Ahmedinejad, the only head of state in attendance, said that  Israel was “founded on the pretext of Jewish suffering” and that it is the “most cruel and racist regime.”

Over 20 European nations dramatically walked out of the meeting during Ahmedinejad’s vile speech (video). 9 countries, including the United States and Israel had already chosen to boycott the conference, specifically because of its anti-Semitic slant. This conference was based on a document drafted eight years ago in South Africa which equates Zionism to racism.

It was reckless and irresponsible for the Obama Administration to have waited until this weekend before officially announcing that the US would again boycott the conference, after the speech the US asked Iran “to end its horrible rhetoric.” The UK did not boycott the conference, but upon walking out a spokesman for Gordon Brown said the that the British government “unreservedly condemn the Iranian President’s offensive and inflammatory remarks.”

People shouted at Ahmedinejad from the balcony during his speech, and some protesters wearing rainbow-colored clown wigs threw things at him (video).

Suggestion to the people staying at the UN conference: Talk about the ongoing racist genocide in Darfur. Have they not waited long enough for international assistance? Or, is it just easier to trash on Israel than deal with a real genocide?

Happy Hitler’s birthday to you Ahmedinejad. To the normal people out there, this is why the US doesn’t have relations with Iran and other hateful, tyrannical regimes.

What’s J Street think of Palestinian terrorism?

We’re not doing a very good job at creating a secure home by conducting ourselves in this manner towards another people that are a minority, and that are powerless, and treating them in a way that forces them essentially to become terrorists, and leads to us being again in danger.

And the US’s Role in Israeli politics?

[I]t’s time [for the United States] to act like the big brother or the parent and to say “enough is enough and we’re going to take the car keys if you don’t stop driving drunk.” We’re not talking about simply business as usual. There’s got to be some sort of intervention here where the U.S. says to Israel the time has come to finally do something. . . . And within Israel, the Israeli prime minister may have a tough time because of their domestic politics fulfilling their commitments. It’s going to be a lot easier if they say to their coalition partners and to the rest of the government, “I have to do this because the president of the United States is telling me to do it.”

Read the special online preview of “They’re Doing the J Street Jive“

RJC announces strong opposition to U.S. participation  in anti-Israel Durban II conference  and issues urgent action alert to its members

Washington, D.C. (February 23, 2009) – The Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) announced its strong opposition to U.S. participation in the United Nations’ Durban Review Conference, commonly called “Durban II”, and issued a national action alert to its members, calling on them to contact the White House and their representatives in the U.S. House and Senate to demand that the U.S. withdraw from participation in the Durban II conference. RJC Executive Director Matt Brooks said, “President Obama’s decision to send a U.S. delegation to the planning sessions for Durban II is an extremely disturbing change in American foreign policy regarding Israel.  “Like the original Durban conference in 2001, the upcoming conference is based on a document which is specifically anti-Israel. In speaking about racism, xenophobia, and discrimination, the  ‘Durban Declaration and Program of Action’ which lays the framework for Durban II, names only Israel as an offender against human rights. The preparatory committee for Durban II is being chaired by Libya, with Iran and Cuba as vice-chairs. Durban II is based on a document that falsely targets the democratic State of Israel without mentioning real instances of human rights abuses in the dictatorships of Asia, Africa or the Middle East. It is not possible for U.S. participation in this conference to mitigate the anti-Israel hatred the conference is designed to produce. “So far, the U.S. delegation to the planning sessions has remained silent while additional anti-Israel language was added to the conference document. When the Palestinian delegation offered language that called for international protection of the Palestinian people (ostensibly against Israeli racism) and for implementation – as an international legal obligation - of the biased and ungrounded advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice against Israel’s security fence, the U.S. delegation reportedly raised no objection, allowing the language to go through to the final conference without debate. “It is worth remembering that in 2001, when the U.S. withdrew from the first Durban conference, Secretary of State Colin Powell expressed clearly the nature of the conference and why it was unthinkable for the U.S. to participate: ‘I know that you do not combat racism by conferences that produce declarations containing hateful language, some of which is a throwback to the days of ‘Zionism equals racism;’ or supports the idea that we have made too much of the Holocaust; or suggests that apartheid exists in Israel; or that singles out only one country in the world-Israel-for censure and abuse.’ “The U.S. showed moral clarity and stood by our ally Israel by boycotting the 2001 conference when it became clear that Durban I had degenerated into a hate-fest against Israel, Jews, and the West. This second conference will be no different. Britain, Italy and other countries are watching closely how the U.S. responds. The United States should join Israel and Canada in refusing to participate in the Durban II conference this coming April.”

 

His rabidly anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist piece justifies Hamas terrorism because fewer Israelis are killed in the violence than Palestinians. The article is a fluff-piece that could have come from the mouth of any of Hamas’ spokesmen.

