US "Human Rights", "Humanitarian" Intervention in Kossovo Leads to Human Rights Violations & Murder

UPDATING 1-1-2011

When Bill Clinton was president, back in 1999 in the last century, the USA led its NATO allies into a humanitarian war, a war for human rights, for all things good, for yellow and pink flowers and for peanut butter. This was in Kossovo, a region of Serbia in the Middle Ages until the Ottoman conquest. The Serbs and Albanians were allies against the Ottoman invaders, including in the battle of Kossovo Polye. This battle, which took place exactly 620 years ago [15-28 June 1389] was an Ottoman victory. Afterwards, whereas most Albanians eventually converted to Islam, most Serbs did not. In subsequent centuries Albanians as Muslims harassed and exploited Serbs. Albanians also eventually became the majority population in what is now Kossovo. Serbia claims it as a Serbian province from which most of the Serbian population has been driven out in the last 35 years, whereas Albania and the Kossovo Albanians declared an independent Kossovo in 2008. The declaration of independence was promoted by US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and several NATO member states, but has not been recognized by many countries.

In contrast to the immense international handwringing over Palestinian Arab refugees, the hundreds of thousands of Serbs driven out of Kossovo since the mid-1970s, especially since the NATO victory over the Serbs in 1999, are seldom accorded more than a bored yawn by the international press/media and "human rights" and "humanitarian" organizations. The Kossovo Serbian refugees may be added to the hundreds of thousands of Serbs driven out of Croatia and Bosnia while the world media was full of heartfelt moralistic outcries against "ethnic cleansing." Shall we have a large serving of hypocrisy, anyone?


The world should not stay silent about Kosovo's missing

By Fron Nahzi and Chuck Sudetic
Commentary
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Listen to the Article - Powered by

The world should not stay silent about Kosovo's missing Hundreds of people disappeared 10 years ago in Kosovo, the former Serbian province that is now the world's newest state. These are not missing persons like the Albanians whom Serbian police executed and buried in secret graves during the Kosovo conflict of 1999. These missing persons disappeared after the conflict, on NATO's and the United Nations' watch. Most were Serb civilians. Relatives of most of these people have reported that they were abducted.

Kosovo, to a significant degree, owes its independence to a NATO military intervention undertaken in the name of human rights. And in the name of human rights, it is time for the truth to come out about the people who went missing after the conflict, and about why, for a decade, United Nations officials have ignored appeals by the victims' families and have launched no criminal investigation.

Kosovo's Albanian authorities have for years made no significant decision without receiving the imprimatur of the European Union and, especially, the United States. The EU and the US should urge the Kosovo government to mount a credible investigation, for the sake of the victims and people in Kosovo who want their state to be ruled by law.

In 1999, the US led NATO into war against Slobodan Milosevic's Serbia to end gross violations of the rights of Kosovo's majority Albanians. Serb nationalists had quashed Kosovo's autonomy. Serb troops beat, killed, and jailed Albanians, whose leaders, following cues from Western embassies, urged nonviolence.

After the rise of an Albanian insurgency, the Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK), Milosevic launched a violent, all-out campaign to expel Kosovo's Albanians. Villages were burned. Serbian police forces killed Albanian civilians and cast out hundreds of thousands from their homes. (The authorities in Belgrade have yet to come clean on the Albanians civilians executed and buried on police and military bases in Serbia.)

NATO forced Serb forces to withdraw in June 1999, and international peacekeepers, under NATO's leadership, occupied Kosovo. The UN sent a mission to help establish local institutions. The US and West European countries began shepherding Kosovo's new Albanian authorities toward statehood. Last year, Kosovo gained independence. Sixty countries, including the US and most EU states have recognized it.

According to a recent BBC news investigation, however, UCK members abducted Serbs, Albanians, Roma, and others after NATO's arrival. UN missing-persons researchers - not criminal investigators - searched for them for years and found no trace of them in Kosovo. They did, however, find Albanian witnesses who asserted that UCK members took captured Serbs, Albanians, and Roma into Albania, where they were killed.

Now the BBC has broadcast interviews with Albanians who were imprisoned in secret UCK camps in Albania. These witnesses confirmed that the camps also held Serbs, Roma, and others. The BBC located graves of some of the missing in Albania. There have been leaks of UN documents citing Albanian sources who name people involved.

From June 1999, the UN and NATO contingents in Kosovo clearly calculated that stability trumped justice. Despite the urging of staff members, leaders of these missions avoided launching criminal investigations into the missing. Some UCK leaders, lionized by the local Albanian population as the victors of 1999, are now running Kosovo's government. Their blanket denials are no longer credible. [Daily Star, Beirut, 24 June 2009]

--end-- [For full article see here]

Chuck Sudetic, one of the authors of this article, was also a coauthor of a book by Carla del Ponte, the Italian former chief prosecutor of the Hague Tribunal for crimes in the former Yugoslavia.
In any case, Chucky's hands are not all that clean either. But while we're talking about Yugoslavia, about Serbia and Kossovo, let's not forget that the present secretary of state, Hilary Clinton, was close to the decision-maker --Prez Bill Clinton-- who decided to make war on Serbia in 1999 in the name of "human rights." The American public and the Western public generally know little about what was really happening in Yugoslavia in those terrible years, which have not fully ended as the Serbs in the town Kosovska Mitrovica are still under siege. But unlike the 1/4 siege of Gaza by Israel, the siege of Kosovska Mitrovica elicits little, if any, international humanitarian outrage. In case anyone was unaware, Bill Clinton developed a second career after leaving the White House. He makes speeches and gives lectures, especially for the rich Arabs in the Persian Gulf states. There are some good bucks to be made in the lecture racket.

