Pelosi Pays Off Union Bosses !

Poisoned minds leads to poisoning food. What a "sick" society the Palestinians have created.(See 1 below.)

Pacifying terrorists is a dead end policy. Hamas is at full strength since Israel vacated Gaza according to Think Tank Report. (See 2 below.)

Hamas seeks more Palestinian suffering in order to heighten Islamic backlash against Egypt according to Ne'eman. Israel must act forcefully in Gaza, according to Ne'eman, in order to stabilize threats to Egypt. (See 3 below.)

Whether there is or is not a General by the name of James Cash, everything written below is what I have been saying for years but he says it better and with more authority. (See 4 below.)

Every time you cite Sen. Obama as being associated with those in the Arab American community or staying in his own church in clear sight and hearing of Rev Wright you are confronted with playing the guilt by association game and imputing negative motives to the Senator. The article below is more a cataloging of events and associations which justifiably concern many.

What I find so ironic is that if the people Sen. Obama associates with were members of the KKK or Sen. Obama was a Republican the press would tear him apart faster than would a Sabre Toothed Tiger. Do you remember Newt Gingrich was run out of the House for allegedly doing something wrong in the way he published a book.

Sen. Obama is being given a pass by the fawning media and press and it will probably come back to haunt him but that is the world we live in and anyone who seeks to get at who is the man behind the Senator runs the risk of being blistered. (See 5 below.)

I said to my wife, as I listened to Gen Petraeus and Amb. Crocker's respond to Democrat Senators complaining about the Iraq government failure to act swiftly, that it was all posturing. Had I been there I would have reminded these dolts their own failure over the last twenty years to put the Social Security System on a proper foundation.

Until I was able to listen to the actual testimony I only had a few written articles and television reports to guide my thinking. I sensed the black crepe was being hung out again but when I finally heard the actual testimony and questions being posed to which they responded in a balances and measured way, I thought I was listening to two different Senate Hearings.

Democrats have egg on their face and their questioning seemed more designed to perpetuate public discontent and to score political points than to understand what they were being told by two men who were trying their best to be honest and up front and above all realistic and balanced. (See 6 below.)

Speaker Pelosi's stance regarding the trade pact with Columbia is the equivalent of sending a signed check with "you fill in the amount" to our nation's labor union bosses.

By her perpetual piquedness she has come to define herself a a political hack of the worst order. A nothing Speaker bent on accomplishing nothing is in the process of actually accomplishing a great deal - the destruction of our nation's relationships all because she enjoys rubbing GW's face in the mud. (See 7 below.)

Dick


1) Two Palestinians sent by Hizballah to poison Tel Aviv restaurant food

The two men, Ahab Abu Riyal and Anas Salum, from the Balata refugee camp in Nablus, were arrested by Israeli security Shin Bet officers last month before they could carry out their mission on behalf of the Lebanese Hizballah. Their Fatah-al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades branch is controlled by Hizballah.

Posing as illegal out-of-work entrants from the West Bank, they were hired as kitchen workers by the Tel Aviv Grill Express fast food outlet at the Diamond Exchange in Ramat Gan. They were told to dump slow-acting poison in the food set out for customers. It was to take effect after four hours, time enough to murder a large number of Israeli patrons.

The pair also plotted to spirit a suicide bomber into Tel Aviv from Nablus.

One of the two men was detained on March 19, days before the target date for their mission, the second was picked up at the home of an Israeli Arab friend in Jaffa. The poison had not yet been handed them.

2) Israeli think tank: Hamas has 20,000 armed men in Gaza Strip

An Israeli think tank said in a study it released on Thursday that Hamas' military buildup is at its peak, despite the international blockade on the Gaza Strip.

In an estimate of the current strength of the militant group's forces, the think tank said Hamas had organized 20,000 armed forces and acquired long-range rockets and advanced anti-tank weapons.

The Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center also said that Israel's 2005 pullout from Gaza enabled the militant Palestinian group to boost its power in the coastal strip, over which it gained control in a violent takeover in June 2006.

"The Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip in August 2005 created a new situation which accelerated the establishment of an area fully controlled by Hamas. It was quick to use its increased military power to make political capital in internal Palestinian affairs," the study states.

