Israel Commentary

Yoram Ettinger, “Support for Israel by the US a One Way Ticket?” Hardly.

By Jerome S. Kaufman

It was truly a revelation listening to Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, Israeli consultant on US affairs, former Israeli Consul General in Houston, Texas and former Minister for Congressional Affairs. He was the scholar in residence at Temple Beth El in West Palm Beach, Florida and thank you to the Congregation and Rabbi Leonid Feldman for hosting Ambassador Ettinger.

Ambassador Ettinger’s message was very clear. Support for Israel is not a one way ticket with the US doing all the giving and Israel all the receiving. In fact, an objective observer could well come to the opposite conclusion - most of the giving traffic goes the other way!

He began his discussion by advising us that Israel’s relationship with the US did not begin with Israel’s founding and acceptance by the United Nations in 1948 nor did it begin with empathy for the Jews because of the horrors of the Holocaust. In fact, the earliest settlers to this country in the 17th century considered calling the land Canaan, thus commemorating the Hebrews entering the land of Canaan from the desert after their escape from Egyptian slavery. These settlers felt an affinity with the Hebrews because they themselves had escaped from various forms of political and religious slavery in Europe.

Our American founding fathers in 1776 were also well aware of the Jews, their 3000 year biblical history and their unparalleled contribution to Western civilization. The Hebrew leader, Moses’ statue, with his 10 commandment tablets, is found in prominent buildings all over Washington, DC. Moses presides in the central position looking down upon the Justices of the Supreme Court seeing to it that they administer proper justice. In the House of Representatives, Moses is the largest of 23 statues and the only one looking directly down upon the Speaker of the House.

Biblical Israel pervades the entire landscape of this country. There are more cities, bridges, rivers given Hebrew biblical names here than there are in the State of Israel! So-called leaders come and go but the basic fabric and understanding of Israel and its biblical origins always pervades the beliefs and value system of this country. This is the basis for the special US Israel relationship not some trumped up domestic issue of Israeli housing. Is it not bizarre and counterproductive for Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden to be concerned with 1600 Israeli housing units when their attention should rather be completely directed to Iran’s nuclear war heads, Russian and Chinese attempts at greater world dominance and our huge budget deficit due greatly to dependence upon Arab oil?

Ambassador Ettinger then related how the late General Alexander Haig, former Secretary of State and Commander in Chief of the armed forces, replied when asked why he has always been such a passionate supporter of Israel? He replied, because he is an American patriot and Israel to him is like a huge American aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean, guarding the entire Middle East and protecting American interests. And, for that priceless service, not one American boy or girl nor billions upon billions of our dollars are being used for this huge contribution.

The Ambassador then ticked off some of the many recent, very tangible contributions Israel has made to the well being of the US and the immediate world:

The very establishment of Israel in 1948 was a huge victory for the United States. Israel has become a pillar of democracy and an agent that could elevate the downtrodden of the Arab countries just as the downtrodden of Europe were finally elevated as they passed beneath the benign arms of the Statue of Liberty.

The Israeli story book victory in the Six Day War of June 1967 was also a huge victory for the United States of America. The Israelis, with American arms, demonstrated their eye-opening superiority over the weaponry lavishly given by the Russians to the Arabs in its attempt at expansionism into the Mediterranean and Persian Gulf. From that point forward, Russia has been virtually gone from the scene as a threat to the US. Of course, now with the inane international policies of the current administration weakening American power, who knows what will happen? Our enemies have been rejuvenated.

In 1970, Syria attempted to obtain its life-long dream of a “Greater Syria” which they consider not only their current area but the countries of Jordan, Lebanon and Israel. Syria understood the weakness of the Hashemite kingdom and sent a force of Syrian tanks directly into Jordan, believing the US, mired in Viet Nam, Cambodia, Laos, would not be able to defend its ally. President Richard Nixon made a quick call to PM Golda Meir and asked her to please interfere with the Syrian onslaught. Israel responded immediately, sent their own forces to intercept the Syrians. The Syrians saw the Israelis, remembered their experience in 1967 and within 24 hours quickly turned back, burying their grandiose dreams - at least for that moment.

Richard Nixon, an American patriot, came to understand Israel as a staunch and irreplaceable ally. Predictably, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon again attacked Israel on the Jew’s holiest day of Yom Kippur 1973. The Israelis were caught by surprise and under-armed. The call went the other way this time and Richard Nixon responded, re-arming the Israelis with waves of transport planes carrying vital munitions and insuring victory once again.

In 1981, Israel, ignoring the pusillanimity of the world, took out the just constructed Iraqi missile site in Osirak and was roundly condemned by the US and its supposed friends for its spectacular courageous efforts. It was not until 1991, when Iraq under Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and was in the process of taking over all the Middle East oil that the Americans went to war against an Iraq without a nuclear weapon, thanks to Israel. Dick Chaney, Secretary of State, publicly thanked Israel for having taken out the nuclear reactor 10 years previously, directly saving thousands, if not millions of American lives.

The Ambassador continued with several other vital contributions however, most important, let us not forget the deeply intertwined relationship between the American and Israeli military. Israel has been at war since its very existence and has had to develop cutting edge capability in aircraft, tank warfare, missile defense, counter terrorism, etc. The United States has been made the direct beneficiary of all this hard-earned expertise, again saving the US thousands of lives, millions of dollars and years of delay in developing this knowledge themselves.

No, this is not the one way ticket ignorant Jew haters, like to present. This is a two way ticket; it is not about 1600 apartment units. It is not about very dubious leadership. It is about two long time friends, fellow democracies with mutual admiration, respect and goals, trying to keep the world safe for democracy and individual freedom. And ... it is not easy, especially when supposed leaders and friends have no idea the consequences of their disastrous policies.

Jerome S. Kaufman

Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich: “Economic Recovery Is a Government 'Sham'”

(And, so, of course is the hurry up and pass Health Plan before people know what it really says) jsk

Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich says the recovery is a sham. “Part of the perceived growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is due to rising government expenditures,” he says. “But, this is smoke and mirrors.”

“The stimulus is reaching its peak and will be smaller in months to come,” Reich recently wrote in The Huffington Post. Moreover, a bigger federal debt eventually has to be repaid. In addition, even though the U.S. economy grew at a 5.9 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter of 2009, those GDP figures are badly distorted by structural changes in the economy.

For example, part of the increase is due to rising healthcare costs. When Well-Point ratchets up premiums, that enlarges the GDP. But, you can’t consider this evidence of a recovery. Big global companies, Wall Street and high-income Americans who hold their savings in financial instruments are clearly doing better, Reich notes. As to the rest of us small businesses along Main Streets, and middle and lower-income Americans - forget it, he says.

Business cheerleaders naturally want to emphasize the positive, Reich points out, because they assume the economy runs on optimism and that if average consumers think the economy is getting better, they'll empty their wallets more readily and the economy will expand faster. The cheerleaders fail to understand that regardless of how people feel, they won't spend if they don't have the money, Reich says.

Analysts at Wells Fargo expect that the economy's growth rate will likely slow from above 3 percent in the current quarter to less than 2 percent by the middle of the year. "Going forward, growth is going to be much more dependent on the private sector," senior analyst Mark Vitner told the Associated Press. "And consumer demand hasn't picked up that much yet."

© Moneynews. All rights reserved.

The Biden/Clinton/Obama Myth of a “Divided,” “Occupied,” or “Arab East Jerusalem”

Redacted from:

I The 'Two Jerusalems" Myth By Eli Hertz
II Letter of Correction to Fox News By Ed Kohl

March 17, 2010

Palestinians have nurtured a myth that historically there were two Jerusalem’s - an Arab 'East Jerusalem' and a Jewish 'West Jerusalem.' However, Jerusalem was never an Arab city; Jews have held a majority in Jerusalem since 1870, and 'east-west' is a geographic, not political designation. It is no different than claiming the Eastern shore of Maryland should be a separate political entity from the rest of the state.

In 1880, Jews constituted 52 percent of the Old City population in East Jerusalem and inhabited 42 percent of the Old City in 1914. In 1948, there were 100,000 Jews in Jerusalem, with 65,000 Arabs. A joint Jordanian-Israeli census reported that 67.7 percent of the city's population in 1961 was Jewish. A 1967 aerial photo reveals the truth about the area called 'East Jerusalem': it was no more than an overcrowded walled city with a few scattered neighborhoods surrounded by villages.

