Super Power Poker – Live From Iran, Clarion Project via You Tube, June 9, 2015
The stakes are the highest they’ve ever been. Nuclear Iran. The US, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel play for the security of the world. This is the ultimate hold’em game. Who holds the aces, who will go all in, who is bluffing and who has a tell that will leave them with nothing but a mushroom cloud. No nukes for Iran.
Israel’s Revenge Is That “We Are Still Here” The Legal Insurrection, William A. Jacobson, June 7, 2015
My wife and I are back, after an intense two weeks in Israel.
From the Lebanese to Gaza borders, from the Mediterranean Sea to Judea and Samaria, from the cool evenings of Jerusalem to the heat of the Negev Desert, from an apartment in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem to Bedouin villages in the north and south, from university campuses to military bases, from faculty to students, from Jews to Muslims … I can’t say we saw it all, but we saw a lot.
I’ve documented most of our big events in daily posts, with the exception of our emotional meetings with the families of Edward Joffe and Leon Kanner, students killed in the 1969 Supersol supermarket bombing by Rasmea Odeh; that post is coming, but I still have new photos, documents and information I have to work through.
Here are my 5 Big Takeaways from the trip:
1. Our Revenge Is That “We Are Still Here”
Near the start of our trip, we visited Moshav Avivim straddling the Lebanese border, where we met Shimon Biton, a survivor of the 1970 bazooka attack on a school bus by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Biton, who was six and one-half years old, lost his father in the attack, and himself was shot point blank range by the terrorists when they realized he survived the bazooka attack. Ten days before we met Biton, he was reunited for the first time in 45 years with the nurse who helped save him. (Featured Image)
When we asked whether he ever wanted revenge, Biton told us that the revenge was that “we are still here and building for another 70 families.”
[Shimon Biton, Moshav Avivim, Israel]
When we related that story to numerous people we met along the rest of the trip, heads vigorously shook up and down. It struck a chord, since almost every Israeli has a relative or friend impacted by terror.
Despite several decades of terrorism, particularly intense during the Second Intifada, and a world campaign against it, the People of Israel are still there.
The will to resist is underestimated. Israel has a longer-term view, and a history. It will not give in to boycotts, or Obama, or outside pressure that puts its security at risk.
2. “I don’t like Bibi, BUT….”
For whatever the reason, most of the people with whom we interacted self-identified as center-left or left.
There was no shortage of criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: He’s egotistical, he doesn’t keep his tough promises, he is only interested in his own political survival, he’s a liar, his pre-election comment about Arab voting was shameful, and so on.
Yet with only a couple of exceptions, the negative comments always were followed with a big BUT.
[Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Western Wall after 2015 election victory.]
But he is the only Israeli politician who has the stature to handle the world pressure; but I don’t envy the position he is in with so many forces against us; but [opposition leader Yitzhak “Bougie” Herzog] Bougie is weak and no one will fear him; and so on.
These opinions pretty much were reflected in polling and the election results — Many people may not like Netanyahu, but he is the only Israeli politician capable of standing up for Israel in a hostile world.
3. I don’t like Obama, no BUTs about it
Polling in Israel shows Obama is hugely unpopular. Our anecdotal interactions with Israelis confirmed that polling.
I can’t recall anyone, from left to right, who had anything nice to say about Obama. The most consistent theme was that Obama is naive and weak, and that naivitee and weakness had resulted in disaster in the Arab world as it encouraged the most aggressive Islamist elements.
They see Syria falling apart with al-Qaeda or ISIS groups likely to control large parts of the country; or if not, then Iran in control. There are no good outcomes for Israel’s Golan Heights border. Along the Lebanese border there is Hezbollah, and in Gaza Hamas and increasingly even more radical Salafist-ISIS groups.
Against this background of being surrounded by a sea of increasing threats resulting from Obama administration policy, not a single person thought the Iran nuclear deal made any sense, or trusted the Obama administration on it.
In other words, Israelis live in the real world, not the world of Obama’s delusional hope. And they don’t appreciate Obama taking risks with their lives.
4. Are we really that popular in the United States?
The anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement was a frequent topic of conversation, almost always brought up by us as part of describing the type of coverage at Legal Insurrection. This coincided with what I consider an irrational panic the past two weeks in the Israeli press and political discourse about BDS (more on that in a later post.)
I tried to explain that there is a complete disconnect between the BDS movement in the U.S. and the vast majority of Americans. Gallup and Pew polling shows Israel at or near historical highs in terms of Israel’s favorability both abolutely and relative to favorability of Palestinians. The gap between those who pick Israel over Palestinians when the question forces a choice, also is historically high.
