Listen here.

Barack Hussein Obama vs Israel

The manifold organs of the ObamaMedia are abuzz with outrage over what they are calling Israel's "insult" to the United States. But what was the nature of this awful and outrageous insult? Did Israeli officials pull off V.P. Biden's rug to show off his bald head underneath. Did they ask him why the suit of his pants is so shiny. Did they make him sit at the kiddie table?

More to the point did Israeli TV air calls for a Jihad against America, as Palestinian Arab TV did? Did Israel name a square after the murderer of an American photographer, as the Palestinian Authority did? Did an Israeli Anchorman do a skit in blackface during Obama's visit, as a Turkish anchorman did during Obama's visit to Turkey? Are Israeli religious institutions issuing Fatwahs against America, as Al Azhar University, which Obama visited and spoke at, has done? Are Israeli leaders funding terrorism against America, as the Saudi King, before whom Obama bowed, does?

No, none of those incidents were described as insults. Nothing that Muslim countries did to mock, humiliate and murder Americans were even noticed at all. None of them produced furious condemnations from the White House or two hours of Hillary Clinton screeching on the phone at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. So what did Israel do that was so awful, so horrible and terrible? It built houses. Yes, civilian houses. Not army bases or nuclear missiles or walls. Houses.

Israel approved a construction project to build housing for its own people, in its own capitol city, Jerusalem. Some of the housing will be built in the Shimon HaTzadik neighborhood, situated around the grave of Shimon the Righteous, a Jewish religious figure famed for rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. A neighborhood where Jews have lived for over a century. As well as Ramat Shlomo, a thriving neighborhood with thousands of Jewish families living in it.

The Obama Administration's objections to Jews living in Jerusalem are purely racial and religious. If Israel were approving a construction project to build housing for Arab Muslim citizens of Israel, Biden, Hillary and their media troupe wouldn't be screeching about it to the high heavens. It is only because Jews are to live there, that they have a problem with it. Their objections therefore are purely based on race and religion-- and completely racist.

But this is hardly the first time that Muslims and their Western appeasers have tried to drive the Jews out of Jerusalem, or the Shimon HaTzaddik neighborhood in particular.

In 1876 the land was purchased by the Jewish community in order to build homes for poor Jews. In 1936, after the death of Sheikh Izz ad-Din al-Qassam (one of the inspirations for Hamas) and the Mufti of Jerusalem (who would go on to collaborate on the Holocaust with Adolf Hitler), Arab rioters drove the Jews out of the neighborhood with cries of Ibtach Al Yahood (kill the Jews). Over 500 Jews were murdered during this time. Many more fled their homes ahead of the enraged Islamic mobs.

The following was a sample of some of the Arab Muslim brutality toward the Jews at the time.

Alex Morrison, a British truck driver sympathetic to the Arab cause wrote, "They left behind them one of the worst sights I ever saw in my life... The naked bodies of the women exposed the evidence that the knives had been used in the most ghastly fashion." The bodies of children, apparently set alight with gasoline in a nursery, were still smoldering."

The Arab Muslim atrocities were successful not at intimidating the Jews, who slowly began to return, but at intimidating the British who enacted the White Paper, and closed the doors to Jewish immigration resulting in countless numbers of Jews dead during the Holocaust. A Holocaust which involved the participation of the same Mufti of Jerusalem who organized the riots. Which in turn had been partially funded by Nazi Germany.

In 1947 the Arab Muslim forces again came for the Jews. The Jewish residents of the Shimon HaTzadik neighborhood, accompanied by militia, fought them back with the few weapons they had. And then came the British colonial authorities and disarmed the Jews. And when the Arab forces came again, they had no weapons to fight with. And they fled.

The fall of the area cut off Hadassah Hospital from the rest of Jerusalem. A convoy of 79 doctors, nurses and patients to the hospital were massacred by Arab forces. They included a world renowned ophthalmologist, Chaim Yassky and his wife Fanny. Esther Fassman, the American director of social services at the hospital's Cancer Institute, carrying candy and magazines for her patients. And a man who had been riding along to reach his wife who had just given a birth. He never reached her.
  
The Jordanian Legion seized all of East Jerusalem, and drove out the remaining Jews living there. Synagogues were destroyed, others were turned into latrines. The tombstones from Jewish cemeteries were used as paving stones for the Arab Muslim occupation forces. The Shimon HaTzadik neighborhood though held the tragic distinction of being the first part of Jerusalem to have its Jewish population driven out.

The houses that the Jews had been driven out of were occupied by Arab Settlers in an East Jerusalem rendered empty of Jews. The great dream of the Mufti of Jerusalem, and every Islamic cleric and terrorist, who had urged the murder of Jews in order to build a pure Islamic Arab Palestine was fulfilled. The Shimon HaTzaddik neighborhood was seemingly no more. Only the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood remained. Half of the historic Jewish capital was Judenrein.

In 1967, Jerusalem was liberated and reunited once again. But the victorious Jewish army did not drive out the Arab squatters. Instead in 1972 it restored the land in the Shimon HaTzaddik neighborhood to the communal organizations which had owned it allowed them to remain on the condition that they paid rent. Those who refused, were evicted. Slowly Jews began to return to their old neighborhood again. A school opened and a normal semblance of life with it. However the US State Department and European government have continued fighting the Jewish presence in Jerusalem, demanding that it be restored to its former Judenrein status.

