Hamas female suiciders captured on way to kill Fatah officers

from the DEBKAfile
June 9, 2009

Hamas is escalating its attacks on fellow Palestinians to demonstrate that US presidential envoy George Mitchell's peace talks in the region, starting Tuesday, June 9, were a mission impossible so long as Hamas and Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah were at war.

DEBKAfile's counter terror sources disclose that Monday night, three Palestinian female members of Hamas, one of whom wore a bomb vest, were captured in the West Bank town of Qalqilya on their way to kill Palestinian Authority security officers.

The reappearance of suicide bombers on the West Bank is extremely troubling, say military sources, because of the likelihood that they will next attack their old targets in Israel.

This supposition is well founded. On June 7, DEBKAfile revealed exclusively that the Islamist terror organization had been ordered by Damascus headquarters to unleash a new campaign of violence against PA and Israeli targets alike – a first in Palestinian annals.

Ahead of its foiled triple suicide attack, Hamas circulated the photos of six senior Palestinian security officers in Qalqilya over the caption: "These commanders are sentenced to execution." The most prominent was Hussam Sheik Hamed, who is accused of liquidating several Hamas operatives in the town last month. DEBKAfile's security sources emphasize that as matters stand today within the Palestinian camp, President Obama, the Saudi king Abdullah and Egypt's Hosni Mubarak can forget about making headway in their peace moves.

Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshaal made this clear to Egypt's intelligence minister Gen. Omar Suleiman who summoned him to Cairo from Damascus Tuesday to try and persuade the rejectionist leader to come to terms with the rival Fatah and give the Obama peace diplomacy a chance.

Meshaal refused point blank to call off Hamas' terror campaign against fellow Palestinians. As a pre-condition for reconciliation, he said the US-trained Palestinian Authority security force must end its crackdown on Hamas gunmen. He totally rejected President Obama's call from Cairo to give up violence, reinforcing the message carried by the Hamas-led massive cross-border assault on Israeli forces from Gaza Monday.

Meshaal had a special message for the Egyptian government too.

Shortly after his conversation with Gen. Suleiman in Cairo, Hamas staged its first ever Qassam missile strike on Egyptian security forces guarding the Sinai-Gazan border. This was Hamas' first missile attack ever against Egypt. It was meant to support a fresh Palestinian attempt to break through the border for the first time since January 2008. The missiles exploded 3 kilometers inside Sinai.

In Ramallah, guards escorting the convoy of Palestinian Authority official Saad al Rahim, opened fire on a vehicle racing at high speed on the same road, certain that a Hamas bomb car was about to ram them.
Click to read other Debkafile articles

Obama the Liar...

more Drinking With Bob

After Obama Speech - Israel is still a "cancerous tumor in the heart"

Cairo Candy
By Investor's Business Daily

Middle East: While declaring that "America and Islam . . . need not be in competition," President Obama called on Islamic countries to embrace Western ways. But Islamic hard-liners see no "new beginning."

In his much-hyped speech at Cairo University on Thursday to promote "a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world," the president came armed with apologies and compliments.

The West is guilty of anti-Muslim "colonialism," not to mention "a Cold War in which Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations."

The left often accused Ronald Reagan of naivete for believing the Soviet Union could be relegated to "the ash heap of history"; here we are 20 years later apologizing for defeating the Evil Empire.

According to President Obama, Islam can be thanked for everything from "Europe's Renaissance and Enlightenment" to "algebra," "our magnetic compass," "pens and printing" and "our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed."

And as if speaking on the set of Dr. Phil, he claimed "we must say openly to each other the things we hold in our hearts and that too often are said only behind closed doors."

In fact, the Muslims that America has a problem with — i.e., Islamofascists — seldom have trouble expressing what they hold in their hearts. Often it's sheer hatred for the West.

Iran's supreme leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, for instance, immediately called the Obama speech "sweet and beautiful talks to the Muslim nation . . . that will not create a change," adding that Israel is still a "cancerous tumor in the heart" of the Muslim world.

After the flattery and the mea culpas, however, came an internally inconsistent message.

After saying "no system of government can or should be imposed by one nation by any other," the president added — rather dictatorially — that "you must maintain your power through consent, not coercion; you must respect the rights of minorities, and participate with a spirit of tolerance and compromise . . . ."

Sounds like the U.S. system to us.

The real diktats, however, were saved for the Israelis. "The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements," the president said.

And instead of rallying the Islamic world against a would-be nuclear Iran, he made the pronouncement that "no single nation should pick and choose which nation holds nuclear weapons."

Does that mean we've given up on stopping Iran from having a nuclear bomb? If so, that's a very dangerous signal to send.

Compare that with another Democratic president, Harry Truman, after the bombing of Hiroshima: "Having found the bomb, we have used it. . . . It is an awful responsibility which has come to us. We thank God that it has come to us, instead of to our enemies."

This president said he seeks the day "when Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims, and a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together, as in the story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus and Mohammed, peace be upon them, joined in prayer."

He intends to establish that paradise-on-earth by having U.S. taxpayers finance initiatives such as "new science envoys to collaborate on programs that develop new sources of energy, create green jobs, digitize records, clean water, grow new crops."

Sweet talk and the Almighty Dollar can buy a lot, it's true.

But only a fairy-tale mind-set could think it possible to bribe and cajole the Middle East into becoming a land of peace, love and understanding.
Click to read this and other great articles at IBD

Obama Gives Speech To Fellow Muslims

Obama's Own Speech Confirms He Is A Muslim!

from Andrew McCarthy:

In fact, even President Obama’s cordial greeting of “assalaamu alaykum” to his Egyptian audience conveys (no doubt unintentionally) something of basic Islamic intolerance. Under sharia (Islamic law), as Spencer explains, “a Muslim may only extend this greeting — Peace be upon you — to a fellow Muslim. To a non-Muslim he is to say, ‘Peace be upon those who are rightly guided,’ i.e., Peace be upon the Muslims.”

Obama’s speech was deep in fable, short on fact.

from The National Review
By Andrew C. McCarthy
June 5, 2009

The Islamic world has heard the much anticipated speech about the relationship between Islam and America from “Barack Hussein Obama” — emphasis added by the president himself, who until recently considered the use of his middle name a right-wing smear. The oration was called “A New Beginning.” “A Pretend Beginning” would have been a more accurate.

