The UN Prevents Peace

Mona Charen / Townhall Columnist

The United Nations plays a supporting role in every war between Hamas and Israel. U.N. spokesmen routinely issue statements, accusations and denials about everyone's conduct, including their own (most recently they had to account for why they returned rockets, discovered in a U.N. school, to Hamas). Israel was denounced worldwide for an "attack" on a U.N. school said to be housing 3,000 civilians, but it was actually an attack on particular terrorists on the adjoining street.

 

It's time to reconsider the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.

First, what UNRWA isn't. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees provides humanitarian relief for those who flee their homes worldwide. Even the toughest critics of the U.N. would probably agree that this is a valuable function for the international body. But the Palestinians get their own, separate refugee agency: UNRWA.

The UNHCR defines a refugee as someone who "owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable ... or ... unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country." Since its foundation, the UNHCR has helped to resettle some 50 million people.

UNRWA, by contrast, defines a refugee as someone "whose normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948, who lost both their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict" and their descendants.

When five Arab nations attacked the nascent Jewish state in 1948, refugees flowed in both directions.

About a half-million Arabs fled Jewish areas, and about the same number of Jews fled Arab lands. No separate U.N. agency was created to care for Jewish refugees. They were absorbed by Israel. The previous year, after the partition of India, some 14.5 million refugees fled in both directions between India and Pakistan. Their descendants are not, obviously, considered refugees, nor are the descendants of Ugandan, Cypriot, Hungarian, Ethiopian, Sri Lankan, Congolese, Bosnian, Angolan and countless other refugees over the past 60 years.

Imagine if the American loyalists who fled to Canada after our revolution had been supported by an international agency whose charter specified that they and their descendants would remain refugees until they were able to return to an America governed from London?

Though the normal course is for refugee numbers to spike during conflict and then decline with time, because of UNRWA's unique definition, the number of Palestinian refugees has expanded from half a million to more than 5 million.

While UNHCR is currently attempting to serve 50 million refugees, asylum seekers and internally displaced persons, it employs only 7,600 relief workers. UNRWA employs 29,000, only 200 of whom are not Palestinians. The per capita budget of UNRWA, underwritten to a large extent by the U.S., is twice that of UNHCR.

Syria alone has generated 2.5 million refugees in the past three years. Seventy-five thousand refugees have fled Libya since February. The funds used to keep Palestinians in permanent mendicant status are badly needed elsewhere.

Every Palestinian "refugee" is guaranteed a free education up to age 15 courtesy of the United Nations. Controversies have flared from time to time when UNRWA has been accused of using inflammatory textbooks and teaching materials that encourage hatred of Jews and Israelis. Credible reports have shown UNRWA textbooks that feature maps without Israel. UNRWA has hosted summer camps called "Camp Jihad."

There are many reasons for Palestinian intransigence on accepting a two-state solution to their predicament. It was offered three times: first in 1948 with the U.N. partition plan, next in 2000 at the Taba negotiations, and again in 2008 with the Olmert plan. The original refusal to share the land with Jews was a mistake, founded on the belief that the Arab nations could defeat the nascent Israel. But since then the Palestinians have become infantilized by 66 years of victim status. UNRWA has run their schools, clinics, hospitals, banks, construction projects, after-school programs, immunization drives and emergency services.

Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon eventually gave up the fantasy of destroying Israel. Perhaps if the UNRWA umbilical cord were snipped, Palestinians would be readier to face reality as well.

Backward President Has it Backward...Again

John Ransom  / Townhall Finance Editor

In January, Barack Obama promised that he’d use “a phone and a pen” to institute presidential executive actions presumably on important issues like immigration reform, tax reform, Obamacare, the Progressive Global Issue-of-the-Day, and gender reassignment surgery in the military. 

 

It’s now August, and right on cue, Obama’s beginning to research the federal statutes to figure out how to do it, especially in regards to illegal immigration, which Capt’n Obvious now says is a broken system.

Duh. He’s the one who broke it…more.

