We can defend ourselves, Netanyahu repeats on return to Israel

THE TIMES OF ISRAEL

On eve of Purim, PM highlights that, today, the Jews are ‘masters of our own fate’

By GABE FISHER and AP March 7, 2012, 3:56 pm

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Ben Gurion airport after his return from his visit to Canada and the United States (photo credit: Amos Ben Gershom/GPO/Flash90)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned to Israel on Wednesday, and immediately reiterated the message he had delivered Monday to both the White House and pro-Israel supporters at the AIPAC conference in Washington, DC — that Israel will defend itself as it sees fit against a would-be nuclear Iran.

His trip took him first to Canada, where he met with Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and then to the US, where he met with President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and members of both the Senate and the House of Representatives, as well as delivering a strident address to AIPAC.

“I return from a very important visit to the US and Canada. I was received warmly, we have many courageous friends,” Netanyahu said. “We are returning for Purim, and this evening we will read in the Book of Esther about those days in which Jews were not masters of their fate and could not defend themselves.

“Today we are in a different world and a different era; we have a strong state and army. The threats have not disappeared, but we can defend ourselves. We have very many friends that stand at our side and will do so at all times,” he said.

During the prime minister’s trip, issues relating to a possible preemptive Israeli military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities dominated his discussions and the attendant media coverage.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s security adviser Yaakov Amidror cautiously welcomed an upcoming round of talks between six world powers and Iran over its suspect nuclear program, and said Wednesday that Israel is “very happy” to hear of the negotiations.

But, he said, “without a real military alternative,” Iran is unlikely to give up its nuclear program.

Obama’s Israel Policy Changed Dramatically in Only Three Days – Must Be A Record

THE INDEPENDENT SENTINEL

March 7, 2012

By Sara Noble

The man just can’t help himself – he can’t even do it for three days. Within three days, Obama went from saying that Israel makes its own decisions to threatening them and pompously telling Israel, a sovereign nation, what they can or cannot do.

Obama snarled,  ”Israel will bear responsibility for any damage to America’s security” and “I decide what’s premature or not.”

As expected, there were no redlines or plan for action drawn up during the Netanyahu-Obama talks and the two men still seem far apart. They do agree that Iran must not get the nuclear bomb.

Personally, I think Obama is waiting for the mushroom cloud to appear over Tel Aviv.

Instead of a meeting of the minds with Netanyahu, the U.S. and other countries have offered to resume pointless negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program. It is simply an Iranian delaying tactic. They couldn’t be clearer if they beat Obama over the head with it.

Nonetheless, on Wednesday, the head of the National Security Council Maj.-Gen. (res.) Ya’akov Amidror praised the renewal of talks between the international community and Iran over its nuclear program but he said that Israel must be ready to act against Iran should talks between the international community and Tehran fail, Israel Radio reported.

During his AIPAC speech on Sunday, President Obama said the U.S. will support Israel, and if necessary, use force to keep Iran from building nuclear bombs. We have their back, Obama said. He agreed, or he did for the moment, that Israel must make its own decisions regarding its defense.

Then there was the quickly assembled press conference Tuesday in which Obama said that a strike will lead to consequences for US, Israel. He  warned against “beating the drums of war” and added, ”Israel will bear responsibility for any damage to America’s security” and “I decide what’s premature or not.” Obama looked angry as he glared into his notes and up at his teleprompter.

“This is not just an issue of Israeli interests. This is an issue of American interests,” he said, stating that a decision on action was not necessary within the next weeks, or even months. “It’s also not just an issue of consequences for Israel if action is taken prematurely.

There are consequences for the United States as well.” He warned against the “casualness” of talk of possible military action and American politicians’ “beating the drums of war,” saying those who speak so loosely should consider the consequences of their words.

Netanyahu held a follow up meeting with members of the Congress who have sent out a strong message of support for Israel from Boehner to Pelosi.

