American blunders through two administrations have set a regional Sunni-Shi’ite war in motion that the utopians in Washington are powerless to prevent. Young Mr Rhodes, who crafted the ”responsibility to protect” rubric under which American intervened against Gaddafi, can do nothing to protect the millions of Syrians, Lebanese, Iraqis and others who will be drawn into the maelstrom. The resignation last month of the National Security Council’s human rights chief, the anti-genocide campaigner Samantha Power, might be an omen: the bungling do-gooders may not want to stick around to see the consequences of their mistakes.

The idea that Israel needs to persuade its neighbors to accept its existence is a line we have heard almost daily since the 1980s or even 1970s. Yet curiously the Arab street pays no attention to the scores of such Israeli gestures and the West soon forgets each one. And indeed Obama has forgotten those that took place during his first term, for example the nine-month-long settlement construction freeze, just as before that were forgotten the Oslo agreement, Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, the 2000 Camp David offer (including the offer to redivide Jerusalem!) and many more. [See footnote, below]

Guess what? If today Israel were to make a huge new concession, six months from now that would be forgotten in the West, which would also forget that there was no considerable Arab response. Israelis know this and so saying this kind of thing about Israel proving its decent intentions can only fall with a cynical thud. Such statements remind Israelis why they are NOT rushing to make new concessions or take new risks.

Note, too, that Western and European promises to give Israel a big reward if Israel takes a big risk or makes a big concession and the Arab side doesn’t respond have also been repeatedly broken.

In giving his State of the Union speech, President Barack Obama will presumably brag about his greatest supposed achievement in the Middle East: support for democracy and human rights.

But consider this amazing fact. Exactly two years ago there were massive demonstrations in Egypt against the Mubarak regime, which was a U.S. ally. Today there are massive demonstrations in Egypt against the Mursi, Muslim Brotherhood regime, which hates the United States and opposes its interests. The Mursi regime has killed more demonstrators than the Mubarak regime did during the comparable period.

Yet what a difference in U.S. policy! Two years ago the Obama administration found this repression to be unacceptable. It demanded Mubarak’s immediate resignation and spoke of human rights and democratic norms. Today we hear none of that. On the contrary, the Mursi regime is praised by the White House and advanced arms are given as presents to it without delay.

So it isn’t surprising that Bahieddin Hassan,director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, has written an open letter to President Barack Obama. While many (most?) Americans think their country under the Obama administration has been supporting democracy and human rights in the Muslim-majority Middle East countries, the people who live in those places know better. Hassan begs: I’m not asking you to do anything except stop praising our oppressors!

In Iran, the U.S. government ignored the democratic opposition as it was repressed, and the same was true in Syria until the civil war in which, amazing as it may seem, that same government has backed particularly the anti-democratic Islamist elements in the opposition. In the Gaza Strip, the U.S. policy has helped protect the Hamas regime, while in Egypt and Tunisia the U.S. lifted not one finger to help the moderates but enthusiastically endorses the Muslim Brotherhood. Islamist-ruled Turkey, whose government has campaigned to limit democratic and human rights, is repeatedly cited by Obama as a role model.

As I’ve been writing for about 30 years, the Muslim Brotherhood has always talked this way, as does Hamas, Hizballah, the Ba’ath Party, the Iranian regime, and many — though not all — Arab intellectuals, politicians, and journalists of living memory. In fact, already another Morsi statement has surfaced: ”We must nurse children on hatred towards Jews.” Note he did not add: “until I become president and then we can start teaching them to live in peace with others of different faiths.”

It isn’t just pathetic, but also strange that educated Europeans/North Americans who are eager to destroy the career of anyone who has ever uttered a single sentence that was or can be portrayed as hate speech will accept those who issue whole reams of the stuff. What is truly ridiculous about this kind of controversy is the outrage or apologia over one statement: Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood leadership, including leading figures in the ruling party, have made hundreds of radical statements. They are either ignored or explained away as insignificant.

The third article of Egypt’s draft constitution, which appears to be on its way to overwhelming approval in this weekend’s referendum, says:

The canon principles of Egyptian Christians and Jews are the main source of legislation for their personal status laws, religious affairs, and the selection of their spiritual leaders.



