What Did Russia Get in Return for Alleged Support for Trump?

For the past year, the first year of the Trump administration, Washington has been roiled by the quarrel between anti-Trump and pro-Trump factions, roughly speaking Democrats against Republicans although some Republicans also have worked against the president. The anti-Trumpers have tried to delegitimize Trump and his presidency. Allegations have been made by the anti-Trump side --including most of the press & media-- of Trump complicity or collusion with Russia in order to win the election. These charges led Trump to appoint a special investigator to conduct an inquiry. The special investigator was Robert Mueller, former head of the FBI.

The investigation has turned up little so far to support those allegations, as far as the public knows, even according to anti-Trump sources. Be that as it may, one essential question has not been asked, to my knowledge. That is: What did the Russians get for their alleged collusion with Trump? After all, if they colluded with Trump's representatives to support him, if they wanted to put him in the White House, and colluded with Trump or his campaign for that purpose, would they have done it expecting nothing in return?

In fact, if we look at Trump's foreign policy over the past year since the inauguration, we see that he in fact worked against Russian policy in three areas, Syria, the Ukraine, and North Korea. In Syria, Trump had American aircraft attack a Syrian air force base from which planes flew to make a chemical warfare attack on civilians in rebel-held areas. The Syrian regime of Bashar Assad is being protected and aided by Russia. In Ukraine, the Trump administration sold weapons to the Ukrainian government which is engaged in a war, now in a cease fire phase, with Russian-backed, ethnic Russian rebel militias in eastern Ukraine. Perhaps Russian troops too are directly involved in combat on the side of the rebels.

As to North Korea, Trump has several times attacked and threatened the regime and its dictator, Kim Jung Un [Little Rocket Man]. This policy on Trump's part has led to clashes with Russia at the UN Security Council. Further, Trump succeeded in getting Security Council resolutions passed critical of North Korea. Hence, we do not see what Russia got in return for any help to Trump and his campaign.

Next, we have to ask whether Russia or its government did anything that gave or might have given the election to Trump. This question is important because it was being alleged by Democrats that Russia did indeed help Trump against Hillary Clinton. Did the Russkis do anything to swing the election in Trump's favor? And if so, the thinking ran, then Trump's election was illegitimate. This is obviously a partisan claim on behalf of the Democrats and Hillary. But is there any truth to it? Anti-Trumpers have pointed to a massive dump of information by Wikileaks of emails exchanged among active employes of the Democratic National Committee and other Democratic figures, emails which put the Democratic Party and Clinton's campaign in a very bad light. Indeed, these emails were embarassing to Clinton, her party and her campaign organization. One item that emerged was that high officials of the DNC [democratic national committee] had worked against Hillary's rival in the primary elections, one Bernie Sanders --who espoused a political line allegedly to the "Left"  of  Clinton-- whereas the DNC was supposed be impartial.

The Democrats and Hillary did not deny that these embarassing emails were real and truthful. Rather they counter-attacked, after release of the emails, by claiming that Russia had leaked them to Wikileaks, as if only a state or only Russia could have hacked into the computers of the DNC and then supplied the emails to Wikileaks. However, Julian Assange, the head of Wikileaks, specifically denied on TV [I watched the TV program] that his organization had gotten the emails from Russia. You don't have to believe Assange of course. However, did the emails uploaded to the Internet by Wikileaks have to have come from a hacking operation? Besides, there are other hackers and other interested parties. Another possible explanation is that someone in the DNC organization had leaked them to Wikileaks. And here we have the unexplained murder of Seth Rich, an employe of the DNC whose body was found in Washington with valuable personal effects like his watch and wallet still with him. Did Rich have anything to do with supplying the emails to Wikileaks? We can only  speculate.

If anything or any person swung votes from Hillary to Trump, it was FBI director, James Comey's last minute revelation before the election that the investigation into Hillary had to be renewed because additional emails. from and to Hillary had been found on the computer of Anthony Weiner, estranged husband of Hillary's gal Friday, Huma Abedin [before, after and during Hillary's presence at the State Department]. That's why Hillary was so angry at Comey. She wanted him fired from the FBI. She in fact called for him to be fired from the FBI about a week before Trump did in fact fire him in early 2017. At that time, nobody was saying that Hillary was undermining public respect for law and order.

Before concluding, we must say that many countries want to influence elections in other countries. Least of all is the United States ashamed of doing that. During the 2015 election campaign for the Knesset, it was notorious in Israel that the Obama administration, of which a Hillary presidency would have been a continuation, was interfering with money and personnel in Israel's election in favor of the Labor Party, or to be more precise, in favor of the Zionist Union party which brought together Labor with a few members of Tsipi Livni's HaTenu`ah party.

So it would come as no surprise to learn that Russia wanted to influence the 2016 US presidential election. But Russia would hardly be unique in doing that or trying to do that.

Before concluding, one might argue that Obama's administration, of which Hillary was a shameful part, both aided Russia and hurt Russia. Obama helped Russia in Syria among other ways by allowing Assad's regime to get away with using poison gas against his own population through not enforcing Obama's own "red line" against such use and making an agreement that Russia would take Syria's stock of poison gas and chemical weapons away from Syria, as a substitute for US military action against Syria's stock of such weapons. In fact, Syria still has such weapons and they were reportedly used just the other day against the rebel-held Damascus suburb of Ghouta. Moreover, while Hillary was secretary of state, it is credibly alleged, she intervened to facilitate the purchase by a Russian company of part of US uranium production [used in building nuclear weapons]. This facilitating of the Russian purchase took place after the Russian company had made a sizable "charitable" contribution to the Clinton family foundation, widely considered a tax free depository for moneys paid to the Clintons.

But back to the point. While letting Russia's protege, Assad in Syria, get away with murder literally, the Obama administration also worked against Russia in its next door neighbor, the Ukraine. Victoria Nuland of the State Department and other US officials were encouraging neo-fascist parties in the Ukraine --Right Sektor & Svoboda-- to work to overthrow the Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovich, who was considered pro-Russian. This overthrow was in fact accomplished. Ms Nuland, by the way, met with leaders of the anti-Yanukovich movement in Kiev, such as Mr Klichko, whom she affectionately called Klich. So the Russians had reason to hate Obama as well as reasons to appreciate his help for them, as in Syria. Furthermore, it is hardly clear that any help or support Russia may have given to Trump's candidacy won or swung the election for him.

Nevertheless, the most important argument against Russian complicity or collusion with Trump to help him win the election is the lack of any sign that Trump has delivered any return or quid pro quo to Russia or Putin personally. Rather, Trump record has been more anti-Russian.

Another Obama-Clinton Influence Peddling Scandal -- Wonderboy & Mrs Kleen Have Dirty Hands

More proof that Obama's soaring rhetoric was just normal Washington politician rhetoric times  ten. This is what makes me feel that Obama is so very repulsive. Hilary is mixed into the scandal too. From Commentary:
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

How a Fugitive Family Bought the Obama W.H., Hillary, and Menendez

Seth Mandel

President Obama and Democratic Senator Bob Menendez may be on opposing sides of the issue getting the most media attention today–the president’s moves toward normalizing relations with the brutal Castro regime–but they’d surely rather be fighting about Cuba than locked in a co-defense against the other big story of the day. The New York Times reports on a blatant case of political corruption and influence-buying conducted by Obama, Menendez, and Hillary Clinton that is unfortunately being buried by other news. But it is a case study in the greasy, repellent politics Obama promised to do away with.
The crux of the story is fairly simple. As the Times report begins:

The Obama administration overturned a ban preventing a wealthy, politically connected Ecuadorean woman from entering the United States after her family gave tens of thousands of dollars to Democratic campaigns, according to finance records and government officials.
The woman, Estefanía Isaías, had been barred from coming to the United States after being caught fraudulently obtaining visas for her maids. But the ban was lifted at the request of the State Department under former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton so that Ms. Isaías could work for an Obama fund-raiser with close ties to the administration.
It was one of several favorable decisions the Obama administration made in recent years involving the Isaías family, which the government of Ecuador accuses of buying protection from Washington and living comfortably in Miami off the profits of a looted bank in Ecuador.
The family, which has been investigated by federal law enforcement agencies on suspicion of money laundering and immigration fraud, has made hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions to American political campaigns in recent years. During that time, it has repeatedly received favorable treatment from the highest levels of the American government, including from New Jersey’s senior senator and the State Department.