Virtually every Israeli we met was shocked that Israel is actually so popular in the United States. Even Israelis who have extensive American contacts and visit the U.S.
That’s not all so surprising. Both the U.S. and Israeli media focus on the negative, though for different reasons. The U.S. media long has had in implicit anti-Israel bias, compounded by the rise of left-leaning new media, while the Israeli media competes for readers with a “sky is falling” outlook.
(added) Israel’s enormous popularity among Americans is a strategic asset. That strategic asset needs to be used more effectively to minimize the damage from the narrow but influential slices of the American population — radical faculty, some students, and mainstream journalists — who have explicit or implicit anti-Israel biases. The American people as a whole are the “Israeli Lobby.”
5. The Next War is Only a Matter of Time
While we were in Jerusalem, Israel underwent a national defense drill, including sirens warningof incoming rockets.
Our tour along the Gaza border, particularly near Sderot, also reflected preparation for the next round of rocket fire through reinforcing key civilian infrastructures, such as schools.
[Sderot, Israel, street bomb shelter with “Shalom” grafitti]
There was a pervasive feeling that the calm cannot last. And sure enough, while we were there and just after we left, rockets were fired from Gaza to Israel by Salafists suffering from a Hamas crackdown, and groups competing with Hamas for control.
That’s the logic of the region in which Israel lives: Radical groups retaliate against each other by firing rockets at … Israel.
The next war is coming. Every Israeli knows it. It’s only a matter of time.
* * * * *
Those are my big takeaways. I hope you enjoyed the coverage.
We will be back in Israel, hopefully next year.
Two major Mid East escalations: Yemeni rebels fire Scuds at Saudi air base. ISIS warns Syrian rebels, DEBKAfile, June 6, 2015
US Patriots stationed in Saudi Arabia
Saudi military sources reported Saturday, June 6, that Patriot air defense batteries had intercepted Scud missiles fired by Yemen Houthi rebels against the kingdom’s largest air base at Khamis al-Mushait in the south west. It is from there that Saudi jets take off to strike the Yemeni rebels. DEBKAfile’s military sources report that the Patriot anti-missile systems, which were activated for the first time, were manned by American teams. This was the first direct US military intervention on the Saudi side of the Yemen conflict.
It was also the first time that Houthi rebels or their allies had fired Scud missile into the oil kingdom. Our sources add that the launch was supervised by Hizballah officers. They were transferred by Tehran to Yemen to ratchet up the conflict – although US, Saudi, Yemeni government and Houthi representatives meeting secretly in Muscat Friday agreed to attend a peace conference in Geneva this month.
Nonetheless, through Friday night and Saturday morning, Houthi forces and allied military units kept on battering at Saudi army and National Guard defense lines, in an effort to break through and seize territory in the kingdom’s southern provinces. The insurgents were evidently grabbing for strategic assets to strengthen their hand at the peace conference.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is also juggling his chips on the deteriorating Syrian warfront. In the coming hours, he is widely expected to announce the activation of the mutual defense pact signed between Iran and Syria in 2006, under which each signatory is committed to send military troops if necessary to defend its partner.
Thursday, June 4, Khamenei fired sharp verbal arrows at the Obama administration: “The United States tolerates extremist groups in Syria and Iraq and even helps them in secret,” he charged.
Our military sources add that although various Mid East publications, especially in Lebanon, are reporting that Iran has already sent units in numbers ranging from 7.000 to 15,000 troops to Syria, none have so far landed, except for the Shiite militias brought over at an earlier stage of the Syrian conflict. The expected Khamenei announcement may change this situation.
ISIS was not waiting. Saturday morning, the group issued a warning to the Syrian rebel forces fighting in the south – the Deraa sector of southern Syria near the meeting point of the Jordanian and Israeli borders and the Quneitra sector opposite the Israeli Golan. They were ordered to break off contact with the US Central Command Forward Jordan-CF-J which is located north of Amman, and the IDF operations command center in northern Israel. Any Syrian rebels remaining in contact with the two command centers would be treated as infidels and liable to the extreme penalty of beheading, the group warned.
The impression of ominous events brewing in the regime was rounded off Friday night by an unusual announcement by the Israeli army spokesman that Iron Dome anti-missile batteries had been deployed around towns and other locations in the south, although no reference was made to any fresh rocket attacks expected from the Gaza Strip. DEBKAfile adds: The first batteries were arrayed Thursday night, June 4, at vulnerable points in southern Israel – from the southernmost Port of Eilat on the Gulf of Aqaba to the western Port of Ashdod on the Mediterranean.
