Dangers of the Palestinian State

by Yossi Ben-Aharon

We recently learned that shortly before he was deposed, Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi contacted al-Qaida and promised to help the terror group set up a base of operations in Sinai. Had Morsi remained in power, the Israel-Egypt border would have become an extension of the Gaza Strip and our peace treaty with Egypt would have gone up in smoke.

What was about to transpire in Egypt, what is taking place in Syria and Lebanon, and what the Arab nations seem to be going through in general, must be used as a cautionary tale when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. The Palestinian Authority assumes that any agreement or treaty will have a dubious future, even if it is backed by American and international assurances -- the value of which we are already familiar with.

Let's assume that once a sovereign "Palestine" is formed its government strikes a "friendship treaty" with Iran or North Korea, and a few hundred "experts" visit it to consult on issues such as training the "national guard" or the formulation of an intelligence system; or that the Palestinian government would be willing to take in a few thousand refugees and with the U.N.'s assistance, houses them in refugee camps set up within view of Jerusalem or Petach Tikva; or that the Shin Bet security agency realizes that a few hundred jihadis have found their way to these refugee camps and have set up terror cells; or that Palestine holds general elections and Hamas wins and sets up a government in Ramallah. There are endless plausible scenarios. What will Israel do? Invade Palestine? Demand U.N. Security Council action? Ask the U.S. for help? 

As a sovereign state, Palestine would enjoy immunity under international law and by the grace of the U.N. Any unilateral steps taken against it would be in gross violation of international law and Israel would be faced with censures and boycotts as a result, as well as Security Council sanctions. Anyone who thinks that the Security Council would notice that it was the Palestinian state which violated the peace deal and therefore should also be sanctioned is sorely mistaken. 

The U.S. believes that every problem has a solution. That belief might suit reality as the Americans see it, but that is not the case in our neck of the woods. We have to deal with the fact that coexistence and true peace with a sovereign Arab state in the land of Israel is a recipe for disaster. 

As fate would have it, both the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and late Prime Minister Menachem Begin indicated -- each in his own time and words -- that the only possible solution is an autonomous Palestinian regime under an Israeli umbrella. The Palestinian Authority is already autonomous. All that is lacking now is to formally set it as such, leaving it with opportunities for improvement -- if and when its credibility, and with it calm and security, proves solid.

Yossi Ben Aharon was director-general of the Prime Minister's Office under then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir.

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=7407

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

The Long Iran Stall Begins Again

by Jonathan S. Tobin


Today ought to be a day to celebrate for the Obama administration. Nuclear talks with Iran set to begin in Vienna will begin the next stage of a diplomatic process by which the president will redeem his oft-repeated promise about stopping the Islamist regime’s drive for nuclear weapons. For months since the signing of the interim nuclear agreement with Iran in November, the president and his cheering section in the press have lauded the prospects of these negotiations as the only thing standing in the way of a rush to war. They have spoken about the willingness of the Iranians to listen to reason since the election of the “moderate” Hassan Rouhani as president last summer.

They have also cited the seriousness of the president’s resolve to get results even as he has tempered some of the optimism by saying the chances of success are only 50 percent. Most importantly, while shooting down the chances of passing a new Iran sanctions bill that would have gone into effect only if the next round of talks had concluded in failure, they claimed the administration would not allow itself to be stalled by the Iranians and that the president would hold Tehran accountable to a tough timetable that would preclude any delaying tactics.

But the atmosphere pervading the opening of the new talks provides a stark contrast to what we’ve been hearing from Washington lately. It’s not just that the Iranians are pouring cold water on any optimism about the negotiations, with their Supreme Leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei saying they “will lead nowhere” in a speech yesterday or his representatives’ adamant refusal to even discuss the dismantling of any of their nuclear infrastructure. What is most distressing about the Iran talks is the blithe assumption on the part of the negotiators that they will drag on for as long as a year. That gives the lie to the president’s assurances that he wouldn’t let himself be suckered by the Iranians into allowing them to keep delaying while they continue to get closer to their nuclear goal. It also puts the administration’s adamant opposition to the proposed sanctions bill into a new and unflattering light. The reason to oppose the sanctions seems now to be not so much about protecting the diplomatic option as it does enabling the Iranians to stall the West for as long as they like.


It should be remembered that the deal Secretary of State John Kerry signed in Geneva on November 24 stipulated that the talks that would follow were to take place over a six-month period. While there was a clause that said the talks could be extended if necessary, Kerry and his boss President Obama stressed the six-month time frame in order to assure Americans and nervous Israelis the agreement couldn’t be used by Tehran to stall the West indefinitely. Yet even before the new talks began, we are now being assured by the administration’s faithful enablers at the New York Times that we should expect the negotiations to drag on until 2015 with little hope that they will end even then. With Iran’s economy showing signs of a revival in the wake of the West’s loosening of sanctions, there appears to be no reason to expect Tehran will ever give up its nuclear dream.

Thus, with this week’s first meeting to be only about the form of the talks that will follow, it’s now clear that what is happening is exactly what critics of the president’s attempt to engage with Iran always feared: a renewal of the same stalling tactics that has allowed Tehran to drag out this process over the last decade.

President Obama denounced the new sanctions bill that had the support of a bipartisan 59-member Senate coalition as both superfluous and dangerous since it could scare the Iranians away from the table. But what we now see is that the proposal’s worst feature in the eyes of the administration was that it took the Iran nuclear deal’s timetable seriously. If the new sanctions bill were signed into law it would strengthen President Obama’s hand in negotiations with the Iranians since it would convey the message that there would be serious consequences if they did not comply with Western demands to give up their nuclear ambition. But without the sanctions bill, the Iranians—and the administration—are free to draw out the talks as long as they like. The lack of a new sanctions option also allows both sides to ignore key questions about Iran’s ballistic missile technology and other pertinent questions about their behavior, such as support for terrorism.

Open-ended negotiations were exactly what the president promised he would not be drawn into, but that appears to be the situation that the United States finds itself in as the diplomats arrive in Vienna. For a decade, Iran has been able to engage in diplomatic tricks that have enabled it to stall the West indefinitely as they tried to run out the clock until their nuclear project was completed. The sanctions that were passed over Obama’s objections during his first term were supposed to bring them to the table and end this charade. But the glum outlook in Vienna makes it appear as if the West has thrown away that economic leverage.

