Not long ago, relatively few Jews around the world could name Canada's prime minister. Today, there are many hundreds who, though they did not know his name just weeks ago, now do.

That is because the text and YouTube version of Stephen Harper's extraordinary speech at a recent Canadian Conference on Anti-Semitism have gone viral, making their way onto Facebook and countless websites and parking themselves in thousands of in-boxes. In the speech, Harper made clear that he, unlike many, understands that the new anti-Israel rhetoric now taking the world by storm is nothing more than anti-Semitism repackaged.

As Harper noted, "Harnessing disparate anti- Semitic, anti-American and anti-Western ideologies, [the attack on Israel's legitimacy] targets the Jewish people by targeting the Jewish homeland, Israel, as the source of injustice and conflict in the world, and uses, perversely, the language of human rights to do so."

Amr Moussa, head of the Arab League, has threatened to tell the Palestinian Authority to end talks with Israel. In an interview with the Toronto Star, Moussa suggested a variety of alternatives, among them seeking a "one-state solution" to include both Israelis and Palestinian Authority Arabs.

Moussa also blamed Israel for a variety of Arab woes, including lackluster tourism, floundering economies and even the lack of railways.

Among the alternatives he proposed to talks were bringing the matter to the United Nations Security Council, unilaterally proposing a new Arab state in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, and disbanding the PA and challenging to with "the whole thing" as an "Occupying Power."

The Obama administration got a new "shellacking" this morning, this one entirely voluntary. In the name of improving America's image abroad, it sent three top officials from the State Department to Geneva's U.N. Human Rights Council to be questioned about America's human rights record by the likes of Cuba, Iran, and North Korea.

This was the first so-called "universal periodic review" of human rights in the U.S. by the Council, which the Obama administration decided to join in 2009.

We have seen, to the chagrin of the left, more attention in an off-year election on Israel than we get in most presidential races. The Emergency Committee for Israel and the Republican Jewish Coalition have reasons to crow. ECI made Joe Sestak its top priority, featured him in its debut ad, and remained a thorn in his side throughout the race. The RJC spent an unprecedented amount of money on the race. These groups didn't target Joe Sestak by accident or pick an easy race. Sestak was the quintessential faux pro-Israel liberal — touting his support for the Jewish state but signing onto the Gaza 54 letter, headlining for CAIR, and refusing to break with the president on his offensive against the Jewish state. For precisely these reasons, J Street made him its top priority. Sestak lost in a tough race. Was Israel a factor? In a close race, it is hard to say it wasn't. The question for liberal Democrats is this: why take on the baggage of J Street for such little help and so many headaches?

While these days the focus is understandably on Al Qaeda, alarming news has also surfaced about Hezbollah, the Shiite terror group that is clustered near Israel's border and has taken control of Lebanon.

The French daily Le Figaro reports that Hezbollah's arsenal now numbers 40,000 missiles, and that the organization fields over 10,000 fighters. Le Figaro also gives details on three Hezbollah units tasked with maintaining and transporting the missiles, and on Syria's close involvement in the whole enterprise.

The article says that last January one of the three, Unit 108—in a move picked up by U.S. intelligence—received a delivery of 26 Syrian M-6002 missiles somewhere between Damascus and the Syrian-Lebanese border. While Unit 108's main barracks are near that border, it also has a base near Damascus Airport for handling weapons shipments from Iran.

Le Figaro quotes the French Defense Ministry as saying Israel might strike Unit 108's sites in Syria.

Earlier this year, President Obama drove U.S.-Israeli relations - to use one of President Obama's oft-employed analogies - into a ditch. Arguably, ties between the two countries were never more strained than last spring when Mr. Obama serially insulted the elected leader of Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, vilified his country and tried to euchre it into making territorial, political and other ill-advised concessions to Arabs determined as ever to destroy the Jewish state. Unfortunately, what the president has in mind for Israel after the election next week will make his previous treatment of the Jewish state look like the good old days.

To be sure, ties between the United States and Israel - far and away America's most important and loyal friend in the Middle East - have improved lately from the nadir to which Mr. Obama plunged them since he took office. That has nothing to do, however, with a change of heart or agenda on the part of the president and his administration.

Rather, it is a reflection of a cynical calculation forced upon the Obama White House by its panicked congressional allies. Already laboring under the backbreaking burden of their association with a president and his agenda that have become huge liabilities, Democrats on Capitol Hill faced wholesale defections of their Jewish constituents and funders if their party's leader persisted in his assault on Israel. Public letters and private conversations had the desired effect: Mr. Obama began treating his Israeli counterpart with a modicum of respect and the optics of a restarted peace process - however short-lived or doomed - helped conjure up an image of a renewed partnership between the two nations.

If you've lost faith in the current administration's ability and mass media's ability to respond to Middle East developments, here's more evidence. There's a relatively new American idiomatic expression, "Ya [you] think?" Said sarcastically, it means: Wow, duh, the answer to that question is really obvious!

So consider how hidden, obscure stories [sarcasm] are being dug out by policymakers and top media. The New York Times reports that the U.S. government is "increasingly alarmed by unrest in Lebanon, whose own fragile peace is being threatened by militant opponents of a politically charged investigation into the killing in 2005 of a former Lebanese leader."

