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News Item:

[British Prime Minister Gordon] Brown told reporters that Britain will always be a genuine friend of Israel, and guaranteed that the Jewish State’s security is of top concern for the United Kingdom. He added that he understood the obstacles [in the region], but “also the opportunities” that lie ahead.

Britain hasn’t been a friend of Israel since the Balfour Declaration (1917), which it has been trying to take back ever since. Britain turned its back on the Jews in the 1930’s when it closed the door on Jewish immigration to Palestine just as Hitler began his genocidal project. Later, near the end of the mandate, it tilted sharply toward the Arabs and aided them in their war against the new Jewish state.

Earlier Sunday, Brown called on Israel to stop settlement construction, and offered additional financial support and police training to the Palestinian Authority government.

Britain here demonstrates its genuine friendship with Israel by arming and training its enemies, just as it did for the Jordanian Arab Legion in 1948.

The British leader said economic prosperity was the key to peace, and urged an easing of Israeli travel restrictions in the West Bank that have hindered commerce.

He promised British support in developing housing, industrial parks and small businesses…

Brown said he supported those who understand that “the prospect of prosperity encourages people that the return to violence is something that is an unacceptable price to pay, and something that should be rejected.”

Of course, it’s all due to ‘Israeli restrictions’, not mentioning the reason that these restrictions exist. If there weren’t ‘restrictions’, would the Palestinian economy thrive? Take, for example, Gaza when Israel totally withdrew all her forces, and Jewish donors presented the Palestinians with a profitable system of hothouses growing flowers for the European market. There were no ‘restrictions’, but in an orgy of hatred the hothouses were destroyed and the Palestinians went into the rocket business full time.

As if it had anything to do with economics! Palestinian politics is not the politics of rational decision-making, in which the goal is to improve the lot of the population. Rather, it is a contest between extremist groups, gangs with guns competing to see who can kill the most Jews, which group can get the most with the least compromise, and who is most likely to bring the about day that all of Israel is replaced by an Arab state, the nakba reversed.

It’s hard to believe that sophisticated people like Gordon Brown actually believe that they can move the Palestinians away from violence and toward a desire for peace with aid of any sort — particularly military assistance (Palestinian ‘police’ are more like an army than a police force). Certainly the billions that have already been pumped into the Palestinian hole have not done so in the slightest.

My conclusion is that they do not actually believe this, but present it for public consumption; the real motivation is to appear to be doing something that will lead to an Israeli withdrawal from the territories. This is demanded by the Arab world and by a large segment of Brown’s constituency.

Brown’s first stop in Israel was Yad Vashem, the country’s official Holocaust memorial, where he attended a ceremony for the Jewish victims of Nazi Germany.

Sympathy for dead Jews is cheap, even free. Standing up for the self-determination and security of live ones is another matter entirely, one on which Britain historically has a very poor record.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Gordon Brown, Britain, Palestinians

Mahmoud Abbas appoints Hamas’ Ismail Haniyeh leader of short-lived unity government (2007) as the Original Terrorist looks on approvingly from above

Barack Obama is embarking on a Grand Tour of Europe and the Middle East. Among other places, he will go to Ramallah to meet Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Why?

If Mahmoud Abbas were a great leader, a Palestinian Nelson Mandela as it were, then it would make sense. But he’s not: he’s a man who thinks the murderers of children are heroes, and  his goal, unlike Mandela’s desire for reconciliation, is the ethnic cleansing of the Land of Israel of Jews.

If Mahmoud Abbas, although not a Palestinian Mandela, were at least a representative of his people, then it would make sense. But the majority of Palestinians openly support Hamas, and most of those who follow Abbas are paid to do so.

In fact, Abbas is no more or less than a second-rate terror gangster that the Bush Administration — in need of a Palestinian ‘leader’ in order to meet its commitments to Europe and Saudi Arabia — has chosen to prop up, with the help of a compliant Israel.  Without US money and IDF protection, Abbas would be gone in a flash.

