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Prez. Incapable of making rational decisions Frolicking in the Quicksand: How the Obama Administration Keeps Making Huge Mistakes in the Middle East By Barry Rubin thelastcrusade.org Of course, the Obama Administration has its defenders. They either ignore criticism of the Administration’s foreign policy or claim it is all partisan and ideological. And yet the truth is that if you watch the government's policy on a daily basis it is truly remarkable how many dumb, avoidable mistakes are made.I won’t supply a long list here but instead will talk about the latest one. Let’s take it step by step to...

In another in a long series of swift kicks to Israel and American Jews, the Obama Administration has announced that it is slashing the guest list and budget for its 2009 Hanukkah celebration. According to the Jerusalem Post the guest list is being cut in half causing some American Jews to wonder if Obama is giving them the cold shoulder... again. In case no one has been paying attention, President Obama has been slighting Israel and American Jews since before he became president. His pick of Samantha Power, the Palestinian apologist, for his Mid East policy team was a fine...

My wife and I were in Israel in 1966, passing from Jordan into Israel. We went through the Mandelbaum Gate, prayed at the Wailing Wall, visited holy sites, including Gordon’s Calvary where we observed the communion sacrament with friends. Since then it has pained me to think Israel would lose any of that land fought for. I believe it was a miracle that they won that war in six days.

Representatives from the United States, Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia are scheduled to meet today in Brussels to discuss future steps to dissuade Iran from developing the capacity to build nuclear weapons. Our message to the world leaders: If you want peace, prepare for war.

Former US vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin disagrees with the Obama administration's demand that Israel halt settlement construction, although her reason for that opinion is puzzling to some (or at the least demonstrates she's not familiar with the term "natural growth" that much of the debate has revolved around). Palin debates Biden in St.... She told Barbara Walters on ABC's Good Morning America this week that she disagrees with the White House because all the Jews moving to Israel need a place to live. "I disagree with the Obama administration on that," Palin told Walters. "I believe that the Jewish...

US President Barack Obama has warned Israel that its policy of ignoring US pleas and continuing to expand housing in sensitive areas of Jerusalem could end up being "very dangerous". Israel yesterday rejected the condemnation of the Obama administration and other world leaders and proceeded to demolish two Palestinian homes -- bringing to seven the number of Palestinian homes demolished this week in east Jerusalem. Mr Obama, in his strongest condemnation yet, warned that the development of 900 new houses in the disputed Jerusalem suburb of Gilo could "embitter Palestinians". He said it made it difficult to resume any peace...

Israel bashing, Houston hair care executive Farouk Shami, is throwing his hat into the ring and has stated that he is 100% sure that he will be the next Governor of Texas. Here is one of his past comments. "Polls show that our unquestioning support of Israel fuels anti-American sentiment in the Arab and Muslim worlds." If he wins, I am sure that he will get along just fine with Muslim Congressman Keith Ellison. Democrat Joins Gubernatorial race, Says He’ll Spend $10 Million in Primary November 19, 2009 by TMO Houston hair executive Farouk Shami says his focus is stimulating...

For the past couple of months I have worried about the risks of a failed presidency. No one should want this, regardless of party affiliation. It is harmful and dangerous to our economy and country. However, it appears obvious to me that the royal regime known as Obama has ended. Seth Leibsohn writing in the National Review summarized it this way: "This is reminiscent of the Jimmy Carter years - the last time the U.S. was seen as weak - unable to move and coax other countries, unable to reassure dependent allies, unable to have the respect of the world...

Dsvid Littman, 75, was awarded the Order of "Hero of Silence" last Summer 2009 by the Israeli Mossad for having been an undercover volunteer helping 500 children leave Morocco clandestinely in 1963. The Order of "Hero of Silence" is a very rare award. Only nine people have received it, seven whose identities remain classified. "drzz.info" obtained exclusive photographs of this private event taking place at the heart of Israel's intelligence community and featuring Ephraim Halevy, the Mossad's former director general, and the current Mossad's deputy director whose face has been "blacked" for confidentiality restrictions.

The Great Rift Valley extends some 4,000 miles southward from Syria north of Israel, through the Gulf of Aqaba, through Ethiopia, and all the way to Mozambique in southeast Africa. It harbors a giant fault, which has been under investigation as a model for sea floor spreading. A recent geologic event rent a gaping crack through the desert of Ethiopia, causing safety concerns for locals. These crustal plate motions may foreshadow rifting events further north in the Great Rift Valley...

