ATTENTION NATIONAL UNION LEADERSHIP

Dear Benny Elon, Effi Eitam, Zevulun Orlev, et al,

I am an Israeli voter who would very much like to vote for you. However, if you're going to advertise the wrong way, I may have to reconsider.

I was on my way to Tel Aviv to go to a social group today. And what did I see along the highway as I approached, but what appears to be some kind of attempt to attack the Likud in a rather imbecile way, by trying to imply that Benjamin Netanyahu is as corrupt as the now convicted Omri Sharon is. Most interesting though is that, for ads that feature such faces as Ehud Olmert's, Netanyahu's, Silvan Shalom's, and Tzahi Hanegbi's, it doesn't seem to feature such people as Amir Peretz. How odd, because I'd think that he'd be someone you'd want to take issue with as well.

Actually, what bothers me is that it seems as though you're trying to attack Netanyahu by resorting to some rather absurd implications and analogies that really don't make much sense, considering that Netanyahu has never been corrupt in the way that the Sharon family's been.

If you think you're going to really impress upon anyone by making it look like you're showing off petty grudges, well, I don't think so. You certainly aren't impressing upon me, that's for sure. If you ask me, this is exactly what led to your failure back in 1999, by making almost the exact same mistakes that Newt Gingrich made when he was House speaker, and resorted to attacking the Boy President in the Republican campaign for his scandal, much more than addressing public issues that the electorate would've appreciated hearing more. As a result, many were alienated, even in Israel, and I'm worried that it could have a damaging effect on the elections even now.

I want to make this perfectly clear. To gain a good following, you need to stress what's really at stake here, that being the threat of terrorism on our very doorstep. And if all you're going to do is resort to some stupid grudge match, when unity is needed even with competing parties, then I can't say you're doing very well there, now are you?

I have a friend whose younger sister was expelled from her home in Gaza last August, who's very cross now and reluctant to vote. And if you're going to start tearing down the other national parties out of a grudge, then I'm going to have a hard time convincing her to vote for you, as I'd like to. I wrote a post earlier about how unity is positive, and another one explaining why it'd be bad to throw away one's vote, and it pains me to sit here and bust my butt having to write another one. One of my brothers has likened you to a bunch of circus clowns because of what you're doing in advertising, and if I find that this is what your television ads are going to look like, meaning, that they're no better than they were back in 1999 and 2003, then I think I'm going to vote, just like my brother, for the Likud instead.

Now I could be overreacting, BUT, what if you end up costing the national camp the elections thanks to a cheapskate stunt like this? And even if Kadima doesn't get elected, what if the Labor party, which has all but slipped beneath the radar, dreadful party that they are, given the disaster they first led to, ended up being elected instead? Did that ever occur to you? (See also earlier post about Amir Peretz.)

There are, I'm sure, a whole bunch of other, meatier issues you could advertise about, including security issues, the horrendous and tragic events caused by the Oslo agreement, the bogus demographics for the Arab population, and even the need for better relations between religious and secular residents. But what I've seen this week is anything but that. And it's gotten me very unpleasantly annoyed, I hate to say. If you're going to go the Gingrich route, I'd say you're going to go in just that direction, which is to say - out of the Knesset and back home.

If you'd please kindly modify your campaign to something more constructive and less imbecile, as seems to be the case just now, I'll most certainly apologize for my outburst. But if you keep this up, I'm going to just have to go vote for the Likud instead (and Moshe Kahalon sure looks like a real find in the political field). Let's have attention to the issues and not to personalities.

If anyone's interested in helping out to try and convince the National Union to kindly modify their campaign ads, here's their English website for starters.

National Union's E-Mail:
zevinzion@yahoo.com

National Union's Telephone number:
1-800-20-33-22

For real success in the elections, that's why a meat-and-potatoes campaign devoid of any silly grudge matches would help out tremendously.

The polls are not reliable

To help clear up any confusion on electoral polls in Israel, here's something from Israel National News that points out that 75% of citizens don't participate in the polls:

"The polls are distorted, as we will see after the elections," says Dr. Aharon Fein of the Tatzpit public opinion institute.

Fein, speaking with Arutz-7's Hebrew newsmagazine on Sunday, said, "75% of the public does not cooperate with pollsters. I estimate that many of these lean to the right-wing and religious parties, thus that the published results do not represent their opinions."

"The distortion of the polls will become clear in the election itself," Fein warns, "when those who do not take part in surveys actually cast their vote."

"One of the ethical rules of public opinion polls that is largely ignored," according to Fein, "is the publication of those who refuse to take part in the poll. It would be appropriate for the media to demand that the pollsters release this number as well."

Many of the polls also do not take into account those who have not yet decided. Fein says this number is estimated at one-sixth of the electorate, or 20 Knesset seats.

Polls have consistently shown Kadima winning approximately 40 seats in the upcoming elections, with Labor and Likud lagging far behind with approximately 20 and 16 seats, respectively.

An interesting thing about the polls is how many of them, conducted as they are by left-wing polling outfits such as the Smith Institute and Ma'agar Mohot, show Labor coming in second place, whereas Likud seems deliberately placed in third spot. Seeing that, it wasn't hard to figure out that they could certainly be distorted deliberately to the point of bias against the Likud.

Son of the Gipper is also against Portgate

Michael Reagan, the son of the late president Ronald Reagan, points out how Dubya's sell-out of the US seaports to Dubai and the UAE is a very bad idea:

After Jimmy Carter gave away the Panama Canal, my father, Ronald Reagan, grabbed hold of the issue and never let go. He rode that horse all the way into the White House.

President Bush needs to think about that because if he fails to back down and at least give the opponents of the Dubai ports deal a chance to be heard, the Democrats are going to mount this gift horse and ride it into the White House just as my Dad did with an issue Jimmy Carter handed to him.

The way the Bush people have handled this matter from the very beginning is simply appalling. And coming on the heels of the vice president’s inept handling of the Harry Whittington accidental shooting - which gave impetus to charges that the administration plays its cards too close to its chest - the Dubai deal gives even more validity to the charges. Because it was done behind closed doors, with nary a word to the leadership on Capitol Hill, it comes out looking like a bumbled attempt to put one over on the American people.

The deal would allow Dubai Ports World (DPW) of the United Arab Emirates to run ports in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New Orleans and Miami. Last week the Dubai government-owned DPW bought the London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co., which had been managing the six ports.

It may well be that the arrangement has great merit and could prove beneficial to the U.S., but as a political matter it is an unmitigated disaster – and one which could cost the GOP dearly in both the 2006 and 2008 elections.

Here we have an issue – national security - that is uppermost in the minds of the American people, largely because the president has hammered away at it and used it brilliantly to portray the Democrats as weak-kneed in the war on terror and on matters involving national security. In one fell swoop the president throws it away, and even worse allows the Democrats to appear stronger in defending the American people than he and the Republicans have been.

It’s worse than stupid – it’s suicidal.

IMO, this is exactly why the next Republican presidential candidate should not be someone who's into the oil business or who has business ties with countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

There's one thing Reagan leaves out though: the working conditions of foreign employees in countries like Dubai and the House of Saud. Since this deal could also involve American workers travelling to those places, that's another reason why this is a very bad idea. But other than that, Mike Reagan really scores big here.

And of course, we can't let the Democrats fool us with how they're now jumping on this issue as a way of trying to save themselves from the muck they got themselves into this past year.

In related news, Sweetness & Light (via JunkYardBlog) points out that a Saudi shipping company's owned nine US ports since 1979. However, does that mean that all's well with this deal, or was, ever since the Saudis were allowed to buy them back then?

Here's a question: who was president back in 1979? He's mentioned in Michael Reagan's article. That's right. The same Jimmy Carter who favors Hamas. And here's another challenging question: is it possible that Carter, in selling those ports to the Saudis, may have relaxed security measures during that time as well, which could mean that some terrorist related activities may have been smuggled into the US even before this time when radical Islam is on the rise? Well you know, anything's possible, so we can't rule out the possibility that terrorist funders in particular may have succeeded in entering the US in past years.

