Countering Israel Hatred on Campuses





This effective ad is meant to counter the upcoming annual “Israel Apartheid Week” (Feb. 27-March 3) that has infested college campuses.  Sponsored by Step Up For Israel, their campaign includes excellent video material. 

What a Real Arab Moderate Sounds & Looks Like

Lee Habeeb

Arab Like Me -Lee Habeeb

    There are two kinds of Arabs in this world. Those who hate Jews, and those who don't. And in my life, as a Lebanese kid growing up in New Jersey, I have met more of the former than the latter. The fact is, Arabs don't all think alike. Some of us believe in a simple universal truth: that every Arab deserves to live in freedom, wherever he or she might call home. Some of us want Arab countries to be more like America and Israel, places where the individual can flourish.

    An Arab American friend of mine, a Jordanian, is well educated, and he speaks five languages. But mention the word "Israel," and watch his blood boil immediately. Why is all of his passion, all of his anger and rage, directed at this one country? Why is it not directed at Syria, I ask him? Why not at Hizbullah, which orchestrated the takeover of Lebanon? Why not at Hosni Mubarak when he was in power? Or Saddam Hussein? Why not at the ways in which some Muslims are persecuting Christians?

    Two reasons: fear, and envy. To the dismay of Arabs around the world, Jewish people turned an ancient piece of real estate in the Middle East into a thriving oasis of intellectual, political, religious, and commercial activity, where people are free to do as they please, with a functioning government that respects religious and economic freedom.

    I ask my friend why he is obsessed with the 1967 border dispute, and not some other border grudge, as it would not take long to find other countries unhappy with the ways in which territories were allocated as spoils of various 19th- and 20th-century wars. I tell him that using his logic, Mexican terrorists should be blowing themselves up in Houston and El Paso.

    I now ask Arabs who show such a knee-jerk reaction to Israel: Why do you hate Jews? They quickly point out that they have no beef with Jews. It's Israel they hate. To which I reply, "If Israel had been handed over to Bolivians or Albanians or Estonians, would you still hate it?" It makes the point: Despising Israel the way Israel is despised in much of the Arab world is all about anti-Semitism.
The writer is vice president of content at Salem Radio Network.
(National Review)
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Palestinian Unity: VideoBite

A powerful video from our friends at Latma TV...humor is a powerful weapon

The New PA-Hamas Agreement: Opening the Gates to the Trojan Horse
-Jonathan D. Halevi

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal signed a new agreement to create a Palestinian national unity government for the West Bank and Gaza.
 (Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs)
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Abandoning Syria

Listening to the Syrian Resistance -Clifford D. May

Recent upheavals in the Middle East, mislabeled “the Arab Spring,” have so far brought change only to countries where those in power had been cooperating with the U.S.: Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen.

By contrast, the 2009 uprising against Iran’s anti-American theocrats was brutally suppressed, while Western leaders lifted not a finger and said hardly a word. If Assad manages to remain in power, the lesson will be that it has become less dangerous to be America’s enemy than to be America’s friend.

This formulation, I suspect, goes a long way toward explaining Russia’s staunch backing of Assad. Putin is sending a message to his fellow autocrats everywhere: Moscow, unlike Washington, can be counted on when the chips are down.

[T]he “international community” is highly selective about which massacres require action and which may be regretted and dismissed. If Americans won’t provide leadership — protecting civilians while advancing the West’s security interests — no one will.
[Jewish World Review]
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Iran Strikes in India & Thailand

India, Israel Cooperate on Bomb Investigation -Yaakov Katz & Herb Keinon
Israeli forensic teams arrived in New Delhi to assist in the investigation of the bombing attack against an Israeli embassy car.

Tali Yehoshua-Koren, the wife of the Defense Ministry's representative to India who was injured in the bombing, was in stable condition after surgery. She is suffering from partial paralysis in one of her legs.
(Jerusalem Post)


Caught in His Own Blast: An Iranian Targeting Israel -Andrew Buncombe
A day after an Israeli diplomat was injured in a bomb attack in Delhi and another attempt was foiled in Georgia - police in Bangkok were called to a property where an explosion badly damaged the roof.

