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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; affair</title>
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		<title>Consequences of the Petraeus Scandal</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/alan-w-dowd/the-consequences-of-the-petraeus-scandal/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-consequences-of-the-petraeus-scandal</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 15 Nov 2012 04:45:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Alan W. Dowd]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=165262</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The political and -- geopolitical -- ramifications. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/alan-w-dowd/the-consequences-of-the-petraeus-scandal/davidpetraeus_affair_1280_110119340_1_480x360/" rel="attachment wp-att-165286"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-165286" title="DavidPetraeus_Affair_1280_110119340_1_480x360" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/DavidPetraeus_Affair_1280_110119340_1_480x360-450x337.jpg" alt="" width="315" height="236" /></a>The unfolding scandal surrounding former CIA Director David Petraeus has many layers, far more than we can see today. But even at this early hour, some things are clear. For ease of discussion, let’s put these things—“known knowns” as Don Rumsfeld would call them—under four broad headings: the human, the military, the political and the geopolitical dimensions of the Petraeus scandal.</p>
<p><em>Human</em></p>
<p>A month ago, putting those last two words—“Petraeus” and “scandal”—next to each other or even in the same sentence or article would have been unthinkable. Such was his stature and public image. But this sad story is yet another reminder that all of us have feet of clay; all of us are capable of doing great and inspiring things as well as dumb and ugly things. Our reputations are only as good as the depth of our next mistake. And as Petraeus now knows, the bigger the reputation, the bigger the fall.</p>
<p>To be sure, a key contributing factor in Petraeus’s outsized reputation was his impressive record, which we will discuss in a moment. But another contributing factor was the notoriety and even celebrity that blossomed around him, which he appears to have cultivated in some ways. (Just consider the book written by Ms. Broadwell.) This “celebrification” of military and political leaders is not new, but it is reaching epidemic levels. And it’s unhealthy for the republic, especially in relation to military leaders.</p>
<p>It doesn’t have to be this way. As Derek Leebaert reminds us in his essential history of the Cold War, <em>The Fifty Year Wound</em>, after Gen. George Marshall ended his career of military and public service, he “joined no corporate board…gave no paid speeches” and refused a million-dollar book deal, “at least the equivalent of a $7-million book deal today.” Marshall’s answer to the offer: “The people of the United States have paid me for my services.”</p>
<p>Douglas MacArthur, who was indeed a celebrity general, counseled that America’s military should stand “serene, calm, aloof,” always guided by “those magic words: duty, honor, country.”</p>
<p>Fueled by that very-human flaw known as pride, celebrity poisons that formula of effective command, as MacArthur and Petraeus learned in different ways.</p>
<p><em>Military</em></p>
<p>By resigning and taking responsibility for his lapse in judgment, Petraeus did the right thing. But by doing the wrong thing, he jeopardized his reputation and capsized his career—a career that was far from over.</p>
<p>Petraeus came into the public’s field of vision at a time when nothing was going right in Iraq—and virtually no one thought the Iraq project could be salvaged. But that’s exactly what Petraeus did. After rewriting the U.S. military’s counterinsurgency manual, he put it to the test in Baghdad, Fallujah and Ramadi; altered the course of the war; saved Iraq from itself; and rescued America from defeat. President Obama then asked Petraeus to make lightning strike twice by repeating in Afghanistan what he accomplished in Iraq. And then, the president tapped Petraeus to work his counter-insurgency and counter-terror magic at the CIA.</p>
<p>Petraeus was remarkably suited for the post-9/11 campaign of campaigns, able to fuse together intelligence, diplomacy, counterinsurgency and kinetic operations to wage a fusion war. Before Petraeus took his CIA post, a veterans group was even pushing the President to award Petraeus a fifth star for his exceptional command and leadership during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.</p>
<p>At barely 60 years old, Petraeus had fought and vanquished America’s enemies on several fronts. No one will ever know what this outstanding general officer might have done had his career not been cut short by his misconduct.</p>
<p>This isn’t to say that people don’t deserve second chances, but after falling from such a high perch, it seems unlikely that Petraeus will ask for a second chance to lead in a public way.</p>
<p><em>Political</em></p>
<p>That brings us to some of the political dimensions of this scandal. A Petraeus run for the presidency or pick as vice president seems remote now, as does a role for Petraeus as defense secretary or Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman. Fair or not, his indiscretion, in effect, disqualifies him from consideration for these roles because it could have compromised issues related to intelligence, national security, etc.</p>
<p>This invites comparison to the Clinton scandal, of course. Perhaps the most that can be said in this regard is that after he recognized his failing, Petraeus had a sense of honor and resigned for the good of his family and country.</p>
<p>The other political dimension at play here is far more important to the nation. After all, this is a scandal within a scandal. It pays to recall that Petraeus knew a great deal about the Benghazi scandal. Petraeus made it clear that his agency did not cover its ears when Americans under fire called out for help. “No one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need; claims to the contrary are simply inaccurate,” a CIA official <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/10/26/cia-operators-were-denied-request-for-help-during-benghazi-attack-sources-say/">declared</a> as the White House began to search for a scapegoat. Doubtless, that statement was released with Petraeus’s assent.</p>
<p><a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/petraeus-personally-investigated-benghazi-attack-libya/story?id=17706615#.UKOYi4fXaHy">ABC</a> News reports that “Petraeus traveled to Libya to conduct his own review of the Benghazi attack…While in Tripoli, he personally questioned the CIA station chief and other CIA personnel who were in Benghazi on Sept. 11.” This was just weeks before the sex-scandal story broke—conveniently two days after the presidential election.</p>