Once again, US President Barack Obama has demonstrated his intention of "putting light" between America and Israel. His hostility toward Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu during the latter's visit to Washington this week was breathtaking. It isn't every day that you can see an American president leaving the prime minister of an allied government twisting in the wind for weeks before deciding to grant him an audience at the White House. It isn't every day that a visiting leader from a strategically vital US ally is brought into the White House in an unmarked van in the middle of the night...

US President Barack Obama is an extremely intelligent man surrounded by equally intelligent advisers, many of whom have years of experience dealing with the Middle East. His continued misreading and misunderstanding of the Israeli public is, therefore, somewhat baffling. This misread was evident again in the past few days by the US objection to the Jerusalem Municipal Planning Committee's approval of a plan to build some 900 new units in Gilo - not in a far-flung settlement overlooking Nablus, nor even in one of the settlement blocs like Gush Etzion, nor even a Jewish complex in one of the Arab...

Tiny survivor doesn't remember Mumbai attack By AMY TEIBEL (AP) – 14 hours ago KFAR CHABAD, Israel — Moshe Holtzberg celebrated his third birthday on Wednesday the way many Jewish children do — he got his first haircut. He appeared not to recall the tragic events of a year ago, when his parents were killed in a terror attack in Mumbai, India. Surrounding the smiling tot were his grandparents and Sandra Samuel, the caretaker who brought him home to Israel after the attack on the Jewish outreach Chabad House in Mumbai. Hundreds joined them at the group's Israel center, a...

A Gaza charity headed by the interior minister of Hamas yesterday offered $1.4 million to any Arab citizen of Israel who abducts an Israeli soldier. Palestinians have frequently called on Israeli Arabs to abduct soldiers, but this is the first time money has been offered.

In today's interview with ABC's Barbara Walters, Sarah Palin was asked about her opinion regarding Obama's position on Israeli "settlements". Her response was the most decisive and unequivocal of any conservative politician: "I disagree with the Obama administration on that," Palin told Walters. "I believe that the Jewish settlements should be allowed to be expanded upon, because that population of Israel is, is going to grow. More and more Jewish people will be flocking to Israel in the days and weeks and months ahead. And I don't think that the Obama administration has any right to tell Israel that the...

Lawmaker decries U.S. demand to halt Jewish construction - JERUSALEM – A member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party today slammed as "racist" President Obama's longstanding demand for a halt to Jewish construction in the strategic West Bank and eastern sections of Jerusalem. "President Obama should not interfere with the rights of the Jewish people to live in Jerusalem," said Likud Knesset Member Danny Danon. "This ... is a racist demand, saying that Jews cannot live in Jerusalem, only Arabs." Danon continued: "Our duty is to the nation that chose to deepen the settlement across Judea and Samaria, and...

In recent years there has been a significant rise in the number of non-Palestinians who describe themselves as "pro-Palestinian" activists. These people can be found mostly on university campuses in North America and Europe. What is striking is that many of these "pro-Palestinian" activists have never been to the Middle East, let alone the West Bank or the Gaza Strip. In most cases, they are not even Arabs or Muslims. What makes them "pro-Palestinian"? In their view, inciting against Israel on a university campus or publishing "anti-Zionist" material on the Internet is sufficient to earn them the title of "pro-Palestinian."...

Google Earth is helping Jews in Israel and all over the world understand the miraculous victory of the Jews over Greek invaders 2,000 years ago thanks to the initiative of a rabbi who brings history back to life on the computer.

Have you ever seen so much hatred for, and vitriolic criticism of, someone who had only a brief stint on the national political stage? More than a year after the presidential election in which Sarah Palin, as the GOP nominee for Vice-President, campaigned for about three months, she is still being pilloried by the left-wing loons as though she had been elected and were actively engaged in dismantling the liberal establishment. Not a day goes by in which we don't hear or read vicious attacks on a woman who represents the wholesome conservative values of Middle America -- values that...

There is no place outside the US (where, in view of the likelihood of Senate approval of health reform, the situation is a bit different) where people are not disappointed in President Barack Obama. This is not an entirely justified disappointment: Anyone with eyes, particularly here in the Middle East, should have known that his commitments and style could not produce the results he promised. True, the man has vision, charisma and natural leadership qualities, but the trees he has climbed are too high. If Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, for example, truly believed that Obama would succeed in completely...

(IsraelNN.com) White House officials told the New Republic magazine this week that the Obama administration has been embarrassed at least twice by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, for revealing in public information and policies that the State Department was supposed to keep private between Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and the U.S. According to the sources, Clinton was not supposed to reveal publicly the U.S. demand that Israel institute a total building freeze in Judea and Samaria, fearing that it would lead to a confrontation with Israel – which it did, after U.S. President Barack Obama publicly backed Clinton. The second...

