An inhaler at a fraction of the price

Ilana Teitelbaum August 04, 2008

Someday soon, the box of prescription medicine you buy from the drugstore might not contain capsules or pills - instead it may take the form of tiny, credit card-sized inhalers that deliver the medication directly to your lungs. Thus envisions Ian Solomon, VP of business development at Aespironics, a company that has discovered a way to create small, cheap inhalers that deliver world-class results. Solomon explains that while today inhalers are mostly used for asthma, they can actually be ideal conveyors of other medications as well. "Pills are very common, but are not really the most effective types of drugs," Solomon tells ISRAEL21c. "They have to get through the intestinal tract and go across the body as a whole, generally to get somewhere else."

In contrast, medications delivered via inhaler travel through the lungs directly into the bloodstream. "If you give the medication by inhaler, it will go to precisely where it's needed," says Solomon.

A fraction of the price

Until now, top quality inhalers have translated to sky-high prices. Solomon's goal was to produce an inhaler with the same characteristics as the highest performing inhalers, but for only a fraction of the price.

To accomplish this goal, Solomon and Aespironics co-founders Gidi Kahane and Amir Genosar enlisted the knowledge of experts in two seemingly unrelated technologies: Professor Robert Sievers, whose field of expertise is drug particles, and Professor Dan Adler of the Technion Institute, whose specialty is wind turbines, such as those used in jet engines.

Aespironics has combined these disparate fields of expertise to produce a unique new technology in inhalers. A tiny breath-activated turbine inside the inhaler beats at a mesh packet with sieve-like holes, which contains the drug particles. This activity releases all the particles into the air at the same time, which conveys the medication directly into the lungs. Because the turbine is activated via breathing, no expensive electrical additions are necessary as they are in other inhalers of the same class.

The product is now beyond proof-of-concept and Aespironics is manufacturing working models for external testing by potential partners. This testing is due to begin by the end of the year, and if all goes well, the product could be out on the market in three years.

Replacing regular injections

The efficacy of the Aespironics inhaler is such that it could replace injections - which would make life much easier for Type I diabetics, who need regular injected doses of insulin.

Currently, only top of the line dry powder inhalers deliver medication efficiently into the lungs; more commonly used inhalers leave drug particles clinging inside the oral cavity, which can lead to negative side effects. Another drawback to cheap inhalers is that because of their inefficiency at conveying the medication to the lungs, it's difficult to calculate accurate dosage.

Aespironics was founded over a year ago with investment of $600,000 from Israeli venture capital firm Maayan Ventures. The company plans to begin its next round of financing in a month.

In June, Solomon unveiled the Aespironics technology for the first time at a DPI conference in London. "The response was universally positive," Solomon recalls. "Instead of criticizing, people were helpful with suggestions." The presentation has generated interest among drug companies. As Solomon explains, "We're a package for a drug. The drug company gets the package, puts the drug inside it, and the product is theirs. It's the same as when they sell a drug via pill or injection - they can sell it as inhalable drug instead."

Mixed metaphors and soggy logic

David Frum, National Post

An American presidential candidate travels to the very center of Europe and draws a huge cheering crowd. George W. Bush obviously could never do that. Nor could John McCain.

For the many Americans sick to death of eight years of confrontation and quarrelling with friends and allies, Barack Obama's visit to Berlin presented an exciting and hopeful picture. This is how things should be!

It was a great moment — so long as you viewed it with the sound off. But if you listened to the speech, you heard an ominous and disturbing statement, one that raises the same unsettling question Hillary Clinton raised: Is this man really capable of meeting the responsibilities of commander-in-chief?

Many commentators have observed that the speech was an unusually poorly written one, filled with weak language and mangled metaphors. Obama at one point announced: "This is the moment when we must defeat terror and dry up the well of extremism that supports it." In my experience, when you try to use a well to support something, that thing tumbles 30 or 40 feet below ground and lands with a splash.

But it's not just Obama's language that is soggy. The Berlin speech revealed more starkly than ever the most dangerous weaknesses in Obama's thinking about the world.

Here he is talking about the early days of the Cold War: "The Soviet shadow had swept across Eastern Europe …." Here he is discussing current threats to security: "Poorly secured nuclear material in the former Soviet Union, or secrets from a scientist in Pakistan could help build a bomb that detonates in Paris." Here is his summons to combat terrorism: "If we could create NATO to face down the Soviet Union, we can join in a new and global partnership to dismantle the networks that have struck in Madrid and Amman; in London and Bali; in Washington and New York."

In all these phrases — and many more — there is always something missing: human beings. It was not a "shadow" that spread across Eastern Europe in 1945. It was an army. Nor is it "materials" and "secrets" that build bombs — it is bomb-makers. It was not "networks" that struck in Madrid and London and the rest. It was terrorists acting in the name of Islam.

Listen now to this:

"If we could win a battle of ideas against the communists, we can stand with the vast majority of Muslims who reject the extremism that leads to hate instead of hope."

It is alas tragically untrue that the "vast majority" of Muslims reject extremism. By every measure, extremism is accepted by very large numbers within the Muslim-majority world — and by even larger numbers of the Muslim minority in Europe.

Now this:

"In this century — in this city of all cities — we must reject the Cold War mindset of the past, and resolve to work with Russia when we can, to stand up for our values when we must, and to seek a partnership that extends across this entire continent."

Russia has reverted to authoritarian rule. It uses its oil and gas to muscle its neighbors. The rulers of Russia are almost certainly responsible for the assassination of one of their most effective critics on British soil — and for the murder of dozens of journalists at home. These are facts, not delusions born of some "Cold War mindset."

Next: "We must support the … Israelis and Palestinians who seek a secure and lasting peace." Which Palestinians would those be? And what if Israel elects a government that does not believe a "secure and lasting peace" is achievable anytime soon? Does Israel forfeit "support" if it recognizes reality?

Last, consider this: "And despite past differences, this is the moment when the world should support the millions of Iraqis who seek to rebuild their lives, even as we pass responsibility to the Iraqi government and finally bring this war to a close."

The insurgency in Iraq was launched not by the United States, but by Baathists and al-Qaeda. If that war is coming to an end, it is because the atrocities of the terrorists alienated former supporters — and because the surge of American military power inside Iraq has hunted and harried the terrorists almost to extinction.

Obama's vague language is the product of an unrealistic mind. He denies the reality of conflict — and flinches from the obligations of self-defense. Obama has risen to power by using a soothing cloud of meaningless words to conceal displeasing truths and avoid difficult choices. His more worldly supporters will quietly whisper that Obama thinks more incisively than his speeches suggest. Let's hope so. Yet the speech in Berlin should cause us all to wonder: Maybe Obama's mind really is as foggy as his language.

dfrum@aei.org

Obama’s Peace Dreams

P. David Hornik
FrontPageMagazine.com

Barack Obama has yet to be elected president, but already the presumptuous Democratic nominee has decided that he will “solve” the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “We’re going to make sure that the Palestinians have a state that allows them to prosper as long as we also have certainty that Israel’s security is not being compromised,” Obama told NBC’s Meet the Press earlier this week. “I think it’s in the interest of both parties, but we are the critical ingredient in terms of making sure that a deal actually gets done.” He added that if the U.S. can “solve” the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, “then that will make it easier for Arab states and the Gulf States to support us when it comes to issues like Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Continued Obama: “It also will weaken Iran, which has been using Hamas and Hezbollah as a way to stir up mischief in the region. If we’ve gotten an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, maybe at the same time peeling Syria out of the Iranian orbit, that makes it easier to isolate Iran so that they have a tougher time developing a nuclear weapon.”

And he said that while he “give[s] the Bush administration credit that the Annapolis process has gotten Prime Minister [Ehud] Olmert…and President [Mahmoud] Abbas…to have very serious…discussions…they may not be able to finish the job. They certainly can’t finish it without serious participation by the next administration, and we’ve got to start early.”

In asserting that the key to unlocking all sorts of Middle Eastern problems is to create an Arab state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean—which, given the current Palestinian leadership, could not be done without squeezing Israel back into something very similar to its pre-1967 deathtrap borders, in which its heavily populated coastal strip was all of nine miles wide a little north of Tel Aviv—Obama wasn’t saying anything very different than the current U.S. administration. “The Middle East is not going to get better without the creation of a Palestinian state to live side by side with Israel in peace, security and democracy,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also said just this week.

It was Bush who, in 2002, became the first U.S. president to call for a fully sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, breaking a long tradition in which the U.S. refrained from defining the nature of a prospective Palestinian entity. Since then, Bush and Rice’s zeal for Palestinian democracy has led to the Palestinians’ election of a Hamas government in 2006. Undeterred, the Bush administration has kept on building up Abbas’s Fatah faction as a supposed “moderate” foil to Hamas while turning a blind eye to Fatah/Palestinian Authority’s ongoing inculcation of anti-Semitic and anti-American hatred in schools, mosques, and media, glorification of terrorism, negation of Israel, grave human rights violations, and so on.

Now along comes Obama—whose foreign policy experience wouldn’t cover the head of a pin—saying an Obama administration will “start early” to get this conflict wrapped up.

It also emerged this week, though, that Arab states may not share Obama’s sense of urgency when it comes to helping Palestinians. Reuters reports that “Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has appealed to the World Bank to help him secure emergency financing to bridge a shortfall in donor funds and pay public workers.” The PA is in a “budget crisis despite billions of dollars in aid pledged last year to support a U.S.-backed peace drive.”

It’s not that the U.S. itself has been remiss in its payments; “the State Department said the [U.S.] had already surpassed its $555 million in pledged support for 2008 to the [PA] and urged other donors to help out.”

But “many Arab states have not met their financial commitments despite pressure from Washington.” Meanwhile “workers in Gaza say Hamas, which receives support from Iran and other Islamist allies, has been paying salaries on time despite the Western boycott….”

Why would that be? If boosting Fatah, beating Hamas, and solving the Palestinian problem is so crucial to the “moderate” Arab states, why would they be laggard in their PA payments even as Iran and company keep giving Hamas all it needs? Part of the answer, aside from stinginess, requires looking at the real Middle East and not the version of it painted by Western guilt.

