The beat goes on. In the last edition we reported that our local Jewish newspaper, Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle (WJC), published an objectionable article by Abraham Foxman who discounted the threat of Sharia Law to our freedoms in the USA and across the Western world. In the same issue the WJC published a letter to the editor that simply repeated the words and concepts of an article published two editions previously in the WJC. Both the original article and this letter wrote many things concerning Obama and his relationship with Israel that were misleading or false. While we have no intention of passing these lies along any further, there is one issue that must be refuted and publicized given the outragiousness of the lie and the importance of the issue for Israel's security.

   In response to the problem described above we submitted the following letter to the editor to the WJC, which was rejected.

   Over the last two months in the WJC an article by Stuart Eizenstat and a letter by Morton Rotter stated that "Obama fought for and secured full funding for Israel in fiscal year 2011 appropriation bill, which includes $3 billion in Foreign Military Financing - the largest amount of funding for Israel in US history".
   According to a report entitled "US Foreign Aid to Israel" published on September 16, 2010 by the Congressional Research Service by Specialist on Middle East Affairs, Jeremy M. Sharp, the description of Obama's role in foreign aid to Israel by Eizenstat and Morton is highly misleading if not false.
    U.S military financing of Israel began at over $2 billion over 30 years ago as part of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty of 1979. According to Sharp: "In August 2007, the Bush Administration announced that it would increase U.S. military assistance to Israel by $6 billion over the next decade. The agreement calls for incremental annual increases in Foreign Military Financing (FMF) to Israel, reaching $3 billion a year by FY2011".
    Therefore, not only did Obama not fight for and secure $3 billion for Israel in 2011, it was Bush who did the fighting and securing. In addition, this aid reached its highest level ever in 2011 not because of Obama, but because of Bush. At best it can be said that Obama did not fight against this increased aid or veto it.
   The security of Israel is essential for us so it is extremely important that we speak and write accurately about this issue and give credit where credit is due and to not obfuscate for political reasons.

   This letter was rejected by the WJC because of WJC policy. That is, the WJC does not allow a letter (#3) to be published that was written against a letter (#2) that was written against a letter (#1) that was written against an article. However, of course in this case the letter #2 was actually simply a repeat of the original article. This letter added absolutely nothing new and even plagiarized the original article. In addition, of course by publishing the original article and the supporting letter, the WJC had published an outragious falsehood twice.

   The editor of the WJC was disturbed that we called the WJC a liberal newspaper given that it published an extremely liberal and highly objectionable article by Foxman, but this latest incident puts the lid on the coffin of that moniker.  The events  above prove quite convincingly that the WJC treats conservative viewpoints and conservative writers far differently than liberal ideas and liberal writers.

   We suspect that this problem is not unique to Milwaukee but occurs in most Jewish newspapers funded by the Jewish Federations across the USA. If this problem were just a curiosity, it would matter not. However, we are referring to a major issue related to the actions of the President of the USA with respect to the military security of Israel as well as the election process.

    We have published many articles and much proof that Obama has been one of the worst presidents for Israel, and the election for president is only one year away.  It is a major issue if the major Jewish newspapers in the USA attribute the largest military support for Israel to Obama when in fact it was Bush who instituted this policy. This is even more disturbing given the fact that Obama has given Israel only about $200 million in military aid over the past three years, yet he has allowed Israel's sworn Arab enemies to buy over 1000 times that amount of military hardware. This problem is compounded when it is understood that the military hardware given to Israel is designed to defend Israel against small rockets and mortars and is totally ineffective in defending against the offensive military hardware sold to Israel's enemies.

   The WJC as well as other major Jewish organizations, e.g., Jewish Federation, need to wake up. The grassroot of Jews are waking up, but our Jewish leaders are mired in the failed liberal policies and attitudes of the past.  The article by Jerry Gordon below gives evidence for this, but the clearest proof comes from New York City.  In the most recent election in the 9th district in NY, where Democrats have held the seat for over 90 years, in a district that is mostly Jewish, in a district that produced Anthony Wiener and Chuck Shumer, the non-Jewish Republican beat the establishment Jewish Democratic candidate. The grass root Jews of NY went against the advice of their Jewish leaders and elected a non-Jew, because he was a conservative and an opponent of Obama.