According to Reuters, before flying back on Tuesday, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told congressional leaders Tuesday that Israel viewed things differently than the US did at times, because it was not a global power and was more vulnerable.  America has global interests while Israel is “on the ground and more vulnerable.”

He cited historical precedent for not following U.S. advice -

David Ben-Gurion declared independence against the advice of the US

Levi Eshkol launched a preemptive attack in 1967, against Washington’s counsel

Menachem Begin decided to bomb the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981 despite US opposition…Read more: Jerusalem Post

U.S. State Department Actively Promoting Islam in Europe

 

The self-anointed appointed Apologizing for America "Team"!

THE STONEGATE INSTITUTE

by Soeren Kern
March 6, 2012 at 5:00 am

The French government – which has been trying to reverse the pernicious effects of decades of state-sponsored multiculturalism – expressed dismay at what it called "meddling."

The United States ambassador to Spain recently met with a group of Muslim immigrants in one of the most Islamized neighborhoods of Barcelona to apologize for American foreign policymaking in the Middle East. 

 U.S. Ambassador Alan Solomont  told Muslims assembled at the town hall-like meeting in the heart of Barcelona's old city that the United States is not an "enemy of Islam" and that U.S. President Barack Obama wants to improve America's image in the Middle East as quickly as possible by closing the "dark chapters" of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the war in Afghanistan.

"There are things that the United States has done badly," Solomont said at the February 28 gathering organized by a non-profit organization called the Cultural, Educational and Social Association of Pakistani Women. "But now the Obama government wants to improve relations with Muslims," he promised.

During the one-and-a-half-hour question-and-answer session, Solomont asked those in attendance simple rhetorical questions, including: "Did you know that the United States sends a lot of money to Pakistan?" and "Did you know that the decision to destroy Osama bin Laden's house was made by the United States?"

After responding to queries about the "Talibanization of Pakistan due the war in Afghanistan" and the "demonization of Islam in the West," Solomont said Obama wants to end the long-time American practice of establishing alliances with dictators in the Middle East, a strategy which he said has failed to prevent the rise of "the bearded ones" [radical Islamists], this according to the Barcelona-based newspaper La Vanguardia, which also interviewed Solomont on the sidelines of the event.

The Barcelona meeting, which was held in a Muslim ghetto called Raval (a.k.a. Ravalistan because Muslim immigrants now make up 45% of the barrio's total population), is an example of the Obama administration's so-called Muslim Outreach.

The U.S. State Department -- working through American embassies and consulates in Europe -- has been stepping-up its efforts to establish direct contacts with largely unassimilated Muslim immigrant communities in towns and cities across Europe.

Proponents of Obama's approach to public diplomacy -- some elements of which originated with his immediate predecessor -- say it is part of a "counter-radicalization" strategy which aims to prevent radical Muslims with European passports from carrying out terrorist attacks against the United States.

A key component of the strategy is to "empower" Muslims who can help build a "counter-narrative" to that of terrorists. In practice, however, Obama ideologues are crisscrossing Europe on U.S. taxpayer funded trips to "export" failed American approaches to multiculturalism, affirmative action, cultural diversity and special rights for minorities.

Further, American diplomats are repeatedly apologizing to Muslims in Europe for a multitude of real or imagined slights against Islam, and the U.S. State Department is now spending millions of dollars each year actively promoting Islam -- including Islamic Sharia law -- on the continent.

In Ireland, for example, the U.S. Embassy in Dublin recently sponsored a seminar ostensibly designed to help Muslim immigrants increase their influence within the Irish business and financial communities.

The opening speech at the event was delivered by Imam Hussein Halawa of the Islamic Cultural Center of Ireland, despite the fact that leaked U.S. State Department cables show that the U.S. government has known for many years that Halawi is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and serves as the right-hand man of the radical Egyptian cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi.

