Warning: This Post Uses a Few Words of the Mamaloshen (slang for Yiddish, means the mother tongue) So Zei Gezunt (be healthy) and continue reading.

On Yom Kippur, the rabbi stops in the middle of the service, prostrates himself beside the bema, (the platform from which services are conducted) and cries out, “Oh, God. I am not worthy!” Saul Rosenberg, president of the synagogue is so moved by this demonstration of piety that he immediately throws himself to the floor beside the rabbi and cries, “Oh, God! “I am not worthy” Then Chaim Pitkin, a tailor, jumps from his seat, prostrates himself in the aisle and cries, “Oh God! I am not worthy!” Rosenberg nudges the rabbi and whispers, “So look who thinks he’s not worthy.”

I’m not sure if this is just an American phenom or not, but here in the US Jewish Community everyone thinks they are a “macher” (big shot), not necessarily for the weight they have in the secular world but for the weight they think they have in the Jewish Community. In most cases the people who think they are “machers” are really “pisks” (nobodies). Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chairman of the DNC is that kind of “pisk.”

Yesterday almost all the GOP candidates addressed the Republican Jewish Coalition in a candidates forum. The lone exception was Ron Paul who was not invited for his own health. The RJC was worried that the aged Paul would suffer undue stress being in a room with so many Jews (that is my theory, not the RJC’s rationale).

One by one the candidates spoke, each telling the truth about Obama’s anti-Israel policies, and his weak responses to the Iranian nuke program. Although Israel is an issue important to all Americans,  it is especially important to the ones of the Jewish faith.

Every candidate promising they would treat Israel like the valuable ally she is (based on their track records probably true). Many of them even promising to move the US embassy to Jerusalem (don’t hold your breath on that one, George W Bush failed to come through on that promise  and he was probably the most Pro-Israel president in my lifetime).

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney accused Obama of being “timid and weak” in the face of Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapon capability and of insulting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He suggested Obama’s actions have “emboldened Palestinian hard-liners and said the president has “immeasurably set back the prospect of peace in the Middle East.”

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, whose recent rise in the polls has threatened Romney, earned applause when he suggested he’d ask George W. Bush’s hawkish former UN ambassador, John Bolton, to serve as Secretary of State.

Speeches mean nothing, but when you look into the background of all of the GOP candidates each (with the exception of Paul) would represent a marked improvement in foreign policy issues, than the present occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

To respond, DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz held a conference call with mainstream media  reporters.

“What we heard today was a lot of bluster from a bunch of candidates who are quick to support wiping out Israel’s foreign aid budget when talking in one forum, only to say something different when taking to the Republican Jewish coalition,” she said.

Amy Myers Jaffe of Rice University says in the next decade, new oil in the US, Canada and South America could change the center of gravity of the entire global energy supply.

“Some are now saying, in five or 10 years’ time, we’re a major oil-producing region, where our production is going up,” she says.

The US, Jaffe says, could have 2 trillion barrels of oil waiting to be drilled. South America could hold another 2 trillion. And Canada? 2.4 trillion. That’s compared to just 1.2 trillion in the Middle East and north Africa.

Jaffe says those new oil reserves, combined with growing turmoil in the Middle East, will “absolutely propel more and more investment into the energy resources in the Americas.”

Russia is already feeling the growth of American energy, Jaffe says. As the U.S. produces more of its own natural gas, Europe is free to purchase liquefied natural gas the US is no longer buying.

“They’re buying less natural gas from Russia,” Jaffe says. “So Russia would only supply 10 percent of European natural gas demand by 2030. That means the Russians are no longer powerful.”

The American energy boom, Jaffe says, could endanger many green-energy initiatives that have gained popularity in recent years. But royalties and revenue from U.S. production of oil and natural gas, she adds, could be used to invest in improving green technology.

“We don’t have the commercial technology now,” she says, noting the recent bankruptcy of American solar companies like Solyndra.