   The WJC, the Jewish Federation, and all of the major Jewish organizations and the Jewish leadership of the USA need to wake up. The liberal Obama way is no longer the Jewish way.

CTJ

Grassroots revolt against Jewish Federations’ support of Israel’s enemies

Will the President and the Congress Send a Message to Turkey and Egypt That An Attack Upon Israel Will Be Viewed As An Attack Upon the U.S.?

By Ed Koch

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Israel is now surrounded by Arab and other Muslim nations who believe this is the moment when they can finally destroy the Jewish state. They tried and failed to conquer Israel in five different wars since 1948. They are still trying.

Since the "Arab Spring" revolts in the Arab heartland of Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Yemen and Syria, opinion-makers in the Western world have sought to glamorize those revolutions by comparing them to those by which eastern European countries freed themselves from Communist regimes imposed on them by the Soviet Union.

So when the uprisings took place against the existing repressive Arab governments, the media labeled the various revolutions the "Arab Spring." That title was intended to convey that finally, the Arabs, heretofore stuck in medieval times, had come out of those dark ages and were now to be applauded and welcomed to the western world.

Some observers, including myself, have voiced great concern about the blind support in the west, particularly in our government, for the Arab revolutionary movements everywhere. In my view, it was harmful to our own - the U.S. - national security needs to throw the President of Egypt Hosni Mubarak under the bus by demanding his removal as President Obama did. Yes, he was a despot, described as an authoritarian in a world of Muslim dictatorships, but he believed in keeping good relations with the U.S. and keeping the peace with Israel established back in 1978 by Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin at Camp David. Those who overthrew him have made clear that their intention is to end that peace. The forces that are dominant in Egypt today are the military, the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists. The goal of the military is to preserve their special niche as the principal governing power. The Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist factions are the strongest politically and most organized of all the civilian groups vying for power in the next presidential election.

As a result of the recent occupation and sacking of the Israeli embassy in Cairo while Egyptian police and army stood by, we know that the current interim Egyptian government has decided to cast aside peace with Israel and go with the Islamists. The Times of September 11th reported, "Egyptian military and security police officers largely stood by without interfering with the demolition. Instead, they clustered at the entrance to the embassy to keep protesters out. The security forces had pulled back from Tahrir Square and other areas before the start of the day to avoid clashes with the protesters, although the military had issued a stern warning on its Facebook page against property destruction." The Israeli ambassador, his family and other Israeli officials were forced to flee the embassy in fear of their lives. Because of the entreaties of President Obama to the Egyptian government, they were saved from violence and permitted to board Israeli jets to go home to Israel.

And what of the situation with Turkey? Once a friend of Israel, it now has an Islamist government led by its prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has issued a statement tantamount to a declaration of war. The Times reported on September 10th, "The prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, told Al Jazeera, the pan-Arab network, that he would use his warships to prevent Israeli commandos from again boarding a Gaza-bound ship as they did last year, killing nine passengers, and from letting Israel exploit natural gas resources at sea."

While the United Nations, not normally a defender of Israel, recently issued a report that Israel had a right to blockade Gaza so as to prevent weapons from being brought into the Gaza Strip, now governed by Hamas, Turkey has rejected the report, and expelled the Israeli ambassador. Hamas has declared that it is at war with Israel, and that if it is ever in a position to do so, it will expel every Jew living in Israel who came to Palestine after 1917, and will use violence to achieve its goals. It has intentionally killed innocent civilians, sending thousands of rockets into southern Israel or allowing other terrorist groups to do so.

In addition to Hamas on its southern border, Israel is now facing an increasingly hostile Egypt, with an army of nearly one million and a population of 81 million. To Israel's north is not only hostile Lebanon and Syria, but now Turkey with an army of one million and a population of 73 million.

It is also disturbing that there is a rising tide of Jew-hatred in Great Britain and in France. In Great Britain, that hatred was recently demonstrated by those who called themselves artists, who disrupted a concert by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Zubin Mehta in London on September 1st. The police arrested no one who for a time prevented the audience of 5,000 from enjoying the evening. No speaker supporting Israel is permitted to speak at British universities. They are not invited or hooted down if invited.

