How else can I title this post?

The Obama Administration has been anti-Israel from the outset and, as significantly, pro-Palestinian.

It would be one thing if there was any kind of even-handedness involved, but there simply is not.

Like most left-handed political bodies, the Obama Administration automatically assumes that the electorate is comprised almost entirely of citizens who only recently fell off the back of the banana truck, that we’re all incredibly stupid, so much so that Obama and his cadre can say one thing, do another and we won’t even begin to notice…

From CNS News

Secretary of State John Kerry in Turkey Sunday condemned the “cowardly terrorists” who killed a young foreign service officer in Afghanistan and referred to Kurdish terrorism against Turkey, but when asked minutes later about Hamas – the Palestinian terrorist group embraced by his Turkish hosts – he chose to comment only indirectly.

The incident provided a fresh example of the Obama administration’s reluctance to tackle Turkey’s Islamist government in public over its support for Hamas, even as it partners with Ankara in its centerpiece counter-terror initiative (which excludes Israel).

Finish reading the article here.

I mentioned above that the lefties in the White House and their fellow travelers believe we all fell off the back of said banana truck, right? Well, how is it that Jewish Americans who, naively supporting an enemy of Israel who also happens to be the President of the United States for the moment, continually take what he says seriously, believing him even as his actions deny his words?

From Jonathan Tobin via the Jewish World Review

In the aftermath of President Obama’s ringing affirmation of Zionism and Jewish rights during his visit to Israel last month, many of his liberal Jewish supporters are justifiably feeling vindicated. But after years of backing Obama and sniping at Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, some of them are having a little trouble fully understanding the administration’s moves.

While the president also called on Israeli students to pressure their government to make peace, he also reversed course on one of the key elements of his Middle East policy during his first term. When speaking with Palestinian Authority head Mahmoud Abbas, Obama pointedly said that settlements were not the obstacle to peace and that no preconditions should be expected of the Israelis in order to entice the PA back to the negotiating table.

These comments, which received far less play than the president’s Jerusalem speech about peace, represented a significant policy shift. After four years of demanding Israel freeze settlements as well as make other concessions prior to talks, Obama put himself on the same page as Netanyahu when it came to the question of Israel being asked to ante up and virtually guarantee that it would abandon its bargaining chips prior to negotiations.

Yet somehow many of the president’s backers haven’t quite assimilated this message.

That article is here.

When will they ever learn?

At least, that’s what it sounds like.

From The Israel Project:

Jerusalem, April 20 — A top Hamas official said the terrorist group is willing to consider a lasting ceasefire with Israel but still rejects a peace deal with the Jewish state. The ceasefire, or hudna, according to Iran-backed Hamas’ No. 2 leader, Mousa Abu Marzouk, would be similar to arrangements between Israel and Syria and Israel and Lebanon.

“Let’s establish a relationship between the two states in the historic Palestinian land as a hudna between both sides,” Marzouk said during a wide-ranging, two-day interview with The Forward newspaper. “It’s better than war and better than the continuous resistance against the occupation.”
But that doesn’t mean Hamas plans to soften its stance on its position toward Israel.

“We will not recognize Israel as a state,” he said emphatically. “It will be like the relationship between Lebanon and Israel or Syria and Israel.” Neither, according to the interview, did Marzouk say Hamas planned to renounce terrorism or live by previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements – principles set forth by the Middle East Quartet. The Quartet comprises the United States, the European Union, the United Nations, and Russia.

Neither, Marzouk said, would he be willing to negotiate with Israel for the ceasefire. And any changes in Hamas’ stance toward Israel, Marzouk said, would have to be approved in a referendum that includes votes by Palestinian refugees worldwide.

In other words, “we may stop the terrorism, or we may not, and if we do, it’ll only be until such time as we decide to start doing so again.”

How Palestinian of them!

Since our president has come into office (actually before he came into office, if his attendance for decades at the pro-Palestinian terrorist, anti-Israel Reverend Wright’s church is any indicator), he has made it abundantly clear that he is just chaffing at the bit to aid his Arab friends in their quest to put an end to Israel once and for all.

The only thing holding him back from going all out in an anti-semitic frenzy, in my opinion, is the fact that most American voters and indeed most American politicians of either major party look upon the Jewish state as a friend and ally of the United States.

From a column by Wesley Pruden in today’s Jewish World Review, a favorite read of Seth’s when he’s around (Hmm, that hasn’t been for awhile now, but we’re praying that he’ll be back soon and everything will again be as it was):

Another tough decision is coming up for Barack Obama. This one ought to be easy, even for the ditherer-in-chief. But before he decides to do the right thing he’ll need all the bicarbonate of soda in the White House pantry.

The Arab League, on whom the United States and the “great powers” of Europe depend for the moral authority to impose the no-fly zone over Libya, now wants the United Nations to impose a similar no-fly zone over Gaza, whence the Palestinians fire their rockets at Israeli schoolchildren. The Israelis, naturally, fire back with air strikes. This inconveniences the Palestinian rocket batteries no end, of course, and the Arab League is eager for someone, since the Arabs have never been able to do it, to make the Israelis submit to their own destruction.

How do you say it? Oh, yes SNIP!

President Obama has peopled his administration with prominent policy-makers and aides who wear their hostility to Israel like Easter finery. Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., is a passionate and impetuous critic of America’s only reliable ally in the Middle East. Samantha Power, the senior director for multilateral affairs (this is not as naughty as it sounds) at the National Security Council, once in a fit of little-foot stamping proposed landing a “mammoth force” of American troops to protect the Palestinians from Israel. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is appropriately diplomatic in her present incarnation, but as the first lady she famously embraced Suha Arafat, widow of Yasser Arafat, with hugs and kisses at a rally in the Middle East in 1999.

Here’s the column in its entirety.

Now, I suppose, we wait and see how the “Ditherer-In-Chief” responds.

According to One Jerusalem, Obama has badly miscalculated the support Benjamin Netanyahu enjoys from the Israeli public, but that is pretty understandable since lefties tend to base their perceptions on what they’d like them to be rather than what they are.