Right now, faith in diplomacy with Iran seems to have more to do with a disinclination to pressure them than it does with any belief that the U.S. can achieve its objectives. While it may take a year or more for the administration to concede that the talks have failed, the only measure that might actually help them to succeed—the prospect of new sanctions that will shut down Iran’s oil sales—is now off the table. This is good news for the Iranians but very bad news for those in the West who hoped Obama meant what he said about averting the nuclear threat.


Jonathan S. Tobin

Source: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2014/02/18/the-long-iran-stall-begins-again-nuclear-sanctions/

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Palestinians: Keep Religion on ID Cards

by Khaled Abu Toameh

The row that erupted shows that among Palestinians, opposition to recognition of Israel as a Jewish state remains widespread. It also shows what awaits non-Muslims in a future Palestinian state controlled by sharia Law.
Regardless of Abbas's motives, it is clear that Hamas and other Palestinians continue to seek and Islamic state where non-Muslims would be subjected to Sharia and enjoy fewer rights. Those who think that any Christian or Jew would be welcomed under an Islamic regime are living in a delusion.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's recent decision to abolish religious affiliation from Palestinian ID cards has drawn sharp criticism and triggered a wave of speculation as to his true motive.

Defending the controversial decision, the Palestinian Authority Interior Ministry in the West Bank announced that the Palestinian Basic Law prohibits discrimination on the basis of religion or ethnicity.

The ministry said that Abbas has instructed the ministry to abolish religious affiliation in all ID cards issued to Palestinians.

An example of a Palestinian Authority-issued ID card in its current format, which lists the bearer's religion. (Image source: Wikimedia Commons)

Hassan Alawi, a senior official with the Palestinian Interior Ministry, explained that the decision was a "move in the right direction."

He pointed out that the Palestinian Authority had sought to remove religious affiliation from the ID cards since 1995. He also denied that the decision was politically motivated.

However, the decision has been strongly condemned by Hamas and other Palestinian groups, who claim it is aimed at paving the way for the implementation of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's "framework agreement" between the Palestinian Authority and Israel.

Taher a-Nunu, a spokesman for the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip, claimed that the decision to abolish the religious affiliation from ID cards was in preparation for the implementation of Kerry's plan which, he said, envisages the annexation of Jewish settlements in the West Bank to Israel.

A-Nunu claimed that the move may be linked to talk about allowing Jewish settlers to stay in the West Bank and hold dual citizenship in a future Palestinian state.

"No Palestinian can agree to the presence of settlements on our land," he said.

Other Hamas officials said that Abbas's decision may be in preparation for the possibility that he would recognize Israel as a Jewish state, as demanded by the Israeli government. The officials also attacked the decision as being in violation of Islamic teachings.

Yunis al-Astal, a senior Hamas representative in the Gaza Strip, explained that the teachings of Islam require that there be "differentiation" between the followers of various religions.

Al-Astal said that differentiating between the followers of different religions would allow Muslims to deal with each group in accordance with sharia, or Islamic, law.

"The Palestinian Authority's decision to scrap religious affiliations from ID cards is unacceptable to Islam and its teachings," the Hamas official said.

Noting that Israel was demanding that Abbas recognize it as a Jewish state, al-Astal claimed that the Palestinian Authority's decision was aimed at complying with the demand. He accused Abbas of effectively recognizing that "all Palestine belongs to the Jews."

What the Hamas official is actually saying is that under Islamic rule non-Muslims receive different treatment than Muslims. He wants Jews and Christians to pay the jizya (tribute) tax levied on non-Muslims living under Islamic regimes in exchange for protection and safety.

Other Hamas officials have stated that Abbas does not have the authority to take such a decision since his term in office expired in January 2009 and he is no longer a legitimate president. They pointed out that the Palestinian Legislative Council was the only body entitled to make such changes.

Regardless of Abbas's motives behind the decision, it is clear that Hamas and other Palestinians continue to seek an Islamic state where non-Muslims would be subjected to sharia law and enjoy fewer rights.

There is no guarantee that a future Palestinian state would not fall into the hands of Hamas or other Muslim extremists one day. Those who think that any Christian or Jew would be welcomed under an Islamic regime are living in an illusion. Non-Muslims can become equal participants in an Islamic state only after they embrace the Islamic faith. Until then, they would be regarded as dhimmis (those in custody) and would have to pay a protection tax to avoid any harm.

The row that erupted following Abbas's decision shows that among Palestinians, opposition to recognition of Israel as a Jewish state remains widespread. It also shows what awaits non-Muslims in a future Palestinian state controlled by Sharia Law.


Khaled Abu Toameh

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4180/palestinians-religion-id-cards

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Saudi Columnist: Muslims Harm Themselves But Are Obsessed With Conspiracy Theories And Blaming The Other

by MEMRI

Saudi columnist Dr. Jibrin 'Ali Al-Jibrin, who is a sociology professor at King Saud University in Riyadh, wrote in an article in the official Saudi daily Al-Watan that Muslims fight each other and thereby do themselves more harm than their enemies do; despite this, he said they prefer to blame others for their situation and believe in conspiracy theories about global plots against them, instead of dealing with their wretched situation. He called on the Muslim world to awaken from its delusions and adopt a realistic view of the world instead of blaming others for its problems. The following are excerpts from the article:[1]

Dr. Jibrin 'Ali Al-Jibrin (image: twitter.com/alJibrinj)

"An objective and neutral observer of the current state of Muslims in many Muslim countries discovers a bitter reality and painful facts – namely that we Muslims [are] in constant conflict with each other. We fight each other and accuse each other of heresy, and believe that some among us are worse enemies [of the Muslims] than are the Jews and Christians, and we drown in sectarianism, ideological conflicts, and clashes between different [religious] schools. Every group thinks that it must eliminate the other groups instead of [learning to] live alongside them before turning towards the real enemy that we will turn to one day, if there are any of us left.

"An observer of our situation would find a group of people angry at everyone around them and obsessed with conspiracy theories, who believe that the [entire] world is conspiring against them. We accuse each other of heresy and later beg Allah to destroy our enemies because they are the ones who brought us to this state, even though none of our enemies forced us to place our finger on the trigger or fire at other Muslims. Though the harm we do to ourselves is worse than [the harm] done to us by our enemies – for many Muslims are killed by other Muslims, possibly even more than are killed by non-Muslims – most of us incessantly speak of phantoms and nonexistent conspiracies... and ignore Allah's words: 'And whatever strikes you of disaster – it is for what your hands have earned; but He pardons much [Koran 42:30].'

