Will America forsake Israel, again? - by Giulio Meotti

THE JERUSALEM POST

By GIULIO MEOTTI

08/19/2012 22:18

America’s interest in Israel’s strategic value has always been the primary motivation for US support.

PHOTO: REUTERS/STRINGER IRAN

The Israel-Iran countdown has begun, and with regard to Teheran’s nuclear race we are witnessing a great crisis in US-Israel relations.

Will America help the tiny Jewish state? Can Israel trust the word of a US administration which treated Jerusalem like a banana republic? A few days ago, Israeli officials told Yediot Aharonot newspaper that “the US’ stance is pushing the Iranians to become a country at the brink of nuclear capability.”

Very few people in Israel believe that the US will ever launch another preemptive war against the ayatollahs. The US, especially if Barack Obama is re-elected, will be tempted to reach a compromise with the Iranians.

Israel is dependent on the US for economic, military and diplomatic support.

American taxpayers fund 20%-25% of Israel’s defense budget, with the Jewish state being the largest recipient by far of American aid since World War II. Israel is required to use a portion of US aid to buy from the US defense establishment, but no other country – certainly not any European one – provides the weapons needed to protect Israeli lives. Moreover, the United States has cast 40 vetoes to protect Israel in the UN Security Council.

There is a quid pro quo for such support, but also a limit to what even that degree of dependence can buy. The current Iranian nuclear race made this very clear, just as it made clear that the US has, again, forsaken the Israelis.

Washington doesn’t support Israel because of the Jewish state’s democracy, because of the Holocaust or out of respect for human rights. America’s interest in Israel’s strategic value has always been the primary motivation for US support.

But that could change tomorrow, especially if Israel’s survival becomes a burden for Washington (France was Israel’s most important ally after the war, but Paris suddenly abandoned the Jews for the Arab world). Israel must remember that she is America’s ally and client, not its “friend.”

The first US presidents after Israel was established – Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson – gave nothing to the Jewish state. And we were in a time when the ashes of Auschwitz were still warm, while today the memory of the Holocaust is fading. Truman maintained a US embargo against arms sales to the Israeli and Arabs, which was effective only against Israel. In 1948, it was US pressure which forced Israel to withdraw from Sinai where Israeli forces were pursuing the defeated Egyptians.

In 1960 the Nazi officer Adolf Eichmann was apprehended by Israeli agents in Argentina and flown to Jerusalem for trial. Argentina turned to the UN Security Council, asking it to condemn Israel and order Eichmann’s return. Washington intended to support the Argentinean complaint and only the furious reaction of Israel’s foreign minister Golda Meir dissuaded Washington.

Prior to the Six Day War, Abba Eban approached Lyndon Johnson and all he got was an arms embargo on the Middle East. In 1970, at the height of the War of Attrition, the US turned down an urgent Israeli request for security assistance.

In 1992 the Bush-Baker administration humiliated the Israelis with an ultimatum: “Settlements or loan guarantees.”

(The later Israeli general and minister Rehavam Ze’evi dismissed Bush senior as “anti-Semitic”). The US post-Gulf War settlement included American efforts to dislodge Israel from the territories by endangering Israel’s security. The former editor of The New York Times, A.M. Rosenthal, wrote that “the Bush administration has a spiritual affinity for Arab rulers and oilmen, but bares its teeth when Jerusalem shows independence.”

Bill Clinton’s appeasement has been a tragedy for the Jewish people, since he pushed the Oslo process along and encouraged its implementation, bearing a historic responsibility for the intifada’s bloodshed, in which 2,000 Israelis paid with their lives.

In 1981 the Jewish state bombed the Iraqi Osirak reactor. Recent files released by the UK National Archives show that Britain’s ambassador to Washington, Sir Nicholas Henderson, was with US defense secretary Caspar Weinberger as the news came in.

“Weinberger says that he thinks Begin must have taken leave of his senses. He is much disturbed by the Israeli reaction and possible consequences,” Nicholas cabled London. Alexander Haig was secretary of state then. “I argued,” he recalled, “that while some action must be taken to show American disapproval, our strategic interests would not be served by policies that humiliated and weakened Israel.”

Those who remember Ronald Reagan as friendly to Israel may be startled to recall the vehemence of his reaction against Israel. His administration’s immediate response was to impose sanctions on the Jewish state, and he suspended the delivery of F-16 fighter jets, doing something even Jimmy Carter refused to do: use arms supplies as leverage against Israel.

Washington has also armed Israel’s western neighbor to the teeth. The Egyptian army today is infinitely more modern and lethal then when the Egyptians carried out their successful attack against Israel in the Yom Kippur War.

And can we forget the US treatment of Jonathan Pollard, the only American to receive a life sentence for spying for an ally? Despite the fact that nobody has given a single specific example of how Pollard’s actions harmed the US, Pollard is still being held in solitary confinement in an underground cell.

Pollard has been in prison longer than anyone ever sentenced in the US for passing classified materials to a friendly foreign power (the median sentence for someone spying for a non-Soviet power has been less than three years). For his contribution to Israel’s security and for his long suffering in prison, Pollard is an Israeli hero.

He is the source of the Israeli preparedness for the Iraqi missile attacks during the Gulf War, when Saddam’s rockets began to rain down on Tel Aviv, and Israelis wore gas masks. Pollard warned Israel of Iraq’s bellicose intentions, and that Syria’s Assad was amassing quantities of chemical weapons.

