Friday Afternoon Roundup - Falling Down

WND is reporting that the Obama Administration encouraged protests against Israel in Jerusalem. While there is no way to verify that, it would generally be in line with the Administration's take, and whether or not they understood that such protests would be violent, well that too is up in the air.

Keeping in mind the radicalized anti-Israel attitude in the Obama Administration, something that has taken even many Jewish Obama supporters aback, it's possible that they would have approved even rioting and violent confrontations. This brings to mind the mandate days when Arab mobs murdered Jews in Jerusalem while chanting, "The government is with us."

And this is a consequence of what the Obama Administration has been doing

A resident of Yitzhar was wounded Thursday evening when Palestinian Authority Arabs threw a large rock at a car just outside the Samaria village. The rock hit his head as he sat in the back seat of the vehicle, next to his two children.

The man suffered a head injury and lost blood. IDF medics rushed him to Beilinson hospital. It was later determined that his wounds include a fractured skull, which required surgery, which was reported as successful. The children were unhurt in the attack.

Jewish residents of Samaria explained that since the Huwarra checkpoint was opened as a “good-will gesture” to the PA, Arab traffic has flooded the junction near Yitzhar. Terrorists have been known to take advantage of the slow traffic to pick out Israeli-owned vehicles and target them easily.

The attack was the second to cause injury on Thursday. Earlier in the day an Israeli bus took a wrong turn in Hevron and was quickly surrounded by PA Arabs, who pelted it with rocks. One woman was wounded, and others suffered shock.

Now the checkpoints are opened under US pressure, in order to "make life easier" for PA residents. Well now a man has a fractured skull, but that's minor compared to those killed over the years by the outbreaks of violence from the same cause. Checkpoints are there to keep terrorism and Muslim violence at bay.

Prominent pro-Israel liberals and Obama supporters like Allan Dershowitz and Ed Koch, have begun making U Turns. Dershowitz is still defending the Obama Administration, but Koch seems to be nearing a tipping point with articles like The Trust Is Gone: It Will Never Again Be The Same and Obama's Treatment of Israel is Shocking. There's an honest expression of baffled hurt in these articles out of an inability to understand why Obama is doing this. Too many people fell for the image of Obama marketed by the media and his own campaign, and dismissed everything else as "right wing lies" and "fear campaigns" and now they have to deal with the reality that they fell for a lie.

Meanwhile J Street has a new poll out. As usual the poll is from Gerstein Agne Strategic Communications, which is linked up with Democracy Corps, and the whole Soros machine. But even it only finds 62 percent support by Jews for Obama. Which would suggest that Obama is slipping down the Carter path. The question is whether Republicans will find a Reagan to take advantage of it.

It is of course long since past time that Steele goes. The latest scandals just show once again that not only isn't he the man to lead a counter-revolution, but he can't even keep the house in order.

There is a piece of Putin Propaganda that has unfortunately been picked up by too many Counter-Jihad sites, specifically an article by Julia Gorin quoting one James George Jatras about a supposed meeting with Jihadis held by Georgia's government.

I like and respect Julia, but this bears the mark of pure Russian propaganda. Before and during Russia's invasion of Georgia, Putin's Junta put out a bewildering and insane assortment of claims about Saakashvili and Georgia. This should be treated as a cynical attempt by Russia, whose regime has set up half the terrorist groups around the world and continues to promote terrorism, even in its own government controlled mosques, to continue its propaganda war against one of the countries it formerly dominated and wants to take over again.

The Gorin article's only source for the claims about the Georgian Jihad summit comes from one James George Jatras, described as "a former U.S. Foreign Service officer as well as foreign policy analyst for the U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee"... in reality Jatras is a registered foreign agent.

The article cites his own paid advertisement in the Washington Times as proof that this conference took place. The advertisement is 90 percent Russian propaganda focusing on justifying its invasion of Georgia. One paragraph in it claims that "according to reliable sources", representatives of Jihad groups met in Georgia with government officials in order to coordinate attacks on Russia.

No specific names of groups are given. No location for it is given. That alone should be suspicious. The advertisement was placed on behalf of America-Russia.net. The site is another propaganda site, a project of Edward Lozansky, former dissident turned Putin mouthpiece and current lobbyist, as well as Gleb Pavlovsky, who was allegedly involved in the poisoning of Ukrainian anti-Putin candidate Viktor Yushchenko.

There's a three letter word for all this. KGB.

90 percent of Jatras' statements have nothing to do with Islamic terrorism, but with Russia's desire to take over Georgia. His only claims about Islamic terrorism is that same conference, which is almost certainly imaginary. Until more information is provided about this conference, where it took place and who the terrorist organizations were, this should be dismissed as Russian government propaganda. Reposting this does not fight the Jihad, it helps those who are behind it.