Though President Obama has won plaudits from some surprising quarters — including from National Review — the speech was warmed-over leftist dogma sprinkled with a fictional accounting of Islam and its history. NR’s editors forgive this as the “obvious consideration” that a presidential address must “stress some truths more than others and soften the harsher ones.” This is a promiscuous conception of truth. What the president did was promote various fictions about Islam while airbrushing truths that are not merely harsh but are the facts behind the rampage that has victimized us for much of the last three decades. That rampage, moreover, was substantially discounted in a haze of moral equivalence.

It would be bad enough to do this under any circumstances, but it is inexcusable to do it while paying only lip-service to one of the few truths the president did speak: namely, that any “partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn’t.”

“What it isn’t” is a religion of peace with a legacy so overflowing with achievement in science, philosophy, and the arts that civilization, as President Obama claimed, owes a great “debt to Islam.” In fact, the ledger runs heavily in the other direction.

Islam was spread by the sword — not by the allure of its still problematic message — and many of the cultural achievements within the Muslim world that the president glossed occurred despite Islam (particularly in the areas of literature, art, and music) or are more properly understood as the accomplishments (especially in science and architecture) of better-educated peoples whom Muslims conquered. The president rehearsed the claim that Islam single-handedly “carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe’s Renaissance and Enlightenment.” This is a myth. As Robert Spencer has ably recounted, it is not true that Muslims alone preserved the works of Aristotle, Galen, Plato, Hippocrates, and other pillars of Western enlightenment. More significantly, arrested development in the Islamic world owes to an anti-intellectualism that persists to this day in enclaves holding that no education beyond the study of the Koran is necessary.

The president, moreover, insisted on pulling from the Muslim apologists’ playbook the expurgation of Islamic scripture in order to render it congenial to Western sensibilities. We were treated to the hidebound claim that terrorist violence is anti-Islamic because what Obama takes pains to call “the Holy Koran” teaches that “whoever kills an innocent, it is as if he has killed all mankind; and whoever saves a person, it is as if he has saved all mankind.” This conveniently decoupled Sura 5:32 from the next verse (5:33), which, though unmentioned by Obama, is well known by Muslims to read: “The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land, is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: That is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the hereafter.”

Noting a bowdlerization even this egregious does not do justice to how misleading the president’s tactic was. Though Obama portrayed Islam as having a “proud tradition of tolerance,” it has a far more consequential legacy of intolerance. Islam strives for hegemony, seeking not to co-exist but to make all the world the realm of the Muslims (dar al-Islam) while regarding those parts not under its dominion as the realm of war (dar al-Harb). What Obama means by “an innocent” and what many Muslims take the term to mean are different.

Sura 5:33 is far from aberrant, and the “Holy Koran,” quite apart from its several other commands to violence, dehumanizes Jews in several places as the children of monkeys and pigs. It admonishes that Muslims “take not the Jews and the Christians as friends and protectors” (5:51). The hadiths of the prophet are replete with tales of non-Muslims slaughtered, forced into slavery, and reduced to humiliating dhimmitude. Mohammed’s vision of the end of the world foresaw Jesus returning to abolish Christianity and impose Islam, while Jews are killed by Muslims (with the help of trees and stones, which alert the faithful, “Muslim, there is a Jew behind me — come and kill him!” In fact, even President Obama’s cordial greeting of “assalaamu alaykum” to his Egyptian audience conveys (no doubt unintentionally) something of basic Islamic intolerance. Under sharia (Islamic law), as Spencer explains, “a Muslim may only extend this greeting — Peace be upon you — to a fellow Muslim. To a non-Muslim he is to say, ‘Peace be upon those who are rightly guided,’ i.e., Peace be upon the Muslims.”

To be sure, no sensible person would suggest that a U.S. president rehash these and other unpleasant facts in order to provoke Muslims gratuitously. But it was Obama’s idea to give this speech — it’s not as if he were put, through no fault of his own, to the awkward choice of telling a few little white lies or insulting his hosts. More to the point, the president takes the risible position (as did his predecessor) that “Islam is not part of the problem in combating violent extremism — it is an important part of promoting peace.” Islam, however, is palpably a huge part of the problem in combating violent extremism, which is serially committed by Muslims under the influence of notable religious scholars (including more than a few educated at al-Azhar University, the “beacon of Islamic learning” that co-hosted the president’s speech) who invoke some of the many scriptures the president elected not to mention.

It is true enough that Islam must be part of the solution to the promotion of peace, but for two reasons alone. First, while it is possible to ignore Islamic doctrine’s nexus to terrorism, the nexus cannot credibly be denied, and therefore the need to deal with it is unavoidable. Second, and related, there can be no peace unless Islam reforms — unless it purges its savage elements and compellingly condemns the violence committed in its name. This can’t be done as Obama and others would like to do it: by telling Muslims everything is fine, that their religion is wonderful as is, while making believe the bad scriptures don’t exist and radicals are merely a tiny fringe of crazy people. That is a strategy designed by liberals to convince other liberals who don’t need convincing, so desperate are they to believe all is well. It does nothing to discredit the violent fundamentalists in the eyes of other Muslims; in fact, it enhances their credibility because it ignores their doctrinal justifications of terror rather than offering a credible counter-construction.

Worse, assuming there is no credible counter-construction (which may very well be the case), there is an enormous amount of reform to be done — work that can only be done by Muslims. We cannot rouse them to the task by telling them we think Islam, as it currently exists, is promoting peace.

All this would require a commitment to come to grips with “what Islam is, not what it isn’t.” It’s too bad we don’t have that commitment.
Click to read the rest of the article and the comments

Muslims gave us zero

from Don Surber
June 4, 2009

Barack Obama delivered the same myths about Muslim math that English lit professors have passed along for decades — and Rush Limbaugh called him on it.

The idea that their is a unified Muslim world (just down the road from the Buddhist community, but before you cross the Hindu Street) is as absurd as a unified Christian world. I mean 500 years after the Diet of Worms, Protestants and Catholics still argue over the wording of the Lord’s prayer.

The pandering by Obama in Cairo, though, showed the misinformation that college professors have passed along to their students for year after year. Obama was a bright student.

OBAMA: “As a student of history, I also know civilization’s debt to Islam. It was Islam at places like Al-Azhar that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe’s renaissance and enlightenment. It was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra, our magnetic compass and tools of navigation, our mastery of pens and printing, our understanding of how disease spreads and how it could be healed. Islamic culture has given us majestic arches and soaring spires, timeless poetry and cherished music, elegant calligraphy, and places of peaceful contemplation — and throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality.”

Sure, Mr. President, we have seen that religious tolerance in 60 years of refusing to diplomatic acknowledge the state of Israel, and your wife’s ancestors saw that racial equality in the Muslim auctions of African slaves.

