With Friends Like Liberals, Progressives and Obama, Black Americans Do Not Need Enemies!

That about says it!


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Sweet Tammy's Web Page (SweetTammys.com) has been refurbished and they are now taking orders for a limited number of their special delicacies.

They have improved their packaging but their items are as reasonable in cost and  good, if not better, than ever!!!!
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I could be totally off my rocker but this is why I believe so many recent fires are the work of terrorist-arsonists and this administration is hiding the facts. (See 1 below.)
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Netanyahu asked ministers not to speak out regarding Syria but that warning does not apply to former Israel Intelligence and Military Strategists.  So what are they saying?

Well, they too are all over the place.  Some believe Assad is the rascal they know, can do business with and should be left in power.

Others believe the elimination of Assad would weaken Iran and that could ultimately result in Iran's total destabilization.

Some believe Syria will ultimately break up into three separate states - Alawite- Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurd and therefore be so weakened militarily and economically that would be positive for Israel and the entire Middle East.

So you think we are confused? (See 2 below.)

My friend Bret Stephens, never seems confused, even in areas of uncertainty, and in his most recent op ed piece I find myself in full agreement.  Oslo was a disaster.  Rabin had too high an opinion of his ability to control Arafat and Israelis paid the price of Rabin's aloof arrogance and self-delusion.(See 2a below.)

For the moment, Obama has taken Syria off the front page and in doing so has elevated Assad as a necessary thug we must allow Russia and Putin to protect on the assumption Assad will disembowel himself.

Russia and Putin have a complete history of blocking everything we do whether in the U.N., in one on one negotiations , etc. They even explained to Hillary her use of the word 'reset' was not their understanding. Now Obama has placed Putin in charge of seeing his puppet - Assad - do what Obama wants.  It is the  theater of the bizarre but it will buy time for Obama to blame Republicans for being stick in the mud when it comes to preventing him from spending like he wants and funding his prize legislation - 'Obamascare.' He did so yesterday in his 'pissy fanny' Lehman talk.

I was sitting with Rep. Tim Price last night and mentioned I had seen him earlier on Fox with a Democrat counterpart being interviewed and his counterpart was accusing Republicans of wanting to shut down government.  I thought Rep. Price's response, or lack of one, was weak and with all due respect told him so and asked why  he did not tell his friend, from the opposite aisle, the facts of the matter, ie. government has enough revenue to meet its debt and interest payments and it would then be up to Obama to choose where cuts in other spending should be  made in order to meet our primary obligations.  If Obama shuts the government down then it is because he chose to do so.  Rep. Price nodded his head but was not convinced it is time to play hard ball.

What this reinforced is my belief, and Bernie Marcus was right there concurring, Democrats play to win and Republicans are too patrician. Democrats will go to any length to win, they will play rough, they will appeal to emotion they have contempt for facts.  Hell, I face this every time one of my LTE's is published in the local paper and some dim wit  Dem responds by attacking me and not the substance of my argument and even if they do they do so with calculated lies and sleaze. As I have often said, most Liberals are humorless souls and Harry Reid is the perfect choice to  lead their dour pack!.

One of the benefits accruing to Liberals who have been dumbing down our nation and placing the victims of their nefarious intent on government dole is to control their actions, take away their freedoms and gain their votes. Black voters have been victimized by  Liberal insidiousness and the best evidence is  low black achievement scores, high unemployment and their fractured family status.  These are indisputable facts yet, Obama tells them he is for the middle class, the little man the downtrodden.

With friends like Liberals, Progressives and Obama who needs enemies?

Being held to low expectations does not produce high self-esteem.  An amoral ruse is being perpetrated upon black Americans  by their so-called friends and they are too enslaved to realize the ride they are being taken on - how sad for them and worse for our society!(See 3 below.)
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This Muslim gets it! (See 4 below.)
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Why is the New York Times anti-Israel?  I believe it is because the New York Times is owned by German Jews who are intellectual elitists and do not want to appear being too Jewish. Israel has always been a thorn in their side so the owners turn out to be apologists and thus, come across as acceptable to their Liberal readership .  In any event, they have lost readership over the years, their stock is down around their blue blood ankles and the trend is not favorable in view of what happened to The Washington Post

For most Liberal Jews, The New York Times is their Bible.. (See 5 below.)
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Polls are ephemeral because they record what people think at any given moment and people are fickle.

That said, the pubic is beginning to take the  full measure of the man and what they see is not to their liking. The dolts in the press and media no longer can shield him from himself.  It is finally dawning on even the Obamaites, his handling of our nation's affairs, domestic and foreign, are pathetic and do not accord with what we think about ourselves nor wish to be thought of by others.

Americans coil from thinking of ourselves as weak.  We have always thought of ourselves as a can do nation, as a nation that struggles with doing what is right though we have a history of not always succeeding.  We have always risen to and  met every challenge.

Obama is turning out to be  a second Carter. (See 6 below.)
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I am leaving town Thursday so you get another reprieve!
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Dick
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1)Iran Aggressively Recruiting ‘Invisible Army’ of Latin American Converts to Infiltrate U.S. Through ‘Soft Belly’ of the Southern Border

By Sara Carter

Iran is recruiting an “invisible army” of revolutionary sympathizers in Latin America to infiltrate the U.S. through the “soft belly” of the southern border, U.S. officials and national security experts told TheBlaze. And they’re using one website in particular to do it.