Iran Will Walk, The Gatestone Institute, Lawrence A. Franklin, June 5, 2015
(What if the article is otherwise correct but Obama agrees to a “deal” anyway? — DM)
From Washington to Riyadh, not to mention Jerusalem, statesmen are gritting their teeth at the possibility of a U.S.-Iran nuclear deal that seems overly generous to the theocratic-terror state of the Islamic Republic.
Representatives of the P5+1 countries pose with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif after nuclear negotiations in Lausanne, Switzerland on April 2, 2015. (Image source: U.S. State Department)
Most intelligence analysts and journalists assume that because Iran’s leadership endorsed the negotiations and has been the beneficiary of several key concessions by the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany), that an agreement is imminent. Forecasters have been predicting what the likely consequences of such a deal would be: negative.
But what if the Iranians walk?
Sanctions never hurt the regime’s ruling class; lifting them only helped the regime to solidify its power over its people.
A nuclear deal combined with an improvement in the commercial and business relations with the West would be inimical to IRGC interests.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the Praetorian Guard of the regime, controls most of the economy as well as the black-market, alternative economy. IRGC-controlled conglomerates operate outside the law and reap huge profits through their control of the black market. The IRGC therefore actually benefits by sanctions; it is the private firms, such as those involved in international commerce, that suffer.
Furthermore, IRCG naval vessels, and private ships under their control, have been engaging in sanctions-breaking deliveries of imports across Persian Gulf waters to Dubai. The IRGC then sells the products at a profit by filtering them through the many foundations they control in Iran.
The most recent example of IRGC’s skirting of sanctions involved the illegal acquisition of aircraft through front-organizations with offices in both Europe and the Arabian Peninsula. Mahan Air, an IRGC front, was able to purchase 15 used commercial aircraft for $300 million. Another front, al-Naser Air, was about to purchase two more aircraft, this time from a U.S. owner. Israeli intelligence, however, passed details of the planned sale to the U.S. government, and on May 21, the deal was scuttled by the Office of Export Enforcement of the Department of Commerce.
Why would IRGC operatives want to see the playing field made more level by private investment, transparency and a competitive economy?
Moreover, if a nuclear deal indicated improved relations with the United States, Iranian hardliners, whether clerical revolutionaries or intelligence operatives, might fear seeing their ideological legitimacy erode. The Iranian regime’s only remaining fig leaf of legitimacy is its anti-American animus, with its accompanying pledge to “protect” Iran’s interests against the U.S.-Israel-Sunni “alliance.”
Improved relations with Washington might raise false hopes among Iran’s citizens that the regime may ultimately improve its woeful record on human rights. There remains only a thin patina of clerical control over Iranian society; if the hoped-for social and political reforms were not implemented, the result could produce a destabilizing political environment, harmful to the interests of the regime.
Another fallacy embraced by many “inside-the-beltway” analysts is that, as the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei endorsed the negotiations, a legitimate deal is now probable.
The once all-powerful Office of the Supreme Leader no longer calls all the shots. The current Iranian regime resembles a military junta or a security state as much as a theocracy. While the reach of Ayatollah Khamenei, through his network of representatives, still penetrates all dimensions of Iranian society, he does not have the final decision on key security matters. The regime’s strategic assets, for instance, such as its ballistic missile programs, are firmly under the control of the IRGC. Decisions related to Iran’s expansionist presence in the region are made by IRGC Quds Force Commander Qasem Soleimani. The role of Khamenei’s representative to the IRGC resembles more that of a handler than of an action officer.
The principal task for the regime is to find a way to back out of the negotiations while avoiding the blame. Iran’s efforts at disengagement may already have been underway for the past few weeks; the pace of decoupling from the talks seems to be accelerating. Iran has been increasing its demands apparently in the hope that they will either be accepted, or else rejected like the “poison pills” they are — such as inspectors no longer being allowed on its military sites.[1]
Another way to make the talks no longer palatable for the Obama administration was to create a hostile incident with the United States in the Persian Gulf, as it has tried to do by aggressively tailing American warships. Iranian ships affiliated with the IRGC Navy also seized a commercial ship, the Maersk Tigris, in the Strait of Hormuz, and temporarily detained both vessel and crew. Then, on May 14, IRGC boats fired several shots across the bow of a Singapore flagged vessel, but it escaped unharmed.
