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Deja vu — Judith Apter Klinghoffer

Dr. Judith Apter Klinghoffer taught history and International relations at Rowan University, Rutgers University, the Foreign Affairs College in Beijing as well as at Aarhus University in Denmark where she was a senior Fulbright professor. She is an affiliate professor at Haifa University. Her books include Israel and the Soviet Union, Vietnam, Jews and the Middle East: Unintended Consequences and , International Citizens' Tribunals: Mobilizing Public Opinion to Advance Human Rights

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

AMERICA ONLY TALKS, SO CHINESE NEED NOT LISTEN

Robert Reich gets half of it right in China and the American Job Market when he points out that Geitner and Obama's talk of rebalancing the world economy is wishful thinking.

Why? Because the Chinese refuse to cooperate doing instead what is best for the Chinese regime if not the people.

But in fact China is heading in the opposite direction of "rebalancing." Its productive capacity keeps soaring, but Chinese consumers are taking home a shrinking proportion of the total economy. Last year, personal consumption in China amounted to only 35% of the Chinese economy; 10 years ago consumption was almost 50%. Capital investment, by contrast, rose to 44% from 35% over the decade.
China's capital spending is on the way to exceeding that of the U.S., but its consumer spending is barely a sixth as large. Chinese companies are plowing their rising profits back into more productive capacity—additional factories, more equipment, new technologies. China's massive $600 billion stimulus package has been directed at further enlarging China's productive capacity rather than consumption. So where will this productive capacity go if not to Chinese consumers? Net exports to other nations, especially the U.S. and Europe.
What Robert Reich fails to mention that the Obama regime makes it easier for them to continue to beggar America as they increase (not decrease) the global imbalance.
How? By encouraging American consumption with home buyers incentives, cash for clunkers and other such schemes. At the same time, the low interest rates discourage savings and grand schemes create an atmosphere of uncertainty discouraging investment.
The result? The American job machine is sputtering while the Chinese job machine is growing by leaps and bounds.
As Reich acknowledges, most of the Chinese people remain poor while the Americans are getting poorer. This is what Socialist Obama has been striving for all along because it is fairer. Of course, he has not become does not share his wealth with his Kenyan brother but that's another matter.

Posted on Tuesday, November 17, 2009 at 9:59 AM | Comments (0) | Top

Monday, November 16, 2009

PICTURES REVEAL OBAMA INSTINCTS

Here we go again

And again and unnecessarily and doing it wrong

In a traditional Chinese garb.

Posted on Monday, November 16, 2009 at 10:23 AM | Comments (1) | Top

Friday, November 13, 2009

A BIT LATE - FOR VETERANS DAY

Posted on Friday, November 13, 2009 at 9:05 PM | Comments (0) | Top

OBAMA PRIORITIES RESPONSIBLE FOR UNEMPLOYMENT

Stop telling me that unemployment is a lagging indicator. It may be so but it is higher and is lagging more in the US than in the rest of the developed world. Not only German but even British unemployment is declining! Oh, yes, it picked at 7.9% and declined to 7.8% to the "surprise" of economists. The are probably the same economists who no longer dare attach the word surprise to the ongoing decline in German unemployment to 7.7%. After all, Brown, unlike Merkel, used generous economic stimulus to try to deal with the recession. So clearly the stimulus alone is not responsible for the lack of decline in the American unemployment rate.

What is? More than ever, I suspect the fault lies in the Obama/Democratic congress legislative agenda which creates too much uncertainty in the business community for them to invest in the US.

Consequently, when American companies, even those run by the American government such as GM, prefers to direct it's investment not only to fast growing Asia but also to slow growing Europe. Case in point, GM managers enlightening decision not to sell it's European subsidiary Opel as it had previously announced it was doing.

It was a decision that benefit Britain and Germany not to mention that it will probably force GM to repay the German government 2.2 billion dollar advance it gave GM. GM's decision stunned Europe. It should not have. Faced With potential costs inherent in thousands of pages of new complicated health care and cap and trade legislation, GM managers sensibly concluded that investing money in Europe is more sensible because the environment is more predictable.

