An Open Letter to President Barack Obama

Dear Mr. President:

I'm sure you learned a lot of things while sitting in the pews of Jeremiah Wright's church. Anti-Israelism seems to have been foremost among them.

During your electoral campaign, you offered to sit down with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who refers to the Holocaust as a "myth" and has sworn to annihilate every Jewish man, woman, and child living in the Holy Land (or, as he euphemistically puts it, to "wipe the Zionist regime off the map.")

Shortly after you became President, you lashed out at Binyamin Netanyhau for the "crime" of building homes in the capital of Israel.

And this past Thursday, you called for an end to the Zionist "occupation" of Judea and Samaria, repeating the rhetoric of Israel's most vehement enemies. You endorsed the establishment of a HAMAS-Fatah state on the 1949 armistice lines - also known as the 1967 Auschwitz borders. That phrase was coined not by an arch-Zionist right-winger, but by the leftist Knesset member Abba Egan. Even he understood the indefensibility of these borders, which you do not. If your proposal for "peace" came to fruition this September, a tourist landing at Ben-Gurion Airport for the Rosh HaShanah holiday would be nine miles away from enemy fire and Palestinian rockets. Nine miles away from the valley of death.

"God damn America!"

Mr. President, you fancy yourself a man of great wisdom, a man who associates with such scholarly minds as Jeremiah Wright, Al Sharpton, Bill Ayers, and Rashid Khalidi. But no matter your great intelligence, it seems that you are desperately in need of a refresher course in history.

The Jewish people have endured unspeakable suffering at the hands of the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Romans, the Spanish, the Crusaders, the Russians, the Germans, and - yes - the Arabs.

In 1929 - when there were no "occupied territories" or "illegal settlements" - the Arabs of Hebron managed to massacre sixty-seven Jews in a single day. Surely, this cold-blooded murder had nothing to do with the 1967 borders of which you spoke on Thursday.

The Hebron Massacre was provoked by an idea - Zionism - the idea of a Jewish State in Eretz Yisroel. And that idea alone was enough to provoke the massacre of 67 Jews already living in that land.

Last Sunday, when hundreds of Arabs invaded the State of Israel on their annual Nakba day, they weren't protesting the "occupied territories" or "illegal settlements." They were complaining about the very existence of the Jewish State, a state that they opposed in 1929, a state that they invaded in 1948, and a state that the President of Iran has sworn to obliterate from the face of the earth.

Not the "West Bank," not East Jerusalem, but all of Israel - "from the river to the sea," from the Jordan on the east to the Mediterranean on the west.

But, of course, you are a well-intentioned man. You care about the oppressed Palestinians and long for them to have self-determination. You may not know this, Mr. President, but there are already twenty-two Arab states in the world today. And only one Jewish state. Only ONE.

Many of these Arab regimes are crumbling before your eyes, but the Jewish State is a stable democracy. Do you wish to inject the instability and terror of the Arab world into the one democracy of the Middle East?

***

Let me tell you about the history of modern Israel.

In 1947, the United Nations proposed to partition the British Mandate of Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Arabs didn't like this idea, so they turned down the offer, invaded the State of Israel as soon as it was established, and launched a war that killed 6000 Jews.

This invasion took place long before the "occupied territories" of 1967, and long before there were any "settlements" in those territories.

After the war, Jordan annexed Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank," as you like to call it), while Egypt annexed the Gaza Strip.

In 1964, a man by the name of Yassir Arafat founded the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Mr. President, do you know what Arafat was trying to "liberate" in 1964?

In 1967, the Arabs again invaded Israel with the intention of destroying it, and again they lost. As a result of this war, the Jewish State came into control of certain land that had previously been controlled by Arab countries - among them was Jordan's West Bank, Egypt's Gaza, and Syria's Golan Heights. These are what you call the "occupied territories." 

As you know, the United States came into possession of many of its current territories as a result of war. Not only that, but the Cherokee Indians were once expelled from Georgia. (Yes, Georgia - the home state of Jimmy Carter.) Do that mean that all this land should be returned to the Indians? Should the United States go back to its 1492 borders?

