HONESTY STILL REMAINS THE BEST POLICY
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With friends like Wexler, the White House lap dog, who needs enemies. (See 1 below.)
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The president tells us he deserves another four years so he can continue learning on the job while failing in the real world.
If voter expectations have sunk to a level where the criterion of re-electing a president is based on a list of failed accomplishments then we should re-elect him because he richly ( read trillions) deserves re-election.
Three years ago he said, on the same program, what he would do and we could judge him accordingly. Well he has done nothing of what he said he would do so he now tells us he needs more time.
What a slick fraud, what a snake oil salesman but go ahead America, re-elect him and then suffer beyond repair and/or redemption.
How pathetic and ghastly. (See 2 below.)
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Our entrepreneur grandson and a partner of his are finishing up the initial development of a web startup, Unbucket (Unbucket.com), a list making platform that helps people plan and document memorable experiences with those they care about most. The concept is rooted in a deep desire not to connect people (like a social network), but to bring closer those already connected. They firmly believe that when an Unbucket list is introduced into a relationship (be it between couples, cousins, or close friends), an implicit commitment to live a better life together is made enriching the lives of all who use it. Launching in early 2012, he and his partner are starting to market their concept and you may find it of interest (See 3 below.)
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Russia just doesn't seem to fear Sec. Clinton and our community organizer president. Wonder why? (See 4 below.)
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I would take him at his word. (See 5 below.)
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So what harm can be done by a little influence buying ? Our educated elite know how to handle it! They simply go to Washington, work for the government and become strategists in our State Department and then totally mis-judge what an Arab Spring looks like. (See 6 below.)
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The New York Time's new bye line: "All the news that's unfit to hear." (See 7 below.)
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Dick
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1) U.S. "Friends" Like Wexler, Obama Play Israel for the Fool
By Caroline Glick
Former US congressman Robert Wexler is a man worth listening to. Wexler served as then-senator Barack Obama’s chief booster in the American Jewish community during the 2008 presidential campaign. He appeared everywhere and said anything to convince the American Jewish community that the same man who sat in the church pews listening to Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s anti-Semitic vitriol for two decades, and listed among his closest friends and associates a host of Israel-haters as well as former terrorists, was the greatest friend Israel could ever have.
Once Obama was elected, Wexler continued to serve as his Jewish shill. Wexler traveled to Israel multiple times in the early months of Obama’s presidency, to pressure Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to submit to Obama’s demand and embrace the cause of Palestinian statehood. After Netanyahu finally announced his support for Palestinian statehood at his speech at Bar-Ilan University in September 2009, Wexler returned with a new demand – that Netanyahu enact a moratorium on Jewish property rights in Judea and Samaria.
In an interview with The Jerusalem Post at the time, Wexler promised that Israel would be richly rewarded if it took the unprecedented step of denying Jews the right to their property in Judea and Samaria simply because they were Jewish. Even if the moratorium were temporary, Obama would view the discriminatory measure as proof of Israel’s good intentions.
Moreover, he would expect the Palestinians and the wider Arab world to respond to Israel’s move by taking steps to normalize their relations with Israel.
For instance, Wexler claimed that Obama had demanded that the Arabs respond to an Israeli moratorium on Jewish property rights by among other things opening trade offices and direct economic ties; conducting cultural and economic exchanges; and permitting Israeli airplanes to overfly their territory.
And in the event that the Arabs refused to rise to the occasion, Wexler proclaimed, “You can rightly say that all bets are off.”
Wexler continued, “I want to call their bluff. I want to see, if Israel makes substantial movement toward a credible peace process, whether they are willing to do it. And if they are not, better that we should find out five or six months into the process, before Israel is actually asked to compromise any significant position.”
In the event, Netanyahu bowed to Obama’s demand and enacted a temporary ban on the exercise of Jewish property rights in Judea and Samaria. And in the aftermath of his stunning move, the Arab world did nothing.
Amazingly, far from calling their bluff, Obama doubled down on his pressure on Israel.
Among other things, since squeezing the first temporary ban on Jewish property rights out of Netanyahu, Obama has demanded that the moratorium be made permanent and be extended to Jerusalem.
As for his vision of the “peace process,” Obama has demanded that Israel accept the 1949 armistice lines as the basis for negotiations.
He has used the US veto at the UN Security Council as a means of pressuring Israel to make further unreciprocated concessions to the Palestinians.
