Step Into Their Shoes For A Moment - Let's Play Pretend

from the blog Holger Awakens

199 Missiles Fired at Israel Since Operation Cast Lead
From the Sderot Media Center:
by Jacob Shrybman

The weekly Jewish Sabbath intended for rest and rejuvenation was nothing of the sort this Friday and Saturday as more rockets and mortars struck southern Israel. One qassam and two mortars were fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel prompting the Israeli Air Force to target 5 smuggling tunnels between Egypt and the Hamas controlled territory. The Israeli Defense Forces said that this targeting of tunnels was a clear message that there would be a response to every rocket fire.

In the 105 days since the end of the 21 day Operation Cast Lead on January 18th there has been 199 missiles fired at Israeli civilians. More specifically there have been 128 qassam rockets, 66 mortar shells, and 5 grad missiles. These most recent attacks only add to the well over 10,000 missiles that have been fired at Israeli civilians since January 2001.

In a cease-fire both sides must stop all attacks. The Israelis stopped Operation Cast Lead as a favor to Barack Obama, yet they have gotten nothing in return. How much longer does Israel have to endure before they finally finish the job that they started last December?

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'US not seeking Iranian regime change' - John Kerry - a living Benedict Arnold

Saying that Obama has a foreign policy is really a stretch. Regardless, the decisions he's been making, and the comments made in the press and behind closed doors are not only dangerous for The United States and Israel, but they are borderline traitorous. Obama's reckless foreign policy will end-up being responsible for the deaths of millions of people across the Middle East.
Rees

from The Jerusalem Post
By Hilary Leila Krieger
Jerusalem Post Correspondent

The United States has stepped back from the notion of "regime change" in Iran, US Sen. John Kerry stressed Wednesday, urging that Iran also moderate its actions.

We are not in a regime change mode," said the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during a hearing on the Islamic Republic. "Just as we abandon calls for regime change in Teheran and recognize a legitimate Iranian role in the region, Iran's leaders must moderate their behavior and that of their proxies, Hizbullah and Hamas."

Kerry praised the Obama administration's focus on diplomacy with Iran, adding that "engagement alone is not a strategy and talks are not an end in themselves." The Senate committee is set to release a report on Iran and its nuclear ambitions Thursday.

Kerry also raised questions about the utility of sanctions, an option the administration has threatened to ramp up if talks fail.

"Sanctions - even coordinated, multilateral sanctions - are a blunt instrument with an imperfect track record. When it comes to Iran, the verdict on them is mixed at best," he said. "Sanctions slowed Iran's nuclear program, but they did not prevent it from acquiring the capacity to enrich uranium on an industrial scale."

Still, he described sanctions as "far more likely" to succeed that military force when that possibility was raised by witness Nicholas Burns, a top State Department official in the Bush administration tasked with the Iran portfolio.

"I don't see Iran negotiating seriously if there isn't a marriage between diplomacy and the threat of force. It's a language they understand," said Burns, who recommended that the Obama administration to reiterate the possibility that force could be used.

In response to Burns's comments, State Department Spokesman Robert Wood said later Wednesday that, "Our policy's very clear. We're pursuing diplomacy, a two-track approach with our other partners … and that's where our efforts are focused." Burns emphasized that he didn't think force should be seriously considered in the near term, and also cautioned that "I don't think it could work" if used later on.

For now, he praised the Obama approach to the issue and its focus on engagement, differing from recent comments from Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman that only three months should be allowed for diplomacy.

"My assumption is there is time," he said, though added that a timetable should be set so negotiations don't continue indefinitely.

On Tuesday, Kerry defended the Obama administration's approach on Iran in a speech before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. "When we have engaged effectively with hostile nations in the past, we did so fortified by moral authority, committed allies, and the strongest military in the world," he said. "That's exactly how we should engage Iran today - not to accept the unacceptable, but to make sure Iran never gets a nuclear bomb."
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Poll: Most Israelis would support Iran strike

from The Jerusalem Post
By HERB KEINON

A vast majority (66%) of Israelis said they would support military action if diplomatic and economic efforts failed to get Iran to stop uranium enrichment, and of that number, 75% would support this action even if the Obama administration were opposed, according to a survey jointly commissioned by Bar-Ilan University's BESA center and the ADL, published on Sunday.

