Eight months into President Barack Obama’s administration, his Middle East peace “road map” is crystal clear. First, he dialed down the pressure on Iran, whose nuclear weapons program presents an existential threat to Israel. Second, he shifted the blame for Islamic extremism to Israel and solely blamed it for the Palestinian’s plight. Then he unilaterally ratcheted up the pressure on Israel to cease building settlements and to ease its self-defense blockade of Gaza. Now, Obama has upped the ante even further, framing lasting peace in the Middle East as requiring Israel to retreat to its 1967 borders. Although he blandly claims that there are “no preconditions” to relaunching negotiations, in truth he has doomed the peace talks before they even start. Obama has set up Israel as the fall guy for negotiations that will ultimately fail and is the architect of that failure.
When Obama was elected — with 78 percent of the Jewish vote — there was concern about what his administration would mean for the 60 years of unwavering support America had provided Israel. Unlike his Republican opponent, John McCain, or his predecessor, George W. Bush, both longstanding supporters of Israel, Obama had no such track record and was championing a different course, one of détente with such hard-line regimes as Iran and Syria. Jews took heart when then-President-elect Obama selected a Jew, Rahm Emanuel, as his chief of staff, and Hilary Clinton, previously a staunch supporter of Israel from her days as senator from New York, as his secretary of state.
An examination of the first 250 days of President Obama’s administration convincingly demonstrates that the earlier concerns were well founded and the mitigating cabinet appointments mere window dressing. From his first telephone call as president to a head of state — Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian National Authority — and his first one-on-one television interview with any news organization — Al Arabiya TV — to his bowing to Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, then embracing the Muslim world at Cairo University and, most recently, rebuking Israel in an address to the United Nations General Assembly, Obama has shown far more concern for strengthening ties with authoritarian regimes on the Arabian Peninsula than to maintaining the historically close alliance with the region’s only true democracy.
His Cairo speech scaled back his support of Israel in favor of establishing new diplomatic channels in the Arab world. He also equated the suffering of the Palestinians with the loss of 6 million Jewish lives in the Holocaust. Worse yet, Obama’s affirmation of the Arab propagandist idea that Israel was created as a response to the Holocaust greatly undermined its legitimacy as a state and ignored Jews’ forced diaspora and Judaism’s historical ties to the Middle East that predate all other religions.
Instead of seeing Israel as the oasis and model for democracy that it is in the Middle East, Obama views the country’s conflict with its neighbors as “this constant wound … this constant sore, [that] does infect all of our foreign policy.” It is as if the president has blinders on: in effect repeating the red herring that blames the atrocities of 9/11 on America’s support of Israel, in July 2008, Obama stated, “The lack of a resolution to this problem [the Israeli-Palestinian conflict] provides an excuse for anti-American militant jihadists to engage in inexcusable actions, so we have a national security interest in solving this.” Sound familiar? Former President Jimmy Carter, author of the canard, “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,” asserts, “lack of progress in the Middle East is one of the main causes for animosity, hatred and even violent acts against America.” Both presidents conveniently neglect the fact that Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, perpetrators of multiple attacks on America, never cared or linked any of their actions to the Palestinian cause until after 9/11. Islamic extremists are at war with the spread of Western culture, and the United States is the chief exporter of Western beliefs, so it is a pipe dream to assume that America can achieve détente with “anti-American militant jihadists” by, in effect, offering up Israel as a sacrificial lamb.
In his United Nations address, Obama called for Israel to establish “a viable, independent Palestinian state with contiguous territory that ends the occupation that began in 1967.” Like Bush before him, Obama referred to the territories Israel won in the Six-Day War — a preemptive defensive strike against armies from nine Arab countries massing on its borders — as “occupied territory” but, unlike Bush, Obama’s proposal has Israel retreating from its own land, returning to indefensible 1967 borders and trusting in the peaceful intentions of its neighbors. Bush didn’t go nearly that far, citing in his 2004 “road map” that “in light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli population centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949.” Obama went even further, linking America’s continuing support for the Jewish state’s very security with his demand that it surrender the territory, stating, “The United States does Israel no favors when we fail to couple an unwavering commitment to its security with an insistence that Israel respect the legitimate claims and rights of the Palestinians.”