And the pro-Israel US president has demanded no similar concessions from the Palestinians.
This week, Wexler, now the head of the far-left S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace, was back in town. Speaking at the Herzliya Conference, he said that Israel should consider extending the ban on Jewish property rights to within the 1949 armistice lines. WexlerEhud Olmert’s 2008 peace offer to Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas.
Olmert’s offer, which Abbas rejected, involved a “land swap,” in which in the framework of a comprehensive peace deal, Israel would give the Palestinians land from within its 1949 boundaries in exchange for land in Judea and Samaria that Israel would permanently retain. According to media reports, Olmert offered Abbas 4.5 percent of Israeli territory in exchange for a similar amount of land in Judea and Samaria.
While Wexler appeared at the Herzliya Conference as the president of a nonpartisan nonprofit organization, his continued intimate relationship with Obama is well known. Last fall, Commentary’s Omri Ceren documented that Zvika Krieger, Wexler’s vice president at the Daniel Abraham Center, authored documents for Obama’s reelection campaign. Among other things, those documents cited articles authored by Krieger and Wexler in which they championed Obama’s record on Israel from their nonpartisan perch at the Daniel Abraham Center.
Given Wexler’s close ties to Obama, it is reasonable to assume that his suggestion that Israel cease exerting its national sovereignty over its sovereign territory in the interests of the peace process is not simply his personal view.
There is much to criticize about Wexler’s suggestion.
But more important than its arrogant, insulting absurdity, and more disconcerting than Wexler’s own hypocrisy, is what his suggestion tells us about the dangers inherent in Netanyahu’s current negotiations with the Palestinians.
To understand the connection we need to recall the nature of Olmert’s offer to Abbas.
Olmert’s negotiations with Abbas were based upon the proposition – repeated ad nauseam to the Israeli public – that “nothing is agreed to until everything is agreed to.”
The idea was clear. True, on the one hand, the prime minister was conducting negotiations far from the spotlight, and refusing to tell the public what was on offer. But on the other hand, we could rest assured that that nothing he offered would have any significance whatsoever unless the Palestinians agreed to a final-peace deal with Israel. If they rejected peace, then everything Olmert said would become null and void, and be tossed down the memory hole.
In accordance with this basic proposition, when Abbas rejected Olmert’s offer, and made no counteroffer, it was naturally assumed that Olmert’s proposal was rendered null and void.
Yet four years later, here is Wexler, Obama’s surrogate, advocating a policy of unilateral abrogation of Israeli sovereignty over 4.5% of its national territory in order to enable the eventual implementation of an offer that was predicated on the notion that “nothing is agreed to until everything is agreed to.”
And this brings us to the current negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. For the past month, under the aegis of the Middle East Quartet, Netanyahu’s representative attorney Yitzhak Molcho has been conducting negotiations with Abbas’s representatives in Amman, Jordan. Last week, Molcho reportedly outlined the government’s general positions on lands it is willing to cede to the Palestinians.
Without presenting any maps, Molcho reportedly said that a permanent agreement would involve most of the Israelis living in Judea and Samaria remaining in Israeli territory. The media interpreted this to mean that like Olmert, Netanyahu expects for Israel to retain perpetual control over large blocks of Israeli communities that take up less than 10% of the overall landmass in Judea and Samaria.
For his part, Netanyahu this week reiterated his position that Israel must maintain a long-term military presence in the Jordan Valley. This has been interpreted to mean that Netanyahu is willing to cede sovereign rights to the area to the Palestinians.
Taken together, what Molcho’s statement and Netanyahu’s statement indicate is that at a minimum, in exchange for peace, the Netanyahu government is willing to expel some portion of the 350,000 Jews living in Judea and Samaria from their homes and to transfer sovereignty over a significant portion of the territory to a Palestinian state.
From the vagueness of what has been reported, it is apparent that Netanyahu has been far less specific about the scope of the territorial concessions he is willing to undertake than his predecessor was. But then again, Olmert made his offer after conducting negotiations with Abbas for over a year. Netanyahu only entered these talks a month ago.
And while no one in or out of government believes that these negotiations have any chance of leading to a peace deal, the fact is that Netanyahu is feverishly working to ensure that the talks continue. He spent a good part of his day on Wednesday speaking on the phone to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and meeting with Quartet envoy Tony Blair and UN Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon, begging the foreign leaders to convince the Palestinians not to abandon the negotiations.