Regarding the US president, most respondents have an overall favorable opinion of Barack Obama, but are skeptical about his Middle East policies; while 60 percent said they had either a "somewhat favorable" or "very favorable" opinion of Obama, and 14% said their attitude toward him was unfavorable, only 32% of the respondents said they approved of Obama's policies toward Israel, and 21% said they disapproved.

Fully 47%, however, had no answer regarding those policies, an indication that people were still forming an opinion.

Bar-Ilan University's Eytan Gilboa, a professor of international communications who directed the poll along with BESA director Efraim Inbar, said Israelis were making a distinction between Obama, whom they liked, and his policies toward the region, of which they were more skeptical.

While a 60% approval rating for Obama among Israeli Jews is high, it is still significantly below the president's popularity rating among American Jews, where tracking polls conducted through the new president's first 100 days in office showed that 79% of Jews approved of Obama's performance so far.

The BESA/ADL poll showed that Israelis were ambivalent about Obama's connection to Israel, with 38% characterizing his attitude toward Israel as "friendly" or "very friendly," 33% as "neutral," and 8% characterizing it as "unfriendly" or "very unfriendly."

Gilboa noted that throughout the survey, the younger respondents, aged 18 to 41, were more hawkish in their views than the older ones.

Gilboa said that, counterintuitively, the younger respondents had less trust in Obama and were more in favor of military action against Iran, even against US wishes.

He said this represented a degree of distrust among the youth of politicians and politics as usual, and said the attitude was consistent with the fact that Israeli youth voted more heavily for Israel Beiteinu in the last elections than their elders,

The poll, which was taken in advance of a conference on US-Israel relations to be held at Bar-Ilan University later this week, was very similar to a poll taken two years ago - albeit without reference to Obama - and the earlier poll provided a baseline for comparison.

As opposed to the 2007 poll, where 62% of the respondents said that American Jews should feel free to criticize Israel and the government's policies, and 36% said they should not, this time the numbers were reversed, with 35% saying American Jews could criticize Israel, and 52% saying they should not.

Gilboa interpreted this as an indication that Israeli Jews felt less secure about US policies than they did two years ago.

"What the public is saying is that since we don't know much about Obama, and don't trust him, US Jews must be careful about criticizing us," he said.

Among the other findings in the poll were that fully 72% of Israelis had a positive attitude of the US, up eight points from 2007, and 76% believe that the US would come to Israel's aid in a serious crisis involving a threat to Israel's existence, a figure down four percentage points from 2007.

Some 49% of the respondents said that US relations with Israel were close because of Israel's role as a strategic partner, 26% attributed the support to the political power of American Jewry, and 15% said it had to do with the democratic tradition and values shared by the two countries.

The telephone poll, carried out by Maagar Mochot, was conducted among a representative sample of 610 Jewish Israeli adults aged 18 and above. The poll had a 4.5% margin of error.
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Neutering An Ally - to death...

from Investor's Business Daily
Posted Wednesday, May 06, 2009

Middle East: The U.S. may be embracing a radical foreign-policy position fraught with danger for the whole world: the nonsensical notion that de-nuclearizing Israel will stop Iran.

According to Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass., we are no longer "in regime change mode" toward Iran.

The dirty little secret is that we never were. Years of opportunities to wage serious economic warfare against the Islamofascist regime in Tehran have been squandered.

Nor did the U.S. follow the advice outlined by Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute in his book, "The Iranian Time Bomb," and publicly aide Iran's many dissident leaders with material support like satellite phones, laptops and software to confound the regime's filtering of the Internet.

Ledeen wanted such items "distributed to the key groups: students, teachers . . . key religious leaders, both inside Iran and to their supporters outside."

Paired with pumping up the strike funds of worker organizations within Iran, such moves could have led to general strikes and mass demonstrations, possibly bringing down the mullahs' regime in the manner in which it was founded 30 years ago.

Finally, we have not taken military action against Iran's well-spread-out and fortified nuclear sites — a difficult task that isn't getting any easier with the passage of time.

Nicholas Burns, the third-ranking official in the State Department during the Bush administration, even unhelpfully told the world this week there was no "scenario where military force could actually fully stop" Iran's nuclear program.