By this type of reckless comportment, the IRGC Navy appears intent on producing a clash with American naval vessels in the Gulf waters. Western negotiators have only to recall the presidency of Mohammad Khatami, when the IRGC and Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security operated independently after they felt that the reformers had gone too far, thus threatening hard-liner control of the regime. The IRGC may have decided that Rouhani along with his American-educated Foreign Minister Zarif have reached a similar tipping point. This independent IRGC initiative is being executed even though a deal would release Iranian monetary assets that would in turn boost the sagging economy.[2]
Iran’s combative posture in Gulf waters against international shipping is also a direct challenge to international maritime law, which guarantees freedom of navigation through the world’s shipping lanes such as the Strait of Hormuz. A key principle of U.S. foreign policy is to enforce this freedom of navigation, if it is challenged by any foreign power, as one also hopes the U.S. will do in the South China Sea.
Iranian military and political spokesmen have also raised the temperature of their anti-American and anti-Israeli rhetoric of late. Leading members of the regime, including its Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, keep repeating, “Death to America” as well as its theological “obligation” to destroy Israel. While the Obama administration has alleged that these threats are just for “internal consumption,” an old Persian saying goes: “They spit in his eye and he calls it rain.”
Mojtaba Zolnour, Ayatollah Khamenei’s Deputy Representative to the IRGC, stated that the Islamic Republic of Iran, “has the divine permission to destroy Israel.” This media assault on Israel was designed to widen the divergence between the Obama administration and the Israeli government regarding the efficacy of the framework of a nuclear agreement negotiated so far.
Additionally, various Iranian principals have drawn “lines in the sand” designed to cause the Americans to disengage from the talks, such as the assertion that Iran will never accept inspection of its declared military sites. Another is Tehran’s repeated statement that it will not accept a gradual lifting of sanctions. Iranian leaders have insisted on immediate and irreversible lifting of all sanctions immediately after a nuclear deal is signed. The objective of these two demands is either to have them accepted, or to render it untenable for the Obama administration to offer Congress any deal that could be accepted — thereby shifting the blame for the collapse of the talks to the U.S.
Regime hard-line representatives to the majlis [Iranian Parliament] have already been mobilizing members to denounce the talks as detrimental to Iran’s national sovereignty. Eighty majlismembers signed a petition on May 12, calling upon the regime to suspend the nuclear talks until Washington halts its rhetorical threats against Iran. Hardliners in the majlis and elsewhere within the regime’s bureaucracy will likely continue to lobby against any deal.
Western analysts should be looking for the Iranian regime’s hard-line media outlets to increase domestic commentary condemning alleged U.S. deception in the negotiations as a reason to abandon the talks.
The death knell for the nuclear negotiations could come from newspapers such as Kayhan, a pro-regime newspaper run by Hossein Shariatmadari, and often characterized as a Khamenei mouthpiece.
The regime’s Friday-prayer Imams in key Iranian cities might also start opposing the talks. The themes of their noonday khutbahs [sermons] are likely to appeal to Iranian people’s patriotism, and suggest that it is more important for Iran to endure continued sanctions rather than submit to intrusive monitoring that offends Iran’s sovereignty.
Finally, hardliners who oppose any possibility of Iran’s improved relations with the U.S. may launch personal attacks on Iran’s negotiators to the nuclear talks, and, in an effort to discredit them, challenge their loyalty to the Iranian revolution. Their point of attack on Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif’s loyalty might be his alleged obsequious behavior to Secretary of State John Kerry. Zarif, on account of his many years of residency and education in the United States, can be depicted as an Americanized Iranian.
The United States should also be on guard against the mullahs’ belief that the Obama administration is weak — both politically and in its reluctance to use force. The mullahs might find great pleasure in humiliating Obama as they did President Jimmy Carter, when they dragged out hostage crisis negotiations by running out the clock until his term was over. They clearly believe that the Obama administration, simply to say it got “a deal,” is ready to sign anything.
[1] “Iran’s powerful Guard rejects inspection of military sites” by Ali Akhbar Dareini, Associated Press, 19 April 2015. Deputy Chief of the IRGC General Hossein Salami is quoted and several more statements by IRGC officials since have repeated the same prohibitive statements regarding Iran’s military sites.
[2] “U.S. to Award Iran $11.9 Billion Through End of Nuke Talks,” Washington Free Beacon, 21 January 2015. In the first of many subsequent denunciations, Senator Mark Clark of Illinois attacked the Obama administration’s plan to free Iran’s frozen assets if nuclear deal is reached.
