Every time this "Kenyan-born" POS does an end-around Congress and/or the Courts and goes straight to the UN, he reaffirms his hatred for the USA and its people.
Hussein's and the radical left's vision for America is basically nothing more than a member state of some global version of the EU.
We have to start electing leaders who reject this global Marxist crap who promise to defund AND kick out the UN, before it's too late.
Hussein's and the radical left's vision for America is basically nothing more than a member state of some global version of the EU.
We have to start electing leaders who reject this global Marxist crap who promise to defund AND kick out the UN, before it's too late.
highlights from Richard Grenell’s live tweeting:
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Richard Grenell
✔@RichardGrenell
Obama uses "I" as the 2nd word of his UN speech.
10:30 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Richard Grenell
✔@RichardGrenell
Obama is ignoring Syria and ISIS when he says terrorists no longer have a safe haven.
10:31 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Follow
Richard Grenell
✔@RichardGrenell
Obama says "the world is less violent" #Ridiculous
10:35 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Richard Grenell
✔@RichardGrenell
Obama: "Mothers don't die in child birth"
10:35 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Follow
Richard Grenell
✔@RichardGrenell
This Obama speech won't go over well with UN diplomats...they don't believe the world is fixed by his leadership.
10:37 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Follow
Richard Grenell
✔@RichardGrenell
Yikes! Obama calls out "the inequality in and among nations" < he believes NATIONS ARE EQUAL.
10:41 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Follow
Richard Grenell
✔@RichardGrenell
People are equal, NOT Nations! Obama is wrong
10:41 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Follow
Richard Grenell
✔@RichardGrenell
UN delegates are being subjected to an Obama speech highlighting HIS view of his tenure. It's incredibly ego-filled.
10:45 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Follow
Richard Grenell
✔@RichardGrenell
Obama at the UN: "In America, there's a patchwork of laws that makes it too hard to vote" < #ridiculous
10:55 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Follow
Richard Grenell
✔@RichardGrenell
Obama on America at the UN: "giving up some freedom of action...enhances our security"
11:10 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Follow
Richard Grenell ✔@RichardGrenell
Obama uses "I" as the 2nd word of his UN speech.
10:30 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Richard Grenell ✔@RichardGrenell
Obama is ignoring Syria and ISIS when he says terrorists no longer have a safe haven.
10:31 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Follow
Richard Grenell
✔@RichardGrenell
Obama says he has 67 nations in his coalition to defeat ISIS....but none of them can find the command and control center of ISIS
10:33 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Richard Grenell ✔@RichardGrenell
Obama says he has 67 nations in his coalition to defeat ISIS....but none of them can find the command and control center of ISIS
10:33 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Follow
Richard Grenell ✔@RichardGrenell
Obama says "the world is less violent" #Ridiculous
10:35 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Richard Grenell ✔@RichardGrenell
Obama: "Mothers don't die in child birth"
10:35 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Follow
Richard Grenell ✔@RichardGrenell
This Obama speech won't go over well with UN diplomats...they don't believe the world is fixed by his leadership.
10:37 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Follow
Richard Grenell ✔@RichardGrenell
Yikes! Obama calls out "the inequality in and among nations" < he believes NATIONS ARE EQUAL.
10:41 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Follow
Richard Grenell ✔@RichardGrenell
People are equal, NOT Nations! Obama is wrong
10:41 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Follow
Richard Grenell
✔@RichardGrenell
Is Obama taking credit for smart phones? #unspeech
10:42 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Richard Grenell ✔@RichardGrenell
Is Obama taking credit for smart phones? #unspeech
10:42 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Follow
Richard Grenell
✔@RichardGrenell
Obama is now telling UN delegates to stop mining their natural resources. #LeftWingIdealism
10:44 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Richard Grenell ✔@RichardGrenell
Obama is now telling UN delegates to stop mining their natural resources. #LeftWingIdealism
10:44 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Follow
Richard Grenell ✔@RichardGrenell
UN delegates are being subjected to an Obama speech highlighting HIS view of his tenure. It's incredibly ego-filled.
10:45 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Follow
Richard Grenell
✔@RichardGrenell
UN delegates don't want to hear a US President talking about his tenure.
10:46 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Richard Grenell ✔@RichardGrenell
UN delegates don't want to hear a US President talking about his tenure.
10:46 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Follow
Richard Grenell
✔@RichardGrenell
Wow! Obama is tanking at his last UN speech - it's all about Obama.
10:47 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Richard Grenell ✔@RichardGrenell
Wow! Obama is tanking at his last UN speech - it's all about Obama.
10:47 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Follow
Richard Grenell
✔@RichardGrenell
After 8 years, Obama is still apologizing to the world for "colonialism".
10:51 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Richard Grenell ✔@RichardGrenell
After 8 years, Obama is still apologizing to the world for "colonialism".
10:51 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Follow
Richard Grenell ✔@RichardGrenell
Obama at the UN: "In America, there's a patchwork of laws that makes it too hard to vote" < #ridiculous
10:55 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Follow
Richard Grenell
✔@RichardGrenell
Obama is now defending women in Islamic countries who cover up.
10:58 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Richard Grenell ✔@RichardGrenell
Obama is now defending women in Islamic countries who cover up.
10:58 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Follow
Richard Grenell
✔@RichardGrenell
Obama is telling the UN delegates that ISIS won't be defeated with military action.
11:01 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Richard Grenell ✔@RichardGrenell
Obama is telling the UN delegates that ISIS won't be defeated with military action.
