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My friend , Bret Stephens, just returned from an interview with Netanyahu as well as Egypt's, al-Sisi.
Bret suggests Sisi is proving to be a brilliant and courageous leader. Meanwhile, Obama has dissed Sisi in favor of the radical Ayatollah, because Iran's leader is more trustworthy than Sisi in Egypt and Netanyahu in Israel.
Obama's thinking goes like this - Obama will not take Sisi at his word but he takes Netanyahu at his word when he does not like what Netanyahu is alleged to have said yet, believes promises from the Ayatollah while Iran's leader repeats he intends to destroy America. Capiche?
This is what Bret gleaned from his Sisi interview. (See 1 and 1a below.)
Finley writes Obama, not Netanyahu, is the problem. (See 1b and 1c below.)
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The reason we have not heard from Michelle of late is because she's apparently making a fool of herself and our country in Asia. (See 2 below.)
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Important program:
SCWA'S NEXT PROGRAM - Time to Attack Iran?
Date: Thursday, April 16, 2015
Time: Membership Social at 7:30
Program at 8:00 p.m.
Program at 8:00 p.m.
Location: Coastal Georgia Center, 305 Fahm St. (behind the Visitor's Center) Directions and Map
Access: Open to the public and free for members, students and accompanying family members, educators and active military and their dependents. $10.00 charge for non-members.
Access: Open to the public and free for members, students and accompanying family members, educators and active military and their dependents. $10.00 charge for non-members.
Dr. Mathew Kroenig
Associate Professor and International Relations Field Chair
Georgetown University
When it comes to Israel, the truth always comes out late because the knee jerk press and media are biased and therefore, prone to blame Israel regardless of the facts. (See 3 below.) === This lonely Palestinian intellectual praises Israel's democracy. (Doubt he will have much longer to live!) (See 4 below.) === Only a month or so ago, Obama pointed to Yemen as a great accomplishment. Yemen is now falling apart and we have withdrawn all Americans from the country. Oh well, must be because of G.W., Netanyahu, Republicans and the fact that ice bergs are melting due to global warming. === Ed Rogers does not understand why Jews remain smitten with the Democrat Party and Obama. Norman Podhoretz wrote a book about this and suggested, since most Jews know little about their religion, they have embraced politics to fill the void and they feel they must be liberal when, in fact, the Jewish Religion is actually quite conservative when it comes to personal behaviour, upholding and defining values and how to live ones life etc. As for myself, I believe Jews embrace the Democrat Party out of a false sense of understanding how hypocritical liberals truly are. Most Jews are not well informed about how Democrats have failed America, made us weaker both militarily and financially and supported policies which have harmed the family unit, made people dependent and are anti-Religion.. Republicans have as well when they try to become Democrat Lite in order to win elections. Furthermore, Jews are frightened by Republicans because extreme elements of the Republican Party have taken strong positions on social issues which scare the hell out of Jews who feel vulnerable. Of course Jews never acknowledge the extreme left of their party and the damage Unions have caused their workers and America. When it comes to politics, most people, Jews included, get very emotional and leave their logic and good sense not only outside but also fail to prioritize what are the critical issues. By this, I mean Jews, in particular, place issues pertaining to abortion above those pertaining to security. They just cannot think rationally. Then they emotionally proceed to find fault with Republicans on most every other issue. I have always maintained liberals are mostly humorless, cannot stand to be criticized and become very defensive , angry and some even foam at their mouth. Let's face it - Jews are like people only more so! === | ||
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1)
Islam’s Improbable Reformer
‘We are keen on a strategic relationship with the U.S. above everything else,’ says Egypt’s new president. ‘And we will never turn our backs on you—even if you turn your backs on us.’
Cairo
When then-Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi appointed a little-known general named Abdel Fattah Al Sisi to be his new defense minister in August 2012, rumors swirled that the officer was chosen for his sympathy with the teachings of Mr. Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood. One telltale sign, people said, was the zabiba on the general’s forehead—the darkened patch of skin that is the result of frequent and fervent prayer.
A pious Muslim must surely also be a political Islamist—or so Mr. Morsi apparently assumed. But the general would soon give the world a lesson in the difference between religious devotion and radicalism.
“There are misconceptions and misperceptions about the real Islam,” now-President Sisi tells me during a two-hour interview in his ornate, century-old presidential palace in Heliopolis. “Religion is guarded by its spirit, by its core, not by human beings. Human beings only take the core and deviate it to the right or left.”
Does he mean to say, I ask, that members of the Muslim Brotherhood are bad Muslims? “It’s the ideology, the ideas,” he replies.
“The real Islamic religion grants absolute freedom for the whole people to believe or not believe. Never does Islam dictate to kill others because they do not believe in Islam. Never does it dictate that [Muslims] have the right to dictate [their beliefs] to the whole world. Never does Islam say that only Muslims will go to paradise and others go to hell.”
Jabbing his right finger in the air for emphasis, he adds: “We are not gods on earth, and we do not have this right to act in the name of Allah.”
***
When Mr. Sisi took power in July 2013, following street protests against Mr. Morsi by an estimated 30 million Egyptians, it wasn’t obvious that he would emerge as perhaps the world’s most significant advocate for Islamic moderation and reform. His personal piety aside, Mr. Sisi seemed to be a typical Egyptian military figure. Unflattering comparisons were made to Hosni Mubarak, a former air force general and Egypt’s president-for-life until his downfall in 2011.
