By Andrew L. Jaffee
If the Queen of the UK can stand up to the Islamo-fascists, we all can:
Salman Rushdie, who went into hiding under threat of death after an Iranian fatwa, has been knighted by the Queen. …
A devout secularist, he backed Commons Leader Jack Straw over comments on Muslim women and veils and has warned against Islamic “totalitarianism”. …
by Bill Levinson
We learned today that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have openly endorsed a prominent racist and anti-Semite whose hate speech played at least an indirect role in inciting two violent incidents in which people were killed: the Crown Heights riots and the arson of a Jewish-owned store in Harlem. The source is not some Republican blog, but the racist and anti-Semitic hate organization itself. It is vital that readers circulate this information as widely as possible to underscore Clinton’s and Obama’s close connections to an organization that is every bit as loathsome, and even as violent, as the Ku Klux Klan.
In addition, Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) donated $15,000 to the same organization that marched around a Jewish-owned clothing store while shouting racial and anti-Semitic epithets, and making violent threats to burn the store down. This underscores what we have been saying about Rangel’s personal character, ethics, and integrity for a long time; he is unfit to hold any position of public trust or responsibility anywhere in this country.
Chutzpah = killing one’s parents and asking the court for mercy because one is an orphan
by Bill Levinson
We came across this glaring example of chutzpah from the country that murders political prisoners to sell their organs, and that recently sold us poisoned pet food, in the Wall Street Journal. Wei Xin, Press Attache, Embassy of the People’s Republic of China, will probably be dragged home for “reeducation” once his masters realize that he made his country look ridiculous with this letter. After all, he is talking to educated Wall Street Journal readers, not Chinese peasants who know only what their masters choose to tell them.
This is a good lead-in for the chutzpah of prominent Democrats who are blaming George Bush for involving us in Iraq, when they themselves bayed for Saddam Hussein’s blood as loudly as any Republican ever did. This underscores their total lack of character, maturity, ethics, and judgment, plus their obvious contempt for the American people whom they expect to believe their line of taqqiya.
by Bill Levinson
Muzzlewatch, the blog of Jews for Jihad A Jewish Voice for Peace just shut down all commenting capability. The ostensible reason involves bigoted comments, but perhaps fear of actual discussion of issues like Palestinian terrorism is the real reason.
From day one, it seemed clear that there was a need for a space where people could freely debate challenging political issues related to Israel, Palestine, and US foreign policy. Over time, however, the comment boards seem to have drawn in those who communicate in a more polarized fashion, and have chased away people seeking more thoughtful dialogue. Lately, the site has become a forum for posting anti-Semitic in particular, and also other bigoted and racist comments, as well as ugly personal attacks.
We wonder whether criticism of Palestinian behavioral choices like terrorism, raising children as live ammunition, and killing each other when no Israelis are handy constitutes “bigotry” and “racism” in Muzzlewatch’s book, but this is pretty standard with the Left. “Muzzling” to the Left consists of exposing its allies’ hate speech at MoveOn.org (we were accused of trying to “muzzle” MoveOn’s Action Forum), but silencing the Right, as done at Tufts University, is perfectly acceptable. Meanwhile, our own position is that people who actually use racist epithets destroy their own credibility, so the conduct is self-punishing. We wonder why only Muzzlewatch seems to be having problems of this nature. In any event, if it can’t take the heat, perhaps it should get out of the kitchen.
The decision by the University and College Union (UCU) to consider a boycott of Israel is the latest manifestation of a broader process which has been steadily gathering speed in the last half-decade: the converging of opinion on the Middle East conflict among members of two camps, who might ordinarily be considered to have little in common.
The two camps are the European radical left and supporters - both in Europe and here, in the region of Islamist states and organisations. The alliance is built around a joint commitment to Israel’s disappearance from the map.
by Bill Levinson
We just called the Obama campaign at (866) 675-2008 in response to yet another e-mail in which Barack Obama asked for our support, and talked about the success of his Walk for Change event last Saturday. We hope that any Walk for Change volunteers who collected money or financial pledges from the people they contacted were sufficiently ethical to retrace their steps and return the money when they learned about Obama’s blatant connections with hate organizations and hate mongers who promote anti-Semitism, racism, and other forms of hatred that have no place in our society.
