ISRAEL AND OBSTACLE TO OBAMA?
by Gil Ronen

According to a classified intelligence assessment handed to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, U.S. President Barack Obama and his senior advisors wish to “incrementally diminish U.S. strategic cooperation with Israel.”

A report in World Tribune quoted an Israeli source familiar with the intelligence assessment who said that “Obama wants to make friends with our worst enemies and those who we until now called the worst enemies of the United States. “Under this policy,” the source added, “we are more than irrelevant. We have become an obstacle.”

According to the report, which has not been corroborated by news sources other than World Tribune, Israeli sources said the U.S. Administration would reject Israel’s intelligence opinions on Iran and Syria while advancing the Obama plan to reconcile with the two states, although both were listed as state sponsors of terrorism by the U.S. State Department.

The Israeli intelligence document reportedly predicted that Obama would maintain his policy of appeasing Iran and Syria through 2010. It determined that Obama is convinced that appeasing Iran and Syria would make a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan possible.

“Obama will want to show Iran, Syria and radical Muslims that the United States could pressure Israel on a strategic level,” the source said. “The pressure has already begun and will intensify throughout the next year or two.”

At the same time, the intelligence officials estimated that Obama would restrict U.S. arms exports to Israel in an effort to deny it systems that it could use in a raid on Iran or Syria. The intelligence sources said this policy was begun during the last year of the Bush administration and predicted that it would intensify under Obama.

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said on Tuesday that the U.S. and Syria are close to restoring full diplomatic ties. “Syrian President Bashar Assad is very eager to restore full ties with Washington,” Carter told Haaretz. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it happens this year,” he added, speaking on the phone from Quito, Ecuador, at the start of a four-nation South American trip. Carter plans to meet Assad in Syria in early June.

Meanwhile, Syrian President Bashar Assad said Tuesday that Obama would face “a serious crisis in the Middle East” if he does not fix the mistakes made by his predecessor George W. Bush, within a year’s time.

On a visit to Vienna after meeting Austrian leaders and intellectuals, Assad called on the U.S. to rapidly withdraw its troops from Iraq. This, he claimed, would resolve “50 per cent of the problem,” Austrian news agency APA reported.

However, by appeasing Iran and Syria the U.S. is risking alienating Egypt. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak warned Egypt’s rivals in the Middle East Wednesday that he would not tolerate what he called their “tampering with security and stability” in his country, a reference to Iran and the Hizbullah terror militia that it supports.

Mubarak’s comments were his most strongly worded ones since Egypt accused the Hizbullah of plotting attacks in the country. They were also meant to send a strong message to the group’s backers in Iran.

OBAMA BEING TESTED BY IRAN!
by Kenneth R. Timmerman

The spying conviction of U.S. journalist Roxana Saberi last week by a court in Tehran is just the latest sign that Iran’s ruling clerics are trying to test the resolve of President Obama by taking U.S. citizens hostage, Iran analysts and exiles tell Newsmax.

Roxana Saberi, a natural-born U.S. citizen who has worked as a freelance journalist in Iran for National Public Radio and other U.S. news organizations for the past six years, was convicted over the weekend in Tehran after a closed-door trial that lasted just one day.

Her lawyer, Abdul-Samad Khorramshahi, told reporters after her trial that he still was unsure of all the charges and evidence against her. “I have not read her file, so I cannot confirm” that she made a confession of spying on behalf of the United States, as the government claimed.

President Obama said he was “gravely concerned” with the 31-year old freelance journalist’s fate, and was “deeply disappointed” with the actions of the Islamic regime in Tehran.

“Saying you are ‘deeply disappointed’ is just sending the wrong message to the mullahs,” said Iranian dissident Sardar Haddad, who lives in Texas. “This is just the latest chapter in a history of hostage-taking by the regime.”

Iranian Foreign ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi appeared to agree with Haddad’s assessment.

In his weekly press briefing on Monday in Tehran, Qashqavi said that Saberi could file an appeal, then he expressed concern over the fate and alleged mistreatment of five Iranian “diplomats” arrested by U.S. forces in northern Iraq in on Jan. 11, 2007.