The similarities are misleading. Mr. Mubarak came of age in the ideological anti-colonialist days of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, trained in the Soviet Union, and led the air campaign against Israel in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Anwar Sadat elevated him to the vice presidency in 1975 as a colorless second-fiddle, his very lack of imagination being an asset to Sadat. He became president only due to Sadat’s assassination six years later.
Mr. Sisi, now 60, came of age in a very different era. When he graduated from the Military Academy, in 1977, Egypt was a close American ally on the cusp of making peace with Israel. Rather than being packed off to Russia, he headed for military training in Texas and later the infantry course at Fort Benning, Ga. He returned for another extended stay in the U.S. in 2005 at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pa.
Recalling the two visits, he notes the difference. “The U.S. had been a community that had been living in peace and security. Before 9/11, even the military bases were open. There was almost no difference between civilian life and life on a military base. By 2005, I could feel the tightening.”
The remark is intended to underscore to a visiting American journalist his deep sympathy with and admiration for the U.S. He also goes out of his way to stress that he has no intention of altering the pro-American tilt of Egyptian foreign policy, despite suggestions that he is flirting with Russia’s Vladimir Putin for potential arms purchases and the construction of Egypt’s first nuclear power plant.
“A country like Egypt will never be mischievous with bilateral relations” with America, he insists. “We will never act foolishly.” When I ask about the delivery of F-16 fighters to Egypt—suspended by the U.S. after Mr. Morsi’s overthrow, and now pending a decision by President Obama—he all-but dismisses the matter.
“You can never reduce our relations with the U.S. to matters of weapons systems. We are keen on a strategic relationship with the U.S. above everything else. And we will never turn our backs on you—even if you turn your backs on us.”
There is also a deeper purpose to Mr. Sisi’s pro-American entreaties and his comments on 9/11: He wants to remind his critics of the trade-off every country strikes between security and civil liberties.
It’s a point he returns to when I note the anger and disappointment that so many Egyptian liberals—many of whom had backed him in 2013—now feel. New laws that tightly restrict street protests recall the Mubarak era. Last June several Al Jazeera journalists, including Australian reporter Peter Greste, were sentenced to lengthy prison terms on dubious charges of reporting that was “damaging to national security,” though they have since been released. The Muslim Brotherhood has been banned, Mr. Morsi is in prison and on trial, and Egyptian courts have passed death sentences on hundreds of alleged Islamists, albeit mostly in absentia.
“My message to liberals is that I am very keen to meet their expectations,” Mr. Sisi rejoins. “But the situation in Egypt is overwhelmed.” He laments the Al Jazeera arrests, noting that the incident damaged Egypt’s reputation even as thousands of international correspondents “are working very freely in this country.”
Later, while addressing a question about the Egyptian economy, he offers a franker assessment. “In the last four years our internal debt doubled to $300 billion. Do not separate my answer to the question regarding disappointed liberals. Their country needs to survive. We don’t have the luxury to fight and feud and take all our time discussing issues like that. A country needs security and order for its mere existence. If the world can provide support I will let people demonstrate in the streets day and night.”
Sensing my skepticism, he adds: “You can’t imagine that as an American. You are speaking the language of a country that is at the top of progress: cultural, financial, political, civilizational—it’s all there in the U.S.” But if American standards were imposed on Egypt, he adds, it would do his country no favors.
“I talk about U.S. values of democracy and freedom. They should be honored. But they need the atmosphere where those values can be nurtured. If we can bring prosperity we can safeguard those values not just in words.”
All of this seems in keeping with Mr. Sisi’s military upbringing and reminds me of Pervez Musharraf, the former Pakistani general turned president. But the comparison is fundamentally inapt. Under Mr. Musharraf, Pakistan continued to make opportunistic deals with terrorists while giving safe harbor to leaders of the Afghan Taliban.
By contrast, it’s impossible to doubt the seriousness of Mr. Sisi’s opposition to Islamic extremism, or his aversion to exporting instability. In late February he ordered the bombing of Islamic State targets in neighboring Libya after ISIS decapitated 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians. Egypt’s security cooperation with Israel has never been closer, and Mr. Sisi has moved aggressively to close the tunnels beneath Egypt’s border with Gaza, through which Hamas has obtained its weapons.
Later this month, Mr. Sisi will host an Arab League summit, the centerpiece of which will be a joint Arab antiterrorism task force. He says he won’t put Egyptian boots on the ground to fight ISIS in Iraq, which he says is a job for Iraqis with U.S. help. And he takes care to avoid mentioning Iran’s regional ambitions or saying anything critical of its nuclear negotiations, which he says he supports while adding that “I understand the concern of the Israelis.”
But he does say the new force is needed “to preserve what is left” of the stable Arab world. In particular, he stresses that “there shouldn’t be any arrangements at the expense of the Gulf states. The security of the Gulf states is indispensable for the security of Egypt.”
He also decries the Western habit of intervening militarily and then failing to take account of the consequences. “Look, NATO had a mission in Libya and its mission was not accomplished,” he says. The U.N. continues to impose an arms embargo on Libya that adversely affects the legitimate, non-Islamist government based in Tobruk while “armed militias obtain an unstoppable flow of arms and munitions.”
