Lunacy or worse?

Rahm Emanuel is quoted today as saying that "thwarting Iran's nuclear program is conditional on progress in peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians." Thus the Obama administration has adopted the Arab position as its own. Saudi Arabia and Egypt and other Sunni Arabs do regard Shiite Iran as a serious threat against them, but they are betting that the fools in our Western governments either don't understand that or are willing to play along in order to stab Israel in the back and gain some advantage with the oil-rich Arabs. Apparently they are correct.

Newt Gingrich and other sane commentators have wasted no time in condemning this position.

However, Gingrich and the other critics are emphasizing the wrong thing. They say that Obama is blackmailing our ally Israel, which of course is true. However, this is not the most glaring aspect of Obama's position. Emanuel is saying here that despite the hostile actions of Iran over the decades, and despite the haste it is making to develop nuclear weapons, the Obama administration does not regard a nuclear armed Iran as being a serious threat to the United States. That is completely preposterous and extremely dangerous to both the United States and Israel.

I fully expected that these Chicago politicians would be prepared to betray everyone, including our closest allies and even our own country. However, it is amazing that they have announced this fact so blatantly and so soon.

We must now face the fact that the voters have elected as our president an enemy of the United States.

Jack

Geert Wilders marginalized at CPAC

Geert Wilders, the Dutch parliamentarian who faces trial for criticizing Islam and was banned from Britain, was at least allowed into the US for a speech in Washington last month. But the stepchild treatment he received at the Conservative Political Action Conference, and the shrill counter-propaganda distributed that day by Muslim groups, dramatize the creeping cowardice that may eventually leave America as intimidated as Europe and the UK in the face of soft jihad. Mr. Wilders was hosted separately from CPAC by David Horowitz and a few other outside sponsors. He spoke at 6PM on Saturday, Feb. 28, in the Blue Room at the Omni Shoreham Hotel, on the far opposite side of the hotel from the rest of the conference . I suspect that the American Conservative Union, conference host and supposedly the bastion of liberty, was fearful of “offending” the Muslims present.

We lined up for the talk. The doors were closed and two policemen were standing with metal detector wands.

While we were waiting, a pamphlet was distributed to those of us waiting in line. I have included a scan of it below at the following link, with a couple of photos from the occasion.

Let me address the accusations in that pamphlet: The first point blames the Dutch government for

o “redlining Muslim populations into poverty” o “Muslims held hostage to living in Ghettos o “children receiving little educational resources” o “making 43% less wage.

But let us see what Ayaan Hersi Ali says about this:

“I was beginning to see that Muslims in Holland were being allowed to form their own pillar in Dutch society, with their own schools and their own way of life, just like the Catholics or Jews. They were being left politely alone to live in their own world. The idea was that immigrants needed self-respect, which would come from a strong sense of membership in a community. They should be permitted to set up Quranic schools on Dutch soil. There should be government subsidies for Muslim community groups. To force Muslims to adapt to Dutch values was thought to conflict with those values; people ought to be free to believe and behave as they wish.” ( “Infidel”, Ayaan Hersi Ali, Free Press, New York, NY 10020 page 245)

Thus, the “redlining” was the Muslims choosing on their own to live in their own communities. The schools the Muslims set up themselves were Quranic. Memorizing Suras of the Qur’an and learning Jihad aren’t exactly subjects that lead to gainful employment. Yet they blame the Dutch for no earning power!

The second point in that 2/28 leaflet blames the Dutch for:

o not integrating Muslim youth into their society o For leaving the youth to become gang members o For the their violence o For their unemployment

But what does Ayaan Hersi Ali say about this:

“Children weren’t encouraged to ask questions, and their creativity was not stimulated. They were taught to keep their distance from unbelievers and to obey” (Ibid, page 246).

The leaflet's next point makes the following accusations:

o Mr. Wilders’ translations of the Qur’an are wrong because he doesn’t speak Arabic o That they are “taken out of context”.

Islamic doctrine holds that the Qur’an is Universal. Therefore, are the Muslims for America saying it can only be read in Arabic? Only a small portion of the world’s Muslims read and write Arabic. The Qur’an is translated effectively into many languages.