(The true history of modern day Jerusalem is that in 1967 Israel regained the city from Jordan that had, with the help of Syria, Iraq, Egypt and Lebanon conquered it along with all of Judea and Samaria (West Bank), Gaza and the Golan Heights after attacking Israel in 1948 attempting to eliminate the new state at its birth. These nations thus became the true “occupiers” not Israel since all these lands were to have been part of the original League of Nations/British Mandate that was to become the Jewish Homeland, in the first place. After these territories return to Jerusalem in June 1967, the Israelis re-united the Jerusalem that the Jordanians had split in 1/2 under the terms of the 1948 armistice.) Jsk

Israel then rapidly transformed all of Jerusalem into the largest city in Israel and a bustling metropolis. Even moderate Palestinian leaders reject the idea of a united city. Their minimal demand for 'just East Jerusalem' really means the Jewish holy sites (including the Jewish Quarter and the Western Wall), which Arabs have failed to protect, and the return of neighborhoods that house a significant percentage of Jerusalem's present-day Jewish population. Most of that city is built on rock-strewn empty land around the city that was in the public domain for the past 42 years. With an overall population of nearly 750,000 today, separating East Jerusalem and West Jerusalem is as viable and acceptable as the notion of splitting Berlin into two cities again, or separating East Harlem from the rest of Manhattan.

(Any Arab re-occupation would herald the death knoll of Israel itself, which, of course, has always been and remains the only real Arab goal) jsk

Arab claims to Jerusalem, a Jewish city by all definitions, reflect the what's-mine-is-mine, what's-yours-is-mine mentality underlying Palestinian concepts of how to end the Arab-Israeli conflict. That concept is also expressed in their demand for the ‘Right of Return' of hundreds of thousands - three generations of Arabs – most of whom have never even seen Israel. They are to return not just in Jerusalem - Israel's capital, but 'inside the Green Line' as well.

II Correction Letter to Fox News
By Ed Kohl

Your running news along the bottom of the TV screen reports that Israel plans to build 1,600 housing units in "disputed East Jerusalem.” "Disputed East Jerusalem" is a factual distortion and a glaring error that must be corrected. The whole of Jerusalem is the capital of the State of Israel and no part of the unified city is “occupied.” Israeli law does not recognize a distinction between the two sections of the city.

In a letter from President George Bush to Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek, (March 20, 1990), Bush wrote, “The basis of our position remains that Jerusalem must never again be a divided city. We did not approve of the status quo before 1967; in no way do we advocate a return to it now.”
In 1990, Congress passed a resolution declaring, “Jerusalem is and should remain the capital of the State of Israel" and "must remain an undivided city in which the rights of every ethnic and religious group are protected." During the 1992 Presidential campaign, Bill Clinton said: "I recognize Jerusalem as an undivided city, the eternal capital of Israel, and I believe in the principle of moving our embassy to Jerusalem."

Congress overwhelmingly passed Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995. This landmark bill declared that, as a statement of official U.S. policy, Jerusalem should be recognized as the undivided, eternal capital of Israel. Jews have been living in Jerusalem continuously for nearly two millennia. They have constituted the largest single group of inhabitants there since the 1840's. Jerusalem contains the Western Wall, the holiest site in Judaism. Jerusalem was never the capital of any Arab entity. In fact, it was a backwater for most of Arab history. Jerusalem never served as a provincial capital under Muslim rule nor was it ever a Muslim cultural center. For Jews, the entire city is sacred, but Muslims revere a site — the Dome of the Rock — not the city. "To a Muslim," observed British writer Christopher Sykes, "there is a profound difference between Jerusalem and Mecca or Medina. The latter are holy places containing holy sites." Besides the Dome of the Rock, he noted, Jerusalem has no major Islamic significance.

“For three thousand years, Jerusalem has been the center of Jewish hope and longing. No other city has played such a dominant role in the history, culture, religion and consciousness of a people, as has Jerusalem in the life of Jewry and Judaism. Throughout centuries of exile, Jerusalem remained alive in the hearts of Jews everywhere as the focal point of Jewish history, the symbol of ancient glory, spiritual fulfillment and modern renewal. This heart and soul of the Jewish people engenders the thought that if you want one simple word to symbolize all of Jewish history, that word would be 'Jerusalem.”
Former long term Mayor Teddy Kollek.

Never mind vacationing in Europe. How about your next trip to beautiful Brazil?

From Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs (MFA)

March 15, 2010

Brazil has given its final approval for a free trade agreement between Israel and the Mercosur trade block of South American countries. Members of the block are now Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay It is the largest economic trade block in South America.

Israel is the first country outside South America to sign a free trade agreement with the regional bloc whose members produce over $3 trillion in GDP and have a combined population of over 270 million.

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was pleased to announce today to President Peres that Brazil has given its final approval for a free trade agreement between Israel and the Mercosur bloc. Israel is the first country outside South America to sign a free trade agreement with the bloc. President Peres and President Lula opened an economic conference together in front of hundreds of Israeli and Brazilian business leaders. The Israeli Minister of Industry, Trade, and Labor Mr. Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, the Israeli President of the Manufacturers Association Mr. Sharga Brosh, the Brazilian President of the Sao Paulo Industrialist Association (FIESP) Mr. Paulo Skaf, and the Brazilian Minister of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade Mr. Miguel Jorge, joined the presidents.

President Peres spoke first, thanking President Lula personally for working towards the free trade agreement between Israel and Mercosur: “Although Israel and Brazil may be distant from each other geographically, we can grow close through economic and scientific cooperation. Brazil has a strong and stable economy and we are willing and happy to cooperate with you in every sector including science, defense, high-tech, agriculture and advanced space technologies.

The President of the Sao Paulo Industrialist Association said, “President Peres’ visit to Brazil gave a big push forward to the economic relations between Israeli and Brazil. A joint work group was established between Israel and Brazil to advance and implement the Mercosur agreement. Both countries have declared their intention to triple their current level of trade.”

President Lula stated “this is an important visit for me and for the economic delegation traveling with me to Israel. We hope to advance economic and business ties between Israel and Brazil as trade has increased significantly between our two countries in the past few years. We can continue with the current momentum. I am launching a new investment plan in Brazil soon and I invite Israeli companies to take an active and significant part. Israel is known for its strong capabilities in technology and science. Thus, we encourage intensive cooperation with Israel.”

It should be noted that both chambers of Brazil’s Congress ratified a free trade agreement between Israel and the Mercosur Common Market last fall because of President Peres’ visit to Brazil. The agreement was given final approval right before President Lula’s current visit to Israel. Its passage reflects in large parts the efforts of President Lula. When it comes to affect in April, the agreement is expected to rapidly increase the level of commerce between the two countries.

Although both chambers of Brazil’s Congress ratified the agreement, it still required Paraguay’s approval. Paraguay approved the agreement on February 24th and Brazil gave its final approval on March 4th in before the upcoming visit. The agreement takes 30 days to take effect. Brazil is Israel’s largest trade partner in Latin America, with the approval of the agreement trade is expected to increase by the billions of dollars, especially in the sectors of agriculture, education, science, medicine, space, and will reinforce the mutual investments by both countries.

Background:

Brazil is the world’s fifth largest country (8.5 million km2) and possesses its ninth largest economy ($2 trillion—larger than India, Russia, or South Korea). It has a population of 200 million people with a growth rate of 1.2% and an average GDP/per capita of $10,000. Israel currently runs a trade surplus with Brazil. In the year, 2008 trade between the two countries totaled $1.6 billion, out of which $1.2 billion represented exports from Israel. One fourth of Israeli exports were chemicals and fertilizers used in Brazilian agriculture.

Mercosur (Mercadu Comun del Sur) is a common market established between four countries—Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay. The Mercosur bloc produces over $3 trillion in GDP and has a combined population of over 270 million people. The bloc was launched in Asuncion in 1991 and has played an important role in political integration across the continent. Between the countries in the agreement, there exists free trade. Venezuela, Colombia, Chile and Ecuador are each in a different phase of integration into the agreement. Venezuela is on the path to full admittance.

Do you know to what specific causes your Jewish (or other) charitable donations actually go?

By STEVEN PLAUT

THE JEWISH PRESS, February 19, 2010

Israel’s Im Tirtzu student organization bills itself as the “Second Zionist Revolution.” Until a few weeks ago, that sounded like youthful bravado. But, the group has raised eyebrows — and hackles — with its unprecedented grand slam in the Israeli media against the New Israel Fund (NIF). Led by Hebrew University graduate student Ronen Shoval, Im Tirtzu has emerged as the leading campus organization among Israeli students. It is solidly Zionist and nationalist; and has both secular and religious members.

Im Tirtzu had been making headlines even before the controversy surrounding NIF. It earlier collected complaints from students at several schools, especially Tel Aviv University, concerning harassments of Zionist students by anti-Israel faculty radicals. Many students claim they are penalized, by leftist faculty members, if they dare challenge the classroom biases imposed on them. In response to Im Tirtzu’s complaints, the administration of Tel Aviv University launched an investigation into those abuses and the matter was also raised for debate in the Knesset.