Halawa, an Egyptian immigrant who has dedicated his life to the cause of introducing Islamic Sharia law in Europe, told those in attendance that the main purpose of the conference was to bring the Irish banking system into conformity with Islamic legal principles. U.S. Ambassador Dan Rooney, a lifelong Republican turned Obama acolyte, said at the same conference that the United States was a "solid partner" behind Halawa's venture.

In Austria, the U.S. Embassy in Vienna sponsored a film contest in February on the theme of "Diversity and Tolerance" aimed at teaching wayward Austrians that they should show respect for Muslim immigrants who refuse to integrate into their society.

Ambassador William Eacho, an Obama campaign fundraiser turned political appointee, awarded the first prize to a group of students in the northern Austrian town of Steyr who produced a one-minute silent film promoting tolerance for Muslim women who wear Islamic face-covering veils such as burkas in public spaces.

Obama and his team may think they know what is best for Europeans, but according to recent polls, more than70% of Austrians are in favor of a law that would ban the burka.

In Belgium, U.S. Ambassador Howard Gutman, another Obama fundraiser turned diplomat, told lawyers attending a conference in Brussels in November 2011 that Israel is to blame for Muslim anti-Semitism in Europe.

According to the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronot, Gutman, who is Jewish, showed conference attendees a video of himself receiving a warm welcome at a Muslim school in Brussels, which he said proved that Muslims are not anti-Semitic. Following a barrage of criticism for rationalizing the growing problem of anti-Semitism in Europe, the U.S. Embassy in Belgium removed the evidence by uploading an amended transcript of Gutman's remarks on its website.

In France, the U.S. Embassy in Paris co-sponsored a seminar to teach Muslims in France how they can politically organize themselves. Operatives from the Democratic Party coached 70 Muslim "diversity leaders" from disaffected Muslim-majority suburban slums known as banlieues on how to develop a communications strategy, raise funds and build a political base.

The French government -- which has been trying to reverse the pernicious effects of decades of state-sponsored multiculturalism -- expressed dismay at what it called "meddling."

The Obama administration's Muslim-oriented coaching sessions on community organizing come as the Persian Gulf Emirate of Qatar is busy peddling the fundamentalist teachings of Wahhabi Islam -- which not only discourages Muslim integration into the West, but actively encourages jihad [holy war] against non-Muslims -- to hundreds of thousands of disgruntled Muslim immigrants in France.

As the Obamans and the Wahhabis compete for influence among Muslim immigrants, forward-looking analysts fret that France may yet end up with politically organized jihadists turning the banlieues into Islamic emirates.

In Norway, where Muslim immigrants already have more rights than native Norwegians, the U.S. Embassy in Oslo organized a "dialogue meeting" designed to "empower" Muslim immigrant women in the country.

According to the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten, Obama's special envoy to the Muslim world, Farah Pandith,castigated the Norwegian government's integration policies as being insufficiently fair to Muslim immigrants. She also told Norwegians that Muslims are "more free to practice Islam in the United States than in any other country in the world." Conservative Party leader Erna Solberg said Norway has much to learn from the Americans.

In Britain, U.S. embassy employees in London frequently conduct outreach to help "empower" the Muslims across the country. According to a leaked U.S. diplomatic cable, for example, Ambassador Louis Susman "engages with U.K. Muslim communities regularly…he has spoken to Muslim groups in Wales and Scotland, visited the London Central Mosque, and hosted an interfaith breakfast at his residence, among other activities."

Susman has come under fire for visiting another London mosque, namely the East London Mosque, which is one of the most extreme Islamic institutions in Britain. Built with money from Saudi Arabia to propagate Wahhabi Islam, the sprawling facility is home to the London Muslim Center, which the U.S. government has long known is a haven for Islamic extremists. During his visit, Susman spoke of his "great admiration" for the mosque and his enthusiasm for meeting its staff.