Indeed, the notion that the high American unemployment may be a self inflicted wound may be penetrating even the thick skull of some economists and Democratic politicians. Moreover, they are beginning to understand that the US simply cannot afford Obama's ambitious legislative agenda. Consider the following exchange between to economists on BBC's Head to Head and remember they have not even mentioned cap and trade.

John Silvia: I agree on the forward momentum. My issue is that the pace will be disappointing to a society and political class that has made significant promises in health care and education that will not be deliverable with just moderate growth.
Middle-income and low-income families will see their standard of living below their expectations. . . .
Mark Perry: Passing health care legislation, at least the public option part, is looking less and less likely to me, so that issue could be dead by the end of the year.

In other words, as could have been predicted and has been predicted, Socialists such as Obama, who purport to put equality before productivity, end up making the poor poorer. This is the essential truth Ayn Rand explained so well and the left succeeds in covering so well.

Is there a light at the end of this tunnel? Yes. The truth is beginning to penetrate and hopefully restrain Obama and Congressional Democrats and, more importantly, ingenious Americans are beginning to tinker again. If only, the increasingly coercive Democratic administration does not force them to leave their homeland in search for freedom as those coming to America did in the last four centuries.

Posted on Friday, November 13, 2009 at 11:10 AM | Comments (0) | Top

TOO EVIL TO IGNORE

Posted on Friday, November 13, 2009 at 10:12 AM | Comments (0) | Top

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

NAVAL LETHAL NONSENSE IN 1916

On this post Fort Hood massacre sad Veteran's Day, it seems appropriate to recall that political correctness and excessive legalism are nothing new. During my recent visit to the Newport U.S. Naval War College Museum I came accross the amazing story of the October 7, 1916 "visit" of the German submarine U-53 to Newport, RI. Then, as today, not only the American politial authorities but also it's armed forces refused to confront dangers staring them in their face. You see, the US was still neutral:

. . . stunning was the visit of the U-53, a new German vessel with its ballast tanks modified to accept extra diesel fuel. It surfaced one October afternoon in 1916 at Newport, R.I., where its commander paid his compliments to the USN Commandant and calmly picked up the local papers. A train of curious naval officers, journalists, and photographers accompanied him aboard the U-53 for a tour of the vessel's appointments; then, scrupulously observing the protocol for a belligerent visiting a neutral port, Capt. Hans Rose upped anchor and motored to the vicinity of the Nantucket Lightship.
Hovering just in international waters, he began picking off the ships he had identified in the shipping news of the papers he had purchased in Newport: by day's end he had dispatched 7. Though no lives were lost, the episode inspired helpless outrage in Americans and rage among the British -- rage largely directed at the Americans, whose destroyers picked up the lifeboats but failed to interfere with the sub's grisly operations.

On October 18, 1916 the NYT reported -

Agents representing the Neutrality Bureau have been here for some time investigating the visit of the German submarine U-53 on Oct. 7. Their inquiry is distinct from that conducted by the navy . . .
Colville Barclay, Counselor of the British Embassy, also has collected data relative to the visit of the U-53

It should be noted that the Germans did not share the American navy's legalistic attitude towards war. Not only had U-53 sink 4 British boats (including a 5000-ton Red Cross liner Stephano with 83 passengers including many Americans) but also two neutral ones, one Dutch and one Norwegian. for neut The British pretended to be appeased. They had no choice. The role US destroyers played in helping to rescue the victims of the U-53 helped. But the American too ended up paying a stiff price -

NYT reported on January 27, 1919 -

Submarine that visited Newport sent American destroyer to the bottom. . . .
The report, made public tonight by the navy department showed also that the German officer commanding the U-53 when the Jones was destroyed, Captain von Schraeder, was aboard the boat when it was in Newport. He there saw commander David Worth Bagley, a brother of the wife of secretary Daniels, who commanded the Jacob Jones. Von Schrader told the captured American officer that he recognized Bagly in the dory of the sinking of the destroyer . . .