<p>Some, like Lt. Col. Ralph Peters (USA RET), think Petraeus knew so much that the scandal was used to keep him quiet. “The timing is just too perfect for the Obama administration,” Peters recently said in an <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/11/09/lt_col_ralph_peters_on_petraeus_timing_is_just_too_perfect.html">interview</a>. “Just as the administration claimed it was purely coincidence that our Benghazi consulate was attacked on the anniversary of September 11th. Now it’s purely coincidence that this affair—extra-marital affair—surfaces right after the election, not before, but right after, but before the intelligence chiefs go to Capitol Hill to get grilled. As an old intelligence analyst…the way I read this—I could be totally wrong, this is my interpretation—is that the administration was unhappy with Petraeus not playing ball 100 percent on their party-line story…I don&#8217;t like conspiracy theories, I may be totally wrong, but the timing of this, again, right after the election and right before Petraeus is supposed to get grilled on Capitol Hill, it really smells.”</p>
<p>In fact, ABC reports that “Petraeus is telling friends he does not think he should testify.”</p>
<p><em>Geopolitical</em></p>
<p>Finally, there is the geopolitical dimension. Considered alongside the Secret Service sex scandals and a number of general officers being relieved of command for various indiscretions, the unfolding and widening Petraeus scandal conveys a lack of seriousness, lack of judgment, lack of restraint and lack of propriety among people in key leadership positions—people who should possess all of these traits. It sends a terrible message to the world. Friends will wonder about decision making and stability in Washington, and foes could try to exploit the distractions, disorder and discontinuity.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>Petraeus Scandal Means Media Can No Longer Ignore Benghazi</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/rick-esenberg/petraeus-scandal-means-media-can-no-longer-ignore-benghazi/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=petraeus-scandal-means-media-can-no-longer-ignore-benghazi</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/rick-esenberg/petraeus-scandal-means-media-can-no-longer-ignore-benghazi/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 14 Nov 2012 04:43:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Rick Esenberg]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=165130</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The general will eventually testify -- and the fallout will be magnified because of his resignation.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/rick-esenberg/petraeus-scandal-means-media-can-no-longer-ignore-benghazi/1111_petraeus_630x420/" rel="attachment wp-att-165135"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-165135" title="1111_petraeus_630x420" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/1111_petraeus_630x420-450x339.jpg" alt="" width="315" height="237" /></a>The bar for scandals has been getting pretty high. When I was a kid, a president was forced from office because he tried to cover up illegal behavior by his subordinates. As Nixon put it, “mistakes were made” and they proved to be the end of him. He richly deserved it.</p>
<p>Twenty-five years later, we countenanced a president who committed felony perjury because it was &#8220;just about sex&#8221; and the Dow Jones was up. Until now, most of the legacy media showed little interest in the Obama administration’s apparently deliberate attempt to obscure the nature of the attack on our consulate in Benghazi. We must be a kinder and gentler nation today. “Mistakes,” at least by Democrats, seem much easier to forgive.</p>
<p>The Benghazi scandal, until very recently, seemed to be a prime example of the mainstream’s media determination to see no evil when it might harm a favored president. In a rare moment that was both memorable and lucid, Joe Biden struck upon one of the few positive themes of the Obama campaign. “General Motors is alive and Osama bin Laden is dead.” Those nasty old terrorists are on the run. The president’s amazing name and Jedi-like powers of persuasion (“this is not the jihad you are looking for”) had brought about the Arab Spring. We’re safe now. We are now post-9/11.</p>
<p>But the theme threatened to unravel on, of all days, September 11, 2012 with the organized attack on our consulate in Benghazi. Within 24 hours, the CIA station in Libya and other sources close to the attack seem to have known what really happened. Nevertheless, the administration – whether deliberately or from confirmation bias &#8211; set out to create the impression that this was not an organized attack by Islamic terrorists who were supposed to no longer exist. They suggested it was simply a protest against a “despicable” on-line video denigrating the Prophet that got out of hand. In a creepy display of moral equivalence, the President’s surrogates suggested that there was no excuse for the (nonexistent) protesters or the blasphemous filmmaker.  Even CIA Director David Petraeus appears to have supported the cover story in a briefing on Capitol Hill several days after the attack.</p>
<p>As that story unraveled and questions began to arise regarding the failure of the administration to come to the aid of the besieged consulate, it finally conceded that there was no protest. It turns out to have been those terrorists again. In Watergate terms, this was a “modified limited hangout.” Admit some of the truth within a haze of misdirection and hope no one notices. The mainstream media was too eager to comply.</p>
<p>But everything may have changed last Friday. It was then that we learned that a couple of our most decorated military commanders and at least one of their female acquaintances have been acting like the cast of the HBO series “Girls.” Petraeus turns out to have been having an affair with his biographer.  The biographer, herself married with two small children, allegedly had come to see a female friend of the Petraeus family as a romantic rival and began to send her threatening e-mails. Our current commander in Afghanistan, a man known as the “warrior monk,” is being investigated for sending an inordinately large number of “inappropriate” e-mails to the aforementioned friend and suspected rival. Insert your own bad pun.</p>
<p>It turns out that even the best of us are fallen beings.</p>
<p>Sex and lies and videotape and terrorists. This is something that simply cannot be ignored and it deepens the Benghazi plot. Officials in the Justice Department apparently knew that the Director of the CIA was compromised in this way since last summer but did not tell the President until after the election.  Even if that is true, it does not make the matter much better. Shouldn’t the President of the United States – even one engaged in the critical business of keeping his job – know that the government’s top intelligence official is ripe for blackmail?</p>