Barack Obama: Born-Again Jew, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, June 5, 2015
The Yiddish description of a hypocritical fraud is “As Kosher as a pig’s foot.” Obama supporters who partake of his particular set of Jewish values are unlikely to be familiar enough with the Bible to understand the significance of a pig’s split hoof, the Midrashic tale of the pig that stretches out its cloven hooves and squeals, “See how Kosher I am” or even the Kosher status of a pig.
But those Jews who do, recognize “The First Jewish President” for the Kosher pig hoof that he is.
*********************
Obama introduced himself to the nation as the son of black and white parents. He has gone back and forth between Christianity and Islam like a philanderer in a bar.
Now he has added a third religion and race to complete his identity politics trinity.
At the last White House Chanukah dinner, he claimed to have a Jewish soul. At a synagogue speech last month, he called himself “an honorary member of the tribe”. Now his former senior advisor has quoted him as saying, “I think I am the closest thing to a Jew that has ever sat in this office.”
Of course Barack Obama has also been Irish. He stated, “I consider myself an honorary Italian, because I love all things Italian”. Newsweek dubbed him “The First Woman President” in 2008 for “bending gender conventions” and promoted him to “The First Gay President” four years later. Cabinet Secretary Lu and Congressman Honda argued that he was “The First Asian American President”.
If you make up an ethnic group or race, by tomorrow Barack Obama will be a member of it. By next week, he will be lecturing it on why it isn’t living up to their shared values.
Obama’s Jewish toadies, like his multicultural frog pond toadies of all races and ethnicities, have been trying to sell Barack Obama as a “Born-Again Jew” for seven years.
His left-wing mentor Abner Mikva claimed during the original campaign, “When this all is over, people are going to say that Barack Obama is the first Jewish president.” But Abner hedged his bets, baptizing Obama in a Mikvah by urging him to study the speaking patterns of Baptist preachers instead.
New York Magazine put Obama on the cover under a photoshopped Kippah as “The First Jewish President” and whined inside that, “Barack Obama is the best thing Israel has going for it right now. Why is that so difficult for Netanyahu and his American Jewish allies to understand?”
And that’s always the conclusion. Photoshop a Kippah on Obama’s head, dub him an honorary Jew and then use that to excuse his attacks on Israel.
Jerry Seinfeld accused his dentist of converting to Judaism to be able to tell Jewish jokes. Obama undergoes an honorary conversion to be able to bash Israel.
As an “honorary member of the tribe” he is entitled to all the anti-Semitic jokes and all the anti-Semitic policies he wants. When he signs off on nukes for Iran and a PLO state cut through the heart of Jerusalem accompanied by demands for the ethnic cleansing of half-a-million Jews, it’s as “The First Jewish Anti-Israel President” who cares about the Jewish State so much that he has to destroy it.
When Peter Beinart switched his career from the New Republic hawk who after September 11 wrote “The left has proved remarkably creative over the years at blaming virtually any Middle Eastern malfeasance…on the Jewish State” to the Daily Beast’s Israel basher who could blame bad weather or a lost sock in a dryer on Israel, he declared that he was bashing Israel because he was a “Liberal Zionist”.
Beinart, among others, has argued that Obama only bashes Israel because he too is a liberal Zionist.
Jeffrey Goldberg, the White House’s choice for heading up its media anti-Israel campaign to relay vital tidbits like the fact that the administration thinks Netanyahu is “Chickens__t” has been pushing the “Jewish Obama” meme the hardest. After his latest agonized interview with Obama featuring the kind of journalism usually only found when teen girls interview their movie idols for Tiger Beat, he explained that “The First Jewish President” only hated Israel because he was “The First Woody Allen President”.
Or as he put it, “Obama’s impatience with Israel, and his dislike of Netanyahu, is rooted in the fact that he is a very specific kind of Jew – an intellectual, Upper West Side, social action-oriented, anguished-about-Israel liberal values Jew.”
Not the bad kind of Jew who peers through a rifle scope on the Golan or pores over a Bible.
Obama’s finest Jewish toady was reassuring liberal Jewish tribals that the man in the White House didn’t hate Israel because he was one of “them”, but because he was one of “us”. Obama’s hatred of Israel is in the finest tradition of neurotic Manhattan liberals who can’t decide whether to bemoan Israel’s descent into nationalistic warmongering or take nude photos of their adopted Asian stepdaughters.
Or, as Woody Allen preferred it in the late nineties, both.
