Tuesday, August 30, 2016
Fwd: Prof. Paul Eidelberg: Corrected verson of "The Legacy of Bill Clinton" (with thanks to Will Morrisey)
From: "Paul Eidelberg" <foundation612.12@gmail.com>
Date: Aug 30, 2016 10:12 AM
Subject: Corrected verson of "The Legacy of Bill Clinton" (with thanks to Will Morrisey)
To: "Terry Hurlbut" <temlakos@gmail.com>
Cc:
"The Legacy of Bill Clinton"
Prof. Paul Eidelberg
December 7, 1999 (updated)
Bill Clinton, the 42nd American President, served in office from 1993 to 2001. Prior to that, the Arkansas native and Democrat was governor of his home state.Recall the December 19, 1998 impeachment of Mr. Clinton. It was initiated by the House of Representatives on two charges, one of perjury and one of obstruction of justice. The charges stemmed
from his extramarital affair with former White House Intern Monica Lewinsky and his testimony about the affair during a sexual harassment lawsuit filed against him by Paula Jones. He was acquitted of these charges by the Senate on February 12,
1999. Two other impeachment articles – a second perjury charge and a charge of abuse of power failed in the House.
During his first term in office, President Clinton was quoted as saying "My policy is to have no policy" -- which may explain why this Democrat became a virtual Republican after the Republican Party gained control of both houses of Congress in the 1994 mid-term elections. Of course, to have no policy is to have no firm political principles, no moral convictions, hence no rigorous sense of honor. Does this characterize the Clinton legacy?
Like other Presidents, Mr. Clinton can be accused of many
misdeeds. Like President Jimmy Carter, he patronized the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), The PLO was renamed the Palestinian Authority (PA) after the signing of the Israel-PLO Agreement of September 1993. This agreement, underwritten by the United States, did not alter the fact that the PA is a consortium of terrorist organization whose Charter calls for Israel's annihilation. To this end, PA terrorists have murdered
or maimed more than 15,000 Jewish men, women, and children to date.
Nevertheless, the PA has received annual grants of hundreds of millions of dollars from the United States. This makes the U.S. a major patron of terrorism! The U.S. has thus earned the contempt it now has among other nations, whatever be their motives.That America is now afflicted by floods does not surprise this observer. Nor am I surprised that anti-Semitic Europe, another patron of Israel's enemies, is being overrun my Muslim migrants, rapists, and murderers.
Returning to Mr. Clinton, however, his cozying up with the PLO was indicative of a protracted decline of American honor and moral standards. To understand this decay, let us first examine why the U.S. refused to recognize the Soviet Union in 1917 and did not do so until 1933. Here is how Robert Lansing, Secretary of State under Woodrow Wilson, put it: "To recognize the Bolsheviks would give them an exalted idea of their own
power, make them more insolent and impossible, and win their contempt, not their friendship.... As to Lenin and Trotsky I am in doubt ... For national and personal honor, for truth and for the individual rights to life, liberty and property they seem to have no regard."
Mr. Lansing was succeeded by Secretary Bainbridge Colby, who in 1920 declared: "The existing regime in Russia is based upon the negation of every principle of honor and good faith, and every usage and convention, underlying the whole structure of international law; the negation, in short, of every principle upon which it is possible to base harmonious and
trustful relations, whether of nations or of individuals."
Mr. Colby was succeeded by Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes (who later became Chief Justice of the American Supreme Court). Mr. Hughes said in 1923: "The American government is not prepared to barter away its principles [by recognizing the Soviet Union]." Five years laterSecretary of State Frank B. Kellogg avowed: "The experiences of various European
Governments, which have recognized and entered into relations with the Soviet regime, have demonstrated conclusively the wisdom of the [non-recognition] policy to which the Government of the United States has consistently adhered. Recognition of the Soviet regime has not led [its leaders] to the acceptance by them of other fundamental obligations of international intercourse."
Now ponder this remark of John Spargo, a leading figure of the Socialist Party in America, who in 1930 declared: "It is futile to argue the matter; recognition of Soviet Russia [which seeks our own subversion] would be shameful self-abasement."
What would John Spargo say of a superpower like the U.S. appeasing a Lilliputian gang of murderers like the Palestinian Authority? The PA is the Palestinian wing of America's mortal enemy, the Muslim Brotherhood. The PA is headed by a fading thug, Mahmoud Abbas, an occasional guest of the Obama White House, which also hosts the Muslim Brotherhood. This confluence of terrorists in the capital of the United States makes one wonder what further natural disasters (God forbid) await America.