Over and over again, the diplomats have taken the side of the Arab squatters who stole the homes of the Jewish families living there, until Arab mobs and armies drove them out. Even when Jewish residents bought the land from those squatters, insuring the absolute legality of their ownership from any and every angle, their rights to live there have been denied. And those demanding an Apartheid Jerusalem, reserved for Arabs alone, have continued spewing lies and distorting the truth by claiming that Jews never lived in the Shimon HaTzaddik neighborhood. That the only reason Jews live there now is out of spite (this in a city where spiraling real estate prices and crowded conditions have made apartments incredibly difficult to find.) And finally that the only reason that a housing project that has been in the works for over a decade was approved-- was in order to insult Joseph Robinette Biden... and through him America.

And then there was the Ramat Shlomo construction project. Supposedly the straw that broke the "camel's" back. Ramat Shlomo is and has been a Jewish neighborhood for some time now. There are thousands of families living in it. The 1600 additional units are not being built on inhabited land. Nor was the land ever supposed to be turned over to the Palestinian Authority in any conceivable settlement. In fact during the previous round of negotiations, even the PA had conceded Ramat Shlomo.

Let me be very clear then. The building of houses for Jewish families in a neighborhood where Jews have lived for 134 years is not an insult. A housing project that has been in the works for over a decade was not a secret conspiracy to humiliate the idiot Vice President on his visit there. It is of course an insult, but not to America. Only to Islam.

American diplomats have not usually described Israeli policies they dislike as an "insult"-- that is a term much more commonly used by Muslims, who are obsessed with perceived slights to their honor. Complaints over an "insult" is a common feature of Honor-Shame societies. America is not an honor-shame society. However the White House is currently occupied by a man bred in an honor-shame society. It is Obama that feels "insulted" by Israel, both out of the sensitivity of his Muslim heritage and his own egotism, which regularly motivates him to humiliate Republicans, while triumphantly celebrating his own greatness.

It is natural enough for Barack Hussein Obama to rely on such cheap honor-shame gambits. They are what he grew up with. And it is natural enough for him to keenly feel the loss of face of Muslims. After all his father's family was Muslim. And Muslims are keenly "insulted" when they conquer territory and then cannot hold it. Whether that territory is in Jerusalem, Israel or Spain or India. They cannot stand to suffer the loss of face. And neither can Obama.

Had there been a Jewish or part-Jewish President in the White House, the media would be raising the question of whether he is showing favoritism toward Israel. A question that has been repeatedly raised regarding Joseph Lieberman. A question that was raised regarding Goldwater, who was a practicing Christian. But the media refuses to allow the question to be raised of whether Obama is favoring Muslims because of his own Muslim background and family ties. Instead the media brands any such questions as racist, and instead spearheads the administration's campaign against Israel.

So directed out of the White House, a media firestorm howls enraged at Israel for presuming to allow Jews to live in a neighborhood where they had lived for a 134 years. The outrage. The offense. Heads must roll for this. Panicked, Netanyahu has already rushed to appease Der Fuhrer, suspending all home development anywhere in Jerusalem. Netanyahu has already apologized for building homes for his own citizens in his own country, but that of course is not enough. It's never enough.

David Axelrod huffed, "This was an affront, it was an insult." Hillary Clinton, Suha Arafat's former kissyface partner, called Netanyahu to berate him. And then did it again in the round of interviews, proclaiming, "It was insulting. And-- it was insulting not just to the vice president, who-- certainly didn't deserve that-- But it was an insult to the United States." Biden added his own voice. So did a bevy of underlines. Israel's ambassador was summoned to be yelled at by the Deputy Secretary of State.

In his visit Biden had repeatedly insulted his Israeli hosts. First he brought along Chris Matthews who accused Israelis of disliking Obama because they're racists. He arrived an hour and a half late to a ceremonial dinner. In other words he acted like every bit of the predictable buffoon that he is. Which is also not surprising given his history of hostility to Israel going back decades.

But none of that really matters. The bottom line is that the Obama Administration has been wanting to pick a fight with Israel for some time now... while pretending to be the victims. Much like the way Germany faked a Polish attack as a pretext for invading Poland, Barack Hussein Obama needed a pretext for waging his own political Jihad against Israel. All the while whining about how badly the Israelis have insulted him.

If it hadn't been Shimon HaTzaddik or Ramat Shlomo, some other pretext would have been found. Sooner or later, some visiting dignitary would have been offended by Israelis going on with their lives. Resulting in just this kind of cynical tantrum designed to win over Muslims and further degrade Israel's abilities to defend itself. The entire incident staged in keeping with the Honor-Shame background of the man in the White House.

Meanwhile in Jerusalem, Jews were celebrating the rebuilding of the Hurva Synagogue. Built in the 1700's, the synagogue had been demolished twice by Arab Muslims. The second time in 1948 by the Jordanian Legion, in order to insure that Jews would never return to East Jerusalem. They were wrong then, as Obama is wrong now. The plans of Muslims to banish Jews from their historic capitol are both immoral and racist.

Meanwhile the PA's Jerusalem minister, Khatem Abd el-Kader, condemned the renovation of the Hurva Synagogue, warning Israel that it was "playing with fire" and urged Muslim Arabs to "protect" the Al Aqsa Mosque. Naturally of course the riots are of course already on the way. An echo of the riots that drove Jews out of Jerusalem in the 1930's. Then the rioters had shouted, "Itbach-al Yahud" and "Addowlah ma'anah". Kill the Jews, and The Government is With Us. Except the government they mean now is not the British colonial authorities, but the administration of Barack Hussein Obama.

