From StandWithUS:

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.

From Reuters:

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

From Shmuel Rosner at Contentions:

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 Los Angeles Times reported in April, in an article titled “Allies of Palestinians see a friend in Barack Obama,”  that Barack Obama, Bill Ayers, and Bernadine Dohrn attended a 2003 “celebration of Palestinian culture” in Chicago. It was a farewell party for Rashid Khalidi, a former spokesman for the PLO terrorist group. Obama gave a speech in which he “reminisced about meals prepared by Khalidi’s wife, Mona, and conversations that had challenged his thinking.” Also, that his many conversations with the Khalidis were “consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases. . . . It’s for that reason that I’m hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation — a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid’s dinner table,” but around “this entire world.” The Khalidi’s are still outspoken criticts of Israel, and supporters of Palestinian extremists.

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.

From FoxNews:

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. [Read more →]

From the New York Post:

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.)