Excerpts from CAMERA article
August 12, 2008 by Gilead Ini
A new Behind the Scenes piece, by CNN’s controversial Chief International Correspondent Christiane Amanpour, again allows readers a rare peak "Behind the Scenes" of CNN bias.
Although the Aug. 1 piece is primarily about her interview with the Dalai Lama, Amanpour manages to weave in a paragraph about the Arab-Israeli conflict, a topic on which the correspondent seriously stumbled last year with her error-filled program, "God’s Jewish Warriors." (The mistakes and distortions in that program led CNN to make significant revisions to the piece before rebroadcasting it.)"
Amanpour:
"Our visit [to the Dali Lama’s home] coincided with the events that commemorate each March 10, the date the Dalai Lama fled Tibet on horseback in 1959. He managed to evade the Chinese Communist forces, disguised as a soldier and escaping at night. The somber remembrance is a little like what the Palestinians do every year. They call it al-Nakba, or "catastrophe," which marks 1948 when they lost much of their land as the state of Israel was founded.
One can only speculate on the reasons behind this clumsy attempt to link the Palestinian and Tibetan situations. But what is clear is that the analogy is blatantly false on a number of levels.
"Al Nakba" is used by Palestinians to describe the result of a war of aggression that they themselves started. The Palestinians, along with their Arab allies, rejected a United Nations compromise proposal and launched the war in an attempt to squelch Jewish self-determination and destroy the nascent Jewish state.
March 10 represents nothing of the sort. Whatever the sides’ claims and counterclaims, the Tibetans did not strive to eliminate China’s sovereignty in Beijing and the rest of China. They did not bomb hospitals in Shanghai and vow to push the Chinese people into the sea. And the Chinese were not defending their one and only homeland against attacks by neighbors many times their size.
The Tibetan leader, who as a boy fled from Chinese troops disguised as a soldier, is now known as a man of peace.
The Palestinian leader at the time, Grand Mufti Haj Amin al Husseini, had also fled British Mandate Palestine in disguise (actually many years before the "Nakba"), but there the similarity ends. The Mufti is remembered as a virulent anti-Semite, an orchestrator of murderous pogroms against Jewish civilians in Palestine and Iraq, and a strong wartime ally of the Nazi party in Germany."
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Saturday, August 30, 2008
The Way We Are
The Way We Are
Naomi Ragen
According to an article in Hebrew on YNET written by Shmulik
Hadad, a 32 year-old Palestinian woman gave birth to
quadruplets in Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon in her 32nd week.
Barzilai, which has suffered from bombing attacks out of Gaza,
took her in two months ago and she has been under constant
medical supervision. She delivered two boys and two girls by
casarean section, and the babies are being cared for in the
neonatal nursery for preemies. "She is a very pleasant woman,
and it was enjoyable to care for her," said Professor Entebbe.
"Her isolation touched my heart," said the nurse in charge. "I
felt so sorry for her. It's so sad to give birth all alone, with
none of your family around. For her, this is a foreign country.
Before the operation, I went into her and wished her well and
hugged her and kissed her. She was very surprised and grateful."
"We have quite a few Palestinian patients in our hospital," said
Prof. Entebbe. "Even when the bomb from Gaza fell on us, there
were Palestinians being treated here. Their bills are paid for by
a number of bodies, including the European Union. It's my hope
that the dedicated care they are receiving here will create an
opening for good neighborly relations between us."
Again and again, we see Israelis behaving and speaking this way.
No matter what their enemies do. I suppose that is why we get
such bad press. The media just can't figure out what planet we
are from, that we refuse to change our behavior no matter how our
enemies treat us. It's why I love this country and her people so
very much.
Naomi Ragen
According to an article in Hebrew on YNET written by Shmulik
Hadad, a 32 year-old Palestinian woman gave birth to
quadruplets in Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon in her 32nd week.
Barzilai, which has suffered from bombing attacks out of Gaza,
took her in two months ago and she has been under constant
medical supervision. She delivered two boys and two girls by
casarean section, and the babies are being cared for in the
neonatal nursery for preemies. "She is a very pleasant woman,
and it was enjoyable to care for her," said Professor Entebbe.
"Her isolation touched my heart," said the nurse in charge. "I
felt so sorry for her. It's so sad to give birth all alone, with
none of your family around. For her, this is a foreign country.
Before the operation, I went into her and wished her well and
hugged her and kissed her. She was very surprised and grateful."
"We have quite a few Palestinian patients in our hospital," said
Prof. Entebbe. "Even when the bomb from Gaza fell on us, there
were Palestinians being treated here. Their bills are paid for by
a number of bodies, including the European Union. It's my hope
that the dedicated care they are receiving here will create an
opening for good neighborly relations between us."
Again and again, we see Israelis behaving and speaking this way.
No matter what their enemies do. I suppose that is why we get
such bad press. The media just can't figure out what planet we
are from, that we refuse to change our behavior no matter how our
enemies treat us. It's why I love this country and her people so
very much.
Ignoring failure in Gaza
We just passed the third anniversary of the Disengagement. ZOA was one of the few major American Jewish organizations who opposed it. ZOA was right. No one disputes that. But what have we learned? ZOA opposes basing Israel's national strategies on capitulation and faith in other people's willingness to defend her. Let's hope Olmert's successor agrees.
Ignoring failure in Gaza, by Caroline Glick
Posted: 08 Aug 2008 10:09 AM CDT
"Unlike the Rabin-Peres government's decision to embark on the Oslo peace process with the PLO in 1993, Ariel Sharon's withdrawal from Gaza did not take years to be discredited. It took moments.
As the last IDF personnel left Gaza, the Palestinians began torching the synagogues Israel abandoned. Within minutes of Israel's withdrawal from Gaza's border with Egypt, the Palestinians blew up the border wall. They immediately began transferring unprecedented quantities of heavy weaponry into Gaza - a practice that has continued to this day.
Another important distinction between the Oslo policy and the withdrawal policy is that at least Oslo asked the Palestinians to give Israel something in exchange for the land, money, arms and political legitimacy Israel lavished on them. As events would show, Israel asked the Palestinians for too little. But at least Israel asked them for something. The withdrawal policy, in contrast, demanded nothing from the Palestinians. It was simply an unconditional surrender of land. As a result, Hamas -- the terror group which has distinguished itself from Fatah by refusing to even pay lip service to peace -- was the chief beneficiary of Israel's retreat.
The first harbingers of Hamas's ascendance to power came the day after Israel completed its withdrawal. Tens of thousands of armed Hamas terrorists, clad in spanking new uniforms, goose-stepped through the streets of Gaza in their victory parade. The then-ruling Fatah government's own parade was dingy and poorly attended in comparison.
Hamas's pageantry was followed with the jihadist group's decisive electoral victory over Fatah in January 2006. This led to the further weakening of Fatah in March 2007 with the signing of the Mecca accord that rendered Fatah a junior member of Hamas's ruling coalition. The Mecca accord also signaled a shift in the Arab world's sympathies from Fatah to Hamas. That agreement then paved the way for Hamas's violent ouster of Fatah forces from Gaza in June 2007 and its rising challenge to Fatah's leadership in Judea and Samaria.
It should be pointed out that Hamas's victory over Fatah was not a victory of extremists over moderates in any real sense of the terms. Both Hamas and Fatah share the aim of destroying Israel. This was made clear most recently in the lead-up to the Annapolis conference last November. As US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced the coming of peace, Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas refused to recognize Israel's right to exist.
Moreover, there is little to distinguish between the groups' embrace of terrorism as a means of achieving their aim of destroying Israel. Fatah forces have carried out more attacks against Israel than Hamas has.
Hamas's refusal to even pretend that it is willing to live at peace with Israel is what distinguishes it from Fatah. And the Palestinians' embrace of Hamas after Israel withdrew from Gaza demonstrated that the withdrawal increased the popularity of the prospect of continuous war against Israel among the Palestinians.
Hamas's rise to power has changed the nature of the Palestinian conflict with Israel in a fundamental way. It is not simply that Hamas has abandoned the rhetoric of Arab nationalism for the rhetoric of Islamic jihad and so changed the nature of the Palestinian war from a limited struggle to an unlimited war for Islamic domination.
Unlike Fatah, which was beholden to several Islamic countries at once, Hamas is a wholly-owned Iranian proxy. Consequently Gaza, like Lebanon, has become an Iranian colony. And as Hamas's star rises in Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem and within the Israeli Arab community, Iran's influence over events in those quarters rises. This was made clear this week with the revelation that Khaled Kashkoush, an Israeli Arab from Kalansuwa, last month became the latest Israeli Arab arrested for spying for Hizbullah."
"Israel's prolonged failure to reckon with the disastrous outcome of the Gaza withdrawal bodes ill for the country's prospects. Until the country reckons with the mistakes that led to that withdrawal, and forces those responsible to account for their failings, we will be doomed to repeat those mistakes with those same incompetents leading us over and over and over."
Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.
Ignoring failure in Gaza, by Caroline Glick
Posted: 08 Aug 2008 10:09 AM CDT
"Unlike the Rabin-Peres government's decision to embark on the Oslo peace process with the PLO in 1993, Ariel Sharon's withdrawal from Gaza did not take years to be discredited. It took moments.
As the last IDF personnel left Gaza, the Palestinians began torching the synagogues Israel abandoned. Within minutes of Israel's withdrawal from Gaza's border with Egypt, the Palestinians blew up the border wall. They immediately began transferring unprecedented quantities of heavy weaponry into Gaza - a practice that has continued to this day.
Another important distinction between the Oslo policy and the withdrawal policy is that at least Oslo asked the Palestinians to give Israel something in exchange for the land, money, arms and political legitimacy Israel lavished on them. As events would show, Israel asked the Palestinians for too little. But at least Israel asked them for something. The withdrawal policy, in contrast, demanded nothing from the Palestinians. It was simply an unconditional surrender of land. As a result, Hamas -- the terror group which has distinguished itself from Fatah by refusing to even pay lip service to peace -- was the chief beneficiary of Israel's retreat.
The first harbingers of Hamas's ascendance to power came the day after Israel completed its withdrawal. Tens of thousands of armed Hamas terrorists, clad in spanking new uniforms, goose-stepped through the streets of Gaza in their victory parade. The then-ruling Fatah government's own parade was dingy and poorly attended in comparison.
Hamas's pageantry was followed with the jihadist group's decisive electoral victory over Fatah in January 2006. This led to the further weakening of Fatah in March 2007 with the signing of the Mecca accord that rendered Fatah a junior member of Hamas's ruling coalition. The Mecca accord also signaled a shift in the Arab world's sympathies from Fatah to Hamas. That agreement then paved the way for Hamas's violent ouster of Fatah forces from Gaza in June 2007 and its rising challenge to Fatah's leadership in Judea and Samaria.
It should be pointed out that Hamas's victory over Fatah was not a victory of extremists over moderates in any real sense of the terms. Both Hamas and Fatah share the aim of destroying Israel. This was made clear most recently in the lead-up to the Annapolis conference last November. As US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced the coming of peace, Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas refused to recognize Israel's right to exist.
Moreover, there is little to distinguish between the groups' embrace of terrorism as a means of achieving their aim of destroying Israel. Fatah forces have carried out more attacks against Israel than Hamas has.
Hamas's refusal to even pretend that it is willing to live at peace with Israel is what distinguishes it from Fatah. And the Palestinians' embrace of Hamas after Israel withdrew from Gaza demonstrated that the withdrawal increased the popularity of the prospect of continuous war against Israel among the Palestinians.
Hamas's rise to power has changed the nature of the Palestinian conflict with Israel in a fundamental way. It is not simply that Hamas has abandoned the rhetoric of Arab nationalism for the rhetoric of Islamic jihad and so changed the nature of the Palestinian war from a limited struggle to an unlimited war for Islamic domination.
Unlike Fatah, which was beholden to several Islamic countries at once, Hamas is a wholly-owned Iranian proxy. Consequently Gaza, like Lebanon, has become an Iranian colony. And as Hamas's star rises in Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem and within the Israeli Arab community, Iran's influence over events in those quarters rises. This was made clear this week with the revelation that Khaled Kashkoush, an Israeli Arab from Kalansuwa, last month became the latest Israeli Arab arrested for spying for Hizbullah."
"Israel's prolonged failure to reckon with the disastrous outcome of the Gaza withdrawal bodes ill for the country's prospects. Until the country reckons with the mistakes that led to that withdrawal, and forces those responsible to account for their failings, we will be doomed to repeat those mistakes with those same incompetents leading us over and over and over."
Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Christians in the Middle East Need our Help!
Christians in the Middle East Need Our Help
Thursday, July 31, 2008
By: Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein
In the daily drumbeat of Mideast news,
there is one story of historic proportion that is nearly unreported: the growing persecution and systematic destruction in the Islamic world of some of the world’s oldest Christian communities.
Sure, we hear when a Catholic bishop is murdered in Iraq, when machete-armed fanatics attack Egyptian Copt worshipers, or when churches are torched in Hamas-controlled Gaza.
But what about the jailing in Saudi Arabia of foreign workers for holding forbidden Christian prayers? Or the arrest in Pakistan of a Christian man for marrying a Muslim woman? Or the continuing Islamic educational system that teaches the young that Christians (as well as Jews) are “the descendants of apes and pigs”?
The pattern is nearly the same wherever extremist Islam holds sway. From Bangladesh to Darfur, Christians have become regular targets for Islamic thugs and the governments that back them. Just this month, a Pakistani court upheld the kidnapping, conversion and “marriage” to older Moslem men of two Christian sisters, aged 10 and 13.
Yet even in lands that are not under orthodox Sharia law, Christian communities feel the pressure of persecution. In constitutionally secular Turkey, a legally recognized Protestant church in the capital of Ankara is under threat of closure by local Islamist police.