And that's why, aside from the fact that the UAE is an entity that supports terrorism against even the US, and if so, should not be recognized as legitimate, we cannot risk allowing the deal with an enemy country. Plus, here's something from Byron to consider:

2. Al Qaeda claimed to have infiltrated Dubai government and business interests three years ago. Whether that claim is true or bluster is hard to say, but the safe bet is that it’s true.

And if so, well then, that's exactly why I profess considerable surprise that all of a sudden, when some conservatives (i.e-the ones responding on Sweetness & Light) receive info that the deal is "safe", so what happens next? SPROING! In one fell swoop, they're suddenly taking the side of the administration almost entirely 100% percent. I'm sorry, but knee-jerk adherence is not the way to go, and Reagan certainly isn't going that way, is he?

Let's be clear here. If terrorism is to be combatted effectively, that's exactly why countries like Dubai, if they're supporting such monstrosities, CANNOT be recognized as legitimate. And that's exactly why they cannot be allowed to purchase and own vital parts of the US either. Which is why I hope that, just like liberals, even conservatives will begin to wake up.

And man, do I miss ol' Ronald Reagan, one of the most responsible presidents in US history.

Ricin plague

Michelle Malkin finds reports that the lethal chemical called ricin has turned up in a couple of places around the US, the latest being the Texas University. From leftist Reuters:

An FBI-led task force is trying find out how the deadly poison ricin wound up in a student dormitory at the University of Texas, a campus police spokeswoman said on Saturday.

A chunky white powder, less than the amount that would fill a plastic sandwich bag, was found on Thursday night and preliminary tests on Friday showed it to be ricin, a poison made from castor beans, spokeswoman Rhonda Weldon said. "This is not associated with any threats against the campus" in Austin, Texas, Weldon said. A spokesman for the FBI San Antonio Joint Terrorism Task Force was not immediately available to comment.

Ricin is extracted from castor beans and even small amounts of it can kill if inhaled or injected, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention web site. Toxicologists say it can easily be made in an ordinary kitchen. In 2005, an al Qaeda-trained Algerian man, Kamel Bourgass, was convicted in a plot to spread ricin throughout streets in Great Britain.

Generation Why has more coverage of the case. For more on what ricin is like, read here and here.

Even before this development, JunkYardBlog found a similar case having taken place in Richmond, Virginia. From the Times Dispatch:

Chesterfield County police say the discovery of the toxin ricin in a home is related to a domestic dispute.

Ricin was found Jan. 20 in the home of Chetanand Kumar Sewraz in the 14000 block of Fortune Ridge Court in the Brandermill subdivision, police said yesterday.

Ricin, which has potential to be used as an agent of biological warfare, is widely available, easily produced and derived from the beans of the castor plant. Chesterfield police spokeswoman Ann P. Reid said the ricin found in the Brandermill home was in a semi-solid mash form and poses no threat to the public.

Police said a dispute between Sewraz and his estranged wife, Mariea Gamble, became public Dec. 13, when he swore out warrants charging her with making a threatening phone call to him and threatening to burn or destroy his house or vehicle. Gamble, 22, surrendered five days later and was released that day.

On Jan. 9, Chesterfield police charged Sewraz, 24, with abduction and domestic assault. He was jailed without bond.

Police have searched the Brandermill home several times since his arrest, including yesterday, when they were accompanied by FBI agents.

Chesterfield police Maj. Warner W. Williams said lab results just became available for the semi-solid material found in the home Jan. 20.

The investigation is continuing.

Sounds pretty fishy to me.

Others on the case include The New Editor, Gateway Pundit, The Dread Pundit Bluto, The Texas Songbird, The Jawa Report, Canadian Sentinel, Small Town Veteran, Suitably Flip, A Blog for All.

Peace Now getting funds from European governments

Here is an article I'm translating from the February 24, 2006 issue of Makor Rishon:

Internal documents of the extreme left-wing organization "Peace Now" that reached Makor Rishon fully confirm old suspicions on the right: the bulk of the movement's activities are funded by foreign governments. The director of the organization, Yariv Oppenheimer, said in response to the expose, "The question is not where the money came from, but where it goes to."

What's the money for? For surveillance of everything that goes on in Yesha [Judea and Samaria] yishuvim (villages), and petitions to the supreme court against every outpost or yishuv that can be acted against. "The retreat from Gaza and a bit of the southern Samaria was a positive step for Israel," explains one of the documents that reached Makor Rishon, "not just because of the fact that the deed was done by a right-wing government but mainly because it proves the failure of all the settlements. It's finally been proven that they're not an obstacle and that they can be removed."

And indeed, the cherry on the cake of the organization's activity is the team that monitors settlement activity. The team is comprised of three paid employees, together with six volunteers. The one who tracks the building in Yesha is Dror Atkes, second degree student in history, who in 2004 had a salary costing 207,000 shekels. He was assisted by two people, particularly for technical needs and writing up reports.

Here's another article from two years ago, with a similar subject included.

Five European states and Canada have donated money to their moonbat activities, and include Britain (220,000 pounds), Norway (2.4 million kroners), Finland (50,000 Euros), Holland, Germany and Canada (900,000 Euros altogether).

Peace Now, as pointed out above, is a foreign-funded political organization, serving the interests of these foreign governments. They certainly don't need the help of the common rank-and-file citizen, that's for sure.

In an almost similar case, US News & World Report finds that Eurolefties have been funding the Iraqi "insurgency", but which is really - what else but? - terrorism and mass-murder within the country:

Who's funding the insurgents in Iraq? The list of suspects is long: ex-Baathists, foreign jihadists, and angry Sunnis, to name a few. Now add to that roster hard-core Euroleftists.

Turns out that far-left groups in western Europe are carrying on a campaign dubbed Ten Euros for the Resistance, offering aid and comfort to the car bombers, kidnappers, and snipers trying to destabilize the fledgling Iraq government. In the words of one Italian website, Iraq Libero (Free Iraq), the funds are meant for those fighting the occupanti imperialisti. The groups are an odd collection, made up largely of Marxists and Maoists, sprinkled with an array of Arab emigres and aging, old-school fascists, according to Lorenzo Vidino, an analyst on European terrorism based at The Investigative Project in Washington, D.C. "It's the old anticapitalist, anti-U.S., anti-Israel crowd," says Vidino, who has been to their gatherings, where he saw activists from Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Italy. "The glue that binds them together is anti-Americanism." The groups are working on an October conference to further support "the Iraqi Resistance." A key goal is to expand backing for the insurgents from the fringe left to the broader antiwar and antiglobalization movements.

One conference sponsor, Campo Antiimperialista (the Anti-Imperialist Camp), credits the 10-euro campaign for buying 2 tons of medicine for Al Anbar province, a hotbed of resistance, to be distributed "completely independent from both the occupiers as well as their local puppets."

But some funds may be buying more deadly stuff; one leader boasted to Vidino that the campaign will send "everything it takes" for the resistance to win, including weaponry. Neither Iraq Libero nor Campo Antiimperialista responded to questions from U.S. News about where their funds end up. The groups' impact, though, may ultimately be limited. "They have a pretty big following, but we're not talking about big money," says Vidino. At one conference, he notes, many militants looked so ragged he doubted they even had 10 euros in their pockets.

It's just simply shocking just how destructive these Eurolefties can be.

Hat tip: Dr. Sanity.

Also available at Basil's Blog, Is it Just Me, NIF, Outside the Beltway.

Darrell Issa supports Portgate

It looks like John McCain may not be the only bad member of the Republicans who voiced support for the deal on US seaports (Hat tip: Dustbury). Debbie Schlussel notes that even San Diego Congressman Darrell Issa, who once had a record of car thefts, is also supporting Portgate.

With a record like his, it's a wonder he ever managed to get elected to Congress, but with any luck, voters can vote Issa out of office in the upcoming elections in November*. San Diego needs a much better representative than him.

* Was there supposed to be a special election in April? I may have seen something in the Wash. Post earlier about it in December, but I can't remember for sure now.