<p>It may get worse. Petraeus knew that his philandering had been exposed at the time that he briefed Congress. But he apparently still thought that he might be able to keep his job. Could that have affected a briefing that was apparently at odds with the facts on the ground? You want to think not, but the question is unavoidable.</p>
<p>Many are struck by the fact that the revelation of the affair and ensuing resignation seems to have come in a sweet spot for the administration – after the election and before Petraeus was scheduled to testify before a congressional oversight committee.  That testimony was cancelled and Petraeus himself apparently thinks he need not testify.</p>
<p>He’s fooling himself.  Members on both sides of the aisle are making it quite clear that he will testify whether he wants to or not. Resignation does not absolve one of responsibility.</p>
<p>Mistakes were made. It remains to be seen just what they were and what the consequences will be.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>Was Petraeus Sacrificed for Obama?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/matthew-vadum/was-petraeus-sacrificed-for-obama/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=was-petraeus-sacrificed-for-obama</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 13 Nov 2012 04:55:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Matthew Vadum]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[The knives were out for the general for quite some time. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/matthew-vadum/was-petraeus-sacrificed-for-obama/general-petraeus/" rel="attachment wp-att-164975"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-164975" title="general-petraeus" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/general-petraeus-419x350.jpg" alt="" width="293" height="245" /></a>As the scandal regarding the Obama administration’s deadly bungling in Benghazi, Libya, begins to heat up, suddenly CIA director David Petraeus is out, felled by his own sex scandal.</p>
<p>Complicating matters further, Ronald Kessler <a href="http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/petraeus-affair-fbi-investigation/2012/11/11/id/463697/">reports</a> at Newsmax that “Senior FBI officials suppressed disclosure of the highly sensitive case, apparently to avoid embarrassment to Obama during his re-election campaign.”</p>
<p>Congressman Peter T. King (R-N.Y.), who is chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that the details of the Petraeus situation that have been reported by the media so far don’t make sense. “It seems this [investigation] has been going on for several months, and yet now it appears that they’re saying the FBI did not realize until Election Day that Gen. Petraeus was involved. It just doesn’t add up,” said King.</p>
<p>According to the administration, the Petraeus resignation makes the ex-CIA chief unavailable to testify in Congress this week about what the administration knew and when it knew it. Acting CIA director Michael Morrell is now expected to testify Thursday before the House and Senate intelligence committees behind closed doors.</p>
<p>Congressman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), a member of the House Judiciary Committee’s panel on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2012/11/10/Rep-Gowdy-Either-Petraeus-Will-Come-and-Testify-to-Congress-Or-He-Will-Be-Subpoenaed">said</a> Petraeus’s resignation ultimately won’t prevent Congress from compelling his testimony.</p>
<p>“The fact that he’s resigned and had an affair has nothing to do with whether he will be subpoenaed to Congress. I hope we don’t have to subpoena a four star general and a former CIA director. I would hope he would come voluntarily but if he won’t he will be subpoenaed … But there is no way we can get to the bottom of Benghazi without David Petraeus.”</p>
<p>The knives have apparently been out for Petraeus for a while. In a story that may have been planted by the Obama White House, Fox News reported earlier this month that the CIA did almost nothing while the consulate was in flames. Anonymous officials also <a href="http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/11/petraeus-benghazi/">told</a> the <em>Wall Street Journal</em> that the CIA failed to provide adequate security at the mission. The CIA replied that its personnel were involved in repelling the attack.</p>
<p>Petraeus is the highly respected Army general who commanded the successful “surge” that helped to turn around the war in Iraq. As the nation searches for answers about the Sept. 11 atrocities in Benghazi, this war hero has been made to fall on his sword, conveniently disposed of to protect the president.</p>
<p>Leftists won’t lose sleep over Petraeus’s ouster because they already despise him. MoveOn published a full-page ad in the <em>New York Times</em> in 2007 accusing the then-general of “cooking the books for the White House” to justify President George W. Bush’s invasion and occupation of Iraq. The ad labeled Petraeus “General Betray Us.” The message <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,297498,00.html">prompted</a> an unusual official rebuke from the U.S. Senate, which voted 72 to 25 to condemn the offensive ad. To no one’s surprise, then-Sens. Barack Obama and Joe Biden missed the vote.</p>
<p>It was reported last week that the married Petraeus had an affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell, and suddenly Democrats, whose party stands for abortion-on-demand and free condoms, are outraged. (There is also talk that Petraeus may have been involved with another woman not his wife.) As Robert Spencer <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/robert-spencer/the-convenient-resignation-of-general-petraeus/">noted</a>, Obama and his party care nothing about sexual improprieties. In fact it can be argued that among his fellow Democrats such behaviors can be resume-builders. (See Bill Clinton, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Ted Kennedy, Eliot Spitzer, and recently, <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2012/11/01/women-sen-bob-menendez-paid-us-for-sex-in-the-dominican-republic/">Bob Menendez</a>.)</p>
<p>Newly awakened to the importance of national security, Democrats are worried that as a philanderer Petraeus may have been open to blackmail, something that never concerned them when womanizers Bill Clinton, Lyndon Johnson, and John F. Kennedy, occupied the Oval Office.</p>