This is to history what Al Gore’s global warming phrenology is to science.

RUSH: “OK. I know we’re not supposed to criticize Obama’s speech here. I know it’s going way off the reservation here to do this. But, folks, that is outrageous. This is simply outrageous. It was absurd, in fact. Let’s see. here do we start here? ‘It was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra.’ No. The origins of algebra trace back to the ancient Babylonians. They were not Muslims. Algebra was temporarily developed by the ancient Greeks and later the English. ‘Our magnetic compass, tools of navigation,’ Islam gave us these? No. Recent research suggests that the compass may have been discovered by Central Americans, but if they didn’t do it, the Chinese are then its discoverers. In either case, be it the Chinese or the Central Americans, the compass was discovered centuries before the advent of Islam.

“Now, what am I supposed to say? I’m not supposed to say this stuff. Now, let’s see, let’s see. ‘Our mastery of pens and printing…’ Has anybody ever heard of Gutenberg? I didn’t know Gutenberg was a Muslim. ‘Our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed…’? Are there Nobel Prizes for Medicine awarded to Muslims I have missed? ‘Islamic has given us some majestic arches and soaring spires…’ Well, sorry, folks, but arches and spires predate the arrival of Islam by centuries. I mean, come on, folks. Arches? Anybody heard of Rome? He also talked about the great gift, ‘timeless poetry and cherished music.’ The only problem there is that music — and musical instruments especially — are forbidden in most Islamic traditions. And it should be unnecessary to have to note Islam’s ‘religious tolerance’ has been demonstrated.”

Rush is right. The fact is socialist professors have idealized the Islamic faith and created out of midair this ridiculous fantasy about Spain being a great place for other religions under Moorish rule.

I am glad someone in the American media called Obama on this. More Rush is here.
Click to go to the article and read the comments

Links to 30+ Blogs reviewing Obama's Speech - Gorge yourself

My summary is that Obama's appearance in front of the world was more important to him than his so-called speech to the Muslim World. Obama is a megalomaniac with ZERO humility. Obama thinks he knows everything and has all the answers. I believe that's dangerous, because he believes he can do no wrong and that he is above being second-guessed.

He again raped Israel on the world stage. He says he is a friend of Israel, but his actions prove otherwise.
Rees

Links provided by the Bookworm Blog
June 4, 2009

Grading Obama’s speech

The voice of the blogosophere about Obama’s speech

You can read what I wrote about the speech here. Others have been writing too.

The Anchoress, in addition to her must-read Ich bin ein Muslimer takedown of the speech, has a list of blogs thinking about what he said, which I’ll just copy wholesale:

Andy McCarthy: Koranic text Obama left out
Andrew Bolt: Islam, I am your savior!
Fausta: What was missing from the speech
David P. Goldman: Why Couldn’t Obama’s writers find a peace quote from the Koran?
Abe Greenwald: Not too good on Women’s Rights
Jennifer Rubin: Abudullah is not charmed by Obama
Bookworm: Gives the speech a C and wonders about specifically Muslim formulations
Ed Morrissey: Not so bad; not much different from Bush
Michelle Malkin: Not having any; didn’t like Bush’s speeches here, either.
Rich Lowry: On the whole not bad
Max Boot: Could have been a lot worse
Ann Althouse: Commenters parse the speechJ
ake Tapper: President finds himself in Hieroglyphs
Hugh Hewitt: The World is Worse for this dishonest speech“Yes we can” in Hieroglyphics
Mike Allen: Kinda common rhetoric
Confederate Yankee: Obama’s Brilliant Delusion
Andy McCarthy: Founding Fathers Friends to Islam?
Dana Perino: Comparing two presidents, two speeches
Damian Thompson: Watch out for Christian Terrorists
!Noisy Room: United Under AllahObama’s Nixon China Speech
Flopping Aces: Charm Offenses & History
Gateway: US President won’t stand for democracy

Here are some more reads I recommend:
Joshuapundit summarizes all the of ill-informed, fatuous and foolish statements that surrounded the nuggets of smartness and decency buried in that mess.

Rick Moran about the sadness the deliberately or foolishly misinformed speech engendered in him, and Sammy Benoit chimes in.

Ira Stoll, who hoped for better when it came to Obama and the Jews, confesses that the speech brings him to a different point of view.

Peter Daou also caught that strange obsession with the hijab.

Max Boot notes that the speech could have been worse, and explains what was good. He also highlights all the false equivalencies Obama drew between the Muslim world and the west. He also deconstructs the little misuse of history, by which Obama implied that Tripoli and the US have always been partners in freedom. (I bet Boot would give the speech the same C I did.)

Jennifer Rubin also sounds many of the same notes I did.

And Abe Greenwald agreed with me on the bizarre fact that Obama kept harking back to those hijabs.

Here are John and Paul from Power Line, each of whom also damn it with faint praise and praise it with faint damns.

Reading all of these views shows that the issues I picked up upon — the vague mea culpas, the hostility to women, the hostility to Israel, the apparent willingness to protect America (thank God), the false moral equivalences, the bastardized history, etc. — were not products of my own anti-Obama imagination but were, in fact, truly present in an anything-but-earth-shattering speech to the Arab world.

Laer thinks the speech was as good as it could get, considering both audience and speaker.

Here's Obama's Cairo Speech - Or at least the speech he should give

June 02, 2009
from American Thinker
by Robert Spencer

As Barack Obama prepares to give his long-anticipated major address to the Islamic world from Cairo, as a public service I here offer the speech he should give:

Dear friends,

I have said that in this speech I would offer my personal commitment to engagement with the Islamic world, based upon mutual interests and mutual respect. Establishing peace between the forces of the global jihad and America and her ally Israel is something that I would very much love to do. The first thing I must acknowledge, however, is that much as I would love to see this peace dawning over the world, it is not within my power to achieve this.

That may surprise many of you. You have grown accustomed to thinking that the tensions between Muslims and the United States - tensions that boiled over on September 11, 2001 and on the occasions of many other acts of jihad terrorism as well - are entirely the fault of the United States. Americans have been told that we are hated because of our support for Israel, and because of our attempts to bring freedom and stability to the overwhelmingly Muslim people of Iraq and Afghanistan. We are hated because we have spent American treasure to try to secure a better life for Muslims the world over, spending billions of dollars in aid for Egypt, Pakistan, and other Muslim countries.

