March 2009 Archives

On Monday night, March 30th, I attended a lecture at the Tifereth Israel Synagogue in Des Moines. The guest speaker was Brigitte Gabriel. Frankly, it was one of the most remarkable evenings I have ever experienced.

Ms. Gabriel is a Lebanese Christian, who survived the Lebanese Civil War while a child. She was saved from slaughter by the Israeli Defense Forces when they moved into Southern Lebanon. She later lived in Israel, and now is a resident of the United States. As a former journalist covering the Middle East, she is uniquely qualified to discuss the current events there, as well as the impact of Islamic extremism in the United States. If you have read either of her books, you have a basic understanding of the nature of her talk.

I would not be presumptuous enough to try to encapsulate the content of her talk. It lasted about an hour, with another hour of Questions and Answers. What I would rather do is discuss the venue, and the audience.

I arrived early, in order to become familiar with the Synagogue, never having been to Tifereth Israel before. I first went to the lounge area outside of the community room. In the community room, Ms Gabriel and a panel of local congregation members were hosting a large number of educators from the Des Moines area. High School, Middle and Grammar School teachers, numbering well over one hundred, were at the Question and Comment point. I listened in for awhile, but the questions were mostly inane, suggesting that most of the invited attendees had little comprehension of the nature of Islamic extremism. I heard the words tolerance and diversity in numbers too large to count. I felt I was at risk of having a brain numbing experience, so I went to the sanctuary.

The Israeli military's top lawyer on Monday closed an investigation into alleged misconduct by soldiers who took part in Israel's recent three-week assault on the Gaza Strip, concluding that accusations made by graduates of a military preparatory school were "based on hearsay."

In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces said that Brig. Gen. Avichai Mendelblit, the IDF's advocate general, found no evidence to support the most serious accusations, including alleged instances in which civilians were shot without cause.

Israeli human rights groups including B'Tselem and Yesh Din said they still want a broad, independent investigation of the Gaza operation because they don't trust the Israeli military to police itself.

Maj. Yehoshua Gurtler, a military lawyer, told reporters that investigators had matched the allegations with actual incidents -- including one in which an elderly woman was shot. In that case and others, he said, soldiers had followed the rules of engagement set out for the Gaza operation and had acted in accordance with Israeli law...

Louis Farrakhan said the "Israeli lobby controls the government of the United States of America."

In excerpts released by the Anti-Defamation League of his annual Saviours' Day speech on March 1 in Chicago, the Nation of Islam leader also said Congress was "terrorized" by the lobby and doesn't "act for the American people that sent you to Congress, but acts for "the money and interests that have bought your soul."

Farrakhan said Israelis are "liars, thieves, murderers" who have "taken the position of God" and are out to "kill everybody." He also appeared to question the accuracy of Holocaust records.

"You can't even engage in constructive argument over the veracity of the figures of the Holocaust. We know something happened, sure, but you can't talk about" it, Farrakhan said. "In certain cities in Europe they arrest you and put you in prison for denying such."...

[Names, emails, and phone numbers removed. Emphasis mine.]Tonight I have done a considerable amount of thinking and I have some thoughts that I want to share with all of you. Most importantly, the Friends of Israel board has decided to cancel the screening of The Case for Israel that was planned for Thursday night April 2nd. A wide variety of factors have entered into our decision-making process. First and foremost, the timing of the event is less than ideal. While we wanted to make the screening the major leadup event up to Friday's IFEST, many people would have been unable to attend the screening due to conflicts with classes and other important commitments. Secondly, the current political environment on campus has moved towards overall apathy towards this issue. The wide concensus on the Tufts campus is now that both the new Israeli leadership and the Palestinian leadership are too extreme, and with these current governements, peace seems hopeless. Tufts is a very liberal campus, but unlike similar schools Friends of Israel works very well and very often with pro-Palestinian groups on campus and there are no protests or rallies on campus. Everyone is committed to making actions, not just words that no one believes, to achieve peace. Therefore, at this moment, screening this movie, even to a small audience, is counter-productive. In the ever changing world of the Middle East, there may be an appopriate time to screen this film at Tufts (possibly early next fall- mid to late September), but that time is not now.

If we are to ever screen the movie at Tufts, then we will work together in creating an efficent plan so the movie will attract a large attendence on campus. I know that the professional Jewish community has put a lot of effort into this film and I would feel awful if just as many professionals came to this screening as students [Fair enough on that. -S].

There is one more issue that I want to address at this point. I want to emphaize the fact the Friends of Israel Board Members are all volunteering large portions of our time in order to create Israel-programs on campus. I fully understand that for many of you this programming is a profession, but we are all students with a primary focus on academics rather than extracirrcular activties. While we do commit a lot of time to this programming, we must place academics and our friends before these committments and that is not currently happening. I hope that we can reestablish our priorities and continue to work together into the future. [Also fair enough. -S] If you have questions for me and for anyone who recieving this e-mail (which includes the entire FOI board and key members of Tufts Hillel), then feel free to respond via e-mail or give me a call at...

I want to stress that I believe that Friends of Israel has been doing an extraordinary job this year. There is absolutely nothing wrong in doing an assessment and changing or even canceling a program, if the general goal is to be effective in one's mission. The commitment that FOI has had to work thoughtfully and effectively with the Muslim Student Association and Arab Student Association is an example for campuses around the country. (So too their commitment to work with FOI). So too, the coalition that has been built with NIMEP, CAFE and Pathways, not to mention the other religious organizations. You should feel good about this important work and together, we will find how to continue while at the same time doing what you need to do as busy students. Best regards...

A Jewish renaissance, an awakening of ideas, hope and optimism, is taking place on the Tufts campus. A generation of young Jews is searching for a Jewish community filled with celebration, learning and creativity - a community where they belong. Hillel informs this search for a life of meaning, a Jewish life that is relevant now and for the future...

...After all the denials of the mosque being used for radical teaching, we come to find out that ISB imam Basyouny Nehela will be teaching classes under the auspices of Qaradawi's own school of Islam in the United States, the Islamic American University. It's to be a twelve-week course in da'wa (Islamic proselytizing).

The IAU was founded by the viciously anti-Semitic and anti-American Salah Soltan (also spelled "Sultan"; for background, see here for a search at my blog on the name; see here for Patrick Poole's exposé here at Pajamas). Its vice chairman is ISB trustee, former Muslim Brotherhood director, and unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation trial Jamal Badawi.

Finally, the IAU's chairman is none other than Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi himself...

Israel's cabinet voted to end special privileges to Hamas prisoners. Here's what you need to know to respond to the expected spin games in tomorrow's papers. Haaretz writes:

Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann recommended stripping the Palestinian prisoners of all privileges not anchored in Israeli or international law, such as an education, television, newspapers and radio.

The Israel Prisons service announced at the weekly cabinet meeting that the recommendations will go into effect in the near future. The sanctions will include drastic limitations on family visits and the revocation of the opportunity to take high school matriculation exams or study at the open university. In addition to sanctions on entertainment media, the prisoners will be subject to stricter guidelines regarding the transfer of money for use at the prison canteen.

Citing an economic crisis in the Palestinian territories, a federal magistrate judge has recommended reducing a $192.7 million bond that the Palestinian Authority was ordered to post in order to defend a terrorism lawsuit in New York City.

But the magistrate judge said the Palestinians should still post a $120 million bond, payable on an installment plan -- $20 million down, and the rest in $5 million monthly increments.

The recommendation, which now goes to a federal district judge, is the latest twist in a case filed under a law that allows American victims of international terrorism to sue for triple damages in the United States courts.

The lawsuit was filed by the family of Aharon Ellis, the sole American killed when a Palestinian gunman burst into a bat mitzvah celebration in 2002 in northern Israel, killing 6 people and wounding more than 30.

The suit charged that the Palestinian Authority and Palestine Liberation Organization had orchestrated the attack, and when the Palestinians refused to defend the suit on the merits, a judge, Victor Marrero of Federal District Court in Manhattan, ordered a default judgment, and the family was awarded $192.7 million in damages...

...A new season in US-Iran relations after 30 years of diplomatic alienation has dawned on the horizon. With the right mix of policies by both sides, the spell of hostility can be broken.

Just a few weeks after the Israeli ambassador to Mauritania was ordered to leave the country, with encouragement from Iran, the regime in Tehran is attempting to take control of a hospital for cancer research and treatment in the Mauritanian capital, which has symbolized relations between Jerusalem and Nouakchott.

Iran's Foreign Minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, visited Mauritania on Wednesday, marking the first such visit since 1982. Although the visit lasted only six hours it included a stop at the hospital known by locals as "the Israeli hospital."

The hospital project has been stalled since Mauritania severed relations with Israel earlier this month. There are reports that Iran paid the Mauritania government about $10 million to kick out the Israeli ambassador.

During his visit to the hospital, Mottaki promised that Iran will "replace" Israel and equip the hospital as needed. Mottaki praised the government of Mauritania for suspending relations with Israel, saying "Our enemies in the Middle East have reached the end of the road."...

Palestinian authorities disbanded a youth orchestra from a West Bank refugee camp after it played for a group of Holocaust survivors in Israel, a local official said on Sunday.

Adnan Hindi of the Jenin camp called the Holocaust a political issue and accused conductor Wafa Younis of unknowingly dragging the children into a political dispute.

He added that Younis has been barred from the camp and the apartment where she taught the 13-member Strings of Freedom orchestra has been boarded up.

"She exploited the children," said Hindi, the head of the camp's popular committee, which takes on municipal duties. "She will be forbidden from doing any activities.... We have to protect our children and our community."

The move highlights the sensitivity of many Palestinians over acknowledging Jewish suffering, fearing it would weaken their own historical grievances against Israel...

The good guys win! Ayers is out! Because you spoke out, got on the phones and sent the emails, Boston College did the right thing and told unrepentant domestic terrorist Bill Ayers to take a hike...

...The Herald's coverage leaves unanswered the question as to whether the Boston College administration did the right thing and said "terrorists not welcome," or the student groups who invited him--the AHANA [African-American, Hispanic/Latino, Asian-American, and Native American] Council and the College Democrats (JFK would be sound proud)--withdrew the invitation. Let's hope it was both...

...He will recognize that the United States has its own interests in diplomacy with Syria, Iran and the Palestinians -- and allow the Obama administration the freedom to pursue them. He also will not start a preventive war with Iran...

The U.N.'s top human-rights body approved a proposal backed by Muslims nations Thursday urging the passage of laws around the world protecting religion from criticism.

The proposal by Pakistan had drawn strong criticism from free-speech campaigners and liberal democracies.

A simple majority of 23 members of the 47-nation Human Rights Council voted in favor of the resolution. Eleven mostly Western nations opposed it and 13 countries abstained.

The resolution urges states to provide "protection against acts of hatred, discrimination, intimidation and coercion resulting from defamation of religions and incitement to religious hatred in general."

"It is individuals who have rights and not religions," said Canadian diplomat Terry Cormier. Canada's criticism was echoed by European Union countries, all of which voted against the proposal...

Video: PA TV celebration of most murderous terror attack in Israel's history by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook

Last week PMW released the transcript of Palestinian Authority television's glorification of the most murderous Palestinian terror attack in Israel's history. Today we are resending this bulletin with the video link to view the program.

The terror attack on March 11, 1978, involved a bus hijacking that left 37 civilians dead. The Palestinian Authority celebrated the 20th anniversary of the attack with an hour-long TV special about the hijacking. The program included file footage of PLO training camps, and interviews with a number of terrorists describing the planning and implementation of the attack.

The program opened with the narrator glorifying the attack as:

"... one of the most important and most prominent special operations, executed by the Palestinian revolution by sea, on the coast between Haifa and Tel Aviv. This operation, carried out by a team of heroes and led by the heroic fighter Dalal Mughrabi, had great impact on continuing events of the Arab-Israeli conflict." [PA TV (Fatah), March 11, 2009]

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said President Reagan raised the plight of the Soviet Jewry in every meeting the two held.

