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Tonight, Obama will re- anoint himself monarch because he is tired of waiting for Congress.
Our avowed law professor of Constitutional Law has decided that everything he supposedly has said and taught is out the window because when he snapped his fingers Congress did not jump.
Republicans have every reason not to trust this liar knowing that if they modify our immigration laws to deal with reality Obama will not enforce laws pertaining to protecting our borders .Until this is accomplished any immigration solution will result in nothing more than a second wave of illegal immigration.
Though what Obama is about to commit tonight is an impeachable event he will not be impeached because that would be viewed as a fool hearty and politically vindictive act. Republicans can withhold appointments, they can withhold funding of various projects and they can send legislation which he will veto and then try and override his veto. That is the best they can do over the next two years and should do nothing that will threaten their 2016 presidential aspirations.
The next two years can be contentious and one of a poisoned atmosphere. The ball is in Obama's court and he can compromise or remain arrogant and an obstructionist.
I doubt he can be presidential.
As for the Republicans, they should continue to offer sensible legislation that solves our many problems and act in the best interest of the nation.
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One of the greatest threats to America is the sun in California. It seems to have permeated the minds of students at Berkley causing strange behaviour ending in their support of terrorism or is it their radical professors and not the sun? You decide! https://www.youtube.com/watch?===
Radical progressives, of which Professor Gruber is one of their paid captive consults, lied about Obamacare and believed voters to be stupid. Does the same apply to Common Core? I suspect it does! Caveat Emptor. (See 2 below.)
Meanwhile, it has taken quite a while for Progressive deception to be revealed and understood for what it is and always has been. Now this radical and vicious 'Obola' virus is attacking the central nervous system of the Democrat Party and will bring it down no less than Ebola!
Liberal Jews and dependent Blacks have been played for fools . Are they beginning to awake? Time will tell. (See 2a below.)
Consequently, Progressives are on the verge of losing every cause their warped thinking has imposed on the 'stupids' so now they are trying a new shtick- inequality. Everything they perpetuate has a moral connection so if you do not agree it is you who are immoral and they so virtuous.(See 2a below.)
Conservatives are not heartless. Inarticulate at times, yes, but most of their ideas are sensible, embrace the fundamentals of our constitutional roots and seek an independent society capable of doing for self knowing that big government mostly produces failure and thus, big disappointments.
Constant disappointment leads to distrust and rejection. Our Republic cannot long survive these consequences!
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Rove offers a thumb nail sketch of potential 2016 Republicans aspirants. The problem Republicans have is there are too many potentially qualified candidates and they, like happened in Georgia recently, can wind up attacking each other and providing red meat for their Democrat opposition.
Meanwhile, the ranks of the Democrats are quite thin - either Warren or Clinton or a dark horse. (See 3 below.)
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Professor Dershowitz slams President Pipsqueak as well he should for his moral equivalent comment. (See 4 below.)
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Dick
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There are many things that concern this parent and teacher involving the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), the least of which is the actual standards themselves. My work as a teacher exposes me directly to what seem to be underhanded acts of educational tyranny. My friends, family, and co-workers, preoccupied just trying to get their children and students prepared for the “rigorous” set of Common Core Standards, don’t notice the red flags. While they are focused on how to achieve success with Common Core, I am losing sleep over what I see and what I fear may be the endgame.
Today, the testing of CCSS is being used to ultimately transfer local control, in violation of the Tenth Amendment, to the federal government. With that transfer comes the possibility that this power in the hands of the federal government could be used for worrisome purposes. Would the federal government use this power to mold the minds of children by defining moral values? Would they attempt to influence the beliefs of the citizenry through messages hidden in texts? Would they push and try to normalize a leftist agenda that contradicts the beliefs of most Americans? Would they use data to track our children through adulthood using hundreds of data points? Would they keep a watchful eye on children across America, via I-pads and other devices, and know who to re-educate? Would they divide students who are willing and able to comply from those who will not accept their worldview? Would they indoctrinate for the common good of a centralized controlled government? Would America become a nation, not of achievers and innovators, but of mediocre workers to be utilized for the collective good of the state?
