By DORE GOLD, JPOST

Amidst the major developments of the last few weeks surrounding Iran and the opening of the UN General Assembly, the Quartet - representing the US, the UN Secretariat, the EU and Russia - issued a new policy statement in New York on September 24 about the state of Israeli-Palestinian contacts that was extremely disturbing. Surprisingly, it has received little if any notice in the mainstream media.

As usual, the Quartet meeting in New York that issued the statement was held at a very senior level - including UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, along with the US special envoy George Mitchell, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, the EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, and Tony Blair, the Quartet representative.
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By Ted Belman

“It’s the economy, stupid” is a to the point saying that a politician’s chances of getting reelected, rise and fall with the economy and not foreign affairs. Thus it is in every politicians interest all over the world to curry favour with the Muslims and not the Jews, with “Palestine” and not Israel.

A couple of years ago, David Nagger, a practising attorney in the US, wrote A Case for a Larger Israel. He sent me a copy and I linked to the internet copy of it under Selected Israpundit Articles in the right hand column. Click on “Larger Israel”.

He called me recently to tell me he is visiting Israel and would like to get together. So I read the book. In a word, “excellent”.

As a case in point, I refer you to the chapter Do not expect an equitable solution. Expect one guided by self interest.

Because of what motivates politicians and countries, Israel will never win the propaganda war. While better PR may influence some voters and politicians, countries will be loath to embrace Israel’s case for fear of economic retribution. The same goes for supporting their own case by resisting Islamification. The economic retaliation would be too great. Not only do they not support Israel but they actively undermine her. No reiteration of the justice of Israel’s case will have any effect.

Nagger argues the case for a larger Israel as Israel’s only salvation.

‘In a generation or two, the US will ask itself: who lost Europe ?’

Here is the speech of Geert Wilders, Chairman, Party for Freedom, the Netherlands , at the Four Seasons, New York , introducing an Alliance of Patriots and announcing the Facing Jihad Conference in Jerusalem .

The speech was sponsored by the Hudson Institute on September 25.

Dear friends,

Thank you very much for inviting me. I come to America with a mission. All is not well in the old world. There is a tremendous danger looming, and it is very difficult to be optimistic. We might be in the final stages of the Islamization of Europe. This not only is a clear and present danger to the future of Europe itself, it is a threat to America and the sheer survival of the West. The United States as the last bastion of Western civilization, facing an Islamic Europe.
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The data reported here are from the 2009 Annual Survey of American Jewish Opinion, sponsored by the American Jewish Committee. Among the topics covered in the present survey are U.S.-Israel relations, the Arab-Israel conflict, and the Iran nuclear threat. Many of the questions appearing in the survey are new; others are drawn from previous American Jewish Committee surveys, including various Annual Surveys of American Jewish Opinion carried out between 1979 and 2008.

How does one reconcile these two responses.

Do you approve or disapprove of the Obama Administration’s handling of US-Israel relations?,

54% approved
32 disapproving.

Do you agree or disagree with the Obama Administration’s call for a stop to all new Israeli settlement construction?

51% disapprove to
41% approved

In fact there are many responses which make you wonder how Obama can still have a 54% approval rating. Mind you, 78% voted for him.
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by Rabbi Jon Hausman (October 2009), New English Review

[Delivered at the Stop Islamization of America launch in the Rayburn House Office Building, 25 September 2009]

I am currently studying the Jewish tort laws contained in the Rabbinic tractate Baba Kamma. The tractate itself contains all kinds of abstruse cases dealing with damages and liability under specific circumstances.

Torts can be perpetrated by a person against another, or by one’s property (for example, an ox) against the person or property of another. There can be some sort of damage, yet the defendant can still be exempted from monetary compensation. The Halacha/principles of Jewish law in this regard also recognize damages and compensation for damages to one’s reputation, dignity…perhaps, caused by embarrassment or slander. There is punishment for striking one’s parent (death) or violating some specific law related to the observance of the Jewish Sabbath which, in fact, calls for the imposition of the death penalty according to the Torah (e.g. intentionally starting a fire on Shabbat).
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“Why Didn’t You Tell Me U.N. Council Declared Israel Guilty From the Start? Why Did You Humiliate Me?”

Geneva, September 29, 2009 — The U.N. Human Rights Council plenary witnessed a dramatic face-off today when the head of its controversial “fact-finding” mission on Gaza — in which Israel was declared guilty from the start — was unexpectedly confronted by one of his own witnesses.

In a surprise appearance arranged by the Geneva human rights organization UN Watch, Dr. Mirela Siderer — an Israeli doctor who was brutally disfigured in 2008 by a rocket attack fired from Gaza into her Ashkelon medical clinic — pointedly accused Goldstone of ignoring her July oral testimony in his report, and of failing to disclose material information concerning the prior statements of the Human Rights Council and panel members declaring Israel guilty in advance.
The speech was published in full today by Canada’s National Post, and covered widely in Switzerland, Israel and worldwide.

