Are We At The Mercy of The Youth Vote/Top Dog!

I had an interesting discussion today with two old friends who were visiting in town. They are avid McCain supporters but do not agree, nor does my wife, with my belief that it is only a matter of time before the press and media begin to attack and/or distance themselves from Obama, should he win. I recently posted a memo about the news and press eventually eating their own.

The articles below (see 1 and 2) reveal things that have not been widely exposed but when those in power overstay or are unable to bring about the vaunted "change" the press and media, who helped create the conditions, will distance themselves forthwith. Why? Because they don't want to be be found guilty by association and in order to maintain their credibility, which is all but lost, they will have to be seen on the attack.

Hypocrisy can, and often does, turn into a whiplash effect. In the second article perhaps Lewis is whistling Dixie. We will know probably some time early Wed. morning if not before. From a longer term view, I believe Lewis is correct. If Americans become convinced they were taken for a ride they may feel shame for having been duped but they will not take it out on themselves. They will scapegoat. Liberals run a risk, having opposed the Iraq War, wanting to cut and run, wanting to return to the days of more government intrusions and a semblance of welfare, of being rejected as out of sync with the direction where most want our nation to head.

Right now, the wheels have come off the train mostly because of stupidity on the part of Congress - both sides are due their share of blame- and human nature - avarice. Thus, Americans are currently more vulnerable to making an emotional decision. Just as McCain has been blamed for GW's failures, the extreme side of the Democrats run a comparable risk of being blamed as their own failures mount.

This election has established some unhealthy precedents. If Obama should win and Rahm Emanuel becomes his Chief of Staff, as is being bantered about, the prospect of discontent with Democrats will only become heightened because Emanuel is a most blatant partisan.The equivalent of a male Pelosi. He is no healer. (See 1 and 2 below.)

A better understanding of the circle of friend relationships that could come along with an Obama Presidency. You are known by those with whom you associate. It is no less true in Obama's case as it is in yours and mine. (See 3 below.)

Iran is ideologically incapable of accommodation. Karbala and the Arab psyche.

Daniel Pearl's father writes an interesting article touching on the historical connection, conflicts and misunderstanding( and maybe not) between Zionists and Arabs.

Hard to resolve a problem unless you fully understand its roots (See 4 and 5 below.)

Should we trust unformed youthful minds? We may have no choice according to Anna Quindlen. (See 6 below.)

Equal outcomes should have been the basis for McCain and Palin's disagreement with Obama not socialism according to Ruben Navarrette.

I have posted many,I believe, good articles and responses, that pointed the way and were never used by McCain or Palin in rebuttal. When, perhaps they look back and reflect upon the campaign they ran, they will discover many of the flaws that were evident yet, they failed to discern. (See 7 below.)

From a dear friend and fellow memo reader. A final parting shot from a person who suffered under a regime that forced his family to flee their country and come here. They did and prospered and love this country for the opportunity it gave them. Sometimes you have to stand in the shoes of the other person to understand their intensity and yes, their fear. Perhaps their concern is overblown but coming from their circumstances and experience I am willing to give them some latitude. (See 8 below.)

Jonathan Rosenblum questions whether Jews are smart in view of their overwhelming support of Obama. I would argue they may be smart but that does not mean they always think with their head. Far too often they wear their heart on their sleeve out of guilt or in the mistaken belief they must always support the "perceived underdog" whom they turn into a "top dog."

Dick

1) Facts:


Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's home House District includes San
Francisco.

Star-Kist Tuna's headquarters are in San Francisco , Pelosi's home district.

Star-Kist is owned by Del Monte Foods and is a major contributor to Pelosi.

Star-Kist is the major employer in American Samoa employing 75% of the
Samoan workforce.

Paul Pelosi, Nancy 's husband, owns $17 million dollars of Star-Kist stock.

In January, 2007 when the minimum wage was increased from $5.15 to $7.25, Pelosi had American Samoa exempted from the increase so Del Monte would not have to pay the higher wage. This would make Del Monte products less expensive than their competition's.

Last week when the huge bailout bill was passed, Pelosi added an earmark to the final bill adding $33 million dollars for an "economic development credit in American Samoa ".

Pelosi has called the Bush Administration "corrupt".

She should know.

Check it out:

http://www.newsbusters.org/node/10126

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2007/jan/12/20070112-120720-2734r/

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/016478.php

2) The Obama Bubble Could Cost the Democrats
By James Lewis

Obama's stealth campaign has now been exposed by the New Media as just another assault on power by the old-fashioned radical Left, beefed up with race-baiting demagoguery. As a result of constant New Media exposés, the Left wing media are now discredited and widely distrusted, and teetering on the edge of a death spiral. The New York Times' debt securities now have junk bond status from S&P.

The same ideological suicide could happen to the Democratic Party itself.

The Obama campaign, with its many incestuous links to "small 'c' communists" and Islamic fascists, could end up discrediting the entire Democratic Party -- if Americans realize they've been Suckered Big by the slickest demagogue since Bill Clinton. When ordinary people find out how extreme the America-hating inner circle of Democrats really are, many of the rank and file might just walk out in disgust. They certainly should. We'll soon see in states like Pennsylvania.

The Obama Bubble is entirely based on telephone polls to voters who've been told they are racist monsters if they don't vote for O. Under those circumstances people just don't talk freely. That's what intimidation did in the old Soviet Union, where it was impossible to find out the truth about the coming wheat crop because everybody lied. Polls mean nothing in this climate of media intimidation.