Reports said three men, all said to be Iranian, fled the scene. One of the men attempting to flee threw an explosive device at advancing police. His legs were said to have been torn off by the subsequent blast. The man was identified as Saeid Moradi. "We discovered the injured man's passport. It's an Iranian passport," Bansiri Prapapat, a police official, said.
(Independent-UK)


Israel: Thai Bombs Similar to Ones Used in India, Georgia Attacks
The bombs discovered in a Bangkok house after an accidental blast were similar to devices used against Israeli Embassy targets in India and Georgia, Israel's ambassador to Thailand Itzhak Shoha said. That and the arrest of the two Iranians in Thailand "again leave not too much room to assume who was behind it," he said. Israel's Channel 10 TV quoted unidentified Thai authorities as saying the captured Iranians confessed to targeting Israeli interests.
(AP-Washington Post)
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UPDATES: 

Iranian terror cell with Thai prostitutes prior to explosion

Karmic mistake: Iranian Saeid Moradi, who is still alive, had his legs blown off after a grenade he hurled bounced back onto him, as police closed in on him outside a Bangkok school

For more photos and full coverage click here

Anatomy of a Smear: VideoBite

The makers of the controversial film The Third Jihad released this short video, fighting back against the storm created by the New York Times

Drawing Lessons from Nuke Escalation

The Saudis Will Want the Bomb, Too -Michael J. Totten
It's no secret that Saudi Arabia will want nuclear weapons if Iran gets them. There's an interesting angle here that hardly anyone seems to notice.

Israel is supposedly the mortal enemy of the Arabs. Right? So how come no Arab state bothered getting nuclear weapons after Israel acquired the bomb?

Either the Arab war against Israel is less serious than the conventional wisdom would have it, the Arab-Persian conflict is more serious than the conventional wisdom would have it, or both.
(PJMedia)
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Krauthammer: Israel will strike Iran

In the video above, Charles Krauthammer predicts Israel will strike Iran

IMPORTANT UPDATE:

Obama's Dangerous Game with Iran -Daniel Klaidman, Eli Lake & Dan Ephron

The head of Israel's Mossad was recently in Washington for meetings on Iran. According to an American official who was involved, Tamir Pardo wanted to take the pulse of the Obama administration and determine what the consequences would be if Israel bombed Iranian nuclear sites over American objections.

Israeli officials say that the U.S. thinks it can afford to wait until Iran is on the very verge of weaponizing, because U.S. forces have the capacity to carry out multiple bombing sorties and cripple the Iranian program at that point. Israel, however, would not be able to carry out such a sustained attack and would need to hit much sooner to be effective - before Iran could shelter much of its program deep underground.

One former Israeli official tells Newsweek he heard this explanation directly from Defense Minister Ehud Barak: "If Israel will miss its last opportunity [to attack], then we will have to lean only on the United States, and if the United States decides not to attack, then we will face an Iran with a bomb."
(Newsweek)

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No Peace for a Decade

The path of peace

A New, Realistic Peace Is Needed -Ari Shavit

After Israel gave the Palestinians most of Gaza, the first bus blew up at Dizengoff Square. After Israel gave the Palestinians Nablus and Ramallah, buses started blowing up in downtown Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. And after Israel suggested that the Palestinians set up a sovereign state on most of the territories, they responded with a wave of terror. And as suicide terrorists were running amok in our cities, it started to dawn on people that maybe there was something defective about the promise of a great peace.

After Israel withdrew from south Lebanon, a Shi'ite missile base was set up there, which threatens the entire country. And after Israel withdrew from the Gaza settlements, the area became an armed Hamastan that continually attacked the south.

Tzipi Livni sat with Ahmed Qureia for a full year, but Qureia signed nothing. Ehud Olmert offered Jerusalem to Mahmoud Abbas, but Abbas just disappeared. The fact that the moderate Palestinians were turning their backs on the most generous peace offerings Israel had ever made raised gloomy suspicions about their intentions. Were they really willing to divide the country into two national states that would live side by side with one another? Reasonable, moderate Israelis lost their faith in reconciliation.

Now the Islamic revolution in Egypt has removed the southern anchor of that promised peace. The Arab awakening has killed the diplomatic process. In the coming years, no moderate Arab leader will have enough legitimacy or power to sign a peace agreement with Israel.

Peace simply isn't going to happen. Not now, and not in this decade.
(Ha'aretz)
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Obama Green-Lights Hamas Deal

Report: U.S. Won't Oppose Fatah-Hamas Deal -Elior Levy
The U.S. administration has informed the Palestinian Authority that it has no objections to the reconciliation deal between Fatah and Hamas, the London-based Al-Hayat reported.

Israel has expressed vehement objection to the deal.

[T]he Palestinian leadership in the West Bank decided against resuming the Amman peace talks with Israel.
(Ynet News)
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Upside Down Egypt

A cartoon worth a thousand words

Egypt's Ominous Detention of Americans-Michael Gerson

For months, the Egyptian government has explored the limits of U.S. patience, which it is just about to reach.
(Washington Post)
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Egypt Must Drop Charges Against U.S. Democracy Workers -Editorial

[T]he Obama administration and the U.S. Congress should make it clear to Egypt how costly its current course of action could be for all involved.
(Boston Globe)

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President Obama called "startlingly naive" on Iran

America's Red Lines in the Sand on Iran -Richard Cohen

•The fact is that the Iranian regime is astonishingly violent. In addition to the attempt on the life of the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Iran had its own former prime minister stabbed to death in a Paris hotel room, was allegedly behind the bombing of a Buenos Aires Jewish center (85 dead) and is blamed for the bombing of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in which 19 U.S. airmen were killed. This is a dangerous regime.