The disclosure came Thursday at an event held by the American Jewish Historical Society at the Rainbow Room in New York City, organizers said. At the event, Gorbachev and former U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz recalled the emigration of Soviet Jews in the 1980s and 1990s in a discussion moderated by Charlie Rose...

During a recent visit to several university campuses in the U.S., I discovered that there is more sympathy for Hamas there than there is in Ramallah.

Listening to some students and professors on these campuses, for a moment I thought I was sitting opposite a Hamas spokesman or a would-be-suicide bomber.

I was told, for instance, that Israel has no right to exist, that Israel's "apartheid system" is worse than the one that existed in South Africa and that Operation Cast Lead was launched only because Hamas was beginning to show signs that it was interested in making peace and not because of the rockets that the Islamic movement was launching at Israeli communities.

I was also told that top Fatah operative Marwan Barghouti, who is serving five life terms in prison for masterminding terror attacks against Israeli civilians, was thrown behind bars simply because he was trying to promote peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

Furthermore, I was told that all the talk about financial corruption in the Palestinian Authority was "Zionist propaganda" and that Yasser Arafat had done wonderful things for his people, including the establishment of schools, hospitals and universities...

This claim of success by Iran's officials was not anticipated because they did not mention the short life span of their pride and joy, which was launched on February 3. Some Iranian websites say that because of Omid's battery life of two months, it was doomed to destruct from the start. Now the question is how that could be possible given that most satellites use solar panels as their basic source of energy production...

..."Camp residents refuse to eat what the police dogs have soiled," several Palestinian factions in northern Lebanon, including the Islamist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, said in a statement received by AFP.

It referred to a shipment donated by Iran for residents of the Nahr al-Bared camp in northern Lebanon, which was devastated by deadly battles between a fringe Islamist group and the army in 2007.

The Palestinian factions said they could no longer receive the aid and accused the army of delaying its delivery describing this as a "humiliating" act...

...More than one out of every five dollars of the $126 million Massachusetts is receiving in earmarks from the $410 billion omnibus federal spending package is going to help preserve the legacy of the Kennedys.

The bill includes $5.8 million for the planning and design of a building to house a new Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the Senate. The funding may also help support an endowment for the institute.

The bill also includes $22 million to expand facilities at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum and $5 million more for a new gateway to the Boston Harbor Islands on the Rose Kennedy Greenway, a park system in downtown Boston named after Kennedy's mother and built on land opened up by the Big Dig highway project...

...As I mentioned during the presidential campaign, Mr. Obama was seriously unqualified for the job of president. He had no practical experience in running anything, except political campaigns; but worse, his background was one-dimensional.

All his life, from childhood through university through "community organizing" and Chicago wardheel politics, through Sunday mornings listening to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, to the left side of Democrat caucuses in Springfield and Washington, he has been surrounded almost exclusively by extremely liberal people, and moreover, by people who are quick and clever but intellectually narrow.

He is a free soul, but he is also the product of environments in which even moderately conservative ideas are never considered; but where people on the further reaches of the left are automatically welcomed as "avant-garde." His whole idea of where the middle might be, is well to the left of where the average American might think it is. To a man like Obama, as he has let slip on too many occasions when away from his teleprompter, "Middle America" is not something to be compromised with, but rather, something that must be manipulated, because it is stupid. And the proof that it can be manipulated, is that he is the president today.

It is at this point that the phenomenon known as "too clever by half" sets in. Technically, it is indistinguishable from arrogance and hubris, but it is unnecessary to stress the point. Sixty days into his first term (and I begin to doubt there'll be a second), he would seem already to have dug a hole from which no rhetorical skill can lift him.

The video to Iran is the latest catastrophe. Mr. Obama simply does not understand how his "olive branch" will be received, not only by the mullahs in Iran itself, but wherever else on the surface of the planet the United States has enemies. It "reads" -- to people who do not share anything like America's aspirations -- as an unambiguous confession of weakness. He has moved the American position towards Iran from offensive to defensive, for no defensible reason.

...But the highlight of the afternoon, or lowlight depending on your perspective, was seeing the odious Chuckie Schumer come schlepping along, desperately seeking attention. Curiously enough he was being greeted mostly by indifference. As luck would have it, someone nearby mentioned AIG, and that's all Chuckie needed to begin hamming it up.

"Did you see me on TV, did you see me? I told them if you don't give back those bonuses we're going to tax 100 percent of it. One-hundred percent!"

Never one to miss an opportunity to sandbag an unctuous pol, especially when he's standing three feet away, preening for all, I said, quite loudly...

This seminar provides the intellectual underpinnings for an immersion trip to Israel/Palestine in January. Students in this course must commit to the trip and, upon their return, to a project that uses the knowledge they gained in Israel/Palestine. The seminar will include a review of the Israeli and Palestinian history, an analysis of the contested theological claims to the land, and an examination of conflict resolving strategies focusing on cross-border groups operating in Israel/Palestine (e.g. Prime, Combatants for Peace, Parents Circle). Finally, we will consider possible economic futures for the area under both one and two state scenarios. Eve Spangler

Despite the recent conflict in Gaza and heightened tension in the region, a group of Boston College students spent part of their winter break in the West Bank and Israel. As part of a course titled "Social Justice in Israel and Palestine," Eve Spangler, professor in the sociology department, and 13 students spent 10 days speaking with both Israelis and Palestinians and contextualizing the issues that they had studied.

The course, which was introduced in the fall, addresses the issues of human rights, economic development, and historical and religious discourse in Israel and Palestine, and concludes with a trip to the two lands followed by a final project. Spangler said that the idea for the course grew out of her own desire to learn more about justice in the Middle East, which she became more involved with four years ago through the group Faculty for Israeli-Palestinian Peace.

"Well here I thought, I'm reading and reading and I don't have anyone to talk to, and I thought 'where is this going?' So I decided to have a course," Spangler said.

The inclusion of the trip in curriculum was supported by Alexandra Saieh, A&S '09, who contacted the sociology department two summers ago to suggest such a trip. Saieh said she then met with Spangler, and the two worked with the co-founder of Birthright Unplugged, Dunya Alwan, who brings people of Jewish decent to Palestinian refugee camps.

After spending the semester learning about the situation in Israel and Palestine and fundraising for their trip, the students spent four days in the West Bank and four days in Israel where they visited refugee camps, Bedouin villages, and universities, and spoke with Israeli dissidents...

...Chris Miller, A&S '09, said the trip in particular changed his outlook on the issue. "It was a complete paradigm shift. You grow up and it's almost self-evident that you're pro-Israel, but going there you see the other side," Miller said. "It was incredibly powerful. You spend the entire semester preparing for the trip but it doesn't even do justice to what you see. It was very tough to see a lot of things we learned about firsthand, a lot of the injustices and basically the modern day apartheid."...

A furious George Galloway last night vowed to fight a ban on him entering Canada on the grounds of national security.

The MP for Bethnal Green and Bow had been due to speak at a number of events in the country but his anti-war stance was drawn to the attention of the government by a Jewish group...

Bernie Madoff deceived his closest friends by committing what the sociologists call an "affinity crime." It turns out that it's easier to trick people you're close to: Nobody asks his aunt for a grocery receipt. It's simple: You're less likely to practice due diligence when your expressed doubts might be construed as insults, or evidence of bad faith. How to establish and maintain a warm relationship with someone, while at the same time questioning him diligently, will always be a human dilemma. Bernie knew that better than anyone on the planet.

Jewish leaders who want good relations with Muslim groups face a similar dilemma. Cases abound where Muslims -- who had established good communal relations -- turned out to have been masters at deception. Right here in Boston, two ostensibly moderate Muslim leaders fooled everyone. The founder of the Islamic Society of Boston (ISB) rose to great prominence and gained access to Presidents Clinton and Bush. He's now in jail for running money to Al Queda. The ISB's outreach director, schmoozed with Boston rabbis until he was caught cursing Jews in Arabic journals.

Unfortunately, it's not only a Boston phenomenon. FBI investigations nationwide found concrete evidence that many of the Islamist organizations most active in interfaith dialogue groups around the country had at the same time worked to promote their radical politico-religious goals - radicalizing America's historically moderate Muslim communities, fundraising for violent Islamist movements abroad, and of course, influencing public opinion against Israel. This FBI evidence also showed that radical Islamists have sought dialogue as a way to mask their true agenda and to incrementally gain legitimacy in mainstream society.

So what are Jewish leaders to do? This is uncharted territory. It's different than dialogue with post-Holocaust Catholics. Many Jews who "dialogue" are clueless about Islamist ideology and simply can't bring themselves to think that anyone who speaks softly and smiles at them might be with a radical organization. Yet there are leaders who are partially or even fully aware of the identity of their "partners," and who believe - or hope -- that by dialoguing with the radicals, they might entice them toward peace and moderation. These people have yet another dilemma: what to tell the Jewish community?

Think about it. How can Jewish leaders openly tell their communities that they are undertaking, without a community vote, to engage with people who may be actual anti-Semites with possible ties to terror, and that they have to do it by not pressing their dialogue partners too hard on these issues, because they honestly believe that by establishing warm relations they may help change the situation for the better? How can they say that they feel the need to reach out -- but at the same time they fear they are being used? The answer? They cannot.

This must be agonizing. There is no transparency, neither with the Muslims nor with the Jewish community. The only solution is to have an open and honest dialogue within the Jewish community about these extraordinarily difficult dilemmas.

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) demanded yesterday that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac cancel retention payments being paid to thousands of employees, but the federal regulator that authorized the payments is refusing to comply.

"The public, having provided significant support for the purpose of restoring trust and confidence in our country's financial system, rightfully insists that large bonuses such as these awarded by institutions receiving public funds at a time of a serious economic downturn cannot continue," Frank wrote in a letter to James B. Lockhart III, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

Writing in response, Lockhart said he told Congress in September that he had instituted retention programs at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, in consultation with the Treasury Department. Since then, many employees have helped carry out the Obama administration's housing recovery plan.

"It was very important to work with the current management teams and employees to encourage them to stay and to continue to make important improvements," Lockhart wrote. "In response, most have stayed. Indeed, I can attest that many employees at all levels at each company have been working far more hours, with far less compensation than they did prior" to the government's takeover.

Retention payments are being paid over a one-year period, starting last December. Lockhart said that Fannie Mae has offered 5,000 employees payments averaging $21,000, and that Freddie Mac has offered 4,000 payments averaging $19,000.

"These are going to employees at all levels, not just top executivies," Lockhart wrote...

...Any sentient being dumb enough to fall for this AIG huffin' an' a-puffin' from Barry, Barney, Doddy, and the gang is a fool who deserves the vaporization of his assets that the national political class is lining up for him. As Charles Krauthammer pointed out, the $165 million in bonuses is less than 1/18,500 of the $3.1 trillion budget. The massive expansion of government the president is planning is forever, and will ensure you that end your days in what Peggy Noonan calls "post-prosperity America." More immediately, what message do you send to the world when legal contracts can be abrogated by retrospective confiscatory bills of attainder? You think that's going to get anyone investing in America again?

The investor class invests in jurisdictions where the rules are clear and stable. Right now, Washington is telling the planet: In our America, there are no rules. Got a legally binding contract? We'll tear it up. Refuse to surrender the dough? We'll pass a law targeted at you, yes, you, Mr. Beau Nuss of 27 Plutocrat Gardens, Fatcatville. If you want a banana republic on steroids, this is great news. So cheer on thuggish grandstanding by incompetent legislators-for-life like Barney Frank if you wish. But, in any battle between the political class and the business class, you're only fooling yourself if you think it's in your interest for the latter to lose.

