Watch out for Petraeus in Benghazi scandal

** FILE ** CIA Director David H. Petraeus testifies on Feb. 2, ... more >
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

by Joseph Curl

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Call it “Oval Office Couch Syndrome.”

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SPECIAL COVERAGE: Benghazi Attack Under Microscope

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By their second term “inside the bubble,” presidents have completely lost touch with reality: Aides and confidants conspire to keep the chief executive insulated from the real world — the bad news, the worse press coverage. They think it’s their job, and lounging on the Oval Office couches, they nod along with the president’s every musing.

But this presidency has taken OOCS to new heights. Mr. Obama has only a few trusted aides, and occasional leaks from the West Wing show a paranoid president suspicious of nearly everyone around him. Supremely confident, convinced by the fawning minions at his feet that he is untouchable, the president dismisses all controversy as partisan attacks by an overzealous opposition. A pliant press corps of stenographers follows in lockstep.

Not surprisingly, every president in the past 60 years has had a major scandal in Term 2: Dwight Eisenhower had the U-2 “incident”; Richard Nixon had Watergate; Ronald Reagan had Iran-Contra; Bill Clinton had Monica (literally); George W. Bush had Katrina (and let’s not forget those WMDs that never turned up); and now, this president has Benghazi.

Make no mistake: Benghazi is a major scandal. Benghazi is a scandal before, during and after the terrorist attack that left four Americas dead, including an ambassador.

For months before, there were warnings about weak security at the U.S. Consulate in Libya; no one paid attention. During the attack, when Americans were begging for help, the White House ignored their pleas, sent no help.

And after? That’s when the Obama scandal falls into the predictable second-term pattern his predecessors all learned the very hard way. Faced with a crisis, the Obama White House panicked. “We can’t have a terrorist strike two months before Election Day, so … let’s not have a terrorist strike two months before Election Day.” Cue the Cover-Up.

So little is known about what happened in Benghazi: Where was the commander in chief that night? No pictures from the Situation Room this time. Why didn’t the Pentagon authorize a quick-response team to swoop in? Members of the military say they were ready — burning — to go. The call came in: Stand down. Let them die. There were dozens of witnesses to the attack that night: Where are they? What do they know? What really happened that night?

And who forced the heavy-handed redactions of those infamous “talking points,” the ones that sent Mr. Obama’s ambassador to the United Nations onto the Sunday talk shows to declare that the attack was just the culmination of a spontaneous protest over an anti-Islam video posted on YouTube?

Carnival barker Jay Carney looked almost ashen Friday as he took the podium to face a suddenly invigorated press corps. Of course, the public briefing came after a private session with “reporters who matter,” a sure sign the White House is in full hunker-down mode — and, more precisely, terrified.

“Again,” one newly curious reporter asked, “what role did the White House play, not just in making but in directing changes that took place to these?”

“Well,” the carney said, “thank you for that question. The way to look at this, I think, is to start from that week and understand that in the wake of the attacks in Benghazi, an effort was underway to find out what happened, who was responsible. In response to a request from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to the CIA, the CIA began a process of developing points that could be used in public by members of Congress, by members of that committee. And that process, as is always the case — again, led by the CIA — involved input from a variety of …”

Enough. You get the point: Full Spin Cycle.

Speaking for the White House, the flack said the CIA was fully to blame for the talking points. Fully. “That is what was generated by the intelligence community, by the CIA,” he said.

For the record, this is what the CIA “generated”:

“Since April, there have been at least five other attacks against foreign interests in Benghazi by unidentified assailants.” That line was stricken: Everything was fine there — fine fine fine.
And: “We do know that Islamic extremists with ties to Al Qaeda participated in the attack.” That line, too, was deleted by … someone. Instead, this was inserted: “There are indications that extremists participated in the violent demonstrations.”

Despite protestations by the White House, this scandal is just beginning. And the White House has picked a very bad scapegoat: the Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA follows RFK’s edict: “Don’t get mad, get even.” And when the CIA gets even, it isn’t pretty.

