Behind The Iron Curtain

DARPA tests a US version.



H/T Talk Polywell

Instability Is Becoming Unstable

Instability in the Middle East is nothing new. It is a feature of the region. So where is it going? The always/sometimes/never reliable Debka Files reports/propagandizes/misinforms on the situation in Turkey.

Both Tehran and Ankara have no doubt that the intelligence data released to them by the US military in the course of the counterinsurgency campaign is partial and limited. The complete picture remains exclusively in American hands. , Turkey sought the deployment of US Predators on its soil to fill the gap. That request was spurned until Prime Minister Erdogan backs away from his aggressive stance against Israel.

For those reasons, Turkish Interior Minister Idris Naim Sahin announced Tuesday that his country would launch a cross-border ground offensive against the PKK in northern Iraq at any time.

Our military sources report that Ankara is pondering the same sort of campaign as Israel launched in Gaza against Hamas terrorism in Dec. 2008. It aims to demonstrate Turkey's ability to defeat the Kurdish rebels without US or Israeli drones.

Israel was wrongly accused of threatening to play the Kurdish card against the Erdogan government in reprisal for those threats. The fact is that Turkey is playing the Kurdish card against itself.

Well political/military/economic stupidity is never in short supply in the Middle East. I expect we will see a flowering of same in short order. Followed by a flowering of the graves of the fallen. A kind of devilish symmetry.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Why Turkey Is Causing Trouble With Israel

Turkey is seriously saber rattling with Israel. Why you ask? The usual reason. Economic problems at home.

...the Turkish market has lost two-fifths of its value in dollar terms, and the Turkish lira has fallen farthest of the world's major currencies, close to its 2009 crisis low. Turkey's financial unraveling has only begun. On March 1, I warned that Turkey was "a developing market to avoid". With the carnage in global markets, Turkey's problems barely made the back pages. But the strategic importance of Turkey's currency route will become a major theme for foreign policy during the next several weeks.

It looks like the foreign policy implications are already with us.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Egyptians Attack Israeli Embassy

Egyptian protesters have attacked the Israeli Embassy in Egypt. What were they mad about (other than the usual)?

"This action shows the state of anger and frustration the young Egyptian revolutionaries feel against Israel especially after the recent Israeli attacks on the Egyptian borders that led to the killing of Egyptian soldiers," Egyptian political analyst Nabil Abdel Fattah told Reuters.

Egyptian police stood aside as activists tore down the concrete wall to the cheers of hundreds of demonstrators.

Well what about those recent attacks?

At least seven people have been killed in a series of attacks on vehicles in southern Israel, Israeli medics say.

The attacks began when gunmen fired at an Israeli bus that was travelling near the Egyptian border.

Officials said two other vehicles were hit - one by a rocket and one by an explosive device - and that several gunmen died in an ensuing firefight.

And the gunmen (seven of whom were killed) were Egyptian soldiers? OK.

So who were they? Really.

Israeli officials said the gunmen came from the Gaza Strip and had entered Israel through Egypt's Sinai desert.

"The real source of the terror is in Gaza and we will act against them with full force and determination," said Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak.

He also said that the "incident underscores the weak Egyptian hold on Sinai and the broadening of the activities of terrorists".

A lot of excitement there. But so far no major casualties. If you count seven dead as minor.

Things are looking to get more exciting between Israel and Turkey.

"Turkey raising naval presence amid tension with Israel," by Pinar Aydinli for Reuters, September 6:

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey is freezing defense trade with Israel and stepping up naval patrols in the eastern Mediterranean, highlighting a potentially destabilizing rift between the two major U.S. allies in the Middle East.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's threat on Tuesday to send warships into waters where Israel's navy operates raises the risk of a naval confrontation between the two powers.

But that is not the only risk.

Turkey will be escorting the next Gaza flotilla.

"Turkish warships will be tasked with protecting the Turkish boats bringing humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip," Mr Erdogan told the Arabic television network Al Jazeera.

"From now on, we will no longer allow these ships to be the targets of attacks by Israel like the one on the Freedom Flotilla, because then Israel will have to deal with an appropriate response."

You know. I think this means war.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Trash No Longer Welcome

Palestinian Trash that is. And not just left overs and waste products. It is the Palestinians themselves.

The mufti of Lebanon, Sheikh Mohammed Rashid Qabbani, was quoted this week as saying that Palestinians are no longer welcome in his country.

He also condemned Palestinians as “trash” and said that he’s not afraid of their weapons.