The first two months of the Age of the Hopeychange have been an eye-opener. I expected it to be ideologically distasteful to me, but I didn't expect it to be so inept. Not because I had any expectations of President Obama's executive skills. But I assumed he'd have folks around him who could take care of details like governing, while he pranced around as the smiley-face hopeychange frontman. But the bench is still empty save for a handful of mediocrities. And the disconnect between the smoothly scripted mush and what's actually happening makes the telepromptered cool look even more ridiculous.

The worst-kept secret on Capitol Hill is that Democrats have always planned to tax health benefits to pay for their "universal" health-care plans. Now White House aides are whispering that they're also open to the idea. Maybe they will all now apologize to John McCain for trashing his proposal to do the same thing in the Presidential campaign.

Democrats are desperately searching for the $1.2 trillion and more they'll need to subsidize middle-class health coverage. With deficits already at epic levels, more spending is politically a harder sell. So they're now circling the tax deduction that employers receive to offer insurance to their workers for the same reason that Willie Sutton robbed banks, because that's where the money is.

Most likely, Democrats will cap the exclusion by income or cost of the health plan, so that those with the most gold-plated benefits pay more for the privilege. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that a ceiling at the 75th percentile of current levels would generate $452 billion over 10 years.

But hold on. John McCain also wanted to reform this tax break, which goes only to business. Individuals don't get the same tax break if they buy insurance themselves. Mr. McCain proposed to gradually replace the workplace deduction with a refundable tax credit available to all Americans, regardless of where they acquired their coverage. Mr. Obama attacked him ruthlessly for it.

"And this is your plan, John," he said at one debate. "For the first time in history, you will be taxing people's health-care benefits." Mr. Obama added that the McCain proposal was "radical," "the biggest middle-class tax increase in history," "out of line with our basic values" and that "the choice you'll have is having your employer no longer provide you health care." Combined with heavy advertising and Mr. McCain's inability to defend his own ideas, these distortions were highly effective.

In a deeply cynical turnabout, the White House now says a tax on employer benefits is acceptable as long as someone else proposes it. We suppose anyone would be embarrassed to endorse a fundamental insight that he once claimed was vile and destructive...

Reporters Without Borders said today it was deeply shocked at the death in a Tehran prison of blogger Omidreza Mirsayafi and called for the immediate opening of an investigation into the circumstances of the tragedy.

His lawyer, Mohamed Ali Dadkhah, was informed of the blogger's death by a doctor, Hesem Firozi, who is himself imprisoned. The young blogger had been depressed and no longer able to cope with prison conditions. The doctor said, "The death of this young blogger is entirely due to a failure to provide assistance." Omidreza Mirsayafi had been devastated at the prison authorities' refusal to allow him permission to leave the prison.

"We hold the Iranian authorities entirely responsible for the death of Omidreza Mirsayafi. He was unfairly arrested and they failed to provide him with the necessary medical care", the worldwide press freedom organisation said. "His death is a sad reminder of the fact that the Iranian regime is one of the harshest in the world for journalists and bloggers. We call for the setting up of an independent commission to determine this young man's cause of death."

The blogger was summoned to Tehran's revolutionary court for interrogation on 7 February 2009. At the end of the questioning, he was placed in detention. To this date, his lawyers have still not received any notice of sentence from the court.

The blogger was first arrested on 22 April 2008 and then released after 41 days in custody on payment of bail of 100 million tomans (72,000 euros). He was tried on 2 November under Articles 500 and 514 of the criminal code under which "anyone who insults the Supreme Guide Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, or the country's leaders, is liable for six months to two years in prison (Art 514) and "anyone making propaganda against the state is liable to three months to one year in prison (Art. 500).

Most of the articles on Mirsayafi's blog were about traditional Persian music and about culture. After his conviction, he told Reporters Without Borders, "I am a cultural and not a political blogger. Of all the articles I have posted online, only two or three were satirical. I did not mean to insult anyone." His blog, Rooznegaar, is no longer accessible...

...Arab countries implemented special laws designed to make it impossible to integrate the Palestinian refugees from the 1948 Arab war against Israel. Even descendants of Palestinian refugees who are born in another Arab country and live there their entire lives can never gain that country's passport. Even if they marry a citizen of an Arab country, they cannot become citizens of their spouse's country. They must remain "Palestinian" even though they may have never set foot in the West Bank or Gaza.

This policy of forcing a Palestinian identity on these people for eternity and condemning them to a miserable life in a refugee camp was designed to perpetuate and exacerbate the Palestinian refugee crisis.

So was the Arab policy of overpopulating Gaza. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, whose main political support comes from Arab countries, encourages high birth rates by rewarding families with many children. Yasser Arafat said the Palestinian woman's womb was his best weapon.

Arab countries always push for classifying as many Palestinians as possible as "refugees." As a result, about one-third of the Palestinians in Gaza still live in refugee camps. For 60 years, Palestinians have been used and abused by Arab regimes and Palestinian terrorists in their fight against Israel...

Like McCain, the Obama team is right that the economy is not nearly as bad as the hysterics contend. But the Obama team itself was a prime promoter of hysteria -- not only during the campaign, but also during the push for the so-called 'stimulus,' which was based on aggressive use of the politics of fear. So at this point, some people are understandably skeptical when Obama now tells us: 'Never mind. The economy is fundamentally sound. Trust us. Stop all those Tea Parties.'

Following are excerpts from a speech delivered by Egyptian cleric Muhammad Hussein Ya'qoub, which aired on Al-Rahma TV on January 17, 2009.

Muhammad Hussein Ya'qoub: "If the Jews left Palestine to us, would we start loving them? Of course not. We will never love them. Absolutely not. The Jews are infidels - not because I say so, and not because they are killing Muslims, but because Allah said: 'The Jews say that Uzair is the son of Allah, and the Christians say that Christ is the son of Allah. These are the words from their mouths. They imitate the sayings of the disbelievers before. May Allah fight them. How deluded they are.' It is Allah who said that they are infidels.

"Your belief regarding the Jews should be, first, that they are infidels, and second, that they are enemies. They are enemies not because they occupied Palestine. They would have been enemies even if they did not occupy a thing. Allah said: 'You shall find the strongest men in enmity to the disbelievers [sic] to be the Jews and the polytheists.' Third, you must believe that the Jews will never stop fighting and killing us. They [fight] not for the sake of land and security, as they claim, but for the sake of their religion: 'And they will not cease fighting you until they turn you back you're your religion, if they can.'

"This is it. We must believe that our fighting with the Jews is eternal, and it will not end until the final battle - and this is the fourth point. You must believe that we will fight, defeat, and annihilate them, until not a single Jew remains on the face of the Earth."...

...Is Super Sunday (the big fundraising day) more important than survival? Is "Israel" just a marketing tool to perpetuate big salaries and generous perks while these same pitchmen work assiduously behind the scenes to undermine the work of the smaller organizations and local activists who actually fight? Would the fundraising glad-handers rather make nice with representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood and curry relations with non-Jewish groups than cooperate with Jewish groups that happen not to share their definition of what constitutes "social justice"? (Say, wasn't that the name of Father Coughlin's rag?) Can you imagine groups whose public priorities are purported to be Jews and Israel actually being ruled by fears of appearing too "particularistic"? Believe it...

Last year, Israeli Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi had no problem setting up meetings with top officials in the U.S. government.

On his current trip to Washington, Ashkenazi sought to meet the administration of President Barack Obama, but most officials were unavailable.

Diplomatic sources said Ashkenazi failed to obtain access to any Cabinet member, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates. The Israeli military chief, who sought to discuss the Iranian nuclear threat, won't even meet his counterpart, Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"The administration is sending a very clear message to Israel, and this is we want to talk about Palestine and not Iran," a diplomat who has been following U.S.-Israel relations said...

...diplomatic sources said the administration made it clear that nobody in a policy-making position was available to sit with Ashkenazi. This included the president, Vice President Joseph Biden, Gates, National Intelligence director Dennis Blair or Mullen.

Ashkenazi has obtained a meeting with National Security Advisor James Jones. But the sources said the meeting would focus on U.S. demands for Israel to ease military restrictions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip...

Earlier this month, I attended a debate for journalists in Jerusalem between two members of the Israeli Knesset: Danny Ayalon, Israel's former ambassador to the United States, and Jamal Zahlaka, a Knesset member for Balad (an Arab nationalist party), who before entering politics qualified as a medical doctor at Israel's Hebrew University of Jerusalem.



Both Ayalon and Zahlaka were professional, courteous, and generally reasonable in what they had to say. So were the journalists who asked the questions, including Ethan Bronner, the New York Times's senior Jerusalem correspondent.



But one journalist, sitting in the row in front of me, was far from courteous, and I have today posted on YouTube a video of her extraordinary tirade against Danny Ayalon, in which she harangues and berates him, uses expletives, and calls him "fascist, fascist."

You can watch it here:

...When redemption became a term of power, "redemptive liberalism" was born -- a new activist liberalism that gave itself a "redemptive" profile by focusing on social engineering rather than liberalism's classic focus on individual freedom. In the '60s there was no time to allow individual freedom to render up the social good. Redemptive liberalism would proactively engineer the good. Name a good like "integration," and then engineer it into being through a draconian regimen of school busing. If the busing did profound damage to public education in America, it gave liberals the right to say, "At least we did something!" In other words, we are activists against America's old sin of segregation. Activism is moral authority in redemptive liberalism.

But conservatism sees moral authority more in a discipline of principles than in activism. It sees ideas of the good like "diversity" as mere pretext for the social engineering that always leads to unintended and oppressive consequences. Conservatism would enforce the principles that ensure individual freedom, and then allow "the good" to happen by "invisible hand."

And here is conservatism's great problem with minorities. In an era when even failed moral activism is redemptive -- and thus a source of moral authority and power -- conservatism stands flat-footed with only discipline to offer. It has only an invisible hand to compete with the activism of the left. So conservatism has no way to show itself redeemed of America's bigoted past, no way like the Great Society to engineer a grand display of its innocence, and no way to show deference to minorities for the oppression they endured. Thus it seems to be in league with that oppression...

...We at AJC have been on the receiving end of some of these scurrilous attacks. Why? Because we understood that, with the decision on Durban II handed from the Bush to the Obama administration, the new team would necessarily assess the process before making a final decision on the US role.

When a five-member official US delegation was sent last month to Geneva to compile a set of recommendations, AJC's Felice Gaer was one of the participants. The group had over 30 meetings with key ambassadors and made crystal clear that any reference to Israel in the final document would be unacceptable to the US.

The trip itself, though, was red meat for a chorus of critics, led by writers Caroline Glick in Israel, Anne Bayefsky in the US and Melanie Phillips in the UK...

It stands to reason that that David Harris would be sensitive to criticism of the AJC's participation in planning "Durban II." After all, by taking part in the Durban II planning process on a US government delegation, AJC contemptuously ignored repeated calls from­ Israel's Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Minister Isaac Herzog for the United States government to stay away and announce it will not participate, period. Israel's priority, and the priority of much of the American Jewish community was to delegitimize the hate-fest, not place an AJC representative on its planning committee.

The fact of the matter is that the only reason the US made a tactical retreat from the process was the pressure created by criticisms such as ours, along with protests made by Israel, Canada, and other American Jewish organizations and leaders.

For more than a year, the AJC has conducted an extensive lobbying campaign of the American government and of foreign governments to stay in Durban II...

The AJC adopted a flawed approach to this issue from the outset, insisting that that the American government and others should participate in the conference. Their attitude undermined efforts by bodies like "Eye on the UN" which invested massive efforts in creating a public awareness of the need for a boycott.