UPDATING 1-1-2011 More about the top man in Albanian-run Kosovo trading in Serbs' body parts [here]. Hashim Thaci is the prime minister of Kossovo, which declared unilateral independence from Serbia with the sponsorship of Condloleezza Rice and the US State Dept. He is also a major trader in the body parts racket. Welcome to the 21st Century!

Palestinian Arabs as Imperialist Paladins

REVISED/EXPANDED 6-23-2009

Anti-Zionism is the anti-imperialism of fools.

One of the big falsifications is the regular depiction of Arabs, especially Palestinian Arabs, as innocent of doing anything bad in history. This falsehood goes back perhaps to Lowell Thomas' post-WW I depiction of TE Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia, as the savior of oppressed, colonized Arabs from Ottoman Turkish tyranny. What is not said, almost never said, is that many Arabs from the leading Arab families held high posts in the imperial service. The Ottoman Empire was a Sunni Muslim state and most Arabs, as Sunni Muslims, were loyal to it. This has been confirmed by writers as diverse as the historian Elie Kedourie and the PLO propaganda hack Rashid Khalidi [when he thought that the hoi polloi were not paying attention]. Khalidi, we recall, is an old pal of Prez Obama and supposedly his chief instructor in matters Middle Eastern. That is, Khalidi conveyed to obama the straight Pan-Arab nationalist, pan-Islamist orthodoxy that has long been looked upon fondly in the State Dept and the CIA.

The Arab upper crust was so well integrated into the Ottoman governing class that the Arab historian Zeine N Zeine and the Turkish sociologist Zia Gok Alp both called the Ottoman Empire a Turkish-Arab state. As Ottoman officials, these Arabs took part in Ottoman tyranny and the exploitation and oppression of the subject peoples of the Empire, that is, of non-Muslims such as Bulgars, Armenians, Greeks, etc., as well as of the working poor among the Muslims.

The offspring of leading Arab families in what was designated "palestine" after World War One by the international community, mainly Western powers to be sure, received high posts in the Empire too [of course, there was no "palestine" under the Ottoman or Mamluk empires]. One of these families was the Khalidis of Jerusalem, the family of Obama's pal Rashid. Other leading Arab families of the future "palestine," like the Jerusalem Husseinis and the Abdul-Hadis of Nablus [Sh'khem] also received high imperial posts.

Let's start with the Khalidis. First, they are a "Prominent family of Jerusalem notables. It claims descent from Khalid bin al-Walid, the great 7th century Muslim general" [Shimoni & Levine, see below]. This founding Khalid was a military conqueror of Jerusalem, the Land of Israel and Syria.
-- Ruhi al-Khalidi was the Ottoman consul in Bordeaux, elected in 1908 and 1912 as one of three Jerusalem members of the Ottoman parliament.
-- Yusuf Dia` al-Khalidi, first speaker of the Ottoman parliament and later the Ottoman consul in Vienna, an especially sensitive position since the Austro-Hungarian [Habsburg] Empire coveted Ottoman territories and had indeed defeated the Ottoman armies on several occasions and taken vast lands away from it in the past. Hungary, Croatia, and Bosnia, were lands that the Habsburgs had taken away from the Ottoman state. So an Ottoman representative in Vienna had to be especially aware of events, trends, moods, military moves and public declarations in the Habsburg Empire.
-- Mustafa al-Khalidi was a chief of police in Beirut in the Ottoman period. To complete the account, we need to point out that the British appointed him as mayor of Jerusalem 1937-1944. At that time Jerusalem had a Jewish majority as it had had since 1853. The British disregarded the Jewish majority in the city out of their own Judeophobia. Does Sandra Mackey know about that disregarded Jewish majority??

Here are some of the Husseinis [al- Husayni]. The family claims descent from Muhammad. They accumulated large tracts of land in the villages northwest of Ramallah:
Musa Kazem el-Husseini, educated at the Ottoman School of Administration in Istanbul. He served as qaimakam [sub-district governor] in several places and as mutessarif [district governor] in Transjordan, the Arabian Peninsula, and Anatolia. Now as governor of a district in Anatolia he quite possibly governed a district inhabited by many Armenians. How did he treat the members of this oppressed people while governing in Anatolia?
Be that as it may, the British appointed him mayor of Jerusalem [a city with a Jewish majority since 1853] from 1918 to 1920. His son Abdul-Qader Husseini served under the leadership of their kinsman, Haj Amin el-Husseini, in the so-called Arab Revolt ["the revolt by leave"] of 1936-39 and collaborated with the Nazis as Haj Amin did. Abdul-Qader also led terrorist gangs against Jews and fellow Arabs. He went into exile in Baghdad with Haj Amin and there in 1940 a son was born to him named Faisal, while Haj Amin --who was also Abdul-Qader's uncle-- incited the Iraqis in favor of the Nazis and against Jews. Many Jews, estimated in number from 179 to 600, were murdered in the notorious Farhud pogrom in Baghdad in the spring of 1941, at the Shavu`ot holiday, attributed to Haj Amin's agitation, among other causes. Years later, Faisal was a part of the PLO terrorist Arab nationalist irredentist movement, inciting violence among fellow Arabs living in Jerusalem. He called himself "a peace activist." They all do, don't they? He once admitted that the Palestinian Authority was like a Trojan Horse against Israel.
Salim el-Husseini was appointed mayor of the newly formed Jerusalem municipality [baladiyyah] in the 1870s and several occasions afterwards, while the city already had a Jewish majority. Two of his sons, including Musa Kazem mentioned above, were appointed mayors of Jerusalem, Musa Kazem by the British and Hussein Salim by the Ottoman state [1909-1918].
Sa`id el-Husseini was a delegate to the Ottoman parliament after the 1908 and 1914 elections [candidates needed a rather high minimal income to be elected].

