Obama's Focus on Settlements Perpetuates Discord!

A surgeon/author summarizes his view of Obamascare in one word - Fascism! (See 1 below.)

Border peace is a reality. West Bank prosperity is becoming a reality. Gaza remains a tar pit and Iran remains the wild card.

Peace through strength trumps peace through endless discussion and weakness. (See 2 and 2a below.)

A headache for Iran comes in the form of an enormous new non-nulcear Pentagon bomb. (See 3 below.)

George Gilder has written a new book which suggests the fate of Palestinians lies in their acceptance and co-operation with a technologically advanced Israel. An Israel which has produced riches for its own citizens. Netanyahu has argued, and correctly in my opinion, that Israel is willing to help the Palestinians achieve a higher standard of living in The West Bank. That should be the focus and is the road to achieving stable peace if the Palestinians are willing to relinquish teaching hate and accept Israel's economic and technological help and its right to exist.

Obama, however, remains stuck on making a cause celebre of the settlement issue and, in stirring the old pot and in doing so continues keeping the flames of discord alive. But that is what Caroline Glick (see below) believes is Obama's intent because he seeks to weaken the U.S. Israeli relationship - he even said so. Therefore, Obama continues jousting at windmills while the train is leaving the station. Obama, the ideologue, has put himself in left field along with the Left leaning American Jewish community. They are kindred spirits.(See 4 below.)

Caroline Glick takes on America's Jewish liberals and points out their goal is also to weaken the relationship between the U.S. and Israel and, parenthetically, is in keeping with Obama's policy. However, it places them in conflict with Left leaning Israelis. Obama understands Israelis cannot vote for him but 78% of American Jews, mostly of the Liberal variety, did. Their mutually misguided goal is to force Israel to make concessions in the warped and mistaken belief this will insure peace. The Left is always ready to make concessions. They equate strength with thuggery. They are embarrassed by those who believe defending one's freedom is virtuous and even patriotic.

American Jewish Liberals are embarrassed by Israel. They find themselves forced into a defensive role they do not like so they become appologists. A strong Israel, capable of defending itself causes Liberal Jews angst because it allows the world to blame Israel for all the world's ills. This brings unwanted attention to Liberal Jews. Obama's Muslim background and radical associations casues him to hue to the same line of reasoning and thus their views - Jewish Liberals and Obama- fit hand and glove.

Aluf Benn's article, which I posted several days ago, highlights the frustration Left leaning Israelis are experiencing but Glick points out Benn draws wrong conclusions.

I have never maintained Israel is always correct but I have absolutely no problem defending Israel's right to exist, their right to respond to wanton attacks with whatever force is required and I only lament when the likes of a confused Olmert take a suck it up posture. Thus, in my opinion, Obama is as wrong headed in his Middle East diplomacy as he is in just about everything else he attempts to impose. He remains an inexperienced untrained puppy still chewing on eveything in sight and generally making a mess off paper.

As always Glick provides interesting insight as does Jennifer Rubin. (See 5 and 5a below.)

Ben Franklin on Obamascare - would he or would he not embrace it?

Those who pursue happiness and fail to achieve it can turn to Obama and he will make everthing come out alright or should I say alleft.(See 6 below.)

Creepy! (See 7 below.)

Dick



1) THE ONE WORD TO DESCRIBE OBAMACARE
Dr. Dave Janda
To The Point



As a physician who has authored books on preventative health care, I was
given the opportunity to be the keynote speaker at a Congressional Dinner
at The Capitol Building in Washington last Friday (7/17).

The presentation was entitled Health Care Reform, The Power & Profit of
Prevention, and I was gratified that it was well received.

In preparation for the presentation, I read the latest version of "reform"
as authored by The Obama Administration and supported by Speaker Pelosi and
Senator Reid. Here is the link to the 1,018 page document:
http://edlabor.house.gov/documents/111/pdf/publications/AAHCA-BillText-0714
09.pdf

Let me summarize just a few salient points of the above plan. First,
however, it should be clear that the same warning notice must be placed on
The ObamaCare Plan as on a pack of cigarettes: Consuming this product will
be hazardous to your health.

The underlying method of cutting costs throughout the plan is based on
rationing and denying care. There is no focus on preventing health care
need whatever. The plan's method is the most inhumane and unethical
approach to cutting costs I can imagine as a physician.

The rationing of care is implemented through The National Health Care
Board, according to the plan. This illustrious Board "will approve or
reject treatment for patients based on the cost per treatment divided by
the number of years the patient will benefit from the treatment."

Translation.....if you are over 65 or have been recently diagnosed as
having an advanced form of cardiac disease or aggressive cancer.....dream
on if you think you will get treated.....pick out your coffin.

Oh, you say this could never happen? Sorry.... this is the same model they
use in Britain.

The plan mandates that there will be little or no advanced treatments to be
available in the future. It creates The Federal Coordinating Council For
Comparative Effectiveness Research, the purpose of which is "to slow the
development of new medications and technologies in order to reduce costs."
Yes, this is to be the law.

The plan also outlines that doctors and hospitals will be overseen and
reviewed by The National Coordinator For Health Information and Technology.


This " coordinator" will "monitor treatments being delivered to make sure
doctors and hospitals are strictly following government guidelines that are
deemed appropriate." It goes on to say....."Doctors and hospitals not
adhering to guidelines will face penalties."

According to those in Congress, penalties could include large six figure
financial fines and possible imprisonment.

So according to The ObamaCare Plan...if your doctor saves your life you
might have to go to the prison to see your doctor for follow -up
appointments. I believe this is the same model Stalin used in the former
Soviet Union.