Evidence is showing that much of this is already happening. For example, teachers across America are forced to use Common Core compliant materials (textbooks, modules, performance assessments, et al) via an evaluation system that punishes them if they don’t comply. (See, American Thinker, October 3, 2014, “Common Core Teacher Evaluations: Ensuring Conformity in Every Classroom"). The “Common Core compliant” materials are sought by teachers, school districts, and parents because they trust that using them will ensure that their children perform well on the “rigorous” Common Core assessments. One thread woven through these “common core compliant” materials is moral relativism. My fifth-grade class read a book called Sounder. This book has been around many years, but it illustrates just how simple it is to train children to think a certain way. The book tells the story of a poor black sharecropper, and presumably takes place in the south in the 1940s. The man loves his wife and children. He is extremely poor. He is terribly exhausted. He works gruelingly hard, but he just can’t get anywhere. He hunts every day with the family dog but food is still difficult to come by. It’s easy to empathize with the character, a man who is doing the right thing and getting nothing for it. One day he comes home with a ham. His wife is worried because she knows he didn’t buy it. Despite this, the family enjoys the ham for days. Even the dog gets scraps. Eventually, the police come and arrest him for stealing the ham. Suffice to say, the punishment is severe. The dog is even shot by the ruthless (white) police. I won’t give away any more of the book. After reading this story, children who agreed that stealing is wrong under absolutely any circumstances, now are not so sure. Maybe it is okay to steal to feed your family. Then, after reading the book, the children may be asked to write an opinion essay in which they address, “Under what circumstances is it okay to steal?” The premise being that stealing can be justified. In addition to the textbooks themselves, you can find examples like this hidden within Common Core compliant math word problems, quizzes, assessments and even sentences. (For example, place the proper punctuation on this sentence: “Government gives us our rights”.) Throughout these Common Core materials are messages that normalize things, in small impressionable brains, that may be contrary to your worldview. Throughout these Common Core materials are values that are being taught that parents might protest if they were made clearer. Parents, are you okay with this?
There are more tentacles to Common Core, and admittedly, some of the standards seem benign. (For example, “Students will understand how characters react to challenges in the story.”) However, the purpose of Common Core is not revealed in the standards. It is revealed in the view that there are no absolute truths or values. It is revealed in the teaching of “higher order thinking” which is attained when a child no longer believes in right and wrong. It is revealed in the view that all that is new is better than what comes from previous generations of knowledge, and much more. Common Core is not just a set of standards. That we very well may have been deceived and that we fell for it with such unflinching obedience, and that there is the potential for total control in the hands of a few who may or may not exploit it, is what keeps this teacher and parent up at night.
Mary Anne Marcella received a B.A from New York University and an M.S in Elementary Education from Lehman College. She lives with her family in New Canaan, CT. She is a parent and public school teacher who cares about her children and her students. Her views are her own and do not necessarily reflect the views of others in the education field. You may contact her maryannem@optonline.net or twitter Maryanne@maryannemercog
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2)Obama: The Hangover
The Gruber technocracy is a green sludge consuming the Democratic Party.
By
Who can forget the Obama acceptance speech in 2008 on a football field in Denver, the nominee standing amid Greek columns and scrolling through a long list of goals to 84,000 Democrats? That was the high. Six years later, the Democrats get the hangover. On Thursday, Mr. Obama will announce his presidency’s only declaration of war—against the Republicans. After describing how he will redesign the U.S. immigration system on his own authority, he’ll fly Friday to Las Vegas.
The remaining two years will be irregular warfare, with Mr. Obama deploying his weapon of choice, the executive order. This essentially turns the presidency into a cruise missile: The president tells the country what to do, and the country does it.
Before the U.S. political system goes to the mattresses, I’d like to spend a moment discussing Jonathan Gruber, ObamaCare and the American people.