“The point is you can’t force a technology that’s not commercial. Rather than subsidize things that are not going to be competitive, we need to actually use that money to do R&D to create technologies — the same way that the industries created these technologies to produce natural gas and it turned out so commercially successful.”

Read the whole thing here.

“…on a day when others tried to divide us, we can regain the sense of common purpose that stirred in our hearts 10 years ago. As a nation, we face difficult challenges, and as citizens in a democratic society we engage in vigorous debates about the future. But as we do, let’s never forget the lesson we learned anew 10 years ago — that our differences pale beside what unites us and that when we choose to move forward together, as one American family, the United States doesn’t just endure, we can emerge from our tests and trials stronger than before. That’s the America we were on 9/11 and in the days that followed. That’s the America we can and must always be.”
– Pres. Barack Obama, USA Today, Sept. 8, 2011

Ten year have passed since the Islamist attacks on the United States of America; attacks that killed 2,977 people in New York, Washington, DC and Shanksville, PA. Since that time we have routed the Taliban from their haven in Afghanistan, dispatched Osama bin Laden to the icy deep and lopped off many of the heads of the Islamist terror hydra. We have grown as a people to better understand the dysfunctional relationship that the Islamic theo-political dogma has with Western Culture. And we have done our best to attain closure, for ourselves, for our society and for our country.

But closure can be hard to attain when there are no bodies to bury and no pointed victory over a vanquished foe. And when closure alludes because of unresolved issues we must always re-examine the event; the moment; the realities.

At the ten year mark, an American president is foolishly stopping short of succeeding in a generational conflict with fundamentalist Islamists…or radical Islamists…or jihadists, you pick the politically correct term the Progressive-Left elitists are sanctioning as appropriate this week. To me, they are the enemy; bloodthirsty ideologues who are committed to ideological conquest by the sword in their quest to establish a global Caliphate existing under the exclusive stricture of Sharia Law. But then, that’s just me…educated on the subject and painfully realistic in my examination. You see, I dispensed with the self-imposed mental handicap of political correctness years ago…and I feel a lot better for having done so. I also see things a lot clearer without the fog of stupidity clouding every issue.

At the ten year mark, a secularist New York Mayor – along with the Progressive elites of his ilk – is advocating for the construction of a victory mosque within the footprint of the fallen World Trade Center. New York’s Mayor Bloomberg, about as self-righteous as they come, is so certain that a “kumbaya” inclusionist approach to fundamentalist Islam will heal the rift between cultures that he refuses to examine the Islamic traditions of conquest; traditions that include building great mosques over conquered lands and, in particular, conquered religious properties. One need only understand that mosques now stand over holy places meaningful to religions that existed long before Muhammad or the theo-political creed that is Islam, established in 610 A.D., to validate this reality.

Ten years on we witness an American Administration that not only sullies the relationship between the United States and its greatest Middle Eastern ally, Israel, but acts transparently in its deference to the Palestinian Movement; a movement of predominantly intolerant, and in many cases violent, Islamists who stake claim to an area that, historically, never existed. It should be noted that these Palestinian Islamists are the same people who danced in the streets of Gaza in celebration of the slaughter that took place on American soil September 11, 2001.

Ten years on we observe an American Administration completely ignoring the sanctity of free speech – a freedom guaranteed in the First Amendment of the United States Constitution – in its advocacy of a move by the Islamic and global communities (via the United Nations) to “combat” so-called Islamophobia.

Nina Shea, director of the Hudson Institute’s Center on Religious Freedom and a member of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, writes:

“An unprecedented collaboration between the Obama administration and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to combat ‘Islamophobia’ may lead to the de-legitimization of freedom of expression as a human right.

“The administration is taking the lead in an international effort to ‘implement’ a UN resolution against religious ‘stereotyping,’ specifically as applied to Islam.

“To be sure, the administration argues that the effort should not result in free-speech curbs. However, its partners in the collaboration, the 56 member states of the OIC, have no such qualms.