Egyptian and Saudi connections with cartoon riots: Condi hides the truth

Condi didn't want to say so, to let people know, but it should be known, that even Saudi Arabia and Egypt were also instigating against Denmark over the cartoons. Pia Causa provides more details, as does Emet M'Tsiyon. Condi's attitude here also reflects on her attitude towards Dubai's purchase of management rights to major American ports.

Egypt and Saudi Arabia behind the Islamic Cartoon Rage -- US State Department [Condoleeza Rice & Co.] Does Not Seem to Know, Blaming Only Syria and Iran
Just by the way, the article in LeFigaro brings another little detail, a little factoid, that is of interest in a different way. Condoleeza Rice, US Secretary of State, charged Syria and Iran with fomenting the Muslim rage, the furor islamicus, over the Danish Muhammad cartoons. They had done this, she said, in order to divert attention from their own disputes with the international community and to generally foment trouble [in Iran's case, the issue of producing an atomic bomb, in particular; in Syria's case, the murder of Rafiq Hariri, especially]. Dr Rice's charge was no doubt true. But LeFigaro tells us what she left out. "The OIC has been at the head of the protests since the second publication of the drawings by a Norwegian newspaper on 10 January." But the OIC has its headquarters in Saudi Arabia, the Land of Our Good Friends the Saudis. So it wouldn't be nice to complain about the role of the OIC, nor would it be nice to complain about the role of Egypt either, since Egypt is another Good Friend of the USA. Nevertheless, the former Egyptian ambassadress to Denmark, one Mona Omar Attia, incited Islamic violence against Denmark. On 3 February 2006, after Danish PM Rasmussen held a meeting with Islamic ambassadors in order to calm the waters, Miss Attia declared that Rasmussen's words were insufficient and that "his country must do more in order to placate the whole Muslim world" [Il Foglio, 21 Febbraio 2006, insert 1]. "No one in the world can make believe," she said, "that he can't intervene with his own media." Two months before, after the cartoons had been published in the Egyptian paper, al-Fajr, without eliciting a reaction, she threatened the Danish government that she would bring the episode of the cartoons to the attention of the Muslim masses throughout the world. "I am very offended and very angered by these drawings," she said. And she warned the Danes not to underestimate "the power of the Islamic world, when it wants to make an economic boycott, too." And lastly, she was the one who made contacts with the Arab League for a group of Muslim clerics from Denmark to present the argument for joint action against Denmark and to agitate the mobs. She got the needed visas for them, and one of her proteges, Abu Laban, the imam of Copenhagen, said that, "The Egyptian embassy played a fundamental role" [Il Foglio, 2-21-2006, insert 1]. Yet, Condi Rice didn't want to tell the truth about Our Good Peace-Loving Friends in Egypt.

Let's be clear here: we don't need too close political relations with countries like the House of Saud or Egypt when they turn and stab the US and other democracies in the back. This also shows that Condi and Dubya cannot be relied upon in Portgate since they've already proven unreliable in the cartoon affair.

Update: see also the Brussels Journal's report, which points out that Egypt's been inflaming incitement against Denmark for four months already. Also see this entry from Jihad Watch (via Orion Articles) on how a Saudi cleric is demanding that the authors of the cartoons be put on trial.

France mourns death of Ilan Halimi

I hadn't time to post about this earlier, but I'd very much like to thank Michelle Malkin for taking the time to post about it. Halimi was murdered by a gang led by a black Muslim ganglord who may have come from the Ivory Coast after a blonde woman, who may have been Arabic herself, seduced him and led him to be captured by the gang so they could hold him for ransom, and then, when finding out he was Jewish, murdered him on those grounds. No-Pasaran's got more info, including mugshots of the Muslim scumbag who'd murdered Halimi.

From Haaretz:

Cries of "vive la France" and "la justice" accompanied President Jacques Chirac, his wife Bernadette and Premier Dominique de Villepin last night as they left the memorial evening held here yesterday for Ilan Halimi.

The ceremony, which was held in the Grand Synagogue on rue de la Victoire, was seen by many in the Jewish community as the state leaders' formal declaration that anti-Semitism was to blame for the horrific kidnapping, torture and murder of the 23-year-old Parisian.
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At 5 P.M., two hours before the ceremony's official opening, police cars surrounded the synagogue area. Police at roadblocks inspected the bag of everyone who entered the area. Hundreds of thousands of people crowded on either side of the street, waiting their turn to enter the synagogue. At the synagogue's entrance police used metal detectors and checked the identity cards and passports of all who pushed in.

The synagogue's 3,000 seats were full, dozens more mourners stood in the aisles and many thousands remained outside and could not get in.

During the chilling ceremony, an 8-year-old read the Psalm "I will raise my eyes to the mountains, whence will come my help?" near a giant picture of Halimi.

Halimi's family and others in the Jewish community said that had the authorities admitted earlier that the young man had been attacked for being a Jew, he could possibly have been saved.

Halimi was found dying, covered with burns and cuts, on Monday February 13. He had been kidnapped three weeks earlier, after a Muslim gang sent a blonde to seduce him. Halimi had agreed to meet with her after meeting in a chat room. Immediately after his abduction his mother went to the police, saying he was kidnapped by anti-Semites. Sources in the community said three Jewish youngsters had managed to escape similar abdications in recent months.

The police told Halimi's mother, Ruth, to stop all telephone connection with the kidnappers, as a way of forcing them to use electronic mail, which was traceable.

The police did not know that during the five days in which the kidnappers tried in vain to contact Halimi's family, Halimi suffered terrible torture. One of the kidnappers said, "We put our cigarettes out on him because he was a Jew."

Caroline Glick notes that the Islamic gang appears to have connections to the Hamas as well:

Anti-Semitism in the Muslim dominated suburbs of Paris and other French cities is all-encompassing. As Nidra Poller related in Thursday's Wall Street Journal, "One of the most troubling aspects of this affair is the probable involvement of relatives and neighbors, beyond the immediate circle of the gang [of kidnappers], who were told about the Jewish hostage and dropped in to participate in the torture."

It appears that Ilan Halimi's murderers had some connection to Hamas. Tuesday, French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said that police found propaganda published by the Palestinian Charity Committee or the CBSP at the home of one of the suspects. The European Jewish Press reported this week that Israel has alleged that the organization is a front group for Palestinian terrorists and that in August 2003 the US government froze the organization's US bank accounts, accusing it of links with Hamas.
Halimi's family alleges that throughout the 20 days of Ilan's captivity, the French police refused to take the anti-Semitic motivations of the kidnappers into account. The investigators insisted on viewing his kidnap as a garden variety kidnap-for-ransom criminal case, which they said generally involves no threat to the life of the captive. The police maintained their refusal to investigate the anti-Semitic motivations of the kidnappers in spite of the fact that in their e-mail and telephone communications with Ilan's family, his captors repeatedly referred to his Judaism, and on at least one occasion recited verses from the Koran while Ilan was heard screaming in agony in the background. The family alleges that if the police had been willing to acknowledge that Ilan was abducted because he was Jewish, they would have recognized that his life was in clear and immediate danger and acted with greater urgency.

The police in France, and in fact, in many other places around the world, are going to have to start showing some serious reform.

Glick also notes something else very disturbing about this case:

In addition to the exterminationist anti-Semitism of Ilan's murderers and the unwillingness of the French authorities to acknowledge the anti-Semitic nature of the crime until it was too late, there is one more aspect of the case that bears note. That is Israel's reaction to the atrocity. In short, there has been absolutely no official Israeli reaction to the abduction, torture and murder of a Jew in France by a predominantly Muslim terrorist gang that kidnapped, tortured and murdered him because he was a Jew.

