Klein: CNN: ‘Right wing’ may generate backlash against Muslims. Claims ’some already reaching conclusions’ on motivation of Fort Hood shooter

Aaron Klein (right), Jerusalem bureau chief for World Net Daily, reports from Tel Aviv:

A column on a “right wing” website suggesting an Islamic motivation for last week’s Fort Hood shooting massacre may help generate a backlash against American Muslim soldiers, according to CNN.

On CNN’s American Morning show yesterday, reporter Carol Costello quoted the mother of a Muslim U.S. soldier as fearing “a backlash against Muslim American soldiers.”

“She knows some are already reaching conclusions as to why Major Nidal Malik Hasan allegedly opened fire on his fellow soldiers,” Costello stated.

“Continued Costello: “The right-wing website, Pajamas Media, is an example. Phyllis Chesler writing, ‘I knew in my bones that the shooter or shooters were Muslim. We must connect the dots before it’s too late.’”

Costello was referring to a Pajamas Media column, entitled “The Jihadist is always the victim,” in which Chesler quoted from widespread reports of Hasan’s ties to militant Islam.

Chesler wrote, “The only answer most people want to hear is that a lone, psychiatrically deranged shooter did it. All by himself, on his own.”

“They may be right. Sometimes. And yet…The same Instant Personal Jihad Syndrome once led another Palestinian, Sirhan Sirhan, to shoot Robert Kennedy in cold blood.”

Newsbusters notes Chesler herself does not exactly fit with CNN’s grouping of “right wing.”

Chesler, professor emerita of psychology and women’s studies at the College of Staten Island, has been a noted feminist activist who co-founded the National Women’s Health Network and the Association for Women in Psychology. She is known the author of thirteen books, including Women and Madness, Woman’s Inhumanity to Woman, and The Death of Feminism.

In a 1998 interview with Time magazine about feminism, Chesler stated that “a woman’s body is her own, and she should not be invaded against her will by a rapist , nor should she be prevented from having an abortion.”

“Clearly, Chesler is no huge ‘right-winger,’ as Costello would have one believe,” noted Newsbusters.

Chesler is a prominent critic of Islamic extremism and is a supporter of Israel.

In her 2003 book, The New Anti-Semitism, Chesler argues that anti-Zionism and attacks against Israel are nearly indistinguishable from anti-Semitism.

Klein: White House communications director to step down. Anita Dunn led campaign against Fox News, boasted of ‘control’ over media

Aaron Klein, Jerusalem bureau chief for World Net Daily, reports from Tel Aviv:

White House communications director Anita Dunn is slated to step down from her post at the end of the month, according to sources talking to the Washington Post.

Dunn had been leading a campaign against Fox News Channel, slamming the top-rated network as an “arm of the Republican Party” and “opinion journalism masquerading as news.”

Last month, WND posted a video of Dunn in which she disclosed to the Dominican government that President Obama’s presidential campaign focused on “making” the news media cover certain issues while rarely communicating anything to the press unless it was “controlled.”

That video subsequently was quoted widely by the news media.

Dunn took over the communications director job on an interim basis earlier this year. According to sources speaking to the Washington Post, Dunn’s deputy, Dan Pfeiffer, will take on her position.

The Post reported the “passing of the baton from Dunn to Pfeiffer had long been expected within White House circles as she had made clear when she took the job that the “interim” in her title was meant to be taken literally.”

Dunn will remain as a consultant to the White House on communications and strategic matters, the Post added.

Dunn has been facing some criticism since her attacks on Fox News began last month.

Fox hit back, releasing a video of Dunn speaking to high school students last June in which she lists her two “favorite political philosophers,” including Communist Chinese leader Mao Zedong, whose draconian policies are blamed for the deaths of tens of millions of people.

Also, WND posted a video of Dunn seaking at a Jan. 12, 2009, event focusing on Obama’s media tactics and hosted by the Global Foundation for Democracy and Development, which seeks to promote collaboration between the U.S. and the Dominican Republic.

“Very rarely did we communicate through the press anything that we didn’t absolutely control,” said Dunn to the audience

“One of the reasons we did so many of the David Plouffe videos was not just for our supporters, but also because it was a way for us to get our message out without having to actually talk to reporters,” said Dunn, referring to Plouffe, who was Obama’s chief campaign manager.