The New Israel Fund is a left-of-center outfit funded in part by American Jews but mainly by the Ford Foundation and some groups in the European Union. Critics of NIF sometimes claim the “New Israel” the NIF seeks to fund is really Palestine! Some of what NIF funds is harmless, or even beneficial, like shelters for battered women. But the bulk of its funding goes to leftist political activism inside Israel.

The current media frenzy began when Tm Tirtzu released a 120-page report on the activities supported by the New Israel Fund. As Im Tirtzu’s Shoval told me: “Supposedly, in the name of freedom of speech, the New Israel Fund has financed a massive campaign of defamation against Israel and its soldiers, but then has demanded that Im Tirtzu be silenced. Inventing imaginary war crimes by Israel is NIF’s idea of progressive democracy, but criticism of NIF by students is incitement and must be suppressed.

The new controversy was triggered by the UN’s Goldstone report, which denounced Israel for war crimes and human rights abuses supposedly committed by Israeli soldiers during Operation Cast Lead while glossing over the thousands of rocket attacks that had made military action necessary in the first placc. The fairy tales of Israeli “human rights abuses” and “war crimes” by Goldstone were taken not from the usual anti-Israel propaganda websites and media outlets but were provided to the Goldstone “investigators” by numerous radical Israeli propaganda groups.

The funding of these extremist groups has long been the focus of the NGO Monitor watchdog group, headed by Bar-Ilan University professor Gerald Steinberg. His website exposes non-governmental organizations that pretend to be human-rights or peace organizations but are in fact nothing more than Bash-Israel hate groups. They invariably get the bulk of their funding from outside Israel, often from sources hostile to Israel.

The Im Tirtzu students gathered data from NGO Monitor and other sources and issued their devastating report (which includes 60 pages of tables). According to it, 92 percent of the anti-Israel smears in the Goldstone report came directly from organizations financed by the New Israel Fund. Within days, the Israeli daily Maariv carried the story of the Tm Tirtzu report on its front page, with several news and opinion pieces congratulating the students for their work and denouncing the New Israel Fund.

The Maariv story was followed up, by the rest of the Israeli’s mainstream media. Only Haaretz, the daily described by some wags as the Palestinian newspaper published in Hebrew, denounced the students as “inciters” and “right-wing extremists” and launched a shameless campaign of vilification and defamation against them.

The Knesset announced it would hold hearings into Im Tirtzu’s findings. Within days, public statements endorsing the student report and denouncing the New Israel Fund were being published, notably one by a group of Israeli army generals. Meanwhile, Im Tirtzu students escalated their criticism of the current president of the New Israel Fund, former Meretz MK Naomi Chazan. They mischievously issued a poster advertisement with a cartoon showing Chazan with a rhino horn coming out of her forehead.

It was all a play on words: “new fund” in Hebrew is exactly the same expression as “new horn.” So the poster shows Chazan wearing her “new fund” as a rhino horn on her forehead. The cartoon also played on the Israeli slang expression, l’hitkarnef, literally “to become a rhinoceros,” a popular term referring to “selling out.” Chazan and her leftist legions were not amused.

She and NIF decided to bully the students by threatening to sue. They also instituted a lawsuit against the Jerusalem Post for running the Im Tirtzu ad. The Jerusalem Post responded by sacking Chazan, who had been a Post columnist. A “progressive” group of Jews in Australia, hearing about Chazan’s behavior, decided to withdraw an offer to host her for a speaking tour.

Leftist groups, led by the anti-Israel Human Rights Watch, repeated their familiar take on democracy: Israelis denouncing and demoralizing Israel are building peace and progress, but people denouncing leftists threaten democracy itself. A few dozen far-left academics, joined by some others, placed large ads in newspapers denouncing Im Tirtzu and endorsing the agenda of the New Israel Fund.

Leftist professors filled the chat lists with messages insisting Im Tirtzu was a clear and present danger to democracy and freedom of speech in Israel. Several tenured leftists insisted that Im Tirtzu’s exercise of freedom of speech would lead directly to political murder, repeating the old calumny about how right-wingers exercising their freedom of speech caused the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. Others, led by Haaretz writers, argued that the rhino horn in the Chazan cartoon was anti-Semitic.

That so many of Israel’s leftists have stooped to such nonsense shows only one thing: They are in a high state of panic over the appearance of possibly the most important (and proud) authentically Zionist grassroots movement in Israel in decades.

Steven Plaut is a professor at Haifa University. His book “The Scout” is available at Amazon.com. He can be contacted at steveneplaut@yahoo.com.

A terrifying litany of nation-destroying policy

By JEFFREY T.KUHNER

The Washington Times, February 15, 2010

Civilizations die from suicide, not murder,” said the great historian Arnold Toynbee. Under President Obama, America is losing its superpower status. It is in decline, slowly being transformed into a second-tier nation. America’s collapse has been sudden and stunning — soaring deficits, economic stagnation, appeasement of radical Islam and revolutionary socialism. Mr. Obama’s policies are undermining U.S. pre-eminence on the world stage.

Once the world’s largest creditor, we have become the greatest debtor nation. Two weeks ago, Mr. Obama unveiled his fiscal 2011 budget. The $3.8 trillion in federal outlays is the highest ever. The budget deficit will be a record $1.6 trillion. The administration brags about the need to make “tough choices?’ But, the budget dramatically augments spending on pet Democratic projects. Mr. Obama wants $25 billion in new spending for Medicaid, $100 billion for a so-called “jobs program’ huge boosts in expenditures for low-income family programs, education and health research. In total, Mr. Obama’s proposals represent a nearly 30 percent increase in federal spending since 2008.

His reckless agenda of big government~ big deficits and big spending are driving America toward national bankruptcy From 2009 to 2011, Mr. Obama will have added $3.7 trillion to the national debt. He will have accumulated more debt in three years than in the first 225 years of our nation’s history. This is the road to fiscal suicide. Mr. Obama seeks to implement huge spending programs and runaway deficits to achieve one fundamental goal: permanent, massive tax increases that will empower the ruling liberal elite to exert greater control over the private sector.

Mr. Obama is demanding $2 trillion in tax increases over the next decade. His soak-the-rich class-warfare strategy will strangle economic growth, curb capital formation and cripple job creation. Unemployment~~ remains at 10 percent — and likely will rise over the next several years. Mr. Obama believes he is finishing the liberal project begun by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Contrary to popular myth, however, FDR was one of the most destructive US leaders in the 20th century. His New Deal failed to restore economic recovery and prolonged the Great Depression.

FDR often railed against “economic royalists” and “the forces of selfishness,” blaming them for the country’s misery. His war on business and bankers may have struck a populist chord, but it did nothing to reverse high unemployment or kick-start industrial productivity. In fact, it badly damaged economic confidence, hampering much-needed investment and entrepreneurship.

Moreover, FDR was a liberal internationalist in foreign policy. Diplomatic multilateralism trumped America’s national interests. He slashed military spending for most of the 1930s. He championed the appeasement of Nazi Germany. He deliberately did nothing to save the Jews during the Holocaust — for example, refusing to order Allied bombing of Nazi railroad lines carrying Jews to the death camps. At Yalta, he sold out Eastern Europe to Soviet domination.

FDR’s policies contributed to the outbreak of World War II, the 50 million deaths it caused and the enslavement of Christian Eastern European nations by communism. Rather than being a great defender of freedom, he was its very opposite: a globalist progressive who wrecked capitalism at home and emboldened America’s totalitarian enemies abroad.

Many of FDR’s disastrous mistakes are being repeated by Mr. Obama. His crushing tax increases and Keynesian deficit spending threaten America’s long-term prosperity. His drive for a bloated public sector and expensive new entitlement programs are draining the private sector, subordinating the market to a bureaucratic, corporatist state.

His decision to grant the Underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, Miranda rights, as well as give the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a trial in civilian court reflects a lack of will in defeating Islamist terrorism. Mr. Obama’s appeasement of the apocalyptic mullahs in Iran is enabling them to acquire the nuclear bomb, potentially triggering an all-out Middle East war. He has betrayed Eastern Europe by scrapping the promised missile-defense shield, abandoning the region to Russia’s sphere of influence.

He also is undermining America’s military strength. He has reduced our nuclear arsenal. His attempt at nation building in Afghanistan is another Vietnam. The troop surge without a clear strategy for victory bogs down the U.S. in a protracted guerrilla campaign, expending precious blood and treasure. Mr. Obama’s push to have homosexuals openly serve in the military will fracture unit cohesion, decimate troop morale and erode discipline. It is the worst thing a president could do in the middle of two wars.

Nature abhors a vacuum. The West’s decline is being replaced by the dynamic capitalist economies of the East. Wealth is being transferred to Asia — and with it, growing might. The United States’ chief rival, China, remains embarked on an unprecedented military buildup. Beijing is simultaneously flexing its muscles while buying up much of our national debt. America was to imperial Britain a century ago what China is to us today: a rising regional colossus determined to achieve global hegemony.

