USA FOREIGN POLICY ALIGNING WITH CHAVEZ

Ynetnews reports Thursday that Israel's recent concern for its citizens' safety abroad, particularly in South America, stems from a Hezbollah terrorist cell operating in Venezuela under the sponsorship of Hugo Chavez.

According to an unnamed political source, Hezbollah is gathering intelligence on the other side of the world in order to attack Israeli interests. The Lebanon-based terrorist group has repeatedly vowed revenge after blaming the Jewish state for the assassination of Imad Mughniyah, a senior leader killed in Damascus last year.

Recent reports suggest that Hezbollah is capitalizing on a warming relationship between Chavez and Iran by establishing roots in South America. "We sought to deter them and to say to them that the Israeli response will be difficult to bear should they try to take action against Israelis anywhere," the source maintains.

RED ALERT :: Ambush at Next UN Opening?*

RED ALERT :: Israel at Next UN Opening!

Several sources have informed One Jerusalem that the Obama Administration is planning to significantly step up the pressure on Israel by announcing a comprehensive plan for Israel and the Palestinians at the opening of the United Nations General in September.

President Obama Getting Ready to Ambush Israel. Help Stop It Now! Join One Jerusalem!Picture this: The anti-Israel nations of the world surrounding President Obama as he demands that Israel give up sovereignty over Jerusalem, abandon settlements, and recognize a terrorist state on the West Bank.

If this happens, Israel will be isolated from the rest of world in a very dramatic manner. Help stop it by joining One Jerusalem!

The first sign that something was up came when Egyptian President Mubarak said that the Obama Administration was ready to propose a plan in September, and the White House rushed to dampen expectations by declaring that they are nowhere near to readying a plan.

Our sources confirmed that the Obama administration is contemplating this ambush of Israel at the United Nations.

At the moment, friends and supporters of Israel can help derail this insidious plan by helping to publicize the intentions of the Obama administration. Join One Jerusalem Now!

Spread the news to family and friends. Forward this mail and encourage them to sign up!

By focusing public attention to this, we can help avert it.

One Jerusalem, 136 East 39th Street, New York, NY 10016

BELOW: IMPORTANT TO VIEW

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whheDhoM7Vg

*U.S. CONSULATE IN JERUSALEM -JUST FOR ARABS!*

Jerusalem US Consulate is De Facto Embassy to PA

by Hana Levi Julian [] - Arutz Sheva

The U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem is America's embassy to the Palestinian Authority, according to the U.S. Consul-General's response to a letter penned by an irate Jewish American.

Dr. Adam Splaver, a Florida cardiologist, wrote to the American Consul-General in Jerusalem on August 14 expressing outrage that the Consulate's website "did not mention Israel, projects in Israel, the people of Israel or the modern state of Israel. What it does mention is the numerous projects you have with the Palestinians and in their cities and towns."

The consulate building is located in the eastern section of Jerusalem, in an area restored to Israel's capital during the1967 Six Day War. The Palestinian Authority has repeatedly demanded that Jerusalem be recognized as the capital of any future Arab state established alongside Israel. For now, the PA has refused to come to the negotiating table unless Israel first agrees to freeze all construction, including building to accommodate natural growth, in all post-1967 areas of Jerusalem, as well as in all of Judea and Samaria.

Splaver, a former president of the Young Israel synagogue in Hollywood, Florida, wrote that he was "appalled," adding that he believed the omission was not the result of an error, but rather a deliberate statement.

"As an American and as a Jew, I must voice my objections to your political message and clearly, proudly, and defiantly state that a united Jerusalem was, is and will be the capital of the Jewish homeland called Israel," he added.

The reply, received Monday, August 17, speaks for itself:

"Thank you for your feedback on the U.S. Consulate General Jerusalem's Website

F48E9C370C1C0994FE8E586F3CBC503CC2CE91D7AF783B5
FB6660AFFA374CEC.htm>

Just to clarify, the Consulate General in Jerusalem is the principal representation to the Palestinian Authority. We also provide services to American citizens in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza.

"The U.S. embassy to Israel is in Tel Aviv and is focused on the bilateral relationship with Israel. Their website is

http://usembassy-israel.org.il/ http://trailer.web-view.net/Links/0X7B1B76EB737B0714CB5D698684F4D99A10F1B9A00A6FBC59B577DAD1
BB4848456D42441F9F4DC3414FE8E586F3CBC503CC2CE91D7AF783B5FB666
0AFFA374CEC.htm >

The American Center in Jerusalem also provides information about the United States to the Israeli public. Their website is

http://usembassy-israel.org.il/ac/ < http://trailer.web-view.net/Links/0X221210F2346105787FEE21A0838F759DCE909648BE3C2CACF926
E5E31787FDEE62877337144F6E8C4FE8E586F3CBC503CC2CE91D7AF7
83B5FB6660AFFA374CEC.htm

"Jerusalem is a final status issue. Israel and the Palestinians have agreed to resolve its status during negotiations. We will support their efforts to reach agreements on all final status issues."

While the current seat of the PA government is in Ramallah, the United States government appears to already recognize the Palestinian Authority's claim to Jerusalem. At the same time, successive American governments have failed to officially recognize Israel's declaration of the city as its capital since 1948.

"I am surprised that more aren't aware of the de facto embassy [to the PA in Jerusale that the U.S. government has set up," Plaver said in an exclusive telephone interview Tuesday afternoon with Israel National News. "I am in shock!"
Comment on this story

http://trailer.web-view.net/Links/0X3ADB83E6E5D103BC7438C8A545CE831655A5A6759BABA92B00034CFD5E3
B45644286A75AB2ADC1754FE8E586F3CBC503CC2CE91D7AF783B5FB6660AFFA374CEC.htm
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Dear Friends of Israel,
We need your help. Please forward this critically important alert to your friends.

THE U.S. CONSULATE IN JERUSALEM SHOULD EITHER REFLECT THAT IT IS LOCATED IN ISRAEL'S CAPITAL AND SERVE ISRAELIS AS WELL AS PALESTINIANS, OR ELSE IT SHOULD RELOCATE TO A PALESTINIAN CITY

Many of you are concerned about this issue and brought it to our attention. We agree that it is a serious problem.

The U.S. has a Consulate in Jerusalem-but it is not for Israelis. Its primary function is to serve Palestinians, as the Consul General in Jerusalem admitted in a letter on August 17, 2009.

There is nothing on the Consulate's website about Israel, Israelis or Jews, or about the fact that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. The website, in effect, erases any Jewish or Israeli presence.

The U.S. government has refused to move its Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem even though Congress passed the "Jerusalem Embassy Act" in 1995, declaring that U.S. policy is that "Jerusalem should be recognized as the capital of the State of Israel." The U.S. State Department should not pervert this policy with an office in Jerusalem that intentionally undermines the Jews' 3,000 year history, presence and rights to the city.

The U.S. should not seem to be giving tacit recognition to the Palestinians' controversial claims to Jerusalem, a Jewish majority city for over 150 years, and possibly prejudice future Palestinian-Israeli negotiations.

If the U.S. Consulate's purpose is to serve Palestinians, it should be relocated to Ramallah, the political and economic center of the Palestinian Authority, or to the Palestinians' largest city, Nablus.

PLEASE WRITE AND CALL THE STATE DEPARTMENT, THE WHITE HOUSE, AND YOUR ELECTED OFFICIALS TO EXPRESS YOUR OPPOSITION TO THIS UNDERMINING OF JEWISH RIGHTS AND HISTORY IN JERUSALEM.

Look over the Jerusalem Consulate website: http://jerusalem.usconsulate.gov/index.html

Bring up the following points when you write or call:

Why is there nothing about Israel on the website, given that the office is located in Israel's capital?

The U.S. works closely with the Israeli government, Israeli companies, and the Israeli Ministry of Tourism, particularly in Jerusalem. This should be reflected on the website.

If this Consulate only serves the Palestinians, it should be located in a Palestinian city like Ramallah or Nablus, not in the Jewish-majority city of Jerusalem which is the capital of the Jewish State.

PHONE NUMBERS AND ADDRESSES

U.S. State Department:

Email from this site:
http://contact-us.state.gov/cgi-bin/state

Your Congressperson's phone and email can be found at: http://www.congress.org/congressorg/officials/congres s/?lvl=C&aZip=&search=GO

The White House --202-456-1111 (Line open from 9 AM to 5 PM)

You can email President Obama from this site: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

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STANDWITHUS CAMPUS

*THE BIG LIE*

Posted: 25 Aug 2009 07:17 PM PDT BY SULTAN

There are two interconnected lies that reside at the heart of any American discussion about Israel. The first lie is that the road to peace in the Middle East lies through Israel. The second lie is that Israel controls American policy toward itself. Those lies are not the product of ignorance or misunderstanding, they are the product of an effective propaganda campaign by the unofficial suit and tie spokesmen of the Saudi lobby who dominate American policy in the Middle East. The goal of that campaign has been to make Israel seem like the axis on which the Middle East and America turn, in order to put Israel on the firing line. And it is a campaign that has been wickedly successful up until now.

Let's take a moment to examine those lies now.

Within the Middle East, Israel is physically insignificant. At 8500 square miles, Israel could not just fit comfortably into Pennsylvania, it is 1/5th the size of Jordan, 1/8th the size of Syria and 1/12th the size of Egypt. Simply put, Israel is smaller in land and population than every country that borders it. If you looked at the Middle East from space, you could easily put a fingernail across all of Israel.

Israel has beaten all of these countries in wars and has the best military in the region, but that is because if it didn't, it wouldn't exist. Israel's military is not the product of a will to conquer, but of an attempt to maintain its own territorial integrity and protect its citizens from attack. Israel's neighbors have never needed to work as hard or spend as much to maintain their own armed forces, because they don't truly need them. For them a strong army is not a survival strategy, it is optional.