Section 102 has the Orwellian title, "Protecting the Choice to Keep Current
Coverage." What this section really mandates is that it is illegal to keep
your private insurance if your status changes - e.g., if you lose or change
your job, retire from your job and become a senior, graduate from college
and get your first job. Yes, illegal.

When Mr. Obama hosted a conference call with bloggers urging them to
pressure Congress to pass his health plan as soon as possible, a blogger
from Maine referenced an Investors Business Daily article that claimed
Section 102 of the House health legislation would outlaw private insurance.

He asked: "Is this true? Will people be able to keep their insurance and
will insurers be able to write new policies even though H.R. 3200 is
passed?" Mr. Obama replied: "You know, I have to say that I am not
familiar with the provision you are talking about."

Then there is Section 1233 of The ObamaCare Plan, devoted to "Advanced
Care Planning." After each American turns 65 years of age they have to go
to a mandated counseling program that is designed to end life sooner.

This session is to occur every 5 years unless the person has developed a
chronic illness then it must be done every year. The topics in this session
will include, "how to decline hydration, nutrition and how to initiate
hospice care." It is no wonder The Obama Administration does not like my
emphasis on Prevention. For Mr. Obama, prevention is the "enemy" as people
would live longer.

I rest my case. The ObamaCare Plan is hazardous to the health of every
American.

After I finished my Capitol Hill presentation, I was asked by a Congressman
in the question-answer session: "I'll be doing a number of network
interviews on the Obama Health Care Plan. If I am asked what is the one
word to describe the plan what should I answer."

The answer is simple, honest, direct, analytical, sad but truthful. I told
him that one word is FASCIST.

Then I added, "I hope you'll have the courage to use that word,
Congressman. No other word is more appropriate."


Dr. Dave Janda, MD, is an orthopedic surgeon, and a world-recognized expert
on the prevention of sports injuries, particularly in children.

2) Mideast Peace Now!
By Gene Schwimmer

Is it time for those who clamor for a Middle East peace to "declare victory and go home"? Two recent events in the region signal the answer.

And that answer, resoundingly, unequivocally, is "yes."

In 2006, Hezb'allah crossed Israel's northern border and kidnapped two soldiers, triggering a massive Israeli retaliation that caused hundreds of deaths, billions of dollars of damage and came close to destroying Hezb'allah, who were literally saved by the bell when the "international community" combined with a hapless left-wing administration on the Israeli home front pressured the Israelis into halting their advance short of complete victory.


And yet, in the aftermath of that war -- a war that reduced parts of Lebanon to rubble; a war in which Hezb'allah failed to invade, let alone conquer, an inch of Israeli territory; a war in which, a Hezb'allah officer confessed to The Jerusalem Post that, had it continued only ten more days, "we all would have surrendered -- Hezb'allah, astonishingly, declared victory. Apparently, in the topsy-turvy milieu of whatever passes for logic in the Arab Middle East, one can do that (and among the Israel-hating Left, get away with it).


So the Israelis pulled out, a UN "peacekeeping force" came in and, as we who opposed ending the war without a clear victory predicted, Hezb'allah returned and not only replenished their rocket arsenal, but increased it fourfold.


But then, something important happened. Hezb'allah won 57 seats (out of 128) in Lebanon's recent parliamentary elections. And on July 5, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a warning to Lebanon (emphasis mine) "that Israel will hold the Lebanese government responsible for any attack launched from within the country's territory, including Hizbullah operations."


Israel-bashers who waited for the usual Hezb'allah bluster and threats were disappointed for none has been forthcoming. One might even go so far as to say that, after Netanyahu's warning, Nasrallah has become all hat and no camel, to the point that (emphasis mine):


[a] week after a group of 15 people carrying Lebanese and Hizbullah flags crossed into the Shaba Farms, the terror organization called on its followers... not to demonstrate in the area under Israeli control."


Also,


top Hizbullah and Amal officials made a commitment to the UN envoy in Lebanon not to organize rallies along the border with Israel and to block any attempt to demonstrate there.


And at the same time, in the West Bank, according to Ethan Bronner of the New York Times (emphasis mine):


Seven months after Israel started a fierce three-week military campaign here to stop rockets from being fired on its southern communities, Hamas has suspended its use of rockets and shifted focus to winning support at home and abroad through cultural initiatives and public relations.


Of course, if Israel attacks Iran, all bets are off regarding Hezb'allah. But for now, all is quiet on the northern front. And the eastern front. And the southern front.


What does this sudden quietude along every inch of Israel's border with every one of her neighbors mean?


It means that now, today, amid all the "international community's" caterwauling about a supposed need for Israel to make substantial unilateral, self-endangering concessions "in the interest of Middle East peace, the chances of Israel being attacked by any of her neighbors right now is virtually nil. Which, in most people's definition, but especially in that of those who dwell in the Middle East and are familiar with the region's long and bloody history, means, there is peace.


Unnoticed, unheralded, not even reported, under their very upturned noses, the international community's professed goal of a peaceful Middle East, at least relative to Israel, has been achieved.


Peace, finally, has come to the Middle East, and it came not through Barack Obama's and the international community's (and Neville Chamberlain's) prescription of "negotiation" and appeasement, but through Ronald Reagan's -- and Franklin Roosevelt's; and Harry Truman's and, yes, Tony Blair's -- prescription of peace through strength and the resolve to stand forthright against one's enemies. (Even the only arguable exceptions, Israel's negotiated peace treaties with Jordan and Egypt, came only after Israel's victory in the 1973 war.)


