching too many Christiane Amanpour specials on CNN; but it is also one that has virtually no currency among serious people.

You recently wrote in Time magazine that the U.S. needs to “rethink Iran.” What did you mean?

…To neutralize the support Ahmadinejad has domestically, we need to stop threatening and to get in a room with him — if only to convey grave displeasure about his tactics regionally and internationally — and then try to build international support for measures to prevent him from supporting terrorism and pursuing a nuclear program. If we’re ever going to actually put in place multilateral measures to contain Iran, the only way we’re going to do that is if we do it in a more united way with our allies.

To this, one can only reply: “Donny, you’re out of your element.” For starters, Ahmadinejad essentially has no domestic popularity in Iran. He is aggressively detested by everyone in the country with a reformist cast of mind, and he is widely blamed for crippling the Iranian economy through his imposition of some of the most half-baked centralized planning that exists in the world today. This Washington Post piece delves into Ahamadinejad’s domestic unpopularity; this piece from the Asia Times discusses his abysmal poll ratings. If Power thinks that we’re going to get anywhere with Iran by undermining Ahmadinejad’s “domestic support,” let me be the first to inform her: he doesn’t have any domestic support to begin with.

But that’s just a nitpick. The real swindle here is Power’s implication that the U.S. has yet to pursue a multilateral strategy for dealing with the Iranian nuclear program, a fascinating rewriting of history. Between 2002 and 2006, the Bush administration delegated Iran diplomacy to the EU-3 (France, Germany, and the UK), specifically in pursuit of the cultivation of an international consensus against Iran’s nuclear program. The EU-3, working extensively through the IAEA — another of those international bodies that Power believes has been sidelined by the Bush administration — demonstrated nothing more than the ease with which it could be repeatedly manipulated and thwarted.

More here.

And over at Michael Totten's blog;

Lebanese journalist Michael Young and Iraqi blogger Iraqpundit have expressed their reservations about one of Obama's foreign policy advisers, Samantha Power. The self-described “Genocide Chick” seems to them insufficiently concerned that an American withdrawal from Iraq will lead to genocide. Her solution? Move people from one area to another and give money to Iraq's neighbors to stabilize the country. You can't blame her for basically parroting the egregiously cynical recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, but in reality this means that US forces should be complicit in the sectarian cleansing of Iraq and pay off countries like Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia that have themselves funded and supported death squads targeting Iraqi Shias, Kurds and Sunnis as well as US troops.

There's a good deal more superior and fact based journalists and writes I could cite and will in future posts, but for now ................

Former Israel Ambassador to America Daniel Ayalon (Who Are You Barack Obama?) wherein the Ambassador expressed concern regarding Obama's approach toward Iran and also, based on his own personal experience with Obama dealing on issues concerning the American-Israel relationship, stating that he was left with an "impression that he was not entirely forthright with his thinking";

Jerusalem Post columnist Caroline Glick, who also took on Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul in this column;

Jerusalem Post Editorial Page editor Saul Singer (Obama's Mixed Record on Iran );

The New York Post; 

Writer Hillel Halkin  (Obama Gets Israel Wrong);

An American Jewish Committee internal memo questioned Obama's potential approach to Middle East policy;

Commentary Magazine writer Noah Pollak criticized Obama's appointment of Robert Malley and Samantha Power as foreign policy advisers. Pollak notes in a recent post that Power (a key and very public foreign adviser to Senator Obama)  echoes the views of Zbigniew Brezenski in calling for "special interest groups" influence over foreign policy to be abolished. Power has also called for the elimination of foreign aid to Israel and its redirection to "Palestine", as well as the massive imposition of US military forces in the area to bring about and enforce a settlement (where, of course, they could find themselves easy targets and be subject to propaganda attacks as another imperial foray into the Middle East).

Powerline has also raised questions regarding Obama;

Slate magazine writer Mickey Kaus has long wondered why Obama and his close relationship with Pastor Wright has all but escaped any media scrutiny and has pointed out that Wright's racial divisiveness is in sharp contrast to Obama's campaign mantra of unity. Many other very credible commentators have raised these issues and others. Yet critics of Lasky's articles have all but ignored the criticism arising from these  quarters.

UPDATE: Check out wikipedia and see what a pro jihadi Kampeas is.  Shame on the JTA. Jerusalem bureau chief, my infidel eye. They have Jewish blood on their hands.

