First Panetta, now Ambassador Gutman: When it Comes to US Policy towards Israel, Listen to what its Representatives Say, Not to the President’s Promises
First it was Leon Panetta, and now it’s Howard Gutman. President Barack Obama, who just last week told Jewish groups that he was proud that the U.S. considered Israel America’s “best ally,” now faces a torrent of administration appointees making it quite clear that for this administration, Israel is to be blamed for all of its failure in Middle East policy-making.
As readers of PJ Media already know after reading Barry Rubin’s recent post, Leon Panetta told the Saban Center in Washington, D.C., on Friday that Israel is responsible for its isolation in the world, that it hence must take bold action of a diplomatic nature to restore stability in the region, and that it must “get to the damn table.” When he was asked what the repercussions might be of a military strike against Iran, the secretary answered that if Israel struck the U.S. might be blamed and “could possibly be the target of retaliation from Iran.”
The clear implication is that Panetta thought it should not be done, and although he said all options are always on the table re Iran, any Mullah worth his salt would take his words to mean the U.S. secretary of Defense was advising against such tough military action by Israel. Panetta concluded with these words of warning:
And lastly I think that the consequence could be that we would have an escalation that would take place that would not only involve many lives, but I think could consume the Middle East in a confrontation and a conflict that we would regret. So we have to be careful about the unintended consequences of that kind of an attack.
What the secretary seems unawares of are the unintended consequences of his own words. As Elliot Abrams, a former Bush official in charge of Middle East affairs at the N.S.C., put it:
Now, if that is the Secretary’s view he is duty bound to say it secretly to the President in the Oval Office. But it is astonishing that he would say this on the record, for consumption in Tehran as well as in Jerusalem and all Arab capitals. For who, reading those words, really can believe that “all options are on the table?” Who can believe Panetta hasn’t already made up his mind and will fight any decision to use force? Note his comment that how long a strike would delay Iran’s program “depends on the ability to truly get at the targets that they’re after. Frankly, some of those targets are very difficult to get at.” In plain English, what he was saying–as news stories put it–was that “US says strike on Iran could miss nuclear sites.” How reassuring for the Iranian regime.
As of this writing, no administration official — neither Secretary of State Hillary Clinton nor our president himself — has said anything to the effect that Panetta’s comments do not reflect administration policy.
And now come the more-than-disturbing comments of U.S. Ambassador to Belgium Howard Gutman. The ambassador, himself Jewish, is proof positive that there is something known as a self-hating Jew. Why else would this man, speaking at a conference on anti-Semitism held in Europe by the European Jewish Union, say: “A distinction should be made between traditional anti-Semitism, which should be condemned and Muslim hatred for Jews, which stems from the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians”? (my emphasis)
Does the ambassador really believe that Muslim hatred of Jews stems from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Does he know anything about what is in the Koran, what the view of Muslim leaders of Jews has been for decades, if not centuries? Has he not heard of the role played by Hitler’s ally, Haj-Amin El Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Palestine during World War II and in the post-war period, in the last days of British rule of Mandate Palestine? Is he not aware of the great amount of evidence about Muslim anti-Semitism that has been around for centuries, and that predated by the ages the creation of Israel?
The ambassador also said he believes that an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement would have the result of significantly reducing Muslim anti-Semitism — a conclusion that squares with his view that Israeli intransigence is the reason there is not movement towards Middle East peace.
Lawyers across Europe listening to his remarks were shocked, and one of them, Nathan Gelbart, stood up and gave what press reports term “a scathing rebuttal.” Gutman answered:
The modern Anti-Semite formally condemns Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust and expresses upmost sympathy with the Jewish people. He simply has created a new species, the “Anti-Zionist” or – even more sophisticated – the so-called “Israel critic.”
The “Israel critic” will never state “Jews go home” but is questioning the legality of the incorporation of the State of Israel and therefore the right for the Jewish people to settle in their homeland. He will not say the Jews are the evil of the world but claim that the State of Israel is a major cause for instability and war in the region. There is no other country, no other people on this planet the “Israel critic” would dedicate so much time and devotion as to the case of Israel.
If we put Panetta’s and Gutman’s remarks together, both spoken this past week, it reveals that the Obama administration has one view of Israel’s role in the world: It is the power that alone is not taking action to end its isolation and that must henceforth be held responsible for not easing the tense situation in the Middle East.
We all know President Obama is concerned about the Jewish vote, especially in a state like Florida, where it alone could tilt the state to the Republican side in the 2012 election. So publicly he tries to reassure Jews that he is Israel’s best friend. At the same time he also has his representatives give speeches and make statements that serve as a note to the Arab world that he really knows whom is to blame for the turmoil, and that after he is safely re-elected to a second term, he will tilt American policy to their side.
Gutman? Gutman, now I remember. He was that fat man, the antagonist and criminal, in the Maltese Falcon, chasing a fabled gold bird that turned out to be base metal, like most utopias.
“I try not to pat myself too much on the back, but this administration has done more for the security of the state of Israel than any previous administration” — Barack Hussein Obama Dec.4th 2011
He forgot the /sarc off.
The sad thing is that Barack Obama is genuinely sincere! He believes appeasement policies will ensure Israel’s safety. This has been the “elite” Democratic Party position for minimally the last twenty years. These people may mean well—but their heads are not on straight.
Is Gutman a fruitcake? A joker like that in any deck, and all bets are off. Anyhow, these O’bwana people are not morons, which they’d have to be to be ‘mistaken’ about the effects of their policies. At real law, a man is presumed to intend the natural and probable consequences of his actions. Israel is a close ally of America. Leftists hate America. Ergo, Leftists hate Israel. Jews are Leftists par excellence (they were prototypical Leftists a thousand years before there was Leftism), and hating America and America’s allies is definitional for them. All Leftists are the enemies of Americans — blood enemies, not competitors. As such, Americans’ aim must be to kill them without mercy. If they can’t be killed, then they must be crippled. If they can’t be crippled, then we wait until the opportunity to kill or cripple presents itself. That is all, or we lose. Life in a nutshell: the right thing to do is simple, and hard; the wrong thing is complex, nuanced, philosophical, and easy.
