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Try to imagine this: An American president visits Israel and in a speech given close to the vast "separation wall" Israel continues to build in part through Palestinian territory, says: "Mr. Netanyahu, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for Israel and the region, if you [...]

Neocons like Reihan Salam are worried that Republicans will soon "begin to abandon the president en masse over Afghanistan." As well they might be: Salam, a self-described advocate of "a Pax Americana foreign policy," and a fellow at the New America Foundation – a corporate-funded [...]

Since March of this year, The Berkeley Daily Planet (BDP) has been struggling against a campaign by three long-time critics to scare away advertisers and shut the paper down, based on accusations that its publication of letters to the editor and op-eds critical of Israel constitute an anti-semitic bias. On November 27th, the local controversy came [...]

Foreign philanthropists donate the most money to Israeli charities, non-profit organizations, volunteer programs, education institutes, religious facilities and cultural events, the central Bureau of Statistics reported on Tuesday. ...

Jamie Glazov interviews Pamela Geller at FrontPage Magazine on the Obama Administration's antisemitism: Geller: Obama had a disturbing track record from the beginning. The Obama landscape, the landscape of his personal and professional associations, is littered with anti-Semites and rife with Israel haters. Only three weeks after Barack Hussein Obama...

"The hacking of emails from a leading British climate research centre is a “terrible and illegal act”, according to Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) advising the UN negotiations on climate. “I think this is an illegal act. The only issue that has to be dealt with as far as this occurrence is concerned is to find out who is behind it,” Mr. Pachauri told a press conference according to AFP. The emails were hacked from computers at the University of East Anglia. As some of the emails seem to reflect attempts by mainstream scientists to block publication of articles by dissenting researchers, the affair has been dubbed “Climategate” by the media. This is a highly misleading phrase according to Rajendra Pachauri: “One can only surmise that those who have carried out this act have done it with the very clear intention as to influence the process in Copenhagen – but, barring a few isolated voices, people over here are totally convinced of... more... - sofarsoShawn

The EU takes a stand: European Foreign Ministers on Tuesday declared their support for the division of Jerusalem, saying that a way should be found to make Jerusalem the shared capital of both Israel and a future Palestinian state. Sweden, which currently holds the EU presidency, presented a draft document last week supporting the division of Jerusalem [...]

"GRAYSON: They’d all walk to the front of the House and, laughingly and jokingly, put their arms around each other’s shoulder like it was some kind of clownish fun. And they did this over and over to make sure every vote took half an hour. That’s how low things have gotten. I could give you countless examples just like that. They’re simply obstructionists and there’s nothing you can do about it." - Steven Perez from Bookmarklet

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with United States President Barack Obama in the White House on Monday to discuss the recent tensions between the two countries based on disagreements regarding their different outlooks on Middle East policies. ...

MiamiHerald.com Pakistan and not Afghanistan worries USA Asian Tribune Thriving drug-trade and arms selling in Afghanistan in which Karzai and his brother, Northern Alliance warlords, CIA, RAW, Mossad and US-Nato military are ... New strategy: Obama's Afghan endgamePakistan Observer Commentary: Gulled by GulUPI.com Stu Bykofsky: Af-Pak speech: Both sides nowPhiladelphia Daily News Kashmir Watch all 3,472 news articles »

The Obama administration is conducting a workshop on government openness for federal employees today. It is, of course, closed to the public and the media. While the White House has tried to make the point that the public has a right to know, they have been secretive about many things, including those having nothing to do with [...]

"The controversy over e-mails stolen from global-warming researchers at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at Britain's University of East Anglia has become so divisive that there is even disagreement over what to call it. Skeptics of global warming, who have long considered climate change a fraud, refer to the incident as "Climategate," with obvious intimations of scandal and cover-up. Advocates of action on warming call it "Swifthack," a reference to the 2004 character attacks on presidential candidate Senator John Kerry by the group then known as Swift Boat Veterans for Truth — in other words, an invented scandal propagated by conservatives and the media that does nothing to change the scientific case for climate change. - sofarsoShawn

In another e-mail exchange, Mann and Jones discuss ways to pressure an academic journal Climate Research to stop publishing submissions from climate skeptics, with Mann suggesting that they consider encouraging colleagues not to submit papers to the journal until it changes its editorial stance. Jones also wrote repeatedly about rebuffing requests by climate skeptics for raw temperature... more... - sofarsoShawn