He claimed that the continued detention of the “diplomats” violated international law. But he insisted that his government rejected any connection between the arrest of Roxana Saberi and the detention of the Iranian Quds force officers in Iraq.

In announcing the arrest of the Iranians in Erbil, the U.S. military said that all five were “connected to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard – Quds Force, an organization known for providing funds, weapons, improvised explosive device technology and training to extremist groups attempting to destabilize the Government of Iraq and attack Coalition forces.”

According to press reports, among those detained was the third most senior officer in the Quds force, identified as Colonel Hashemi-Far.

Major Neal V. Fisher II, a spokesman for the Multinational Force-Iraq, told Newsmax on Thursday that “currently there are 15 detainees in our custody that claim to be Iranian citizens,” but he declined to comment on Iranian government efforts to get them released.

Born in New Jersey to an Iranian father and a Japanese mother, Roxana Saberi is a former Miss North Dakota and the fourth Iranian-American to have been convicted recently by the Iranian government jails on espionage-related charges.

Two Iranian-American AIDS researchers, Doctors Arash and Kamiar Alaei, were arrested last year and sentenced to six and three years respectively on accusations they were involved in a U.S-funded plot to overthrow the regime.

Also being held by the regime is education worker Silva Harotonian, who went to Iran on contract for the Washington-based International Research and Exchanges Board in June 2008 to brief participants in a maternal child health education and exchange program.

The regime accused her of advocating a “velvet revolution” in Iran, allegedly funded by the U.S. government.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation continues to seek the release of retired FBI agent Robert Levinson, who disappeared in March 2007 while on a visit to Kish Island, a free trade zone in the Persian Gulf controlled by Iran.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said that Iran “could be helpful” in arranging Levinson’s release if the United States treated Iran with more respect.

U.S. citizen Haleh Esfandiareh, a researcher for the Woodrow Wilson International Center, was released in August 2007 after more than 100 days in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison. Her release closely followed a personal appeal sent by Wilson Center president, Lee Hamilton, to Iran’s Supreme Leader.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton echoed the president’s words on Sunday, saying she was “deeply disappointed” by Roxana Saberi’s sentencing. “We will continue to vigorously raise our concerns to the Iranian government,” she said.

On Monday, Clinton was more forceful, saying that Saberi “should be freed immediately” and that “the charges against her are baseless.”

“The regime in Tehran is trying to test the new U.S. government,” said Roozbeh Farahanipour, a dissident who helped lead the student uprising in Tehran in 1999 and now lives in California.

“They continue to attack U.S. soldiers in Iraq, and to defy the international community on their nuclear program. They take U.S. citizens hostage, and in response, they see that Obama is still pressing for engagement. Why should they retreat, when they see how Obama is responding?”

JIHADISTS SHARING STRATEGIC MAPS
by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz

Jihadist websites recently carried a series of maps displaying strategic, military and nuclear facilities in many countries around the world, including Israel. Other items shared by jihadists over the Internet include newspaper clippings about alleged Israeli army bases in Africa.

The detailed maps are presented by Islamic fundamentalists alongside calls to carry out strikes against the named targets, according to a report released Monday by the Institute of Terrorism Research and Response (ITRR).

One recent message specifies “important nuclear facilities and military bases that we should strike.” The text is accompanied by several maps identifying strategic sites in nations as diverse as Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Turkey, Greece, Israel, South Africa, Pakistan and the United States.

Each of the maps of the foregoing countries include labels purporting to identify air force, missile defense and naval bases, as well as nuclear weapons facilities and other related areas. An Arabic-language map of Japan, without specific strategic sites labeled, was also uploaded to an online jihadist forum alongside an exhortation not to “forget” the Japanese.

In a separate jihadist communication cited by ITRR, reference was made to a British newspaper report suggesting that Israel had established two military intelligence outposts in Eritrea, north of Ethiopia. The story is presented along with an “invitation to blow them up.”