“Many OIC states police private speech through Islamic blasphemy laws that the Saudi-based OIC has long worked to see applied universally. Under Muslim pressure, Western Europe now has laws against religious hate speech that serve as proxies for Islamic blasphemy codes.”

It would seem that those who want to honestly examine and debate the grotesque contradictions presented by Muslims of a fundamentalist Islamic bent in their alleged symbiotic relationship with the West face the challenge of censorship should they dare to confront issues such as honor killings, female genital mutilation, gender equality, rights for homosexuals in the Islamic culture, freedom of religion in Islamic nations, etc.

Ten years on from the mass slaughter of September 11, 2001, and reports continuously surface about the encroachment of jihadist terror organizations into the Western Hemisphere. The Italian daily Corriere della Sera, reports that Hezbollah is setting up operations just 90 miles south of Key West, Florida, in Cuba. Reports of Hezbollah, Hamas and even al Qaeda activity in the tri-border area of South America and in Venezuela have been verified. And reports increase with each passing day of Hezbollah corroboration with Mexican drug cartels operating on the Southern border of the United States.

Ten years later and the West looks on as a so-called “Arab Spring” takes hold across the Middle East and Northern Africa. As Progressives, the uninformed and the know-nothing cheerleaders for the Obama Administration cheer the “advancement of democracy” in these lands, they ignore the inevitability that democracy in the Middle East is always subject to the organized forces that be; that the best organized factions within each “sovereign” locale will ultimately win power and, therefore legitimacy on the world stage. The gigantic problem with this all-to-soon-to-become-reality scenario is that fundamentalist Islamists are the best organized in each and every one of these locales.

In Egypt, even though many of us exclaimed the dangers of the Muslim Brotherhood, the mainstream media, along with the Obama Administration and the Progressive Movement, celebrated democracy in the aftermath of Mubarak. Today we witness the Muslim Brotherhood threatening the Egyptian military not to interfere in the crafting of a new constitution.

In Lybia, even though many of us warned that Libyan rebels had extensive ties to jihadists groups including al Qaeda and offshoots that waged war against US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Obama Administration, along with the presiding governments in Britain and France, advocated for NATO operations to support the terrorist affiliated groups over the clown prince Qaddafi. Today, these rebels not only have Qaddafi’s money, they have his SA-24 heat-seeking missiles and, some fear, his stockpile of chemical weapons.

Ten years on…

In 2006, I wrote of Jonathan Briley. Mr. Briley is better known in his death as “The Falling Man” of the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center attacks. I wrote then:

“The mainstream media in the United States has taken the images of September 11th, 2001 off the television and out of the newspapers. They say that the images are too disturbing, that they incite a want for revenge rather than allow closure. But they are wrong to do this.

“The United States should not and cannot simply forgive and forget just because the host country of the Taliban and al Qaeda – Afghanistan – has been liberated and transformed. Facts demonstrate that al Qaeda, the Taliban and radical Islam have been planning and preparing to implement their global campaign of terrorism – their declared war against the Western World – since before 1993, well before September 11th. Their central location for training may have been eliminated but they had prepared for that, splintering like roaches to the four corners of the world, preparing, planning and implementing their battle plans made decades before.

“Make no mistake, they are a cunning adversary. They understood that the US would come after them. They planned for this event.

“This war cannot be about ‘tolerance’ or forgiving, or about understanding the ‘reasons why’ someone would want to murder innocents whether it be with an airplane, a car bomb, a suicide vest or a saif. This battle has to be about freedom and the right of innocents to live their lives in liberty, free of fear from an unholy sect of genocidal totalitarians who offer only oppression, dominance and terror as their bounty…”

With all of the appeasement the West has offered the radical, fundamentalist Islamist community, with all of the advances made by jihadists around the world, with Islamists pressuring governments around the world, from Britain to the Netherlands, Spain to Germany and the United States, to coddle their barbarity; to provide inclusion for their totalitarian theocratic ideology, can we truly say that Jonathan Briley has received any semblance of justice, that his family has attained any modicum of closure? Only the radically dense would answer yes.