Iran and Syria supply Hamas with weapons, technical knowhow and training, the study also stated.

Futhermore, the study said the Islamic group has smuggled 80 tons of explosives into the Gaza Strip since it seized the territory last year.

Referring to Hezbollah, the study described the Lebanese guerilla group's "success in providing an asymmetric response to the Israel Defense Forces' might" during the Second Lebanon War as having made it a role model for Hamas.

The center has close links to Israel's defense establishment and based its report on data supplied in part by the Shin Bet security service.

3) Increasing Palestinian Suffering for Islamist Gains
By Yisrael Ne'eman


According to military sources, Wednesday’s attack on the Nahal Oz fuel depot on the Gaza border where two Israeli workers of the Dor Alon fuel company were killed by Palestinian terrorists was destined to be a larger operation. From Nahal Oz fuel is shipped into Gaza. Apparently, the intent was to abduct Israeli soldiers into the Strip as a further Hamas bargaining chip (in addition to Gilad Shalit) in its demand for a prisoner exchange whereby hundreds of Palestinian terrorists with blood on their hands would be freed. The four Palestinian terrorists involved in the operation were killed.

Hamas denied involvement but gave its blessing to the operation. It seems a contradiction in terms if one is to follow the liberal inspired analysis whereby Hamas is really only concerned with the economic well-being of its people. The Hamas/Islamic Jihad and associates only have an interest in the economic well being of Gazans when it serves their overall ideological purposes. The Islamists gain much more Arab/Moslem world support and international sympathy for their cause when the media and in particular Al-Jazzira report shortages and suffering. Israel would very much like to cut back on supplies to Gaza since the fuel is first and foremost used by the terrorist organizations themselves, most specifically for attacks against the Jewish State. Lately Hamas has initiated an imaginary gasoline shortage in order to win the media war, but it is far from enough. They need an outright declaration by Israel that supplies are cut. Hence the attack on the Dor Alon fuel crossing.

There is nothing new about this policy. Several years ago, continued attacks against the Erez Crossing and Industrial Zone led to the loss of 19,000 Palestinian jobs both at the crossing and in Israel. Hamas & Assoc. want nothing less than a full scale economic catastrophe with full media coverage to ignite an Islamist explosion. The policy is similar to that of Yasir Arafat who tried using Palestinian suffering to spark Arab world intervention. He failed since few Arabs/Moslems will die for Palestinian nationalism. Hamas is using the same tactic, but under the much wider umbrella of Islam.

The immediate target is Israel with the appeal being world-wide Islamic, beginning with Egypt. Cairo shares a 12 kilometer border with Gaza and is party to the 1979 peace agreement with Israel which makes Pres. Hosni Mubarak’s government responsible for security along the entire Sinai front, meaning both Gaza and the Negev. Thousands of tons of illegal weapons, ammunition and explosives have been and are being smuggled into Gaza over the years from Sinai with Egypt barely lifting a finger. Egypt has its own Islamist problems in the form of the Moslem Brotherhood and has used the Gaza front as a pressure valve. A border war with Israel distracted Islamic energies from their real target – Egypt. The Hamas/Islamic Jihad played the game and consolidated power in Gaza until there was nothing else to be won. Israel was unwillingly forced to accept these rules since there was no choice.

There is no longer “fear” of instability in Egypt as socio-economic related disturbances are shaking that country in recent weeks. Although keeping its head low for fear of massive arrests the Moslem Brotherhood supports the violence. On the Palestinian front Egypt rebuilt the fallen wall between Sinai and Gaza and is finally intercepting weapons and explosives shipments on route to the tunnels connecting the two.

Hamas and the Brotherhood hope to further inflame anti-government demonstrations through media images of Gazans suffering from fuel and any other shortages possible. In the short run this could relieve Egyptian pressure against Hamas while longer range thinking revolves around an Islamic takeover in Egypt. No Islamist sees this as far fetched since the Iranian example of almost 30 years ago sets the example. An Islamist Egypt is the worst nightmare anyone can imagine, making Hamas rocket fire into Israel look like child’s play.

