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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; process</title>
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		<title>Mahmoud Abbas: Failing the Palestinians and Peace</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/joseph-puder/mahmoud-abbas-failing-the-palestinians-and-peace/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=mahmoud-abbas-failing-the-palestinians-and-peace</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 29 Dec 2014 05:35:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Puder]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[abbas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=248290</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Palestinian president takes an even more drastic totalitarian turn. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Mahmoud-Abbas-AP.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-248291" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Mahmoud-Abbas-AP-450x324.jpg" alt="Mahmoud Abbas" width="296" height="213" /></a>Mahmoud Abbas, (aka Abu Mazen) has been a failure as the Palestinian “Rais.” He failed to lead the Palestinian Authority (PA) toward peace with Israel, and he mismanaged the alleged goal to achieve statehood for the Palestinians. Instead of facing the tough issues and making compromises required in negotiating peace and statehood with the Israelis, Abbas chose an alliance with the Gaza controlled terrorist group Hamas. Following Abbas’ pact with Hamas last April, Israel broke off peace negotiations with the Palestinians, just days before the talks brokered by Secretary of State John Kerry were scheduled to expire.</p>
<p>Abbas isn’t only confusing Israelis, Americans, and is his Europeans patrons, he is perplexing his own Palestinian consituents. Following last summer’s Gaza War between Hamas and Israel, Abbas threatened to join the International Criminal Court (ICC) and saught to indict Israel on war crimes. PA Foreign Minister Riad al-Maliki met with the Chief Prosecutor of the ICC last August to explore ways of joining the court by PA President Abbas signing the Rome Statute.  When, however, the U.S. Congress threatened to cut off all funding to Palestine if Abbas filed war crimes charges against Israel, Abbas backed off. At the same time though, Israel’s Prime Minister threatened to counter-sue, alleging that the rockets fired by Hamas terrorists into Israeli civilian areas constituted “<a href="http://www.thewire.com/global/2014/09/hamas-quietly-admits-it-fired-rockets-from-civilian-areas/380149/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">double war</span></a>” crimes.</p>
<p>The Israeli Law Center called Shurat-HaDin, led by Nitsana Darshan-Leitner submitted a complaint against Mahmoud Abbas in the ICC for “war crimes.” The complaint claims that Abbas may be tried for his responsibility in the missile attacks targeting Israeli cities, executed by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which Abbas heads. It charges that Fatah, also led by Abbas, was responsible for several missile attacks on Israeli cities. Darshn-Leitner pointed out that Fatah leader Abbas may be tried by the ICC. Abbas is a citizen of Jordan and Jordan is a member-state of the ICC. The ICC has jurisdiction over crimes committed by a citizen of a member state. Darshan-Leitner added, the organization “will not allow Fatah to carry out rocket attacks on Israeli population centers, while <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Shurat-Hadin-files-war-crimes-complaint-against-Abbas-with-ICC-381312"><span style="color: #0433ff;">hypocritically</span></a> advocating Palestinian membership in the ICC. Abbas falsely believes that alleged crimes against Arabs are the only ones that should be prosecuted.”</p>
<p>A week ago, Abbas threatened again. This time he fingered the security co-ordination with Israel following the death of Ziad Abu Ein, 55, PA Minister without Portfolio. He promptly backtracked. On November 29, 2014, Abbas declared  that if the United Nations Security Council rejects the Palestinian statehood resolution, he will seek membership in the ICC. He said, “We will seek Palestinian membership in international organizations, including the International Criminal Court in the Hague. We will also <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.629102"><span style="color: #0433ff;">reassess</span></a> our ties with Israel, including ending the security cooperation between us.”</p>
<p>Abbas’ latest gambit is a UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution that would force Israel to withdraw from Judea and Samaria (West Bank) within two-years. According to press reports, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry requested to postpone the Palestinian initiative at the UNSC until after the Israeli elections, (March 17, 2015) but the Palestinians refused. PA Foreign Minister Riad al-Maliki intimated to reporters that there was disagreement between the Americans and Palestinians on how the elections in Israel would or wouldn’t advance the PA UNSC resolution. Kerry believed that a UNSC vote before the elections would impact adversely on the winners. In other words, a vote before the elections would strengthen Netanyahu and the Right in Israel. Maliki argued that a vote before January, 2015 would be rather positive.</p>
<p>At a closed meeting last week with 28 EU ambassadors, John Kerry revealed that he was asked by former Israeli president Shimon Peres and Tzipi Livni to prevent the Palestinian initiative at the UNSC because it will help “<a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.632816"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Netanyahu and Bennett</span></a> (Jewish Home Party chairman) in the upcoming elections.” Maliki posited that Kerry himself has not abided by his pledge not to intervene in the Israeli elections.</p>
<p>Also last week in London, Secretary of State Kerry met with Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, and according to a PA senior official, Kerry posed a number of U.S. principles that should be included in the Palestinian UNSC resolution. Kerry supposedly refused the two year time period demand by the PA for Israeli withdrawal. The resolution as Kerry suggested should include recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, as well as U.S. opposition to declare Jerusalem as a joint capital for Palestine and Israel. Erekat rejected the U.S. proposals. Kerry declared afterward that the U.S. does not accept the Jordanian (presenting the Palestinian resolution)  and French resolutions. He warned that if the Palestinians insist on presenting the resolutions, the U.S. would use its veto power. Erekat rejected Kerry’s ideas, and insisted that the resolutions would be submitted. As of December 25, 2014, Abbas rejected an Arab League request to delay the submission of the Palestinian statehood until January when five new members who support the Palestinian cause will join the Security Council.</p>
<p>Abbas’ gambits notwithstanding, the increased authoritarianism of Abu Mazen is reflected in a recent survey by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research. It indicates that 66% of Palestinians are afraid to criticise Abu Mazen and the PA, and 80% consider the PA institutions to be corrupt and infected with nepotism. Last summer, according to the survey, support for Abbas (Abu Mazen) declined to 35% from 50%. “There is no doubt about the fact that <a href="http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART2/659/827.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">outlawing</span></a> freedoms and rights, especially of professional unions, is a factor in Abbas’ decline in popularity,” said Dr. Khalil Shikaki, one of the survey takers<span style="color: #323333;">. </span></p>
<p>PA security agents inspect what is written in the social media, and threaten those who criticize Abbas. Abu Mazen critics point out that after a decade in power he is controlling all systems of government to such an extent as to minimize all resistance. Perceived political rivals such as Mohammad Dahlan, who once served as Abu Mazen’s assistant, and Salam Fayyad, the former Prime Minister of the PA, are vilified by Abbas. Following the Palestinian Unity government formation, headed by Rami Hamdallah last May, elections were to follow. But, once again, internal squabbling prevented it, and added to it was Abbas’ fear of a Hamas victory.</p>
<p>Abu Mazen’s strategy for the establishment of a Palestinian state has reached a cul-de-sac.  None of his gambits proved successful. His rivalry with Hamas is bitter and ongoing, despite the alliance he forged at the expense of negotiations with Israel. And, like his predecessor Yasser Arafat, he balks at the idea of ‘ending the conflict’ with Israel. He knows full well that this might be a death sentence for him, targeting him for assassination. It is for this reason that Abbas and the PA are unlikely to forgo the “right of return” of Palestinian refugees to Israel. Israel for its part, cannot accept such a demographic suicide. This is why Abbas would rather avoid negotiations with Israel and bypass it by going to the UNSC. It is also the ostensible reason why peace with Israel cannot be achieved, and as a result, the Palestinian people continue to suffer political and economic deprivation. Abbas has not been the solution to the Palestinian problems; rather, he has been responsible for failing them.</p>
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		<title>ObamaCare: A &#8216;Signature Achievement&#8217; of Unaccountable Bureaucracy</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arnold-ahlert/obamacare-a-signature-achievement-of-unaccountable-bureaucracy/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamacare-a-signature-achievement-of-unaccountable-bureaucracy</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 04 Jul 2014 04:54:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[application]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[glitch]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[HHS]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[illegal immigrant]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[inconsistency]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obamacare]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[process]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=235567</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Massive amounts of "inconsistent data" remain irreconcilable.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="color: #232323;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/o-OBAMACARE-WEBSITE-facebook.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-235569" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/o-OBAMACARE-WEBSITE-facebook-446x350.jpg" alt="Obamacare Expedited Bid Process Limited Who Could Build Website" width="283" height="222" /></a>A little over a week ago, <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/04/28/Obamacare-s-Backend-Still-Missing-Deadline-Uncertain"><span style="color: #1255cc;">reports</span></a> surfaced revealing that the so-called “back end” of the <a href="http://healthcare.gov/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">Healthcare.gov</span></a> website remained months away from being completed. On Tuesday, the consequences of that ongoing fiasco were revealed. A pair of reports released by the Department of Health and Human Services&#8217; (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) reveal “internal” controls for evaluating healthcare applications are <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/health-care-exchanges-are-not-properly-ensuring-applicants-eligibility-probe-finds/2014/07/01/d7f83672-0127-11e4-8572-4b1b969b6322_story.html"><span style="color: #1255cc;">ineffective</span></a>, and 85 percent of 2.9 million data “inconsistencies” on ObamaCare applications cannot be <a href="http://nypost.com/2014/07/02/85-percent-of-obamacare-inconsistencies-cant-be-fixed/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">resolved</span></a>, even after nine months of attempting to do so.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">“The federal marketplace was generally incapable of resolving most inconsistencies,” one OIG <a href="http://oig.hhs.gov/oas/reports/region9/91401000.pdf"><span style="color: #1255cc;">report</span></a> said. “Without the ability to resolve inconsistencies in an applicant’s eligibility data, the marketplace cannot ensure that an applicant meets each of the eligibility requirements for enrollment in a QHP [qualified health plan] and when applicable, eligibility for insurance affordability programs.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">For clarity sake it should be noted that 2.9 million inconsistencies <a href="http://washingtonexaminer.com/hhs-inspector-general-reports-millions-of-data-inconsistencies-in-obamacare-applications/article/2550366"><span style="color: #1255cc;">does not mean</span></a> there are 2.9 million applications in error. Due to the series of questions applicants are asked about their citizenship, Social Security number, income or incarceration status, it is possible that some applications may have multiple inconsistencies. Furthermore, those inconsistencies may not be inaccurate information, but rather data that cannot be matched with government sources from numerous agencies. &#8220;In some circumstances, the marketplace cannot verify an applicant’s information through available data sources,” the other <a href="http://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oei-01-14-00180.pdf"><span style="color: #1255cc;">report</span></a> explained. &#8220;When this happens, it is referred to as an inconsistency. This may arise when Federal data available through the Data Hub or data from other sources are unavailable or do not exist, or because the information on the application does not match the data received through the Data Hub or from other data sources.&#8221;</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The two most prominent unresolved inconsistencies were “citizenship and income.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Only citizens and those with legal residence in the United States are eligible for ObamaCare. Yet in keeping with his determination to send America&#8217;s illegal alien population mixed messages, President Obama <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obama-promises-illegals-obamacare-sign-info-wont-be-used-deportation_784228.html"><span style="color: #1255cc;">promised</span></a> during a March interview with Telemundo that &#8220;none of the information that is provided in order for you to obtain health insurance is in any way transferred to immigration services,” he explained. &#8220;So that&#8217;s something we&#8217;ve been very clear about. If you live in a mixed status family, then the son who could potentially be eligible for the children&#8217;s health insurance program or some other mechanism to get health insurance, he needs to be signed up. And the mother should not be fearful that in any way that&#8217;s going to affect—of course I understand the fear.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">That fear didn’t prevent 4000 illegals in Oregon from being signed up when state officials “accidentally&#8221; steered them from Medicaid to ObamaCare, despite the reality that the applications were hand-processed—because the state’s computers were offline and its software architects under investigation for possible fraud. And DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson <a href="http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2014/02/28/homeland-security-czar-enrolling-in-obamacare-wont-put-undocumented-family-at/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">doubled-down</span></a> on Obama&#8217;s message in an open letter to the same “mixed status families,” before taking it one step further. “Enrolling in health coverage . . . will not prevent your loved ones who are undocumented from getting a green card in the future or who do not yet have a green card at risk,” he promised.