Caroline Glick writes about the necessity for Israel to cultivate non-Jewish supporters and then gives a shout-out to two of them: Jon Voight and Rick Santorum.
Consider the case of Jon Voight.
The celebrated Oscar-winning actor is an outspoken champion of
Israel. Earlier this month, Voight published an open letter to Penelope
Cruz and Javier Bardem in Variety where he harshly criticized the
Spanish performers for their public statement condemning Israel and
siding with Hamas in its war against the Jewish state.
In his words, “I am heartsick that people like Penelope Cruz and
Javier Bardem could incite anti-Semitism all over the world and are
oblivious to the damage they have caused.”
...
Last week, two UCLA professors, Mark LeVine and Gil Hochberg,
co-authored an article published in The Huffington Post assaulting him
for his views and his temerity to suggest that Israel is a moral,
embattled democracy fighting genocidal forces committed to its
destruction.
The two Jewish academics are supporters of the anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.
The principal aim of the BDS movement is to make it socially
unacceptable to support Israel. In 2010 LeVine and Hochberg signed a
petition calling for California state universities to divest from
companies that do business with Israel.
Online Hollywood commentators, such as Deadline’s Nellie Andreeva,
opined that Voight, who was nominated for an Emmy Award for his role in
Showtime’s Ray Donovan series, was liable to lose his Emmy bid due to
his support for Israel.
Hochberg and LeVine’s assault on Voight was a long-winded voyage into
the post-Zionist and anti-Zionist literary moonscape. Their principal
criticism of Voight was that he refuses to accept this intellectual
wasteland’s rejection of the known facts of history.
Voight is not an academic, nor has he ever claimed to be an expert on
Middle Eastern history. He is a non-Jewish American concerned about the
future of America.
That is why he stands with Israel. Voight recognizes that when Israel
is under assault, and its right to defend itself is denied while
terrorists are supported, the US is endangered. And so he feels
compelled to speak out, regardless of the price.
...
Another non-Jewish champion of Israel is former US senator and
Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum. Both during his tenure in
the Senate and since, Santorum has spoken out strongly against Iran’s
nuclear program, insisting that it is a serious threat not only to
Israel, but to the US itself.
Like Voight, Santorum recognizes that the fate of the US is directly tied to the fate of Israel.
For his trenchant support for Israel, and his outspoken concern about
Iran’s nuclear program, as well as his support for domestic issues
where he has not shied away from taking controversial, inconvenient
position, Santorum’s critics have demonized him.
...
Last week, Santorum led a solidarity mission to Israel. The majority
of his colleagues were non-Jewish opinion shapers from Iowa, the first
state to hold Republican presidential contests. Santorum explained that
his goal in coming to Israel was not simply to show Israelis that the
American people support us. It was to build support among Republicans in
Iowa for a robust US engagement in foreign affairs based on supporting
Israel, fighting America’s enemies and preventing the forces of hatred,
like Hamas and Iran, from expanding their power.
Santorum’s chief concern is that weary of foreign policy failures,
more and more Republicans are embracing the isolationism most identified
with Senator Rand Paul. Paul is currently polling well in Iowa.
...
Santorum is convinced that if Iowans are educated about the nature of
the threats emanating from the region, and of Israel’s singular
contribution to the cause of freedom and stability, their position can
become the basis for a Republican foreign policy that rejects
isolationism and embraces US leadership in world affairs as the only way
to secure the US and strengthen its embattled allies.
In other words, like Voight, Santorum’s support for Israel is rooted
in his concern about America, and its future. Like Voight, Santorum
recognizes that the growing penchant among elite opinion shapers to
ignore truth in the pursuit of moral relativism and fake sophistication
or isolationism constitutes a danger to America.
Rick Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator who was Mitt Romney's top rival in the race for the Republican nomination, is ending his campaign for the presidency, AP and CNN reported Tuesday.
Santorum was to announce his decision at a news conference in Gettysburg, Pa., but aides confirmed beforehand that he will be suspending his campaign.
Santorum called Romney to inform him of his decision, campaign sources were quoted as saying.
So Romney is the nominee. I hope that the Vice Presidential candidate is a strongly pro-Israel conservative.
Rick Santorum writes an article in the New York Daily News to remind us all that (apparently ) neither President Obama nor Mitt Romney is willing to act on the notion that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. Obama, as we saw last week, cannot even countenance Israel having property rights in 'west' Jerusalem.
Unfortunately, I cannot say that my opponent for the Republican Presidential nomination has a different position from that of the President. He has not expressed his opinion about the Obama administration’s position on Jerusalem.