Take Jordan, for instance. Last month it was reported that “Jordan has quietly let the Bush White House know it is concerned over the prospect of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank…. [Jordanian] officials said Jordan’s King Abdullah has warned the administration that [such a] state…would fuel the Islamic opposition and could lead to an attempt to overthrow the kingdom.”

Indeed, in the real Middle East—despite de rigueur public statements by Abdullah and his father-predecessor King Hussein about the desirability of a Palestinian state—Jordan has long feared such an outcome. Jordan has both a large Palestinian population and a simmering Islamist movement, and knows a Palestinian state across the river is just the thing that would light the spark of insurrection.

As for Syria, to assume that creating a Palestinian state would soften it is to ignore the fact that for decades Syria has hosted in Damascus precisely those Palestinian terrorist organizations like Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the PFLP-GC, and others that are most openly contemptuous of any “solution” other than Israel’s eradication. For believing the regime can be wooed away from this posture there’s a Middle Eastern word—chutzpah.

Then there are the Saudis, still believed by many to be the linchpin of a more Western-aligned, America-accepting Middle East. Yet their much-touted 2002 peace plan calls for a “return” of Palestinian refugees to Israel—code for its demographic demise.

Some of the reasons, then, for the lack of Arab eagerness to aid the PA are: fear of a Palestinian state; ideological rejection of a Palestinian state on only part of the land; and ideological rejection of Israel.

If such nuances tend to escape the Bush administration, they’re even less likely to register with Obama. It’s very possible, though, that by the time he would be president, there will be a different Israeli government that’s more security-conscious and less pliant than Olmert’s government was. If so, expect to see Obama square off against what he would perceive as the real obstacle to peace and harmony: Israel. It’s a grim prospect.
P. David Hornik is a freelance writer and translator living in Tel Aviv. He blogs at http://pdavidhornik.typepad.com/. He can be reached at pdavidh2001@yahoo.com.

Government expected to approve construction of new Arab City

Government expected to approve construction of new Arab city

Interior minister wants new Arab town to be built in Galilee in bid to resolve housing crisis
Roni Sofer

Arab minority to get new city: The government is expected to approve Sunday the establishment of a new Arab city in the Galilee region, in a bid to resolve the housing crisis faced young Arab couples in northern Israel.


The new city's establishment has been promoted by Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit. In a recent visit to Arab-Israeli town Umm al-Fahm, Sheetrit said: "We are aiming for a modern city where every young couple would be able to buy a house and live there just like in any other modern city in the world."

The government is expected to task an inter-ministerial team with formulating a plan for examining the issue. The government intends to accept the team's recommendations by the end of the year.


Ministers have been told that "demographic and social changes to the Arab population and the need to integrate it into Israel's economy and society require us to establish a new urban area for this population."


The site of the new city has not yet been decided and officials are said to be looking into several options. The Interior Ministry is expected to finance the establishment of the city. The prime minister and the housing and construction minister back the proposal, which will be brought up for a vote Sunday. The environmental affairs minister does not object to the plan, but the finance minister's stance is unclear at this time.

Comment:What responsibility has the gov't shown towards our Gush Katif refugees?Chana

More Angst From Michelle Obama

Duane R. Patterson at 12:16 AM
From the Women For Obama luncheon on July 28, 2008, here is more of Michelle Obama's outlook on the state of American society, from the eyes of a woman.

Michelle Obama - 1

And then we have to get them to vote. That's what we have to do, because if there's one thing that I've seen out there as I've traveled around the country over this last year is that women need an advocate in the White House now more than ever before, more than ever before. Michelle Obama - 2

See like all of you in this room, I wear a whole lotta hats, lots of hats going on. I'm a working woman, I'm a daughter, I'm a sister, I'm a best friend. But the one role that I cherish the most that you've come to know is that role of mom. My girls are the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning, and the last thing I think about before I go to bed. And I don't care where I am - on the campaign trail, in a fundraiser, sitting in the back of a van somewhere, I am worried about how my girls are doing, about their well-being, about their stability. So for me, policies that support working women and families, this is personal. These are the issues that I carry in my heart every single day.


Michelle Obama - 3

And it's even harder if you're a single parent. Often times, they work more than one job just to keep ends together. And that doesn't include the jobs that happen when you come home from work. Those jobs, quite frankly, that still fall predominantly on the laps of women, things like getting the laundry done, making dinner, nutritious dinners, because you can't just make a dinner. It's got to be a nutritious dinner grown with good, fresh, clean food. That takes time, trust me.





Michelle Obama - 4

...handing out discipline, getting the homework, paying the bills, and as you see the bills piling up, and the money running short, then you've got another job. And that's often late night worrier. There's just not enough hours in the day. And I know, like many of you, I have spent my nights wishing for that magic machine that could add more hours to the day so I could sleep a little longer, something that would clone me so that I can be in two, three places at one time at least. But I don't know about you, I haven't found that machine. It hasn't shown up. But even with that, I joke about our challenges, but I do know Barack and I know that we are lucky. We are some of the lucky ones, because we have resources.


Michelle Obama - 5

I hear these stories everywhere I go, from women doing everything that's asked of them. And these women aren't asking for much. They're not asking for government to solve all their problems. They're willing to work. They're just hoping that Washington will understand what's happening to families on the ground, particularly mothers with the variety of the challenges that they face. And there just aren't enough Sister Bertas out there in the world to catch folks who don't make it, and fall through the cracks.


Michelle Obama - 6

These struggles, the struggles of working women and families, are just not new to me. They're not new to many of us, and they're certainly not new to Barack. You see, Barack is the product of this kind of strong women upbringing, trying to struggle, making it together. Barack has been shaped by these stories. He grew up with a mother who was a very young, single woman who struggled to finish her education and take care of him and his sister. Now she was one of the kindest people that you'd ever meet. She was a dreamer, the kind of person that would hop on the back of a motorcycle to help women in rural credit programs all over the world. And she had this eternal optimism and commitment to fairness and justice, an unwavering belief that she could help bring about better lives for women all over the world. And a lot of her still lives in Barack. It explains a lot, if you know what I mean.


Michelle Obama - 7

She was determined to show him and his sister that in America, there are no barriers to success if you're willing to work hard. But he also saw her struggle, often times, needing to rely on food stamps to pay the bills. And in her final months, stricken with cancer, he saw her worrying more about how she would pay her medical bills than getting well. He saw his grandmother, the primary bread winner in his family, work her way up through a bank from being an assistant to being a senior person in the bank. But he also saw her unable to break certain glass ceilings, watching men who were less prepared than her soar past her. And he sees me, his wife, trying to juggle it all in the midst of it, always living with the guilt that if I'm spending too much time at work, then I'm not giving enough time to my girls. And if I'm with my girls, then I'm not doing enough for work, or you name it. It's a guilt that we all live with in this room. Can I hear an Amen?


Michelle Obama - 8

And trust me, Barack understands this, too, because the women he loves most in the world have gone through this. So that's why he carries our stories, the stories of women and our struggles with him every single day. And that's why as president, Barack is going to change Washington so that we're not just talking about family values, we're actually creating policies that show that we value families in this country.

Michelle Obama - 9

And as many of you know in this room, when Barack first talked about running for president of the United States, what was my reaction? No. Don't do it. Please don't. You see, the truth was, is that I thought that politics was a mean, rough business. And honestly, the last thing that I wanted for my girls was to have them grow up in this, have their lives turned upside down in the midst of all this, to have them hear their parents being criticized on national TV, to have them away from their dad for weeks on end. I didn't want that for my girls. I don't think anyone would really want that for their kids.

Michelle Obama - 10

But then I had to take a step back and take off my "Me" mommy hat, and put on my "Us" mommy hat. And I started thinking about the kind of world that I would want to hand over to my daughters. I had to think long and hard about wanting them to be able to dream of anything for themselves, you know, wanting them to be able to imagine any kind of future for themselves, and know that they would have the kind of support from this country that would allow them and all of our children to achieve those dreams. And then I realized that if that's the kind of world that I wanted for my girls, then I had to do everything in my power, make every sacrifice, to make it possible. So that's why I'm a woman for Obama. That is why.

Hate

NIDRA POLLER
FROM TODAY'S WALL STREET JOURNAL EUROPE
July 31, 2008

PARIS

The brutal mob beating of a Jewish teenager in full view of witnesses at the end of a summer afternoon marks an ominous development in the hate crimes that have plagued France since the fall of 2000. Previously, Paris's worst anti-Semitic crimes were committed behind closed doors: In 2003, Sébastien Selam was murdered and mutilated by a Muslim neighbor in the underground parking lot of their building. In 2005, Ilan Halimi was tortured to death by Youssouf Fofana and his "Gang of Barbarians" in a housing project in the banlieue. [Hate]

David G. Klein

As if to camouflage the horror of a brazen aggression, French media framed 17-year-old Rudy Haddad's beating in an incongruous narrative of turf battles between Jewish gangs and African and Maghrebi gangs. Confused accounts of the June 21 fights that ended with the attack against Rudy -- portrayed as a tough guy with a police record -- curiously recall the "cycle of violence" treatment of the Arab-Israeli conflict, where Palestinian terror attacks and Israeli efforts to prevent them are judged as morally equivalent. In Rudy's case, officials and reporters contravened the customary self-imposed gag rule and immediately pinned an ethno-religious label on the "youths" who, according to witnesses, bashed Rudy's skull, broke his ribs, jumped up and down on his inert body with all their might shouting "dirty Jew," and left him in a coma. But every account ended with a line about "intercommunitarian strife" that placed half the blame on the victim. The exact nature of these Jewish gangs was left in the dark; no one would imagine they were stealing motor scooters, beating up Muslims and taunting imams.

President Nicolas Sarkozy, who had just arrived in Israel when the story broke, did not hedge: He promised that the perpetrators of this heinous crime would be severely punished. Judicial and police authorities, following suit, launched an investigation for attempted murder with aggravating circumstances of anti-Semitism and mob violence. Five minors were held briefly and then released as material witnesses.