The Obama Administration has invested a great deal in trying to create the impression that Prime Minister Netanyahu’s policies do not represent the will of the Israeli public. When Obama insulted Netanyahu in the White House he probably thought that a majority of Israelis would approve of his actions. In one respect, it is understandable that Obama reached this conclusion. After all, his “Jewish Advisers”, Emanuel, Axelrod, and J Street continuously tell him that Netanyahu represents an extreme right-wing constituency among Israelis.

Well, this has been a mis-reading of the will of the Jewish people, especially those living in Israel.

A respected poll, conducted after the boarding of the flotilla ship, quantifies overwhelming Israeli support for Netanyahu’s policies. On a personal level, Netanyahu’s positives rating have climbed to 53% while dissatisfaction with President Obama has soared to 71%. In addition, 63% are dissatisfied with the Obama administration’s response to the flotilla.

And if anyone doubts that Israelis are determined to defend their country check out the response to a question about how Israel should react to an aid ship that the Iranians are threatening to sponsor: 84% would stop them at any cost. Just 7% would let them go quietly.

On related issues, like lifting the Gaza blockade and submitting to an international inquiry there is majority sentiment against these and other compromising proposals.

The pollster also noted that he had never seen such intensity among Israeli citizens. These positions are not lightly held.

Yes, a key phrase here might be, intensity among Israeli citizens.

Caroline Glick hits the nail right on the head once again.

“International” kangaroo courts are in the offing. But that’s the very least of Israel’s problems…

Israel is endangered today as it has never been before. The Turkish-Hamas flotilla two weeks ago precipitated a number of dangerous developments. Rather than attend to all of them, Israel’s leadership is devoting itself almost exclusively to contending with the least dangerous among them while ignoring the emerging threats with the potential to lead us to great calamities.

Since the Navy’s lethal takeover of the Mavi Marmara, Israel has been stood before an international diplomatic firing squad led by the UN and Europe and supported by the Obama administration. Firmly backed by European and largely unopposed by Washington, the UN is moving swiftly towards setting up a new Goldstone-style anti-Israel kangaroo court. That canned tribunal will rule that Israel has no right to defend itself and attempt to force Israel to end its lawful naval blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza.

Fearing this outcome, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu bowed to US President Barack Obama’s demand that Israel set up an Israeli inquest of the Mavi Marmara takeover and permit foreigners to oversee its proceedings. Netanyahu also agreed to scale-back Israel’s blockade significantly, and allow international bodies to have a role in its far more lax enforcement. Netanyahu has made these concessions with the full knowledge that they will strengthen Hamas in the hopes that they would weaken the international onslaught against Israel.

Unfortunately, it took no time at all to see that his hopes were misplaced. Even before Netanyahu announced these concessions, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon already announced that they make no difference to him or to his friends in Washington and Brussels. They will move ahead with their plans to appoint a new kangaroo court charged with asserting that Israel has no right to defend itself.

Meanwhile, while Israel gets totally unjust flack from a bunch of hostile countries, the EU, the U.N. and the usual suspects based on calculated inaccuracies and omissions of fact, at least one man, surprisingly a former European leader, José María Aznar (Prime Minister of Spain from 1996-2004 — defeated because the people of Spain, cowed and trembling after a single terrorist attack, wanted a noodle-spined leader who would run his troops out of Iraq with a tail-between-the-legs cowardice that would have made the French green with envy).

By Jose Maria Aznar:

Anger over Gaza is a distraction. We cannot forget that Israel is the West’s best ally in a turbulent region. For far too long now it has been unfashionable in Europe to speak up for Israel. In the wake of the recent incident on board a ship full of anti-Israeli activists in the Mediterranean, it is hard to think of a more unpopular cause to champion.

In an ideal world, the assault by Israeli commandos on the Mavi Marmara would not have ended up with nine dead and a score wounded. In an ideal world, the soldiers would have been peacefully welcomed on to the ship. In an ideal world, no state, let alone a recent ally of Israel such as Turkey, would have sponsored and organised a flotilla whose sole purpose was to create an impossible situation for Israel: making it choose between giving up its security policy and the naval blockade, or risking the wrath of the world.

In our dealings with Israel, we must blow away the red mists of anger that too often cloud our judgment. A reasonable and balanced approach should encapsulate the following realities: first, the state of Israel was created by a decision of the UN. Its legitimacy, therefore, should not be in question. Israel is a nation with deeply rooted democratic institutions. It is a dynamic and open society that has repeatedly excelled in culture, science and technology.

Second, owing to its roots, history, and values, Israel is a fully fledged Western nation. Indeed, it is a normal Western nation, but one confronted by abnormal circumstances.

Uniquely in the West, it is the only democracy whose very existence has been questioned since its inception. In the first instance, it was attacked by its neighbours using the conventional weapons of war. Then it faced terrorism culminating in wave after wave of suicide attacks. Now, at the behest of radical Islamists and their sympathisers, it faces a campaign of delegitimisation through international law and diplomacy.

Sixty-two years after its creation, Israel is still fighting for its very survival. Punished with missiles raining from north and south, threatened with destruction by an Iran aiming to acquire nuclear weapons and pressed upon by friend and foe, Israel, it seems, is never to have a moment’s peace.

For years, the focus of Western attention has understandably been on the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians. But if Israel is in danger today and the whole region is slipping towards a worryingly problematic future, it is not due to the lack of understanding between the parties on how to solve this conflict. The parameters of any prospective peace agreement are clear, however difficult it may seem for the two sides to make the final push for a settlement.

The real threats to regional stability, however, are to be found in the rise of a radical Islamism which sees Israel’s destruction as the fulfilment of its religious destiny and, simultaneously in the case of Iran, as an expression of its ambitions for regional hegemony. Both phenomena are threats that affect not only Israel, but also the wider West and the world at large.

The core of the problem lies in the ambiguous and often erroneous manner in which too many Western countries are now reacting to this situation. It is easy to blame Israel for all the evils in the Middle East. Some even act and talk as if a new understanding with the Muslim world could be achieved if only we were prepared to sacrifice the Jewish state on the altar. This would be folly.