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">As for income, proper information is necessary in order to determine one’s eligibility for taxpayer-subsidized health insurance, as well as ongoing subsidies of one’s monthly premiums. As recently as last month the <i>Washington Post</i> <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/federal-health-care-subsidies-may-be-too-high-or-too-low-for-more-than-1-million-americans/2014/05/16/8f544992-dd14-11e3-8009-71de85b9c527_story.html?hpid=z1"><span style="color: #1255cc;">reported</span></a> that more than one million Americans may be getting incorrect subsidies because the incomes they reported &#8220;differ significantly” from those on file with the IRS. And while the government requires enrollees with discrepancies to verify their information within a 90-day window, only a fraction have done so. Yet the <i>Post</i> reveals that even those who have complied remain in limbo, because “important aspects of the website remain defective — or simply unfinished.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The report seemingly updates that assessment, noting that the &#8220;number of applicants who may have exceeded the 90-day inconsistency period or for whom the inconsistency period was extended by the federal marketplace because the applicant demonstrated a good-faith effort in obtaining satisfactory documentation” remains undetermined.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The spectacular failure of the website’s front end last October necessitated the diversion of all resources to fix it, delaying the completion of the back end. A January deadline for addressing the problem soon became mid-March. But by mid-April, when <i>Politico’s</i> Kyle Cheney <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2014/04/healthcaregov-obamacare-affordable-care-act-106036.html"><span style="color: #1255cc;">asked</span></a> officials at the Centers for Medicare &amp; Medicaid Services (CMS) when they expected the back end to be ready, they refused to give him an answer. As a result the government will use an “interim&#8221; accounting process that amounts to a combination of working by hand, and using informed guesses to resolve the inconsistencies.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Insurance industry consultant Robert Laszewski illuminates what will likely happen when the permanent system is finally engaged. “We have the mother of all reconciliations coming,” he predicted. “It may be that the administration will not be able to give us a credible enrollment number until then because we really need a reconciliation to accomplish that.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">In other words, the 8 million signups touted by <a href="http://www.bizjournals.com/bizjournals/washingtonbureau/2014/04/8-million-obamacare-enrollees-give-obama-something.html?page=all"><span style="color: #1255cc;">President Obama</span></a> and his media <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=8+million+sigups+for+Obamacare&amp;ie=utf-8&amp;oe=utf-8&amp;aq=t&amp;rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&amp;client=firefox-a&amp;channel=sb"><span style="color: #1255cc;">sycophants</span></a> remains little more than unproven hype. Moreover, it remains to be seen what sort of reconciliation will be made in a number of different areas. For example, enrollees with improper income information may have their premiums adjusted up or down, receive cash refunds or be forced to make additional payments. Insurance companies’ finances could also be affected, precipitating premium spikes or withdrawal from the marketplace by companies that feel shortchanged. Even the estimates of ObamaCare’s overall costs may be subjected to radical readjustments. In short, until the back end of the system is completed, the true effects of ObamaCare cannot be fully ascertained.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Furthermore, the <a href="http://healthcare.gov/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">Healthcare.gov</span></a> website was hardly an anomaly.  Eleven of the 15 states (including Washington, D.C.) running their own exchanges submitted reports to the HHS inspector general. They detailed 1.2 million inconsistencies, but it remains unclear how they are counting them, so the data cannot be combined with federal totals. Seven states said they cleared up inconsistencies without delay. However the latter report illuminates that technological failure was not confined to the federal website. ”During our review, 4 of the 15 State marketplaces reported that they were unable to resolve inconsistencies (<a href="http://washingtonexaminer.com/section/massachusetts"><span style="color: #1255cc;">Massachusetts</span></a>, <a href="http://washingtonexaminer.com/section/nevada"><span style="color: #1255cc;">Nevada</span></a>, <a href="http://washingtonexaminer.com/section/oregon"><span style="color: #1255cc;">Oregon</span></a>, and <a href="http://washingtonexaminer.com/section/vermont"><span style="color: #1255cc;">Vermont</span></a>),” it stated. &#8220;They attributed this inability to failures in their information technology systems.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Both reports chronicled the time period only from October through December of 2013. The more extensive of the two reports was required by House Republicans as part of last year’s deal ending the partial government shutdown. It was based on their now-validated assertion that ObamaCare was not set up to properly verify the various eligibility requirements contained in the law.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) <a href="http://www.news-herald.com/general-news/20140701/report-health-law-sign-ups-dogged-by-data-flaws"><span style="color: #1255cc;">took</span></a> the administration to task in that regard. “From today’s reports, it appears that then-HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius provided a misleading certification to Congress earlier this year that the Obamacare exchanges could and would verify that individuals receiving tax credits and cost-sharing assistance are actually eligible to receive these taxpayer-provided subsidies,” he said in a statement. &#8220;This report is one more example of just how flawed the president&#8217;s health care law is.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Not just flawed. Fatal. Linda Rolain was one of 150 Nevadans <a href="http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/las-vegas/woman-class-action-lawsuit-against-xerox-dies"><span style="color: #1255cc;">suing</span></a> Nevada Health Link contractor Xerox for enrollment errors that left them without insurance they had paid for. That lack of coverage cost Rolain her life, when she was unable to receive treatment in January for an aggressive brain tumor. “Ms. Rolain should have had coverage in January,” said local insurance broker Pat Casale. “(She and her husband) did everything they could to facilitate the acquisition of a health plan. She suffered and she died all because of the negligence of a vendor who should not even be in the industry.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">According to Rolain’s husband Robert, the problems they encountered were depressingly familiar. They tried to sign up for a policy in November well before the original Dec. 15 deadline for January coverage. They were unable to do so and settled for a policy that took effect in March. But Xerox staffers miscommunicated the policy’s effective date, leaving them hanging until May. In June, Rolain entered hospice. &#8220;She had no chance because of the delay,” Casale explained.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">When Tuesday’s reports came out, Democrats and CMS <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/211083-report-details-o-care-rollout-problems"><span style="color: #1255cc;">pushed back</span></a> on the criticism. “It is no surprise to anyone that the first few months of the marketplace rollout were rocky,” said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. &#8220;Since then, we have signed up eight million Americans.” CMS spokesman Aaron Albright was equally effusive. &#8220;CMS is working expeditiously to resolve inconsistencies to make sure individuals and families get the tax credits and coverage they deserve and that no one receives a benefit they shouldn&#8217;t. We are actively reaching out to consumers to provide additional information that supports their application for coverage and verifying their information every day.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">It’s no surprise<i> now</i> that the rollout was rocky, Senator, but an Obama administration fully aware of it before the initial launch last October refused to level with the public when it mattered most. And the so-called 8 million signups is a transparent effort to keep a false narrative intact, even as the reports completely debunk it. As for the notion that CMS is “working expeditiously,” such happy talk can’t obscure the reality that they have no idea when the back end of the system will be up and running.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The watchdog office issuing the reports has called on the Obama administration to publicly explain how and when—specifically&#8211;the data problems in the 36 states where the federal government is operating marketplaces will be resolved. One is left to wonder how many more people will share Linda Rolain’s fate in the interim, even as the massive bureaucratic failures that have come to represent the real &#8220;signature achievement” of ObamaCare play themselves out.</p>
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		<title>Threatening for Peace</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/davidhornik/threatening-for-peace/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=threatening-for-peace</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 04 Feb 2014 05:53:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[P. David Hornik]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Kerry warns Israel to concede or reap the wrath of the gods.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/kerry-300x203.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-217891" alt="kerry-300x203" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/kerry-300x203.jpg" width="270" height="183" /></a>Secretary of State John Kerry has been repeatedly warning Israel of dire consequences if the current talks with the Palestinians do not lead to a negotiated peace. In November he </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" title="" href="http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Kerry-extends-his-stay-in-Mideast-says-significant-progress-made-in-some-areas-of-peace-talks-330912" target="_blank">warned of a third intifada</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> on Israeli TV.</span></p>
<p>And on Sunday at the Munich Security Conference, Kerry <a title="" href="http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/US-responds-to-Israel-uproar-says-Kerry-never-called-for-boycott-340097" target="_blank">had this to say</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>Today’s status quo, absolutely to a certainty, I promise you 100 percent, cannot be maintained. It is not sustainable. It is illusionary. You see, for Israel there is an increasing delegitimization campaign that has been building up. People are very sensitive to it. There is talk of boycott and other kinds of things. Are we all going to be better with all of that?</p></blockquote>
<p>Many Israelis reacted angrily. Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz called Kerry’s words “offensive, unreasonable and unacceptable. It is impossible to expect Israel to negotiate with a gun to its head.”</p>
<p>State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki came to Kerry’s defense, saying:</p>
<blockquote><p>Secretary Kerry has a proud record of over three decades of steadfast support for Israel’s security and well-being, including staunch opposition to boycotts…. [He] expects all parties to accurately portray his record and statements.</p></blockquote>
<p>It is an accurate portrayal to say that to most Israelis, these statements sound like threats. “Make peace, or really bad things will happen to you” is perceived as a threat. Resentment is only intensified by the fact that—at least in public—Kerry <a title="" href="http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=7239" target="_blank">makes no comparable threats to the Palestinian side</a>.</p>
<p>But aside from the propriety of what Kerry said in Munich, is it true? Will Israel be an increasingly delegitimized, boycotted country if the current talks end without an agreement?</p>
<p>On the one hand, in moves regarded by many as alarming, in recent days two major European banks have taken action against Israeli banks. Sweden’s Nordea Bank—Scandinavia’s largest—asked for “clarifications” from two Israeli banks involved in building in the West Bank. Denmark’s Danske Bank—largest in that country—announced on its website that it was boycotting Israel’s Bank Hapoalim for that same alleged sin of building in places Europe thinks should be Jew-free.</p>
<p>On the other hand, as an Israeli official <a title="" href="http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/US-responds-to-Israel-uproar-says-Kerry-never-called-for-boycott-340097" target="_blank">observed to the Jerusalem Post</a>, “The success of the so-called boycotters has been limited in the extreme.” The official pointed out that</p>
<blockquote><p>[Prime Minister Binyamin] Netanyahu returned last week from the World Economic Forum in Davos, where he met both with leaders of countries—such as Mexico, Panama, Nigeria and China—and international companies who were very eager to do business with Israel, “not because they are Zionists, but because they understand there is so much to gain from doing business with us.”</p></blockquote>
<p>Meanwhile <a title="" href="http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2013/10/06/the-ten-worst-purveyors-of-antisemitism-worldwide-no-9-roger-waters/" target="_blank">antisemitic rock star Roger Waters</a> has been <a title="" href="http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=15223" target="_blank">lashing out angrily</a> at the likes of rock star Neil Young and actress Scarlett Johansson for refusing to ostracize Israel.</p>
<p>But let’s say, for the sake of argument, that Kerry and others who bludgeon Israel with warnings about terrible outcomes if peace talks fail—a binational state, a boycotted state, an intifada—are right.</p>
<p>Even if that were the case, there would still be problems.</p>
<p>For one thing, imagine being on the Palestinian side and hearing that Israel is essentially desperate; that for Israel the talks are do-or-die. You would react, of course, by driving as hard a bargain as possible—or just letting the talks drift into failure and watching Israel meet its bitter fate.</p>
<p>But there is an even more fundamental problem. What if, despite Israel’s best efforts, the other side is not interested in peace?</p>
<p>Evidence for that supposition is not exactly lacking; it’s abundant. Israel has had to free dozens of Palestinian terrorists just to have the talks at all; they were <a title="" href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/palestinian-prisoners-on-way-to-ramallah-for-festive-welcome/" target="_blank">received as heroes</a> and got big boosts in their stipends. Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas has said that the Palestinian side would <a title="" href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/hard-line-speech-from-abbas-marks-turn-from-position-in-talks/" target="_blank">never relinquish the right of return</a>, a formula for Israel’s demographic doom, and <a title="" href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/176491" target="_blank">never recognize Israel as a Jewish state</a>.</p>