France is working with the Palestinians to achieve their admission to the United Nations General Assembly. Israel's only apparent defender on the European continent is Germany because of the continuous ongoing support of Israel by Chancellor Angela Merkel. I met and heard Chancellor Merkel in 2004 when I attended in Berlin the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) conference on rising anti-Semitism, when I served as chairman of the U.S. delegation. I was impressed by the depths of her sincerity in denouncing anti-Semitism and recognizing the depravity of the German nation under Hitler in its efforts to exterminate world Jewry.

The Muslim nations are undoubtedly licking their chops at what they would do if they were ever to be successful in defeating Israel on the battlefield or at the U.N. which is prepared to serve as the site of today's Munich. If Assad of Syria is willing to kill innocent men, women and children in the streets and cities in Syria, what do you think he would do if his soldiers patrolled Tel Aviv?

The Arab countries' threats to destroy Israel, a nation with a total population of 7.7 million, including 1.2 million Muslims, is not receiving front page coverage or denunciations from NATO nation leaders. The revolutionaries making up the "Arab Spring" are lauded by the opinion-makers here in the U.S. and even more so in Europe.

This past Sunday, we commemorated in New York City, Washington, D.C. and Shanksville, Pennsylvania the deaths of more than 3,000 innocent civilians on 9/11, committed by Islamic terrorists whose supporters run into the millions and are now located in at least 62 countries. Our NATO allies never supported the U.S. to the extent they promised when we invaded Afghanistan to punish the Afghan government for providing a refuge for al-Qaeda, which perpetrated the 9/11 atrocities and many others. In my judgment, as harsh as it sounds, many of those NATO countries, including Britain and France, would deliver the Jewish nation into the hands of their putative murderers if it gave them "peace in our time," just as Chamberlain gave Czechoslovakia to the Nazis. Are we willing here in the U.S. to continue to fight for our precious liberties and support countries like Israel having the same moral and cultural values?

We in America, led by President Obama and Congress, must make it absolutely clear to the Islamist terrorists that we will never surrender. We will hunt them down as we did their leader, Osama bin Laden, and kill them.

The U.S. is Israel's only friend and ally. It is not foolish or premature to ask what will the U.S. do when and if the Muslim nations surrounding Israel, this time led by Egypt and Turkey, supported by others, assault the Jewish nation? Will the President and the Congress come to its aid? Shouldn't Israel know now? Shouldn't the Muslim nations know?

I urge the President and the Congress to do for Israel what President Kennedy did during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. President Kennedy said "It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union."

Lessons from the embassy takeover

By Caroline B. Glick

Why both Israel and Washington should prepare for war

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | We are able to consider the lessons of the weekend's mob assault on the Israeli embassy in Cairo because the six Israeli security officers who were on the brink of being slaughtered were rescued at the last moment and spirited out of the country. If the Egyptian commandos hadn't arrived on the scene at the last moment, the situation would have been too explosive for a sober-minded assessment of the rapidly deteriorating situation with our neighbor to the south.

Any assessment of the weekend's events must begin by recounting a few key aspects of the assault. First, this was the second mob attack on the embassy in so many weeks. During the first assault, an Egyptian rioter scaled the 20-story building where the embassy is housed, tore down the Israeli flag, and threw it to the frenzied mob below which swiftly burned it. Rather than being arrested for the crime of assaulting a foreign embassy, the rioter was embraced as a hero by Egypt's military regime. The governor of Giza awarded him an apartment and a job.

Second, for six hours after the assault on the embassy began on Friday evening, Israel's leaders tried desperately to contact the leaders of the Egyptian military junta to request their intercession on behalf of the trapped security officers.


Field Marshal Muhammad Tantawi refused to speak with either Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu or Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

Third, Egyptians authorities refused to intervene to save the lives of the Israeli security officers until after the Americans intervened directly on their behalf.

That is, Israel's entreaties, and Egypt's international legal obligations were insufficient to move the Egyptian authorities to act to save the embassy personnel from the mob. Only the apparent threat of direct US action against Egypt convinced them to act.

The behavior of the Egyptian mob and military junta alike served as a wake-up call for two key constituencies.

Until last weekend, both the Israeli Left and the US foreign policy establishment believed the situation in Egypt was not significantly worse than it had been under deposed president Hosni Mubarak.