Israel is our first line of defence in a turbulent region that is constantly at risk of descending into chaos; a region vital to our energy security owing to our overdependence on Middle Eastern oil; a region that forms the front line in the fight against extremism. If Israel goes down, we all go down.

To defend Israel’s right to exist in peace, within secure borders, requires a degree of moral and strategic clarity that too often seems to have disappeared in Europe. The United States shows worrying signs of heading in the same direction.

The West is going through a period of confusion over the shape of the world’s future. To a great extent, this confusion is caused by a kind of masochistic self-doubt over our own identity; by the rule of political correctness; by a multiculturalism that forces us to our knees before others; and by a secularism which, irony of ironies, blinds us even when we are confronted by jihadis promoting the most fanatical incarnation of their faith. To abandon Israel to its fate, at this moment of all moments, would merely serve to illustrate how far we have sunk and how inexorable our decline now appears.

This cannot be allowed to happen. Motivated by the need to rebuild our own Western values, expressing deep concern about the wave of aggression against Israel, and mindful that Israel’s strength is our strength and Israel’s weakness is our weakness, I have decided to promote a new Friends of Israel initiative with the help of some prominent people, including David Trimble, Andrew Roberts, John Bolton, Alejandro Toledo (the former President of Peru), Marcello Pera (philosopher and former President of the Italian Senate), Fiamma Nirenstein (the Italian author and politician), the financier Robert Agostinelli and the Catholic intellectual George Weigel.

It is not our intention to defend any specific policy or any particular Israeli government. The sponsors of this initiative are certain to disagree at times with decisions taken by Jerusalem. We are democrats, and we believe in diversity.

What binds us, however, is our unyielding support for Israel’s right to exist and to defend itself. For Western countries to side with those who question Israel’s legitimacy, for them to play games in international bodies with Israel’s vital security issues, for them to appease those who oppose Western values rather than robustly to stand up in defence of those values, is not only a grave moral mistake, but a strategic error of the first magnitude.

Israel is a fundamental part of the West. The West is what it is thanks to its Judeo-Christian roots. If the Jewish element of those roots is upturned and Israel is lost, then we are lost too. Whether we like it or not, our fate is inextricably intertwined.

Would but Old Europe, the U.N. and — fat chance — the Muslim in the White House exercise as much sense as Senor Aznar!

From MSNBC:

TEHRAN - Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards are ready to provide a military escort to cargo ships trying to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza, a representative of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Sunday.

“Iran’s Revolutionary Guards naval forces are fully prepared to escort the peace and freedom convoys to Gaza with all their powers and capabilities,” Ali Shirazi, Khamenei’s representative inside the Revolutionary Guards, was quoted as saying by the semi-official Mehr news agency.

So, Ahmadinejad and his boss the Ayatollah want to deal themselves in, hey?

Well…

Any intervention by the Iranian military would be considered highly provocative by Israel which accuses Iran of supplying weapons to Hamas, the Islamist movement which rules Gaza.

No kidding.

This sort of thing would be a blatant act of war on Iran’s part. There’s no way they could claim any kind of otherwise legal entitlement to involve themselves in the running of the Gaza blockade except as an official act by their government.

One wonders if they actually believe they can buffalo Israel, whether by running a bluff or by actually enacting a show of force of sufficient size to cause the Israelis to back down.

Personally, I don’t see it; Unless, of course, they already have a nuke on line to send over, in which case the Israelis will no doubt have a whole lot more to send back.

Let’s pray, friends, that this is not the case.

Let’s also pray that we are not now looking at a prelude to a war between Israel and Iran, both for Israel’s sake and the sakes of the millions of Iranians who crave freedom but are trapped under the thumb of the Islamofascists who have “owned” Iran ever since Jimmy Carter turned his back on Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi and abandoned him to a coup by those fanatical maniacs.

If it does come to a war, I have little doubt but that Israel will win, but it will be a prolonged, bloody affair on both sides — Iran is not Trinidad.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel will continue to stop ships reaching the shore and creating “an Iranian port in Gaza,” a reference to Iran’s support for Hamas.

An Iranian port in Gaza is an apt description, and if Netanyahu does not want that to come to pass, it will not.

The Israeli prime minister is not the sheep Tzippi Livni and her corrupt leftist boss Ehud Olmert were, he is old school Israeli patriot.

I wonder if he’ll tell the mad Ayatollah to “bring it on”, like his late older brother and former commander of Sayeret Matkal might have done.

Remember a true hero named Yonatan Netanyahu?

Hard Astarboard is a pro-Israel blog.

We view the Jewish State as a staunch ally and friend of the United States, and the only real free country/democracy in the Middle East. We view those entities such as European countries, third world cesspools and the U.N. who support Palestinian terrorism to be lower than dirt, and yes, we do not for a second believe that countries like France or orgs like the U.N., or Barack Obama and his pastor Rev. Wright, for that matter are and among others are, despite any protestations to the contrary, spineless scumbags who endorse anything, no matter how abominable, that Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the rest of those cowardly murderers of women and children do to the Israelis.

That said, what happened a few days ago aboard the Mavi Marmara, the circumstances surrounding the events and the subsequent “outrage” directed toward Israel have all been typical in that once again, Israel’s actions of self defense have been translated as acts of monstrous aggression against innocent “victims”.

Right.

A couple of videos of what actually transpired are here and here.

These so-called “peace” activists attempting to run the Gaza naval blockade under the transparent guise of ferrying in humanitarian supplies, actually came equipped with bats and other blunt instruments to use in assaulting Israeli military personnel when they boarded the ship, Mavi Maramara, to inspect her cargo, and assault them they did.

The Israelis acted in pure self defense and with great restraint and there people on both sides were tossed in the hurt locker, some terminally so, and as is forever the case the corrupt, left wing world smelly body known as the United Nations and the rest of the usual suspects made victims of the aggressors.

Protests were held throughout the Middle East and Europe on Monday in reaction to Israel’s commando raid on a Turkish ship ferrying supplies to Palestinians that left at least nine people dead.

Israel defended the raid and posted video on the Internet showing Israeli soldiers during the raid being attacked with metal pipes and knives by the Turkish ship’s crew.

The incident prompted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cancel a planned visit to Washington for a meeting with President Obama set for Tuesday.