By its own agreement with Israel, the US should have given this information to Jerusalem. But it was deliberately blocked by Weinberger.

Today Israel can stand tall in the face of its important ally because it never asked American soldiers to spill their blood in its defense. It’s Washington that must beg for Israel’s alliance and protect the Jews, as it cannot afford disengagement from the only democracy in a region dominated by Islam. But will the US eventually be compelled to sacrifice Israel on the altar of “realism” and oil price, at which time Iran’s knife will descend on the Jews? And will the Jewish state’s leadership dutifully bind Israel on the altar? As Charles Krauthammer put it: “for Israel the stakes are somewhat higher: the very existence of a vibrant nation and its 6 million Jews.” If Israel is unable to change the US’ red line on Iran and Jerusalem capitulates to Washington’s appeasement, Iran will be soon armed with atomic bombs.

And the Jews? They will be psychologically weaker and totally dependent on others’ help. Like it was during the Holocaust. Does someone need to be reminded how Washington refused to help the Jews while they were entering into the gas chambers?

The writer is an Italian author.

Egypt Fully Remilitarizing Sinai - with US Help

Egypt Fully Remilitarizing Sinai - with US Help

GATESTONE INSTITUTE

by Shoshana Bryen
August 20, 2012 at 5:00 am

Secretary Panetta is talking about helping Egypt to do something forbidden by the Camp David Accords -- bring large-scale forces into Sinai. Israel's long term concern is whether Egypt will at some point remove the additional forces. Recent comments by Egyptian government officials suggest they will not.

Egypt has moved forces into the Sinai beyond what was agreed to in the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty. Getting them in wasn't that difficult – Israel agrees that security in the Sinai has deteriorated. Getting them out again later may be another matter. And how the U.S. positions itself to safeguard the treaty itself will be crucial.

One of the lesser-known American military deployments is as part of the Multinational Force; Observers in the Sinai (MFO), inserted in 1981. Its mission is to "supervise the implementation of the security provisions of the Egyptian-Israeli Treaty of Peace and employ best efforts to prevent violations of its terms." The MFO consists of 1,656 soldiers from 12 nations[1] and, according to its website, operates checkpoints, reconnaissance patrols and observation posts; verifies the continued implementation of various arms limitations in the Sinai; ensures freedom of navigation through the Strait of Tiran; and monitors the deployment of border guards along the Egyptian side of the Gaza/Egypt border to ensure that it meets the terms agreed to by Israel and Egypt in 2005.

The MFO, clearly, is not a fighting force; it is a peacekeeping force with an agreed-upon peace to keep.

So how odd it is that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has announced that the U.S. "is providing additional military assistance to peacekeeping forces in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula to strengthen security in the region."

Panetta said no additional troops had been sent to Sinai, but that the U.S. was working closely with Egyptian leaders "to determine what additional help they may need in order to ensure that the area is secured."

To change the mission of the MFO from monitoring the Israel-Egypt peace treaty to helping Egypt secure the Sinai from terrorists/jihadists/al Qaeda is a change that cannot be undertaken lightly – and should not be taken unilaterally. To change the force from the touchstone for both Israel and Egypt into an ally of Egypt in military operations will undermine its status in the future.

The MFO does need to secure itself in the face of rising violence and longtime Egypt-watcher David Schenker notesthat it has already made adjustments.

The force has upgraded its vehicles in recent years, and many of them are fully or partially armored. Yet growing abduction fears have led to the cancellation of many patrols, and reconnaissance flights have reportedly been scaled back due to concerns about terrorists or other actors fielding man-portable air-defense systems (MANPADS). Should the situation continue to deteriorate, the MFO might reduce its patrols even further.

He adds:

Over time, the MFO's mission will simply become untenable unless security improves in the Sinai -- or unless the rules of engagement are changed, which seems unlikely.

Changing the rules of engagement is much more likely now. Secretary Panetta is not talking about how the force protects itself while it does the job it was designed to do. He is talking about helping Egypt do something forbidden by the Camp David Accords – bring large-scale military forces into Sinai.

The fact is the U.S. and Israel have been somewhere between sanguine and cautiously happy regarding increased Egyptian concern about jihadists in the Sinai, and have accepted an Egyptian buildup that includes aircraft and helicopter gunships. Israel Radio reported Friday that the deployment includes anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles near the border. Israel's longer-term concern will be whether at some point Egypt removes the additional forces and returns to the agreed-upon restrictions and demilitarized zones.[2] Recent comments by Egyptian government officials suggest they will not.

Former presidential contender Abdel-Moneim Abolfotoh called for President Morsi to reject limitations on Egyptian forces, saying, "The blood that has been spilled should force Egypt to assume full control of Sinai without the restrictions and obligations stipulated by this inequitable treaty that prevents Egypt's armed forces from deploying on Egyptian territory."

Mohammed Gadallah, a legal advisor to Morsi, said the Egyptian government is considering "amending" the Camp David Accords "to ensure Egypt's full sovereignty and control over every inch of Sinai."

It is hard to imagine a circumstance in which the United States should support the restoration of "full sovereignty and control" of Sinai, including military control, to the Muslim Brotherhood government of Egypt. Israeli analyst Ehud Yaari said if the Egyptians want to go in that direction, "Israel should have its answer ready" and that the mechanism for negotiating change is the MFO.