“I wasn’t with the Gadhafi regime,” he says, “but there is a difference between taking an action and being aware of what that action will bring about. The risks of extremism and terrorism weren’t clear in the minds of the U.S. and Europe. It is really dangerous if countries lose control because extremists will cause them problems beyond their imagination.” The same lesson, he emphasizes, applies to the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
But Mr. Sisi is not a dogmatic critic of muscular U.S. involvement in the Middle East. Pondering the prospect of a broad U.S. retreat from the region, Mr. Sisi sounds like the most enthusiastic proponent of Pax Americana.
“The United States has the strength, and with might comes responsibility,” he says. “That is why it is committed and has responsibilities toward the whole world. It is not reasonable or acceptable that with all that might the United States will not be committed and have responsibilities toward the Middle East. The Middle East is passing through the most difficult and critical time and this will only entail more involvement, not less.”
Meantime, Mr. Sisi sees it as his personal mission to save Egypt, even as he insists he has no intention of becoming another president-for-life. When I ask him to name Mr. Mubarak’s biggest mistake, he says simply: “He stayed in power for a long time.”
A day before our interview, I watched him close an investment conference in the resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh, where he celebrated General Electric’s decision to invest to ease Egypt’s chronic power outages. He describes his economic philosophy as “the need to encourage the business community to come here and invest.” He constantly stresses the imperative of acting swiftly: “The magnitude of the effort needed to secure the needs of 90 million people is huge and beyond any one man’s effort.”
He’s also aware that the most important work will take time. In January Mr. Sisi went before the religious clerics of Cairo’s Al-Azhar university to demand a “revolution” in Islam. The follow-through won’t be easy. “The most difficult thing to do is change a religious rhetoric and bring a shift in how people are used to their religion,” he says. “Don’t imagine the results will be seen in a few months or years. Radical misconceptions [about Islam] were instilled 100 years ago. Now we can see the results.”
That’s not to say he doesn’t think it’s doable. “Popular sympathy with the idea of religion was dominating the whole scene in Egypt for years in the past. This does not exist anymore. This is a change I consider strategic. Because what brought the Muslim Brotherhood to power was Egyptian sympathy with the concept of religion. Egyptians believed that the Muslim Brothers were advocates of the real Islam. The past three years have been a critical test to those people who were promoting religious ideas. Egyptians experienced it totally and said these people do not deserve sympathy and we will not allow it.”
Throughout our interview, Mr. Sisi has been speaking in Arabic through an interpreter. But after delivering this point, he said in colloquial American English, “You got that?”
Mr. Stephens writes the Journal’s “Global View” column.
1a) Will Obama Support Egypt's War on Radical Islam?
Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi continues to reach out to America for help in rallying the forces of good against a rising tide of evil—the ever-spreading virus of militant Islam.
1a) Will Obama Support Egypt's War on Radical Islam?
by Raymond Stock
Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi continues to reach out to America for help in rallying the forces of good against a rising tide of evil—the ever-spreading virus of militant Islam.
And so far we are still snubbing him.
As I have written before in this space, Sisi appears to be a surprising successor to the heroic British leader who first rallied his own people, then appealed to the New World to join not only his, but humanity's, cause against the Nazi menace—which is in many ways similar to the Islamist one today.
Despite America's declared need for strong Arab allies in the war against ISIS, which Sisi is already fighting in the northern Sinai, and has even bombed in Libya, our own government's commitment is still pending.
After meeting with Sisi last week at the giant Egypt Economic Development Conference (EEDC) in the southern Sinai resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, Secretary of State John Kerry said on March 14, "I really expect a decision very soon," about restoring the full $1.3 billion in annual U.S. military aid, largely suspended since the ouster of former President Mohammed Morsi at widespread popular demand in July 2013.
While swearing his own support for Sisi's program of economic liberalization, Kerry could not say the renewal of the whole aid package would be approved. Given that Kerry has seemed more positive about Sisi than his boss, President Obama, for some time—with little effect -- his influence may not be decisive.
Despite America's declared need for strong Arab allies in the war against ISIS, our government's commitment to Sisi is still pending.
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Meanwhile, Sisi announced on March 16 that the EEDC—featuring 3,500 delegates from 52 countries, among them 50 heads of state--had produced an impressive $60 billion in direct investment and soft loans, all desperately needed after 4 years of political upheaval and economic destruction.
The action was led by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait—Sisi's main partners against the Islamists, apparently with little American involvement beyond private investments by General Electric.
Yet despite America's declared need for strong Arab allies in the war against ISIS, which Sisi is already fighting in the northern Sinai, and has even bombed in Libya, our own government's commitment is still pending.
The Obama administration backed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood organization during the Arab Spring, when they rapidly established an elected Islamist dictatorship, prompting the largest demonstrations in history.
The U.S. and Western media have lost credibility with most Egyptians for their criticism of Sisi for cracking down on the MB and other Islamists since taking power as well as elements of the secular opposition who refuse to seek permits to stage demonstrations, a measure imposed to limit the chaos that has prevailed since the 2011 overthrow of long-time president and U.S. ally, Hosni Mubarak, plus extreme behavior by the judiciary, which Sisi insists must remain independent.
The criticism has ignored or minimized a terrorist campaign to overthrow Sisi—himself freely-elected in June 2014—by the once ostensibly (but never really) peaceful MB, which openly backs the global jihad.