But regardless of who is elected on Tuesday, this election represents an amazing gamble for the Dems. Look at this video, showing Barack Obama slyly giving the hidden finger to Hillary Clinton during one of the primary debates. His own people burst out laughing when he pulls that very risky piece of teenage bravado. That's what he means by audacity -- and now the entire Democratic Party is stuck with Barack on his death-defying ride to become Emperor Barack I. Even the Clinton scandals didn't expose the Democrats to this kind of risk. They will have to live with the consequences for years to come.

The Obama Bubble may be hard to recognize today, when it has been blown up to awesome size, just like the mortgage bubble, the oil price bubble, the dot com bubble, and endless others.

But it's happened before: In 1948 Henry Wallace ran for the Democratic nomination. Harry Truman beat him, in good part because Wallace looked like a puppet of Joe Stalin. Truman went on to reelection and became the first Cold War president.

The Obama campaign is the closest thing to Henry Wallace since 1948.

But there's more. After 1948 the Democratic Party flipped from Left to Right in short order, and became the Cold War Democrats. The Wallace-Truman contest also began the downward spiral of the US Communist Party, crashing in the 1950s, when Americans became convinced -- quite accurately -- that the CP-USA posed a clear and present threat. They call it "McCarthyism" today, but at that time it looked like Joe Stalin on the march with nukes in his pockets. (Those nukes were copied from plans stolen by Klaus Fuchs from the Manhattan Project.) No wonder the American people were afraid of Communist penetration of the State Department. They were right about that, too.

Today, the Obama election campaign has again exposed the whole Democratic Party as a sucker front for the radical Left. Bill Ayers is just the tip of a gigantic anti-American iceberg that now dominates US education, the media and Hollywood, the unions, and militant minorities. Don't think people don't know it.

In the 1940s the Wallace campaign looked like a power grab of the totalitarian Left. Today Obama looks the same. Some time soon the American people will understand that again: We'll see whether Tuesday is the day they show it. But even if McCain loses on Tuesday the voters will still have some time for a course correction as long as the New Media survive to "tell truth to power." Even in "soft" socialist Britain, Margaret Thatcher was elected when things really got bad.

Like the Germans at the Battle of the Bulge, the Democrats are celebrating premature victory. We'll see very soon if they have overreached.

3) Obama's Middle East Studies Mentors
By Cinnamon Stillwell

When voters go to the polls on November 4th, they will choose not only a new presidential administration, but also the candidate's circles of influence. In the case of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, this includes Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said professor of Arab studies and director of the Middle East Institute of Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs.

Much of the scrutiny surrounding Obama's long list of objectionable and radical alliances has focused on Khalidi, and with good reason. Despite Khalidi's claims to the contrary, facts indicate that he was a spokesman for the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) during the late 1970s and early 1980s, when it was listed as a terrorist organization by the State Department. (Khalidi's wife Mona also worked for the PLO's press agency, Wikalat al-Anba al-Filastinija, or WAFA, during that time and like her husband, is now at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs).

Asaf Romirowsky and Jonathan Calt Harris, writing for Campus Watch in 2004, point to a June 9, 1982, Thomas L. Friedman column in the New York Times describing Khalidi as "a director of the Palestinian press agency." The salient section of the Friedman column can be viewed at Middle East studies scholar Martin Kramer's Sandbox weblog, along with information on Khalidi's involvement in the 1991 Madrid peace talks. According to Kramer, Khalidi "belonged to a six-person advisory panel which came to Madrid precisely to serve as a conduit between the official delegation and the PLO." Citing an October 23, 1991, New York Times article listing Khalidi as a member of this panel, Kramer notes that "the Israeli government was not all pleased with this addition." Finally, Kramer points to a February 19, 1978, New York Times article in which Khalidi is described as "an American-educated Palestinian who teaches political science at the American University of Beirut and also works for the P.L.O." It's unlikely that, as Khalidi contends, these were all errors of attribution.

Khalidi certainly seems comfortable with the type of anti-Israel, anti-American propaganda the PLO and its allies peddle. In a January 27, 2003, article titled, "Attack Iraq?" in In These Times, he wrote the following:

...this war will be fought because these neoconservatives desire to make the Middle East safe not for democracy, but for Israeli hegemony. They are convinced that the Middle East is irremediably hostile to both the United States and Israel; and they firmly hold the racist view that Middle Easterners understand only force. For these American Likudniks and their Israeli counterparts, sad to say, the tragedy of September 11 was a godsend: It enabled them to draft the United States to help fight Israel's enemies.

Such rhetoric hardly inspires confidence in Khalidi's teaching abilities, but his academic career has not suffered for it. Before his current position at Columbia, Khalidi taught political studies at the American University of Beirut in the 1970s and 1980s and then went on to become a professor at the University of Chicago from 1987 to 2003. It was there that Khalidi befriended Obama and launched a series of mutually beneficial dealings.

The Arab American Action Network (AAAN), a Chicago nonprofit with decidedly anti-Israel leanings that was founded by Rashid and Mona Khalidi, sponsored a fundraiser for Obama's unsuccessful congressional bid in 2000. In turn, the Woods Fund, a nonprofit whose board included both Obama and Weatherman-terrorist-turned-education-professor Bill Ayers, provided grants totaling $75,000 to AAAN over 2001-2002. At a farewell bash thrown by AAAN to celebrate Khalidi's move to Columbia University in 2003, Obama, then an Illinois state senator, was one of his most vocal supporters. During Obama's speech, he recalled his many dinners at the Khalidi home, the "conversations that had challenged his thinking," and his hope "that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation."

Nonetheless, Obama has tried to downplay his relationship with Khalidi. But the facts speak for themselves: Khalidi and Obama have far more than just a passing acquaintance. Khalidi's cousin, Tarif Khalidi, a professor of Arabic and Islamic studies at the American University of Beirut, put it plainly: "Obama was a very good friend of Rashid."