Many Americans were not as lucky as Bagly -

The Ticonderoga, which was going to France with a cargo of railway cars and 113 army personnel, in addition to her naval crew, had fallen behind her convoy in misty weather , when she was attacked by shrapnel fire from the U-152, which fired forty shots demolishing the radio house and killing four members of the 6 inch gun crew before the cruiser Galvaston hove in sight and drove the enemy off.
More than an hour later, the U-152 reappeared and pounded the Ticonderoga with forty more shots, which finally reached the engine and fire rooms. The order to abandon ship was given, but a sheet hoisted in the rigging as a sign of surrender was not heeded by the submarine, and, according to the report, Fulcher "waved a pillow slip from the deck."
The captain of the transport had been wounded, as had Fulcher and Muller, the executive officer, and Fulcher, who was first assistant Engineer, agreed there was nothing to do but surrender, as many of the man aboard had been killed.

Will we ever learn?!

Posted on Wednesday, November 11, 2009 at 10:27 AM | Comments (0) | Top

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

ET TU, BILL BENNETT?!

This morning Bill Bennett spent a good portion of his morning show complaining about the political correctness and moral equivalency that not only played a crucial role in the army's failure to prevent the Fort Hood massacre but also in the inane refusal to face the Jihadist reality behind it. It is therefore ironic that Bennett fell into the same trap himself when he compared the Islamist psychiatrist Nidal Hasan with the brilliant scientist Stewart Nozette who wanted to spy for Israel.

At first, I thought he meant to point out how much more threatening the FBI considered Nozette than Hasan. It ran no sting operations against him! But no, Bennett merely wished to point out that both should have been treated equally!

Why the absurd comparison?

Because he is afraid that criticizing a Muslim, albeit a vile terrorist, without also criticizing a Jew (or at least an Israel supporter) would mark him as a subjective racist. In other words, he showed himself as politically correct as those he reviled. I wish I could laugh at the inanity of it all but I cannot.

I wrote him an email suggesting that a more apt comparison would be German, Italian and Japanese Americans during W.W.II. Indeed, there were plenty of instances of questionable loyalties amongst them. But, no, he stuck with the Jewish comparison as if it were Jewish religious fanatics who set out to destroy the Western world.

Why pick on Bill Bennett?

Because if Bill Bennette cannot see straight what can be expected of Bill Maher?

Posted on Tuesday, November 10, 2009 at 10:30 PM | Comments (1) | Top

US UNEMPLOYMENT WORSE THAT OF GERMANY, FRANCE , BRAZIL & JAPAN

To read headlines of American papers, one would conclude that Germany is in trouble, indeed, the entire world is in trouble, suffering from increasing unemployment. The reality is different. AP reports: World unemployment up despite economic recovery. The reality turns out to be different. German unemployment, unlike the American one, is continuing to drop. Do remember unemployment in both Germany and the US stood at 7.2% in Dec. 2008. Yes, before Obama passed the over half a trillion dollar stimulus.

Now, in October 2009 American unemployment is at 10.2%. German unemployment is down to 7.7%

GERMANY — German unemployment fell for a second month in October, but the effects of the financial crisis lingered and it is still too early to expect a turnaround in the economy, the country's labor ministry said. The unadjusted jobless rate in Europe's biggest economy was 7.7 percent, down from 8 percent the previous month and below the 8.3 percent in August, the Federal Labor Agency said. The dip in unemployment comes nearly two weeks after the German government raised its growth forecast and predicted that Europe's biggest economy will expand by 1.2 percent in 2010, up from an earlier prediction of 0.5 percent.

Even French unemployment only rose to 9.8%

Japanese unemployment declined to 5.7%

British unemployment reached only 7.9% in August and that of Brazil 8.1%

Do you think the uncertainty created by the health care and cap& trade legislation may have something to do with it?

