Sunday, June 26, 2011
The agony of being a Jewish conservative
The agony of being a Jewish conservative
Posted: June 01, 2011
1:00 am Eastern
© 2011
I am not overly surprised when the majority of American Jews continue to support Obama, but I know it confounds Christians. What they fail to grasp is that Israel's survival is not only a low priority item for the president, but for a great many Jews.
My fellow Jews, by and large, are far more connected to liberalism than they are to Judaism, far less familiar with the Talmud than with "Dreams From My Father" or "The Audacity of Hope." The more religious a Jew is, the more likely he is to be a political conservative and to be concerned with Israel's security.
On the other hand, the younger and more secular a Jew is, the more likely he is to identify with Israel's sworn enemies and the more likely he is to prioritize green energy, socialized medicine, same-sex marriages and federally funded abortions.
It is no mystery that so many iconic figures on the left are secular Jews. They would include Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky, Saul Alinsky, Noam Chomsky, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, Barney Frank, Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod, Barbara Boxer, Charles Schumer, Dianne Feinstein, Henry Waxman, Barbra Streisand, Brad Sherman, Norman Lear, Jon Stewart, Alan Colmes, Bernie Sanders, Steven Spielberg, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Anthony Weiner, Michael Bloomberg and George Soros.
I'm afraid that attending synagogue once or twice a year, sprinkling one's conversation with the occasional "schlemiel" and "schmendrick," and having a taste for corned beef or pastrami does not a Jew make. In liberal circles, however, all it takes is voting for the most left-wing candidate on the ballot.
Any Jewish Democrat who takes umbrage at that list will, if experience counts for anything, label me a self-hating Jew. But I think, in my own defense, I need only share a few additional facts to make my case. There are, I believe, 154 Catholics in Congress, 24 in the Senate and 130 in the House. Of the 154, 84 are Democrats, 70 are Republicans.
There are 70 Baptists and Southern Baptists in Congress, 10 in the Senate and 60 in the House. Of the 70, 26 are Democrats, 44 are Republicans.
There are 47 Presbyterians in Congress, 15 in the Senate and 32 in the House. Of the 47, 16 are Democrats, 31 are Republicans.
When you realize that the Republicans in Congress currently out-number the Democrats 287 to 246, you can see that the 145 to 126 Republican advantage in those three major religious groups is nearly perfectly in sync with the overall makeup of the legislature.
However, there are 33 Jews currently in Congress, 12 in the Senate, 21 in the House. Of the 33, 32 are Democrats, while Eric Cantor constitutes the entire Republican contingent.
In his new book, Burt Prelutsky talks to some of the most fascinating people in modern America -- you'll be inspired by "Portraits of Success: Candid Conversations with 60 Over-Achievers"
Even though Barack Obama has displayed a personal bias favoring Arabs and Muslims ever since he entered the Oval Office, whether it was demanding that Israel stop erecting housing in the so-called settlements, going back to its 1967 borders or glowering at its prime minister as if he'd just nuked Chicago, he's not the first president who has held Israel to an impossible standard while giving the Arabs a pass. At least since Carter, they've all behaved as if the stumbling block to peace is that Israel is just too damn big. Why else would every "path to peace" invariably begin with Israel's being asked to cede land? Inasmuch as Israel is by far the smallest nation in the region, it suggests that each of them, but especially Obama, would have insisted that if it had been up to him, David would have had to first hand over his slingshot, and then fight Goliath from his knees with one arm tied behind his back.
It's a strange form of amnesia that causes the world to forget that in 1948, it wasn't the Jews who banished the Arabs; it was Egypt, Transjordan, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, the invading coalition, that suggested to their friends that they temporarily vacate the premises while the Arab legions finished the job Hitler began. These weasels were told it would be over in a day or two, and they could then return to divvy up the spoils.
The world also tends to overlook the fact that for decades before Israel achieved statehood, the Zionists had been buying up land at wildly inflated prices from the local Arabs. The world also ignores the fact that thousands of Jews had lived there since biblical times.
Yet another inconvenient truth the world turns a blind eye to is that it was the Arab and Muslim nations in 1948 that banished their Jewish populations and, for good measure, confiscated their money and property.
As if all of that weren't enough to sway public opinion in their favor, 20 percent of Israelis are Arabs, who not only have the vote but have seats in the Knesset, Israel's legislature, and whose wives and daughters actually have the rights and freedoms they're denied everywhere else in the sewer known as the Middle East.
Within a few years following the end of World War II, all the Jewish survivors of the Holocaust had found homes, mainly in Israel, Europe, Canada and the U.S. But 63 years after they voluntarily abandoned Israel so the Jews could be slaughtered without any collateral damage to themselves, the so-called Palestinians continue to be "refugees" demanding the right of return, although how one returns to where one has never been is a mystery best left to science fiction writers.
The reason there are still "refugees" six decades after the fact is that not a single nation in the region wants the riffraff inside their borders. Far better for Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and the rest to keep them right where they are, to be used as pawns in their attempt to scapegoat the Jews for the hunger, unemployment, ignorance and oppression, rampant in their own countries.
Jewish Democrats may be willing to give Obama high marks, but fortunately there are others who have a clearer vision – which is why some wag has seen to it that the following piece of fiction has gone viral in recent weeks. Claiming to be a message to Obama from Netanyahu, while on his way to the U.S., it reads: "Tens of thousands of ordinary Mexicans were driven out of their homes, the only homes they had known for centuries, and forced to live in poverty and squalor south of the border, thanks to American aggression. This festering wound will never heal until America takes steps to return to the internationally accepted lines of 1845. Clearly the settlement activity that's taken place in occupied Mexico since then is illegal. When I meet the president tomorrow, I will tell him to halt all building activity in Texas immediately. Two lands for two people, yes, but not on land taken by force from Mexico."
It's a shame that it never happened. At least if it had, it might have made sense why, at their get-together the next day, Obama glared at Netanyahu as if he had caught him trying to swipe the White House silverware.
Read more: The agony of being a Jewish conservative http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=305425#ixzz1QPkAzeTa
Posted: June 01, 2011
1:00 am Eastern
© 2011
I am not overly surprised when the majority of American Jews continue to support Obama, but I know it confounds Christians. What they fail to grasp is that Israel's survival is not only a low priority item for the president, but for a great many Jews.
My fellow Jews, by and large, are far more connected to liberalism than they are to Judaism, far less familiar with the Talmud than with "Dreams From My Father" or "The Audacity of Hope." The more religious a Jew is, the more likely he is to be a political conservative and to be concerned with Israel's security.
On the other hand, the younger and more secular a Jew is, the more likely he is to identify with Israel's sworn enemies and the more likely he is to prioritize green energy, socialized medicine, same-sex marriages and federally funded abortions.
It is no mystery that so many iconic figures on the left are secular Jews. They would include Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky, Saul Alinsky, Noam Chomsky, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, Barney Frank, Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod, Barbara Boxer, Charles Schumer, Dianne Feinstein, Henry Waxman, Barbra Streisand, Brad Sherman, Norman Lear, Jon Stewart, Alan Colmes, Bernie Sanders, Steven Spielberg, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Anthony Weiner, Michael Bloomberg and George Soros.