All those who rant endlessly about Israel's settlements in the West Bank and Gaza as proof of Israel's desire to seize land, forget that Jordan annexed the West Bank only two years after its forces captured it in the 1948 War of Independence. Israel has not annexed the West Bank even after more than 40 years, and has continued to offer it in peace negotiations year after year. That is not the policy of an aggressive land hungry regime. It is not the behavior of a country that keeps its neighbors up late at night. While Israel's leaders have spent over half a century staying up late at night worrying about a war, Israel's neighbors know that war is their choice.

But what this means in practice is that Israel has very little influence beyond its own borders. With a small size, no expansionist program beyond its own territory, and as one of only two non-Arab states and the only non-Muslim state in the region... Israel's impact on the rest of the Middle East is surprisingly limited. To get a proper picture of Israel's role in the Middle East, imagine plopping Singapore in the middle of a wartorn part of Africa. It can be attacked, it can fight back, but it cannot have any real local influence.

That is why Israel remains an outsider in the political trends and turmoil of the region. The shift between Arab Nationalism and Islamism, the coups and the bloodletting between Shiite and Sunni, are all events that Israel watches from a distance. Israel is not a political participant in the ideological conflicts of the Middle East, because it does not share a common religion or ethnicity or much of anything with its neighbors. Its diplomatic relations are primarily formal, not intimate. As a result Israel has very little political influence on the Middle East, and what little influence it has, is on its immediate neighbors, such as Lebanon and Jordan, who are fairly small on the scale of the Middle East as well.

Furthermore Israel and its neighbors are in part of the Middle East that has become largely irrelevant because of its lack of oil. While Egypt and Jordan were once considered major regional players, both have long ago been sidelined by the oil rich Saudi Arabia, Iran and the UAE. None of these countries share a common border with Israel. While diplomats and pundits obsess over the West Bank and Gaza, what happens there has virtually no impact on what happens where the oil and power lie.

Not only does the road to peace in the Middle East not run through Israel, it doesn't even run anywhere near Israel. A quick look at a map shows you just how off the beaten path Israel is when it comes to the true token of global power, oil. And it is not some Elders of Zion fantasy of the Israel lobby that defines global power to the Middle East, it is who has the oil. And while Israel has plenty of olive oil, it has none of the kind of oil that the world is interested in.

Since the 70's, the Middle East's real power struggle has shifted to the oil rich states, to Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. Iran and Iraq chose to build up their armies, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states instead built up their political influence in Washington D.C. and let the United States fight for them. This strategy paid off in the Gulf War and Operation Iraqi Freedom when Kuwait was liberated and Saudi Arabia got Saddam's boot off its throat. Israel was never at risk of anything more than bomb blasts and rocket shelling from Saddam. By contrast Saudi Arabia and Kuwait had their survival at stake.

With Saddam gone, Iran and Saudi Arabia are funding Sunni and Shiite insurgencies within Iraq in order to seize Saddam's oil. As a fallback position in case Iran manages to swallow Iraq and then moves on to them, the Sheiks and Princes continue buying huge stakes in American and European companies and property, in case they suddenly find themselves having to take a quick plane trip away from the region.

Remove Israel from the region, as so many diplomats and pundits would like to, and this picture remains exactly the same. How influential is Israel in the region then, and why does the path to Middle Eastern peace run through it? The answer is that it doesn't. Some diplomats choose to blame America's alliance with Israel for its image problems, but alliances are dictated by interests. American's alliance with Israel, much like Saudi Arabia's alliance with America, are the products of interests, not emotions. Iran's hostility to America is the product of religious hostility, historical animosity and its own desire to grab as much of the Middle East for itself as it can.

Let's turn to Washington then. The myth of the All-Powerful Israel lobby has been extensively marketed for decades. But let's actually take a look at how powerful this lobby is.

If the so-called Israel Lobby is so powerful, why after all these decades, has the United States failed to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital? Presidential candidates routinely visit AIPAC to promise that Jerusalem will be recognized as Israel's capitol. Bill Clinton did it, Bush promised that it would be one of his first acts in office, Obama implied it. And once in office, not only did they not keep the promise, but they routinely signed waivers to prevent Jerusalem from being treated as Israel's capital.

There is only one nation whose capital is not recognized by the United States. That nation is also the one who the wisdom of the mainstream media and many of the suit and tie unofficial members of the Saudi lobby, would have you believe controls America. The narrative of the powerful Israel lobby before whom everyone in D.C. trembles cannot be reconciled with this simple fact, or with many others.

For example, in every peace agreement completely under US mediation, Israel has given up land and never gained any permanent territory. If Israel were as expansionist and as in control of the United States government, should it not have been the other way around? Yet at Camp David, Carter pressured Begin into turning over land that was several times the size of Israel. Carter did not pressure Sadat to turn over land to Israel. The last four US administrations have pressured Israel into a peace process with the PLO that required Israel to transfer a sizable portion of land to their control. At no point in time were Egypt and Jordan expected to do the same. Does this sound like the product of an all-powerful Israel lobby.

Defenders of the "Israel Runs Washington" meme will argue that the US should have pressured Israel to do much more. As if Israel could do anymore without committing suicide. But then why hasn't the United States pressured Turkey to stop its occupation of Cyprus or demanded that Spain create a state for the Basque? Either the Turkish Lobby or the Spanish Lobby is far more powerful than the Israel Lobby, or Israel is singled out because of pressure from a much stronger lobby, the Saudi Lobby.

What the "Israel Lobby" mainly deals with is the back and forth arms trade between the United States and Israel, partially packaged as foreign aid, and non-binding congressional resolutions that have as much force as a municipal resolution naming Tuesday, Global Twig Day. Most congressmen identify as Pro-Israel, mainly because it's easy, costs them nothing and lets them pick up a few votes here and there. It is easy enough to vote on or co-sponsor the occasional pro-Israel resolution that does nothing but gather dust in the record cabinets, because it has no actual application. It is so ridiculously easy that even Barack Obama has done it. And it's so meaningless that no President takes them seriously. Any measure that actually has legislative force is routinely crafted so that the President can waive it or set it aside if it interferes with administration policy. Which is exactly what happens much of the time.

As a result most congressmen can mention a pro-Israel bill that they voted on or co-sponsored around election time to gullible Jewish audiences who fail to understand that the 2012 Israel Friendship Act or the 2043 No Money Given to Terrorists, We Really Mean It This Time Act, has as much practical utility as a cell phone in the Sahara. And few of these same congressmen are actually pro-Israel when it matters. They're pro-Israel when it's an exercise in public relations. That is not what a powerful lobby's grip on a government looks like. If you want to see that, take a look at the lobbyists for the pharmaceutical industry or the cable industry. Or the Saudi lobby, which doesn't waste time holding rubber chicken dinners for politicians, but instead has built a massive contact base of unofficial suit and tie lobbyists, former politicians, diplomats and journalists who are expert at peddling the Saudi agenda.


To determine the power of a lobby, you look at what it can do when it matters, and when the odds are against it. The one direct collision between the Pro-Israel lobby and the Saudi lobby over the AWACS sale to Saudi Arabia, ended with a Saudi victory, despite overall public and congressional opposition to the sale. The Pro-Israel lobby was vocal and public. The Saudi lobby was in control behind the scenes. And just as it had when Saudi Arabia took over ARAMCO, and forced the United States to pay for it too... the Saudi Lobby won.

That is what a lobby that controls Washington D.C. does. It doesn't put out a nameplate. It doesn't waste time on rubber chicken dinners. It instead funds a host of organizations officially headed up by Americans with influence and power in Washington D.C. It gives them the funds to cultivate ties, to build think tanks and to build relationships behind the scenes. It doesn't care whether it's dealing with Republicans or Democrats. Come one, come all. We can put you to use too. And it makes sure that nobody pays very much attention to what is going on. Instead it dips into well worn propaganda to spread the idea that the Jews control Washington D.C., knowing that there will be plenty of eager takers to polish and pass on the meme.

If you look at what some of the most powerful people in the last few administrations had in common, the simple answer is oil. Saudi oil. The woman in control of foreign policy in the second half of the Bush Administration, Condoleeza Rice, did not have her name on an Israeli oil tanker, but a Chevron oil tanker, the former parent company of ARAMCO. The man quietly dominating US foreign policy under Obama, James L. Jones did not serve on the board of directors of Manischewitz, he served on the same Chevron board of directors that Rice had formerly served on. And Rice did everything but outright appoint him as her replacement.

But of course no one could possibly believe a wild conspiracy theory like that, not when the obvious answer is that the Israel Lobby controls Washington D.C. and keeps demanding that administration after administration force it to hand over land to its worst enemies. And for some reason forces successive administrations to not recognize its own capital city, encourages them to constantly threaten it and prevent it from defending itself.

The Pro-Israel Lobby is a charade, a showpiece for people with too much time on their hands and too little subtlety. If half the claims about the Israel Lobby were true, Israel would be four times the size it is today, with secure borders and no terrorist problem. Instead Israel has been pressured like no other country has, to appease and accommodate terrorists at the expense of the lives of its citizens, its national security and even its survival... by a foreign policy crafted to fulfill Saudi interests.

The Big Israel Lie is that Israel is powerful in Washington and mighty in the Middle East. The real truth is that Israel is a tiny country that commands emotional affinity from a limited percentage of Jews and Christians, whose diplomacy abroad is clumsy, and whose regional influence is small, whose military is handicapped by liberal handwringing and whose leaders would rather negotiate than fight... until there is no other choice.