I do.

Posted on Tuesday, November 10, 2009 at 8:11 PM | Comments (0) | Top

Monday, November 9, 2009

NO 72 VIRGINS FOR NIDAL MALIK HASAN

The man tried to do everything right. He cleansed himself and wore a white robe. He gave away his belonging, made sure he shot soldiers (which Islam does not consider "innocents") and took care not to commit suicide just in case those who argue Islam prohibits it turn out to be right. He made sure he died in a shoot out, instead. And, still, Allah denied him heaven.

Instead, he will be forced to face the American justice system. Forced to listen to endless orations by well meaning lawyers and fellow psychiatrists determined to prove that the mass murder he committed was all the fault of his parents. If only his mother had breast fed him longer. I only his father would have told him he loved him and, of course, if only the American army had not asked him to counsel it's soldiers in return for it's paying for his medical education.

Will he play along or will he follow his jihadists brethren and treat us no another rant about how our infidel necks will be broken and hot oil will be poured on us?

His Islamist Imam is wrong. Nidal Malik Hasan is not an Islamist hero. He is a big fat failure and one brought down by a blond infidel woman to boot!

If not for his victims, his fate would be comic. As is, may he rot in jail and his name be erased from the annals of mankind.

Posted on Monday, November 9, 2009 at 8:19 PM | Comments (0) | Top

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

IRAN AFLAME - MSM FORCED TO COVER

Here it is

Police have clashed with opposition supporters during a rally in the Iranian capital, Tehran, reports say.
Police fired tear gas and made several arrests, AFP news agency reported, citing witnesses.
A report from Reuters quoted one witness as saying police had used batons to disperse demonstrators chanting "death to dictators".

s opposition hijacks anti-American rally.

According to a twitter - Neda's mother is arrested.

People Chant: Long Live Karubi , Long live Mousavi, Death to Russia , Death to the Dictator , Free political Prisoners.
Revolutionary Guards and Basiji goons attacked people and started clubbing them and shot pepper and tear gases.

Posted on Wednesday, November 4, 2009 at 2:44 AM | Comments (1) | Top

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

REGIME OR IRANIAN PEOPLE?

People shouting 2day:" Obama, Obama! Ya ba oona, ya ba ma!!!!" (Obama, Obama, either with them or with us!!"

Obama gaffs asks:

Mousavi, one of the leaders of green movement in Iran, has invited people to turn November 4 into the greenest day of the year with their presence. Let's see if Obama dares to side with people of Iran or he rather talk to the murderous and terrorist regime?

In the meantime, protests continue around the country. This from today One example from Mashad

Posted on Tuesday, November 3, 2009 at 10:39 AM | Comments (0) | Top

SHE KNEW SHE WAS (ALMOST) RIGHT

O.K., I do not share her atheism and would like her to have a sense of humor.

Posted on Tuesday, November 3, 2009 at 10:22 AM | Comments (0) | Top

ABSURDITY OF POLITICALLY CORRECT INSTANT ANALYSIS

At the moment the Israeli media, if not the citizenry, is obsessed with a horrific crime - the brutal murder of an entire family by a disgruntle employee. Last night the national news spent at least three minutes showing the murderer dancing in the wedding of the murdered. Thirty seconds would have sufficed. Still, the real trouble has to do with the instant analysis I heard on the Israeli NPR like morning show. Dr. Baruch Ovadia, a sociologist, placed the blame for the murder on the shoulders of the entire Israeli society and, indeed, on Judaism as a whole.

Disbelievingly, I listened to Dr. Ovadia argue that certain verses in Birkat Hamazon , the centuries old Jewish post meal grace, along with poverty and aggressiveness identified in the Goldstone Report, have something to do with the horrendous murder. It was too absurd to be believed, yet the interviewer did not balk or seek to clarify.