With the White House putting all blame on the agency, expect push back this week — nuclear push back. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the former director forced to resign after a sex scandal, is a dangerous man to the Obama administration. Mad and intent on getting even, he’s already talking, telling one reporter the talking points were “useless” and that he preferred not to use them at all. The floodgates will open this week, and by the end of business Friday, the scandal will be full blown.

A warning to those West Wing sycophants suffering from acute OOCS: Don’t walk down any dark alleys.

• Joseph Curl covered the White House and politics for a decade for The Washington Times and is now editor of the Drudge Report. He can be reached at josephcurl@gmail.com and @josephcurl.

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/may/12/curl-watch-out-petraeus-benghazi-scandal/#ixzz2a5TbeScW
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter

Bee's note:

See: 

“The blood of American patriots cries out!” – Louie Gohmert calls for Select Committee to investigate Benghazi

Gohmert Speaks at Presser Asking for a House Select Committee to Investigate Benghazi

Can You Believe He REALLY Said That?!! Way Past Time for Obama to Go!
www.breakingobama.com

The Other Anthony Weiner Scandal

THE CLARION PROJECT

BY RYAN MAURO

Wed, July 24, 2013

Weiner's accepting a donation from an Al-Jazeera lobbyist raises questions no less troubling than his recent sexting scandal.

New York mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner and his wife Huma Abedin attend a news conference in New York, where Weiner said he would stay in the race despite admitting he sent newly revealed sexually explicit online chats and photos even after he resigned from Congress. (Photo: Reuters)

Anthony Weiner, until now a front-runner in the mayoral race of New York City, has admitted to more sexual indiscretions and the media is all over the story. Sex is always a homerun for headline writers, causing Weiner’s other controversy to fade into the background: A lobbyist for Al-Jazeera has donated to his campaign, and that's fine with Weiner.

The story that Weiner received a $4,950 (the maximum legal donation) from Al-Jazeera lobbyist John Merrigan was just starting to gain traction in the media when the latest scandal broke. It’s certainly worth asking why an Al-Jazeera lobbyist is so attracted to his campaign, given Al-Jazeera’s well-earned reputation as a pro-Islamist, anti-American propaganda outlet.

Al-Jazeera is based in Qatar, the main state sponsor of the Muslim Brotherhood. When Brotherhood spiritual leader Yousef al-Qaradawi isn’t on the air for his weekly show, Al-Jazeera shows content likebirthday parties for terrorists. Al-Jazeera’s bias is so blatant that 22 employees resigned in protest after the network instructed them to slant their coverage of the recent events in Egypt in favor of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.

Al-Jazeera is coming to America (see our interview with Al-Jazeera opponent Cliff Kincaid) and will even broadcast from the Newseum in Washington, D.C., ironically a museum whose self-declared mission is "educating the public about the value of a free press in a free society."

Al-Jazeera knows courting politicians is one way to help overcome public opinion and, apparently, one of its lobbyists sees Weiner as an asset. That’s a lot more important than the perverted things Weiner said under the name “Carlos Danger.”

“They [Al-Jazeera] have spread hate and lies against Jews, not only here in New York, but across the world. The right thing to do is to give this money back. Anthony should do exactly that,” said City Councilman Lew Fidler, who is also running for the Democratic nomination for New York City mayor.

Weiner responded to the criticism of his Al-Jazeera-linked donation with mockery and said he never met the donor.

“I'm not a supporter of Al-Jazeera. I’m not taking money from Al-Jazeera. This makes me smile, but this is what happens, I guess, you start doing well … old politics kick in … People want to sell you up a bit to slow your momentum,” he said.

The connection between Weiner and an Al-Jazeera lobbyist should bring renewed attention to Weiner's wife, Huma Abedin.

Abedin was portrayed as the victim of a despicable anti-Muslim witch-hunt when Rep. Michele Bachmann and four other members of Congress brought attention to her family’s Muslim Brotherhood ties. As Deputy Chief of Staff to then-Secretary of State Clinton, Abedin had a top secret security clearance. The members of Congress wanted to know if these familial ties were taken into account in the background check and whether she was granted a waiver if she was denied.