Most Israelis awoke to the fact that Israel's border with Egypt is no longer a peaceful one three weeks ago. After the Egyptian-Palestinian terror cell infiltrated Israel from Sinai on August 18 and massacred eight Israelis on the highway to Eilat, most Israelis recognized that relations with Egypt had been ruptured.

But until the weekend, Israel's Left insisted there was a distinction between the lawless Sinai and the more orderly situation in Cairo. They argued that all that was needed to calm the situation in Sinai was for the military junta to assert its authority in Sinai as it does in the rest of Egypt. Hence, the Left argued that it is in Israel's interest to amend the peace treaty and allow the Egyptian military to remilitarize the Sinai.

Since the weekend, these claims have been notably absent from the discourse. After the Egyptian military allowed the mob to take over the embassy, residual leftist faith in the junta's moderation and commitment to the peace with Israel is swiftly evaporating.

As for the Americans, unlike Israel, American foreign policy hands from across the conservative- liberal divide supported the mob in Tahrir Square that called for Mubarak's overthrow. The Americans hailed Mubarak's demise as a triumph of liberal democratic forces in the Arab world. But in the aftermath of the weekend's assault on the embassy, voices from across the political spectrum in the US are calling for a reassessment of US relations with Egypt.

For his part, Obama's willingness to intervene on behalf of the besieged security guards at the embassy was probably not divorced from his assessment of the political fallout likely to ensue from the slaughter of Israeli embassy guards by the Egyptian mob.

In such an event, the American public would immediately equate Obama's support for the "democratic, revolutionary" mob against longstanding US ally Mubarak with his predecessor Jimmy Carter's support for the "democratic, revolutionary" Iranian mob against the US-allied Shah of Iran in 1979.

The fact that Obama recognizes the political significance of the developments in Egypt signals that he too may be willing to consider adopting a different policy towards Egypt in the months to come.

All of this is important.

In the absence of a reassessment of the situation in Egypt by the Israeli Left and the American policy establishment alike, the chance of anyone adopting rational policies towards the strongest Arab state would remain small.

Any rational policy must be based on an accurate assessment of the dynamics of the post- Mubarak political situation. Specifically, is the junta part of the mob or is it simply unable or unwilling to manage it? Apparently it is a bit of both.

Like its treatment of the rioter who tore the Israeli flag from the embassy building two weeks ago, the regime's arrest in June of the dual Israeli- American citizen ` on trumped-up espionage charges is an example of the junta acting as part of the mob.

On the other hand, the regime's decision to try Mubarak and his sons in contravention of Tantawi's solemn pledge to Mubarak is an indication that Tantawi and his generals are led by the mob.

As for Grapel - and to a lesser degree Mubarak - the US's ultimate success in forcing the junta to rescue the Israelis trapped at the embassy demonstrates that the US still has significant leverage against Egypt. When it is sufficiently adamant, Washington can force the junta change its behavior.

It is not clear how much this leverage is dependent on continued US financial and military assistance to Egypt. Obviously, an assessment of its significance should guide any US consideration of reducing or cutting off that aid.

As for Israel, the mob's ability to determine the course of events in Egypt and the junta's refusal to stand up to the mob on Israel's behalf is a strong indication that the peace treaty is doomed. After the junta stood back and allowed the mob to storm the embassy, it is impossible to believe the junta will defy the mob's demand to abrogate the treaty.

The fact that the treaty is doomed doesn't mean that Israel will immediately find itself at war with Egypt - although the prospect can no longer be ruled out. The US's continued leverage against the regime - like NATO's leverage against Turkey - may very well convince the Egyptians to maintain a ceasefire with Israel.

On the other hand, US leverage may end after November's elections. The Muslim Brotherhood and its allies are expected to win a parliamentary majority and the presidency.

Given the explosiveness of the situation, it is imperative that the US not repeat its rush to action from January where without considering the consequences of its actions, Washington hurriedly sided with the Tahrir Square mob against Mubarak. The US shouldn't support elections or oppose them. It shouldn't cut off aid or increase it. It shouldn't condemn the junta or embrace it.

The Americans should simply monitor the situation and prepare for all contingencies.

As for Israel, it must prepare for the possibility of war. It must increase the size of the IDF by adding a division to the Southern Command. It must train for desert warfare. It must expand the Navy.