Yes, Krauthammer declared Obama delusional for that remark.
This is the first Administration of any country that acts like it could happily be the one to get Israel to sign the 7 Year Peace Treaty mentioned by Daniel.
Could someone please explain to me again why we should think that anyone who was born a Muslim, raised to age 10, at least, as a Muslim, and who “converted” to Christianity for political convenience, would ever be a friend of Israel? Jews are great money harvesters for the Dems, a la Gutman, Solomont, et al, but how can a thinking Jew possible consider this man a friend? By association, how can a thinking Jew continue to vote Democratic?
Just because a Jew (secular or not) is educated, does not mean that he know bubkas about antisemitism. The ruling passion may be to assimilate and hence not be accused of “double consciousness” i.e., not being a loyal American. There is also a basic misunderstanding of Tikkun Olam, which is not repairing the world, but taking responsibility for oneself and rectifying the wrong or mistaken actions through repentance and direct reparations. Some of this is taken up in http://clarespark.com/2010/04/03/liberals-and-jewish-racism/.
Interesting point about “tikkun olam.” I’ve wondered a lot about that as the potential basis of self-defeating Jewish leftism. Can you elaborate a bit on that? Also, is there a link to the idea that the Jews are enjoined to shine a light unto the gentiles?
What we all knew about Obama’s bigotry is revealing itself through his actions, appointments, and policies. None of this should come as a surprise. Yet even as I say that, I have to admit that I find the relentless Jew hatred that is expressed through his treatment of Israel shocking. It is still, even 3 years into his presidency, difficult to realize and accept that we have a President of the United States who is in essence saying that Israel must go, and so too, must the Jewish people. Horrifying doesn’t even begin to decribe it. And for anyone thinking of sitting out the 2012 election because we don’t have the perfect candidate, I would say, think again. A second term will be far more disasterous than his first. I sudder to think of what he will say and do without the pressure of re-election lurking in the sidelines.
Exactly!
Shouldhewin re-election, all bets are off; no way will he do anything to support Israel, but rather condemn it outright.
Thank you for expressing my sentiments toward BHO.
“The White House must be inundated with demands that Panetta be censured and that Ambassador Gutman be removed from office. If this is not done, anyone who votes for Obama thinking that he is aligned with Israel is simply fooling himself.”
This is the only part of your editorial I disagree with. I think even you may have ever so slightly leaned toward one politically correct-type statement. Regardless of what he does with regard to Panetta, Gutman and the statements they made, the caste is set as to Obama’s thinking and predilictions with regard to Israel. And even if there is some doubt, is it worth taking a risk that he will be enlightened in a second term and change course in his dealings with the Middle East? I admit some doubt at times. The man is eloquent in his speeches and provides an appearance of sincerity. But then I step back to reality and look at the hard facts and am certain once again that I was right not to vote for this man and right to do my best to convince others not to vote for him in the future.
This is what the subversives do: they tell you that they do one thing at the same time they are doing the opposite.
And the idiots believe them.
This administration’s support for the islamist surge in North Africa, and the substantial attacks against Israel, should have caused by now a 0 (zero) per cent support to Obama by the Jewish voters.
But it does not work like that. Many listen to the vague “hope”.
The West falls, bewitched by evil.
They deserve no more hope than those who lived in the ghettos of Europe 70 years ago, because they should know better!
Neither Clinton nor Obama has spoken, because it should be clear by now…this “friend of the Jews” posturing is a sleight of hand trick.
The LA Times is holding hostage what the real feelings are and have been.
This administration…from Robert Malley, to Zbigniew Brzezinski to Susan Rice to friends like Ali Abuminah…have a blame Israel tilt to everything they have said and done from the beginning.
Obama has NEVER liked Bibi or the Likud. Ever.
And…he has to deal with him every day.
Biden has slammed Israel, Clinton has slammed Israel. Pat Buchanan, Baker and Paul…Israel has to slalom through American politics to find her actual friends.
This most recent tag team assault on Israel …coming from Panetta and then a J Street type (“you can’t call a Jew a Jew-hater, so let’s use one of them to do our dirty work”)…Uncle Tom’s with a bris…is no accident.
Abe Foxman has taken a vow of silence…only second to Chuck Schumer when it comes to defending Israel from this administration.
It’s not tough holding onto your leftist bona fides…when you are willing to turn a blind eye to the slander of the Jews.
“Ambassador Gutman received his appointment, obviously, because he was one of the wealthy Jewish donors to Obama’s campaign, who raised $50,000 for him in 2008 and for the Democratic Party.”
Says it all. Their socialism means more to them than the survival of the Jewish people. Do people like Gutman not realize that if Israel goes they are next?
um…we all know that the answer is no.
President Obama has visited Egypt and Turkey, most recently embracing the Prime Minister of Turkey Erdogan. But he has not visited Israel. His notion of truth is either ignorance or lies. His famous Cairo speech – and why was he speaking in Cairo – was filled with falsehoods. Muslims did not invent the printing press, as he said, – Gutenberg in Mainz did that; Muslims did not invent the compass – the Chinese did that; Muslims did not found the first university – Italians did that in Bologna. Moreover, no Muslims had anything to do with the Founding of the United States or with the Constitution. What else can be expected of the devoted follower of Reverend Jeremiah Wright?
Islam’s Vile MURDEROUS Jew Hate Stems from The Koran & Hadith
The U.S. Ambassador DECEIVES for Islam.
“When asked in a recent survey if Jews should be killed “wherever they hide — be it behind stones, or trees — per their Islamic Hadith,” 73 percent of Palestinians in Judea, Samaria and Gaza answered in the affirmative.”
73 percent of PA Muslims believe strongly in breaking G-D’s Holy, eternal, unchanging Law:
YOU SHALL NOT MURDER
Polls consistently show that PA Muslims strongly believe in the mass murder of Jews. PA Muslims are infamous for their murderous hate for Jews. It is immoral and EVIL for the U.S. or any other nation to seek to give a Muslim terror state implant in little Israel, to the most genocidal society the world has ever known.