Ya think? Lebanon has been taken over (or recaptured, if you wish) by the Iran-Syria anti-American, revolutionary Islamist, terrorist-sponsoring axis, operating largely--though by no means completely--through their client, Hizballah. Might this be of some concern for U.S. policymakers?

Syria's president has accused the United States of sowing chaos overseas, snubbing Washington's efforts to improve ties with Damascus.

Bashar Assad told Al-Hayat newspaper in an interview published Tuesday that the U.S. created chaos in every place it entered.

The disclosure, during the 2008 presidential campaign, that Barack Obama had for two decades sat contentedly (perhaps with his cerebral hearing aid turned off) listening to the tirades of his pastor Rev. Jeremiah ("God Damn America") Wright against "them Jews" caused him some brief embarrassment but no harm at the polls, certainly not among Jewish voters. No attention whatever was paid to the possible link between Obama's moral tone-deafness in the presence of clergyman Wright and his intense admiration of another, more unctuous, political clergyman with even less charity toward Jews than Wright: namely, Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Obama and Tutu have long admired each other. They first met in 2006 when then-Senator Obama visited Tutu in South Africa. In August 2009, Obama awarded Tutu the Congressional Medal of Honor. Earlier this month, on the occasion of the Anglican clergyman's 79th birthday, the president lauded him as "a moral titan—a voice of principle, an unrelenting champion of justice, and a dedicated peacemaker."

No one in Lebanon seems to know who invited Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Beirut for a two-day "official visit" -- his first since assuming office in Teheran five years ago. No Lebanese official has claimed credit for a trip that Israel and the U.S. have condemned as "provocative." But it's shaping up as a potential powder keg and a huge political embarrassment for Lebanon whose reverberations are being felt in many capitals, not just in the Middle East.

Ahmadinejad lost no time in thanking the cheering throngs who lined the streets and pelted his armored car with rice and flowers. These were the tens of thousands of supporters of Hezbollah, Iran's Shiite Muslim ally in Lebanon which the U.S. and Israel have branded a terrorist organization, despite its participation in Lebanon's fragile government. Enthusiastic Hezbollahis painted their faces with Iranian flags and hoisted posters featuring Ahmadinejad's face in a giant red heart to proclaim their "love" for Iran's unpopular, polarizing president, welcoming him to their capital. He felt "at home" in Lebanon, Ahmadinejad declared. "We are two peoples that love each other. We have joint interests."

The leader of the Muslim Brotherhood has endorsed (Arabic) (English translation by MEMRI) anti-American Jihad and pretty much every element in the al-Qaida ideology book. Since the Brotherhood is the main opposition force in Egypt and Jordan as well as the most powerful group, both politically and religiously, in the Muslim communities of Europe and North America this is pretty serious stuff.

By the way, no one can argue that he merely represents old, tired policies of the distant past because the supreme guide who said these things was elected just a few months ago. His position reflects current thinking.

Does that mean the Egyptian, Jordanian, and all the camouflaged Muslim Brotherhood fronts in Europe and North America are going to launch terrorism as one of their affiliates, Hamas, has long done? No.

But it does mean that something awaited for decades has happened: the Muslim Brotherhood is ready to move from the era of propaganda and base-building to one of revolutionary action. At least, its hundreds of thousands of followers are being given that signal. Some of them will engage in terrorist violence as individuals or forming splinter groups; others will redouble their efforts to seize control of their countries and turn them into safe areas for terrorists and instruments for war on the West.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama made clear that one component of his agenda would be to give a high priority to pursuing Arab-Israeli peace. Many Jews had some concerns about Obama, but his pro-Israel statements reassured them, and ultimately nearly 80% voted for him. Obama's appearance before the pro-Israel lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and recitation of talking points from the Israeli lobby playbook were consistent with the popular view of a powerful lobby that demands the fealty of elected officials.

Within a few weeks of taking office as the nation's 44th president, however, Obama seemed to pick a fight with the Israeli government over its settlements policy. He began to publicly demand that Israel freeze all settlement activity. When Israeli officials brought up the fact that certain understandings had been reached with Obama's predecessor regarding what the United States considered to be acceptable construction, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denied any such agreements had been made.

In July 2009, Obama invited a group of Jewish leaders to the White House who were content to hear the President's views and asked only that he refrain from public criticism. Obama made clear he would do no such thing.

U.S. President Barack Obama may have to pay a heavy price to get out of a tight corner he made for himself—and may return to the same place, says former U.S. Mideast negotiator Aaron Miller.

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has frozen the talks because Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu did not agree to extend the same 10-month building freeze that was instituted to satisfy Abbas's condition for talks, which he then refused.

American officials are not accepting the "no" as final, and U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell remains optimistic he can convince the PA leader to sit down at the same table with Prime Minister Netanyahu. Moreover, the State Department on Friday still insisted that a final agreement for a new Arab state headed by the Palestinian Authority can be concluded within a year.