When asked about recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moving our embassy there, Mitt Romney is undecided, and said he would consult with the government of Israel. He has been running for President for six years, and I think that is long enough for him to get up to speed on foreign policy and make a decision on this crucial issue.
There is no daylight between my position and the government of Israel’s on the issue of Jerusalem. I voted for the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, I support recognizing a united Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and I will move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem in compliance with that act.
It is actually not well known that the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 made it U.S. law to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and that the waiver provision of the act only applied to moving the embassy to Jerusalem. A letter to President Bill Clinton — signed by 84 U.S. senators, including me — articulated this point.
We know the Obama administration is not complying with U.S. law. We do not know what a potential Romney administration would do. A Santorum administration would mean that next year, there will be a Passover Seder at the new U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem — and when Jews say, “Next Year in Jerusalem,” that will actually be the case for the U.S. Embassy.
With Romney increasingly looking like the nominee (although I would much rather see Santorum as President), it's really important that he be pressed on this point. Does Romney get it?
Is Israel better off with Romney in the White House?
On Sunday, I blogged a CNN interview with Michael Hayden, a former CIA director in the Bush administration and a key adviser to Mitt Romeny. In the interview, surprisingly (and in a minute I'll explain why it's surprising), Hayden defended President Obama's feckless Iran policy and the discredited 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran, which claimed that Iran had given up developing a nuclear weapon in 2003.
Caroline Glick weighs in on the Hayden interview and asks some questions I've been wondering about myself, particularly regarding Jennifer Rubin's cheerleading for Romney (for an example of her pounding on Rick Santorum, go here).
The fact that this is the view of Romney's adviser has to make you wonder why all the pro-Israel American Jewish policy wonks have been going after every Republican candidate other than Romney with such intensity. It's fine to support Romney or any other Republican over Obama. Certainly, Romney would be better for the US and the US economy than Obama.
But the fact is that while Romney is more pro-American than Obama is and would be friendlier to Israel and the US's other allies than Obama has been, he isn't that great on the issues that these Jewish pundits care about. He certainly isn't as strong as the other candidates including Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich and before them Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry. He's okay. He's better than Obama. But he isn't the best the Republican field has offered. Certainly it makes sense to support him. But it makes no sense to go to to the mattresses for him against every other Republican contender.
But whether the Jennifer Rubins of the American Jewish punditocracy take note of the problem or not is secondary to whether Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu notices it.
The message that Hayden just transmitted to Netanyahu is very clear and it is crucial that Netanyahu hears it.
Hayden's oped is as clear a warning to Israel as Obama's statement to Medvedev about being more anti-American after he gets reelected. What Hayden just told us is that as far as Iran's nuclear weapons program is concerned, it doesn't matter who is in the White House in January 2013.
Caroline has got it right, and yet that this is Hayden's view is also surprising.
On CNN on Sunday, former CIA director Michael Hayden sounded an awful lot like he was advocating the exercise of a military option against Iran's nuclear program.
My personal view is that Iran left to its own devices will get itself to that step right below a nuclear weapon," said Hayden, "and frankly that will be as destabilizing as their actually having a weapon.”
The former CIA director stated that an attack on Iran had not originally been a serious option, but in light of Iran's intensified pursuit of nuclear materials, the military option "may not be the worst of all possible outcomes.”
Has Hayden changed his mind? Is there a fix in? Why are Santorum and Gingrich getting such short shrift from many - if not most - Republican supporters of Israel? And why is Gingrich staying in the race if all he can hope to accomplish is to prevent Santorum from slugging it out with Romney?
For those of you who are not Jewish, or even for those who are but don't keep Kosher, you should be aware that the OU (Orthodox Union or Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations) is best known for it's Kosher seal of approval - the U with an O around it that you see in the picture above - on food products worldwide. It is also the largest organization servicing 'modern Orthodox' Jews in the United States and Canada. Has Barack Hussein Obama been granted an OU?
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu should not meet with Republican presidential candidates during his upcoming trip to Washington so as not to be perceived as taking sides in the campaign, Nathan Diament, director of public policy for the Orthodox Union (OU), said this week.
...
A source in the Prime Minister’s Office said that while no final decision had been made on whether Netanyahu would meet the Republican presidential candidates, it was not likely he would meet with one if could not meet with all four – Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul – which was an unlikely occurrence.
In past election years, the source said, Israel’s prime minister had generally met only with presidential candidates after their party’s convention.
