Clinton Demands Settlement Construction Of All Types Cease

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Clinton Demands Settlement Construction Of All Types Cease

And by that she means everything.

"We want to see a stop to settlement construction, additions, natural growth - any kind of settlement activity," declared Clinton in some of the Obama administration's clearest comments to date on what it expects from Israel. She was speaking to Al-Jazeera in an interview, of which the State Department released a transcript on Wednesday.

In other words, if you live in Jerusalem, Efrat, Gush Etzion, Ariel or other any other Jewish communities the Palestinians want to occupy, you had better stop having kids and forget about getting permits for building an addition to your home. Now I realize that this is a pro-abortion administration, but still...

Needless to say, our Secretary of State had nothing to say about illegal Arab construction in places like East Jerusalem.

While this kind of Jew hatred is morally disgusting on her part, some things to consider; first, the fact that this was Hillary Clinton, who as Secretary of State under Obama has very little power and has been reduced to being an Obama mouthpiece when it's deemed necessary.Second, that this was done in an al-Jazeera interview broadcast to the Arab world with no formal indication this is anything more than rhetoric. And third, the Israelis are not going to abide by it even if it were, and Obama lacks the leverage to make them.

Remember what I said about Obama needing to provide some red meat for the Arab street for his big speech in Cairo June 4th? This is a sample, and something he can now just allude to with the barest of mentions without real substance.

I think a similar item is a story now going around that high officials in the Obama administration reportedly promised Jerusalem as their capitol to the Palestinians, along with a host of other goodies.

While President Obama might like these ideas, he understands politics if nothing else. There's no way Netanyahu would agree to it, nor would the members of his coalition...or the Israeli public. Formally announcing it as US policy in Cairo and attempting to force Israel to acquiesce would pretty much end any kind of harmonious relationship between the Obama administration and Israel, and end any type of leverage Obama might have on Netanyahu.

I frankly don't think Obama's that stupid, although I could certainly be unpleasantly surprised.

Like Hillary Clinton's nonsense, I think this is simply pure kabuki theater to put a nice spin on Obama's Cairo outing and hide the fact that nothing much is going to happen with the Palestinians in the near future.

4 Arrested in Plot to Blow Up NY Synagogues

Of course,as you can imagine, the suspects are all Evangelical Christians...okay, sarcasm off:

The FBI busted a homegrown terror cell late Wednesday night as the men sneaked around a Jewish temple in Riverdale planting what they thought was packages of C-4 explosives, sources told the Daily News.

The four African American men, three of whom were said to be jailhouse converts to Islam, also allegedly had what they believed was a working Stinger missile in their car.

Officials said they hoped to shoot down a plane at Stewart Air National Guard Base in Newburgh in Orange County.

Jailhouse conversions to Islam, hmmm? They couldn't be some of the product of the Saudi financed wahabi imams sent to do missionary work by the Islamic Society of North America(ISNA) could they? 

Do a search on this site under ISNA and settle back for some heavy reading to find out more about these folks.

I should mention that these creeps were arrested in an FBI sting due to the heroism of a fellow member of their mosque who turned informent and contacted the FBI when he learned that some of the members of his mosque were trying to obtain explosives.

A noble deed of merit, sadiq...and one that will help your fellow Muslims in the end, especially as more of you come forward.

California's Tax Revolt- The Peasants Have Risen

"California's a garden of Eden, it's a paradise to live in, or see. But believe it or not, you won't find it so hot, if you ain't got the do-re-mi.. - Woody Guthrie




Voters sent five out of six ballot propositions touted by Governor Schwarzenegger as a temporary fix to California's budget crisis crashing to defeat in yesterday's special elections by better than two to one majorities. The only one that passed was 1F, which mandated that state legislators cannot receive pay raises when there's a budget deficit.

The state now faces a $21.3 billion budget deficit...in the world's sixth largest economy.

The election was a farce, with unions and other special interests spending over $30 million to try and push these measures through. This time, the overburdened taxpayers in the state simply wouldn't buy it.

What happened to California? As Margaret Thatcher famously said, the problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people's money. That day is today.