•President Obama wants the Iranian regime to turn its nuclear sword into a plowshare.

•In his State of the Union address, Obama said: "A peaceful resolution of this issue is still possible, and far better, and if Iran changes course and meets its obligations, it can rejoin the community of nations." This statement - the vaunted carrot - is startlingly naive. Where is the evidence to suggest that the men who now run Iran will slap their foreheads, say zowie (in Farsi) and conclude that they were wrong to pursue a nuclear weapons program? More likely, they will conclude that North Korea survives because it defied the U.S. and continued to develop nuclear weapons.

•The ultimate remedy is Iranian regime change. In the meantime, Obama must ensure that Iran perceives no daylight between the U.S. and Israel, and no chance that Washington will become naive about Iran's intentions. This looming crisis is not only about Israel. It's about America, too.
(Washington Post)
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President's Super Bowl interview -Frank J. Gaffney Jr

President Obama provided his own Super Sunday show. In some respects, it was almost as bizarre as Madonna's performance at half-time. In his interview with NBC's Matt Lauer, Mr. Obama responded oddly to concerns raised last week by leaders of the U.S. intelligence community. They testified on Capitol Hill that the Iranian mullahs appear to be planning attacks on the United States. Yet, the president told Mr. Lauer, "We don't see any evidence that they have those intentions or capabilities right now."

Anyone with an IQ above room temperature has noticed lately plenty of evidence of both hostile Iranian intentions and the capabilities to act on them. Mr. Obama's statement that "we don't see any evidence" of Iran's intentions and capabilities to attack us is either witless or deceptive.
[Jewish World Review]
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Iceberg Ahead for Egypt

Are Egypt's Islamists Heading for a Fall? -Daniel Pipes, PhD

In Egypt, which imports more than half its caloric intake, wages must keep up with the price of food or people begin to starve. Yet the country appears to be heading for a monumental financial collapse in 2012, and perhaps by the summer.

If Islamists strut about as though they rule Egypt, the population will blame them and their Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) allies for its hunger. The anger could quickly turn ferocious.

After waiting 84 years to attain legitimacy and power, the Muslim Brotherhood may find it got suckered into taking over the ship's helm just as it heads into an iceberg.
(National Review)
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Syria's Fall Spells Trouble for Iran, Hezbollah & Friends

Syria: It's not just about freedom -Charles Krauthammer

Imperial regimes can crack when they are driven out of their major foreign outposts. The fall of the Berlin Wall did not only signal the liberation of Eastern Europe from Moscow. It prefigured the collapse of the Soviet Union itself just two years later.

The fall of Bashar al-Assad’s Syria could be similarly ominous for Iran. The alliance with Syria is the centerpiece of Iran’s expanding sphere of influence, a mini-Comintern that includes such clients as Iranian-armed and -directed Hezbollah, now the dominant power in Lebanon; and Hamas, which controls Gaza and threatens to take the rest of Palestine (the West Bank) from a feeble Fatah.

Tehran has even extended its horizon to Latin America, as symbolized by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s solidarity tour through Venezuela, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Cuba.
Of all these clients, Syria is the most important. It’s the only Arab state openly allied with non-Arab Iran. This is significant because the Arabs see the Persians as having had centuries-old designs to dominate the Middle East. Indeed, Iranian arms and trainers, transshipped to Hezbollah through Syria, have given the Persians their first outpost on the Mediterranean in 2,300 years.

But the Arab-Iranian divide is not just national/ethnic. It is sectarian. The Arabs are overwhelmingly Sunni. Iran is Shiite. The Arab states fear Shiite Iran infiltrating the Sunni homeland through (apart from Iraq) Hezbollah in Lebanon, and through Syria, run by Assad’s Alawites, a heterodox offshoot of Shiite Islam.

Which is why the fate of the Assad regime is geopolitically crucial.

With its archipelago of clients anchored by Syria, Iran is today the greatest regional threat — to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states terrified of Iranian nuclear hegemony; to traditional regimes menaced by Iranian jihadist subversion; to Israel, which the Islamic Republic has pledged to annihilate; to America and the West, whom the mullahs have vowed to drive from the region.
No surprise that the Arab League, many of whose members are no tenderhearted humanitarians, is pressing hard for Assad’s departure. His fall would deprive Iran of an intra-Arab staging area and sever its corridor to the Mediterranean. Syria would return to the Sunni fold. Hezbollah, Tehran’s agent in Lebanon, could be next, withering on the vine without Syrian support and Iranian materiel. And Hamas would revert to Egyptian patronage.