11:01 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Follow
Richard Grenell
✔@RichardGrenell
Obama at the UN just compared racial minorities situation in the US with the killing of ethnic minorities in Burundi. #Ridiculous
11:03 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Richard Grenell ✔@RichardGrenell
Obama at the UN just compared racial minorities situation in the US with the killing of ethnic minorities in Burundi. #Ridiculous
11:03 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Follow
Richard Grenell
✔@RichardGrenell
Obama on America at the UN: "We've bound our power to international institutions" < #ridiculous
11:06 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Richard Grenell ✔@RichardGrenell
Obama on America at the UN: "We've bound our power to international institutions" < #ridiculous
11:06 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Follow
Richard Grenell
✔@RichardGrenell
Obama wants a weaker US: "Sometimes I'm criticized in my own country for...binding ourselves to international rules"
11:08 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Richard Grenell ✔@RichardGrenell
Obama wants a weaker US: "Sometimes I'm criticized in my own country for...binding ourselves to international rules"
11:08 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Follow
Richard Grenell ✔@RichardGrenell
Obama on America at the UN: "giving up some freedom of action...enhances our security"
11:10 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Follow
Richard Grenell
✔@RichardGrenell
Did Obama just call out Hillary?? "Humans are motivated by greed"
11:11 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Richard Grenell ✔@RichardGrenell
Did Obama just call out Hillary?? "Humans are motivated by greed"
11:11 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Follow
Richard Grenell
✔@RichardGrenell
Obama says after his 8 years as President....that young people are more tolerant.
11:14 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Richard Grenell ✔@RichardGrenell
Obama says after his 8 years as President....that young people are more tolerant.
11:14 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Follow
Richard Grenell
✔@RichardGrenell
This UN speech is all about Obama's tenure. He thinks they care....
11:15 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Richard Grenell ✔@RichardGrenell
This UN speech is all about Obama's tenure. He thinks they care....
11:15 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Follow
Richard Grenell
✔@RichardGrenell
Obama: "I've learned that I don't have to put someone else down".
But everyday he's slamming Trump.
11:16 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Richard Grenell ✔@RichardGrenell
Obama: "I've learned that I don't have to put someone else down".
But everyday he's slamming Trump.
11:16 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Follow
Richard Grenell
✔@RichardGrenell
The UN will have a new Secretary General in January...and a new US President.
11:18 AM - 20 Sep 2016
Richard Grenell ✔@RichardGrenell
The UN will have a new Secretary General in January...and a new US President.
11:18 AM - 20 Sep 2016
"We are living through the best time in human history"
Latest estimates suggest more than 65 million migrants are roaming the world in search of safe or rich havens. This is a believable figure, which highlights the scale of what is likely to prove the gravest crisis the developed nations have faced since 1945.
Latest estimates suggest more than 65 million migrants are roaming the world in search of safe or rich havens. This is a believable figure, which highlights the scale of what is likely to prove the gravest crisis the developed nations have faced since 1945.
Ummmmm....hey dipshit. Maybe you should read posts to somebody else and they can explain to you what they say. Do you understand the difference between some republican nutter saying " Obama is giving nukes to Iran" and trump launching nukes at other countries.
Your posts are infrequent but they are always filled with stupidity. Now Put your helmet back on and your retainer back in.....the short bus will be there in a few mins.
from lying mouths to the ears of idiots, the libtarded coalition
the jackasses always call the Republicans war mongers, remember the "Daisy" attack ad from 1964? They said Goldwater was dangerous and would start wars and use nuclear weapons.
So what does LBJ do? get us full bore into Vietnam
Speaking of wars
LBJ enters Vietnam War
Truman enters Korean War
Truman drops atomic bomb
FDR is part of the Hitler appeasement that led to WWII
Wilson entered WWI, then helped form the "League of Nations" to prevent more wars (how did that work out?)
So they started / entered far more wars and actually used the bomb. They naively believe a League of Nations or a UN or appeasement or now "love and understanding" will bring world peace. Yes, another great example of Intellectual Idiocy, where they think their own self described brilliant "thoughts" are the solution, as they continue to ignore the failures of all their policies.
Not a shred of common sense between them, and even less honesty
[h=6]- SEPTEMBER 21, 2016 -[/h][h=1]TRUMP OPPOSES PRESIDENT OBAMA’S PLAN TO SURRENDER AMERICAN INTERNET CONTROL TO FOREIGN POWERS[/h]"Donald J. Trump is committed to preserving Internet freedom for the American people and citizens all over the world. The U.S. should not turn control of the Internet over to the United Nations and the international community. President Obama intends to do so on his own authority – just 10 days from now, on October 1st, unless Congress acts quickly to stop him. The Republicans in Congress are admirably leading a fight to save the Internet this week, and need all the help the American people can give them to be successful. Hillary Clinton’s Democrats are refusing to protect the American people by not protecting the Internet.
The U.S. created, developed and expanded the Internet across the globe. U.S. oversight has kept the Internet free and open without government censorship – a fundamental American value rooted in our Constitution’s Free Speech clause. Internet freedom is now at risk with the President’s intent to cede control to international interests, including countries like China and Russia, which have a long track record of trying to impose online censorship. Congress needs to act, or Internet freedom will be lost for good, since there will be no way to make it great again once it is lost." - Stephen Miller, National Policy Director
The U.S. created, developed and expanded the Internet across the globe. U.S. oversight has kept the Internet free and open without government censorship – a fundamental American value rooted in our Constitution’s Free Speech clause. Internet freedom is now at risk with the President’s intent to cede control to international interests, including countries like China and Russia, which have a long track record of trying to impose online censorship. Congress needs to act, or Internet freedom will be lost for good, since there will be no way to make it great again once it is lost." - Stephen Miller, National Policy Director
- SHARE PICTURE
+4
At the top of the meeting, Obama said in brief remarks that a $38 million U.S. military assistance deal for Israel will ensure that the country's military has the full capabilities it needs during a time of great uncertainty
Obama touts 'unbreakable bond' between the United States and Israel in final meeting with Netanyahu - and promises to come play golf
INTO THE FRAY: Obama at the UN – Why he was right…almost
By MARTIN SHERMAN
Obama’s UN address was an eloquent concoction of soaring rhetoric & banal platitudes, of statements of the obvious & of the obviously false, delivered with impeccable polish and panache.