It's in this highly troubling context that the U.S. seems to be saying, "Well, maybe if we have Israel get rid of nukes, Iran will do the same." By that thinking, World War II could have been avoided by our sinking the Pacific Fleet ourselves and saving Imperial Japan the trouble of traveling to Pearl Harbor.

An explosive report by Eli Lake in Wednesday's Washington Times suggests the Obama administration could seek linkage between Iran's nuclear ambitions and Israel's atomic arsenal and "expose and derail a 40-year-old secret U.S. agreement to shield Israel's nuclear weapons from international scrutiny," according to U.S. and Israeli officials.

On Tuesday, the administration's assistant secretary of state for verification and compliance, Rose Gottemoeller, called on Israel to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

The same Ms. Gottemoeller co-authored a paper in 2005 recommending an agreement in which Israel would move toward nuclear disarmament: Iran would abandon uranium enrichment, and other Mideast powers would scrap their chemical and biological warfare programs.

In pursuit of a "Mideast Nuclear-Free Zone" in which the world can live happily ever after, will the U.S. government now, in effect, echo the propaganda of Iranian officials — that no one should complain about Iran having nukes since Israel has them?

The open secret of Israel's nuclear deterrent has existed for more than 40 years. It has constituted a danger to no one — in fact, it has prevented full-scale conventional wars in the Middle East.

A nuclear-armed Iran, on the other hand, would mean weapons of mass destruction in the hands of jihadists who'd like to see a Tel Aviv, or a London, or a Washington, go up in a mushroom cloud.

Clearly, Israeli disarmament would only make such genocide likelier.
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No Islam = No-Show for Obama on prayer day - What a shock!

image by Rees

President to sign proclamation, observe privately

from The Washington Times
By Julia Duin (Contact)
Wednesday, May 6, 2009

President Obama is distancing himself from the National Day of Prayer by nixing a formal early morning service and not attending a large Catholic prayer breakfast the next morning.

All Mr. Obama will do for the National Day of Prayer, which is Thursday, is sign a proclamation honoring the day, which originated in 1952 when Congress set aside the first Thursday in May for the observance.

For the past eight years, President George W. Bush invited selected Christian and Jewish leaders to the White House East Room, where he typically would give a short speech and several leaders offered prayers.

Obama White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Tuesday that the president is simply reverting back to pre-Bush administration practice.

"Prayer is something the president does every day," he said. "We're doing a proclamation, which I know that many administrations in the past have done."

Pressed by reporters as to the lack of a formal ceremony, Mr. Gibbs said the proclamation was Mr. Obama's choice.

"That's the way the president will publicly observe National Prayer Day - privately, he'll pray as he does every day," Mr. Gibbs said.

Shirley Dobson, chairwoman of the National Day of Prayer Committee, said the group was "disappointed in the lack of participation by the Obama administration."

"At this time in our country's history, we would hope our president would recognize more fully the importance of prayer," said Mrs. Dobson, who occupied a prominent seat in the front row for the ceremonies during the Bush administration.
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Obama indicates support for Iranian Nuclear Weapon - All things considered, he may as well make it official

Obama should hold one of his warm and fuzzy press conferences and officially announce his support for the Iranian Nuclear Weapons Program. He might as well, because everything he's said, including what's been said by those in his administration, indicates that he will do nothing to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

Obama is now using the Iranian Nuclear Program as leverage to blackmail Israel to agree to his Middle East Peace Process. Obama is bound and determined to go down in history as THE American President that brings about the mythical "Peace in the Middle East." It's rooted in his narcissistic, always needing to be a hero mode. His narcissism will end up being his downfall. Middle East Peace is not going to happen under him or any future American President. The culture and the religions will not allow it to be.

It's unfortunate there are no adults in his administration, because it's time that one steps-forward and gives Obama a "good talking to."

Just when you think the Obama administration couldn't get anymore extreme, Obama decides to employ his attack dog Rahm on Israel and threaten them into submission. I have a feeling that Israel will remain outwardly cordial, but behind the scenes, they are going to make Obama pay dearly. I think they'll find a very clever way to embarass Obama on the national stage.
Rees

How Do You Spell Blackmail? E-M-A-N-U-E-L - He should resign immediately

He is a traitor to his religion, to Israel and to the United States of America. This guy doesn't deserve to remain at his job one more minute. I would hope that someone in a position of power raises hell about what he said.