<p>Meanwhile the Palestinians—as “peace talks” continue—keep <a title="" href="http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&amp;doc_id=10603" target="_blank">naming their schools after terrorists</a> and raising another generation with terrorists as role models. One can easily go on in this vein. What one cannot do is convince a hard-core peace processor like John Kerry that it matters.</p>
<p>Instead the onus is put on Israel, while the entity that celebrates and cultivates terror gets a free pass. It’s a disgrace.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>Mideast Peace Talks and &#8216;Land for War&#8217;</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/noah-beck/mideast-peace-talks-and-land-for-war/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=mideast-peace-talks-and-land-for-war</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 09 Aug 2013 04:23:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Noah Beck]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=199807</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[What history tells us about Israeli territorial concessions to the Palestinians. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/golan-heights-isra_2488672b.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-199832" alt="golan-heights-isra_2488672b" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/golan-heights-isra_2488672b-444x350.jpg" width="311" height="245" /></a>The current peace process is predicated on the conventional wisdom that if Israel just relinquishes enough territory to its enemies, peace will arrive. But on most of Israel’s borders, history has revealed the naïve folly behind an idea that could just as aptly be called “land-for-war.”</span></b></p>
<p>Consider Syria. From 1948 to 1967, the Syrians regularly fired artillery shells from their dominant positions on the Golan Heights down at Israeli border communities and Fatah used the territory to launch terrorist raids into Israel, until Israel captured it in 1967. But since the US-brokered talks between Israel and Syria began in 1999, peaceniks have posited that a full withdrawal by Israel from the strategic plateau in exchange for peace with Syria involved a risk worth taking. Their rationale was that – in an era dominated more by aerial threats (jets and missiles) than terrestrial ones (soldiers and tanks) – the territory was no longer vital to Israeli security and could be traded for a double boon: peace with Syria and elimination of Iran&#8217;s greatest strategic ally.</p>
<p>Current events reveal the deeply flawed assumptions underpinning the land-for-peace-with-Syria paradigm. No Israeli territorial concession is needed for Iran to lose its only Arab ally; the Syrian civil war will ultimately accomplish that. Basher Assad’s regime will eventually fall because the daily slaughter of one’s own people (with over 100,000 dead) is unsustainable when each atrocity can be instantly uploaded to the Internet. Whoever replaces Assad will be no friend to those who armed, funded, and prolonged his massacres: Iran and Russia. Iran and its proxy Hezbollah have also been substantially involved in fighting the rebels on the ground, and thus will be distanced from post-war Syria far more than any Israeli-Syrian peace could have separated Iran and Syria.</p>
<p>More importantly, the land-for-peace formula with Syria would have transferred the strategic territory from Israel to an Alawite-led regime reviled by the mostly Sunni rebels who will eventually overthrow it and likely disavow its commitments – including any peace deal with Israel. Indeed, the Syrian rebels already control much of the 200 square miles comprising the Syrian side of the Golan Heights (where they recently kidnapped 21 UN peacekeepers stationed there) and have openly threatened to attack Israel next. Israel comprises about 8,000 square miles. If those same rebels were on the 500 square miles constituting the Israeli-side of the plateau thanks to an earlier “peace deal,” Israel would be that much closer to the errant projectiles of Syria’s civil war, and that much more exposed to whatever terrorist attacks on Israel the Syrian jihadist fighters plan after finishing Assad. Hence, Israel’s tangible security asset (earned with the blood of over 2,100 IDF soldiers who died in Israel&#8217;s 1967 and 1973 wars with Syria) would have been traded for “peace” with Assad, but land-for-war with Syrian Islamists is what Israel may have received just a few years later.</p>
<p>Indeed, “land-for-war” has a compelling record. In 2000, Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon and in 2006 was attacked from there by Hezbollah. It was only the force of Israel’s military response in the war that followed – rather than any territorial concession – that prevented any subsequent cross-border attacks by Hezbollah, although the terrorist group still pursues murderous plots abroad, including in Europe (which still cowers from labeling Hezbollah a terrorist organization).</p>
<p>Since Israel left the Gaza Strip in 2005, Palestinian terrorists have launched about 10,000 rockets from there at Israeli civilians (including during Obama&#8217;s only visit to Israel as president, violating yet another cease-fire agreement). Since the 1993 Oslo Peace Accord requiring Israel to hand over parts of the West Bank to the Palestinian Authority, Palestinian terrorist attacks have killed over 1,000 Israelis.</p>
<p>The 1994 Jordan-Israel peace involved very little land (and heavily depends on survival of the Hashemite Kingdom), so the best precedent supporting the land-for-peace model is Egypt, which agreed to peace with Israel for return of the Sinai Peninsula. That cold peace has held since 1979 mostly thanks to over $60 billion of US aid to Egypt and an unpopular, secular autocrat (Hosni Mubarak). With all of the chaos plaguing Egypt now, particularly in the Sinai (from which a single, high-casualty attack on Israel could provoke an Israeli response), the future of the Egypt-Israel peace is hardly certain.</p>
<p>The spoils of war normally go to the victor. In 1848, the US captured much of its western territory (including California, Arizona, Nevada, and Utah) from Mexico in the Mexican-American war. Sometimes – as with Southern Lebanon, Gaza, or the 1938 Munich Agreement transferring the Sudetenland to the Nazis – land-for-peace turns out to be an illusory promise that only encourages military aggression.</p>
<p>Given the many more urgent (and far bloodier) problems in the Middle East that have nothing to do with Israel, why has Obama invested so much more in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process than in any other Mideast issue? And, more importantly, why is Obama so convinced that, if Israelis withdraw from the West Bank (thanks to the current peace process underway), this time they will get land-for-peace instead of land-for-war?</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>Kerry Peddles the Snake Oil of Peace</title>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 05 Jun 2013 04:53:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[The failed Palestinian appeasement process returns. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/130507105216-john-kerry-israel-horizontal-large-gallery.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-192204" alt="130507105216-john-kerry-israel-horizontal-large-gallery" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/130507105216-john-kerry-israel-horizontal-large-gallery-450x315.jpg" width="315" height="221" /></a>Few figures in American political life have been as consistently wrong as often as John Kerry. The former Senator bet on every Communist leader and Middle Eastern tyrant he could find only to watch the wheels of history roll over his mistakes. And now as Secretary of State, Kerry is at it again.</p>
<p>In between peddling a Syrian peace process that no one but him believes in, he took a break to peddle the even more discredited peace process between Israel and the terrorists.</p>
<p>In a speech to the American Jewish Committee, Kerry invoked the litany of failures, &#8220;Madrid to Oslo to Wye River and Camp David and Annapolis&#8221;, but urged his audience not to pay attention to history and “give in to cynicism”.</p>
<p>&#8220;Cynicism has never solved anything,&#8221; he said. But then again neither has the Peace Process. And while cynicism isn&#8217;t likely to usher in an era of peace or grow money on trees, it offers you the power to extract yourself from bad situations instead of taking refuge in more of the same wishful thinking that got you into them.</p>
<p>If you find yourself mailing your tenth check to that Nigerian prince, cynicism won&#8217;t get you a 200 percent return, but it will keep you from losing more money.</p>
<p>&#8220;Why should any Israeli start giving in to that cynicism now?&#8221; Kerry asked. Perhaps because it&#8217;s been twenty years. Or because thousands of Israelis have been killed and wounded. Or because there isn&#8217;t a single piece of supporting evidence to show that the other side is interested in any kind of final peace agreement.</p>
<p>The only sure things that have come out of the Peace Process in two decades are terrorist attacks and increased demands by the terrorists. There has been no final status agreement for the simple reason that the terrorists can only get the best possible deal by never coming to an agreement. The longer they hold out, the better the offers that the likes of John Forbes Kerry extract from Israel are. And the offers keep getting better so there is never any reason to actually make a deal.</p>
<p>&#8220;The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie; deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth; persistent, persuasive and unrealistic,&#8221; John F. Kennedy said. The mythology of the peace process is the enemy of the truth. Its &#8220;reassuring repetition of stale phrases&#8221; prevents what Kennedy called, &#8220;the difficult, but essential confrontation with reality.&#8221;</p>
<p>Kerry repeatedly calls for hope against cynicism, using stale phrases to perpetuate a mythology of peace with no basis in reality. Out of his mouth fall all the stale promises and threats that have been moldering for decades.</p>
<p>All these are the enemies of the truth. And the truth is a simple thing.</p>
<p>Kerry keeps speaking of peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. But which Palestinians would those be?</p>
<p>Nearly half of the population of the Palestinian Authority lives under Hamas rule. Hamas is arguably the legal government of the entire Palestinian Authority having actually won elections. Meanwhile President Abbas, the man whom Kerry would like Israel to reach a final status agreement with, was last elected in 2005. He is approaching the eighth year of his four year term.</p>
<p>During his heavily hyped visit to Israel, Obama gave a speech in which he said, &#8220;The days when Israel could seek peace simply with a handful of autocratic leaders, those days are over.  Peace will have to be made among peoples, not just governments.&#8221;</p>
<p>But that&#8217;s exactly what Kerry is peddling. A worthless deal with a bunch of autocrats.</p>
<p>If Obama really meant what he said, then he would have insisted that Abbas win a current election to show that he actually speaks for the residents of the West Bank and Gaza. It would also be a matter of basic practice for the entire question of Hamas and Gaza to be settled so that there is one unified Palestinian Authority to negotiate with, rather than two Palestinian states.</p>
<p>Obama’s failure to insist on that means that he knows the negotiations are worthless.</p>
<p>The bigger Arab League peace plan that Kerry is proposing is equally worthless. Not only is it worthless in detail, but it&#8217;s worthless because, as Obama said in his speech, it represents a handful of autocratic leaders.</p>
<p>The proposal came from the Saudi King who has never run for anything, except perhaps a dessert tray. The Arab League consists of monarchies, tyrannies and a few elected governments that took a severe beating during the Arab Spring and remain unstable even after elections.</p>
<p>In 2010, John Kerry met with the Emir of Qatar who told him that the best way to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would be for Israel to give up the Golan Heights to Syria because then Assad could convince Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran to come to the negotiating table.</p>
<p>The last time an American leader performed this well, he was sitting across the table from Stalin at Yalta.</p>
<p>A year later, the Emir of Qatar was financing a Sunni war to overthrow Assad. Everything that he had told Kerry proved to be utterly worthless. There was no peace on the horizon. The Emir had only been using Kerry and Assad to weaken Israel, before using Hillary Clinton to weaken Assad. There was no peace here. Just the puppetry of diplomatic war.</p>
<p>Kerry learned no lessons from this. If there is anything that Kerry has learned a lesson from in all his years of being played by everyone from the Viet Cong to the Sandinistas to Assad, it&#8217;s impossible to tell.</p>
<p>At the AJC, Kerry talked up the &#8220;moderate&#8221; leadership of Abbas, who had declared that he was no different than Hamas. And he doubled up on the mythology of hope. &#8220;People have spent so much time lamenting what hasn’t worked in the past that I believe we’ve actually forgotten to focus on what the future could look like if we do keep faith,&#8221; he said.</p>
<p>But it&#8217;s actually the other way around. The creaky process has only dragged on this long because of all the people who insist on taking hope on faith, instead of basing their decisions on the solid ground of history.</p>
<p>The substance of John Kerry&#8217;s speech was that he had learned absolutely nothing from the past and that everyone else should join him in not learning anything from the past. That optimistic ignorance is not a luxury that either America or Israel can afford.</p>
<p>At the conclusion of his address, Kerry invoked the oath of Israeli soldiers at Masada. But the very point of the oath is the responsibility of the Israeli soldier not to allow his country to be put into a position where it is so besieged that its only choice is between the depredations of the enemy and an honorable suicide. And Masada, the final last stand in a desert fortress, is exactly where Kerry and the Qatari and Saudi devils whispering in his ear are driving the Jewish State.</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>Israeli Peacenik Meets the Reality of Palestinian Arab Intransigence</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/elder-of-ziyon/israeli-peacenik-meets-the-reality-of-palestinian-arab-intransigence/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=israeli-peacenik-meets-the-reality-of-palestinian-arab-intransigence</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 13 May 2013 04:35:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Elder of Ziyon]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[A liberal discovers her "partners" in peace are only interested in freeing Palestine from the river to the sea. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/nakba64-47.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-189235" alt="Palestinian youths burn Israeli flags th" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/nakba64-47-450x299.jpg" width="270" height="179" /></a>Reprinted from <a href="http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2013/05/must-read-israeli-peacenik-meets.html?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FPDbq+%28Elder+of+Ziyon%29">The Elder of Ziyon</a>.</strong></p>
<p>Lital Shemesh is a young, liberal Israeli journalist, considered a rising star in the Israeli media who openly expresses her political aspirations.</p>
<p>She wrote a must-read article from <a href="http://news.walla.co.il/?w=%2F2952%2F2638853"><b>Walla</b></a>, translated by <a href="http://baruchsbreeze.blogspot.co.il/2013/05/high-hopes-for-peace-smashed-story-of.html"><b>Baruch Gordon</b></a> on his blog:</p>
<blockquote><p><b>Peace? From the Palestinian Standpoint, There is a Past, No Future</b></p>
