Posts Tagged ‘Isreal’

This week’s Glazov Gang had the honor of being joined by Lela Gilbert, author of Saturday People, Sunday People, actor Dwight Schultz (DwightSchultzFansite.tv) and Ann-Marie Murrell, the National Director of PolitiChicks.tv.

The Gang members gathered to discuss Israel Through the Eyes of a Christian Sojourner. The dialogue occurred in Part I and focused on Lela Gilbert’s book, Saturday People, Sunday People: Israel through the Eyes of a Christian Sojourner. Ms. Gilbert shared what brought her to Israel, the Israelis’ warm reception of her, and why, as Dr. Gabriel Barkay imparted to her, “Temple Denial is more dangerous and serious than Holocaust Denial.” The Gang therefore reflected on The Cultural Intifada and Temple Denial, a dialogue which dealt with Islamists’ gambit to de-Judaize the Jewish state.

Part II also mostly focused on Saturday People, Sunday People, shedding light on the dire lessons of Israel’s disengagement from Gaza in 2005, the trauma that Israeli citizens, including children, have suffered from Palestinian terror, Jimmy Carter’s Jew-Hate, and the world’s blind spot: the forgotten exodus of 900,000 Jews expelled from Arab and Muslim countries.

The segment ended on a reflection on Margaret Thatcher and the powerful way in which she shaped her era.

To watch both parts of the two-part series, see below:

By Wesley Pruden

Barack Obama to Israel: Drop dead

He announced Thursday that a Palestinian state, soon to be decreed by the United Nations General Assembly, must be drawn to 1967 borders. This tells the Palestinians and their Arab allies and enablers that events do not have to have consequences.

We’re not supposed to remember that the Arab states attacked Israel in 1967 (and again in 1973), betting they could crush the Jews and take the looted land. Instead they were themselves squashed like bugs. Their airmen were shot out of the skies and their soldiers, routed, threw away their shoes in the desert and ran in panic looking for somewhere to hide, like Mr. Lincoln’s army fleeing Manassas. The losers have been demanding a mulligan ever since, and now Barack Obama has offered them one.

Insult was added to injury when the president, in what the White House called “a major speech,” announced his betrayal of Israel on the eve of the arrival in Washington of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Until now Washington had insisted that Israel and the Palestinians should negotiate their borders. Mr. Obama has changed the rules, moved the goalpost and for good measure tilted the playing field against the Jews. Agreement first, then the negotiations.

Promoted as something like James Monroe declaring his doctrine, the speech showed contempt for Israel.

Mr. Obama chose the State Department to announce what he called “a new chapter in American diplomacy,” that “it will be the policy of the United States to promote reform, and support transitions to democracy.” America’s future, he said, will be bound to the Middle East by forces of economics, security, history and fate. He could have said, but didn’t because he dared not, that this could be a Middle East without Israel.

In the months ahead, he said, he would use American resources to encourage reform, beginning with forgiving a billion-dollar Egyptian debt; urge President Bashar al-Assad to lead Syrian transition to democracy “or get out of the way,” insist that the Iranian people deserve their universal rights and a government that does not smother their aspirations. He stopped short of promising to cure athlete’s foot.

What America and the international community can do is state frankly what everyone knows,” the president said, “that a lasting peace will involve two states for two peoples.” What some of the rest of us can do is state frankly what everyone also knows, that “the international community” is now joined openly—for the first time—by an American president who will try to force Israel to accept surrender on Palestinian terms. The Arabs would get what they want, a better stage to launch rockets and invasions, and give up only cheap promises that no one would expect them to keep.

Mr. Obama described the State Department as “a fitting venue” to announce this gift to the Palestinians, and he’s right about that. The State Department has been the locus of anti-Israel—and anti-Jewish—sentiment since long before Secretary of State George C. Marshall sulked and pouted through the Cabinet sessions leading up to the recognition of the Jewish state in 1948. Mr. Marshall threatened to resign if President Harry S Truman accorded recognition, finally agreeing, reluctantly, to stay in his job only as a courtesy to the president. The Foggy Bottom establishment has never quit sulking since, patiently waiting for the opportunity to exact revenge. Finally the Foggy Bottom wise men have a friendly president at their back.

Mr. Obama, reminding everyone of his bravery and efficiency at Abbottabad (with assistance from the Navy Seals), said that “by the time we found Bin Laden, al-Qaeda’s agenda had come to be seen by the vast majority of the region as a dead end, and the people of the Middle East and North Africa had taken their future in their own hands.” Of course that’s not true, either. If it were, there would be scant need for vast new outlays of American aid to secure an Islamic “future.”