"Some of us think that the nations around us have nothing better to do than persecute us and do us harm, and that they are the reason we kill each other. This might be a psychological mechanism [used] to deny [our] bitter reality. Despite all this we receive assistance from these [nations] in order to rid ourselves of the evil [done by] some of us [i.e. other Muslims], but after these [nations] are done [assisting us], we curse them [and wish] doom and destruction [upon them].

"This reality is not a product of the current age. Muslims have been in this state since the miserable Battle of the Camel [656 CE],[2] in which the Companions of the Messenger of Allah [Muhammad] fought each other and killed thousands of the best men and Koranic reciters of the Prophet's generation; through the Battle of Siffin [657 CE],[3] in which Muslims became divided and killed each other; and up to acts of massacre of Muslims by Muslims later on.

"Tyranny, killing opponents, and autocracy are elements that have been common [to Muslim regimes] since the end of the era of the Righteous Caliphs. Those who read history will be amazed by the level of autocracy, which reached indescribable heights. Perhaps the most simple example, although examples are numerous, is the sermon by Al-Hajjaj [Ibn Yusuf, 661-714 CE], who demanded that the worshippers exit through one gate and kill anyone who exits through another, not for heresy, but for disobeying Al-Hajjaj's order. Matters did not change greatly during the Abbasid period, whose [rulers] established their Caliphate through historic acts of massacre of the Umayyads and their supporters, so much so that Abbasid commander 'Abdallah bin 'Ali ordered that meals should be served on top of the bodies of his opponents from Al-Sham.

"Things have not changed much in our current period. Those who follow the news see that the murderer and the victim are mostly Muslims, unfortunately...

"We must discard some of the misguided thoughts that control our present and replace them with honesty with ourselves and a realistic view that does not blind us to our full situation. Maintaining this state without enacting any change – first within ourselves, and later in our everyday reality – is a guarantee of chaos and the loss of hope in coming generations. Furthermore, it will play a part in cultivating future generations whose psyches are full of the crises of the past."

Endnotes:

[1] Al-Watan (Saudi Arabia), September 9, 2013.

[2] A battle between the army of fourth Caliph 'Ali bin 'Abi Talib and the army of the opponents to his rule, who were commanded

by the Prophet's wife 'Aisha mounted on a camel. It took place near Basra in present-day Iraq following the assassination of the third Caliph 'Uthman.

[3] The battle between the army of Fourth Caliph 'Ali bin 'Abi Talib and the army of his opponents that marks the division of Islam into Sunna and Shi'a.

MEMRI

Source: http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/7836.htm

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Obama’s Foreign Policy: Enemy Action

by Bruce Thornton


 

It’s often hard to determine whether a series of bad policies results from stupidity or malicious intent. Occam’s razor suggests that the former is the more likely explanation, as conspiracies assume a high degree of intelligence, complex organization, and secrecy among a large number of people, qualities that usually are much less frequent than the simple stupidity, disorganization, and inability to keep a secret more typical of our species. Yet surveying the nearly 6 years of Obama’s disastrous foreign policy blunders, I’m starting to lean towards Goldfinger’s Chicago mob-wisdom: “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times, it’s enemy action.”

Obama’s ineptitude started with his general foreign policy philosophy. George Bush, so the narrative went, was a trigger-happy, unilateralist, blundering, “dead or alive” cowboy who rushed into an unnecessary war in Iraq after alienating our allies and insulting the Muslim world. Obama pledged to be different. As a Los Angeles Times editorial advised him in January 2009, “The Bush years, defined by ultimatums and unilateral actions around the world, must be brought to a swift close with a renewed emphasis on diplomacy, consultation and the forging of broad international coalitions.” Obama eagerly took this advice, reaching out not just to our allies, but also to sworn enemies like Syria, Venezuela, and Iran, and serially bowing to various potentates around the globe. He went on the apology tour, in which he confessed America’s “arrogant, dismissive, derisive” behavior and the “darker periods in our history.” And he followed up by initiating America’s retreat from international affairs, “leading from behind,” appeasing our enemies, and using rhetorical bluster as a substitute for coherent, forceful action. Here follow 3 of the many mistakes that suggest something other than inexperience and a lack of knowledge is driving Obama’s policies.

Russia

Remember the “reset” button Obama offered to Russia? In September 2009 he made a down payment on this policy by reversing George Bush’s plan to station a radar facility in the Czech Republic and 10 ground-based missile interceptors in Poland. Russia had complained about these defensive installations, even though they didn’t threaten Russian territory. So to appease the Russians, Obama abandoned Poland and the Czech Republic, who still live in the dark shadow of their more powerful former oppressors, while Russia’s Iranian clients were emboldened by their patron’s ability to make the superpower Americans back down. As George Marshall Fund fellow David J. Kramer prophesized at the time, Obama’s caving “to Russian pressure . . . will encourage leaders in Moscow to engage in more loud complaining and bully tactics (such as threatening Iskander missiles against the Poles and Czechs) because such behavior gets desired results.”

Obama followed up this blunder with the New START arms reduction treaty with Russia signed in 2010. This agreement didn’t include tactical nuclear weapons, leaving the Russians with a 10-1 advantage. Multiple warheads deployed on a missile were counted as one for purposes of the treaty, which meant that the Russians could exceed the 1550 limit. Numerous other problems plague this treaty, but the worst is the dependence on Russian honesty to comply with its terms. Yet as Keith B. Payne and Mark B. Schneider have written recently, for years Russia has serially violated the terms of every arms-control treaty it has signed, for obvious reasons: “These Russian actions demonstrate the importance the Kremlin attaches to its new nuclear-strike capabilities. They also show how little importance the Putin regime attaches to complying with agreements that interfere with those capabilities. Russia not only seems intent on creating new nuclear- and conventional-strike capabilities against U.S. allies and friends. It has made explicit threats against some of them in recent years.” Busy pushing the reset button, Obama has ignored all this cheating. Nor did Obama’s 2012 appeasing pledge to outgoing Russian President Dmitri Medvedev–– that after the election he would “have more flexibility” about the proposed European-based anti-missile defense system angering Russia––could convince Vladimir Putin to play ball with the U.S. on Iran and Syria. Obama’s groveling “reset” outreach has merely emboldened Russia to expand its influence and that of its satellites like Iran and Syria, at the expense of the interests and security of America and its allies.