Jon Gruber is the now-famous ObamaCare designer and explainer-for-hire who said the Affordable Care Act became law because the American people were too stupid to understand what was in it.
Within days, Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi were throwing Jon Gruber down the memory hole. You bet they were. The Gruber incident poses a direct threat to the Democratic Party.
Jon Gruber’s remarks matter not for what they say about the Democratic Party’s modus operandi but because of the truths he revealed about the Democratic Party’s reason for being. The Gruber threat to the Democrats isn’t reputational; it’s existential.
The Democrats have believed for decades that if they build it—a health-care entitlement or any other federal bestowment—the voters will come. That political model is cracking.
For some, the Gruber videos proved that the Obama administration had duped a gullible American public into ObamaCare. But who was fooled by these gambits?
Congressional Republicans knew exactly what the act’s tax provisions were, and not one of them voted for it in 2010. Today, with the Gruberized PG-version of the ACA entering its second round of sign-ups and its defenders claiming the law is “working as planned,” the most recent Gallup Poll reports approval for ObamaCare at 37%. On the other side of that poll are the people whose votes just cast out the Democratic Party at every level of government—Congress, governorships and state legislative seats. Who looks stupid now?
On the left, writers are saying the worst thing about the Gruber filmography is that it gives credibility to conservative stereotypes about the “arrogance” of the technocracy.
That’s close but not on target. The problem is not one MIT economist’s arrogance. The problem is that the technocracy itself has become a political problem for the Democratic Party.
For some 80 years, that technocracy has been the life force of the Democratic Party. Now it’s a kind of noxious green sludge consuming the party.
Calling itself “the administrative state,” a technocratic army of social scientists, lawyers and bureaucrats has kept the Democratic Party supplied for decades with the policy details behind its promises to the electorate. ObamaCare was going to be one more victory march into the end zone of federal entitlements with a playbook designed by Jon Gruber and the other grandchildren of the original administrative elites.
But no one’s popping champagne for this one. When 50 years from now historians search for evidence of when the Democratic Party’s decline began, they’ll fix on this famous blurting of the truth about ObamaCare by House Speaker Pelosi: “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what’s in it.”
ObamaCare is a massive law, designed to refashion the entire U.S. health-care system, just as the massive Dodd-Frank is intended to reshape the whole U.S. financial system. An article this week in the Chronicle of Higher Education noted that universities must now comply with “a vast regulatory regime of hundreds of rules from dozens of state and federal agencies with reams of required paperwork.” The newspaper asked, “for what?” The strangling of higher-ed is especially ironic and rich. These are the intellectual foot soldiers of the administrative state, which is even eating its own.
Now, with his words alone, the Technocrat-in-Chief will redesign the U.S. immigration system.
Why in 2014 did the Democrats lose so many elections in blue or purple states? Within the tight margin that increasingly decides elections, they are losing support from the non-movement Democrats and independents whose lives are being affected in a bad way by what have become the party’s control-freak dives into health care, medical practice, finance, energy, education and now immigration.
The original Democratic idea was at least benign. In the hands of the Obama-Gruber coalition, it has finally degraded into something else. It has become malign, a politics that has to be faked or crammed down.
The best and brightest of the Democratic left will now fashion legal arguments defending national government by executive order. Too late. It looks like the stupid people are wising up.
2a) What the Inequality Warriors Really Want
Confiscating wealth is ultimately about political power. Koch brothers, no. Public-employee unions, yes.
Progressives decry inequality as the world’s most pressing economic problem. In its name, they urge much greater income and wealth taxation, especially of the reviled top 1% of earners, along with more government spending and controls—higher minimum wages, “living” wages, comparable worth directives, CEO pay caps, etc.
Inequality may be a symptom of economic problems. But why is inequality itself an economic problem? If some get rich and others get richer, who cares? If we all become poor equally, is that not a problem? Why not fix policies and problems that make it harder to earn more?