Kampeas covers news pertaining to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the peace process relating to it, and he has spoken publicly about this subject in educational programs sponsored jointly by organizations like The Jerusalem Fund for Education and Community Development, at The Palestine Center.^[4]

Politics and Perceptions of Peace: A Palestinian and Israeli Perspective": Summary of a Lecture by Journalists Said Arikat and Ron Kampeas, presented on June 14, 2005 at The Palestine Center summer educational program for interns sponsored by The Jerusalem Fund, For the Record, No. 228 (2nd of 4 in Series), 26 July 2005, accessed March 26, 2007.

Look at his presentation. Un-freakin-believable. It's no wonder he is willing to lie about what Lasky and others write. He is a Pali tool, the quintessential dhimmi,  and that is who defending Hussein Obama   - an apologist for the jihad. What does that say about Hussein Obama?

Kampeas, who serves as the Washington, D.C. bureau chief of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, explained that in many ways the failure of the Oslo peace process can be traced to the refusal of the Israeli leadership at the time to listen to what Palestinians were saying about their own affairs and about Israel. Kampeas believed this manifested itself with the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who said that Palestinian affairs were best left to the Palestinians and whatever the Palestinian leadership said about Israel was beside the point.

Arikat and Kampeas addressed the Palestinian and Israeli politics and perceptions of peace on 19 July 2005 at the D.C.-based Palestine Center, the second of four lectures in the 2005 Intern Lecture Series, "In Pursuit of Peace: Dialogues on Final Status."

According to Kampeas, Israeli Prime Minister and Likud leader Ariel Sharon "explicitly sees the withdrawal from Gaza as a way to consolidate Israel's hold over the settlement blocks that were supposedly agreed upon at Camp David" in July 2000. Labor, on the other hand, which also backs the Gaza plan, believes "once you actually shut down the settlements, once you manage to get the settlers out of Gaza, then the floodgates are open [and] the Israelis will see that [withdrawal] can happen," said Kampeas.

However, Arikat pointed out that from a Palestinian perspective, only the complete withdrawal from the lands occupied in 1967 would meet Palestinian national objectives and create an environment in which a just and sustainable peace could be achieved.

BOLTON: CRAVEN CONDI CAVED

So much American hegemony. Condappeaser strikes again and her evil little troll Nicki Burns

Israeli official: Bolton said Rice caved on truce terms to end 2006 Lebanon war  By Barak Ravid, Haaretz Correspondent 

Tags: Condoleezza Rice    The former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, accused Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice of giving in to French and Lebanese demands over the terms of the cease-fire that halted the 2006 Second Lebanon War, according to a document recently obtained by Haaretz.

The claims were made in a letter sent by Israel's deputy ambassador to the UN, Daniel Carmon, to the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem on Friday, August 11, 2006. The content of the letter strengthens Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's claims justifying the last major ground operation of the war, which began that day and claimed the lives of 33 Israel Defense Forces soldiers.

lmert maintains that on Thursday, August 11, negotiations in New York over UN Resolution 1701, which ended the war, took a turn that adversely affected Israel's interests for the resolution. The prime minister has argued that this negative turn of events made necessary the operation during the final 60 hours of the war. The Winograd Commission report on the management of war, set to be released Wednesday, is expected to focus on the legitimacy of that operation.

The letter is entitled "Security Council discussions - the conversation between Gillerman and Bolton," detailing a discussion between Bolton and Daniel Gillerman, Israel's ambassador to the UN.

  Carmon also wrote in the letter that Bolton said that "only a conversation between Olmert and [U.S. President George] Bush can save this situation."

The letter also states that, "Bolton said tonight in a conversation with Gillerman that the secretary of state took the task of negotiations [over the resolution] upon herself, and she is personally involved in all of its details."

"Rice is the one who agreed to the last two changes that were discussed in talks tonight between [former undersecretary of state Nick] Burns and Jerusalem - Chapter VI and Shaba Farms."

"The actions of the secretary of state stem from her determination to bring the decision up for a vote tomorrow, Friday. For that purpose she will arrive here tomorrow at 10 A.M., and will intensify the process... Bolton described with sorrow a situation in which the French surrendered to all of the Arab demands and the United States isn't prepared to give up on the 'holy alliance' with the Europeans."

"[Bolton] promised to try in a meeting tomorrow with the French ambassador to take Shaba Farms out [of the draft]... but he doubts it will help. In his opinion, the French man won't make an effort in that direction. In response to Gillerman's question about what can be done, Bolton responded that only a conversation between Olmert and President Bush can, if at all, change the face of things and rescue the situation."

