Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, has an op-ed in today’s New York Post defending the Ground Zero mosque. Actually, the Post informs us, it’s an adaptation of “Bloomberg’s prepared remarks for his annual Ramadan celebration at Gracie Mansion yesterday.”

It is a low performance. Bloomberg panders to his audience by slandering the two-thirds or so of Americans who take offense at the idea of a fancy new mosque near the site of an Islamic supremacist atrocity:

Islam did not attack the World Trade Center–al Qaeda did. To implicate all of Islam for the actions of a few who twisted a great religion is unfair and un-American.

The substance of this statement is unremarkable: Obviously it is wrong to implicate all of Islam in the 9/11 attacks.

But the mayor employs scurrilous McCarthyite rhetoric in an attempt to inflame emotions and divert attention from a point that should be equally obvious: The Ground Zero mosque planners have implicated themselves by seeking to exploit the symbolism of the site, whatever their purpose is in doing so.

Taranto points out one obvious flaw in Bloomberg’s statement: that the mosque supporters have essentially inserted themselves into the controversy by the very fact that they deliberately chose the site of the mosque solely based on the symbolism of the site and the opportunity to exploit that symbolism. THAT is why we are targeting them, and NOT simply because they are Muslim.

Another entirely different flaw in Bloomberg’s statement that I have yet to see anyone pick up on is the fact that Bloomberg simply shifts the blame from “Islam” to “al Qaeda”.

Using Bloomberg’s own logic for defending “Islam” in that ridiculous statement, one could just as easily say that it wasn’t all of al Qaeda who attacked us on 9/11; it was only those 19 hijackers! So, if he wants to be so technical about over-generalizing, why is he careful not to attribute the attacks to “Islam” (in whose name they were carried out), but not similarly careful when  attributing them to al Qaeda (also in whose name they were carried out)?

Ultimately, if one truly wants to be “fair” about it, one should do the judging not by religion or organization, per se, but by affiliation. In other words, anyone who affiliates themselves with individuals who publicly support such terrorist attacks should be equally condemned. As George W. Bush succinctly stated: “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.” It’s that simple.

So, if those behind the Ground Zero Mosque have been known to be affiliated with terrorists or supporters of terrorists (as has been widely reported), then it doesn’t matter whether they are with “al Qaeda” or with “Islam” in general. They chose to be with the terrorists, and they don’t belong in this country, let alone at Ground Zero.

Hezbollah backer Samar al-Hajj has recruited a ship full of women to provoke another altercation with the IDF over the Gaza blockade, including a nun and a “heavily pregnant” mother.  One can only wonder what’s next in their arsenal?  A shipful of cute big-brown-eyed puppies? A floating hospital? A kindergarten class on a school trip?

And despite claims that they will not be traveling with so much as a kitchen knife, I would seriously wonder whether that nun aboard is even really Catholic and what she might be hiding under her habit. And, as for the pregnant mother, it’s obvious that these people have no scruples and no morality when it comes to life and their children (watch any Islamist propagandist TV show and you’ll see it clearly before long), so I wouldn’t put it past her to be on a suicide mission for herself or even her unborn child (after all, hearing how they speak of their pride in birthing and raising children for martyrdom, one can only imagine how proud she’d be of a child who was able to “achieve” such a great “accomplishment” before even being born!).

Israel has every right to blockade a territory from which terror is launched against them, and Gaza has been such a territory ever since Israel foolishly trusted the Palestinian two-faced, hypocritical, lowlife leaders and uprooted their citizens from there, leaving it Judenrein.

If other countries and activist organizations want to challenge that blockade, then they are clearly going into this with the simple and straightforward knowledge that they are challenging the security of a sovereign country, not to mention directly challenging the power and authority of an entire army, and they therefore are well aware of the consequences and consequently deserve everything that comes their way.

If these activists’ objective is really about providing “humanitarian aid” to Gazans, then there is clearly a channel for that, as described and provided by Israel, with Israel even guaranteeing the activists’ ability to monitor the distribution. The only proviso is that the “aid” must be inspected first. If, as the activists claim, the supplies are nothing but benign medical supplies and the like, then they should have no problem with that. If, on the other hand, they do have a problem with that, then we can clearly question either: (1) the activists’ true motives; or (2) the content of the “humanitarian” supplies.