Yes, the reported taxable income and wealth earned by the top 1% may have grown faster than for the rest. This could be good inequality—entrepreneurs start companies, develop new products and services, and get rich from a tiny fraction of the social benefit. Or it could be bad inequality—crony capitalists who get rich by exploiting favors from government. Most U.S. billionaires are entrepreneurs from modest backgrounds, operating in competitive new industries, suggesting the former.
But there are many other kinds and sources of inequality. The returns to skill have increased. People who can use or program computers, do math or run organizations have enjoyed relative wage increases. But why don’t others observe these returns, get skills and compete away the skill premium? A big reason: awful public schools dominated by teachers unions, which leave kids unprepared even to enter college. Limits on high-skill immigration also raise the skill premium.
Americans stuck in a cycle of terrible early-child experiences, substance abuse, broken families, unemployment and criminality represent a different source of inequality. Their problems have proven immune to floods of government money. And government programs and drug laws are arguably part of the problem.
These problems, and many like them, have nothing to do with a rise in top 1% incomes and wealth.
Recognizing, I think, this logic, inequality warriors go on to argue that inequality is a problem because it causes other social or economic ills. A recent Standard & Poor’s report sums up some of these assertions: “As income inequality increased before the [2008 financial] crisis, less affluent households took on more and more debt to keep up—or, in this case, catch up—with the Joneses. ” In a 2011 Vanity Fair article, Columbia University economist Joe Stiglitz wrote that inequality causes a “lifestyle effect . . . people outside the top 1 percent increasingly live beyond their means.’’ He called it “trickle-down behaviorism.”
I see. A fry cook in Fresno hears that more hedge-fund managers are flying in private jets. So he buys a pickup he can’t afford. They are saying that we must tax away wealth to encourage thrift in the lower classes.
Here’s another claim: Inequality is a problem because rich people save too much. So, by transferring money from rich to poor, we can increase overall consumption and escape “secular stagnation.”
I see. Now we need to forcibly transfer wealth to solve our deep problem of national thriftiness.
You can see in these examples that the arguments are made up to justify a pre-existing answer. If these were really the problems to be solved, each has much more natural solutions.
Is eliminating the rich, to eliminate envy of their lifestyle, really the best way to stimulate savings? Might not, say, fixing the large taxation of savings in means-tested social programs make some sense? If lifestyle envy really is the mechanism, would it not be more effective to ban “Keeping Up With the Kardashians”?
If we redistribute because lack of Keynesian “spending” causes “secular stagnation”—a big if—then we should transfer money from all the thrifty, even poor, to all the big spenders, especially the McMansion owners with new Teslas and maxed-out credit cards. Is that an offensive policy? Yes. Well, maybe this wasn’t about “spending” after all.
There is a lot of fashionable talk about “redistribution” that’s not really the agenda. Even sky-high income and wealth taxes would not raise much revenue for very long, and any revenue is likely to fund government programs, not checks to the needy. Most inequality warriors, including President Obama, forthrightly advocate taxation to level incomes in the name of “fairness,” even if those taxes raise little or no revenue.
When you get past this kind of balderdash, most inequality warriors get down to the real problem they see: money and politics. They think money is corrupting politics, and they want to take away the money to purify the politics. As Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez wrote for his 2013 Arrow lecture at Stanford University: “top income shares matter” because the “surge in top incomes gives top earners more ability to influence [the] political process.”
A critique of rent-seeking and political cronyism is well taken, and echoes from the left to libertarians. But if abuse of government power is the problem, increasing government power is a most unlikely solution.
If we increase the top federal income-tax rate to 90%, will that not just dramatically increase the demand for lawyers, lobbyists, loopholes, connections, favors and special deals? Inequality warriors think not. Mr. Stiglitz, for example, writes that “wealth is a main determinant of power.” If the state grabs the wealth, even if fairly earned, then the state can benevolently exercise its power on behalf of the common person.
No. Cronyism results when power determines wealth. Government power inevitably invites the trade of regulatory favors for political support. We limit rent-seeking by limiting the government’s ability to hand out goodies.