Lastly come the Abdul-Hadis of Nablus [originally NeaPolis, also Sh'khem]. They come last because of Nablus' lesser importance compared to Jerusalem.

Ruhi Abdul-Hadi worked in the Ottoman Empire's diplomatic service. He later held senior positions in the administration of the British mandatory government in the country. He subsequently became a minister in the Jordanian govt.
[see here for info about a latter-day Abdul-Hadi]

All this information of course refutes the usual simplistic fake history of the Arabs in the Land of Israel as propagated by such as Sandra Mackey and many others. The poor of the Arabs were poor and oppressed, by their own ethnic and religious brothers as much as by any one else. The Arab upper crust were part of the Ottoman imperial class and later enjoyed privileged positions under the British mandatory govt while Jews were discriminated against. The fact that the Muslim and Arab poor and workers and peasants were exploited by their own upper class makes the Ottoman Empire no less imperialist, indeed no different in principle from the Russian Empire where the Russian workers, peasants, and poor were oppressed by their own upper crust.
- - - - - - - - -
SOURCES:
Yaacov Shimoni and Evyatar Levine, Political Dictionary of the Middle East in the 20th Century (New York: Quadrangle 1972, 1974)

יעקב שביט, חיים באר, יעקב גולדשטיין -- לקסיקון האישים של ארץ ישראל 1948- 1799 [מרכז זלמן שזר]

יעקב שמעוני, לקסיקון פוליטי של העולם הערבי [ירושלים : כתר1988

Anti-Zionism is the anti-imperialism of fools

Marvelolus Finding among the Judean Desert Documents -- Foreshadowing of HaTiqvah

UPDATING 6-27-2009 see below

One of the amazing discoveries recently made public about the texts in the Judean Desert Dcouments, which include the Dead Sea Scrolls and other texts, is an ancient psalm not included in the Biblical book of Psalms. It is a hymn of praise and longing for the city of Jerusalem. This little known supplementary psalm, was discovered in a cave near the Dead Sea above the ancient place now called Qumran. In fact a dozen or more hitherto unknown psalms have been discovered in the hoards of texts from the Judean Desert. The psalm in question was found in a manuscript with other psalms and contains a line hauntingly reminiscent of a line in HaTiqvah [The Hope], Israel's national anthem.

Whereas HaTiqvah was written by the Hebrew poet, Naftali Hertz Imber about 1880, the newly found ancient psalm is about 2000 years old, and unlikely to have been written after the year 70 CE, when the Temple was destroyed. That is because the documents found in caves near the Dead Sea were most likely brought there for safekeeping from libariries in Jerusalem and elsewhere in Israel, what the Romans then called the Province of Judea [Provincia IVDAEA], at the time of the Roman siege of the Holy City in the year 70.

Here are the first two stanzas of HaTiqvah [as sung in the Israeli national anthem, somewhat revised from Imber's original], first in Hebrew, then the accompanying translation in English. The line resembling the ancient poem's line is . After HaTiqvah will come the some lines from the ancient psalm.

כל עוד בלבב פנימה
נפש יהודי הומיה,
ולפאתי מזרח קדימה
עין לציון צופיה -

עוד לא אבדה תקותנו,
התקוה בת שנות אלפים,
להיות עם חופשי בארצנו
ארץ ציון וירושלים.

As long as deep in the heart,
The soul of a Jew yearns,
And towards the East,
An eye looks to Zion.

Our hope is not yet lost,
The hope of two thousand years,
To be a free people in our land,
The land of Zion and Jerusalem.

The newly found ancient psalm contains the lines:
אזכורך לברכה ציון
בכל מודי [= מאודי] אהבתיך
ברוך לעולם זכרך
גדולה תקותך ציון
ושלום ותוחלת ישועתך לבוא
דור ודור ידורו בך
. . .
המתאווים ליום ישעך

I will remember you for a blessing, O Zion
With all my might I loved you
Blessed forever is your memory
Great is your hope, O Zion
And peace and hope are your salvation to come
Generation after generation will dwell within you.
. . . [missing text]
Who are eager for the day of your redemption

Now comes the most similar line:

לוא תובד [= תאבד] תקוותך ציון
ולוא תשכח תוחלתך

This last line --appearing as two lines here-- is to be translated:

Your hope will not be lost, O Zion,
And your esperance will not be forgotten.