No Israeli government minister, official or spokesman has condemned his murder. No Israeli official has demanded that the French authorities investigate why the police refused to take anti-Semitism into account during Ilan's captivity. No Israeli official flew to Paris to participate in Ilan's funeral or any other memorial or demonstration in his memory. The Foreign Ministry's Web site makes no mention of his murder. The Israeli Embassy in Paris - which has been without an ambassador for the past several months - only publicly expressed its condolences to the Halimi family on February 23, 10 days after Ilan was found. This, when the French Jewish community considers Halimi's murder to have been the greatest calamity to have befallen it in recent years; when aliya rates rose 25% last year; and when Ilan's mother has told reporters that her son had planned to make aliya soon and was just staying in France to save money to finance his move to Israel. For its part, as Michelle Mazel pointed out in The Jerusalem Post yesterday, the French press has noted that the Israeli media has not given the story prominent coverage. Halimi's murder has not appeared on the front pages of the papers or at the top of the television or radio broadcasts.
Although appalling, the absence of an official Israeli outcry against Halimi's murder is not the least surprising. Today, the unelected Kadima interim government, like the Israeli media, is doing everything in its power to lull the Israeli people into complacency towards the storm of war raging around us. Against the daily barrages of Kassam rockets on southern Israel; nervous reports of al-Qaida setting up shop in Judea, Samaria and Gaza; the ascension of Hamas to power in the Palestinian Authority; and Iran's threats of nuclear annihilation, Israel's citizenry, under the spell of Kadima and the media, appears intent on ignoring the dangers and pretending that what happens to Jews in France has nothing to do with us.

Israel's societal meekness accords well with Kadima's ideology. Its creed was best expressed by Foreign Minister, Justice Minister and Immigration Minister Tzipi Livni last month at the Herzliya Conference and is best characterized as "conditional Zionism." In her speech, Livni explained that Israel's international legitimacy is conditional. Unless a Palestinian state is established in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, she warned, Israel will lose its legitimacy as a Jewish state.

So for Livni, Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Shimon Peres and the rest of the Kadima gang, unlike every other people in the world, the Jewish people does not have an inherent, natural right to exist as a free, sovereign and independent people in its homeland. For Kadima, the Jewish people's right to self-determination in our land years is conditional on our enemies' acceptance of our right to be here.

Kadima's conditional Zionism finds expression in its policies in Judea and Samaria. There, the gist of the government's actions is that the only people with inherent human rights in Judea and Samaria are the Arabs.

If would-be governments like Kadima, led by people like Olmert, whose own corrupt activities were exposed recently, and can be read about in these earlier topics, are going to be the ones leading the country, acts of anti-Semitism like the horrifying murder of Halimi will never be effectively dealt with.

See also Debbie Schlussel's report, which notes that Halimi's family, of Sephardic descent, came from north Africa to France to get away from anti-Semitism, and also Melanie Phillips' report (via Israpundit).

Cross-posted to Infidel Bloggers Alliance. Also available at Adam's Blog, Basil's Blog, Bloggin' Out Loud, bRight & Early, Cao's Blog, Don Surber, Free Constitution, Is it Just Me, Jo's Cafe, The Liberal Wrong-Wing, The Mudville Gazette, NIF, Oblogatory Anecdotes, Outside the Beltway, Samantha Burns, Wizbang. Others on the subject include The Anchoress, Dr. Sanity, Martin Kelly.

The UAE's company agrees to delay the port deal

Michelle Malkin finds that the UAE has agreed to delay the US seaport deal.

Before this can be fully solved, however, there is still much more that requires discussion. For example, as Michelle points out here, it seems that some people are changing their positions because, all of a sudden, defenders of the sale are trying to present "proof" that the deal is safe. Michelle makes some good points on why it would be strongly advised not to be fooled by this:

Lesson One of Portgate: Scream "Islamophobia/xenophobia" often enough, and people will start to back down.

Lesson Two of Portgate: Mislead and mischaracterize your critics often enough, and people will start to back down.

She also posts excerpts from a fact sheet from the White House, featuring two key talking points by defenders of the port ops deal, first received at Power Line:

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Is Always In Charge Of The Nation’s Port Security, Not The Private Company That Operates Facilities Within The Ports. Nothing will change with this transaction. DHS, along with the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and other Federal agencies, sets the standards for port security and ensures that all port facility owners and operators comply with these standards.

The Transaction Is Not About Port Security Or Even Port Ownership, But Only About Operations In Port. DP World will not manage port security, nor will it own any ports. DP World would take on the functions now performed by the British firm P&O – basically the off- and on-loading of cargo. Employees will still have to be U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents. No private company currently manages any U.S. port. Rather, private companies such as P&O and DP World simply manage and operate individual terminals within ports.

But, as Michelle's pointed out before:

The issue is not whether day-to-day, on-the-ground conditions at the ports would change. They presumably wouldn't. The issues are whether we should grant the demonstrably unreliable UAE access to sensitive information and management plans about our key U.S ports, which are plenty insecure enough without adding new risks, and whether the decision process was thorough and free from conflicts of interest.

Absolutely correct. But not just that, there's also some more very biting points to make. For example:

• The UAE could appoint people who're more in line with their own policies or schemes, who could even figure out how to outsmart the US security authorities, and, armed with any security info the US would provide them with, could use it to outwit the US authorities.
• Not only that, there's also the possibility that some of the people employed by the UAE at these ports, out of fear of losing their jobs, could back down from showing any muscle in conducting inspections and stuff like that, and might not even contact the authorities to check what they might have or could end up overlooking.
• The UAE and Dubai define themselves as Muslim states. Therefore, they practice religious discrimination against non-Muslims, particularly Jews, who are regularly vilified in the UAE press, but also against the non-Muslims who've been brought in to work there from Asia. Wouldn't bringing in a company owned by an anti-Jewish government be a slap in the face to American Jews, a sign that it's okay to discriminate against and vilify Jews?
  
• This brings us to the problem of foreign workers in Dubai and the other UAE emirates. How are foreign workers treated there? What are their working conditions? Are they paid fairly or are they punished by withholding pay, or cheated? Further, there are reports of slavery going on there, including boy camel jockeys from Asia (via Rory Shock), who are underfed, in order to keep them light for the camel races. Does the United States want a Dubai government-owned company to have control over American workers, in view of the working conditions in Dubai?
  

I also have to take issue with some whom I fear are knee-jerk Bush supporters, such as JunkYardBlog, who's attacked Debbie Schlussel over something that she herself admitted there's no real proof of just now, but is still understandably concerned about: the Dubai connections of Neil Bush, brother of Dubya. As Debbie says here:

The approval of Dubai-owned DP World to run the ports has brought out a lot of security issues that should have been raised at least 4.5 years ago, after 9/11. But there are a lot of issues associated with this that HAVEN'T come to light.

First, there's the President's refusal to re-examine the deal, despite the fact that he admittedly didn't know about it until the public furor. What you don't know is about the President's brother, Neil Bush, and his ties to Dubai.

I'm not saying the President's brother had anything to do with this absurd deal. He probably did not. But we don't know for sure, and even the appearance of impropriety is unacceptable in the War on Terror.

Good point. Also, to bring one up of my own, here's an interesting question: if the House of Saud, as well as the UAE, are supporting and funding terrorism, here's a good question: should democratic countries be doing business with them? Maybe we need their oil and we can't interfere in their internal doings, because they're sovereign states. But, do we have to let them bring their ways of doing things into democratic countries, which is a possible - or even likely - outcome of this deal?

But while the argument that Neil Bush may be getting paid dough from these jerks simply because he's the president's brother may be exaggerated or redundant, Byron Preston really flubs when he says on his own blog:

I’m not a fan of the deal (though I’m less hostile to it than I was a day or two ago). But I’m even less of a fan of smearing people who have no demonstrable connection to the issue at hand. And Neil Bush has no demonstrable connection to that deal.

If it turns out that he does, that should be explored. But I don’t see anything in Debbie’s post that demonstrates that connection.

Not neccasarily, Byron, so I'm gonna have to dissent here, I'm afraid. The Bush family's had huge ties in the past to the oil biz in Saudi Arabia, and it could be that this is what's keeping Dubya from being able to make a convincing break with them. Also, who exactly are you to tell anyone that "Neil Bush has no demonstrable connection to that deal"? Do you know him personally?

What's more, the message Preston is sending here is: Bush can do no wrong, is totally %100 percent innocent of any wrongdoing, and that nobody, not even a right-wing/conservative, should be criticizing him. Which is very naive and not a positive way of thinking either. Let's be clear: we don't know any of these people personally, so while we cannot judge firsthand, we cannot be blind to them either.