“We just put that out there and made them write what Plouffe had said as opposed to Plouffe doing an interview with a reporter. So it was very much we controlled it as opposed to the press controlled it,” Dunn said.

Batchelor: Spies Like Us

John Batchelor writes on his blog:

Bogged Down in Berlin

The Tehran Twelvers grabbed three American children, Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd, Josh Fattal, last summer along the Kurdish border with Iran and now hold them hostage as spies in exactly the same dopey and useful fashion North Korea held two American jounalists last winter until the Bill Clinton mission to escort them out. Tehran’s aim is to make mischief in order to create publicity in the Ummah. It is working.

The trouble of the moment is that Jerusalem intercepted Tehran’s arms-running to Syria and via Damascus to Hezbollah in Lebanon. PM Netanyahu was with POTUS today to speak directly to the Tehran provocation.

The UN remains bogged down in the double-talk on the nuke fuel. It is Tehran’s genius to stall and misdirect and deceive and prevaricate.

POTUS will soon be ensnarled in a hostage drama if it suits Tehran’s calendar of delay.

StateSec HRC, in Berlin for the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down, spoke to the bogged down jeopardy:

“We believe strongly that there is no evidence to support any charge whatsoever. And we would renew our request on behalf of these three young people and their families that the Iranian government exercise compassion and release them, so they can return home.”

Batchelor: Unforced Healthcare (smile)?

John Batchelor writes on his blog:

Unforced Error Gibbs

Chuck Todd, NBC, was very early in 2008 to spy that Senator Obama’s organization was moving past Mrs. Clinton’s in the early primaries, especially the caucuses, and Todd was right on time with his remark that Mrs. Clinton was slipping to the point that she would accept the VPOTUS job.

In sum, Todd is acutely accurate about the Obama team, and, in this brief exchange with Robert Gibbs at the White House on Monday 9, there is a large clue that all is not well at the White House with regard healthcare and the bill passed by the glamorously self-regarding Nancy Pelosi (right) and the Democratic mininimum (218) plus 1 (Bill Owen of NY 23rd) vote on Saturday 7. (The Joseph Cao Republican vote was tactically and strategically meaningless.)

I cannot tell what the problem is, but the Gibbs frustration is not hidden. The prank to give out Chuck Todd’s email on live news feed is unusually aimless. What Todd wants to confirm is that POTUS believes he is on schedule to sign a healthcare bill into law by year’s end.

Gibbs knows that his response is noise. Gibbs is said to be most critical to the White House message team. When Gibbs asks Todd, “Do you think my answer is ambiguous?” — a fair answer is, “Yes.” Better ambiguity, that is, smoke-blowing, than the zealous grimace of no comment.

Harry Reid and the Scaredy-Cat House

It isn’t just that Harry Reid cannot deliver 60 Senate votes to bring a healthcare bill to the Senate floor that contains a public option and the usual taboos of abortion funding and immigrant health insurance. It is also that of the 219 House Democrats who voted for the Saturday 7 version, there is no reason to believe there is any desire to vote again on such an exposed extravagance that cannot possibly be moved through the Senate.

There is no public option ever in the Senate. And the House liberals, it is declared by 41 of the House liberals, will not permit a bill that lacks a pubic option; nor will the liberals likely again swallow the Bart Stupak amendment that forbids abortion funding.

Behind all this noise and blame-shifting is the fact that polls show a small minority in favor of the healthcare reform and a majority opposed, with the strongly opposed faction in the 40s. Democratic House members who voted yes and who come from Republican or mixed districts are now exposed as never before to the anti-incumbent fever that started last week in the off-year Virginia and New Jersey elections.

How Many?

There are no good political death lists available, because the Republicans shrewdly will not give out their best stuff on the weakest seats and the Democrats are shrewdly trying to misdirect the coverage. Forty-one seats turn the House to John Boehner. The secret lists will continue to change as Mrs. Pelosi must come back to the House to vote again on the healthcare bill if and when it gets out of the Senate.

That is the heart of the Todd and Gibbs snappishness.

