Thursday, October 28, 2010
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
US Jews Go Right
Politico points out that nationally, Jews make up only about 2 percent of the American population but are heavily represented in big cities and have disproportionately high voter turnout rates. While Democrats do get the lion’s share of the Jewish vote, some Jewish groups such as the Orthodox Jews have shifted to the Republicans, as seen in the 2004 elections, when 70 percent of Orthodox Jews supported George W. Bush.
At the state level, the Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie attracted 38 percent of the Jewish vote in 2009. As a result, Republicans who can be competitive in the Jewish community, gain an edge against Democratic opponents, who have been taking the Jewish vote for granted.
With only a week before historical mid-term elections, it is worth paying close attention to the Jewish vote in close Senate races in states with significant Jewish populations.
For example, Politico points to "the complicated Pennsylvania race,” where Republican-turned-Democrat Jewish senator, Arlen Specter was defeated in the primaries. In Philadelphia, Democratic nominee Joe Sestak signed the “Gaza 54 letter,” which called for Washington to pressure Israel to end the Gaza blockade. This fact alone might cause the Jewish voters to vote Republican.
Other examples where Jews might vote for the Republican candidates include Florida, where former Republican-turned-independent Charlie Crist, who is being endorsed by Jewish former Democratic Rep. Robert Wexler, might split the traditionally Democratic Jewish vote with Democratic candidate Kendrick Meek, causing a boost for Republican Marco Rubio.
Closer to my heart, New Jersey’s 12th district is another important area. Scott Sipprelle is challenging Rush Holt, another "Gaza 54" letter signer. While neither candidate is Jewish, a “Rabbis for Sipprelle” group is seeking to raise awareness of Holt’s actions, another move which could help bring the district back to the Republicans.
The 9th Congressional District in Illinois is also an area to watch, as Republican Joel Pollak - who has won the endorsement of Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz - is challenging Democrat Jan Schakowsky, another Jewish candidate. Israel has become a central issue in the campaign, with Pollak claiming that Schakowsky does not do enough for Israel.
One reason for the apparent fluidity of the Jewish vote could be Obama’s perceived tough stance on Israel. The Jewish vote in America is evolving. Instead of it being monolithically Democratic there are signs that at the local and state level Jews can shift their vote enough towards Republican candidates that Democrats are forced to play defense. Jewish voters care about issues such as the economy, the deficit, and health care. “Jewish voters in state elections across the country could significantly change our political landscape in November,” according to Politico.
The Associated Press reported that both Israelis and Palestinians are closely watching the upcoming midterm race in the United States, sensing that its results could affect both the peace talks as well as Obama's ability to coax concessions from Israel.
The report said that the Arabs are hoping that Obama’s mild reaction to Israel’s refusal to continue the construction freeze in Judea and Samaria has been due to political consideration, and that he would be freer to apply pressure on Israel after the vote November 2.
An adviser for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told AP that if Congress tilts Republican, it could have what he termed a "positive impact" on Israeli concerns, meaning there would be no pressure on Israel to make concessions.
“Settlements are not an obstacle to peace in the Middle East,” says Rev. Michael Faulkner, ex- New York Jets lineman, an evangelical minister and candidate for Congress. When asked about President Obama's plans to compel the Netanyahu government to extend the freeze on settlement construction in Judea, Samaria and parts of East Jerusalem, Faulkner replied, “I am tired of hearing the words 'occupation' and 'return to 1967 borders' when it comes to defining Israel because that simply is not the case. Israel is not an occupying power and thus anyone who says that Jewish settlement construction is an obstacle to peace in the Middle East is just using that as a smokescreen. The real obstacle to peace in that region are terrorists such as Hamas, Hizbullah and other Iranian proxies."
Expressing anger at the view of the Obama administration as it pertains to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Faulkner stated, "Obama has participated in the delegitimization of Israel through his maltreatment of our best friend and stalwart ally in the region. By doing so he helps to fuel feelings of anti-Semitism."
