Obama just loves Israel. He just does not know how to show it. (See 1 below.)
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Obama the con man who continues to con. Vote him back end and pay the consequences which will be steep and probably irreversible.
Maybe after he is out of office Hollywood friends will hire him to play the role of The Joker! (See 2 below.)
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The Syrian picture gets bleaker and bleaker by the minute and Obama's pitiful foreign policy initiatives paint us in a position that is weaker and weaker. (See 3 and 3a below.)
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Why we might miss our friendly dictators.Is it because they are so reliable? You decide! (See 4 below.)
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Hamas' power rising according to Jonathan Schanzer! (See 5 below.)
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He may have funny hair but what is underneath is a heap of common sense! Again, you decide! (See 6 below.)
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Dick
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Jonathan Schanzer, vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said:
“What we’re seeing is a trend of Israel being left out of the global discussion on terrorism, while Israel was extremely helpful during the beginning stages of this conversation. The [Obama] administration is downplaying the struggle that Israel has been enduring. I believe to a certain extent, this is due to regional politics, and it’s disconcerting to see this change. It just looks like a quiet effort to downplay the issue.”
The State Department would not answer questions about the matter. Maybe they should look here and see how each one of the 1,220 Jews killed in Israel because they were Jews died.
For a Jew to vote for Barack Obama, who has betrayed Jews time after time, is a travesty. For Barack Obama to betray Jews, as he did when he cheered Rashid Khalidi, listened to Jeremiah Wright and Louis Farrakhan, paved the way for the Muslim Brotherhood, and excluded Israel from the group they belong in as much as any other country, comes as naturally as breathing.
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2)Obama Keeps on Conning America
By Lloyd MarcusMy 84-year-old dad has nuggets of wisdom which he forgets he has shared with me numerous times. One is about deception. Dad said a snake can swim underwater a very long time, just like a fish. But eventually, it must come up for air. Why? Because it is not a fish -- it is a snake.
Obama deceived millions to win the White House. All the obvious clues into the true nature of the first black presidential candidate were ignored by the media. Voters were duped into believing Obama when he presented himself as a moderate, a messiah, "the one we have been waiting for."
Early into his presidency, Obama came up for air, exposing his great deception. Every day, with unbridled arrogance, the handsome, deceptive beast reveals more and more of his despicable agenda hidden just beneath the surface.
Barack Hussein Obama is not presidential, nor is he a moderate -- far from either, in fact. This man is a far-left, radical, anti-America, plain-old-Chicago-thug politician.
Obama is the most anti-Christian president in American history. Phyllis Schlafly brilliantly chronicles Obama's unprecedented attacks on Christianity in her book, No Higher Power: Obama's War on Religious Freedom.
Despite swearing an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, Obama urinates on our sacred document whenever it hinders the implementation of his vow to "fundamentally transform America."
In short, Obama is a con man. To win re-election, Obama has unleashed an army of con men and women to deceive voters, yet again, via intimidation, class envy, lies, and a white guilt trip.
Obama and company's despicable white-guilt-trip tactic says, if you do not vote for Obama, you are a racist!
Obama has very little respect for average Americans. At a private fund-raising event with his liberal homeys, Obama described small-town America as bitter folks who cling to religion and guns and don't like people who do not look like them. Thus, the president thinks a large segment of Americans is racist.
A further display of Obama's low opinion of Americans is his "give-away-the-farm" campaign to win re-election votes. Outrageously, almost half the country is on food stamps, and Obama is advertising for more folks to sign up. Obama is giving away free cell phones. With a wave of his executive order scepter, King Obama legalized millions of illegal aliens. His list of handouts and freebies goes on and on. Obama promises to punish and get even with achievers. Everything Obama does is designed to seduce voters by appealing to their lowest instincts. Obama obviously believes that a majority of Americans are lazy and entitlement-minded and that they resent achievers.
As I stated, Obama has unleashed an army of really smart-sounding con artists to intimidate into silence anyone daring to disagree with our imperial dictator and to lay a white-guilt-trip on voters.