As it turns out, though, based on the last flotilla, we can actually question both of the above. After all, the last flotilla clearly had motives other than benevolent humanitarian aid (in fact, the notorious Mavi Marmara didn’t even have any humanitarian supplies aboard; just terrorists armed with knives, clubs, metal rods, and apparently even firearms).

Additionally, the organizers of the last flotilla clearly were not overly concerned about the contents of the “humanitarian” supplies: amidst all the knives, clubs, rods, and other weapons, most of the actual supplies (contact lenses, medications, etc.) were found to be past their expiration dates and virtually unusable by any professional medical organization. (Not that it matters, because Hamas, the corrupt terrorist Gazan authority, ultimately confiscates everything anyway and the average Gazan doesn’t ever see any of it.)

I sincerely hope that Israel stands their ground and does not cave in to all those international talking-head ninnies sitting safely in their comfortable homes under no threat of constant attack (nay, annihilation!). Doing so would only end up setting a precedent of letting such holes make their way into their blockade under pressure and, once they do that, the whole purpose of a blockade is defeated and Israel might as well just start supplying weapons to the Palestinians themselves. (Oh, wait… don’t they already do that?!… my, what a tragic joke this whole situation has become, and all because of “international opinion”…)

I then tried to listen to both sides of the argument, and to the claims that this was an effort to showcase “moderate Islam” in the most visible location. I also listened to the arguments for freedom of religion and tried to think of it from the Muslims’ point of view.

As hard as I tried, though, it was impossible for me to understand how these people thought they were going to promote the “sensitivities” of “moderate Islam”, along with interfaith dialog and reconciliation, when they’re essentially steamrolling their way over everyone’s feelings, forcing their way into everyone’s faces uninvited, and establishing their new mosque on a foundation of controversy, animosity, and lawsuits?  Who are they really fooling then, thinking that this will foster a healing process?

Well, finally, someone has written a clear and concise piece echoing those very sentiments, using an example from the past. Pope John Paul II, in his great wisdom and sensitivity, forced his own nuns to abandon an Auschwitz convent for the sake of sensitivity to Jews, despite the nuns’ inability to understand what the offense was when they were only praying for them with pure intentions, and despite the law being on their side. This is clearly a great example to follow, although admittedly not an easy one, as it involves sacrificing one’s own plans for the sake of repercussions one may not even understand or feel are warranted.

Here is the piece, written in today’s WSJ by William McGurn:

With every passing day, the dispute over the planned Islamic Center near Ground Zero grows more acrimonious. These feelings will probably only get worse today, when the New York City Landmark Preservation Commission is expected to remove another hurdle by ruling against landmark status for the undistinguished old building the center will replace.

So maybe it’s time to look beyond the lawyers and landmark preservation commissions and regulatory agencies. When we do, it will be hard to find a better example than the grace and wisdom Pope John Paul II exhibited during a similar clash involving another hallowed site on whose grounds innocents were also murdered: Auschwitz.

In the 1980s, Carmelite nuns moved into an abandoned building on the edge of the former Nazi death camp to pray for the souls taken there. As with the dispute over the mosque near Ground Zero, the convent’s presence escalated into a clash not only between different faiths but between competing historical narratives. As with today’s clash too, it seemed intractable until the Polish pope stepped in.

For Jews, Auschwitz is a symbol of the Shoah, and the presence of a convent looked like an effort to Christianize a place of Jewish suffering. Suspicions were further aroused by a fundraising brochure from an outside Catholic group, which referred to the convent as a “guarantee of the conversion of strayed brothers.” The protests mounted over the course of several years and various interfaith agreements, and pointed to the real strains that remained between Poles and Jews over a shared history with very different perspectives.

Many Catholics, not just in Poland, could not understand how nuns begging God’s forgiveness and praying for the souls of the departed could possibly offend anyone. There was also a nationalist element. Many members of the Polish resistance had also been murdered at Auschwitz. And again like our present controversy at Ground Zero, intemperate reactions and statements from both sides only inflamed passions.

So what did Pope John Paul II do? He waited, and he counseled. And when he saw that the nuns were not budging—and that their presence was doing more harm than good—he asked the Carmelites to move. He acknowledged that his letter would probably be a trial to each of the sisters, but asked them to accept it while continuing to pursue their mission in that same city at another convent that had been built for them.