Wow.

ELDAD CALLS FOR"CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

If Olmerde was not so obvious and blatant in his treason against the state of Israel, one would believe him to be an agent of Islamic jihad. Rushing to ruin ............. the Israelis seem impotent and the Jewish diaspora have abandoned their brothers.

PM Olmert: 'Yesha Construction Stops Here'
Olmert says he must approve all building in Judea/Samaria,
MK Aryeh Eldad responds to the ban by calling for civil disobedience."

IsraelNN.com) Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has sent a letter to his Defense, Housing and Agriculture Ministers, stating clearly, "Your approval is not sufficient; from now on, all construction in Judea and Samaria - including additions to existing structures - must be OK'ed by me."

Defense Minister Ehud Barak must approve all construction as well.

MK Aryeh Eldad (National Union) responded sharply: "Even in the days of the White Paper [during the 1930's, when the British rulers tried to choke Jewish growth in the Holy Land - ed.], the British High Commissioner did not need to give his approval any time someone wanted to close in a porch.  The time has come for civil disobedience against Olmert, who wants to choke the settlement enterprise."

Olmert: No Building At All Until March
Olmert also says he must review every new building plan or housing tender issued in Judea and Samaria.  It is widely assumed that this is just another step by Olmert towards making sure that U.S. President George Bush, who is set to visit Israel next week, has nothing to chastise Israel about on the settlement front. Olmert told Housing Minister Ze'ev Boim last week that all construction in Yesha is officially frozen for at least the next two months. 

Jew bashing at WaPo

Taking a page from the jihad journalism of the  New York Times, The Washington Post has  joined the chorus of media Jew haters by spreading Arab myths and lies.  WaPo is dishonest in their  reporting and analysis, attempting to victimize the Pali savages while  demonizing the Jewish victims. It all eerily echos pre-war Germany and the demonization of the Jew.

The unending undulating promise of annihilation of the Jews, inculcation of Muslim children in Islamic countries to hate, to kill the infidel, to aspire to be homicide bombers, honor killings, clitorectomies, wife beating blah blah blah is under reported - given a free pass by the moral inverters at WaPo.

Instead of reporting and throwing  much needed light on the  unimaginable tragedy averted by some divine hand in Sderot on Thursday;

..... a catastrophe was averted this time because the missile barely missed: (IRIS blog here)

Ten children, and eight others, are suffering from trauma in the Negev city of Sderot after a Kassam rocket slammed down just 40 meters from an elementary school. The attack occured around 11 AM.

This is but one of under 7,000 rockets fired into southern Israel since 2003. Does WaPo discuss that Islamic terror? What if rockets were fired into the elementary school of WaPo editors? How would they report on that?
Instead what you have is taqiya (advancing Islamic lies.) From CAMERA;

WASHINGTON POST  OBSESSED WITH  ISRAELI 'MISTREATMENT' OF ARABS;
Second time in six days, 'blame Israel' coverage gets front-page placement

 

Six days ago an unbalanced, front page news feature headlined "Sealed Off By Israel, Gaza Reduced to Beggary," blamed Israel for Palestinian Arab suffering caused by Israeli reaction to Palestinian terrorism. Today The Washington Post jerked the same knee. "For Israel's Arab Citizens, Isolation and Exclusion" (December 20) also got front page treatment, and reconfirmed the paper's narrow, misleading perspective on Arab-Israeli news.

 

Basic factual errors:

 

1) Jerusalem bureau chief Scott Wilson, who also wrote "Sealed Off By Israel" and who's been named the paper's new foreign editor, says "except for a relatively small Druze population, Arabs are excluded also from military service mandatory for all but ultra-Orthodox Jews, an essential shared experience of Israeli life ...."

 

That would be news to the many Israeli Bedouin, Arab Muslims, who have served in the Israel Defense Forces over the decades, often in key roles as scouts and trackers. Contrary to Wilson, Arabs are not "excluded" from serving in the Israeli military; rather, they are not required to serve, as most Israeli Jews are. No law stops them from volunteering, however. Indeed, Ha'aretz (normally a source the Washington Post would embrace since it is often unfairly critical of Israel) reported in a 2004 article titled "Number of Muslim, Christian Arab volunteers in IDF growing" that:

New figures made available by the Israel Defense Forces show the number of Muslim and Christian Arab Israeli volunteers in the army is growing. The deaths of five soldiers from the IDF's Desert Reconnaissance Unit (the so-called Bedouin unit) in an attack on an army outpost near Rafah earlier this month drew public attention to the service of Bedouin in the IDF.