Rev. Faulkner is fighting to unseat Charles Rangel, a Democrat and a political icon in Manhattan's 15th congressional district, which includes the upper West Side, Harlem and Washington Heights. Rev. Faulkner's candidacy has received endorsements from Fox TV commentator Sean Hannity, National Right to Life parties, Newt Gingrich. the New Era Democrats, the Black Republicans PAC, the Frederick Douglass Foundation and more than a dozen Christian churches, ministries, clerics and community groups.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
America Supports Israel, Rejects Obama's Policies
46.5% said they believe Obama's attempt to reach out to the Muslim world has left America less secure, while 33.1% said they believe America is now more secure.
59.8% expressed support for destroying Iran's nuclear facilities in order to prevent the creation of a nuclear weapon, if sanctions fail.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Jewish Support for GOP on the Rise
The plunge in Jewish support for Obama can be traced to plenty of reasons besides his pro-Arab policies and utter incompetence (overwhelmingly demonstrated during the Gulf Oil spill). The American Thinker news editor Ed Lasky writes that the failing Obama economic policies have a disproportionate and negative effect on American Jews.
The alarm bells went off in Democratic circles last week when the Pew Research Center reported that the number of Jews supporting Republican candidates or independents has jumped 50% since Obama was elected nearly three years ago.
A poll conducted last April by McLaughlin & Associates revealed that while 78% of American Jews voted for Barack Obama, only 42% would consider voting for him again.
Claims that Jews are pro-Israel, with the insinuation that they profess dual loyalty, were championed last Saturday in an op-ed by New York Times columnist Charles Blow. The duplicity and dishonesty of the leftist “drive-by” media is appalling, of course, since the same charge is not made against Latino Congressmen, many of whom have made immigration reform (i.e. blanket Amnesty) a top priority. The hidden anti-Semitism of the left is sometimes hard to confine.
As many Jews are owners of small businesses in the US, “Obama Care,” economic policies aimed against small businessmen, proposed higher taxes on high-income owners and capital gains will hit Jews much harder than other sectors in American society.
Small business owners are the unsung heroes in America; they generate most of the private-sector jobs. They also lead generally very stressful lives -- trying to deal with the challenges of competition, labor relations, customer service [and] risks of bankruptcy. Through his anti-capitalist policies, Barack Obama and the Democrats have just loaded onto their shoulders many more problems.
“Obama Care” will negatively affect Jews more than others for two reasons: they are the oldest ethnic group in America and also include a disproportionately high percentage of American doctors.
Older people have often relied on the health of the stock market to cushion their retirement years. That cushion has deflated this year under the multiple blows administered by Barack Obama and the Democrats…. The market started to tank because investors saw a bleak future for free enterprise in the Age of Obama… “Obama Care” will suppress the freedom of doctors, load them up with additional paperwork and patients, and will eventually hit their bottom line.”
“Jews are as American as everyone else,” the article concludes. “When they see their lives being harmed, their interests being ignored, and their dreams being dashed to death by Democrats, they respond just as other Americans do. They express their concerns and seek to protect their future in that most American of places: the voting booth.”
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Stimulus Plan for...Kenya
Everyone knows that the country is rapidly approaching a financial abyss. That however, does not mean that the Obama regime cannot pump money into...Kenya.
In response to recent inquiry started by Reps. Chris Smith (R-NJ), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) and Darrell Issa (R-CA) the U.S. Agency for International Development admitted to spending more than $23 million of U.S. taxpayer money to influence voters in Kenya to pass a highly contentious constitution. The investigation revealed that the Obama regime has secretly funded a "Yes" vote on a constitutional referendum (scheduled for Aug. 4) that would increase access to abortions in Kenya and establish legal status for Islamic law tribunals.
The proposed constitution would water down the existing abortion law and would grant legal status to what are known as "Kadhi Courts," constituting an Islamic judicial structure within the overall structure of the Kenyan legal structure.
In the 2007 presidential campaign in Kenya, Raila Odinga – the presidential candidate of the Orange Democratic Party and a Luo tribesman, like Obama's father – signed an undisclosed memorandum of understanding with radical Muslims in Kenya to expand Islamic law within the country in exchange for Muslim support of his candidacy.
Many Kenyans believe the provision in the proposed referendum that would establish Kadhi Courts is a fulfillment of the agreement Odinga made with Sheik Abdullah Abdi, the chairman of the National Muslim Leaders Forum.