Let’s remember what this means. By their own lights, the nuns believed they were doing only good. They may have had a legal title to be where they were. And it is likely that they never would have been forced to move by local authorities had they insisted on staying.

There’s a lesson here. Even those who favor this new Islamic Center surely can appreciate why some American feelings are rubbed raw by the idea of a mosque at a place where Islamic terrorists killed more than 2,700 innocent people. If feelings in Auschwitz were raw after nearly half a century, it’s not hard to see why they would remain raw at Ground Zero after less than a decade.

On the other hand, Mayor Michael Bloomberg is right about the law: Our freedom of religion means nothing if it doesn’t mean freedom of religion for all. Indeed, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty—a sort of ACLU for freedom of religion—has spent decades defending churches, synagogues, mosques and even a Zoroastrian temple against public officials who have tried to invoke zoning laws or arcane regulations to keep them off a property.

Yet not all big questions can—or should—be reduced to legal right. Living together as neighbors in a free and inescapably diverse society requires more skills than just knowing how to hire sharp lawyers. Sometimes it requires leaders willing to sound a grace note, even yielding to the feelings of others who may not see our plans the same way we do.

For their part, the two people at the heart of this center—Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and his wife, Daisy Khan—defend the center as an antidote to 9/11. “Our religion has been hijacked by the extremists,” Ms. Khan told National Public Radio, “and this center is going to create that counter-momentum which will amplify the voices of the moderate Muslims.”

Perhaps. But it’s hard to argue with the Anti-Defamation League’s assessment that the controversy created by building the center at this location “is counterproductive to the healing process.”

Without doubt Pope John Paul II did not share the more malevolent interpretations attached to the presence of the Carmelites at Auschwitz. By asking the nuns to withdraw, he didn’t concede them either. What he did was recognize that having the right to do something doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do.

For starters, the United States—admittedly usually favorable to Israel (Obama notwithstanding)—seems to have a large disparity in favor of Israel between the two sides in this particular incident. Rasmussen polls show that 49% of U.S. voters believe that pro-Palestinian “activists” on the Gaza-bound aid ships raided by Israeli forces are to blame for the resulting deaths, while only 19% think that Israel is to blame. 32% are not sure.

Throughout the rest of the world, though, this seems to be trending, as well (with growing divisiveness over the incident even in Turkey, as reported in today’s Wall Street Journal). The Guardian, in a report laden with anti-Israel bias and innuendo, admits that, “the Israeli PR machine succeeded in getting the major news outlets to focus on its version of events and to use the Israeli authorities’ discourse for a crucial 48 hours.”

I’m going off on a tangent, here, but note that this admission by the anti-Semitic Guardian was hardly made out of admiration, but rather almost as an accusation of some large-scale underhanded conspiracy, like when they refer to all the video as “confiscated by the Israelis and subsequently edited and made available through Israeli sources”, almost as though removing several hours of inactive footage changes the clear damning evidence.

Who are you gonna believe: me or your lyin’ eyes?!

Or, like when they refer to how “the Israeli PR machine [—yes, they actually call it that] succeeded in getting the major news outlets to focus on its version of events and to use the Israeli authorities’ discourse for a crucial 48 hours. (One example of how this was being done is a leaked, sophisticated briefing paper with key talking points, compiled using official government sources and pro-government Israeli media, issued through the World Zionist Organisation on 1 June.)”

Ahhh, so this is a World Zionist conspiracy. Were the “Elders” discussing any “Protocols”, while they were at it?

But, I digress…

Even in Turkey, as I briefly mentioned, there is a growing rift over Turkey’s involvement in and reaction to the raid. The Wall Street Journal reports that:

Turkey, united in its reaction to last week’s events when Turkish citizens on a Gaza-bound ship were killed by Israeli defense forces, is dividing over the government’s handling of the affair and the role of the Islamist charity that organized the aid convoy.

Opposition politicians and some newspaper columnists have expressed concern that the government has been riding public anger at Israel’s actions. That, they say, puts at risk Turkey’s delicate balance between East and West…

Kemal Kilicdaroglu, head of the main opposition Republican People’s Party… demanded the government release communications with Israel prior to the incident, suggesting it let the flotilla proceed despite knowing that violence was likely.