Thankfully, all Israeli personnel were safely evacuated from Cairo. But this happy circumstance must not blind anyone to the dangers mounting in Egypt.

The war America fights

September 8, 2011, 4:09 PM

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Ten years ago, in the shadow of the crater at Ground Zero, the smoldering Pentagon and a field of honor in Pennsylvania, America found itself at war.

Today, a decade on, America is still at war.

Ten years after the September 11, 2001, attacks, the time has come to assess the progress of America's war. But to assess its progress, we must first understand the war.

What war has the US been fighting since September 11? 

President George W. Bush called the war the War on Terror. The War on Terror is a broad tactical campaign to prevent Islamic terrorists from targeting America.

The War on Terror has achieved some notable successes. These include Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan which denied al-Qaida free rein in Afghanistan by overthrowing the Taliban.

They also include the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and his fascist regime in Iraq, which played a role - albeit far less significant than the Taliban regime and others - in supporting Islamic terrorism against the US.

Moreover, the US has successfully prevented multiple attempts by Islamic terrorists to carry out additional mass terror attacks on US territory.

This achievement, however, is at least partially a function of luck. On two occasions - the Shoe Bomber in 2001 and the Underwear Bomber in 2009 - Islamic terrorists with bombs were able to board airplanes en route to the US and attempt to detonate those bombs in mid-air. The fact that their attacks were foiled by their fellow passengers is a tribute to the passengers, not to the success of the US war effort.

The US's success in killing Osama bin Laden and other senior al-Qaida members is another clear achievement of this war.

But 10 years on, the fact that Islamic terrorism directed against the US remains a salient threat to US national security shows that the War on Terror is far from won.

And this makes sense. Despite its significant successes, the War on Terror suffers from three inherent problems that make it impossible for the US to win.

The first problem is that the US has unevenly applied its tactic of denying terrorists free rein in territory of their choosing. In his historic speech before the Joint Houses of Congress on September 20, 2001, Bush pledged, "We will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation in every region now has a decision to make: Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime."

And yet, while the US applied this principle in Afghanistan and Iraq, it applied it only partially in Pakistan, and failed to apply it all in Iran, Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority. By essentially ending its application of the counterterror tactic of denying terrorists free rein of territory and punishing regimes that provide them shelter, the options left to the US in fighting its war on terror have been reduced to catch-as-catch-can killing and capturing of terrorists, and reactive actions such as arresting or detaining terrorists when they are caught on US soil.

On the positive side, these limited tactics can keep terrorists off balance if they are applied consistently and over the long term. Taken together, the tactics of targeted killing and financial strangulation comprise a strategy of long-term containment not unlike the US's strategy in the Cold War. US containment then caused the Soviet Union to exhaust itself and collapse after 45 years of superpower competition.

UNFORTUNATELY, THE US's containment strategy in its War on Terror is undermined by the second and third problems inherent to its policies.

The second problem is that since September 11, 2001, the US has steadfastly refused to admit the identity of the enemy it seeks to defeat.

US leaders have called that enemy al-Qaida, they have called it extremism or extremists, fringe elements of Islam and radicals. But of course the enemy is jihadist Islam which seeks global leadership and the destruction of Western civilization. Al-Qaida is simply an organization that fights on the enemy's side. As long as the enemy is left unaddressed, organizations like al-Qaida will continue to proliferate.

It isn't that US authorities do not acknowledge among themselves whom the enemy is. They do track Islamic leaders, and in general prosecute jihadists when they can build cases against them.

But their refusal to acknowledge the nature of the enemy has paralyzed their ability to confront and defeat threats as they arise. For instance, US Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was not removed from service or investigated, despite his known support for jihad and his communication with leading jihadists. Rather, he was promoted and placed in a position where he was capable of massacring 12 soldiers and one civilian at Fort Hood, Texas.

Had the US not been in denial about the identity of its enemy, Hasan's victims would likely be alive today.

So too, the US's refusal to identify its enemy has made it impossible for US officials to understand and contend with the mounting threat from Turkey. Because the US refuses to recognize radical Islam as its enemy, it fails to connect Turkey's erratic and increasingly hostile behavior to the fact that the country is ruled by an Islamist government.