The Iranian regime’s conversion efforts are becoming increasingly aggressive, especially over the Internet, with the goal of conducting operations against United States interests in the Western Hemisphere, according to U.S. government officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the nature of their work in the region.

Islamoriente.com, which focuses on religion and politics, is one of Iran’s main recruitment and conversion websites for Latin America on the Internet, TheBlaze has learned. The site, which launched in 2008, includes links to Iranian television for Spanish speakers, anti-American news stories, essays on reasons to convert to Islam, chat rooms and a personal message from the Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran.

Even as President Barack Obama waits for Congress to make a decision on Syria, the Iranian website wastes no time and has no shortage of stories ridiculing the U.S. administration for threatening to strike President Bashar Assad’s regime, a staunch ally of Iran.

Jim Phillips, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation and expert in Iranian affairs, said Iran’s focus on Hispanic converts is a new evolution in Iranian operations in Latin America. Phillips said Khamanei’s message titled “The Importance of Work and the Nobility of the Worker” in Islam, is significant because the Ayatollah is “normally a background player in these sorts of efforts and doesn’t usually play such a public role.”

“Historically, Iran has tried to recruit agents from the Lebanese Shi’ite diaspora in South America and West Africa,” Phillips said. ”This emphasis on Hispanic converts is something new.”

In the past, “U.S. intelligence focused on Iran’s relationship with Hezbollah but now with the people they are recruiting it could be much more difficult to gauge who is infiltrating the U.S.,” Phillips added.

In August, the U.S. State Department decided to order a new review of Iranian terror activity in Latin America, based on a 500-page report issued by Argentinian prosecutor Alberto Nisman on Iran’s terrorist strategy in the region. Nisman was the original prosecutor in the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association that killed 85 people and wounded hundreds more. Nisman believes Hezbollah, on orders from Iran, was responsible for the bombing.

The report states that Iran has attempted to infiltrate “for decades, large regions of Latin America, through the establishment of clandestine intelligence stations and operative agents which are used to execute terrorist attacks when the Iranian regime decides so, both directly or through its proxy, the terrorist organization Hezbollah. These actions have been taking place within the so-called ‘export of the revolution,’ which was never masked by Tehran and is, in fact, written in their own constitution.”

Nisman’s report supports the evidence U.S. officials say they’ve found in the region. Iran’s revolutionary guard is focused on Latin America and has ramped up its efforts over the past decade, utilizing the same Internet tools they censor and ban from their own citizens. It is ”part of their effort to build an invisible army to penetrate the U.S. and our interests without suspicion, and it’s something we should be extremely mindful of,” said a U.S. official familiar with Iranian operations in Latin America.

The official said recent Iranian activity in Latin America shows the importance of the region in Iran’s political and ideological goals. Those goals are not only to cultivate anti-American sentiment in the region but also to build a network of support among Latin American converts in positions of power, the official said.

TheBlaze attempted to trace the domain and creators of the server hosting IslamOriente.com but the site is protected by a privacy company based out of the U.S. Attempts to call the number on the website led to a voice recording from a telephone number out of Queensland, Australia, which said that the website is protected byprivacyprotect.org.

According to a 2012 report from the Middle East Media Research Project (MEMRI), a think tank providing translation on video and Internet websites from the Middle East, privacyprotect.org is one among many U.S. companies that are used by Al Qaeda and other nefarious groups use to hide their information. MEMRI also attempted to trace the Iranian website to no avail.

Ayelet Savyon, the director of the Iran desk for MEMRI, told TheBlaze that Iranian activities seem to be focused more on recruiting from the local populations with more sophisticated approaches.

“(Iran) is doing so in all parts of the world with the aim at targeting the U.S. soft belly,” said Savyon, who is based in Israel. “Latin America is a long-term goal for them with direct national security implications for the U.S., and I do think it’s of special interest to the U.S.”

She referred to The Washington Post’s recent report revealing how Iranian embassies in Latin America use cultural attaches to recruit young impressionable students to special conversion programs in Iran.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who was elected in June to replace the openly anti-American Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said in a recent public address that his support for Latin America is strong. Rouhani told Vasquez Bucaro, the president of the Central American Parliament and the head of Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly, that he welcomes increased interaction between the two groups and Iran’s legislature to strengthen their relations.

“Just because Iran has a new president, that hasn’t changed their goals,” Savyon said. “They are looking to recruit people who can support Iran’s revolutionary values. Their agenda hasn’t changed, only thing that has changed is the image they are trying to present to the world.”

A U.S. counterterrorism official said Iran’s activities are being closely monitored by U.S. intelligence agencies and “there’s no question that Iran has tried to cultivate ties with some of Latin America’s left-leaning governments.”

“As an element of this strategy, Tehran has mounted a charm offensive that includes using Internet propaganda to influence public opinion in these countries,” he added.

Another U.S. official, who has worked in Latin America for more than a decade, said Iran has dedicated a large number of resources to recruiting and converting people in Mexico, who have easier access to the U.S. border and can easily blend in with other migrants crossing the border.