<p>Those who study history and the grim statecraft of scapegoating must find it difficult to take Petraeus’s explanation seriously. Doomed Roman officials would take a warm bath and slit their wrists, often after a farewell party, before peacefully drifting off to Elysium. In the old Soviet Union, an out-of-favor intelligence chief would be found dead of an apparent heart attack, or shipped off to remotest Siberia to enjoy an early retirement, but in America a sex scandal will suffice as a cover story.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the State Department continues its stonewalling operation. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declined an invitation to testify in Congress this week. Instead she’ll jet off to Australia.</p>
<p>House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) is unhappy with the State Department for refusing to hand over information that she demanded.</p>
<p>“While I understand that investigations by the FBI and the State Department’s own Accountability Review Board are ongoing, it is imperative that this Committee, having direct oversight responsibility, be kept informed every step of the way of developments in the matter,” Ros-Lehtinen wrote in a Nov. 7 letter to Clinton.</p>
<p>Few observers take the department’s Accountability Review Board that is supposed to investigate Benghazi seriously. It is headed by former Ambassador Thomas Pickering whom critics deride as a pro-Islamist tool of Islamofascist Iran who doesn’t take the terrorist threat to America seriously.</p>
<p>Now that President Obama is safely past the electoral finish line, he is free to focus on eliminating any remaining obstacles that threaten his project to “fundamentally transform” the United States.</p>
<p>While official Washington and the mainstream media are entranced by the Petraeus sex saga, playing with it like a kitten plays with a ball of yarn, the Obama administration’s cover-up regarding the Sept. 11 massacre at Benghazi, Libya, that claimed four American lives, including the life of Ambassador Chris Stevens, continues.</p>
<p>Evidence has already <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/matthew-vadum/obama-white-house-knew-al-qaeda-ally-hit-benghazi/">established</a> that two hours after the deadly assault on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, the Obama White House knew the operation had been orchestrated by Muslim terrorists with ties to al-Qaeda. Instead of trying to solve the problem, President Obama hopped onto Air Force One on the eleventh anniversary of 9/11 and escaped to Las Vegas for a campaign fundraiser. U.S. forces that could have come to the rescue sat idle an hour’s flying time away awaiting an order to deploy that never came.</p>
<p>Benghazi could be Obama’s Watergate, a potentially presidency-ending scandal far worse than anything President Nixon ever did. Nixon, who almost certainly would have been impeached had he not resigned, involved himself after the fact in covering up a bungled and otherwise inconsequential break-in at the opposition party’s headquarters. Obama almost certainly knew what was happening on the ground in Libya as it was happening and yet he did nothing, preferring instead to fly off to a fundraiser in Las Vegas, a city he otherwise mocks. And if Obama didn’t know, that in itself is an indictment.</p>
<p>Nixon got involved in a scandal that would have, but for his association, faded away to become a mere footnote in history. Nixon did something and it was relatively trifling; Obama did nothing and his omission cost American lives, including the life of a sitting U.S. ambassador.</p>
<p>There are so many other improprieties that could topple or at least weaken President Obama in his second term. There is Eric Holder’s Fast and Furious Mexican gun-walking scandal, a Reichstag fire calculated to foment anti-gun hysteria; the failure to defend U.S. borders; the refusal to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA); and the ongoing abuse of executive orders and recess appointments.</p>
<p>This is only a partial list.</p>
<p>During President Obama’s second term, the list is bound to grow.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>The Convenient Resignation of General Petraeus</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/robert-spencer/the-convenient-resignation-of-general-petraeus/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-convenient-resignation-of-general-petraeus</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 09 Nov 2012 04:59:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Robert Spencer]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=164696</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A preposterous pretext for the CIA director's exit.  ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/robert-spencer/the-convenient-resignation-of-general-petraeus/zumaglobalthree235379/" rel="attachment wp-att-164700"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-164700" title="zumaglobalthree235379" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/zumaglobalthree235379-425x350.jpg" alt="" width="298" height="245" /></a>Apparently overcome with guilt over an extramarital affair, General David Petraeus abruptly resigned as director of the CIA Thursday. A suddenly socially conservative Barack Obama accepted his resignation Friday, as Petraeus explained in a statement made public Friday afternoon (the time when all stories that the administration wants to bury are released). But Petraeus’s statement simply didn’t hold water &#8212; not only because it assumed an Obama as strait-laced as Pat Robertson, but also because it comes just after the House Foreign Affairs Committee asked him to testify in its investigation of the Benghazi jihad attack and subsequent Obama administration cover-up.</p>
<p>“Yesterday afternoon,” Petraeus <a href="http://wtvr.com/2012/11/09/cia-director-petraeus-resigns-over-extramarital-affair/">wrote</a>, “I went to the White House and asked the President to be allowed, for personal reasons, to resign from my position as D/CIA. After being married for over 37 years, I showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair. Such behavior is unacceptable, both as a husband and as the leader of an organization such as ours. This afternoon, the President graciously accepted my resignation.”</p>
<p>Parson Obama, that well-known moral crusader who praised Ted Kennedy as an “extraordinary leader” and Barney Frank as “a fierce advocate for the people of Massachusetts and Americans everywhere who needed a voice,” may indeed have been so indignant over Petraeus’s affair that he accepted his resignation with alacrity. On the other hand, maybe his willingness to see the last of Petraeus had something to do with the statement that the CIA issued on <a href="https://twitter.com/jaketapper/status/261936225106132993">October 26</a>: “No one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need; claims to the contrary are simply inaccurate.”</p>