On Thursday night, one of the members of the draft committee, Dr. Ahmed Darraj, held a rally against the word “Jews” in that paragraph.

He said that this mention would give Jews the right to visiting the tomb of Rabbi Abuhatzira in the village of Damanhur and exercise their “orgies” of dancing there.

Moreover, Darraj says, the paragraph was a “calamity,” pointing out that there are only 87 Jews left in Egypt while the U.S. Constitution does not have any specific mention of Jews, although America has more than 6 million Jews. If the constitution would be approved, Darraj charged, it means recognizing the legitimacy of their presence within the country to practice their rituals and allowing them to claim that the Jews built the pyramids, possibly to claim ownership down the line.

He compared this constitution to the Balfour  Declaration.

Darraj therefore urged Egyptians to reject the constitution - because it gives rights to Jews.

The Muslim Brotherhood simply cannot be trusted on either a domestic or international level. Dishonesty is part of the organization’s DNA, as evidenced by its broken promises to the Egyptian electorate and by Morsi’s double-dealing in regards to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip: first he allowed weapons into Gaza and encouraged Hamas; then, once the fighting started, he played the peacemaker. Before the last election that raised Morsi to the presidency, the group promised that if elected it would spend $200 billion dollars on repairing Egypt’s infrastructure as part of a “Renaissance Project.” Gamal Al Banna, the youngest brother of Hassan Al Banna, a prominent historical figure in the Muslim Brotherhood, warned Egyptians not to believe the organization’s promises. Gamal was right. After the election, the group said its promises were just an idea that needed further development.

During the election, Morsi also promised that he would pick a Coptic Christian as his vice president. He did not. And since becoming president, he has given almost 60 speeches — one almost every two and a half days — mostly in mosques. Since becoming a President, he has yet to visit a church. He promised to attend the seating of the new Coptic Pope, but did not show up.

The Muslim Brotherhood has also deceived the international community, which is all too willing to view him as a pragmatic “peacemaker.” Yes, Morsi engineered the ceasefire that brought an end to the recent fighting between Hamas and Israel, but it was he who helped bring the fighting about by allowing missiles built in Sudan’s Yarmouk weapons factory to pass through Egypt on the way to the Gaza Strip. And before he brokered the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, he encouraged Hamas to start the aggression against Israel. He never objected to the many calls for jihad against Israel and the West.

Morsi read the American political landscape accurately. He perceived that the White House was so deeply invested in the success of the Muslim Brotherhood that it would respond to a crisis provoked by Hamas by splitting the result down the middle, giving Hamas sufficient concessions to allow the terrorist group to declare victory. He also understood the implications of Mitt Romney’s supine performance during the third presidential debate on foreign policy. The Republican party continues to drag around the chains of the Bush foreign policy like Marley’s ghost, and will offer no opposition to Obama. Influential Republicans, moreover, are so invested in the notion of Islamist democracy that many of them will go along with Obama in supporting Morsi’s protection racket. Bill Kristol, for example, opined in the Weekly Standard’s weekly podcast that Morsi has “behaved somewhat responsibly” and that the ceasefire, although it might last only a few months, was “better than nothing.”

From Ma’an:

Fuel donated by Qatar will be pumped in limited quantities into the Gaza Strip on Sunday, an official confirmed.

Liaison official Raed Fattouh said Israel partially opened their Kerem Shalom crossing on Sunday to allow the entry of the fuel.

The resumption of deliveries was announced earlier this week by Palestinian officials.

Delivery of Qatari fuel began in July, but was cut off after a border attack on Egyptian officers on Aug. 5.

So Egypt has been withholding fuel from Gaza for over two months - and no one has reported it.

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BDS leaders and activists tend to make a lot of noise around what they consider “successful” campaigns, i.e. affirmation of specific calls for boycott. One of their main targets are Israeli products, and more specifically items produced in the Palestinian/ occupied territories.

A recent example is the plan to change the labeling of these products in South Africa, A prospect that sent the BDSers to celebrate with joy – Online and offline.