Many Christians in Islamic lands have become subject to such terror that they are fleeing the homelands their ancestors have known almost since the time of Jesus. Iraq’s Christian sects now feel forced to pray in secret. Others simply leave. Although they comprise less than four percent of Iraq’s population, Iraqi Christians now account for 40 per cent of its refugees.
Lebanon’s once politically powerful Christian community has already shrunken almost beyond recognition. Thirty years ago, Lebanon was 60% Christian; today it is barely 25%. The growing political power of Iran-backed Hezbollah is encouraging further departures.
Even in the Holy Land, where Jesus walked, there is an increasing Christian exodus from both the West Bank and Gaza. Part of it surely stems from the continuing Palestinian- Israeli conflict. But much of it results from a growing Islamic campaign to force Christians to sell their property and leave. Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, was once 90% Christian. Today it has a 65% Moslem majority.
The only place in the Mideast where Christian communities continue to grow is in the Jewish State of Israel. Israel’s tolerance is logical. What people of faith knows the dangers of religious persecution better than the people of Israel – especially those whose families originated in the Islamic world? Between 1948 and 1956 more than 850,000 Jews were forced to flee the Arab lands where their families had lived for centuries.
Most found new homes in Israel; others settled in Western Europe and the Americas. Today there are almost no Jews in the Arab world. In Egypt, where 180,000 Jews once lived, there are fewer than 80. In Iraq, where Jews once comprised a third of Baghdad, there are possibly ten left. In Libya, there are none.
For much of Islamic history there was relative tolerance of both Jews and Christians. Though never treated as equals to Moslems, they were accepted as Dhimmi – protected minorities.
Today there seems to be a dangerous tendency in many Muslim nations to neither respect nor try to preserve the historic sanctity of these once sheltered cultures and faiths.
When Afghan fanatics destroyed two ancient statues of Buddha, the world was shocked. But the world should not forgot that between 1948 and 1967, when Islamic forces controlled the Holy City of Jerusalem, there was a systematic campaign to erase the historic Jewish presence. Synagogues were destroyed and ancient Jewish gravestones carted away. Even today, the Palestinian Authority not only denies Israel’s right to consider itself a Jewish state, but denies the historic Jewish connection to Jerusalem. It is an empty effort to enhance the Palestinian political narrative at the expense of others’ hard earned history.
If there is a hope of true peace in the Middle East, extremist Islam must reform its view of others. It cannot go on teaching that non-Islamic history in the Middle East is “fiction.”
There is a sacred opportunity now to take up the call for the Islamic world’s hard-pressed and ever shrinking Christian communities. All people of commitment and tolerance - Christian, Jew, and Moslem - should speak out loudly and forcefully so that the Islamic world’s Christians do not suffer the same fate as its now all but non-existent Jewish communities.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
By: Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein
In the daily drumbeat of Mideast news,
there is one story of historic proportion that is nearly unreported: the growing persecution and systematic destruction in the Islamic world of some of the world’s oldest Christian communities.
Sure, we hear when a Catholic bishop is murdered in Iraq, when machete-armed fanatics attack Egyptian Copt worshipers, or when churches are torched in Hamas-controlled Gaza.
But what about the jailing in Saudi Arabia of foreign workers for holding forbidden Christian prayers? Or the arrest in Pakistan of a Christian man for marrying a Muslim woman? Or the continuing Islamic educational system that teaches the young that Christians (as well as Jews) are “the descendants of apes and pigs”?
The pattern is nearly the same wherever extremist Islam holds sway. From Bangladesh to Darfur, Christians have become regular targets for Islamic thugs and the governments that back them. Just this month, a Pakistani court upheld the kidnapping, conversion and “marriage” to older Moslem men of two Christian sisters, aged 10 and 13.
Yet even in lands that are not under orthodox Sharia law, Christian communities feel the pressure of persecution. In constitutionally secular Turkey, a legally recognized Protestant church in the capital of Ankara is under threat of closure by local Islamist police.
Many Christians in Islamic lands have become subject to such terror that they are fleeing the homelands their ancestors have known almost since the time of Jesus. Iraq’s Christian sects now feel forced to pray in secret. Others simply leave. Although they comprise less than four percent of Iraq’s population, Iraqi Christians now account for 40 per cent of its refugees.
Lebanon’s once politically powerful Christian community has already shrunken almost beyond recognition. Thirty years ago, Lebanon was 60% Christian; today it is barely 25%. The growing political power of Iran-backed Hezbollah is encouraging further departures.
Even in the Holy Land, where Jesus walked, there is an increasing Christian exodus from both the West Bank and Gaza. Part of it surely stems from the continuing Palestinian- Israeli conflict. But much of it results from a growing Islamic campaign to force Christians to sell their property and leave. Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, was once 90% Christian. Today it has a 65% Moslem majority.
The only place in the Mideast where Christian communities continue to grow is in the Jewish State of Israel. Israel’s tolerance is logical. What people of faith knows the dangers of religious persecution better than the people of Israel – especially those whose families originated in the Islamic world? Between 1948 and 1956 more than 850,000 Jews were forced to flee the Arab lands where their families had lived for centuries.
Most found new homes in Israel; others settled in Western Europe and the Americas. Today there are almost no Jews in the Arab world. In Egypt, where 180,000 Jews once lived, there are fewer than 80. In Iraq, where Jews once comprised a third of Baghdad, there are possibly ten left. In Libya, there are none.
For much of Islamic history there was relative tolerance of both Jews and Christians. Though never treated as equals to Moslems, they were accepted as Dhimmi – protected minorities.
Today there seems to be a dangerous tendency in many Muslim nations to neither respect nor try to preserve the historic sanctity of these once sheltered cultures and faiths.
When Afghan fanatics destroyed two ancient statues of Buddha, the world was shocked. But the world should not forgot that between 1948 and 1967, when Islamic forces controlled the Holy City of Jerusalem, there was a systematic campaign to erase the historic Jewish presence. Synagogues were destroyed and ancient Jewish gravestones carted away. Even today, the Palestinian Authority not only denies Israel’s right to consider itself a Jewish state, but denies the historic Jewish connection to Jerusalem. It is an empty effort to enhance the Palestinian political narrative at the expense of others’ hard earned history.
If there is a hope of true peace in the Middle East, extremist Islam must reform its view of others. It cannot go on teaching that non-Islamic history in the Middle East is “fiction.”
There is a sacred opportunity now to take up the call for the Islamic world’s hard-pressed and ever shrinking Christian communities. All people of commitment and tolerance - Christian, Jew, and Moslem - should speak out loudly and forcefully so that the Islamic world’s Christians do not suffer the same fate as its now all but non-existent Jewish communities.
SHIMON PERES & EHUD BARAK: REACHING PEACE
Israeli President Shimon Peres, architect of the Oslo process and the concessionary policy of successive Israeli governments since 1993, and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, both of whom embraced and applauded Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas as moderates, have conceded that there is no chance of peace with Palestinian Authority (PA) regime presided over by Mahmoud Abbas, prime minister Salaam Fayyad and the PA. President Peres' remarks were not delivered openly to the media but were made at a dinner party with the Jordanian and French ambassadors held at the home of Defense Minister Ehud Barak in Tel Aviv on Saturday.
Reports state that that at the end of the meal, an argument erupted between the Jordanian envoy, Ali Ayed, and a well-known but unidentified attorney, described as "dovish," who said Israel had no chance of reaching an agreement with Abbas' PA. Barak supported this assessment and Mr. Peres then intervened, "surprising the participants by joining the attorney's prediction. 'It would be very hard to reach an agreement,' Peres said, due to the Hamas-Fatah split. He said Abbas had no support among his people, no power to carry out security agreements and that any agreement Israel and the PA made crumbled a day later due to the PA's weakness. Therefore there is no chance of agreement" (Yossi Verter, 'Peres: No chance of peace with Palestinians,' Haaretz, July 4, 2008).
Mr. Peres reportedly made a subsequent call to Abbas to deny that he had made these statements and that he had not changed his position of support for the peace process. ('President Receives Phone Call from Israeli President,' WAFA Palestine news Agency, July 6, 2008).
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, "Shimon Peres' remarks at the dinner party in Tel Aviv confirm what many have long suspected: that even some of the pioneers of the Oslo process understand today that it was a mistake that has not and cannot lead to peace. It is perplexing as to why they continue to go through the motions of supporting a hopeless diplomatic process with Mahmoud Abbas and the PA.
"We strongly urge Prime Minister Olmert to finally acknowledge the truth as Peres and Barak have, stating that peace with Abbas is impossible, not only because he lacks the ability to do it, but because he is unwilling to do it – as evidenced by the facts that he hasn't changed the Fatah Constitution, calling for Israel's destruction and terrorism, hasn't arrested terrorists and hasn't ended incitement to hatred and murder in the PA-controlled media, mosques, schools and youth camps that feeds terror. We strongly urge AIPAC, the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress, and other Jewish organizations to publicly and finally acknowledge and make decisions based upon the fact that Abbas, Fayyad and the PA have no interest in peace with the Jewish state, only an interest to end the existence of the Jewish state.
"Mr. Peres subsequently denied that he had said any of this but it is noteworthy that he did not say that he believed that continuing negotiations with Abbas would actually lead to peace.
"Just as many Israeli officials have acknowledged that the 2005 Sharon-Olmert Gaza withdrawal was a disastrous and tragic mistake, it is high time to acknowledge that Oslo, the Roadmap and negotiations with Abbas have also been tragic mistakes that must come to an end immediately. Israel must insist that there be no negotiations and concessions until and unless the PA fulfill all terms of the 15 year old Oslo agreements."
Reports state that that at the end of the meal, an argument erupted between the Jordanian envoy, Ali Ayed, and a well-known but unidentified attorney, described as "dovish," who said Israel had no chance of reaching an agreement with Abbas' PA. Barak supported this assessment and Mr. Peres then intervened, "surprising the participants by joining the attorney's prediction. 'It would be very hard to reach an agreement,' Peres said, due to the Hamas-Fatah split. He said Abbas had no support among his people, no power to carry out security agreements and that any agreement Israel and the PA made crumbled a day later due to the PA's weakness. Therefore there is no chance of agreement" (Yossi Verter, 'Peres: No chance of peace with Palestinians,' Haaretz, July 4, 2008).
Mr. Peres reportedly made a subsequent call to Abbas to deny that he had made these statements and that he had not changed his position of support for the peace process. ('President Receives Phone Call from Israeli President,' WAFA Palestine news Agency, July 6, 2008).
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, "Shimon Peres' remarks at the dinner party in Tel Aviv confirm what many have long suspected: that even some of the pioneers of the Oslo process understand today that it was a mistake that has not and cannot lead to peace. It is perplexing as to why they continue to go through the motions of supporting a hopeless diplomatic process with Mahmoud Abbas and the PA.
"We strongly urge Prime Minister Olmert to finally acknowledge the truth as Peres and Barak have, stating that peace with Abbas is impossible, not only because he lacks the ability to do it, but because he is unwilling to do it – as evidenced by the facts that he hasn't changed the Fatah Constitution, calling for Israel's destruction and terrorism, hasn't arrested terrorists and hasn't ended incitement to hatred and murder in the PA-controlled media, mosques, schools and youth camps that feeds terror. We strongly urge AIPAC, the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress, and other Jewish organizations to publicly and finally acknowledge and make decisions based upon the fact that Abbas, Fayyad and the PA have no interest in peace with the Jewish state, only an interest to end the existence of the Jewish state.
"Mr. Peres subsequently denied that he had said any of this but it is noteworthy that he did not say that he believed that continuing negotiations with Abbas would actually lead to peace.
"Just as many Israeli officials have acknowledged that the 2005 Sharon-Olmert Gaza withdrawal was a disastrous and tragic mistake, it is high time to acknowledge that Oslo, the Roadmap and negotiations with Abbas have also been tragic mistakes that must come to an end immediately. Israel must insist that there be no negotiations and concessions until and unless the PA fulfill all terms of the 15 year old Oslo agreements."
In the daily drumbeat of Mideast news,
there is one story of historic proportion that is nearly unreported: the growing persecution and systematic destruction in the Islamic world of some of the world’s oldest Christian communities.
Sure, we hear when a Catholic bishop is murdered in Iraq, when machete-armed fanatics attack Egyptian Copt worshipers, or when churches are torched in Hamas-controlled Gaza.
But what about the jailing in Saudi Arabia of foreign workers for holding forbidden Christian prayers? Or the arrest in Pakistan of a Christian man for marrying a Muslim woman? Or the continuing Islamic educational system that teaches the young that Christians (as well as Jews) are “the descendants of apes and pigs”?
The pattern is nearly the same wherever extremist Islam holds sway. From Bangladesh to Darfur, Christians have become regular targets for Islamic thugs and the governments that back them. Just this month, a Pakistani court upheld the kidnapping, conversion and “marriage” to older Moslem men of two Christian sisters, aged 10 and 13.
Yet even in lands that are not under orthodox Sharia law, Christian communities feel the pressure of persecution. In constitutionally secular Turkey, a legally recognized Protestant church in the capital of Ankara is under threat of closure by local Islamist police.
Many Christians in Islamic lands have become subject to such terror that they are fleeing the homelands their ancestors have known almost since the time of Jesus. Iraq’s Christian sects now feel forced to pray in secret. Others simply leave. Although they comprise less than four percent of Iraq’s population, Iraqi Christians now account for 40 per cent of its refugees.
Lebanon’s once politically powerful Christian community has already shrunken almost beyond recognition. Thirty years ago, Lebanon was 60% Christian; today it is barely 25%. The growing political power of Iran-backed Hezbollah is encouraging further departures.
Even in the Holy Land, where Jesus walked, there is an increasing Christian exodus from both the West Bank and Gaza. Part of it surely stems from the continuing Palestinian- Israeli conflict. But much of it results from a growing Islamic campaign to force Christians to sell their property and leave. Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, was once 90% Christian. Today it has a 65% Moslem majority.