This lie is meant to make Israel seem strong, in order to place it at the center of every problem and turn it into the nail that needs to be hammered down for everything to stand straight. But the easiest way to clear up the lie is to simply look at the reality of the Middle East and see that Israel vanishes beneath a single fingernail.
////////////////////////////////
When Israelis Denounce Israel: Legitimate Criticism of Israel or Arrogant Self-Delusion

Dr. Alex Grobman

Dr. Alex Grobman is a Hebrew University trained historian. His is the author of a number of books, including Nations United: How The U.N. Undermines Israel and The West, Denying History: Who Says The Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It? and a forthcoming book on Israel's moral and legal right to exist as a Jewish State.

Critics of Israel abound. Some are antisemites who seek the demise of the Jewish state. Others have legitimate concerns about particular Israeli policies. Among the most vocal are a number of Israeli intellectuals who challenge the country’s raison d’être.

In an August 20, 2009 editorial in the Los Angeles Times, Neve Gordon, a professor of political science at Ben-Gurion University, accused Israel of being an apartheid state. He said a two-state solution was the “more realistic” way to end this inequity. Since only “massive international pressure,” will bring about this state and thus save Israel, Gordon recently joined the Arab sponsored Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement founded in July 2005.

Vilification of Israel by Jews is not a new phenomenon. As early as May 1, 1936 Labor Zionist leader Berl Katznelson asked: “Is there another people on earth whose sons are so emotionally twisted that they consider everything their nation does despicable and hateful, while every murder, rape and robbery committed by their enemies fills their hearts with admiration and awe? As long as a Jewish child…can come to the land of Israel, and here catch the virus of self-hate…let not our conscience be still.”

For Katznelson this was aberrant behavior, not the norm. Today, criticism of Israel has become ubiquitous among a significant portion of Israeli intellectuals.3

In the 1950s, psychologist Gordon Allport explained that Jewish self-hate is the process in which the victim identifies with his aggressor and “sees his own group through their eyes.” The Jew “may hate his historic religion…or he may blame some one class of Jews…or he may hate the Yiddish language. Since he cannot escape his own group, he does in a real sense hate himself—or at least the part of himself that is Jewish.”

Self-hating Jews play a significant role in anti-Israel campaigns of the Western media. Historian Robert Wistrich noted that Jews highly critical of Israel are featured in the British media.

Manfred Gerstenfeld, chairman of the Board of Fellows of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, found that the French elite and media adore Jews and Israelis who are highly critical of Israel. A number of marginal Jews, who are not known in Israel, are presented as part of the Israeli mainstream.

Israeli’s condemnation of their country is a result of living under “a state of chronic siege,” posits Kenneth Levin, a historian and psychiatrist. Israelis have been abused for so long, that they escape their pain by espousing anti-Israel sentiments. Appeasing the terrorists, they believe, will end hostilities. Israel only has to acquiesce to Arab demands, cease obsessing about defensible borders and other strategic issues, and peace would ensue and such concerns would become irrelevant.

Sol Stern, a former editor of the New Left Ramparts magazine, adds that this assumes both sides act rationally. According to this scenario, when Israel’s concessions are considered equitable, amity will compensate for any remaining differences. Didn’t the enmity between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union end in détente? Hadn’t President Richard Nixon gone to China? Aren’t “the Arabs rational” people?

Any “peace process” is intrinsically superior to war. Regardless of all previously failed attempts, isn’t another peace overture worth trying? To suggest there might be “something inherently violent and unreasonable in Arab Muslim political culture” could be interpreted as racist.9 Instead, Israeli intellectuals began disparaging their own culture and re-writing their country’s history. When they concluded that the Arabs had legitimate grievances, they decided “it was time to try again to split the difference.”

In the 1980s and 1990s two different Israeli administrations offered “land for peace’ to Syria, but were rebuffed. Under terms of the 1993 Oslo Accords, the Israeli government permitted terrorist organizations to return to the West Bank and Gaza and gave tens of thousands of weapons to Yasser Arafat’s security services, before he signed a peace treaty or an irrefutable security agreement. Arab failure to rescind the Palestine National Covenant’s demand for Israel’s demise and replacement by a Palestinian state was either ignored or minimized.

“No nation in the world has taken so many mortal risks for a putative peace with its most implacable enemies,” Stern observes. Even after the Oslo Accords were shattered when the Arabs began blowing up civilians in pizza shops and on buses, Ehud Barak offered another proposal at Camp David. Instead of accepting this offer, Arafat unleashed “yet another savage wave of extermination against Israel’s civilian population” with weapons Israel had provided him.

Stern credits neoconservatives with understanding that Israel’s right to exist as a democratic Jewish state has always been the main problem for the Arabs, not the “disputed territories.” Arab attempts to bring their case to the attention of the world are not arbitrary. Suicide bombings are a cleverly planned strategy that has produced considerable advantages. After the first series of attacks against Israeli supermarkets, cafés, malls and buses, the Arab cause was championed by European governments and on American campuses.12 Israeli victims receive little sympathy, historian Tony Judt and a severe critic of Israel claims, because they are not seen as victims of terror, but as “collateral damage of their own government’s mistaken policies.”

Israeli offers to exchange land for peace have not succeeded. Appeasement has only increased hatred of Israel. Yet Israel is continually pressured to make concessions. The reason, Stern believes, is that progressive critics cannot acknowledge a fundamental truth: “that there can be political movements, like Islamic terrorism—in which the jihad and the intifada merge—that are so pathological in their hatreds that we can solve the problems they purport to care about only after they are defeated.”

Levin sees an element of arrogance in “this self-delusion” by Israelis who believe they can affect change. Jews assume a responsibility for something over which they have no control, to ward off despair. This is similar to an abused child who feels responsible for his plight and views himself as “bad.” The child maintains, “the fantasy that if he becomes good enough,” his father will stop hitting him, his mother will give him attention and whatever other form of abuse he suffered will end. In the same way, some Israelis are delusional when they assume they can control Arab behavior.

1. Neve Gordon, “Boycott Israel: An Israeli comes to the painful conclusion that it’s the only way to save his country,” latimes.com (August 20, 2009).

2. Edward Alexander, “Israelis Against Themselves.” In The Jewish Divide Over Israel: Accusers and Defenders. Edward Alexander and Paul Bogdanor, Eds. (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, 2006), 35.

3. Ibid., 35-36.

4. Manfred Gerstenfeld, “Jews Against Israel,” Post-Holocaust and Anti-Semitism Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs No.30 (March 1, 2005).

5. Ibid.

6. Manfred Gerstenfeld, “European-Israeli Relations: Between Confusion and Change? An American Watching Anti-Israeli Bias in France, Interview with Nidra Poller.” Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (September 2006).

7. Kenneth Levin, The Oslo Syndrome: Delusions of a People Under Siege (Hanover, New Hampshire: Smith and Kraus Global, 2005), vii-viii, xv, xix-xx.

8. Sol Stern, “Israel Without Apology.” City Journal. (Summer 2003), Online.

9. Ibid.

10. Ibid.

11. Ibid.

12. Ibid.

13. Tony Judt, “The country that wouldn’t grow up.” Haaretz. (May 5, 2006), Online.

14. Stern, op.cit.

15. Levin, op.cit. xvi-xx.

President Barack Obama - Ramadan Message

Unity Coalition for Israel

Office of the Press Secretary - Aug 21, 2009
Washington DC

On behalf of the American people – including Muslim communities in all fifty states – I want to extend best wishes to Muslims in America and around the world. Ramadan Kareem.

Ramadan is the month in which Muslims believe the Koran was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad, beginning with a simple word – iqra. It is therefore a time when Muslims reflect upon the wisdom and guidance that comes with faith, and the responsibility that human beings have to one another, and to God.

Like many people of different faiths who have known Ramadan through our communities and families, I know this to be a festive time – a time when families gather, friends host iftars, and meals are shared. But I also know that Ramadan is a time of intense devotion and reflection – a time when Muslims fast during the day and perform tarawih prayers at night, reciting and listening to the entire Koran over the course of the month.

These rituals remind us of the principles that we hold in common, and Islam’s role in advancing justice, progress, tolerance, and the dignity of all human beings. [It is unfortunate that Israel and other democratic countries must be on high alert during this Ramadan holiday due to an increased threat of Radical Islamic violence. UCI hopes that this season will indeed be a peaceful demonstration of "advancing justice, progress, tolerance, and the dignity of all human beings."](EVERY ISLAMIC COUNTRY IS DEVOID OF JUSTICE, PROGRESS AND TOLERANCE)

For instance, fasting is a concept shared by many faiths – including my own Christian faith – as a way to bring people closer to God, and to those among us who cannot take their next meal for granted. And the support that Muslims provide to others recalls our responsibility to advance opportunity and prosperity for people everywhere. For all of us must remember that the world we want to build – and the changes that we want to make – must begin in our own hearts, and our own communities.

This summer, people across America have served in their communities – educating children, caring for the sick, and extending a hand to those who have fallen on hard times. Faith-based organizations, including many Islamic organizations, have been at the forefront in participating in this summer of service. And in these challenging times, this is a spirit of responsibility that we must sustain in the months and years to come.

Beyond America’s borders, we are also committed to keeping our responsibility to build a world that is more peaceful and secure. That is why we are responsibly ending the war in Iraq. That is why we are isolating violent extremists while empowering the people in places like Afghanistan and Pakistan. That is why we are unyielding in our support for a two-state solution that recognizes the rights of Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace and security. And that is why America will always stand for the universal rights of all people to speak their mind, practice their religion, contribute fully to society and have confidence in the rule of law.

All of these efforts are a part of America’s commitment to engage Muslims and Muslim-majority nations on the basis of mutual interest and mutual respect. And at this time of renewal, I want to reiterate my commitment to a new beginning between America and Muslims around the world.