And not only that, Debbie's got another very good point to make over here as well. For example, as she wrote once on PoliticalUSA:

Al-Maktoum, Defense Minister of the United Arab Emirates, is also Crown Prince of Dubai-an Arab Muslim country that strongly supported and recognized Afghanistan's Taliban, one of only three countries to do so. According to "From the Desert to the Derby," by Jason Levin, 10 of the 19 September 11th hijackers carried documents and identification from Dubai, a country which also has no laws against money-laundering. Why? Maybe, because money to fund September 11th's terrorism was laundered to ringleader Mohammed Atta, directly from Dubai's banks.

Like most Arab leaders, Al-Maktoum gives only lip service to condemning terrorism, while his country sponsors, aids, and abets it. On September 11th, he was spending billions on high-priced yearlings at Keeneland in Lexington, Kentucky. After claiming, "We are 100% against it and 100% with America to get those people to justice," he was busy spending millions, again, on September 12th-spending $6.1 million on two horses. As for the money from September 11th traced back to Dubai, Al-Maktoum will only say, "It's been taken care of." Whatever that means--ie., nothing.

As Debbie says earlier in the same topic:

While everyone is justifiably outraged by America's relinquishment of six major ports to a Dubaian company, Dubai Ports (also, called DP World), the real outrage should be this:

Where was the outrage in the last 4.5 years? Why has our country continued to maintain great relations with the governments of Dubai and its larger federation of emirates, the United Arab Emirates? Since we've never disciplined or even scolded either Dubai or the larger UAE, they have been free to operate as usual.

And we've never treated or recognized both as anything but allies. It's hard to let this fester for years, and then one day say to a party we pretend is our friend: hey, you are our enemy and always have been. That should have been what we were saying ever since 9/11 . . . and probably well before that date.

And she's right. If countries like these are supporting terrorism, whether behind closed doors or out in the open, and even going around indoctrinating their residential subjects into being bigots, why should we be doing any kind of business with them? Isn't that why all ties were broken off with nazi Germany when they unleashed their plague of fascism during WW2?

With all due respect to people like Byron Preston, I am shocked that they are missing one of the most important points: that if countries like the UAE are supporting and financing terrorism and anti-Western bigotry, exactly what the nazis were doing during the WW2 era, why should we have to do any business with them? By doing so, all we're doing is giving the impression that we legitimize their positions, including the Saudis' persecution of non-Muslims within their own country.

This is exactly why in the next few years, relations with countries like the House of Saud and the UAE may have to be severed until the problems with Islamofascism can be solved. And I should hope that even the respectable Mr. Preston, whom I do have respect for, even if I disagree with what I feel may be a knee-jerk position on his part, realizes that countries that deal in totalitarianism do not make good allies or business partners. That is exactly, and should be, the leading reason why plenty of people find the port deal unacceptable. Regardless of whether or not the ports will be safe, if the UAE is going to engage in terrorist funding, then that's why we cannot do business with them, and certainly not if it's a government-owned company that'd be taking charge of the seaports. Maybe we need oil from them and to do business with them, but it would be insane to let them control a vital part of the industrial infrastructure.

How those important facts seem to elude Preston is beyond me.

Matot Arim looking for volunteers

Here's a message by Suzie Dym of Matot Arim (via Westbankblog), who's looking for some volunteers who can campaign for the Likud, and even the National Union:

"It's time to go from house to house, or from phonecall to phonecall if that is more convenient for you, persuading our fellow citizens to vote for the right and NOT for Kadima. Our goal is to get 61 MKs into the Knesset who will vote against a Palestinian state and all its trappings ("disengagements", etc.). This is going to be a big national volunteer campaign! We know these things work -- remember the Likud referendum when Sharon's solid 20% majority melted away in a single month?

* If you can be in charge of the volunteers in your area, please contact sddym@Bezeqint.net. You will need to give each volunteer some voters' names to work on, write down who got which names, and collect the feedback that your volunteers will shortly stream back to you.

* If you are willing to gather 20 - 50 friends in your living room (or wherever) to explain this volunteer campaign to them -- please also immediately contact sddym@Bezeqint.net. If you would like MK Prof. Aryeh Eldad to speak to the assembled, please call Netzer 052-5666920"

This is very excellent grassroots political action indeed.

Open letter urges to vote

Eran Sternberg, a former Gush Katif spokesperson, has written a letter urging Israelis expelled from their homes in Gaza to vote:

With elections less than five weeks from now, many in the nationalist camp fear that post-Gush Katif disillusionment will keep many voters away. A counter-campaign is already underway.

Read the rest for more. Sternberg is quite right, we cannot let our disillusionment keep us from voting, which could very easily enable the moonbat parties to gain as a result.

Message to cyber-jihadists: Quit trying to bind and gag us, it's useless

Michelle Malkin's blog has been under cyber-attack again, by a DoS attack, which turned out to be coming from a Turkish server, no less.

I've got something to say to the Islamofascists: stop trying to invade our systems. Show some proper respect for the lady too. Oh, and also: SHUT UP.

Others on the subject include La Shawn Barber, All Things Beautiful, Ordinary Everyday Christian (plus, another one), Sister Toldjah, Conservativity, JunkYardBlog, Centerfield, Badger Blogger, And THAT is MY Opinion, Below the Beltway, Daily Spork, ThreatChaos, The Dread Pundit Bluto, Suitably Flip, The World According to Carl, Soldiers' Angels, Life~Florida~Whatever, SubTerfuge, Collosus of Rhodey, Lone Pony, DCThornton, Christian Pundits, Iraq War Today.

Muslim expert tells Georgetown students Islam needs some serious reform

Here is a newsletter I got about a Muslim expert, Tawfik Hamid, who gave a good lecture to the students of Georgetown University:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 20, 2006

Muslim Expert Tells Georgetown Students Islam is in Desperate Need of Reformation
Endorses a peaceful form of Islam

WASHINGTON: Dr. Tawfik Hamid, a former member of Jamaha Islameia (JI) and associate of Dr. Ayman al-Zawahri, told an audience of Georgetown University students on Thursday that Islam is in desperate need of reformation.

"If the leaders of Islam endorse teachings accepting slavery, the beating of women, the killing of homosexuals, the killing of those who convert from Islam to other religions (apostates), humiliation taxes or jihad to spread Islam -- practices that do not hold the basic tenants of common humanity -- then it does not make sense to engage with the leaders of that religion," he said.

Dr. Hamid, a medical doctor, clinical psychologist and expert in Islam, says that for the past 22 years he has been trying to reform Islam. During his many years in Egypt, he preached a peaceful form of Islam, but says he was forced to leave the country when he was threatened and attacked in nearly every mosque he visited.

After lecturing at Georgetown, Dr. Hamid met with a number of military intelligence experts.

"Dr. Hamid is a treasure," one general said. "We need him in the U.S. to explain the dangers of extremism to America and the world."

Contact: Keith Davies at lalric@verizon.net or 720-935-2826

And it's certainly a promising development that, after the way that Georgetown cowered to CAIR by letting them hold a lecture there some time ago, they're now taking a more positive route by enabling someone of a much more positive position to give a lecture there.

If Islam needs a reform, my suggestion/proposal would probably be to teach more of Sufism, which could be the most positive step possible to take.

Army of Davids comes to help protest the dangerous giveaway of US seaports

IRIS Blog discusses how an "Army of Davids" in the blogverse (see this item from Instapundit to learn more) has helped to raise an outcry against the US government's deal to hand seaports over to the United Arab Emirates:

Bush, who is nomally allergic to the use of the veto, is threatening an exception in this case to defeat what he is hinting to be racism. The blogosphere, however, has revealed that the UAE government itself, which owns the ports company, is a financier of the ideological jihad. They are not professional business partners who should be treated with "fairness." Like the rest of the Muslim world, they are largely a combination of openly jihadi Muslims, "moderate" Muslims who do not yet believe the time is ripe for the future jihad that they dream of, and those paralyzed by fear.