…Skepticism concerning the IHH version of events on the Mavi Marmara appears to have accelerated as a result of unexpected criticism of the IHH’s actions from influential Turkish spiritual leader Fethullah Gülen, in an interview last week with The Wall Street Journal. Analysts saw the intervention by a figure venerated by many in the government as a warning that the storm of anti-Israeli feeling risked getting out of hand.

“People will understand very soon that the IHH is harming Turkey,” wrote Cuneyt Ulsever, a columnist in the daily Hurriet, on Sunday, saying the effect of the crisis would be to persuade the West that Turkey is aligning itself with the likes of Iran, Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah.

Two major dailies, Hurriyet and Haberturk have now published on their front pages photographs of the bloodied Israeli soldiers captured during the initial fighting.

The religious conservative daily Vakit last week published on its front page the names and photographs of eight newspaper columnists who criticized the government’s handling of the flotilla case. The headline: “Spin doctors who shoot bullets at the aid ship.” A journalist whose photograph Vakit printed in similar circumstances in 1999 was assassinated.

The original photo, published by Turkey’s Hurriyet (and, to their credit, by AP) clearly shows one of a group of “activists” standing over a wounded Israeli soldier (in the lower right corner of the frame) holding a knife in his hand. The one published by Reuters, though, shows the same picture with the knife cropped out.

As LGF writes:

That’s a very interesting way to crop the photo. Most people would consider that knife an important part of the context. There was a huge controversy over whether the activists were armed. Cropping out a knife, in a picture showing a soldier who’s apparently been stabbed, seems like a very odd editorial decision.

Unless someone was trying to hide it.

Here are the two pictures:

Amazingly enough, this is not Reuters’ only modified photo.

LGF has exposed a second photo, this time showing how Reuters “deleted” a badly wounded Israeli soldier, a pool of what is likely his blood, and another knife!

Here is Reuters’ picture:

If you take the original photo, and restore the contrast and levels, you will see all three cropped and hidden items:

And, this is not the first time Reuters has been caught doctoring pictures of Israeli-Palestinian conflicts to make Israel look bad.

So, when will Reuters finally be called to answer for their deceptive journalism?

Here’s a great video of some further examples of photo doctoring that would be laughable if the consequences weren’t so grave:

UPDATE

Reuters today posted the following announcement on their feedback blog:

A number of readers contacted us about this. At the top and bottom you can see our initial cropped versions on the left, and the full frame versions on the right.

The images in question were made available in Istanbul, and following normal editorial practice were prepared for dissemination which included cropping at the edges. When we realized that a dagger was inadvertently cropped from the images, Reuters immediately moved the original set, as well.

Considering their tainted history, I suppose “when we realized” is really just Reuterspeak for “when our cover was blown”.  I’d cut them some more slack if this was their first offense, but being that they’re running up an abysmal track record, I can only hope that LGF keeps forcing these “realizations”.

Maybe the old hag forgot that the Jews lost all their “homes” around the time that they were herded up and marched into gas chambers and ovens. As Jeff Dumetz says, addressing that witch in a column he wrote immediately after that video broke, “you do remember the Holocaust right? Heck you’re old enough to remember the Crusades”! Or, maybe, being of Arab lineage herself, she just chose to rewrite the Holocaust completely out of history like so many of her people have already done.

She has since issued a half-hearted apology on her web site, saying, “I deeply regret my comments I made last week regarding the Israelis and the Palestinians. They do not reflect my heartfelt belief that peace will come to the Middle East only when all parties recognize the need for mutual respect and tolerance. May that day come soon.”

Isn’t it ironic that her heartfelt belief that peace will come when there is mutual respect and tolerance comes right on the heels of the most disgusting display of disrespect and intolerance? Spoken like a true hypocrite.

I join many others in calling for the job of this Nazi witch. Let her go back “home” to her parents’ Lebanon and find a job there.

UPDATE

The fallout has been rapid so far.

Already, her agent dropped her as a client, a prominent DC suburb high school canceled her appearance at their graduation, and an author who collaborated with her on her last book has issued a statement saying that he “will no longer be working with Helen on our book projects”.

That’s right: Hamas refused the humanitarian aid because it didn’t break the blockade. Had this really been about getting aid to needy people, and about humanitarian objectives, this would not have happened.