<p>by Lital Shemesh</p>
<p>I participated in the Dialogue for Peace Project for young Israelis and Palestinians who are politically involved in various frameworks. The project’s objective was to identify tomorrow’s leaders and bring them closer today, with the aim of bringing peace at some future time.</p>
<p>The project involved meetings every few weeks and a concluding seminar in Turkey.</p>
<p>On the third day of the seminar after we had become acquainted, had removed barriers, and split helpings of rachat Lukum [a halva-like almond Arab delicacy] as though there was never a partition wall between us, we began to touch upon many subjects which were painful for both sides. The Palestinians spoke of roadblocks and the IDF soldiers in the territories, while the Israeli side spoke of constant fear, murderous terrorist attacks, and rockets from Gaza.</p>
<p>The Israeli side, which included representatives from right and left, tried to understand the Palestinians’ vision of the end of the strife– “Let’s talk business.” The Israelis delved to understand how we can end the age-old, painful conflict. What red lines are they willing to be flexible on? What resolution will satisfy their aspirations? Where do they envision the future borders of the Palestinian State which they so crave?</p>
<p>We were shocked to discover that not a single one of them spoke of a Palestinian State, or to be more precise, of a two-state solution.</p>
<p><b>They spoke of one state – their state. They spoke of ruling Jaffa, Tel Aviv, Akko, Haifa,</b> and the pain of the Nakba [lit. the tragedy – the establishment of the State of Israel]. There was no future for them. Only the past. <b>“There is no legitimacy for Jews to live next to us” – this was their main message.</b> “First, let them pay for what they perpetrated.”</p>
<p>In the course of a dialogue which escalated to shouts,<b> the Palestinians asked us not to refer to suicide bombers as “terrorists” because they don’t consider them so</b>. “So how do you call someone who dons a vest and blows himself up in a Tel Aviv shopping mall with the stated purpose of killing innocent civilians,” I asked one of the participants.</p>
<p>“I have a 4-year-old at home,” answered Samach from Abu Dis (near Jerusalem). “If God forbid something should happen to him,<b> I will go and burn an entire Israeli city, if I can</b>.” All the other Palestinian participants nodded their heads in agreement to his harsh words.</p>
<p>“Three weeks ago, we gave birth to a son,” answered Amichai, a religious, Jewish student from Jerusalem. “If God forbid something should happen to him, I would find no comfort whatsoever in deaths of more people.”</p>
<p>Israelis from the full gamut of political parties participated in the seminar: Likud, Labor, Kadima, Meretz, and Hadash (combined Jewish/Arab socialist party). <b>All of them reached the understanding that the beautiful scenarios of Israeli-Palestinian peace that they had formulated for themselves simply don’t correspond with reality.</b> It’s just that most Israelis don’t have the opportunity to sit and really converse with Palestinians, to hear what they really think.</p>
<p>Our feed of information comes from Abu Mazen’s declarations to the international press, which he consistently contradicts when he is interviewed by Al Jazeera, where he paints a completely different picture.</p>
<p>I arrived at the seminar with high hopes, and I return home with difficult feelings and despair. Something about the narrative of the two sides is different from the core. <b>How can we return to the negotiating table when the Israeli side speaks of two states and the Palestinian side speaks of liberating Palestine from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea? How can peace ever take root in a platform which grants legitimacy to terrorism?</b></p></blockquote>
<p>This is not the first time a group of Israelis who pine for peace have met with their liberal Arab counterparts &#8211; only to find that they have no counterparts at all.</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>How Many Israelis Must Die for Peace?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/how-many-israelis-must-die-for-peace/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=how-many-israelis-must-die-for-peace</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 21 Mar 2013 04:19:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=182491</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The bloody price of a fantasy that will never be achieved.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/how-many-israelis-must-die-for-peace/israeli-funeral-8-19-11/" rel="attachment wp-att-182492"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-182492" title="Israeli-funeral-8-19-11" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Israeli-funeral-8-19-11-450x315.jpg" alt="" width="270" height="189" /></a>&#8220;War is peace,&#8221; entered our cultural vocabulary some sixty-four years ago. Around the same time that Orwell&#8217;s masterpiece was being printed up, an armistice was being negotiated between Israel and the Arab invading armies. That armistice began the long peaceful war or the warring peace.</p>
<p>The entire charade did not properly enter the realm of the Orwellian until the peace process began. The peace process between Israel and the terrorist militias funded by the countries of those invading armies has gone on for longer than most actual wars. It has also taken more lives than most actual wars.</p>
<p>War has an endpoint. Peace does not. A peace in which you are constantly at war can go on forever because while the enthusiasts of war eventually exhaust their patriotism, the enthusiasts of peace never give up on their peacemaking.</p>
<p>Warmongers may stop after a few thousand dead, but Peacemongers will pirouette over a million corpses.</p>
<p>Two decades after the peace process has failed in every way imaginable. Two decades after cemeteries on both sides are full of the casualties of peace. Two decades which have created two abortive Palestinian states at war with one another and with Israel.</p>
<p>Two decades later, it&#8217;s still time for peace.</p>
<p>Peace time means that it’s time to ring up some more Israeli concessions in the hopes of getting the terrorists back to the negotiating table for another photo op in the glorious album of peacemakers. And if the photos are properly posed, perhaps there will even be another Nobel Peace Prize in it for all the participants.</p>
<p>Every so often I am asked about a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian-Arab-Muslim conflict and the interrogators are baffled when I tell them that there is no solution. As society has become more progressive, it has become progressively more difficult to explain even to intelligent people that the world simply does not work that way.</p>
<p>For two Cold War generations it was nearly impossible to communicate that there really would be no peace with the Soviet Union other than the cold kind maintained by a mutual balance of power. Their children and grand-children appear equally unequipped to understand that most serious wars end with either one side definitively losing and fundamentally changing or both sides maintaining a cold peace that will last only as long as neither side believes that it can squash the other with a surprise attack.</p>
<p>Israel did have peace until it began peace negotiations. It wasn&#8217;t a perfect peace, but aside from the minor problems of the Intifada, a comparative pinprick set against the violence that began after that infamous Rose Garden handshake, it was a good time whose like was then not seen again until Israel stopped playing peace process with the terrorists and learned to keep them away instead.</p>
<p>But the relative absence of violence, according to the amateur peacemakers, isn&#8217;t peace. A wartime peace isn&#8217;t what they want. What they want is a peacetime war. Let there be handshakes and suicide bombings. Let there be bloody bodies scraped off the sidewalk, but let there also be children&#8217;s choirs singing about peace. Let a thousand tombstones rise, so long as everyone can believe that peace is at hand.</p>
<p>This vulgar worship of peace as a religion, a creed that restores the faith of faithless men and women in humanity is a combination of empty sentimentality and calculated ignorance.</p>
<p>We must have peace in our time, the peacemakers say. And Israel must provide it. More territorial concessions must be put on the table. More goodwill must be shown so that the peacemakers can have their faith in the goodness of every man, woman, child and suicide bomber restored once again.</p>
<p>Who will Israel make peace with? President Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, who hasn&#8217;t run for office since Hamas won the elections, doesn&#8217;t want to negotiate. Hamas only wants to negotiate a short-term pause in its campaign to destroy Israel. When he isn&#8217;t warring with Hamas, Abbas is declaring that he shares the same view on terrorism as Hamas.</p>
<p>But peacemakers only like the big picture. And the big picture is that there must be an answer. Tens of thousands demanded it in London before the war and Chamberlain delivered it to them. Peace arrived in our time, shortly before the Nazi bombers. Thousands more demanded it of every American president who faced a Communist thug across a negotiating table.</p>
<p>But then the Soviet Union collapsed because a persnickety cowboy wouldn&#8217;t give up a missile defense program that every Harvard graduate knew could never work. And now, as another Harvard graduate proudly tries to take credit for Israel&#8217;s Iron Dome, they still know it can&#8217;t work.</p>
<p>Reagan didn&#8217;t end the Cold War with treaties; he ended it by doggedly pursuing superior firepower. And that is why in the name of peace, the Harvard grad looking over Iron Dome on his visit to Israel, has shown Russia his peaceful flexibility by abandoning the final stage of missile defense.</p>
<p>Every Harvard grad knows that missile defense doesn&#8217;t bring peace. But what could anyone expect from Reagan? The poor dummy went to Eureka College. How could he know that defeating the USSR wouldn&#8217;t work?</p>
<p>Obama wants the same thing from Israel that he&#8217;s trying to get by selling out Poland on missile defense. Peace. While the only times Israel had any measure of peace is in the aftermath of a war, Harvard grads and the people who listen to them know that peace only comes about at the tail end of a long string of concessions and appeasement.</p>
<p>Peacemakers don&#8217;t really take into account how to make peace with killers. Most countries lock up violent murderers when they kill a dozen people for fun. But when they kill a dozen people in order to liberate other killers or lay claim to a piece of land, then they are worth negotiating with. And the only outcome of the negotiations is establishing murder as a negotiating tactic.</p>
<p>Peace leads to war because peacemaking rewards the warmakers. It rewards the obstinate killers who refuse to stop killing. And the more it rewards them, the more they kill.</p>
<p>So here we are with Obama t-shirts on sale to liberal American Jewish tourists in Jerusalem kiosks, a city whose Jewishness the man on the t-shirts will not recognize because it would harm the prospects for peace. And the question on their minds is how are we finally going to make peace happen.</p>
<p>The rational response is that peace isn&#8217;t going to happen. The two terrorist groups in their two states were set up for the sole purpose of destroying Israel. They are funded and supported by those countries that were attacking Israeli farmsteads with tanks around the time that Orwell was putting his final touches on &#8220;War is Peace, Slavery is Freedom and Ignorance is Strength.&#8221;</p>
<p>They are not going to stop trying to destroy Israel because it&#8217;s all they know and it&#8217;s their only reason for existence. And if that weren&#8217;t enough, they have spent generations teaching their children to hate and there is no sign whatsoever of them putting the brakes on the hate machine, which expresses more clearly than anything else that they do not intend to stop fighting now or even twenty years from now.</p>
<p>Not when their educational system is busy training the suicide bomber of tomorrow.</p>
<p>But ignorance is a particular strength of peacemakers. They don&#8217;t want reasons why it can&#8217;t happen. Nor do they want to hear that the best kind of peace with people whose religion tells them that they will go to heaven if they die while cutting your throat is the heavily armed peace of cold iron and steel.</p>
<p>War is their peace and ignorance is their strength.</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>Obama’s Two-State Delusion</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/moshe-dann/obama%e2%80%99s-two-state-delusion/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obama%25e2%2580%2599s-two-state-delusion</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 02 Apr 2010 04:15:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Moshe Dann]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=56899</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Never before has the United States sought to dictate the terms of Israeli surrender. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/obama-arafat-terrorists.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-56901" title="obama-arafat-terrorists" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/obama-arafat-terrorists.jpg" alt="" width="375" height="323" /></a></p>
<p>Let there be no mistake: President Obama&#8217;s attack on Israel&#8217;s right to govern in eastern Jerusalem has nothing to do with American national interests, and nothing to do with a &#8220;peace process.&#8221; Other American leaders may have disagreed with Israeli policy, but none of them made it a <em>casus belli</em>.</p>
<p>No other prominent politician sought to impose the &#8220;two-state solution,&#8221; based on 60-year-old cease-fire lines with Jordan, instead of a negotiated agreement. Obama&#8217;s move leaps beyond all previous &#8220;accords,&#8221; plans and &#8220;road maps.&#8221; Never before has the United   States sought to dictate the terms of Israeli surrender, thereby undermining its only reliable ally in the region.</p>
<p>Obama&#8217;s obsession with the establishment of a second Arab Palestinian state might be understandable if it were based on a realistic appraisal of conditions as they are, instead of what they might be. The warning signals are there.      <strong> </strong></p>
<p>Two dramatic shifts have made the &#8220;two-state solution&#8221; irrelevant: the stand-off victory of Hezbollah in Lebanon and the hegemony of Hamas in Gaza and many areas of the West Bank, nominally under the Palestinian Authority, controlled by Fatah. One has to be ignorant, and/or blind not to appreciate what these situations mean – especially given the threats from Iran.</p>
<p>The developments have led to the widespread recognition, especially among Israelis, that the so-called “Oslo process” (“land for peace”) has failed, that Israel has no &#8220;peace partner,&#8221; and, therefore, that a second Arab Palestinian state is no longer relevant.</p>
<p>Today, unilateral withdrawal from Yehuda and Shomron (&#8220;the West Bank&#8221;) and the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state is a “clear and present danger,” not only to Israel, but to the entire region.</p>
<p>Refusing to consider any alternatives to the &#8220;two-state&#8221; model, however, the United   States and EU countries focus on an &#8220;end to the conflict,&#8221; without necessary pre-requisites.</p>
<p>During the last 40 years, Israeli leaders conveyed the message that “the Palestinian problem” is ours and we can fix it. This was the motivation behind various proposals: Labor&#8217;s offers to exchange &#8220;land for peace,&#8221; Likud&#8217;s autonomy plan, confederation with Jordan, the First Lebanese War against the PLO, Rabin&#8217;s recognition of the PLO and the establishment of a Palestinian state, Barak&#8217;s offers at Camp David, Sharon&#8217;s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza and Northern Shomron, and the current government&#8217;s failures in Lebanon and Gaza.</p>