The alliance between Obama and Khalidi makes perfect sense if seen in light of Obama's education at Columbia University during the 1980s. Although Obama refuses to release any information from that period, we know that he studied under the late Columbia professor and post-colonialist icon Edward Said. A 1998 photo of the Obamas and the Saids dining together at an event for the local Arab-American community at which Said gave the keynote address, suggests a continuing relationship. Not coincidentally, Khalidi was an intellectual follower of Said and now holds the chair at Columbia named for him. It's hard to imagine that Obama emerged from this triangular association without being influenced ideologically by these radical mentors.

Despite pandering to pro-Israel and pro-American sentiment-depending on the audience-Obama's tutelage under Middle East studies professors who view America and Israel as imperialist powers responsible for virtually every shortcoming and failure in the Muslim world, including radical Islam, demonstrates quite the opposite. It doesn't take a leap of imagination to deduce that Obama's foreign policies would do the same.



4) )Guest Column: The reality of Karbala
By ELI KAVON


The next president of the United States - whether he is John McCain or Barack Obama - must be prepared to face the challenge of Karbala, a town in central Iraq that was the site of one of the most important battles in the history of Islam.

On the plain of the town, the forces of the Umayyad caliphate massacred fellow Muslims who supported the family of Ali ibn Abi Talib (Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law), rivals to the Umayyads for power in the emerging Islamic world. The death of Ali's son Hussein at Karbala on October 10, 680, was the culmination of an almost 50-year struggle between Muslims to determine who would succeed Muhammad as the religious and political leader of the Islamic realm.

The massacre remains an important key for world leaders today to understand the attempted emergence of Iran as a nuclear power, as well as the bloody civil war among Shi'a and Sunni Muslims that is devastating Iraq.

For most Muslims, especially those in the world of the Shi'a in Iran, Iraq and Lebanon, the Battle of Karbala is not simply a historical event but a haunting reality. The Shi'a supporters of Ali never recovered from the defeat that allowed the Umayyad dynasty to control the territory, wealth and population of one of the world's largest empires. While the majority Sunnis did not eradicate the followers of Ali and Hussein, the Shi'a were never given the respect and standing in the Islamic world that they believed they deserved.

During certain eras of Islamic history this tension broke out into violence, such as the attempt by the 18th-century Sunni Arabian reformer Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab to stamp out Shi'a practices that included pilgrimages to holy sites such as Karbala. Even the major victory by the Shi'a in the early 16th century - the Iranian leader Shah Ismail's successful and long-lasting imposition of Shi'ism on the Persian Safavid Empire - did not lead to Shi'a dominance in a world ruled by Sunnis.

It would be at our peril, however, to simply view the events at Karbala as a historical phenomenon. As a result of Hussein's defeat in 680, the Shi'a Muslims developed a theology that predicts the return of a descendant of Ali - the "Hidden Imam" - who will reassert leadership of the Islamic world as a true ruler from the family of Muhammad. The return will be accompanied by apocalyptic events that will shake the world to its core.

THE THEOLOGY of Karbala is a living reality for some Shi'a Muslims, including the clerics who control Iran and their mouthpiece, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The marriage of a medieval, quasi-messianic theology of apocalypse with Iran's attempt to gain the technology to produce nuclear weapons should alarm all peoples of goodwill and the leaders of the free world. That includes America's next president.

Karbala is not simply history for the religious leaders who control Iran's theocracy and for the Shi'a struggling for dominance in Iraq and Lebanon. It is the lens through which they view the world. It is folly to ignore this and to believe that diplomacy will dissuade the Iranian leadership from pursuing nuclear power. While the military option will not likely be the way to persuade the Iranians from beating the drums of war and calling for the destruction of the "Zionist entity," there are economic and even diplomatic weapons in the battle to isolate the Iranian leadership.

FOR THOSE readers who are still skeptical of the power of the "Hidden Imam" theology to motivate the Shi'a in the Middle East, I provide a warning with three examples. The first is the commemoration of Karbala on the holy day of Ashura. On this most solemn day in the Shi'a calendar, Muslims in Iran, Iraq and Lebanon pour out their grief in an emotional day of mourning that sometimes involves the mourners beating themselves bloody with chains. The events of Karbala are remembered in a "passion play" that retells the story of Hussein's martyrdom and that of his infant son. Among the Shi'a on Ashura, emotions are intense, often exceeding the mourning of religious Jews on the Ninth of Av. Karbala is a living reality on Ashura. It is not simply a battle fought 1,300 years ago.

The second example is from the Khomeini revolution in Iran 30 years ago. Iranians supporting the ayatollah identified the hated shah with Yazid, the Umayyad caliph responsible for the death of Hussein. The call to revolution was grounded in the theology of Karbala; the return of Khomeini was for some a harbinger of the return of the "Hidden Imam." For the revolutionaries in Iran, Karbala was - and remains - a living reality. Ahmadinejad, during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, trained teenage boys to march in front of the Iranian army and step on land mines to clear the way for the Shi'a troops. For their martyrdom, these young men were promised a place in Paradise.

Finally, if we in the West do not take Iran seriously, it is obvious that Sunnis in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt are alarmed by the reemergence of the Shi'a since the Iranian revolution. The Arab world correctly perceives that the Iranian government wants to export its revolution and foment rebellion throughout the Muslim world in the Middle East. The rise of Hizbullah in Lebanon is indicative of Iran's success in doing so. The reality of Karbala in the nuclear age should wake this world up to the devastating impact of an apocalyptic theology that cannot be simply stifled through the formality of diplomatic negotiations.