In 2009, six U.S. officials confirmed in an earlier investigation conducted by this reporter that the designated terrorist group Hezbollah, which is supported by the Iranian government, had been using the same narcotics routes used by drug cartels into the U.S.

That has not changed but now “Iran’s goal is to recruit people that can be utilized against U.S. interests” and blend in without raising suspicion, the U.S. official said.

Hezbollah is based in Lebanon and was founded after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. It has grown into a major political, military and social welfare organization, which is controlled and financed by Iran and in 2006, it fought a 34-day war against Israel.

Hezbollah members and supporters have entered the U.S. through the southern border as early as 2002, with the case of Salim Boughader Mucharrafille, a Mexican of Lebanese descent. He was sentenced to 60 years in prison by Mexican authorities on charges of organized crime and immigrant smuggling. Mucharrafille had owned a cafe in the border city of Tijuana, near San Diego. In 2002, he was arrested for smuggling 200 people into the the U.S., including Hezbollah supporters, according to a 2009 Congressional report.

In 2005, Mahmoud Youssef Kourani, the brother of a Hezbollah chief, pleaded guilty to providing material support to Hezbollah after being smuggled across the U.S.-Mexico border and settling in Dearborn, Mich.

“Now what they desire is a proxy terrorist group that can easily slip past U.S. border security,” the U.S. official added. “Who’s going to suspect an illegal immigrant from Venezuela, Mexico, or anywhere else for that matter, of being a jihadist?”

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2)Syria-related Misconceptions, Inconsistencies and Ambiguity
Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger

Irrespective of Israel, Free World inaction in the face of non-conventional military systems in the hands of rogue regimes – such as Assad, or worse yet the Muslim Brotherhood or Al Qaeda – aggravates the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East and beyond; transforms tactical threats to strategic threats; adrenalizes Iran's megalomaniac aspirations and pursuit of nuclear capabilities; poses a lethal threat to Jordan, Saudi Arabia and other oil-producing, pro-US Arab countries; makes chemical and biological weaponry easily accessible to the growing number of anti-US Islamic terrorists and emboldens the scores of terrorist sleeper cells on the US mainland. Therefore, non-conventional military systems in Syria, constitutes a clear and present danger to vital US economic and national security interests.

However, when you sow the wind, expect the whirlwind.  A policy of misconceptions, inconsistency and ambiguity has provided a tailwind to the Arab Tsunami, while intensifying public ambivalence about the increasingly anti-US, fragmented, shifty, unpredictable, treacherous, violently intolerant and chaotic Arab Street.

For instance, upon entering the White House in 2009, President Obama initiated a policy of multi-nationalism (shaped by Samantha Power, a personal friend and one of Obama's mentors on foreign policy), considering the UN to be the quarterback of international relations, while disavowing American exceptionalism and leadership, apologizing for past US unilateral actions and preferring to lead from behind.  As expected, but contrary to Obama's policy expectations, the US was deserted by the international community – especially by NATO – when faced with the Syrian challenge.

In response, Obama reasserted America's power projection, announcing a forthcoming unilateral US military operation against Syria, which (unlike a declaration of war) does not require Congressional authorization.  Nevertheless, Obama swiftly mellowed the threat to Syria, passing the buck to Congress and putting any military operation on hold.  Furthermore, he has subordinated America's independence of national security action to a multinational initiative by Russia, the core supporter of Assad, the lead obstacle to effective sanctions on Iran, the key supplier of advanced missiles to Iran and Syria and the chief adversary of the US in the UN Security Council, the Middle East, the Persian Gulf, Asia, Africa and Latin America. Thus, the US is collaborating with a Russian ploy to advance the delusional option of international inspection – and not obliteration – of non-conventional weaponry, which has failed in North Korea and Iran, undermining critical US interests.

On September 6, 2013, Samantha Power, the US Ambassador to the UN, stated: “we thought perhaps a shared evidentiary base could convince Russia or Iran – itself a victim of Saddam Hussein's monstrous chemical weapons attacks in 1987-1988 – to cast loose a regime that was gassing its people.”  Power's assumption was resoundingly refuted by Ali Akbar Velayati, a national security adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei: “An Attack on Syria is considered an attack on Iran and Iran's allies.” It was equally demolished by Russia bolstering military reinforcement to both Syria and Iran.

Secretaries of State, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton were members of a tiny group of US legislators that believed – until the recent atrocities in Syria – that Bashar Assad was a generous, constructive leader, a reformer and a man of his word. Kerry was a frequent flyer to Damascus, dining with Assad and his wife, considering Hafez and Bashar Assad partners for peace.

On September 3, 2013, Kerry assured Senator Johnson (R-WI) that “the Syrian opposition has increasingly become more defined by its moderation.” And in the House hearings, he told Congressman McCaul (R-TX) that “there is real moderate opposition that exists” and that it is “getting stronger.”  Just like earlier references to the imploding Arab Street as “the Facebook revolution” and “transition to democracy,” so has Kerry subordinated the grim reality of the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda-dominated Syrian opposition to an oversimplified vision of the Middle East.  Thus, while Assad's goals are confined to the boundaries of Syria, the mission of the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda transcends Syria, sweeping Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the “Abode of Islam,” as a prelude to the grand assault on the “Abode of the Infidel.”  Both the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda are anti-US, Islamic supremacists, Shariah-driven, anti-democracy, violently intolerant of fellow-Muslims and the “infidel” and pursue their imperialistic vision via conventional and terroristic means.  