Hamas and the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood are turning the tables. A long term smoldering border war with Israel has served its purpose but is unacceptable as a continuing policy since the Islamists cannot win. Using Palestinian civilian suffering serves a much greater long range objective. It further stirs the masses throughout the Arab/Islamic world, especially in Egypt where it counts. The Egyptians realize that the previous pressure valve release is backfiring.

The technical problems of doing battle in winter are behind us. Israel must move quickly in a major Gaza operation and put an end to any effective Hamas control of the Strip, otherwise the Islamists are just further encouraged, both in Gaza and even more so in Egypt. Hamas is more of a strategic threat to Egypt every day.

One of the pillars of Israeli security and stability in the Middle East is the 1979 peace treaty with Egypt. Hamas and the Islamists must not be allowed to remove that cornerstone.

4) Middle East Imperative by: James Cash, Brig. Gen., USAF, (Retire)

I wrote recently about the war in Iraq and the larger war against radical Islam, eliciting a number of responses. Let me try and put this conflict in proper perspective.

Understand; the current battle we are engaged in is much bigger than just Iraq. What happens in the next year will affect this country and how our kids and grand kids live throughout their lifetime, and beyond. Radical Islam has been attacking the West since the seventh century. They have been defeated in the past and decimated to the point of taking hundreds of years to recover. But they can never be totally defeated. Their birth rates are so far beyond civilized world rates, that in time they recover and attempt to dominate again.

There are eight terror-sponsoring countries that make up the grand threat to the West. Two, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan just need firm pressure from the West to make major reforms. They need to decide who they are really going to support and commit to that support.

That answer is simple. They both will support who they think will hang in there until the end, and win.

We are not sending very good signals in that direction right now, thanks to the Democrats.

The other six, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, North Korea and Libya will require regime change or a major policy shift. Now, let's look more closely.
Afghanistan and Iraq have both had regime changes, but are being fueled by outsiders from Syria and Iran. We have scared Gaddafi's pants off, and he has given up his quest for nuclear weapons, so I don't think Libya is now a threat.

North Korea (the non-Islamic threat) can be handled diplomatically by buying them off. They are starving. That leaves Syria and Iran. Syria is like a frightened puppy. Without the support of Iran they will join the stronger side. So where does that leave us? Sooner, or later, we are going to be forced to confront Iran, and it better be before they gain nuclear capability.


In 1989 I served as a Command Director inside the Cheyenne Mountain complex located in Colorado Springs, Colorado for almost three years. My job there was to observe (through classified means) every missile shot anywhere in the world and assess if it was a threat to the US or Canada. If any shot was threatening to either nation I had only minutes to advise the President, as he had only minutes to respond.


I watched Iran and Iraq shoot missiles at each other every day, and all day long, for months. They killed hundreds of thousands of their people. Know why? They were fighting for control of the Middle East and that enormous oil supply.

At that time, they were preoccupied with their internal problems and could care less about toppling the West. Oil prices were fairly stable and we could not see an immediate threat.

Well, the worst part of what we have done as a nation in Iraq is to do away with the military capability of one of those nations. Now, Iran has a clear field to dominate the Middle East, since Iraq is no longer a threat to them. They have turned their attention to the only other threat to their dominance, they are convinced they will win, because the US is so divided, and the Democrats (who now control Congress and may control the Presidency in 2008) have openly said we are pulling out.


Do you have any idea what will happen if the entire Middle East turns their support to Iran, which they will obviously do if we pull out? It is not the price of oil we will have to worry about. Oil WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE to this country at any price. I personally would vote for any presidential candidate who did what JFK did with the space program---declare a goal to bring this country to total energy independence in a decade.

Yes, it is about oil. The economy in this country will totally die if that Middle East supply is cut off right now. It will not be a recession. It will be a depression that will make 1929 look like the "good-old-days". The bottom line here is simple. If Iran is forced to fall in line, the fighting in Iraq will end over night, and the nightmare will be over.

One way or another, Iran must be forced to join modern times and the global community. It may mean a real war---if so, now is the time, before we face a nuclear Iran with the capacity to destroy Israel and begin a new ice age.

I urge you to read the book "END GAME" by two of our best Middle East experts, true American patriots and retired military generals, Paul Vallely and Tom McInerney . They are our finest, and totally honest in their assessment of why victory in the Middle East is so important, and how it can be won. Proceeds for the book go directly to memorial fund for our fallen soldiers who served the country during the war on terror.