Until a thorough investigation clearly establishes what happened on June 21, we are left with conflicting versions of a series of fights -- or one-sided attacks -- around the City Hall in Paris's 19th arrondissement. The fighting apparently began on the grassy knolls of the vast Buttes Chaumont park, where many Jews traditionally gather on the Sabbath -- and where Muslim bullies systematically come to harass them. Later, a group of 15 or 20 of the usual suspects ganged up on a lone young Jewish man walking from a metro station to the park. When he returned with some friends to look for his Jewish star necklace that had been ripped off, they were attacked again; one of his friends had his arm gashed with a machete. A woman told me she witnessed another violent fight near the City Hall in midafternoon. Fearing someone would get killed -- the (African and Maghrebi) assailants were beating their victims with iron bars -- she asked the policemen on duty to intervene. One of them shrugged and said, "They should all go home."

No one has reported seeing gangs of Jews beating up defenseless Muslims that day. But Mourad Afira, who owns a bar across from the housing project, claims he saw 20 Jewish guys on a "punitive expedition" run up the street at about 6:30 p.m. Seeing they were outnumbered, he says, they made a hasty retreat, leaving Rudy behind. At that point, Mr. Afira says he closed the shutters. There has been no reliable confirmation of Mr. Afira's version of the story, which Paris prosecutor Jean-Claude Marin implicitly contradicted in suggesting that Rudy might have been "visualized as belonging to the gang if only because he was wearing a kippa." Rudy, who is recovering slowly, says the last thing he remembers is that he was on the way to the synagogue.

To reaffirm the good reputation of his district, Socialist Mayor Roger Madec organized a "fraternal gathering" in front of the City Hall on July 3. Reporters were greeted by a press attaché who hastened to inform them that this was not a "purely" anti-Semitic attack -- the Jewish gangs, you know.

With the exception of Richard Prasquier, the president of the Jewish umbrella organization CRIF who asked what is being done about the hatred that fired the unspeakable violence against a 17-year-old simply because he is Jewish, the other speakers sang the praises of good neighborly diversity and warned the media not to pin anti-this and anti-that labels on the "regrettable incident." None of these other speakers thought to address Mr. Prasquier's question.
* * *

A quick look at the neighborhood demographics puts a serious crimp into the "Jewish gang" story. The 19th district, where Paris's largest Jewish population is nonetheless heavily outnumbered by Muslims, has the city's highest rate of reported anti-Semitic incidents -- many more are believed to go unreported because of fear of reprisals -- and worst overall crime rate. An Islamist cell, the "19th Arrondissement Iraq Connection," was spawned on the fringes of the neighborhood's infamous extremist mosque; its members used to work out in the Buttes Chaumont park. The cell's members were recently sentenced to long prison terms for recruiting jihadis to fight in Iraq.

Jewish teenagers I met in the neighborhood said they are constantly harassed by Muslim bullies, particularly on the Sabbath. This fits the pattern of a wave of violence against Jews that began in the fall of 2000 and persists, with ups and downs, to this day. Synagogue burning is now out, but deep-seated hatred of Jews remains endemic in large sectors of the Muslim community. Many families send their children to Jewish day school to avoid harassment. Yahoud (Arabic for Jew), Juif and the slang word feuj are commonplace insults. Many Sephardic Jews -- like Rudy Haddad's grandparents -- had to flee their native North African countries. Then they fled the banlieue when Muslims made life there unbearable. Many are emigrating to Israel, Canada or the U.S.

But Jews are not the only targets of a new brutality that stumps French law enforcement. Hatred and resentment against the "dirty French" ("souchiens" or "dirty dogs," from a play on the French word for indigenous) has led to endless episodes of violence since a three-week, country-wide rampage in November 2005. School teachers are stabbed, schools are burned, cars are torched, train conductors are beaten up, prisons are overcrowded, while left-wing judges fight every law-and-order measure promoted by Justice Minister Rachida Dati.

During the July 13-14 French independence holiday some 600 cars were burned and over 200 people were arrested, the vast majority of them in the Parisian banlieue. The thugs attacked the police with baseball bats, firebombs and firecrackers; one policeman lost an eye. The Champs de Mars at the foot of the Eiffel Tower has become a contemporary battlefield. Students celebrating there after they finished the baccalauréat exam were assaulted by a mob of 300 so-called "youths" who attacked the graduates and the police with equal rage.

In France, where racial, religious, national or ethnic breakdown of population statistics is forbidden, and where applying such labels to criminals is taboo, the term "youth" is used to hide the identity of thugs, even when their identity is visible in TV footage. The taboo was exceptionally lifted in Rudy's case to sustain the narrative of intercommunitarian strife. The fortuitous discovery -- or invention -- of Jewish gangs imposed a corresponding African and Maghrebi label.

Since tough laws and improved police work have not put a stop to the harassment of Jews, some young Jewish men are trying to defend themselves. Much was made of Rudy's "police record." In fact, his "record" consisted of an attempt to defend a friend who'd been knocked to the ground by a group of Muslims who came to break up a Hanukkah candle-lighting ceremony in honor of kidnapped Israeli soldiers. Rudy fought them off with his motorcycle helmet, which became in legal terms an "arm by destination."

No one denies the possible existence of Jewish delinquents, but it is dishonest to put a "West Side Story" twist onto the 19th-arrondissement strife, as if Jews were muscling into Muslim territory, harassing peaceful citizens, chasing them out of schools, breaking the windows of halal butcher shops, dealing drugs, and attacking police. There is a qualitative difference between Muslims seething with Jew hatred who gang up to stomp, bash and slash Jews, and young Jewish men trying to defend themselves.
* * *

The Rudy Haddad story leaped back onto the front pages on July 10 with the arrest of seven "youths" who turned out to be in their mid- to late 20s. Two have been arraigned and jailed: an African, identified as Sekou M., and a North African, Foued O. The latter, who is a career air force corporal, is accused of bashing Rudy's head with a crutch. Another African, Boubacar C., suspected of involvement in the machete attack, has been charged and released while awaiting trial. The implication of husky, mature men in the attacks that raged that day and culminated in the savage beating of a Jewish teen further undermines the narrative of mere squabbles among youngsters. Details about the motivation, background and ideology of these men will, one hopes, emerge in the course of the investigation.

Mayor Madec was applauded when he said at his grand fraternal gathering that the residents of the 19th arrondissement, whatever their origin, want to live side by side in peace and security, Yes, most of them do. The problem is, some don't. And they can spoil it for everyone.

Ms. Poller is an American writer living in Paris since 1972.

See all of today's editorials and op-eds, plus video commentary, on Opinion Journal1.

The Real Economic Record

Paul M. Weyrich
FrontPageMagazine.com | 8/1/2008
Earlier this week the White House announced that the projected Fiscal Year 2009 deficit will be $490 billion, an amount much higher than originally anticipated and also a record for the national deficit. The deficit for the current fiscal year is expected to reach $410 billion. Among the factors contributing to the high numbers are the cost of military expenditures in Iraq and Afghanistan, an economic downturn which is producing fewer tax revenues, the $170 billion tax-rebate package enacted earlier this year, and an inability in the Congress to eliminate or trim federal programs, costs and earmarks.As usual, politicians and many of the major media outlets explicitly or implicitly have blamed President George W. Bush’s tax cuts for much of the problem. According to The Washington Post, “Neither [Senator John S.] McCain nor [Senator Barack H.] Obama have been particularly mindful of the budget deficit. McCain has proposed to extend all of Bush's first-term tax cuts, which expire in 2011, and add hundreds of billions of additional tax cuts, mostly for business. Obama would allow only the tax cuts for the most affluent [families making $250,000 or more] to expire, leaving the lion's share in place and adding additional tax cuts for the working poor and middle class….” CNN stated, “The Bush administration has spent heavily on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and faces a large budget shortfall in tax revenue because of Bush's tax cuts and a souring economy.” Senator Kent Conrad, D-ND, criticized the Bush Administration for its “reckless fiscal policies,” and blamed Bush’s tax cuts for driving the federal government into deficit, saying he will be remembered as “the most fiscally irresponsible president in our nation's history.”

While the last statement surely is an exaggeration, Bush has been a tremendous disappointment on fiscal issues. His reluctance to veto a spending bill for most of his presidency has allowed government spending to become irresponsible and to grow out of control. He inherited a budget surplus of $128 billion when he entered office but immediately squandered it – with the help of a Republican Congress, I might add.

The problem is not his tax cuts, though. Bush’s tax cuts stimulated tremendous economic growth. History and most economists inform us that a reduction in the tax burden almost always stimulates growth. After 1998, when Ireland reduced its corporate tax rate to 12.5 percent, its economy grew so quickly it became known as the “Celtic Tiger.” Unemployment fell from 18 percent to 5.5 percent and Gross National Product increased 62 percent in real terms. Meanwhile, the corporate tax rate in the United States hovers at 35 percent, one of the highest in the world among industrial countries. Middle-class American families still are suffering under the egregious Alternative Minimum Tax. And Americans face the prospect of a tax increase in 2011 when the Bush tax cuts expire unless Congress passes them again.

The American economy would benefit significantly from lower taxes. Yet disingenuous and influential members of the media and of Congress insist that the current malaise in the Federal Government’s budget is due to tax cuts. This is absolutely incorrect. The problem is that our elected officials lack the fortitude and wisdom to make the necessary cuts in spending that budget realities demand. To The Post’s credit, it noted that Senator Obama would like to spend hundreds of billions more on health care, energy and education. Senator McCain has not made the issue of government spending a priority in his campaign.

It should be clear that an enormously expensive national healthcare program, the pet project of many on the Left, is fiscally impossible unless Congress raises taxes even higher, which is not implausible. True, President Bush has failed fiscally. What we need to think of now is the future. Congress must make some difficult decisions and cut the Federal Government’s expenditures. Also, both presidential candidates should make the issue a top priority.

If the deficit continues to grow, the federal government borrows more money to pay for its bureaucracy, subsidies and social programs, and taxes are raised to meet the fiscal demands of new spending programs, the downturn in the American economy could be prolonged and be much worse than it currently is.
Paul M. Weyrich is Chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation.