<p>This came after <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/10/26/cia-operators-were-denied-request-for-help-during-benghazi-attack-sources-say/">Fox News had reported</a> that same day that “sources who were on the ground in Benghazi that an urgent request from the CIA annex for military back-up during the attack on the U.S. consulate and subsequent attack several hours later on the annex itself was denied by the CIA chain of command &#8212; who also told the CIA operators twice to ‘stand down’ rather than help the ambassador’s team when shots were heard at approximately 9:40 p.m. in Benghazi on Sept. 11.”</p>
<p>But if it wasn’t Petraeus who ordered that no help be given to Ambassador Chris Stevens and his staff when jihadists attacked the embassy, the order would have had to come from someone who outranked even the director of the agency. Thus Petraeus’s denial that the order had come from him pointed the finger directly at Barack Obama. And while the mainstream media buried that fact before the election, probably the House Foreign Affairs Committee would have asked Petraeus just who did give the order.</p>
<p>For surely it was just a coincidence that Petraeus resigned on Thursday, the very same day that <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/11/07/house-panel-to-hold-hearing-on-libya-attack-with-top-obama-intelligence/">Fox News reported</a> that the Foreign Affairs Committee was planning to call him to testify at their Benghazi hearings, along with Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and Matt Olsen, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center. Surely that had nothing to do with Petraeus’s decision to submit his resignation. This couldn’t have had anything to do with his quitting. It is much more likely indeed that suddenly, just as the news that he was going to be summoned to testify came in to his office, Petraeus was overcome with remorse over his affair, and decided – although apparently the affair began some time ago, since <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2012/11/09/petraeus_resigns_over_affair_with_biographer.html">there were rumors about it while he was still in Afghanistan</a> – that Thursday was the day, right then and there, to come clean and resign his position.</p>
<p>The preposterousness of this scenario is obvious. And the convenience of the timing for Barack Obama cannot be overlooked. Now Petraeus <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2012/11/09/petraeus-will-not-testify-in-house-intelligence-committee-hearing/">will not be testifying at the House hearings</a>, and so, barring a subpoena, the primary witness to who ordered the CIA to stand down in Benghazi has been removed.</p>
<p>The transparently flimsy justification given for the resignation is also troubling, reminiscent as it is of the charges that Stalin suddenly brought against his former friends and comrades in the Soviet Union of the 1930s, when overnight heroes of the revolution became hated class enemies. That a Democrat administration as socially to the Left as Obama’s would use a charge of adultery as an excuse to remove a hitherto respected public official already strains credulity well beyond the breaking point. It also has more than a whiff of totalitarian-style denunciations and purges. Will a show trial follow?</p>
<p>And the worst part of all this is that the election is over, the opposition to Obama is reeling and toothless, and clearly the man believes that he can behave this way without worrying about any accountability. And he is probably right.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>Cain Under Fire &#8212; No-Fly Zone Over Clinton, JFK Sexcapades</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/larry-elder/cain-under-fire-no-fly-zone-over-clinton-jfk-sexcapades/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=cain-under-fire-no-fly-zone-over-clinton-jfk-sexcapades</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 10 Nov 2011 04:28:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Larry Elder]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=112065</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[When it comes to Democratic sex scandals, the accusers are on trial.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/billClinton_1600906c.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-112066" title="billClinton_1600906c" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/billClinton_1600906c.gif" alt="" width="375" height="253" /></a></p>
<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s got it coming to him,&#8221; said Ben Bradlee, former editor of The Washington Post. &#8220;You can&#8217;t do that in this town anymore. Probably could do it 50 years ago, but you can&#8217;t do it now.&#8221;</p>
<p>The &#8220;he&#8221; was Herman Cain. The &#8220;that&#8221; means sexual harassment. And the &#8220;got it coming&#8221; means the media firestorm around the Republican front-runner as he deals with the sexual misconduct accusations that threaten to derail Cain&#8217;s surprisingly strong candidacy.</p>
<p>Bradlee made the Cain comment while at a book party for MSNBC host Chris Matthews&#8217; new biography about the Democratic Party&#8217;s icon, John F. Kennedy, handsome, dashing and forever young — who screwed around big-time on his popular and elegant wife. When asked what he liked about Matthews&#8217; new book, Bradlee said, &#8220;I like the guy who wrote it, and I like the guy he wrote it about.&#8221;</p>
<p>The irony seemed to be lost on Mr. Bradlee.</p>
<p>Bradlee wags his finger at Cain for alleged &#8220;sexual harassment&#8221; and insists, &#8220;He&#8217;s got it coming to him.&#8221; But on the same night, Bradlee celebrates a man who not only serially cheated, but who jeopardized national security by sleeping with the girlfriend of a big-time Chicago mobster.</p>
<p>Certainly, &#8220;it was a different time,&#8221; with the all-male reporter&#8217;s boys club looking the other way. But Kennedy kept his affairs secret from wife and country for a reason. Try telling your wife — even in the &#8217;60s — &#8220;Honey, this afternoon — when you&#8217;re out with your lunch friends — I&#8217;m throwing a nude pool party. There may be, some, you know, some 20-something young ladies, some actually wearing bathing suits. Oh, then I&#8217;m going out with the girlfriend of a gangster. Don&#8217;t wait up.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;Certainly, dear&#8221;??? &#8220;Have a good time&#8221;??? &#8220;I&#8217;ll leave the porch light on for you&#8221;???</p>
<p>Not likely. Even in the &#8217;60s, on a deal like this, Harriet ditches Ozzie, June leaves Ward, and Lucy drops Ricky.</p>
<p>And if 15-year-old allegations of &#8220;sexual harassment&#8221; rate high on the Democrats&#8217; character scale, please explain the deification of Bill Clinton. OK, he balanced the budget. But there was &#8230;</p>