But if the MFO mission changes by design or by mission creep, it may provide little support for Israel's position. Secretary Panetta should be extremely careful about the circumstances under which the U.S. will supply "additional help" to increase the long term staying power of the Egyptian military where Israel does not necessarily agree it should be.

Shoshana Bryen is Senior Director of The Jewish Policy Center. She was previously Senior Director of Security Policy at JINSA and author of JINSA Reports from 1995-2011.

[1] Australia, Canada, Colombia, the Czech Republic, the Republic of the Fiji Islands, France, Hungary, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, the United States and Uruguay

[2] Its second concern will have to be whether such weapons as the Stinger missiles reportedly given to Syrian rebels by the CIA will ultimately find their way to the Sinai via interlocking terrorist organizations.

Bee's Note:
See:  

CNN Reports: US offers Egyptian army intel for its Sinai battles posted on "Israel Land and Stuff".

Arlene Kushner On Egypt Bringing Weapons Into Sinai In Violation of Peace Treaty With Israel, posted on Daled Amos.

NEWSWEEK: "HIT THE ROAD BARACK" (AND DON'T YOU COME BACK NO MORE, NO MORE!)

HIT THE ROAD JACK BARACK

The GOP should use this song as the "theme" song for next weeks Convention.

Newsweek Tells Barack Obama to Hit the Road

THE INDEPENDENT SENTINEL

August 20, 2012

By Sara Noble

When you have an article in Newsweek telling Barack Obama to hit the road and stating that the GOP might be our only hope, maybe you’re in trouble. The article will be on the stands tomorrow.

Naill Ferguson points out in his “Newsweek” article that Barack Obama has failed to keep his promises. He also mentions the media coverage of Barack being exclusively in Barack’s corner.

Via The Daily Beast, a must-read

…Unemployment was supposed to be 6 percent by now. It has averaged 8.2 percent this year so far. Meanwhile real median annual household income has dropped more than 5 percent since June 2009. Nearly 110 million individuals received a welfare benefit in 2011, mostly Medicaid or food stamps.

Welcome to Obama’s America: nearly half the population is not represented on a taxable return—almost exactly the same proportion that lives in a household where at least one member receives some type of government benefit. We are becoming the 50–50 nation—half of us paying the taxes, the other half receiving the benefits.

And all this despite a far bigger hike in the federal debt than we were promised. According to the 2010 budget, the debt in public hands was supposed to fall in relation to GDP from 67 percent in 2010 to less than 66 percent this year. If only. By the end of this year, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), it will reach 70 percent of GDP. These figures significantly understate the debt problem, however. The ratio that matters is debt to revenue. That number has leapt upward from 165 percent in 2008 to 262 percent this year, according to figures from the International Monetary Fund. Among developed economies, only Ireland and Spain have seen a bigger deterioration… Read more at The Daily Beast

I doubt Newsweek has changed their feathers but this will garner them some publicity. They are known for their provocative covers.

(Video) A Brave Challenge to Sharia in Egypt

(Nonie Darwish) - Could this be the real Arab Spring?  This is huge!  The Muslim world does not have to blame Pastor Terry Jones anymore for burning the Quran or non-Muslims for desecrating it.  They are now in shock over seeing a YouTube post of an Egyptian young man doing the unthinkable on camera: tearing up the Quran and putting it in the trash.
 

This is a summery translation of what he said

• There it is, Allah's book, this is the basic catastrophe. I don't know what day it is of this disgusting month of Ramadan! You are making the tearing of the Quran such a big and dangerous thing.. it is instinctive to tear this book, those sons of ----- think they can threaten me and challenge me to tear the Quran, but I want to proof to them that they are nothing and what is the big deal in tearing this book!! There it is (he starts tearing the Quran) in the trash. Are you feeling better now! You cannot touch a hair in my head! We keep blaming Hamas and Gaza, but it is not them, it is this son of ----- book that I am stepping on right now. That book is the source of all evil and the real catastrophe. There is nothing new here, it is not Omar Abdel Rahman, Abbud or all the others, it is this garbage that is causing us to run in a demonic never-ending circle that will never end.

The young man's worlds were very insulting, but, unfortunately, this is the same language that Muslims commentators of this video use against him and against anyone who leaves Islam.  The comments on this video are extremely violent and scary, and more insulting than anything this young man may have said in the video.  This is the kind of language many Muslims use against any critique of Islam.  I am very worried about this young man, who seems to be living in Egypt.  There are hundreds of fatwas of death issued against him already, and the responses to the video threaten him: "I will kill you" or "I will cut your tongue, your ears, your arms and legs, like Mohammed, and leave you for dead."
 

Instead of giving religious visas to Islamists who come to build mosques in America and preach hate, the U.S. should immediately declare that anyone who leaves Islam and is threatened will get priority visa to the U.S., ahead of Islamists.  American embassies across the Muslim world should stop giving religious visas, especially to those who are obviously Islamists, because by doing that, we are breeding our own home-grown terrorists inside America.
 

Throughout the history of Islam, many people were tortured, beheaded, limbs cut, jailed, ostracized -- and for as little as accidentally stepping on the Quran.  The sharia punishment for blasphemy of the Quran and Mohammed is death, even if the perpetrator pleads that it was an accident and that he never meant to desecrate the Quran.  There is a Filipino maid in the Arab Gulf who was jailed for accidentally sitting on a Quran which was on a sofa.  Now the Muslim world is starting to face the nightmare of a new kind of challenge from within: Muslims deliberately challenging this taboo and putting their lives on the line.
 