In his synagogue speech, Obama made the pitch that he embodies Israel’s classic leftist values of the Kibbutz and its Labor politicians. His disagreements with Israel are based on “our shared values”. He was turning the language of values commonality so often used by American politicians into appropriation.
Not only was Obama the country’s first Jewish president, but he is also its first Israeli president. He can’t be anti-Israel, because he represents Jewish and Israeli values better than Netanyahu.
The correct Jewish term for Obama contending that he is more Jewish than the Jews is “Chutzpah”.
Goldberg foresees a “civil war” between the Woody Allens and the Benjamin Netanyahus. “A civil war… between an American Jewry that has been nurtured on the values of the Civil Rights Movement, and an Israeli Jewry that has been taught, harshly, that the Middle East is not a place of mercy.”
As entertaining as it might be to watch a boxing match between Woody Allen and Netanyahu, he has missed the real civil war.
Obama does embody the Jewish values of a Goldberg or a Beinart because their Jewish identity is synonymous with the left. He equally embodies the Catholic values of Irish or Italian leftists or the Cherokee values of Elizabeth Warren. When your religious values have no religion in them, when your culture is a punchline and you want to sacrifice your heritage for an inspiring speech, then why not?
While Goldberg claims that the “anguished-about-Israel liberal values Jew” is the dominant Jewish archetype, demographics are reducing it to a minority in New York within a generation.
Even the Upper West Side is turning Modern Orthodox. And Woody Allen, whom I witnessed yelling at a white-bearded Orthodox Rabbi over the Palestinians a few decades ago, came out in defense of Israel during the last war and suggested that a lot of the criticism of Israel is disguised anti-Semitism.
When you’ve lost Woody Allen, then you’ve lost your “anguished-about-Israel liberal values Jew” vote.
The civil war has already been fought and won. Jews in the UK are voting conservative and support Netanyahu. So do the majority of Canadian and Australian Jews. Being anguished about values is a luxury for those whose synagogues aren’t being bombed and whose children aren’t being beaten.
When you have something to really agonize about, then you stop agonizing about your values.
The liberal Jews “nurtured on the values of the Civil Rights Movement” are dying out and are being replaced by Jews nurtured on the values of the Bible. They see no contradiction between Jewish values and a Jewish State because their values come not from the Torah of Tikkun Olam, but the Torah of Moses and Joshua, of King David and King Solomon, of Maimonides and the Maccabees.
Obama appears confident that American Jews will accept him as more Jewish than the Jewish State, but Romney picked up the most Jewish votes since Reagan and Jewish midterm support for Democrats fell 21 percent in eight years. As his pal Bill Ayers, who recently called for a boycott of Israel, could tell him, “You don’t need a Weatherman. To know which way the wind blows.”
Goldberg insists that “Obama is asking Israel (pleading with Israel, in fact) to be… more Jewish.”
And Obama’s way of trying to make Israel more Jewish is by denouncing Jews for building houses in Jerusalem. Similarly “Liberal Zionists” denounce Netanyahu for wanting Israel to be a “Jewish State” because they want it to live up to the Jewish values of Barack Obama, Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright.
It’s all a matter of definitions.
To the Goldbergs, making Israel more Jewish means making it less Jewish. By surrendering land to terrorists, expelling Jews from their homes, dividing up Jerusalem and giving up on a Jewish State, Israel will become more “Jewish”. And when its last Jewish Prime Minister, Mohammed Hussein Osama, informs them that Jewish values demand the end of Israel, they will applaud him for his Jewishness.
The other way of being Jewish is by having Jews live in a Jewish State where they speak the Jewish language and live lives based on thousands of years of Jewish tradition, heritage and religion.
The left’s values are self-nullifying. They destroy whatever they touch. The American left must destroy America for the sake of “American values”. The Catholic left must destroy the Catholic Church. The Jewish left must destroy Jews. Its idea of Jewish values is unmaking Jews, Judaism and the Jewish State.
The left has boldly appropriated Jewish values and identity. It has tried to pass off its politics as Tikkun Olam and the Democratic Party as the new synagogue. The Judaization of Obama is the last effort by a discredited ideology to fool its followers into believing that its anti-Jewishness is Jewish.
The Yiddish description of a hypocritical fraud is “As Kosher as a pig’s foot.” Obama supporters who partake of his particular set of Jewish values are unlikely to be familiar enough with the Bible to understand the significance of a pig’s split hoof, the Midrashic tale of the pig that stretches out its cloven hooves and squeals, “See how Kosher I am” or even the Kosher status of a pig.