A remarkable resemblance stretching over 2000 years. The resemblance is to the line in boldface in the quote from HaTiqvah.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
UPDATING 6-27-2009
There was a spelling mistake in the Hebrew source that I used for the new psalm. This led to a mistaken translation on my part, which I regret. I have since seen the correct version of the Hebrew original in another source. The mistake appeared in the sixth line of my arrangement of the lines of the new psalm. The new, corrected translation is in italics on line 6. The Hebrew original has also been corrected. J A Sanders calls this psalm "Apostrophe to Zion."
It seems that this and other new psalms discovered in the Judean Desert have been published and translated in
J A Sanders, The Psalms Scroll of Qumran, Cave 11 (11QPsa), Oxford 1965
J A Sanders, The Dead Sea Psalms Scroll. Ithaca, NY 1967
Y Yadin in Textus 5 (1966), pp 1-10.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -

According to the Israeli newspaper, Maqor Rishon [6-19-2009], researchers call the scroll in which the new found old psalm was found 11Q5. Note not only the similarity in wording between the two lines indicated but the resemblance in themes too. Hope, love and longing for Zion, the City of Jerusalem run as themes through both poems, HaTiqvah and the new-old psalm. Readers of Hebrew will also notice the "loose" spelling found in the old psalm. There was a time, it seems, when people did not pay much attention to spelling or grammar generally.

The author of HaTiqvah, Naftali Hertz [or Naphtali Herz] Imber was a Hebrew poet born in the Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire, and came to Israel where he lived for about five years. For part of that time he worked as a private secretary, especially for Hebrew language matters, to Laurence Oliphant, a British explorer and writer.

More False History -- Sandra Mackey invents a never-was fake history of British help for the Jews in Israel

There is a genre of romantic novel that is called "trashy." There is also a genre of dishonest book writing about the Middle East, and Israel in particular, that very much deserves to be called trashy. Sandra Mackey's latest crime against the trees fits that description.Here is one of her big lies:

The Zionist organizations, creatures of the West and largely funded by Western Jews, quickly established themselves as the favored elite of the British mandate. [Sandra Mackey, Mirror of the Arab World (New York: Norton 2008), pp 78-79]

There are two big lies in that one sentence. First, the Zionist organizations were founded, created, organized, and led by Jews, many if not most of them from the Russian Empire, although Theodore Herzl was a native of Budapest whose grandfather came from a suburb of Belgrade where he heard the sermons of Rabbi Alkalai. Hardly the West. The Zionist organizations were not created by the West. Nor were they created by the Russian state, which did want to get of its Jewish population one way or the other.

Second, the old Arab upper crust were the favored elite of the British mandatory government, next to the British themselves of course. There is the notorious fact that the chief social salon of the highest ranking British officials in the country was the home of Katy Antonius, widow of George [here & here]. A more reliable historical account than that of Mackey, based on knowledge rather than prejudice, tells us that Katy Antonius'

celebrated salon. . . [was] frequented by British officials, Arab notables and intellectuals, and occasional non-Zionist Jews.
[Bernard Wasserstein, The British in Palestine: The Mandatory Government and the Arab-Jewish Conflict, 1917-1929 (London: Royal Historical Society 1978), p 186]

One of the more noteworthy visitors to Katy's salon was one Evelyn Barker, the high commander of British occupation forces in Israel [1946-1947]. Since Israeli forces captured files from the Antonius home during the War of Independence, we know that General Barker and the good widow were amorously attached and exchanged Judeophobic billets doux [ici]. One of his billets-doux offered his military expertise to the Arabs against the Jews:

British commander, Evelyn Barker. . . wrote in Dec. 1947 to his Arab mistress Katy Antonius, offering his services to the Arabs: "As a military man he had no doubt: the Jews would not be able to withstand the force of the entire Arab world, and in the end they would all be eradicated. They (the Arabs) had to unite, to be more cunning, to work according to a plan. He would willingly fight at their side in order to exterminate Zionism, he reiterated." [quoted by Peter Lubin, here]

In retaliation for a Jewish underground attack,

Lieut.-General Sir Evelyn Barker issued an order forbidding British troops in Palestine from buying in Jewish shops. He added the sarcastic comment that the boycott would punish "the Jews in a way the race dislikes as much as any and where it would hurt them most; by striking at their pockets and showing contempt for them." [from Theodore Huebner & Carl Hermann Voss, This Is Israel (New York: Philosophical Library 1956), p 89]

When Katie's husband George was still alive in the 1930s, one of his friends and admirers was Thomas Hodgkin, private secretary to the High Commissioner Arthur Wauchope. This doesn't much sound like the Jews being "the favored elite of the British mandate," as Mackey would have it.

Getting away from George and Katie Antonius, here's another vignette of British "favoritism" for the Zionists:

Chief Secretary for Palestine, Sir Henry Gurney. . . blandly told Golda (Meir) Meyerson, "You know, Mrs. Meyerson, if Hitler persecuted Jews, there must be some reason for it." He was puzzled that she took offense. And he described one Jewish attack thus: "(Bergen) Belsen 'pales' besides the bestialities of (the Jewish attack at) Deir Yassin." He also threatened Ben-Gurion: "If the fighting in Jaffa did not cease, the RAF would bomb Tel Aviv." [Peter Lubin, ibid, link above]

It's curious that Gurney's gross distortions of history and experience are still going on. Gaza is compared to the Warsaw Ghetto. Palestinian Arabs are the "new Jews," etc. Only a deeply Judeophobic mind can produce garbage like that, both in Gurney's time and now.