According to the leaked cable, "Having the U.S. Ambassador visit and listen respectfully to Muslim points of view has an enormous impact on groups that often feel marginalized and ignored."

Soeren Kern is Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook.

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Lebanese Apartheid Week (poster)

Wednesday, March 07, 2012

ELDER OF ZIYON

Palestine Times has a photo essay of how Palestinian Arabs in Lebanon live in squalor:

If there is any issue that unites Lebanese - right or left, religious or secular - it is that these Palestinian Arabs must never become citizens of that country. There is institutionalized discrimination against them, as they cannot move out of these camps, they cannot expand them, and usually they cannot even build within them.

This is all separate from the many jobs they are not allowed to take, and that they cannot buy land.

There is even a religious aspect to this. Practically all Palestinian Christians did manage to become Lebanese citizens, mostly in the 1950s and 1960s. But the Sunni Muslims, for the most part, did not (unless they could convince officials that they had Lebanese ancestry.)

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what apartheid looks like.

Arrest made in India bombing case

THE TIMES OF ISRAELMarch 7, 2012, 10:10 am

New Delhi police hold a journalist who they say was involved in the bombing that injured an Israeli diplomat’s wife last month

The bombed out car burning outside the New Delhi embassy last month. (photo credit: Joji Philip Thomas, via Twitter)

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EW DELHI (AP) — Police arrested an Indian journalist to investigate possible links to the bombing of an Israeli diplomatic vehicle last month in New Delhi, authorities said Wednesday, the first apparent breakthrough in an attack that Israel blamed on Iran.

The Press Trust of India said the suspect had claimed to work for an Iranian news organization, a report Indian police declined to confirm. His lawyer said he had taken at least one reporting trip to Iran on behalf of India’s state broadcaster.

Though Indian authorities have not implicated Iran in the bombing, any leads that point in that direction could complicate India’s delicate efforts to ward off growing Western pressure and maintain its strong economic ties with Tehran.

Energy-starved India remains a large market for Iranian oil, and those purchases could blunt the effect of intensified sanctions being imposed by the United States and European Union to force Iran to roll back its nuclear ambitions.

“India finds itself between a rock and a hard place over Iran,” said Arundhati Ghose, a retired Indian diplomat. “It’s a tough call for the government, but one that New Delhi will have to confront eventually.”

Police arrested Syed Mohammed Kazmi on Tuesday after investigations showed he had been in touch with a suspect they believe may have stuck a magnetic bomb on an Israeli diplomat’s car, police spokesman Rajan Bhagat said.

Police said they searched Kazmi’s house over the past two days to gather evidence that might link him to the Feb. 13 attack, which wounded the diplomat’s wife, her driver and two other people in a nearby car. Police did not say what evidence they found.

Kazmi, 50, appeared in court Wednesday where a judge allowed the police to hold him for questioning till March 27.

“My client has been falsely implicated. He is not an international terrorist,” Kazmi’s lawyer, Vijay Aggarwal, told reporters.

Aggarwal said Kazmi was a journalist who had traveled to Iran while covering the Iraq war for state television and reported on issues relating to Iran. He did not elaborate or clarify when Kazmi had been in Iran.

The court allowed Kazmi to meet with his lawyer every day and ordered a medical examination every two days to rule out the possibility he might be tortured.

The New Delhi blast came the same day a bomb was discovered on an Israeli diplomat’s car in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. The next day, three Iranians accidentally blew up their house in Thailand, and Israeli authorities said the similarity between their explosives and the two earlier bombs linked Iran to all three incidents.

Indian officials have refused to assign blame while the investigation continues.

Israel has accused Iran of waging a covert campaign of state terrorism and has threatened military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

If Kazmi’s arrest and interrogation leads to evidence of Iran’s involvement — either directly or through its proxies — in the New Delhi attack, the fallout could put India in a diplomatic quandary.

Iran is one of India’s major suppliers of oil, accounting for 12 percent of its energy needs.