But those Jews who do, recognize “The First Jewish President” for the Kosher pig hoof that he is.
WAKE UP EUROPE ISRAEL IS FIGHTING YOUR WAR, You Tube, June 1, 2015
H/t joopklepzeiker
New documentary from Pierre Rehov, this is the trailer , soon the full version.
Who Is Blocking Palestinian Elections? The Gatestone Institute, Khaled Abu Toameh, June 4, 2015
One year after Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas announced the establishment of the Palestinian Fatah-Hamas “national consensus” government, the two rival parties remain as far apart as ever.
The “national consensus” government, headed by Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah, was formed after a series of “understandings” between Fatah and Hamas on the basis of previous “reconciliation” agreements between the two sides.
A year later, it has become obvious that the “national consensus” government has failed to achieve its main objectives: the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip; ending the conflict between Hamas and Fatah, and preparing for new presidential and parliamentary elections.
Fatah and Hamas can only blame each other for the failure of the latest attempt to end their dispute and do something good for their people. There is no way this time that they could lay the blame on Israel.
The two parties had a chance to cooperate on the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip in the aftermath of last year’s military confrontation between Israel and Hamas. The international community even offered to assist in the mission, but Fatah and Hamas chose to continue fighting each other at the expense of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Until today, the two rival Palestinian parties have not been able to reach agreement on a mechanism for the transfer of funds from international donors to the Gaza Strip.
Fatah claims that Hamas wants to steal the money, while Hamas is already accusing Fatah and the Palestinian Authority government of working to lay their hands on the funds.
Fatah and Hamas agreed back then that the Hamdallah government would remain in office for only six months — the period needed to prepare for long overdue presidential and legislative elections in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. But the “interim” government has just completed its first year in power, while the chances of holding new elections under the current circumstances are non-existent.
One man, one vote, one time? Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh (left) and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas (also president of the Palestinian Authority) are pictured voting in the last election for the Palestinian Legislative Council, which took place in 2006.
Again, the two sides do not seem to be interested at all in sending Palestinians to the ballot boxes. Each side has many good reasons to avoid holding new elections in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
First, Fatah and Hamas do not trust each other, and each side is convinced that the other would try to steal the vote. How can there be free and democratic elections while Hamas and Fatah continue to arrest and torture each other’s supporters in the Gaza Strip and West Bank?
Second, Fatah is afraid that Hamas’s chances of winning the elections, especially in the West Bank, are very high. That is because many Palestinians still do not trust Abbas and Fatah, whom they accuse of maintaining close security ties with Israel. Moreover, many Palestinians remain disillusioned with Fatah because of its failure to combat financial and administrative corruption and pave the way for the emergence of new leaders.
There is no way that Hamas and Fatah can cast the blame on Israel regarding the issue of elections. If they were really interested in holding new elections, they could do so with the help of the international community, as was the case with previous votes in 2005 and 2006. Israel even helped the Palestinian hold those elections.
When several Hamas candidates from east Jerusalem ran in the January 2006 parliamentary election, Israel did nothing to stop them. Israel even opened its post offices in the city to allow Arab voters from the city (who hold Israeli-issued ID cards) to vote in the election.
Charges made by some Palestinians and anti-Israel groups around the world, to the effect that Israel is responsible for “foiling” efforts to achieve Palestinian unity, are baseless. Although the Israeli government initially opposed the Fatah-Hamas “reconciliation” deal that was reached in 2014, it has not stopped the Palestinian prime minister and some of his cabinet members from visiting the Gaza Strip to pursue the implementation of the accord. In fact, Prime Minister Hamdallah has since visited the Gaza Strip twice, after receiving permission from Israel to go through the Erez border crossing.
Recently, ten Palestinian ministers were forced to leave the Gaza Strip, after Hamas placed them under house arrest in their hotel and banned them from meeting with locals. The ministers entered the Gaza Strip through the Erez border crossing. They came to the Gaza Strip to help solve the problem of thousands of Hamas government employees who have not received salaries for more than a year, and to discuss issues related to the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip.
So while Israel facilitated the visits by Hamdallah and his ministers to the Gaza Strip, it was Hamas that expelled them and prevented them from carrying out their duties. Had Israel expelled the ministers from the Gaza Strip or stopped them from entering the area, the country would have been condemned by the international community for “blocking” efforts to achieve Palestinian unity and rebuild the Gaza Strip.