In Syria – just like all other Arab countries – the weaker the traditional autocratic-military regime, the stronger the transnational Islamic terrorism becomes. However, John Brennan, the CIA Director and Obama's mentor on international terrorism, does not recognize the existence of Islamic or Jihadist terrorism. On August 6, 2009, John Brennan presented his worldview, stating: “The President does not describe this [challenge of Islamic terrorism] as a 'war on terrorism….' Nor does President Obama see this challenge as a fight against Jihadists….  Jihad meaning to purify oneself or to wage a holy struggle for a moral goal ….”

The attainment of worthy US national security goals – such as a surgical obliteration of the Syrian infrastructure of chemical weapons – does not require boots on the ground.  It requires realism, clarity, determination and consistency.

2a)

The Price of Ignoring Mideast Reality

President Obama's plan on Syria will fail for the same reason the Oslo Accord did.

By Bret Stephens
Forty years ago Israel blundered disastrously on the eve of the Yom Kippur War because its military leaders had a concept about the circumstances in which it might be attacked, and the concept was wrong. Twenty years ago, Israel blundered disastrously by signing the Oslo Accord, because its political leaders had a concept about what it would take to get peace, and the concept was wrong.

Beware of policy makers bearing concepts.

That's worth pondering as the Obama administration peddles another concept—that a deal with Russia will lead to disarmament by Syria—as a reason to call off military strikes. But agreements are not achievements, wishes are not facts, and theory is not reality.

In 1973, what Israeli military planners called Ha'Conceptzia—the Concept—was that Egypt would not attack without Syria, Syria would not attack without Egypt, and Egypt lacked the long-range bombers and ballistic missiles it would need to retake the Sinai Peninsula. It was a comforting syllogism that allowed Israel to dismiss accumulating evidence of an impending attack, including a personal warning from Jordan's King Hussein, as nothing more than psychological warfare.

The flaw with the Concept was the Concept: Theory provides vision at the expense of clarity. It also obstructs thought. Had the Egyptian goal been to retake the entirety of the Sinai, Anwar Sadat would never have ordered an attack.

But Israel's planners broadly failed to foresee that the Egyptians might be prepared to forgo the hopeless military objective of retaking all of Sinai for the feasible one of retaking some of it; that Sadat could use limited military means to land a decisive psychological and political blow. The Israelis also neglected to take account of the possibility that the Egyptians could turn the Concept to their own advantage. The Concept made no allowance for the reality that humans are intelligent and nature is adaptive.

In that sense, the Concept was like every grand theory that ignores its own role in reshuffling assumptions and reshaping incentives. It was the same story with next grand Concept, when an Israeli government determined that peace was in its hands to give, and that what it chose to give was what the other side would be willing to accept.

The signing of Oslo, under Bill Clinton's big shadow on the White House lawn, is widely remembered as a moment of hope. In fact it was an act of hubris.

Yitzhak Rabin (who would pay for Oslo with his life) thought he could deputize Yasser Arafat as his sheriff, so that Israeli soldiers would no longer have to go door-to-door in Gaza and the West Bank. Shimon Peres imagined a new Middle East in which Arab states would be falling over themselves to strike trade deals with Israel. Some architects of the Accord thought the Palestinians could be bought off on the cheap, with autonomy instead of statehood, with Ramallah as the capital instead of Jerusalem, with Hamas permanently suppressed, with the refugee issue taken off the table. Others believed the Israeli public could gradually be brought around to concede things they never would have agreed to at the start.

Dissimulation was thus the essence of what came to be known as the peace process. But the Concept behind Oslo was that Israelis and Palestinians would accept their assigned roles—that they could be acted upon without reacting in turn.

Arafat's assigned role was to become governor of an inoffensive Arab statelet. He, however, thought of himself as the second coming of Saladin, the Muslim hero who captured Jerusalem from the Crusaders. The Israeli public was assigned the role of providing democratic assent to territorial concessions that previous Israeli governments had said for 25 years would be suicidal. But the purpose of democracy is to give people a chance to contest their leaders. And Palestinians were given the role of being Arafat's sheep, with no interests, opinions or prejudices of their own. But Palestinians know otherwise.

Oslo failed for the same reason Israel's military assumptions 20 years earlier had failed: It assumed a world in which people had no agency, enemies had no cunning and circumstances remained static. The world's not like that. And while John Kerrywas attempting to reanimate the spirit of Oslo before he got distracted by Syria, the Accord must rank as the greatest diplomatic debacle in modern Mideast history.

Until now, that is. The Obama administration has given up on exacting some tangible price on Bashar Assad for using chemical weapons, in exchange for a promise by Russia that it will intervene to remove those weapons.

And so it begins again. We substitute the Concept for reality. We imagine that those to whom the Concept applies will behave as we expect, or demand, or wish. We neglect how the existence of the Concept changes incentives. We lull ourselves into thinking that the logic of the Concept is the way of the world.

And then the Concept blows up in our face. Don't expect Barack Obama to pay a political price for the latest installment of peace in our time.

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3)As Education Declines, So Does Civic Culture

A generation of college graduates unable to write or reason bodes ill for liberal democracy.