This is also further proof that those people who are still defending these savages and terrorists are doing so not for legitimate, ethical reasons, but simply out of ideological hatred of Israel.

If Turkey goes ahead with this audacious move, this is also going to be a huge test for the United States. It goes without saying that if any country were to provide an official military escort for hostile terrorists to openly and brazenly sail to the United States, that the United States would consider that a blatant act of war. The question is: would Obama—proven to be no friend of Israel—use the same measuring stick with Israel? Unfortunately, one cannot get one’s hopes up.

Therefore, as I stated in my previous post, Israel needs to completely disregard the irrational demands and concerns of its fickle “friends”, and to continue to just look out for itself.

Incidentally, Ronen Bergman wrote a piece in today’s Wall Street Journal in which he believes Israel is finally doing just that. Outlining all the “can’t-win” situations that Israel has recently faced (“the Goldstone Report condemning Israel’s war in Gaza, the international furor after the assassination of a Hamas leader in Dubai, even the statement singling out Israel at the recent Nuclear Nonproliferation Conference“), he writes:

Isolation is no longer a threat to be fought, their thinking seems to go, because Israel is [already] terminally isolated. What remains is to concentrate exclusively on what is best for Israel’s survival, shedding any regard for the opinion of others.

Unfortunately, though, Bergman doesn’t agree with my viewpoint on this, as he posits this as a bad thing:

Israel’s fatigue and deep sense of ostracism is, to say the least, unhealthy. It would be unhealthy for any country at the best of times. But it is particularly troubling when the country in question is at perpetual war, and when it is repeatedly threatened with annihilation by the leader of a country who is actively pursuing nuclear weapons. And, of course, it is profoundly disturbing when the fatigued and isolated country itself has the means to strike pre-emptively and punishingly at its enemies, including in ways from which, realistically, there may be no return.

His logic seems to imply that a country should compromise its decisions regarding the security of its citizens just because the world is ramping up its virulent hatred. Bergman is making the same original mistake in thinking that Israel can change the minds of those people. Yes, Israel is most certainly fatigued, but Bergman mistakenly attributes this relatively new unilateral self-preservationist approach to that fatigue, rather than to Israel’s long overdue dawning recognition of the world’s immutable hatred.

And, I thank God that Israel has “the means to strike preemptively and punishingly”, especially “in ways from which there may be no return”. The archetypal game theory advantage that this brings to the table is probably one of the only mechanisms in place preventing rabid lunatics like Ahmadinejad from reducing Israel to rubble.

Apparently, these terrorists want to capitalize on the world’s reflexive condemnation of Israel. They want to push Israel further into a no-win situation by forcing them to choose between either escalating this blockade battle under the glaring global spotlight that has now been switched on, or effectively giving the blockade up entirely and thereby reopening a channel for arms smuggling—either outcome being a tactical victory for the terrorists.

Regardless, though, of Israel’s lack of favorable options in this crisis, it needs to look out for the safety of its citizens first, and not try to salvage or regain favor in the eyes of the very few fickle, fair-weather “friends” that it has in the world if that means compromising that safety in any way. In other words, it needs to ensure at all costs that arms are kept out of Gaza, and if that means fortifying the blockade at the displeasure and condemnation of the rest of the world, then so be it. At stake, ultimately, is not just its security or its maritime sovereignty, but its very existence.

Thankfully, a top navy commander was quoted in that Jerusalem Post article (anonymously) as saying just that: “We boarded the ship and were attacked as if it was a war…. That will mean that we will have to come prepared in the future as if it was a war.” Hopefully, this tactical approach will be fully supported by Netanyahu—and expanded to every other front against Palestinian terrorists and their accomplices.

Unfortunately, there will always be critics of Israel who—even when faced with clear evidence that these savages are in no way out for “peace”—will defend those savages and continue to call them “peace activists” and will continue to condemn and lambaste Israel no matter what it does.

After all, Israel clearly and publicly offered to pass the “humanitarian supplies” directly to Gaza, as long as it was unloaded under their supervision in Ashdod. That offer was rebuffed, clearly demonstrating that this is not at all about helping the “poor” Gazans, but about provoking Israel, as well as forcing Israel to reopen a channel for smuggling arms. And did that illogical refusal by the flotilla participants (illogical in its inconsistency with their stated claims of having only humanitarian aid as an objective) awaken any of these critics to the real underlying objectives of the flotilla? Of course not; some people just love to hate, slander, and malign Israel.