It’s not just the Sunni Arabs lining up against Assad. Turkey, after a recent flirtation with a Syrian-Iranian-Turkish entente, has turned firmly against Assad, seeing an opportunity to extend its influence, as in Ottoman days, as protector/master of the Sunni Arabs. The alignment of forces suggests a unique opportunity for the West to help finish the job.

How? First, a total boycott of Syria, beyond just oil and including a full arms embargo. Second, a flood of aid to the resistance. Third, a Security Council resolution calling for the removal of the Assad regime. Russia, Assad’s last major outside ally, should be forced to either accede or incur the wrath of the Arab states with a veto [just after this article was written, Russian & China vetoed just such a resolution].

Force the issue. Draw bright lines. Make clear American solidarity with the Arab League against a hegemonic Iran and its tottering Syrian client. In diplomacy, one often has to choose between human rights and strategic advantage. This is a rare case where we can advance both — so long as we do not compromise with Russia or relent until Assad falls.
[Jewish World Review]
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War of Words Begins

Ya'alon spreads paranoia in Iran's nuclear program by implying that Israel has penetrated their nuclear staff.  If true, bunker bombs are less necessary.

Ya'alon: All of Iran's Nuke Faculties Are Vulnerable - Barak Ravid

All of Iran's nuclear facilities are vulnerable to a military strike, Israeli Vice Prime Minister and Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya'alon [pictured] said.

"Any facility protected by humans can be infiltrated by humans. It's possible to strike all Iran's facilities, and I say that out of my experience as IDF chief of staff."
(Ha'aretz)
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Panetta could have betrayed Israel's confidence by exposing their plans...or he could be entering the new War of Words with information...or disinformation.

Panetta believes Israel will strike Iran soon -Yitzhak Benhorin

US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta [pictured] believes that Israel is likely to strike Iran in the coming months, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius said.

"Panetta believes there is strong likelihood that Israel will strike Iran in April, May or June – before Iran enters what Israelis described as a “zone of immunity” to commence building a nuclear bomb," Ignatius wrote.

Asked by journalists whether he disputes the report, Panetta said, "No, I'm just not commenting."

The Israeli scenario, according to Ignatius, is a five day limited offensive, followed by a UN-brokered ceasefire. The relatively light damage that is expected to be inflicted on Iranian nuclear facilities will require Israel to stage another offensive a few years down the line.

[Ynet News]

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Facebook Fake

The photo above, uploaded by Facebook user named Wesley Muahammad, shows a uniform-clad soldier pressing a boot to the stomach of a helpless girl lying on the floor while pointing an AK-47 rifle at her face

 

The photo with irregularities in the image explained



Facebook Photo of IDF Soldier Was Faked

A photograph on Facebook that became an Internet sensation - allegedly showing an IDF soldier pointing a weapon at a young Palestinian girl - was faked.

The soldier in the photo is carrying an AK-47 rifle, which is not used by the IDF.
(Ha'aretz)*

Iran Direct Threat to US

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper

A Warning on Iran -Editorial

According to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, not only is Iran prepared to use terrorism in retaliation for any military strikes against it, they're also prepared to get their retaliation in first. "There is more to unfold here," he said. "They're trying to penetrate and engage in this hemisphere."

If the regime is prepared to stage terrorist strikes in America when they don't have a bomb, what will they be capable of when they do have one?
(Wall Street Journal)
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IMPORTANT UPDATE: 

Iran was working on US-range missile -Yaakov Katz

Iran was working on developing a missile with 10,000 km range that would put America in reach of a potential Iranian attack, Strategic Affairs Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Ya'alon said.

According to Ya'alon, the missile was based on a solid fuel propellant and would have been able to significantly increase Iran's offensive capabilities. Last month, a mysterious explosion rocked an Iranian missile base near Tehran where Iran was working on developing this long range missile.
According to the deputy prime minister, who was in the United States last week for talks on Iran with senior officials from the Obama administration, Turkey was helping Iran circumvent the sanctions by allowing it to use its banking system.

Ya'alon also said that Iran and Hezbollah were working with drug cartels in Mexico to learn how to smuggle materials into the US, a conduit that could one day be used to smuggle weapons into the country.

Ya'alon said that the West still does not fully understand the severity of the nuclear threat posed by Iran. "America is the larger Satan," he said.
[Jerusalem Post]
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Embraceing Hamas...Indirectly; Hamas Hides Behind Fatah

Hamas and the Washington establishment -Caroline Glick

After Hamas won the Palestinian elections in January 2006, Turkey was the first country to invite Hamas's terror master Khaled Mashal to Ankara. Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan's move provoked criticism from the Bush administration. But Erdogan just shrugged it off. And he was right to do so. By 2006, then secretary of state Condoleezza Rice had come to view Erdogan as the US's indispensable ally in the Muslim world. As she saw it, he was proof that Islamist parties could be democratic and moderate.