I must speak honestly with you. It puzzles and pains Americans to see ourselves vilified and hated for trying to help others. Now, unlike the Islamic Republic of Iran and other Islamic entities, we seek no apologies, no restitution. We do not ask for a word of thanks for our numerous attempts to help Muslim societies become safe, prosperous places to live for all their citizens. We do not ask for your approval. But at this point we are going to cease efforts to build bridges of understanding with the Islamic world that have turned out to be fruitless, and even self-defeating.

We have showered billions on Pakistan to enable the Pakistani government to fight the Islamic jihadists, only to see a great deal of that many being funneled to those same jihadists, who are now stronger than ever.

We have tried to establish democracies in Iraq and Afghanistan, only to see non-Muslim minorities treated worse than ever, such that they have been streaming out of Iraq in unprecedented numbers, while the few that remain in Afghanistan are subject to increasingly violent persecution.

We have brokered peace treaty after peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinians - from Camp David to Oslo to the Road Map for Peace - only to see the Palestinian side again and again trample upon its commitments to recognize and respect Israel's basic right to exist.

I have offered you America's outstretched hand. In doing so I have followed a path blazed by my predecessors. But that gesture of conciliation has never been reciprocated. And so now, even as my good will is still extended to you, I must act more realistically.

Pakistan and other Muslim countries will not receive another penny of American aid unless and until they demonstrate - in a transparent and inspectable fashion - that they are working against, not abetting, the forces of the global jihad. This will include instituting comprehensive nationwide programs to teach against the jihad doctrine of Islamic supremacism, teaching that Muslims and non-Muslims must live together as equal citizens on an indefinite basis, without any attempts by Muslims to subjugate non-Muslims as inferiors under the rule of Islamic law.

I trust you will understand that we cannot continue to fund the cutting of our own throat.

Afghanistan and Iraq must immediately guarantee the equality of rights of women and non-Muslims, or American arms will no longer devote themselves to keeping regimes in power that do not guarantee those rights.

I will call upon Israel to make no further territorial concessions. The withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 demonstrated only that such concessions whet, rather than sate, the appetites of Islamic jihadists for more concessions. The assumption that territorial concessions will bring peace ignores not only recent history, but also the stated goal of the jihadist movements arrayed against Israel: the destruction of the Jewish state.

That state is an American ally - a more reliable one than any Islamic state has ever been. And we will do whatever is necessary to preserve and defend that ally.

Our hand is outstretched, but we are not unrealistic about the nature of the world. The animus between us is as much, if not more, the result of the doctrines of jihad and Islamic supremacism as it is a result of American policy. I am telling you today that we understand this, and will be acting accordingly. Ultimately a policy based on realism will be much better for both of us than policies based on the fantasies and half-truths that have hitherto prevailed.

Thank you, and may God bless you.

Click to go to the article and read the comments

Perhaps We Should Reconsider The Missile Defense Cuts...

by Michael Ramirez
from Investor's Business Daily

Obama: The Irrational President - A Wary Encounter

from The Spectator.co.uk
by Melanie Phillips

In remarks made after his meeting with Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu, President Obama said:

I suggested to the Prime Minister that he has an historic opportunity to get a serious movement on this issue during his tenure. That means that all the parties involved have to take seriously obligations that they have previously agreed to. Those obligations were outlined in the road map...

But the first obligation in the Road Map was laid upon the Palestinians -- to dismantle their infrastructure of terror. It was their failure to meet that first obligation, without which the rest of the Road Map could not be implemented, which led to its collapse as a strategy. Yet Obama appears to think that the only obligations which must be met are those which apply to Israel, with the Palestinians apparently getting a free pass.

This is of course all of a piece with his belief that Israel is the cause of the Middle East impasse which would be solved by the creation of a state of Palestine. The fact that even now Fatah states explicitly that it won’t accept the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state, let alone Hamas repeatedly restating its intention to destroy Israel and kill every Jew, is not, in Obama’s mind, the real obstacle to a solution. Not only does Obama not see the creation of ‘Hamastan’ in the West Bank as an obstacle -- he sees instead the refusal to treat Hamas as part of the solution as an obstacle. Accordingly, he presents as the obstacle not the people continuing to wage war but the country that is the victim of that war – which he blames for not agreeing to destroy its own security.

The irrationality and injustice of this is manifest on every level. But what cannot be stressed enough is the way both Obama and the ‘progressive’ legions behind him have made as their rallying cry support for a proposed racist and religiously exclusionary state that denies civil rights for all. Those screaming ‘apartheid’ at Israel are demanding the establishment of a putative Palestine state which would allow no Jews to live there, let alone enjoy the equal civil and human rights afforded to Arab citizens of Israel. As the former CIA Director James Woolsey is reported to have observed earlier this month:

...the world has a tendency to ‘define deviancy down for non-Jews.’ As a result, governments around the world, including the Obama administration, never even mention the possibility that Jews should be able to enjoy the same rights and privileges in any future Palestinian polity that Israeli Arabs exercise today in the Jewish state.

So, instead of what amounts to a Hitlerian program of Judenrein in any prospective Palestinian state - meaning, as a practical matter, if not a de jure one, that no Jews can reside or work there, there could be approximately twice the number of Israeli Jews as currently reside in so-called ‘settlements’ on the West Bank. They should be free to build synagogues and Jewish schools. And newspapers that serve the Jewish population in any future state of ‘Palestine’
should be permitted to flourish there.

Jews should also have a chance to elect representatives to a future Palestinian legislature. They should be able to expect to have representation as well in other governing institutions, like the executive and judicial branches. In order for the foregoing to operate, Jews in the Palestinian state must be able to live without fearing every day for their lives. In Mr. Woolsey`s view, ‘Once Palestinians are behaving that way, they deserve a state.’

On all these essential preconditions for a solution that pass the basic test of civilised values, Obama is silent. Quite apart from the injustice of his approach to the Middle East impasse and the irrationality of linking it with the Iran crisis, his policy of ‘engagement’ with Iran is hardly making him popular in the Arab world. He agreed with Netanyahu that there was a new and more promising mood in the Arab world. But he seems unable to grasp that what’s behind that new mood is terror of Iran getting the bomb – and despair at the way the US is resorting to the policy of appeasement. Accordingly, Obama is actually squandering the opportunity to enlist those Arab states in the fight against a common enemy of Iran. As John Hannah writes in the Washington Post:

Notably, the administration’s approach is increasingly at odds with that of U.S. allies in the Middle East that seek to maximize pressure on Tehran. For the past month, Egypt has mounted a courageous public effort to rally America’s Arab friends in opposition to an Iranian campaign of subversion that stretches from Iraq to Morocco. Instead of rushing to the defense of distressed allies, Obama has largely remained silent, instead opting to reiterate his interest in reaching some sort of accommodation with Tehran, the source of the region’s problems.