Sitting on the dais, Goldstone was visibly shaken by Dr. Siderer’s challenge and scrambled for a copy of her speech. His response to the plenary ignored 7 of her questions, and inadequately responded to the 8th. See full text and video below. For UN Watch’s play-by-play Twitter of today’s heated debate, click here.

by Bill Levinson

During his appearance at the United Nations, Barack Obama envisioned a world without nuclear weapons. We think we found this imaginary world and where it came from, as shown in the animation below. Meanwhile, with due credit to Jefferson Airplane for the original,

The red pill makes you larger
And the blue pill makes you small
And the pain pill that Barry will give you
Won’t do anything at all
Go ask Barry
When he’s ten feet tall (Read more…)

[This picture reminds me of the horror movie "Zombies marching to death".}

The next video is about the English Defence League. They aim to stand up to Islamic intimidation.

[Bibi can't yield on settlement construction or '67 borders or rejecting Olmert's offer. If Abbas wants a state it has to be on our terms. ]

Israel envoys head to U.S. for talks on relaunching peace talks
By Barak Ravid, Haaretz Correspondent

Israel and the U.S. will continue their talks in Washington on Wednesday on bridging the open issues between Israel and the Palestinian Authority that are delaying the relaunching of peace negotiations.

Formulating the framework for the negotiations and the “terms of reference,” or the opening conditions, are the focus of the talks in Washington. At the same time the sides will continue negotiating the terms of the settlement construction freeze.
(Read more…)

The following is a translation by the author of the article.

Goldstone’s Unconscious Humor

By Amnon Rubinstein

It is not true that the Goldstone report is exclusively anti-Israeli. After having established that Israel is guilty of crimes against international law and (possibly) humanity, after advocating punishing it with and arsenal of all conceivable sanctions, it also chides the Palestinians for some inappropriate measures taken by them.

First, there is Hamas. Goldstone does not let them go Scot free. Thus he blames the Hamas for a grievous offense:

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By Ted Belman

It took Israel awhile to learn not to apologize as they did immediately after the al Dura and Al Qana episodes. But it still goes against the grain.

Obama has made apologies an art form thinking his apologies will do wonders.

Dan Freidman writes

Here’s what Ze’ev Jabotinsky wrote on the subject in 1911
[Written almost 100 years ago by Zev Jabotinsky, the greatest political mind the Jews have ever produced. No wonder distorting his ideas and suppressing his blessed memory have been an urgent project for the assimilated cringers, leftists and spineless liberals who claim to be our “leaders.” Ironic too, that today, in death, embracing his spirit is the only way the Jewish state can save itself. df]

Instead of Excessive Apology

by Zev Jabotinsky, 1911

We do not have to account to anybody, we are not to sit for anybody’s examination and nobody is old enough to call on us to answer. We came before them and will leave after them.
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(Israel Government Press Office)

Four sources comment on the Iranian nuclear threat:

Haaretz writes: “Yom Kippur 2009 bore two pieces of news for Israelis. The bad news was Iran’s ground-to-ground missile test. The good news was that the Western powers are facing off against Iran and threatening to increase sanctions against it following the discovery of a secret uranium enrichment facility near the holy city of Qom. Under these circumstances, Israel should support Obama and give him the chance to exhaust the move combining dialogue with the threat of sanctions. This is not the time for Jerusalem to threaten and badger. The Iranian threat is not only Israel’s problem, it’s that of the entire international community. It’s best for Israel if the issue is dealt with on an international level.”
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By George Friedman | Stratfor Intelligence ! September 28, 2009

During the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, now-U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said that like all U.S. presidents, Barack Obama would face a foreign policy test early in his presidency if elected. That test is now here.

His test comprises two apparently distinct challenges, one in Afghanistan and one in Iran. While different problems, they have three elements in common. First, they involve the question of his administration’s overarching strategy in the Islamic world. Second, the problems are approaching decision points (and making no decision represents a decision here). And third, they are playing out very differently than Obama expected during the 2008 campaign.

During the campaign, Obama portrayed the Iraq war as a massive mistake diverting the United States from Afghanistan, the true center of the “war on terror.” He accordingly promised to shift the focus away from Iraq and back to Afghanistan. Obama’s views on Iran were more amorphous. He supported the doctrine that Iran should not be permitted to obtain nuclear weapons, while at the same time asserted that engaging Iran was both possible and desirable. Embedded in the famous argument over whether offering talks without preconditions was appropriate (something now-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton attacked him for during the Democratic primary) was the idea that the problem with Iran stemmed from Washington’s refusal to engage in talks with Tehran.
CONTINUE

by Bill Levinson

The political Left likes to equate Presidents it doesn’t like, especially Republicans, to Herbert Hoover. The truth is that Hoover was one of America’s better Presidents who found himself (like George W. Bush) in circumstances created by greedy and irresponsible speculation in the stock market and/or real estate. (Democrat Bill Clinton was similarly in the wrong place at the wrong time when the dot-com market crashed.) Hoover’s successor, Franklin Roosevelt, did not get the United States out of the Great Depression; the Second World War, which suddenly created millions of jobs in defense industries and the Armed Forces, did.