…a nation ringed by walls would only imprison itself…Israelis and Palestinians will be better off if Palestinians reject incitement and recognize the legitimacy of Israel, but Israel recognizes that it cannot permanently occupy and settle Palestinian land.
– Barack Hussein Obama, UN General Assembly Sept. 20, 2016
I should imagine that the title of this article—ostensible laudatory towards Obama—may raise eyebrows among some of my regular readers. But patience—I urge you to reserve judgement.
As is usual with Obama’s prepared appearances, his Tuesday address to the UN General Assembly was an eloquent concoction of soaring rhetoric and banal platitudes, of statements of the obvious and of the obviously false, delivered with impeccable polish and panache.
The devil in the (omitted) details
It was a far-ranging survey of world events—from the conflicts in South China Sea to the Ukraine; from the menace of the Zika virus to the ravages of yawning socio-economic disparities.
In essence, it was a call for wider participatory democracy, greater acceptance of human diversity and greater integration and openness as the best template for global governance and for meeting the challenges facing humanity today—which is all very well…in principle.
The devil, however, is in the details—especially those omitted.
In his almost 6000 word tour d’horizon of international troubles and trouble spots, the word “Islam” or “Islamic” never appears—not even once. The word “Muslim” does appear once (in the plural)—proceeded by the adjective “innocent” to describe them.
Accordingly, any alien visitor from another planet, after hearing the leader of the Free World and the most powerful country on the globe, would have no inkling that one of the gravest and most pervasive threats facing civilized society today—from Bali to San Bernardino—is that of radical Muslim terror and fundamental Islamic ideology that fuels it. Neither would such a visitor come away with even the slightest sense that these phenomena are neither minor nor marginal, but, in one way or another, impact the lives of hundreds of millions, over vast swathes of land, stretching across much of face of the Earth.
Portraying perpetrators as victims
However, better informed earthlings, more familiar with ongoing events on the planet, could quickly discern that many of the detrimental phenomena enumerated by Obama did in fact originate in, and were characteristic of, predominantly Muslim societies, particularly those where fundamental Islamic ideology is a pronounced societal feature.
Thus, although Obama began his address on an upbeat note, laying out the positive developments he saw as having transpired on his watch: “Let me recount the progress that we’ve made these last eight years”, he quickly moved on to list some of the grave crises, plaguing the world community today.
He lamented: Around the world, refugees flow across borders in flight from brutal conflict… Across vast swaths of the Middle East, basic security, basic order has broken down. We see too many governments muzzling journalists, and quashing dissent, and censoring the flow of information. Terrorist networks use social media to prey upon the minds of our youth, endangering open societies and spurring anger against innocent immigrants and Muslims.
But of course all this malevolent malfeasance, and the tragedy it precipitates , can be attributed almost exclusively to Muslim perpetrators – whether regimes, organizations or individuals. Yet Obama chose to refer to Muslims as victims of some amorphous social malaise, rather than its primary purveyors.
Obama rips…Islam?
After all the “refugees flow[ing] across borders” he refers to are almost all Muslim refugees. The “brutal conflict” they flee is a fratricidal Muslim conflict. The “vast swathes of the Middle East” where basic security [and] order have broken down” are Muslim-ruled (or misruled) territories. It is Muslim governments that are “muzzling journalists…quashing dissent, and censoring the flow of information.” And it is Muslim “terrorist networks” that “use social media to prey upon the minds of our youth, endangering open societies…”
Without actually referring to Muslim society, Obama went on to admonish phenomena that are, in many ways, defining features of Muslim societies, from Khartoum to Karachi and beyond: “I do not believe progress is possible if our desire to preserve our identities gives way to an impulse to dehumanize or dominate another group. If our religion leads us to persecute those of another faith, if we jail or beat people who are gay, if our traditions lead us to prevent girls from going to school, if we discriminate on the basis of race or tribe or ethnicity, then the fragile bonds of civilization will fray.”
Of course, this is a largely accurate depiction of the religious intolerance of infidels and kaffirs, the suppression, even prohibition, of non-Muslim faiths , the persecution of homosexuals and of the gender discriminations that abound—undeniably and indeed, undenied—throughout the Muslim world.
Misattributing cause
Yet, somehow Obama seeks to attribute the dismal state of Muslim society to a reaction to modernity. Thus, prefacing his catalogue of the social ailments mentioned above, he stated: “…around the globe we are seeing the same forces of global integration that have made us interdependent also expose deep fault lines in…existing international order.”
To a large degree, this echoes his attempted apologetics in his 2009 Muslim outreach speech in Cairo where he tried to explain away the discordant disparity between the West and Islam. He then suggested that: “the sweeping change brought by modernity and globalization led many Muslims to view the West as hostile to Islamic traditions.”
But of course, Islamic traditions of gender discrimination, homophobia, religious intolerance and political tyranny, which Obama himself excoriated, have nothing to do with the onset of globalization, or modernity.
Indeed, they have been an abiding—almost a defining—feature of the Muslim society for centuries, long inimical—indeed, incompatible with—the kind of tolerance and openness that Obama professes to subscribe to.
Could Obama, who has boasted of his close familiarity with Islam–“I have known Islam on three continents”—be oblivious to this?
Indeed, one can hardly be blamed for feeling that the outgoing president was being just a touch disingenuous when he remarked ,disapprovingly “… in Europe and the United States, you see people wrestle with concerns about immigration and changing demographics, and suggesting that somehow people who look different are corrupting the character of our countries”.
“No stronger retrograde force exists…”
Of course, it should be painfully obvious that what bothers increasing numbers of indigenous Europeans and non-Muslim Americans is not the way Muslim immigrants look, but the way a perceptible number of them behave. Indeed, Muslim perpetrated rape and lethal terror attacks probably have far more to do with the growing anti-Muslim sentiment in the West, than their physical appearance.