A prime example of an Obama con artist is black former NY Times writer and NBC reporter Bob Herbert, who recently made the most absurd and offensive statement. Herbert said, "A majority of whites have never favored equal rights in this country. Never, ever, ever, ever. It's never even been close -- it is a fantasy to talk about the idea of a majority of whites supporting the rights of blacks." Herbert also said most whites voted for McCain/Palin. Herbert further implied that all white votes against Obama were racially motivated.
Mr. Herbert, if America is so anti-black, how did you end up as a reporter on NBC television and writing for the NY Times?
Another example of an Obama con artist is Cornel West, professor of African-American studies at Princeton.
On Book TV, West went on and on about institutional racism and how America is racist and evil.
As a black conservative listening to West, I kept thinking, "Rather than filling black youths with victim crap, why aren't you telling blacks to get an education, stop having babies out of wedlock, and get a job? Am I too simplistic? Is it more complicated and I just don't get it?"
Patriots, please, please, please do not be intimidated or silenced by Obama's con artists.
Ronald Reagan said, "We had strayed a great distance from our Founding Fathers' vision of America. They never envisioned vast agencies in Washington telling our farmers what to plant, our teachers what to teach, and our industries what to build."
Reagan's horrific nightmare scenario is well underway. A second term for Obama equals the end of America and freedom as intended by our Founding Fathers.
Our Constitution and America as founded were inspired by God. Therefore, Obama's vow to fundamentally transform America goes against God's intention -- thus making this coming election look a lot like a battle of good vs. evil.
My confidence and hope are in the Lord. I pray for my country and trust that true patriots will not be conned or intimidated into silence and submission. With God's help, we will outnumber Obama's evil minions and deadbeat parasites come election day
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Rusian, Western and Arab forces were piling up on Syrian borders Wednesday, July 25, bringing closer a war confrontation which could spur the Assad regime into making good on its threat to use chemical weapons against “external aggression.”
Despite a dire need for intelligence about the groups fighting to overthrow the Syrian government, the CIA has little if any presence in the country, seriously limiting its ability to collect information and influence the course of events, according to current and former U.S. officials.American intelligence agencies have kept tabs on Syria's chemical weapons stockpiles, using spy satellites and other forms of electronic eavesdropping as well as information from allied nations and U.S. personnel in Turkey and other neighboring countries. The CIA also has some understanding of President Bashar Assad's government, officials said.
Although U.S. officials have had considerable contact with anti-Assad exile groups, most analysts expect a post-Assad government to be dominated by the armed groups operating in the country.
U.S. officials have worried that some of those groups may be linked to, or sympathetic with, Al Qaeda affiliates. By one U.S. estimate, as many as a quarter of the 300 rebel groups may be inspired by Al Qaeda, says Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
A major impediment to determining who is who is that CIA officers largely have avoided entering Syria or traveling to the battle zones since February, when the U.S. Embassy in Damascus was shuttered for security reasons after threats by groups allied with the Assad government. Closing the embassy left the agency without a secure base from which to operate, and CIA personnel left the country, the officials said.
Critics say the CIA's absence from Syria is a missed opportunity to influence the fractured rebel movement.
"We should be on the ground with bucket loads of money renting the opposition groups that we need to steer this in the direction that benefits the United States," said a former CIA officer who spent years in the Middle East. "We're not, and good officers are extremely frustrated."
The CIA declined to comment. When asked about statements that the CIA lacks a presence in Syria, U.S. officials notably do not dispute the idea, talking, instead, about other ways of finding out what is taking place.
"We know a lot more than we did about the Syrian opposition a month ago and much more than we knew six months ago. That's because of increased contacts diplomatically and through a variety of other means that I'm not going to discuss," an Obama administration official said.
Critics say the intelligence agencies have moved too slowly.