Of course not. No sane person would ever dream of returning any land in the United States to the Indians, or to Mexico, or to any other people. But in 2005, Israel - a country the size of New Jersey, mind you - did take the path of appeasement in an attempt at peace.

In 2005, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon expelled nearly 10,000 Jews from Gaza and gave it over to the Arabs. By 2006, HAMAS has taken over.

And you, Mr. President, have the chutzpah to urge more territorial concessions, more appeasement, more capitulation, and more Neville Chamberlainism. You have the chutzpah to tell Israel that it should go back to the Auschwitz borders of 1967, where it once was BEFORE it was attacked by four Arab armies screaming "Itbach al Yehud!"

And this, you say, will lead to peace. There was no peace in 1929, when the Arabs of Hebron massacred sixty-seven Jews in a single day. There was no peace when the Arabs invaded Israel in 1948, or in 1967, or in 1973. There was no peace when Yassir Arafat was offered 97% of the land he wanted and he turned all it down, preferring to launch an intifada against the Jewish State. There was no peace when 10,000 "settlers" were expelled from Gush Katif, and HAMAS terrorists took over their homes a year later and started launching rockets and mortar shells all over the place.

But, now, if only Israel were to go back to the Auschwitz borders and allow for the establishment of a HAMAS-Fatah state, there would be peace. It is the two-state solution, the way to solve all the world's problems, the means of establishing 'peace in our times.' If only there were to be a HAMAS-Fatah state on the 1949 armistice lines, there would be no more suicide bombings, no more beheadings, no more hijackings, and no more terrorism anywhere in the world. Just like there was no 1929 Hebron Massacre, just like there was no alliance between the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and Adolf Hitler, just like there were no Arab riots in the 1930s, and just like there was no invasion of the Jewish State in 1948 - well before the "occupied territories" of the Six-Day War.

Mr. President, whenever I hear the idiotic phrase "two-state solution," I am reminded of another interesting "solution" - the Final Solution to the Jewish question.

Indeed, this is what the Arabs of Eretz Yisroel want. As the HAMAS Charter states, "Israel will rise and will remain erect until Islam eliminates it as it had eliminated its predecessors."

Now is the time for you to decide, Mr. President, whether you will stand with the Jews of Israel or the genocidal murderers of HAMAS. There is no in-between, and there can be no two-state solution. Not a day goes by that the terrorists of Gaza do not pray for the elimination of the Jewish State. Giving these savages a sovereign nation would be the first step to a second Holocaust. If you succeed in turning a murderous enclave into a murderous country, you will go down in history as the worst president ever.

Please understand that the Middle East conflict is not about land: The Arabs have 22 countries, and the Jews have but one. The conflict is about ideology. On the one hand, you have the most persecuted people in human history who simply wish to live on the land of their forefathers. On the other hand, you have bloodthirsty barbarians who cannot accept the presence of a non-Muslim state on land that was formerly Muslim. With whom will you side, Mr. President, those who value life or those who pray for death? The choice is yours, but I fear that its consequences will be grave.



Obama shakes hands with Holocaust denier Abu Mazen underneath a portrait of Yassir Arafat

 

UPDATE:

Some have suggested that Obama's pro-Palestinian speech was a way of apologizing to the Arab world for the assassination of Osama bin Laden - an assassination for which the President was widely condemned.

Indeed, Obama has previously bashed the Jewish State in order to ingratiate himself with the citizens of Egypt and, by extension, the Muslim world. As such, I would not be surprised if this were one of the hidden purposes behind Thursday's address.

Obama bows to the Saudi king, he apologizes to terrorists, he tells Jews that they cannot build homes in Eretz Yisroel, and now he has the chutzpah to call for the establishment of a HAMAS-Fatah state on the 1949 armistice lines - fulfilling the Talmudic prophecy that he who is merciful unto the cruel will one day be cruel unto the merciful.