But Sisi's critics were silent when Morsi, during his year in power, openly smashed opposition to his rule and declared himself above the Constitution and the courts. American aid then actually increased—but has been slashed under Sisi, who gained twice as many votes in 2014 as Morsi did in 2012.
The American-trained Sisi has been forced to radically diversify his lines of military supply.
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MB television channels have lately broadcast calls to murder Sisi and journalists who back him, as well as a demand by a newly announced group, the Revolutionary Punishment Movement, that all foreigners leave Egypt by the end of February--or else be "hunted down."
Meanwhile, U.S. backing for the MB has not ended: the State Department hosted a delegation of MB-allied former lawmakers from Egypt at Foggy Bottom on January 28. That group also met with a representative from the White House the same day—shocking Cairo even further.
All this has driven the American-trained Sisi—very reluctantly—to radically diversify his lines of military supply, signing a $3 billion purchasing agreement with Russia (with which Egypt will also build its first nuclear power plant) and a $5.5 billion deal with France to buy its advanced Rafale fighter-bomber.
Sisi's Pleas
Bret Baier traveled to Cairo to speak with Sisi earlier this month.
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In recent interviews with Bret Baier on Fox News and with Lally Weymouth of the Washington Post, the Egyptian leader—known for his calm and quiet demeanor—pleaded for the return of America's aid to his country to fight our common enemy.
To Baier, he said in a polite near-whisper:
Let me say that the United States has been helping Egypt a lot throughout 30 years or more. And Egypt now needs U.S. help especially in the military field more than ever within the framework of the Egyptian counter terrorism effort in Sinai and to defend the land of Egypt against any potential threats especially terrorist threats. It is very important for the United States to understand that our need for the weapons and for the equipment is dire especially at a time when the Egyptians feel that they are fighting terrorism and they would like to feel that the United States is standing by them in their fight against terrorism."
Sisi also told Baier that he wants to form an Arab coalition to fight ISIS:
I mean Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan, Egypt and other Arab countries can come together and form this ready force that will be capable of defending our national security and encounter all the potential dangers that we might face.
However, as he did when the U.S. first announced it would bomb ISIS forces in Iraq and Syria and last summer, Sisi tried to broaden the focus of the coalition to confront all the Islamist organizations in the Middle East and beyond:
We have to admit that terrorism is now a major threat not only to Egypt or even the immediate region, but it is a threat to the stability and security of the whole world. We have also to admit that it is not only ISIS that is threatening Iraq and Syria but there are a lot of other similar terrorist organizations and, by the way, they all work under the same umbrella. They all come from the same parent ideology and work under different names.
"Egyptians ... would like to feel that the United States is standing by them in their fight against terrorism."
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi
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Worse, he added, "We can also say that the map of terrorism extremism is expanding."
Indeed, ISIS has now spread beyond Syria and Iraq into northern Lebanon, Egypt's northern Sinai, southern and northern Afghanistan, northwestern Pakistan, Libya, the Philippines and elsewhere, while other al-Qaeda affiliates are also strong in many of the same areas and beyond, even as evidence exists that they cooperate as well as fight at times.
He includes the MB—the parent organization of all these groups—in the same jihadi category.
Following on a courageous speech he gave at al-Azhar, the Vatican of Sunni Muslim theology in Cairo, on January 1, Sisi also renewed his call for a "religious revolution" in Islam, explaining to Baier:
It is not a revolution against religion. On the contrary, it is a revolution to support and reinstate the right meaning of religion, the right presentation of what religion stands for as it stands for tolerance, moderation, respect of the other, and appreciation of diversity.
Sisi is the only leader of a mainly Muslim nation to have dared confront the establishment clerics, whose traditional teachings and interpretation of the religion he believes give both textual sources and succor to the jihadis.
Reminded by Baier that he had written on Islam and democracy while a student at the U.S. Army War College (in 2006), Sisi was asked if he thought the two were compatible:
It's a very good question. Allow me to say to you that real Islam gives complete freedom to the human being to choose not only the person who is going through to rule the country, but the freedom to have a faith and to believe in God in the first place or not to believe in God in the first place.
His defense of the rights of atheists—repeated in his talk with Weymouth of the Washington Post—is remarkable: whatever prejudice one finds against other faiths in Muslim societies, there is an almost universal abhorrence against having no religion at all.
This is reflected in recent popular campaigns in Egypt against atheism and blasphemy, driven in part by Dar al-Ifta, the authority that issues official fatwas, resulting in a number of mob actions and even arrests and convictions of allegedly disbelieving Egyptians. Dar al-Ifta's staff were present when al-Sisi delivered his address at al-Azhar, an appeal that, along with his crackdown on extremists, may well cost him his life.
Shall we continue to ignore Sisi's desperate pleas for help against the gathering jihadi storm?
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Weymouth's Washington Post interview struck many of the same themes, but yielded one truly new revelation: that Sisi talks to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "a lot." That probably makes theirs the closest relationship between any Egyptian and Israeli leaders to date—and indeed security cooperation between the two countries has increased enormously in the face of shared threats from Hamas, ISIS and their fellow-travelers—not to mention a probably soon to be nuclear-armed Iran.