I can accept Netanyahu not meeting with any Republican candidates if he can't meet with three of the four (Santorum, Gingrich and Romney - I don't think he should meet with Ron Paul). But if the reason he's not going to meet with them is that he can't meet with all of them (a reason that makes sense given that the nomination is still contested), he ought to meet with the Republican leadership in Congress - John Boehner and Eric Cantor in the House and Mitch McConnell in the Senate. We can be assured that President Obama will do all he can to use Netanyahu's visit for the benefit of his own campaign, and Netanyahu ought to counter that by being seen with Republicans.
By the way, despite the best efforts of a certain Democratic activist within the OU's leadership (full disclosure: I was a national officer in the OU's youth group many years ago and am still in contact with the organization), Nathan Diament admits in the article that members of the OU's constituent synagogues voted 3-1 for John McCain in 2008. This time, God willing, that vote will be even more overwhelming in favor of the Republican nominee.
So no, Obama doesn't have an OU seal of approval yet, and given how unpopular he is in the modern Orthodox Jewish community, I doubt he'll be getting one any time soon. But there are still people within the organization who are doing all they can to minimize the damage that can be done to Obama's campaign by members of the modern Orthodox Jewish community.
Back in 2006, when Binyamin Netanyahu was trying to convince people that it was worth worrying about Iran, he had an ally: Rick Santorum (Hat Tip: Catholic Lisa via Twitter).
His opposition to tyranny abroad has been a constant in his political career. Even in the final days of his losing 2006 re-election campaign, Mr. Santorum never stopped calling for action against Iran and Syria. Apparently, Pennsylvanians weren't impressed by his Iran Freedom and Support Act, enacted in 2006, which imposed sanctions on the regime and authorized $100 million annually for the democratic opposition, or his 2003 Syria Accountability Act.
But today he looks prescient and gutsy. Back then, the Bush administration was trying to run away from such ideas. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at one point turned to a Democrat, then-Sen. Joe Biden, to block Mr. Santorum's Iran bill, before it finally passed. But Mr. Santorum's basic vision has prevailed.
He foresaw that we would eventually have to confront the Iranian and Syrian regimes, and he was one of the first to point out the intercontinental anti-American alliance involving Iran, Syria, Russia, China, Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, Honduras and Nicaragua. He calls this a "gathering storm," as members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps enter our hemisphere through the Venezuelan capital of Caracas, accompanied by military equipment and components.
He is right to be concerned. Former supporters of the Hugo Chávez regime in Venezuela, worried at the direction of events in their country, have told American officials that there are Iranian missiles in Venezuela capable of hitting the U.S. More obvious are the Shiite mosques suddenly popping up in Venezuela and its near neighborhood.
If we keep leading from "behind," as the president puts it, the lowest common denominator of Western resolve will define our policy. That's disastrous for people in other countries who are standing up to tyranny, and it emboldens America's enemies like Iran or the Taliban. Mr. Santorum believes things would be different if we were committed to defeating those enemies, and he is convinced that the region and the world would be far safer if there were regime change in Damascus and Tehran.
That's why he has long called for support for the Iranian opposition and favors arming and training the Free Syrian Army to bring down the Assad regime. He advocates zeroing in on the foreign scientists—from Russia, for instance—who work on the mullahs' nuclear-bomb program and declaring them enemy combatants.
Mr. Santorum hopes that American financial and moral support for the Iranian opposition will catalyze the simmering democratic revolution there, which in turn would likely tilt the balance of power in Syria once the regime in Tehran was no longer there to support Damascus. If that strategy fails, he said in Florida in January, he would go with the military option against Iran's nuclear weapons project, in close cooperation with Israel.
Unlike President Obama, Mr. Santorum believes that an explicit linkage of American and Israeli military and intelligence assets would greatly increase chances of success. And since we'd be blamed for any unilateral Israeli strike, he sees no point in separating from the Israelis on this most crucial issue.
“He’s always been tough on the issues of importance,” a spokesman for Jewspickrick.com said.
The site has been organized by members of the orthodoxy in New York and New Jersey, based on social issues and foreign policy.
“He won’t have to come in and need advisement, like some others. He won 3 times in Pennsylvania, a democratic state, and on birth control and abortion we know where he stands.” he said
Members representing the group point to “family values” among other things, on it’s website, as part of the reason for their support of the former Senator.
“As a married father of seven, Santorum is uniquely qualified to understand family values in a manner aligned with the Orthodox Jewish community,” reads a statement from their website.
I wonder if anyone told him how much day school tuition in the US costs.... Hey guys - come on aliya. It costs a heck of a lot less here and you can still vote absentee for Rick Santorum.
At a Tea Party Rally in Arizona, Rick Santorum refused to back down from the recent controversy over his comments regarding Satan and forces of evil. He went on to say that forces of evil exist in the world, and said President Obama appeases the nations that represent those forces.