The media and Democratic and Republican politicians turned Bachmann and her colleagues into villains. Unfortunately for them, the smoking gun arrived after the media’s attention span ran out. It turned out that Abedin was an assistant-editor of an Islamist journalfrom 1996, when she first met Clinton as a White House intern, until 2008.

The journal was published by the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs, an Islamist institution founded by her late father. In 2008, Abedin, her brother and her mother were all editors of the journal together. It should be noted that Abedin's mother is a member of the Muslim Sisterhood leadership alongside the wife of former Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi.

To sum it up, Abedin was working with her Islamist relatives at an Islamist journal during the entire course of her relationship with Clinton up to 2008. The following year, Clinton gave Abedin a senior position in the State Department, where she was given special treatment and allowed to continue working as a consultant.

In 2011, Abedin’s husband, then-Rep. Weiner, resigned after he tweeted sexually suggestive photographs of himself to a Seattle college student, among others. Abedin stood by his side. Since his decision to join the mayoral race in NYC, The New York Times described her as "a main architect" of his campaign.

Weiner's first endorsement was from Muslim Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), a friend of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood legacy groups. And now we know that a lobbyist for Al-Jazeera donated to his campaign.

The media should be asking Weiner about more than his sexual perversions and his disloyalty to his wife.

Ryan Mauro is the ClarionProject.org’s National Security Analyst, a fellow with the Clarion Project and is frequently interviewed on Fox News.

Bee's note:

Muslim Brotherhood’s Qaradawi Uses Al Jazeera to Call for Murder of Those Who “Do Not Obey” Morsi

FRONT PAGE MAGAZINE   by Daniel Greenfield

Poland: Jews Aren't Welcome

Bee's note: 

One year ago, there was a huge outcry from Poland when President Barack Obama referred to a Nazi death camp as "Polish".  In a BBC report:

"He made the remark at a ceremony in which he posthumously awarded Polish resistance fighter Jan Karski with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
The White House says Mr Obama "misspoke" and regrets the comment but prominent Poles want an apology.
Poles suffered a brutal Nazi wartime occupation and reject any suggestion of responsibility for Nazi crimes.Poles are particularly sensitive to comments linking their country to the Holocaust."

I remind you of that "mistake" by Obama to demonstrate that 70 years later, the pain of Hitler's rule is not erased from our memories.  The Jews will "never forget", nor should we.  And, in today's world, with the increase of the Muslim population throughout the European nations, so is there an increase of anti-Semitism and bombing/suicide attacks on Jews. (See: 7 dead in bombing of Israeli bus in Bulgaria; and the Massacre of French Jewish Children was Muslim Terrorist Attack).

Americans Stand with Israel has many readers from Poland.  I hope your government will reconsider its decision as a show of respect towards your Jewish citizens and their faith.   Shalom!

POLAND JEWS AREN'T WELCOME

Nearly seven decades since the end of World War II, Poland is once again turning on its Jews.


In a stunning move last week, the lower house of the Polish parliament rejected a bill that would have restored the legality of shechita, or kosher slaughter, by a vote of 222 to 178.

After a Polish constitutional court had previously banned the practice in December, asserting that it violated the country's animal-rights legislation, the government in Warsaw sought to override the decision in the wake of worldwide criticism.

But 38 members of the ruling Civic Platform party voted against the government-sponsored bill, sending it -- and Poland itself -- down to an ignominious defeat.

You do not have to be a Holocaust scholar or student of modern European history to understand how bitterly ironic this turn of events is.

For a country in which 3 million Jews were murdered during the Nazi era to bar Jews from freely practicing their faith is a disgrace and an outrage.

Ever since the downfall of Communism two decades ago, Poland has striven to become a liberal Western democracy. But protecting the rights of minorities is one of the key barometers for determining the health of a free and democratic society. By this measure, Poland is clearly failing the test.