As for the Quranic quotes in “Fitna” being out of context, Robert Spencer had a Qur’an Commentary at the meeting!. He looked up the passage referring to “strike the unbeliever in the neck”. The context was “usually causing death”.

The Muslims for America went on to assert they were “moderate” and challenged Mr. Wilders to a debate.

But they are saying the same things that CAIR and the rest of the Muslim Brotherhood front organization say: that the Muslims are “victims” and are taking no responsibility for their situation, blaming everyone in sight except themselves.. In my opinion, this sounds like the same deceptive “cultural Jihad” we see everywhere else. Nothing seems“moderate” here!

Debating Muslims is a non-starter. Their concept of “Taqiyya” permits deceit if it furthers the cause of Islam. (Source: Sahih Muslim, Book 032 Number 6303)

The conclusion is stark: it seems we had Dhimmis (defined as a non-Muslim semi-slave that has submitted to Islam: who is ignorant of Islam and afraid of “offending” Muslims) running CPAC 2009. Except for William Bennett noting that the assault of Islam on our Civilization has to be faced and discussed, not a single speaker or panel even mentioned the most serious issue we face in the world today.

My suspicion is that the smiling and hand shaking “Muslims for America” could be infiltrating Jihadists who do not have our long term interest at heart. Are they tied to the Muslim Brotherhood and funded by the Saudis like the rest?

Islam divides the world into two halves: the “Dar Al Islam”, and the “Dar Al Harb”. Pius Muslims would NEVER ally themselves with the “Kaffirs” to strengthen a “Kaffir” government devised by unbelievers. Their sacred obligation is to impose on all humanity The Shari’a, which comes straight from Allah himself.

Obama's kinder, gentler foreign policy

Though much of the focus of Barack Obama's first six weeks in office has been on his trillion dollar economic stimulus and deficit-busting budget proposals, the administration has nonetheless given us some insight into the nation's new foreign policy. If you are someone who believes that the world remains a dangerous place, it is anything but comforting. Many who voted for Obama undoubtedly believed that some of his more radical foreign policy positions during the 2008 campaign were rhetoric designed to appeal to the left-wing base of the Democratic Party -- those who believe that the Iraq War was a grievous error and that the "war on terror" is a Bush construct designed to assert U.S. imperialism abroad and usurp civil rights at home. Unfortunately, his first month as president shows that Obama intends to be largely consistent with the promises he made during the campaign. His first order of business after taking office was to sign an executive order closing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, where a number of the most dangerous Al Qaeda terrorists -- including the mastermind of 9/11, Khalid Sheik Mohammed -- is now housed. He also banned the use of "enhanced interrogation" techniques, limiting our ability to question terrorist detainees to the strict rules of the Army Field Manual. In making these two decisions as a first order of his new Administration, Obama was making clear that he intends to place values -- specifically the democratic ideals of due process and human rights -- at the very forefront of U.S. foreign policy. In closing Guantanamo and banning forms of interrogation that the left views as torture, Obama said "Living our values doesn't make us weaker. It makes us safer, and it makes us stronger."

It is not a stretch to believe that those who are now formulating foreign policy in the Obama Administration believe that the importance of being true to our values warrants a substantial redefining of how America extends its power to the rest of the world. For generations, our foreign policy has been based on the concept of realism and "realpolitik" -- the notion that power should be projected on the basis of our national interest, and that power (as opposed to international law or the United Nations) is the principal currency in international affairs. Realpolitik is, above all else, a practical concept; since power considerations dominate, it often leads to choices that in hindsight seem less than principled. One example that liberals like to use is U.S. support for Saddam Hussein in the war against Iran -- just a decade before the U.S. itself went to war against the Iraqi army in the first Gulf War. The U.S. supported Iraq not because we thought that Saddam Hussein was the "good guy", but because he was seen as less dangerous than Iran, and a potential tool to overthrow the regime of the Ayatollah Khomeini.

Such "situational" principles drive liberals and idealists crazy, of course, because the left generally sees the world through a lens that doesn't lend itself to the pragmatic use of American power. Liberals have always been more idealistic about how the possibility of peace-through- negotiation. Power -- especially of the military variety -- should only be used in the most extreme cases of self defense, and then only as a last resort. And when we do use military force, we should do so in a way that is consistent with our values. Realpolitik is now valuespolitik.