Livni Plans To Maintain Peace Talks

BENNY AVNI, Staff Reporter of the Sun | August 1, 2008
http://www.nysun.com/foreign/livni-plans-to-maintain-peace-talks/83051/

UNITED NATIONS — One of the leading candidates to become Israel's next premier, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, says she intends to maintain the current drive to reach political agreements with Palestinian Arabs and act on other "national interests" even before leadership changes in Jerusalem. Ms. Livni's rivals, especially among her former colleagues at the Likud Party, raise the concern that the current government may saddle its successor with irreversible concessions on the eve of a possible major political reshuffle. After Prime Minister Olmert's announcement Wednesday of his intention to step aside by September, his government has no mandate to make major concessions, Likud members argue, adding Ms. Livni made a similar point back in 2000, when she was still a member of their party.

The current Likud leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, is heavily favored in national polls to win a national election, but he has no power to force such election. The current top party, Kadima, is expected to elect a leader to succeed Mr. Olmert in early September. Ms. Livni is competing for the spot against the transportation minister, Shaul Mofaz, a former Israel Defense Force chief of staff who is seen as more hawkish than Ms. Livni.

Speaking to reporters here yesterday after meeting Secretary-General Ban, Ms. Livni called on all Israeli political factions to join a government under Kadima's leadership. But analysts yesterday expressed doubts that Kadima can maintain a governing coalition. If it fails to gather enough votes to support its government in the 120-member Knesset, a new election will likely be held by March 2009.

"The internal situation in Israel doesn't affect the interests of Israel as a state," Ms. Livni told reporters after meeting Secretary-General Ban here. Israel has participated in the Annapolis process, which has envisioned, prior to the end of President Bush's tenure, the signing of a treaty detailing the creation of a Palestinian Arab state, she noted. "We promised to make all the effort to do so this year, and we'll continue to do so," she said.

Ms. Livni said that traditional political divisions in Israel are "a thing of the past," adding that most parties share an agenda on the diplomatic front and over security goals, calling on "every party that can be a partner on such an agenda to join the government" under a new Kadima leadership.

But Likud spokesmen, who have already rejected a call by Mr. Mofaz to join a Kadima-led national unity government, were seething yesterday. "This is chutzpa," a leading Knesset hawk, Yuval Steinitz of Likud, told The New York Sun. "There are certain norms. When an election approaches, you make no significant moves that shackle the next administration."

In 2000, Ehud Barak, who was then prime minister and is now defense minister, conducted last-minute negotiations in Taba, Egypt, with the Palestinian Authority president at the time, Yasser Arafat, just prior to the end of President Clinton's administration, and on an eve of an Israeli election. "When Barak conducted the Taba talks, Livni protested, saying he had no mandate to do so," Mr. Steinitz said. "Now she does exactly the same."

In an opinion poll conducted by Israel's Channel 10 News on Wednesday, 36% of potential voters said they preferred Mr. Netanyahu to lead the next government, while 24.6% said they would support Ms. Livni, if she led Kadima. 11.9% favored the Labor Party's leader, Mr. Barak. If Mr. Mofaz leads Kadima, Mr. Natanyahu's support numbers rise to 26.6% against Messrs. Barak with 14.8% and Mofaz with 12.4%.

Mr. Mofaz is more likely than Ms. Livni, however, to keep the current governing coalition intact, as an Orthodox party, Shas, is likely to drop out if Ms. Livni leads Kadima, forcing a new election.

Comment: This article in the NY Sun today should be the impetus for a campaign to squelch Kadima's effort to continue with the very policies that have brought us to the brink of disaster. What is the point of Olmert's having announced his resignation if he is still at the helm? Of course, Livni does not share the scandalous back-ground that have led to Olmert's downfall but her policies are not different from his and her willingness to yield to Rice's dangerous demands show that she should not assume leadership of Israel.

By the government's own admission, 1701 has not created the safety that we were promised when we left Lebanon. Livni should assume some responsibility for that - as a starting point. While the scandals are Olmert's legacy, under his rule danger to the State has increased both in the north and the south and his cohorts, like Livni, can be held responsible in large part.

On another subject, at the last seasonal meeting of the "Post Holocaust Anti-Semitism" group I asked
Dr. Gerstenfeld if he would meet with us and he agreed. Those of us who know him recognize his brilliance and his ability to think creatively. We just have to let him know when we would like to meet with him and I suggest that we not delay. I will be happy to contact him regarding setting up the date/time/place. The Knesset vacation is on so we do not have too many options for seeing people and we should take advantage of this opportunity.

Please let me know your thinking about the above. Even though it is summer and many are on vacation we know that the enemy is not on holiday and we must put our heads together and anticipate.

Fjordman: The Organization of the Islamic Conference and Eurabia

The European essayist Fjordman elucidates recent Islamic initiatives to end free speech in the West, and shows what's at stake:

Dr. Andrew Bostom, editor of the excellent book The Legacy of Jihad and the recent book about Islamic anti-Semitism, warns that the 57 Muslim nations of the Organization of the Islamic Conference are trying to impose Islamic blasphemy law -- which includes the death penalty for those who "blaspheme" the Muslim prophet Muhammad -- as the universal standard across the world. These sentiments of the OIC were reiterated more brazenly by Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood. During a sermon in response to the Danish Muhammad cartoons which aired February 3, 2006, Qaradawi demanded action from the United Nations in accordance with sharia-based conceptions of blasphemy: "…the governments [of the world] must be pressured to demand that the U.N. adopt a clear resolution or law that categorically prohibits affronts to prophets—to the prophets of the Lord and his Messengers, to His holy books, and to the religious holy places."

As German journalist Henryk Broder noted back then: "Objectively speaking, the cartoon controversy was a tempest in a teacup. But subjectively it was a show of strength and, in the context of the 'clash of civilizations,' a dress rehearsal for the real thing. The Muslims demonstrated how quickly and effectively they can mobilize the masses, and the free West showed that it has nothing to counter the offensive -- nothing but fear, cowardice and an overriding concern about the balance of trade. Now the Islamists know that they are dealing with a paper tiger whose roar is nothing but a tape recording."

In the aftermath of the Cartoon Jihad, in Norway in June 2007 members of dozens of newspapers, TV stations and organizations participated in an international conference on how to "report diversity" in a non-offensive manner, with Arab News from Saudi Arabia as a moderator. Keynote speaker at the conference, Dr. Doudou Diène, the United Nations Special Envoy for racism, xenophobia and intolerance, urged the media to actively participate in the creation of a Multicultural society, and expressed concerns that the democratic process could lead to immigration-restrictive parties gaining influence in Western nations.

Diène said that it is a dangerous development when increasing numbers of intellectuals in the West believe that some cultures are better than others, and stated that "The media must transform diversity, which is a fact of life, into pluralism, which is a set of values." Getting diversity accepted is the role of the education system, and acceptance is the role of the law. "Promoting and defending diversity is the task of the media." Societies must recognize, accept and promote diversity, which always seems to mean sharia. Mr. Diène represents Senegal, an African Muslim country which is a member of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the largest voting bloc at the United Nations, sponsored by Arab oil money.

There were already signs that large portions of the mainstream media have been working according to similar ideas long before his conference. In Britain, leading figures of the BBC have proudly announced that they actively promote Multiculturalism. In Denmark in 2008, while their country was threatened by Muslims across the world, public broadcaster Danmarks Radio, the local equivalent of the BBC and with the same left-wing bias, decided to hold a "Miss Headscarf" beauty contest for women with the only requirement being that they are over 15 and wear a headscarf or veil, the way proper Muslim women are supposed to do.

In March 2008, the United Nation's Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned Dutch MP Wilder's movie Fitna as "offensively anti-Islamic," and said that "There is no justification for hate speech or incitement to violence." Does that mean that the UN is now going to ban the Koran? Earlier in March, the U.N. Human Rights Council, which is dominated by Muslim countries, passed a resolution saying it is deeply concerned about the defamation of religions and urging governments to prohibit it. The only religion specified was Islam. The document was put forward by the Organization of the Islamic Conference.

I have been saying for a long time that trying to export "democracy" to Islamic countries is pointless. Islam can be compatible with "democracy" in the limited sense of voting rights and majority rule, but this has never automatically implied individual liberty. (See my online booklet Is Islam Compatible With Democracy?)

It's a sick joke that American soldiers are bleeding literally and American taxpayers financially to export "democracy" to Iraq while Muslims are exporting sharia to us. Freedom is free speech, that's the simplest definition of it. Muslims are using the UN to limit criticism of Islam globally, which basically means putting the entire world under Islamic rule.

My view of the United Nations is quite clear: It is at best irrelevant. At best. Increasingly, it is turning into an outright enemy, an enemy funded by us but used to attack us. I'm tired of sponsoring enemies, at home and abroad. I'm all for boycotting the UN and making it truly irrelevant by bleeding it dry for funds and ultimately withdrawing from it.

Muslims have lots of oil and lots of babies and lots of aggression, but that's all they have. Otherwise, they're a spectacular failure. We need them for very little. They need us for virtually everything. We should exploit that. We should separate ourselves from the Islamic world as much as possible. They will suffer far more from this than we will. We can start by boycotting the UN, which is now little more than a tool for global sharia, and the Arab Muslims of the West Bank and Gaza, who reinvented themselves as "Palestinians" and started whining at the UN after the Israelis kicked their collective behinds in 1967.

Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad called upon Muslims worldwide to boycott Dutch products, following the release of the Islam-critical movie Fitna by Dutch politician Geert Wilders. Personally, I'm all for boycotts of and by Muslims. The more, the merrier. Mr. Mahathir held the notorious speech at the OIC conference in 2003 where he said that the Jews rule the world by proxy and that Muslims must unite to achieve a final victory over them. Not everybody remembers that he also boasted about the age when "Europeans had to kneel at the feet of Muslim scholars in order to access their own scholastic heritage."

Somebody should remind him that the so-called "golden age" of Islam was a result of a still-large non-Muslim population. As soon as that declined, due to harassment and discrimination, the Islamic world never recovered. Malaysia is sometimes portrayed as an economically successful Muslim nation, but that is because it only recently became majority Muslim and still has a large Chinese, Indian and other non-Muslim minority. Since Islam is becoming more aggressive and Muslims increase discrimination of non-Muslims, infidels will leave, and Malaysia will gradually be reduced to just another failed sharia state.