The only place in the Mideast where Christian communities continue to grow is in the Jewish State of Israel. Israel’s tolerance is logical. What people of faith knows the dangers of religious persecution better than the people of Israel – especially those whose families originated in the Islamic world? Between 1948 and 1956 more than 850,000 Jews were forced to flee the Arab lands where their families had lived for centuries.
Most found new homes in Israel; others settled in Western Europe and the Americas. Today there are almost no Jews in the Arab world. In Egypt, where 180,000 Jews once lived, there are fewer than 80. In Iraq, where Jews once comprised a third of Baghdad, there are possibly ten left. In Libya, there are none.
For much of Islamic history there was relative tolerance of both Jews and Christians. Though never treated as equals to Moslems, they were accepted as Dhimmi – protected minorities.
Today there seems to be a dangerous tendency in many Muslim nations to neither respect nor try to preserve the historic sanctity of these once sheltered cultures and faiths.
When Afghan fanatics destroyed two ancient statues of Buddha, the world was shocked. But the world should not forgot that between 1948 and 1967, when Islamic forces controlled the Holy City of Jerusalem, there was a systematic campaign to erase the historic Jewish presence. Synagogues were destroyed and ancient Jewish gravestones carted away. Even today, the Palestinian Authority not only denies Israel’s right to consider itself a Jewish state, but denies the historic Jewish connection to Jerusalem. It is an empty effort to enhance the Palestinian political narrative at the expense of others’ hard earned history.
If there is a hope of true peace in the Middle East, extremist Islam must reform its view of others. It cannot go on teaching that non-Islamic history in the Middle East is “fiction.”
There is a sacred opportunity now to take up the call for the Islamic world’s hard-pressed and ever shrinking Christian communities. All people of commitment and tolerance - Christian, Jew, and Moslem - should speak out loudly and forcefully so that the Islamic world’s Christians do not suffer the same fate as its now all but non-existent Jewish communities.
there is one story of historic proportion that is nearly unreported: the growing persecution and systematic destruction in the Islamic world of some of the world’s oldest Christian communities.
Sure, we hear when a Catholic bishop is murdered in Iraq, when machete-armed fanatics attack Egyptian Copt worshipers, or when churches are torched in Hamas-controlled Gaza.
But what about the jailing in Saudi Arabia of foreign workers for holding forbidden Christian prayers? Or the arrest in Pakistan of a Christian man for marrying a Muslim woman? Or the continuing Islamic educational system that teaches the young that Christians (as well as Jews) are “the descendants of apes and pigs”?
The pattern is nearly the same wherever extremist Islam holds sway. From Bangladesh to Darfur, Christians have become regular targets for Islamic thugs and the governments that back them. Just this month, a Pakistani court upheld the kidnapping, conversion and “marriage” to older Moslem men of two Christian sisters, aged 10 and 13.
Yet even in lands that are not under orthodox Sharia law, Christian communities feel the pressure of persecution. In constitutionally secular Turkey, a legally recognized Protestant church in the capital of Ankara is under threat of closure by local Islamist police.
Many Christians in Islamic lands have become subject to such terror that they are fleeing the homelands their ancestors have known almost since the time of Jesus. Iraq’s Christian sects now feel forced to pray in secret. Others simply leave. Although they comprise less than four percent of Iraq’s population, Iraqi Christians now account for 40 per cent of its refugees.
Lebanon’s once politically powerful Christian community has already shrunken almost beyond recognition. Thirty years ago, Lebanon was 60% Christian; today it is barely 25%. The growing political power of Iran-backed Hezbollah is encouraging further departures.
Even in the Holy Land, where Jesus walked, there is an increasing Christian exodus from both the West Bank and Gaza. Part of it surely stems from the continuing Palestinian- Israeli conflict. But much of it results from a growing Islamic campaign to force Christians to sell their property and leave. Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, was once 90% Christian. Today it has a 65% Moslem majority.
The only place in the Mideast where Christian communities continue to grow is in the Jewish State of Israel. Israel’s tolerance is logical. What people of faith knows the dangers of religious persecution better than the people of Israel – especially those whose families originated in the Islamic world? Between 1948 and 1956 more than 850,000 Jews were forced to flee the Arab lands where their families had lived for centuries.
Most found new homes in Israel; others settled in Western Europe and the Americas. Today there are almost no Jews in the Arab world. In Egypt, where 180,000 Jews once lived, there are fewer than 80. In Iraq, where Jews once comprised a third of Baghdad, there are possibly ten left. In Libya, there are none.
For much of Islamic history there was relative tolerance of both Jews and Christians. Though never treated as equals to Moslems, they were accepted as Dhimmi – protected minorities.
Today there seems to be a dangerous tendency in many Muslim nations to neither respect nor try to preserve the historic sanctity of these once sheltered cultures and faiths.
When Afghan fanatics destroyed two ancient statues of Buddha, the world was shocked. But the world should not forgot that between 1948 and 1967, when Islamic forces controlled the Holy City of Jerusalem, there was a systematic campaign to erase the historic Jewish presence. Synagogues were destroyed and ancient Jewish gravestones carted away. Even today, the Palestinian Authority not only denies Israel’s right to consider itself a Jewish state, but denies the historic Jewish connection to Jerusalem. It is an empty effort to enhance the Palestinian political narrative at the expense of others’ hard earned history.
If there is a hope of true peace in the Middle East, extremist Islam must reform its view of others. It cannot go on teaching that non-Islamic history in the Middle East is “fiction.”
There is a sacred opportunity now to take up the call for the Islamic world’s hard-pressed and ever shrinking Christian communities. All people of commitment and tolerance - Christian, Jew, and Moslem - should speak out loudly and forcefully so that the Islamic world’s Christians do not suffer the same fate as its now all but non-existent Jewish communities.
Dangers Worse than Clinton's
By HILLEL HALKIN | July 22, 2008
http://www.nysun.com/opinion/dangers-worse-than-clintons/82326/
Senator Obama's visit to Israel and the Palestinian Authority, which began yesterday and ends tomorrow, is unlikely to have any surprises. Mr. Obama is at that stage of a presidential campaign where every word is carefully scripted. When it comes to Israel and the Palestinian-Arabs, his main concern right now is to offend no one, whether in Jerusalem, Ramallah, or the American Jewish and Arab communities. His coaches and speech writers can be counted on to paddle him safely through the rapids of these three days.
Still, it is already possible to form some idea of what an Obama presidency would mean for the Middle East. From an Israeli point of view, it need not necessarily be a catastrophe. Mr. Obama never was and is not the anti-Israel figure that some right-wing Jewish circles nastily attempted to portray him as during his primary campaign. He will support Israel on many issues just as nearly all American presidents have done before him.
But an Obama presidency will not be a great boon to Israel, either. Essentially, it will mean a return to the Clinton years, with their quite literal even-handedness that was expressed as one arm hugging Yitzhak Rabin on the White House lawn and the other hugging Yasser Arafat. President Bush, it will be recalled, not only did not put any arms around Arafat, he refused to let him tread on a blade of White House grass. Mr. Obama, who has repeatedly stressed the importance of talking to one's adversaries, will be, like Mr. Clinton, less finicky.
This will not work to Israel's advantage. In a world in which the geo-strategic scales weigh heavily against Israel to begin with, American even-handedness does nothing to improve the balance. An Israel that continues to receive American support at the same time that America woos the Palestinian Authority and Syria, and possibly even Hamas and Hezbollah, will have a harder time defending its vital interests.
But what is most worrisome about Mr. Obama from Israel's point of view is not his likely return to the charted territory of American even-handedness in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Israel has lived with such presidencies in the past, taking advantage of their friendship and resisting their pressures as best it can, and it can live with another one, too. The worrisome thing, rather, is Mr. Obama's attitude toward the uncharted territories of Iraq and Iran.
Mr. Obama's recent pronouncements that America should be putting less effort into Iraq and more into Afghanistan, since the latter is the more important of the two countries for American interests, is shockingly poorly informed. Afghanistan, apart from serving as a base for Muslim jihadists, who are mobile and can easily move their operations elsewhere, has no strategic value at all. It is a poor, land-locked country without natural resources or international importance, and while it would be a great blow to American prestige to lose it, which is an excellent reason to avoid doing so, its loss would have little material significance for America and none at all for Israel.
The importance of Iraq, on the other hand, can hardly be exaggerated. It is a country with huge oil reserves and sits next to other such countries and astride their transportation routes; along with Egypt, it has always been, historically and in modern times, a hub of the entire Arab world; and whatever happens in it will have an enormous effect on that world. If it is stabilized and even just partially democratized, it will be a significant force for political moderation and modernization in the Middle East; if it is radicalized and falls into the hands of Islamist extremists, it will join the Iranian-Syrian axis. The notion that it should be sacrificed for Afghanistan reveals atrociously bad judgment.
Mr. Obama's position on Iran is, if anything, even more naïve. If he thinks it does not matter whether Iran obtains atomic weapons or not, and that a nuclear Iran, although a threat to Israel, would be none to America, let him say so. This might be a difficult stand to defend, but at least it would have an internal consistency.
But to proclaim, as Mr. Obama has been doing, that a nuclear Iran is a threat to America while insisting in the same breath that the problem must be solved peacefully by diplomatic negotiations, is unbelievably innocent. It should be obvious by now to any newspaper reader that, in the absence of a credible military threat to their nuclear program, the Iranians have no intention of negotiating it away and view diplomatic talks as a tactic for gaining time while their centrifuges spin. The only alternative either to acquiescing in a nuclear Iran or launching a military strike is convincing the Iranians that one is seriously thinking of such a strike — which is precisely what Mr. Obama refuses to do.
It is the naïveté of such views that is most disturbing. Israel has always had to deal with a certain amount of American cynicism in the Middle East, whether this consisted of selling advanced military equipment to Arab regimes that didn't need it or talking eloquently about democracy while cozying up to autocratic Arab governments. And yet cynicism, of which Mr. Clinton had a great deal, at least understands the power relationships that prevail in this world. Naïveté does not. This is why, for Israel, an Obama presidency could be dangerous in a way that a Clinton one never was.
Mr. Halkin is a contributing editor of The New York Sun.
http://www.nysun.com/opinion/dangers-worse-than-clintons/82326/
Senator Obama's visit to Israel and the Palestinian Authority, which began yesterday and ends tomorrow, is unlikely to have any surprises. Mr. Obama is at that stage of a presidential campaign where every word is carefully scripted. When it comes to Israel and the Palestinian-Arabs, his main concern right now is to offend no one, whether in Jerusalem, Ramallah, or the American Jewish and Arab communities. His coaches and speech writers can be counted on to paddle him safely through the rapids of these three days.
Still, it is already possible to form some idea of what an Obama presidency would mean for the Middle East. From an Israeli point of view, it need not necessarily be a catastrophe. Mr. Obama never was and is not the anti-Israel figure that some right-wing Jewish circles nastily attempted to portray him as during his primary campaign. He will support Israel on many issues just as nearly all American presidents have done before him.
But an Obama presidency will not be a great boon to Israel, either. Essentially, it will mean a return to the Clinton years, with their quite literal even-handedness that was expressed as one arm hugging Yitzhak Rabin on the White House lawn and the other hugging Yasser Arafat. President Bush, it will be recalled, not only did not put any arms around Arafat, he refused to let him tread on a blade of White House grass. Mr. Obama, who has repeatedly stressed the importance of talking to one's adversaries, will be, like Mr. Clinton, less finicky.
This will not work to Israel's advantage. In a world in which the geo-strategic scales weigh heavily against Israel to begin with, American even-handedness does nothing to improve the balance. An Israel that continues to receive American support at the same time that America woos the Palestinian Authority and Syria, and possibly even Hamas and Hezbollah, will have a harder time defending its vital interests.
But what is most worrisome about Mr. Obama from Israel's point of view is not his likely return to the charted territory of American even-handedness in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Israel has lived with such presidencies in the past, taking advantage of their friendship and resisting their pressures as best it can, and it can live with another one, too. The worrisome thing, rather, is Mr. Obama's attitude toward the uncharted territories of Iraq and Iran.
Mr. Obama's recent pronouncements that America should be putting less effort into Iraq and more into Afghanistan, since the latter is the more important of the two countries for American interests, is shockingly poorly informed. Afghanistan, apart from serving as a base for Muslim jihadists, who are mobile and can easily move their operations elsewhere, has no strategic value at all. It is a poor, land-locked country without natural resources or international importance, and while it would be a great blow to American prestige to lose it, which is an excellent reason to avoid doing so, its loss would have little material significance for America and none at all for Israel.
The importance of Iraq, on the other hand, can hardly be exaggerated. It is a country with huge oil reserves and sits next to other such countries and astride their transportation routes; along with Egypt, it has always been, historically and in modern times, a hub of the entire Arab world; and whatever happens in it will have an enormous effect on that world. If it is stabilized and even just partially democratized, it will be a significant force for political moderation and modernization in the Middle East; if it is radicalized and falls into the hands of Islamist extremists, it will join the Iranian-Syrian axis. The notion that it should be sacrificed for Afghanistan reveals atrociously bad judgment.
Mr. Obama's position on Iran is, if anything, even more naïve. If he thinks it does not matter whether Iran obtains atomic weapons or not, and that a nuclear Iran, although a threat to Israel, would be none to America, let him say so. This might be a difficult stand to defend, but at least it would have an internal consistency.
But to proclaim, as Mr. Obama has been doing, that a nuclear Iran is a threat to America while insisting in the same breath that the problem must be solved peacefully by diplomatic negotiations, is unbelievably innocent. It should be obvious by now to any newspaper reader that, in the absence of a credible military threat to their nuclear program, the Iranians have no intention of negotiating it away and view diplomatic talks as a tactic for gaining time while their centrifuges spin. The only alternative either to acquiescing in a nuclear Iran or launching a military strike is convincing the Iranians that one is seriously thinking of such a strike — which is precisely what Mr. Obama refuses to do.