I'm afraid that attending synagogue once or twice a year, sprinkling one's conversation with the occasional "schlemiel" and "schmendrick," and having a taste for corned beef or pastrami does not a Jew make. In liberal circles, however, all it takes is voting for the most left-wing candidate on the ballot.
Any Jewish Democrat who takes umbrage at that list will, if experience counts for anything, label me a self-hating Jew. But I think, in my own defense, I need only share a few additional facts to make my case. There are, I believe, 154 Catholics in Congress, 24 in the Senate and 130 in the House. Of the 154, 84 are Democrats, 70 are Republicans.
There are 70 Baptists and Southern Baptists in Congress, 10 in the Senate and 60 in the House. Of the 70, 26 are Democrats, 44 are Republicans.
There are 47 Presbyterians in Congress, 15 in the Senate and 32 in the House. Of the 47, 16 are Democrats, 31 are Republicans.
When you realize that the Republicans in Congress currently out-number the Democrats 287 to 246, you can see that the 145 to 126 Republican advantage in those three major religious groups is nearly perfectly in sync with the overall makeup of the legislature.
However, there are 33 Jews currently in Congress, 12 in the Senate, 21 in the House. Of the 33, 32 are Democrats, while Eric Cantor constitutes the entire Republican contingent.
In his new book, Burt Prelutsky talks to some of the most fascinating people in modern America -- you'll be inspired by "Portraits of Success: Candid Conversations with 60 Over-Achievers"
Even though Barack Obama has displayed a personal bias favoring Arabs and Muslims ever since he entered the Oval Office, whether it was demanding that Israel stop erecting housing in the so-called settlements, going back to its 1967 borders or glowering at its prime minister as if he'd just nuked Chicago, he's not the first president who has held Israel to an impossible standard while giving the Arabs a pass. At least since Carter, they've all behaved as if the stumbling block to peace is that Israel is just too damn big. Why else would every "path to peace" invariably begin with Israel's being asked to cede land? Inasmuch as Israel is by far the smallest nation in the region, it suggests that each of them, but especially Obama, would have insisted that if it had been up to him, David would have had to first hand over his slingshot, and then fight Goliath from his knees with one arm tied behind his back.
It's a strange form of amnesia that causes the world to forget that in 1948, it wasn't the Jews who banished the Arabs; it was Egypt, Transjordan, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, the invading coalition, that suggested to their friends that they temporarily vacate the premises while the Arab legions finished the job Hitler began. These weasels were told it would be over in a day or two, and they could then return to divvy up the spoils.
The world also tends to overlook the fact that for decades before Israel achieved statehood, the Zionists had been buying up land at wildly inflated prices from the local Arabs. The world also ignores the fact that thousands of Jews had lived there since biblical times.
Yet another inconvenient truth the world turns a blind eye to is that it was the Arab and Muslim nations in 1948 that banished their Jewish populations and, for good measure, confiscated their money and property.
As if all of that weren't enough to sway public opinion in their favor, 20 percent of Israelis are Arabs, who not only have the vote but have seats in the Knesset, Israel's legislature, and whose wives and daughters actually have the rights and freedoms they're denied everywhere else in the sewer known as the Middle East.
Within a few years following the end of World War II, all the Jewish survivors of the Holocaust had found homes, mainly in Israel, Europe, Canada and the U.S. But 63 years after they voluntarily abandoned Israel so the Jews could be slaughtered without any collateral damage to themselves, the so-called Palestinians continue to be "refugees" demanding the right of return, although how one returns to where one has never been is a mystery best left to science fiction writers.
The reason there are still "refugees" six decades after the fact is that not a single nation in the region wants the riffraff inside their borders. Far better for Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and the rest to keep them right where they are, to be used as pawns in their attempt to scapegoat the Jews for the hunger, unemployment, ignorance and oppression, rampant in their own countries.
Jewish Democrats may be willing to give Obama high marks, but fortunately there are others who have a clearer vision – which is why some wag has seen to it that the following piece of fiction has gone viral in recent weeks. Claiming to be a message to Obama from Netanyahu, while on his way to the U.S., it reads: "Tens of thousands of ordinary Mexicans were driven out of their homes, the only homes they had known for centuries, and forced to live in poverty and squalor south of the border, thanks to American aggression. This festering wound will never heal until America takes steps to return to the internationally accepted lines of 1845. Clearly the settlement activity that's taken place in occupied Mexico since then is illegal. When I meet the president tomorrow, I will tell him to halt all building activity in Texas immediately. Two lands for two people, yes, but not on land taken by force from Mexico."
It's a shame that it never happened. At least if it had, it might have made sense why, at their get-together the next day, Obama glared at Netanyahu as if he had caught him trying to swipe the White House silverware.
Read more: The agony of being a Jewish conservative http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=305425#ixzz1QPkAzeTa
Friday, June 24, 2011
Liberal American Jewish suckers
World Review June 24, 2011 / 22 Sivan, 5771
Liberal American Jewish suckers
By Caroline B. Glick
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | This week we have been witness to two transparent attempts to sell liberal American Jews a bill of goods. And from the looks of things, both were successful.
The first instance of liberal American Jewish credulity this week unfolded Monday night in Washington. At a five-star hotel, eighty Jewish donors shelled out between $25,000- 35,800 to attend a fundraiser with US President Barack Obama.
As has become his habit, Obama opened his remarks by talking about his commitment to Israel's security. And as has become his habit, Obama went on to say that it is his job to force Israelis to bow to his demands because he knows what is best for Israel.
Speaking of his ongoing efforts to force Israel to concede its right to defensible borders before entering into negotiations with the Hamas-Fatah unity government, Obama said, "There are going to be moments over the course of the next six months or the next 12 months or the next 24 months in which there may be tactical disagreements [between the US and Israel] in terms of how we approach these difficult problems."
Obama went on to say that he expects his American Jewish supporters to take his side in his attacks on Israel.
As he put it, the quest for peace between Israel and the Hamas-Fatah government is, "going to require that not only this administration employs all of its creative powers to try to bring about peace in the region, but it's also going to require all of you as engaged citizens of the United States who are friends of Israel making sure…that you're helping to shape how both Americans and Israelis think about the opportunities and challenges."
And how did the Jewish donors respond to Obama's presentation? They loved it. They were, in the words of Obama donor Marilyn Victor, "reassured."
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Speaking with Politico, New York businessman Jack Bendheim said, "I think he nailed and renailed his commitment to the security of the State of Israel." Other attendees interviewed in the article echoed his sentiments.
Imagine how they would have swooned if Obama had confessed a secret love for bagels and lox.
What does Obama have to do for these liberal American Jews to accept that he is no friend of Israel's?
Apparently the answer is that there is nothing Obama can do that will convince his many American Jewish supporters that he is not Israel's friend. They will never believe such a thing because doing so will require them to choose between two unacceptable options. The first option is to admit to themselves that in voting for Obama, they are voting against Israel.
The self-righteousness shared by many of Obama's Jewish supporters makes this option unacceptable. These are people who demonstrate their goodness by embracing every politically correct liberal cause as their own. From abortion to socialized medicine to free passes for illegal immigrants, to opposition to the Iraq war, liberal American Jews are ready to go out on a limb for every cause the liberal media supports.
