While You’re Sipping Eggnog…

While you’re celebrating Christmas with your family today, President Obama and his family are in Jakarta, Indonesia Hawaii — where he grew up, they say — “celebrating Christmas” as well. They will not be attending church, though. Apparently if it’s not Rev. Jeremiah Wright and his racist, communist ideology black liberation theology, the Obamas aren’t interested. And don’t forget all the Secret Service agents and others the Obamas are depriving of Christmas with their families because of their need to be in Hawaii.

Meanwhile, back at the White House, we wonder who is celebrating around a Christmas tree with ornaments that feature Mao, transvestite “Hedda Lettuce,” and Barack Obama’s face superimposed upon Mount Rushmore (see more commentary here, here, here, and here). Lest we forget, President Obama isn’t the first to toy with Christmas: Adolph Hitler did it, too (h/t Born Again Redneck).

As our president downplays and degrades one of our most treasured holidays, we remember how another president handled his first Christmas as our head of state (h/t GayPatriot, text at RedState):

More beneath the fold…

Some Perspective, Please

Dr. Jehuda Hiss, the chief pathologist at Israel’s top forensic institute, has admitted that Israel harvested the organs of slain Palestinians (along with IDF soldiers, Israeli citizens, and foreign workers) without the permission of their families (h/t Blue Collar Republican). The practice stopped a decade ago. Clearly, there is nothing that could justify this practice and Israelis — along with Jews the world over — who had no idea what was going on will now have to deal with the consequences of their government’s mistakes. One of those consequences will undoubtedly be a reinforcement of anti-Semitic libel*.

Still, some perspective, please:

“I’m horrified but I must say it’s comforting that it’s not only Palestinians whose organs were taken,” said Galia Golan, a professor of international relations and a longtime peace activist. “The real problem is what it shows about the level of morality in Israeli society. Here the Palestinians were just as much victims as the citizens of Israel.”

“…the level of morality in Israeli society”? Really?

You know, call me crazy, but nothing says immorality like encouraging your own people — including women and children — to walk into crowded areas and commit murder-suicide on a massive scale. Nothing says immorality like firing rockets into civilian areas, actually in the hopes of killing civilians. And you just get all the more immoral when you not only condone these war crimes, but declare them holy obligations mandated by your god.

Any discussion of “immorality in Israeli society” must be accompanied by a discussion of immorality in Palestinian society. When you put the two side by side and compare, the Israelis are still going to win the morality award every time. The basis of Palestinian nationalism, whether secular or religious in its focus, is the complete annihilation of Israel by whatever means necessary. Neither the secular Palestine Liberation Organization nor the Islamist Hamas will expunge the goal of eliminating Israel from their foundational charters.

To be sure, the practice of harvesting organs from anyone without permission is a heinous offense against the dignity of the human person (although, one could argue, no more heinous than destroying living embryos by harvesting stem cells from them and justifying it by saying “they were going to be destroyed anyway” — so choke on that for a while before you speak up to condemn Israel, leftists).

But let’s have some perspective. At least the victims in this situation were already dead. When a Palestinian terrorist sorry, I forgot, freedom fighter walks into a cafe or dance club and blows himself up, the civilians whose lives he is about to take are very much alive. We can all agree that harvesting someone’s organs without permission is gravely wrong. But we can never forget that the indiscriminate murder of innocent civilians in the name of a god is far worse.

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* I’m not saying that anti-Semitic libel is ever justified, only that the actions of the Israeli government will likely exacerbate such libel. And before you release a firestorm of condemnation, please bear in mind that I have declared myself a Zionist and Benjamin Netanyahu is my favorite foreign leader. That will be all.

Obama Administration to Israel: Double Hamas’ Pleasure, Double Their Fun

Hamas has demanded the release of 1,000 Palestinian terrorists sorry, political prisoners (450 of whom were specifically named) in exchange for their release of Corporal Gilad Shalit. Now from Haaretz (via Israel Matzav), we learn that the Obama administration has just made this situation literally twice as bad:

A senior official in the U.S. administration told Haaretz that if the deal for Shalit’s release is completed, the U.S. would be interested in seeing Israel releasing Fatah prisoners as well, in addition to other gestures to bolster Fatah’s status compared to Hamas. “We are telling the Israelis that [Palestinian President Mahmoud] Abbas’ situation needs to be mitigated,” the U.S. official said.

