Israel Reconfigured and Reconsidered

Israel Reconfigured and Reconsidered

“Obama Is No Friend of Israel” blared the headline on SayAnything.com with variations on other blogs and in the print media in the wake of the president’s announcement that he was effectively screwing the Jewish nation. His “final solution” for Israel’s border wars, though he dare not use that term, would make everyone in the area happy and peaceful and ready to play together in perpetual peace and harmony.

Confirmed and reinforced in his tense Friday sit-down with Israel’s furious, diplomatically-assertive Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Obama’s scheme is to have Israel return to its pre-6 Day War, 1967 borders, tantamount in this age of sophisticated rocketry in the bloody hands of Hamas to asking Israel to commit national suicide.

That said, two questions: One, why is it such a surprise to so many that Israel is not at the top of Obama’s buddy list and, two, why should he be? The answers to both queries are complex with the first less so than the second.

It’s either incredibly naive or amazingly stupid to be surprised that the president cares not a whit about the nation of Israel. Whether he would prefer it to be totally submerged in the Mediterranean as Arab states wish is debatable but his affinity for those states and all things and people Islamic is not. An excellent rule of thumb to gauge Obama is to note carefully what he says and then to compare and contrast those statements with what he does, has done, and refuses to do.

They’re remarkably different.

Obama tows the line with what he says, mouthing platitudes and the conventional pap about how much America loves Israel, how important an ally it is, how our support is unwavering, etc. etc. At the same time, he adamantly refuses to acknowledge a worldwide war against Islamic terrorism, he bows to Saudi potentates, he inexplicably instructs NASA to focus not on space but on building Arab self-esteem. Is pushing for a Palestinian state such a stretch? . . .
(Read more about Question Two, Why Should Obama or America about Israel? at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=4516 (Hint: We should not.)

A Tribute, of Sorts, to Helen Thomas

A Tribute, of Sorts, to Helen Thomas

I guess Helen Thomas figured that if Jimmy Carter could do it, so could she, not lusting in her heart as Jimmy admitted but consenting to an interview in Playboy Magazine.

Poor 90 year old Helen.

Grand Old Dame of the White House Press Corps, (“corpse” to Obama), 57 year UPI veteran, first female member of the Gridiron Club along with a host of other firsts, was ousted from her prestigious position in the front row at presidential pressers as well as from everything else last May after making off-the-cuff comments about Israel, Jews, and Palestinians.

Harridan when it came to haranguing Republican presidents, creampuff when it came to Democrats, Helen should have known better than to stray off PC message on issues near and dear to the hearts of the Jewish Lobby. Of Lebanese Arab extraction, she committed the unforgivable political faux pas of letting slip the truth as she saw it regarding Israel, “Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine,” embellished with a few other gems.

Banished to retirement if not oblivion for her indiscretion, Thomas re-emerges in the April Playboy to defend and reiterate her May opinions. Feisty to the end, she says, “I knew exactly what I was doing–I was going for broke. I had reached the point of no return. You finally get fed up. . . I finally wanted to speak the truth.”

Most of that is baloney; she just slipped up without thinking of the repercussions.

However, to her credit, she hasn’t backed down, saying in the interview that, “Sure, the Israelis have a right to exist–but where they were born, not to come and take someone else’s home.” She also expresses her admiration for the “wonderful” Jewish people: ”They were leaders in civil rights. They’ve always had the heart for others but not for Arabs, for some reason. I’m not anti-Jewish; I’m anti-Zionist.”

More baloney but all well and good, so far.

Then, Thomas reverts to her May indiscretions, hitting sacrosanct Jewish beliefs: “The slaughter of Jews stopped with World War II . . . They were liberated since then. And yet they carry on the victimization. American people do not know that the Israeli lobbyists have intimidated them into believing every Jew is a persecuted victim forever–while they are victimizing Palestinians . . . Why do they inflict the same pain on people who did nothing to them?”