I called Dr. Ovadia to seek clarification. "Do you seriously argue that Birkat Hamazon is to be held responsible for the murder?" Taken back, he quickly answered "Of course not." "Do you believe that the murderer has ever said Birkat Hamazon or is even familiar with it?" "Of course not," he quickly retorted. "You must be from the religious community," he charged. He knows that the fact that the murderer is a relatively recent Russian immigrant with a criminal record who has little familiarity with Judaism, makes his analysis especially ridiculous.

So why does he seek to hold Birkat Hamazon responsible for the violence? Indeed, I asked him if he would he hold the violence of certain verses in the La Marseillaise responsible for a French murderer? The real answer turned out to be political correctness. The Israeli society, like the American one, has successfully absorbed a wide variety of people from every corner of the world, most recently from the former Soviet Union. It is an especially large immigrant cohort which changed the face of Israel. While the vast majority of these new immigrants are productive members of the society, there is little doubt that they also increased the Israeli crime rate. But just as it is politically incorrect to mention the race of a murderer in the US, so it is politically incorrect to mention the ethnicity of the murderer in Israel.

Indeed, in our conversation, Ovadia specifically said that he was most careful to stay away from mentioning the well known violent aspects of current Russian society and the problems it causes to the Israeli one. On the other hand, he actively advocates the rewriting of the Jewish prayer book to excise from it verses he deems offensive and he saw an opportunity to push a pet project regardless of its total irrelevancy to the matter at hand. He was surprised to be asked to account for the incongruity of his analysis.

"And what about the Goldstone Report?" I asked. Again, he could not be more critical of it. Not only had Goldstone charged Israel with war crimes, but he unjustifiably described the Israeli society as a violent, lawless one. Ovadia added that Israel should have cooperated with him but agreed that the lack of cooperation did not justify the childish, destructive tantrum Goldstone is in the midst of throwing.

I hear more and more Israelis blame the absurdities of their media analysis on the Jewish tradition of Yom Kippur when Jews are asked to take responsibility for every wrong committed by any Jew. Perhaps they are right. But having heard plenty of absurd contentions made by American analysts, I suspect the fault lies in the need to appear wiser and more knowledgeable than the rest of mankind which is difficult enough without adding political correctness to it.

Posted on Tuesday, November 3, 2009 at 6:38 AM | Comments (2) | Top

Monday, November 2, 2009

THE TURMOIL IN IRAN CONTINUES

Consider the following news items:

Several Iranian Sunni clerics were arrested – The “Sunni-Online” site reported that three clerics from the Iranian Sunni minority were summoned to the special court for clerics in Mashhad, where they were immediately arrested. The three were taken to an unknown place; the reason for their arrest remained unknown.

Another journalist, member of Mosharekat Front’s Information Department, was arrested – Ali Samizade, a senior journalist and member of the Information Department at Mosharekat Front, was arrested Saturday by security forces. With his arrest, the number of detainees from among the Front’s members reaches 34.
Norwegian oil and gas giant stops investments in Iran following US pressure – The spokesperson of the Norwegian oil and gas company StatoilHydro, which is considered one of the biggest companies in its field, announced that the company had to suspend its investment activities in Iran for the time being, including the research project for discovering oil and natural gas in Khoram Abad, which was already in implementation stage. The company’s spokesperson said the company reduced its activities in Iran in the past year, and now, due to pressure from the US, had to abandon the Iranian market completely.
Baha’i citizen kidnapped and tortured by unknown people, then left alone on the road – While stopping to gas up, Rohollah Rezaei, a Baha’i Iranian citizen from Shiraz, was kidnapped by unrecognized people and taken to an unknown place. He underwent physical and metal torture for several hours on account of his faith, then abandoned on the edge of the road.
Students’ protest continues:
A. Another demonstration at Sharif University – in this film, students of Sharif University of Technology are seen chanting anti-regime slogans during lunch break at the university’s dining room. This kind of protest is seen daily in this campus.
B. Students in Khaje Nasir University booed at the advisor to the IRGC Commander – Safar Harandi, the former Iranian Minister of Culture and currently an advisor to the IRGC Commander, was welcomed with boos by students, when arriving to deliver a speech at Khaje Nasir Toosi University of Technology in Tehran. As Harandi carried on with his speech, the students turned their backs on him, chanted anti-regime slogans and sang “My Schoolmate”, a song that turned into a students’ anthem during post-election protests. See film 1, film 2.
A Kurdish teacher, journalist and human rights activist was fired for criticizing government policy toward the Kurdish minority – Masoud Kordpour, an Iranian citizen from the Kurdish minority, a human rights activist who works as a teacher and journalist, was dismissed from work on account of criticizing the Iranian government policy towards the Kurdish-populated regions. Kordpour was sentenced in the past to imprisonment in exile due to his political activity.