In New York, the U.N. Security Council, prompted by Arab governments, convened a special session to discuss the incident, which took place in international waters near Gaza. The Palestinians and Arabs, backed by a number of council members including Turkey, also called for Israel to lift the blockade on Gaza, immediately release the ships and humanitarian activists, and allow them to deliver their goods.

Assistant Secretary-General Oscar Fernandez-Taranco said in his briefing to the U.N.’s most powerful body that the early-morning bloodshed would have been avoided “if repeated calls on Israel to end the counterproductive and unacceptable blockade of Gaza had been heeded.”

The White House issued a statement saying it regretted the loss of life. “The president also expressed the importance of learning all the facts and circumstances around this morning’s tragic events as soon as possible,” it said.

At the State Department, spokesman P.J. Crowley, said, “We are working to ascertain the facts, and expect that the Israeli government will conduct a full and credible investigation.”

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak telephoned Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and National Security Adviser James L. Jones to explain the raid. In a statement from Mr. Barak’s office, the minister said the raid was within maritime law. “The passengers on the Marmara beat our soldiers with every object they had and wounded some of them,” the statement quoted Mr. Barak as saying. “The soldiers defended themselves.”

Not, of course, that that makes any difference, and being of one mind with their fellow leftists in the U.S. Justice Department, such as Attorney General Eric Holder who condemned the recently passed Arizona anti-illegal immigration bill without first reading the ten page document, the U.N. Security Council was quick to condemn Israel without first investigating the chain of events involved in the flotilla incident.

From CNS News:

The rapid condemnation of Israel by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), made without a full knowledge of the facts, makes the international body look “ridiculous,” says a leading Middle East expert.

“It makes the United Nations look ridiculous when it comes to solving world problems,” Michael Rubin, a Middle East scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, told CNSNews.com. “After all, the United Nations reacted much more swiftly and with much more fervor to this than they did with regard to the North Korean sinking of the South Korean boat, which could precipitate a war that could kill millions.”

The U.N. is ridiculous when it comes to anything it does, in a tragic sort of way.

The UNSC statement, issued May 31, “condemns” Israel’s actions in boarding a fleet carrying pro-Hamas activists, an operation in which activists aboard one of the vessels attacked Israeli sailors who had boarded the boat. Ten of the so-called activists were killed when the Israeli sailors returned fire in what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called self-defense.

However, the UNSC condemnation repeatedly admits that the Security Council has no “independent information” and no idea as to the actual chain of events.

According to the statement, U.N. Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs Oscar Fernandez-Taranco, who briefed the Security Council on the incident, nonetheless “[made] clear the United Nations has no ‘independent information on what transpired.’”

Fernandez-Taranco also told the council that “it is not possible to state definitively the sequence or details of what happened.”

Nevertheless, the council condemned Israel, citing the loss of civilian life and saying, “The Council, in this context, condemns those acts which resulted in the loss of at least 10 civilians and many wounded, and expresses its condolences to their families.”

The UNSC condemnation does not offer condolences or express its regret for the six Israeli sailors who were injured after being attacked by activists with knives, stun grenades, and guns.

…does not offer condolences or express its regret for the six Israeli sailors who were injured after being attacked by activists with knives, stun grenades, and guns.

Why would they do that, when it is their unwritten policy to support anti-Israeli terrorism and anything that supports the terrorists?

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu…

…hotly rejected calls to lift a blockade on Hamas-ruled Gaza on Wednesday, insisting the ban prevents missile attacks on Israel and labeling worldwide criticism of his navy’s bloody raid on a pro-Palestinian flotilla as “hypocrisy.”

“This was not the ‘Love Boat,’” Netanyahu said in an address to the nation, referring to the vessel boarded by commandos, setting off clashes that led to the deaths of nine activists. “It was a hate boat.”

Shortly after his address, planes carrying hundreds of activists detained after the raid on the six-boat flotilla started leaving for Turkey and Greece. Turkey has been pressuring Israel to release the detainees, most of whom are Turkish. Also on the planes were the bodies of the nine dead.

While Israeli officials spent most of the day trying to contain the flood of diplomatic condemnation of the raid, Netanyahu was anything but conciliatory in his first nationally broadcast comments since Monday’s military action.

“Israel is facing an attack of international hypocrisy,” he said, asserting that the Jewish state is the victim of an Iran-backed campaign to arm the Hamas rulers of Gaza with missiles that could hit Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Netanyahu said the aim of the flotilla was to break the blockade, not to bring aid to Gaza. If the blockade ended, he warned, hundreds of ships would bring in thousands of missiles from Iran, to be aimed at Israel and beyond.

The result, he said, would be an Iranian port on the Mediterranean. “The same countries that are criticizing us today should know that they would be targeted tomorrow,” Netanyahu said.

Which sums things up nicely, I would say.

Thank GOd Netaniahu won the last election. Had the bribe taking, far left Ehud Olmert or his equally treasonous minion, Tzippi Livni still been in charge over there, they’d probably (assuming, of course, that there would even have been a blockade for the international criminals to run) have smooched U.N. and Palestinian butt and ceded all of Jerusalem to the Arabs to “make amends”.

Here, Lawrence J. Haas weighs in with Surprise! Violence erupts, Israel condemned.

And from Wesley Pruden, a favorite columnist of Hard Astarboard’s, in its entirety:

When the going gets tough, the not-so-tough call in the cliches. The world’s “leaders” are shocked! — shocked! — when Israel defends itself. Actually, they’re about as “shocked” as Claude Raines, the police inspector in “Casablanca,” who was shocked to learn that gambling was going on in the casino at Rick’s Cafe.

Ban Ki-moon, the secretary-general of the United Nations who rarely sees third-world evil, shocking or otherwise, says he was “shocked” by the Israeli navy’s stopping a convoy attempting to break through the blockade of Islamist terrorists in Gaza. The governments of Sweden, Greece and Jordan were so “shocked” they recalled their ambassadors to Israel to get the inside dope to fuel further “shock.” Tony Blair, who is some sort of “peacemaker”-at-large in the Middle East, was “shocked,” too. If he is, it’s only because he hasn’t been in the Middle East long enough to unpack his Gladstone. France was not just a little bit “shocked,” but “profoundly shocked.” There was so much “shock” in the air that the mourning became electric.