By year end? It is two weeks to Thanksgiving, and that begins the daffy holiday distraction on the Hill. Members must go home to their districts starting in two weeks to face the ire of the Tea Party and the just plain folks who see what has happened in Washington during a jobless recovery that may not be a recovery.

Spend spend must be followed by tax tax, unless and until the Congress changes stripes. How many? The wave builds.

Gold went to a solar system high as the dollar sank. There is no investor confidence in the US budget or tax code or regulation protocols. And that jobless number will hang around 10% through year end, just like Gibbs’s crankiness and Chuck Todd’s useful question, When is that bill-signing on healthcare?

Question: Was Nidal Malik Hasan the Jihadist Canary in the Military Coal Mine?

Scanning the headlines the thought arises that “Muslim jihadist traitor Army officer” Nidal Malik Hasan is the jihadist canary in the miliary coal mine.

As more and more information surfaces it strikes one that Hasan is a test case of sorts. Richard Esposito reports from ABC News that Hasan “used ‘electronic means’ to connect” with “people associated with al Qaeda.”

At least some “U.S. intelligence agencies were aware months ago,” Esposito writes. His source are “two American officials” that were “briefed on classified material” regarding Hasan’s case.

But here’s the mind-boggling part of the story. Esposito writes: “It is not known whether the intelligence agencies informed the Army that one of its officers was seeking to connect with suspected al Qaeda figures, the officials said.”

So. On top of everything we know to date, none of what we know now added up sufficiently to cause genuine concern over what Hasan was or was not doing? And, as Esposito writes, the CIA is not sharing what it knows, who knew it, when they knew it, or what was done about it.

Have they lost all the red flags in Washington?

How about this minor detail?

Investigators want to know if Hasan maintained contact with a radical mosque leader from Virginia, Anwar al Awlaki, who now lives in Yemen and runs a web site that promotes jihad around the world against the U.S.

In a blog posting early Monday titled “Nidal Hassan Did the Right Thing,” Awlaki calls Hassan a “hero” and a “man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people.”

Let’s give Esposito props for reporting on lots of things that, apparently, escaped our best and brightest in the intelligence (oxymoron alert) community?

So let’s recap what Army Chief of Staff, General George Casey, told George Stephanopoulus on ABC’s This Week yesterday. Casey expressed “concerns” that “innocent Muslim soldiers could suffer as a result of the shooting at Fort Hood.”

“I think the speculation (on Hasan’s Islamic roots) could potentially heighten backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers.”

Would someone please send Gen. Casey a box of red flags? Sounds like a good proactive “We the People” kind of thing to do.

Nidal Malik Hasan: Another “teachable moment”

No sooner had RBO posted from the UK’s Melanie Phillips article on Marxism than the Marxist Media provides a prime example of something she wrote:

This Through The Looking Glass mindset rests on the belief that the world is divided into the powerful (who are responsible for all bad things) and the oppressed (who are responsible for none of them).

Nidal Malik Hasan, “Muslim jihadist traitor army officer” who went on a shooting spree this week at Fort Hood, is one of the “oppressed,” you see.

Don’t think so? Well, TIME Magazine does. Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit reports, according to TIME, “Secondary Trauma” made Hasan do it. Tim McGirk writes:

… it is not uncommon for therapists treating soldiers with Post Trumatic Stress Disorder (P.T.S.D.) to be swept up in a patient’s displays of war-related paranoia, helplessness and fury.

Yes. But how many of them have shot down dozens of fellow soldiers? Only one? What a theory!

As Hoft writes: “The state-run media thinks we’re all stupid.”

Now compare that to this: Nick Allen, of the UK’s The Telegraph, who is actually at Fort Hood and asking real questions from real people, reports: “Fort Hood gunman had told US military colleagues that infidels should have their throats cut.”

Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the gunman who killed 13 at America’s Fort Hood military base, once gave a lecture to other doctors in which he said non-believers should be beheaded and have boiling oil poured down their throats.

He also told colleagues at America’s top military hospital that non-Muslims were infidels condemned to hell who should be set on fire. The outburst came during an hour-long talk Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, gave on the Koran in front of dozens of other doctors at Walter Reed Army Medical Centre in Washington DC, where he worked for six years before arriving at Fort Hood in July.

Colleagues had expected a discussion on a medical issue but were instead given an extremist interpretation of the Koran, which Hasan appeared to believe. [...]