But ask them to support anything that in any way compromises their self-image as do gooders and liberals and they will shut you out. Consider their willingness to turn a blind eye to Obama's twenty-year association with his anti-Semitic preacher Jeremiah Wright. Just this week Wright was back in the news when he delighted a crowd of thousands of African American worshippers in Baltimore by libeling Israel saying, "The State of Israel is an illegal, genocidal … place. To equate Judaism with the State of Israel is to equate Christianity with [rapper] Flavor Flav."
During the 2008 presidential campaign liberal American Jews attacked critics of Obama's long-standing devotion to his Jew hating preacher as McCarthyites who were spreading allegations of guilt by association.
And now, when Obama has made supporting Israel a socially costly thing for his supporters to do, rather than pay the price, his self-righteous American Jewish supporters refuse to admit that Obama is not pro-Israel. They attack as a liar anyone who points out that his policies are deeply hostile to Israel.
For instance, Monday National Jewish Democratic Council Chairman Marc Stanley told reporters, "Key donors are much more savvy than Republicans would have you believe and have taken a much more critical eye towards Republican attempts to lie about the President's record."
Aside from being morally inconvenient, the other problem with admitting that Obama is anti-Israel is that it requires his Jewish supporters who are unwilling to consciously abandon Israel to contemplate the unattractive option of voting for the Republican nominee for president. And this is something that their liberal conceit cannot abide.
The inability of many liberal American Jews to abide by the notion of supporting someone who isn't part of their fancy liberal clique was on display in their responses to another event that occurred this week.
Just hours before Obama snowballed his Jewish donors in Washington, Yale University engaged in a similarly transparent bid to romance its willfully gullible Jewish supporters.
Yale University's announcement two weeks ago that it was shutting down the Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Anti-Semitism (YIISA), unleashed a storm of protest. Students, faculty, alumni and major Jewish organizations all expressed anger and disappointment with Yale's surprise move.
Yale justified its decision on the basis of two falsehoods. First it claimed that YIISA had failed to undertake sufficient top quality scholarship. Yet in the wake of the announcement dozens of leading scholars of anti-Semitism co-signed a letter authored by Prof. Alvin Rosenfeld who directs Indiana University's Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism praising the YIISA as "a pioneer in advancing research on contemporary manifestations of anti-Semitism."
The second reason that Yale claimed it was closing YIISA was because there was insufficient faculty and student interest in its programs. This falsehood was ridiculous on its face since several dozen Yale faculty members served on YIISA's various academic committees and boards of advisors. And in the wake of the university's announcement that it was shuttering YIISA, several faculty members and students protested the move angrily.
The main suspicion provoked by Yale's decision to close YIISA was that it was doing so to appease Islamic critics. YIISA's Director Prof. Charles Small focused its attention on contemporary forms of anti-Semitism. Since the most dangerous form of contemporary anti-Semitism is Islamic anti-Semitism, Small made Islamic anti-Semitism a focus of YIISA's research activities. The concern arose that Yale closed YIISA in order to end campus research and discourse on the topic.
Monday Yale tried to quell the controversy surrounding its decision to close YIISA by announcing that it was forming a new institute called the Yale Program for the Study of Anti-Semitism. Yale announced that its tenured professor Maurice Samuels will serve as director of the program. Samuels is a scholar of French literature.
In his acceptance announcement Samuels addressed Yale's critics promising that "YPSA will discuss both contemporary anti-Semitism and historical anti-Semitism."
He also said that in the coming year YPSA will hold a major conference on the topic of French anti-Semitism.
Samuels' statement is notable for two reasons. First, if it is true, then the only difference between YPSA and YIISA is the director. And the only thing Yale was really interested in doing was firing Small. The question is why would they want to fire him?
The answer to that question appears to be found in the second notable aspect of Samuels' announcement: his planned conference. At a time when millions in post-Mubarak Egypt assembled in Tahrir Square and cheered as the Muslim Brotherhood's spiritual leader Yusuf Qaradawi called for the invasion of Jerusalem, and with Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the brink of nuclear weapons, why would YPSA want to place its focus on France?
Following Yale's announcement that it is launching YPSA, Small released a statement in which he said, among other things, "It appears that Yale, unlike YIISA, is not willing to engage in a comprehensive examination of the current crisis facing living Jews, but instead is comfortable with reexamining the plight of Jews who perished at the hands of anti-Semites. The role of a true scholar and intellectual is to shed light where there is darkness, which is why we at YIISA, are committed to critical engaged scholarship with a broader approach to the complex, and at times controversial context of contemporary global anti-Semitism."
As Small hints, it appears that by forming YPSA, Yale proved its critics right. It closed YIISA because it found Small's concentration on Muslim Jew hatred ideologically problematic. And it opened YPSA because Yale's admininistrastors' trust Samuels to keep researchers and students focused on historic forms of anti-Semitism.
To offset criticism of its transparent move, Yale has been waging a whispering campaign against Small. Yale administrators have been insinuating that because the university did not hire him as a regular member of the Yale faculty that Small is not an academic, or somehow not good enough for Yale.
This campaign brought Holocaust scholar Prof Deborah Lipstadt from Emory University to pen a column in the Forward attacking Small. As she put it, "Part of Yale's discomfort might have come from the fact that a Yale-based scholarly entity was administered by an individual who, while a successful institution builder, was not a Yale faculty member and who had no official position at the university."
But Small was in fact on the Yale faculty. He was a lecturer in the Political Science department and ran one of Yale's post-doctorate and graduate studies fellowship programs. Despite his intensive work building YIISA, Small taught a heavy course load.
But while its actions vindicate its critics' greatest concerns, just as Obama was able to win over his Jewish supporters with empty platitudes so Yale's decision to open YPSA has satisfied its most powerful critics. The ADL released a statement applauding the move. Yale's Rabbi James Ponet emailed his colleagues and friends and urged them to email Yale's President and Provost expressing their support for the move.
Their willingness to support Yale's bid to curtail research and discussion of Islamic Jew hatred and allow Yale to scapegoat Small demonstrates an affliction common to liberal American Jews today. It is the same affliction that makes them unable to countenance voting for a Republican. That affliction is class snobbery. By insinuating that Small is not up to Yale's academic standards, Yale was able to rally the Jewish members of its larger community by appealing to their snobbery. The fact that Yale didn't mind Small serving as a dissertation advisor to its doctoral candidates is immaterial. The facts be damned.
The same Ivy League snobbery that makes it socially unacceptable to vote for a Republican — and certainly not for a Sarah Palin or Michele Bachmann despite their deep-seated and consistent support for Israel — is what allowed Yale to get away with ending its study of Islamic anti-Semitism by besmirching Small's academic achievements and good name. Remove him from the club, and you end opposition to his academically unjustifiable firing.
The great circus master P.T. Barnum said famously that there is a sucker born every minute. Liberal American Jews aren't born suckers. They become suckers out of their own free will.
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JWR contributor Caroline B. Glick is the senior Middle East Fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC and the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post, where her column appears.
Liberal American Jewish suckers
By Caroline B. Glick
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | This week we have been witness to two transparent attempts to sell liberal American Jews a bill of goods. And from the looks of things, both were successful.