The convoy of six ships not only carried thousands of tons of supplies, but hundreds of “activists” and when the smoke cleared nine or so “activists” — the count varied through the day — had been rendered “inactivists,” and capable of no further mischief. The European Union demanded an official inquiry, so profound was its “shock.” The United Nations went into emergency session to recover from “shock.”

The usual suspects went riding off in several directions even before they could mount their horses, but an investigation, official or otherwise, is not really necessary. Verdict now, facts later. The Associated Press, which once took pride in its reporting but is awash now in activists and pundits, set out the early story line: “Dozens of activists and six Israeli soldiers were wounded in the bloody predawn confrontation in international waters. The violent takeover dealt yet another blow to Israel’s international image, already tarnished by war crimes accusations in Gaza and its 3-year-old blockade of the impoverished Palestinian territory.”

The account of the Israeli commandos tells a different story. The Mava Marmara, the lead ship in the flotilla, was told to change course and not land in Gaza. When it ignored the warning Israeli marines and commandos boarded the ship, some by rope ladders from helicopters. A fierce fight erupted on deck and only after taking severe casualties and fearing for their lives the commandos, armed only with pistols and paint ball rifles because they were expecting genuine peace activists and not trained street fighters, fired back, trying to aim first at the feet of the “peace activists.”

Israel is at war, fighting for its very existence, surrounded by hostile Islamic regimes, some more hostile than others. Not all the hostile regimes approve, or so they say, of the Islamist campaign of extinction of Israel by attrition (until Iran gets a working nuclear bomb). None of these hostile regimes, so in love with peace, will do anything to persuade or compel the Palestinians to give up the dream of destroying Israel in a second Holocaust. This is the reality in the Middle East and the cowering milklegs in Washington, London, Paris and the other capitals of the West know it. Who could be shocked when the Israelis do what they must do to survive?

The facts on ground and sea are, as usual, ignored in the bang and clang of rioting in the streets and the din of diplomatic argle-bargle, with the media peddling the usual story: The flotilla of “peace” ships was only intended to relieve the suffering of women, children and maybe even an occasional cute kitten or adorable puppy. But the “activist” account is bunk.

Adequate supplies of food, medicine and other necessary goods are regularly delivered to Palestinians in Gaza — and by the Israelis. The government in Jerusalem invited reporters to the Kerem Shalom crossing to see, and photograph, the convoys of trucks delivering these goods to Gaza. The Israelis even offered to transfer the goods from the flotilla as soon as the ships could be unloaded and inspected. The sponsor of the flotilla, the Turkish Humanitarian Relief Foundation, is regarded by Israel as a radical Islamist organization, part of a global fund-raising operation of Hamas. If the Israelis allow such flotillas to deliver supplies to Gaza, other ships will follow, not with rice and beans but with explosives, rifles and long-range Iranian Fajr-5 missiles.

But the attack of the “peace” ships was intended for a larger and more important purpose — to undermine Israeli determination to continue the struggle against the radical Muslims who are determined to kill Jews. The Israelis are determined there won’t be a second Holocaust. This shouldn’t shock anyone who’s been paying attention.

******UPDATE******

This article, of the aftermath and some background on Hamas and Gaza by Steven Emerson is a must read.

From Wesley Pruden today,

Celebrating Easter and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the most important holy day for Christians of all denominations, can be deadly in the Middle East. Reciting a Scripture or humming a hymn could cost your head in Saudi Arabia, and you could risk other highly valued body parts in the similarly benighted ninth-century neighborhoods abounding in the lands of caliphs, imams and ayatollahs.

Beheading is something of the national sport of Saudi Arabia, where the government has scheduled for Friday the gruesome ritual for a man, the father of five, accused of sorcery for “making predictions” in his native Lebanon. (Punditry can be risky there, too.)

Better to take your celebration to Israel, where the government will assist your visit. It’s the difference between Middle East and the cultural West, between the 8th and 21st centuries, between civilized and not-so-civilized. The Israeli guarantee of religious freedom, taken for granted in the nations of the West, is part of what invites hostility and belligerence from Israel’s neighbors.

Ah, yes. The sweet, sweet freedoms found in the Muslim world versus the liberty smothering, murderous, despotic aparthied of Israel. Right, Barack, Joe & Hillary?

Pilgrims proceed under protection today along the Via Dolorosa, believed to be the path that Christ took with His cross to the crucifixion at Calvary, and on to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

Many Christians, particularly Roman Catholics, believe Christ was buried on the site three days before the Resurrection. Christians and everyone else are welcome to join the procession. Unless a suicide bomber or other evil-doer slips through security, no one will be harmed. The Israeli government guarantees it.

The Israeli Declaration of Independence, adopted in 1948, declares Israel to be a Jewish state, but further declares that the nation “will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants, irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions.” It’s a promise bereft of Jeffersonian eloquence, but it’s plain and to the point.

My emphasis there. Try and find anything like that on the “Arab street.”

Moshe Dayan, the defense minister who led the Israelis to victory in the Six-Day War, was clear about religious tolerance and protection in a radio broadcast the morning Jerusalem was captured. “This morning,” he said, “the Israel Defense Force liberated Jerusalem. We have united Jerusalem, the divided capital of Israel. We have returned the holiest of our holy places, never to part from it again. To our Arab neighbors we extend, also at this hour - and with added emphasis ‘at this hour’ - our hand in peace. And to our Christian and Muslim fellow citizens, we solemnly promise full religious freedom and rights.”

And in a column today from Carolyn Glick that is, as always, right to the point:

There is an element of irony in the current crisis of relations between the Obama administration and Israel. On the one hand, although US President Barack Obama and his advisors deny there is anything wrong with US-Israel relations today, it is easy to understand why no one believes them.

On the other hand on most issues, there is substantive continuity between Obama’s Middle East policies and those his immediate predecessor George W. Bush adopted during his second term in office.