The state is one of the highest taxed in the nation, and like several other states near to financial collapse is controlled by a dysfunctional Democrat-controlled legislature that persists in spending other people's money to buy votes from special interests, and they in turn are controlled by powerful public employee unions like the teachers and the SEIU.

In addition there's education, social services, and law enforcement for thousands of illegal immigrants from the third world countries across the border. That tab alone is estimated at between $5 and $8 billion per year, depending on who's adding. When you import millions of poor people who consume more in services than they spend in taxes, it tends not to be good for your state's budget.


See the rest at the The Examiner..please click on it a few times and help throw a few bucks my way...every little bit helps

When Bibi Met Bammy - The Postgame Show

As I predicted, the first meeting between President Barack Obama ended with Netanyahu exchanging an innocuous statement of support for 'negotiations' with loopholes wide enough to drive a HumVee through for a basically innocuous statement by Obama that Israel ought to get on with the peace process, the other Arab nations should help, and if those naughty Iranians didn't stop their nuclear weapons program in a year, he was going to get really, really peeved.And look everybody! See what good friends we are and how committed I am to Israel's security?

That's the gist of it. And with nobody actually sure that anything was resolved, so the usual pundits are resorting to the time honored tradition of Making Stuff Up, with the content depending on their particular political persuasion.

As I see it, behind the smiles very little was really decided and the very basic disagreements between Israel and the Obama Administration remain pretty much unresolved...although both sides were willing to cover this with statements that meant very little in the real world.

Netanyahu chiefly wanted to discuss Iran, which he correctly sees as the key to peace and stability in the region and to take on the ridiculous notion promoted by Obama of linking dealing with Iran's nuclear ambitions with the creation of a second Arab Palestinian state.

Obama's goal was to come up with some Israeli red meat for hisforthcoming speech to the Muslim world in Cairo, perhaps by pressuringNetanyahu to recognize a two state formula for a Palestinian state based on the Saudi peace ultimatum....and to dissuade Netanyahu from taking out Iran's nukes.

While neither got what he wanted,Netanyahu likely came out slightly ahead, largely because he had the most ammunition for his arguments (probably including messages from Egypt's President Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah, both of whom he met with shortly before the trek to Washington) and because Obama's avenues for forcing Israel to do his bidding at this point are limited.

The Sunni Arab autocracies are absolutely appalled at the idea of a resurgent Shiite Iran armed with nukes, particularly the Saudis. The Eastern part of Saudi Arabia near the Persian Gulf is where Saudi oil is located, and it's mostly populated by Saudi Shiites who are treated as second class citizens. The Saudis are terrified that the Iranians could foment unrest there, or use their nuclear weapons to blackmail them and the other Sunni Persian Gulf Emirates by threatening to close down the narrow Shatt Al Arab and cut off oil shipments. During the G-20 summit in Europe, Obama attended ( site of the famous bowing incident) back in April, my sources tell me that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia had a fairly forceful conversation with Obama on the sidelines about his Iranian non-policy.

The Egyptians and Jordanians are likewise concerned. Egypt's HosniMubarak worries that a nuclear armed Iran could empower Hamas and its parent organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, his main political opposition, at a time the aging Mubarak is attempting to hand over power to his son Gamal ( AKA 'Jack') without major domestic violence from an Iranian proxy. That's precisely why the Egyptians have cracked down onHamas and the weapons smuggling from Iran in a huge way lately.

Aside from it's own Muslim Brotherhood problem, Jordan's King Abdullahand a Bedouin minority rule over a country that is 8o% Palestinian and live if fear of an Iran backed Palestinian Hamastan trying to destabilize Jordan as Arafat and the PLO once attempted to do back in 1970.

There's also the little matter of what amounts to a major collapse inObama's Middle East policies.

His efforts to move Syria out of Iran's orbit has largely failed, as I or anyone else with knowledge of the region and the players could have told him. The original idea Obama had was to bribe the Syrians and moderate Hezbollah by increased Western recognition and by forcing Israel to give back the Golan heights.