"Bartlett’s point in the post is that most of the opponents of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 were Democrats. This is very true. But it simply highlights the fact that politics in 1964 were not ideologically aligned. The main block of support for white supremacy was a group of Southern Democrats, most of whom were very conservative on all issues, and all of whom were very conservative on the issue of race. They were joined in their support for white supremacy by a smaller block of non-southern conservative Republicans. Conservative movement organs like The National Review supported white supremacy, as did Barry Goldwater who was the leading conservative politician of the time. It’s a very interesting historical fact about the United States of America that for most of the twentieth century conservative southerners generally belonged to the Democratic Party. But it’s also true that if you think of American politics in terms of the history of ideological struggle, civil rights is clearly an issue on which the liberals were right and over time conservatives came around to that view." - Steven Perez from Bookmarklet

"The question remains: Why do conservatives insist on denying global warming, when they know that slowing down reform will result in the deaths of millions and widespread environmental destruction? There are two theories: 1) They’re in deep denial. 2) They know that global warming is real, but they don’t care. I think most cases of global warming denialism are a combination of both these urges. And different individuals have a mix to different degrees." - Steven Perez from Bookmarklet

It's what I've been saying for years: Limbaugh and his clones are in the business of enabling assholery. They make wingnuts feel good about being assholes to other people. - Steven Perez

Two-year trial period to test database before it becomes mandatory for all Israeli citizens

An investigative story on the continuing abuse of Congress junkets despite a reform introduced last year contains this gem: Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican, on another privately sponsored trip, stayed at the historic King David Hotel in Jerusalem and attended a gala party near the Western Wall as part of a weeklong conference that lobbyists [...] Related posts:What Do Aish HaTorah, Rabbi Irwin Katsof, Rick Davis, the Ukraine and John McCain Have in Common?Eric Cantor Leads Republican AIPAC-Hosted Israel JunketAish’s Katsof, Founder of Words Can Heal, Ignores His Own Advice When It Comes to Muslims Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Seth Lipsky says that while he was writing his new book about the U.S. Constitution, one of his children suggested he design it like the Talmud, with text in the middle and commentary all around. The book he did write, “The Citizen’s Constitution: An Annotated Guide,” is presented more conventionally, with the text in boldface, enumerated by 310 footnotes and another 287 endnotes. But the echo of the ancient image is unmistakable.

B’nai B’rith International's new president said he will focus on getting the group's message to a wider audience.

Twenty-two Jewish organizations signed on to a call for action on climate change to be presented at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.

According to DEBKAfile's military sources, a loud shouting match erupted Sunday, Dec. 6, between Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad and US Gen. Keith Dayton, who is in charge of training 2,000 Palestinian commandos as the Palestinian Authority first ever effective security force. The quarrel is serious enough to hang a question mark over US-Palestinian-Israel cooperation in the campaign against Hamas and other terrorist organizations.

Knesset approves controversial Biometric Database Law Jerusalem Post "If the databases of the Mossad, the Shin Bet and the Prime Minister's Office are currently protected at a level of 10, then this one will be protected at a ... and more »

So-called progressive Jewish lobby J Street has a slight identity crisis. Last week it was willing to criticise ongoing settlements in the West Bank. This week, the tough cop routine rolls out: J Street, the pro-Israel, pro-peace lobby, today announced its support for Congressional passage of the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act of 2009. “J Street has [...]

Veteran journalist Patrick Cockburn, a reporter unafraid to challenge accepted wisdom over Western-led wars, dooms Barack Obama’s plans for Afghanistan: American and British exponents of a military escalation or ‘the surge’ in Afghanistan opportunistically expound two wholly contradictory views of Taliban strength. At one moment they are a movement of immense power on the verge of [...]

Listen to Rep. Ron Paul on the escalation in Afghanistan (MP3). If anyone still doubted that this administration’s foreign policy would bring any kind of change, this week’s debate on Afghanistan should remove all doubt. The president’s stated justifications for sending more troops to Afghanistan and escalating the war amount [...]

John Walsh on the race to fill Ted Kennedy's seat

WASHINGTON - With the recent announcement of Chelsea Clinton's engagement to Marc Mezvinsky, extended family gatherings at the high-profile Clinton household look poised to become a lot more colorful. With her choice of a mate, Clinton, daughter of a former president and the current secretary of state, is marrying into a family that includes a former U.S. congressman convicted of fraud; another member of Congress who fell on her sword for a future in-law in a vote that ended her political career; no fewer than 10 brothers- and sisters-in-law, and a fervently anti-Zionist uncle. ...