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Stratfor's Friedman on Israel's Border Security: Friedman argues the most territory is not necessarily, Israel's best defensible position based on the nation's war history. Furthermore, the fact that Israel must depend upon an outside friend for resupply makes them far more vulnerable than any reasonable territorial concerns.
I am going to respond to Friedman's interesting article in some detail beginning with the attack on Israel's right to exist and the Palestinians efforts to delegitimize the nation and then proceed to rebut, as well as concur with, some of Friedman's comments. (See 1 below.)
When Israel was established by the U.N. the land had been called Palestine by the British 'occupiers' and there already was a significant Jewish community living there under British rule along with a large number of Arabs who subsequently called themselves Palestinians, for political purposes. Jews living there began calling themselves Israelis after Israel was birthed.
After Israel was established the Arabs immediately attacked Israel and were beaten back but many Jews were forcibly displaced as were some Arabs.
Move the clock forward and after several more unwanted Arab initiated wars it dawned on Palestinians they needed to do something about their plight since they had become Middle Eastern 'tar babies.' No Arab nation wanted them and neither did the Israelis want to continue to be responsible for them. However, the Palestinians kept following the likes of Arafat and creating security problems for the Israelis. The Palestinians discovered and began to engage in Intifada and killed and/or maimed thousands of Israelis. (Multiply this by 50 and you get some U.S. demographic equivalent. Almost 18 times the number that caused GW to attack al Qaeda and eventually Iraq.)
So what did the Palestinians do? They cleverly began a campaign, which has proven successful, to delegitimize Israel and to claim they were an occupied people. This argument was picked up, in time, by various individuals and groups. One of the most notable was Jimmy Carter and soon it became 'kosher' for elitist academics and media and news types, various European governments, NGO's etc. to maintain their bashing. Obama is the latest to proceed on the basis that all the problems of the region, somehow or other, are due to Israeli 'occupation.'
The Palestinians now propose going to the U.N. to seek a resolution announcing unilaterally they should have their own nation - something, until now, they and their leaders have consistently rejected going back 62 years. In other words, the Palestinians want to return to the U.N. and seek retroactively what they rejected in 1949, because they have mostly run out of successful attempts through war and terrorism.
If the U.N. passes this resolution it will have no legal effect but it will provide Israeli bashers another club permitting them to take a series of economic, political and social actions along with various NGO's to treat Israel as a pariah. In fact this level of treatment has already begun.
Though, Friedman did not discuss this in his article below I believe it has relevance in terms of what Israel can and cannot do and should and should not do regarding territorial concessions.
In terms of Israel's dependence upon a larger power making the nation vulnerable I am in total agreement with Friedman. Yes, Israel receives economic, military and political benefits from its relationship with America but, as Amb. Oren pointed out in a previous article I posted, America receives significant and reliable benefits as well.
Where I disagree, and perhaps disagree is too strong a word because Friedman is far more qualified than I am on the topic,is that Israel's territorial needs must be significant enough, in terms of its already difficult defensive position, so as not to be forced to resort to a response it wishes to avoid - and by this I mean go nuclear.
Israelis, regardless of their political persuasion have no desire to be killed, thrown into the sea or be subjected to another holocaust. They wish to live in peace, develop products that benefit both themselves as well as the world, as they have for 62 years, and to be a respected nation among the world community.
That they are likely to be attacked again and again by Arabs is something that cannot be ignored. Otherwise why all the arms build up by surrounding radicals like Hamas, Hezballah, al Qaeda, Syria, Iran etc. and what about their cumulative pronounced statements they intend to "wipe Israel off the face of the map." Incidentally, a map that does not even have them on it!
Israel is not going away, Palestinians are not going away. Most Israeli bashers wish they would and that is why they press Israel to make concessions in the unspoken hope Israelis will eventually be defeated by those on whose energy they remain dependent.
Where Obama fits in all of this depends on whether you believe his words or watch his actions. I choose the latter and believe Obama will continue to play both sides of the street - empathetic ally leaning towards the Arabs but not far enough to wreck his chances with Liberal Jews who blindly provide him money and potential votes. (See 1a, 1b and 1c below)
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Even Robert Reich has become a DD'er. (See 2, 2a and 2b below.)
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One potato, two potato more? (See 3 below.)
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Obama attacked for deserting his most loyal constituency! (See 4 below.)
And why is a black man - Herman Cain - running as a 'Tea Partyer' if the latter is so racist? (See 4a below.)
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Dick
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1)Israel's Borders and National Security
By George Friedman*
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said May 30 that Israel could not
prevent the United Nations from recognizing a Palestinian state, in the
sense of adopting a resolution on the subject. Two weeks ago, U.S. President
Barack Obama, in a speech, called on Israel to return to some variation of
its pre-1967 borders. The practical significance of these and other
diplomatic evolutions in relation to Israel is questionable. Historically,
U.N. declarations have had variable meanings, depending on the willingness
of great powers to enforce them. Obama’s speech on Israel, and his
subsequent statements, created enough ambiguity to make exactly what he was
saying unclear. Nevertheless, it is clear that the diplomatic atmosphere on
Israel is shifting.
There are many questions concerning this shift, ranging from the competing
moral and historical claims of the Israelis and Palestinians to the internal
politics of each side to whether the Palestinians would be satisfied with a
return to the pre-1967 borders. All of these must be addressed, but this
analysis is confined to a single issue: whether a return to the 1967 borders
would increase the danger to Israel’s national security. Later analyses will
focus on Palestinian national security issues and those of others.
Early Borders
It is important to begin by understanding that the pre-1967 borders are
actually the borders established by the armistice agreements of 1949. The
1948 U.N. resolution creating the state of Israel created a much smaller
Israel. The Arab rejection of what was called “partition” resulted in a war
that created the borders that placed the West Bank (named after the west
bank of the Jordan River) in Jordanian hands, along with substantial parts
of Jerusalem, and placed Gaza in the hands of the Egyptians.