The first instance of liberal American Jewish credulity this week unfolded Monday night in Washington. At a five-star hotel, eighty Jewish donors shelled out between $25,000- 35,800 to attend a fundraiser with US President Barack Obama.
As has become his habit, Obama opened his remarks by talking about his commitment to Israel's security. And as has become his habit, Obama went on to say that it is his job to force Israelis to bow to his demands because he knows what is best for Israel.
Speaking of his ongoing efforts to force Israel to concede its right to defensible borders before entering into negotiations with the Hamas-Fatah unity government, Obama said, "There are going to be moments over the course of the next six months or the next 12 months or the next 24 months in which there may be tactical disagreements [between the US and Israel] in terms of how we approach these difficult problems."
Obama went on to say that he expects his American Jewish supporters to take his side in his attacks on Israel.
As he put it, the quest for peace between Israel and the Hamas-Fatah government is, "going to require that not only this administration employs all of its creative powers to try to bring about peace in the region, but it's also going to require all of you as engaged citizens of the United States who are friends of Israel making sure…that you're helping to shape how both Americans and Israelis think about the opportunities and challenges."
And how did the Jewish donors respond to Obama's presentation? They loved it. They were, in the words of Obama donor Marilyn Victor, "reassured."
FREE SUBSCRIPTION TO INFLUENTIAL NEWSLETTER
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". HUNDREDS of columnists and cartoonists regularly appear. Sign up for the daily update. It's free. Just click here.
Speaking with Politico, New York businessman Jack Bendheim said, "I think he nailed and renailed his commitment to the security of the State of Israel." Other attendees interviewed in the article echoed his sentiments.
Imagine how they would have swooned if Obama had confessed a secret love for bagels and lox.
What does Obama have to do for these liberal American Jews to accept that he is no friend of Israel's?
Apparently the answer is that there is nothing Obama can do that will convince his many American Jewish supporters that he is not Israel's friend. They will never believe such a thing because doing so will require them to choose between two unacceptable options. The first option is to admit to themselves that in voting for Obama, they are voting against Israel.
The self-righteousness shared by many of Obama's Jewish supporters makes this option unacceptable. These are people who demonstrate their goodness by embracing every politically correct liberal cause as their own. From abortion to socialized medicine to free passes for illegal immigrants, to opposition to the Iraq war, liberal American Jews are ready to go out on a limb for every cause the liberal media supports.
But ask them to support anything that in any way compromises their self-image as do gooders and liberals and they will shut you out. Consider their willingness to turn a blind eye to Obama's twenty-year association with his anti-Semitic preacher Jeremiah Wright. Just this week Wright was back in the news when he delighted a crowd of thousands of African American worshippers in Baltimore by libeling Israel saying, "The State of Israel is an illegal, genocidal … place. To equate Judaism with the State of Israel is to equate Christianity with [rapper] Flavor Flav."
During the 2008 presidential campaign liberal American Jews attacked critics of Obama's long-standing devotion to his Jew hating preacher as McCarthyites who were spreading allegations of guilt by association.
And now, when Obama has made supporting Israel a socially costly thing for his supporters to do, rather than pay the price, his self-righteous American Jewish supporters refuse to admit that Obama is not pro-Israel. They attack as a liar anyone who points out that his policies are deeply hostile to Israel.
For instance, Monday National Jewish Democratic Council Chairman Marc Stanley told reporters, "Key donors are much more savvy than Republicans would have you believe and have taken a much more critical eye towards Republican attempts to lie about the President's record."
Aside from being morally inconvenient, the other problem with admitting that Obama is anti-Israel is that it requires his Jewish supporters who are unwilling to consciously abandon Israel to contemplate the unattractive option of voting for the Republican nominee for president. And this is something that their liberal conceit cannot abide.
The inability of many liberal American Jews to abide by the notion of supporting someone who isn't part of their fancy liberal clique was on display in their responses to another event that occurred this week.
Just hours before Obama snowballed his Jewish donors in Washington, Yale University engaged in a similarly transparent bid to romance its willfully gullible Jewish supporters.
Yale University's announcement two weeks ago that it was shutting down the Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Anti-Semitism (YIISA), unleashed a storm of protest. Students, faculty, alumni and major Jewish organizations all expressed anger and disappointment with Yale's surprise move.
Yale justified its decision on the basis of two falsehoods. First it claimed that YIISA had failed to undertake sufficient top quality scholarship. Yet in the wake of the announcement dozens of leading scholars of anti-Semitism co-signed a letter authored by Prof. Alvin Rosenfeld who directs Indiana University's Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism praising the YIISA as "a pioneer in advancing research on contemporary manifestations of anti-Semitism."
The second reason that Yale claimed it was closing YIISA was because there was insufficient faculty and student interest in its programs. This falsehood was ridiculous on its face since several dozen Yale faculty members served on YIISA's various academic committees and boards of advisors. And in the wake of the university's announcement that it was shuttering YIISA, several faculty members and students protested the move angrily.
The main suspicion provoked by Yale's decision to close YIISA was that it was doing so to appease Islamic critics. YIISA's Director Prof. Charles Small focused its attention on contemporary forms of anti-Semitism. Since the most dangerous form of contemporary anti-Semitism is Islamic anti-Semitism, Small made Islamic anti-Semitism a focus of YIISA's research activities. The concern arose that Yale closed YIISA in order to end campus research and discourse on the topic.
Monday Yale tried to quell the controversy surrounding its decision to close YIISA by announcing that it was forming a new institute called the Yale Program for the Study of Anti-Semitism. Yale announced that its tenured professor Maurice Samuels will serve as director of the program. Samuels is a scholar of French literature.
In his acceptance announcement Samuels addressed Yale's critics promising that "YPSA will discuss both contemporary anti-Semitism and historical anti-Semitism."
He also said that in the coming year YPSA will hold a major conference on the topic of French anti-Semitism.
Samuels' statement is notable for two reasons. First, if it is true, then the only difference between YPSA and YIISA is the director. And the only thing Yale was really interested in doing was firing Small. The question is why would they want to fire him?
The answer to that question appears to be found in the second notable aspect of Samuels' announcement: his planned conference. At a time when millions in post-Mubarak Egypt assembled in Tahrir Square and cheered as the Muslim Brotherhood's spiritual leader Yusuf Qaradawi called for the invasion of Jerusalem, and with Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the brink of nuclear weapons, why would YPSA want to place its focus on France?
Following Yale's announcement that it is launching YPSA, Small released a statement in which he said, among other things, "It appears that Yale, unlike YIISA, is not willing to engage in a comprehensive examination of the current crisis facing living Jews, but instead is comfortable with reexamining the plight of Jews who perished at the hands of anti-Semites. The role of a true scholar and intellectual is to shed light where there is darkness, which is why we at YIISA, are committed to critical engaged scholarship with a broader approach to the complex, and at times controversial context of contemporary global anti-Semitism."
As Small hints, it appears that by forming YPSA, Yale proved its critics right. It closed YIISA because it found Small's concentration on Muslim Jew hatred ideologically problematic. And it opened YPSA because Yale's admininistrastors' trust Samuels to keep researchers and students focused on historic forms of anti-Semitism.