On the other hand, we have several very angry retired generals today, who evidently have not achieved their lofty goals, and insist on ranting and raving about the war. They are wrong, and doing the country great harm by giving a certain political party reason to use them as experts to back their anti-war claims.

You may be one of those who believe nothing could ever be terrible enough to support our going to war. If that is the case I should stop here, as that level of thinking approaches mental disability in this day and age. It is right up there with alien abductions and high altitude seeding through government aircraft contrails. I helped produced those contrails for almost 30 years, and I can assure you we were not seeding the atmosphere. The human race is a war-like population, and if a country is not willing to protect itself, it deserves the consequences.

'Enough - said!'

Now, my last comments will get to the nerve. They will be on politics.
I am not a Republican. And, George Bush has made enough mistakes as President to insure my feelings about that for the rest of my life. However, the Democratic Party has moved so far left, they have made me support those farther to the right.

I am a conservative who totally supports the Constitution of this country. The only difference between the United States and the South American, third world, dictator infested and ever-changing South American governments, is our US Constitution.

This Republic (note I did not say Democracy) is the longest standing the world has ever known, but it is vulnerable. It would take so little to change it through economic upheaval. There was a time when politicians could disagree, but still work together. We are past that time, and that is the initial step toward the downfall of our form of government.

I think that many view Bush-hating as payback time. The Republicans hated the Clinton's and now the Democrats hate Bush.

So, both parties are putting their hate toward willingness to do anything for political dominance to include lying and always taking the opposite stand just for the sake of being opposed. JUST HOW GOOD IS THAT FOR OUR COUNTRY?

In my lifetime, after serving in uniform for President's Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan , and Bush I have a pretty good feel for which party supported our military, and what military life was like under each of their terms. And, let me assure you that times were best under the Republicans.

Service under Jimmy Carter was devastating for all branches of the military. And, Ronald Reagan was truly a salvation.

You can choose to listen to enriched newscasters, and foolish people like John Murtha (he is no war hero), Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry, Michael Moore, Jane Fonda, Harry Reid, Russ Feingold, Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, and on-and-on to include the true fools in Hollywood if you like. If you do, your conclusions will be totally wrong.

The reason that I write, appear on radio talk shows, and do everything I can to denounce those people is simple. THEY ARE PUTTING THEIR THIRST FOR POLITICAL POWER AND QUEST FOR VICTORY IN 2008 ABOVE WHAT IS BEST FOR THIS COUNTRY. I cannot abide that.

Pelosi clearly defied the Logan Act by going to Syria , which should have led to imprisonment of three years and a heavy fine.

Jane Fonda did more to prolong the Vietnam War longer than any other human being (as acknowledged by Ho Chi Minh in his writing before he died). She truly should have been indicted for treason, along with her radical husband, Tom Hayden, and forced to pay the consequences.

This country has started to soften by not enforcing its laws, which is another indication of a Republic about to fall.

All Democrats, along with the Hollywood elite, are sending us headlong into a total defeat in the Middle East, which will finally give Iran total dominance in the region. A lack of oil in the near future will be the final straw that dooms this Republic.

However, if we refuse to let this happen and really get serious about an energy self-sufficiency program, this can be avoided. I am afraid, however, that we are going in the opposite direction.

If we elect Hillary Clinton and a Democrat controlled congress, and they carry through with allowing Iran to take control of the Middle East, continue to refuse development of nuclear energy, refuse to allow drilling for new oil, and continue to do nothing but oppose everything Bush, it will be over in terms of what we view as the good life in the USA.

Now, do I think that all who do not support the war are un-American--- of course not. They just do not understand the importance of total victory in that region.
Another failure of George Bush is his inability to explain to the American people why we are there, and why we MUST win.

By the way, it is not a war. The war was won four years ago. It is martial law that is under attack by Iranian and Syrian outside influences, and there is a difference.

So, what do I believe? What is the bottom line? I will simply say that the Democratic Party has fielded the foulest, power hungry, anti-country, self absorbed group of individuals that I have observed in my lifetime. Our educational system is partially to blame for allowing the mass of America to be taken in by this group. George Bush has done the best he can with the disabilities that he possesses.