Posted on Monday, November 2, 2009 at 10:13 AM | Comments (0) | Top

ISRAELIS: WE MUST EXPLAIN (NOT DO) BETTER

Golda Meir famously said: "It does not matter what the world says, it matter what the Jews do." A recent poll reveals that the majority of Israel's Jewish citizens believe that when it comes to their relationship with the Arab world, the opposite is true. Speaking truth to power i.e., "the international community," as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did at the UN, is the only thing that would make a difference. One thing is clear, the majority of Israelis believe they are right and are in no mood to apologize or appease. Indeed, Israel's Palestinian problem would not be solved by ending settlements or creating a Palestinian state. Instead, it may be improved by convincing the legal world to distinguish between conventional war and the war on terror.

Here are the results of a recent poll taken by Israel's premier pollster, Dr. Mina Zemach, which she was kind enough to share with me. Note the highlighted results of the last question:

Do you believe it is possible to explain to the non-Muslim world that Israel conquered Judea and Samaria in 1967 and it still there or it is not possible?
Yes - 65.1% No- 32.9% Don't know - 1.9%
Is it possible or impossible to Explain and justify the existence of Jewish settlement in the midst of the Palestinian population?
Yes - 54.4% No - 37.9% Don't know - 7.7%
Is it possible to explain and justify in the non-Muslim world the Gaza operation?
Yes - 85.6% No - 12.2% Don't know - 2.3%
Do you think Israel should or should not have cooperated with the Goldstone Report?
Yes - 32.4% No - 39% Don't know - 28.6%
Minister Yaakov Hertzog suggested creating a committee of Israeli and foreign legal experts to convince the Western world that the rules of war are inapplicable to Israel's war on terror. Do you support or oppose the creation of such a committee?
Yes - 72.5% No - 22.7% Don't know - 4.8%
It is possible or impossible to convince the world that rules of war are not applicable to war on terror?
Yes - 71.3% No- 25.1% Don't know - 3.7%
Should or shouldn't Israel appoint a special Hasbara (explanation) minister?
Yes - 54.7% No - 40.9 Don't know - 4.5%
Did Benjamin Netanyahu's address to the UN last week improve Israel's position in the world or not?
Yes - 50.3% No - 30.1% Don't know - 19.6%
Would the creation of a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria improve Israel's ability to explain itself to the world or not?
Yes - 40.6% No - 51.5% Don't know - 7.9%

The poll was taken on Oct. 1. It is based on a sample of 485 adults and has a 4.8% margin of error.

Unfortunately, Dr. Liel, if the former director general of the Israeli foreign ministry is to be believed, the Israeli foreign ministry, not to mention the media, does not share this view. In a little watched C-span type program, Liel said that the Israeli positions cannot be explained and that since Hasbara is almost the sole function the Israeli foreign ministry, it is going to oppose the creation of an special Israeli Hasbara ministry.

I cannot but wonder how persons, who do not believe that their job is doable, can do a good job? The American State Department certainly did not do a credible job during the last Bush administration when it found itself similarly alienated.