Contents of a White House letter have been published saying what the Obama Administration will offer Israel if it extends the moratorium on building inside West Bank settlements for two months. The specific proposals reveal again how the White House doesn't seem to understand the situation, or perhaps is thinking of something other than the Israel-Palestinian peace process.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu couldn't continue the freeze because there isn't enough support in his coalition for doing so. Thus, minor U.S. offers don't change that fact in any way. Moreover, the main underlying problem is lack of confidence that the Palestinian Authority (PA) wants peace with Israel, is willing to compromise, or will implement commitments in future. As you read this, keep in mind all of the problems I've written about which Israel must keep in mind in making any peace agreement.

After acceding to U.S. requests for nine months by freezing construction on existing Jewish settlements in the West Bank and also not building over the pre-1967 frontier in Jerusalem, Israel got nothing.

While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seemed willing to continue it in some form, pressures from within his coalition made that impossible.Therefore, the freeze is coming to an end, though Israel is still ready to discuss limits on new construction. Palestinian Authority (PA) leader Mahmoud Abbas is threatening to walk out of the once-every-two-weeks direct talks.

So what has been the reaction?

In Cairo a little over a year ago, President Obama proclaimed "a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world." After reminding his Arab audience that "six million Jews were killed" by the Nazis, he added immediately that, for their part, the Palestinians too "have endured the pain of dislocation" and many still "wait in refugee camps . . . for a life of peace and security that they have never been able to lead." At the time, a number of commentators objected to the President's seeming equation of the abundantly funded refugee camps run by the United Nations with Nazi death camps. Few, however, pointed out that his explanation of the plight of the Palestinian refugees was false, confusing historical cause and effect.

For it is not the absence of peace that keeps Palestinians "waiting" in refugee camps. Rather, most Arab leaders since 1948, including the current Palestinian leadership itself, insist that the refugees—originally numbering between 500,000 and 750,000 but now swollen through natural increase to over four million—must remain in those camps until allowed to return en masse to Israel. This insistence in turn makes it impossible to achieve any resolution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, let alone a "new beginning" in the Middle East.

The referendum proposed by Turkey's government has been passed with 58 percent of the population approving it in a vote with 77.5 percent turnout. The Obama Administration is praising the 26 amendments that bring Turkey in a more democratic direction but undermine the military and judiciary that protect the country's secularism. The State Department may not realize it, but it has congratulated Prime Minister Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) on paving the way for the further Islamization of Turkey.

After the results came in, the State Department spoke in favor of the referendum. "We hope that through these reforms, it will further enhance Turkey's democratic processes and human rights protection…. This was a choice for the Turkish people, and there was a very strong, decisive vote to move towards greater civilian oversight of these democratic institutions," a State Department spokesman said. Iran also hailed the referendum.

A new poll by the non-partisan Israel Project shows most Americans believe Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is committed to peace and that Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is not.

The Israel Project (TIP) describes itself as "an international non-profit organization devoted to educating the press and the public about Israel while promoting security, freedom and peace."

In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, practically every American understood and agreed with a powerful two-word sentiment that summed up the nation's attitude during those traumatic days: "never forget." Nine years later, it's clear that great swathes of the populace have indeed forgotten and the leftist media's coverage of the anniversary this weekend was symptomatic of the Left's selective memory when it comes to Islamic terrorism. Oh sure, they remembered the victims of al-Qaeda's barbarous attacks who fell in New York, Washington and Shanksville, but that's the easy part. There's nothing controversial or dangerous about mourning the murdered. It's quite another thing to point out that the murderous ideology that put thousands of Americans in their graves nine years ago is as potent, as dangerous and as evil a force today as it was on that fateful fall morning in 2001. Yet, from the mainstream media's coverage through President Obama's remarks, leftists used the 9th anniversary of the attacks as another excuse to try to conceal Islam's sharp talons beneath cloaks of respectability and even impotence.

We have entered into a new period of U.S. policy toward Israel for the Obama Administration. Basically, President Barack Obama needs Israel, requires its cooperation, and is eager to get along with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. How long this will last is unclear but it should characterize, barring unforeseen events, at least for the next year.

What is the basis of this new era? When it came to office, the Obama Administration was in radical mode, determined to distance itself from Israel as a key to winning over Arabs and Muslims, assuming that peace could be achieved with sufficient pressure on Israel as the only requirement, and hostile to Israel's current government.

A measure of reality eventually set in, involving a large number of factors ranging from the lack of Arab cooperation, to Iran's intransigence, the lack of progress in engaging Syria, and the tasks of dealing with Iraq and Afghanistan. The administration's head-on charge over demanding a freeze of construction on settlements only produced a one-year-plus delay on Israel-Palestinian negotiations. The Palestinian Authority (PA) was uncooperative. American public opinion was unhappy with the policy toward Israel.

Four score and ten years ago women won the right to vote in the United States. And thirty years ago, in 1980, I stood with the Israeli delegation in Copenhagen at the United Nations conference on women—the true precursor of the anti-Zionist conference in Durban in 2001. Twenty-nine years ago, right here in Connecticut, at the University at Storrs, I convened a panel at the annual convention of the National Women's Studies Association to challenge American feminists about both their anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism.