“The recent flurry of shared targeting intelligence among jihadists is not necessarily an indication of an imminent attack on the cited assets,” the ITRR report said, “however, it most surely expands the knowledge base of those jihadists already committed to carry out attacks. At the very least, it is an indication of which assets are under discussion by the adversary for potential future targeting.”

ISRAEL TO GIVE PART TO GIVE PART OF MT. ZION TO THE VATICAN?
by Hillel Fendel

Ten-year-long negotiations between Israel and the Vatican appear to be drawing to a close, with concerns rising that Israel will cede control of the building housing King David’s Tomb in Jerusalem.

The Bilateral Permanent Working Commission – a team of negotiators representing Israel and the Vatican – released an upbeat press release at the end of last week, speaking of “meaningful progress,” “great cordiality,” and a mutual commitment to reaching a final agreement “as soon as possible.”

Tellingly, a plenary meeting has been announced for this Thursday, April 30, at the Foreign Ministry. The meeting will be chaired by the two states’ deputy foreign ministers, Danny Ayalon and Monsignor Pietro Parolin. It is widely believed that the agreement will be signed then.

CHURCH DEMANDS PARTS OF MT. ZION

The two states have been negotiating a treaty since March 1999 on matters having to do with Church-owned or Church-claimed property in Israel. Among the most significant issue under negotiations is the Vatican’s demand for the Last Supper room, located on the second floor of the ancient Mt. Zion building that also houses the tombs of Kings David, Solomon, and Hezekiah.

In addition, the Vatican is claiming areas around Lake Kinneret, as well as in Caesaria and Jerusalem.

Hints and implications in the Vatican and Catholic press have long indicated that the negotiations are expected to end successfully, from the Catholic vantage point, in time for Pope Benedict’s visit to Israel two weeks from now.

“This is a shame and a disgrace of unequalled proportions,” said Daisy J. Stern, M.D., who has been leading an information campaign on the topic. “Giving away these important areas has no Halakhic Jewish legaL validity, of course, but signing it away will definitely make it very difficult to ever reclaim them.”

MT. ZION – INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR CATHOLICS?

At present, since shortly after the Six-Day War in 1967, the Diaspora Yeshiva has run the Mt. Zion compound, on which it is located, and warns of the catastrophic implications for Israel and the Jewish People if the deal goes through.

The director of the yeshiva explained that if the Catholic Church receives control of the area, just a few hundred yards from the Temple Mount and adjacent to the Old City walls, it will turn it into “the international center for Catholics all around the world, and if the pope just gives the word, Christians will be flocking over here en masse.”

“This is an enormous issue that is being pushed through without any public debate whatsoever,” he said.

VATICAN SIGNS AGREEMENT WITH ARAB LEAGUE

Dr. Stern notes that though there had been reports that an agreement might be signed last week, “nothing happened – except that while they (the Vatican representatives) were talking with Israel, they signed an agreement with the Arab League. This is very worrisome. There are no details on the agreement with the Arab League, except that it aims to promote ‘peace, security and stability.’ Who knows what that really means? Are they dividing up the spoils of the future Vatican agreement with Israel – or perhaps they are preparing for the next Arab war with Israel? We don’t know.”

“This new agreement with the Arab League renders the Vatican, most gravely, an interested party in the Israeli-Arab dispute,” said Prof. Hillel Weiss of Bar Ilan University, who has been closely following the issue.

Of further concern is the fact that Israel is investing some 6 million shekels in improvements and renovations to various sites in preparation for the Papal visit. Work at the Last Supper room has been underway for some time.

BLUEPRINT OF AN AGREEMENT

A Foreign Ministry official confirmed in 2005 that a “blueprint of a possible agreement with the Vatican has been received.” The proposed contract, as Arutz-7 reported at the time, read as follows:

“The State of Israel hands over to the Holy See the use of the Cenacle (the room of the event known as the Last Supper, above King David’s tomb – ed, of the access path to it, and of the spaces adjacent to it)… It is the Holy See’s intention to inform the Bishops – and through them the world’s Priests – that the Catholic Church has been given the use of the Cenacle, inviting them to visit the Holy Place together with their faithful… The Holy See hands over this use of the Cenacle to the Custody of the Holy Land which acts on behalf of the Holy See and … which will keep the Cenacle open from 6 AM to 8 AM for the celebration of the Holy Mass… Official liturgical celebrations of non-Catholic Churches can take place only upon prior written permission by the Custody of the Holy Land.”