Mr. Obama’s policies have led to the loss of US power and prestige. They have left us weaker — economically, politically and militarily. His presidency is America’s attempt at suicide.

Jeffrey T. Kuhner is a columnist at The Washington Times and president of the Edmund Burke Institute, a Washington think tank

Go West!

www.gowest2010.com

By Jerome S. Kaufman

Just a few days ago, I had the great privilege of listening to an American patriot. He reminded me of Jack Kennedy – bright, personable, easy and an eloquent speaker. No teleprompter, no notes, no microphone and yet he kept an audience of near 200 spell-bound for an hour and a half. His name is Lt. Colonel (retired) Allen West. He is the Republican candidate for Congressman in the 22nd District of Florida. Moreover, even if you do not vote in the Florida election, please read what Lt. Colonel West has to say on his web page listed above and support candidates in your own districts that believe as he does.

He spoke before a non-partisan political group called Act! For America, Palm Beach County, Florida Chapter. Lt. Col West, like the current president is black. However, there, the similarity ends. He also speaks of the “dreams of his father” but his father was a little different. His father was born in Ozark, Alabama and his mother in Camilla, GA. His grandfather and father both served in the US military.

His parents’ primary ambition was that he become an officer in the US Army. Lt. Col. West fulfilled their ambition when he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the US Army, July 1, 1982. This American family tradition continues with Lt. Col. West’s son now serving as a Captain in the US Artillery corps. His father died at age 86 and his mother at 94. They are buried side by side in an Atlanta, GA cemetery.

The father also taught Lt. Col West free market economics – make your own living, do a competitive job to earn your keep and become a victor rather than a victim dependent upon the largess of the government. Don’t look for bail-outs. He also never heard the word, “entitlement” but rather the emphasis was always on achievement. Lt Col was educated within a strict Catholic school system, went on to graduate from the University of Tennessee and obtained a Master’s degree in political science from Kansas State University. He regularly attended a Methodist Church, experienced many different ministers but never recalls any of them damning the United States of America.
Lt. Col West is also proud to speak of this country as founded on Judeo-Christian principles, well documented in the works of our founding fathers. He has no animosity to any other religion and has no problem with its practice in the United States as long as it obeys the Constitution of the United States, the Federal Papers and the other basic instruments upon which this country was founded.

Lt. Col. West spoke of the abject failure of the current political leadership and listed the obvious reasons this country is losing in the International arena and in our war against Islamic terrorism. He never confused or obfuscated the identity of our enemy with the politically correct but fraudulent term, “War on Terrorism.”He stated our leadership has failed and we are losing when:

· The present administration wants to shut down the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, grant Miranda rights and the civilian courts to foreign enemies that have no right to those privileges.

· Prosecutes CIA officers for using interrogation techniques disfavored by the American Civil Liberties Union

· Approaches the war on Islamic terrorism and supremacism as a legalistic exercise distorting its primary goal - our destruction.

· Surrounds the Presidency with people like Rahm Emmanuel who “ never let a crisis go to waste (especially one he has created himself, in this administration’s race to dismantle the American free enterprise system and turn us into a socialist state)

· Has the US government virtually take over the auto industry, the banking industry and attempt to take over the entire energy industry if they are able to pass so-called Cap and Trade.

· Turn the entire health care system over to the government and in one fatal blow assume control of 1/6 of the American economy.

· Appoint 110 additional government agencies and 30 plus Obama “Czars” thus by-passing the elected representatives of the American people.

· Fails to recognize Islamic terrorism as our mortal enemy and allow Islam to impregnate our entire culture, our school system and even the way we do banking.

· Allows the construction of gigantic, deliberately intimidating Islamic mosques financed by Saudi Arabia all over the United States while the Saudis allow not one church or synagogue or any form of worship or presence other than their own fanatical Islamic Wahhabism.·

Through taxes, dramatically increase the entitlement class vs. those that actually produce, adopting socialism as the government modus operendi, at least until, as PM Margaret Thatcher stated, “ You run out of other people’s money.”

It was a fantastic speech by a fantastic guy – hard hitting, direct and motivated in the best interests of the United States of America. Lt. Col. West ended his presentation by warning us that the 2010 election is crucial. If we continue with Barack Obama, Rahm Emanuel, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Chas. Schumer, the Obama Czars in power and hundreds of other dedicated appointed lackeys in place, there will be nothing left to save by the time 2012 comes along. So, please get out to campaign, vote and donate to people in your own areas like Lt. Col. West, right this moment, before it is too late

Jerome S. Kaufman

Also, if you are a Palm Beach County resident, please send me your snail mail address and I will return a petition for you to sign and mail in making sure Lt. Col. West is included on the Republican Primary Ballot.

Send address to: israelcommentary@comcast.net

The Homegrown Terrorist Threat

Redacted from an article By James Kirchick

COMMENTARY February 2010

IF 2001 WAS the year when international terrorism hit American soil, then 2009 was the year when Americans became the targets of domestic terrorism. In November, Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan, born in Virginia to Palestinian Muslim parents, killed 13 and wounded 30 in his one-man attack on fellow soldiers at Fort Hood in Texas. The massacre, which Senator Joseph Lieberman properly labeled “the most destructive terrorist act to be committed on American soil since 9/11,” capped a year of terrorist plots or conspiracies inside the United States, most of which were stopped by law enforcement in their planning stages. The notable fact about all these cases is that they are examples of so-called homegrown terrorism—meaning that, they were planned by individuals either born or raised in the United States and executed, without significant assistance, from overseas networks.

In October, the American-born David Coleman Headley, who had changed his name from Daood Sayed Gilani to disguise his half-Pakistani origins, was arrested for planning an attack on the Danish newspaper that published cartoons depicting Muhammad in 2006 and for providing assistance to the Pakistan-based terrorist group that carried out the 2008 Mumbai attacks in which 170 were killed.

Two days after Headley was charged. Pakistani authorities arrested five Muslim men born and raised in and around Washington. D.C. for planning to take up arms against coalition forces in Afghanistan. The Washington Five were all college students - “fun-loving, career-focused children that had a bright future for themselves,” in the words of a youth coordinator who knew them?

On June 1. 2009, a 23-year-old Army recruiter in Little Rock was shot and killed by an African-American convert to Islam who, upon his arrest, began complaining about American involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq. A week before that, the Joint Terrorism Task Force, which coordinates some 40 local and federal law-enforcement agencies, arrested four men for attempting to shoot down military planes based at a National Guard base in Newburgh, New York, and detonate bombs at two synagogues in the Bronx.

Of the 30-odd attempted terrorist plots against the United States or American installations abroad that have been foiled since 9/11, roughly a third have uncovered in the past year alone. What is new, particularly frightening, about these recent attacks is that the budding perpetrators were initially indoctrinated inside the United States, with help from extremist websites or Islamic preachers. It was only after had been brought some ways along the road to holy war, that at least some of these would-be jihadists sought training and logistical support from al-Qaeda and others overseas.

... ULTIMATELY, there is little more that the United States can do to prevent homegrown terrorism, other than maintain the counter-terrorism policies enacted by the Bush administration in the aftermath of 911, policies that proved so successful in preventing another terrorist attack on American soil. Given the rhetoric and actions of the present administration, which wants to shut down the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, prosecute CIA officers for using interrogation techniques disfavored by the American Civil Liberties Union, and generally approach the war on Islamic supremacism as a legalistic exercise, it is hardly certain that such a course will be followed. But, the least we can ask of our nation’s political and intellectual elite is that they stop wailing about the phantom menace of “right-wing” terrorism and start paving more attention to the genuine article.

(Incidentally, how about we stop obfuscating the source of the terrorism by referring to it as some vague, politically correct nonsense called, “War on Terrorism”? Virtually 100% of the time, it has been a war against Islamic terrorism. If this honest terminology is finally accepted perhaps our huge but stifled investigative agencies can function properly) jsk

JAMES KIRCHICK is an assistant editor of the New Republic and online columnist for the New York Daily News.

An Intelligence Agency Misused Passports: Oh My Gosh!

By Alan M. Dershowitz

March 2, 2010 2:38 PM

The complaints leveled against Israel by European countries and Australia, regarding the alleged misuse of passports by the Mossad in the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, ring hollow and smack of blatant hypocrisy. Whoever did kill Mahmoud al-Mabhouh—whether it was the Israeli Mossad or someone else—clearly did have their agents use stolen or forged passports. Big deal.

Every good intelligence agency uses stolen and forged passports. The British have been especially adept at this means of spycraft. No country that uses fake passports in their intelligence operations has the moral authority to complain about the alleged misuse of passports in this case. The only ones that have a legitimate grievance are those individuals whose passports may have been misused without their knowledge.