The Bushies say that we have to do this, otherwise we’ll get Hamas.  But the truth of the matter is that we will get Hamas anyway, unless Israel finds the will (and gets a green light) to go after Hamas and wipe it out.

The NY Times claims that Obama has 300 foreign policy advisers. You’d think that at least a few of them would be clear-sighted enough to understand this. After all, why continue a “failed Bush policy”?

But if Obama is elected, chances are — judging from his puerile misunderstanding of the nature of the common enemies of the US and Israel  — that we will be lucky if his policy is no worse than Bush’s.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Ramallah, Mahmoud Abbas, Barack Obama

Now the Hezbollah deal has been consummated and Israel has received the bodies of its soldiers. Child-murderer Samir Kuntar is free, enjoying a hero’s welcome in Lebanon, feted not only by Hezbollah’s Nasrallah but also by the President and Prime Minister of Lebanon, and the President of the Palestinian Authority (PA).

I was strongly opposed to the deal because of its sheer irrationality. Didn’t it invite more kidnappings? Didn’t it ensure that the price that will be paid for Gilad Schalit will be even more outrageous? Didn’t it legitimize the terrorist Hezbollah even further?

But maybe it presents an opportunity to break through the fog of lies created by our enemies — lies about their own goals and motivations and about the nature of Israel, Israelis and Jews.

To everyone who thinks that terrorism against Israel is the product of ‘extremists’  and that Israel needs to make peace with ‘moderates’ like PA President Mahmoud Abbas, Lebanese PM Fuad Saniora, etc.: How moderate can they be when they applaud terrorist murderers Samir Kuntar and Dalal Mughrabi, hold them up as heroes and examples?

To everyone who’s said that the conflict is primarily about human rights: Do you still believe this?

The contrast between Israeli and Arab society has never been so stark. Listen to an al-Jazeera TV host tell us what a Palestinian state would look like:

Ghassan bin Jiddo: Twelve men, led by a woman called Dalal Al-Maghrabi, managed to establish the State of Palestine, after the whole world had denied them their right to do so. They turned a bus, going from Haifa to Tel Aviv, into a temporary capital of the State of Palestine. They raised the white, red, and black flag at the front of the bus, singing, shouting, and dancing like children on a school trip.

There were real children on a trip on that bus, and 13 of them died in the temporary capital of Palestine, shot or burned to death by Mughrabi and her men. This is the peaceful Palestinian state that Arab societies yearn for. And this is the kind of declaration of statehood they cheer about.

Hezbollah, Fatah, Hamas, et al. have all said that the deal is a great victory for the ‘resistance’, showing how much stronger and more resolute they are than the Israelis, who stupidly care enough about the bodies of soldiers that they would suffer enormous humiliation and strategic damage to get them back.

On the contrary.

It illustrates the difference between civilized people and…something else.

There will be another confrontation between Isarel and Hezbollah, and soon enough with Hamas as well. Israeli soldiers will go into battle knowing the nature of the nation standing behind them as well as the nature of the enemy.  The results will speak for themselves.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Arabs, Hezbollah

Barack Obama is the target of this well-aimed blow, but his thinking is exemplary of that of the majority of so-called “opinion leaders” in the US: Journalists, academics, and politicians. 

Mr. Obama, Meet Mr. Jihadi
By Barry Rubin

Barack Obama says regarding his thoughts after 9/11:

The essence of this tragedy, it seems to me, derives from a fundamental absence of empathy on the part of the attackers: an inability to imagine, or connect with, the humanity and suffering of others. Such a failure of empathy, such numbness to the pain of a child or the desperation of a parent, is not innate; nor, history tells us, is it unique to a particular culture, religion, or ethnicity. It may find expression in a particular brand of violence, and may be channeled by particular demagogues or fanatics. Most often, though, it grows out of a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair.

and that my friends is what you get with a Harvard education.

It is sort of like the famous scene from Indiana Jones in reverse.