“In the face of that kind of dysfunction, what I can do is ... scour our authorities to try to make progress,” said Obama according to the Columbus Dispatch.

As usual our backward president has it backwards…again.

Fire! Ready! Aim!

No wonder the guy hates guns.

It’s a little late in the game to start researching options for executive action when you promised bold actions back in January…of 2009. But if we’ve learned to expect one rule from Obama that’s never broken, it is this: it’s never too early—or too late-- to pander to your base.

And that’s actually what’s going on here. No one is really burning the midnight oil reading laws in the White House. This White House? Reading laws? I don’t think they even know how to find the federal code, yet alone read it. They might be the only humans in existence who have mastered the art of not even reading the words they write and read aloud-- if one can judge from intel talking points, laws they’ve written, treaties they negotiate, and speeches the teleprompter gives.

Obama sucks as president, but he’s not a bad campaigner, assisted as he is by the almost Pavlov-type response he gets from the people he exploits. I’m not saying that Obama doesn’t love his base. He just loves his base like an alcoholic loves liquor: he abuses it.

In fact, constituent abuse is Obama’s favorite method of governing.

He abuses blacks, he abuses Hispanics, and he abuses women.

The statistics don’t lie. By almost every measure the only constituency that Obama doesn’t abuse are the backroom billionaires trying to get rich on crony energy deals…or richer, rather…again.

It’s harder today to make ends meet as a woman, as a black, or as an Hispanic than ever before if you look at the employment numbers, which is the only indicator that really matters.

I have this quaint notion that blacks, Hispanics, women, Iraqis, Syrians and Ukrainians care a lot more about things like, um, eating, educating their kids, and being safe in their communities—the normal impulses of normal humans-- than they do the burning issues that drive Obama every day.

But here’s the bigger point: I’m not sure, besides campaigning, what are the burning issues of the day for Obama.

If it’s immigration reform, there are easier ways of doing it; if it’s healthcare reform there are easier ways of doing it; if it’s soaking the rich, ask him about his billionaire friends.

Some are convinced that Obama’s real aim is a hidden one, like the collapse of the financial and governing system. It’s a normal reaction to the gothic stupidity that comes daily from the White House.

People just don’t want to believe that the group of men and women who make up Obama could be this dumb, this off target.

Not me.

For Obama it’s always: Fire! Ready! Aim!

The fact that innocent bystanders bear the brunt of the damage is just the cost of firing off his mouth, his policies, his teleprompter.

It’s a cheap cost for him too.

It’s only people, after all.

Benghazi Select Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy Stabbed in Back by Republican Colleague

By Ben Barrack / Shoebat Newsletter

 

A soon-to-be released House Intelligence Committee report on the Benghazi attacks reportedly lets the Obama administration off the hook, concluding that there was “no deliberate wrongdoing” on the part of the administration relative to the attacks. A consequence of this is that Benghazi Select Committee chairman Trey Gowdy is being stabbed in the back by his Republican colleague, who chairs the Intelligence Committee.

The conclusion by the Intelligence Committee is music to the ears of stealth Muslim Brotherhood agents who have infiltrated the U.S. Government. It also ignores the relationship between the maker of the Innocence of Muslims video and Eric Holder’s Justice Department at the time the video was produced or his affiliation with at least one Muslim fundamentalist as a partner in crime, something Shoebat.com long ago confirmed. 

All of this says nothing about evidence published by Shoebat.com that the filmmaker Nakoula Basseley Nakoula is himself a Muslim. Coupled with his role as a federal informant, such a reality would at least constitute the possibility of “deliberate wrongdoing” on the part of someone in the administration.

Memo to Gowdy: Do your homework on this guy.

Though it can’t be completely confirmed until the entire report is released, another dubious omission appears to be an avoidance of an already confirmed Egyptian connection to the attacks.