Obama's links to Odinga
The Obama administration's funding of Kenyan internal politics appears to follow a pattern then-Sen. Obama first set on his 2006 Senate-funded visit to Kenya.
During that trip, Obama campaigned so openly for Odinga that Kenyan government spokesman Alfred Mutua went on Kenyan television to object that Obama was meddling inappropriately in Kenyan politics.
In a horrifying incident following the election, at least 50 people, including women and children, were killed when an angry mob forced Kikuyu Christians into an Assembly of God church in the village of Eldoret, about 185 miles northwest of Nairobi. The mob set fire to the church, hacking with machetes any of the Christians who attempted to escape the flames.
Instead, Obama worked with former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to end the violence by creating for Odinga the position of prime minister – a position not defined in the Kenyan constitution – so Odinga could become co–head of state with Kibaki.
Your tax dollars at work in...Kenya.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Dangerous Naïveté or Hidden Enmity?
Lets see if you can answer this short quiz:
1. Which organization is most responsible for the wave of kidnappings of Westerners in Lebanon in the '80s?
2. Which organization is responsible for the 1983 bombing of the US Embassy and the Marines barracks in Beirut which killed 241 Americans?
3. Which organization kidnapped and murdered US Marine Col. William Higgins and the CIA Beirut station chief William Buckley?
4. Which organization is responsible for the 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy and the Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires which left 85 innocents dead?
If you answered Hezbollah to all of the above, you were right, if not, you were either uniformed or chose to oversee the facts....Much like Obama's "counter-terrorism" chief, John Brennan. Recently, he announced that the Obama administration wants to "try to build up the more moderate elements" within Hezbollah!
In a murderous group officially labeled as a "foreign terrorist organization" by the U.S. State Department, closely tied to Iran, which funds and supplies it and third most responsible for American casualties (after Al Qaeda and Taliban), a deluded Administration wants to “build up (…) more moderate elements”.
Brennan is quoted as saying that Hezbollah has evolved from "purely a terrorist organization" to a militia to an organization that now has members within the parliament and the cabinet. Does that mean that a moderate wing of Hezbollah now exists or does this mean that a terrorist group has infiltrated the government of Lebanon?
When a terrorist group takes on quasi-governmental characteristics, as Hamas has done in Gaza, or forces its way into elected positions in a weak state, as Hezbollah has done in Lebanon, that is not "evolution" - it is another step toward those groups' original goal: bringing down a fledging democracy and replace it with an Islamist government. The Nazis in the 1930’s Germany employed similar tactics and used democratic institutions in order to destroy democracy.
Brennan has a history of controversial judgement to say the least. In a speech last February to the Islamic Center at New York University, Brennan said, "And, in all my travels the city I have come to love most is Al-Quds, Jerusalem, where three great faiths come together." Al-Quds, the Arabic name for Jerusalem, is an Islamist rallying cry. The Ayatollah Khomeini declared the last Friday of Ramadan "Al Quds Day “- "The Day of the Oppressed". Maybe someone should have reminded this rambling idiot that The “Al Quds Brigades” is the name of the "military wing" of a Palestinian Islamist terrorist group and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps has a secret “Al Quds unit”, that coordinates with its terrorist proxies such as Hezbollah. For an American counterterrorism official to use such a weighted phrase to gratify a Muslim audience is not only troubling, it’s either proof of dangerous naïveté or down right stupidity (or both).
In the mean time, his boss, the most anti-Israel President in this country’s history pressures Israel not to build in….Al-Quds.
It is hard to believe that an “expert” in counterterrorism and the Middle East, as Brennan purports himself to be, could be so blind to the reality of Hezbollah, or to the real and growing danger of Iranian power in the region. It so hard to believe that the only other logical conclusion would be that Brennan knows exactly what he is saying and reflects the growing anti-Israel position of his boss, while at the same time, trying to appease the Islamo-Nazis. Reaching out to "build up" imaginary moderates in Hezbollah can only strengthen the Iranian regime, as Obama’s impotent policies toward Iran in the last 17 months have already done, while playing to the far left base of the Democrat Party by showing that the Administration is “building bridges” with the murderers.