<p>Paula Jones: About whom a Clinton surrogate said, &#8220;If you drag a $100 bill through a trailer park, you never know what you&#8217;ll find.&#8221; Apparently you find $850K to settle a lawsuit. Clinton accused Jones of lying about sexual harassment and filing a lawsuit that lacked merit, then settled the case out of court for $850K.</p>
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		<title>Climategate U-turn: Astonishment as scientist at centre of global warming email row admits data not well organised &#8211; Mail Online</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/climategate-u-turn-astonishment-as-scientist-at-centre-of-global-warming-email-row-admits-data-not-well-organised-mail-online/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=climategate-u-turn-astonishment-as-scientist-at-centre-of-global-warming-email-row-admits-data-not-well-organised-mail-online</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 16 Feb 2010 16:16:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=50542</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The academic at the center of the ‘Climategate’ affair, whose raw data is crucial to the theory of climate change, has admitted that he has trouble ‘keeping track’ of the information.Colleagues say that the reason Professor Phil Jones has refused Freedom of Information requests is that he may have actually lost the relevant papers. Professor [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1250872/Climategate-U-turn-Astonishment-scientist-centre-global-warming-email-row-admits-data-organised.html"><img src='http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/article-1250872-0845A9BA000005DC-871_233x377.jpg' alt='' /></a></p>
<p>The academic at the center of the ‘Climategate’ affair, whose raw data is crucial to the theory of climate change, has admitted that he has trouble ‘keeping track’ of the information.Colleagues say that the reason Professor Phil Jones has refused Freedom of Information requests is that he may have actually lost the relevant papers. Professor Jones told the BBC yesterday there was truth in the observations of colleagues that he lacked organizational skills, that his office was swamped with piles of paper and that his record keeping is ‘not as good as it should be’.</p>
<p>The data is crucial to the famous ‘hockey stick graph’ used by climate change advocates to support the theory.Professor Jones also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now – suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon.And he said that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming.The admissions will be seized on by sceptics as fresh evidence that there are serious flaws at the heart of the science of climate change and the orthodoxy that recent rises in temperature are largely man-made.Professor Jones has been in the spotlight since he stepped down as director of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit after the leaking of emails that sceptics claim show scientists were manipulating data.The raw data, collected from hundreds of weather stations around the world and analysed by his unit, has been used for years to bolster efforts by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to press governments to cut carbon dioxide emissions.</p>
<p>via <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1250872/Climategate-U-turn-Astonishment-scientist-centre-global-warming-email-row-admits-data-organised.html">Climategate U-turn: Astonishment as scientist at centre of global warming email row admits data not well organised | Mail Online</a>.</p>
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		<title>In Defense of the American Task Force on Palestine</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/joshua-muravchik/in-defense-of-the-american-task-force-on-palestine-2/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=in-defense-of-the-american-task-force-on-palestine-2</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 04 Feb 2010 05:01:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joshua Muravchik]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=48738</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[When they say they want peace they really mean it.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/ziad-asali.gif"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-48741" title="ziad-asali" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/ziad-asali-300x268.gif" alt="" width="300" height="268" /></a></p>
<p><em>[Editor&#8217;s note: The article below is a rebuttal to Joe Kaufman&#8217;s Frontpage article “<a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2010/01/29/the-terror-and-crime-of-the-american-task-force-on-palestine/">The Terror and Crime of the American Task Force on  Palestine</a>,” which ran on January 29, 2010.]</em></p>
<p>“The Terror and Crime of the American Task Force on Palestine” posted by Joe Kaufman on January 29 was very wide of the mark.  Kaufman takes to task various government officials for participation in ATFP’s annual banquet.  I regretted having to turn down an invitation to that self-same affair because I was out of town.</p>
<p>Why my regret?  Because the ATFP is a breath of fresh air in the Arab-American community.  I think it is exactly what I and others in the pro-Israel community have been hoping for: an Arab or Palestinian advocacy group that offers no apologias for terrorists and genuinely wants to meet us half-way.</p>
<p>Kaufman makes much of the name Rashid Khalidi, and I share Kaufman’s distaste for the man.  But Khalidi’s name cannot be found on the ATFP web site.  (Whether he was involved in the past I do not know.)  I do know Ziad Asali, the president, and Hussein Ibish and Gheith al-Omari, the two staff members of ATFP.  I have had long conversations with each.  More important, I have been on Arabic satellite network talk shows multiple times with each of them—so I have heard what they had to say to Arab audiences.  They were always unequivocal about a two-state solution, and always with rhetorical &#8220;body language&#8221; that made it abundantly clear that they respected Israel’s right to exist and its legitimate security concerns.</p>
<p>Of course, various Arabs and other Palestinians over the years have mouthed the word “peace” quite disingenuously, most importantly and famously, Yassir Arafat.  Some Arab-American and Muslim-American groups have decried terrorism but defined the term or hedged it about in such ways as to fill me with skepticism about what they really meant.  (Just as the Organization of the Islamic Conference always resorts to a juvenile game of semantics, saying that it opposes “terrorism” but that, of course, blowing up babies and moms in pizzerias is not terrorism if done in the name of “resistance to occupation.”)</p>