You may remember that Jones is confronted by a sword wielding powerful warrior (Afghan-type clothes) who swings his sword at him showing off his great skill. Jones pulls out his gun and shoots the guy once. This brought a big laugh when I saw the film in a theatre. This is called: Western technology wins.

Now here’s my version. Jones, the epitome of modern sophisticated man in his expensive clothes and superior education, confronts the man with a brilliant series of arguments as to why it is in the warrior’s interest to focus instead on raising his living standards, make peace, and get his own state. The warrior pulls out a small knife and cuts off Jones’s head. Jones’s colleagues then say that Jones had it coming due to his past sins, that we must understand the suffering that led to this violence, this shows the need for more negotiations and concessions, etc.

This is called: asymmetric warfare.

While Obama poses as the great cosmopolitan there is something very much in common between his statement on the September 11 terrorists and what he has to say on the rural and small town Americans, who he believes are attracted to their views only through low living standards, ignorance, and the follies of religion.

No one can think in a manner different from him. No one can hold another belief system and act on it. They are merely evincing, to use the Marxist term for it, false consciousness. He will educate them both directly by material goods and by proper information.

Ironically, this is the epitome of imperialist thinking and it is also intolerant and demeaning in the way that historic racism was. To run a country you must understand that other people have their own set of beliefs and interests; that they think differently from you; that you just cannot buy them off; that their behavior is not just a result of your mistakes in the past but of their own history and culture (which determines even how they react to your own behavior).

Not to mention the fact that the September 11 hijackers mostly came from wealthy families and the wealthiest of them all was Usama bin Ladin.

He might have grown up partly in Indonesia, he may have lived as a Muslim until age 10, but Obama’s mentality is extraordinarily unsuited to understand the Third World, Middle East (or other dictatorships), terrorists (and their far more numerous supporters), or even the American people as a whole.

Perhaps Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran put it best, if I might paraphrase him: Anyone who thinks we staged a revolution because of the price of watermelons is a fool.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), with Walter Laqueur (Viking-Penguin); the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan); A Chronological History of Terrorism, with Judy Colp Rubin, (Sharpe); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley). To read and subscribe to MERIA and other GLORIA Center publications or to order books, visit http://www.gloriacenter.org.

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama, terrorism, 9/11

News item:

[Palestinians] heaped praise on Lebanese prisoner Samir Kuntar, who killed four people in 1979, and Dalal Mughrabi, the Fatah woman who led the 1978 Coastal Road Massacre that claimed the lives of 36 people.

Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza took to the streets to celebrate the prisoner deal. Chanting slogans in support of Hizbullah, many distributed candy and pledged to continue the fight until all Palestinian prisoners were freed.

Palestinians also demonstrated in support of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who has been charged with genocide in the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who is currently visiting Malta, welcomed the prisoner swap and sent greetings to Kuntar.

[A top Fatah official] described Kuntar as a “big struggler” and Mughrabi as a “martyr who led one of the greatest freedom fighters’ operations in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

“Samir, Mahmoud Abbas here. I just wanted to congratulate you on getting out of the Zionist jail. All of us Palestinians are proud of your big struggling against Zionist oppressor 4-year-old-girls.”

“I hope it doesn’t bother you too much that you are sharing the spotlight with Dalal Mughrabi, who, although a woman and probably a whore, killed 27 Zionists (13 of whom were children), as well as Hassan al-Bashir, although the millions that he murdered were only black Africans who are worthless except as slaves.”

“But you have to admire someone who commits a big genocide, don’t you, Samir? Did you know that I was an admirer of the greatest freedom fighter of them all, Adolf Hitler? I even wrote a book defending him.”

“We are having a great party today, just like we did on 9/11, celebrating the defeat of the racist Zionists. Keep up the struggle!”

The Palestinians: truly a class act.

Technorati Tags: Palestinians, genocide, Samir Kuntar, Abbas, Dalal Mughrabi, terrorism