Unlike USC professor David Lloyd, who is organizing a national academic and cultural boycott of Israel, Klein’s pay check comes from the pockets of California residents.

Please write comments on the Daily Sundial piece here. Share the article and Klein’s personal anti-Israel site.

Join The Dana Report in contacting CSUN’s administration (818) 677-2130 – Demand that professor Klein be fired.

Though it represents itself to be a Muslim civil rights organization, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) devoted most of its resources earlier this month to mobilizing opposition to Israel’s attempt to neutralize Hamas militarily. It organized petition drives and bus caravans from chapters across the country to a protest held January 10th in Washington, D.C.
…
The following report shows the consistent support CAIR officials have shown for Hamas, Hizballah and other radicals and their refusal to condemn terrorist attacks and suicide bombings by those groups. [Read More... CAIR Leaders in Their Own Words]

Shawn Steel, Former California Republican Party Chairman and Current California RNC Committeeman , had it out with CAIR a few years back; he re-caps CAIR’s attacks on him here: Who CAIRs? Anatomy of Misplaced Outrage

For first time, U.S. professors call for academic and cultural boycott of Israel criminate assault on the Gaza Strip and its educational institutions,” the U.S. Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel stated in its inaugural press release last Thursday.Speaking in its mission statement of the “censorship and silencing of the Palestine question in U.S. universities, as well as U.S. society at large,” the group follows the usual pattern of such boycotts, calling for “non-violent punitive measures” against Israel, such as the implementation of divestment initiatives, “similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era.”

The campaign was founded by a group of 15 academics, mostly from California, but is, “currently expanding to create a network that embraces the United States as a whole,” according to David Lloyd, a professor of English at the University of Southern California who responded on behalf of the group to a Haaretz query. “The initiative was in the first place impelled by Israel’s latest brutal assault on Gaza and by our determination to say enough is enough.” [Read More]

In Toronto, anti-Israel demonstrators yell “You are the brothers of pigs!”, and a protester complains to his interviewer that “Hitler didn’t do a good job.”

In Fort Lauderdale, Palestinian supporters sneer at Jews, “You need a big oven, that’s what you need!”

In Amsterdam, the crowd shouts, “Hamas, Hamas! Jews to the gas!”

…

In Helsingborg, the congregation at a Swedish synagogue takes shelter as a window is broken and burning cloths thrown in; in Odense, principal Olav Nielsen announces that he will no longer admit Jewish children to the local school after a Dane of Lebanese extraction goes to the shopping mall and shoots two men working at the Dead Sea Products store; in Brussels, a Molotov cocktail is hurled at a Belgian synagogue; in Antwerp, lit rags are pushed through the mail flap of a Jewish home; and, across the Channel, “youths” attempt to burn the Brondesbury Park Synagogue.

….

So, as I said, forget Gaza. And instead ponder the reaction to Gaza in Scandinavia, France, the United Kingdom, Canada, and golly, even Florida. As the delegitimization of Israel has metastasized, we are assured that criticism of the Jewish state is not the same as anti-Semitism. We are further assured that anti-Zionism is not the same as anti-Semitism, which is a wee bit more of a stretch. Only Israel attracts an intellectually respectable movement querying its very existence. For the purposes of comparison, let’s take a state that came into existence at the exact same time as the Zionist Entity, and involved far bloodier population displacements. I happen to think the creation of Pakistan was the greatest failure of post-war British imperial policy. But the fact is that Pakistan exists, and if I were to launch a movement of anti-Pakism it would get pretty short shrift.   [Read More]

From NRO’s Media Blog: Israel-Haters Love Jon Stewart

From The Jewish Journal‘s Blog:

I just got an e-mail from the Muslim Public Affairs Council applauding this segment from Monday’s episode of “The Daily Show.“

“The segment entitled ‘Strip Maul: Israel gets their bombing in before January 20th hope and change deadline’ was superb. Our staff and members appreciated the honest and critical attention brought to the extremely one-sided news reports about the Gaza crisis that have dominated the airwaves,“ MPAC, which wasn’t happy about Mayor Villaraigosa’s support for Israel’s actions, wrote in the letter to Jon Stewart and Friends.

“As huge fans of the show, we congratulate you for using humor as a tool to encourage critical thinking… We appreciate “The Daily Show’s” critical eye, quick wit and fantastic humor.“

MPAC encourage those on its listserv to watch the clip, post a comment thanking Jon Stewart for poking fun at his co-religionists and to monitor other media coverage of the war.

[Read More]

h/t HotAir

What a difference a few years makes. We recall the beginning of the second Intifada, when the pro-Israel student community at Irvine was not prepared to respond to the hostile anti-Israel messages and rallies that they faced on their campus. Today, the students were unified and organized with their messages of support for Israel, and their response to the anti-Israel rally was clear and strong. I am honored to have been a witness to how they stood up for Israel today.