While correcting Sandra Mackey's lies, let's not forget that the Arab Legion of Transjordan [now Jordan], was the most effective Arab military force in Israel's War of Independence. It was British-trained and most higher officers were British. The commander was General Sir John Bagot Glubb, known as Glubb Pasha.

It's remarkable how such drivel as Mackey wrote gets published. By the way, her book is on sale in the bookstore of the Sackler-Freer Gallery in Washington, part of the Smithsonian Museum complex. This is a US Government institution.

Reformed Rabbi: Obama Breeds Climate of Hate Against Jews

The Peace Process, peace of mind for antisemites

Rabbi: Obama Breeds Climate of Hate Against Jews
Wednesday, June 10, 2009

By: Rabbi Dr. Morton H. Pomerantz

Our new president did not tell a virulent anti-Semite to travel to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington to kill Jews, but he is most certainly creating a climate of hate against us.
It is no coincidence that we are witnessing this level of hatred toward Jews as President Barack Obama positions America against the Jewish state.

Just days ago Obama traveled to Cairo, Egypt. It was his second trip in a short time to visit Muslim countries. He sent a clear message by not visiting Israel. But this was code.

In Cairo, Obama said things that pose a grave danger to Jews in Israel, in America and everywhere. And if his views are not vigorously opposed they will help create a danger as great as that posed by the Nazis to the Jewish people.

Just last week, Obama told his worldwide audience — more than 100 million people — that the killing of six million Jews during the Holocaust was the equivalent of Israel’s actions in dealing with the Palestinians.
This remark is incredible on its face, an insult to the six million Jews who died as a result of Hitler’s genocide — and it is a form of revisionism that will bode evil for Jews for years to come.
While Obama acknowledged that “six million Jews were killed — more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today” — his discussion about the Holocaust was followed by this statement: “On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people — Muslims and Christians — have suffered in pursuit of a homeland.”

“On the other hand . . . ”?

Obama’s clever construct comparing the mass genocide of six million Jews to the Palestinian struggle will not be lost on the estimated 100 million Muslims who tuned into to hear him.
Perhaps it was not lost on James W. von Brunn, the 88-year-old white supremacist identified as the alleged attacker Wednesday at the Holocaust Museum. He apparently felt that he could easily take retribution against the Jews for the atrocities Obama implies they are guilty of.

At first blush Mr. Obama’s speech seemed rosy, optimistic — one that espoused tolerance and understanding. If you scratch the surface it is a dangerous document that history will view as a turning point for America and Israel — one that will lead to dangerous times ahead for both Jews and believing Christians.

The immediate danger posed by Obama’s speech is in its incredible re-writing of the history of Jews, Christians and Muslims from Medieval times to the present. Obama, continually throughout his speech, talks of Islam’s peaceful intent. And while there are certainly Koranic verses that support this interpretation, Islam has a long and bloody history of violence against fellow Muslims, Jews and Christians.

Has Obama not heard about the Muslim’s violent conquest of the Middle East, Spain and half of Western Europe? Was he never taught that the Crusades sought to turn back this Muslim onslaught that demanded subjugated populations convert or die?
In his almost hour-long speech, there is not a single word about Islam’s well known and checkered past.

Ironically, the American president offered plenty of references to what he sees are America’s evils, such as its “colonialism” and history of slavery. “For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation,” Obama told his audience, citing a litany of American shortcomings. He failed to mention that Arab Muslims were the greatest slave traders in the history of humanity.

According to Obama, Israelis, too, are guilty of wrongdoing, especially when it comes to their supposed maltreatment of the Palestinians.
Isn’t it odd an American president would go to a foreign country and slander his own country and its long-time ally?
At the same time he praises — unconditionally — a religion and culture that has a long history of being antithetical to the very values that have made America a great nation

Mr. Obama even has the unbelievable gall, when talking about the treatment of Muslim women, to condemn Western countries for attempting to stop Muslim women from using the full facial cover, or hijab. This is a symbol of Muslim subjugation of women.
Listen to what Obama said: “Likewise, it is important for Western countries to avoid impeding Muslim citizens from practicing religion as they see fit - for instance, by dictating what clothes a Muslim woman should wear.”

And Obama not only ignores the gross subjugation of women in many Arab societies — he does not mention even once the almost total religious intolerance throughout the Muslim world against Christians and Jews. In his speech, Obama’s only plea for Muslim women living in Muslim countries is that they should be afforded an education.
How about a discussion of the beheading of Arab women for “crimes” such as adultery? How about the malicious treatment of women in Muslim countries who choose not to wear the hijab?
Obama insists that Islam has promoted tolerance and that in Islamic societies such ideals have flourished.

Obama claimed that “as a student of history” he understands more than most the truth about “civilization's debt to Islam.” He added, “And throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality.”
Does he not know that a Jew or Christian would be beheaded in Saudi Arabia for practicing their religion today, now, this minute?
Of course, Obama offers not one example of where religious freedom is truly tolerated in the Muslim world. Yet, he proudly told his audience that in every state of the union and throughout the U.S. there exist more than 1,200 mosques.
But why, Mr. President, is there no Christian Church or Jewish synagogue operating within the borders of Saudi Arabia? Not even one.
Why in many countries, including your host Egypt, Christian churches have suffered vicious and continual persecution? Why is a once vibrant Cairo Jewish community — a home for the likes of Maimonides — today practically extinct?
Why, dear president, has the ancient Christian community in the West Bank and places like Bethlehem been almost completely wiped out by the modern Muslim onslaught?