However, the reports on the incident paid little attention to the fact that most of the dead were not Bedouin: Three of the five soldiers killed were Muslim Arabs from villages in the Galilee and Triangle, who had volunteered for military service.

CAMERA got a November 3 correction from The Los Angeles Times on just this error. 

 

2) Wilson writes that Israeli Jews outnumber Israeli Arabs "five to one in a population of about 6.5 million people."

 

There are two basic factual errors here: Israel's population is not "about 6.5 million people," it is 7.2 million, according to the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics. And the Jewish population does not account for 80 percent to the Arab population's 20, which would be a "five to one" ratio. Rather, subtracting 310,000 "others," mostly non-Jewish relatives of Jewish immigrants, the recognized permanent population is 76 percent Jewish. But subtracting also another estimated 200,000 non-Jewish foreign workers, Israeli Jews constitute barely 75 percent of the total, outnumbering Israeli Arabs by about four to one, not five to one.

 

Add these fundamental errors of omission:

 

Wilson focuses on a young, attractive, well-educated Arab Israeli couple, Ahmad and Fatima Zubeidat. They apparently are the type of couple most Americans wouldn't mind having as neighbors. Yet an Israeli government agency denied their application to move into a new Jewish community built on state land. The article indicts Israeli government and the larger Jewish society for not investing in Israeli Arab towns and villages on par with Jewish areas, and specifically for not letting the Zubeidats move to the new Galilee town of Rakefet.

 

3)  What the article does not report, to the positive:

 

* The average Israeli Arab is  (like the Zubeidats) better educated, more prosperous, and freer religiously and politically than the citizens of most Arab countries throughout the Middle East;

 

* Israeli Arabs enjoy the same legal rights, if not economic and social standing, as Israeli Jews;

 

* Israeli Arabs hold 12 of the Knesset's (parliament's) 120 seats. One is a deputy speaker (and was temporary acting president). Israel Arab members exercised the balance of power on key decisions, making possible formation of Yitzhak Rabin's government in 1992 and passage of both the Oslo I and Oslo II accords;

 

* An Arab is one of Israel's 14 Supreme Court justices;

 

* Arab ambassadors and consuls represent Israel in a number of countries; and, for example,

 

* An Arab woman, Rana Raslan, won the Miss Israel contest in 1999 and represented the country in the Miss World competition.

 

4) What the article does not report, to the negative:

 

* Wilson mentions without the necessary detail that "Israel's Arabs ... commonly refer to themselves as Palestinian citizens of Israel ...." Actually, increasing numbers refer to themselves as "Palestinian by nationality, Israeli by citizenship" ("A Day on the Green Line," by Eric Rozenman, B'nai B'rith's International Jewish Monthly, Fall, 2002) - a troubling bi-polarity for a state subjected to renewed Palestinian terror warfare since 2000;

 

* Until the 1993 - 1998 Oslo process and the start of the "al-Aqsa intifada" in 2000, instances of disloyalty by Israeli Arabs were rare. Since then, however, hundreds have been arrested on charges of participation in anti-Israel terrorism, including murder.

 

* Many Israeli Arabs participated in anti-Jewish riots inside Israel at the start of the second intifada, including in the Galilee;

 

* Arab Knesset members have challenged the Jewish character of the state. Some have sided, at least rhetorically, with Israel's enemies, including the Palestinian Liberation Organization under Yasser Arafat, Syria, and Hezbollah;

 

* Long before the "al-Aqsa intifada," Israeli Arab attitudes included those of popular poet and anti-Zionist Knesset member Tawiq Zayyad, whose poem "Here We Will Remain" told Israeli Jews: "We will lie on your chest like a wall/ Stick in your throat like a piece of glass ... We will sing the songs/ Fill the streets with demonstrations/ Fill the jails with honor and make children/ Each generation more revolutionary than the one before it."; and

 

* While Hamas attacks Israel from the Gaza Strip and West Bank, a leader of Israel's internal Islamic fundamentalist organization, the so far non-violent Islamic Movement, has stated - in a religious dialogue with Jews - that in the Holy Land, "only Muslims can rule here."