A President must communicate with the people. And, I would tell you that Desert Storm spoiled the people. Bush Senior's 100-hour war convinced the people that technology has progressed to the point that wars could be fought with no casualties and won in very short periods of time.

I remember feeling at the time, that this was a tragedy for the US military. To win wars, you must put boots on the ground. When you put boots on the ground, soldiers are going to die. A President must make the war decision wisely, and insure that the cause is right before using his last political option.

HOWEVER, CONTROLLING IRAN AND DEMOCRATIZING THE MIDDLE EAST IS THE ONLY CHOICE IF WE ARE HELL-BENT ON DEPENDING ON THEM FOR OUR FUTURE ENERGY NEEDS.

Jimmy L. Cash, Brig. Gen., USAF, Ret. Lakeside, Montana 59922

5) Allies of Palestinians see a friend in Barack Obama
By Joe Raymond

Democratic presidential hopeful, Sen. Barack Obama, addresses a rally at South Bend Washington High School Wednesday April 9, 2008 in South Bend, Ind.
They consider him receptive despite his clear support of Israel.
By Peter Wallsten

CHICAGO -- It was a celebration of Palestinian culture -- a night of music, dancing and a dash of politics. Local Arab Americans were bidding farewell to Rashid Khalidi, an internationally known scholar, critic of Israel and advocate for Palestinian rights, who was leaving town for a job in New York.

A special tribute came from Khalidi's friend and frequent dinner companion, the young state Sen. Barack Obama. Speaking to the crowd, Obama reminisced about meals prepared by Khalidi's wife, Mona, and conversations that had challenged his thinking.


His many talks with the Khalidis, Obama said, had been "consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases. . . . It's for that reason that I'm hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation -- a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid's dinner table," but around "this entire world."

Today, five years later, Obama is a U.S. senator from Illinois who expresses a firmly pro-Israel view of Middle East politics, pleasing many of the Jewish leaders and advocates for Israel whom he is courting in his presidential campaign. The dinner conversations he had envisioned with his Palestinian American friend have ended. He and Khalidi have seen each other only fleetingly in recent years.

And yet the warm embrace Obama gave to Khalidi, and words like those at the professor's going-away party, have left some Palestinian American leaders believing that Obama is more receptive to their viewpoint than he is willing to say.

Their belief is not drawn from Obama's speeches or campaign literature, but from comments that some say Obama made in private and from his association with the Palestinian American community in his hometown of Chicago, including his presence at events where anger at Israeli and U.S. Middle East policy was freely expressed.

At Khalidi's 2003 farewell party, for example, a young Palestinian American recited a poem accusing the Israeli government of terrorism in its treatment of Palestinians and sharply criticizing U.S. support of Israel. If Palestinians cannot secure their own land, she said, "then you will never see a day of peace."

One speaker likened "Zionist settlers on the West Bank" to Osama bin Laden, saying both had been "blinded by ideology."

Obama adopted a different tone in his comments and called for finding common ground. But his presence at such events, as he worked to build a political base in Chicago, has led some Palestinian leaders to believe that he might deal differently with the Middle East than either of his opponents for the White House.

"I am confident that Barack Obama is more sympathetic to the position of ending the occupation than either of the other candidates," said Hussein Ibish, a senior fellow for the American Task Force on Palestine, referring to the Israeli presence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that began after the 1967 war. More than his rivals for the White House, Ibish said, Obama sees a "moral imperative" in resolving the conflict and is most likely to apply pressure to both sides to make concessions.

"That's my personal opinion," Ibish said, "and I think it for a very large number of circumstantial reasons, and what he's said."

Aides say that Obama's friendships with Palestinian Americans reflect only his ability to interact with a wide diversity of people, and that his views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have been consistent. Obama has called himself a "stalwart" supporter of the Jewish state and its security needs. He believes in an eventual two-state solution in which Jewish and Palestinian nations exist in peace, which is consistent with current U.S. policy.

Obama also calls for the U.S. to talk to such declared enemies as Iran, Syria and Cuba. But he argues that the Palestinian militant organization Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, is an exception, calling it a terrorist group that should renounce violence and recognize Israel's right to exist before dialogue begins. That viewpoint, which also matches current U.S. policy, clashes with that of many Palestinian advocates who urge the United States and Israel to treat Hamas as a partner in negotiations.