Fellow doctors have recounted how they were repeatedly harangued by Hasan about religion and that he openly claimed to be a “Muslim first and American second.”

One Army doctor who knew him said a fear of appearing discriminatory against a Muslim soldier had stopped fellow officers from filing formal complaints.

Ok. So, Hasan was “oppressed”?

Would it surprise you to know that as long ago as 2007 a fellow doctor who was taking a class with Hasan complained about Hasan’s “anti-American rants”?

What happened? **crickets**

You’ll certainly feel better to learn that this was one of those “teachable moments” we’ve heard so much about:

Senator Joe Lieberman, who chairs the US Senate Committee on Homeland Security, said there had been “strong warning signs” that Hasan was an “Islamist extremist”.

The committee would ask “whether the Army missed warning signs that should have led them to essentially discharge him, he said. He added: “The US Army has to have zero tolerance. He should have been gone.”

But General George Casey, the Army’s Chief of Staff, said it was “speculation” that military authorities failed to pick up on warning signs. “I don’t want to say that we missed it,” he said.

Asked if military authorities had missed warning signs Gen Casey, the Army’s Chief of Staff, added: “We have to go back and look at ourselves, and ask ourselves the hard questions. Are we doing the right things? We will learn from this.

“It’s too early to draw conclusions but we will ask ourselves the hard questions about what we are doing and the changes we should make as a result of this.”

Melanie Phillips: “This is a Marxist doctrine”

Melanie Phillips writes today in the UK’s Daily Mail that “We were fools to think the fall of the Berlin Wall had killed off the far Left. They’re back – and attacking us from within.” (h/t Andrew Breitbart)

We begin with a section taken from her excellent article entitled “Subversive.” It sadly shows how we got to where we are and where we are headed unless “We the People” do something about it.

Soviet Communism was a belief system whose goal was to overturn the structures of society through the control of economic and political life. This mutated into a post-communist ideology of the Left, whose no-less ambitious aim was to overturn western society through a subversive transformation of its culture.

To grasp the extent to which this has in fact taken place, we have to go back in time to well before the moment the Berlin Wall fell. The collapse of communism was actually a slow-burning process. Its moral and political bankruptcy became obvious decades before that glorious Berlin day in November 1989.

For many communist fellow travellers, the scales fell from their eyes when the Hungarian uprising was crushed in 1956. Others, over the years, lost faith not just in communism but in its less radical sister, socialism, as their core tenet of ‘equality’ proved itself in a myriad different ways to be the enemy of freedom and justice, with market forces appearing to carry the torch of liberty instead.

But as communism slowly crumbled, those on the far-Left who remained hostile towards western civilisation found another way to realise their goal of bringing it down.

This was what might be called ‘cultural Marxism’. It was based on the understanding that what holds a society together are the pillars of its culture: the structures and institutions of education, family, law, media and religion. Transform the principles that these embody and you can thus destroy the society they have shaped.

This key insight was developed in particular by an Italian Marxist philosopher called Antonio Gramsci. His thinking was taken up by Sixties radicals – who are, of course, the generation that holds power in the West today.

Gramsci understood that the working class would never rise up to seize the levers of ‘production, distribution and exchange’ as communism had prophesied. Economics was not the path to revolution.

He believed instead that society could be overthrown if the values underpinning it could be turned into their antithesis: if its core principles were replaced by those of groups who were considered to be outsiders or who actively transgressed the moral codes of that society.

So he advocated a ‘long march through the institutions’ to capture the citadels of the culture and turn them into a collective fifth column, undermining from within and turning all the core values of society upside-down and inside-out.

This strategy has been carried out to the letter.

The nuclear family has been widely shattered. Illegitimacy was transformed from a stigma into a ‘right’. The tragic disadvantage of fatherlessness was redefined as a neutrally-viewed ‘lifestyle choice’.

Education was wrecked, with its core tenet of transmitting a culture to successive generations replaced by the idea that what children already knew was of superior value to anything the adult world might foist upon them.

The outcome of this ‘child-centred’ approach has been widespread illiteracy and ignorance and an eroded capacity for independent thought.