Islamic customs have elaborate rituals giving the highest esteem to the book itself and physically protecting the Quran from any disrespect.  I remember, as a child, placing a schoolbook on top of the Quran on a table -- my grandparents harshly scolded me for doing that.  The message was often repeated over and over again to never, ever place anything visually or mentally on top of the Quran.  In the same year the Arabs conquered the Christian city of Alexandria in Egypt, 639 AD, the Alexandria Library was burned, and the Quran became the one and only source of knowledge to the country. continue reading

SOURCE: http://www.scoop.it/t/kuffar-news

Like Allah, Islamic Revolutions Devour Their Own Children

FRONT PAGE MAGAZINE

Posted by Daniel Greenfield Bio ↓ on Aug 17th, 2012

“Revolution is like Saturn, it devours its own children,” Danton says in Georg Buchner’s Danton’s Death, a controversial play about the French Revolution. In the modern context that line might be changed to read, “Revolution is like Allah, it devours its own children.”

Israel and America are convenient justifications for Muslims to kill other Muslims in the name of Allah. When Bin Laden wanted to overthrow the Saudis, he made war on them as the pawns of America. When the Saudis wanted to overthrow the Hashemites, they accused them of being the pawns of Britain. Now that the Salafis are confronting the Muslim Brotherhood, they are also accusing them of being the pawns of America and Israel.

The Jihadists are the children of the Islamic Revolution. The brats of the upscale millionaire Islamists running networks of companies in Egypt and Turkey funded with Saudi and Qatari cash. But the vested interests that begin revolutions are not always the ones who benefit from them. Germany sent Lenin back in a sealed car under the protection of its soldiers for the short-term goal of taking Russia out of the war. Germany succeeded in toppling a moderate Russian government and replacing it with radical Bolsheviks, and, thirty years later Soviet troops were occupying Berlin.

The Gulf States are already quarreling with the Muslim Brotherhood and accusing it of wanting to take them over. Even while both groups are working together to take over Syria, neither trusts each other. But the real threat to them is the chaos that they have unleashed. The Muslim Brotherhood revolutionaries, like their Bolshevik spiritual ancestors, are returning from exile in the West to carry off their revolutions, but the revolution doesn’t end where they say it does.

The Islamist imperative of the revolution is to purge heresy and secularism, to restore true Islam, but there has never been any consensus on what true Islam is. Even Mohammed was forced to recant some of his prophecies attributing them to “Satan” and, not long after his death, Islam began to fall apart into quarreling factions who gave rise to the Sunnis and the Shiites.

Muslims can’t agree on what Islam is. What they can agree on is that most other forms of Islam are heresy and, depending on the severity of the heresy, their practitioners may be freely killed. Islamic reform movements in their revolutionary purity have treated conventional Muslims as less pure for visiting shrines, using good luck charms or watching soccer. And every Islamic reform movement has opened the door for a new group that thinks they are a bunch of liberal heretics.

“Big fleas have little fleas, Upon their backs to bite ‘em, And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so, ad infinitum.” Islamic revolutions, like their secular counterparts, have countless smaller fleas who take Islam even more seriously and are even more determined to turn society into an exact ideal replica of 7th Century Arabia.

The Muslim Brotherhood might have been a flea on Egypt’s back, but the Salafis are a flea on its back, and there are fleas on the backs of the Salafis. Revolutions solve these problems with an extended round of purges that ends when no one believes in anything anymore. The French Revolution drowned itself in its own blood, and the Soviet Union and the Chinese Communist Party did likewise. By the time Mao and Stalin’s last butchers were shown the door, Communism was no longer a revolutionary idea, it was just a rotting structure that would take several generations to dismantle.

For the Islamists the challenge is to firmly draw a line to their right and they cannot do that because Mohammed is on the other side of that line. Blaming Israel and “foreign elements” is a convenient way to avoid dealing with the logical consequences of their own ideology. It is also a demonstration of why ideological revolutions never prosper, but decay into paranoid tyrannies that are too afraid to loosen their grip on power because that there is no reason why what they did to the former rulers cannot also be done to them.

No matter how pure an Islamic party may claim to be, there are always newcomers who are even purer and more incorruptible. Every Jihadist gang can point to “extremists” who are too far over the line. And those extremists can point to their own extremists. And so on ad infinitum until all the fleas drinking blood are drowning in each other’s blood.

Egypt has been the true heartland of the Islamic revolution because the foreign influences have given its “intellectuals” practical ideas that the Gulf clans aren’t capable of. The Muslim Brotherhood’s success has come from borrowing the ideas and tactics of the National Socialists and Communists. But that just makes them into a more foreign element than the purer Salafis and, in a game where victory comes to those who are willing to use violence in the name of the latest Islamic Revolution, what the Brotherhood’s Arab Spring victories have truly brought it is a prominent place in an Islamic civil war.

CONTINUE READING ...

Precious U.S. Citizenship: Diminished and Given Away by Obama

Bee's note: The author, Lloyd Marcus, (below) expresses the sentiment of many Americans.  Americans proudly refer to our nation as the "melting pot" - a pot consisting of peoples from all over the world who have come to America to fulfill their dreams, while others came as a place of refuge -  but in years past, all came oftentimes with two pennies in their pockets and hope in their hearts. 

