Op-Ed Columnist - This Time We Really Mean It - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Columnist - This Time We Really Mean It - NYTimes.com
This time, Friedman has it spot on. Afghanistan is nearly a carbon copy of Vietnam, right down to the corrupt ruler who runs it. The problem is, how does Obama get us out without further undermining our credibility inthe Mideast. THIS is the war the Democrats wanted -- Bush won the war they didn't want (Iraq), allowing us to get out in an acceptable way that preserved our deterrence (if not popularity) in the Mideast. Stay tuned, this one will get worse, especially with the Iranian situation going unresolved.
Do you think the Saudis and the Gulf Arabs (no less Israel) are feeling good about Washington right now? Naive, inexperienced Obama is making a hash of our foreign policy and relationships in a way that no other president since Carter has done. This is really serious.

A New Tradition at the White House - the Seder - NYTimes.com

A New Tradition at the White House - the Seder - NYTimes.com
Leave it to the NY Times to make it front page news to engage Obama in a "Jew-friendly" custom, amidst his demonstrated lack of affection for anything remotely having to do with the return of the Israelites to Jerusalem (I wonder what the quisling Jews at Obama's seder table think to themselves when the traditional statement "Next Year in Jerusalem"" is made at the Seder table). No doubt, this blatantly planted PR story will warm the cockles of the hearts of hopelessly liberal Jewish supporters of Obama, who wish to find ANY reason to believe that he did internalize anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist attitudes suckling at the teat of Rev. Wright for twenty years Most of us are not this naive.
How sacreligious is it for this "Seder" to even be conducted?

Bret Stephens: The Netanyahu Diaries - WSJ.com

Bret Stephens: The Netanyahu Diaries - WSJ.com

John Bolton: What the President Can Learn From Google - WSJ.com

John Bolton: What the President Can Learn From Google - WSJ.com:
"When an enterprise of Google's global dimensions and visibility reverses course in China, it sends a message to enterprises world-wide: You can do the same. Do not fear to assert your interests, and those of your present and potential Chinese customers. For the most part, foreign companies doing business in mainland China previously assumed that their risks lay on the side of not complying with Beijing's orders, however burdensome or threatening to profits or property interests."

The Middle East Peace Scam

The Middle East Peace Scam
by Daniel Greenfield

"I condemn the decision by the government of Israel to advance planning for new housing units in East Jerusalem"

Vice President Joseph Robinette Biden, March 09, 2010

For nearly twenty years the great sham of the Middle East Peace Process has dragged on. And this despicable scam has consisted of only one policy, only one platform and only one plan. Pressuring Israel for more concessions.

Year in and year out, new peace conferences were declared and new plans for peace were hammered out. All of them had one thing in common, they carved up Israel for a non-existent peace. When Arafat and his gang of terrorists made a concession, it was to demand 5 percent less of Israel in the current phase of negotiations. When Israel made a concession, it was to turn over another 10 percent of land to its worst enemies in this phase of negotiations... in exchange for them putting off their demands for that 5 percent into the next phase of the negotiations. And this sick charade in which Israel gave and the terrorists took was the peace process.

While this great surrender process was going on, outside the bombs went on exploding, tearing apart buses, restaurants, malls and families-- the politicians and diplomats in charge excused the terrorists and damned Israel if it so much as lifted a finger to defend itself, or erected a single checkpoint to catch at least one of the terrorists on the way to kill a dozen people in Jerusalem.

And now finally the Vice President of the United States arrives in Israel to reaffirm his absolute commitment to Israel's security, a commitment he and just about every other politician who let that phrase trip lightly off their lips, honors by pressing Israel to surrender again the terrorists. He arrives and condemns the greatest impediment to peace. Jewish families living in the capital of their own nation.

Biden did not take the time to condemn Abbas for his failure to hold elections, for his attendance at a funeral for the terrorists in his own militia who murdered an Israeli Rabbi, for his violation of the Gaza Jericho agreement or for his recent threats of a Holy War against Israel. Not even the Palestinian Authority naming a municipal square two days ago after Dalal Mughrabi, one of the Coastal Road Massacre bus hijackers, resulted in any statements of condemnation. Let us for a moment balance the horrifying scene of Jews moving into new apartments in Jerusalem, vs the Coastal Road Massacre in which Fatah terrorists murdered Gail Rubin, an American nature photographer, hijacked a bus, and murdered 38 passengers, 13 of them only children.