Law and order were similarly undermined, with criminals deemed to be beyond punishment since they were ‘victims’ of society and with illegal drugtaking tacitly encouraged by a campaign to denigrate anti-drugs laws.

The ‘rights’ agenda – commonly known as ‘political correctness’ – turned morality inside out by excusing any misdeeds by self-designated ‘victim’ groups on the grounds that such ‘victims’ could never be held responsible for what they did.

Feminism, anti-racism and gay rights thus turned men, white people and Christians into the enemies of decency who were forced to jump through hoops to prove their virtue.

This Through The Looking Glass mindset rests on the belief that the world is divided into the powerful (who are responsible for all bad things) and the oppressed (who are responsible for none of them).

This is a Marxist doctrine.

Need an example of how the “oppressed” (and community organizers) will be taken care of with PelosiCare? Doug Ross at Director Blue has the health care bill in 90 seconds.

Scholars have found weaknesses and flaws in Gramsci’s theory. Raymond Williams, for example, “thinks that Gramsci proposed the concept of hegemony as a uniform, static and abstract structure.” He wrote in 1977:

[This cultural hegemony] … does not just passively exist as a form of dominance. It has continually to be renewed, recreated, defended, and modified. It is also continually resisted, limited, altered, challenged by pressures not at all its own.”

Former sixties radical SDSer Todd Gitlin wrote in 1994: “The cultural hegemony system that results is not a closed system. It leaks. Its very structure leaks, at the least because it remains to some [extent] competitive.”

Two key words come from Gitlin’s analysis: “leaks” and “competitive”. The Obama bus is a prime example of what happens to all the “leaks”. Cultural hegemony is a very “leaky” concept. Why? In spite of all the adulation of The One, all the “indians” want to be “chiefs” — and rule over their own little kingdoms. Not only do they want to get close to the seat of power, they want to BE the seat of power. That will not work.

Why? Competition at the top and all along the way. Working for a “greater good” is very different than giving up everything to serve the “greater good.” The collapse comes when the elites at the top eventually realize they are standing on top of a mirage and the base — “We the People” — is no longer holding them up.

Lastly, from Gramsci’s own pen we have an answer as to why this current regime will fail:

“A social group can, indeed must, already exercise ‘leadership’ before winning governmental power (this is indeed one of the principal conditions for the winning of such power); it subsequently becomes dominant when it exercises power, but even if it holds it firmly in its grasp, it must continue to ‘lead’ as well.”

Already, so soon, no leadership.

Klein: ‘Highlighting terrorist’s Muslim ties is Islamophobia’. Liberal magazine calls Texas army shooter an ‘imperfect follower of Islam’

Aaron Klein, Jerusalem bureau chief for World Net Daily, writes from Tel Aviv:

Those who are highlighting the Muslim ties of last week’s Texas army killer are inspiring “Islamophobia,” according to the left-leaning Nation magazine.

In a blog entry, the Nation’s Washington correspondent, John Nichols, described Nidal Malik Hasan, whose terrorist shooting massacre left 13 dead and dozens more wounded, as an “imperfect follower of Islam.”

“There was clearly something wrong with this imperfect follower of Islam. But that does not mean that there is something wrong with Islam. Enlightened Americans…should be unsettled by the rush to judgment regarding not just this one Muslim but all Muslims,” wrote Nichols.

With evidence of Hasan’s link to Islamic extremists quickly stacking up, Nichols decried, “Because a soldier identified as the gunman had a name that led to the presumption that he was Muslim, the incident inspired an all-too-predictable explosion of Islamophobia”

Nichols quoted an anti-war Veterans group as presuming Hasan’s killing spree “might well be the latest in a series of stress-related homicides and suicides involving soldiers who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan or are being dispatched to those occupied lands.”

The National correspondent then referred to a press release by the terror-tied Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, condemning the shooting as evidence of American Muslims ill-sentiments toward the murderous incident.

Nichols is not the only one cautioning against drawing quick conclusions about the rampage.

At the White House on Friday, President Obama stated: “We don’t know all the answers yet, and I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts.”

This weekend, the London Telegraph reported that Hasan, an American of Palestinian decent, attended a controversial mosque, Dar al-Hijrah, in Great Falls, Virginia, in 2001 at the same time as two of the September 11 terrorists.