The Times notes that there are essentially two dimensions to this family story. There are the family’s “patriarchs,” Roberto and William Isaías. They ran an Ecuadorian bank until, according to Ecuadorian authorities, they ran it into the ground. They stood accused of falsifying balance sheets in order to obtain access to bailout funds. The Ecuadorian government says this fraud cost the state $400 million. They were convicted and sentenced in 2012 to eight years in prison.
But they are not in prison. They are in Miami. (Yes, there is a difference.) They were sentenced in absentia and won’t be extradited.
Then there is Estefanía Isaías, whose case adds to the intrigue.
Estefanía was working as a television executive. She was also engaged in what American consular officials called “alien smuggling.” She was bringing people into the country under false pretenses so they could work as maids. For that, she was barred from entering the U.S.–and from a job with a major Obama campaign bundler–until recently when her ban was overturned by the Obama administration.
So how are they all free to live in the United States? The answer is as old as time: follow the money. Here’s what the Obama campaign got:

The Obama administration then reversed its decision and gave Ms. Isaías the waiver she needed to come to the United States — just as tens of thousands of dollars in donations from the family poured into Mr. Obama’s campaign coffers.
An email from Mr. Menendez’s office sharing the good news was dated May 15, 2012, one day after, campaign finance records show, Ms. Isaías’s mother gave $40,000 to the Obama Victory Fund, which provided donations to the president and other Democrats. …
In 2012, the Isaías family donated about $100,000 to the Obama Victory Fund. Campaign finance records show that their most generous donations came just before a request to the administration.

And Menendez:

Ms. Isaías’s mother, María Mercedes, had recently donated $30,000 to the Senate campaign committee that Mr. Menendez led when she turned to him for help in her daughter’s case. At least two members of Mr. Menendez’s staff worked with Ms. Isaías and her father, as well as lawyers and other congressional offices, to argue that she had been unfairly denied entry into the United States.
Over the course of the next year, as various members of the Isaías family donated to Mr. Menendez’s re-election campaign, the senator and his staff repeatedly made calls, sent emails and wrote letters about Ms. Isaías’s case to Mrs. Clinton, Ms. Mills, the consulate in Ecuador, and the departments of State and Homeland Security.
After months of resistance from State Department offices in Ecuador and Washington, the senator lobbied Ms. Mills himself, and the ban against Ms. Isaías was eventually overturned.

And Hillary Clinton:

But the case involving Estefanía could prove awkward for Mrs. Clinton, who was in charge of the State Department at the time high-ranking officials overruled the agency’s ban on Ms. Isaías for immigration fraud, and whose office made calls on the matter.
Alfredo J. Balsera, the Obama fund-raiser whose firm, Balsera Communications, sponsored Ms. Isaías’s visa, was featured recently in USA Today as a prominent Latino fund-raiser backing Mrs. Clinton for president in 2016.

It doesn’t get much more straightforward than that.
In declaring his candidacy for president in 2007, Obama took aim at special interests “who’ve turned our government into a game only they can afford to play.” He continued: “They write the checks and you get stuck with the bills, they get the access while you get to write a letter, they think they own this government, but we’re here today to take it back. The time for that kind of politics is over.”
Obama has not only not changed the culture of Washington, but arguably made it more insular and susceptible to influence-buying, essentially turning the White House into eBay for ambassadorships, for example. If you’ve got your checkbook with you, Obama and Hillary and Menendez are all about constituent services. Obama’s Washington has never been for anyone other than elites and donors. And it’s never been clearer than it is today.

How an Academic Clown Defends Muslim Bigots from the Truth

Juan Cole epitomizes a whole school of professors and instructors of Middle Eastern, Islamic and Arabic studies who constantly seek to whitewash Arab/Muslim sins of commission or omission in word or deed. This school of academics who favor and cover up for Arab nationalism and its various specific causes, no matter what, has its counterparts in Western and Soviet foreign ministries and in the West's corps of journalists, who often operate in tandem with their diplomatic corps. Prof Martin Kramer caught Cole in a crude and sloppy cover up which ought to embarass Cole if he were susceptible to feeling embarassed over his mistakes and frauds.

Cole recently defended the Muslim Brotherhood from the truth about its genocidal plans for the Jews, not just Israelis, but Jews. An Israeli reporter who knows Arabic reported that two speakers at a Muslim Brotherhood rally held in Cairo quoted the medieval hadith that foretold that at Judgment Day the Muslims would kill the Jews. According to this Muslim fable, some Jews would hide behind rocks and trees that would in turn cry out: O Muslim, O slave of Allah. A Jew is hiding behind me. Come kill him. [see here]. Cole read a translation of the Israeli's report and promptly jumped to a conclusion [not very scholarly that]. He denied that his pets of the Religion of Peace [so designated by Pres. George Bush II] could speak in such unkind terms, while using as proof a short Arabic press report of the rally which did not mention recital of a quote from Muslim literature calling for killing the Jews. But an argument from silence is never conclusive. Rather than pursue the truth of the matter, Cole failed to search for the video of the proceedings --held at the al-Azhar Islamic university in Cairo-- which was available online and was found by Martin Kramer. Kramer has the videos [here]. By the way, Hamas --now rulers of Gaza-- tucked this notorious genocidal hadith into Article 7 of the Hamas charter more than 20 years ago. So it's quite appropriate that Hamas leader Ismail Haniyyah has announced that Hamas is part of the Muslim Brotherhood. [See photos of Haniyyah hugging MB leaders.]

Now, as indicated above, it is not only journalists and professors who belong to the whitewash-the-Arabs school. Diplomats too fall into that troublesome class. The blogger Challah Hu Akbar contrasts the behavior of the chief diplomat of the US State Dept, Madame Hilary Clinton, towards Muslim Brotherhood leaders as compared with her attitude toward Israel's foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman. Here's the story:

Israeli media recently reported that US officials are offering numerous excuses as to why they do not wish to meet with Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman during his upcoming visit. The most outrageous claim was that “we [US officials] do not want to be photographed with him.”

While US officials say they do not wish to be photographed with Lieberman, the foreign minister of the only stable country in the Middle East that’s still a reliable US ally, they seem to have no qualms being seen with Muslim Brotherhood leaders.

Below is a photo of Anne Patterson, US ambassador to Egypt, meeting with Mohammad Badie, General Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, on January 18. On January 11, Deputy Secretary of State William Burns met with Mohammed Morsi, head of the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party. On January 12, former president Jimmy Carter also met with Badie. [see several affectionate photos here]

Carter of course never met a Judeophobe whom he didn't like. But the current problem is the Obama White House and the Clinton State Dept who decided to have the US ambassador to Egypt meet and be photographed with MB leaders but who not meet or be photographed with FM Lieberman. Now, the MB leader who shook hands with the US ambassador is an undeniably charming fellow. Here are a few quotes from him:

. . . the improvement and change that the [Muslim] nation seeks can only be attained through jihad and sacrifice and by raising a jihadi generation that pursues death just as the enemies pursue life. . .