While I assume that most readers of PJM are familiar with the Koran, for any of you who are not, here is a little bit of “Koran for Dummies/Dhimmis”, and you probably won’t like it.
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Quran/023-violence.htm
Antisemitism at the cabinet level. And of course the POTUS does not know anything of it, and professes to support Israel, after having done everything conceivable, and beyond, to push it into further jeopardy.
But in fact the existence of modern Israel is the miracle of our time. No wonder the progressives are doing all they can to oppose such a “shocking” happenstance. One does not need to be a Jew to be alarmed by this activist president and his overzealous staff. As long as this nefarious actor is in the White House, there is not much we can do, personally. For my part, unable to help in any concrete way, beyond talking about it to the folks I come in contact with, I undertook to learn Hebrew.
Today, you can get audio lessons in which you practice speech before trying to decipher any grammar, and even before practicing the script. You actually start assimilating intonation from the first lesson. This is much more productive than a formal introduction to syntax, and sweating the rules of grammar while trying to memorize the vocabulary. Learn as the small children do, and discover the fine points later, once you can participate in elementary conversation. It works! As irrational a response to the present quandary this enterprise might seem, I heartily recommend it. At least you are not just standing there, incapacitated in the grips of despair. I have faith in the existence of Israel, and I look forward to visit it some day. I cannot imagine that it will disappear, in spite of all that wish it so, and have done so for centuries, often consumed by a destructive fury.
Like the rest of us Obama and his team of idiots cannot leave too soon. This president has been a wrecking ball on the economy,, on our health care, on our debt, on our constitution, on our civil rights, and on our foreign policy. Make no mistake. These actions are not just bad luck. These actions are calculated. Israel needs to ignore this guy and his nitwit appointees and hold on. They also need to get ready to kick some ass because that day is coming and Obama will not be with Israel the next time this happens.
The jews in America should be ashamed of their support for this fool we have as a president.
We are headed toward a Mideast war that will engulf the whole world, thanks to this bozo administration.
Actually thanks to the Western Left in totality, not just this Western Leftist President.
BLT Marxism sees Israel as an extention of white racism, and Obama was raised in a Madrassa bowing down to the god, and Mecca. Therefore, Israel must be destroyed, and it’s enemys armed.
This American government will bring more wrath from G-d on it. Just like the last few years of crazy storms, and earthquakes. A Pox on the whole lot of DaOne’s Marxist government.
Don’t you get it? Panetta, Gutman and Obama all LOVE jews,and greatly appreciate their money and their votes; it is just Israel that they detest. Nothing personal, certainly not anti-semitic They sincerely regret that Israel happens to have a high percentage of lovable Jewish citizens. Modern, up-to-date intellectuals like themselves understand that America and the world must be sympathetic to the deeply-held aversions of the long-suffering, peace-loving Muslims who are so eager to make concessions to the intransigent and traditionally warlike Israel. Why can’t Israel be compassionate like the jews we love?
Israel needs no lecturing or hectoring from the tribe of Obama. Unlike those who spend their affluent lives in the security of the U.S.A., they live every day with rockets fired at them by the poor, misunderstood Palestinians, and the constant threat of unibombers and saboteurs. They are a hell of a lot more concerned about the probable consequences of a preemptive attack on Iran than those whose policy is endless simple-minded jaw-boning. They are arguably the most scientifically and technically gifted ethnic group in the world, and doubtless working on means to destroy Iran’s nuclear arms program or render it ineffective. You think the Germans planted Stuxnet? This morally depraved Administration could hardly provide a more revealing demonstration of its total incompetence.
“Does the ambassador really believe that Muslim hatred of Jews stems from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?”
I don’t know where you guys have been but that IS EXACTLY what the main complaint is. Go hit the web and you will see that the general consensus is 1. The Zionist/Neo-Con/Illuminati/Bilderberger/Rothschild creation and devotion to Israel is exactly the problem. 2. Any Republican running against Obama is a Zionist/Neo-Con/Illuminati/Bilderberger/Rothschild candidate and 3. There will be no rest in the Middle East until the Zionist/Neo-Con/Illuminati/Bilderberger/Rothschild created state of Israel is gone….but then again don’t mistake the hatred of the Zionist/Neo-Con/Illuminati/Bilderberger/Rothschild created state of Israel for having a beef with the Jews…because according to these people the Jews aren’t really Zionists because of the trick pulled by the Levites and the Judahites and the fact that Deuteronomy was written before all the other books and the first 4 were twisted to fit the…where was I? OH YEAH….it’s all the Zionists fault. You think I’m pulling your leg but they’re serious about this stuff…just sayin…
“A distinction should be made between traditional anti-Semitism, which should be condemned and Muslim hatred for Jews, which stems from the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians”?
This seems an entirely reasonable comment to make considering the vast ramping up of hatred in the area that resulted in Jewish enclaves from Morocco to the Gulf being forced out, particularly between 1948 and 1967.
It is cheap psychology to tag someone with the name self-hating Jew since the idea that this exists in any real numbers is a fantasy excuse for why someone doesn’t agree with you. Claiming the powers of a mind reader that can see through any “code” talk that is really anti-Semitism doesn’t pass muster.
The idea that a critic of Israel’s policies in regards to the West Bank is really saying “Jews Go Home” or hates Jews is another brutally stupid theme that also requires mind reading and in fact practically claims that talent when what is really in place is an opinion. Since Israel’s supporters themselves seem to feel all roads lead to Israel/Arab conflict, I don’t get it when someone who is not a staunch advocate of Israel’s policies can’t say the same thing.
Everything in the way of Jewish/Arab conflict that post-dates the start of the British Mandate is part and parcel of the Israel/Arab conflict so all you’re left with is the statements you attribute to the Koran which brings us back to the now vanished Jewish enclaves in the middle east and why they are there and then not.