The AJC decision to accept the invitation to participate as a member of the US delegation in the Durban II preparatory committee to ascertain whether this obnoxious body would change its approach was an even greater blunder. They were irresponsible in encouraging the perception that a body totally controlled by the Islamic Conference and rogue states, and even chaired by Libya, with Iran and Cuba serving as deputy chairs, could possibly be anything other than an instrument for promoting evil.

To make matters worse the US delegation, including the AJC representative, actually sat on its hands during the proceedings of the preparatory committee while vicious demonizations of Israel took place. They even remained silent when Iran objected to a resolution condemning Holocaust denial...

...One would have expected American Jewish leaders at the least to have also expressed concern when simultaneously with its announcement it would not partake in Durban, the US government proclaimed that it would in future participate in meetings of the Human Rights Council, and would even seek to be elected to the leadership of that despicable body. The US action will only legitimize an organization which represents the antithesis of its title, defends the worst regimes practicing the denial of human rights and now seeks to limit all criticism of Islamic behavior or practice. Alas, the AJC only two years ago was "urging the United States to seek membership on the UN Human Rights Council." It would appear that to this day Harris and the AJC fail to appreciate that organizations purporting to promote human rights which are controlled by tyrannies and dictatorships can never be reformed. They must be isolated and marginalized.

The US backed down on participating in Durban II for two reasons. The most important was the campaign spearheaded by Bayefsky exposing the disgusting behavior of those controlling the proceedings. The second was the stubbornness of the preparatory committee about even paying lip service to behaving decently and amending their draft document. The danger now is that they will come up with a shorter document which does not include the vile language, and the US hailing that as a victory and agreeing to participate in what will still be a massive anti-Semitic hate-fest controlled by the same villains...

Specific criticism of Israel was dropped from a draft resolution prepared for a United Nations-sponsored anti-racism conference.

The new draft resolution for the Durban II conference, to be distributed to government ministers this week, does not single out Israel for criticism but still speaks of concern about negative stereotyping of religions. It also does not include a provision backed by Muslim countries that criticizes "defamation of religion."...

...The elimination of references to Israel and other specific countries, and the striking of the "defamation of religion" passage do meet some of the Obama administration's conditions for participation in the conference laid out in late Feburary. But the new text reaffirms the concluding document of the first Durban conference, which singled out the "plight of the Palestinian people under foreign occupation."...

Under the growing threat of a boycott by the United States and European countries, negotiators planning the U.N.'s Durban II "anti-racism" conference made a new move in Geneva today. They released a modified version of a draft declaration that is expected to be adopted at the April melée. The draft jettisons much of the extra baggage Islamic states had piled on throughout the 10-month drafting process (for the sole purpose of "compromising" at the end). The improvements, however, do not meet the minimal conditions that the Obama administration delineated for U.S. participation. It is time to end the equivocation and get out...

A coalition of major national Islamic organizations today announced that it is considering suspending outreach relations with the FBI, citing recent incidents in which American mosques and Muslim groups have been targeted.

In a statement, the American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections (AMT), said:

Muslim communities throughout the United States have made significant advances in promoting and contributing to a fair, free and pluralistic society...

...Yet recent incidents targeting American Muslims lead us to consider suspending ongoing outreach efforts with the FBI.

In California, the FBI sent a convicted criminal to pose as an agents provocateurs in several of that state's mosques. An FBI agent allegedly told one of the mosque attendees that the agency would make his life a "living hell" if he did not become an informant.

The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) wrote in a recent statement, headlined "FBI Losing Partnership with American Muslim Community" - "Trust is the cornerstone of any partnership between law enforcement and communities. It can only be established and maintained through clear and open communication. Without this, trust is eroded and suspicions arise on all sides. This clearly does not serve anyone's interests...It is now up to the FBI and law enforcement agencies to re-engage with the Muslim American community, and re-build trust and respect."

See: FBI Losing Partnership with American Muslim Community

Early last fall, the FBI began a disengagement campaign in its relations with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation's largest and most respected Muslim civil rights organization. The FBI suspended contacts with CAIR pending the resolution of unspecified "issues."

In response, the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, an umbrella organization of many Muslim groups, suspended outreach to the FBI in February...

...We believe the FBI's unjustified actions are based on the May 2007 designation of some 300 groups and individuals, including several major American Muslim groups such as CAIR, the Islamic society of North America (ISNA) and the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), as "unindicted co-conspirators" (UCC) in conjunction with the Holy Land Foundation trial in Dallas, Texas.

Making this unjust designation public violates the Justice Department's own guidelines and wrongly implies that those listed are somehow involved in criminal activity.

Bias and faulty premises dominated post-9/11 law enforcement analysis of the Muslim community and the threat assessment to national security. The waning days of the previous administration witnessed a flourishing of anti-Muslim activity.

There is even inter-agency information being disseminated that claims civil rights advocacy is part of a Muslim conspiracy to implement Shari'a law in order to destroy the United States. Recent government actions seemed to be based on this bizarre premise.

These McCarthy-era tactics are detrimental to a free society.

The credibility of all Muslim organizations who maintain ties to the FBI that do not react decisively is undermined in the eyes of the community. Our fear is that counter-intelligence programs are quelling lawful dissent.

What is most frightening is that FBI abuses are no longer covert, and are slowly being integrated into the already expansive laws regulating law enforcement activity.

Internationally, in light of President Obama's initiative of dialogue with the Muslim world, such actions negatively impact U.S. interests.

If the FBI does not accord fair and equitable treatment to every American Muslim organization, including CAIR, ISNA and NAIT, then Muslim organizations, mosques and individuals will have no choice but to consider suspending all outreach activities with FBI offices, agents and other personnel. This possible suspension, of course, would in no way affect our unshakable duty to report crimes or threats of violence to our nation.

We call on the FBI to reassess its positions on profiling and the use of informants as agents provocateurs within the Muslim communities. We further request objective evaluation of the sources of information and analysis utilized to formulate decisions...

The environmental movement has cultivated a warm and fuzzy public image, but behind the smiley-face rhetoric of "sustainability" and "conservation" lies a dark agenda. The Greens aim to regulate your behavior, downsize your lifestyle, and invade the most intimate aspects of your personal life.

In this stunning exposé, Steve Milloy unveils the authoritarian impulse underlying the Green crusade. Whether they're demanding that you turn down your thermostat, stop driving your car, or engage in some other senseless act of self-denial, the Greens are envisioning a grim future for you marked by endless privation...

It was probably inevitable that the American left would turn sharply against the war in Afghanistan the moment it was politically opportune. Still, the speed with which it has done so has been breathtaking.

Time was when the received bipartisan and trans-Atlantic wisdom about Afghanistan was that it was the necessary war, the good war, the no-choice-but-to-fight and can't-afford-to-lose war, and that not least of everything that made the invasion and occupation of Iraq such arrant folly was that it distracted us from "finishing the job" in the place where the attacks of 9/11 were conceived and planned.

This was the wisdom candidate Barack Obama was merely regurgitating when, in an August 2007 speech, he promised that his priority as president would be "getting out of Iraq and on to the right battlefield in Afghanistan and Pakistan." True to his word, he has now ordered the deployment of 17,000 additional soldiers to that battlefield.

So why are the people who cheered Mr. Obama then (or offered no objection) now running for the exit signs? Why, for example, is New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, the paper's reliably liberal tribune, calling Afghanistan a "quagmire" -- after denouncing the Bush administration in 2006 for "taking its eye off the real enemy in Afghanistan"?

Call it another instance of that old logic, reductio ad Vietnam...

If Only You Had Been There:
A foreign correspondent's story of Gaza

Written by: Nadav Eyal (for Israel's daily newpaper "Maariv")

Lorenzo Cremonesi, who writes for the Italian daily paper Corriere della Sera, can easily be mistaken for someone suffering from a secret death wish. He is not one to steer clear of any deadly war he wants to cover, with his typical Italian eagerness. His paper sends him on special missions and Cremonesi dives into the conflict with some zest, to bring out the story.

This week he arrived at Tel Aviv University, to take part in a conference about media coverage of the war in Gaza. Unlike most of the journalists present in the room, Cremonsi was actually in Gaza during the war. He gained access into the Strip in defiance of Israel's policy. The story he told, published in part in Israel, is quite remarkable.

"I got to the other side of the border where ambulances were waiting," he recounts, "Ambulances in Gaza function like a cab service during war. I took an ambulance and started driving from one hospital to another. In order for you to understand what I uncovered, let me just tell you that at one hospital they informed me that I was in luck; that today there arrived some casualties."

Cremonsi's story, which was published in Corriere della Sera during the war, included quotes from doctors serving in Gaza hospitals, who estimated that the number of Palestinian casualties was dramatically lower than what had been published. "I am familiar with war zones very well," said Cremonesi to the other journalists, "I looked for the dead, the wounded. They were hard to find. I saw empty hospital beds."

He related a few astonishing stories. For example, how residents in the town of Al-hawa were furious with Hamas forces; these, at the height of the war with Israel, were more interested in finding the police deputy-commissioner - who was suspected of being a Fatah man - and torturing him. "Among other things," Cremonesi noted matter-of-factly, "they took out his eye."

Cremonesi related his story in connection with Israel's formal policy during the war to disallow foreign correspondents from entering Gaza. Cremonesi thought it was a stupid decision that interfered with the flow of information and eventually harmed Israel's interests. He had come into direct contact with Hamas tactics, he said, because he was present there, unlike his colleagues who did not succeed in getting into the area. Among other things he told about how Hamas fighters forced an ambulance driver to surrender his uniform to them, and about Palestinians who were enraged that Hamas had turned their neighbourhood into Qassam launching base.

"At one point I arrived at Beit- Lahya" the Italian journalist recalled. "I wanted to get into the neighbourhood, but was stopped at the entrance by a bunch of Hamas people. They refused me passage. I found out they were clearing out the corpses of slain Hamas fighters from the ditches and did not want any media coverage of this evacuation."

"After the rest of the journalists entered the strip," he said, "I found they were angry with me. They asked me; why are you serving the Israelis? What bothered them was not the quality of the information I provided. I felt that their anger and need to emphasize Palestinian suffering, were fueled by the fact that they had been prevented from entering. I have no doubt that if Israel had facilitated the entry of foreign journalists into Gaza, they would have reported the exact same stories I have. But Israel did restrict them and it was a terrible mistake."

...During the last 8 years, I have rarely been to an audition waiting room where I have not been assaulted with anti-Bush, anti-Reagan, anti-Republican outbursts. Speaking up alone, one against five or ten righteous liberals is foolish, I know because I've tried it.... There is never a sense of decorum. I have never heard a pro-Bush, Pro-Reagan, Pro-Republican outburst! Even while on the job, during the lead up to the last election, liberal actors would without hesitation blurt out ugly anti-Sarah Palin nonsense just seconds before you have to be very, very funny. Words like "Abu Ghraib" are substituted for scripted text as a sarcastic admonition, to clarify moral superiority and solidarity with others in the room. The lack of respect for differing thought is symptomatic of no thought. This is the atmosphere that every conservative in Hollywood deals with. There is a job every now and then that is an exception to this; a job where this never happens and you lift your arms to God in thanks for that job...

...At an opening night party I was talking quite openly and happily about my conversation with Charlton Heston concerning Reagan's win, and as I moved to the end of the food line an unfamiliar voice popped up: "Dwight, so you're a Reagan asshole!" It was Bruce Paltrow, Blythe Danner's husband. That is how I knew him at the time, and I was stunned by his comment. I cannot even remember my reply. Whatever it was it was bereft of brave retort. I told Nikos's assistant about Paltrow's aggressive comment and wondered why there was such hostility. Was the political aspect a cover for nailing a non talent? I was assured "That is Bruce...don't take it personally.... He was probably joking...testing you." Paltow never said another substantive thing to me. He never said "good job" or "nice to see you again," only an occasional very limp "hello."