 

Without this missing information, how are Post readers - the majority of whom are likely to believe American-style efforts at minority integration should be the norm -- to understand the final paragraph:

 

"'I'm very left-wing, but I think Arabs should live in one place, ultra-Orthodox Jews in one place, secular Jews in one place and so on,' [Nadav] Garmi [of the town in which the Zubeidats have been denied residency] said. 'If you want a good neighbor, you have to have a place for everybody. It's best not to mix too much.'"

 

Perhaps as confirmation of "those prejudiced, anti-Arab Israelis."

'Allah Willing, America Will Soon Be Annihilated… We Will Reach America… The Eyes of the Nation of Muhammad are set on Washington, London, Moscow, Paris, Delhi, Beijing' (more here)

Eldad: "The Surrender didn't Help"

The would be Prime Minister nails it. If not Eldad, who? Who will seize the reins of this out of control train wreck? If you missed my interview with DR. Eldad, go here. Can Israel elect the uncorrupted?

The Surrender Didn’t Help
By Arieh Eldad

The U.S. intelligence report that Iran suspended its nuclear weapons program four years ago hit the Israeli government like a bolt from the blue.  The immediate implication is that the United States is not going to use military force against the Iranian nuclear industry.  The line put forth by the Olmert government has collapsed, and Israel, which had hoped that Bush would take out Iran before he leaves the White House, is now alone.  For the last two years, Olmert has been repeating a single mantra: Iran may be threatening to destroy Israel, but it is a threat to the whole world, and Israel should not play a major role in the fight against Iran; we should let the world do the work.  

But the world does not hurry to fight for Jews.  The Allies did not fight the Germans because of Auschwitz, and the British and French did not fight Egypt in 1956 because it had closed the Suez Canal to Israeli ships.  The United States did not fight in Iraq because Israel was afraid of Saddam Hussein. The United States might have fought Iran were Israel a strategic asset in the Middle East that needs to be defended, or in order to prevent a regional conflagration, if not a world war.  These scenarios have been ruled out by Olmert’s foolish policies.  Israel has ceased to be an asset and has become a burden following its failure in the Lebanese War, when it was faced with a few hundred Hizbullah terrorists, and following its refusal to an American request  to attack Syria.  And because Israel argued from every possible platform that Iran is the world’s problem, the world will now decide how it wants to deal with this problem. 

  Had Israel announced that it would attack Iran and destroy its nuclear industry at any price and by whatever means necessary if by a certain date the free world had not done so, then a U.S. attack might have been a possibility, as the United States sought to avoid a regional war that might follow an Israeli attack.  But after the Lebanese War, Israel is no longer a useful player in the war against the evil axis, and therefore Israel may end up being made useful in a different way; for instance, Israel may end up being an excuse, a legitimate reason to destroy Iran after Iran uses its nuclear arms against Israel. Until that time, Israel is the currency being used by the West to placate the Moslems for the catastrophe in Iraq.  Olmert went to Annapolis to surrender and shortly afterwards President Bush betrayed him with the publication of the intelligence assessment.
Recently a contest was held in England to determine the joke most typical of British humor.  The following story won:  Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson goes on a camping trip. After a good dinner and a bottle of wine, they retire for the night, and go to sleep. Some hours later, Holmes wakes up and nudges his faithful friend.
'Watson, look up at the sky and tell me what you see."
I see millions and millions of stars, Holmes," replies Watson.
"And what do you deduce from that?"
Watson ponders for a minute.
"Well, astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, I observe that Saturn is in Leo. Horologically, I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past three.

"Meteorologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. Theologically, I can see that God is all powerful and that we are a small and insignificant part of the universe. What does it tell you, Holmes?" Holmes is silent for a moment. 'Watson, you idiot!" he says. "Someone has stolen our tent!"

This is what has happened to us.  We have been so mired in analytical dialectics and reasoning that we have neglected to see the obvious.  We have been so busy trying to convince the world that Iran is threatening the entire West, that we have neglected to prepare for the more reasonable possibility that we will have to fight alone.  Olmert has been so busy trying to prove that he did not fail in the Lebanese War that he has ignored what the whole world knows: that Israel was defeated and that this disaster caused a drop in Israel’s stature and value on the world exchange.  Ehud Barak is so busy threatening to begin a large military operation in Gaza that he has neglected to begin it, though such a move must precede any attack in Iran.  Lieberman is so busy issuing threats that he has fallen asleep at his strategic post and not noticed that we were left alone.  And Tzippi Livni is so busy obsessing about withdrawing from Judea and Samaria and thinking about her beautiful friendship with Condoleeza Rice that she has not noticed the poison Rice has prepared for Israel – the poisonous intelligence report claiming that Israel’s fears of Iran are mere paranoia.  All of the above are busy with their own business and do not see the simple, obvious picture:  In 2009, Iran will have nuclear weapons and our tent is gone.  Israel will have to fight alone; but not with its current leadership.