And as postwar German and Japan proved, with peace comes prosperity -- provided, of course, that the victor is an enlightened democracy such as the United States. Or Israel. In a July 16 New York Times story appropriately entitled, "Signs of Hope Emerging in the West Bank," Ethan Bronner reported (emphases mine):


The first movie theater to operate in this Palestinian city in two decades opened its doors in late June. Palestinian policemen standing beneath new traffic lights are checking cars for seat belt violations. One-month-old parking meters are filling with the coins of shoppers. Music stores are blasting love songs into the street, and no nationalist or Islamist scold is forcing them to stop.



For the first time since the second Palestinian uprising broke out in late 2000, leading to terrorist bombings and fierce Israeli countermeasures, a sense of personal security and economic potential is spreading across the West Bank as the Palestinian Authority's security forces enter their second year of consolidating order.


That's the peace part. As for the prosperity (emphases mine):


The International Monetary Fund is about to issue its first upbeat report in years for the West Bank, forecasting a 7 percent growth rate for 2009. Car sales in 2008 were double those of 2007. Construction on the first new Palestinian town in decades, for 40,000, will begin early next year north of Ramallah. In Jenin, a seven-story store called Herbawi Home Furnishings has opened, containing the latest espresso machines.


Jenin, of course, was the site of the famous, and famously misreported, battle of Israel's 2002 Operation Defensive Shield that led to false accusations of massacres, but (along with Israel's security wall) virtually ended terrorist attacks from Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank's" proper historical names) and made the 7 percent growth rate we see there today possible.


Gaza's economy, on the other hand, remains a shambles. Anyone care to guess in which area the Israel Defense Forces maintain a presence and which area they abandoned completely? In which area the Arabs are cooperating with the Israelis and in which they are not?


One hopes that Hamas' recent decision to stand down will lead to the same cooperation, and thus result in the same economic improvement in Gaza, that Gazans can observe in Judea and Samaria. But in the meantime, let us turn our attention from the no longer relevant goal of achieving a peace that has, in fact, already been achieved, to the more urgent and necessary goal of making the peace that the Israelis have, through their courage and steadfastness achieved, permanent. This is not just for the Israelis, but for the Arabs, too - would the world prefer to see Judea and Samaria slip regress to the misery and economic stagnation of only that existed there only months ago and, sadly, still exists in Gaza today?


And it is here, in the need to keep the peace that has already been achieved, and how to keep it, that the Israelis have it exactly right. For the major, indeed only, current threat to Middle East peace is Iran. The urgency, as Israel has correctly and repeatedly pointed out, is to end Iran's quest for nuclear weapons; to eliminate her ability to threaten, infiltrate and destabilize her neighbors - and above all, to neutralize her ability to threaten Israel. Do those things and peace, and the security and prosperity that comes with it, is virtually assured.


Which explains the reason for the exclamation point at the end of this article's title. Who wouldn't be excited or even imagined a peaceful Judea and Samaria growing at an annual rate 7 percent? Only those who desire not peace for its own sake, but only peace at Israel's expense. Only those whose most fervent desire is not to help the Judeans, Samarians and Gazans, but to punish the Israelis.


Peace is the goal and the focus. But exposing these Israel-hating hypocrites who hate the Jewish state far more than they ever cared, or ever could care, for the Arabs suffering from the self-inflicted results of their "resistance" is, too, a good thing.

2a) Israel-Lebanese-UN teams secretly start marking out border


In deep hush, joint teams of the Israeli Defense forces, the Lebanese army and the UN Interim Peace Force - UNIFIL - with the quiet approval of the Lebanese Shiite Hizballah - began marking out the Blue Line dividing the two countries at the end of last week. As soon as Tehran picked up on the project, it called for Arab volunteers to rally "in defense of the Lebanese border."

If completed, the agreed border will encompass three longstanding flashpoints: the divided Ghajar Village, the Shaaba Farms and the sources of Israel's water supply.

This is the first time Hizballah has cooperated in any attempt to mark out on the ground the 78.8 kilometer-long international border along the Blue Line existing hitherto only on UN maps laid out by the UN Security Council in 2000, when Israel pulled back from South Lebanon.

Washington and Jerusalem take Hizballah's assent as signifying that the pro-Iranian terror group has come around to supporting peace diplomacy - albeit through Damascus. But, according to military and intelligence sources, Hizballah takes the fact that the Lebanese and Israeli governments and the UN had to come asking for its permission as their de facto acceptance of its political and military domination of southern Lebanon.

The Israeli and Lebanese teams are working separately, each on its own side of the border, followed and coordinated by the UN peacemakers who hold the maps.

Israel expects the agreed marking out of the international border to once and for all refute Hizballah's claims of its military encroachments into Lebanon which it uses to justify its own incursions and adherence to "armed resistance" against Israel. On July 17, a crowd of Hizballah activists disguised as villagers seized an abandoned Israel observation post near Kfarshouba and hoisted flags.

The Blue Line differs only slightly from the international Lebanese-Israeli border determined in 1923 but the tiny discrepancies have sparked heated conflict. The work is therefore going forward slowly and painstakingly no more than a few meters each day. Israel too may find itself having to forego parcels of land.

Both teams are working under heavy guard as they approach the most sensitive patches, the divided village of Ghajar, and the Shaaba Farms at the foot of Mt. Dov. The Blue Line runs down the middle of Ghajar leaving the northern half in Lebanon and the southern under Israel control. But over the years, Israel has conferred citizens' rights, passports and benefits to the residents, most Allawi Muslims, of both halves.