Committee chairman Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) is a figure who should be at the top of the list of individuals House Select Committee on Benghazi’s Chairman Rep. Trey Gowdy should depose, as Shoebat.com has reported. As for the issue of Muslim Brotherhood infiltration, Rogers has a history of running interference for it. In 2012, he dismissed legitimate questions by Rep. Michele Bachmann and insisted close Hillary Clinton adviser Huma Abedin is an “American patriot”.

Based on what is being revealed about the forthcoming Intelligence Committee report, that reality is even clearer.

Some details about the report have been released by Committee member Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA), the committee’s second highest Democrat, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Among them [our comments in bold]:

Obama allows limited airstrikes on “barbaric” ISIS

Robert Spencer / Jihad Watch

 

He called the Islamic State “barbaric”? Doesn’t that make him a racist, bigoted “Islamophobe”? In any case, Obama is extremely unlikely to do anything effective here. “As commander in chief, I will not allow the United States to be dragged into another war in Iraq.” In other words, the caliphate is here to stay — not that any U.S. force could affect lasting change there, anyway — especially nowadays when it would be solely directed toward “respect” for Sharia oppression of women, non-Muslims, gays, etc.

“Obama Allows Limited Airstrikes on ISIS,” New York Times, August 7, 2014:

WASHINGTON — President Obama on Thursday announced he had authorized limited airstrikes against Islamic militants in Iraq, scrambling to avert the fall of the Kurdish capital, Erbil, and returning the United States to a significant battlefield role in Iraq for the first time since the last American soldier left the country at the end of 2011.

Speaking at the White House on Thursday night, Mr. Obama also said that American military aircraft had dropped food and water to tens of thousands of Iraqis trapped on a barren mountain range in northwestern Iraq, having fled the militants, from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, who threaten them with what Mr. Obama called “genocide.”

“Earlier this week, one Iraqi cried that there is no one coming to help,” Mr. Obama said in a somber statement delivered from the State Dining Room. “Well, today America is coming to help.”

The president insisted that these military operations did not amount to a full-scale re-engagement in Iraq. But the relentless advance of the militants, whom he described as “barbaric,” has put them within a 30-minute drive of Erbil, raising an immediate danger for the American diplomats, military advisers and other citizens who are based there.

“As commander in chief, I will not allow the United States to be dragged into another war in Iraq,” said Mr. Obama, who built his run for the White House in part around his opposition to the war in Iraq….

Hamas breaks another ceasefire, fires two rockets into Israel

Pamela Geller / Atlas Shrugs

“Earlier Friday morning, two rockets apparently landed in southern Israel after being fired from Gaza, the IDF reported. The rockets violated the cease-fire but the IDF did not immediately respond.”

Hamas breaks these ceasefires with impunity, knowing that it will always enjoy the favor of the enemedia, Barack Obama, and the UN, no matter what it does. It is never called to account, never held responsible.

“After nearly 72-hours, Palestinians say no extension for cease-fire reached yet,” Jerusalem Post, August 8, 2014:

No deal has been reached in Egyptian-mediated talks over Gaza an hour before a 72-hour ceasefire is due to expire and Palestinian factions could reject an extension of the truce under the current terms, a Palestinian source in Cairo said on Friday.

“Negotiations are difficult. Negotiations have not yet reached a final result,” said the delegate, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“A rejection of extending the truce is likely. That announcement will come from our brothers in Gaza.”

Earlier Friday morning, two rockets apparently landed in southern Israel after being fired from Gaza, the IDF reported. The rockets violated the cease-fire but the IDF did not immediately respond.

Delegations negotiated in Cairo for a long-term solution throughout the night Thursday and into Friday morning.

On Thursday night, the armed wing of Hamas called on Palestinian negotiators in Cairo not to extend a 72-hour truce unless their...

Read the whole entry »

George Pataki: I Haven't Ruled Out Running for President

By: Bill Hoffmann / Newsmax

Former three-term New York Gov. George Pataki refused to rule out a bid for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination during an appearance Thursday on Newsmax TV.

Asked by Newsmax's Steve Malzberg whether he would rule out a run for the White House, Pataki — who has flirted with the idea before — deftly tap-danced around the question.