Let's go to the videotape.
Santorum's recognition that there is evil in the world reminds me of Ronald Reagan's evil empire speech.
Romney running mate believes that Iran pursues nukes due to US threats
I have said before that if Ron Paul is the Republican nominee for President, I will stay home this election cycle. The possibility that he could be the nominee for Vice President never occurred to me. Why would anyone be so foolish? Well, Mitt Romney just might be (Hat Tip: Catholic Lisa via Twitter).
After tonight's debate, in which Ron Paul and Mitt Romney repeatedly attacked Rick Santorum over his 16-year record in Congress, the former US Senator for Pennsylvania hinted that something nefarious was going on.
"You have to ask Congressman Paul and Governor Romney what they've got going together," Santorum told reporters in the spin room in Mesa, Arizona. "Their commercials look a lot alike and so do their attacks."
Santorum's top strategist John Brabender went even further, charging that the two men had "joined forces" and were coordinating attacks against his man.
"Clearly there's a tag team strategy between Ron Paul and Mitt Romney. For all I know, Mitt Romney might be considering Ron Paul as his running mate. Clearly there is now an alliance between those two and you saw that certainly in the debate."
Santorum slams Obama administration as 'elite snobs'
Republican Presidential hopeful Rick Santorum slammed the Obama administration as being a bunch of 'elite snobs' at a Boise, Idaho rally on Tuesday night (Hat Tip: Jack W via HotAirPundit).
Rick Santorum blasted President Barack Obama's administration as "elite" for dismissing the so-called Ryan Plan, using a word that tends to play well with conservative audiences.
"Don't you see how they see you? How they look down their nose at the average American. These elite snobs," Santorum said Tuesday, drawing big applause at a major rally in Boise, Idaho.
...
Speaking to much fanfare at the Boise rally, Santorum also spent considerable time talking about Iran and pointed to a report by national intelligence director, James Clapper, that said Iran may be willing to sponsor future attacks on U.S. soil.
With that in mind, Santorum emphasized the need to control U.S. borders, which he said are "40% secure," to protect the country from "drugs, violence and jihadists."
It's Ed Morrissey's doing: Santorum wins Minnesota, Missouri and Colorado
On Monday, I reported that Ed Morrissey had endorsed Rick Santorum for the Republican nomination for President. On Tuesday, Santorum - whose only previous win wasn't even acknowledged until days later - swept the caucuses in Minnesota, Missouri (Hat Tip: Memorandum) and Colorado (Hat Tip: Memeorandum). This is from the Minnesota and Missouri link:
Santorum solidly defeated Romney in Minnesota and Missouri, and he narrowly edged the former Massachusetts governor in Colorado, according to state GOP officials.
The victories mark a sharp turnaround for the former Pennsylvania senator, whose candidacy had been sputtering after he failed to capitalize on his narrow win in Iowa last month. Santorum’s wins across the Midwest Tuesday could bestow new legitimacy on his insurgent efforts and boost his fundraising in the critical period before next month’s major contests.
Santorum now appears to pose a more serious threat not only to Romney, but also to Gingrich, who had been positioning himself as the logical alternative to Romney.
Santorum staked his own claim on Tuesday.
“Conservatism is alive and well,” he told supporters at his election night party in Missouri. “I don’t stand here and claim to be the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney. I stand here to be the conservative alternative to Barack Obama.”
For Romney, his poor showing Tuesday raised anew the question that has dogged his candidacy all along: Can the relatively moderate, former Massachusetts governor become an acceptable standard-bearer of a party that is increasingly dominated by evangelical conservatives and tea party activists who have long been skeptical of Romney?
And the Colorado race was nowhere near as close as that previous article made it sound. This is from the Colorado link.
Colorado's race see-sawed throughout the night until 11 p.m., when Colorado GOP chairman Ryan Call declared Santorum the winner, beating Mitt Romney 40 percent to 35 percent with 99 percent of precincts reporting.
"This is a major upset," said Denver-based political analyst Floyd Ciruli. "Definitely, there is a new story now."
Even Romney, who easily won Colorado's Republican contest in 2008 with 60 percent of the vote, acknowledged in his speech from the Auraria campus his new challenger.
"This was a good night for Rick Santorum, but I still expect to become the nominee," the former Massachusetts governor said. "I look forward to the contest to come."
A few comments. First, Santorum didn't capitalize on his win in Iowa, because Romney was declared the winner there. It was only days later - after Romney had capitalized on the momentum - that it was announced that Santorum won.
Second, I think that George Soros video I posted and others like it are hurting Romney's claim that he's a conservative. You can't win the Republican party today without a credible claim of conservatism.