The 1949 borders substantially improved Israel’s position by widening the
corridors between the areas granted to Israel under the partition, giving it
control of part of Jerusalem and, perhaps most important, control over the
Negev. The latter provided Israel with room for maneuver in the event of an
Egyptian attack — and Egypt was always Israel’s main adversary. At the same
time, the 1949 borders did not eliminate a major strategic threat. The
Israel-Jordan border placed Jordanian forces on three sides of Israeli
Jerusalem, and threatened the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem corridor. Much of the
Israeli heartland, the Tel Aviv-Haifa-Jerusalem triangle, was within
Jordanian artillery range, and a Jordanian attack toward the Mediterranean
would have to be stopped cold at the border, since there was no room to
retreat, regroup and counterattack.
For Israel, the main danger did not come from Jordan attacking by itself.
Jordanian forces were limited, and tensions with Egypt and Syria created a
de facto alliance between Israel and Jordan. In addition, the Jordanian
Hashemite regime lived in deep tension with the Palestinians, since the
former were British transplants from the Arabian Peninsula, and the
Palestinians saw them as well as the Israelis as interlopers. Thus the
danger on the map was mitigated both by politics and by the limited force
the Jordanians could bring to bear.
Nevertheless, politics shift, and the 1949 borders posed a strategic problem
for Israel. If Egypt, Jordan and Syria were to launch a simultaneous attack
(possibly joined by other forces along the Jordan River line) all along
Israel’s frontiers, the ability of Israel to defeat the attackers was
questionable. The attacks would have to be coordinated — as the 1948 attacks
were not — but simultaneous pressure along all frontiers would leave the
Israelis with insufficient forces to hold and therefore no framework for a
counterattack. From 1948 to 1967, this was Israel’s existential challenge,
mitigated by the disharmony among the Arabs and the fact that any attack
would be detected in the deployment phase.
Israel’s strategy in this situation had to be the pre-emptive strike. Unable
to absorb a coordinated blow, the Israelis had to strike first to
disorganize their enemies and to engage them sequentially and in detail. The
1967 war represented Israeli strategy in its first generation. First, it
could not allow the enemy to commence hostilities. Whatever the political
cost of being labeled the aggressor, Israel had to strike first. Second, it
could not be assumed that the political intentions of each neighbor at any
one time would determine their behavior. In the event Israel was collapsing,
for example, Jordan’s calculations of its own interests would shift, and it
would move from being a covert ally to Israel to a nation both repositioning
itself in the Arab world and taking advantage of geographical opportunities.
Third, the center of gravity of the Arab threat was always Egypt, the
neighbor able to field the largest army. Any pre-emptive war would have to
begin with Egypt and then move to other neighbors. Fourth, in order to
control the sequence and outcome of the war, Israel would have to maintain
superior organization and technology at all levels. Finally, and most
important, the Israelis would have to move for rapid war termination. They
could not afford a war of attrition against forces of superior size. An
extended war could drain Israeli combat capability at an astonishing rate.
Therefore the pre-emptive strike had to be decisive.
The 1949 borders actually gave Israel a strategic advantage. The Arabs were
fighting on external lines. This means their forces could not easily shift
between Egypt and Syria, for example, making it difficult to exploit
emergent weaknesses along the fronts. The Israelis, on the other hand,
fought from interior lines, and in relatively compact terrain. They could
carry out a centrifugal offense, beginning with Egypt, shifting to Jordan
and finishing with Syria, moving forces from one front to another in a
matter of days. Put differently, the Arabs were inherently uncoordinated,
unable to support each other. The pre-1967 borders allowed the Israelis to
be superbly coordinated, choosing the timing and intensity of combat to suit
their capabilities. Israel lacked strategic depth, but it made up for it
with compact space and interior lines. If it could choose the time, place
and tempo of engagements, it could defeat numerically superior forces. The
Arabs could not do this.
Israel needed two things in order to exploit this advantage. The first was
outstanding intelligence to detect signs of coordination and the massing of
forces. Detecting the former sign was a matter of political intelligence,
the latter a matter of tactical military intelligence. But the political
intelligence would have to manifest itself in military deployments, and
given the geography of the 1949 borders, massing forces secretly was
impossible. If enemy forces could mass undetected it would be a disaster for
Israel. Thus the center of gravity of Israeli war-making was its
intelligence capabilities.
The second essential requirement was an alliance with a great power.
Israel’s strategy was based on superior technology and organization — air
power, armor and so on. The true weakness of Israel’s strategic power since
the country’s creation had been that its national security requirements
outstripped its industrial and financial base. It could not domestically
develop and produce all of the weapons it needed to fight a war. Israel
depended first on the Soviets, then until 1967 on France. It was not until
after the 1967 war that the United States provided any significant aid to
Israel. However, under the strategy of the pre-1967 borders, continual
access to weapons — and in a crisis, rapid access to more weapons — was
essential, so Israel had to have a powerful ally. Not having one, coupled
with an intelligence failure, would be disastrous.
After 1967
The 1967 war allowed Israel to occupy the Sinai, all of Jerusalem, the West
Bank and the Golan Heights. It placed Egyptian forces on the west bank of
the Suez, far from Israel, and pushed the Jordanians out of artillery range
of the Israeli heartland. It pushed Syria out of artillery range as well.
This created the strategic depth Israel required, yet it set the stage for
the most serious military crisis in Israeli history, beginning with a
failure in its central capability — intelligence.
The intelligence failure occurred in 1973, when Syria and Egypt managed to
partially coordinate an assault on Israel without Israeli intelligence being
able to interpret the intelligence it was receiving. Israel was saved above
all by rapid rearmament by the United States, particularly in such staples
of war as artillery shells. It was also aided by greater strategic depth.
The Egyptian attack was stopped far from Israel proper in the western Sinai.
The Syrians fought in the Golan Heights rather than in the Galilee.