The fact that Erdogan embraced Hamas could not get in the way of Rice's optimistic assessment. So, too, the fact that Erdogan embarked on a systematic campaign to stifle press freedom, curb judicial independence and imprison his political critics in the media and the military could not move Rice from her view that Erdogan personified her belief that moderate jihadists exist and ought to be embraced by the US.

Rice's starry-eyed view of Erdogan set the stage of US President Barack Obama's even stronger embrace of the increasingly tyrannical Turkish Islamist. Since Obama took office, not only has Ankara stepped up its support of Hamas, and ended even the pretense of a continued strategic alliance with Israel that it maintained during the Bush years. Turkey began serving as Iran's chief diplomatic protector while vastly expanding its own strategic and economic ties with Tehran.

In the face of Turkey's openly anti-American behavior and actions, Obama clings to Erdogan even more strongly than Rice did. Obama reportedly views Erdogan as his most trusted foreign adviser. According to the media, Obama speaks with Erdogan more often than he speaks to any other foreign leader. In a recent interview with Time magazine, Obama listed Erdogan as one of the key foreign leaders with whom he has formed a friendship based on trust.

Over the past few weeks, Turkey has emerged as Hamas's largest financier. During an official visit in Turkey, Hamas's terror master in Gaza Ismail Haniyeh received a hero's welcome. Erdogan pledged to finance the jihadist movement to the tune of $300 million per year.

To understand how Washington acts as Hamas's protector, it is necessary to consider the nature of the Palestinian-Israeli peace process.

Since its inception in 1993, the peace process has been predicated on Israeli concessions to the Palestinians. To the extent that Israel makes concessions, the peace process is seen as advancing. To the extent that Israel fails to make concessions, the peace process is seen as collapsing. True, at certain times, the Bush administration blamed the Palestinians for the failure of the peace process, but the blame owed to the fact that Palestinian terrorism made Israel less amenable to concession making.

Palestinian terrorism was not in and of itself blamed for the demise of the peace process. Rather it was perceived as the means through which Israel avoided making more concessions. And at certain times, the US supported Israel's avoidance of concession making.

Since Israeli concessions to the Palestinians are the only tangible component of the peace process, the US, as the chief sponsor of the peace process, requires the Palestinian Authority — run by Fatah — to be accepted as a credible repository for Israeli concessions regardless of its actual nature. Consequently, despite Fatah's two unity deals with Hamas, its sponsorship of terrorism, its incitement of terrorism, its refusal to accept Israel's right to exist, its adoption of negotiating positions that presuppose Israel's demise, and its conduct of political warfare against Israel, neither the Bush administration nor the Obama administration ever showed the slightest willingness to consider ending their support for the PA.

If Israel has no peace partner, then it can't make concessions. And if it can't make concessions, there is no peace process. And that is something that neither the Bush administration nor the Obama administration was willing to countenance.

It is true that under Obama the US has become far more hostile towards Israel than it was under Bush. The most important distinction between the two is that whereas George W. Bush sought to broker a compromise deal between the two sides, Obama has adopted Fatah's negotiating positions against Israel. As a consequence of Obama's actions, the peace process has been derailed completely. Fatah has no reason to compromise since the US will blame Israel no matter what. And Israel has no reason to make concessions since the US will deem them insufficient.

[T]his week Fatah-controlled PA TV aired a sequence venerating the murderers of the Fogel family. Udi and Ruth Fogel and their children Yoav, Elad and Hadas were brutally murdered in their home last March.

Fatah's glorification of their murderers is yet further proof that the foundations of the peace process are false. Peace cannot be based on appeasing societies that uphold mass murderers as role models. It can only be based on empowering free societies to defeat societies that embrace murder, terror and in the case of Hamas, genocide.
[Jewish World Review]
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Flexing Its Muscles, Egypt Detains American



Detained in Egypt

Son of U.S. Transportation Secretary Barred from Leaving Egypt -Leila Fadel

Sam LaHood [pictured], director of the Egyptian program of the International Republican Institute (IRI) and the son of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, said he was prevented from leaving Egypt at Cairo airport along with at least five other Americans working for pro-democracy groups.

IRI was one of three U.S.-based nonprofit groups in Cairo that were raided and shut down on Dec. 29 by Egyptian authorities, who accused the groups of using foreign funds to support unrest in Egypt.

"To have a strategic U.S. ally issue bans against American citizens is deeply troubling," said Scott Mastic, IRI's regional director for the Middle East and North Africa.

This weekend, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton raised the issue in a call with Egypt's foreign minister. President Obama also brought up the rights of NGOs specifically in a phone call last week.

In private, State Department officials have told Egypt that its actions are jeopardizing U.S. aid to Egypt's military.
(Washington Post)
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IMPORTANT UPDATE:

Egypt to Prosecute 19 Americans, After Raids on Rights Groups

The son of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood is among 19 Americans being referred to criminal trial for allegedly receiving foreign funds illegally and being involved in banned activity in Egypt, news agencies reported.