Indeed, if one compares the list of social iniquities that Obama diagnoses, but refrains from attributing them to societies in which they are prevalent, they paint much the same picture as that portrayed by Winston Churchill, more than a century ago—well before globalization and modernization could threaten Islam’s “traditional values”.
In an era, yet unshackled by disingenuous restraints of political correctness, he catalogued with brutal candor what he saw as the depravity of Muslim society: “How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! … The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity.”
He underscored the discriminatory attitude towards women, still prevalent in much of the Islamic world: “The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property – either as a child, a wife, or a concubine – must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men”.
He warned that although: “Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities…the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world”
“…the prime enemy of our civilization?”
As far back as 19th century, he foretold the Muslim drive for expansion and subjugation: “Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith… raising fearless warriors at every step”, cautioning direly “were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science…the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome”
Four decades later, the prominent Anglo-French writer Hilaire Belloc raised similar fears: “Will not perhaps the temporal power of Islam return and with it the menace of an armed Muhammadan world, which will shake the dominion of Europeans—still nominally Christian—and reappear again as the prime enemy of our civilization? . . .
A decade before the horrors of 9/11, the then prominent Indian journalist and today senior politician, M.J. Akbar predicted: “The West’s next confrontation is definitely going to come from the Muslim world. It is in the sweep of the Islamic nations from the Maghreb to Pakistan that the struggle for a new world order will begin.”
Much that has transpired since then leaves little doubt that his prognosis has the ominous ring of truth to it.
Indeed, this cataclysmic clash between two incompatible civilizations, each entailing mutually exclusive and antithetical cultural values regarding religious tolerance, gender equality, sexual preferences, and socio-political diversity has been brewing for over a hundred years. It is now finding greater, more violent and more frequent expression with each passing week. Yet despite its potentially catastrophic consequences, and prospect of its possible nuclearization in the foreseeable future, it was given no explicit mention in Obama’s UN address—apart from vague generic references to some of the socio-political blights that accompany it.
Obama is right: Efficacy of walls is limited
It is against this background of far-reaching reluctance to condemn anything remotely identified with Islam that Obama’s short reference to Israel should be seen—although appropriate caution should not imply total rejection.
For example, there was ring of truth in his disapproving skepticism in the long-term efficacy of walls—although he probably had Donald Trump’s proposal for the Mexican border, not Gaza, in mind.
Indeed, to understand this, look at the newest proposal to surround Gaza with a wall, reportedly to be not only up to 20 m about above ground, but up to 40 m below it—to contend with the threat of tunnels. Its construction, along a 50 km border, will take years and cost billions. Now imagine the efforts needed to construct a similar barrier, along a 500 km border, should a Palestinian entity be established in Judea-Samaria (aka the “West Bank”). Moreover, as daunting as defensive installations may be, some methods will always be devised to overcome, or circumvent it (e.g. digging a tunnel 45 m deep to circumvent a wall 40 m deep).
For too long Israel has tried to thwart threats defensively rather than eliminate them offensively. In this regard, I find myself in agreement with Caroline Glick, when she wrote in an opinion piece published this week: “Our leaders are failing us because they refuse to act on the sure knowledge that an over-reliance on defensive measures does not deter aggression. It invites aggression”.
Obama is right: End the occupation
This brings us to an additional point on which Obama was right—sort of: Israel should end the “Occupation”.
Israel cannot indefinitely rule over a growing, and increasingly radicalized Palestinian-Arab population, as I have pointed out in “Mowing the lawn won’t cut it”.
But neither can it, nor should it, allow the establishment of yet another Muslim-majority tyranny, with all the violent and intolerant hallmarks of “traditional Muslim values”, abutting, and overlooking, its most populous urban areas. Nor can it integrate the Arab population in Judea-Samaria (and Gaza) into the permanent population of the Jewish state—without creating the inevitable “Lebanonization” of Israeli society, with all the subsequent inter-ethnic strife that would undoubtedly follow such an ill-advised measure.
Accordingly, the only non-coercive policy that can preserve Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, and remove the Palestinian-Arabs from Jewish rule, is to set up a system of economic inducements, entailing enticing incentives for them to leave, together with daunting disincentives to stay, and provide non-belligerents and their families an opportunity for a better life elsewhere out of harm’s way. That is the only feasible way to end the “Occupation”. But I am sure I have said that before.
Dr. Martin Sherman (www.martinsherman.org) is founder and executive director of the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies (www.strategic-israel.org)
By MARTIN SHERMAN
Obama’s UN address was an eloquent concoction of soaring rhetoric & banal platitudes, of statements of the obvious & of the obviously false, delivered with impeccable polish and panache.
…a nation ringed by walls would only imprison itself…Israelis and Palestinians will be better off if Palestinians reject incitement and recognize the legitimacy of Israel, but Israel recognizes that it cannot permanently occupy and settle Palestinian land.
– Barack Hussein Obama, UN General Assembly Sept. 20, 2016
I should imagine that the title of this article—ostensible laudatory towards Obama—may raise eyebrows among some of my regular readers. But patience—I urge you to reserve judgement.
As is usual with Obama’s prepared appearances, his Tuesday address to the UN General Assembly was an eloquent concoction of soaring rhetoric and banal platitudes, of statements of the obvious and of the obviously false, delivered with impeccable polish and panache.
The devil in the (omitted) details
It was a far-ranging survey of world events—from the conflicts in South China Sea to the Ukraine; from the menace of the Zika virus to the ravages of yawning socio-economic disparities.
In essence, it was a call for wider participatory democracy, greater acceptance of human diversity and greater integration and openness as the best template for global governance and for meeting the challenges facing humanity today—which is all very well…in principle.
The devil, however, is in the details—especially those omitted.
In his almost 6000 word tour d’horizon of international troubles and trouble spots, the word “Islam” or “Islamic” never appears—not even once. The word “Muslim” does appear once (in the plural)—proceeded by the adjective “innocent” to describe them.