Posted on Monday, November 2, 2009 at 5:32 AM | Comments (2) | Top

Thursday, October 29, 2009

OBAMA SEEKS TO EXPLOIT RABIN'S ASSASSINATION

After ignoring the Israeli public for a year, Barack Hussein Obama chose to address it on the 14th anniversary of his assassination. Why? Because it serves the administration's goals both domestically and abroad.

At home his supporters have been issuing periodic warning of his own imminent assassination since before his election. It is their true and tried method to deal with mounting opposition to their man. Opposing Obama, unlike opposing Bush, is bound to give permission to would be assassins to execute the heinous deed. What lower risk way to make the point but to focus attention on the assassination of another democratically elected leader?

After all, the Rabin assassination came in the midst of a major elite public rift in Israel of the kind we currently see in the US. The "peace" rally which preceded the Rabin's assassination was held by the leftist elite which sought to dismiss the real concerns Israelis had about an agreement he signed without consulting them and the wisdom of which they began to doubt. For the famous Rabin Arafat handshake was followed by explosions of Israeli passenger buses in Tel Aviv.

The elite Obama administration may not be asking the American people to risk their lives in that direct a manner, but it is certainly asking it to risk their economic well being in the midst of a recession. Indeed, while the American public is concerned about high unemployment and worried about the declining value of their dollar denominated savings, the American elite is busy redesigning the health care system and cooling an already cooling climate. Yes, it is dangerous to give a democratic citizens a feeling they are ignored. Focusing on Rabin may convince leaders seeking to galvanize the angry populace that they will be held responsible for the consequences.

Abroad, Obama needs a foreign policy success and he promised to put Israeli/Palestinians peace on top of his agenda. As always that meant pressuring Israel to make risky concessions. But Israelis are willing to do so only when they believe they trust the American president to be there when their blood starts to flow and only 6% of them trust Obama the man who equated Palestinian refugees with Jews placed in ovens. With so little trust in him, Obama is unable to bend Netanyahu to his will. The Opposite is true. At the very least, Obama must convince the Israeli left to trust him and he is trying to do so by taking their side in the internal Israeli argument the Rabin assassination.

Why? Because five minutes after that assassination, the left chose to use it as a club against the right. The culprit, it insisted was not a fanatical 25 year old but all those who doubted the wisdom of the Oslo agreement when passenger buses began to explode in Tel Aviv. Rabin has argued that to curtail the Oslo process means empowering the Palestinian rejectionists even as his "peace partner" Arafat continued to assert his commitment to anti-Israeli Jihad.

The right bemoans the assassination but refuses to accept the collective guilt as the left insists it should. So, it opts out of the week long memorials choosing instead to commemorate the death of Rachel, the beloved wife of Jacob. It was a little known day before there was a need to resurrect it in competition to the Rabin commemorations.

Consequently, when Obama chooses to speak to Israelis about the Rabin assassination, his design is to increase the internal Israeli split in hope of increasing his popularity with the Israeli left by taking their side in this debate. If he succeeds, his popularity will enjoys a significant rise. Personally, I doubt it. My feeling is that the commemoration is an Israeli elite preoccupation and the vast majority in Israel is rather fed up with it but we shall see. Either way, no Israeli will ever forget where they were on the day Rabin was assassinated just as no American forgets where they were the day Kennedy was. May we never live through another such day. It is far too painful. Certainly, it is not one a real friend of Israel would should to exploit.

Update, see on the same subject, Marty Peretz Dear Rahm: Barack Obama and Yitzhak Rabin, The Link That Will Not Help

Posted on Thursday, October 29, 2009 at 11:28 AM | Comments (0) | Top

Monday, October 26, 2009

AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES BEFRIENDED NAZIS

Of course, they did. Just as they are currently befriending Islamists.

You do not believe me? Read Stephen H. Norwood's The Third Reich in the Ivory Towers published by Cambridge University Press.