So he thinks having a two state solution is more important that Israel surviving as a state? I'm literally stunned that he would say such a thing. He is an arrogant punk that's pretty much done and said whatever he wants. I hope it comes back to haunt him.
Rees

Emanuel: Thwarting Iran hinges on Israeli-Palestinian talks
By JPOST.COM STAFF
5-4-2009

Thwarting Iran's nuclear program is conditional on progress in peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, according to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

Israeli TV reports said Monday that Emanuel made the comments in a closed-door meeting the previous day with 300 major AIPAC donors.

Last month, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Israel that it risks losing Arab support for combating threats from Iran if it rejects peace negotiations with the Palestinians.

Clinton said Arab nations had conditioned helping Israel counter Iran on Jerusalem's commitment to the peace process.

Meanwhile, in an interview with the Jerusalem Post Sunday, former US House speaker Newt Gingrich blasted the Obama administration for setting itself on a collision course with Israel and endangering the Jewish state. He called US President Barack Obama's program of engagement on Iran a "fantasy," and his Middle East policies "very dangerous for Israel." He summed up Obama's approach as "the clearest adoption of weakness since Jimmy Carter."
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Michael Oren - Israel will not allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons

by Natasha Mozgovaya
from the San Francisco Sentinel
May 3, 2009

Israel will not allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons, Israeli media on Sunday quoted Michael Oren, who is slated to be Israel’s next ambassador to the U.S., as telling pro-Israel lobbyists.

Oren, a noted historian, was quoted as saying that Israel would not remain passive while a regime that has sworn to wipe it off the map acquired the means to do this, referring to comments made by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

He reportedly made the comments at the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in Washington.

Former Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh, meanwhile, warned the lobbyists of the dire consequences that Iran’s attainment of nuclear weapons would have on Israel and the entire Middle East.

“The terrorists across the region will raise their heads because they will have nuclear backing… it will spark a nuclear arms race in the Middle East,” Sneh told the AIPAC summit.

“Immigration to Israel will stop; parents will encourage their children to leave the country; investment in Israel will drop significantly; moderates in the Middle East will become more extreme.”

The event drew more than 6,000 participants, including politicians, students, Jewish community activists and academics. Much of the discussion at the conference was devoted to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, which Israel and the United States say are aimed at producing atomic weapons.
Sneh also touched on the much-touted possibility of an Israeli military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

“From what we know about the progress of Iran’s nuclear program, this is the deadline for a decision,” he said.

“This is an undiplomatic answer, but you need to assume that we have a [military] operational solution, and this is based on what we can do on our own, without permission and without support.”

The former lawmaker’s comments came after the French magazine L’Express reported on Saturday that the Israel Air Force recently staged military exercises between Israel and the British colony of Gibraltar near southern Spain.

The fact that the drills were held 3,800 kilometers away from Israel “confirms that the Israel Defense Forces is making concrete preparations” to attack Iran over its refusal to cooperate with the international community over its contentious nuclear program, according to L’Express.
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Will Israel Survive This? - Seven Existential Threats - Incredible detail describing the Israeli situation

This is very long and detailed. However, if you're interested in Israel and their struggle to survive the ongoing attacks by their enemies, your time will be well-spent reading this article.
Rees

from Commentary Magazine.com
by Michael B. Oren
May 3, 2009

Rarely in modern history have nations faced genuine existential threats. Wars are waged to change regimes, alter borders, acquire resources, and impose ideologies, but almost never to eliminate another state and its people. This was certainly the case during World War II, in which the Allies sought to achieve the unconditional surrender of Germany and Japan and to oust their odious leaders, but never to destroy the German and Japanese states or to annihilate their populations. In the infrequent cases in which modern states were threatened with their survival, the experience proved to be traumatic in the extreme. Military coups, popular uprisings, and civil strife are typical by-products of a state’s encounter with even a single existential threat.

The State of Israel copes not only with one but with at least seven existential threats on a daily basis. These threats are extraordinary not only for their number but also for their diversity. In addition to external military dangers from hostile regimes and organizations, the Jewish State is endangered by domestic opposition, demographic trends, and the erosion of core values. Indeed, it is difficult if not impossible to find an example of another state in the modern epic that has faced such a multiplicity and variety of concurrent existential threats.