Yet, whereas Israelis viewed Bush as Israel’s greatest friend in the White House, they view Obama as the most anti-Israel US president ever. This contradiction requires us to consider two issues. First, why are relations with the US now steeped in crisis? And second, taking a page out of Obama’s White House chief of staff Rahm Emmanuel’s playbook, how can Israel make sure not to let this crisis go to waste?

The reason relations are so bad of course is because Obama has opted to attack Israel and its supporters. In the space of the past ten days alone, Israel has been subject to three malicious blows courtesy of Obama and his advisors. First, during his visit to the White House last Tuesday, Obama treated Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu like a two-bit potentate. Rather than respectfully disagree with the elected leader of a key US ally, Obama walked out in the middle of their meeting to dine with his family and left the unfed Netanyahu to meditate on his grave offense of not agreeing to give up Israel’s capital city as a precondition for indirect, US-orchestrated negotiations with an unelected, unpopular Palestinian leadership that supports terrorism and denies Israel’s right to exist. Next, there was the somewhat anodyne — if substantively incorrect — written testimony by US Army General David Petreaus to the Senate about the impact of the Arab world’s refusal to accept Israel’s right to exist on US-Arab relations. In the event, the administration deliberately distorted Petreaus’s testimony to lend the impression that the most respected serving US military commander blames Israel for the deaths of US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. After Petreaus rejected that impression, his boss Defense Secretary Robert Gates repeated the false and insulting allegation against Israel in his own name.

Finally there is was the report this week in Politico in which nameless administration sources accused National Security Council member Denis Ross of “dual loyalties.” Ross of course has won fame for his career of pressuring successive Israeli governments into giving unreciprocated concessions to Palestinian terrorists. Still, in the view of his indignant opponents in the Obama White House, due to his insufficient hostility to the Israeli government, Ross is a traitor. If Ross wants to be treated like a real American, he needs to join Obama in his open bid to overthrow the elected government of Israel.

Read the rest here.

The differences between Islam’s definition of “civilized” and the western interpretation of same are 180 degrees apart, and when you examine these differences from the point of view of even one iota of decency, the Muslims come out looking pretty evil while the rest of us emerge looking good.

Despite the glaring obviousness of this concept, Barack Hussein and his White House junta choose to attack Israel while all but worshipping the terrorist spawning fascism of Islam. No matter how they attempt to justify it, Obama, Biden and Clinton are profoundly transparent where the reality of their positions are concerned: They are wrongly supporting our enemies against our only true ally in the Middle East because they perceive Arab dictatorships and terrorism as being more in line with their own mindsets.

After all, the submission without quarter expected of a good Muslim is the same attitude they secretly wish they could provoke towards themselves among the American people, good facists that they are.

Remember when B. Hussein Obama promised that his administration would be transparent?

Well, it certainly is…Profoundly transparent in its falsehoods. The man speaks through both sides of his mouth at once, blatantly (and yes, transparently) lies.

For example.

“Our alliance is based on shared interests and shared values. Those who threaten Israel threaten us. Israel has always faced these threats on the front lines. And I will bring to the White House an unshakeable commitment to Israel’s security…I will ensure that Israel can defend itself from any threat - from Gaza to Tehran.… Across the political spectrum, Israelis understand that real security can only come through lasting peace. And that is why we - as friends of Israel - must resolve to do all we can to help Israel and its neighbors to achieve it.”

[Obama Speech at 2008 AIPAC Policy Conference, 6/4/08]

While his website hands us one thing, his deeds demonstrate something entirely different.

From Atlas’ post:

The United States called on its close ally Israel on Tuesday to conduct credible investigations into allegations of war crimes committed by its forces in Gaza, saying it would help the Middle East peace process.

Michael Posner, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, said that Hamas leaders also had a responsibility to investigate crimes and to end what he called its targeting of civilians and use of Palestinian civilians as human shields in the strip.

The U.N. Human Rights Council was holding a one-day debate on a recent report by Richard Goldstone, a South African jurist and former U.N. war crimes prosecutor.

His panel found the Israeli army and Palestinian militants committed war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity during their December-January war. Israel did not cooperate with the U.N. inquiry and has rejected the report as biased.

“We encourage Israel to utilise appropriate domestic (judicial) review and meaningful accountability mechanisms to investigate and follow-up on credible allegations,” Posner said in a speech to the Geneva forum.

“If undertaken properly and fairly, these reviews can serve as important confidence-building measures that will support the larger essential objective which is a shared quest for justice and lasting peace,” he said.

Pure and simple, the gist is that any Israeli effort at self defense of any definitive nature is “disproportionate”. If x number of Palestinians are killed in the course of such an enterprise, then x number of Israelis have to be killed as well. Meanwhile, it’s perfectly acceptable for Hamas to fire rockets into Israeli cities and towns, destroyiong property and killing innocent civilians.

Going back to a meeting between B. Hussein and a couple of his Islamic butt buddies:

Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama privately expressed his support for a new Arab state within Israel’s current borders, including eastern Jerusalem, during his meeting with Palestinian Authority Chairman and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah this summer.

According to a report published Tuesday in the Lebanese newspaper al-Ahbar, Obama told Abbas that he supports a PA state, and Arab “rights to east Jerusalem” as well. The sources said Abbas and PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad “heard the best things they ever heard from an American president” during the meeting. However, said sources quoted in the report, the candidate asked them to keep his declaration a secret.

East Jerusalem has no holy standing for Muslims like certain anti-Israel revisionists would have us believe, but Obama’s got that covered by grouping it in with the West Bank, rendering it a part of the “real estate” dispute.

The man attended an anti-Israel, pro-Islamic terrorist church in Chicago for over twenty years.

By backing Hamas and friends here against our old and faithful ally Israel, he is showing us, also, that no matter how hard the liberal media that got him elected tried to cover it up, the President’s name tells us exactly where he’s coming from and where he truly belongs (I’ll give you a hint: They have camels there — moooo!).

His words on one level call the Israelis friend, while on another level, along comes the kick in the groin.

Could it be that Barack Hussein Obama’s actual ambition for all of us is something like this?

Chuck here (the durn contributor drop-down menu’s still not working).