Since Brennan is the subject of media speculation as a possible replacement for outgoing Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, we should all be deeply troubled that a man in whom Obama places such confidence advances such a misguided and out of touch view of our nation's enemies.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Why Didn't Obama Mention Islam?
The Saudi owned newspaper, published in London, ran an op-ed last week under the headline "Why Didn't Obama Mention Islam?." The Obama administration has broken from the Bush government’s policy of using the term “Islamic terrorism” in official documents and "no longer [is] responding to extremist voices" that call for targeting home countries of terrorists, the article explained.
Echoing views in the Muslim worls, the newspaper sees Obama carrying out his pledge in his “reaching out to Muslims speech” at Cairo University in June 2008. Regarding Obama's statements on the botched Times Square bombing, the editor praised him for not once referring to prime suspect Faisal Shahzad’s as being a Muslim and for not “mentioning Islam in discussing the terrorist operation."
The same approach was taken after the failed Christmas Day bombing by Nigerian Muslim Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalib. “Obama spoke about the detained terrorist as a member of the Al-Qaeda organization but he did not speak about him being a Muslim. (...) Even when he spoke about Al-Qaeda, Obama noted that it was not the first time that the network had targeted America, ignoring the links that were made in the past between the organization and Islam or when it was put in the context of 'Islamic extremism.'"
Similarly, after the Fort Hood, Texas attack by a Muslim terrorist who murdered 13 people last November, “President Obama 'cautioned against jumping to conclusions’” and did not refer to the terrorist's Arab origin or religion.
The article did not mention that most, if not all, Arab terrorists are indoctrinated by Muslim extremism. Instead, the editor argued that describing terrorists as Muslims actually provokes more terror. “There is recognition today of the fact that terrorists are benefiting from the creation of an anti-Islamic and anti-Muslim atmosphere after any terrorist operation, and that issuing statements or taking steps that target Muslims employed by extremist groups further spreads hostility against the U.S., the West, and even moderate Islamic states,” he reasoned.
The writer argued that “the identity of the terrorist does not necessarily implicate the country he belongs to, in the same way that other adherents of the religion the terrorist follows should not be condemned."
He accused former President George W. Bush of being “captive to the Big Stick policy and slogans of 'you're either with us or against us,' which caused the popularity of the U.S. to wane, not only in the Islamic world but in numerous countries around the world." In contrast, he continued, “The new president has extended his hand to the Islamic world,… and the tendency to link every terrorist operation to the religion of the perpetrator has disappeared.”
The policy of appeasment towards Islamic fascism, the pre-911 mentality together with a wilful attitude of denying reality and hiding from facts are a dangerous characteristic of this Administration.
Monday, May 10, 2010
US Jews Start to Wake Up
There are signs that American Jews are (finally) starting to wake up and see the Obama Administration for what it really is: a radical, anti-Israel Administration.
A recent poll by the McLaughlin Group shows that Obama has lost nearly half of his support among American Jews.
The US Jews polled were asked whether they would: (a) vote to re-elect Obama, or (b) consider voting for someone else. 42% said they would vote for Obama and 46%, a plurality, preferred the second answer. 12% said they did not know or refused to answer.
In the Presidential elections of 2008, 78% of Jewish voters, or close to 8 out of 10, chose Obama. The McLaughlin poll held nearly 18 months later, in April 2010, appears to show that support down to around 4 out of 10.
The poll showed that key voter segments including Orthodox/Hassidic voters, Conservative voters, voters who have friends and family in Israel and those who have been to Israel, are all more likely to consider voting for someone other than Obama.
Among Orthodox/Hassidic voters, 69% marked 'someone else' vs. 17% who marked 're-elect.' Among Conservative-affiliated voters the proportion was 50% to 38%. Among Reform Jews, a slim majority of 52% still supported Obama while 36% indicated they would consider someone else. Among Jews with family in Israel and those who had been to Israel, about 50% said they would consider someone else, while 41%-42% supported Obama.
Although 50% of the Jewish voters polled said they approved of the job Obama is doing handling US relations with Israel (!?!), 39% said they disapproved.