Accordingly, any alien visitor from another planet, after hearing the leader of the Free World and the most powerful country on the globe, would have no inkling that one of the gravest and most pervasive threats facing civilized society today—from Bali to San Bernardino—is that of radical Muslim terror and fundamental Islamic ideology that fuels it. Neither would such a visitor come away with even the slightest sense that these phenomena are neither minor nor marginal, but, in one way or another, impact the lives of hundreds of millions, over vast swathes of land, stretching across much of face of the Earth.
Portraying perpetrators as victims
However, better informed earthlings, more familiar with ongoing events on the planet, could quickly discern that many of the detrimental phenomena enumerated by Obama did in fact originate in, and were characteristic of, predominantly Muslim societies, particularly those where fundamental Islamic ideology is a pronounced societal feature.
Thus, although Obama began his address on an upbeat note, laying out the positive developments he saw as having transpired on his watch: “Let me recount the progress that we’ve made these last eight years”, he quickly moved on to list some of the grave crises, plaguing the world community today.
He lamented: Around the world, refugees flow across borders in flight from brutal conflict… Across vast swaths of the Middle East, basic security, basic order has broken down. We see too many governments muzzling journalists, and quashing dissent, and censoring the flow of information. Terrorist networks use social media to prey upon the minds of our youth, endangering open societies and spurring anger against innocent immigrants and Muslims.
But of course all this malevolent malfeasance, and the tragedy it precipitates , can be attributed almost exclusively to Muslim perpetrators – whether regimes, organizations or individuals. Yet Obama chose to refer to Muslims as victims of some amorphous social malaise, rather than its primary purveyors.
Obama rips…Islam?
After all the “refugees flow[ing] across borders” he refers to are almost all Muslim refugees. The “brutal conflict” they flee is a fratricidal Muslim conflict. The “vast swathes of the Middle East” where basic security [and] order have broken down” are Muslim-ruled (or misruled) territories. It is Muslim governments that are “muzzling journalists…quashing dissent, and censoring the flow of information.” And it is Muslim “terrorist networks” that “use social media to prey upon the minds of our youth, endangering open societies…”
Without actually referring to Muslim society, Obama went on to admonish phenomena that are, in many ways, defining features of Muslim societies, from Khartoum to Karachi and beyond: “I do not believe progress is possible if our desire to preserve our identities gives way to an impulse to dehumanize or dominate another group. If our religion leads us to persecute those of another faith, if we jail or beat people who are gay, if our traditions lead us to prevent girls from going to school, if we discriminate on the basis of race or tribe or ethnicity, then the fragile bonds of civilization will fray.”
Of course, this is a largely accurate depiction of the religious intolerance of infidels and kaffirs, the suppression, even prohibition, of non-Muslim faiths , the persecution of homosexuals and of the gender discriminations that abound—undeniably and indeed, undenied—throughout the Muslim world.
Misattributing cause
Yet, somehow Obama seeks to attribute the dismal state of Muslim society to a reaction to modernity. Thus, prefacing his catalogue of the social ailments mentioned above, he stated: “…around the globe we are seeing the same forces of global integration that have made us interdependent also expose deep fault lines in…existing international order.”
To a large degree, this echoes his attempted apologetics in his 2009 Muslim outreach speech in Cairo where he tried to explain away the discordant disparity between the West and Islam. He then suggested that: “the sweeping change brought by modernity and globalization led many Muslims to view the West as hostile to Islamic traditions.”
But of course, Islamic traditions of gender discrimination, homophobia, religious intolerance and political tyranny, which Obama himself excoriated, have nothing to do with the onset of globalization, or modernity.
Indeed, they have been an abiding—almost a defining—feature of the Muslim society for centuries, long inimical—indeed, incompatible with—the kind of tolerance and openness that Obama professes to subscribe to.
Could Obama, who has boasted of his close familiarity with Islam–“I have known Islam on three continents”—be oblivious to this?
Indeed, one can hardly be blamed for feeling that the outgoing president was being just a touch disingenuous when he remarked ,disapprovingly “… in Europe and the United States, you see people wrestle with concerns about immigration and changing demographics, and suggesting that somehow people who look different are corrupting the character of our countries”.
“No stronger retrograde force exists…”
Of course, it should be painfully obvious that what bothers increasing numbers of indigenous Europeans and non-Muslim Americans is not the way Muslim immigrants look, but the way a perceptible number of them behave. Indeed, Muslim perpetrated rape and lethal terror attacks probably have far more to do with the growing anti-Muslim sentiment in the West, than their physical appearance.
Indeed, if one compares the list of social iniquities that Obama diagnoses, but refrains from attributing them to societies in which they are prevalent, they paint much the same picture as that portrayed by Winston Churchill, more than a century ago—well before globalization and modernization could threaten Islam’s “traditional values”.
In an era, yet unshackled by disingenuous restraints of political correctness, he catalogued with brutal candor what he saw as the depravity of Muslim society: “How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! … The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity.”
He underscored the discriminatory attitude towards women, still prevalent in much of the Islamic world: “The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property – either as a child, a wife, or a concubine – must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men”.
He warned that although: “Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities…the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world”
“…the prime enemy of our civilization?”
As far back as 19th century, he foretold the Muslim drive for expansion and subjugation: “Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith… raising fearless warriors at every step”, cautioning direly “were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science…the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome”
Four decades later, the prominent Anglo-French writer Hilaire Belloc raised similar fears: “Will not perhaps the temporal power of Islam return and with it the menace of an armed Muhammadan world, which will shake the dominion of Europeans—still nominally Christian—and reappear again as the prime enemy of our civilization? . . .
A decade before the horrors of 9/11, the then prominent Indian journalist and today senior politician, M.J. Akbar predicted: “The West’s next confrontation is definitely going to come from the Muslim world. It is in the sweep of the Islamic nations from the Maghreb to Pakistan that the struggle for a new world order will begin.”
Much that has transpired since then leaves little doubt that his prognosis has the ominous ring of truth to it.