I guess it’s the job of foreign ministries to complain publicly when other nations do what they themselves do secretly. Hypocrisy is, after all, the homage that vice pays to virtue. I’m reminded of the famous scene in Casablanca, when officer Renault declares, “I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!” A croupier then approaches Renault, and hands him a roll of currency: “Your winnings, sir.” The hypocrisy in this case seems even more blatant than usual. Is it because Israel is the alleged offender, and the world has gotten accustomed to singling out Israel for double standard condemnation?

Shortly after the terrorist attacks in Bali, which killed a large number of Australian tourists, I had the opportunity to meet with the Australian Prime Minister. I was writing a book at the time on pre-emption, and I asked him whether he would have authorized a preemptive attack on the terrorist who killed Australian citizens, if such an attack would have saved their lives. His response was that Australia would have done anything it could, to prevent these terrorist attacks. Anything, I guess, except misusing passports? Is there anybody who believes that Australia would not have used forged or stolen passports to prevent the Bali massacres?

If Great Britain could have stopped the London subway attack by misusing passports, would M6 have allowed the terrorism to go forward in the name of preserving passport integrity? Of course not! The same is true of Spain with regard to the Madrid bombing and to every other country in the world that seeks to prevent terrorism. Well, if the Mossad did in fact kill al-Mabhouh, they too did it to prevent the killing of their innocent civilians.

The Israelis are always accused by their enemies, and sometimes even by their friends, of taking “disproportionate” action to stop terrorists. But, what could be more proportionate than a carefully planned and specifically targeted attack on an admitted terrorist who boasted of being an active combatant? Whoops! I guess I forgot about those darn passports. That must be the disproportionate action complained about. Saving innocent lives, on the one hand—misusing passports on the other. I guess the right moral resolution, according to some foreign ministries, is to let innocent victims die—at least as long as its only Israeli victims.

It’s interesting, and disturbing, that more criticism is being directed against Israel for allegedly using stolen passports than for allegedly killing a terrorist. That’s because no Western country wants to appear to be sympathetic to a terrorist. The “victims” of passport fraud are innocent civilians, but the injury they have suffered pales in comparison to the injuries—deaths prevented by the well-deserved death of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. If the deaths of a small number of innocent civilians is deemed “proportional” to the killing of a terrorist combatant, than surely the discomfort of a small number of innocent victims of passport fraud is proportional.

The high dudgeon expressed by foreign ministries over stolen passports is worse than hypocritical. It undercuts the war against terrorism. There ought to be concern, among Western democracies, about how easy it is to use forged or stolen passports. Dubai should be conducting an investigation, but the focus should be on how simple it was for those carrying these phony passports to get into their country. The misuse of passports is, after all, a primary tool used by terrorists to smuggle themselves into Western countries, from which they can engage in worldwide terrorism. There are thousands of forged and fraudulent British passports circulating around the world today. Many are in the hands of terrorists. That should be the focus of any investigation, not the occasional and controlled misuse of passports by Western intelligence agencies to combat terrorism.

Whoever sneaked into Dubai using fake passports may have done that country a service in warning them to tighten up their passport procedures. Next time, it may be a terrorist who tries to enter the country. Wait! Isn’t that exactly what happened when al-Mabhouh walked through security using a real passport with his real name? I guess in Dubai you don’t have to use a fake passport if you’re a terrorist, but you do if you’re trying to stop terrorists—at least if the terrorism is directed only against Israel. I guess Dubai is less concerned about letting terrorists into their country with real passports than in letting those who would stop terrorism into their country with fake passports. It’s a topsy turvy world out there.

Our Misinformed and Misdirected Approach to Arab Culture

What’s the matter with Umma?

By LEE SMITH
Random House, 256 pages

Redacted from a review by MICHAEL C. Moynihan
COMMENTARY February 2010

Jabbing a thick finger in my direction, the former al-Qaeda recruiter and veteran of the Afghan mujahideen proposed a unified theory for the cultural, political, and economic malaise afflicting the peoples of the Middle East. The problems of the Islamic umma (all encompassing Islamic society) would melt away, he explained with mechanical certainty, if only the United States abdicated it’s superpower role and stopped interfering in the affairs of Muslim countries. Naturally, this entailed first and foremost scrubbing its alliance with imperial Israel.

This is a shopworn and deeply unconvincing explanation of the problems afflicting countries that have been ruled by his co-religionists for the better part of a century. But, it is one that stubbornly persists, propped up with the help of many Western academics and pundits who seem more interested in issuing indictments of American policy than in confronting the political and social backwardness fettering much of the Arab world. Together they have set out a narrative whereby America is but the latest colonial power to have insinuated itself into the Muslim world and impaired its culture.

Increasingly dissatisfied with the narrow and disingenuous Orientalist critique of the West, Smith engages in years of on-the-ground investigation, moving about the Middle East in search of a narrative that places the people and political leaders of the region at the center. Two years into the occupation of Iraq, he has concluded that a top-down imposition of democracy will falter. Arab liberals, many frustrated by the policies of the Bush White House, submit that a reorientation of society must advance from the bottom up. Democracy is “society’s flower, not its root,” Smith writes. And, everywhere he travels in the region, it becomes uncomfortably clear that the flower is not on the verge of blooming.

To those who believe that an infusion not of Western military might but of culture—in the form of television, films, and music—can have a profound impact on regional mores, Smith says that this, too, is a chimera. When he turns to the retailing of Middle Eastern history by Western journalists and intellectuals, Smith bracingly dispenses with comfort able shibboleths. Though the crimes of Western imperialism are frequently hauled into the dock by such thinkers, Smith reminds us that “the umma was an imperial power of the first order,” and “the Islamists want to restore the umma to its rightful place in world affairs to be the strongest tribe?’ They are frank, unapologetic and unselfconscious about this. ... “The United States is hated not because of what it does, or because of what it is. The United States is hated for what it is not, not Arab and not Muslim.”

The search for Arab moderates, Smith continues, has led Western Arabists to grade using a steep curve. The Arab nationalism of the recent past may have “looked like secularization,” he says. “But, it was merely a veneer laid over a society that had been proudly Muslim for over a millennium.” Many of those who appeared to be voices of moderation were only moderate relative to the dominant politics of the region.

...The history of the entire region has led Smith to the unavoidable conclusion that “violence is central to the politics, society, and culture of the Arabic-speaking Middle East?’ He finds this uncomfortable truth lost on many in Washington. In his Cairo address last spring and on many other occasions, President Obama has said that if only America spoke directly to the citizens of the Middle East, it would convince them that there was no enmity between Islam and the West. This, says Smith, is simply a “delusion?’ Anti-Americanism is the “region’s lingua franca.”

What, then, does Smith see as the policy consequences of his discoveries? At the least, America should lower its sights and settle for reasonable facsimiles of Western democracy. “It was inevitable,” he writes, “that the Arabs would take a pass on some of the social values that Americans tend to associate with a democratic way of life, like gender equality and other issues like ‘anti-religious speech and behavior?”

But if American power can’t reverse illiberal impulses, and if popular culture has only a negligible impact on Arab culture, it isn’t clear how liberal forces can be empowered in any way to change the despotic governments under which they suffer. It is as though Smith has been so disappointed by his decade-long immersion in Islamic culture that he cannot see the signs that a peculiarly Arab version of democracy, with all its deficiencies, is indeed developing in Iraq—by Iraqis—with the help of steadfast American action.

Smith closes with a reminder that “despite the setbacks in Iraq, the reality is that American power is as great as it ever was?’ Power to do what or effect what he shies away from saying, and on the basis of the tale he has told, one senses that his feeling is: not very much. ‘

MICHAEL C. MOYNIHAN is a senior editor of Reason magazine.

For the Jews of the world its once again 1938

The Jews Of Shushan (Persia) (apx. 550 BCE)

By MOSHE FEIGLIN

The story of Purim, as related in the Megillat (book of) Esther, is the bridge between the destruction of the First Temple (apx. 586 BCE and the building of the Second Temple (apx 520-515 BCE with the return of the Jews from exile in Babylonia). Interestingly, the eastern gate to the Temple Mount is called the Shushan Gate, as if to symbolize that the path to the future Temple goes through Shushan.

The feast of Achashveirosh in Shushan was a low point in Jewish history. The Jews of Achashveirosh’s kingdom were so deep in exile mentality that they actually reveled and feasted at the Persian mega-party, despite the fact that the (kosher) food was served on the holy vessels of their destroyed First Temple. But, this low point was actually the first hint of future salvation.
The marriage of later Queen Esther to Achashveirosh led to the birth of Darius, who would eventually allow the reconstruction of the Second Temple to be completed.