(IsraelNN.com) While the U.S. debate continues as to whether Maj. Nidal Hassan’s murder of 13 soldiers in Texas this month was a terrorist attack, researcher Barry Rubin says the murderer himself provided the affirmative answer. Maj. Hasan, who is now facing charges of having murdered 13 and wounded 29 in the Fort Hood shooting attack of Nov. 5, delivered a lecture in June 2007. His topic was: Islam, the complete subservience demanded by Allah and Muhammed, and threats that the American military might encounter from Muslims conflicted about fighting wars in Muslim countries. Hassan’s slide show can be seen here....

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House said on Tuesday that it was "dismayed" over Israeli approval to expand the Gilo settlement in Jerusalem and sharply criticized the ongoing evictions and demolition of Palestinian homes. "At a time when we are working to relaunch negotiations, these actions make it more difficult for our efforts to succeed," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said in a statement. U.S. President Barack Obama has urged Israel to curb settlement expansion as a gesture of goodwill to Palestinians in an effort to restart the peace process. Israel on Tuesday approved the building of 900 homes...

MEMRI: Palestinian Historian Dr. Ibrahim Al-Sinwar: Ancient Egyptians Had the Right to Force the Jews to Work Building Pithom and Raamses; Benjamin Franklin Warned against the Jews MEMRI No. 2260| November 16, 2009 Palestinian Historian Dr. Ibrahim Al-Sinwar: Ancient Egyptians Had the Right to Force the Jews to Work Building Pithom and Raamses; Benjamin Franklin Warned against the Jews Following are excerpts from an interview with Dr. Ibrahim Al-Sinwar, a lecturer on Islamic history at the Islamic University of Gaza. The interview aired on Al-Aqsa TV on July 31, 2009. To view this clip, visit http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/2260.htm Dr. Ibrahim Al-Sinwar: The...

At their convention this past August, Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah faction of the PLO officially endorsed a recognized terrorist organization as the "military wing" of Fatah. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. These jihadists have been responsible for gruesome "jihad in the way of Allah" suicide bombings. They also openly serve in Abbas PA security services. Some of them have also bragged about the military training they recieved courtesy of your U.S. tax dollars and General Keith Dayton. Gen Dayton, an American version of Glubb Pasha. A top Fatah leader, Muhammad Dahlan, acknowledged that Fatah has never recognized Israel's right to exist.Abbas and Fayad's Fatah...

Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Silvestre Reyes (D-TX) issued the following statement regarding the postponement of a full Committee briefing on information related to the Fort Hood shooting: Here's the full text: "Due to the high visibility of the issues surrounding the tragic event at Fort Hood, the President has instructed the National Security Council to assume control of all informational briefings.

A White House spokesman on Wednesday condemned a decision by the Israeli government to proceed with settlement expansion in Jerusalem. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the administration is “dismayed” by the Jerusalem Planning Committee’s decision that moved “forward on the approval process for the expansion of Gilo in Jerusalem.” Gilo is a neighborhood in Eastern Jerusalem. Gibbs said the move would hamper future peace negotiations in the Middle East the administration is trying to move forward. “At a time when we are working to re-launch negotiations, these actions make it more difficult for our efforts to succeed,” Gibbs...

Rabbi Yaakov Levi had moved to Sunshine, Florida, a small town near Miami, to bolster the Jewish community in the area. Rabbi Levi, whose nickname was Yankee, was twenty-four and slim, with a full, dark beard. His soft brown eyes were magnified by a pair of thick glasses. He was accompanied by his young wife, Rebecca. She was warm-hearted, and generous, but not at all shy about speaking her mind. Together they started a synagogue, Congregation Bais Simcha. The small congregation loved their young rabbi and rebbetzin. By the end of their third year in Sunshine, Rebecca had given birth...

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad published a plan in August 2009 to unilaterally declare statehood after a two-year state-building process. The Fayyad plan involves numerous governance components that already exist within the various frameworks composing the Oslo Accords, which already enable the Palestinians to develop their state-building capabilities within the peace process, and not necessarily as a unilateral initiative outside the process. The only valid legal framework between the Israelis and the Palestinians remains the 1995 Interim Agreement, which represents the source of authority for the existence of the Palestinian governance and its component institutions. The Interim Agreement established that:...