The Islamic Forum of Europe claims it has a "proven track record of community cohesion."

"Proven track record"? 

That was the first item on a list of hideous resume-speak phrases ("Have a proven track record of managing budgets in excess of $3 million" etc.) I was starting idly to compile in my head.

My, my.

Time not only to brush up our Shakespeare, but to welcome the mislineations of memory in order to describe our  Muslim would-be conquerors from within: 

"You taught me language, and my profit on't --I can smile, and smile, and be a villain."

Yes, on that, Muslims have a "proven track record" by now, all over the  imperilled West.

Watch, and listen, here, and then here. and then finally, here.

Listen here.

A Cost-Control Mirage

"What we need from the next president is somebody who will not just tell you what they think you want to hear but will tell you what you need to hear."
—Barack Obama, Feb. 27, 2008

One job of presidents is to educate Americans about crucial national problems. On health care, Barack Obama has failed. Almost everything you think you know about health care is probably wrong or, at least, half wrong. Great simplicities and distortions have been peddled in the name of achieving "universal health coverage." The miseducation has worsened as the debate approaches its climax.

There's a parallel here: housing. Most Americans favor homeownership, but uncritical pro-homeownership policies (lax lending standards, puny down payments, hefty housing subsidies) helped cause the financial crisis. The same thing is happening with health care. The appeal of universal insurance—who, by the way, wants to be uninsured?—justifies half-truths and dubious policies. That the process is repeating itself suggests that our political leaders don't learn even from proximate calamities.

How often, for example, have you heard the emergency-room argument? The uninsured, it's said, use emergency rooms for primary care. That's expensive and ineffective. Once they're insured, they'll have regular doctors. Care will improve; costs will decline. Everyone wins. Great argument. Unfortunately, it's untrue.

A study by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation found that the insured accounted for 83 percent of emergency-room visits, reflecting their share of the population. After Massachusetts adopted universal insurance, emergency-room use remained higher than the national average, an Urban Institute study found. More than two-fifths of visits represented non-emergencies. Of those, a majority of adult respondents to a survey said it was "more convenient" to go to the emergency room or they couldn't "get [a doctor's] appointment as soon as needed." If universal coverage makes appointments harder to get, emergency-room use may increase.

You probably think that insuring the uninsured will dramatically improve the nation's health. The uninsured don't get care or don't get it soon enough. With insurance, they won't be shortchanged; they'll be healthier. Simple.

Think again. I've written before that expanding health insurance would result, at best, in modest health gains. Studies of insurance's effects on health are hard to perform. Some find benefits; others don't. Medicare's introduction in 1966 produced no reduction in mortality; some studies of extensions of Medicaid for children didn't find gains. In the Atlantic recently, economics writer Megan McArdle examined the literature and emerged skeptical. Claims that the uninsured suffer tens of thousands of premature deaths are "open to question." Conceivably, the "lack of health insurance has no more impact on your health than lack of flood insurance," she writes.

How could this be? No one knows, but possible explanations include: (a) many uninsured are fairly healthy—about two-fifths are age 18 to 34; (b) some are too sick to be helped or have problems rooted in personal behaviors—smoking, diet, drinking or drug abuse; and (c) the uninsured already receive 50 to 70 percent of the care of the insured from hospitals, clinics and doctors, estimates the Congressional Budget Office.

Though it seems compelling, covering the uninsured is not the health-care system's major problem. The big problem is uncontrolled spending, which prices people out of the market and burdens government budgets. Obama claims his proposal checks spending. Just the opposite. When people get insurance, they use more health services. Spending rises. By the government's latest forecast, health spending goes from 17 percent of the economy in 2009 to 19 percent in 2019. Health "reform" would probably increase that.

Unless we change the fee-for-service system, costs will remain hard to control because providers are paid more for doing more. Obama might have attempted that by proposing health-care vouchers (limited amounts to be spent on insurance), which would force a restructuring of delivery systems to compete on quality and cost. Doctors, hospitals and drug companies would have to reorganize care. Obama refrained from that fight and instead cast insurance companies as the villains.

He's telling people what they want to hear, not what they need to know. Whatever their sins, insurers are mainly intermediaries; they pass along the costs of the delivery system. In 2009, the largest 14 insurers had profits of roughly $9 billion; that approached 0.4 percent of total health spending of $2.472 trillion. This hardly explains high health costs. What people need to know is that Obama's plan evades health care's major problems and would worsen the budget outlook. It's a big new spending program when government hasn't paid for the spending programs it already has.

"If not now, when? If not us, who?" Obama asks. The answer is: It's not now, and it's not "us." Pass or not, Obama's proposal is the illusion of "reform," not the real thing.

Robert Samuelson is also the author of The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath: The Past and Future of American Affluence and Untruth: Why the Conventional Wisdom Is (Almost Always) Wrong.

Obama in more trouble than Netanyahu over Iran
By Spengler

The chess-masters of Tehran have played a single combination for the past five years: threaten America's flanks in Iraq and Afghanistan in order to gain control of the center of the board, that is, by pushing on with a nuclear program that many suspect is designed to acquire nuclear weapons.