Michelle Malkin provides more information on the subject, and most interesting here is the report filed by the ultra-leftist AP Wire, saying that Bush "didn't know" about the seaports deal until it was made, which, if you find it confusing, yes, it most certainly does seem so:

President Bush was unaware of the pending sale of shipping operations at six major U.S. seaports to a state-owned business in the United Arab Emirates until the deal already had been approved by his administration, the White House said Wednesday.

Defending the deal anew, the administration also said that it should have briefed Congress sooner about the transaction, which has triggered a major political backlash among both Republicans and Democrats...

First, I find it hard to understand how exactly the president, for all the busy jobs he's got, could not know about what business deals his cabinet makes, but even after he does know about it, that does not explain why exactly he's defending it, to the point of threatening to veto Capitol Hill's decision to block the deal.

There is one part here though, where I must disagree with Michelle, and also with Big Lizards, whose quote she features here:

Neither side has noticed that there is a fairly obvious compromise staring us in the face, which Big Lizards believes would resolve the very real security concerns without losing the equally real security benefits from this deal.

Both the actual national-security risk and also the political danger come, not from the ownership of the company, but rather from the day to day management -- the actual control of operations. The emirate wants the profits that accrue from ownership; rational Americans want to see control of the port, even the cargo areas, in friendly hands, preferably American.

This suggests a workable compromise: an American company should be chartered -- American owned and American managed -- that is a wholly owned but independently operated subsidiary of Dubai Ports... call it American Port Services, Inc., or somesuch name that makes clear the nationality; and then let all the actual management of the ports be handled by the American APS, not by Dubai Ports.

No, I must dissent here. Dubai should not be allowed to own the ports, and certainly not to run them like an embassy, at all. Period. This is an enemy country we're talking about, and aside from the fact that being able to own the ports is something that could turn out to be advantageous for Dubai, it's possible that, if they did own the ports, American managers would not be allowed to inspect certain deliveries, and might be barred from opening some packages, which, what if they turned out to be containing weapons and other horrible terrorist tools?

Simply put, we can't take risks, not on security or anything else like it.

Others on the subject include Iowa Voice, All Things Beautiful, Debbie Schlussel (plus, here's another one), Gina Cobb, Robert McNickle, Below the Beltway, The Political Pitt Bull, The Anchoress, Independent Christian Voice, Liberty Just in Case, And THAT is MY Opinion, A Blog for All, California Conservative, The Age of Reason, Kim Priestap, HCS's and Gen's Place, ProCynic, A Lady's Ruminations, Small Town Veteran.

Don't throw away your vote

A few weeks ago, JoeSettler wrote here, and also told me over here, that he was displeased with the merger between National Union and National Religious Party because of what chairman Zevulun Orlev did in the past by implying that he was a defeatist and maintaining a questionable position at best.

Well that's why I'd like to say that, for anyone who feels the same way he does, while I hadn't thought to discuss it earlier, don't worry, I am well aware that Zevulun Orlev has been an appalling botch as a party leader in the past two years, and led to a lot of people being alienated from the NRP, and whether or not his words in an interview with the ultra-leftist Jerusalem Post, which JoeSettler writes about here, were warped, he still managed to undermine the party in what goofs he did. But you see, that's pretty much why now, he's practically had to agree to a merger, because yes, what he did, by not taking any clear positions, and running the gauntlet of taking defeatist ones, he ultimately led to the very likely chance that, if the NRP were to run on its own in the coming elections, they wouldn't stand a chance. When seeing how, in some election polls, the NRP was going down to as few as three seats, that's how the chances that the National Religious Party would not survive became apparent. And best of all is that, if needed, the National Union, in the deal they made, was able to put a clamp on Orlev, ensuring that he'd have to stay with 'em for the next few years.

My point here? It's that, whatever our misgivings on what certain politicians have done in the past, we cannot let our misgivings keep us from voting, since, in a time when an emergency crisis is flaring up, with the Hamas encroaching on our doorstep and Iran's nukes also becoming a dangerous and very likely threat, that's why it's important that we do what we can to ensure a good majority for the Israeli right, so that it can deal with and face the terrorist and nuclear threat effectively.

And another thing: do we want a national referendum law for the country, which can be helpful? That's another reason why, whatever party you choose to vote for, it'd be very strongly advised to vote in order to help it to be drafted properly, and passed.

Also: I am not trying to whitewash Netanyahu, BUT, as I said earlier, anyone reading this who's also got misgivings about Netanyahu during his earlier tenure should note that it was largely due to the meddling of the would-be defense minister Yitzhak Mordecai, trojan horse inside the government that he was, who was later convicted of sexual assault, and deservedly so. And the mainstream media was also largely to blame for undermining Netanyahu back then. The MSM, that we'd be better off without.

Now, on the subject of the National Union/NRP merger again, if there's anything in it that can help the National Union side, it's the NRP's institutions, which they have a couple of. And there are, I'm so glad, some good folks still in the NRP, whom I'll be even happier if they can do their best to ensure goodness for Israel's citizens.

Let me also point out that, while there are people who were let down by the NRP, they felt that, at the same time, it just isn't a good idea to let it dwindle away altogether, because of the fact that there are still some good folks in there, and, nobody wanted there to be any clashing between the two parties, were they to run seperately. In a time of emergency, that's why unity is important, and fighting between one another would be a bad, unproductive thing.

I'm not saying that you have to vote for the National Union, but at the same time, my advice is - whatever party you decide to vote for, don't throw away your vote. Because if you do, then there's risk in enabling the left to gain control, or even disaster by ways of the Hamas to strike.

Thanks for your time, and Kol Tuv Israel.

Netanyahu concerned following briefing with Olmert

From Israel National News:

15:35 Feb 23, '06 / 25 Shevat 5766

(IsraelNN.com) Opposition leader MK Binyamin Netanyahu, following a meeting on Thursday with Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, emerged telling reporters he feels “concerned”. The meeting was a routine briefing between the prime minister and the opposition leader.

“From Everything that we are hearing from GSS (General Security Service/Shin Bet) director Yuval Diskin and IDF generals, it is clear that Hamas presents a threat to the stability of Jordan and Egypt, both seeking to wipe Israel off the map. We must stop this internal cancer, not in four years, but today,” stated the Likud candidate for the premiership.

Absolutely correct.

Shocking: New Orleans hospital staff killed patients to facilitate staff evacuation during Katrina

The disability rights organization Not Dead Yet (via Lost Budgie Blog) reports on the horrifying discovery that the New Orleans Medical Center murdered patients with lethal injections in order to facilitate the hospital staff's evacuation during hurricane Katrina:

"According to statements given to an investigator in the attorney general's office, LifeCare's pharmacy director, the director of physical medicine and an assistant administrator say they were told that the 'evacuation plan' for the seventh floor was to not leave any living patients behind, and that a lethal dose would be administered, according to their statements in court documents."

In other words, the only way the staff could evacuate was if they could report there were no more living patients to take care of. This was not about compassion or mercy. It was about throwing someone else over the side of the lifeboat in order to save themselves.

It was bad enough that mayor Ray Nagin skipped town during the hurricane, and the municipality didn't even use the passenger buses that were on hand for evacuating citizens that week. But now, it appears that, in what's surely the most obscene show of contempt for human life in time of emergency, an outfit whose duty is to save lives took them instead, in complete betrayal of their true positions.

Those doctors and nurses who betrayed the patients under their care should be tried and imprisoned for their crimes, and I hope the medics' trial and incarceration will come ASAP.

Another of Ehud Olmert's shady dealings has been discovered

No sooner did the news of Ehud Olmert's ripping off members of Beitar come out than another illegal scam he worked on has come out as well. Israel National News provides an English language translation of Yoav Yitzhak's Hebrew report from NFC on how Olmert worked on an illegal real estate scam so that he could save money for himself:

Yitzchak (pictured) reports today, on his Hebrew website NFC, that Olmert sold his Jerusalem apartment in 2004 for the relatively high price of $2.7 million, and is being allowed to continue renting it until the year 2010. The buyer: a well-known election campaign contributor.

State Comptroller Hon. Micha Lindenstrauss has begun investigating the sale, which was mediated by a company registered in the Virgin Islands. The Comptroller has asked to see a copy of the sale contract and other documents. Yitzchak reports that Olmert is suspected of receiving forbidden financial benefits.