I had been doing this since the early 1970s but even I could not have predicted the rapid and extreme Stalinization and Palestinianization that would take place among academics and activists in general. I could never have imagined that the western intelligentsia, the "good" people, including feminists, would make so tragic an alliance with Islamic barbarism and misogyny.

I became a feminist leader in 1968-1969. I remain one. Most of the other feminists of my generation are no longer engaged in the historical moment.

Are women racists? We might as well ask: Are women human beings?

But are women also anti-Semites?

It's been nearly two years since Palestinian representatives and Israelis sat across a table from each other to talk about peace. As the latest round of talks got under way yesterday, it's hard to imagine that the results this time will be much different than any other time. Has anything changed that might lead to a different outcome? Gaza is still being run by Hamas. The "moderates" sitting across the table from Israel – Fatah, Egypt and Jordan – refuse to do to take any action that would delegitimize the group of terrorists who rule Gaza. The much vaunted "two state solution" can hardly work when half of the proposed Palestinian state refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist, sneers at peace talks involving their enemy and, just to emphasize their contempt, carries out terror attacks two days before those talks commence.

Hamas sent a greeting card to the quintet of leaders meeting in Washington, D.C., this week to initiate negotiations about a peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. In a well-planned ambush, they killed four Israeli civilians near the city of Hebron, two men and two women (one nine months pregnant), creating seven orphans. The murderers escaped, and may perhaps have videotaped the atrocity.

In Gaza that evening, 3,000 celebrants clogged the streets, waving flags, setting bonfires, passing out candy, and carrying their children on their shoulders. If there is videotape, it will presumably permit the revelers to relive the pleasure, even as the video of Daniel Pearl's beheading has circulated on the Internet.

While the Palestinian Authority did condemn the attack, it did so in mincing terms. Prime Minister Salam Fayyad disapproved, he said, because "the operation went against Palestinian interests." It would be difficult for a leader of the "moderate" (that word is always attached) PA to condemn such attacks as, say, immoral or despicable, as the Palestinian Authority itself (formerly the PLO/Fatah) was conceived in violence and continues to honor its spirit

In its basic form, the Ground Zero mosque debate boils down to a conflict between two competing values – American freedom of religion versus the sensitivities of the families of the victims of 9/11.

The freedom-of-religion argument suggests that if Jews sought to build a synagogue at Ground Zero (or anywhere else, for that matter), they would be within their rights. That's the American way. The opposing view suggests that while not every Catholic was guilty in the Holocaust, and not every Muslim perpetrated the crimes of 9/11, sensitivities still matter. Pope John Paul II had the decency to force the Carmelite nuns out of Auschwitz, and Muslim leaders, too, ought to relocate their project.

Similarly, the mutual accusations are parallel: If you are opposed to the mosque, you are an Islamophobic racist. And if you're in favor of it, you're simply insensitive to the pain of those who lost loved ones in the attack.

But we Israelis have learned from our experience that matters are more complicated. One need not be racist or Islamophobic to be concerned about the mosque. For life in our region has taught us that the first necessary step to defending yourself is acknowledging that someone else is out to destroy you.

Former US Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, was asked in an interview whether he would consider a run for the US presidency – and did not reject the idea.

"[I]t is a very great honor that anybody would even think of asking," Bolton told the interviewer at the Daily Caller. "I'm obviously not a politician. I've never run for any federal elective office at all and, you know, it is something that would obviously require a great deal of effort," he said.

An indignant President Obama complained last week, "I can't spend all of my time with my birth certificate plastered on my forehead." Fine. How about plastering a copy of his presidential oath of office there instead? The kowtowing commander-in-chief is in dire need of a daily reminder that his job is to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States" — not international law or global diktats.

"When the pursuit of peace becomes the entire objective of foreign policy, it becomes a weapon in the hands of the most ruthless. It produces moral disarmament."

—Henry Kissinger

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's recent announcement that peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians, which are set to resume on Thursday, "should resolve all final-status issues within one year" indicates such a profound misunderstanding of the complexity of the issues, the history of what has occurred until now, the fragility of the situation on the ground, and what actually lies at the heart of the disagreement, that it would be almost comical, if it weren't so lethal.

A bit of recent history is in order. On July 25, 2000, the Israelis, led by Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and under the cajolery of President Bill Clinton, made a maximalist offer to Yasser Arafat in the summit known as Camp David II. That offer included up to 97 percent of the West Bank, all of Gaza (then in Israel's hands), shared sovereignty of Jerusalem, and a "right of return" of thousands of Palestinian refugees or a compensatory package for refugees who could not be resettled.

I was attending a talk at a Washington think tank the day the talks broke up, and Elyakim Rubinstein, who had been Israel's attorney general, addressed the group on the news. He told us, "I could look every one of you in the eye and tell you that we went as far as any responsible Israeli government could possibly go. In fact, "there are many who would argue that we weren't acting responsibly. There are people, at this very moment, who are crying in their limousines on their way to the airport. … We thought if we made Arafat an offer that was so good he couldn't refuse it, he wouldn't [refuse it]."

