On the first day of the Gaza war, Philip Gordon, the Obama administration's "Coordinator for the Middle East," lectured the Israelis on why they should make more concessions to the Palestinians, including apparently taking down security checkpoints in the territories.
On the third day of the Gaza war, the Palestinians reminded everyone why those security checkpoints should be remained--and even expanded.
Gordon began with the usual rhetoric about how "both sides" have not made the necessary decisions for peace, how both sides have engaged in "mutual dehumanization," and how "both sides" need to use restraint. In doing so, he underscored the inability of the Obama administration to distinguish between aggressor and victim, between a corrupt pro-terror regime and a reliable democratic ally--in other words, between right and wrong.

(The authors are members of the board of the Religious Zionists of America.)

An Arab-American visiting the disputed (West Bank) territories is brutalized by the police--yet the Obama administration, the United Nations, and the international community are all silent.

Say what?

No, we're not talking about Tariq Abu Khdeir, the 15 year-old from Florida who threw firebombs at Israeli policemen last week and received, in return, a black eye and a fat lip. Tariq's injuries have of course received enormous international attention, including a huge photo on the front page of the New York Times (top of the fold). The Obama administration has announced that it is "profoundly troubled" that Tariq was roughed up, and is angrily demanding a full investigation.

(The authors are members of the board of the Religious Zionists of America.)
The world's praise for Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas's opposition to the kidnapping of the Israeli teenagers has been as loud and frequent as the world's condemnation of the kidnapping itself.
President Obama, in his statement following the discovery of the victims' bodies, went out of his way to claim, not once, but twice, that Palestinian leaders were just as opposed to the kidnapping as Israel's leaders.
 

Different folks have different ways of commemorating Israel's liberation of Jerusalem during the 1967 War from Jordan’s illegal occupation..
Jews in Israel put on festive events and parades. Jews in the Diaspora hold special study days and recite prayers for the safety of Israel's capital.  And Palestinian Arabs mark Jerusalem Day by trying to kill Jews in Jerusalem.
In one part of Jerusalem on Wednesday, Palestinian rock throwers ambushed a city bus, injuring nine passengers. Near the Old City's Damascus Gate, other Palestinians hurled rocks at Israeli police officers. And on the Temple Mount, Judaism's holiest site, Palestinians threw rocks at a group of Jewish visitors.

To judge by the account in the Washington Post, the recent statement about the Holocaust by Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas was a game-changing reversal of Abbas's previous Holocaust-denial.

In an "unusual step," the Post asserted, Abbas released "a strongly-worded statement" in which he "denounced" the Holocaust as "the most heinous crime to have occurred against humanity in the modern era."

Too bad the Post neglected to report the first half of the Palestinian leader's statement.

(Moshe Phillips is president of the Religious Zionists of America, Philadelphia Chapter; Benyamin Korn, the former executive editor of the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent, is chairman of the RZA-Philadelphia, www.phillyreligiouszionists.org)
 
 It turns out that American citizens "are not allowed" to criticize Israel.
 Or so says Rahm Emanuel, the mayor of Chicago and former chief of staff to President Barack Obama. Emanuel was asked his view of the prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace, In an interview appearing in the April 21 issue of The New Republic. He ventured the opinion that while Israel "has a security concern involving geography, geography does not have the same value it did in 1967."