In the face of the rising political instability and uncertainty in the Arab world, the US's refusal to reckon with the fact that radical Islam is the enemy fighting it bodes ill for the future. Quite simply, America is willfully blinding itself to emerging dangers. These dangers are particularly acute in Egypt where the US has completely failed to recognize the threat the Muslim Brotherhood constitutes to its core regional interests and its national security.

The last problem intrinsic to the US's War on Terror is the persistent and powerful strain of appeasement that guides so much of US policy towards the Muslim world.

This appeasement is multifaceted and pervades nearly every aspect of the US's relations with the Islamic world.

The urge to appeasement caused the US to divorce the Islamic jihad against the US from the Islamic jihad against Israel from the outset.

Appeasement has been the chief motivating factor informing the US's intense support for Palestinian statehood and its refusal to reassess this policy in the face of Palestinian terrorism, jihadism and close ties with Iran.

Appeasement provoked the US to embrace radical Islamic religious leaders and terror operatives such as Sami Arian and Abdurahman Alamoudi as credible leaders in the US Muslim community. It stood behind the decisions of both the Bush and Obama administrations to embrace US affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood as legitimate leaders of the American Muslim community and to court the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood to the detriment of US ally former president Hosni Mubarak.

Appeasement stood behind the US's bid to try to entice Iran to end its nuclear weapons programs with grand bargains.

It motivated US's decision not to confront Syria on its known support for al-Qaida and Hezbollah as well as Palestinian terror groups; its proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; or its involvement in facilitating the insurgency in Iraq.

It is what has compelled the US not to seek the dismantlement of Hezbollah in Lebanon and indeed to fund and arm the Hezbollah-controlled government and army of Lebanon.

The urge to appease has motivated the US's decision to take no action to stem the advance of Iran and its terror allies and proxies in al-Qaida and Hezbollah in Latin America.

WHEN A nation engages in appeasement at the same time it wages war, its appeasement efforts always undermine its war efforts. This is particularly the case, however, in long-term wars of containment such as the one the US is fighting against Islamic terrorism.

The logic guiding a containment strategy is that an enemy force will eventually collapse if kept off balance for long enough. Given that militarily the forces of Islamic jihad are weaker than the US, it is reasonable to assume that if applied consistently for long enough, a policy of containment can indeed cause the forces of global jihad to collapse.

The chronic instability of the Iranian regime and the current unrest in Syria demonstrate the structural weakness of these regimes. The dependence of terror groups such as Hezbollah, al-Qaida and Hamas on the support of governments make clear that containment could potentially defeat them as well by drying out their support structure at its roots.

The problem is that the US's moves to appease its enemies empower them to keep fighting.

Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah are far stronger militarily today than they were on September 11, 2001. Hamas controls Gaza and would likely win any Palestinian elections. 

Hezbollah controls Lebanon.

Iran is on the verge of nuclear weapons and is poised to become the predominant power in Iraq. Its Egyptian nemesis Hosni Mubarak is gone.

Ten years ago Iran and its terror allies and proxies could have only dreamed of having the presence on the Western Hemisphere they enjoy today.

In Europe the threat of domestic terrorism is more salient than ever because the jihadist forces and leaders on the continent have been appeased rather than combated by both the governments of Europe and the US.

The US was able to win the Cold War through its policy of containment because throughout the long conflict there was strong majority support in the US for continuing to pursue the war effort. Despite the widespread nature of Soviet efforts at political subversion, US public opinion remained firmly anti-Soviet until the Berlin Wall was finally destroyed.

The US government's moves to appease its Islamic enemies undermine the domestic consensus supporting the War on Terror. And without such domestic solidarity around the necessity of combating jihadist terrorists, there is little chance that the US will be able to continue to enact its containment strategy for long enough to facilitate victory.

Even as it has continued to prosecute the War on Terror, since it came to power in January 2009 the Obama administration has worked intensively to confuse the American people about its nature, necessity and goals. President Barack Obama dropped the name "War on Terror" for the nebulous "overseas contingency operation." He has rejected the term "terrorism," and expunged the term "jihad" from the official lexicon. In so doing, he made it impermissible for US government officials to hold coherent discussions about the war they are charged with waging. Meanwhile, the public has been invited to question whether the US has the right to fight at all.