But the murder of Israelis never "undermines the trust we need right now". Only Jews living in East Jerusalem can do that. Not Israelis, Jews, for if Arab citizens of Israel were moving into new buildings in East Jerusalem, Biden and the media would not be condemning Israel for it. It is precisely Jews that are the problem for the Obama Administration and its Media-Government Complex. Just as they were a problem for Hitler and Stalin. Just as they have always been a problem for would be tyrants.

There are of course no worries about whether Israel will trust Abbas and his Fatah gang. As if anybody in their right mind would, after nearly two decades of terrorism that followed the ballyhooed signing of the Peace Accords and the famous handshake overseen by a smiling Clinton. After violating nearly every agreement he ever signed with Israel, Arafat unleashed a wave of terror, while pocketing a fortune in foreign aid. And after every bombing, the same despicable conglomeration of diplomats and politicians and diplopols that form the "World Community" pointed Israel to the negotiating table. Their only solution, then as now, was more concessions. By Israel to the terrorists-- of course.

And so here we are in the splendid year 2010, 5770 in the Hebrew calendar, and 1431 in the Muslim calendar. In a few months it will be 43 years since the Liberation of Jerusalem. Since Jews returned to the Old City they were ethnically cleansed from by Muslim soldiers. And today the Hurva synagogue, twice destroyed by Muslims, has been completely reconstructed. In 1948 the Jordanian command expelled the Jews from East Jerusalem and destroyed the Hurva synagogue, vowing that the Jews would never return. And today in the year 2010, the Vice President of the United States comes on a mission to carry on their work. That of the dynamiters and the bombers and the expellers.

This is where nearly two decades of negotiations have brought us. In the early nineties, Israel was discussing the status of certain West Bank towns. Today Israel is being warned against allowing Jews to live in Jerusalem. Tomorrow... I would dearly like to say that the possibilities are endless, but there are only so many parts of Israel where Jews still live, and no doubt the eager ethnic cleansers in the Obama Administration and the EU have plans for them too.

And so the Middle East Peace Scam marches on. There is a great deal of preparation for intense rounds of negotiations at which it will be determined what else Israel must give for there to be no peace. East Jerusalem will naturally end up on the table soon enough. Meanwhile the entire farce has less legal basis than a kangaroo court and all the consistency of a drunken liar on the witness stand.

Today there are three Palestinian states. One in Jordan, divided to create an Arab State in the bygone days of the Palestine Mandate. A second state in Gaza, which is ruled over by Hamas as part of the spoils from their war with Fatah. A third state in the West Bank ruled over by Abbas and Fatah, even though his term ended and there have been no new elections. Out of this hodgepodge, Israel is expected to negotiate even though Hamas refuses to negotiate any permanent peace agreement, and Fatah has no legal authority to represent anyone.

You will not of course hear about any of this in the media, which is still busy being outraged by the thought of Jews living in Jerusalem. When they're not being outraged by the thought of Israel treating Rachel's Tomb as a heritage site. After all the Prime Minister of Turkey has declared that Rachel's Tomb is not Jewish, but Islamic. Just as all of Israel is Islamic. Just as all of the world is Islamic. But the world isn't paying attention. The world is certain that the rage and violence of a billion Muslims can be calmed with some Jewish land and Jewish blood. Just as the rage and violence of Nazism could be calmed with some Czech land and blood.

But why listen to me? Listen instead to the soothing words of Ahmad Bahar, the Speaker of the Palestinian Authority Parliament.

"Make us victorious over the infidel people! Allah, take hold of the Jews and their allies, Allah, take hold of the Americans and their allies Allah, count them and kill them to the last one and don't leave even one.

Ah, but you say it's about "the occupation". And there will be peace when the terrorists have all the land they feel they're entitled to. But... no.

"Our enmity with the Jews is a matter of faith, more than an enmity owing to occupation and the land."

Oh yes, there will be peace when they have all the land that they feel Muslims are entitled to. And this is the scope of their territorial demands.