In the early 1930's, my husband's family arrived in New York, passing Ms. Liberty, and weeping for joy when they stepped foot on American soil.  Their love for America was oftentimes greater than those who are born in our great country.  They contributed much to our country but you will never see their names written down in our history books.  Patriots they were and our flag flew high on each of their homes, always, and proudly.  Most of the uncles fought in WWII; the older men, like my husband's grandfather, a bricklayer, worked for morn to night, never expecting a "handout" from our government.  And when they prayed, they never forgot to include in their prayers, America's leaders.  They came with the clothes on their back and a few photos, but you should see the smiles on their faces in a photo taken upon their arrival in New York.  

From New York, the family eventually made their home in what was known back then as "Little Italy" in Boston, MA.  They were bricklayers, chiefs, seamstress, and hairdressers.  With time, as the family grew, they moved to the suburbs just outside Boston and each of the homes had vegetable and flower gardens.  The family considered owning a home in America one of the greatest of blessings - a dream fulfilled and contentment reigned supreme among all the family members.  Three generations later, members of the family are now doctors, lawyers, engineers, architects, and yes, a few landscapers that have green thumbs and produce the most beautiful landscapes throughout New England. (And, the grandchildren's college educations were not paid for by the government, Mr. Obama.) 

Like all families, there were tragedies and heartaches: my husband's baby brother, playing in the front yard building a snowman, was killed instantly when a car slipped on the icy road and ran up the front yard, running over the baby - 3 years old.  The grief of witnessing this accident stayed with my husband the rest of his life, never forgetting the loss of his young brother.

I share all this with you, to say this:  Eighty plus years later, as Americans, we do not forget what it meant to our families to come to America legally, and honoring the laws of this great land, and its Constitution.  The U.S. citizenship is precious to our family, now as it was when my husband's family first arrived on the shores of the United States.  We strongly object to Obama's latest "stroke of a pen" Executive Order, allowing illegals to enter through the back door of America, while those who arrived legally worked their entire lives to obtain what Obama hands out on a silver platter to illegals.  

When Obama says,"You did not build that", I think of each member of the family's hard work and whether they own a business or not, there is one thing we did do - we built up American-loving, patriotic citizens of this country and we, not Obama, did build that - from New York to Boston, and now, throughout the world, we have members of our family who continue to build upon that first arrival in New York, eighty years ago.

Our flag is offensive, our patriotic songs are offensive, our Constitution that contradicts Sharia laws are offensive to illegals and "refugees", and that is because the illegals/refugees have not fought for or worked for anything our country offers all who come here legally. That which comes free is never appreciated. The attitude that the world owes them a living is disgusting, and we have Obama to thank for all this, and for what?  A few votes in November?!  America's culture is being destroyed by every single stroke of the pen by Obama.  

God bless America and its citizens - may November come quickly and may the Obama family pack up their suitcases and move back to Chicago in January.

August 19, 2012

AMERICAN THINKER

By Lloyd Marcus
Let me tell you a story about three kids who wanted to run for the tall grass.

It was early the '90s, and I was at the U.S. Citizenship Ceremony in Maryland.  Around 1,500 people -- citizenship applicants, supportive family, and friends -- filled the hall.

I was backstage with a trio of extremely nervous and intimidated teenagers who were scheduled to sing our National Anthem. These kids had never performed for such a large audience.

I had been the grand finale of the ceremony for years, performing my original song, "Celebrate America," after applicants took their oath of allegiance.  I took great pride that my song was the first song thousands heard as official Americans.

When the emcee introduced the trio from so-and-so junior high school, the kids were visibly shaking.  They began the anthem fine, but one got nervous and stopped singing, which threw off the other two, and they stopped singing as well.  The trio stood in silence.

I walked from backstage and joined the kids front and center.  I told the audience that these kids were symbolic of what it really means to be an American and of the great family they would soon join.  I shared that the kids were very frightened because the event was much larger than they expected.  They could have backed down and refused to perform.  But despite their fear, these kids found the courage to face the difficult challenge, keep their word, and give it a try.  This is the American Way.

Together, the trio and I sang the National Anthem.  The audience gave us a standing ovation.

Performing my song at U.S. Citizenship Ceremonies rewarded me with an opportunity to chat with brand-new and proud Americans.  They understood the sacrifice and divine blessing required to make this extraordinarily unique experiment called "America" a thriving reality.  They gleefully desired to assimilate into our culture.

Some applicants were extremely old, in wheelchairs.  Their family members helped them raise their right hands as they tearfully recited their oath of allegiance.

Once the sound of the applicants reciting their oath of allegiance, in unison, came to an end, the hall always erupted in cheers and applause.  These jubilant people -- of various races, from numerous countries -- were officially Americans!  They respected our laws, followed the rules, and were awarded the precious gift of U.S. citizenship.

Now, with a stroke of his executive pen, Obama has awarded amnesty to illegals, pushing them to the head of the line, in front of applicants who are following the legal process to become U.S. citizens.  Obama is disrespecting the efforts of those seeking citizenship legally and the value of what it means to become an American.

And yes, there is a dramatically different mindset between those I witnessed at the ceremonies who earned their precious U.S. citizenship and those who got it for free because Obama seeks to purchase Hispanic votes.

Many illegals given instant free citizenship by Obama could not care less about assimilating into our society.  They refuse to learn English and have little or no respect for our flag.  America is simply the place the go for freebies while they still proudly wave their Mexican flags.