The U.S. has no choice but to get involved in Syria given the risks of Al Qaeda influence, said Rogers, who is regularly briefed on intelligence about Syria. Moreover, he said, a sudden collapse of the government could put its large stockpiles of chemical weapons up for grabs.
"We lost a lot of time on this; our intelligence agencies are playing catch-up," he said. "The administration was very slow to come together on a way forward."
The Obama administration official responded, "It's kind of hard to do a lot until you can get into a country. This issue is the subject of enormous amount of attention and concern."
Some current and former officials said the dearth of American intelligence agents in Syria stemmed from the administration's unwillingness to risk having a CIA officer captured or wounded with little hope of rescue. They also spoke of a hypersensitivity in Congress and among the public to the prospect of U.S. casualties, citing the criticism leveled at the CIA after seven officers were killed by a double agent-turned-suicide bomber in Khowst, Afghanistan, in December 2009.
A U.S. official regularly briefed on intelligence strongly disputed the notion that the CIA was averse to risk, calling it a "tired cliche." The official said, however, that he could not discuss in detail the reasons the CIA was not in Syria.
Until recently the CIA kept its distance from rebel groups, leaving face-to-face contacts largely to Turkish, Qatari, Saudi and other intelligence services, officials said. A few CIA officers in recent weeks have met with opposition leaders in Turkey near the Syrian border, officials said. They communicate by secure links with paid informers in Syria.
Several journalists have been spending time with rebel groups in Syria, living and traveling with them for days. But the CIA as a rule has been unwilling to let its officers do that, officials said. There would be no air support and limited rescue capability should the agents get into trouble.
"What are we going to do, just allow the Turks, the Qataris and the Saudis to have relations with opposition groups, and we not have direct relations?" asked Andrew Tabler, a Syria expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a think tank. "That doesn't make any sense. Those countries don't always have our interests at heart."
By contrast with Libya, where the CIA did put in its own operatives, the rebels in Syria have no geographic base and have seized territory sporadically. Syria's military and police appear to be more sophisticated, or at least have a more centralized command, than were Libya's. Moreover, with no international military campaign to help the rebels, Syria is a far riskier climate for American spies than Libya was.
Regardless, "it's a manageable risk," the former CIA officer said.
"You have to be willing to send your people into harm's way, and the agency's value to the president is being the 911 service," the former officer said. "We should be going in and living with opposition fighters."
CIA operatives were the first Americans into Afghanistan shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks. They helped coordinate a campaign by opposition fighters supported by U.S. bombers that led to the quick overthrow of the Taliban regime. Similarly, CIA officers went into northern Iraq's Kurdish region in July 2002 to help organize militia fighters before the U.S.-led invasion.
Two CIA officers involved in those efforts — Charles Faddis, who ran the CIA base in Iraq, and Gary Berntsen, his counterpart in Afghanistan — have since retired and written books criticizing the CIA as risk-averse.
Based on this reading, Moscow added its voice Tuesday to that of US President Obama and warned Bashar Assad against using chemical weapons in view of “its commitments under the international convention it ratified prohibiting the use of poisonous gases as a method of warfare.”
Military sources: With operational intelligence deployment and electronic stations positioned inside Syria, the Russians are better placed than any other outsiders to know what is happening on Syria’s battlefields. Their warning must therefore be tied to solid information confirming Washington’s assessment that Assad is dangerously close to deciding to use his chemical and biological weapons in a way that would precipitate a regional conflict.
Israel, Turkey and Jordan would be the first targets on his list.
The immediacy of the peril, military sources report, has speeded the arrival of Russian warships to Syria to counter a potential Western, Arab or Israeli assault on the embattled country.
The Russian Ministry of Defense, which rarely discloses Russian military movements outside its borders, announced early Wednesday morning, July 25 that a fleet of Russian warships had passed through the Strait of Gibraltar and entered the Mediterranean.
The Russian Ministry of Defense, which rarely discloses Russian military movements outside its borders, announced early Wednesday morning, July 25 that a fleet of Russian warships had passed through the Strait of Gibraltar and entered the Mediterranean.