Here are the titles of the seven existential threats discussed in the article. You can click on any of them to go directly to the article.

The Loss of Jerusalem
The Arab Demographic Threat
Delegitimization
Terrorism
A Nuclear-Armed Iran
The Hemorrhaging of Sovereignty
Corruption

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Gang on Trial For Torturing French Jew to Death -

from The New York Times
By REUTERS
Published: April 29, 2009

PARIS (Reuters) - A self-proclaimed "gang of barbarians" accused of kidnapping a young Jewish man in a Paris suburb, torturing him for 24 days and killing him went on trial Wednesday.

The death of Ilan Halimi, 23, in 2006 horrified France and came to symbolize a rise in anti-Semitic violence in its poor, multi-ethnic suburbs.

The leader of the "barbarians," Youssouf Fofana, smirked at Halimi's relatives and shouted "Allahu akbar!" ("God is Greatest!" in Arabic) at them as he entered the courtroom.

Bearded and wearing a white tracksuit, Fofana gave his identity during formal questioning by the judge as "Arabs African revolt barbarian salafist army."

The 28-year-old said he was born on February 13, 2006, in Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois, the date and place of Halimi's death.

During his time in detention, Fofana, a young French man of Ivorian origin, has bombarded the magistrates investigating the case with letters full of anti-Semitic insults.

He stands accused of kidnapping, sequestration, torture and murder. The charge sheet also includes anti-Semitism, which French law considers an "aggravating circumstance" requiring the stiffest sentences. Fofana faces life in jail.

Fofana has admitted all the charges against him except the accusation that he stabbed Halimi to death.

Among the 26 other defendants are the girl who is alleged to have been used as bait to capture Halimi and young men accused of taking part in the abduction and guarding the captive.

RANSOM

The trial is scheduled to last 2-1/2 months during which 162 witnesses and 50 experts will testify. Evidence will be given behind closed doors at the request of two of the defendants who were minors at the time of the crime.

Halimi was kidnapped on January 20, 2006, in the Paris suburb of Sceaux where he had been lured by a girl.

His kidnappers tried unsuccessfully to extort a ransom of 450,000 euros ($594,000) from his family.

They held Halimi in a cellar in another suburb, tortured him until he was close to death, and then dumped him near a train station. He died in hospital shortly after he was found.

Many in France's Jewish community say there has been a rise in anti-Semitism among disaffected youths of Arab and African origin since a Palestinian uprising started in late 2000, because of feelings of solidarity with the Palestinians.

Those feelings have mingled in the minds of some of these youths with older anti-Semitic stereotypes.

Several members of the "gang of barbarians" testified that Halimi was targeted because he was Jewish, which in their minds meant he had money and his community would pay to get him back.

After the murder, Fofana fled to Ivory Coast. From there he made death threats by telephone to Halimi's father and girlfriend. He was extradited to France on March 4, 2006.
(Writing by Estelle Shirbon, editing by Robert Woodward)
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BBC doesn’t mention Israeli heroes in pirate attack

It's unbelievable how anti-British, anti-American and anti-Israeli the BBC actually is. There's no way you can read a news article from the BBC and expect to receive an accurate accounting. It's shameful and those working for the BBC should be embarrassed.
Rees

Here's a great example from Don Surber.com:

The BBC account credited the “crew” of the Italian cruise ship, Melody, without mentioning it was really an Israeli security force that fended off a pirate attack near the coast of Somalia.

And you thought the BBC was only anti-British.

This was a pretty big deal. A private ship did not need military assistance on thwarting a pirate raid. The ship had 1,000 passengers and a crew of 500, plus and undisclosed number of security guards.

AP reported: “Domenico Pellegrino, head of the Italian cruise line, said Msc Cruises hired the Israelis because they were the best trained security agents, the ANSA news agency reported.”

The BBC report did not mention the nationality of the security team.

I wonder why?

I sent an e-mail.

The BBC report is here.

I posted the AP version (and my comments) here earlier.
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Obama Is Politically Raping Israel

Obama is intentionally trying to back Netanyahu into a corner. He's not allowing the Middle East Peace Process to be negotiated between the Israel and the Palestinians. No, he's going to embarrass Netanyahu by forcing him to accept a settlement that will make it impossible for peace to be sustained. He wants shame Netanyahu and Israel in front of the entire world when Netanyahu has to tell Obama he will not agree to the plan.

