Displaying posts published in

October 2012

Why Obama Gambled With American Lives — on The Glazov Gang

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/frontpagemag-com/unveiling-benghazi-gate-on-the-glazov-gang/

On this week’s Glazov Gang, Nonie Darwish, Dwight Schultz and Diane Zinn discussed Why Obama Gambled With American Lives. The discussion occurred in Part I and dealt with the secrets and lies of Benghazi-Gate. Part II dealt with Whoopi Goldberg’s Assault on Ann Romney and Mormonism, focusing on whether Whoopi would condescendingly interrogate a Muslim cleric about Qur’anic verses. Both parts of the two part series can be seen below:

Part I:

PHIL ORENSTEIN: THE DEBATE….WHO IS BETTER FOR ISRAEL ROMNEY OR OBAMA

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/phil-orenstein/obama-or-romney-who-is-better-for-israel/print/ Two distinguished and knowledgeable speakers, Dan Fleshler, a media and public affairs strategist in New York City, and Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, trustee of the City University of New York and former FBI foreign counter-intelligence agent, represented the 2012 presidential candidates at the October 14 Israeli Affairs Breakfast at the Reform Temple of Forest Hills. In […]

CHRIS STEVENS LAST WORDS: MATTHEW VADUM

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/matthew-vadum/chris-stevens-last-words/print/ Obama administration emails leaked to news organizations about last month’s terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, paint a shocking picture of the administration’s incompetence and callousness. During the military-style assault on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi on Sept. 11, the eleventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, four American officials died, including U.S. Ambassador to Libya […]

MICHELLE MALKIN: WHAT ABOUT THE ATTACK AT CAMP BASTION??? ****

http://www.nationalreview.com/blogs/print/331712 Three days after the bloody 9/11 siege on our consulate in Benghazi, the Taliban waged an intricately coordinated, brutal attack on Camp Bastion in Afghanistan. The murderous jihadists released video exactly one month ago this week showing off their training exercises in preparation for the assault. Where are the questions? Where’s the accountability? Where’s […]

Palestine – Obama’s Befuddled Thinking Sends Peace Prospects Sinking By David Singer

NO URL: E-PAL DAVID SINGER IS AN EMINENT INTERNATIONAL LAWYER IN AUSTRALIA
President Obama has dramatically lowered his support for Israel over the past four years when one compares his latest response to a questionnaire from the American Jewish Committee to the answers he provided before the 2008 elections.

President Obama’s 2012 response is both vague and essentially directionless:

Last year, I stood before the United Nations General Assembly to address the Palestinian bid for U.N. recognition of statehood.I believe now, as I did then, that the Palestinian people deserve a state of their own.However, I continue to believe that lasting peace will only come from direct negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians themselves and not from unilateral Palestinian actions at the United Nations.That is why I made it clear that there can be no short-cuts to peace, and called on the world to recognize the legitimacy of Israel and its security concerns as a Jewish, democratic state.

We cannot impose peace or any final status details on the Israelis and Palestinians.Ultimately, it is up to the two parties to take action. Final status issues can only be resolved by the Israelis and Palestinians themselves.What we can do is state frankly what is widely known: that a lasting peace will involve two sovereign, independent states.And I am convinced that the majority of Israelis and Palestinians would rather look to the future than be trapped in the past.However, my Administration has made it clear that Israelis cannot be expected to negotiate with a partner that refuses to recognize its right to exist.That’s why it’s imperative that Hamas abides by the Quartet conditions to renounce violence, recognize Israel’s right to exist, and abide by past agreements.

His response was far more direct four years ago – indicating the parameters of the two-state solution he then envisaged should be the outcome of negotiations between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization through it’s agreed negotiating entity – the Palestinian Authority (PA) .

The United States cannot dictate the terms of a final status agreement. We should support the parties as they negotiate these difficult issues, but they will have to reach agreements that they can live with. In general terms, Israel clearly must emerge in a final status agreement with secure borders. Jerusalem will remain Israel’s capital, and no one should want or expect it to be re-divided. As for refugees, the Palestinians will need to reinterpret the notion of a right of return in such a way that will preserve Israel as a Jewish state, while Israel would likely contribute to international compensation for the refugees.

But these details are for the parties to decide. While negotiations are ongoing, both sides should take steps to improve conditions on the ground, so that people believe they have a stake in the process.

The following differences between Obama 2008 and Obama 2012 are starkly evident:

President Obama would find it virtually impossible to criticize the PA acquiring “a state of its own” by demanding as a necessary condition that all 5000000 Jews living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem be expelled from their homes and businesses.

The Palestinian Arabs deserved right to a state is timeless – no matter how many offers made by Israel are rejected by the PA. With that kind of Presidential mind set – Arab rejectionism of such a state – first proposed in 1937 and rejected on many occasions since then – is bound to continue without fear of any political consequences from America.
Whilst direct negotiations still remain the pathway to create any such Palestinian State – the President is apparently prepared to allow those negotiations to continue to be stalled indefintely without any express policy being proposed by him as a possible circuit breaker. Such Presidential inertia can only encourage the PA to prolong the resumption of negotiations until its demands to return to the negotiating table are first agreed on by Israel.
Whilst President Obama states that he has called on the world to recognise the legitimacy of Israel and its security concerns as a Jewish democratic State – he makes no similar direct call on the Palestinian Arabs.
Gone are the 2008 pronouncements on secure borders, Jerusalem, and refugees – positions agreed on in an exchange of letters in 2004 between Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and President George W Bush. President Obama’s abandonment of his predecessor’s commitments will only embolden the PA to maintain its rejectionist stance on each of these issues.