The Telegraph report noted the preacher of the mosque at the time was Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born Yemeni scholar who was banned from addressing a UK meeting by video link this past August because he is accused of supporting attacks on British troops and backing terrorist groups.

A Muslim officer at the Fort Hood base in Texas was quoted as saying that Hasan’s eyes “lit up” when he mentioned his deep respect for al-Awlaki’s teachings.

Survivors of Hasan’s attack were quoted by the news media as saying he began his rampage by shouting “Allahu Akhbar” or “God is great” in Arabic. He had reportedly earlier given away copies of the Koran to neighbors.

Relatives told the media that after the death of Hasan’s parents, in 1998 and 2001, he became a devout Muslim.

“After he lost his parents he tried to replace their love by reading a lot of books, including the Koran,” his uncle Rafiq Hamad said.

A former classmate told the Associated Press that Hasan was a “vociferous opponent of the war” and “viewed the war against terror” as a “war against Islam.”

Dr. Val Finnell, who attended a master’s in public health program in 2007-2008 at Uniformed Services University with Hasan, said the murderer previously told classmates he was “a Muslim first and an American second.”

“In retrospect, I’m not surprised he did it,” Finnell said. “I had real questions about what his priorities were, what his beliefs were.”

Klein: Obama will accept unilateral declaration of Palestinian state? Israeli officials fear White House’s ‘very dangerous move’

Aaron Klein, Jerusalem bureau chief for World Net Daily, writes from Tel Aviv:

The U.S. is considering adapting a unilateral Palestinian declaration of independence in the West Bank and Jerusalem regardless of negotiations with the Jewish state, according to Israeli sources speaking to Israel’s Haaretz newspaper.

WND first reported in September that according to a top Palestinian Authority official the Obama administration largely has adopted the positions of the PA to create a Palestinian state within two years based on the pre-1967 borders, meaning Israel would retreat from most of the West Bank and eastern sections of Jerusalem.

WND reported that the White House had accepted the positions of Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, who had quietly called for a state on the pre-1967 borders within two years.

Now Haaretz is quoting reports indicating that Fayyad has reached a secret understanding with the Obama administration over U.S. recognition of an independent Palestinian state.

Haaretz quoted Israeli sources stating Fayyad’s plan specifies that at the end of a designated period for bolstering national institutions, the PA, in conjunction with the Arab League, would file a “claim of sovereignty” to the UN Security Council and General Assembly over the 1967 borders.

Israeli officials further told Haaretz that Fayyad had boasted of positive meetings about his plan with prominent EU member states, including the United Kingdom, France, Spain and Sweden.

Fayyad also told Israeli officials the Obama administration did not oppose his plan.

“It’s a very dangerous move,” a senior Israeli foreign-policy official told Haaretz.

Israeli sources further said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is in Washington today, discussed Fayyad’s proposal in previous meetings with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Obama’s Mideast envoy George Mitchell.

Netanyahu reportedly requested the U.S. tell Fayyad that it would not support his proposal and would veto it in the Security Council. Haaretz reported Netanyahu has yet to receive a clear response from Washington on its stance on Fayyad’s plan.

‘Obama can create headache for Netanyahu’

A top PA official told WND in September that the Obama administration told the PA it will still support the announcement of a Palestinian state within two years.

The official also said Obama had accepted the PA position that Israeli-Palestinian negotiations begin where they left off under Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who went further than previous Israeli leaders in his concessions to the Palestinians.

Olmert reportedly offered the PA not only 95 percent of the West Bank and peripheral eastern Jerusalem neighborhoods but also other territories never before offered by any Israeli leader, including parts of the Israeli Negev desert bordering Gaza as well as sections of the Jordan Valley.

“We understand from the U.S. that the Netanyahu government is not in a position to go against creating a state within two years,” the PA official said.

The official claimed the Obama administration was ready to ultimately consider “sanctions” against Israel if the Netanyahu government rejected negotiations leading to a Palestinian state. The official refused to clarify which sanctions he was referring to or whether he was specifically told by the U.S. government it would consider sanctions.

Obama can make a “headache” for Netanyahu if the Israeli leader does not conduct negotiations leading within two years to a Palestinian state, the PA official claimed.