<p>All of these policies failed because they were <em>not reality-based</em>, but clung to a desperate Israeli desire for an end to the conflict. Each time Israel paid the price and made concessions, however, the price rose, and the conflict continued.</p>
<p>The &#8220;two-state&#8221; proposal based on Israel&#8217;s 1949 borders is also doomed to fail for several reasons:</p>
<p>(1) Palestinians’ opposition to <em>any</em> solution; their refusal to recognize authentic Jewish rights and claims and their refusal to accept Israel&#8217;s existence.</p>
<p>(2) A negotiating process confounded by terrorism. Israel demands an end to terrorism before making broader concessions; the Palestinians demand concessions first and reducing terrorism later – perhaps, if that is at all possible or their plan (which all evidence suggests it isn’t).</p>
<p>(3) Political/demographic reality is that Israel cannot return to the 1949 Armistice lines.</p>
<p>(4) UNRWA continues to support the &#8220;Palestinian right-of-return;&#8221; it is part of the problem, not a solution.</p>
<p>(5) Even if all of the above could be resolved, a stable Palestinian state is unlikely.</p>
<p>Rather than abandon vital national interests, the only practical and rational policy for America, the region, and Israel, is one based on security and reality: Islamic terrorism, Jihad, is and will be a persistent threat. That should be Pres. Obama&#8217;s main concern.</p>
<p>In comparison, issues such as definitions of Israel&#8217;s borders and demographic predictions are irrelevant. &#8220;Political horizons&#8221; can only have meaning when there is a stable government that is accountable and responsible. Otherwise, such proposals are recipes for disaster.</p>
<p>At the least, the Obama administration must present not only a realistic, coherent policy, but an explanation of how and why it will work. Slamming Israel is not a substitute for reason.</p>
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		<title>Obama&#8217;s Hardened Heart</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/moshe-dann/obamas-hardened-heart/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamas-hardened-heart</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 30 Mar 2010 04:01:11 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Moshe Dann]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=56263</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How it reminds us of the meaning of Exodus. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/obamai.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-56377" title="obamai" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/obamai.jpg" alt="" width="375" height="281" /></a></p>
<p>As if Jews needed a reminder about what a modern rendition of &#8220;Pharaoh&#8217;s  heart hardened,&#8221; President Obama is providing an example, emphasizing an  important lesson: the Egyptian dictator/king was part of the process of  liberation and, ultimately, of God&#8217;s will and the destiny of the Jewish People.</p>
<p>Despite Obama&#8217;s nasty treatment of Israel&#8217;s Prime Minister and  unreasonable demands, Hillary Clinton&#8217;s condemnations  and suggestions that Israel is responsible for war crimes, human rights  violations and hindering America&#8217;s war efforts in Pakistan and Afghanistan;  despite Israel&#8217;s demonization at the UN and Arab/Muslim boycott and isolation,  the Israeli government and the Jewish People are stronger and more united.</p>
<p>In Egypt,  three millennia ago, Hebrews (as Jews were then called) not only suffered as  slaves, but believed that slavery was their lot. Not yet a people, they had  descended to the lowest rung of human existence, spiritually as well as  physically; they lived in a state of unconsciousness.</p>
<p>Moses and Aaron awakened Jewish awareness; but it took ten plagues to  convince Pharaoh to allow the Jews to leave, a process of realization that  involved suffering and destruction, especially for the Egyptians. Had Pharaoh  allowed the Jews to leave immediately, there would not have been a revelation of  divine power, in contrast to Pharaoh&#8217;s phony ego-trip.</p>
<p>Not only was it necessary for Jews to understand that Pharaoh was not  God, it was also important for Egyptians. Only when the Egyptian army was  engulfed and destroyed was the meaning of The Exodus revealed. But that was only  the beginning of freedom.</p>
<p>The great Jewish Liberation Movement that inspired countless others to  resist subjugation and oppression was connected to two objectives: the Covenant  at Sinai, which was the beginning of the Jewish People, and the conquest and  settlement of the Land of  Israel as the fulfillment of divine  commandments, the struggle towards Jewish destiny.</p>
<p><em>Galut</em> (exile) is part of <em>Geulah</em> (redemption); both are necessary parts of the process of developing  consciousness. Without a vision of <em>Geulah</em>, <em>Galut</em> is meaningless  tragedy.</p>
<p>Obama&#8217;s hard-heartedness towards  Israel and the  Jewish People is now obvious to all. As difficult as that seems, however, it is  yet another omen of good things to come. That does not mean that there won&#8217;t be  hard times; there will be – for sure. But this is only a test.</p>
<p>It would have been more comfortable if Obama and Pharaoh had treated the  Jewish People more kindly. But that would have obstructed the process of  spiritual awareness.</p>
<p>Jewish liberation is not only physical, but is a creative process of  self-discovery, as an individual, as part of a family, a nation and a People.  The historical episodes are markers on a path towards a grander purpose. With  miracles and tragedies along the way, we need to be attuned to both.</p>
<p>Pharaoh became obsessed with destroying the Jews, and, in the process  destroyed his own country; many other tyrants followed his example. And the  Jewish People are still around.</p>
<p>The story of The  Exodus reminds us that there are no easy roads to self-discovery – as  individuals and as a People. We eat &#8220;the bread of affliction&#8221; in comfort,  thinking we are free and independent, yet, hesitant to be committed; full of  accomplishments, we are paupers of responsibility.</p>
<p>Obama puts it to us: what rightfully belongs to the  Jewish People in the Land of  Israel?</p>
<p>Obama and his friends may not like  Israel, and it&#8217;s  disappointing, but it may also be a way of clarifying what is important for us,  and for finding our integrity.</p>
<p>Passover/Pesach – the celebration of freedom – begins  with an act, but evolves into an ongoing drama of immense proportions. Obama&#8217;s  wrath turns us back to meaning of The Exodus: we are in God&#8217;s hands.</p>
<p><em>The author is a writer and journalist living in </em><em>Jerusalem</em><em>. </em></p>
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		<title>Palestinian Nazis and Double Standards</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/anav-silverman/palestinian-nazis-and-double-standards/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=palestinian-nazis-and-double-standards</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 26 Mar 2010 04:25:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Anav Silverman]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=55986</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Obama administration's shameless silence on who is truly fanning the flames of hate in the Middle East. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/hate.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-55988" title="hate" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/hate.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="300" /></a></p>
<p>The Obama administration’s  pursuit of Middle East peace has brought little if any promising results thus  far. Assigning who is to blame for the stalled talks, however, seems to be a  much easier task for the US administration. In typical fashion, Washington has laid  responsibility for the failure in the recent launch of peace negotiations  squarely on Israel’s shoulders, using the announcement of the 1,600 new homes  built in eastern Jerusalem during VP Joe Biden’s visit, as the primary reason  why peace talks were not progressing.</p>
<p>“We  have to make clear to our Israeli friend and partner that the two state solution  which we support…requires confidence building measures on both sides and the  announcement of the settlements the very day the VP was there, was  insulting  and unfortunate…” stated Secretary of State Hillary  Clinton recently.  Although Clinton attempted to smooth things over in her AIPAC  address, she stated that the US was obligated to tell Israel the truth.</p>
<p>Clinton’s assessment of this current ‘obstacle’ to the Middle East peace  process simply reveals how very little Washington truly understands of the  conflict, especially by dressing the situation with terms like “confidence  building.” The current problems in the Mideast conflict are beyond issues of  mistrust.</p>
<p>As  Palestinian demonstrations and continued rocket attacks in the past week have  shown, deep currents of hate and ideological calls for destruction against  Israel still continue to run strongly among Palestinian leaders.   The rededication of the Hurva synagogue in the Old City of Jerusalem on  March 15, originally constructed in the 18<sup>th</sup> century, was the most  recent example of how Israel’s recognition of ancient Jewish landmarks in the  Jewish state infuriates the radical Islamic leadership of Hamas and even the  PA.</p>
<p>In  response to the synagogue dedication, Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh  declared that Jerusalem will “always remain Islamic.”  In addition,  Hamas’s ambassador in Lebanon, Osama Hamadan, told Al-Jazeera  TV  that the opening of the Hurva Synagogue was part of a larger Israeli attempt to  “invent” a Jewish history for Jerusalem.  On March 16, Hamas  declared a Day of Rage and defense of Al-Aqsa Mosque, as a way to further incite  Palestinians and escalate tensions.</p>
<p>The  continued incitement and hate-education of Israel is carried out not only by  Hamas. Palestinian Media Watch recently reported that PA television is  broadcasting a new children’s program called Chicks that teaches children about  different areas of Palestine, using a map labeled only “Palestine” which depicts  all of Israel.  Next to the map, written in English and Arabic is  “Explore Your Country.” Education for a two-state solution does not exist on PA  television programs for youth.</p>
<p>However, the most disturbing developments which Washington continues to  steadfastly ignore is Iran’s continued financial and moral support of Hamas’s  terrorist and incitement activities. Dr. Khalil Al Hayya, a Hamas leader who was  interviewed earlier this year on Hamas’s military wing’s website, Iz a-din  al-Qassam Brigades, stated that “Iran supports us financially, politically and  morally without political price.”</p>
<p>Furthermore, the Iranian Intelligence Minister Hydar Maslahi recently  called on Muslim countries to launch a so-called media intifada against Israel  during a conference for the <em>National and Islamic Solidarity for the Future of  Palestine </em>held in Teheran on February 28 (The Intelligence and Terrorism  Information Center). Maslahi stated that his ministry was willing to provide any  assistance to Palestinian people who would carry out anti-Israel and anti-US  propaganda campaigns through on-line social networking.</p>
<p>Until  Washington recognizes the broader problems facing the Middle East at this time,  including the continuing incitement that Palestinian leaders generate among  their constituents, as well as “Islamizing” Israel’s Jewish history and refusing  to recognize to recognize any “Jewish” rights to the land, the road to  negotiations is near impossible.</p>
<p>Mainstream media and much of the world community have always maintained  that Israel’s building of Jewish homes and settlements are the primary obstacles  to peace talks.  To continue to believe so is not only  irresponsible but dangerous on the part of the US government. A truly  comprehensive peace process can be constructed only when the ideological issues  that continue to fan the flames of hate are addressed. By not doing so,  Washington is building another faulty foundation for a peace process that is  bound for collapse.</p>
<p><em>Anav Silverman is the international correspondent for Sderot Media  Center: <a href="http://www.sderotmedia.org.il/" target="_blank">www.SderotMedia.org.il</a>, a social media organization dedicated to bringing  the voices of Sderot residents to the attention of the global community. </em></p>
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		<title>Palestinians Glorify a Terrorist</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/danielmandel/palestinians-glorify-a-terrorist/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=palestinians-glorify-a-terrorist</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/danielmandel/palestinians-glorify-a-terrorist/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 23 Mar 2010 04:01:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Mandel]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=55362</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[And Obama denounces Israel for building homes.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/dalal.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-55363" title="dalal" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/dalal.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="428" /></a></p>
<p>Does building  homes threaten peace? Or does holding a ceremony honoring as a hero and role  model a terrorist who murdered dozens of civilians? Last week, Israel announced  it would be doing the former. Palestinians did the latter. The Obama  Administration condemned the Israeli words; it ignored the Palestinian  deeds.</p>
<p>What could be  wrong with building 1,600 homes for Jews in eastern Jerusalem?  Nothing, except  for Palestinians who do not accept Israel’s existence and intend as a first step  towards ending it to set up their own Jew-free state and divide Israel’s capital  in the process.</p>
<p>What could be  wrong with the Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority (PA) publicly honoring Dalal  Mughrabi, who led the 1978 coastal road terror attack that killed 37 Israeli  civilians? Everything, where peace is concerned but, apparently, nothing where  the Obama Administration is concerned.</p>
<p>Visiting  Vice-President Joseph Biden condemned the Israeli building project. Secretary of  State Hillary Clinton called it “an insult to the United States.” Senior Obama  adviser David Axelrod described it as “destructive” and an “affront.” But no  such words – in fact, no words at all – issued from this Administration over the  PA publicly glorifying Mughrabi, which also occurred during Biden’s  visit.</p>
<p>The Obama  Administration has noisily opposed Jewish construction in the West Bank and  eastern Jerusalem. But last year even it accepted Israel’s unilateral concession  (unreciprocated by the PA) of a ten-month building freeze in the West Bank,  excluding Jerusalem. Indeed, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton welcomed this  concession and called it “unprecedented” – which it was.</p>
<p>After all,  throughout the Oslo process, Israel built homes for existing Jewish communities  without Palestinians breaking off talks, and little wonder: an Israeli  commitment to cease building such homes does not feature in the Oslo agreements.  The use of such a pretext for walking out of talks could only have gone so  far.</p>
<p>However, last  year, the Obama  Administration arrived on the scene.</p>