Here is the heart of the pre-1967 border issue. Strategic depth meant that
the Syrians and Egyptians spent their main offensive force outside of Israel
proper. This bought Israel space and time. It allowed Israel to move back to
its main sequential strategy. After halting the two attacks, the Israelis
proceeded to defeat the Syrians in the Golan then the Egyptians in the
Sinai. However, the ability to mount the two attacks — and particularly the
Sinai attack — required massive American resupply of everything from
aircraft to munitions. It is not clear that without this resupply the
Israelis could have mounted the offensive in the Sinai, or avoided an
extended war of attrition on unfavorable terms. Of course, the intelligence
failure opened the door to Israel’s other vulnerability — its dependency on
foreign powers for resupply. Indeed, perhaps Israel’s greatest
miscalculation was the amount of artillery shells it would need to fight the
war; the amount required vastly outstripped expectations. Such a seemingly
minor thing created a massive dependency on the United States, allowing the
United States to shape the conclusion of the war to its own ends so that
Israel’s military victory ultimately evolved into a political retreat in the
Sinai.
It is impossible to argue that Israel, fighting on its 1949 borders, was
less successful than when it fought on its post-1967 borders. What happened
was that in expanding the scope of the battlefield, opportunities for
intelligence failures multiplied, the rate of consumption of supplies
increased and dependence grew on foreign powers with different political
interests. The war Israel fought from the 1949 borders was more efficiently
waged than the one it fought from the post-1967 borders. The 1973 war
allowed for a larger battlefield and greater room for error (errors always
occur on the battlefield), but because of intelligence surprises and supply
miscalculations it also linked Israel’s national survival to the willingness
of a foreign government to quickly resupply its military.
The example of 1973 casts some doubt around the argument that the 1948
borders were excessively vulnerable. There are arguments on both sides of
the issue, but it is not a clear-cut position. However, we need to consider
Israel’s borders not only in terms of conventional war but also in terms of
unconventional war — both uprisings and the use of chemical, biological,
radiological or nuclear (CBRN) weapons.
There are those who argue that there will be no more peer-to-peer conflicts.
We doubt that intensely. However, there is certainly a great deal of
asymmetric warfare in the world, and for Israel it comes in the form of
intifadas, rocket attacks and guerrilla combat against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The post-1967 borders do not do much about these forms of warfare. Indeed,
it can be argued that some of this conflict happens because of the post-1967
borders.
A shift to the 1949 borders would not increase the risk of an intifada but
would make it moot. It would not eliminate conflict with Hezbollah. A shift
to the 1949 line would eliminate some threats but not others. From the
standpoint of asymmetric warfare, a shift in borders could increase the
threat from Palestinian rockets to the Israeli heartland. If a Palestinian
state were created, there would be the very real possibility of Palestinian
rocket fire unless there was a significant shift in Hamas’ view of Israel or
Fatah increased its power in the West Bank and was in a position to defeat
Hamas and other rejectionist movements. This would be the heart of the
Palestinian threat if there were a return to the borders established after
the initial war.
The shape of Israel’s borders doesn’t really have an effect on the threat
posed by CBRN weapons. While some chemical artillery rockets could be fired
from closer borders, the geography leaves Israel inherently vulnerable to
this threat, regardless of where the precise boundary is drawn, and they can
already be fired from Lebanon or Gaza. The main threat discussed, a CBRN
warhead fitted to an Iranian medium-range ballistic missile launched from a
thousand miles away, has little to do with precisely where a line in the
Levant is drawn.
When we look at conventional warfare, I would argue that the main issue
Israel has is not its borders but its dependence on outside powers for its
national security. Any country that creates a national security policy based
on the willingness of another country to come to its assistance has a
fundamental flaw that will, at some point, be mortal. The precise borders
should be those that a) can be defended and b) do not create barriers to aid
when that aid is most needed. In 1973, U.S. President Richard Nixon withheld
resupply for some days, pressing Israel to the edge. U.S. interests were not
those of Israel’s. This is the mortal danger to Israel — a national security
requirement that outstrips its ability to underwrite it.
Israel’s borders will not protect it against Iranian missiles, and rockets
from Gaza are painful but do not threaten Israel’s existence. In case the
artillery rocket threat expands beyond this point, Israel must retain the
ability to reoccupy and re-engage, but given the threat of asymmetric war,
perpetual occupation would seem to place Israel at a perpetual disadvantage.
Clearly, the rocket threat from Hamas represents the best argument for
strategic depth.
The best argument for returning to the pre-1967 borders is that Israel was
more capable of fighting well on these borders. The war of independence, the
1956 war and the 1967 war all went far better than any of the wars that came
after. Most important, if Israel is incapable of generating a national
defense industry that can provide all the necessary munitions and equipment
without having to depend on its allies, then it has no choice but to
consider what its allies want. With the pre-1967 borders there is a greater
chance of maintaining critical alliances. More to the point, the pre-1967
borders require a smaller industrial base because they do not require troops
for occupation and they improve Israel’s ability to conduct conventional
operations in a time of crisis.
There is a strong case to be made for not returning to the 1949 lines, but
it is difficult to make that case from a military point of view. Strategic
depth is merely one element of a rational strategy. Given that Israel’s
military security depends on its relations with third parties, the shape of
its borders and diplomatic reality are, as always, at the heart of Israeli
military strategy.
In warfare, the greatest enemy of victory is wishful thinking. The
assumption that Israel will always have an outside power prepared to rush
munitions to the battlefield or help create costly defense systems like Iron
Dome is simply wishful thinking. There is no reason to believe this will
always be the case. Therefore, since this is the heart of Israeli strategy,
the strategy rests on wishful thinking. The question of borders must be
viewed in the context of synchronizing Israeli national security policy with
Israeli national means.
There is an argument prevalent among Israelis and their supporters that the
Arabs will never make a lasting peace with Israel. From this flows the
assumption that the safest course is to continue to hold all territory. My
argument assumes the worst case, which is not only that the Palestinians
will not agree to a genuine peace but also that the United States cannot be
counted on indefinitely. All military planning must begin with the worst
case.