The move is likely to further sour relations between Egypt's military rulers and the U.S., the Arab nation's chief Western backer for more than 30 years. Sam LaHood is head of the Egypt office of the Washington-based International Republican Institute.

All 19 of the U.S. aid workers sought shelter in the U.S. embassy in Cairo more than a week ago after they were denied the opportunity to leave the country.
(Fox News)
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Obama's State of the Union: What it says about his relationship with Israel



Candidate Obama at Jerusalem's Western Wall. 
President Obama has not returned to Israel.



Obama’s State of the Union Speech -Barry Rubin

“Our iron-clad commitment to Israel’s security has meant the closest military cooperation between our two countries in history.”

This is a carefully constructed sentence which I find makes me even more suspicious about Obama’s commitment toward Israel. Why? Because it is true that the bilateral military cooperation is as good as it has ever been. But all other areas of relations are terrible.

This sentence tells me that Obama understands that and wants to accentuate the positive without doing anything to improve the negative. He thinks U.S.-Israel relations are good enough and will not—even if, or especially if, elected to a second term.

Another point to notice is Obama’s failure to mention–much less highlight–the Israel-Palestinian “peace process.” They’ve given up on that one, at least for 2012.
[PJ Media]
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Beware Woman with Gun

Video: The Work of an IDF Weapons Instructor

Behind every good soldier is in an exceptional instructor. Cpl. Daniella Stepanoe, an IDF weapons instructor, talks about training soldiers and shows off her skills.
(Israel Defense Forces)*

Moderate Muslim Defends 'The Third Jihad' Against Attacks from the NYTimes

The New York Times has created quite a stir.
The film The Third Jihad exposes radical Islamist influences in the United States. The film can be viewed for free online...highly recommended. [Bruce]




IMPORTANT UPDATE: 

Moderate American Muslim organization backs NYPD

Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser [pictured], a devout Muslim and the president and founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) issued the following statement regarding the vicious and malignant attack by the New York Times and the Council for American Islamic Relations (CAIR) on the NYPD and Chief Raymond Kelly:

The American Islamic Forum for Democracy unequivocally supports the efforts of the New York Police Department and its Commissioner Raymond Kelly to fight the insidious ideology of militant Islamism.

This week's attacks on the NYPD and now Chief Kelly are yet another example of the depths of deception that groups such as CAIR are willing to go in order to suppress any criticism of the organization.

The story that the New York Times ran this week is over a year old. ... when a new kernel of information was released, CAIR seized that opportunity to reignite the furor. The "shocking" evidence was that 1,500 NYPD officers saw a film that is readily available to the general public and probably already viewed by millions.

This effort by CAIR is a blatant attempt to punish the NYPD and Chief Kelly for doing their job and to strike fear in the heart of anyone that does legitimate work in exposing their lifeblood of Islamism. Political correctness has made mere claims of discrimination and racial bias irrefutable and removed the ability for Americans to have honest discourse on religious issues.

The Third Jihad is not anti-Islam or anti-Muslim. If it were I would not have been a part of it. For me, it was an opportunity to speak with my co-religionists about the threat that exists to our children and our very way of life. It is a wake-up call for our community to accept our responsibility to fight against an ideology within our communities that seeks to strip us of our Constitutional freedoms.
[American Islamic Forum for Democracy]
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Will Iran's Nuke Program Survive?

Struggle over Nuke Program -Greg Sheridan

•In Jerusalem, Washington and Tehran, three different clocks are running. Maintaining a real degree of uncertainty about what it might do is central to the Israeli government's strategy. The most senior Israelis believe they do have a military option against Iran. It's not a perfect option but they believe that even today they could severely degrade Iran's nuclear program with aerial strikes.

•But the Israeli military option is running out. First, the Iranians are attempting to immunize their program from aerial strike by moving as much of it as possible deep underground and by creating so many facilities they become too numerous to bomb.

•Second, there will come a point at which the Iranians have developed so much nuclear expertise in depth that even if their physical facilities were damaged they could quickly reconstitute these and press ahead to weapons.

•Some Americans believe if the Israelis strike Iran, the U.S. will pay the political costs anyway, so it would be better for the Americans to do the job and do it properly. Their clock is a bit different from the one the Israelis hear. Because of their vastly superior firepower, the Americans could strike Iran later, more devastatingly and more sustainably.

•If by the end of this year Iran has not negotiated the abandonment of its nuclear weapons program, if sanctions have not comprehensively crippled its economy and if its nuclear program has not been degraded by Israeli or U.S. air strikes, then it becomes overwhelmingly likely that Iran has survived the Western bluff and will in due course acquire nuclear weapons.
(The Australian)
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UPDATE: 

Will Israel Attack Iran? -Ronen Bergman

After speaking with many senior Israeli leaders and chiefs of the military and the intelligence, I have come to believe that Israel will indeed strike Iran in 2012.