Emphasis is my own. This really is mind-blowing. No concern for Corporal Shalit, no concern for the delicate situation in which the Israeli government already finds itself in light of Hamas’ demands — only concern for Mahmoud Abbas and his political legitimacy. The rationale is that if Israel accedes to Hamas’ prisoner exchange demands, Hamas will appear more effective and thus a more legitimate representative of the Palestinian people than Abbas and his Fatah party. Thus, the administration says, Israel should release an equal number of Fatah prisoners to mitigate the blow to Abbas’ image.

Oh, where to begin? For starters, it’s not the Israeli government’s responsibility to protect Abbas’ legitimacy. Either the Palestinians want independence or they don’t. The Palestinian president has to secure his own political legitimacy, and if he can’t then he and Palestinian society will have to deal with the consequences. That’s what being an independent state is all about.

But for the sake of argument, let’s accept for a moment the Obama administration’s fundamental assertion here — that Israel should work to mitigate the damage to Abbas’ image. Even if we accept this argument, it does not follow that releasing an equal number of Fatah prisoners will bolster Abbas’ legitimacy. The Palestinian people will still know that both the Hamas and Fatah prisoners have been released because of Hamas efforts and they will give Hamas the credit. When it comes right down to it, this would still be a Hamas victory and there is no way to mitigate the blow to Abbas’ image.

As much as I feel for Corporal Shalit and his family, I don’t think the Israeli government should meet Hamas’ prisoner exchange demands. We all feel for this one man and his family. How will we feel for the countless other people and their families, military and possibly civilian, when Hamas sees that this tactic is effective in forcing Israel to release terrorists from its prisons? Exchanging so many prisoners for one man sets a dangerous precedent that could impact countless Israelis, and Israel must not do it.

CORRECTION

In response to the post “International Punch a Jew in the Face Day,” Kevin Judge, the Director of Student Services at Avondale College in Australia, has contacted me to inform me that Sajid Haque does not attend and in fact has never attended Avondale College in Australia.

It seems that I mistook Avondale College in Australia for a different Avondale College. (There is at least one more, in New Zealand, but I cannot confirm at this time that Sajid Haque attends this Avondale College either).

I deeply regret the error and I apologize to the students, alumni, faculty, and staff of Avondale College in Australia for this case of mistaken identity.

Socialist Watch: Castro’s Spy, Our Ambassador?

Here’s something that’s not getting enough attention in either old or new media. President Obama has nominated Mari Del Carmen Aponte as U.S. ambassador to El Salvador. What’s the problem, you ask? Well, turns out Aponte may be another one of those radicals that our president pals around with. She was nominated once before in 1998 by Bill Clinton as ambassador to the Dominican Republic, but that nomination was derailed by the late Sen. Jesse Helms when — wait for it — he exposed Aponte’s connection to Cuban spies. From NewsMax (h/t The Two Malcontents):

Aponte is a lawyer and longtime friend of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who served on Bill Clinton’s White House transition team in 1993. A 1998 Insight Magazine article said, “while routinely monitoring Cuban intelligence officers at the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, the FBI discovered that a member of Clinton’s White House transition team may have been recruited as a spy for Fidel Castro.

According to the magazine, which folded last year, the FBI believed Aponte’s live-in boyfriend was an agent for Cuba’s Dirreción General de Inteligencia or DGI. Later named as Roberto Tamayo, the magazine said the FBI discovered that he “introduced her to Cuban intelligence officers at the interests section. He allegedly gave her a ‘loan’ believed to have come from the Cuban secret service — a loan Aponte never repaid. When questioned by the FBI in 1994, Aponte refused to take a polygraph test.”

So, you ask, why would President Obama nominate Aponte a second time? Well, it could have something to do with the thousands of dollars she has given to Democratic campaigns over the past few years (detailed further by NewsMax). Like they say, follow the money, honey. It could also have something to do with Aponte’s longtime association with far left Latino organizations, including the National Council of La Raza. But let’s face it: It’s the money. Aponte bought herself an ambassadorial nomination.