To offset criticism of its transparent move, Yale has been waging a whispering campaign against Small. Yale administrators have been insinuating that because the university did not hire him as a regular member of the Yale faculty that Small is not an academic, or somehow not good enough for Yale.
This campaign brought Holocaust scholar Prof Deborah Lipstadt from Emory University to pen a column in the Forward attacking Small. As she put it, "Part of Yale's discomfort might have come from the fact that a Yale-based scholarly entity was administered by an individual who, while a successful institution builder, was not a Yale faculty member and who had no official position at the university."
But Small was in fact on the Yale faculty. He was a lecturer in the Political Science department and ran one of Yale's post-doctorate and graduate studies fellowship programs. Despite his intensive work building YIISA, Small taught a heavy course load.
But while its actions vindicate its critics' greatest concerns, just as Obama was able to win over his Jewish supporters with empty platitudes so Yale's decision to open YPSA has satisfied its most powerful critics. The ADL released a statement applauding the move. Yale's Rabbi James Ponet emailed his colleagues and friends and urged them to email Yale's President and Provost expressing their support for the move.
Their willingness to support Yale's bid to curtail research and discussion of Islamic Jew hatred and allow Yale to scapegoat Small demonstrates an affliction common to liberal American Jews today. It is the same affliction that makes them unable to countenance voting for a Republican. That affliction is class snobbery. By insinuating that Small is not up to Yale's academic standards, Yale was able to rally the Jewish members of its larger community by appealing to their snobbery. The fact that Yale didn't mind Small serving as a dissertation advisor to its doctoral candidates is immaterial. The facts be damned.
The same Ivy League snobbery that makes it socially unacceptable to vote for a Republican — and certainly not for a Sarah Palin or Michele Bachmann despite their deep-seated and consistent support for Israel — is what allowed Yale to get away with ending its study of Islamic anti-Semitism by besmirching Small's academic achievements and good name. Remove him from the club, and you end opposition to his academically unjustifiable firing.
The great circus master P.T. Barnum said famously that there is a sucker born every minute. Liberal American Jews aren't born suckers. They become suckers out of their own free will.
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JWR contributor Caroline B. Glick is the senior Middle East Fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC and the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post, where her column appears.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Obama so tough on Israel, weak on Syria
Jackson Diehl
Deputy Editorial Page Editor
Why is Obama so tough on Israel and timid on Syria?
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By Jackson Diehl, Published: June 19
One of the hallmarks of the Arab Spring has been the emergence of a new and more modest American foreign policy. The Obama administration has insisted on not taking the lead in promoting democratic change; it has declined to act unless not just the French and British but the Arab League go first. It still can’t bring itself to say that Bashar al-Assad, a dictator and implacable U.S. enemy who is using tanks and helicopter gunships to slaughter his people, is not qualified to lead Syria to democracy.
Yet there is one big exception: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On a Middle Eastern front that has remained mostly quiet in 2011, the position of the United States is: a) it possesses a detailed solution; b) action must be taken immediately; and c) it doesn’t matter whether the people concerned — Israelis and Palestinians — are agreeable or ready.
793
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Jackson Diehl
The Post’s deputy editorial page editor, Diehl also writes a biweekly foreign affairs column and contributes to the PostPartisan blog.
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More On This Topic
Diehl: Misplaced superpower chutzpah
P.J. Crowley: Obama, tell Assad he must go
Obama the timid suddenly turns tough when the “peace process” comes up. He has spoken in public on Syria just twice since its massacres began three months ago. But he chose to spell out U.S. terms for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations without the agreement of Israel’s prime minister, on the eve of meeting him at the White House and with only a few hours’ notice — arguably the most high-handed presidential act in U.S.-Israeli relations since the Eisenhower administration.
Now, with prodding from the European Union, Obama is attempting to strong-arm Israelis and Palestinians into beginning negotiations on the parameters he set. The talks must be agreed to this month, says Washington; they should begin by September. U.S. and European envoys were shuttling between Jerusalem and Ramallah last week in an attempt to extract a “yes” from Binyamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas.
It would be wonderful if this imperialist diplomacy succeeded. If it does, it will disprove the Obama administration’s nascent doctrine about the limits of U.S. power and influence in the Middle East.
Consider the two parties who would be dragged to the negotiating table. Netanyahu heads a right-wing coalition that would almost certainly collapse if he agreed to Obama’s terms — which, in any case, he opposes. A senior Israeli official last week gave me a long list of fixes he said would be needed before his government could accept the Obama formula — and even then, he added, the proposal wouldn’t fly “unless there was a deep reservoir of mutual confidence” between the two leaders, “which doesn’t exist.”
Then there is Abbas, who at 76 is planning his retirement. He has committed himself to spending the next year seeing through a reconciliation with the Hamas movement, arranging elections for his successor and seeking recognition for Palestine at the United Nations. For two years he has refused to negotiate with Netanyahu, whom he despises. Even Yasser Arafat appeared more disposed than this Palestinian leader to make the wrenching concessions needed for a deal. And who would guarantee that the Palestinian president elected next May would pick up where Abbas left off?
What’s extraordinary about Obama’s initiative is not its details, which don’t differ meaningfully from the ideas of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush or, for that matter, several of Netanyahu’s predecessors as prime minister. It is, rather, its superpower chutzpah — the brazen disregard for the views and political posture of this Israeli government, and the fecklessness and disarray of the current Palestinian leadership. Never mind, goes the implicit Euro-American line: We will make this happen.
What could account for such an attitude, given the timorous approach to the rest of the region? Part of it is understandable frustration with years of Israeli-Palestinian impasse, which is magnified by the conviction in much of official Washington that the terms for peace are well known and widely accepted, and need only be implemented. Part is legitimate worry that the Israeli-
Palestinian front, though quiet now, could explode later this year after a United Nations vote, helping extremists in places such as Egypt. Yet the damage to U.S. interests from a U.N. resolution on Palestine would pale compared to the consequences of an Iranian-backed victory by Assad in Syria or the failure of NATO in Libya. Those crises have not moved Obama to lead.
There is, in his diplomacy, an implicit conviction that the United States must first of all deal with the sins of its own client. “Here are the facts we must all confront,” Obama declared in his speech to the AIPAC conference last month, before proceeding to deliver a lecture about Palestinian demography, Arab politics and the United Nations. It wasn’t that he was entirely wrong. But it’s revealing of this president that he is determined to speak truth to Binyamin Netanyahu — and not to Bashar al-Assad.
Deputy Editorial Page Editor
Why is Obama so tough on Israel and timid on Syria?
Text Size PrintE-mailReprints
By Jackson Diehl, Published: June 19
One of the hallmarks of the Arab Spring has been the emergence of a new and more modest American foreign policy. The Obama administration has insisted on not taking the lead in promoting democratic change; it has declined to act unless not just the French and British but the Arab League go first. It still can’t bring itself to say that Bashar al-Assad, a dictator and implacable U.S. enemy who is using tanks and helicopter gunships to slaughter his people, is not qualified to lead Syria to democracy.
Yet there is one big exception: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On a Middle Eastern front that has remained mostly quiet in 2011, the position of the United States is: a) it possesses a detailed solution; b) action must be taken immediately; and c) it doesn’t matter whether the people concerned — Israelis and Palestinians — are agreeable or ready.