In fact, if they didn’t have a convenient vehicle to express their hatred, as the blindly twisted flotilla story now provides, they would just make something up out whole cloth, like the recent Aftonbladet organ harvesting slander (the Swedish blood libel about which I previously posted). It’s that simple.

So, Israel must come to terms with that sad unfair truth, and must realize that they will never be able to “justify” their actions to people for whom “justice” is a very muddled and subjective concept.  Only once Israel realizes that, and starts worrying solely about itself, will it begin to establish a more realistic and rational foundation for dealing with the Palestinians and securing its own citizens.

She writes:

Trust the UN to place in a position of moral authority to loyal servants of the most hideous regimes. The truth is that while we were all shocked to discover the Nazi past of Kurt Waldheim, the former Austrian UN secretary General, we are hardly surprised to discover that Richard Goldstone, the useful Jew the UN Human Rights Commission chose to issue a report condemning Israel for human rights violations based on Hamas evidence used to be a loyal Apartheid hanging judge.

As Alan [Dershowitz] notes, even his response to the revelations (that he was part of the system) is reminiscent of Nazi war criminals. Ynet reports:

Yedioth Ahronoth investigation reveals man preaching human rights, who authored scathing report against Israel’s operation in Gaza, sent at least 28 black defendants to gallows as South African judge under Apartheid regime Tehiya Barak . . .A special Yedioth Ahronoth investigation reveals Richard Goldstone’s dark side as a judge during the Apartheid era in South Africa. It turns out, the man who authored the Goldstone Report criticizing the IDF’s actions during Operation Cast Lead took an active part in the racist policies of one of the cruelest regimes of the 20th century.

During his tenure as sitting as judge in the appellant court during the 1980s and 1990s sentenced dozens of blacks mercilessly to their death.

This stain on Goldstone’s past kept him from coming out against the death penalty on many occasions and from vehemently criticizing countries who still allow executions. Goldstone didn’t bother confessing and telling about his actions in any of his statements or speeches. Yedioth Ahronoth’s findings show that Goldstone sentenced at least 28 black defendants to death. Most of them were found guilty of murder and sought to appeal the verdict. In those days, he actually made sure he showed his support for the execution policy, writing in one verdict that it reflects society’s demands that a price be paid for crimes it rightfully views as frightening.

In another verdict, in which he upheld the execution of a young black man convicted of murdering a white restaurant owner after he fired him, Goldstone wrote that the death penalty is the only punishment likely to deter such acts.

‘Merely upholding laws of country’ It should be noted that whites, granted superior status under Apartheid Law, were the ones calling that such a heavy price be exacted for violent crimes, while the black majority in South Africa consistently opposed the death penalty.

Only in 1995 when Nelson Mandela took power was the South African constitution amended and the death penalty abolished. Hundreds of people sitting on death row were spared, including some that Goldstone himself sent there.

Even when it came to far less serious offenses, Goldstone sided through and through with the racist policies of the Apartheid regime. Among other things, he approved the whipping of four blacks found guilty of violence, while he acquitted four police officers who had broken into a white woman’s house on suspicions that she was conducting sexual relations with a black man – something considered then in South Africa as a serious crime.

In another incident, Goldstone sentenced two young black men merely for being in possession of a video tape showing a speech given by one of the senior officials in Nelson Mandela’s party.

In response to sections of the study presented to him, Goldstone said that he has always been opposed to the death penalty, but because was acting within a legal system in which the death penalty exists, his hands were tied. He also claimed that he was obligated to honor the laws of the country, even under Apartheid rule, and could not find enough mitigating evidence to spare the defendants from execution.

Goldstone claimed that he never discriminated against black defendants and acted to the best of his abilities to act fairly, though he was sometimes morally opposed to the laws he was upholding. He noted that he was equally committed to maintain equality and to uphold the law, two principles that often clashed.

Dershowitz: That’s what Mengele said too Following the revelations, prominent American lawyer Alan Dershowitz compared Goldston’e defense to that of Nazi war criminals. “Goldstone took a job as an apartheid judge. He allowed dozens of black people who were unfairly tried to be executed,” Dershowitz told Channel 2 TV.