One can only hope that the President will learn to distinguish between our allies and our enemies before it is too late. There is a great deal of difference between the vibrant democracy of Israel and the misogynist tyranny of Saudi Arabia. Obama would never think to oppose the face veil that Saudi women are forced to wear, but he has no moral compunctions about condemning the building of Jewish homes in Israel. What is the reason for his hypocrisy?

We know that fifteen of the 9/11 hijackers, as well as Osama bin Laden himself, were of Saudi origin. We know that Saudi Arabia decapitates homosexuals and prohibits women from driving.  It is diametrically opposed to the "progressive" and "tolerant" ideas of the liberal left. So why on earth would Obama bow to the Saudi monarch?

Was it a way of appeasing the Muslim world? Was it a way of showing American subservience to a country that engages in the most brutal practices of shariah law?

Israel, on the other hand, is tolerant of both gays and women. Israel is not a monarchy; it is a democracy that gives a voice in government to both Arabs and Jews.

If evangelical Christians had decapitated gays or stoned women, the left would be outraged beyond belief. But when a Muslim country does just that and an American president bows to its monarch, the left is silent.

When some Americans opposed the construction of a mega-mosque near Ground Zero, the left was outraged by this manifestation of "bigotry" and "intolerance." But when the President of the United States told Jews that they were not allowed to build homes in their own country, the left sided with him and condemned Israel as an apartheid state.

Now, when Binyamin Netanyhau gave Obama a lesson in reality, the left reproached him for being disrespectful. Ha!

In the late 1960s, anti-war protestors went around singing: 'Hey, hey, LBJ, how many  kids did you kill today?' Today, these leftists and their descendants reproach Netanyhau for simply stating the truth.

Let's compare. On the one hand, you have the Prime Minister of Israel  saying that his country will not go back to the indefensible borders of 1967. On the other hand, you have a bunch of drugged hooligans accusing the President of being a cold-blooded murderer. Where was the outrage over "disrespect" then?

Oy gevalt, my friends, double standards are a terrible thing.

UPDATE II (6/3/11 at 5:14 PM)

I just wanted to link to this wonderful article by Louis Rene Beres published in FrontPageMag, which reiterates many of my statements about the Israel-Arab conflict.  

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire: How the Duke Rape Victim Duped America

A comedian once defined chutzpah as a youngster killing his parents and then throwing himself on the mercy of the court by virtue of the fact that he is an orphan.

Think about it: The liberal left regards every minority group imaginable as the victims of oppression. Palestinian suicide bombers are exalted for their courageous opposition to the "Zionist occupation." African-Americans are exempt from having to identify themselves to police officers because they suffer from the enduring legacy of slavery and segregation, the latter having ended some 40 years ago.  Muslims are being hounded by the horrors of Islamophobia because not everyone agrees with their decision to build a mega-mosque two blocks from the ashes of 2600 Americans. Women are being all but stifled under the heels of misogyny and chauvinism, as evidenced by the fact that we have never had a female President. (Of course, Margaret Thatcher served as Prime Minister of Great Britain for eleven years - but she was an evil conservative and so she doesn't count. And Golda Meir served as Prime Minister of Israel from 1969 to 1974, but we would never want to discuss that despicable Zionist.)

In our society, most minority groups are given the status of victimhood, and their community leaders do everything in their power to reinforce the victim mentality. But what happens when one of these so-called "victims" commits a horrible crime?



***

From the Associated Press:

The woman who falsely accused three Duke lacrosse players of raping her in 2006 was charged Monday with murder in the death of her boyfriend. Crystal Mangum, 32, was indicted on a charge of first-degree murder and two counts of larceny. She has been in jail since April 3, when police charged her with assault in the stabbing of 46-year-old Reginald Daye. He died after nearly two weeks at a hospital.

An attorney for Mangum and officials in the district attorney's office did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

Mangum falsely accused the lacrosse players of raping her at a 2006 party for which she was hired to perform as a stripper. The case heightened long-standing tensions in Durham about race, class and the privileged status of college athletes.

The district attorney who championed Mangum's claims was later disbarred. North Carolina's attorney general eventually declared the players innocent of a "tragic rush to accuse."