Syria

Syria is another American enemy Obama thought his charm offensive could win over. To do so he had to ignore Syria’s long history of supporting terrorists outfits like Hezbollah, murdering its sectarian and political rivals, assassinating Lebanon’s anti-Syrian Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in 2005, and facilitating the transit of jihadists–– during one period over 90% of foreign fighters–– into Iraq to kill Americans. Yet Obama sent diplomatic officials on 6 trips to Syria in an attempt to make strongman Bashar al Assad play nice. In return, in 2010 Assad hosted a cozy conference with Hezbollah terrorist leader Hassan Nasrallah and the genocidal Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, where they discussed “a Middle East without Zionists and without colonialists.” Despite such rhetoric, even as the uprising against Assad was unfolding in March 2011, Secretary of State Clinton said, “There’s a different leader in Syria now. Many of the members of Congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months have said they believe he’s a reformer.”
In response to the growing resistance against the “reformer” Assad, Obama once again relied on blustering rhetoric rather than timely action to bring down an enemy of the U.S. Sanctions and Executive Orders flew thick and fast, but no military aid was provided to Assad’s opponents, the moderates soon to be marginalized by foreign terrorists armed by Iran. As time passed, more Syrians died and more terrorists filtered into Syria, while Obama responded with toothless tough rhetoric, proclaiming, “For the sake of the Syrian people, the time has come for President Assad to step aside.” Equally ineffective was Obama’s talk in 2012 of a “red line” and “game-changer” if Assad used chemical weapons. Assad, obviously undeterred by threats from the world’s greatest military power, proceeded to use chemical weapons. Obama threatened military action, only to back down on the excuse that he needed the permission of Congress. Instead, partnering with the Russian wolf his own weakness had empowered, he brokered a deal that in effect gave Assad a free hand to bomb cities and kill civilians at the price of promising to surrender his chemical stockpiles. The butcher Assad magically changed from a pariah who had to go, into a legitimate partner of the United States, one whose cooperation we depend on for implementing the agreement. Given such cover, he has continued to slaughter his enemies and provide invaluable battlefield experience to tens of thousands of terrorist fighters.

Of course, without the threat of military punishment for violating the terms of the agreement­­––punishment vetoed by new regional player Russia––the treaty is worthless. Sure enough, this month we learned that Assad is dragging his feet, missing a deadline for turning over his weapons, while surrendering so far just 5% of his stockpiles. And those are just the weapons he has acknowledged possessing. In response, Secretary of State John Kerry has blustered, “Bashar al-Assad is not, in our judgment, fully in compliance because of the timing and the delays that have taken place contrary to the [Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons]’s judgment that this could move faster. So the options are all the options that originally existed. No option has been taken off the table.” You can hear Assad, Rouhani, Nasrallah, and Putin rolling on the ground laughing their you-know-what’s off over that empty threat.

Iran

Now we come to the biggest piece of evidence for divining Obama’s motives, Iran. The Islamic Republic has been an inveterate enemy of this country since the revolution in 1979, with 35 years of American blood on its hands to prove it. Even today Iranian agents are facilitating with training and materiel the killing of Americans in Afghanistan. The regime is the biggest and most lethal state sponsor of terrorism, and proclaims proudly a genocidal, anti-Semitic ideology against Israel, our most loyal ally in the region. And it regularly reminds us that we are its enemy against whom it has repeatedly declared war, most recently in February when demonstrations celebrated the anniversary of the revolution with signs reading, “Hey, America!! Be angry with us and die due to your anger! Down with U.S.A.” At the same time, two Iranian warships crowded our maritime borders in the Atlantic, and state television broadcast a documentary simulating attacks on U.S. aircraft carriers.

Despite that long record of murder and hatred, when he first came into office, Obama made Iran a particular object of his diplomatic “outreach.” He “bent over backwards,” as he put it, “extending his hand” to the mullahs “without preconditions,” going so far as to keep silent in June 2009 as they brutally suppressed protests against the stolen presidential election. But the mullahs contemptuously dismissed all these overtures. In response, Obama issued a series of “deadlines” for Iran to come clean on its weapons programs, more bluster the regime ignored, while Obama assured them that “We remain committed to serious, meaningful engagement with Iran.” Just as with Russia and Syria, still more big talk about “all options are on the table” for preventing the mullahs from acquiring nuclear weapons has been scorned by the regime.

Doubling down on this failed policy, Obama along with the Europeans gambled that sanctions would bring Iran to its knees before it reached breakout capability for producing a weapon. Odds of success were questionable, but just as the sanctions appeared to be pushing the Iranian economy, and perhaps the regime, to collapse, in November of last year Obama entered into negotiations that resulted in a disastrous agreement that trades sanction relief for empty promises. This deal ensures that Iran will become a nuclear power, since the agreement allows Iran to continue to enrich uranium in violation of numerous U.N. Security Council Resolutions. Finally, in an act of criminal incoherence, Obama threatened to veto any Congressional legislation imposing meaningful economic punishment for future Iranian cheating and intransigence.

Given this “abject surrender,” as former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton called it, it’s no surprise that the Iranians are trumpeting the agreement as a victory: “In this agreement, the right of Iranian nation to enrich uranium was accepted by world powers,” the “moderate reformer” Iranian president Hassan Rouhani bragged. “With this agreement … the architecture of sanctions will begin to break down.” Iranian foreign minister Mohammed Javad Zarif, agreed: “None of the enrichment centers will be closed and Fordow and Natanz will continue their work and the Arak heavy water program will continue in its present form and no material (enriched uranium stockpiles) will be taken out of the country and all the enriched materials will remain inside the country. The current sanctions will move towards decrease, no sanctions will be imposed and Iran’s financial resources will return.” Memo to Mr. Obama: when the adversary loudly brags that the agreement benefits him, you’d better reexamine the terms of the deal.

As it stands today, the sanction regime is unraveling even as we speak, while the Iranians are within months of nuclear breakout capacity. Meanwhile the economic pain that was starting to change Iranian behavior is receding. According to the International Monetary Fund, Iran’s economy is projected to grow 2% in fiscal year 2014-15, compared to a 2% contraction this year. Inflation has dropped over 10 points since last year. Global businesses are flocking to Tehran to cut deals, while Obama blusters that “we will come down on [sanctions violators] like a ton of bricks.” Add that dull cliché to “red line,” “game-changer,” and the other empty threats that comprise the whole of Obama’s foreign policy.