DAVID GOLDMAN: IT’S THE OBONOMY STUPID

http://pjmedia.com/spengler/2012/10/25/its-the-obonomy-stupid/

“Business investment in the US has ground to a halt” is the lead story on MarketWatch this morning. The site reports, “For the first quarter since late 2009, shipments of U.S.-made capital investment goods declined, falling at a 4.9% annual rate, according to Census Bureau data released on Thursday.”

There’s an investors’ strike underway of proportions we have never seen before. Corporations are hoarding $2 trillion worth of cash. Private equity funds have $1 trillion of unused commitments. Pension funds and life insurance companies are gasping for returns. Yet Americans refuse to take risk on other Americans. Households, corporations, and institutional investors would rather keep money under the figurative mattress in ultra-safe investments than invest in future productivity.

This isn’t like the Great Depression. During the Great Depression, to be sure, investment collapsed, but no-one had money to invest. Now everyone has money to invest (and the Federal Reserve keeps shoving new money into the system by purchasing securities from the open market), yet no-one wants to invest.

There’s no textbook description for this condition, so we’ll give it a name: the Obonomy. The anti-business toxicity in Washington is so intense that that no-one will take risks.

BLAME EARLY AND BLAME OFTEN: JAMES TARANTO

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203897404578078803373321988.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion “What’s welling up in America’s ruling Democrats is not yet a full-throated scream of desperation,” observes commentator Neil Macdonald, who is Canadian and therefore a neutral observer. “But as Samuel Johnson famously remarked, the prospect of being hanged in a fortnight concentrates the mind wonderfully.” True, as Macdonald says, “for the most part, Barack […]

European Parliament Delegation’s Trip to Iran, a Despicable Visit: Mansour Rastani PhD

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/european-parliament-delegations-trip-to-iran-a-despicable-visit?f=puball#ixzz2AOl75ro6 Once again the oppressed Iranian people were shocked to hear that European Parliament (EP) will soon be embarking on an official visit of their lawmakers to Iran. The visit is scheduled from October 27 to November 02, 2012. The question on every Iranian mind is: “How can they even think of going to Tehran […]

Economy, Obama Project Weakness: Peter Brookes

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/economy-obama-project-weakness Despite President Obama’s snarky jabs at Mitt Romney in Monday night’s debate, claiming command of international affairs, the truth is that after nearly four years the emperor’s foreign and national security policy still has no clothes.First, there’s no denying the Middle East is a mess. The Arab Spring released hard-line Islamist forces, not moderate […]

PROGRAM FOR THE “BALFOUR PROJECT” IN EDINBURGH

Britain’s historic responsibilities for the Israel-Palestine conflict:
starting an honest conversation

0930-1700 Friday November 2nd 2012

Quaker Meeting House, 7 Victoria Terrace, Edinburgh EH1 2JL

Space in the hall is limited, 3 places still available at 25 Oct.

The Balfour Project, in association with the Church of Scotland, is organising a one-day conference on the British involvement in Palestine in the first half of the last century. This is a first step in exploring how to mark the centenary of the Balfour Declaration in exactly five years on 2nd November 2017.

The Balfour Project has been created by a group of academics and activists who believe that this anniversary should not pass unremarked. Mindful of Britain’s responsibility for what has come to pass in the Middle East, the Balfour Project will encourage understanding of what led to the Balfour Declaration, and what flowed from it. Through our website, we plan to facilitate a network of educational, political, religious and humanitarian groups who share this conviction. We aim to stimulate conferences, cultural exchanges and the production of multimedia resources. Above all, we believe that the search for the truth of what took place, and the acknowledgement of wrong-doing, can contribute to justice, peace and reconciliation in the Middle East.

In the morning Dr Mary Embleton, whose special interest is Britain’s involvement in the Middle East, will outline the contradictory promises Britain made to Arabs and Jews, and their consequences for all parties before and during the British Mandate in Palestine. This will be followed by keynote papers from Rev Dr Stephen Sizer, who will talk about the ideas that shaped this period, Professor Mary Grey will talk about the main players and Dr Imad Karam will talk about the consequences for Palestinians today. In the afternoon John Bond OAM, former Secretary of Australia’s Sorry Day campaign, will use the 2008 national apology to Aboriginal Australians to discuss the impact of acknowledgement and apology.

This will be followed by workshops where you can both interact further with the main speakers and pool ideas on how we move forward. How can we create a momentum over the next 5 years towards an acknowledgement of our responsibilities? Can there be a cascade of events, not centrally organised, but all working to the same ends?

Registration is £20 which includes lunch and refreshments. Space is limited so please book your place on the attached registration form. We hope you will find it an informative and stimulating day.