Prosecutors declined to press charges for the false accusations, but Mangum's bizarre legal troubles have continued.  

Last year, she was convicted on misdemeanor charges after setting a fire that nearly torched her home with her three children inside. In a videotaped police interrogation, she told officers she set got into a confrontation with her boyfriend at the time — not Daye — and burned his clothes, smashed his car windshield and threatened to stab him.

Friends said Mangum has never recovered from the stigma brought by the lacrosse case and has been involved in a string of questionable relationships in an attempt to provide stability for her children. Vincent Clark, a friend who co-authored Mangum's self-published memoir, said he hopes people don't rush to judgment — echoing one of the oft-cited lessons of the lacrosse case itself.

You hear that? Crystal Mangum is an alleged murderer, and a friend of this alleged murderer is telling people that they shouldn't rush to judgment.

The chutzpah! The nerve! The unmitigated temerity of this low-life telling the public to avoid a rush to judgment!

Where was this bleeding heart Vincent Clark when three lacrose players were falsely accused of rape in 2006? Where was Mr. Clark when three lacrose players were threatened with the possibility of expulsion, incarceration, and ruin for a crime they did not commit? Why did he not advise the public to avoid a rush to judgment then?

Why did we not hear about the presumption of innocence then - then, when three innocent men faced the prospect of ruin at the hands of a mendacious stripper? Where were the cries of the leftists - the Al Sharptons, Jesse Jacksons, Jeremiah Wrights, and Louis Farrakhans - about how all people are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law? Why did they not side with the victims of a false charge?

No, the liberal left condemned the lacrosse players, screaming about the gross injustice of "white male privilege."

Here is an interesting letter written to the Duke University Administration by a raving leftist. (I am re-publishing it in full, with emphasis on the most fascinating parts.)

Television screens tuned in to MSNBC on the morning of March 29, 2006 broadcast a headline in bold red: DUKE RAPE? At the bottom right corner of the front page of The New York Times on the same day was an article about the rape allegations roiling Duke University. How is a Duke community citizen to respond to such a national embarrassment from under the cloud of a "culture of silence" that seeks to protect white, male, athletic violence and which apparently prevents all university citizens from even surveying the known facts? How can one begin to answer the cardinal question: What have Duke and its leadership done to address this horrific, racist incident alleged to have occurred in a university-owned property in the presence of members of one of its athletic teams?

The alleged crimes of rape, sodomy, and strangulation of a black woman at a party populated in some measure by the Duke lacrosse team reportedly occurred on March 13. University administrators knew about and had begun to respond internally within twenty-four hours following the incident. But Duke University citizens had no public word from our university leadership until President Richard Brodhead called a press conference on March 28. Two weeks of silent protectionism left all of us vulnerably ignorant of the facts. Receiving emails and telephone calls of concern from friends nationally and internationally, we have been deeply embarrassed by the silence that seems to surround this white, male athletic team's racist assaults (by words, certainly - deeds, possibly) in our community.

It is virtually inconceivable that representatives of Duke University's Athletic Department would allow its lacrosse team to engage in regular underage drinking and out-of-control bacchanalia. It is difficult to imagine a competently managed corporate setting in which such behavior would be tolerated (and swept under the rug), or where such a "team" would survive for more than a day before being tossed out on its ears by security. Moreover, in a forthrightly ethical setting with an avowed commitment to life-enhancing citizenship, such a violent and irresponsible group would scarcely be spirited away, or sheltered under the protection of pious sentiments such as "deplorable" - a judgment that reminds us of Miss Ophelia in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, saying that slavery was "perfectly horrible." Such timorous piety and sentimental legalism, in the opinion of the author James Baldwin, constitutes duck-and-cover cowardice of the first order.

