David Shalom: The Israeli Left remains the greatest threat.
With the left-wing Labour Party’s decision to teach Nakba to Israeli, Arab school-children, David Shalom’s The Enemy Within could not be better timed.
The late Rehavam Ze’evi (H.y.d.) wrote in the Hebrew-language Moledet party publication, some 14 years ago, about the menacing phenomenon of the Israeli left-winger, whose daily betrayals embitter the lives of us all. If left unchallenged, he will literally bring us all down together. As it was then, it is more so today.
The Israeli Left remains the single greatest threat to the Jewish people in their homeland. It can be argued that their actions, inactions, their spin and media manipulation, have caused more damage to Israel than those of the PLO and Hamas. It must be remembered that it was the Left that imported these terrorists to our shores through the treacherous Oslo Accords. Their goals, couched in the falsely deluding language of peace and liberalism, are inimical to those very ideals. In fact, their true path lies in the destruction of a sovereign Jewish state in the Land of Israel. It is imperative that we understand the left-wing phenomenon we face in order to decelerate the forces pushing Israel to self-destruct.
Israeli, Arab third-graders to be taught ‘Nakba’
Nakba is the Arab term for “catastrophe”, or more specifically: the establishment of the state of Israel. In fact, the most important day of the year for Palestinian Arabs is the anniversary of this “catastrophe”, called… wait for it… yup… Nakba Day.
Well, this so-called Nakba (Israel) happens to be the only plural society in all of the Middle-East, extending equal rights to all of its citizens, including Arab-Muslims. Israel is also the only nation in all of the Middle-East governed by a democratically elected government; has an independent judiciary that enforces secular laws; and freedom of the press.
Being a Jew in an Arab-Muslim country (assuming Jewish presence hasn’t been entirely prohibited) is often dangerous to one’s health. Being an Arab-Muslim in Israel means having the right to participate in anti-government dissent, without any fear of retribution. In fact, being an Arab-Muslim in Israel means you have the same opportunity as any other Israeli citizen, to participate in the government – Arab-Muslims hold seats in the Knesset. Where in the Arab-Muslim world can a non-Muslim, forget Jew, enjoy such equality?
The Palestinian Arabs have spent these last 60 years not building their own functioning society, but reveling in some sort of perpetual victimhood, while teaching martyrdom and Jew hatred to their children. Well, this diet of Jew/Israel hatred will no longer be limited to the children of the Palestinian territories; it’s coming to Israel:
Arab schoolchildren in Israel will be taught next year that the founding of the State of Israel was a tragedy (Nakba in Arabic) in accordance with a widespread Arab view of the event.
The Education Ministry, headed by Prof.Yuli Tamir (Labor), has approved adding the Arab version to the curriculum in response to calls by Arab nationalists who requested the “Nakba†version be taught in their schools.
The new directive approves a Grade 3 textbook “Living Together in Israel,” which was written by Arabs who left their homes during the 1948 War of Independence and claim that Israel took their land. The textbook evenhandedly points out that the Arab nations refused to accept the United Nations partition plan creating the Jewish State and a new Trans-Jordan country.
Definition of national suicide: allowing your enemies – who have repeatedly tried, and failed to annihilate you – to write your history books.
Michael Young: Switching off the Iraq war is not an American option
President George W. Bush has the right instincts in believing that the only way to prevail in a place like Iraq is to make an open-ended commitment, with no talk of withdrawal. There are no quick fixes in Iraq, and no obvious slow ones either. But that’s hardly enough. Bush seems to have no real clue about what to do next and is going through the same flawed thought processes as those of Richard Nixon in 1969, when he sought to engineer “peace with honor” in Vietnam, while facing a public mostly focused on the “peace” part of the equation. Like Nixon, Bush is fiddling with the switches, even if he, correctly, sees any talk of withdrawal at home as weakening his bargaining hand in Iraq. The military is preparing a plan to cut troop levels in quieter northern Iraq by half in the next 12 to 18 months. Nixon did much the same thing during his first year in office, mainly to reduce domestic political resentment; but this did not alter his desire to pursue, even escalate, the Vietnamese conflict.
Mark Steyn: Look who’s holding hostages again
How do you feel about the American hostages in Iran?
No, not the guys back in the Seventies, the ones being held right now.
What? You haven’t heard about them?
Odd that, isn’t it? But they’re there. For example, for two months now, Haleh Esfandiari has been detained in Evin prison in Tehran. Esfandiari is a U.S. citizen and had traveled to Iran to visit her sick mother. She is the director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, which is the kind of gig that would impress your fellow guests at a Washington dinner party. Unfortunately, the mullahs say it’s an obvious cover for a Bush spy.
Among the other Zionist-neocon agents currently held in Iranian jails are an American journalist, an American sociologist for a George Soros-funded leftie group, and an American peace activist from Irvine, Ali Shakeri, whose capture became known shortly after the United States and Iran held their first direct talks since the original hostage crisis.
Charles Krauthammer: Petraeus’ Bargain
Amid the Senate’s all-night pillow fight and other Iraq grandstanding, real things are happening on the ground in Iraq. They consist of more than just a surge of U.S. troop levels. Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker have engaged us in a far-reaching and fundamental political shift. Call it the 20 percent solution.
Ever since the December 2005 Iraqi elections, the U.S. has been waiting for the central government in Baghdad to pass grand national accords on oil, federalism and de-Baathification to unify and pacify the country. The Maliki government has proved too sectarian, too weak and perhaps too disposed to Iranian interests to rise to the task.