Iran has sufficient assets in the territory of its troubled neighbors to make a shambles of America's Potemkin village. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki may be able to govern Iraq with a third of the seats contested in the March 7 parliamentary elections, provided that Iran's allies such as Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr permit him to do so. And the appearance of Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad in Kabul on March 10 to declare his solidarity with Afghanistan's beleaguered President Hamid Karzai planted Iran's flag in the midst of Afghan politics.

Iran will succeed, unless another player kicks over the chessboard. Israeli officials report that American officials are visiting Jerusalem - including

Vice President

Joseph Biden last week - to warn Israel against launching an attack on Iran. "They're not talking about the Palestinians, they're only talking about Iran," commented the head of one Israeli political party.

That explains the exceptionally harsh, even adversarial tone that Washington has taken towards Israel, supposedly in response to last week's go-ahead for 1,600 apartments in East Jerusalem, but evidently in anticipation of an Israeli attack on Iran.

Reuters quoted an unnamed American official warning that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's position was "perilous" because of alleged divisions in his government over negotiating with the Palestinians. United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's March 12 statement seemed disproportionate that the East Jerusalem construction was "a deeply negative signal about Israel's approach to the bilateral relationship and counter to the spirit of the vice president's trip". And the Israeli news site Debka.com, which frequently carries intelligence community leaks, reports that Washington is threatening to withhold weapons from the Israelis.

Considering that Obama faces congressional elections in five months and well may lose control of both houses, the lady may protest too much. Obama may be in a lot more trouble than Netanyahu.

The Obama administration's shrill tone towards Israel reflects its domestic political weakness as much as its strategic problems. According to a March 7 poll by The Israel Project, Americans take the Israeli side against the Palestinians by a margin of 57% to 7%, with the rest neutral. A Gallup Poll released February 28 gives the margin at 63% to 15%, with 23% neutral. Only 30% of respondents told Gallup that they expect a peace agreement between Israel and the Arab states.

More to the point, 60% of respondents in a March 2 Fox News poll said they believed force would be required to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, while only 25% believe that diplomacy and sanctions will work. Fifty-one percent of Democrats and 75% of Republicans polled favored the use of force. Obama's job approval for handling Iran was at only 41%, with 42% disapproving.

An Israeli strike against Iran's nuclear facilities would polarize American opinion. And if the Obama administration attempted to punish Israel for doing what most Americans seemingly want to do in any event, the balance of American sentiment - if available polling data are any guide - would shift away from Obama and to Israel. Obama's party would pay at the polls in November.

No one cares about the Palestinians; to the extent that the charade of Israeli negotiations with the weak and divided Palestine Authority comes into consideration, it is because Washington still hopes that a show of progress might be helpful in addressing more urgent concerns in the Persian Gulf and Central Asia. Obama's investment in rapprochement with Iran is not a sentimental gesture: it is the pillar on which American regional policy rests.

Despite the enormous difference in outlook between the last administration and the present one, there is an underlying continuity in Washington's stance towards Iran, due to the facts on the ground put in place by Iran itself. I wrote on this site in October 2005, shortly after Ahmadinejad came to power:

I do not believe any formal understanding is in place, but the probable outcome is that Washington will refrain from military action to forestall any Iranian nuclear arms developments, while Tehran will refrain from disrupting Washington's constitutional Potemkin Village in Iraq. Tehran thinks strategically, as befits a country with a government newly elected by an overwhelming majority, while Washington thinks politically. President George W Bush is struggling to persuade the American public of the wisdom of his nation-building scheme in Iraq, and badly wants the Iranians to keep their hands in their pockets. Iran is prepared to do so as long as America keeps its opposition to its nuclear program within the confines of the diplomatic cul-de-sac defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency. (See A Syriajevo in the making?, Asia Times Online, October 25, 2005)

Nation-building in Iraq is the tar baby that has entrapped American foreign policy. The notion that the United States should take responsibility for the political evolution of a country cooked up by British cartographers with the explicit purpose of keeping Sunni Arabs, Shi'ite Arabs and Kurds at each others' throats, ranks as one of the great political delusions of the past century. Since the American invasion in 2003, it always has been in Iran's power to make the country ungovernable. More important to Iran, though, is the potential acquisition of nuclear weapons. Should it become a nuclear power, Iran could set its cats' paws in Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan to whatever task it chose with far less fear of American retribution.

The Obama administration's abortive opening to Iran always aimed at obtaining Iranian help in stabilizing Iraq and Afghanistan, among other things by soliciting Tehran's good offices with the Shi'ite Hazara minority in Afghanistan. Iran has ties both to the Hazara as well as to their mortal enemies, the Sunni Taliban, and keeps its options open. Its prospective influence in Afghanistan is potent enough to panic the US - Secretary of Defense Robert Gates arrived in Kabul unannounced on March 8, the same day that Ahmadinejad was expected in the Afghan capital, prompting the Iranian president to postpone his trip by two days. Gates' unexpected trip was interpreted as a pre-emptive action against Iranian influence. Karzai embraced his Iranian counterpart as a friend and ally.As Asia Times Online's M K Bhadrakumar wrote on March 13: "Karzai can hope to tap into Iran's influence with various Afghan groups, which traditionally focused on the Persian-speaking Tajiks and Hazara Shi'ites but today also extends to segments of the Pashtun population. Significantly, Ahmedinejad was received on Wednesday at Kabul airport by the Northern Alliance leader Mohammed Fahim, who has become the first vice president in Karzai's new government despite strong opposition from the US and Britain." (Se A titanic power struggle in Kabul, Asia Times Online, March 13)

The United States responded to Ahmadinejad's Afghan visit by paying obeisance to Iran's influence.