However, I draw a different conclusion from these facts than the Israelis
do. If the worst-case scenario is the basis for planning, then Israel must
reduce its risk and restructure its geography along the more favorable lines
that existed between 1949 and 1967, when Israel was unambiguously victorious
in its wars, rather than the borders and policies after 1967, when Israel
has been less successful. The idea that the largest possible territory
provides the greatest possible security is not supportable in military
history. As Frederick the Great once said, he who defends everything defends
nothing.
1a)June 2, 2011
Bashing Israel on Campus, from California to New York
By Stella Paul
Pop the champagne! It's party time at the City University of New York (CUNY) for Israel-loathing professors. For years, they've gazed enviously at California, where academic anti-Semites can demonize and harass Jewish students to their hearts' content, all at taxpayers' expense. But why should California have all the fun?
And so, on Friday, June 3, CUNY will kick off its own Israel-bashing bacchanal by giving Tony Kushner an honorary degree. In case you missed the Kushner kerfuffle, he's the playwright of Angels in America who's obsessed with Devils in Israel, a country he views as so monstrously evil, it's worse than Sarah Palin.
Basically, when you look up "crazy, far-left Jew" in the dictionary, you'll find Kushner comes after Noam Chomsky and Norm Finkelstein, but before Howard Zinn.
According to Kushner, Israel is guilty of being a Nazi state that commits "ethnic cleansing"; its supporters are "repulsive"; its founding was a "moral calamity"; and it deserves boycotts, divestments, and sanctions. And that's what he says when he's being nice! But if you think the big story here is CUNY anointing Kushner with an honor, think again.
The real hot news is that New York's elites raced to destroy CUNY Trustee Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, the brave and principled individual who dared to object to giving Kushner an award. Not too impressed with Wiesenfeld's right of free speech, the New York Times thundered that he should be forced off the CUNY Board; so did CUNY's Faculty Union, ex-Mayor Ed Koch, and CAIR.
Wiesenfeld, the philanthropic son of two Holocaust survivors, was called a fascist, bigot, hatemonger, and, of course, that favorite leftie slur, McCarthyite. How dare he deviate from the Politically Correct Canon, in which Israel always plays the villain and her attackers are cast as sexy saints?
So what can New Yorkers expect now that its Ruling Class has decreed that demonizing Israel is a protected racket and defending Israel is a moral crime?
In a word, California. Armed with free tax money and Saudi money with strings, a cadre of tenured anti-Semites have long made the University of California their carnival of crazy.
Professors harangue and mock Jewish students in class, and give them bad grades for presenting a diverse view of the Middle East conflict. Academic departments sponsor endless "seminars" that vilify Israel as an illegitimate, genocidal state, while shutting down pro-Israel speakers.
Professors assign outrageous anti-Israel propaganda in classes ranging from remedial writing to women's studies to environmental science, and never expose students to other viewpoints. After all, students can't be trusted to form their own opinions!
Even worse, on the most degraded UC campuses like Berkeley, Irvine, and Santa Cruz, an atmosphere of anti-Semitic intimidation and violence flourishes. Jewish girls are followed to their cars by Muslim activists, and called "whores" and "baby killers." Jewish boys are shoved, spit on, and physically attacked.
Muslim students dress up as Israeli soldiers, complete with fake guns, and set up "checkpoints" where they harass passersby to illustrate Israeli "brutality." And when the Israeli Consul or Ambassador gives a speech, riots break out, coordinated by activist groups like the Muslim Student Association (MSA) and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which are shielded by political correctness and funded by taxpayers.
In March, Jessica Felber, a twenty-year-old student at UC Berkeley, filed a federal lawsuit against UC's Regents, accusing them of failing to protect her civil rights as a Jew. Felber was holding a sign saying "Israel Wants Peace," when the head of Students for Justice in Palestine rammed her with a shopping cart, requiring her to get medical care. Her assailant was a known provocateur who'd been implicated in other assaults, without disciplinary repercussions.
So does this ugly and dangerous future await students in New York? Will the greatest Jewish city outside of Israel allow its public university to sink into a cesspool of academic dishonesty, corruption, and anti-Semitism?
Not without a fight. Thankfully, Jewish pride and academic integrity are not dead yet. Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, representing 55,000 academics, wrote a letter to CUNY's Trustees, deploring Kushner's award and defending Jeffrey Weisenfeld. The Jewish Community Relations Council of New York also supported Weisenfeld, stating that efforts to force him from the Board were "unacceptable."
And, this Friday, June 3, at 10 AM, a grassroots coalition of pro-Israel activists will be on hand at the Javits Center, to protest loud and clear when Kushner gets his degree. Break out the bubbly! Standing up for sanity is truly something to celebrate.
1b) An op-ed in the Boston Herald entitled, "Israel Suffers the Real Plight." In the article, American Jewish Committee Executive Director, Rob Leikind (and lay leader, Seth Klarman) speak about the ongoing efforts to delegitimize Israel throughout the world as the "Arab Spring" continues throughout the Middle East. Their column:
In a recent New York Times op-ed, Turkish President Abdullah Gul wrote that, "The plight of the Palestinians has been a root cause of unrest and conflict" in the Middle East. This remark brazenly advanced a dogma that has been decisively discredited by recent events in the Arab world. It is now time to relegate it to the dustbin of history.
Since Israel was established in 1948, dictators from across the Middle East have attributed the problems of their region to Israel's existence and, more recently, to alleged Israeli efforts to deny Palestinians their right to self-determination. This deeply flawed narrative has been fanned by Arab media, aggressively promoted by the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference, embraced by a majority of states in the United Nations and unquestioningly adopted by non-governmental organizations (NGOs), religious communities, unions, some media and prominent academics from around the world.
In the past few months, however, millions of Arab youth have taken to the streets and insisted that their governments and the world take note of the real problems affecting their region: a devastating human rights deficit, crushing poverty, widespread corruption, persecution of religious and ethnic minorities, and devastating discrimination against women and homosexuals.