The Koran was already in place for centuries so late 19th and 20th century Jewish immigration into what became the British Mandate is one obvious difference and observing this is not saying it was right or wrong, merely that it happened. Even if this view is 100% wrong, it hardly rises to the level of anti-Semitism and puts me in that boat as well which requires a level of nicely tuned judgement and instinct that in fact does not exist in this world.
Saying “that the State of Israel is a major cause for instability and war in the region” is not the same thing as saying it is Israel’s fault. One could just as easily be pointing out, and rightly so, that the Palestinian Arabs do not possess the ability to unilaterally end the occupation of the West Bank and Israel does. Again, the wisdom of whether to do so without pre-conditions is another thing but it hardly amounts to Israel hatred.
This is not an argument that there is no anti-Semitism in the Koran that pre-dates the mostly Mandate era conflict of the last 100 years but one of a ramping up of anti-Semitism, or if you will, an addition of anti-Zionism, that has made things worse.
One could easily argue that Islamic polities are in fact the exact hypocritical mirror image of so-called Zionism and that the real reason Arabs are angry over the whole issue is their own conspicuous lack of success in recent history and the fact that Islam only seems happy when they are calling the shots – in this regard I give you the creation of Pakistan.
However it is not reasonable to throw everything helter-skelter into the “I simply hate Jews” arena in the manner this article does. Crying wolf in such a fashion plays right into the hands of CAIR and it’s sister organizations.
As a last comment, people who are staunch advocates of Israel are straying dangerously close to really believing that not only they themselves don’t display a corresponding Arab hatred but are in fact incapable of it. Since this mirrors the same depraved views of the political Left in the U.S. that blacks, women, Muslim and gays are incapable of bigotry I find the idea troubling. People who attack others by ethnicity always seem to claim they are on the defence: the KKK was defending their culture and the Nazis were defending European culture and black folks like Jeremiah Wright are talking in defence of racism. It goes without saying that in those instances the only thing that was actually being defended was the right to hate an “other.”
If Israel’s defenders put half the energy into a solution that would end this conflict rather than giving into argument that Arabs are crazy animals that simply hate Jews something might occur to break this madhouse of a deadlock.
As an American, I am not in favour of becoming the next France of the 70s and 80s and having shopping malls and skyscrapers be battle grounds for the absurd hatreds and feuds of the Old World. I can’t tell you how dismaying it is to see a Minneapolis suburban high school used by Palestinian Arabs to “educate” us about the Palestinian/Israeli conflict.
Guess what, I don’t want that guy there in a relatively peaceful society his culture cant and didn’t construct. America, thanks to unbridled immigration, has turned into a giant refugee camp for all the troubles of the world and while I understand the value of a refuge like America when the lights were going out all over Europe, I don’t consider my country to exist for such an idea. I also have a life and 2 Minnesotan regiments were slashed to pieces defending their view of the world and I see no reason why additional conflicts should arrive here when we’ve already paid and deserve peace.
There was no sovereign nation in the British Mandate before the Jews came and those on the Left so in favour of illegal immigration into America should take note that they should then be on the side of the Jews in this regard. What happened happened. Jew and Arab threw the dice and the Arabs lost and they should get over it. Jewish civilization obviously predates Islam so their nonsense about an eternal waqf should be ignored.
Having said all that, the one thing both sides, Arab and Jew, East and West, Right and Left seem to agree on is that the West Bank is a bitch fest. Either annex the West Bank or give it up. Giving up Gaza turned out to be a bad scenario but one that had to be done and so it is with the West Bank. Even if it turns out the same, the Palestinian Arabs and their supporters would have the pins knocked out from under them and whatever Jew hatred is left over would be exposed for what it is.
Mary
You write: There was no sovereign nation in the British Mandate before the Jews came. In my subjective ears, I mentally complete the sentence “only Arab subjects”. When my great grandparents came to this corner of the failing Ottoman empire, it was virtually barren and empty. (a long list of sources on request). Jerusalem had a Jewish majority since at least the 18th century. The prosperity, bought into Palestine by waves of Jewish immigration, attracted Arabs from the whole region and their offsprings constitute the majority of today’s “Palestinians”. So “those on the Left so in favour of illegal immigration into America should take note that they should then be on (both sides) in this regard”
You need not complete my sentences in such a false manner or clarify my words. I was referring to nation status and not ethnic status thus the word “sovereign” so there is no need to drag out a straw man, put it in a field and give it a brain.
traditional anti-Semitism, which should be condemned and Muslim hatred for Jews, which stems from the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians”?
Muslim hatred for the Jews stems from the 7th century, some 1400 years already.
Haj Mohammed Effendi Amin el-Husseini started displaying his hatred to Jews in 1917 well before the coming of the “Palestinians” and helped Hitler in the Balkans do away with Serbs and Jews.
Muslin hatred is not limited to Jews. There is a reason “The Marine Hymn” mentions “shores of Tripoli”.
Large scale immigration of Jews from Europe into the Ottoman province, later British Mandate, of Palestine started in the late 19th century. Some of them had a dream of establishing a Jewish state and this was no secret. The Israeli/Palestinian conflict is merely an extension of the conflict between Palestinian Arabs and Jews due to a large influx of Jewish immigrants into the area.
If you want to make a case for Jew-hatred as usual in Islam, it would have to come substantially before the 1880s and might include an explanation as to why Jews exiled from Spain settled within Islam rather than another Christian polity given the mass anti-Semitism within Islam you portray. The case for Jew-hatred as usual in terms of the conflict in Palestine between Jew and Muslim cannot be made.