So when all is said and done, the inequality warriors want the government to confiscate wealth and control incomes so that wealthy individuals cannot influence politics in directions they don’t like. Koch brothers, no. Public-employee unions, yes. This goal, at least, makes perfect logical sense. And it is truly scary.
Prosperity should be our goal. And the secrets of prosperity are simple and old-fashioned: property rights, rule of law, economic and political freedom. A limited government providing competent institutions. Confiscatory taxation and extensive government control of incomes are not on the list.
Mr. Cochrane is a professor of finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, and an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute.
2b) Americans Not Enjoying Era of Big Government
After historic spending surge, most say the system is stacked against them.
According to the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, a full 56% of Americans agree with this statement: “The economic and political systems in the country are stacked against people like me.” This disillusionment index has been rising for more than a decade and coincides with an explosion in the size of the federal government.
The Journal’s Neil King notes that “alienation has built steadily since 2002, when just over a third of Americans felt the system was stacked against them.” Coincidentally, 2002 marked the first time in U.S. history in which overall federal spending topped $2 trillion. That seemed like a huge number at the time. But the feds spent $3.5 trillion in the fiscal year that ended in September and the President is hoping this year’s total can approach $4 trillion.
While federal spending as a percentage of GDP had been running below 18% for several years prior to 2002, it topped 18% that year and then surged to more than 20% by the last full fiscal year of George W. Bush ’s presidency in 2008. Spending spiked much higher during President Obama’s first year in office to more than 24% of GDP. Relative to the size of the economy, this was the most government Americans were required to buy since 1946, in the aftermath of World War II. And federal spending has been running above 20% of GDP in every year since.
Yes, in the years since 2001 defense spending has risen sharply due to the War on Terror, but so has the rest of the budget. And all that government isn’t persuading Americans that they’re getting a fair shot—just the opposite.
The last time Americans had this little faith in the country’s political and economic systems was for a brief period in 1992, in the aftermath of President George H.W. Bush’s breaking of his no-new-taxes pledge in a deal with Congressional Democrats that enabled more spending.
As John Cochrane suggests in our pages today, less government means people can get rich by starting companies and developing new products; more government enables people to get rich through political favoritism. In the era of the Beltway boom, no wonder so many people feel the deck is stacked against them.
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3)The Early Line on the GOP 2016 Presidential Field
The pluses and minuses of almost two dozen potential candidates.
With midterms over, let’s give political junkies a fix by surveying the emerging GOP presidential field. Twenty-three Republicans have publicly indicated interest (not including Mitt Romney , who says he has no plans to run). Here they are, with strengths and weaknesses.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is the GOP’s most visible social conservative. Can he reach outside that element of the party?
Californian Carly Fiorina is a businesswoman who broke the glass ceiling in 1999 by becoming Hewlett-Packard ’s CEO, but she will have to explain why the HP board dismissed her in 2005.
Three Floridians may run. A successful former governor, Jeb Bush is a big thinker and effective communicator with a giant fundraising network. But can another Bush win? Freshman Sen. Marco Rubio has worked hard preparing his message, studying issues and thoughtfully speaking out. He is close to Mr. Bush, who would co-opt much of their shared home-state support. Allen West is an articulate conservative, but a one-term congressman who just became president of a Dallas think tank is a long shot.
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal GETTY IMAGES
Georgia’s Herman “9-9-9” Cain is an unlikely contender after he crashed in 2012 over sexual-harassment charges from when he was a trade-association executive, but hints he’ll run.
The strengths of Indiana Gov. Mike Pence include six terms in Congress, and he is an able communicator, but he’s been governor only two years and won just 49% of the vote.
Freshman Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul fearlessly takes his libertarian message to young voters and blacks but makes wild claims—like saying Dick Cheney backed the Iraq war so his former employer (Halliburton) could get billions in contracts—and compensates when his libertarianism bombs by resorting to occasional flip-flops.
Next year is Bobby Jindal ‘s eighth and final year as Louisiana’s governor, where he has focused on jobs and education. His previous Washington service makes him one of the party’s experts on health care. He may not run if other governors—especially Rick Perry—do.