Obama appears to have adopted as policy the controversial agreement Carter reached with Hamas last year to establish a Palestinian state in the territories won by Israel 42 years ago. Additionally, and again in sharp contrast to the Bush Administration, which opposed a Palestinian national unity government, Obama has communicated his support, through Special Envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell, for the formation of a Hamas-Fatah coalition government. Obama has even gone so far as to request Congress amend the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009 to enable the United States to continue to provide financial aid to any Palestinian government if the President determines that it is in the interests of national security.
As the United States, the European Union and other countries have classified Hamas as a terrorist organization, America under Obama would appear to have strange new bedfellows. Perhaps the president has forgotten that Hamas’ charter (Article 7) advocates the killing of all Jews by Muslims, its leaders are Holocaust deniers, that his own FBI director, Robert Mueller, in testimony before the U.S. Senate, cited “the FBI’s assessment that there is a … threat of a coordinated terrorist attack in the U.S. from Palestinian terrorist organizations, such as Hamas,” that Hamas has never accepted Israel’s right to exist and is committed to “obliterating” it (preamble to Hamas charter), and that, according to Defense Secretary Robert Gates last January, Hamas and another terrorist organization, Hezbollah, have joined with Iran in fomenting “subversive activity” in Latin America. Or perhaps he believes America’s stated policy of not negotiating with terrorists — established by President Ronald Reagan in 1981 and reaffirmed by Obama as a presidential candidate in April 2008 — should be scrapped. Of all the countries in history that have won wars, only Israel is being denied the fruits of its victory in 1967.
The United States is proving to be a fair-weather ally, abandoning Israel in the face of an impending existential threat from a nuclear Iran. Obama’s self-declared “evenhanded” approach to solving the Middle East “problem” would appear to consist of continually pressuring Israel to give up its secure borders while simultaneously enabling grave threats to Israel’s very existence, refusing to engage the United States in taking action to halt Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Last May, the president connected the dots thusly: “To the extent that we can make peace … between the Palestinians and the Israelis, then I think it actually strengthens our hand in the international community in dealing with a potential Iranian threat.” This idealistic view misses the point — Iran isn’t interested in a two-state solution. In the words of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, “Israel must be wiped off the map,” is a “stinking corpse,” “is on its way to annihilation” and “has reached the end like a dead rat.” Not a lot of room to negotiate there.
Nor is there room to negotiate Iran’s nuclear weapons program. As Obama belatedly acknowledged on Sept. 26 regarding the country’s newly disclosed nuclear power facility, “the size and configuration of this facility is inconsistent with a peaceful program.” Iran desires global power and to spread the religious and political ideology of the Islamic Revolution, so what’s left to negotiate? Access to nuclear energy for peaceful uses isn’t on its shopping list.
Iran and Syria rank as the leading state sponsors of terrorism, yet the president has removed a longstanding export ban on American technology to Syria, allowing the transfer of spare aircraft parts, information technology and telecommunications equipment, all material that could also benefit the air force of Syria’s close ally, Iran. At the same time, Obama actually suspended the sale of military equipment to Israel — holding up the shipment of Apache helicopters after Israel moved to defend its citizenry against daily Hamas-enabled rocket barrages earlier this year — equipment necessary to safeguard Israel’s security against overwhelming odds. Syria, an unrepentant state supporter of terrorism, was exempted by Obama from the longtime ban on the sale of sensitive, dual-use technologies. Yet, it is only Israel that stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the United States as America’s most important and dependable ally in combating terrorism. Can the president see the difference?
Obama spoke eloquently to the United Nations about having compassion for “the Palestinian boy in Gaza who has … no country to call his own.” Where’s his concern for the 3,000-year-old Jewish communities in Arab lands that were ethnically cleansed between 1948 and the early 1970s? Commencing with Arab League retaliation for the declaration of the State of Israel, 1 million Jews were forcibly removed from their homes and personal property, forfeiting 62,000 square miles of land (nearly five times Israel’s 12,600 square miles) and assets worth approximately $300 billion. What of their “right of return?”
By tying the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to improving Muslim-U.S. relations, Obama has forced Israel into the position of answering for U.S. failures in the Muslim world and making the sacrifices necessary to mend that relationship. Obama has placed immense pressure on Israel to halt settlement building. Where is the equal pressure on the Palestinian Authority to ensure Israel’s security? Obama’s far greater pressure on the Israelis has emboldened Arab intransigence and moved the Middle East farther away from the prospect of peace. Case in point: Last weekend, Mohamed ElBaradei, the Egyptian chairman of the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency, asserted that Israel’s nuclear weapons program, not Iran’s, is “the number one threat” to Middle East peace. In the words of Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic, “Israel seeks Iran’s recognition; Iran seeks Israel’s destruction. So of course it is Israel that poses a threat.” Obama’s strong-arm policies toward Israel have created the opening Arab countries have long sought to solve “the Jewish problem” once and for all.