What they probably don’t take into account is the fact that these factories they call to boycott and shut down, pay salaries to thousands (around 15,000) of Palestinian workers, receive social benefits and the same paychecks as the Israeli workers.

I simply cannot understand this call for boycott. Are thousands of families and individuals becoming unemployed a good thing? Will the fact that they will lose their source of income a reason to celebrate? Is the unholy principle of boycott more important than actual people, with actual lives (Not internet ”personas”) being fired?

Take for example the Lipski Plastic Industries factory, located in the Barkan Industrial Zone. There are 80 workers in this factory, 40 out of which are Palestinian. But apparently these concerned workers are simply not part of the BDSers’ plan. No-one cares about them losing their jobs.

The away I see it, these factories are small colonies of co-existence, places where Jews and Arabs work together. I don’t see the sense in boycotting (And hoping to shut down) these places.

Has anyone heard of a campaign calling to buy Palestinian produce’ rather than boycotting? Of course not, because BDSers believe that hate and destruction are more effective than cooperation and debate

The more I look into this issue’ the more I feel that the BDS activists have, in fact, no real desire of peace and that will do anything in their power to avoid it – As long as their self-righteous facade is kept in tact.

All the while, actual Palestinian factories are being bombed and blocked, so normal Palestinians can’t make a living. The point of this boycott is to show the injustice forced upon by Israel.

False. The only places being bombed are the places that Hamas is using as headquarters to fire rockets into Israel. Hamas chooses to fire rockets out of civilian areas, which include neighborhoods, workplaces, schools, and hospitals. Hamas does not care about casualties—in fact, they fire rockets from these places intentionally to create casualties and thus bring more condemnation against Israel. Hamas is to blame for the plight of its people. Boycotting is not solving anything, it is just creating more problems. The real solution would be to stop Hamas from embezzling all the money sent to the Palestinians and for them to use it to help their people instead of buy weapons.

Actually, there have been several occasions where Isreal has bombed none Hamas targets, one example was this Cheese and Yogurt factory, which had been bombed 4 times since the 2008-09 war, and has nothing to do with the conflict.

Furthermore, Hamas has largely upheld the peace treaty with Israel. Rockets are being fired by other militant groups. (You may have to scroll down in order to find the info)

As I have maintained in past blogs, the only way to finally ensure peace, is for Israel to give back the land it took during the 6 Day War through negotiations. That is the only way to solve the conflict.

Hamas can’t control the other terrorist groups, or they don’t want to? They avert their gaze so they can deny responsibility. “Who us? No way! It’s those other terrorists! Really!” No, it’s Hamas, either implicitly or in complicity.

Israel was under constant attack before the Six Day War, so how could anybody think that returning the land would solve a problem that began long before 1967? Especially when Israel evacuated Gaza and was rewarded with rocket attacks. And then there’s the Hamas charter, which calls for the destruction of Israel, borders be damned. Meanwhile, the Palestinians under the PA have refused statehood. They too, refuse to live in peace with a Jewish state.

The way to solve the conflict is to halt all aid to the Palestinians. Force them to take responsibility for their own sorry, self-inflicted state.

Is that the same lack of control Israel has for Jewish Extremists as well? The same extremists attack innocent Palestinians and are considered ‘terrorists’ by the United States? Better look at yourselves before you start blaming others for the lack of peace. 

This conflict has changed since the founding of the Israel. For all the talk of destroying it, Palestinians do accept the existence of the Jewish state. This was what lead to the Oslo peace accord. What they don’t accept is the illegal occupation of their land. Even if Israel has removed its ground forces, its domination of Gaza’s airspace, territorial waters, and restrictions on how many people can get out, means that the United Nations and the international community still deems it as occupied. This was the reason why Hamas was democratically elected in 2006.

Furthermore, if you’re going to back your claims that Palestinians don’t want a state, you might want to choose a source that isn’t biased, and actually gives facts. Ehud Olmert never gave offer for land, like most Israeli PM that came before him. The only person who would was Yitzhak, and he was killed for it.  Recognition of a Palestinian state is actually good for peace, but Israel has gone so far to stop it, that they’ve actually blackmailed the PA, by threatening to cut off it tax revenues.