“On the other hand,” to quote you Mr. President, you avoided mentioning some other truths.
Let’s start with the Israeli Arabs who can claim one of the highest standards of living in the Arab world. Indeed, they have more rights than Arabs in any Muslim country, their religious freedom is completely protected, and they even vote in free elections.
Tell me what Muslim country matches Israel’s record in protecting its minorities?
Even Arabs in the West Bank, during the time of Israeli control, saw their standard of living rise dramatically. Today, Arabs there are among the best educated in the world, thanks to Israel.
In your revisionist view, Israel has acted to harm these people. But it was not Israel that could not abide by United Nations resolutions clearly setting borders for both the state of Israel and an entity that had never existed before named Palestine.
You cleverly omitted any discussion of these facts, or the continual attacks against the state of Israel over six decades by its Muslim neighbors. Nor is it the Israelis who persecute from time to time the Coptic Christians of Egypt.
No, Mr. President, I do not accept your assertion that you are seeking religious tolerance or that you are seeking to protect Jews. I do not accept it because you are inventing a false history to fit your own agenda.
Mr. President, I am deeply disturbed that you would offer such a distortion of truth in the hopes of creating a lasting peace. A lasting peace cannot be created out of lies, distortions and half truths.
You profess to be a Christian. But you seem more intent on protecting Muslims. In your speech you talked openly of your Muslim heritage, your admiration of their way of life, and so forth. You said in your speech that you have made one of your chief aims of your presidency repairing the image of Islam.
Why did you hide these views from the American public during the recent presidential campaign?
Why, as president, did you fully bow to the Saudi king, who refuses to allow any religious freedom for any Christian or Jew?
You have made clear, by your words and assertions, that you are re-positioning the United States away from Israel, America’s lone democratic ally in the Mid-East.
You have made clear through your statements and those of your minions that Israel should, under no circumstances, prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons.
And yes, you have promised to retaliate against Iran if it ever attacks Israel with nuclear weapons.
But you know full well that if Iran succeeds in its admitted goal of “wiping the Jewish state off the map” — and hits this tiny nation with nuclear warheads — there will be no Israel for the U.S. to retaliate on behalf of.
Some Jews may be naïve, but we are not stupid.

Rabbi Dr. Morton H. Pomerantz is a member of the Reform movement of Judaism and serves as a chaplain for the State of New York. A former Navy and Marine Corps officer and chaplain, he has also served as deputy national chaplain for the Jewish War Veterans of the United States.
© 2009 Newsmax.

Rabbi Pomerantz' outcry from the heart is especially welcome since he is a Reform rabbi and many of his fellows in the Reform movement have actively taken the side of the Obama administration and the State Department in calling for Obama to put pressure on Israel to do theState Dept's bidding. I was recently informed by a friend, a trusted historical researcher in the United States, that the Ford Foundation made an agreement with some institutions of the Reformed Jewish movement to finance efforts by these bodies to work for a more "evenhanded" US policy towards Israel. What does this mean? Will Reform bodies lie on behalf of the Obama adminstration against Israel? This is shocking news, especially since funds from the Reform movement were used to organize the anti-Israel hate campaign at the Durban I meeting in Durban, South Africa in September 2001 [on this, see research articles by Edwin Black for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, JTA].

Another recent case is a statement by Reform rabbis calling on Obama to pressure Israel to evacuate so-called "illegal outposts." Perhaps these rabbis forget that even Jewish settlers are human beings. And human beings are living in these outposts. Are they really "illegal" or just unauthorized or just inconvenient for State Dept policy? Have these rabbis inquired of the inhabitants of the outposts just why they are there? Have they committed a moral crime of some sort or are they "obstacles to peace" as the Obama administration says. To be sure, the Bush administration said the same. It makes no difference. These claims are offensive. Obama said in his Cairo speech that

The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli
settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines
efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.

Besides the bullying tone, Obama is making two false and offensive claims:
1-- that Israel ever agreed to stop all settlements. This is false. Indeed, the Obama administration is deliberately overlooking the agreement of the Bush administration to accept Jewish settlements in the main settlement blocs, where building would continue.
2-- that Jews living in Judea-Samaria are "obstacles to peace." In the Cairo speech, Obama claimed that building in settlements "undermines efforts to achieve peace." This is racism against Jews. This is also blaming Jews in advance for any future warfare. After all, if settlements or building in them "undermines peace," then continued building or continued habitation by Jews in them "undermines peace." So, by Obama and State Dept logic, settlers and any Israeli govt that allows settlements are undermining peace, and promoting a future war. That's a pretty clever verbal trick on Obama's part, fully justifying Rabbi Pomerantz's argument.