Perhaps in the small and ever-diminishing window that is left, the United States will choose to intervene after all, but here, from the Israeli perspective, there is not much hope for that. Instead there is that peculiar Israeli mixture of fear — rooted in the sense that Israel is dependent on the tacit support of other nations to survive — and tenacity, the fierce conviction, right or wrong, that only the Israelis can ultimately defend themselves.
[New York Times]
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US Weakened in MidEast

America lost most in 'Arab Spring' -Caroline Glick

To understand the depth and breadth of America's losses, consider that on January 25, 2011, most
Arab states were US allies to a greater or lesser degree. Mubarak was a strategic ally. [Yemen's] Saleh was willing to collaborate with the US in combating al- Qaida and other jihadist forces in his country. Gaddafi was a neutered former enemy who had posed no threat to the US since 2004. Iraq was a protectorate. Jordan and Morocco were stable US clients.

One year later, the elements of the US's alliance structure have either been destroyed or seriously weakened. US allies like Saudi Arabia, which have yet to be seriously threatened by the revolutionary violence, no longer trust the US. As the recently revealed nuclear cooperation between the Saudis and the Chinese makes clear, the Saudis are looking to other global powers to replace the US as their superpower protector.

Perhaps the most amazing aspect to the US's spectacular loss of influence and power in the Arab world is that most of its strategic collapse has been due to its own actions. In Egypt and Libya the US intervened prominently to bring down a US ally and a dictator who constituted no threat to its interests. Indeed, it went to war to bring Gaddafi down.

Moreover, the US acted to bring about their fall at the same time it knew that they would be replaced by forces inimical to American national security interests. In Egypt, it was clear that the Muslim Brotherhood would emerge as the strongest political force in the country. In Libya, it was clear at the outset of the NATO campaign against Gaddafi that al-Qaida was prominently represented in the antiregime coalition. And shortly after Gaddafi was overthrown, al-Qaida forces raised their flag over Benghazi's courthouse.

US actions from Yemen to Bahrain and beyond have followed a similar pattern.

In sharp contrast to his active interventionism against US-allied regimes, President Barack Obama has prominently refused to intervene in Syria, where the fate of a US foe hangs in the balance.

Obama has sat back as Turkey has fashioned a Syrian opposition dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Arab League has intervened in a manner that increases the prospect that Syria will descend into chaos in the event that the Assad regime is overthrown.

Obama continues to speak grandly about his vision for the Middle East and his dedication to America's regional allies. And his supporters in the media continue to applaud his great success in foreign policy. But outside of their echo chamber, he and the country he leads are looked upon with increasing contempt and disgust throughout the Arab world.

Obama's behavior since last January 25 has made clear to US friend and foe alike that under Obama, the US is more likely to attack you if you display weakness towards it than if you adopt a confrontational posture against it. As Assad survives to kill another day; as Iran expands its spheres of influence and gallops towards the nuclear bomb; as al- Qaida and its allies rise from the Gulf of Aden to the Suez Canal; and as Mubarak continues to be wheeled into the courtroom on a stretcher, the US's rapid fall from regional power is everywhere in evidence.
[Jewish World Review]
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The New Face of Egypt



Two youngsters sport headbands reading "Muslim Brotherhood," a group which supports world domination through an Islamist caliphate.  Aren't they cute?

Middle East Miscalculation -Mortimer B. Zuckerman

•The euphoria of the "Arab Spring," the instant transition from dictatorship to democracy, is seen for what it is: an illusion. In mid-December, violent Islamic Salafist extremists burned down Cairo's famous scientific Institute d'Egypte, which housed 200,000 original and rare books, maps, archaeological objects, and nature studies from Egypt and the Middle East, the result of generations of work by researchers.

•We had long shared with the Egyptian military understandings on national security, ours with an eye to maintaining peace in the region. That relationship is now pretty much lost.

•Americans, in their perennial innocence, have demanded that the generals turn over power to the civilians whomever they may be, just as they did to the Persian shah, just as they did after Israel's pullout from Gaza when they hadn't a clue about the danger posed by Hamas. Our ingenuous attitude has been tantamount to handing over Egypt on a silver platter to the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists.

•[Egypt's] new foreign policy will include opening the blockaded border with Gaza, ending normal relations with Israel, and opening them with Hamas and Iran in such a way as to alter the balance of power in the region against U.S. interests. Indeed, one of the few things that unites the political parties in Egypt is an anti-Western foreign policy.