In 2008, the current Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi warned his British counterpart, PM Brown, that Muslim extremism in Britain will grow unless the government and society learn to understand Islam and allow the country's Muslims to live under sharia law. What he didn't say is that sharia applies to all members of society, also non-Muslims, who should have their freedoms curtailed as well.

Historian David Littman is a representative to the United Nations of the Association for World Education. He has spent years tracking the rise of Islamic influence at the UN. According to him, "In recent years, representatives of some Muslim states have demanded, and often received, special treatment at the United Nations." As a result, "non-diplomatic terms such as 'blasphemy' and 'defamation of Islam' have seeped into the United Nations system, leading to a situation in which non-Muslim governments accept certain rules of conduct in conformity with Islamic law (the Shari'a) and acquiesce to a self-imposed silence regarding topics touching on Islam."

In May 2007, the foreign ministers of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) expressed "grave concern" at the rising tide of intolerance against Muslims, especially in Europe and North America. They described "Islamophobia" as a deliberate defamation of Islam, and pointed out that whenever the issue of Islamophobia was discussed in international forums, the Western bloc, particularly some members of the European Union, tried to avoid discussing the core issue and instead diverted the attention from their region to the situation of non-Muslims and human rights in the OIC member states.

In June 2008, the OIC announced its plan for fighting Islamophobia. Here's what Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, their Secretary General, had to say: "We are encouraged to see however, that an awareness of the dangers of Islamophobia is gradually setting in the West. The condemnation by many Western leaders and governments of Islamophobic acts such as the [Dutch movie] Fitna are positive confidence building measures that lead us to believe that all is not lost and that the gap can be closed in time. But mere condemnation or distancing from the acts of the perpetrators of Islamophobia will not resolve the issue as long as they remain free to carry on with their campaign of incitement and provocation on the plea of freedom of expression."

As Baron Bodissey of the Gates of Vienna blog commented, the phrase "as long as they remain free…" clearly reveals their agenda: "Obviously, the intention of the OIC is to do everything within its power to make sure that the citizens of the Western democracies do not remain free." Mr. Ihsanoglu unveiled a ten-point program that he proposed in order to meet the OIC's ambitious goals. The plan is all there, laid out in black and white for anyone to read. Unfortunately, not everybody understands its implications.

In Der Spiegel in June 2008, Dirk Kurbjuweit commented on the Irish popular rejection of the Lisbon Treaty/EU Constitution by concluding that "Europe's politicians are determined to avoid asking the people their opinion. And they are right to do so." According to him, "Again and again, they trick their populations into accepting the European Union. It's been going on for 50 years: politicians making policy against the people. The only time anyone ever notices is when the people -- one people, in this case -- are asked for their opinion. It happened in Ireland recently, when the Irish made it clear that they refuse to accept the politics of scoundrels."

Regarding German chancellor Angela Merkel, he speculates whether "she is in fact wholeheartedly behind a strengthening of the European Union, perhaps even knowingly against the wishes of German citizens." Dirk Kurbjuweit seems to approve of this strategy of denying citizens a say in the future of their countries and their children. He concludes:

"Perhaps the EU's secret strategy is called 'strategic boredom' -- attract no attention and make no waves, but continue to plod along, quietly and stubbornly, ignoring the murmurs of concern from all around. The scoundrels in Brussels have sold the European people a lot of things: a single market, the euro, the lifting of many border controls and, most recently, a binding global climate policy. These have all been good things, and they have helped make Europe an eminently livable continent. Despite the many dull moments and emotions that have been negative at best, the end result has been laudable. Most of these improvements would have been held up, if not outright prevented, by referendums. Democracy doesn't mean having unlimited confidence in citizens. Sometimes the big picture is in better hands when politicians are running it, and a big picture takes time."

The "big picture" which is being implemented by these same political elites does not only include political integration within Europe, it also includes European cultural, political and economic integration with the Arab-Islamic world, conducted largely without the approval of European citizens. Mr. Kurbjuweit didn't mention that part.

In March 2008, Terry Davis, a former politician for the British Labour Party and now the General Secretary of the Council of Europe, wrote a letter in Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten denouncing the republishing of the Muhammad cartoons, stating that "freedom of speech should not be used as a freedom to insult." As Jyllands-Posten wrote in a response, "Freedom of expression is exactly the freedom to insult anyone within the framework of the law."

The Council of Europe (CoE) was founded in 1949, earlier than the European Community/European Union. It is still a separate organization but very much within the orbit of the EU's Eurabian networks and cooperates increasingly closer on "dialogue" with Islamic countries. For instance, the North-South Centre (for cooperation between Europe and the Arab world), officially named the European Centre for Global Interdependence and Solidarity, is an EU/CoE partnership. A Memorandum of Understanding between the Council of Europe and the European Union from May 2007 outlines many areas of cooperation between the two organizations, including intercultural dialogue and cultural diversity, education and youth as well as the fight against discrimination, racism, xenophobia and intolerance (which includes "Islamophobia").

One of the websites linked to from the CoE's homepage is the organization "All different, all equal." Yes, it does sound like something out of George Orwell's classic novel Animal Farm. The organization champions many activities. One of them was when the Council of Europe's Directorate of Youth and Sport and the Directorate of External Relations and Co-operation of the Islamic Organisation for Education, Science and Culture (ISESCO) in 2007 organized an "intercultural course" on Arabic language and culture in Morocco, intended for members of European youth organizations between the ages of 18 and 30. It was intended to "develop their language skills, to promote intercultural and interreligious dialogue, international understanding, and to combat prejudice and all forms of racism and xenophobia."

There are also networks Combating Social Exclusion and Discrimination, and several youth organizations linked to by "All different, all equal" participated in a "Rainbow Paper" with recommendations for making Intercultural Dialogue happen on the ground. 2008 is the official "European Year of Intercultural Dialogue," jointly coordinated by the Council of Europe and the European Union. This "dialogue" is an extension of the EU's long-term plans for Euro-Arab dialogue, and focuses mainly on Islam and why Europeans should learn to love Islamic culture.

In connection with this, the Council of Europe in 2008 published a White Paper (pdf) on Intercultural Dialogue entitled "Living Together As Equals in Dignity." It places particular emphasis on providing proper "Multicultural" education to European children: "Within the formal curriculum, the intercultural dimension straddles all subjects.
History, language education and the teaching of religious and convictional facts are perhaps among the most relevant." Concerted efforts should be made to "avoid prejudice," and "In 2007, the European Ministers of Education underlined the importance of measures to improve understanding between cultural and/or religious communities through school education."

The White Paper focuses on the young: "Youth and sport organisations, together with religious communities, are particularly well placed to advance intercultural dialogue in a non-formal education context." "Educators at all levels play an essential role in fostering intercultural dialogue and in preparing future generations for dialogue." "Kindergartens, schools, youth clubs and youth activities in general are key sites for intercultural learning and dialogue." Moreover, "The workplace should not be ignored as a site for intercultural dialogue."

Among recommendations, the paper says the following:

"Public debate has to be marked by respect for cultural diversity. Public displays of racism, xenophobia or any other form of intolerance must be rejected and condemned, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights, irrespective of whether they originate with bearers of public office or in civil society. Every form of stigmatisation of persons belonging to minority and disadvantaged groups in public discourse needs to be ruled out. The media can make a positive contribution to the fight against intolerance, especially where they foster a culture of understanding between members of different ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious communities. Media professionals should reflect on the problem of intolerance in the increasingly multicultural and multi-ethnic environment of the member states and on the measures which they might take to promote tolerance, mutual understanding and respect. States should have robust legislation to outlaw 'hate speech' and racist, xenophobic, homophobic, antisemitic, islamophobic and antigypsy or other expressions, where this incites hatred or violence. Members of the criminal justice system should be well trained to implement and uphold such legislation. Independent national anti-discrimination bodies or similar structures should also be in place, to scrutinise the effectiveness of such legislation."

"Islamophobia" is repeatedly singled out as one of the forms of "discrimination and racism" that needs to be ruthlessly stamped out through indoctrination as well as legal means across the entire European continent, a policy which is being implemented at an accelerating pace.

In addition to forcing the education system to teach European children to love "Islamic culture," the media should do the same with the adults: "The Council of Europe, together with media professionals and journalism training institutions, is launching in 2008 a campaign against discrimination, bringing into focus the role of the media in a multicultural Europe. Journalism, promoted in a responsible manner through codes of ethics as advanced by the media industry itself and a culture-sensitive training of journalists, can help provide fora for intercultural dialogue."

Finally, the White Paper lists many institutions it should cooperate with, most of them Islamic organizations or organizations geared towards appeasing Muslims, for instance the Anna Lindh Euro-Mediterranean Foundation for the Dialogue between Cultures, which is one of the EU's most important instruments for Eurabian cooperation:

"The Council of Europe will promote and expand co-operation with other organisations active in intercultural dialogue, including UNESCO and the 'Alliance of Civilizations' initiative, the OSCE, the EU and the Anna Lindh Euro-Mediterranean Foundation for the Dialogue between Cultures, as well as other regional organisations, such as the League of Arab States and its educational, cultural and scientific organisation, ALECSO, representing a region with many ties to Europe and a distinct cultural tradition. The Council of Europe will also promote intercultural dialogue on the basis of its standards and values when cooperating in the context of specific projects with institutions such as the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO) and the Research Center for Islamic History, Art and Culture (IRCICA). The regional focus of this co-operation will be the interaction between Europe and its neighbouring regions, specifically the southern shores of the Mediterranean, the Middle East and Central Asia."

Notice the cooperation with institutions dedicated to "Islamic history." Concerted efforts are underway to rewrite European school textbooks in order to promote Islam in a positive light. In the European Parliament, the German Christian Democrat Hans-Gert Pöttering stated that textbooks should be reviewed for intolerant depictions of Islam to ensure they don't propagate prejudice. He suggested that the EU could co-operate with the Organization of the Islamic Conference to create a textbook review committee. This is in line with the general policy of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), which desires to rewrite textbooks around the world to remove anything critical of Islam, silence mentioning of the victims of 1400 years of Islamic Jihad and glorify the achievements of "Islamic civilization."