<p>Since loudly  demanding a Jewish construction freeze, the only result has been that the PA now  refuses to negotiate until Israel accedes to it. This lands an Administration  &#8212; that has made a priority about restarting peace talks without inquiring into  whether Palestinians actually want peace &#8212; in a self-made mess.</p>
<p>Having no-where  else to turn and unable to acknowledge responsibility for the results of its own  posturing, the Obama Administration has scrambled for an alibi to account for  its failure by turning on Israel for doing something it had previously accepted.</p>
<p>This fit of  pique is likely to be as counter-productive for the Obama Administration as it  will be inconsequential for Israel’s Netanyahu government. Israelis do not like  other people telling them to divide their capital and they will not turn on the  Netanyahu government for opposing steps that could lead to it.</p>
<p>The Obama  Administration has already abandoned Obama’s original, sonorously proclaimed  goal of swift, direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks due the very Palestinian  refusal to participate which it has incited. Now it may come to witness the  disintegration of its painstakingly-orchestrated fall-back, proximity talks –  basically the U.S. acting as messenger between the two sides – before they even  begin.</p>
<p>Worse, this  high-handedness with a friend will ultimately dismay other American allies – as  other Obama stunts have done with the Czech Republic, Honduras and Poland, to  name a few – while emboldening rivals and enemies.</p>
<p>Obama promised  the Czechs and Poles that he would keep faith with his predecessor’s agreement  to provide a missile defense shield, before telephoning both countries on the  70<sup>th</sup> anniversary of World War Two to tell them he had changed his  mind at the behest of their worst nightmare, Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Honduras  removed from office in accordance with its constitution a lawless president  seeking to remain there and was rewarded with U.S. condemnation and the cutting  off of military aid. Now Israel announces a housing project that Palestinians  don’t like and the Administration reacts with rancorous hyperbole.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the  Administration presses ‘reset’ buttons with Russia, which sells the technology  for nuclear weapons development to Iran. It  restores an ambassador to Syria, having abandoned holding it accountable for the  murder of Lebanon’s Rafik Hariri or dispatching jihadists to kill Americans in  Iraq. And Obama personally bows before Saudi and Chinese despots who  export the technology and ideology increasingly threatening America and its  allies.</p>
<p>The Obama  Administration fiddles about Israeli apartments while the Middle East  burns.</p>
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		<title>Obama&#8217;s Israel Crisis</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/davidhornik/obamas-israel-crisis/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamas-israel-crisis</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/davidhornik/obamas-israel-crisis/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 16 Mar 2010 04:05:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[P. David Hornik]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=54635</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[America's enemies get courted, while allies get the squeeze. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/obamais.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-54637" title="obamais" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/obamais.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="329" /></a></p>
<p>Israel Apartheid Week hadn’t yet run its course when Israel came in for a barrage of hostile characterizations also from the Obama administration. In the same brief time span there was also <a href="http://matzav.com/ahmadinejad-israel-is-worlds-most-hated-state">Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad</a>—“The Zionist regime is the most hated regime in the world…. with Allah’s help, this regime will be annihilated.” All this came hard on the heels of a wave of <a href="../2010/03/01/israel%E2%80%99s-latest-sin%E2%80%94honoring-its-heritage/">international outrage</a>, and violent attacks by Palestinians, over Israel adding shrines in Hebron and Bethlehem to a list of national heritage sites.</p>
<p>If it seems like a lot of negative attention for one small, constantly pressured country, it is. Reacting to an announcement by the Israeli Interior Ministry on plans to build 1600 housing units—for Jews (if they had been for Arabs, no one would have protested)—in Jerusalem, Vice-President Joe Biden, who was in Israel for a visit, <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/laurarozen/0310/What_Biden_told_Netanyahu_behind_closed_doors_This_is_starting_to_get_dangerous_for_us.html#comments">reportedly</a> told Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, “This is starting to get dangerous for us. What you’re doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That endangers us and it endangers regional peace.”</p>
<p>Netanyahu apologized and, by Thursday last week when Biden’s visit ended, apparently thought the matter had been handled. But on Friday,  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called Netanyahu and gave him a 45-minute harangue in which she told him, as State Department spokesman P. J. Crowley <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35838282/ns/politics/">put it</a>, that “the United States considered the announcement a deeply negative signal about Israel’s approach to the bilateral relationship,” that “this action had undermined trust and confidence in the peace process and in America’s interests,” and that “she could not understand how this happened, particularly in light of the United States’ strong commitment to Israel’s security.”</p>
<p>Further harsh remarks came from Obama adviser David Axelrod, who <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/week-transcript-wh-senior-advisor-david-axelrod-sen/story?id=10085253&amp;page=4">called</a> the announcement about the residential units for Jews an “affront” and an “insult” and said it “seemed calculated to undermine” indirect Israeli-Palestinian talks—this after Biden had accepted Netanyahu’s explanation that the announcement was bureaucratic happenstance. And Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren received <a href="http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=170999&amp;utm_source=twitterfeed&amp;utm_medium=twitter">“the same message of American disapproval and outrage”</a> from Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg—it being clear by now that the anger was being “managed” from the top, that is, by President Obama himself.</p>
<p>The totally unwarranted nature of this anger was well summarized in a <em><a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704416904575121710380216280.html">Wall Street Journal editorial</a></em>, which noted that “this particular housing project… falls within Jerusalem’s municipal boundaries and can only be described as a ‘settlement’ in the maximalist terms defined by the Palestinians.” Indeed, when in November Netanyahu announced a ten-month construction freeze in the West Bank that did not include any part of Jerusalem, Clinton praised the move as “unprecedented.” As the <em>Journal</em> concluded: “this episode does fit Mr. Obama’s foreign policy pattern to date: Our enemies get courted; our friends get the squeeze. It has happened to Poland, the Czech Republic, Honduras and Colombia. Now it’s Israel’s turn.”</p>
<p>Still, whatever slights and betrayals those countries have suffered, Anti-Defamation League director Abraham Foxman was more on the mark when he <a href="http://www.adl.org/PresRele/IslME_62/5717_62.htm">stated</a>, “We cannot remember an instance when such harsh language was directed at a friend and ally of the United States.” The United States could, for instance, well blame other NATO countries for sending only tiny, token forces to Afghanistan; or Germany for its ongoing thriving commerce with Iran. Yet such a public dressing-down of these allies as Israel gets for apartments in Jerusalem would be, of course, inconceivable.</p>
<p>What motivated the administration’s outburst? Speculations have focused on attempts to intimidate Israel out of attacking Iran; or to force Netanyahu to choose between his right-wing coalition partners and going along with the administration’s notion of a “peace process”—or even pressuring his government into a collapse. Neither aim would be logical: making Israel feel isolated and abandoned by the U.S. would increase the chances of a move against Iran; and the right to build in Jerusalem is not a “right-wing” but, rather, a consensus position in Israel that has a unifying rather than fragmenting effect.</p>
<p>Since the anti-Israeli rancor stems from Obama himself, speculation could also focus on his personal motives: an ongoing identification with Palestinian positions; poor personal chemistry with Netanyahu and an inclination to blame him; or, on a less personal basis, animosity toward Netanyahu as an Israeli leader who is perceived as “hard-line” and obstructing peace no matter how many concessions he makes; adherence to a mistaken belief that Middle East-wide instability stems from Israeli-Palestinian tensions; all or some of the above mixed with frustration at the difficulty of the “peace process” that Obama adopted so resolutely as a goal at the start of his term; or he could be motivated by whatever it is that makes the Jewish state the target of so much special malice and denigration.</p>
<p>Whatever stands behind this crisis, which Ambassador Oren has <a href="http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=171036">called</a> “the worst with the U.S. in 35 years,” Netanyahu appears to be reacting at this point by holding his ground, having <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=171050">stated</a> on Monday that “Construction in Jerusalem will continue in any part of the city as it has during the last 42 years…. In [that period], there was no [Israeli] government that limited construction in any Jerusalem area or neighborhood. Establishing Jewish neighborhoods did not hurt Jerusalem’s Arab residents and was not at their expense.”</p>
<p>Although Biden, in his <a href="http://blogs.jta.org/politics/article/2010/03/11/1011046/bidens-speech">speech</a> in Tel Aviv on Thursday, spoke of “an ironclad commitment to Israel’s security,” for this administration that does not include refraining from further vilifying Israel at a time of obsessive worldwide opprobrium and existential danger. As Washington pushes Israel to the brink of losing its autonomy as a state, Netanyahu knows there is a limit, a point at which Israel will have to stand up for itself and look out for itself.</p>
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		<title>Sinking to New Lows in the Terror War</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jamie-glazov/sinking-to-new-lows-in-the-terror-war-2/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=sinking-to-new-lows-in-the-terror-war-2</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jamie-glazov/sinking-to-new-lows-in-the-terror-war-2/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 23 Feb 2010 05:06:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jamie Glazov]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=51139</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How the Obama administration is facilitating the Muslim Brotherhood's plan of the "grand jihad."]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/lows2.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-51142" title="lows" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/lows2.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="301" /></a></p>
<p>Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Andrew C. McCarthy, a senior fellow at the National Review Institute and a columnist for <em>National Review</em>. His book <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Willful-Blindness-Andrew-C-Mccarthy/dp/1594032653/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1262125302&amp;sr=8-4" target="_blank">Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad</a> </em>(Encounter Books, 2008), has just been released in paperback with a new preface. Check out <a href="http://www.encounterbooks.com/" target="_blank">a description</a> from Encounter Books.</p>
<p><strong>FP: </strong>Andy McCarthy, thank you for joining Frontpage Interview.</p>
<p>The Obama administration has now named a CAIR-trained supporter of convicted terrorist Sami al-Arian to be its envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference. What gives here?</p>
<p><strong>McCarthy:</strong> Jamie, as always it&#8217;s a great pleasure to be here.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s not such a great pleasure, however, to talk about what is happening to our country.  What we are seeing is the domestic version of the Obama administration&#8217;s dangerously loopy &#8220;engagement&#8221; strategy.  Basically, if you&#8217;re a friend of the United States, say Israel or Poland, prepare to be screwed; if you despise America as, say, Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood do, prepare to be wooed. What&#8217;s happening here is wrong on so many levels it&#8217;s hard to unwind.</p>
<p>The OIC is an insidious organization dedicated to the imposition of Sharia (i.e., the evisceration of liberty) and the destruction of Israel. Yet, as Claudia Rosett&#8217;s recent brilliant <a href="http://www.forbes.com/2010/02/17/rashad-hussain-islam-obama-opinions-columnists-claudia-rosett_2.html" target="_blank">column</a> in Forbes observes, we are subsidizing its activities and giving it a propaganda victory every time we repeat its claim to be a &#8220;57-nation bloc&#8221; (one of those &#8220;nations&#8221; is the Palestinian territories, which do not constitute a nation). We shouldn&#8217;t have an envoy for it at all. We can thank the Bush administration&#8217;s pandering for that, but the Obama administration takes every Bush misstep and increases it geometrically. So now we will have an envoy whose credibility with the OIC will lie in the fact that he shares its disdain for the American government&#8217;s national defense measures against Islamic terrorists.</p>
<p><strong>FP: </strong>What’s with Homeland Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano and her cozy relationship with Muslim Brotherhood&#8217;s U.S. affiliates?</p>
<p><strong>McCarthy:</strong> This is a continuation of what President Obama started in Cairo, when the Muslim Brotherhood was invited to attend his ballyhooed speech. There are many people on the Left who have argued for years that we should be engaging the Brotherhood &#8212; that they are the &#8220;good&#8221; Islamists who are willing to work through a political process rather than resort to terror.  Putting aside that they actually do support terrorism (against U.S. forces in Muslim countries and against Israel, at the least), shouldn&#8217;t we be concerned about what these &#8220;moderates&#8221; want to achieve through the political process?  They are dedicated to the installation of Sharia law, the necessary precondition, in Islamist ideology, to the Islamization of society.</p>
<p>Many of the groups for which Napolitiano has rolled out the red carpet &#8212; the Islamic Society of North America, the Muslim American Society, for instances, are Muslim Brotherhood tentacles.  Like CAIR, they were shown in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism finance trial to be part of what the Brotherhood described as &#8220;grand jihad&#8221; to &#8220;sabotage&#8221; America from within. When you know that, the idea would be to keep them out.  We&#8217;re inviting them in.  I strongly recommend that people check out Richard Pollock&#8217;s <a href="http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/napolitano-meets-with-muslim-brotherhood-leaders-pjm-exclusive/" target="_blank">report</a> at Pajamas Media about Napolitano&#8217;s meeting with these groups.</p>