The fleet is headed by the anti-submarine and anti-aircraft Admiral Chabanenko warship and consists of another three vessels carrying a large number of Russian marines. This fleet will rendezvous with a Russian flotilla standing by in the Mediterranean since July 21, detached from Russian Black Fleet and composed of the Smetlivy figate and two large landing craft loaded with Russian marines. This group awaited the main force before approaching Syria.The fact that Russia is massing large numbers of marines off the Syrian coast looks as though a landing on Syrian soil is on Moscow’s cards.
The Russian marine contingent will stand ready - either to come to the aid of the Assad regime or to serve as a bargaining chip for a last-minute deal between Moscow and Washington for ending the war by establishing a transitional military regime in Damascus whose makeup would be agreed between them and Assad.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hinted at this possibility on Tuesday, July 24, when she said: “We do believe that it is not too late for the Assad regime to commence with planning for a transition.”
But Clinton also hinted, in a more threatening tone, that a situation is developing for the creation of safe zones in rebel-controlled areas of Syria. “More and more territory is being taken and it will, eventually, result in a safe haven inside Syria which will then provide a base for further actions by the opposition,” she said.
Clinton didn’t name the potential protectors of those havens. However, since the Syrian rebels are short of manpower, Western, Muslim or Arab defenders would have to be called in.
Wednesday, British military sources in London said the moment is rushing forward for British forces to get involved in what is happening in Syria. Iran and Turkey are not indifferent either.
Wednesday, British military sources in London said the moment is rushing forward for British forces to get involved in what is happening in Syria. Iran and Turkey are not indifferent either.
Deputy Iranian Revolutionary Guard chief, Gen. Masoud Jazayeri, warned on Tuesday, July 24, that Tehran would not permit regime change in Damascus and if Syria’s enemies intervened, Iran would hit them hard. The Iranian commander pointed a finger at Saudi Arabia and Qatar, adding that the US and Israel are at the forefront of the comprehensive campaign against Syria but are being beaten back.
This was the first time Tehran had explicitly threatened military intervention in Syria.
This was the first time Tehran had explicitly threatened military intervention in Syria.
Wednesday, Turkey shut its border crossings to Syria. Military sources in Ankara confirmed that massive Turkish military strength had been on the move toward the Syrian border.
3a)Why can't America do anything about the mass murdering of innocent Syrians? Because Obama's
CIA has little if any presence there and, in turn, no intl.
By Ken Dilanian
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Despite a dire need for intelligence about the groups fighting to overthrow the Syrian government, the CIA has little if any presence in the country, seriously limiting its ability to collect information and influence the course of events, according to current and former U.S. officials.American intelligence agencies have kept tabs on Syria's chemical weapons stockpiles, using spy satellites and other forms of electronic eavesdropping as well as information from allied nations and U.S. personnel in Turkey and other neighboring countries. The CIA also has some understanding of President Bashar Assad's government, officials said.
But more than 16 months into the Syrian uprising, the U.S. government still is struggling for details about who the main opposition groups are and what motivates them, say the current and former officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity in discussing covert intelligence activities.
Although U.S. officials have had considerable contact with anti-Assad exile groups, most analysts expect a post-Assad government to be dominated by the armed groups operating in the country.
U.S. officials have worried that some of those groups may be linked to, or sympathetic with, Al Qaeda affiliates. By one U.S. estimate, as many as a quarter of the 300 rebel groups may be inspired by Al Qaeda, says Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
A major impediment to determining who is who is that CIA officers largely have avoided entering Syria or traveling to the battle zones since February, when the U.S. Embassy in Damascus was shuttered for security reasons after threats by groups allied with the Assad government. Closing the embassy left the agency without a secure base from which to operate, and CIA personnel left the country, the officials said.
Critics say the CIA's absence from Syria is a missed opportunity to influence the fractured rebel movement.