In very late 1981 or early 1982, I was called in to read for the part of Fiscus in the upcoming series "St. Elsewhere" produced by Paltrow. I ran into Howie Mandel, with his familiar blown up rubber glove hanging from his belt, and the guy who would eventually land the role. He was standing just outside the waiting room, and as I headed toward that designated area I passed a small narrow side room in which Bruce Paltrow was seated on a desk chair with wheels; he turned to me, rolled a little in my direction and said, "Dwight! What are you doing here?" This is not a question an actor wants to hear before an audition; not from the show's producer. I told him I was called in to read for Fiscus and his response was soft and monotonic, "...There's not going to be a Reagan asshole on this show!" He then turned away, and went back to his desk...

Muntadher al-Zaidi, the man seen as a hero in some circles for throwing his shoes at then-U.S. President George W. Bush, was sentenced to three years in prison Thursday by an Iraqi court.

Al-Zaidi threw his shoes at Bush during a news conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in December in Baghdad.

Neither shoe hit the president, and other people in the room quickly knocked al-Zaidi to the ground before security officials arrested him.

Family members and journalists were cleared from the courtroom before Thursday's verdict.

After news of the verdict reached family members, al-Zaidi's brother appeared close to fainting. Other family members were seen crying and shouting curses about al-Maliki and Bush.

Al-Zaidi was a journalist who worked for the television network al-Baghdadia. The network also called for his release shortly after the incident.

He explained his actions during an hourlong appearance last month in the Central Criminal Court of Iraq. Asked whether anyone pushed or motivated him, al-Zaidi said he was spurred by the "violations that are committed against the Iraqi people."

In the Middle East, throwing shoes at someone is traditionally a sign of contempt.

Al-Zaidi's angry gesture touched a defiant nerve throughout the Arab and Muslim world. He is regarded by many people as a hero, and demonstrators took to the streets in the Arab world and called for his release shortly after the incident...

A survey published on February 5 by the prestigious Jerusalem Media and Communications Center, a Palestinian polling institute, indicates that 46.7 percent of the Palestinians believe that Hamas defeated Israel in the recent fighting in Gaza; 50.8% (compared to 39.3% last April) believe that the rocket attacks should continue, and only 20.8% believe that they are harmful to Palestinian interests. Finally, 55% are convinced that terrorist acts should continue.

These figures illustrate a major aspect of the confrontation between Israel and the Palestinians and, on a wider scope, of the West and the Arab world: a tragedy of misconceptions, a confrontation of two societies that do not understand each other and naively believe that people on the other side have the same way of thinking and reasoning as them. As long as both sides persist in this erroneous perception of each other, there is going to be no peace in the Middle East.

In 1997 the Four Mothers organization was founded. Its goal was the full pullout of the IDF from south Lebanon. Every year, Four Mothers said, we are losing 25 to 30 soldiers in the battle with Hizbullah. Isn't it a pity to sacrifice these young lives? Let's pull out of Lebanon, and the Lebanese will leave us in peace. The Four Mothers won and in 2000 prime minister Ehud Barak evacuated every single inch of Lebanese territory.

But the result was the opposite. Nobody in the Arab world believed that Israel had pulled out of Lebanon because of its concern for 25 casualties a year. The retreat was perceived in the Arab world as a victory by Hizbullah over the IDF, and the logical conclusion of Hizbullah and other extremist organizations was that they should continue fighting till Israel's final defeat. The late Faisal Husseini, a respected Palestinian leader, once told me openly: "Michael, if you don't agree to our demands [about Jerusalem], we'll talk to you in Lebanese." Even the sophisticated Husseini thought that the Hizbullah formula was the one that brought results...

...This morning, I received a series of emails between Lenny Kristal of Berkeley, Calif., and a Barclays executive. Kristal and two other Jews, one in New York and the other in Israel, are looking for a guarantee that:

"Barclays Bank Plc will not lend its name to any future event or tournament which results in the discrimination of participants on the basis of race, creed, color or nationality by event co-sponsors or host governments. And if such discrimination were to occur, Barclays Bank Plc would immediately withdraw as a sponsor of such an event."

Otherwise, Kristal warns, Barclays can count on a global divestment drive...

Pope Benedict XVI admits in a letter that his rehabilitation of a Holocaust-denying bishop backfired.

The remarkable letter to bishops, whose text was officially released Thursday by the Vatican, also says the Vatican must become Internet savvy to prevent further mishaps.

Benedict specifically addressed the Jan. 21 lifting of the excommunication order on Richard Williamson and three other traditionalist bishops, saying it unleashed "an avalanche of protests" whose "bitterness laid bare wounds deeper than those of the present moment."

Lifting the excommunications had been intended to heal a rift in the church. But due to the uproar over Williamson, the pope said, it "suddenly appeared as something completely different: as the repudiation of reconciliation between Christians and Jews," and a revocation of the reforms of the Second Vatican Council.

The pope continued, "A gesture of reconciliation with an ecclesial group engaged in a process of separation thus turned into its very antithesis: an apparent step backwards with regard to all the steps of reconciliation between Christians and Jews taken since the Council -- steps which my own work as a theologian had sought from the beginning to take part in and support." This, Benedict said, he "can only deeply regret."

"I have been told that consulting the information available on the Internet would have made it possible to perceive the problem early on. I have learned the lesson that in the future in the Holy See we will have to pay greater attention to that source of news," the pope said...

Some $900 million pledged by the United States to the Palestinians will be withdrawn if the expected Palestinian Authority coalition government between Fatah and Hamas does not recognize Israel's right to exist, Western and Israeli diplomats said Wednesday.

During her visit to the region last week Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas against forming a coalition with Hamas that will not meet the expectations of the Quartet.

Clinton told Abbas that Congress will not approve funding of a Palestinian government that does not recognize Israel's right to exist and renounce violence. She added that if those requirements are not met the U.S.-funded program under the supervision of General Keith Dayton training PA security forces would be the first to be axed...

FORMER ambassador Charles W. Freeman Jr. looked like a poor choice to chair the Obama administration's National Intelligence Council. A former envoy to Saudi Arabia and China, he suffered from an extreme case of clientitis on both accounts. In addition to chiding Beijing for not crushing the Tiananmen Square democracy protests sooner and offering sycophantic paeans to Saudi King "Abdullah the Great," Mr. Freeman headed a Saudi-funded Middle East advocacy group in Washington and served on the advisory board of a state-owned Chinese oil company. It was only reasonable to ask -- as numerous members of Congress had begun to do -- whether such an actor was the right person to oversee the preparation of National Intelligence Estimates.

It wasn't until Mr. Freeman withdrew from consideration for the job, however, that it became clear just how bad a selection Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair had made. Mr. Freeman issued a two-page screed on Tuesday in which he described himself as the victim of a shadowy and sinister "Lobby" whose "tactics plumb the depths of dishonor and indecency" and which is "intent on enforcing adherence to the policies of a foreign government." Yes, Mr. Freeman was referring to Americans who support Israel -- and his statement was a grotesque libel.

For the record, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee says that it took no formal position on Mr. Freeman's appointment and undertook no lobbying against him. If there was a campaign, its leaders didn't bother to contact the Post editorial board. According to a report by Newsweek, Mr. Freeman's most formidable critic -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi -- was incensed by his position on dissent in China.

But let's consider the ambassador's broader charge: He describes "an inability of the American public to discuss, or the government to consider, any option for U.S. policies in the Middle East opposed by the ruling faction in Israeli politics." That will certainly be news to Israel's "ruling faction," which in the past few years alone has seen the U.S. government promote a Palestinian election that it opposed; refuse it weapons it might have used for an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities; and adopt a policy of direct negotiations with a regime that denies the Holocaust and that promises to wipe Israel off the map. Two Israeli governments have been forced from office since the early 1990s after open clashes with Washington over matters such as settlement construction in the occupied territories.

What's striking about the charges by Mr. Freeman and like-minded conspiracy theorists is their blatant disregard for such established facts. Mr. Freeman darkly claims that "it is not permitted for anyone in the United States" to describe Israel's nefarious influence. But several of his allies have made themselves famous (and advanced their careers) by making such charges -- and no doubt Mr. Freeman himself will now win plenty of admiring attention. Crackpot tirades such as his have always had an eager audience here and around the world. The real question is why an administration that says it aims to depoliticize U.S. intelligence estimates would have chosen such a man to oversee them.

On February 10th, Israelis voted for a new Knesset. The most remarkable fact about these elections is that elections took place at all. Democratic elections are unheard of in this corner of the planet.

East of Israel you will find the kingdom of Jordan. The northern border is shared by the national-socialist regime of Syria, where president Hafez Assad passed his presidency to his son Bashir, and Lebanon that is controlled by Hizballa, an organization on the US foreign terrorist organizations list. The Southern neighbor, Egypt has been run since 1981 by Hosni Mubarak who is planning on passing the country on to his son Gamal. So while Israeli democracy is not perfect, it is functioning and fairly robust.

The elections of 2009 signified a few major shifts in Israeli politics - the demise of Labor, a convincing win for the Israeli Right, and the emergence of Soviet-born Avigdor Lieberman as a political king-maker. How did this happen?...

Walt Disney Company CEO Robert Iger scowled at and said "f--- you" to Tom Borelli, director of the National Center for Public Policy Research's Free Enterprise Project, at Tuesday's annual Disney shareholder meeting.

Iger's remark came after Borelli told Disney shareholders about Iger's refusal to sell the DVD or the distribution rights of the miniseries "The Path to 9/11."

Borelli had just ended his presentation and was attempting to shake Iger's hand on his way back to his seat. Iger, who was sitting in the audience at the time, also refused to uncross his arms and shake Borelli's hand. Borelli, who had received applause from fellow shareholders after his presentation, went back to the podium and precisely reported to his fellow shareholders what Iger had just said, to gasps from the assembled crowd. Borelli then sat back down.

"The Path to 9/11" is a miniseries based on the federal "9/11 Commission Report." The miniseries aired in 2006 on the Disney-owned ABC television network. The shareholder meeting was held at the Paramount Theatre in Oakland, California.

"So much for the family-friendly Disney reputation," said Borelli. "Shareholders have a legitimate concern about the political and financial implications of Iger's actions. It wasn't until today that the depths of his contempt were revealed."...

ANTI-SEMITISM is an ancient derangement, the oldest of hatreds, so it is strange that it lacks a more meaningful name. The misnomer "anti-Semitism" -- a term coined in 1879 by the German agitator Wilhelm Marr, who wanted a scientific-sounding euphemism for Judenhass, or Jew-hatred -- is particularly inane, since hostility to Jews has never had anything to do with Semites or being Semitic. (That is why those who protest that Arabs cannot be anti-Semitic since "Arabs are Semites too" speak either from ignorance or disingenuousness.)

Perhaps there is no good name for a virus as mutable and unyielding as anti-Semitism. "The Jews have been objects of hatred in pagan, religious, and secular societies," write Joseph Telushkin and Dennis Prager in Why the Jews?, their classic study of anti-Semitism. "Fascists have accused them of being Communists, and Communists have branded them capitalists. Jews who live in non-Jewish societies have been accused of having dual loyalties, while Jews who live in the Jewish state have been condemned as 'racists.' Poor Jews are bullied, and rich Jews are resented. Jews have been branded as both rootless cosmopolitans and ethnic chauvinists. Jews who assimilate have been called a 'fifth column,' while those who stay together spark hatred for remaining separate."...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has gone from frequent flier to jet-aircraft connoisseur, with aides berating military officials to get the best planes, e-mails revealed yesterday.

Pelosi, who clashed with the military to get nonstop service when she flies home to California with police protection on government planes, revealed a particular fondness for Gulfstream's sleek G-5 - a plane glamorized in Hollywood films and rap videos.