As I said in Cairo, this new beginning must be borne out in a sustained effort to listen to each other, to learn from each other, to respect one another, and to seek common ground. I believe an important part of this is listening, and in the last two months, American embassies around the world have reached out not just to governments, but directly to people in Muslim-majority countries. From around the world, we have received an outpouring of feedback about how America can be a partner on behalf of peoples’ aspirations.

We have listened. We have heard you. And like you, we are focused on pursuing concrete actions that will make a difference over time – both in terms of the political and security issues that I have discussed, and in the areas that you have told us will make the most difference in peoples’ lives.

These consultations are helping us implement the partnerships that I called for in Cairo – to expand education exchange programs; to foster entrepreneurship and create jobs; and to increase collaboration on science and technology, while supporting literacy and vocational learning. We are also moving forward in partnering with the OIC and OIC member states to eradicate polio, while working closely with the international community to confront common health challenges like H1N1 – which I know is of particular to concern to many Muslims preparing for the upcoming hajj.

All of these efforts are aimed at advancing our common aspirations – to live in peace and security; to get an education and to work with dignity; to love our families, our communities, and our God. It will take time and patient effort. We cannot change things over night, but we can honestly resolve to do what must be done, while setting off in a new direction – toward the destination that we seek for ourselves, and for our children. That is the journey that we must travel together.

I look forward to continuing this critically important dialogue and turning it into action. And today, I want to join with the 1.5 billion Muslims around the world – and your families and friends – in welcoming the beginning of Ramadan, and wishing you a blessed month. May God’s peace be upon you.

LIEBERMAN: OBAMACARE

By DICK MORRIS

Published on DickMorris.com on August 25, 2009

Sen. Joe Lieberman's (I-Conn.) criticism of the Obama healthcare initiative may prove to be a pivotal turning point in the congressional debate over the increasingly unpopular proposal. Previous commentary about the Obama plans has focused exclusively on their impact on healthcare in America. The elderly are increasingly recognizing that, whatever its defenders say, extending coverage to 50 million new people -- without any new doctors or nurses or equipment or hospitals -- will create a scarcity that will lead to rationing, to the disadvantage of those over 65. Defenders of the free enterprise system have looked with alarm at the socialization of one-sixth of our economy and opponents of single-payer systems have argued that government control of healthcare is the inevitable result of the plan.

But Lieberman's critique was not primarily focused on the healthcare aspects of the program, or even on its ultimate desirability, but rather on the wisdom of attempting so radical a transformation and so extensive -- and expensive -- an extension of government's role in our economy during a major recession attended by a huge budget deficit. His go-slow commentary integrates worries about the economy, the deficit, the debt and interest rates with those about the healthcare proposal itself. In effecting this linkage, Lieberman cautions supporters of the idea and of the plan that this might not be the right time to try to do it all.

Click here to order a copy of CATASTROPHE now! His comments come at a time when the Congressional Budget Office predicts a growth in the 10-year deficit projection to $9 trillion and when Americans are growing increasingly nervous about the massive debt we are incurring. Few buy the president's argument that spending $1 trillion extra will cut the deficit and rein in spending. The very notion is so counterintuitive that it is hard to give it any credibility.

If the elderly are worried about the projected $500 billion cut in Medicare and Medicaid over the ensuing decade and conservatives fret over socialization of healthcare, the average American can relate most easily to the concerns over the size of the debt and the deficit that Lieberman articulates.

Lieberman's critique gives moderates a place to go in the healthcare debate. Caught in the tug between the liberals who dominate Democratic primaries and the more conservative voices that may prevail in November, centrist Democrats can rally easily around the "not now" approach of Joe Lieberman. It is obvious that, despite the Obama majorities in Congress, this is the exact wrong time to embark on a major new government spending program.

Worries that the deficit will drive us anew into recession abound. And, increasingly, it appears that the back end of this "double dip" will be accompanied by inflation, as happened in the '70s. Alarm mounts that the Fed will be unable to fight the inflation without hurting the economy further and, conversely, cannot stimulate a flagging economy without worsening the rise in prices. Add to all this concerns that the world might not be willing to invest further in a deteriorating dollar and we have the makings of, well, a Catastrophe!

By expressing the obvious -- that this is a time for retrenchment, not for expansion of the public sector -- Lieberman may even have given the president an avenue of escape, permitting him to accept a scaled-back, phased-in program that might attract bipartisan support.

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NTEREST RATES UP: COMING SOON TO THE USA

Israel Becomes First to Raise Interest

by Maayana Miskin
Follow Israel news on Twitter and Facebook.

(IsraelNN.com) Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer announced Monday evening that he would raise the interest by 0.25% to bring the rate to 0.75%. The hike is meant to prevent inflation.

Fischer's decision followed unexpectedly high inflation last month. Prices rose by an average of 1.1 percent in July, while the target rate was only 0.8-0.9 percent.

Israel will precede America and Europe in raising interest. No Western countries have raised interest since the global financial crisis began several months ago.

Fischer's move surprised analysts, most of whom had expected the Israeli rate to remain stable. Interest rates worldwide are not expected to rise for another several months. A statement accompanying the announcement said the other countries were not experiencing the same inflation as Israel.

Ori Yehudai of the Israel Industrialists Association criticized the decision, which he said could slow economic growth. “The interest in the United States is still next to nothing, and creating an interest gap is likely to strengthen the shekel, harming the recovery of Israeli exports,” he said.

Despite his criticism, Yehudai expressed trust in Fischer's ability to lead Israel's exporters out of the financial crisis. The Bank of Israel Governor has demonstrated “flexibility and creativity,” he said.

SWEDEN: ANTI-SEMITISM IS ALIVE AND WELL

David Harris Blog: Dear Foreign Minister Bildt
Date: Monday, August 24, 2009, 11:53 AM

Dear Foreign Minister Bildt

David Harris
Executive Director, AJC
August 24, 2009

Dear Minister Bildt,

As you know well, a leading newspaper in your country, Sweden, earlier this month published an article alleging that Israeli soldiers killed Palestinians to harvest their organs.

This wasn't just any newspaper. Aftonbladet is the largest-circulation newspaper in Scandinavia. An estimated 15 percent of your fellow Swedes read the paper, which is owned by the Swedish Trade Union Confederation.

And this wasn't just another article in the paper. It was given pride of place in the Culture section. Indeed, two pages were devoted to it under the radioactive headline, "They plunder the organs of our sons."

Mr. Minister, despite many requests, you have chosen not to comment on the article's unfounded, indeed ludicrous, allegations.

In explanation, you wrote, "Freedom of expression and press freedom are very strong in our constitution by tradition. And that strong protection has served our democracy and our country well. If I were engaged in editing all strange debate contributions in different media, I probably wouldn't have time to do much else."

And you went further still. When your ambassador in Israel, Elisabet Borsiin Bonnier, laudably condemned the article, rather than stand with her, your ministry distanced itself from her position, stating that it was "designed for an Israeli audience."

Mr. Minister, this is not an issue of freedom of expression or freedom of the press.

What the newspaper did was repugnant. It published an incendiary screed.

Regrettably, it's a fact of life that some media outlets act irresponsibly, whether driven by blind ideology, poor editing, or the financial bottom line. Depending on national libel laws and media guidelines, there may be recourse in the courts or oversight bodies. In the case of Aftonbladet, we shall see.

Mr. Minister, frankly speaking, this matter has become an issue of political leadership – or the lack thereof.

Assuming you disagreed with the article, all you had to say was that you found the report odious and welcomed the reaction of Ambassador Bonnier. That would have been the right thing to do in a case that has garnered global attention. And, by the way, it would have taken less time and space than explaining why you didn't do so.

Instead, you dug in your heels and have now made yourself, more than the paper's editors and the article's author, the central issue, turning this into a diplomatic face-off with understandably angry – and perplexed – Israeli officials.

Mr. Minister, you are the foreign minister of a respected member of the European Union and the international community.

Your country currently holds the rotating EU Presidency.

Speaking of the EU, its Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia has adopted a working definition of antisemitism. Among other applicable references in this case, it says that contemporary acts of antisemitism include, "Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis."

Commendably, your country took the lead a decade ago in launching a process that created the International Task Force on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research.

Is it not painfully obvious that one of the contributing factors to the Holocaust was the widespread use of defamatory speech to demonize, and ultimately dehumanize, the Jewish people?

You are the former prime minister of Sweden and a member of one of Sweden's most renowned families, and you have proudly referred to Sweden's rejection of all forms of antisemitism.

You have served in key EU and UN positions to bring stability and security to the war-torn Balkans, earning you a reputation as an admired statesman.

You are known to speak your mind, even when it ruffles feathers in other capitals, as it has more than once.

So your silence in this matter becomes all the more troubling.

Aftonbladet decided to abuse the cherished right of freedom of speech to publish brazen lies. Your response, seemingly, is to muzzle your own right to challenge what it printed.

That would be disturbing at any time, but even more so today.

Mr. Minister, a blood libel against the State of Israel was published by a popular Swedish paper. Yes, a blood libel.

The charge that Israeli soldiers deliberately kill Palestinians for their organs is just that – a mendacious allegation that has shattering historical echoes and caused such harm to the Jewish people throughout the ages, as Jews were repeatedly accused of poisoning wells, spreading infectious diseases, and killing Christian children to drain their blood for the baking of Passover matzah.

More recently, it is Israel that has borne the brunt of such canards. With seeming abandon, Palestinians have leveled the most bizarre claims against Israel.

They have ranged from a mass fainting epidemic allegedly due to Israeli "poisoning," to Israel's supposed distribution of aphrodisiac bubble gum to "destroy" young women in Gaza; from wholesale "massacres" in Jenin (or "Jeningrad"), to an attempt by the Israeli army to "wage war" against the Church of the Nativity – and, by extension, all of Christianity.

Subsequent investigation proved that each of these was totally unfounded, but not before irreparable damage to Israel's reputation was done.