5) Early Zionists and Arabs
By Judea Pearl


Many Arab officials and Israeli "New Historians" describe early Zionist attitudes toward the Arab population of Palestine as dismissive or arrogant. Books and pamphlets from the time tell a different story.

Ben-Gurion: Our Arab Brethren

During World War I, Israel's future first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, spent three years in New York, exiled from Palestine "for conspiring against Ottoman rule." He devoted most of his time to organizing the He-Halutz youth movement with Yitzhak Ben Zvi, but he also published, a few months before issuance of the Balfour Declaration, an interesting treatise: "On the Origin of the Falahin," [1] the Arab peasants in Palestine. In this work, Ben-Gurion, the scholar and historian, argued that the Falahin are descendants of Jews who remained in Palestine after the Roman expulsion and who later converted to Islam:

The logical, self-evident conclusion of all the above is as follows: The agricultural community that the Arabs found in Eretz Israel in the 7th century was none other than the Hebrew farmers that remained on their land despite all the persecution and oppression of the Roman and Byzantine emperors. Some of them accepted Christianity, at least on the surface, but many held on to their ancestral faith and occasionally revolted against their Christian oppressors. After the Arab conquest, the Arabic language and Muslim religion spread gradually among the countrymen. In his essay "Ancient Names in Palestine and Syria in Our Times," Dr. George Kampmeyer proves, based on historico-linguistic analysis, that for a certain period of time, both Aramaic and Arabic were in use and only slowly did the former give way to the latter.

The greater majority and main structures of the Muslim falahin in western Eretz Israel present to us one racial strand and a whole ethnic unit, and there is no doubt that much Jewish blood flows in their veins—the blood of those Jewish farmers, "lay persons," who chose in the travesty of times to abandon their faith in order to remain on their land.

Ben-Gurion's theory may not withstand modern DNA analysis, but his essay reveals a genuine attempt to establish an ancestral kinship with the Arab population and to bridge cultural and religious divides.
Ben-Gurion: Palestinian Arab Rights

In 1918, Israel Zangwill, an on-again, off-again member of the Zionist movement and author of the influential novel Children of the Ghetto,[2] wrote an article suggesting that the Arabs should be persuaded to "trek" from Palestine.[3] Ben-Gurion was quick to distance the Zionist movement from any such notion. In an article published that year in the Yiddish-language newspaper Yiddishe Kemper, Ben-Gurion ridiculed Zangwill:

Eretz Israel is not an empty country ... West of Jordan alone houses three quarter of a million people. On no account must we injure the rights of the inhabitants. Only "Ghetto Dreamers" like Zangwill can imagine that Eretz Israel will be given to the Jews with the added right of dispossessing the current inhabitants of the country. This is not the mission of Zionism. Had Zionism to aspire to inherit the place of these inhabitants—it would be nothing but a dangerous utopia and an empty, damaging and reactionary dream … Not to take from others—but to build the ruins. [We claim] no rights on our past—but on our future. Not the preservation of historic inheritance—but the creation of new national assets—this is the core claim and right of the Hebrew nation in its country. [4]

Weizmann: Arab Glory and Arab Rights

Chaim Weizmann (L), wearing Arab dress as a sign of friendship, and Emir Faisal I signed what became known as the Faisal Weizmann Agreement in 1919, which called for an Arab and a Jewish state to exist side-by-side.
In 1918, the British government sent Chaim Weizmann (1874-1952), the future first president of Israel and a key player behind the Balfour Declaration, to Palestine to advise on the future development of the country. There, he met with Arab and Armenian representatives and delivered the following speech in the house of the High Commissioner in Jerusalem:

With heartfelt admiration and great interest we are viewing today the current war of liberation conducted by the ancient Arabic nation. We see how the scattered Arab forces are being united under the good will of Western governments and other peace-loving nations, and how, from the mist of war there emerge new and immense political possibilities. We see again the formation of a strong and united Arab political body, freshly renovated and aiming to renovate the great tradition of Arab science and literature that are so close to our heart. This kinship found its glorious expression particularly in the Spanish period of the Hebrew-Arabic development when our greatest authors wrote and thought in the Arabic language, as well as in Hebrew.[5]

Perhaps anticipating future criticism that Zionism, while promising Palestinians human and civil rights, denied them national rights, Weizmann wrote in the newspaper Ha'aretz:

If indeed there is among the Arabs a national movement, we must relate to it with the utmost seriousness ... The Arabs are concerned about two issues: 1. The Jews will soon come in their millions and conquer the country and chase out the Arabs ... Responsible Zionists never said and never wished such things. 2. There is no place in Eretz Israel for a large number of inhabitants. This is total ignorance. It is enough to notice what is happening now in Tunis, Tangier, and California to realize that there is a vast space here for a great work of many Jews, without touching even one Arab.[6]

Ben-Gurion: Palestinian Self-Determination

In November 1930, about a year after the Arab riots that led to the Hebron massacre, Ben-Gurion addressed the First Congress of Hebrew Workers and delivered a lecture entitled "The Foreign Policy of the Hebrew Nation." In this lecture, later published in Ben-Gurion's first book, We and Our Neighbors,[7] he not only acknowledged the national aspirations of the Palestinian Arabs but also recognized Arab self-determination as an inalienable right, regardless of its impact on the Zionist plan.