By JONATHAN JACOBS

Even as the cost of higher education skyrockets, its benefits are increasingly being called into doubt. We're familiar with laments from graduates who emerge from college burdened with student loans and wondering if their studies have prepared them for jobs and careers. A less familiar but even more troubling problem is that their education did not prepare them for responsible civic life. The decline in education means a decline in the ability of individuals—and ultimately the nation as a whole—to address political, social and moral matters in effective, considered ways.

The trouble begins before college. Large numbers of high-school students have faced so few challenges and demands that they are badly underprepared for college courses. Many who go on to four-year colleges seem to need two years of college even to begin to understand what it is to study, read carefully and take oneself seriously as a student. For many students, high-school-level preparation for college is a matter of having high self-esteem and high expectations but little else.

Even after three or four years of undergraduate education, many students still cannot recognize reasoning when they encounter it. They have little grasp of the difference between merely "saying something" and constructing an explanation or formulating an argument. This is often reinforced by college instructors who urge students to regard all theories, intellectual perspectives and views as ideology—without acknowledging the differences between theories, beliefs, hypotheses, interpretations and other categories of thought.

This impedes students from acquiring habits of intellectual responsibility. Far too often, teachers and texts insist upon a "verdictive" approach, a politicized view of issues. Whatever your stance regarding the "culture wars" and the politics of higher education, it is undeniable that a great many graduating students have little idea of what genuine intellectual exploration involves. Too often, learning to think is replaced by ideological scorekeeping, and the use of adjectives replaces the use of arguments.

Such blinkered thinking has serious implications for civic culture and political discourse. It discourages finding out what the facts are, revising one's beliefs on the basis of those facts and being willing to engage with people who don't already agree with you. What does that leave us with? A brittle, litmus-test version of politics. It is one thing if people move too quickly from argumentation to name-calling; it is another to be unable to tell the difference.

There has been so much grade inflation in high school and college, so much pressure to move students along regardless of their academic accomplishment, that it is unsurprising to find large numbers of graduates lacking the skills required for available jobs. They may also lack the patience and discipline to learn those skills: If you haven't been required to meet demands in order to receive good grades, then patience and discipline are less likely to be among your habits. For graduates who do find work, the reality of employers' expectations may come as a shock.

Many employers can attest, as college instructors will too if they're being frank, that many college graduates can barely construct a coherent paragraph and many have precious little knowledge of the world—the natural world, the social world, the historical world, or the cultural world. That is a tragedy for the graduates, but also for society: Civic life suffers when people have severely limited knowledge of the world to bring to political or moral discussions.

To see the effect of these trends, simply ask a few 15-year-olds, 19-year-olds or 22-year-olds some basic, non-tricky questions from non-esoteric knowledge categories (history, biology, current events, literature, geography, mathematics, grammar). See what the responses are. Ask these young people to describe the basic institutions of American government, or how a case makes its way to the Supreme Court or what "habeas corpus" means. The point isn't to embarrass them, but to wake up the rest of us to how little students have been expected to know even about the political and legal order in which they live.

The primary concern shouldn't be how American students rank in international science and math scores (though that is certainly relevant). It is whether the United States can be a prosperous, pluralistic democracy if higher education fails to require students to think, inquire and explain. A liberal democracy requires a certain kind of civic culture, one in which citizens understand its distinctive principles and strive to preserve them by addressing issues and one another in a responsible manner. That is essential to the mutual respect at the core of liberal democracy.

The U.S. faces serious challenges; education should be serious and challenging. The cost to America of failing to reverse the trend toward trivializing education will be more than just economic. It will be reflected in social friction, coarsened politics, failed and foolish policies, and a steady decline in the concern to do anything to reverse the rot.

Mr. Jacobs is director of the Institute for Criminal Justice Ethics and chairman of the Department of Philosophy at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

A version of this article appeared September 17, 2013, on page A15 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: As Education Declines, So Does Civic Culture.

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4)Hatred of Jews

By Ali Salim

We Muslims make the mistake of thinking Europeans really care about is, especially the Palestinians. We are wrong. Europeans simply hate the Jews more than they hate and fear us. The bitter truth is that Europeans usually intervene in a crisis only if it gives them an opportunity for Jew-bashing. It does not even mention Syria, or the rapes of women and children, and the beheadings, to say nothing of exploitation, discrimination, slavery, and other crimes against humanity.

No matter how hard or how often we Muslims try, we are never able finally to end the connection our lives seem to have with the lives of the Jews. Watching Arab and Islamic television, especially during the holy month of Ramadan, brings the viewer to the inescapable conclusion that we have no real lives of our own, no unity and no value: our only motivation is having the Jews as a common enemy, with our lives dependent on them. We treat the Jews the way the rabid Christian anti-Semites treated them in the Middle Ages, blaming them for every illness, tragedy and misfortune. We blame them for the failures of Islam while only we are at fault for the catastrophes that befall us.

Almost no Ramadan evening goes by without tedious "historical" dramas on Al-Jazeera and the other Arab TV channels, whose objective is to brainwash viewers with anti-Semitic propaganda. They deal with the Jews' denial of the Prophet Muhammad's message, Jewish attempts to poison him and their betrayal of him at the Battle of the Trench in Al-Medina. Almost all the series' end on the same note: the message is always that the fate of the Jews in the Palestine they stole from the Arabs will be the same as that Muhammad wreaked on them at Khybar, they will be slaughtered and their women and children will be sold into slavery.