Islam had had its own way in that area of the world for centuries; even if under the thumb of different empires they were all Islamic. Suddenly Islam, especially in the 18th, 19th and then 20th centuries from Hyderabad to N. Africa was under assault by Europe and when the Ottomans were gone and the Europeans weakening, Arab nationalism arose after having been squelched for centuries. Instead of conquering and enjoying the fruits of that conquest as the elite, Arabs were reacting from an unaccustomed bottom position and they reacted to Jewish immigration into Palestine in a monolithic manner rather than only locally. This was a new phenomenon and not Jew hatred as usual.
genocidal maniacs, that’s Islam from day one of it, and still is, all over the place, and among all those many peoples it marked for death and slaughtered in its imperial conquests for a millennium and a half, it has harbored in its book and nurtured in its murderous prophet’s hearts, and in his adherents’, a vow and a burning desire to inflict death upon the Jews, whenever and wherever they saw fit, and when Jews having been persecuted and killed for all that time in Europe could sense a mass murder brewing there sought in the late nineteenth century to get out from under and eventually settle once again in their ancestral homeland, they went from the frying pan into the fire.
genocidal maniacs, that’s Islam from day one of it, and still is, all over the place, and among all those many peoples it
marked for death and slaughtered in its imperial conquests for a millennium and a half, it has harbored in its book and
nurtured in its murderous prophet’s hearts, and in his adherents’, a vow and a burning desire to inflict death upon the
Jews, whenever and wherever they saw fit, and when Jews also being persecuted and killed for all that time in Europe as well could sense mass murder brewing there sought in the late nineteenth century to get out from under and eventually settle once again in their ancestral homeland, they went from the frying pan into the fire.
Genocidal maniacs, that’s Islam from day one of it, and still is, all over the place, and among all those many peoples it
marked for death and slaughtered in its imperial conquests for a millennium and a half, it has harbored in its book and
nurtured in its murderous prophet’s hearts, and in his adherents’, a vow and a burning desire to inflict death upon the
Jews, whenever and wherever they saw fit, and when Jews persecuted and killed all over Europe as well could sense
mass murder brewing there sought in the late nineteenth century to get out from under it and settle in their ancestral
homeland, they went from the frying pan into the fire.
Never mind the fact that the Hamas charter explicitly calls for the murder of Jews – not Israelis, or Zionists, or “settlers”, but Jews – and cites the Koran as its justification.
The Hamas Charter was written by sick mental cases not to mention unflinching idiots. However goofy the Koran, were this charter a true reflection of that book, no Jew would’ve survived the 8th century. Many Jews prospered in Europe and within Islam, albeit as second class citizens and subject to pogroms on occasion.
This was because there was no Jewish equivalent of an Ottoman or British Empire within this time frame, not because Jews are innocent “others” devoid of such all too human qualities as empire building. Arabs are second class citizens within Israel and one can assume for the same reason all second class citizens have always been second class citizens.
In 622AD Mohammed killed 600-900 Jewish males and divided the women and children among his followers.
Is this early enough for you, Mary?
Jews in Muslim countries lived as second class citizens and pogroms were routine occurrences. Despite the hate, some Jewish communities were relatively prosperous but that was due to Jews being inventive rather than them being treated well by their hosts.
I don’t know if its ignorance or memory loss that allows you to state-
” If Israel’s defenders put half the energy into a solution that would end this conflict rather than giving into argument that Arabs are crazy animals that simply hate Jews something might occur to break this madhouse of a deadlock. ” -
In 2005 Israel uprooted 10,000 human beings from their hones of 30 years who had been living on Jewish Land in an effort to make peace. No other nation would have done that for an enemy defeated in battle. Yet their are folks like yourself who make comments like yours. The lack of clarity in your thinking astounds.
Exhibit A.
I wonder how many of the commenter’s above are Jewish? I was in a synagogue a few years ago and I heard a Rabi rail against the Viet Nam war. I was shocked because I belong to a Church that does not preach politics from the pulpit. But now I wonder where all those Rabi’s are that would deliver sermons against this hostile to Jews administration? Why aren’t they shouting from the roof tops? Obama hates the Jews, but you are not alone – he hates whites, the British, the conservatives, the congress, and the USA. I CAN’T UNDERSTAND WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THE jEWS IN THIS COUNTRY (
Didn’t mean to hit send. And didn’t mean to hit the caps lock – sorry.
Despite all our rhetoric about this abominable Adminstration a recent poll indicated that 55% of American Jews will vote for O again. I wish my co-religionists would learn that when somone’s acts shout out, they don’t like you, that צקשמד they really don’t like you. But no, those morons never learn!!
Yes indeed, the morons never learn, true. But they never learn what exactly?
Very simply, they never learn how to recognize a deadly enemy, that’s what.
But why not? Because they haven’t the backbone to face up to it, that’s why.
Instead, they huff and puff, and call Jews who can tell friend from foe “bad.”
Ok what does “צקשמד
” mean? I lived in Israel 4.5 years and I can’t translate it.
For reasons that escape me, my keyboard went into Hebrew mode, and I have no clue what I meant to say there.
And now one of the biggest “Blame Israel” ones of the whole lot, Petraeus, is head of the CIA.
A man can be Jew or Christian, or he can be an Obama supporter, but he can’t legally be Jew or Christian, and be an Obama supporter … … except in the usual way: one of the two with the mouth, the other with the heart. The spirit of Judaism and Christianity proclaim the survival of Israel and the meaning of that has no longer been left to guesswork, but made tremendously definite … the Jew and the Christian must fight all who would commit or enable another genocide or enslavement of the Jews. That is the spirit and the law of Judaism and Christianity. Well, Obama has his beliefs and actions and it is a perfectly definite set, there is no vaguenesses about it. He commands that the Jew bow to the Muslim at every turn they do him hurt or threaten him and his children with death. Word it as softly as you please, the spirit of Obama is the spirit of the evil black shadowed specter of the Beast of Austria insidiously billowing in and building and building to ever more horrific heights. The moment there is a question about a boundary line or a building or some Muslim somewhere complaining about any matter, see Obama rise, and see him spit at the Jew from the corner of his twisted mouth. The spirit of Obama being in its nature narcissistic and selfish — it is in the man’s line, it comes natural to him — he can live up to all of Jeremiah Wright’s teachings to the letter; but the spirit of Judaism and Christianity is entirely impossible to him.