This was amplified by this telling exchange at the press conference after his talks with Netanyahu:

Q : Thank you, Mr. President. Aren’t you concerned that your outstretched hand has been interpreted by extremists, especially Ahmadinejad, Nasrallah, Meshal, as weakness? And since my colleague already asked about the deadline, if engagement fails, what then, Mr. President?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, it’s not clear to me why my outstretched hand would be interpreted as weakness.

Q: Qatar, an example.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: I’m sorry?

Q: The example of Qatar. They would have preferred to be on your side and then moved to the extremists, to Iran.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Oh, I think -- yes, I’m not sure about that interpretation.

On the face of it, the evidence that has emerged from this meeting between Obama and Netanyahu could not be more stark -- as David Horowitz observes -- that the Obama administration is set upon a strategy that would effectively throw Israel to the Islamist wolves. The worst fears of Israel’s government and friends appear to have been amply confirmed.

And yet and yet; notwithstanding all this, sanity might eventually still prevail. A small hope indeed – but it may just happen.

Consider. The fact that Obama is making this lethally false linkage between creating a state of Palestine and tackling the problem of Iran should not blind us to the fact that the overriding issue is indeed not Palestine but Iran. That is the issue which will define Obama’s presidency. The great question is whether Obama has concluded that, when push comes to shove, America will have no option but to ‘live with’ a nuclear Iran. My understanding is that, while there are those in his administration for whom the answer is ‘yes’, there are others for whom the answer is ‘no’. In his post-meeting remarks, Obama himself acknowledged the danger a nuclear Iran poses not just to Israel but to America and the whole of the Middle East. Certainly, he thinks ‘engagement’ can defuse that danger. But what will he do when it becomes apparent that it will not?

Obama has already demonstrated that, when brought up sharply against the suicidal consequences of his naivety, he can shift his position. We saw this in recent days by his twin retreats from publishing more pictures of ‘enhanced interrogation’ in Iraq and from his previous opposition to military tribunals for al Qaeda suspects. He has stated that if Iran hasn’t unclenched its fist by – variously – the autumn/end of the year he will introduce ‘tough sanctions’. This is not altogether reassuring, both in the vagueness of the timetable, the weakness of any sanctions regime and the fact that he is still giving Iran the greatest gift of all – time -- to progress towards its nuclear goal. But it may just be that he really does think in his liberal hubris that making nice with Iran will draw the poison – and when he realises it has not done so, he may not be too keen on becoming the President that allowed Iran to go nuclear on his watch.

A further point about Obama is this. He is a man of the left. The left is not merely Manichean, but insulates itself from any possibility of heresy by surrounding itself only by those with whom it agrees. It is therefore rarely forced to follow through its reasoning and thus see its patent falsehoods and idiocies exposed. From his history and past associations, it’s a fair bet that Obama has thus never had his assumptions properly challenged by exposure to rationality and evidence. In recent years, Israel has been led by politicians who were either incapable, for various reasons, of properly articulating that rationality or themselves subscribed to many of the false premises of post-modern, post-moral, ahistorical thinking that characterises ‘progressive’ opinion in the west. Netanyahu breaks that mould. By simply talking to him, Obama may have heard for the first time an argument that is intellectually capable of puncturing at least one or two of his illusions.

We have no way of knowing whether any of that took place; or, if it did, whether it had any significant effect at all. No-one should take too much notice of the public show of relaxation and relative harmony with which this meeting was subsequently spun. Nor should we believe the counter-spin that Netanyahu returned to Israel a grimmer and wiser man. He knew the score about Obama well before he set out on this trip; and he would indeed be a fool if he were not therefore playing a carefully thought-through diplomatic and strategic game. Let’s hope he is; because if ideologue Obama does indeed turn out to stifle pragmatic Obama over the issue of Iran, Israel really will be on its own.
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Netanyahu to the White House: "What the hell do they want from me?"

from Jihad Watch
May 29, 2009

"The official said that the basis of the Obama White House's resolve is the conviction that it is in the United States' as well as Israel's interest to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

Does it not ever occur to anyone in the Obama White House that however much it might be in the interests of the United States and Israel to "end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," it may not be within the power of the United States or Israel to "end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict"? The Obama White House seems to be unshakably committed to the proposition that the Palestinians are just passive reactors to Israeli aggression, and that peace will come as soon as the Israelis decide to get on with it.

The Obama White House does not ever seem to consider the proposition that the Palestinians might fight on until they achieve the total destruction of Israel, and that the jihad doctrine of Islamic supremacism mandates that they pursue no other course.

Quotes from "Netanyahu: 'What the hell do they want from me?,'" from Foreign Policy, May 28
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Abbas expects Obama pressure to push out Netanyahu

from The Jerusalem Post
By JPOST.COM STAFF
May 29, 2009

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will not resume negotiations with Israel unless the Netanyahu government agrees to a complete settlement freeze and publicly accepts a two-state solution, Abbas has told the Washington Post in an interview.

And since he does not believe Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will lift his opposition on these issues, Abbas and his leadership expect American pressure to gradually force Netanyahu out of office, the paper reported on Friday. "It will take a couple of years," it quoted one of Abbas's officials as saying.

Abbas was interviewed the day before his Thursday meeting at the White House with President Barack Obama.

Setting out what the newspaper called "a hardline position," the Palestinian leader conditioned a resumption of talks with Israel on Netanyahu's agreement to a halt in all settlement building - a demand being repeatedly stressed by Obama, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and other senior US officials - and formal Israeli government acceptance of Palestinian statehood.

Abbas added that he would not even assist Obama's special envoy, George Mitchell, in trying to encourage Arab states to begin warming relations with Israel until Israel accepted these conditions. "We can't talk to the Arabs until Israel agrees to freeze settlements and recognizes the two-state solution," Abbas was quoted saying. "Until then we can't talk to anyone."

However, the Washington Post went on, "Abbas and his team fully expect that Netanyahu will never agree to the full settlement freeze - if he did, his center-right coalition would almost certainly collapse. So they plan to sit back and watch while US pressure slowly squeezes the Israeli prime minister from office. 'It will take a couple of years,' one official breezily predicted."

Abbas, the article continued, "rejects the notion that he should make any comparable concession - such as recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, which would imply renunciation of any large-scale resettlement of refugees."