<p>This disgusting double-talk is not what ATFP does.  When they say they oppose terrorism, when they say they want peace, they really mean it, which is apparent if you talk to them long and hard.  Of course, they are not Zionists.  They are a Palestinian group.  They are not on <em>our</em> side, but they sincerely  want to make peace with <em>us.</em> If only there were more of their kind!  I wish we could help them, but of the embrace from our side would likely not help them build support in their community.  We can, however, do the minimum which is not to attack them falsely.</p>
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		<title>Monica&#8217;s back &#8211; says Clinton lied &#8211; POLITICO.com</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/jlaksin/monicas-back-says-clinton-lied-politico-com/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=monicas-back-says-clinton-lied-politico-com</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 18 Dec 2009 16:55:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
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		<category><![CDATA[scandal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Susan McDougal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Virtue]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Whitewater]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=42366</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[In the years since their bitter battle, both former President Bill Clinton and independent counsel Ken Starr have predicted they’d be vindicated in the history books. Now the first definitive history of the Clinton scandal is about to arrive — and neither man can be completely happy about his portrayal in its pages. “The Death [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>In the years since their bitter battle, both former President Bill Clinton and independent counsel Ken Starr have predicted they’d be vindicated in the history books.</p>
<p>Now the first definitive history of the Clinton scandal is about to arrive — and neither man can be completely happy about his portrayal in its pages.</p>
<p>“The Death of American Virtue,” due out in February, asserts that Clinton had yet another extramarital affair, with Susan McDougal of Whitewater fame. Also in the book, Monica Lewinsky tells author Ken Gormley that she believes the president lied under oath when he described their encounters.</p>
<p>via <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1209/30745.html">Monica&#8217;s back &#8211; says Clinton lied &#8211; - POLITICO.com</a>.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>The Bukay Affair &#8211; by Steven Plaut</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/steven-plaut/the-bukay-affair-by-steven-plaut/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-bukay-affair-by-steven-plaut</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/steven-plaut/the-bukay-affair-by-steven-plaut/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 14 Dec 2009 05:02:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Steven Plaut]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Academic Freedom]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[affair]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[apology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[arab history]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[arab student]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Arabic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[arabic press]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[attempt]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ben-Dror]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[case]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[class]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[classroom]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Committee]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Communist]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[David Merhav]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Democracy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[demonization]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Deputy Director]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Deputy Prosecutor]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[derogatory comments]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Dr. Bukay]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Dr. David Bukay]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[English]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Freedom of speech]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[governmental officials]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Haifa]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hebrew press]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Investigation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[israeli authorities]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[lecturer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[merhav]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Middle East]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[neo nazis]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nitzan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[outrageous assault]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Party]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Police]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[police harassment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Press]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Rabin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[racist statements]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[retraction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Semitic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[smear campaign]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[story]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[student]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[thinking]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[thought control]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[trotskyite]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[University]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[university lecturer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[university of haifa]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[web]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=41657</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The attack against freedom of speech in Israel.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-41695" title="David_Bukay" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/David_Bukay.gif" alt="David_Bukay" width="450" height="479" /></p>