As he put it in his joint press conference with Ban, “You cannot complete the peace process unless you begin it. If you begin it, you have to be consistent and stick to it.”
For his part, Abbas is doing everything in his power to make clear that he does not wish to negotiate, and that even if negotiations continue, he will never cut a deal with Israel. To underscore his bad faith, next week Abbas will travel to Egypt to meet with Hamas terror chief Khaled Mashaal. The two men are set to discuss the means of implementing the unity government deal they signed last May.
Netanyahu is obviously under great pressure to continue with these talks. A day doesn’t go by without some US official or European leader talking about the need for talks, or a leftist politician or political activist at home blaming Netanyahu for the absence of peace. But none of this pressure can justify the damage that is done to Israel’s position by continuing to engage in these negotiations.
As Netanyahu’s own experience with Obama (and Wexler) shows, concessions never bring a respite from the US leader’s pressure. They only form the baseline for demands for further concessions.
Beyond the narrow confines of Obama’s personal hostility towards Israel, Netanyahu’s current engagement in negotiations with the Palestinians is devastating to Israel’s position in two ways.
First, it makes it impossible for Israel to extricate itself from the lie of PLO moderation and to start telling the truth about its Palestinian “partner.”
Quite simply, as Abbas’s continued courtship of Hamas and his open embrace and glorification of mass murderers such as the murderers of the Fogel family make clear, the PLO has returned to its roots as a terrorist organization. It is no longer credible to claim that the PLO has abandoned terror in favor of peace.
By engaging in peace talks with the PLO, Netanyahu renders it impossible to make this critical claim. Consequently, he damns Israel to a situation in which we continue to empower and politically legitimize a terrorist organization committed to our destruction.
The second way continued negotiations devastates Israel’s position is by eroding our ability to claim our rights to Judea and Samaria and so extricate ourselves from this fake peace process with terrorists. As Wexler made clear, from the international community’s perspective, everything that Israel offers at the negotiating table is catalogued. Regardless of Palestinian bad faith, irrespective of actual prospects for peace, every theoretical Israeli concession becomes the new baseline for further negotiations.
American “friends” like Wexler and Obama play Israel for a fool again and again.
In truth, we should thank Wexler for coming here this week and reminding us of his bad faith, and the bad faith of the president he serves. But it is up to Netanyahu to draw the appropriate lessons.
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2)Obama: "I Deserve A Second Term"
"I deserve a second term, but we’re not done," President Obama said to NBC's Matt Lauer during the network's coverage of the Super Bowl.
In an interview with Lauer before the 2009 Super Bowl, Obama said if the economy hasn't turned around in three years then he should not get a second term.
"We've made progress. The key now is to make sure we don’t start turning in the wrong direction," Obama said.
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3) Clint Eastwood gave a halftime pep talk to America tonight, but perhaps those who felt his message most acutely were this country’s quarterbacks: Entrepreneurs. We read the field, we call the plays, and ultimately, it falls on our shoulders to orchestrate and execute it all. As quarterbacks, failure is hung around our necks first, but we rush to stick our necks out because we believe it’s what our country asks of us. We build not for future IPOs, but for the future, period — in other words, the second half.
For Brian and I, this commercial hits home even further, because Detroit is still our home and always will be. We draw inspiration from Detroit’s resilience on a daily basis, and still marvel like children at the technological innovations its automakers introduce with every new model year.
As to Unbucket?
We’re just about done lacing up our cleats.
See you on the field.
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4)Israel Is Shameful
MEMRI: Russian General (Ret): We're Ready to Use Military to Defend
Iran/Syria; Al-Qaradhawi: Boycott Russian/Chinese Goods; Saudi Journalist:
The West's Support of an Extremist Religious State in Israel Is Shameful
The following is research published today from the MEMRI Special Dispatch
Series and TV Monitor Project.