Ostensibly, its decision to prohibit shechita is a question of protecting animals from unnecessary suffering during the slaughtering process. But as anyone who has seen a Jewish ritual slaughterer meticulously check his knife to ensure it is completely smooth can attest, shechita is in fact precisely about minimizing, as much as possible, the pain caused to the animal.

Indeed, as Maimonides writes in the Guide for the Perplexed (Chapter 48), the Torah intended that the animal be killed in the gentlest way possible and prohibited us from causing it needless agony.

Over the years, there have been numerous scientific studies that have confirmed that shechita is humane.

As Dr. Stuart Rosen of the faculty of medicine of London's Imperial College has written concerning shechita, "The speed and precision of the incision ensures the lack of stimulation of the severed structures and results in the immediate loss of consciousness."

"Irreversible cessation of consciousness," he continued, "and insensibility to pain are achieved, providing the most effective stun. There is no delay between the shechita stun and subsequent death so the animal cannot regain consciousness, as can happen with conventional slaughter methods."

Other experts, such as Dr. Temple Grandin, a professor of animal science at Colorado State University and a world-renowned authority on designing livestock handling facilities, have also concluded that shechita is at least as humane as other conventional procedures used to slaughter animals.

It is nothing less than an assault on an ancient practice that is central to Jewish communal life.

It is therefore hard to escape the feeling that what truly motivates the opponents of shechita is perhaps sheer anti-Semitism.

After all, to declare shechita inhumane is by extension an allegation that Jews are gratuitously cruel. It is nothing less than an assault on an ancient practice that is central to Jewish communal life, one that sends a message loud and clear: Jews are not wanted here.

In an interview with a Polish radio station, Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich condemned the parliament's decision, going so far as to threaten to resign over the matter.

"I cannot image how I am to continue as chief rabbi in a country where the rights of Jews are not complete," he said. "Ritual slaughter," he noted, "has been demonized in this country, when, in fact, it is not as brutal as it is being presented."

Sadly, by placing the rights of cattle before those of Jews, Poland has managed to undo more than two decades of efforts to repair its ties with the Jewish people. The Poles have shown they can be astonishingly insensitive to the Jews who live in their midst, and equally callous toward the demands of civil liberties and constitutional freedoms.

In a letter of protest to his Polish counterpart, Israeli Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein wrote, "I see it as a moral obligation of the Polish people and the parliament in Poland to change this unacceptable decision, a decision that makes Poland the first EU country to forbid kosher slaughter on its soil."

"I hope," he concluded, "that this troubling and threatening law is removed from the Polish law books at the first opportunity."

We too must raise our voices loud and clear against this outrageous decision. Call or write to the Polish embassy or consulate nearest you, and tell them what you think of the fact that they are trampling on the rights of Jews.

Remind them politely but firmly that after their behavior during the Holocaust, Poles are in no position to preach to us about morality or decency.

It shouldn't have come to this, but as obvious as it is, it bears repeating: for a country that afflicted its Jews so heartlessly in the recent past, Poland has a special responsibility to make up for its transgressions.

Click here to receive Aish.com's free weekly email.

And a good place for them to start would be to rescind the ban on shechita forthwith.

AISH.COM

Michael Freund

The writer served as deputy communications director in the Prime Minister’s Office under former premier Binyamin Netanyahu. He is the founder and Chairman of Shavei Israel (www.shavei.org), a Jerusalem-based group that facilitates the return of the Bnei Menashe and other “lost Jews” to the Jewish people.

This article originally appeared in The Jewish Press

Muslims are Not a Minority - by Daniel Greenfield

Thursday, July 25, 2013

THE SULTAN KNISH BLOG

The most persistent myth of the Western Dhimmi narrative is that Muslims are a minority and must receive special protection and accommodation. But Muslims are not a minority. There are 1.5 billion Sunni Muslims worldwide, outweighing Catholics as the next largest religious faction at 1.1 billion and Hindus at 1 billion. They are still a minority of the overall population in Western countries, but a demographically trending majority.