President Obama’s new, “evenhanded” policy in the Middle East is anything but fair and balanced. His policies increasingly endanger and isolate Israel. At the United Nations, Obama forcefully stated that “the United States of America will never waiver in our efforts to stand up for the right of people everywhere to determine their own destiny,” that is, of course, unless the people are Israelis. Without the Jewish state of Israel as a standard bearer for Western ideals of democracy in the Middle East, the world will be a far more dangerous place. Then it will be America’s turn to stand alone as “Public Enemy No. 1” for Islamic fundamentalists. (Lloyd Greif, the son of Holocaust survivors, is president and CEO of Greif & Co., chairman of the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation and a director of both the Los Angeles Police Foundation and the Los Angeles Area Council, Boy Scouts of America. He is also the benefactor of the Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at the University of Southern California.)
Earlier today, a video was leaked on to YouTube showing a segment of aspeech made by Labour MP Shahid Malik at the “Global Peace and Unity”conference in October 2008.
Labour Party MP Shahid Malik has predicted the totalIslamification of Britain and a Muslim prime minister, Allah willing,within the next thirty years.
The remarks were made at theOctober 2008 Global Peace and Unity conference held at the Excel Londoncentre, but were deliberately withheld from the video coverage releasedof that event.
The video speech in which Mr Malik made his remarks has now been released on the internet — nearly five months after the event.
Thesuppression of the video was clearly designed to try and limit thedamage to the ruling Tory and Labour elite, whose immigration policieshave led to the situation where a Muslim cabinet minister canconfidently predict the total Islamification of this nation.
Father Zakaria Botros, Coptic Orthodox Priest. Father Zakaria Botros has just been named World Magazine’s 2008 “Daniel of the Year,” something of a Christian equivalent to Time Magazine’s “Man of the Year.” I first wrote about the elusive Fr Zakaria here. The unedited World Magazine article is long but well worth the read, as it has many details — such as the fact that each of Botros’ weekly episodes are watched by nearly 60 million Arabic-speakers, the vast majority of which are Muslim. The man has a 60 million dollar bounty on his head from the Islamic Countries, more than Osama Bin Laden. This is a great one, on the Michael Coren Show. Muslims pretend to be nice people..so jarring to Canadian ears. They say they are very peaceful and what are you saying? Naive! Is every Muslim like this? Every true Muslim is like that. A moderate Muslim is polite. When their Islam prevolves, all of them will become true Muslims and follow that strategy. We know them, we lived among them for 14 centuries. The Western people never lived with them, just only see the peaceful way, but one day will come when it will be too late. Freedom of speech is great isnt it! Truth hurts. Jesus Christ is good, Look to me and be saved all you ends of the earth, for I am God and there is no other. The Middle East is in chaos, Europe is in trouble. North America is the final battle. Israel is a great friend, Obama needs to understand this. The Bible over the Koran, Quran.
Iran is attempting to acquire clandestine shipments via Canada for its nuclear program.
Canadian customs officers have confiscated everything fromcentrifuge parts to programmable logic controllers that were headed toIran, George Webb, head of the Canada Border Services Agency’s CounterProliferation Section, told the National Post.
The increasing number of cases involves Canadian entrepreneurs, whowant to make a quick buck from the Iranian mullahs, and state-sponsoredcells, such as Hezbollah, which thrive throughout the Canadianprovinces. The goods are not shipped directly to Iran, but to neighboring Islamic countries.
“With all of the UN sanctions, of course, now no one declares thatthe goods are going to Iran. They actually declare UAE, Dubai,” Mr.Webb said.
The last seizure of nuclear material occurred last week. In April, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police charged a Toronto manwith attempting to export pressure transducers, which can be used innuclear power plants but are also required to produce nuclear weapons,to Iran. Mahmoud Yadegari is to be tried in January for attempting to ship the items to Iran via Dubai. Arrests are rare because the procurement cells are difficult for Canadian law enforcement officials to identify. Mr. Webb revealed that a new port in the Persian Gulf named Ras al-Khaimah is being used to transship goods from Canada to Iran.