There is in the world a principle called "the right for self-determination." We have always and everywhere been its worshipers and champions. We have defended that right for every nation, every part of a nation, and every collective of people. There is no doubt whatsoever that the Arab people in Eretz Israel have this right. And this right is not limited by or conditional upon the result of its influence on us and our interests. We ought not to diminish the Arabs' freedom for self-determination for fear that it would present difficulties to our own mission. The entire moral core encapsulated in the Zionist idea is the notion that a nation—every nation—is its own purpose and not a tool for the purposes of other nations. And in the same way that we want the Jewish people to be master of its own affairs, capable of determining its historical destiny without being dependent on the will—even good will—of other nations, so, too, we must seek for the Arabs…

The characteristic feature of a political movement is its ability to rally the masses behind it. In this sense, there is no doubt that we are witnessing a political movement. And we should not dismiss it, our way should not be through the [British] government …

We should not attempt to turn the Arabs into Zionists. I do not see why an Arab need be a Zionist. But we must explain to him what Zionism is, what it aspires to achieve, on what it rests, what its power and promises are and what its attitude is toward the Arabs in this land and the Arab nation in our neighborhood. It is imperative that the Arab knows that we have not come here to dispossess him, to subjugate him, or to worsen his condition. The Arab must know that Zionism is not an accidental, temporary phenomenon but a historical imperative, that it relies on the needs and strength of the entire Jewish nation, and that it is impossible to dismiss or silence it …

In much the same way that we need to educate the Arab public to understand our interest, so also we need to educate our public to understand the Arabs and work toward decent neighborly relations ... mutual recognition is prerequisite to mutual understanding.

The total Arab rejection of his overtures, followed by the bloody riots of 1936-39, eroded Ben-Gurion's confidence in achieving Arab understanding through education and cooperation. It remains an interesting exercise, though, to imagine what the Middle East would be like today had Arab leadership reciprocated with some recognition, however mild, of the Jewish right to self-determination.
Jabotinsky before the Holocaust

Ze'ev Jabotinsky, Ben-Gurion's rival, garnered a reputation as an advocate of an "iron wall" approach toward the Arabs. Yet, even he expressed respect for Arab nationalism and explained Arab fears of reciprocating Ben-Gurion's offer. Not only does Jabotinsky's article "The Arabs of Eretz Israel"[8] dispel the myth of Zionist denial and naïveté, but it also disproves the popular notion that Arabs feared dispossession by Jewish immigrants:

There is no point talking about the possibility that the Arabs in Eretz Israel would consent to the Zionist plan while we are a minority here. I express it with such confidence not because I enjoy disappointing decent people but, simply, to save them disappointments: All these decent people, except those blind from birth, have understood already that this is something that is utterly illogical—to obtain the Arabs' consent and goodwill to turn Eretz Israel from an Arabic country to a country with Jewish majority.

Every indigenous people, regardless of whether it is primitive or advanced, views its country as a national home and aspires to be and remain its sole and eternal landlord; it does not voluntarily agree to accommodate, not only new landlords, but even new partners or new participants. And our most misleading argument would be if we rely on the fact that our agricultural settlements bring them economical advantages; though this is an undisputed truth, there is no nation in the world that sold its national aspirations for bread and butter.[9]

Many of us still think in full honesty that a terrible misunderstanding has occurred, that the Arabs did not understand us, and that this is the reason why they oppose us; but if only we could explain to them how benevolent our intentions, they would stretch their hands back to us. This is a mistake that has been proven so again and again. I will bring one such incident. Several years ago, when the late Nahum Sokolov visited Eretz Israel, and he was one of the most moderate and diplomatic Zionists at that time, he delivered an elaborate speech on this misunderstanding. He explained clearly how mistaken Arabs are in thinking that we wish to steal their property or dispossess them or oppress them. "We do not even want to have a Jewish government; we want merely a government representing the League of Nations." Sokolov's speech received an immediate response in the main editorial of the Arab newspaper Carmel, the content of which I convey here from memory:

"The Zionists—so wrote the Arab editor—are tormenting their nerves unnecessarily. There is no misunderstanding here whatsoever. The Arabs never doubted that the potential absorption capacity of Eretz Israel is enormous and, therefore, that it is possible to settle here enough Jews without dispossessing or constraining even a single Arab. It is obvious that ‘this is all' the Zionists want. But it is also obvious that this is precisely what the Arabs do not want; for, then, the Jews will turn into a majority and, from the nature of things, a Jewish government will be established and the fate of the Arab minority will depend on Jewish good will; Jews know perfectly well what minority existence is like. There is no misunderstanding here whatsoever."

The Arab editor's argument is rather compelling, but Jabotinsky confronts it with a moral dilemma that is no less compelling:

Whoever thinks that our arguments [for Jewish immigration] are immoral, I would beg him to address the following question: If this [Jewish immigration] is immoral, what should the Jewish people do …?

Our planet is no longer blessed with uninhabited islands. Take any oasis in any desert, it is already taken by the native who inhabits that place from time immemorial and rejects the coming of new settlers that will become a majority, or just come in great numbers. In short—if there is a homeless nation in the world, its very yearning for a homeland is immoral. The homeless must forever remain homeless; all the land in the universe has already been divided—that's it. These are the conclusions of "morality." …

This sort of morality has a place among cannibals, not in the civilized world. The land belongs not to those who have too much land but to those who have none. If we appropriate one parcel of land from the owners of mega-estates and give it to an exiled nation—it is a just deed.

New Historians often cite anecdotal and secondhand evidence or diary entries lacking in context that depict an exaggerated, hostile attitude of early Zionist leaders toward the Arabs. In contrast, the quotations cited above were articulated in prominent and open public forums and published widely for Hebrew readers in Palestine and the Diaspora. It is these quotations, therefore, that are true representations of the dominant attitude of the Yishuv, the pre-1948 Jewish community in Palestine. They were enunciated broadly with the aim of shaping public opinion, educational norms, and cultural molds, which no doubt contributed to the culture of accommodation that governs the Israeli mindset today.