In the UK more people attend mosques than the Church of England, that makes Muslims the largest functioning religious group there.Mohammed was the most popular baby name last year, ahead of Jack and Harry. In France, in this generation, more mosques have been built than Catholic churches and in southern France there are already more mosques than churches. Mohammed-Amine is the most popular double name, ahead of Jean-Baptiste, Pierre-Louis, Leo-Paul and Mohammed-Ali.

In Belgium, 50 percent of newborns are Muslim and empty Belgian churches are being turned into mosques. The most popular baby name is Mohammed and of the top 7 baby names, 6 were Muslim. A quarter of Amsterdam, Marseilles and Rotterdam and a fifth of Stockholm is already Muslim. The most popular baby name in Amsterdam, Utrecht, Rotterdam and The Hague is... Mohammed.

Europe's Muslim population doubled in the last generation, and is set to double again. By 2025, (a decade and a half away), a third of all births in the EU will be Muslim. The demographic writing is already on the wall. A third of Muslims in France and Germany are teenagers or younger, as compared to a fifth of the native population. A third of Muslims in the UK and Belgium are under 15 versus a fifth of the native population. Counting all age groups, they're a minority. But in generational demographics, Muslims are swiftly becoming a majority.

Looking at these numbers it is hard to argue that Muslims are a minority. They are not a majority at the moment, but majorities are not just a statistical snapshot, but a cultural and demographic trend. Countries are not defined by the past, or even by the present, but by the future. By the direction in which they are headed. And Europe's future is a Muslim majority. Most European governments have accepted that and are acting on it. There may currently be more warm European bodies than Muslim ones, but the culture is being steered by the assumption of an Islamic future.

America is not nearly as vulnerable to the Muslim demographic bomb, because it is less socialist and more multicultural. It also has no former Muslim colonies, like England or France. Or at least it didn't have any before. But the liberation of Iraq has touched off a swarm of 'refugees' moving to the United States. While some of them are Christian, the majority are Muslim. By law we are obligated to accept 5,000 a year. The 2008 target for Iraqi immigration was 12,000, far more than most of the former Soviet Union combined. Not significant numbers alone, but they are part of a bigger picture.

In 2005, almost 100,000 Muslims became legal residents of the US.In 2009, it was 115,000. And the numbers continue to rise each year. That means that already they make up around 10 percent of immigrants to the US. The number of Egyptian and Syrian immigrants has more than doubled since 9/11. The number of Turkish immigrants has more than tripled. The number of Afghanis has tripled. Somalis have gone up from nearly 3,000 to nearly 14,000 a year. Pakistan hit a high of 21,000 in 2009 and Saudis are up by 50 percent.

Not nation shattering numbers in and of themselves, but let's look at them in relation to birth rates.

The United States birth rate was 13.5. Pakistan's birth rate is 24.1. Egypt's birth rate is 24.6. The Saudi birth rate is 19.3. The Afghani birth rate is 37.3. The Somali birth rate is 42.7. What this means is that we are importing Muslim immigrants with a birth rate that twice or even three times higher than our own.

The United States birth rate is already inflated by its own immigrants, including large numbers of Latinos and the million plus Muslims already in the US, so the baseline numbers are even worse. But these numbers are bad enough, as the social services departments of Amsterdam or Malmo could tell you. We are not importing 115,000 Muslims a year. No, we're importing as many as 2,500 Muslim babies a year into our demographic pool.

Compare that to the 25,000 Korean immigrants in 2009, from a country with an average birth rate of 8.5. Increase Korean immigration fivefold until they outnumber the annual number of Muslim immigrants, and you still aren't even importing a 1,000 babies a year. A thousand Somali immigrants are the demographic equivalent of 5,000 Korean immigrants because the Somali birth rate is 5 times the Korean birth rate. The 25,000 Korean immigrants represent a mere 212 babies a year, but the 14,000 Somalis represent 600 babies a year.