•As Robert Satloff, the executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, has put it, "The Brotherhood is not, as some suggest, simply an Egyptian version of the March of Dimes - that is, a social welfare organization whose goals are fundamentally humanitarian." It is a "profoundly political organization" that seeks to reorder Egyptian society along Islamist lines and "transform Egypt into a very different place."
(U.S. News)
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How the U.S. Should Handle the Islamist Rise in Egypt -Robert Satloff & Eric Trager

From an American perspective, the situation in Egypt is a nightmare, with the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party and the even more fundamentalist Nour Party winning about two-thirds of the seats in Egypt's next parliament. While both parties have paid lip service to respecting Egypt's international obligations, American leaders cannot ignore the fact that the security partnership Washington had with Cairo for more than 30 years is in serious jeopardy.

Some have sugar-coated the Islamists' ascendance by arguing that the responsibility of governance will moderate them. Experience suggests otherwise.

Washington has assets to preserve its equities in Egypt. At $1.2 billion, U.S. military assistance is essentially the procurement budget for the Egyptian armed forces. Direct U.S. economic support is $250 million and America has a substantial voice in international financial institutions to which Egypt almost surely will turn for help.

In the coming period, when Egypt's Islamist politicians will test just how far the U.S. will bend to accommodate a new political reality, the U.S. should be willing to use all these tools to advance its interests.

Washington's message should be that U.S. support is conditional on Egyptian cooperation in maintaining peace with Israel and preserving political pluralism and religious and minority rights.
Mr. Satloff is executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, where Mr. Trager is a fellow.
(Wall Street Journal)
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Irony: Liberals Sweep the Streets for Islamists

Western pundits and governments said it would not happen.  They believed that that liberals, who led the street revolts that swept Mubarek from power, represented the popular view.  But, as the video above illustrates, election results are clear.  Liberals make up only 7% of the Egyptian electorate.  The street revolt cleared a path for Islamist ascendancy.  This cannot be good. If Egypt was a real democracy I could be more optimistic, as democracies are, in the long run, self correcting. But I strongly suspect that we've seen the last displays of democracy in Egypt, as a dictator [Mubarek] was replaced with a group of jihadi dictators. Minority rights will continue to deteriorate: watch the fate of Coptic Christians in Egypt for a taste of the future. [B]

Powerful Video

United Against Nuclear Iran [UANI] just released this parody of Fiat endorser Jennifer Lopez's "My World" Fiat commercial.  UANI is leading a campaign against auto manufacturer Fiat for doing business with Iran. 

Obama & Ahmad

Can Obama Get Away With Iran Inaction? -Jonathan Tobin

President Obama has been assuring the public since before he was elected in 2008 that he would never allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. But the question facing the White House this year is whether a failure to make good on that pledge will be more damaging to his chances of re-election than a spike in oil prices.

That’s the dilemma Obama has been grappling with since Congress passed a bill over his objections last month that mandated a complete ban on all transactions with entities that did business with Iran’s Central Bank. Sanctions on the bank are the lever by which an international embargo on the sale of Iranian oil is made possible. But as American diplomats are laying the groundwork for such an embargo, the administration is also sending out signals that indicate it is less than enthusiastic about dealing with the possible economic fallout of the one tactic that might stop the Iranians short of war.

According to the New York Times, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has already told Congress he thought the bank measure interfered with the administration’s “carefully phased” approach to sanctions on Iran. Having demanded and gotten a waiver inserted into the bill that would allow the president to put off the sanctions indefinitely, there is now a very real chance Obama will decide the sanctions are not worth the trouble. With the president’s favorability numbers already low, the White House may believe the impact of a major increase in the price of gas and the consequent economic distress may be more politically toxic than actions that can be interpreted as acquiescing to a nuclear Iran.

But with diplomacy offering no hope and since the administration has made it clear it will not support the use of force against Iran and opposes Israel doing so on its own, punting on an oil embargo will be seen as an indication Obama is not prepared to do anything to stop Tehran.

[F]or Obama to refuse to use the one economic lever he has at his disposal to avert an existential threat to Israel as well as to the entire Middle East would certainly cost him heavily among Jews as well as non-Jewish friends of Israel.

Essentially, Obama has until late June to decide whether or not to use the waiver. While we must expect the administration would attempt to explain its use as part of a long-range strategy against Iran, the consequences of doing so could be greater than just some lost votes. If the United States chooses not to push tough sanctions against Iran, then Israel may decide it must take matters into its own hands. [T]he president has acted at times as if he was more afraid of Israel attacking Iranian nuclear sites than he was of the ayatollah gaining control of a bomb.

Even worse for the president is the possibility that further delay will result in an Iranian announcement of nuclear capability on Obama’s watch.

But if Obama is left with no good choices about Iran he has only himself to blame. Having wasted his first three years in office on a foolish policy of “engagement” with and feckless diplomatic initiatives that accomplished nothing, the fact that he has painted himself into a corner on this issue during an election year is entirely his own doing.
[Commentary]
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Murder in Texas: Did Iran Do It?

A short video highlighting the Texas murder of Gelareh Bagherzadeh earlier this week. 
Did Iranian operatives do it?