What appeared in Aftonbladet, therefore, cannot be seen in isolation. There is a context for it – and that context should cause concern.

Yes, Mr. Minister, it is late in the day to clarify your position. At this point, you may not wish to appear to succumb to "external pressure" to do so. And even if you do speak out, there will be those who wonder why it took so long and question your sincerity.

Put those concerns aside and do the right thing.

There is a wonderful Swedish book, Tell Ye Your Children, which has been translated into many languages. Its aim is to teach about the Holocaust and the lessons to be learned from it.

The first lesson is the obligation of people of good will to unmask raw hatred and confront it. Silence is never an option, nor is denial a strategy.

Mr. Minister, people of conscience need to hear your voice. Will we?

Sweden Funded Anti-Israel Allegations

by Hillel Fendel
Follow Israel news on Twitter and Facebook.

(IsraelNN.com) Antagonism between Israel and Sweden over Swedish media accusation that IDF soldiers sold Arab body parts is heating up, in light of evidence that Sweden’s government funded the “research” for the story. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is expected to demand a Swedish government condemnation of the accusations.

News of the funding was broken Sunday morning by Maariv/NRG. Maariv’s correspondent in Sweden, Liran Lotker, reports that most of the material in last week’s controversial article is old, having appeared in a book written in 2001 by the author of the article. The book, entitled Inshallah, was funded by various bodies, including the Foreign Ministry of Sweden, Swedish labor unions, and some organizations based in the Palestinian Authority-controlled areas.

Interior Minister Eli Yishai said he would not grant work visas to Aftonbladet reporters in Israel, and the Government Press Office (GPO) says it will not, at this stage, grant press cards to Aftonbladet journalists. GPO Director Danny Seaman said newspapers such as Aftonbladet employ leftists in the guise of journalists, who later enter the country to participate in international protests against Israel.

The current controversy began last Tuesday, when Donald Bostrom authored an article in Sweden’s most popular newspaper, the Aftonbladet tabloid, accusing IDF soldiers of murdering Arabs and harvesting their organs. Bostrom based the story on testimony by several Arabs identified only by their first names, and told Voice of Israel Radio on Wednesday that he does not know for sure if their accounts are true.

When Israel immediately protested, Sweden’s Ambassador to Israel, Elisabet Borsiin Bonnier, responded with a strong condemnation of the article – which the Swedish Foreign Ministry countered the next day by saying it does not represent the government’s position.

Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt later wrote on his blog that the government cannot get involved in “correcting all the strange claims in the media.” He compared the issue to a recent controversy over Muslim accusations that Swedish media articles had smeared Islam and Mohammed, and concluded, “I think we reached the understanding that it is through transparency that we best achieve the tolerance and understanding that are so important in our society. I believe that it is the same in this case.”

However, though the Swedish Foreign Ministry expressed a mild form of apology at the time, it has not done the same in this case vis-à-vis Israel. In addition, Sweden once closed an internet site that had been accused of offending Moslem sensibilities.

Blidt told reporters on Saturday, “There are very few bodies like the Swedish parliament in which opinion against pre-conceived notions and anti-Semitism is so strong, and therefore I don’t want to relate to that specific article.”

Others in Sweden, however, have reacted much more strongly against Israel. Aftonbladet itself headlined its Saturday edition with, “Israel fighting against Swedish freedom of the press,” and called for public support.

Popular Israeli journalist Ayala Hasson told Army Radio that freedom of the press has nothing to do with altering facts: “Freedom of the press means that one may comment as one sees fit – but it does not give license to report made-up ‘facts."

Israel’s Foreign Ministry called the article a “disgrace to Swedish journalism” and compared it to “dark blood libels from the Middle Ages.” Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said, “The Jewish State cannot ignore manifestations of anti-Semitism, even if they appear in a respectable newspaper. Whoever is not willing to distance himself from such blood libels, may very well not be welcome here in Israel.”

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that the article was a “natural continuation of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” and said that Sweden’s refusal to disassociate itself from it was reminiscent of its “neutral” stance during the Holocaust. Minister Limor Livnat demanded that the “Swedish government apologize for the blood libel against Israel.” Welfare Minister Yitzchak Herzog said that this was not a one-time incident, but rather a “media campaign that has been going on for years.”

Six months ago, Israelis had another unpleasant experience with Swedish journalism. Islamists fired rockets and threw pipe-bombs at pro-Israel demonstrators in the Swedish city of Malmö, injuring no one. At least one attacker was arrested, yet southern Sweden’s largest newspaper, Sydsvenskan, headlined its report, “Several arrested during Israel demonstration” and reported that "the anticipated violence did not occur."
///////////////////////////////////////
Anti-Semitism

Photo: AFP
Charges against IDF troops reminiscent of age-old blood libels

Swedes revive oldest hate

Swedish organ harvesting report revives age-old blood libel against Jews

Abraham Cooper, Harold Brackman
Published: 08.23.09, 14:59 / Israel Opinion
This month marks the birth date of perhaps the greatest Swede who ever lived. Raoul Wallenberg. He helped save 100,000 Hungarian Jews from the Nazis before being swallowed up by Stalin's gulags. Jews consider Wallenberg's name a blessing, and young Swedes should be inspired by his peerless courage and compassion.

Yet instead of celebrating this national hero, now comes from Sweden's largest newspaper, Aftonbladet, a revival of the age-old blood libel against the Jews that would have caused Wallenberg to lead a national protest. "They plunder the organs of our sons," reads the quote from a Palestinian that serves as the headline across a double spread in the Swedish equivalent of "The Style Section" of the New York Times or the Washington Post.

Outrageous Report

Swedish foreign minister: We're not anti-Semitic / Associated Press

Carl Bildt rejects calls to condemn unsubstantiated story accusing Israeli troops of plundering Palestinian organs, draws parallel to Muhammad cartoon outrage; 'Freedom of expression very strong in our constitution,' he says
Full Story

Reporter Donald Boström charges that, since the first Intifada in the early 1990s, the Israeli Army has been kidnapping and murdering Palestinian young men "who disappeared for a few days and returned by night, dead and autopsied." It's important to note that these outlandish charges did not appear out of thin air. They are not only a staple of Palestinian hate mythology, but extend to Iran where a few years ago Sahar, the government TV channel, aired a weekly drama, titled "Zahra's Blue Eyes," which portrayed "Zionist" doctors kidnapping little Palestinian children to harvest their organs.

Boström's major contribution is not just to popularize this anti-Semitic libel in Scandinavia but to update it by accusing New Jersey rabbis, arrested for money laundering, as somehow involved with Israeli soldiers in an international Jewish organ harvesting ring - accusations that make The Protocols of the Elders of Zion seem tame by comparison. If there were an Ignoble Prize for the world's most odious anti-Semitic journalist, Boström would be this year's winner.

The truth is that Iran's vicious regime is guilty of some of the very crimes it accuses Israel of. Hence, while the Israelis are alleged to be returning mutilated corpses to their Palestinian families for burial, Tehran's jailers are actually returning the bloodied corpses of young protesters tortured to death in prison to Iranian families - and charging them for the coffins!

'Israel the Jew among nations'

The real scandal is not the Israeli military's nonexistent harvest of Palestinian organs, but the ideology of extremists like Hamas' Khalid Mashaal. Their culture of death is transforming societies across the Middle East into an assembly line turning young people into suicide bombers and "human shields" in the name of martyrdom "Child martyrs" are harvested and deployed against Israelis, Westerners, and increasingly, other Muslims.

The international seal of approval for open season on Israel came at the UN Anti-Racism Conference in Durban South Africa in 2001 that was hijacked by Arab and Muslim countries and their international NGO allies. Durban I revived 1975 UN Resolution equating "Zionism with racism" in order to delegitimize Israel as a pariah state. Since then, Israel, as Alan Dershowitz has said, became "the Jew among nations."

Now an influential Scandinavian newspaper has shamefully become the conduit for Mideast ideological exports with roots in horrific medieval accusations that Jews harvested non-Jewish children for their blood. Like a patient with a compromised immune system, Scandinavian countries too often are failing to resist the plague of classic Jew hatred.

Norway's government, with the royal family's blessing, is currently rehabilitating with a national celebration and museum in his honor Knut Hamsen, the Hitler groupie who in 1943 gave his Nobel Prize to Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels. While Sweden, where a few years ago a third of young people doubted there was a Holocaust, has enabled Moroccan expatriate Ahmed Rami - whose Radio Islam is a 22-language flagship of Holocaust denial, Jew-hatred, and demonization of Israel - to poison the well of non-Muslim as well as Muslim public opinion.

Far from being "free speech in action," Sweden's anti-Israel hatred is too often subsidized by the government. A recent report by the respected NGO Monitor shows that the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), Diakonia, the multi-national NGO Development Center (NDC), and the Swedish Mission Council (SMR) fund 20 major NGOs that "routinely accuse Israel of 'genocide', 'ethnic cleansing', and 'apartheid', and some compare Israeli military and political officials to Nazis." As Professor Gerald Steinberg puts it, "The path from this demonization to the blood libels of Aftonbladet is short and direct."

Kudos to the few Swedish voices who have spoken out fiercely against the blood libel promoted by Aftonbladet. The Swedish Foreign Ministry initially "distanced" itself from the libel - but then backed away when criticized by the pro-Palestinian Swedish Left. Raoul Wallenberg would be ashamed by the absence of outrage from Sweden's political elite and vaunted human rights group. Maybe the memory of his courage and humanity will inspire the silent Swedish majority and decent people everywhere to vanquish the newest toxic incarnation of the world's oldest hatred.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper is associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Dr. Harold Brickman, a historian, is a consultant to the Simon Wiesenthal Center

BECK: OBAMA IS A RACIST therefore shut Beck down

Attack on Obama riles Beck's advertiser
By DAVID BAUDER, AP Television Writer David Bauder, Ap Television Writer – Mon Aug 24, 10:18 am ET

NEW YORK – Glenn Beck returns to Fox News Channel on Monday after a vacation with fewer companies willing to advertise on his show than when he left, part of the fallout from calling President Barack Obama a racist.