793
Comments
Weigh InCorrections?
Jackson Diehl
The Post’s deputy editorial page editor, Diehl also writes a biweekly foreign affairs column and contributes to the PostPartisan blog.
Archive
@JacksonDiehlFacebookRSS
Diehl: Misplaced superpower chutzpah
P.J. Crowley: Obama, tell Assad he must go
Obama the timid suddenly turns tough when the “peace process” comes up. He has spoken in public on Syria just twice since its massacres began three months ago. But he chose to spell out U.S. terms for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations without the agreement of Israel’s prime minister, on the eve of meeting him at the White House and with only a few hours’ notice — arguably the most high-handed presidential act in U.S.-Israeli relations since the Eisenhower administration.
Now, with prodding from the European Union, Obama is attempting to strong-arm Israelis and Palestinians into beginning negotiations on the parameters he set. The talks must be agreed to this month, says Washington; they should begin by September. U.S. and European envoys were shuttling between Jerusalem and Ramallah last week in an attempt to extract a “yes” from Binyamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas.
It would be wonderful if this imperialist diplomacy succeeded. If it does, it will disprove the Obama administration’s nascent doctrine about the limits of U.S. power and influence in the Middle East.
Consider the two parties who would be dragged to the negotiating table. Netanyahu heads a right-wing coalition that would almost certainly collapse if he agreed to Obama’s terms — which, in any case, he opposes. A senior Israeli official last week gave me a long list of fixes he said would be needed before his government could accept the Obama formula — and even then, he added, the proposal wouldn’t fly “unless there was a deep reservoir of mutual confidence” between the two leaders, “which doesn’t exist.”
Then there is Abbas, who at 76 is planning his retirement. He has committed himself to spending the next year seeing through a reconciliation with the Hamas movement, arranging elections for his successor and seeking recognition for Palestine at the United Nations. For two years he has refused to negotiate with Netanyahu, whom he despises. Even Yasser Arafat appeared more disposed than this Palestinian leader to make the wrenching concessions needed for a deal. And who would guarantee that the Palestinian president elected next May would pick up where Abbas left off?
What’s extraordinary about Obama’s initiative is not its details, which don’t differ meaningfully from the ideas of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush or, for that matter, several of Netanyahu’s predecessors as prime minister. It is, rather, its superpower chutzpah — the brazen disregard for the views and political posture of this Israeli government, and the fecklessness and disarray of the current Palestinian leadership. Never mind, goes the implicit Euro-American line: We will make this happen.
What could account for such an attitude, given the timorous approach to the rest of the region? Part of it is understandable frustration with years of Israeli-Palestinian impasse, which is magnified by the conviction in much of official Washington that the terms for peace are well known and widely accepted, and need only be implemented. Part is legitimate worry that the Israeli-
Palestinian front, though quiet now, could explode later this year after a United Nations vote, helping extremists in places such as Egypt. Yet the damage to U.S. interests from a U.N. resolution on Palestine would pale compared to the consequences of an Iranian-backed victory by Assad in Syria or the failure of NATO in Libya. Those crises have not moved Obama to lead.
There is, in his diplomacy, an implicit conviction that the United States must first of all deal with the sins of its own client. “Here are the facts we must all confront,” Obama declared in his speech to the AIPAC conference last month, before proceeding to deliver a lecture about Palestinian demography, Arab politics and the United Nations. It wasn’t that he was entirely wrong. But it’s revealing of this president that he is determined to speak truth to Binyamin Netanyahu — and not to Bashar al-Assad.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
The Muslim Brotherhood and Weiner
June 19, 2011
The Muslim Brotherhood and Weiner
By Eileen F. Toplansky
Far more disturbing than the salacious details of Weiner's dalliances is the fact that apparently his mother-in-law is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Furthermore, Huma Abedin's brother, Hassan, "is listed as a fellow and partner with a number of Muslim Brotherhood members." Hassan works at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies (OCIS) at Oxford University. The Egyptian Al-Azhar University, well-known for a curriculum that encourages extremism and terrorism, is active in establishing links with OCIS.
How is it that the Western media, with its hourly analyses of Weiner, missed this salient point, yet Arab news sources revealed this connection? Walid Shoebat, formerly with the PLO, explains that Saleha Mahmoud Abedin, a professor in Saudi Arabia "belongs to the Sunni movement's women's division known as the Muslim Sisterhood." During the recent uprising in Egypt, which resulted in Mubarak's removal, "a special women's unit within the Muslim Brotherhood served as 'mules' to deliver messages and acted as messengers for the terrorist group."
The Muslim Sisterhood is also known as the International Women's Organization (IWO) and members are located "across 16 different countries." Its goal is to "work at all levels in accordance with the message of the Brotherhood." The Muslim Brotherhood's goal is Islamic world domination and "[i]t is now public knowledge that nearly every major Muslim organization in the United States is actually controlled by the [Muslim Brotherhood] or a derivative organization. Consequently, most of the Muslim-American groups of any prominence in America are now known to be, as a matter of fact, hostile to the United States and its Constitution."
This chart on page four of the Domestic Intelligence Briefing by Mark Hass shows the FBI - Identified Terror Networks connected to the Muslim Brotherhood in North America.
Which should now raise even greater concerns since Huma Abedin-Weiner is the deputy chief of staff to Hillary Clinton, the United States Secretary of State. Did any vetting occur by Clinton's people concerning Huma Abedin, her brother Hassan, or her mother Saleha Mahmoud Abedin, and any connections with known Islamists, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood?
But then again, would it have troubled Mrs. Clinton? After all, during her husband's time as President, she warmly embraced Suha Arafat the wife of Yasser Arafat, arch-terrorist, right after a speech during which Suha Arafat falsely accused Israel of poisoning the Palestinian water supply.
Huma's brother has "worked with Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal on a program of "spreading Islam to the west." More intriguing is the fact that the Abedin family left Michigan for Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, around 1977, which is the same year that the Muslim Sisterhood was formed.
Couple this with the Clinton family playing a key role in promoting Fethullah Gulen who has worked assiduously to overthrow Turkey's secular government. Gulen, who currently resides in Pennsylvania, has told his followers that in order for "worldwide Islamic domination to succeed, every method and path is acceptable, including lying to people."
In March of this year, the FBI was investigating the more than 120 charter schools in the United States that are linked to Gulen's movement. These schools, funded with millions of taxpayer dollars, promote Gulen's worldview that is both anti-Israel and anti-America. In fact, in 2010 it was reported that Bill Gates had given almost 11 million dollars to the Cosmos Foundation, which is a Gulen enterprise.
Moreover, one needs to question why Huma Abedin, a member of a family of devout Muslims, would ever marry a Jewish Congressman -- in a ceremony officiated by Bill Clinton. Sharia law clearly forbids Muslims from marrying non-believers, so what does this portend?
Furthermore, when Huma Abedin accompanied Hillary Clinton to the Dar El-Hekma women's college in Saudi Arabia, where Huma's mother is co-founder and vice dean, it was reported that "Hillary explained that Huma holds an important and sensitive position in her office." Where was the scrutiny?
Why are so many at the highest levels of American government ignoring the methodology of Islamists like Gulen, who has declared that the best way to seize power is to lie in wait "with the patience of a spider" in order to "wait for people to get caught in the web"? Is Clinton so naïve?