They are now petitioning the Israeli High Court to stop the border demarcation and prohibit the transfer of the northern half to Lebanon. Further back in history, they claim, their village was part of Syria. A legal opinion bearing out their claims has been submitted to Israel defense minister Ehud Barak.

Another complication not unrelated to the Ghajar case is that of the Shaaba Farms only three kilometers away. This tiny 22-square- kilometer enclave is hotly disputed among Lebanon, Syria and Israel. It was captured by Israel after the Syrian invasion of 1967 and virtually annexed as part of the former Syrian Golan. Now it is claimed by both Damascus and Beirut, although each is prepared to hand it over to the other to get it out of Israeli hands.

The demarcation project can therefore expect to be stalled by Syria when it reaches the Shaaba Farms. At that point its case will start merging with Israel's military and diplomatic considerations with regard to the future of the Golan.

Another key point to keep in mind is that for Israel to relinquish Ghajar village and the Shabaa Farms means losing control of the Baniyas, Hatzbani and Wazani headwaters of the Sea of Galilee, its main source of water.

In an effort to keep the border demarcation under wraps, the Lebanese army last week declared a state of war alert on its border with Israel, which is still in effect, in the hope of letting sleeping dogs lie in Damascus and Tehran and avoid rousing Hizballah to change its mind.

But the Iranians were not fooled. Friday, July 31, Iranian foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki said apparently out of the blue: "I propose that the Arab states that did not take the necessary steps during the past aggression on Lebanon to make their volunteers fully available for Lebanon."

This message was addressed to Hizballah and most of all Syria.


3) Pentagon eyes accelerated "bunker buster" bomb


* Bomb could be ready for B-2 bomber by July 2010
* Would deliver 10 times explosive power of predecessor
By Jim Wolf


The Pentagon is seeking to speed deployment of an ultra-large "bunker-buster" bomb on the most advanced U.S. bomber as soon as July 2010, the Air Force said on Sunday, amid concerns over perceived nuclear threats from North Korea and Iran.

The non-nuclear, 30,000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or MOP, which is
still being tested, is designed to destroy deeply buried bunkers beyond the
reach of existing bombs.

If Congress agrees to shift enough funds to the program, Northrop Grumman
Corp (NOC.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz)'s radar-evading B-2
bomber "would be capable of carrying the bomb by July 2010," said Andy
Bourland, an Air Force spokesman.

"The Air Force and Department of Defense are looking at the possibility of
accelerating the program," he said. "There have been discussions with the
four congressional committees with oversight responsibilities. No final
decision has been made."

The precision-guided weapon, built by Boeing Co (BA.N: Quote, Profile,
Research, Stock Buzz), could become the biggest conventional bomb the United
States has ever used.

Carrying more than 5,300 pounds of explosives. it would deliver more than 10
times the explosive power of its predecessor, the 2,000-pound BLU-109,
according to the Pentagon's Defense Threat Reduction Agency, which has
funded and managed the seed program.

Chicago-based Boeing, the Pentagon's No. 2 supplier by sales, could be put
on contract within 72 hours to build the first MOP production models if
Congress signs off, Bourland said.

The threat reduction agency is working with the Air Force to transition the
program from "technology demonstration" to acquisition, said Betsy Freeman,
an agency spokeswoman.

Both the U.S. Pacific Command, which takes the lead in U.S. military
planning for North Korea, and the Central Command, which prepares for
contingencies with Iran, appeared to be backing the acceleration request,
said Kenneth Katzman, an expert on Iran at the Congressional Research
Service, the research arm of Congress.

"It's very possible that the Pentagon wants to send a signal to various
countries, particularly Iran and North Korea, that the United States is
developing a viable military option against their nuclear programs," Katzman
said.

But he cautioned against concluding there was any specific mission in mind
at this time
.
BIGGEST BOMB

The MOP would be about one-third heavier than the 21,000-pound (9.5 million
kg) GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb -- dubbed the "mother of all
bombs" -- that was dropped twice in tests at a Florida range in 2003.

The 20-foot-long (6-metre) MOP is built to be dropped from either the B-52
or the B-2 "stealth" bomber. It is designed to penetrate up to 200 feet (61
metres) underground before exploding, according to the U.S. Air Force.

The suspected nuclear facilities of Iran and North Korea are believed to be
largely buried underground to escape detection and boost their chances of
surviving attack.

During a visit to Jerusalem last week, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates
sought to reassure Israel that a drive by President Barack Obama to talk
Iran into giving up its nuclear work was not "open-ended."

Iran says its uranium enrichment -- a process with bomb-making potential --
is for energy only and has rejected U.S.-led demands to curb the program.
For its part, North Korea responded to new United Nations sanctions, imposed
after it detonated a second nuclear device, by vowing in June to press the
production of nuclear weapons and act against international efforts to
isolate it.

4) Gilder Throws Down a Gauntlet
By Mona Charen


Charles Murray, no slouch among public intellectuals, described him as the most underrated public intellectual in America today. Murray offered this assessment of George Gilder at a recent American Enterprise Institute colloquium to discuss Gilder's newest book, "The Israel Test." Murray explained: From Gilder's national debut with "Sexual Suicide" (later reissued as "Men and Marriage"), to his seminal "Wealth and Poverty," to his farsighted "Microcosm," Gilder makes being ahead of his times look easy. And, Murray noted with admiration, Gilder has always been right.


Is Gilder underrated? Yes, because his gifts and contributions deserve more or less full-time celebration.