"People have talked about it in 2001 and 2008, including me, because I did look at it. This time I don't want speculation,'' Pataki said.

"You don't dip your toe in and pretend. Either you're in or you're out. The one thing I will say is that Albany is broken, Washington is perhaps even worse….

"It's enormously disappointing and any of us, all of us who care about this country, have to get involved in some capacity. That doesn't mean as a candidate, but help fight to take our country back from those who believe government should dictate how we lead our lives.''

Malzberg then asked, "So you're definitively not running for president?''

"I am definitively saying nothing. It's still summer,'' Pataki said.

"So you're leaving open the door? You're not saying no?'' continued Malzberg.

"I have thought about it in the past and I don't want people speculating. There are probably a dozen candidates out there,'' Pataki said.

"But you are not saying no,'' Malzberg asked again.

"At this point, I'm spending time with my family and our farm in upstate New York,'' Pataki said.

The former leader of the Empire State from 1995-2006 went on to say those most mentioned as possible GOP candidates — New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ted Cruz of Texas, and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush — would all be a "dramatic improvement'' over President Barack Obama.

"And every one of them would be a dramatic improvement over [former Secretary of State] Hillary Clinton or, God forbid, [Massachusetts Sen.] Elizabeth Warren,'' said Pataki, 69.

"We just have seen the Democratic Party switch from being a liberal party with some conservatives to a leftist party with some liberals. We see that with Barack Obama, we see that with Elizabeth Warren, we see it here in New York City with … leftist mayor, Bill de Blasio, who goes to Cuba on his honeymoon.''

"The weakest of the Republican candidates in my view would be a dramatic improvement. This race to me is about not just who's going to be the president, Republicans or Democrats. It's about the nature of this country.''

He said Americans must not allow "a group of elites in Washington'' to dictate how they lead their lives.

While Pataki, chairman of the Pataki-Cahill Group, praised Christie, who is head of the Republican Governors Association, as a possible presidential candidate, he blasted his decision not to endorse Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino.

Astorino is running against incumbent New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is now embroiled in a federal probe into whether he tampered with his own anti-corruption commission.

"Rob is a very good candidate. This is not somebody who we took out of some remote area. This is someone who for the last five years has been the county executive of Westchester County,'' Pataki said.

"This is a strong executive, a good candidate who can appeal across party lines…. For the head of the Republican Governors Association in July, [to say] it's a lost cause, it makes every other effort we make to try to get good people to run as Republicans that much harder.''

Asked if Christie should resign from chairing the association because of the Astorino snub, Pataki said: "That's for the Republican governors to decide.''

(Just as I finished writing this article Hamas broke yet another cease-fire as two rockets were launched from Gaza into southern Israel.)

Op-ed:
The statesman and the changing voices in the Middle East
By: Diane Sori

"The people of Gaza are not the enemies of Israel; the terrorist organization Hamas is the enemy." - Benjamin Netanyahu defending Israel's right to exist

He understands...he knows the enemy...he knows the battle well.
 

Speaking at Wednesday's press conference for foreign journalists in an attempt to counter what I believe to be the unjust international criticism over 'supposed' heavy Palestinian civilian casualties...Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu began speaking in quiet tones at first, building to a voice of a heart standing strong yet with that heart filled with sadness...as he spoke the simple truth that Israel “deeply regrets every civilian casualty” and that every civilian loss is “a tragedy of Hamas making.”

 
And how right this great man is as he went on to say that Hamas wants civilian casualties...that Hamas wants children especially to be amongst the dead...as Hamas uses their blood for “PR functions.” And as the world falls for Hamas' lies time and again...as the world continues to condemn Israel as the aggressor...it becomes obvious that the world just does NOT understanding that barbarians are manipulating their minds...are manipulating their hearts.