Former Member of Russian Joint Chiefs of Staff Col.-Gen. Leonid Ivashov:
Russia Is Ready to Use Military Power to Defend Iran and Syria; Attack on
Syria or Iran Is Indirect Attack on Russia; U.S. in Libya Like Hitler in
Poland
Sunni Scholar Sheikh Yousuf Al-Qaradhawi Calls to Boycott Russian and
Chinese Products, States: They Are the Enemies of the Islamic Nation
'Al-Sharq Al-Awsat' Editor Tariq Alhomayed: 100 Syrians Killed in One Day –
Yet Not One Voice in Our Arab World Demands Boycotting Russia Over Its
Support For Assad
Saudi Journalist: The West's Support of an Extremist Religious State in
Israel Is Shameful
Special Dispatch No. 4475–Iran/Syria/U.S. and the Arab and Muslim
World/Libya
Following are excerpts from an interview with Colonel-General [ret.] Leonid
Ivashov, former member of the Russian Joint Chiefs of Staff, which aired on
Russia Today TV on February 1, 2012:
To view this clip on MEMRI TV, visit
http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/3304.htm.
Interviewer: "Dr. Leonid, do you think that these preparations and very
large maneuvers, which will soon be conducted by Russia, are meant as
preparation for war, or rather, a military strike against Iran?" […]
To read the full report, visit
http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/6057.htm.
Special Dispatch No. 4474–Syria
Sunni Scholar Sheikh Yousuf Al-Qaradhawi Calls to Boycott Russian and
Chinese Products, States: They Are the Enemies of the Islamic Nation
Following are excerpts from an address by Sunni scholar Sheikh Yousuf
Al-Qaradhawi, which aired on the Al-Jazeera TV network on February 5, 2012.
To view this clip on MEMRI TV, visit
http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/3308.htm.
Sheikh Yousuf Al-Qaradhawi: "Allah will punish [the Syrian regime] for what
it did by means of the people. He will send it His wrath, which is never
withheld from criminals. The people will soon take revenge upon it, Allah
willing."
To read the full report, visit
http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/6056.htm.
Special Dispatch No. 4473—Syria
'Al-Sharq Al-Awsat' Editor Tariq Alhomayed: 100 Syrians Killed in One Day –
Yet Not One Voice in Our Arab World Demands Boycotting Russia Over Its
Support For Assad
In a January 29, 2012 article titled '100 Killed in a Day,' Al-Sharq
Al-Awsat editor Tariq Alhomayed criticizes Russia for supporting the
murderous Assad regime in Syria and the Arabs for failing to condemn it for
doing so. He urges the Arab leaderships to pressure Russia into changing its
policy on Syria, for instance by threatening an Arab boycott of Russian
goods.
Also in the article, Alhomayed exhorts the Arabs to take action against
Assad's regime themselves, for example by officially recognizing the Syrian
government in exile, the SNC.
To read the full report, visit
http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/6055.htm.
Special Dispatch No. 4472–Saudi Arabia/Islam and the West
Saudi Journalist: The West's Support of an Extremist Religious State in
Israel Is Shameful
In a January 10, 2012 article in the Saudi daily Al-Madina, Saudi journalist
'Asem Hamdan claimed the West was employing a double standard by criticizing
extremist Islamist streams in the Middle East while ignoring the religious
extremism he said characterized the Jewish State of Israel.
To read the full report, visit
http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/6054.htm.
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) is an independent,
non-profit organization that translates and analyzes the media of the Middle
East. Copies of articles and documents cited, as well as background
information, are available on request.
MEMRI holds copyrights on all translations. Materials may only be used with
proper attribution.
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5) Incoming IAF chief: Iran is our top concern
Maj.-Gen. Amir Eshel said in rare speech last month that nuclear Iran would trigger arms race in Middle East, and should be addressed strategically before all other conflicts
By Yoav Zitun
The escalating public discourse over the possibility of a strike on Iran's nuclear facilities has put a magnifying glass on incoming IAF Chief Major-General Amir Eshel's stance on the issue.
Eshel, whose IAF appointment was announced Monday, seldom expresses his opinion publically – all the more so since becoming the head of the IDF's Plans and Policy Directorate in 2008.
But in a rare speech made last month at the Jerusalem Center for Public affairs, Eshel stressed that while the decision to launch an airstrike on the Islamic Republic is left up to the political echelon, Iran is Israel's primary concern.
"Iran is above everything, and it must be taken into account, strategically, before the others," he said. "A nuclear Iran would cause a mighty change in the region. It would trigger an arms race in the Middle East. I'm sure that other nations in the region will attempt to obtain such weapons as well.