The program was called for noon. The speeches from the anti-Israel side focused on the understandable concern for the human tragedy that we are witnessing in Gaza, but instead of blaming Hamas for initiating this war, they blamed Israel.

They never once mentioned the thousands of rockets that were launched into Israel prior to December 27, 2008, which provoked Israel’s military response to the deadly escalation of rocket attacks coming from Gaza. They never mentioned how Hamas hides rocket launchers and weapons in schools, mosques and hospitals. Hamas’ recent launching of rockets from the UN school in Gaza can actually be seen on YouTube. They omitted the fact that this is the second war that Iran has fought against Israel by proxy, first through Hezbollah in 2006 and now through Hamas. The Muslim Student Union’s focus was finger pointing at Israel as though Israel enjoys this battle, and implied that there is some masochistic reason that Israel would have launched this war.

It was going to be up to the Anteaters for Israel at UC Irvine to provide the context. As the program progressed, Anteater students along with a few community members began walking around and behind the speaker, in full view of the audience with signs like: Israel Wants Peace, Hamas Wants War. They had a variety of other messages which included Barack Obama’s comment during his visit to Sderot, that if his family members were sleeping as rockets were being launched at his home, he would feel the need to defend his family, just as Israel must defend its citizens. [Read More]

More Great Pictures From the Rally – Anteaters for Israel Stand Up to UCI’s Muslim Student Union

UPDATE: Video from Anti-Israel Protest at UC Irnive — You can hear Israel supporters chanting “Israel Wants Peace, Hamas Wants War,” in the background.

RAFAH, Gaza Strip, May 5 (Reuters) – By day, Awad al-Qiq was a respected science teacher and headmaster at a United Nations school in the Gaza Strip. By night, Palestinian militants say, he built rockets for Islamic Jihad.

The Israeli air strike that killed the 33-year-old last week also laid bare his apparent double life and embarrassed a U.N. agency which has long had to rebuff Israeli accusations that it has aided and abetted guerrillas fighting the Jewish state. [Read More]

via InfidelsAreCool

h/t Leigh Wolf via Facebook

If Jews really “worry for a living,” as Aaron David Miller, a former Clinton peace team official contends – Miller now gives them another reason for worrying. Writing for Time, he predicts:

[T]he days of America’s exclusive ties to Israel may be coming to an end. Despite efforts to sound reassuring during the campaign, the new administration will have to be tough, much tougher than either Bill Clinton or George W. Bush were, if it’s serious about Arab-Israeli peacemaking.

[Read More]

[Aaron David Miller: Obama Must Get Tough With Israel]

Leftist Jewish groups, including the Progressive Jewish Alliance, J Street, and Brit Tzedek v’Shalom, echo Miller’s call for America to “toughen” its role in Israel’s national security actions and policy.

The PJA had this to say, when calling for a forced ceasefire with Hamas:

“[E]scalation of violence runs counter to Israel’s long-term security interests and will continue to exacerbate tensions throughout the Middle East while doing nothing to achieve a comprehensive resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The time has come for the U.S. to lead the Quartet and other global allies in reestablishing a cease-fire, ensuring a permanent end to rocket attacks against Israel and allowing humanitarian assistance to reach the residents of Gaza.

If only they would explain how Israel’s war with Hamas, a terror organization determined to destroy the state and its inhabitants–that has been launching rockets aimed at civilians on a daily basis into Southern Israeli towns– “runs counter to Israel’s long-term security interests.” These groups and their leaders live in an alternate reality, where facts are meaningless and peace and love always overcome.

Israel is a sovereign nation with a duty to protect it’s citizens from the savage murders grabbing at their throats. The United States has no “veto” over Israel’s military decisions, and shouldn’t. Its ludicrous that “progressives” would oppose the liberation of millions of Iraqis, while calling for imperialist control over our free, democratic ally.

BTvShalom says:

“There is no doubt that Israel has the right and the obligation to protect its citizens. But Israel’s only hope for survival as a secure and democratic Jewish homeland lies in a diplomatic — rather than military — solution, and in a negotiated peace agreement with the Palestinians.”

Really? Have there been any rockets launched from Lebanon since the war with Hezbollah? Suicide bombers from the West Bank? Any type of hostility at all from Syria, Egypt or Jordan? Didn’t think so… Their certainty that military action is useless is clearly indefensible.

If such leftist groups held tightly to their principle of tikun olam, they would support the liberation of the hundreds of thousands of innocent Arabs held hostage under Hamas’ terror regime in Gaza, and the liberation of all peoples living under tyranny around the world; they would support, rather than antagonize, the US and Israel in the war on terror.