And as Netanyahu spoke of Hamas’ use of those civilians as “human shields” he stressed that if Hamas had agreed to the initial ceasefire...the exact same Egyptian cease-fire proposal that Israel had accepted and Hamas rejected back on July 15th...that "90 percent of the civilian deaths could have been avoided.” But this too probably fell on deaf ears as did his words that Israel’s right to defend herself is NOT just an issue for Israel but is an issue that the world community must examine...a “test for the civilized world” he called it. But I'm afraid the so-called yet anything but 'civilized world' still wants Israel to negotiate with terrorists whose only wish is to see every Jew dead.

Asking, “Can we accept a situation where the terrorists can be exonerated while the victims are accused?” Netanyahu knew the answer to his question before he even asked it, for while many say they support Israel’s right to defend herself they still “refuse to let Israel experience that right,” and it's sad to say but some of those who deny Israel that 'experience' live right here in our own country.

“They would allow Hamas to attack with impunity, saying that since they are firing from schools, mosques and hospitals that Israel should not take action against them,” Netanyahu said. “That is obviously a mistake, a moral and operational mistake” that will give an “enormous victory to terrorists everywhere."

And again, how right this man is as he spoke these, his first public remarks since the current ceasefire went into effect.

And while Obama's bloviating mouthpiece John 'Swiftboat' Kerry continues to spew that there must be compromise on both sides...Netanyahu counters his words and rightfully so that NOT only does he believe that Israel’s response to Hamas’ aggression is justified and in proportion to Hamas’ actions, but that he will continue to do whatever is necessary to protect the citizens of Israel.

So as Egypt tries to mediate talks between the two sides...and kudos must go out to Egypt for openly siding with Israel in this battle...everyone needs to understand that a lasting peace will NEVER be had when the likes of Hamas's top Gaza official, Ismail Haniya, says before the talks even begin that the Palestinians would "not yield on any of our demands"...would 'NOT yield'...as in a demand that Israel must give up all for any peace to take hold.

For peace to take hold...but what Hamas and their supporters refuse to understand nor do they care about is that a lasting peace is the actual objective of Israel’s Operation Protective Edge (OPE), for peace can only be had when Hamas is totally disarmed. So as Israel moves forward with its goal to take out Hamas’ tunnels... tunnels used to kidnap and murder Israeli citizens...as Israel moves forward with its goal to put an end to the almost daily launching of rockets into their population centers...as Israel moves forward with its goal of demilitarizing Gaza in order to provide some sense of peace for the people of Israel...sadly it's still Israel that continues to be painted as the aggressor in the court of public opinion.

Painted as the aggressor by the West, isn't it odd that the Arab world themselves remains silent for the most part on this current conflict...remains silent for the simple fact that they now see the radical islamic fundamentalists as more of a threat to them...as more of a threat to them than Israel would ever be. And they remain silent mostly out of fear of retaliation against them. Yet after seeing what happened in Egypt when the likes of the Muslim Brotherhood took over, the dynamics and voices of the Middle East have now changed in Israel's favor even if they haven't in the West.

Putting this current Israeli/ Palestinian war into perspective by saying, "It's no longer the Muslims against the Jews. Now it's the extremists - the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Hezbollah, and their backers Iran, Qatar and Turkey - against Israel and the more moderate muslims including Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia," Danielle Pletka, vice president of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, is trying to make the world understand that Israel is actually fighting a proxy war against for the most part Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood, and that the Arab nations are finally getting it. 
                                                                                                                 
Finally getting that Israel's take-out of Hamas...who is part of the larger Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda network...benefits their nations as well for doing so aids in their internal security and aids in regional stability...but they also know that only Israel has the military capability to do so, and in a way that helps them keep their hands clean.

So while Benjamin Netanyahu has to plead his case on the world stage, I know he knows that once enemies are now Israel's friend and that once friends are now Israel's enemies. And rest assured that he and Israel sleep with one eye open for old friends now come as wolves in sheep's clothing to Israel's door and that some now 'supposedly' on his side are anything but.

"We condemn the Israeli aggression and we support the Egyptian cease-fire proposal," Jordan's King Abdullah said last week...
taking both sides and taking NO side...more to come on that in the near future.