I wouldn’t say “first it was Panetta.” I’d say, then there was Panetta….. since the fact is that these most recent statements (Panetta and Gutman) are part of an ongoing list of outrageous Anti-Israel (and therefore anti-Jewish) statements and actions from this administration.
Gutman’s statement appears to be even worse than it initially appeared (which was already bad enough):
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2011/12/gutmans-speech-even-worse-than-reported.html
I know that it it is not popular or politicly correct to even mention G-d when it comes to looking at world events. I have learned to live with the fact that for the most part humanity prefers blindness and self indulgence to clarity and self control. Yet these circumstances in no way alter the facts. There is a larger Hand guiding the world and with each passing moment that Hand is ever more evident.
The Nations of the World are rising up against Israel. This despite the fact that the Jews have every moral and legal right to every inch of territory that some call ” disputed ” or other call ” occupied “. Who uses these labels? They fall into two camps. The first motivated by material wealth of one kind or another. The second motivated by the insane hatred of Jews. Money and wealth motivation are easy to understand because greed is part of the human character of us all. Insane Jew hatred is motivated by hatred of G-d and that is harder for most people to understand because most of humanity does not hate G-d. They simply lead their lives without wisdom.
As politicians issue statements and world leaders collude, issuing contradictory proposals to this group and that, they are disrobed of all virtue and merit. Their words are really a waste of time. As money and wealth departs from the failed states of Europe and the future of America will be decided in less than a year thoughtful individuals should come to understand what is happening and prepare for the outcome.
The fate of Israel is guaranteed. The fate of America is not. What is in jeopardy is not ” Israel’s right to exist ” but the rest of the worlds right to exist.
A great Rabbi at the turn of the century was teaching his students that everything, absolutely everything, was a lesson from G-d. That only blindness prevents understanding. One of the students asked the Rabbi if this was true about even technological advancements and the Rabbi replied in the affirmative. ” What about the the telegraph, the railroad and the telephone ” , the student asked.
The telegraph teaches us that every word is counted. The railroad teaches us that in a second you can miss an opportunity. The telephone teaches that what is said here is heard there. The leaders of nations have no understanding of this simple lesson. They don’t understand that there is Judge and Authority whose Will cannot be undone.
When the President of the United States is willing to bow down to oil money- when the President of the United States gives a speech with constant references to the ” Holy Koran ” and the ” Holy Bible ” yet when he mentions The Torah the world Holy does not escape his lips, he demonstrates that hatred of G-d and love of wealth are not exclusive of each other.
Obamas’ Presidency is one of lies, missed opportunities and lack of accountability. We must do better.
Here are other areas I prefer to remain blind to: praying to Lakshmi for good luck, ghosts, thinking Japanese were killed by the sea for not being 100% on board with Israeli policies, angels on my shoulder, worshipping meteors, having women on segregated buses, having my kids burn down 200 year old olive trees cuz my star is better than your meteor, thinking Hitler was cool, veiling women cuz love hurts, sacred mountains, lucky sandals, magic carpets.
Separation of church and state: the kind of 20/80 vision I love.
I recommend a 12 step program. Good luck.
If your gloating over the deaths of Japanese in the tsunami and Americans in tornadoes this year because they weren’t fully on board with your particular god is “god-fearing” then okay, color me godless.
I want nothing to do with that kind of “love.”
I do not ” crow ” about the misery of others. I do recognize the Divine Hand when I see it. And I do not chastise Hilary for showing respect for the religious sentiments of others. However I do not accept disrespect directed at my own religious beliefs either. If you see no problem with Hilary showing respect for a society that stones women and practices female genital mutilation, where women cannot even drive cars or vote and then lectures Israel over womens rights well, a 12 step program will not help
.Some folks have no problem praying to a dead Jew. One wonders why they can’t muster a little respect for the rights of live ones.
“If your gloating over the deaths of Japanese in the tsunami and Americans in tornadoes”
He said nothing of the sort and you know it damn well. It is so typical of Jew-baiters like yourself to resort to sophistry and nasty lies because the truth never works for you.
Gary, you are obviously not acquainted with Mr. Yakov’s comments on these matters. He does not deny them nor can he since copy and paste is yet another type of tool.
“thinking Hitler was cool”
Well you can really GFY with that one, Mary. It is the Arabs who idolize Hitler, who were allied with him *before* Israel was even born. That little list that you think is oh-so-damning of Israel? You can make one 10,000 times longer describing what goes on in Arab countries and their attitudes towards Jews including the brutal expulsion of Jewish communities who had lived there a lot longer than the Palestinians lived in Palestine.
I was specifically thinking of the current and not so distant in the past Arab liking of Hitler so I’m not sure what you’re going on about. I was taking 2 sides to task not one and so it is interesting how you take that as all about you. I wasn’t aware Aladdin was Jewish.
” The same Secretary of State that has heralded negotiations with the violent, fanatical misogynists of the Taliban; who has extolled Saudi Arabia where women are given ten lashes for driving, and whose State Department trained female-hating Muslim Brotherhood operatives in the lead-up to the current elections in Egypt accused Israel of repressing women’s rights. The only state in the region where women are given full rights and legal protections became the focus of Clinton’s righteous feminist wrath.
In the IDF, as in the rest of the country, religious coercion is forbidden. Jewish law prohibits men from listening to women’s voices in song. And recently, when a group of religious soldiers were presented with an IDF band that featured female vocalists, keeping faith with their Orthodox observance, they walked out of the auditorium. The vocalists were not barred from singing. They were not mistreated. They were simply not listened to.
And as far as Clinton is concerned, this is proof that women in Israel are under attack. Barred by law from forcing their soldiers from spurning their religious obligations, IDF commanders were guilty of crimes against democracy for allowing the troops to exit the hall.
But Clinton didn’t end her diatribe with the IDF’s supposed war against women. She continued her onslaught by proclaiming that Israel is taking a knife to democracy by permitting its legislators to legislate laws that she doesn’t like. The legislative initiatives that provoked the ire of the US Secretary of State are the bills now under discussion which seek to curtail the ability to foreign governments to subvert Israel’s elected government by funding non-representative, anti-Israel political NGOs like B’Tselem and Peace Now.