Valuespolitik is entirely consistent with how Barack Obama views the world -- and appears now to be the underlying principle of our new foreign policy. At the center lies the promise of negotiation -- of finding some shared basis of interest and understanding that can lead to first engagement and then reconciliation. Here are a few examples:

-- In some of his first comments to the media as reported in the New York Times, Obama stated his "determination that the United States explore ways to engage directly with Iran", even as he confirmed Tehran is pursuing nuclear weapons and is supporting terrorist groups destabilizing Iraq and the Middle East. In this same article, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is quoted as saying “(that) there is a clear opportunity for the Iranians to demonstrate some willingness to engage meaningfully with the international community", and stated that "there could be some form of direct communication between the United States and North Korea."

-- According to a recent piece by Claudia Rossett in Forbes, the President's hand-picked Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke (has) "been talking about Iran's reach into Afghanistan not as part of the problem, but as part of the solution. Despite allegations, some by NATO officials, that Iran has been helping Taliban "extremists"--as Obama labels the terror-dedicated Taliban -- Holbrooke opined recently on an Afghan TV station that Iran (yes, the same Iran run by the totalitarian mullahs who applaud Palestinian suicide-bombers, jail and torture dissident bloggers, and execute children and homosexuals) has a "legitimate role to play in this region, as do all of Afghanistan's neighbors."

-- Rossett also notes in her Forbes article that despite overwhelming evidence of the Iranian-backed terror nest that Gaza has become, the U.S. seems less interested in ending the terrorist reign of Hamas than in bankrolling its territorial base. “Reports earlier this week, citing an unnamed U.S. official, said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton plans to attend a funding conference in Cairo next week where she will pledge $900 million in U.S. aid for Gaza. At a Tuesday press briefing, a State Department spokesman confirmed that while details, including the exact amount, are still being worked out, a whopping pledge is indeed in the offing: It'll be, you know, several hundred million."

The pattern that emerges from these examples is that valuespolitik assumes that interests between the U.S. and the rest of the world can somehow be aligned in a way that will result in a more secure geopolitical situation – and that we can achieve this while not compromising our own democratic values. In Obama's view, valuespolitik is achieved principally through direct engagement and negotiation. Never mind, of course, that the United States and Europe have been negotiating with Iran for the past several years on their nuclear weapons program, offering all manner of economic incentives to encourage the Iranians to join the peaceful international community. The result of all this talk has been that the Iranians are now closer than ever to achieving both a nuclear warhead and the means of delivering it.

The failure of past efforts at negotiation doesn't sway our new president, however. Barack Obama genuinely believes that he is the one the international community has been waiting for; that his unique ability to communicate -- and the power that Clinton, Holbrooke and others will have speaking on his behalf -- can bring Iran, North Korea and even Hamas in from the cold. Some would call such a belief naive, others would call it hubris. I would call it both. But whatever you call it, this strategy lies at the center of the Obama foreign policy.

Thinking about Obama's foreign policy reminds me of an old story about Lyndon Johnson during the Vietnam War. LBJ was the consummate deal maker and believed that given an opportunity, there wasn't anyone he couldn't convince to see things his way. As the situation in Vietnam deteriorated and protests began heating up at home, LBJ offered to Ho Chi Minh a "Great Society" program for Vietnam, using American dollars to give the Vietnamese people food, shelter and prosperity. “A TVA for the Mekong Delta” he liked to say. It was all part of a fundamental belief that everyone has a price. Jack Valenti, a Johnson aide once recounted LBJ saying to him: "If I could just sit in a room with Ho Chi Minh and talk to him, I think we could cut a deal."

What Johnson failed to realize is that Ho Chi Minh was never going to accept a permanent partition of his country into North and South, and that North Vietnam would never cease their struggle for a unified, independent Vietnam. It just wasn't open to negotiation.

One guesses that this would be an instructive lesson for Barack Obama in dealing with Iran and other Islamic fundamentalists. The goal of Iran is the destruction of Israel and the West. The goal of Al Qaeda and Islamic radicals is the death of all non-believers and the establishment of a world caliphate based on Islamic law. These are not deal points to be negotiated away. These are fundamental beliefs that defy bargaining. No focus on shared values can lead to success, for we have no values in common.