All of these problems have been visible to even the casual observer. In fact, the 2002 U.N. Arab Human Development Report flagged many of them. Yet, for decades, few noticed. Instead, the plight of tens of millions of people across the Arab world was made secondary to an Orwellian campaign to delegitimize the Jewish state, the Middle East's only democracy, by painting it as a 21st-century South Africa.
Israel, of course, is not immune to criticism. Honest people may disagree with the choices it makes in addressing extreme challenges, including a looming Iranian nuclear threat, anti-Semitism, and frequent missile attacks that place millions of Israelis in harm's way. Yet, many advocates have abandoned fair and thoughtful interpretation of Israeli actions in favor of absurd declarations, such as the one recently offered by Turkey's Gul.
Those who perpetuate these toxic ideas have succeeded in doing harm to Israel's standing in the international community. They have also given cover and support to extremist groups like Hamas,Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood, which reject on any terms a secure stable peace between Israel, the Palestinians and neighboring states.
It is time to reject demonizing dogma and recognize that peace and stability in the Middle East requires a readiness to acknowledge the historical and moral complexity of the conflict between Israel and her neighbors.
Narratives that dismiss core Israeli concerns and attempt to assign Israel culpability for a vast array of ills may provide political advantage to despots. They also poison prospects for the kind of serious discourse that will be elemental to any successful and stable peace process.
1c)The Arabs feel bad
The Arabs feel bad in Gaza
They feel bad in Jordan
They feel bad in Jerusalem
They feel bad in Israel (they say they don't get the same rights)
They feel bad in Egypt
They feel bad in Libya
They feel bad in Algeria
They feel bad in Tunisia
They feel bad in Morocco
They feel bad in Yemen
They feel bad in Pakistan
They feel bad in Lebanon
They feel bad in Syria
They feel bad in Sudan
They feel bad in Iran
They feel bad in Tchetchenya
Where do the Arabs feel good?
They feel good in England
They feel good in France
They feel good in Italy
They feel good in Holland
They feel good in Germany
They feel good in Sweden
They feel good in Denmark
They feel good in Norway
They feel good in the USA
They feel good in Canada
They feel good in Australia
They feel good in Rumania
They feel good in Hungary
What can we learn from these facts?
They feel good in all non-Muslim Countries
They feel bad in all Muslim Countries
Who do they blame for this?
Not Islam
Not their leaders
Not themselves
They blame the countries where they in and feel good.
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2)Reich: Stalled Recovery Pushing US Economy Into Double Dip
By Julie Crawshaw
Economist Robert Reich says the U.S. economy is moving toward a double dip as it grapples with high unemployment, weak housing and a stalled recovery.
"Under normal circumstances, this would be the time for the federal government to take bold action to ward off a double dip," Reich writes in The Financial Times.
"But these are not normal circumstances. America has been through a devastating recession that poked a giant hole in the federal budget," wrote Reich, now a professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley.
The economy was supposed to be in bloom by late spring, but it is hardly growing at all, Reich notes. Expectations for second-quarter growth aren't much better than the anemic 1.8 percent annualized rate of the first quarter, and that’s not nearly enough to reduce the ferociously high level of U.S. unemployment.
“The recovery has stalled,” Reich says. “It is unlikely that America will find itself back in recession but the possibility of a double dip cannot be dismissed.”
According to Reich, the problem is on the demand side of the ledger.
“Corporate profits are still healthy,” wrote Reich, who served in three national administrations and was a secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. “Big companies continue to sit on a cash hoard. Large and middle-sized companies can easily borrow more, at low rates.”
Yet American consumers, who constitute 70 percent of the total economy, cannot easily borrow. As a result, they won't buy enough to get the economy moving again.
“They justifiably worry that they will not be able to pay their bills, or afford to send their children to college, or to retire,” says Reich. “Banks, with equal justification, are reluctant to lend to them.”
“But as long as consumers hold back, companies remain reluctant to hire new workers or raise the wages of current ones, feeding the vicious cycle.”
Reich points to the fact that the average hourly earnings of production and non-supervisory employees – who make up 80 per cent of non-government workers – dropped to $8.76 in April. “Adjusted for inflation, that’s lower than they were in the depths of the recession,” he says, adding that foreign consumers won’t help much even if the dollar continues to slide.
“Europe’s debt crisis and embrace of austerity, Japan’s tragedy and China’s fiscal tightening have reduced global demand,” Reich points out — and the U.S. federal stimulus has almost run its course.
“Worse yet, state governments – starved for revenue and constitutionally barred from running deficits – continue to cut programs. Local governments are now in worse shape, laying off platoons of teachers and firefighters.”
State budgets are recovering, but haven't returned to pre-recession levels of 2008, according to The Fiscal Survey of States, a biannual report from the National Governors Association and the National Association of State Budget Officers.
Twenty-three states cut their enacted fiscal 2011 budgets by $7.8 billion. Total balances are estimated to be $32.6 billion, or 4.9 percent of expenditures (2.5 percent without Alaska and Texas), based on fiscal 2012 recommended budgets.
Others agree with Reich's warning.
Mark Mobius, executive chairman of Templeton Asset Management’s emerging markets group, said another financial crisis is inevitable because the causes of the previous one haven’t been resolved, Bloomberg reported.
“There is definitely going to be another financial crisis around the corner because we haven’t solved any of the things that caused the previous crisis,” Mobius said Monday at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan in Tokyo in response to a question about price swings. “Are the derivatives regulated? No. Are you still getting growth in derivatives? Yes.”
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2a)The Enormous Disaster Facing our Economy
By Wayne Allyn Root
The news media in this country are in a stupor. Either out of ignorance, or complete leftist bias and fraud to protect their socialist hero Barack Obama, the mainstream media has turned a blind eye toward the enormous disaster facing our economy. The greatest Ponzi scheme in world history is coming to an end, leaving America on the precipice of economic Armageddon. Here are the facts the mainstream media does not want you to see- hiding in plain site just like Osama bin Laden was.