Sheikh Qabbani’s remarks were made during a meeting he held in his office in Beirut with a Palestinian delegation representing refugees and various Palestinian factions in Lebanon.

The furious mufti later kicked the Palestinian representatives out of his office.

Apparently he has a problem with the Palestinian sense of entitlement.

The meeting was called to discuss Palestinian “assaults” on state-owned and Islamic Wakf lands in Lebanon.

“We’ve hosted you and no longer want you,” the mufti told stunned members of the Palestinian delegation.

Accusing Palestinians of “usurping” Wakf lands to build houses, Sheikh Qabbani told his visitors: “I will defend Wakf lands even if that costs me all what I have.”

Attempts by the Palestinian representatives to clam the mufti further enraged the top religious official, who at one point shouted at them: “You are trash. You [Palestinians] will never be victorious. Nor will your cause. I’m no longer afraid of your weapons.”

The Palestinians keep getting kicked out of where ever they wind up. The Saudis got rid of theirs. The Kuwaitis got rid of theirs. And the Lebanese may be next. Too bad the Israelis are stuck with theirs.

Huge Oil Discovery In The Middle East

Saudi Arabia? Nope that has already been picked over. The "new" oil find is in Israel.

The old energy order in the Middle East is crumbling with Iran and Syria having left the Western fold and others, including Saudi Arabia, the largest of them all, in danger of doing so. Simultaneously, a new energy order is emerging to give the West some spine. In this new order, Israel is a major player.

The new energy order is founded on rock – the shale that traps vast stores of energy in deposits around the world. One of the largest deposits – 250 billion barrels of oil in Israel’s Shfela basin, comparable to Saudi Arabia’s entire reserves of 260 billion barrels of oil – has until now been unexploited, partly because the technology required has been expensive, mostly because the multinational oil companies that have the technology fear offending Muslims.

Of course you should read the whole thing for details but the essence is that if this oil can be exploited it will put a lid (depending on demand of course) on what can be charged for oil. In any case immediate fears of an oil shortage are put off a little longer. And if the Wave Engine works out it could extend that "little to fear" era by 50 or 100 years. Long enough to develop what ever comes next without requiring a crash program.

Speaking of offending Muslims. I wonder if they would be offended if the price of oil declines by half? It would be good to see that proposition tested in the real world.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Obama Is NOT Losing Jewish Support

Obama Is NOT Losing Jewish Support says DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Wasserman Schultz, the first Jewish woman to represent Florida in Congress, acknowledged that Obama’s speech had caused some damage with Jewish voters, but she repeated administration claims that the president’s statements didn’t differ from the policies of the last two presidents.

“If you looked at the Jewish community at large, if you polled the Jewish community at large, there are Jewish voters, Jewish Americans, who are expressing concern about the president’s policy,” she said. “But what he said, followed on by Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu’s speech to the joint session on Tuesday, was essentially what has been American policy since President Clinton. “

My take on this? Obama is losing Jewish support. And it is hurting the Democrats both financially and in terms of votes. In politics you do not make these kinds of statements unless you are hurting.

Palin Is Not Running - She Is Touring

Hill Buzz brings to my attention a curious fact about Sarah Palin. She has not announced for President. Instead she is taking a summer vacation. Touring America. Starting in Washington, DC.

Today, Sarah Palin announced a bus tour called The One Nation Tour, organized as a “soft launch” to her Presidential campaign that will allow her to test fundraising, messaging and audience response to her candidacy without the expense or paperwork of forming an exploratory committee or subjecting her prematurely to onerous McCain-Feingold (irony alert) campaign financing and reporting laws “to educate and energize Americans about our nation’s founding principles, in order to promote the Fundamental Restoration of America.”

That sound you just heard was Chris Matthew’s head exploding.

The second sound was a semi-conscious Mittens Romney impacting the chintz upholstery on his fainting couch.

We can’t tell you what that smell is, but it’s coming from the “opposition research” trolls in the basement of the White House.

Palin’s rockstar-style tourbus, decked out with traditional American iconography such as the Constitution and the Liberty Bell, will kick off the tour in Washington, D.C. and continue throughout historic sites in New England

As I said at She's In, Palin is running. And you know what? Her fans are even more fanatical than Ron Paul's. And she has something very important for American politics as shown by the recent standing ovation Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu got in Congress the other day. She, unlike Ron Paul, loves Israel.

The Jerusalem Post reports that Palin, the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee, and her husband, Todd, met with Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, at their official residence in Jerusalem. Palin traveled to Israel after delivering a speech in India over the weekend.