Third, I suspect that deep down, a lot of conservatives are uncomfortable with Gingrich's personal life. Santorum's squeaky clean image is far more appealing to conservatives if they think he can win. And apparently, he can win.
And fourth, on a personal note, Santorum was maligned for claiming that he had never sat next to a woman on a couch other than his wife. Well, that sort of behavior resonates with many Orthodox Jews. I suspect that Santorum could raise a lot of money in our community by letting people knew that in addition to being a strong supporter of Israel, his moral standards accord with ours.
I've mentioned a couple of times over the last few months that I have had the pleasure of meeting Hot Air's Ed Morrissey in person - first at the President's Conference here in Jerusalem in June, and then at the Hudson Institute Conference on Global Intolerance in New York in September. Aside from all his well-thought-out posts, Ed is an amazingly nice guy in person.
With the Minnesota caucuses coming up, Ed has made his choice for the Republican nominee for President, and it's a choice that I have been thinking about as well for a while now (and have hinted at a lot already). Seeing Ed put it so well has inspired me to come right out and say it, albeit for slightly different reasons. Ed has endorsed Rick Santorum (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).
Before I explain that decision, let’s be clear. I could cast a vote happily for Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich in a general election. Both are massive improvements over the current incumbent, and both have admirable qualities that would reflect well on the GOP once in office — even if those admirable qualities aren’t always on display now. I will enthusiastically support any of those three men should they win the nomination. My focus will be on beating Barack Obama and promoting the conservative agenda, in that order, throughout 2012, and I also believe that any of those three could beat Obama in a general election campaign.
Why Santorum? In my estimation, Santorum is the last consistent conservative standing, and the only one both promoting the conservative agenda and campaigning as a conservative in the race. That doesn’t make Santorum perfect; he lacks the executive experience I’d like to see, and some of his positions in the past and present give me pause. However, compared to the heterodoxies of his competitors in the GOP race, Santorum has a superior record on promoting conservative policies and values.
Even more than that, though, Santorum has demonstrated a level of personal integrity in this race that outshines the rest of the field.
And let me add that Santorum has been the most consistently pro-Israel of the three candidates, and doesn't have any skeletons in his closet regarding past support of the 'Palestinians.' But I agree that Romney and Gingrich would both be improvements over the current occupant of the White House.
By the way, the two good men in the title of this post are Ed Morrissey and Rick Santorum. I'm small potatoes next to them.
Rasmussen's latest tracking poll shows that there is a Republican candidate who leads Barack Hussein Obama. It's not Mitt Romney and it's not Newt Gingrich. It's Rick Santorum (Hat Tip: Sunlight via Bret Baier and The Weekly Standard).
In a potential Election 2012 matchup, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum is at 45% while President Obama earns 44%. This is the first time in any poll that Santorum has led the president. Several other GOP challengers have led the president a single time in the polls including Rick Perry, Herman Cain, and Newt Gingrich. Each man briefly held the lead while they were surging in the polls, only to fall quickly. It remains to be seen what will happen to Santorum’s support. [...]
Only one GOP candidate has led the president in more than one poll and that’s former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. At the moment, however, he is behind. The latest daily numbers show President Obama at 47% and Romney at 43% (see tracking history). These matchup results are updated daily at 9:30 a.m. Eastern (sign up for free daily e-mail update).
Hmmm. Check back with Rasmussen in a few hours for Sunday's poll.
Rick Santorum: Time for America to lead from the front
Rick Santorum spoke in a synagogue in Boca Raton, Florida on Monday night, and although I don't (yet) have a video, I do have the text and it's dynamite.
We Must Lead From The Front Speech as Prepared to Be Given
The Orthodox Union Presidential Forum The Boca Raton Synagogue January 30, 2012
The president says "the threat of war is receding" but he’s wrong. The war is on, and its front lines are advancing towards us and our allies, above all toward Israel.
We're facing a global alliance that includes Russia, North Korea, China, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Ecuador and of course Cuba. They are outspoken in their desire to weaken us and drive us out of their regions. Some of them--Iran, and the radical Islamists whose rise to power has been facilitated by this president--speak eagerly of destroying us, and our allies, especially Israel.
We have no strategy to deal with this gathering storm. Indeed, our leaders act as if things are getting better every day.
President Obama seems to believe that sanctions on Iran will compel the fanatical rulers in Tehran to abandon their nuclear weapons program, fearing they will lose power if our sanctions continue and intensify. Has he considered the case of North Korea? Fanatical rulers do not care if their people go hungry. Indeed they do not care about their people at all. If their people complain, they go to prison or to the torturer or the hangman. And then they laugh at us, and organize thousands of people to chant "Death to America!"