When we recall that President Bill Clinton consorted with the PLO, and when to this we add President Barack Obama's embracing the cause of that Muslim-led monstrosity, let us apply to these sinister acts the words of the prophet Hosea (8-7): "They that sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind."Hence, I believe that the natural disasters now afflicting the United States are providential and cannot be dissociated from the Clinton Legacy.◙
Fwd: PMO statements: Statement on UN Middle East Envoy's Remarks to the UNSC: distort history and international law and push peace farther away. Jewish Ethnic cleansing in Palestinian State
From: <imra@imra.org.il>
Date: Aug 30, 2016 10:52 AM
Subject: PMO statements: Statement on UN Middle East Envoy's Remarks to the UNSC: distort history and international law and push peace farther away
To: <imra@imra.org.il>
Cc:
The Palestinian demand that a future Palestinian state be ethnically cleansed of Jews is outrageous and the UN must condemn it instead of adopting it."
Statement on UN Middle East Envoy's Remarks to the UNSC
(Communicated by the Prime Minister's Media Adviser)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Media Adviser:
"The UN envoy to the Middle East's remarks to the Security Council distort history and international law and push peace farther away.
Jews have been in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria for thousands of years and their presence there is not an obstacle to peace.
The obstacle to peace is the unending attempt to deny the Jewish People's connection to parts of their historic land and the obdurate refusal to recognize that they are not foreigners there.
The claim that Jewish construction in Jerusalem is illegal is as absurd as the claim that American construction in Washington or French construction in Paris is illegal.
The Palestinian demand that a future Palestinian state be ethnically cleansed of Jews is outrageous and the UN must condemn it instead of adopting it."
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Fwd: THE END OF MAHMOUD ABBAS will Israel Annex Judea and Samaria if Hamas Takeover is imminent?
From: "Truth Provider" <ynz@netvision.net.il>
Date: Aug 30, 2016 11:07 AM
Subject: THE END OF MAHMOUD ABBAS
To: <faigerayzel@gmail.com>
Cc:
"16 years after the failed Camp David summit, the fiction of the two-state solution is about to be shattered once and for all. The only relevant question today, is what does Israel intend to do next?" C.G.
Dear friends,
This is a pivotal article you must read. A big revolution in Judea & Samaria is lurking in the wings. The end of the PA and Abu Mazen is imminent, and a take-over, Gaza style, by Hamas, is almost a certainty.
Will Israel, at long last, annex at least area "C" or even be forced to annex the entire territory?
If President Obama is really planning to leave office with a big anti-Israel move in the UNSC, annexation will become a vital necessity.
Your Truth Provider,
Yuval.
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/
EXCERPTS (the full article follows):
"Although Israel, of course, is in cahoots with no one, it is the case that the government has apparently finally lost its patience with Abbas and is looking past him."
"Repeated angry denunciations by government leaders of Abbas for his lead role in inciting violence against Israelis, leading the international movement to delegitimize Israel, refusing to negotiate anything with its leaders, and radicalizing Palestinian society, are finally being translated into policy."
"As MEMRI has documented, the Arab media is registering growing impatience with PA spokespeople. Arab commentators have harshly criticized PA functionaries who continue to insist their conflict with Israel is the most pressing issue on the pan-Arab agenda."
"The disintegration of Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Libya and the rise of Iran as a mortal threat, along with Israel's growing importance as an ally to Sunni Arab regimes have made the Palestinian cause look downright offensive to large swaths of the Arab world."
"Now that Abbas's reign is ending, the West is losing their man in Ramallah. Abbas's Hamas successors will not be beholden to Western donors, although to their discredit, the Europeans in all likelihood will shower them with cash and side with them against Israel."
"16 years after the failed Camp David summit, the fiction of the two-state solution is about to be shattered once and for all. The only relevant question today, is what does Israel intend to do next?" C.G.
The full article:
Like it or not, the day is fast approaching when the Palestinian Authority we have known for the past 22 years will cease to exist.
PA leader Mahmoud Abbas's US-trained Palestinian security forces have lost control over the Palestinians cities in Judea and Samaria. His EU- and US-funded bureaucracies are about to lose control over the local governments to Hamas. And his Fatah militias have turned against him.
Palestinian affairs experts Pinchas Inbari of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and Khaled Abu Toameh of the Gatestone Institute have in recent weeks reported in detail about the insurrection of Fatah militias and tribal leaders against Abbas's PA.
In Nablus, Fatah terrorist cells are in open rebellion against PA security forces. Since August 18, Fatah cells have repeatedly engaged PA forces in lethal exchanges, and according to Inbari, the town is now in a state of "total anarchy."
In Hebron, tribal leaders, more or less dormant for the past 20 years, are regenerating a tribal alliance as a means of bypassing the PA, which no longer represents them. Their first major action to date was to send a delegation of tribal leaders to meet with King Abdullah of Jordan.
Even in Ramallah, the seat of Abbas's power, the PA is losing ground to EU-funded NGOs that seek to limit the PA's economic control over the groups and their operations.
All of this fighting and maneuvering is taking place against the backdrop of the encroaching PA municipal elections, scheduled for October 8.
Hamas is widely expected to win control over most of the local governments in Judea and Samaria. Hamas's coming takeover of the municipalities is likely playing a role in decisions by Fatah terrorist cells to reject the authority of the PA. Many of those cells can be expected to transfer their allegiance to Hamas once the terrorist group wins the elections.