Well, it's crystal clear who's side Obama is on, and it's definitely not Israel's. Everyone should go back now and review Obama's speeches. He blatantly lied in order to keep the Jewish vote. The sad thing is how many people voted for him, all the time having a warm fuzzy feeling about how he supported Israel. He's reached the pinnacle of betrayal.

I believe Israel will survive. Israeli's have all the will and military capability needed to survive. Will it get incredibly ugly? Will a lot of people die? Yes and Yes. People might say it doesn't have to be that way, but I believe it does.

The bottom line is that there is no chance for peace in the Middle East until Iran is defeated militarily. When that happens, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia become neutered.

Israel wants peace. If all the surrounding countries didn't want to destroy Israel, the Israeli people would care less about them and just go about their business. However, until Israel's neighbors are finally subdued militarily, there will never be peace in that region.

Netanyahu in a very diplomatic, discrete manner should just tell Obama to "shove it!" Someone needs to get Obama off his political high horse. He truly believes he can solve all the world's problems, but of course they will be solved 'his way'.
Rees

Obama to ask Israel for direct peace talks based on Arab League peace plan
from the DEBKAfile
Exclusive Report
April 21, 2009

Obama and Abdullah see eye to eye
DEBKAfile's exclusive Washington sources disclose that their meeting ended with the US president accepting the extended Arab League Middle East peace plan initiated by Saudi Arabia. This confirmed the statement by his special Middle East envoy George Mitchell on his visit to Jerusalem last week that the Arab peace plan had been incorporated in the Obama Middle East peace plan based on the creation of a Palestinian state.

The new version simply spells out some of the clauses in the original, such as what the Arab governments mean by "normal relations" with Israel. The Jordanian king left with the president a document listing the deal the Arab states are ready to offer Israel for withdrawing to the pre-1967 war lines, i.e. evacuating the West Bank, Golan Heights and historic Jerusalem, and accepting the foundation of a Palestinian state.

The two leaders agreed the document would not be published before Obama presents it to Netanyahu at the White House in June. He will ask the Israeli prime minister for an immediate answer and urge him to accept the Arab peace plan as the basis for direct negotiations with the Palestinians and Syria in which the United States will be actively engaged. [if Netanyahu accepts the plan there won't be any need for negotiations. my comment]

Our sources add that the US president is seriously considering making a televised speech before Netanyahu's arrival to play up the Arab proposals on offer provided Israel is ready to make far-reaching concessions to the Palestinians and Syria.
Click to read the article

Court: Muslim cop can’t wear head scarf

By STEPHEN ZOOK

Philadelphia Daily News
zooks@phillynews.com

A Muslim woman who works as a Philadelphia Police officer Wednesday lost her court fight to be allowed to wear her head scarf while on duty.

The Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that granting Kimberlie Webb an exception to a regulation banning religious symbols while in uniform would impose an "undue hardship" on the city of Philadelphia.

Webb, a Philadelphia cop since 1995, requested permission in February 2003 to wear her head scarf while on duty. She was denied that permission, and filed complaints with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

In August 2003, Webb showed up to work wearing her head scarf. When she refused to remove it, she was sent home. This was repeated on two additional days.

"There is a history of allowing palms in police cars on Palm Sunday," said Jeffrey Pollock, Webb's lawyer. "[Washington,] D.C., New York City and Chicago all allow officers to wear religious symbols.

"Why can't the Philadelphia Police make the exception?"

In October 2005, Webb brought a lawsuit against the city, claiming religious and sex discrimination.

The court's opinion said that "uniform requirements are crucial to the safety of officers (so that the public will be able to identify officers as genuine, based on their uniform appearance)."

The appeals court also declined to consider Constitutional issues brought up by Pollock. Those issues were not raised at trial, so the court did not have to consider them, according to the opinion of the three-judge panel.

A lower court already had ruled that the city would suffer undue hardship if it were required to accommodate Webb's request.

"I respect [the judges], but I'm obviously disappointed," Pollock said.

Pollock said that no decision has been made about whether to appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.

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Obama: We Do Not Consider Ourselves A Christian Nation - Say What???

Yes, Obama really did say that.