It is the naïveté of such views that is most disturbing. Israel has always had to deal with a certain amount of American cynicism in the Middle East, whether this consisted of selling advanced military equipment to Arab regimes that didn't need it or talking eloquently about democracy while cozying up to autocratic Arab governments. And yet cynicism, of which Mr. Clinton had a great deal, at least understands the power relationships that prevail in this world. Naïveté does not. This is why, for Israel, an Obama presidency could be dangerous in a way that a Clinton one never was.
Mr. Halkin is a contributing editor of The New York Sun.
ACTION ALERT!!
Action Alert:
Contact your Representative now to express your support for the Knollenberg-Scott letter seeking clarification of U.S. Policy on the Shebaa Farms/Har Dov issue and urge them to sign on to the letter.
The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) supports the Knollenberg-Scott letter seeking clarification from Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice of actual U.S. policy on the Shebaa farms/Har Dov issue. The ZOA applauds Rep. Joe Knollenberg (R-MI, 9th District) and Rep. David Scott (D-GA, 13th District) for stepping across party lines to come together on this issue, and calls upon their colleagues in the House of Representatives to sign onto this letter as soon as possible. The full text of the letter can be viewed as a pdf here: [link to PDF to be inserted here]. The deadline for signing on to this letter is Friday, August 1st.
As the Knollenberg-Scott letter states: “United States and international policy has consistently stated the Shebaa farms are not occupied Lebanese territory.”
Shebaa Farms/Har Dov is an area captured by Israel from Syria in the Arab war against Israel in 1967 and is not part of Lebanon. Indeed, the Israeli-Lebanese border was fully demarcated in 2000 by the United Nations, which found that Israel had completely withdrawn from Lebanese territory. Forcing Israel to relinquish this area to Lebanon is a stated objective of Hizballah, the Islamic Republic of Iran’s proxy army in the region. So any call to re-open the issue is a reward for Hizballah, and thus a further reward to Iran.
Yet last month U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice told reporters after meeting with Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora that “the United States believes that the time has come to deal with the Shebaa Farms issue...in accordance with [U.N. Security Council Resolution] 1701.”
The Knollenberg-Scott letter clearly points out just how troubling this seeming reversal of United States Policy is, explains and highlights the facts and history of the issue, and respectfully asks Secretary Rice to clarify the current position of the Bush administration regarding the Shebaa Farms.
We encourage you to contact your Representative to express your support for the Knollenberg-Scott letter on the Shebaa farms issue and urge them to sign onto this letter.
Phone 202-224-3121 & ask for your Member of the House of Representatives. Alternatively, you can obtain this information through our website here by CLICKING HERE.
Contact your Representative now to express your support for the Knollenberg-Scott letter seeking clarification of U.S. Policy on the Shebaa Farms/Har Dov issue and urge them to sign on to the letter.
The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) supports the Knollenberg-Scott letter seeking clarification from Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice of actual U.S. policy on the Shebaa farms/Har Dov issue. The ZOA applauds Rep. Joe Knollenberg (R-MI, 9th District) and Rep. David Scott (D-GA, 13th District) for stepping across party lines to come together on this issue, and calls upon their colleagues in the House of Representatives to sign onto this letter as soon as possible. The full text of the letter can be viewed as a pdf here: [link to PDF to be inserted here]. The deadline for signing on to this letter is Friday, August 1st.
As the Knollenberg-Scott letter states: “United States and international policy has consistently stated the Shebaa farms are not occupied Lebanese territory.”
Shebaa Farms/Har Dov is an area captured by Israel from Syria in the Arab war against Israel in 1967 and is not part of Lebanon. Indeed, the Israeli-Lebanese border was fully demarcated in 2000 by the United Nations, which found that Israel had completely withdrawn from Lebanese territory. Forcing Israel to relinquish this area to Lebanon is a stated objective of Hizballah, the Islamic Republic of Iran’s proxy army in the region. So any call to re-open the issue is a reward for Hizballah, and thus a further reward to Iran.
Yet last month U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice told reporters after meeting with Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora that “the United States believes that the time has come to deal with the Shebaa Farms issue...in accordance with [U.N. Security Council Resolution] 1701.”
The Knollenberg-Scott letter clearly points out just how troubling this seeming reversal of United States Policy is, explains and highlights the facts and history of the issue, and respectfully asks Secretary Rice to clarify the current position of the Bush administration regarding the Shebaa Farms.
We encourage you to contact your Representative to express your support for the Knollenberg-Scott letter on the Shebaa farms issue and urge them to sign onto this letter.
Phone 202-224-3121 & ask for your Member of the House of Representatives. Alternatively, you can obtain this information through our website here by CLICKING HERE.
More of the brilliant Caroline Glick
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=7C53C756-DDB5-4852-B488-8F11CC2BB4B0
Shackled Warrior
By Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com | Tuesday, July 01, 2008
Frontpage Interview's guest today is Caroline B. Glick, the senior Middle East Fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC and the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post. She is the author of the new book, Shackled Warrior: Israel and the Global Jihad.
FP: Caroline B. Glick, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
Glick: Great to be here.
FP: What are the key threats facing Israel and the West today?
Glick: There are several key threats, some are military, some are economic and some are cultural. All complement each other in ways that compound the dangers to the free world – with Israel as its frontline outpost.
There are four basic threats facing the world today. The first is Iran's quest for regional dominance and global prominence which it advances primarily through the support of Islamist insurgencies regionally and the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Second is the totalitarian jihadist ideology which is ascendant throughout the Islamic world. Third is the West's inability to break its dependence on Arab oil. And fourth is the West's cultural insecurity and malaise and increasingly, its self-hatred.
The first two threats are physical and ideological challenges to the West's survival. The third – the West's economic dependence on Arab oil – has brought about the perverse situation where the free world is bankrolling its enemies' war efforts. And the fourth, Western cultural malaise which is approaching collapse in Europe and among the American and Israeli intellectual and cultural elites makes it impossible for nations to defend themselves against the physical threats, to consider ways to actively replace oil as the primary energy source for our economies, or to present a coherent and attractive alternative to Islamic totalitarianism for Muslim societies and minorities in the West.
FP: What can – and what should – the U.S. and Israel do about Iran?
Glick: Former US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton and others have said repeatedly for the past several years, the US has two options for dealing with Iran. It can work to overthrow the regime or it can attack Iran militarily with the aim of setting back its nuclear weapons program for several years. Israel has less capacity to incite a popular insurrection against the regime, although it certainly could stir a bit of chaos in the country by arming some of the disaffected groups there.
The second option is to destroy Iran's nuclear installations and kill its nuclear scientists. Bombing the installations will set Iran's program back long enough to actually take concerted steps to bring down the regime. Killing Iran's nuclear scientists will make it impossible for Iran to rebuild its nuclear weapons program for the foreseeable future.
While pushing for regime change seemed like a viable path to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons four years ago, today it may be too late. Iran is already so close to nuclear capabilities. There simply isn't enough time.
That this is the fact is the fault of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who decided to follow Europe's lead in on the one hand offering Iran generous payoffs to suspend its uranium enrichment program, and on the other hand, attempting to persuade the Russians and Chinese to pass sanctions against Iran in the UN Security Council. This policy has given Iran four years of unimpeded freedom to pursue its nuclear weapons program. And the Mossad now projects that it could be within months of acquiring the bomb.
Far from working to curb the mullahs' enthusiasm for acquiring the means of genocide, the US and European soft-shoe approach to Iran's nuclear program has emboldened them to move forward with their program while increasing their terrorist aggression in Gaza, Lebanon, Afghanistan and Iraq. enrichment and begging Russia and China to go along with weak, ineffective sanctions resolutions in the UN Security Council has failed. If anything, Iran has been emboldened by this weak Western response to its aggressive behavior.
FP: Is there any hope in terms of the West's cultural insecurity, malaise and self-hatred? The central problem is that the Left controls the boundaries of discourse. What can ultimately be done -- if anything?
Glick: I see reasons for hope every day both here in Israel and around the world. It is true that the Left controls the boundaries of discourse but then, that discourse has become so absurd, so farcical that it cannot long sustain itself.
When university campuses are concerning themselves with transgender studies and teaching students that the 1968 campus riots were among the most triumphant events in US history, when here in Israel we have faculty saying that they will not reschedule exams for their students who are called to reserve duty during exam period because they do not make excuses for war criminals, and Israeli schoolchildren graduating from 12th grade knowing almost nothing about Jewish history, the people will simply abandon this discourse. Israelis are already forming new institutions to make up for the failings of the traditional ones controlled by the Left.
In the US, we see this with the blossoming of the Internet blogosphere, talk radio and other new institutions. The assumptions of the founding fathers in the US and of the Zionist revolutionaries in the early 20th century were correct. People are capable of making the right choices about their lives. And they are only going to put up with the powers that be for so long before they find their way to getting around them. So ultimately, the institutions that tell us who we are – the courts, schools, media, entertainment sectors, have to be transformed either from within or from without. And this is already happening.
FP: Why is Islamic fundamentalism such a threat?
Glick: You know, at first glance, it seems ridiculous to think that Islamic fundamentalism could be a threat and this is so for two reasons. First, it is so unappealing and unaesthetic to Westerners that it is hard to imagine that anyone could take it seriously. We cannot imagine for instance, women accepting a situation where they are treated worse than livestock in the 21st century. Who would wish to live like this? Who would wish this sort of misery on their daughters or mothers? It seems impossible to believe that a culture that enslaves half its members from the getgo and treats its religious minorities so horribly and has been responsible for so much poverty and suffering could possibly be of interest to anyone.
Moreover, there is the fact that Islamic totalitarianism professes itself to be a religion. In the largely post-religious or at least religiously tolerant West, it is hard to believe that a religious group consciously uses religion and proselytizing as a way to build cadres, Communist style to undermine Western civilization. We lack the cognitive tools – and the legal and policy tools – for contending with such a situation.
For these two reasons, we in the West have a very hard time understanding that Islamic totalitarianism exists, let alone that it is a threat.
The main reason that Islamic totalitarianism is a threat is because it is a supremacist movement that due to oil revenues and the absence of a Western cultural challenge of any significance has the ability to grow and attract adherents. With Persian Gulf petro-dollars behind it, it can overwhelm all voices preaching non-totalitarian and non-confrontational forms of Islam.
I think that were it not for the massive wealth accruing to the likes of the Saudi Arabians, the attraction of totalitarian Islam would be much smaller. Certainly the ability of Islamic totalitarians from Iran to Pakistan to London to Saudi Arabia to threaten Western civilization and Israel would be vastly decreased if they were forced to support themselves. But in the absence of Western willingness to embrace imperfect alternatives like methanol, coal, nuclear energy and domestic drilling, it seems that in the foreseeable future, the physical threat to the West and to Israel presented by Islamic totalitarianism will likely grow.
FP: Can you talk a bit about how certain forces in the West and in Israel practice self-deception in the face of the enemy?
Glick: One of the ways both Israelis and Westerners deceive themselves is by judging Islamic totalitarians by their words and not by their deeds. Whether it is Iran agreeing to meet with EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana for another worthless round of talks about the Iranian nuclear weapons program, CAIR's assertion that it is a civil rights movement, Israeli Arab parliamentarians who on the one hand commit treason by working actively for Israel's enemies and on the other hand defend their criminal acts as "free speech" or actions to defend against "racism," the Palestinian Fatah organization which claims it supports peace with Israel but then actively carries out terror attacks against Israel and colludes openly with Hamas and Islamic Jihad to bring about Israel's demise, or Hizbullah claiming that they are a Lebanese political movement when in fact they are Iran's foreign legion working to facilitate Iranian and Syrian control over Lebanon, we insist on believing their words and ignoring their deeds.
If you look at the level of public discourse in Israel and throughout the West regarding the strategic challenges our countries face as it has unfolded over the past eight years, you will see a studied refusal to acknowledge or recognize the significance of the actions of jihadists. Instead, you end up with reportage where statements by Western leaders are contrasted with statements by jihadists and treated as if they are of equal weight. Hence we get terms like "cycle of violence" when what we are really talking about is jihadist aggression.
Aside from that of course, there is the tendency to demonize those who do look at actions of the enemy and insist, indeed beg their governments in Israel and the West to take action to defend their countries and their interests. In the US, those who recognize the dangers are referred to as "neocons," or "chickenhawks." In Europe, they are referred to as Zionists or Americans. And in Israel they are pilloried as anti-peace. Then too, in the US and Europe and to a lesser degree in Israel, the cultural elites frighten the "hawks" who are really just realists into silence by threatening to call them racists. Finally, in Europe, voices calling for an acknowledgment of the Islamic totalitarian threat are silenced by jihadist intimidation and death threats, or in Theo Van Gogh's case, with murder.
FP: What are some of the strategies Israel and the West need to pursue to win the war against global jihad?
Glick: On a macroeconomic level, as people like R. James Woolsey, Gal Luft, Robert Zubrin, Frank Gaffney, Anne Korin and others have explained convincingly over the past several years, the West needs to end its addiction to foreign oil as quickly as possible. Energy security is a paramount issue. In Israel we have entrepreneurs working on changing Israel's small transportation market into one based on battery operating cars. This is an interesting concept and it will hopefully be successful. But overall, the West simply has to get its act together. For seven years under the Bush administration, the US has done essentially nothing as gasoline prices have gone from $20-$130 per gallon.
The culture wars in the West are also a key aspect of a winning strategy. We see many societies simply sinking into nothingness – places like Sweden and Norway come to mind most readily. And Britain for its part, seems to be on an inexorable decline towards collapse. When we do not understand who we are, we also cannot understand why who we are is worth defending. When we cannot assert our cultural and national identities, we cannot explain to either ourselves or Islamic totalitarians, why freedom is preferable to slavery.