<p>The most outrageous assault by the Israeli authorities against academic freedom of speech took place in recent days in what is becoming known as the Bukay Affair.  The affair combines leftist undermining of democracy, the attempt at thought control by governmental officials and the police, harassment of a university lecturer by an over-zealous anti-democratic prosecutor, and an attempt to create in Israel a political Inquisition against incorrect thinking.</p>
<p>The entire saga revolves around Dr. David Bukay, a lecturer in Middle East Studies at the University of Haifa, with expertise in Arab history.  Bukay speaks Arabic better than I speak English.  He has conservative points of view and is very outspoken about them.  His articles are carried by numerous journals.</p>
<p>About five years ago, Bukay was the victim of a smear campaign of demonization at the University of Haifa.  At the time, an Arab student who was active in the university branch of the communist party sat in on one of Bukay’s lectures without being registered in the class.  The student then ran to the Arabic press in Israel and claimed that in his lecture Bukay had repeatedly made racist derogatory comments about Arabs.  The student claimed that Bukay had said in class that all Arabs should be shot.</p>
<p>After the story ran in the Arabic press, it was also reported in the Hebrew press and web.  It turned out that the story was planted there and spread by an Israeli “Trotskyite” named David Merhav, who later issued a retraction and apology to Bukay, admitting the entire story had been a tissue of lies.  But the retraction did not help.  Today anti-Semitic internet web sites carry the story of Bukay’s alleged racist statements against Arabs.</p>
<p>Once the story began to spread, it turned out that none of the other students in the classroom had heard Bukay make any of the “racist” statements the communist student had alleged that he made.  Many of these students went public and claimed that the Arab student had fabricated the entire story.  Hundreds of Bukay’s students backed Bukay in the case.  Many wrote the Haifa University chiefs to give their side of the story.  In any case, because of the uproar, the Rector at the University of Haifa, himself no right-winger (he was a founder of Peace Now), appointed a committee of investigation to look into the charges against Bukay.  They found that they were lies.</p>
<p>But in response to the media uproar, the Israel state Deputy Prosecutor, Shai Nitzan, decided to open a criminal investigation against Bukay for the “crime” of “incitement.”  That is the catch-all anti-democratic nonsense charge that was used in a wholesale manner after the Rabin assassination to persecute and intimidate and indict numerous Rabbis, public figures, and protesters.  Nitzan evidently believes that leftwing lawyers should be able to dictate the content of university lectures and the police should indict those who say things that Nitzan considers to be incorrect.   Moreover, Nitzan ordered the criminal investigation of Bukay on the basis of a “criminal complaint” that was filed against Bukay with the police by the misnamed “Committee against Racism.”   That committee is a front group for the pro-terror Israeli communist party, a party of anti-Semitic racists that has never quite come  around to repudiating Stalin.  The Stalinists claimed Bukay had made insensitive anti-Arab statements in class.  Bukay denies that he did.  That charge, coming from communists, was enough for Nitzan to investigate Bukay, who was not invited to the Nitzan’s office to tell his own side of the story.</p>
<p>Then for about four years the story was nearly forgotten.  Until last week.</p>
<p>What changed?  Last week, the same Shai Nitzan, still the leftist Deputy Director of the Israel Prosecutor’s Office, ordered Dr. Bukay to come into the Haifa police precinct as part of the renewal of the earlier investigation into alleged criminally incorrect thinking and speaking by Dr. Bukay in his classroom.  The new development was reported in full in detail in the Israeli daily Maariv.   (Translations into English of those articles and some related documents can be <a href="http://zioncon.blogspot.com/2009/12/more-on-bukay-affair.html">read here</a>).</p>
<p>In a scene like something out of the dungeons of the KGB in the days of Stalin, Bukay was ordered to the Haifa police precinct by Nitzan.  There he was ordered to sign a written confession that he had made anti-Arab statements in the classroom.  He was ordered by police operating under Nitzan’s instructions to sign an apology for those statements, under threat of being prosecuted by Nitzan for “incitement” and “racism” if he does not do so.  He was ordered to commit in writing and promise to make no such statements henceforth in his classroom.</p>
<p>Bukay refused to sign.</p>
<p>Maariv deputy editor Ben-Dror Yemini wrote in response to this that interrogating and prosecuting lecturers for what they say in the classroom is without precedent in Israel or any democracy.  He then reminded readers that Israel is filled with far-leftist anti-Israel and anti-Semitic members of Israel’s Academic fifth column, who routinely use the classroom to support terrorism against Jews, to call for Israel’s annihilation, to denounce Israel as a Nazi-like apartheid regime, and to urge law breaking.  Not a single one of these has ever been interrogated, let along prosecuted.  Yet here we have the spectacle of a naked political persecution of someone accused of having made politically incorrect statements in his classroom, a claim incidentally he denies, accused by a prosecutorial enemy of freedom of speech.</p>
<p>Now as it turns out, even if Bukay <em>had</em> made the anti-Arab statements in the classroom that he was falsely accused of having made, they <em>still should have been speech as protected</em> as are outbursts that are made in scores of Israeli university classrooms every day by Israel’s tenured radicals.  Since when is it the job of the police to arrest and prosecute people who make offensive or incorrect statements?</p>
<p>But, alas, Israel has a long history of selective protection for freedom of speech.  Countless Israeli Jewish Right-wingers have been indicted and prosecuted for “racism,” for “sedition,” and for “incitement,” in a few cases for wearing tee shirts with “insensitive” slogans on them  Fanatic Jewish leftists and Arab radicals never have been, even when cheering on terrorism and demanding that Israel be annihilated.  The courts have repeatedly endorsed anti-speech prosecution and litigation directed against non-Leftists, while protecting and defending the most outrageous hate speech of far-leftist traitors.  In one infamous court case, an Israeli sitting judge ruled that leftist sedition is protected speech while criticism of leftist sedition is libel.</p>
<p>One thing is certain.  Israeli democracy is under attack by Shai Nitzan, and Israeli freedom of speech and academic freedom will not be safe until Nitzan has been summarily dismissed from his position.</p>
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