Who were these Jews of Shushan? They were our forefathers, exiles from Eretz Yisrael. They were despondent after 70 years with no redemption in sight, as the Persian king defiled the treasures of the Temple. They lived at his mercy, thrown a few “kosher” royal crumbs at the year-long banquet that celebrated their defeat — unaware of the humiliation, and groveling for acceptance. But, one was not subservient. He was Mordechai the Jew, leader of the Jewish community. He would not attend the banquet, nor would he bow to the prime minister, the evil Haman.

Mordechai’s behavior frightened the masses. In their hearts, they agreed with him and admired him, but they did not follow him openly. Following an established pattern, they preferred the “safer” course of action: “Do not ruffle the king’s feathers; you will endanger us.” “Let us remain as slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt.” Today the exact cowardly equivalent is “Give them land for peace; give them whatever they want.”

The Jews who offered gold for the golden calf later contributed gold to build the Mishkan. (The Tabernacle is known in Hebrew as the Mishkan. It was a portable dwelling place for the divine presence from the time of the Hebrew Exodus from Egypt through the conquering of the land of Canaan. Its elements were made part of the final Temple in Jerusalem about the 10th century BC).
It was all a question of leadership. Haman did not fret over the political aspirations of his subordinates. He was not troubled by political opposition or by rivals in the court. No, Haman worried only about Mordechai — Mordechai the Jew. Mordechai did not bend. He was prepared, with his agent, Esther, strategically placed in the king’s palace. With self-sacrifice, he and Esther waited. Haman’s evil decree threatened all the Jews of the kingdom, all the lands from Hodu to Cush, with no place to run. Fearing for their lives, the Jews of Shushan rallied behind Mordechai and Esther providing them with the support that they needed. And, for these miracles, the story of Purim highlights the eternity of the nation of Israel.

We are currently experiencing another period of darkness and despair. People may think it’s the year 2010, but it’s actually 1938 — with one major difference. Then, it was the Jews of Europe who had become de-legitimized. Now, it is the State of Israel that the world is de-legitimizing — putting the entire Jewish world in deep danger.

The solution is authentic, faith-based Jewish leadership for Israel. Manhigut Yehudit (the Israel political party of Moshe Feiglin) is building that Jewish leadership. Our job today is to make people aware, and to prepare ourselves to lead. If we persevere, we will have the support and tools to step in when the time is ripe. Then, when God deems fit, we will be poised to take the leadership reigns and bring the Jewish nation back from Shushan to Jerusalem — to itself, its God, and its Jewish destiny. True Jewish leadership will not bow to the Hamans of the world.

Syria - Another Obama Diplomatic Triumph

By MICHAEL FREUND

The Jewish Press, February 19, 2010

If you listened carefully this past week, you could almost hear the sound of champagne glasses clinking together loudly in Damascus, as Syrian President Bashar Assad undoubtedly raised a toast to celebrate Washington’s latest act of groveling before his autocratic government. Just days after Assad’s regime had engaged in a war of words with the Jewish state, threatening America’s closest ally in the region, Barack Obama decided to respond by conferring upon him yet another undeserved diplomatic gift.

In a truly breathtaking display of weakness, the U.S. State Department indicated it was ramping up its “dialogue” with Assad and had agreed to send a high-level American diplomat — Undersecretary of State William Bums — to pay him a courtesy call in the Syrian capital. Incredibly, when asked about the matter last Friday at the daily State Department press briefing, spokesman Phillip J. Crowley told reporters that the Burns visit “reflects our growing interest in working constructively with Syria and the leaders of that country.” Now isn’t that sweet.

The Obama administration would like to “work constructively” with a government that is allied with Iran, supports Hamas and Hizbullah terrorists, and has aided the flow of foreign fighters into Iraq to do battle with American servicemen. Good luck with that one, Mr. Bums.

Indeed, it was just two weeks ago, on February 3, that Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem made the following “constructive” comments to reporters: “Don’t test the determination of Syria, Israelis. You know that war this time would move to your cities.” Muallem’s remarks raised eyebrows even among the Western press, with ABC News noting that, ‘The threatening language implied Syria would be willing and able to target Israeli population centers with long-range missiles in a conflict. It was the first time such a threat had been made.” But, that brazen act of intimidation on Syria’s part barely seemed to register with the White House, which appears determined to rush headlong into a warm embrace with Muallem’s boss.

Another compelling sign of the sea-change in American policy came last month. On a visit to Damascus, Obama’s Middle East envoy George Mitchell reportedly notified Assad that a new American ambassador to Damascus would soon take up his post. This will mark the first time the U.S. is sending an ambassador to Syria since February 2005. At the time, then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recalled diplomat Margaret Scobey after the Syrian government allegedly ordered the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Now, five years later, all that is forgotten, as Washington intensifies its inexplicable romance with this brutal regime.

To be sure, one could argue it is in America’s interests to attempt to pry Syria away from its Iranian allies, particularly in light of the mounting tension with Tehran over its nuclear program. And, there is no doubt that were Syria to change tack, and abandon its extremist policies, it would have a profound impact on the stability of the Middle East. That is precisely where Obama is making such a terrible and foolhardy mistake.

Attempts to woo Damascus into the so-called moderate Arab camp date back to the Clinton administration, and they have produced nothing but frustration and failure. Here is just one example: back in May 2003, Secretary of State Cohn Powell met with Assad and declared that Syria had promised to close the offices of terror groups such as Hamas which were operating in downtown Damascus. Nearly seven years later, that simple and very basic promise remains unfulfilled.

The fact is, Syria is firmly ensconced in the rejectionist camp and no amount of cozying up to Assad or kowtowing to his demands is going to change that. Moreover, the message Obama is sending is both hazardous and counterproductive, as Damascus has done nothing to deserve the gestures and attention that it is getting from Washington. If anything, the Syrians will see that they can persist with regional mischief-making while still reaping some handsome diplomatic rewards in the process.

Only a firm stance, which directly links American gestures to verifiable changes in Syrian behavior, can possibly hope to elicit any modification to Damascus’s policies. But, such an approach does not currently appear to be in the offing. Instead, Assad and his cronies will continue to enjoy a good laugh at Obama’s expense, as they surely marvel at how the last remaining superpower beats a hurried and ill-conceived path to their door. As for the rest of us, we can only look on in wonder and distress as America’s position and role in the world are weakened still further. And, that, of course, is no laughing matter.

Michael Freund served as deputy director of Communications & Policy Planning in the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office under Benjamin Netanyahu from 1996 to 1999. He is founder and chairman of Shavei Israel (www.shavei.org), which reaches out and assists “lost Jews seeking to return to the Jewish people.”

Our National Destruction (G-d forbid) continues unabated

Obama cedes US future to Russia and China

By Charles Krauthammer
The Palm Beach Post, February 17, 2010

“We have an agreement - until 2012 that Russia will, be responsible for this,” says Anatoly Perminov, head of the Russian space agency, about ferrying astronauts from other countries into low-Earth orbit. “But after that? Excuse me, but the prices should be absolutely different then!”

The Russians may be new at capitalism, but they know how it works. When you have a monopoly, you charge monopoly prices. Within months, Russia will have a monopoly on rides into space. By the end of this year, there will be no shuttle, no US - manned space program, no way for us to get into space. We’re not talking about Mars or the moon here. We are talking about low Earth orbit, which the U.S. has dominated for nearly half a century and from which it is now retiring with nary a whimper.

Our absence from low-Earth orbit was meant to last a few years, the interval between the retirement of the fatally fragile space shuttle and its replacement with the Constellation program (Ares booster, Orion capsule, Altair lunar lander) to take astronauts more cheaply and safely back to space. But, the Obama 2011 budget kills Constellation Instead, for the first time since John Glenn flew in 1962; the US will have no access of its own for humans into space — and no prospect of getting there in the foreseeable future. Of course, the administration presents the abdication as a great leap: Launching humans will now be turned over to the private sector, while NASA’S efforts will be directed toward landing on Mars.

This is nonsense. It would be swell for private companies to take over launching astronauts. But, they cannot do it. It’s too expensive. It’s too experimental. In addition, the safety standards for actually getting people up and down reliably are just unreachably high.

Sure, decades from now, there will be a robust private space-travel industry but that is a long time. In the interim, space will be owned by Russia and then China. The president waxes seriously nationalist at the thought of China or India surpassing us in speculative “clean energy.” Yet, he is quite prepared to gratuitously give up our spectacular lead in human space exploration.

As for Mars - more nonsense. If we can’t afford an Ares rocket to get us into orbit and to the moon, how long will it lake to develop a revolutionary propulsion system that will take us not a quarter-million miles but 35. million miles? To say nothing of the effects of long-term weightlessness, of long-term cosmic ray exposure, and of the intolerable risk to astronaut safety involved in any Mars trip — six months of contingencies vs. three days for a moon trip.

