Barry Rubin: It’s A Bird (Actually a Turkey), It’s A Plane, It’s A Totally Wimpy U.S. Foreign Policy!

It’s A Bird (Actually a Turkey), It’s A Plane, It’s A Totally Wimpy U.S. Foreign Policy!

By Barry Rubin

Turkey’s Islamist regime subverted and then opposed sanctions against Iran. That regime also declared Iran and Syria, Hamas and Hizballah to be its friends. It also sponsored a terrorist group (the IHH) to provoke Israel into an international incident that would generate Islamist martyrs and dead Israeli soldiers. Now, rejecting Israeli conciliation attempts (regrets; donations to families of jihadists who got killed trying to kill Israelis), the Turkish regime escalated to the verge of war.

Now the Turkish prime minister goes to Egypt, proposes an alliance with the Egyptian revolution, then advocates a united bloc of Arabs, Iranians, and Turks as well as war on Israel to the assembled Arab foreign ministers.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tells the Islamist Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, according to a U.S. diplomat,

Questions Raised About Palestinian Funds Missing Under Abbas's Watch

Challah Hu Akbar has put together sources indicating Abbas Lies About His Ties to the Palestine Investment Fund:

The other week Jonathan Schanzer wrote:

However, in recent years, Fayyad has been sidelined by PA President Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas has consolidated power, and he is now abusing it.

Separated At Birth: Julian Assange And Dr. Evil?

I saw a picture of Julian Assange of Wikileaks fame and one of...

Is there some resemblance?

U.S. Republicans Submit Resolution Supporting Israel's Right To Annex West Bank

The text of the Congressional bill follows--

U.S. Republicans submit resolution supporting Israel's right to annex West Bank

Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) introduces House resolution that supports annexation if the Palestinian Authority continues to push for UN vote.

U.S. Representative Joe Walsh (R-IL), introduced on Monday a resolution (with 30 co-sponsors) to support Israel’s right to annex the West Bank in the event that the Palestinian Authority continues to push for vote at the United Nations.

Barry Rubin: The Key Theme? Not Israeli Panic or Isolation But Western Unreliability

This post by Barry Rubin is reposted with permission

The Key Theme? Not Israeli Panic or Isolation But Western Unreliability 

"Then was the palm of the hand sent from before Him, and this writing was inscribed: MENE MENE, TEKEL UPHARSIN. This is the interpretation of the thing....Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting."
--The Book of Daniel

By Barry Rubin

Agence France Press reports that the Palestinian bid for UN recognition of unilateral statehood is “causing diplomatic panic” in the United States and Israel.

While Israel is certainly concerned, I think “panic” is totally wrong as a description. After all, Israel’s overwhelming interpretation is that the UN event will change nothing. As for U.S. panic, where has the Obama Administration been for the last year when this outcome was totally predictable?

The Associated Press says that Israel is “increasingly isolated” ahead of the vote. I don’t think that’s how Israelis look at this either.

Video: Debunking the Palestine Lie

I came across a new video about the history of the Israel-Palestinian conflict thanks to Ed Morrissey at HotAir:

...Encounter Books has just released a new Broadside titled A Century of Palestinian Rejectionism and Jew Hatred by Sol Stern. The book reviews the long history of the disputed territory, from the Ottoman Empire to today. Bill Whittle of Declaration Entertainment produced a longish video to accompany the book’s release, using the whiteboard animation technique to walk through the various attempts to get the Palestinians to accept a partition and a sovereign state. It’s a must-watch primer on the various issues under debate this week, as well as an indictment of current American policy:

Preventing Shariah Law From Infringing Upon The US Constitution

The issue of the implementation of Shariah law in Western democracies is a growing issue in general and is now beginning to be addressed here in the US as well.

For that reason, I thought this press release was interesting in that it addresses the issues involved in properly and legally preventing the infringement of Shariah Law upon the US Constitution.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For more information and to schedule an interview, contact:

Stephen M. Gelé, American Public Policy Alliance
www.publicpolicyalliance.org
admin@publicpolicyalliance.org or (800) 968-4211 

‘American Laws for American Courts’ Superior to Oklahoma’s Amendment Banning Shariah Law 

Washington, DC, September 19^th, 2011- On Election Day 2010, Oklahoma voters overwhelmingly approved State Question 755 (the “Save Our State Amendment”) that would prevent “foreign laws in general, and Islamic Sharia law in particular, from overriding state or U.S. laws.” While the concerns of the voters were well founded in regards to the increasing use of foreign legal rulings into state court decisions (see Shariahinamericancourts.com), the tool used to combat it was imprecise and vulnerable to Constitutional challenges.