A total of 33 Fox advertisers, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc., CVS Caremark, Clorox and Sprint, directed that their commercials not air on Beck's show, according to the companies and ColorofChange.org, a group that promotes political action among blacks and launched a campaign to get advertisers to abandon him. That's more than a dozen more than were identified a week ago.

While it's unclear what effect, if any, this will ultimately have on Fox and Beck, it is already making advertisers skittish about hawking their wares within the most opinionated cable TV shows.

The Clorox Co., a former Beck advertiser, now says that "we do not want to be associated with inflammatory speech used by either liberal or conservative talk show hosts." The maker of bleach and household cleaners said in a statement that it has decided not to advertise on political talk shows.


The shows present a dilemma for advertisers, who usually like a "safe" environment for their messages. The Olbermanns, Hannitys, O'Reillys, Maddows and Becks of the TV world are more likely to say something that will anger a viewer, who might take it out on sponsors.

Most-watched programs on their networks.

"This is a good illustration of that conundrum," said Rich Hallabran, spokesman for UPS Stores, which he said has temporarily halted buying ads on Fox News Channel as a whole.

Beck can bring the eyeballs. With the health care debate raising political temperatures, his show had its biggest week ever right before his vacation, averaging 2.4 million viewers each day, according to Nielsen Media Research.

He was actually on another Fox show July 28 when he referred to Obama as a racist with "a deep-seated hatred for white people." The network immediately distanced itself from Beck's statement, but Beck didn't. He used his radio show the next day to explain why he believed that. He would not comment for this article, spokesman Matthew Hiltzik said.

ColorofChange.org quickly targeted companies whose ads had appeared during Beck's show, telling them what he had said and seeking a commitment to drop him. The goal is to make Beck a liability, said James Rucker, the organization's executive director.

"They have a toxic asset," Rucker said. "They can either clean it up or get rid of it."

It's not immediately clear how many of the companies actually knew they were advertising on Beck's show. Sometimes commercial time is chosen for a specific show, but often it is bought on a rotation basis, meaning the network sprinkles the ads throughout the day on its own schedule. Sometimes ads appear by mistake; Best Buy said it bought commercial time for earlier in the day, and one of its ads unexpectedly appeared in Beck's show.

One company, CVS Caremark, said it advertises on Fox but hadn't said anything about Beck. Now it has told its advertising agency to inform Fox that it wanted no commercials on Beck.

"We support vigorous debate, especially around policy issues that affect millions of Americans, but we expect it to be informed, inclusive and respectful," said spokeswoman Carolyn Castel.

Besides the unpredictability of the opinionated cable hosts, the rapid pace of today's wired world complicates decisions on where to place ads, said Kathleen Dunleavy, a spokeswoman for Sprint. She said she was surprised at how fast the Beck issue spread across social media outlets and how quickly advertiser names were attached to it.

UPS' Hallabran said the decision to pull commercials "should not be interpreted as we are permanently withdrawing our advertising from Fox." He said the company wants to reach viewers with a wide spectrum of opinions.

Except for UPS Stores, there's no evidence that any advertisers who say they don't want to be on Beck's show are leaving Fox. Network spokeswoman Irena Briganti said the companies have simply requested the ads be moved elsewhere and that Fox hasn't lost any revenue.

She wouldn't say whether Fox was benefiting from any anti-anti-Beck backlash, with companies looking to support him. Some Beck supporters have urged fans to express their displeasure at companies for abandoning their man.

Beck supporters have suggested that retaliation might have something to do with ColorofChange.org's campaign. One of the group's founders, Van Jones, now works in the Obama administration and has been criticized by Beck. But Rucker said Jones has nothing to do with ColorofChange.org now and didn't even know about the campaign before it started.

Beck's strong ratings — even at 5 p.m. EDT he often outdraws whatever CNN and MSNBC show in prime-time — make it unlikely Beck is going anywhere even as the list of advertisers avoiding him approaches three dozen.

But it could mean advertising time becomes cheaper on his show than such a large audience would normally command. Some of his show's advertisers last week included a male enhancement pill, a law firm looking to sue on behalf of asbestos victims, a company selling medical supplies to diabetics and a water filter company.

Rucker said ColorofChange.org has contacted about 60 companies regarding Beck, and is heartened by the response.

"It's causing a certain conversation around Beck, which I think is important," he said.
///////////////////////////////////WHO IS THE BIGOT?/////////////////////
Column One: Netanyahu`s perilous statecraft

Caroline Glick - Aug 20, 2009
The Jerusalem Post

This week we discovered that we have been deceived. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu`s principled rejection of US President Barack Obama`s bigoted demand that Israel bar Jews from building new homes and expanding existing ones in Judea and Samaria does not reflect his actual policy.

Construction and Housing Minister Ariel Attias let the cat out of the bag.

Attias said that the government has been barring Jews from building in the areas since it took office four months ago, in the hopes that by preemptively capitulating to US demands, the US will treat Israel better.

And that`s not all. Today Netanyahu is reportedly working in earnest to reach a deal with the Obama administration that would formalize the government`s effective construction ban through 2010. Netanyahu is set to finalize such a deal at his meeting with Obama`s Middle East envoy George Mitchell in London on Wednesday.

Unfortunately, far from treating Israel better as a result of Netanyahu`s willingness to capitulate on the fundamental right of Jews to live and build homes in the land of Israel, the Obama administration is planning to pocket Israel`s concession and then up the ante. Administration officials have stated that their next move will be to set a date for a new international Middle East peace conference that Obama will chair. There, Israel will be isolated and relentlessly attacked as the US, the Arabs, the Europeans, the UN and the Russians all gang up on our representatives and demand that Israel accept the so-called "Arab peace plan."

That deceptively named plan, which Obama has all but adopted as his own, involves Israel committing national suicide in exchange for nothing. The Arab plan - formerly the "Saudi Plan," and before that, the Tom Friedman "stick it to Israel `peace` plan" - calls for Israel to retreat to the indefensible 1949 armistice lines and expel hundreds of thousands of Jews from their homes in Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. It also involves Israel agreeing to cease being a Jewish state by accepting millions of foreign, hostile Arabs as citizens within its truncated borders.

The day an Israeli government accepts the plan - which again will form the basis of the Obama "peace conference" - is the day that the State of Israel signs its own death warrant.

Then there is the other Obama plan in the works. Obama also intends to host an international summit on nuclear security in March 2010. Arab states are already pushing for Israel`s nuclear program to be placed on the agenda.

Together with Obama administration officials` calls for Israel to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty - which would compel Israel to relinquish its purported nuclear arsenal - and their stated interest in having Israel sign the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty - which would arguably force Israel to allow international inspections of its nuclear facility in Dimona - Obama`s planned nuclear conclave will place Israel in an untenable position.

Recognizing the Obama administration`s inherent and unprecedented hostility to Israel, Netanyahu sought to deflect its pressure by giving his speech at Bar-Ilan University in June. There he gave his conditional acceptance of Obama`s most cherished foreign policy goal - the establishment of a Palestinian state in Israel`s heartland.

Netanyahu`s conditions - that the Arabs generally and the Palestinians specifically recognize Israel`s right to exist as a Jewish state; that they relinquish their demand that Israel accept millions of hostile Arabs as citizens under the so-called "right of return"; that the Palestinian state be a "demilitarized" state; and that Arab states normalize their relations with Israel were supposed to put a monkey wrench in Obama`s policy of pressuring Israel.

Since it is obvious that the Arabs do not accept these eminently reasonable conditions, Netanyahu presumed that Obama would be forced to stand down.

What the prime minister failed to take into consideration was the notion that Obama and the Arabs would not act in good faith - that they would pretend to accept at least some of his demands in order to force him to accept all of their`s, and so keep US pressure relentlessly focused on Israel.
Unfortunately, this is precisely what has happened.

Ahead of Obama`s meeting on Tuesday with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Al-Quds al-Arabi reported that Obama has accepted Netanyahu`s call for a demilitarized Palestinian state. Although Netanyahu is touting Obama`s new position as evidence of his own diplomatic prowess, the fact is that Obama`s new position is both disingenuous and meaningless. Obama`s supposed support for a demilitarized Palestinian state is mendacious (A LIE) on two counts. First, Palestinian society is already one of the most militarized societies in the world. According to the World Bank, 43 percent of wages paid by the Palestinian Authority go to Palestinian militias. Since Obama has never called for any fundamental reordering of Palestinian society or for a reform of the PA`s budgetary priorities, it is obvious that he doesn`t have a problem with a militarized Palestinian state.

The second reason his statements in support of a demilitarized Palestinian state are not credible is because one of the central pillars of the Obama administration`s Palestinian policy is its involvement in training of the Fatah-led Palestinian army. US Lt.-Gen. Keith Dayton is overseeing the training of this army in Jordan and pressuring Israel to expand its deployment in Judea and Samaria.

The US claims that the forces it is training will be responsible for counterterror operations and regular police work, and therefore, it is wrong to say that Dayton is raising a Palestinian army. But even if this is true today, there is no reason not to assume that these forces will form the backbone of a future Palestinian army. After all, the Palestinian militias trained by the CIA in the 1990s were trained in counterterror tactics. This then enabled them to serve as the commanders of the Palestinian terror apparatus from 2000 until 2004, when Israel finally defeated them. It is the uncertainty about these forces that renders Obama`s statement meaningless.