Meanwhile, American kids are banned from wearing clothing which features the U.S. flag to school on Cinco de Mayo, a Mexican holiday.  The song "God Bless The USA (Proud to be an American)" is banned from public school, deemed potentially offensive to other cultures.

Illegals given free citizenship from Obama join the socialists/progressives in their "what's the big deal about being an American" attitude.

So illegals who are clueless as to what it truly means to be an American and have no emotional connection to our amazing country enjoy benefits not even available to legal U.S. citizens.  For example: thanks to Obama, illegals from outside any given state can get in-state tuition, while U.S. citizens cannot.

Even more painful, Obama continues to lower the bar of what it means to be an American.

Obama's speeches and actions imply that he would like to rewrite the words at the base of our Statue of Liberty to read: "Bring me your lazy, entitlement-minded, class-envious haters of achievement.  Bring me those who pervert God's original intent, the baby-killers, the deadbeats.  I offer America to you with open arms."

The value and worth of U.S. citizenship is yet another item on a growing list of sacred laws (the Constitution), freedoms, and principles Obama has sacrificed on the socialist/progressive altar of evil to purchase four more years.  He needs all this and more to complete his vowed fundamental transformation of America.  God help us.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/08/precious_us_citizenship_diminished_and_given_away_by_obama.html#ixzz243n1y8qY

Huma Abedin and Security Clearances

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton talks with her deputy chief of staff, Huma Abedin. PHOTO: REUTERS/FILE.

August 19, 2012

AMERICAN THINKER

By Eileen F. Toplansky
It is still unclear whether Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton's closest aide, has been properly vetted or not.  This issue rose to prominence after Michele Bachmann and four other congressional representatives expressed concerns about Huma's family's longstanding connections to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Barack Obama voiced strong support for Huma Abedin during the annual iftar dinner, but Walid Shoebat has asserted that President Obama needs to "refute the facts [that have been presented about Huma Abedin] and provide answers that are void of rhetoric." 

According to Cliff Kincaid, all this controversy could be resolved "by demanding access to Abedin's Standard Form 86, which she was supposed to fill out before getting her State Department job."  Did Huma Abedin disclose her family's connections to the Muslim Brotherhood?  How did she fill out the 127-page lengthy questionnaire when she applied for this national security position?  

In Section 13A of the Questionnaire for National Security Positions, under "Employment Activities," did Abedin acknowledge that she was an assistant editor of the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, an offshoot of the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs (IMMA), founded by Abdullah Omar Naseef, secretary general of the Muslim World League in Saudi Arabia, "perhaps the most significant Muslim Brotherhood organization in the world"?  The Muslim World League provided funds to Osama bin Laden and "is an observer member of the Organization of Islamic Conferences, an inter-governmental coalition dedicated to 'liberating Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa from Zionist occupation.'"

Did Abedin admit that she was a member of the Muslim Student Association (MSA) (see below)?  The MSA is a front group for the Muslim Brotherhood.  It resulted from Saudi-backed efforts to establish Islamic organizations internationally in the 1960s, for the purpose of spreading its Wahhabist ideology across the globe.

Did Ms. Abedin indicate her role?  Was it merely overlooked by the State Department officials who reviewed the application?  If so, why?

Because of the nature of security, it is understood that questions about relatives will be asked.  In Section 18 of the Questionnaire, the applicant is asked if a "relative [is] affiliated with a foreign government, military, security, defense industry, foreign movement, or intelligence service[.]"  In fact, Huma Abedin's mother, father, sister, and brother are all affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, the Muslim Sisterhood, and the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs (IMMA), as well as with the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY).  These groups espouse terrorism, anti-American policies, and anti-Semitism.

Question 18.5 asks about the "methods of contact" the applicant has with various relatives that include mother, father, stepmother, stepfather, foster parent, child, stepchild, brother, sister, stepbrother, stepsister, half-brother, half-sister, father-in-law, mother-in-law, and guardian.  Repeatedly, the candidate is asked if "this relative [is] affiliated with a foreign government, military, security, defense industry, foreign movement, or intelligence service[.]"

Continuing, "[h]as any foreign national ... offered you a job, asked you to work as a consultant, or consider employment with them?  Have you had contact with a foreign government, ... its establishment or its representatives?" 

Adding to the mounting evidence, Walid Shoebat made public another extraordinary finding entitled "The Abedin 'Affairs' with Al Saud," in which Shoebat claims that "the Abedins' Institute for Muslim Minority Affairs-on whose Board Huma Abedin served for years-and the Wahhabist plans of Saudi Arabia, commissioned by the House of Saud" are inextricably linked "to construct a plan to conquer the world with Islam." 

Thus, as Shoebat relates, "page after page of The Muslim Minority Affairs" reveals "a Saudi foreign policy, a jurisprudence and commandment from the highest of authorities commissioned to the Saudi Ministry of Religious Affairs.  It [is] an entire management system using 'The Muslim Minority Affairs' as the main vehicle to bringing victory against an infidel world."  Here is a small fragment of what Shoebat discovered in the Muslim Minority Affairs manifesto:

The greatest challenge that faces Muslims in the United States and Canada are the Jews who take advantage of their material ability and their media to distort the image of Islam and Muslims there by spreading their lies and distortions in the minds of the people in these countries.