The interesting question for me is, will she pick
Gary Johnson as her VP to shore up her Libertarian creds in the same way McCain picked Palin for the same purpose? That would be very ironic. And DELICIOUS!

And Johnson can move some lefties to the right. Willie Nelson likes him. And so does High Times magazine.

There is a long way to go until August 2012 and things can change, but I'm liking the way things are shaping up so far.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Logistical Failure

According to Debka - not always the most reliable source - the Palestinians have shot their wad and all they have to show for it is a messy clean up job.

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has run into blank walls in his ploy for using a unity pact between his Fatah and the extremist Hamas as the fulcrum for a diplomatic offensive against Israel to climax in UN recognition of a Palestinian state in September.

Since his unity pact with Hamas was signed on May 4 Jordan's King Abdullah has refused to receive him or any of his messengers. Sunday, May 22, when Abbas asked for an urgent interview, the king told his office to stop transferring any more of these requests.

Debka says the King has a couple of problems with Abbas and his Fatah gang. They forgot to notify him of their plan to join with Hamas. Which is a ludicrous statement. Abbas has been trying for "national unity" for the last few years. It has been an on again, off again, deal. Evidently for the time being it is on again. The King would also like to dump his Palestinian refugees. Either on Israel - not going to happen - or on the Palestinians. And in their "right of return" craze they made no attempt to include their pawns brothers in Jordan. My guess is that is the King's real beef.

The Muslim Brotherhood and its Hamas offshoot are the most powerful force opposing the throne in the Hashemite Kingdom. Enhancing Hamas' hand in the Palestinian stakes has major ramifications for Jordan's domestic political equilibrium.

Abdullah's boycott of the Palestinian leader covers the cutoff of Jordanian intelligence ties with Palestinian counterparts.

Abbas had been counting on meeting the king in Amman Sunday to receive a briefing on his talks with US President Barack Obama at the White House on May 18, the day before Obama unveiled his Middle East policy. Abdullah not only denied him that interview but asked US officials not to share the content of his conversation with Obama with any Palestinian. Abbas thus lost a vital source of information on US administration plans.

Ah yes. The Muslim Brotherhood. Nice bunch of fellers. If you like unreformed Nazis.

In the 1920's there was a young Egyptian named al Bana. And al Bana formed this nationalist group called the Muslim Brotherhood. Al Bana was a devout admirer of Adolph Hitler and wrote to him frequently. So persistent was he in his admiration of the new Nazi Party that in the 1930's, al-Bana and the Muslim Brotherhood became a secret arm of Nazi intelligence.

The Arab Nazis had much in common with the new Nazi doctrines. They hated Jews; they hated democracy; and they hated the Western culture. It became the official policy of the Third Reich to secretly develop the Muslim Brotherhood as the fifth Parliament, an army inside Egypt.

When war broke out, the Muslim Brotherhood promised in writing that they would rise up and help General Rommell and make sure that no English or American soldier was left alive in Cairo or Alexandria.

The Muslim Brotherhood began to expand in scope and influence during World War II. They even had a Palestinian section headed by the grand Mufti of Jerusalem, one of the great bigots of all time.

I have written an article or two about the Mufti including Palestinian Role in the Holocaust. Charming fellow. If you like Nazi sympathizers.

Back to Debka.

After being outmaneuvered in the Arab arena, the Palestinian leader's plans to internationalize the Palestinian-Israel dispute and confront Israel with a Palestinian state with 1967 borders ran into another impediment – in Moscow.

In a bid to outmaneuver Washington's role as sponsor of the peace process, Abbas turned to Russia in deference to its veto power at the UN Security Council. He offered to transfer negotiations on the next phase of Fatah-Hamas reconciliation to Moscow.

Abbas duly arrived in the Russian capital Friday, May 20, for the first session along with delegations from Hamas, the Democratic and Popular "Fronts" and the Palestinian al-Shaab communist party.

But to his dismay, the Russians stalled the opening session, debkafile's Moscow sources reveal, demanding that all the Palestinian factions represented must first accept the three standing stipulations of the Middle East Quartet (US, Russia, EU and the UN), namely recognize Israel, abjure violence and accept previous international commitments. Hamas stood by its adamant refusal to accept any of those conditions.