Three Marylanders are contemplating bids. Former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton is an articulate counterweight to Mr. Paul’s neo-isolationism, but can he distinguish himself on domestic issues? Former Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon Ben Carson has exemplary character and criticized President Obama over ObamaCare at a National Prayer Breakfast, but must show he has political smarts in an enterprise where naifs flounder. Bob Ehrlich, the former blue-state governor, has visited New Hampshire but hasn’t offered his candidacy’s rationale.
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder signed right-to-work legislation and adroitly managed Detroit’s bankruptcy. Does he have the energy and presence for a run?
That’s not a question for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie , who won re-election in a blue-blue state with 60% last year and raised $100 million to elect Republican governors this year. Unanswered is whether his Jersey style sells elsewhere.
New York Rep. Peter King is familiar on cable TV talking about terrorism, but can the former House Homeland Committee chairman raise money and build a national organization? Former New York Gov. George Pataki distinguished himself during 9/11 but must generate early home-state buzz to become viable.
Two Buckeyes are eyeing the contest. Ohio Gov. John Kasich was impressively re-elected with an economic message that appealed to working-class voters and won 25% among blacks. Hyperkinetic, can he be a disciplined candidate? Sen. Rob Portman is a brainy freshman who’s been director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, Trade Representative and congressman. Is this experience enough?
Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum won Iowa last time, but only after the media said Mr. Romney had won, so many don’t remember his victory. He must beat Mr. Huckabee for the social-conservative mantle and best others to become the top foreign-policy hawk.
Two Texas politicians are running. Rick Perry is the state’s longest-serving governor, as Texas led America in jobs created and economic growth. Will he get a second chance at a better impression after his dismal 2012 showing? The state’s most popular Republican, Sen. Ted Cruz leads the party’s confrontation caucus, but is advocating government shutdowns the path to the GOP nomination or the White House?
Wisconsin could field two candidates. The GOP’s leading theorist and 2012 vice-presidential nominee, Rep. Paul Ryan , can rewrite the tax code as Ways and Means chairman or run for president, but not both. The state’s courageous governor, Scott Walker, reined in public-employee unions with spending reforms, but can he project passion?
Things will be different for 2016: The Republican National Committee wisely restricting the number of debates and delaying primaries until February means candidates must mount real campaigns, not merely raise enough money to fly to the next debate. Polls will be meaningless until later next year, but in two weeks I’ll explore how prospective candidates are faring in the “invisible” primaries now under way or coming soon.
Mr. Rove, a former deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush , helped organize the political-action committee American Crossroads.
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4)Dershowitz Slams Obama on Synagogue Slaughter
Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz is unloading on President Obama’s “moral equivalence” in the wake of Tuesday’s shocking terrorist attacks at a Jerusalem synagogue that left five people dead, three of whom were Americans.
The acclaimed defense attorney also accuses Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas of inciting the bloodshed.
On Tuesday, terrorists stormed the synagogue in the Har Nof neighborhood in West Jerusalem. Using axes, knives and guns, the terrorists savagely interrupted morning prayers, killing three rabbis, another worshiper and a police officer. Police eventually killed the two terrorists.
In his statement, President Obama condemned the attacks and said the deaths of three Americans meant shared grief between the U.S. and Israel. However, he was quick to urge all sides to renounce violence.
“Tragically, this is not the first loss of life that we have seen in recent months. Too many Israelis have died. Too many Palestinians have died,” said Obama, who urged both sides to work together to “lower tensions.”
Dershowitz said that was exactly the wrong thing to say.
“It was moral equivalence. It was the wrong statement. It had all the wrong tone. It had all the wrong content. At this point in time, you unilaterally condemn only the Palestinian Authority and Hamas for incentivizing and inciting this kind of thing. You don’t bring it together with how many Palestinians may have died because they were being used as human shields,” he said, noting that the terrorist groups are fine with the U.S. and others in the world equating their actions with those of Israel.