The proposed agreement also stipulated that the Holy See will preserve the historic character of the site and keep it open to pilgrims and tourists, and that Israel will provide for the safety of the site. The Foreign Ministry official said at the time that “Israel is not prepared to relinquish its jurisdiction over this area.” The world will find out later this week whether this position is still valid.

Rabbi Mordechai Goldstein, who founded and still runs the Diaspora Yeshiva, officially known as Yeshiva Toras Yisrael, told Arutz-7 in the past that “according to their Bible, the Land is to return to the Christians, and 144,000 Jews are to return to Mt. Zion. Their plan is for them to take control of the site, and then to announce that they are holding a mass reenactment of the Last Supper, with all types of religious ritual, and to invite millions of Christians to come to Jerusalem and celebrate.” Rabbi Goldstein said that this means much tourism money for Israel, and that someone in the Israeli government is apparently very interested in making this happen.

The King David’s Tomb complex, some 100,000 square feet, is “certainly one of the holiest spots in the Land of Israel,” a yeshiva source said. “David, Solomon and others kings of Judea are said to be buried here. We’ve already given away the Temple Mount and the Machpelah Cave, except for here and there when we’re allowed in; now they want to give Mt. Zion away as well? For thousands of years, this area was almost always totally closed off to Jews. G-d gave it back to us in 1948, but parts of it were still in range and sight of Jordanian snipers and were not in full use. After 1967, Rabbi Goldstein founded the Diaspora Yeshiva here – and it became an island of holiness, the first yeshiva for baalei teshuvah [newly religious in Israel; we were there day and night learning Torah.) Rabbi Goldstein was almost prophetic in establishing this yeshiva at that time at that spot; destiny from above intertwined him with Mt. Zion.”

ARAB FACES DEATH FOR LAND SALE!
by Hillel Fendel

As a Palestinian Authority Arab faces the death sentence for selling land to Jews, a civil rights group asks Prime Minister Netanyahu to demand that PA rescind death penalty for the “crime.”

The Yesha (Judea and Samaria) Civil Rights Organization has written an urgent letter to Binyamin Netanyahu and ministers in his government in light of the opening of the trial this week. According to PA law, the defendant faces the death penalty if convicted.

The letter, addressed to Netanyahu and the Ministers of Justice, Defense, and Public Security, states, “The Land of Israel is now the only place in the world where the law officially bans the sale of land to Jews because they are Jews. Even worse, the punishment for violators is actually death.”

The organization says that Netanyahu’s government must set an ultimatum: “No negotiations with the Palestinian Authority until this anti-Semitic law is rescinded. This demand takes precedence even over the insistence that the PA recognize Israel as a Jewish state.”

The trial of the Hevron resident in a special PA court began on Tuesday, with the defendant accused of having sold land in the Hevron area to Jews. The Yesha group asks Netanyahu and the ministers to step in to save the man, who is being charged with treason.

Israel’s intervention in the past has caused the PA to release others who had been jailed on suspicion of selling land to Jews. These include Arab-Israelis living in eastern Jerusalem.

Strook: “Such a Law is a Red Light for Diplomatic Relations”

Orit Strook of the Jewish Community of Hevron, the director of the Yesha Civil Rights group, says, “Israel would never have diplomatic relations with any country that has on its books a law forbidding the sale of land to Jews.”

Her organization’s letter states that the confiscation of Beit HaShalom (Peace House) from its rightful Jewish owners in Hevron several months ago is directly related to the fact that Arabs must fear for their lives when selling to Jews: “The Israeli authorities act as if the Arab sellers are free people, when in fact a gun is pointed at their heads and they must do everything they can to hide their actions – and this is why they claimed after the sale of Beit HaShalom [to Jew that they never sold it.”