Will that intensely personal cooperation continue after Netanyahu vowed, on the eve of his successful reelection March 17, not to permit the establishment of a Palestinian state (since modified to a statement that, given the unity agreement between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority and ISIS moving ever closer to Israel via Syria, it is simply not possible now)?
And will Kerry have news of an Egyptian-American spring—after the disastrous Arab one—soon?
Or shall we continue to ignore Sisi's desperate pleas for help against the gathering jihadi storm?
Raymond Stock, a Shillman-Ginsburg Writing Fellow at the Middle East Forum and a former Assistant Professor of Arabic and Middle East Studies at Drew University, spent twenty years in Egypt, and was deported by the Mubarak regime in 2010.
1b)
Nolan Finley, The Detroit News
As soon as election returns confirmed Benjamin Netanyahu would remain Israel's prime minister, the spin from the White House and its acolytes was that a peace deal with the Palestinians is now impossible.
How convenient for a president who loathes Netanyahu and whose support for Israel has always been suspect.
The characterization of Netanyahu as the impediment to peace is absurd. It stems from suggestions he made on the campaign trail that he no longer supports a two-state solution, a position he backed away from after the polls closed. If anyone should understand that politicians say one thing to get elected and do another once in office, it's President Barack Obama.
No matter what happened in last week's elections, peace would have remained a long-shot, and for the same reason as always: The Israelis do not have a partner in peacemaking.
The Palestinians have a dysfunctional, fractured government that includes the Hamas terrorist group. Hamas is ideologically opposed to a two-state solution; it remains dedicated to the destruction of Israel.
Rather than accept the reality that the loss of some territory is the inevitable consequence of the Arab world's failed drive to push Israel into the sea, the Palestinians want a return to pre-1967 borders, a concession Israel can't make without displacing a large percentage of its population. And they demand as well the right of all Palestinians who left Israel to return to their old homes. That, of course, would destroy the Jewish state.
The Palestinians have repeatedly walked away from peace deals. And yet now Netanyahu is somehow to blame for the failure to achieve an agreement.
Obama has bungled Middle East policy from the get-go. His initial conditioning of a resumption in talks on a moratorium on West Bank settlement activity established a barrier to bargaining that had never been in place before, and one the Palestinians did not demand themselves.
His embrace of the pre-1967 rhetoric and his open feud with Netanyahu signaled to Israel's enemies a weakening of U.S. support for its only true ally in the Middle East, and served as a disincentive to compromise.
Now the president is saying that in light of Netanyahu's campaign statements, the United States is reassessing its options in terms of Israel.
Surely Obama recognizes the danger of that remark. It provides confirmation of the break in what has been an unshakeable relationship. Will the U.S. leave Israel to the mercy of its United Nations haters? The statement makes Israel more vulnerable at a time of chaos, and could embolden an attack from the outside, or another round of Palestinian terrorism.
Obama has always struggled to camouflage his disdain for Israel. His views of the Middle East conflict are informed by the faculty lounge, where Israel has few friends.
Netanyahu has given him excuse to drop the pretense. This president is not a friend of Israel. His actions in office have driven the Israelis and Palestinians further apart.
And now he is negotiating a nuclear arms deal with Iran that could place the survival of the Jewish state in doubt.
The obstacles to peace in the Middle East sit in Washington and Ramallah, not Tel Aviv. This a very frightening moment for Israel.
nfinley@detroitnews.com
1b) Obama's Jihadist Bias and Israel
At this point there is no honest doubt that Obama is not just pro-Muslim, but that he favors Jihadist imperialism, whether by infiltration or violence. Or both.
1b) Obama's Jihadist Bias and Israel
At this point there is no honest doubt that Obama is not just pro-Muslim, but that he favors Jihadist imperialism, whether by infiltration or violence. Or both.
Iran is an outright jihadist imperialist power, and it has been called the biggest terror sponsor by our State Department -- before Obama told it to shut up. Iran now controls the Syrian regime of Assad, the Houthi conquerors in Yemen’s capital of Sanaa, parts of Iraq, much of Lebanon, and at times the Hamas-occupied Gaza strip. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards are fighting in Iraq and Syria. Contrary to New York Times propaganda, the “smiling Ayatollah” Rouhani is actually grinning like a tiger after a big kill.
Obama’s so-called “nuclear agreement” by the US and Europeans is simply a retreat before the most dangerous new rogue nuclear power. This is so barefaced a betrayal that even the US Congress is alarmed.
The rise of Iran as a nuclear and missile power has predictably freaked out the Sunni nations, Saudi Arabia (50 miles from Iran), Egypt (the Saudis’ biggest protector), Jordan, and even Pakistan. These are Sunni powers, and in the case of the Wahhabi Saudis, they basically agree with the ISIS doctrine of barbaric killings, rapes, and slave-taking. The Saudis have already paid for Pakistan’s nukes, and can call on them in a crisis, and may be taking steps to acquire its own production capability. Obama’s “good friends” Turkey and Qatar have turned radical jihadist as well.
We are therefore seeing a nuclear breakout by extremist Muslim war ideologies in the Gulf, and Obama has done nothing to stop them; on the contrary, if Obama had his way, the paleofascist Muslim Brotherhood would now control Egypt as well. Fortunately Egypt’s political elites rebelled and installed General El Sisi, who has dared to call for a “religious revolution” in Islam.
