Palin to Isreal: Why are you apologizing all the time?

After speaking in India at the India Today Conclave, Sarah Palin traveled to Israel for a two day trip. Palin took in the sights and had a private dinner with Netanyahu and his wife. While visiting the Western Wall and upon learning that Jews cannot openly pray at the Temple Mount, Sarah asked a simple, yet profound question to her Jewish guides; "Why are you apologizing all the time?”

Will Jacobson from Legal Insurrection perfectly details just how profound Sarah's question is. I think the question is a great precursor to the really big question Israel must ask for itself and that is "what exactly has bending over backwards to the Palestinians bought for Israel"? It certainly isn't peace.

Clearly a Palin presidency will bring a brand new dimension to the Middle East peace problem. Perhaps a new perspective is exactly what is needed to finally solve the problem.

You can read more about Palin's visit to Israel here, and here. View video at Nice Deb and see more pictures at CBS News.

Via: Mememorandum
Via: ABC News
Via: Legal Insurrection
Via: Jerusalem Post
Via: Conservatives 4 Palin
Via: Nice Deb
Via: CBS News

Sarah Palin to visit Israel

On her way home from her speech in India, Sarah Palin will make a two day stop in Israel and meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Hill: Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) will make a two-day visit to Israel this weekend, according to multiple media reports Thursday.

During her visit, the potential 2012 presidential candidate will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and tour holy sites such as the Western Wall and the city of Nazareth. Palin is expected to arrive in the Jewish state late Sunday with her husband Todd and stay until Tuesday, Agence France-Presse reported.

The trip, her first to Israel, will give the 2008 vice presidential nominee a chance to burnish her foreign policy credentials and demonstrate her support for Israel, the United States's top ally in the region. [MORE]

This is an obvious trip for Palin. She has always been a strong supporter of Israel. As governor before being picked as VP, Palin had an Israeli flag in her office.

Like her visit to India, this trip too is another sign that she is going to run (especially since she is meeting with Netanyahu). Choosing India the world's largest democracy and Israel the Middle East's only democracy suggests to me that a President Palin would have a pro-democracy foreign policy. That would be a welcome change from the very confusing, ineffective and weak foreign policy we are currently stuck with.

Via: Memeorandum

Via: The Hill
Via: Cubachi

Video: Gaza O Gaza!

Um, this is the “poor” Gaza that is suffering under Israel’s blockade? If marble floors, BMWs, beautiful beaches and tons of food are the new standards of “suffering”, then I think I want to be downright miserable.

What I find so shameful is that there are real needy people in the world, desperate for humanitarian aid, and gullible Western governments are wasting that aid on a bunch of con artists. 

Atlas Shrugs has more images and info on “poor” Gaza here and here. The posts are real eye openers.

Via: Memeorandum

Via: The Jawa Report

Via: Atlas Shrugs

Video: Netanyahu Defends Israel In Flotilla Incident

Netanyahu really brings his point home at the 6:46 mark. 

The Last Tradition: Benjamin Netanyahu courageously defends his nation against a world who has lost their sense of moral clarity! 

Israel has the right to exist and defend herself against aggression and millions of right thinking Americans stand with her, always.  

My friend Sam, nail this.  Netanyahu offers some much needed common sense to this whole flotilla incident. There was a well know blockade in place. No one can argue that Israel has more than enough reasons to be cautious about any cargo entering Gaza, no matter what the stated cause is. With a blockage in place and Israel under constant treat, shouldn’t any sane person expect, Israel to defend themselves by enforcing the blockage? So why are so many in the media acting like Israel’s boarding of the Turkish ship is such an aggressive act?

Sarah Palin seems to asking the same question. 

The Weekly Standard: The media, as usual, seems to be reporting only one side of the Israeli Flotilla incident. Don't trust the mainstream media to give you both sides of a story fairly... you must seek out fair reporting to ensure you have all the information. 

As far too many in the media, and in various governments, rush to condemn Israel, we must put the recent events off Israel’s coast into the right perspective.  This “relief” convoy was not about humanitarian aid, as the liberal mainstream media keeps reporting.  The whole operation was designed to provoke Israel, not to provide supplies to Palestinians held hostage by Hamas terrorists in Gaza.  Anyone who sees the video of Israeli commandos being attacked as they land on that ship knows the people aboard were vicious thugs, not “peace activists.” The media insults our intelligence with their outright mischaracterization of who these enemies are.  [MORE] 

Via: Memeorandum

Via: The Last Tradition

Via: The Weekly Standard

Flotilla of Peace financed by terror

This weekend’s big story was how a flotilla of “peace activists” was headed towards Gaza to bring relief supplies to the Palestinians.  The relief mission was in defiance of Israel’s blockade of the Gaza.  The Israeli Defense Force, in an attempt to stop the flotilla boarded a Turkish vessel and that is when all hell broke loose.