These foreign policy blunders and numerous others––especially the loss of critical ally Egypt–– reflect ideological delusions that go beyond Obama. The notion that aggressors can be tamed and managed with diplomatic engagement has long been a convenient cover for a political unwillingness to take military action with all its dangers and risks. Crypto-pacifist Democrats are particularly fond of the magical thinking that international organizations, summits, “shuttle diplomacy,” conferences, and other photogenic confabs can substitute for force.

But progressive talk of “multilateralism” and “diplomatic engagement” hides something else: the Oliver Stone/Howard Zinn/Noam Chomsky/Richard Falk self-loathing narrative that the United States is a force of evil in the world, a neo-colonialist, neo-imperialist, predatory capitalist oppressor responsible for the misery and tyranny afflicting the globe. Given that America’s power is corrupt, we need a foreign policy of withdrawal, retreat, and apologetic humility, with our national sovereignty subjected to transnational institutions like the U.N., the International Court of Justice, and the European Court of Human Rights ––exactly the program that Obama has been working on for the last 5 years. Given the damage such policies are serially inflicting on our security and interests, it starts to make sense that inexperience or stupidity is not as cogent an explanation as enemy action.


Bruce Thornton

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/bruce-thornton/obamas-foreign-policy-enemy-action/

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Executive Sabotage

by Patricia McCarthy

The Left's attempts to spin the CBO report that reveals just how devastating ObamaCare has been (and is going to be) for the nation's economy would be worthy of a SNL skit, but for the entranced media willing to go to ridiculous lengths to protect their dear leader and his signature bill. Not having a job, living on the government dole is a good thing, they say. Freedom from work! Lovely. From where will the money come? No one knows. America is now $17+trillion in debt and we are racking up more by the minute. The rich, small business owners, and anyone who has a job are being taxed into oblivion. They will surely disappear.

And the Republicans just gave Obama free rein to rack up even more debt, which he surely will! They had no choice since Obama made it clear, again, that he would not negotiate. He seems to be ignorant of how American government is designed to function. That Phyrric victory was not enough for the Democrats in Congress; they want more.... minimum wage increase for all, even though only about 2% of the people with jobs make minimum wage, and amnesty for the 12 - 20 million illegal immigrants which will further devastate our fragile economy. Just another head fake to distract us from Obama's grand plan to bring American down to some perverse notion of equity among nations. 

In five years, President Obama has fundamentally transformed the country, just as he promised. He has nearly destroyed what was the counterbalance to all the evil in the world -- the power and virtue of the United States. He has rendered us ineffectual in negotiations and made us vulnerable to attack from rogue nations like Iran and North Korea. One only has to look around the world to see the catastrophic results of Obama's "doctrine:" speak loudly and often and carry a pen and a phone. 

In the Middle East nearly every country that geographical designation includes is in a state of chaos: Muslims killing Christians with impunity, Muslims killing each other in their despicable war against each other's sects/tribes. Families, women and children are being slaughtered throughout the region because the U.S. has stopped protecting the innocent. And our president seems to side with those doing the killing. His affection for the Muslim Brotherhood is well-known. But what he has done to America's middle class is his most egregious crime against our country. His economic policies have exacerbated unemployment, and created a vast, permanently dependent segment of our population.
We have been brought low and to a crossroads. How are we to survive an administration that is taking us closer and closer to a Fascist/Stalinist version of Marxism? Government by decree. The rule of law cast aside. Government/IRS harassment of opponents (Obama really likes this one). Sabotage of the coal industry which punishes those who rely on it the most. The wholesale, punitive ruination of our medical care. A legal preference for illegal immigrants over native born citizens. The weaponization of government agencies, the IRS, police, the EPA. 

This administration is assaulting the Constitution on a daily basis and is proud of their success in abrogating our founding document. The president has made it clear that he abhors its restrictions on his power. If we are to survive as a constitutional republic, we will have to rid our government of the rank and file Democrats who follow Obama in lockstep and defend his policies to the bitter end, no matter how injurious to the nation. We will have to rid Congress of the Republicans who are too eager to please their beltway colleagues rather than their constituents. The men and women of principle in government are few but must be supported: Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Ron Johnson, Bobby Jindal, Scott Walker, Trey Gowdy, Louie Gohmert, Jason Chaffetz, Marcia Blackburn, Ileana Ross-Lehtinen, Tim Scott -- these are the good guys, the people with core principles who know, love, and revere our Constitution. I am certain there are more that do not come to mind at the moment but people like Mia Love and Tom Cotton must be elected around the country if we are to save the nation. 

The CBO report says it all. Obamacare was designed to sabotage this once great country and it is working. We have indeed been sabotaged. Unless good people rise up and vote, our children and grandchildren will never know the America those of us baby boomers had the privilege to experience and in which to thrive.

Patricia McCarthy

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/02/executive_sabotage.html

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

The Colonialism of the Anti-Israel Left

by Daniel Greenfield

 

 

The first error in John Judis’ book “Genesis: Truman, American Jews, and the Origins of the Arab/Israeli Conflict” is in its title. The genesis of this conflict took place thousands of years before Truman when the Roman Empire imposed its colonial rule on the Jewish population using Arab mercenaries and when the Muslim Arab conquerors colonized Israel.

Judis describes the Roman ethnic cleansing of Israel’s Jewish population as the land going “through different religious incarnations after the pagan Romans ousted the Maccabee.” This is akin to another type of revisionist historian describing the Holocaust as Europe going through a new religious incarnation after the pagan National Socialists ousted Jewish communal leaders.

All the familiar myths of anti-Israel revisionist historians are present in Judis’ Genesis making it the least original book on Israel in some time. There are the European Jewish colonists seizing Arab land and powerful American Jewish lobbies intimidating politicians concerned about the “Palestinians” who would not spring into existence until after the failed invasions of Israel by the Arab colonial powers.

The Arabs are treated as a majority when it comes to their claim on the land and as a minority when it comes to soliciting liberal sympathy on their behalf. Judis justifies this political juggling act by rewriting history so that the Jews of Israel are reduced to European colonists rather than an indigenous minority.

Middle Eastern Jews are largely absent in his Eurocentric narrative because their existence upends his depiction of the Jewish resettlement as a Western colonial assault against a hapless native population. The Middle Eastern Jews, whose existence the left denies or minimizes, demonstrate that Zionism was no different than the national liberation movements of minorities like the Kurds or the Armenians.

Most Israeli Jews are Middle Eastern. Middle Eastern Jews were and are an oppressed minority under Arab Muslim rule. Their situation only improved under European colonialism. Instead of addressing that oppression; Judis pretends that Jews were better off as an oppressed minority under Muslim rule.