After the probably trillions of words that have been devoted to the Israel/Arab conflict, it is no small achievement to approach the matter from a unique vantage point. Gilder's thesis is this: Today's hatred of Israel is feeding off the same poison that has nourished anti-Semitism throughout history — envy, resentment, and misunderstanding of economics. Gilder asks: "Are you for civilization or barbarism, life or death, wealth or envy? Are you an exponent of excellence and accomplishment or of a leveling creed of troglodytic frenzy and hatred?"


Jewish accomplishment is an undeniable fact of history. Many (Murray included) have speculated about the disproportionate number of Jewish intellectuals, musicians, millionaires, scientists and others. Gilder (a Gentile) is interested less in the why of Jewish excellence than in its consequences. A society that is organized to permit individuals to flourish and to realize their potential (like the United States and post-1980s Israel) will broadly share in the increased prosperity those individuals help to create. A society (or a global system) that misunderstands wealth creation and wishes to level society by penalizing success will make life poorer for everyone.


Gilder boldly declares that Jewish genius laid the foundation for winning the Second World War and for the post-war prosperity that followed. Jewish refugees from Hitler's Europe provided much of the brainpower for the Manhattan Project. And Jewish geniuses including Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Heinrich Hertz, John von Neumann, Richard Feynman, and entrepreneurs like Andy Grove made indispensable contributions to the information technology that forms the scaffolding of modern prosperity.


Israel has only recently become a technological and economic powerhouse. It got there after a protracted dalliance with socialism that gave Israel high unemployment, anemic growth, and inflation rates that reached 1,000 percent in early 1985. Three catalysts changed everything: 1) the influx of 1 million vehemently anti-socialist immigrants from the former Soviet Union; 2) the addition of a far smaller but still consequential cohort of American Jewish immigrants who had business experience and expertise; and 3) economic reforms urged by Natan Sharansky and Bibi Netanyahu. The results, Gilder writes, were "incandescent." He cites a 2008 Deloitte & Touche survey showing that in six key areas — telecom, microchips, software, biopharmaceuticals, medical devices, and clean energy — "Israel ranked second only to the United States in technological innovation." Israel's high-tech research and development puts it at the center of the information revolution. Intel's microchips, Gilder notes, might as well be tagged "Israel Inside."


But what has this to do with the Palestinians? In addition to his guided tour through Israel's equivalent of Silicon Valley, Gilder also provides a taut and clarifying economic and political history of the modern Middle East. The economic piece is key, because Israelis have created prosperity wherever they have touched ground in that otherwise listless part of the globe. And Arabs have responded by flooding into areas they previously disdained after Israelis made them habitable, even desirable. It was so in the Yishuv (the new Jewish settlements in the Holy Land starting in the 1880s). And after Israel reluctantly took control of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, the economy in the territories became one of the most dynamic on earth, posting 30 percent annual growth. The Arab population, along with per capita income, tripled.


Arabs are and have always been in a position to share in the wealth created by Israel — and to create their own. But they have flunked the "Israel Test" by choosing envy and hatred. It's a test the outcome of which, Gilder persuasively argues, will determine our own future as well.


Gilder has always been right. Read the book.

5) Large and growing chasm separates leftist US Jews from leftist Israelis
By Caroline B. Glick



Israel's leftists are lonely these days. This was the central thrust of an opinion column in Tuesday's New York Times authored Aluf Benn, editor-at-large of the left-wing Ha'aretz newspaper.

Benn's article, "Why won't Obama Talk to Israel?" was a plaintive call for US President Barack Obama to woo the Israeli public. As Benn put it, "Next time you're in the neighborhood, Mr. President, speak to us directly."

Benn's article has been touted by Obama supporters and detractors alike as evidence that the President has a credibility problem with Israelis. Jewish Obama supporters sought to soften the impact of Benn's article on their fellow Jewish leftists by claiming that Obama is listening to the likes of Benn. For instance, the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg reported without irony that administration officials defend Obama's silence towards Israel by arguing that his June 4 speech to the Muslim world in Cairo was also geared towards Israelis.

The June 4 address of course was the one where Obama compared Israel's treatment of the Palestinians to the Nazi Holocaust of European Jewry and to black slavery in the antebellum American South. It was also the speech where he embraced Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's claim that Israel owes its existence to the Holocaust and not to the Jewish people's legitimate right to self-determination in our homeland.

Benn's piece is an interesting read, but not for the reasons that have been widely cited. It is interesting for what it says about the Israeli Left on the one hand, and what it says about Obama and his American Jewish supporters on the other.

Although Benn gives a long bill of particulars on why Israelis mistrust Obama, the general thrust of the article is supportive of the administration. Far from an attack on Obama, it is a cry for help. Benn and his fellow Israeli leftists want the administration to help them by changing the tenor of its policies, not the policies themselves.

Whereas the American Left was triumphant in the 2008 elections, the Israeli Left was decimated in Israel's general elections in February. Its two standard bearers -- Meretz and Labor -- were effectively wiped out. Its new flagship Kadima failed to win the support of any other party in its bid to form a governing coalition. Worse still, consistent polling shows that the general public rejects every one of the Israeli Left's central policies. From the swift establishment of a Palestinian state, to the mass expulsion of Jews from Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem, to unilateral land giveaways to the Palestinians, the Israeli Left today speaks for a but a small minority of Israelis.

Benn cited last month's Jerusalem Post poll which showed that a mere six percent of Israeli Jews view Obama as pro-Israel while some fifty percent of Israeli Jews perceive the President as more pro-Palestinian than pro-Israel. As he sees it, Obama's failure to win the trust of the Israeli public will make it impossible for him to coerce the Netanyahu government into freezing Jewish construction in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. This is a disaster for Benn and his colleagues. For unless the US can force the government's hand, there is no chance that they will be able to see their radical policies implemented.