Bill Gross is the world’s biggest bond trader. He runs the PIMCO bond fund with over $250 billion under management. He recently disclosed through financial filings that PIMCO has sold every single U.S. bond in its portfolio. Local, state, federal bonds- all sold off. Gross knows bonds are about to default in record numbers. And most importantly, he knows that the last resort of the Federal Reserve buying our own government’s bonds at auction is a certain sign of Armageddon. When no one is left to buy your own debt but you, you have reached the end of a Ponzi Scheme.
Then there is legendary Wall Street investor Stanley Druckenmiller. He, too, is calling the Fed’s bond purchases a fraud and a Ponzi scheme. Druckenmiller says, “There is a phony buyer of $19 billion per week of Treasury Bonds.” The phony buyer he refers to is the U.S. government. Druckenmiller knows that when a country resorts to buying its own debt, we are seeing the last days of the Roman Empire.
Another Wall Street legend, Jim Rogers, spoke out at a business conference last week. He said he plans to short sell (bet against) U.S. bonds with both hands. Rogers added, “If any of you have bonds, I would urge you to go home and sell them. If any of you are bond portfolio managers, I would get another job…if I were you, I would think about becoming a farmer.”
Finally, we have the opinion of municipal bond expert Meredith Whitney, named by Fortune magazine as “one of the 50 most powerful women in business,” and by Time magazine as “one of the 100 most influential people.” She sees America in financial ruin with 50 to 100 cities defaulting on their debt in the next year.
What do these financial legends know that the rest of us do not?
First of all, reality is catching up to America. The Ponzi scheme of printing fake money to pay real bills is coming to an end. The jig is up- there is no way to sustain America’s massive welfare state anymore. When the Stimulus runs out, states will face disaster. The federal government currently pays for 30% of the states’ bills. Without that welfare from the feds, the game is over for the states.
But that is just the start. The states pay 40% of the bills of their cities. As soon as that welfare ends, look for mounting numbers of municipalities to declare bankruptcy and default on their debts. The vicious cycle is only getting started.
On the federal level, the trustees of both Social Security and Medicare admitted just this past week that their massive Ponzi schemes are running on empty. Both funds are running out of money far sooner than projected. Social Security will now run a permanent deficit. It is also important to remember there is no money in the “lock box.” All that is in the lock box is worthless paper IOU’s. It has all been spent. The Ponzi scheme is unraveling.
The list goes on. The country’s annual deficit approaches $2 trillion. The national debt approaches a staggering $15 trillion. The debt plus unfunded liabilities approaches an unimaginable $100 trillion. The debt-to-GDP ratio approaches the 90% number- a figure that few countries have ever recovered from. One of every seven Americans is on food stamps. We are fighting three expensive wars with no purpose, and no end in sight.
Every economic recovery in modern history has been led by a residential real estate boom. Yet today, the real estate crash is accelerating. The current real estate implosion is now worse than the Great Depression.
But I have saved the worst for last. The two scourges of any economy are unemployment and inflation. That is why those two statistics make up the entire “Misery Index.” The only expert I trust to give the true figures is John Williams of ShadowStats.com. He calculates those numbers the way our own government did until 1990, when they decided to rig the system to prevent panic and unrest. Based on pre-1990 calculations, today’s CPI inflation is now over 10% and unemployment is 15%. This 25% Misery Index is, by far, the highest in modern history.
Even more foreboding, 10% inflation is a leading indicator of hyperinflation on the way. Any rise in inflation would force dramatic raises in interest rates, which would eat up the entire budget. Game over for America.
History always repeats. This vicious cycle of misery will force massive layoffs of government employees, and massive cuts in entitlements and social services. This will result in Greece-like levels of protests, government employee union strikes, unrest, and riots.
The ancient Chinese proverb says, “May you live in interesting times.” We are all watching history. This is the unraveling of a Ponzi scheme.
2b)Obama's Cloud Economy The economy is flying without instruments because of the White House's policy choices.
By DANIEL HENNINGER
Like this columnist You just know the American economy is out there somewhere. If only someone knew which buttons to push to retrieve it from the storage cloud.
Here are three headlines that floated by on yesterday morning's screens alone:
"U.S. Manufacturing Growth Slows Substantially"
"Housing Imperils Recovery"
"Private Sector Added Few Jobs in May"
Let it be noted for the record that presidents normally do not take ownership of a weak economy. Jimmy Carter owned the 1980 election-year economy. George H.W. Bush owned the 1992 election-year economy. Both were one-term presidents. Happily for his opponents, Barack Obama has taken ownership of the 2011 economy, a full year and half before he has to face the voters. The Obama self-confidence is famously limitless.
Still, a doubter might ask if President Obama hasn't suffered his John McCain moment on the economy.
John McCain's presidential bid blew up for good when he announced in September 2008 that he was suspending his campaign and returning to Washington to address the national financial crisis. In the event, Mr. McCain had nothing to contribute, and the White House passed to Barack Obama.
Mr. Obama's McCain moment—raising expectations of economic seriousness and then dropping them over the cliff—was his hyperpartisan deficit speech at George Washington University in April.
The day before that speech, all Washington expected Mr. Obama to make a major policy statement about the big deficit-reduction debate then unfolding. Agree or disagree, Paul Ryan's budget released the week before was all about policy. The Republicans were actually offering to take part-ownership of the economy by spending the year in dense discussions about the deficit and spending.
Expectations raised, the president contributed nothing. Instead he dumped ridicule and derision on the Republican leadership seated before him. With that speech, Mr. Obama kicked off his 2012 presidential campaign, and in so doing politicized the economy.
The timing was not good. Whether it's this week's report that consumer confidence has fallen to a six-month low or anecdotal conversation ("So what do you think happens when QE2 ends?"), the sense grows that people are starting to freak out over the economy—over persistently high unemployment and persistently weak growth.
With the U.S. economy, a Lazarus rising is always possible (or was). But the informed betting is going the other way. Private forecasters have reduced their estimates for economic growth the rest of the year well below the 3%-plus the Federal Reserve predicted in April. The Fed's 2012 growth forecast runs as high as 4.2%. They must be using high-powered telescopes.