Concluding thought #1: What size cojones must Bill Clinton have had to nominate Aponte in 1998, after the FBI had already raised questions about her and she refused to take a polygraph in 1994?

Concluding thought #2: Of course, it takes real stupidity cojones to nominate her a second time after Senate Republicans already derailed her nomination in ’98.

Concluding thought #3: Then again, maybe it wasn’t the money. We’ve had Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, Valerie Jarrett, Van Jones, and Kevin Jennings — and that’s just to name a few. Why not Mari Del Carmen Aponte? Maybe Obama genuinely likes her.

Islamist Watch: Islamists Gone Wild, MSM Can’t Be Bothered

Ladies and gentlemen, the world’s Islamists have gone wild:

– Israel Matzav (h/t Atlas Shrugs) brings us the chilling news that Hamas has begun disinterring the bodies of Christians in the Gaza Strip. Why? “They pollute the earth.”

– At a seminar on domestic violence, a Saudi judge declared that it’s a-okay for Muslim men to slap their wives for spending too much while they’re shopping. We fully expect that the National Organization for Women (NOW) will respond as forcefully to this as it did to President Obama’s exclusion of women from his basketball games.

– Gateway Pundit reports that the Iranian theocracy is cracking down on Tehran University students who burned photos of the late Ayatollah Khomeini.

– Atlas Shrugs reports that Islamist terror group the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (yes, MILF — but not the good kind) attacked a jail in the Philippines and freed at least 31 prisoners.

– A male adulterer was stoned to death (h/t GayandRight) by Islamist rebels in Somalia. But don’t feel too bad for him; he was 48 and the girl he was committing adultery with was only 15. She received 100 lashes, even though in civilized sorry, imperialist societies this “adultery” would have been considered statutory rape.

– Writing for Family Security Matters (h/t The Two Malcontents), Margaret Hemenway draws our attention to the connections between the Department of Defense’s Muslim chaplaincy program and Islamist terrorism. Islamists have infiltrated our armed forces.

– The Jewish Internet Defense Force (along with many others) brings us the news that a Muslim attacker bit Rabbi Dov Gruzman’s finger off after he presided over a public menorah lighting for Chanukah in Vienna, Austria. As JIDF notes, it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that a Muslim attacker would bite someone’s finger off since the Qur’an told him to do it.

Sadly, we know already that we won’t hear much about any of this from the mainstream media. Sure, maybe a blurb here and there — but compare any sparse coverage of Islamists gone wild to Tigergate and you’ll see where their priorities lie. Besides, the emboldening of global Islamism and the explosion of Islamist violence doesn’t fit the narrative of the Peace Prize Presidency.

“International Punch a Jew in the Face Day”

Yep, this was an actual event on Facebook. To their credit, Facebook administrators have now removed the event, but the Jewish Internet Defense Force (JIDF) has a screencap and full lists of the “confirmed guests” and those who were “maybe attending.” They’ve published their names to ensure that college admissions offices and future employers can Google them and find their connection to this despicable display of anti-Semitism.

JIDF points out that Arab and Muslim names abound in the ranks of this event’s supporters. I’ve also noted that many of them are attending schools in Western countries (particularly Australia and the United Kingdom). More about the young Arab anti-Semites and Islamists who are infiltrating Western civilization beneath the fold…

“Therefore, we warn the Guards who have betrayed the martyrs…”

From a statement signed by officers in the Iranian army (via Pajamas Media), warning the Revolutionary Guards and by extension Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that they will not tolerate attacks upon the Iranian people:

Therefore, we warn the Guards who have betrayed the martyrs (from the war between Iran and Iraq) and who decided to attack the lives, the property and the honor of the citizens. We seriously warn them that if they do not leave their chosen path, they will be confronted with our tough response. The military is a haven for the nation. And we will defend the peace-loving Iranian nation against any aggression.

Ayatollah Khamenei, President Ahmadinejad — call your offices.

The author of the article reproduced at PJM, Afshin Ellian, argues that “American and European diplomats need to warn Khamenei in a louder and clearer way about the consequences of his way of governing the nation.” I agree. The time is ripe for international pressure on Iran to adopt liberal democracy rather than the ayatollah’s autocracy.