Today the events of September 11 are still vivid enough in the American memory for America to continue the fight despite the administration's efforts to discredit the war in the national discourse and imagination. But how long will that memory be strong enough to serve as the primary legitimating force behind a war that even in its limited form is far from won?

Thank you, America, for the golden age of Islam

By Diana West

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | It is something to have gone 10 years without an Islamic attack of similarly gigantic proportions to those of Sept. 11, 2001, but it is not enough. That's because the decade we look back on is marked by a specifically Islamic brand of security from jihad. It was a security bought by the Bush and Obama administrations' policies of appeasement based in apology for, and irrational denial of, Islam's war doctrine, its anti-liberty laws and its non-Western customs. As a result of this policy of appeasement -- submission -- we now stand poised on the brink of a golden age.

Tragically for freedom of speech, conscience and equality before the law, however, it is an Islamic golden age. It's not just the post-9/11 rush into Western society of Islamic tenets and traditions on everything from law to finance to diet that has heralded this golden age, although that's part of it. More important is the fact that our central institutions have actively primed themselves for it, having absorbed and implemented the central codes of Islam in the years since the 9/11 attacks, exactly as the jihadists hoped and schemed.

Take the U.S. military, symbol plus enforcer of American security.

In Afghanistan, our forces are now "trained on the sanctity of the holy book (the Quran) and go to significant steps to protect it," as the official International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) website reported last year.

Are they similarly trained to take "significant steps" to "protect" other books? Hardly. It's reckless and irresponsible to demand that troops make the protection of any book a priority in a war zone. But it's not merely the case that U.S. troops have become protectors of the Quran in the decade following 9/11. "Never talk badly about the Qu'ran or its contents," ISAF ordered troops earlier this year. Did the Pentagon restrict language about "Mein Kampf" or the "Communist Manifesto"? They, too, were blueprints for world conquest that the United States opposed. Of course not. But the Quran is different. It is protected by Islamic law, and that's enough for the Pentagon. Not incidentally, ISAF further cautioned troops to direct suspects to remove any Qurans from the vicinity before troops conduct a search -- no doubt for the unstated fear that infidel troops might defile the protected book.

None may "touch the Qu'ran except in the state of ritual purity," the Islamic law book Reliance of the Traveller declares. And "ritual purity," naturally, is a state a non-Muslim can never, ever achieve under Islam.

Since when did Uncle Sam incorporate Islamic law into military protocols?

Since 9/11.

Now take the State Department, symbol and nerve center of U.S. action on the world stage.

In July, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced a collaborative effort between the United States and the OIC, newly repackaged as Organization of the Islamic Cooperation. (It used to be "C" for Conference.) The get-together planned for Washington, D.C., is supposed to implement a non-binding resolution against religious "stereotyping" (read: Islamic "stereotyping") that passed last March at the U.N. Human Rights Council. Such "stereotyping," of course, includes everything from honest assessments of the links between Islamic doctrine and Islamic terrorism to political cartoons. This makes this U.S.-led international effort nothing short of a sinister attempt to snuff free speech about Islam. And that sure sounds like a U.S.-co-chaired assault on the First Amendment. Not only is this treachery on the part of the U.S. government, it also happens to be part and parcel of the OIC's official 10-year-plan.

Since when did Uncle Sam get in the business of doing the bidding of the OIC?

Since 9/11.

This is just a snapshot of what the rush toward Islamization as a goal of national policy looks like, 10 years since the Twin Towers collapsed in a colossal cloud of dust and fire. The air has cleared, but the appeasement and the Islamization go on. Thus, a golden age begins, but unless we throw off this mental yoke of submission, it cannot be our own.

international isolation and bullying are backfiring

By Edmund Sanders

Action and rhetoric by once friendly countries -- including the Obama White House -- are increasing resolve rather than engendering weakness

JewishWorldReview.com |

Egyptian mobs stormed Israel's Embassy in Cairo on Friday night, forcing the ambassador to flee a country that reached a landmark peace treaty with Israel in 1979. Turkey is threatening to dispatch warships off Israel's Mediterranean coast in the latest sign of deteriorating ties with the former Muslim ally.

Even American patience may be running thin, as seen in a comment leaked last week by former Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is an "ungrateful ally" whose policies are worsening Israel's international isolation.