I must say, this is quite facinating indeed. While the fuller details are currently available in the Hebrew version, the buyer is Daniel Abrams, who may have also contributed some campaign funds to Olmert illegally as well. Tsk tsk tsk.

Hamas threatens blastings, yet Israeli government continues to pay money

IRIS Blog discusses how Olmert's government is continuing to pay money to the PLO, and simultaneously, the Hamas, including supplying them with electricity. And that's something that's going to have to be stopped.

GOP governors question turnover of sea ports to UAE

It's good to see that state governors including George Pataki are voicing their concern and opposition to the fix Dubya caused:

WASHINGTON - Two Republican governors on Monday questioned a Bush administration decision allowing an Arab-owned company to operate six major U. S. ports, saying they may try to cancel lease arrangements at ports in their states.

New York Gov. George Pataki and Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich voiced doubts about the acquisition of a British company that has been running the U.S. ports by Dubai Ports World, a state-owned business in the United Arab Emirates.

The British company, Peninsular and Oriental, runs major commercial operations at ports in Baltimore, Miami, New Jersey, New Orleans, New York and Philadelphia.

"Ensuring the security of New York's port operations is paramount and I am very concerned with the purchase of Peninsular & Oriental Steam by Dubai Ports World," Pataki said in a news release.

"I have directed the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to explore all legal options that may be available to them in regards to this transaction," said the New York governor, who is still in the hospital recovering from an appendectomy.

Ehrlich, concerned about security at the Port of Baltimore, said Monday he is "very troubled" that Maryland officials got no advance notice before the Bush administration approved an Arab company's takeover of the operations at the six ports.

"We needed to know before this was a done deal, given the state of where we are concerning security," Ehrlich told reporters in the State House rotunda in Annapolis.

The state of Maryland is considering its options, up to and including voiding the contract for the Port of Baltimore, Ehrlich said, adding: "We have a lot of discretion in the contract."

Pataki is also asking the federal government to "share all critical relevant information made available to the Council on Foreign Investment during the course of the review of the purchase," a reference to the federal panel that approved the deal.

New York's legal options could include canceling the lease for operation, effectively shutting out Dubai Ports World from port activities. P&O signed a 30-year lease with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in 2000 to operate the Port Newark Container Terminal.

The governors are the latest elected officials from both parties to complain about the deal.

House Homeland Security chairman Peter King, R-N.Y., has been one of the most vocal, saying secret assurances obtained by the government don't go far enough to protect the nation's seaports.

Democratic New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez joined the chorus of complaints on Monday.

"We wouldn't turn over our customs service or our border patrol to a foreign government," Menendez said during a Monday news conference in Newark. "We shouldn't turn over the ports of the United States, either."

It's good to see that so many important folks are concerned about this. I stronly recommend that they see to it that the contracts are blocked and canceled no matter what was in them, because the UAE is a political entity we can all do without.

Danish Muhammad cartoonist has no regrets

The Washington Times reports that the guy who drew Muhammad for Jyllands Posten has no regrets over it:

LONDON -- The Danish cartoonist whose depiction of the prophet Muhammad with a bomb in his turban sparked worldwide furor said yesterday he does not regret his drawing or its publication.

Kurt Westergaard told the Herald newspaper in Glasgow that his inspiration for the cartoon -- one of a dozen that appeared in a Danish newspaper in late September -- was "terrorism."

[...]

The inspiration for the drawings was, he said, "terrorism -- which gets its spiritual ammunition from Islam."

He also defended the caricature as "a protest against the fact that we perhaps are going to have double standards as for freedom of expression and freedom of the press."

Right on man, you've got guts!

Also, from The Australian (via Dhimmi Watch), Danish editor Flemming Rose has no regrets over publishing the cartoons:

When asked whether he regretted his decision to publish the Mohammed cartoons, in light of the firestorm they unleashed in the Islamic world and threats against him, Flemming said it was like asking a rape victim whether she regretted wearing a short skirt.

Very good discussion.

Poll finds 40% of British Muslims want Shari'a law in UK

The UK Telegraph finds some most disturbing news about Britain's Muslim community:

Four out of 10 British Muslims want sharia law introduced into parts of the country, a survey reveals today.

The ICM opinion poll also indicates that a fifth have sympathy with the "feelings and motives" of the suicide bombers who attacked London last July 7, killing 52 people, although 99 per cent thought the bombers were wrong to carry out the atrocity.

Overall, the findings depict a Muslim community becoming more radical and feeling more alienated from mainstream society, even though 91 per cent still say they feel loyal to Britain.

Be aware: given what that imam in Yorkshire did, all that talk about loyalty could just be double-talk.

The results of the poll, conducted for the Sunday Telegraph, came as thousands of Muslims staged a fresh protest in London yesterday against the publication of cartoons of Mohammed. In Libya, at least 10 people died in protests linked to the caricatures.

And in Pakistan, a cleric was reported to have put a $1 million (£575,000) bounty on the head of the Danish cartoonist who drew the original pictures.

Last night, Sadiq Khan, the Labour MP involved with the official task force set up after the July attacks, said the findings were "alarming". He added: "Vast numbers of Muslims feel disengaged and alienated from mainstream British society." Sir Iqbal Sacranie, the secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: "This poll confirms the widespread opposition among British Muslims to the so-called war on terror."

The most startling finding is the high level of support for applying sharia law in "predom-inantly Muslim" areas of Britain.

Islamic law is used in large parts of the Middle East, including Iran and Saudi Arabia, and is enforced by religious police. Special courts can hand down harsh punishments which can include stoning and amputation.

All concerned citizens of the UK would be advised to pay sharp attention to the poll, because it shows that Islamists in the UK are no more trustworthy than the ones in France.

On Shari'a law, here's a page from the Telegraph that explains it:

Sharia law is "the path that must be followed by a Muslim".

It brings together elements from the Koran and the Hadith (a collection of the deeds and words of Mohammed), plus judges' rulings from Islam's first centuries. It was fixed by about the 10th century, and contains detailed instructions for practically every aspect of life.

In the West, it is most famous for its penal code: the prescribed punishments for sexual offences, which include stoning; for theft, which include amputation; and for apostasy, for which the punishment is death.

Much more important for most Muslims, however, are the parts of sharia that relate to the status of women, to contracts and to family law.

These include provisions that allow men several wives and that enshrine, in law, the inferiority of women.

Women can be divorced merely by their husbands reciting "I divorce you" three times; their testimony is worth less than that of men; and they cannot marry a non-Muslim man - although it is permissible for a Muslim man to marry a non-Muslim woman.

It is parts of sharia such as these that come into immediate conflict with Britain's secular law, which is committed to treating all citizens equally. But it is those provisions which Muslim clerics most want to cordon off from any secular influence.

Pay sharp attention to the part about how it regards women as inferior to men too.

To make matters worse, British Muslims are indeed hoping that the UK government will surrender to them by granting them their own state within the country:

For the past two weeks, Patrick Sookhdeo has been canvassing the opinions of Muslim clerics in Britain on the row over the cartoons featuring images of Mohammed that were first published in Denmark and then reprinted in several other European countries.

"They think they have won the debate," he says with a sigh. "They believe that the British Government has capitulated to them, because it feared the consequences if it did not.

"The cartoons, you see, have not been published in this country, and the Government has been very critical of those countries in which they were published. To many of the Islamic clerics, that's a clear victory.

"It's confirmation of what they believe to be a familiar pattern: if spokesmen for British Muslims threaten what they call 'adverse consequences' - violence to the rest of us - then the British Government will cave in. I think it is a very dangerous precedent."

Dr Sookhdeo adds that he believes that "in a decade, you will see parts of English cities which are controlled by Muslim clerics and which follow, not the common law, but aspects of Muslim sharia law.

"It is already starting to happen - and unless the Government changes the way it treats the so-called leaders of the Islamic community, it will continue."

So if the UK government is smart, they'll start changing how they deal with Islam, and start making it clear that if the Islamists don't want to respect the country's laws, customs and cultures, then they'll just very simply pack their bags and go right back where they came/originated from. And most importantly, the public will need to start making their voices heard to their elected officials on the matter.