And this is the core weakness of valuespolitik. While negotiation can achieve certain gains on the margins, it has the effect of blinding our policy to the true, non-negotiable threats that face us. And we pursue it at our own peril.

Israel's grim situation

Today the existence of Israel is in greater peril than at any time since its founding hour when the fledging state was invaded by every one of its Arab neighbors. Only an understanding of this mortal threat to the Jewish state allows comprehension of the high stakes involved in Israel’s determined assault on Hamas in Gaza. First, consider that Israel is the same size as Massachusetts; its population is little greater than Colorado. Israel’s enemies have fifty times the territory, and twenty-five times the population. While lately only the President of Iran has publicly endorsed the goal of wiping Israel off the map, anyone familiar with the underlying mindset of Israel’s Muslim neighbors knows they all would welcome such an event.

Israel has been sustained through sixty years, three invasions, and the unremitting hostility of its neighbors only by its decisive military superiority and the support of the Western democracies.

Today with the exception of the United States support for Israel in the Western democracies has collapsed. Elite (i.e. leftist) European opinion tends to be pro-Palestinian, and borderline anti-Semitic. Most assuredly no European country would aid Israel militarily in the event of war. This general antipathy to Israel was well illustrated by the French ambassador to Great Britain who in an unguarded moment referred to the Jewish state as a “sh---- little country”.

On November 29, 1947, the United Nations voted to partition Palestine into separate homelands for the Arabs and Jews thus setting the stage for the birth of Israel six months later. It is at once ironic and tragic that if the United Nations took such a vote today Israel would have no chance whatsoever.

Most ominous of all, however, is Israel’s steadily declining military edge over its enemies.

The Hamas rockets that have terrorized the population of southern Israel are harbingers of more horrific things to come. It is only a matter of time and political calculation before Iran provides its proxies in Gaza (Hamas) and Lebanon (Hezbollah) with the more sophisticated rockets that can reach all of Israel’s major population centers.

Israel is painfully aware of where events are leading, and in no doubt as to the implications of Iran’s not too distant acquisition of nuclear weapons.

Israel’s sense of looming apocalypse is confirmed by their recently revealed request to the U.S. to overfly Iraqi airspace for the purpose of conducting air strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities. A politically weakened Bush administration predictably refused this request thereby denying Israel the chance to replicate their years ago success in pre-emptively destroying Saddam Hussein’s nuclear weapons project.

Israel’s own government is arguably the weakest in its history. Not since the untimely death of Ariel Sharon has Israel had either a strong leader or a truly effective majority in the multi-party Knesset. The current Prime Minister Ehud Olmert who leaves office in just a few weeks under a cloud of scandal and threatened prosecution authorized an earlier woefully mismanaged military incursion into Lebanon and the withdrawal from Gaza- now seen clearly as the strategic blunder which led to the present conflict.

For so long has America’s image of Israel been of outstanding leaders- David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir- and invincible soldiers- Moshe Dyan, Ariel Sharon- that today it is nearly impossible for us to grasp either the enfeebled condition of its democracy, or its vulnerability to military catastrophe.

President Bush steadfastly supported Israel and refused to buy into the pernicious doctrine of “moral equivalence” between Jews and Palestinians. Yet in Europe tens of thousands of demonstrators thronged the streets of London, Paris, and Berlin denouncing Israel as the equivalent of Nazi Germany. In New York similar rhetoric rings out in the United Nations.

To understand the desperate determination of Israel to stop rockets raining down on its citizenry we must see the plight of a small country denounced as a savage aggressor by most of “World Opinion”, its diplomatic isolation nearly complete, and its military advantages rapidly disappearing against an enemy whose goal is not peace but annihilation.

In 1945 as the victorious Allied armies drew back the curtain on the horrors of the Holocaust, the world’s revulsion and guilt- “If only we had known …… in time”- led to the creation of Israel.

Today we should recall the philosopher Santayana who warned that “those who do not heed the past are doomed to repeat it”.