President Obama's "story"goes like this: adherents of Islam are comprised of two groups, "radical Muslims" and "moderate Muslims." The "radical Muslims" believe in the use of violence, because they are "against freedom." Fortunately, "radical Muslims" represent a very small minority, while the "vast majority" of Islam's one billion Believers are "moderate Muslims." According to President Obama, "moderate Muslims" and Americans have "shared values and common aspirations." Obama also preaches that "moderate Muslims" wish to join America's fight against "radical Muslims." The President assures America that its human and material sacrifices in Iraq and Afghanistan will succeed due to the partnership with "moderate Muslims" in those countries. Meanwhile at home, "moderate Muslims" should make Americans feel safer, as "moderates" will report "radicals" to local authorities.

While the media and politicians engage in frenzied debate about the virtues and vices of building—or preventing the building of—a Muslim community center (cum mosque) near the "sacred ground" of 9/11, Iran continues to build a nuclear weapon, as the Israelis and Palestinians take a tentative step toward building a peaceful resolution to their age-old conflict. Inevitably, whenever Middle East issues take center stage, the question of the role of lobbies, particularly those that advocate for foreign countries, becomes a hot topic. This book by longtime Middle East authority, Mitchell Bard, is a must read for anyone who cares—and who doesn't?—about the role of lobbies in influencing American policy in the Middle East. Its thesis, which is sure to be controversial, is easily summarized:

Yes Virginia, there is a big bad lobby that distorts US foreign policy in the Middle East way out of proportion to its actual support by the American public. Professors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, author of the screed, The Israel Lobby, are right about that. But the offending lobby is not AIPAC, which supports Israel, but rather the Arab lobby, which opposes the Jewish state.

I'm not a big fan of conferences. There's nothing more repetitive than sitting in a panel where the presentations have interesting titles but are otherwise disappointing. Or listening to a speaker who may be very good but says absolutely nothing you don't know already.

But sometimes you have fascinating experiences which are not exactly on the agenda. Here are three from a conference I attended in Prague a few years ago, each of which contains its own lessons. Incidentally, nothing about the below was off the record, though the names and some details have been omitted since this is about points, not personalities.

Neoconservatives, Reaganites and other militarily assertive factions in the United States are sometimes accused of thinking it is always 1938 (Britain's appeasement of Hitler at Munich) -- that there is always a Hitler-like aggressor being appeased and about to drag the world into conflict. There is sometimes merit in that charge.

As, likewise, is there sometimes merit in the charge against isolations and other doves that they always see 1914 (start of WWI) or 1964 (beginning of escalation of troops in Vietnam) -- the imminent and foolish entry into or escalation of a war that can't be won -- or even if victory were to be gained, it would be Pyrrhic.

Knowledge of history can be as much a snare as a guide -- if it is wrapped in a dogma that distorts the current facts to match the preferred historic lesson.

Our actions -- if any -- in the Iranian nuclear weapons development controversy cry out to be based on a careful assessment of facts -- and a heartless rooting out of assumptions, hidden or otherwise, that may be driving policy.

Iran has said it was prepared to sell weapons to the Lebanon should the government in Beirut seek help to equip its military. On Tuesday, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah had proposed to the unity government of Prime Minister Hariri to formally seek military assistance from Tehran, the Iranian news agency IRNA reported. In Tehran, Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi said that Lebanon "is our friend, and its army is also our friend" and if there was a demand [for arms], "we are ready to help that country and conduct weapons transactions with it." Nasrallah, whose movement is backed by Iran and Syria, vowed in a televised speech Hezbollah could help secure the aid for the Lebanon's army, which is still seen as under-equipped compared to the Shiite paramilitary group.

debkafile's Washington sources reports Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is misleading his ministers by presenting the direct talks opening with the Palestinians on Sept. 2 as a diplomatic victory. He has omitted to disclose that the Obama administration has reneged on the secret deals for paving the way to the talks it concluded with Netanyahu's senior aides Yitzhak Molcho and Uzi Arad.

Part of the deal was for Israel to line up with the Obama administration's non-reaction to Iran's activation of its Russian-built nuclear reactor at Bushehr last Saturday, Aug. 21. The United States promised, for its part, to deliver the Palestinians to the negotiating table for face -to-face talks after dropping their pre-conditions (determination of the 1967 lines as the final borders of a Palestinian state and a moratorium on Jewish construction on the West Bank and Jerusalem).

Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP) is one of the relatively more "moderate" anti-Israel church coalitions constantly pushing for a more ostensibly neutral U.S. stance towards Israel. In July, a CMEP delegation met with National Security Council Chief of Staff Denis McDonough to offer "support" for President Obama's Middle East policy but also to share "concerns." What were these concerns?

CMEP was distressed by continued Jewish settlements on the West Bank, the "humanitarian situation" in Gaza, and the "importance of Jerusalem being a shared city (for three faiths as well as two peoples)." And, oh yes, they were also concerned about the "dwindling Christian population of the Holy Land." But this concern seemingly extends only so far as it implicates Israel and does not fault radical Islam or the policies of Arab regimes towards Christian minorities.