"Barack's belief is that it's important to understand other points of view, even if you can't agree with them," said his longtime political strategist, David Axelrod.

Obama "can disagree without shunning or demonizing those with other views," he said. "That's far different than the suggestion that he somehow tailors his view."

Looking for clues

But because Obama is relatively new on the national political scene, and new to foreign policy questions such as the long-simmering Israeli-Palestinian conflict, both sides have been looking closely for clues to what role he would play in that dispute.

And both sides, on certain issues, have interpreted Obama's remarks as supporting their point of view.

Last year, for example, Obama was quoted saying that "nobody's suffering more than the Palestinian people." The candidate later said the remark had been taken out of context, and that he meant that the Palestinians were suffering "from the failure of the Palestinian leadership [in Gaza] to recognize Israel" and to renounce violence.

Jewish leaders were satisfied with Obama's explanation, but some Palestinian leaders, including Ibish, took the original quotation as a sign of the candidate's empathy for their plight. Obama's willingness to befriend Palestinian Americans and to hear their views also impressed, and even excited, a community that says it does not often have the ear of the political establishment.

Among other community events, Obama in 1998 attended a speech by Edward Said, the late Columbia University professor and a leading intellectual in the Palestinian movement. According to a news account of the speech, Said called that day for a nonviolent campaign "against settlements, against Israeli apartheid."



The use of such language to describe Israel's policies has drawn vehement objection from Israel's defenders in the United States. A photo on the pro-Palestinian website the Electronic Intifada shows Obama and his wife, Michelle, engaged in conversation at the dinner table with Said, and later listening to Said's keynote address. Obama had taken an English class from Said as an undergraduate at Columbia University.

Ali Abunimah, a Palestinian rights activist in Chicago who helps run Electronic Intifada, said that he met Obama several times at Palestinian and Arab American community events. At one, a 2000 fundraiser at a private home, Obama called for the U.S. to take an "even-handed" approach toward Israel, Abunimah wrote in an article on the website last year. He did not cite Obama's specific criticisms.

Abunimah, in a Times interview and on his website, said Obama seemed sympathetic to the Palestinian cause but more circumspect as he ran for the U.S. Senate in 2004. At a dinner gathering that year, Abunimah said, Obama greeted him warmly and said privately that he needed to speak cautiously about the Middle East.

Abunimah quoted Obama as saying that he was sorry he wasn't talking more about the Palestinian cause, but that his primary campaign had constrained what he could say.

Obama, through his aide Axelrod, denied he ever said those words, and Abunimah's account could not be independently verified.

"In no way did he take a position privately that he hasn't taken publicly and consistently," Axelrod said of Obama. "He always had expressed solicitude for the Palestinian people, who have been ill-served and have suffered greatly from the refusal of their leaders to renounce violence and recognize Israel's right to exist."

In Chicago, one of Obama's friends was Khalidi, a highly visible figure in the Arab American community.

In the 1970s, when Khalidi taught at a university in Beirut, he often spoke to reporters on behalf of Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization. In the early 1990s, he advised the Palestinian delegation during peace negotiations. Khalidi now occupies a prestigious professorship of Arab studies at Columbia.

He is seen as a moderate in Palestinian circles, having decried suicide bombings against civilians as a "war crime" and criticized the conduct of Hamas and other Palestinian leaders. Still, many of Khalidi's opinions are troubling to pro-Israel activists, such as his defense of Palestinians' right to resist Israeli occupation and his critique of U.S. policy as biased toward Israel.

While teaching at the University of Chicago, Khalidi and his wife lived in the Hyde Park neighborhood near the Obamas. The families became friends and dinner companions.

In 2000, the Khalidis held a fundraiser for Obama's unsuccessful congressional bid. The next year, a social service group whose board was headed by Mona Khalidi received a $40,000 grant from a local charity, the Woods Fund of Chicago, when Obama served on the fund's board of directors.

At Khalidi's going-away party in 2003, the scholar lavished praise on Obama, telling the mostly Palestinian American crowd that the state senator deserved their help in winning a U.S. Senate seat. "You will not have a better senator under any circumstances," Khalidi said.