So far, India has fended off criticism for its growing economic ties with Iran by saying it does not heed unilateral sanctions, such as those being imposed by the United States and European Union.

“We have accepted sanctions that are made by the United Nations,” Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai told reporters in Washington at a recent press briefing. “Other sanctions do not apply to us.”

Western sanctions have made it harder for Indian companies to pay for Iranian oil, with international banks unwilling to handle transactions from Tehran without breaching the new American sanctions on Iran’s financial earnings from oil.

Last month, India and Iran agreed to an arrangement for 45 percent of the $11 billion in annual oil payments to be made in Indian rupees, with the rest to be paid in a barter system.

Tehran is looking to trade oil for Indian-made machinery, iron and steel, minerals and automobiles, while Indian companies plan to invest in infrastructure projects in Iran including developing oil and gas fields, roads and railways.

India brushed off the international outrage over the blasts and said it would go ahead with a visit to Tehran this weekend by an Indian trade delegation headed by the commerce secretary.

“India needs the Iranian crude. It would be very difficult to find alternative sources of oil that would be acceptable to Indian refineries,” a commerce ministry official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Many of India’s aging oil refineries are configured to use Iranian crude oil. Retrofitting these refineries would be costly, the official said.

India is also looking after its strategic interests in Iran’s neighbor Afghanistan, which India hopes to prevent from falling under the sway of its archrival, Pakistan, after the 2014 withdrawal of NATO troops.

India uses Iranian ports to send goods to Afghanistan as it scrambles to maintain influence there.

“India is now in a panic over what lies ahead in Afghanistan. The Americans are leaving Afghanistan; they are talking to the Taliban. India will find itself scrambling for access in Afghanistan,” says K.C. Singh, a former Indian ambassador to Iran.

To this end, India is helping develop the southern Iranian port of Chabahar and a rail link that will offer it direct access to Afghanistan.

New Delhi has not remained completely immune to sanction pressures and is slowly easing its dependence on Iranian oil.

Trends show a gradual decline in Iranian oil imports, with a temporary spike in January due to the bunching of earlier supplies that were delayed due to payment hurdles.

India has also developed close ties with Israel after diplomatic relations were established in 1992, and Tel Aviv has emerged as an important arms supplier.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

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Rare Video of Israeli Rabbi in Iran

A rare video shows last year’s visit to the tomb of Queen Esther and Mordechai in Iran. Tehran airport officials asked him, “Pray for us.”

By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu

First Publish: 3/7/2012, 2:48 PM

Tomb of Esther and Mordechai

Israel news screenshot: Arutz Sheva

Rabbi Yisroel Gabbai’s self-appointed mission is saving Jewish graves all over the world. A rare videoshows his visit last year to Iran and the tomb of Queen Esther and Mordechai, the central Jewish figures iin the story of Purim, which Jews celebrate this week.

A member of the Breslov stream of Chassidism and now living in Israel, Rabbi Gabbai travels with a passport from France, where he was born and married. He has visited Gaza and Lebanon during wars and also has been to Damascus. Rabbi Gabbai wears traditional hareidi religious black clothesand a black hat, with his “tzitis” (fringed garment worn by Jews], even in Arab countries.

Airport authorities in Tehran questioned him when he arrived last year and asked what he was doing in Iran. The rabbi replied, “I came to pray,” and he said the authorities asked him, “Pray for us” and then told him they would not charge him for his visa.

The video shows Jews and Muslims praying together in their joint belief in the prophet Daniel, and also offers a rare view of Jews praying in an Iranian synagogue.

He also visited the tomb of Queen Esther and Mordechai, which Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has threatened to destroy. It is located in the city of Hamdan and reportedly is the oldest standing structure in Iran.  Several local Jews visit the tomb every Purim.

