A powerful tea party ad

Here's a powerful and very clever TV ad that unfortunately sums up my feelings completely. If we don't want the United States to decline, we've got to do something about our dreadful fiscal situation.

My fellow Americans, please vote for sanity!

Some weekend reading

If anyone is looking for some good reading, here are two new books I highly recommend:

-- Daniel Hannan's The New Road to Serfdom is a plea by a British conservative for Americans not to forget what makes the United States unique. He warns: "The U.S. Constitution was both a product and a protector of American optimism. When one is disregarded, the other dwindles." His book also contains a devastating critique of the EU's complete lack of democracy.

-- Mark Durie, in The Third Choice, lays out clearly the discriminatory rules that Islam applies to non-Muslim peoples and how those rules have been enforced over the centuries. Durie warns that Westerners, often acting either out of a desire to be conciliatory or out of fear, adopt a submissive position that Muslims interpret as accepting Islamic superiority.

The weekend is only half over, so enjoy reading them tomorrow!

While you were sleeping

Mideast expert Barry Rubin highlights here that: "Indian investigators have confirmed that Pakistani intelligence was deeply involved in the massive, bloody Mumbai terror attack in 2008, killing 166 people." As he notes, this report has garnered virtually no notice, including from the U.S. government.

Rubin speculates: "The strategy of ignoring this problem fits into the broader strategy of the Obama administration: buy short-term quiet and apparent popularity at the price of strategic decline and future crises." And he asks, "does the Obama administration want to be an ally of those who murdered 166 people in Mumbai, the equivalent of backing those who carried out the September 11, Lockerbie, Spanish train, and British underground attacks?"

I think the Obama administration has two additional motivations for its silence. First, at least some officials won't or can't admit that "outreach to the Muslim world" won't solve all our problems. Second, I think simple cowardice is also a factor.

Our relationship with Pakistan is certainly complex and we have a lot to lose if relations deteriorate. But there are already reports that Pakistani officials have been helping the Taliban kill Americans in Afghanistan. Now we learn that Pakistani intelligence was behind the recruitment of an American to go to India to identify terrorist targets, including Americans.

Just what more do the Pakistanis have to do to get our attention?

Something else for a change

Joe has told me I need to add more commentary to my blog, but in this case, I truly believe this clip will speak for itself. Enjoy! And no, it has nothing to do with foreign policy...although it is French.

What's going on Down Under

Rachel sent me this video news clip of a convicted Islamic terrorist who lived 19 years in Australia, all the time on the dole, while plotting to blow up various Australian targets and create mayhem. Watch it and weep! Western countries are their own worst enemy - the United States included.

America and Israel

In contrast to yesterday's entry about European anti-Semitism, here's an article by American-Israeli journalist Caroline Glick about recent U.S. public opinion polls measuring U.S. support for Israel. Some highlights:

-- "93.5 percent of Americans believe that the United States should be concerned about Israel's security."

-- "Whereas 78 percent of American Jews voted for Obama in 2008, today a bare majority of 51 percent approve of his performance in office . . . This is directly related to Obama's hostility towards Israel."

And for those, like me, who missed it, she recounts an appalling exchange:

"On Tuesday State Department Spokesman P.J. Crowley was asked, "Do you [i.e. the administration] recognize Israel as a Jewish state and will you try to convince the Palestinians to recognize it?

As Rick Richman at Commentary's blog noted, Crowley repeatedly tried to evade answering the question. Reporters were forced to repeat the question six separate times before Crowley managed to say, 'We recognize that Israel is a --- as it says itself, is a Jewish state, yes.'

As for whether or not the administration will try to convince the Palestinians to recognize the Jewish state, Crowley could not bring himself to give a simple affirmative answer."

So, what do you think? Will President Obama at some time will change his Mideast policies because he realizes they are wildly unpopular? Or, as with ObamaCare, will he assume the problem is that we're all just too dumb to understand how brilliant his policies are?

Wilders on trial

Geert Wilders, the Dutch politician who has spoken out against Islam, is on trial in The Netherlands, although the exact charges against him seem to be moving around a bit. According to FrontPageMag, the prosecutors recommended dropping the group defamation charge against him, admitting that he has criticized Islamic texts and teachings but not Muslims themselves.

However, the prosecutors still want him to face charges of inciting hatred; the fact that what he said was true is apparently not relevant. Of course, when the state can determine which truths may be told in public and which may not, there isn't much left to freedom of speech. Or to freedom, for that matter.