It's ironic indeed that Barack Obama, in a slap at his predecessor, routinely said that his policies would be "smart" this or "smart" that. A "smart" economy would at least have the virtue of clarity for the purposes of planning and capital investment. The Obama economy does not. Economic decision-makers—from 401(k) investors to Fortune 500 CFOs—are flying instrument-less through the clouds because that is where the policy choices made by this White House have left them.
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.The policy most explicitly intended to reboot the economy was 2009's $814 billion stimulus and successive budgets that raised federal spending to 25% of a $14 trillion economy. In this year's first quarter, the economy grew at 1.8%. Liberal economists, such as former Obama economic adviser Christina Romer, argue the stimulus should have been bigger, $1.2 trillion. Others wanted $2 trillion. We leave that to a generation of seminars in macroeconomics. Barack Obama, believing that $800 billion of injected "demand" would lift the economy, decided to devote his political capital and congressional majorities to reorganizing two major American industries, health care and finance.
Merits aside, both creations rose from the table as 2,000-page laws. Hundreds of thousands of economic actors across the country now wait while the bureaucracies struggle to interpret 4,000 pages of "smart" legislating. What evidence do liberals cite for their vestigial faith that these industries, employing millions of people in complex daily activities, can grow long term at greater than 3% from beneath the morass of Dodd-Frank and the Obama health-care law?
The housing sector, a monumental and intractable mess, chokes the economy. No matter. The president allowed (or told) "adviser" Elizabeth Warren of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to engulf banks and mortgage servicers in negotiations over a complex regulatory scheme whose goal, literally, is to fix their "business model."
The White House now says the free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea will be delayed absent payouts of more money for "trade adjustment assistance." Ergo, the past two years of uncertainty for trade commitments will be extended.
It is sometimes unfair to tag presidents with blame for an underperforming economy. Not this time. This president made conscious policy choices during a deep recession to reorder vast swaths of American industry. Strong-performing economies need clarity. Barack Obama has given ours indecision stretching to the horizon. And economic growth, like a long gray day, sits still below 3%.
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3) EXERCISE FOR PEOPLE OVER 60
Begin by standing on a comfortable surface, where you have plenty of room at each side. With a 5-lb potato bag in each hand, extend your arms straight out from your sides and hold them there as long as you can. Try to reach a full minute, and then relax.
Each day you'll find that you can hold this position for just a bit longer. After a couple of weeks, move up to 10-lb potato bags.
Then try 50-lb potato bags and then eventually try to get to where you can lift a 100-lb potato bag in each hand and hold your arms straight for more than a full minute. (I'm at this level.)
After you feel confident at that level, put a potato in each bag.
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4) Barack Obama and the Betrayal of Black America
By Chidike Okeem
When Barack Obama was elected as the president of the United States, black liberals dreamily believed that the numerous maladies in the black community would cease to exist. They believed that his election was indicative of a vigorous wind of political and social change that was blowing across the country. Barack Obama himself vowed that his election would demarcate the conclusion of grisly "politics as usual" from the commencement of political and democratic freshness. However, as this administration continues on, it is abundantly clear that Obama has not only failed to deliver in a general sense, but he has also completely betrayed his most loyal constituency -- the black community.
After passing a gargantuan stimulus plan that was supposed to fix the economy, the unemployment rate continued to rise -- until it only recently began falling. Although we are currently at an 8.7 percent unemployment rate, the rate in the black community is at an unpardonably enormous 16.1 percent -- the highest of any ethnic group in the country. It is also important to note that black unemployment was lower under Bush than it has been at any point during Obama's administration. In point of fact, black unemployment was even lower under Bush than it was under Clinton.
More egregious than the high rate of black unemployment is the fact that Obama has been completely disconnected with the black community. He has failed to articulate any policy that would deal with the crisis that is evident in urban America. Rather, Obama is much more focused on articulating and enacting policies about issues that are close to his heart, such as allowing gays to serve openly in the military, as well as becoming a potent mouthpiece for the immoral Arab scam to steal Israeli land and annihilate the Jewish people.
Any intellectually honest person in America must look at Obama's demonstrable disregard for black issues and come to the unavoidable conclusion that black America is the very least of Obama's concerns. So obvious is this fact that even some of Barack Obama's most ardent supporters in the black intelligentsia have begun voicing strident denunciations of the president. The latest assault on Obama from his left-wing compatriot Cornel West is evidence of this phenomenon.
Although West's critique of Obama was partly personal and laden with his characteristically asinine divisive racial rhetoric, there was some substance to his criticism to which left-wing Obama cheerleaders in the black community remain willfully blind. West accused Obama of being "a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats."
While West foolishly assumes that support for black issues and being in favor of business are mutually exclusive, the unstated and basic premise in West's critique is that Obama does not care enough about, and expresses no interest in, black people and black issues. As absurd as the rest of his intellectually messy ramblings are, West is right about that fundamental point.
Obama's sycophants are used to writing off all criticism of the president coming from whites as racist, and they are equally used to describing all criticism from black conservatives as being the puerile rants of Uncle Toms obsequiously looking for approval from "the white man"; however, although Cornel West is one of the black left's most revered academics, they would much rather write him off as entirely crazy than to admit that any criticism he has of Barack Obama contains even a scintilla of merit.
Big Government is the Problem, Not the Solution
By arguing that Obama has betrayed the black community, I am not arguing that Obama needs to spend his time carving out black-specific governmental policies. Manifestly, the black-specific liberal policies that have been attempted in the past have done nothing more than stimulate a metastasizing of the very social cancers that they were designed to treat. My argument is, however, that Obama has failed to enact the economic policies that would provide the necessary environment for blacks to fend for themselves independent of government -- despite the fact that he presented himself during his campaign as someone who was inimitably skilled and uniquely well-positioned to do so.
Without attempting to cater to blacks specifically, President Reagan managed to create economic prosperity throughout the entire country which, in point of fact, benefited blacks more than it did whites. The facts cannot be disputed: Reaganomics had a salubrious effect on the black community, whereas Obamanomics is having an unequivocally deleterious effect on black economics and the black community at large.