"The future of Afghanistan has a regional dimension and we hope that Iran will play a more constructive role in Afghanistan in the future," said US State Department spokesman Philip Crowley. He added in the past, the US and Iran have "cooperated constructively" and hoped that they would do so again, given that Iran has "a legitimate interest in the future of Afghanistan".

The answer to the question: "What is Obama's exit strategy from Afghanistan?" - is a Great Gamelet in which Iran and Pakistan work out a power-sharing arrangement in Afghanistan and establish a miniature balance of power between Sunnis and Shi'ites. All that is missing is Johnny Depp in Mad Hatter makeup replacing Richard Holbrooke as AfPak czar, distributing 3-D glasses to the diplomatic corps.

Just as delusional is the idea that an Iraqi government formed by either of the two front-runners in the March 7 elections, Maliki or Iyad Allawi, would free Iraq of Iranian influence. That is the conventional wisdom in Washington, however.

The Washington Post editorialized March 13:

A government headed by either Mr Maliki or Mr Allawi would offer the Obama administration an opportunity to forge a vital strategic relationship with Iraq even as US troops depart in the next two years. Mr Maliki signed a strategic framework with the Bush administration and has already demonstrated his capacity to resist Iranian influence. Mr Allawi is even more interested in an alliance with Washington and has good relations with Arab Sunni governments that have shunned Mr Maliki's administration.

The precise opposite is the case: Iraq's elections took place without crippling violence because Tehran understands well the chess maxim: "The threat is mightier than the execution." Iran is content to allow America to keep its Potemkin village in place for a while longer, and push on with its nuclear program which carries with it possibility of a nuclear weapon.

What the Bush administration might have done under present circumstances is a hypothetical question. But the fact is that Bush built the Potemkin village in Iraq, and Obama inherited it. The difference lies in the Bush administration's desire to project American power, and the Obama administration's desire to diminish it.

One might speculate that a Republican administration - at least one headed by Senator John McCain - would have encouraged Israel to extricate the US from its present Zugzwang

(imperative to move when any move is damaging) by attacking Iran's nuclear program. That, after all, is what allies are for. There is no Obama administration as such; there is only Obama, who appears to run the entire show out of his Blackberry. As David Rothkopf wrote in his Foreign Policy blog March 12, Obama's is "an administration in which seeking the favor of the president has taken on an importance that is in fact, much more reminiscent of the historical czars than is the role being played by anyone with this now devalued moniker".

As I wrote on this space February 18: "Israel has a strategic problem broader than the immediate issue of Iran's possible acquisition of nuclear weapons: it is an American ally at a moment when America has effectively withdrawn from strategic leadership. That leaves Israel at a crossroads. It can act like an American client state, or a regional superpower. Either decision would have substantial costs."(See The case for an Israeli strike against Iran , Asia Times Online, February 18)

The best thing that Israel can do for the United States in its time of befuddlement is pursue its own interests, for American and Israeli security concerns have one overriding commonality: the need to prevent rogue states in the region from acquiring nuclear weapons. In the the present test of wills between Washington and Jerusalem, the smart money is on David rather than Goliath.

Spengler is channeled by David P Goldman, senior editor at First Things (www.firstthings.com)

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So sorry! Very sorry! Very, very sorry! We apologize! This will never happen again! The prime minister, cabinet members and senior bureaucrats repeated this over and over again last week in an attempt to set right what seemed to them to have been a major blunder, one they thought had spoiled what should have been a dramatic goodwill visit by the vice president of the United States, Joe Biden. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu might have been humming "I'm just a soul whose intentions are good, Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood," while he sat waiting for the arrival of Biden, who vented his anger over what he considered an insult by being deliberately late for dinner.

The government's critics in the media had a field day. According to them the decision by the Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee to approve plans for putting up additional houses in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood, just as Biden was arriving in the country, was ruining relations between the United States and Israel and causing irreparable damage to strategic cooperation between the two countries. Listening to them, one might have thought that if some years from now historians try to determine why the U.S. administration did not take any effective action to prevent the Iranians from acquiring nuclear weapons, they will find that the responsibility lay on the shoulders of a minor Israeli civil servant who set the agenda of a local planning committee for that fateful day.

Since it was well known in Washington that the Netanyahu government had not frozen building activity in Jerusalem, and that therefore not only construction there was continuing but also the routine planning activities that precede construction, the blame was now being put on the "timing." Presumably, if the planning committee had held its session a few days before Biden's arrival there would not have been a problem. Or, had it met a few days after Biden's departure and he left here under the impression that planning activities had been suspended in Jerusalem, only to find out differently on his arrival in Washington, there would have been nothing to get excited about.

"Timing" is important when investing in the stock market, but it is of little relevance here. There is no substitute for the truth when dealing with friends and allies. And the truth in this case is that while the Israeli government has frozen construction in Judea and Samaria for 10 months, there has been no such freeze in any part of Jerusalem, and certainly no holdup of planning procedures. There was no need for all this groveling by Israeli spokesmen. On the subject of Jerusalem, the government of Israel and the administration in Washington simply disagree.

Throughout the U.S.-Israeli relationship there have been disagreements on certain issues. They are inevitable, even among the best of friends. But generally, the disagreements have not been taken public, but have been discussed in confidential exchanges between representatives of the two governments. U.S. President Barack Obama, however, has taken a new approach, which he signaled at his speech last June in Cairo, where he publicly called on Israel to stop settlement activity.