What does President Obama think they mean? It certainly doesn't mean "yes, America, you are right, let's reason together."
It means, we're going to keep killing your men and women wherever we can, from Iraq to Afghanistan. And why not? We have yet to make them pay a price for the slaughter.
Indeed, our political leaders never talk about that. They talk about nukes, and nukes alone, as if that were the only issue. But it isn't.
The Iranians and their creatures throughout the Middle East and deep into our hemisphere are killing and wounding Americans every day. And even as the president preens himself for sanctions that he reluctantly accepted when Congress demanded them, and which he delays whenever he can, Hezbollah is training and indoctrinating terrorists to our south, Iran and its allies are assembling weapons--including drones and missiles--in Venezuela, and a steady flow of Iranian military and intelligence personnel flows into hostile Latin nations on direct flights from Tehran.
A couple of weeks ago Univision presented an excellent documentary on “The Iranian Threat,” which told one frightening story after another about Iranian-Venezuelan-Cuban plans to attack the United States. The most famous of these was the plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian Ambassador to Washington, but another one—a two-step operation for a cyber attack, and then a physical assault, against American targets—precipitated the expulsion of Venezuela's consul general in Miami.
That’s a rare event, and it shows the gravity of the crisis we face. That global network weakens us in many ways, and threatens our security very directly. That network enables Iran and Syria to mitigate many of our sanctions. Money flows east, to Chinese banks, as the Europeans join us in blocking transactions with the Iranian Central Bank. Money gets laundered through Russia and Latin America. Weapons move from Russia to Venezuela, and then to Iran and Syria, enabling the Russians to pretend they are not arming the Middle Eastern fanatics.
And yet the president says the tide of war is receding.
Any concerned American looking at the facts must conclude that the tide of war is swelling. Iran has been at war with us since 1979, and is planning to escalate. That is why the global anti-American alliance was created. Shi'ite mosques in Venezuela are not the reflection of the religious convictions of the Venezuelan people; they are there so that Iranian agents can plan attacks against America.
When President Ahmadinejad recently toured the capitals of Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and Ecuador, it was not a form of cultural diplomacy; it was primarily to increase the tempo of preparations for the war against America.
It is long past time for us to respond, but instead our president declares imminent victory.
We must respond, and even the Washington Post knows what is at stake: if you want an end to the Iranian nuclear weapons program, the Post's editorialists recently wrote, you have to bring down the regime in Tehran. This regime is not going to give up the dream of becoming a nuclear power. And everyone here knows what the Iranian leaders intend to do with the atomic bombs: they intend to remove Israel from the map, and then bring their jihad to the United States.
Some say that this means we have to launch a military attack against Iran. I don't believe that. I think most Iranian people want to be free of their evil regime, and millions of them have taken to the streets, in the face of security forces all too happy to kill them, to show their contempt for their leaders. It's a revolutionary force, and we should support it.
We defeated the Soviet Union without using military means. We supported the Soviet dissidents and refuseniks, and the Soviet regime collapsed. I believe we can do the same thing in Iran.
Supporting those who fight for freedom in Iran is both strategically smart and morally just, and any president with moral and strategic vision would do it.
But we don't. On the contrary, at the crucial moment a couple of years ago, President Obama reached out to the regime, not to the Iranian people. That was a shameful moment, and the shame continues. Neither the president nor the secretary of state, indeed not a single Administration official, has said "the regime must go." That language was reserved for long-time American friends like Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. Even in Syria, an enemy, the president reluctantly called for a new government only after the slaughter had reached such a level that even the Arab League said change seemed necessary.
Paradoxically, President Obama’s constant call for open negotiations with Iran only convinces them that they can do anything they wish—even kill Americans, or take them hostage, or frame them for espionage, as they have just done with a young Marine, and we will do nothing to threaten their rule. So our failure to move against the regime itself actually makes military conflict more likely.
What would a serious president do about Iran? What would I do?
I would do six things right away:
1. First and foremost, publicly embrace the opposition, and call for regime change. We need a president and a secretary of state with the political courage to say, "Khamenei and Ahmadinejad must go. The Iranian people must freely choose their form of government and freely choose their leaders."
2. Publicly condemn the regime's repression, the ghastly human rights violations, the systematic misogyny, the censorship of press, internet, access to international broadcasting (including VOA, Farda, etc.).
We need a president who will deliver the contemporary equivalent of President Reagan’s “Evil Empire” speech, which inspired a generation of Soviet dissidents and freedom fighters. And we need a president with the political courage to take action against the Iranian regime.