That kind of incitement lends the Jews a Satanic power, it makes us think they can manipulate events around the world and are historically responsible for planning and carrying out every evil that exists. In reality, however, all it does is glorify their capabilities and achievements to the extent of turning them into a self-important legend. Thus we ourselves construct the myth of the genius of the Jews, their intellectual might and creative talents, while personally I am not entirely sure they deserve the reputation: they are mere mortals like everyone else, and often less.

In my opinion, the situation has reached such proportions within the nation of Islam that it is now a national mental illness, a collective obsession for which I see no cure. We accuse the Jews of wanting to rule the world, but one of the causes of our illness is that we expect Islam to take over the world.

Regression and the lack of social and governmental flexibility, along with poverty and ignorance, perpetuate the impotence of the nation of Islam and make it impossible for us to change, develop and progress -- a frustrating, ugly situation. While we have dreams of ruling the world, we wallow in disease and poverty, and we are behind the times in all the modern fields of endeavor. Our various regimes enjoy religious and tribal backing, that is why they are anti-democratic and cannot be saved. We find comfort only in recklessly bringing untold masses of children into a world with nothing to offer them.

The countries of western Europe were all lucky enough, or wise enough, to cast off the political rule of fanaticism in the Middle Ages and to separate church and state. Today Christianity is a normative social value, a matter of personal conscience, and it dictates and practices enlightenment rather than violence and oppression. The separation of church and state made it possible for Europeans – and Americans – to progress, and it gave them a tremendous advantage over the rest of the world. We, on the other hand, are still living in the Dark Ages.

The Christians' enlightened, moderate attitude toward the Islamic communities in European cities, which is partially a function of fear, causes our extremist Muslim brothers to escalate their violence toward the communities hosting them, mistakenly assuming that Christian moderation is the result of the weakness of Western society. The result is that as time passes Islamophobia grows greater.

Despite the new Enlightenment, many Europeans, among them the leaders of the European Union, are still fundamentally and militantly anti-Semitic. Instead of attacking the Jews head on the way their ancestors did -- by simply passing discriminatory laws, forcing them to live in ghettoes and killing them -- they now politically correctly attack Israel, pretending that Israelis are not Jews. Beneath their political correctness their ancient, inbred anti-Semitism still smolders. For some Christians, as for the Muslims, hatred of the Jews is built on an ancient religious foundation, a legacy from the Middle Ages, and it is so basic and so well rooted that they are willing to support the Muslims in almost anything, as long as it harms the Jews in some way.

The result is that we Muslims make the mistake of thinking Europeans really care about them, especially the Palestinians. We are wrong: Europeans simply hate the Jews more than they hate and fear us. The bitter truth is that the Europeans usually intervene in a crisis only if it gives them the opportunity for Jew-bashing. When hundreds of thousands, even millions, of Muslims are slaughtered – by other Muslims, such as the massacre in Syria and the recent upsurge of violence in Darfur – the apathetic European leadership does not lift a finger. At the same time, the European Union is obsessed with its need to condemn, sanction and boycott the Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. It does not even mention Syria, with its hundred thousand civilians murdered by the government and its millions of refugees, or the atrocities being committed in the Arab-Muslim world, the rapes of women and children, the beheadings and the wanton cruelty and murder, to say nothing of exploitation, discrimination, slavery and other crimes against humanity.

The holy month of Ramadan is the time to examine our consciences. To my great sorrow, everywhere in the world where there are Muslims there is murder, mass bloodshed and terrorist attacks. We should leave the Jews alone, they are not responsible for our tragedies and hating them will not cure the Nation of Islam or bring it successfully into the 21^st century.

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5)Why is the New York Times Always Wrong on Israel?

By Michael Curtis

The New York Times is at it again in its continuing presentation of inaccurate statements and misleading assertions concerning the State of Israel. First was the headline in an article of September 10, 2013 that "The 1967 border is a source of strain in the Israeli-Palestinian Talks." Then on September 15 it published an unusually tendentious article, "Two-State Illusion: the idea of a state for Palestinians and one for Israelis is a fantasy that blinds us and impedes progress."

The first statement was false since there are no borders; the second was an absurd argument that has no relevance to the present situation. Both are implicitly critical of Israel and unhelpful to any genuine effort to reach a peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians in particular and the Arab world in general. Both are grounded in a pessimistic view of relationships between the parties in the Middle East. And both ignore the fact that pessimism is not an option for solution of political problems.

Of course, the difficulties in the search for peace and the possible creation of a Palestinian state willing to live in peace with the State of Israel are evident. The three attempts at negotiations since 2000 have failed. That failure has been due not to Israeli unwillingness to enter into negotiations. It must be admitted that Israeli leaders are divided on the nature of negotiations, about a Palestinian state, and whether it would constitute a threat to the security of Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu certainly faces dissent both from some members of his own party and from Naftali Bennett and his Jewish Home party, part of the present government coalition. But more important, Netanyahu at this point appears to have become less ideological and more of a strategic hawk, concerned about territorial compromises only if they threaten the security of Israel.