The LA Times says it has a video of the event, but refuses to release it because they are “protecting a source.”

Did Obama stand up for Israel when “one speaker likened “Zionist settlers on the West Bank” to Osama bin Laden, saying both had been “blinded by ideology?” No.  In fact, Hussein Ibish, a senior fellow for the American Task Force on Palestine, said “I am confident that Barack Obama is more sympathetic to the position of ending the occupation than either of the other candidates.”

What did Barack Obama say at the dinner? How did he react to the criticism of Israel that he heard at the event? How close were the Obamas and the Khalidis?

These questions are important because Barack Obama may well be elected President of the United States. It is imperative that we learn about his relationship with Rashid Khalidi, a former spokesman for Yasser Arafat’s PLO, and how the Khalidi’s opinions influenced Obama’s thinking.

The LA Times is in the tank for Obama. If the tape exists, and if it is in their possession, there must be a serious reason why they won’t release it. They do not have to reveal their source, but, they have to release the tape.

Tell the LA Times to release the tape:

Los Angeles Times                       Letters To The Editor
202 W. 1st St.
Los Angeles, CA 90012
Phone: (213) 237-5000
Fax: (213) 237-7679

Protest at the LA Times Building:

There was a protest all day today at the LA Times Building in Downtown Los Angeles. There will be more protests this weekend: tomorrow morning at 10am, and Sunday at 10am and 2pm.

For video and reports from the front line visit freerepublic.com.

BOWLING GREEN, OH — At a rally at Bowling Green University, Sarah Palin launched into one of her most scathing attacks of the campaign questioning Barack Obama’s support of Israel by linking him to a Columbia University professor who also served as the spokesperson for the Palestinian Liberation Organization.

“Now interesting what we are finding out in the last couple days about this assortment of friends from Chicago that Barack–that Barack Obama has. In case you missed the latest item let me summarize.” Palin said, “It seems that there is yet another radical professor from the neighborhood who spent a lot of time with Barack Obama going back several years. This is important because his associate, Rashid Khalidi he in addition to being a political ally of Barack Obama he’s a former spokesperson for the Palestinian Liberation Organization.”

She then slammed the Los Angeles Times for refusing to release a tape that the newspaper’s editors say shows Obama praising Khalidi at a 2003 party. Khalidi has a history of expressing anti-Israel views. The newspaper reported on the banquet and Obama and Khalidi’s relationship in an article published six months ago. Palin then questioned what Obama may have said about Israel at the party directly questioning his support of the country.

“And the twist here is that there’s a videotape of a party for this person, back in 2003, a celebration of him, and Barack was there, and we know some very derogatory things were said there about Israel and America’s support for that great nation. And among other things, Israel was described there as the perpetrator of terrorism instead of the victim. What we don’t know, what we don’t know is how Barack Obama responded to these slurs on a country that he now professes to support, and the reason is the newspaper that has the tape, the Los Angeles Times, refuses to release it,” Palin said.

She then accused the L.A. Times of not releasing the tape because of a desire to protect the Democratic nominee and called on them to release the tapes stressing that “it’s not too late.”

“It must be nice for a candidate to have major news organizations looking after his best interests like that. Maybe some politicians would love to have a pet newspaper of 
their very own. In this case-in this case we have a newspaper willing to throw aside even the public’s right to know in order to protect a
 candidate that its own editorial board has endorsed.” Palin said, “And if there’s a
 Pulitzer Prize category for excelling in kowtowing, then the L.A. Times, 
 you’re winning. But it’s not too late, and if there is an ounce of 
credibility there, if the newspaper wants to keep that shred of 
credibility, let alone its dignity, than I say the public has a right to 
know. Let’s go to the videotape, LA Times.”

The L.A. Times says its promise to a confidential source prevents the paper from releasing the video

At the same rally, Palin was joined on stage by the most famous plumber in history, Joe Wurzelbacher. Palin greeted Joe the Plumber warmly, but he did not speak instead standing silently next to GOP Vice-Presidential candidate as she delivered her remarks.

PREPARE for a new America: That’s the message that the Rev. Jesse Jackson conveyed to participants in the first World Policy Forum, held at this French lakeside resort last week.

He promised “fundamental changes” in US foreign policy – saying America must “heal wounds” it has caused to other nations, revive its alliances and apologize for the “arrogance of the Bush administration.”

The most important change would occur in the Middle East, where “decades of putting Israel’s interests first” would end.

Jackson believes that, although “Zionists who have controlled American policy for decades” remain strong, they’ll lose a great deal of their clout when Barack Obama enters the White House.

With friends like Rashid Khalidi, that’s what we’re worried about. (He also want’s to talk to Ahmedinejad.)