Like most champions of the Palestinian cause, Judis adopts the narrative of the Muslim conquerors, accepting its often imaginary and inconsistent history while disdaining the extensive history of the conquered and oppressed indigenous populations who suffered and suffer under their rule.

Judis denounces pro-Israel liberals who supported the rights of African-Americans for being “oblivious to the rights of Palestine’s Arabs”. Those American liberals however sided with national rights for a regional minority inclined toward democracy over a violently xenophobic regional majority already in possession of numerous ethnostates and theocracies that was enthusiastic about totalitarian fascism.

Their support for a Jewish State was based on the rights of a regional minority to self-determination.

Pro-Israel liberals supported minorities in America and the Middle East. John Judis supports minorities in America and opposes them in the Middle East; choosing Arab Nationalism and Islamic Supremacism over a majority-minority state that has protected the rights of Jews and other regional minorities.

The anti-Israel left champions Palestinian nationalism in the name of democracy and human rights for a “state” whose president is on the tenth year of his four year term and whose human rights don’t exist.

The “Palestinian” case that Judis retroactively constructs is a modern invention and he admits as much. Liberals of the day, like Bartley Crum of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine, heard from Dr. Hitti of the Institute for Arab-American Affairs that there was no such entity as Palestine.

Ahmad Shukeiri, before he became the first Chairman of the PLO, told the UN Security Council that, “Palestine is nothing but Southern Syria.” Abu Nidal, the ultimate Palestinian terrorist, proclaimed, “Palestine belongs to Syria.” Azmi Bishara, the Arab Israeli MK who fled the country after collaborating with Hezbollah, said in a television interview, “I think the Palestinian nation is a colonial invention.”

Judis dismisses Jewish nationalism as a 19^th century invention, when it’s Palestinian nationalism that is a late 20^th century invention.

He emphasizes European Jewish migration to Israel, but not Arab Muslim migration. He repeatedly states that Arabs had been living in Israel for 1,400 years as if the entire Arab population had arrived with the Muslim conquests. The history of modern Ramallah, the capital of the Palestinian Authority,  founded in the 16^th century by a family of Christian refugees fleeing Muslim persecution, shows that the 1,400 year number that Judis keeps throwing around is as misleading as his suggestion that the Arab colonizers of Israel may be descended from the Philistines and the Canaanites.

Judis disavows the religious connection of Jews to Israel, writing that “Jews declared ‘Next year in Jerusalem’ annually during Passover dinners, but few took these words literally.”

Taking those words literally was the foundation of Judaism from before the Islamic conquest of Israel.

If, as Judis and other anti-Israel revisionist historians insist, Israel was a European colonialist invention, why have Middle Eastern Jews been the most dedicated to Israel and why did they immigrate in greater numbers to Israel than even the Jews of Germany and Poland?

Middle Eastern Jews were more traditional and religious than European Jews. The first returnees to Israel were Orthodox Jews. Today the American Jews most likely to move to Israel are Orthodox Jews. Zionism had a European political framework for a mandate based on religion and tradition. The vast majority of Jews living in Israel today are more influenced by the Bible than by Herzl or Ahad Ha’am.

John Judis begins his narrative in 1948 with Truman because he needs to justify a colonial solution. While the United States only had a limited impact on the rebirth of Israel, revisionist historians like Judis put the “blame” for Israel’s founding on the United States so that they can then demand that the United States undo the “wrong” that it did.

The rebirth of Israel had been long underway and the British withdrawal made it inevitable by simple absence. Truman acceded to recognizing Israel, but statehood was a matter for Israeli militias successfully defending their country despite the Democratic leader’s arms embargo on Israel.

Judis claims Truman opposed Israel because he “rejected the idea of a state religion”. That would be the same Truman who wrote to the Pope, “Your Holiness, this is a Christian Nation.” He claims that Truman “was not insensitive to the plight of European Jews” even though Truman had responded to Jewish pleas on behalf of DP’s by writing, “The Jews, I find, are very, very selfish.“ and had told the cabinet, “I have no use for them and I don’t care what happens to them.”

American Jews are depicted as a powerful lobby that intimidated Truman and every president since, yet this same lobby failed to save the Jews of Europe from the Holocaust by allowing them to escape to the United States. If this supposedly powerful Jewish lobby could not open the doors of Ellis Island, how did it pressure the United States into setting up an entire country?

Judis has Truman talking up the plan of British foreign secretary Bevin as “the best possible solution for Palestine” to replace the State of Israel with an unworkable Jewish-Arab federation that neither side wanted and that would have become a war zone the moment that the last British soldier left.

Ernest Bevin was the man of whom James G. McDonald, Truman’s own envoy to Israel, wrote, “Facing Bevin across the broad table, I had to tell myself that this was not Hitler seated before me.”

Truman did not create Israel and could not have prevented its rebirth by any means other than dispatching American soldiers to oversee an extension of British colonial rule under the guise of a federation and he recognized that there was no hope of maintaining Bevin and Judis’s solution without an American military occupation that would have made Iraq look like Grenada.

And yet it is telling that despite dedicating an entire book to attacking Jewish “colonialism”, the preferred alternatives of John Judis to Zionism are British colonialism or American intervention.

Judis wraps up a book of bad history written in bad faith by asserting that the only way to reach an agreement would be for Obama and the EU to make it clear to the Israelis “that they would not tolerate any other outcome.”

This is typical of the Western left which denounces colonialism while championing it at their own hands.

Judis pretends that his book is an anti-colonial work when it is really a lament for the colonial intervention that should have taken place under Truman and a plea to Obama to engage in a final colonial intervention to displace an oppressed indigenous minority from its land.


Daniel Greenfield

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/the-colonialism-of-the-anti-israel-left/

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Barring Terrorists from Entering the U.S.? What Difference does it Make?

by Marc Weisman

President Obama, unencumbered by re-election worries, is taking full advantage of "executive directives" or "end-runs" around that pesky Republican-controlled Congress.  This past week, the Obama administration has lessened the rules for would-be asylum-seekers and Middle-Eastern immigrants desiring entry into the United States.  A post-Sept. 11 immigrant law basically prohibited anyone considered to have provided any level of support to terror groups from immigrating to America.  Through executive privilege, Obama has now ordered that offering "'limited' support to terrorists or terrorist groups" should no longer necessarily preclude entry into these United States of America.  