There is no rush to judgment here about the crime - neither the violent racial epithets reported in a 911 call to Durham police, nor the harms to body and soul allegedly perpetrated by white males at 610 Buchanan Boulevard. But there is a clear urgency about the erosion of any felt sense of confidence or safety for the rest of us who live and work at Duke University. The lacrosse team - 15 of whom have faced misdemeanor charges for drunken misbehavior in the past three years - may well feel they can claim innocence and sport their disgraced jerseys on campus, safe under the cover of silent whiteness. But where is the black woman who their violence and raucous witness injured for life? Will she ever sleep well again? And when will the others assaulted by racist epithets while passing 610 Buchanan ever forget that dark moment brought on them by a group of drunken Duke boys? Young, white, violent, drunken men among us - implicitly boasted by our athletic directors and administrators - have injured lives. There is scarcely any shame more egregious than one that wraps itself in the pious sentimentalism of liberal rhetoric as though such a wrap really constituted moral and ethical action.

Duke University's higher administration has engaged in precisely such a tepid and pious legalism with respect to the disaster of recent days: the actual harm to the body, soul, mind, and spirit of black women who were in the company of Duke University lacrosse team members as far as any of us know. All of Duke athletics has now been drawn into the seamy domains of Colorado football and other college and university blind-eying of male athletes, veritably given license to rape, maraud, deploy hate speech, and feel proud of themselves in the bargain.

Many citizens have weighed in, and one hopes all departments, programs, and concerned members of our university community will speak out forcefully for swift and considered corrective action.

But of course, it is not exclusively our academic administration that seems to have refused decisive and meaningful action. The most deafening silence - and, quite possibly, duplicity (which is to say, improbable denial) - has marked, in fact, Duke's Department of Athletics. Where was Joe Alleva before Tuesday's press conference called by President Brodhead? Where now is the commercial charisma of Coach K, who could certainly be out front condemning Duke athletes who call people out of their name from the precincts of university-owned housing? Why aren't such stalwarts of Duke athletics publicly and courageously addressing the horrors that have occurred in their own domain? We remember the very first day of our new President's administration - how he and Coach K shared the media dais, and the basketball magnate was praised for his bold leadership. It all seems rather like an Indonesian shadow play at this moment of crisis. All a show.

What is precipitously teetering in the balance at this point, during weeks marked by inaction and duck-and-cover from our designated leaders is, well, confidence.

It is very difficult to feel confidence in an administration that has not addressed in meaningful ways the horrors that have occurred to actual bodies, to the Durham community of which we are an integral part, and to our sense of being members of a proactive and caring community. Rather, gag orders and trembling liberal rhetorical spins seem to be behaviors du jour from our leaders.

There can be no confidence in an administration that believes suspending a lacrosse season and removing pictures of Duke lacrosse players from a web page is a dutifully moral response to abhorrent sexual assault, verbal racial violence, and drunken white male privilege loosed amongst us.

How many mandates concerning safe, responsible campus citizenship must be transgressed by white athletes' violent racism before our university's offices of administration, athletics, security, and publicity courageously declare: enough!

How many more people of color must fall victim to violent, white, male, athletic privilege before coaches who make Chevrolet and American Express commercials, athletic directors who engage in Miss Ophelia-styled "perfectly horrible" rhetoric, higher administrators who are salaried at least in part to keep us safe, and publicists who are supposed not to praise Caesar but to damn the unconscionable ... how many? Before they demonstrate that they don't just write books, pay lip service, or boast of safe citizenship ... but actually do step up morally, intellectually, and bravely to assume responsibilities of leadership for such citizenship. How many?

How soon will confidence be restored to our university as a place where minds, souls, and bodies can feel safe from agents, perpetrators, and abettors of white privilege, irresponsibility, debauchery and violence?

Surely the answer to the question must come in the form of immediate dismissals of those principally responsible for the horrors of this spring moment at Duke. Coaches of the lacrosse team, the team itself and its players, and any other agents who silenced or lied about the real nature of events at 610 Buchanan on the evening of March 13, 2006. A day that, not even in a clichéd sense, will, indeed, always live in infamy for this university.