"It is my understanding there are no G-5s available for the House during the Memorial Day recess. This is totally unacceptable . . . The speaker will want to know where the planes are," a Pelosi aide wrote in an angry e-mail to the military...

...A couple things to clarify: First, existing lines of human embryonic stem cell research continued throughout the Bush administration. Second, human embryonic stem cell research was not banned generally, nor was any other kind of stem cell research banned. The previous executive order specifically prevented government funds from being used for embryonic stem cell research. Third, human embryonic stem cell research is just a subset of stem cell research. Stem cells can be found everywhere -- bone marrow, blood, fat, and skin all contain stem cells and umbilical cord blood has very pluripotent stem cells. Embryonic stem cell research is one part of this research. Every other kind of stem cell research continued to receive federal grant money. Finally, embryonic stem cell research may be history anyway because it's unnecessary.

These clarifications are important...

It's more than five years old, but for many reasons, Tony Judt's "Israel: The Alternative" is worth revisiting (and fisking) now as we reach the closing years of the aughts, and like the keffiya, the "One-state solution" is becoming increasingly fashionable on the left...

...Girl host:
"We have taken our cameras to the streets and asked many young Palestinians about questions they want to ask you. A little young girl from a village in Ramallah wants to know what you would do if your daughter Chelsea was unfortunate enough to have been born under occupation, to be born deprived of freedom and liberty?"

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton:
"Well, I would do what so many parents here in the West Bank and in Gaza do. I would love her, I would take care of her, I would get the best education I could for her, and I would never lose hope, I would never give up on the dream of a Palestinian State. No matter what happens, no matter what people do to try and derail that dream. I would tell my daughter and I would hope my daughter would believe with all of her heart that she has the same opportunities for the best future that any child anywhere in the world does, and that's what my goal will be."...

Argentinean Jewish community leaders were demanding an immediate probe Sunday into the kidnapping and torture of one of the senior investigators in the 1994 Iranian-Hizbullah bombing of the AMIA Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires.

The investigator, Claudio Lifschitz, said masked attackers nabbed him at his home on Friday night, threw him into the trunk of a van and violently interrogated him for several hours.

The men identified themselves as members of the Argentinean intelligence service and demanded to know if Lifschitz had any case material that hadn't been presented in court regarding several Iranian suspects, he said.

The assailants also burnt the letters AMIA into Lifschitz's back and arm before releasing him near the police academy premises in Buenos Aires.

"They made me get out of my car, get into a van, and they took me away," Lifschitz said. "They put a plastic bag over my head and with a blowtorch, they burnt the letters AMIA on my arm and my back."...

Short notice but can you mention that Walid Shoebat and Kamal Saleem will be speaking Tuesday at Western Michigan University's Miller Auditorium at 7 pm. The topic of the speech is Why We Want To Kill You and deals with the mindset of a terrorist. Introduction by General Gordon Cucullu. Admssion free.

The WMU adminstration has tried to prevent this event from appearing on camps and even interfered with its advetising so it's important that people show up.

The film "Fitna" by Dutch parliament member Geert Wilders has created an uproar around the world because it links violence committed by Islamists to Islam.

Many commentators and politicians -- including the British government, which denied him entry to the country last month -- reflexively accused Mr. Wilders of inciting hatred. The question, however, is whether the blame is with Mr. Wilders, who simply exposed Islamic radicalism, or with those who promote and engage in this religious extremism. In other words, shall we fault Mr. Wilders for raising issues like the stoning of women, or shall we fault those who actually promote and practice this crime?

Many Muslims seem to believe that it is acceptable to teach hatred and violence in the name of their religion -- while at the same time expecting the world to respect Islam as a religion of peace, love and harmony.

Scholars in the most prestigious Islamic institutes and universities continue to teach things like Jews are "pigs and monkeys," that women and men must be stoned to death for adultery, or that Muslims must fight the world to spread their religion. Isn't, then, Mr. Wilders's criticism appropriate? Instead of blaming him, we must blame the leading Islamic scholars for having failed to produce an authoritative book on Islamic jurisprudence that is accepted in the Islamic world and unambiguously rejects these violent teachings...

...Liberalism in the Arab-Muslim world is peripheral. Muslim liberals are scorned, or treated worse. They look for support in the West or flee to the West. Those who have fled are viewed as stooges of the West in their native countries. Then many among them torn by remorse and guilt turn against their Western hosts and become caricatures of their past lives, railing against the West even as they prosper personally and professionally in the freedom West provides.

America's response to 9/11 under President George W. Bush has been hugely consequential for the advance of freedom over tyranny in the Arab-Muslim world. Two of the three tyrannies (Iraq under the Ba'ath and Afghanistan under the Taliban) have been destroyed...

One of the UK's most influential Islamic leaders, who has helped counter extremism in the country's mosques, is accused of advocating attacks on the Royal Navy if it tries to stop arms for Hamas being smuggled into Gaza.

Dr Daud Abdullah, deputy director-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, is facing calls for his resignation, after it emerged that he is one of 90 Muslim leaders from around the world who have signed a public declaration in support of Hamas and military action.

Abdullah, who led the MCB's boycott of Holocaust Memorial Day, was a member of the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board, the body endorsed by the government that trains imams and was set up to curtail the activities of extremist clerics. In January, he briefed the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, and communities secretary Hazel Blears on the situation in Gaza and its likely impact on social cohesion in the UK.

There were calls last night for the government and the MCB to condemn Abdullah's actions. "The British government should stop funding organisations such as the MCB and supporting events such as Islam Expo, which hosts scholars from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan who hold extremist views," said Irfan Al Alawi, international director of the Centre for Islamic Pluralism.

"If the MCB is serious about tackling extremism, it should immediately expel extremists such as Daud Abdullah from its own ranks," said Ed Husain, co-director of the Quilliam Foundation, a counter-extremism thinktank. "The man is a fanatic."

Abdullah's name appears as a signatory to a declaration in Istanbul last month that describes Israel's recent military campaign as "the manifest victory which Allah has granted us in the land of Gaza". It opposes the "so-called Arab peace initiative" and the Palestinian Authority and issues a series of obligations to the "Islamic Nation", calling on it to "carry on with the jihad and resistance against the occupier until the liberation of all Palestine".

Obligation six declares that Muslims must seek to open the crossings in Palestine so that "money, clothing, food, medicine, weapons and other essentials"; can enter Gaza and Palestinians "are able to live and perform the jihad in the way of Allah Almighty"...

...the obnoxious nature of Wilders' views doesn't even begin to compare with Moussawi's vicious, anti-semitic, and terrorist politics. Wilders' "Fitna" did no more than repeat the Islamist perspectives of groups like Hezbollah, with the implication that they are representative of Islam as a whole. But Moussawi actually adheres to those vicious, racist and genocidal views. His group promotes them, across the world, by means of televised propaganda and by terrorist attack: not simply in Israel but in other countries as well.

So, why the difference of approach? Why is Wilders banned, but Moussawi admitted?

The inevitable conclusion is this. This Government believes that Moussawi matters because his group is a terrorist group, which has electoral support among Lebanese Shi'ites. Were he not the representative of such group, he'd just be a bigot and a nutter, and we could safely ignore him. However, as thing stand, he is viewed as an important partner for dialogue.

And not just dialogue. There should always be dialogue, behind the scenes, and in a low key way with your enemies. Public contact, Ministerial announcements, and handshakes before cameras should be a reward for concessions. What we're seeing here is a very public signalling that Hezbollah are now being sanitised. Hamas will be next. And what precisely have we got in return?...

Dozens of anti-Israel activists clashed with police Saturday as they tried to storm a closed arena where Sweden and Israel were playing a Davis Cup tennis match.

The activists hurled rocks and firecrackers at police vans as they tried to break through the barricades set up to keep protesters from the arena. Hundreds of riot police pushed them back using truncheons.

There were no immediate reports of injuries. At least five people were detained, police spokesman Lars Hakan Lindholm said.

The clashes erupted after about 7,000 people gathered at a square in downtown Malmo to hear speeches condemning Israel's offensive in Gaza and urging support for Palestinians.

Organizers of the "stop the match" protest had said the demonstration would be peaceful, but extreme-left activists had vowed to disrupt the match, which is being played without fans in Malmo...

• The Holocaust initiated a major change in thinking about the Jewish people in numerous Christian circles. To many it was clear that centuries of Christian anti-Semitic teachings had paved the way for the mass murders by the Nazis and their supporters. These crimes alone, however, could not have shifted the theological thinking of many Christians to such a large extent. Many would still have seen the Shoah as yet another example that Jews are forever cursed.
• It was the theological shock of the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 that challenged the fundamental church teachings and doctrine concerning the Jewish people. For centuries, the Christian mainstream thought that the Jews, who were blamed for killing Christ, were cursed to endless wanderings. This is the key distinguishing factor between Christian friends and foes of Israel: whether or not one believes the Jews still have an abiding covenantal relationship with God.
• Within the pro-Israeli Protestant camp there are two major theological schools. The first is covenantal Christian theology, which is based on the belief that God eternally keeps his covenantal promises. The second is dispensationalism, which says that Israel was temporarily replaced by the church but-at the end of days-Israel will once again be God's main redemptive agent in the world.
• Replacement theology, also called supersessionism, is the main theology of Israel's Christian foes. It is based on the idea that God's unique relationship with the church is the replacement or the completion of the promises made to the Jewish people, and thus Israel's "election" no longer stands. Palestinian liberation theology uses Jesus as a historic role model, identifying with him as the "first Palestinian revolutionary." Thus, it justifies Palestinian violence against Israelis as acceptable acts of the oppressed against the oppressor.

The Islamic Republic of Harvard Square

Ho hum, yet another Israel-hating Harvard Square demonstration. But, compared with the outright anti-Semitic horrors going on in Berkeley, Florida and other places, this one was rather tame. Central casting supplied the usual suspects: Graying Unitarians and Quakers, who've been in the closet for 30 years finally with the opportunity to parade their Jew hatred, the odd Arab student with a bullhorn and red kheffiyeh (gotta be red, the color of revenge) and, of course, the legions of putative Jews sporting signs that invariably begin with "Another Jew who (fill in the rest yourself): Opposes the Occupation, Deplores Israeli Atrocities..." but of course, WE know what they really mean:

"I'm another (born by accident) Jew, who really wants to be a COW (Citizen of the World) and who has nothing to do with other Jews (I spend all my time in UU churches or at the American Friends Service Committee). The only time I identify myself as a Jew occurs when the opportunity arises to criticize Israel. And, of course I am rewarded handsomely with new friends and tasty middle eastern cuisine from the Arab and leftist camps. Arabs especially treasure the vitriol with which I demonize my "fellow Jews." The Soviet Union may have sunk beneath the waves, but I have a new messiah now -- radical Islam -- to replace my need for power and belonging."

Take Eva Moseley, a "Holocaust survivor" (she and all her well-heeled family escaped Vienna in 1939) where, according to her, she never identified herself as Jewish, but now parades her dubious heritage around whenever it's convenient to bash Israel. Aside from celebrating her granddaughter's conversion to Islam (I kid you not), she got caught emailing a comrade boasting of her use of "Holocaust shtick" during anti-Israel protests. We're glad she escaped the Nazi hordes, but we're left to wonder how stricken she would be were the Hamas extermination agenda to take its course.

In spite of the hate-Israel crowd's view of places like Harvard Square as their own private fiefdom, there were plenty of pro-Israel demonstrators with signs depicting -- the unmentionable -- Hamas (none of the anti-Israel protestors ever mention Hamas; they'd rather parade around with staged photos of 6 year old Arabs holding their teddy bears in front of monstrous Jewish tanks). You see, they say, all Palestinians are innocent, Hamas doesn't exist -- except when they grudgingly admit that it won a democratic election (you can snigger now), and 1300 civilians were killed in the recent Gaza action (continue sniggering). And their proof of Jewish perfidy? Just look at the disproportionate numbers of dead! You see, they give Hamas points for inaccuracy! Using their logic, the U.S. should have lost the Battle of the Bulge, Okinawa and Iwo Jima (disproportionately more Germans and Japanese died in those crucial battles).