“You know, a lot of people say we just followed the law, German judges… That’s what (German SS officer and physician Josef) Mengele said too. That was Mengele’s defense and that was what everybody said in Nazi Germany. ‘We just followed the law.’ When you are in an apartheid country like South Africa, you don’t follow the law,” Dershowitz added.

Vera Baker

I don’t normally put too much stock into what gets reported in the National Enquirer. Their latest “breaking news” story, though, is very reminiscent of another, similar story of theirs which scooped the rest of the news world and has recently been submitted for a Pulitzer Prize.

That story was the affair of John Edwards with Rielle Hunter. This new story is the affair of… non other than Barack Obama with Vera Baker, a former political fundraiser currently in her mid-thirties.

The affair in question is reported to have happened back in 2004, and has made the rounds of unsubstantiated blogs on and off since then—until now, when this was picked up by the National Enquirer who has the “persuasive financial means” to lure formerly tight-lipped aides and holders of hotel surveillance videotapes out of the woodworks.

One blog who has been holding out hope all along and is feeling ever closer to vindication is The Astute Bloggers, on whose site you can see a short history of this saga.

Of course, until some conclusive evidence turns up, this is still highly speculative and hopeful—although “hopeful” may not be the best word to use, because even if this does turn out to be true, and even if they unearth hours of damning video, it’s a pretty sure thing that Obama will get a “pass” for this from most of his followers (especially since anyone who still likes him today, is obviously not a poster child for intelligence, common sense, and rationality).

So, in this sharply divided world of blind Obama lovers, and clear-sighted Obama haters, you’ll have the lovers making all sorts of excuses for his infidelity (“have you seen what Michelle looks like when she’s angry?!?”) and you’ll have the haters piling on yet more (well-deserved) scorn and cries of hypocrisy.

Still… a little schadenfreude goes a long way. Especially when we’re all still hurting and sore from the repeated royal screwing Obama’s been giving us (and our future generations) ever since he took office.

As most of you already know, he was convicted of money laundering and bank fraud last year and, since then, has clearly been chosen to be punished so severely as to “set an example”. There’s a clear and distinct line, though, beyond which an example is being made not of the person’s crime and his punishment, but rather of the injustice of his treatment! While I certainly do not condone his past criminal activities, I am appalled at this treatment.

While other CEOs in similar situations (or worse!) often get off with a slap on the wrist, e.g., the fine levied against the CEO of Toyota for mechanical failures (resulting in actual victims, by the way), for some reason the federal prosecutors decided that a case like this involving a prominent Jew would be a good candidate for an unprecedentedly harsh punishment.

Despite breaking news that they aren’t pursuing a life sentence anymore, they are still pushing for a 25-year sentence which, his lead attorney points out, is “a step in the right direction but for all practical purposes it’s still a life request.”

Please view the video below, and go to http://justiceforsholom.org and sign the petition there!

1. Israel is willing to enter direct negotiations with the appropriate representatives of the Palestinians and the Arab countries to whom they look for support. This has been Israeli policy since repelling attacks from Arab countries in 1948 and 1967, despite repeated rejection of negotiation by the Arab side.

2. We welcome the encouragement and support of this policy from countries throughout the world who want to see peace established. However, we reject any interference and any attempt to impose conditions by countries outside the region of conflict.

3. To the extent that countries outside the region interfere by casting Israel as an “obstacle to peace” and applying pressure on Israel to make unilateral and unreciprocated concessions, the probability of establishing a permanent peace agreement is diminished. Such outside interference will serve to encourage the Arab side to withhold from making any agreement and wait until they can try again to destroy Israel militarily. A continual barrage of undeserved criticism, interference in negotiations, and attempts to impose conditions by the countries of the world will make negotiation useless and lead to further military conflict. If these circumstances persist, Israeli policy will adapt accordingly.

Unfortunately, Obama, in his boundless arrogance, will likely continue his bitter aggression towards Israel and Netanyahu, and will continue bowing and prostrating himself in front of one Arab dictator after another, continuing his shameful display on behalf of our embarrassed country.