For a group of voters that have been traditionally Democratic (only 16% of US Jews are believed to be Republican), this rating is not good news.
A majority of 52% said they disapproved of the idea of the Obama Administration supporting a plan to recognize a Palestinian state within two years. 62% said that if given a state, “the Palestinians would continue their campaign of terror to destroy Israel.” Only 19% thought they would live peacefully with Israel.
As Obama loses support among members of the influential Jewish voter bloc, possible Republican candidate Sarah Palin seems to be doing her best to woo them to her camp. At Time Magazine’s May 4 dinner honoring the ‘100 Most Influential People in the World,’ she was sporting a US/Israel flag pin.
Meanwhile, Barack Obama is widely perceived to be behind the de facto construction freeze in eastern Jerusalem. The construction freeze sought by Obama is discriminatory, as by law, the entire city of Jerusalem is under Israeli sovereignty, and no distinction should be made between various neighborhoods.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Hitler's Children
65 Years have passed and the world is quiet once again. On this Yom Ha'Shoah (Day of Holocaust Remembrance), we remember the evil so that it can never raise its head again. We pay homage to the victims and teach the young what happens when evil is appeased.
Hitler's Children is a powerful documentary about the children of the monsters and the children of the survivors. For them, the Holocaust never really ended:
CLICK TO PLAY
PM Benyamin Nethanyahu: "The World is silent and putting up with Iran's declarations of genocide against Israel".
Pres. Shimon Peres: "We should not go back to indifference"
Chief of General Staff Gabi Ashkenazi: "We will not stand defenseless once again".
Monday, March 1, 2010
The Week of Hate
“Apartheid Week” is an annual event organized on college campuses in the United States, Canada and elsewhere by extreme anti-Israel groups.
The week-long event includes lectures and exhibits aimed at convincing students that Israel is a racist, colonial state. Participants are asked to sign a document opposing Zionism while supporting the creation of a state for Palestinian Authority Arabs. Although its organizers would like to paint this event as a legitimate form of political protest, it is nothing more than an orgy of anti-semitic hate, wrapped up in "anti-Zionist activism" meant to de-legitimize the State of Israel.
Bnei Brith Canada called this week to ban “Apartheid Week” events completely: "Today's resolution is an important first step towards what must be an outright ban of 'Israel Apartheid Week' and other similar events on campus whose raison d'etre to promote hatred, and whose activities invariably encourage harassment and intimidation of Jewish students,” Bnei Brith stated in a press release.
The organization Stand With Us took a different approach, urging students to “Use the Apartheid weeks ahead as a wonderful opportunity to teach the campus and local community about apartheid that exists today, in a majority of Middle Eastern countries where human rights abuses are commonplace... Simultaneously, encourage students and community leadership to stand up to misinformation about Israel.”
Stand With Us has produced a booklet titled “Middle East Apartheid Today” to counter Apartheid Week criticism of Israel. The booklet describes the oppression of black citizens of South Africa under apartheid and compares it to the situation of women, homosexuals, religious minorities, and reformists in countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia.
The booklet is available on the Stand With Us website.
The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) has also put materials online to assist those interested in countering anti-Israel rhetoric. The site, www.israeliapartheidweek.com, includes information on the radical nature of Apartheid Week, the double standard implicit in criticizing Jewish self-determination and not that of other national groups, and genuine oppression elsewhere in the Middle East.
The legislature of Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, and major Canadian dailies have railed against the use of the term ‘apartheid” and the "Israel Apartheid Week” campaign. However, 500 Montreal artists rallied behind an anti-Zionist call to boycott Israel.
Ontario’s resolution condemned the annual anti-Israel event, which opened this week.
In the predominantly French-speaking city of Montreal, 500 artists, including several left-wing Israelis, promoted a petition supporting "Israel Apartheid Week" and backing the Arab claim of the "right of return” for millions of Arabs claming ancestry to those who fled Israel during the wars in 1948 and 1967. Ample historical evidence has shown that the Arab world encouraged most of them to leave to allow the Arab Legion to complete what it thought would be the annihilation of the Jewish State.