The Democrats cite this incapacity as a reason to give up and get out. A tempting thought, but ultimately self-destructive to our interests. Accordingly, Petraeus and Crocker have found a Plan B: pacify the country region by region, principally by getting Sunnis to join the fight against al-Qaeda.
The Protocols of the Global Elders of anti-Zionism
Nelson Mandela and five other senior statesmen will today form themselves into a team of international troubleshooters called “The Elders“.
Filling out the lineup, we have:
- Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter
- Former United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan
- Former Irish president Mary Robinson
- Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town Desmond Tutu
- Nobel Laureate Mohammed Yunus
I have a sneaking suspicion that the Palestinians are going to be big fans of this band of “international troubleshooters”. Meryl Yourish assembles the clues:
Mary Robinson, who led the UN Human Rights Commission during the infamous Durban conference: Anti-Israel. Anti-Israel. Anti-Israel.
Jimmy Carter, whose latest anti-Israel screed is a Anti-Israel. Anti-Israel. Anti-Israel.
Nelson Mandela, who never met a Palestinian terrorist he didn’t like: Anti-Israel. Anti-American.
Desmond Tutu, who thinks all the world’s problems can be traced to the U.S. and Israel: Anti-Israel. Anti-Israel. Anti-Semitic.
h/t: israellycool
Moshe Dann: The “Legal” War on Israel
For nearly four decades the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has carried on a relentless battle against the right of Jews to live in Yehuda, Shomron, and Aza (YeShA). Declaring all Jewish presence beyond the 1949 Armistice lines “illegal,” they condemn Israel for violating the Fourth Geneva Convention (GC IV). Acting as judge and jury in secret deliberations, they decided that Israel was guilty. And, despite objections from distinguished international legal experts, the ICRC refused to consider any appeal. There’s only one problem: they made up ‘the law’ to fit their politics.
Several years ago, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) joined this effort by declaring Israel’s ‘security barrier’ and all Israeli settlements “illegal” because they were built beyond the boundaries of 1949 on “occupied Palestinian territory.” That territory was never defined; it couldn?t be, since there is no such entity. And their conclusions ignored the facts.
Divided between two terrorist organizations, Fatah and Hamas, the Palestinian Authority is not a state, nor does it comply with the recognized attributes of statehood. Defining “Palestine” as a single unit between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, most Arabs agree that Israel has no right to exist. “The Nakba” (Catastrophe) was not in 1967, but 1948.
Barry Rubin: A Tale of Four Op-Eds: The Media’s Cooperation with Hamas’ PR Campaign
Hamas leaders now write op-eds in the leading American newspapers either concealing completely or greatly distorting their group’s aims. The newspapers are complicit in this process by accepting articles which either have nothing to do with the real Hamas or at least are full of demonstrable lies. While it can be argued that many op-eds contain untruths or that it is not the editors’ job to make such judgments, the Hamas pieces go far beyond the other op-eds being published.
Equally disturbing is that the fact that on this matter the op-ed pages are not really balanced. While these newspapers publish op-eds which criticize Hamas as part of an analysis of U.S. policy–say, a piece by Dennis Ross urging U.S. support for Fatah’s West Bank government–they do not seem to run op-eds that challenge directly Hamas’s misstatements or which provide a comprehensive look at the true nature and activities of Hamas.
Recently, the three main city-based newspapers in America ?the Washington Post, New York Times, and Los Angeles Times–ran op-eds by Hamas leaders. First, an identical article by Ahmed Yousef, an advisor to the man who had headed the Palestinian Authority, appeared the same day, June 27, in the Washington Post and New York Times.
This is an extremely unusual development and it turned out, according to Washington Post editors, that Hamas’s public relations’ agent had fooled them by not informing either newspaper that the other was publishing. It was not the last time that Hamas would fool them.The idea of the op-ed article is to let an individual or group express its opinion directly, without the mediation of the newspaper’s reporters or editors. In this sense, the Yousef pieces were not op-eds and should not have been published. The reason is that they had nothing whatsoever to do with the thoughts or actions of Hamas. They were, rather, merely free advertising copy.
Thomas Sowell: It doesn’t end in Bagdad
“And then what?†That is the question which should be asked of those who are demanding that we pull out of Iraq now.
No candid answer should be expected from cynical politicians like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who have their bets riding big time on an American defeat in Iraq, as their ticket to winning the 2008 elections.
But that question should be answered by those who honestly and sincerely think that a troop pullout is the answer to the Iraq problem. What do they think will happen if we do?
That question is studiously avoided by those in politics and the media who urge pulling out.
Clifford D. May: Know Thine Enemies
World War II was called a world war for a reason: President Roosevelt might have preferred to take on only Imperial Japan, the nation that had attacked us. Instead, he had to lead the country into battle also against Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. He had to fight not only in the Pacific but in North Africa and Europe as well.
It’s astonishing how many otherwise smart people seem incapable of grasping this reality. Many have been making the peculiar argument that we shouldn’t worry too much about al Qaeda in Iraq — because it’s somehow different from al Qaeda Not in Iraq. Consider the question a reporter asked of President Bush at a recent press conference:
But, sir …what evidence can you present to the American people that the people who attacked the United States on September the 11th are, in fact, the same people who are responsible for the bombings taking place in Iraq? What evidence can you present? And also, are you saying, sir, that al Qaeda in Iraq is the same organization being run by Osama bin Laden, himself?