"We should be on the ground with bucket loads of money renting the opposition groups that we need to steer this in the direction that benefits the United States," said a former CIA officer who spent years in the Middle East. "We're not, and good officers are extremely frustrated."
The CIA declined to comment. When asked about statements that the CIA lacks a presence in Syria, U.S. officials notably do not dispute the idea, talking, instead, about other ways of finding out what is taking place.
"We know a lot more than we did about the Syrian opposition a month ago and much more than we knew six months ago. That's because of increased contacts diplomatically and through a variety of other means that I'm not going to discuss," an Obama administration official said.
Critics say the intelligence agencies have moved too slowly.
The U.S. has no choice but to get involved in Syria given the risks of Al Qaeda influence, said Rogers, who is regularly briefed on intelligence about Syria. Moreover, he said, a sudden collapse of the government could put its large stockpiles of chemical weapons up for grabs.
"We lost a lot of time on this; our intelligence agencies are playing catch-up," he said. "The administration was very slow to come together on a way forward."
The Obama administration official responded, "It's kind of hard to do a lot until you can get into a country. This issue is the subject of enormous amount of attention and concern."
Some current and former officials said the dearth of American intelligence agents in Syria stemmed from the administration's unwillingness to risk having a CIA officer captured or wounded with little hope of rescue. They also spoke of a hypersensitivity in Congress and among the public to the prospect of U.S. casualties, citing the criticism leveled at the CIA after seven officers were killed by a double agent-turned-suicide bomber in Khowst, Afghanistan, in December 2009.
A U.S. official regularly briefed on intelligence strongly disputed the notion that the CIA was averse to risk, calling it a "tired cliche." The official said, however, that he could not discuss in detail the reasons the CIA was not in Syria.
Until recently the CIA kept its distance from rebel groups, leaving face-to-face contacts largely to Turkish, Qatari, Saudi and other intelligence services, officials said. A few CIA officers in recent weeks have met with opposition leaders in Turkey near the Syrian border, officials said. They communicate by secure links with paid informers in Syria.
Several journalists have been spending time with rebel groups in Syria, living and traveling with them for days. But the CIA as a rule has been unwilling to let its officers do that, officials said. There would be no air support and limited rescue capability should the agents get into trouble.
"What are we going to do, just allow the Turks, the Qataris and the Saudis to have relations with opposition groups, and we not have direct relations?" asked Andrew Tabler, a Syria expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a think tank. "That doesn't make any sense. Those countries don't always have our interests at heart."
By contrast with Libya, where the CIA did put in its own operatives, the rebels in Syria have no geographic base and have seized territory sporadically. Syria's military and police appear to be more sophisticated, or at least have a more centralized command, than were Libya's. Moreover, with no international military campaign to help the rebels, Syria is a far riskier climate for American spies than Libya was.
Regardless, "it's a manageable risk," the former CIA officer said.
"You have to be willing to send your people into harm's way, and the agency's value to the president is being the 911 service," the former officer said. "We should be going in and living with opposition fighters."
CIA operatives were the first Americans into Afghanistan shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks. They helped coordinate a campaign by opposition fighters supported by U.S. bombers that led to the quick overthrow of the Taliban regime. Similarly, CIA officers went into northern Iraq's Kurdish region in July 2002 to help organize militia fighters before the U.S.-led invasion.
Two CIA officers involved in those efforts — Charles Faddis, who ran the CIA base in Iraq, and Gary Berntsen, his counterpart in Afghanistan — have since retired and written books criticizing the CIA as risk-averse.