Basher Assad deliberately torpedoed that by announcing that no talks with Israel would be held unless the Israelis agreed to pull out of the strategic Golan Heights beforehand. That's roughly equivalent to a real estate deal where one side signs over the deed to the other free and clear before any price or terms are discussed, and no Israeli government(or indeed anybody) would ever agree to that kind of precondition short of a complete military defeat.

Obama's attempt to move Syria closer to the West by midwifing a closer relationship with US 'ally' Turkey likewise failed and the Turkish-Syrianrapprochement Obama put together by promoting joint military exercises between the two and allowing massive arms sales by Turkey to Lebanon actually brought Turkey closer to Syria and Iran instead of the reverse.

As I write this, Syria and Hezbollah are hard at work rigging Lebanon's June 7th election to toss the rest of the pro-Western anti-Syrian parliament out of office and turn the country over to Hezbollah, along with the millions in aid and armaments both Obama and the Bush Administration sent there.

In Iran itself, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is expected to easily win the June 12th Iranian 'election' handily, and Iran just responded to PresidentObama's attempts at diplomatic engagement by testing an advanced ballistic missile capable of hitting Israel and southern Europe as well as US bases in the Middle East.

And I haven't even mentioned Pakistan and Afghanistan yet.

In other words, Obama has other things to worry about on the foreign policy front than a Palestinian state - especially with Hamas and Fatah still disunited and divided.

As far as pressure on Netanyahu, Obama's options are also limited.

While Obama and many of his appointees might not be particularly pro-Israel, Congress overwhelmingly is,and so is the American public. Congress will have to stand for re-election before Obama does, and it's unlikely that most of Congress would go along with an overt attempt to cut off military sales to Israel.Neither would US defense contractors, since most of the military aid to Israel is spent here.

What Obama may resort to is covert pressure, like non-support of Israel in the UN, a colder atmosphere emanating from the White House, a hold on funding for joint weapons projects like the Arrow Missile and a partial cut off of aid, like the F-22 fighter that Israel actually paid substantial money to the US to be privy to the technology and then got screwed out of. Since this is all likely to happen anyway given Obama's basic attitude towards Israel, they have very little to lose.


And ironically, the more the covert pressure on Israel is increased andsecurity cooperation and coordination lessens, the less leverage Obama is going to have on Israel. They will simply ramp up their already formidable domestic arms industry,and improvise or buy what spare parts they need for US gear under the table from places like Canada, India or Germany. That's what they did before, when the French cut off all arms shipments right before the`67 War.

And in the last analysis, if things get too dicey, Obama will simply have alienated another US ally, who may very well go looking for some new best friends.

Both Netanyahu and Obama know all this, which is why Netanyahu came away from their meeting without promising to evacuate Jews from Judea and Samaria ( AKA the West Bank) or overt support for a Palestinian State. Instead he mouthed a desire for further negotiations, which was meaningless because Israel still insists on the Roadmap obligations of the Palestinians being carried out - which isn't going to happen anytime soon-and because he still insists that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state, which will also never happen anytime soon.

On the other hand, Netanyahu did not get a commitment out of Obama to deal with Iran in any meaningful way. What Obama essentially told him was that he'll take another look at things at year's end and see where they are, which meant absolutely nothing, except that the US is prepared to accept a nuclear Iran if it means being able to extricate US forces from Iraq, Afghanistan and the rest of the Middle East. Iran is not going to be any more interested in curbing their nuclear weapons program in December than they are now.

Likewise, Obama did not get what he wanted from Netanyahu. He obviously was unable to get a commitment out of the Israeli leader not to settle Iran's nuclear threat himself, which is why he's resorted to having people like Joe Biden and CIA chief Leon Pannetta play boogyman with threats about what might happen if Israel decided to take out Iran's nukes.

And since Netanyahu refused to provide any red meat for Obama to throw to the Arab street, President Obama decided to provide some himself, contradicting Netanyahu and explicitly issuing a statement that the Palestinians need not recognize Israel as a Jewish State.

That won't make front page news here, but you can bet it will in Cairo and Ramallah.Which was entirely Obama's intention .

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