Update: see also this topic from Six Days for more.

Homeless in France

If you want to see what kind of poverty Chirac's government put the people of France into, take a look at the devastating photos on this blog, The French Social Model, to see what it's like.

Hat tip: E-nough.

Ehud Olmert's connections with pre-liquidation scam

There's more news that's come in about Ehud Olmert's own corrupt activities. From Israel National News (and for those who can read Hebrew, here's also the report from NFC which first broke the news):

Ehud Olmert and corruption: Investigative reporter Yoav Yitzchak reports that Olmert, using fictitious arbitration, enabled the dishonest extraction of 5 million shekels from a failing soccer team.

Yitzchak [pictured], reporting on the Hebrew investigative news-site NFC he edits, reveals that Olmert "lent his hand to grave crimes that were committed, including stealing money from creditors, among them the Income Tax authorities, Bank Leumi, players on the Beitar Jerusalem soccer team such as Ronen Harazi, and others."

Yitzchak writes that the above information is known to "some elements, but they have hesitated to take legal measures against Olmert. In addition, some media outlets that have received this information chose to remain silent."

Olmert's role as arbitrator in the Beitar Jerusalem matter in the year 2000 is well-known, Yitzchak writes, but the scoop lies in the fact that the arbitration was fictitious, and in the revelation of Olmert's role in this fiction.

Yitzchak acknowledges that the case is "complex" and requires further investigation. "The decision to open such an investigation is in the hands of Attorney General Menachem Mazuz," Yitzchak writes today, "and in light of Olmert's role as Acting Prime Minister, Mazuz will have to consider the issue with sensitivity but with all due haste."

The essential accusation is that Olmert participated in a procedure that allowed a creditor and a debtor to cooperate on the payment of a debt, part of which may not even have been genuine, at the expense of other creditors.

The story began in 1999, when the Beitar soccer team, encountering financial difficulties, sold off its properties in the Bayit Vegan neighborhood of Jerusalem in order to pay off its creditors.

The property was sold for 27 million shekels. However, Moshe Dadash, the man who essentially ran the team for many years, soon withdrew 5.2 million shekels of the money into his own account. Dadash later claimed that running the team voluntarily had cost him much money over the years, for which he was never reimbursed. He provided no receipts, however. He also claimed a prior debt of $180,000 that had swollen to $540,000.

Olmert, the Mayor of Jerusalem at the time, was asked to be the arbitrator of an agreement between Dadash and the team. The sides arrived for one meeting, at which Olmert asked them to go outside and come up with a compromise. The agreement they quickly came up with was that the money already taken by Dadash would suffice to cover the alleged debts. Olmert signed, and the matter was considered closed.

However, Yitzchak accuses, Olmert never asked to see a 'power of attorney' empowering any of the participants to represent the company in this matter. In addition, the same lawyer represented both Dadash and the team. Finally, Yitzchak maintains, a lawyer involved in the liquidation of Beitar confirmed to him that the arbitration was merely carried out to legitimize a shady deal and to retroactively authorize the taking of money that could have been used to pay off other creditors.

Read the rest.

This is very serious. Olmert, along with the so-called team manager Dadash, was trying to damage one of Israel's most honest and devoted soccer teams, that's done a lot for its country. It's a real shame that the team's had to contend with such a dishonest manager, and Olmert certainly didn't make things any better with what he did.

Le Pen forms an alliance with France's Muslim community

It looks like I guessed correctly about Jean-Marie Le Pen. He's not and never was truly opposed to Islam within France, and now, it looks like the mask is off:

It looks like a political oxymoron, but Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front is poised to strike an alliance with France's large immigrant Muslim community.

A generation after France's right-wing party began its surge with a tough anti-immigration campaign tinged with both racism and anti-Semitism, three factors are coming into play that could spell a strategic realignment.

Please, please, please. It's not an oxymoron at all, really. If Le Pen could side with dictators like Saddam, well then, why couldn't he do the same with Muslims living in his own country? That could explain why, if there was any hatred harbored by the Muslim community towards Le Pen's gang, it dwindled away almost entirely in past years. Not that there's any honor among criminals, but they can tell that he's on their side if they want to, and can also form an alliance with him, which is more or less what's happening right now. As the report I got from the NY Sun shows, Le Pen is unmasking completely and letting everyone know where he really stands.

So look out, France, because Le Pen's trouble for everyone around, you can be sure of that!

Cuanas has more on the subject.

Also available at Adam's Blog, Basil's Blog, bRight & Early, Cao's Blog, Don Surber, Free Constitution, Jo's Cafe, The Mudville Gazette, NIF, Samantha Burns, Stop the ACLU. Others on the subject include Tim Blair, Melanie Phillips.

Dubya willing to give up control of US sea ports?

Proof that even the US government, given the chance, can risk state security, just like Israel's has, by giving up control of a most crucial part of the country, that being its sea ports. Michelle Malkin provides the details on a deal made by the Foriegn Investment Comittee to hand over control of six major seaports to a subsidiary of the United Arab Emirates:

[LES KINSOLVING]: The government's Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States has approved a deal that will put six major ports in the United States under the control of a state-sponsored company based in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates. And my question: Knowing, as we do, that the Arab Emirate was tied in many ways to the 9/11 hijackers and their deeds, and knowing the critical nature of port security and protecting the nation, will the President step in and stop this deal from going into effect March 2nd?

[White House Press Secy SCOTT McCLELLAN]: Well, my understanding, Les, is that this went through the national security review process under CFIUS, at the Department of Treasury. That is the agency that is responsible for overseeing such matters. And this includes a number of national security agencies -- the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, the Justice, among others, and there is a rigorous review that goes on for proposed foreign investments for national security concerns. And in terms of specifics relating to this, Treasury is the chair of this and you should direct those questions to Treasury.

To make matters worse, the White House has been defending the sale to the UAE.

This is by far one of the most blatant shows of duplicity the Dubya administration's been showing for the public, by handing over one its very own seaports to enemies who could very likely use them to smuggle in weapons for terrorist attacks. First, he wants to propose giving amnesty to illegal immigrants, and now, this?

Captain's Quarters presents some concrete concerns about the UAE in the 9-11 commission report. And see also Debbie Schlussel's info on the Dubai sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum. A Blog for All notes that:

You've got to wonder just how much review was done, when the Port Authority wasn't even involved in the process of screening participants who might take over operations at the Port of New York and New Jersey.

The New York Sun (also via Michelle) reports on the rising tide of opposition that's come in:

The Bush administration yesterday failed to quell the swelling tide of opposition to the deal that would give a company owned by the government of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates control over six American ports.

The board of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey promptly made public their demand to the federal government for information and documents related to the decision in preparation for its own review of the implications of the deal next week...

It's good that there's opposition to the deal rising, and will be even better if people keep making themselves heard. Here's the contact page for the White House. And here's a thread from Lucianne with more. And here's something on which I can certainly agree with Democratic Senator Charles Schumer:

New York Sen. Charles Schumer won new allies in Congress and the media yesterday in his campaign to raise national security concerns about a planned transfer of port operations in Newark and other key East Coast cities to a company controlled by the government of Dubai...The takeover was approved by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., an interagency panel headed by the Treasury Department that can block foreign acquisitions that threaten national security.

But Schumer, who first raised questions Monday, was joined yesterday by an array of six congressmen, including Republicans such as conservative Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, in a call for a second look. Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford) has also raised questions, and The New York Times yesterday editorialized against the deal.

Personally, I can't say I've ever considered Schumer the worst among Democrats, but either way, this is certainly something good he's doing, by helping to defend the nation's security.

Others on the subject include California Conservative, Right Minded, Independent Christian Voice, Adam's Blog, One Jerusalem, Kim Priestap, Gina Cobb, Suitably Flip, The Political Pitt Bull, Always on Watch, Kokonut Pundits, Pajama Hadin, Small Town Veteran, Super Fun Power Hour, Tim Worstall, Church and State, Conservative Outpost, Conservative Revolution, Independent Conservative, With Issue, The Anchoress, JunkYardBlog.