Let’s compare the actual records of Barack Hussein Obama and Herbert Clark Hoover respectively. (Read more…)

A picture taken in 1943 of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin el-Husseini reviewing Bosnian-Muslim troops - a unit of the “Hanjar (Saber) Division” of the Waffen SS which he personally recruited for Hitler.

Arab leaders and media outlets have long been addicted to comparing Israel to the Nazi regime, while at the same time demeaning the extent of the Holocaust. This obsession with defaming and antagonizing the Jewish people and state was on full display in recent months and reached a crescendo – or rather nadir – the day before Pope John Paul II visited the Temple Mount during his Holy Land pilgrimage. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Ekrima Sabri, just hours before hosting the Pope, gave a series of press interviews, first telling the AP: “The figure of 6 million Jews killed during the Holocaust is exaggerated and is used by the Israelis to gain international support… It’s not my problem. Muslims didn’t do anything on this issue. It’s the doing of Hitler who hated the Jews,” asserted the acid-tongued Mufti – a figure appointed by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. “Six million? It was a lot less,” Sabri repeated for an Italian newspaper. “It’s not my fault if Hitler hated the Jews. Anyway, they hate them just about everywhere.” The Mufti finished the day with Reuters, charging, “We denounce all massacres, but I don’t see why a certain massacre should be used for political gain and blackmail.” However, as a matter of record, there was a well-documented, thriving relationship between the Arab/Muslim world and Nazi Germany, with perhaps the most significant figure linking Hitler to the Middle East being none other Sabri’s very own predecessor, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin el-Husseini. Here is a brief review of that dark, overlooked chapter in history.
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Multi-culturalists distort Nazi past to placate Muslims in Germany

By Robin Shepherd

What happens when multi-culturalist, anti-Israeli pieties clash with a full and rounded rendition of the Nazi past? If recent events in Berlin (of all places) are anything to go by the answer may be as follows: important truths will be denied so that those multi-culturalist, anti-Israeli pieties may be preserved.

In the most important commentary on the subject for quite some time, Daniel Schwammenthal of the Wall Street Journal Europe relates a story about such events which everyone should read and internalise. It is not only shocking in itself, it holds up an image of one of Europe’s possible futures.
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[Salim Mansur is a Pakistani Muslim who has lived his adult life in Canada. He teaches at the U of Western Ontario and is a syndicated columnists. He often writes in defense of Jews and Israel.]

By SALIM MANSUR, SUN MEDIA

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked the assembled representatives of the UN member states in New York this week, “Have you no shame? No decency?”

The answer is “no”. For in inviting once again holocaust-denier and Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to address the General Assembly, the majority of member states confirmed how greatly anti-Semitism is now institutionalized at the UN.

Only a few representatives led by Canadian delegates walked out on Ahmadinejad’s speech and, thereby, “stood up for moral clarity” in Netanyahu’s words.
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Best Wishes for the Jewish High Holidays

Todd and I would like to offer our best wishes to the Jewish community as they celebrate the High Holy Days. With the celebration of the Jewish New Year this week and the observance of the Day of Atonement next week, we are reminded of the hopeful commitment to renewal and peace exemplified by the Jewish tradition and the Jewish people throughout history.

Yom Kippur, the most solemn and important of the Jewish holy days, is a time of reflection and supplication for forgiveness. The timeless human struggle to promote justice, harmony, and peace is seen here in this process of atonement – in humbly seeking pardon for past wrongs in the hope of a new beginning. It reminds us that if we wish to co-exist globally, we must all strive for forgiveness and tolerance.
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By Ted Belman

I was invited over for Shabbat lunch yesterday and there was a lawyer there whose specialty is international law and who’s employer is the Foreign Ministry of Israel. On the matter of occupation he was of the opinion that its too late for Israel to deny that she is an occupier. I disagreed with everything he said but couldn’t get him to debate with me. He was definitely giving me the governments line. I told him that that kind of thinking got us where we are today. I asked him whose land are we occupying and he declined to answer.

Perhaps the reason for asserting that we are occupiers was to avoid pressure for enfranchising the Arabs and creating a bi-national state.. By embracing the status of occupier, we are only subject to pressure for a two state solution. We spend forever, almost, arguing about borders, Jerusalem and refugees. To this list Netanyahu has added demilitarization and recognition as a Jewish state.
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Obama Will Disappoint Europeans As Post-American World Emerges
By MARK STEYN, IBD Editorials

Half a decade or so back, I wrote:

“It’s a good basic axiom that if you take a quart of ice cream and a quart of dog feces and mix ‘em together the result will taste more like the latter than the former. That’s the problem with the U.N.”

Absolutely right, if I do say so myself. When you make the free nations and the thug states members of the same club, the danger isn’t that they’ll meet each other half-way but that the free world winds up going three-quarters, seven-eighths of the way.
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