The upshot, wrote Diehl, is that "in the Obama administration, so far, it's easy being Palestinian."

The Palestinians, under Bush, knew that "until they put an end to terrorism, established a democratic government and accepted the basic parameters for a settlement, the United States was not going to expect major concessions from Israel," wrote Diehl.
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All the worries about Obama and Israel are about to become true...

from The Lid
Friday, May 29, 2009

Obama's Call To Stop Settlements - Its Different This Time, MUCH DIFFERENT

In her press conference on Wednesday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told journalists that the Obama administration "wants to see a stop to settlements -- not some settlements, not outposts, not natural growth exceptions."

On Thursday, President Obama stood with the "Moderate" Terrorist Leader Mahmoud Abbas calling for Israel to stop all settlement building including "Natural Growth." As I have pointed out many times before, both President Bush and Secretary of State Rice have made similar statements over the past eight years. After talking to some of my contacts within Israel and those with intimate knowledge of what is happening within Israel, the reports are not good. This time it is different.

When Bush demanded that Israel stop all settlement activity, there was always a wink, wink at the end of it. The Bush administration would never protest too loudly as long as it was "natural growth." Meaning contiguous adding on to existing settlements was OK. So if someone's child got married, they could live in the same area as their parents...etc. My sources tell me that there is no "wink, wink." Obama wants Israel to stop all settlement building PERIOD.

As Gary Ackerman (D-L.I.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, told Stewart Ain of the NY Jewish Week:

“Internal [natrual] growth is not an obstacle — it is life,There is no moral equivalence between settlements and terrorist activity,” he said by phone shortly after leaving a 90-minute meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv.

“Bibi mentioned settlements,” Ackerman continued, using Netanyahu’s nickname. “He pointed out that unlike previous administrations that said they would not build them but built them, he is not building new settlements. But he has a position that you cannot stop people on the issue of internal growth.”

Ackerman said he subscribed to the position of a Kadima Knesset member, Otniel Schneller, who was quoted as saying: “I will not lend a hand to a dictate preventing my daughters from giving birth to my grandchildren.”

Sources say that Senator George Mitchell Obama's Mideast envoy and national security adviser Gen. Jim Jones -- see the Jewish settlements in the West Bank, home to some almost 300,000 people, as a key obstacle to getting a peace settlement. Of course this ignores the fact that the Palestinians including President Abbas still reject recognizing Israel as a Jewish State and that President Abbas is the leader of Fatah, who's Al Aqsa Martyr's Brigade is still committing terrorist attacks within Israel. Even if he wanted to make peace (which he doesn't) Abbas does not have the legitimacy from his own people to sign an agreement. If he did there would have been an agreement with Prime Minister Olmert, who some sources offered Abbas an agreement that was even more favorable than the one Yassir Arafat was criticized for turning down.

Here's the real problem for the Jewish State, in past when Israel has faced problems with a sitting President they have taken their appeal to Congress. But this congress is not likely to go to bat for Israel for two reasons, President Obama is very popular and they are not likely to fight him on this issue especially when you consider that research and anecdotal evidence show the Democratic Party voter is no longer pro-Israel.

So Israel is left with a White House that will continue to pressure her toward one-sided concessions and a Congress that doesn't have the political chops to stand up to the President.

The question is will Netanyahu stand up to Obama? That is still unknown. On one hand the composition of his coalition will demand that he does, but on the other hand one of the major reasons he was voted out of office in 1999 was his poor relationship with Bill Clinton. In fact, Bill Clinton sent James Carville to Israel to help Ehud Barak take the Prime Minister position away from Netanyahu.

Where all this will lead is unknown. What Is known is the era of "good feelings" between an Israel Prime Minister and a US President is ending. And all the worries that many of us had about Obama and the Jewish State, are about to become true.
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THE DEATH OF ISRAEL - Courtesy of Barack Obama

By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
from DickMorris.com
May 24, 2009
image by rees

From Caroline Glick, deputy editor and op-ed writer for the Jerusalem Post, comes alarming news. An expert on Arab-Israeli relations with excellent sources deep inside Netanyahu's government, she reports that CIA chief Leon Panetta, who recently took time out from his day job (feuding with Nancy Pelosi) to travel to Israel "read the riot act" to the government warning against an attack on Iran.

More ominously, Glick reports (likely from sources high up in the Israeli government) that the Obama administration has all but accepted as irreversible and unavoidable fact that Iran will soon develop nuclear weapons. She writes, "...we have learned that the [Obama] administration has made its peace with Iran's nuclear aspirations. Senior administration officials acknowledge as much in off-record briefings. It is true, they say, that Iran may exploit its future talks with the US to run down the clock before they test a nuclear weapon. But, they add, if that happens, the US will simply have to live with a nuclear-armed mullocracy."

She goes on to write that the Obama administration is desperate to stop Israel from attacking Iran writing that "as far as the [Obama] administration is concerned, if Israel could just leave Iran's nuclear installations alone, Iran would behave itself." She notes that American officials would regard any harm to American interests that flowed from an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities as Israel's doing, not Iran's.

In classic Stockholm Syndrome fashion, the Obama administration is empathizing more with the Iranian leaders who are holding Israel hostage than with the nation that may be wiped off the map if Iran acquires the bomb.

Obama's end-of-the-year deadline for Iranian talks aimed at stopping its progress toward nuclear weapons is just window dressing without the threat of military action. As Metternich wrote "diplomacy without force is like music without instruments." By warning only of possible strengthening of economic sanctions if the talks do not progress, Obama is making an empty threat. The sanctions will likely have no effect because Russia and China will not let the United Nations act as it must if it is to deter Iranian nuclear weapons.

All this means is that Israel's life is in danger. If Iran gets the bomb, it will use it to kill six million Jews. No threat of retaliation will make the slightest difference. One cannot deter a suicide bomber with the threat of death. Nor can one deter a theocracy bent on meriting admission to heaven and its virgins by one glorious act of violence. Iran would probably not launch the bomb itself, anyway, but would give it to its puppet terrorists to send to Israel so it could deny responsibility. Obama, bent on appeasement, would likely not retaliate with nuclear weapons. And Israel will be dead and gone.

Those sunshine Jewish patriots who voted for Obama must realize that we, as Jews, are witnessing the possible end of Israel. We are in the same moral position as our ancestors were as they watched Hitler rise but did nothing to pressure their favorite liberal Democratic president, FDR, to take any real action to save them or even to let Jewish refugees into the country. If we remain complacent, we will have the same anguish at watching the destruction of Israel that our forebears had in witnessing the Holocaust.