As for Camp David, the negotiations failed because refused to give back all the land it took. Most of the Israeli concessions was land that was legally Palestinian land, and accepting the deal would have meant forfeiting what was rightly theirs under international law. It was the standing of the USA that negotiations start with the precondition that the pre-1967 boarders would be the basis of the talks but Israel refused to agree to this. You can read about it here.

As for your solution, if it can be called that, basically shows how completely ignorant Zionists are. Your so wrapped in your paranoia, that you won’t admit the your own faults that fueling the conflict. Get you heads out of yours asses, and make the land offer that proves that Israel does really want peace. 

I notice that whenever I argue with an Israel hater, once I poke enough holes in their Israel-hating bubble they start with insults and name-calling. Israel haters can’t stand the intrusion of reality into their “blame the Jews” fantasy world. So in return, thou art an artless beetle-headed foot-licker and a gorbellied flap-mouthed measle.

Then there’s the whining about bias in the sources I use. Bias? You bet, there’s a complete bias toward honesty. You want more bias? Here’s a site exposing the anti-Israel bias at the UK Guardian. Read it and weep. The point is not that there is bias. All sources are biased. The question is: who’s telling the truth? Hint: it ain’t your side.

Then there’s the moral equivalence angle. While the attacks by Jewish extremists are reprehensible, they are condemned by Israeli leadership, unlike Hamas, who takes a “What me worry?” position on their terrorists. And if we look at sheer numbers and fatality rates, there is no comparison to Palestinian homicide bombers, rocket attacks, baby killers, etc.

Palestinian children’s shows are full of anti-Israel incitement and anti-Semitism. Streets and public places are named after terrorist child killers. They do not accept Israel. PA maps show no Israel. Admit it. If Hamas ever decided to live in peace with Israel, the blockades and controls would be gone. They want a state of war against Israel and then they want to whine to the world that Israel isn’t being nice to them.  Again, they don’t have to take responsibility because they have cheerleaders like you.

It seems that if the Palestinians don’t get exactly what they want, rather than negotiate some more, they rev up the killing machine. Of course, now Abbas is avoiding negotiations altogether on a Palestinian state that could have been in place since 1948.

Why should Israel give back any more land in return for nothing (or for rocket attacks in the case of Gaza)?  Israel gave back the Sinai in return for peace, but we’ll see if the Muslim Brotherhood wants to continue that peace or if they, in order to take Egyptians’ minds off of how badly their being burned by their own government and turn their citizens’ savagery toward the Jews, repudiates the agreement. How many times are the Islamic nations allowed to start wars and promote terrorism with no consequences? How many “do overs” are they allowed in their quest to destroy the Jewish state? When has anything ever been demanded of the Palestinians in return for the “painful concessions” always asked of Israel?

Ok, lets get some things straight before we continue.

First off, I “do not” hate Israel. I believe that Israel has the right to exist, and I also believe in the two state solution. I also find it terribly ironic when you talk about how “Israel Haters” are stuck in their “Blame the Jews” Fantasy world, when you yourself are stuck in what could be best described as a “Blame the Arabs” mentality. This is why I called Zionists ignorant, because even I can admit that I can be wrong sometimes, but Zionists can’t. 

Secondly, I do not support Hamas. They are a terrorist organisation, and have committed crimes against the population of Israel. My main arguments are against Israeli foreign policy, and how Israel is the one blocking the route to peace.

So lets get started. So that site you linked to me, while I can’t go through every it posts about the Guardian, being it would take far too long, I can talk about one such story. It uses the story as an example of bias, but it comes from the comment is free section, where anyone can write whatever they want. Even I would admit that the article doesn’t comprehend the full nature of the conflict. 