As for the Big Lie of Apartheid, there was plenty of literature documenting religious, ethnic, and gender apartheid in every Arab and Muslim country -- to the chagrin of the hate Israel crowd. Of course, when presented with the incontrovertible evidence of murdered gays in Iran, butchered Copts in Egypt and the ethnic cleansing of Jews from every Arab country, that crowd pulls the Groucho line:

"Are you going to believe me -- or your lying eyes?"

Glancing down the line of haters, I was reminded of the bar scene from Total Recall: A community of angry mutants confined in a dead end place with dead end ideas.

Israeli Arab journalist Khaled Abu Toameh was greeted with swastikas as he arrived Israeli Arab journalist to speak at DePaul University in Chicago on February 4.

Abu Toameh was invited to speak on campus by a number of Jewish organizations, including Hasbara Fellowships and StandWithUs, about the situation in the Middle East and his experiences as a journalist.

Shortly before the event began, the organizers discovered that many of the flyers featuring the event and carrying Abu Toameh's picture had been covered with swastikas.

The local Hillel students who also hosted Abu Toameh filed condemned the incident and filed a hate-crime complaint with the university authorities...

...Abu Toameh, who has been covering Palestinian affairs for the past 25 years, said he was shocked to hear about the swastikas at DePaul. He added that sometimes he feels "that it's much safer to be on a Palestinian campus with Hamas and Fatah than on some campuses in the US.

Abu Toameh said he saw no difference between the incitement on US campuses and the incitement against Israel by Hamas and other terror groups. He said that he found it ironic that while many Arabs and Muslims agreed with his views and even thanked him for speaking out against financial corruption and terrorism, some American Jews who came to listen to his talk defended Yasser Arafat and insisted that he was never corrupt.

Forget the pork. Forget the waste. Forget the 8,570 earmarks in a bill supported by a president who poses as the scourge of earmarks. Forget the "$2 trillion dollars in savings" that "we have already identified," $1.6 trillion of which President Obama's budget director later admits is the "savings" of not continuing the surge in Iraq until 2019 -- 11 years after George Bush ended it, and eight years after even Bush would have had us out of Iraq completely.

Forget all of this. This is run-of-the-mill budget trickery. True, Obama's tricks come festooned with strings of zeros tacked onto the end. But that's a matter of scale, not principle.

All presidents do that. But few undertake the kind of brazen deception at the heart of Obama's radically transformative economic plan, a rhetorical sleight of hand so smoothly offered that few noticed...

...The list is long. But the list of causes of the collapse of the financial system does not include the absence of universal health care, let alone of computerized medical records. Nor the absence of an industry-killing cap-and-trade carbon levy. Nor the lack of college graduates. Indeed, one could perversely make the case that, if anything, the proliferation of overeducated, Gucci-wearing, smart-ass MBAs inventing ever more sophisticated and opaque mathematical models and debt instruments helped get us into this credit catastrophe in the first place.

And yet with our financial house on fire, Obama makes clear both in his speech and his budget that the essence of his presidency will be the transformation of health care, education and energy. Four months after winning the election, six weeks after his swearing in, Obama has yet to unveil a plan to deal with the banking crisis.

What's going on? "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste," said Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. "This crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things that you could not do before."

Things. Now we know what they are. The markets' recent precipitous decline is a reaction not just to the absence of any plausible bank rescue plan, but also to the suspicion that Obama sees the continuing financial crisis as usefully creating the psychological conditions -- the sense of crisis bordering on fear-itself panic -- for enacting his "Big Bang" agenda to federalize and/or socialize health care, education and energy, the commanding heights of post-industrial society.

Clever politics, but intellectually dishonest to the core. Health, education and energy -- worthy and weighty as they may be -- are not the cause of our financial collapse. And they are not the cure. The fraudulent claim that they are both cause and cure is the rhetorical device by which an ambitious president intends to enact the most radical agenda of social transformation seen in our lifetime.

Islamic American University and MAS Boston present: The Quranic Methodology for Da'wa and Thought by Sh. Basyouny Nehela.

The course is tentatively targeted to begin on March 18th 2009, for twelve weeks on Wednesday evenings, 6:30-8:00PM.

More info to come.

A month ago this column explored the FBI's decision to sever ties with the country's largest Muslim rights group - CAIR - Council on American Islamic Relations. And we wondered if there were any Boston angles. There may be.

Recall that while CAIR purported to be a moderate organization, the FBI discovered evidence that it is part of a network created by members of the Muslim Brotherhood to radicalize America's historically moderate Muslim community. (The Muslim Brotherhood, you need to know, is the progenitor - and currently the global captain - of nearly all modern jihadist movements.)

Concern about CAIR emerged from the FBI investigation of the nation's largest Muslim charity - The Holy Land Foundation (HLF). HLF was convicted of funneling money to Hamas and CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator.

What's new? Last week, Senators Jon Kyl, Chuck Schumer, and Tom Coburn of the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, commended FBI director Robert Mueller for severing ties with an unindicted co-conspirator in the terror finance case. Importantly, they asked Mueller whether the FBI has relationships with any other unindicted co-conspirators in terror-financing trials -- and whether it plans to sever these ties as well.

Well, here in Boston, they do. The Boston FBI office sends its agents to "Muslim sensitivity training" run by the Muslim American Society (MAS) which now manages the Saudi-funded Islamic Society of Boston (ISB) mosque in Roxbury. The FBI has also recruited employees at job fairs held at the mosque.

As it turns out, the FBI discovered that MAS founder Jamal Badawi (now Trustee of the Roxbury mosque) was a leader in the Muslim Brotherhood. For his role in helping HLF raise money for Hamas, he was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the HLF trial. It will be interesting to see how the FBI's Mueller responds to the Senators.

Why are so many seemingly disparate Muslim groups and individuals (over 300 in the HLF case) listed together as co-conspirators? Giving the plain answer makes me feel almost like a conspiracist! But here it is.

CAIR, MAS, and a constellation of other American Muslim organizations are creations of the Muslim Brotherhood, a group about which Americans can no longer be ignorant. On one foot: In the 1920's, an Egyptian Islamic theologian, Hassan al-Banna, challenged Islamic civilization with a most painful religious question: if Islam teaches that Muslims would come to dominate the world, how to explain the collapse of the Ottoman Islamic Empire, the only remaining caliphate (Islamic sovereignty), and how account for the state of Muslims around the world - impoverished, and dominated by the West?

The Muslim Brotherhood was born of his answer: the Muslims themselves, al-Banna preached, were to blame, for they had abandoned the fundamentals of their religion and adapted to shameful Western modes of life. The answer was to fight for "Islam" in all of what the Brotherhood conceived as its most original, pure and fundamental aspects. This battle, spreading throughout the Islamic world and then to Europe, now seems to have come to our shores.

Tonight at the U of T [Israeli Apartheid Week] event, two Jewish students were assaulted by the Palestinian "Security" team for being "disruptive" (asking a legitimate question "does Israel have a right to exist") The Palestinian "security" smacked a student in the head and grabbed him by his neck, while another "security" officer told a second Jewish student to "Shut the F**ck up or he'll saw his head off"...All of this was done in a crowded lecture room with over 100 witnesses!!

I was there, there are no pictures, filming and taking pictures was prohibited (they seem to have a problem with the general public hearing what they say) it was reported to the police who chose (as usual) to do NOTHING...

American and European taxpayers are now being asked to fund a new TV station that will broadcast from Ramallah, the de facto capital of the Palestinians that is controlled by the Palestinian Authority.

The new satellite station is intended to serve as a mouthpiece for Palestinian Authority head Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction...

...While targeting Hamas, the Fatah newspapers, radio and TV stations and Web sites have also been inciting against their peace partner, Israel, and against the US and Europe - the same parties that are financing Fatah and supplying it with weapons. Ironically, it is this type of incitement that drives more Palestinians into the open arms of Hamas.

Why? Because if you are telling your people day and night how bad and evil Israel is, your people will then say that this means that Hamas is right - you can't make peace with Israel or any Jew. And if you are telling your people (through your media) that the Israelis are war criminals and colonialists and land thieves and cowards and vampires and children killers and are basically responsible for all the miseries of the Palestinians, what will the people think of Mahmoud Abbas when they see him meeting with any Israeli? They will certainly spit in his face and ask him, "Why are you talking to these Jews? You yourself have told us how bad and evil they are."

The last thing the international community needs to do is to fund yet another Palestinian media outlet that promotes hatred, violence and anti-Western sentiments. The new Fatah TV station is not going to be much different than the other Fatah-run media organizations. If anything, it will help raise another regeneration of Palestinians on hatred and glorification of suicide bombers.

Hillary Rodham Clinton called on Israel to stop demolishing Palestinian homes in eastern Jerusalem.

The U.S. secretary of state also said at a news conference Wednesday in Ramallah with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas that Israeli construction in eastern Jerusalem was "unhelpful" to peace efforts. Clinton and Abbas met prior to the news conference.

Clinton said Israel's plans to demolish Palestinian homes are a violation of international obligations. Israel says the homes are being destroyed because they were constructed illegally...

Among the many challenges faced by pro-Israel students and supporters, "Israel Apartheid Week" stands out in its defamation and vitriol against the Jewish State. For several years, college campuses and communities across the world have been subjected to the week-long combination of pseudo-academic rhetoric and guerilla theater that is 'Israel Apartheid Week.' These events are traveling circuses where countless speakers angrily denounce Israel as an apartheid state or worse, a Nazi state, and create mock 'apartheid walls' and 'checkpoints' to harass and intimidate students.

These internationally organized efforts explicitly deny Israel's right to defend itself and ultimately its right to exist. They frequently call for the dismantling of Israel, a thinly veiled euphemism for the destruction of the Jewish state. Explicitly equating Israel with two of the worst racist ideologies of the 20th century, apartheid and Nazism, 'Israel Apartheid Week' is designed to make Israel uniquely illegitimate. Historically and logically absurd, this cruel strategy of singling out Israel is intended to make rational debate impossible. Such demonization of Israel as uniquely evil is antisemitic in effect if not intent.

But the 'Israel Apartheid Week' strategy is also intended to single out Israel's supporters on campus and in our communities. Those courageous enough to stand up for Israel are accused of being racists. Jewish students have been subject to a hostile environment which has included harassment and at times threats of violence. These tactics of intimidation have proven effective in stifling legitimate debate and pressuring already weak administrations to remain silent.

As 'Israel Apartheid Week' unfolds, The David Project will be helping students across the country with educational resources, programs and strategies to counter these vicious lies. Our staff is already consulting with students to develop pro-active and strategic responses that advance the truth about Israel, the only true liberal democracy in the Middle East.

We have created a new section on our website to make materials available to the public.

Your help is vital. Supporters of The David Project already know that silence and passivity are not options. Please, take the time to look at our website. Educate yourselves further and send links and materials to everyone you know. Speaking out against lies can only be done from a platform of truths. Learn why the 'apartheid' allegation does not apply to a country like Israel, whose Arab minority has full civil and political rights. Look carefully at the college and university campuses near you. If 'Israel Apartheid Week' appears, speak to your friends and to your community: in your synagogues and churches, schools, or your neighborhood. Challenge those who are bringing hatred of Israel and of Jews to campus. Now is the time for action and responsibility!

I just got back from a panel organized and hosted by the Muslim Law Student's Association, a "discussion about human rights issues in Gaza, and co-sponsored by Human Rights Law Society and National Security Law Society at the BU Law School Auditorium. It was attended by about 500 people...