As direct talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority are set to begin in Washington on September 2, the issue of the building freeze in Judea and Samaria is once again being brought up.

In a statement he made on Monday, US State Department Spokesman Philip Crowley said that the building freeze will be discussed as part of direct talks: "The issue of settlements, the issue of the moratorium... has been a topic of discussion and will be a topic of discussion when the leaders meet with Secretary Clinton on September 2," said Crowley.

There has been a steady drip-drip-drip of Jews leaving the Democratic Party, most recently noted by the Pew Research Center. This has caused consternation among the usual suspects -- among them, the National Jewish Democratic Council and New York Times columnist and uber-liberal Charles Blow, who commented just a few days ago:

In a Pew Research Center report issued on Thursday and entitled "Growing Number of Americans Say Obama Is a Muslim" (tragic in its own right), there was another bit of bad news for Obama: the number of Jews who identify as Republican or as independents who lean Republican has increased by more than half since the year he was elected. At 33 percent it now stands at the highest level since the data have been kept. In 2008, the ratio of Democratic Jews to Republican Jews was far more than three to one. Now it's less than two to one.

This is no doubt a reaction, at least in part, to the Obama administration having taken a hard rhetorical stance with Israel, while taking "special time and care on our relationship with the Muslim world," as Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, put it in June. If that sounds like courtship, it is.

With all due respect to Mr. Blow, this shifting dynamic is a bit more complicated than blaming it all on Barack Obama's harsh treatment of Israel.

The Oslo Accords signed on the White House lawn in September 1993 served Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) well. The Accords were the Trojan Horse that enabled Arafat to return to "Palestine" as a hero. Only a few years earlier, he had supported Saddam Hussein's brutal occupation of Kuwait. But when the U.S.-led coalition pushed Iraqi forces out of Kuwait, Palestinians living in the region paid the price for Arafat and Saddam's alliance — half–a-million Palestinians were expelled by the Kuwaitis. Arafat's fortunes had nose-dived. He was in exile in Tunisia, and the dream of expelling the Jews from "Palestine" seemed remote. Then, lo and behold, he was saved by Israel and the U.S.

Arafat inaugurated a new strategy in the early 1970s with regard to dismantling Israel. The strategy was based on diplomacy, along with armed struggle. Some called it the "Destroying Israel in Phases" plan. The idea was to gain enough territory through diplomacy so that the Jewish State's defensive capacity would be weakened. Then, they would finish it off in an armed struggle — using the pretext of "Palestinian Right of Return" to engage in terrorism. In September 2000, Arafat reached the conclusion that Israeli society was too weak to stomach terrorism (armed struggle) in Israeli cities. He believed the Israeli public would crack under pressure from terror and fear, and would then call on the Barak government to make further concessions to the Palestinians.

The U.S. announcement inviting Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) for direct talks shows quite clearly, though unintentionally, why the talks will fail.

Special Envoy George Mitchell explains:

"We are all well aware that there remains mistrust between the parties, a residue of hostility developed over many decades of conflict, many previous efforts that have been made to resolve the conflict that had not succeeded, all of which takes a very heavy toll on both societies and their leaders. In addition, we all know that, as with all societies, there are differences of opinion on both sides on how best to proceed, and as a result, this conflict has remained unresolved over many decades and through many efforts. We don't expect all of those differences to disappear when talks begin. Indeed, we expect that they will be presented, debated, discussed, and that differences are not going to be resolved immediately."

This is a good explanation that the administration knows how hard it is to bring peace, though it does not jibe well with his saying a few minutes later: "We believe that if those negotiations are conducted seriously and in good faith, they can produce such an agreement within 12 months. And that is our objective."

The big story of the moment is the announcement that there will soon be direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA).

Perhaps, but for the moment Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has merely issued of an invitation to come and talk. Generally, such an invitation would only be issued when both sides have accepted and all the details are nailed down. Nowadays, however, such cannot be assumed.

On the one hand, the U.S. government has not been so competent in recent times. On the other hand, the PA can well find new excuses for not coming or additional demands that would have to be satisfied first. Will the Fatah barons agree to let "President" Mahmoud Abbas talk?

In his thought-provoking book The Lucifer Principle, Harold Bloom, relying on years of zoological research, points out how "a strange thing happens when humans and other animals are cornered by the uncontrollable. Their perceptions shut down, their thoughts grow more clouded, and they have a harder time generating new solutions to their problems." This kind of syncope can manifest itself in a number of different ways: a feigned lack of interest when presented with a threat, as when a once-dominant ape pretends to focus on a banana peel rather than respond to the challenge mounted by a formidable claimant to his throne, or when a rat frustrated by its powerlessness before an intimidating rival will attack a lesser member of the pack.

These are useful concepts and insights that can help us get a bead on the crucial issues of the day. Nature is of a piece. What goes for the ape and the rat, solacing themselves with avoidance mechanisms or the fiction of authority, goes for the individual human being as it does for the nation as a whole, and, indeed, for the very framework of the civilization of which they form a part. When an organism or a "superorganism" senses that it is losing control, that its favored position atop the dominance hierarchy is no longer assured and that it is facing the prospect of imminent dispossession, as if by reflex it turns aside, practices the art of studied indifference or develops an array of subterfuges—what Bloom terms the "endorphin strategy" that makes us feel good while it dulls the senses and cripples the intellect. It almost invariably contents itself by blanking out the menace or mugging its weaker partners and cohabitants.