In June 2008, the OIC stated that "We sent a clear message to the West regarding the red lines that should not be crossed." As Robert Spencer commented, "That sounds like the statement of a victor in a war, dictating terms to the vanquished." Muslims are happy with their "progress" in Europe and now concentrate their fire on North America:

"'We have established an OIC Group in Washington D.C.,' Ihsanoglu explained, 'with the aim of playing a more active role in engaging American policy makers.' This will involve agitating for laws restricting free speech: "And in confronting the Danish cartoons and the Dutch film 'Fitna,'' (which showed Muslims acting on violent passages in the Qur'an), Ihsanoglu continued, 'we sent a clear message to the West regarding the red lines that should not be crossed.' Ihsanoglu says it's already working: 'As we speak, the official West and its public opinion are all now well-aware of the sensitivities of these issues. They have also started to look seriously into the question of freedom of expression from the perspective of its inherent responsibility, which should not be overlooked.' In other words, 'irresponsible' speech -- which is defined as speech he disagrees with -- should be banned."

As Spencer warned, "Can honest discussion really be outlawed? You bet it can. As long as free people do nothing to stop it from happening. As the OIC presses American politicians to use anti-discrimination and hate speech laws to 'stem this illegal trend,' we need to stand up now with Mark Steyn and all the others who are on the front lines of this battle, and tell them that what they're doing to Steyn in Canada must never happen here. We must tell our elected officials to stop this outrage, resist OIC lobbying, and reaffirm in no uncertain terms our commitment to free speech -- particularly now, when so much depends on our being able to speak with honesty about the nature of the jihadist threat, and so many powerful entities want to make sure we do not do so. So much depends on this -- possibly even including our survival as a free people."

In the USA, the New York Times has suggested that the US should become more like Europe and Canada, abandon the silly protections of free speech enshrined in the First Amendment and ban "racism and hate speech." "It is not clear to me that the Europeans are mistaken," Jeremy Waldron, a legal philosopher, wrote in The New York Review of Books, "when they say that a liberal democracy must take affirmative responsibility for protecting the atmosphere of mutual respect against certain forms of vicious attack."

The only "vicious attacks" today are those by Muslims against the free speech and liberty of non-Muslims around the world. The attacks by both individual Muslims and international organizations such as the OIC on criticism of Islam are part of a campaign to force the entire planet's population to accept sharia censorship and thus de facto Islamic rule, a scenario which will permanently end human freedom in any meaningful sense of the word. There can be no compromise with such an agenda. I do not always agree with American policies vis-à-vis Islam, and the US is far from free of Political Correctness and informal censorship, but when it comes to legal protection of free speech, the American approach is correct, and the European – and Canadian – one is dead wrong. We do not need more ideological censorship. On the contrary, we need to protect and expand the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights.

Thanks Jihad Watch

"Obama - The Talk of the Town"

Leslie J. Sacks

Barack Obama - the toast of the intelligentsia from Malibu to Hollywood.

I used to find his oratory impressive and commanding, his message of hope persuasive and compelling.

Now I find my attention to his rhetoric wanes with every repetitive exhortation for change. Independents seeking political satisfaction come away frustrated with what they see as "Obama Lite:" the supposed anti-politician pandering to the voters, short on details, flexible on principles.

Why this metamorphosis? Has Obama really gone from being a scintillating intellectual powerhouse to a manipulative rabble-rouser? From being the Messianic harbinger of inspired change to a purveyor of Machiavellian politics as usual, intent on winning at all costs? With a few Athenian exceptions, human societies have normally been led by controlling minorities that define directions and policies for the whole. One generally finds good and just people on the one hand or authoritarians and extremists on the other, all passionately and actively dictating positive or negative pathways for the passive majority to follow.

Either way the majority at the center gets swayed, whether by persuasion or by fear. Either way those leaders with the requisite charisma to inspire crowds, with enough power to motivate individuals, move the populace to their side, interjecting their beliefs along the way. Whether Kennedy or Hitler, Moses or Mao Tse Tung, Lincoln or Stalin, the psychology of conformity, of adoration, often remains the same.

The middle majority inevitably seeks answers to the unanswerable, to the incomprehensible, to their particularly insecure future. It desires hope and faith with which to fill the void, and in its fear and angst this majority latches on to any and all guarantees that posit positive change, that promise the actualization of their fantasies. It is here in this fertile ground that Obama feels most comfortable, working his genius, hugely negative about the recent past, spreading his limitless optimism for the future.

Our election zeitgeist is one of political immaturity and immediate gratification, one of self-indulgence and needy egocentricity. The limitations imposed by reality, by likely sacrifice and realpolitik, by needed compromise and tough planning for the unknown - these are all anathema to the majority. They all fade into irrelevance besides the soaring rhetoric of promised change, change that Obama assures us he will usher in, come November, at the start of his "Golden Era."

Do we, as the emperor's newly blessed children, follow the allure of Obama's sweet candy floss, his endless toffee apple; or do we visit the ever unpopular dentist? Do we as adults confront our enemies and balance the budget? Do we plan and make the necessary sacrifices, accepting pain now, as Joseph did in biblical Egypt, to survive the future's likely seven lean years?

Excellent grasp of what Kristof does not grasp!

Chana Givon

It is imperative to examine trends: during the last 90 years or so, a viable Jewish homeland has been whittled down to a 'slice' of what the League of Nations and the Balfour Declaration had envisioned. Kristof seems not to know about the historical background of the region - or does he choose to ignore it............

1. A Jewish state including what is today Jordan and all of Palestine - respectful of all religions.
2, Churchill lopping off 78% to create Transjordan - known as 'eastern Palestine' - for Arabs only - therefore, an apartheid state!
3. The remaining 22% -historic Palestine - all that is left for the Jewish state but open to all.
4. The British limitation of Jewish immigration -even in the face of the Holocaust -while allowing Arabs to emigrate from surrounding Arab entities

5. The British favoritism of the Arabs - arming them while turning a blind eye to their pogroms against Jewish communities.,,i.e. Hebron.
6. Arab collaboration with Hitler re the 'final solution'. This all took place before the formal creation of Israel in 1948.
6. The UN takeover after the failure of the British Mandate.
7. Continuous demands that Israel relinquish land and make dangerous concessions 'in the interest of peace' while the Arabs have never lived up
to any agreements - not a 'process' which implies give and take on both sides.
8. The fact that Israel's enemies are part of the same network of international terrorism that is threatening the destruction of Western civilization -
the agenda of that enemy - radical Islam - to create a worldwide caliphate ruled by sharia - strict Islamic law.
9. The Middle East conflict is not a Palestinian/ Israeli war ; it is an Islamic/Jewish-Israeli conflict . Territory is not the issue - only in that the
land concessions demanded of Israel would weaken her and bring her close to destruction and the long range goals of radical Islam against the
West.

It is most unfortunate that the world has not recognized the dangers to its own existence when it relates to Israel as Kristof does. Thankfully, we have a Jonathan Tobin on the side of reality! Bless you!

Abbas to disband PA if Israel frees Hamas lawmakers

Schalit negotiations resume in Cairo
Former PLO chief Yasser Arafat and his successor Mahmoud Abbas (ICEJ archive)
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas declared last week that he would disband the Palestinian Authority if Israel releases jailed Hamas parliament members in a potential exchange for kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Schalit. Abbas relayed the message to IDF Maj. Gen. Gadi Shamni through the director of the PA’s civil affairs department, Hussein al-Sheikh, who is in charge of communicating with Israel on any matters concerning the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Al-Sheikh informed Shamni that this was a “personal message” from the PA chairman, and emphasized that Abbas did not just talk about “resigning” but of “dismantling the PA.”

Quickly after Hamas kidnapped Schalit on June 25, 2006, Israel arrested a number of Hamas ministers and parliament members. Israel has freed several due to a military court order but still holds some 40 Hamas lawmakers in Israeli prisons.

Abbas’ message was considered very unusual, since he normally tries to present himself as the leader of the entire Palestinian community and has demanded that Israel free all Palestinian prisoners. But Abbas and his Fatah faction have been at odds with Hamas ever since the latter seized control of Gaza in June 2007. A mysterious explosion last Friday in Gaza that killed five Hamas operatives and a young Arab girl has led to another round of mutual arrests and reprisals between the bitter rivals.

It now appears Abbas is worried that freeing top Hamas politicians in trade for Schalit will bolster Hamas in the West Bank. But the threat will create even more difficulties for Israel in bringing Schalit home, as Hamas is demanding that 1,000 Palestinian prisoners be freed for his release, including terrorists involved in large-scale attacks. Israel received a list of 450 named prisoners that Hamas wants freed, but Israel has only authorized 70 so far. According to latest reports, the Hamas list does not include the Hamas politicians detained by Israel two years ago.

Hamas sent a delegation to Cairo on Tuesday for more Egypt-mediated talks regarding Schalit.

Abbas has repeatedly threatened to quit since he was elected PA 'president' in January 2005, but has never followed through, reported Haaretz.

Olmert's Shoulders

Editorial of The New York Sun | July 31, 2008
http://www.nysun.com/editorials/olmerts-shoulders/82968/

A joke in Israel has it that the Knesset, fed up with corruption among elected officials, passed a law. Every guilty official must walk into the Mediterranean to a depth consistent with the degree of guilt. So Haim Ramon, accused of kissing a woman who merely wanted a photograph, goes out up to his ankles. Finance Minister Hirchson, guilty of financial shenanigans, goes in up to his knees. President Katzav, guilty of serial sexual harassment, goes in until the Mediterranean laps his chin. Someone walking by on shore calls, "Katzav, why are you only out to where the water is up to your chin?" The disgraced president replies, "I'm standing on Olmert's shoulders." We thought of that story when Prime Minister Olmert announced, while denying the corruption charges swirling around him, that he will step down from Israel's most powerful political job. The move will come as soon as his party, Kadima, elects a successor in an already scheduled party primary. The betting is on Foreign Minister Tzippi Livni, who is vice premier, or the minister of transportation, Shaul Mofaz, who is deputy premier, former defense minister, and one-time chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces. There is a sense that, for better or worse, whoever wins will be standing on Mr. Olmert's shoulders.