[1] "Leverur Motsa Ha'Falahim," Luach Achiezer, New York, 1917, pp. 118-27, reprinted in Anachnu U'Shcheneinu (Tel Aviv: Davar. 1931), pp. 13-25.
[2] Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1892.
[3] Diana Muir, "A Land without a People for a People without a Land," Middle East Quarterly, Spring 2008, pp. 55-62.
[4] "Zechuyot Ha'Yehudim Ve'Zulatam B'Eretz Yisrael," reprinted in Anachnu U'Shcheneinu, p. 31. For more on Zangwill, see Muir, "A Land without a People."
[5] Chaim Weizmann, Devarim, vol. 1 (Tel Aviv: Mizpah Publishers, 1936), p. 99.
[6] Ha'aretz (Tel Aviv), Dec. 15, 1919, as reprinted in Devarim, vol. 1, p. 129.
[7] Anachnu U'Shcheneinu, p. 257.
[8] "Arviyey Eretz Yisrael," in Medina Ivrit (Tel Aviv: T. Kopp, 1937).
[9] Ibid., pp. 73-4.

6) THE LAST WORD
Anna Quindlen
Waiting in Line

If the millennials seize the (election) day, they could transform the terms of American civic engagement for decades to come.


Over the past decade American children have, from time to time, lined up at malls and on Main Street, dressed as wizards or wearing owlish spectacles, waiting to buy a book. You could see this as the power of the Harry Potter series, or as the enrichment of author J. K. Rowling. But if you take the long view, what you see are millions of inveterate readers being built from the ground up. Some version of this may well have happened during this presidential-election season. Analysts have learned to be skeptical of the so-called youth vote, but all signs suggest that this may be the moment when the country begins to create a new cadre of lifelong voters.

Evidence of this good news is both statistical and anecdotal. Turnout by young voters in the 2008 primaries and caucuses was nearly twice that of eight years before. Rock the Vote has signed up 2.3 million this year, as opposed to 1.4 million in 2004, which at the time was a watershed. On a more-micro level, the chairman of the Department of Government and Politics at Sacred Heart University in Connecticut, who has taken students to the Inauguration every four years, told a reporter that in the past it took months to fill a single bus. This year he is chartering two, since the first one filled within days.

The last big bump among young voters came in 1972, the first presidential election after the voting age was lowered from 21 to 18. Despite revisionist history that suggests that all young people then were antiwar and counterculture, the youth vote split pretty evenly between George McGovern and Richard Nixon. Roughly half of those casting their first vote chose a man who was trounced on election night, and the other half chose a man who had to resign the presidency in disgrace less than two years later.

It's difficult to figure out how much effect this had on voter turnout in the decades that followed, but the undeniable fact is that Americans have exercised the franchise less vigorously than a participatory democracy might wish. There are dozens of documents in my filing cabinet about proposals to change that, from turning voting into a lottery—civic responsibility and a million bucks!—to moving Election Day to the weekend.

That particular file has grown dusty this year. Primary turnouts reached historic highs, including among new voters. The onetime collateral issues that concern them—and that were often ignored by elected officials—have gone mainstream: gay rights, the environment, the cost of a college education. And the terrorist attacks of September 11, as well as their generation's racial and ethnic diversity, reinforced their sense of themselves as engaged citizens of the world. These are the millennials, more pragmatic and optimistic than their parents.

Ben Lazarus, co-chair of Yale for Obama, says that the voters of his generation are inclined to move politics out of the long stall of baby-boomer disenchantment. "Our idea of our own American identity is much more open and progressive," he says. "And I think that goes for both sides. Most young conservatives are just as interested in recalibrating the American identity as liberals. Nobody my age has any interest in litigating the late 1960s over and over and over again."

7) 'Socialism' is a losing argument
By RUBEN NAVARRETTE JR.


After nearly two years, dozens of debates, hundreds of speeches, and more than a billion dollars, the final days of Campaign 2008 revolve around three words: “Spread the wealth.”

That's what a lot of Americans are arguing about as the curtain falls – including Barack Obama, John McCain, and their running mates. Both sides see it as an issue of fairness, and, oddly enough, both see it as a winner for them.

For the Obama-Biden campaign, the fair thing is that those who earn more should pay higher taxes than those who are less well-off. For McCain-Palin, government should not be playing “Robin Hood” by taxing the rich and redistributing it to the poor.

Which argument is resonating with voters? Why, both of them – depending on whom those voters support for president and how much they earn.

And to think it all started just a few weeks ago in that suburb outside Toledo, Ohio, when Obama approached Joe Wurzelbacher, aka Joe the Plumber. Wurzelbacher asked Obama if he believed in the American dream and if it was true that if he bought his own company and it made nearly $300,000 per year, would he be taxed more under Obama's plan. After flooding Joe with numbers and percentages, the candidate blurted out the line that stuck.

“I think when you spread the wealth around,” Obama said, “it's good for everybody.”

Wurzelbacher has since characterized Obama's economic policies as “socialist.” Last week, he joined Sarah Palin at a rally at Bowling Green University in Ohio. Palin praised the plumber for somehow managing to get Obama to dole out some straight talk about his tax plan.

Palin tried to smooth out the edges and sum up Joe's view this way: “I guess if you want to work hard, and you know what hard work feels like, and if you want to get ahead, and if you believe that America is the land of possibilities, you don't want your dreams dashed by the Obama tax increase plan.” Wurzelbacher didn't speak at the event, but he did appear on stage in jeans and a checkered shirt as the crowd applauded and chanted, “Joe! Joe! Joe!” Later, he signed autographs.