As for the other stories about the Guardian, they mostly talk about how the Guardian is failing to report the attacks by Militants. I’ve already talked about the subject in another blog, so here it is:

“Its a sad fact that only death can bring the worlds’ attention. Right know, the biggest stories that are coming out of the Middle East are about the Syrian civil war, and the bombings in Iraq. Stories comes and goes, and only those with the biggest headlines get the most attention. Still, just because newspapers are limited, doesn’t mean that the internet isn’t. The fact that we can learn about this here is a bigger triumph for journalism. It’s just up to us to interpret these facts.”

Even you have to admit that at the end of the day, It’s the facts that matter. Even though  the Israeli Leadership condemned these attacks, they have done nothing to prevent further attacks from happening. In fact, it continues to become worse. Even in face of this, nothing seems to have happened to stop these attacks. As for your comparison, it doesn’t really match up when you take into account the Gaza war, where 926 civilians were killed. You can see why Gazans don’t view Israel in a favorable light. 

This whole conflict is based on a eye for an eye mentality. One side attacks, and the other side retaliates. Only Israel has the power to end it, because it is occupying land that legally belongs to Palestine. By giving the land back through negotiations, Hamas and other Militants will lose their support, and their power. They were elected by the people of Gaza, they can be overthrown by the people of Gaza.

Israel however, has refused to agree to this. You claim that Israel has made efforts to give back land, but you don’t back it up. The truth is while Israel talks of peace, settlers continue move into illegally occupied land. They know that this will disrupt the peace process, but they carry on anyway. 

The fact is that the peace process has not gone far enough. Nothing has accomplished for the last decade, and its that reason that the attacks keep on coming. It’s sad to see it go this way, and is also sad how neither side has made any mass attempts of starting the peace process. The only thing they keep doing is point fingers at each other. 

Still, I maintain that Israel is the one that needs to make the first move. It’s continuing occupation of the Gaza strip, and the West bank settlements are the main cause for the conflict today. Arabs have moved on from trying to get rid of Israel. Now they want is rightfully theirs under UN law.

Ahh, so you take the “moral equivalence” route. I know others who take the same mode of thought. You’re all wrong, and here’s why. You have to ignore certain facts in order to still accept it, for example, the two state solution. It doesn’t matter whether or not you believe in it. Neither Hamas nor the PA, not to mention the rest of the Islamic world believes in it. They have the firearms to wreak violence in quest of their one state solution. That trumps both of our keyboards.

Speaking of Hamas, they admit that 600-700 of their terrorists were killed during Cast Lead. As they wear no uniform it’s easy to pretend that they were civilians. That doesn’t leave room for the previously claimed 926 civilian deaths. Of course Hamas conducts operations from heavy populated areas, using Gazans, especially children as human shields. They militarize schools, hospitals, and mosques hoping that civilians will be killed so that Israel will be condemned.

And there is no “eye for an eye mentality”. Hamas targets women and children. The IDF targets Hamas. Yes, unfortunately Gazan civilians die. Review my section on Hamas’ use of human shields.

You ignore generations of violence to pretend that this is strictly a modern conflict that began after the 6-Day War. Arabs began slaughtering Jews even before Israel became a state. Recall the Hebron Massacre in 1929, and that was only one of many. If the facts matter, then look at facts previous to 1967.

Your analysis of negotiations is, I’m sorry to say, naïve at best. Yes, Hamas was freely elected, but don’t ever look at them to give up power. Any support that Hamas has lost has been due to corruption and the cruel treatment of Gazans. The only way they can be overthrown is through violence by the Palestinian people.  Don’t count on any more free elections in Gaza, at least with non-Hamas candidates. For more on this subject, see Iran, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and the rest of the Islamic world.

How does the land belong to “Palestine?” Egypt and Jordan occupied it from 1948 to 1967 and nobody cared. Before that Jews who moved into Palestine, a backwater of the Ottoman Empire acquired land legally.

It’s time to recognize that the peace process is a myth. As I previously stated, absent the constant refusal of the Arabs to accept it, there could have been a Palestinian state back in 1948. Current Palestinian leadership refuses to negotiate, and previous Palestinian administrations have duped a number of American and Israeli leaders. Good faith was never a Palestinian tactic. That’s obvious by Palestinian intifadas, terrorism, rocket attacks, riots, etc.