As if that were not enough to ensure she will never get back her front row seat at White House press conferences–which was pretty unlikely, anyway–Hellacious Helen took on the Holocaust. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=3911)

What's With All the Jew-Bashing?

What's With All the Jew Bashing?

There’s a certain undercurrent out there which seems more and more to be bubbling up to surface current status and it’s not good news for those of the Jewish extraction.

In Europe, where anti-Semitism reached its apogee in Germany and Austria following the punitive features of the Treaty of Versailles and the rise of Naziism, England has now become a hotbed of violence against Jews and the ADL is reporting significant anti-Semitism in France, Poland, and Hungary, as well as in Germany and Austria.

Here at home, Mel Gibson’s drunken tirade against a Jewish cop in Malibu in 2006 in which he allegedly said, “F**king Jews . . The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world,” made headlines worldwide and his girlfriend, Oksana Grigorieva dug his Hollywood hole even deeper when she revealed he once said, ”I want Jew blood on my hands.” Gibson is now gone, Oksana is suing him, he’s countersuing, and the cop, Deputy James Mee, is suing the LAPD.

Anyone else need a scorecard? It never seems to end, not just the court battles but the tirades.

Last summer, the leftist and Buddhist movie director Oliver Stone seemed to be channeling Gibson when he said, “Hitler did far more damage to the Russians than the Jewish people.”

Stone asked then answered his own question, “Why such a focus on the Holocaust then? The Jewish domination of the media. . ."
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=3756)

THE USS LIBERTY: INFORMATION AND DISINFORMATION

When I posted the article, “The Shame of the USS Liberty,” I never anticipated such a ruckus over its contents. I felt it was a one-shot deal, just a pertinent reminder of what many still firmly believe was a miscarriage of military and political justice.

The often venomous reactions to my two most recent articles have served as assurances that the subject is well worth a retrospective commemoration, at the minimum or, preferably, an exhaustive re-investigation.

To relegate the memory of the USS Liberty to nothing more than a blip in America’s history would be the equivalent of forgetting Pan Am Flight 103 which was blown out of the night sky over Lockerbie, Scotland on December 21, 1988.

Simply because Libya has finally admitted its responsibility in that terrorist atrocity and has finally paid reparations doesn’t mitigate the horror of that attack nor does it relieve the burden of Libyan guilt.

So, too, with the Liberty and Israel, which indemnified the victims with some $7 million dollars. Unlike Libya, however, Israel has never admitted any guilt.

Baseless charges of anti-Semitism have been lodged because I have dared to criticize Israel, (as well as my own government), for Isreal’s unprovoked attack on the Liberty. Almost as repulsive have been suggestions that I am a supporter of President-elect Obama since I expressed the sarcastic hope that maybe he would re-open the matter of the Liberty.

Israel is an autonymous, democratic state. It is not a theocracy and to offer valid critiques of that state and its actions represents no more an attack on the Judaic religion than, for example, criticizing the actions of the Canadian government would indicate a disdain for the Canadian people.

Likewise, objecting to the Jewish Lobby in America and finding fault with its inordinate power does not constitute an exercise in hatred of Judaism any more than disdain for lobbyists for Big Oil would imply contempt for gasoline.

As far as I am concerned, allegations of anti-Semitism arising from a discussion of the Liberty, or of the Jewish lobby, is a misleading and dead issue.

Less dead are fair questions as to why I choose to revisit rumors, allegations and facts relating to the events of June 8th, 1967 at this time–or at anytime.

The chief reason would be that the vast bulk of available information on the Liberty does not involve mere rumor and the case has never been closed. Indeed, it was never adequately investigated.

Contrary to some of the sounds and furies which have arisen and critics’ claims that I had ulterior purposes in writing about the Liberty, I simply feel that to forget what happened in 1967 would be to dishonor the forty one innocent men who died and the 174 who were injured and maimed.

Any more than Israel would want the world to forget the horror of the Holocaust, I refuse...
(Read the rest of this article at http://genelalor.com/.)