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4)Good Mideast Dictators
By Robert D. Kaplan
It is often said that the Arab Spring proves American support for Middle Eastern autocrats for more than half a century was wrong because the policy did not bring peace or stability. Nonsense. For any policy to remain relevant for so many decades in this tumultuous world is itself a sign of success. Support for moderate Arab monarchs and secular dictatorships was part of a successful Cold War strategy for which there is no need to apologize. It helped secure the sea lines of communication between the oil-rich Middle East and the West, on which the well being of Americans depended. What was the United States supposed to have done? Overthrow a slew of regimes across a vast swath of the earth for decades on end because those states did not conform with America's own historical experience and political system? Or should we not have had diplomatic relations with these regimes in the first place? No responsible American statesman would choose either of those options. What were Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski and James Baker supposed to have done? Not seek Arab-Israeli troop disengagement accords and peace agreements because their Arab interlocutors were not democratically elected? Remember that thus far, Israel has only concluded peace agreements and disengagement accords with Arab dictators, men who had the luxury to throw their opponents out of power when they opposed such deals.
A basic rule of foreign policy pragmatism is that you must work with the material at hand: because it is dangerous and costly to replace regimes thousands of miles away from home when they do not correspond to your values or liking. Throughout the Cold War and the two decades following the end of Communism in Europe, autocrats constituted the material at hand in the Middle East even as the technology of social media was not yet available to undermine those regimes.
But has the Arab Spring actually toppled Middle Eastern autocrats? Only partially. In North Africa, three of five regimes and their apparatuses have been replaced if you count Egypt; in the Levant, none have been replaced, though Syria's now hangs by a thread; and in the Arabian Peninsula, only Yemen's Ali Abdullah Saleh has fallen -- and his supporters remain influential. That adds up to a record of regime change of about a third. Of course, more will fall. In Syria, this will happen perhaps any day now, and that will trigger changes throughout the region. Moreover, the Arab Spring has led to political reform in Morocco, Oman and elsewhere. Finally, the Arab Spring has affected the overall psychology of the Middle East. Everywhere regimes are nervous about public opinion to a degree that they were not before the original revolt in Tunisia at the end of 2010.
The regimes that have fallen, and that still might, were long overdue to collapse. Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia was an uninspiring security thug in a society already too sophisticated for that sort. Moammar Gadhafi in Libya was a tyrant out of antiquity encased in self-delusion. Hosni Mubarak in Egypt was barely cognizant because of age and illness, and even that did not signal his fall; rather, his fall was deemed necessary by a military establishment that did not want his son, who never served in uniform, to succeed him in power. Only in Yemen was a dictator's fall not necessarily inevitable. Saleh had remained in power for a third of a century by manipulating tribal politics in a country where geography was not friendly to central control, and he still had his wits about him at the end. But generally speaking, it has only been the worst autocrats who have been overthrown. Those less noxious regimes, mainly in the Gulf, have survived until now.
Syria, of course, appears to constitute an autocracy whose base of support is melting rapidly. By the time you read these words, it may no longer exist. Though in Syria, like in Egypt, we still have to distinguish between the fall of a man, a family dynasty and a regime. Thus far in Egypt, we have merely had a coup; the military still rules as it did under Mubarak. In Syria, there are numerous possibilities, not all of which signify complete regime change, though complete regime change there is the likely outcome. The bottom line is that the Arab Spring is not synonymous with democracy. Democracy has made substantial inroads in Tunisia but fewer elsewhere. The results of Egypt's elections have been undermined by continued military control. Libya may have held elections, and it may even have elected an enlightened moderate. But there are few institutions with which to project power beyond greater Tripoli. Democracy is not only about voting. It is also about capable organizations of government.
Alas, the Arab Spring can be defined as a crisis in central authority, in which old orders in a sizable minority of countries have proved untenable even as new and freer orders are struggling to emerge. Those new and freer orders, moreover, will not always prove more edifying than what they replaced. Simply because a people can vote does not mean they will choose individuals who will govern according to the liberal values of the West. Democracy does not guarantee good government; it only guarantees the ability to register the political and emotional health of a given population at a given moment. It is famously said -- and truly said -- that Hitler was elected in a democratic election. While Chinese communist leader Deng Xiaoping may have improved the material well-being and advanced the personal freedoms of more people in a shorter space of time than any man in history. Finally, democracy may be a public good in and of itself. But democratization can be a long, tortuous and deeply destabilizing process.