“Hamas is happy with moral equivalence,” Dershowitz said. “It gives them a kind of legitimacy that they don’t deserve, the kind of legitimacy that Bishop (Desmond) Tutu and Jimmy Carter had given them, but I would expect more of our president.”
President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry were quick to point to point out that Abbas condemned the attack. Dershowitz said that condemnation came after great pressure from the U.S. and that Abbas deserves the lion’s share of the blame for the attacks themselves.
“Abbas is largely responsible for this,” he said. “He talked about Jews ‘infecting’ the Temple Mount. He called for Muslims to protect the Temple Mount. He basically incited this. Did he intend it? Probably not, but his words carry very great power.”
While the denunciation of the attacks by Abbas may have been grudging, Dershowitz pointed out that Hamas and Palestinians in the street made it clear they enthusiastically support such barbarism.“After this horrible, horrible massacre, immediately there was dancing in the streets in Gaza, in Ramallah, in Bethlehem and Nablus and celebration of these murders,” he said.
scroll down“Although the great tragedy occurred in the synagogue, the most important events occurred before – the incitement – and after – the glee. How did the world respond? Spain unilaterally voted in parliament to recognize the Palestinian State without asking them even to stop terrorism,” Dershowitz said.
scroll down“Although the great tragedy occurred in the synagogue, the most important events occurred before – the incitement – and after – the glee. How did the world respond? Spain unilaterally voted in parliament to recognize the Palestinian State without asking them even to stop terrorism,” Dershowitz said.
However, he said the most common reaction worldwide was indifference.
“United Nations? Silence. Most of the Arab states? Silence,” he said. “We’re not seeing condemnation. We’re not seeing outrage from many of the European leaders.”
Dershowitz praised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for forcefully denouncing the attacks but also for imploring Israeli citizens not to seek vengeance on their own. The international response to the murders was so tepid that Netanyahu implored world leaders to speak out. Dershowitz said if the roles were reversed, it would be a much different story.
“Can you imagine if an Israeli soldier had walked into a mosque and had murdered four imams at prayer? The entire world would be aflame about this,” he said. “We see very little condemnation (about Tuesday’s terrorist attacks). You see the usual ritual, formalistic condemnation, but you don’t see the kind of outrage that one would expect. And you don’t see the kind of outrage that one gets when Israel builds an extra bathroom or living room somewhere on the West Bank.”
The Middle East has long been viewed in the West as a problem that cannot be solved. Dershowitz said the Palestinians are undertaking a strategy to make sure it never does.
“The Palestinians are trying to turn this into a religious dispute, not a political dispute,” he said. “Political disputes can be resolved by compromise, but if you think your god has told you not to allow Jews to have a nation-state of their own … it’s very hard to compromise with that situation.”
Dershowitz said what’s worse than grisly acts of terrorism is the fact that it’s working to turn world opinion to the side of the Palestinians and others.
“Why are the Palestinians so popular today on academic campuses, at the U.N. and in European capitals?” he asked. “Because they have used terrorism over and over and over again. Nobody’s heard of the Kurds because they haven’t used terrorism to a great extent. The Kurds, there are much more of them and they are much more worthy of a state than the Palestinians and the Tibetans. But they’re getting nowhere because terrorism works, and it brings groups to the attention of the world. If we don’t stop terrorism in the Middle East, it’s coming to a theater near you because it’s an effective tactic today, unfortunately.”
World opinion has long tilted heavily against Israel, even when American presidents have vigorously defended it. Dershowitz admitted the U.S. can only do so much to reverse that, but he said there’s one thing the Obama administration can do in the coming days to prevent terrorists from scoring a major victory.
“They have to make a good deal with Iran or no deal,” he said. “You can’t make a bad deal with Iran. Iran is the greatest exporter of terrorism in the world. They’re dancing in the streets, too. If you think it’s bad to have a few terrorists with axes and guns and knives walk into a synagogue, just wait until terrorists begin to have nuclear weapons. That will happen if Iran has a decent deal that will allow it to become a threshold nuclear state.”