So, as we watch the secular commemorations of the ten year passing of the attacks on our country by radical Islamists, fundamentalist Muslims, jihadis, or, if you have dispensed with political correctness as I have, the scum of the Earth, ask yourself: do you feel safer today than Jon Briley did at fifteen seconds after 9:41am, on September 11, 2001? I know I don’t.

It was back in late June (June 23 to be precise) that President Obama announced that he planned to release 30 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. According to some of the estimates I’ve read, that was about 5% of the total. The decision was driven because of the crisis in the Middle East and the slug-fest in Libya had decreased the global supply. At the time of the announcement price of oil per barrel was over $91. Accordingly, some welcomed the move as a positive step to keep gas prices acceptable. Others, however, said it was an ostensibly political move that would set a bad precedent.

As of July 15, the price of oil exceeded $97 a barrel. The positive offset that was imagined by tapping into our SPR never happened. And that may be a good thing. It will prevent future presidents from abusing another resource for political gain.

On Friday benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude for August delivery rose $1.55 to settle at $97.24 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude gained $1.00 to settle at $117.26 per barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

Barclays’ assessment adds to previous warnings by the International Energy Agency and the Energy Information Administration that world demand will outstrip supplies this year. Despite sluggish economic growth in the U.S. and Europe, experts say that oil demand from China and other emerging nations will drive global oil consumption for years to come.

The move reminded me when a Roman Caesar became unpopular or ran into a little trouble over one policy or another. He would increase the free rations of flour, whine, or bread. It usually kept the dissent at a low roar but it never fixed the problem. It only prolonged the inevitable.

Each and every day we hear the misnomer that the United States of America is a Democracy. We hear it from the average man on the street, the mainstream media and even from those we have elected to office. But the fact of the matter is this: we are not a Democracy. We are a Constitutional Republic. A thorough and convincing exhibit of the facts surrounding this reality is presented in Notes on Democracy: And the Republic for Which It Stands. The fact that this issue is even in need of address is a scathing commentary on the constitutional illiteracy of the American electorate and serves as a sobering reminder that, often times, what sounds good – what “feels good” – isn’t always as it presents.

The distinction – between the benefits of a Democracy and a Constitutional Republic – is incredibly important, and while some describe our nation as a Democracy in an error of ignorance, others – some with schemes of political opportunism – do so with a nefarious purpose and bad intentions.

James Madison, recognized as the Father of the US Constitution, said this about factions and Democracy in Federalist No. 10:

“Men of factious tempers, of local prejudices, or of sinister designs, may, by intrigue, by corruption, or by other means, first obtain the suffrages, and then betray the interests, of the people…From this view of the subject it may be concluded that a pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions.”

Why is this important in the context of what is happening in the Middle East at this very moment?

Simple; it is important because “factious tempers,” and “local prejudices of sinister design” are prevalent throughout not only the ruling classes of the Arab-Muslim world, but exist – and on a tremendously popular level – throughout the Middle East, Arab culture and around the world in Islamic populations.

In Lebanon, Democracy and the democratic election process brought legitimacy to the terrorist group Hezbollah, a group, created by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard after the Islamist Revolution of 1979, responsible for the greatest number of American and Western deaths until al Qaeda exploded onto the scene, no pun intended. Through a scheme of “providing” for enough people in Southern Lebanon to win elections, Hezbollah was transformed from a ruthless Shiite-Islamist terror organization (a moniker still bestowed upon it by the US State Department and freedom-loving governments around the world) into an officially elected entity in the Lebanese Parliament, its influence expanding year after year.

In the Palestinian-held Israeli territories, the Palestinian Authority, born of the Palestinian Liberation Organization – recognized at its genesis as a terrorist organization before the United Nations bestowed legitimacy on it, has seen an accord between the Fatah faction of the West Bank and the Hamas faction of Gaza; Hamas, a Sunni-Islamist group, recognized as a terrorist organization by the US and other non-Arab nations around the world. Hamas, like Hezbollah, but after an armed coup against Fatah in Gaza, held “democratic elections” establishing itself – although questionably so – as the democratically elected government of Gaza. Like Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas achieved legitimacy – albeit ever so suspect – through the process of Democracy.