The event was videotaped, and a copy of the tape was obtained by The Times.

Though Khalidi has seen little of Sen. Obama in recent years, Michelle Obama attended a party several months ago celebrating the marriage of the Khalidis' daughter.

In interviews with The Times, Khalidi declined to discuss specifics of private talks over the years with Obama. He did not begrudge his friend for being out of touch, or for focusing more these days on his support for Israel -- a stance that Khalidi calls a requirement to win a national election in the U.S., just as wooing Chicago's large Arab American community was important for winning local elections.

Khalidi added that he strongly disagrees with Obama's current views on Israel, and often disagreed with him during their talks over the years. But he added that Obama, because of his unusual background, with family ties to Kenya and Indonesia, would be more understanding of the Palestinian experience than typical American politicians.

"He has family literally all over the world," Khalidi said. "I feel a kindred spirit from that."

Ties with Israel

Even as he won support in Chicago's Palestinian community, Obama tried to forge ties with advocates for Israel.

In 2000, he submitted a policy paper to CityPAC, a pro-Israel political action committee, that among other things supported a unified Jerusalem as Israel's capital, a position far out of step from that of his Palestinian friends. The PAC concluded that Obama's position paper "suggests he is strongly pro-Israel on all of the major issues."

In 2002, as a rash of suicide bombings struck Israel, Obama sought out a Jewish colleague in the state Senate and asked whether he could sign onto a measure calling on Palestinian leaders to denounce violence. "He came to me and said, 'I want to have my name next to yours,' " said his former state Senate colleague Ira Silverstein, an observant Jew.

As a presidential candidate, Obama has won support from such prominent Chicago Jewish leaders as Penny Pritzker, a member of the family that owns the Hyatt hotel chain, and who is now his campaign finance chair, and from Lee Rosenberg, a board member of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Nationally, Obama continues to face skepticism from some Jewish leaders who are wary of his long association with his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., who had made racially incendiary comments during several sermons that recently became widely known. Questions have persisted about Wright in part because of the recent revelation that his church bulletin reprinted a Times op-ed written by a leader of Hamas.

One Jewish leader said he viewed Obama's outreach to Palestinian activists, such as Said, in the light of his relationship to Wright.

"In the context of spending 20 years in a church where now it is clear the anti-Israel rhetoric was there, was repeated, . . . that's what makes his presence at an Arab American event with a Said a greater concern," said Abraham H. Foxman, national director for the Anti-Defamation League.


6) Petraeus Patience



If Gen. David Petraeus wasn’t denounced as a traitor upon his arrival on Capitol Hill Tuesday, his testimony was the occasion for the same dreary willful obtuseness on the part of congressional Democrats as in September.

Petraeus and Amb. Ryan Crocker again were cautious and understated, perhaps to a fault. Without over-promising, they explained how we have built on the tentative security gains that Democrats were so skeptical of six months ago, and that there has begun to be political movement. The progress we have won is “fragile and reversible” as they repeatedly said, dependent — among other things — on maintaining sufficient U.S. forces in Iraq.

It’s the last part Democrats especially don’t want to hear, as they lurch between arguing Iraqis will be better able to sort things out without us and we are in the middle of an unstoppable civil war. Tuesday, they focused on recent events in Basra as evidence of the incompetence of the Iraqi government and complained the Iraqis aren’t shouldering more of the financial burden of the war and reconstruction.

Basra just happened to be the fresh bad news (or seeming bad news) at hand. The dust from Basra has yet to settle and it’s foolish to make grand pronouncements about its ultimate outcome either way. The factoid of the hour was that 1,000 Iraqi soldiers or police “deserted or underperformed.” This is a statistic that should be handled with care. There is a difference between deserting and under-performing, and it would be much more alarming if the Iraqis in question were seasoned military professionals rather than local police more naturally prone to intimidation and militia influences.

Whatever the case, the Iraqi military managed to move thousands of troops to Basra with minimal help from us and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Malki declared himself against the Iranian-backed “special groups” of Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi army — both encouraging developments. If Sadr emerges from this confrontation further marginalized, Iraq will have taken another important step toward the goal of sustainable stability.