Since the Palestinians aren’t interested in peace, but demand to simply be handed everything they demand like a nursery full of spoiled children, why not expand settlements? Palestinians need to be held to the same standard as ever other nation if they expect to become a nation and to know that the longer they refuse peace the more they will lose. It’s called learning to taking responsibility for one’s actions, something that has never been demanded of the Palestinians. By not holding Palestinian leadership accountable (and I don’t mean in the morally equivalent manner you profess) the world allows and encourages Palestinian obstreperousness, hate, and violence.

Who is really willing to live in peace? Look at each society and what they value. (Refer back to the Palestinian public places named after terrorists). There are Jewish, Muslim, and Christian citizens of Israel with equal rights. Not so in Gaza or the West Bank. The Christian minorities are shrinking in both places (while growing in Israel). And Jews? Yeah, right

Shame, I thought you actually address the settlement issue, but you continue to blame the Palestinians for practically everything. You even go on to repeat the claim that everyone is out to destroy Israel, despite the PNA, the legitimate representatives of the Palestine people, recognising Israel’s right to exist. You can show me that link from before, but it’s ridiculous to say this is what the actual leadership thinks. You can point to Hamas’s charter as well, but in the end, their power comes from anger from Israel, and it’s continued occupation of its land.

Yes, Hamas has committed atrocities during the war, but this does not excuse Israel from doing the same thing. During the war, Israel committed similar atrocities, including the shelling of neighborhoods, and using children as human shields. You can find more examples here. True, there a long list of massacres of Jews, though I find it funny that you use an example where in the same event, 435 Jews were saved by Arab families, but there is also a long list of Arab massacres too. Like I said, in the end, it really does become an eye for an eye.

It is also true that Hamas won’t give up power that easily, and that they have abused their power, but they are not stupid. In the face of vast opposition to them, they will back down. They have already shown this, when they dropped their support for President Assad, even at the cost of Iranian funding. Your view that the Islamic world rules against its people is completely out of touch with the realities on the ground, and reflects Israel’s own paranoia.

As for your argument that the land didn’t belong to Palestine in the first place, it is a view only shared by Israel. The rest of the international community however, agrees that the land taken during the 6 day war, still constituted as territorial violations, and thus illegal. Egypt and Jordan both represented the Palestine territories, and passed these claims onto the PLO. You can brag about the technicality all you like, the international community has spoken.

As I said before, Israel has to give back the land it has taken if it is serious about peace. Everyone agrees that it is the settlements that are the main roadblocks to peace, but Israel continues to increase their size. You call Palestinians spoiled children, but this evidence proves that Israel is the spoiled brat, kicking and screaming, until it only gets what it wants. It’s this reason why this conflict continues, and it doesn’t rest on Hamas’s shoulders. It lies on Israel’s.

Gasp! I’ve been shamed. Wait, no I haven’t. I have addressed the settlement issue. Israel is right. The Palestinians and the “international community” (and that includes the EU) are wrong. The Palestinians are wholly to blame for the conflict. As I’ve already stated, the Palestinians could have had their own nation as far back as 1948, (as much as you hate to go back any further than 1967 (and we thought young-earth-creationists were bad)) a time when they and the international community referred to them as Arabs, had they, as Israel did, accept the U.N. partition plan. As for giving up more land when nothing is expected of the Palestinians, why? Giving up Gaza has proven once again that appeasing terrorists is a losing strategy. By the way, I never said everyone is trying to destroy Israel, only the Islamic world and their anti-Semitic fellow travelers.

The problem with your repeated appeal to the opinions of the international community is that the international community (once again, including the EU) does not have Israel’s best interests at heart. Israel does. And as your mother must have told you as you were growing up – the fact that everybody else is doing it or thinking it, doesn’t make it right, especially when it is the current UN that seems to be the voice of the international community. I would have more faith in the international community if they were as concerned with actual humanitarian disasters like Sudan, Somalia, Tibet, as they were every time Israel is forced to defend itself. I would have more faith in them if they could respond to disasters as quickly and as efficiently as Israel did after the Haitian, Thai, and Japanese disasters.