The rationale of this approach was presumably to accelerate the negotiations between Israel and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. But what the Americans must be finding out to their chagrin is that this approach is actually making it more difficult, if not impossible, for Abbas to come to the negotiating table. Whereas in the past he negotiated with Israel while settlement activity continued, without setting prior conditions, Obama's Cairo speech left Abbas no choice but to demand the cessation of settlement activity in Judea and Samaria as a condition for entering negotiations. After all, he cannot be less Palestinian than Obama.

Now, after the statements made by Biden in Israel, followed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's public rebuke of Netanyahu, he will demand the cessation of construction in Jerusalem, and possibly even the freezing of all planning activity regarding future construction as a condition for beginning negotiations with Israel. As the saying goes, "why make it difficult, when with a little effort you can make it impossible?" This is hardly the way to advance the peace process

Watch, and listen, here.

Obama’s Appalling Double Standards

Noah Pollak - 03.14.2010 -

The Obama-Israel showdown is an example of high hypocrisy, double standards, and political stupidity, all on display for a global audience.

As Barry Rubin reminds us:

For more than four months the U.S. government has been celebrating Israel agreeing to stop construction on settlements in the West Bank while continuing building in east Jerusalem as a great step forward and Israeli concession deserving a reward. Suddenly, all of this is forgotten to say that Israel building in east Jerusalem is some kind of terrible deed which deserves punishment.

Israelis are used to this pattern: give a big concession and a few months later that step is forgotten as Israel is portrayed as intransigent and more concessions are demanded with nothing in return.

The administration is using an instance of bad timing to revisit the terms of the settlement freeze in order to accomplish what was impossible before — a freeze in Jewish construction in Obama-disapproved parts of Jerusalem. Robert Gibbs said this morning on Fox News that “condemning” such construction “is, and has been, the policy of the United States.”

Never mind that even the PA has already agreed that these neighborhoods, such as Gilo and Ramat Shlomo, will remain part of Israel in any settlement. Chris Wallace should have asked Gibbs how he reconciles such a statement, and the administration’s behavior over the past week, with the U.S. endorsement of the settlement freeze four months ago that explicitly exempted Jerusalem. In fact, it might make sense for the Israelis to ask for such a clarification. It’s obvious that Obama is trying to change the terms of the agreement by bullying and unilateralism, not by negotiation.

And it is important to note that the kind of rhetoric and outrage we are witnessing on Israel has never been employed by the administration against Syria, Iran, Hamas, North Korea, or any of America’s actual enemies. Regarding “announcements about expanding settlements,” a “senior Obama administration official” told Reuters that “the Israelis know the only way to stay on the positive side of the ledger — internationally and with us — is to not have them recurring.”

Strong stuff! Yet when the administration’s effort to warm ties with Syria over the past month were greeted with a trilateral meeting of terrorists in Damascus — Ahmadinejad, Nasrallah, and Assad — including heated public denouncements of America and pledges to destroy Israel, the administration was silent. No response.

Maybe this is because the administration is focusing on the peace process and treating Syria and Iran as back-burner problems not worthy of U.S. outrage? No, that doesn’t make sense. If this were true, the administration would have criticized the Palestinians for their far greater obstructions to the peace process. As Rubin points out:

Even though the Palestinian Authority has refused to negotiate for 14 months; made President Brack Obama look very foolish after destroying his publicly announced September plan to have negotiations in two months; broke its promise not to sponsor the Goldstone report in the UN; and rejected direct negotiations after months of pleading by the Obama White House, not a single word of criticism has ever been offered by any administration official regarding the PA’s continuous and very public sabotage of peace process efforts.

And as Tom Gross points out, the moment Joe Biden departed the West Bank, the PA held a ceremony to name the town square in Ramallah after Dalal Mughrabi, one of the perpetrators of the infamous Coastal Road Massacre and among the most successful terrorists in Palestinian history. This, too, goes unmentioned by the Obama administration. Palestinian celebrations of mass-murderers are not a hindrance to the peace process, but building apartments in Jewish neighborhoods is. Why doesn’t one of the intrepid Sunday morning hosts ask an administration official why this is?

We have reached a strange new chapter in American diplomacy in which our greatest outrage and our greatest denunciations are reserved for our allies. Maybe that’s not quite right: they’re reserved for one of our allies.

Listen here.

Noah Pollak, in Contentions: 

The new low in relations between the White House and Israel are especially troubling for two reasons that didn’t apply during previous administrations: one is Obama’s personal peevishness toward Israel and his related desire to distance the United States from the Jewish state and draw it closer to the Arabs; and the second is the Iranian nuclear program.

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Yamani or Your Life

A nasty attempt to coerce Danish newspapers into apologizing for the cartoons of Mohammed.

By Christopher Hitchens
Monday, March 8, 2010

I have just finished reading one of the most astoundingly stupid and nasty documents ever to have landed on my desk. It consists of a letter from a law firm in Saudi Arabia, run by a man named Ahmed Zaki Yamani, to a group of newspapers in Scandinavia. I quote directly from its main paragraphs:

Over the past months my law firm has been contacted by several thousand descendants of the Prophet, who have learned about your newspaper's republication of the drawing, depicting their esteemed ancestor as a terrorist suicide bomber with a bomb in his turban.