A responsible, and in many instances appalled - and yes, frightened - citizenry of Duke University is waiting ... and certainly more than willing to join considered actions by bold leaders to restore confidence in a great institution and its mission. Today I polled my class whose enrollment is predominantly women and white. All said that nothing had happened in terms of this university's response that had left them anything but afraid. The shame of this is unconscionable. Still, these women will surely sleep better this evening than the black woman injured at 610 Buchanan Boulevard by the white lacrosse team's out-of-control violent partying will ever again rest in her life.

[Signed]

Houston A. Baker, Jr.

George D. and Susan Fox Beischer Professor of English

Editor, American Literature

Let's see: "white male privilege," stereotypes about athletes - hell, the author even managed to invoke slavery. And, of course, the wonderful statement about there not being a rush to judgment.

But where are you now - Mr. Baker, Mr. and Mrs. Beischer, and all the others who denounced these innocent players? Where are you now that your heroine stands accused of homicide? Where are you now that this so-called "victim" has been exposed for her lies? Where are you now - the hithertofore loquacious leftists, the race and gender warmongerers who have infested college campuses with their cultural Maxism?

What do you have to say for yourselves?  Will you condemn this perjuring murderer, or will you instruct people that they shouldn't rush to judgment now that Crystal Mangum is sitting in a jail cell, awaiting trial for the most despicable of crimes?

Many years ago, American women suffered from the cult of domesticity. Ms. Mangum, however, suffers from the cult of victimhood, the entitlement mentality that comes with being a minority. Do you still feel sorry for her, just like you feel sorry for the child who butchers his own parents and throws himself on the mercy of the court by virtue of the fact that he is an orphan?

Have you apologized to the lacrosse players now that the falsity of Ms. Mangum's allegations - and yours - is clear for all the world to see?

In your letter, you expressed concern over Ms. Mangum's sleep. But where are you now, that she is sleeping in a jail cell? Why aren't you concerned about her comfort now? Why aren't you defending her against charges of homicide and child abuse? Do you really care about Ms. Mangum, or did you just seize upon the opportunity to condemn a bunch of lacrosse players for who they were - white, male, rich, and successful?

Will you apologize to them for YOUR racism and sexism in helping to perpetuate a false charge? Are you concerned about their sleep in the aftermath of this devastating scandal that has forever harmed their pysches?

Ah, the silence of these scumbags speaks for itself.

It seems that Crystal Mangum has outlived her usefulness, and has now been discarded by her defenders - abandoned in the hour of her most pressing need, cast aside as she was being cast into a jail cell. She was never regarded as a human being by those who claimed to be on her side, but as the personification of a cause - the cause of social justice. And, boy, was she  used! But the hoax fell through, and now she is no longer needed. The professors and politicians who claimed to be Ms. Mangum's friends will let her rot in jail along with all the other single, black mothers and fathers who have been let down by the liberal left.

***

And, so, let me continue with my harangue about the Bakers, Beischers, Wrights, Sharptons, Jacksons, Farrakhans, and other asorted cretins.

You condemned the lacrosse players not because they were rapists, but because they were white. You assumed that their race made them criminals; you terrorized a group of entirely innocent people for the crime of having been born white and male.

Since you had the chutzpah to compare these lacrosse players to slaveholders, let me say this. You - you, Mr. Baker - are no different from those who made up blood libels to terrorize Jews in medieval Europe. You are the real racist, the real sexist, and the real offender - and you ought to be ashamed of your despicable deeds.

And to appease you and your politically correct ways, the prosecutors refused to bring charges of perjury against Ms. Mangum. They let her off with a slap on the wrist after she perpetrated a fraud on the whole country, after she terrorized three innocent men with the prospect of utter ruin.

But now, a man is dead - and he died at the hands of this lying low-life. Perhaps he would still be alive today if Ms. Mangum had been incarcerated for perjury. Perhaps he would still be alive today if Ms. Mangum had been incarcerated for arson.

Now, nearly five years later, she is finally sitting where she should have been all along - in jail - but an innocent man has perished by her hand. This is what it took to put a lying low-life where she belongs.

Need we any more proof that political correctness is a deadly scourge?