Moreover, it is not clear whether Obama is saying that all continued habitation by Jews in Judea-Samaria is illegitimate or only continued building of settlements and/or building in them. Either way the claim is racist and --furthermore-- has no foundation in international law. But slick politicians like Obama like to insinuate or suggest or imply notions that they cannot state explicitly.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Unfortunately, there is a minor historical error in the rabbi's appeal:
. . . this Muslim onslaught that demanded subjugated populations convert or die. . .
Actually, this statement of the purposes of jihad warfare ought to be amended to read: . . . demanded subjugated populations convert or die or pay tribute [Quran 9:29].
To be fair to Rabbi Pomerantz, there were times when Muslim armies did not give conquered and defeated kufar [unbelievers] the choice of paying tribute and simply offered them the choice of conversion or death.

More Tips for Bibi and the World

Anti-Zionism is the anti-imperialism of fools.

Prime Minister Netanyahu should clearly state in his speech tonight that

PEACE must be the paramount goal of the "peace process."A "two-state solution" should only be considered if it facilitates or ensures peace. It must not be an end in itself. As it is, a "two-state solution" endangers Jewish rights in areas assigned to an Arab state.

If peace is not the paramount goal, then it should not be called a "peace process." In that case, its only connection to peace would be Peace of Mind for antisemites [Judeophobes]. This is because it would --as it has so far-- facilitate the Arab murder of Jews and has worked to cancel the practice and exercise of Jewish rights, the human rights of Jews and the national rights of Jews. If "two states" would not mean peace then the "two-state solution" should be out of the question. It would be more like a Final Solution.

The Arabs ought to concede that they oppressed Jews throughout history since the Arab/Muslim Conquests of the 7th century. This is because peace is unlikely to ensue from the false perceptions of history --of the history of the Middle East and of Arab-Jewish relations-- so prevalent today. Many Arabs would be readier and more willing make peace with Israel, what Arabs call a sulha, were they to know and understand how they have enormously harmed and wounded the Jews, who yet were able to defeat them after the Holocaust. The Palestinian Authority has failed to fulfill the Road Map conditions that they stop their genocidal anti-Jewish propaganda on their TV and radio, in their newspapers, schools, mosques, etc.

It should be obvious that the kind of hostile, Judeophobic agitprop commonly accepted not only among Arabs but among other Muslims, and in Western Europe and other countries, including the United States, cannot bring about real peace. Here Obama did a disservice to peace by implying or insinuating in his Cairo speech that Jews were not indigenous to the Middle East and that Israel's right to exist depends only on past oppression of Jews but on real Jewish historical roots in the Land of Israel and the Middle East [formerly called the Orient, Oriens in Latin] generally. Obama did leave open in his speech the possibility that Arabs had also oppressed and persecuted Jews in history by saying,

Around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries.

"Around the world" could conceivably refer to the Arab- and Muslim-ruled lands. However, in politics and diplomacy, things like this have to be made specific and not merely a possible inference from a politician's words. Politicians often like to be vague and say things that are open to varied, even contradictory, interpretations. In the Arab-Israeli situation, long subject to so many lies, not only by Arabs but by their Western and Communist friends, this kind of vagueness cannot be a real foundation for peace.

Lastly, PM Netanyahu ought to urge the Arabs, Palestinian Arabs in particular, to acknowledge the Arab role in the Holocaust, particularly that of Haj Amin el-Husseini, mufti of Jerusalem, whom we have mentioned in many previous posts. Netanyahu could say something like

It would be helpful for Arab leaders to acknowledge the role of a number of Arab leaders, including Haj Amin el-Husseini, in collaborating with the Nazis and urging them on in the Holocaust.

These proposals are made with the aim of helping to facilitate real peace between Jews and Arabs.

Some Ideas for Bibi on What to Say about Peace to Obama & the World

Benyamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, should say a number of things to the world and Obama in his upcoming speech. He should take into consideration that some of Obama's lies and misrepresentations and distortions in the Cairo speech need to be countered.

1- He should stress the long Jewish/Israelite history in the Land of Israel going back more than 3,000 years. The kingdom of David was established around the year 1000 BCE. Jews have always lived in the Land despite massacres --mass slaughter-- by Roman and Byzantine armies, Arab invaders and occupiers [who defeated the Byzantines], and Crusaders. Jews in Exile have always tried to return to the Land when possible.

2-- It is true that Jews suffered persecution in many parts of the world, certainly in Christendom and Islam, although maybe not everywhere as Obama said in Cairo. It is also true that Jews suffered the Holocaust as a kind of culmination of centuries of Judeophobia. But Obama should not be allowed to exculpate the Arabs from guilt either for centuries of oppression/persecution/humiliation/economic exploitation of Jews or for collaboration in the Holocaust. Bibi might add that all non-Muslims under Islamic rule suffered oppression mandated by Islamic law.

3-- Arab collaboration with the Nazis and in the Holocaust was widespread among the Arab nationalists, but one man, Haj Amin el-Husseini, is emblematic of this collaboration. Husseini [Husayni] was the British-appointed mufti of Jerusalem and head of the British-created Supreme Muslim Council. The British tolerated his attacks on Jews --perpetrated by his followers-- in the 1920s and 1930s and even encouraged them. The British also enlarged the scope of Hitler's victims by preventing Jews from escaping from the Nazi-controlled domain in Europe. Hence, the British violated the international commitment they had made to the League of Nations to facilitate development of the Jewish National Home. Like Obama and his administration today, who rail against "Jewish settlements," the British forbid Jews to buy real estate in most of the Jewish National Home. The UK violated international law in harming Jews and their rights and violated their commitment to the Jewish people. How can Israel trust the UK or its cultural offshoot, the English-speaking USA? Neither power did anything major to save Jews during the Holocaust, whereas the British deliberately prevented escape.