"It could create a situation that leads to a global nuclear jungle," he added. "This is not an official assessment, but the first lesson that leaders in the Middle East learned from the Arab Spring is that they should obtain nuclear weapons ... Who would have dared to question (Gaddafi) or Saddam Hussein if they had atom weapons?"
Eshel raised the concern that a nuclear Iran could embolden terror groups that operate with the Islamic Republic's backing, including Hamas and Hezbollah – a development that would restrict the IDF in Gaza and Lebanon.
Iran precedes Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
He argued that the Iranian issue even trumps Israel's conflict with the Palestinians, saying that an agreement with the PA won't bring peace to the region.
"Even if Israel and the Palestinians sign a peace accord tomorrow, it won't solve the other problems or the Iranian issue," he said. "An agreement with them won't create a paradise in the Middle East. I don't belittle the issue, but if (the agreement) isn't based on solid security arrangements, it won't last."
Eshel noted that as per the government's order, the IDF supports the Palestinian apparatuses in the West Bank.
"We take many risks in order to help the Palestinians build better lives with a better economy," he said. "But if we make a mistake here, there won't be a second chance. This is why we are so determined (to reach an accord), because we already tried in 1993 and in 2000."
In his speech, Eshel accused the regime in Tehran of running a terrorist state.
"Everyday Iran is fighting everyone, not only through terror but also through economic means," he said.
Eshel voiced pessimism regarding the outcomes of the turmoil in the surrounding countries, noting that "our estimation that the revolutions would be taken over by other movements have come true."
"If the economic issues aren't addressed, a downturn is inevitable," he said. "The Muslim Brotherhood's influence in Egypt could spread to the region, including Jordan, Syria and the Palestinian Authority."
He warned that Syria's chemical and biological weapons could fall into the hands of terror groups, noting that the country's air force armament poses a challenge to the IAF.
"Syria has invested over $2 billion in its air force over the past two years," he said. "We haven't seen anything like it in the past two decades. They invested great funds in order to undermine our aerial superiority."
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6)Harvard's Middle East Outreach Center: Propaganda for Teachers
By Stephen Schwartz
In 2005, Saudi prince Alwaleed Bin Talal donated $20 million dollars each to Harvard and Georgetown Universities. In the years since, Georgetown has earned considerably more press for its use of the prince's largesse, through which it renamed an extant center founded in 1993 as the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (ACMCU). This is due in no small part to the efforts of the center's director, John Louis Esposito, America's foremost apologist for ultra-fundamentalist Wahhabi Islam. The result of the Saudi-Esposito lash-up has been the emergence of ACMCU as an academic institution that promotes vigorously the "Palestinian narrative" and hostility to Israel.
Harvard's Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Islamic Studies Program has developed at a much slower pace, and as a result, it has received considerably less media attention. Its director, Ali Asani, is an Indian Muslim from Kenya. As described on its website, the Harvard product of Alwaleed's philanthropy "funds four new professorships promoting scholarship and teaching about contemporary Islamic life and thought and Islam beyond the Middle East." Yet only one chair had been filled as of the end of 2011, with Malika Zeghal, who was trained in France, serving as Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal professor in contemporary Islamic thought/life since 2009.
Zeghal is formally affiliated with Harvard's Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies. She was, to say the least, unprepared for the rise of Islamist politics in the Arab states over the past year. In a Harvard event in February 2011, she downplayed the role of radical movements like the Muslim Brotherhood in the Arab upheavals, stating, in the words of the Harvard Crimson:
That the unrest should be seen as a nationalist revolution, rather than as a religious one like the 1979 Iranian Revolution. ... "If the Islamists come back -- and they have started to come back -- they will have to participate in a democratic transition as any other movement," Zeghal said.
Unfortunately, she was wrong: Islamists have used the Arab uprisings of 2010-11 for a power-grab, disregarding a "democratic transition."
Harvard also runs a Center for Middle East Studies (CMES), which includes an Outreach Center directed by one Paul Beran. The Outreach Center has been "awarded National Resource Center status by the US Department of Education's Title VI program and serves educators, students and the general public on topics related to the Middle East region."
Beran, who received his doctorate in international studies at Northeastern University in Boston, teaches "'Introduction to the Conflict in Israel and the Occupied Territories' (GOVT E 1960/W) and 'Introduction to Middle East Politics' (GOVT E 1970/W) at the Harvard University Extension School, and directs the Egypt Forum, a program of training for K-12 educators on Middle East region studies and Egypt." He is also a member of the "Global Education Advisory Council for the Elementary and Secondary Education Department of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts," through which he influences the treatment of Middle East issues in the state's public schools.