Today, it has become unavoidably clear that Fatah and Hamas, and not Israel, are responsible for the ongoing plight of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The two parties are unlikely to resolve their differences in the near future, further exacerbating the misery of their people. Each party cares only about its own interests, while at the same time lying to the world that it is all Israel’s fault. Hamas is not willing to relinquish control over the Gaza Strip, certainly not to Abbas and the Palestinian Authority, who were expelled from there in 2007. As for Abbas, he does not seem to be interested in regaining control over a problematic area such as the Gaza Strip, where most of the population lives under the poverty line and in refugee camps.
Yet instead of being honest with their people and admitting their failure to improve their people’s living conditions, Hamas and Fatah continue to wage smear campaigns against each other and, at the same time, also against Israel.
The campaigns that Hamas and Fatah are waging against Israel, particularly in the international community, are designed to divert attention from their failure to provide their people with basic services or any kind of hope.
While ignoring the plight of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Authority leaders were prepared to invest huge efforts and resources in trying to have Israel suspended from the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA). It is as if the Palestinians had solved all their major problems and all that they needed to do now was to stop Israeli soccer players from playing in international matches.
Hamas, for its part, continues to invest enormous resources in digging new tunnels, in preparation for another war with Israel. The money that is being invested in the tunnels and the purchase and smuggling of weapons could benefit many families who lost their homes during the last war. But Hamas, like the Palestinian Authority, does not care about the misery of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. They want to fight Israel to the last Palestinian. And this is all being done with the help of anti-Israel governments around the world, and groups such the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, whose only goal is to delegitimize Israel and demonize Jews rather than to help the Palestinians.
Russia Demands American Capitulation To Help Eradicate Islamic State
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By David Singer — Bio and Archives June 4, 2015
via Russia Demands American Capitulation To Help Eradicate Islamic State.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has called on America to end its attempt to remove Syria’s President Assad from power in return for Russia’s co-operation to militarily confront Islamic State.
Lavrov reportedly told Bloomberg on 2 June 2015 :
“The U.S.’s “obsession” with [Syria’s President] Assad isn’t helping in the common fight against the threat from Islamic State…
“People put the fate of one person whom they hate above the fight against terrorism. Islamic State can go “very far” unless stopped, and air strikes alone “are not going to do the trick”
“If people continue to acquiesce with what is going on and continue to acquiesce with those who categorically refuse to start the political process until Bashar Assad disappears, then I’m not very optimistic for the future of this region…”
America is part of the Friends of Syria core group known as the London Eleven that has been assisting rebel forces in Syria attempting to overthrow Assad.
Assad – backed by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah – has rebuffed such attempts during four years of horrendous conflict that has so far seen over 220000 Syrians die, four million citizens made refugees and another 7.6 million internally displaced.
A report published by the UN in March 2015 estimated the total economic loss since the start of the conflict was $202bn and that four in every five Syrians were now living in poverty – 30% of them in abject poverty. Syria’s education, health and social welfare systems are also in a state of collapse.
America apparently intends to ignore Lavrov’s sage advice and continue to pursue its Syrian policy to oust Assad.
Marie Harf – a U.S. State Department spokeswoman told reporters in Washington that:
“we’re certainly not going to coordinate with a brutal dictator who’s massacred so many of his own citizens.”
“That’s just an absurd proposition. That’s certainly not going to happen.”
Lavrov’s comments come at a time when Islamic State – already controlling a large part of Syria and Iraq covering an area greater than the United Kingdom – continues to make further advances – recently seizing the city of Ramadi 110 kilometers west of the Iraqi capital –Baghdad – and capturing the strategic northern Syrian city of Palmyra – a World Heritage listed site containing the monumental ruins of one of the most important cultural centres of the ancient world.
Islamic State reportedly controls up to 80 per cent of oil fields in Syria and has destroyed and also sold looted antiquities in Hatra, Nimrod and Mosul to acquire a major source of its funding – sometimes for seven figure sums.
The American led coalition of some 62 States – meeting in Paris this week – has proved totally unable to stem the advance of Islamic State in its stated objective of restoring the Islamic Caliphate and Sharia law wherever it seizes territory.
Graeme Wood – a contributing editor at The Atlantic – sums up Islamic State’s vulnerability:
If it loses its grip on its territory in Syria and Iraq, it will cease to be a caliphate. Caliphates cannot exist as underground movements, because territorial authority is a requirement: take away its command of territory, and all those oaths of allegiance are no longer binding.”
Only a UN sanctioned military force can hope to achieve this objective.
Obama and Putin need to urgently do a deal that sees:
Senseless head-butting needs to give way to sensible brain-storming.
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