Among the first things the Obama administration did to break from the "unilateral" policies of the Bush administration was to join the United Nations Human Rights Council, which the U.S. shunned when it was formed in 2006. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton promised that "we will engage in the work of improving the U.N. human rights system." U.N. ambassador Susan Rice declared that we were joining "because we believe that working from within, we can make the council a more effective forum to promote and protect human rights."

Now, almost a year and a half later, the Council remains as it ever was: a body composed of some of the worst human rights abusers in the world, devoted to attacking Western democracies, demonizing Israel, covering up the abuses of authoritarian regimes, and undermining the pursuit of human rights. The only difference today is that America's name is being lent to this effort.

On September 11, 2001, extremists hijacked four American airliners, crashing them into New York City's World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania. The tragedy resulted in 3,000 Americans dying.

Does the above paragraph sound strange, deliberately vague, misleading (i.e., "politically correct") -- like a misrepresentation of what actually happened on that fateful Tuesday morning? If so, then for the last nine years, America -- from presidents and other politicians to Pentagon officials -- has been engaged in an exercise of obfuscation and verbal gymnastics. And, of course, the leftist establishment media (aka the "mainstream media") have willingly gone along with the above deception. Now consider the politically incorrect truth:

The Obama administration thinks Israel and Turkey can make friends again. Earlier this month, at the administration's urging, Israel agreed to participate, with Turkey, in a United Nations Review Panel on the flotilla incident that occurred last May. In that incident, nine Turkish members of an Islamist mob were killed when the group attacked Israeli soldiers aboard a Turkish ship. The ship itself was trying to break Israel's blockade of Gaza.

Since then, Turkish officials, with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan setting the tone, have consistently referred to the incident as Israel "killing innocent civilians," "state terrorism," and the like. U.S. envoy to the UN Susan Rice, however, expressed hope that the panel "can serve as a vehicle to enable Israel and Turkey to move beyond the recent strains in their relationship and repair their strong historic ties."

Nothing is more like the fascist Axis of the 1930s than Islamist expansionism today. Like the Hitler-Tojo-Mussolini Axis of the 1930s, Islamic fascists are fundamentally imperialistic, with an explicit order from on High to subjugate civilized people or turn them to ashes. Mohammed himself famously threatened the cultured Persian and Byzantine Emperors of his time, and in the following years, his followers knocked those empires over like devouring army ants.

The peace-loving Buddhist monasteries of India were consumed by invading Muslim armies, with the result that there are no Buddhist monasteries left in India today. Not a single one. Only Hinduism survived the Muslim invasions, because Hindus are not pacifists. You can ask any Sikh about that; they are a huge warrior religion that arose as a buffer between Hindu India and its many Muslim invaders, who now hold Pakistan and Afghanistan. In India, the Buddhist monks just died or fled to Tibet. So much for the glorious results of peaceful resistance against Muslim armies.

It's always rich when reliable Democratic Party organs like the Washington Post, which couldn't bash the Bush administration often enough, defend Obama administration initiatives on the ground that "Bush did it too." But, as evidenced by this item from Journolister Greg Sargent, that is the current defense of the administration's otherwise indefensible deployment of sharia-touting Feisal Rauf on State Department business in the Middle East.

The sharia-indifferent Left has convinced itself that the Bush administration's foolish forays into "Islamic outreach" somehow undermine current concerns about Rauf and the giant monument to Islam he wants to erect near the site where nearly 3000 Americans were killed by Islamist supremacists. On that score, GZ mosque proponents make much of the fact that Liz Cheney — Vice President Cheney's daughter and a director at Keep America Safe — is a prominent opponent of the mosque.

TEN YEARS ago Bill Clinton had dragged a kicking and screaming Yasser Arafat to Camp David, where he also leaned on then-PM Ehud Barak to make egregious offers to reward Arafat for his "cooperation."
To the amazement of both American and Israeli wishful-thinkers, Arafat spurned the outstretched hand and Israel's mad magnanimity.
Unlike the Americans and Israelis, Arafat wasn't out to end the dispute. That was the last thing on his priorities list. Indeed right at the top of said list was perpetuating and escalating the dispute. No sooner did the Camp David powwow flop, than Arafat unleashed his premeditated second intifada.
Violence raged and claimed lives in an unremitting bloodbath until Israel did the "non-peaceful" thing and launched Operation Defensive Shield.

"It's conceivable," said then-presidential candidate Barack Obama in 2008, "that there are those in the Arab world who say to themselves, 'This is a guy who spent some time in the Muslim world, has a middle name of Hussein, and appears more worldly and has called for talks with people, and so he's not going to be engaging in the same sort of cowboy diplomacy as George Bush.'"