Russia, a nominally western country has more to gain from ties with Israel, with all its Russian immigrants, than from any alliance with the failed state of Palestine. Israel has technology. Some of the best in the world. The Palestinians have what? Problems. Lots of problems. And their problems are tied up with Egypt's problems. Basket cases all. Which causes us to ask - besides the Nazi stupidity - what has caused the failure in the Muslim countries of the Middle East? Spengler has the answer.

Development economists have known for years that a disaster was in the works. A 2009 World Bank report on Arab food security warned, "Arab countries are very vulnerable to fluctuations in international commodity markets because they are heavily dependent on imported food. Arab countries are the largest importers of cereal in the world. Most import at least 50 percent of the food calories they consume." The trouble is that the Arab regimes made things worse rather than better.

Egypt's rulers of the past 60 years intentionally transformed what once was the breadbasket of the Mediterranean into a starvation trap. They did so through tragedy, not oversight. Keeping a large part of one's people illiterate on subsistence farms is the surest method of social control.

Crop yields in Egypt are a fifth of the best American levels, and by design, for no Egyptian government wished to add more displaced peasants to the 17 million people now crowded into Cairo. Syrian President Basher al-Assad made a few tentative steps in this direction, and got a 100,000 landless farmers living in tent cities around Damascus (Food and Syria's failure Asia Times Online March 29, 2011).

Gamal Abdel Nasser, Anwar Sadat and Mubarak did not invent the system. Post-revolutionary Russia imprisoned its peasants on collective farms; as the Mexican historian Enrique Krauze showed (in his 1992 book TextosHereticos), post-revolutionary Mexico emulated the Stalinist model of social control and imposed its own system of collective farms during the 1930s.

Mexico eventually dumped a fifth of its population on its northern neighbor, mainly rural people from the impoverished south. The remaining Mexican poor provided an inexhaustible source of foot-soldiers for the drug cartels with which the Mexican government is fighting a low-intensity civil war.

Egypt, the most populous Arab country, postponed these problems for three generations. It is governable only by military rule, de facto or de jure, because the military is the only institution that can take peasants straight from the farm and assimilate them into a disciplined social structure.

The huge jump in American food productivity in the early 20th Century led America into a great Depression. Just as the huge jump in industrial productivity caused by the microprocessor revolution has led to our current economic problems. The application of the microprocessor to education will in many ways prolong the misery. Why pay $40 dollars or more an hour for an education when you can go online and get one for free. Other than the time invested. All those $100,000 a year tenured professors are going the way of the buggy whip makers. This was predicted in Buckminster Fuller's 1971 book Education Automation.

Continuing with Spengler:

In place of the orderly corruption over which Mubarak presided, there is a scramble on the part of half-organized political groups to get control of the country's shrinking supply of basic goods. Civic violence likely will claim more lives than hunger.

Refugees from Libya and Tunisia have swamped the refugee camps on the closest Italian island, and hundreds have drowned in small boats attempting to cross the Mediterranean. By the end of this year, tourists on the Greek islands may see thousands of small boats carrying hungry Egyptians seeking help. Europe's sympathy for the Arab side may vanish under an inundation of refugees.

Events are most likely to overtake diplomacy. The sort of economic and demographic imbalances implied by the projections shown above reflect back into the present. Chaos in Egypt, Syria and other Arab countries probably will pre-empt the present focus on Israel and the Palestinians. It would not be surprising if the Palestinians were to mount another Intifada, or Egypt and Syria were to initiate one last war against Israel. It might be their last opportunity.

But I rate the probably of another war at well under 50%. The internal problems of Egypt and Syria are more likely to make war too difficult to wage.

We are living in interesting times. To learn more about the demographic collapse of the Muslim nations and the demographic rise of Israel read the whole Spengler article. Very much worth your while to get a glimpse of the future. Let me give you the short version. Why are Israeli women producing about 3.0 children each on average? Because they have hope for the future. Why are the Muslim nations undergoing demographic collapse? Hopelessness. And food shortages are only part of the problem.

What is the take away? Socialism doesn't work. Not international socialism. Not national socialism. Since Israel dropped socialism as the main organizing principle of its economy it has been on a tear.

The Israelis would be glad to help the Arabs if the Arabs would let them. Every nation that has expelled the Jews (France are you listening?) has eventually gone on to ruin. Those countries that embrace the Jews (and who more than Israel?) have prospered. The Bible is full of stories about human nature, government, and power relations among people and nations. Very good stories which illustrate basic facts about humans. I'm not much for Bible prophecy though. Except this one has been coming true for at least the last 2,000 years. This promise was made to Abraham:

I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

If there is anything to that prophecy (and it seems to have been working for quite some time) the Europeans and the Moslems had better watch out.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Netanyahu Takes Obama's Cookie

You can skip strait to the good stuff which begins about 7 minutes in.