Another example of Democracy not serving freedom – or liberty – are the elections held in the former Soviet state of Russia. During the Soviet Era, Soviet Premiers had to at least subject themselves to the scrutiny of the elitist class Communist Party members who made up the Soviet politburo. Today we see a former KGB colonel, in Vladimir Putin, not only usurping the intent of the Russian constitution by installing a puppet president to “insert” a term into the mix before he runs, yet again, for the Russian presidency, but we see a system so corrupt that it has re-installed the same mindset of global power acquisition as seen before the fall of the Soviet Union. In fact, it is argued in many circles that not only is the Cold War not over, but the West is now playing defense.

But perhaps the most alarming sign that democracy does not serve the purpose of freedom and/or liberty comes in the report that a faction of the Egyptian “awakening” has announced the formation of a “Nazi party with a contemporary frame of reference.”

Let me state that again…Egyptians benefiting from the “Arab Spring” want to form a Nazi Party in that country.

Al-Masry Al-Youm, an Egyptian publication, reports:

“A group of Egyptians have announced their intent to establish a Nazi party with ‘a contemporary frame of reference,’ an independent Egyptian news website said on Wednesday.

“Al-Badeel, a leftist news portal, quoted founding member Emad Abdel Sattar as saying the party would bring together prominent figures from the Egyptian society. The party’s founding deputy is a former military official.

“Abdel Sattar told Al-Badeel that members are increasing at an unexpected rate, and several people came to ask about the nature of the party and its plans.

“The party has a one-year plan to develop Egypt, unlike the ‘marginalized liberal parties, which are like dead bodies,’ he said.

“The founders want to avoid media attention until they are fully ready, the source said.”

With God as my witness, I never thought I would see the day when we would need to address the possibility of having to combat Nazism on the world stage once again.

If, in fact, this newly formed Egyptian Nazi Party organizes in the style of Hamas or Hezbollah – or the American Progressive Movement, for that matter (it is a fact that American organized labor had boots on the ground in Egypt in the beginning days of this so-called “Arab Spring”) – what is to keep them from using the democratic process to bring to power a 21st Century Nazi Party, complete with a 21st Century “Final Solution” for Israel and the Jews?

We are a Constitutional Republic because our Founders and Framers understood the absolute danger of a pure Democracy. We use a democratic election process to determine the awarding of Electoral College votes by each state, but we do so to empower a constitutionally Republican form of government; a government of laws and not men; a government where the minority’s rights are protected just as viciously as the majority’s, or so it is supposed to be.

A stunningly frank examination can be viewed here. Succinctly, we in the West – and especially in the United States – should be promoting a move toward liberty in the Middle East, not a move toward Democracy.

Democracy leads to Democratic Socialism, which leads to Socialism, which history proves always fails, leading to totalitarian and despotic rule. Anyone with a cursory knowledge of world history understands this. Alas, we do not, today, place any importance on history in our schools. Perhaps that’s because Progressives are too busy rewriting history. Perhaps that’s why we are looking at a resurrection of the Nazi Party in Egypt.

On May 24, 2011, the military government of Egypt announced it was permanently opening its border with the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.

If the world screams, “Never again,” again will the leaders of the free world hear us? Or are they to busy burying their heads in the sand to care?

President Obama’s Middle East speech of last week created much controversy surrounding his call for the 1949 armistice lines (commonly called the pre-June 1967 borders) to be the starting point of any territorial negotiations.

While that controversy was justified, the President was deficient in a much bigger issue, one that neither the press nor the majority of the pro-Israel community has picked up on yet.

Israeli Prime Minister outlined it brilliantly in his speech before Congress the other day:

“You see, our conflict has never been about the establishment of a Palestinian state. It has always been about the existence of the Jewish state. This is what this conflict is about….