Mr. Obama’s speech, promoted by the White House as something like James Monroe declaring his doctrine, or FDR declaring freedom from fear, will be remembered, if remembered at all, for Barack Obama’s finally laying bare his contempt for democracy’s only true friend in the Middle East. With confidence in his ability to mollify abandoned friends with the sound of his voice, he has scheduled a weekend of inexpensive rhetoric. After he meets for tea and talk with Mr. Netanyahu, he will address the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee on Sunday. But the deed, ‘tis done.

 

by Judith A. Klinghoffer (bio)

No sane watcher of US foreign relations can miss the dichotomy between the kid gloves treatment with which the Obama administration accorded Ahmadinejad and the brutal treatment accorded Mubarak. I am no fan of Mubarak but he is no Ahmadinejad. Mubarak is on his way out but the American behavior is bound to cause serious harm to US interest around the world. Already China and Russia are quick to exploit the American blunder. Chinese foreign Ministry’s spokesman Ma Zhaoxu Said “China holds that Egypt’’s affairs should be decided independently by the country without foreign interference.” Similarly, “We, in Russia, don’t want to give recommendations because we trust the wisdom of the Egyptian people and leaders as well as the government,”Russian deputy forein minister Soltanov said. “Egypt will eventually emerge from the current crisis in light of legitimate measures and dialogue.” I am even more disheartened by a headline demonstrating that even the head of the CIA cannot be discreet - Panetta: Mubarak likely to cede power It is a small wonder the Saudis are furious. They asked Obama not to humiliate Mubarak, Obama consistently dis doing just that. Consequently, Debka reports: Deep US-Saudi rift over Egypt: Abdullah stands by Mubarak, turns to Tehran. I am sure they worry , the 87 year old king may just be scared enough to cut a deal even that an Egypt in transition is bound to strengthenIran. If the Saudi king concludes that far unless they fear for the Saudi regime is in dangerbefore Iran acquires nuclear weapons. Obama’s US certainly does not inspire confidence as a reliable counter force.  At the very least, getting closer to China and Russia may seem an atractive conservative option. The conversation between President Barack Obama and Saudi King Abdullah early Thursday, Feb. 10, was the most acerbic the US president has ever had with an Arab ruler, debkafile’s Middle East sources report. They had a serious falling-out on the Egyptian crisis which so enraged the king that some US and Middle East sources reported he suffered a sudden heart attack. Rumors that he had died rocked the world financial and oil markets that morning and were denied by an adviser to the ruling family. Some Gulf sources say he has had heart attacks in the past.Those sources disclose that the call which Obama put into Abdullah, who is recuperating from back surgery at his palace in Morocco, brought their relations into deep crisis and placed in jeopardythe entire edifice of US Iran and Middle East policies. The king chastised the president for his treatment of Egypt and its president Hosni Muhbarak calling it a disaster that wold generate instability in the region and imperil all the moderate Arab rulers and regimes which had backed the United States until now. Abdullah took Obama to task for ditching America’s most faithful ally in the Arab world and vowed that if the US continues to try and get rid of Mubarak, the Saudi royal family would bend all its resources to undoing Washington’s plans for Egypt and nullifying their consequences. According to British intelligence sources in London, the Saudi King pledged to make up the losses to Egypt if Washington cuts off military and economic aid to force Mubarak to resign. He would personally instruct the Saudi treasury to transfer to the embattled Egyptian ruler the exact amounts he needs for himself and his army to stand up to American pressure. Through all the ups and downs of Saudi-US relations since the 1950s no Saudi ruler has ever threatened direct action against American policy. A senior Saudi source told the London Times that “Mubarak and King Abdullah are not just allies, they are close friends, and the King is not about to see his friend cast aside and humiliated.” Indeed, our sources add, the king at the age of 87 is fearful that in the event of a situation developing in Saudi Arabia like the uprising in Egypt, Washington would dump him just like Mubarak. debkafile’s intelligence sources add that replacement aid for Egypt was not the only card in Abdullah’s deck. He informed Obama that without waiting for events in Egypt to play out or America’s response, he had ordered the process set in train for raising the level of Riyadh’s diplomatic and military ties with Tehran. Invitations had gone out from Riyadh for Iranian delegations to visit the main Saudi cities. Abdullah stressed he had more than one bone to pick with Obama. The king accused the US president of turning his back not ly on Mubarak but on another beleaguered American ally, the former Lebanese Prime Minister Sa’ad Hariri, when he was toppled by Iran’s surrogate Hizballah. Our sources in Washington report that all of President Obama’s efforts to pacify the Saudi king and explain his Egyptian policy fell on deaf ears. Arab sources in London reported Tuesday, Feb. 8, that a special US presidential emissary was dispatched to Morocco with a message of explanation for the king. He was turned away. This is not confirmed by US or Saudi sources. The initiation of dialogue between Riyadh and Tehran is the most dramatic fallout in the region from the crisis in Egypt. Its is a boon for the ayatollahs who are treated the sight of pro-Western regimes either fading under the weight of domestic uprisings, or turning away from the US as Saudi Arabia is doing now.