Juxtaposing the questions for National Security positions against the illuminating information discovered by Shoebat gives even greater impetus to inquire further into Huma Abedin's background.

How does one explain what "ISNA's Mohamed Magid, an entity in the Saudi manifesto, is doing in the White House, sitting across the table from Huma Abedin who was an IMMA assistant editor, another entity created by the House of Saud"?

Section 20C of the Questionnaire is of particular interest.  Regarding foreign travel, "were you contacted by, or in contact with any person known or suspected of being involved or associated with foreign intelligence, terrorist, security, or military organizations?" 

The tentacles of the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates crisscross one another in a dizzying alphabet-soup array of groups, intent on global jihad, of which the Abedin family has been at the forefront for many years.

Additionally, "[w]hile traveling to, or in this country, were you involved in any counterintelligence or security issues not reported" and/or "were you contacted by, or in contact with anyone attempting to obtain classified information or unclassified, sensitive information?"

According to Walid Shoebat:

The Abedins went back and forth from east to west, even working during 1978 with Maulana Muhammad Yousuf of Jamaat-e-Islami in India. Yusuf came after Abu Al-Ala Maududi, who was key in the Tabligh in the Indian subcontinent's equivalent of the Muslim Brotherhood. It has extensive ties to Wahhabists, including Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups. They represent an extremist Salafist brand. Then they travel[ed] to Saudi Arabia working with Naseef who spearheaded IMMA and commissioned the Abedins from Saudi Arabia to launch the program in the U.S. and the United Kingdom.

And finally, Section 29 asks:

Have you EVER advocated any acts of terrorism or activities designed to overthrow the U.S. Government by force?  Have you EVER been a member of an organization dedicated to the use of violence or force to overthrow the United States Government, and which engaged in activities to that end with an awareness of the organization's dedication to that end or with the specific intent to further such activities?

Have you EVER been a member of an organization that advocates or practices commission of acts of force or violence to discourage others from exercising their rights under the U.S. Constitution or any state of the United States with the specific intent to further such action?

Have you EVER knowingly engaged in activities designed to overthrow the U.S. Government by force?

Given the record of the Muslim Brotherhood, one would be hard-pressed not to answer in the affirmative, given the affiliations mentioned earlier in this piece.  The evidence of the connections exists.  Has Ms. Abedin foresworn the basic tenets of these subversive organizations or not?  Why does the Abedin family work "with nefarious characters like Naseef and Qaradawi"? 

It appears that the Saudis have created a spider web to ensnare the United States.  In fact, 50 years of transforming the West through mosque-building, educational programs, and organizations like ISNA and MSA has helped "to ensure that Muslims will be an unassimilated group which then can influence the non-Muslim host nations ... to shift the demographic scale due to ... population growth in favor of this Saudi agenda."

Shoebat maintains that he is "unequivocally talking about a grand conspiracy that is no manufactured theory[,]" and he offers proof in his report.  In order to counter his critics, Shoebat researched the IMMA to show "how it connects to the House of Saudi's evil plan."  Thus, "the Abedins' Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs (IMMA) is actually the western branch from which WAMY (World Association of Muslim Youth) was established." 

Why can't we get straight answers?  Why is it proscribed to discuss these items?  If there is nothing to hide, it should be simple to allay concerns.  If, however, there are forces in play that harm American security, it is the moral and legal obligation of Congress to continue to investigate.  It is each American's duty to demand the answers.

Eileen can be reached at middlemarch18@gmail.com.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/08/huma_abedin_and_security_clearances.html#ixzz243hoeloe

Bee's Note:
See the following: Obama in warm defense of Clinton's Muslim aide posted by THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE.
Did you ever think you would see the day that Muslims with ties to the terrorist organization, The Muslim Brotherhood, would be "advising" America's Washington leaders in the highest Offices of the Land?!  It's going to take more than removing Obama to clean out Washington, DC.  

07-08-2012 - CFCA

The Campaign to destroy Israel

Gerald Steinberg

By Gerald Steinberg and Yitzhak Sentis

In the last decade a worldwide all-out political war has been waged against Israel which is intended to undermine its legitimacy.  The objective: to deny the Jewish people the right to equalitarian sovereignty.  In view of the extent of this campaign of  de-legitimization, the Jewish People is facing the most severe challenge.

The opening event was the UN commission on the subject of racism in 2001 in Durban, South Africa, when about 1,500 non-governmental organizations, who had appointed themselves as having responsibility for human rights, adopted a strategy designed to isolate Israel.  The "Durban Strategy" aspires to present Israel as a colonialist apartheid, unrepentantly criminal state.  The intention was to create a moral atmosphere that would support the position that Israel has no right to exist.

The principal tactic was based on a boycott, refraining from investment and sanctions (BDS - boycott, disinvestment and sanctions) as a means of completely isolating Israel and its supporters.  As the main supporter of Israel is the Jews of the Diaspora, the Durban commission strategy - to revoke Israel's legitimacy - is also in actual fact aimed against the Jewish People.  These measures are being adopted by trade unions, churches, governments, cultural and sporting bodies, etc. Marginal organizations often join them, adding the description "Jewish" to their names and adding themselves as the "token Jewish element" of several of the most extreme anti-Israel organizations, including those who use anti-Semitic expressions - all this in order to erode support for Israel from within.

The international de-legitimization campaign against Israel has succeeded in raising an enormous amount of finance - millions of dollars in the last decade from European governments and from private donors together - that reaches more than 100 non-governmental organizations. 