Yet rather than spur anxiety or bolster public calls for Israel to change course, the external pressure appears to be only hardening many Israelis' resolve to do what they say they've always done: Go it alone.

"I'm not making light of the situation," said computer technician Dan Levine, sipping coffee at a cafe west of Jerusalem. "But we've been through this movie before and we'll probably go through it again. Israel's top priority is securing its interests, even if it makes other countries unhappy with us."

Despite critics' warnings that Israel is underestimating the growing threat created by the Arab Spring, Netanyahu has made clear that he, too, believes the country should stay the course in the face of growing regional uncertainty, rather than bend to outside pressure.

"In our region, peace is not made with the weak and obsequious," he said last week. "Peace is made with a strong and proud Israel."

He has resisted U.S. and European pressure to make concessions that might draw Palestinians back to the negotiating table or persuade them to abandon a plan to seek U.N. membership this month. According to the Israeli group Peace Now, settlement construction in the West Bank grew twice as fast over the last year as construction in Israel overall.

And although Netanyahu has been careful not to alienate the interim government of Egypt, the prime minister has steadfastly refused to apologize to Turkey over the May 2010 killings of nine Turkish activists who were trying to break Israel's naval blockade of the Gaza Strip. Some in Netanyahu's coalition are even calling for retaliatory moves against Ankara, such as funding Kurdish rebels or blocking Turkey's bid for the 2020 Olympics.

For many Israelis, a sense of international isolation and even persecution is nothing new. In fact, many see it as embedded in the national identity, starting with the Holocaust and flaring most recently with the Goldstone Report, which infuriated Israelis with its allegations that Israel committed war crimes during the Gaza military offensive of 2009.

"Israelis maintain a general perception that the world is hostile towards them anyway and don't believe the world would embrace them if they only changed their ways," said pollster Tamar Hermann, a sociology professor at Israel's Open University. A July poll found that only one in 10 Israelis think improving their international standing is the nation's top concern.

Some insist that Israel's isolation is being overblown by left-leaning government critics who are trying to use the regional instability as an excuse to pressure Netanyahu's government into making concessions to Palestinians.

"Those who say Israel is isolated are greatly exaggerating the situation," said professor Efraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. He said Israel is in a stronger position today than it was a year ago.

"Our rivals in the Arab world are busy with domestic problems and are less capable of mobilizing force against us," he said. "We should sit and weather the crisis. Sometimes doing nothing is the best strategy."

The Israeli public, he added, is behind the government's approach.

"Israelis are conditioned to being isolated," he said. "So what if the world thinks we're not OK? This has been our lot for 2,000 years."

Critics, however, say that such sentiments may backfire on Israel.

Opposition leader Tzipi Livni said Netanyahu's inaction in the face of the regional unrest is leading Israel into an "abyss." Haaretz newspaper columnist Zvi Barel likened Israel to a straying ship surrounded by icebergs "whose captains are confident of their ability to thread their way through, until it can no longer move."

Rather than dig in to old positions, some say, Israel should adopt a more conciliatory approach to the Palestinian conflict in an attempt to forge better alliances with its Arab neighbors, including Egypt, which saw three people killed and more than 1,000 injured in clashes that followed the attack on the Israeli Embassy.

Instead, Israel is developing a "siege mentality" that is crippling its ability to respond, said Shlomo Brom, a Mideast analyst at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.

"A sense of fatalism has developed," Brom said. "Everything is always someone else's fault. The U.S. policy is Obama's fault. The fallout with Turkey is because (Turkish President Recep Tayyip) Erdogan is an Islamist. Problems with Egypt are because of the Muslim Brotherhood. � It's a mentality that Israel is subject to greater powers and therefore it is responsible for nothing."

He said those who throw up their hands and say Israel has always been isolated internationally are forgetting the 1990s, when Israel's participation in the Oslo peace accords brought new levels of international acceptance.

The recent debate in Israel over Turkey illustrated the mood here. After Turkey expelled the Israeli ambassador and cut off military ties this month over Netanyahu's refusal to apologize over last year's flotilla incident, Netanyahu aides and many pundits insisted that an apology would not have mattered anyway because Turkey, they said, was determined to distance itself from Israel.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned against that growing sense of fatalism. "We are starting to get dragged onto a course of self-fulfilling prophesies," he said during an interview on Israel Radio.