John Podhoretz, editor of Commentary Magazine, actually captured the shockingness and preposterousness of it in a great editorial in the latest issue of his magazine, entitled, “Mr. President, Your Animus Is Showing“. He writes:

The declaration this morning on the front page of the New York Times that the Obama administration has made an explicit shift in the U.S.-Israel relationship brings to mind words I published in COMMENTARY 10 months ago about the relationship between the United States and Israel in the Age of Obama: “There is no question that we have entered a new era, one that I expect will be characterized by tensions and unpleasantnesses of a kind unseen since the days when George H. W. Bush was president, James A. Baker III was secretary of state, and the hostility toward Israel oozed from both men like sweat from an intrepid colonial traveler’s brow as he journeyed across the Rub-al-Khali.”

Prophetic? Perhaps, but if you wish to credit me with visionary foresight, I have to confess that the reports of President Obama’s conduct toward Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during their deliberately unphotographed White House meeting in March still came as a cold shock to me. We still don’t know quite what happened, but it appears that the president came into the room with a list of unilateral demands, that he grew impatient with Netanyahu’s answers, and that he left unceremoniously by claiming he was going to have dinner with his wife and kids but that he would “be around” in case the prime minister “changed” his tune.

Even if the meeting was only half as confrontational and chilly as the reports indicated, it would still represent a display of rudeness and high-handedness unprecedented in the annals of American diplomacy. But since the target of Obama’s startling behavior was Israel, something especially complicated was at work. The president’s conduct was so extreme that it would be unthinkable for him to act in such a fashion toward the leader of any other nation, friend or foe. Obama knows that Israel needs the United States so much it is in no position to complain—particularly since the president was supposedly still in a snit over the ham-handed revelation in Israel, in the midst of Vice President Biden’s March visit, of the construction of 1,600 new housing units in Jerusalem.

Maybe Obama was operating, even unconsciously, in the unique spirit of informal aggression that can only be expressed between familial intimates. For who else would feel free to express such open rudeness at a special occasion? More likely, he was behaving in the manner of a liege lord demanding compensation from someone he considers his vassal. This attitude might explain as well the president’s otherwise perplexing treatment of other friendly leaders—Gordon Brown of Great Britain, Nicolas Sarkozy of France, Silvio Berlusconi of Italy—who may not seem to Obama to possess sufficient rank for him to treat them as allies of comparable stature.

Obama’s open hostility toward Netanyahu and his disproportionate reaction to the unintentional slight delivered to Biden are important, and deadly serious, because there is no doubt they were authentic expressions of real emotion. We’ve seen Obama be a little churlish and somewhat peevish, but rarely more openly negative than that. Nothing in the course of his presidency has made him angry, so far as we know, in the way that Israel and Netanyahu have made him angry. Not Iran’s defiance and game-playing. Not the supposed chicanery of Wall Street and the monstrous insurance companies that have served as his populist targets. Not even Rush Limbaugh.

This is meaningful. It suggests not merely that Obama differs with Israel on matters of policy but also that he takes these differences personally. And that, in turn, demonstrates there is an animus at work here, a predisposition to think badly of Israel—to view the Jewish state at best as an impediment to the good working order of a fairer world and at worst as a sower of discord. This is a bitter truth, but it is a truth, no matter how many Jews Obama knows or likes or employs, no matter how many Potemkin Passover seders he stages in the people’s house in which he is a temporary resident and in which he chose to treat a friend he ought to cherish instead like an enemy he cannot abide.

In response, the least transparent and most despotic administration in the history of this country decided to make the unprecedented move of chasing away all reporters, cameras, people, etc. from the area, apparently in hopes that the story will go away if only the reporters and cameras go away.

The protesters should just be glad that it’s only Year Two of this administration, where he only feels comfortable taking away the rights of free press… and not Year Three or Four, where he may already just take away those protesters’ rights to assemble and throw them all in a dungeon somewhere.

While you watch the following video where a stunned reporter calls this “outrageous” and “ridiculous” as a police officer barks out his “eviction order”, please take a moment to consider what the backlash would have been like had this come from a Republican administration!

What is it with this stupid phrase? Why is it that people can’t try to be a little creative and mix it up a bit with alternatives like “in the end”, or “when all is said and done”, or—best of all—just a simple “ultimately”? How long are we going to be subjected to this stupid phrase over and over again ad nauseam?

If you’re reading this, I apologize for opening your eyes to something that has probably always just gone right past you unnoticed, and for probably now making you, like me, cringe every time you hear the phrase.