Iranian Jews told Rabbi Gabbai that they have spoken with Iranian authorities and told them they pray that HaShem blesses the country’s leaders. “We live with the protection of Muslims and under the Islamic flag. For 3,000 years, we have lived in peace andsecurity,” one Jew said in the video with Rabbi Gabbai.

The rabbis admitted this his travels often are dangerous. He said that the IDF escorted him on one secret trip to the burial site of a Torah sage in Gaza, and that he also traveled to Lebanon during the war in the 1980s in order to save Jewish graves.

He previously has visited Syria and Yemen and is credited with having restored dozens of graves of Jews and Torah sages.

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Obama Mulls Giving Russia Top Secret Data On U.S. Missile Defense Shield…

WEASEL ZIPPERS

This guy has to be stopped. ABO 2012.

(Reuters) – The Obama administration disclosed on Tuesday that it is considering sharing some classified U.S. data as part of an effort to allay Russian concerns about a controversial antimissile shield.
The administration is continuing negotiations begun under former President George W. Bush on a defense technical cooperation agreement with Moscow that could include limited classified data, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Brad Roberts told a House of Representatives’ Armed Services subcommittee.
He gave no details on the sort of data that might be shared under such an agreement.
Russia strongly opposes the U.S.-engineered bulwark being built in and around Europe against ballistic missiles that could be fired by countries like Iran.
Army Lieutenant General Patrick O’Reilly, the head of the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency, said he had no knowledge of any move to share with Moscow any classified information on the U.S. technology used to knock out target missiles.
Panel chairman Michael Turner said last November that he would oppose any Obama administration effort to provide Russia information on the so-called burnout velocity of Raytheon Co Standard Missile-3 interceptors, a key part of the layered defense.
Keep reading…

Posted by ZIP on Tuesday, March 6, 2012, at 9:05 pm |

NOTE:
The comments below are posted on Weasel Zippers.  Please go directly to Zip's blog to read more and/or to post your comment.  Thank you.

1. Dapandico says:

   March 6, 2012 at 9:07 pm

   And Russia will pass if off to Iran. Israel needs to strike now.
2. Kevin in Brownsburg says:

   March 6, 2012 at 9:08 pm

   Surely the russkies wouldn’t use that knowledge to try to find a weakness to exploit? Na, Dear Leader is too smart to be played by the resurgent russia, just ask any of the two people who’ve seen his transcripts.
3. a former dem says:

   March 6, 2012 at 9:13 pm

   This is america’s first anti-american president.
4. Dapandico says:

   March 6, 2012 at 9:14 pm

   Russia has hit the reset button.
5. gastorgrab says:

   March 6, 2012 at 9:14 pm

   The only group that Obama willing to wage war against, the only people he is willing to take decisive action against, are his political opponents back home.
6. Papoose says:

   March 6, 2012 at 9:15 pm

   no kidding.

   America is under siege on all fronts by its own Government.
7. nevergiveup says:

   March 6, 2012 at 9:21 pm

   One way or another, Obama is bound and determined to bring America down to her knees.
8. Ms. Hickster says:

   March 6, 2012 at 9:22 pm

   placing this also here….

   When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty. – Thomas Jefferson
9. Steve Mack says:

   March 6, 2012 at 9:24 pm

   TREASON!!!!!!!!!
10. 7777777 says:

    March 6, 2012 at 9:26 pm

    Obama Mulls Giving Russia Top Secret Data On U.S. Missile Defense Shield…
    —————————————————————-
    That in its self should and will stop obama from being elected..

    If he does that he should be arrested for treason………
11. NWMN says:

    March 6, 2012 at 9:28 pm

    Impeachable offense?

    If he loses reelection the Wookie will probably hold a yard sale at the Pentagon.
12. Jimco says:

    March 6, 2012 at 9:28 pm

    Obama will give Pootin the details when they get intimate at Camp David. Pillow talk.
13. Holder's AK-47s kill Mexicans says:

    March 6, 2012 at 9:31 pm

    Who says it’s “controversial?”