Klein: UN fails to act as Iran caught ‘red handed’. Massive weapons shipment in full violation of multiple binding resolutions

Aaron Klein, Jerusalem bureau chief for World Net Daily, writes from Tel Aviv:

It’s been five days since Israel seized a cargo ship reportedly carrying enough weapons and munitions for the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorist group to fight Israel for at least one month. And for the past five days, the United Nations has failed to take any action even though Iran was caught red handed arming a terrorist group in full violation of binding UN resolutions.

The cargo ship originated in Iran and was headed for Syria. The Israeli army announced it found documentation showing Iran was the point of origin for some containers on the ship, with Syria as the intended destination. Iran regularly attempts to send weapons to Syria, and from there the shipments are smuggled to Hezbollah bases in Lebanon, Israeli security officials said.

Israel last week put on full display its find of hundreds of tons of Iranian-supplied arms, including rockets – the largest ever weapons cache captured by Israeli forces. Israel Radio reported that advanced anti-aircraft platforms were also on board, with Rani Ben-Yehuda, the deputy commander of Israel’s navy, confirming the presence of “very advanced weaponry.”

The Iranian arms shipment set sail in violation of UN Resolution 1701, a binding resolution which ended the Second Lebanon War of 2006 and prohibits the delivery of weapons to any entity in Lebanon but the Lebanese government. The shipment also breaks multiple international laws against funding and supporting terrorist organizations.

Israel’s U.N. ambassador last week complained to the international body about Iran’s blatant disregard for international law, but no response has been forthcoming from UN officials.

Amazingly, on the very day that Israel captured the cargo vessel, the UN was debating a so-called investigation authored by South African Judge Richard Goldstone, which claims both Hamas and Israel were guilty of war crimes during the Jewish state’s defensive war in Gaza this past December and January.

The report, affirmed by the UN Human Rights Council, claimed Israel deliberately targeted civilians during the Gaza conflict, which started after Hamas refused to extend a cease fire, instead launching a rocket offensive against Israeli population centers.

That U.N. report has been slammed here as anti-Israel, with some officials calling it a blood libel. The report equates Israel, which worked to minimize civilian casualties in Gaza, to Hamas, a terrorist organization that utilized civilians as human shields and fired rockets at Jewish cities from Palestinian hospitals and apartment buildings.

During the Gaza war, Israel sent hundreds of thousands of text messages and placed tens of thousands of calls warning local Palestinians of incoming attacks against Hamas’ military infrastructure in Gaza.

Israeli officials warned Goldstone’s standards can be used against U.S. and British anti-terror operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

WND previously reported on charges that Goldstone’s report seemed to rely on discredited witnesses and Palestinian misinformation.

Perhaps even more disturbing is that two days before Israel’s capture of the cargo ship, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon released a report to the UN Security Council that explained the international body lacked the ability to independently verify whether weapons were being smuggled to Hezbollah.

In the report, Ban wrote that the Lebanese government had not informed the UN of a single incident of weapons smuggling to its territory, whether by land, sea or air.

Ban, however, failed to acknowledge that Hezbollah had until recently held veto power over the Lebanese government. Just yesterday, it was announced Hezbollah would likely re-enter the new Lebanese government led by prime minister-designate Saad Hariri.

Since the Second Lebanon War, Israel has been carrying out regular flights over Lebanon that the defense establishment here deems necessary for intelligence purposes. The flights provide Israel with important data on Hezbollah’s continued armament and strategic information, such as the locations of missile storage bunkers and the rebuilding of Hezbollah bases in southern Lebanon. Israel has multiple times passed this kind of information, including aerial photographs, to the UN and yet the international body has largely failed to take action.

Last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the “sole objective” of the seized Iranian weapons shipment “was to attack and kill as many civilians – women, children and the elderly – as possible. This is a war crime.”

“The UN General Assembly should investigate, discuss and condemn [the Iranian shipment]. This is a war crime that should prompt the UN Security Council to convene in special session, especially since it was in gross violation of UN Security Council resolutions,” said Netanyahu.

Netanyahu added: “This is what the international community should concentrate on at all times – but especially today. But instead, they have chosen to assemble and condemn the IDF and the State of Israel, and to try and undermine our legitimate right to defend ourselves.”