Related: Abbas to Slam Israel at Paris Donor Conference

Sharansky: Annapolis Catastrophic for Israel

Ugh ....everything I've been saying. And the Condi smackdown is long overdue. Long overdue.

WASHINGTON — A former Soviet dissident and Israeli deputy premier whose ideas President Bush has cited as an inspiration for his ambitious freedom agenda said the peace talks kicked off this week at Annapolis "has nothing to do with promoting democracy," and he warned that Israel will be lucky if it does not end in catastrophe for the Jewish state.

In an interview yesterday, Natan Sharansky said he did not feel betrayed by Mr. Bush, whom he called a friend. But he said, "I am upset." "The greatness of President Bush is the way he would believe in the power of the idea of freedom," Mr. Sharansky said. "He believes in principles; he was willing to stand alone against all for these pressures, but it is not enough to stand for principles. He has to appoint the people who share these beliefs and who would implement them. He has not."

Those words appear to be a direct criticism of Secretary of State Rice, who has made the creation of a Palestinian Arab state her top priority in the last year, visiting Jerusalem nine times to press for the launch of final status negotiations between the government of Israel and the nearly vanquished Palestinian Authority, now dominated by Fatah after the takeover of Gaza by Hamas in June.

Rick Richman has the 4 minute  video here of Sharansky at the offices of Commentary;

Natan Sharansky on the Annapolis Process Jewish Current Issues

Tuesday evening, after the Annapolis conference, Natan Sharansky the offices of COMMENTARY and filmed a Q&A with editor Sam Munson. The four-minute video is below, with a transcript of Sharansky’s analysis of Annapolis

Peace Stalkers vs. Annihilationists

I once had a boyfriend who liked me more than I liked him. He was a musician - with me so far? Good. I thought it best to end things rather than lead him on. He would not take no for an answer. No matter how firm and definite - he pursued with singular determination. He did not hear a word I said. No matter how many times. And so I refused to see him or talk to him. He would wait outside my building .......... until one day the cops had to be called because he had a rifle.

Fast forward Annapolis.

What part of NO don't we understand?

The Palis, the Islamazis, the Arab world has been unequivocal in their refusal to recognize Israel. Every year, every decade, every war, every intifada .......... it has always been the same. Always. The Saudis would not even shake hands with Israel at Annapolis.  Wishing and hoping and dreaming and praying and land givebacks and billions  in aid and arms and food and medicine and all those delicious carrots the West is so good at handing over has made no difference. None. Today the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran calls for Death to Israel and Death to America.

And still we stalk. No matter what. We suspend our disbelief. We stalk for peace. We won't fight for peace.  We will beg, cajole, buy off,  sleep with evil men, fund terror, ignore everything the enemy is insisting on ........ we will do everything, except what must be done to create a real peace - fight. Self defend.

The only time Israel had a modicum of peace  was after she beat back the invasion of five Arab countries during the six day war and crushed the enemy. That's the fact. And the international communitay has been punishing Israel ever since.

Hamas Document Forbids Concessions in Annapolis. We shake hands and kiss the ass of  Abbass - powerless to effect change (not that he would if he could, he is a disciple of Arafatbastard after all and Hamas was elected) and coo to each other and the other leftarded self deniers that this time, this time, it will be kismet! And each time Israel is weakened and smaller (literally.)

So, let's access the the profile of our "Partner if Peace".  One does not have to be a forensic expert to say, we'll sooner see a circumcised Prophet Moe than a cozing up to the Jews.