William Moloney’s columns have appeared in the Wall St. Journal, USA today, Washington Post, Washington Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Baltimore Sun, Denver Post, Rocky Mountain News.

A Coloradan writes from Israel

We live in Gush Etzion, directly east of "Hamastan," about an hour away. We go to the beach in Ashkelon or Ashdod, just north of Gaza. It is somewhat safer here, in that there is only an occasional drive by shooting, random bombing, some rogue worker using his heavy equipment to plow down people and cars. Just before we got here a worker from Bet Lechem (Bethlehem), tried to blow himself up in our local grocery store. His trigger failed, and he was shot on the spot by a person who recognized him, realized Palestinian are not in Ephrata on the day before Shabbos (an obviously busy shopping day), and wearing an overcoat in the Summer. For the most part, we take all of this as ‘part of the territory’, but we don’t experience it on a daily basis, like our countrymen in Sderot.

They are heroes to us for staying in a town in which one gets 15 seconds warning to get to a bomb shelter. The kids and many adults are suffering from PTSD, night terrors, and other nervous conditions for their persistence. Shattered bodies are not the only casualties. We have known about this for years, and felt deeply betrayed that the same government who kicked out 9500 Israelis from Gush Katif by force, did not follow up on their promise that they would retaliate severely, if the Gazans used their newly self-occupied land as a staging area against Israel.

They finally are doing so, but each day is a nail biter because many of us have become cynical. This government is on its way out, so it is no coincidence that they are doing this just before an election. It has almost universal approval here. If you see something else on CNN, well, that’s the media for you. There is always a small but convenient group of ‘antis’ to keep things ‘even’. The general belief is that if Hamas stops the missiles (translate- we destroy their capacity to shoot them), we would be willing to stop short of destroying them. A power void could be worse, and Fatah has shown no less restraint. They are just being more closely watched; a condition which would be severely altered, if they got the state they clamor for.

Where we live is not in range of rockets either from Hamas or Hezbollah, but we have hosted friends besieged by both. In the last Lebanon fiasco, we had friends from the North living with us for six weeks. This past week, we hosted a family who left their home in Beersheva, due to the Grad missiles coming from Hamastan.

Since the incursion is becoming more successful, the amount of rockets is decreasing from a high of over 100/day to 14 yesterday (Jan. 5). May that trend continue to 0 and stay there, B”H. There are people who would see Hamas and Fatah totally destroyed, and the rest of the ‘civilian’ population gone, but mostly they admit that stance to be largely the result of unremitting aggression since we aspired to come here (this is not a political discussion, though).

I think the PR this time around has been astoundingly good. I was listening to a number of the news stations (France 24, CNN, Fox, Al-Jazeera, and the like), and encountered a new breed of well-informed, tough Israeli apologists. They did not allow themselves to be bullied, and did not allow the opposition to stray from the point. They diffused the so-called “humanitarian issue” by rightly pointing out how cynical it is to blame civilian casualties on Israelis, when Hamas routinely stores their military arsenals in schools, mosques, and other civilian structures. The thugs regularly hide among the civilians.

I am amazed at Israeli precision by having a Hamas/civilian casualty ration of 3-4/1. I particularly note an interview on Al-Jazeera, an understandably harsh forum for an Israeli. They brought on the A-Team. The interviewer constantly tried to overtalk the Israeli with the usual agenda. The Israeli would not allow it, and shouted over him (now this is the Israeli I have come to know and love). When the interviewer finally stopped his diatribe, the Israeli said that he was ‘invited’ on the air to give the Israeli side, so please be quiet for a few seconds, so he could present it. He them acquitted himself quite well.

No one is staying diplomatically quiet when the other side makes outrageous statements. Each detractor is being made to eat his words. I saw one Hamas apologist reduced to the eloquent response of saying, in an appropriately shocked voice, “I can’t believe you are saying this”, lacking any words of rebuttal. I’m sure it appealed to the more emotional among us.

Despite all this, it is not uncommon to find a victim of a terrorist attack and the attacker in the same Israeli emergency room. And there is a ton of humanitarian supplies sent to Gaza daily. Israel teats it enemies better that they treat themselves. ---------------------------------- Sol Grazi is a former Denver resident now living with his family in Israel.