For the next government is likely to have the same party composition as the present one; there is a less plausible scenario in which the new Kadima party leader and prime minister would reach out to try to include Likud, currently the main opposition party, in a coalition with Kadima and Labor. Such a coalition would have a commanding majority in the Knesset but with a fuzzy mandate. The push for a larger coalition will gain traction if the tide turns towards war in Gaza against the steadily rearming terrorist groups led by Hamas and or in Lebanon against the already rearmed Hezbollah. A large coalition might also take shape against the backdrop of a decision by the political and military chiefs to launch a preemptive strike against Iranian nuclear and rocketry facilities.

As all this is worked out, Mr. Olmert will be remembered, at least in part, as one of Ariel Sharon's inner voices. We say one of because he had a number of conflicting passions. Mr. Olmert was the first to articulate the switch in Mr. Sharon's thinking about the future of Israel with respect to the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Mr. Olmert did not have the national security gravitas that was part of Mr. Sharon's public persona. He became prime minister by riding Mr. Sharon's coattails, and helped lead a break-up of the Likud party over Mr. Sharon's plan to withdraw unilaterally from Gaza, removing the Israelis who were living in villages there.

When Mr. Sharon suffered the stroke that ended his career, Mr. Olmert became premier. Visitors to Mr. Olmert's office the day after he officially acceded in May 2006 heard him say that the second stage of the "disengagement" — meaning the West Bank — was scheduled for December. Then an Israeli soldier was kidnapped and taken into the Gaza Strip. Two months later Hezbollah attacked and killed an Israeli army patrol, kidnapping two more soldiers. The IDF replied by taking the fight into Gaza and Lebanon, with indecisive results. Gaza became a launching pad for rockets, and the appeal among Israelis of Mr. Olmert's plan to do in the West Bank what had been done in Gaza began to fade.

* * *

The next Israeli government will inherit the remains of these policies. It is a time to remember that through much of its history, Israel has inspired millions at home and abroad. It has rarely done this with a retreat. It has done it with its commitment and daring, with its willingness to base its actions on the rightness of its cause. We have no doubt that an Israel that acts and advances will inspire the world anew, not to mention its own people. And that whoever is elected premier will have the good will of not only the Diaspora but of the Americans who have comprehended the idea of a Jewish restoration in Israel since the founding days of our own republic.

Obama Flipping and Floundering in Middle East

Kenneth R. Timmerman

For latest details about the Air Force captain's e-mail below, please read "Did Obama Blow Off Troops at Bagram?"

Everything seemed planned for the future campaign commercials — at least, that’s how it seemed to a U.S. Air Force captain when Sen. Barack Obama and his entourage swooped into Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan for an hour-long visit last Saturday at the start of a week-long foreign tour.

“He got off the plane and got into a bullet proof vehicle” without pausing to acknowledge the U.S. troops who had been waiting all day just for the opportunity to meet him, the officer told the Blackfive pro-military blog. As the soldiers lined up to shake his hand, the Illinois senator “blew them off and didn’t say a word,” ducking into the conference room to meet the general.

Then the armored vehicles took him to where “he could take his publicity pictures playing basketball. He again shunned the opportunity to talk to soldiers to thank them for their service,” the captain wrote.

“As you know, I am not a very political person. I just wanted to share with you what happened” during Obama’s visit, the captain related.

“I swear, we got more thanks from the NBA basketball players or the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders than from Senator Obama,” he added.

The Illinois senator used his first-ever trip to Afghanistan to drive home his campaign message that the Bush administration — and by inference, his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain — have squandered resources in Iraq while ignoring the “central front” in the war on terror, which Obama insists is Afghanistan.

Traveling onward to Iraq, Obama met with U.S. commanders and with Iraqi leaders, who briefed him on the dramatic progress in decreasing violence that has been made since the U.S. troop surge began last year.

And yet, Obama told ABC News that he still would not have supported the surge, even knowing how things worked out.

“Hypotheticals are always difficult,” he said. “Hindsight is 20-20.”

Although U.S. casualties in Iraq dropped from 76 for the month of July 2007 to just five so far for July 2008, the Illinois senator said that President Bush’s policy was “just something I disagreed with.”

Of course, should he become president, Obama will be faced with similar situations where he will be required to make difficult decisions based on the “hypotheticals” of uncertain intelligence, inferences, and murky political forecasts of cause and effect.

CBS News anchor Katie Couric uncharacteristically grilled Obama on his unwillingness to acknowledge that the surge had been a success in a separate interview on Tuesday taped while Obama was in Jordan.

“You raised a lot of eyebrows on this trip saying even knowing what you know now, you still would not have supported the surge. People may be scratching their heads and saying why,” she said.

When Obama tried to avoid a direct answer, Couric came back to the charge repeatedly, asking him if the additional troops had helped to reduce the violence.

“Katie, as you’ve asked me three different times, and I have said repeatedly that there is no doubt that our troops helped reduce violence [in iraq]. There’s no doubt.”

Despite this, he said he continued to oppose the surge, prompting Couric to ask him again if the current reduced level of violence could have occurred without the troop increase ordered by Bush and supported by McCain.

“Katie, I have no idea what would have happened had we applied my approach, which was to put more pressure on the Iraqis to arrive at a political reconciliation,” Obama said. “So this is all hypotheticals.”

It was the type of comment that has allowed the McCain adviser Kori Schake to accuse Obama of “not understanding the consequences of his policy choices.”

In opposing the surge in January 2007, Obama stated that it would not “make a significant dent in the sectarian violence that’s taking place” in Iraq, and that it would “not prove to be the one [strategy] that changes the dynamics significantly.”

Of course, events have proved just the opposite. As the Washington Times pointed out recently in an editorial, if Obama’s initial policy of withdrawing all U.S. troops by March 2008 had been put into action, it “would have meant leaving the mission incomplete and leaving Iraq in defeat.”

Moving on to a carefully choreographed trip to Israel — only the second time he has ever visited the Jewish state — Obama immediately pledged that if elected he would tackle the issue of Middle East peace negotiations “right away.”

That elicited skepticism even from the traveling press corps, which for the most part has fawned over Obama from the start. “What fresh strategies would you bring?” he was asked.

In the world of marketing, Obama’s response would have been called a repackaging job. “A U.S. administration has to put its weight behind a process,” he said, “recognizing that it’s not going to happen immediately.”

The United States has been pushing a peace “process” between Arabs and Israelis since the administration of Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s.

During that time, Israel has been forced to fight two wars in Lebanon, put down two Palestinian uprisings, endure Iraqi missile strikes and waves of suicide bombers, and most recently suffer two thousand rocket attacks from neighboring Gaza.

Obama said his role in the “process” would not be “to dictate to either of the parties what this deal should be, but hopefully to be able to facilitate and promote a meaningful, realistic, pragmatic, concrete strategy.”

That prompted Hishem Melhem, the Washington, D.C., correspondent for the Al Arabiya satellite television network to politely scoff. “To begin with, the next American president will be forced, regardless of his intentions, to be focusing on the old so-called arc of crisis: Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan. If he’s going to focus on the Arab-Israeli conflict, he’s going to find an arid landscape.”

Yesterday, Obama sparred with reporters during a brief press conference in the Israeli town of Sderot, which has born the brunt of Palestinian rocket attacks over the past two years, over his offer to hold unconditional talks with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

“A year ago, you said you would meet in your first year as president” with Ahmadinejad and other leaders of rogue nations, “Is there anything you’ve heard today in your discussions with Israeli leaders to make you rethink that pledge, or are you standing by that?” a reporter asked.

The reporter was referring to a moment in the CNN/YouTube Democratic debate in Charleston, S.C., on July 23, 2007, when Obama was asked if he would be ”willing to meet separately, without pre-condition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, in order to bridge the gap that divies our countries.”

At the time, Obama answered, “I would.”

On Wednesday, however, he attempted to shift ground. “I think you have to look at what the question was in South Carolina and how I responded . . . I think that what I said in response was that I would, at my time and choosing, be willing to meet with any leader if I thought it would promote the national security interests of the United States of America. And, Dan, that continues to be my position.”

In a hastily-organized conference call with reporters just one hour after Obama made those remarks, McCain foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann accused Obama of “trying to rewrite history . . . I guess for Senator Obama, words matter — except when they pose an inconvenient truth.”

Sen. Obama’s goal throughout this rare overseas visit has been to generate the impression of foreign policy experience, and to win the confidence of American Jewish voters, who so far have responded lukewarmly to his candidacy.

A recent Gallup Poll shows that fully one-third of Jewish voters favor McCain, a dramatic increase in Republican support from previous elections. In 2004, Sen. John Kerry won 74 percent of the Jewish vote. In 2000, Al Gore won 79 percent.

While Jews make up just 3 percent of the U.S. electorate, campaign strategists in both camps believe that their vote could determine the outcome in key swing states such as Florida, Ohio, Nevada, and possibly in Pennsylvania and New Jersey as well.

In June, Obama made what appeared to be a firm pledge to support Jerusalem remaining the “undivided” capital of Israel in a speech before the American Israel Public Affairs committee (AIPAC).

Those comments won him a standing ovation from some 6,000 people in the Washington, D.C., convention center.

But just days later, Obama said he needed to “correct” that statement, that had been “poorly worded” by speech writers. Yesterday, he told reporters that the fate of Jerusalem was “a final status issue,” meaning that in fact it could be divided by mutual accord.

After the Obama press conference, McCain told reporters traveling with his campaign that it was hard to say how his administration would differ from an Obama administration on Israel.

"I don't know because I never know exactly what his position is," McCain said, citing Obama's Jerusalem comments. "I know the issues. I've been there time and time again."

© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

State panel of inquiry to investigate treatment of evacuated settlers

Tomer Zarchin, Haaretz Correspondent


The State Control Committee decided on Wednesday to establish a state inquiry commission to investigate the government's treatment of the residents of Gush Katif and the northern West Bank who were evacuated in the 2005 disengagement.
The committee will focus on the delays in transferring the evacuees from mobile homes into permanent communities as well as the rampant unemployment among the evacuees.