Day after Annapolis: Palestinian Authority TV shows" Palestine" map erasing Israel

Further, what the Gaza Arabs and the rest of the Arab world teach their children is germaine to any future prospects to a more peaceful co-existence........... check out this excerpt from - Clouds Over Annapolis  By David Bedein FrontPageMagazine

A pre-Annapolis briefing was conducted by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education, dedicated to the research of school curricula and textbooks throughout the Middle East. Since its creation in 1998, it has researched school textbooks, teachers' guides and syllabi used by the Palestinian Authority, Israel, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Iran. The briefing was conducted by the Institute's director, Dr. Yohanan Manor and by the Arabic language expert who translates the schoolbooks, Dr. Arnon Groiss. The context of the briefing was that the PA has now completed its seven-year project of replacing textbooks that had been in use from Jordan and Egypt, in the West Bank and Gaza respectively, with ones they have produced using funding received from 14 nations, including the US.

This briefing constituted an overview of the material, with special emphasis on the new 11th and 12th grade books. All of the PA texts have now been studied and translated by the Institute under the supervision of Dr. Groiss. In all cases, assessment of material is based on 10 criteria established by UNESCO as well as two other factors:

1)      How is the 'other' perceived?

2)      Does the education foster peace?

The conclusions, which are posted in great detail on the Institute's website are that:

*Jews are represented as foreigners without rights in the land. There are no Jewish holy places. For example, Rachel's Tomb is alluded to as "Bilal bin Rabbah Mosque."

*Palestinian Arabs are seen as the only legitimate inhabitants of the land, descended from the Canaanites and Jebusites, who are said to be Arabs.

*When information is taught to Palestinian Arab children about the inhabitants of the land, Jews are excluded.

*Israel is not taught of as a legitimate state. Israel is presented to a new generation of Palestinian Arab school children as a Zionist, imperialist, western, racist usurper.

* “Israel” is omitted from all Palestinian political maps. One book did reproduce two Israeli maps. When Israel must be alluded to in the Palestinian Arab classroom, alternative terms are used, such as “pre-1948 lands.”

For example:

From Modern History of Palestine, Grade 11, 2006:

“The green line is an imaginary line separating land occupied before 1967 and land occupied after.”

*Palestine is presented as an existing sovereign state, established in 1988.

*Jews are demonized, seen as a hostile enemy, and as the source of all evils in the Palestinian society, e.g., cause of drug addiction. Twenty-five crimes against the Palestinians are enumerated in the Palestinian class room.

*Individual Jews are never mentioned, and the humanity of the Jews is lost.

*The fabricated, anti-Semitic “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” was represented in a text as factual. When representatives of Belgium, which underwrote production of this book, were informed, they protested and a new version of the book, omitting the “Protocols” was published. However, the old version is the only version available in Palestinian Authority bookstores and there is no evidence that the new version is actually in use in the schools.

*Praise of jihad and martyrdom remains another aspect of the Palestinian curriculum.

*As an integral part of the Palestinian curriculum, armed groups are celebrated.

[SNIP]

• To agree to set up a joint mechanism to monitor their school curricula that will follow the actual implementation of the above.”

'Hi, My Name is Israel and I am a Peace Process Addict'

Just a day after Israeli and Palestinian leaders at the Annapolis peace conference pledged to negotiate a peace treaty by the end of 2008, Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority continues to paint a picture for its people of a world without Israel. More at PMW

Annapolis: Media Puts Lipstick on a Pig

Leave it to the dhimmi media, the media aligned with the terro force to piss on you and tell you its raining. Wolf sent this, "More absurd statements from an already out of touch news media. An 'antiradical' coalition? What a laugh."

The Middle East's middle ground
The players at the Annapolis conference at least represent an antiradical coalition. Iran must take note.

An air of necessity, and thus possibility, lies over the Middle East peace conference in Annapolis, Md. If Ben Franklin were there, as he was in Philadelphia to help 13 states draft a US Constitution, he might give the same advice to participants: We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.

If Ben Franklin were alive, he'd be puking.

Failng to Appreciate G-d's Gifts

Understanding Jerusalem. For Nazilims it is a club to beat us about the head and has no religious or historical significance whatsoever. For us, OTOH, it is a gift. The rarest of all gifts, if taken for granted, all but disappears. And from such loss, one never recovers.

THE GIFT OF JERUSALEM Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb

We often fail to appreciate God’s gifts, and the case of Yerushalayim is no different. We take it for granted that we can approach the Kotel Ma’aravi – the Western Wall, the single remnant of our Holy Temple – any time we wish, day or night, Shabbat, chag, or ordinary weekday.

We take for granted the fact that Jewish homes and major institutions of Jewish learning now exist within the walls of the city, in all directions of the city, and throughout the extended contemporary municipality of Jerusalem.