<p><strong>FP: </strong>Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan has come out with some curious comments on the recidivism rates of released Gitmo detainees. Tell us about those comments and other aspects of this story that need more attention.</p>
<p><strong>McCarthy: </strong>Well, the recidivism comment is just staggering.  First of all, to say the rate at which former Gitmo detainees recidivate (i.e., go back to the jihad) is &#8220;20 percent,&#8221; as Brennan said, is preposterous.  We don&#8217;t know if someone is a recidivist unless we either encounter him on the battlefield or get reliable intelligence that he has rejoined the terrorist groups.  That is, we can&#8217;t account for people we haven&#8217;t encountered on the battlefield or otherwise gotten good intelligence about.</p>
<p>This is not a criminal trial such that you have to suspend common sense and give those unaccounted for jihadists the benefit of the doubt. The only safe assumption is that the real recidivism rate is higher &#8212; no doubt much higher &#8212; than 20 percent. Moreover, even if it were lower, we are talking about people who go back to mass-murder, not shop-lifting. For Brennan to say 20 percent is fine because it compares favorably to the recidivism rate for ordinary criminals utterly misconstrues the difference between a national security challenge (which must be defeated) and a mere criminal justice problem (which has to be managed by good policing but can never really be eliminated).  That would be a stupid remark for a cop or an analyst to make; for a high national security official to make it is inexcusable.</p>
<p>Beyond that, why is Brennan going to NYU to pander to Islamist activists like Omar Shahin?  Michelle Malkin has an excellent <a href="http://michellemalkin.com/2010/02/17/national-security-nightmare-john-brennan-and-the-notorious-flying-imam/" target="_blank">piece</a> on this unnoticed aspect of Brennan&#8217;s performance. Shahin was the ring-leader of the Flying Imams. He was also the leader at one of the most notorious Islamist mosques in the United   States, the Islamic Center of Tucson. His predecessor there was Wael Hamza Julaidan, an al Qaeda founder designated by the Treasury Department as an international terrorist. Shahin gave fiery anti-Semitic &#8220;sermons&#8221; while at the mosque, the worshippers at which included 9/11 suicide bomber Hani Hanjour, bin Laden&#8217;s secretary Wadi el-Hage (since convicted in the embassy bombing case), and two young Saudis (Hamdan al-Shalawi and Muhammad al-Qudhaieen) who just happen to have been implicated in a 1999 &#8220;dry run&#8221; for the 9/11 attacks &#8212; engaging in the same sort of antics Shahin and the other Flying Imams engaged in. Shahin was the Arizona coordinator for the Holy Land Foundation (a charity later shuttered for supporting Hamas) and later became a representative of &#8220;Kind Hearts,&#8221; another Hamas charitable front. Yet, here is a top presidential adviser not only giving this guy the time of day but seemingly agreeing with him that our post-9/11 counterterrorism has been too aggressive.  It&#8217;s shameful.</p>
<p><strong>FP: </strong>What is happening in all of these developments and what threat does it pose?</p>
<p><strong>McCarthy:</strong> The Muslim Brotherhood&#8217;s &#8220;grand jihad&#8221; &#8212; as it describes the plan in a 1991 memo &#8212; is to &#8220;sabotage&#8221; the United States from within.  These developments show we&#8217;re not only failing to defend ourselves.  We&#8217;re helping them along.</p>
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		<title>Palestinian Rockets and the Children of Sderot</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/anav-silverman/palestinian-rockets-and-the-children-of-sderot/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=palestinian-rockets-and-the-children-of-sderot</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/anav-silverman/palestinian-rockets-and-the-children-of-sderot/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 23 Feb 2010 05:02:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Anav Silverman]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=51162</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The ongoing impact of rocket terror on southern Israelis today.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/sderot1.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-51621" title="sderot" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/sderot1.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="305" /></a></p>
<p>Although news reports have frequently described the situation in Sderot as back to normal—with real estate having gone up 20 to 30 percent, 1,400 new homes approved for construction, and families returning to the city—behind the headlines the impact of last year’s rocket war is still hammering away at the population.<br />
Hila Barzilai, the director of the Sderot Resilience Center (Merkaz Hosen) recently told Sderot Media Center that in the past six months following Operation Cast Lead, hundreds of Sderot children have turned to the resilience center for therapy treatment.</p>
<p>“These kids come to us with their parents to seek therapy for the trauma built up from years of rocket attacks,” says Barzilai. “These problems did not just begin post-Operation Cast Lead. We are talking about eight years of constant rocket attacks whose psychological effects are now emerging during this period of calm.”</p>
<p>Over 364 new patients arrived to the resilience center six months after Operation Cast Lead, according to Barzilai.</p>
<p>“We do everything possible to limit the long-lasting affects of these rocket attacks but it is a long and drawn-out process.”</p>
<p>The average recovery period for a child can take up to eight months or more, said Barzilai. One of the challenges of trauma patients face in the recovery process are the  sporadic rocket attacks that still continue to hit Sderot and the western Negev region.</p>
<p>Barzilai notes in frustration that “it takes one rocket attack to destroy any progress in the patient’s therapy. The siren alert will trigger the flashbacks of terror and fear in the child or adult, which means that the therapy process has to start over again.”</p>
<p>The over 20 Gaza rockets fired in early January 2010, bought on a new wave of trauma patients to the center according to Barzilai, who also stated that this was the resilience center’s final year of operation due to financial issues.</p>
<p>Barzilai is not the only health professional in Sderot who has seen a sharp increase in the number of patients suffering from health issues during the calm.</p>
<p>Orna Hurwitz, the director of the Sderot Bon Tone Hearing Institute, told Sderot Media Center on Monday that hearing loss has become an ailment unique to Sderot and Gaza-border residents.</p>
<p>“The hearing impairments suffered by residents of Sderot are akin to the hearing loss that soldiers experience during war. The repeated blasts of the rocket explosions harm the ear drum to the point that many residents have to be treated for hearing loss, dizziness, tinnitus, and/or central auditory processing disorders,” says Hurwitz.</p>
<p>“Many of these victims do not seek out treatment for such internal injuries immediately. After a rocket attack, the first things that are treated are the physical injuries and the shock. Less noticeable are the internal injuries. Many victims therefore fail to realize that their hearing may have also been impaired.”</p>
<p>“It is during the calm and quiet—like this third ceasefire with Hamas—that residents are discovering that they have been injured in other ways.”</p>
<p>“Hearing loss is an especially sensitive subject,” said Horowitz.  “It takes time for people to process that they have a hearing problem and many are embarrassed to seek help—especially the younger victims.”</p>
<p>The expensive cost for the treatment is another reason why Sderot residents do not get the necessary assistance. According to Horowitz, many low-income residents simply do not have the budget to purchase a hearing aid, which can cost anywhere from $1,000 to $5,000, or seek more professional care.</p>
<p>“In Sderot, we have over 200 residents with hearing impairments as a result of rocket explosions. Most cannot afford the treatment that they need to get better.”</p>
<p>Horowitz says that although the city appears to be returning to some semblance of normalcy, “the beautiful new parks and playgrounds do nothing to address the real health issues of residents.”</p>
<p>“Hearing is one of the five basic senses that human beings need to live and enjoy life to the fullest. Although things may look normal on the outside at this moment, there are many residents here who continue to suffer in silence,” she says.</p>
<p>“Hearing loss among my patients has led to loss of jobs, depression, and strained family ties. It’s a never-ending battle that I see Sderot residents struggle with in my office every day.”</p>
<p>Anav Silverman is the international correspondent at Sderot Media Center, SderotMedia.com, a social media organization dedicated to bringing the voices of Sderot residents to the attention of the global community.</p>
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		<title>Blinded by Hate</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/davidhornik/blinded-by-hate/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=blinded-by-hate</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/davidhornik/blinded-by-hate/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 10 Feb 2010 05:05:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[P. David Hornik]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=49409</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Palestinians' support for Hezbollah, Hamas, and al-Qaeda explains much about the failures of the "peace process."
]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/PalestinianProtest.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-49411" title="PalestinianProtest" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/PalestinianProtest-300x239.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="239" /></a></p>
<p>For anyone wishing to understand the lack of progress in the Israeli-Palestinian “peace process,” as well as the persistence of extremist and anti-Semitic views in that part of the world, the latest Pew Research Center report on attitudes in the Arab and Muslim world makes for must-reading. (A <a href="http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1486/survey-muslim-nations-middle-east-political-leaders-hamas-hezbollah?src=prc-latest&amp;proj=peoplepress">summary</a> of the report can be found here and the full report <a href="http://pewglobal.org/reports/pdf/268.pdf">here</a>.)</p>
<p>The report is based on a survey that the Pew Center’s Global Attitudes Project conducted from May 18 to June 16 last year. It begins by saying that “across predominantly Muslim nations, there is little enthusiasm for the extremist Islamic organizations Hamas and Hezbollah, although there are pockets of support for both groups, especially in the Middle East.” What the Pew Center calls “little enthusiasm,” however, is in most cases quite considerable enthusiasm.</p>
<p>True, in Turkey Hamas gets only a 5% “favorable” rating and Hezbollah only 3%. But the next-lowest ratings are in Lebanon, where 30% approve of Hamas and 35% of Hezbollah—substantial proportions considering that both are terrorist organizations. And regarding Hezbollah, Lebanese Shiites and Sunnis are, not surprisingly, sharply split, with 97% of Shiites seeing the Shiite terror group favorably and only 2% of Sunnis.</p>
<p>As for the Palestinians, when it comes to the most extreme organizations and leaders, only in the case of Hamas—paradoxically—do they trail behind some other nationalities. Some 44% of Palestinians view Hamas favorably; the group does better both in Jordan (56%) and Egypt (52%). That this has something to do with Palestinians’ direct experience of Hamas, the rulers of Gaza, is suggested by the fact that Hamas actually came in less popular in Gaza (37%) than in the West Bank (47%).</p>
<p>When it comes to Hezbollah, though, the overwhelmingly Sunni Palestinians are ahead of the pack with a 61% approval rating for this Shiite outfit; the next highest are in Jordan (51%) and Egypt (43%). It is no secret that Hezbollah has many admirers, cutting across Sunni-Shiite divides, for its perceived military successes against Israel; that its cachet is particularly strong for the Palestinians, though, is consistent with other findings of the survey.</p>
<p>The survey not only gauged attitudes toward organizations but also toward various leaders, including six Arab and Muslim leaders among whom the most extreme were Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Osama bin Laden. Nasrallah – who has said that “If Jews all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide” – scored highest among the Palestinians with 65% expressing confidence in him; next came the Jordanians (a majority of whom, it should be noted, are also Palestinians) at 56%, with Nasrallah’s own Lebanese compatriots a fairly distant third at 37%.</p>
<p>As for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president who has said Israel “must be wiped off the map,” he, too, did best among the Palestinians at 45%, edging out Indonesia at 43%, with the next highest scores in Arab countries being Jordan and Lebanon both at 32%.</p>
<p>And as for Osama bin Laden himself, here the Palestinians were almost his greatest fans at 51%, far ahead of the next group—again the Jordanians—at 28%; only among Nigerian Muslims (excluding Nigerian Christians) did the Al Qaeda leader do a bit better at 54%.</p>
<p>The survey also gauged Muslims’ attitude toward religious groups, including Jews. Here, at least, the Palestinians can’t be accused of being ahead of the rest. Ninety-five percent of Egyptians, 97% of Jordanians, 98% of Lebanese, and 97% of Palestinians registered an unfavorable view of Jews; among non-Arab Muslims—Turkey 73%, Indonesia 74%, Pakistan 78%—the rates were only somewhat lower.</p>
<p>Although the findings on Palestinian attitudes and general Arab anti-Semitism are not much different from previous Pew Center surveys, perhaps it is time to take more note of them—especially as hands are being wrung about the hiatus in the “peace process” with the Palestinians. In that connection Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, is <a href="http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=168068">quoted</a> as saying that “Since there are no prospects of talks on the horizon, and in many ways what their efforts wrought was a wasted year without any negotiations, I believe the [U.S.] administration deserves an ‘F’ for failure to deliver on results.”</p>
<p>It is odd that Foxman, head of an organization devoted to fighting anti-Jewish and other forms of bigotry, apparently sees “peace with the Palestinians” as such a feasible goal. But there is no need to single Foxman out, as his fallacy is widespread.</p>
<p>It is true that Israel has a limited but valuable peace with Egypt and Jordan, no less monolithically anti-Semitic than the Palestinians. That the Palestinians, however, show such high enthusiasm for the likes of Hezbollah, Nasrallah, Ahmadinejad, and Bin Laden gives a better clue as to why “peace” keeps running aground than all the anguished analyses of supposedly failed diplomacy.</p>