“So long as the ‘Palestinian rule of law’ is not uprooted from its source,” the letter concludes, “all the talk about Israeli rule of law in Judea and Samaria has no foothold in reality.”

THE WORLD’S FIRST POSTHUMOUS ADOPTION OF AN ABORTED CHILD
By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries
COSTA MESA, CA (ANS) — A California couple signed adoption papers Monday, April 20, 2009, so the husband could adopt his wife’s two previously aborted children and give them his last name. It may be the first such posthumous adoption of an aborted child.

The documents were executed live on Rich Buhler’s radio program “Talk From the Heart” on KBRT AM-740, which broadcasts to all of Southern California.

Stan Musil said he wanted to adopt his wife Lisa’s children as a part of his love and support for her, as a part of her healing from the pain of the abortions, and to give them his last name for a memorial that is being constructed in Riverside, California to honor children whose lives have been lost to abortion.

Joining them for the signing was attorney Ron Stoddart of Nightlight Christian Adoptions who drew up the adoption papers. He is also a pioneer in the field of embryo adoptions.

Lisa, who is now 45 years old, said that at the age of 19 she was a hairdresser and living with her boyfriend in Southern California when she discovered she was pregnant. She said she was terrified. She felt she had no one to talk with about her pregnancy and was too frightened to admit it to anyone.

“I had my whole life ahead of me,” she said. “I felt there was nothing else I could do.”

When she was almost three months into her pregnancy she went to an abortion clinic in Inglewood, California and arranged for her baby’s life to be ended. But instead of bringing the crisis to a close, it only opened the door to years of further and deeper difficulty. “I felt such agonizing pain in my heart that I tried to cover it by becoming involved in drugs, alcohol, partying, and a promiscuous lifestyle,” Lisa told the radio audience.

“My life spiraled out of control and although I didn’t realize it at the time, I was on a path toward destruction that would last for years.”

Lisa later discovered that she was pregnant for a second time which was complicated by the fact that she also on her way to jail because of a drunk driving conviction.

“I had another, this time at the third month of my pregnancy. Lisa recounted. “This time it was a different man, a different father and I could not even say the word ‘abortion.’ I preferred to describe the pregnancies as ‘terminated.’”

There were times when Lisa felt she could sense God calling her name. Her brother told her once that if she didn’t quit the way she was living, she was going to die. “I just shrugged off those words and carried on,” she said. “But deep inside—I knew.”

Then came an evening in 1988 when Lisa’s brother took her to Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa. The teacher that night was Greg Laurie who is the pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship in Riverside. Lisa went forward during the service and dedicated her life to Jesus Christ. That night her destructive path came to an end.

In the years that followed, Lisa grew in her faith in Christ and also sought to deal with the pain of her destructive lifestyle, especially her two abortions.

“It wasn’t instant and it wasn’t easy, but I came to realize how much God loved me and that he also offered me forgiveness for what I had done. I can say that today I feel completely healed and God has allowed me to help many other women who are carrying the searing pain and loss of abortion.”

After committing her life to Christ, Lisa was determined to do things right this time and to find a healthy relationship with the right man—a Christian man. He turned out to be Stan, an Elder at Harvest Christian Fellowship who was also the overseer of the singles ministry there. They met at a singles retreat and after a 13 month courtship Stan and Lisa married nearly 7 years ago.

Lisa is a part of a ministry in Riverside called White As Snow that helps women in crisis pregnancies as well as women and men who are dealing with the pain of abortion.

“There is such a huge void after an abortion,” explains Lisa. “Once a mother realizes what has happened and that there was a living child in her womb and who would be alive today had it not been for the abortion, the pain is almost too much to bear.”

It has become common for women who have experienced abortion or miscarriage to imagine whether their child was a boy or a girl and to give the baby a name. “Some of us have asked God to reveal that information to us so we can further acknowledge the personhood of the child and grieve the loss more concretely,” added Lisa.