We dare not be ungrateful for this astounding situation. We must be thankful to God for allowing us to live in a time when free access to Yerushalayim and to Jewish holy sites there is available to each and every Jew. (Access to sites sacred to other faiths is also protected by the sensitivity of the state of Israel to “the strangers in our midst.”)

It is not difficult to find some trace of Yerushalayim in almost every parsha of the Torah. The opening image in last week’s parsha, surely one of the most well known images in the entire Tanach, is of Jacob’s dream of a ladder based firmly on earth but extending into the heavens, with the Almighty Himself at its apex and angels mounting and descending it. This image has been interpreted in many and diverse ways, but it is essentially understood as a vision of a relationship between heaven and earth, between the Divine and the Human.

IRAN'S ANNAPOLIS II

Could it be any worse than Bush/Condi's summit of surrender and abandonment of the Jewish people?

Iran is going to host a terrorism summit, at the same time as the Annapolis peace summit. The leaders of ten Palestinian terrorist movements will gather in Tehran between the 25 and the 27 of November. Amongst the guests are: Khaled Meshaal, Ahmed Jibril, Ramadan Shallah and Nayef Hawatmeh.

We did this. We legitimized these savages. Put lipstick on a pig.

The United States has sent invitations to 40 countries invited to the Annapolis conference to be held next week. Syria, Saudi Arabia, members of the Quartet, and the Secretary General of the UN, were among the guests.  (Guysen.International.News)

To Remove the Jew From the Land by Cale Hahn hat tip Gary

They may well name this era the Age of Madness.

Someday, in the near future, after the imminent wars are concluded, the dead buried, the flames extinguished and the cities rebuilt, a future people will gaze with utter perplexity upon this age, in wonder how such a sad state came to be. They may well name this era the Age of Madness, when the world lost its collective soul and mind. They will little wonder how the utter destruction of tomorrow came upon we who live today. The universe cannot long suffer the flipping of Earth's moral magnetic poles.

Today's script characterizes the bloodthirsty as peaceful, victims as aggressors and aggressors as victims, destroyers as allies, cowards as courageous, and the vile as virtuous.

The universe cannot long suffer the flipping of Earth's moral magnetic poles. Tomorrow, the curtain of deception will be removed and the semantics of today's charlatans no longer the tool behind which the savage maneuver.

You know you must read it all here.

For Israel, Payback's a Bitch

Israel is paying for Olmert's failure to launch last summer. Olmert pussied out - bigtime. And the course of human events was forever changed. The US wanted (needed) Israel to rout Hezb'Allah last summer and Olmert waivered. Hesitated.  Olmert's unwillingnness and  inabilty to carry his weight on the war on Islamic imperialism, resulted in Bush abandoning  the brilliant, bold,  Bush doctrine and instead embrace Rice's embrace of surrender on both Syria and Iran's nuclear weapons program.

The people of Israel were not the only loser in last summers Israel/Islamic war. Israel'sindomitable allies in the Bush adminsitration, who fought Rice and her State Department arabists in support of an Israeli victory, also lost.

DEBKAfile Exclusive: Syrian Civil Defense Services Placed on the Ready

Exclusive: In advance of Rice's Middle East visits Sunday, Washington warns Olmert that its dialogue with Damascus is about to resume DEBKA

Our Washington and Middle East sources report the secret US message warns Israeli prime minister that the Bush administration has decided to go back to direct diplomacy with Syria during or before the international peace conference opening in Annapolis on Nov.26. The level of the resumed talks has not yet been determined; the US ambassador may be sent back to Damascus to lead his country’s delegation in face-to-face meetings with Syrian officials, repeating the pattern and level the US-Iranian ambassadorial talks in Baghdad (which, DEBKAfile notes, have so far produced nothing).

To calm Israel’s unease about a US-Syrian track running over its head, the American message assured prime minister Ehud Olmert that matters of concern to Israel, such as the future of Golan, will not be addressed, only such issues as Iran, Iraq and Lebanon.

The American Note was delivered as Secretary of State Condoleezza prepares to visit Jerusalem and Ramallah Sunday, Oct. 12, and Israel’s defense minister Ehud Barak is due to pay a working visit to the Pentagon.

Israel/Islamic War: 1 Year later Resolution 1701

It's been one year since the acceptance of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the second Lebanon war and I discussed it at length with the UN Ambassador John Bolton.