Resistance is the only solution against the Zio-American arrogance and tyranny, and all we need is for the Arab and Muslim peoples to stand behind it and support it. [here]

Funny, isn't it, that the General Guide [or Supreme Guide] of the Muslim Brotherhood can say these hateful things, including expressions of hostility to America, and then smile and shake the hands of the American ambassador [actually, an ambassadress] to Egypt? Funny, isn't it, that the Obama administration has no qualms about dealing with this hate-ridden bigot and fanatic maniac?

All the same, it ought not be forgotten that Cole is not the first prof of ME and Arabic studies to defend or cover up for repulsive and reprehensible Arab/Muslim actions. Prof William Polk was whitewashing the Arabs fifty years ago as an academic and also practiced the same policy as a high State Dept official.

Obama Promotes Islamist Turkey to Israel -- What about Israel's Honor?

UPDATING 8-3&11&18-&9-5-2011 at bottom

The Obama administration is now pushing Israel to make up with Turkey by apologizing for killing 9 Turkish thugs/jihadists on the Mavi Marmara in 2010. They don't ask Erdogan to apologize to Israel for trying to break Israel's blockade of Gaza, an act of war on Turkey's part although executed through an ostensibly non-official body, the terrorist IHH. Apologizing to Erdung will only encourage him to continue his life of crime, Islamist crime. And what about Obama's commitment to the US's NATO ally, Greece, which is threatened by Erdung's renewed Turkish imperial drive? Or, speaking about blockades, what about the Turkish blockade of Armenia that has been going on since 1993?

Carolyn Glick and the Jerusalem Post editorial staff realize the dangers in the Obama approach.

1) Jerusalem Post editorial 7-26-2011
The US is keenly pursuing reconciliation between Turkey and Israel. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton convinced UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to postpone until the end of August the release of the UN’s Palmer Commission report on the Mavi Marmara. The delay would facilitate negotiations between Jerusalem and Ankara aimed at returning to semi-normalcy in relations and allow for the burying of the Palmer Commission report, which reportedly upholds the legality of Israel’s naval blockade of the Gaza Strip, but takes the IDF to task for using disproportionate force.

The Obama administration is convinced that resolution of the Mavi Marmara fiasco is the key to maintaining the Israel-Turkey-US strategic triangle, so essential in American eyes to a stable Middle East.

The US, therefore, wants Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to back a formula that includes an apology for “operational mishaps” that resulted in the loss of nine Turkish lives in the Israel Navy commando raid last year, and payment of compensation through a fund to be set up by the Turkish governmen. - - -[Excerpt from JPost editorial 7-26-2011; Read rest here]- - -

Note that the Obama administration is not asking the Turks to apologize to Israel, although Israel was the victim of an act of war on Turkey's part --breaking a legal and justified blockade of the Gaza Strip, now controlled by the Nazi-like Hamas. To be sure, Turkey's act of war was executed through an ostensibly non-official body, the terrorist IHH, but was nonetheless a Turkish govt act in view of the strong ties between the govt and the IHH [see here & here].

Secretary of State Clinton's claim that an Israeli apology was needed for the sake of "stability" is hardly convincing given that the US under Obama has caused much instability in the Middle East and has seldom shown any sign that it appreciates stability as such. Recall that Obama and his gang helped bring down Mubarak in Egypt, although Mubarak's fall has unleashed much still ongoing instability with the danger that the Muslim Brotherhood might come to power there.




2) Carolyn Glick does her usual good job, providing information and analysis.

No Prizes for Erdogan

July 27, 2011, 3:10 PM

Comments (4)

Shortly after Turkey's Islamist Prime Minister Recip Erdogan came to power in 2002, he began undermining Turkey's strategic alliance with Israel. Erdogan officially ended the alliance last May when he sent the IHH, an al Qaeda-aligned, Turkish NGO affiliated with his Islamist AKP Party to lead the pro-Hamas flotilla to Gaza.

Aboard the Mavi Marmara, IHH members violently attacked IDF naval commandos who boarded the ship in order to prevent it from breaking Israel's lawful maritime blockade of the Hamas-controlled Gaza coast. In the life and death battle that ensued, nine of the IHH assailants were killed.

By attempting to break Israel's lawful blockade, passengers aboard the Mavi Marmara and the rest of the ships in the flotilla were engaged in illicit acts of war against the Jewish state and providing illicit aid and comfort to an illegal terrorist organization. In supporting and arguably organizing the flotilla, including the Mavi Marmara, Erdogan himself was waging an unlawful war against Israel.

Erdogan reacted to the Mavi Marmara incident with enraged indignation. He demanded that Israel apologize for its commandos' actions and pay compensation to the families of the dead. He also demanded an international inquiry into Israel's actions.

Answering his call, the UN set up a commission to investigate last year's flotilla episode. The report has been ready since May. But its publication has been repeatedly delayed. According to media accounts of its findings, the UN commission agrees that Israel's blockade of Gaza is legal. It also claims that the naval commandos used disproportionate force in fending off the Mavi Marmara passengers' assault against them.

In a bid to salvage Turkey's ties to Israel and so increase waning Congressional support for Turkey, the Obama administration has been mediating talks between Israel and Turkey for the past few months. According to news reports, the administration is now pressuring Israel to agree to Erdogan's demand for an apology and to pay compensation to the families of those killed onboard the Mavi Marmara. The U.S. is also demanding that Turkey agree not to press damages or war crimes claims against Israeli personnel in international or other courts.

Given President Obama's expressed admiration and support for Erdogan, it makes sense that he is pushing this position. But the question remains, why is Turkey insisting that Israel apologize and pay damages for the IDF's lawful actions on the Mavi Marmara? What is he trying to achieve? And what would be the consequences if Israel were to bow to U.S. pressure and apologize?

There are two explanations for Erdogan's behavior. First, there is the issue of honor, which plays such a prominent role in Islamic society. He views the Mavi Marmara incident in the context of honor politics. And he demands an apology from Israel in order to increase his honor and diminish Israel's.

Most of Israel's objections to Erdogan's demand to date have centered around this issue. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Yaalon have cited this as the primary reason for refusing to apologize.

But while unpleasant, honor is probably not Erdogan's main rationale for pursing his demand for an Israeli apology. Since he was reelected to serve a third term as prime minister last month Erdogan has been openly seeking to establish a neo-Ottoman Turkish hegemonic position in the Arab world.

To this end he has been actively interfering in the popular revolt against Syrian dictator Bashar Assad. The IHH has been hosting Syrian opposition leaders in Turkey. Erdogan's clear aim is to replace Iran as Syria's overlord in a post-Assad Syria.

Erdogan has also been actively engaging Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood since the overthrow of former president Hosni Mubarak in February. Erdogan plans a high profile visit to Egypt in the near future. And he plans to end his visit to Egypt by crossing the Egyptian border with Gaza. There he will become the highest-level foreign leader to visit Gaza since the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood Hamas took over in 2007.

As far as Erdogan is concerned, if he gets the U.S. to force Israel to apologize, it will be a massive public relations coup in his bid to convince the Arabs to accept his leadership. After all, Israel would be apologizing for having had the temerity to oppose the aggression of IHH terrorists engaged in an act of war against Israel. An Israeli apology would serve as proof that his double game of remaining a NATO member and carrying out aggression against Israel is the winning formula. If Israel apologizes for defending itself against Turkish aggression, Erdogan will have succeeded where the Arabs have failed.