A cemetery plot at Pierce Brothers Crestlawn Memorial Park in Riverside is to be the site of a memorial to aborted children, a granite monument on which the names of the children will be engraved. “I was trying to decide what last name I should give to my two children,” Lisa said, “When Stan told me that he wished he could adopt them so they would have his last name.”

“I love Lisa, “Stan said, “And what better way to show it? It’s easy to say I love you. What better way to show you love someone than to prove it by actions. It never came to my mind that this had not been done before. These babies are a part of Lisa, so they are a part of me as well.”

Lisa mentioned Stan’s desire to adopt during an interview on Rich Buhler’s radio program on April 2 and that gave Buhler the idea of exploring whether it would be possible.

“I immediately called my fried Ron Stoddart,” Buhler explained. “Ron is an expert on adoption and has also been a leader in arranging for the adoption of frozen embryos. Hundred of thousands of embryos have been created as a part of fertility treatments and Ron helps infertile couples to legally adopt them, implant them into the wife’s womb, and bring them to birth.”

Stoddart said that it wasn’t possible to do an adoption in the eyes of the law because there was no birth certificate for the aborted children, no legal acknowledgement that they ever existed. But it would be possible for Stan and Lisa to a ceremonial adoption, to sign paperwork with each other that reflected their desire for the adoption to take place and their desire to honor the personhood of the two children Lisa had briefly parented. Before each other, before God, and before witnesses, they would be embracing the children as a part of their marriage.

So when the intended memorial is erected in Riverside, among the names will be Alicia Anne Musil and Vincent Matthew Musil.

Lisa said that abortion is such a lonely place to be that she feels blessed that her children are acknowledged and love by others, especially by Stan. “He’s the man I never prayed for,” said Lisa. “I could never have prayed for anyone as wonderful as him.”

(EDITOR’S NOTE: Stan and Lisa Musil are friends of Dr. David Hocking and have been for many years. May God be praised for this wonderful report!)

JEWISH LEADERS MIXED ON OBAMA
by Hana Levi Julian

Most Jewish leaders offered U.S. President Barack Obama a blank check of praise for his decision not to participate in the Durban II racism conference, especially in light of Monday’s tirade against Israel at the podium by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But not all.

Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, was one of the few who did not give a five star gold rating for Obama’s decision, made barely 48 hours prior to the start of the conference.

In an exclusive interview with Israel National News, Klein said, “Of course America did the right and obvious thing not to participate in a racist and anti-Semitic and frankly evil conference. But it was troubling that America would have participated if the Durban organizers had simply met a couple of additional criteria that America requested. And that’s even though Iranian President Ahmadinejad was a vice chairman of this conference and a major speaker at this conference. And it was even though he is a proclaimed Holocaust denier, and makes all kinds of statements against Israel and against America. They would have participated.”

“This was troubling to me,” he said. “They have singled out Israel for human rights abuses, they accuse Israel of lies. That’s the issue. And had the conference met a few more criteria, despite the fact it is being led by Iran, Cuba and Libya, all haters of Israel and America, they would have participated anyway. That’s a problem,” said Klein.

The Black Caucus of the U.S. Congress had expressed its deep disappointment with the Obama administration’s last-minute decision not to attend the conference – a fact that Klein said he found even more disturbing.

“First of all, I have trouble with the whole idea of a Black Caucus. These Congress people are supposed to represent all Americans, not just black Americans.” Klein was also troubled by what he said appeared to be a double standard applied by black legislators.

“It is deeply troubling to see the insensitivity of these black Congress members to the Durban conference’s hatred against Jews in Israel,” he commented, “especially in light of the fact that blacks for so many years experienced hatred against their own people. They should be publicly chastised.”

U.S. Deputy Ambassador to the UN Alejandro Wolff told reporters after Ahmadinejad’s appearance at the conference, “I can’t think of any other word than shameful.” He said it was a a “vile and hateful speech.”