Finally, we have to realize that people who call for global domination in the name of Islam and carry out acts of violence, and develop nuclear weapons are our enemies and that they are irreconcilable. They are fighting a war to the death against us and we need to fight back. We need to develop strategies aimed at defeating our irreconcilable foes and first and foremost among them is Iran. We have the means to win this war. We just have to understand why it is necessary to fight it.
FP: In your view, what is the best course for the West to take to break its dependence on Arab oil?
Glick: The best course is to seek other means of fuelling cars, trains and airplanes. The key to everything as far as I can see is for all cars to have the capacity to run on fuels other than gasoline – what are called "flex fuel cars" and to have the capacity to run on electricity – what are called "plug-in cars." What is needed is not so much one solution – but the ability to use many other fuels at once.
Once cars are able to run on methanol and ethanol and electricity as well as gasoline, then you have a lot of options for action. It makes sense to increase the supply of oil as much as possible by drilling in as many places as possible and increasing refining capacities. It also makes sense to start developing massive quantities of methanol that you can produce from just about anything. It makes sense to develop clean coal, increase nuclear energy supplies.
It makes sense to put a floor on the price of imported oil at $60/barrel to ensure that alternative energy sources that are now being developed can be competitive. It would prevent the Arabs from prolonging our dependence on them by flooding the US with cheap oil and pushing all alternatives off the market.
Finally, it makes sense to attack Iran's nuclear facilities. Every time that Israeli leaders say something about attacking Iran, or most recently, when the Israeli Air Force flew 100 fighter jets 1500 km across the Mediterranean to simulate the flight length to Iran and home, the oil futures markets went bananas. Oil prices spiked. Consequently, a lot of people are warning that if Israel attacks Iran's nuclear facilities, the price of fuel could rise to $8/gallon.
I think that this misses a key point in international affairs. It is Iran's nuclear brinkmanship, and the world's apparent fear of stopping it from acquiring nuclear weapons that gives the mullahs so much influence over oil traders. When the West – whether it's Israel or the US – asserts itself in a forceful way, the Iranian capacity to intimidate is decreased and hence their ability to cause spikes in oil prices decreases. After all, Iran has to export oil and gas regardless of the market price. Their economy is completely dependent on oil and gas revenues. That makes them price takers no less than anyone else at the end of the day.
FP: Are you optimistic or pessimistic in terms of the West's and Israel's conflict with the jihadist enemy?
Glick: I am both. Right now, there are reasons to be deeply worried. The Olmert government in Israel is the weakest and worst government Israel has ever had. The only thing it seems adept at doing is surrendering to Israel's enemies and demoralizing the Israeli public. In the US, the public's love affair with Senator Barack Obama, who refuses to acknowledge that there is a jihad going on at all and seems to think that the best way to assert US global leadership is to run around the world apologizing about the US's assertion of its power to anti-American dictators is also deeply troubling. And our willingness to be led by fabulists comes as our enemies behave more and more aggressively.
But looking into the medium and long term, at least in the US's case, there is no doubt that the war will end in a US victory. For the US then it is not victory but the cost of victory that hangs in the balance.
In Israel's case, prospects are less clear. If Israel doesn't move to elections and responsible leaders do not take over soon, the road to the medium and long term could be rather deadly.
In short, democracies are always slow to act. But once we do, our enemies are no match for us. The trick today is that our actions mustn't come too slowly.
FP: Caroline B. Glick, thank you for joining Frontpage Interview.
Glick: Thanks so much for inviting me. Always a pleasure.
Shackled Warrior
By Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com | Tuesday, July 01, 2008
Frontpage Interview's guest today is Caroline B. Glick, the senior Middle East Fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC and the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post. She is the author of the new book, Shackled Warrior: Israel and the Global Jihad.
FP: Caroline B. Glick, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
Glick: Great to be here.
FP: What are the key threats facing Israel and the West today?
Glick: There are several key threats, some are military, some are economic and some are cultural. All complement each other in ways that compound the dangers to the free world – with Israel as its frontline outpost.
There are four basic threats facing the world today. The first is Iran's quest for regional dominance and global prominence which it advances primarily through the support of Islamist insurgencies regionally and the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Second is the totalitarian jihadist ideology which is ascendant throughout the Islamic world. Third is the West's inability to break its dependence on Arab oil. And fourth is the West's cultural insecurity and malaise and increasingly, its self-hatred.
The first two threats are physical and ideological challenges to the West's survival. The third – the West's economic dependence on Arab oil – has brought about the perverse situation where the free world is bankrolling its enemies' war efforts. And the fourth, Western cultural malaise which is approaching collapse in Europe and among the American and Israeli intellectual and cultural elites makes it impossible for nations to defend themselves against the physical threats, to consider ways to actively replace oil as the primary energy source for our economies, or to present a coherent and attractive alternative to Islamic totalitarianism for Muslim societies and minorities in the West.
FP: What can – and what should – the U.S. and Israel do about Iran?
Glick: Former US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton and others have said repeatedly for the past several years, the US has two options for dealing with Iran. It can work to overthrow the regime or it can attack Iran militarily with the aim of setting back its nuclear weapons program for several years. Israel has less capacity to incite a popular insurrection against the regime, although it certainly could stir a bit of chaos in the country by arming some of the disaffected groups there.
The second option is to destroy Iran's nuclear installations and kill its nuclear scientists. Bombing the installations will set Iran's program back long enough to actually take concerted steps to bring down the regime. Killing Iran's nuclear scientists will make it impossible for Iran to rebuild its nuclear weapons program for the foreseeable future.
While pushing for regime change seemed like a viable path to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons four years ago, today it may be too late. Iran is already so close to nuclear capabilities. There simply isn't enough time.
That this is the fact is the fault of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who decided to follow Europe's lead in on the one hand offering Iran generous payoffs to suspend its uranium enrichment program, and on the other hand, attempting to persuade the Russians and Chinese to pass sanctions against Iran in the UN Security Council. This policy has given Iran four years of unimpeded freedom to pursue its nuclear weapons program. And the Mossad now projects that it could be within months of acquiring the bomb.
Far from working to curb the mullahs' enthusiasm for acquiring the means of genocide, the US and European soft-shoe approach to Iran's nuclear program has emboldened them to move forward with their program while increasing their terrorist aggression in Gaza, Lebanon, Afghanistan and Iraq. enrichment and begging Russia and China to go along with weak, ineffective sanctions resolutions in the UN Security Council has failed. If anything, Iran has been emboldened by this weak Western response to its aggressive behavior.
FP: Is there any hope in terms of the West's cultural insecurity, malaise and self-hatred? The central problem is that the Left controls the boundaries of discourse. What can ultimately be done -- if anything?
Glick: I see reasons for hope every day both here in Israel and around the world. It is true that the Left controls the boundaries of discourse but then, that discourse has become so absurd, so farcical that it cannot long sustain itself.
When university campuses are concerning themselves with transgender studies and teaching students that the 1968 campus riots were among the most triumphant events in US history, when here in Israel we have faculty saying that they will not reschedule exams for their students who are called to reserve duty during exam period because they do not make excuses for war criminals, and Israeli schoolchildren graduating from 12th grade knowing almost nothing about Jewish history, the people will simply abandon this discourse. Israelis are already forming new institutions to make up for the failings of the traditional ones controlled by the Left.
In the US, we see this with the blossoming of the Internet blogosphere, talk radio and other new institutions. The assumptions of the founding fathers in the US and of the Zionist revolutionaries in the early 20th century were correct. People are capable of making the right choices about their lives. And they are only going to put up with the powers that be for so long before they find their way to getting around them. So ultimately, the institutions that tell us who we are – the courts, schools, media, entertainment sectors, have to be transformed either from within or from without. And this is already happening.
FP: Why is Islamic fundamentalism such a threat?
Glick: You know, at first glance, it seems ridiculous to think that Islamic fundamentalism could be a threat and this is so for two reasons. First, it is so unappealing and unaesthetic to Westerners that it is hard to imagine that anyone could take it seriously. We cannot imagine for instance, women accepting a situation where they are treated worse than livestock in the 21st century. Who would wish to live like this? Who would wish this sort of misery on their daughters or mothers? It seems impossible to believe that a culture that enslaves half its members from the getgo and treats its religious minorities so horribly and has been responsible for so much poverty and suffering could possibly be of interest to anyone.
Moreover, there is the fact that Islamic totalitarianism professes itself to be a religion. In the largely post-religious or at least religiously tolerant West, it is hard to believe that a religious group consciously uses religion and proselytizing as a way to build cadres, Communist style to undermine Western civilization. We lack the cognitive tools – and the legal and policy tools – for contending with such a situation.
For these two reasons, we in the West have a very hard time understanding that Islamic totalitarianism exists, let alone that it is a threat.
The main reason that Islamic totalitarianism is a threat is because it is a supremacist movement that due to oil revenues and the absence of a Western cultural challenge of any significance has the ability to grow and attract adherents. With Persian Gulf petro-dollars behind it, it can overwhelm all voices preaching non-totalitarian and non-confrontational forms of Islam.
I think that were it not for the massive wealth accruing to the likes of the Saudi Arabians, the attraction of totalitarian Islam would be much smaller. Certainly the ability of Islamic totalitarians from Iran to Pakistan to London to Saudi Arabia to threaten Western civilization and Israel would be vastly decreased if they were forced to support themselves. But in the absence of Western willingness to embrace imperfect alternatives like methanol, coal, nuclear energy and domestic drilling, it seems that in the foreseeable future, the physical threat to the West and to Israel presented by Islamic totalitarianism will likely grow.
FP: Can you talk a bit about how certain forces in the West and in Israel practice self-deception in the face of the enemy?
Glick: One of the ways both Israelis and Westerners deceive themselves is by judging Islamic totalitarians by their words and not by their deeds. Whether it is Iran agreeing to meet with EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana for another worthless round of talks about the Iranian nuclear weapons program, CAIR's assertion that it is a civil rights movement, Israeli Arab parliamentarians who on the one hand commit treason by working actively for Israel's enemies and on the other hand defend their criminal acts as "free speech" or actions to defend against "racism," the Palestinian Fatah organization which claims it supports peace with Israel but then actively carries out terror attacks against Israel and colludes openly with Hamas and Islamic Jihad to bring about Israel's demise, or Hizbullah claiming that they are a Lebanese political movement when in fact they are Iran's foreign legion working to facilitate Iranian and Syrian control over Lebanon, we insist on believing their words and ignoring their deeds.
If you look at the level of public discourse in Israel and throughout the West regarding the strategic challenges our countries face as it has unfolded over the past eight years, you will see a studied refusal to acknowledge or recognize the significance of the actions of jihadists. Instead, you end up with reportage where statements by Western leaders are contrasted with statements by jihadists and treated as if they are of equal weight. Hence we get terms like "cycle of violence" when what we are really talking about is jihadist aggression.
Aside from that of course, there is the tendency to demonize those who do look at actions of the enemy and insist, indeed beg their governments in Israel and the West to take action to defend their countries and their interests. In the US, those who recognize the dangers are referred to as "neocons," or "chickenhawks." In Europe, they are referred to as Zionists or Americans. And in Israel they are pilloried as anti-peace. Then too, in the US and Europe and to a lesser degree in Israel, the cultural elites frighten the "hawks" who are really just realists into silence by threatening to call them racists. Finally, in Europe, voices calling for an acknowledgment of the Islamic totalitarian threat are silenced by jihadist intimidation and death threats, or in Theo Van Gogh's case, with murder.
FP: What are some of the strategies Israel and the West need to pursue to win the war against global jihad?
Glick: On a macroeconomic level, as people like R. James Woolsey, Gal Luft, Robert Zubrin, Frank Gaffney, Anne Korin and others have explained convincingly over the past several years, the West needs to end its addiction to foreign oil as quickly as possible. Energy security is a paramount issue. In Israel we have entrepreneurs working on changing Israel's small transportation market into one based on battery operating cars. This is an interesting concept and it will hopefully be successful. But overall, the West simply has to get its act together. For seven years under the Bush administration, the US has done essentially nothing as gasoline prices have gone from $20-$130 per gallon.
The culture wars in the West are also a key aspect of a winning strategy. We see many societies simply sinking into nothingness – places like Sweden and Norway come to mind most readily. And Britain for its part, seems to be on an inexorable decline towards collapse. When we do not understand who we are, we also cannot understand why who we are is worth defending. When we cannot assert our cultural and national identities, we cannot explain to either ourselves or Islamic totalitarians, why freedom is preferable to slavery.
Finally, we have to realize that people who call for global domination in the name of Islam and carry out acts of violence, and develop nuclear weapons are our enemies and that they are irreconcilable. They are fighting a war to the death against us and we need to fight back. We need to develop strategies aimed at defeating our irreconcilable foes and first and foremost among them is Iran. We have the means to win this war. We just have to understand why it is necessary to fight it.
FP: In your view, what is the best course for the West to take to break its dependence on Arab oil?
Glick: The best course is to seek other means of fuelling cars, trains and airplanes. The key to everything as far as I can see is for all cars to have the capacity to run on fuels other than gasoline – what are called "flex fuel cars" and to have the capacity to run on electricity – what are called "plug-in cars." What is needed is not so much one solution – but the ability to use many other fuels at once.
Once cars are able to run on methanol and ethanol and electricity as well as gasoline, then you have a lot of options for action. It makes sense to increase the supply of oil as much as possible by drilling in as many places as possible and increasing refining capacities. It also makes sense to start developing massive quantities of methanol that you can produce from just about anything. It makes sense to develop clean coal, increase nuclear energy supplies.