Obviously, on the merits, Israel has no reason to apologize. And Turkish promises not to file lawsuits and war crimes complaints against Israel will have no legal weight. The Turkish pledge will not bind the relatives of the dead. And an Israeli apology and compensation will provide them with a prima facie claim that Israel admits culpability.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and senior IDF officers reportedly argue in favor of an apology, claiming the strategic alliance with Turkey is so important that Israel must be willing to swallow its pride in order to rebuild it.

This argument has apparently won over Intelligence Minister Dan Meridor. It has also caused Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman to temper his honor-based rejection of the Turkish demand.

The problem with this argument is that it fails to take address Erdogan's second, and more strategically significant motivation of using Israeli humiliation to strengthen his image as a pan-Islamic leader.

That motivation gives lie to the notion that Erdogan has any interest in reinstating Turkey's strategic alliance with Israel. The man who is cultivating Hamas in the PA, and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Syria, is not going to permit the Israeli Air Force to renew its training flights over Turkish airspace.

Erdogan is not going to share intelligence with Israel on Iran. He will not cooperate with Mossad agents along Turkey's border with Iran or Syria.

Instead he will use his ability to humiliate Israel and curb its military operations to demonstrate to the Muslim Brotherhood that it should accept Turkey's role as regional hegemon and operate under its wings.

Moreover, Israel can fully expect that under Erdogan, Turkey will share any intelligence information Israel provides with the likes of the Muslim Brotherhood, and that any intelligence information Turkey transfers to Israel to be of limited value.

The UN announced on Sunday that it was delaying the publication of its report on the Mavi Marmara for another month. The expectation is that Israel will bow to Turkish and U.S. pressure and apologize and so obviate the need for the report to ever see the light of day.

Given the true stakes involved, Israel must stick to its guns and say no apology, no compensation, and no political prize for Erdogan.

Originally published in The Jewish Press.

Posted on July 27, 2011 at 3:10 PM
http://www.carolineglick.com/e/2011/07/no-prizes-for-erdogan.php?pf=yes

Hilary and her State Dept apparently have a deep psychological need to protect Turkey's reputation even when it has committed the most heinous crimes. A few years ago Hilary tried to get Turkey and Armenia to make up by glossing over the Armenian genocide issue. In the case of the Turkish Armada and the Mavi Marmara affair, Hilary is shoving the guilt, the onus onto Israel when it is really Turkey that is guilty. [here & here]
8-3-2011 Fiamma Nirenstein, deputy chairperson of the Italian parliament's foreign affairs committee, reports that Erdogan now demands an apology from the Armenian president, Serzh Sarksyan, who recently responded to a question about recovery of Armenia's lost territories now incorporated in Turkey --including Mount Ararat-- that: "The future is only in the hands of the youth." [qui][& in English here]. Let's see if Obama & Hilary join in with Erdogan in demanding that the Armenian president apologize.
8-8-2011 Moshe Ya`alon calls Turkish demand for an apology for the Mavi Marmara incident [provoked by Turkey] "rude" [here]
Herb Keinon in Jerusalem Post reports on divisions among top ministers in the security cabinet over whether Israel should somehow apologize to Turkey for killing nine Turkish thugs on the Mavi Marmara in May 2010 [here]. The usually foolish Dan Meridor claims that with "wisdom" on both sides, good relations can return [But if the Turks don't want to return to good relations?]. Minister Ya`alon, Avigdor Lieberman, Eli Yishai, and Benny Begin oppose any apology to Turkey. Ehud Barak unbecomingly accepts the State Dept/Obama position. Netanyahu & Steinitz have not committed themselves.
8-9-2011 Israelo-American peacemonger joins in the chorus of simpletons advocating an "apology" to Turkey for Turkey's brutality [here]. One Barry Leff of "Rabbis" for "Human Rights" [human rights for some humans, not for others] demonstrates his own ignorance and that of his group whose dishonest and foolish antics in the past have led to other Jews being killed. Is Leff aware that Turkey has been blockading Armenia for at least 18 years? Is he aware of the Turkish conquest of northern Cyprus in 1974? and the 100,000s of refugees thus created? Why doesn't he propose that Turkey apologize to Armenia and Cyprus? Would not that be the right, the moral thing for him to do?
8-11-2011 The Jerusalem Post reports that Obama made a special call to PM Netanyahu to pester him about an apology to Turkey [here]. Bibi, just say No!!!
Pressure from Turks resident in Germany has led Stuttgart University to "capitulate[d] to pressure from resident Turkish Muslims and cancel[ed] an event entitled, "Persecution, Expulsion and Annihilation of Christians in the Ottoman Empire'" [here & here]. The Western university continues to decline.
Israel Matzav on Erdogan's demand for an apology from Armenia [here]
8-14-2011 Oded Eran wants Israel to offer to make some sort of apology to Turkey, not because it's justified in any way but to keep Obama happy [here]. That is precisely a good reason not to make any apology. The more Israel gives in to Obama the worse he treats Israel.
8-18-2011 Tony Badran sees Obama as allowing Erdogan to lead his policy on Syria [here]
8-22-2011 Ely Karmon examines the issue in the JPost [here]. He stresses the strangely exaggerated involvement of Obama and Hilary in pressuring Israel to apologize to Turkey.
9-5-2011 Caroline Glick sees Erdogan's scapegoating of Israel as useful for his neo-Ottoman policy of expanding Turkey's influence in the Islamic world [here]

More White House/Obama/Hilary Cover Up for Assad Basher

As bloody, murderous repression continues in Syria, the Obama gang continue to cover up for Assad the Basher. Hilary gave an asinine interview to La Stampa, saying things which even a sixth grade teacher would be ashamed to tell her class, so silly and unbelievable they were. She needed an excuse as to why the USA was attacking Qaddafi in Libya but would not attack Basher Assad in Syria, or call on him to give up power. Here are main points of the interview as quoted in Corriere della Sera:

The USA -- "We don't have certain data, but we know that Syria can still pass reforms. On the other hand, no one believed that Qaddafi would have done it." Thus the American secretary of state Hilary Clinton stressed the differences between the situation in Libya and that in Syria, during an interview given to the daily La Stampa. "People believe that there is a possible path [of dialogue & cooperation] with Syria. For that reason, we continue, together with our allies, to exert pressure" [on Syria, that is, on Assad's regime], the chief of America's diplomacy added, also referring to the sanctions that were passed against Damascus. [qui]

GLI USA - «Non abbiamo dati certi, ma sappiamo che la Siria può ancora varare riforme. Nessuno invece credeva che Gheddafi lo avrebbe fatto» Così il segretario di Stato americano Hillary Clinton ha sottolineato le differenze fra la situazione in Libia e Siria, nel corso di un'intervista concessa al quotidiano La Stampa. «La gente ritiene ci sia un percorso possibile con la Siria. per questo continuiamo insieme ai nostri alleati a fare pressioni», ha aggiunto il capo della diplomazia americana, riferendosi anche alle sanzioni che sono state varate nei confronti di Damasco. [qui]

This would be pathetic and laughable if were not so sad and dangerous. The sanctions that she mentioned were mild and toothless. She says all this after a host of Syrian/Assadian deeds demonstrating the bloodthirsty, tyrannical nature of the Syrian/Assadian regime. Has she forgotten the murder of Rafiq Hariri in Beirut, only six years ago, together with two dozen other people?? How about all the murders of the anti-Syrian leaders in Lebanon, members of parliament and journalists, etc? What about the short-lived Lebanese president, Rene Mu`awad, murdered 20 years ago, after the Taif Accord? What about Kamal Jumblatt and Bashir Jemayel? What about the 20,000 to 30,000 Syrians slaughtered by Junior Assad's father, Hafiz, in Hama in 1982? And Bashar who shows no mercy to his own people eagerly helps the Hizbullah in Lebanon to kill as many Jews in Israel as possible. Does any of that make an impression in Washington? Does any of it evoke any pangs of conscience there? Of course it supports what we said here at Emet m'Tsiyon as to an Obama policy erecting and maintaining an array of very hostile states around Israel, more eager to go to war with Israel than Mubarak was.