This is how demographic suicide creeps up on nations. And this also is an incomplete picture. The Korean-American intermarriage rate is at over 50 percent. There are no statistics for Somali intermarriage rates in the US, but Muslims do not leave their religion upon marriage. And in Sweden and Norway, Somali intermarriage rates are very low. Which means the Little Mogadishus growing across the United States are not going anywhere. And given time, there will be a Little Mogadishu in your city too.

Despite all this Mohammed won't be the most popular baby name in the United States any time soon. But a Muslim population boom will sneak up on us. It already is. Yet population-wise Muslims are a minority. But are they really?

There are two kinds of minorities. The first kind come from countries where they were a minority or under foreign rule. The Irish, Jews, Tibetans, Armenians and Norwegians are all examples of that. The second kind of minority isn't really a minority at all. This 'minority' immigrates from countries where they are the ruling majority. They are not persecuted and are not escaping anything except living in a failed state.

These "Majority Minorities" are designated as minorities by political correctness, but they don't think of themselves as minorities or act like minorities. They are used to being the dominant culture and when they are hostile, it is not because of a sense of persecution, but xenophobia. While they are labeled minorities-- they actually behave like majorities.

They are acting like the majority culture-- which in their minds they are. 

Muslims are "Majority Minorities", who act with all the entitlements and privileges of a majority. When Somali cabbies refuse to carry airport passengers with duty free liquor or almost half of Muslims in the UK want Sharia law--  they are behaving as if they already are the majority entitled to force their culture, their law and their religion on the minority. And in their eyes, we are the minority, because they have no cultural tradition of how to be minorities.

The Irish, the Jews and African-Americans have a cultural memory of being persecuted that they retain in song and story. But Muslims have rushed to wipe away the shame of briefly living under European colonialism by casting back to the golden age when they were the oppressors, reviving the Caliphate and lashing out violently at even the slightest criticism of their religion.

Muslims in America and Europe are still numerical minorities, but they act like majorities. And they are doing everything they can to become majorities. Treating them like minorities is a mistake, that Europe has already come to regret and that we are only beginning to learn the folly of. Muslims can either be a minority or a majority. If they choose to act like a majority, imposing their culture, religion and worldview on others-- then they should be treated like one.

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2013/07/muslims-are-not-minority.html

Obama: 'Phony scandals' effort 'needs to stop'

July 25, 2013

Obama: 'Phony scandals' effort 'needs to stop'

AMERICAN THINKER

Thomas Lifson
Barack Obama is pitching the line that the scandals engulfing his administration are "phony" and is blaming the Republicans for preventing economic progress by seeking to uncover the truth about Benghazi, the IRS and other matters. In very long, very stale speech kicking off his latest campaign rally-like tour in Galesburg, Illinois, he said: (White House transcript)

"But with this endless parade of distractions and political posturing and phony scandals, Washington has taken its eye off the ball.  And I am here to say this needs to stop.  (Applause.)  This needs to stop."

This contradicts his earlier promises to get to the bottom of the IRS scandal, but the president has moved into the realm of postmodernism where truth is optional, and all that matters is a narrative. His narrative is now set, and we can expect future speeches to mock the Republicans with the trademark sarcastic condescension that marks his humor when turned on his political enemies.  Going on the offense, attacking the truth-seekers is a classic defense when you have no case.  

And with the low information voters that constitute his base, the strategy can work.  Big media, except for Fox, will ignore whatever the coming hearings uncover, ghettoizing the truth to the conservative media. The lo-fo crowd depending on the media that take their signals from the New York Times will never know.

The rest of the speech was recycled campaign material, stretched out to nearly Castro-like length. I can no longer force myself to listen to him at such length, but Nile Gardiner did, and he judged it a "train wreck."

[Yesterday's] speech at Knox College, Illinois, was supposed to be the president's come-back moment, the first of a series of addresses aimed at retaking the initiative by the White House. Instead it was a train-wreck. In an hour-long address, which seemed to last forever (and par for course started 15 minutes late), the president spoke in deeply partisan terms, often with bitterness and anger, lambasting his political opponents, dismissing criticism of his policies, and launching into his favourite theme of class warfare, attacking the wealthy and what he calls the "winner takes all economy."