It makes sense to put a floor on the price of imported oil at $60/barrel to ensure that alternative energy sources that are now being developed can be competitive. It would prevent the Arabs from prolonging our dependence on them by flooding the US with cheap oil and pushing all alternatives off the market.
Finally, it makes sense to attack Iran's nuclear facilities. Every time that Israeli leaders say something about attacking Iran, or most recently, when the Israeli Air Force flew 100 fighter jets 1500 km across the Mediterranean to simulate the flight length to Iran and home, the oil futures markets went bananas. Oil prices spiked. Consequently, a lot of people are warning that if Israel attacks Iran's nuclear facilities, the price of fuel could rise to $8/gallon.
I think that this misses a key point in international affairs. It is Iran's nuclear brinkmanship, and the world's apparent fear of stopping it from acquiring nuclear weapons that gives the mullahs so much influence over oil traders. When the West – whether it's Israel or the US – asserts itself in a forceful way, the Iranian capacity to intimidate is decreased and hence their ability to cause spikes in oil prices decreases. After all, Iran has to export oil and gas regardless of the market price. Their economy is completely dependent on oil and gas revenues. That makes them price takers no less than anyone else at the end of the day.
FP: Are you optimistic or pessimistic in terms of the West's and Israel's conflict with the jihadist enemy?
Glick: I am both. Right now, there are reasons to be deeply worried. The Olmert government in Israel is the weakest and worst government Israel has ever had. The only thing it seems adept at doing is surrendering to Israel's enemies and demoralizing the Israeli public. In the US, the public's love affair with Senator Barack Obama, who refuses to acknowledge that there is a jihad going on at all and seems to think that the best way to assert US global leadership is to run around the world apologizing about the US's assertion of its power to anti-American dictators is also deeply troubling. And our willingness to be led by fabulists comes as our enemies behave more and more aggressively.
But looking into the medium and long term, at least in the US's case, there is no doubt that the war will end in a US victory. For the US then it is not victory but the cost of victory that hangs in the balance.
In Israel's case, prospects are less clear. If Israel doesn't move to elections and responsible leaders do not take over soon, the road to the medium and long term could be rather deadly.
In short, democracies are always slow to act. But once we do, our enemies are no match for us. The trick today is that our actions mustn't come too slowly.
FP: Caroline B. Glick, thank you for joining Frontpage Interview.
Glick: Thanks so much for inviting me. Always a pleasure.
We are supposed to be afraid of these people?
The Israel Pledge
WE BELIEVE that the Jewish people have a right to live in their ancient land of Israel, and that the modern State of Israel is the fulfillment of this historic right.
WE MAINTAIN that there is no excuse for acts of terrorism against Israel and that Israel has the same right as every other nation to defend her citizens from such violent attacks.
WE PLEDGE to stand with our brothers and sisters in Israel and to speak out on their behalf whenever and wherever necessary until the attacks stop and they are finally living in peace and security with their neighbors.
Please Click Here to Sign the Pledge.
The Importance of Signing the Israel Pledge
In 1891, the Jewish people were under attack. Jewish towns and villages throughout Russia were being ransacked by violent, anti-Semitic mobs. Thousands of Jews had been killed in cold blood, and more attacks loomed.
While most Americans ignored these bloody incidents, many religious Christians stepped forward and took action. Led by William Blackstone, a group of American Christians organized one of the first pro-Israel petitions in history – decades before there even was a State of Israel! This petition – called the Blackstone Memorial -- declared that the only way to stop the bloodshed was to create a Jewish homeland in Palestine to serve as a safe haven for persecuted Jews from Russia and around the world.
Today, the Jewish people are again under attack. Jewish towns and villages throughout Israel are being assaulted by terrorist missiles and suicide bombers. Thousands of Jews have been killed in cold blood. More attacks loom.
Once again, most of the world is standing idly by as Jewish blood is spilled. And once again, believing Christians are providing an exception to this rule of apathy. Throughout America and the world, Christians are outraged by these attacks and want to do something to stop them.
The first step in making a difference is standing up and being counted. Just like a century ago, the time has come for Israel’s friends to step forward and openly declare their support. What we need today is a Blackstone Memorial for a new century.
Thank you for standing united with Israel.
May God Bless You and Those that You Love,
Pastor John Hagee
National Chairman
Christians United for Israel
WE BELIEVE that the Jewish people have a right to live in their ancient land of Israel, and that the modern State of Israel is the fulfillment of this historic right.
WE MAINTAIN that there is no excuse for acts of terrorism against Israel and that Israel has the same right as every other nation to defend her citizens from such violent attacks.
WE PLEDGE to stand with our brothers and sisters in Israel and to speak out on their behalf whenever and wherever necessary until the attacks stop and they are finally living in peace and security with their neighbors.
Please Click Here to Sign the Pledge.
The Importance of Signing the Israel Pledge
In 1891, the Jewish people were under attack. Jewish towns and villages throughout Russia were being ransacked by violent, anti-Semitic mobs. Thousands of Jews had been killed in cold blood, and more attacks loomed.
While most Americans ignored these bloody incidents, many religious Christians stepped forward and took action. Led by William Blackstone, a group of American Christians organized one of the first pro-Israel petitions in history – decades before there even was a State of Israel! This petition – called the Blackstone Memorial -- declared that the only way to stop the bloodshed was to create a Jewish homeland in Palestine to serve as a safe haven for persecuted Jews from Russia and around the world.
Today, the Jewish people are again under attack. Jewish towns and villages throughout Israel are being assaulted by terrorist missiles and suicide bombers. Thousands of Jews have been killed in cold blood. More attacks loom.
Once again, most of the world is standing idly by as Jewish blood is spilled. And once again, believing Christians are providing an exception to this rule of apathy. Throughout America and the world, Christians are outraged by these attacks and want to do something to stop them.
The first step in making a difference is standing up and being counted. Just like a century ago, the time has come for Israel’s friends to step forward and openly declare their support. What we need today is a Blackstone Memorial for a new century.
Thank you for standing united with Israel.
May God Bless You and Those that You Love,
Pastor John Hagee
National Chairman
Christians United for Israel
Caroline Glick on Obama's trip to Israel
Caroline Glick
Interview with National Review: Political Messiah in the Holy Land
Posted: 25 Jul 2008 02:21 PM CDT
Caroline B. Glick is the deputy managing editor of the Jerusalem Post and the senior fellow for Middle East Affairs at the Center for Security Policy. Her book, Shackled Warrior, Israel and the Global Jihad was released earlier this year. She took questions from National Review Online editor Kathryn Lopez on Friday about Barack Obama's visit to the Mideast.
Kathryn Jean Lopez: Am I wrong in saying that Barack Obama did not impress Israel?
Caroline Glick: Israelis are very caught up with our local news right now. Foremost on our national agenda are the seven criminal probes being carried out against Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, the political maneuvering surrounding those investigations, and the expectation of new elections or some governmental shake-up in the wake of Olmert's likely indictment on fraud charges. Consequently, Obama's visit didn't evoke any deep-seated interest in Israel.
At the same time, he didn't make any serious mistakes during his visit so to the extent he made any impression, he made a positive one. There is trepidation in Israel about the statements he has made about Iran and the division of Jerusalem and his associations with anti-Semites like Rev. Jeremiah Wright. But the media wasn't given much opportunity to challenge him on these points and so the trepidation was not dispelled. But again, Israelis by and large just weren't that into him.
Lopez: What was the point of the trip there so far as you can tell?
Glick: The point of the trip was clearly to shore up support for Obama among American Jewish voters. It is hard to know whether he was successful in doing so or not, although he certainly didn't hurt himself among those who already support him.
His repeated assertions of his commitment to Israel's security were repeatedly contradicted by the policies he wishes to adopt if elected. On the one hand he opposes permitting Iran to acquire nuclear weapons, but on the other hand, he insists that the way to make this happen is to sit down and talk to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who has made annihilating the Jewish state one of his main goals in office. He says he understands Israel's need to protect its citizens from terror attacks but then he says that Israel's interests are served by strengthening the Palestinian terror groups by extending Palestinian sovereignty from Gaza to the West Bank. Gaza is ruled by jihadists from Hamas who are bankrolled, trained and armed by Iran. How are Israel's interests served by importing jihadist control to the outskirts of Tel-Aviv and to Jerusalem?
Then again, like Israeli Jews, American Jews are not too caught up in details. He said he supports Israel and got his picture taken at Yad Vashem and the Wailing Wall wearing a kippa. So he probably succeeded in pulling more American Jews into his camp of supporters.
Lopez: How close did you get to the "messiah"?
Glick: I generally try to stay as far away as I possibly can from people who say they can make oceans recede. Our paths didn't cross. In fact, I managed to be out of the country on Wednesday.
Lopez: How did the Palestinians take to him?
Glick: They were certainly gratified that unlike Senator John McCain, Obama made the trip to Ramallah and had his picture taken with Fatah chief Mahmoud Abbas against the backdrop of Yasser Arafat's photograph. It is hard though to know if Obama's trip changed the Palestinians' impression of him. It is already clear, and has been for months that the Palestinians, like the Arab world (minus Iraq) prefer Obama to McCain because they view him as sympathetic to their war against Israel and their hostility towards the U.S. and the rest of the West. But he was in Israel for such a short time that it is hard to say that his visit excited anyone.
Lopez: Does he remind you of anyone?
Glick: Obama acts like a European leader in his treatment of Israel. On the one hand, he professes this profound respect for Israel and the Jews, and goes on and on about how our security is important to him. On the other hand, he espouses policies that undermine Israeli security and threaten its survival, and demands that the Jewish state become the only state that turns its other cheek towards our enemies as they try to kill us. This is the same sort of message that we hear from all Europeans leaders. And it is tiresome and insulting.
Beyond that, Obama is in a unique situation because of the adulation he enjoys from the U.S. and Western media. The media is willing to ignore all of the substantive contradictions inherent in his policy pronouncements and to base their support for him on a quasi-religious faith. I don't remember this ever happening before in an American election — at least not to the same extent. It is an interesting sociological phenomenon that is worthy of academic research. On a political level, it makes debate very difficult since Obama is treated more as a symbol than a politician. And it is hard to debate a symbol.
Lopez: What the heck happened at the Wailing Wall?
Glick: That depends who you read. In Israel, the story was presented as "an ugly Israeli" story. People were rude and heckled him at the Wall, someone removed his note. Israelis are mean and rude to visitors, end of story.
In the U.S. blogosphere especially, the story was cast as angry Jews yelling at Obama for his desire to transfer sovereignty over parts of Israel's capital city to the Palestinians.
What is clear is that Obama wrote the following prayer that he placed in the Wall, "Lord, Protect my family and me. Forgive my sins, and help me guard against pride and despair. Give me the wisdom to do what is right and just. And make me an instrument of your will."
This was supposed to be a private benediction, and it was extraordinarily improper for someone to take this prayer and sell it to the media. On the other hand, in the world of paparazzi, the exposure of the prayer was predictable, and Obama apparently constructed the prayer for public consumption. Like everything else about his visit, this was a carefully crafted statement, designed not to ruffle any many feathers. And like this prayer, there was nothing extraordinary about Obama's visit. As you would expect from a politician, he tried to be all things to all people. And he probably succeeded.
Lopez: Were there campaign signs there?
Glick: Apparently there were a few, but the Israeli media didn't pay much attention. Again, we're basically scope-locked on the corruption investigations of the prime minister.
Lopez: Did he get his Jerusalem answer wrong?
Glick: Israelis don't support making any concessions on our sovereignty over Jerusalem and so his answer won him no support among most Israelis. But again, no one challenged him much on the issue and no one really cared that deeply about what he thinks about much of anything other than Iran.
Lopez: What is Israel looking for in an American president?
Glick: We're looking for someone whose policies reflect an understanding of the real security threats facing Israel and the United States. We're looking for a president who understands that Israel is the frontline state in the global jihad and as a consequence, it has to have support as it defends itself and acts as the frontline of the U.S. defense perimeter. That is, we're looking for a president who understands that Israel is a valuable ally and that America's national security is directly linked to Israel's because our enemies are the same. It is this sort of president that will understand that standing with Israel and strengthening the alliance isn't a matter of platitudes designed to get Jewish voter support and disposed of when constructing real policy, but, rather, a real commitment to U.S. and Israeli security needs.
Bush projected this understanding in the 2004 election which is why some 75 percent of Israelis enthusiastically supported his reelection.
Lopez: Does Obama have it?
Glick: No, Obama doesn't have it. His statements about Iraq being a "diversion" alone are proof that he fundamentally refuses to acknowledge that there is a global jihad raging, that Israel is a frontline state in the jihad and that the U.S. cannot allow jihadists to gain control of any territory and particularly territory as strategically vital as Iraq or Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Obama is a quintessential leftist who thinks that war can be wished away by blaming the U.S. for its enemies' hatred and malicious designs. This is the type of person who will push very hard not only for America to stand down from the war and ask the Iranians for forgiveness while enabling them to get the bomb, but will blame Israel for the Arab world's refusal to accept its right to exist.
Lopez: What's the best-case President Obama scenario from where you sit? Worst-case?
Glick: The best-case scenario is that Obama will be willing to learn from the Bush administration's mistakes in attempting to appease the Palestinians, the Iranians, and the North Koreans. Such an Obama administration would recognize that its liberal formulations are fundamentally misguided and abandon them in favor of reality-based policies. Given Obama's stubborn refusal to admit he was wrong about the surge and his insistence that he can strike a deal with Ahmadinejad, the likelihood of this happening is about zero.
The worst-case scenario is that Obama actually bases his foreign policy on his ideological beliefs. If he does that, he will leave Iraq prematurely and so enable Iran's effective takeover of the country through its Shiite proxies.
He will botch up Afghanistan and end up enabling an open jihadist takeover of nuclear-armed Pakistan.