Israel Aerospace Industries has signed a $350 million deal with Brazil to supply Heron unmanned aerial vehicles to patrol the South American nation's borders and provide security for the 2014 World Cup tournament and the 2016 Olympic Games. All told the state-run company, flagship of Israel's defense industry, will provide 14 drones over several years, three of them by April 2010. The deal comes amid a big surge in sales of Israeli UAVs worldwide, particularly with nations providing military forces in Afghanistan where UAVs have become a major component in the war against the Taliban and their jihadist allies. The...

Israel ranks fourth in the world in scientific activity, according to data compiled for by the Council of Higher Education. The data, which dates to 2005, puts Israel behind Switzerland, Sweden and Denmark in terms of the number of scientific publications per million citizens. The report was released at a conference at Bar-Ilan University yesterday. In 2005, Israeli scientists published 6,309 essays in foreign scientific journals. Following Israel were Finland, the Netherlands and Canada. The United States placed 12th, and Germany, 15th.

Increasingly irate over a delayed arms deal, Iran has threatened to manufacture an advanced missile system itself if Russia does not deliver it to Tehran soon. The warning, sounded by Alaeddin Bouroujerdi, a senior Iranian lawmaker, was the latest in a series of threats by Iranian officials angered at Russia for delaying delivery a much-vaunted missile sales agreement. "Iran is not a country to come to a halt in the face of non-cooperation of other countries," Bouroujerdi was quoted as saying in a local newspaper. "Naturally, and in light of Iran's capabilities, it will be able to produce missile defense...

James Galyean wrote a post on Friday afternoon that I think we probably ought to focus on a bit more. The left is celebrating Barack Obama’s decision to send Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to New York City for a criminal trial in a civilian court. In fact, since Friday I have gotten a lot of hate mail from leftists saying I must not trust our due process system. The problem, however, is just the opposite. I very much trust our due process system to be exceedingly fair to a terrorist who will put great value in his opening statement. But, that...

Research Agency raised concern about possible further secret nuclear sites, Reuters reported quoting an IAEA report obtained by the news agency on Monday. According to the report, Iran told the IAEA it had begun building the site at Qom in 2007 - but the IAEA, the United Nations' global nuclear proliferation watchdog, had evidence the project had begun in 2002, paused in 2004 and resumed in 2006. The report said Iran had provided full access for IAEA inspectors on their first visit to the Qom site three weeks ago, but had yet to provide full, credible answers to verify that...

“King David and King Solomon lived merry, merry lives, With many, many concubines and many, many wives. But when old age crept after them, with many, many qualms, King Solomon wrote the Proverbs and King David wrote the Psalms.” There are several versions of this anonymous rhyme, but the problem, some biblical archaeologists argue, is that there is little evidence that either king existed: archaeological remains have been assigned to their reigns on the basis of cryptic verses in the Old Testament, and then used to “prove” the date of similar buildings at other sites. Until 15 years ago, Professor...

What did the U.S. military offensive against Shiite militias in Sadr City in April 2008 and the Israeli offensive against Hamas in Gaza last December have in common? A lot, apparently, and both operations are being held up by their respective militaries as models for a new way of battling irregular fighters in urban strongholds. Central Command chief Gen. David Petraeus likes to put up a PowerPoint slide in public briefings detailing the forces, intelligence and surveillance assets involved in the Sadr city battles as representative of a new way of fighting. “This is the answer,” Petraeus said at a...

An Iranian former deputy defense minister who has been missing for nearly three years was abducted by Israeli agents and is now being held in Israel, several Iranian news Web sites reported Sunday. Ali Reza Asgari, a retired general who served in Iran's Revolutionary Guard, disappeared while on a private trip to Turkey in December 2006. In March of this year, a former German Defense Ministry official said Asgari had defected and was providing considerable information to the West on Iran's nuclear program.

The Technion Institute of Technology in Haifa has inaugurated an advanced laboratory for an innovative cancer treatment using nano-particles of gold, and laser beams. The treatment is non-invasive, has no side effects and damages only the cancerous cell, without damaging the healthy cells that surround it...

TEL AVIV – A top Palestinian Authority negotiator told WND that the Obama administration won't stand in the way of a Palestinian threat to unilaterally ask the United Nations to recognize a Palestinian state outside of negotiations with Israel. Despite widespread assumptions the U.S. would veto any such U.N. Security Council resolution, the PA negotiator said that in initial discussions, the Obama administration did not threaten to veto their conceptual unilateral resolution. "The U.S. told us that they prefer a negotiated settlement with Israel, but if we (Palestinians) insist on a resolution, the Americans will not necessarily reject it," the...