And that gets to the heart of the problem with Netanyahu`s conditional support for Palestinian statehood. Far from deflecting pressure on Israel to make further concessions, it trapped Israel into a position that serves none of its vital interests.

For Israel to secure its long-term vital national interests vis-a-vis the Palestinians, it doesn`t need for the US and the Palestinians to declare they agree to a demilitarized state or for a Palestinian leader to announce that he recognizes Israel`s right to exist or even agrees that Israel doesn`t have to commit national suicide by accepting millions of Arab immigrants. For Israel to secure its national interests, Palestinian society needs to be fundamentally reorganized.

As we saw at the Fatah conclave in Bethlehem last week, even if Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas were to accept Netanyahu`s conditions, he wouldn`t be speaking for anyone but himself. Fatah`s conclave - like Hamas`s terror state in Gaza - gave Israel every reason to believe that the Palestinians will continue their war against Israel after pocketing their state in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. There is no Palestinian leader with any following that accepts Israel. Consequently, negotiating the establishment of a Palestinian state before Palestinian society is fundamentally changed is a recipe for disaster.

Furthermore, even if Netanyahu is right to seek an agreement with Mitchell next week, he showed poor negotiating skill by preemptively freezing Jewish construction. Domestically, Netanyahu has lost credibility now that the public knows that he misled it. And by preemptively capitulating, the prime minister showed Obama that he is not a serious opponent. Why should Obama take Netanyahu`s positions seriously if Netanyahu abandons before them before Obama even begins to seriously challenge him?

Beyond the damage Netanyahu`s actions have inflicted on his domestic and international credibility is the damage they have caused to Netanyahu`s ability to refocus US attention and resolve where it belongs.

As the prime minister has repeatedly stated, the Palestinian issue is a side issue.

The greatest impediment to Middle East peace and the greatest threat to international security today is Iran`s nuclear weapons program. A nuclear-armed Iran will all but guarantee that the region will at best be plagued by continuous war, and at worst be destroyed in a nuclear conflagration.

Netanyahu had hoped that his conditional support for Palestinian statehood, and his current willingness to bar Jews from building homes in Judea and Samaria would neutralize US pressure on Israel and facilitate his efforts to convince Obama to recognize and deal rationally with the issue of Iran`s nuclear weapons program. But as Ambassador Michael Oren made clear on Sunday, the opposite has occurred.

In an interview with CNN, Oren said that Israel is "far from even contemplating" a military strike against the Islamic republic`s nuclear installations. He also said, "The government of Israel has supported President Obama in his approach to Iran, initially the engagement, the outreach to Iran."

From this it appears that Israel has not only made no headway in convincing the administration to take Iran seriously. It appears that Jerusalem has joined the administration in accepting a nuclear-armed Iran.
It is possible that Oren purposely misrepresented Israel`s position. But this too would be a disturbing turn of events. Israel gains nothing from lying. Oren`s statement neutralizes domestic pressure on the administration to get serious about Iran. And if Israel attacks Iran`s nuclear installations in the coming months, Oren`s statement will undoubtedly be used by Israel`s detractors to attack the government.

Some critics of Netanyahu from the Right like Ariel Mayor Ron Nachman claim that it may well be time to begin bringing down Netanyahu`s government. They are wrong. We have been down this road before. In 1992, the Right brought down Yitzhak Shamir`s government and brought the Rabin-Peres government to power and Yassir Arafat to the gates of Jerusalem. In 1999, the Right brought down the first Netanyahu government and gave Israel Camp David and the Palestinian terror war.

There is another way. It is being forged by the likes of Vice Premier Moshe Ya`alon on the one hand and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee on the other.

Ya`alon argues that not capitulating to American pressure is a viable policy option for Israel. There is no reason to reach an agreement with Mitchell on the administration`s bigoted demand that Jews not build in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. If the US wants to have a fight with Israel, a fight against American anti-Jewish discrimination is not a bad one for Israel to have.

Ya`alon`s argument was borne out by Huckabee`s visit this week to Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. Huckabee`s trip showed that the administration is not operating in a policy vacuum. There is plenty of strong American support for an Israeli government that would stand up to the administration on the Palestinian issue and Iran alike.

Netanyahu`s policies have taken a wrong turn. But Netanyahu is not Tzipi Livni or Ehud Olmert. He is neither an ideologue nor an opportunist. He understands why what he is doing is wrong. He just needs to be convinced that he has another option.

ISLAMIC PROBLEM: AGREE OR DISAGREE?

What Will a Muslim Europe Look Like?

Posted: 12 Aug 2009 07:45 PM PDT
The Telegraph recently made headlines with a survey that suggested that a fifth of the European Union will be Muslim by 2050. This is if anything an understatement of the situation, since once you subtract Eastern European states and focus in on Western European countries such as England, France and Italy... or Sweden, Islam will comprise a sizable enough minority to be considered a state within a state. And even the most pessimistic statistics will grow gloomier if 75 million Turks inside the presently Islamist Turkey will become part of the European Union.

Meanwhile always eager to get ahead, Russia estimates that Islam will become its predominant religion by 2050. The Russians, both under the USSR and in the Putin era, have done everything they can to try and raise the birth rate, but remains at half that of Uzbekistan, or even war torn Chechnya. With the Russian population set to fall by almost 50 million, to 100 million in 2050, the Muslim birth rate will have made up the surplus. Having tried all the usual financial family incentives and even made an effort at luring back its former Jewish emigrants, Russia is now counting on its state run network of mosques, which can only preach Jihad at America, England and any non-Russian infidels, to maintain control. It is an absurd strategy, but no more so than Europe's own.

While Europe may not boast a population that is by turns dying of alcohol poisoning or trying to escape abroad-- Europe is dying the slow death of socialism instead. High taxes, late marriages and the accompanying low birth rates have hit Europe hard. And attempts to compensate for gaps in the workforce during economic upswings with immigration, has imported the barbarians through the gate, past customs and into every major European city.

The old European is likely to live comfortably, to go abroad on vacations and have plenty of time for hobbies and entertainments. And to be child free, or perhaps one or two indifferently pampered children, if they can find the time. The new European is likely to be named Mohammed, to have twice as many children, if not twice as many wives, and to spend less time entertaining himself at operas and on vacations, and more time building a future for his family.

The old European is likely to have a limited interest in church or synagogue. His children may even hold an open hostility toward organized religion. The churches and synagogues will pursue his grandchildren with all sorts of gimmicks in the hopes of getting them to show up, but even if they do, there will be very little there to hold them. The new European will have a steady mosque. Outside the mosque he will listen to Islamic lectures on his media player or cell phone. Family ties will create strong religious bonds through the next generation, and there will always be a brother with a shiny knife for any daughter who stays off the path.

The end result is not very hard to project at all. Europe's left of center parties have embraced Muslims as a voting public, speeding their legalization, and what can only be euphemistically described as integration. But it is not so much Muslims being integrated into Europe, as Europe becoming integrated into the Islamic Ummah.

Europe's governments have increasingly chosen to bow to the inevitable, accepting the reality of a Muslim takeover, while imagining that it can happen on their terms. From finding common ground with domestic Muslim populations through Europeans accepting some Muslims customs, while Muslims in turn accept some European practices; to madder schemes such as Sarkozy's Mediterranean Union-- all these are attempts by dying European states to cope with the coming reality of a Muslim Europe.

Such plans all center on the fallacious premise that a non-Muslim minority can rule over a Muslim majority through anything but constant subterfuge or brute force, the two elements that Russia has been steadily applying to try and control its growing Muslim population.

The European states putting their hope in integration are missing out on the reality that they're trying to bail out the boat with a bucket that has a hole in it. When Muslims are successfully integrated, their birth rate drops. This might sound like a good thing, but all it means is that the old fashioned kind of Muslims will always out-reproduce both Europeans and any integrated Muslims. From the standpoint of natural selection, integrating Muslims confers Europe's birth rate disadvantage on them. Meanwhile there will be no shortage of Pakistani, Moroccan, Somalia and assorted other old fashioned Muslims just off the boat, and eager to take the infidel and any of his lackeys for all they've got.

Furthermore one cannot wave a magic wand and solve the Ummah problem with some mingling or a headscarf ban. There are cultural and religious divisions that will not be easily leapfrogged with all the well meaning rhetoric in the world. Particularly when that well meaning rhetoric continues to insist that there's nothing the matter with Islam in the first place, and that any proposed solution should involve teaching Europeans to be more tolerant. Well Europeans have already learned to tolerate millions of Muslims. By 2050 their tolerance will be getting a real workout. Of course by then it will mainly be a question of Muslims learning to tolerate them. Arguably that is the question already.

So what does the future hold for Europe? Constantinople offers some clues, but even with Turkey again on its doorstep, Europe is not Byzantium. There will be no wars, only a slow gradual takeover that is well under way.

The attempts to find common ground on the European side, are nothing more than a transition to Islamic rule on the Muslim side. It is a transition that begins with European institutions adapting to Muslim customs and laws. Much as colonial institutions evolved and took over from European ones, the process will continue within Europe itself, as banks, police forces and social services agencies will become more and more Muslim.

Muslim holidays will take on a public profile equivalent to those of native ones. Muslim prominence in politics will rise, moving from position to position. Muslim councilors will give way to Muslim mayors to Muslim prime ministers. It will of course all be done with a great deal of talk about how wonderful all this change is, and how tolerant and open we are now. "Isn't it historic this new Europe", they will say. And it is historic indeed. There are historic occasions at the end of history, just as there are at the beginning. And an excess of historic occasions always raises the question of whether it is the beginning or the end of a history which we bear witness to.

All the history of course will not blot away all the violence. Muslim areas will expand as black holes of crime, governed by no police but Muslim police. There bombs will be built, rabid sermons delivered, stolen cars dropped off at chop shops and drugs smuggled through for distribution outside its borders. Murders, gang rapes, and every sort of crime will happen there without knowledge or recourse. These black holes will also pour forth a constant outcry of racism. And every now and then when the mood strikes them, the "youth" will pour forth to burn and loot.