The port is nominally in the UAE, but is controlled by Iran and issituated just across the Gulf from Bandar Abbas, an Iranian city with anaval base and an airport capable of landing large transport planes, he said.
AL QAEDA HAS NUKES IN U.S. LEADING PAKISTANI JOURNALIST CONFIRMS REPORTS OF McMASTER UNIVERSITY
by Michael Travis
In taped interviews, Hamid Mir, the celebrated Pakistani journalist who interviewed Osama bin Laden in the wake of 9/11, speaks of the presence of al Qaeda agents at McMaster University and “over 80 kilograms” of missing nuclear material.
The interviews support Congressional testimony of Janice L. Kephart (counsel to the 9/11 Commission), and the findings of numerous investigators including Dr. Paul L. Williams, an award-winning American journalist, who is being tried in Canada under Canadian law for his reports about McMaster, a university which houses one of the largest research nuclear reactors in the Western hemisphere.
Mr. Mir is widely recognized for his knowledge of the inner workings of al Qaeda and its leading operatives.
On the tapes, he speaks at length of Anas al-Liby, a founder of al Qaeda, and of al-Liby’s efforts to recruit “good Muslim students” from universities throughout the U.S., Great Britain, and Canada.
The FBI has listed al-Liby as one of its “Most Wanted” terrorists and has placed a $5 million reward for any information leading to his arrest or capture.
Mr. Mir maintains that al-Liby was given the task by bin Laden to construct tactical nuclear bombs and radiological devices.
Speaking from a conference of America’s Truth Forum in Las Vegas, Mr. Mir says there is “no doubt” that al-Liby succeeded in this task and that dirty bombs and nukes are now in the hands of al Qaeda agents.
In statements that should send shock waves through the U.S. intelligence community, the Pakistani journalist adds that al-Liby was on the campus of McMaster in Hamilton, Ontario between 2000 and 2002. Mr. Mir maintains that “it was not difficult” for al-Liby to steal “eighty kilos” of nuclear material.
Mr. Mir also speaks of Adnan el Shukrijumah, another al Qaeda agent who allegedly spent time at McMaster, as “the man who will lead the next attack inside America.”
According to Mr. Mir, Shukrijumah, who is a naturalized U.S. citizen, “stayed with the 9/11 hijackers” and was “a very close friend of Muhammad Atta.
(Mir’s statement regarding Atta and Shukrijumah has been supported by a ABC-News report of Sept. 10, 2009.)
Among those present at the taping of Mr. Mir’s comments were Dr. Hugh Cort, a psychiatrist from Alabama, Laurice Tatum, a licensed private investigator, Dr. Paul Williams, and this reporter.
More on Iran Trying to Get Nuclear Material from Canada
By Michael Travis:
Iran aiming to get nuclear materials via Canada: customs Thursday, 01 October 2009
OTTAWA (AFP) — Iran is attempting to acquire clandestine shipments via Canada for its nuclear program, a senior customs official said Thursday.
Canadian customs officers have seized everything from centrifuge parts to programmable logic controllers being shipped to Iran through third countries, George Webb, head of the Canada Border Services Agency’s Counter Proliferation Section, told the National Post.
The increasing number of cases involves entrepreneurs and state-sponsored cells, Webb told the daily, in comments that were confirmed to AFP by a spokeswoman for CBSA.
Microchips identified as possible “navigational chips” from the United States, Denmark and Japan were marked as headed for the United Arab Emirates, but officials suspect the end destination was Iran, said the Canadian daily.
“With all of the UN sanctions, of course, now no one declares that the goods are going to Iran. They actually declare UAE, Dubai,” he said.
The last seizure occurred just last week.
In April, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police charged a Toronto man with attempting to export pressure transducers, which can be used in nuclear power plants but are also required to produce nuclear weapons, to Iran.
Mahmoud Yadegari is to be tried in January for attempting to ship the items to Iran via Dubai.
In another case, high pressure pipes from Texas were originally suspected of containing Mexican drugs, but turned out to be for nuclear use in Iran.
However, “arrests are rare because the procurement cells are difficult to identify,” the newspaper said.
Webb also revealed authorities had recently discovered a new port in the Persian Gulf named Ras al-Khaimah being used to transship goods to Iran.
The port is nominally in the UAE, but is controlled by Iran and is situated just across the Gulf from Bandar Abbas, an Iranian city with a naval base and an airport capable of landing large transport planes, he said.