Indeed, this cataclysmic clash between two incompatible civilizations, each entailing mutually exclusive and antithetical cultural values regarding religious tolerance, gender equality, sexual preferences, and socio-political diversity has been brewing for over a hundred years. It is now finding greater, more violent and more frequent expression with each passing week. Yet despite its potentially catastrophic consequences, and prospect of its possible nuclearization in the foreseeable future, it was given no explicit mention in Obama’s UN address—apart from vague generic references to some of the socio-political blights that accompany it.
Obama is right: Efficacy of walls is limited
It is against this background of far-reaching reluctance to condemn anything remotely identified with Islam that Obama’s short reference to Israel should be seen—although appropriate caution should not imply total rejection.
For example, there was ring of truth in his disapproving skepticism in the long-term efficacy of walls—although he probably had Donald Trump’s proposal for the Mexican border, not Gaza, in mind.
Indeed, to understand this, look at the newest proposal to surround Gaza with a wall, reportedly to be not only up to 20 m about above ground, but up to 40 m below it—to contend with the threat of tunnels. Its construction, along a 50 km border, will take years and cost billions. Now imagine the efforts needed to construct a similar barrier, along a 500 km border, should a Palestinian entity be established in Judea-Samaria (aka the “West Bank”). Moreover, as daunting as defensive installations may be, some methods will always be devised to overcome, or circumvent it (e.g. digging a tunnel 45 m deep to circumvent a wall 40 m deep).
For too long Israel has tried to thwart threats defensively rather than eliminate them offensively. In this regard, I find myself in agreement with Caroline Glick, when she wrote in an opinion piece published this week: “Our leaders are failing us because they refuse to act on the sure knowledge that an over-reliance on defensive measures does not deter aggression. It invites aggression”.
Obama is right: End the occupation
This brings us to an additional point on which Obama was right—sort of: Israel should end the “Occupation”.
Israel cannot indefinitely rule over a growing, and increasingly radicalized Palestinian-Arab population, as I have pointed out in “Mowing the lawn won’t cut it”.
But neither can it, nor should it, allow the establishment of yet another Muslim-majority tyranny, with all the violent and intolerant hallmarks of “traditional Muslim values”, abutting, and overlooking, its most populous urban areas. Nor can it integrate the Arab population in Judea-Samaria (and Gaza) into the permanent population of the Jewish state—without creating the inevitable “Lebanonization” of Israeli society, with all the subsequent inter-ethnic strife that would undoubtedly follow such an ill-advised measure.
Accordingly, the only non-coercive policy that can preserve Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, and remove the Palestinian-Arabs from Jewish rule, is to set up a system of economic inducements, entailing enticing incentives for them to leave, together with daunting disincentives to stay, and provide non-belligerents and their families an opportunity for a better life elsewhere out of harm’s way. That is the only feasible way to end the “Occupation”. But I am sure I have said that before.
Dr. Martin Sherman (www.martinsherman.org) is founder and executive director of the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies (www.strategic-israel.org)
Netanyahu UN
The sooner the UN’s obsession with Israel ends, the better. The better for Israel, the better for your countries, the better for the UN itself.
Ladies and Gentlemen: If UN habits die hard, Palestinian habits die even harder. President Abbas just attacked from this podium the Balfour Declaration. He’s preparing a lawsuit against Britain for that declaration from 1917. That’s almost 100 years ago – talk about being stuck in the past. The Palestinians may just as well sue Iran for the Cyrus Declaration, which enabled the Jews to rebuild our Temple in Jerusalem 2,500 years ago. Come to think of it, why not a Palestinian class action suit against Abraham for buying that plot of land in Hebron where the fathers and mothers of the Jewish people were buried 4,000 years ago? You’re not laughing. It’s as absurd as that. To sue the British government for the Balfour Declaration? Is he kidding? And this is taken seriously here?
President Abbas attacked the Balfour Declaration because it recognized the right of the Jewish people to a national home in the land of Israel. When the United Nations supported the establishment of a Jewish state in 1947, it recognized our historical and our moral rights in our homeland and to our homeland. Yet today, nearly 70 years later, the Palestinians still refuse to recognize those rights – not our right to a homeland, not our right to a state, not our right to anything. And this remains the true core of the conflict, the persistent Palestinian refusal to recognize the Jewish state in any boundary. You see, this conflict is not about the settlements. It never was.
The conflict raged for decades before there was a single settlement, when Judea Samaria and Gaza were all in Arab hands. The West Bank and Gaza were in Arab hands and they attacked us again and again and again. And when we uprooted all 21 settlements in Gaza and withdrew from every last inch of Gaza, we didn’t get peace from Gaza – we got thousands of rockets fired at us from Gaza.
This conflict rages because for the Palestinians, the real settlements they’re after are Haifa, Jaffa and Tel Aviv.
Now mind you, the issue of settlements is a real one and it can and must be resolved in final-status negotiations. But this conflict has never been about the settlements or about establishing a Palestinian state. It’s always been about the existence of a Jewish state, a Jewish state in any boundary.
Ladies and Gentlemen: Israel is ready — I am ready — to negotiate all final-status issues. But one thing I will never negotiate: our right to the one and only Jewish state.
Wow, sustained applause for the prime minister of Israel in the General Assembly? The change may be coming sooner than I thought.
Had the Palestinians said yes to a Jewish state in 1947, there would have been no war, no refugees and no conflict. And when the Palestinians finally say yes to a Jewish state, we will be able to end this conflict once and for all.
Now here’s the tragedy, because, see, the Palestinians are not only trapped in the past; their leaders are poisoning the future.
I want you to imagine a day in the life of a 13-year-old Palestinian boy. I’ll call him Ali. Ali wakes up before school; he goes to practice with a soccer team named after Dalal Mughrabi, a Palestinian terrorist responsible for the murder of a busload of 37 Israelis. At school, Ali attends an event sponsored by the Palestinian Ministry of Education honoring Baha Alyan, who last year murdered three Israeli civilians. On his walk home, Ali looks up at a towering statue erected just a few weeks ago by the Palestinian Authority to honor Abu Sukar, who detonated a bomb in the center of Jerusalem, killing 15 Israelis.