It is in his attempt to convince Obama to help the Israeli Left that Benn makes his most consequential critique of the US leader. As he puts it, Obama "seems to have confused American Jews with Israelis."

Benn points out that Obama's repeated attacks on Holocaust denial resonate more strongly with US Jews than with Israelis and that the two Jewish populations have "different historical narratives."

Benn is onto something when he notes the differences between Israeli and American Jews. But he fails to grasp the real significance of what Obama is doing and what is actually happening in relations between the two communities.

It isn't that Obama is confusing the two groups. Through both his rhetoric and his actions, Obama is demonstrating his priorities and concerns.

Obama cares about securing the support of American Jews. He does not care about gaining the support of Israeli Jews. Moreover, Obama feels comfortable wooing the former while alienating the latter because he recognizes something that Benn has apparently missed: Today a large and growing chasm separates leftist US Jews from leftist Israeli Jews.

During his recent meeting at the White House with hand-picked American Jewish leftist activists and centrist American Jewish leaders, Obama explained that he welcomes open disputes with Israel. As he put it, during the Bush presidency, there was "no daylight [between the US and Israel] and no progress."

Whereas Obama's goal of openly distancing the US from Israel is a source of anxiety and frustration for Israeli leftists who believe that US pressure should be a means to the end of compelling Israel to give away land to the Palestinians, it is a positive development for American Jewish Leftists. Led by the new anti-Israel Jewish lobby J Street, and supported by groups like Americans for Peace Now, the Union for Reform Judaism, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs and the National Jewish Democratic Council, the American Jewish Left supports the White House's hostile positions on Israel as an ends unto themselves.

J Street — a creation of Democratic fundraiser and anti-Israel activist George Soros — was established ahead of the 2008 elections in order to lobby the White House and Congress to foment breaches in the US-Israel strategic relationship.

When Soros first raised the prospect of a Jewish anti-Israel lobby in October 2006, he argued that there was a need to institutionalize what had until then been ad-hoc anti-Israel lobbying efforts by American Jewish groups in order to scuttle Congressional support for Israel and undermine mainstream American Jewish organizations.

True to their mandates, today J Street and its fellow leftist Jewish groups Americans for Peace Now, and Brit Tzedek v'Shalom lobby Congress to adopt positions that place the US in direct confrontation with Israel. The three groups are presently lobbying Congress to oppose an AIPAC initiative calling on Obama to pressure Arab governments to normalize relations with Israel. In their view, the move is objectionable because it doesn't contain a demand that Israel stop building homes for Jews in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. J Street similarly opposed Operation Cast Lead claiming that Israel's actions to defend its citizens from rocket and mortar attacks from Hamas-controlled Gaza were contrary to the interests of peace.

Although attacking Israel on the Palestinian issue is the central pillar of these groups' missions, they are also involved in defending Iran's nuclear weapons program and championing Syria in Washington. In late May, J Street lobbied Congress not to place new sanctions on Iran claiming, "On Iran, the president is promoting tough, direct diplomacy�but the chances of [his] success won't be helped by Congress imposing tight timelines or a new round of sanctions."

The group has similarly supported ending sanctions against Syria and pressuring Israel to relinquish the Golan Heights to Syrian control.

In short, through their full throated support for all of the Obama administration's anti-Israel policies, the organized American Jewish Left has made clear that today it does not share a common goal with the Israeli Left. It does not view US pressure on Israel as a means to achieve peace and normalization between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Rather, like Obama, it views pressure on Israel as a means to weaken US ties to Israel in the interest of pursuing closer ties with the Arab world.

The current split between the Israeli and American Jewish Left, as well as the Obama administration's disparate treatment of both groups have policy implications for the Netanyahu government in its dealings with all three.

According to a number of American Jewish leaders, Obama's decision to meet with a hand-picked audience American Jews at the White House on July 13 was a direct response to the Jerusalem Post poll. Obama's senior advisors feared that the massive Israeli mistrust of Obama the poll exposed was liable to spill over into the American Jewish community.

To date, in contending with the White House, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has been careful to minimize the significance of the White House initiated crisis in relations. Fearing a domestic backlash, Netanyahu and his advisors have even gone so far as to leak reports of imminent agreements between the Obama administration and Israel on the issue of home construction for Jews in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria.

What the White House's distress over the Post's poll shows however, is that today - with a domestic consensus now backing Netanyahu against Obama - Netanyahu has less call to minimize the breach than Obama does. Indeed, doing so only advances Obama's fortunes among American Jews and so strengthens the position of anti-Israel Jewish organizations that support him. Rather than leak stories about an impending deal, Netanyahu's advisors should leak stories about American intransigence and hostility.

Moreover, given the administration's overarching desire to put "daylight" between the US and Israel, reaching an agreement with Washington will bring no relief. Since it is the administration's goal to weaken US ties to the Jewish state, clearly any deal that Israel could obtain would either be antithetical to Israel's national interests or breached by the administration.

Perhaps in response to J Street's ever-expanding media presence, Ambassador Michael Oren intimated last month that he intends to reach out to far Left American Jewish groups. To the extent that this is a serious initiative, it should be dropped immediately.

Through their actions, J Street and its allies have made clear that their institutional interests are served by weakening Israel. Their mission is to harm Israel's standing in Washington and weaken the influence the mainstream American Jewish community that supports Israel.