Knowing that Middle east affairs, especially those of concern to Israel, are also of concern to Seth, I thought I’d bring up three items from that region.

The first is in response to a column by the excellent Caroline Glick, titled Et tu, Netanyahu?, that comes as something of a shock, considering that Benjamin Netaniahu has always been a strong defender of Israel’s right to its status as the Jewish Homeland, and was expected to resist, without compunction, any attempts by the Obama Administration to engender anything less.

This week we discovered that we have been deceived. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s principled rejection of US President Barack Obama’s bigoted demand that Israel bar Jews from building new homes and expanding existing ones in Judea and Samaria does not reflect his actual policy.

Housing and Construction Minister Ariel Attias let the cat out of the bag. Attias said that the government has been barring Jews from building in the areas since it took office four months ago in the hopes that by preemptively capitulating to US demands, the US will treat Israel better.

And that’s not all. Today Netanyahu is reportedly working in earnest to reach a deal with the Obama administration that would formalize the government’s effective construction ban through 2010.

Netanyahu is set to finalize such a deal at his meeting with Obama’s Middle East envoy George Mitchell in London next Wednesday.

Say what!?

Unfortunately, far from treating Israel better as a result of Netanyahu’s willingness to capitulate on the fundamental right of Jews to live and build homes in the land of Israel, the Obama administration is planning to pocket Israel’s concession and then up the ante. Administration officials have stated that their next move will be to set a date for a new international Middle East peace conference that Obama will chair. There, Israel will be isolated and relentlessly attacked as the US, the Arabs, the Europeans, the UN and the Russians all gang up on our representatives and demand that Israel accept the so-called “Arab peace plan.”

That deceptively named plan, which Obama has all but adopted as his own, involves Israel committing national suicide in exchange for nothing. The Arab plan — formerly the “Saudi Plan,” and before that, the Tom Friedman “stick it to Israel ‘peace’ plan” — calls for Israel to retreat to the indefensible 1949 armistice lines and expel hundreds of thousands of Jews from their homes in Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. It also involves Israel agreeing to cease being a Jewish state by accepting millions of foreign, hostile Arabs as citizens within its truncated borders. The day an Israeli government accepts the plan - which again will form the basis of the Obama “peace” conference” — is the day that the State of Israel signs its own death warrant.

What the hell is the Israeli prime minister thinking? Has he caught Livni/Olmert Syndrome? How do you say “lemming” in Hebrew?

And if that’s not enough, well how about this?

Then there is the other Obama plan in the works. Obama also intends to host an international summit on nuclear security for March 2010. Arab states are already pushing for Israel’s nuclear program to be placed on the agenda. Together with Obama administration officials’ calls for Israel to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty — which would compel Israel to relinquish its purported nuclear arsenal — and their stated interest in having Israel sign the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty — which would arguably force Israel to allow international inspections of its nuclear facility in Dimona — Obama’s planned nuclear conclave will place Israel in an untenable position.

Meanwhile, Barack, Hillary & the gang continue to pussyfoot around a soon-to-be-nuclear-armed Iran.

Moving on

Recognizing the Obama administration’s inherent and unprecedented hostility to Israel, Netanyahu sought to deflect its pressure by giving his speech at Bar Ilan University in June. There he gave his conditional acceptance of Obama’s most cherished foreign policy goal — the establishment of a Palestinian state in Israel’s heartland.

Netanyahu’s conditions — that the Arabs generally and the Palestinians specifically recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state; that they relinquish their demand that Israel accept millions of hostile Arabs as citizens under the so-called “right of return;” that the Palestinian state be a “demilitarized” state, and that Arab states normalize their relations with Israel were supposed to put a monkey wrench in Obama’s policy of pressuring Israel.

Since it is obvious that the Arabs do not accept these eminently reasonable conditions, Netanyahu presumed that Obama would be forced to stand down. What Netanyahu failed to take into consideration was the notion that Obama and the Arabs would not act in good faith — that they would pretend to accept at least some of his demands in order to force him to accept all of their demands, and so keep US pressure relentlessly focused on Israel. Unfortunately, this is precisely what has happened.

Ahead of Obama’s meeting Tuesday with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Al Quds al Arabi, reported that Obama has accepted Netanyahu’s call for a demilitarized Palestinian state. Although Netanyahu is touting Obama’s new position as evidence of his own diplomatic prowess, the fact is that Obama’s new position is both disingenuous and meaningless.

Obama’s supposed support for a demilitarized Palestinian state is mendacious on two counts. First, Palestinian society is already one of the most militarized societies in the world. According to the World Bank, 43 percent of wages paid by the Palestinian Authority go to Palestinian militias. Since Obama has never called for any fundamental reordering of Palestinian society or for a reform of the PA’s budgetary priorities, it is obvious that he doesn’t have a problem with a militarized Palestinian state.

The second reason his statements in support for a demilitarized Palestinian state are not credible is because one of the central pillars of the Obama administration’s Palestinian policy is its involvement in training of the Fatah-led Palestinian army. US Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton is overseeing the training of this army in Jordan and pressuring Israel to expand its deployment in Judea and Samaria.

Like they say, “SNIP”

There is another way. It is being forged by the likes of Vice Premier Moshe Ya’alon on the one hand and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee on the other.

Ya’alon argues that not capitulating to American pressure is a viable policy option forIsrael. There is no reason to reach an agreement with Mitchell on the administration’s bigoted demand that Jews not build in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. If the US wants to have a fight with Israel, a fight against American anti-Jewish discrimination is not a bad one for Israel to have.

Ya’alon’s argument was borne out by Huckabee’s visit this week to Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. Huckabee’s trip showed that the administration is not operating in a policy vacuum. There is plenty of strong American support for an Israeli government that would stand up to the administration on the Palestinian issue and Iran alike.

Netanyahu’s policies have taken a wrong turn. But Netanyahu is not Tzipi Livni or Ehud Olmert. He is neither an ideologue nor an opportunist. He understands why what he is doing is wrong. He just needs to be convinced that he has another option.

Must read the entire column (yeah, there’s quite a bit more in there).

Speaking of Iran, while this isn’t all that surprising, it’s not exactly something to be taken lightly.