When Ali gets home, he turns on the TV and sees an interview with a senior Palestinian official, Jibril Rajoub, who says that if he had a nuclear bomb, he’d detonate it over Israel that very day. Ali then turns on the radio and he hears President Abbas’s adviser, Sultan Abu al-Einein, urging Palestinians, here’s a quote, “to slit the throats of Israelis wherever you find them.” Ali checks his Facebook and he sees a recent post by President Abbas’s Fatah Party calling the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics a “heroic act.” On YouTube, Ali watches a clip of President Abbas himself saying, “We welcome every drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem.” Direct quote.
Over dinner, Ali asks his mother what would happen if he killed a Jew and went to an Israeli prison. Here’s what she tells him. She tells him he’d be paid thousands of dollars each month by the Palestinian Authority. In fact, she tells him, the more Jews he would kill, the more money he’d get. Oh, and when he gets out of prison, Ali would be guaranteed a job with the Palestinian Authority.
Ladies and Gentlemen: All this is real. It happens every day, all the time. Sadly, Ali represents hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children who are indoctrinated with hate every moment, every hour.
This is child abuse.
Imagine your child undergoing this brainwashing. Imagine what it takes for a young boy or girl to break free out of this culture of hate. Some do but far too many don’t. How can any of us expect young Palestinians to support peace when their leaders poison their minds against peace?
We in Israel don’t do this. We educate our children for peace. In fact, we recently launched a pilot program, my government did, to make the study of Arabic mandatory for Jewish children so that we can better understand each other, so that we can live together side-by-side in peace.
Of course, like all societies, Israel has fringe elements. But it’s our response to those fringe elements, it’s our response to those fringe elements that makes all the difference.
Take the tragic case of Ahmed Dawabsha. I’ll never forget visiting Ahmed in the hospital just hours after he was attacked. A little boy, really a baby, he was badly burned. Ahmed was the victim of a horrible terrorist act perpetrated by Jews. He lay bandaged and unconscious as Israeli doctors worked around the clock to save him.
No words can bring comfort to this boy or to his family. Still, as I stood by his bedside, I told his uncle, “This is not our people. This is not our way.” I then ordered extraordinary measures to bring Ahmed’s assailants to justice and today the Jewish citizens of Israel accused of attacking the Dawabsha family are in jail awaiting trial.
Now, for some, this story shows that both sides have their extremists and both sides are equally responsible for this seemingly endless conflict.
But what Ahmed’s story actually proves is the very opposite. It illustrates the profound difference between our two societies, because while Israeli leaders condemn terrorists, all terrorists, Arabs and Jews alike, Palestinian leaders celebrate terrorists. While Israel jails the handful of Jewish terrorists among us, the Palestinians pay thousands of terrorists among them.
So I call on President Abbas: you have a choice to make. You can continue to stoke hatred as you did today, or you can finally confront hatred and work with me to establish peace between our two peoples.
Ladies and Gentlemen: I hear the buzz. I know that many of you have given up on peace. But I want you to know – I have not given up on peace. I remain committed to a vision of peace based on two states for two peoples. I believe as never before that changes taking place in the Arab world today offer a unique opportunity to advance that peace.
I commend President el-Sisi of Egypt for his efforts to advance peace and stability in our region. Israel welcomes the spirit of the Arab peace initiative and welcomes a dialogue with Arab states to advance a broader peace. I believe that for that broader peace to be fully achieved the Palestinians have to be part of it. I’m ready to begin negotiations to achieve this today – not tomorrow, not next week, today.
President Abbas spoke here an hour ago. Wouldn’t it be better if instead of speaking past each other we were speaking to one another? President Abbas, instead of railing against Israel at the United Nations in New York, I invite you to speak to the Israeli people at the Knesset in Jerusalem. And I would gladly come to speak to the Palestinian parliament in Ramallah.
Ladies and Gentlemen: While Israel seeks peace with all our neighbors, we also know that peace has no greater enemy than the forces of militant Islam. The bloody trail of this fanaticism runs through all the continents represented here. It runs through Paris and Nice, Brussels and Baghdad, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, Minnesota and New York, from Sydney to San Bernardino. So many have suffered its savagery: Christian and Jews, women and gays, Yazidis and Kurds and many, many others.
The sooner the UN’s obsession with Israel ends, the better. The better for Israel, the better for your countries, the better for the UN itself.
Ladies and Gentlemen: If UN habits die hard, Palestinian habits die even harder. President Abbas just attacked from this podium the Balfour Declaration. He’s preparing a lawsuit against Britain for that declaration from 1917. That’s almost 100 years ago – talk about being stuck in the past. The Palestinians may just as well sue Iran for the Cyrus Declaration, which enabled the Jews to rebuild our Temple in Jerusalem 2,500 years ago. Come to think of it, why not a Palestinian class action suit against Abraham for buying that plot of land in Hebron where the fathers and mothers of the Jewish people were buried 4,000 years ago? You’re not laughing. It’s as absurd as that. To sue the British government for the Balfour Declaration? Is he kidding? And this is taken seriously here?
President Abbas attacked the Balfour Declaration because it recognized the right of the Jewish people to a national home in the land of Israel. When the United Nations supported the establishment of a Jewish state in 1947, it recognized our historical and our moral rights in our homeland and to our homeland. Yet today, nearly 70 years later, the Palestinians still refuse to recognize those rights – not our right to a homeland, not our right to a state, not our right to anything. And this remains the true core of the conflict, the persistent Palestinian refusal to recognize the Jewish state in any boundary. You see, this conflict is not about the settlements. It never was.