Obama may not be a Muslim, but he is a jihad sympathizer -- at every turn he supports Muslim extremists against moderates. Add to that evidence that the extremely dangerous Muslim Brotherhood has a number of known agents in this administration, and we see the United States facing the most dangerous threat since Communists infiltrated the FDR and Truman administration in the 1940s. A paranoid Stalin was the absolute ruler of the Soviet Union at that time.
Obama has now “negotiated” a surrender agreement on Iran’s nuclear development and he will call it “peace.” The Saudis, Egyptians and Israelis will correctly see it as the ultimate betrayal.
Obama has also retreated in Europe, where the US is doing nothing about Putin’s aggression, and in Asia, where China has stolen vast amounts of disputed seabed territory from Vietnam, South Korea and the Philippines. Japan is now openly rearming, because it faces a Chinese threat to its existence.
Everywhere in the world Obama’s strategic retreat has empowered our deadly enemies and endangered our allies.
The silence of our media simply proves how ignorant, treacherous and corrupt they are.
Obama has brought us back to the most dangerous years of the Cold War, the Stalin period, when the Soviets had conquered half of Europe with overwhelming military force, and had stolen nuclear secrets from the US Manhattan Project.
So much for Obama’s actions. Israel was supposed to bow down to his massive strategic betrayal. It hasn’t. Obama is enraged by that, because that is the kind of human being he is. He now threatens to walk away from Israel at the UN, which uniformly hates Israel. The left-run European Union will join Obama’s hostility and abandonment of Israel, with a few exceptions. Israel will feel psychologically isolated, which is important, but it is economically and militarily strong.
If a Democrat is elected in 2016, the policy of betraying our former allies may get worse. Hillary has been parading with Muslim Brotherhood heiress Huma Abedin for years, and taking money from Jihadist powers in the Middle East, notably the Saudi Broderbund itself. Nobody in the treacherous media has even bothered to pipe up. The general public understands nothing.
The biggest question in the world today is what kind of president America will elect next. Obama has 22 months -- but Iranian hardliners see the same deadline. Should they launch a major attack on Israel via Syria, to take advantage of a weak US and Europe? Or should they continue the patient expansionism that has worked so well before? Should they keep infiltrating the Arabian Peninsula step by step, or act quickly to throttle the entrances to the Gulf and the Red Sea?
What if the United States elects a sane Republican next year? Someone like Ted Cruz will face the most explosive international situation since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1963. In Europe he will face Putin’s relentless pressure against Eastern Europe, the Baltic States and Finland. In Asia the Chinese are becoming a major military threat. In South America we see neo-communist Cuba and Venezuela being propped up by Russia. And in the Middle East we see all the makings of a major Sunni-Shi’ite war. Or possibly a war of extermination against Israel, which could quickly turn nuclear.
If we elect a sane president, he or she will face a sea of danger. Our federal government is infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood and other jihadist powers. Socialist Europe has idiotically cannibalized its own defenses, allowing Putin to romp back to a new Soviet Empire.
However, a sane US president would have some advantages as well. Our former allies are yearning for new American leadership, a new Pax Americana. The Sunni powers in the Middle East want to see the American cop back on the beat, to hold back Iranian aggression. So do Israel and southern Europe. In Asia, a defensive alliance is emerging between Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Australia. With the spread of shale exploitation, the Gulf may never again have the power to throttle forty percent of the world’s energy supply.
A US president who believes in stability rather than “community disorganizing” will find a world that is eager to get back to safety
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2)-- DearMe! Michelle Obama in Japan Strikes Again
It’s official! Mrs. Obama has gone #hashtag crazy. Remember when she pleaded with Boko Haram to release the 276 kidnapped girls using the hashtag “#Bringbackourgirls?” Well, that didn’t work! The girls were either sold into slavery, murdered, or married off to terrorists, and despite Michelle Obama’s solemn effort haven’t been seen or heard from since.
Question for Michelle: Are chunky little girl babies, getting weighed starting in daycare, going to be made to feel bad about their tummy rolls? And then are they going to be encouraged by you to participate in a future #hashtag campaign where they recite the words “Success has nothing to do with perfection?”
2)-- DearMe! Michelle Obama in Japan Strikes Again
It’s official! Mrs. Obama has gone #hashtag crazy. Remember when she pleaded with Boko Haram to release the 276 kidnapped girls using the hashtag “#Bringbackourgirls?” Well, that didn’t work! The girls were either sold into slavery, murdered, or married off to terrorists, and despite Michelle Obama’s solemn effort haven’t been seen or heard from since.
Moving right along, using the excuse that she’s promoting a #letgirlslearn education initiative, FLOTUS has taken a break from dancing the “Uptown Funk” with Ellen and sponsoring her #givemefive campaign.
Instead, as part of her usual spring fling, Mrs. Obama decided to take Asia by storm.
Stopping in Japan before heading toward Cambodia, Michelle gleefully ran up exorbitant bills on travel and car service, tripped over her own feet, and scared the hell out of a few small-statured Asian people.
In addition to revealing her clumsiness on the world stage, while in Japan Mrs. Obama worked out her biceps on a Taiko drum, counted red gates at the Fushimi Inari Shrine, had tea at the Kiyomizu-Dera Buddhist Temple, and ate raw fish out of a dainty Bento box. Then Mrs. Obama, who refuses to let the failure of #Bringbackourgirls stop her from dreaming up yet another girl-power #hashtag campaign, took time to record a note-to-self /#DearMe video message.