He will negotiate with Ahmadinejad, giving Iran the time and political cover to complete its nuclear program and test its nuclear weapon, and he will then refuse to assist Israel in attacking the Iranian nuclear program thus escalating the threat of an Iranian nuclear attack on Israel and Iranian nuclear blackmail of the Middle East and Europe.
He will press Israel to curtail its counter-terror activities towards the Palestinians and so enable a Hamas-Iranian takeover of the West Bank. This in turn will precipitate the expansion of the missile war against Israel from Gaza to the West Bank and so place Israel's major urban centers and its international airport at risk.
While he will simply roll over a left-leaning Israeli government like the current one while protesting his enduring commitment to Israel's security, if a Likud-led government is installed during his tenure and tries to extricate Israel from the failed "land-for-peace," policy paradigm while gearing up to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, he will treat the government with hostility and strengthen the position of Israel's enemies in his administration. This in turn will weaken the social and political standing of American Jews who will find themselves under unprecedented and unjustified suspicion of disloyalty due to their support for Israel.
As in all things, the reality of an Obama presidency is difficult to predict and may well fall somewhere between these two extremes.
The Obama-Bush Presidency
Posted: 25 Jul 2008 08:22 AM CDT
US Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barak Obama's trip to the Middle East has been a boon for his campaign's photo archive. The past week has seen the presumptive Democratic nominee feted by the leaders of Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
Obama's foreign policy pronouncements have been a source of concern in the region, particularly in Iraq and in Israel. As The Washington Post noted Wednesday, Obama's announced timeline calling for the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq within 16 months is opposed by the US commander in the country, Gen. David Petreaus, as well as by Sunni tribal leaders. Moreover, although Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki seemed to support Obama's withdrawal timeline when he told Der Spiegel Saturday that he supports a withdrawal of US forces from Iraq by 2010, he later backtracked on that statement, telling Obama that the date needs to be flexible and based on conditions on the ground.
While visiting Israel, Obama said that he is willing to use military force to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. But he undercut his own message by continuing to insist that he favors direct US negotiations with Iran.
As for the Palestinian conflict with Israel, Obama says that he views the peace plan laid out by former president Bill Clinton as a reasonable "starting point" for negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. The Clinton plan calls for an Israeli withdrawal from some 95 percent of Judea and Samaria, and the division of Jerusalem, with Palestinian sovereignty over the Temple Mount.
If that is the "starting point" for negotiations, it is worth considering what the "endpoint" would be.
Then, too, as Israel's withdrawals from Gaza and Lebanon demonstrated, all areas transferred to the control of terror forces become active bases for terror and jihad. Given the jihadist state of Palestinian society, how can Obama think that the reenactment of that same failed policy in Jerusalem and the outskirts of Tel Aviv will bring different results than it has in Gaza and Lebanon?
Obama presents his foreign policy plans as a way to "fix the damage" that he claims has been caused by the Bush administration's foreign policy mistakes. But the plain truth is that there is little difference between the policies he espouses and those of the Bush administration.
Indeed, any residual disparities between the Bush administration's policies and those Obama recommends were erased over the past month. As Obama works to project the image of a centrist pragmatist in foreign affairs ahead of the US general election, over the past few weeks President George W. Bush has moved sharply to the left, feverishly implementing all of Obama's most radical preferred policies.
On Wednesday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice held a meeting with her North Korean counterpart, Ro Tong Il, in Singapore. The meeting followed North Korea's recent submission of an 18,000 page "declaration" of its nuclear activities.
North Korea was supposed to submit that document 16 months ago. As if tipping their hat to their own brazen mendacity, the North Korean report was printed on paper contaminated with enriched uranium that the North Koreans claim they do not possess.
Yet in spite of its lateness and its obvious mendacity, the Bush administration wasted no time announcing that Pyongyang's radioactive declaration was the major breakthrough Washington had been waiting for.
Immediately upon receiving the North Korean declaration, and while refusing to release its contents to the public, Bush announced that he is removing North Korea from the State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism. As far as Bush is concerned, Pyongyang - which has been actively involved in Iran's nuclear program and built a clone of its Yongbyon nuclear reactor in Syria - is no longer a US enemy.
As former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton wrote in The Wall Street Journal, "the administration has accepted a North Korean 'declaration' about its nuclear program that is narrowly limited, incomplete, and almost certainly dishonest in material respects."
For his part, Obama applauded Bush's about-face on North Korea. In his view, the only thing wrong with Bush's policy is that Bush hasn't yet met face-to-face with North Korean dictator Kim Jung Il.
BUSH'S DECISION to abandon even the pretense of seriousness in his handling of North Korea's nuclear program and its proliferation activities in exchange for a few photo opportunities is just one capitulation among many. Over the past week, it has been matched by a near-identical capitulation on Iran's nuclear weapons program - a capitulation backed up by a US nod to Teheran's quest for hegemony over Iraq.
Last Saturday, Bush broke his last remaining red line for dealing with Iran's nuclear weapons program by dispatching his No. 3 diplomat, Undersecretary of State William Burns, to Geneva to meet with Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili in spite of the fact that Iran refuses to suspend its uranium enrichment.
From media reports of Burns' encounter with Jalili, it is fairly clear that Iran used the opportunity presented by American knee buckling to humiliate Uncle Sam for its gesture of good faith. Jalili presented Burns and his colleagues with an Iranian "none-paper."
A "none-paper" is a misspelled "non-paper" or a nonbinding position paper. Apparently, the misspelled title was just a prelude to the syntactically and grammatically incoherent Iranian essay whose content essentially boiled down to a long-winded Iranian call for the US to shove it.
Rice reacted to Iran's display of contempt with angry words this week. Rice said that Iran's paper was "not serious" and that if Teheran doesn't accept the US-European "carrots," within two weeks, the US will move to impose stronger sanctions on Iran for its nuclear weapons program.
It is far from clear though that stronger sanctions are even a remote possibility. Moscow apparently interpreted Bush's decision to dispatch Burns to kowtow to Jalili as a sign of American weakness. In the wake of Saturday's embarrassing exchange, senior Israeli defense sources told Reuters that Russia is planning to begin shipping its advanced S-300 anti-aircraft systems to Iran in September. The S-300 batteries can track 100 targets simultaneously and fire on planes 120 km. away. Once they are operational, it will be far more difficult for Israel or another military force to attack Iran's scattered, hardened nuclear installations from the air. It is hard to imagine Russia would go through with the controversial deal if Moscow believed that the US would do anything to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
The day before Jalili embarrassed Burns, Bush made a move that calls into question the viability of his most hard-won foreign policy accomplishment - the independence of post-Saddam Iraq. Until last Friday, Bush had been clear that US combat forces will remain in Iraq for as long as necessary to prevent Iran from taking control of Iraq and to protect the oil-rich Gulf state from jihadists who share Iran's plan to transform Iraq into the next Lebanon.
Then last Friday, Bush signaled that perhaps staying the course is no longer his preferred policy. In a joint statement with Maliki, Bush announced that the two leaders have set a "time horizon" for transferring security responsibility over the country to the Iraqi government. While Bush and his surrogates have been quick to make a distinction between his "time horizon" and Obama's "timeline" for withdrawal, it is undeniable that by introducing a "time horizon" for withdrawal he has made it more difficult to argue against Obama's planned withdrawal "timeline."
Obviously US forces shouldn't remain in Iraq longer than necessary. But to ensure Iraq's continued independence and viability as a terror-fighting, pro-Western state, US forces will have to stay there for a considerable period. If the US commits to a "timeline" or "horizon" for leaving Iraq, it will induce Iraqis to begin cutting deals with Iran. This is the lesson of Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon.
IN THE months leading up to the IDF's withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000, more and more soldiers and officers from the IDF-allied South Lebanese Army began defecting to Hizbullah. They saw the writing on the walls. They knew they would be no match for Iran's foreign legion in Lebanon without IDF support. And so they did what they needed to do to stay alive.
And if the US goes ahead with its withdrawal, it will find itself presented in the future with the same unenviable options that Israel faces with today's Hizbullah-dominated Lebanon.
It will either have to turn its back on Iraq - and on the memory of the 4,100 US servicemen and women who have given their lives in the Iraqi campaign - and allow Iran to take over, or it will have to reinvade the country - at much higher cost in blood and treasure than maintaining the current force in place. And like Israel's 2006 war with Hizbullah, a renewed US invasion will be carried out with far less leadership commitment and national resolve than is necessary to see that next round of war through to victory.
Then there is Bush's recent mania for the swift establishment of a Palestinian state despite the obvious fact that such a state would be a jihadist-run, Iranian-allied terror state. Here, too, there is no light between Bush's policies and Obama's policies. Like Bush, Obama is perfectly capable of visiting bombed-out Sderot and failing to notice that Sderot's fate is the consequence of Israel's withdrawal from Gaza. While loudly proclaiming his commitment to Israel's security, Obama calls for an Israeli withdrawal from Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem, and due sensitivity to the "plight" of the Palestinians who democratically elected Hamas to govern them.
This of course, is no different from Rice's repeated calls for Israel to curtail its counter-terror operations in Judea and Samaria and to allow Hamas to remain in power in Gaza in the interests of "strengthening" Hamas-allied, terror supporting PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.
When Bush entered office in 2001, he was faced with a raging Palestinian terror war against Israel. That war was the direct consequence of his immediate predecessor's decision in his waning days in power to throw caution to the wind in a vain attempt to leave a diplomatic legacy of peace treaties that would perhaps earn him a Nobel peace prize.
In fairness to Bill Clinton though, his intellectual collapse, which occurred on only one front, was nowhere near as radical or as strategically dangerous as Bush's abandonment of prudence on all fronts. Moreover, unlike Bush's behavior, which contravenes any possible political logic, Clinton's actions were more or less aligned with the interests of his party. In contrast, Bush is personally legitimizing all of Obama's radical foreign policies and doing so to the direct detriment of Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain's campaign.
Bolton wrote that Bush's policies have brought about "the early start of the Obama administration." Just imagine where we will be in the second, third and fourth year of the Obama era.
Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.
Interview with National Review: Political Messiah in the Holy Land
Posted: 25 Jul 2008 02:21 PM CDT
Caroline B. Glick is the deputy managing editor of the Jerusalem Post and the senior fellow for Middle East Affairs at the Center for Security Policy. Her book, Shackled Warrior, Israel and the Global Jihad was released earlier this year. She took questions from National Review Online editor Kathryn Lopez on Friday about Barack Obama's visit to the Mideast.
Kathryn Jean Lopez: Am I wrong in saying that Barack Obama did not impress Israel?
Caroline Glick: Israelis are very caught up with our local news right now. Foremost on our national agenda are the seven criminal probes being carried out against Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, the political maneuvering surrounding those investigations, and the expectation of new elections or some governmental shake-up in the wake of Olmert's likely indictment on fraud charges. Consequently, Obama's visit didn't evoke any deep-seated interest in Israel.
At the same time, he didn't make any serious mistakes during his visit so to the extent he made any impression, he made a positive one. There is trepidation in Israel about the statements he has made about Iran and the division of Jerusalem and his associations with anti-Semites like Rev. Jeremiah Wright. But the media wasn't given much opportunity to challenge him on these points and so the trepidation was not dispelled. But again, Israelis by and large just weren't that into him.
Lopez: What was the point of the trip there so far as you can tell?
Glick: The point of the trip was clearly to shore up support for Obama among American Jewish voters. It is hard to know whether he was successful in doing so or not, although he certainly didn't hurt himself among those who already support him.
His repeated assertions of his commitment to Israel's security were repeatedly contradicted by the policies he wishes to adopt if elected. On the one hand he opposes permitting Iran to acquire nuclear weapons, but on the other hand, he insists that the way to make this happen is to sit down and talk to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who has made annihilating the Jewish state one of his main goals in office. He says he understands Israel's need to protect its citizens from terror attacks but then he says that Israel's interests are served by strengthening the Palestinian terror groups by extending Palestinian sovereignty from Gaza to the West Bank. Gaza is ruled by jihadists from Hamas who are bankrolled, trained and armed by Iran. How are Israel's interests served by importing jihadist control to the outskirts of Tel-Aviv and to Jerusalem?
Then again, like Israeli Jews, American Jews are not too caught up in details. He said he supports Israel and got his picture taken at Yad Vashem and the Wailing Wall wearing a kippa. So he probably succeeded in pulling more American Jews into his camp of supporters.
Lopez: How close did you get to the "messiah"?
Glick: I generally try to stay as far away as I possibly can from people who say they can make oceans recede. Our paths didn't cross. In fact, I managed to be out of the country on Wednesday.
Lopez: How did the Palestinians take to him?
Glick: They were certainly gratified that unlike Senator John McCain, Obama made the trip to Ramallah and had his picture taken with Fatah chief Mahmoud Abbas against the backdrop of Yasser Arafat's photograph. It is hard though to know if Obama's trip changed the Palestinians' impression of him. It is already clear, and has been for months that the Palestinians, like the Arab world (minus Iraq) prefer Obama to McCain because they view him as sympathetic to their war against Israel and their hostility towards the U.S. and the rest of the West. But he was in Israel for such a short time that it is hard to say that his visit excited anyone.
Lopez: Does he remind you of anyone?
Glick: Obama acts like a European leader in his treatment of Israel. On the one hand, he professes this profound respect for Israel and the Jews, and goes on and on about how our security is important to him. On the other hand, he espouses policies that undermine Israeli security and threaten its survival, and demands that the Jewish state become the only state that turns its other cheek towards our enemies as they try to kill us. This is the same sort of message that we hear from all Europeans leaders. And it is tiresome and insulting.
Beyond that, Obama is in a unique situation because of the adulation he enjoys from the U.S. and Western media. The media is willing to ignore all of the substantive contradictions inherent in his policy pronouncements and to base their support for him on a quasi-religious faith. I don't remember this ever happening before in an American election — at least not to the same extent. It is an interesting sociological phenomenon that is worthy of academic research. On a political level, it makes debate very difficult since Obama is treated more as a symbol than a politician. And it is hard to debate a symbol.