On board the Turkish vessel IDF clashed with the “peace activists” and IDF ended up killing 10 of the “activists”. The operation put Israel in a very bad light, until the videos started to roll in.

These so-called “peace activists” were armed and ready. It is almost like a trap was set for Israel. We learn today that the flotilla was finance by a terrorist organization. 

The Weekly Standard:The Turkish organizers of the Gaza Strip-bound flotilla that was boarded this morning by Israeli commandos knew well in advance that their vessels would never reach Israeli waters. That's because the organizers belong to a nonprofit that was banned by the Israeli government in July 2008 for its ties to terrorism finance.

The Turkish IHH (Islan Haklary Ve Hurriyetleri Vakfi in Turkish) was founded in 1992, and reportedly popped up on the CIA's radar in 1996 for its radical Islamist leanings.  Like many other Islamist charities, the IHH has a record of providing relief to areas where disaster has struck in the Muslim world. 

However, the organization is not a force for good. The Turkish nonprofit belongs to a Saudi-based umbrella organization known to finance terrorism called the Union of Good (Ittilaf al-Kheir in Arabic). Notably, the Union is chaired by Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, who is known best for his religious ruling that encourages suicide attacks against Israeli civilians.  According to one report, Qardawi personally transferred millions of dollars to the Union in an effort to provide financial support to Hamas. 

The situation is rapidly escalating. The UN Security Council is already condemning Israel’s actions (where is the Security Council’s swift actions when it comes to Iran?). Turkey is threatening military reprisals and will send another flotilla this time escorted by the Turkish Navy.

US Officials are saying the US will stand with Israel.  There was a time when few would have wondered what America’s response would have been, today given the administration’s shabby treatment of Israel, we all have to wonder.

Via: Memeorandum

Via: The New York Times

Via:  The Weekly Standard

Video h/t: Hot Air

Via: The New York Times

Via: Ian Welsh

Via: IBN Live

Via: ABC News

MSA student boldly admits to wanting second holocaust

News Reel Blog: Last night NewsReal Blog’s Editor-in-Chief David Horowitz gave a talk at UC San Diego to counter the Muslim Students Association’s Israeli Apartheid Week. (Horowitz made a point to properly describe the event as “Hitler Youth” week.) He was literally giving his speech at the same time as notorious anti-Semite Norman Finkelstein.

During the Question and Answer period Horowitz had a chilling exchange with a member of the MSA in which he prodded her to reveal the depraved depths of her Jew-hatred. What’s shocking is not so much that she holds such views, but rather that she was willing to admit it: 

Wow that is a pretty stunning admission. David Horowitz does have the right tactic for dealing with people like this MSA student. Be direct and ask them point blank where they stand. Too many times these groups hide what they are doing behind elaborate verbal games. However, when pushed hard, they often admit their true evil.

Via: Memeorandum

Via: News Reel Blog

National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones tells “Jewish joke”

When I first heard of this story I was expecting something much worse that the joke Jones told. This is not to say the joke isn't offensive, just that I was expecting a whole lot worse. Perhaps this is why so many in attendance were not offended. 

Political Punch: As first noted by the Jewish newspaper The Forward, at an event last week at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy – a pro-Israel think tank – National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones (Ret.) told a joke about a “Jewish merchant” that didn’t sit well with everyone.

While many in the largely Jewish audience laughed, others didn’t find it so funny, including Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith.

“It's inappropriate,” Foxman told ABC News. “it's stereotypic. Some people believe they need to start a speech with a joke; this was about the worst kind of joke the head of the National Security Council could have told.”

The Forward noted that the “joke drew a wave of laughs and applause from participant” but it went on to report that an anonymous “prominent think-tank source who attended the event said the joke was ‘wrong in so many levels’ and that it ‘demonstrated a lack of sensitivity.’ The source also asked: ‘Can you imagine him telling a black joke at an event of African Americans?’” [MORE]

I think one of the reason why some are not excusing this joke is because of the administration’s treatment of Israel. Just this weekend there was a major pro-Israeli prostest in NYC and the folks were not too pleased with Obama.

Jones has of course issued an apology, but will it be enough or will the whole incident just add a little more fuel to a growing fire?

Via: Memeorandum

Via: Political Punch

Via: Atlas Shrugs