This is the first systematic exploration of the nature and extent of sympathy for Nazi Germany at American universities during the 1930s. Universities were highly influential in shaping public opinion and many of the nation’s most prominent university administrators refused to take a principled stand against the Hitler regime. Universities welcomed Nazi officials to campus and participated enthusiastically in student exchange programs with Nazified universities in Germany. American educators helped Nazi Germany improve its image in the West as it intensified its persecution of the Jews and strengthened its armed forces. The study contrasts the significant American grass-roots protest against Nazism that emerged as soon as Hitler assumed power with campus quiescence, and administrators’ frequently harsh treatment of those students and professors who challenged their determination to maintain friendly relations with Nazi Germany.

Posted on Monday, October 26, 2009 at 3:49 PM | Comments (0) | Top

IRANIAN WORKERS COULD USE HELP

Where is the AFL/CIO? How about some strike funds for these brave worker?

Posted on Monday, October 26, 2009 at 12:59 PM | Comments (0) | Top

TALIBANISN SPREAD TO PUNJAB

Here is another reason to worry. Pakistani Talibanism moved from the periphery to the center, from the Pashtoons in North West Pakistan to the Punjab and thereby much closer to the nukes:

The arrest this week of two ranking members of the “Punjab Taliban” has raised fears the Taliban are spreading their operations beyond the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP) and into the Pakistani heartland.
Officials say two Punjabi militants, Commander Iqbal and Gul Muhammad, helped plot the attack on Pakistan Army Headquarters as well as other recent suicide bombings in Lahore and Islamabad. Until recently, “Taliban” was a word associate with Pashtuns.
“Today the bulk of attacks in heartland Pakistan are carried out by Pakistanis from Punjab or Sindh, or by Pashtun fighters assisted by heartland Pakistanis,” says Rohan Gunaratne, author of Inside Al Qaeda. Punjabi militant groups, Notably the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT), were long encouraged by Islamabad.
“Punjab-based groups, especially the LeT, were initially the creatures of the Inter-Services Intelligence, and had a Kashmir focus,” says Teresita Schaffer of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The change began when President Pervez Musharraf outlawed two Punjabi militant groups —Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) — because of their attacks on Shias.
Many Jhangvi fighters then moved to the NWFP. “Jhangvi is now the eyes, ears and operational arm of Al Qaeda and the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan [based in Waziristan],” says Gunaratne. “It is hard to distinguish between the three.”
Islamabad has struggled to keep the third Punjabi militant group, Jaish-e-Mohammad, from joining the Taliban. “The Jaish are ambivalent when it comes to fighting the Pakistani state,” says Ajai Sahni of the Institute of Conflict Management.

Keep reading for it is apparent that Islamism has yet to peak.

Posted on Monday, October 26, 2009 at 12:51 PM | Comments (0) | Top

RUSSIA GAMING THE SYSTEM

Russia is getting very good at having it's cake and eating it too. Here are a couple of recent examples

GOLDSTONE REPORT:

Russia’s ambassador to Israel said that although Russia had voted for the Goldstone report, it has second thoughts about it. Now it opposes further UN action. It gave excuses for its vote as involuntary and the fault of Europeans. Now it finds flaws of bias in the report.
Why second thoughts? Russia probably realized [or heard] that the same unfair condemnation made against Israel could be made against it, when involved in local wars (Winston Mideast Analysis & Commentary, 10/23).
Russia is likelier to harm civilians unnecessarily than Israel.

ON IRAN -

Russia’s excuse for its vote does not inspire confidence that it really opposes the Goldstone procedure now. Russia is inconsistent. It has been blowing hot and cold on sanctions on Iran for years. It alternately gives and dashes hope it will support sanctions. I think that is part of the process of stringing the West along, until its customer, Iran, has weapons that make it immune to sanctions.

Unfortunately, such games serve the Obama administraion perfectly.

Posted on Monday, October 26, 2009 at 6:39 AM | Comments (0) | Top

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