The basic truth about the Arab Spring is that it has brought us not only more freedom but also more complexity. Rather than one man, one telephone number and one email address to deal with in case of international crises involving this country or that, Washington now has to take into account the sentiments of dozens of people in the political power structure of a given Arab capital. It used to be easy to determine who held real authority in order to get something specific done or to resolve a crisis. Now it can be a matter of theory, the latest rumor or a piece of intelligence.
More complexity means that it is not entirely clear that the political changes in the Middle East since early 2011 are necessarily in the interest of the United States. The United States as a mass democracy generally supports the expansion of civil society throughout the world, and the Arab Spring is for the most part in line with that. But America is at the same time a status quo power that seeks to preserve the present power arrangement because it keeps America in a position of relative dominance.
Through it all, the most interesting countries to watch may be those least in the news: the constitutionally-evolving monarchies of Morocco and Oman and the sheikhdoms in the Gulf (Bahrain excepted) with oil money to spend on their small populations in order to bribe them toward quiescence. Some of them are, to varying degrees, peacefully experimenting with more liberal political orders, proving that the best kind of progress is often the most gradual kind, the kind that fails to attract headlines.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------5)Hamas Rising
As the Palestinian Authority struggles to make payroll, the militant group is making friends and influencing leaders around the Arab world.
BY JONATHAN SCHANZER
Countries across the Middle East are opening their coffers to support the Palestinian cause -- but the funds are increasingly being diverted in a direction that portends renewed conflict with Israel.
The U.S.-supported Palestinian Authority (PA), on the one hand, is rapidly heading for the poor house. Even after a promised $100 million injection of funds from the Saudis (which has not yet been delivered), the PA will still be suffering its worst cash crunch in years. It has an estimated budget shortfall of $1 billion for 2012 and has already stopped making payroll to its government employees. Yet regional leaders seem nonplussed about their longtime client's budget woes; their pledges of support continue to go unfulfilled.
Meanwhile in the Gaza Strip, Hamas -- the Islamist faction that violently wrested control of the area from the PA in 2007 -- is riding high on the beneficence of its new allies. After a rocky period during whichIran's largesse to Hamas dried up, and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's ongoing slaughter in Syria forced the group's external leaders to flee from their headquarters in Damascus, the group has regained its footing.
Hamas has two of the Middle East's emerging Sunni powerhouses to thank for its change of fortunes.
Qatar, despite an uneasy alliance with Washington that hinges on hosting a key U.S. airbase and now a newmissile-defense station, has quietly become one of the Palestinian Islamist party's most generous new benefactors. In February, Hamas officials announced they had signed a $250 million deal with the Qatari government for reconstruction projects in Hamas-controlled Gaza. Doha is also providing funds for sportsand housing projects in the Gaza Strip, according to other media reports.
Perhaps the greatest beneficiary of Qatari support is Khaled Meshal, the head of Hamas' external operations. As Assad's crackdown on Syria's predominantly Sunni opposition grew ever bloodier, Asharq al-Awsat reported in February that Meshal would leave Hamas headquarters in Damascus permanently and carry out his work from Qatar. Indeed, Qatar appears to be the new global headquarters of the Hamas politburo: A June 2012 Congressional Research Service report confirmed Meshal's relocation to Doha, noting that the Gulf emirate is the place where he "conducts his regular engagement with regional figures."
The Qataris also appear to be helping Hamas reintegrate into the Sunni fold. That's a tall order, considering that Hamas had long been on the Iranian dole -- the party is best known as an ally of the mullahs that has unleashed rocket attacks and suicide bombings across Israel, killing hundreds. But while the Iranian weapons pipeline still appears to be robust, known Iranian economic assistance has dwindled to small building projects -- and Qatar is exploiting this window of opportunity. In late January, for example, Qatari Crown Prince Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani accompanied a Hamas delegation to Jordan, the first time the group had made an official visit to Amman since Jordan's King Abdullah expelled it in 1999.