A Presbyterian, Beran has been prominent in agitation for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel within that Christian denomination. In a December 11, 2005 speech to a "Teach-In And Organizing Conference" at Harvard on "Israel/Palestine: Where Do We Go From Here?," Beran declared:
Until now, those who acted as if 'Israel is always right' enjoyed a near monopoly over U.S. attitudes. Calls for divestment, however, have the potential to become the Achilles heel for pro-Israel perceptions in the U.S. ... [A]n angle with which to view such campaigns is that they carry the potential to be effective tools for waging a non-violent guerilla struggle [against Israel]. ... The first step for divestment campaigns is to have a broad base of cross-community support on which to fall back when the Zionist backlash against the campaigns commences. ... [C]ampaigns for divestment must be ready to fight.
On the same occasion, Beran referred contemptuously to the Anti-Defamation League, a leading American Jewish civil rights organization, as "that modicum of high browed Zionism."
Through the CMES Outreach Program Beran has mimicked ACMCU, the Harvard Islamic Studies Program, and other academic facilities in the West by embracing uncritically the claims of democratization in the Arab turmoil beginning in 2010, while continuing to focus negatively on Israel and its policies. Its roster of "Teaching Resources" proclaims breathlessly that teachers may "[e]xplore the Arab Transformation through Outreach Center presentations, lesson plans and teaching resources, articles, videos, artifacts and more!"
But the CMES Outreach Program inventory of broader "resources" includes material that is both objectionable and absurdly trivializing in its approach to Middle East issues.
For example, it offers as an item in its "Library Highlights Catalogue" the 2001 Iranian-made film Kandahar, directed by Mohsen Makhmalbaf, in which David Belfield, alias Dawud Salahuddin, Hassan Tantai (in his film credit), and Hassan Abdulrahman, is a star. Problem: Belfield, an African-American Muslim, confessed in an interview with ABC News 20/20 broadcast in 1996, and reaffirmed in a 2005 New Yorker profile and a New York Times interview in 2009, that he had assassinated Ali Akbar Tabatabai. A former employee of the Iranian Embassy in Washington under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Tabatabai was slain on his doorstep in Bethesda, Md., in 1980. Belfield committed the act as a paid mercenary of the new Iranian regime of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and he remains a fugitive from American justice.
CMES also commemorates the 2007 "Boston Palestine Film Festival" at the Harvard Law School, which screened "USA v. Al-Arian," a documentary supporting Sami Al-Arian, who pled guilty to conspiracy to provide services to the terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and "Occupation 101," by Sufyan and Abdallah Omeish. The latter, we are told, "details life under Israeli military rule, the US role in the conflict, and the major obstacles to a viable peace." Other films at the event attacked Israel's security wall and alleged Israeli abuse of water resources.
The CMES Program's "Teaching Resources" are clearly aimed at young people, with such items as "TeachingAbout the Middle East Through Comics and Graphic Novels," "Teaching About the Middle East Through Hip-Hop" -- i.e., "rap music" -- and "Graffiti, Street Art, and Political Protest."
Under the rubric of "Curriculum Guides, Publications, and Fact Sheets," the program offers a list of "Young-Adult Literature on Israel Palestine," all "available from the Outreach Center." Of the six books included therein, four explicitly justify Palestinian violence against Israel, beginning with the unambiguously-titled A Stone in My Hand, by Cathryn Clinton (Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press, 2002; grades 5-10). This book is described as follows:
Set in Gaza City during the first intifada in 1988, this is the story of 11-year old Malaak and her family. Malaak shows resilience through immeasurable losses. Written by an American author, this historical fiction attempts to portray the realities of the Israeli occupation in Gaza from a Palestinian perspective.
Other titles in the "Young Adult" list include Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood, by Ibtisam Barakat (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2007; grades 4-10), and If You Could Be My Friend: Letters of Mervet Akram Sha'Ban and Galit Fink, by Litsa Boudalika (New York: Orchard Books, 1998; grades 6-10). The latter consists of a "collection of letters written from 1988 to 1991 during the time of the first intifada ... correspondence between a Palestinian girl living in a refugee camp in the West Bank and an Israeli girl living in Jerusalem." The list also recommends Samir and Yonatan, by Daniella Carmi (New York: Arthur A. Levine Books, 2000; grades 4-8), in which "[a] Palestinian boy comes to terms with the death of his younger brother, killed by an Israeli soldier."