As descendants of the Prophet, these individuals feel personally insulted, emotionally distressed and defamed by your newspaper's re-publication of the drawing. They have therefore retained my law firm and instructed me to approach you …

So that's the stupid part—the idea that people who claim descent from a seventh-century warlord and preacher have standing to sue for hurt feelings. The nasty bit comes a few paragraphs later:

[I]t is my belief that your newspaper's fulfillment of the above-mentioned conditions would be perceived as a sign of respect and understanding throughout the Muslim world in general, and your newspaper might thus help resolve the severe conflict, which your re-publication of the drawing has created. As you may be aware, this conflict is still affecting Danish and Arab interests, in particular in the Middle East, where a number of Danish products are still being boycotted.

It is impossible not to notice the element of threat and menace contained in the second extract. It's not difficult to remind Danes of the organized campaign of hysterical retribution, ranging from the burnings of embassies to the mob-killing of civilians, that followed the first publication of some mild caricatures of the prophet Mohammed in 2005. Only a little further backstory is required: In 2008, it was discovered that a cell of eager murderers was planning to kill those who authored the caricatures, and in solidarity a large number of Danish newspapers reprinted the drawings in order to express their support for freedom of speech. Then, on New Year's 2009, a Somali fundamentalist chopped his way into the house of 74-year-old cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, who was having a sleepover with his granddaughter, and very nearly succeeded in axing them both to death. The apology for all this, however, is supposed to be forthcoming not from the aggressors and inciters but from their victims. Late last month, Copenhagen newspaper Politiken agreed to make a public apology on the terms dictated by the Yamani law firm.

Celebrating this abject decision at a triumphant press conference in Beirut last week, Yamani repeated his bizarre claim to be the lawyer for no fewer than 94,923 descendants of the outraged prophet. Again, he made one utterly absurd statement and one extremely sinister one:

In our view, all religious icons of all religions, such as the Virgin Mary, Jesus Christ, Moses, and (not to be compared to prophets and messengers) others who are non-religious icons but have contributed to humanity like Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, the Dalai Lama, and others such as Ibn Sina, Ibn al-Haitham and Albert Einstein all deserve respect and protection from ridicule and defamation.

Cretinism on this historic level is comparatively rare. Apparently, Yamani thinks that Mahatma is a first name rather than a Hindu religious honorific and that the words "Dalai Lama" are a secular title. Moreover (and you have to admit that tossing in a Jewish name is a nice touch), he would protect the stern Spinozist Einstein from being lampooned for the many wrong surmises he made about the Big Bang and quantum theory. But while it is obvious that he knows nothing of such matters, he does know how to unveil a threat:

We wished that all the Danish Newspapers which published the Drawings accepted to enter into a settlement as Politiken did, and published an apology to avoid multiple jurisdictional litigations and costly damages in favor of our clients.

If you ask yourself whether Yamani cares more about the supernatural world or the grossly material one, it will not take very long to come up with an answer. You can detect it in the way that he balances the soft inducement against the hard threat of remembered mayhem: Yamani or your life.

But it is in the material world that newspapers are published and in which laws and constitutions exist that inscribe their right to print material without censorship and intimidation. It is also in the material world that laws protect grandfathers and their granddaughters from homicidal religious maniacs. Are we to surrender these hard-won rights in favor of the hectic emotions of people who claim a distant kinship with a quasi-mythological figure who was uneasy with both reading and writing and preferred to recite? This is without precedent. Are we now to be dogged with lawsuits by those in whose veins the blood of Henry VIII, Mussolini, Columbus, or Ivan the Terrible can be alleged to flourish? (At least—unless you believe Dan Brown—this will not be such a problem in the case of the Virgin Mary.)

The thing would be ridiculous if it were not so hateful and had it not already managed to break the nerve of one Danish newspaper. In Ireland a short while ago, a law against blasphemy was passed, making it a crime to outrage the feelings not just of the country's disgraced and incriminated Roman Catholic Church but of all believers. The same pseudo-ecumenical tendency can be found in the annual attempt by Muslim states to get the United Nations to pass a resolution outlawing all attacks on religion. It's not enough that faith claims to be the solution to all problems. It is now demanded that such a preposterous claim be made immune from any inquiry, any critique, and any ridicule.

This has to stop, and it has to stop right now. All democratic countries and assemblies should be readying legislation along the lines of the First Amendment, guaranteeing the right of open debate on matters of religion and repudiating the blackmail by law firms and individuals whose own true ancestry would not bear too much scrutiny.

Watch, and listen, to the brief but telling extract from a sermon in Gaza, now fortunately committed to MEMRI.

Clinton calls to bawl out Bibi - Laura Rozen: Clinton calls to bawl out Bibi

March 12, 2010

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stepped up U.S. criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his government’s announcement during Vice President Joseph Biden's goodwill trip to Israel this week that it plans to approve construction of 1,600 more Jewish homes in contested East Jerusalem. 

Clinton expressed not just opposition to the timing of the Israeli government announcement -- which threw a wrench into Biden's trip -- but the substance of the announcement itself, U.S. officials emphasized.

Clinton called Netanyahu Friday morning tell him she considered the announcement “a deeply negative signal” about Israel’s relationship with the U.S., State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said at today's press briefing.

She added that she also considered it to “counter to the spirit of the Vice President’s trip” and “ had undermined trust and confidence in the peace process, and in America’s interests," according to Crowley.