In his speech at Bar-Ilan University in June 2009, Netanyahu unequivocally appealed to "our Palestinian neighbors and to the leadership of the Palestinian Authority" to begin peace negotiations immediately without prior conditions. He similarly appealed to the leaders of the Arab countries to talk about and to make peace. He now has as his envoy Yitzhak Molcho, who was a crucial player in two agreements, the 1997 Hebron agreement, and the 1998 Wye River Memorandum.

The failure to negotiate is due to three other factors. The first is the appreciation that the well-known differences between the parties, on Jerusalem, refugees, boundaries, and security issues, offer no easy solution. The second issue is the division and the poisoned atmosphere between the Palestinians, between Fatah and Hamas, the terrorist organization dedicated to the elimination of Israel.

Most important is the third factor, the continuing refusal of any Palestinian group to enter into genuine negotiations or without preconditions regarding issues that are to be negotiated. This is a matter both of bad faith and of breakage of the commitment made twenty years ago in the Oslo Accords, which created the Palestinian Authority in an interim agreement that was to last five years after which final status talks would begin.

This bad faith and unwillingness to enter into any agreement continues. Nabil Shaath, the Palestinian official for international affairs, said in September 2013 that the Palestinians had only agreed to participate in possible peace talks organized by Secretary of State John Kerry because they had been pressured by the United States, Europe, Russia, and the rest of the Arab world. This unwillingness persisted in spite of the fact that Israel agreed to release a considerable number of long-serving Palestinian prisoners.

Critics of the existence of the State of Israel, such as the authors of the New York Times columns, may posit that a two-state solution is a fantasy. But it cannot be repeated too often, and writers of those columns by now ought to be conscious of it, that the root of the conflict between Israel and its neighbors has always been and remains the refusal to recognize the right of the Jewish people to a state of their own located in their homeland.

The conflict will only end when that recognition occurs, and the destruction of Israel is no longer a major objective. The Palestinians, however, have not only avoided negotiations, but also threaten legal and well as military action against Israel, appeal to the amorphous "international community" for support, and continue to accentuate its narrative of victimhood.

The acceptance by part of that community of the validity of this narrative has been accompanied by increasing pressure for the boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel. Most recently the European Union has taken negative steps in this direction. In December 2012 it decided that any future trade agreements with Israel would state that they would not apply to any area beyond the pre-1967 lines. In July 2013, it said that it would issue guidelines that awards and grants would not be given to Israelis located beyond those lines. It was also preparing guidelines fallowing its member states to choose to label products produced in the Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Not surprisingly, Hanan Ashrawi, well-known spokesperson of the executive committee of the PLO, perversely declared this was a very positive step. In contrast John Kerry on September 8, 2013 called for these guidelines to be suspended.

Two things are pertinent in this regard, the issues of the settlements and the pre-1967 lines. The first is that disregarding one's views on the desirability or even the legality of the Israeli settlements, they do not constitute an obstacle to peace. This was clearly shown in 2009 when there was no response by any Palestinians to the Israeli gesture to forego, on a temporary basis, construction of settlements in the West Bank.

Related to this is the issue of the pre-1967 lines, The NYT, like the Palestinians and so many others, speak of these as "1967 borders." The Palestinians contend that negotiations must start from those areas, and that a two-state solution must be based on those lines. However, the reality is that those lines are artificial, the result of where the conflicted armies happened to stop at the moment of cease-fire. Only final status agreements will decide on borders of the disputed territories.

The idea of a two-state solution may have disappeared between 1949 and 1967 when Jordan occupied and indeed annexed the West Bank, and Egypt rule the Gaza Strip. The Arab League is not alone in arguing that it should now be the subject of discussion. Only the contributors to the NYT who impede progress on the subject seem to think otherwise.

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6)With Poor Ratings on Handling Syria, Obama’s Approval Worst in Over a Year

Barack Obama’s job approval rating flattened at an even 47-47 percent in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, his lowest in more than a year, with more than half of Americans disapproving of his handling of the situation with Syria.

The public by a 15-point margin is more apt to say Obama’s performance on Syria has weakened rather than strengthened U.S. global leadership, and six in 10 continue to oppose the missile strikes he urged. At the same time, the survey finds vast support, 79 percent, for the Russian-backed plan to junk Syria’s chemical weapons, even amid skepticism Syria will cooperate.

See PDF with full results, charts and tables here.

If Syria in fact fails to surrender its chemical weapons, the public divides about evenly on whether Congress should authorize military strikes after all: Forty-four percent say it should, short of a majority but well more than the 30 percent who back missile strikes as things stand now.

There are some positive notes for the president. More than half, 54 percent still see him as a strong leader; 52 percent say he’s a good commander-in-chief of the military; and more, 60 percent, say he sticks with his principles. On Syria specifically, more accept than reject his argument that the threat of missile strikes helped the situation, albeit by a single-digit margin, 47-40 percent. Similarly, he leads congressional Republicans in trust to handle the confrontation with Syria by 8 percentage points.

More Americans in this poll, conducted for ABC by Langer Research Associates, found Obama’s address to the nation on Syria last week to be persuasive rather than unpersuasive, by 47-32 percent. However 21 percent have no opinion on the speech, and as often occurs in such cases, some critics may just have tuned him out.