Of course, the whole Mars project as substitute for the moon is simply a ruse. It’s like the classic bait-and-switch for high-tech military spending: A classic example is the B-1 bomber, which was canceled in the 1970s in favor of the over-the-horizon B-2 stealth bomber, which was then killed in the 1990s after a production run of only 21 (instead of 132) in the name of post-Cold War obsolescence.

Moreover, there is the question of seriousness. When John F Kennedy pledged to go to the moon, he had an intense personal commitment. He delivered speeches remembered to this day. He dedicated astronomical sums to make it happen. At the peak of the Apollo program, NASA was consuming almost 4 percent of the federal budget, which in terms of the 2011 budget is about $150 billion. Today the manned space program will die for want of $3 billion a year — 1/300th of last year’s stimulus package with its endless make-work projects that will leave not a trace on the national consciousness.

As for President Obama’s commitment to beyond-lunar space: Has he given a single speech, devoted an iota of political capital to it? Mr. Obama’s NASA budget perfectly captures the difference in spirit between Mr. Kennedy’s liberalism and Mr. Obama’s. Mr. Kennedy’s was an expansive, bold, out- -ward-looking summons. Mr. Obama’s is a constricted inward-looking call to retreat. Fifty years ago, Mr. Kennedy opened the New Frontier. Mr. Obama has just shut it.

Charles Krauthammer’s e-mail address is letters@charleskrauthammer.com

What’s with the US Census?

The Super-sized census boondoggle

By Michelle Malkin
The Washington Times, February 15, 2010

If only the federal government were as responsible with our money as Pepsi is with theirs. The soda giant has been in the Super Bowl ad business for more than two decades. But, this year, Pepsi determined it was economically unwise to pay $3 million for a 30-second spot. So, who’s foolish enough to pay for Super Bowl gold-plated airtime - You and me and Washington, D.C?
The U.S. Census Bureau squandered $2.5 million on a half-minute Super Bowl ad starring D-list celebrity Ed Begley Jr., plus two pre-game blurbs and 12-second “vignettes” featuring Super Bowl anchor James Brown. It’s a drop in the census boondoggle bucket (otherwise known as the tax-subsidized National Democratic Future Voter Outreach Drive).

The Obama White House has allocated a total of $340 million toward an “unprecedented” promotional blitz for the 2010 census. That’s on top of $1 billion in stimulus money siphoned off for increased census “public outreach” and staffing. In all, the census will triple its total 2000 budget to $15 billion. Ads pimping the census have already appeared during the Golden Globe awards and will broadcast during the Daytona 500 and NCAA Final Four championships.

Some $80 million will be poured into multilingual ads in 28 languages from Arabic to Yiddish. Racial and ethnic groups have been squabbling over their share of the pie.

The U.S. census is a decennial census mandated by our Constitution. Should Americans know about it? Sure. Should the P.R. budget become a bottomless slush fund in reversionary times? Surely not. Yet, no matter how you translate it, the census commercials to date have been an “Ishtar” style flop. Global ad agency Draftfeb, based in (Obama’s hometown) Chicago and New York, nabbed a $200 million four-year contract to oversee the Census Bureau’s direct marketing, online and offline general market media strategies. The agency hired comedian Christopher Guest to direct “viral” spots. One of the supposedly “humor-driven” videos directed by Guest and uploaded to YouTube a few weeks ago. It has racked up a measly 6,880 views. -“For a once-a-decade project involving every living American. That’s a pretty crummy return on investment:’ jeered Ad-Freak’s David Griner. “The video seems to be hampered by the same problem that plagues all campaigns meant to ‘go viral’ i.e., it’s simply not that funny. The joke is a chuckler at best, and dragged out to three minutes, that chuckle gets spread pretty thin?’ According to independent census watchdog Stephen Morse, the feds conducted a total of 115 focus groups in 37 markets across the country before settling on the dud of an a
That’s a lot of focus-grouping to get people to pay a little extra attention to government head-count questionnaires coming straight to their mailboxes.

Taxpayers are also footing ~ the bill for the Mother of all Government Junkets — a three-month road trip by lucky-ducky Census Bureau flacks traveling in 13 buses and cargo vans with trailers. They’ll be partying m New Orleans for Mardi Gras and at parades across the country. In case you were wondering about the anticipated Census Road Show carbon footprint, it’s an estimated 223 metric tons. But not to worry: The ecoteers of an Al Gore carbon offset firm called “Carbonfund.org” have become official government “partners” with the Census to offset all the vehicle emissions—and surf off the free publicity to garner more business.

As if overpriced TV ads, online videos no one watches and indulgent, cross-country caravans weren’t enough, the Census Bureau is also enlisting 56 million schoolchildren to pester their parents and act as junior government enumerators. Educates are spending several billions more on math and social studies lessons peddling the census. Overzealous census partners such as the National Association of Latino Elected Officials have distributed recruitment propaganda urging constituents to participate because “Joseph and Mary participated in the census.” Goodness knows what kind of fear-mongering curricula the kids are being served in the name of counting heads — and shaping the electoral landscape.

“When times are tough, you tighten your belts:’ President Obama lectured us. “ You don’t blow a bunch of cash in Vegas.” Coincidentally, the Census Road Tour junketeers just wrapped up a visit in Vegas. Next stop? You guessed it: the Super Bowl in Miami. Taxpayers should start crying foul.

Michelle Malkin is a nationally syndicated columnist.

Barack Obama, Al Gore and Osama bin Laden all agree on Global Warming

The Washington Times, February 8, 2010

In his State of the Union address two weeks ago, President Obama said there was “overwhelming scientific evidence on climate change.” In his most recent message to the world, Osama bin Laden said that climate change “is not an intellectual luxury but an actual fact?’ It’s nice to see these two leaders can agree on something. The hitch is that the man-caused catastrophic global warming theory is dead, and it needs to be buried. Evidence had been mounting for years that there were problems with the global warming model; most telling was that the globe refused to warm up. Carbon emissions continued apace, but the world began cooling. This is why true believers abandoned the “global warming” brand name and tried to shift the debate to the more ambiguous label “climate change,” which is something the rest of us like to refer to as “weather.”

The dam broke with Climategate when hacked e-mails from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit revealed that global warming advocates had for years attempted to hide conflicting data and silence their professional critics. British authorities have determined that the university broke freedom-of-information laws by denying information to scientists seeking to check claims that global warming was caused by human activity.

Evidence is emerging that the data had been rigged all along. Russian analysts noted that British temperature calculations excluded data from 40 percent of Russian territory, much of which showed no increase in temperature in the past 50 years. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration cherry-picked data, cutting Canadian data sources from 600 to 35 and relying on only one monitor for all of Canada above the Arctic Circle. This was done even though Canada operates 1,400 weather stations, 100 of which are in the Arctic.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is having its own scandal regarding a finding in its Nobel Peace Prize-winning 2007 report that glaciers in India were rapidly disappearing. It is now revealed that this dramatic claim was based not on years of patient observation and research but anecdotes from a hiking magazine and a student’s master’s thesis. IPCC Chairman Rajendra K. Pachauri knew about the erroneous information before December’s Copenhagen climate summit but maintained the falsehood. He even denounced a report from India that showed the glaciers were in far less jeopardy as “unsubstantiated research.” Last month, Mr. Pachauri published a sexually explicit novel, further diminishing his professional reputation.

Climate scientists have to come to grips with some highly inconvenient truths. World temperatures continue to decline as carbon emissions increase. Chilly Scotland is facing its coldest winter in a century. Arctic sea ice is not vanishing. Polar bears are experiencing a baby boom. Water vapor appears to play as important a role in the climate as carbon emissions. Sunspot activity may be more important than both combined. Meanwhile, climate change fanatics seek to blame capitalism and productivity for global warming, global cooling, too much snow, not enough snow, hurricanes, tornadoes and even the Haiti earthquake.

The simplistic and increasingly discredited theory of carbon-based, man-caused global warming needs to be discarded, and the scientists who sought to squelch skeptics and artificially inflate their own reputations must be disciplined. Alas, Mr. Obama, (Mr. Gore) and Mr. bin Laden need to update their talking points.

Are you guilty of contributory negligence? Did you pick the “leadership,” the synagogue?

Michael Steinhardt criticizes Failures Of Jewish Leadership

By Avi Yellin
The Jewish Press, January 15, 2010

Michael H. Steinhardt, one of world Jewry’s most generous philanthropists and a co-founder of Birthright Israel, has delivered a scathing criticism of all that he sees wrong with the Jewish world today, singling out non-Orthodox life. In an interview with Mark S. Golub of Shalom TV, Steinhardt expressed his deep disappointment with the traditional Hebrew school system and characterized many of the young people he has met through Birthright Israel as “Jewish barbarians” who have never in their lives even experienced a Sabbath dinner.