European anti-Semitism

Here's the latest update from the Jewish Policy Center on the continuing growth of anti-Semitism in Europe, typically masked as anti-Israel-ism or anti-Zionism. Check out the photo in the link showing a huge, overtly anti-Semitic sign at a soccer match in Poland.

The European Jewish Congress (EJC), a democratically elected representative umbrella organization of European Jewry, has warned of serious danger for European Jewish communities. EJC President Moshe Kantor noted that "anti-Semitism is at best actively promoted and at worst ignored by some officials in Europe."

Indeed, according to anti-Semitism expert Robert Wistrich, anti-Semitism is worse in 2010 than it was in 1910. The mix of leftists, Islamists and neo-Nazis is brewing this toxic stew, and the mainstream is doing little or nothing to stop them.

So why is it that Americans want to be more like Europeans? We must be nuts.

A ray of light

In the welter of anti-Israel speeches, boycotts, accusations of Israeli apartheid and Nazism, here's one rational voice. UK Methodist preacher David Hallam is suing his church for its decision to boycott some Israeli goods.

Hallam's view: "What I object to is money which I am putting on the collection plate on a Sunday being used to fund a political campaign against the Jewish state. This is both discriminatory and a misuse of a charity's funds . . . The Methodist Church seems to think it has a God given right to tell Jews how to run their affairs. It is very disturbing we are getting involved in a territory where we don't have any members or churches."

What's really interesting about this case is that Hallam is going to sue on the basis of an EU directive against racism: Israel is being discriminated against because it is being singled out, even though many other countries have worse human rights records. If Hallam succeeds, this should put a damper on other boycotts and anti-Israel actions in Europe, since most countries are members of the EU. (Thanks to Daily Alert.)

Friends of Israel

For anyone who's interested in supporting the State of Israel, a new and prestigious group called the Friends of Israel Initiative has been organized to counter efforts to de-legitimize and demonize that country.

The group includes Jose Maria Asnar, former prime minister of Spain, and former Czech president Vaclav Havel, among others. As Aznar puts it: "All we want is a normal and reasonable conversation about Israel. Surely, that is not too much to ask."

If you want to support the group, you can sign the petition on their website here and also sign up to receive their newsletters.

Ah, Scandinavia!

Here are a few updates from Scandinavia to round out your picture of beautiful fjords, tall, blond and handsome people and a lot of reindeer:

-- Sweden's sole anti-immigration party won enough seats to be represented in parliament, and may end up joining the government, albeit only over the dead bodies of most mainline Swedish politicians. If you're wondering why people voted for this new party, here's one possible explanation:

"In Malmö, Sweden's third-largest city, almost 40% of the population is foreign; and some immigrant neighborhoods in the city have unemployment rates exceeding 60%. In Malmö's mostly Muslim Rosengard neighborhood, fire and emergency workers refuse to enter without police protection. An immigrant-fuelled crime wave affects one of every three Malmö families each year, while the number of rapes has tripled in 20 years."

-- And in Norway, the government is doing a great job of adhering to high moral standards. It recently banned any sea trials of submarines built in Germany but destined for the Israeli navy. Why? Because it considers the Israeli navy's blockade of Gaza to be illegal. If you really want to inform yourself about Norway (at the risk of making yourself ill), trying reading a short little book, The Anti-Jewish Riots in Oslo, by Eirik Eiglad.

Next time someone tells you it would be great if the United States could just be more like Scandinavia, see if he or she knows anything about this stuff. (Thanks to Daily Alert.)

A must read

Here, thanks to Barry Rubin, is the text of a sermon delivered by Rabbi Lewis of Atlanta, Georgia, earlier this month on Rosh Hashanah. Lewis argues that radical Islam is the evil of our time and must be recognized as such. We need to fight it, not pander to it and seek to placate its adherents. Lewis sees today's challenge as equal to that posed by the Nazis, and I agree with him.

Rubin says that this sermon has gone viral on the internet because it reflects the fears and concerns of many in the Jewish community. I would add that many non-Jews are equally worried, and with good cause.

If our political elite won't lead the way, and if our media insist on twisting and distorting the facts, we'll have to work around them. We must find other leaders - individuals who, like Lewis, can no longer remain silent. We are at war, and we need to act accordingly.

And by the way, in Troublesome Young Men, Lynne Olson shows that the situation in Britain prior to World War II wasn't all that different from what we face today. Appeasement and disarmament were politically correct, and resistance to the Nazis truly hung by a thread. Nevertheless, the British public perceived the threat and supported those leaders who faced it. We can do the same.