Rather than empower these anti-Israel groups by legitimizing them, the government should take a page out of Obama's playbook. Obama gave the perception of hosting a big tent for American Jews by inviting both friendly far Left groups, and friendly centrist groups to meet with him on July 13. He legitimized his friends at J Street and Americans for Peace Now by treating them as equals of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

By the same token, Israel's embassy should act as a big tent by reaching out to Israel's supporters on both the political Right and the center. All groups that support Israel should be welcome.

As to the Israeli Left, to date, Netanyahu has successfully built a strong, stable center-right coalition by going over its head and forming a national consensus around support for defensible borders, a united Jerusalem and rejecting unreciprocated concessions of any kind. While Netanyahu arguably made an unnecessary and potentially disastrous mistake in announcing his support for a demilitarized Palestinian state, by and large, he has successfully marginalized the Left.

Benn's anguished plea for help from the Obama administration shows that Netanyahu's policies are having the desired effect. His political opponents are descending into the depths of political irrelevance. Netanyahu should leave them to their richly deserved fate.


JWR contributor Caroline B. Glick is the senior Middle East Fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC and the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post.

5a) Rigid Ideologies and Old Formulas
By Jennifer Rubin

In a must-read critique of the Obama approach to Israel, Elliott Abrams attempts to piece together how we got from the warmest relationship with Israel in recent memory to the most hostile. Yes, part of it is the perceived desire by Obama to affect regime change in Israel. But it’s worse than that:

The deeper problem — and the more complex explanation of bilateral tensions — is that the Obama administration, while claiming to separate itself from the “ideologues” of the Bush administration in favor of a more balanced and realistic Middle East policy, is in fact following a highly ideological policy path. Its ability to cope with, indeed even to see clearly, the realities of life in Israel and the West Bank and the challenge of Iran to the region is compromised by the prism through which it analyzes events.

While Israel faces an existential threat, Obama wants to engage a regime that shows no sign of willingness to engage with us. Stall maybe; engage no. Obama obsesses over the settlements but ignores the very real progress made economically on the West Bank. (Ironically, this was the very sort of progress Dennis Ross, after absorbing the lessons of Camp David’s failures, declared was the only reasonable road forward in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.) Abrams writes:

It is, once again, about the subordination of reality to pre-existing theories. In this case, the theory is that every problem in the Middle East is related to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. The administration takes the view that “merely” improving life for Palestinians and doing the hard work needed to prepare them for eventual independence isn’t enough. Nor is it daunted by the minor detail that half of the eventual Palestine is controlled by the terrorist group Hamas.

The takeaway here is deeply sobering. Ideologues don’t accept new evidence or recognize that their theories aren’t bearing fruit. Failures are always attributed to a lack of time or effort. We simply have to keep at it, we will be told. That does not bode well for a course correction. They have their worldview, and they are sticking with it.

So don’t expect much to change so long as the Obama team “attributes every problem in the region to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while all who live there can see that developments in Iran are in fact the linchpin of the region’s future.” And don’t expect the Obama team to admit error or reverse course. For people who have decried, as Hillary Clinton put it, “rigid ideologies and old formulas,” they are, for the foreseeable future, sticking with theirs.


6) It’s all about the Benjamin, baby
By Bill O’Reilly |

As President Obama struggles to sell his massive reorganization of the health-care industry, it is important to understand what is driving him. This is a classic liberal vs. conservative battle, pitting government money for the poor against rugged individual competition in which the winners get more security than the losers.

Obama, of course, is a liberal guy - a community organizer who fundamentally believes that the American deck is stacked against many poor folks who, through no fault of their own, have been denied opportunities by society. So the president believes it is government’s responsibility to give those people as much money as possible. Free health care is free money.

That puts Obama squarely against Benjamin Franklin, who said, “When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.” Franklin realized that politicians who attempted to buy votes by promising rich entitlements could not look out for the good of the entire country. Thus, an inevitable decline would occur.

There is no question the American health-care system needs reform. But that can be accomplished with strict federal oversight on abuses in the industry, and tax breaks for folks who put money away for their medical care. Of course, safety nets for the poor and destitute must be available, and those should come in the form of free government-run clinics.

But Obama wants to take it much further - he wants the government to control costs and give free health insurance to millions. That might very well bankrupt the USA. You don’t have to look any further than the universal health care mess in Massachusetts to see disaster ahead.

Even though he remains a popular politician, Obama is becoming increasingly estranged from the American people. According to a new Rasmussen poll, 69 percent of Americans believe the USA is a fair and decent country. Sixty-five percent want fewer government services and lower taxes.

Despite a hard sell from the hard left, the socialist vision of “providing” for the poor is not taking root in America. Simply put, most folks support making your own way and do not believe the feds should create massive entitlements.

Here’s the interesting question: How far will Obama push government-controlled health care? Will he risk his entire administration on it? Right now, the folks are extremely skeptical because the president cannot articulate specifics. I do not expect that to change.

America is the most successful nation the world has ever seen. It provides more freedom and opportunity to its citizens than any other place. But there are millions of Americans who have failed and will continue to fail to pursue happiness effectively. Obama wants to assist them using the nation’s treasure, which is basically derived from its hardworking population. He wants to redistribute wealth in the name of compassion.

The argument has its emotion. But remember, Benjamin Franklin would not have supported national health care.


7) The Creeping Homegrown Threat
By Steve Emerson


This week's arrest of seven North Carolina residents, including Daniel Boyd
and his two sons, on charges of supporting terrorism and conspiracy to
commit murder abroad, showed how the problem of homegrown Islamic terrorism
is far more rampant than the media or the public is aware of. Just look at
the major cases in the past year alone:

• The convert from Long Island who joined al Qaeda (disclosed this past
week) and gave the group information about Long Island trains and New York
City's subways.