Materials for public school use additionally feature "Teaching Sense Making Around Israel/Palestine: Power Point Introduction," a propaganda presentation signed by Beran himself. This "teaching aid" identifies "Five Problems" in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: "Refugees[,] Borders[,] Resources[,] Jerusalem[,] Settlements." "Palestinians as terrorists" is identified as an "unsophisticated" view, while "Israel is hegemon" figures as a "sophisticated" approach.
The same catalogue entices teachers with a Gaza Fact Sheet that endorses the Israeli pro-Arab group B'tselem but neglects mention of the terrorist Hamas movement, which controls the territory. The Outreach Center's search engine turns up lectures and readings by or drawn from the Israel-bashing discourse ofNoam Chomsky, Ilan Pappé, and Edward Said.
It is clear that Harvard CMES and its director, Paul Beran, are committed to the adoption of a one-sided, anti-Israel, and pro-Arab introduction to Middle East issues for American schoolchildren. In its "subtler" way, the Harvard approach is as bad as or worse than that pursued by John Esposito at Georgetown.
Stephen Schwartz is executive director of the Center for Islamic Pluralism. He wrote this article for Campus Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------7) Iran Threatens Israel With Destruction, But the New York Times Doesn't Hear It
By Jonathan Tobin
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Is selective reporting in the 'paper of record' an accident --- or significantly worse?
Friday's speech by Iran's Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, about the sanctions on his country and its determination to persist in its quest for nuclear capability was a significant news event. Khamenei served notice on the United States that he would not be bluffed into giving up his nuclear plans. Though he conceded the economic pressure on his country has hurt, he said Iran is undaunted and would retaliate against the United States should its nuclear facilities come under attack. All this was reported in newspapers around the world, including the New York Times, which posted a story on the speech Friday morning.
However, there was something missing from the Times report of Khamenei's speech that was reported elsewhere. Other accounts noted that in addition to threatening the United States, Khamenei said this: "The Zionist regime is a cancerous tumor and it will be removed." While we don't know how or why a mention of this element of the speech managed to get excised from the account in the Times, it's a question worth pondering.
Any discussion of the nature of the Iranian nuclear threat that ignores the regime's murderous intentions toward Israel is clearly incomplete.
An Iranian bomb would change the balance of power in the region and endanger all moderate Arab regimes while strengthening the hand of Tehran's terrorist allies such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas (though relations between Gaza and Iran have cooled recently). It would also threaten the free flow of oil from the Gulf to the West and diminish the strategic position as well as the security of both the United States and Europe
But it is only Israel that Iran has promised to destroy. That is why placing a nuclear weapon in the hands of a regime pledged to the eradication of the Jewish state is a different order of threat than Khamenei's usual bluster aimed at the United States. Because of its small size and concentrated population, one or two nuclear explosions would mean another Holocaust.
So when Khamenei repeats the Islamist regime's pledge to make good on its threat to destroy "the Zionist regime" in the same context as its vow to satisfy its nuclear ambitions, this is no minor rhetorical point. It is, instead, tangible evidence that Israel's alarm about Iran is justified and that the question of what to do about this threat is a matter of life and death for millions in the Jewish state.
For the Times to eliminate Khamenei's threat to Israel from its coverage even as it accurately reports other elements of the speech is more than curious. At the very least, it is an egregious error of judgment. At worst, it smacks of an effort to skew the discussion about Iran away from the imminent peril that its Tehran's nuclear program represents.
Those who seek to dismiss the justified fears expressed by friends of Israel about the Obama administration's hesitancy in taking actions and efforts to forestall an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities wish to lower the temperature of the discussion and ignore Khamenei's threats. But doing so makes it impossible to make a rational decision about averting the danger. Further prevarication such as that going on in Washington right now about Iran is exactly what Khamenei is hoping for as Iran seeks to run out the clock and achieve its ambitions before the West or Israel acts to stop them. Those who believe a nuclear Iran can be "contained" or doubt Iran's evil intentions need to understand what Khamenei said and what he meant by it. But that won't happen if major media outlets suppress the full story about Iran.
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