Let's consider Russia's own extensive ties to Islamic terrorism, from the Iranian nuclear bomb to its government controlled mosques which preach terrorism against the West-- Russia is heavily involved in the Jihad business.

Former KGB General Oleg Kalugin had said that many Al Queda terrorists were actually trained by the KGB. A sizable number of the Taliban's top military people had Russian training as well. Alexander Litvinenko, the KGB defector that Russia murdered using radioactive materials in England had alleged close ties between Al Queda and the Russian Secret Service. We know that Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the brains of Al Queda, spent a good deal of time in Russia in the late 90's. Litvinenko as well as other former KGB officers have claimed that Al-Zawahiri was trained by the KGB/FSB during his time there.

The Soviet KGB had good--albeit indirect--connections with Islamic fundamentalists, including the Muslim Brotherhood and the Egyptian Jihad. The curriculum of Arab terrorists who studied at Moscow International's Lenin School placed special emphasis on cooperation between Marxists and Islamists. Soviet instructors would encourage Arab terrorists to consider the Muslim Brothers and other Islamic extremists as "allies in class struggle."

In 2003, when the US turned its attention to Iraq, Russia's Chief Mufti, Talgat Tadzhuddin, called for a Jihad against the United States. In another country this might have been random Islamic extremism, but just like the Russian Orthodox Church and the Jewish community, the Muslim leadership in Russia answers to the government. Talgat was appointed by the Soviet Union. And he is a faithful servant of his masters.

Talgat supported the KGB-Military coup against Gorbachev. He supported Putin, a KGB man, in his takeover of Russia.

Talgat Tadzhuddin does not support or call for Islamic terrorism, unless directed to by the Putin regime. Case in point, Talgat enthusiastically supported Russia's campaign in Chechnya stating, "that the war is not against Islam, but for the restoration of order." Another top Russian Muslim leader, Ravil Gainutdin, compared Putin's statements to the Hadiths of Mohammed.

Let's look at Talgat's call for Jihad;

A prominent Muslim preacher in Russia, Talgat Tadzhuddin, calling himself the Supreme mufti of Russia, on Friday called on Muslims and Orthodox "to come together in a single-orthodox Islamic jihad against the empire of Satan", which in his opinion, is the United States.

Tadzhuddin believes that the anti-Western position of Russia, expressed in the recognition of the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, will lead to an early loss of American influence in the international arena than "Muslims should take advantage of all countries."

"Now, in alliance with Moscow, we have all the chances to repay for all the suffering that the Americans have brought the Islamic world,"

Abkhazia and South Ossetia are parts of Georgia with heavy Muslim populations that Russia invaded and seized. Talgat was painting a picture of the Muslim conquest of former Soviet republics under the Russian flag. A far more damning statement than Jatras' "conference" of Russia's role in the Jihad.

While Putin's Russia has certainly been fighting with some Muslim terrorist groups, it only fights those that it cannot control and co-opt. And it is very enthusiastic about using those very same terrorists as a tool against its enemies.

Today Russian propaganda accuses Saakashvili of hosting Islamic terrorists. But not too long ago when Russia was preparing to invade Georgia, it was busy circulating articles claiming that Saakashvili was "Christianizing" Georgia and depriving Muslims of their rights. This was a natural argument for Russia to make, as South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which Russia wanted to seize, have large Muslim populations. Now suddenly Saakashvili is no longer a Christianist, but a Jihadist. Tomorrow he will no doubt be a Buddhist, if it suits the aims of Putin, Medvedev and the rest.

So finally let me be blunt here. The Soviet Union is responsible for much of the terrorism around the world. It was a regime of mass murderers. Those same people have taken power again, they've just dispensed with the ideology. Their goal is to take back everything the USSR had. They will use any means to get it. No respectable site should republish their propaganda, because it is the lies of the people who murdered tens of millions across the world. And they aren't done yet.

It's reasonable enough that many bloggers would not know or be properly informed about a good deal of this material. And I know information on the rise of terrorism is compelling, but there is no source for this, aside from a registered foreign agent and a lobbyist. There are no details or independent ways to verify this information. Which means it is Russian propaganda pure and simply by a regime that itself used nuclear materials to carry out a murder in England, an act far closer to terrorism than anything Saakashvili can be accused of.

I would recommend pulling this article until there is information on this conference from anything resembling a reliable source complete with basic details.

In the roundup, Bill Levinson at Israpundit and Doug Ross at Director Blue have more on Obama's lawyering days.

Via Real Americans Defend Israel, Leon Winter at Pajamas Media has a worthwhile article, Obama Is Now Showing His True Colors as a Radical

Islamic Danger to Americans has Paul Eidelberg's latest article, What a Teleprompter May Conceal

REFLEXIONES SOBRE MEDIO ORIENTE Y EL MUNDO has translated my article on Joe Biden into Spanish.

And finally at Boker Tov Boulder, Sweet Home Alabama meets Sweet Home Jerusalem