...In fact the panel had virtually nothing to do with Gaza. No one talked about what happened there; no one discussed the implications of current situation at length; no one dealt with the legal issues. (For a good treatment of "Gaza behind the headlines, see Yvonne Greene's piece.)

Instead is was more or less a low-key, flat, and repetitive articulation of the Walt-Mearsheimer thesis about American foreign policy. The working assumption of all the panelists was that a) Israel did bad things in Gaza; b) the US supported them; and c) it's all our jobs to work for a change a foreign policy that harms the US both morally and practically. Kind of like channeling Amira Hass...

...All in all, if this is the kind of quality of thought and empirical grounding that MIT, Harvard, and BU have to offer on these subjects, then oao is right: Education is in terrible shape because it's become propaganda. Any of these presentation would not have made the grade at a serious first-year history department seminar. Besides Chomsky's (which was just his typical ramblings), the worst was Kennedy's [Duncan Kennedy is working on making a name for himself in this. See: Bait, Switch and Dish -- Harvard Style -S]. I hope his other work in law is more substantive, otherwise the students there are being cheated...

As 2009 opened, three weeks before Barack Obama took office, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 9034 on January 2, its highest level since the autumn panic. Yesterday the Dow fell another 4.24% to 6763, for an overall decline of 25% in two months and to its lowest level since 1997. The dismaying message here is that President Obama's policies have become part of the economy's problem.

Americans have welcomed the Obama era in the same spirit of hope the President campaigned on. But after five weeks in office, it's become clear that Mr. Obama's policies are slowing, if not stopping, what would otherwise be the normal process of economic recovery. From punishing business to squandering scarce national public resources, Team Obama is creating more uncertainty and less confidence -- and thus a longer period of recession or subpar growth.

The Democrats who now run Washington don't want to hear this, because they benefit from blaming all bad economic news on President Bush. And Mr. Obama has inherited an unusual recession deepened by credit problems, both of which will take time to climb out of. But it's also true that the economy has fallen far enough, and long enough, that much of the excess that led to recession is being worked off. Already 15 months old, the current recession will soon match the average length -- and average job loss -- of the last three postwar downturns. What goes down will come up -- unless destructive policies interfere with the sources of potential recovery...

...What is new is the unveiling of Mr. Obama's agenda and his approach to governance. Every new President has a finite stock of capital -- financial and political -- to deploy, and amid recession Mr. Obama has more than most. But one negative revelation has been the way he has chosen to spend his scarce resources on income transfers rather than growth promotion. Most of his "stimulus" spending was devoted to social programs, rather than public works, and nearly all of the tax cuts were devoted to income maintenance rather than to improving incentives to work or invest...

...The market has notably plunged since Mr. Obama introduced his budget last week, and that should be no surprise. The document was a declaration of hostility toward capitalists across the economy. Health-care stocks have dived on fears of new government mandates and price controls. Private lenders to students have been told they're no longer wanted. Anyone who uses carbon energy has been warned to expect a huge tax increase from cap and trade. And every risk-taker and investor now knows that another tax increase will slam the economy in 2011, unless Mr. Obama lets Speaker Nancy Pelosi impose one even earlier...

I'm a poet, an English Jew and a frequent visitor to Israel. Deeply disturbed by the reports of wanton slaughter and destruction during Operation Cast Lead, I felt I had to see for myself. I flew to Tel Aviv and on Wednesday, January 28, using my press card to cross the Erez checkpoint, I walked across the border into Gaza where I was met by my guide, a Palestinian journalist. He asked if I wanted to meet with Hamas officials. I explained that I'd come to bear witness to the damage and civilian suffering, not to talk politics.

What I saw was that there had been precision attacks made on all of Hamas' infrastructure. Does UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon criticize the surgical destruction of the explosives cache in the Imad Akhel Mosque, of the National Forces compound, of the Shi Jaya police station, of the Ministry of Prisoners? The Gazans I met weren't mourning the police state. Neither were they radicalized. As Hamas blackshirts menaced the street corners, I witnessed how passersby ignored them.

THERE WERE empty beds at Shifa Hospital and a threatening atmosphere. Hamas is reduced to wielding its unchallengeable authority from extensive air raid shelters which, together with the hospital, were built by Israel 30 years ago. Terrorized Gazans used doublespeak when they told me most of the alleged 5,500 wounded were being treated in Egypt and Jordan. They want it known that the figure is a lie, and showed me that the wounded weren't in Gaza. No evidence exists of their presence in foreign hospitals, or of how they might have gotten there...

Following the British Medical Journal's attack on HonestReporting, many people, including Melanie Phillips ask: "what have the Arab/Israel impasse and Israel's military strategy towards the Palestinians got to do with the practice of medicine?"

Indeed, the BMJ has gone way beyond its own mission statement...

Progress has brought troubles along with it to the King's Valley. For hundreds of years floodwaters drained into the garden of the kings of Judea, east of the Shiloah Pool in Jerusalem. In winter it was a swamp, but in summer it became a blooming garden.

With a bit of imagination and with the help of varied historical sources it is possible to imagine King David strolling in the royal garden with its abundant greenery and water among the olive, fig, pomegranate and almond trees, singing Psalms.

According to one tradition, this is where the Book of Ecclesiastes was composed.

About 20 years ago, the Jerusalem municipality shored up the water runoff there, and in the open green area (al Bustan, in Arabic), which the Turks and the British took care to preserve for hundreds of years as a public area intended for preservation and development of parks and tourism, an illegal Palestinian outpost arose.

Within 18 years 88 buildings went up there, under the noses of mayors Teddy Kollek and now outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Under former mayor Uri Lupolianski, the construction was halted, after the municipality confiscated tractors and heavy machinery from the lawbreakers.

Last summer the director general of the Antiquities Authority, Shuka Dorfman, noted in a kind of "post mortem" that the construction in the King's Garden caused significant and irreversible damage to antiquities.

Representatives of the municipality and Dorfman admitted that they had no good explanation for what has happened in this lovely garden, which is described in the Books of Nechemiah and Ecclesiastes, in midrashim (rabbinic Biblical homiletics) and in many historical sources. Dorfman stressed that together with Tel David, the garden constitutes the only complete archaeological garden of first-rate importance...

...What's got some L.A.-area Muslims in a cold sweat is the recent revelation that the FBI planted a spy in Orange County mosques. Also troubling the Muslim community are the FBI's interrogations about charitable contributions. Apparently the agents' tactics are terrifying -- at least to the people who find law enforcement officials "asking why were they donating and who was receiving their money" particularly fear-inducing.

Yet again we have a story about Muslims in America upset about efforts to root out the violent extremists in their midst. In fact, the FBI has a good reason to quiz Muslims about their donations. As the Times' article points out, at least six major Muslim charity organizations have been shut down by the FBI since 9/11 because of involvement in terrorist financing. And just this past November, five former leaders of the Holy Land Foundation, a Dallas-based charity, were convicted of providing more than $12 million to Hamas. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which calls itself the largest Muslim "civil rights" group in the country, was listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the case. As a result, the FBI finally severed ties with CAIR after several unfruitful years of trying to work with the organization.

How are other Muslim organizations responding to the news of the FBI's long overdue decision not to work with CAIR? The Times reports that the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, an umbrella group of Southern California mosques, protested by suspending its contacts with the FBI. Meanwhile, the senior advisor of the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Los Angeles says, "Unless the FBI's style changes, the partnership with the Muslim community will not be fruitful." In other words, the FBI could use another "sensitivity training" workshop from CAIR...

Last Wednesday, CNN's Kitty Pilgrim reported that a coalition of 57 Islamic nations will introduce a U.N. anti-blasphemy resolution soon, perhaps as early as this month. If enacted, the resolution would require all member states to prevent defamation of Islam. In past years, the General Assembly, at the behest of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, has passed nonbinding anti-blasphemy resolutions. The last such one was adopted in December.

Of course, the Islamic nations cannot succeed in getting the U.N. to adopt a binding resolution that Christopher Hitchens has rightly called "totalitarianism defined" and "a rape and butchery of the First Amendment of our Constitution." Therefore, we can, if we so choose, continue to ignore the antics taking place at the so-called Parliament of Man. The General Assembly, where each nation has one vote, has increasingly become a forum for extreme ideas as more developing nations have joined. Although these states are now able to form large majorities on their own, the United States, with a Security Council veto, can block the U.N. from doing any real short-term harm.

Yet the United States and the Western democracies may need to adopt a less relaxed attitude to the goings-on in the General Assembly. Why? It's one thing for Muslims to destroy their own societies, but it's quite another for them to destroy ours. The passage of one Islamic-sponsored resolution after another in the General Assembly is narrowing the concept of freedom around the world by creating a mood of intolerance, a mood that is even affecting the West. All we have to do is look at the plight of Dutch politician Geert Wilders, who is subject to prosecution in his own country and barred from entering the United Kingdom. And what was his offense? He made a short film linking passages in the Koran to terrorism. If Western nations won't defend freedom of expression, who will?...

The Stoughton hall where Wilders spoke was filled with hundreds of admirers who rose as one as he entered and applauded and applauded. For many, including this writer, we knew we were in the presence of a great man. We knew that he was telling a truth that people did not want to hear or think about, but they must. Wilders faces prosecution and jail for telling the truth in his native land, so far gone in Holland is the cause of free speech. While we in America can still speak out we must follow his example. It is our responsibility to take the message of Geert Wilders and spread it far and wide if America is to be saved from this spreading evil...

...After sowing confusion over the phone lines, the State Department chose late Friday night to put the real deal in print. Their release reads: "the current text of the draft outcome document is not salvageable," and "the United States will not ... participate in a conference based on this text," but we will "re-engage if a document that meets [our] criteria becomes the basis for deliberations." A new version must be: "shorter," "not reaffirm in toto the flawed 2001 Durban Declaration," "not single out any one country or conflict," and "not embrace the troubling concept of "defamation of religion."

And by the way, it continued, the U.S. will "participate" for the first time in the U.N. Human Rights Council.

All of this leaves the American people not knowing whether they're coming or going.

It does open a window, however, into Obama's gerrymandering. On one phone line with Assistant Secretary of State Karen Stewart were Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Freedom House, the American Civil Liberties Union, the U.N. Foundation, the UNA-USA Association and the Arab American Institute, among others. On the other line with National Security Council member Samantha Power were Jewish organizations. The dangerous message was that an Arab advocacy group does human rights, while Jewish organizations do Jews...

The reversal of two decades of policy on images of returning war casualties is an important and welcome milestone for the American people.

The Pentagon's decision announced Thursday allowing media coverage of coffins of war victims returning to Dover Air Force Base -- if families agree -- restores to its rightful, honorable place the immense value of the sacrifice American troops make on behalf of their nation. It allows the American people to honor the dignified and respectful return of war casualties to home soil for the last time.

Although no one should have a veto over the nation's ability to pay respects to its fallen troops, I believe most families will decide that their sons and daughters deserve to be recognized publicly for their sacrifice.

These men and women enlisted in the military for their nation. They fought for their nation. They died for their nation. Their return should be respectfully and publicly acknowledged by their nation.

The ban on images of returning casualties started accidentally, and without any reference to the "privacy" of the families of those who gave their lives in service to the nation.

The accident of media history occurred in December 1989 when poor White House scheduling placed President George H.W. Bush before live television cameras just as the first American casualties were arriving at Dover Air Force Base from the U.S. invasion of Panama.

CNN and two other major TV networks fired up their split-screen technology, showing on one side the president joking with White House reporters just before the Christmas holiday -- and on the other the sober images of flag-draped military caskets being carried ceremoniously by honor guards across the tarmac at Dover.

After the holidays, the president appealed publicly to reporters to "help me" overcome a public impression that he had been insensitive on TV about the returning casualties...