In attacking Israel in the way she did, Clinton showed that she holds Israel to a unique standard of behavior. Whereas fellow Western democracies are within their rights when they undertake initiatives like banning Islamic headdresses from the public square, Israel is a criminal state for affording Jewish soldiers freedom of religion. Whereas the Taliban, who enslave women and girls in the most unspeakable fashion are worthy interlocutors, and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, which supports universal female genital mutilation is moderate, Israel is an enemy of democracy for seeking to preserve the government’s ability to adopt policies that advance the country’s interests.”
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=248256
“They were simply not listened to.”
Exhibit B.
Those segregated buses you and Hillary are so “worried” about are limited to a certain neighborhood in Jerusalem where residents (male and female) feel more comfortable not sitting shoulder to shoulder on a bus. That doesn’t reflect on the rest of Israel which BTW had a female head of state in the early 1970′s (something the U.S. and most other western countries didn’t to date).
The fact that you have a bunch of polygamists in Utah doesn’t mean that the U.S. is a polygamist society (I’m not comparing orthodox Jews to polygamists).
The most important aspect of the silly and uninformed remarks by Gutman and Panetta is not how mistaken they are, but rather that the remarks they made were crafted by and approved by the White House.
But isn’t this the Obama Doctrine, betray America’s allies and remain harmless to America’s enemies?
“A distinction should be made between traditional anti-Semitism, which should be condemned and Muslim hatred for Jews, which stems from the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians”?
Why, yes . . .
Traditional antisemitism means who doesn’t get invited to one’s garden party. Whereas Muslim hatred for Jews involves an intense desire for, solemn promises of, and fanatic attempts at total genocide.
Traditional antisemitism involves wacky coffee table discussions about “international bankers” and “Rothschilds”. Whereas Muslim hatred for Jews involves sending one’s kids loaded down with explosives and poisoned nails to blow up shopping malls.
The distinction is real: Arabs had centuries to practice fanatic “attempts” at genocide against Jews had they wished since Jews within their various empires were completely at their mercy.
There is such a thing as overstating one’s case and portraying entire countries like Norway as anti-Semitic and medieval Muslims as Nazi-style anti-Semites is crying wolf.
In the Medieval era, the safest place to be Jewish was within Arab lands.
For that matter, in the year 1000, the Arabs had a high, enlightened, advanced, literate, humane civilization as compared with the gibbering, slathering, barbaric, rustic hicks of Europe.
But that was then. This is now.
The concept that Jew lived well in Arab lands is a bit of propaganda easily dismissed with a trip to the library.
The Arabs respected no Jew more that the great Maimonides. A name and history you are undoubtedly unfamiliar with. Here is what Maimonides said about life under Moslem rule-
” God has hurled us in the midst of this people, the Arabs, who have persecuted us severely, and passed baneful and discriminatory legislation against us…. Never did a nation molest, degrade,debase and hate us as much as they … ” .
And here’s what the Talmudists had to say about Maimonides…”The Talmudists denounced Maimonides to the Inquisition, saying, “Behold, there are among us heretics and infidels, for they were seduced by Moses Ben Maimonides. . . you who clear your community of heretics, clear ours too”. At this behest his books were burned in Paris and Montpellier, the book-burning edict of the Talmudic law thus being fulfilled. On his grave the words were incised, “Here lies an excommunicated Jew”…Reed, Douglas; Controversy of Zion, p.100
I said earlier…you people need to get out more…there’s a whole Zionist conspiracy out there and you’re sitting here in a p***ing contest
Now Douglas Reed? What next- quoting from The Protocols? Troll away somewhere else.
Call it trolling if you will but I was actually reading Reed at the time because of a debate on another site covering almost the exact same topic. I provided an example to you of something in a library that directly refutes your statement and as usual, it is immediately dismissed. That’s part of the problem with the whole Israel/Zion thing, one side wants to control the debate by dismissing anything thrown into the discussion they don’t like. Quite frankly I’m getting a little tired of people with attitudes like yours and the thin skin you show when someone might disagree with you. I tell you what…why don’t we boot the U.N. out of the U.S. and let them relocate in Jerusalem. That will satisfy Resolution 194 making it a truly international city and it will be a short commute to clean up the mess they created in 1947. A mess we’ve had to help fund as taxpayers.
I don’t bother debating someone who claims the earth is flat. There is no point. As someone you know little about said, more than a thousand years ago-
” I seek no victory. For the honor of my soul and character consists in deviating from the paths of fools, but not in conquering them. “
Dismiss anyone you wish as foolish. You’re a perfect example of the biggest part of the problem.
I think you are misunderstanding me.
I did not say “lived well” in Arab lands. I said they “were safest”. That is not the same thing at all.
I also pointed out that this was the upwards of a thousand years ago.
Today, the situation is entirely reversed.
I repeat, “traditional” Antisemitism of, say, over last couple of centuries (pre-Shoah), as bad as it was, does not hold a candle to modernday Muslim antisemitism.
It doesn’t matter how many anti-Jewish comments are made by this administration, Obozo will still get 70% of the Jewish vote. Why do Jews have the survival instincts of lemmings or beached whales? It makes me think that if Goebbels returned with a darker complexion and a “D” after his. name, he too would get 70% of the Jewish vote.
I recently left my synagogue after a sermon filled with liberal clichés and promoting Obamacare. I was thinking of joining another synagogue near me, but read an online sermon by the rabbi which basically conflated Judaism with “social justice” and “healing the planet by fighting global warming.” it seems that Judaism in this country is turning into some new age left wing pro-democrat cult, where I can get the same sermons as I do at a democrat convention.
I will say again, that the stuff actually plays well in Israel: if we were just nicer, all this ill feeling would vanish and we would have peace in our time.