State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss announced at the start of the State Control Committee meeting that he supported the establishment of such an inquiry panel, saying "the report we composed in 2006 on the disengagement was submitted in real time, and I can't say that its primary points were ever implemented. On the contrary, chapters and recommendations we raised have yet to be addressed and the process continues."

"Some ten thousand citizens are currently encountering difficulty," Lindenstrauss added. "This is not a political problem, this touches all of us."

Prime Minister's Office Director General Ra'anan Dinur welcomed the inquiry, saying that the government has nothing to hide. He added that the Prime Minister's Office was "eager for a responsible adult to decide on the issue."

Zevulun Orlev, the chairman of the State Control Committee, said that ten thousand people who were evacuated from their homes were "abandoned by the government." He added that the inquiry commission would rectify the severe failures of the government in its handling of the evacuees' needs.

Related articles:
# 2005 Disengagement Website
# Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's four-stage disengagement plan
# Two years later, Gush Katif evacuees still need housing

U.S. Intel: Iran Plans Nuclear Strike on U.S.

Kenneth R. Timmerman

Iran has carried out missile tests for what could be a plan for a nuclear strike on the United States, the head of a national security panel has warned.

In testimony before the House Armed Services Committee and in remarks to a private conference on missile defense over the weekend hosted by the Claremont Institute, Dr. William Graham warned that the U.S. intelligence community “doesn’t have a story” to explain the recent Iranian tests. One group of tests that troubled Graham, the former White House science adviser under President Ronald Reagan, were successful efforts to launch a Scud missile from a platform in the Caspian Sea.

“They’ve got [test] ranges in Iran which are more than long enough to handle Scud launches and even Shahab-3 launches,” Dr. Graham said. “Why would they be launching from the surface of the Caspian Sea? They obviously have not explained that to us.”

Another troubling group of tests involved Shahab-3 launches where the Iranians "detonated the warhead near apogee, not over the target area where the thing would eventually land, but at altitude,” Graham said. “Why would they do that?”

Graham chairs the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack, a blue-ribbon panel established by Congress in 2001.

The commission examined the Iranian tests “and without too much effort connected the dots,” even though the U.S. intelligence community previously had failed to do so, Graham said.

“The only plausible explanation we can find is that the Iranians are figuring out how to launch a missile from a ship and get it up to altitude and then detonate it,” he said. “And that’s exactly what you would do if you had a nuclear weapon on a Scud or a Shahab-3 or other missile, and you wanted to explode it over the United States.”

The commission warned in a report issued in April that the United States was at risk of a sneak nuclear attack by a rogue nation or a terrorist group designed to take out our nation’s critical infrastructure.

"If even a crude nuclear weapon were detonated anywhere between 40 kilometers to 400 kilometers above the earth, in a split-second it would generate an electro-magnetic pulse [EMP] that would cripple military and civilian communications, power, transportation, water, food, and other infrastructure," the report warned.

While not causing immediate civilian casualties, the near-term impact on U.S. society would dwarf the damage of a direct nuclear strike on a U.S. city.

“The first indication [of such an attack] would be that the power would go out, and some, but not all, the telecommunications would go out. We would not physically feel anything in our bodies,” Graham said.

As electric power, water and gas delivery systems failed, there would be “truly massive traffic jams,” Graham added, since modern automobiles and signaling systems all depend on sophisticated electronics that would be disabled by the EMP wave.

“So you would be walking. You wouldn’t be driving at that point,” Graham said. “And it wouldn’t do any good to call the maintenance or repair people because they wouldn’t be able to get there, even if you could get through to them.”

The food distribution system also would grind to a halt as cold-storage warehouses stockpiling perishables went offline. Even warehouses equipped with backup diesel generators would fail, because “we wouldn’t be able to pump the fuel into the trucks and get the trucks to the warehouses,” Graham said.

The United States “would quickly revert to an early 19th century type of country.” except that we would have 10 times as many people with ten times fewer resources, he said.

“Most of the things we depend upon would be gone, and we would literally be depending on our own assets and those we could reach by walking to them,” Graham said.

America would begin to resemble the 2002 TV series, “Jeremiah,” which depicts a world bereft of law, infrastructure, and memory.

In the TV series, an unspecified virus wipes out the entire adult population of the planet. In an EMP attack, the casualties would be caused by our almost total dependence on technology for everything from food and water, to hospital care.

Within a week or two of the attack, people would start dying, Graham says.

“People in hospitals would be dying faster than that, because they depend on power to stay alive. But then it would go to water, food, civil authority, emergency services. And we would end up with a country with many, many people not surviving the event.”

Asked just how many Americans would die if Iran were to launch the EMP attack it appears to be preparing, Graham gave a chilling reply.

“You have to go back into the 1800s to look at the size of population” that could survive in a nation deprived of mechanized agriculture, transportation, power, water, and communication.

“I’d have to say that 70 to 90 percent of the population would not be sustainable after this kind of attack,” he said.

America would be reduced to a core of around 30 million people — about the number that existed in the decades after America’s independence from Great Britain.

The modern electronic economy would shut down, and America would most likely revert to “an earlier economy based on barter,” the EMP commission’s report on Critical National Infrastructure concluded earlier this year.

In his recent congressional testimony, Graham revealed that Iranian military journals, translated by the CIA at his commission’s request, “explicitly discuss a nuclear EMP attack that would gravely harm the United States.”

Furthermore, if Iran launched its attack from a cargo ship plying the commercial sea lanes off the East coast — a scenario that appears to have been tested during the Caspian Sea tests — U.S. investigators might never determine who was behind the attack. Because of the limits of nuclear forensic technology, it could take months. And to disguise their traces, the Iranians could simply decide to sink the ship that had been used to launch it, Graham said.

Several participants in last weekend’s conference in Dearborn, Mich., hosted by the conservative Claremont Institute argued that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was thinking about an EMP attack when he opined that “a world without America is conceivable.”

In May 2007, then Undersecretary of State John Rood told Congress that the U.S. intelligence community estimates that Iran could develop an ICBM capable of hitting the continental United States by 2015.

But Iran could put a Scud missile on board a cargo ship and launch from the commercial sea lanes off America’s coasts well before then.

The only thing Iran is lacking for an effective EMP attack is a nuclear warhead, and no one knows with any certainty when that will occur. The latest U.S. intelligence estimate states that Iran could acquire the fissile material for a nuclear weapon as early as 2009, or as late as 2015, or possibly later.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld first detailed the “Scud-in-a-bucket” threat during a briefing in Huntsville, Ala., on Aug. 18, 2004.

While not explicitly naming Iran, Rumsfeld revealed that “one of the nations in the Middle East had launched a ballistic missile from a cargo vessel. They had taken a short-range, probably Scud missile, put it on a transporter-erector launcher, lowered it in, taken the vessel out into the water, peeled back the top, erected it, fired it, lowered it, and covered it up. And the ship that they used was using a radar and electronic equipment that was no different than 50, 60, 100 other ships operating in the immediate area.”

Iran’s first test of a ship-launched Scud missile occurred in spring 1998, and was mentioned several months later in veiled terms by the Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States, a blue-ribbon panel also known as the Rumsfeld Commission.

I was the first reporter to mention the Iran sea-launched missile test in an article appearing in the Washington Times in May 1999.

Intelligence reports on the launch were “well known to the White House but have not been disseminated to the appropriate congressional committees,” I wrote. Such a missile “could be used in a devastating stealth attack against the United States or Israel for which the United States has no known or planned defense.”

Few experts believe that Iran can be deterred from launching such an attack by the threat of massive retaliation against Iran. They point to a December 2001 statement by former Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, who mulled the possibility of Israeli retaliation after an Iranian nuclear strike.

“The use of an atomic bomb against Israel would destroy Israel completely, while [the same] against the Islamic only would cause damages. Such a scenario is not inconceivable,” Rafsanjani said at the time.

Rep. Trent Franks, R, Ariz., plans to introduce legislation next week that would require the Pentagon to lay the groundwork for an eventual military strike against Iran, to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and EMP capability.

“An EMP attack on America would send us back to the horse and buggy era — without the horse and buggy,” he told the Claremont Institute conference on Saturday. “If you’re a terrorist, this is your ultimate goal, your ultimate asymmetric weapon.”

Noting Iran’s recent sea-launched and mid-flight warhead detonation tests, Rep. Franks concluded, “They could do it — either directly or anonymously by putting some freighter out there on the ocean.”

The only possible deterrent against Iran is the prospect of failure, Dr. Graham and other experts agreed. And the only way the United States could credibly threaten an Iranian missile strike would be to deploy effective national missile defenses.

“It’s well known that people don’t go on a diet until they’ve had a heart attack,” said Claremont Institute president Brian T. Kennedy. “And we as a nation are having a heart attack” when it comes to the threat of an EMP attack from Iran.

“As of today, we have no defense against such an attack. We need space-based missile defenses to protect against an EMP attack,” he told Newsmax.

Rep. Franks said he remains surprised at how partisan the subject of space-based missile defenses remain. “Nuclear missiles don’t discriminate on party lines when they land,” he said.

Arizona Republican Sen. Jon Kyl, a long-standing champion of missile defense, told the Claremont conference on Friday that Sen. Obama has opposed missile defense tooth and nail and as president would cut funding for these programs dramatically.

“Senator Obama has been quoted as saying, ‘I don’t agree with a missile defense system,’ and that we can cut $10 billion of the research out — never mind, as I say, that the entire budget is $9.6 billion, or $9.3 billion,” Kyl said.

Like Franks, Kyl believes that the only way to eventually deter Iran from launching an EMP attack on the United States is to deploy robust missile defense systems, including space-based interceptors.

The United States “needs a missile defense that is so strong, in all the different phases we need to defend against . . . that countries will decide it’s not worth coming up against us,” Kyl said.

“That’s one of the things that defeated the Soviet Union. That’s one of the ways we can deal with these rogue states . . . and also the way that we can keep countries that are not enemies today, but are potential enemies, from developing capabilities to challenge us. “

© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.