To conclude: Isn't Hilary ashamed to sound so stupid --or so disingenuous? Obama has no shame, as we know. These people are a disgrace to America and very dangerous to Israel, the rest of the world, and of course to America.

- - - - - - - - - -
Jackson Diehl on Washington policy towards Basher Assad [here].
An interview with Hilary Clinton for Italian TV [in English on the State Dept site]. This may be the source of the quotes from Hilary in La Stampa and quoted in turn from La Stampa by Corriere. It was picked up from the the State Dept site by Elliott Abrams. The questioner is referring to Syria:

QUESTION: (Inaudible) they are big ethical case.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, and I think it’s fair to say that everyone has the same concerns – the United States, Italy, our other European and Arab partners – about what’s going on in Syria. And we have been absolutely outspoken on that. We have begun to sanction Syrian leaders. I know the EU is considering doing the same. But the situation in Syria is even more complex in many, many eyes. There are deep concerns about what is going on inside Syria, and we are pushing hard for the Government of Syria to live up to its own stated commitment to reforms. So I think it’s – it is fair to say --

QUESTION: But the Syria case is particularly poignant, the (inaudible).

SECRETARY CLINTON: It is poignant.

QUESTION: At this point, this is a country where they have killed most people in the street.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I don’t have that comparison, but what I do know is that they have an opportunity still to bring about a reform agenda. Nobody believed Qadhafi would do that. People do believe there is a possible path forward with Syria. So we’re going to continue joining with all of our allies to keep pressing very hard on that
- - - - - - - - -
5-14-2011 Fouad Ajami on the diplomatic strategy of the Syrian Assad regime [here]. Ajami is a respected historian of Lebanese origin, now at the Hoover Institution in California.
Michael Young on Obama, Syria, and the New York Times [here]. Young is an editor at the Beirut Daily Star.

Anti-Jewish Racism & Apartheid in the name of "Peace" -- Obama & Clinton back to FDR's Bad Old Days of Fostering the Holocaust

UPDATING 9-17-2010 see at bottom

When fascism comes to America, it will
be called anti-fascism.
[attributed to Huey Long]

Official Washington is in a tizzy. Jews who are simply not pliable enough actually believe that they have a right to live and build new homes in what the international community designated as the Jewish National Home [San Remo 1920; League of Nations 1922, etc].

The Administration of Palestine. . . shall facilitate Jewish immigration . . . and shall encourage . . . close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands. . .
[League of Nations mandate, Article 6; 1922]

Needless to say, Britain reneged on its duties as Administrator of the Jewish National Home fairly quickly, making if difficult for Jews to immigrate into the country and to settle the land. This obstruction of Jewish exercise of Jewish rights culminated on the eve of the Holocaust with an official British statement, the 1939 "White Paper on Palestine," which severely limited Jewish immigration into the country, the internationally designated Jewish National Home, when Jews most urgently needed a home, a refuge. Further, Jews were forbidden by the British White Paper policy to buy real estate in most of the country. Thereby, Britain, the UK, was imposing an anti-Jewish apartheid policy on the country through Land Purchase Regulations promulgated in 1940, a year after the White Paper but in line with it. Britain was a silent partner in the Holocaust and the Foreign Office's hostile policy towards Israel since then should be seen in that light. Incidentally, the Permanent Mandates Commission of the League of Nations ruled that the 1939 White Paper policy was a violation of the mandate. That didn't stop the British from applying the restrictions on Jewish rights embodied in the White Paper. So much for British respect for international law.

Now, Washington follows the old UK policy. It's bad enough that Washington wants Israel to share its scarce territory with a state [Palestinian Authority] that even now, in its embryonic stages incites murderous hatred of Jews, but Washington, particularly Hilary Clinton's State Department, is pressuring Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu not to allow Jews to resume building homes in Judea-Samaria even after the unjust 10-month moratorium expires shortly. In Sharm ash-Shaykh, Clinton and veteran facilitator of Arab terrorism, George Mitchell, pressed Israel to give in once again on this important issue of human rights. But Clinton, Mitchell and Obama don't give a damn about the human rights of Jews, just as an earlier American Liberal, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, avoided trying to save Jews' lives during the Holocaust, thereby giving auxiliary support to British policy towards the Holocaust.

Now that the conference between Netanyahu, Mahmoud Abbas, Mubarak, King Abdullah [Plucky Little King #2] and Clinton has ended --supposedly to resume-- Hilary Clinton, US Secretary of State, has come to Jerusalem to nag and pressure our leaders more in order to persuade them to divest Jews of human rights. In fact these are also national rights made into international law by the League of Nations mandate for a Jewish National Home [1922], in Article 6. So the United States under its present leadership works against the international law which recognized Jewish rights. Bear in mind that the Israeli people have suffered greatly from "peace processes" and "peace efforts" and "peace accords." Need we mention Oslo? Thousands of Israelis have been murdered and wounded since Oslo was signed on the White House lawn on 13 September 1993, seventeen years ago. The rate of deaths from Arab terrorism rose astronomically after Oslo, although lying shills for mass murder like the Norwegian Terje Larsen pretended that Oslo had benefited the Israeli people, falsely claiming that fewer Israelis had died from terrorism since Oslo.

As to Liberal American presidents, we don't really know what "liberal" means. Franklin Roosevelt was considered a Liberal. As said above, he did not try to save Jews from the Holocaust. Although American and British bomber aircraft reached the Auschwitz area in Poland to strike at military targets, they never tried to bomb the death camps in that region, to bomb the gas chambers or the crematoria -- or even the railroad tracks that led to the camps. The concern of those governments for the Holocaust and its victims is a pretense at best. In that period, Britain violated its international commitment to the Jews, to the Jewish National Home, by preventing Jewish refugees from finding refuge there. Britain went so far as to pressure governments in southern Europe to prevent Jewish refugees from embarking from their ports. This is not a matter of conjecture or interpretation. It is fact but not what is usually taught in schools and universities. Instead we hear the big lie, also propounded by the so-called "Left", that Britain favored the Jews and helped create the State of Israel. Shameless big lies coming forth from the mouths of academics, politicians, diplomats, and officials of so-called [misnamed] "non-governmental organizations." [see Notes below]

There is another case that shows how official Washington discriminates against Jews and Israel, doing so with the collaboration of fake "human rights" and "civil rights" groups. Jonathan Pollard has been in jail since 1985, for 25 years. Yes, he was a spy. Yet, his sentence is virtually a life sentence. He has never been given pardon or clemency. His sentence violates the Eighth Amendment to the United States constitution. This amendment is part of the Bill of Rights and states:
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Yet other spies were sentenced around the same time as Pollard, the Walker family, Christopher Boyce, Andrew Daulton Lee, an Egyptian spying for his country, and others. Their sentences were nearly all lighter than Pollard's, although Pollard had spied for a friendly country, not an enemy like the Soviet Union which Boyce, Lee and the Walkers had done. The Egyptian was sentenced to several years. Boyce and Lee are already out of jail. Pollard's sentence is a virtual lifetime sentence. The US Justice Department even broke --even violated-- a plea bargain agreement with Pollard, after he had confessed to spying as his part of the accord. The secretary of defense even intervened in the case, sending the judge a special letter that has never been disclosed to the public. Nevertheless, despite the unfair sentence and the unfair procedure, no self-designated "civil rights" group or "human rights" group has ever taken up the defense of Pollard's civil and human rights. Neither the American Civil Liberties Union, led by former US attorney general, Ramsey Clark [a sympathizer of Khomeini & Saddam Hussein -- yes, look it up], nor "Human Rights Watch" nor Amnesty International has ever made a public statement in favor of Pollard or complained of his mistreatment. Professor Eugene Narrett once inquired of Amnesty if they had taken a position on Pollard's case. They answered him that they had not since they felt it was not of interest --or some similar excuse to avoid defending Pollard's rights.