The Obama volunteer’s response to our concerns was that Obama is not a racist or anti-Semite, that she had other calls to take, and if we didn’t want to receive Obama’s e-mails, we should unsubscribe. (We never subscribed to them in the first place, although we did e-mail the Obama campaign with our concerns about his association with Al Sharpton and his National Action Network, and MoveOn.org.) We received, in addition to unsolicited bulk e-mail, a flippant response to the effect that “people can disagree without being disagreeable.” Bottom line: Obama and his campaign manager David Ploufe are telling us that they will associate with whatever Jew-haters, racists, and Catholic-baiters they please as long as the money keeps flowing in.
By Andrew L. Jaffee
…A witness, who identified himself only as Amjad, said [Fatah] men were killed as their wives and children watched.
“They [Hamas] are executing them one by one,” said Amjad, who lives in a building that overlooks the Preventive Security complex. “They are carrying one of them on their shoulders, putting him on a sand dune, turning him around and shooting,” he said by telephone.
The killers ignored appeals from residents to spare the men’s lives, said Amjad, who declined to give his full name, fearing reprisal. …
So here we have it: Israel unilaterally withdraws from Gaza, answering the call of the “international community,” and what do Palestinians do with their new-found freedom? Rampant violence. Civilians murdered. Summary executions. “Mass looting.” Torching synagogues. Many criticized Ariel Sharon for his Gaza disengagement plan, but he was in fact crazy like a fox. He made sacrifices to expose Palestinian society for what it is. Israel has been out of Gaza since September 12, 2005. Who to blame?
By Andrew L. Jaffee
Margaret Thatcher marked the 25th anniversary of the Falklands War today. At 81, she has still got it, and reminded us what matters in life:
‘There are in a sense no final victories, for the struggle against evil in the world is never ending. Tyranny and violence wear many masks. Yet from victory in the Falklands we can all today draw hope and strength.’
By Andrew L. Jaffee
For years we’ve heard calls for an independent Palestinian state, even though Palestinians have yet to prove they are ready for their own state. They sure have created a lot of terrorist chaos. They’ve been kicked out of Jordan, destroyed Lebanon, were kicked out of Kuwait, and have watched their leaders steal foreign aid money. Now we see them fighting a civil war and battling the Lebanese army, yet some still continue to call for the founding of “Palestine.” On what logical basis would such a state be established? With the current blood-feud raging between the Palestinian factions of Hamas and Fatah, the former taking control of Gaza, the later controlling the West Bank, will we start hearing calls for two independent (terrorist) states instead of one? This turf battle had been confined to Gaza, but is spreading to the West Bank, making it more likely that these territories will become two separate de facto states. As proof of how bad things are getting, here is what the AP reported from Gaza today — and please note what I’ve highlighted:
Hamas fighters launched a fierce offensive on Gaza City Wednesday, firing mortars and rockets at Fatah’s main security bases and the president’s compound as the Islamic group appeared close to taking control of the entire Gaza Strip.
With fighting raging on rooftops and streets in nearly all corners of Gaza, residents huddled in fear in their homes. … [Continues below…]
By Andrew L. Jaffee
Maybe I’ll be eating my critical words of the Bush administration which I posted yesterday. Still, I’d like to see the evidence of Iranian arms transfers to the Taliban, as who wants a repeat of the Iraq WMD debacle? With a U.S. military buildup in the Persian Gulf, we may be inching towards an all-out confrontation with Iran’s Islamists. From the Washington Post:
NATO has intercepted Iranian weapons shipments to Afghanistan’s Taliban insurgents, providing evidence Iran is violating international law to aid a group it once considered a bitter enemy, a senior U.S. diplomat said Wednesday.