Why shouldn’t some Arabs help Jews? They aren’t all terrorists, right? Some are able to reject their governmental and societal incitements to Jew-hatred (a hatred that stretches back long before the founding of modern Israel). Comparing the Israeli vs Arab use of human shields; Hamas etc., still uses them to increase casualties, especially civilian casualties, and of course, nobody in the international community cares. Due to condemnation from the international community and internal soul-searching though, Israel no longer engages in that practice.

Your list of alleged list of Arab massacres isn’t very long, but I guess you have to take whatever you can get from whatever source you can find. I’m surprised neither list has the “Jenin Massacre” nor Mohammed al-Dura on them. Another point of interest is that massacres of Jews took place whenever the local Arab population could be riled up enough to attack the Jews. The alleged massacres of Arabs took place during wars either started or provoked by Arabs.

As much as I like to add a bit of levity to this discussion to keep myself entertained, you’ve outdone me in the humor department with the contention that “Egypt and Jordan represented the Palestinian territories and passed these claims onto the PLO” and even found a source for the claim on Wikipedia. But according to this Wikipedia page, Jordan annexed the “West Bank” and offered Jordanian citizenship to WB Arabs. The use of nameless “handpicked representatives” should have been the give-away that this may be another fraudulent claim. And here, Egypt administered Gaza through a military governor. No mention of any “representation”.

In short, Israel is right. Palestinians are wrong. There is no moral equivalence, eye-for-an-eye, or tit-for-tat between them. The Palestinians and their allies-of-convenience, will easily lie if necessary to demonize Israel. It’s a shame that so many people fall for it.

Libya tells the story with a terrible irony, but we should understand precisely what is going on and how the situation in Libya differs from that in Egypt. For it is proof of the bankruptcy of Obama policy, but perhaps in a different way from what many people think. So far the U.S. ambassador, four diplomats, and two U.S. soldiers trying to rescue the rest of the staff have been killed. According to a Libyan officer whose unit was helping the American rescue effort, the terrorists seemed to know precisely where the staffers were hiding. Might they have been tipped off by sources in the Libyan government or military? Probably.

What happened in Libya has nothing to do with an obscure video from California; it has everything to do with the question of which side rules Libya. And the relationship of the attacks to the September 11 anniversary was meant to show that the Libyan terrorists supported September 11 and wanted to continue that battle.

The problem in Libya is that Obama got what he wanted and thus set off all the usual Western policy dilemmas, which he always denounced and which have existed in the region for a century. But Obama is not only ill-equipped to deal with these problems. He also either cannot even recognize them or interprets them in ways disastrous for U.S. interests.  For whatever reason, he wants to make nice with people who want to destroy his country. That might have been a forgivable naivete in early 2009, but by this point it is clear that Obama will never change and that four more years in office will not improve him and his administration by one millimeter.

Obama decided, although only after what we are told was a titanic inner struggle, to kill Osama bin Laden because bin Laden launched a direct attack on American soil. But he sees no need to battle those trying to take over the Middle East and crush its people (including women,  Christians, homosexuals) and wipe Israel off the map. Nor does he see the need to wage effective struggle with governments that stand and deliberately do nothing while the American embassy is invaded or the American ambassador is murdered.

There is, indeed, such a thing as cultural superiority, and I, for one, think it’s racist to be unwilling to speak about it. It’s racist to pretend that you’re living up to your potential when you’re not. And because I’m no racist, I’ll allow myself the liberty of pointing out why you’re wrong.

Was Mr. Romney really a “racist” to point out that Israel’s success is not an accident? I think not. Israel’s economy is the product of an open-minded commitment to education. Israeli education needs to improve, but still, consider the culture of the Middle East. In Egypt, one study suggests, 45 percent of women are illiterate; in Israel the figure is about 4%. Is Egyptian female illiteracy also a result of the occupation? Or is it the result of culture? Am I a racist for pointing to those numbers?