Sen. Edward Kennedy questioned whether we have any dog in the Basra fight, an astonishing posture given Gen. Petraeus’s stark warnings about Iran’s maligned role in Iraq. He noted “the destructive role Iran has played in funding, training, arming and directing the so-called special groups,” which he called “the greatest long-term threat to the viability of a democratic Iraq.” Crocker said the Iranians are pursuing a strategy of “Lebanonization,” i.e. destabilizing the country while arming favored Shia factions. Is it really of no account to Democrats whether a sworn enemy of the United States takes over part of Iraq? On the war, the Democrats have an uncontrollable reflex for the childish.

Witness their complaints about Iraqi-government spending. On one level, they are unremarkable. Every American in Iraq is frustrated that the Iraqi government isn’t spending more of its windfall oil revenues. The problem is that spending money isn’t as easy as the U.S. Congress makes it look. It depends on efficient bureaucracies of the sort that don’t exist in Iraq yet. The Iraqis should be prodded and assisted on this front (as we’ve been doing), but the Iraqi government isn’t going to build this capacity overnight.

In the meantime, the U.S. can’t be seen to be lusting over Iraq’s resources. At times Tuesday, Democrats seemed to have gone from arguing that our heavy-handed occupation is alienating Iraqis to demanding that Iraqis do more to fund our heavy-handed occupation. Our funding of the “Sons of Iraq” — the largely Sunni security volunteers — came under fire in a mind-boggling instance of being penny-wise but pound-foolish. In disapproving tones, Sen. Claire McCaskill noted we pay them “twice the average salary you would make in Iraq.” As Petraeus explained, the Sons of Iraq have paid for themselves already in the savings from fewer vehicle kills from IEDs (not to mention the American lives saved, and the incalculable strategic benefit of their defection from the insurgency).

Petraeus and Crocker always counsel patience when talking of Iraq. They displayed it themselves during hours of interrogation on Capitol Hill. They are impressive public servants with no agenda other than trying to help the United States win a crucial war. Would that their antagonists learned from their example.


7) Drop Dead, Colombia

Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi blocks a trade deal with America's closest South American ally.


THE YEAR 2008 may enter history as the time when the Democratic Party lost its way on trade. Already, the party's presidential candidates have engaged in an unseemly contest to adopt the most protectionist posture, suggesting that, if elected, they might pull out of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Yesterday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared her intention to change the procedural rules governing the proposed trade promotion agreement with Colombia. President Bush submitted the pact to Congress on Tuesday for a vote within the next 90 legislative days, as required by the "fast-track" authority under which the U.S. negotiated the deal with Colombia. Ms. Pelosi says she'll ask the House to undo that rule.

The likely result is no vote on the agreement this year. Ms. Pelosi denies that her intent is to kill the bill, insisting yesterday that Congress simply needs more time to consider it "in light of the economic uncertainty in our country." She claimed that she feared that, "if brought to the floor immediately, [the pact] would lose. And what message would that send?" But Ms. Pelosi's decision-making process also included a fair component of pure Washington pique: She accused Mr. Bush of "usurp[ing] the discretion of the speaker of the House" to schedule legislation.

That political turf-staking, and the Democrats' decreasingly credible claims of a death-squad campaign against Colombia's trade unionists, constitutes all that's left of the case against the agreement. Economically, it should be a no-brainer -- especially at a time of rising U.S. joblessness. At the moment, Colombian exports to the United States already enjoy preferences. The trade agreement would make those permanent, but it would also give U.S. firms free access to Colombia for the first time, thus creating U.S. jobs. Politically, too, the agreement is in the American interest, as a reward to a friendly, democratic government that has made tremendous strides on human rights, despite harassment from Venezuela's Hugo Chávez.

To be sure, President Bush provoked Ms. Pelosi. But he forced the issue only after months of inconclusive dickering convinced him that Democrats were determined to avoid a vote that would force them to accept accountability for opposing an agreement that is manifestly in America's interest. It turns out his suspicions were correct.

"I take this action with deep respect to the people of Colombia and will be sure that any message they receive is one of respect for their country, and the importance of the friendship between our two countries," Ms. Pelosi protested yesterday. Perhaps Colombia's government and people will understand. We don't.