A 2008 Zogby International poll surveyed those in the "friendly" Arab countries of Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Eighty-three percent viewed the United States "somewhat" or "very" unfavorably.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki (pictured, left) has met with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus to discuss "the regional security threats posed by the Zionist regime" [Israel]. Referring to the deadly border skirmish last week, both men declared that they would support Lebanon against Israel's "aggression". Mottaki described Israel as "the source of insecurity and threat" in the Middle East . He also met with the exiled leader of Hamas, Khaleed Meshal, in Damascus.

The deepening notes of disenchantment with Barack Obama now issuing from commentators across the political spectrum were predictable. So, too, were the charges from some of the president's earliest enthusiasts about his failure to reflect a powerful sense of urgency about the oil spill.

There should have been nothing puzzling about his response to anyone who has paid even modest critical attention to Mr. Obama's pronouncements. For it was clear from the first that this president—single-minded, ever-visible, confident in his program for a reformed America saved from darkness by his arrival—was wanting in certain qualities citizens have until now taken for granted in their presidents. Namely, a tone and presence that said: This is the Americans' leader, a man of them, for them, the nation's voice and champion. Mr. Obama wasn't lacking in concern about the oil spill. What he lacked was that voice—and for good reason.

Suddenly, it seems, everyone is talking about Shariah. In particular, growing controversies over proposed mosques at Ground Zero and other sites are becoming powerful "teaching moments" - raising awareness about the repressive theo-political-military-legal doctrine that animates the builders and that their fellow adherents seek to impose on the entire world.

This is a most welcome development in light of the grave and growing threat posed by this agenda and the concerted effort being made - here and elsewhere, through violent jihad and the stealthy kind - to realize that goal.

Arabs' belief that U.S. President Barack Obama could deliver on promises for a "new beginning" have been dashed, an annual survey of public opinion in Middle Eastern countries shows.

The survey of Arab public opinion conducted by Shibley Telhami shows that positive views of President Obama have plummeted from 45 percent in 2009 to 20 percent today, with the negative views of him skyrocketing from 23 percent to 62 percent.

While Obama has been claiming that his "outstretched hand" approach will win the U.S. new friends in the Mideast, the poll suggests otherwise. Only 12 percent expressed favorable views of the United States, even lower than the 15 percent that the Bush administration got in its final year.

It's almost surreal to witness the White House resident and his European counterparts fall all over themselves in recharged alacrity for the "two-state solution."

Do they even remotely believe their own words? Or do they just make obligatory sounds to satisfy the requisites of some bizarre rite?

It's a tad of a stretch to trust that it hadn't dawned on any of them that the last thing Palestinians want is a Palestinian state dwelling in idyllic coexistence alongside a secure, accepted and recognized Israel. Honchos in both Ramallah and Gaza may expediently exploit the two-state slogan, but they never truly espoused the cause of two-state harmony.

All the while, though, the two-state mantra is fervently chanted by statesmen everywhere, eager to put in their two cents and repeat precisely what everyone else has been declaiming for years with the same seeming conviction and the ever-invigorated note of urgency. Global movers and shakers never tire of the worn old refrain, which they elevate to Gospel-like sanctity, with each futile reiteration.

When the Obama administration banned the terms Islamic extremism and jihad from US national security documents back on April 7, 2010, the United States began a new approach toward the war on terror. No longer would the ideological or religious elements that had driven the 9/11 attackers be emphasized. Any terms insinuating the religious zeal that inspires and has inspired suicide bombers from Gaza, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere across the world, have been hastily filed away in the cabinet known as the ill-conceived Bush Doctrine.

Instead, the Obama adminsitration formulated a new set of terms to showcase the White House's new and improved outreach to the Muslim world. On the same day that the Associated Press carried the 'banned terms' news release, the assistant to President Obama on Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, John Brennan spoke with law students at New York University, where he referred to Jerusalem by its Arabic name, Al-Quds.

A group of former CIA officials warns U.S. President Obama that Israel might attack Iran "even within a month," and that Obama bears responsibility for having praised Netanyahu.

"We write to alert you to the likelihood that Israel will attack Iran as early as this month," the open letter to Obama begins. "This would likely lead to a wider war."

The letter, issued on Tuesday by the anti-Iraqi-war VIPS (Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity), continues:
"Israel's leaders would calculate that once the battle is joined, it will be politically untenable for you to give anything less than unstinting support to Israel, no matter how the war started, and that U.S. troops and weaponry would flow freely. Wider war could eventually result in the destruction of the state of Israel.

"This can be stopped, but only if you move quickly to pre-empt an Israeli attack by publicly condemning such a move before it happens."

The U.S.S. George Washington, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier capable of projecting more combat power than most of the world's air forces, is due to arrive in South Korea today (Thursday, July 22). Once there, along with its three escorts, it will take part in military exercises with the South Korean fleet, in a show of military strength to deter any further acts of madness by the alarmingly unstable North Koreans. This show of military strength, along with visits by the secretaries of Defense and State, are a powerful demonstration of American commitment to South Korean security and of solidarity with its threatened ally. So much so, in fact, that it makes the Obama Administration's standoffishness with, and bullying of, Israel all the more disturbing.