Given his Fatah party's looming electoral defeat, more and more PA functionaries are wondering why Abbas doesn't use the growing anarchy in Palestinian cities as a reason to cancel them. Abbas seems to have calculated that Israel will step in and, as it has repeatedly done over the past 20 years, cancel the elections for him.
Media organs Abbas controls are full of conspiracy theories whose bottom line is that Israel is not canceling the elections Abbas declared because it is in cahoots with Hamas and other "collaborators" to undermine the PA.
Although Israel, of course, is in cahoots with no one, it is the case that the government has apparently finally lost its patience with Abbas and is looking past him.
Repeated angry denunciations by government leaders of Abbas for his lead role in inciting violence against Israelis, leading the international movement to delegitimize Israel, refusing to negotiate anything with its leaders, and radicalizing Palestinian society, are finally being translated into policy.
Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman's recent announcement that Israel is adopting a carrot-andstick approach not toward the PA but toward the Palestinians themselves, and will advance development projects in areas where terrorism levels are low and take a hard line against areas where terrorist cells are most active, has sent shock waves through Abbas's palaces.
For 22 years, Israel has bowed to Palestinian and Western demands and agreed to speak only to PA functionaries and Palestinian civilians authorized by the PA to speak to Israelis. Liberman's decision to base Israel's actions on the ground on the behavior of the Palestinians themselves rather than act in accordance with PA directives, along with his decision to speak directly to Palestinian businessmen and others, marks the end of Israel's acceptance of this practice.
Without a doubt, Israel's willingness to let Abbas fall is in part a function of the wider Arab world's increased indifference to, if not disgust with the Palestinians. As MEMRI has documented, the Arab media is registering growing impatience with PA spokespeople. Arab commentators have harshly criticized PA functionaries who continue to insist their conflict with Israel is the most pressing issue on the pan-Arab agenda.
The disintegration of Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Libya and the rise of Iran as a mortal threat, along with Israel's growing importance as an ally to Sunni Arab regimes have made the Palestinian cause look downright offensive to large swaths of the Arab world.
Part of Israel's willingness to let Abbas fall also owes to its inevitability. Once Hamas wins the elections and takes control over the local governments, Abbas's already weakened position will become unsustainable. As is already happening in towns and villages throughout the areas, Fatah cells will transfer their allegiance to Hamas. The areas will become Balkanized and radicalized still further.
Confrontation between Israel and the Hamas-controlled Palestinians in Judea and Samaria is inevitable.
Moreover, this process will likely be rapid. Just as Hamas's complete takeover of Gaza from Fatah forces happened seemingly overnight in June 2007, so its seizure of control over Judea and Samaria will happen in the blink of an eye.
Many Westerners, Israeli leftists and PA functionaries hope that some deus ex machina will fall from the sky at the last minute and cancel the elections.
But even if that happens, the underlying reality in which Abbas is rapidly losing all semblance of control over events in Judea and Samaria will not be reversed. Abbas has incited the Palestinians to the point where they reject not only Israel, but Abbas and the PA.
Last week, the left-leaning Israeli Democracy Institute released the results of its joint survey with the Palestinian Center for Policy Survey Research regarding levels of support for a two-state solution.
For a generation, we have been told by world leaders that "everyone who is anyone" knows that the only way to reconcile the Palestinians and Israelis is to establish an independent Palestinian state in Judea, Samaria and parts of Jerusalem, as well as Gaza, roughly along the 1949 armistice lines, with land swaps between the sides involving continued Israeli control over a small percentage of the land in exchange for Palestinian control over lands Israel has controlled since its establishment.
The same formula that "everyone who is anyone" agrees on assumes that the Palestinian state will be demilitarized and that Israel will accept around a hundred thousand Palestinians who were displaced in 1949 as citizens in a token acceptance of the Palestinian demand for a so-called "right of return" of the descendants of Arabs who left Israel in 1948-9.
The poll showed that this plan is a nonstarter for the majority of Palestinians and Israelis. Only 46 percent of Israelis accept the formula and a mere 39% of Palestinians do.
The PA itself rejected the two-state formula at Camp David 16 years ago.
The fictional peace process based on the failed policy model has been maintained ever since for two reasons. First, successive Israeli governments have been intimidated by successive US administrations into maintaining faith with it despite its obvious failure.
Second, Abbas has built, secured and maintained his corrupt dictatorship over Palestinian society on the West's obsession with the two-state formula.
This practice has allowed him to serve into the 11th year of his five-year term of office. It has allowed Abbas, his sons and his cronies to build fortunes on the backs of the Palestinians they are supposedly serving.
Now that Abbas's reign is ending, the West is losing their man in Ramallah. Abbas's Hamas successors will not be beholden to Western donors, although to their discredit, the Europeans in all likelihood will shower them with cash and side with them against Israel.
16 years after the failed Camp David summit, the fiction of the two-state solution is about to be shattered once and for all. The only relevant question today, is what does Israel intend to do next?