Of course, official Washington can get very humanitarian and very human rights conscious when it involves someone working for Washington. Consider the case of a Chinese-American sentenced to only eight years by China for spying on China's oil industry. This spy's name is Xue Feng.

US consular officials have visited Mr Xue nearly 30 times during his detention, and President Barack Obama raised the case with President Hu Jintao during a state visit to Beijing last November. The US ambassador to China, Jim M Huntsman Jr, was in the Beijing courtroom when the sentence was handed down Monday.
"Now that the Chinese legal system has ruled, I believe the time has come for Dr Xue, who has already been detained for two and a half years, to be released," Mr Huntsman said in a statement. I urge the Chinese authorities to take into account the long ordeal he has suffered and in the spirit of justice allow him to return home and be reunited with his family."
The statement said the US government was dismayed by the verdict and was concerned about both his right to due process under Chinese law and his well-being while in prison.
[International Herald-Tribune, 6 July 2010].

So US diplomats know how to talk the civil rights talk [as in the reference to "due process"] and play on the heartstrings with the hope that he can go back to his family. And Obama whom some regard as a Great Emancipator, intervened on Xue's behalf when in China on other business. But at eight years, even if added to the 2 1/2 years awaiting trial, Xue's sentence is nothing compared to Pollard's. But it seems that few in the United States care about Pollard. Those groups that one might naturally assume should be concerned for the unconstitutionality and cruelty and abuse of power in the Pollard case, have been silent. As said, not a peep from the ACLU or HRW or Amnesty.

So the Jews --both in Israel and the United States-- are much in the position of the Black slave Dred Scott. The US Supreme Court ruled in his case that:
"The negro . . . had no rights which the white man was bound to respect"
[Dred Scott v. Sandford, US Supreme Court decision, 1857]

- - - - - - - - - - - - -
Notes:
On the British diplomats trying to prevent Jewish refugees from escaping Europe, see:
William Perl, The Four Front War (New York: Crown 1979).
On US policy to do nothing to stop the Holocaust, see:
Arthur Morse, While Six Million Died (New York 1968).
David Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews (New York: Pantheon 1984)

Also the website of the David Wyman Institute:
http://www.wymaninstitute.org/
Also authors such as Laurel Leff, Rafael Medoff, Monty Penkower, Ben Hecht, even "Leftist" journalists like Lawrence Lipton, Sidney Zion, Sol Stern and others.

On British pro-Holocaust policy, see books by Walter Z Laqueur, Martin Gilbert,William Perl, Bernard Wasserstein, William Ziff, and others plus previous posts here at Emet m'Tsiyon [& here].
UPDATE
Obama statement in favor of continued anti-Jewish apartheid policy in Judea-Samaria [here] & [here]
Also note that George Mitchell stressed the US government's desire to see the "settlement freeze" continue in his press conference after yesterday's conference at Sharm ash-Shaykh.
Hilary butts in with her obnoxious two cents in favor of denying Jewish rights: "Clinton told reporters that the U.S. wants the construction halt extended." [Bloomberg report here]
Khaled Abu Toameh's view of Abbas' policy on settlements [here & here].
Jewish efforts to pressure Obama against his pro-apartheid position [here]

UPDATING 9-17-2010 Obaminable gang supports apartheid against Israel at the UN [here]
10-5-2010 Caroline Glick asks whether Jews have civil rights [here]. I have written that Jews today, particularly Israelis, are in the position of Dred Scott, the Black American slave in whose case the US Supreme Court wrote: ". . . the negro had no rights which the white man was bound to respect" [see above]

Hilary Clinton's Little Lie in Her Speech to AIPAC

UPDATED/REVISED 3-23-2010

Hilary Clinton's tone in her speech to AIPAC today was rather mild compared to the hysterical attacks on Israel made by her, Biden and Axelrod in the past two weeks. But the substance was not much improved and indeed the speech was replete with lies of various sorts. Here is one lie that she made in order to protect the would-be Nazi murderers of Fatah and the Palestinian Authority, that includes the notorious "moderate," Abu Mazen [Mahmud Abbas]. She was blatantly lying. Here is her blatant pro-Fatah lie:

When a Hamas-controlled municipality glorifies violence and renames a square after a terrorist who murdered innocent Israelis, it insults the families on both sides who have lost loves ones in this conflict. And when instigators deliberately mischaracterize the rededication of a synagogue in the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem’s old city and call upon their brethren to “defend” nearby Muslim holy sites from so-called “attacks,” it is purely and simply an act of incitement. These provocations are wrong and must be condemned for needlessly inflaming tensions and imperiling prospects for a comprehensive peace. [full text here]

First, the smaller problem in this passage is not a direct lie but an evasion. She refuses to mention the American citizen murdered in the attack, who happened to be the niece of a US Senator, like Hilary herself. Secondly, the big problem here is that it was Fatah --not Hamas in Gaza-- that named a square in Ramallah after Dalal Mughrabi, the murderess who led a Fatah death squad to slaughter 38 Jews in Israel 30 years ago in 1978 [here]. So Hilary obviously lied, probably to protect Fatah's undeserved "moderate" reputation. Jennifer Rubin rightly pointed out this lie on the Commentary blog but she didn't call it a lie. Maybe she doesn't want to use such strong language against the US secretary of state. In other words, the very gifted Ms Rubin was protecting the guilty. But her post on this is still worth reading. Now here's the Jerusalem Post on the event in Ramallah:

Fatah holds ceremony naming square after terrorist
By KHALED ABU TOAMEH
15/03/2010 06:33

Move comes despite PA announcement it had postponed inauguration of square named after Dalal Mughrabi, who led 1978 Coastal Road massacre in which 37 Israeli were killed announcement it had postponed inauguration of square named after Dalal Mughrabi, who led 1978 Coastal Road massacre in which 37 Israeli were killed.

Despite the Palestinian Authority’s announcement that it had postponed the inauguration of a square in el-Bireh named after Dalal Mughrabi, the Fatah woman who led the 1978 Coastal Road massacre in which 37 Israeli civilians and an American photographer were killed, and 71 were wounded, Fatah officials on Thursday evening went ahead with the ceremony.