Israel has no policy no national vision than a continuing hondel. Not a good policy and one never knows what the future may bring. The whole enterprise places the country’s survival in the hands of others, rather than shortening the odds in its favor on its own initiative.
I would remind all of you that Israel’s existence is an affront to Islam. The only reason nothing has happened is simply Muslim weakness, which may not persist.
If terrorists nuke a likely US city, there will be many fewer Progressives afterwards.
I think Hilary can be added to the list now that she expressed her opinion of Israeli democracy being on the line to the Saban Forum,
because a private bus company provided three buses to serve the ultra-orthodox residential areas of Jerusalem with seating for women at the back of the bus (She compared this to Rosa Parks having to sit at the back of the bus),
One rabbi objected to religious soldiers hearing the voice of a woman snging.
Israelis now get to find out about the foreign funding of the pernicious NGOs doing so much damage to Israel’s image with a new law so akin to the laws the US has controlling foreign political meddling in its internal affairs.
What makes Hilary even more of a hypocrite is thaw when she visits Pakistan, Egypt or the Saudis, she has no problem covering her hair. Hijab will travel I guess.
When in Rome do as the Romans do: I have no trouble wearing a scarf when I enter the Sikh Golden Temple in Amritsar or sari in a Hindu temple in Bali – it’s a question of respect.
You yourself crowed about and attributed the deaths of thousands of Japanese to not sufficiently respecting your particular god even though they were nowhere near you. One can only wonder what form this monumental hypocrisy would take in your own backyard: burning at the stake perhaps?
“Yeah people, don’t ignore the Torah in Japan or it’s death and destruction but make sure you same Japanese don’t wear scarves in Islam; just be yourselves.”
It all makes perfect “sense.”
CORRECTION: Gutman raised $500,000, not $50,000, for Democratic candidates in 2008.
gutman is one of the new “kapos.” We all are aware of how much good it did the kapos during the Holocaust to torment and help murder Jews. Today such people are dhimmis. gutman and panetta are obviously among them. muslims, similar to the nazis, will be happy to exploit “useful idiots,” even Jewish ones, until they are no longer needed. It is almost painful to observe how little so many people learn from history. Self delusion anticipates and is a necessary pre-condition for self-destuction.
Lovely, people who don’t agree with your world view are “kapos,” “dhimmis,” “self-hating Jews” and “useful idiots,” not to mention anti-Semites.
It is hard to imagine a view that is more depraved and arrogant considering the amount of semantic quibbling and anger that goes on here over the mere word “kafir.”
What’s good for the goose is good for the gander pal. I don’t know the exact size of the bigot/hypocrisy suit such remarks qualify for but my guess would be XX Large.
I would seem to occupy a default philosophical space that is one of a self-deluded racist, easily manipulated dunce, godless peon in a moral wasteland and general hater of all things just and good.
This is definitely encouragement to get a membership card as I feel pouty lips and big sad eyes coming on as a result of my own stupidity and lack of morals.
Muslims call for the destruction of Israel and death to the Jews, Gutman, a Jew, adds fuel to the fire by blaming the Jews for it, and Gerund gets all in a huff because a Jew has the temerity to call him out in no uncertain terms.
Post a quote where Gutman (the mythical self-hating Jew) “blames” Jews.
Better still, watch their actions. Their words are usually meaningless.
Traditional vs: non-traditional anti semitism? Wow, there’s a distinction without a difference. Thank you Obama campaign bundler Gutman for that. Now put on your fool suit and go home.
Muslims call for the destruction of Israel and death to the Jews, Gutman, a Jew, adds fuel to the fire by blaming the Jews
for it, and Gerund gets all in a huff because a Jew has the temerity to call Gutman out in no uncertain terms.
It is not traditional vs non-traditional but anti-Semitism disconnected from real world events and now residing as urban myths (i.e. Jewish bankers, conspiracy) as opposed to the Muslim anger arising out of the Palestinian Arab/Jewish conflict. Gutman is not blaming the Jews and one need only read his actual talk to see this nor is observing Muslim anger on this issue condoning it.
If the Arabs are so angry about the “Palestinian” situation, why is it that they keep them in refugee camps rather than let them assimilate in their countries?
Why did Muslim terrorists kill 60 Muslim worshipers today (a holiday) in Afghanistan? Is that also because they are so mad about what Israel is doing to the “Palestinians”?
Sunnis don’t like Shia where they exist in large numbers. They exist in large numbers in Afghanistan. Everyone’s still angry about 680 A.D. and ironically, this Islamic month is one where fighting is prohibited.
In American parlance, it’s a grudge match, and reason 1001 why Muslims and their archaic feuds shouldn’t be allowed to emigrate to America. It’s a numbers game and the more the less merry.
Gutman’s response to Nathan Gelbart was completely true. It is nice to see someone finally calling anti-Zionists or “critics of Israel” the true anti-Semites that they are. What this also shows is that Gutman basically accuses the Obama Administration of being anti-Semitic (if you follow his argument to its logical conclusion). Personally, I don’t think Gutman should be condemned, other than perhaps for insinuating that Muslim anti-Semitism should not be condemned. I think that, other than that one insinuation in his initial statement, Gutman should be thanked for bringing the issue of Muslim anti-Semitism being cloaked as anti-Israelism to the forefront where it belongs.
I would not be surprised or upset some fifteen or twenty five years down the road, when the world will have a clearer perspective on Obama, that Mossad with full justification will find him, capture him, and smuggle him out as they did with Eichmann in Argentina and then try him and hang him as they did with Eichmann. Re: Self-hating Jews, that’s a misnomer. Italian-American Catholic GIs shooting at Mussolini’s infantrymen in WW II were not self-hating Catholics. But, sadly, there are too many misinformed, naive Jews in America who can’t rid themselves of genetic Semitic flaws that express themselves among their Arab cousins as suicide bombers and among themselves as suicide voters.
I haven’t read any where what Nathan Gelbart actually said, only that it was a “scathing rebuttal”. Does anyone know if it’s posted anywhere?
The sad thing is that Obama will get the Jewish vote in a landslide again in 2012.