Obama Is Not The President of African Americans?
One of the talking points formulated by Obama's apologists in the media is the notion that Obama is not the president of black America. They argue he is the president of the United States of America. This pathetically feeble argument exists for the sole purpose of deflecting legitimate criticism of Obama's failure to meet the needs of the black community.
The fact of the matter is that Obama is the president of African Americans, just as he is the president of white Americans. It takes a shocking display of intellectual dishonesty to suddenly release Obama of any responsibility for black America, especially when previous presidents have always been held responsible for their treatment of the black community.
In 1998, the Nobel-Prize-winning writer Toni Morrison gave Bill Clinton the honorary moniker of "America's first black president" because, according to her, he "display[ed] almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas."
Leaving aside the recognizably insulting view of what constitutes blackness in Morrison's perverse mind, had white, southern Clinton possessed all these qualities while presiding over 16.1 percent unemployment, I am positive that this endearing nickname would never have been created -- much less believed by black liberals for many years until the emergence of Obama.
By contrast, the left, with unutterable alacrity, vociferously argued that George W. Bush's less-than-stellar handling of Hurricane Katrina was indicative of his incurable allergy toward black skin. Even largely apolitical rapper Kanye West took the time out to accuse Bush of not caring about blacks. The fact that Bush packed his administration with exceptionally well-qualified minorities was completely disregarded when the black left gave Bush his failing report card. One can only imagine the panic-stricken cries of racism that would have been heard for years if Bush had overseen 16.1 percent black unemployment.
It is nothing more than liberal hypocrisy to see the crisis evident in the black community under Obama's watch and simply respond with the contemptible shibboleth stating, "Obama is not the president of black America; he's the president of the United States of America" -- especially when every other president in recent history has been critically judged on their treatment of the black community.
Can Republicans Argue Back?
If the Republican Party cannot effectively communicate to blacks the obvious fact that Obama has been working diligently on all the trivial left-wing issues close to his heart, yet has completely neglected to address the glaring emergency occurring in his "own" community, then the Republicans are destined to -- and deserve to -- lose the black vote in 2012.
The black community is looking for political change. Yes, Obama is black, but he has proven that his liberalism takes preeminence over his blackness. Liberalism cannot save black America. If Republicans cannot capitalize on this crisis in leadership that Obama has provided and offer a concrete alternative message to the black community as to why conservatism is the answer, it's safe to say Republicans will never capture the black vote.
The opportunity to make powerful racial public policy arguments is now. Republicans pass up this pristine opportunity at their own political peril.
Mr. Okeem is a freelance writer and can be contacted at mrokeem@gmail.com
4a)Black Tea
By Lazar Berman
If Tea Party supporters are racist, why is Herman Cain generating such excitement?
The liberal line of attack on the Tea Party movement that has gained the most traction is that it opposes President Obama because of his skin color, not his policies. The movement is, in the mind of many in the Democratic Party and liberal organizations, rooted in a fundamentally racist view of America and of the president.
This charge is conventional wisdom for many in the media. Former NPR fund-raising executive Ron Schiller denounced the Tea Party movement to undercover conservative activists posing as Muslim financiers: “I mean, basically they ... believe in sort of white, middle-America, gun-toting. I mean, it's scary. They're seriously racist, racist people.”
The NAACP passed a resolution, later walked back, denouncing "racist elements" within the Tea Party movement. The resolution accused Tea Party supporters of holding signs “intended to degrade people of color generally and President Barack Obama specifically" and called "the racist elements" within the movement "a threat to progress."
The NAACP passed a resolution denouncing ‘racist elements’ within the Tea Party movement. David Bositis of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a Washington think tank that explores issues of concern to minority communities, contends that Tea Party supporters “know they can't use any overtly racist language. So they use coded language,” calling the president socialist or attacking his perceived tendency to apologize for American actions overseas.
A new book by veteran White House reporter Kenneth Walsh recounts an episode in which President Obama himself insinuated there was an underlying racism in the movement. At a private White House dinner last May, Obama suggested there was a racially motivated “subterranean agenda” behind Tea Party opposition to his policies.
The Left loves to hurl the racist label at those who stand in the way of their policies and candidates. Then why is Herman Cain, a conservative black businessman and radio host from Georgia, generating such excitement among the very people maligned as angry white racists? In a recent national Gallup poll of Republican and Republican-leaning Independents, Cain beat out Michele Bachmann, Jon Huntsman, and Tim Pawlenty. Cain did even better among respondents further on the right, tying Newt Gingrich among self-identified conservatives with 10 percent.
The buzz around Cain, even if he is still not being treated by most as a serious candidate, is rather resounding evidence that the grassroots anti-Obama movement is about ideas and the future of the country, not race; and that the Left loves to hurl the racist label at those who stand in the way of their policies and candidates (see the commentators who bent over backwards to call John McCain racist for his “celebrity” campaign ad and the charges that Joe Wilson’s “You lie!” outburst at the State of the Union address played on stereotypes about blacks).
The idea one must be racist to oppose Obama’s policies is cheap and intellectually feeble. Cain himself is challenging these perceptions head on. His new campaign video features black supporters prominently, and Cain paints his conservatism and campaign as true racial progress in the United States. "I left that Democrat plantation a long time ago,” he declares, “and I ain't going back!” Later in the video, Cain says proudly, “My great-great grandparents were slaves, and now I'm running for president ... Is this a great country or what?"
Racism is by no means dead in America, and elements of it exist across the political spectrum. While one could reasonably argue that Tea Party activists are too angry, too focused on the budget, or too concerned with ideological purity, the idea one must be racist to oppose Obama’s policies is cheap and intellectually feeble.
Most importantly, using charges of racism as a shield with which to protect President Obama makes it harder to combat real prejudice, and slanders millions of Americans whose crime is being passionately vocal about their vision for America’s future.
Lazar Berman is the American Enterprise Institute’s program manager for foreign and defense policy studies.
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