The American Public Policy Alliance—promoters of “American Laws for American Courts” (ALAC) legislation passed in three states—responded to new challenges on Oklahoma’s State Question 755 by stressing the differences between the two approaches. ALAC is a facially neutral bill which seeks to ban foreign law from entering American courts when it infringes upon the Constitution.

An article from the Center for Security Policy’s Christopher Holton in the American Thinker describes these differences.

Iran Is Viewed As The Top Threat--To The US

RELEASE: IRAN NOW VIEWED AS TOP AMERICAN SECURITY THREAT, NEW POLL FINDS

For Immediate Release 
Contact: Eron Shosteck
Phone: 571-230-7300
Email: PRESS@SECUREAMERICANOW.ORG
September 19, 2011

You can download the Topline from the survey here.
You can download the cross tabs here.

NEW YORK, NY – Iran is now seen as the top national security threat to the United States, according to the findings of a new bipartisan poll of 1,000 Americans released by the non-partisan grassroots public interest group Secure America Now, and 96 percent of Americans view national security as an important factor when deciding their vote for the next president. The national poll of 1,000 likely 2012 election voters was conducted in August by Democrat Pat Caddell and Republican John McLaughlin. It has a +/- accuracy level of 3.1 percent.

Mideast Media Sampler 09/20/2011

From DG:

1) Who fact checks the fact checkers? Glenn Kessler take issue with Gov. Perry Rick Perry’s newbie mistake on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. (Many thanks to Lynn for pointing this out.) In response to this answer given by Gov. Perry,

Question: Do you believe there should be a Palestinian state?

“I certainly have some concerns. The first step in any peaceful negotiation for a two-state solution for the Palestinians is to recognize the right of Israel’s existence. They have to denounce terrorism in both word and deed. And they have to sit down and negotiate with Israel directly. Anything short of that is a non-starter in my opinion.”

the Washington Post's Glenn Kessler "corrects" the governor. Kessler starts:

Perry’s statement had three parts: Palestinians must recognize Israel’s existence; they have to denounce terrorism; they have to negotiate with Israel directly. “Anything short of that is a non-starter in my opinion,” he declared. Perry is stuck in a time warp. He’s describing a situation that existed in the 1980s, not really today. (Some people might argue about some of that, but we will explain below.)

 I do believe there's a time warp, but not in the way Kessler means.

Sultan Knish On The PLO--The Perpetually Dying Terrorist Group

Sultan Knish writes about The End of Palestine--and the end of a terrorist group that has been postponed for far too long:

...From its founding, the PLO had always been a tool of larger movements in the Arab Muslim world. It began as a tool of Arab Socialism, and Pan-Arabism, the dream of a single Arab state encompassing the entire Arab world. An Arab socialist Caliphate. Even while agitating for the Palestinian cause, Shukairy went on promoting Pan-Arabism, in which there would be no independent Palestine. But then again an independent Palestine had never been the point.

By the 70's and 80's, the PLO had become a poisoned knife that cut the hands of its wielders. This is the common enough fate of those who create terrorist groups and imagine that they can control them. The PLO had managed to commit a number of terrorist atrocities in Israel, and Arafat, the 3rd successor to Shukairy, had become a household name. But it had achieved nothing except headlines.

In the seventies, the PLO attempted to seize control of part of Jordan, which after all had  comprised the majority of the Palestine Mandate. But the PLO was brutally suppressed by the Jordanian regime of King Hussein, and was expelled from the country. It tried the same thing again in Beirut a few years later, trying to carve a "Second Palestine" out of Lebanon. It failed again, with horrifying results for the entire country.

By the late eighties, the PLO was done. Egypt had made a peace deal with Israel. Jordan had a tacit understanding with Israel under the table. Syria was the only Arab country bordering Israel that was still somewhat supportive of the PLO, but it had little use for the PLO as a terrorist organization inside Israel, because the PLO was Arab, and the Golan Heights which Syria hoped to conquer was Druze. Instead Syria was far more interested in using the PLO to spread chaos in Lebanon for its own purposes.

Read the whole thing.

Only through the unforced errors of others has the PLO escaped irrelevance again and again--which brings us to Abbas's appearance before the UN this week.

Hat tip: Seraphic Secret

Technorati Tag: Israel and PLO and Middle East.