Oh brother. McCain and Palin were handed a possible reprieve by the “spread the wealth” incident but then they blew it. That's because they became consumed with painting Obama as a socialist. And that's where they lost many Americans, including those who are tired of name-calling and perhaps those who recognize that other popular government entitlements – farm subsidies, Medicare, Social Security, etc. – could just as easily be labeled socialism.

Instead of attacking Obama with a highly charged label, the McCain-Palin campaign should have attacked his argument. The way to do that was to bring the issue home to something everyone understands – how different people, even members of the same family, perform at different levels. Sometimes, it's because of an unfair advantage or dumb luck, but often it's because individuals undertake varying degrees of education, risk, sacrifice, investment, hard work and other ingredients to success. The counterargument to “spread the wealth” should have been not only is it wrong to kill incentive and punish success by penalizing high-achievers, but it's just as harmful to enable low-achievers by teaching them that it's perfectly acceptable to expect something for nothing and covet what others have.

I realize there are those American workers who labor long and hard and still don't earn much money. There is nothing wrong with giving them a tax cut – assuming they pay taxes in the first place, and not all low-income people do. But there is something wrong with extending that benefit to those Americans who – for one reason or another – haven't invested what they should or made bad choices, took the easy road, passed up the chance to get more education or additional skills, refused to relocate for better jobs and so on.

There isn't a parent of grown children anywhere in the country who doesn't understand this concept. They may love their children equally, but that doesn't stop them from acknowledging that their offspring – like all human beings – perform at different levels and reap benefits accordingly. The goal shouldn't be equal outcome but equal opportunity. What you do with it is up to you.

McCain and Palin could have said all that, but they didn't. And it could help cost them the election.

8)Obama is intelligent...attended Columbia University
Obama is intelligent...attended Harvard University
Obama is intelligent...knows how to create class division
Obama is intelligent...knows how to pull the wool over people eyes
Obama is intelligent...knows how to lie left and right an make people believe him
Obama is intelligent...knows how to hide the truth from people
Obama is intelligent...knows how to hide his birthplace from people
Obama is intelligent...knows how to silence his opponents
Obama is intelligent...knows how to feed greed to envious people
Obama is intelligent...knows to offer the American dream to people who do not sleep.
Obama is intelligent...knows how to buy votes by spending other peoples money in advertisements
Obama is intelligent...knows how to go to where people are already gathered to speak
Obama is intelligent...knows how to hide where his money comes from
Obama is intelligent...does not mention that all communist leaders in the world that back him
Obama is intelligent...does not reveal the name and text of his Columbia U. thesis.
Obama is intelligent...does not let his vice nominee speak our for fear of his gaffes
Obama is intelligent...does not let you know who his natural father is
Obama is intelligent...expertly changes his position to say whatever he thinks people wants to hear
Obama is intelligent...creates an ''enemy'' to divert the attention of the people
Obama is intelligent...makes people believe in him
Obama is intelligent...makes people believe he has experience
Obama is intelligent...puts down his country to appeal to our enemies
Obama is intelligent...puts down our armed forces to appeal to our enemies
Obama is intelligent...calls the race card whenever he wants but does not accept the card played against him
Obama is intelligent...silences those whose questions are damaging to him to intimidate other reporters
Obama is intelligent...claims he had nothing to do with his church pastor
Obama is intelligent...claims he had nothing to do with radicals
Obama is intelligent...claims that two years of anti Christian indoctrination in an Islamic school left no influence in him

And now...he does not understand redistributing the wealth will destroy the willingness to work in those work? Or is this what he wants?
And now...he does not understand if you give money to those who do not work it will make them never want to work? Or is this what he wants?
And now...he does not understand over taxing the citizens destroys the economy? Or is this what he wants?
And now...he does not know cutting funds to the military defending our freedom puts them and our freedom at risk? Or is this what he wants?
And now...he does not understand destroying our weapons arsenal puts us in the hands of our enemies? Or is this what he wants?
And now...he does not understand taking guns out of citizens hands is is against our constitution? Or does he intend to change the constitution?
And now...he does not understand this country is based in Christian values and people do not ''cling'' to religion? He wants to eliminate religion?
And now...he does not know the poorer the people the more they suffer under communism? But he knows they do not know.

If Obama is intelligent for all of the above, then is he actually after the destruction of our country and all the ''offers'' to gain votes are just objectives to attain a goal?

Is the goal the destruction of America and the conversion of our country into a third world comrade? This is the change he wants ''for you'' but will never let you know until he gets the power of the presidency of our beloved United States of America.

Why are we so afraid of calling this man a communist if that is what he is?
Why are we afraid to call this man anti-Christian if that is what he is?
Why are we so afraid of call this man a racist if that is what he is?
Why are we afraid to call him anti American if that is what the is?

We have to learn how to read between lines.
We have to learn how to read the writings on the wall.
We have to learn how to read behind the lies.
We have to learn how to read behind the hidden, protected and not released information.
We have to learn how think and act independently form the barrage of propaganda from the press and media.
We have to learn that if your vote is influenced by the press, political activists or peer pressure you are prostituting your vote
We have to learn to vote on the merits of the candidates regardless of all the external influences.
We have to stand for ourselves independent of other people's propagandized rhetoric.
We should never surrender to demagogury.

Let us keep America free.
Let us keep America free of external control.
Let us keep America armed.
Let us continue to be a beacon of liberty and freedom for all
Let us keep our Constitution.
Let us never let our Country be taken over from the inside.
Let us keep God in our Country.

God Save America¡ God guard us all! God Bless America!