Thus, Huma Abedin's position with Clinton in the State Department, as well as her marriage to Representative Weiner, has given her enormous exposure "to state secrets and access to the inner workings of Congress."
This would be unsettling enough if it were not also for Obama's latest appointee. The 44th president has just appointed Azizah al-Hibri to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. Al-Hibri believes that sharia law is superior to American law. Yet, al-Hibri is only one of the pro-sharia adherents that Obama has placed in influential positions since he became president. Dalia Mogahed was one of the earliest appointees and as Nonie Darwish has written, "[t]he empowerment of Radical Islam under the Obama administration" is extremely disturbing.
Last year, Obama appointed two devout Muslims to Homeland Security. Obama's record concerning Islamic terror was alarming from the beginning of his term and it has only become more entrenched. Congressman Keith Ellison aka Keith Hakim, who converted to Islam, is already in place in Congress. His connections to CAIR are troubling.
Is the Weiner scandal really covering up a far more disturbing scenario whereby jihadists continue to infiltrate and influence American universities, military installations, homeland security, even local police forces, all while the press ignores the steady encroachment of these radicals who seek to overturn and destroy America?
The disgraceful indifference by the general press to Weiner's in-laws and their connections to the Muslim Brotherhood keeps eroding America's ability to rout those who wish to see her destroyed.
Fethullah Gulen has exhorted his followers to "move in the arteries of the system without anyone noticing [their] existence until [they] reach all the power centers...until the conditions are ripe..." Can America continue to close its eyes to this deliberate hibernation strategy of our enemies?
Eileen can be reached at middlemarch18@gmail.com.
Sponsored Link: “Underground” Video Gets 10 Mill
The Muslim Brotherhood and Weiner
By Eileen F. Toplansky
Far more disturbing than the salacious details of Weiner's dalliances is the fact that apparently his mother-in-law is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Furthermore, Huma Abedin's brother, Hassan, "is listed as a fellow and partner with a number of Muslim Brotherhood members." Hassan works at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies (OCIS) at Oxford University. The Egyptian Al-Azhar University, well-known for a curriculum that encourages extremism and terrorism, is active in establishing links with OCIS.
How is it that the Western media, with its hourly analyses of Weiner, missed this salient point, yet Arab news sources revealed this connection? Walid Shoebat, formerly with the PLO, explains that Saleha Mahmoud Abedin, a professor in Saudi Arabia "belongs to the Sunni movement's women's division known as the Muslim Sisterhood." During the recent uprising in Egypt, which resulted in Mubarak's removal, "a special women's unit within the Muslim Brotherhood served as 'mules' to deliver messages and acted as messengers for the terrorist group."
The Muslim Sisterhood is also known as the International Women's Organization (IWO) and members are located "across 16 different countries." Its goal is to "work at all levels in accordance with the message of the Brotherhood." The Muslim Brotherhood's goal is Islamic world domination and "[i]t is now public knowledge that nearly every major Muslim organization in the United States is actually controlled by the [Muslim Brotherhood] or a derivative organization. Consequently, most of the Muslim-American groups of any prominence in America are now known to be, as a matter of fact, hostile to the United States and its Constitution."
This chart on page four of the Domestic Intelligence Briefing by Mark Hass shows the FBI - Identified Terror Networks connected to the Muslim Brotherhood in North America.
Which should now raise even greater concerns since Huma Abedin-Weiner is the deputy chief of staff to Hillary Clinton, the United States Secretary of State. Did any vetting occur by Clinton's people concerning Huma Abedin, her brother Hassan, or her mother Saleha Mahmoud Abedin, and any connections with known Islamists, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood?
But then again, would it have troubled Mrs. Clinton? After all, during her husband's time as President, she warmly embraced Suha Arafat the wife of Yasser Arafat, arch-terrorist, right after a speech during which Suha Arafat falsely accused Israel of poisoning the Palestinian water supply.
Huma's brother has "worked with Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal on a program of "spreading Islam to the west." More intriguing is the fact that the Abedin family left Michigan for Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, around 1977, which is the same year that the Muslim Sisterhood was formed.
Couple this with the Clinton family playing a key role in promoting Fethullah Gulen who has worked assiduously to overthrow Turkey's secular government. Gulen, who currently resides in Pennsylvania, has told his followers that in order for "worldwide Islamic domination to succeed, every method and path is acceptable, including lying to people."
In March of this year, the FBI was investigating the more than 120 charter schools in the United States that are linked to Gulen's movement. These schools, funded with millions of taxpayer dollars, promote Gulen's worldview that is both anti-Israel and anti-America. In fact, in 2010 it was reported that Bill Gates had given almost 11 million dollars to the Cosmos Foundation, which is a Gulen enterprise.
Moreover, one needs to question why Huma Abedin, a member of a family of devout Muslims, would ever marry a Jewish Congressman -- in a ceremony officiated by Bill Clinton. Sharia law clearly forbids Muslims from marrying non-believers, so what does this portend?
Furthermore, when Huma Abedin accompanied Hillary Clinton to the Dar El-Hekma women's college in Saudi Arabia, where Huma's mother is co-founder and vice dean, it was reported that "Hillary explained that Huma holds an important and sensitive position in her office." Where was the scrutiny?
Why are so many at the highest levels of American government ignoring the methodology of Islamists like Gulen, who has declared that the best way to seize power is to lie in wait "with the patience of a spider" in order to "wait for people to get caught in the web"? Is Clinton so naïve?
Thus, Huma Abedin's position with Clinton in the State Department, as well as her marriage to Representative Weiner, has given her enormous exposure "to state secrets and access to the inner workings of Congress."
This would be unsettling enough if it were not also for Obama's latest appointee. The 44th president has just appointed Azizah al-Hibri to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. Al-Hibri believes that sharia law is superior to American law. Yet, al-Hibri is only one of the pro-sharia adherents that Obama has placed in influential positions since he became president. Dalia Mogahed was one of the earliest appointees and as Nonie Darwish has written, "[t]he empowerment of Radical Islam under the Obama administration" is extremely disturbing.
Last year, Obama appointed two devout Muslims to Homeland Security. Obama's record concerning Islamic terror was alarming from the beginning of his term and it has only become more entrenched. Congressman Keith Ellison aka Keith Hakim, who converted to Islam, is already in place in Congress. His connections to CAIR are troubling.
Is the Weiner scandal really covering up a far more disturbing scenario whereby jihadists continue to infiltrate and influence American universities, military installations, homeland security, even local police forces, all while the press ignores the steady encroachment of these radicals who seek to overturn and destroy America?
The disgraceful indifference by the general press to Weiner's in-laws and their connections to the Muslim Brotherhood keeps eroding America's ability to rout those who wish to see her destroyed.
Fethullah Gulen has exhorted his followers to "move in the arteries of the system without anyone noticing [their] existence until [they] reach all the power centers...until the conditions are ripe..." Can America continue to close its eyes to this deliberate hibernation strategy of our enemies?
Eileen can be reached at middlemarch18@gmail.com.