“There’s irrefutable evidence the Iranians are now doing this,” Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said on CNN. “It’s certainly coming from the government of Iran. It’s coming from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard corps command, which is a basic unit of the Iranian government.” …
by Barry Rubin
U.S. Middle East policy has been quietly transforming itself into the near-opposite of what it has been under the Bush administration. To understand why, we must define its top-priority issue.
Most people respond, and understandably so, that the White House’s number-one priority is Iraq. How can the United States handle the very difficult question of how to extricate itself from Iraq? But this is not true for two reasons.
By Andrew L. Jaffee
Today, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns accused Iran of supplying weapons to the Taliban. I wish it weren’t so, but I just can’t get enthusiastic about the Bush Administration’s latest claims. It is not that I doubt Iran is stoking the flames in Afghanistan. It is whether I — or anyone else, especially among our allies — have any reason to believe that Bush’s people can provide evidence. The U.S. has been flexing its military muscle in the Persian Gulf, and now in the field of diplomacy — but will it have the desired effect of quieting down Iran’s Islamists? I’ve heard a few too many officials crying wolf; I’ve seen a lot of bad spin control and awful public relations. The President has squandered his post-9/11 political capital.
By Nathan Thrall
The prospect of peacefully preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons looks bleaker by the day. Iran appears more emboldened than it has in decades, and support for the Bush administration’s foreign policy is at an all-time low. As a presidential election year approaches, conservatives are seeking to distance themselves from Bush by eulogizing Reagan. Yet they forget or ignore that the present predicament is in large part Reagan’s legacy. This article examines how the Regan administration, through a seemingly endless series of self-deceits and capitulations, nurtured the ambitions of Iran’s current leadership, ruined U.S. credibility, and eroded America’s power to deter the Islamic Republic. Still, while Democrats may welcome any shifting of blame from the failed Iran policies of Reagan’s predecessor, it is they who have the most to learn from Reagan’s mistakes; for Reagan’s errors were realist errors, and the influence of realism is now rising most markedly on the left. Carter gave birth to the decades-long U.S. appeasement of Iran; Reagan fostered it.
What experience and history teach is this–that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.
-G.W.F. Hegel
On December 31, 1977, in the banquet room of Tehran’s Niavaran Palace, the president and the first lady of the United States attended a dinner hosted in their honor by the shah and the shahbanou of Iran. An hour and a half before the New Year, Jimmy Carter proposed a toast. “Iran,” he said, “because of the great leadership of the Shah, is an island of stability in one of the more troubled areas of the world. This is a great tribute to you, Your Majesty, and to your leadership, and to the respect and the admiration and love which your people give to you.”[1]
by Daniel Pipes*
Barring a “catastrophic development,” Middle East Newsline reports, George Bush has decided not to attack Iran. An administration source explains that Washington deems Iran’s cooperation “needed for a withdrawal [of U.S. forces] from Iraq.”
If correct, this implies the Jewish state stands alone against a regime that threatens to “wipe Israel off the map” and is building the nuclear weapons to do so. Israeli leaders are hinting that their patience is running out; Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz just warned that “diplomatic efforts should bear results by the end of 2007.”
By Andrew L. Jaffee
The civil war raging between the Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah shows no sign of abating. Indeed, today nine Palestinians killed each other. Yesterday, “two militants from the rival sides were dragged onto high-rise rooftops and thrown to their death.” One may be tempted to draw the conclusion that Palestinians are “sorting things out.” This is not the case. There is no hope for stability as Hamas and Fatah are both terrorist groups — and Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah is not “moderate.” From the AP:
Rival Palestinian gunmen exchanged fire at two Gaza hospitals on Monday and Cabinet ministers fled their weekly meeting after the government headquarters was caught in the crossfire in the latest round in an increasingly brutal power struggle between Hamas and
Fatah.In all, nine Palestinians were killed Monday, including three shot dead in Beit Hanoun Hospital in northern Gaza. At Gaza’s largest hospital, Shifa, combatants fired mortars, grenades and assault rifles. … [Continues below…]
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