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		<title>Byron York: Who are the 300 terrorists held in U.S. prisons? &#8211; Washington Examiner</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/byron-york-who-are-the-300-terrorists-held-in-u-s-prisons-washington-examiner/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=byron-york-who-are-the-300-terrorists-held-in-u-s-prisons-washington-examiner</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 08 Feb 2010 03:44:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=49246</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&#8220;The Bush administration used the criminal justice system to convict more than 300 individuals on terrorism-related charges,&#8221; writes Attorney General Eric Holder in a new letter to Republican critics in Congress. The letter is part of the Obama administration&#38;apos;s aggressive defense of its decision to grant full American constitutional rights to al Qaeda soldier Umar [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>&#8220;The Bush administration used the criminal justice system to convict more than 300 individuals on terrorism-related charges,&#8221; writes Attorney General Eric Holder in a new letter to Republican critics in Congress. The letter is part of the Obama administration&amp;apos;s aggressive defense of its decision to grant full American constitutional rights to al Qaeda soldier Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the accused Christmas Day bomber. That defense boils down to one sentence: Bush did it, too.Republicans on Capitol Hill object. They argue that one of the reasons some terrorists were handled in the criminal justice system is that it took George W. Bush and Congress years to establish a military tribunal system that satisfied constitutional requirements &#8212; a process that was lengthened by legal challenges filed by some of the same lawyers who now work in Holder&amp;apos;s Justice Department.You can argue about that forever. But there&amp;apos;s one serious factual debate going on about Holder&amp;apos;s letter, and that concerns those &#8220;300 individuals.&#8221; Just who are they?It turns out some lawmakers have been trying for months to get an answer. They&amp;apos;re not saying the claim is false &#8212; they just want to see what it&amp;apos;s based on. But so far they haven&amp;apos;t been able to find out.It started back in May 2009, when President Obama gave his famous National Archives speech outlining the plan to close the Guantanamo Bay terrorist detention center. &#8220;Bear in mind the following fact,&#8221; Obama said. &#8220;Nobody has ever escaped from one of our federal &amp;apos;supermax&amp;apos; prisons, which hold hundreds of convicted terrorists.&#8221; Although the president did not put a number on it, various figures, ranging up to 300, have been tossed around in the months since.</p>
<p>via <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Who-are-the-300-terrorists-held-in-U_S_-prisons_-83588677.html">Who are the 300 terrorists held in U.S. prisons? | Washington Examiner</a>.</p>
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		<title>Al Franken</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/john-perazzo/al-franken/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=al-franken</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/john-perazzo/al-franken/#respond</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 05 Feb 2010 15:52:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[John Perazzo]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=48971</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Al Franken is a U.S. Senator representing Minnesota. His 2008 Senate race against Republican Norm Coleman was hotly contested and extremely close. It was also marred by what journalist Matthew Vadum called &#8220;appalling irregularities that characterized both the initial and subsequent vote-counting.&#8221; The morning after the election, Coleman led Franken by 725 votes. But Franken refused to concede, [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Franken.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-48973" title="Franken" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Franken.jpg" alt="" width="480" height="270" /></a></p>
<p>Al Franken is a U.S. Senator representing Minnesota. His 2008 Senate race against Republican Norm Coleman was hotly contested and extremely close. It was also marred by what journalist Matthew Vadum called &#8220;<a href="http://spectator.org/archives/2009/04/14/fighting-frankenstein/print">appalling irregularities</a> that characterized both the initial and subsequent vote-counting.&#8221; The morning after the election, Coleman led Franken by 725 votes. But Franken refused to concede, and the thin margin triggered an automatic recount. As <a href="http://discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6968">ACORN</a>-aligned Secretary of State Mark Ritchie presided over the recount process, Coleman&#8217;s lead gradually vanished due to a host of mysterious, newly discovered votes that almost invariably benefited Franken. A detailed account of these developments can found <a href="http://spectator.org/archives/2009/04/14/fighting-frankenstein/print">here</a>. By the time the recount (and a court challenge by Coleman) had ended in April 2009, Franken held <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090630/ap_on_el_se/us_minnesota_senate">a 312-vote lead</a>. On June 30, 2009, after the Minnesota Supreme Court unanimously rejected his lawsuit, Coleman officially conceded and Franken was declared the victor.</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2361">To view Al Franken&#8217;s full profile, click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>Andrew C. McCarthy: Rigging the Numbers on Terror &#8211; National Review Online</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/andrew-c-mccarthy-rigging-the-numbers-on-terror-national-review-online/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=andrew-c-mccarthy-rigging-the-numbers-on-terror-national-review-online</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/andrew-c-mccarthy-rigging-the-numbers-on-terror-national-review-online/#respond</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 01 Feb 2010 16:20:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=48402</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It is welcome news that the Obama administration has reversed its irrational decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other 9/11 plotters in Manhattan’s federal court. So far, however, the administration has merely — and grudgingly — begun to climb out of this hole of its own making.The president seems more poised to move [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>It is welcome news that the Obama administration has reversed its irrational decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other 9/11 plotters in Manhattan’s federal court. So far, however, the administration has merely — and grudgingly — begun to climb out of this hole of its own making.The president seems more poised to move his error than to correct it. Reports indicate that the administration thinks the challenge now is to find a new location in which to proceed with the same ill-advised civilian prosecution. Instead, the idea at this point should be to build a sensible strategy going forward: military commissions for now, and, ultimately, a new system for handling national-security cases.No such luck. Rather than learn from this experience, the Left is doubling down on civilian due process. Its agitprop du jour is a bogus numbers game.</p>
<p>via <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/423463/rigging-the-numbers/andrew-c-mccarthy">Rigging the Numbers &#8211; Andrew C. McCarthy &#8211; National Review Online</a>.</p>
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		<title>Can Obama Triangulate?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/dick-morris/can-obama-triangulate/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=can-obama-triangulate</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/dick-morris/can-obama-triangulate/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 28 Jan 2010 05:02:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Dick Morris]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=47928</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[All the spin in the world won't save the President.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-47931" title="42-22959915" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/obamas.jpg" alt="42-22959915" width="450" height="300" /></p>
<p>Q: How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?</p>
<p>A: One, but only if it really wants to change.</p>
<p>Any president, at any time, can choose to embody the consensus his nation has reached after it has engaged in a period of extended debate. That process, called triangulation, involves the embrace of the elements advanced by the right and by the left that Americans have found valid and the rejection of those from which they have turned away.</p>
<p>When our nation encounters a new problem, we welcome vigorous debate and encourage each side to articulate its views and elaborate its solutions. But, after a time, we have heard enough and want resolution, consensus and implementation. If Obama heeds that call, he can, indeed, turn his presidency around. But if he continues to pursue his leftist, socialist agenda and uses a feigned moderation as a guise for his radicalism, we will not be fooled again. We have been down that road with him before.</p>
<p>In <a style="border-bottom: 0.075em solid darkgreen ! important; font-weight: normal ! important; font-size: 100% ! important; text-decoration: underline ! important; padding-bottom: 1px ! important; color: darkgreen ! important; background-color: transparent ! important; background-image: none; padding-top: 0pt; padding-right: 0pt; padding-left: 0pt;" href="http://www.creators.com/opinion/dick-morris.html#" target="_blank">health care</a>, for example, the debate has left most of us in agreement that insurance companies need to be reined it. They should not be allowed to reject those with pre-existing conditions or to raise rates when their clients become sick. We mostly agree that lifetime caps on benefits are unfair. Since each of us could become sick and run afoul of those rules, we oppose them and ask for their reform.</p>
<p>On the other hand, we reject the total revamping of the health care industry, the reduction of doctor pay, the cuts in Medicare and the mandatory insurance embedded in the Obamacare legislation. Were Obama to embrace these solutions, he would quickly be able to pass his bill and would be hailed for it.</p>
<p>But will Obama do it? Will he emulate Bill Clinton and save his presidency by moving to the center? Certainly not before he has lost his control over Congress.</p>
<p>It was not the defeat of health care that impelled Clinton&#8217;s change of course, but his defeat in the elections of 1994. Even then, it took six months to turn the battleship around.</p>
<p>And after he loses Congress? Probably not even then. Clinton was a lifelong moderate who moved to the left when expediency dictated it. Obama is a lifelong liberal who pretends to move to the center when he has to.</p>
<p>A committed socialist, one doubts that Obama would sacrifice his cherished transformative goals for incremental policies.</p>
<p>But even if Obama did, it might not save him. There is a basic difference between the circumstances that surround the Obama and Clinton administrations. Clinton faced relatively minor problems, while Obama is neck deep in recession, deficit and stagnation. Clinton could reshape his presidency by positioning, posturing and passing moderate legislation. But Obama can only succeed by altering outcomes.</p>
<p>Americans want jobs, lower unemployment, economic growth, a reduced deficit and an end to the recession. They will not be assuaged or appeased by programs or proposals. They demand results.</p>
<p>The skills of the spin-doctor are wasted on his administration. All the photo ops in the world and all the populist-sounding rhetoric will not do the job. They may provide a short term bounce — as will probably follow tonight&#8217;s State of the Union speech, but they will become undone with the next week&#8217;s jobless numbers.</p>
<p>Just as George W. Bush could not recapture his popularity with new programs for Iraq — voters demanded a reduction in casualties and then withdrawal — Obama cannot save his by announcing new ideas. He has to produce.</p>
<p>All the spin in the world will not save Obama.</p>
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		<title>Rush Limbaugh Responds to Abe Foxman</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/rush-limbaugh-responds-to-abe-foxman/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=rush-limbaugh-responds-to-abe-foxman</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 25 Jan 2010 19:07:47 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=47582</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Earlier this week, I posed a political question in the process and in the context of trying to help a friend and my audience understand the concept that people ask me about a lot: “Why are so many Jewish people liberal?” And a friend of mine — a good friend of mine, Norman Podhoretz — [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/General+News/45741/Rush+Limbaugh+Responds+to+Abe+Foxman.html"><img src='http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/rush1-150x150.jpg' alt='' /></a></p>
<p>Earlier this week, I posed a political question in the process and in the context of trying to help a friend and my audience understand the concept that people ask me about a lot: “Why are so many Jewish people liberal?” And a friend of mine — a good friend of mine, Norman Podhoretz — has written a book, an excellent book to explain it. Mr. Podhoretz is himself Jewish. He is the husband of Midge Decter and the father of John Podhoretz, and I know all of them very well and have socialized with them on a number of occasions, and in the process of… Let me just read you this. Podhoretz has written a response to Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League, who is demanding that I apologize for “borderline anti-Semitism.” Now, anybody who listens to this program even marginally knows that this program is and has consistently been one of the most outspoken supporters of the Jewish people and of Israel in particular.</p>
<p>And Mr. Foxman knows this as well. What I suspect is the usual thing that happened. Somebody took a few words that I said in a pretty long monologue, cut them up, and published them in a way to make it appear I said something that I didn’t say, and rather than check it out… And by now I would think anybody in the mainstream media or in any mainstream American endeavor, after 20 years of these types of attacks — me being taken out of context and every one of them being shown to be wrong, every one of these attacks being shown to be fallacious — I would think that by now some people would realize what’s going on. But I don’t think that they do. I think they want these attacks to be real. I think they want the out-of-context quotes to be real. It’s just like during this NFL controversy, when there were purely fabricated quotes of me that were plastered all over the American media: newspapers, websites, television.</p>
<p>The Reverend Jackson repeated them. They said that I supposedly supported slavery because it kept the streets safe at night and that I wanted a congressional medal given to the assassin of Dr. Martin Luther King. And people knew that I didn’t say it but they wanted to believe I’d said it, because they would love to get rid of me. Folks, the left has never been angrier at me than they are this week because of what I myself said this week only yesterday. Back when Obama was inaugurated, even prior to him being inaugurated, everybody was inside the celebrity bubble. “Oh, we must not criticize our brand-new president. He’s so young and he’s so historical. This means so much to America. We must hope and we must pray that he succeeds.” Well, I didn’t join any of that. I didn’t want him to succeed. I don’t want socialism in this country. I do not want the government running car companies, the banks, the student loan program.</p>
<p>via <a href="http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/General+News/45741/Rush+Limbaugh+Responds+to+Abe+Foxman.html">The Yeshiva World » Rush Limbaugh Responds to Abe Foxman » Frum Jewish News</a>.</p>
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