In related news Palestinian Authority negotiator Saeb Erekat said: If '67 lines are an illusion, peace is an illusion. I think he got that one right. The Hamas Charter calls for the extermination of the Israeli Jews. To start with.

But all that is not the main sticking point. This is:

And the third issue that rankled Netanyahu had to do with Hamas. While Obama said the Hamas-Fatah reconciliation raised “profound and legitimate questions for Israel,” for Netanyahu this was simply not a strong enough statement. The PMO saw Obama as “wishy-washy” on Hamas, and at the very least wanted to hear Obama reiterate the Quartet’s three conditions for engagement with Hamas as part of a PA unity government: forswearing terrorism, recognizing Israel and accepting previous agreements.

Netanyahu makes the point that 'Peace based on illusions will crash on the rocks'.

Netanyahu said he would work with Obama to seek a secure peace for Israel, but also warned that Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas would have to choose between a new unity pact with the militant group Hamas or peace with Israel.

This will not end well.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Israel's Dilema

Rep. Eric Cantor had this to say.

It is not morally equivalent when the offenses of terrorists are equated with the defenses of Israel.

The following story illustrates Israel's dilemma.

A Palestinian woman from Gaza arrives at Soroka Hospital in Beersheba for lifesaving skin treatment for burns over half her body. After the conclusion of her extensive treatment, the woman is invited back for follow-up visits to the outpatient clinic. One day she is caught at the border crossing wearing a suicide belt. Her intention? To blow herself up at the same clinic that saved her life.

What kind of culture leads one to do that?

Sadly, it is a culture infused with resentment and hatred.

It is this culture that underlies the Palestinians' and the broader Arab world's refusal to accept Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state.

This is the root of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. It is not about the '67 lines.

A clash of cultures. So which culture does Obama prefer? I suspect it is not American culture.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Obama Burns Israel

Thanks to Hill Buzz for the above video.



"All the Jews that voted for Obama need to have their heads examined." Says Rev. Manning in November 2008. Thanks to Patriot Action Network for that video.

Israel is not taking Obama's Middle East Speech well.

When reached via cell phone immediately after President Obama’s speech urging a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's spokesman Mark Regev sounded as though he had been slapped in the face.

Netanyahu swiftly rejected Obama's call for Israel to pull back to the borders that existed before the 1967 Six-Day War. Roughly translated from Hebrew, a statement from the Prime Minister’s office said that they appreciated Obama's commitment to peace, but called the pullback to the 1967 borders "indefensible," and said that the Palestinians were less than an honest partner in the peace process.

Obama not honest? Really? Who could have expected that from a guy with the middle name Hussein?

Cross Posted at Classical Values

They Murder Children Don't They

Ah yes. They do. It seems like the Palestinians have problems with Jews living in "their" territory.

Five family members were found murdered in their residence in the West Bank Itamar settlement Friday overnight, after a suspected terrorist broke and entered the house and stabbed the five to death. Two children managed to escape and survived the attack, Army Radio reported.

A Magen David Adom team that arrived at the scene at 1:00 a.m. announced a couple, their 11-year old child, 3-year-old toddler, and a one-month baby girl dead from stabbing wounds.

Evidently they will not be satisfied unless "their" territory is Judenrein.

The Israeli Prime Minister has made the Palestinians a counter offer.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Sunday visited the parents of the Fogel couple, killed along with three of their children in Friday's Itamar terror attack, and promised that Israel would continue building in West Bank settlements.

During his visit the prime minister said that "they shoot and we build. They say that the State of Israel was built on suffering, but we did not think the suffering would be so great. This criminal act caused all of us to come and say, enough."

Roger Kimball names the dead.

...Udi and Ruth Fogel (36 and 35 years old, respectively), and stabbed them to death along with their 3-month-old daughter, Hadas, and two sons, Elad (3 years old) and Yoav (11).

And then he points out what Melanie Phillips has to say:

Melanie Phillips, writing at The Spectator blog gets it exactly right:

What must be emphasised however is that, quite apart from the open calls to genocide of the Jews by Hamas, as Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has said the “wild incitement” by the Palestinian Authority against Israelis, perpetrated without remission through its educational materials, in its mosques and on PA-controlled TV, is directly to blame for creating the incendiary atmosphere of hysterical and fanatical hatred that gives rise to such savagery.