Even liberal pundits like Dana Milbank were dismayed at the "warmed-over jobs message."

...even a reincarnated Steve Jobs would have trouble marketing this turkey: How can the president make news, and remake the agenda, by delivering the same message he gave in 2005? He's even giving the speech from the same place, Galesburg, Ill.

The phrase more cowbell comes to mind.

There are no more ideas for Obama, only more of the old ones. He has only his base, and he has to lie to them. The Obama presidency goes lower and lower.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/07/obama_phony_scandals_effort_needs_to_stop.html#ixzz2a4Xs3Xqh 
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Palestinian official: Abbas is a dictator

ISRAEL TODAY
Thursday, July 25, 2013

The Palestinian state that America and Europe are pressuring Israel to help create by surrendering its biblical heartland will be a repressive dictatorship on par with the region's worst regimes, according to a leading Palestinian official.

Western statements regarding the peace process always focus on securing freedom, dignity and prosperity for the Palestinian Arabs. But the truth is that the Palestinian Authority itself is doing far more than Israel to deny these rights, said Mohammed Dahlan, a former PA security chief and member of the Fatah Central Committee.

Dahlan has filed an international lawsuit against Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, whom Dahlan claims is "out to get him."

Dahlan is seen as a potential leadership rival, and has threatened to provide evidence exposing the vast corruption that continues to plague the Palestinian Authority.

In the lawsuit, which was filed by an Israeli firm with the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Dahlan accused Abbas of "tyrannical behavior the utter corruption of which, along with the corruption of his family, is damaging to the Palestinian people and the [PA's] institutions."

In remarks carried by Israel's Yediot Ahronot daily newspaper, Dahlan continued, 

"In practice, government in the authority is a tyrannical rule of one person — Mr. Mahmoud Abbas — and all of the [PA's] institutes, its budgets and international relations are nothing other than means available to Abbas and his family, and their financial, political and personal interests."

In fact, that is very much how Abbas' predecessor and mentor, Yasser Arafat, ran the show before his death in 2004. Arafat was widely criticized and even condemned for his less-than-democratic ways, while world leaders, including Israeli President Shimon Peres, continue to heap praise on the "moderate" Abbas.

There are mounting efforts to convince the US government and the European Union to stop funneling billions of dollars to the Abbas regime in light of both its ongoing corruption, and its refusal to meet basic peace commitments, like recognizing Israel's right to exist.

"Shut off the foreign aid to the Palestinians," demanded American pastor John Hagee on Tuesday during a rally in Washington hosted by his pro-Israel movement Christians United for Israel (CUFI).

Over the past year, Israeli Messianic lawyer Calev Myers has appeared before the EU parliament and campaigned in North America to bring a halt to the foreign funding of a Palestinian government that will only perpetuate conflict.

Myer's Jerusalem Institute of Justice has an ongoing effort on behalf of Palestinian human rights, the chief violator of which is the Palestinian Authority itself.

Bee's note:

If Israel has learned anything about exchanging "land for peace", Gaza should be the crowning "glory" of broken promises by the "Palestinians".  Israelis gave up their land and homes for "peace" and they received over 10,000 rocket/missile attacks in exchange!  The US and EU should focus their attention on the fires spread throughout the ME, by Muslim uprisings, civil wars, and abandon this obsession with Israel-PLO/PA's until it does not take a $4 BILLION DOLLAR bribe (offered by John Kerry and the US) to get Abbas to recognize Israel's right to exist.

The United States just had one of its major city's claim bankruptcy and yet, it offers FOUR BILLION of taxpayer's money to a ragtag outfit called "Palestinians", who have lived off of the "gifts" of foreign aid for well over 60 years!  I guess FOUR BILLION is considered cheap, if it gets the US, UN, and EU out of the business of continuing to aid these "Palestinians", who already have a home state - called Jordan.
See: Europe's holier than thou approach to Israel