Michelle broke from lecturing Japanese schoolchildren -- who run rings around American students in cognitive learning skills -- to deliver a cheerful video message of personal pain transformed into future empowerment.
The first lady, who got things wrong when she stumbled in her shiny silver kitten heels while approaching to shake hands with 81-year-old Emperor Akihito and improperly hugged and nearly crushed to death the wife of the current Japanese prime minister, began the video message by reminding herself: “Dear Michelle, stop worrying so much about getting things wrong,”
Then, sounding like she was writing a #DearMe letter to her husband dear Barack, Michelle said “Success has nothing to do with perfection. Stop being nervous. Raise your hand. Use your voice. Get it wrong. Learn from your mistakes and keep moving on.”
Besides lecturing people about education in a country whose people excel in education; ignoring the millions of women worldwide who suffer from things far worse than lack of schooling; and spending nearly $80,000 for car service to shuttle her and her elitist entourage around Kyoto and Osaka, there were a few problematic messages transmitted home during Michelle’s latest trip.
For starters, in Japan the first lady made a ‘girls should feel good about themselves’ #hashtag video. Meanwhile, in conjunction with the USDA the first lady has mandated children be weighed at U.S. daycare facilities that receive government funding. According to the feds, the justification for placing children on scales is in the “context of heightened concern about adequate nutrition, diet quality and obesity in young children.”
Another glaring problem that Michelle obviously didn’t foresee occurred when she posted pictures of her sumptuous Japanese lunch on Instagram. Why? Because back home in America, while she indulges lavishly in whatever food she wants, a school lunch revolution is brewing where, thanks to her, in addition to being weighed like cattle children are eating moldy, skimpy lunches that leave them both hungry and disgusted.
So here we are again, getting more of the same from our #hashtag/travel log ambassador Michelle Obama. It’s spring 2015, and both she and her husband are still focusing on trivial things. They continue to use shallow slogans to advance superficial ideas that accomplish absolutely nothing, spend our hard-earned money on personal indulgences, and assume the American people don’t recognize flagrant hypocrisy when we see it.
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3)
| The Gaza War 2014: The War Israel Did Not Want and the Disaster It Averted |
| Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs Executive Summary - The Gaza War 2014: The War Israel Did Not Want and the Disaster It Averted is a researched and documented narrative that relates the truth as it happened. Israel was the target of thousands of rockets and mortar attacks against its civilian population, with some Israeli areas targeted that had three times the population density of Gaza. Israel clearly acted out of self-defense. - Though the images of the moment may have reflected massive damage in Gaza, the Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, announced on November 6, 2014, that Israel had gone to “extraordinary lengths to limit collateral damage and prevent civilian casualties in the Gaza conflict.” A team of senior U.S. officers was sent to learn from Israel’s tactics. An analysis of UN satellite photos taken during the war shows that 72 percent of all damaged areas in Gaza were “within two miles of the Israeli border.” - While this was a war Israel did not want, it was a war that inadvertently preempted a terrorist massacre inside Israel’s heartland, principally through a network of sophisticated tunnels built deep under the border, and intended to stream hundreds, if not thousands, of dedicated terrorists, many on suicide missions, in the quiet of night, to destinations where they could kill as many innocent people as possible and leave Israel mauled as never before. This was potentially Hamas’ terrorist version of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when Egypt and Syria launched a joint surprise attack on Israeli forces in Sinai and the Golan Heights. - Israel suffered 74 dead in the war. Had the Iron Dome system not intercepted 735 rockets fired from Gaza, the Israeli casualty count would have been incalculably higher. Had Hamas accepted the Egyptian ceasefire proposal of July 15, as did Israel, Palestinian wartime fatalities would have numbered less than 200, as opposed to more than 2,100 who died by the time Hamas agreed to a final ceasefire on August 27. Thus, Hamas was fully responsible for more than 1,800 Palestinian deaths. - Moreover, while UN and Palestinian sources claimed that 72 to 84 percent of Palestinians in Gaza killed during the war were civilians, there are strong reasons to argue that the percentage of civilian casualties was less than 50 percent, a low one-to-one combatant-to-civilian ratio that is unprecedented in modern-day warfare. In addition, we don’t know how many Palestinians in Gaza died as human shields or of natural causes during the 50 days of war, or how many were casualties of the 875 Palestinian rockets known to have landed inside Gaza. - Yet many in the international community uncritically accepted the narrative about the war advanced by Hamas and its allies. A discerning look at the facts of what happened, however, would lead to the conclusion that it is Hamas, not Israel, which should be in the dock for war crimes and crimes against humanity. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
Palestinian Intellectual Praises Israeli Democracy: Palestinians Must Learn From Israel And Israeli Arabs How To Handle Controversy, Work For Benefit Of The Public
Following the recent Israeli elections, 'Imad Al-Falouji, head of the Gaza-based Institute for Intercultural Dialogue, wrote an article titled "Israel's Democracy and Our Anarchy." Falouji is a former Hamas member who left the movement in 1996 and later served as information minister and as an advisor under Yasser Arafat. In his article he praised Israel's way of handling controversy, and also praised the Israeli political parties for concerning themselves with the citizens' wellbeing and with domains such as economy, education and security; this, in contrast to Palestinian parties which, he said, are concerned mostly with political grandstanding and do not seek solutions to the people's everyday problems. He called upon the Palestinians to emulate the Israeli Arabs who united their ranks in order to bring about change.