For example, we should take action to end the jamming of our (and other free countries') broadcasts. Meanwhile, we should deny Iran the ability to broadcast to the United States. A president who really understood the gravity of the crisis would shut down Press TV on the basis of reciprocity, just as the British Government has.
3. We must publicly support freedom for Iranian workers, and then work with international trade union organizations to build a strike fund, just as we did for the Solidarity trade union in Poland in the last years of the Cold War.
4. We must help members of the opposition to safely communicate with one another. During the Cold War, we provided fax machines to Solidarity and Soviet dissidents; today the equivalent technologies include anti-filtering software built into cell phones and computers. They may also include safe portals for Iranians to enter...these technologies will change constantly; we need to work with the smartest techies to stay ahead of the Iranian/Chinese censors and listeners.
5. We have to talk to the dissident leaders. This is tricky. The Green Movement insists that they have NO spokesmen or representatives outside the country. We need to establish reliable channels into Iran. It is best to do this without public attention, obviously, but it can be done.
6. We need a campaign of public support for Iran’s political prisoners. We must identify them individually, by name. American diplomats attending international meetings and conferences should have a list of political prisoners, and call for their release and humane treatment.
Even the Nazis found it more difficult to kill prisoners who were publicly named. It's easier to kill those who are anonymous, who don't receive mail, who aren't publicly supported. Once again, our strategic and moral imperatives coincide. We only lack a president with the courage to do what is right and necessary.
I want to close with a reiteration of what I said at the debate; not only does our President not have the courage to do what is right and necessary, in his efforts to appease our enemies he actually has sided with them against our allies.
Our policy in Central and South America under this administration has been abysmal. Take Honduras as an example. When the country’s legislature and judiciary exercised their constitutional right to protect the integrity of their democracy, President Obama said that their efforts were “not legal and that President Zelaya remains the president of Honduras.” This is after Zelaya, an ally of Chavez and outspoken critic of America, tried to abrogate its constitution and change it to seek re-election beyond his four-year term.
Instead of standing behind the parliament we sided with the despots in region who have been aligned with Iran. This administration has had a consistent policy of siding with the leftists and appeasing those who threaten our security. We haven’t stood up for our friends like Colombia, we haven’t undertaken the effort necessary to build the relational capital and trust necessary to develop a regional economic alignment to compete with the European Union. The EU understands in a global economy the only way to compete it to build economic alliances, why has this escaped our leadership?
I am committed to one of my first trips abroad as President to be to Central and South America, and I am committed to visiting it repeatedly. With the threat of radical Islam growing in the region, the parallels with the Cold War are even clearer. And with this radical ideology comes a new virulent strain of anti-Semitism that is taking hold in our hemisphere. We need a President who understand this threat and takes it seriously.
In closing, instead of leading the forces of democracy, this president lags behind the course of events. "Leading from behind"; waiting for others to make the hard choices and take the hard actions, and then jumping on board. We see this in the Middle East. We see this in Central and South America.
I reject this. I don't think we should wait until Israel is attacked, or until Israel, out of desperation and despair that the United States will not act, moves against Iran. We can’t with until a missile is placed in Venezuela that can reach our soil and then cry fowl. [I think that should be "can't wait" CiJ]
We can’t wait for our friends to do the hard things, when we are better placed, have greater power, and have better options.
I will lead from the front, which is America's mission.
This guy should be President. Unfortunately, he probably won't be, but we can hope.
Can Newt win? (With video from Marianne Gingrich interview)
Rick Perry is planning to drop out of the South Carolina primary on Thursday and endorse Newt Gingrich (Hat Tip: Memeorandum), a move that is likely to make Gingrich the man to beat for the anti-Romney candidacy in the Republican party, notwithstanding Thursday's news that Rick Santorum actually won the Iowa caucuses. Gingrich has been making a lot of very pro-Israelstatements lately.
But can Newt win? Over lunch today, Mrs. Carl told me that she thinks Newt is a disaster, and that if he wins the nomination, the Democrats will attack his personal life and Obama will be reelected. Mrs. Carl even told me that Newt divorced his first wife while she was dying from cancer (which of course made me think of John and Elizabeth Edwards). But Newt did not divorce his first wife while she was dying of cancer. She's still alive thirty years later.
Although the thrust of the story about his first divorce is not in dispute — Gingrich’s first wife, Jackie Battley, has said previously that the couple discussed their divorce while she was in the hospital in 1980 — other aspects of it appear to have been distorted through constant retelling.