The conflict raged for decades before there was a single settlement, when Judea Samaria and Gaza were all in Arab hands. The West Bank and Gaza were in Arab hands and they attacked us again and again and again. And when we uprooted all 21 settlements in Gaza and withdrew from every last inch of Gaza, we didn’t get peace from Gaza – we got thousands of rockets fired at us from Gaza.
This conflict rages because for the Palestinians, the real settlements they’re after are Haifa, Jaffa and Tel Aviv.
Now mind you, the issue of settlements is a real one and it can and must be resolved in final-status negotiations. But this conflict has never been about the settlements or about establishing a Palestinian state. It’s always been about the existence of a Jewish state, a Jewish state in any boundary.
Ladies and Gentlemen: Israel is ready — I am ready — to negotiate all final-status issues. But one thing I will never negotiate: our right to the one and only Jewish state.
Wow, sustained applause for the prime minister of Israel in the General Assembly? The change may be coming sooner than I thought.
Had the Palestinians said yes to a Jewish state in 1947, there would have been no war, no refugees and no conflict. And when the Palestinians finally say yes to a Jewish state, we will be able to end this conflict once and for all.
Now here’s the tragedy, because, see, the Palestinians are not only trapped in the past; their leaders are poisoning the future.
I want you to imagine a day in the life of a 13-year-old Palestinian boy. I’ll call him Ali. Ali wakes up before school; he goes to practice with a soccer team named after Dalal Mughrabi, a Palestinian terrorist responsible for the murder of a busload of 37 Israelis. At school, Ali attends an event sponsored by the Palestinian Ministry of Education honoring Baha Alyan, who last year murdered three Israeli civilians. On his walk home, Ali looks up at a towering statue erected just a few weeks ago by the Palestinian Authority to honor Abu Sukar, who detonated a bomb in the center of Jerusalem, killing 15 Israelis.
When Ali gets home, he turns on the TV and sees an interview with a senior Palestinian official, Jibril Rajoub, who says that if he had a nuclear bomb, he’d detonate it over Israel that very day. Ali then turns on the radio and he hears President Abbas’s adviser, Sultan Abu al-Einein, urging Palestinians, here’s a quote, “to slit the throats of Israelis wherever you find them.” Ali checks his Facebook and he sees a recent post by President Abbas’s Fatah Party calling the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics a “heroic act.” On YouTube, Ali watches a clip of President Abbas himself saying, “We welcome every drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem.” Direct quote.
Over dinner, Ali asks his mother what would happen if he killed a Jew and went to an Israeli prison. Here’s what she tells him. She tells him he’d be paid thousands of dollars each month by the Palestinian Authority. In fact, she tells him, the more Jews he would kill, the more money he’d get. Oh, and when he gets out of prison, Ali would be guaranteed a job with the Palestinian Authority.
Ladies and Gentlemen: All this is real. It happens every day, all the time. Sadly, Ali represents hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children who are indoctrinated with hate every moment, every hour.
This is child abuse.
Imagine your child undergoing this brainwashing. Imagine what it takes for a young boy or girl to break free out of this culture of hate. Some do but far too many don’t. How can any of us expect young Palestinians to support peace when their leaders poison their minds against peace?
We in Israel don’t do this. We educate our children for peace. In fact, we recently launched a pilot program, my government did, to make the study of Arabic mandatory for Jewish children so that we can better understand each other, so that we can live together side-by-side in peace.
Of course, like all societies, Israel has fringe elements. But it’s our response to those fringe elements, it’s our response to those fringe elements that makes all the difference.
Take the tragic case of Ahmed Dawabsha. I’ll never forget visiting Ahmed in the hospital just hours after he was attacked. A little boy, really a baby, he was badly burned. Ahmed was the victim of a horrible terrorist act perpetrated by Jews. He lay bandaged and unconscious as Israeli doctors worked around the clock to save him.
No words can bring comfort to this boy or to his family. Still, as I stood by his bedside, I told his uncle, “This is not our people. This is not our way.” I then ordered extraordinary measures to bring Ahmed’s assailants to justice and today the Jewish citizens of Israel accused of attacking the Dawabsha family are in jail awaiting trial.
Now, for some, this story shows that both sides have their extremists and both sides are equally responsible for this seemingly endless conflict.
But what Ahmed’s story actually proves is the very opposite. It illustrates the profound difference between our two societies, because while Israeli leaders condemn terrorists, all terrorists, Arabs and Jews alike, Palestinian leaders celebrate terrorists. While Israel jails the handful of Jewish terrorists among us, the Palestinians pay thousands of terrorists among them.
So I call on President Abbas: you have a choice to make. You can continue to stoke hatred as you did today, or you can finally confront hatred and work with me to establish peace between our two peoples.
Ladies and Gentlemen: I hear the buzz. I know that many of you have given up on peace. But I want you to know – I have not given up on peace. I remain committed to a vision of peace based on two states for two peoples. I believe as never before that changes taking place in the Arab world today offer a unique opportunity to advance that peace.
I commend President el-Sisi of Egypt for his efforts to advance peace and stability in our region. Israel welcomes the spirit of the Arab peace initiative and welcomes a dialogue with Arab states to advance a broader peace. I believe that for that broader peace to be fully achieved the Palestinians have to be part of it. I’m ready to begin negotiations to achieve this today – not tomorrow, not next week, today.
President Abbas spoke here an hour ago. Wouldn’t it be better if instead of speaking past each other we were speaking to one another? President Abbas, instead of railing against Israel at the United Nations in New York, I invite you to speak to the Israeli people at the Knesset in Jerusalem. And I would gladly come to speak to the Palestinian parliament in Ramallah.
Ladies and Gentlemen: While Israel seeks peace with all our neighbors, we also know that peace has no greater enemy than the forces of militant Islam. The bloody trail of this fanaticism runs through all the continents represented here. It runs through Paris and Nice, Brussels and Baghdad, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, Minnesota and New York, from Sydney to San Bernardino. So many have suffered its savagery: Christian and Jews, women and gays, Yazidis and Kurds and many, many others.