And it’s not only Hamas. It is also us — us Western liberals who somehow manage to turn a blind eye to such butchery. “Responsibility for the evil atmosphere which incites such pogroms does not rest solely with the Arabs of the PA or Hamas,” Phillips observes. “It must also be laid at the door of those left-wing Israeli and western journalists and intellectuals who are obsessively egging on these Jew-hating exterminators. . . . The Arab incitement is simply not reported by the western media.” Item: the murder of the Fogel family came just days after a West Bank Palestinian youth center announced a soccer tournament named after Wafa Idris.

And who is Wafa Idris? Why, she’s the first female Palestinian suicide bomber. She killed an 81-year-old man and injured more than 150 other Israelis in 2002. Hadn’t heard about her? Neither had I until Melanie Phillips linked to the story. The Palestinian Authority, another story reports, “has repeatedly presented Wafa Idris as a hero and role model, naming places and events after her, including a summer camp for youth funded by UNICEF, a Fatah women’s military unit, a university students group for Fatah members, a Fatah course, and more. There have been public demonstrations and songs on PA TV to honor her.”

And they have parties to celebrate the deaths of Jews at their hands.

Gaza residents from the southern city of Rafah hit the streets Saturday to celebrate the terror attack in the West Bank settlement of Itamar where five family members were murdered in their sleep, including three children.

YouTube and Facebook have been pulling down videos of the attack. Thanks to Pajamas Media you can still see the videos.

Update:

This book may shed some light on the situation:

History Upside Down: The Roots of Palestinian Fascism

H/T Instapundit

Cross Posted at Classical Values

A Triumph

Niall Ferguson schools some lefties on the amateurism of the Obama foreign policy team.

Update: If the above video wasn't enough you can watch the whole thing (11 minutes) at No Quarter.

Niall Ferguson has written books. This one looks interesting:

Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power

and

More Niall Ferguson Books

H/T Hill Buzz

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Peace Declared

Despite some people who insist on fighting a war, President Obama has announced the forthcoming peace in the Middle East, declaring that war will not be an impediment to peace.

WASHINGTON – Condemning Mideast peace "rejectionists," President Barack Obama convened a new round of ambitious talks Wednesday and vowed not to allow a fresh burst of violence dim hopes for an accord creating a sovereign Palestinian state beside a secure Israel.

Obama, who met separately at the White House with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, assailed those responsible for the killings of four Israelis near the West Bank city of Hebron. The militant Hamas movement, which rejects Israel's right to exist and opposes peace talks, claimed responsibility.

Direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations broke off nearly two years ago, in December 2008, and the Obama administration spent its first 20 months in office coaxing the two sides back to the bargaining table. Obama was adamant Wednesday that extremist violence would not derail the process.

Let me see if I can wrap my head around this. Having sex is no impediment to keeping your virginity. Or better yet, death is not a serious impediment to voting.

You see he learned everything he needs to know about politics in Chicago.

Or maybe he is a George Orwell fan.

War Is Peace

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Stocking Up

It seems that Israel is stocking up [pdf] on gasoline and jet fuel.

WASHINGTON, August 5, 2010 – The Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress today of a possible Foreign Military Sale to Israel of unleaded gasoline, JP-8 aviation fuel and diesel fuel for an estimated cost of $2 billion.

The Government of Israel has requested a possible sale of 60,000,000 gallons of unleaded gasoline, 284,000,000 gallons of JP-8 aviation jet fuel, and 100,000,000 gallons of diesel fuel. The estimated cost is $2 billion.

Uh. Oh.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Some Speculation On War

Donald Sensing asked me to write up an e-mail conversation we were having about the coming war in the Middle East. You can find it at The Coming War.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Simon

You can also see the video at an Israeli site.

Learn more about Urban Warfare.

H/T Diogenes via e-mail

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Jews Out Of Israel

Ari Fleischer says Helen Thomas is 'advocating religious cleansing'.

"She is advocating religious cleansing. How can Hearst stand by her? If a journalist, or a columnist, said the same thing about blacks or Hispanics, they would already have lost their jobs."

The season on Jews was closed for 50 or 60 years following 1945. But the season has been reopened. This will not end well. It never does.

H/T Eric at Classical Values and The Drudge Report

Ayn Rand On The Middle East

More Ayn Rand videos. The above video is from 1979. Obviously well before our current dust ups in the Middle East.

And don't forget her novels:

The Fountainhead

Atlas Shrugged

Cross Posted at Classical Values