Sponsored Link: “Underground” Video Gets 10 Mill
Idiot Jews support Obama
The Low Standards of Jewish Democrats
Jonathan S. Tobin 06.21.2011 - 10:38 AM
There are those who claim there is virtually nothing a Democratic president can do to Israel to cause liberal Jews to abandon his cause. But that is an exaggeration. Were a Democratic president to dramatically shift U.S. Middle East policy to Israel’s disadvantage without at the same time paying lip service to the concept of the U.S.-Israel alliance, there would probably be drastic consequences in terms of liberal Jewish support for that president. But even a president who made it clear from the first day of his administration he would distance the United States from Israel could retain the backing of liberal Jewish activists so long as he still claimed to be the friend of the Jewish state.
That is the only way to explain the willingness of so many Jewish Democrats who profess to be backers of Israel to line up in support of President Barack Obama’s re-election. As accounts of last night’s Barack Obama fundraiser for Jewish donors show, it doesn’t take much for a Democratic leader to seduce the Jewish faithful. As far as Israel is concerned, Barack Obama may be the least friendly resident of the White House since the first president George Bush or even Dwight Eisenhower, but that has not prevented him from raising large amounts of cash in the Jewish community. Nor will it prevent him from winning the majority of Jewish votes next year.
It was less than a month ago that Obama specifically timed a major Middle East policy speech in order to ambush visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. By demanding in that speech Israel accept the idea future peace talks would treat the 1967 lines as the starting point for negotiations without also stating American support for Israel’s retention of Jerusalem and the major settlement blocs (as his predecessor George W. Bush did) or by making any demands on the Palestinians, Obama dramatically tilted the diplomatic playing field to Israel’s disadvantage. Netanyahu faced down Obama and won the applause of Congress for doing so. But even as Obama renewed a campaign of pressure on Israel in the last week, the president was able to go to Jewish donors last night and masquerade as a friend of the Jewish state.
We shouldn’t be surprised by any of this. Most liberal Jews are fervently partisan Democrats and still wrongly fear conservative Christians far more than Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and al-Qaeda combined. The standards liberal Jews have adopted on that issue are so low it allows virtually any Democrat, even one with no history of support for Israel (as was the case with Barack Obama in 2008) a pass by merely the uttering of a few catch phrases.
And even though Obama has spent his presidency picking fights with Israel, all he needs to charm Jewish donors is to mouth a few more insincere phrases. But the good news for Israel is (as Netanyahu’s speech to Congress demonstrated), American support for Israel is a consensus issue for the overwhelming majority of Americans. The low standards of liberal Jews on the issue won’t prevent Congress from acting as a brake on Obama’s less than friendly policies toward the Jewish state. As one person who attended the Obama fundraiser told Politico, the number of ovations the president received was not as many as Netanyahu got from Congre
Democrats launch major pro-Obama pushback among Jews
by NEWS SOURCE on JUNE 8, 2011
JTA reports:
President Obama is a stalwart friend of Israel.
That’s the message some top Democratic Jewish figures are promoting to push back against the notion that Obama is out of step with the pro-Israel and Jewish communities.
Within the next two weeks, two figures associated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee — past AIPAC president Amy Friedkin and board member Howard Green — will be among the hosts for a major fundraising event for the president, charging $25,000 per couple. The target of 40 couples — bringing in $1 million — is close to being met, insiders say. Notably, the organizers have received a nod from the AIPAC board’s inner circle to solicit donations.
Last week, top Jewish Democrats, including Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Democratic National Committee chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), blitzed the media with Op-Eds denying any split with the president in the wake of his call last month to base Palestinian-Israeli negotiations on 1967 lines with mutually agreed land swaps.
And the White House has taken the unusual step of posting a lengthy defense of Obama’s Israel record on its website.
Jonathan S. Tobin 06.21.2011 - 10:38 AM
There are those who claim there is virtually nothing a Democratic president can do to Israel to cause liberal Jews to abandon his cause. But that is an exaggeration. Were a Democratic president to dramatically shift U.S. Middle East policy to Israel’s disadvantage without at the same time paying lip service to the concept of the U.S.-Israel alliance, there would probably be drastic consequences in terms of liberal Jewish support for that president. But even a president who made it clear from the first day of his administration he would distance the United States from Israel could retain the backing of liberal Jewish activists so long as he still claimed to be the friend of the Jewish state.
That is the only way to explain the willingness of so many Jewish Democrats who profess to be backers of Israel to line up in support of President Barack Obama’s re-election. As accounts of last night’s Barack Obama fundraiser for Jewish donors show, it doesn’t take much for a Democratic leader to seduce the Jewish faithful. As far as Israel is concerned, Barack Obama may be the least friendly resident of the White House since the first president George Bush or even Dwight Eisenhower, but that has not prevented him from raising large amounts of cash in the Jewish community. Nor will it prevent him from winning the majority of Jewish votes next year.
It was less than a month ago that Obama specifically timed a major Middle East policy speech in order to ambush visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. By demanding in that speech Israel accept the idea future peace talks would treat the 1967 lines as the starting point for negotiations without also stating American support for Israel’s retention of Jerusalem and the major settlement blocs (as his predecessor George W. Bush did) or by making any demands on the Palestinians, Obama dramatically tilted the diplomatic playing field to Israel’s disadvantage. Netanyahu faced down Obama and won the applause of Congress for doing so. But even as Obama renewed a campaign of pressure on Israel in the last week, the president was able to go to Jewish donors last night and masquerade as a friend of the Jewish state.
We shouldn’t be surprised by any of this. Most liberal Jews are fervently partisan Democrats and still wrongly fear conservative Christians far more than Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and al-Qaeda combined. The standards liberal Jews have adopted on that issue are so low it allows virtually any Democrat, even one with no history of support for Israel (as was the case with Barack Obama in 2008) a pass by merely the uttering of a few catch phrases.
And even though Obama has spent his presidency picking fights with Israel, all he needs to charm Jewish donors is to mouth a few more insincere phrases. But the good news for Israel is (as Netanyahu’s speech to Congress demonstrated), American support for Israel is a consensus issue for the overwhelming majority of Americans. The low standards of liberal Jews on the issue won’t prevent Congress from acting as a brake on Obama’s less than friendly policies toward the Jewish state. As one person who attended the Obama fundraiser told Politico, the number of ovations the president received was not as many as Netanyahu got from Congre
Democrats launch major pro-Obama pushback among Jews
by NEWS SOURCE on JUNE 8, 2011
JTA reports:
President Obama is a stalwart friend of Israel.
That’s the message some top Democratic Jewish figures are promoting to push back against the notion that Obama is out of step with the pro-Israel and Jewish communities.
Within the next two weeks, two figures associated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee — past AIPAC president Amy Friedkin and board member Howard Green — will be among the hosts for a major fundraising event for the president, charging $25,000 per couple. The target of 40 couples — bringing in $1 million — is close to being met, insiders say. Notably, the organizers have received a nod from the AIPAC board’s inner circle to solicit donations.
Last week, top Jewish Democrats, including Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Democratic National Committee chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), blitzed the media with Op-Eds denying any split with the president in the wake of his call last month to base Palestinian-Israeli negotiations on 1967 lines with mutually agreed land swaps.
And the White House has taken the unusual step of posting a lengthy defense of Obama’s Israel record on its website.
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