But Wolff then brushed the address aside, making it clear that the evil expressed would not prevent continued U.S. efforts to maintain contact with the Ahmadinejad regime.

“It does a grave injustice to the Iranian nation and the Iranian people, and we call on the Iranian leadership to show much more measured, moderate, honest and constructive rhetoric when dealing with issues in the region,” he said.

U.S. State Department spokesman Robert Wood likewise told reporters in Washington that despite “this horrible rhetoric,” America was still hoping to open diplomatic talks with Iran, in keeping with Obama’s policy of engagement. “I am not precluding it because we have said very straightforwardly that we want to have direct diplomacy with Iran,” Wood said.

Rabbi David Zweibel, executive vice president of Agudath Israel of America, applauded “our nation’s refusal to participate in this sham,” saying Obama’s decision to boycott the conference “provided a principled example for other countries, a number of which likewise declined to participate in the gathering.”

“It also, no doubt, played a role in emboldening dozens of diplomats to walk out today when the Iranian President, true to his image, debased the memory of the Holocaust and delivered an anti-Israel tirade,” Zweibel said.

“Durban II once again proves that a conference ‘against’ racism can in fact be a hotbed of precisely the same. President Obama deserves credit for refusing to be taken in by this latest example of Orwellian Newspeak.”

American Jewish Congress: Kudos for Obama ‘Multilateralism’

The American Jewish Congress took a more defensive stance on Obama’s decision to boycott the conference and was very cautious about criticizing those who supported participating in the gathering.

In its statement, the AJC simply said, “Those who say the United States should have participated, notwithstanding fundamental flaws in the final preparatory document, as did some human rights groups indifferent to the damage caused… to the battle against racism, were wrong.”

Instead, the AJC named every nation that joined the boycott, praising them and the Obama Administration for “pursuing multilateralism in a measured way and for not being so beguiled by it (and the anti-racism cause) that they lost their own moral and strategic compass.”

The organization urged the U.S. to “find a new vehicle to combat racism, but one that actually does that and not use racism as a cover for other, entirely dishonorable causes.”

European Jewish Congress: ‘Shame on Ban’

World Jewish leaders slammed U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for sitting quietly during the hate-filled speech of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Dr. Moshe Kantor, president of the European Jewish Congress, an umbrella organization representing the Jewish communities in Europe, qualified his praise of the European and other delegations that walked out during Ahmadinejad’s diatribe against Israel.

“Based upon the planning process and draft resolution language, every nation and delegation should have known what to expect,” Kantor said in a statement following the speech. Those that walked out, he said, “should be commended for having the moral conviction not to stand for this mockery of human rights, but they should not have been participants to begin with.”

He noted that Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store responded to the speech by saying “we will not let the floor of the U.N. be hijacked by extremists.” However, he added, “If Hitler himself had addressed this forum, would U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon sit as politely as he did for the lies and hatred spewed forth by Ahmadinejad? Shame on him, and shame on anyone who stayed in the room to hear or applaud his evil rants.”

EU DELEGATES WALK OUT OF “DURBAN II” AS AHMADINEJAD BLASTS ISRAEL!

The UN Human Rights Council international anti-racism conference kicked off in Geneva on Monday with a keynote address by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But as the Iranian president predictably started railing against Israel, most delegates from Western nations very conspicuously walked out of the room.

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OBAMA: DURBAN 2 ‘”HYPOCRITICAL”
by Gil Ronen

U.S. President Barack Obama said on Sunday that the U.S. decided to boycott the “Durban 2” conference in Geneva because the draft for the summit’s final declaration could include “hypocritical allegations” against Israel.

“I would love to be involved in a useful conference that addressed continuing issues of racism and discrimination around the globe,” Obama said in Trinidad after attending the Summit of the Americas.

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STUDY: IRAN TO ATTACK US, ISRAEL!
by Malkah Fleisher

Just two days after US President Barack Hussein Obama shared a controversial and landmark handshake with Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez at the Summit of the Americas, the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center has released a study analyzing the flowering alliance between the increasingly anti-Western Latin America and the virulently anti-Israel Iran.

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