Clinton’s call was the latest U.S. rebuke of Netanyahu since his government’s announcement about the settlements. Biden first issued a sharp condemnation of the controversial housing plan, saying it “undermines trust” and “runs counter” to just-announced plans for U.S.-mediated proximity talks between the Israelis and Palestinians. He then showed up more than an hour and a half late to dinner Tuesday night at Netanyahu’s residence, making no effort to hide that he arrived only after intense consultations with Washington on how to respond.

On Thursday he reiterated his criticism during a speech at Tel Aviv University .

Netanyahu reportedly apologized for the timing of the announcement by a member of his right-wing governing coalition, the Shas party, and claimed to be in the dark about it.

"The Secretary said she could not understand how this happened, particularly in light of the United States’ strong commitment to Israel’s security," Crowley said at Friday’s briefing. "And she made clear that the Israeli Government needed to demonstrate not just through words but through specific actions that they are committed to this relationship and to the peace process."

Crowley said that Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Policy Jeffrey Feltman and Middle East peace envoy George Mitchell have been working the phones to the region the past couple days, trying to keep Arab and Palestinian buy in for the indirect U.S.-mediated Israeli Palestinian proximity talks, agreement for which was reached by Mitchell only last week, shortly before Biden's arrival.

Asked by a reporter if the U.S. accepts Netanyahu's explanation that he didn't know anything about the announcement, Crowley replied, yes, but.

"Well, as we’ve also said, we accept what Prime Minister Netanyahu has said," Crowley said. "By the same token, he is the head of the Israeli Government and ultimately is responsible for the actions of that government."

Clinton travels to Moscow late next week for a meeting of the Middle East Quartet. She will be joined there by Mitchell, who is due to return to the Middle East next week to try to get Israeli-Palestinian proximity talks underway ahead of joining Clinton in Moscow.

The Quartet issued its own condemnation of the East Jerusalem housing plan today, in a statement from New York where Clinton was attending an afternoon meeting at the UN. "The Quartet condemns Israel’s decision to advance planning for new housing units in East Jerusalem," the group said. "The Quartet re-affirms that unilateral actions taken by either party cannot prejudge the outcome of negotiations and will not be recognized by the international community."

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Listen here.

Les propos de Gérard Longuet sur Malek Boutih déclenchent une polémique

LEMONDE.FR avec AFP | 10.03.

Gérard Longuet, le patron des sénateurs UMP, a déclenché une polémique, mercredi 10 mars, en jugeant préférable de nommer à la Halde quelqu'un du "corps français traditionnel" plutôt que le socialiste Malek Boutih. M. Boutih est "un homme de grande qualité mais ce n'est pas le bon personnage" pour présider la Haute Autorité de lutte contre les discriminations et pour l'égalité, a déclaré le patron des sénateurs UMP, invité de "Questions d'Info LCP-France Info-AFP".

A la question de savoir pourquoi M. Boutih ne correspondait pas, à ses yeux, au poste, il a répondu : "Parce qu'il vaut mieux que ce soit le corps français traditionnel qui se sente responsable de l'accueil de tous nos compatriotes. Si vous voulez, les vieux Bretons et les vieux Lorrains – qui sont d'ailleurs en général italiens ou marocains – doivent faire l'effort sur eux-mêmes de s'ouvrir à l'extérieur." "Si vous mettez quelqu'un de symbolique, extérieur, vous risquez de rater l'opération", a insisté M. Longuet.

Le PS, par la voix de son numéro deux, Harlem Désir, s'est aussitôt dit "scandalisé" par ces propos, demandant à l'UMP de les "condamner immédiatement avec la plus grande fermeté et à M. Longuet de présenter des excuses publiques à Malek Boutih". "Ces propos sont bien plus qu'un dérapage, une véritable théorie raciale totalement contraire à l'idée de la nation républicaine et à l'égalité des droits entre les citoyens de toutes origines", a affirmé l'eurodéputé, en estimant que de telles assertions méritaient une saisine de la Halde.

LONGUET AVOUE UNE "EXPRESSION MALADROITE"

Interrogé mercredi soir sur Europe 1, Gérard Longuet a expliqué que son "expression était peut-être raccourcie et maladroite". Il a toutefois maintenu le sens de ses propos en affirmant que "dans la symbolique, ce serait bien que la lutte contre la discrimination, et en particulier contre la discrimination raciale, soit appropriée par tous ceux qui ne se sentent pas concernés. Ceux qui se sentent protégés et qui au contraire doivent faire cet effort d'ouverture".

Fustigeant également des propos "d'un autre siècle", le porte-parole du PS, Benoît Hamon, a jugé sur Public Sénat que "le rapport de la droite à l'immigration est consternant". "Ce n'est plus un dérapage, c'est une chute libre", a réagi le PCF dans un communiqué.

Même indignation du côté de SOS-Racisme : "La vision véhiculée par M. Longuet (...) montre la conception ethnique qu'il s'en fait et qui rappelle la France de Maurras, en contradiction avec la France républicaine qu'il est censé incarner", a dénoncé l'association antiraciste. "Nous, on a des militants qui ne sont pas du 'corps français traditionnel'. Le 'corps français traditionnel', c'est quelque chose qui pue, c'est quelque chose qui ne sent pas bon", a expliqué Olivier Besancenot, leader du Nouveau Parti anticapitaliste (NPA). "On voit qu'une fois de plus, le gouvernement, l'UMP, font tout ce qu'ils peuvent pour siphonner les voix de l'extrême droite", a insisté la tête de liste NPA en Ile-de-France.