Writing in a column published from Vancouver to Montreal, Leonard Stern wrote that Israel Apartheid Week gives Israel the “assigned the role of Jew among the nations — singled-out, cursed and harassed….The whiff of something medieval hangs over this March ritual. This isn’t about Jews, say the organizers. It’s about Zionists. Problem is, the activist groups behind Israeli Apartheid Week are doing everything to erase the distinction.”
He pointed out that an Ottawa research group in 2008 refused to promote a lecture on African development “because Jewish students at the University of Ottawa happened to be organizing it. The event had zero connection to Israel but [the group] said it wouldn’t partner with the Jewish students’ union due to the latter’s 'relationship to apartheid Israel.'”
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Who Are You, Mr. Goldstone?
The US House of Representatives has rejected as "irredeemably biased" the findings of a UN-sponsored report which says Israel committed "war crimes" during its last military operation in the Gaza Strip (code named "Cast Lead").
The report, also known as "Goldstone Report", named after Richard Goldstone, a South African judge who headed the panel, accused Israel and (to a much lesser extent, the Hamas terrorist group) of war crimes during the 22-day conflict in December and January 2007-2008. It has been characterized as "a distorted picture" by Steny Hoyer, the Democrat House majority leader. Steven Rothman, a Democratic congressman from New Jersey said that the report "was not written to talk about 12,000 rockets intentionally sent by Hamas to slaughter Israeli men, women and children, versus the Israelis trying in many respects to minimize the damage to Palestinian civilians."
Israel refused to collaborate with the biased "investigation" and around the world, many voices were heard in defense of Israel and the IDF ("IDF is the most moral army in the history of warfare"). But many others took the opportunity to lash out against Israel and to use the conclusions of the report in order to further their anti-Israel (and often anti-Semitic) agenda, using charges of "war crimes" against the Jewish State.
Goldstone maintains his objectivity and impartiality. A recent article in the Israeli daily "Israel Ha'Yom", however, uncovers another side of Mr. Goldstone....
It seems that the "impartial" and "objective" judge Goldstone is anything but. According to the "Im Tirtzu" group, Goldstone was a member of the "International Center for Transitional Justice", a far left group masquerading as working "to redress and prevent the most severe violations of human rights", but has a history of accusing Israel of some of the worst abuses of human rights. On its website, the group quotes Goldstone as lamenting that he cannot understand how "Jews can act with racism".
Goldstone served in the Board of Directors of "Human Rights Watch" (although his name was removed from the organization's website after the group "Monitor NGO" publicized the judge's links with HRW). In its March 2009 report, HRW accuses Israel of "war crimes" during its "Cast Lead" operation in Gaza.
Today, Goldstone belongs to "Doctors for Human Rights", another self proclaimed global human rights organization which has a history of accusing Israel in the past of "violations of international human rights".
Impartial and objective? Goldstone's bias and lies are shameful to the very least.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Another Obama Anti-Zionist Jew
The Czar of Czars (no, it's not the Russian Czar) has gotten himself also an "Anti-Semitism Czar", as if 32 other useless, unelected czars with quasi-dictatorial powers were not enough (for a list of the 32 Obama "czars", go here).
This one is Hannah Rosenthal, a member of the "J Street" advisory panel and an ex-member of the Board of Directors for the left wing "Americans for Peace Now".
Only a month after her investiture by His Highness the "Czar of Czars", Rosenthal went to attack. Not against the rising Anti-Semitism in Europe or the insane "blood libels" washing the Western and Muslim press...No...Her first target is none other than Michael Oren, Israel's Ambassador to the US, who dared to turn down a "J Street" request to be a key speaker at its first annual conference, refused to attend the event and voice remarks against the far left group.
Rosenthal, in turn, said that Oren "would have learned a lot" had he participated in the conference. Her words prompted a storm of protests, best voiced by Harvey Schwartz, head of American Israeli Action Coalition (AIAC):
"As a high ranking member of the Obama Administration, Rosenthal's criticism of the Israeli Ambassador to the US is beyond bizarre and highly offensive in the extreme. It is a virulent anti-Israel attack which AIAC interprets to be anti-Semitic."
Instead of fighting Anti-Semitism, the ideologue Rosenthal is actually promoting it!