In time the cries of racism and the riots will give way to calls for an autonomous territory, a state within a state. And the politicians will nod their heads and say, "Yes, this is the best solution to the problem. It isn't as if we control the territory as it is." And then Europe will have its own Palestinian states in Paris and Oslo, in Manchester and Brussels. States that will soon become countries in waiting, from which rockets will shell, suicide bombers will go forth, and the blood will flow, until enough compromises are made to Sharia law and to Muslim rule, that Europe will finally become Eurabia.

The date cannot be predicted with any degree of certainty. The larger variable is immigration which hinges on global economics and domestic policy. The smaller variable depends on third and fourth generation Muslim birth rates. And then there are the wild cards, Turkey's admission to the EU, a nuclear war between India and Pakistan, the collapse of Iraq sending forth a new flood of refugees, and many others. There is the yet uncertain question of what percentage of Europeans will adopt Islam. And there is the question of what impact European emigration will have on these figures. But predicting dates is for fortune tellers. Predicting trends however does not require a crystal ball, but the ability to calculate the forward motion of moving objects.

As long as the European birth rate keeps falling, and Europe's borders remain open, and its politicians remain unwilling to begin exporting its former guest workers back to their countries of origin, Europe is doomed. The date may be unknown, but the trajectory is all too unfortunately clear.

When it comes to Muslims, Europe, Israel, America and every country infected with the Islamist plague retains only one real option, to deport them or to surrender to them. Europe has chosen to surrender. Israel has chosen to partition itself, thereby only dragging out the pain. America has chosen to pretend the problem doesn't apply to it. And by doing so, all of them are paving the way for their own destruction.

MORE COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT

AND WHAT ARE THEIR CONNECTIONS WITH FASCIST REGIMES? WHY DO THEY SUBSCRIBE TO ANTI-JEWISH HATE? AND WHY DON'T DEMOCRATIC PEACE LOVING FOLKS LEAVE THIS ORGANIZATION?
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Out of WAC: World Archaeological Congress Excludes Israel
by Yechezkel Laing Archaeology Org Excludes Israel

The World Archaeological Congress (WAC), presently convening a conference of archaeologists from all over the world, has excluded Israel even though the conference is taking place in Ramallah.

The congress, entitled "Overcoming Structural Violence", did not invite the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) despite the fact that some of the topics being discussed at the conference deal with regions in Jerusalem where an archaeological excavation is being conducted exclusively by the IAA.

In a statement to the media the IAA said that "Instead of Archaeology, WAC is talking politics. In this way the organization is introducing the conflict into the professional side of archaeology. The IAA operates with complete transparency, according to the guidelines of Israeli law and meticulously maintains the highest professional standards in accordance with the most stringent rules and without bias. There can be no doubt that the organizers of the conference set out with the goal in mind of inserting political issues into the professional archaeological experience."

Dr. Uzi Dahari, Deputy Director of the Israel Antiquities Authority, added, "An international archaeological congress does not act this way. The congress came to a region where there is a conflict and chooses to present one side of the story. It is forbidden that such a thing should happen."

Dahari emphasized that it is professionally unethical for an international archaeological forum to tour sites without the knowledge of the archaeologists who are excavating them. "In addition, the congress uses the names of sites as they are referred to by one side only," he said. (The congress is referring to the Temple Mount in English as Haram al Sharif.)

"It would be best if the World Archaeological Congress would focus on archaeology and not on politics," Dahari said.

REFORM: HOW DO THEY SUPPORT ISRAEL?

Reform Movement Voices Support for Israeli Arabs

by Zalman Nelson

(IsraelNN.com) The Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) voiced its support this week for the Arab citizens of Israel and denounced any laws “that would limit the citizenship rights of and equal governmental services to non-Jewish citizens of Israel.” The move came in response to recent efforts to require an oath of loyalty for all Israeli citizens.

A Knesset bill was proposed earlier this year that would have required all Israeli citizens to take an oath of loyalty. Such a pledge is not unusual in countries around the world: the Pledge of Allegiance was recited each morning by United States public school children until very recently.

The proposed requirement for Israeli citizens to pledge their allegiance to the State came following increases in both the number of attacks by Israeli Arabs terrorists against Jews, and anti-Zionist rhetoric coming from the Israeli Arab community. Recent polls have revealed that a large majority of Israeli Arabs reject the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish State, and as much as 73 percent oppose the State of Israel.

An umbrella body for some 2,000 American Reform leaders, the CCAR's announcement endorsed the mission statement of the Inter-Agency Task Force on Israeli Arab Issues and lent its full support to “all efforts to realize the promise of full and equal citizenship rights and privileges for all Arab citizens of Israel, as envisioned in Israel’s Declaration of Independence.”

The CCAR statement accused Israel of providing its Israeli Arabs with civil rights and citizenship benefits “not on par with those offered to Jewish citizens,” and demanded equal educational opportunity for non-Jewish children in Israel. “Even if ‘separate but equal’ is preferred by both Jews and Arabs in Israel, that separate education must truly be equal, including funding at every level,” read the statement.

At the famous Pittsburgh Conference of 1885, the Reform movement officially decided to oppose Zionism and declared that it “disavowed a hope or goal of returning to Zion”. The movement changed its position after the State of Israel was founded in 1948.

The CCAR was founded in 1889 and calls itself the organized rabbinate of Reform Judaism.

WHY IS YALE AFRAID?

Why Won't Yale Identify the 'Experts' Who Advocated Pulling the Illustrations of Muhammad?

by Winfield Myers • Aug 14, 2009 at 2:49 pm

http://www.campus-watch.org/blog/2009/08/why-wont-yale-identify-the-experts-who-advocated

Why is Yale hiding behind the decision of anonymous "experts" to defend its decision to pull all illustrations of Muhammad from Jytte Klausen's forthcoming book, The Cartoons that Shook the World? What does it have to hide? Who was behind the decision?

Yesterday's New York Times reported Yale University Press's (YUP) decision to pull both the Danish cartoons of Muhammad along with all other illustrations of him slated to appear in Klausen's book, which examines—remarkably—the very controversy the 12 cartoons sparked in 2006, five months after their publication in the Danish newspaper Jylland- Posten in September, 2005.

The Times said that YUP and Yale University "consulted two dozen authorities, including diplomats and experts on Islam and counterterrorism, and the recommendation was unanimous" that no illustrations should appear. It quotes John Donatich, YUP's director, as saying the experts' recommendation to withdraw all images of Muhammad was "overwhelming and unanimous."

Not only is Yale withholding the identity of the experts from the public; it refused to share them with Klausen herself. According to the Times, Klausen was told she could read a summary of the experts' opinions "only if she signed a confidentiality agreement that forbade her from talking about them." She refused and called it a "gag order."

A Yale spokeswoman added that some experts wished originally to keep their identities secret, although some "subsequently agreed to be identified."

The American Association of University Professors issued a strong statement condemning YUP. The first line sums up their opinion of what Yale's actions, in effect, say about its commitment to academic freedom: "We do not negotiate with terrorists. We just accede to their anticipated demands." Inside Higher Ed, a web-based publication, today published a statement released by Yale--perhaps in response to the AAUP statement--defending its actions. Note the attempt to shift responsibility away from Yale and onto the backs of the experts:

As an institution deeply committed to free expression, we were inclined to publish the cartoons and other images as proposed. The original publication of the cartoons, however, was an occasion for violent incidents worldwide that resulted in over 200 deaths. Republication of them has repeatedly resulted in violent incidents, including as recently as 2008, some three years after their original publication and long after the images had been available on the Internet. These facts led us to consult extensively with experts in the intelligence, national security, law enforcement, and diplomatic fields, as well as leading scholars in Islamic studies and Middle East studies. All confirmed that the republication of the cartoons by the Yale University Press ran a serious risk of instigating violence, and nearly all advised that publishing other illustrations of the Prophet Muhammad in the context of this book about the Danish cartoon controversy raised similar risk. We recognize that inclusion of the cartoons would complement the book's text with a convenient visual reference for the reader, who otherwise would have to consult the Internet to view the images [emphasis added].

This statement smells of cowardice and compromise. We wanted to do the right thing, it claims, and publish the illustrations which, after all, are the subject of the book. But after we spoke to these experts (and you can't just ignore the advice of experts), we figured we'd skip out on our obligations to our author and readers and hide behind their advice, which we appreciate an awful lot.

It may also reveal an internal disagreement at Yale, with YUP personnel who favored inclusion of the illustrations overridden by higher administrators fearful of appearing insensitive to Muslims or being held responsible for any violence resulting from the publication of the cartoons.

If that's the case, let me invite anyone with access to the list to send it my way (myers@meforum.org). Confidentiality—and satisfaction—guaranteed.

An important and disturbing youtube presentation

The real world.

What can we each do about this?



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDVaJXmCIjk



It is important that we understand the scope of the threat.

The Path To The Final Solution

Comments:


I believe the first thing that must be done is to bring it into the light, and not let it continue to fester under the surface, as it did in Europe before WWII.
This video is my attempt to raise people's awareness that this is not just something from our past - it continues today.

It's never too late, but there will never be an end to human nature... so the struggle will go on.

Reply

I am curious how the press (my own horrid profession) gets away with ignoring these pictures, or their implication.
KafirAlalazoo

Reply

Well, I'd guess they do it the same way all of the women's rights groups remain silent about the treatment of women under Islam.

It's easy to remain silent, and most people have short attention spans and a limited scope of interest. They will not go looking for it.

We are all guilty of this to some degree.
Until 9/11, I had my head firmly implanted in my own rectum.