Soon, Allah willing, Rome will be conquered, like Constantinople was conquered, according to the prophecy of our prophet Muhammad. Their capital will be the first post of the Islamic conquests that will spread all over Europe then it will turn to the two Americas and even to Eastern Europe."

But don't worry. Joseph Robinette Biden is deeply committed to fighting against Jewish families living in Jerusalem. And the Middle East Peace Scam marches on.

Daniel Greenfield

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Bret Stephens: The Settlements Aren't the Problem - WSJ.com

Bret Stephens: The Settlements Aren't the Problem - WSJ.com: "The Palestinians' beef with Israel isn't territorial—it's existential." And the problem with all peace efforts to date is that they try to pretend otherwise, which leads to the continuous call for more and more one-sided concessions by Israel, as the Palestinians get a free pass on what they are expected to do. A Jewish state of Israel is not just politcally anathema to the Arab world, but very deeply religiously anathema. The sooner we realize this and speak openly of it, the sooner we can truly deal with this situation.

Peres stresses J'lem policy to Ashton

Peres stresses J'lem policy to Ashton: "In an early morning meeting on Thursday with EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Baroness Catherine Ashton, President Shimon Peres reiterated what has been Israel's construction policy vis-à-vis Jerusalem for the past forty years, and stated that it should remain so.

'The pattern was for building in suburbs that were basically Jewish and not in those suburbs that were basically Arab. We have to continue that policy,' he said. 'We shouldn't build where we didn't, and we should build where we did – and we should get on with the negotiations.'

Peres made the point that this policy had until now been accepted by everyone including the Palestinians and had not generated any real problems in the past with regard to negotiations."

RJC - Republican Jewish Coalition

RJC - Republican Jewish Coalition: "The Obama administration has used harsh and intentionally undiplomatic language to exacerbate tensions with our ally Israel in the wake of Vice President Biden's visit there. The strident and unwarranted escalation of tension, which has turned a minor diplomatic embarrassment into a major international incident, has raised serious concerns about the administration's Israel policy from a variety of mainstream voices.*

Now Israeli sources report that the administration is pressuring Israel not only to halt construction in Ramat Shlomo but to make a 'confidence-building' concession such as releasing hundreds of Palestinian prisoners (presumably terrorists) or turning over additional West Bank areas to Palestinian control.

We believe the administration's actions are disproportionate and one-sided. It should be noted, there has been no similar official U.S. condemnation of any Palestinian action, including recent rioting on the Temple Mount and official Palestinian plans to name a public square for a female terrorist responsible for the worst single terror attack on Israeli soil.

Moreover, the administration's stance is dangerous to the best interests of the U.S. and Israel. By distancing ourselves from our most important strategic ally in a troubled region, an ally with which we have strong and necessary joint military, intelligence, security, and trade agreements, we weaken the United States. By taking the role of the Palestinians' negotiator in the guise of an 'honest broker' and advancing Palestinian demands that should be the subjects of direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, not their preconditions, the administration is seriously weakening the security of Israel.

A report in the Politico that Vice President Biden, speaking to Prime Minister Netanyahu behind closed doors, explicitly linked Israeli housing policy with the safety of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan is also of great concern. It demonstrates the false linkage between the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the war on terrorism often used by Israel's enemies to undermine Israel's legitimacy and efforts for security and peace.

We call on the Obama administration to halt immediately its unwarranted pressure against Israel, to take steps to heal the dangerous rift it has created between the two countries, and to return to the policy of its predecessors in supporting Israel's security and well-being as an important strategic ally."

U.S. Raises Pressure on Kenya - WSJ.com

U.S. Raises Pressure on Kenya - WSJ.com: "The U.S. push in Kenya—a bastion of stability in an east Africa region that includes the war-torn states of Somalia and Sudan—contrasts with its more subtle approach toward neighbors including Ethiopia, an ally of the U.S. in its fight against terrorism that has been accused of human-rights abuses related to political violence."
For those looking for yet another analogy between the Carter and Obama adminsitrations, here we are -- putting pressure on a long time but imperfect ally, a relative beacon of Western values and relative stability in a troubled region, while coddling some horrible people a couple of hundred miles away.