Because one thing is increasingly clear: Barack Obama is not about to lift a finger to stop Iran from developing the bomb. And neither is Hillary Clinton.

Obama may have held the first White House cedar, but he's not planning to spend next year in Jerusalem.

Netanyahu: "Jerusalem will never again be partitioned and divided"

from Joshua Pundit
May 21, 2009

Today is יום ירושלים‎, Yom Yerushalayim, Jerusalem Day in Israel.

It's a national holiday commemorating the reunification of David's City by the IDF during the Six Day War.

It's odd to reflect that it only happened by chance. The Israeli government had appealed to Jordan's King Hussein, who had illegally occupied the eastern part of the city in 1948 to stay out of the fighting.

Had he done so, Jerusalem would not have been reunited on that day. Instead Hussein listened to Egypt's dictator Gamel Abdul Nasser, who told him that the Israeli Air Force had been destroyed and that Egyptian troops were marching on Tel Aviv. Not wanting to miss out on the jihad against the Jews and the anticipated plunder, Hussein treacherously sent Jordan's Arab Legion into battle - where they were decisively defeated.

The battle for Jerusalem took place on Ammunition Hill, where the Jordanians had a military base. The Israelis didn't want to bomb it because of the risk of civilian casualties, so they stormed it with ground troops belonging to the Israeli 3rd company of the 66th Battalion, paratrooper's brigade. The battle took about 4 1/2 hours over rugged terrain, and 37 Israeli soldiers were killed in the battle in one of the bloodier battles of the war. Ten of the soldiers who fought at Ammunition Hill were given citations, and the site is a national memorial today.

It's also the site where the traditional Jerusalem Day Ceremony is held.

Israeli PM Bibi Netanyahu, just back from Washington had a few things to say to mark the event:

"Jerusalem was always ours and will always be ours. It will never again be partitioned and divided," Netanyahu said at the official state ceremony marking Jerusalem Day and the reunification of the capital during the Six Day War 42 years ago.

"Only under Israeli sovereignty will united Jerusalem ensure the freedom of religion and freedom of access for the three religions to the holy places," he added.

As I mentioned yesterday, I think the rumors about Obama Administration officials promising half of Jerusalem to the Palestinians are a case of the Arabs hearing what they want to.

While President Obama might like the ideas, he's at least intelligent enough to understand that there's no way Netanyahu would agree to it, nor would the members of his coalition...or the Israeli public. it's a red line, and trying to force Israel to yield it up would pretty much be the end of any kind of harmonious relationship between the Obama administration and Israel, and end any leverage Obama might have on Netanyahu.Even Shimon Peres wouldn't acquiese to it - although Tzipi Livni probably would, in a heartbeat.

The only way Obama could get Israel to give up Jerusalem would be to use US troops to try and conquer it, and while an attempt to do that is not totally out of the realm of possibility with this president and his pro-Arab appointees, I don't see it happening.

Why are the Jews so unwilling to let the Arabs have any control over Jerusalem? Maybe because they've seen how that works in the past.

After the Jordanians took over the Eastern part of Jerusalem in 1948, they killed or drove out every Jew who lived there - which is how it became, in that phrase so beloved by al-Reuters, the AP and the BBC, 'traditionally Arab East Jerusalem'.Many of th e'Palestinians who claim they've 'lived in Jerusalem for generations' are squatters who appropriated Jewish homes after the residents were killed or exiled.

The Jordanians demolished half of the Old City's fifty-eight synagogues, and the historic Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives was plundered for its tombstones, which were used as paving stones and building materials. Some of the synogogues were turned into public latrines. The area around the Western Wall, Judaism's most sacred site, was turned into a public dump.

Since Arafat took over, the Palestinians have made a point of defiling or destroying any Jewish Holy sites that are in the areas of Judea and Samaria (AKA the West bank) that they occupy, like the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron or Joseph's tomb.

And, oh yes..that was just another of those pesky Oslo requirements Arafat agreed to and never even bothered to look like he was fulfilling.

Any other country but Israel would have driven him and his friends over the borders an ddispoosed of th eproblem once and for all. As a matter of fact, a lot of Arab countries like Jordan, Kuwait and Iraq did just that.

No, the Israelis are going to be hanging on to Jerusalem. It's theirs, no matter how much some of the thieves around them might want to steal it and desecrate it.

Selah.
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Defense Secretary Gates praises soldier in pink boxers

from Yahoo News.com
May 21, 2009
by David Morgan
Editing by Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Thursday praised an Army soldier in eastern Afghanistan who drew media attention this month after rushing to defend his post from attack while wearing pink boxer shorts and flip-flops.

In fact, Gates said he wants to meet the soldier and shake his hand the next time he visits Afghanistan.

"Any soldier who goes into battle against the Taliban in pink boxers and flip-flops has a special kind of courage," Gates said in remarks prepared for a speech in New York.

"I can only wonder about the impact on the Taliban. Just imagine seeing that: a guy in pink boxers and flip-flops has you in his cross-hairs. What an incredible innovation in psychological warfare," he said.

Army Specialist Zachary Boyd, 19, of Fort Worth, Texas, rushed from his sleeping quarters on May 11 to join fellow platoon members at a base in Afghanistan's Kunar Province after the unit came under fire from Taliban positions.

A news photographer was on hand to record the image of Boyd standing at a makeshift rampart in helmet, body armor, red T-shirt and boxers emblazoned with the message: "I love NY."

When the image wound up on the front page of the New York Times, Boyd told his parents he might lose his job if President Barack Obama saw him out of uniform.

"I can assure you that Specialist Boyd's job is very safe indeed," Gates said in the speech.

The U.S. defense chief was scheduled to deliver the speech at New York's annual Salute to Freedom dinner in Manhattan.

(Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Will Dunham)

Obama is Neville Chamberlain on steriods...

Iran tests missile with range that can hit Israel

image by rees

from Breitbart.com
May 20, 2009
By Ali Akbar Dareinia
Associated Press Writer

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran test-fired a missile capable of striking Israel, U.S. Mideast bases and Europe on Wednesday—a show of strength touted by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as he battles for re-election next month against more moderate opponents.

The U.S. responded by saying Iran must choose between destabilizing the Middle East or accepting the dialogue offered by President Barack Obama. The U.S. leader threatened earlier this week that Iran could face further international sanctions if it does not respond positively by year-end to U.S. attempts to open negotiations on its nuclear program.