They were simply unwilling to end the conflict. And I regret to say this: They continue to educate their children to hate. They continue to name public squares after terrorists. And worst of all, they continue to perpetuate the fantasy that Israel will one day be flooded by the descendants of Palestinian refugees.”

My friends, this must come to an end. President Abbas must do what I have done. I stood before my people, and I told you it wasn’t easy for me, and I said… “I will accept a Palestinian state.” It is time for President Abbas to stand before his people and say… “I will accept a Jewish state.”

In his Middle East address President Obama called Israel a Jewish State…

“The dream of a Jewish and democratic state cannot be fulfilled with permanent occupation…. a lasting peace will involve two states for two peoples. Israel as a Jewish state and the homeland for the Jewish people, and the state of Palestine as the homeland for the Palestinian people

…and he called for Hamas to recognize Israel’s right to exist,

“Recognizing that negotiations need to begin with the issues of territory and security does not mean that it will be easy to come back to the table. In particular, the recent announcement of an agreement between Fatah and Hamas raises profound and legitimate questions for Israel – how can one negotiate with a party that has shown itself unwilling to recognize your right to exist. In the weeks and months to come, Palestinian leaders will have to provide a credible answer to that question.”

“I believe that Hamas, in its own description of its agenda, has not renounced violence and has not recognized the state of Israel. And until they do, it is very difficult to expect Israelis to have a serious conversation, because ultimately they have to have confidence that a Palestinian state is one that is going to stick to its — to whatever bargain is struck.”

Recognizing Israel as a Jewish State is a larger issue than how to describe a particular nation. Once Israel is recognized as a Jewish State the Palestinian demand for a right of return for the descendants of the original refugees within the borders of Israel is resolved also. Being a democracy, if Israel allows herself to be flooded with millions of the descendants of those 1948 refugees, she will cease to be the Jewish State. Instead Israel will be just another Muslim country in the Middle East.

Last summer in an interview with German newsmagazine Der Spiegel President Abbas said,

“We recognized the State of Israel within the 1967 borders. Whether it defines itself as a Jewish state, a Hebrew state or a Zionist state is its business. As far as I’m concerned, it can call itself what it pleases. But he cannot force me to agree with this definition.”

In October when negotiations were going on to convince PM Netanyahu to extend the Judea and Samaria building freeze, he made the offer to President Abbas to extend the settlement building freeze if the Palestinians agreed to recognize Israel as the Jewish State. Abbas replied almost imminently with a resounding no.

These omissions by President Obama are no accident. If he overtly called for the Palestinians to recognize Israel as a Jewish State he would be negating the Palestinian demand for a right to return, which is why he said the “Right of Return” is something to be left to negotiation.

“These principles provide a foundation for negotiations. Palestinians should know the territorial outlines of their state; Israelis should know that their basic security concerns will be met. I know that these steps alone will not resolve this conflict. Two wrenching and emotional issues remain: the future of Jerusalem, and the fate of Palestinian refugees. But moving forward now on the basis of territory and security provides a foundation to resolve those two issues in a way that is just and fair, and that respects the rights and aspirations of Israelis and Palestinians.”

The President’s Middle East speech has been called “bold” by world leaders and American leaders; however the truth is that he intentionally ignored the most elementary of issues in this 63-year-old dispute, recognizing Israel as the Jewish State.

If the President does not have the courage to definitively call for the Palestinians to make this basic acknowledgement, can he really expect the Palestinians to do it on their own? And without that recognition, none of the other issues will be resolved.

On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Ishmail Khaldi, Israel’s Advisor for Arab Affairs to discuss his beginnings as a Bedouin living in a tent until he was 8, the Arab Spring, and how the upheaval in the Middle East may effect Israel.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

Ishmail Khaldi
A Shepherd’s Journey: the story of Israel’s first bedouin diplomat
Israeli Bedouin questions American-Jewish apathy
Coffee & Markets: Will the Arab Spring Lead to a War Against Israel?

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