In addition, the PA on Sunday launched a seminar named after Mughrabi. The four-day seminar, called “Martyr Dalal Mughrabi Camp,” is being held in Jericho under the auspices of the PA’s Military Science Academy. Its main goal is to discuss the legislative and local elections in the PA territories. . . . [JPost 3-15-2010]

The third flaw in Hilary's remarks quoted above is that she also mentioned the Arab-Muslim hate agitation over the rededication of the Hurva Synagogue [first built in 1700] but not who was doing the hate agitation. The "instigators" whom she mentioned as misrepresenting the rededication were both Hamas and Fatah [here & here & here]. But on this matter she did not name either terrorist group, no doubt to protect the guilty. The Hurva Synagogue was first built ca. 1700, destroyed by Arab creditors of the Ashkenazic Jewish congregation in 1720, rebuilt starting in 1857, finished in 1864, and blown up by the British-officered Arab Legion of Transjordan [Sir John Bagot Glubb commander] in May 1948 after the Arab Legion had conquered the Old City and driven the Jews out of the Jewish Quarter. The present structure is faithful to the one finished in 1864.
- - - - - - - - - - -
Clarification: The square named after the terrorist Dalal Mughrabi is actually in el-Bireh [see the Jerusalem Post article by Khalil Abu Toameh above. Most reports have placed the location in Ramallah. In fact, el-Bireh [al-Birah] is a town next to Ramallah. Because of urban sprawl, an observer today cannot tell he has left one municipality for the next. They run one into the other. El-Bireh, like Ramallah, is fairly prosperous. But whereas Ramallah was historically a Christian village populated by four clans, often at odds with each other, el-Bireh was historically Muslim. Its city council is dominated by Hamas. But Fatah men were eager to dedicate the square to one of their own, the murderess Mughrabi. Today, the population of the country as a whole, including these two towns, is much much greater than 100 or even 50 years ago. Moreover, today Ramallah too has an overwhelimingly Muslim population though some Christians remain there. The presence of so many journalists and other foreign representatives, NGO agents, and other foreigners provides much of the prosperity for the two towns, now economically one.
- - - - - - - - - - -
An Arab, pro-Palestinian Authority website celebrates the event [here]
Here is our previous post on the insult to the United States inherent in the renaming and the naming ceremony [here]
Israel Matzav [here]
3-24-2010 Leading Palestinian Authority and Fatah officials praise the murderess, even calling her a "victim" [here]

Clinton & Axelrod See "insult," "affront" to United States in Israel's Decision to build homes, but no Insult by Arabs Honoring Murderess of American

Hilary Clinton claims that Israel's announcement of building housing for Jews in Jerusalem is "insulting" to the United States. White House flunkey David Axelrod called it an "affront" to the United States. Just parenthetically, it's always nice to see a stalwart old "leftist" like Axelrod worry about the honor of the United States.

Hilary said:

"But we have to make clear to our Israeli friends and partners that the two-state solution -- which we support, which the prime minister himself says he supports -- requires confidence-building measures on both sides," Clinton told CNN's Jill Dougherty. "And the announcement of the settlements the very day that the vice president was there was insulting." [CNN here]

Of course, she would never ask whether the "two-state solution" would really bring peace, or whether it would be any more than a second Final Solution. Nor does she mention any "confidence building measures" demanded of the Palestinian Arab side. But there may have been one, albeit not very significant. And here Clinton missed what was clearly an insult to the United States. The Palestinian Authority was supposed to hold a ceremony while Biden was in Israel that was to honor an Arab terrorist who led a mass murder gang that slaughtered 38 Jews. They were to honor her --yes, a fine specimen of Arab-Muslim womanhood-- Dalal Mughrabi who led the notorious Coastal Road massacre of 1978. Because of Biden's presence in the country, the PA postponed the honoring ceremony until after Biden left, that is, for a few hours. That could be called a "confidence building measure." The honor was to dedicate the main square of Ramallah, the Palestinian Authority capital, to Miss Mughrabi.

Now where does American honor come into this? The first Jew that Mughrabi and her terrorists murdered in their paroxysmic cavalcade of mass murder, was an American citizen, Gail Rubin. Miss Rubin, a renowned nature photographer, was --just coincidentally-- the niece of a Democratic United States senator, Senator Abraham [Abe] Ribicoff. Curiously, American honor does not enter into the equation when the American victim is a Jew, not even the niece of US senator who belonged to Clinton and Obama's own Democratic Party.

White House Flunkey Axelrod said that "what happened was an affront, was an insult." He said this after kapo Jake Tapper of ABC News fed him some questions that Axelrod himself had probably supplied to Tapper. Anyhow, Tapper lied by calling the neighborhood in question "an Arab" area or neighborhood. The existing houses of Ramat Shlomo probably reach to about 1/2 kilometer on the west from the large, prosperous Arab houses of the Shu`afat neighborhood [doubters can come look and see for themselves]. However, I think that the planned new housing is to be built to the west and/or north of present Ramat Shlomo houses. But if Axelrod, Clinton and Tapper don't want Jews to live near Arabs, then that means they want apartheid to be enforced against Jews. Of course, the Palestinian Authority wants that.

Our main point is that American honor is insulted --as Obama, Clinton, and Axelrod define it-- when Jews build houses where the State Dept and Arab advocates of apartheid don't want Jews to live. In other words, when Jews get out of their place, when Jews rise above their station. The fact that the Palestinian Authority [basically run by Fatah] honors a murderess of an American woman does not dishonor the United States, not even when that victim was the niece of a US senator who happened to belong to the Democratic Party of Obama and Clinton. After all, the victim, Gail Rubin, and her uncle, Sen. Ribicoff, were Jews.

- - - - - - - -
The Elastic Honor of the United States, according to Obama, Clinton & Axelrod
Honors for Dalal Mughrabi by Palestinian Authority long before the square in Ramallah was named for her [here]
Other comments on this affair [here] & [here]&[here]&[here]
Unfortunately, the commentaries that I link to do not mention the connection with Senator Ribicoff.
Sultan Knish [here]
PLO Arabs draw encouragement from Obama gang's excoriation of Israel and incite their masses to violence, "protesting" against rebuilding and rededicating an old synagogue in the Old City, first built in 1700, that the Arab Legion blew up in the summer of 1948 [here]
The Arab League responds to the Obama gang's attacks on Israel but tentatively on account of uncertainty about what he wants [here]

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!

Miracle of Miracles -- Arab States, like Israel, Fear an Obama "Engagement" with A-jad's Iran

UPDATING 5-(7&10&11)-2009 LINK REPLACED 12-2-2010

Anti-Zionism is the anti-imperialism of fools

The half-brights and all-dumbs and smart ignoramuses in the Obama Administration have run into a likely unforeseen obstacle to their obsessive dream of helping the Iranian ayatollahs obtain the Bomb. The six Arab sheikdoms of the Persian Gulf have

. . . concerns [about this policy that] . . . sound strikingly like those coming from the mouths of Israeli officials.
[AP, Salah Nasrawi, 6 May 2009 updated link as of 12-2-2010]

Like Israel, they fear the prospect of a fanatic Iran armed with nuclear weapons. Once upon a time the US claimed to fear nuclear proliferation. A treaty against nuclear proliferation [NPT] was duly drawn up and signed by most states, including Iran, which is now violating it. However, after years of European negotiations with A-jad's government over stopping nuclear weapons development, with new deadlines repeatedly offered when Iran did not comply with previous deadlines, the new wet-behind-the-ears administration of Barack Obama declares that it opposes the military option against the nuclear weapons development of Iran.

Obama and his crowd --divided into young wackos and scary, white starched shirt old and middle-aged white men-- claim that they know of some magical diplomatic means to stop Iran's nuclear development. They forget --or pretend not to know-- that the threat of force is also a tool of diplomacy and that "tough diplomacy" [an Obama term?] needs the threat or potential of military force to back it up, and not just tough, angry words. Or maybe the "engagement" policy is not meant at all to lead to peace but to cause more chaos in the Middle East. Anyhow, the six states of the Gulf Cooperation Council [the GCC: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates] plus Egypt seem to think that any deal ensuing from the "engagement" process might endanger them and their interests.

US allies in Mideast cautious over Iran overtures -- Salah Nasrawi, [AP 6 May 2009 updated link as 12-2-2010]

Washington's efforts to start a dialogue with Iran have sent ripples of alarm through the capitals of America's closest Arab allies, who accuse Tehran of playing a destabilizing role in the Middle East.

The concerns being raised by Arab leaders sound strikingly like those coming from the mouths of Israeli officials.
"We hope that any dialogue between countries will not come at our expense," said a statement Tuesday by the six oil-rich nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council, who have long relied on U.S. protection in the region.