The change is one of President Barack Obama's first actions on immigration since he pledged during his recent State of the Union address to issue more executive directives.


In a recent statement, the Homeland Security Department said that the rule change, which was not sanctioned by Congress, gives the government discretion, but won't expose the country to terrorists or their sympathizers.


Many Republican lawmakers claim the administration is flouting rules designed by them (Congress) to protect the country from terrorists.  "President Obama should be protecting U.S. citizens rather than taking a chance on those who are aiding and abetting terrorist activity and putting Americans at greater risk," said Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.).


Remember that this is also a president who avoids like the plague labeling a terrorist "a terrorist."  He is much more likely to rain lawyers upon terrorists than bombs (except, to his credit, when it comes to drones in Afghanistan).  He has removed the term "Islamist" from the federal lexicon.  He has painfully strained relations with Israel to buy favor with the Arabs.  His administration has also promoted the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and elsewhere.  He has come out in support of the 911 mosque initiative in New York and has confounded Americans with dozens of initiatives and statements of apparent appeasement to Muslims.  By any reasonable measure, this president seems much more concerned with the sensibilities of foreigners than he is with those of Americans.


So one must ask: what terrible wrong is the U.S. now perpetrating upon Muslims to warrant crafting such a potentially far-reaching executive order?  If only one in a hundred of these "terrorist-connected" individuals is actually a terrorist sympathizer, is this ideological declaration of continued appeasement worth it?

Marc Weisman

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/02/barring_terrorists_from_entering_the_us_what_difference_does_it_make.html

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

'J Street Challenge': Truth Trumps Lies

by Phyllis Chesler


In 2014, in his new film, "The Last of the Unjust," Claude Lanzmann shares his 1975 interview with Viennese Rabbi, Benjamin Murmelstein, the last and only surviving "Elder of the Jews" at Theresienstadt. Both Lanzmann (and I) are impressed with Murmelstein's wit, wisdom, learning, and tough survival skills. While Murmelstein submitted documents to Prosecutor Gideon Hauser, Murmelstein does not understand why the Israeli prosecution did not allow him to testify against Eichmann—a man Murmelstein characterizes as evil and monstrous--a man whom he personally witnessed shooting and hanging Jews and ordering others to do likewise. In Murmelsteins' view, Arendt's adjective "banal" in no way applies to the man who systematically deceived, terrorized, and murdered Jews.

Although the Nazis gave him no choice—it was do their bidding or die--many have viewed Murmelstein as a collaborator and traitor. He could have escaped, but actually chose not to do so. Ultimately, Lanzmann is not persuaded that Murmelstein is a traitor, and that others really cannot judge men who are placed in such unbearable positions, but Lanzmann leaves this decision up to each and every viewer.

In my opinion, based on the new film, "J Street Challenge", which was premiered last night in Miami, Jeremy Ben-Ami may be a far more dangerous and morally problematic traitor to his people than were any of the Judenrat leaders during the Shoah. I say this because no one is threatening Ben-Ami with imminent death (each kapo and judenrat leader was death threatened while in captivity). Ben Ami lives in the United States and is a free man.

Yet, in classic Orwellian style, he presents his organization as both "pro-peace" and "pro-Israel" when he is neither. He condemns Israel at every turn and he does so in an era when Israel is under existential siege and a Second Holocaust is fully underway in slow motion. Jews are being blamed for and physically attacked outside of Israel because of Israel's alleged "apartheid" and "occupation" policies. Israeli civilians are also being attacked—blown up, knifed—inside Israel proper.

The war against the Jews and the Jewish state rages on as never before at the United Nations, the European Union, among intellectuals and academics, on campuses, and within international human rights organizations. The Big Lies and filthy propaganda may be found 24/7 on the internet and in well-made documentaries as well as in prize-winning feature films.

The "J Street Challenge" is short, powerful, and an absolute must-see. It has been released by Americans for Peace and Tolerance, the group founded by anti-slavery activist, Charles Jacobs. This film was produced, written, and directed by Avi Goldwasser and Ilya Feostikov. Jacobs served as a "special consultant."

At such a moment in history, Ben-Ami has purposely chosen not to focus on the escalating Arab, Muslim, and Jihadic attacks against the Jewish state and against all infidels, nor does he condemn the anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist riots and marches in Europe, North America, and all across the Muslim world. Instead, he blames Israel for having provoked these attacks by "occupying" Palestinian Arab land; he calls for a "peace" and "Jewish ethics" via a "two-state solution, allies his organization with the BDS movement, and with the Muslim Public Affairs Committee and other Muslim Brotherhood fronts in the United States. He insists that "Israel is no longer David but (has become) Goliath."

Further, Ben-Ami is actively working with President Barak Obama to supplant and destroy AIPAC and all American Jewish organizations and become the President's leading "go-to" Jewish lobby.

Here's an example of what kind of influence J Street has.

Recently, some of Ben-Ami's supporters signed an angry letter: An Open Letter from NY Jews to Mayor de Blasio: 'AIPAC does not speak for us." The letter was meant to punish and shame new Mayor Bill deBlasio for having dared to meet with and declare support for AIPAC, a group which does not represent "their" views. Among the signatories to this letter are Peter Beinart and Kathleen Peratis who support the J Street disinformation campaign and agenda.

According to the film, "J Street Challenge," these signatories are part of a cabal that is being funded by George Soros and Genevieve Lynch, who is on the Board of the pro-Iranian National Iranian American Council.

With a heavy heart, I checked the J Street website and discovered that five additional signatories to this Open Letter (Rabbis Rachel Cowan, Sharon Kleinbaum, Ellen Lippmann, J. Rolando Matalon, and Burton Visotzky) are listed as J Street's Executive Rabbinic Council. Other signatories include feminists Barbara Dobkin, Eve Ensler, Erica Jong, Letty Cottin Pogrebin, Ann Roiphe, and Gloria Steinem.

While I respect free speech and freedom of conscience, and do not wish to silence anyone's views—I believe that the Oslo accord madness, the demands of liberalism-turned-left, the nature of the American DemocraticParty, further mobilized by the cachet that J Street has gained between 2008 and 2014, may account for such signatories and the ease with which they were obtained. Some signatories know a great deal about Israel and care about it—and some know absolutely nothing and care even less.