In this intensively "subtle war", Israel has still not adopted an opposing strategy.  Local events such as "Israeli Apartheid Week" and others that promote BDS, are indeed much less successful in their repercussions in the USA and in other places, but the results on the broader front are not good.  The accusations of the Durban Strategy are heard repeatedly while the responses are slow and insufficient.

On July 6^th for example, Amnesty International initiated such an attack in its publication of a report about administrative arrests in Israel.  Even though the accusations in it are based on unsubstantiated information and had been received from the Palestinians according to their narrative, the international media immediately repeated them.  This was not a sudden attack as Amnesty had distributed brief excerpts prior to publication of the report and had also sent some of the details to the Israeli Government.  Despite this, Israel has not taken action against the expected review. 

The need for a definitive plan of action against the forces behind this strategy was clear back in 2001 in Durban, and until the baseless Goldstone Report.  Now is the time to expose the ridiculous nature of the UN Commission on Human Rights, which is controlled by the world's despotic regimes.  Simultaneously, one can see (as the organization NGO Monitor has proved) that non-governmental organizations who maintain close relationships with a Commission like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and those like them, are very far from being the unbiased interpreters of morality and international law that they purport to be.

Obviously, not all criticism about Israel is part of the BDS set-up, and equally obviously not everyone who criticizes its policy aspires to challenge its legitimacy.  Unfortunately, many of the critics of Israeli policy who are not supporters of Israel's destruction, have been recruited into the Durban Strategy by its supporters.  Separation of responsible critics from those who are acting out of de-legitimization motives, must be at the top of our agenda.

Instead of waiting for further attacks by non-governmental organizations, we must rise efficiently to the challenge of the BDS movement and those funding it and take action against it on all fronts.  We cannot rest content with less because there is too much at stake.

Steinberg is a Professor of Political Science at Bar-Ilan University and the President of NGO Monitor; Sentis is the Chief Programs Director of NGO Monitor.

Israel and the "de-legitimization war"

17-07-2012 - CFCA

The de-legitimization war

Manfred Gerstenfeld

By Manfred Gerstenfeld

Can the ongoing de-legitimization of Israel be fought? A high-placed Israeli official with an intelligence community career said to me that nothing can be done about it. This is an easy position: If nothing can be done, why try to do anything?

The de-legitimization issue is a major problem for Israel. Slandering is simple, while deconstructing falsehoods is difficult, lengthy and often costly. For instance: German poet, anti-Israel activist and Hamas supporter Irena Wachendorf claimed that she is Jewish, a member of a liberal Jewish community and served in the IDF. She furthermore stated that her father is Jewish and fled to the UK before the Second World War, while her mother survived Auschwitz.

After two years of research by German investigative journalist Jennifer Pyka, Wachendorf has now admitted that her story was made up. She did not serve in the IDF, during the Second World War her father was in the German army and as for the remainder of her assertions, there is no proof.

The model frequently followed by foreign journalists is somewhat different. They write an anti-Israel article that often omits essential data or a reliable Israeli counter-opinion. This requires little time to write. However, it takes a long time for pro-Israel media watch groups such as Camera and Honest Reporting to expose the lies and fallacies.

For decades, successive Israeli governments have neglected to deal with de-legitimization in an orderly fashion. The Palestinians have systematically succeeded in injecting their narrative into the mainstream Western world. It now sees Palestinian society - which has largely failed in its efforts of mass murder and terrorism against Israel – as a victim of the “brutal Israelis.” Palestinians have succeeded in this with the help of extreme leftists and humanitarian racists, some of whom are Israelis.

Mossad to the rescue?

What can be done? The first step is for the Israeli government to finally recognize that de-legitimization is a form of war, which has to be fought methodically. The second is to assign a government agency as the focal point to fight this war as military and cyber wars are fought. The logical candidate seems to be Mossad, which would have to create a special department for this. Government ministries with their cumbersome bureaucracies are unable to fight wars efficiently.

The conceptual approach is fairly simple. A first step is to take stock of who is already in this fight on the Israeli side and what part of the front they cover. The second step is to study how one’s enemies operate and who funds them. This is a more complex task because perpetrators of de-legitimization and antisemitism come from disparate origins such as Muslim countries, Muslims in the Western world, leftists, neo-Nazis, social democrats, liberal Christians, academics, NGOs, media and so on. Many enemies belong to more than one category.

The next step is to investigate the main categories of lies and fallacies repeatedly used against Israel. The lies are relatively easy to categorize. Fallacies is a far more complex subject that requires detailed analysis of issues such as: Double standards, the use of moral equivalence between murderers and victims, sentimental appeals to whitewash criminals, the inversion of cause and result and quite a few others.

Next, one can systematically analyze the modes by which lies and fallacies are transmitted. These include the media, the United Nations, the Internet and so on. One should also assess how much damage has already been caused to Israel and Jewish communities abroad by the de-legitimizers.

Thereafter, one should develop a detailed and consistent strategy on how to fight this war. How can one turn Palestinians and other enemies of Israel into defenders rather than attackers? How can one spend little time to expose them and cause them to spend much more time and money to defend themselves? This is structurally a project like any other. It will take much time and money, most of which will have to come from the Israeli government. Yet money is just the beginning.

Manfred Gerstenfeld is a member of the Board of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, of which he has been Chairman for 12 years