• The plot to blow up two synagogues and a National Guard plane in upstate
New York by prison converts (scheduled to go to trial).

• The plot to kill hundreds of soldiers at Fort Dix by assimilated American
Muslims living here 25 years (all convicted).

• The plot to operate a terrorist training camp in Oregon (pleaded guilty).

• The plot to blow up buildings by the Liberty City 7 (all convicted).

• The sweeping conviction of Hamas officials for conspiring to support
terrorism overseas.

• The cases of young Somali teenagers raised in the U.S. going overseas to
become suicide bombers.

The Boyd case in North Carolina proves that radical Islamic ideology
transcends economic class problems as has been claimed by pointy-headed
sociologists. The Boyd family was white, had a middle-class existence, and
had the economic opportunities afforded all Americans—just like most of the
terrorists cited above—and yet chose to engage in jihad to the point that
Daniel Boyd was willing to send his two kids on suicide missions to Israel.
That the FBI stopped all these plots is amazing, but they will never
continue to bat a thousand. One of these days, the jihadists will succeed.
In the end, the mainstream media refuses to recognize that the "mainstream"
Islamic groups are actually radical organizations that teach and imbue their
followers with a hatred of the United States and Israel. These groups front
as civil-rights groups, but in fact are radical Islamic groups whose
constant message disseminated to the millions of Muslim followers is that
the U.S. is an evil country engaged in a war against Islam. Once that
message takes hold—and after all, these groups control the mosques, the
Islamic newspapers, the Islamic schools, and the Islamic leadership from
which American Muslims and converts get their ideas about the world—it is
not a huge leap for some of them to become committed to violent jihad.
We are talking about a situation that is far more rampant than government
leaders want to admit because the Islamic groups routinely throw the term
"racist" at anyone who claims there is radicalism in the Muslim community.
Two years ago, a poll was taken of American Muslims: 29 percent of young
Muslims approved of suicide bombings. And those 29 percent are the ones that
admitted their views. How many more would not tell the pollsters what they
really thought?

The U.S. is becoming more like Europe, where homegrown Islamic terrorist
plots get stopped (or sometimes succeed) nearly every week. It's because of
the message that today's Islamic religious leadership hammers home: that the
West is the enemy of Islam, that Christians and Jews are involved in a
conspiracy to subjugate Islam. And so what is the logical result of these
teachings? Many young Muslims hate the West. And of that number who hate the
West, a certain smaller percentage—like the Boyds—are willing to take
matters into their own hands and carry out jihad.

We have a major problem on our hands that no one is addressing, especially
the Obama administration. After all, the Obama administration won't even use
the term "radical Islam." If we cannot name our enemy, how in God's name are
we supposed to defeat the enemy? This past week, Attorney General Eric
Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano gave widely heralded
speeches using the term "homegrown terrorism" for the first time. But which
homegrown terrorism were they referring to? White racists? The Aryan Nation?
The KKK? Eco-terrorists? A close look at their rhetoric shows that the only
time they used the word Islam was in referring to the city of Islamabad. In
other words, we have met the enemy and he is us.

The problem is not all Muslims. Far from it. It is radical Islam, just like
German Nazism and Italian fascism were pinpointed as the devils in World War
II. And in Christianity and Judaism, there are Christian and Jewish
terrorists, terms no one is afraid of using.

Documents obtained last year by the Investigative Project on Terrorism
through a Freedom of Information Act request show that it was the Bush
administration, lead by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, that
initiated the policy of prohibiting the use of the terms "Islamic
terrorism," "Islamic militants," or "Islamic radicals"—or even the use of
the word "jihad." These censorious vernacular prohibitions were the product
of advice given by several Islamic advisers hired by Homeland Security,
including Eboo Patel, founder of the Interfaith Youth Core, and Reza Aslan.
The administration's reasoning here was the embodiment of appeasement; the
goal: to protect Islam from any negative connotations. Islam today suffers
from negative connotations not because of biased and selective media, as
Aslan and others contend, but because so many acts of terrorism are
committed by Islamists and so many of today's Islamic leaders rationalize
these acts.

For Islam to restore its image as a tolerant religion will require Islamic
leaders to admit that Islam has a problem, that the anti-women Sharia, the
code of Islamic law, as interpreted by Islamists, is racist, that Islamic
radicalism does in fact exist and is not the crude or Islamophobic
imagination of writers like myself. The courageous Zuhdi Jasser, a Muslim
leader from Phoenix, already admits this and more. We need more of him—not
the apologists like Aslan who try to cover up for Islamic radicalism.
Aslan's recent comments at a panel about the film The Stoning of Soraya
M.—the story of an Islamic woman stoned to death by virtue of her husband
conspiring to use the Sharia as an excuse to falsely accuse her of
infidelity when in fact it was he who was guilty of infidelity—were simply
"outrageous" according to those who heard him speak. After saying, "I guess
it's up to me to put this into some sort of historical context," Aslan
obfuscated by asserting (incorrectly) that "many cultures" struggled with
the issue of stoning.

In the end, homegrown Islamic terrorism is not going to stop; it is
manifestly going to be abetted by a demonstrably counterproductive campaign
of prohibiting the term "Islamic terrorism" from being uttered. If we cannot
describe who our enemy is in the hopes of discrediting them, how are we ever
going to defeat them?

Steve Emerson is executive director of the Investigative Project on
Terrorism and author of five books and countless articles on terrorism. His
most recent book is Jihad Incorporated: A Guide to Militant Islam in the
U.S.