As the film documents, J Street has become a very fashionable address, a trendy calling card, the kind of group you want to be networked into if you wish to get published,funded, and invited to the right parties. More important, if you are a young Jew, and want to be liked, loved, popular, not burdened by the need to defend an Israel that has been grossly distorted—you will follow Ben-Ami's call right down into extinction. After all, he tells young and dis-informed Jews that "their voice has been stolen from them…by a few large funders or a few loud voices who urge them to stay silent…we are taking on much more than AIPAC, (we are after) the Conference of Presidents, the American Jewish Committee, the lobbying structures of the federations…the community relations councils."

Ben-Ami is up front. He wishes to dismantle organized Jewry entirely and replace all structures with J Street. And J Street wants America to dictate to Israel the terms of surrender. Ben-Ami comforts the cowardly and the assimilated, he supports liberalism as if it were orthodox Judaism; cleverly, he says "we make a mistake when we tell (our) children that they have to check their Jewish values at the door of Zionism"—as if Zionism is not a Jewish value or as if it opposes Jewish values.

The film stands up to Ben-Ami and exposes him for what he is. Great and eloquent experts take part, including Lenny Ben-David, Alan Dershowitz, Carolyn Glick, Daniel Gordis, Charles Jacobs, Richard Landes, Andrea Levin, Bret Stephens, and Ruth Wisse. We have recently seen some of them in Gloria Greenfield's powerful films "The Case for Israel" and "Unmasked. Judeophobia The Threat to Civilization". However, in this film these experts say new and specific things that pertain directly to the J Street phenomenon and danger.

When I asked Jacobs why they did this film, here is how he answered me.

"J Street goes unchallenged when it speaks on campuses and in the community because 1. AIPAC chooses (for now) not to answer them publicly, fearing it will give them bigger platform, and 2. Federations and jcrc's do not want divisive public events. 3. Once having been accepted into the big (fundraising) tent, they are protected by the establishment: RULE: any Jew can (and may be encouraged) to criticize Jewish leaders in Israel, but it is taboo to criticize American Jewish leaders…. Even if they are taking Jewish money by promising to protect us, but spending it on the liberal agenda.

"Jews whose synagogues or community centers have hosted J Street speakers cannot easily get any of our on-screen experts to offer to balance J Street out….. so our film might fill that function. We think they have the right to raise the questions they raise. Our film seeks to answer these questions with the truth, not with lies."

Avi Goldwasser said: "The film was conceived and produced to provide the community with access to the most articulate scholars and activists so that we might engage in a virtual debate about the issues raised by J Street."

The theatre was sold out (400 people) in two days. Jacobs believes they will have to "come back here and do five more screenings."

I hope they do just that.


Phyllis Chesler

Source: http://www.phyllis-chesler.com/1252/op-ed-j-street-challenge-truth-trumps-lies

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Kerry's gaseous emissions

by Ruthie Blum

Every time it seems American foreign policy couldn't get any worse, Secretary of State John Kerry comes along to set the record straight. The weekend was no exception.

In Indonesia on Sunday, during the last leg of an Asia tour that included South Korea and China, Kerry took the opportunity to talk about the dangers of climate change. The speech he delivered in Jakarta at the U.S. Embassy-run American Center took place a day after a second round of "peace talks" in Geneva between representatives of Syrian President Bashar Assad's government and members of the opposition ended at an impasse. (Ironically, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem also raised the issue of climate, but he wasn't referring to global temperatures. Rather, he was blaming the U.S. for "creating a very negative climate for dialogue in Geneva.") 

Kerry's address to a packed audience of Indonesian students, community leaders and government officials also came two days ahead of a resumption of nuclear negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 powers (the U.S., Russia, China, the United Kingdom, France and Germany) in Vienna.

None of this was what the U.S. secretary of state wanted to discuss while visiting the country with the largest Muslim population in the world, however. Instead, he was there to warn the Indonesians about greenhouse gas emissions and "big companies" that are ostensibly wreaking havoc on the planet in general, and specifically causing typhoons, floods and Friday's eruption of a volcano on the island of Java.

"This city, this country, this region, is really on the front lines of climate change," he said. "It's not an exaggeration to say that your entire way of life here is at risk. In a sense, climate change can now be considered the world's largest weapon of mass destruction, perhaps even the world's most fearsome weapon of mass destruction."

To add arrogance to insult and injury, Kerry attacked anyone daring to doubt the veracity of the claim that carbon monoxide is the culprit behind recent spates of bad weather.

"We simply don't have time to let a few loud interest groups hijack the climate conversation," he admonished. And then he went for the jugular. "We should not allow a tiny minority of shoddy scientists and science and extreme ideologues to compete with scientific facts. … The science is unequivocal, and those who refuse to believe it are simply burying their heads in the sand. We don't have time for a meeting anywhere of the Flat Earth Society."

Due to a serious lack of reportage, it is unclear how Kerry's gaseous emissions were received. But one thing is certain: The secretary of state is as clueless and agenda-driven about climatology as he is about the Middle East. 

Nor does he ever let evidence interfere with his ignorance.

For Kerry's information, among the "shoddy scientists" whom he considers to be part of the "Flat Earth Society" are serious academics who spent years, and tons of grant money, studying "global warming" (a term that had to be adjusted to accommodate increasingly freezing winters) to prove both its existence and that it was caused by mankind. That their conclusion did not jibe with their original hypothesis is a testament to their professional integrity, not a reason to ridicule their research.

The following are a few truths Kerry would do well to take into account, even if The New York Times and Washington Post do not deem them newsworthy:

Earth has gone through cycles of climate change throughout history, well before the Industrial Revolution. Fluctuations between extreme cold, as in the Ice Ages, and extreme heat have always existed. Currently, for example, the sun is hotter than it has been in a century. According to NASA, this is because of solar flares.

Meanwhile, global warming is causing ice to melt on Mars, a planet without factories and cars -- and interest groups.

But the most convincing piece of proof that human beings and modernization are innocent of the charges against them lies in two clauses of an extensive report on the subject, released last September by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, established by the United Nations and the World Meteorological Organization in 1988. 

The only trouble is that the clauses were removed from the final draft of the published document. The first says, "None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed climate changes to increases in greenhouse gases."

According to the second, "No study to date has positively attributed all or part of the climate change to man-made causes."

No study is needed to conclude that terrorism and genuine weapons of mass destruction can be attributed to "man-made causes." It is these that the U.S. should be combating with all its might. Instead, the American administration is waging war on the weather.

Ruthie Blum is the author of "To Hell in a Handbasket: Carter, Obama, and the 'Arab Spring.'"

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=7405

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.