Most significant, Battley wasn’t dying at the time of the hospital visit; she is alive today. Nor was the divorce discussion in the hospital “a surprise” to Battley, as many accounts have contended. Battley, not Gingrich, had requested a divorce months earlier, according to Jackie Gingrich Cushman, the couple’s second daughter. Further, Gingrich did not serve his wife with divorce papers on the day of his visit (unlike a subpoena, divorce papers aren’t typically “served”).
Gingrich’s marriage to Battley had been troubled for many years before it dissolved 31 years ago, both parties have said. Battley, who is seven years older than Gingrich, had been Gingrich’s high school math teacher in Columbus, Ga. They began dating after he graduated and were married in 1962, when Gingrich was 19 and a freshman at Emory University in Atlanta.
In time, the marriage grew contentious, and the couple spent several years in counseling. In spring 1980, Gingrich left her, Battley told The Washington Post in 1985. Around this time, the couple gathered their children, then ages 16 and 13, around the kitchen table at their home in Fairfax County and told them that they intended to divorce, Cushman wrote in a syndicated column in May (none of the family members nor Gingrich would comment for this article).
Gingrich's second wife has been interviewed by ABC News (Hat Tip: Memeorandum), which is now apparently going to run the interview on Thursday night's Nightline - two days before the South Carolina primary. This is from the first link in this paragraph.
Marianne Gingrich has said she could end her ex-husband's career with a single interview.
Earlier this week, she sat before ABCNEWS cameras, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.
She spoke to ABCNEWS reporter Brian Ross for two hours, and her explosive revelations are set to rock the trail.
But now a "civil war" has erupted inside of the network, an insider claims, on exactly when the confession will air!
ABCNEWS suits determined it would be "unethical" to run the Marianne Gingrich interview so close to the South Carolina Primary, a curious decision, one insider argued, since the network has aggressively been reporting on other candidates.
A decision was tentatively made to air the interview next Monday, after all votes have been counted.
Gingrich canceled a press conference on Wednesday to deal with the matter.
"He believes that what he says in public and how he lives don't have to be connected," Marianne Gingrich, Newt's wife of 18 years, explained to ESQUIRE last year.
Developing...
What did Marianne Gingrich tell Brian Ross? Here's some of it.
In Europe, this would be considered a joke or a sign of machismo. But in the US - which still has some moral decency left - one's family life is not a matter to be taken lightly. On the other hand, in the last 20 years Americans have had a President who was provided with oral sex by a woman half his age while attending to the affairs of state in the oval office (and that's just the tip of Bill Clinton's iceberg). Will the American people really vote against Newt Gingrich because his ex-wife tells them to?
I don't know the answer to that last question. But I'm glad it's coming out now and not in the summer after the convention. And yes, I would still vote for Gingrich over Obama, but we'd likely be better off with squeaky clean Rick Santorum (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).
GREENVILLE, S.C. (AP) —Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum is saying the U.S. should not have condemned the death of an Iranian nuclear scientist this week.
Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan died Wednesday, when a bomb attached to his car by a passing bicyclist exploded. The Obama administration condemned the killing.
Santorum said the administration’s public posture does not reflect a hard line on Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.
To about 200 people in a crowded Greenville diner, he said: “Our country condemned it. My feeling is we should have kept our mouth shut.”
I wonder how many other Republican candidates agree.
There are only two explanations for the Obama administration's actions. One is that Obama still thinks he can talk Iran out of developing nuclear weapons. Sorry, we Israelis are not going to stake our lives on that one forever.
The other is that Obama really doesn't care if the Iranians get nuclear weapons.
Unless you think Obama is delusional or stupid, I'd go with the second one.
Here's thanking Rick Santorum for speaking the truth and hoping he's in this campaign for a long time to come.
Irony alert: Obama claims Republicans would cut aid to Israel, except Ron Paul
Notice the advertisement above. It comes from President Obama's campaign website. It claims that Romney, Perry and Gingrich would cut aid to Israel. It's a lie. It doesn't mention Ron Paul. That's another lie. Maybe Obama wants to run against Ron Paul? Yid with Lid reports.
Each of these candidate have said they would take a zero-based approach to foreign aid, not one of them has indicated they would stop sending aid to Israel. Each of the above candidates have long track records of supporting Israel, at times bothGingrich and Perry have been accused of being over the top in their support of the Jewish State. As for Romney, support of Israel is one of the areas he hasn't flip-flopped on.
Obama's internal polling must show he is in danger of losing a big slice of the 78% of Jews who voted for him in 2008--hence his recent appointment of an Orthodox Jew as his Chief of Staff and his lies about the GOP and Israel.
I think Obama wants to run against Ron Paul, because that will make all the Israel supporters stay home.
He doesn't mention Santorum either but I suspect that's because Santorum hasn't called for zero-based foreign aid.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