9) Who says Jews are Smart?
By Jonathan Rosenblum


Arab-Americans overwhelmingly support Senator Barack Obama for president. So do Jewish-Americans. One of these two groups either does not care much about the Arab-Israeli conflict and/or is stupid. My money is on the Jews.

American Jews care less and less about Israel. Over 50% of non-Orthodox Jews under 35 say they would not view the destruction of the State of Israel as a personal tragedy. Israel is not a popular cause on college campuses. Many Jewish students struggle against being identified with Israel, lest it complicate their social lives. In the under 35 cohort, only 54% profess to be comfortable with the idea of a Jewish state.

Other Jews who still find it uncomfortable to disavow concern with Israel have convinced nevertheless themselves that it is in Israel's best interests to be forced back to the 1949 armistice lines. A talkback to a recent column of mine that appeared here nicely captures the mindset.

Nathan Berkowicz writes: "What do you expect us Jews to do, hold the Palestinians hostage forever? Get your head out of the sand and wake up to the fact that we are going to have to hammer out a peace deal, a real peace deal, if for no other reason but to show ourselves that we are willing to humanely and fairly deal with a problem we created for ourselves."

Berkowicz places the exclusive onus on Israel for the creation of the Palestinian problem - either by virtue of its creation or for having the effrontery to win in 1967. In addition, he blames Israel for the failure to achieve a "real peace deal." The infamous "three No's" of the Arab League in response to the Israeli offer to withdraw from the West Bank after the Six Day War played no role; ditto Arafat's decision to return to open warfare and reject Prime Minister Ehud Barak's offer of well over 90% of the West Bank at Camp David. Finally, Berkowicz wants the Jews of Israel to demonstrate their humanity. He never mentions ensuring their own survival as a desideratum. So goes the "pro-Israel" case for Obama.


THOSE WHO SEE ISRAEL'S SALVATION in its being pushed back to its 1967 borders have good reason to eagerly anticipate an Obama presidency. Obama has described the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as a "sore, . . . infect[ing] all our foreign policy," and placed return to the "peacemaking" of the Clinton years is at the top of his foreign policy agenda.

The express goal of that "peacemaking" will be an Israeli withdrawal to its 1967 "Auschwitz borders." In a June interview with Jerusalem Post editor David Horowitz, Obama said he can understand Israel's desire for "'67 plus" in terms of security buffers, but Israel should consider whether it would be worth the cost in Palestinian antagonism.

The overwhelming majority of Israel's Jews dread a return to the Oslo process, which claimed 1,471 Israeli lives in terrorist attacks, without bringing peace any closer. Oslo made a fetish of process over actual peace, as a pattern of concrete Israeli concessions in return for recycled Palestinian promises took shape. Obama offers more of the same: "Israel's government must make difficult concessions for the peace process to restart," he says.

On security grounds alone, the vast majority of Israelis oppose further territorial withdrawal from the West Bank at present. Earlier withdrawals from southern Lebanon and Gaza resulted in the creation of heavily armed Iranian proxies on Israel's southern and northern borders. Israeli intelligence predicts that Hamas would quickly take over the West Bank as well in the event of an Israeli withdrawal. The near elimination of successful terror attacks from the West Bank since 2002 demonstrates that only Israeli troops and on the ground intelligence gathering capabilities can deter terrorism.

Oslo taught that peace cannot be imposed from the outside and has nothing to do with signed agreements. Only a bottom-up transformation of Palestian society would make peace possible, argues Natan Sharansky, and that transformation has never seemed so far away after the Hamas takeover of Gaza.

Even the "moderate" Mahmoud Abbas recently declared a festive celebration in honor of the leader of the Coastal Road Massacre in which 37 Israelis were murdered. Demonization of Israel and Jews continues unabated in the official Palestinian media. No wonder three-quarters of Palestinians say that reconciliation with Israel is impossible in this generation, even after the signing of a peace agreement and creation of a Palestinian state.

The greatest threat to Israel's existence is a nuclear Iran. By calling for direct American-Iranian negotiations, without offering anything new to the Europeans' approach over the last five years of unconditional negotiations, Obama only grants Ahmadinejad more time and increased internal legitimacy. And by linking any sanctions to Chinese and Russian cooperation, he dooms those efforts from the start. Bottom line: an Obama presidency guarantees a nuclear Iran.

And all this leaves aside dozens of troubling Obama associations. For twenty years, he sat complacently in the church of a pastor - "my spiritual mentor" - who spewed contempt for whites, America, and Israel.

Virtually his whole public career has been closely intertwined with the unrepentant former Weatherman William Ayers.

Another member of Ayers' Hyde Park circle was former PLO official and the current Edward Said Professor at Columbia University, Rashid Khalidi, whom Obama credits with opening his eyes to the plight of Palestinians. He has been heavily funded by the virulently anti-Israel George Soros.

Obama has numerous ties to the Nation of Islam, in particular through Tony Rezko, the convicted, Syrian-born racketeer, who partly paid for Obama's home.

Obama's foreign policy advisors have included: Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter's national security advisor and thirty-year critic of Israel; Samantha Powers, who has called for an end to aid to Israel and the introduction of American forces to protect the Palestinians; and Robert Malley, who has made a career of advancing, together with a former Arafat advisor, a revisionist account in which Israel was responsible for the breakdown of Camp David.

Even the Republicans touted for an Obama cabinet - Chuck Hagel and Richard Lugar - have been among the handful of senators, sometimes the only ones, to consistently oppose sanctions against Iran, Syria, and Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Hagel laments the intimidation on Capitol Hill by the "Jewish lobby."

No doubt the "pro-Israel" Obama supporters have good explanations of why none of these relationships are of concern. After all, why did G-d make Jews so smart if not to prove the emperor is fully-clothed.