The following are excerpts from his article:[1]
'Imad Al-Falouji (Image: Youtube.com)
"There is no shame in seeing reality as it is, and no wisdom in becoming experts [only] at cursing and disparaging our enemy. I know how difficult it is to compare the internal Palestinian situation – our shaping of our policy, the internal relations among us and our ways of resolving our differences – with the domestic situation of the enemy that is occupying our lands, usurping our holy sites, and denying our most minimal rights. But this enemy is proving to us and to the international community that, despite its tyranny and aggression, it surpasses us in many ways that are no longer hidden from any observer possessing a minimal degree of objectivity...
"Anyone examining the Israeli entity is amazed by the extent of internal disagreement on every issue between the religious and secular [sectors], and [also] by the disagreements within the sectors. They have a [political] right, center and left... and every perception has proponents and opponents and every senior has an [entire] dossier of charges against him. But, despite all this, they have passed laws that govern [the handling of] these disagreements and set out a common goal: that of serving the State of Israel and the people of Israel. They manage to use the internal disagreements as a source of strength...
"But we, 'the possessors of truth' – look at what is happening to us. We strike out in every direction without an agreed-upon plan or purpose. Each party or group has its own plan and goal. We do not believe in a unifying means. We renounce all the laws and charters, and have destroyed everything that united us. Each group claims to possess the absolute truth and [presents] the others' [beliefs] as absolute lies. We do not possess the ability to listen to the other. Anarchy rules the day: political, economic, social and even conceptual anarchy.
"Let's look at the campaign platforms of the Israeli parties, and what they focused on. All of them agreed on the need to serve the people on the socio-economic level, promote employment, cultivate the family and solve its problems, eradicate unemployment, promote education and achieve security for all citizens. They do not focus so much on political sparring and on empty grandstanding.
"But in our [political arena], everyone talks about politics and general foreign-[policy] affairs, and only rarely does a party concern itself with improving the lives of the people and resolving the internal crises from which they suffer. Moreover, nobody proposes solutions to anything.
"I know this comparison is difficult and may anger those who refuse to face the bleak reality. But there is no alternative but to say these things. Perhaps some of us will wake up and take the opportunity to improve our situation. Our brothers the Palestinians inside [i.e., the Israeli Arabs] have set up a model of unity [by uniting all their political parties in the Knesset], and have thereby proved that we [Palestinians] are capable of change when we realize the danger, and that there is yet hope."
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5) The Insiders: Why don’t Republicans get more Jewish votes?
By Ed Rogers
After all of the speculation that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in imminent danger of losing the election on Tuesday, he exceeded expectations and came out on top. Many Democrats in Washington hoped for and publicly predicted that Netanyahu would lose. They hoped his visit to Washington to address Congress would backfire. Many Democrats boycotted his speech, liberal commentators rebuked the Republican leadership for inviting him and President Obama made a very public point of not meeting with Netanyahu. But it looks like the prime minister’s address to Congress may have actually boosted Netanyahu’s appeal in Israel.
Voters in Israel seem to share Republican sentiments about Israel’s security and they agree that Netanyahu is an able leader who should have more time in office. So why don’t Republicans get more Jewish votes in our elections? Given the Republicans’ strong support for Netanyahu and how that is obviously in sync with Israeli voters – to say nothing of being the party that respects and promotes entrepreneurs and private business – why aren’t more Jewish voters drawn to the Republican Party? Well, I guess the first and most obvious reason is that Americans’ political motivations are not the same as the Israelis’.
But I don’t know why American Jewish support is so lopsided in favor of the Democrats. Republicans are nowhere near splitting the Jewish vote with the Democrats. In 2008, 78 percent of those who identified as Jewish voted for Obama. In 2012, despite Obama’s and the Democrats’ obvious contempt for the popular, powerful incumbent in Israel, 69 percent of Jewish voters cast their vote to reelect the president. Even in the 2014 midterm election, 66 percent of Jewish voters voted for the Democratic candidate. I hoped that percentage would be something closer to fifty.
Anyway, why hasn’t the Republican message of commitment to Israel and a pro-growth economic agenda resonated better with Jewish voters? I ask the question not to make a point, but because I want to know the answer. When will it begin to matter in American elections that Democrats are so hostile to Israel?
The White House, which never fails to make a bad situation worse, is continuing to insult the prime minister and his voters. Obama waited until Thursday to congratulate Netanyahu on his reelection, and the Democratic leadership in Congress has been relatively muted in their congratulatory statements, particularly when compared with the reactions of their Republican counterparts. Doesn’t that suggest something powerful to Jewish voters? Maybe Obama’s arrogance and mismanagement will combine to achieve a breakthrough for Republicans in 2016.
There has never been a more vivid line drawn on U.S.-Israel relations. Foreign policy doesn’t usually drive votes, but it could have an impact in 2016 if the situation in the Middle East continues to worsen and Obama tries to sugarcoat a dangerous agreement with Iran. Hopefully in 2016, Jewish voters will begin to reconcile their support for Israel with the party they choose to support.
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