Steinhardt, who identifies himself as anything but an Orthodox Jew, had especially harsh criticism for non-Orthodox Jewish life in the Diaspora. He expressed his disappointment and anger with those often described as “wonderful educators” in the Reform and Conservative movements for having done “such a poor job under-educating our next generations” and for failing to distinguish Jewish values from Christian ones.

From Steinhardt’s perspective, it has become virtually impossible to identify a non-Orthodox Jewish student from a non-Jewish student at any secular university. “I think that many of the trends that we have seen — such as the fact that 55-60 percent of non-Orthodox Jews are marrying out; such as the fact that only 15 percent of total philanthropy of Jews goes to Jewish causes — are reflective of that fact that non-Orthodox Jewish education in America has been, and continues to be a shandah, a shame, an abysmal failure”

Steinhardt also blasted Jewish leadership in America, saying there has been too much emphasis on the Holocaust — “an event of extraordinary enormity” — and misplaced fears about anti-Semitism in America. “Anti-Semitism,” he said, “has always been far more mythical than real in America; it’s as if organizations have to create the bogeyman of anti-Semitism in order to raise money.” Steinhardt further argued that concern about the Holocaust and anti-Semitism detracts “from our ability to think about the Jewish future — because it’s hard to be focused intensively on the Holocaust and, at the same time, to think about what we want to accomplish and what we want to be in the 21st century.” Steinhardt offered a foreboding assessment for the future of Diaspora Jewry:

“It is a moribund Jewish world, continuously losing its young people, whose charities have dramatically changed where only a small fraction of total philanthropy is going to Jewish causes; interest in Israel is declining; the number of American Jews going to Israel is not growing; where the culmination of Jewish life seems to be the bar mitzvah — and from there it is all downhill.”

While Steinhardt maintains that the most effective tool in instilling a sense of Jewish identity in young people is for them to visit Israel, he does not hold back from criticizing Israeli politicians and post-Zionist aspects of modern Israeli culture. “Israel’s politicians,” he said, “are, writ large, awful; its businessmen are of less than glorious quality; and when you walk down Dizengoff Street in Tel Aviv and you look around at these people you say, ‘This is who you admire?’
“I often say it’s easier to be a Zionist in Manhattan than it is in Tel Aviv.”

Despite the challenges that exist in the modern Jewish state, Steinhardt said Israel has always been his great love and he expressed joy and appreciation for being able to contribute to and participate in Jewish life to the extent he has.

Mr. Scott Brown (aka Jimmy Stewart) Goes to Washington

Redacted from article by Wm. Kristol, Editor

The Weekly Standard, February 1, 2010

Life doesn’t simply imitate art. There are important differences between the Scott Brown story and Jefferson Smith’s. And the differences make Brown’s actual achievement more impressive than Smith’s fictitious one. For example, Smith (Jimmy Stewart) was appointed to his seat in the Senate. Scott Brown won his in an upset electoral victory. And at the climactic moment in the film, Smith collapses in a faint, but his cause is saved by a fellow senator, Joseph Paine (Claude Rains), who has had sudden pangs of conscience.

By contrast, at a key moment in Brown’s effort, the televised debate a week before Election Day, it was Brown all alone, relying on his own wits, who seized the moment. He responded to David Gergen’s patronizing question as to whether he was willing to “sit in Teddy Kennedy’s seat” and block liberal health care policies by saying, coolly and calmly, “Well, with all due respect, it’s not the Kennedy’s’ seat, and it’s not the Democrats’ seat, it’s the people’s seat.”

But there are also similarities between the sagas of Smith and Brown. Both had happy endings, featuring the upset victory of a god (and good-looking!) guy, who sought to represent the public interest and was in touch with public sentiment, over an entrenched, corrupt, and out-of-touch political machine. And both victories horrified the political establishment. When Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington premiered at Constitution Hall in Washington in October 1939, half the Senate was in attendance. The senators were outraged by the film’s depiction of widespread venality and corruption in that august body. Senate Majority Leader Alben Barkley denounced Mr. Smith as a “silly and stupid” movie that “showed the Senate as the biggest aggregation of nincompoops on record.”

When Scott Brown won last Tuesday night, once again more than half the Senate was surely outraged and or shell-shocked. And today’s majority leader, Harry Reid, followed in Barkley’s footsteps by issuing a grudging and graceless statement, which included no congratulations to Scott Brown (“The people of Massachusetts have spoken”) and no recognition that the public was sending any sort of message. "While Senator-elect Brown’s victory changes the political math in the Senate ... there is much work to do to address the problems Democrats -inherited last year, and we plan to move full speed ahead.”

Another similarity between art and life was provided by the Kennedy family. The patriarch, Joseph Kennedy, was ambassador to Great Britain in 1939, and he complained to the head of Columbia Pictures that Mr. Smith would harm “America’s prestige in Europe.” Indeed, he urged that it be withdrawn from European release. Seventy years later, various Kennedys campaigned against Scott Brown’s upstart effort to capture the Senate seat held by Joe’s youngest son for 47 years.

But, the biggest similarity is this:
Americans liked an underdog in 1939. They liked one in 2010. When the establishment is arrogant and unresponsive, they tend to side with a Jefferson Smith/ Scott Brown figure. In 1939, that establishment seemed to be made up of conservative economic royalists. Today, that establishment seems to consist of liberal political royalists.

This difference is, politically, a big deal. It is at the heart of the Republicans’ opportunity to build on what Scott Brown has accomplished. It suggests the GOP, and the conservative movement, should embrace the kind of enlightened, good-natured, constructive populism that Brown demonstrated in his campaign. And it means resisting the twin perils of Republican establishmentarian royalism on the one hand, and a bitter and destructive populism on the other.

Critics in 1939 were surprisingly lukewarm about Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. But, the public liked it, and the film struck a chord around the world. Supposedly, when American-made films were banned in German-occupied France in 1942, some theaters showed Mr. Smith as the last movie before the ban, and one theater owner in Paris showed the film for 30 days running after the ban was announced.

Pundits today may not be crazy about Scott Brown’s victory. But, the public seems to approve. And, Brown’s momentum will carry Republicans along for at least 30 days. Still, it’s a long ten months until November, and Republicans will need more than just momentum and sentiment. They’ll need policy proposals that advance the cause of democratic capitalism against crony capitalism, the public interest against the special interests, and free markets against big government and, yes, at times against big business. If they can begin to fill out this agenda while standing resolute against the dictates of the liberal establishment, then Scott Brown could be followed to Washington by many more underdog conservative citizen-legislators in November.

—William Kristol

An Analogy – Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama!

“Dictatorships and Double Standards” - A Redux

Professor Jeane Kirkpatrick’s seminal article and what it has to teach us about the condition of Obama’s foreign policy

These are just excerpts from a marvelous analogy By Ilan Wurman

COMMENTARY January 2010

THIRTY years ago, an article criticizing the Carter administration’s foreign policy appeared in these pages under the title “Dictatorships and Double Standards.” Its author was Jeane Kirkpatrick, then a professor of political science at Georgetown University: “Dictatorships and Double Standards” went on to become one of the most controversial and influential articles published in the United States in the latter half of the 20th century.

Kirkpatrick’s central argument was very much focused on the singular events of the year 1979, one of the most difficult in American history, and therefore would seem to have limited application to the very different world order to be found in 2009. Nonetheless, “Dictatorships and Double Standards” remains a potent and devastating critique of how American progressives think about U.S. power and foreign policy and the approach it condemns—the way in which the Carter administration viewed the world and conducted American policy.

It is worryingly similar to the approach of the Obama administration today. Certain policies pursued by the Carter administration, ostensibly in the name of American principles and interests, Kirkpatrick argued, were in fact undermining those interests and leading to America’s international isolation and a loss of power and authority: -

... THE disastrous state of American foreign policy under Jimmy Carter was neatly encapsulated in Kirkpatrick’s blunt opening: “The failure of the Carter administration’s foreign policy is now clear to everyone except its architects.” But, worse was yet to come. Kirkpatrick did not know that, only a week after COMMENTARY’S November 1979 issue hit the newsstands, the U.S. embassy in Tehran would be raided and 52 of its American employees taken hostage—nor could she have imagined that the hostage crisis would last 444 days.

The year would come to a close with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. We are not even a year into Barack Obama’s term, but given what we have seen of it so far, we have reason to fear that the “Dictatorships and Double Standards” of our time will see its way into print more quickly than Kirkpatrick’s, which appeared in the 33rd month of Carter’s ignominious single term.

ILAN WURMAN, making his first appearance in COMMENTARY, is a student at Claremont McKenna College.