VITAL INTEREST? – Most import on Syria is the question of whether or not the situation involves the vital interests of the United States, as Obama has argued. Support for strong action rises in cases when U.S. interests are seen as being at stake; for instance, 67 percent said so about Iraq in 2003, vs. just 23 percent about Somalia in 1993.

On Syria, it’s a split decision: Forty-five percent of Americans see vital U.S. interests at stake in this situation, while 48 percent do not. Liberals are most likely to see the issue as one of vital concern, with 55 percent saying so; fewer moderates and conservatives agree, 43 and 42 percent, respectively.

It matters: People who see vital U.S. interests at stake are 16 points more apt than others to favor missile strikes now (though most still don’t) and 23 points more apt to favor having Congress authorize military action if Syria fails to cooperate. Should Syria stall, support for congressional authorization reaches 56 percent among people who think vital U.S. interests are involved, vs. 33 percent among those who think not.

SUMMARY NUMBERS – In summary, some of the topline results of this survey, in context, are as follows:

• At 47-47 percent, Obama’s overall job approval rating is its lowest since July 2012. More “strongly” disapprove than strongly approve by 12 points, the largest negative gap in intensity of sentiment about his performance since farther back, January 2012.

• Americans give Obama a 47-44 percent approval rating for handling international affairs overall, with approval down 7 points from a post-re-election bump. His approval turns negative, 36-53 percent, on Syria specifically, with views on his handling of the situation there more strongly negative than strongly positive by a broad 20 points, 19 vs. 39 percent.

• Sixty-one percent oppose missile strikes on Syria, vs. 30 percent in support, similar to ABC/Post polls the past two weeks. By contrast, the public supports the Russian plan by 79-16 percent, even though 68 percent lack confidence Syria will cooperate with the collection and destruction of its chemical weapons by international monitors.

• As noted, substantially more think Obama’s handling of the situation with Syria has weakened rather than strengthened U.S. leadership in the world, 32 vs. 17 percent. But a plurality, 46 percent, don’t think it’s affected perceptions of U.S. leadership either way.

• Views of Obama as a strong leader, while down by 7 points from early this year, are more positive than negative for the 10th time in 11 ABC/Post polls to ask this question. His rating as a commander-in-chief is better than his prospective ratings on this question before he took office. While sticking with his principles is a notable strength, he gets an even split on another personal attribute, whether or not he “shares your values.” That’s been the case steadily since late 2010, with very wide partisan and ideological divisions.

GROUPS/OBAMA – Even beyond the customary political gaps, demographic groups divide sharply in their assessments of Obama. His job approval rating is 74 percent among nonwhites vs. 33 percent among whites (with a sizable gap between college-educated vs. non-college whites – 40 percent approval in the former group, 28 percent in the latter).

Obama’s approval rating reaches 57 percent in urban areas, 55 percent in the Northeast and 55 percent among 18 to 29-year-olds. He holds 54 percent approval in the blue states he won in 2012, vs. 35 percent in the red states.

While now usual, the political divisions are huge. Eighty percent of Democrats approve of the president’s performance overall; 10 percent of Republicans agree. (It’s 42 percent among independents.) Sixty-seven percent of liberals approve vs. 26 percent of conservatives. (It’s 52 percent among moderates.) For his worst rating, look to conservative Republicans, a group in which just 6 percent approve of Obama’s work in office, while 92 percent disapprove. Eighty-three percent disapprove strongly.

Obama loses ground in his own base and in the center alike when it comes to handling the situation with Syria. Sixty percent of Democrats and 55 percent of liberals approve, as do just 32 and 37 percent of independents and moderates – lower in each case than his approval overall in these groups.

Independents divide on whom they trust more to handle the situation with Syria, Obama or the Republicans in Congress, 36 to 34 percent; in a notable expression of their political disaffection, 21 percent of independents volunteer that they don’t trust either option. Obama and the GOP each win three-quarters of their partisans on this question, with Obama prevailing because self-identified Democrats outnumber Republicans by 11 points.

GROUPS/SYRIA FORCE – Given widespread public expectations that Syria won’t in fact cooperate with the Russian plan to neutralize its chemical weapons stockpile, it’s instructive to know which groups support or oppose an authorization of force by Congress as a backup plan.

Beyond the “vital interests” result, politics and ideology again play a substantial role. Support for authorization of force if Syria doesn’t comply reaches majorities among just a few groups in this survey – Democrats (56 percent) and liberals (53 percent), and among two strongly Democratic groups, blacks and nonwhites overall (63 and 58 percent).

Even those numbers are comparatively tepid, given that they’re core Obama support groups. Were the Russian plan to fail and Obama to return to Congress for authorization, these results suggest he’d face a further difficult battle for public opinion – unless and until the case is made that vital U.S. interests are in fact at stake.

METHODOLOGY – This ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted by telephone Sept. 12-15, 2013, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 1,004 adults, including landline and cell-phone-only respondents. Results have a margin of sampling error of 4 points, including design effect. Partisan divisions are 34-23-34 percent, Democrats-Republicans-independents.

The survey was produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates of New York, N.Y., with sampling, data collection and tabulation by Abt-SRBI of New York, N.Y

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