Or consider universities. Israel, a tiny country with a tiny budget, ranks far beyond all Arab and other Muslim countries, including those of the Gulf Arab states like Saudi Arabia, which have virtually limitless assets. In a 2009 ranking of the world’s top universities, the Hebrew University ranked No. 102 (shortly thereafter, it climbed to No. 57 on the strength of an award received by a professor of mathematics), Tel Aviv University was No. 114, and the Technion (Israel’s equivalent of MIT) ranked 132.

Yet in contrast, in that same study, there was not a single university in any Muslim country anywhere that made it into the top 250. King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in Saudi Arabia ranked highest among them at 266, and it was followed by the National University of Sciences and Technology in Pakistan… at No. 350!

Others are ranked far lower. Is the failure of the Muslim world (parts of which have no budgetary constraints at all) to produce even one single worldclass university the result of the occupation? Or is this a matter of culture? Is one a racist to point this out?

Or what about Fareed Zakaria, himself a Muslim, who had this to say: “In the last 50 years, the West progressed and parts of the non-Western world also began modernizing… [But] the Arab world stayed stuck in primitive political and social arrangements. Arab politics is not culturally unique; it is just stuck in a time warp.” Is Zakaria a Muslim racist?

HAIFA, Israel –  Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh has no problem calling for the destruction of Israel and blaming it for attacks linked to his own party, but when his relative needs life-saving heart surgery, only Israeli doctors will do.

The stunning hypocrisy comes to light after five Hamas-backed terrorists allegedly killed 16 Egyptian soldiers in the Sinai Peninsula that borders Gaza. Although evidence points to a Hamas-backed terror operation, Haniyeh inexplicably blamed it on Israel. The suspects were later killed by Israeli Defense Forces when they tried to cross the Kerem Shalom border.

“Israel is responsible, one way or another, for this attack to embarrass Egypt’s leadership and create new problems at the border, in order to ruin efforts to end the [Israeli] siege of the Gaza Strip,” Haniyeh claimed during in an interviews with the Hamas-run Al-Aqsa television.

Yet only a few months ago, the revelation that Ismail Haniyeh’s brother-in-law received a special permit from the Israeli government to travel into the Jewish State to receive life-saving heart surgery has come as something of a surprise.

Haniyeh’s sister Suhila’s husband suffered undisclosed heart problems four months ago that doctors in Gaza were unable to treat. The stricken man and his wife were whisked to Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva in central Israel, where he was treated, and some days later, the couple returned to Gaza.

“A person from the inner circle of the Hamas leadership did receive treatment at Beilinson Hospital,” an Israeli government source confirmed to FoxNews.com. “Although there are no diplomatic relations between Israel and Hamas, there are many occasions when requests for help based on purely medical decisions taken in Gaza are granted by Israel for humanitarian reasons.”

No one from Hamas was available for comment on the case.

Guy Inbar, spokesman for Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories told FoxNews.com that Israel routinely renders such humanitarian aid to Palestinians - when it is requested. “Approximately 115,000 Palestinian patients from the West Bank were treated in Israeli hospitals during 2011. Additionally, some 9500 permits were issued for Palestinians from Gaza to receive treatment”, he said.

The Palestinian Authority, which has received an average of $600 million in annual aid from the U.S., foots the bill for all medical treatment of Palestinians in Israeli hospitals.

But Haniyeh’s rhetoric against Israel may be coming at the expense of ailing Palestinians without ties to the leadership. In recent weeks there has been a notable decrease in the number of permits being requested by Gazans for medical treatment in Israel, prompting some regional observers to wonder if Haniyeh - who has repeatedly vowed not to rest until “Israel is wiped off the face of the map”- is now denying his own people the opportunity to benefit from Israeli medical help.

Ronen Bergman, an expert on Israeli intelligence affairs, told Fox News that he feels the permission granted to Haniyeh’s brother-in-law for treatment in Israel could however be part of a bigger picture.

“Hamas is well aware that Israel will give high quality treatment to Palestinians without taking into consideration their organizational membership,” he said. “Furthermore, this case could be interpreted as a signal to Hamas … that the channels of negotiation that brought about the release last year of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit … might potentially be used to develop better relations between the two sides.”