Nov 14, 2009 17:25 | Updated Nov 14, 2009 17:29 Iran has completely rejected a UN-brokered nuclear deal, but US President Barack Obama has postponed the official announcement on Teheran's refusal due to internal political reasons, Israel Radio quoted a senior western official as saying Saturday. The deal would see most of the Islamic Republic's uranium shipped to Russia and France for further processing. The official reportedly told journalists in Paris that Iran has also refused to resume nuclear talks with the six world powers.

Former U.S. president Bill Clinton on Sunday said that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict could possibly be solved during President Barack Obama's tenure, and urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Obama to maintain a policy of honesty during their private talks with each other. The visiting former president, who said Saturday that peace could have been achieved had then-prime minister Yitzhak Rabin not been slain, told Israeli journalist Nahum Barnea: "You should not think that President Obama is your enemy."

"There is no substitute for negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority and any unilateral attempts outside that framework will unravel the existing agreements between us and could entail unilateral steps by Israel," Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told a high level gathering of Israeli and American policy makers at the Saban Forum in Jerusalem on Sunday night.

The days of quiet diplomacy between the government of Israel and the New York Times are over. Israel has declared an uprecedented war against the New York Times, for what it calls tendentious and unfair coverage of the Jewish state. At the focus of the storm is the Goldstone report. The Israeli delegation in the UN sent an official complaint to the newspaper's editorial board. The complaint, signed by the Israel UN delegation's spokeswoman, Mirit Cohen, says that the newspaper uses subjective negative language about Israel and failed in writing fair and accurate coverage. The New York Times has yet...

Joel Brinkley is a former foreign correspondent for the New York Times and now a professor of journalism at Stanford University Now we can say, with no real doubt, that the Obama administration has suffered its first major foreign-policy failure, and it's hard to see a way to recover. In fact, the administration's Mideast strategy has been nothing short of a debacle, borne of inexplicable naivete. Couldn't they see that presidents going back more than two decades had asked Israeli and Arab leaders to make exactly the same "gestures" - and none of those presidents had succeeded? Certainly it is...

Police of the Judea and Samaria district raided homes of a number of right-wing activists believed to be responsible for operating Kach and Kahane Chai websites. The webmasters were taken into custody. Both Kach and Kahane Chai, organizations promoting the ideology of late Knesset Member Rabbi Meir Kahane, were outlawed by Israel in 1994 (Rabbi Kahane was murdered by an Islamist terrorist in New York in 1990). The police operation, codenamed "Trojan Horse", was the result of a three-month investigation. Police stated that the operation was carried out with the cooperation of Interpol. As a result of the operation, police...

RABBI FIRST U.S. VICTIM OF JIHAD KAHANE CEREMONY OFFENSIVE TO OBAMA thelastcrusade.orgAny commemoration in the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) of the anniversary of Rabbi Meir Kahane's assassination would be harmful to the peace process, the American Embassy told The Jerusalem Post.The American comments came after the Jerusalem Post obtained e-mails in which an embassy official told Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin's office that any plans for such a ceremony was "something that Senator [George] Mitchell and his team are following with concern."The e-mails also implied that such a ceremony would be frowned upon by President Barack Obama who is attempting to...

CHRISTIANS ALERT MORE TROUBLE IN THE HOLY LAND byPaul L. Williams, Ph.D. thelastcrusade.org War is looming in the Middle East.But the cause, according to Arab experts, will be neither the creation of a Palestinian state nor the emergence of a nuclear Iran.It will arise from the shortage of water.The region's worsening water situation, exasperated by global warming and burgeoning populations, already has created civil unrest which, experts fear, will ignite into armed conflicts - - including a clash between Israel with neighboring Lebanon and Egypt. Jordanian political science professor Ghazi al-Rababah says that Israel will be the first to...

Breitbart has uncovered then Senator Obama claiming while discussing that the Military Commissions Act of 2006 that 9-11 mastermind KSM will get a MILITARY trial, not a CIVIL trial and that such was good

The leader of the Lebanese group Hezbollah has accused Barack Obama, the US president, of "absolute bias" in favour of Israel and of disregard for the dignity of Arabs and Muslims. In a televised speech on Wednesday, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said Obama has gone further than his predecessor, George Bush, in supporting the Jewish state adding that the high expectations that followed Obama's election had been "shattered".

Once again, US President Barack Obama has demonstrated his intention of "putting light" between America and Israel. His hostility towards Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu during the latter's visit to Washington this week was breathtaking. It isn't every day that you can see an American President leaving the Prime Minister of an allied government twisting in the wind for weeks before deciding to grant him an audience at the White House.