4-- Hamas and Hizbullah, which the Obama administration wants to chat with, have clearly stated Nazi principles regarding the Jews. Hamas openly advocates genocide of Jews in its charter, Article 7. The German Nazis never openly advocated genocide of Jews. Hamas and Hizbullah must be taken at their world.

5-- It seems that the Obama administration is trying to disavow commitments made to Israel by previous administrations in return for Israeli concessions. Obama is trying to bury his forerunner Bush's understandings with Israel about the legitimacy of Jewish settlement in Judea-Samaria.

Obama Affirms Evil, Sinister Anti-Jewish Racism in Cairo Speech

More Links Added at bottom 6-5-2009 & 7-20-2009

Obama's Cairo speech reaffirmed the long-standing anti-Jewish racism of US State Department policy by opposing and denying the Jewish right to live in parts of the ancient Jewish homeland -Judea & Samaria- recognized by the international community in a series of legal acts and decisions as parts of the Jewish National Home.

The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.

This is an evil, sinister position. It threatens the right of Jewish residence in all countries throughout the world. It ought to be condemned by decent people everywhere. Note that Obama used the word "legitimacy" rather than "legality." That is because the State Department is aware that the Jews have a legal right to live in those places, although these Judeophobic bigots don't want Jews in those places.

Again, bear in mind that Obama's position is not his own position particularly. John Foster Dulles back in the 1950s claimed that it was in the American interest to ally with the "staunchly anti-Communist" Arab/Muslim world [to use a term common at the time in media mouthpieces for the State Dept, such as Time and Life mags]. Dulles formed the Baghdad Pact for this purpose, an ostensibly anti-Soviet alliance that excluded Israel. The main stream media of the time praised Saudi Arabia as a "desert democracy" that was inimical to Communism.

What Obama is doing is promoting Dulles' old policy with a brown face, presumably making it less obviously Judeophobic, less imperialistic, more "leftist" and egalitarian, blah blah blah. In the 1950s, Dulles openly excluded Israel from his alliance with Arabs and Muslims, insinuating that Israel as a Jewish state was closer to Communists than the Arabs were.

Obama's speech acknowledges that

Around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, and anti-Semitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust.

But he does not acknowledge specifically that Arabs and other Muslims persecuted Jews "for centuries" -actually since Muhammad's time, 1400 years ago-- as mandated by the tenets of their religion in the Quran, the Hadith, Muslim jurisprudence and legal writings, etc. On this point, Dulles was more honest than Obama, acknowledging in Congressional committee testimony that Arab hatred of Jews went back to Muhammad.

Nor does Obama acknowledge that Arabs collaborated in the Holocaust, attributing the Judeophobia ["anti-Semitism"] that led to the Holocaust solely to Europe, overlooking the palestinian Arab leader, Haj Amin el-Husseini [al-Husayni], British-appointed mufti of Jerusalem who collaborated in the Holocaust, urging Arabs over Radio Berlin to "Kill Jews wherever you find them." Husseini was only one of the Arab and other Muslim Holocaust collaborators. Husseini lived in Berlin for most of WW2, surrounded by an entourage of members of the leading Palestinian Arab families, including Khalidis, relatives of Obama's friend Rashid Khalidi and Arab propagandist, Walid Khalidi, who is comfortably ensconced at Harvard.

What Obama is doing is giving an old policy a new face. After all, he claims to be a "liberal," whatever that means today. He is a Democrat, claiming sympathy for the poor and the working class, whereas Dulles was a Republican, frankly avowing his sympathy for Big Business. Obama is brown-skinned, Dulles was white-skinned. Yet, the policy toward Israel and the Arabs is the same, albeit Dulles was more honest about it.

There is a lot more to say about his praise of Islam, overlooking the big blemishes like the oppression of dhimmis, like slavery, like the belief in perpetual jihad war until the whole world is brought under Islamic law. His ascription of the Renaissance and Enlightenment to Islamic civilization is ridiculously and grossly exaggerated while the destruction of older civilizations by Islamic jihad wars goes unmentioned by him. No doubt Obama's speech will get much more analysis and others will likely take up the many facets of it that need analysis and criticism. [here is one analysis-critique & Daniel Pipes' view & Hugh Fitzgerald's take & Egyptian Sandmonkey's too & Michael Rubin's & Martin Peretz' & Raymond Ibrahim's & Melanie Philips' & Barry Rubin's & Caroline Glick's & Gerald Steinberg's & Efraim Zuroff's & Giorgio Israel (in Il Foglio in Italian) & Michael Young of Beirut] & Elizabeth Berney.
& Morton Klein's take added 7-23-2009 [Klein is president of the Zionist Organization of America].

But the anti-Jewish Racism of Obama's hostility to Jews exercising their human and national rights by living in Judea-Samaria is what ought to be borne in mind at this time.
- - - - - - - - - - - -

Just as a post-script, Obama is supposed to meet in Egypt with leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood who hold frankly Judeophobic views, and indeed are hostile to all non-Muslims. This is a sinister event that may mean some very horrid outcomes in the future.