Ahmad Vahidi, nominated Thursday by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to serve as Iran’s defense minister, is a suspected international terrorist sought by Interpol in connection with a deadly 1994 attack on a Jewish community center in Argentina.

Mr. Vahidi, a former commander of the elite unit of the Revolutionary Guard known as the Quds Force, was one of 15 men and three women named to Cabinet posts by Mr. Ahmadinejad as he begins his second term in office. The choice is likely to further chill relations between Iran and the international community, especially Israel.

Interpol, the international police agency based in Lyon, France, placed Mr. Vahidi and four other Iranian officials on its most-wanted list in 2007 at the request of Argentine prosecutors, who say the men played a role in planning the July 1994 attack on the seven-story community center in Buenos Aires.

Obama’s friends, the Iranian government.

The bombing, which killed 85 people, is thought to have been carried out by members of Hezbollah, a Lebanese militia and political party with close links to Iran.

Kenneth Katzman, a senior analyst on Iraq and Iran at the Congressional Research Service, said that Mr. Vahidi is also suspected of having played a role in a 1996 attack on the U.S. Air Force barracks in Saudi Arabia known as Khobar Towers.

Mr. Vahidi is not the first prominent Iranian to be wanted in connection with terrorist attacks. Presidential candidate Mohsen Rezai, a former revolutionary guard commander, was among the five Iranians identified by Interpol in 2007, as was former President Hashemi Rafsanjani.

But Mr. Vahidi’s ascension to the high-profile post of defense minister suggests that Mr. Ahmadinejad will continue his policy of defiance toward the West.

Obama’s good friends, the Iranian government.

Lastly, there’s this Op-Ed in the Washington Post by Crown Prince of Bahrain Shaikh Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa.

We need fresh thinking if the Arab Peace Initiative is to have the impact it deserves on the crisis that needlessly impoverishes Palestinians and endangers Israel’s security.

This crisis is not a zero-sum game. For one side to win, the other does not have to lose.

The peace dividend for the entire Middle East is potentially immense. So why have we not gotten anywhere?

Our biggest mistake has been to assume that you can simply switch peace on like a light bulb. The reality is that peace is a process, contingent on a good idea but also requiring a great deal of campaigning — patiently and repeatedly targeting all relevant parties. This is where we as Arabs have not done enough to communicate directly with the people of Israel.

An Israeli might be forgiven for thinking that every Muslim voice is raised in hatred, because that is usually the only one he hears. Just as an Arab might be forgiven for thinking every Israeli wants the destruction of every Palestinian.

Essentially, we have not done a good enough job demonstrating to Israelis how our initiative can form part of a peace between equals in a troubled land holy to three great faiths. Others have been less reticent, recognizing that our success would threaten their vested interest in keeping Palestinians and Israelis at each other’s throats. They want victims to stay victims so they can be manipulated as proxies in a wider game for power. The rest of us — the overwhelming majority — have the opposite interest.

It is in our interest to speak up now for two reasons. First, we will all be safer once we drain the pool of antipathy in which hatemongers from both sides swim.

Second, peace will bring prosperity. Already, the six oil and gas nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council have grown into a powerful trillion-dollar market. Removing the ongoing threat of death and destruction would open the road to an era of enterprise, partnership and development on an even greater scale for the region at large.

That is the glittering prize for resolving the dilemma of justice for Palestine without injustice to Israel. Effectively, this is the meta-issue that defines and distorts the self-image of Arabs and diverts too much of our energies away from the political and economic development the region needs.

The wasted years of deadlock have conditioned Israelis to take on a fortress mentality that automatically casts all Palestinians as the enemy — and not as the ordinary, decent human beings they are.

Speaking out matters, but it is not enough. Our governments and all stakeholders also must be ready to carry out practical measures to help ease the day-to-day hardship of Palestinian lives.

The two communities in the Holy Land are not fated to be enemies. What can unite them tomorrow is potentially bigger than what divides them today.

Both sides need help from their friends, in the form of constructive engagement, to reach a just settlement.

What we don’t need is the continued reflexive rejection of any initiative that seeks to melt the ice. Consider the response so far to the Arab peace plan, pioneered by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. This initiative is a genuine effort to normalize relations between the entire Arab region and Israel, in return for Israel’s withdrawal from occupied territory and a fair resolution of the plight of the Palestinians, far too many of whom live in refugee camps in deplorable conditions.

We must stop the small-minded waiting game in which each side refuses to budge until the other side makes the first move. We’ve got to be bigger than that. All sides need to take simultaneous, good-faith action if peace is to have a chance. A real, lasting peace requires comprehensive engagement and reconciliation at the human level. This will happen only if we address and settle the core issues dividing the Arab and the Israeli peoples, the first being the question of Palestine and occupied Arab lands. The fact that this has not yet happened helps to explain why the Jordanian and Egyptian peace accords with Israel are cold. They have not been comprehensive.

We should move toward real peace now by consulting and educating our people and by reaching out to the Israeli public to highlight the benefits of a genuine peace.

To be effective, we must acknowledge that, like people everywhere, the average Israeli’s primary window on the world is his or her local and national media. Our job, therefore, is to tell our story more directly to the Israeli people by getting the message out to their media, a message reflecting the hopes of the Arab mainstream that confirms peace as a strategic option and advocates the Arab Peace Initiative as a means to this end. Some conciliatory voices in reply from Israel would help speed the process.

Some Arabs, simplistically equating communication with normalization, may think we are moving too fast toward normalization. But we all know that dialogue must be enhanced for genuine progress. We all, together, need to take the first crucial step to lay the groundwork to effectively achieve peace. So we must all invest more in communication.

Once we achieve peace, trade will follow. We can then create a “virtuous circle,” because trade will create its own momentum. By putting real money into people’s hands and giving them real power over their lives, trade will help ensure the durability of peace. The day-to-day experience would move minds and gradually build a relationship of trust and mutual interest, without which long-term peacemaking is impossible.

When stability pays, conflict becomes too costly. We must do more, now, to achieve peace.

The question is, is the crown prince truly sincere about finding a lasting, peaceful solution to the Israeli-Arab problem, or is this just more of the usual Arab hype?