Israel said the test appeared to be Iran's response to a positive meeting on Monday between Obama and new Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

U.S. officials confirmed the launch and Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said in Washington that Iran is at a crossroads and must choose its course.

"They can either continue on this path of continued destabilization in the region or they can decide that they want to pursue relationships with the counties in the region and the United States that are more normalized," said Whitman. "Our concerns are obviously based on nuclear ambitions and the implications that long- and medium-range missiles have with respect to that," he added.

Alex Vatanka, a senior Middle East analyst at Jane's Information Group, said the test "does not change the strategic equation" in the region because Iran has had the ballistic missile capability to hit Israel and much of the Middle East for more than a decade with its Shahab missiles.

It was likely intended to send a message to the Obama administration that Iran cannot be bullied into talks and also to show the country's strength in hopes that would boost Ahmadinejad's popularity among voters in the June 12 election, Vatanka said.

Iran says its missile program is merely for defense and its space program is for scientific and surveillance purposes. It maintains that its nuclear program is for civilian energy uses only.

Tehran said the solid-fuel Sajjil-2 surface-to-surface missile has a range of about 1,200 miles. It is a new version of the Sajjil missile, which the country said it successfully tested late last year and has a similar range. Many analysts said the launch of the solid-fuel Sajjil was significant because such missiles are more accurate than liquid fuel missiles of similar range, such as Iran's Shahab-3.

"Defense Minister (Mostafa Mohammad Najjar) has informed me that the Sajjil-2 missile, which has very advanced technology, was launched from Semnan and it landed precisely on the target," state radio quoted Ahmadinejad as saying. He did not name any targets for the missile when he spoke during a visit to the city of Semnan, 125 miles east of the capital Tehran, where Iran's space program is centered.

Najjar said the Sajjil-2 differs from the Sajjil missile because it "is equipped with a new navigation system as well as precise and sophisticated sensors," according to Iran's official news agency.

Two U.S. officials confirmed the missile launch, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record.

"It appears the test was a success," one official said. "It appears they launched a medium-range missile."

Moshe Arens, a former Israeli defense minister who trained in the U.S. as an aerospace engineer, said Wednesday's test was apparently part of Iran's broader quest to develop more advanced missiles and nuclear capability.

"They're increasing their abilities to launch rockets of longer and longer range that go beyond Israel and into Europe and eventually will carry nuclear weapons," he said. "They're troublemakers and you have to deal with troublemakers."

Ahmadinejad has repeatedly called for Israel's elimination, and the Jewish state has not ruled out a military strike to deal with the Iranian nuclear threat. The Israeli government has been skeptical of U.S. overtures to Iran, which have received a mixed response from Ahmadinejad.

The launch came just weeks before the vote that could influence Iran's response to the U.S. outreach. Two of the three candidates approved by Iran's constitutional watchdog to run in the June election are reformists who favor improving ties with the West.

The hard-line president has been criticized by his opponents and others for antagonizing the U.S. and mismanaging the country's faltering economy. On Wednesday, the constitutional watchdog approved three candidates to challenge Ahmadinejad, setting up a showdown between reformists and hard-liners.

Associated Press Writers Pamela Hess in Washington and Steve Weizman and Ian Deitch in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
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William Ayers & Jeremiah Wright Headline Middle East Peace Rally

Oak Park forum features 2 figures associated with President Barack Obama

By Tara Malone
from The Chicago Tribune

The day before President Barack Obama was to meet with Israel's prime minister, community activists, clergy and residents marched through Oak Park on Sunday to call for a just solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

And they were led in their efforts by a politically provocative pair from Chicago: Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. and William Ayers.

The two men shared the stage for one of the first times at First United Church of Oak Park during a forum before the annual walk.

They urged a rethinking of the Mideast conflict, a shift in perspective that's not unlike the view espoused by Obama.

When he was running for the presidency, Obama was dogged by the two figures: Wright, Obama's former pastor, with his fiery words from the pulpit of Trinity United Church of Christ, and Ayers, for his radical past as a leader in the 1960s and 1970s of the violent Weather Underground group and work with Obama on school-reform issues.

Organizers with the Committee for a Just Peace in Israel and Palestine said the two men, along with a Jewish activist and an Arab attorney, were invited for their work on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, not their political notoriety. They did, though, draw a crowd of more than 400 that filled the church.

"We can't be squelching viewpoints because they are unpopular or because someone has a reputation through Fox News," said Caren Levy Van Slyke, a spokeswoman with the group.

Wright drew parallels between Trinity's part in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa and the current campaign to bring about peace in the Mideast.

He recalled a small "free South Africa" sign that was erected outside the South Side congregation. Years later, a visiting politician who was imprisoned alongside Nelson Mandela thanked Trinity for its efforts that he and other political prisoners had heard about while in prison.

"I have faith that within your lifetime two citizens from the states of Israel and Palestine ... will be here in Oak Park saying to you, 'We heard of people in Chicago ... who did all they could to bring about a just peace,' " Wright said.

The remarks earned Wright a standing ovation and a handshake from Ayers, an education professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who spoke of the need to create a curriculum of questioning that reveals a "reality that is always messier, always more complicated."

The Israeli government has said the Palestinians -- particularly the Islamic militant group Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip -- must make more of an effort to end all attacks and show their commitment to peace.

Ayers and Wright both paused to reflect with humor.

Ayers recalled feeling "support and solidarity" with Wright when he became a lightning rod during the presidential contest. Though he blasted the guilt by association, Ayers also poked fun at the "terrorist" label assigned to him and that of a "fiery preacher" given to Wright.

Wright likened some of the controversies and figures of the anti-apartheid struggle as being "almost as toxic as Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright are in the age of Obama." tmalone@tribune.com
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Obama will be responsible for the next attack on the U.S.

from The National Review
May 19, 2009

The CIA's Methods Have Changed; Will the Results?

Tucked in the bottom of page A4 of the Washington Post, about the CIA "worrying about its future":

Another intelligence official, who also asked not to be identified, said waterboarding and other harsh techniques "were meant to get hardened terrorists to a point where they were willing to answer questions." That capability, the official said, "is now gone."

As a nation, we are placing our bet that these techniques are not necessary to get useful intelligence about al-Qaeda and the attacks it plans. If nothing happens, then the critics of these techniques will be vindicated; the proof will be in the pudding, so to speak.

But if there is another attack on American soil in the coming years, people will notice that we had no successful attacks on U.S. soil for more than seven years. And then we changed to a new administration, which changed the way our intelligence agencies operate. And then the results changed.

The public would not be unreasonable to conclude that there is a correlation there.