Reprinted from aljazeera.net Israel and the anti-Muslim blow-up By MJ Rosenberg, Senior Foreign Policy Fellow at Media Matters Action Network A visiting rabbi from Israel gave a sermon [in Washington, D.C.] about the intifada that was then raging in Israel and the West Bank. The sermon’s ending which was unforgettable. The rabbi concluded with the [...]

From the Wall St. Journal By FARNAZ FASSIHI Defying mounting international pressure over its military ambitions, Iran on Sunday unveiled what it said was its latest battlefield advance—an armed aerial drone—a day after initiating the start-up of its first nuclear power plant. Tehran said the plant would be operational within a month. For much more [...]

That Americans have largely pulled out of Iraq and are putting their concentration upon Afghanistan is good news for terrorists who can now attack wherever they want with near impunity. 1. Iraqi officials say 41 people have been killed and 112 wounded in a suicide bombing strike against Iraqi army recruits in Baghdad. The Tuesday [...]

There is an old and funny story that goes like this: An assistant attorney tells the key attorney: “We’ve got no case; abuse the other side’s attorney.” So it is with Turkey. It has no case in the flotilla incident so it is going on the attack. From the Christian Science Monitor Turkey has told [...]

While watchingpolitics.com is sympathetic to the Israeli cause, it takes no particular position about the “flottilla” incident. It welcomes any submission from any reader who wishes to present an alternative point of view. The following article by the former Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar was published in the British newspaper ‘The Times of London’ [...]

The NY Times weighs in with an unenlightening editorial. Israel’s government has decided to tough out the criticism of its attack this week on a six-ship flotilla trying to run the Gaza blockade. The story, and the anger, aren’t going away…..Israel’s charges that its commandos were attacked and shot at by some of the ship’s [...]

A flotilla here, a flotilla there. Good guys and bad guys. Why don’t you decide? HELSINKI PRINCIPLES ON THE LAW OF MARITIME NEUTRALITY 5.1.2(3) Merchant ships flying the flag of a neutral State may be attacked if they are believed on reasonable grounds to be carrying contraband or breaching a blockade, and after prior warning [...]

The 2003 Roadmap for Peace process sponsored by the United States and other nations obligates the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Government of Israel to undertake security efforts as a necessary precursor for achieving the long-standing objective of establishing a Palestinian state as part of the two-state solution for peace in the Middle East. In [...]

An article in the Christian Science Monitor reports that “a low estimate of militant kills by drones in Pakistan so far this year is 152, according to the New America Foundation.” Somewhat buried in the good news is that the strikes are also believed to have killed hundreds of innocent villagers, stirring public anger that [...]

Aljazeera…………………Residents of the Afghan city of Kandahar face an upsurge in violence in the coming months as US forces mass on the outskirts of the city, General David Petraeus, the head of US Central Command, has said. His warning came as US and Nato forces prepare to launch the largest military offensive so far against [...]

Writing for the Guardian in the U.K., Meron Benvenisti has this to say: negotiations for a Palestinian state are an illusion that perpetuates the status quo. The occupation that began after the 1967 Middle East war is irreversible and that Israelis and Palestinians need to find an alternative to the elusive two-state solution that has [...]

What did you expect? Is there a good reason why the Taliban should not hit hard against contractor firms in Afghanistan? Don’t the latter mean to do harm to the Taliban? I think so. By Joshua Partlow Washington Post Foreign Service Saturday, April 17, 2010 KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — The Taliban has begun regularly targeting U.S. [...]

We, the undersigned, have traveled to Israel over the years with The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs [JINSA] The dissemination of hatred and support of terrorism by violent extremists in the name of Islam, whether state or non-state actors, must be addressed as a threat to global peace. We brought with us our decades [...]

Khaleej Times…………………………….Iranian President Ahmadinejad flouted any more UN sanctions on his nuclear program as illegal, insisting he will not submit to any such pressure based on the US and Britain “lying” about the evidence. The Iranian leader, wrapping up two days of talks with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, lambasted the Western allies for pressing for [...]

Admittedly, this is a one-sided list but that does not detract from the power of the arguments each of these books contains. http://www.amazon.com/dp/1591025540/ref=pe_606_15135190_pe_ar_t2 Sample Reviews of two of the books: “Andrew Bostom produces a vast literature of Middle Eastern Islamic antisemitism, and critics may be as surprised at his conclusions as they are unable to [...]

MISSION STATEMENT – The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is an independent US Government agency responsible for providing national security intelligence to senior US policymakers. HISTORY OF THE CIA – President Truman recognized the need for a postwar, centralized intelligence organization. To make a fully functional intelligence office, Truman signed the National Security Act of 1947 [...]

Amnesty International has urged the Hamas de facto administration in Gaza not to carry out several pending death sentences, after high-ranking officials signalled their intention to execute those convicted of “collaboration” with Israel and “murder”. It is feared that these executions, which would be the first to be carried out in Gaza since 2005, may [...]

If anything is worse that the pure existence of police, then it is a cop trying to defend an elderly woman’s right to a subway seat. Moscow Times…………..A Moscow police colonel was detained after he fired two shots from an air gun, injuring two people, amid an argument with a male passenger who refused to [...]

As it does in most issues, Nation magazine once again attacks Israel as the bad guy in its dealings with Arab states. Here is a link to its latest diatribe. Here is my response posted to The Nation today. To The Nation: Mr. Dreyfuss is right to call attention to the fact that too often [...]

Hey, I’ve always said, “It’s your country, not mine. I’m just killing time, waiting for my space craft to be repaired so I can go home to Planet X.” Here’s the latest mind-boggler from the NY Times. This is an excerpt. For the whole article, just CLICK HERE. U.S. Enriches Companies Defying Its Policy on [...]

Everybody already knows or should know that 95% of what passes for national security is only national embarrassment. Obama’s hacks and henchmen, led by Eric Holder, the Attorney General, know this and have filed a motion to bar the public from a court hearing Jan. 7 in the Blackwater criminal case in federal district court [...]

While I believe the sooner we get our troops out of the MidEast the better – tonight, however, is soon enough, provided it is total evacuation – the fact is that not much happens there except for the extraordinary expense of keeping forces in the region. The U.S. death total since the madness began is [...]

The following is excerpted from Scholars for Peace in the Middle East. For the complete article, please CLICK HERE. KENNETH L. MARCUS: IRAN’S NUCLEAR ANTI-ZIONISM IS GENOCIDAL, NOT POLITICAL. Experts often argue that the real danger of an Iranian nuclear weapon has less to do with whether the weapons would be fired, and more to [...]

Barack Obama laid out his plans for Afghanistan the other night before the assembled cadets of West Point, and it was broadcast throughout America. Its essence was (1) to commit another 30,000 troops, (2) to abandon the deadline of January 22, 2010 as the departure date he set while he was campaigning, and (3) to [...]