Lopez: What the heck happened at the Wailing Wall?
Glick: That depends who you read. In Israel, the story was presented as "an ugly Israeli" story. People were rude and heckled him at the Wall, someone removed his note. Israelis are mean and rude to visitors, end of story.
In the U.S. blogosphere especially, the story was cast as angry Jews yelling at Obama for his desire to transfer sovereignty over parts of Israel's capital city to the Palestinians.
What is clear is that Obama wrote the following prayer that he placed in the Wall, "Lord, Protect my family and me. Forgive my sins, and help me guard against pride and despair. Give me the wisdom to do what is right and just. And make me an instrument of your will."
This was supposed to be a private benediction, and it was extraordinarily improper for someone to take this prayer and sell it to the media. On the other hand, in the world of paparazzi, the exposure of the prayer was predictable, and Obama apparently constructed the prayer for public consumption. Like everything else about his visit, this was a carefully crafted statement, designed not to ruffle any many feathers. And like this prayer, there was nothing extraordinary about Obama's visit. As you would expect from a politician, he tried to be all things to all people. And he probably succeeded.
Lopez: Were there campaign signs there?
Glick: Apparently there were a few, but the Israeli media didn't pay much attention. Again, we're basically scope-locked on the corruption investigations of the prime minister.
Lopez: Did he get his Jerusalem answer wrong?
Glick: Israelis don't support making any concessions on our sovereignty over Jerusalem and so his answer won him no support among most Israelis. But again, no one challenged him much on the issue and no one really cared that deeply about what he thinks about much of anything other than Iran.
Lopez: What is Israel looking for in an American president?
Glick: We're looking for someone whose policies reflect an understanding of the real security threats facing Israel and the United States. We're looking for a president who understands that Israel is the frontline state in the global jihad and as a consequence, it has to have support as it defends itself and acts as the frontline of the U.S. defense perimeter. That is, we're looking for a president who understands that Israel is a valuable ally and that America's national security is directly linked to Israel's because our enemies are the same. It is this sort of president that will understand that standing with Israel and strengthening the alliance isn't a matter of platitudes designed to get Jewish voter support and disposed of when constructing real policy, but, rather, a real commitment to U.S. and Israeli security needs.
Bush projected this understanding in the 2004 election which is why some 75 percent of Israelis enthusiastically supported his reelection.
Lopez: Does Obama have it?
Glick: No, Obama doesn't have it. His statements about Iraq being a "diversion" alone are proof that he fundamentally refuses to acknowledge that there is a global jihad raging, that Israel is a frontline state in the jihad and that the U.S. cannot allow jihadists to gain control of any territory and particularly territory as strategically vital as Iraq or Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Obama is a quintessential leftist who thinks that war can be wished away by blaming the U.S. for its enemies' hatred and malicious designs. This is the type of person who will push very hard not only for America to stand down from the war and ask the Iranians for forgiveness while enabling them to get the bomb, but will blame Israel for the Arab world's refusal to accept its right to exist.
Lopez: What's the best-case President Obama scenario from where you sit? Worst-case?
Glick: The best-case scenario is that Obama will be willing to learn from the Bush administration's mistakes in attempting to appease the Palestinians, the Iranians, and the North Koreans. Such an Obama administration would recognize that its liberal formulations are fundamentally misguided and abandon them in favor of reality-based policies. Given Obama's stubborn refusal to admit he was wrong about the surge and his insistence that he can strike a deal with Ahmadinejad, the likelihood of this happening is about zero.
The worst-case scenario is that Obama actually bases his foreign policy on his ideological beliefs. If he does that, he will leave Iraq prematurely and so enable Iran's effective takeover of the country through its Shiite proxies.
He will botch up Afghanistan and end up enabling an open jihadist takeover of nuclear-armed Pakistan.
He will negotiate with Ahmadinejad, giving Iran the time and political cover to complete its nuclear program and test its nuclear weapon, and he will then refuse to assist Israel in attacking the Iranian nuclear program thus escalating the threat of an Iranian nuclear attack on Israel and Iranian nuclear blackmail of the Middle East and Europe.
He will press Israel to curtail its counter-terror activities towards the Palestinians and so enable a Hamas-Iranian takeover of the West Bank. This in turn will precipitate the expansion of the missile war against Israel from Gaza to the West Bank and so place Israel's major urban centers and its international airport at risk.
While he will simply roll over a left-leaning Israeli government like the current one while protesting his enduring commitment to Israel's security, if a Likud-led government is installed during his tenure and tries to extricate Israel from the failed "land-for-peace," policy paradigm while gearing up to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, he will treat the government with hostility and strengthen the position of Israel's enemies in his administration. This in turn will weaken the social and political standing of American Jews who will find themselves under unprecedented and unjustified suspicion of disloyalty due to their support for Israel.
As in all things, the reality of an Obama presidency is difficult to predict and may well fall somewhere between these two extremes.
The Obama-Bush Presidency
Posted: 25 Jul 2008 08:22 AM CDT
US Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barak Obama's trip to the Middle East has been a boon for his campaign's photo archive. The past week has seen the presumptive Democratic nominee feted by the leaders of Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
Obama's foreign policy pronouncements have been a source of concern in the region, particularly in Iraq and in Israel. As The Washington Post noted Wednesday, Obama's announced timeline calling for the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq within 16 months is opposed by the US commander in the country, Gen. David Petreaus, as well as by Sunni tribal leaders. Moreover, although Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki seemed to support Obama's withdrawal timeline when he told Der Spiegel Saturday that he supports a withdrawal of US forces from Iraq by 2010, he later backtracked on that statement, telling Obama that the date needs to be flexible and based on conditions on the ground.
While visiting Israel, Obama said that he is willing to use military force to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. But he undercut his own message by continuing to insist that he favors direct US negotiations with Iran.
As for the Palestinian conflict with Israel, Obama says that he views the peace plan laid out by former president Bill Clinton as a reasonable "starting point" for negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. The Clinton plan calls for an Israeli withdrawal from some 95 percent of Judea and Samaria, and the division of Jerusalem, with Palestinian sovereignty over the Temple Mount.
If that is the "starting point" for negotiations, it is worth considering what the "endpoint" would be.
Then, too, as Israel's withdrawals from Gaza and Lebanon demonstrated, all areas transferred to the control of terror forces become active bases for terror and jihad. Given the jihadist state of Palestinian society, how can Obama think that the reenactment of that same failed policy in Jerusalem and the outskirts of Tel Aviv will bring different results than it has in Gaza and Lebanon?
Obama presents his foreign policy plans as a way to "fix the damage" that he claims has been caused by the Bush administration's foreign policy mistakes. But the plain truth is that there is little difference between the policies he espouses and those of the Bush administration.
Indeed, any residual disparities between the Bush administration's policies and those Obama recommends were erased over the past month. As Obama works to project the image of a centrist pragmatist in foreign affairs ahead of the US general election, over the past few weeks President George W. Bush has moved sharply to the left, feverishly implementing all of Obama's most radical preferred policies.
On Wednesday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice held a meeting with her North Korean counterpart, Ro Tong Il, in Singapore. The meeting followed North Korea's recent submission of an 18,000 page "declaration" of its nuclear activities.
North Korea was supposed to submit that document 16 months ago. As if tipping their hat to their own brazen mendacity, the North Korean report was printed on paper contaminated with enriched uranium that the North Koreans claim they do not possess.
Yet in spite of its lateness and its obvious mendacity, the Bush administration wasted no time announcing that Pyongyang's radioactive declaration was the major breakthrough Washington had been waiting for.
Immediately upon receiving the North Korean declaration, and while refusing to release its contents to the public, Bush announced that he is removing North Korea from the State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism. As far as Bush is concerned, Pyongyang - which has been actively involved in Iran's nuclear program and built a clone of its Yongbyon nuclear reactor in Syria - is no longer a US enemy.
As former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton wrote in The Wall Street Journal, "the administration has accepted a North Korean 'declaration' about its nuclear program that is narrowly limited, incomplete, and almost certainly dishonest in material respects."
For his part, Obama applauded Bush's about-face on North Korea. In his view, the only thing wrong with Bush's policy is that Bush hasn't yet met face-to-face with North Korean dictator Kim Jung Il.
BUSH'S DECISION to abandon even the pretense of seriousness in his handling of North Korea's nuclear program and its proliferation activities in exchange for a few photo opportunities is just one capitulation among many. Over the past week, it has been matched by a near-identical capitulation on Iran's nuclear weapons program - a capitulation backed up by a US nod to Teheran's quest for hegemony over Iraq.
Last Saturday, Bush broke his last remaining red line for dealing with Iran's nuclear weapons program by dispatching his No. 3 diplomat, Undersecretary of State William Burns, to Geneva to meet with Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili in spite of the fact that Iran refuses to suspend its uranium enrichment.
From media reports of Burns' encounter with Jalili, it is fairly clear that Iran used the opportunity presented by American knee buckling to humiliate Uncle Sam for its gesture of good faith. Jalili presented Burns and his colleagues with an Iranian "none-paper."
A "none-paper" is a misspelled "non-paper" or a nonbinding position paper. Apparently, the misspelled title was just a prelude to the syntactically and grammatically incoherent Iranian essay whose content essentially boiled down to a long-winded Iranian call for the US to shove it.
Rice reacted to Iran's display of contempt with angry words this week. Rice said that Iran's paper was "not serious" and that if Teheran doesn't accept the US-European "carrots," within two weeks, the US will move to impose stronger sanctions on Iran for its nuclear weapons program.
It is far from clear though that stronger sanctions are even a remote possibility. Moscow apparently interpreted Bush's decision to dispatch Burns to kowtow to Jalili as a sign of American weakness. In the wake of Saturday's embarrassing exchange, senior Israeli defense sources told Reuters that Russia is planning to begin shipping its advanced S-300 anti-aircraft systems to Iran in September. The S-300 batteries can track 100 targets simultaneously and fire on planes 120 km. away. Once they are operational, it will be far more difficult for Israel or another military force to attack Iran's scattered, hardened nuclear installations from the air. It is hard to imagine Russia would go through with the controversial deal if Moscow believed that the US would do anything to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
The day before Jalili embarrassed Burns, Bush made a move that calls into question the viability of his most hard-won foreign policy accomplishment - the independence of post-Saddam Iraq. Until last Friday, Bush had been clear that US combat forces will remain in Iraq for as long as necessary to prevent Iran from taking control of Iraq and to protect the oil-rich Gulf state from jihadists who share Iran's plan to transform Iraq into the next Lebanon.
Then last Friday, Bush signaled that perhaps staying the course is no longer his preferred policy. In a joint statement with Maliki, Bush announced that the two leaders have set a "time horizon" for transferring security responsibility over the country to the Iraqi government. While Bush and his surrogates have been quick to make a distinction between his "time horizon" and Obama's "timeline" for withdrawal, it is undeniable that by introducing a "time horizon" for withdrawal he has made it more difficult to argue against Obama's planned withdrawal "timeline."
Obviously US forces shouldn't remain in Iraq longer than necessary. But to ensure Iraq's continued independence and viability as a terror-fighting, pro-Western state, US forces will have to stay there for a considerable period. If the US commits to a "timeline" or "horizon" for leaving Iraq, it will induce Iraqis to begin cutting deals with Iran. This is the lesson of Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon.
IN THE months leading up to the IDF's withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000, more and more soldiers and officers from the IDF-allied South Lebanese Army began defecting to Hizbullah. They saw the writing on the walls. They knew they would be no match for Iran's foreign legion in Lebanon without IDF support. And so they did what they needed to do to stay alive.
And if the US goes ahead with its withdrawal, it will find itself presented in the future with the same unenviable options that Israel faces with today's Hizbullah-dominated Lebanon.
It will either have to turn its back on Iraq - and on the memory of the 4,100 US servicemen and women who have given their lives in the Iraqi campaign - and allow Iran to take over, or it will have to reinvade the country - at much higher cost in blood and treasure than maintaining the current force in place. And like Israel's 2006 war with Hizbullah, a renewed US invasion will be carried out with far less leadership commitment and national resolve than is necessary to see that next round of war through to victory.
Then there is Bush's recent mania for the swift establishment of a Palestinian state despite the obvious fact that such a state would be a jihadist-run, Iranian-allied terror state. Here, too, there is no light between Bush's policies and Obama's policies. Like Bush, Obama is perfectly capable of visiting bombed-out Sderot and failing to notice that Sderot's fate is the consequence of Israel's withdrawal from Gaza. While loudly proclaiming his commitment to Israel's security, Obama calls for an Israeli withdrawal from Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem, and due sensitivity to the "plight" of the Palestinians who democratically elected Hamas to govern them.
This of course, is no different from Rice's repeated calls for Israel to curtail its counter-terror operations in Judea and Samaria and to allow Hamas to remain in power in Gaza in the interests of "strengthening" Hamas-allied, terror supporting PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.
When Bush entered office in 2001, he was faced with a raging Palestinian terror war against Israel. That war was the direct consequence of his immediate predecessor's decision in his waning days in power to throw caution to the wind in a vain attempt to leave a diplomatic legacy of peace treaties that would perhaps earn him a Nobel peace prize.
In fairness to Bill Clinton though, his intellectual collapse, which occurred on only one front, was nowhere near as radical or as strategically dangerous as Bush's abandonment of prudence on all fronts. Moreover, unlike Bush's behavior, which contravenes any possible political logic, Clinton's actions were more or less aligned with the interests of his party. In contrast, Bush is personally legitimizing all of Obama's radical foreign policies and doing so to the direct detriment of Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain's campaign.
Bolton wrote that Bush's policies have brought about "the early start of the Obama administration." Just imagine where we will be in the second, third and fourth year of the Obama era.
Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