Turkey's Islamist government has also embraced Hamas, both economically and diplomatically. In December, the International Middle East Media Center, run out of the West Bank town of Beit Sahour,cited Turkish sources claiming that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had "instructed the Ministry of Finance to allocate $300 million to be sent to Hamas' government in Gaza." Hamas deniedthis, but Reuters and the Israeli newspaper of record, Haaretz, published subsequent reports, citing different sources, confirming this financial relationship.
It is in Ankara's interest to keep direct assistance shrouded in secrecy -- after all, it has a reputation to uphold among its NATO allies, who designated Hamas for its terrorist activity. But other Turkish assistance to Gaza is easier to document. In January, for instance, the Turkish daily Hurriyet reportedthat the country would "help Palestinians in the Gaza Strip repair mosques," while its competitor, Zaman,quoted Turkish officials confirming that the country is "engaged in projects to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza," including the construction of a $40 million hospital.
Turkey, like Qatar, has also been an advocate of Hamas in the diplomatic arena for several years now. The ill-fated Turkish-led flotilla of 2010, after all, was designed to draw attention to the Israeli siege of Gaza and received government sponsorship. And Erdogan famously told an American television audience last year, "I don't see Hamas as a terror organization. Hamas is a political party."
Erdogan is not alone in his sentiments. The political tide across the Middle East is also highly favorable to Hamas. Most obviously, the victory of the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsy in Egypt's presidential elections has energized Hamas. Following the Brotherhood's victory, Haniyeh expressed confidencethat "the revolution led by Morsy will not take any part in blocking Gaza" -- a reference to the blockade enforced by fallen dictator Hosni Mubarak.
The Palestinian Islamist group also enjoyed a red-carpet welcome in Tunisia, where the Islamist al-Nahda party has taken the reins of power. This was a particularly galling development for the rival West Bank government, given that the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the Palestinian nationalist organization that Yasser Arafat founded and Abbas now heads, had previously used Tunis as its headquarters in exile.
With Islamist movements gaining strength across the region, Hamas's political rival has simply lost its mojo. The Palestinian Authority, created 18 years ago to midwife a two-state solution with Israel that has yet to materialize, is sorely lacking in popular appeal. It doesn't help that the PA earned a reputation for being corrupt and ossified -- two qualities that brought several Arab autocracies to their ends.
The PA's Western allies, meanwhile, are becoming less willing to underwrite its activities. Despite a denial issued by the PLO to Foreign Policy, Saudi, Palestinian, and Israeli sources have reported that the White House is indeed threatening to cut aid if Abbas attempts to pursue recognition of Palestinian statehood again at the United Nations this year.
Hamas, unlike the PA, has never needed Western handouts. Since its inception in 1987, the group has operated entirely on regional cash. And despite its recent fallout with Iran and Syria, its platform of resistance to Israel enjoys wide appeal in the new Sunni regional order.
Washington once had the clout to deter countries like Qatar, Turkey, and Egypt from backing a designated terrorist group. But after the great regional tectonic shifts of the past two years, U.S. consternation has become a secondary consideration for these new governments.
True, Hamas's new donors could moderate its politics. This is certainly the line that Turkey and Qatar will take. But more likely, the increased cash flow to Hamas will herald a new wave of rejectionism and -- given Hamas's track record -- possibly a new wave of violence in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
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6)
O's Medical Insurance
Trump Explains Dumbo Care. No one has summed it up better than Trump !!! 'Let me get this straight . . .. We're going to be "gifted" with a health care plan we are forced to purchase and fined if we don't, Which, purportedly covers at least ten million more people, without adding a single new doctor, but provides for 16,000 new IRS agents, written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn't understand it, passed by a Congress that didn't read it (but exempted themselves from it), and signed by a Dumbo President who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes, for which we'll be taxed for four years before any benefits take effect, by a congress which has already bankrupted Social Security and Medicare, all to be overseen by an obese surgeon general and financed by a country that's broke!! What the hell could possibly go wrong?' ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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