The Obama administration has been reaching out to Iran in a marked shift after shunning contacts for decades. But U.S. allies such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, as well as Israel, say Tehran is not a positive force in the region with its support for Islamic militant groups such as Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul-Gheit conveyed the concerns this week when U.S. envoy Dennis Ross, who is dealing with Iran, visited Cairo.
"Iran's behavior in the region is negative in many aspects and does not help in advancing security, stability and peace," he [Aboul-Gheit] told Ross.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who was in Saudi Arabia and Egypt this week, has sought to reassure the Arab allies that any contacts with Iran would be "open and transparent" and regional allies would be kept informed "so nobody gets surprised."
. . . . .

Israel and the U.S. suspect Iran's program to enrich uranium is aimed at developing nuclear weapons — a concern shared by the GCC.

"There exists a strategic and military threat (to Gulf countries) and we are against any nuclear program that isn't approved by the International Atomic Energy Agency because we believe that the Iranian nuclear program should not destabilize the region," the organization said in its statement.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's son, an increasingly influential figure in the regime, said Tuesday that Egypt and Iran also do not always see eye to eye.

"Both Egypt and Iran are key countries in the region, but we have our differences regarding the future of the region and peace," said Gamal Mubarak. Egypt, the Arab world's most populous nation, has long seen Iran as a regional rival.

Egypt has become increasingly vocal over its concerns about Iran, especially following its discovery in April of what it described as a "Hezbollah cell" plotting to destabilize the country. The Iranian-backed Lebanese group has denied the accusations, while admitting it did have an operative in Egypt supervising weapons shipments to the Palestinian Hamas group.

In a rare confluence of interests with its Arab neighbors, Israel has also singled out Iran as the greatest threat to stability in the region.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to meet with President Barack Obama later this month and is expected to push for a tough U.S. stance on Iran. Israel argues that progress in peace with the Palestinians can't happen unless Iran is reined in.

The London-based Palestinian daily, Al-Quds Al-Arabi even said the Arab moderates governments are actively working on building an alliance with Israel to counter Iranian influence in the region.
[full article - AP, 6 May 2009 updated link as of 12-2010]

Adding to its credibility is that this report comes from the Associated Press, signed by Salah Nasrawi, who bears an Arab name. Despite what Hilary [Obama's secretary of state] as well as one of Obama's Jewish flunkeys, Rahm ["Kapo"] Emanuel said, to the effect that if Israel did not come to terms with the "palestinians," Israel would not get support against Iran from Arab states, it seems that the Arabs are not listening. It seems that they too fear Iran first of all more than they worry about "progress . . . in peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians."

Last month, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Israel that it risks losing Arab support for combating threats from Iran if it rejects peace negotiations with the Palestinians. [Jerusalem Post, 5-4 & 5-5-2009]

Apparently, Hilary and Rahm Kapo were just making empty threats to Israel, since the Arab states in question seem to be much closer to Israel's position --on this issue-- than to the American or, perhaps, the Anglo-American position of appeasing the ayatollahs of Iran.
- - - - - - -
UPDATING 5-(7&10)-2009 Jennifer Rubin at the Contentions blog also noticed this story. See her comment and 25 reader comments.
Caroline Glick on Arab rejection of linkage between Arab-Israeli issues and the Iranian nuclear weapons development.
Yoram Ettinger on linkage between the Iranian bomb project and Arab-Israeli negotiations.
David Hazony on linkage here, particularly on "national security advisor" Jones.
LINK ADDED 12-2-2010: I have replaced the original link to this story. I found it at first on the Yahoo site whence it has unfortunately vanished. The link now shown here is to HaArets which left out the reporter's name, Salah Nasrawi.

Josef Joffe on Arab Judeophobia, in Newsweek of all places!!

Anti-Zionism is the anti-imperialism of fools

UPDATING 3-3-2009 see at bottom

The situation is very threatening what with Obama openly spitting in the Jews' faces, what with his assigning the Muslims in the United States a higher status than the American Jews and promising to cater to Muslim needs, plus his wishy-washy stand on the Durban II atrocity known in advance and the Chaz Freeman appointment to provide the prez with intelligence summaries [whereas Freeman is a Saudi agent and a Chinese (PRC) agent] and the 900 million bucks for rebuilding Gaza, thus rewarding Hamas for attempting to kill Jews every day, while providing no money for the material damage the Hamas sweethearts did in Israel. Meanwhile people are starving in many parts of the world, mass murder is proceeding in Sudan, Americans are out of work [but Gaza gets priority], etc. Obama is as bad or worse than friends of Israel and of a decent, pro-American policy in the Middle East warned of. Obama would seem to have a natural inclination to send US reps to Geneva for the Durban 2 mob extravaganza. This is because Durban I was a Ford Foundation project, and probably Durban 2 too, and the Obominable One has ties to the Ford.

Obama's mother and Sec'y of the Treasury Geithner's father worked together as Ford Foundation operatives. Therefore, he would seem naturally inclined to want to go to Geneva [for Durban 2]. Geithner by the way is reputed to have failed to pay IRS taxes for a couple of years recently, as well as for employing an illegal alien ["expired work papers"]. Obama is getting off to a dishonorable start, which is probably just as well. The expected failure of his "stimulus program" to bring about economic recovery might turn almost everyone in America against him. And that would be good because his policies in the rest of the world look to be generally destructive and Judeophobic in particular.
In this ugly atmosphere, Josef Joffe's op ed article in Newsweek, of all places, comes as a pleasant surprise. See here.

. . . no Arab regime has shown itself willing to truly prepare its people for peace with Israel, which would mean accepting the lasting presence of Jews in their midst. Indeed, anti-Semitism—the real stuff, not just bad-mouthing particular Israeli policies—is as much part of Arab life today as the hijab or the hookah. Whereas this darkest of creeds is no longer tolerated in polite society in the West, in the Arab world, Jew hatred remains culturally endemic. [Newsweek, 3-9-2009]

In case anybody has forgotten, the so-called Road Map for "peace" between Israel and the Arabs stipulated that the hostile, Judeophobic agitprop incitement on Palestinian Authority TV was supposed to be ended as a prelude to peace negotiations. Well, the EU, UN, USA, and Russia --the so-called Quartet-- never seem to have taken that provision seriously and the PA mass media are as virulently anti-Israel as ever. Not to mention the Hamas media in Gaza. This Judeophobic mass murder incitement didn't seem to bother Condonazzia of the Third Rice very much, nor did it seem to bother Prez W Bush II. Just to remind everyone. The Bush family has been closely tied to the Saudis for many many years. Now the Obominable One is in the White House and looks to be continuing the Bush-Condi Rice policy against Israel --but worse. Meanwhile, secretary of state Hilary Clinton starred at the Gaza donors' conference held at Sharm ash-Shaykh, preaching to Israel to be nice to the Hamas statelet. By the way, can anybody explain why it was wrong to send troops to Iraq but OK for Obama to send more US troops to Afghanstan? Keep fighting even as things get worse!!
- - - - -
UPDATING 3-3-2009 Michael Rubin on Chaz Freeman & his defenders. Eli Lake on Freeman.
Martin Peretz on Hilary & the donors' conference. Daniel Pipes on the conference. Pipes points out the surreal quality of the conference as well as the especially nasty remark of the UK delegate. Barry Rubin on the conference asks why the West should pay to rebuild Gaza. Michael Rubin shows how Obama & Hilary encourage terrorism.
Coming: Obama's anti-peace peacemongering, dancing with the ayatollahs, adopting the Commie policy of a "Two State Final Solution," Jerusalem archeology, propaganda analysis, etc.